Dreamwalker's Tale: Project Greenwood

by Voidwalker

Rating: mature
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Doctor Whooves, Romance, Princess Luna, Original Character, Spike, Adventure, Sex, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 268100

Cycles repeat, details change. Dreamwalker tries to build a village he has seen in his memories.

Fifty years after the cycle started anew and almost eight years after the 'eternal potion'-incident, Dreamwalker finally faces a missing piece of his 'past'. There is supposed to be a village within the Everfree Forest. It is not there. Yet.
Because every time, in every cycle, he was the one responsible for its creation. His memories call it home and urge him to complete the task. However, after so many years, many of the ponies he remembers recruiting for this project are old. Too old.
And how exactly does one 'build a village' anyway?

Reading the previous stories is highly advised, as this will probably be quite the confusing experience otherwise.

The cover art was a commission done by the talented Camyllea.

A couple of warnings before you start reading:
This story is rated mature and does contain adult themes and scenes, but you will be sorely disappointed if you go in expecting a decent clop story.
This story is written in English (duh), which is a foreign language for me. Sadly, I could not secure a proofreader thus far.
This story features certain ships and since some readers might dislike them, I'm going to quickly list them here: AppleDash, FlutterPie, Spike and Gabby (is there a name for that?), Rarity is in a triangle with Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis. Celestia, Luna, Twilight and Dreamwalker are in a more complex constellation. They are involved with each other, except for Celestia and Luna.

Published 2023-09-26 11:50:00 UTC
Last updated 2023-09-26 11:50:00 UTC

Pillow Talk

It was a serene night, and therefore a good one. The dreamscape was quiet, barely any creatures even crossed my way, and fewer still took notice of my presence. Not a single one wanted to engage, either in idle and neutral curiosity, or in outright hostility. The only two nightmares I found were harmless. A young colt struggled with his fear. He had passed a test at school with a less than desirable result and had kept it secret from his parents for a couple of days now. They would find out any day, according to his subconscious, and then they would do… what, exactly? That’s where the nightmare found its foothold. It was easy to root out, though. I had done this long enough to learn a trick or two from Luna when it came to dealing with ‘the young ones’, as she affectionately called them.

The other one had been a bit more difficult, but still posed little issue in the end. A mare suspected her husband of cheating on her. A suspicion that, like a long-lasting poison, had infiltrated their lives and behavior for weeks and months. Maybe even longer. It turned out easy enough to sit her down and just think things through to their ultimate end. She could lose him. In various manners. But if she did not overcome her hesitance and actually talked about it, with him, then she would lose him. All she had really needed was a wall to bounce her own thoughts off of. And I happily provided.

I grinned as I walked down the star-strutted ‘road’ the dreamscape manifested beneath my hooves. I sometimes wondered how things would have turned out were Applejack born with the ability to enter the dreamscape. Out of all the lessons I learned from my friends, out of all the virtues they encompassed and taught me, honesty was the one coming to the rescue the most. Simple, open communication.

Well, that was everything but simple at times, I could admit that.

I shook my head and tried to focus on the task at hoof. But again: There was little to focus on. Little that required attention. The dreams lazily floated around me in their everlasting dance like brilliant soap bubbles, swirling and twirling and hopping about. And my mind inevitably wandered again.

Yesterday had been special. And it had become even more special because as far as I was aware… I was the only one who knew. For a long, long time — years, decades, in fact — I had counted the days I was granted in this life cycle. Because for all the various tidbits my flashbacks granted me, they never really told me how long I got. How, when or why these cycles ended and restarted. Did I grow old and died of age? Did accidents take my life? Or was it a set timer, invisibly ticking down in the background?

Yesterday had been the 18,000th day. I had not counted that far, obviously. I could tell because of the date. I did not remember my ‘birthday’. Nopony does, obviously. Not literally. But I had no idea when I was born. I had fractured memories of celebrations across different lifetimes. Sometimes the heat bore down on the building we partied in. Sometimes snow was layering right outside the windows, high enough to block half the glass panes. Maybe I just picked a day each time. Being close friends with Pinkie meant I had to have a birthday, after all. Or something resembling a birthday, at least.

I had my Arrival Day. It was the next best thing I could think of. And yesterday had been the fiftieth. Five decades. I had no idea how old exactly I had been when I arrived. Late twenties? Early thirties? Something along those lines. And now I was five decades older. And I should feel that weight. Yet I did not. Because less than eight years ago, my children did something incredibly brave and incredibly stupid and went against everything we had decided, everything we had told them. We rarely spoke about it these days. In the privacy of my own head, I called it the ‘eternal potion’. It reverted the clock and stopped it. I was thirty again. I had not aged a day in those last eight years. My sister in spirit, Applejack, was an almost-gray granny these days. Granny Smith would have been proud.

I tried not to let the weight of the inevitable drag my heart and mood down. One day, I would need to face it. That day… was not today. Heck, we still did not understand what the eternal potion even did to me. Maybe it just added a couple years to the counter. Maybe in two days, the potions effect would be reversed. Or in two months. Or two-hundred years. Who could tell?

Despite my usual issues, I had managed to not freak out. It had taken a lot of help. But I tried to live by this old creed so many gift cards proudly proposed: Carpe diem.

I stopped walking, looked around and uttered a deep sigh. It was easy to tell myself that I did not think about it too much. But I was still, well, me. In my weaker moments, I did just that. And those were plentiful.

Before I could sink deeper into that mental muck, I noticed an ethereal wind pass me by. Not so much a gust as just a little, light breeze. It was a manifestation of my own mind, a representation of something my body had noticed.

I was currently lying in Luna's bed in the waking world. The thick and heavy curtains, black as a starless night, were drawn shut. They usually were. Because the Mistress of the Night was dealing with pesky nobles and bothersome paperwork at night, and preferred to sleep throughout the day. Therefore, her chamber rarely saw daylight.

The air movement only made sense if somepony either had opened the balcony door or the entrance door. Luna did love flying. It was a good measure to take when she needed to unwind and relax. Soaring high up above the clouds, stretching those pretty wings of hers, feeling muscles flex and contract that she rarely used, if at all, when she just walked around the castle.

But the air movement my subconscious had manifested around me in the dreamscape carried no impression of temperature. It was neither warm, nor cold. And I assumed that Luna was the one opening whichever door. The dreamscape knew no time. It was very much possible that the night was over and she came back to her quarters.

While I was overthinking things again, my visitor had done whatever he wished to do and eventually, I was stirred from my musings by a gentle hoof tapping my shoulder. It had an almost ghostly quality in the dreamscape. The softest touch, like the hesitant exploration of an inexperienced lover.

More importantly: I knew that tap.

A warm smile bloomed on my lips, tugged at their corners. She’s back.

I closed my eyes and willed the dreamscape away. I willed myself awake. Even after fifty years doing this job, that was still a strange concept on some days.

I was immediately greeted with the scent of brisk night air, cold clouds and fresh rainfall. My ears came to life and turned a little, but I could not hear the telltale pitter-patter of rain. And this mixture was so uniquely hers that I just sighed silently and inhaled a little deeper.

I still refused to open my eyes, though. Something that seemed to irk her a little. She tapped my shoulder again. Twice. My smile widened a little, bordering on a grin. “Dreamwalker… wake up,” she asked. There was something in her voice I could not identify properly. A subtle undercurrent that gave me pause. That said, I could not act on it immediately. As always when Luna was concerned, my heart fluttered a little in its cage of ribs and tendon and I wished to be playful.

“But I don’t wanna…!” I replied with an almost inaudibly quiet whine.

She tapped me again. This time, it was more of a poke, a little jab with the edge of her hoof. I pondered if maybe I had been too quiet and she did not hear me, but the very next moment, she dissolved that thought. “Not even for me?”

There it was again. That subtle tone that told me something was up. So I finally rolled onto my back and cracked my eyes open. Careful and slowly, because I knew I had left the curtains drawn shut, but it would not be the first time she opened them before waking me, just to mess with me. She was a devious prankster, after all. Never to be trusted.

The room was still dark. The beautiful night sky at the ceiling was an artistic marvel. She had used some sort of special paint to make the stars glow. Then my gaze drifted downwards and focused on her. My grin stretched a little further still. She was beautiful. Always had been. Always would be. And the urge to draw her in and kiss her was overwhelming. But! I had self-control. Sometimes, a little bit. And I wanted to test something.

“Hello, Moonshine.”

Bit by bit, her nose came a little closer, until hers touched mine. A fillyish giggle escaped my throat. A moment later, we angled our heads to cross our horns. The sensation drew a deep, satisfied sigh from me. And I could feel her smile in contentment.

When we broke apart again, she cocked an eyebrow. “That one is new.”

I nodded and proudly claimed: “Eyupp, came up with it on the spot.”

Her giggle was a little raspy. Her voice strained. Either she had talked a lot last night, or she had yelled a little. “You did not,” she countered with a head shake. “You played this moment back and forth in your head, trying to evaluate my reactions to the best of your ability. For weeks, maybe months.”

I grinned and shrugged. “That I did. So. Do you like it?”

She shifted her weight on the bed a little bit to make herself more comfortable and eventually laid her head on my chest, staring up at me. Her brow furrowed as she mulled my proposed new pet name over. “I may require your surely well-prepared explanation to answer.”

If my grin grew any wider, it would start to look creepy and split my head in two. So instead, I just nodded. Of course I had an explanation prepared. Several versions, in fact. I decided to start with the considerably shorter one. Luna was not a patient mare, after all. “Every time I see you, every time I kiss you, every time you playfully flick your tail across my muzzle or walk just that little bit closer beside me, I get light-headed and my stomach hosts a butterfly party and my heart skips a beat or twelve and I feel a little dizzy due to all that chaos. In short, you make me drunk.”

She snickered. That was a good sign. She snickered and lifted her head, angled it down and placed a loving kiss on my chest before settling down again. “I like it.”

Yes! Months worth of consideration finally came to a positive conclusion. I had enough self-control to refrain from pumping my hoof into the air. But I could tell just from the exhilarated look she shot me that she read that impulse anyway.

With that finally out of the way, my mind did what it was best at. It searched for something to worry about and clung to it like a drowning pony clung to the last plank of wood in the ocean. And I quickly remembered that quirky undertone. On many other nights, Luna would simply have entered her chamber and crawled into bed beside me. I would wake up briefly, we would rearrange ourselves until we were both comfortable and she had the position she wanted — little spoon or big spoon — and we would go back to sleep.

But she had woken me up. Deliberately. “So… what’s bothering you?” I breached the topic with the subtlety of an oncoming train.

I saw her chest rise in a deep inhale and fought hard not to chuckle as her warm breath hit me once she exhaled in a deep, troubled sigh. “I just… had a hard night,” she answered.

I could not stop my mind from going into overdrive immediately. What was responsible? Or maybe it was a ‘who’ instead? What could I do to fix things? How could I cheer her up? How could I defend her from such in the future?

Many of these questions had depressing answers. Well-familiar ones, too. But Luna had not gone into detail in her reply, which already told me that she did not want to. That the details did not really matter. That it was nothing out of the ordinary. Just a stressful night. Maybe a noble had been sassy. Maybe she had started the night with low energy already and everything felt especially draining tonight. The specifics were unimportant.

I placed a hoof in her mane and slowly stroked through that ethereal mess of beautiful blue and stars. And I forced a cocky grin to the forefront. “You know… I could harass them for you. Castle staff, palace guards, nobles, doesn’t really matter. I’ve learned enough from Pinkie and Twilight to not get caught. I could make their lives a little bit more miserable as payback.”

At least I got a quiet chuckle out of her. I had always been fascinated with the fact that Luna was so welcoming to darker humor. “You would do that, would you not?”

I grinned. “For you? Anytime.” The nobles hated my guts anyway. Putting the scenario with torches and pitchforks aside, there was little that could get worse in that regard. According to many of the so-called Canterlot Elite, I was a menace. A blemish that needed to be removed. I dared to defile their precious, untouchable princess…es. I twisted their minds into agreeing to something unnatural and corrupt. I was basically Evil Incarnate, worse than Chrysalis and Tirek. I was solely responsible for the moral decay of Equestria.

On some days, it was funny to listen to such nonsense. Especially the notion that I, a somewhat-regular unicorn, could ‘twist and corrupt’ the minds of alicorns. On most other days though, it was just exhausting. There was a reason why I spent half my time in Canterlot and the other half in Ponyville, but only one of those places felt like home.

The majority of ponies were open to the idea of love not having to conform to a specific relationship model. Open relationships, flings, triangles and whatever else — there were a lot of options out there for all ponies to pick and choose and experiment with until they all found something they felt comfortable with. If only it would stop there and remain that simple. But even though they represented a minority, they were quite a vocal minority: Those ponies who did not accept the autonomy of others. Those who felt it necessary to project their beliefs and ideologies onto others. I had never been outright attacked, not even verbally. Yet they made their contempt for me clear at any given opportunity. How dare I have the gall to even touch their precious monarch? How dare I insinuate that she was just another mare, with lovable flaws and quirks and her own feelings?

After weighing her options, Luna softly shook her head. I loved how her jaw brushed against my coat. It sent little tingles down my spine. “Thank you,” she started with that tone that already implied a shortly following ‘but’, “but no.” Well, there it is. The lack of an explanation did not faze me. With Luna I could trust that whatever was on her mind, she would say it if she wanted to. She had this admirable confidence.

It was a surprise then when I noticed a very faint blush tint her cheeks and the bridge of her muzzle. She struggled to say something and when she did, I could have confused her for Fluttershy. “Would you maybe tell me a bedtime story?” she asked shyly.

My heart fluttered a little and I sighed. I love you, kitten. I did not say it. I did not need to. Right now, I felt… needed. And she knew how much I loved that. How much I loved her for making me feel that way. Still, I was not above teasing her a little for it. “Aren’t you a little old for that?”

Her pout was adorable. I craned my neck to kiss her, but only reached her forehead. And after teasing her like that, I could not expect her to meet me halfway. Forehead will have to do, I resigned. Only after I withdrew did she quickly move in to give me a proper kiss.

Her warm, familiar lips still faintly tasted of that vile coffee she was so fond of, and a little bit of some sugary treat she had granted herself. When we parted again, I smiled and licked my lips. Despite my aversion to her favorite brew, I would not have it any other way.

“Coffee?” she asked with a wry smile.

I chuckled. “Coffee.”

“I apologize. I had my last cup an hour ago.”

I shook my head and started to lift myself off the bed sheets. “Don’t. You’re free to drink as much of that sewage as you want.” She snickered a little and threatened me with how she would keep that in mind while we rearranged ourselves on her bed. “Let me tuck you in properly and you shall have a story.”

It was a weird stray thought. Stardust, our son, was more than forty years old. Sometimes, time does seem to fly. Having him had given us more than enough experience with tucking somepony in. And we both occasionally giggled as I put those experiences to good use with her.

A minute or so later, she laid on her back, the blanket wrapped around us tightly. So tightly in fact that it was hard to move any limb at all. It could easily have been a bother, but I knew that Luna preferred it this way and honestly, I could not find anything to complain about, being stuck so very closely to her side. “Comfy?” I asked. Luna smiled and yawned in reply. She wiggled a bit, as if to test if the blanket really was such a tight fit and seemed quite satisfied with the results as she nodded.

I always liked the idea of being a storyteller. I had a whole philosophy around it. That said, I preferred to be able to prepare. A good story needed structure. Internal logic. Consistency. Compelling characters. Story arcs. There were a lot of moving parts, as with any highly complex machine. Or a living organism.

Adding to that challenge was the fact that I did not just need any story. There were additional requirements. As a bedtime story, it needed to be peaceful enough to lull her into slumber without boring her to death. I knew I was overthinking things again. All she wanted was to hear my voice. I could have talked about the weather for all she cared. But I had standards. And she had asked a self-proclaimed storyteller for a story.

I watched her for a moment.

Once upon a time, ponies had called her the Matron of the Arts. Luna had been a muse to so many. And she climbed to that peak again after her return, slowly and steadily. She was an inspiration. Her every move. Her slender form. Her voice. Every word she uttered. Somehow, she ignited passion and creativity. Enough so that it overcame hurdles like my preference for a preparation period.

She had her eyes closed. Her ears however stood at attention, informing me that she was still very much awake and waiting. She did not push me. She tried to be patient. And it worked, currently. I leaned in and kissed her cheek and I marveled at the effect. How her smile grew a little. She looked… happy. And that in turn made me happy. And it made me think about the many, many, many other times I somehow had managed to make her happy. It made me think about all the times we had been there for each other. She listened to my semi-panicked ramblings about barely coherent thoughts. I listened to her ravings about things of the modern age that were so much less complicated back then. How she could explode like a volcano about some snide remark a noble shot her way. She could not stomp his muzzle in and punch his teeth out in Night Court, of course. Or even outside of it. But she needed to vent from time to time. I watched her paint. She watched me write. I wrote short stories about her paintings. She drew scenes from my stories. I aided her in her pranks, sometimes even voluntarily. Most of the time not. She told me how her stars came to be, how she changed them, what meaning they had. I told her stories about them that I made up on the spot.

I had been lucky enough to capture her heart. Lucky beyond belief to capture not just hers, too. To this very day, that seemed ridiculous to me.

And thus, I had my story to tell.

Yes, I preferred a more organized style of storytelling, which did not lend itself well to the spontaneous winging I intended to do now. But Luna had a way to inspire me. As always. “Have you ever heard the tale of the lighthouse and the wanderer in the mist?” She grinned. I was not exactly subtle. Despite knowing already that it would be a story about us, she shook her head. After all, details mattered. Sometimes. “There was a town at the coast, bordering on a vast and seemingly endless ocean.” As I started to tell the story, I wriggled my hoof free to stroke through her mane again. As much for her sake as mine. It always felt nice to play around with it, and if her initial sigh was anything to go by, she enjoyed it as well.

“Some of the townsfolk feared the lighthouse at the very edge of town, for it had a looming presence and created dark and scary shadows. Others admired it for its slender build and creative artistry. But no matter their opinion, they all agreed on one thing: That it was a guiding light in the dark of the world, always bringing them home safely when they were lost and keeping the encroaching darkness at bay at night.” Luna snuggled a little against me. Her breathing relaxed already. She was dozing off.

“The Wanderer in the Mist was a vessel long-lost in a neverending mist at sea, doomed to endlessly travel the waves. It was a decrepit ship with too many holes, yet it was never allowed to sink. One day however, a strange and unknown phenomenon pierced the mist. A ghostly apparition of illumination that sped by so quickly, it could only have been a figment of imagination. Yet the strange new sight drew the vessel in, and as the light reappeared again and again, the Wanderer turned and sailed towards it. The lighthouse drew the dilapidated ship into the safe harbor of the town for much needed repairs and restocking. Holes were fixed and the cargo hold was filled with all the supplies the vessel could need.” Luna's breathing had taken on a slow, even rhythm. I knew perfectly well from more pranks than I could count that she was capable of faking being asleep. While her sister never fell for it, and neither did Twilight, she always got me with it. But I decided that it did not matter. I had a story to tell. My audience being asleep did not change my need to finish what I had started.

“Nopony knows why, but one day, the Wanderer had to leave the safe harbor again. The tide called, a threatening siren song. The waves would come and scrape the ship off the coastline if need be. And the town might have drowned, and the lighthouse might have fallen. The Wanderer left, heavy in the water, and steered back into the mist it had come from. Yet despite the sorrow in their farewell, an ember of hope remained. They knew that one day, a fleeting light would guide the ship back to shore. One day, their course would bring them back to this safe harbor again. And again after that, and again after that. This beacon of hope would guide the Wanderer home.” I had closed my eyes midway through. Pouring myself into a story always felt dangerous. It made me vulnerable in a way I could not defend against. My vision was blurry as I dared to open my eyes again. As expected.

A deep sigh escaped my throat. I tried to make it as quiet as possible. And I watched Luna sleep. My eyes traced along familiar paths. Paths I usually followed with my lips. The tip of her ear, its edge and base. Her cheek and jaw. Her nose, her lips. Her throat. A little nibble here, a placating lick right after. My eyes fell upon the blanket and my journey ended. I retraced my steps back to her face. She seemed peaceful. Maybe she was dreamwalking right now. Caring for her beloved ‘little ones’. I could not help but smile.

“Every time I see you, Luna, I feel inspired and excited,” I mumbled against the coat on her neck. Nothing changed. My mind wandered a little. To Celestia. To Twilight. “I love all of you. For different reasons. And in different ways.” Celestia was my shelter. My comfort. My security blanket. My love. Twilight was the center of my universe. I circled around her. She intrigued me. She could always pierce whatever line of defense I had erected. And Luna? “You are my guiding light. You are my shining star. You spur me on to be a better me. You make me want to be better.” For you, I added in the privacy of my mind. I did not say as much. Because asleep or not, I knew how Luna thought about that. I wanted to be better for her, so that maybe one day, I could be worthy of even a fraction of what I felt she deserved. And we never agreed on that.

“I love you. Each time. And I remember you from so many lives. You rarely get insecure, but I remember that one time clear as crystal. We were preparing for some sort of battle. The outcome was uncertain and many lives were at stake. They all depended on your guidance. I was with you in that sparsely furnished stone chamber when you prepared. And I heard that shuddering breath of yours between armor pieces moving into place. I said it would be okay as I put my own armor on. I said it with such conviction. Because I believed it. I believed in you. I had faith. And you asked if I would be with you. It felt like a turning point. Like this monumental event. I wanted to do it justice. I went down in front of you, on my knee as if I was about to propose. And I took your armor-clad hoof into mine. And I said…”

I swallowed. Swallowed to keep my own breath from shuddering. Even though I thought I could feel my own hooves tremble ever so slightly. It felt important.

“I, Dreamwalker, hereby solemnly swear that from this day forth and for all days to come, I will always find you, I will always follow your lead, I will always have your back, I will always be at your side if you wish it so. You are my princess. Not for that crown upon your head or that booming voice or even your nature as an alicorn, but for the loyalty your very being commands in my heart. Lives will cycle, realities might break, but I will always be with you one way or another and never have you let me astray. I love you.”

Despite my best efforts, I had heard my own voice tremble a few times. It was not a perfect recounting, then. Back in that memory, I had not trembled. I had spoken loud and proud and with the conviction of… well, of a fanatic, one might say. For all the clarity of that speech in my mind, I could not tell how things progressed beyond that. Did we win the fight? Did I die? Did we leave that almost empty stone chamber as lovers? Or as commander and subordinate?

I could not tell. I had many memories of other instances where my advances were rejected. Sometimes we managed to overcome the awkwardness of it and stayed close friends. Other times, we reduced how much contact we had with each other. It really just depended on circumstance. One more reason why I felt so incredibly lucky to have been granted fifty years in this cycle especially.

A cautious smile returned to my lips as another memory lifted up to the forefront of my mind. “I remember when Stardust was born. The doctors called me back in. They had to send me out earlier because I panicked. To be fair, you screaming bloody murder at me didn’t help matters. But when I came back in, you held that little bundle of joy. He was screaming and flailing his little limbs about. And I remember looking at you. You looked so pale and exhausted. The nurse was saying something. The doctor was talking. They were probably trying to reassure me that you were fine, but I couldn’t listen. I just saw you. Pale and weak and tired. I was so deathly afraid for your life. It was silly of me, in retrospect. I don’t know what I was thinking at that moment. But somehow you and the nurses managed to calm me down and then you showed him to me. Just like that. You gifted me the most beautiful thing I could ever have received. A family. It was the first time I remembered that oath with such cutting clarity. I felt every word resonate in my heart. The last ones especially, of course.” I smirked and dared to kiss her throat. I did not wish to wake her up. She told me she had a difficult night. She deserved all the rest and relaxation she could get as far as I was concerned. But still… I could rarely resist her allure.

The memory of Stardust's birth brought forth other thoughts. So many happy memories. Even the ones that were, on a superficial level, less desirable experiences. I sighed. “In all honesty… for all the stress it involved, for all the puke and feces we had to clean up and all the sleepless nights… I am so looking forward to making a couple more ‘little ones’ with you. Seeing you lift them up, guide them, guard them… it really is a thing of beauty. You are. And you bloom in a way that is so different from anything else. Motherly Luna, the fierce protector, made me fall in love with you all over again. Thank you, Moonshine.”

I kissed her neck a little to the side and then carefully tried to wriggle my way out of the blanket cocoon we had built for ourselves. The tightness of the blanket wrapped around us was a problem. I had known as much the moment I tucked her in. But I was confident that, with enough patience and wriggling, I could free myself. To climb out of the bed, go to the bathroom, get the day started, all that jazz.

However, that last kiss might have been too much. Luna sighed and stirred a little. I froze and laid as still as I could and watched as she rolled onto her side… and grabbed me… and pulled me close against her body. And then she almost coiled herself around me. Once she stopped moving, she sighed again and her warm breath tickled my ear. I was now more trapped than I had been previously. I loved being the little spoon, but with how things had turned, there was little to no chance of escape without waking her up.

I waited for a minute or so, just to let her sink back into a deeper slumber. And I used that time to listen into myself. My stomach was not growling at me in need of food. My throat was not scratchy due to a need of water. My bladder did not scream out in agony either. And lying here, wrapped in Luna, with her body heat seeping into my bones, with her coat brushing against mine, with her holding me as tightly as she did — I did feel a little sleepy again, despite sleeping through the entirety of last night already.

Ahhh, what the heck, I resigned in my head and smiled. I grabbed her leg, the one holding me, and gave it an appreciative little squeeze before I closed my eyes again. The day could wait, for all I cared.

A safe harbor.

I will always find you.

Live cycles. Again and again.

A safe harbor.

Remember.

I walked past Trixie’s tavern and shook my head with a smile. I could hear the blaring of somepony trying to match the melody of one of her songs. It was a good tune, really catchy. The pony currently singing, however, had a couple drinks too much and no ability to hold a tone. Despite the howling, I smiled. It was always good to know that ponies came together and had a good time. Forming connections, sharing fun activities.

I reached the dirtpath’s crossroad and stopped. A look to the left and I saw Stonewoods workshop. It was late. Maybe half an hour until sundown. Stonewood would be at home already, but something in the back of my head tickled my memories. I wanted to write him a note for… something. Some random job that needed to be done, probably. Was it about the barricade on the outer village wall? Or the bridge? Or the new houses we planned?

I could not remember. Ah well. Maybe it would come back to me later.

I turned right and moved past the last few remaining tents. The warehouse was not quite done yet, so we still had to make due with slinging a couple of covers across the stacks of supplies. A planning mistake on my part, really. Who thought it would be a good idea to put me in charge of city planning anyway? We had Flim’s and Flam’s engineering workshop ready at the edge of the village and a forge on the other side and even three early houses for Lily and Daisy, Big Mac and Marble and Treehugger. But no storage. Well, the foundations were there. They were just missing… the rest of the walls. And a roof.

I chuckled.

Greenwood was a mess. But I was our mess. We had built it from the ground up. Everypony worked hard to make it better.

“You’re on your way home?” a voice suddenly jerked me from my musings.

My head snapped up and my gaze focused on the source of the interruption. Lightning Dust. She looked beat. Probably had been up in the air all day, fighting sticky, spiky, ill-behaved Everfree clouds. She had so much nonsense to deal with these days that her boisterous nature took a backseat. Her voice lacked the usual aggressiveness and bite.

“Aye. You’re done for today as well, I assume?”

She answered with a wry smile. “Oh I’m done alright. Fucking clouds.”

I had the decency to blush. I did not curse, or use swear words, or any of that language. She knew. And she got a little rise out of seeing my reaction to her using it. But honestly, if that was the worst I had to fear from her these days, I would gladly accept that. “You’re heading to Trixie’s place, then?”

Lightning nodded with an eager grin. “Gonna catch her private show, if you know what I mean.”

I chuckled a little bit louder than I would have liked. “Lightning, everypony knows what you mean. The village isn’t that big. Even with the Everfree on all sides, it’s not hard to hear you two.”

She was not embarrassed in the slightest. I envied that, sometimes. She never seemed to be embarrassed by anything. She simply grinned, shrugged and that was that. “My regards to the princess,” she said with her best impression of a haughty Canterlot voice.

I grimaced a little bit. “Don’t be a jerk.”

Lightning had already walked on, but halted again to look back. Her brow furrowed and she seemed to consider something. I had no idea what. There were a couple of ponies whose thought patterns completely eluded me. Lightning was one of them. Did it really require ten seconds to decide not to be an asshole? “Say ‘hi’ to Luna,” she ultimately corrected herself.

I nodded gratefully. “Will do.”

We parted ways. Lightning went to Trixie’s to get her kinks worked out and I went home. When we started this place, it had quickly become clear that there was much to do. Too much, in fact. The restoration of the castle would take ages. Months, years, maybe even longer. It was not a viable option to just rebuild the darn thing and then build a town around it, oh no. We needed the town first, to provide enough infrastructure to then start rebuilding the damn ruin into its former glory.

The initial efforts had still provided enough work to secure some parts of the castle that were less damaged by time. Parts that we managed to make habitable. A couple new windows and doors and some of the rooms were almost as good as a home.

I passed through the massive, grand entrance hall. In a corner of the hall stood the mirror we used for emergency teleportation back to Ponyville. It passively collected magic, absorbed it from the surrounding environment. One day, the Everfree might return to its unspoiled, non-chaotic state. On that day, we would have to retire the mirrors. Because they worked just fine, feeding off the chaotic energies all around us. But without the chaos, they would probably start to tap into every other source of magic.

Including ponies.

I took a left turn and walked to the end of the hallway. A simple wooden door greeted me. I could smell candles and cooked vegetables. It raised my mood already. And as soon as I opened the door, a little body tumbled out and against my hoof.

My parental instincts kicked in hard. I quickly scooped him off the ground with my telekinesis. “Have you hurt yourself?” I turned him this way and that way to inspect him for scrapes.

Stardust grumbled. “Dad, I’m fine! Put me down!”

“Why were you leaning against the door anyway?” I asked while I finished my inspection and then slowly put him down… onto my back. That however was something he did not complain about. Even at his age.

“Because he could not wait for you to return,” Luna's voice sang from somewhere inside.

“Mooom!” he whined on my back.

I was about to enter when lightning flashed in the corner of my eye. It made me freeze mid-step. I listened, but no thunder followed. I had been tired on my way back, true, but I had not seen any clouds. A rogue lightning storm could spell trouble for our village. Most buildings were still wooden in nature. Lightning was beat and we had few ponies who could jump in and do her work.

“Dad?”

I slowly turned around and walked a couple of steps over to the window. The sky was clear. A colorful display was in full swing, about to move from soft pink tones to deeper reds. I loved sunsets. But my gaze was drawn down, towards the village.

Greenwood.

A flicker.

A vision.

A home.

A family.

A safe haven.

Another strike of lightning. Or maybe just a flashing light, I could not tell the difference. For a fraction of a second, I saw a town. Saw a sprawling collection of stone buildings, so different from the assembly of a couple wooden huts we had so far. Another strike. Paved streets, electrical streetlights, carriages and passengers and buildings with a dozen stories. Another flash. They came quicker and quicker now. The village was gone. Just a clearing in front of the castle. A sparsely wooded area. And the chaotic, hostile Everfree all around us. An idea in the back of my head.

We should build here.

Every cycle started the same. Me at the edge of the Everfree. That damn bird trilling its song. Twilight finding me. Taking me in. Becoming the gravitational center of my world again. Every. Single. Time.

Some things never change.

“Mom!”

Greenwood never changed. Not truly. It was there. Here. Always. Built and rebuilt, time and time again. A universal constant. Like that Celestia-forsaken bird. I arrived in winter, buried in snow, and it was there and sang. I arrived in summer, baking in my own skin, and it was there and sang. I arrived at night and it was there and sang.

“Mooom!” Stardust's worried voice barely reached my mind.

“What is it?” Luna's voice answered.

“Dad’s having a seizure again!”

Seizure. What a stupid label. But it had been the best way to explain to him what happened. What sometimes happened to me. When the memories came back and flooded my mind with fractured bits of other lives.

I felt a hoof cup my cheek. She forced me to look away from the rapidly blinking, flickering, flashing lights of an ever-evolving and -devolving Greenwood. A safe haven, a home, a constant in my life, lives.

“Look at me.”

I looked out the window. The sky itself changed with each flash. The forest retreated and invaded.

“Look at me!” she commanded.

A light in the corner of my eyes. A different light, in the other corner. A guiding star. Leading me to safety. Leading me home. I followed her voice. My head turned, slowly, as if fighting a battle against… what, exactly? Or who? Maybe I was fighting myself. It would not have been the first time.

Her beautiful cyan eyes. I could drown in them and die happy. Her lips were pressed into a concentrated, thin line. “Focus on me,” she asked. Her horn was aglow with sizzling magic. I tried. I did that a lot, after all. For her sake. But it was hard to do. The flashes from the other side were so quick now. Every half second, maybe. “Stay with me,” she pleaded.

I sighed. And closed my eyes. They were tired. As was I. Tired of seeing. Tired of remembering. I closed the distance between us and was elated to notice how much she welcomed my kiss.

My memories tried to guilt-trip me. Had I not kissed Twilight in very much the same manner in another lifetime? Had I not kissed Pinkie, my wife, in a different one? Or Derpy, despite us never marrying?

The weight of lifetimes threatened to crush me. The burden of memory. I clung to her lips in sheer desperation. I wanted to stay with her. I was home. I had a family.

I heard Stardust snivel. A strangled sob. It almost made my heart break. More importantly, it reinforced my resolve. I was here. Now. With them. Maybe I had been the husband of somepony else some other time, some other life. It was not supposed to matter here and now.

I opened my eyes. And I soothed my son's fear. I was not about to go anywhere. I would stay here, with them.
I looked up at Luna. Relief washed over her expression, but was quickly joined by something else. “I made your favorite,” she teased. Always with the teasing.

I smirked. “I doubt that. My favorite doesn’t fit on a plate.” I deliberately eyed her flank.

Half-lidded eyes. A sultry tone in her voice. She turned and walked inside, beckoning me to follow. My gaze was fixed on her swaying hips. “We shall see about that… later.” I followed her inside. And as far as I was concerned, I would have followed her to the end of the world.

I woke up again in the early afternoon hours due to something. I had a hard time telling what was responsible for stirring me from my slumber at first, since my senses were still rearranging themselves into a comprehensible pattern. The blanket was gone. That was the first thing I noticed. Because I shivered ever so slightly, even though the room temperature was not exactly cold.

Luna was gone, too. Not entirely though, as it quickly turned out.

I was on my back and I heard her inhale deeply. Before I could open my eyes, I felt the tip of her tongue make contact with my sheath. It was such a tender touch, as if she needed to test first if I would simply break were she to put more force behind it.

I shivered again.

“Good morning,” came her wanton greeting. It was quickly followed by a long, deliriously slow stroke of her tongue.

I involuntarily threw my head back and bit down on my tongue to prevent myself from uttering something unbecoming. Seeing how I already struggled to contain myself, she giggled in amusement and repeated the process once more with very similar results.

My head swam in a mixture of desire and euphoria, confusion and the remnants of a sleepy haze. What was happening? And why? Had she simply woken up horny? It would not have been the first time, but I was overwhelmed anyway. I always was.

A little trail of kisses and cautious nips along my stomach and chest and neck until she lunged for my lips. She was powerful. She was pushy. She wanted something, and she went ahead and got it. With Luna, many things became quite simple. It was thrilling, really.

I gathered my bearings enough to at least reciprocate the kiss properly, even as she plunged her tongue into my mouth. I might have moaned slightly at some point, simply due to how fast everything progressed, but I could not tell for sure and neither did I care particularly at this point. I wrapped my hoof around her neck and pulled her further in and she gladly followed the invitation.

Her hoof went exploring in the meantime, rediscovering familiar shapes, curves and paths. My breath hitched a moment when the edge of her hoof firmly pressed against my slowly emerging erection. “Hng… L-Luna!” Honestly, I had no idea what I even wanted to tell her. Or what I wanted, in general. She did a fine job at moving things along quick enough to keep me off-balance.

As soon as I thought I had regained some semblance of control and was getting more actively involved with the kiss, she broke it. And her muzzle quickly traced back down again. “F-hmng…” The sounds she made as she swallowed a good deal of it were most certainly a deliberate choice on her part. She knew all too well how to drive me crazy. And she did her best to do it as fast as possible.

I knew I would not last long this way. Maybe that was the point for her. I could go multiple times, given a breather in between, but the current speed was dizzying. More importantly: For as much as she had her fun right now, and she never seemed to grow tired of stating how much fun this was for her, I knew that she was left wanting. Wanting more, wanting something else, wanting something for herself. I tried to sit up, but she must have noticed the slightest movement, as her hooves immediately snapped forward and pushed me back down. She retreated from my loins and looked up at me, an inferno of desire in her eyes. “Let me reign,” she half-asked, half-commanded.

I kept my futile struggle against her powerful hooves up for about a second, maybe two, before I gave up and gave control over. Her grin was a promise as much as it was a threat and it sent shivers down my spine. With her previous ministrations, it had grown to full size and she was a little more careful in what she did, how, and how quickly. Despite this, I could only utter a guttural moan as the warm wetness of her mouth enveloped me once more, inch by inch until she found her rhythm again and her head, wobbly ethereal mane and all, bobbed up and down.

I could feel the pressure built. ‘Letting go’ was not one of my strengths when it came to oral. I tried, fought, to keep my climax at bay. I would do so to the very last second and beyond. Sunny had been the only one who could coax me into a state relaxed enough, or maybe just distracted enough, to let go. Then again, Luna probably relished the challenge anyway.

I pressed my eyes firmly shut, grinded my teeth, pawed at the sheets in an attempt to grab hold of something, anything. And I could feel it. Like a wall of solid steel, looming in the distance. I would smash against it full speed. Despite her best efforts, I could not let go. It would get uncomfortable, or maybe even painful, and it would kill the mood.

Sex, at least for me, was very much a mental thing. And I was very good at being my own roadblock.

“L-Luna…” I urged. She quickly picked up on the tone, slowed down and released me. Despite that fear quickly flaring up, there was no judgment or disappointment in her eyes. Just the flames licking away. “I want you so badly right now,” I managed to squeeze out after catching my breath a little.

She smirked in response. Her devouring gaze traveled down my body, made me feel naked despite rarely wearing clothes to begin with, and landed on my rhythmically throbbing erection with its flared head. “You are not going to last long,” she mused with a proud grin.

I gave her a quirky smile. “Do you care?”

The question was rhetorical in nature. I knew she did not. I always made sure she had her fair share of fun times, one way or another. Therefore, I did not have to wait long for her to sit down on her belly. Her tail swished from side to side impatiently, her eyes dared me and I had no desire to wait even a second longer than necessary. Not after the incredible start she had given us.

I lit my horn and fumbled with the nightstand drawer. And in turn, she leaned over and traced her tongue agonizingly slowly over every ridge of my horn. I shuddered and whined a little as my magic fizzled out. “Don’t,” she murmured straight down my ear, her hot breath tickling me.

A part of me had questions. Protection was important for many different reasons and I did not mind the condom at all. There was a reason for her action, surely. But neither could I figure it out on my own right now, nor did I manage to care particularly. I trusted her. Simple as that.

So I scrambled to my hooves, positioned myself behind her and mounted her. My entire length was already slick with her saliva and even a cursory glance told me that she was positively dripping. Had I even attempted any foreplay, she would probably have stuffed me in there like a toy. A strangely thrilling idea for another time. Instead I aligned myself and pressed the head against her entrance. The room's air, despite not being cold, had felt freezing and the moment I sank into her, inch by inch, and the searing heat of her enveloped me, I moaned my satisfaction out into the open room. And she quickly joined in, much to my delight.

“Sweet stars, you feel so good…!” I mumbled as I kissed between her shoulders. Once I was fully hilted, I stopped moving altogether to take a breather. I could feel it. She was right. I would not last long. But neither did I want to, or felt the need to.

She looked over her shoulder, our gazes met. So much lust that it made my head spin. A cocky grin on her lips, her tongue tracing along them. “Fill me up,” she whispered.

Hearing those words alone made me twitch inside her. “Gladly,” I replied and withdrew a little. I loved to see how her eyelids fluttered. “Until you overflow…” It was such a stupid thing to say. But it made her bite down on her bottom lip and seeing that was just sexy. I pushed back into her, elicited another moan from her throat and grabbed her flanks with both hooves. It did not take long to find a comfortable, steady rhythm.

It was admittedly slightly derailed as my legs buckled when I climaxed the first time. But I steeled my resolve and tried something that I attempted on the regular, but rarely succeeded at. I tried to power through. I simply kept moving, gritted my teeth and focused on her, on her hitched breathing, on her moans, on the heat of her walls clamping down on me, on her scent that quickly filled the entire room until everything I could smell was her, and oh my goodness was it intoxicating.

I kept going and felt my balls occasionally slap against her winking clit and that as well conjured an image in my head that simply served to keep me moving. I came a second time and tried to force my way through again and this time it felt even easier than before. Luna writhed beneath me, her hindlegs occasionally spasming and kicking. She bit down on the cushion as she grew louder and louder, until I grabbed the stupid thing, tore it from her mouth and threw it off the bed. I wanted to hear her, I needed to hear her!

I heard her howl beneath me as her body trembled. Her attempts to utter my name had been incomprehensible and she pushed her hip back against mine with every push despite the earthquake tremors running up and down her body in waves. I had heard her orgasm so many times over the years that I could tell that she had one more to give. One more to get. And I was determined.

There was a twinge in my nethers I tried to ignore as best as I could. I scraped together as much concentration as I could muster and once again lit my horn. A tendril of magic snaked beneath her tail, past the slick mess we produced and wrapped itself around her hardened little knob beneath. I withdrew from her body halfway and leaned over her to get as close to her ear as I could. “One more round, my little Moonshine. Cum for me!”

I bit down on her shoulder. Hard. The very same moment that my magic started to squeeze her clit, rub over it, pull it and push it, the same moment that I rammed back into her with whatever strength I had left to pick up a desperate, no-holds-barred rhythm. Or rather, more like an assault, an onslaught of whatever I could offer.

Hearing me use that kind of language did a trick on her, I knew that. I did it for her. And only her. And that thrilled her to no end. Coupled with everything else, she did as I had asked. She had still been riding the last weak waves of her previous orgasm when a new one followed suit.

Her cry reverberated throughout the room, a delight to my ears despite her impressive volume. I buried myself deep within her and stopped, so that I could finally ease up on myself a little, but I kept my concentration entirely focused on manipulating her clit, prolonging each wave devastating her. With my hooves still busy keeping her steady and in place, I found myself tenderly kissing her back, showing my affection in a more subtle way.

And I found the right moment to ease up with my magic as well. I gave her free, and after what felt like… a while, I retreated from her beautiful, messed up body and marveled at our work. I collapsed backwards, sat down on my haunches and simply… breathed.

Luna's hip remained slightly raised for a little longer. A spectacle to behold, a marvelous sight for my eyes only. Until she became increasingly unsteady and with a final, deep sigh, she let herself collapse to the side. Her flank landed in an impressively sized puddle of mixed fluids. “Ew,” she commented with a light giggle. I quickly chimed in with my own.

Despite the mess we made, I crawled right up beside her and held her tight, with my head coming to a rest on her shoulder. “Had fun?”

Her eyes were closed. Her chest rose and sank in deep but frequent breaths. A smile graced her lips. And the latter grew into a grin once my words registered. “You did marvelous,” she praised.

I snorted, but refrained from disagreeing.

Maybe half a minute later, she cracked her eyes open again. She quickly oriented herself in the room before spotting me leaning on her. And I did not fail to notice that her inferno was still there.

Somehow.

I chuckled and shook my head a little. “And you call me insatiable?”

With a final deep sigh, she turned onto her back and drew me into a deep, longing kiss. The kind we usually shared before we started what we had just finished. So at least I thought we had finished. It quickly turned out that she had a different opinion on the matter.

These few minutes, the kiss included, had not been enough. That brief time had not been kind to my private parts, not after what I had sent them through. I had simply overdone it a bit. But I found it hard to regret any of that, honestly.
Luna raised her head a little off the bedsheet and once again whispered with her hot breath tickling my ear. “Will you be my mare, firecracker?”

The question made me blush as much as the pet name did. I could feel myself light up, could feel the heat radiating off my ears and my muzzle. I could feel myself getting hard again, despite the soreness and exhaustion. I looked at her with wide eyes, and she gazed back with both hunger and love. It was impossible to say no to that. And to be fair, from a more practical standpoint, it neatly circumvented the entire ‘I’m sore’-problem. For both of us.

I nodded shyly and could only imagine my hesitant-yet-eager demeanor riling her up some more. Deep down, she was a warrior. And she wanted to conquer and claim.

A moment later, I felt her magic wrap around me. I had already felt the telltale tingling sensation of strong magic being cast before, so I assumed she had transformed herself first. The cool touch prickled a little on my skin, and as usual, the transformation did not occur without inducing at least a little bit of discomfort and pain. After all, the magic basically shrunk my balls away and reverted my sheath inwards. A profound alteration of the body in, despite what it felt like, a very short amount of time.

That said, we had more than enough experience with this spell by now. I inhaled deeply when I felt the magic working and exhaled slowly while it did its thing. Focusing on my breathing helped deal better with the pain. It probably would not have been such an issue were I less of a snowflake.

The spell had worked, I could already tell. Despite this, routines were important and I exhaled until I ran out of breath. Only to immediately gasp as I felt Luna’s muzzle at my rear. It was probably quite telling that my first instinct in this situation was to actually flag my tail and fling it to the side instead of covering myself up.

She once again took a whiff before trailing her tongue over the more sensitive areas in broad strokes.

She’s trying to get me off-balance again, the little minx!

I shivered in delight under each lick and whimpered quietly whenever she withdrew her tongue. “Stars above,” I muttered as she probed my entrance with the tip. At the same time, her magic massaged its way along my flank, across my cutie mark and beneath to cautiously grab and rub my now present teats.

I rolled over onto my back. It was a means to multiple ends. First off, it allowed me to get my rear away from her muzzle, which in turn allowed me a breather to collect myself. Also, it made her growl a little in dissatisfaction, which I found to be both cute and exciting. Secondly, I was now in a very good position to do something I utterly hated when I was in any other setting than this one: I was able to lay bare. To present myself fully and unhidden to her. And I did. Because no matter how much I struggled with my own image and my self-worth, seeing that desire in her eyes as she devoured me with her gaze was not just thrilling, it felt like it was healing something.

I mustered as much courage as I could under her burning gaze. “T-Think you can m-match me?” I meekly tried to challenge her.

And as per usual, Luna was brimming with an aura of confidence. “I know I can,” she answered and stood up. I did see her right foreleg wobble a little as she did, and I did consider commenting on it. But Luna was Luna. She knew better than me what she could and could not deal with.

Her standing up had the additional effect of me getting a really good look at what was now dangling beneath her barrel. Depending on perspective, that thing looked like it had the length and girth of a freaking leg. And that was supposed to fit inside me.

Worse still: I knew it could.

I always thought it was adorable how her addition sported some splotches of black color, almost comparable to the dark patches on her flank. It made it so much more hers. Luna herself gave its appearance no mind, really. It was a means to an end for her. But I always thought that I would probably be less into this if it wasn’t for that monster being so much her.

“Ready?” she asked sultrily.

My eyes had not left that fifth leg since she stood. She had stepped closer, slowly. She loomed over me, impressive, intimidating, a force to be reckoned with. And I loved her to bits. She was Luna. My Luna. I craned my neck and raised my head. Just enough to make contact. To plant an almost chaste little kiss on the flared head of her erection.

I would never get used to the slightly bitter, salty taste.

But at the same time, I could not deny how wet it got me to imagine what she was about to do to me.

I spoke without thinking. “Ravage me…!”

There was a tender, loving glow in her eyes, dancing in parallel to the smoldering inferno. She leaned down and we kissed and for a brief moment, I wondered what she thought of her own taste, if she could even notice it. I refrained from asking. I had difficulties talking this openly sometimes.

“Gladly,” she replied, her voice still laced with that very same tenderness.

Despite an impressive amount of experience, Luna had never really accustomed all that well to having this addition. Not in terms of bodily coordination. I lit my horn and grabbed hold of it and I guided her lower. But at the same time, I relished that little bit of power by denying her entry. Instead I tightened the grip I had and made her buck a few times by fondling her balls a little, with her erection brushing along my stomach. It felt… really nice. Even though I knew perfectly well that the main attraction would be ten times better.

A grumbly grunt finally caught my attention and clued me in that she was running out of patience for my antics. I grinned up at her. “What? Not satisfied?”

She cocked an eyebrow, aligned herself this time and I could feel the head poke at the right place. “What was that?”

I gulped and chuckled nervously. Now it was her turn to tease. Again. And quite honestly, without her even trying, I could understand why she was not in the mood for it. I reached up with my forehooves, grabbed her cheeks, pulled her down into a passionate kiss and let my eyelids fall close. “Take me,” I begged her as our kiss ended.

I did not have to ask her twice.

The initial pain was almost nonexistent and vanished within seconds. I had grown more and more accustomed to this over the years. In a similar vein, Luna quickly fell into a steady and rough rhythm. She wanted to pound any sense and rational thought out of my head. And I was very much into that.

I could feel her buildup. She was pumping in and out at an increasing pace, her head rested right beside mine, her moans and sighs served to push me forward as much as mine reached her ears close by.

“D-Dreamw-ahhh!”

She probably tried to warn me that she was close. As if I could not tell already. I lunged for her ear, bit down on its edge and used my hindlegs as best as I could to pull her in every inch of the way, as deep as she could go. She came for me. And it felt great. Heavenly. Liquid heat sloshed around within me, I could feel the first telltale sign of my own contractions while her member just pushed and twitched and made a mess of me and her and the bed.

And just like I had done before, she merely waited for a couple of seconds after the last spurts had been released before she cautiously started to move again. I quickly gave her free, gave her free reign to find whatever rhythm served her well now. And within moments, we were back to her relentlessly pounding me.

I was well past the stages where I even tried to muffle myself. Every time I had tried in the past, we had come to the same conclusion. I wanted to hear her just as badly as she wanted to hear me. I usually was a quiet type. Subdued. Controlled.

But she brought out a side of me that I sometimes barely recognized as myself.

“H-Harder!” I screamed, one of the very few comprehensible noises I produced. With a deep, strained grunt, Luna complied. And three thrusts later, she pushed me well over the edge. I tried to bite down on her shoulder to muffle my banshee wail, but she grabbed my mane with her magic and roughly pulled me back. It somehow only added. She stared me straight in the eyes and I tried to keep that bridge, that contact, for as long as I could before something forced my eyes shut again.

Everything felt like it was convulsing, everything twitched and spasmed. I did, she did, the bed did, everything was both hot and cold and prickled and tickled, everything was light and heavy and instead of feeling crushed from inside like I had a moment ago, I felt release. Sweet, sweet release.

I collapsed. Or had collapsed half a minute ago. My perception of time was a little… skewed.

I used strength I did not have to crawl a few inches over to her side. I put a hoof over her chest and giggled in what I assumed was quite a silly manner as I felt her rabid heartbeat. An angry drum toiling away endlessly in her chest. Her coat was matted with sweat. Her breathing was labored. I could feel the mess we had made, both leaking from myself and from earlier. I did not care right now, could not.

The thought of kissing her crossed my mind. The thought of telling her how great she had been. How incredible that had felt. How much I loved her. But honestly, it was all too much. Too much of a hassle to talk right now, to string words together into coherent sentences. Too much to lift my head again. Breathing was already so hard. It required focus and effort.

A minute passed by. Maybe two, or four.

I calmed down, regained a semblance of composure. So did she. Luna slowly rose from the bed and climbed out. She cast a spell I was quite familiar with by now and cleaned her coat of any traces of our activities. It almost saddened me. I had been proud of our mess. And then she did something very silly.

She took a few tentative steps towards the door. Not the balcony door to release the smell of sex into the wider world and let fresh air creep in, no. The chamber entrance door.

I furrowed my brow. “And where do you think you’re going?”

Luna looked back at me, a wide smile on her lips. A tender one. Loving. The inferno had subsided, it seemed. Quenched for now. “I thought about making some preparations for dinner. I am sure my sister would be grateful for that. I also thought that I might get an early start on paperwork. Maybe I can manage to stay on top this time.”

I snorted. “Oh you stayed on top alright!” I teased and snickered. Luna rolled her eyes, but still grinned like a madmare. “I’m sure Sunny’s going to be so… impressed,” I continued and nodded towards her downstairs.

She blinked a moment and looked under her barrel. A rock-hard addition stood at attention and dangled around freely. It baffled me how she had failed to notice that when walking. But I had to admit, it was just the cutest to see her blush in sheer embarrassment.

“Thank you for the, uh, reminder.”

She was about to dispel the transformation, I knew that. And something within me was very much in favor of not doing that. And I knew a thing or two about my Luna. “So you give up and accept my win then? Neat.”

Luna stopped. And dismantled the spell she had been about to cast. She looked at me and slowly raised an eyebrow, accompanied by a cocky grin. “You cannot take any more,” she claimed resolutely.

Hook, line and sinker. I cranked my own cocky grin up to eleven and uttered the fatal words: “Try me.”

“Dreamwalker, be reasonable, you—“

Be reasonable? Who was this and what had they done to my Luna? I chuckled and cut in immediately. “So the mighty Luna finally found her match, backing away like a coward from the one she could not conquer fully. Hey, don’t get me wrong, it makes for a good ending to a good tale. Certainly an interesting sequel beg!”

Luna growled. Like the fiercest timberwolf one could imagine. Like a really pissed timberwolf. She turned around, fully towards me, and stalked towards the bed like the predator I knew she could be. Like the warrior going in for the kill.

And in my silly little horny-daze, I was simply elated to see her erection give a twitch.

“I am going to fuck you into submission!” she growled. Every word was spoken slowly, with conviction and purpose, to make it crystal clear that I had asked for what was to come.

It was the first time in the last couple of hours that it slowly dawned on me that maybe, just maybe, I had bitten off more than I could chew. Despite the slow realization, I could not deny the excitement I felt quickly building up. And I sealed my fate with another bout of stupidity. I raised my chin proudly and proclaimed: “I want to see you try!”

Minutes later, I stopped edging.

Minutes later, I stopped worrying.

Minutes later, I stopped thinking.

When she was finally done, I was numb. Sore. Exhausted. Dizzy. And very happy.

“U…” I mumbled in a vain effort. “W…”

She giggled, despite massive exhaustion being written all over her own face. “Yes, firecracker?”

I felt a shiver run down my back. It was almost uncomfortable at this point. Almost. A goofy grin plastered itself all over my face. “… won…” I uttered. Who won? What was won? Who knows. I drifted off into the black void of sleep.

I woke up hours later.

I groggily lifted my head and peered over to the balcony. The curtains were still drawn shut. The smallest gaps between them and the floor betrayed no daylight. It was therefore a reasonable assumption that it was nighttime. That would also serve well to explain the cold emptiness where, according to my foggy memory, Luna had to be. I reached out with my hoof despite the realization, as if I could find her by some miracle. Maybe she was just lost in the blanket, curled up to keep the warmth all to herself. Maybe she was hiding, or invisible. But no, there was no Luna. Her scent obviously lingered in the air. It always did. That was just a side effect of living in a room, of spending a lot of time in said room. It always smelled like her in here. But there was no warmth left in the sheets. She must have been gone for a while.

That too made perfect sense. With my memories slowly returning, I remembered.

For all the fun we could have, Night Court was very much a thing. One dear to her heart and important for both her own sanity as well as Equestrias balance. I knew that. I knew that she had to prepare. That she needed to keep up appearances. Yet despite my knowledge and understanding, I mourned what could have been. I sighed in slight dismay as I longed to wake up next to her, feeling her legs still wrapped around me tightly.

I rolled onto my back and stared at the beautiful scenery. The painted night sky at the ceiling. I let my mind wander, my thoughts flow like water in a stream. It carried me to different places, sometimes several at once. But I eventually landed back where I began and had to ponder once more a by now familiar question. Luna always inspired passion in me. She made me want stuff. As far as sexual experiences went, I considered myself relatively vanilla, with very few exceptions. And every time, Luna somehow managed to make ridiculous things incredibly enticing.

The gender modification spell was an oldie in our repertoire. An oldie, but a goodie. I greatly enjoyed it, with her, each time. And that troubled me somehow. Always. But always just afterwards. In the heat of the moment, I was thrilled, I was excited, it felt right and I did not wish to change a thing. And I was not willing to call it ‘regrets’, those troubling thoughts I experienced afterwards. I did not regret doing it.

But I had to ask myself over and over, each time: Did I enjoy it more? Maybe ‘too much’? If so, why? Was it right or wrong? Did such a thing as ‘right or wrong’ even exist in this context? What did my enjoyment of such a spell even mean? Did I consider myself a stallion? That question, at least, should have been easy to answer. I had dangly bits, therefore: Stallion. Right?

Well, not quite.

I rarely thought about these things at all. Because nothing ever really pulled anything of that matter into question. I did not think of myself as a stallion. I thought of myself as, well, me. There was no gender attached. And why should there be? I was me. Dangly bits included, because, well, that was just how it was.

I could feel the familiar weight between my hindquarters. The transformation spell must have run its course sometime while I slept. Or maybe Luna simply canceled it when she left. Despite recent activities, they felt strangely heavy. As if they wanted to remind me of their presence.

“Ugh. Buck me,” I groaned.

Well yes, she did that quite thoroughly. The thought made me both grimace and chuckle at the same time.

I tried to distract myself. What use was it to brood over this nonsense. I had never come to any decent conclusion in the past, and I surely would not tonight. I rolled over to the other side and buried my muzzle in her cushion. I inhaled so deep that my lungs started to complain with a burning sensation. It smelled like her. Like her mane, like cloud stuff, like that shampoo she used. Familiar. And I released that air in a deep sigh, a mixture of happiness and longing. “I miss you already,” I mumbled into the darkness. Luna would have easily been able to distract me. She always could.

I crawled a little further towards the edge of the bed. I had been sleeping for a ridiculous amount of time in the past day. I needed to get out of bed and into the bathroom. I needed to brush my teeth, at least send a brush through my mane and tail once and probably take a shower.

Not in that order, though.

And then I spotted a little card on the bedside table. Folded in the middle, so it could stand and was more easily visible. ‘Firecracker’ was written on it in elegant hornwriting. I smirked. So it had come to this now, had it? We sent each other notes now? I lit my horn, grabbed hold of the note and floated it over. The levitation generated enough light in the otherwise pitch-black room to read it as soon as I opened it.

‘It is fine with me if you visit my sister.’

I chuckled quietly. She knew me all too well. When I would wake up. How I would wake up. What I would do and think. The light emanating from my horn increased in brightness as I poured more energy into the telekinesis spell. I spawned a second tendril of magic and grabbed hold of a feather on her desk at the far side of the room. I opened the nearby ink well, dipped the feather in and brought it over to the bed to write my answer beneath. ‘I love you so, so much!’ It was simple. Maybe even plain. But I thought it properly conveyed my gratitude nonetheless.

I put the note back down on the nightstand and climbed out of bed. My hooves touched the cold marble tiles and I shivered a little. I took a minute to redo the bed before I snuck into the bathroom. There really was no reason for me to actually sneak around, but I did so anyway. Because I preferred to not make any sound if it was possible. Force of habit, really.

I limited myself to the necessities. The shower was a quick one. I loved to shower for up to an hour. It was excessive. This time it took barely ten minutes. I did not wait for the water to warm up either. In and out. I brushed my mane and tail with half a heart and half a mind, since I did not expect whatever I did to it to last long. It was nighttime. Sunny would be asleep by now.

I did brush my teeth properly and thoroughly though. For some reason, that was a part of my personal hygiene where I could never, ever cut corners.

With all of that done, I stalked back into the main bedroom chamber and towards the door. I opened it, tried to walk out as normally and as casually as possible and spared only a slightly awkward “G’night” to the two night guards who stood to either side.

And as soon as I rounded a corner and was out of sight of anypony else, I stopped. Luna knew me well. But she had written that note in case I needed to crawl under somepony’s wing. So the question then was: Did I truly need it? Was there sufficient reason to go bother Sunny and possibly disturb her slumber?

Much to my dismay, I could feel it. The nagging voices in my head, deeper in the darkness, at the backside. They would not remain there. With every moment of my focus slipping, with every minute of my concentration lacking, they would advance to the forefront. Because I was a worrywart. Worrying and tearing myself down and doubting were such integral parts of me. Twilight was still having panic attacks to this very day. We all knew. We were all prepared to face them in different ways. She had gotten so much better at dealing with them herself. But they still occurred. And I had made progress as well, but at the same time… the voices never truly left. The memory of Luna railing the everloving heck out of me was still fresh and vivid in my mind. More so the memory of just how much I was into that. And inevitably, the voices latched onto that. Tried to taint it with their sinister questions. I enjoyed that spell. Too much? And what it allowed. What did that mean? And how it made me feel. Who are you even?

I sighed. I stood in the middle of a hallway in a dimly lit castle all by my lonesome and sighed. And I hated that slight quiver I heard from my own breathing. It was decided, then. I really did need that comfort shelter again.

I weaved through familiar hallways, from one side of the castle to the other. I was glad, incredibly so, that barely anypony was around at this time of day. The castle staff was asleep, gone home or busy doing stuff in other areas of the castle. Only the occasional guard was around, mostly doing their best not to get bored out of their mind even though they were stationed to guard a gosh-darn door. Most of these doors, and the rooms behind them, were not exactly what one would call ‘enticing targets for infiltrators’ anyway.

On my way over, I could not ward the thoughts off entirely. The insecurity creeped back in. The anxiety reared its ugly head. It was always the same afterwards. I hated that. One more reason to briskly trot towards Sunny’s chamber. Her mere presence was a calming influence and never failed to comfort me.

I saw the doors and refrained from speeding up any further, lest the guards would see a maniac barreling down the hallway, straight for the chamber of their precious Princess. Instead, I trotted up to the two guards in front and gave them a nod. “Good evening.” I grabbed the handle of the door and neither of them objected. Or replied. Or did anything, really. Which meant that neither of these two was a familiar name or face to me beneath those illusions, nor did they care to make a fuss about my late visit or the fact that I entered after the princess surely had gone to sleep.

I liked these two already.

I closed the door silently behind me and took a moment to breathe. I closed my eyes, listened inwards and tried to calm my rapidly beating, raging heart down. I wished I could have growled at myself for that almost unnoticeable tremor that made my knees weaker. But I did not want to even risk waking her up. She too probably had a long and arduous day behind her. She deserved all the relaxation she could get.

I just needed to… snuck in, somehow.

Once I felt confident in my own ability to not freak out, I took several tentative steps forward. The good thing about constantly sneaking was that I got a lot of experience and familiarity with the exact required modes of movement. I made no sound while I crossed the room and stepped up to the edge of the bed. I saw her journal waiting patiently on her nightstand. I saw another book on the other side. The latest novel she tried to read. I had been so proud that she had picked one of my recommendations over one of Twilight’s for once.

And right there, in the middle of the rather spacious bed, she was. Even though her frame was twice my size, she seemed so small and lost right now. Her blanket had slipped halfway down, most likely due to her occasional thrashing and turning. Her wings occasionally fluttered in agitation. Her hindlegs kicked. Her ethereal mane was a tangled mess and her face twisted between several states nopony beside her lovers was ever allowed to see. Pain. Grief. Fear. Anger.

Another nightmare, I surmised. I probably ought to feel bad about it, but somehow seeing her like this made me feel better. Because here I was, capable of helping one of my loves. It changed things. I was no longer just the intruder, trying to sneak into her bed late at night in hopes of scrounging together some calming influence. No, now I was that, and the savior who just happened to be at the right place at the right time to help.

It was stupid. I was well aware of that. It should not have worked like that, but such was my head. I took a deep breath, shrugged the self-deprecation off and carefully climbed in.

I knew Sunny well enough to anticipate certain behavior from her, asleep or otherwise. I slipped under the blanket and grabbed it with my magic in one go. I dragged it back up with me while I crawled higher and laid down close to her. Not right against her, but close to her. With my back turned towards her. Then I merely inched backwards a little. Just enough that at some point, I touched one of her hooves. At that point, she became aware of me. I had no idea if she woke up or not. Probably not, seeing as she did not utter a single word. But like a drowning pony, she clung to me. The moment her subconscious realized that there was something to hold and squeeze, she did just that. She grabbed me, pulled me in and held me tight. Like a scared filly clinging to her favorite stuffed toy.

A deep sigh escaped in a shuddering breath. And over the course of the next few minutes, I listened intently to her slowly calming down. Her wings still rustled occasionally, but their frequency had diminished. She did not kick anymore. Her breathing had slowed down a little as well. Yet despite all this, I was under no illusion that the nightmare was gone.

I shifted around a little. Just enough to stir her. And as expected, she turned around. Sunny pressed into me, and I accepted our role reversal. I was the big spoon now. For the considerably bigger pony. I smiled and accepted that, as usual, with a hint of amusement. Then I grabbed the blanket again and tucked us in properly before I dimly lit my horn and touched her neck. “Let’s see what we can do here,” I whispered and let sleep claim my consciousness yet again.

This time was different though. Because now I had a task to focus on. An important one.

With the dream slowly breaking apart, I knew that she would wake up soon.

So I withdrew and once more willed myself to wake up. Somewhere in the back of my head, I already speculated about how these last two or three days would mess up my entire sleep schedule for the next week or so. Because I was just that much a creature of habit.

I blinked a bit and lifted a hoof to rub the sleep out of my eyes. While yes, it was still dark outside, I could tell that dawn was drawing closer. Rare were those occasions where I was actually awake before her. Rarer still were the days when I was not just awake, but ready to go and willing to get up.

Sunny loved sunrises. So did I and I would have loved to witness them more frequently alongside her, if only it was not for the ungodly time they occurred at. But due to a series of events, we had just such a day, it seemed. I just hoped she would not disapprove of me being here. At least in my opinion, there would have been good reason for that.

With a mighty yawn, she stretched her limbs. And I gave her free from my tight hug. She must have noticed the retreating limbs, as she lazily rolled over onto her other side. We lay muzzle to muzzle for a moment and despite my initial fear, I saw no grudge in her eyes. Then again, out of all my loved ones, Sunny was the hardest to read.

I tried to set the mood with a little silliness. She usually appreciated that. “Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake,” I started the little rhyme Twilight and Cadance shared at any. Given. Opportunity. Not that I — or anypony else for that matter — minded overly. It was adorable. But it was fun to tease them with it, Twilight especially. Because I would never dare to tease Cadance.

A sly smile graced my love’s lips. “Do not expect me to dance please, I fear I might not be quite awake enough for that…” I grinned and placed the faintest kiss on her nose. And I chuckled quietly when she wrinkled it in response. “You had fun yesterday?” she asked.

And there we have it. Bringing the topic up had been inevitable, really. There was no need to search for a guilty party. Yet despite this, I still questioned myself. Maybe I had not brushed my teeth thoroughly enough and she had noticed a faint scent of coffee that could logically only belong to Luna? My mind only needed a couple of seconds to brew up some worrying scenarios that would have been hilarious, had my mind not decided to take them seriously.

Adding to that, for as hard as Sunny was to read most of the time, the years had taught me a little here and there. And she had asked that with the faintest hint of an uneasy undertone. I loved all of my special someponies in different ways and for different things. Different needs. Different desires. Many of the parts of myself I vigorously explored with Luna were areas I rarely explored with Sunny, if at all. It was not necessary. Or even wanted. It did not feel right, neither for her, nor me. Different partners with wholly different boundaries and dynamics.

I had wondered many times what they got out of the deal. I was pretty sure I knew what I got. But what in the world could I give that they desired enough to keep up with my… what did the nobles call it? Frivolities? Depravities?

I was told not to question it. I was told to trust them. And over the years, they had tried so hard to tell me. To show me. To make me understand what I had to offer.

I never quite got it.

But at the end of the day, did it matter if I understood? Sure, yes, in those weak moments when I started the cycle of doubt and misery all over again, then it mattered a lot. But on most days, it did not. I made them happy. Somehow. And they made me happy. A lot. And we all worked on our weird little constellation, because we all wanted it to work.

Sunny was smart. She knew why I was here. We followed a schedule. I was currently supposed to share some quality time with Luna. For another day or two. I was early. Being early was not an issue. But showing up early without any notice whatsoever, that was out of the ordinary. Especially for someone like me, who preferred organization.

So she knew. It certainly was not the first time I showed up at her doorstep because of this. Luna usually tried her best to take the aftercare into her own hooves. And she had gotten considerably better at it. And it angered me to no end that there even needed to be an aftercare at all.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and recentered myself.

“You are overthinking something again,” Sunny said. Calmly. Quietly.

“And you never do that?” I shot straight back. I immediately regretted my flaring temper. Regretted lashing out at all, and worse still, lashing out against her of all ponies.

But she took the harsh tone in stride. She had heard a lot worse. Even from ponies close and dear to her. She merely smiled and leaned closer to press the softest, warmest kiss on my lips. It made my throat tighten up. “There is no need to be defensive, love,” she let me know. “Remember, I am on your side.”

It was such a ridiculous notion. There were no sides. Nopony was battling. Nopony needed to die on any hill. No flags were waved around. Yet she always seemed to know what I needed to hear. Even when it was something ridiculous. I felt my eyes glaze over with unspilled tears. “You have no idea how happy it makes me every time you say that,” I whispered back. And I merely whispered because I did not trust my voice not to waver were I to raise it even slightly.

Her smile remained steadfast. “I know,” she disagreed.

“That’s just because of the tears,” I claimed and tried to turn my head away. I tried to bury my muzzle in the cushion in hopes that the fabric would absorb the unwanted liquid.

But she would not let me. Her horn lit up and she held me in place. “No, I know despite the tears,” she insisted.

I kissed her.

Just like that.

Because the urge was there. And because it felt right. It could never not feel right, I imagined.

There was no tongue involved, no flickering embers of passion, no raging infernos of desire, just… a deep fondness of each other. And trust. An overbearing amount of trust. And I was glad for its immense weight to keep me grounded.

A few minutes later I actually managed to get up again. We both climbed out of bed and despite her room having about the same temperature as Luna’s, I did not shiver this time. Because I walked pressed tight against Sunny and her body radiated such a welcoming warmth. I opened the balcony door, we stepped outside and sat down at the edge, in front of the railing. We watched the spectacle of the changing colors, then she lifted the sun that tiny bit over the horizon. Somewhere else within the castle, Luna put the moon that tiny bit below it. She was not at her balcony, maybe she was still busy with preparations for breakfast. Or maybe some pesky noble or scribe or aide or whatever was keeping her busy at Night Court again. Right now, my focus was here, with Sunny.

Despite the beauty of the scene before us, I could tell that something was bothering her. And where Luna would just spit it out in her own time or get rid of the issue by her own means, Sunny was… different. She had a hard time asking for help. Something I was too familiar with myself. She was always willing to help those she cared about, with whatever she could muster to provide said aid. Again: Something I knew a thing or two about.

We had a few things in common. We were both very supportive ponies who cared greatly about the happiness and well-being of those dear to us. We were both willing to make sacrifices for them, often with little regard to our own well-being. Familiar patterns in the weave. It made it easier to understand her, sometimes. It helped me help her, and vice versa. Because if I started limping now, she would not be able to disregard it. She would need to help, or at least ask and see if she could help. It would allow me to coax the truth out of her.

I started my charade with a sigh. “I’ve been thinking about… stuff… recently. Again.” Another sigh. “I had hoped that I would have gotten rid of them by now. After so many years. But they keep cropping up every now and then. These moments when I feel so incredibly inadequate… and broken. Fractured, barely held together with duct tape and good will.”

The trap was set. And without a single lie, as usual. She could tell. Always. But for all the trouble my own head provided me with, every once in a while, being so weird had its perks. This was one of those. It took Luna weeks or even months to get her sister to discuss whatever problem nagged her. I could cut that time down to a few days, maximum. Because fake-limping would never cease to be effective against our type.

Sunny knew exactly what I was doing, of course. And she was not exactly thrilled by the prospect of having to divulge this information. But neither could she resist the trap. Because there was no harm in it. And maybe she could help me. She really wanted to. As much as I wanted to help her.

“Do you need help?” she asked. And it almost sounded like a plea, no matter how measured her voice was, how calm she appeared to be. I knew that question. It was twisted on the way from her brain to her tongue. The original was: Please let me help you! I knew that, because this was a back and forth. We had switched positions often enough. And I had asked that very same question so many times.

“Not really,” I continued. “Nothing you could do.” Maybe I should feel ashamed. I was manipulating her, was I not? That did not sound very nice in my head. But at the same time I could acknowledge that it was a necessity. That all communication was a form of manipulation. That she knew what I was doing and was simply following me along out of sheer good will, because she could have stood up and left at any given point and yet she did not.

It was a dance, really.

I liked that comparison. I could not dance to save my life. Everypony who had ever seen Twilight dance thought she could wreck a ballroom. Then they saw me ‘dance’ and took that back. I could still, after fifty years, count how many times I had danced in my life and the number would stay in the single digits.

But as a comparison it worked really well. Familiar patterns. Sometimes I lead her, sometimes vice versa. Step, step, twirl. Step, step, twirl.

It was a lie, of course. Especially for an alicorn of such magnificent wealth, power and wisdom. ‘Nothing you could do’ was a little bit ridiculous. But the easiest, most obvious fix was a simple distraction. She knew that. And what better way to distract a supportive pony like myself than to give him something worthy of his attention? Something where he could help and feel better about himself by doing so? Something to positively reinforce him?

She could easily shove any other topic in front of me. She could try to distract me. Divert my attention. Heck, even now, she could simply get up and walk away. She would not. But she could.

Because it was a familiar dance and we both knew the steps and the result.

In a way, it warmed my heart, really. She trusted me. She was willing to dance with me. She believed that I was capable enough not to wreck her ballroom. Maybe that’s the point where the metaphor gets weird…?

Sunny stayed quiet for a while. And I let her. I was patient and waited. Until she sighed. “Every time I wake up relaxed and refreshed like I did just now, I know exactly who to thank for it. Because for all her strengths, subtlety is none of Luna’s.”

I instantly remembered so, so many instances of Luna putting on a bombastic, grand show. To impress the little ones, frightened by their nightmares. To intimidate said nightmares. To make an impression when she entered a room full of ‘important ponies’. To make Twilight gasp and gawk at her.

The latter ones were especially funny and cute.

I chuckled and left it at that. Sunny extended her wing around me and squeezed a little and I leaned against her in response. Her warm coat was a contrast to the cold marble tiles of the balcony. Her downy embrace almost lulled me back into peaceful drowsiness. “So you had a pleasant dream, I assume?” I knew for sure, of course. I stood aside and guarded her night. Sunny's nightmares were persistent creatures to the point of stubbornness.

She nodded, and yet that sigh that followed was a little too morose for my tastes. “I know the feeling. I hoped this nightmare would end one day. That it would simply stop and vanish. But such is the price for banishing my sister, I suppose.”

I pressed a hoof against her and brought some distance between us, just so that I could look up at her. “Don’t. We’ve been over this time and time again, love. You ‘paid’ more than enough with a thousand years of isolation and loneliness. This nightmare is torture. Simple as that. But! It gets better.” I turned around a little and wiggled myself free of her wing. As soon as I could look back into the bedroom, I lit my horn and grabbed that journal from her bedside table and brought it over to us.

She saw the floating book and sighed yet again. “I know. Twilight showed me all these graphs. Per week, per month. The changes became most noticeable per year and decade. Their frequency declines. But I still fear they may never fully cease.”

“You will never have to deal with this alone. Every time they come, we will be there for you. We will be with you,” I promised.

“Will you?”

It was a simple question. But it implied a lot. And for all my silly little hopes and stupid dreams and wishes, I was not naïve enough to commit as thoroughly as I had wished. Because I could not guarantee that we would be there. Luna could be slain. Twilight could be busy on some scholarly travel on the other side of the world. I could be long dead due to age. Heck, there was an argument to be made that I was overdue already and only remained alive and in decent health because of some magical shenanigans.

“Well,” I started hesitantly. But at least one thing I could promise with certainty. “We will try.”

Because of that, I was sure: Luna would never give up on her sister again. Twilight would never stray from the one pony who had fulfilled so many roles in her life and shaped her mind to such a vast degree. And I had loved her for fifty years without ever regretting it a single second. I had no idea how that whole ‘eternal potion’-thing would turn out. If I was truly immortal, maybe the vast tides of time would change how I felt about her. Maybe a hundred years in the future, or a thousand, or a million, I would fall out of love with her. But even then, given our shared history — would I ever deny her help if I could give her help?

As if.

I leaned back in, grabbed her wing with my magic and wrapped myself in it once more. She gladly accepted the closeness. “We’re with you, you hear me? You’re going to have to try harder to get rid of us.”

She giggled faintly. For a brief moment, I had managed to coax some levity out of her. It did not magically erase her problem. Her nightmares would return. Probably for years to come. After a millennium of those, it had taken us fifty years to get to a point where they only occurred sporadically. I thought that was freaking fantastic work! That was incredible progress. And it was, it truly was. But I could understand her impatience. Every night with these dreams was a hot knife pressed into a raw wound. One that had been left festering for far too long and only recently had been cared for.

As with so many things, it would take time. Some more yet than it already had.

But it was a start. And I was willing to try to lift her spirit a little further. So after a moment searching for something to tell, I found a memory that made me chuckle. And if it amused me, it might be able to make her smile as well. “Do you remember that day we christened that large indoor swimming pool?”

I looked up to see her raise an eyebrow at me. It was most likely my fond, nostalgic smile that drew this particular reaction. “I do,” she replied. “I went into the water first to heat it up. I warned you not to come in yet because it was quite hot, yet you would not listen.”

I grinned and nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, that day!”

“Twilight had to teleport you out because you would not come out on your own,” she continued recounting the events.

“Such a great day,” I remarked.

“Twice,” she added. Sunny then furrowed her brow. “Luna, of all ponies, chided you for your recklessness while your circulation was about to give out.”

“You know, remembering that day always fills me with so much love and joy,” I continued undisturbed.

“If I remember correctly, she went into full-on panic when you finally did collapse.”

“You know, we really ought to use it more,” I noted. “It’s been ages since last time. And I like swimming as much as I like seeing you swim.”

“Twilight almost had a panic attack as well because she thought Luna would collapse due to hyperventilation any moment.” I looked up at her. She looked down at me. A few seconds passed by before we both started to giggle. “It was a good day,” she finally admitted.

Silence once more fell between us. We watched the rest of the sunrise, until a random idea struck me. “Tell you what: How about you go to the bathroom while I fetch the checkers? Luna will probably—“ walk funny, I almost continued but managed to stop myself in time. “—be slower than usual, so we should have enough time for one round without you being late.”

It would be a quick game. It always was. In terms of battle strategy, I was utterly incapable of reaching the same heights she so effortlessly did. But I did not mind losing to her either. I always felt like I had learned a new trick, or understood one of her tactics a little bit better. And if that failed, I at least always got away with the feeling that she had fun. And that was worth a lot to me.

Sunny smiled and leaned down for a quick kiss. “That does sound delightful. I take it you are not coming with me to breakfast, then?”

I answered with a wry smile. “Luna will probably want to tease me relentlessly. I know you sometimes get uncomfortable when she really gets into the swing of things. It’s been a good start of the day so far, so… no need to risk spoiling that, right?”

“That does sound reasonable. Thank you.” I tried to wave her off, but she would not have any of that. So instead, I stood up, grabbed her cheeks and kissed her again. With a little more force this time around.

“Now get your pretty flank into the bathroom so I can smack it around on the battlefield afterwards!” I threatened. Even though, seeing her unbroken streak of wins, the ‘threat’ rang a little hollow. But it served to amuse her and that was well enough.

While Sunny was busying herself, I prepared the battlefield. Checkers was obviously quickly set up and left me with a few spare minutes, which my mind immediately latched onto. When Sunny reemerged from the bathroom, I found myself thinking about that impromptu story I had told Luna, and the strange fractured dream I had encountered as a result of it.

I knew myself well enough to realize when I was concocting some sort of idea. And to be fair, many of the intricate pieces fell into place all too easily and willingly. It was maddening, really.

So we played. It did not take many moves to realize I was once again doomed. Being as distracted as I was certainly did not help me. I sighed as I stared at the board for a minute after my demise had been announced. “Yeah, I… didn’t see that one coming.”

“I noticed,” she teased with a playful tone.

I looked up and shot her a grin, but my mind quickly drifted back. It simply refused to stay focused on anything else. I had an idea. And it was a really annoying one. The kind that would not let me distract myself. The kind that demanded to be processed in some shape or form. I put both my forehooves over my eyes and dragged them down slowly. “Urgh. Fine,” I muttered and looked over to Sunny. She was simply patiently waiting for me to talk. She probably had from the moment she left the bathroom and saw what I had yet to realize. “So I may or may not have a really stupid idea for a longer project that would require me to go back home early and might keep me occupied for a couple of months.”

I had hoped, despite better knowledge, that dropping this kind of bombshell would upset Sunny at least a little bit and make her plea for me to stay. But she was too understanding, too patient, and way too selfless. I really should have seen that next question coming. “Will it make you happy?”

I grimaced. Slightly. “I don’t know yet. It might. Either way, it… it feels like something I should do? No. More like… something I need to do.”

Sunny nodded. “Then you will have my full support, of course.”

I sighed. Of course.

Despite my slight annoyance and disappointment, I still smiled. Because she had my back. She would always have my back. I stood up, walked around the table and hugged her. “I love you.”

And without a second thought, she hugged me back. “I love you too.”

And that was that.

Bucking Greenwood.

To Err (On The Side Of Caution)

The party had been over for the past half an hour or so. All the guests who did not take a guest room in the castle — so basically everypony except Aurora — were escorted to the doors, farewells were exchanged, alongside wishes of a calm night, a good way home, the usual. Aurora went to bed with little to no fanfare, remarking that we would have a decent chunk of time before she needed to return home. Highlights of the party swam in my mind like precious little islands in a shallow sea of wine. Fluttershy’s disheveled mane after Pinkie teased her relentlessly while playing Twister. Aurora becoming more clingy the more she drank. Derpy enthusiastically recounting the tales from our Ogres & Oubliettes-campaigns for the umpteenth time to her daughter and granddaughter. Laughing with Gabby about Spikes continued awkwardness when she really flirted with him.

It still took us half an hour to finish up for the day. Because no matter how much Pinkie insisted, this was my party and I would not let her clean up the next day. I preferred order. I was not as neurotic about it as Twilight, I liked to believe, but I wholeheartedly agreed that everything had its proper place and every room had a should-be state. Cleaning up properly would involve more than what we did, though. That was the compromise I had been willing to go along with, at Pinkie’s… well, it was not begging, per se. Just repeatedly asking in a voice that jumped up one octave every time she did it.

I had conscripted Spike to help me out. And I could not stop Twilight from doing the same, even if I had tried. I was glad that the former bid his goodnight a little earlier and I hoped, hoped that Gabby and him ended up in their very soundproof room this time and not in the kitchen or a broom closet. Again.

And all of that amusing nonsense formed just another little island in the sea. It led to me following Twilight along. It would have been easy to trot up to her side and walk alongside her. But I did not mind walking behind her. Not when she put on such a display. She walked slowly. Deliberately. Her hips swayed ever so slightly. Her tail swished from side to side in a shocking display of shamelessness and willingness to tease. I wished I could claim that the years had tempered my desires, yet here I was, utterly transfixed onto her rump and oh so willing to pounce.

Yet the bedroom was more or less in sight. The door at the far end of the corridor. We closed in on it at agonizingly low speed, but we did close in on it. I needed something to distract myself just a little bit further, and Twilight was surprisingly helpful with that. “—didn’t exactly expect her to put her… her flank in my face like that, but, I mean, I did not mind much either, you know?” she slurred her way through another little anecdote about the party. She babbled and I did not mind. I loved hearing her voice, and I occasionally listened in. It always gave me a reason to smile.

But right now, hearing her drag out the words and seeing her focus on pronunciation gave me a decent excuse to play the mature-card. “Peanut, give me the bottle, you’re drunk.”

The floating bottle of wine made its way considerably closer to her head while she fixed me with a death glare that would have been fearsome, were it not for her constant blushing and goofy smile. “No I’m not!” she immediately insisted. A moment later, her face lit up with a thought that apparently made her feel incredibly smart. “I’m tipsy!”

She giggled, and I could not help but giggle with her. A moment later, I shook my head and tried again. “Fine. Peanut, give me the bottle, you’re tipsy!”

Her horn illuminated the path for us. A little brighter than the lanterns hanging from the hallways ceiling. It brightened further for a brief moment and a quiet pop signaled the vanishing of the bottle. I had no idea where she had teleported it to. Usually, I would chide her for casting while being drunk. But it did not even cross my mind as she blew a raspberry at me, accompanied by such an irresistibly smug grin. “What bottle?” she asked innocently.

And with that, she opened the bedroom door and vanished out of sight. I heard another pop and chuckled. I followed her in, closed the door and half-expected to see the bottle returned to her side when I turned around. Instead, Twilight demonstrated her sense of responsibility. The bathroom door was open, aggressive white light flooded into the bedroom, and I could hear the rhythmic noise of her brushing her teeth.

We had tried using the bathroom at the same time, but quickly learned that we did not like it much. Not just because we constantly got into each other's way, but that was a major contributing factor. So instead of cramming myself in there as well, I walked over to the bed, reared up on my hindlegs and let myself fall backwards. I landed with a soft thud on my back on the bed and stared up at the beautiful night sky ceiling. It was a… how did she call it? A reimagining of the ceiling in Luna's bedroom. We all loved her pretty nightly displays. We all loved the stars, the moon, the night as a whole. Each for different reasons, maybe. But that shared appreciation had contributed to our bedroom.

Well, technically her bedroom. I still had my own. Somewhere. But whenever I was in Ponyville, I slept here, with her. If Luna came over and they wanted to be just the two of them, I would be in Canterlot. And much to my dismay, Sunny rarely made it out here. I could understand why, obviously. It was quite a hassle for her. So many strings attached. But on the occasional night, I still regretted it. Maybe I could lure her over here more often were I to paint a pretty dawn on my ceiling? But that would still fail to address how notoriously swamped with work she constantly was.

My slowly sinking thoughts were drawn back to the surface when Twilight crawled up beside me. She nudged me ever so slightly, but I understood well enough. It probably looked awkward as I shuffled myself up higher on the bed, away from the edge.

Once I came to a halt again, she cuddled up to me. I sighed in contentment. This was the life. A good life. I tilted my head and kissed her forehead. Her coat on mine. Her primaries lazily drew little circles on my stomach. Her warm breath tickled my neck. This is heaven.

“Do you remember the first time we shared a bed?” she asked innocently. Or maybe not-so-innocently.

Her voice was small. Quiet. And a little soberer than I remembered. “How could I not? It feels like it’s barely been a year ago.” My hoof found its way into her mane and I lazily played around with it. She sighed happily, a fond smile gracing her lips. Her eyes were closed and her muzzle rested on my chest. Before my mind's eye, scenarios played out. Replayed. Memories. What ifs. Dreams. With very blurry lines between them, sometimes. “I was so nervous to do something wrong,” I added belatedly. It was silly, in retrospect. But at the same time, I could not say with certainty that I would feel different today. The fear of failing, of ‘doing something wrong’, had stayed with me throughout my entire life so far. Sometimes, on good days, I was willing to call this something good. It kept me on the edge of my hooves, and my hooves planted on the ground. It kept me cautious. On other days, I recognized that it kept me from doing many things. Sometimes including those I would like to try. Because of course, everything had to be double-edged, always.

“Me too,” Twilight replied. She giggled so quietly that I could feel it more than I heard it. “And we did not even have anything naughty in mind.”

Speak for yourself, peanut. I smirked. A part of me was glad she did not see, while another bemoaned exactly that. “Oh? Pray tell, do we have something naughty in mind now?” I cautiously angled my head a little down to get a better look at her. And just as expected, she had that telltale smile.

“What makes you say that?” she asked, unaware that I already caught her. Her smile only widened. Maybe she felt that I observed her. Maybe she realized that I knew.

“You have that adorkable grin you always get when something lewd enters your mind,” I answered.

She did not even try to hide her grin. “I might?” she teased. Her horn lit up dimly, with just enough magic to grab something very light close nearby. I looked around curiously and spotted a traitorous raspberry glow beneath the pillows. From where she retrieved a set of silken scarves a moment later.

When I looked back at her again, her eyes were open. And she gave me such a teasing, promising, alluring bedroom stare that I felt like melting and agreeing to whatever right then and there. I sometimes forgot that Twilight was a quick learner, always eager to better herself. And she had been learning from Luna for years. We both regularly agreed that she therefore had been learning from the best tease there was.

That did not mean I was willing to accept defeat so easily, though. “Are those for you, or for me?” I asked.

She placed a first, tender kiss on my shoulder. And another a little higher. And another higher yet. A small trail formed, up to my jaw, sparing my waiting lips, and past my cheek to my ear. “It is your arrival day, so you may choose. Welcome to the afterparty!”

Another dichotomy. A part of me wanted to agree to anything and everything. Another had to be reigned in, because I did not want to chuckle. But gosh darn, that line was so corny. I loved it. The side that tried to put up a little bit of resistance, that insisted on a little bit of fighting, eventually won out. “You have a book with instructions ready somewhere, don’t you?” I teased her. Blindfolds, scarves, collars, even gags had been toys that were a decently regular stable in Luna's bedroom. I knew she used them with Twilight, because Luna could sometimes not be stopped to boast about it. And rarely did I even try to stop her these days. And Twilight probably knew the same the other way around. She had been eager to try this with me for a while. We had talked about it at length. But somehow, it just had not worked out yet. We therefore had no idea how our own dynamic would work best. With Luna, it was easy. Nopony was dominant with Luna around. And as far as I was concerned, that was fine. But I suspected that the same held true for Twilight and that maybe, just maybe, she was eager to find out what being the leading part was like. After all, curiosity was an integral part of her.

After mulling over her options for a moment, Twilight sighed and looked at me in a way that quickly told me to tread carefully with what came next. “Do. Not. Laugh.” Despite the force she tried and failed to pack into those words, I recognized the plea behind them. And I nodded in earnest. It did seem to put her mind at ease a little.

Her horn lit up again and I heard the drawer on the bedside table being opened. Out came a book. Of course. It was a modern one, with a flashy cover and bright colors. Bondage for Dummies.

I had to work hard not to chuckle as I read the title. I stifled it just enough that no noise was made, even though I suspected she felt the tremor go through my body. I kissed her nose in an effort to reassure her further. Even if I had laughed, I would not laugh at her.

There was fire in her eyes. A familiar sight, really. And I could not deny that I was eager to get into this afterparty she apparently had planned. Had she drunk the wine just to get a boost of confidence? To make things a little easier on herself?

It took me a moment to understand what kind of fire I saw. She was eager, positively itching to start. She wanted this. Badly. She finally wanted to try, to not waste another opportunity, to get a grip on something new and exciting.

Her eagerness really was what drew out my playful side. She was not the only one who had taken a lesson or two from a certain blue-coated minx. If she wanted to be in control, I would make her work for it. By tiring her out as best as I could. And if she still had the energy afterwards, well, then I would grant her free reign.

With my decision made and the gist of it communicated via a daring grin, I pressed my lips to hers. My hoof retreated from her mane and grabbed hold of her neck to further pull her in. I wrestled control from her, shifted myself on top of her and felt all the smugness in the world when her wings extended a little and she sighed deeply into the kiss. It was a good start.

A part of me obviously knew that I would have failed had she not played along. Physically overpowering an alicorn was almost impossible. It certainly was for me. But this was about the illusion that it was possible. And with my hooves and lips eagerly exploring familiar terrain, it was easier to forget as my focus drifted to the task before me. Her joy would be my joy. And I wanted to raise her to the heavens.

We lay cuddled up together again a while later. For as much as I liked cleanliness, I felt sweaty and hot and sticky in all the right ways. It almost made me want to purr. And judging by Twilight's occasional sighs, she seemed quite satisfied as well.

Not that this would stop me, of course. I knew my little peanut well enough. I knew that alicorn physique was a marvel and that she could take lots more than she had. And as long as I could still move, this afterparty was not over.

Now, admittedly, sex was not a physical examination. It was not about—

Well. Actually.

Sex was about whatever the involved ponies — or other creatures — made it about. For me, it was about sharing myself. About trust. About intimacy. About letting my partner see me and hear me and feel me in a way I would never allow anyone else to. And that trust would be repaid in kind. And thus, we would share something exclusive. Something only meant for us.

It was not about actually exhausting her, or myself. That said, I was not exactly the sporty type, but having my way with her — or the other way around — for as long as possible or at least as long as either of us was still willing was a philosophy I could get behind. Literally, sometimes.

It was therefore quite cute how she made herself comfortable, as if we were done. Maybe we were — she would tell me. I simply took this opportunity as a breather.

Much to my dismay however, my mind started to play tricks on me again as soon as I had a calm minute. It grabbed me by the mane and dragged me back a couple of hours and placed me in a memory I had managed to bury beneath layers of joy and fun and smiles. My conversation with Roseluck.

It’s fine, really. Time ticks on relentlessly, doesn’t it? We will both have to make that experience a couple more times before we might get used to it.

Her words repeated themselves in my head like a broken record. To put a more positive spin on it, I tried to reimagine the entire scene. She smiled warmly, instead of that dour, pained smile she actually wore. Her tone was just a smidge more chipper than it actually had been. And the lesson to be learned here, instead of: Everypony dear to us will die and we will eventually become so desensitized that we will barely feel the pain anymore; was this: The time you have with your loved ones is precious. Use it wisely.

My desire to continue the afterparty dimmed further and further the more this chain of thought took root and spun out of control. I eventually landed on an observation I had made when Pinkie dragged me into the library. And it elicited a sigh of a different kind. It was just my luck that Twilight picked up on it immediately. “What’s wrong?” she asked, almost alarmed.

“Just… thinking,” I tried to stall for time. I did not know what exactly I expected to change though. What good would it do me to get more time?

“Let me in,” she asked quietly.

I sighed again and kissed her. To convey a simple, yet important message. She was in. She would always be. While I might sometimes need to take time to sort my thoughts and put them into words, it was never about closing myself off or shutting her out. “They weren’t there,” I finally started. Maybe it was unfair to play the pronoun game. But Twilight was smart. She understood quickly.

“Rainbow and Applejack.”

I nodded. Even in my own mind, I referred to them as ‘they’. As if the act of thinking their names would hurt. Not to mention speaking them aloud. And to be fair, it had stung a little hearing their names from her lips. “I miss them.”

Twilight sighed as well, very much in tune with my earlier display. “I miss them too.”

We all miss them.

The situation was… complicated. As so many things in life were. But then again: Getting involved with Sunny despite my gravitation towards Twilight was complicated. Building this entire weird relationship constellation we had going on was complicated. Guarding dreamers against a nightly onslaught of nightmares and dreamscape creatures with barely a dozen ponies was complicated. Understanding the internal dynamic of the Cutie Mark Crusaders was complicated. Leading a life constantly burdened by fractured memories and a callous voice in the back of my head was complicated.

Had any of that ever stopped me?

I failed. Time and time again, I failed.

And each and every time, somehow, I got back up. Usually with help. On rare occasions, I managed it alone. But once I was back on my hooves again, what did I do? There were so many voices in my head. Telling me to stop. Telling me to back away. Telling me to learn. Telling me the ‘price’ was not worth the pain of failure. Telling me of the embarrassment and the shame. And I did feel ashamed each and every time I failed. And I was embarrassed.

And yet I tried again and again. I ran my head in on a wall, until the freaking wall gave up.

I had no idea how I did this.

I was decently sure I would not be able to do it without all the ponies in my life, carrying me, aiding me, lifting me up, pulling me up again and again as I stumbled and failed my way through life.

Things being complicated should not stop me.

And if things went sideways, well. I could always try again. I did that a lot, after all.

“I’m going to take the train tomorrow. I will try to talk some sense into them.” And just like that, my decision was made. It had been so hard for years. But here it was. The moment where I gave the rope a solid tug and somehow, the knot came undone.

“We tried that,” Twilight remarked. “Pinkie tried. Fluttershy tried. You tried. I tried. We tried as a group. You know how she is, she… she will not listen.”

There was a noticeable tone of hope in her voice, though. It was enough to keep me going. “I remember you making her listen a couple of times,” I argued with a smile.

“Yes, but… I could not reach her this time.” It was heartbreaking to hear the sadness in her voice. The regret. And probably no small amount of self-condemnation. If only she had tried harder. If only she had found the right words. Or the right time. If only.

I knew phrases like these with intimate familiarity. They were poison to the mind. I sometimes struggled with them to this very day. “Of all the things you could have learned from me, why this?” I tried to lighten the mood a little.

She tried to play along and jabbed my shoulder with her hoof. “You do not own self-deprecation,” she insisted.

“Says you,” I retorted and before she could argue further, I sealed her lips with mine. “We all tried for a long time,” I restarted more seriously. “I like to think that none of us ever gave up. But trying takes energy. And eventually, we all ran low. We needed a breather. It was a long one, admittedly. But I can’t let it end like this. Neither can you. It isn’t right.”

“Shall I accompany you?” she asked. Her voice was soft. Quiet. And it carried an obvious, unspoken plea. Please let me come with you.

I tried to imagine it. I would certainly appreciate her company on the train ride. It would help me keep my nerves in check. But once we reached our destination, what then? A few scenarios played out in my head and as per usual, they got nasty quickly. I grimaced accordingly. “I don’t know. If we both show up, she might feel cornered. Last time more than one tried to talk her out of this nonsense, she got defensive immediately and it devolved into yelling within minutes. I’m keen on not repeating that. I don’t particularly deal well with being yelled at, and Applejack can get loud. I mean… I’m pretty sure the frames on the walls rattled.” It was a measly attempt to lighten the mood, and it failed. I shook my head and dismissed the notion. “I need to see what we are working with first. This is more of a recon-mission to prepare a better offense, I think. She had time to cool down. To settle in. Or not. While we recuperated, she did… something, I’m sure. Stew in her own misery, maybe. I don’t know. We’ll see. But I don’t think you coming in with me is a good idea. That said, if you’re up for it… I’d still like your company on the way there? And back?”

I looked down and saw a soft smile tug at her lips as her cheek brushed against the coat of my chest. “Sounds good,” she answered and squeezed me a little. “Just remember to blow the horn if you need reinforcements.”

She meant well. She tried to bolster my confidence. She was being serious. Yet despite this, a coltish part of my mind snickered gleefully. And just like that, a heavy weight was lifted. I could breathe easily, the clouds on the horizon deigned to stay there for a while longer and a light-hearted playfulness returned to my core. “Isn’t ‘blowing the horn’ your thing?”

She froze for a second. Just a second. Before she grimaced slightly and giggled. “That was awful!” she chided while her giggle only picked up strength.

I raised my forehooves. “I know, I know, it was pretty bad.”

“Painfully bad!” she insisted and tried to stifle her laughter.

I took the opportunity and slipped out of her embrace. I wormed my way a little bit lower, to be muzzle to muzzle with her. “Yeah, I’m sorry. Here, let me make it up to you.”

“You don’t have t—ahhh~!”

I smirked at her when I withdrew my teeth and tenderly licked over the sensitive spot on her neck. In my mind, I had a map of her body. How the layout of her favorite spots changed, both over the years and according to mood. I loved little demonstrations such as this one. They screamed: I know you.

Her eyes were half-lidded and inviting when she managed to focus again. “Careful, I’m still a little sensitive…”

I know, I tested it.

I know, and I love it.

I know, you showed me.

All the various thoughts popping up in my mind had one thing in common. I sported a smug grin and simply uttered: “I know.” I went for another spot on her collarbone, intent to work my way down again. And I loved every single thing about this. I loved the taste of her coat and skin. The scent of her body. The subtle display of muscles working. How she clenched her eyes shut when my warm breath tickled her teat, and how she sighed deeply when the tip of my tongue followed suit and traced over it. I loved how her back arched when I finally stopped teasing and licking agonizingly slow circles around her entrance and instead went all in.

I loved her. And despite the feeling that I would never properly be able to convey that, I loved trying to show her.

I let myself fall back and once again landed on my back. With my eyes closed, I still traced her taste on my lips, licking them with my tongue. “You know,” I started after a moment, “I think married life gets a bad rep.” I grinned from ear to ear as I looked over.

Twilight slowly came down. Like a feather, tenderly carried by the wind. She had her eyes closed. Her right wing, still fully extended, gave the occasional flap in accordance with her right hindleg, which still kicked slightly sometimes. Her forehooves pawed. The right one at the bedsheets, the left one at my chest. It took a solid half minute until my words went through the haze in her mind. I doubted she understood any of them. She opened her eyes, still unfocused and wide, and simply rolled over onto her side. Against me. She buried her nose in my mane, nipped tenderly at my neck and nuzzled me as if her life depended on it.

And it made me so incredibly happy. I felt like I could just burst out of sheer joy.

“Why?” she lazily, drowsily asked. Then a goofy grin sprang up and she added: “Because you can live out all your fantasies now?”

I snorted in amusement and pulled her in further. I held her with one forehoof and used the other to stroke along her primaries on her right wing. Within less than a minute, I calmed it down and helped it relax. Enough so that she could properly refold it onto her back. “Because I couldn’t do that already without that?” She grinned and nosed along my neck once again. A soft, pleasant shiver ran down my spine. “No, it’s about trust.”

“Hmmm~” What an eloquent answer. Truly, it could have been one of mine. “How so?”

I smiled. “I can lay bare everything I have, everything I am, before you… and trust that you do not laugh at me, but embrace me and maybe even understand me.”

“Well I am pretty good at understanding weirdness,” Twilight replied with a confident smirk.

I placed a kiss on her nose and enjoyed seeing how she wrinkled it in turn. “Every time I said ‘yes’ in front of an altar, I solidified and reinforced something I knew to be true in my heart already. But that reassurance still helps whenever I struggle. Which I still do a lot. Point is: I’m eternally grateful for you. And I love you.”

She raised her head just enough to share a kiss with me. “You expect to have a bad day tomorrow?”

I sighed and smiled wryly. “It probably will be.”

“And you are fortifying yourself?” she continued.

I shrugged. “A little. I still need to be open for it to work. I would very much prefer if she were reasonable and listened. But I don’t expect that. And if she hits and I don’t stagger, she knows I went in prepared for a fight. I don’t want this to be a fight. A fight implies opponents, and victors, and losers. So I go in unarmed and as unarmored as I dare.”

Twilight sighed and hugged me that little bit tighter. “I will be there with you. Right there beside you in spirit, at least. We all will be.”

A few seconds trickled by and the silence stretched. It was not unpleasant by any means. But the moon was high up in the sky, the room temperature seemed comparatively cold and licked the excess warmth from our bodies and the exhaustion started to settle in. This had been one heck of an afterparty, with more rounds than I cared to count. I felt spent. And happy. And both of these things were plenty enough to keep the dread and foreboding at bay for now. Tomorrow was a tomorrow-Dreamwalker-problem.

We decided in unison that it was time and pulled the blanket up over us. Tightly entangled as we were, accustomed to the other's body warmth and closeness, standing up and cleaning up and all the rest was out of the question. We settled in for the night.

Due to our nightly activities, our day started considerably later than I had expected. A late morning sun stood high in the sky, it might even have been early midday. My tongue felt furry, the entire room reeked of too much fun and I found it hard to care, seeing as I was still entangled with such a beauty. A quietly snoring beauty that threatened to drool onto the pillow. She was perfect.

My plans had been simple, really. But following the conversation, they had undergone several iterations of changes. Initially, I wanted to quietly slip out. Not an easy task, but possible. A quick stop in the bathroom to get the essentials in, and then off to the train station, skipping breakfast entirely. The late hour was an issue in that regard, because if Spike caught me sneaking around — sneaking towards the door especially — he would unleash Tartarus upon me for trying to skip the most important meal of the day. According to him.

Then it became apparent that Twilight would accompany me and that meant sneaking her past Spike as well and maybe getting in more than just the bare necessities when it came to my morning bathroom stop.

And then Twilight actually woke up and just by her groggily murmured “G’morning” I could already tell that she needed something solid in her stomach and at least two mugs of coffee alongside it.

I chuckled a little as I kissed her nose. “Morning.”

I was not a morning pony. For as much as I loved Sunny’s pretty dawns and watching the delight in her eyes, those early hours could usually go to Tartarus for all I cared. But I felt refreshed. Invigorated. And most importantly: Awake. While Twilight looked very much the way I felt on most other mornings.

She wrinkled her muzzle in mild disgust as I kissed her nose and then mumbled something unintelligible. It only served to make me chuckle. Seeing how she tried to flee from the sun’s merciless light by crawling deeper underneath the blanket and half into me gave me an idea. “I’ll be right back,” I announced and disentangled myself from her. She fought back a little bit, but ultimately deemed it not worth her effort and instead curled in on herself, completely obscured from sight as a bundle of pony beneath the cover. Not even strands of her mane poked out, it was quite impressive.

First things first, I really needed to get the smell out. I levitated a second and third blanket out of the closet in the corner and put it on top of Twilight and then opened the window. Fresh, cold air streamed into the room and instantly made me shiver.

I went into the bathroom, stuck to the essentials and then made my way down to the kitchen. It was quite a surprise that I did not run into Spike along the way. I threw together a breakfast for the two of us and made a pot of coffee. The sink showed no signs of recent use either, which led me to believe that Spike had not woken up either. Or maybe they were awake, but had not left his room just yet. I decided not to dwell on the mental images that that conjured up. After all, he was a dragon, with dragon teeth and fire breath and a long, long, split tongue and she had a beak and…

Nope.

And then I thought I remembered that both dragons and griffins laid eggs, did they not?

I said: Nope!

I shook my head a little more violently and decided against preparing breakfast for them. I knew a bit about what Gabby liked. The list of what she did not like was considerably shorter. But maybe Spike wanted to go for breakfast in bed as well. Or maybe he had other ideas of his own. Preparing something only for it to go to waste or worse still, to instill a bad conscience in him, was not the aim here.

I could not resist leaving a little note on the kitchen counter, though. Running late, eh, buddy? I hope you do your chores as thoroughly as you do her!

A little too crass and uncouth for my tastes, but the aim was to embarrass and tease him a little and I knew that would get to him, straight past all defenses. I chuckled a little as I imagined him reading this and his scales turning shades of violet.

I grabbed the breakfast platter I had prepared and went back to our room. Nothing had changed, of course.

There was a little bit of movement when I audibly closed the door. And more still when I put the platter down on the bedside table and the stench of her favorite morning brew wafted over to her.

“That is all kinds of wrong,” came her muffled voice from within the blanket cocoon.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as I crawled back into bed. I was cautious not to disturb her blanket fortress however, seeing as I had been up and about for a while and my body was likely considerably colder than hers now.

“It was your party, yet I get to have breakfast in bed?” she both asked and explained.

I chuckled and shrugged, even though she obviously could not see that. “Well, my party was yesterday. It’s a brand new day~”

I patiently waited for a couple of seconds. And I was rewarded for it. “And the sun is high~” she answered from within the blankets.

I grinned and patted the bundle. “Ain’t going to be much of a breakfast in bed if you don’t come out to get it, though.”

The bundle shifted. Then it shifted some more. Then it hobbled a little. And started to crawl towards me. It was such a weird sight that I started laughing. A shrill, albeit quiet shriek escaped my throat amidst the laughter when the incredibly slowly advancing blanket-snail reared up and swallowed me whole. Now I had reason to keep laughing because I was ticklish and Twilight, in her single-minded aim to get coffee into her system, crawled right on top of me. And half over me.

I was granted a brief respite when she stopped to peek outside of her blanket-shell. My muzzle was pressed against her stomach. Her coat was matted. The smell I had successfully banished from the room by opening the window had been preserved under here. And although I grimaced a little due to the pungent note, I could not help but smile at the same time. I kissed her belly and ignored the faint acrid taste. I enjoyed the gesture, because it made her giggle and chide me. “Stop it!” she demanded. I kissed her again. “Dream, stop! I am going to spill coffee on you!”

I chuckled and kissed her once more. “Nah. I’m way too far down for it to reach me.” That’s an idea. I shuffled a little further down and grabbed her haunches.

“Oh don’t you dare!” she warned me and a soft kick against my shoulder told me to actually stop.

I still chuckled, though. It was always funny to tease such reactions out of her. I could understand why Luna had such fun doing it. To her or me, really.

As a sign that I relented, I wiggled my way up again and came out the other side, poking my head up from under the blankets. I had not noticed how warm it was beneath them until the room's cold air hit me in the muzzle. “Oof.”

Twilight blushed slightly. “Thanks for the additional blankets.”

“Could you get a bit more sleep in?” I asked, but she shook her head.

“Not really, no. But this allowed me to wake up slowly and be less cranky about it.” She leaned down and nuzzled me. No kisses. Because coffee was a vile concoction and almost any poison was preferable to it. Both Twilight and Luna disagreed passionately, while Sunny was my only reinforcement on that front.

A good portion of scrambled eggs and a few slices of toasted bread with jam later, Twilight vanished into the bathroom and I extricated myself from the shell she left behind. I stuffed the sheets into the laundry, fixed the bed — with some new sheets, of course — and carried the plate, pot, mug and cutlery back to the kitchen to clean it up.

In all that time, I neither saw nor heard scale or fin from Spike. Or Gabby, for that matter.

I shrugged it off and went along with Twilight when we met at the castle door. It was a nice walk through town. A few clouds were overheard, sure, but these white mountains had yet to grow into the harbingers of rain they were meant to be. It would take another couple of days for that to happen. We were therefore granted a nice, warm sun baking our coats as a counterpart to the occasional chilly gust of wind. Walking in the shadows was still too cold, so for the sun to offset this was perfect.

Strolling through town never got old. I still recognized most of the faces we encountered, even though Ponyville had grown a good deal and even though some of the old faces were, well, truly old.

We waited at the train station in companionable silence. I sometimes closed my eyes and focused on my sense of smell when a gust of wind blew past and carried the scent of blooming life. Flowers and trees and grass and fertile dirt. I sometimes wondered what my life would have looked like if I had been born as an earth pony. I sometimes felt connected to the land in a way I found hard to put to words. But then again, I sometimes felt connected to the wind and the sky in a similar fashion. Even though I was a unicorn and according to my memories, never had been anything else.

I had told Twilight about it once. She immediately proceeded to tease me about it. How it surely meant that there was potential for another alicorn there. That thought was as scary as it was absurd. If Shining Armor had not managed to ascend, neither would I. And truly, that was for the better.

What would I even be the prince of? Prince of the shut-ins? Prince of the morose?

I shook my head and dismissed the direction my thoughts threatened to drift off to. And instead took half a step closer to Twilight, until our coats lay against each other. I was glad she only took a satchel with her instead of her usual saddlebags. The satchel did not get in the way.

Twilight did not ask what was wrong, or if anything was wrong to begin with. She simply extended a wing over my back. I nuzzled her mane as a silent thank you. And a few minutes later, our train arrived and we took our seats.

Once we left Ponyville Station, things slowly started to change. The constant, rhythmic rattling along the tracks. Her proximity. The sun still baking my coat through the window, now without the chilly wind to counter it. I did not overheat as much as it lulled me back into a certain state of drowsiness. Eventually, I felt her magic on my cheek. It failed to startle me. I looked up and saw her smile. A warm, kind, fond smile. She repositioned herself a little and her magic gave my cheek a soft push.

I felt a lazy, goofy grin spread on my lips as I followed her invitation and laid my head on her back as if it were a pillow. Silver Shoals was a few hours off. We had time. No rush.

I closed my eyes and felt whole.

I opened my eyes and felt fear.

For all the disorientation that I felt, it mattered little. A violent, gruesome panic had dug its talons into my heart and held it in a tight grip. Too tight. It dug the razor-sharp tips into it.

Twilight and I held on. For now. But how much longer would we be able to?

She had grabbed that ledge up above. And I clung to her back hooves. And the yawning abyss beneath us simply waited. We would lose this fight eventually. There was no rush. Twilight would not be able to pull herself up. Not with my added weight. Not without dislodging me.

And I feared.

I was consumed by it.

It was all I knew.

All I could think of.

The fear of falling. Of what might be down there. Of losing myself to that bottomless, lightless, hopeless void. The fear of losing her. The fear of holding her back. Of costing her dearly. Her life. A chance. Whatever it would be that I would take from her. The fear of rejection. The fear of not being rejected. I feared myself as much as her. I feared that ledge, and what might be up on top there. I could not see anything up there. I could not hear anything up there. But did that mean that there was nothing? No. No, certainly not. And I feared what might be up there.

Twilight turned to me. Her voice echoed in this wall-less void, somehow. It was a quiet voice. Pleading. Maybe even afraid? Afraid of what?

“If you love me… you let me go,” she said.

I let go.

And I fell.

I closed my eyes.

And I fell.

Forever.

“Wake up!”

I sat up with a gasp as if I had been drowning. My ears swiveled about, my eyes shot wide open, my head snapped around as I tried to discern where I was, who I was, when I was, why I was. My senses scanned for enemies, for dangers, but all they found were the worried glances of other passengers and Twilight beside me. It was cold. Rime covered our seats. Just ours. How odd.

She grabbed my cheeks with her hooves and forced me to look at her. I involuntarily tried to resist, but alicorn strength meant I could do little about it. It helped. It forced me to focus.

I eventually managed to close my eyes without being frightened by flashes of my dream. I managed to take a calming, steadying breath.

“Thanks,” I whispered ashamedly. “I-I’m fine.”

That stutter did not escape her notice. Of course it did not. That would have been too much of a mercy. “What is wrong?”

Nothing!, a voice yelled in the back of my head. I had difficulties discerning if it was mine, or his. “I-I…” Damn stutter. I took another deep breath. “It was just a nightmare.”

“You look haunted,” she replied. I knew what would come next. “Tell me about it.”

A not so insignificant part of me wanted to play it down with a joke. About how I ‘looked haunted’ half the time anyway and that it should not make much of a difference. But that would have been in poor taste. I had had too many breakdowns and crises over the years to joke about it like that. “I’m just shaken,” I tried to worm my way out of explaining it. “I’ll be fine in a sec.”

Her grip on my face tightened ever so slightly. It was obvious. I would not get out of it this easily. “Don’t.”

It was a word with meaning. Between the two of us, especially. A simple, single word I always reacted to in a strong way. As if my mind was hardwired to look out for it.

Don’t let go.

Don’t you dare.

Don’t lie to me.

Don’t leave me.

Don’t hurt her.

Don'ts were important. This one was easily demystified. Don’t shut me out. I sighed deeply and nodded. I would not. I had given my word that I never would.

Only after I nodded did she release me from her grip. “Hadn’t had that one in years,” I meekly admitted. She waited patiently. Another sigh. “It’s the ledge. I… we… you cling to the ledge, and I cling to you. You tell me that… if I love you, I would let you go. The dream takes one of two routes at this point. Either I let go immediately, or I hesitate before I let go. The difference is so small, but feels so incredibly significant. What is making me hesitate? What’s going on in my own mind? Both routes end with me falling. I close my eyes. And I imagine you smile at me. And… a-and it’s just… incredibly painful,” I recounted the dream up until the point when my throat grew tight enough to strangle me. I tried to push past the feeling of dread and breathlessness, but to no avail. Only when I decided to force myself to take a breath did my throat loosen up a bit. “It’s painful because deep down in my heart, I know that I will never see you smile at me like that. A… a part of me expects to feel your magic softly embracing me shortly after I let go. But it never does. You never catch me. And because my eyes are closed, I don’t… I-I don’t know if you even t-tried. Fuck.” I grimaced. I did not like cursing. It always felt alien to me. Unnecessary. But as far as pathetic displays went, I was giving one already anyway. Those other travelers were kind enough not to comment. Kind enough to pretend that they did not notice the show I was giving. But I knew better. And I hated it. I hated myself, once again. For this perceived weakness. For how little self-control I had. For the tightness in my throat. I managed to keep those tears welling in my eyes from spilling, but goodness me, did I hate them even being there.

I shook my head and soldiered on. “There’s a part of me that feels… disconnected. There is no anger. No disappointment. No jealousy. But no joy either, no trust or love or happiness. Just a vast, cold emptiness. A void.”

“I remember now,” Twilight whispered. She repositioned herself so we could sit side by side and her wing extended over my back like a security blanket. I hated how much I loved it. For just a second, I did. Then I slowly relaxed and melted into the familiarity of it all. Back then, she had tried to console me with all kinds of reassurances. How she would never ask such a thing of me. How she would not let me fall. But that was not the point. And even if it were — ‘never’ is a dangerous word. “You sometimes wondered if that was him,” she added belatedly.

I nodded. It was a possibility, after all. He constantly saw through my eyes, heard through my ears, sometimes even spoke through my voice when I failed to notice his subtle influence on my thoughts. For better or worse, he was always with me, always there. And if he could influence me, why should it not be possible that I had nightmares about what was going on with him?

But he never struck me as the type to be afraid much. To be scared of anything, really. I knew better though. Yet even then, it was hard imagining him being so utterly panicked. Even when scared, he chose to lash out. He always went with aggression over cowardice. He went full on offense when cornered. It did not quite fit what I felt in that dream.

Another sigh escaped my throat. At least it was a steady one. No tremors audible. “I got so incredibly clingy for a while back then. I’m still so, so sorry about that.”

Twilight smiled. “It is fine. We managed.”

“There were times where I was too scared to ask myself: Do I truly love you? Do I even know what that means? What love is? What it feels like to love? Or is it maybe just dedication? A decision I made and stuck with?” Another shaky breath. I despised it. Yet it only served to make apparent that these questions sometimes still haunted me.

Haunted. Funny. She had said I looked haunted.

Her voice cut through the rising haze. “I cannot tell you what you felt back then, or what you might feel now,” she admitted before quickly moving on. “But I can tell you that I love you, and that I felt loved each and every day we shared.”

Maybe that has to be enough. A part of me knew that it would not get much better than this. Could not, really. So I leaned against her, closed my eyes and listened to the train rattling over the tracks. Listened to the faint background noise of other conversations taking place. Listened to her steady and calm breathing. And it was the latter that managed to help me sort out the mess I had once again become before we arrived at our destination.

Few ponies were lucky enough to know upfront what battles in their lives were important enough to set the course and stick in their memory. Successfully getting a degree might certainly be important. But once it becomes a success in a long line of strong successes, it somewhat loses its splendor and shine a little, because it gets less unique and remarkable and becomes more expected.

Twilight and I stood beside a hedge. The hedge. It was the hedge that surrounded the Silver Stable Retirement Community in Silver Shoals. The grounds were sprawling and massive, with loads of buildings and courts and even their own little section of the harbor. It was, for all intents and purposes, a village within a village.

I took another deep breath to psych myself up some more.

I was no hero. I did not go out of my way to fight some nasty villain intent on destroying Equestria. I left those jobs for the professionals. True enough, Twilight started out as a socially awkward bookworm, not a hero. Rainbow started out as a weather team pony in a rural earth pony town. Fluttershy started out as a recluse veterinarian. But they grew into their roles with each encounter. Their life's stories formed them into what they were today.

My life had been a calm breeze in comparison to the hurricane they had to endure for quite some time.

Nevertheless, I was here to battle a mighty foe. While it had been bested before, those who won had been formidable in their own rights. If I wished to stand my ground, I would need to have my wits about me. Because I could certainly not match it in sheer force.

The Apples, they say, have the same stubbornness as mountains do. You can cry and beg and shout and kick, you can get your pickaxe and buckets and spells. They won’t budge.

Honestly, after spending so many years in the company of Apples — including but not limited to Apple Bloom, Big Macintosh, Ambrosia, Braeburn, Granny Smith and many more — I came to the simply conclusion that this ‘stubbornness of the mountains’-shtick was more an Applejack-thing than a general Apple-thing.

“I’m ready.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “You do not look ready.”

I snorted and shot her a lopsided grin. “Let’s be real, I’ll never ‘look’ ready. I’m as ready as I’ll ever get.”

“Are you sure you—“ —don’t want me to come with you?

“I am,” I cut in. This moment was critical. If I hesitated too long, my confidence would waver. I could already feel the doubting thoughts claw their way through. If Pinkie had failed to get through, what hope was there for me? If Fluttershy, Rarity, even Twilight had failed, what did I hope to accomplish what they could not? And more importantly: How?

Twilight gave me a nod and I forced my hooves to move. One step at a time, until I reached the entrance. I shot one last look back. Twilight tried to smile for me. Reassuringly. She would be here once I got out again. I could count on that. But I couldn't help but feel the weight of her hopes settle on my shoulders. They all had tried before. We had tried. Many, many times. And Applejack had refused to see reason, time and time again.

Somehow, Twilight's hopes felt less like a burdening weight and more like a protective layer. An additional force driving me forward.

“Time to get you home,” I whispered to myself, steeled my nerves and moved on.

As I passed along the gravelly road, I looked around. They had a really pretty fountain halfway to the main building. It looked like the statue spewing the water was made by the residents. A depiction of a local fish of legend, I vaguely remembered. There were little gardens to each side. Most of them were marked with cutie marks, but a couple larger ones were unmarked. Community gardening. Nice touch.

And flowerbeds. Goodness gracious, so many flowers. It was still early in the year, so I had not expected this much greenery to already be in bloom. I was no expert in botany. I knew a rose when I saw one. Hopefully. And I could recognize daisies, because Twilight loved those on her sandwiches. But everything else went straight past my head. Whatever those flowers were, they were pretty. And plentiful. White petals with yellow stems, or little red dots in the middle.

Careful, or you might exhaust your vocabulary!

I ignored the spiteful voice as best as I could and instead focused my attention on some details that stuck out. The hedge was perfectly trimmed on the outside. On the inside however, less discipline seemed to have been applied. And it grew unevenly in some places, being higher or lower and almost forming like a wave-pattern. I wondered if that was intentional or not.

And the community gardens were full, of course. Vegetables of all kinds and sizes hung on bushed, stuck out of the dirt or were currently collected by some friendly elder mares and stallions with baskets. I trained my ears on them and listened in as I walked by. The snippets I managed to scrounge together were perfect.

They had too many potatoes. And too many tomatoes. And too many cucumbers. They basically had too much of everything. It was an interesting detail to be sure, but it got so much more spicy once Applejack's name fell. As the one responsible for the plentiful harvest. Issue being: Neither of these elderly ponies seemed all that thrilled about it. They were not angry by any means, either. But the additional labor required seemed to annoy them. And some commented how unnecessary this all was.

“You don’t belong here,” I muttered to myself as I continued. These comments did make me wonder, though. Applejack had a thing for making plants grow. My eyes drifted towards the hedge again. A wave-pattern. A wild growth inside. Maybe that was her doing as well?

A few of the hobby-farmers waved friendly greetings in my direction and I was lucid enough to wave back.

A couple of minutes later and the sturdy double doors of the main building were only a couple dozen feet away. I stopped as I saw who sat in front of them, right on the probably very cold wooden ramp leading up to them. It was hard to decide on what I should feel as my heart was torn and tugged into different directions. It was nice, great even, to finally see Rainbow again. It filled me with joy and happiness for I had not seen her in years. Too many for my liking. This had been way overdue. But at the same time, seeing her state nearly broke me.

She looked miserable.

Her wings were in pristine condition, obviously, but her coat was ruffled and messed up. Her mane limply clung to her neck. She wore a persistent scowl on her wrinkled muzzle. She had her legs tucked under herself like a cat, and true to form, I would not have been surprised had she hissed at me or clawed in my direction. But it was not just her immediately apparent state that hurt so much. I could see it in her eyes. Those cerise-colored eyes that, once upon a time, burned with fire and passion, with unbridled energy and enthusiasm. Nothing could ever stop The Rainbow Dash, loudmouth extraordinaire and awesomest flier in all of Equestria.

That pony over there? That was not Rainbow Dash. That was a shadow of Rainbow. A poor imitation. A pony so utterly unhappy that it kept her grounded.

And that truly hurt.

I slowly walked closer again until I was right up with my forehooves on the ramp. Rainbow barely took notice of my existence. She certainly did not look at me and instead preferred to stare out into the open. Not into the sky, no. Just… ahead. I followed her gaze and came to the depressing conclusion that she probably stared at nothing in particular. She was not observing anypony, not making out the details of any faraway building or landscape feature. She just stared to stare.

“Hey Rainbow,” I greeted her. The movement of her ears were the only thing indicating any reaction. They swiveled in my direction and for a fraction of a second, her eyes followed. Only to revert back immediately.

She stayed quiet for a while. The moment seemed to stretch. I waited for a response, any response. And I got one. Her brow furrowed as she probably finally remembered me.

“Buck off.”

And with that, she rose to her hooves. I could see her bite back a groan. Who knew how long she had been sitting there. Her wings rustled a little and she walked off into the garden area, off the path and into the first corner that would carry her out of sight.

I watched her go with a painful numbness in my chest. “Nice to see you too,” I whispered and took a deep breath to steady myself. If this was throwing me for a loop, I was so not ready to face Applejack. Still, I had hoped for a warmer welcome. Maybe she was angry because we had not shown our faces for a while. Maybe she had all but forgotten about that and she was angry because of some incident she had remembered. Celestia knew I had bucked up enough times in my life to give her a nice little collection of ‘why I should kick Dreamwalker’-memories. It was just unfortunate that they went to the forefront of her mind before all the ‘why I should not kick Dreamwalker’-memories.

“Lady Luck, smile upon me,” I uttered in quiet prayer. “Please, Luna, I could really use some luck here.”

I looked up to the sky in an attempt to get some divine backing down here, but instead managed to see the distorted face of a familiar pony peek past the drawn curtains. As soon as she noticed that I had seen her, she vanished from the window. I sighed.

And with that, I dared to push the doors open.

The inside of the retirement home was and was not what I expected. I had been here a couple of times already, so I was decently familiar with the layout and interior design. They stuck to pastel colors, bright and friendly. Open spaces. Large windows to allow for as much light in as possible. Many of the elderly residents were up and about somewhere on the retirement home grounds, tending to the gardens, playing polo or golf or whatever, taking little sailing trips. Stuff like that.

The few stuck inside due to bad health or other conditions usually stuck to the common areas where they could play chess or cards or draw. Last time I visited, they had this new stallion here. His mostly gray mane still offered a few streaks of dark brown, his coat was as red as wine and hoo boy, could that guy draw. With actual canvases and oil paints. While the others argued with Applejack, which quickly devolved into shouting matches, I watched that guy paint. It was so strangely calming to watch him.

I wondered if he was still around.

That was the familiar part. The entrance hall. The little reception to the side, where a nurse welcomed me with her warm smile as well as a friendly voice. “I’m just here to visit Applejack,” I told her.

What was unexpected was the smell. It had been here last time as well, but I would never grow accustomed to it. A retirement home meant old ponies, lots of them. Some were less in control of their bodily functions. That, praise Celestia, was always quickly cared for. However, others needed medicine. Balms and tinctures and whatnot. It smelled of medicine. Like a hospital. Bitter pills and disinfectant. It was a necessity, I knew that, and there was little to be done about it. They could simply not hang hundreds of these air fresheners up. Not just because it would cost a fortune to keep that going, but because it would only replace one intrusive scent with another. And while I did not like the hospital-smell, those air fresheners always made me sick.

“I remember you now,” the nurse said with a sigh. “You’re one of her friends, right? It’s been a while.”

I would have loved to duck for cover. Instead I felt the shame heat my cheeks up as I gave a curt nod. “We, uhm… last time didn’t… went so well.”

She sighed and nodded. “I remember that part, too. One of the loudest days in years. And we had a rock concert next door a few weeks later.”

“Sorry,” I half-mumbled.

Despite this, she smiled and shook her head. “It’s alright. We survived, didn’t we? I’m sure she will be… well… let’s just not repeat the yelling, yes?”

I swallowed and forced a smile on my face. “I… I’ll try?”

She nodded. Good enough for her, it seemed. “Oh and one more thing. I know she can be difficult, but if it is possible, would you mind bringing up that we really don’t need more vegetables? Her help with the gardens has been greatly appreciated, but at this point, I fear us selling the produce at the local market might aggravate the other farmers in the region.”

Oh boy, that bad, eh? I strangled that laughter that bubbled in my throat and nodded like the good little stallion I was. “Uh-huh. I’ll see what I can do.” And she seemed grateful. So this was probably just another thing they already brought up with her, and in typical AJ-fashion, they failed to move the mountain.

Well, time for the main event.

I moved past the reception, went up the stairs into the upper floor and down the hallway to the first door on the right. I knocked, and there was no response. Because of course she would not make it easy. “Sis, I’m coming in,” I warned her before I opened the door. I heard the second half of a snarky snort and deflected that painful sting by telling myself that I simply had misheard that.

I entered a room that could have been part of the Apple family house. Rustic interior, most of it probably in some way either crafted by her or cared for by her. A large bed for two. An entire wall was dedicated to trophies and medals. Rainbows trophies and medals. Applejack had hers in a couple of drawers in the closed over on the other side of the room. She did not care much for displaying them these days. She knew what she had done and she knew what she could do. That was enough.

Applejack herself sat in a rocking chair near the window. I closed the door and watched her. The chair did not move. Nevertheless, she reminded me of Granny Smith for a moment. That is, until her steel-hard gaze turned and she regarded me with wary caution.

“Is she mad again? Should I knock some sense into her?” she asked and nodded towards the window.

I sighed. Time for battle. I walked over to her and sat down on my haunches, right beside her chair. She looked at me. Truly looked at me. At my face, free from wrinkles. At my muscles, what little I had, untouched by age.

“Jus’ uncanny,” she mumbled and patiently waited for my response.

I shook my head. “Don’t use me as an excuse to argue with her, please,” I started.

“Don’t you be so uppity with me! I don’t need excuses for that, you least of y’all!” she shot back.

It was easy to get caught up. Easy to let her goad me. A part of me wanted to argue with her. She had said some nasty things in an effort to make us go away last time. And I remembered them, if I cared to let myself. I instead took a deep breath. “How are you holding up?”

Seeing me skip her barb took some wind out of her. “We’re fine,” she grumbled.

Silence fell for a couple of minutes. Applejack avoided looking at me and instead stared out of the window. The angle was good, she could see the retirement home’s grounds. Maybe even wherever Rainbow had run off to. “I’ve seen the community gardens outside,” I tried a different approach. It actually made me smile. It was so incredibly Applejack to come here and make these simple gardens produce the same output as a true and honored Apple-farm.

“So I gave ‘em some pointers, so?” She huffed. Though it lacked the usual bite, and maybe that was a good sign. And she did study my face again. Looking for betrayal and fake smiles, I assume? She did not find whatever she searched for.

I even allowed myself to chuckle softly. “Applejack, that hedge reminds me of the Forbidden Jungle!”

She shrugged. “I might’ve talked to the gardener, so what? Is this an interrogation?”

I could have sworn the former question was accompanied by a ghost of a smile. Yet I could just as easily have misread that. A trick of the mind as I so desperately wished for my old friend and sister to return to me. Because the latter question already informed me that her patience was running thin again. She knew I had come here with a point in mind. But here I was, trying to avoid spilling it. I took another deep breath and tried to bridge across that chasm of fear. “Applejack. Sis. You don’t belong here. You must know that. Neither of you two belongs here. We talked with Apple Bloom, Big Mac, Marble and Graphite. They would welcome you back with open hooves. Let me rephrase that, they want you back. We all do. And… you know that, too.”

Now it was Applejack's turn to utter a deep sigh. She looked at me with sorrow in her eyes, but the hardness did not leave them. “This again,” she grumbled. “It doesn’t work that way. I would try to help out ‘round the farm. Harvestin’ and repairin’ and carin’ for the animals. They’d need to constantly tie me down. And even if they manage to wrangle me, what about RD?” Applejack remained silent for a while, staring out of the window again. When she spoke up next, her voice was quiet. And vulnerable. “She’s become so forgetful, Dream. Jus’… she’d try to nap in the trees again. You know how much she loved ‘em. And with her sense of balance being this awful these days…” When her voice started to quaver, she cleared her throat. “Did you know that it’s not uncommon for pegasus bones to become brittle at higher ages? She could fall down and just… jus’ lay there… in pain… for hours, before anypony would notice…” While clearing her throat had worked well enough to get the rest out, it could only help so long. Like a bandaid on a deep gash. I saw the faint sheen in her eyes. Applejack did not tear up. Applejack did not cry. Applejack cried on the inside, Pinkie had famously said on occasions. And right now, I could see how hurt she was, how she was wailing in the confines of her own mind. Because her mind conjured all those awful images for her. Of Rainbow lying beneath one of her beloved apple trees, limbs twisted, wings at unnatural angles, crying out in pain, crying out for help with nopony around to answer.

Minutes could easily feel like hours when one was in great pain. How would hours feel, then? Half a day?

“I can’t lose her,” Applejack added with the same hardness in her voice.

I dared to cross a line. Once upon a time, she had accepted me as part of the family. It took years for her to feel comfortable enough to allow me to call her my sister once more. I did so sparingly. Because it was something important to me. I wanted it to stay special. But as my sister, my family, I dared. I reached over and I hugged her. It was a simple gesture. I pulled her into an embrace. And I could feel the tremors running up and down her body as she fought a high-stakes internal battle for control. “If Bloom or Ambrosia can tie you down — and I have full confidence in their capabilities —, then they can tie her down as well. Just… think about it. Please. None of you is getting any happier here. For all the great things this place does and offers, you don’t belong here. You can get her meds in Ponyville. They can deliver to your doorstep, even a few weeks in advance. You would never risk running out. The hospital staff is pretty good as well. They always have ponies ready to go. Just… think about it, will you?”

I let go of her and knew I had failed. Not just because she had not hugged me back. But because I could see that same hardness in her eyes when she stifled a sniffle and nodded. “I will.”

LIAR!, an indignant voice in the back of my head roared in anger.

I could understand his outrage. I felt it too. Or maybe it was his and it was just so much that it spilled over.

Applejack had been my idol. A paragon of goodness. A role model. My teacher. Friend. Sister. She was the one I felt closest to after Twilight. And here she sat, betraying everything she taught me by lying straight into my face. Worse still, she lied knowingly.

What could I do?

What was I supposed to do now? Just give up? Go home? Live with the knowledge that in this important battle in my life, I surrendered? Because of what? Her stubbornness? Her blatant disregard of—

Fear.

Right. It felt like this was an enemy I always encountered again and again, no matter how many times I managed to flee or defeat it. This time though, it was not even my fear. It was hers.

She was so afraid of losing Rainbow that it managed to scare her away from her farm. That crash a couple of years ago had been awful, true. We all had been scared beyond belief. Rainbow had crashed dozens of times in the span of her career. Sometimes badly. Never this badly. But she still recovered. Her wing was lame for a while. She could fly, but every doctor highly advised against any stunts. No whoop-de-loops. No barrel rolls. Just regular old flying. It was obviously still better than nothing. And she had the discipline to make a full recovery to the point where even stunt flying was on the menu again.

But none of us ever forgot that scare.

Applejack least of all.

I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my muzzle. Applejack was old. But I had seen Granny Smith, Celestia bless her, jump around when the zap apple harvest was coming up. I had seen Granny Smith maul a timberwolf with her rocking chair when they got feisty and followed a screaming Apple Bloom right back home to the house. It was a good reminder to never, ever forget that even at her high age, she was an earth pony. She had been capable of impressive feats of strength and speed and even agility when necessary. And Applejack was not even close to Grannys age.

She would be able to make one last adventure.

This is wrong, I told myself even as I prepared to spill my suggestion anyway. But I could understand her fear. More than she might give me credit for. “There is a way to make sure that she… stays. It’s a long and involved process, it takes a lot of guts, there’s all kinds of trials involved, but it… it might help. It might even help with her memory.”

Applejack chuckled.

It was the kind of dark and twisted chuckle that made my skin crawl. I had not known that she was capable of producing such sounds. “And now you’re tellin’ me all about this Aqua Vitae-thing, right? Don’t bother. Twilight showed up two years ago, spillin’ the beans drunk as a skunk. Now do both of us a favor and git out of here.”

I staggered to my hooves and stared at her. She knew. She knew and she was here. And Rainbow was here, out there, barely remembering me. So she had decided against it? On second thought, that would fit very well with Applejack. When I asked myself: Who would reject immortality? She was the one immediately stepping up in my head. And funnily enough, I would probably have been right beside her, had that decision not been taken from me.

Maybe it’s for the better.

Maybe.

I stared at Applejack. At her hard eyes. At the pain beneath that. At her aged form, sitting in that dreadful chair by the window. I backed away, slowly, until my rump hit the door. I considered turning around. Opening it. Stepping outside and closing it. I would take a breath. A deep breath. Because I was out of that room. Out from under her piercing, merciless, hard gaze. I would take that breath and inhale that scent of old ponies and hospital and I would remember where I was. I would hastily retreat further. Down the stairs. Out the door. Take another breath outside. Free at last.

What kind of cruel freedom would that be?

Could I really do that? Just like that, turn my back on her? On her, of all ponies? Would she have done this years ago? Lifetimes ago?

No surrender.

You’re damn right I won’t. I gritted my teeth and forced my hooves. I had to take each step consciously. Forward, not backwards. Another one. Under her gaze, I wanted to do nothing more than cower and flee. But I remembered better times. When she was ‘less grumpy’. When we were friends. True, true friends. Family, even. I conjured those memories before my mind's eye and used the resolve I could draw from them to take another step, and another.

When I reached her dreadful chair again, I put a hoof to her shoulder. She stared at me expectantly, confused.

“Die on the farm.”

“… what?”

I cleared my throat and scraped together whatever courage I had left. “Die on the farm,” I asked her again. “You’ve poured your entire life into that soil. Every drop of sweat, blood and tears. All your love and hard work. And so did she. Every waking moment she wasn’t flying about, being a Wonderbolt, she was right down there in the dirt with you, pushing carts and collecting fruit.”

“I already told you, I can’t!” Applejack's temper flared a little and her voice raised ever so slightly.

My ears wanted to splay back against my skull, but I forced them to stand their ground. “Many, many years ago, somepony I love dearly helped me. She recognized just how much my fears ruled over me. How they alone dictated my every move and thought and decision. And she spent way too much time teaching me the same lesson over and over and over again: Try and win. Because if you don’t try, you already lost.” I put my second hoof on her other shoulder and grabbed her tightly as if I had to cling to her for dear life. “Tell me, sis. Do you even talk to Rainbow these days? Or does she sneak in after she thinks you’ve fallen asleep and quietly slips under the cover? Maybe the other way around?” Applejack averted her gaze. Gotcha. Not that there was anything worth celebrating about that particular revelation. It was just another painful barb. “Does she seem happy to you? Are you happy here? Does she still fly? At all? Does getting more tomatoes than the retirement home staff know what to do with really help you?” She did not answer. I let the questions linger for a moment, but when she remained silent, I continued. I could feel it. I had an opening. I had to cease it. “There was a time when I had to psych myself up to leave the castle. To leave my room, even. Out of fear. I did not dare to dance, ever. Out of fear. I scrutinized everything I said or did, which made me slow to react and deliberate in every movement. Out of fear. We all have our baggage. We all have to learn how to deal with it. Twilight helped me a lot, because she understood me quite well. But it was usually you who made the final pushes. Or the first ones. You taught me that no matter how much I feared messing up somepony’s day or opinion of me — if I don’t step out there and get to know them again, I would never get to laugh with them either. You taught me that if I ever wanted to have my picture-perfect vision of a wedding realized, I would have to dance and deal with looking silly. And I did, and it was part of the best moments of my life. You taught me that I don’t have to wield kitchen knives with the same caution as a flask of acid—“

“And you cut yourself,” Applejack cut in with a subdued, quiet chuckle. “One time so badly we had to get you to the hospital. Five stitches?”

I chuckled. That was my Applejack. “Six. And me fainting because I can’t see blood was more of an issue than the actual cut. I had no idea concussions were such serious business.”

“Gave me a heart attack and a half when you hit your noggin!”

I had her wide open. Ready and primed. Time for the finisher. “You belong on that farm, AJ. Both of you. Don’t try to keep her safe. It hurts her as much as it hurts you. You try to keep her safe and away from danger, but… back then, when you said ‘yes’ in front of that altar, you accepted her for who she is. And Rainbow loves danger. She lives for the thrill. That is the mare you fell in love with. Don’t… take that away from her. Shift that perspective back to where it truly belongs. Try to make her happy instead. Make each other happy again. Things might go wrong, yes. I cannot deny that. You know I won’t, because you know that all those awful scenarios you have in your head are twice as many and just as bad in mine. Remember how we had a serious discussion about the probabilities of me stepping out of the shower, slipping on the wet floor and breaking my neck? You said it’s incredibly unlikely. I agreed. Yet you could not claim that it was impossible. You taught me to never stop trying. For Celestia’s sake, Applejack.” I squeezed her shoulders as my tears started to spill. “I have been living one life after the other, cycle after cycle after cycle, and you taught me to never stop trying! I have taken that to heart! So much that it comes with me. Every time. Do you have any clue how many times I tell myself: Well, I failed. But I get up and try again. Because that’s what I do. I try a lot. That stupid phrase is because of you. Please, please, please, I beg you. Heed your own advice. I cannot stand seeing you two so miserable and grumpy and utterly unhappy. I want your smile back. And hers. I want my friends back. I-I miss you guys so much, damn it!”

Applejack's eyes were filled to the brim with tears. I could see it despite my own blurry vision. She never spilled a single one. Because Applejack. But I had seen tears in her eyes. And more importantly, I had seen the tiniest of nods. I had broken through.

It was finally over.

We were both still standing.

No enemies.

No victors.

No losers.

Just friends.

Finally, at last.

Friends.

Synergy

I stepped outside, onto the front porch. The door behind me had one of these fancy mechanisms installed where the door did not just slam shut, but instead closed slowly and evenly with a satisfying little click behind me after what felt like half a minute. I closed my eyes as soon as I stepped outside, waited for said click and felt a wave of relief wash over me.

Not just because I was outside again. Not just because I had escaped this building. The smell of medicine and disinfectant and old pony. No, I had reasons much cheerier. Applejack had seen reason. She was coming home. Finally, she was coming home.

“We did it, peanut,” I softly mumbled off to the side. Twilight was not with me, of course. She was not here. She was still waiting for my return outside the retirement home grounds. And I would gladly rejoin her in a few minutes, I just… needed one for myself.

Talking to friends should never feel hard. It should never feel like jumping through hoops. Which were on fire. And rotating. Over a pit. Filled with crocodiles.

Despite what it never should feel like, there were occasions when that was the case anyway. I listened into myself. Listened to my blood rush in my ears with the soft gurgling of a river slowing down to a stream again. I listened for my heartbeat as it calmed down. I felt the soft tremor in my hoofs recede. The latter had been too subtle to even be noticed visually, but I had felt it. And now it was gone again. And Applejack was coming home. That, truly, was the only important thing that came out of all of this. The reason we had come here. And the reason why I smiled now.

The sun baked my coat to a degree that it would eventually become uncomfortable. But for the moment, I merely took it as another pat on the back from my sweet love. You did good, I told myself in an awful impression of her calm and melodious voice. Sunny had ways of expressing pride in ‘her little ponies’ that baffled me.

Eventually, my senses returned their focus outwards again and I heard the faint hustle and bustle of Silver Shoals. A lawn sprinkler went off somewhere to my right, probably watering the communal garden area. Birds chirped somewhere behind me. Their songs were muffled by the building I stood in front of.

And then I noticed hoofsteps. They approached quickly, yet without haste or urgency. Like somepony who was simply used to walking fast. A raspy voice followed as my visitor cleared her throat. Her presence alone made me smile even more.

“Uh… Dreamwalker?” Rainbow asked.

There was some hesitance in her voice when she used my name. Maybe it felt unfamiliar on her tongue. Maybe she was not sure if she had remembered correctly. Thinking about those options hurt a little, but it could not be helped. She was old. She forgot. Such was life. And to be fair, the worst part was not how I felt about it, but that she was well aware of how she lost bits and pieces of herself. I could not imagine how she felt.

I opened my eyes, turned my head towards her and let her know with a warm nod that she had remembered correctly. “Yeah?” It still bothered me a little that she used my full name. It felt so formal and stiff. Almost everypony close to me had at some point resorted to just calling me ‘Dream’, since ‘Dreamwalker’ was such a mouthful. With the inevitable jokes following suit and eventually dying down again.

Rainbow looked up at the building. My gaze followed hers, but Applejack was not at the window anymore. Hopefully, she was busy packing. “I don’t—… I don’t know where… why…” Rainbow growled a little at herself. She was The Rainbow Dash, after all. The Dash never struggled for words. “Are we done here, now?” she finally asked with her impatience on full display. She looked around the place and I could see a certain discomfort in her eyes. Rural town, quiet, off the beaten path, nice little gardens and plenty of opportunity for calm pastime activities. This was probably a nightmare for her. “I-I saw you go in, right? You talked to Applejack? Is she done? I don’t wanna be rude. I mean, it’s… it’s Granny, right? But just… I wanna go home. This place creeps me out.”

I could have melted. Maybe I did. A little. It had taken years after my arrival for Rainbow to feel comfortable enough with me to admit such perceived weaknesses. At the same time, it hurt noticing that she apparently thought Granny Smith was still alive. I wished she would be. I missed her wisdom. The creaking of her rocking chair. Her snarky remarks. But at least Rainbow remembered enough of me to feel that she could be open with me.

That said, it baffled me that Rainbow thought Applejack would haul Granny off to a place like this. Ever. And in truth, I suspected that Rainbow did not assume this at all. But what other explanation was there for them — us — being here?

I tried to keep the sadness out of my features as I smiled at her. “She’s almost done, yes. Actually, she could probably use your help to finish things up. Maybe you should go in and check on her?”

Rainbow eyed the building as if it were an imposing dragon. It was next to impossible to cow Rainbow. She squared up, determination plastered on her face, and nodded. “Will do.”

I managed to catch her before she could march past me. It was a brief hug. Brief, but fierce. “I can’t wait for us to be home either,” I mumbled into her rainbow-colored mane. It smelled of roses, and that was all kinds of wrong.

Rainbow, for her part, had been stumped. Too surprised to really react much, she simply held still and patted my shoulder awkwardly after a moment. When I retreated, I saw a little shimmer in her eyes. Recognition. “You sure you’re alright, buddy? I’m not great with this mushy stuff, but… I can listen, if you need me to.”

I felt my smile widen by a mile and a soft chuckle bubbled up in my throat. “Thanks, Rainbow. I appreciate the offer, but I think I’m fine. Things got sorted.”

She nodded, gave a little salute with her wing and went in. I watched her go and chuckled once more when the door closed again. It was so much Rainbow to not even wonder about what exactly ‘got sorted’. Maybe she would wonder about that when she made her way up the stairs. Or maybe she already forgot. “Featherbrain,” I uttered quietly and with love. Only Applejack was allowed to call her that, but nopony was around to hear me and scold me for it.

I sighed deeply as my smile slowly deteriorated. A brief respite was nice and all, but her overall well-being had not changed much. It was important to treasure these moments, of course. And I did. I just… could not help myself. I wanted more. I wanted her back. For good. I was clingy like that.

I eventually shook my head, freed myself from the useless musings and trotted down the gravelly path towards the exit. Along the sidewalk, down the empty road and around the corner I went, where I found Twilight again. She sat on the stone, with her back leaned into the neatly trimmed hedge and read a book. Because of course she did. Where she had gotten that one I did not even dare to ask. Maybe she teleported it straight out of her library in Ponyville.

Twilight quickly spotted me though. The book was swiftly closed and vanished with a pop and a flash of bright raspberry light. She stood up and met me halfway. “How are they? Did it work?”

I could see more questions bubbling right beneath the surface. And I had no intention of torturing her. “They’re coming home,” I quickly replied.

Twilight let loose a quiet little shriek of joy before she threw herself at me. I laughed and caught her in my hooves before tumbling onto my back anyway. I did not mind her weight on top of me at all. Neither did I mind being peppered with kisses for a solid half minute. “You did it!” she squealed.

I had to actually work to calm down enough. Eventually, my laughter died down to an occasional chuckle and I regained enough control to put my hooves on her cheeks and, despite how lovely it felt, push her away a little. Just a few inches so I could look her in the eyes. “No. Don’t. I know what you’re trying to do, and I appreciate the thought, but I have to be clear on this one. We did it.”

“But I wasn’t—“ even there.

I craned my neck and captured her lips in a kiss. Just to shut her up. She did not protest at all and waited once I retreated down again. “We did it,” I insisted. “You came here with me. You were my support. When I was in there, you had my back. It was… hard. I’m not sure I could have done this without support, honestly.”

Twilight rolled her eyes, but smiled nonetheless. “Fine, we did it,” she relented.

My hooves slipped from her cheeks to her neck and I pulled her down into a hug. Her mane fell onto my face and tickled my nose. This entire situation was a mess. We probably made quite an embarrassing spectacle out on the streets like this. The sidewalk was hard and cold. And me pulling Twilight down for a hug probably meant that she was face-to-stone with the floor.

Still, I enjoyed this.

I sighed deeply. Twice. And every time, I inhaled the lavender scent of her mane. The familiarity of it helped soothe whatever anxiousness had remained. Enough that I could give her free. Enough that I could sit up and stop making a scene.

A quick look around told me that barely anypony was within sight anyway. Most ignored the display. A few looked on, but smiled. I wondered what they thought about this for a moment, but dismissed it quickly. Best not to dwell on it.

“So, what happened?” Twilight quickly asked once she helped me up onto my hooves. She sidled up to me as we made our way back to the train station.

“I think she just needed time to settle in and calm down. To see for herself that this isn’t where she belongs. To see how miserable this place makes her, despite all its attempts to accommodate her. And it probably helped that Rainbow felt just as unhappy here. I ran into her early on. She’s…” I stopped myself. She’s not doing well. Twilight could probably read it in my face. Her ears lowered a little. Her smile fell away. I sighed quietly. “Let’s focus on the good news.”

And that was what I did. I recounted in as much detail as I could what happened after she lost sight of me, up to the moment I returned. With Twilight by my side, I had no reason to hold anything back. Anything at all. I included my observations as much as my own thoughts, doubts and hesitance. I laid it all bare and she listened.

She obviously drew her own conclusions and shared at least some of them with me. But in the end, we agreed that it had been a matter of time. Applejack needed time. Anypony could have done what I did today. She disagreed with me on that front, on that specific detail, but that was fine with me.

“We need to tell the others,” she concluded while the train was chugging along the tracks.

“What, you think Pinkie doesn’t already know?” I teased. Twilight rolled her eyes and gave me a little shove, but smiled anyway. “Alright, alright, fine, we’ll tell them. To make it all official and stuff. I’m sure Pinkie will want to throw some sort of ‘welcome home’-party.”

There was not much else to say. The conversation fizzled out and we fell into a companionable silence. Twilight leaned against me. Her book had reappeared at some point. I looked out the window to battle my mildly upset stomach. But it helped. Having her here with me, feeling her coat on mine, the warmth her body radiated. It lulled me into a daze. My mind started to drift away. It jumped from one topic to another, peeking at random memories. My encounter with Pristine came up. Which led to thoughts about my own family. I wondered if Arcana was still happy. She had never shown much interest in any serious relationship until one day, she simply presented us with her fiancé. That had been a weird day. He did not even work at the Royal Archive like she did. He had just been there to research something.

It was silly to worry about Arcana. Her job required her to be surrounded by books all day. She was living her best life, most likely. Had been for years.

Stardust was still running around Equestria and the wider world. Griffonstone. Yakyakistan. Even the Arimaspi Empire once or twice. There was a whole world out there, he had said at one point. Why would he limit his travels to just Equestria? It really did not help that his mom told him of all the wondrous and weird places beyond the border. Probably had not helped that I told him of all the weird creatures dreaming up even weirder places, either. Still. I missed him. I was endlessly proud of our little colt, but I missed him. And I knew that Luna did, as well. She never spoke about it, but every now and then, I caught her dragging his dream along on our nightly patrols. I never mentioned it. She never said a word either. Honestly, I was glad she did it. How many times had Luna told me that we had a greater responsibility? That we could not play favorites? That we had to care for the safety and security of all the dreamers? And then she anchored his dream to herself and dragged him along at night. It was fine, I was sure. He would not notice it. Probably.

I had considered asking her for more, of course. But that was a dangerous box to open. Please, Luna — could you pull Arcana’s dream along as well? And Aurora’s? And maybe Twilight’s, and your sister’s? And those of all my other friends? But that would not be fair to all the other ponies of Equestria now, would it? Could you drag them along as well?

I was awful at drawing the line. So knowing that, I never even attempted it.

A faint ghost of a smile graced my lips as I thought about Aurora. My little princess. Stardust kept in contact with us as much as his travels allowed. Which was not a lot to begin with. Arcana usually simply forgot. Not out of malice, never that. But those books kept all her attention hostage. Aurora though, she was around. She wrote letters. She stopped by to visit. Every relationship had its ups and downs. But my filly was still my little princess, even after all these years. Spoiling her rotten had taken on different forms these days. I wondered if she would visit me in Ponyville. Or maybe even Greenwood, once there was a Greenwood to speak of.

That train of thought inevitably led to my to-do-list.

The enchanted sapphire torches were the first step. I had given Pristine my order and everything else would have to wait until those gems arrived at the castle. The invoice would sap all breath out of me, I already knew that. Bracing for that moment was futile though. Big numbers I was expected to pay always did that. It was just such a daunting prospect. Pay thousands of bits. In one go. Yikes.

I mentally shoved the torches to the side. What else was there to do? Well. Prepare for the inevitable. Greenwood always struggled. Always. In every cycle, there was just something messing up a tight schedule. Or messing with limited food supplies. Or messing with the minds of the few loyal workers doing their best to get things going.

One of the biggest issues, the one that always came up, were the changelings.

My eyes trailed off. Away from the window and the landscape rushing past us. And towards Twilight. She was fully engrossed in her book. But I knew that Twilight was capable of multitasking, contrary to my own ineptitude in that regard. “What’s the status of the Everfree hive?”

“What do you mean?” she asked without so much as looking up from her page. She instead flipped said page a moment later and continued reading.

“I mean…” Good question. What did I mean? “How are they? I haven’t really kept up to date with any news from them. I know you tried to keep me in the loop, but… you know. Changelings.” I thought it a great achievement that I did not always call them bugs anymore these days. “Are they still allies?”

Twilight put her bookmark in, but did not close the book. Her brow furrowed as she recalled the latest information she had. I kept quiet and waited patiently. “To call them ’allies’ might be a bit much. We have a signed mutual non-aggression-agreement. And an open trade-contract. Queen Forsestri is a welcoming host and as far as I can tell from personal experience, very reasonable. That said, they fear that their culture might get watered down and eventually swallowed by ponykind if they expose themselves too much to Equestria. They stick to their own and keep to the Everfree for the most part. They are isolationists by choice.”

I nodded and mulled this new information over. Forsestri. A name I would be well-advised to remember for the upcoming months. Also, what Twilight told me did not sound too bad. Surely did not sound like a potential enemy and invading force. “Do you like her?”

“Who? Their queen?” I merely nodded. Twilight's brow furrowed further and she fell silent for a while. “I don’t really know her all that well. I visited the hive only a couple dozen times over the years and she usually kept it to business. She does not seem to begrudge ponykind its success. I think she has a twisted sense of humor, the kind Rainbow would appreciate a lot. And she is very protective of her hive. She strives to achieve the best result for her people. It is an admirable quality in any leader, as far as I am concerned. And she cares for them. She sees her hive as her family, her children. Other than that, I cannot really tell you much.”

I quietly snorted in amusement. She had told me a lot. More than I anticipated after her initial attempt to temper my expectations. Fed with this information, my mind went to work. I tried to twist and bend these news in a way that allowed my image of the enemy to hold true. What circumstances would be required for Queen Forsestri to think that attacking Greenwood would be in her hive's best interest? Would we ‘encroach on their territory’? Threaten their food supply? Would she assume we were merely a forward operating base, there as a launch pad for an invasion? What chain of thought would lead her to lose her mind?

Greenwood always had changeling-issues. In every. Single. Cycle. There was no reason to assume this one would be any different. The changelings would attack.

My job was to figure out why. Because the ‘why’ could give me a hint as to how I could circumvent it. Or prepare for the worst. Or both.

“Why the sudden interest?” Twilight disrupted those quickly spiraling thoughts.

“Huh?”

She closed her book and shifted a little. She looked up at me, her head resting on my lower back. “You said it yourself. You always tried to keep away from this topic. Why the sudden interest in what is happening with them?”

I furrowed my brow as I tried to remember, but I came up empty-hooved. I had not told her why I had returned to Ponyville prematurely, had I? After my arrival, I was dragged off to the party immediately. There had been no opportunity. “I want to build Greenwood.” Her brows slowly crawled up her forehead. This would require some explanation, I realized. So I started from the top, this time with some details omitted, and recounted the last few days that led to my not-at-all impulsive decision.

Twilight remained silent for a while after I had finished. Her expression shifted a couple of times. Concern was a strong contender for dominance. But eventually, her muzzle settled with a mischievous smile. “So you are staying home for a while now, right?”

I chuckled. “Eyupp. I want to talk to Sunny about this again. I really hope I can convince her to use the teleportation stone every now and then. I don’t think I have the willpower to see this through if she decides to not visit at least occasionally. Luna visits the castle often enough anyway, me staying home for a prolonged period just gives her one more reason to stick around longer. I’m sure you’re not too sad about that either, right?”

Twilight blushed, but did not even attempt to deny it. “I could write her a letter, if that helps? I would love to have her visit more often as well. Or… you know… at all. I can barely remember the last time she stayed overnight.” The more I grinned, the deeper she blushed. The deeper she blushed, the more I grinned. Eventually, she put a hoof on my nose and shoved my face away. “Stop looking at me like that! You have a dirty mind!”

“I didn’t even say anything!” I cracked up. I tried to keep my laughter down so as to not disturb the other travelers, but goodness me, she could be so adorable at times. “You wouldn’t have mentioned her staying overnight if you weren’t after something specific, peanut. You’re too lenient with her. If you let Sunny decide if she spends a night with you and too little sleep, or if she sits in her study until her shapely, plush rump goes numb for the betterment of Equestria, her sense of duty will win out in the end. There’s a simple fix though. Don’t let her decide. She can make Equestria better tomorrow morning, when she’s slightly cranky because she hasn’t slept enough. Because she will be in a chipper mood anyway, somehow. It’s a wondrous miracle, really.” I winked at her for emphasis and Twilight, red as a tomato, rolled her eyes. I leaned back to give her a kiss and found her all too willing. When I pulled away, she sighed quietly. It was all I needed to know, really. “You miss her,” I stated matter-of-factly.

She averted her eyes and nodded. “I envy your luxury sometimes. I just don’t have the time to hop over to the castle for a few days. I want to spend more time with her, but I am worried that I would interfere with her work. I know how important that is to her. To everypony.”

I smiled and ran a hoof through her mane. “You’re a silly pony, peanut. I know you can’t just pack up shop and move over. If it weren’t for my dreamwalking, I would have a whooole lot of problems with my time management as well. But you can voice your feelings, dummy. Tell her that you miss her. Sweet Celestia, please tell her. She’s been talking about you a couple of times. Wondering how you’re dealing with all this. If you’re faring any better than she is. She misses you too, you know? She’s had a bad conscience every now and then, because she just can’t help herself and works late into the night instead of what she wants to do — that is, answering your latest letter. Or, you know… causing you sleepless nights.” With every strike, I saw Twilight's eyes go a little wider. This was news, apparently. By the end of it, I could see that she really felt like a silly pony now. “You know what the weirdest part of this is? You were the one teaching me that it is alright to demand attention, or to voice concerns, or to ask for something. You taught me to respect my own time and see worth in my own desires. This switch in position feels unnatural.”

“I thought you liked switching positions every now and then,” she mumbled quietly. And the very moment the last syllable had left her lips, her eyes shot wide once more and she quickly looked around if anypony had heard her while her blush returned in full force.

I just laughed.

This time without any restraint. I had not seen that little remark coming. It was so off-brand. So out of left field. My unbridled laughter caught a few eyes, but nopony seemed bothered enough to say something. I quickly quieted myself down as well and hugged Twilight. Fiercely. I wanted to support such behavior as much as I could. It was such a rarity to coax innuendo out of her, in ‘public’ especially.

“I do,” I whispered into her ear and nipped its edge. A quick glance around told me that the other travelers had already shifted their attention elsewhere again, so I felt free to extend my tongue and lick along the rim of her ear. “You are giving me some ideas how I might help you distract yourself from your longing tonight…” It was rare that I got the opportunity to tease her. Usually, it was the other way around. So I relished every second of this. Especially the quiet whimper she gave in response.

I tried not to overdo it, though. Thus, I retreated before anypony could take offense to our display and hugged her once more. Twilight kept her tail down and still with sheer force of will for a minute or two afterwards. Seeing that was the cherry on top, really.

The rest of our train ride was a quiet affair. After sufficiently calming down, Twilight picked up her book again and continued reading while my queasy stomach demanded that my own attention be returned to the window and the landscape outside of it.

When the train finally pulled into Ponyville station again, I had difficulties exiting it on time. I stood up, stretched my limbs and everything ached. My hooves were a little numb, my head was slow to react and I yawned heavily. Stepping outside meant being greeted by a brisk, chilly wind. That at least helped me wake up again.

We quickly made our way towards Fluttershy’s cottage at the edge of town. It was late, so we both assumed they would be home. And true enough, once we knocked on the old but lovingly cared for door, a couple of voices asked for our patience. The flickering light of a candle closed in on the door and the upper half was opened. We were greeted by Fluttershy.

As soon as she saw us, she smiled fondly. “Oh, hey you two! What brings you around so late?”

“Uh, uh, uh!” came Pinkie’s excited voice from inside. “They have good news! I can feel it! Let them in, Buttercup!”

Following her wife’s demand, she did not even wait for our answer but instead opened the lower half of the door as well. Twilight and I filtered in, closed the door behind us and looked around the cottage. Nothing had changed much since our last visit. Walls full of holes for all the little critters. Many of the open bird cages were decorated with streamers and painted in a variety of bright colors. A couple of really, really tiny balloons floated on the floor, a bunch of larger ones stuck to the ceiling.

Our attention quickly turned towards the seating area. Fluttershy's couch was occupied by Pinkie. She stretched herself lazily until her wife returned to her side and sat down again. At that point, Pinkie seemed to almost curl around her, with her head coming to a rest in Fluttershys lap. Somehow. Because Pinkie apparently had the internal structure of a cat. That was doubly impressive given her age.

“Sorry to bother you two so late,” Twilight offered an apology.

“Skip, skip, skip!” Pinkie exclaimed excitedly. “What’s the news?”

Twilight and I exchanged a knowing smile as we sat down in the other two wingback chairs. “Applejack is coming home,” Twilight started.

“Ooohhh…!” Pinkie immediately exclaimed.

“Really? That is great news!” Fluttershy softly added.

“Rainbow as well, obviously,” I added.

“How did you do that?” Fluttershy asked Twilight. Because of course she did.

Twilight already inhaled to answer, surely something along the lines of ‘he did it’ or something silly like that. Can’t have that. “After comparing our impressions,” I quickly cut in, “Twilight and I agreed that at this point, anypony could have done it. Applejack just needed some time to cool down.” I grinned a little lopsided when I noticed Twilight shaking her head subtly with a soft smile on her lips. It’s fine, I tried to tell her with a glance as our eyes met, It’s better this way. She did not correct me. “We basically just wanted to come by and tell you as early as possible.”

Pinkie nodded eagerly. “We will tell everypony else! Oh, they will all be so happy! Shy, can I load my party cannon tomorrow?”

Fluttershy looked up in sudden alarm. “We are having a party?”

“Well, duh!” Pinkie hastily replied. “Applejack and Rainbow are coming home! Of course we’re having a party!”

Fluttershy sighed, but she could not say no. Not to Pinkie. Not now, or ever. Not when she got like this. Not when her eyes begged her like they did now. All big and pleading and full of joy. “Of course you can,” she quietly allowed.

“Yaaay!” Pinkie yelled. It was the quietest yell I had ever heard. And Fluttershy appreciated it a lot. As did, probably, all the sleeping animals all around us.

“So, do you already know when that will be?” I dared to ask.

Pinkie stopped, as if she only now realized that there was no fixed date for the party yet. She stuck her tongue out of her mouth, bit down on it and made her best ‘I’m concentrated!’-face. A few seconds passed by and nothing happened. Then her tail wobbled. Her coat stood on end. Her left leg twitched. Her ears flopped. Her tail puffed up even more. “Ten days,” she whispered in an almost creepy sounding voice before she turned to the three of us with a wide, cheery smile. “Ten days,” she repeated, more Pinkie-like. “We are going to start preparations tomorrow and send out all the invitations and the party will start in the evening! We will partey until we can’t sing or dance or drink or stand or talk anymore, wuhu!”

There was a brief moment of silence. Just enough to slip a comment in. “So… about an hour after sundown, when we’ll all get sleepy?”

We all had a good laugh. Once we calmed down again, Twilight took the initiative and stood back up. “Well, we really just wanted to share the good news as soon as possible.” Fluttershy and Pinkie had no issues reading the farewell between the lines. And I knew why Twilight did not wish to linger. I had seen Fluttershy's knitting needles, as well as her current workpiece. It currently lay discarded over the hoofrest of the couch. She had probably been working on it when we knocked. And there was a half-painted birdhouse on the table, surrounded by little pots of paint and several brushes. It was one of those birdhouses Fluttershy loved to hang on the trees all around her cottage and on the edge of the Everfree, to offer good, safe houses to the birds of the region.

I was sure that, if asked, both would insist that we did not interrupt anything important. That our presence was welcome. And that was good enough to burst into their evening plans, cause a little chaos and then vanish again. But they apparently had evening plans. And both Twilight and I were organized enough to respect those. After all, we would not wish for our meticulous plans to be ruined either. Even if the unexpected visit of friends was the best way to ruin plans.

We said our goodbyes and moved on towards the castle. The sun was down. The stars were up. A beautiful crescent moon was visible in the sky. “It’s a nice opportunity,” I mumbled as I gazed upwards and almost tripped on a rock.

“Opportunity for what?” Twilight asked in reply and followed my gaze. Her brow furrowed. That was the sky, yes. A night sky, yes. But there was nothing out of the ordinary, was there? She clearly searched for something I would call an ‘opportunity’ and she missed the forest for the trees. It was endearing, in a way. For someone just as enthralled by the nightly display as I was, she failed to see it.

“For a romantic moonlight stroll, peanut,” I whispered as I sidled up to her close enough for our coats to brush. I slowed down a bit and she followed suit. A darker tint colored her cheeks as she smiled.

“That… is true.” She draped a wing over my withers and we lazily strolled around a calm and quiet town, along the edges of Ponyville until the castle came into sight.

The night is beautiful.

“Hey, uh, Dreamwalker? Could you come here please?” Spike's muffled voice reached my ears through the library door.

I tore my eyes off the pages of my current book and blinked a couple of times. Last night's stroll had led to some other nightly activities and while I was fully content with the direction the night had taken, I was less thrilled about waking up this morning with what felt like two weeks worth of sleep deprivation. Dreamwalking had not helped that at all. I was supposed to feel rested after dreamwalking, just as if I had slept, but on some days, that just did not work out.

Twilight was busy with her princessly duties and probably currently buried in paperwork in her study and I had deemed it a good idea to distract myself by finally working on my ‘read later’-list again. Only now that I thought about it, I could barely recall any of the information I was supposed to have absorbed in the past few hours. I looked down at the book. Page 46. There was a knight. Maybe. And some sort of monster? Maybe?

I groaned quietly. “Oh woe is me,” I murmured.

“Dreamwalker?” Spikes asked again, a tad louder.

“Oh, shoot, right!” I quickly stood up and trotted over to the door, opened it and peeked outside. “Hey buddy! Didn’t hear you the first time, sorry for that. What’s going on?”

Spike stood by the entrance door. Right beside him was a crate, labeled fragile and ‘to be handled with care’.

“Oh, hey you two!” Twilight's voice reached my ear from the other side. I looked left and saw her come down the stairs. She levitated her pot alongside, so she was probably on the prowl for more coffee. She stopped in the middle of the hallway and looked at the crate with her brow furrowed. “What is that? I did not order anything, did I?”

Spike shook his head. “Nope. It’s from Carousel Boutique, for Dreamwalker. And I’m in a bit of a pickle, because it smells delicious…”

I grimaced and quickly came out of the library, closed the door behind me and trotted over to him. I could see him clutching and relaxing his claws. His dragon instincts were playing a trick on him. No wonder, really — the entire crate was probably stuffed to the brim with high-quality sapphires. I had not expected the delivery this fast. Pristine did not even send me a price proposal yet. Then again, knowing her, it would be the best price I could get anywhere.

“Are you good, buddy?” I cautiously asked Spike.

“Yeah, just… you know…”

I nodded. “You got this?” He nodded. “I ordered a bunch of sapphires. A couple extra, just in case. Would you be okay with helping me carry the crate and open it if you get one of the sapphires in exchange?”

His eyes went serpentine and then widened again. “Two,” he growled despite his best attempts to keep himself under control.

I smiled and hugged him. One day, he would be a big, scary dragon. Hopefully, he would still be our big, scary dragon, making him more cuddle for us and scary for anypony else. But right now, despite him towering over me already, I found it hard to be afraid of him. I had already expected him to demand more. I had planned for ten sapphires as a reserve. Him taking two meant that there were still plenty of spares. “Deal.”

He growled again. A deep rumble emanated from his throat. This time, it was one of pure satisfaction. He grabbed the crate without any issues and lifted it. The wooden casing alone might already have been too heavy for my limited telekinesis. “Where to?”

I grinned. Both to him, and a second later in Twilight's direction, who had so far witnessed everything with curiosity and a warm, fond smile. “To the laboratory! There is science to be done!” I pointed in the direction of the cellar door and reared up on my hind legs in what I hoped looked decently epic.

Spike was nice enough to play along. He roared an epic dragon-roar that almost made me flinch and shot a spout of flame into the air, carefully aiming it in a way that it did not light up our banners, bookshelves or, Celestia forbid, the books itself. And he extended his wings to their full, pretty glory. We could have made for great action figures with such poses, a voice in my head noted.

Twilight, however, broke character. When the flames vanished and the roar died down, we both heard her giggle. Faintly. She clearly tried to keep quiet. She had even raised a hoof in front of her muzzle. But we heard her anyway.

“Oh come now, you’re the biggest nerd of all of us!” I teased her.

The giggling stopped immediately. There was a warning glare in her eyes, but it was hard to take that seriously when she still smiled. “Vortex the Gray knows a thing or two about science,” she replied in an icy cold voice in reference to her Ogres & Oubliettes-character. “And neither does true science require striking impressive poses, nor does it profit from extended wings or battlecries!” A soft raspberry glow emanated from Twilight's body. It quickly grew in intensity until a blinding light washed over the entire hallway. When we dared open our eyes again, Twilight stood there in her full ‘mad scientist’-gear. Her white lab coat, stained with traces of experiments that refused to leave the cloth. Her goggles up on her forehead. A mask currently slipped down on her throat. Her hooves covered in isolating rubber horseshoes.

The funny part that never failed to amuse me was: Her ‘mad scientist’-gear was her role-playing gear, sure. But all these pieces of equipment were actual gear. That she actually used. In her actual lab. When doing actual science.

Therefore, I laughed a bit in return as she — obviously — struck a quite unnecessary pose.

“I take it you have some spare time right now?” I asked.

Twilight looked over her shoulder, back to both the floating empty coffee pot and the stairs leading up to her study. “I think so, yes. There is little to be done right now, it is a slow week. And I admit that this mystery delivery intrigues me.”

Hook, line and sinker.

I grinned proudly as I walked down the laboratory stairs. Spike followed me with the crate and Twilight came down as well. “Just put it over there,” I told Spike. He set the crate down on one of the metal tables. The cellar was Twilight's playground. All kinds of weird and quirky looking apparatuses beeped and booped and blinked and hummed down here. Some were shut off and only saw light and life when needed, others just ran the entire time. There was a massive reservoir dam near Ponyville that generated large amounts of electricity, but even after its most recent growth spurt, Ponyville did not use even a quarter of its output.

With all machinery running at top capacity though, Twilight's lab alone could use up half of it.

Several of the tables were made from stone, others from metal. All were kept simple. Functional. Some were inscribed with wards and glyphs to further help catastrophe-proof them, while others were plain. All were bolted to the floor. Wards required lots of time and energy. Or money. Twilight did not have enough time to place her own wards and she did not accept to buy the service from somepony else when she was perfectly capable of doing it herself. In theory.

Then again, with her duties and all that, she rarely got the opportunity to really go to town on science as much as she wanted to these days.

Spike ripped the lid of the crate off and took two of the sapphires from their padding. As agreed upon. It was hard to describe the sound he made in response, but all the more funnier to watch him rub the gemstones in his palm, against his cheek, in front of his nose, before he licked them. The latter especially reminded me of fillies and colts. I licked it, therefore it’s mine! “Satisfied?” I asked with an accompanying chuckle.

Spike put the lid back onto the crate. Just enough that his sight of the other sapphires was blocked. Then he turned to me and grinned from ear to ear. “Very much, yes! Thank you!”

I chuckled a bit more and trotted over. He accepted the hug without complaint. “You’re welcome, buddy.” I pulled myself free after a moment and gave his belly a little shove. “Now get out of here, the grownups want to do some serious science!”

He scoffed, but grinned anyway as he walked up the stairs in haste. There was only so much he could do without running away to add these two gems to his hoard.

Twilight watched him go as well, a fond smile on her lips. Then she turned to me, levitated the lid off the crate again and looked inside. 108 sapphires remained. “Why sapphires though?”

While she inspected the gemstones for cut and clarity, I checked our supply of coal and iron ore. The forge is ready to be used, awesome. I looked up and across the room towards her. “Well, I would usually say something like ‘trust the process’ or ‘trust me’ or something similar, but in this case, it’s actually more like a ‘trust yourself’, really.”

She furrowed her brow. “It is?”

I nodded. “Eyupp. You tried to explain it to me a couple of times. They are more resistant to the chaotic weather effects of the Everfree and other environmental hazards and something about their structure makes it easier to enchant them in bulk. You usually went with ten at a time. I don’t remember all of your explanation, because honestly, I didn’t understand all of it.”

She smirked. “Or you did not listen properly,” she offered her own theory.

I grinned a little sheepishly and walked over to her. “Nah, can’t be. I hang on your tantalizing lips whenever they are nearby,” I teased.

“Mhm,” she replied with half-lidded eyes, “maybe you are just distracted, then?”

I could feel her breath tickle my muzzle as much as she surely felt mine. “Maybe,” I whispered back.

“May—“

I kissed her. I had no idea what she was about to say. I had hoped she would cave before me, but I was not about to let this be drawn out eternally. She giggled softly into the kiss, presumably crowning herself the victor once more. I did not mind. This was a sweet defeat.

When I pulled back again, I smiled. “Sooo… it’s been a while since we’ve done anything like this.”

My little peanut nodded. “A year and a half. Those horseshoes for Luna.”

I grinned as fond memories flooded my mind. “She loves them.”

Twilight grinned a little wider. “She does.”

My eyes were drawn to the side, to the crate. A sigh escaped as my smile dimmed down a little. “This won’t be as much fun as that. But it would help me endlessly. I could forge the torches’ gemstone cages and handles all by myself. And I could probably find someone else who could enchant these things for a reasonable price. I would need to meditate a lot. Try to remember all the details of your enchantment. Because it is your enchantment. I don’t think it exists yet. But… I’d rather work alongside you. If I can have you.”

That mischievous smile was back. You had me plenty last night, or something along those lines. I could see it dance around at the tip of her tongue, yearning to be said. But she did not. Instead she closed her eyes, took a steadying breath and nodded. “I will gladly help you.”

One day, I told myself. One day, I would get her to the point that she played around with innuendo just as freely as Luna did. Then again, I had told that to myself for the last four decades.

“Lovely!” I kissed her cheek and she giggled in delight. “Alright, so, I need to make a couple of drawings.” Because if I was about to forge one hundred and eight iron torches, I needed a mold. And while the enchantment was invented by Twilight, my peanut had not done so yet. I needed to jumpstart her research by giving her all the information I could remember. All the rune patterns I saw on chalkboards, all the snippets of conversations, all the book titles she had used to research the topic. It would hopefully help her replicate the process even faster.

Every batch of gemstones she enchanted took around five to six hours, according to my memories. Two batches per day. Maybe three, maximum. Ten to eleven batches in total. Give or take a few days for interruptions and such…

“We have nine days until Applejack and Rainbow are back,” I offered with a hopeful grin. “We usually manage to cobble these torches together in around ten days. But we have a head start this time. Do you think we can make it? Are you up to the challenge?”

Twilight already poured over my notes. All the little details I had written down, everything I remembered, all diagrams and patterns and book titles. The accompanying books popped into existence seconds later and formed neat little book towers on the table's left side. Her mind was already racing. She connected dots. Formed chains of causality.

It took a moment for my words to register, but when they did, she looked up with an almost frightening enthusiasm and a smile that was truly worthy of a mad scientist. “Oh am I?!” she exclaimed with fervor. It had been a while since she had the opportunity to really sink her teeth into a conundrum complex enough to tickle her vast mind.

The main issue was the required reverse-engineering. I had bits and pieces of the enchantment. Parts of the research material. Some information on intermediate steps. But most importantly: I knew what these torches did. It was a subtle enchantment that generated an area effect. All sentient creatures within the area were subtly influenced and steered towards non-hostility. Predators were less likely to hunt in affected areas, or more likely to give up on fleeing prey. Predators such as timberwolves or manticores. The enchantment was not strong enough to overpower a creature's mind and instinct. It would not stop an already hostile creature from pursuing a perceived enemy and neither would it stop a hungry creature from taking an obvious opportunity. But over time, it should steer roaming packs and lone wanderers off the secured areas.

And knowing what the enchantment was supposed to do, she could retrace her steps.

With Twilight increasingly lost in her own little world, I shoveled coal into the furnace to heat up the forge. A thick leather apron secured my front and I went and fetched my welding mask, pliers and hammer. The drawings of the mold were crude at best and not up to par with technical standards. Luckily, I could count on my memories serving me well. I had done this so many times that I could forge these torches blindly. I simply knew. How long, how wide, how hot, how much. I just knew.

Day one started early.

Day two.

“You’ve seen my pliers?”

“Second table by the forge, left side.”

“Thanks.”

I went to fetch them and made my way over to the stairs. A crate with coal stood there, ready to refill my supply at the forge. I shoveled a bunch of it into my bucket and made the trip a couple of times to refill properly and keep going for a while. Whenever last I had used the forge, I had enough clarity of mind to clean it properly and leave it for next time in a state that could be used immediately, yet I had totally skipped on restocking the fuel supply. Shame on me.

I walked past Twilight's current workbench and saw her progress. She was already enchanting. It had taken her less than a day to recover all the missing pieces and reconstruct the enchantment. It was astounding. Twilight never failed to impress me, by sheer magical prowess or mental capacities. But this speed was something else. “Maybe I should buy you more of these riddle books,” I wondered aloud.

She scoffed with a smile. “Oh please, they are way too easy…”

I grinned and watched for a few seconds. She applied a fine layer of breezie dust to a batch of twelve gemstones. It was an early step in the enchantment process. Delicate, but early. Thus I decided it was worth it. I snuck up to her side, careful to not disturb anything, not even the air. Then I slowly leaned in. I saw her peek at me out of the corner of her eye. I saw how the urge to smile tugged at the corners of her lips. She tried desperately to stay focused on her very delicate task while I was no help whatsoever.

I kissed her cheek.

“I’m concentrating,” she chided me softly. But I saw her beam. She could not hide that. So I dared and leaned in again, and kissed her cheek again. A second time. A third time. Eventually, she got the hint. She paused her current step at a decent point and turned her head. “You are just imposs—“

A bit of her delirious ranting was lost in the kiss, but she quickly eased into it. I did not even dare to flinch when she sucked my lower lip in between her teeth and gave it a warning nip. I had expected as much.

When we pulled apart again, we both grinned.

I took my bucket and left, satisfied. And Twilight returned to her work with a soft head shake. She could not stop smiling for the next hour, though.

Worth it.

Day three.

Some days were just cursed. I was not a superstitious pony by nature, but sometimes…

“Honestly, this has to be a joke,” I grumbled as I opened the mold. I could already see it. No need to take the piece out of there. It was brittle. One solid hit and it would break into pieces. An animal grazing it while running past could do the trick. Maybe even a strong gust of wind. Or a snapping branch that falls down during a storm. This was unusable. Maybe the ore had gone bad? Or the temperature was not right anymore?

I searched for the potential culprit. Time lost on the forging itself.

Two hours later and the next piece was just fine. I had not found my culprit. I had checked everything that made sense and found nothing. I simply tried again and voila — it worked. It made no sense. None whatsoever.

Have you tried switching it off and on again?, a voice in the back of my head teased.

Maybe the lack of me finding anything was the reason. Maybe I had riled myself up over this. Either way, I got sloppy.

I poured molten iron into the mold. I did it too fast and a few searing hot droplets splashed around. My apron caught most of them.

Most.

The immediate sensation of stinging pain almost made me drop my tools. “Fuck,” I hissed as I quickly disposed of the tools in as safe a manner as the pain would allow.

The curse immediately drew Twilight's attention. And quick thinker that she was, she put one and one together. A pop here, a pop there and she was in front of me. She flung a spell in my direction and teleported the first aid kit over. Or at least her version of a first aid kit. Honestly, some hospitals were less equipped than she was.

The spell dimmed the pain down while she inspected the damage. It was not too bad. A few areas of my coat were singed. The coat had luckily taken the brunt of the hit. Burning yourself with liquid metal was never fun. Some smiths might claim it was totally and entirely avoidable. Just work with care and caution. I called bullshit. We were all just ponies. A bad slip, a wrong twist, a moment of slipping attention. Nopony could keep up perfect concentration forever. We were all fallible. Imperfect. That made us unique and special and great, but it also meant we sometimes messed up. And burned ourselves. Quite literally.

“There are easier ways to get yourself a piercing, you know?” Twilight tried to light up my mood.

I sighed forcefully to cover up the hiss of pain as she inspected another burned patch. “And here I thought I’d make myself pretty for you.”

She smiled wryly and focused on her task. I let Twilight do her thing. She knew what to do, and how and when and where. “It was stupid,” I mumbled.

“Are you alright?” she asked instead of addressing my statement.

I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my muzzle with the hoof that currently wasn’t under her care. “Yeah. Spell works. Thank you.”

She briefly and quickly smiled at me before her eyes were back down. “It happens.” She applied some sort of ointment on the wound that cooled it down.

I nodded. I knew that. Still felt awful, of course.

Day four.

Work was going great. I was way past the halfway point. The forge hummed with heat and willingness. The metal sang under every strike of the hammer. And it was funny to take a little break whenever I put the hot metal into the acid bath to watch the steam rise up and vanish through the ventilation system.

It was one such break when I once again looked over to Twilight. We worked in comfortable silence most of the time. I loved watching her work. And according to what she had told me, that went both ways.

Her horn was aglow. Her face was a stony mask of concentration. Her eyes closed. Twelve gemstones levitated before her, slowly rotating on a vertical axis, spinning in place. Rune patterns appeared mid-air, shrunk down and stuck to the surfaces of the gems, where they carved themselves into the material without breaking it.

I had always been sensitive to magic. I could feel the vast power that she currently wielded. It flowed out from her like a river. Deceptive in its apparent lack of speed and depth. A naked eye could not tell how much energy currently filled this room.

But it was Twilight's magic. It always conjured a feeling of excitement within me. Not the same kind of excitement as Luna's magic did, though. Excitement and familiarity. Trust. Gravitas.

I noticed a little dissonant note in her magic before even she did.

That alone was enough to spring into action. I quickly looked around and located the ECC. Emergency Containment Chamber. A round tube no longer than a pony's leg. One side was open, but could be quickly closed. I levitated the ECC over just in time. Twilight noticed the impending mishap too, now. She grimaced as the dissonant tone grew louder. A gurgling in the otherwise calm river. One of the enchantments went haywire.

I stepped a lot closer to her workbench, even though its general area was becoming increasingly dangerous with every passing second. I closed my eyes. Trusted my senses. The calmness washed over me, but the dissonant tone remained. On my right. I opened my eyes again, took a really close look at those gems on my right and spotted one which rotated along a ever so slightly misaligned axis.

I grabbed the ECC again and scooped the gem up with it. The lid closed, the security wards sprang to life and the containment field kept the worst inside.

It is never wise to interrupt an ongoing enchantment process. The more energy is flowing, the more dangerous it becomes. The sapphire within the ECC struggled to keep its current form. It floated in the middle of the tube, shuddered and trembled and cracked and then pow…

A fine, blue dust settled within the ECC. But the containment tube itself held. I had levitated it over to the force cage anyway, just to be sure. Even though the force cage was usually more a means to temporarily deal with accidental summons. A force wall could resist as much energy as was put into it. And Twilight had charged these over the years. To the point where I was pretty sure that they could withstand a fully loaded Lord Tirek battering it down for a few hours. Or even days.

“Sorry about that one,” Twilight ruefully murmured behind me.

I turned and saw her place the other eleven gems down. The enchantment phase she currently worked on was done. For these, at least.

I smiled and walked over to her. A little hug to pick her back up already did wonders. “It happens, I’ve been told.”

Her cautious smile turned into a hopeful grin. “Is that so? By whom?”

I shrugged and played coy. “Oh, I don’t know? Just the prettiest, nerdiest big brain I have ever met.”

She giggled and stuck her tongue out at me. “That does not sound like a compliment, you know?”

“It doesn’t? Huh,” I wondered and kissed her nose. “It should, though. I’m horribly, irresistibly attracted to great minds. And amidst a beautiful twinkling night sky full of bright little sparks, she is the overpowering full moon.”

She blushed. And was at a loss for words. Victory! Yesss! What does that make? Two for me, fifty for her? I chuckled and hugged her once more. Then I brought the ECC over. We both looked at its current content. A blue residue with a granulation like fine sand or dust. I turned to her. “Do you think this is still… you know…?”

“Save for consumption?” she asked. I nodded. Twilight furrowed her brow and shrugged after a moment. “I do not see any reason why it should not be.” We both grinned. “He will be thrilled to have a third one.”

“Everything okay here?” Spike's voice echoed down from the top of the stairs.

Both Twilights and my eyes suddenly shrank to the size of pinpricks and we scrambled to hide the ECC. “Everything okay!” she yelled a little too fast and insistent while I stuffed the thing under a table. Spike could sniff out gemstones. I had no idea if the magical field of the ECC was strong enough to prevent that.

When Spike came down the stairs, we stood side by side, turned towards him, with too wide smiles plastered on our faces. He stopped and stared at us with unease. “Alright, that’s creepy. Dude, stop. Twilight. Please.”

We exchanged a look and both sighed in relief. Without actually talking about it, we apparently had feared the same thing: That the little mishap had triggered something upstairs. That Spike had come down here to tell us that another monster was attacking Ponyville. That some goo took over the castle. Or a ghost was haunting the hallways. Or a living spell floated about the place.

But no. He held a silver platter in his claws. Stacked with little sandwiches. Pre-cut into bite-sized pieces.

I regained my composure first and chuckled a little as I dared come closer to him. “Uhhh, food!” As if on command, my stomach grumbled. “Tasty looking food, too. You do spoil us rotten! What is that?” I took a whiff from the platter and could feel my mouth watering. “Tomato, oregano, basil… pickled cucumber… is that baked zucchini?”

“Grilled, actually,” Spike replied with an unmistakable pride. Well-earned pride, given how tasty just about anything he could conjure up was.

Twilight dared to approach as well. “Thank you, Spike. That was very thoughtful of you!”

While she took a dainty little bite, I had to restrain myself to not shovel half the platter down my chute. He chuckled probably because he could see the intention written on my forehead clear as day. I tried to distract myself — and him — with the obvious question. “So I take it we get basement-lunch now? Didn’t you say we would never get basement-lunch though?”

I thought I had him. I was wrong. The way his left brow raised slightly told me that before he even opened his mouth. “First off, this is technically basement-dinner. And secondly, I can take this back upstairs if you’d like? I mean, it’s not like I have been coming down here the past couple of days, more or less silently and secretly feeding you two anyway, right?”

I blinked. For a moment, my head was empty. I wanted to think. Really, I did. But every attempt drew a blank. I looked over to Twilight and she blinked in much the same manner. Well, at least I was not alone. I looked back to Spike and he sighed. “Ah, don’t worry. I know how you two can get. It’s not the worst I’ve seen. But I know I won’t get either of you out of here until you’re done. So I do what I do best, you know. Take care of you.”

“D'awww!” That… noise made it out of my mouth before I could even think again. Not that I regretted making it. Not when his purple scales turned pink.

I quickly exchanged another glance with Twilight. She clearly felt just as touched. And she nodded with a mischievous smile. So we both stepped forward to hug our friend.

“Ah! Food!” he tried to defend himself. He wielded the platter almost like a shield, but Twilight swiftly grabbed hold of it and levitated it out of his reach. Where it was safe and sound and would not fall. Or hinder us.

And when we hugged him. Spike sighed, but ultimately melted into the embrace.

“We love you, Spike,” I offered.

“You are my NOAFAE,” Twilight added with a giggle.

Spike sighed in defeat and slung his arms around both of us. “Figures.”

Day five.

It was the final sprint. A few minor hiccups aside, everything went smoothly. Only two dozen torches more and I would be done. Twilight was finishing up with the sapphires as well. Maybe another day.

She came over to the forge. Some of her reagents required heating. It had taken us an embarrassing amount of time to realize that instead of heating it at her workbench, she could simply use the heat of the forge. Ah well. Better late than never.

I liked having her closer to me. She somehow maneuvered around me even as I was working, without ever getting in the way.

With her ingredients sufficiently warmed up, she levitated them across the room and followed the floating tubes and flasks. As she passed me by, she flicked her tail across my muzzle. Well, not fully. Just enough that it grazed my cheek. I heard her giggle.

“I’m concentrating,” I sang in reply, echoing what she had told me a while earlier.

I put another torch handle into the acid barrel. It sizzled. As I mentally prepared the next required steps — repeats upon repeats of previous ones —, she snuck up beside me. And leaned in slowly. I grinned and contemplated busting her move. I could very easily turn my head and kiss her. Wrestle the initiative from her. But I decided against that.

She kissed my cheek. Once, twice, thrice.

When I did not budge, she placed a little trail up to my ear. “Come ooon,” she murmured.

A pleasant shiver ran down my spine. “Keep that up and I’m going to pounce on you,” I whispered back.

“I can imagine worse fates,” she kept murmuring into my ear.

It was admittedly getting harder to concentrate. Luckily, I did not have a workpiece right now. I turned towards her with intent. There might have been a fire in that forge next to me, but I felt another one roaring in my chest… and loins. I leaned in and kissed her.

Or so I thought.

Because as my lips made contact with hers, Twilight disintegrated into a fine dust that quickly dissolved into nothingness. And while the illusion vanished, the real one stood back at her workbench and regarded me with a very hot smugness. Or maybe my mind was clouded by desire. Maybe.

Either way, I did not fail to notice how her eyes traveled down my barrel and she bit down on her lower lip. Was that regret I saw on her face?

Any other day, I would most likely have been embarrassed to be exposed like that. But it was just the two of us down here. “You sure you wanna stay over there?” I dared to ask.

She quickly took stock of her workplace. And probably reached the same conclusion I had earlier: Almost done. As such, she grinned, blew me a kiss and whispered “soon”.

Enticing. I nodded and tried to get back into the groove. It took a bit of effort.

A few hours later.

“Spike!” Twilight and I yelled in unison. The door at the top of the staircase was ripped open. We heard him run down and seconds later, he barged into the laboratory.

“Help!” I yelled and kicked back with a hindleg, only for my second leg to be caught by some tentacly horror as well.

Twilight shot beam after beam of pure magical energy into the furnace from whence the monstrosity extended its surprisingly sticky and non-slimy appendages. Every shot hit, connected, returned a pained squeal and kept its focus on ‘defending’ itself instead of dragging me into the furnace.

“Fire!” Twilight yelled in Spike's direction.

“But it’ll hurt him!” he replied in a shriek, quickly falling into the same panic I currently desperately tried to resist. And honestly, I did not fare much better than him, helplessly pawing at the ground with my forehooves while I tried to grab anything and everything with my telekinesis. Something that was both incredibly stupid and dangerous and that lucky for me, failed anyway. Because I could not concentrate sufficiently under the current circumstances. My magic simply fizzled out every time I tried.

“He’s fire-resistant!” Twilight yelled back and tried once more to teleport me. Whatever this thing behind me was, it proved once again to be incredibly magic-resistant. It swung one of its tentacles and simply wiped her magic away. Somehow.

“Just resistant? Not immune?” Spike asked.

“Spike!” we both yelled again.

He flinched, then inhaled deeply and shot a burst of green flame just past me. I could feel the searing heat of his dragonfire on my back. Grilled pony, extra crispy, a voice in my head joked. Then I felt the grip of that thing loosen. I did not wait for an invitation. I took the opportunity, rolled sideways, scrambled to my legs and fled to the other side of the room.

The moment all appendages retreated into the furnace, they started to become translucent and vanish. Twilight threw the lid of the furnace shut anyway. Just to be safe.

“What just happened?!” Spike asked in sheer disbelief.

The thrashing tentacles had dislodged two of the tables. Metal ones. Which had previously been secured in place by being bolted to the solid stone floor. Everything on those two tables was now, well, everywhere else. In pieces, partially.

I grimaced just thinking about the amount of bits it would take to replace Twilights custom-made gear. Ah well. It was going too smoothly anyway.

“Take him upstairs for a moment, I need to clear the room!” Twilight instructed her number one assistant.

Spike simply flung me over his shoulder. I did not get much say in this, it seemed. He grabbed me, lifted me off the ground and placed me on his shoulder. And went up the stairs. Two steps at a time.

Once up there, he sat me down again. “Tell me what happened,” he insisted again.

I rubbed the bridge of my muzzle. I felt as if Applejack had run me over with a cart. “I shoveled coal in. We were messing around a little. I know, I know, spare me the tirade. I must’ve accidentally thrown some of her alchemical reagents in, I guess.”

Spike growled. It was not the reaction I had expected. I looked up and almost shrunk away from him. His gaze was fierce. And decidedly unhappy. “Dude! Okay, that’s it, you need sleep. When was the last time you took a break?”

I conveniently chose to ignore the former remark to answer the latter question. “Every couple of hours! Whenever another piece was done, I put it in the barrel and had a few moments to collect myself, get my bearings, take a breather.”

“When was the last time you took a break,” he growled again. With even more ferocity than before.

I cringed a little as a particular question sprang to mind. I wanted to avoid asking it, but I saw no way around it. And Spike did not look like he would be overly patient with me this time. “Uhm… what day is it?”

A puff of smoke exited his nostrils. He shook his head and sighed. At least the ferocity was gone and he was back to being my buddy. “Bed. Now.” He sniffed the air a moment and grimaced. “Fine. Shower first, then bed.”

I sighed. The tone was unambiguous. There would be no discussing this. A decision was made, and I would be better off following along. I sighed. “Fine. I’ll go and fetch Twilight.”

He scratched his forehead. “What? Why?”

The fact that he seemed surprised… surprised me. “Ehrm… Spike? She’s been down there with me this whole time. Just because she hasn’t messed up yet doesn’t mean she had any breaks. Or this ‘sleep’-thing you keep prattling on about…”

“Oh.” He fell silent for a moment, thinking. Then he shrugged. “I’ll go get her favorite Starswirl-book.”

“Huh? Why?” Spike only shot me one of these ‘you ought to know better’-looks. I turned towards the open cellar door and called down to Twilight. “Peanut?”

There was a bit of noise I could not identify properly. “I can fix this!” came her belated answer.

I grimaced. “Maybe you’re right and that book is a good id—“

I turned around, but Spike was already gone.

It took us ten minutes to get Twilight out of the cellar. In the end, Spike simply grabbed her and carried her off. Another half hour went by to get both of us under a dearly needed hot shower. And finally, into bed.

I felt heavy. Like a sack of bricks. Incidentally, I felt like I had been beaten with said sack. Over the head. Because as soon as my body hit the soft sheets, as soon as a cozy blanket covered us, as soon as my head so much as touched the pillow, all the previous days came crashing down.

I scooched a little closer still to Twilight and wrapped my legs around her. Her wings rustled slightly before they relaxed again. A heavy sigh escaped her lips. “I am going to hate my life tomorrow…”

A decidedly quieter, lighter sigh emanated from my throat. I should have expected this. Her mind was still racing. She already prepared for the mess that would await her once she dared to open her eyes again. We had been in the cellar for days, according to Spike. How in Celestia’s grace had we lost track of time this badly?

True, she would have paperwork. Loads. But at the same time, I found it hard to agree with her ‘I’m doomed’-attitude. I had seen the mountains of dead trees coupled with ink that Sunny had to deal with on a daily basis. Twilight's daily paperwork was half a foothill in comparison.

That obviously did not mean that her worries were any less legitimate. So I tried my best to comfort her. “I got you into this mess, I’m going to at least try to help you sort it out. Also, Spike did some stuff, he said. No idea what, but I’m sure we’ll find out tomorrow. Just… don’t beat yourself up. We’ll fix it. We always do, remember?”

She sighed again, but did not dare disagree openly. Instead she crawled a little deeper under the blanket and pushed further back against me. Into me. So I held her a little tighter.

I was dead tired. I knew that all it took was to close my eyes and I would be gone. But I needed to make sure. I needed to ensure that Twilight did not stay awake, plagued by her worries. She handled sleep deprivation about as well as I did. That is to say: Horribly.

My addled mind scrambled to find anything to help her. Eventually, I settled on an idea. Even in my current state, I deemed it a stupid one. But I had nothing better to offer. So I raised my head slightly off the pillow. The curtains were drawn shut. We would sleep until morning, easily. And I sang. A lullaby from a time when Arcana had still been little. When our young bookworm still loved listening to those silly stories and songs her dad made up. Admittedly, this one was not my creation though.

“Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high,
There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true!
Someday I'll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me.
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That's where you'll find me!
Somewhere, over the rainbow,
bluebirds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why then, oh why, can't I?
If happy little bluebirds fly
Beyond the rainbow
Why, oh why, can't I?”

While initially she had looked at me like I had lost my mind, she said nothing and remained quiet. Eventually, she dared to close her eyes and truly settled in. And with the faint ghost of a smile and a soft exhale, she was gone. I knew it. Her breathing was calm and even. Her heartbeat was steady. Only then did I rest my head behind hers again. I inhaled the fresh scent of her lavender shampoo. But I could still smell her body scent beneath it. Paper and ink. I always connected that with home. With safety. With trust.

I closed my eyes.

And opened them in the dreamscape.

A disgruntled Luna stood in front of me.

I scratched the side of my head, accompanied by a nervous chuckle. “So, yeah… about those last few nights where I was technically supposed to do my job… ehm… I can explain…!”

Recruitment Efforts I

A couple of overstuffed days ended up being my sentence for failure. I had promised Twilight that I would at least try to find a way of helping her, and I fully intended to keep my word. We dove head-first into her moderate mountain of paperwork at the first opportunity and quickly established order. Things got sorted by categories and I even managed to find a way to make myself useful, despite my apparent lack of princessly qualities. Those nooks and crannies in her duties I attacked with fervor, mostly by serving as a messenger or helping out with the occasional unsolicited advice. I was pretty sure that some of the stuff I did was actually part of Spike's usual duties and that would have explained why I saw so little of him in those few days, but I certainly did not mind giving him a break either, especially after he helped us out like he did.

And for a few more nights, my grumpy little kitten chewed me out on the dreamscape. I presumed that my neglect was not what irked her this much. From what I could gather in between the lines, those nights I had missed were not exactly spectacular. They had not been busy. No sudden onslaught of attacks on dreamers, no wave of nightmares, nothing like that. Instead it seemed like she felt a tad lonely. She simply assumed that I had a good reason for not showing up. And then I did and my best effort of explaining was ‘I kinda forgot to sleep’.

She was probably just miffed that I broke a well-established and lovingly groomed routine. And while I could get behind that, it did still amuse me how much even my precious Luna was a creature of habit.

These days were filled with the kind of work that made my mind go blank for minutes, then hours. Shuffling papers around the room. Establishing order. It was satisfying in its own way, but it did not exactly tickle my mind. Thus, the hours started to blend into one another, until the days did the same. And the further we got away from our crafting binge, the blurrier those days became as well. We had apparently spent something like five days or close to that down in her lab and I could barely remember anything with clarity. Bits and pieces, sure. Almost like my flashes.

Five days was an accomplishment, though. Spike insisted that it was nothing to be proud of, because we risked too much. In his opinion. And in Luna’s, admittedly. But as far as I knew, we had never managed to craft this many enchanted torches in just five days. I tried to keep my pride hidden and only shared it with Twilight via the occasional mad grin.

These days led up to this evening. The big party. The party.

The fence surrounding Sweet Apple Acres had been decorated with garlands and floral wreaths. Everypony who walked by was welcome to take one. Everypony who entered the Acres and did not wear one was given one. The Apple family homestead was decorated to a degree that one could reasonably have expected Hearth's Warming Eve to be just around the corner. All the colorful lights and streamers, it was pretty in a Pinkie-innocent way, without ever touching the border to becoming gaudy.

The air was filled. The scent of fresh, home-baked cookies and pies and grilled vegetables made my stomach rumble quietly. They had gone all-out for this one. Was it any wonder, though? Half of Ponyville seemed to be here. Little splotches of ponies all around me. Groups mingling, merrily chatting away the evening. Their voices were busy, yet somehow still comfortable background noise. Underlined by a slow, calming melody emanating from the house itself.

Their old gramophone played. Granny Smith loved that record. Celestia bless her. So even the air itself was filled with nostalgia. It was a time to celebrate the recent events just as much as reminisce.

“Howdy.”

While internally startled, I remained calm on the outside. And it took half a second for me to grin. My visitor sidled up to my side and followed my gaze out to all the other ponies.

It was startling sometimes how much she sounded like Applejack. Something I should probably mention more. I was sure Applejack would puff her chest out in a demonstration of True Apple Family Pride.

“Hey, seedling,” I greeted her with a smirk.

The tease never failed. She snorted in a mixture of amusement and playful annoyance and gave my shoulder a little shove with her own. “I’m too old for that, you know?”

Is she, though? I could still easily conjure up images of holding her when she was little. Applejack had trusted me. Had given her to me. And little Ambrosia had pulled my mane and giggled when I grimaced at her. All the while Rainbow paced around nervously.

It took next to no effort to remember her playing in the streets with Stardust and Aurora, while Arcana slowly walked behind them with her muzzle buried deep in her first book, so intensely focused on learning how to read.

I looked to the side and took stock. I was no artist. Color theory was beyond me. I could not even tell within five seconds what would result from mixing blue and orange. Brown, apparently. An orange-tinted, brownish coat. She was a fully grown mare, her shoulder height easily surpassing mine by an inch. Her wild and untamable mane was a mixture of colored streaks, just like that of her other mom. But it was not the color scheme of a rainbow. ‘An apple-rainbow’, Applejack had called it. A variety of colors one could apparently see when all kinds of apples would come together. A deep red, a vivid green, a slightly paler yellow, it was still just as impressive to look at.

But in between her shoulder height and her unruly mane was her face, and it was a middle-aged one. Smaller wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. Lines of laughter from years and years of happy moments. A wisdom in her eyes that made me feel springy and young again in comparison.

I smiled, leaned over and nuzzled her. “You’ll always be my little seedling, Ambrosia.”

She chuckled and shook her head. “Fine. Say, you haven’t seen Graphite, have you?”

I furrowed my brow and tried to remember. So many ponies had passed me by. Exchanges of nods and waves and brief greeting words. But nowhere in this mess did I remember a coat almost the color of coal, or a mane of deep bloodred. “Can’t say I did, sorry.”

“Nah, don’t worry, it’s fine. I’ll track her down. You have fun, you hear me?”

Her insistent tone made me stand a little taller, straighter. “Yes ma’am!”

We both chuckled and she trotted off. My gaze followed her as she passed by several other groups, asking here and there if they had seen the elusive mare. Ambrosia eventually went inside and I lost sight of her. My mind idled for a few moments before it returned to general, aimless musing.

I came here with Twilight. But parties were difficult for me. I had my own speed. One that was vastly slower than hers. So we split up. I could even see her. She stood near the veranda of the house, the focus point of a group of a dozen ponies. She laughed and seeing that made me smile instantly. It made me happy. It brought me joy.

Then she told a joke, or an anecdote or something, and all the ponies around her laughed as well.

She held herself with such effortless grace. The way her body language worked, with her wings emphasizing points of her speech. She rolled her expressive eyes when she told another tidbit, accompanied by a smile. And her tail gave the tiniest swish every time she had to wait for a few seconds for her audience's reaction.

She was a multilayered beauty.

I did not envy her, though. She mingled effortlessly, sure. But it was not a quality I craved for myself, despite my issues. I still remembered a Twilight from decades ago. Socially inept, awkward around others, with her muzzle constantly in a book. I loved my bookworm. She was such a huge nerd. And I did not mind her lack of confidence. I tried to bolster it up as much as I could, whenever I could. That pony over there, I loved her just as much. But she was not my slightly insecure nerdy bookworm anymore. She had evolved. She was still a nerd. But I suppose at some point, being a nerd became cool. She probably spearheaded that development. She was the cool, confident, beloved, nerdy-as-heck princess.

I occasionally still caught glimpses of my little bookworm though. And I was grateful for those moments as well.

As a coincidence, she looked my way. And our eyes met. That smile plastered on her face grew a little softer for a moment, a little warmer. There was a lot she told me without any words. She had fun. She enjoyed herself, and the evening, and the party, and her current company. Did I enjoy myself?

I briefly glanced around. I still stood where I had walked to earlier, when the house suddenly felt overstuffed and crammed. I had such a sudden burst of need for fresh air. I quickly left. One might even have called it ‘fled’. I stood beside Arnold. One of the oldest trees on the Acres. I leaned against his rough bark. When I arrived here, I had talked to him a little. Applejack always did that. Talk with her trees. I had no idea if they could actually hear her. Or if they ever answered her. Maybe they did, and maybe they could, and maybe that was due to her being an earth pony. Made it less likely that me talking to Arnold did anything. But it was strangely comforting to talk to a tree.

I sighed deeply.

I did not deal well with large crowds. Even after all these years, I never grew accustomed enough to them. At social gatherings of this size, I usually stuck to my love’s sides. Hiding in Princess Celestia’s aura of regality was easy. Hiding beside Princess Luna's sheer force of personality was easy. Hiding under Twilight's wing while she entertained the audience with tales of adventure and lectures about all kinds of topics… was easy. But no matter how well I hid, I was still very close to the center of attention. Like the eye of a hurricane. It made me anxious. It still meant that, once the party or gathering or whatever was over, I felt exhausted and tired.

This, this was better. Arnold and I, we had a blast. I knew I should mingle. I would. Eventually. But for now, Arnold was just the right company for me. So I dared to look back and I was not surprised to see that she still glanced in my direction every now and then. She waited for an answer. I gave her one via a simple smile and a nod. I was fine. I was doing great.

I saw a little bit of relief, and her attention now turned back to her audience in full.

Come on, strike up a conversation. With somepony who can actually answer, preferably. Shouldn’t be that hard!

I sighed again. “It’s not that easy,” I answered the voice in my head. He had that snarky tone again. I had difficulties telling if he wanted to help or hinder at the best of times, and his tone usually made it harder. Did he want to goat me into it? Coax me out of my shell in a rather aggressive manner? Or did he indeed just wish to mock me? Again.

I looked around once more. This time, I scanned the crowd for something particular. An opportunity. Because no matter how much confidence I managed to scrape together, no matter how much I psyched myself up — simply walking up to a group and inserting myself in their conversation was a tall order.

It took half a minute to find what I sought. I spotted Ambrosia again. She was in the company of Graphite. And Applejack. And Rainbow Dash.

Ever since they returned to Ponyville, I had not spoken to them. A part of me was simply scared, even if I had a hard time admitting that to myself. I convinced her to return home. And no matter what, that was a good thing. My conviction in that regard was unshakable. But my methods had been… dubious, maybe? Did she resent me now?

I hesitated too long. Applejack put a hoof around Rainbow and slowly led her back to the house. Rainbow took a sip from her mug. Cider, probably.

It still left me with Ambrosia and Graphite. I walked over before it even fully registered in my head that I had started to move. “I see you found her,” I greeted them both.

Ambrosia grinned and nodded. “Eyupp. It’s no wonder, really, I learned tracking from the best Apple there ever was!”

Graphite furrowed her brow and looked at her. “… my dad?”

Ambrosia snorted in amusement and shook her head. “Nah. Winona, of course.”

The three of us laughed for a good moment. I still thought it was an odd choice to reuse that name, but at the same time, keeping it for the family dog as a tradition had a quirky charm to it as well. I looked back towards the house and dared to ask. “So, how is she holding up?”

I half-expected the mood to take a nosedive. But it did not. Ambrosia followed my gaze and her smile even grew a little. “Better, actually. Came as a surprise to most of us, Applejack especially. It’s the familiarity, the doctors say. She remembers stuff. The building, the layout, the orchard. She says she remembers the smell of the oil we use to keep the wood intact. I never noticed it, but hey, maybe pegasi noses are better or something.”

That was a relief to hear. It made my smile feel more genuine. “That’s great.” I looked around a little and ran into the same issue I always did. I was horrible at leading a conversation. “So, where’s your better half?”

Ambrosia looked around for a moment and then simply shrugged. “Cider should be around. Somewhere. Give it another hour and you’ll probably hear him.”

I nodded. “What about you, Graphite?”

The moment I asked, Ambrosia grimaced. And Graphite, in a rare display of her mom’s shyness, retreated behind her curtainlike, bloodred mane. “Bad topic,” Ambrosia intervened, “let’s not go there.”

“Oh, I-I’m sorry,” I hastily stumbled through my apology. “So sorry to hear that, you—“ looked so happy. But out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Ambrosia subtly shake her head. So I cut myself off. And immediately tried to divert attention. “How are your parents doing?”

Real smooth there, buddy, a voice in my head sneered in amusement.

Shut up, I barked back with no patience for his antics. He merely laughed. A rough bark of a laugh. And then silence.

Graphite took the offered hoof. The chance to focus on anything other than her last relationship apparently burning and sinking. “I haven’t seen dad all evening, maybe he’s off with mom again.” A brief moment passed in relative silence before she shuddered slightly.

One would assume that a pony with an impressive frame such as Big Macintosh’s would be hard to overlook. Yet here we were. I looked around and noticed once more all the gossiping and chatting groups of ponies that gathered around the house. I could see through the many windows of the homestead how packed it still was inside. Yet Big Mac's bright red coat was nowhere to be seen.

Once my attention returned to Graphite, I could not help but smirk a little. Her reaction was a small delight to observe. “Oh, so… you suspect they’re busy making little siblings for you?”

I swallowed that chuckle bubbling in my throat as I saw Graphite grimace. “Please don’t even joke about that, it puts images in my head!”

She looked up at me with such a pleading look that it broke my fragile self-control. A few guffaws escaped my throat despite my best efforts. To show that I was not laughing at her, I stepped closer and hugged her for a brief moment. She seemed to be fine with that and even reciprocated the gesture.

Graphite had always been a bit more difficult to read. Probably due to her parents being who they were. That said, she had been raised rather sheltered as well. While both Applejack and Rainbow had often pushed Ambrosia out the door to do outdoorsy stuff, Big Mac and Marble had doted on Graphite a lot. And for a long, long time, despite Applejack doing her best to get the filly out there as well.

“Sorry about that,” I apologized once we pulled apart again.

At this point, my little seedling luckily came to my rescue. She effortlessly wrestled control of the conversation from me. “Speaking about ‘images’, did you know that Graphite paints?”

My brows raised and I looked from Ambrosia to Graphite. The latter once again seemed like she wanted to hide behind her mane again, but she resisted and instead gave a curt nod to acknowledge the truth. “I did not, no.”

Ambrosia knew that I had the deepest respect for artists. And no small amount of curiosity. “She has a little atelier upstairs. The walls are hung with half-finished canvases and the entire room smells of paint. She’s really good, too. Well, she was.”

There was a very specific undertone in that last word. One that communicated a whole essay worth of information. And it was clearly addressed at Graphite, who blushed deeply and averted her gaze to the ground, softly pawing at it with a hoof. Was she nervous? “Why ‘was’?” I asked. The question was a mere formality, but Ambrosia waited for an invitation to continue her explanation, one that shaped up to be a rant or lecture of some kind.

“Well, she gave up on it,” Ambrosia explained with accusation lacing her voice. “And no, I have no idea why. She won’t tell me. But honestly, I don’t care anymore either. I just want her to pick it up again. She was good. And she enjoyed it. A lot. And it was good for her, too. I’ve been bugging her about it ever since.”

“She’s very persistent,” Graphite noted. And despite Ambrosias temper flaring a little, Graphite still smiled. Because her cousin cared so much.

“I’m very persistent,” Ambrosia agreed with a decisive nod. Then her enraged gaze turned to me and I almost retreated half a step. “She can’t just stick to her room or the gem field. Tell her that she should have a hobby!”

It was astonishing how commanding Ambrosia could be. How well it worked. Every fiber of my being wanted to acquiesce. Then again, following commands had always been closer to my nature than giving them.

I dutifully turned to Graphite, forced that grin away from my lips to insert a serious ‘we gotta talk’-face instead and did what I had been told. “You should have a hobby!”

Both Ambrosia and Graphite rolled their eyes, but both smiled anyway. “Yes, uncle,” Graphite relented with a sigh. “You’re almost as stubborn as she is.”

“It’s an Apple family quality,” I explained with a grin and mussed up her mane.

“I’d call it tradition, but both works, I guess,” Ambrosia agreed.

The three of us once more shared a round of quiet laughter. And whatever tension was left simply bled out of me. I felt comfortable with these two. Enough so that I would not mind talking some more. Sharing a drink or two. Listening to them prattling on about this and that. I had found a good spot to spend the evening at.

I briefly glanced around and noticed Twilight once more. She smiled at me. Warm and happy and maybe a tad relieved. We both nodded. And understood.

The morning after the party was a quiet affair. I had worked overtime with Luna in an effort to make up for my previous mess, even if she never asked anything like that of me. I therefore woke up to an empty bed, but I managed to keep my dismay at bay. I shuffled to the bathroom, emerged decently awake and caught myself a barebones breakfast to get the day started.

Spike was busy somewhere in the castle, doing his daily chores. I could hear him whistle a tune that echoed in the hallways. And Twilight would most likely be in her study, fighting her inbox for dominance over the room. A lot of letters, a lot of friendship advice, a lot of Legalese.

I sat down at the significantly smaller desk in the library. A stack of paper sheets before me, an ink well ready to go, three feathers to my right, perfectly parallel. Everything was prepared. I was ready to work on what I now titled Project Greenwood in my head.

Well, truthfully, I had already worked on it. Quite a lot, actually. The enchanted torches had been a solid first step. But now came the time when I needed to open up to others in a significant way: I needed personnel. I needed skilled, qualified workers.

I lifted one of the feathers and instead of leading it towards the inkwell, I led it to my throat. The soft caress up and down my throat felt nice and helped me think. Although it did not take long until my eyes drifted to the right and my heart grew heavier. The perch was empty.

It had been years. Something I seemed to tell myself a lot recently. But I still missed White Tip. As much as Twilight probably missed Owlicious. We talked about maybe adopting new pets, but it did not feel quite right. Not yet. Maybe that point would come someday.

A deep sigh later, I finally opened the inkwell and started to write. I would not get anything done if I decided to only write something down once I was sure what precisely I wanted to write. I had to go through several drafts.

The first one failed because it read like a gosh-darn circus advertisement. Reading it once I was done writing immediately made me think: What was I thinking?

The second one failed because it read like the insecure mumblings of a pre-Twilight Fluttershy. One had to squint to read some parts of it, and it lacked coherence while sporting way too many apologies..

A third one. Fourth. Fifth.

Nine attempts later, I had something I did not immediately despise. It did not ask the reader. It contained exactly zero apologies. It was not flashy or outrageous. It used simple, short sentences to make clear what this was about. And it made offers for those who might be interested. Either in participating, or in learning more about this.

I had never before done a ‘recruitment poster’. But I thought this one was… good enough.

I stood up and grimaced as the blood flow reestablished itself. “Ew, should’ve known better than to sit like that,” I hissed quietly. I shook my legs a little and once the tingling stopped, I walked out the library door. I considered cleaning my desk up first, but if Spike tore into the draft or Twilight had a few suggestions, I would still require it. So I left everything as it was for now.

I listened for Spike’s whistling, but it was gone. Searching the castle would take a lot of time. I had no idea where he was, and there was always a chance that he simply left to meet up with friends or go shopping or whatever. Twilight however, she was way easier to track down.

I knocked at the door to her study and entered once she allowed me in. “Hey peanut. How’s it going so far?” I crossed the room, walked around her desk and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

She smiled and gave a content sigh. “Well, it has been a morning and a half, but I think I am on top of it now.”

I briefly allowed myself a glance across her desk and immediately noticed the emblems of several Canterlot noble houses. I could not not grimace at that point. “Ew. I see.” Maybe now isn’t the best time to bother her with this, I mused. I redirected my attention to her, only to notice that she had craned her neck and was already reading my draft. Welp. So much for that.

Once she was done, she smiled. “It is good.”

I grimaced. “You’re just saying that. But it’s nice of you to do so.” She raised an eyebrow, but I was in no mood to challenge her. It was just a difficult thing, to accept compliments just like that. It was even more difficult to not overthink it. ‘It is good’ — for you. That was not what she meant. Not at all what she had said. But it was in my head. And she knew that it was, because she knew me. To avoid this potential discussion, I leaned forward and kissed her. Her lips were a little dry, but their warmth never failed to ease my mind. And I noticed a faint taste of ink. She probably had chewed her feather again, by accident.

Once we pulled apart, I felt playful enough to dive after her for a quick, second kiss. Only then did I take half a step back. I noticed that her coffee mug was empty, and no pot in sight. Maybe she forgot to make one. I simply decided to bring a pot of tea here once this was done.

“So, do you have a quick minute or two?” I dared to ask.

She smiled and made room on her desk for my little pamphlet. “Of course. What do you have in mind?”

“I think I’d like to make four of those. How much does it take you to copy that one?” I knew that she was capable. The understatement of the century. But having such weak magic myself, I failed to grasp just how capable.

Twilight lit her horn, grabbed a corner of my poster in her telekinesis and somehow pulled the page away without pulling the page away. A moment later, she held two identical pages. And repeated the process to double that again. “Done. What’s next?”

She grinned so smugly, it was enthralling. I laughed and hugged her fiercely. “Thank you! Well, copies aside, I hoped you could link them? My idea was this: Somepony comes along, reads this thing. If they don’t have anything to write, which will probably be most of them, they come to me and we talk. However, if they have something to write, they can use these blank spots here to do just that. However, that space would therefore be filled up. It would make a mess, over time. And I would need to go out and control the posters every so often. I thought that maybe you could link them in a way that whatever is written on one of the copies appears on the original? So that I may keep the original with me and ‘answer’ written stuff? Is that possible?”

Twilight grinned with unbridled joy. It was a challenge right up her alley. “It is funny you should say that! Celestia sent me a book a few weeks ago. It is linked to another book by a very interestingly designed spell. Everything you write in one book appears in the other. I think I could modify that spell to make it work the way you want, yes.”

I laughed and grinned from ear to ear. “Well, sounds great. How long would that take?”

Twilight mulled it over for a moment before her eyes once again lit up with joy. “Well, let me quickly fetch that book and we could start immediately. It should only take a few minutes to get it right, but it would be a welcome break after dealing with… this.” She looked at the letters with disdain before perking right back up.

Somehow, I got the feeling that these nobles were not asking for friendship advice.

A few minutes later, Twilight stood at her desk, with the chair condemned to the corner for now. I stood right by her side and felt the pleasant tingle of her magic run down my body in waves as she poured more energy into her horn. She wove the spell, manipulated it, redesigned little energy efficiency flaws in its structure. It was impressive, even if I did not understand all of it. It would certainly make for another interesting letter to Sunny.

Thinking about her made my smile falter.

“And whenever your thoughts get burdened by it, just look out of any window and imagine me smiling down on you.”

The echo of that memory persisted until I relented and tore my gaze away from the magical happenings in front of me. I looked over Twilights shoulder and out the window. A bright blue sky, a sunny day. And I imagined it. I imagined her smiling. It was easy, truly. I had a bulging treasure trove full of memories of her smiling for a wide variety of reasons. So many smiles, and I loved every one of them.

It did make me smile once more.

“And done,” Twilight pronounced.

I looked at the four floating sheets, gently held in a raspberry glow. They did not look any different from before, but such was the nature of more subtle enchantments. Funnily enough, many of the really useful, pragmatic enchantments were not flashy at all.

She neatly stacked the posters again and put them onto a side table to reestablish order on her desk. While she busied herself, I opened one of the cabinets and levitated the teapot out. I had made it in all haste while she went to retrieve the linked book and I really hoped she would not question where I hid it all this time. Because I was sure that there was a lecture with my name on it waiting for me if she caught on to the fact that this still slightly steaming, warm tea had been placed inside a cabinet. With her paperwork.

Inside that particular one were the tax laws, though. No huge loss there. For one, because she knew them by heart anyway. And even if the steam would damage the pages, it was an easy fix to order a replacement from Canterlot.

Risking the lecture was still worth it though. Just to see the happiness in her eyes when I presented her with the teapot. She immediately, subconsciously smacked her lips together and I filled her cup. I chuckled and shook my head. “Really, you need to look out for yourself. You need to drink more.”

“Says the one who struggles daily to even get the advised minimum in,” she shot back right away, albeit with a smile.

I shrugged and kissed her cheek. “I’m better at preaching water and drinking nothing. It’s an artform, really.”

She rolled her eyes. “Shoo! I still have some work to do!”

I grinned from ear to ear as I retreated towards the door, thanked her again, and two times more before she closed the door in front of my muzzle. I heard her giggle inside and left with a satisfied smile of my own. With a break like that, maybe she would now be able to breeze through whatever mire these letters contained. I at least like to imagine that.

My hooves carried me outside. It was a warm day for such an early time of year. The sun baked my coat and I could not help but smile. “Good morning, love,” I murmured towards the sky, even though we were way past morning hours.

I had four posters with me, and a mission. The first poster was easy. I asked the Cakes if I was allowed to pin it to the outside of their shop, right beside the door. They considered my request and ultimately, Pumpkin offered something even better. While yes, many ponies walked by Sugarcube Corner all the time, very few of them ever stopped. And with the next rain scheduled in two days, the posters longevity was in question. She instead suggested I may pin it to the counter itself, so that all the ponies who were waiting in line had a chance to read it, including those who returned their empty dishes or who came up to the counter to ask for seconds and so on, and so forth. It was a really good idea. And a very generous offer.

The second one was no problem either. The Ponyville train station had a little bulletin board with a small roof. Not enough to keep the poster safe in heavy wind, but the scheduled rain should not be accompanied by such. The next storm was up in a month or something. And everypony was free to stick their announcements, advertisements or posters there, so mine was just the most recent addition. I still took my time to place it in a way that it would cover as little of other pamphlets as possible.

The third one was a tad trickier. I wanted to stick it to the outside of town hall. Similar to what I had initially planned with Sugarcube Corner. Had Mayor Mare still been in office, I might have gotten away with a charming smile and by buttering her up a little. Mayor Urban however was a strict stallion, very insistent on the exact application of the law. Thus I found myself sitting down with his assistant and twelve volumes of law books. It was obviously still a nice move to even grant me this help, and I was sure this offer would not have been made were it not for the slow day with barely anything to do. But still. I wasted hours alongside this friendly, albeit a bit bland young stallion just to figure out if there were any laws allowing or disallowing such acts.

We eventually found a passage that we could show Urban. It specifically stated that advertisement was allowed to be placed on town hall in exchange for compensation, and only in dedicated areas. Since we had no such areas, Urban decided on one and after some very uncomfortable haggling, I hoofed him enough bits to pay for the poster.

On my way home, I argued with myself if it would have been better or worse to start with town hall. Once I was back home and I heard that click of the massive castle doors closing behind me, I sighed in relief and felt a bit of tension leave my shoulders. Now it was a waiting game. I made my way to the kitchen, brewed myself a nice cup of tea and sat down in the living room with a good book. After finally cleaning up my desk, of course.

The poster lay within sight, in hopes that I would not get so engrossed in the book that I lost myself in it.

I had hoped that, come the afternoon hours, Twilight would come by and join me. But her work apparently kept her busy. Or maybe she wanted some time to herself. Or she was writing dirty letters with Luna again. The latter thought amused me especially, mature adult that I supposedly was.

Yet despite all the distractions, my gaze drifted back to that poster time and time again. And I could feel my shoulders getting tense again. I could feel that subtle gurgle in my stomach. The urge to sigh. I tried to read, yeah, sure, and it went as well as one should have expected. I scanned the same page, the same paragraph, heck, even the same sentence over and over without a single word registering in my mind. Until eventually, I gave up, closed it and levitated it over, back onto the shelf from where I had taken it.

And then I stared.

At the walls, lined with bookshelves. So much wisdom, so much sass, so much knowledge.

At the ceiling. The crystal reflected the light in different ways, depending on the position of the sun in the sky.

At the floor. Considering how large the castle was, we really did not give Spike enough credit for keeping it this clean. It was a marvel, really.

But my gaze always drifted back eventually. That was until Spike came into the library — talk of Tartarus and its flames shall appear. “You look calm,” he stated as he walked over.

I might have given an ‘eep’ in reply. Might. He was kind enough not to comment on it. After the initial shock left me, I nervously chuckled. “That’s about the only thing I can currently do decently reliably — look calm.”

Spike grabbed the poster, sat down beside the couch I sat on and leaned with his back against it. “It’s not that bad,” he insisted while his eyes quickly scanned the lines of text.

I sighed. “I know, I know. I’m just… I feel like a coiled spring. I’m slowly realizing that this is really happening. And that this is my project. Therefore I’m the leader. Spike, I’m not a leader! That’s not a position I’m comfortable with. I’m not a leader, I’m not a hero, I’m not a builder, I’m not even an adventurer.”

“Oof, he said the bad a-word,” Spike teased with a chuckle.

I tried to huff and be annoyed with him, but his charming smile made that impossible. I grinned lopsided and punched his shoulder with a hindleg. “Careful, you!”

He regarded the poster once more. “Slow start so far, eh?”

I sighed and buried my face in my hooves to drag them across it. “It’s only been a couple of hours. I doubt many will have seen it. I did pick the three spots in Ponyville where I think it has the highest chance of being seen, where most ponies walk by, but… yeah, still, just a couple of hours. Also, that’s kind of a big decision, you know? When the Apples founded Ponyville, it was out of necessity. They needed land, they needed food, they needed those merchants to follow. This is different. I’m basically asking everypony: Hey, you wanna leave all the amenities of Ponyville behind to live in a tent for a few weeks? In the middle of the Everfree, no less? Oh and after the ugly-tent-phase, we’ll try to build houses. Architects? Pff, nah, we don’t need those, do we? It will be work though. So. Much. Work. Day in, day out. Cutting down trees to build a palisade. Because frankly, we will need that more than your house, sorry. Then driving a palisade into the ground. The floor of the Everfree is mostly dirt, sure. How deep? I don’t know. We’ll find out once we try to drive posts the size of tree trunks into it. Water? Nah don’t worry, we’ll have a river nearby. Yes. A river. Not a bath tub. No heated water. No flushing toilet. No fancy bubbly water. Just… river water. Ice cold. And hopefully without weird magical effects. At least until we dig a well. Which will take time. And work. Did I mention the work already? Oh, you’re asking me why we don’t just stay in Ponyville, seeing as it’s ‘only’ half a day of travel away? Well, yeah, you see, I have these memories. Once upon a time, I called them flashes of insight, because I thought that sounded cool. No, I mean, Spike, let’s be honest. If I ever try to explain why I’m building a village out there, it’s going to be ridiculous and I am going to lose whoever is listening. They will declare me a madpony and leave. And maybe that would be for the better.”

That something went wrong somewhere eluded me. Up to the point when Spike put his claw on my shoulder. I stared at him out of wide, fearful eyes. Contrary to that, his were warm and gentle. His claws were tools, they could just as easily be weapons, and they were powerful. He was strong. Yet I did not feel intimidated or threatened or scared, but instead… safe. Safer.

I slowly became aware of how hard I was breathing. How narrowly I had dodged a full-blown panic attack. The tremors ran up and down my legs for a few moments longer before they subsided. Only once I put my hoof over his claw and nodded did he release me. I was grateful. So deeply grateful. I had no words for it, and he did not demand any. He simply turned around into a more comfortable sitting position again and leaned against the couch once more. That was that. So simple. For him, this was done.

I don’t deserve friends like him, a part of me acknowledged.

Don’t start with what we deserve or we’ll be here all day until Twilight needs to intervene. Again.

The other voice was gruff. Strong, but without any reservation. I disliked him. But at the same time, sometimes, I could be honest enough with myself to acknowledge that I occasionally needed him.

“You don’t intend to move there, do you?” Spike asked and pulled me out of my thoughts once more.

I mulled this over for a moment, but quickly came to a slightly annoying answer. “It will be necessary, for a time at least. But I do intend to return. My memories demand that Greenwood exists. And if it does, there will be problems. I can’t initiate this village build and then leave them to fend for themselves. They could probably manage. Ponies are often sturdier than others give them credit for. But I know some of these problems. They are as much mine as Greenwood is, no matter how things turn out. That said, I don’t belong there. Not this cycle. I belong here. With you guys.”

Spike smiled faintly. He gave a curt nod and his scaly brow furrowed slightly. “A couple of months then?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, something like that, I suppose.” He nodded again and slowly stood back up. “Why?”

Spike turned around. He had this goofy ‘I’m not gonna tell and you can’t make me!’-smile. Usually, whenever he did, either Twilight or I saw it as a challenge. And we tended to win. But I felt no urge to rip his secrets from him. “Just curious, I think,” he lied and walked off. He had crossed the room halfway when he turned around again and regarded me with slight worry.

“I’m fine. Thanks for earlier,” I said.

He nodded. “Dinner in one hour,” he said and left the library.

In truth, I had no idea what to expect.

In all my lives, I had never done anything like this before. There was no red line helping me out, guiding me towards the end. No outline, no vague feeling of familiarity, nothing. Maybe the castle doors would burst open any minute, flooding poor Twilight’s home — and mine — with dozens and dozens of applicants, all loud and careless and chaotic, demanding to be heard, trying to negotiate better conditions for themselves, better payment, better housing, whatever else.

Or maybe I would sit here for days, until those turned into weeks, and not a single soul would ever come knocking. The whole project would completely fall apart and I would have spent thousands of bits on perfectly cut sapphires of flawless clarity, only for these enchanted torches to never see use.

Well. They could still serve to secure the path to the ruins, as they were meant to. It would be the priciest public service I had ever done, unsolicited and all.

There was a wide range of possible outcomes. And my mind had a field day meticulously designing the worst horror scenarios for it.

In the end, I had to wait until the next day. Not that long, really. Especially after all the various, dramatic scenes that played out in my head. And as so many things in my life often did, it started with a knock at the door. What surprised me about this one was the fact that it was a knock on the library door, not the castle door.

True, the castle was open. All day, every day, for everypony. Everyone was free to waltz in here and get a book. Twilight's castle doubled as Ponyville's public library, even after a new public library was constructed. But few ponies that came by just walked in. Most of them, even the old guard of Ponyvillians, still knocked. Because to most, it was still more a home than a library.

“Uh… come in?” I asked the unexpected visitors.

A moment later, three familiar faces entered. It was most certainly unfair of me to be creeped out by the fact that neither Roseluck nor Doctor Whooves seemed to have aged a day. I was more than seventy years old and looked like I was in my late twenties or something like that. Whatever had helped them did something similar. And yet…

“Oh, hey! Rose, Doc, didn’t expect to see you so soon again,” I greeted them and stood up from my reading spot on the couch. Then Derpy stepped to the side from behind those two.

“Hey Dream!” she greeted me with a wide smile.

I trotted up to her and hugged her. “Didn’t expect you, either,” I mumbled into her mane. It smelled of muffins. Because of course it did. And a faint note of some citrusy shampoo.

Once we pulled apart, I offered them chairs at the table and sat down myself. “I have a sneaking suspicion the poster is what this is about?”

The Doctor furrowed his brow and glanced to the side towards Rose. “What poster?”

Rose grinned and snatched the one I had with me at all times now from my telekinetic grasp to show it to him. “The thing we talked about.” While the Doctor was busy reading, she turned her attention to me. “I told you I would talk to him.”

“You did, you did,” I replied. I did remember that, yes. “It’s just… I didn’t expect…”

“Me?” Derpy offered. I nodded dumbstruck. “Well, I trust the Doctor. Dinky is old enough to have the house to herself and I’m not old enough to go to some boring retirement home. This sounds like a fun adventure and an opportunity to make some new friends. And spent time with old ones. Also, the Doctor says he can build a short-range weather control machine! A pegasus just needs to strap it to her back and fly near a chaos-infused cloud and with the right settings, it should disperse it. I wouldn’t even need to kick it! Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

It was hard not to smile. Not to have my heart melt a little. Not just because of the prospect of having a dear friend of mine with me. No, Derpy had a way of speaking that always came straight from her heart and went straight to the heart of anyone listening. She had such enthusiasm, such unbridled, unshakable optimism, it astounded me each and every time.

The Everfree would test that attitude, I was sure of that. But at the same time, I was willing to bet on Derpy winning that challenge. And having such an upbeat pony with us would surely do our morale good, right?

Not to mention that machine she talked about. If such a thing was possible, it would help carry the hefty burden of weather control. I was currently planning on roughly a dozen ponies. We simply did not have the numbers for a full weather team.

Back in the day, Ponyville had been a small village. And they had Rainbow. But even so, they had a full weather team with a dozen pegasi. The conditions in the Everfree were harder. A lot harder. And we could afford… one. Just one weather pony, to stem the tide of very moody weather.

If anypony could build such a machine, it would be the Doctor. If anypony could stem that tide, it would be Derpy. My gaze drifted between the two. Derpy's unyielding smile. The Doctor still read the poster. For the tenth time, probably.

I was still worried about my friend's health, though. Derpy was not exactly as sprightly as in decades prior. So when the Doctor looked up, I simply asked. “Your machine. It should disperse the clouds? Without antagonizing them, I hope?”

His cool, calculated stare pierced me effortlessly. He gave a curt nod. “Should, yes. It is a machine, so it needs testing, of course. Just like the fieldwork assistant I am currently working on. I built it with the intention of supporting Roseluck in her endeavor to feed an entire newfound village all by herself. It certainly makes for an interesting challenge.”

“Feeding an entire village or building the machine?” I asked in mild confusion.

“Yes.”

I blinked. Roseluck spoke up before I could ask again. “Certain basic needs must be met early on. Food and shelter being the most important, right?” I nodded. “The Doctor knows what he does.” She looked at him. As did I. The Doctor, however, stared at the ceiling. I had no idea what kept his attention wrapped like it did. “He might not always look like it,” Rose admitted with a quiet giggle, “but he does. I can take care of the food. With the Doctors and Derpy's help. We’ll wrangle the weather into submission, grow plants, and harvest them. It's still early in the year. I can make it work.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Absolutely!” the Doctor suddenly answered. I might have jumped a little in my chair. The sudden increase in volume, the burst of enthusiasm, the fact that my question had been aimed at Roseluck, paired with my attention.

That said, for as little as I knew about this strange stallion, I had seen some of his quirky inventions. They were more durable than those created by Flim and Flam. And usually a lot more outlandish as well. A couple years ago, he had experimented with something he called a tesla coil. Whatever that was. It involved lightning, or electricity at least. So maybe he could help out with village defense as well. I would not mind that.

“So we’re hired?” Derpy asked.

I choked for a moment until I regained control. Hired. That was such a strange, alien-feeling word. I was hiring ponies. Goodness sakes, I certainly did not have the deep pockets to hire ponies. But financing was another point on my agenda. What I had amassed over the years was enough to keep this thing running for a few months. Enough time to find some investors, hopefully.

First the hiring, now investors. This really was a strange world I willingly set hoof in. “I guess so? I mean… yes. But could we maybe not call it that? We’re going to build something together. We’re a team. Yes?”

While the Doctor seemed confused by that, Derpy quietly laughed and agreed with a nod. Roseluck agreed as well, with a simple nod and a bemused smile. His companions' reactions were in turn enough for the Doctor to stop and accept the decision with a shrug.

Thus, the legal mumbo-jumbo began. Because I had prepared for this moment, and crafted a contract. Which was yet another awkward word I rarely had to use.

I gave each of them a copy and then talked them through. What all the Legalese meant. Why certain phrases were implemented at all. Why the damn thing was twenty pages long. While Roseluck seemed quite interested in the finer points without suspecting any foul play, the Doctor quickly drifted off and simply read through the thing at his own speed. And Derpy and I ended up shoulder-deep in a bog of nostalgia as we discussed ‘the good old days’.

At the end, they all signed at the neat little line down at the end. I had my first three… employees?

I prayed that the onslaught of weirdness may end quickly…

The three of them had left an hour ago and I was still riding that initial wave of adrenaline. I had cleaned up the cups by now. Because at some point, I even remembered my manners and offered them something to drink. I then tried to tidy up the library, despite Spike already doing that on a regular basis. I tried to come up with ways to make myself more presentable. To make this whole deal appear more professional. But in the end, I had to admit: It was not. So maybe it was a bad idea to blind anypony interested with false pretenses. I was just a random nobody with sudden ambitions and, for the time being, enough time and bits to support them.

I tried to sit at the table while I pretended to read a book. But it was not nearly as comfortable as the couch, and I successfully convinced myself that nopony would see it as more professional when they startled me while I sat at the table.

Thus, the same spectacle repeated.

A knock on the door made me jump, I quickly closed the book and uttered a “c-come in?” before I could put some confidence into my voice.

The door opened and two earth ponies entered. I had seen them both on several occasions. Pinkies parties, mostly, but I could not immediately recall their names. They were Ponyvillians, as they had lived here for decades. The stallion was of Big Macintosh's size, a broad, muscular build, without being comically oversized like Bulk Biceps. A dark brown coat, an unruly, coal-black mane, but the gentle brown eyes of a soft giant. His cutie mark displayed two crossed crosscut saws. He was accompanied by a mare who could easily tower over me. She was a little larger than her companion, her coat the color of amber and her mane segmented in three stripes of different hues of a darker orange. While his cutie mark was decently easy to read, hers simply displayed a heart featuring the same colors as her mane and coat.

The CMC would have a field day with this one, I mused.

Luckily I remembered my manners a lot quicker this time around. “Hello there, welcome! Are you here because of the poster, or do you want some decent reading material?”

“The poster,” the mare answered. A surprisingly soft and quiet voice for such a giant lady.

“Fantastic. Well, I’m Dreamwalker, so this is basically ‘my project’, I suppose. Please, come over and sit with me. Do you want anything to drink?” Head shakes. “A snack?” Head shakes.

It felt weird to play the host. But maybe it was just due to them being strangers. I was hosting little get-togethers, Ogres & Oubliettes-tables and so much more all the time. For my friends.

We sat on the table once more and I had two more copies of the contract ready. I gently slid the poster over to their side, just so that they could take another look at it if they felt the need.

Now that we were closer together, I could also smell the decidedly wooden aroma they brought along. I loved the smell of wood. One of the reasons I loved Twilight's library home whenever I got to live there, and why I insisted on wooden bookshelves whenever the castle became her home.

“So, tell me about yourselves,” I urged them in hopes to get a decent conversation going.

They both exchanged a glance with each other before he spoke up. Apparently she preferred to stay quiet when she could. “I’m Hefty Pine, this is Honey Maple. We are both carpenters.”

“Carpenters, nice,” I replied and grimaced slightly. Maybe I should have made a bullet list with conversation points or something. “Do you two think you can work with Everfree wood? Have you ever tried that?”

Both shrugged in unison. “We are here to find out.”

“Right, I see, well…” The urge was there to just congratulate them, shove the contracts to their side and be done with it. But I tried to slow myself down. I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m inclined to be as upfront with everything as I can be, if that’s alright with you two?” They nodded. Maybe even a bit more eagerly than I anticipated. “I want to build a village in the Everfree. I know your faces, you’ve been around Ponyville for a while. You know the tales of manticores, cockatrices and timberwolves. I have options to keep them at bay, but that won’t be a guarantee of safety. It still is the Everfree. We’ll most likely be starting out with a bunch of tents. It’s like an extended camping trip. I have no idea how you two like camping. I don’t. It sucks. But I hope we’ll make it work anyway. You two, if you sign on, will have one of the most important jobs of all. You will build us a wall to keep the predators out. You will build our houses. That is a lot of responsibility. If you just want to work with Everfree wood, say so. I can find somepony else, hopefully, and send a few logs your way. No problem. But if you sign on, I need you two to commit. There will be hardships. It will suck. Occasionally. But it’s a good opportunity to start over, if that’s what you seek.”

Good way to put them off, idiot.

I ignored the mental barb and focused my attention fully on these two guests. Both Hefty and Honey remained silent for a moment before they snapped out of whatever trance I had talked them into. And they grinned. As if it had been funny what I said. “Well, we’ll be just as upfront then, if that’s alright?” Hefty asked. I was a little more hesitant to agree than they had been before. Well, a lot more hesitant. But I nodded eventually. “Good. So… we don’t care. About the hardships, that is. Honey here has some serious issues with her work-life-balance. I’ve been trying for years to get her into healthier habits. I hope this will help. As for me, well. I just like helping folks. It sounds like an interesting challenge and my folks built small outposts and villages before. It’s in my blood, one could say. And contrary to Honey, I love camping.” Honey respectfully grimaced. He noticed and grinned even wider. “I also know how to chop down a tree and wield the axe to my defense, if required. Or the log, for that matter. So does she. So I think we’ll be alright. We have a workshop here in Ponyville. It’s decent enough, it has been for years. But business is declining. Less villains and monster attacks and whatnot. And with the castle and the Princess here, there’s more and more competitors in the area. Seems like a smart move to resettle now instead of later, when business is already floundering. Also means we’ll bring our own tools along. Spares you the expenses and such. And we might have a decent supply of wood still in storage.”

I was floored. What Hefty said sounded decently reasonable. Actually, it sounded like a smart business decision. One they had apparently made overnight. I felt a grin tug at the corners of my lips, and I saw no reason to deny it. I offered them both a hoof. “It would be my honor to have you two aboard.”

Both gave quiet laughs as they shook hooves with me. I presented them with the contracts and talked them through it. It took less than half the time. They knew a lot of the common phrases already. They had seen plenty of contracts before. No wonder, really. They were business owners. And in no time at all, they signed on the dotted line. “Well… that was a roaring success,” I concluded with a grin and put the two contracts to the side.

“How are things so far?” Hefty asked.

“I already have a farmer, a weather pony and what amounts to an engineer, I think. He will help out the other two, but I suspect once he does that, he’ll get bored and build stuff for just about any other task that sounds like an intriguing challenge.” I grimaced once I noticed the taste of ink. I removed the feather from my mouth. Twilight is rubbing off on you again, I surmised. “Actually a good point. If you have any preferences for food, I suppose I can relay them to Roseluck. You’ll get to know her soon enough. I will send a message once this whole thing is underway. Might be a few days yet, might be a week or two. I can’t really tell yet. Anything else I can help with? Questions I can answer?”

Once more, both of my new employees exchanged glances before Honey cleared her throat. “Well, I would like to know if it would be okay if, given this all works out and such, my family could come to Greenwood and settle down there as well.”

An unexpected request, sure. Yet I saw no reason to deny it. “Your family?”

“Yes. They are traveling peons, they do just about anything from farming to carpentry to stonemasonry,” she explained.

More workers. I grinned and nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, sure, absolutely! Well, I mean, as long as we can keep them fed. Then again, if things get a little dicey with the food supply, we can always just import stuff from Ponyville. Greenwood won’t exactly be on its own. The torches will secure the path and if any shortages happen, oh well, so be it. Won’t be the end of the world. Or even the project. Your family would be more than welcome, every helping hoof will be!” A bit of curiosity led me to turn my attention to Hefty, who seemed quite content to just listen. “Does your family want to settle there as well?”

The moment I suggested as much, he raised both hooves defensively. “Celestia forbid! They are not coming anywhere near this if I can help it!”

I grimaced. “Oh. Uh, sorry! I didn’t mean to—“

He sighed and shook his head. “No, no, it’s fine. I might have overreacted a little. Honey folks are lovely ponies. She has a younger brother and sister and her parents are very supportive. That said, I’m not exactly on speaking terms with my folks. I get a little antsy whenever conversation brings them up, but you could not have known that.”

I sighed once more, in relief this time, and nodded. “So. Are you two up for this?”

The question was folly, of course. They had already signed the contract. In fact, they had come here way more prepared than I had been. So it was no surprise, yet still a pleasant sight, to see them once more exchanging looks before they both nodded with smiles. “Yes. Yes we are.”

“No. No you’re not—“

I was shushed.

A few minutes ago, Graphite simply barged in. She did not even knock. I threw my book in the air in surprise. And got quite annoyed because of that, because seriously, this was the third time this day. And with the recruitment effort still running, I should not have been surprised.

Graphite did not even say a single word. She marched straight to the table where she saw the poster lying. She grabbed my feather, dipped it into my inkwell and crossed something out on my poster. I put a bookmark in my book, placed it on the side table and walked over.

‘Mason’ was crossed out.

I looked at her. I tried to reason with her. And she shushed me. I grimaced and tried again. “Uhm—“ She put a hoof to my mouth. Not into my mouth, she was not Pinkie. But she kept me from scraping together a rejection.

“Before you go into all the details about why this is a bad idea, you are going to hear me out, okay?” I failed to answer in time. “You will let me explain myself, yes?” This time, I nodded before her patience could run out again. Only then did she pull her hoof away.

“I—“

“Sit down,” she asked me.

Well, at least she asked this time. I sat down. The really weird thing was not even her behavior. Big Mac rarely talked. But that was his choice. He could talk. Like a freaking waterfall. I had heard that once or twice. It was a marvel, really. And Marble could be strong and bold. She simply preferred to be small and silent and in the background. As such, it was not as much of a surprise that Graphite could be bold and straightforward, to the point and even dominant like she currently was.

What surprised me was the fact that she seemed to think it necessary to begin with.

“You need me,” was her opener. “You don’t need some starry-eyed newbie fresh from the rock fields, but somepony with decent experience. You never worked with stone from the Everfree. Few ponies have. Lucky for you, I am one of those few. I’ve grown up on the Acres. I grew up with all those wild tales about its inhabitants from my dad, who also taught me how to deal with them. And my mom, who told me how to hide from them. And if push comes to shove, aunt Maud taught me how to deal with anything that gets too feisty for its own good.” I briefly remembered Maud punching a massive, house-sized boulder once. I had no idea how she did that — earth pony magic, probably — but fissures cracked the boulder up and it crumbled into hundreds, if not thousands of hoof-sized chunks. “I want to help out. This seems like a good idea, and it would double quite nicely as a ‘thank you’ for bringing Applejack home.”

Now that is just ridiculous, filly! “You don’t need to—“

“I wasn’t done,” she cut me off, only to then fall quiet herself. It slowly dawned on me that I recognized some of her behavior, some of that apparent anxiety playing on her face. She was nervous. Maybe afraid to lose her guiding thread. It sounded more and more like a long-winded speech she had prepared and exercised in front of a mirror. For hours. One she needed to expel from her brain in full, lest it remain there in tattered pieces and bother her forevermore. I could understand that, at least. I too usually preferred to go into conversations prepared, especially the important ones.

The longer the silence dragged on, the more another aspect of this quirky conversation I understood. She currently struggled to get the words out. It was not so much that she did not remember them. But even with a prepared speech, they still seemed hard to actually say. And as such, it would be of no use or help to encourage her verbally. Because every syllable out of my mouth would make her hesitate more, not less. So I simply, albeit awkwardly, shuffled my chair around the table until I sat closer to her and put a hoof on top of hers. I smiled encouragingly. Or what I hoped would seem encouraging.

She smiled back briefly, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

That’s good, filly. You can do it. In a way, it was still weird. Graphite was in her thirties. I really ought to not call her filly anymore.

“Mom and dad are doing fine on the farm,” Graphite finally continued. “And Ambrosia is really growing into this whole Apple family lifestyle. But… I-I… I guess I’m just more of a Pie?” I could understand the hesitancy. Being an Apple implied a lot. It came with a certain expectation. But on the other hoof, so did being a Pie. They too had a massive family farm. And enough traditions set in stone — quite literally, probably — to fill several tomes with. Coming out and saying it must have been a tremendous effort on her part. “I need something else,” she continued. “Something of my own.”

Silence fell over the room. Until I decided on my course of action, at least. The very awful noise of the chair scratching over the crystal floor could be heard once again as I put mine directly next to hers and slowly pulled her in. Slow enough for her to make clear that she did not wish for contact. But, she accepted the embrace. And the comfort that I hoped came along with it. She hugged me fiercely, while I held her softly. You did good, girl.

“A-And I really don’t want to live in a household with three couples again,” she explained quietly, mumbling it into my mane. “My room is right between Applejack’s and dad’s!”

Her attempt at levity was quite successful. I briefly imagined living like that and snorted in amusement. Things you do not wish to know about your siblings, aunts and uncles. I squeezed her a little as I quietly chuckled. “Sounds awful,” I mumbled into her bloodred mane.

“It is!” she exclaimed in such obvious relief that it made me smile. How long had she carried that around with her? How had I never noticed any of that? Well, to be fair: I did not have as much contact with Graphite than I had with Twilight, Spike, or even Ambrosia. How the latter had never noticed was beyond my comprehension though. But hey, maybe that would change now — at least the part of having little contact with Graphite.

I had no idea how she explained this to her folks. Big Mac and Marble did not need her on the farm. But they very much preferred her close by. Greenwood was not Canterlot though, or Manehattan, or Baltimare. It was half a day away. Maybe that would be enough to let her go? Maybe it would be enough to accept some flimsy ‘explanation’ to let her go and venture forth, out into the great beyond outside Ponyville, all on her own.

Well, not ‘all on her own’.

I pushed Graphite a little away as I felt she had calmed down enough. And I offered her a hoof. Simple as that. “Welcome aboard! It’s nice to have a familiar face around.”

She actually sniffled a little, but beamed at me when she took my hoof. “You know, I think they only say that when you actually board a boat.”

I chuckled and shrugged. “I think it’s called a ship. If you call it a boat, pirates get mad. Not sure about sailors, though.”

We both giggled occasionally as we discussed the finer points of piracy. It certainly helped calm her down some more. And at some point, I grabbed another contract with my telekinesis, pulled it over to us and talked her through her salary and all that good stuff. As expected, she trusted me on most points and cared little about many others.

I had a farmer, an engineer, a weather pony, two builders and carpenters and a mason. Infrastructure, shelter, wall, weather, food. As far as I was concerned, the necessities were covered. The Apples sure had started out with less, right?

I waited for another few days until Mayor Urban wanted a decision. Either another payment for the poster to stay up, or for me to take it down. And taking it down I did. I used that opportunity to check on the one at the train station, only to notice that it had been covered almost entirely by other papers and advertisements. I went by Sugarcube Corner and asked Pound and Pumpkin if they were okay with leaving the one there up, and once they agreed to that, I went back home and prepared for our start.

I was nervous as heck. I had next to no appetite the prior evening. I paced around the library to the point that Twilight could not continue reading in peace. She tried to talk me down, to put my mind at ease, to instill some calmness, but to no avail. I told her it would be fine. I would let her be. She could read, and I would relocate my pacing to another room. Easy.

But she insisted on helping me. What kind of help she had in mind only dawned on me when she dragged me into our bedroom. The point of utter exhaustion was reached eventually. A rocky start had not discouraged her at all, and eventually I even managed to focus on her entirely. From that point forth, it was quite an enjoyable experience. And I did my best to ignore that voice in my head telling me that this would be the last time for quite a while. Months, probably.

I had not been alone this long in… forever? I could not recall ever staying alone this long. Not in all those fifty years. Luckily, I was too tired to really think about it and once I entered the dreamscape, Luna was already waiting for me. She did her best to keep me busy and it almost seemed like the dreamscape itself wanted to help out as well, sending droves of nightmares our way. How nice of it.

When morning came, I felt giddy with excitement. We went to the bathroom, made our way to the kitchen, enjoyed our shared breakfast and then Twilight made her way to her study to start on her day's workload. It was a deliberately subdued farewell. Because any big ceremony would only have served to make me doubt my decision. This, though? This felt familiar. It felt like an everyday occurrence. Like I would simply go for some groceries and be back in a few hours.

It made it easier to leave in the first place.

And I was grateful for her support in that matter. So I checked my saddlebags one last time. I had tried to prepare as best as I could. I even brought along that Neverend Bottle from decades ago. It had been a nice little trinket to remind me of my ‘adventures’, collecting dust on a shelf, but now it once again got the opportunity to subtly prove its impressive worth. Its capacity was enough to keep all of us satisfied with water for a week. This inconspicuous little thing was incredible.

I left the kitchen and was halfway to the entrance door when I rounded a corner and unexpectedly bumped muzzle-first into something.

“Ow?” I voiced in confusion, even though nothing really hurt.

I looked up and was surprised — and amused — to see Spike in his full roleplay gear. He had been so proud when he crafted it with Twilight. A knight’s plate armor, with a massive two-handed sword and a round shield. All the ‘metal’ polished to perfection, glimmering in the light. I wondered for a moment — back in those days, he had been able to wield the massive sword one-handed because, well, it was crafted from some sort of light-weight foam. I wondered if he could wield such a thing now without it being fake. Either way, he looked impressive, as always.

“Nice outfit, Spike!” I praised with a whistle, only to then add “Seems strangely familiar though.”

He snickered when I winked at him. “Well, you are one of the few who know it’s fake.” He formed his free hand into a fist and softly clanked it against his chestpiece. The sound it made was decidedly not metal.

“We’re ready!” another voice chirped up unexpectedly.

“Gabby?” I asked in bewilderment and tried to look around Spike. She stepped out of his shadow, almost literally, donned in her black assassin robe from that thrilling Daring Do-one shot we had spiced up with some actual on-table-roleplay a few years ago. It looked strange, seeing them stand next to each other. Not just because Spike was so much larger than both of us, but because that ruthless assassin seemed quite fond of that shining noble knight beside her. “Ready for what?”

Spike cautiously put the tip of his blade onto the ground and kneeled. “I hereby solemnly swear that my companion and I, despite her questionable loyalty, will defend your lordship against all evil until your safe return to the castle!”

It was funny.

Or at least it was supposed to be.

I hoped.

But in the back of my mind, I realized what was going on. And that he was being serious. And that all this roleplay — gosh, I loved roleplay — was just a flimsy disguise to make the transition easier. To make it easier for me to accept what he was proposing.

I looked back over my shoulder, towards the kitchen, but of course Twilight was long gone. And when I looked back to those two lovable dorks, I saw a glimmer of hope in their eyes. “You’re serious,” I stated the obvious.

Spike rose from his position and came over. His helmet was a little… small. It sat more on top of his head than actually fitting his head inside. Such was the issue with dragon growth spurts. It was a wonder his armor still fit, actually.

He put a claw on my shoulder and dropped the act. “You will need someone who’s got your back out there. I’m going to make sure you come back safe and sound.” He chuckled a little awkwardly. “Otherwise Twilight would have my scaly hide.”

“She knows?” The question was dumb. Of course she did. Even though I had my doubts about her stating anything to the effect of ‘having his scaly hide’, that was just Spike's own gamemaster attitude, embellishing details for the sake of storytelling.

“Of course she does,” he instantly replied. “I talked with her before I even talked with Gabby. And… well, it’s just a couple of months, right?”

My mind immediately drifted back a few days, to the moment Spike asked such weird and out of context-questions, only for him to then leave me be. It made a lot more sense now. I did not doubt that he was worried about my safety. I was by no means an adventurer. I was no warrior either, despite my night guard training. When was the last time I had actually needed to draw my blade, or summon my armor? Even I could not remember.

And there was another thing.

Spike was Spike.

He was my buddy. He was one of my closest friends. I had made a big deal out of having known faces with me on this ‘expedition’. Derpy was a close friend of mine. Graphite less so, but at least she was familiar and I considered her family. But the Doctor? Roseluck? And despite how friendly they seemed, I knew next to nothing about Honey and Hefty.

In my mind, I had managed to calm myself down by successfully telling myself that I was just going on an extended camping trip. But I was doing so with a bunch of strangers.

Gabby lived here, for all intents and purposes. She had lived with me for years and years. Spike even longer. They were more than just family. For as much as I valued that, there was a tier above family.

I hugged him.

The thought of attempting to talk him out of this crossed my mind, but was quickly and easily dismissed. Maybe it was dangerous. But Spike, contrary to me, was competent. He knew what he was doing. Most of the time, anyway. I wanted to have him along.

“You’re not taking the armor along though, are you?” I asked as I squeezed my cheek against his scaly belly.

He hugged me tight enough that I could feel the rumble of his laughter in his belly. “Sure, why not?”

“Spike. It’s fake. It’ll get dirty, or damaged.” He had worked on it hard, for months.

“As I said,” he reiterated, “you’re one of very few who know that. And it looks real enough to make ponies second-guess. So maybe it’ll come in handy! Also, if it gets damaged, I can repair it. Or just build a new one. I’m rapidly outgrowing this one anyway.”

I sighed and shook my head as best as I could without giving him free or retreating just half an inch. But I accepted his decision. And it only took half a minute or so until Gabby joined in and almost squished my lungs to a fine paste with the sheer force of her enthusiastic hug. Even Spike briefly gasped for air and reminded her of the fragility of most non-griffons. How she had retained such physical strength even in her age was a mystery to me. Maybe that was just a griffon-thing?

I grinned from ear to ear when we finally pulled apart. “Let me quickly get two contracts and we can be on our way.”

“Pff!” came from Gabby.

“Nah,” Spike added at the same moment.

I blinked and stared at them. “What.”

Spike shrugged. “We’re not taking your money. Come on, don’t be silly. I do want a share of all the gemstones we might find, though.”

“Spike, it’s the Everfree. A forest. They probably don’t have gemstones growing on trees,” I objected.

But he simply shrugged again. “That’s just it. It’s the Everfree. Maybe they do have gem-trees.”

He did not make any sense. And he certainly sounded like he was unwilling to see reason. Maybe I could simply keep track of how long I had employed him as a bodyguard or village guard or something, and once we returned home, I could just hide gemstones in his room. Aaaall around his room. That actually sounded like a fun idea. “Fine. Let’s just stop wasting time and get a move on, the others are waiting near Fluttershy’s cottage with a wagon full of gemstone torches and I’d rather not give poor Fluttershy reason to believe that raiders have come and the elements should be called.”

We chuckled and walked over to the door.

The moment I opened it, Aurora stood up. With bulging saddlebags on her back. And a sleeping bag rolled together on top.

“I—… what… huh?”

She giggled and hugged me. “Hi dad. Yeah, I’m really happy to see you too. How have I been? Oh, quite alright, quite alright, thanks for asking. Though, you seem a little surprised. I hope it was a good surprise? Yes? Aw, that’s so nice of you to say!”

I finally managed to restart my brain and laughed. “Sorry, I just… I’m not a spontaneous pony and the surprises just keep rolling in.”

“Not spontaneous? I would never have guessed that,” Spike murmured in the background. I shot him a warning glare and he merely chuckled alongside Gabby. I returned my attention to Aurora and finally gave her the hug she had been waiting for, fully disregarding the one she had initiated herself just a couple of seconds ago. “Hey, sunshine. I’m happy to see you.”

While we were standing almost perfectly in the way, Spike somehow still managed to shuffle his way past us. And he carried a giggling Gabby along. “While you two sort that out, we’ll head over to the others and tell them to wait a few minutes more, alright? And I’ll tell Fluttershy not to set Pinkie on us as well.”

I laughed and nodded. “You do that, thanks!” We both watched these two go. Gabby bumped her hip into Spike's shin and laughed when he actually almost face-planted. His reaction was fast enough that he managed to catch himself with his wings. And a moment later, they chased each other through the sky. “As if they haven’t aged a day. It’s incredible.”

I looked down to see the same fond smile on my daughter's lips that I felt on mine. Then she turned her attention to me again. “So. I just so happened to hear that you plan on an extensive camping trip. And here I thought you hated camping.”

Sunny. I rolled with my eyes, but grinned. “I could not imagine where you might have gathered that from.” I made a point of looking past her, onto her back and her saddlebags. “It’s funny how you come here, unannounced and all, with what appears to be camping gear. Weird coincidence how we both want to go camping, right? Can’t be the same destination though, can it? Would be rather improbable.”

She sighed. “Come on, dad.”

“Sunshine,” I started and sat down on my haunches. I even grabbed her cheeks for emphasis. “Princess, you’re my beating heart, remember? I could never forgive myself if anything were to happen to you. The Everfree forest is dangerous.”

“Dad, I’m a grown mare!” she insisted. “I can look out for myself. I’m not exactly defenseless either. Mom taught me some of her spells, as did Arcana, as did Stardust, as did everypony else in this weird family of crazies.” She laughed and it was hard not to laugh with her. “Do you even know how to build a house?”

I nodded vigorously. “Eyupp. Four walls and a roof. Maybe leave a hole for a door. And if we want to get into the really advanced stuff, more holes for windows. But smaller ones.”

She grimaced. “What about a sewer system?”

“I… well… we have a river nearby,” I admitted while I shifted my weight a little from one side to the other.

“You do realize that you cannot guarantee the direction of flow within the Everfree to stay consistent, right?” Aurora's voice was soft. Pleading. She tried not to show me up, but at the same time, it was obvious that she knew stuff I had no idea about. But I told myself again: The Apples had made it, too. Surely they had no idea about sewer systems and such, right?

But neither were they stupid enough to settle inside the Everfree Forest, a snarky voice commented in my head.

“What about waste disposal?” Aurora continued.

“Isn’t that the same as—“

“A wall around the village?”

“We planned on a palisade! We take trees and ram them—“

“Dad.” A single word made me stop.

I sighed and let my shoulders sink. “Listen, sunshine. I will freely admit — to you and to you only — that I know little of this stuff. I keep telling myself: The Apples did it. Can’t be that hard, right? But I’m no fool, even if you may think so. I have amassed a group of specialized workers who know their stuff. Carpenters, masons, farmers.”

Aurora shook her head. “I don’t think you are a fool. I never did. And I don’t question your decision regarding your workers either. I came here to offer help. Ever since mom told me of your most recent crackpot idea, I had some interesting light reading. She’s worried, you know? As am I. I know a thing or two about urban planning now. About architecture. It’s just the basics, but I think it might still be more than you currently have at your disposal.”

Images swirled around before my mind's eye. A younger version of myself sat down on my bed, my armor beside me. I looked upon it with frustration. It was polished, the sheen was perfect, but as soon as I turned it upside down, the problem became quite apparent. Some of the leather cords that held the metal plates together had become crumbly. It was a detail I had not noticed before. A part I had neglected over years. Nopony had ever told me to look out for that.

I carefully, cautiously inspected the damage. I knew that the current leather strip was not salvageable. A new one had to be implemented. Somehow. I tried to understand how the strip weaved through the armor plates, tried to memorize how it was implemented, so that I may fix this damn thing on my own without the need to search for an armorer or even bring it back to Luna. She would not mind, probably. But I wanted to spare myself the humiliation.

My little princess was right beside me. Barely ten years of age and such a smartypants. She inspected the armor as well, with wide eyes. And she probably also noticed my dismay. She asked something. I could not remember with clarity what exactly. Only that it was a welcome reprieve. A way of procrastinating a little longer. After another question came another, and then another. Until half an hour later, she nodded, with such a serious expression that it made me chuckle and muss up her mane. She giggled in joy.

And then she helped me fix my armor.

She understood the layout of it. Somehow. To her, it made sense. Another hour later and my armor was as good as new.

I escaped the nostalgic swamp of my memory, but the fond smile persisted. She had always been such a smart cookie. “You want to help me, eh? Just like in the old days?”

She beamed at me and hugged me fiercely. Maybe she thought of the same moment I did. “Just like in the old days, daddy,” she quietly whispered.

Camping Sucks

I was grumbly the entire way over to Fluttershy's cottage.

“I should’ve fetched you a proper contract,” I reiterated not for the first time.

Aurora walked close beside me. She tried to bump her shoulder into mine in an effort to cheer me up, but I dodged it. I did not wish to be cheered up. I wanted her to comply! “Dad, I’m trying to help you,” she insisted. Not for the first time either, or even the second.

“I know, I know.” I sighed. Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see my resistance slowly wearing her down. I did not wish to crush her spirit, of course. I did not wish to burden her mood. But this was important. To me, at least. “And I’m trying not to take advantage of you, sunshine. You have to understand that, right?”

She rolled her eyes again, but a small smile accompanied the gesture. “I do. But I am your daughter, am I not? I’m allowed to help you. Free of charge.”

It would have been fine, had she not once again insisted on the latter. “That is not a discussion we will have. You will take my money. I’m not going to let you labor away for days, weeks, months without any significant payoff. Without any counterweight whatsoever. No, no, no. Not gonna happen. It’s bad enough that I let Spike get away with this nonsense just because he tricked me by showing up in some stupid roleplay gear… he basically charmed his way out, the sneaky little lizard!”

The more outrage found its way into my voice, the more issues Aurora had to keep her amused snicker quiet. To the point when I eventually took note of it in a manner that made it hard to further ignore the noise. “What’s so funny about that?”

She laughed for a brief moment, dropping all pretenses. Then she stopped, and I followed suit. She leaned against me — as much as our bulging saddlebags allowed — and nuzzled my neck. It was a familiar gesture and coaxed an appreciative hum from my throat despite my remaining grumpiness. “He’s a good friend of yours. He wants to help you. As much as I do. And I’m your daughter. Do you really think I couldn’t charm my own dad if I wanted to?”

And just to make her point, she looked at me. Out of those big, biiig eyes, glistening with untold wishes and innocent desires, so gosh darn pleading that it was impossible to stare into them for long without caving in.

So I averted my eyes and growled a little. Just because.

“That is so unfair,” I murmured.

Aurora giggled and bumped my shoulder. This time, I did not avoid it. “It’s how family works. At least that is what mom told me.”

“She doesn’t fall for your wily tricks!” I disagreed immediately.

Aurora giggled a tad louder. “Not as hard as you do, no.”

I sighed and shook my head. And I tried to find a baseline of seriousness. We had been squabbling about this the entire way, but now Fluttershy's cottage was within sight, as were all the others with their surprising amount of luggage. I had to tie this up neatly before we got there.

“Aurora, seriously though. I love you, sunshine. But I cannot live with myself knowing that I don’t at least pay you properly for your work here. It’s one thing to, I don’t know, help us reshelve the library for the umpteenth time. Or help Spike move his outrageously huge comic book collection. But this is serious dedication. This is actual work. And it will be for weeks and months. You have bills to pay. Taxes and stuff. We won’t pay for rent or food most of the time, sure — hopefully, anyway. But that doesn’t cover everything. So please, please, please. Let me at least cover your other expenses.” I had accounted for a dozen ponies and a few months before my bits would run out. I had to find an investor. Quickly. I knew that. Somepony who was willing to fill a similar role as Filthy Rich back in the days when Ponyville was just a single hut. But even if every single bit counted, this was not the right moment to start being stinted.

Aurora considered my almost desperate plea and finally gave a sigh of her own. Her gaze drifted over to the group waiting for us. She knew why I needed to get this sorted now. It was highly unlikely we would get a proper chance to talk in the coming days. Everything would be so busy. And with everypony tightly packed, there would be a lot less room for private talks like this.

“I do have my own savings, you know?”

Like Tartarus you will…! I shook my head. Quickly. “No.”

Her gaze was still fixed on our merry little band of weirdos. She did not flinch or even bat an eye. She had expected as much. Another silent sigh and she smiled and gave a nod. “Fine. I’m just glad you let me come with you at all.”

I flung a foreleg around her withers and pulled her into a hug. With all the saddlebags colliding, it was a bit awkward, but we managed. “Don’t get me started. In most cycles, Moondancer was the one delivering the blueprints for walls and houses and such. She researched those in the Royal Archives. Never left Canterlot. She didn’t have to. We sent proper ground samples to Maud for analysis, she sent her results to Moondancer, who in turn developed our whole infrastructure. It was an impressive network. I won’t say that I did not consider sending you to Canterlot to ‘research stuff in the Archives’.”

Aurora smiled. Beamed, even. We pulled apart again and slowly walked towards our current destination. “What made you change your mind?”

Many things, I thought. My connection with Maud was not nearly as developed this time around. Moondancer was too old. And despite my best efforts, those awkward moments never fully faded. There was always a certain tension in the air. And I never quite understood its nature, or source. Of course I could have tried to find a different librarian. Somepony else who would be willing to participate in Project Greenwood from afar. I was decently sure that it would not have been that hard to find somepony who was willing to take a safe library job while still helping out with such an adventure. Least of all because I would have been thrilled to fill that position, given the chance.

But I was not smart enough to become an architect. Not my field of expertise. At all.

I could have tried to explain all that. But there were other reasons as well. One of them was a lot simpler and a strong factor as well. “I just… I like the idea of having you around again,” I explained with a shrug. “It’s been ages since we really got to spend time. You’ve been busy with your job. Such is life. This was… an opportunity. It’s deeply selfish, but I jumped at it the first chance I got.”

My little princess grinned from ear to ear. “It’s okay to be selfish from time to time, you know?”

There was resistance within me. The urge to object. I sucked at finding that middle ground. Thus I very much preferred to stick to the extremes that best encapsulated my beliefs, even if they were extremes and therefore occasionally made me prone for less than ideal decision-making. Give an inch and your base instincts will take a mile. It was a slippery slope. And I tried to remain as steadfast as possible.

But Aurora did not need to know that.

I simply enjoyed how happy she was, just because her dad said he wanted to have her around.

Roseluck. Doctor Whooves. Derpy. Hefty Pine. Honey Maple. Graphite Pie. Spike. Gabby. Aurora. Me.

I placed a final check mark on my list and then stared at the weird… thing. It was not the first time I openly stared at it, but so far, neither Roseluck nor the Doctor saw any reason to explain its presence. Or function.

I decided again to let it be for the moment and instead turned my attention to our luggage. Hefty and Honey had not been exaggerating when they told me they would bring half their workshop along. Two carts of impressive size, pulled by these two themselves. One cart was almost exclusively filled with wood. Logs and planks and disassembled chairs and tables. Half the interior of their home, I assumed, plus the ‘remaining stored raw materials’ they had mentioned briefly.

Apparently there had already been a nice round of greetings and welcomes and whatnot. Everyone here already knew the names of each other and I spotted a few saddlebags and such on that second cart, saddlebags that clearly did not belong to Hefty or Honey. One such pair had Graphites cutie marks embroidered.

“So am I right to assume that I dawdled enough that everypony already knows everypony?” My answers were a few chuckles and giggles as well as some grins, smiles and nods. I sighed and nodded. Serves me right. I just had to argue with Aurora the whole way, didn’t I?

That said, maybe it was a good thing. They got to know each other on a surface level without me immediately tinting the first impression by offering my totally not biased opinion alongside.

I shook my head and finally decided to address… the thing.

“Okay, I’m just… I have to ask. What is that?” I pointed my hoof at the thing while looking at Roseluck. After all, she stood closest to it. However, her gaze wandered over to the Doctor, and mine followed.

“That is Kelab. Remember how I mentioned a farming assistant for Roseluck? That would be him.”

I looked at the strange thing again. It was shaped so weirdly. A floating tower with a slightly tapered base. Three horizontal lines of weird hemispheres stuck out from that base like bead chains. Two jointless, armlike protrusions stuck out from the middle section. One looked like a plunger and the other like a mixer. The top section was a hemisphere with a couple of horizontal slits below it. I assumed those were ventilation holes. Another plunger was built into the top section, and two little protrusions stuck out like ears or horns and gave off a faint flashing light every now and then.

“So… it’s a machine?” I dared to ask. I did not wish to look like a fool, but I was so utterly baffled by what I saw that I did not assume to know anything about this.

“A robot,” Spike chirped in with a manic grin. Of course he would be thrilled by this. How many of his comic books featured some kind of advanced technology like this? And here it was, finally a real life example of it.

And it had a name, too.

I dismissed my previous question. “How does it float? It looks quite heavy…”

The doctor smiled. It was rare to see him so serene. “He is quite heavy, let me tell you! I would not recommend somehow getting under him. As for his ability to keep aloft, he mimics pegasus magic via a series of internal crystals that resonate with a frequency that—“

“Doctor,” Roseluck cut in with a fond, yet lopsided smile.

I quickly noticed why. My own mind was about to go blank, but I saw the eyes of all the others glaze over as well. None of us here would be able to follow his in-depth explanation fully. “So it uses pegasus magic?”

My crude oversimplification seemed to cause him almost physical pain. He sighed and tugged at his scarf. Twice. “I suppose that would be one way to… break it down.”

“But there’s no cloud beneath it?”

The doctor smiled the same way Sunny did whenever I asked something that I could have understood, had I been more patient in my pursuit of answers. “Clouds are nothing more than condensed water held aloft in the sky. Kelabs systems work a lot more efficiently than pegasus magic and require considerably less fluid. Regular air humidity is perfectly sufficient.”

It can airwalk. It was a simple thought on a surface level, but I tried to imagine this thing flying across the sky and somepony calling it walking. Somehow, it just did not fit together in my head. That said, I still thought I got the gist of it and more importantly, I understood the basics. “And why ‘Kelab’?”

Roseluck shrugged and answered. “It’s just a name. I chose it.”

“Can it speak?” Spike wanted to know.

Roseluck turned towards ‘Kelab’ and nodded. And for the first time since we all met up here, the thing moved on its own. Its top section rotated until its plunger was directed at Spike. “Affirmative,” emanated an almost comically robotic voice.

The doctor grinned from ear to ear when a couple of ‘oohh's and ‘aahh's followed. This ‘Kelab’ was clearly his pride. Probably his creation. How this thing was supposed to help farming was beyond me, though. For a farming robot, I would have assumed something with legs and jointed arms would have been better. I was still curious. A lot. But I knew we were wasting time at this point.

“Alright, alright, Spike — stop. You can ask later, there will be plenty of time.” He slowly lowered his claw again and bit back the flood of questions that were undoubtedly on the tip of his tongue. “Does everyone have everything they need? Are we set on camping gear? Tents? Food? What’s the status?”

The Doctor, Rose and Derpy had a medium-sized tent that apparently was large enough for the three of them. I could imagine it would be quite a tight fit. I also imagined that none of them had any issue with that.

Hefty and Honey had their own tent as well. A larger one. But not only were they larger themselves, they aimed to store some of their tools in their tent as well, to keep it sheltered from rain and such.

Graphite had her own. Spike and Gabby had their own. Aurora had a larger one, which spared me the necessity to carry one myself. Everyone was covered, great. That left food. Eight ponies, one griffon and one dragon. That was a lot of mouths to feed. I had my Neverend bottle ready to go, which would take care of any water requirements, but we had to make a little detour back into town to stock up on provisions. I had simply forgotten about this part. It was luckily a quick trip Spike and Hefty were willing to do. I gave them bits and told them to come back without them. And that second cart was filled some more. Those provisions would probably last us for a few days. Not enough for Roseluck to have a first harvest ready, of course. But enough to establish a camp and send someone back the then hopefully secured road and make a dedicated shopping trip to Ponyville's market.

When we finally started our way towards the Everfree forest, we ran roughly an hour late. Which was still within the margins I had set, so everything was still working out according to plan. Neat.

With two large carts hauling a lot of stuff and so many ponies accompanying them, it almost seemed like we were one of those traveling merchant caravans of old. Especially since Spike and Gabby still wore their outfits. A great conversation topic, as it quickly turned out. Doctor Whooves did not quite understand what ‘roleplay’ even meant, it seemed. Or maybe he did and was just baffled by the appeal of it — I had difficulties following that conversation.

‘Kelab’ seemed to analyze our surroundings the moment our group started moving. It was a constant stream of information, presented by his monotone, robotic voice. I figured it would eventually become quite difficult to focus on it instead of just thrusting it into the background as just another noise in the mixture of forest-y ones.

Aurora stuck to my side as if she was glued to me. I was grateful for that, especially once we reached the edge of the forest.

“Is this the spot?” she asked quietly.

Everyone else was merrily chatting away. They moved at a leisurely speed and did not take notice of how I slowed down and eventually stopped. I looked around and nodded. “Over there,” I replied quietly and pointed with a hoof.

My eyes scanned the tree line. That damn bird. Every time. I still heard birds chirping from within the forest. But it was different. Their songs were different, the distance was different, everything was different. It was not that bird.

“I don’t come here often,” I remarked. Fluttershy was a dear friend of mine who I visited quite a lot, but this spot… I avoided it. Even when I wanted to visit Zecora — something that happened rarely to begin with —, I always made sure to walk a good distance around this spot.

I could not even tell why.

I did not despise it. It did not make me angry. Or fill me with despair. It certainly was not sacred to me. Or filled me with joy. Or hope. This spot was of great significance to me. And yet there was no special feeling I connected to it. I treated it as special, without knowing why. But it felt wrong to just… walk here. As if this was just like any other ordinary piece of ground.

Grass. A path. A small ditch. There really was nothing special to observe for the naked eye. Twilight had scanned this patch as well, with all her many machines and technical doohickeys. No results. She scanned it with a wide variety of spells. No results.

It was just grass. And a dirt path. And a small ditch. An ordinary patch of land.

“Come on. We can’t let them get away, can we?” Aurora urged.

I looked up and saw our group march into the Everfree. The faintest shudder ran along my body, right under my skin. I nodded and followed her. And I was grateful. Because she pulled me out of that swamp I had been sinking into. Yet I still wondered what I might find at its bottom. As usual.

We quickly caught up to the others and Aurora made sure that we inserted ourselves into their chitchat. I gave Spike some tips on how he could maybe improve his costume. Pardon, his armor. I asked Roseluck about her seed collection, because it certainly would be interesting what we were allowed to cook with, given time.

I tried to let their enthusiasm and good mood infect me. But eventually, I drifted into the background again and simply walked in front of the group. Their chitchat made me smile. I still listened, caught the occasional piece of information that was of interest, or funny. But conversations were draining. Exhausting in a way I found hard to describe. Luckily, none of them seemed to begrudge me fading into the background.

Every few minutes, we slowed down and stopped for just a moment. After the third or fourth time, conversations did not even stop anymore. I simply needed to retrieve one of the enchanted sapphire torches and slam it into the ground. My telekinesis was not strong enough to pierce the more rocky terrain enough, but that was not the point. The enchantment just needed a trigger to realize: Ah, this is the spot where I’m supposed to do my thing.

The moment I used force to place it, the first layer of the enchantment triggered. The torch aligned itself perfectly vertically and then placed itself into the ground just enough that it would hold. Even if it was surrounded by loose dirt and nothing more, it would stand and hold. And if necessary, it drilled through solid rock. As soon as the torch was placed, the enchanted sapphire started to glow.

The faint blue light that emanated from it would have been a spectacular sight at night. But even in the dingy, dimly lit Everfree forest, daytime offered too much light for it to be properly impressive. There were parts of the forest that got as dark as night of course, but since we traveled along the path to the ruins, we were nowhere near those areas.

We traveled for a few hours without being disturbed by any beasties. The Everfree forest was loud though. I knew from my participation in the Running of the Leaves that Whitetail Woods was loud as well. Which led me to believe that the ambient noise was just a forest thing in general. But with all the bushes rustling as little critters scurried about and all the birds chirping and the occasional screech of something bigger, it was just a cacophony I needed to get used to at some point. It actually reminded me a lot of my vacation with Sunny, when we visited the Forbidden Jungle.

It baffled me that some ponies thought forest noises were relaxing. I could understand that when it came to beach noises. The soft splash of waves rolling onto the beach and then retreat back into the sea. That was relaxing, yes. This? This was a madhouse and everything that had a voice was just screaming at the top of its lungs to get attention.

I tried to listen a little bit closer to what Kelab had to say, because at this point, his analysis included identification of most of these animal sounds. In a way, it was calming. I learned a lot of scientific sounding names of birds. And apparently, we even passed by a nest of cockatrices. However, they were half a mile deeper into the forest and their cry had apparently been one of warning. I asked Kelab if they tried to warn us away — which would have made the most sense to me. But no. According to that farming machine, they warned each other. Of us.

It inevitably led to a little lecture about the habitat and behavior of cockatrices in general. Kelab seemed to have a great deal of knowledge stored within him. For as interesting as this was, it still just served to make me miss Twilight. She made sure her lectures were fun. Speaking to Kelab and learning from him was comparable to one of those Kirin librarians droning on and on with their monotonous voices…

It’s too quiet.

It was a simple observation. Sadly, it had not even been mine. His voice rang out in the back of my head like a thorn stuck in my side, reminding me of a pain I had forgotten about. That said, it was somewhat normal that he was more observant than me. And he was right, of course. I had failed to notice how the bird songs had stopped. Not all of them, of course. But those I could still hear seemed to be miles away. And in the same manner, I barely noticed any movement within the bushes to the sides and the tree canopies overhead.

It really was too quiet. Which, within the confines of the Everfree forest — or any forest, really — usually meant one thing. A predator.

Don’t just sto—

I stopped. And I ignored the frustrated sigh in my head as best as I could. My group had not noticed the silence that followed us. They were still talking among themselves about all kinds of nonsense, getting to know each other and such. “We’re being followed.”

Within a heartbeat, everyone fell quiet and our little caravan stopped dead in its tracks. Ears swiveled in all directions, honing in on every sound. Eyes traced the lines of the gnarled and twisted old trees around us.

A soft rustling of leaves to the left caught the attention of all.

“More like we’re being hunted,” Spike growled.

“Spike, would you?” I asked. He did not need any explanation. Hefty clearly wanted to help and quietly asked Honey and Derpy to help him out of his harness. Gabby carefully climbed up on top of Luggage Mountain to get a better view of the area. It was probably a griffon thing, this impulse to always have the high ground.

Spike walked a little bit off the path. Just to the side where we had heard the rustling. He unfolded his wings to their full span to make himself appear even larger. And then he roared.

I had lived with Spike for my entire life. In this cycle and many others. And I usually arrived at a point when he was still a bit shorter than me. A little bit chubby. Sometimes even without wings, prior to his first molting. His roar though, it shattered this illusion of my little buddy still being little. He was still a massive nerd, sure. But fifty years later, he was significantly closer to a ‘young adult dragon’. He unleashed the roar of a truly fearsome predator. Of a powerful and mighty creature. It echoed throughout our part of the Everfree forest and silenced even those last few birds that had continued to sing their tunes far away from us.

And Gabby made all kinds of lovey-dovey eyes on top of that cart. Seeing her so smitten made me smile and almost forget the tense situation we were in.

Roseluck and Honey managed to free Hefty. He picked up his axe from the trunk of his cart and decided to secure the other side — just in case that whatever was out there was clever and used a distraction. Some of the beasts of the Everfree were smart enough to deploy such tactics. It was a smart decision on his part and once again gave me hope that this camping trip could work out.

My thoughts were thrown into chaos when I suddenly heard a challenging roar.

I whirled around and noticed the bushes giving way. Something came. It had given up on hiding, on prowling and sneaking. It rushed forward, towards us. It charged.

“Brace!” I cried out as if that was any help.

“I got this,” Spike growled and readied himself.

“Be careful!” Gabby pleaded with him.

And before he could answer, an enormous, massive manticore breached the final line of underbrush. How it had been able to hide in the bushes at all was a mystery to me. Maybe just another indication that the Everfree had a mind of its own, a spiteful and malicious one.

The creature threw itself against Spike. Its claws tried to dig into the dragon's flesh, but they were repelled by hardened scales. Spike for his part managed to grab the manticore's forelegs and keep it at bay. The creature in reply started to snap at him, clearly aiming for his face.

It was a difficult wrestle. The manticore was larger than him. And apparently stronger, too. But Spike was smarter and more agile. He leaned back to keep his head away from those powerful jaws and kicked the lion-like creature in its stomach. After the third kick landed, it recoiled a little and instead tried to pierce his scales with the large stinger on its tail.

Spike answered the new attack with a breath of flame. The manticore cried out in pain when the flames engulfed its tail, only to then assault him once more with its claws.

This time, Spike failed to get a proper grip on the manticore. He managed to dodge one slash, but the second tore his armor in half and drew blood on his chest.

His opponent seemed almost desperate in the way he behaved and attacked. Frantic movement and a nonstop assault without any regards for its own safety. Something about this felt… off.

Hefty had decided to switch sides and was waiting for an opening. Any opening to make use of his axe, to help our defender out. But it was such a whirlwind of limbs that he did not dare make a move, lest his good intentions would serve to harm the one who was supposed to protect us.

When the manticore once more advanced and snapped after Spike, he managed to thrust his arm in between the creature's jaws. The manticore's teeth failed to piece the dragon scales, but as it yanked its head around violently, Spike still cried out in pain. He hit the lion in the head twice before he tried to grab the creature by the throat, but all the fighting came to an abrupt halt when another war cry erupted.

The screech of an eagle.

Both Spike and the manticore stopped and looked up. Many of us did.

Gabby stood atop Luggage Mountain. Her body tense. Her wings proudly displayed. Her claws dug into the ground. And her eyes. Sweet, merciful Celestia. Her eyes.

I had never seen Gabby angry. Not just frustrated or annoyed, but truly enraged.

Her piercing gaze transfixed the manticore.

It carefully opened its jaws and gave Spikes arm free. It retreated half a step.

I had difficulties believing my own ears when I even heard it… whimper? About a second later, Gabby cried out once more and flung herself into the air in a powerful display of what her body was capable of. And she quickly arched down, claws first.

The manticore was not willing to find out if she intended to land right beside him, or on him. He turned on his heel and jumped back into the bushes.

Gabby landed right in front of Spike and sent another screech after the creature.

“I’m fine,” Spike said calmly while he clearly mourned his shredded ‘armor’.

Gabby glowered towards the trees for a moment longer before all tension suddenly bled out of her. It was such a disturbingly quick change. The ferocious predator was gone and we had our lovable, easily excitable friend back. She turned around and inspected Spike for herself and gasped in shock and horror when she saw blood on him. “You’re not fine!” she insisted and quickly turned to Derpy. “Can you fetch me that first aid kit please?” She turned back to Spike. “I got you, don’t worry. Sit down please.”

“Gabby, really, he barely even—“

“Sit. Down.” For a fraction of a second, her fierceness was back. Just long enough for Spike to immediately shut his mouth and sit down as if a sack of flour had been dropped. “Thank you.”

The rest of us exchanged glances of various emotions. Most were simply relieved. Some were worried about Spike, or Gabby, or both. Derpy rummaged around in the cart and then carried the kit over to Gabby, only to sit down and help her without uttering a single word. She just smiled. And Gabby smiled in return. They got along well.

I stood frozen. Which was something I would need to address at some point. Not with the others, but with myself. I was a night guard. I had been trained for years. Admittedly, that was some decades ago. But ever since, I was in battle. Nightly patrols in the dreamscape. Fights against nightmares and dreamscape monsters. Those were regular occurrences for me.

I had no right to freeze up in the face of an enemy. The nightmares I fiercely battled were no more or less ‘real’ than this manticore had been. The thought of summoning my armor had not even crossed my mind — and that was utterly unacceptable.

“You know,” Roseluck tried to restart a casual conversation to help us all get back to some normalcy, “that manticore probably wanted to save you from that big, scary dragon.”

“It did?” I asked in confusion.

Kelab’s little horn-bulbs lit up. “Body language indicates a sixty-four percent chance of intended initiation of the mating process after rescue.”

Nopony present knew how to take that. What to do with that information. So we simply did what Gabby did. We ignored it.

Even so, I could not help but wonder. Maybe it would have been better for me to wait until I got some recruit who could fill the position Fluttershy usually took. Some ‘wildlife negotiator’. Maybe that could have prevented this incident.

I walked over to Spike, Gabby and Derpy. “How does it look? Will he survive?” I asked with what I hoped was a funny undertone, while I winked at Spike.

He rolled with his eyes and grinned. “I doubt it will even leave a mark. What a bummer. I thought I’d have some cool scars someday, to impress the ladies, you know?”

Gabby punched him. Not with full strength. Just enough to make him feel it. And Spike grinned. Probably exactly the reaction he had hoped to coax out of her. “I like you just fine without scars, please and thank you,” she murmured. After his chest was sufficiently cared for, Gabby inspected his arm. “That was reckless,” she softly chided him.

Spike sighed. “I knew what I was doing. It’s fine. I had a good chance he wouldn’t be able to bite through it.”

She nodded. “And what if he had been able to?”

He grimaced. “That… would have sucked.”

“And hurt. A lot,” Derpy chirped in, helpful as always. I snickered a little and tried to hide it behind a hoof, with little success. Gabby threw me a nasty look and I cleared my throat and apologized. She did not do the same with Derpy, of course. Because she had helped to patch Spike up.

“You should probably not overexert yourself and keep that arm still, if you can,” I mused.

Spike chuckled and nodded. “Yes, doc.”

After Gabby was satisfied, she packed up the kit again and stashed it away. We resumed our travel and nopony made any remarks, seeing how closely she stuck to Spike's side.

We arrived safe and sound at the old castle ruins in the late afternoon hours. There was a large clearing right in front of the ruins, with a river nearby. It was a perfect spot to set up camp, so I placed the last three torches in a triangular shape to give us as much secured area as possible.

Setting up the tents was a drag. It became quite apparent who was an experienced camper and who was not. Hefty's tent was up in no time, even though it was the largest of them all. But once it was up, they were busy shoving all their delicate equipment in there. It meant unloading almost everything from both carts. And once that was done, he and Honey constructed a little shelter out of the wooden planks they had brought along. It was basically just a roof on stilts. It would not help much against strong wind or critters and its purpose was shrouded in mystery until they started to sort things between tent and shelter.

Most of the wood they had brought along went there. As well as some of the provisions, which they secured in little bundles hanging from the roof's middle. It increased their chances to stay dry. Same for the wood.

Again: Smart ponies. And I was glad to have hired them.

Spike had been on enough camping trips with Gabby, Rarity, Sweetie Belle, Ember, Thorax and Celestia knows who else to know a thing or two about setting up a tent. He was no camping enthusiast like Hefty, but more experienced than the rest of us. He set his own tent up, then helped Roseluck and Derpy.

The Doctor and Kelab were already off to inspect the surrounding area, the tree line, to take soil samples and water samples and whatever else scientific-y was going on over there.

And Aurora and I, we struggled.

I hated camping. I had been on a few trips regardless, and I was just smart enough to read instructions, but I still ran into difficulties following them. And Aurora, being daddy's spoiled little princess, had taken after me in that regard. While her dislike of camping was not as strong as mine, she had the same issues. We eventually begged Spike to help us.

“How did you even… those poles are not supposed to go through there, how did you get them through?” Spike asked and stared at our not-tent in disbelief.

I shrugged. “Talent?”

He laughed briefly and then shook his head. “Off with you two! Let me work in peace.”

I grinned and pounced on him. Aurora quickly joined the hug. “Thank you, buddy.”

“Thank you, Spike!”

He sighed and returned the hug, but shooed us off after a moment. I took the opportunity to collect a few larger, loose stones from the riverbed and fashioned them into a campfire circle in the middle of our collection of tents. “It’s the centerpiece,” I explained to Aurora. “It really does bind the whole room together, doesn’t it?”

She giggled quietly and nodded. “I am sure you had a promising career as an interior decorator.” She made a point of looking at the nonexistent walls and roof. “And you clearly are a visionary for having such a unique interpretation of ‘interior’.”

I snorted and laughed. Aurora quickly joined in. After we calmed down again, we went for a little stroll around the camp. We looked at the other tents. At the ‘resource pile’, as I dubbed Hefty's shelter. And eventually, we stood in the direction of the ruins themselves.

“So,” Aurora's voice reached me. She spoke quietly. As if she was about to breach a sensitive topic. “That’s what this is really about, right?”

I stared at the ruins. The castle of old lay in shambles. Its glory days long gone. Its splendor lost. “Yes and no,” I answered just as quietly. “Greenwood is close to my heart. As is this castle.” And I could see it. Before my mind's eye, the structure rebuilt itself. As if somepony just reversed time. Centuries in seconds. Walls crumbled to the ground lifted up again, piece by piece, reinserted into solid foundations. Banners, moth-riddled and faded, regained their vibrant colors. I closed my eyes, but I could still see it. Maybe I could even see it better now. I saw small little huts, crafted from wood and with thatched roofs. I saw stone houses with proper tiled roofs. I saw so many overlapping iterations of the same village, town, city.

Their names were Greenwood.

I simply called them: home.

But not this time, I tried to remind myself. I already had a home. I was not here to build a second one.

“With the town being built once more, there’s a high likelihood that the castle will be rebuilt as well. At some point, the residents will grow tired of looking out the window and seeing that spooky old ruin over there. More so if that could instead be a piece of history, restored. Or a tourist magnet. Maybe they will make it into a museum. Maybe someday, Flurry wants to live there. Or maybe Discord shows up again, gets reformed and is granted domain over the forest. It’s basically more or less his mess anyway. I don’t know. With every cycle, there are… distinctions. Details that change. Some of them have a massive impact. Like… I remember a cycle where Queen Jetha never managed to cross over into our world from the dreamscape. Thus changelings as a race were never created. I remember a cycle in which Lord Tirek found the Idol of Boreas. It led to a massive war between the Arimaspi and the griffons. Equestria tried to stay out of it. We tried to negotiate peace. I don’t remember how that went for us. There’s… holes. Large enough to shove a moon through. And then there’s smaller details. Like Twilight basically being raised by Celestia, because she moved into the castle when she became her protégé. Or Twilight stayed at home with her brother and her parents and only ever visited Celestia like a regular student visits school and his teachers. Derpy's favorite color. Rarity's favorite dish. Who Spike ends up dating. Even such smaller details have effects. I always know, but I never truly know. It’s maddening, sometimes. But Greenwood is a constant in all of these cycles. It’s there. It’s always there. It needs to be there. At least that’s what it feels like. I can’t offer you any reasonable explanation. I can give you no logical reason why we are here, why we are doing this. I just… it needs to be done. There will be adversaries and mishaps and hurdles and they will need to be overcome. Greenwood must exist. That's all I know for sure.”

Aurora stayed quiet for a while. She followed her own thoughts, and I continued to follow my observations. A city sprang to live around me. Roads of paved stone. Neatly trimmed front yards with patches for vegetables and flowers. And eventually, if I concentrated hard enough, I could even see the inhabitants.

I saw Lightning Dust, captain of our weather team. She flew past overhead, leading a charge of her subordinates towards an encroaching thundercloud from the south.

I saw Whisper, Fluttershy’s and Pinkie's daughter. She walked along the street, a shy smile gracing her lips as she followed a pretty, colorful butterfly.

I saw Flim and Flam cough up a storm once they exited their engineering workshop. Swaths of dark brown smoke emanated from the opened door. Another one of their inventions had self-destroyed. They would fix it, of course. In time, they managed to fix just about anything. Greenwood was nothing to them if not a consistent challenge to their technical ingenuity.

I saw our tavern. The Great And Powerful (And Only) Watering Hole (Name Pending). It had been the butt of many jokes. And for good reason. But the name stuck and became as beloved as its owner. Everypony loved Trixie. She was a joy to have around. Her boisterous nature kept everypony's spirits up. Her shows were always worth a watch. And she loved the attention. She loved that everypony here needed her. To keep sane. She had taken to this job and its massive responsibility like a fish to water.

“Is it safe?”

Three little words.

My imagined Greenwood collapsed. The illusion, conjured up from memories past, fell apart and I returned to this cycle, this life, and to the side of my daughter. My smart little sunshine, light of my life, who reminded me so much of my love, my Sunny Skies. To this very day, I had to grin in amusement whenever I thought about her silly name. The name she introduced herself with, wearing her disguise. It was baffling to think that she was the epitome of subtlety.

“Sorry, is… is what safe?” I asked and shook my head to clear it of the remnants of forgotten thoughts.

“The ruin. If at some point ponies are supposed to rebuild the castle, it needs to be safe, right?”

I looked towards the ruins once more. Now, it hurt a little. Seeing them in such a state of disrepair. “Oh. Yes, sure, it’s perfectly safe. Well. I mean. It’s still a ruin though. You need to be careful with your steps, obviously.” I sighed. “You know what? You make a good point. I’m gonna take Spike with me tomorrow and we’ll take a peek. Just to make sure that nothing dangerous decided to make it its lair. I don’t think so, because for some reason, no wildlife ever chooses the ruins as their home, but… I shouldn’t rely on this knowledge.”

Aurora smiled and shrugged. “That was not my point. But it’s still a good idea to check, I think.”

We turned around and returned to camp to check up on the others. Hefty and Honey were at the edge of the clearing and inspected the trees, probably to get a first feel for the wood they would be working with. Roseluck and Kelab sat in between the tents. The machine spewed a string of nonsense words that apparently had meaning to Roseluck, as she periodically nodded and asked another strange question. I assumed this was all somehow related to the soil quality or something like that.

The Doctor was busy with Derpy. He had another strange machine strapped to her back and was in the middle of switching dials and making little lights blink. Probably the calibration of that weather manipulation device he had mentioned. I just hoped it would be safe for Derpy to use, otherwise I would need to have some strong words with the good Doctor.

Spike and Gabby meanwhile had busied themselves by collecting some firewood. They managed to get that going with a little spout of good old dragon fire and shortly thereafter, they placed a massive cooking pot over it and filled it with water.

The crackling of the fire, the scent of burning wood, the warmth and the warm, flickering light — with the afternoon hours slowly crawling away from us and the day's light receding, it was a focus point for all campers and slowly caught their attention. Enough so that, in time, we all sat together around the fireplace, with our tents in our backs serving as a dividing wall.

“So, exciting question:” I asked, “Who’s the best cook here?”

“Spike,” came Gabbys immediate answer.

“Spike,” Hefty and Honey agreed with a lopsided smile.

“Rose?” the good Doctor threw another contender in.

Roseluck herself however giggled and shook her head. “I have been to Twilight’s Hearth's Warming Eve parties. Spike makes these incredible cookies with a liquid chocolate core… if he cooks even half as good as he bakes, I cannot hold a candle to his craft!”

“Spike,” Derpy chirped in as well.

With every vote of confidence, my little buddy blushed a tad deeper. Until I joined the chorus. “Spike?” He looked over to me and I presented him with an apron and a cooking spoon. “Do you heed your calling?”

He chuckled, grinned from ear to ear, and went down on one knee so that I may knight him. “We honor the tragedy of this day, when our noble protector Spike the Brave and Glorious lost his trusted armor to the vicious attack of a mighty manticore. We honor his sacrifice of at least forty hours of hard work and dedication to keep us safe. And another ten hours for painting it, if I remember correctly. And we bestow upon him on this day a title fit for such a valiant defender. Rise, ser knight.”

He grabbed the offered spoon, quickly donned the apron with the incredible speed of someone experienced with such matters and struck a heroic pose.

And the audience went wild.

We all applauded by stomping our hooves, Gabby screeched a little and the only one who seemed utterly bewildered by this whole impromptu spectacle was the good Doctor. Again.

Maybe he would learn to appreciate this someday. Maybe. Or this was just the obvious reminder that out of all of us, he was the normal one.

“T-Thanks, guys,” Spike stuttered a little as he rose and rubbed the dirt from his knee. “That said, uhm… thanks for the vote of confidence and all that, but… you guys do realize that I can’t work miracles, right? I mean, I’ve seen what we have in terms of ingredients. I’ve been the one who bought them. And I picked those for their longevity. And don’t get me started on spices.”

I chuckled and shook my head. “You don’t work miracles? I beg to differ!” I gestured towards the pot and with a chuckle, he shrugged and went to work. Of course we helped when we could. If something needed to be cut down, somepony grabbed a knife and saw to it. But it was still very much Spikes ‘magic’ that made rather bland provisions into an unexpectedly tasty stew.

“No miracles, my ass!” Hefty exclaimed after his first try. He looked up from his bowl and stared at Spike with as much surprise as Spike stared back with.

And so, we chatted over dinner. After the initial rounds were made, everyone had something to share, it seemed. The soil was rich and fertile, perfect for farming. For now. Knowing the Everfree forest, it could probably turn sour overnight. In the same vein, the wood was solid to work with and obviously plenty. The trees had grown less straight than what a carpenter would wish for, but both Hefty and Honey were still fully convinced that they could make it work anyway. And the Doctor was fully convinced that he would have the proper calibrations of his weather machine done by the time Roseluck had her first field set up.

It was a good start.

An hour later, the sun was down. Another hour and we decided to call it a day. I crawled into Aurora's tent after her and wiggled my way into my sleeping bag. The campfire still crackled outside, the fire painted an evermoving stage play of dancing shadows and licks of orange onto the canvas of our tent. We heard everyone else slowly coming to a rest. A round of ‘good night’s were exchanged. Tomorrow, work would start. I still wondered if any of us, myself included, had even the slightest clue as to what we were up against here.

Then a quiet rustle caught my attention. Aurora was still awake.

“You never asked, but I figured you should know anyway. Just in case.”

“Hm?” I dared to question.

“I filed and filled out all the building permits. And the other legal mumbo jumbo,” she explained.

The what now…? “… you did?” I had never even considered that this was a thing. I understood perfectly well that, if I wanted to build a house in Ponyville, I would need to talk to the mayor. And I would need to fill out permits, yes. That made perfect sense.

But this was the Everfree forest.

And again, I could not help but compare: Had the Apples ever filed proper documentation for building Ponyville? Somehow, I had my doubts about that. Then again, in every version of that story, no matter who told it or when or where or why, one thing always remained the same: Princess Celestia herself granted them this land.

“Yes,” Aurora emphasized. “There are actually severe penalties ranging from fines to prison for building something someplace you’re not explicitly allowed to.”

I grimaced. And I hoped that she could not see it. Because frankly, I felt embarrassed enough as it was. Luckily, I knew that she was not cross with me. Therefore, I could afford a playful reply. “… oops?”

Her soft sigh was interspersed with her quiet giggling. “You know, surprisingly, ‘oops’ does not hold up in court as well as you might think!”

“Really?” I emphasized. “Huh.”

Now I had her laughing quietly behind her hoof. I saw her mane bob up and down as she nodded. “Yeah, strange, right?”

I scooched over with my sleeping bag. It was a bit of a mess, really, as I wriggled around in it until I lay significantly closer to her. And I pressed a smooch to her cheek. “Thank you, sunshine.” A moment later, a groan escaped my throat.

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s a twig poking my rear. I hate camping.” While I tried to reposition myself, I heard giggling. Not just Auroras, but I could have sworn I heard it from other tents as well. Gabby? Derpy, maybe? I tried to find a comfortable sleeping position for what felt like ages until I simply gave up. According to my body, I had managed to get rid of the twig, but my barrel now rested on top of a rock. Greaaat.

I just held still in hopes I would get used to it. And to give everyone else a chance to fall asleep before I would inevitably start to shift around again.

After a couple of minutes, I tried. And I got rid of the rock. With no replacement. Yay, go me. Yet despite now lying somewhat comfortably — even if it was by no means capable of competing with a decent bed —, I still failed to fall asleep.

The day replayed in my head.

Spike’s little decoy. Meeting Aurora again. That strange, tingly feeling in my belly when we all stood together at the edge of the forest, waiting for Hefty and Spike to return with our food. I was suddenly part of this group. And it did not even feel like they needed me to be a leader. It did not feel like they looked to me for leadership. They were all so… capable. On their own. It was great. It allowed me to be just another pony, helping out with this stupid project. And it was stupid, wasn’t it?

Spike had handled that manticore attack well enough. But I had seen how he grimaced ever so slightly when he rubbed over his arm at dinner. When he thought nopony was watching.

What if there was another manticore attack tomorrow? And that one got lucky? Or a cockatrice came by? Could Spike and Gabby really handle a whole pack of timberwolves just suddenly charging into the camp?

I was worried. I told myself: Of course I am. It’s what I do. I worry a lot. But that was not the whole truth. And the wrong mantra.

I tried to keep silent as a long sigh escaped my lips. The ambient background noise of the Everfree forest at night certainly did not help to put my mind at ease. With the daylight still present, we heard birds chirping. So. Many.

But those were asleep now. Instead we heard… goodness, I didn't even know what that was. Other birds? Owls? Bats?

Even the rustling of bushes as smaller critters scurried around seemed more threatening at night than it did in daytime. It was irrational, I knew that. I was almost tempted to just leave the tent and gaze at the night sky. Lunas' pretty displays usually put my mind at ease.

“Tell me a story.”

I bit down on my bottom lip with enough force to draw blood. A nasty, metallic taste. I put a hoof to my mouth to keep the pained hiss in. Aurora probably tried to help, she did not need to know that she startled me like this.

I tried to see her, but the fire had died down and it was pitch black in here.

“Please?” she added as I failed to answer.

“You can’t sleep either?” I asked in a hushed whisper.

“Not really. It has been easy to put up a tough façade when the sun is still up. But Luna told me too many spooky stories about the Everfree forest, I suppose.” There was some amusement in her voice. She deemed it silly to be scared of the forest. It was just another indicator that she had never encountered a timberwolf. Or a cockatrice. Or any of the other horrors that freely roamed these woods.

I sighed. “Alright. Come here.” Instead of waiting for her, I wriggled closer. I freed my foreleg from my sleeping bag, grabbed hers and pulled her in. Enough to hold her. Like in the good old days, when she was still little. I considered what kind of story I wanted to tell her. She had asked for it in hopes that it would distract me. And offer me a chance to fall asleep. But I wanted her to get that chance just as much. I needed a story that would keep her mind running, but in a different direction. Something to occupy it, to supersede Luna’s spooky stories.

“Have you heard about Discord?” I asked. I felt her nod more than I could see it. “He is Chaos Incarnate. But despite what many believe, he is not malevolent per se. One day, Discord appeared to an elderly couple of ponies. Trickster that he was, he spoke to them: Fear not, for it seems to be your lucky day! I will grant you two three wishes. Speak — what do your hearts desire? Both ponies had grown old side by side. The mare looked to the side and into the standing mirror. And she saw her grayed hair. She saw those many wrinkles in her face. And she still remembered the beauty she once had. She followed the sudden impulse and said: I wish my youthfulness back! Discord grinned and snapped his lion paw. With a flash of bright white light, all the wrinkles were gone. She felt alive and strong again and not a single hair was gray. Her husband though, he watched in marvel at the miracle Discord so effortlessly performed, but then his expression soured. Enraged, he stormed over to her, grabbed her by her shoulders and shook her. What a dumb goose you are!, he yelled. You could have wished both of us young again! In his rage, he turned towards Discord and uttered their second wish. I wish for her to be smart enough to see how foolish she is! With a manic grin, Discord once again snapped his fingers and the veil of ignorance lifted from the mare. Now she saw the truth. She understood how they had poisoned each other for years and years with snide remarks barely veiled as compliments. How much he resented her, and she resented him. How habit and the fear of being alone had kept them together despite all the toxicity. And she grew angry with him. Angry that she had not seen it, angry that she had spent all her best years with such a miserable fool, angry that he tied her down like this. And in their anger, both turned to Discord and uttered their third wish. I wish he gets exactly what he deserves!, cried the mare. I wish she gets exactly what she deserves!, yelled the stallion. Discord chuckled. He bowed low and offered his gratitude for such a fine play, and he snapped his dragon claw. Both mare and stallion went back to the way things were before, old and ignorant and resentful beneath a thin veneer of routine. And neither remembered Discord ever appearing before them.”

Aurora was quiet. Quiet, but not asleep. I knew my little princess enough to know that she would never fall asleep during one of my stories. She was mulling the story over. Searching for clues and lessons. Because I had taught her that. There were always lessons to be had. In every story, no matter how unlikely it may seem.

“What happened to the old couple?” came the sudden intrusion from outside. The whispered voice of Honey was nothing I had expected, and Aurora probably noticed how I winced in surprise.

“You tell me,” I replied after a moment, after I had regained my composure.

“What does that even mean?” came Graphites voice.

It almost made me laugh. I kept it in and took a steadying breath. “It means that I told one story and a frankly astonishing amount of still awake ponies heard it, but no matter my intentions, everypony will still understand a different tale and may learn a different lesson from it.”

“Careful what you wish for,” Hefty concluded his lesson.

“Think before you speak,” Roseluck offered.

“Intelligence can be as much a hindrance as a blessing,” was Graphite’s submission.

“The obvious answer is: Never trust Discord,” the Doctor murmured.

While a discussion about the story and its potential meaning broke out in hushed whispers sent back and forth between the tents, Aurora almost inaudibly whispered into my ear. “Is that better for falling asleep?” I grinned and nodded. And I kissed her forehead as a silent thank you. She giggled softly, turned back around and snuggled against me.

And it was easy to fall asleep after that.

Only a few minutes later did I open my eyes on the dreamscape. Luna was already waiting for me. I grinned and sidled up to her side. “Hey kitten. Out of sheer curiosity — would you mind if I tell you a story, and then you tell me what you think it means?”

Dawn

It was a simple oversight on my part. I woke up still wearing a smug grin as my hazy mind remembered how I had won several bets against Luna this night. It was all in good fun, of course. But before coming out here with this randomly thrown together group of strangers and friends, I had been so worried about feeling lonely and homesick and lost. And while those feelings were not completely absent, I had failed to account for my nightly responsibilities, and how they would bring me together with Luna each and every day.

Home is where the heart is. As long as I could sleep and dreamwalk and catch up with her, I would always carry a little piece of home with me. It was a comforting thought.

That said, any and all comfort quickly dissipated once I noticed something hard and sharp prod into my lower back, just above my dock. “Ow.” I wriggled to the side, with my sleeping bag and all, and stared at the offending object. I knew that the Everfree forest had a mind of its own. Clouds moved by their own volition, they rained down water, chocolate milk, acid, whatever they felt like. Whenever they felt like it, too. The ground could turn sour within minutes. Or it could turn to solid rock. Or muck. The wind, the trees, everything in here was mutable and in a constant flow of change. And most things seemed to have a certain agenda. Not sentience per se, but it was hard to argue that the Everfree was not exactly a welcoming place.

There was a stone. Right beneath the floor of the tent and beneath where I had slept. I was pretty sure that I had noticed a stone last evening before I fell asleep. And it had not been there, but a couple of inches over to the side, closer to the wall of the tent.

I grumbled a little, but ultimately tried to keep my spirits up. Luna had put me in a good mood. I would not let the Everfree taint that so early already. Or the back pain.

When I emerged from the tent, I was immediately faced with another common issue I had with camping. I was late and everypony was already up and about. I briefly wondered how I had failed to notice the recurring chop, chop, chop when Hefty's axe met the sturdy trunk of a tree. I saw Honey busily removing twigs and smaller branches from another already fallen one in preparation of further processing. Roseluck, the Doctor and Derpy were milling about and seemed busy marking out the future crop fields. It seemed like they had already slapped together a desk to work on, as that was the point where I saw Aurora, with a bunch of blueprints rolled out for study.

And I stood there with my toothbrush in my mouth and wondered how to best go about this. I wanted to take a shower, but there were no showers. There was a river. I wanted to brush my teeth, but there was no sink. There was a river. I needed to take a leak, but of course — there was no toilet. There was—

Ah, whatever.

I had been well aware of the numerous minor inconveniences ‘camping’ would entail, and I had accepted them. I grabbed my towel and went to the river. Some sort of public toilet and shower room would have my vote as the first buildings to be set up. Even though I already knew that Hefty's and Honey’s workshop needed to be the first solid structure.

After my slightly altered morning routine, I went back to the tent, deposited my stuff and went over to the freestanding table to greet my daughter. “How are you doing?” I asked as I kissed her cheek. She grimaced slightly, but smiled.

“I’m fine. How are you? Survived your first night?” There was a tinge of mischief in her voice that made me want to groan.

“Barely,” I replied. “The Everfree tried to kill me already.”

“Stone under your bag?”

“Stone under my bag.”

She snickered and nodded. “Same.” It was uplifting to see her deal with this so easily. I got cranky as soon as my usual sleeping routine was interrupted, but she took it like a champ and barely even acknowledged it as an issue. And she seemed so… awake.

Disgusting, really, I joked in the privacy of my own head.

I looked at her plans. She was apparently busy with some calculations, figuring out where the palisade should go, how it should be erected, how deep the individual columns needed to be in the ground to provide solid shelter. She clearly knew what she was doing, so I bit down all those pesky questions in my head that attempted to force me to micromanage everything.

I trusted her. She knew what she was doing. I just had to remind myself of that. Occasionally. Of both.

“Where are Kelab, Graphite, Spike and Gabby?” I asked instead.

Aurora looked up from her plans to think about that. She looked to the side, into the forest. “I think they went in to see if Graphite could start working as well. There’s apparently a decent site nearby where she could open a small, first quarry. No idea how she knew that, but… it’s an earth pony thing, I assume. The Doctor sent Kelab with her to help with minor tasks, the other two went with her for protection.”

I was worried. How could I not worry? The Everfree was dangerous. But again, I needed to remind myself: They knew that as well as I did. They were prepared. They were cautious. I needed to trust them.

Apparently Aurora noticed my slight distress. She put a hoof to my shoulder and shot me an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry. They got this. Go to our supply depot and fetch yourself something for breakfast.”

I nodded dutifully and did just that. It gave me a better chance to take a look at what Spike and Hefty had bought than I had gotten yesterday. Most of our rations were hardy stuff. Dried vegetables. Apples. Hay. Nothing too fancy, but we would be able to live with this.

I picked a couple of apples. The spare one floated alongside my head as I slowly devoured the first one bit by bit. I walked around the camp, asked if anypony needed help. They did not. And I ended up sitting down near the depot, eating my other apple as well and silently asking myself: What now?

Everypony here had a function. A use. A task. My task had been to bring them on board, to cobble this group together. And now that that was done… I felt kind of useless. I was neither a farmer, nor a carpenter. I was no architect or mason. And they currently did not need a leader either.

I felt out of place. But to my great relief: That changed once I noticed Spike coming back from the forest. I stood back up and walked over to sidle up to his side. “Did you bury the bodies?” I joked with a wry smile.

He nodded grimly. “They’ll never be found, boss.”

“Good, good. Take care of the carpenters next,” I instructed him. “Should be easy, they’re close to the treeline all the time anyway.”

His eyes narrowed to slits as he stared at his prey. “What about the axe, boss?”

I followed his gaze and saw Hefty chop into another tree while Honey once again busied herself preparing the freshly fallen one. “You’re a dragon, are you not? Tough scales and all. Be quick and sneaky and he won’t get a swing in.”

Spike nodded again. “Got it, boss.”

“Guys, this is distracting,” Aurora suddenly chimed in. “And frankly, a little bit macabre.”

Both of us froze the moment her first syllable was heard. We slowly turned towards her, only to notice that we stood more or less right beside her workstation. “Uh… sorry, we were just messing around,” Spike offered with an awkward chuckle as he rubbed his claws along his neck.

Aurora giggled and shook her head. “I know that, Spike. Well, I sure hope that, anyway. But would you mind getting into your roleplay a little bit farther away? Some ponies try to actually work here…”

We both grimaced in perfect unison and we both muttered various apologies before we retreated. It served well to make her laugh quietly. Once we were out of earshot, I looked up at Spike. “You came back alone?”

His grin dimmed a little, but a confident smile remained as he shrugged his shoulders. “They currently don’t need me. Gabby has security covered, she insisted. Kelab helps with digging and Graphite takes stone samples. I felt like the fifth wheel on the cart. They sent me back to help Hefty or something.”

It was eerie how familiar that felt. We both looked over to the other side of the camp, past the tents to the edge of the forest. Another tree caved to the insistence of his axe. We both muttered various versions of “what the heck” as we saw the tree fall onto Hefty's back. He braced himself for the impact and additional weight, the tree slammed down and he just… stood there. He shuffled around a bit until both sides were decently balanced out and then moved the entire tree over to Honey. He walked slowly, with very deliberate steps, but he clearly did not need help from anyone.

Honestly, I was not even sure if Spike could move these trees all by himself. They were gnarled and twisted things, they could not hold a candle to the trees at Sweet Apple Acres, which stood tall and proud. But still. They were trees. They weighed a lot.

“Right,” I heard Spike utter.

I nodded. Right indeed. Luckily, I then remembered a plan I had made yesterday and I had completely forgotten about until now. “Hey, if you have a moment anyway — I was thinking we should probably take a look at the ruins. Just to make sure no nasties made it their home. Are you up for some spelunking?”

He furrowed his brow. “Doesn’t that mean ‘cave diving’ or something?”

“The lower levels might as well be caves for all I know,” I replied with a shrug.

He mulled it over and quickly reached his conclusion. A smile bloomed on his snout and he nodded. “Sure. Sounds like fun.”

I was less sure if I would call it fun, but I could appreciate the enthusiasm. And we would both feel less like dead weight, which was probably worth a lot. “Good. Let me quickly grab a firefly lantern from the depot and maybe a rope and I’ll be back. Oh and would you fetch your first aid kit in the meantime?”

“It feels so weird to walk around like this,” I quietly complained. My armor felt itchy. I had not worn it for… years, probably. I could barely remember.

“Still better if the armor takes a hit than you, right?” Spike insisted once more. He was the reason I was currently dressed up at all. I had once again completely forgotten about this even being an option, and now that the additional weight was on my back, I kind of wished he had forgotten as well.

I could obviously not argue with him. The armor was a neat protective shell. Yes, it would help to keep me safe. It would probably deflect a couple of incoming attacks, sparing me from grievous harm. And once combat broke out, my training would hopefully kick back in as well, telling me how to move and how to dodge. But right now, it felt alien and slightly uncomfortable.

I was about to complain a bit more as we crossed the threshold from the courtyard of the castle ruin to the main entrance hall when our surroundings abruptly changed. A change that affected less what we saw, but all the more what we heard.

“Ah yes, we’re here,” I noted.

The Everfree forest was, despite being infused with chaotic energies, still a forest. Forests were never quiet. Well, aside from those times when predators were on the prowl nearby. But even then birds could be heard chirping somewhere farther away. Like a metropolis, forests were always full of hustle and bustle. But once we stepped beyond that imaginary line, that changed.

The silence was thick. Palpable. Heavy with foreboding. Like a graveyard.

My hair stood on end for a moment and I shivered involuntarily. I could see that Spike did not fare much better. He rubbed his claws over his forearms as he looked around the grand entrance hall.

The courtyard had been fine. Great, in fact. A little reunion with Bruno, the apple tree. And the other three trees that grew just outside. I still remembered it like it was yesterday, though it was years and years ago. We came here to defeat a farmer, a powerful dreamscape creature. It had grown so much that even Luna did not dare to face it directly. We pulled it from Sunny’s dream like the oversized leech that it was. We goaded it through a rift into the waking world, where the Elements could take care of it. And they did. It set into motion a weird kind of transformation that counteracted the chaotic energies within the forest.

Our initial expectations had been that the entirety of the Everfree would in time turn into a normal, regular forest. It did not. Maybe Discord's influence ran too deep. Maybe his magic was too powerful even for this creature. The changes that occurred were more subtle. Less packs of timberwolves. Fewer manticores in the region. All the different kinds of predators were less hostile and aggressive. The soil was less moody, the weather less callous. It eased the land's mood swings. Without this change, Greenwood might not have been possible. Not without mustering a considerably larger force for protection.

But now we stood in a grave, and one could probably hear a needle drop.

“Creepy,” Spike commented.

I sighed. I agreed. But it was difficult for me, because I knew what this place could be. What it was meant to be. What it could look like. If I closed my eyes and remembered, I could see these hallways. Grand and impressive. Restored. I could see the halls and staircases, the balconies and large windows. Banners proudly displaying heraldry. Libraries filled with ancient knowledge. Flickering candles and torches. Starlight. A full moon overhead. I was home. I failed to notice the shadows slipping past me, sneaking from corner to corner, just out of sight, green eyes lit up in the dark, fangs, the buzzing of insectoid wings as—

“Hey, Dreamwalker! Calm down!”

I snapped out of it.

Spike held me by my shoulders and shook me. I blinked, stared at him blankly and slowly regained my senses. A thin layer of rime covered the ground and quickly melted away. I shook myself free. I felt cold. “Sorry, I… lost it for a moment.”

He watched me closely. Spike knew better than most what was going on. By sheer coincidence, I had made the right call to bring him along into these ruins. It had been sheer coincidence… right?

After a moment, he seemed… satisfied. His claws left my shoulders and he relaxed visibly. I felt a little embarrassed, but this could have easily turned out a lot worse.

The ruins were still silent as a grave. I looked around the massive hall. Parts of the roof were missing. Parts where energy blasts had hit, and where Sunny's body plummeted through. I remembered seeing that fight. I could not remember why, or how. I had not been present for the fight itself, as that was ages ago. Maybe some kind of vision. A spell to share memories. Something that happened in a different cycle.

“Lots of bad things happened here.” I took a few tentative steps across the moth-eaten, moldy carpet, or whatever was left of it. It made sickening squelching sounds. Despite this, my eyes were transfixed onto the lost glory of this room. The banners were long gone. Rarity had come here time and time again to rescue whatever could be rescued. The carpets had not been part of that exclusive club.

The windows were gone. Once upon a time, they displayed the glory of heroic deeds, not dissimilar from those fancy windows in Canterlot Palace.

I could almost feel the lingering traces of emotions. Even after all this time, the room itself — the ruins as a whole — still yearned to tell their story. About neglect. And jealousy. About ignorance and rejected love. About resentment. And despair. And bitter, bitter regret. All of it a volatile cocktail, crowned by an excessive amount of pain. Loss. Grief.

The disbelief of what she had to do.

The disbelief of what she had done.

The disbelief that she had been capable of doing it.

I sighed once more and softly shook my head. Lingering in the past would not help us. We were here with a mission. And I would be better off not letting myself get distracted by reminiscence. “Top to bottom, or the other way around?” I asked Spike.

He had not strayed from my side. “I dunno. I like top. What’s better?”

It was a simple question. But it gave me something to focus my mind on. In theory, there was not much of a difference. We needed to search the entirety of the ruins anyway. But! The Everfree sported a vast array of predator species and otherwise dangerous creatures. Many of which… were incapable of flight. But all of which were perfectly capable of walking. Or crawling or slithering or whatever.

“I can imagine,” I replied with a wink. He did not get it. That was fine. I still found some amusement in the mental image of him sitting back at camp and suddenly, out of the blue, he would blush furiously as it finally clicked. “We’re starting with the cellar. If anything’s in here, it's most likely down there,” I concluded. The moment I made that decision, I already expected to find nothing in the cellar, but several cockatrice nests upstairs, or something similar.

I pointed over to the right, down a narrow hallway that split off of the main hall. We walked beside the carpet, as neither of us were keen on those disgusting sounds — or on announcing our presence with it. The latter argument fell flat on its face, as we kept chatting at normal volume.

“So you’re telling me they never had a wine cellar?” Spike asked in disbelief.

I grinned and shrugged. “Sunny was strictly a teetotaler back then, and Luna very much preferred stronger stuff. And the atmosphere a tavern offered. Mind you, she wasn’t quite as outgoing as she is today. I imagine her mostly sitting in the corner, cradling her mug of… I don’t know… rum or something?”

Spike chuckled. “That is such a weird image.”

I chimed in as I could not agree more. I had seen glimpses of shy Luna. They were very rare indeed. And almost on the same level of ‘adorkable’ as Twilight. “Anyway, point was that—“ I cut myself off. The moment we rounded the corner, we stopped. I knew the layout of the castle. I could walk these corridors blindfolded. I had, actually. In several cycles. Sometimes as part of party games, other times as part of party games.

There was supposed to be a staircase here, leading down to the cellar. And while the staircase was there, it was blocked by a cave-in. An entire section of the castle had apparently collapsed on top of it. “Huh.” Not my most eloquent moment, but it adequately described my thoughts.

Spike snickered in the background and started to pat my shoulder. “Don’t take it too hard.” I grimaced slightly. “We might be off to a rocky start here.” I grimaced a little bit harder. “You shouldn’t cave in to his turn of events!”

“Urgh, Spike!” I half-yelled, half-laughed. “That was painful!”

My buddy stood tall and proud, grinned from ear to ear and had no shame or remorse at all. We both laughed for a bit, trading several additional stone-related puns of quickly decreasing quality while we made our way back to the entrance hall. Only when our supply of rock-based quips ran dry did Spike switch the topic. “So, that was quick. A job well done, right? What’s next?”

I still smiled, though a sigh escaped my throat. “Well. The cellar is still there, just… buried, I guess. It looked pretty solid. That cave-in wasn’t there the last time we were here, which, you know… it’s weird. The ruins stood here for over a millennium.”

Spike nodded along. “Yeah, sure, but I don’t think it looked like this a millennium ago. Even with all the fighting and stuff. It’s just time gnawing away at the stone.”

“I guess you’re right,” I conceded the point. “That was the only cellar entrance I knew about, though. We will have to clear that at some point. I suppose the good news is that if some dangerous creature was down there at some point, it either starved to death by now or at least left by other means. The entrance hall isn’t far off, so I’d say we switch it up, search the ruins top to bottom.”

Spike shrugged. “Sure, works for me.”

We crossed the main hall shortly after and went in the opposite direction from before, down another hallway. At the end of it was a staircase leading up to the second floor. And the third one. Although a quick inspection made it obvious that there was no third floor anymore. The tower had collapsed in on itself, and the other parts of that floor did not look any better. I had no desire to become a ledge-walker and I was pretty sure that this was enough damage to ensure that no notable dangers were up here either.

So, second floor it was.

That said, I was not careless enough to just call it quits. While we walked around the second floor, I asked Spike if he could fly up and take a look at everything from above as soon as we were done here. With so much of the roof collapsed, it should allow him a good glance into the upper stories.

The longer we walked around on the second floor, the more we fell back into a steady, comfortable rhythm again. We walked and talked along a grand hallway and every now and then, we stopped our current conversation and peeked into the rooms that split off to the sides. There was no interior left. Whatever beds, cupboards, tables, vanities and other wooden or partially wooden things had been here, they rotted away a long time ago.

We mostly found a lot of broken glass. Shards of broken mirrors, too. The occasional rusty bit of scrap metal. Once upon a time, those were the handles of doors. The knobs on drawers. The screws in bed frames. None of the furnishings on this floor had been enchanted in any way, and they were therefore fully subjected to the elements.

“Is there anything interesting up here?” Spike asked as we cleared another two rooms and met up again in the middle of the hallway.

“Well, the castle is stuffed full with secret passages and traps and such, though as far as I remember, most of those were on the ground floor and in the deeper levels. The upper stories were more or less reserved for guests of the palace. You don’t want your foreign ambassador running into a trap you designed to entertain your little sister. Especially if she can take quite a hit without so much as being winded. I mean, none of the traps they designed for each other were deadly, or even dangerous. Obviously. They were just… for fun. But running into ‘alicorn fun times’ unprepared can cause serious damage to a regular pony. For that reason, the castle staff had always been carefully instructed what not to do. To the point where they actually made a ‘dos and don’ts’-list to hoof out to new employees. Luna told me about that on occasion.” My fond smile grew into a grin. “She also told me she tried to mess with that list. Once. Sunny was rather cross with her for that one and explained the serious consequences to her. At length.”

Spike voiced a pained hiss. “When I was a lot younger, Twilight and I played fetch. Like, a lot. Every day. And that one time, she managed to spook me. I shrieked and breathed fire on her. It wasn’t anything serious, just a quick plume to get some distance, but… she still got mild burns. Celestia sat down next to me in the waiting room. I remember how huge she was. I had to look up, like, with my head all the way back. And she just started talking. She did not address me, she just… she talked. Explained how one always has to be careful with the gifts one wields. How one of the most important qualities one can learn is self-restraint. A lot of what she said back then flew right over my head. But I still remember her face. Gentle and soothing and forgiving. But there was a sternness in her voice, too. It was less about what she said and more about how she said it. I understood that this could have gone a lot worse. I could have seriously injured her. We were lucky. I’m pretty sure Twilight got a sermon of her own that day. For spooking me.”

Warmth flooded my every fiber. With every beat of my heart. Just thinking about her lifted my mood a little further. “Yeah, she can do that,” I agreed. That and so much more. I admired her. Loved her. The way she could say something without a single word. She could, somehow, convey entire stories with mere body language and careful intonation. It was so gosh-darn impressive.

And then I suddenly started to giggle.

Without warning, a very specific memory sprang to my mind and just reliving it in such vivid detail made me giggle like a filly. Spike was obviously immediately confused. He looked around to see if I had spotted anything particularly funny, but after failing to notice anything, he stared at me. “What’s up?”

I needed a couple more seconds to calm down enough to answer. “I chewed her mane once. Well, several times, actually.”

He furrowed his brow. “Okay…?”

I battled for self-control until I regained a modicum of composure and managed to dim my chuckle down to a wide grin. I wiped away some tears. “It was relatively early on. I still sometimes failed to fall asleep when I was supposed to sleep alone. So I crawled into bed with her. She was fine with it and all. I had a free night. Luna insisted that I needed to dream occasionally, as it is supposedly important for my mind to sort out stuff. Anyway. So I sleep, and I dream about… heck, I have no idea anymore. I just remember that I woke up and I chewed her mane. She was awake too. She just watched me as I merrily chewed away. I wanted to sink into the bed sheets so badly! I was so embarrassed! But she just asked what her mane tasted like. All serious, mind you. I was fully willing to play along, because that was better than apologizing for the umpteenth time. So I took another nibble and told her it tasted like bubblegum. Honestly, as far as I remember, it tasted like soap. Or her shampoo or something. She nodded, still serious, and started this really in-depth analysis of the supposed taste of her mane in relation to its coloration and her own cutie mark and whatnot. I swear, she made that all up on the spot, but it sounded like those professors reciting their speeches at those conferences Twilight sometimes drags me to. She then mused that if her theory was right, it should be easy to find further evidence to support it by getting another sample for comparison.”

Spike grinned from ear to ear. He knew Celestia longer than I did, if maybe not quite as closely. He could already tell where this was going. “She chewed your mane, didn’t she?” he asked with a barely suppressed chuckle.

I nodded vigorously. “She can be such a goofball at times. And I love it!”

Spike laughed quietly and agreed. “I know, right? So, what did your mane taste like?”

I tried to remember how that morning developed further from that point and quickly felt the heat rise into my cheeks, ears and muzzle. Oh. Right. “I, uh, we… I didn’t get to ask that.”

Spike grimaced for just a moment before he laughed once more. Celestia, as much as Twilight, was a family member to him. A mother, a sister, something in between, something different altogether. It was hard to tell. Either way, he did not wish to think about those kinds of activities in too much detail when they were involved. Fair enough, really.

After a minute or two, we had both calmed down again. I sighed deeply. “Hah. I miss her. It’s stupid, I know. I’ve been gone for only a couple of days. It’s not even been two weeks. Maybe I’m getting clingy again.”

Spike shrugged and gestured for us to continue on our search for dangers. I nodded and followed. “Maybe. But I think if she has a problem with that, she would tell you. Right?”

I tilted my head slightly to the side and thought about it. Sunny could be quite an enigma if she wanted to. Her smile could mean anything and everything and nothing. If she did not want anypony to be able to read her, then they would not. Simple as that. But whenever there was a problem, we talked about it. She brought things up as soon as possible. And if I had some problem and was once again struggling to find words, she gently and patiently coaxed it out of me. “Right,” I agreed.

The Everfree has a mind of its own. It was not sentient as such, but it could be quite resentful. I was in a chipper mood. And apparently, I was not allowed such blessings. I took a couple steps further and suddenly heard a crack. Right beneath me.

I could not react fast enough as the ground simply gave way. The stone burst and what I had subconsciously considered a safe floor to tread on just vanished. I hit my chin on a piece of stone that still clung to the floor as I plummeted past it, my limbs flailing wildly in a futile attempt to get a grip on something. I did not even scream. The thought did not occur to me. And really, what good would that have done?

A second later, I felt a searing pain shoot up my sides, up my spine and straight into my head. I gritted my teeth and held back that pained yelp as best as I could.

Spikes claws dug into my sides.

I could hear the strained, rapid beating of his wings as he tried to get lift.

A moment later I collapsed on solid ground again, a little off to the side from where I had fallen through the floor. Spike stood beside me and breathed just as heavily as I did. “Sweet Celestia, what the heck…!” he exclaimed in between gusts of breath.

“My thoughts exactly,” I agreed. I slowly got up and craned my neck around to inspect the damages. Spike had reacted quickly. Otherwise he would not have been able to catch me at all. But this split-second reaction had meant that he could not be as careful as he would otherwise have been. My armor had prevented most of the damage, luckily. He had used it as something solid he could properly grab. But in the process, his claws had scraped along my barrel. Blood trickled along, down to my belly. The scratches were not particularly deep and looked a lot worse than they actually were.

I still had to look away quickly. “Uhm, Spike?”

He still stared at the hole in disbelief. “Yeah?”

“Would you mind helping me out?” The question stirred him. He looked over and quickly noticed the red staining my otherwise brown coat.

“Oh shit! I’m so sorry!”

I snorted. Which hurt a little, but hey. It was so rare to hear him cuss. Neither of us did that regularly, as neither of us liked it much. But there were just some situations that warranted it. “Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it looks,” I assured him. “That said… well…” I hemmed and hawed and hesitated. Because it was embarrassing to admit to it, even if he already knew. The fact of the matter was: I could not see my own blood.

It never bothered me in all those gruesome horror movies I watched with Luna. It never bothered me when I read comic books with Spike. Heck, it did not even bother me all that much when it was the blood of somepony else.

There was no reasonable explanation why I reacted the way I did. But whenever I was confronted with the sight of my own blood, I got light-headed. To the point where I would actually faint. What a great night guard I made! And the nonsense did not even stop there. Right now, I was bleeding. But I did not look at it. So everything was fine. My vivid imagination showed me how I was bleeding. Before my mind's eye, I bled so much more profusely as I did in reality. Yet despite this, it did not bother me. Because it was not real.

Quirky, messed up brain!, I complained.

Spike had busied himself in the meantime. He retrieved his first aid kit from his backpack, cleaned and disinfected the wounds and put a few bandaids on them. While I stood still and distracted myself by complaining about myself, to myself.

I shook my head. “I’m a nutcase.”

“Lunatic,” Spike corrected me with a smirk, knowing full well that I appreciated that label a lot more. I appreciated everything a lot more that brought me closer to Luna. Still, this ‘moon sickness’ they raved about in ye olden days was just the weirdest stuff I had ever heard about. Obviously the product of ponies with too much imagination.

“Are you done?” I asked.

“All done,” Spike answered.

I gave in to my curiosity and looked at my side again. Everything was fine. And Spike was busy packing his kit back up and into his backpack. “Right, so… next time we come here, remind me to bring a ten-foot-pole, yes?”

He laughed. I could still hear a bit of tension in his voice, but we slowly got back to normalcy after that jump scare. “The good old ten-foot-pole. Never underestimate it!”

Once we stood side by side again, we both looked down the hallway. Everything looked fine. But everything had looked fine before and apparently, that meant absolutely nothing. We remained silent for a few moments, each of us having his own internal battle. I finished mine first. “Dumb question, but would you mind terribly if I asked you to pick up a piece of stone and just—“

“No problem,” he quickly cut in with a nod. He walked over to the hole, grabbed the rim and broke another piece of stone free. It offered uncomfortably little resistance. Then he threw the chunk down the hallway. It landed with a dull thud. Nothing happened. We exchanged a few glances.

“I don’t trust this,” I admitted.

“Neither do I,” he replied. Spike was the one with wings. Therefore, I had no complaints as he slowly walked down the hallway towards the piece of stone he had thrown. He got there without issues and picked it up.

It was hard to regain trust in the soundness of the structure after this incident.

I took a couple of steps towards him, but this time I immediately noticed the ever so faint sound of a crack beneath my hooves. The floor did not break away immediately, but I was not willing to risk anything either. “Heck no.” I stepped back. And I had not even crossed half the distance to reach Spike. “Throw it again.”

He did. And instead of another dull thud, we heard a crack and the piece he had thrown simply disappeared in another hole.

Apparently the stone of this hallway was a lot less stable than it looked.

“Okay, abort mission,” I decided. “If any hostile creature lives up here, it must have some sort of supernatural stone sense or something. Or it flies. I don’t know. What I do know is that we don’t belong up here. Come back please, and be careful. I don’t want you to get hurt, okay?”

Spike nodded, took one step in my direction and vanished. Through the floor.

“Fuck!” I hissed and stepp—

Stop!

It was an internal battle. His willpower against mine. He rarely announced when he suddenly tried to take over. That always made it hard to brace against his attempts. He failed to wrestle control from me, but I failed to overcome him. We were at a standstill.

Look where you’re going, you useless numbskull!

I growled at him, at myself. But I looked down anyway and I stopped fighting him. I had been one step away from plummeting through the floor as well. I had heard the crack. I had stepped away. And just a moment ago, I had almost set a hoof there again.

It would have been the right thing to do — to thank him. Despite our disagreements and animosities, he usually looked out for me. In his own strange and twisted way. Spike would not have been able to catch me in time. And each floor of the castle was twenty feet high, at least. That would have been quite the tumble. A broken rib or leg was not out of the question there.

Still. He tried to puppeteer me again.

“Fuck you,” I quietly hissed instead, before I raised my voice significantly. “Spike? Are you okay?”

Just a moment later, I saw his claw emerge from the hole and he pulled himself up again. He looked a little worse for wear. Scratches here and there, a bit dusty, but nothing serious. He mostly looked pissed, which I really could not fault him for. “I think I don’t like your castle,” he growled.

Despite myself, despite the shock, I chuckled quietly and nodded. “I think it doesn’t like you either. Or me, for that matter.”

He looked around and considered his chances, but ultimately decided against testing his luck. He flew over to me. We at least knew that the hallways up to this point had been stable, and that the rooms off to the sides were empty and safe. That would probably do for now.

“Let’s turn around and go to the ground floor,” Spike suggested. I couldn't agree more. “But I tell you, if we fall through into the cellar, with no exit but a hole in the ceiling, I’m going to tell Graphite to level this entire ruin. As a security measure.”

I chuckled and leaned against him to nuzzle his belly for a moment. “Well, you have my vote. You are the chief of security, after all.” And a small part of me hoped that the castle listened and took his threat seriously.

We turned around and headed back to the main hall. Again.

It was probably late midday by now. We walked around the ground floor of the old castle ruins, checked for weak floor patches — or crumbling parts of the ceiling. We checked the side rooms for unwelcome lodgers. We were a little bit more on alert and therefore less chatty. One of the reasons it now felt less like a camping trip with friends and more like actual work.

We both stopped abruptly when we heard glass shatter. And a voice cursing in… Old Ponish?

With both our brows furrowed, we exchanged glances and a couple of gestures. We both heard it and we were both cautious but intrigued. We decided to follow the noise. Eventually, we closed in on a crossing in the hallway. It continued to the left, further into the depths of the castle, and a little bit to the right, but I could not remember what was supposed to be there.

One thing was for sure though. We were sneaking around. We had done a pretty good job at it so far. But that probably posed a problem. Whoever was down here with us was not part of our group, but capable of intelligent speech. The likelihood of encountering a brainless, ravenous monster was therefore small. The likelihood of startling somepony and getting a stone or spell flung our way out of sheer surprise, however…

“Hello?” I called out after agreeing with Spike that announcing our presence was the better way to go about this. “Is anypony there?”

No reaction.

Well, they heard us, I concluded. We turned the corner and were confronted with two things I did not expect to find here. For one: This was a dead end. The hallway turned right and then just… stopped. No doors. No side rooms. Nothing. Just thirty feet of hallway. And since it was part of the internal structure, there were no windows either. How odd.

Especially since I could feel a tingling sensation beneath my skin. There was magic present here. An abundance of magic in fact, if I could notice it this clearly.

And then there was the stallion who looked at us a little bit… startled? He immediately gave off a very scholarly vibe. His amber-colored coat was partially concealed beneath a dark gray cloak. Said cloak covered his cutie mark as well. His mane, though. It was almost the same fire-gradient my daughter’s mane had. Although Aurora had the pretty magenta eyes of her mom and this guy's eyes were colored red. A very intense blood red. He wore a pair of thin-rimmed glasses and a horn stuck out between his bangs.

Spike looked at me with uncertainty. So I made the first step. “Hi! I hope we didn’t startle you too much. My name is Dreamwalker, and that is my friend Spike. And you are?”

He lifted a hoof to shove his glasses up his muzzle and stared… past us? “Currently in grave danger! As are you now, my friends! So I’d advise you to run!”

Before I got another question in, he legged it. Right past us. I looked in the direction he had previously stared in and saw the reason for his slight apprehension. “Oh. Right. That does look like an issue.”

There were these… things. They clung to the ceiling. To the walls. Crawled along on the floor. They reminded me a lot of the Smooze, just smaller and with a significantly impaired fashion sense, seeing as they wore no clothing at all. But they were basically gooey green blobs that moved via tentacle-y pseudopods that extended from their main body and were quickly pulled back in again.

They were absolutely silent. And they had been slow. Up until our surprise guest decided to run. Now though, they moved with purpose. They shot their tentacles out to attach themselves to the ceiling and swung along like gosh-darn apes!

“Spike…” I warned as I retreated half a step.

“Run?” he asked.

“Run!”

We decided that maybe, just maybe, that stranger had a good idea. Clearly he seemed to know a thing or two about these creatures. And that was the issue, was it not? We were here to clear out the castle. He had apparently stumbled into these beings before we did. We needed to know whatever he knew about them to better deal with those things.

“Wait for us!” I yelled after him. He did not slow down and I was not exactly in my prime either, but I still managed to catch up to him. Clearly, he was not the sporty type either.

“What are those things?” I asked as we ran shoulder to shoulder, Spike covering our back as best as he could while those swinging blobs gave chase.

“Oozes,” he replied as if that explained everything. My lack of knowledge must have been plain to see on my face. “Unnatural creatures, byproducts of magic that went haywire. They have acidic bodies!”

I furrowed my brow. “Did you make them?” This seemed natural, no pun intended. After all, we were not aware of anypony else making their camp anywhere near here. But he was here. And he knew about them.

“What?!” he asked in confusion. “Why would I make them?!”

He didn’t say ‘no’.

While the vitriolic voice in my head was right, I was not about to throw accusations around willy-nilly. Twilight always preached that everypony deserved a chance. Or two. Or three. I was willing to give this stallion the benefit of a doubt. “Do you know how we can deal with them?” I asked.

“Escaping should not be hard, they have a very bad memory!” he replied as he ran around yet another corner.

I did notice that he ran in circles. Not on the spot, but in a larger sense. Certain hallways offered access to different ‘wings’ of the castle, so to speak, but they formed a rough circle and he stuck to those hallways. He only ever led us into other hallways if those ended up in the main circle again. It would have been terribly confusing were it not for the precise layout in my head. I could see that Spike certainly was utterly lost and had no longer any idea where in the castle we were.

Was this to confuse the oozes?

Or us. Or maybe he’s trying to ensure that we cannot find our way back to that supposed dead end.

“Escape won’t help us,” I explained. I could feel it. With every word I was running out of breath. And a quick glance over my shoulder told me loud and clear: Those things were still behind us! In fact, it seemed to me like their numbers had doubled as the entire hallway appeared to be a green, slimy, moving carpet. “We need to get rid of them! They could pose a serious threat to our village!”

The stranger furrowed his brow. And a moment later, he suddenly stopped and turned on his heel. “Behind me! I might know a shield spell that could come in handy.”

Neither Spike nor I hesitated. We ran past him and stuck close to his back. We were familiar with Twilight's shield spells and knew that the bigger a shield had to be, the more energy it took to create it and hold it. Spike even tried to make himself a little bit smaller, just in case.

The shimmering hemisphere this stallion raised was strange. This magic felt oily and cold. The shield itself emanated a warm orange light, despite my impressions. And a few seconds later, the oozes began their onslaught.

I was not entirely sure what I saw.

They threw themselves against the shield. They tried to grab it with their pseudopods and then hurled themselves bodily against it. Due to all the oozes quickly catching up with us now that we had given up on escaping, they quickly covered the entire hemisphere. To the point where the inside became dark, except for the orange light coming from his horn.

And then the oozes… changed. Due to the fluid nature of their bodies, it was hard to describe. They withered away. Shriveled up. Dehydrated. Whatever it was — within seconds, all the oozes were gone. He dropped the shield a couple of seconds later and an intense smell of burned hair filled our nostrils.

I immediately felt sickened and dry heaved. “What in the world was that…?” I asked.

He turned towards us and regarded us with an intense stare. As if he was appraising the quality of an artifact. Eventually, he sighed. “I am sorry about the intense smell, it is a byproduct of both this spell and the oozes dying.” He shoved his glasses up his muzzle and then stretched a hoof out. “I am Dawn.” His quirky behavior reminded me of Sunburst.

Don’t. It’s a trap!

I accepted the gesture. And not just to spite him. It was a light, friendly hoofshake with Dawn. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance!” The moment I shook his hoof though, I realized something else. I noticed power.

Raw, unbridled power. Lingering, dormant, barely concealed beneath a thin surface.

It was no match for Twilight. Or any other alicorn, for that matter. But I could not remember ever encountering another unicorn with such power. It did make me wary, at least a little bit, but I tried to stay open-minded. Just because he was powerful did not mean that he was dangerous.

Dawn offered a hoof to greet Spike as well, who casually flipped his claws through his head fins and then accepted the gesture. “We totally had this,” he announced.

Oh Spike, I sighed internally and just grinned.

Dawn smiled and nodded. “I see. And what, pray tell, would you have done to them, my scaly friend? Considering a kicking hoof or swiping tail would simply get stuck in their thick, viscous bodies — which consist entirely of acid, I might repeat… and were you to swipe your claws at them, they would actually split, leaving you with two enemies instead of one.”

“You are quite knowledgeable,” I quietly chimed in.

Dawn seemed to take that as a compliment and tipped his non-existent hat. Spike on the other hoof struggled a little with this presented information. “Oh. Uh… burn it?” he ultimately suggested.

Dawn thought about it for a moment and nodded once more. “That would have worked to destroy their bodies, yes. By turning them into highly corrosive gas. Which you should not breathe under any circumstances, lest it burn your lungs. And with these hallways being somewhat closed-in spaces, and no real air currents… alas! Not the point. Tell me, then: Would dragon fire have been your first idea?”

“No,” Spike sheepishly admitted.

It was time to take a stand. I did not mind Dawn presenting his knowledge. I did not mind him making Spike aware of flaws in his plans. But it was truly getting to him now and I did not want to see him crestfallen. So I stood by his side and bumped his hip with my shoulder. “Hey buddy. Don’t worry. We would have figured something out. We always do, right?”

He sighed and nodded gratefully a moment later. “Yeah. Yeah we do.”

The three of us briefly fell silent before Dawn spoke up again. “You mentioned a village, I believe?”

“I did, yes.” I sat down and rubbed my muzzle with a hoof. Somehow, this day started to feel like it dragged on forever. “Greenwood. It’s… well, it’s basically just right outside the ruins. I don’t know how long you’ve been here, but we arrived yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Dawn echoed with a hint of amusement. “I cannot imagine it being much of a ‘village’ then.”

I grinned and shrugged. “We’re working on it.”

He’s sounding you out.

I grimaced.

Backtrack to that dead end.

I shook my head.

You can’t afford to not know if he’s hiding a lab full of those oozes! Chances are, he’s Twilight's next big villain, currently preparing the army with which he intends to destroy Equestria!

I grimaced harder. But no matter how vile he was, he had a point. Additionally, I was under no illusion that once again Spike — and Dawn, most likely — had seen my facial expression contort in all kinds of funny ways. But I was tired of explaining that particular quirk of mine, so Dawn would have to wait for another day when that voice in the back of my head was less bothersome.

“Spike? Could you maybe bring Dawn to safety in Greenwood? And sent Aurora in, I’m going to wait in the main hall for her. We need to make sure it's safe in here.” Spike nodded. And Dawn did not disagree. Which struck me as strange. Did he not have his own camp somewhere? Saddlebags left behind there? Maybe a purse of bits? A spellbook? Something? But he mentioned none of that and simply agreed with my suggested course of action.

We ventured back to the entrance. Spike and Dawn left the ruins through the transformed courtyard and despite what I had said, I made myself comfortable beneath Bruno.

It felt strange, being here. This grass was green. So lively and green as the grass home at Sweet Apple Acres. As if somepony had just transplanted a piece from there over here. A little bit of Ponyville in the middle of the Everfree forest.

And Bruno.

There were two of those now. It creeped Applejack out. One of the reasons she did not dare to come here anymore. It always burdened her with a lot of complicated and frightening questions. Bruno was an apple tree. One that stood at Sweet Apple Acres. It was an old one. It stood there for decades. It was never moved.

But after the defeat of the farmer, after the transformation of the courtyard, after all those shenanigans, there was a second Bruno, right here. It only made sense if those other cycles I lived through were something different than just a ‘time loop’, right? But the time loop theory fell apart due to many other details already. So what was this? What was I? Where did I come from? Were there other worlds, other lifes, families without their husbands, fathers, friends? Was there a world now, somewhere out there, where Bruno was just ripped from its place, to be planted here? Or was it a duplication of sorts? But Applejack could tell it was real, it was the Bruno. Surely she would be able to tell a fake from the real one, right? A whole can of worms.

I had married Luna. Luna had become pregnant. To avoid the public eye, we rebuilt the old castle. And moved there. Our friends wanted to support us. So they followed us. Greenwood was founded at the foot of the castle. Rarity became a royal seamstress. Fluttershy and Pinkie lived in a massive tree at the edge of the village. I remembered that life.

And Applejack had been our farmer. She had provided an entire village with food. Her tenacity was enough to rival the stubbornness of the entire Everfree. She prevailed, the forest yielded. But Applejack got homesick. So we brought a little piece of home back to Greenwood. It had been Big Mac's idea, initially. It was a gesture. A gift from the Apple family to Princess Luna. Bruno, the apple tree. We planted him in the courtyard. A proud display for all to see and enjoy. And every time Applejack got homesick, she would come to the courtyard and play her harmonica beneath Bruno’s canopy.

I remembered so many details from that cycle. I remembered sitting down next to Jackie. My sister in spirit. Part of the family. She was part of mine. I was part of hers. An honorary Apple. And hoo boy, what an honor that was. I felt proud to be accepted by them.

“Hey dad. You wanted me to come over?”

I blinked. The memories faded. Another lifetime. A different cycle. Before me stood Aurora. My daughter. My little princess. “Hey sunshine.” I wiped at my eyes to clear my blurry vision. I steeled myself and stood back up. Being in this place was weird.

I turned around and put a hoof to Brunos bark. “See you later, old friend.” I was no earth pony. If Bruno heard me, I did not know. If he answered, I could not tell. It nevertheless did not change how I treated him.

Aurora followed me inside the main entrance hall and whistled quietly. “This place must have been impressive back then…”

I smiled. “Right. You’ve never been here before, have you?” She shook her head. “Well. If all works out, this place will be impressive once again someday. Hopefully you’ll get to see it.” I gave her another minute or two to look around. To drink it all in. The grand hall. Many areas of the castle were built to impress. A design philosophy that clearly had survived until the construction of Canterlot Castle. The high ceilings made you feel tiny. “So, tell me. How are your shield spells?” I asked her.

Aurora grinned, sparked her horn to life and gave me a quick demonstration. A floating, translucent disk shimmered in front of her. It spun rapidly, probably deflecting incoming projectiles to the sides. An impressive spell. Probably one she had learned from either her half-sister Arcana, or from Shining Armor.

“Looks fancy!” I both teased and acknowledged. The shield vanished and she took a mocking bow. “I don’t think we’ll stay here for long, I just need to quickly check something while Spike keeps an eye on our new friend out there.”

“I saw that guy, who is that? He’s not one of us, is he?” Aurora asked.

“No. His name is Dawn, we… stumbled upon him, basically.” I recounted our initial meeting to her while we weaved our way through the halls. I set a quick trot as the pace. I knew where I was heading and Aurora had no difficulties matching my pace. She was ‘just’ my bodyguard and I did not expect any further complications.

Thus we quickly reached the supposed dead end again, despite Dawn's best efforts. “Can you feel that?” I asked as I noticed the faint tingle beneath my skin again.

Aurora shook her head. It was a tad frustrating. Both Sunny and Twilight had explained to me that the ability to feel magic was rare. And honestly, considering how many times it literally made me puke, I wished this ‘rare gift’ would have been given to somepony else. Somepony who could get some use out of it.

I closed my eyes and followed the tingle. Whenever it got stronger, I took a step in that direction. It took less than half a minute and I reached what appeared to the naked eye as a wall. But once I put my hoof against it, it felt distinctly different. Wooden, instead of stony.

“There’s a door here,” I surmised.

I felt my way around the wood and indeed, there was stone to either side of it. So I trotted back down the hallway to take a look at another door, just to gauge at which height the door handles usually were. Luckily the doors here on the ground floor were partially intact, not like the ones one floor up. Then I went back and poked my hoof in the apparent illusion until I found the handle. The door was not even locked.

“Ready?” I asked.

Aurora had watched me with curiosity and mild alarm and now that I explicitly waited for her, she gave a curt nod and tensed up, ready to counter anything or shield both of us..

I pushed the door open. And nothing happened. No stream of fire came out, no endless abyss opened beneath me. I cautiously stuck my head through the illusion and saw into another room. An alchemist’s laboratory, from what I could tell. Several workstations and desks offered various equipment that would have felt right at home in Twilight's cellar in her castle.

“Seems clear,” I told Aurora and walked through the ‘wall’ and inside the lab. She followed right after me. “See if you can find anything dangerous.”

“Isn’t this an alchemy lab?” she asked in reply.

I stopped and grinned awkwardly. “Point taken.” There was a reason why Zecora practiced her craft in the middle of the Everfree, or why Twilight banished her experiments to the structurally reinforced and enchanted cellar. We walked in between rows of workstations offering all kinds of funky looking alchemical ingredients — or what we assumed to be alchemical ingredients — and apparatuses for boiling and grinding and mixing stuff.

Our ultimate conclusion was therefore a simple one: Nothing here looked like it was about to blow up, eat us or curse us. Nothing here was suspicious. Despite telling myself that, I could not stop asking: Why hide it, then?

I decided that this was a question best answered by the stallion himself. That would make things considerably easier than racking my brain and coming up with all kinds of crazy conspiracy theories. I was sure he would love that and I was utterly unwilling to give him that satisfaction.

So we returned to Greenwood.

The sun was slowly setting.

Aurora was still busy discussing options with Hefty. They were planning the workshop. The first building that would be erected in Greenwood. A proper building, not just a collection of tents. An important moment for the soon-to-be village. But I found myself distracted. Spike was with Gabby again, but I noticed that he glanced over to us every now and then.

I sat beside Dawn. We both watched the hustle and bustle of almost a dozen creatures finishing up work for the day. I finally dared to breach the walls of silence. “How likely is it that there are any other predators within the ruin?”

Dawn seemed calm. Serene, almost. The entire time. There was no awkwardness from his side. He was a calm, friendly, intelligent, charming stallion. I had to admit it to Voidwalker, at least: It was a bit suspicious.

Told you.

Shut up.

“Oozes are ravenous creatures,” Dawn answered. “Even though they technically do not need nourishment to sustain their bodies. If anything living was in there, it is most likely that they hunted it down relentlessly and used its biomass for reproduction. Oozes do not sleep. They don’t require rest, they don’t think or strategize. All they know is insatiable hunger and reproduction.”

I grimaced. The more I learned about these creatures, the less I ever wanted to encounter a single one of them ever again. It sounded like they could become a plague. An endless wave, consuming everything in sight and using it to only increase the tide. “Given their behavior, are we to expect more of them?”

Dawn mulled it over, but shook his head. “I don’t think so. They are mindless, unthinking. They tend to stick together, sometimes quite literally. They move only to devour, so if one moves, that tells the others that one noticed prey, therefore all of them move. This kind of behavior is unlikely to produce stragglers.”

He never answered your question if he created them.

“If I may ask a question of my own?” Dawn politely inquired. I nodded. “I noticed that you moved like a soldier while we escaped these creatures. You tried to cover your friend's retreat. And mine. Thank you for that, by the way.”

I looked down at myself. I still wore my armor. It was a good reminder to dismiss it, but with this particular question out in the open, I waited. Because dismissing it right after this question would send the wrong signal. “I suppose I am. Kind of. Proud member of the night guard,” I announced.

“Interesting.” He looked at my armor as if it was the first time he actually became aware of it. He even reached out with a hoof, only to hesitate and look up at me for permission. After I granted it, he put his hoof to the cold metal plates. “A fascinating design. It seems to favor mobility and reduced weight.”

Searching for weak spots?

Stop it. He is not the enemy, I told myself.

“With you being a night guard, I am right to assume that you serve under…?”

“Princess Luna, yes.” I grimaced ever so slightly. I had completed his sentence without a second thought. It was so… natural. But why would he phrase it like that? Why would he invite me to complete the sentence? He was a unicorn, was he not? Surely he had to know this.

Except maybe he isn’t. And maybe he doesn’t. And maybe he’s playing you.

Dawn fell silent for a brief while. His brow furrowed and his gaze became distant. “Luna. Yes. I see,” he muttered quietly. There was something in his eyes that made me feel for him. He looked haunted. But the moment passed and he returned from whichever memory had befallen him. “You don’t seem particularly close to her, seeing as she sent you out here into the middle of nowhere. I certainly would not wish to stick my muzzle where it does not belong, but out of sheer curiosity… did you fail your Princess?”

Your?

But again, the answer was so easy. So quick. “No, no, nothing like that!” I replied with a good-humored chuckle. “I’m here on my own volition. We are actually quite close.”

“… I see.”

Why are you feeding him all this information, idiot?

Vitriol. Spite. Paranoia. He knew nothing but fear.

I remembered so many things I had gained by not listening to him. By following the advice of others. Friends, family, loved ones. Were I to let my fears rule me like they ruled him, would I ever feel Sunny's warmth again? Would I still be able to laugh alongside Luna? I only needed to close my eyes to conjure an image of Twilight, grinning at me with such pride in her eyes. For something so small as opening up to a friend.

There had been days when my fears quite literally choked me.

But I refused to yield. I would not succumb to their toxic whispers.

Friendship is magic. Friendship has the power to unify us all. And the one thing friendship requires… is trust. I knew nothing about Dawn. I had ample reason to suspect something fishy was up with that guy. But I liked the idea. I liked the idea of befriending him. For so many years, friendships just… happened. I shared a lot of time with somepony, so I tried to get to know them. I tried to let them get to know me. Sometimes that worked out and I gained a new friend, sometimes it did not. But rarely did I go out of my way to make new friends.

Because frankly, that was scary. And exhausting.

We sat there in silence for a few more minutes. I finally dismissed my armor. Aurora rolled up her plans and stored them away. Hefty and Honey returned from the edge of the forest. Gabby and Spike were already busy cooking dinner from our supplies. Everypony came back together to mingle and give the others updates on the status of things. Everyone cared. Because everyone had stakes in this, even the projects and tasks of the others.

I briefly wondered how long we would manage to keep that tradition alive. At some point, I would need to recruit more ponies. At some point, I hoped that others would simply follow. Find their way here on their own. Follow the trail of adventure, or a second chance, or new business opportunities. There was always a lot of potential with new villages, was there not?

“So what is this project?” Dawn quietly asked.

I considered giving him the full pitch. It would be nice having him on board, I told myself. He clearly knew a lot of stuff. Who could tell how much more he knew? Or how much he was capable of? But just one sidelong glance at him told me that ‘the pitch’ would not work. He was too smart for me. So I stuck as close to the truth as I dared. “We are building a village. Most of them want to stay here if it works out. Everypony has their own reasons for that. But that’s the point. It’s potential. It's an opportunity. I hope that those things will attract enough ponies that one day, they will rebuild the castle. Restore it to its former glory. Or new glory, I don’t particularly care about that part.”

“But you do care about the castle, it seems.” It was a statement. A simple observation.

“I do.” My gaze drifted away from the newly lit campfire. I looked back over my shoulder. In the encroaching dark of the coming night, the ruins looked ominous. A looming presence of age and decay. “It’s an important piece of Equestrian history. Plus, once upon a time, it was home to my families.”

While the phrasing was more than natural for me, it did seem to make his thoughts stumble a little. Yet in the same manner he refused to elaborate on some topics, I saw no reason to explain myself further with this one. And he accepted that.

A few more minutes passed in silence. It seemed part of our dynamic so far. Bursts of conversation, interspersed with stretches of silence. Though I could not say in good conscience that it felt uncomfortable. I always found conversations to be tiring, even when the one I was talking to was a dear friend or loved one. These recurring pauses… helped.

Maybe he felt the same. Maybe we were not so different.

“Well,” Dawn raised his voice again, albeit it still remained barely above a whisper, “I am admittedly quite eager to see where this is going. Plus, I am starving and this smells delicious. Do you mind if I stay? I would obviously help out with whatever knowledge I can offer.”

“Sure,” I replied almost instantly. Somehow, I had known that this question would come. I had waited for it. He had his answer, yet he did not move. Because in the same vein, he knew that I was not done with him just yet. “Where is your camp, Dawn?”

“In that hidden room you undoubtedly discovered,” he replied with an unexpected softness in his voice. It reminded me of the way Sunny spoke with ponies. Her motherly tone simply disallowed anger to take hold. And in the same manner I was unable to muster any frustration with Dawn. He freely admitted to concealing this laboratory. It was part of the castle and therefore technically not his to use or live in, but the owners were long gone. I had not seen a sleeping bag or any personal belongings, but neither had I searched the room fully. A quick scan, in and out, so as to not leave him unsupervised for too long. It was my own fault, really.

Friendship requires trust. A lesson Twilight taught me over and over and over again. It was less about me relearning it and more about reminding myself. Some things are easily forgotten. They slip through the cracks unnoticed. How little kindness can cost, but how much difference it makes. A smidge of politeness can brighten somepony’s day. Respect. Honesty. To give plenty, but to allow oneself to receive as well.

I dreaded accidentally turning this early conversation with him into an interrogation. He was not on trial, I told myself. But surely he was aware of his own curious behavior. Surely he would understand me asking the obvious questions, at least?

“What are you doing here?” I dared another one.

It took some time for him to answer that. He stared ahead, at the pot Spike threw a few herbs into, but he probably saw no pot. Or Spike. “I have begun a journey a long, long time ago. So long, in fact, that I can barely remember its beginnings. I am in the last stages of finally finishing it.”

Cryptic as all Tartarus.

I agreed with that sentiment. Yet despite this, I could not help myself. “Can I help somehow?”

I had no idea why, but the offer alone seemed to catch Dawn fully off-guard. There was sudden movement as his head snapped around. He stared at me in disbelief, his eyes wide. But as quickly as his surprise came, he got it back under control. His charming, friendly smile returned and a silent chuckle shook his shoulders. “That is a kind and generous offer. And… an unexpected one. You do not know me.”

I nodded. “I wouldn’t mind changing that.”

This time, he had better control over his expression. But he stared at me in disbelief for a couple of seconds nonetheless. “Is it because I am a pony? A unicorn? Are you willing to help a fellow spellweaver?”

Spellweaver. What an odd term to use.

I considered his question before I shook my head. “I don’t think so, no. It wouldn’t change anything if you were a dragon. As you can see, I’m good friends with one. Though I suppose Spike is a little bit strange for a dragon. I think you’d be less friendly if you were one. Still doesn’t change the offer.”

“Why?” he asked quietly.

I sighed and looked upwards. The last vestiges of color drained from the sky and the first twinkles of stars became visible. I loved nighttime. For as much as I loved Sunny and her warmth, I always felt much more at home at night. “I’m in a weird spot in my life.” That was no answer to him, of course. But an important revelation for myself. Applejack was back home. Yay. But nothing would change the fact that all of my friends were old. So very, very old. Yet here I remained. I had made new friends, sure. I had families. But I could not deny that Aurora's hips were wide. That Arcana had little wrinkles around her eyes. My own children aged in front of me.

I had made new friends. By coincidence. And they were less in number than the original group. Because I failed to learn how to move on. How to move past the initial cycle I knew. I had never come this far. Never stayed this long in any one cycle. I had no idea what that stupid concoction did to me.

I softly shook my head. “Several reasons,” I finally tried to answer Dawn's question. “Some of them are horribly complex and confusing, even to me. Some I cannot hope to explain. Ever. As for the others… I don’t feel uncomfortable with you. Which is something important to me, as that is… rarer. I… saw something. In your eyes. Like a kindred spirit, maybe. I don’t know. You clearly have secrets. I hope they aren’t dangerous. I hope I am not running with hooves and eyes wide open into a trap. But I think we could be friends. I’d like to be friends. I’m not sure if it's possible, but I’d like to find out. Even if it scares me. That prospect. That question of yours. This answer of mine. Those secrets, yours and mine. All of it. And I hope I didn’t put you off by being this upfront.” I finished with an awkward half-chuckle. Just to emphasize my own nervousness, apparently.

Dawn remained quiet for a while yet again. Just another minute, but it felt considerably longer. Eventually though, he sighed. “Dinner is ready. We should fetch some.” He wore the same friendly, warm, charming smile as he usually seemed to. It was a non-answer. But more importantly, I told myself: It was not a ‘no’. So I got up and followed him.

Dinner was nice. And despite how cringey that sounded in my head, I was serious. Fluttershy was clearly on to something.

It was an opportunity to mingle. To sit down, relax, have some food and kick back. Everyone was talking. I tried to listen for the important bits and sighed in contentment whenever I could just let the voices be my background music as I looked up and appreciated Luna's beautiful spectacle. Wood this, garden that, progress made, no looming disaster just yet.

It was nice.

After dinner however, it did not take long for our group to fall apart piece by piece. Hefty, Honey, Graphite — they were dead tired. No wonder there, really. Even Gabby and Derpy did not make it long once they had food in their bellies. With Gabby retreating to their tent, Spike was obviously close behind. One by one, they vanished. Until all who remained were Aurora, Dawn and I.

My sunshine leaned against me and watched the stars with me. “Want me to tell you another story?” I asked in a hushed whisper.

She smiled and nestled a little closer, but shook her head. “I think I’m too tired. I would fall asleep and I don’t like the sound of that.”

I accepted her decision. Which did not stop me from softly humming a melody. I was a terrible singer. But humming was fine. Her mom on the other hoof, she had a voice. Sweet heavens, did she have a voice. It was one thing to hear Sunny talk. To witness how she could talk down raging dragons and convince stubborn yaks. That was impressive.

But hearing her sing was enchanting.

Once upon a time, the melodies her throat produced were haunted, full of grief and regret. Time dulled the pain, and with the farmers' destruction by the Elements, she got a real chance to actually heal. But I remembered that first time after Aurora's birth, when she sang for her. Her voice trembled ever so slightly. It was still haunted, but… differently. Full of hope. Aspirations.

That first song became a staple. Sunny told me at one point that even she did not remember the time from whence this song had come. She did not remember all of it either. But she occasionally sang it to our little filly as she grew up. And I hummed it as we watched the stars.

My heart skipped a beat when I heard her softly chime in. Aurora was a good filly. No matter her age, she would always be my little princess. I just hoped that someday, she would find a decent stallion. Or mare. Or dragon. I did not really care. So long as it was a decent partner. And that maybe someday, she would sing this song to her own foals.

“Thanks dad,” she whispered barely audibly before I felt her kiss on my neck and she pulled away. She looked drowsy, but happy. And with a little swerve in her step, she hauled herself off to her tent.

That left two, then.

Dawn looked as fresh as a daisy. Which led to another obvious question. “You don’t sleep, do you?”

He smirked. “I do sleep. But I have an enchantment cast on myself that significantly reduces the required amount while simultaneously keeping my senses aware enough of my surroundings.”

I felt my eyebrows rise up. “Sounds impressive.”

He quietly snorted and shrugged. “I suppose. Magic can do many fantastical things. Yet I will say that what I cherish magic most for are the mundane and trivial tasks that it can get rid of. I would call it ‘quality of life’-spells, or maybe ‘convenience-magic’. But either is quite a mouthful.”

I laughed quietly. “It is, yes.” I looked around and addressed the issue head-on, albeit accompanied by a sigh. “We don’t have any more free sleeping spaces, I fear. I didn’t think about packing spares. Or expecting guests.”

Dawn shook his head. “Do not worry. I will simply retreat to my own ‘camp’, as you called it. Though…” He looked around. His ears stood straight, swiveled in search of any noise that was out of the ordinary for the nightly forest. And he found none, except for the soft snoring of either Hefty or Honey. That was hard to tell. “Another question, if you will indulge me?”

I smiled lopsided. “Sure, shoot.”

“When we fled from the oozes,” he started. I was surprised that he kept bringing that up, as if to invite me to ask again if he created them, “I noticed that you did not use your own magic to defend yourself. Or your friend.”

At least this question was somewhat easy to answer. “I’m weak.” He seemed surprised, so I elaborated. “My magical reserve is pitiful. I have a talent with telekinesis, which basically reduces the cost this spell requires of me, but even my telekinesis is severely limited when compared to that of others with a talent in this spell. I can’t even make sparks. Which, I might add, is super annoying when you try to get the fireplace going for a romantic evening. I believe at this point, I own a dozen flint and steel and tinderboxes. Strewn across half of Equestria. And those are only the ones I remember and didn’t displace or lose.” Just as I had hoped for, Dawn chuckled in amusement. “I would have welcomed some ‘convenience-magic’!”

“I see. Well, it is entirely within the range of possibilities for some unicorns to be born so… disadvantaged. This is usually counteracted by their cutie mark magic and I could not help but notice yours seems to correlate to stars. With your demonstrated fondness of the night sky, I was wondering if maybe you have some spells relating to that?”

Stars. Huh. I looked at my own flank. It was a bit of an awkward angle, but I supposed that without further knowledge, one could see it as stars. “I was just committing to the bit there. I do have my strengths, they just don’t really affect, well, the waking world. I have dream magic.”

Now I got him curious, it seemed. It was funny. Fifty years and we still barely scratched the surface in our understanding of the dreamscape and how it worked. And we had nowhere near enough ponies to deal with the workload. “Dream magic?” he echoed.

Since barely anypony knew what precisely Luna did as her job, it was no surprise that barely anypony knew what dream magic even was. I had no idea how many times I had already given this same explanation. “The dreamscape is the plane of existence where all the dreamers go when they fall asleep. My talent allows me to enter the dreamscape consciously. I mean, here I’m still ‘sleeping’, but in the dreamscape, I’m awake and in control. I can leave my dream and interact with other dreams and dreamers. Help them sort out their repressed feelings for their half-siblings and such.” Dawn stared at me blankly for a moment before he grimaced ever so slightly. I laughed and nodded. “You’d be surprised how much that comes up.”

“I am a single child,” he insisted.

“As far as you know,” I retaliated.

“Please don’t,” he asked with a rough chuckle. I chimed in and agreed to leave it at that. “So your special talent is quite similar to Luna's powers. How peculiar. I was not aware that others have these powers.”

I shrugged. “It’s a recent development, as far as I can tell. Last couple of decades or so. There’s a dozen of us by now, but we are obviously severely understaffed.”

“I can imagine,” Dawn agreed. He seemed deep in thought for a while again and I let my gaze be drawn back up once more. That is, until he spoke up again. “Would you mind if I helped you out a little?”

I looked back down and over to him. “How?”

“Nothing invasive, I promise,” he assured, his hooves raised in defense. Yet I had not even considered anything of that sort. It was strange, thinking about what that implied. That this was his own first instinct, his own expectation of my reaction. “I can further bolster your telekinesis. It does seem to be the one spell you have mastered to the best of your ability so far.”

“Meaning… I can lift more?” I asked for clarification’s sake.

“Lift more. Carry it further for longer. Gain more precise control over each held object to the point of fine-manipulation,” he explained.

It was a generous offer.

A trick. You don’t know what backdoors he will implement.

A generous offer.

I was well aware that there was always room for improvement. Twilight lived and breathed this, it was basically her lifestyle. Just because something was adequate, or even good, or seemed to be optimal did not mean that it could not be better. Because there was no perfect. Improvement was something that rarely had a ceiling. It was easy to come up with situations and circumstances in which a better-developed telekinesis would be useful.

You are putting too much blind trust in him. Twilight would certainly not approve of unreasonable faith!

“I’ll do it.” I shook my head. “I mean, sorry. I meant: I would gladly accept your kind offer. Thank you.”

Dawn's brows knitted for a moment as he studied my face, but then he relaxed and smiled again. “Well, as you will shortly see, the change is nothing to worry about. More so, it is fully reversible if you ever wish to return to your current state.”

When I shook his hoof back in the ruin for the first time, I noticed his power. Here and now, he did something that unleashed a part of this incredible potential. I had no idea what exactly he did, as his horn did not even light up. But my hair stood on end. His magic felt wild and unpredictable, energizing and dangerous, like licking a gosh-darn outlet. It was in no way comparable to the oily feeling I got from his shield spell.

Which was weird.

Really weird.

Because a casters magic always felt the same. How magic felt to me was not dependent on what spell the caster wove, but who wove it. Somehow, Dawn just kept on piling up the question marks.

And then I noticed a faint glyph on my left foreleg. It was a strange symbol consisting of three lines. The formation vaguely reminded me of the mathematical symbol for Pi, except these lines looked more like claw marks. And the soft glow emanating from the glyph was a faint, pale blue.

His aura was orange. Or at least his shield spell had been. And every time I saw him use telekinesis, his horn was wreathed in an orange aura. And this glyph did not match my own aura either. Just… more. More and more questions.

“Test it,” he suggested.

And I did. I knew the limitations of my own magic pretty well, having had fifty years to get accustomed to them. I could indeed lift more. I could even grab my sleeping bag within Aurora's closed tent. I had never before managed to manipulate an object with telekinesis that I was not able to see.

I gave a quiet whistle. “Impressive.” I looked at the glyph again. “This thing is some sort of arcane anchor, I assume? To tie the improved spell structure to my essence?” I grinned smugly as I noticed that I had once again surprised him. “I’m not as dumb as I look.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “I can assure you, I did not assume such. I will still admit that I did not expect understanding, no matter how superficial it is. Your understanding of it is perfectly sufficient. The glyph indicates your ability to cast a spell that is outside of your normal wheelhouse, so to speak. There is no reason to worry, it is not dangerous. That said, some might find it strange and you may want to come up with a story.”

I chuckled. “Or, and hear me out about this: I tell them the truth. Way easier, don’t you think?”

Dawn tilted his head slightly and regarded me once more as if he had to make a life-or-death decision. After a moment, his smile slowly morphed into a grin and he apparently dismissed some sort of illusion spell. My jaw went slack as I saw dozens upon dozens of glyphs all over his body. All unique symbols, all with unique coloration. He looked like a freaking disco ball.

“Experience has taught me that these glyphs, simply because of their appearance, can be intimidating to less learned creatures.” The brief moment passed and he quickly reestablished his illusion, hiding away maybe hundreds of spells. “I hope I can expect a better result from a… a friend?”

Yes! I cheered mentally. Though I was pretty sure that he still saw me beam with happiness. And there was some genuine relief in his eyes and tension bleeding out of him as I nodded. “It looks damn impressive. One day, you need to tell me how you got those. And what those are. And do.”

He nodded with a crooked smile. “One day. Maybe.”

Tentative Steps

I lay comfortable in my sleeping bag. At least until the Everfree decided to play yet another prank on me. And I closed my eyes, relaxed and content. I opened them in the dreamscape with a smile.

She was already waiting for me.

“Hey kitten!” I greeted her, sauntered over and pulled her head down to eye level with my magic. I closed my eyes as I kissed Luna and I swore I accidentally manifested the very wistful sigh I wanted to give voice to in the surrounding area. Her lips were as warm and welcoming as I remembered them and I had a hard time pulling back. For better or worse: She helped me with that decision as she did so herself.

A playful smirk danced across her lips, played in her eyes. “Well, well, well. Somepony is in a good mood.”

I grinned from ear to ear and nodded eagerly. “Yes! I just… I don’t know. Plans seem to work. I like that. And I always love seeing you again, of course.” I chuckled briefly as I imagined her reaction had I not added that last sentence. “How has the night treated you so far? Is it busy?”

She wore her full battle armor, of course. As usual. And even though we were patrolling the dreamscape side by side for decades now, I still admired it every single time. It was just so pretty. Black metal sheets, expertly woven into one another, layered to offer additional protection. One could slip a thin blade in between and would still have to break through the thin chain mail underneath. The plating went up her neck like a popped collar. The mail ran down her barrel, form-fitting without being restrictive. Her horseshoes looked wicked, with intimidating spikes protruding from them. The entire getup was a mock-reference to her daily regalia, but while that made her look regal and noble, just like intended, her armor made her look fierce and undefeatable.

“See something you like?” she teased.

I snapped out of my admiration and had the decency to blush slightly. “Sorry for staring.”

Luna merely giggled and bumped my shoulder with a leg. “Nothing to be sorry for. You are allowed to admire me, you know? In fact, let me encourage you…!”

She had that playful tone she always got when frisky thoughts were occupying way too much headspace of hers. With just a couple steps she skipped ahead of me, but continued on with the patrol as if nothing had changed. Except now she put some extra swing into her hip and occasionally, teasingly, invitingly swished her tail. Never enough to show, but always enough to jumpstart my imagination.

I chuckled and complied for a while. She was beautiful, tantalizingly so, from just about any angle. “If you continue this”, I eventually said, “we won’t get anything done, kitten.”

Luna looked back over her shoulder. That playful smile was still very much there. And I would have loved to pounce on her. I knew it would not satiate me fully. Sex in the dreamscape was funny, in a way. Since there was no limitation to what was possible, everything became possible as long as one could imagine it. But the absurdity this eventually resulted in also made it feel unreal. Because it was. Nothing in here was real. When I kissed Luna, it felt real because I wanted it to feel real. Because I remembered actual kisses we had shared on countless occasions over the years. Memory and imagination melted together.

But that teeny-tiny sliver of hollowness remained. I could try to rut her brains out to the point where she would be unable to form a single coherent thought. Yet I could only succeed as much as she would let me. She would always be as lucid in here as she decided to be. There was little in terms of actual consequences. And no matter how much fun it was, I knew I would wake up feeling that deep-seated want. And she was not with me in the waking world. No way to satiate that need over there.

She knew that. Because she was smarter than me, always had been. I was just lucky she decided against riling me up further, because I would have knowingly fallen into any and every trap she laid out for me. Instead, she slowed down a little until we walked side by side again. The soap bubbles of dreams lazily danced around us. Most of them were happy dreams. Some nightmares were at work, but they were small, weak. The dreamers themselves would most likely defeat them. Face your fears. Funny how many times we had to use that sentence. It was a staple at this point.

“I could use your help with something”, I restarted the conversation with a switch in topic.

“The project is running smoothly, I hope?” she replied.

I smiled as I remembered how useless I had felt today. And yesterday. All these ponies, busy with their tasks. Chopping down trees, gauging the quality of stone in the ground, erecting tents. “Yes. It’s fine, really, we’re doing great so far. It’s still early of course, but I think this will work out just fine. Maybe we’ll even get it done sooner than I thought. I do like the thought of coming home sooner.” Just for emphasis on that last statement, I manifested a hoof of translucent magic and gave her shapely rump a little slap. She yelped in surprise and stared at me, both amused and outraged. Only once she saw how I gulped and ducked my head was she mollified. Despite my grin.

Still. No regrets.

“If it is not about Greenwood, what do you require my assistance for, then?”

“An adjacent matter”, I continued. “When we arrived, I took Spike with me and we ventured into the old ruins to make sure it was safe. Turns out: It’s not. Half of what’s still standing seems to always be on the fence if it wants to continue standing. Anyway, we ran into a unicorn stallion. He’s an odd one. Very powerful. Like… ‘I haven’t met another unicorn this powerful’-powerful. He’s behaving a little quirky as well. One might want to call it shady. I’m trying to give him the benefit of a doubt. I’m also trying to befriend him. That said, I’m not willing to risk the future of Equestria or even the safety or health of a single pony if I can help it.”

Luna and I continued on our way. Her brow furrowed and I could see her mulling the information over that I gave her. “You seem to be quite worried about him. Can you tell me more?”

I reviewed what I had said and came to a slightly uncomfortable conclusion: I had made him look a bit like a boogeyman, didn’t I? “He’s very secretive. It’s hard to get a clear read on him and I think that’s how he prefers it. I don’t mind him being a very private pony, that’s fine. I don’t go spewing my life's story to anypony willing to listen either. But when was the last time you met a very powerful pony and he or she turned out to be a benevolent force for good? It might be wrong to be suspicious of him. He hasn’t done anything wrong, as far as I can tell. And I’d rather have him work with us than against us. But no matter my personal feelings, this could be larger than anything I came into contact with in a long time.” The more I rambled on and on and got hung up in my own net of worries and conspiracy theories, the stronger I saw that smile grow on her muzzle. Right up to the point where its mere existence irked me somehow. “Okay, what’s up with that grin of yours?” I asked.

Luna snickered for a while before she regained her composure. “I remember the day when I offered you to join the nightguard.”

“Offered, right…” I shot back with a lopsided grin. I had fond memories of that day as well.

“Back then, I deemed it a matter of simple necessity,” Luna continued undisturbed. “You had access to my realm. That had never happened before. The dreamscape was mine to patrol. The dreamers were my subjects to keep safe and watch over. The nightmares were my enemies to face. Alone. And the many laws and limitations of this realm were mine to know. It was an obligation I was proud of. Despite the immense weight of this responsibility. And then you just… popped into existence. And you meddled. Mother dearest, you just could not stop meddling in my affairs! I wanted to strangle you so badly!” I chuckled at her side and Luna quickly chimed in for a moment. “Your influence had to be contained. I needed to study you. And how you did that. I fell back on an old saying: Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer.”

That gave me pause. I even stopped for a moment and looked at her. “You considered me an enemy back then?”

Luna stopped as well. She met my gaze with her own. She was calm. A spark of mirth was still within her pretty cyan eyes. “I told you to never underestimate how defensive alicorns get with their domains. I meant that.”

It baffled me. “But you… you implied that… when I chose your sister, you’d rather…” I could not even finish that sentence. Or give it proper structure. My internal workings had a spanner thrown into them. Everything came to a screeching halt. I remembered it differently. Luna had been miffed, sure. But this?

I was lost in my own little world when I suddenly felt the soft touch of her hoof, guiding my chin upwards. I had not noticed her walking over to me. She lowered her head and gave me a kiss. It was surprisingly tender. Soft and chaste and almost apologetic. “Things have changed for the better, firecracker. I am glad that they turned out the way they did, for I would not be able to enjoy your company otherwise. And I have a feeling that without your incessant meddling in just about anypony’s private affairs, I would have had to wait for Twilight to approach me for quite some time.”

I grinned. “You were that dead-set on waiting for her?”

Luna's smile widened a little and she nodded. “I was. You keep saying it yourself — I am a very passionate mare. I was afraid my affections would overwhelm her and sent her running for the hills.”

A swelling in my heart. I lunged for Luna and simply hugged her. I nuzzled her mane. Brushed my neck along hers. This was the dreamscape. And nothing ever felt truly real. But I appreciated the make-belief contact anyway.

When I finally let go of her again, I chuckled awkwardly. “That’s just me again, isn’t it? We started talking about doom and gloom and suddenly we’re discussing love affairs again. Maybe I should have been a crystal pony under Cadance’s rule.”

“You would have hated it,” Luna surmised. “Too cold in winter, too hot in summer.”

I guffawed. But I could not object. She knew me all too well. “Aaanyway, we were talking about Dawn, I believe. There’s something I can show you. That might actually be more helpful than me telling you that he seems to know a thing or two about alchemy.” And with that, I focused my mind. I pulled forth the memory of last evening, when Dawn — in a display of trust I was about to betray — let his illusion slip and showed me his real body. The one covered by dozens upon dozens of glyphs. When I opened my eyes again, I had successfully manifested a perfect copy of my memory into being. Luna was already busy inspecting him, slowly walking around him in circles. “He keeps them hidden under an illusion the likes of which I have never seen or even heard of before. He doesn’t even cast anything when he dismisses or reestablishes it. There is no colored aura on his horn, I don’t get any tingly feeling of magic nearby. That said, another curiosity I noticed: I saw him cast occasionally. It’s not like he doesn’t have an aura. But so far, I… I noticed two distinctly different ones.”

Luna stopped her inspection and looked up, over my Dawn-ponyquin and to me. “Two auras?” I nodded. I could see the gears turning behind her forehead. “That is quite peculiar indeed. Changelings are the creatures I usually associate most with the mastery of disguises and change. And even they cannot change their auras. That said, I do recognize some of these glyphs. Some are Zebrican. A couple of others are of different languages unknown to me. And this one is Olfant.”

“Never heard of that before,” I admitted.

“A language elephants speak,” Luna explained. “They are old and wise creatures from another continent. My sister once befriended one.”

I could not help but chuckle. It was so much like my love to do that. “Of course she did.”

Luna continued her inspection and stopped at Dawn's front. She leaned in and even tried to brush a part of his mane aside, but that was not how the dreamscape operated. “Are you sure you remember this glyph up here right? At the base of his skull, half-hidden beneath his mane?”

I rounded Dawn as well and sidled up to Luna's side to take a look myself. But despite this, I simply could not tell. “I tried to make the image as precise as I could, but… I’m not entirely sure, no.”

“Hm. Then again, it would be strange for you to create this symbol by mere coincidence.”

“You recognize it?” I asked.

Luna stared at it for a moment longer before she answered. “I do. It is written in Old Ponish. A specific unicorn dialect, to be precise. One exclusively used for curses. And from a time well before the three tribes came together in peace. Even before the Exodus.”

“What does it do? Or tell us?” And why would Dawn carry an ancient pony curse around?

Luna sighed deeply. “I am unsure. It tells us, first and foremost, that he has traveled far and wide and for a long, long time. He is much older than a regular unicorn has any right to be, and almost all options to prolong a life to that extent come at a terrible price.” I involuntarily squirmed a little in my own skin. Luna noticed and put a wing over my back to offer comfort. “I will research these spells. And I shall share any findings of mine with you whenever we see each other next. If anything dire comes up in my quest for answers, I will inform you post-haste.”

I closed my eyes again and dismissed the illusionary replica of Dawn. And I let her winghug calm me. “Thank you,” I offered. Without specifying what exactly I thanked her for. When I opened my eyes again, it felt easier to smile. “Well, I’m just relieved. At least he’s not another villain from your heyday who returns after being banished for a thousand years to enact his terrible revenge!”

I felt decently accomplished when I heard Luna snort in amusement. “Yes, that would be an old hat by now. Also, I do not think Twilight would appreciate it much.”

“Well you could try to take care of it yourself for once…!” I teased her and immediately got my comeuppance. Luna retracted her wing and bumped me a little off with her hip. I struggled to find my balance again and involuntarily gave a sad little whinny. “Okay, okay, fine, I’m sorry! Don’t break with tradition, I get it!” She grinned and offered me to return to her side, and under her wing.

“If you can manage,” she briefly returned to a more serious topic, “try to get a better glimpse at those glyphs you missed. My impression is that he collected spells from all over the world and throughout the ages. There must be a reason for his quest, and a pattern to his selection. One might help us decipher the other.”

I nodded and was about to quip how I was glad to be able to present her with something that tickled her curious mind, but right as I opened my mouth, several dreams around us started to quake and quiver and nightmares began to emerge. I sighed and conjured my armor and weapon. “Why do they always think they can ambush us…?”

The rest of the night was less relaxed and when I finally woke up, I did so with a deep sigh. “Could’ve been a really great night, but nooo~” I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling of the tent. I could already hear all the others being busy outside. Even Aurora was gone, being the morning pony that she was. She clearly got that from her mom.

So I started another day in paradise with a visit to the river and its icy cold water. Once I returned to camp, I looked around. I had a plan for today, but I wanted to ask something and everypony just seemed all over the place, literally. I therefore decided that it was a great idea to head towards Spike, who currently looked a bit lost himself. “Hey buddy. How’s your morning so far?”

He looked my way and smiled once he saw me. “It’s decent. I think. Gabby wants to accompany Graphite to the dig site again and I’m supposed to stay here and keep everyone else safe. Thing is, I’m not entirely sure how to do that. Do I just… sit here and watch?”

I chuckled and hugged him. My forelegs did not even reach halfway around his barrel anymore. “More or less, yeah? It’s an easy and chill job so long as the torches do theirs as well. That said, once something happens, you better spring into action like, well, a coiled spring. Or something. Don’t worry, you got this. I have faith in you.” Spike puffed his chest out in pride and grinned a little more confident than before. Good. “Now, I can’t whistle to save my life. Would you mind? I need their attention for a second.”

“Sure thing.” And a second later, Spike whistled. It worked like a charm, too. Everypony came to the center of camp, their tasks temporarily halted. Even Dawn appeared from within the ruins.

“Thank you everypony and don’t worry, I won’t keep you long,” I started. “I will take the cart back to Ponyville today. I intend to fetch some tools and supplies and stuff. So if anypony needs anything, now would be a great time to tell me.” What I had not expected was the reaction. There was a lot of stuff missing or that could be improved or they wished they had. Aurora quickly retrieved some of her writing supplies and started organizing a shopping list for me. For most of the stuff they wanted they could even name the shop where I could fetch it, and even the price it would cost me. Tools for the job aside, there were more personal interests at play as well, of course. I was to go to Roselucks shop, use the key they provided me with and fetch a few of her personal belongings. Honey and Hefty had left some stuff in their workshop as well. Stuff that they considered useful now that they knew better what they were dealing with. Spike sheepishly remarked that having some reading material would not be too bad, given that he was supposed to sit around a lot. And Aurora already needed a couple more ink wells and feathers.

The list I was hoofed at the end was surprisingly long, even though the price tag of all the items combined was probably — hopefully — still low. And with that, I put the harness on and offered a last invitation for anypony who wished to accompany me. Despite the offer, I was glad that everypony considered their jobs more important and they all politely refused. Some alone-time sounded rather nice. Even if it was a stroll through the Everfree. But that would at least allow me to make sure that the path really was safe due to the enchanted torches.

I pulled the cart around and was surprised to encounter Dawn at the exit of the clearing. “You wanna come with me?” I asked with a smirk. “Offer still stands.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Thank you, but no thank you. However, I had another possible point for that shopping list, if you don’t mind. That said, you might want to refuse due to budgetary constraints.”

Something expensive then? I was curious. “Alright, let’s hear it.”

Dawn seemed relieved that I would even hear him out, which struck me as odd. But he constantly displayed odd reactions and behavior. “I got a chance to study those enchanted sapphires last night. Do not worry, I did not mess with them. Their protective charms should be perfectly operational. In fact, I was surprised by how sturdy and energy-efficient the runework was! The enchantment is simply remarkable!”

I chuckled and nodded. “I will convey your raving praise to Twilight. She’s the one who crafted the enchantment. I merely contributed the idea.”

Dawn considered the new information, but he seemed to be fine with that. “After studying their effect, I came up with an idea. I might be able to help around the village in a more significant way if you would allow me. However, I would need a couple more of those enchanted gemstones.”

Dawn was… strange. I wanted to laugh as much as I wanted to grab him by his shoulders and shake him until hopefully some straight answers would fall out. He was willing to help. Yay. Great. But at the same time, he seemed unwilling to tell me how he intended to help. He just told me what he needed. But maybe that was the point. Trust. Maybe he was testing me. Trying to find out just how much he could get away with?

“How many would you need?” I asked.

He mulled it over, then shrugged. “The more, the better. But I understand that they are quite expensive.”

I nodded, fetched the shopping list from the cart and was about to call out for Aurora when Dawn offered me a pencil.

“Ah, perfect, thank you!” I did some mental acrobatics. All my savings taken into account and how much I earned with my night guard pay. All my expenses for the ponies currently in my employ, plus the food and a nice little reserve for a rainy day. I marked down five sapphires. Not exactly a fortune, but I should be able to afford them without the sting feeling too painful. I gave Dawn his pencil back, offered him to accompany me once more with a hoof gesture and grinned when he declined again. And then I finally moved out of Greenwood and into the forest itself.

The first couple of minutes were still spent thinking about the camp, about the tools and supplies, the most efficient route through town to fetch all the things and doodads, mixed in with a theory or two about Dawn's plans of helping. But eventually, my thoughts started to wander and I relaxed a little. Even in the middle of the Everfree.

I was by myself. Nopony around. I had no reason to keep up appearances. No expectations were leveled at me. I simply could not disappoint anypony. Because nopony was here. I breathed easily. I smiled easily. I occasionally closed my eyes, my head held high, so that I could fetch the few beams of sunlight that made it through the thick canopies overhead. And every time the sunlight tickled me and made me want to sneeze, I grinned. It made me feel closer to my love. And I wondered where she currently was. And what she did. If some noble got on her nerves again. If the mountain of paperwork tired her out yesterday. If the ponies in court were nice to her. They better be!

I only tripped thrice. And crash-landed only once. The other two times, I managed to regain balance before I fell. Yet I still continued to walk short stretches of the road blindly.

It was just such a nice day.

It was just warm enough. The forest broke basically any and all gusts of wind that made it down here. The birds sang their songs. The air was humid. It smelled of fresh and fertile dirt, of flowers of all kinds and grass after a rainfall.

Every now and then, I walked past another torch. The soft blue hue of their glow was barely perceptible in daylight. Only when I walked through deeper darkness, patches where the trees stood closer and the canopy made it impossible for daylight to get to the ground, did I see their almost ghostly presence in full glory. Their shine made me think about what little I knew about artistry. Blue was considered a cold color. And cold colors were described as calming and soothing. I certainly felt calmer. But maybe that related more to the fact that I knew what the torches did?

Idle thoughts that kept me busy. All the torches were still in place. Every single one. It was impossible to walk out of sight of one torch without having the next one in sight already. Just as intended. It ensured that the entire road between the edge of the forest and Greenwood was secured. Safe for travelers and — one day, hopefully — merchants.

When I exited the forest, it was early afternoon. Considering how many stores I needed to traipse around, maybe I would be better off returning to Greenwood tomorrow, after sleeping in a real bed. And maybe at Twilight's side. The thought was compelling. I longed for both — a bed and her company. But I tried to resist as best as I could. It did not feel fair to the others to get a proper bed while they still had to make due with sleeping bags in tents. And having this one night with Twilight by my side again would only hurt more once I had to say goodbye again.

My first stop was Fluttershy's cottage, right outside the forest.

I unclasped the harness and let the cart behind where it stood. I knocked on her door, ignoring the quiet conversation going on within and waited. The door opened a moment later and Pinkie beamed at me, her muzzle mere inches away from mine. It made me grin instantly. “Hey Pinks!” I flicked my tongue across her muzzle. It was her own fault really, for coming so close. I could not remember how many times I had told her about private space. She knew. She understood. She simply chose to ignore it.

She grimaced and giggled heartily at the same time. “Hiya!” And within seconds, she grabbed me, pulled me into the cottage, closed the door and broke all my ribs with one of her crushing hugs. And I still melted into it like that magical first time.

Her mane smelled of cotton candy. And it was just as floofy.

“If you continue hugging me like that, Fluttershy might get jealous,” Pinkie whispered with evident mirth in her voice.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I teased back and squished her a little more. She merely giggled in reply and we finally pulled apart. Seeing her face made me sigh, even though it could not diminish my smile. So many wrinkles from so much laughter.

I looked around the living room and quickly spotted the other two ponies. Fluttershy sat on the couch near the window. A few squirrels were currently busy braiding her luxurious pink mane with the help of a couple of blue jays. The arrangement of cups and plates with cookie crumbles on top indicated that she and Pinkie had occupied the couch together.

Meanwhile Whisper sat on one of the wing chairs. Where Fluttershy smiled warmly and greeted quietly, Whisper shifted around with her rear, almost nervously, and shot me looks of hope and distress.

Before I got into that, I turned to Pinkie again. “I need two of your special surprise cupcakes. Would that be—“

“Oki doki loki!” she exclaimed and vanished in a puff of confetti and glitter.

Right. Pinkie. I chuckled. “Never change.” With that taken care of, I was willing to see if I could help Whisper out. “So. Hi. What’s going on here?”

Whisper silently mouthed ‘Help me!’ She clearly had hoped her mom would not see — and she had missed the mark. She was surrounded by birds and mice and other small critters who were all merrily chirping and chitting and chatting and Fluttershy understood it all. There were no secrets in this house before her. Knowing that, I smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, Whisper, but I don’t think your mom would appreciate my meddling in her dastardly plans!”

“Oh come on!” Whisper exploded. “Your meddling made me!” Both Fluttershy and I turned a little red. Sure, Whisper had not meant it quite that literally, but it was hard not to think about it.

“My plans are not dastardly!” Fluttershy complained in an attempt to change the topic. “… are they?” It took her a moment of silent contemplation before she realized something else and her eyes turned towards her daughter. “I don’t even have plans to begin with! I just asked you some questions!”

Feeling that it was safe to approach now, I took another seat and joined their conversation for a while. I could still hear the clatter of Pinkie working in the kitchen, mixed with her occasional giggling whenever she overheard parts of our conversation that tickled her funny-bone. “And what questions, if I may pry?”

Fluttershy turned her attention back to me. “You tell her! We are parents, right? We just want our children to be happy. Whisper let slip that she is seeing somepony and I thought that was wonderful news, but now she does not wish to tell me who it is. She does not want to tell me anything at all!”

Oh. Oh boy. I chuckled awkwardly and rubbed my neck with a hoof while I shot another apologetic look in Whisper's direction. “I fear she’s right, sweetie. Pestering you about who you’re dating is kind of a parents obligation, you see. We want to make sure you’re happy and we know it better than you. And you know it better than us. Which is a bit of a problem. Believe me, I fully understand your situation. Stardust got so annoyed with me when I kept asking about his marefriend. But that’s just how it is. You can tell Fluttershy you’re happy and she’ll be glad to hear that. But she will still want to judge your happiness for herself. At some point, when you’re a parent, you need to let your children go. You need to allow them to spread their tiny little wings and fly. They will make mistakes, they will hurt themselves. And when that happens, you’re there. In an instant. You help them get back up again. You offer them safety and protection and support. But you need to encourage them to take another leap as well. That’s a part your mom struggled with. A lot. Luckily your other mom has a lot less issues with that. Balanced out quite nicely, if you ask me. Point being: You never fully let go as a parent. You’re always ready to jump in again. To help out. To comfort. It just never truly ends.”

Whisper let me ramble on and on with a secretive smile on her lips. She was most likely just glad that I kept talking. Every minute she did not have to face her mother was a minute survived. When I eventually ended my little speech, she rolled her eyes, albeit accompanied by a smile. “You do realize I’m not twenty anymore, right?”

I raised my brows in surprise. “You thought about having foals?”

Once the question was out, Fluttershy tensed up quite a bit. And Whisper noticed it, of course. “I-I… uhm… no?”

Oops.

A couple of seconds later, another revelation seemed to strike Fluttershy as she suddenly started to blush furiously and uttered another question, albeit a lot quieter. “You do use… p-protection, don’t you?”

Pinkie giggled in the kitchen. I was sure that she could not have heard Fluttershy's words. I sat across from her and barely understood them. But then again — Pinkie. And Whisper seemed to die a little. She blushed a healthy tomato-red as well. With her hot pink coat, one might deem it less impressive, but there was no transition any longer. Some areas were now just — bam! — red. Her cheeks. Her muzzle. Her ears. Parts of her neck. “M-Mom!” she objected to the question itself.

A tray sneakily appeared beside my chair and slowly lifted itself up. The two ordered cupcakes were on top. I had not been here for that long, I was pretty sure. Did these things not take, like, at least twenty minutes in the oven?

Pinkie peeked around my backrest. “I had them prepared this morning. Just needed to get the frosting right!”

I snickered silently as I grabbed both treats in my magic and put them into the bag Pinkie helpfully offered me. Their colorful sprinkles vanished and so did the tray. “Thank you, Pinkie!” I leaned over and hugged her.

“Now fly, you fool!” she whispered in my ear.

I looked over to Fluttershy and Whisper. They had started to discuss the necessity and importance of proper protection in a more agitated, lively manner and I was sure that I did not wish to get dragged into that. Not only because it would take considerable time to free myself from this web, but also because those were to mares arguing about the topic and my non-mare-perspective could probably land me in hot water without me even trying.

Pinkie helped me slip out of the chair unnoticed and escorted me to the door. She opened it silently and let me slip through the crack. Once I was out, she giggled. “That was a lot of fun!”

I smiled, but sighed as well. “It was. I’m so sorry though, for not having much time. I swear I will come by soon and fix this.”

Pinkie furrowed her brow and looked back to her wife and her offspring. “I’m not sure you can fix this.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that, I meant—“

“Hey, where has Dreamwalker gone?!” I heard Whisper suddenly exclaim.

Pinkie turned to me again and in the midst of her rambunctious laughter, she yelled “Run!” before slamming the door in my face.

And I did run. For about five steps, before I realized that I didn't really need to run at all. But it was just so easy to play along. To go with the flow. Especially with Pinkie.

With another fond memory added, I secured the harness again, levitated the bag with the two Pinkie specials into the back and moved on.

My next intended target was less fun. And less funny.

With the exit from the Everfree forest, a few things about my surroundings obviously had changed. While I still walked on an occasionally uneven dirt path, I no longer had the protection of walking in a forest's dim light. The sun was bearing down on me with all its might and as much as I loved Sunny and her day and all that, I did not share in her resistance to heat. Neither were my eyes fully accustomed to this level of brightness, being the basement dweller that I tended to be. That said, despite my newly invigorated appreciation for the beauty of night — including the lack of bright light and heat rays —, I did appreciate the occasional gust of fresh air that ruffled my mane and stirred my body. It helped me cool down too, and the wind carried the scent of life being revived, of a cycle starting over and new creatures and plants alike coming into full bloom.

I used those sensations to distract myself while I walked along a fence. Until I reached the familiar point where said fence opened up. “Right,” I muttered quietly to myself. “Here we are.” I hesitated for a moment before I slipped out of the harness again. I decided to leave the cart here. There were a few clouds in the sky, sure, but for them to grow into a veritable storm capable of moving an entire cart, that would take hours. And I did not intend to spend hours here.

And theft was, according to my world, something that only happened in big cities. Certainly not in Ponyville.

I walked along yet another dirt path. In between rows and rows of apple trees. My heart grew heavy every time I came here for the past couple of years, even though this felt like a second home to me. I was always welcome here and I still remembered plenty of occasions where I had fled here. To hide from a spat I had with Twilight, to hide from myself or the ghosties I persuaded myself of. When she was still with us, Granny scolded me for being a coward. And she did it in the most heartfelt, warm, loving way I had ever experienced. Big Macintosh listened to me when he was not busy. And Applejack was… well, she was Applejack. The Applejack. She was family. She was my sister. Not by blood, but by choice. She was dependable. She was always there.

Even if she would not always be there.

I stopped. I reconsidered, even. And maybe I was about to turn around, decide that this was an entirely stupid idea and flee the orchard. Run away from home. How silly I could be sometimes. But before I could make that decision, I heard a soft, familiar snore. I grinned, looked around in the canopies of the surrounding trees and quickly spotted a multicolored tail sticking out from one of the higher branches.

That sight alone was so heartwarming. It assured me: Everything was right in the world. This was how it was meant to be.

I quickly trotted over and inspected what I was working with. There was no way in Tartarus that I would let such an opportunity slip by unused. Rainbow lay on one of the sturdier upper branches with her favorite pillow. There were a couple of thin branches beneath her, but nothing that should hurt her or give me a hard time catching her.

So I put all my maturity on display, quietly cleared my throat, breathed in deep and yelled: “All Wonderbolts, in line in three! Two! One!”

The profound effect it had was hilarious. Dash shot up. I dampened the impact with my telekinesis as she crashed head-first into an upper branch. Something I had not foreseen. Then she flailed with her hooves as she tried to ‘get in line’, only to lose balance. She tried to steady herself with her wings, but failed and fell. I caught her in my telekinesis before she even made it halfway down and sat her onto the ground carefully.

“Gotcha,” I said with a snicker.

She was still dazed, but quickly came to. Rainbow looked around, miffed about being got. “What the heck, Dream! Can’t a pony just nap in peace!” Her voice cracked. Twice. And the way she said my name. How she instantly remembered it. There was a flood of nostalgia in my brain. This was like the old days. Before her mind deteriorated to the point where she had difficulties recognizing the face of her wife or child. She was back. She was herself again. More than she had been in years.

I did not trust my own voice. And I did not care about anything at this moment, I simply lurched forward and hugged her. Fiercely. I breathed in as much air as my lungs could hold. They started burning. She smelled like apples and electricity. And I released my breath slowly.

I was so glad to have her back. So glad to feel her reciprocate the embrace. Especially since she did it with an old, familiar awkwardness. Rainbow had never been so mushy, as she used to call it. She was very physical with her affections, but never mushy. Shoulder bumps, hoof bumps, a friendly shove. But hugs? Hugs were Pinkie’s thing. Or Fluttershys. Or Raritys. Or Twilights.

Well — or mine.

“Stop it,” she whispered quietly. “You’re making me look soft!”

I held her for a moment longer before I gave her free. And I placed an accordingly rueful smile on my face. “Sorry for disrupting your nap. I just saw your tail stick out and the opportunity was too good to pass up.”

Rainbow snickered and nodded. “I completely understand. That said, I’m still gonna get you back for that one!”

“Fair enough,” I replied with a shrug.

I watched how she flew back up into the tree again. How she made herself comfortable again. And how easy that seemed to be for her. Experience helped, I surmised. She had decades under her belt. Decades of attempting to sleep on precariously thin branches. The sense of balance of a pegasus was legendary, but I suspected that that in particular was still a challenge. But I also remembered what Applejack had mentioned at the Silver Shoals retirement home. That Rainbow's balance was not what it used to be.

I watched her closely. If only I knew more about pegasus physiology. Was it normal that she clipped her wing ever so slightly? Or was it simply unavoidable when flying in the midst of a canopy this dense? At the end of the day, I had to convince myself: She was doing fine.

I continued towards the looming farmhouse. I could already see Applejack from a distance. She sat on the porch, in Grannys old rocking chair. When she spotted me, she went inside. I did not know how to take that, or what to make of it, but before I reached the porch she returned outside — with two glasses of lemonade.

We both sat down side by side, overlooking the orchard. We both took occasional sips, while minutes of comfortable silence trickled by. It was really good lemonade.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she finally asked.

To be fair, I had looked and not seen. The mass of trees blended together, just a mixture of color. Brown at the bottom, green in the middle, blue on top. My thoughts had kept me occupied. Memories flashed before my eyes. This feeling of familiarity lulled me in. Everything here wanted to calm me down so much. Everything here was so soothing.

I briefly wondered if green or brown were considered cold colors as well.

Orange surely was not. I leaned against her. Laid my head on her shoulder. In reply, she leaned her head against mine. I still had difficulties seeing the orchard. This time due to the blurry vision I had to contend with. “It really is,” I replied with a choked voice. She probably heard that tremble as much as I felt it.

“Thank you, sugar cube,” Applejack murmured quietly.

It did not really matter what exactly she thanked me for. I heard her voice. After years and years of barely any contact. Of her stubbornness getting the better of her once again. But that did not matter anymore. She was home. She was with us again.

“Schhh, it’s okay,” she whispered and laid a foreleg around me.

I could only imagine how Rainbow felt when they were together. Being held by Applejack, to me, felt like nothing in this world would be able to touch me without her allowing for it. She was the great protector. The shield. A safe harbor. And I allowed myself to be weak. There was so much I desperately wanted to tell her. How much I had missed her. How much I had feared that one day, there would be a letter in the mail. Just telling us she passed on. Silently, in her sleep. Or due to an accident. I wanted to tell her how much I loved her. How afraid I was, seeing her old and withered. How much I dreaded the day when she would follow Granny Smith. How I feared that day would break me. I wanted to tell her how glad I was to see her reunited, truly reunited with Rainbow. How happy it made me to get recognized by her. I wanted to ask her how it felt for her. If things really had gotten better as much as it seemed. I wanted to ask where everypony else was. Big Mac was probably busy in the east orchard, because Marble's gemstone fields were there. Maybe Ambrosia was taking care of the west orchard then. I wanted to ask if she had visited Granny at her resting place already, between the long rows of trees. How it was. If she missed her as much as I did.

Sweet Celestia, there was so, so much I wanted to ask and talk about.

I failed to utter a single word. Instead I wept. Silently. Tears streamed down my face without hindrance, leaving hot streaks on my coat. They dripped from my jaw and chin, onto the wooden porch. I did not acknowledge their existence, and neither did she react to them.

Minutes passed.

The sky was blue. The sun was warm. The birds were singing.

Eventually, the waterworks ran out of water. Curious how that worked.

“Will you be here when I come back?” I asked, my voice still shallow and weak.

“I’ll always be here,” she replied.

I reminded her of that. Her tears, her sweat, her blood drenched this land. She was this land. “I know. But will you be here?” I wanted — needed — something more tangible.

She sighed and looked down at her own hooves. “Ever since I returned home, I feel… at peace again. I can’t believe I had forgotten how that feels. And Rainbow’s been better than ever.” She raised her gaze to meet mine. “I’ll be here. Brother.”

I hiccupped and felt a rather insecure smile spread on my lips. I considered uttering a playful threat. Something along the lines of ‘don’t you dare vanish before I return, or I will—‘, but the truth of the matter was that I did not have a smart punchline. Or what? I was so unwilling to even think about that scenario.

It made me remember Roselucks statement when she showed up at my Arrival Day party. We would have to deal with goodbyes several more times before we would get used to it, or something like that. Her attitude made me shiver. And strangely enough, it made me hope that Applejack's death, for it was unavoidable, would hurt. Because it should. It should feel like my heart was ripped out. It should feel like there would be no sunny days ever again. It should feel like everything was broken and in pain.

At least for a while.

I hugged Applejack. With desperation I did not have the strength to cover up, deny or find a suitable excuse for. My friends called me obsessed. Because it was so gosh-darn easy for me to somehow misdirect every conversation to the topic of love, in one way or another. But I simply could not help it. My life, my thinking, my very being was centered around family. Maybe because I could not remember anything before the cycles started. Maybe because I had no clue about where I came from. I lacked any memory, no matter how faint, of there ever being a father or a mother. Maybe I had siblings — I was not able to tell.

As somepony constantly threatened by his many, many fears, being alone was the worst of them all. And friends… friends are the family one chooses.

Don’t we all strive to not be alone?

The memory of how exactly I had gotten home was a bit blurry. I still felt both elated and dazed as I once again got rid of the harness and left the cart standing out in the open. I climbed up the stairs to the massive double door and entered without hesitance. The cool air inside the castle greeted me like an old friend.

I briefly considered yelling “Honey, I’m home!” down the hallway, but ultimately decided against it. I had no idea where Twilight was. If she was even at home to begin with. That said, she was the reason I came here, so I started searching. I eventually came by the comic book section, remembered Spike's plea for some entertainment and skimmed through the selection the library had on offer. I did not know exactly which ones he had already read. There was a good chance that the answer was simply: all of them. And while he did not mind reading comic books several times, that was something that I did not like. So I tried to find a couple of more obscure ones to bring along.

I found no traces of Twilight in the library, the kitchen or even her study. Which left me baffled. Surely she would not spend all her time in the bedroom? It took me only a brief glimpse inside to confirm that. So that begged the question: Where was she?

Then I remembered that I had failed to check the basement laboratory. And as soon as I opened that door, I was greeted with a cacophony of wildly mixed machine sounds, beeping and booping and whirring and stirring. I came down the stairs and saw her fully engrossed. She was transfixed on the readouts of one of her machines while a pencil scribbled down notes in a notebook nearby.

So she was busy. Fair enough. And I would not have had any issue with that at all, were it not for the damn boxes.

I counted them. I knew roughly what Twilight ordered when she ordered food. I knew roughly how much she ordered. And with her completely in her own realm right now, I could even walk around freely and take a look at them. Some were… older.

I had been gone for what? One day? Two? She must have started ordering basically immediately after. Two meals per day.

I grabbed one of the anti-magic horn rings from the security box and walked over to her, but not too close. “You do realize that Spike will roast your rump for this, right?” I asked. Unsurprisingly, she yelped in surprise. I acted quickly, as I knew my Twilight. I slid the ring on her horn and counteracted whatever sudden burst of magic she unconsciously tried to send to her defense. It meant that her pencil clattered to the floor, but that was fine as far as consequences went. I removed the ring immediately after and shot her a wry smile. “Hey there.”

She still breathed hard and grasped at her chest with a hoof. And she shot me such an annoyed look that I wanted to kiss her. It was an interesting life that led to this reaction feeling completely normal. “You! You… you startled me!”

I chuckled and held up both hooves. “Guilty as charged.”

I could already see it in her eyes. Three. Two. One. Her brow furrowed. “Are you okay? Is everything alright with Greenwood?”

My mere presence indicated something went awry. Apparently. I sighed, smiled and shook my head. “No, no, nothing like that. The road is secured, the camp established. It’s a roaring success so far. I went for a shopping trip today, to fetch some supplies and such.”

She seemed quite relieved. “Oh, oh good. That’s great news!”

I grinned, closed the remaining distance and hugged her. My eagerness was met with her warmth. However, I still needed to address this mess. “So would you mind explaining to me why I take Spike with me — who supposedly had your vote of confidence — and you immediately start stuffing yourself with junk food? For all meals, no less? Don’t you remember that you were the one who got me into healthier food? What about those cooking classes we took? Those were fun, weren’t they? And we were actually, well, decent at it.”

Still held by me, Twilight sighed and slumped a little. “I knooow. But cooking for just one pony is hard. It is no fun! And it takes so much time!”

I snickered. “You could invite somepony over, you know?”

“Yes, but then it takes even more time!”

She started playfully whining and my chuckle quickly grew into laughter. Just as she intended. I fought for control as best as I could and tried to look serious and scolding, even though I probably failed horribly at both. “Promise me you’ll eat properly and I won’t have to call Cadance as an alicorn-sitter!”

She gasped. “You would not dare!”

I grinned and pulled back just enough to set us up muzzle to muzzle. “Try me.” Twilight still hesitated for a good while. So I doubled down. “Promise me. And Spike won’t have to know about this lapse in judgment.”

Twilight again started to whine. “But when I promise I will actually have to keep that!”

The more drama she put on display, the less control I had remaining. I snickered again, shook my head and leaned forward, putting us forehead to forehead, with our horns crossed. “That’s the point, peanut. And just think about who else I could put on your case!” She pouted. And it was the most adorable thing I had seen in a long time. I sighed, but shook my head. “Not getting out of this one.”

She pouted extra hard, but sighed herself after just a couple of seconds. “Fine. I promise I will… hm… find a different solution.”

I smiled and kissed her nose. “Good enough.” We pulled apart and I looked at her notes. Unsurprisingly, I understood nothing. “What are you working on?”

The question instantly revived Twilights ‘mad scientist’-side. “Oh! Right! I’m working on improving the spellcage for the enchantment we created with the sapphires. I had the suspicion that I might be able to manipulate it to the point where I could use it with different spells, which could open up an entirely new way of improving enchantment safety!”

I even understood that. Huh. “Funny you should mention the sapphires. I will send an order for five more to Pristine in Canterlot. Would it be alright if I have them sent here and you enchant them as well?”

Twilight grinned from ear to ear, which already told me that I somehow played to her strengths. “That would be great, actually! It will allow me to really test the limits on how efficiently I can enchant them. But why do you need more? Are you already at the stage where you can expand the village area?”

I coughed in surprise and shook my head. “No, no. I wish! We’re not that quick. We met a unicorn at the ruins, Dawn. I think you would find him fascinating. She’s an oddball, scholar, very studious, probably a very impressive wizard. He thinks he can help us with an idea of his. Wouldn’t tell me what exactly, but it requires some more of your gemstones. By the way, he studied them and was thoroughly impressed. I said I would convey his raving praise to you, so here you go.”

Twilight beamed proudly and a little tint snuck up in her cheeks. “Thank you! I mean, please thank him, in my name!” After I assured her that I would, she once again jumped to another topic with ease. Her mind was capable of such acrobatics — mine occasionally struggled to follow behind. Not this time though, luckily. “So assuming you did not have Pinkie Sense and therefore came here to scold me about my recent eating habits, what part of your shopping trip brought you back home?”

I pointedly let the pile of comic books float over. “Reading material. A day has many hours, but a pony — or griffon or dragon, for that matter — can only work for so many. Spike was the first to ask. That said, I could use your help in this matter as well. In your function as a librarian.”

Her eyes widened and she got that giddy look. Only thing missing was her squealing of delight. “Tell me, tell me, tell me!”

I chuckled. “Dawn seems a bit… driven. I think I managed to get a decent read on him in one regard, though. Seems to me that he used to read a lot. No surprise there, really. But I doubt he’s into the whole ‘adventuring’-shtick. I want something similar if possible, but something that tickles the mind a little bit more. Maybe a thriller? Mystery?”

The gears were turning at rapid speed. Twilight did not even have the need to go upstairs and actually browse the library. An exact replica of it existed in her head. “No Daring Do?” she asked, just for clarifications sake.

“No Daring Do,” I confirmed.

“Well, I think I have a good suggestion.”

Her proud grin already told me that this was most likely the book I would leave the castle with. After all, even knowing Celestia and Moondancer, I had never met somepony who was this adept at being a librarian. “Alright, tell me.”

“It is a relatively new series, only three books in,” she started. “The first one came out… I believe it was five years ago? The main protagonist is Cunning Can, who is — in my humble opinion — an outrageously fictionalized version of Starswirl the Bearded.” I broke into laughter immediately. Of course she would read anything and everything that even had a vague resemblance to her favorite character, historic figure, idol and wizard. “Cunning does not go on adventures as such, but many know of his impressive arcane repertoire and his brilliant mind. Thus many ponies constantly seek him out for advice or aid or try to rope him into their machinations. He usually ends up in the middle of schemes without his knowledge or input and has to find his way out again. He wins his battles by outwitting the enemy. Usually. Book two had a little dip in the middle where he straight up blasted a couple of problems to smithereens, but I think that was just the author being fed up with a narrative roadblock. For the most part, the series acts like a mystery. You get clues and can form your own theories of what is going on from them, and with every new character introduction, you have to adapt your theory or create a new one.”

“It’s perfect,” I concluded with an enthusiastic nod. “I’m pretty sure he’ll love it. If they are available right now, I’ll take all three of them.”

Twilight suddenly grimaced. “Well… Sure Foot has the third book right now, and I would not want Dawn to end the series on the second book. It is the current weak link of the series so far. So maybe just take the first one?”

I had no idea who Sure Foot was. But this was a public library. Ponies were free to come here and get some reading material, be it entertaining or educational in nature. Or both. So I was out of luck there. That said — “I think the first one will do.”

We went upstairs and I deposited the pile of comic books and one book on a table in the main library. And then I insisted on taking her out for lunch. She had been cooped up in her lab for the entire time, I could tell. Twilight tried to put up some resistance, but she gave up surprisingly quickly. And lunch at Café Hay was always lovely. Suave Grace, Savoir Fares' son, knew us almost as well as his good old dad did.

I was content with getting some decent food into Twilight. And spending time with her really gave me a breather and allowed me to fully recuperate from visiting Applejack. I had not noticed how much baggage I was still carrying around with me from that short stopover.

We bid our farewells at the castle door. She needed to get a few solid hours of work in to demolish the mountain of paperwork somewhat before she intended to get lost in the basement again. I really, really wanted to stay. It would be so much fun, I knew that. I could keep her company. I could ask her to explain to me what she was doing and while I would barely comprehend any of it, I would just love to listen to her voice. It was always apparent how much passion she had for her projects.

Alas, it was not meant to be.

I had a project of my own. And I needed to return to it. Being a responsible adult — or at least being supposed to be one — really sucked sometimes.

With my last major stop done, I started on my actual shopping rounds. I hurled the cart from one shop to the next, once across town until my hooves started to burn and feel heavy. And then, in the evening hours, I was done. The cart was considerably heavier. Tools. Supplies. Stuff. I had even bought half the sweets and treats Sugarcube Corner had on offer. That was the reason one corner of the cart was exclusively laden with bags upon bags full of cookies and cupcakes and actual cakes and pies and whatever else they had.

And a bell. I bought a bell. It was… somewhere in there. I could not always ask Spike to whistle for me, but the bell should fix that problem quite nicely.

Problem with buying half the stock of Sugarcube Corner was: Either I would return to Greenwood now, which was the smarter choice. The one I had originally planned with. It would mean all the sweets and goodies were still decently fresh and ready to be enjoyed. That said, it would also mean we would enjoy them as midnight snacks. After everyone was already dead beat due to a day full of hard work.

Ooor, I could return to the castle. Sleep in a good bed. Enjoy Twilight’s company. Probably make Twilight sleep. At some point. But it would also mean having to say goodbye again. And doing that earlier had been tough already. And saying goodbye to a good bed as well. And at least some of the treats would be a bit stale tomorrow.

Would I really brave the Everfree Forest? At night? Alone? While strapped to a cart in a harness?

I found myself standing before the tree line. The ghostly blue glow of the torches were visible so much better than before. “Well, if this doesn’t prove my trust in your craft, then nothing does, peanut!”

With every step I took forward, the world grew darker. The trees closed in around me, their canopies slowly devouring the sky until only a thin scar overhead remained. And in time, even that remaining line would vanish. It had already started. Bright blue turned to yellow and orange and would eventually fade into darker blues and finally, an all-encompassing, all-devouring black. Maybe I would get lucky. Maybe I would be able to spot a lone star every now and then. But I knew that even further in, the forest grew denser still, and that wobbly line of sky above me would fade as well.

The forest itself already changed with the encroaching nighttime. Birds went to sleep, their pretty songs replaced with the hoots of owls. The rustling in the bushes around me slowed down, just to pick up in a different way. Many of the small critters went to sleep, and the many hunters, big and small, awoke. My ears swiveled around, trained themselves on anything that came particularly close. But the torches did their job. Nothing attacked me. Nothing suddenly broke through the underbrush to scare me.

I walked alone with my cart uncaringly rattling behind me and the forest was kind enough to tolerate my presence and passing. That was until I had to stop.

I could still see the glow of the last torch from behind me. It illuminated parts of the path ahead. Enough so that I realized in time that the chain of torches was broken. There was a patch of utter darkness ahead. No fireflies illuminated the trees, no ominous glow of timberwolves either. Just a pitch-black that swallowed everything.

“Great,” I muttered and removed the harness. I quickly checked the current load of the cart. First in my mind by revisiting what I had bought and brought along, then by actually rummaging through its contents. But nothing in here would serve me to deal with this issue. I had not been smart enough to pack a single firefly lantern.

The torch was gone. So was the light it was supposed to emit. I did not have any alternate light sources with me. And more importantly, no means to actually light it. I could just take a branch from the surroundings, wrap a couple of dried vegetation around it and hope for the best. But I didn't even have the means to set it alight, because I was too weak of a unicorn to even produce sparks.

Which is a detail you told him, I might add.

“Keep your paranoia to yourself and let me think!” I hissed in reply. Only silence answered. Good.

I was roughly halfway to Greenwood. Turning around would take ages. I would probably arrive at the castle around dawn. With no sleep at all. And could basically just turn around immediately. It would be safe though.

I looked ahead. The darkness was all-encompassing.

Ooor. I could just move on. I had a rough estimate of how much of the way one torch covered. Issue being: While walking through the dark, I was a moving target. Especially with my cart strapped behind. And worse still, I didn't even know for sure if it was just one missing torch.

Be reasonable.

“Oh now you want me to be reasonable? Buck you. Seriously.” I returned to the cart and grabbed the bell. Ringing it to heaven come if anything went awry was my best shot. I did not hope for help to arrive in time. I simply hoped that if something were to attack me, I would be able to scare it off with the tremendously loud noise.

The cart, for better or worse, would have to wait here for now. I could not afford to be quite literally tied down.

The relaxation was gone. No peace, no whistling a quiet tune, no calm stroll through the woods. I was tense, ready to jump in whichever direction to avoid whichever assault. The bell floated behind me, faintly illuminated by my magic. I could have used it to light the way at least a little bit better — but I rather used it as a distraction, hoping that if something came for me, it would go for the properly visible bell instead of me.

Then again, something hunting in this darkness would probably have means to counteract the lack of light. Ah well.

It took a couple of minutes. I felt like I was sweating buckets. Every gosh-darn cricket gave me half a heart attack when they suddenly decided to start. Or stop. Or hop. I prowled along the almost invisible dirt path. And found the torch. “Huh.” I thought it would have been gone. Completely. But no, there it was. Just right beside the path, faintly reflecting parts of the light my magic aura gave off. And better still, I could see a very faint, bluish glow from up ahead.

I moved off the path and to the torch. I even recognized the point where I had tried to ram it into the earth. It looked like the torch had just… toppled over. Which was completely unfathomable. Their magic prevented them from just falling. It anchored them according to the flow of gravity. And Twilight did not fail in the construction of the enchantment itself. None of the other torches had fallen.

I quickly glanced around, only to note that I still could not see anything. “Right. Let’s get you set up properly again,” I mumbled, grabbed the torch and placed it upright once more. The sapphire started to glow faintly, the torch levitated on its own and the glow gained strength until the torch was up and running again.

Oily.

“What?”

The torch.

I blinked and stared at it. I did not see any oil, of course. I was still so high-strung that it took me a moment to realize what he meant. Touching the torch with my telekinesis felt different, yes. There was some sort of magical residue. It felt sticky. Blackish. Oily. Very similar to, if not exactly like, the aura I had felt from Dawn's shield.

I sighed. “What is your plan, Dawn?”

Isn’t it clear? He’s trying to kill us.

I shook my head. “No. No, I don’t think so. You felt it too, when I shook his hoof. He has power. If he wanted to get rid of me, he could’ve done so then and there. There was no need for him to defend us against those oozes.”

Which were probably his creations to begin with.

I had no reason to argue there. I fully agreed. I, too, thought that they would make for decent guard dogs. Surely there was something a capable unicorn could do to keep them under control.

He only defended us after we mentioned the village.

I furrowed my brow and tried to remember the exact chain of events, and even more difficult — the exact words spoken, and what had happened in which order. It was hard to remember it with the required precision. It was entirely possible that that had happened like he claimed. Even so. What did that tell me? I still refused to believe that this was a hit on me. After all: Why remove one torch? Why not two? Three? Ten? Why not lure a pack of timberwolves to the opening with some blood? Or lure a manticore in my path with… whatever lures manticores anywhere?

At the end of the day, it came down to a rather frustrating conclusion: I still knew too little to make any educated guesses. But I firmly believed that this was not his attempt to kill me. Which I tried to reframe in a positive way: It meant that, whoever he was and whatever he was here for, he did not want me dead. And seeing how he was willing to even help with Greenwood, and how he defended us against his own creations, maybe he even wanted me alive instead.

That totally was a good thing.

Right?

I sighed, shook my head and unfroze my hooves. I returned to my cart, which by this point luckily had not been plundered by just about any inhabitant of the forest within a one-mile radius. I strapped into the harness again and pulled the cart along the path once more. A couple of hours left and I would be back home in Greenwood. I could not wait to—

Back home in Greenwood, eh?

I briefly stopped and smiled wryly. Greenwood had been my home so many times. It was only natural to think of it as such even this time around, when I had no intention of staying there. It would be hard, I assumed. Once everything was done. Once houses were there. Once a proper community had formed that strived for their own betterment, to carve a living out of this hostile environment. I would have started this. I would have watched them grow together, work together, defend each other. Leaving, after all that? Yes, I assumed that was going to be hard.

The thought kept me distracted in just the right way. Enough that I did not freak out anytime something rustled a couple of leaves somewhere, but not too much that my attention started to slack. I kept my wits about me and returned to the village in the dead of night. Probably even after midnight.

Unsurprisingly, everyone was already gone. The campfire was still burning, but nopony had given it new food in a while. The pot stood to the side, empty and already cleaned of all traces of dinner. Everypony was in their tents. Sleeping, most likely.

“Is anyone still awake?” I dared to ask anyway. Even though I kept my voice as quiet as possible. Which was silly, really. Either I wanted to be heard, or not. The crackling of the fire swallowed half of my question, so I had to repeat myself a little bit louder.

No answer.

I briefly considered using the bell. That would give just about anyone one heck of a scare. But I wanted to reward them, not prank or annoy them. So I resigned myself to a different path. I slipped out of the harness, unloaded parts of the cargo onto the supply depot and stashed the treats from Sugarcube Corner in Aurora's tent. With a little note not to spoil the surprise.

“Let’s see if Luna has found out anything useful,” I whispered to myself as I wriggled into my sleeping bag. Aurora was already snoring lightly on the other side.

The short answer to my question was: no.

Nothing particularly useful, but a bunch of stuff that was interesting, at least. She had managed to identify a dozen of the runes Dawn wore on his body. Most of them were defensive spells, building up resistances against environmental effects like heat and cold or granting him immunity against certain poisons and diseases. She also managed to track down the language used for a few other glyphs, but getting her hooves on a text that would allow her even a rough translation proved to be a lot more difficult. She would ask her sister at the next opportunity about it, but they had missed each other as Celestia was quite busy again and had to cut her meals short.

I was not particularly thrilled about the latter news and insisted that Luna threaten her on my behalf. Either she would eat properly, or I would need to abandon this entire project to make sure she ate properly. What was it with me caring for their eating habits anyway? That was a new development, was it not?

Luna and I joked around for the rest of the night. About how it would only encourage her to eat less to lure me back to her side. But we both knew the truth. Sunny knew how important this project was to me. She would never sabotage me so casually.

As the night ended, with several nightmares bested and several dreamers helped along, I opened my eyes to behold somepony grinning at me. Aurora's muzzle was mere inches away from mine.

“Creepy,” I drowsily teased her.

She giggled softly and retreated a few steps. “I found your note.”

“And you immediately took a peek, didn’t you?” I asked while I sat up and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.

“Well yes, of course. What did you expect me to do? Follow your instructions?” she shot right back.

Her chipper mood was almost unbearable this early. “That would’ve been nice, actually, yeah…” I yawned mightily and slowly extracted myself from my sleeping bag. Everything felt like molasses. “Right. If you go out there grinning like that, everypony will know something is up. Let’s get this over with first, then.”

She nodded eagerly and opened the tent flap. I grabbed the large pot we usually used for dinner, turned it upside down and used it as an improvised table — with a few planks on top. We then got all the treats out of the tent again and arranged a nice little display.

Our work did not go entirely unnoticed. While almost everypony was busy again, Spike was not. Or, well — he was doing exactly what I told him to do. Sitting around watching everyone else. He tried to be sneaky about it as he closed in on our position, but Spike was not exactly as subtle as he liked to think of himself.

“Don’t touch anything yet,” I warned him. I did see his claw retreat rather quickly and pretended I didn't see it at all.

“Are you done? You’re done now, right? Should I whistle again?” he asked in a plain display of his eagerness. It was amusing, to say the least. But then again, no matter how good of a chef he was, he had to work with the supplies we had. And nopony could say no to treats from Sugarcube Corner.

“I… actually have a nice solution for that,” I answered and grabbed the bell. I rang it twice. A high, clear sound echoed across the clearing. It worked like a charm. I got everyone's attention, even Dawn emerged from the ruins once more. “Thank you all for pausing your work for a moment. I came back rather late last night. Too late for this, I fear. You were already asleep and I decided not to wake you up. Does anyone have any tricks up his sleeve on how to make these treats be at their best again? I fear some might have gone a little stale from those couple of hours.”

“If I may?” I heard Dawn's voice.

I smiled and stepped aside. Just the one I had been hoping for. He walked up to me, looked at the arrangement and furrowed his brow. “That is a lot of sweets. That said, I should be able to do this.”

I was curious. What kind of magic would he display this time? And judging by the tense looks everyone else had, they were just as curious. Dawn closed his eyes, focused his mind and his horn was encased in an aura of vibrant… violet.

Huh.

The color quickly shot out to all the different treats. He grabbed them with his magic, lifted them off the improvised shelf just a little bit and then we suddenly heard the ominous ticking of a grandfather clock. There was no direction to the sound, no source it emanated from. Only three ticks, but it was noticeable how it slowed down. I tried to understand what exactly was happening. The treats themselves did not change at all — visibly, at least. But given the display, the only theory I came up with was some sort of time manipulation spell. And surely, surely Dawn did not just cast something like that to upgrade our cupcakes.

Right?

“There. Like they came straight from the oven,” he claimed.

I grabbed a cookie and levitated it over. My brows knitted together, my eyes narrowed as I stared intently at the cookie. And true to his word, I saw a little plume of heat waft off. What the heck, Dawn?! I tried not to let anypony see just how flabbergasted I was. “Well,” I started and took a bite out of the delightfully fresh and warm cranberry cookie, “they are perfect! Thank you, Dawn! As for all of you — come get ‘em while they’re hot!”

I took a couple of precautionary steps back as everyone grabbed something. Gabby went for an entire apple-cinnamon-pie. Hefty grabbed some kind of cream tart. Honey snacked a whole lot of oatmeal cookies.

The best part about all of this were their faces. These deeply happy smiles. The delight as they took that first bite of whatever they had chosen. I picked a cherry cupcake for myself and joined in. And when Dawn shrugged and seemed about to make his own decision, I softly tapped his shoulder with a hoof. “I got something special for you, if you don’t mind.”

He seemed surprised, but nodded. And I retrieved Pinkie’s specials. “These are for you. Pinkie made them herself. She always says: Nothing is like that first one. But you want a second one immediately after. Therefore: Two.”

Dawn chuckled and I quickly chimed in. Nopony could ever hope to argue with Pinkie's logic. It was impossible. He accepted the treats and took a cautionary first bite. Almost as if I could have spiked his cupcake or something. When nothing happened, he focused his attention on the taste and I could see his mask slipping a little. His attention was fully wrapped up within seconds. Bite after bite vanished. “I have not had something this delectable in ages,” he muttered quietly in between bites.

I grinned from ear to ear, now fully satisfied. Everyone at camp was happy. Even Dawn seemed delighted. Full success.

The short break for sweets and treats quickly turned into another proper break. Everyone just sat around the improvised table. I had bought way, waaay too much. With the first choices gone, almost half the stock remained. So everyone slowed down and instead they made pots of coffee and tea and hot cocoa. And for an hour or two, maybe even three, we just sat around. Talked. Laughed. Discussed. And snacked.

They gave me updates on what happened in my absence. Nothing too thrilling, nothing out of the ordinary. But we made progress. With every hour and every day. Aurora and Hefty were confident that we could start the construction of their workshop soon. Graphite agreed, as her first, small quarry was almost ready to go as well. Gabby had no idea what a quarry was supposed to look like, but she assured me once more that she would keep Graphite safe. And we made a few jokes about how Big Mac and Marble would come after us should we fail in that regard.

I was even more elated to see how several of the others tried to make Dawn a part of our group. How they tried to drag him into their conversations. Asked his opinions. Left room for his contributions, if he chose to participate. And in turn, he tried. He really tried. It was quite apparent that he was not used to so many ponies being around. That he was not used to proper small talk anymore.

But everyone tried.

“Hey Graphite, once we’re done here, would you mind if I dragged you off for a moment?” I asked.

The mare in question raised an eyebrow and snickered. “Depends. What kind of ‘dragging off’ are we talking about? Kicking and screaming?”

I guffawed. The image in my head alone was enough for laughter to bubble up in my throat. Sure, I had the night guard training and an armor I could summon at will. But Graphite combined the bloodlines of Apples and Pies. A deep-seated connection to the earth and every living plant, multiplied with a deep-seated connection to stone and crystal. And both lines were known for the incredible feats of strength their members were capable of. “Yeah, no, let’s not do that. I can’t imagine that going well for me.”

“What a shame,” Graphite replied in faux disappointment and winked at me.

And of course, everyone else present hollered a little. I did not mind being the butt of the joke. I still found it funny. And I knew my limits well enough to be aware when something was way beyond my capabilities. Dragging Graphite somewhere, anywhere, against her will? Not happening.

“Fine,” she restarted. “Let me just finish this cupcake and we can go.”

I wolfed down another two cookies in that time, went to fetch my saddlebags and then turned to Dawn. “We’re heading into the ruins. I thought you might wish to accompany us?”

He considered his options for just a brief moment before he complied with a curt nod. He got up and the three of us left the rest of the group. We entered the courtyard and I led them through the main entrance hall back to the collapsed staircase to the cellar. “You’re our resident mason, right? I was hoping you could give me your assessment of this mess.”

Graphite nodded and walked ahead. She actually dared to walk onto larger boulders that blocked the entrance, though I noticed that she was very careful with each step. At one point, she stopped and closed her eyes. Graphite remained silent for almost a minute. I watched her and wondered what she was doing. Maybe she ‘felt’ the stone or something. Imbalances in the ground. Shifting tectonic activity. Honestly, I had no idea. I just watched a mare stand on rubble.

At least I was not alone. A quick glance to the side told me that Dawn was just as lost as I was.

“Alright, what do you want to know?” Graphite suddenly asked.

It was rather unfortunate timing. Startled as I was, she caught me off-guard in the middle of breathing. I tried to swallow a surprised shriek and some spit got down the wrong chute and I ended up coughing with my eyes quickly tearing up. “Sweet Celestia,” I croaked.

I was strangely aware of the contact when Dawn, of all ponies, suddenly patted my back in an effort to help me.

It took a moment, but I eventually got myself back under control. “Thank you!” I wheezed in Dawn's direction and turned to Graphite. She grinned from ear to ear. “Sure, be proud of almost killing me!” I tried to joke, but speaking still hurt a little. It was probably a weird mixture of a smile and a grimace on my face. “I want your opinion. Can it be cleared? What would that take? Is it safe? Can anything get in, or through?”

She furrowed her brow again and stared at the rubble beneath her hooves. “Yes, no, no, no.”

“Very funny,” I replied with my voice slowly returning to normal.

She slowly climbed back down and sighed. “It can be cleared. But that would take a lot of effort and no, it’s not safe. The upper stories are under constant stress from their own weight and the elements outside. Wind and rain, mostly. If you start digging up the staircase, you have a good chance that the next portion of the castle will bury you. Something could get in, I suppose. But it would need to be tiny. Like spiders or something. If you are worried about potential dangers down there, they will remain there for a while longer. I don’t think it’s worth our time to start digging for the basement now. Maybe one day, when the castle's ruin as a whole becomes the focus.”

Dawn remained quiet. His expression neutral. I nodded and thanked Graphite. And I released her from my grasp. She was free to roam the wilds again — or just go back to her actual workplace to continue on her quarry.

Which left Dawn and me behind.

“There’s a balcony one floor above us, overlooking the courtyard and the clearing,” I explained. “I checked the first floor with Spike and it seems stable for the most part, so… follow me?” I led Dawn up the stairs and once we reached the balcony I spoke of, I put my saddlebags to the side and made myself comfortable. The view from here was… decent. We could watch everypony work like overlords. A funny thought, until Dawn cleared his throat.

“I feel the need to address a matter of importance,” he started. Sounded important. I nodded and gestured for him to go on. “I think I may have misunderstood your initial offer of ‘friendship’. I am flattered, believe me, but I am not interested.”

In the back of my head, he started laughing. Unbridled, uproarious laughter. At my expense, of course. I also felt the heat surge into my cheeks as I opened and closed my mouth several times in failed attempts to comprehend and respond accordingly. Dawn stood back up and that finally sent a jolt through my system powerful enough to unfreeze me. “Stop.” He did. “I… that’s not… what I meant?”

He regarded me with patience. Not even curiosity, just… patience. “As far as I can tell, you have given me gifts, you have offered me special treats, shown your unsolicited trust and tried to get closer to me.”

I grimaced. At some point, this had gone horribly wrong, it seemed. My shoulders slumped a little, but I was unwilling to give up. “Hear me out? Please?”

Dawn hesitated. After a moment of contemplation, he sighed and sat back down. “I am willing to listen.”

It was a start. Now to salvage this operation. “My barn door doesn’t swing that way, as a dear friend of mine would say. I… I genuinely offered you friendship. Nothing more. And to prove my point: How I treat you is not different from how I treat Spike, for example. When I go out to buy stuff, I occasionally remember him. Small things, really. I see a cupcake and think to myself: Hey, that hot pink would look pretty with some dark blue. Like sapphire. Which Spike loves. So I buy a cupcake with hot pink frosting, grind down a sapphire and give it to Spike. He’s always hyped when I bring treats.”

“And does he bring you treats in return?” Dawn questioned.

I shook my head. “No. But that would be weird if he did. Spike lives with us. He’s our chef. He cooks for us on a daily basis. I’m not saying it would be nothing noteworthy if he suddenly brought me food, but it would be less special. He shows his affection in other ways. Spike goes to these conventions. Sometimes two or three times a year. Comic books, action figurines, Ogres & Oubliettes, stuff like that. He knows I like some of that stuff as well, but I never accompany him. Because I’m not into this entire convention-community. I don’t like large crowds either. So, if he comes across something I might like, he buys me small trinkets. Like a new set of dice for example. Doesn’t have to be a birthday gift or Hearth's Warming Eve. Just… a gift, because he can. Because he wants to.”

Dawn looked around the balcony. It was free of rubble and dust, but that was the wind. The wind! “This is not a date,” I hastily clarified. He raised an eyebrow. “It’s not, I swear.”

“Do you take Spike to secluded spaces as well, then?”

He got you there.

Shut up. “No. We do hang out from time to time, though. We talk about books I read, comic books he liked, our next Ogres & Oubliettes games. Our plans for future storylines. We shamelessly gossip about our players and exchange ideas for traps. I took you up here because you seemed a little overwhelmed down there. It’s alright to expose yourself to something new. But you should do so in small doses. I thought this setting might be easier for you. Give you a breather. Time to recuperate. Also, I’m pretty sure that you wouldn’t talk as openly or as honestly if others were around.”

Dawn seemed strangely tired for a brief moment. He rubbed his temple with a hoof and finally allowed himself to relax a little again. “Fine. I will admit that I am… I have become unfamiliar with… friendship.”

I smiled wryly and looked to the side, towards my saddlebags. But I decided that it was not the right moment just yet. “Well, if it's any consolation — I’m not exactly great at it either. But I’m trying. And from what I saw earlier… so are you. You’ve been alone for a long time, haven’t you?”

There it was again. That weight. That exhaustion. He silently nodded while he stared ahead into eternity. There was no forest where he looked. No clearing or tents or ponies either. He simply stared into nothingness. Or maybe into old memories. “May I ask you something, then? From one supposed friend to another?”

I still could not help but tense a little. Almost as if I feared an oncoming test. And no matter what his question was — weren’t all social interactions tests of some kind? “Sure.”

“You know that I am… capable.” I nodded. There was no reason to hide it. No sense in trying, either. “So why do you treat me the way you do?”

“You mean… like a normal pony?” I asked for clarification. It took him a moment to react, and a curt nod was all I got. It was enough, though. I sighed silently. “Because I feel like that’s what you need. I don’t know who you are. But I would like to change that. But I know how… lost you can get if you walk alone for too long.”

“Maybe I am already lost?” he suggested.

I shook my head, almost violently. “No. No, I don’t think so. I’ve seen you smile down there. I’ve seen you reach out to them. There is still hope within you. And no matter how little that is, it’s enough to work with.” The conversation had taken a strange turn. It reminded me of a similar talk I had a long, long time ago with my love. Sunny had been so scared of that conversation back then. “And to make that perfectly clear: You are not just a broken thing I feel a need to fix either. I’m… I’m a supporter, I’d say. It’s my nature. What I do. I am drawn to those who need help. And I help them. Same as you are a scholar, I think. You are drawn to knowledge. You have an insatiable curiosity about the world around you. It’s what you do. It’s what allows us easier ways to form connections. I tend to befriend those who I help. You probably tended to befriend those who you studied with.”

We both remained quiet for a while. Several minutes, maybe ten, maybe twenty. I followed his gaze out into the void. What I saw was different from what he saw. The forest stretched endlessly. The Everfree was endless. On a map, sure, there were borders to it. One could walk along the tree line and eventually make it back to the start. It was endless in a different manner. My cycle always started at the edge of the forest. It always led me into the forest at one point. The Everfree was inescapable. For me.

“I have done many things I am not proud of,” Dawn quietly confessed.

“Who hasn’t?” I replied. I could see him shake his head. He thought I misunderstood the severity of his implications. I had not. “My wife firmly believes that no creature capable of feeling and thinking is ever beyond redemption. Some of my own friends did… horrible things. They will bear the weight of that knowledge. Consequences will come for them. And we, as their friends, will stand by their side and help them along as best as we can. We will help them up if they get knocked down. We will help them right their wrongs. We will help them see the path. It’s what friends do. No creature is irredeemable.”

Dawn sighed again. “I cannot in good conscience subscribe to such foolish and naïve beliefs.”

It made me chuckle, honestly. He was so blunt in his judgment. “Believe me, no matter how old you are — she is way older than you. She speaks from experience and hope. This isn’t mere naivety.” Dawn fell quiet and with the mood being what it was, I dared to finally breach a different topic. “Would you mind telling me about her?”

“About who?”

“Your love,” I replied.

“My what?” Dawn snorted dismissively. But I noticed genuine surprise in his voice. Saw a sliver of vulnerability in his body language. “What makes you think there is such a thing?”

I was close to something important. And no matter how defensive his question was intoned, it was as much an invitation as I needed. “You’re old. And I don’t mean that as an insult. My wife is old as well. Positively ancient. She keeps her spirit young through a diverse range of methods. But I have lived with her, grown close to her. Enough so that I can see it in her eyes. I can see that same age in yours. Experience from decades, maybe centuries. I can see how it weighs you down with every breath you take and every step. When you feel unobserved, you reminisce. When you ramble, your gaze drifts off. And you look so… haunted when that happens. And I know that look as well. You lost something dear to your heart. Or… someone. You wear a mask of this suave, charming stallion. With just the right amount of a scatterbrained scholar mixed in to make you approachable, to make you appear trustworthy and harmless. But when you think nopony is looking, your shoulders sag and you breathe a sigh of relief. Because you’re not used to company, are you? And acting is exhausting, isn’t it?”

It was a gamble. To lay bare so many of my assumptions and theories was a huge gamble. He would have any right to storm off, insulted to the bone, if I got too much wrong here.

But Dawn sat still and remained. He seemed relatively unfazed, even. After half a minute, he heaved a deep sigh and looked over to me. Just out of the corner of his eyes. “You are a lot more perceptive than I gave you credit for.”

I felt relieved. His non-answer was an admission of sorts. And a grin threatened to split my head in two. “Thanks!” I chuckled briefly. “My friends usually call me obsessed. They tell me that no, not everything in life revolves around love. I get what they are saying, I just… I disagree, I guess. Well, not entirely. Not everything revolves around love. But much of what makes life life does. In an ideal world, you’re never alone. You love your family as much as your family loves you. You love your friends. Your pets. Your job. Your home. You love the life you live. Because your decisions made it into what you want it to be. I think we all want to be loved. And we all want to love. And that none of us want to be alone. I mean, in regards to you specifically, I’m still just guessing. So you may correct me if I’m wrong.”

A warm midday breeze passed by the balcony. It mussed our manes and offered the scent of rich flowerbeds. Dawn hesitated once again. Fought internal battles to answer the question: Did he wish to trust me? How much was he willing to tell? I wondered what he saw me as. Was I an enemy of his? An obstacle to be overcome? How did that interact with him seemingly trying to accept my friendship?

I knew from Gilda and Rainbow that friends could be enemies at the same time. Celestia and Discord. Rainbow and Lightning Dust. Pinkie and Cheese. Well, some examples stretched the definition of ‘enemy’ a little.

I was about to offer him that he could simply remain silent. That not answering was his right. Then I noticed the cupcake wrapper in his hooves. He fiddled around with it, absentmindedly. “No, it is true,” he finally replied with another heavy sigh. “She was my everything. She scared the wits out of me on our first meeting, and she retained that ability throughout our time together. Just in… different ways. Her beauty was none I was supposed to yearn for. And truthfully, I had to learn to appreciate her physique. Such marvelous shades on her scales. Such unrivaled fierceness in her eyes. She always knew what she wanted. And she never hesitated to take it. But — she was never cruel about it. She tried to accommodate others. She was the most brilliant mind I was ever allowed to converse with. Her knowledge seemed as infinite as her wisdom.” The more Dawn slipped into his old memories, the more he relaxed. His body language became more animated, his expression livelier. Nostalgia clouded his eyes as he raved on about his paramour. A dragon, I assumed at this point. A unicorn and a dragon. Spike would have loved to hear this story. “She was always there for me. For anyone who managed to gain her affection. She was also the funniest creature I knew. I cannot fathom how many pranks she played on her kind. And a failed prank, to her, was always just an invitation to improve her plans and try again while a prank gone awry was reason to be humble and apologetic. A mighty dragon, a creature of strength and fire and power… and she was so restrained. Always careful. I still remember so many nights we just stared at the marvel over our heads. We talked for hours and hours until the sun came up again.”

I swallowed hard. More than once. Not just because what he told me sounded genuinely great and made me emphasize with him even more, but also because it filled my own heart with longing for my loved ones. It made me remember my own dates. Stargazing with Twilight on her balcony at the castle. We were wrapped in a blanket together. Luna had known about the date somehow and had arranged for a meteor shower. Twilight stared at the sky in awe. I stared at Twilight in awe. I saw the reflection of all those sparkly lights in her big, bright eyes. Made me fall in love with her all over again.

A nightly stroll with Luna in the Canterlot Palace Gardens. We walked so slowly that I assumed it would take us all night to return to the entrance. I did not mind. She told me stories about the constellations. How their meaning had changed over the course of thousands of years. How the virgin, once a symbol of sanctity, had evolved into a generalized symbol for femininity, only to further evolve into a symbol of chastity. Some of these transitions were truly mind boggling.

But it was not just contained to memories of this cycle. I remembered a walk with Pinkie after one of our weekly dates. We had to schedule them at some point, because life was life. Everything became busy at some point. We had work, shops to keep running, a filly to raise, friendships to uphold. The restaurant was great, the food was excellent. I claimed to walk her home, like I used to in the years before our wedding. She asked me if I missed these times. When we were less bound by responsibilities. Free to do whatever, whenever. I answered honestly: Sometimes, sure. She got that glint in her eyes, that sparkle of mischief. A few steps further down the path, she suddenly pounced on me, threw both of us into the bushes. She giggled like the silly filly I had fallen in love with so long ago.

I sighed heavily. And tried to free myself from that alluring swamp of memories. I could drown in them and die as a happy stallion.

But despite my momentary lapse, this was not about me. And Dawn very much seemed to deal with the same issue. He was trapped by better times. Because where I had the luxury of just walking home to Ponyville and kissing Twilight, or teleporting to Canterlot and cuddling Sunny, his love was nowhere to be seen.

“What happened?” I dared to ask. I felt like this was the crux. The one thing everything seemed to revolve around. Love. For better or worse.

Dawn's smile froze and slowly dimmed into a mild frown. His warm eyes cooled considerably. “Fate had different plans, it seems,” he spat. There was a hardness in his voice that was almost scary, had it not felt so strangely familiar. “We got separated. I made her a promise that day and I have been trying to keep it ever since.”

“That you would be reunited,” I assumed. ‘By all means’ was the implied part. I was unsure if he had noticed that, but he nodded either way. It felt wrong to see him so heartbroken, yet determined. I knew that I had to poke into these things, because I needed to learn more to help him. But I felt horrible for making him relive that, for forcing him to confront these memories once more. The least I could do, I decided, was to remedy this. To distract him, to offer him an easy way out of this mist of sorrow. “What do you do for fun?”

It was such a sudden shift in topic. My attempt to break the current mood. And it seemed I was at least successful in breaking his chain of thought. “Come again?”

I smiled. “You still remember what fun is, don’t you? You must have had hobbies, right?” He still seemed a little lost. And once more a bit overwhelmed. So I elaborated further, to give him a moment to sort himself out. “At some point, you will reunite with her. And no matter what you like to think or claim, you can’t just cuddle with her all the time. So. What do you do?”

Dawn stared at me like I had suddenly grown a second head. It made me chuckle. Then his brow furrowed as he gave the question some serious thought. The answer was sobering for him. “I… I have not thought about that for a long, long time.”

I, however, had expected as much and my smile therefore remained steadfast. “I assumed as much, yeah. That’s why I asked. Think about it. And maybe even more importantly: You will still need time for yourself. As will she. So if you can’t cuddle her all the time, and shouldn’t even spend all minutes of every day with her, what do you do with the rest? What did you do when you were younger? Before you even met her?”

Dawn fell silent for another couple of minutes. “The time I hail from was… vastly different from this modern day and age. As were the lands I grew up in. You are right, I was a scholar. Less of a teacher and more a collector of knowledge, arcane and otherwise.”

I grinned in what I hoped was a supportive way and made a ‘go on’-gesture, but nothing came. “That still sounds more like a profession and less like a hobby to me. What about throwing horseshoes?”

“Why would you throw those?” he replied in utter bewilderment.

I briefly considered explaining one of Applejack's favorite pastimes but quickly decided against it. “Hot air balloon racing!”

“Aren’t they incredibly slow?”

“Petting your pet!”

He grimaced. “I am not very good with animals. I constantly forget to feed them.”

“Skydiving!”

“How do you even—“

“Where are the CMCs when you need them?” I asked in mock-frustration and threw my hooves up in the air.

Sadly Dawn seemed to miss the joke and grimaced slightly. “As I already told you, I… things were different back then.”

I sighed and backpedaled a little. “No, no, it’s fine. I’m sorry. I was just messing with you and got a little carried away. Sorry.”

“You… you were joking?” he asked in increasing confusion.

I chuckled and shrugged. “Yeah. Kinda? I didn’t really expect you to be an active fan of skydiving. I do know a bunch of scholarly types, though. And almost all of them love reading. Have you ever read anything not to learn something new, but just for the fun of it?”

He grimaced again. “I was so caught up with my studies that there was no time for such frivolities, and once I—“

I held up a hoof and he cut himself off. “There’s no need to justify anything. You’re not on trial and it’s perfectly fine if you didn’t. That will make it more interesting.”

“Will make what more interesting?” he asked with a trace of suspicion.

I finally retrieved the two books I specifically brought along for him from my saddlebags and levitated them over to him. He took the first and opened it. Empty pages. All of them. He looked at me with mild frustration. “Is this yet another of your failed attempts at humor?”

I chuckled and ignored the barb as best as I could. “No. That said, it was admittedly a rather random idea I had. It’s a notebook. For you. You can write your thoughts in it. Or your story. You can tell the book your secrets or worries. It won’t judge. Or maybe you want to exercise your poem-writing skills for when you see her again? Maybe you wish to sort your thoughts so that the first thing that comes out of your mouth upon your reunion isn’t: Hey, how’s it going?” The latter thought especially somehow amused me greatly. Dawn grimaced, of course. He would never mess up like that. But then again, everypony thought that of themselves. Until it happened anyway. “I swear I will honor your privacy. I will never, ever take a peek into that book, no matter what. Oh, uh! Another great thing!” I grabbed the book in my telekinesis and ripped one of the pages out. “See? They can be torn out quite easily. So if you don’t think you need a journal, you can still take it with you as a supply of notes to scribble on!”

He took the book back and looked at it appraisingly. “It does have many potential purposes,” he admitted. After another couple of seconds of inspection, he sighed, closed it and nodded. “I accept your gift. Thank you. I am still not interested, though.”

I was flummoxed for a second or two. Then I noticed that wry smile of his and broke out into laughter. Him trying to make this initial misunderstanding into a running gag was the last thing I had expected. “Aw, what a shame!” I played along once I regained enough composure to speak properly. I wiped away a few tears and pointed towards the other book. “That’s the main prize for today.”

He lifted the other book to inspect its colorful cover. “The Calamitous And Curious Campaign Of Cunning Can,” he read the title out loud.

I cringed quite a bit. It sounded so dreadful. I simply had to trust Twilight's judgment. “Before you decide anything! It’s a book series, this is just the first book. The others get less gimmicky with their titles. It’s about a wizard who outwits and outmaneuvers his opponents who just can’t leave the poor sod alone and keep ensnaring him in their ridiculous plans.”

Dawn suddenly broke out into laughter. It actually startled me quite a bit, he was usually so reserved and quiet. It only lasted for a couple of seconds before he quickly clasped his mouth shut and held it shut with a hoof for good measure. He stared at me in unbridled amusement before the mask slowly slipped back into place. When he removed his hoof, he coughed politely. “Excuse me.” He cleared his throat. “You do not happen to have chosen this book for the parallels of its premise to current events, do you?”

I stared at him blankly for a few more seconds before the words arranged themselves in my head and everything made sense again. This time I was the one grimacing. “No! I’m not dragging you into my… ridiculous… okay, fine, maybe there are some parallels. I didn’t realize sooner.”

Dawn chuckled merrily and shook his head. “This is priceless. Even more so if it truly was unintended. Thank you. I have not laughed like that in… I cannot even remember the last time.”

I was unsure what to make of this. I felt both embarrassed and proud at the same time. Somehow. “You’re… welcome? I guess? Anyway, I wanted to read it with you.”

“Reading together?” he asked, bewildered once more.

“Yeah. You’ve never done that?” He shook his head. “Well. Then this is going to be your first time. Trust me, it’s fun!” I got up, only to sit back down again, but this time a bit closer to him so we could both comfortably read the text. I still left a good deal of space between us, as neither of us was generally a touchy-feely type.

Once we settled in properly, I flipped the book open to the first page.

“Still not interested,” Dawn mumbled.

I snickered and kicked his hindleg with mine. “Stop it.”

We both wore silly grins as we started reading the novel.

The Blue Moon Charity Ball

Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack. It did not even seem like the train moved at all. No, it was the landscape instead that brushed past the window in a blur of colors. Underlined with the monotonous rhythm of the wheels on the tracks. It was mind-numbing. Lured me in. I sat on my seat, soft and decently cozy. The entire car was empty, no other fellow travelers this time. It was a strange feeling, otherworldly almost. I was riding a ghost train.

The storyteller in me wanted to spin this yarn into something greater. A pony sat on a bench, alone and reminiscing. While his mind drifted, he failed to notice the train moving through the landscape where no tracks had been laid. Only once the blue sky fell away and was replaced by a much darker shade of blue did he look up and realize that the train had fully left the tracks behind, as much as the landscape itself and it now chugged along into the ether, spewing steam into nothingness. Where would his astral travel carry him?

However, my mind was preoccupied with other thoughts.

The entirety of the last week had been a bit of a blur. It was not the amount of work to be done that made it difficult to differentiate the days, but the lack thereof. Everypony had been so utterly busy. Even Spike, after his initial struggle with his role, found a balance and seemed content. Yet I remained within the camp of tents and watched ponies work their asses off. I tried to jump in whenever needed, wherever I could. I brought Hefty new tools when one broke. I rang the bell to signify that dinner was ready. I helped Spike prepare dinner in the first place. But all these tasks were menial. Nopony needed me to do them. It was just my bandaid to keep myself occupied. To stave off the feeling of uselessness.

It was better in the mornings. Right after waking up, when another nighttime with Luna had been busy with busting nightmares and helping dreamers cope with their varied issues. But over the course of the day, the mood would drag.

Late midday, early afternoon. Those were the hours when I grabbed the book Twilight had proposed and went into the ruins. Dawn joined our camp for meals and some socializing, but he very much preferred to stay in his lab for most of the time. I managed to catch him off-guard only once by sneaking around the place before our agreed-upon time. Not that it helped me much. He was busy. Concentrated. Doing arcane and alchemical research, I assumed. I understood little of what I saw. Glyphs similar to those covering his body. He drew them on paper, drew them in the air. With a buttery-yellow aura wrapped around his horn. Maybe his aura just changed every so often. Maybe that was his quirk.

I liked to believe that we learned from each other. But even I could not pretend that we got the same value out of our unspoken deal. We met up every day for a couple of hours. We sat down on that balcony on the first floor and read a few more chapters of the book. A bit of conversation prior and after and little bits and pieces in between. I asked about his travels. In reply, he told me of parts of this world I had never seen before. The lands of zebras and elephants. Mountainranges so massive that their size dwarfed the whole of Equestria. Oceans so deep that no light touched the ground. It was prime material for a mind like mine. My imagination spun wildly out of control with every little nugget he was willing to share. Even though he usually still remained somewhat cryptic about it. He never truly allowed me to pin an exact time or place on his journeys. He never told me when he had visited these places, or where they were. How far I would have to travel to see them for myself.

The nagging voice in the back of my head insisted that this was likely due to him just making this stuff up on the spot. But I doubted that. I could not imagine any sensible reason for him to lie about something this outlandish.

In return, Dawn asked me about my life in Ponyville. About Ponyville in general. About Equestria. About holidays like Hearth's Warming Eve and Hearts And Hooves Day. Or events like the Sisterhoof Social.

I was quite sure that I had gotten the better end of the bargain.

There was this line in the book. It quickly became a tad tedious in the first one, since our protagonist Cunning Can uttered it all the time, it seemed: It’s Cunning Can, not Cunning Can’t! As far as protagonists went, he was charming enough. His strength was his mind and his vast knowledge, even though Dawn seemed to get a great deal of joy out of poking holes into the story itself. I did not mind as long as he got any joy out of it at all, no matter which way.

But the amount of time we spent reading meant that we burned through the book quickly and a day before I left, I went back to Ponyville to buy new food supplies and fetch the other two books from the library. Dawn even ensured me that he would wait for my return. I knew that he meant the books, but I could not help and feel a little touched, because it still meant that he would remain here and wait.

He always seemed elusive. A little skittish sometimes, too. As if he was just a ghost or a fairy and could vanish at any given second.

Dawn remained very much an enigma to me.

Greenwood however progressed just fine, with or without my input. Aurora did a mighty fine job as an impromptu-amateur-architect. Graphite did some unbelievable Pie-stuff. I was convinced that it would take months for the first buildings to be raised. But it took just one week. I saw Hefty carry entire trees on his back. I saw Honey rip the branches and bark off as if the trees were bananas, ready to be peeled. And within one week, we had a proper carpenter’s workshop. A large building to allow these two giants space to move between workstations, tool benches and half-finished furniture. With an added upper story for them to live in.

Then they raised an entire barn. What once was a roof on stilts and served as our somewhat-rainproof supply depot was transformed into an entire, proper warehouse to store not just our food supplies, but any excess wood, stone and tools as well.

The barn, as we all quickly referred to it, was situated right behind the workshop. And once we had all our stuff carried inside and properly sorted, it looked… well, empty. It looked like we owned nothing. Our food supply, given how many mouths we had to feed, was the largest pile and it barely made a dent in one of the corners. It looked so sad in there. But both Hefty and Graphite assured me that we would need the space soon enough. And I was more than willing to trust the experts on the matter.

I wondered what I would find upon my return. I did not plan on staying away from the project for too long, but my trip would take a week, give or take a couple of days. Maybe Graphite’s workshop would be ready as well? And a house for Spike and Gabby? The workplaces had priority, obviously. But it was hard not to notice how Gabby sometimes sat closer to the fire to warm her pained joints. She was very much a force to be reckoned with, as were all griffons from a young age right up until they keeled over. But she was also old. And a dear friend of mine. It was hard not to care when she was in pain. I knew that she tried to avoid alerting us to it as much as she could, mostly so we would not start doting on her. She could live with Spike doing that. Because he did it all the time anyway.

I could understand that. Not wanting to feel like a liability.

I sighed and leaned my head forward. My horn made a dull sound as it hit the glass of the window, and soon after, my forehead rested against the cold glass as well. Every time I exhaled, a little patch in front of my nostrils got foggy. The urge to draw a smiling face in there was overwhelming, but I simply could not bring myself to lift a hoof.

It would be nice to have a bed at some point soon. Hefty and Honey even made public promises that they would build bed frames first, as soon as houses were ready. A proper bed and walls, a roof and a fireplace. Surely that would help.

My mind turned towards my current destination: Canterlot.

There was a big event coming up. The Blue Moon Charity Ball. Many ponies considered it an event exclusively reserved for the art community, which baffled not just me, but Luna as well. And she hosted the damn thing. Neither of us had any clue when, where and why this rumor started. The event was not that much different from the Grand Galloping Gala. It used the same rooms, even some of the same furniture and decorations.

But as much as Luna was Celestia's little sister and stood in her shadow, so too was the Blue Moon Charity Ball a little sister to the Grand Galloping Gala. Luna tried her hoof at getting back into the game, all prim and proper, but she lacked the patience for the nobility and their often strange demands and opinions. Thus her event only happened every three years, while the Gala happened each and every year. Plus, the Gala was just that. A get-together. A meet-and-greet. All the most important and most influential and richest ponies in Equestria, mingling for one evening, rubbing shoulders and making deals on the dance floor, toppling rival business empires at the buffet table and forging alliances in the gardens.

In my humble opinion, it was a snake pit.

The Ball was not that much better, obviously. That said, it being a charity ball meant that ponies in attendance were expected to give generously to whatever cause they had this time around. It severely lessened the appeal it had for most nobles and rich folk, like a bitter taste in their mouths. They were expected to do good? And they were not even allowed to brag about it? The outrage!

I sighed. I was really not looking forward to this. But I had to participate. The Gala would happen in roughly half a year and with my current financial situation, I simply could not wait that long to secure funding for the project. I needed to go there. Mingle. Rub shoulders. Whisper on the dance floor. Stroll through the gardens with ponies I probably had nothing in common with, aside from our general pony-shapes. And maybe the blood color. Maybe.

When I stopped by the castle on my way to the train station, Twilight was even kind enough to inform me what this year's campaign goal was. Apparently there had been some kind of lightning strike or weather incident in Manehattan. The Ball was trying to raise funds to repair the roof of the museum of natural history. After the whole thing burned down. And half of the lower floors as well. Twilight described it as this great tragedy and while I fully agreed that it was a shame, I had a hard time being as devastated by it as she was. I doubted any knowledge was truly lost. Not when I could walk down the hallways of our home and be surrounded by hundreds of books — in one shelf. And we had hundreds of shelfs.

I knew that the Canterlot Royal Archives were one of the largest libraries in all of Equestria. Though I had no idea how large. And for fifty years, Twilight had been collecting books. She had ordered copies of books from all over Equestria. She had copied books from even beyond the borders of our nation. Her library offered works of griffon poetry, historical accounts from the dragon lands, even some rare transcripts of stone tablets from the Forbidden Jungle. Her lab had just about any book on modern sciences one could ask for, including some written in ancient Yak.

Maybe the Archives were not the largest library in Equestria anymore. If they still held that title, it was only a matter of time until Twilight outpaced them. Our home was a repository of knowledge. Whatever might have gotten lost in Manehattan due to that fire: I was sure Twilight could replace it. By sending out copies of our own stock. And I suspected that was very much her intention. To create a place she could defend herself and ensure that no knowledge would ever truly be lost again.

I suspected something in her subconscious was at work here. How many of her battles could have been prevented, had she known stuff beforehoof? Had she known about the Crystal Heart before Sombra showed up. Had she known about the abilities of changelings before they became an issue. Had she known about the unique properties of Chrysalis’ throne.

I shook my head, tilted it to the side to press my cheek against the glass. I felt like my head was burning, so I embraced the coolness. And I got off-track again.

I would need to talk to Sunny.

Luna hosted the Ball. Her job that night would be the same ungrateful one Sunny had at the Gala. Welcome every guest. Every. Single. One. And once they had finally all arrived, she was allowed to mingle for about an hour or so. Which meant she would be swarmed by all the ponies who were just waiting to get a word in with a princess. And then she would need to excuse herself, because she also had to bid her guests farewell and thank them for their generosity. Their implied generosity. Which would take up the rest of the night.

I could totally see why she preferred to host the Ball only once every three years. Honestly, it was a mystery to me how Sunny did it every year. Less of a mystery why she was so bored by it, though.

The sisters shared meals. Breakfast and dinner. It was a necessity and a welcome respite. Because Luna slept throughout the day, and Sunny throughout the night. Luna was technically invited to every Gala. But her responsibilities and duties meant that she could rarely attend, even if she would want to to begin with. Vice versa, Celestia never attended the Ball, because she needed her sleep to be fit for her next day.

But I could make use of her invitation. And I was pretty sure that she was either allowed to pass it to me, or that Luna would not make a fuss about it.

That said, I had a sneaking suspicion that she would not just simply agree if I asked for it. That suspicion was not unfounded either. Her playful prankster nature would forbid her from simply giving it away as much as her care for my cause. So I needed a plan…

It was a familiar dance.

I had no words to describe just how much I loved every single move of it. The anticipation that upset my stomach, like a swarm of butterflies. The repeated checking and double- and triple-checking of everything I had prepared. Until I heard that telltale click of the lock on the door to her study. Until I felt that passive background tingle of magic recede as the protective charms were temporarily disabled. Even how I stared at her in awe when she entered the room felt so incredibly familiar.

Her high, regal pose. Her sleek, slender legs. Legs for days. Prim and proper appearance. Her eternally waving, ethereal mane billowing behind her in the same manner as her tail. Her regalia was shiny and perfectly in place. She was perfection to anypony else.

But I waited. I waited for a critical moment. My favorite moment. The moment when Princess Celestia closed the door, discarded her regalia and became just Celestia, a mare, a pony, my Sunny.

“Oh?” she sang with her melodious voice when she noticed me sitting by the lit fireplace. “What a pleasant surprise.” Ah, that slightly ominous smile of hers.

I smiled as well. “I sure hope so.” I tore my gaze away from her and for one last time, I pointedly looked over the arrangement I had prepared for us. A seating cushion large enough for her to be comfortable. A flat, small side table to host a wooden tray with two small clay mugs and a glass pot of steaming tea. A tube of lotion we usually used for massages, a bowl of warm water and a towel for the aftercare. The scene was set.

I looked back at her. Invited her with a widening smile.

“You will not take ‘no’ for an answer, will you?” she asked thoughtfully while her gaze temporarily drifted over to her massive desk. And the equally massive piles of paperwork on them.

“Well… no.” I grinned and slowly stood up.

She heaved a heavy sigh, but nodded and hooved herself over to fate. Her horn lit up and the door closed. She was still in the middle of removing her peytral and crown when I rushed forward and hugged her. “Sweet heavens, I missed you!” I blurted out as I nuzzled her neck, brushed my cheek along her shoulder and clung to her like a drowning pony to a plank.

I heard how she put the peytral and crown to the side, onto one of her shelves. She took the time to remove her golden horseshoes as well before she returned the hug. Her wings unfolded quietly and wrapped themselves around me as well and I could have melted into a gooey puddle of happiness right then and there.

“I have missed you too,” she whispered in return and squeezed me a little tighter.

We sat there for several minutes, just enjoying each other's closeness. Eventually though, I pushed myself away just a little, just enough to angle my head upwards and pull her down with a hoof. A proper greeting kiss. I had to fight hard to resist the urge. A tiny tilt would have been all it needed. I would be able to deepen the kiss. To gently trace the tip of my tongue across her lips, asking for entry, for permission. Judging by how little resistance she put up, I expected that she would have been more than willing.

I broke the kiss, just to place a quick peck on her nose. When her face scrunched up, I chuckled. “Hey there.”

Sunny smiled and returned the little peck on the nose. “Hey there yourself.”

We slowly disentangled yourselves from each other. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather do you some good now and let you work in peace afterwards, if that’s okay with you?”

She allowed me to lead her over to the cushion and she dutifully made herself comfortable on top of it. “I am intrigued by this setup of yours and where it is supposed to lead, especially if it will leave me in a state capable of working afterwards.”

She gave me a playful wink and I instantly felt the heat creep into my cheeks. “Right,” I muttered and cleared my throat with a cough. “We’re starting easy.” I poured us a cup of tea and we enjoyed the first few sips in companionable silence. “Lay on your side, please.” She followed the instructions, I levitated the water bowl over and placed her front hooves in it. A few minutes to soak, after which I did my best to take care of them to the best of my knowledge. But the water alone already seemed to help her relax, because a wistful sigh escaped her throat. It made me smile.

Once I was done with her forehooves, I repeated the process with the other pair. And once that was done, I held her legs up, levitated the bowl out of the way and to safety, where neither of us could accidentally spill the water all over the floor. It was mere coincidence that I held her hooves high enough that they were on level with my muzzle. I looked at them. Looked at her. Shrugged with a chuckle and placed a few kisses on them.

I was rewarded with a dainty giggle from her. “Do you adore my hooves so much?”

Her playful tone made me grin. “I adore every inch of you, love.” The urge was there once more. To simply follow what had become instinct by this point. To place a trail of kisses up her leg, to her hindquarter. To tease her by nipping at her cutie mark. To escalate things further from there, because by all means — it did not seem like she was about to stop me.

It was the third strike, really. My self-control was waning. But I remained firm for now and placed her hoof down again. “Onto your belly, love.” She complied. But I did notice how she winked at me. She was playing the long game. And there was no way I could win. I levitated the tube over, opened it and began to massage her. Her neck, her back, her wonderfully plush rump. I knew her usual spots. Where knots formed. How to best get rid of them. I knew her body.

The massage took maybe half an hour. Probably a little bit more. We had time, no reason to rush. I filled the air with her sighs and quiet moans as I pressed my hooves into her back, as I forcibly relaxed her tense neck, and especially once I took proper care of her hindquarters. I noticed how she restrained herself less once I worked my way down to the latter and it would have made me sigh in exaggeration, but I simply smiled and continued.

You won’t get me this easily, you ancient tease!

Every now and then, we took another sip. These short little breaks served us both well. It allowed her to relax further and probably get some much-needed water in, because I doubted that she drank as much as she should while Day Court was open. And it allowed me to rest my hooves for a moment before they had to go back to work.

In the final stages, I sat beside her haunches and really kneaded into her posterior. I was almost done when she spread her legs ever so slightly further and her tail swished just a tiny bit. Still, with me being this close, it was more than enough to let me know.

I looked up to her, but Sunny had her eyes closed and her head lay flat on a second cushion. Her wings rested on her back, calm, quiet, still. She was fully relaxed. She could have been asleep for all I knew. But a knowing, teasing smile played on her lips.

And I had to acknowledge that I was not strong enough to resist her lure for a fourth time.

I leaned over, my nostrils flared and I silently absorbed her scent, rich and mouth-watering and ready. Her tail swished again and without thinking straight — or at all — I dove at the opportunity. Quite literally.

I heard her faint gasp as I buried my muzzle in between her cheeks. Her muscles tensed ever so slightly as I traced my tongue greedily over her lips, only to notice how sopping wet she already was. And half a second later, she pushed her hip against me. Had she really missed me that much…? It was hard to believe. Hard to imagine. But flattering nonetheless.

I repositioned myself to gain even better access by lying down flat on my belly right behind her. It also allowed me to grab her flanks and spread them or knead them as much as I wanted, and I loved playing around with her plush rump.

Another gasp escaped into the air as I sucked her little winking knob into my mouth and caressed it with my tongue, only for it to retract. We’ll see each other again soon enough, I promised. I led my tongue around her entrance in agonizing slowness, one circle after another until I heard her quiet, needy whine. At which point I stopped and pushed in. Her legs tensed, they tried to close up, only to spread further a second later. I grinned as I pushed deeper and deeper into her, until I reached as far as I could. I explored familiar walls with my eyes closed, so that I could fully engross myself in my other senses. The ethereal hair of her tail tickled my nose when the occasional stray wave crossed it. Her scent filled my brain to a mind-numbing degree, yet I felt intoxicated, hooked, greedy. Scent and taste blended into one as I lapped at her insides, as I pushed just that smidge further to close my lips on her tender flesh and sucked.

I felt the intense cold of the marble floor on the heat that had emerged from my sheath. I tilted my body ever so slightly to the side so that the growth pressure had a clear path to escape to. A mistake, as it quickly turned out. I had been so focused on my experience of her that I had failed to notice how her hazy bedroom eyes, half-lidded and all, had reopened. She craned her neck just enough to see her target, and once her horn lit up, I could feel her magic wrap itself around my length. Soft, slow strokes up and down that made my breath hitch in my throat and a rumble bubble up at the same time. It only spurred me on to increase my ministrations, to pick up the pace.

I increased the speed of my tongue-work, she increased the pressure and speed of her strokes. We goaded each other, but I eventually won out. Not because I had more stamina. I most certainly did not. But I gave a desperate little whinny, involuntarily, as I felt my climax draw near. I did not wish to end it this way. I did not wish to end it at all. Neither did I have any intention of making a mess of the floor or worse still, the cushion. And I was not done with her yet. I insisted on her getting off first.

So she let off. Her magic faded. She laid down her head again to focus entirely on her own pleasure. And in a display of pure lust and gratefulness, I poured my everything into serving her.

Her stifled moans became louder and louder, until eventually her entire body was tense like a coiled spring. I grabbed her flanks, plunged deep into her one last time and when the first waves of her orgasm hit her, I retracted just enough to circle around her clit.

Tremors rocked her world. Her hindlegs spasmed. Her cry was drawn out and primal. Her wings shot wide open, displaying their full beauty and impressive size.

I only stopped once the waves started to die down. She breathed heavily. Her wings collapsed to the floor, still extended. Her legs fell down as well, still shivering from time to time. And within a few seconds, she wiggled her rump just a tiny bit.

I looked up and saw her grin. Exhausted, yes. But she grinned. Still in that playful, teasing manner. And I understood. My turn. She had already driven me wild earlier. It would not take much. I quickly fetched a condom from a nearby drawer. Her aides and seneschals, clerks and guards would probably die of embarrassment if they knew they were there. Even more so if they knew that they were there because they were needed in this room frequently.

I fiddled around with it for a moment. I had no idea why I was suddenly so clumsy, until I remembered that I had massaged her for half an hour and had more or less continued to do so while I enjoyed her taste. The issue was quickly resolved when her golden magic grabbed both my length and the condom and led one into the other without any further delays.

The thought that she might still be this needy was amusing. In truth, she probably simply tried to help me out. Fair enough, really. I stepped up, aligned myself and looked at her. “Ready?”

She nodded. “I’m still sensitive,” she replied, implying that I better take it slow at the beginning. As if I had not already known. I took a deep breath to somewhat calm down my rapidly beating heart and slowly pushed into her. Her walls stretched around me, embraced me, welcomed me like the familiar guest that I was.

“Oh f—…” I cut myself off, bit down on my lower lip as I pushed further and further. Everything was heat. All my senses seemed so fanatically transfixed on this one region of my body. Somehow.

Once I was buried within her as deep as I could go, I stopped. For just a moment, to breathe, to make sure I had a proper stand, to give her a moment to adapt as well. Once she gave her okay, I started moving again. And it felt heavenly, despite the protective layer between us dulling some of the sensations.

Well, at least it helped me not come as quickly as I would have without it.

Which was not much of a difference, seeing how riled up I had been already, but still. I cherished every second of this. “I’m close,” I grunted in an effort to restrain myself.

“Look at me,” she asked. I had my eyes firmly shut, so she repeated herself in a more demanding tone. That got my attention. It always did. As soon as I looked her in the eyes, those beautiful magenta pools full of love and desire, I was lost. “I love you.”

“I-I…” That was all I managed to reply as I was subjugated by my own little earthquakes. My hindlegs froze in place, my hips bucked on their on as I plunged into her a couple of times and in a moment of utter non-thinking, I tried to bite down on her back — only for her magic to grab my cheek and hold me back. I knew what she wanted. I had asked for it on so many occasions. She was surprisingly shy when it came to certain things. She preferred not to be loud, but her moans and gasps and grunts were what really drove me insane. And in a similar manner, she loved to hear me.

I had not much choice at this point anyway. A long, loud, desperate moan filled the air, the result of a voice that I barely recognized as my own.

Then I collapsed onto her back and a second later, I chuckled. “I’m not too heavy, am I?” I croaked with an exhaustion-laden voice.

“Do not worry, I am fine,” she replied. And goodness me, did she sound satisfied. It made me feel proud in turn.

I sighed in relief. It took a couple more moments until I found enough strength again to stand up and slip out of her. I discarded the condom while Sunny levitated the towel over. Not what I had intended it for, but hey. Plans rarely survived exposure to reality.

After cleaning myself up, I lied down again and quickly cuddled up to her. A deep sigh later, I finally remembered what was missing. “I love you too.” Sunny smiled warmly and we shared another kiss. “This… was admittedly not what I had in mind, but I’m not about to complain either.”

It was interesting to see her mastermind smile. “To be honest, it was on my mind the moment I stepped through that door. I had been stressed for the last few days and this was just the kind of relief I craved.”

The moment she stepped through that door. Huh. I chuckled and pulled her down for another kiss. “Happy to provide, then.”

A few minutes passed by in silence. Only the fireplace dared to crackle every now and then. The tea was gone. The massage was done. She seemed happy and relaxed. It would have been the perfect opportunity. But I felt tired. Exhausted. I would not have minded to take a nap right here, right now.

“Mind telling me what you were up to, then?”

Her melodic voice lured me back to the lands of the waking ponies. “Hm? Why do you suspect I was up to anything? Can’t I just do something nice for my love?”

She giggled. I initially thought her amusement stemmed from my half-assed ‘outrage’, but she simply grabbed the teapot in her levitation and gave it a little shake. Seeing how I did not understand, she explained: “You made your ‘I am up to something’-tea.”

I blinked a couple of times, my eyes swiftly danced around between her and the tea pot. “I did not—… I mean I don’t—… we never said—…” Instead of fumbling around with my words any further, I grabbed the pot myself, levitated it over and sniffed. I obviously knew what tea I had made. It was more a gesture to buy me some precious seconds before the realization hit me. “Shoot. I thought—… no, actually, I didn’t. I didn’t think about that at all, I just—… it was unconscious. Damn. And here I thought I was smart about this.”

Her giggle gained strength, increasing to a quiet, mirthful laughter. I could not help but admire her. Without her aura of regality, she was just herself. Sunny. A beautiful mare with such a pretty laugh. It never felt demeaning or cruel, it was always filled with warmth and joy. It made her shine. Eventually, she regained her composure and looked at me again. “So?”

I grimaced. Right. Great. So now it’s less of a ‘now or never’ and more of a ‘eh, might as well’. I sighed. “I wanted to ask for your invitation for the Blue Moon Charity Ball.”

She watched me closely, tried to pry more information from my expression without having to ask for it. It was a funny little game to her, one I did not mind. It spared me from having to explain everything in excruciating detail. “But you do not exactly get along with the Canterlot nobility, and they very much favor you staying where they do not have to see you as well.”

“I know.”

“You do not even like wearing a tuxedo,” she continued.

“I know!”

“Do you even have a tuxedo?” She raised her eyebrow.

I tried to hide as best as I could by half-burying my face on her side. “The one from our wedding?” She giggled again. “I don’t think they will remember the getup I wore, right? Even if they do, I don’t think anypony would mind. Right?”

It should probably have said a lot that she chose to remain quiet on that front. “And who will be your plus one?” she asked instead.

Well, that at least was a question I was prepared for! “I gave it some thought and I deemed it safest to go alone. For one, it will keep me focused on the task and avoid distraction. And it will allow me to claim that I did this on my own.”

“I see.” She tilted her head slightly. I could see the gears turning, but she was unwilling to share her thoughts just yet. “And what is your plan once you are there?”

It was clear at this point that she figured out that this was about Greenwood and that I was searching for investors. So I gave her the pitch. As much of it as I had right now. “Many of those stuck-up moneybags don’t really care about Equestrias future, bar very few exceptions. So, I’m aiming for the head. I intend to sell them a high-risk, high-reward business opportunity. Because they care about money. Oh, and fame. The other thing they care about: Bragging rights.”

“You do not have a proper speech yet, have you?”

I chuckled. “There’s still a couple of days left to prepare one. And I do intend to write up a few versions before the evening arrives. Sooo… can I have your invitation? Please? Pretty please with sugar-coating?”

She snorted when she noticed my terrible attempt at puppy dog eyes. But despite her amusement, she still quickly answered in a less than favorable way. “No.”

“What? Why?”

Within seconds, her grin grew to that of a clever predator. “What happened to ‘doing it all on your own’? Without us?”

She’s got a point, it’s her ticket, a snarky voice in the back of my head whispered, accompanied by a dark chuckle. I grimaced and tried to find a way around the issue, but there simply was none. She was right. If I truly wanted to claim ownership of this thing, full ownership, I had to do it on my own. Without asking for favors from her. “Fine.” My shoulders sagged, but my mind was already racing, flooded with ideas. Maybe I could trade with some noble. Maybe I could try to get all buddy-buddy with somepony so they would take me as their plus one?

“I offer you an alternative,” Sunny suggested.

My mind came to a screeching halt. Everything would be better than dealing with nobles. “Yes?”

She looked around her study and opened a drawer. The invitation I sought flew over to us and landed in front of us, right in the middle. And her hoof on top. “Be my plus one.”

I felt stunned for a moment. It was silly, really. Both my reaction and her offer. “Love, you don’t go to these things. They start when you already slip into bed and they take up the entire night!”

She smiled patiently. “You say that as if I do not already know that.”

This was silly. She was silly. “And everypony and their grandma would flock to you!”

“Which would be perfect to keep the vultures away from you, so you may concentrate on your task.”

Why was she arguing in favor of silliness? Sunny was silly. She was allowed to be silly, because she was just a pony. But right now, she was making Princess Celestia-decisions. It made no sense. I looked around the study as well, as if the furniture would provide me aid in my nonsensical battle. And funnily enough — it did. Her desk was still laden with mountains of paperwork. “Luna already told me how swamped with work you are lately.” I turned my attention back to her. “I can’t make you do the zombie-shuffle the next day.”

My love continued to giggle and be silly. She lowered her head and nuzzled me. “I think I am old enough to set my own bedtimes.”

Her workload did remind me of another thing Luna had said, though. “By the way, we will talk about you skipping proper meals later!” I quickly scanned the study again and noticed what I had failed to see before: A small tower of stacked plates, every one still bearing small crumbs of whatever meal they had held. Probably from the last two or three days.

“Do not switch the topic, love,” Sunny chided me softly.

I looked around in exasperation. Desperation. But the room offered no further ammunition. And I ran out of things to say. It was silly. Irresponsible. But she was right — it was her right to decide if she wanted to be irresponsible. “Fine,” I relented grudgingly.

“Yesss,” she exclaimed in giddy delight, waggling her legs in turn as if she were doing a little prance in place.

It was such an adorable display that I could not help but chuckle. “I will need to dress up for this, won’t I?”

She looked at me, looked me up and down as if appreciating something I was regularly unable to see. “You look smashing in a tuxedo.”

It was that appreciation that made me pause. Wait. “Was this your ploy the entire time? To get me to dress up again?”

Celestia slowly rose from her cushion. She gave her wings a few tentative flaps before they refolded on her back. She stretched her legs and shot me a knowing grin. “That was a marvelous massage and a well-crafted break, but I fear I must dismiss you now, love, for I truly do have a lot of work to do.”

I stood flabbergasted. After what felt like half a minute, I shook my head in disbelief and collected the little tidbits of clutter. “This isn’t over, minx!”

She purposefully strode towards her desk, putting on a little air of her usual regality. The tip of her tail brushed along my muzzle. “Oh but it is, my love. See you tonight.”

I huffed and puffed, but it was so much harder to be outraged when all I wanted was to lunge for her again. So instead I took all my clutter and left her in her study. I had a speech to prepare. And I should probably find out if my tuxedo still fit. And maybe I should arrange for a proper dinner, so she would not even think about ordering a meal to her study again.

As I walked down the castle corridors, I mulled over what had happened. Things had not turned out as planned, but it was a success anyway. One step closer.

Three days later and Operation: Scaredy-Cat was a go.

Celestia wore a stunning dress with a fire-gradient coloration. A new one, I was certain. And Luna, my poor little kitten, had dressed up in a pretty and revealing and pretty revealing black dress. It was form-fitting and accentuated her shape just right.

Every mare and stallion in this big, big ballroom looked pretty. Or handsome. And here I stood, with my old tux, feeling horribly out of place. But that was normal. I always felt out of place when one of my loves took me to any of these high-society, fancy-schmancy dinner parties or balls or galas or whatever else they called these things.

It inevitably made me miss Applejack. She felt like a fish out of water as well, every time. She still came to the Gala with her friends because they wanted to go and they wanted to have her there with them. But inevitably, Rainbow wanted to talk to a couple of Wonderbolts. Pinkie saw somepony. Rarity saw Fancy and Fleur. Fluttershy wanted to take a breather in the gardens, because of the crowd. It was still a shared night. We managed to get the group together again every single time. But at some point, everypony was on their own. And in those times, Applejack and I clung together. Neither of us knew anypony there. Neither of us belonged there. So we did what we could to stay out of trouble and have our own fun. Mostly by shamelessly gossiping and imitating some of the funny things we witnessed, like a particular noble wearing a bird's nest as a hat.

To this very day, I had no idea if that had been a fashion trend, a lost bet or an accident.

I shook my head slightly. It had been funny how Luna reacted when we showed up. She had been so convinced that it must be a joke. A prank of some kind. I would have told her before the Ball, had Sunny not explicitly asked me not to. And I would probably get my comeuppance next night, when we were together on dreamscape patrol again.

“Right, focus.” I sighed. My mind was frazzled. I wanted to distract myself from the task at hoof. Desperately. But it had to be done. Moreso, I had a plan! Step one. Psyche myself up enough to actually dare approach one of my targets. Sunny had been kind enough to give me a list of names and descriptions, so that I would not just run around like a headless chicken, bothering everypony in attendance. It was an oversight on my part. There were dozens upon dozens of ponies here. Yes, it was still less than at the Gala, but still… too many ponies to ask for help.

“Target acquired,” I muttered. Lady Emerald Pyre was, according to my list and evaluation, a ‘maybe’. There was no particular reason why she would support my endeavor, but neither did she harbor any ill will towards me. As far as Sunny knew.

Step two. Approach the target. Get rid of any cold sweat or trembling legs. Try to appear confident and friendly. Polite cough to get the attention. Craft a conversation starter. “Lady Pyre, may I tell you that your coiffure looks incredible tonight!”

Lady Pyre turned towards me as intended, and while she accepted the compliment with a welcoming smile, the warmth of that smile quickly drained as she took in my appearance. I felt incredibly uncomfortable, like I was on display for some scientist who already had his scalpel ready. I managed not to squirm in my own skin, but apparently something drew her ire. She raised her glass to me… and turned back.

I gulped. For a few seconds longer, I stood frozen to the spot. I dared to look around, like a sneak who wasn’t sure if he had been busted. A couple of ponies nearby took notice, but none of them matched the descriptions I had on my list.

I managed to unfreeze myself. Step three. Crawl back under Sunny's wing to recuperate.

As for The Undying Flame herself, she was doing fine. Her part of the plan worked out great. She was the center of attention, swarmed by dozens of ponies who all tried to get a word in. It would have been impossible for me to reach her, had she not seen my approach and decided to walk a couple of steps, at which point the swarm surrounding her simply absorbed me into their midst and I managed to sneak up to her side. She did not say a single word, did not ask if I succeeded or failed. Truthfully, she could probably see it written all over my face. She simply stretched a wing out ever so slightly to cover my back while she still engaged the crowd. And since she did not spare me much attention, neither did any of the ponies around us.

If I concentrated enough on it, their loud voices became background noise. And I could regain some strength simply because she was close. Her unshakable resolve. Her endless patience. Her calmness in the center of the storm. As the center of the storm.

I resisted the urge to nuzzle her. It would not do. Such a public display. It would only serve to remind the nobles around us of our relationship and its complexity, which they did not approve of. So instead, I merely touched her hoof. It was enough for her to understand. Her wing retracted. She chose to walk another few steps. And the swarm spit me out the other end.

I looked around, reoriented myself. The ballroom was packed. In the center, many couples twirled according to the rhythm of the classical orchestra playing timeless pieces. The buffet table looked inviting, but I did not trust my table manners enough. Servants of the castle carried trays with glasses around. Champagne, wine. I felt thirsty just looking at them, but quenching my thirst with alcohol was a stupid idea, especially for somepony who drank maybe one glass of wine in a year.

Step One. I spotted Lord Tambourine. I racked my brains about his first name, but I could not remember. And really, what did it matter? I had all the information I needed for my plan. So, with a heavy sigh, I gave myself a shove in his direction.

Step two. “Lord Tambourine! What a pleasure to meet you here. That is such a fashionable sash, is that from Carousel Boutique?”

I tried to be attentive. But the whole time the conversation dragged on, my mind was a panicked, screaming mess. It was a miracle I even got to the point where I managed to present my speech. Lord Tambourine himself provided me with the hook when he mentioned that his family had fallen from grace, it seemed. “Well, maybe we can help each other out, my Lord. This might be an opportunity for the both of us. You see, I am the leader of a group of plucky settlers who are currently reclaiming not just the Everfree Forest for Equestria, but also aim to establish a settlement of noticeable size near the ruins of the old castle. I am sure you have already heard of the many, many alchemical ingredients coming from the weird and strange flora and fauna of the forest, as well as the relics that are sometimes found in long-forgotten ruins within the deeper reaches. We already established a solid base camp. A few buildings are up and we secured not only the path to Ponyville, the nearest town to get supplies from, but also the general area of our camp as well. By magical means, crafted by Princess Twilight and myself. That said, it is strictly a private project. Mine, to be precise. And we could use some financial backing. Sheer determination and a decent float only get you so far. To really get the ball rolling, we would need a sizable investment. But of course, such an investor would see his commitment returned many times over. I have been told that the Everfree wood is of remarkable quality and that there might even be larger veins of gemstones or precious metals in the ground, just waiting to be found and mined. Even better, such an investor would have his name carried far and wide, of course. A new frontier town defeated the constant threat of the Everfree Forest and reclaimed the chaotic land for Ponykind — that would make for some nice headlines, wouldn’t it?”

Ephemeral. That was his name. Ephemeral Tambourine. No wonder it was hard to remember. Such an odd name.

I wanted to sigh so badly once I finished my speech. I had done it. The entire thing was out. He had not interrupted me at any point. He had even listened attentively from what I could tell. It looked so great, right before everything went downhill. Fast.

Lord Tambourine seemed a good pony at heart. Under layers and layers of noble-crust. He sounded honest and regretful when he rejected my proposal. Apparently, his family’s ‘fall from grace’ had to do with some financial investments of the recent past gone horribly wrong. He assured me that he would love to invest — once his family had recovered from a recent betrayal of trust. I cautiously asked for an estimation, already dreading the answer. And I was not disappointed. Years. It would take Tambourine years to recover what was lost.

I still thanked him. Wished him luck. And left.

Step three. Crawl back to safety to recuperate.

It took time to get back into the game after each and every defeat. Lady Pyre had just ignored me, for whatever reason. Maybe she did recognize my tuxedo and did not wish to associate with somepony who dared to wear the same clothes twice. Lord Tambourine had been willing to help, but unable to. Maybe I ought to tell Sunny about that later, she could probably nudge a few pieces on her chessboard to help a good pony out. Either way, it was an outcome I had not expected. It never even crossed my mind that somepony would be willing to help, but simply could not. It seemed to only further decrease my overall chances of success.

And even if I had success, it would still drain my battery considerably. Because it was not the rejection that frayed my nerves. It was the pressure of expectations. The weight the looming failure carried.

Worst of all, I needed investors. Plural. It was highly unlikely that I would manage to reel in a fish big enough to pay all the bills.

Rinse and repeat. The swarm swallowed me, Sunny comforted me, the swarm spit me back out. Step one. I managed to track down Miss Golden Key. Not a noble, but a very successful pegasus from Baltimare. She had her own fleet of freighters. She was a heavy weight not by name and title, but due to her deep, deep pockets.

Step two. “Miss Key? Lovely to make your acquaintance! My name is Dreamwalker. From what I’ve heard so far, you’re quite the savvy businesspony with an eye for opportunity and your success speaks for itself.”

Another conversation. Frazzled nerves. Internal panic. The conversation felt tedious, drawn out, moved at the pace of molasses. But! I managed to get the speech in. However, something just felt… off.

And as it turned out, there were a lot of things I had not accounted for, a lot of outcomes. Sunny had already remarked that Miss Key tried to get into the good graces of the Canterlot elite. I had accepted that at face value and not thought much of it — until I saw an almost wicked glint in her eyes, while her smile remained charming. At no point did she resort to any open hostilities. But she was well-versed in rhetorics. She did not need to strike to still hit a devastating blow. And she made her opinion quite clear.

Just another pony who disapproved of my involvement with their princess. And-or their princesses. I could not tell if it was the polyamory-angle that irked her so much, or that I, a peasant from no bloodline of importance and with no backstory of note, had managed to woo their beloved, untouchable sovereign.

She clearly just parroted the opinions of the nobility. But she did it with glee. Maybe as a demonstration to those she tried to impress. I was just a rung on the ladder. I was an opportunity for her, oh yes. Just not the kind I had hoped she would recognize.

I dutifully and patiently waited, weathered the storm until she finally dismissed me.

Bitch.

A single word from the back of my head. I found it hard to disagree, even though I had no appreciation for his crudeness. Instead I heaved a sigh and finally gave in. I asked one of the waiters for a glass of wine. Maybe it would at least help me calm down my nerves.

“Your operation seems to run smoothly,” an amused and familiar voice behind me gloated.

I sighed again. “Hey, Pristine.” She stepped up to my side, carrying her own wine glass in her magic. Her immaculate white coat was brushed to perfection, her cocktail dress was a perfect fit and her hair was done to impress. Yet none of that mattered, did it? In the end, she was just another pretty pony amongst pretty ponies. Everypony here tried to be so gosh-darn unique, they all tried to stick out and once everypony was special, nopony was.

Well, except me. Because I wore a decades old tuxedo.

And Sunny. Because she towered over all others.

“You’re having a bit of a rough night, hm?” she asked and bumped her shoulder into mine.

She tried that encouraging smile. And I wanted to reply in kind. But right now, I found it incredibly hard to smile at all. “Is my continued failure that obvious?”

“Pretty much, yes,” she nonchalantly replied and took another sip of her wine. I took a swig as well. “I overheard your pitch,” she belatedly added.

“It’s not bad, is it?” I asked. Because I slowly started to doubt myself. That was always easy to do for me, but right now, I was really losing faith in this whole endeavor. I could not even manage to get them to listen. Or to agree with me that this was worth it. Not even by twisting my own mind and perspective in an attempt to make this appealing to them. “I thought I would hit all the right spots to succeed,” I muttered.

“Well, you did it for me.”

I almost choked on my wine. “What?”

Pristine grinned and offered me a napkin. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the Miss Moneybags you’re looking for. But I would like to propose a deal.”

I straightened my posture, my ears stood tall and focused on her, I nodded eagerly. And then I furrowed my brow as a stray thought entered my mind. “Are you even allowed to do that?”

Pristine giggled daintily. “You mean if mom allowed me to flaunt our business money like that? Yes. Because this is a business opportunity. You said it yourself. Even if you cringe whenever you call it that.”

“O-Oh. That obvious, huh?” I grimaced and tried to quickly move on. “So, let’s hear your idea, then.”

I envied her. Pristine grew up in this kind of society. She knew how to handle nobles, she knew her way around social traps and dangers, she could just flick a lever and be all business-like. “I want exclusive rights for Carousel Boutique when it comes to clothes. I am aware that there are limitations to what you can do and offer, so I thought of something like this: For the first ten years, I don’t pay rent in my shop. You do your best to keep the competition outside and in those ten years, I get exclusive contract rights.”

Business with Rarity's daughter? With Carousel Boutique? Heck yeah. That said, ten years was a long time. “Counter-offer: You don’t pay rent at all, you own the place. The land price will only go up as the town grows, and you would have a nice, lucrative piece right in the middle. We’ll make it five years and you don’t have to pay taxes.”

“Deal!” she giddily exclaimed.

We both laughed quietly as we shook hooves. “Okay, but seriously. We will need to check at some point if that’s even possible. But it is something I would be more than comfortable with!”

“Marvelous, darling,” Pristine replied in her best Rarity-impression. And she was terrifyingly good at it. “I still have places to be and ponies to meet, so I’ll see you around later?”

Our farewell was short, but heartfelt. Pristine was my first supporter. Investor. Whatever. She would not be able to carry Greenwood on her back. Not alone. But it was a first success. One I had desperately needed, if only for morale’s sake. And to further boost my morale, I decided to gamble with my table manners. I made a beeline for the buffet table, because frankly, my stomach would scare potential investors away by making me sound like a bear.

“Gotcha cornered!” somepony said. Behind me. Again.

How do they sneak up on you so easily? I wonder.

I ignored the snark from the backseat and turned around. ‘Gotcha’ was nothing any self-respecting noble would ever dare to utter. Not even in the dead of night in the privacy of their own homes, surely. Before me stood a mulberry-blue unicorn mare, roughly the same age as Arcana. Her mane was split down the middle, one side silver, one side purple. She watched me with vibrant teal eyes, a mischievous twinkle in them.

I could feel a scratching at the walls of my memories. I felt a vague familiarity with her face, but I could not remember a name or origin.

Well, she did not seem like the regular run-of-the-mill noble, that was for sure. And if she approached me in such a way, hopefully I was allowed to answer in kind. “How insidious of you to wait for your prey to approach the bait. And who, pray tell, might my captor be?”

She grinned and held a hoof out, which I gladly accepted and shook. “Periwinkle is the name, big game is the… game. Okay, that could have been smoother, but in my defense, I came up with that on the spot. Nice to meet you!”

“Dreamwalker,” I replied. “A pleasure. So may I ask what brings you to me?”

She nodded. “I heard rumors spread, possibly perpetuated by a certain princess of the sun, that there’s a business opportunity with a newfound village in the Everfree Forest.”

I sighed deeply. All manners were thrown overboard when I looked around for Sunny. She was hard to overlook. The swarm surrounding her had thinned considerably. Probably due to Luna joining in the festivities. For a brief moment, our eyes locked. And Sunny smiled. Tender and full of care. It was hard to begrudge her anything. She only wanted to help me. To see me succeed at something that was important to me. I sighed again, and smiled back. A curt nod. I would thank her properly later.

Then I returned my attention to Periwinkle, who had the patience of a saint, apparently. “Yes, there is a new village being constructed in the Everfree Forest. It’s a private project. Led by me, actually.”

“Great. I want in.”

I opened my mouth, and closed it again. “I—… Just like that?”

“Well, no,” she answered, and there was that twinkle again.

“You talked to Pristine, didn’t you?”

Just the way her ears splayed back a little as if her mom had just caught her with a hoof in the cookie jar was telling. And a bit adorable. “Maybe.”

“So I’m guessing you want something for your backing,” I assumed.

Periwinkle grinned and nodded enthusiastically. “Nothing much, really. I want the building. Just the building. But I want it built according to my plans and specifications.”

What a strange request. Maybe she was a noble after all? And tried to make Greenwood her summer house getaway or something? “You are an architect?”

“No, but you have one I could work with, right?”

“We do,” I admitted. “What kind of building would that be, if I may ask? Please don’t expect us to rebuild the old castle in your image, because that won’t happen.”

She giggled and shook her head. “No, no, no, don’t worry. I want a tavern. Well, an inn, to be precise.”

I tilted my head a little. I used both terms interchangeably in my Ogres & Oubliettes-games all the time. “What’s the difference?”

“In a tavern, you drink,” she explained with a smile. “In an inn, you drink, eat and sleep.”

Huh. The more you know. “I think we can do that, yes. We would need some larger structure for team meetings and such at some point anyway.”

“Great, we have a deal then!”

She positively glowed with happiness. And confidence. An almost roguish, charming confidence. “May I ask where your money comes from?”

“My parents,” she quickly answered without any hesitation. “They made it big in Las Pegasus a few thousand years ago or so, after some initial hurdles. Buuut, they don’t want me to stay there and be absorbed by ‘that kind of lifestyle’.”

A brief tremor ran through my legs and up and down my spine as a small flash flooded my mind with memories from several different cycles. It was quite distracting and I resorted to simply plunge in and pick the first piece that I could grab. “Gladmane?”

“Oh? You heard about that?” Periwinkle seemed genuinely surprised. To be fair: I was surprised as well. I had barely an understanding of who Gladmane was, aside from some big name in Las Pegasus. “I thought they covered it all up nicely. Well. Yes, he was embroiled in blackmail, gaslighting, extortion and much more nastiness, so whatever you heard is probably true. And once he was in prison and the dust settled, my parents took over his resort.”

“May I ask who your parents are?” At this point, I had a sneaking suspicion that I knew their names.

“Trixie Lulamoon and Starlight Glimmer,” Periwinkle replied. The moment my eyes went wide and I silently mouthed a ‘ohhh’, she suddenly grew a lot more suspicious. “You know my parents as well?”

And this time, I fully understood why that would make her suspicious. Gladmane had been a public scandal. He was a figure of note, especially in Las Pegasus, but in the wider high society as well. His fall from grace had been a whole media circus. Trixie however… Well, usually I recruited her for the Greenwood project. As an entertainer. She usually built a tavern. Or inn, rather. It was a hilarious twist of fate that her daughter now came to me to basically ‘order’ the same.

The issue probably lay with Starlight Glimmer. A name I was most assuredly not supposed to know and recognize. Because what she had done never made it into any tabloids. I wondered, though. Trixie was a traveling magician. Starlight, for all I knew, was a fanatic cult leader. But from what little information I had, it seemed they arrived in Las Pegasus together, already as a couple. I doubted that she would have done so without leaving her cult behind first.

Was it possible that Trixie had redeemed her?

I shook my head and cleared my throat. “Sorry, I, uhm, I heard of them. Trixie, to be precise. I’ve been a fan of her work. Well, when she was still traveling with her wagon.”

The throwback at least seemed to mollify Periwinkle and get her off my case. We continued to discuss the details of our arrangement for a while. I told her about the Everfree Forest in general, and Greenwood in detail. Specifically who else was already there, as it sounded very much like she was about to join our crew. She seemed strangely interested in meeting Spike, the assistant dragon of her mom’s former nemesis. And I would absolutely tell Spike of that description, as I suspected it would embarrass, flatter and amuse him in equal parts.

We ended our conversation with the exchange of contact information. The contract needed to be written up, sent, signed, sent back, all the legal mumbo-jumbo. The important part was: I had a second investor! Again, not exactly the biggest fish in the pond, but even if I failed to capture enough interest this evening, having two minor investors already bought me some time. Maybe enough to make it to the Gala and try again there. Even though I utterly despised the idea of having to go there. At least with this purpose in mind. Visiting the Gala with friends was an entirely different matter.

I happily reminded myself of step three. Returning to Sunny’s side. My confidence was boosted and with the swarm around her seemingly dissipated, maybe I had a chance of actually telling her what happened. As I arrived however, she quickly introduced me to her current conversation partner.

“Oh, perfect, you are right on time!” She greeted me. Sunny extended her wing and both pulled me closer to her side, and shoved me a little forward. “May I introduce you to Doctor Zalamero Caballeron?”

“Like—?”

Doctor Caballeron bowed in a respectful gesture. “Like the one in the books, yes. It is this circumstance that gave me my current wealth. If only I had understood the concept of royalties and the usage of my name and likeness sooner. But this fine lady here was so kind as to offer me insight at a time of financial struggle, which in turn convinced me to choose a different path. One that would lead me to less conflict with the law. And a certain pegasus.”

I stared for a good while longer. It really was him, it seemed. Once upon a time, I had ‘met’ him in a vision, caused by a temple trap in the Forbidden Jungle. Funnily enough, Sunny had been at my side that time as well. And here he was again, many years later. His gray-brown coat showed signs of his age, his mane was almost completely silver now, but he still radiated that suave smoothtalker-charm. “I… see,” I lamely replied. “Well, I am glad to meet yet another reformed villain of sorts.”

Caballeron chuckled and shrugged. “What can I say? But it all turned out well in the end, did it not? Your wife was also so kind as to relay your ‘pitch’ to me.”

I grimaced only slightly, due to my tremendous effort not to do it at all. From the direction this was going, Caballeron wanted to support me. And apparently, she had already influenced Periwinkle to come to me. Which would mean that out of my three wins this evening, two were actually hers.

I sighed internally and tried to shove that thought to the back to be dealt with later. Right now, securing Greenwood's future was all that mattered. “Did she now.” I still shot her a look though. I was grateful. A part of me was, anyway.

“Indeed! And let me tell you that I am more than thrilled to pledge my support for such an ambitious project.” And if that had not been bad enough, he threw a bunch of numbers around. It took me a moment to figure out what he tried to do: Gauging how much support would be required.

At that point, my eyes bulged a little. Those were some deep pockets. And if I had learned anything from nobles and those with wealth and power, then that nothing was ever without a price tag. “And what do you hope to get out of this?”

Caballeron grinned. “Well, in recent years I kept busy as a middlepony, finding good offers for certain demands. I am sure a developing settlement such as Greenwood has its needs, no? And with the Everfree Forest offering such interesting, yet exotic exports, surely there is a bit of a lack of connections and means of distribution, yes? I can offer to fix that. Or rather, I hope to insert myself in that position.”

Our own version of Mister Rich. I knew that trade had to be established somehow, at some point. Otherwise Greenwood would not be able to stand on its own legs. But I was out of my depth. I knew what he was talking about, but it was a field I had absolutely no knowledge in. A network of contacts. Suppliers, demands. Market value of relics and rare plants. It made sense that he had the proper knowledge for this job, with his background and all, but I had no idea if allowing him into this position was a smart move or not. So I looked for advice. I looked at the only pony I trusted with this. And she nodded.

My heart still beat in my throat when I turned to Caballeron again, but at least a decision was made. “I think we can work something out, yes.”

“Grand!” he exclaimed with a rougher chuckle and picked up a glass from a tray as a waiter walked past. And he drank a toast to us.

Two days later, I sat on my own desk in my own version of a study. I had to make due with one of the guestrooms, as this allowed me to actually work without distraction. And yet, despite this reclusive place, she still found her way to me. Not that I minded overly as I heard the door open and close. Her horseshoes clacked on the ground with every step she took, only temporarily muffled when she walked across the carpet in front of the bed. Then her head slowly appeared close beside mine, slowly emerging from the edges of my field of vision.

“It’s not nice to read somepony else’s letters, you know?” I softly chided her with a smirk. I was about to finish up anyway and it was not as if any of this was secret. I would send these out on my way to the station. The contracts were done, with some fine-tuning from Moondancer.

Speaking of the she-devil. There was something I needed to discuss with Sunny. I turned my head and kissed her cheek. “You survived Day Court?” She nodded while her eyes still scanned my desk for any juicy information. “Well, I’m happy for you.” I gave her a peck again.

“I was on my way to my study,” she explained, “but I wanted to say a proper goodbye. Your train?”

“Leaves in two hours,” I answered.

“And did you manage to secure all the funding you need?”

Her face betrayed nothing of what she had done. As was to be expected from a master manipulator. So I played along for a while. “Oh, yes. A lot more than required, actually.” I intoned it just right to peak her curiosity, as I implied that there was more to it. Maybe even more than she knew.

“Oh, really?” she feigned ignorance.

I sighed. “Yeah. Strange, how that came to be. Apparently, right after the Ball, two anonymous donations were made. Not to the museum, but to the Greenwood project.”

I was a little stumped to see her confused for a second. “Two?”

Either way, though. She still had more or less admitted to it. I could not hope to get any more out of her than that if she was unwilling. “Yes. I had Moondancer sniff them out. Because that mare can follow paper trails like a bloodhound. You lost a really good guard there, methinks.”

“Oh.”

It was such a simple thing. And it really should not have been as funny to me as it was. But her simple ‘oh’ just cracked me up. I laughed for a moment, pulled her in and hugged her, just to nonverbally make sure that she knew that I was not cross with her. Quite the contrary. “Love, I really do appreciate that you wish to support my endeavor. I do. But, like, really?”

She sighed and retreated a step. A quick glance to the side, to make sure that the door was properly closed. As one of the guestrooms, there were no guards currently stationed outside. Or anywhere nearby. She slowly removed her crown, and the rest of her regalia followed. “I know that you wish to do this on your own, and on your own terms. And I tried to let you as much as I can. That said, you have to understand that supporting Greenwood in its infancy is in the best interests of Equestria as a whole. You aim to reclaim the Everfree Forest, which has been a breeding ground for monsters of all kinds and a favored hiding spot for villains. Not to mention the chaos-infused weather that constantly leaves the boundaries of the forest and interferes with the weather of Equestria.”

It was a tantalizing sight. To see her remove her regalia always struck me as something appealing. But I managed to stay attentive enough to at least attempt a proper conversation. “So is that the reason why Luna supports it as well?”

Sunny giggled and shook her head, her mane billowing from side to side. “Maybe? I can tell you that we did not coordinate our efforts on this front. Honestly, I would suspect that her contribution is less of an Equestrian matter and more of a personal reason.” She walked a couple of steps backwards and sat down on the bed while I was still busy trying to decipher the most assuredly multilayered meaning of her words. “You can simply ask her this evening, love. I would appreciate some more time with you before you leave, though.”

I looked up and she patted the empty spot beside her. I smiled and got up. And without any innuendo at all, without any sexual tension in the air, I still knew that I would miss my train. Because even if we only cuddled, I would never get enough of that.

Ah well.

There would always be a next one.

I was in quite the chipper mood, I even whistled a little song as I walked towards Greenwood. Even the birds seemed to occasionally chime in. The torches lined the path, their chain unbroken. And in just a few minutes, I would see the camp. And I could bring them the good news. We had support from outside. We had financiers. Investors. Money was still a little tight, sure, but we no longer had to dread what would happen in three or four months.

I breathed in the fresh forest air and relaxed a little further. It was a great day. Actually, all those last days had been great. While I was not exactly a fan of traveling, by train or otherwise, it had been a much-needed recharge for my batteries to spend some time with Sunny and Luna, to watch them squabble and prank each other over breakfast and dinner. And to sleep with Twilight by my side, even if it was just that one night before I returned to Greenwood. We had discussed the whole evening away, talking about Cunning Can and Twilight's theories about what the fourth book would be about and her criticism of tired tropes the author used. But she also praised his innovations in other places as well.

I felt renewed.

“Incoming!” I heard Spike yell from somewhere above.

Knowing Spike as well as I did, I simply stopped walking. Ducking for cover would have been the worst possibility, as he was so used to calculating his flight path with what he saw, and not with what might be in a second. And just as expected, he landed right beside me with a dull thud.

“Hey there buddy!” I greeted him and already clung to his side.

“Ho, someone’s in a hugging mood!” He tried to pry me off with his claws. When that failed, he even grabbed me around my barrel and lifted me off the ground. And I made it into a little game by clinging to him with all my strength. And since he did not wish to hurt me, he was very careful. Which meant he could not employ his full strength to pry me off, which meant I won.

Only after his sigh marked the moment of his defeat did I release him with a chuckle. “So, what brings you out here? Aren’t you supposed to watch over the camp?” I asked him.

He grinned and opened his claw, presenting me with… a black strip of cloth? “It’s a blindfold, Dream. Just put it on already.”

“I—… what? Wait. Why? It’s a blindfold! We’re still in the Everfree, you know?” I retreated a step. While I did trust him, I was not so sure if I trusted him enough to keep me safe along the path no matter what came crashing through the undergrowth.

“You’ll see,” he replied.

I shot him a deadpan look. “Harr harr.”

Only then did he realize and snicker. “Oh. Right. Or you won’t. Come on, dude. It’s maybe two minutes from here, what—“

“If,” I quickly cut in, “you continue to say ‘what could go wrong’, I will bite you! Don’t jinx it!”

Spike's grin turned more wicked by the second. “Could.”

“Spike,” I warned him.

“Go.” He offered me the blindfold again.

“Ugh, fine!” I grabbed the stupid thing and quickly tied it behind my head. He made sure a couple of times that I was truly blinded and could not just peek under or over the cloth. “That’s a lot of hassle,” I muttered.

But Spike just snickered and helped me walk along the path, slow and steady. “Well, it’s worth it. Dawn helped us out a little and we wanted to surprise you with what we managed to get done.”

I heard a lot of hoofsteps around me. They rang the bell to inform whoever was not present currently and a minute or so later, Spike grabbed the blindfold and removed it with one quick pull. “Ta-da!”

I blinked to get my eyes accustomed to the afternoon light again and then looked around. My eyes went wide and my jaw went slack. “Dawn… what the fuck?!”

Interlude: Iron Hoof I

Iron Hoof had everything under control. Even as his adversary grabbed him by his mane, dragged him a few steps over and forcefully pushed his muzzle into a larger puddle, he kept telling himself: He had everything under control.

Thinking quickly, as per usual, he ignored his disgust and swallowed some of the finest back alley-water Manehattan had to offer. His tongue curled in protest, his throat tried to close up, his stomach rebelled immediately, but he managed to lower the water level enough that he could flare his nostrils and breathe. Not that the puddle smelled any better than it tasted, but at least his opponent would not be able to drown him.

And the idiot took a while to notice. He probably had not considered that Iron Hoof would stoop this low. Whatever the case may be, Iron Hoof used the advantage by doing… nothing.

A minute passed by without him struggling. Only then did the considerably larger unicorn notice what his younger earth pony captive had done. “Ew. For fuck’s sake, what a disgusting prick!” He grabbed his mane even tighter in his magic, ripped Iron Hoof’s head back and flung the teenager off to the side.

Everything was under control. The surrounding buildings had no windows on the ground level, no doors. Just gray, disinterested concrete walls. A dead end with no witnesses. His target blocked the exit. But that was fine. He was not done here. He did not wish to leave just yet.

Iron Hoof stood back up again. The unicorn was retching. His stomach seemed indecisive if it wanted to give up that fine cuisine he had dined on this morning. “Let me help you with that,” Iron Hoof proclaimed and charged his target. His fiery orange mane whipped past him, flinging droplets of the putrid puddle water everywhere. Then a swift turn, a solid kick. His back hoof, covered in pale blue coat, connected to the side of his foe. To his belly, to be precise.

The unicorn was flung into the wall and now he really puked. “You’re welcome,” Iron Hoof jovially offered. He took the time to gather some saliva and spit it to the side to at least try and get rid of the awful taste in his mouth. While his opponent quickly recovered, he braced for the next round. And there would be a next round. There was always a next round. Because this guy's gang was older, they were larger and stronger and thought they had the upper hoof against just about anypony.

In this fight, Iron Hoof's ragtag band of misfits were the underdogs. And right now, most of both gangs were scattered anyway, merrily chasing each other around the block.

Iron Hoof did not have time to bother worrying about the nature of his life or the long-lasting impact of this turf war. Because there would be one next week, most likely. And the week after that. Territory got lost and reclaimed, expanded and demolished. At the end of the day, it was about survival for most of them. The higher ups in the west might preach about ‘friendship’ and ‘unity’, but that message did ring a bit hollow when it had to compete with growling, empty stomachs. Or with the sight of a gang exclusively consisting of unicorns pummeling their enemies into the ground with their magic.

Iron Hoof knew no other life. This was the way he had been raised. Sort of. It would have been more accurate to say that the streets raised him. It had taken him years in service to others before he mustered the strength and courage to form his own gang. And now here he was, bracing for yet another contender.

The older unicorn, himself barely an adult, charged his horn. His muzzle was distorted into a spiteful scowl. Anger was good, Iron Hoof told himself. It made his enemy more predictable and less cautious. It clouded his mind and judgment.

At this point, there were two options. Either this prick would shoot him with a jolt of magic, or he would throw something at him. A jolt he could tank. It felt awful, like somepony was running an electrical current straight through his body, buuut he could take it. He knew that because he had done so before. A few minutes earlier, in fact. But they had clashed with this particular gang in the past months as well.

A throw was more dangerous though. They both knew that. An unexpected hit from a brick could straight up kill somepony. And judging by the hate in his eyes, this guy would not mind becoming a murderer today. Iron Hoof's ears swiveled around, listening for any sounds. Telekinesis was silent, sure — but the items it moved usually were not.

There!

Right behind him. How predictable. Iron Hoof dropped to his knees and rolled to the side as a metal bar flung straight past. The force behind the attack lodged it into a wall, a few inches deep before it stopped. That thing, he realized, would have skewered him like a lance. So he really was after his hide now.

Maybe it was time to make this more personal. He charged his foe and swung at him. The unicorn dodged, obviously. He was not that slow. And he retaliated with a punch of his own. Iron Hoof simply took it. Then hit his opponent's lower jaw with an uppercut. The unicorn recoiled, only to swing around and hit him straight in the chest with a double kick.

While Iron Hoof staggered backwards, his enemy already set after him. He failed to recover in time and got hit once more. And again. And again. This guy really got into a rhythm, much to Iron Hoof’s dismay. His snout was aflame with pain. His throat hurt from a kick, his chest burned, there was a constant, loud, incessant ringing in his ears, everything felt awful and then, with one final assault, his opponent charged his hoof with additional magic and hit him to the ground.

Everything was under control. Even as he coughed up a bit of blood and spit it out. His chest rose and fell in heaving breaths. Sweat stained his coat. His muscles started to ache. They had been at this for a few minutes now, and Iron Hoof knew his body well enough to realize that he could not go on for much longer.

Hurry up already, he silently pleaded. Then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath and tried to get up again.

Just another day in paradise.

“Don’t,” hissed his enemy and pushed him back down. He tried again though, only to be met with more force. “I said: Don’t! Do you have a fucking death wish or what?”

Iron Hoof tried again. This time however, he saw the attempt to keep him on the ground coming. He quickly grabbed the foreleg of his foe tightly and rolled onto his other side, dragging his opponent along. The unicorn lost balance, struggled to keep standing. It allowed Iron Hoof to get back up. His legs trembled. His ragged breaths came in short bursts. But a smile graced his lips. “Come on, buddy. Let’s dance. I can do this all day.”

The unicorn stared at him in sheer disbelief. Amusement too, Iron Hoof guessed. “You don’t know when you’re done, do you?” A grim smile grew on his foe's face. “Have it your way then. I hope you had a good breakfast, ‘cus it was your last meal!”

Iron Hoof was distracted. He noticed out of the corner of his eyes that his opponent charged him. And he was ready to do whatever was required. But he saw a fine line of sparks rise up in the air. And then, with a loud boom, the firework rocket went off.

His adversary abruptly stopped and ducked his head, apparently expecting some sort of backstabbing, reinforcement, sneak attack, whatever. He looked towards the loud noise and saw a massive pink heart in the sky. “What the fuck…?” The glitter quickly faded. The heart dissolved. But when he turned his attention back to his target, he saw it escape.

Iron Hoof turned heel, ran towards one of the lower of the three buildings and channeled all his remaining strength into an impressive leap. His earth pony magic surged into his rear legs and he catapulted himself high up, just high enough to reach the lower rooftop of one of the buildings forming this dead end.

Knowing that the fight was over, that he did not have to take any more punishment, that they had won — it gave Iron Hoof a second wind. “You see, my friend, you fought to defeat me. However, I fought merely to stall you. I win. Good day, sir, and thanks for your business.” He bowed in a mocking gesture and quickly ran out of sight before his adversary could recover from his shock and decide to fling everything that was not nailed down at him.

They had successfully cleared the entire stash of a rival gang. That would serve them a devastating hit. But more importantly: It meant that his own crew was cared for. Food for weeks. That was worth a lot. Now he only needed to make sure that none of his folks were seriously injured and all made it back to their hideout in one piece. He was worried about Tiny and Hazard especially, seeing as the former was the youngest member of his group and the latter was the newest.

And he would need to have a talk with Sizzle. The firework rocket was a great idea. But a pink heart? Like… really?

Iron Hoof opened his eyes.

He felt every bone in his body. And they all whined about how awful life was. How every day was just more pain. He gave a dismissive snort and rose from his cot. As sergeant, he had his own tent. He walked over to a small bowl with water, drank a few gulps and then decided to just dunk his head in. He did not like how sluggish his movement was. The coldness quickly seeped into his head and left him wide awake. Good.

While the water still trickled down from his now partially drenched mane, he proceeded to put on his gear. A belt to hold his sword and a first aid kit. And one piece after another, he clasped himself in armor. Day Guard armor. He wore it with pride from the day he first joined the ranks.

The added weight felt good. It symbolized the weight of responsibility. The weight of dreams. A better Equestria needed defenders. And rarely had any day been boring as a guard. There were always wild monsters to drive off. They roamed the lands solo or in packs and depending on what they were sent out to fight this time, he sometimes commanded two dozen soldiers or more.

Of course, everything had changed once the Crystal Empire attacked.

He still knew very little about King Sombra. Just another evil unicorn, mad with power and hellbent on subjugating the world. The first attack had been a preemptive one. At least that was what Princess Luna assumed. Equestrias border was close to that of the Crystal Empire. Not that any Equestrian had known the Empire was even there. For all Iron Hoof understood, they could have just stayed hidden. But no, apparently they felt threatened by the rising nation. By their powerful leaders especially. He could not fault them. He had seen Princess Celestia fight. She was a powerhouse. She could floor stronger stallions than him with a single strike. And yet he saw worry plastered all over her face when they engaged the enemy.

He did not understand why.

Until the day she sent him out to get some captives. The enemy was running low on supplies on the southeastern border. They were supposed to attack the reinforcements. Take them out. Take the supplies. And the southeastern front should collapse. And it did. Everything went smoothly, according to plan. Princess Luna was a remarkable strategist.

But something else happened on that mission.

Iron Hoof fastened the straps of his leather neck-plating. And finally, he lowered his helmet onto his head. His amber eyes vanished under the illusion. Now he was a pegasus. White coat, blue eyes, striped blue mane, wearing golden armor. He did not like it. But he understood the necessity. Every time Princess Celestia entered a battlefield, all the enemy troops tried to pile on her. Because she was recognizable. If the enemy was able to make out who was of higher rank, who was a more capable soldier than others, it would allow them to strike precisely where it hurt.

A deep sigh and he walked to the back of his tent. There was not much else in here. Just his cot, the bowl and a little table. With a necklace on it. An unshapely crystal pendant on a leather strap, nothing more. It was not clear, cut or polished, it was not valuable as such. But it was valuable to him.

After the attack on the supply route, they had deemed it better to strip their enemies. Not just of weapons, but of their armor as well. Partially because some of his soldiers were scared of the enemy. And he could not allow for that. They needed to see that there were no demons under those helmets, but ponies. Just ponies. Ponies that bled and could be fought like any other regular enemy.

He removed the helmet of one of them. There was this colt underneath. Barely old enough to be called a stallion. Amber Glow, as he later learned. A young crystal pony, a unicorn. A mind-reader. Iron Hoof touched the crystal on the necklace with care. He remembered the confusion in his eyes. Disoriented, scared. So incredibly scared. And then Amber noticed the others. Noticed his captors. Noticed his situation. And what did he do?

He broke down in tears of relief. Thanking them.

It had left Iron Hoof shell-shocked. This colt groveled at their hooves, begging them to take him with them. Begging them to remove the helmets of the other enemy soldiers. And every time they did, it was the same reaction, more or less.

Iron Hoof had been curious. He looked into the helmet, but it looked like a piece of protective gear, nothing more. And Amber Glow, the foolish colt, had charged. His hooves in irons, every movement awkward, but with the urgency of the desperate. He had charged his captor to… get that helmet away from his head.

It was baffling.

That evening, Princess Celestia asked him to visit her in her tent. She explained some of the more uncomfortable truths about this war. That the helmets were enchanted. That every poor bastard they fought out there was a mind-controlled husk. It had always astounded him how they managed to march through literal fire. Now he realized: They had no choice. They were forced into absolute obedience.

They had not been fighting an army.

They had been fighting a sea of slaves.

It changed him. Not just his attitude towards the enemy, or towards the war itself. It changed him. On a fundamental level. If something like this was possible… he could not imagine the horror. He visited Amber Glow several times while the poor bastard recovered in a medical tent. They talked for hours and he learned a lot about the way crystal ponies lived. How their entire culture was being suppressed. Families living in fear that soldiers would knock on their door, take their young, stuff them into armor. Armor they might never get rid of again.

That night in Princess Celestia’s tent and over the course of his conversations with Amber Glow, he saw the face of True Evil. And for maybe the first time in his life, Iron Hoof was truly scared. This thing that wore a face, this creature that called himself ‘King Sombra’, it needed to be defeated. Put down. Asap. With whatever means were necessary.

The necklace had been Amber Glow's parting gift. A family heirloom. His wounds were treated, he had recovered enough to move him. Further back, away from the frontlines. Into a little camp where they kept their prisoners of war. Or freed slaves. It was the same at this point, really.

Iron Hoof sighed and grabbed the necklace. He put it on and shoved the crystal beneath his armor. It was a talisman of good luck, he told himself. A reminder what this fight truly was. They were fighting to free other ponies from oppression. They were not an invading force, but their helpers. Aides. Saviors. It was what every freed enemy soldier called them.

Feeling as ready as he would get, Iron Hoof stood up and left his tent. “Ready in five!” he yelled into the much larger troop tents. Everypony inside immediately started to scurry around. They had short nights. He wished he could let them sleep. He wished he could sleep for a single decent night himself. But they needed to push. This war needed to end. The sooner, the better. A philosophy Princess Celestia and Princess Luna seemed to share.

The former told him that they had not made the knowledge about the mind-control armor public because not everypony was able to deal with it. But they put it in his hooves to decide if he wanted to tell those under his command. And he had. Almost immediately. A few left. Asked to be transferred to other groups. Away from the frontlines.

Some of them had killed. Some of them had crippled. Some of them could not continue this fight, knowing that they had done. The damage they had inflicted.

Within five minutes, his current underlings all stood at attention in three neat lines in front of their tents. He walked up and down the line, inspecting their appearance. Iron Hoof cared little if their armors were muddy, if their weapons were polished, if their manes were disheveled. What was important was that their mane could not be easily grabbed. That their weapons were sharp. That their armor sat tightly. And they knew him well enough not to disappoint. Some thought it was funny how he ruled with an Iron Hoof. He did not mind the jokes at all. Everypony needed some sort of vent.

After his inspection, his eyes searched the horizon in the east. The sun was slowly coming up. A new dawn. “Alright, listen up, muddies.” Muddies. A slang term from home. However, here on the frontlines, it was used to describe those serving as the grunts. The first line of attack. Those who directly engaged the enemy. It also sounded similar to ‘buddies’, which made him favor this term even more. Because fighting side by side, he considered these ponies his brothers in arms. “We are Hammer One. Our partner groups Anvil and the other Hammers are currently preparing a few miles in that direction. In a few hours, we will engage the enemy in a pincer maneuver in an attempt to distract the enemy forces and close off their exit route. The other hammers will join, so don’t puss out, this is a large-scale effort. With any luck, it will be the last offense in this war. We will keep the enemy forces occupied so Princess Celestia and Princess Luna can engage King Sombra directly. Remember: Every one of those soldiers on the field is just a poor bastard with a mind-control helmet. If you get a chance, damage or remove them. Don’t kill them if you don’t have to. Don’t inflict crippling or long-lasting injuries if you don’t have to. Whatever damage you cause our medics will have to stitch back together. That said, remember that they don’t have a choice either. They will not show you mercy. They simply can not. Don’t plead, don’t bargain, don’t reason. If push comes to shove and it's either them or you, I expect you to save your own skin. See that as an order, if it makes you feel any better. Am I understood?”

“Sir, yes, sir!” came the bellowed response.

“Then move!” He pointed his hoof to the east. In file, they turned and moved. And in the privacy of his own mind, while walking in front of his brothers, Iron Hoof prayed. He prayed to Celestia. Not the Princess he served, but the Goddess who redefined his life. Who showed him a different path. Who freed him from a life of violence. The latter especially was a funny thought, seeing where he was, what he was wearing and what he was doing. But never before joining the Guard had he felt so at peace.

Hours later, they engaged the enemy on a wide open field. The cold northern winds howled from the mountains and made most of them wish they were back home. Dense conifer forests concealed the advance of several hammer-groups closing in to cut off the escape route. The Equestrian army lacked the numbers to defeat them, but just like in that alleyway: Defeat was not the goal they aimed for.

Armies clashed and as usual, the battle was a hectic mess of screams and shouts. Commands were bellowed, lines pushed and broken, yells of pain and anger rose in patterns of ebb and flow.

Iron Hoof studied his opponents. Their movements. Their strengths and weaknesses. Their behavior. Dodged attacks. Slashed with his sword. Charged another foe to ram his shoulder into the target. He did not defeat him. He did not have to. He staggered his target, and that was enough for one of his allies to take him down. He did not fight alone.

Off in the distance, near the Crystal Palace, another battle happened. Sometimes with spells of such raw power and magnitude that even the battling forces on the ground miles and miles away could witness them. A mixture of light and shadow. The darkness vied for dominance, but fought a losing battle. Crystal shards black as night flew past agile wings, missing their targets. Beams of concentrated sunlight bore holes into a mostly insubstantial body, only for said holes to close up again. It was hard to pin a sorcerer down who could become a living shadow at will.

“Sergeant! Something’s happening!” yelled one of his soldiers over the chaos. He pointed towards the sky in the direction of the palace.

Iron Hoof growled at him, fool that he was, and threw his blade. It cut deep into the leg of a charging enemy and toppled him. He spun around and kicked another foe in the face who saw the loss of that blade as a moment of weakness. “Concentrate, you dumbass!” he shouted.

But there was a moment. A very brief moment. It allowed him to take a look. To see a tiny speck in the sky. The Crystal Heart? Could that be? They had heard rumors of this artifact from so many of the freed captives. It seemed to rise into the sky, rotating so quickly on its vertical axis that it was almost impossible to make out its shape. Something was happening, that was a given.

Then he felt it.

A warmth emanated from his chest. Iron Hoof pulled the necklace out and saw the crystal glow. Its light grew more intense by the second. He considered ripping the necklace off. And that turned out to be a mistake: He considered.

Precious seconds spent contemplating options. A massive explosion rang in his ears. It was centered on the spinning artifact, but the effect was felt everywhere. All the enemy soldiers stopped fighting, their bodies suddenly aglow, becoming transparent almost. Crystallized.

And much to Iron Hoof's bewilderment, the same happened to him. It felt strange as a wave of magic washed over him. Through him. Changed him.

“Sergeant!” some of his underlings yelled.

Strange how muffled their voices sounded. How distant.

“What is happening?!” another voice cried out in confusion.

He felt light. His eyes glazed over, his body floaty. And indeed, he could not even feel the ground beneath his hooves anymore.

“Retreat!” yelled a booming voice. The Royal Canterlot Voice. Luna’s voice, he vaguely remembered. Even his mind started to slip. Why would Luna order a full retreat though? What was happening with the Crystal Heart? With King Sombra? With him?

Then, darkness.

The Everfree Forest. A scar on Equestrian soil. An infamous hideout for scoundrels and villains alike. A breeding ground for monsters of all kinds. And currently the best spot he could think of to lay low after the disaster that was his last job.

The forest was dense. The gnarled and twisted trees kept curious gazes at bay. Even with his campfire illuminating the surrounding area. The fire kept some of the creatures away. Gnats, for example. And timberwolves. But Iron Hoof cared more about the gnats. With a pack of timberwolves he could deal. And their stinking breath gave them away early enough. Gnats on the other hoof were just devious.

He bit down on his stick and rearranged it above the fire. Three potatoes were on the other end, right above the flames. They should be ready in a couple of minutes.

Iron Hoof still wore his guard armor. It was the best piece of protection he had ever worn. And sometimes, on some days, he told himself that this was the only reason why he kept it. Why he still wore it. Especially here in the Everfree Forest, one was better off never getting out of armor.

But deep down, he knew the truth. Deep down, there was still a spark of pride. A piece of the guard who donned this armor to stand for what was important. But he did not recognize the Equestria he returned to. The soldiers had grown fat and soft. There was peace. All-encompassing peace, as it seemed at first. He did not recognize this world. But he did realize that it probably did not need him anymore. He was a relic. A remnant of a more brutal past.

His ears, still trained from years of war, swiveled towards a source of a different sound. Different, because forests were never quiet, especially not at night. Something moved in the dark. A twig snapped under weight. Something was coming closer.

He remained calm. Outwardly still. While he took stock of his options. Escape routes. The position of his supplies, saddlebags, tent. Where his weapon was. The direction the intruder came from in relation to how quickly he could reach his sword.

“Your name is Iron Hoof?” a voice from the dark spoke. Perfect Ponish. The voice was surprisingly gentle. Male, middle-aged. A strange accent. Not Equestrian, as far as he could tell. But then again, that might have changed over the past one thousand years as well.

Just thinking about that number made him feel old and tired.

“Sure is,” he replied to the darkness.

“Why?”

Iron Hoof snorted in amusement. This did not sound like an opponent, nor like a beast. He had danced with chimeras in the past. They were fierce creatures, clever and manipulative if need be. But never did they attempt to be charming. This guy, whoever he was, tried. It was frightening how effortless this voice made him want to like him.

In reply to the question, he raised one of his front hooves roughly in the direction of the voice. A muddy silver horseshoe shone brightly in the campfire's light. “Because I excel at hoof-to-hoof combat. I’ve been told I have a wicked uppercut.”

“Hmmm,” the voice responded in doubt. “That doesn’t sound very convincing.”

He snorted again and shrugged his shoulders. “You don’t pay me enough to be convincing. Or to satiate your idle curiosity. Hey, come to think of it, you don’t pay me at all.”

Silence. A good few seconds. Even the forest itself seemed to quiet down for a moment. “It is true then? You are for hire?”

Well, well, well. How did his old buddy Sizzle keep saying? Opportunity strikes at odd times. Here he was, recovering from a semi-disaster. And another job offer just happened to stumble upon him. Interesting. “I am,” he replied. “But I don’t think you can afford my service, oh mysterious voice in the dark.”

“Oh I can pay, believe me.” As if to prove his statement, a faint golden glow lit up in the treeline. And a little item silently floated over to him. For a fraction of a second, Iron Hoof could make out the sharp jawline of a muzzle. With the campfire providing the only light, it was impossible to tell the coat color, but that mattered little. A unicorn, apparently. He had no issues working with dragons or griffons or anyone else as long as they paid properly, but that guideline alone often proved controversial already. As if mercenaries were just gifts, public services.

The item his potential new employer offered was one he immediately recognized though. And Iron Hoof shook his head. “I’m not an idiot. I am not going to touch that.”

The pendant on the necklace had a unique and easily recognizable shape. A triangular form with a polished rhomboid ruby in the middle. Metal wings of black feathers sprouted left and right, with red highlights. And a stylized unicorn head emerged from the top, with another red highlight for an eye.

An alicorn amulet.

“Oh? So you know what this is. How interesting,” the voice pondered.

He remembered only a single encounter with a creature wearing one of these. The poor sod had been twisted by the corrupting magic beyond recognition. It had taken them weeks to track him down, and days of continued battle with several severe injuries to take him out. It was a case of pure luck that no casualties had been caused.

“If you try to trick me again, we will both have a very unfortunate night,” he threatened his guest.

“Fret not, boy,” the voice patronized him. “It is only crafted to look like one of those. As an additional security measure, if you will.” Seeing as Iron Hoof looked rather unconvinced, the item floated back to the treeline from whence it had emerged. A click was heard as the clasp of the necklace closed around the unicorn's neck. The ruby glowed faintly as it activated. No immediate transformation took place. No evil laughter bubbled forth.

“What does it do?” Iron Hoof asked. He did not like taking unnecessary risks. But the fact of the matter was: He needed the money. And if this stallion wanted him dead, he could probably have taken other options than offer him a cursed amulet.

“It accesses a gateway to an extradimensional space.” The explanation fell on deaf ears, it seemed. A sigh escaped from the treeline. Ignoramus. “It opens a door to a treasure room. Which holds your payment.” To further prove the point — that the amulet itself was harmless — he demonstrated its function by opening said door.

Iron Hoof stared in a mixture of awe and disbelief as a faintly glowing door frame appeared out of nowhere. The wooden texture reminded him of oakwood. The door itself was brighter, like birch. It opened on its own and indeed, there was a room behind it. He got up and walked around the door, only to notice once more how utterly weird magic was. The door had no backside. The door seemed to be fully two-dimensional, in fact. And as soon as he crossed over to the other side of the door, there simply was no door. Nothing was visible from the other side. He could even put his hoof through the point where he knew the door was.

However, Iron Hoof knew that this demonstration did not serve to teach him about the quirks of unicorn magic. He dared to glance into the ‘extradimensional space’, but hesitated to set hoof in. What he could see was a plain room. A concrete box, more or less. But it was filled with bits and shiny trinkets. Chalices of silver, with embedded gemstones. A crown or two. Several golden horseshoes. A peytral, crafted entirely of emerald, from the looks of it.

He whistled quietly. “That’s enough to steamroll an entire campaign,” he noted.

“My plans have been interfered with,” the voice noted with disdain. A moment later, a defeated sigh followed. “But I cannot respond with force. I need something more subtle. You will be my campaign. Do we have a deal?”

Iron Hoof still marveled at the incredible treasure hoard. And that was exactly the term that tickled his mind. A treasure hoard. “This could be a dragon hoard,” he stated.

“It is,” the voice admitted nonchalantly.

That… made Iron Hoof hesitate even further. Messing with dragons was dangerous business. Especially when their hoards were involved. “And the dragon this hoard belongs to?”

“Will not trouble you at all,” the voice coldly replied. The implications were chilling indeed. A unicorn capable of subduing a dragon. Depending on the size and age of the dragon, that was entirely possible. But this hoard looked like it belonged to a huge one. And that was a rather uncomfortable statement about the might of his new employer.

Because there was no way he could say ‘no’ to that offer.

It bewildered him a little why a powerful spellcaster like this guy would need the aid of somepony like him. But he did not get paid to ask questions.

“Do we have a deal?” the voice asked again.

Iron Hoof stared at the hoard. Then at his little, rundown camp. His sword could use a good polish. He needed to replace a few of the leather straps on his armor. He had meant to do that two weeks ago, but funds were tight. He sighed. “Sure. What now? And what should I call you?”

The charming voice seemed content. Satisfied. “Good, good. You may call me Wildfire,” the voice instructed. A click was heard and the ‘alicorn amulet’ floated back over into a waiting hoof. “I will send a couple of recruits your way. Work with them. You are a leader without anypony to lead. Let us change that. Instructions for your first task will follow shortly. We will be in touch. Farewell, sergeant.”

Hearing his rank made Iron Hoof grimace. He had not told anypony about his past ever since he returned a couple of years ago. His employer was gone. He could feel it. This looming presence had lifted. Yet he still felt strangely naked. At his new employer's mercy. His eyes trailed down to the amulet in his hoof. He hobbled over to his log, sat down and stared into the fire with a deep sigh. “What have you gotten yourself into this time?”

Knee-Jerk Reaction

“Dawn, what the fuck…?!” Those words simply slipped past my usually more restrained mouth once Spike lifted the blindfold. My eyes quickly adjusted to the bright daylight again and I saw an impressively transformed Greenwood. Those words circled around in my head like annoying little birdies while I took in the scenery.

Everyone from our camp, including Dawn, was present. They all held their breath and waited for a more refined reaction than my initial outburst. But goodness me, what was I supposed to tell them? I drew blank after blank. It was so… impressive.

The entire camp was now surrounded by a massive palisade. Entire tree trunks had been sharpened to a point and rammed into the ground. One next to the other, to form a barricade around us. The wall of logs was ten feet high, maybe even thirteen. Several small ramps led up to walkways of thick and sturdy looking planks. The walkways were just high enough up so that the palisade could still offer some protection against projectiles if the one up on the wall ducked behind it.

And I noticed a few torches had been placed on the wall as well. Regular ones, interspersed with a few of my enchanted sapphire torches. They must have rearranged the torches along the roads to free up a few. But I had not noticed any issues when I walked here either. Careful planning had been going into this, as well as a swift and decisive execution.

And the wall was not even the only thing that caught my eye. They had erected not one, but several new houses. All in the same lovely, homey style as the ones in Ponyville.

And to finish it all off, there were these things now. They floated. And moved. “What are those?” I asked nopony in particular.

A few glances were shot in Dawn's direction, but the apparent crafter behind these things remained shy about it, so Hefty of all ponies was the one to speak up first. “He called them ‘golems’. As far as I understand it, they’re basically animated stones with no will or sentience of their own. They’ve been mighty useful these few days already. What you see around you would not have been possible without their help, even though I have to say, they can be denser than the trees.” A few of the others chimed in with Hefty's chuckle. Apparently there had been some amusing little incidents.

At that point, Dawn cleared his throat and took the laughter with a good-natured smile while he commanded one of these golems to the forefront. They looked rough. As if somepony had just taken a really good pickaxe, swung it at solid stone and took the first few larger pieces that fell out. They were vaguely humanoid in shape. In my mind, I compared them to Spike. Though they had neither tail nor wings. Or legs, for that matter. They did not walk. They floated around. Hovered. Their torso, arms, hands, even fingers — all pieces of rough stone of varying sizes and lengths. I shot Dawn a questioning glance and he merely nodded, so I stepped closer to the golem and put a hoof against his lower torso. It actually offered resistance. Which was… honestly, I had no idea what I had been expecting. It floated. So maybe I expected it to behave like a balloon. As if an invisible string tied it to the ground and if I gave it a tap, it would just float away until the string pulled it back. But no. That thing stood there. Hovered there. Whatever.

The arms were not connected to the shoulders. Its hands were not connected to its arms. Nothing was connected. It made sense to me — rock being a less than ideal substance for joints and all that. It was just a floating mass of stone, capable of moving in recognizable patterns. It was fascinating.

And atop its torso, past the missing neck, sat one of my enchanted sapphires.

“So that’s what you were working on,” I mumbled. The stone seemed different. It took me a moment to realize that teeny-tiny glyphs were carved into the smooth surface of the gemstone. These things probably gave these golems their life. Or whatever animating force they had.

“I don’t want to disappoint anypony here,” I started with an awkward chuckle. “But would it be alright if I asked a few more questions about these? I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Some of the others snickered as well and Dawn once more took it in stride. He smiled wryly and nodded. “I am sure that there will be no question I have not heard in the past few days already. So maybe let me start?” I quickly granted his request with a nod. “Yes, these creatures are indeed called ‘golems’. Graphite was so kind as to help me gather the pieces that make up their bodies. The sapphires you provided for my research were of great value and I used them as best as I could. These four golems are the result of said research.”

“What happened to the fifth stone?” I cut in. It was rude and I was about to apologize, but Dawn did not seem to mind at all.

“As much as I would like to pretend otherwise, I am not infallible,” he replied with a dry chuckle. “There is always some wear and tear one has to account for. Especially in quickened research. That said, I am quite satisfied with the result of this endeavor. These golems will be operational for as long as their gemstones remain intact and undamaged. That does make their ‘heads’ a prime target for attack and sabotage, but their inherent enchantment should discourage any wild animals and seeing as we all work together and pull on the same rope here, sabotage should be out of the question as well. In addition, they are not designed as warriors and make for terrible defenders, I assure you. They were constructed as an additional workforce. They do not drink, eat or sleep, they do not tire, experience pain or complain, they are strictly non-sentient. Or, as your draconic friend here called it: mindless. Apparently that is a more widespread term used by a rule system you and him are intricately familiar with? That said, seeing how the village progressed in that short amount of time, I again see a need to emphasize how satisfied I am with the result of my work.”

“We get it, you’re proud,” Graphite cut in with a chuckle.

“And they were incredibly helpful!” Hefty added.

“And you have every reason to be proud,” I agreed. Dawn lowered his head in gratitude and a modest smile graced his lips. With that, I turned my attention to the golem once again. They were animated by magic. They moved via magic, they kept their bodies together via magic. It was hard to gauge how strong such a being was.

“Very,” Honey suddenly spoke up.

I blinked. “Come again?”

She chuckled and nodded towards the golem. “You were asking yourself: How strong is that thing? Right? Because I did that when I saw them the first time. Let me put it like this: You see these tree trunks that make up the palisade? We sure didn’t have the strength to ram a whole log into the ground like that. Aurora already had plans and such. Digging lots of holes or trenches to lower them in, then fill up the spaces in between. The point became mute when Dawn ensured us that this would be an unnecessary step. These things are scary strong. That said, they aren’t the brightest, as mentioned. They fulfill whatever task you give them. Without thinking or stopping.”

Graphite sighed. “I can attest to that. They need constant supervision and clear and simple instructions, otherwise their non-existent brain gets itself tied in a knot.”

“Which is exactly what I told you about their handling,” Dawn defended his creations.

Both Honey and Graphite exchanged short glances accompanied by smiles and the former shook her head. “Don’t worry, Dawn. We’re very grateful for the help. Nitpicks don’t change anything. I just thought it might make sense telling him about their limitations as well.”

It was the first time that my rampant euphoria took a nosedive and I considered what could go wrong with these… well, toys, basically. Tools. “There haven’t been any accidents, right? No injuries?” I asked in worry.

Honey was the one to answer me. “Nothing serious. Hefty told them to pile up tree trunks according to a sample he left out for them. He forgot to tell them to stop over night. They built up a large heap of them and then gravity said: Nope. The trunks rolled away. No one was hurt, but a part of the newly erected palisade was demolished. It was quick and easy to fix and we all learned a valuable lesson, but it did postpone our work for the next house and the well.”

I nodded absentmindedly. I imagined these golems carrying entire trees around. I had to wonder why Dawn was so convinced they would make for poor defenders. Maybe because of their lack of intelligence, but that would be counterbalanced with precise instructions, as they had all said. Ideally by someone who was experienced with these things. Maybe it would be a smart idea to give one of these golems to Spike, so that he could train using them in a defensive way?

“Stop scheming, we ain’t done showing off yet!” Graphite barged into my thoughts with a grin.

I chuckled and raised a hoof. “Alright, alright! Please, continue.”

She nodded in satisfaction. “Follow me, then.” The entire group moved with us as Graphite led me to a spot close to the backend of our camp. And since the borders of our camp were now so well-defined, it was a lot easier to tell where the backend even was.

Even from a good distance away, I had already managed to make out the stone structure. It was a specific and distinct shape. Hard to mix up with something else. The outer ashlar shell was probably supported by an inner wall of rubble stone. Thick, sturdy walls to keep the heat in.

“This… is our attempt to help you help us,” Graphite proudly announced as we stopped close to the small building. “Spike told us you feel useless sometimes.” I shot him a death glare, but he merely shrugged it off with a happy grin. “And you told us that when it came to the creation of these enchanted torches, you were responsible for the smithing part, right? So we built you a smithy. Or, well, we tried. It’s quite an amateurish thing as far as I know. More like an outside furnace. You won’t be able to do fancy work in here. But it should be good enough to get us started on a couple of minor things, right?”

I chuckled and walked around the forge. “No reason to put down your hard work. I have no idea what I will be able to do with this, but we’ll find out in time.” They really had outdone themselves. Neither of these ponies — or dragons or griffons — were smiths. Aurora told me she had quick-studied architecture to help out with building houses, but I doubted that her reference literature offered any advice on building forges.

It was small. It would be difficult to generate enough heat, despite how stout the walls looked. The inside of the furnace was tiny, compared to the exterior shell of the build. The front opening was small and secured with a metal door. A thin chimney rose from the main chamber. And I noticed a few crates nearby. Their nods encouraged me to open them up and much to my surprise, one was half-filled with coal and the other with metal scraps. The latter especially looked vaguely familiar, like the waste material from that hardware store in Ponyville where I used to buy metal for our smithy in the castle. “Did you already find a deposit?” I asked Graphite anyway. After all, it was possible, right?

She giggled and shook her head. “I wish. I tried, but the ground doesn’t want to play ball yet. We went to Ponyville and bought a bunch of supplies to get you started. We hope that by the time you burn through all of that, we will have an alternate source. And yes, Aurora calculated prices and such to make sure that buying the things we want you to craft would not be cheaper.”

“Niiice,” I replied and closed the crates again. “Then let me quickly say: Firstly, Spike, I will never forgive you for your insolent betrayal!” I walked over to him and hugged the big dumb lizard. My buddy. I felt his muscles tense as he quietly laughed, then he replied with a crushing hug of his own. Once we pulled apart again, I turned around to face Graphite. “Secondly, thank you. All of you!” I looked around one. “This is… this is great. I would not have mentioned it myself. Because frankly, me feeling useless shouldn’t be any of your business or worries. But I’m sure this will help and I’m immensely grateful!”

There was a brief lull of silence, suddenly broken by Derpy as she failed to contain her excitement any longer. “Can we show him our house now?”

“Houses,” Roseluck corrected with a wry smile. “But I see no reason why we would postpone it any longer. After all… how did Graphite put it? ‘We ain’t done showing off yet’.” Roseluck winked in my direction. I chuckled and was about to answer when Derpy suddenly appeared beside me, put her wing over my withers and ushered me forward, towards the new houses.

There were four of them. Four and a half technically, as one seemed to be half-finished. The framework stood, the foundation walls were in place, but the entire rest was missing. The other four were finished and from what I could tell after a quick glance, already inhabited. They stood a decent chuck away from the carpentry, probably so that the noise of Hefty’s and Honey’s work would not bother the residents too much. And all four stood in a row.

The first true road of Greenwood.

Of course there had been a road prior to our efforts of colonizing the Everfree. The road that led from Ponyville straight to the ruins of the castle. But we started to branch off now. The carpentry was to the left. The houses branched off to the right. My smithy was along the old main road, near the exit to the castle ruins, but I also spotted that half-finished well Honey had mentioned in what I remembered Aurora planned as our central meeting spot and future market square.

A well. A smithy. A carpentry. Four houses. A warehouse. It was not much, sure. But in my head, it certainly qualified to be called a village rather than just a camp. We had a proper village now. The thought made me smile so wide that my cheeks ached. Greenwood was a village now.

“What do you think?” Derpy asked.

Her question pulled me back from my reverie. I leaned a little into her, enjoyed her close proximity, the warm, soft embrace of her gentle feathery wings. And I took my time to take in every detail I could spot. The timber-framed houses sported the same thatched roofs we had in Ponyville. Even the slightly overhanging upper floors were just perfect — as if somepony had taken a bunch of houses from home and planted them out here in the forest. They had even painted the window frames, door frames and flower boxes in a modest pink. On one hoof, it made me yearn to be home so, so much. On the other hoof, it made me feel at home ever so slightly. It was a weird mixture.

Following a random idea, I made a little game out of my answer. “The first one is Roseluck’s house,” I divined.

“I wonder what gave it away,” came Roselucks deadpan voice before most of them laughed quietly. All the flower boxes on the ground floor sported roses. There was no way they had grown so fast, so I assumed Roseluck had gone back to Ponyville to fetch some of her roses from her old home.

“Who else?” asked Aurora with a mischievous grin.

I studied the house closer. Compared them to the other houses. The upper story windows were a tiny bit larger. With reinforced frames. And they were the only windows with shutters. In case the glass breaks. I snickered. “Derpy.” As if I had caught her with her hoof in the cookie jar, she tensed up a little and therefore squeezed me with her wing. “And if Derpy and Roseluck live there, so do Kaleb and Doctor Whooves.”

“Quite right, my friend,” the Doctor admitted. “Good observation and good deduction.”

Wasn’t that hard, I mentally objected, but I remained silent and simply smiled happily. I expected Derpy to usher me forward again, into the house to proudly show me what they had done with the place, but much to my surprise, she instead pushed me over and we awkwardly stepped sideways until we landed in front of the second house.

I quickly scanned for telltale signs and snorted once I found them. “Spike and Gabby.” The crowd cheered again.

“I wonder how he could tell so quickly,” Gabby murmured in the background.

I heard Spike snicker in reply. My eyes trailed up the building once more, to the rather impressively sized nest that sat square on the roof. Yeah. I wonder. I chuckled, shook my head and was quickly moved down the line once more.

“Wow, it’s getting harder and harder,” I commented with a wry grin.

“Nopony likes a smartass,” Graphite hissed. After a few tense seconds, we both giggled briefly. The lower foundation walls of her home were reinforced. The stone was thicker, the walls reached higher and the whole building just seemed… buff, somehow? It was a really weird association for a building. It was not that much different from the other three houses, but somehow it just had this aura of ‘don’t mess with me!’ I had noticed something similar in years past when I accompanied Pinkie to a visit of her sister Maud. Her home, albeit a normal residence like any other, had instilled that very same feeling. Maybe that was some kind of earth pony magic. Or it was a trait of the Pie family. Either way, their homes always gave off the impression of being a fortress, built to endure the ages.

That left the fourth house.

With Hefty and Honey living in the upper story of their carpentry, that left only two members of our current group homeless. Aurora and Dawn. And I suspected that the latter would have politely declined any invitation to have a home in the midst of all of us and much preferred the ruins as his lonesome shelter. Aurora on the other hoof came after me. She was not as much an avid hater of camping as I was, but she very much preferred a decent bed if she could have one. Plus: Up until now, she had worked under open sky, more or less. A table and a few paperweights were far from ideal conditions for her work.

I looked around until I spotted my little sunshine in the small crowd. “Yours?” The flower boxes around the house were empty for now. No nests on top, no reinforced parts, nothing that made this house stand out from all the others in Ponyville. And it made sense. Seeing how similar we sometimes were, Aurora too had difficulties placing roots down. She was slow to acclimate to a new environment. I had no doubts that she would make this hers in time. Even if she had no intentions of staying here forever.

“Ours,” she corrected with a smile.

Our house. The ever so slightly painful grin returned. A small, almost imperceptible tremble ran up my legs, a slight shiver went down my spine as a mild flash brought forth memories from other cycles. It was not the overwhelming onslaught of sensory input I was used to by now, but rather a mild trickle of fond memories.

Our house. It had been different in each and every cycle. Sometimes it was a massive three-story-house mostly crafted from stone. Sometimes it was the rebuilt castle itself. Sometimes it was an enormous hollow tree. Or a bakery. Or a workshop. Or this. A half-timber house with pink framework and a thatched roof.

“Are you alright?”

Derpy's voice was so quiet. For a brief moment, it even seemed far, far away. I opened my eyes again, surprised how I had failed to notice them closing in the first place. Derpy wore a warm, genuine smile. I lowered my head. She understood without a word and met me halfway. Forehead against forehead, I breathed a deep sigh. “It’s perfect,” I mumbled.

She giggled quietly. We pulled apart and I raised my head again. I wanted to thank them. So, so much. But I had already done so. Multiple times. I would do it again in time, until they would tell me to stop, to shut up, that it was enough already. And knowing myself, I would continue for a while after that point. Because I was grateful. More than words could ever convey.

They helped me build Greenwood. They helped me set things right. Greenwood needed to be there. It always existed, it needed to exist. It was my home. My safe harbor. My focal point. Even if Greenwood's role might have unexpectedly changed this time around, it was still massively important to me.

And they had done so much work. For me. For this. They had made it possible.

“Right, so, are we going to show him the slight caveat now or are we still trying to keep that hidden?” Graphite burst the bubble with a cheery tone I would rather have expected from her aunt.

“Caveat?” I echoed.

A few of them chuckled awkwardly and Spike took it upon himself to enlighten me. “You’ve probably already seen the well. It’s not done yet. We hoped to get it done in time, buuut… we underestimated how long digging a really deep hole takes. We also hoped to get the last house ready. In our defense, though: It would have been ready just in time were it not for a freak storm we had two days ago. Derpy and Kaleb had their hooves full and work wasn’t really possible while lightning strikes occurred with such a ridiculous frequency. And then the rain came. And—“

I chuckled and put a hoof to his chest. “It’s alright. You don’t have to explain. You guys already did so much more than I ever expected! Your surprise is more than successful! All of you should be proud of what you managed to accomplish in such a short time! I mean, just look around you! You transformed our awful camping trip into the dangerous woods into a little fort, with a village inside. An actual village! This isn’t just Camp Greenwood anymore. It’s Greenwood. The actual town. It’s just… there’s no words for this. No words to describe how proud I am of all of you. How grateful I am.”

I was rambling. Worse, I spun in circles. Grateful, grateful, grateful. They got the message the first time. But my head was stuck on that part and failed time and time again to move past it. Lucky for me, they realized that and Spike gave me a little nudge towards the door. With Derpy still holding her wing over me and Aurora on my other side, I stepped up to the door, took a deep breath and opened it.

Behind the entrance door was a small staircase leading up. A couple of other doors led away to other rooms and Aurora quickly explained the layout to me. The bathroom, she explicitly emphasized, was not to be used yet. None of them were. They had yet to establish a sewer system, so the toilets did not lead anywhere yet. And for the time being, they were of a rather simple design.

That said, she was hopeful to make them functional within a few weeks, as the golems could burrow through the underground a lot easier and it would be less dangerous for them than it was for any pony.

While I tried to listen well, it was difficult not to get distracted by the thick smell of cut wood. I loved that smell. I remembered those first days after my arrival, when Spike and I conspired to refurnish the castle with bookshelves and such. Stonewood had done such a lovely job, especially considering how quickly he and his stallions worked. And in the days after, I found myself milling around the hallways just to breathe in the marvelous scent.

Now I stood in my own house and felt that sensation again. I just wanted to stand here, close my eyes and breathe in. And the wooden planks of the floor felt new as well. Their texture was a little rougher than the wooden floors in Ponyville, which had seen use for decades already. Every imperfection was already polished or blunted or grinded away. I doubted that I would be able to get a splinter in my hoof. Neither Hefty nor Honey were perfectionists, not in the same manner Rarity was, but they still had high standards for their work and would never allow for such an occurrence.

But just standing on these new, fresh floorboards felt awesome. And I giggled silently as I imagined Rainbow giving me a hoofbump for my eloquent way of expressing my current experience.

“Dad?” I snapped out of it and stared at my daughter with wide eyes. She sighed, albeit with a indulgent smile. “Right. I’m going to repeat that later.”

I grinned sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I mean, we are all glad that you like it so much!” she assured me.

I looked back and indeed saw all of the others smiling and grinning. And they were strangely close to the entrance. “Are we… all going in?” I asked.

“Of course. We have prepared a little ‘welcome back’-party,” Aurora revealed. “And we decided to host it in our living room.”

She opened one of the doors leading out of the staircase and trotted inside. I followed and noticed another ‘feature’ of our home. It was very… spacious. Due to a lack of furniture. That said, the living room had three tables in it, one of which I recognized immediately as the one Aurora had been working on so far. Which led me to believe that these were all the tables we currently had. In Greenwood.

And on top of them was a grandiose display of sweets.

“Ehrm… is that…?” I asked and pointed towards the tables while all the others slowly filtered into the living room as well.

“That’s the other half!” Gabby excitedly chirped.

“The… other half?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “Yepp. Remember when you went to Ponyville with the cart and came back with waaay too many pies and cookies? You told us you bought half of Sugarcube Corner’s stock. So we went back and bought the other half.”

I stared at the massive heap of future diabetes reasons. Three tables full of exactly what Gabby had announced: All the various delights one could find at Sugarcube Corner. I could not help but laugh. It was such a silly notion. We bought two halves of Sugarcube Corner, therefore, we bought Sugarcube Corner. “Maybe we could ask Pound and Pumpkin if they want to extend the reach of their bakery? They could split up, one of them could move here and open up a second Sugarcube Corner…”

I noticed how several eyes immediately lit up due to what had initially been a stupid, silly idea. But they took that idea and ran with it. “We could coax them in with a good pitch, I bet!” Spike said.

“The camp is stable for now, we have the torches and now a decent wall to keep us safe,” Hefty added.

“The village will probably grow quickly. If they invest early, they get prime real estate. And it would be such a huge boost for morale to have an actual bakery!” Aurora chimed in.

I tried to get a word in once or twice, but quickly gave up. They developed that random funny thought into an actual plan within minutes. It was astounding to witness. They even managed to make it sound reasonable. And if successful, we would have a bakery. Our own Sugarcube Corner.

It reminded me of something else.

“Oh, shoot! I was so preoccupied with all the things you did that I completely failed to tell you guys what I did!” I sputtered.

“Well we didn’t leave you much room to say anything, to be fair,” Derpy offered with a giggle.

They fell quiet, their plans put on hold for the moment, and I slipped into the center of attention again. Gosh, I hate that spot. “So uh… the mission was a success,” I started and immediately received a round of cheers and applause. “I managed to secure funding for your project. There are a few caveats on my front as well though. I will explain the minute details later, but the long and short of it is that Pristine, Rarity’s daughter and co-owner of Carousel Boutique, invested in us. She wants us to build a shop for her. And keep the competition in check for a while. And Periwinkle Lulamoon invested as well. Her parents are some hotshots from Las Pegasus. She wants us to build a proper tavern for her — sorry, an inn! — and she intends to move here as well. That said, she wants to work closely with you, Aurora. She has her own ideas about what her tavern should look like or something. And Doctor Caballeron — yes, that one — invested as well. He would like to be our intermediary when it comes to import and export. And finally, the crown itself invested. Princess Celestia argued that the development of Greenwood is in the best interests of Equestria as a whole and as far as I can tell, Princess Luna just thinks we’re a bunch of lunatics and wants to support that.”

Once I ended my summary, they all cheered and hollered yet again. Maybe because of the joke there at the end, I could not tell for sure. I blushed heavily as they all moved in for a massive group hug. At this point, we were not just the plucky adventurers anymore. Not just a bunch of thick-headed settlers. We were successful pioneers. Frontliners, conquering the chaotic land of the Everfree Forest for the betterment of Equestria.

A solid minute after everyone got clumped together, we parted again. “So, uh… the house seems nice. Albeit a little empty,” I commented.

A round of laughter followed. Hefty actually confirmed that these three tables were almost all furniture that currently existed in Greenwood. “Well, we do have beds,” Aurora remarked with a teasing glint in her eyes. “It is just the rest that was deemed unnecessary luxury for now.”

She knew me well. She knew what buttons to push. “Wait, we have beds?!” I blurted out. And here I thought the day could not get any better. “Oh my gosh, I love every single one of you!” Another round of laughter exploded and we finally decided to eat something before the cookies got a chance to get stale. There was probably some tummy-ache incoming, but I couldn't care less. We drank the water they had hauled in buckets from the river all the way over here as a replacement for the usual punch Pinkie offered at her parties. We gorged ourselves on delectable sweets. And we talked and were merry for hours.

It was a good day.

Later that evening, I stood outside my house. It was still a strange thought. Alien.

The sun had set more than an hour ago and one after another, all the party guests trickled away. Much to my surprise, Dawn was the last to go. I had expected he would take the first opportunity to excuse himself, but no. Here he was, mingling with the rest of us. He kept to himself every now and then, preferring to stand aside and watch the party unfold, but after a couple of minutes, he threw himself back into the social interactions.

It seemed like a small miracle all on its own to me.

“Thank you again,” I said quietly.

Dawn lifted his right front hoof and shielded his stifled yawn further. “You are quite welcome, my friend. I assume that you are going to be busy now, are you not? With all the new required buildings and the well, the sewer construction and your smithy.”

Without another hint, I knew what he was getting at. And I would have none of that. So I shook my head and smiled. “No, no, no. Don’t you worry your silly little head. It’s Cunning Can after all, not Cunning Can’t, right?” Dawn rolled his eyes, but ultimately chimed in with my silly chuckle. His gaze drifted upwards, towards another beautiful night sky. Luna always put on the best spectacles. And since we both shared this appreciation, I stepped up to his side and we both sat down on our haunches. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Marvelous indeed,” he agreed. “The night sky has changed so much over the many, many years of its existence. Sometimes I look up and see these constellations and I do not even recognize this world as my own. Yet I do not feel lost or scared by it either. It is the beauty of art that keeps me enthralled and soothes my nerves whenever these moments come by. This up there, it is her canvas. And with light alone, she paints works of beauty and awe. She tells stories for those willing to watch.”

“Have you ever met Luna?” I asked and lowered my gaze towards him. His admiration went deeper than I had expected. Maybe it even had something to do with his lost love?

“I have not,” he answered, but kept his gaze up there.

“Would you want to change that?” I offered.

His shoulders rose in silence. His deep sigh escaped without any noise. “I am deeply grateful for that offer. Your… friendship and generosity humble me. But I do not think it wise to arrange for such a meeting.” Dawn finally lowered his gaze as well. And truly, there was warmth in his eyes. For the first time it seemed, there was actual, genuine warmth. Not his cool brilliance, his rational, vast intellect, his calculating mind. No. Friendship. He seemed a lot less guarded than usual. “I am looking forward to tomorrow's reading session, friend.”

I grinned and poked his shoulder with my hoof. “Are you now, eh?”

Dawn rolled his eyes dramatically and stood up. He quickly dusted himself off. “Have a good night, Dreamwalker.”

I chuckled in reply. “Good night, Dawn. See you tomorrow.”

I remained outside for a few more minutes and watched him go. He left through the backdoor of the wall. So far, we had two gates. One out front, towards Ponyville, and one out the back, towards the ruins. Both were sturdy enough to halt an assault for a while. Heavy wooden bolts locked them from the inside at night. And since Dawn had to open the gate to get out, it fell to me to close it again after him.

Then I went back inside. The house was silent and dark. Aurora had gone to sleep already. I walked around the ground floor for a while. Walked through empty rooms. The tables were still there, of course. I tried to imagine what could be. What could have been. A few shelves. Cupboards. Closets. A couch. Chairs. A fully stocked pantry. Some carpets. Curtains for the windows.

And bric-a-brac of course. So much of it. It was usually those small pieces of memorabilia that transformed a house into a home.

What could I use here? The first ever photo of Stardust maybe? Framed of course. On that wall over there. But why keep it at one? Why not all the photos? Why not an entire wall dedicated to my family? I had dozens of framed photographs. Stardust, Aurora, Arcana, Sunny, Luna, Twilight. The Inner Circle. If I were to decide to hang every family photo, I could easily run out of walls. In this entire house. Twilight Velvet and Night Light, Cadance and Shining Armor, the extended family. And it was so easy to extend it even further. Including Applejack in my family felt natural. Rainbow. Pinkie. Fluttershy. Derpy. And if I picked one Apple, I picked all the Apples.

Depending on perspective, my family was huuuge. And fifty years was a long, long time.

However, my children were… old. Not old-old. But certainly old enough to live their own lives. They had jobs and families and responsibilities and were not those cute little foals that puked all over my back. Well, less cute in those precise moments. But still.

I put a hoof to the wall. To the spot where I imagined hanging that very first one.

I remembered what Roseluck had told me. Ever since that day, it seemed this conversation kept haunting me. We would bear witness. We would watch them grow old and die. We would suffer until… until what? I still refused to believe that we would grow accustomed to it at some point. I still hoped that we never would.

But the thought of Stardust stung. My little colt. He had been such an adventurous foal. Always curious. Always up for another exciting trip. I still saw that very colt in his eyes sometimes. Would I still see him when his muzzle was wrinkled and his mane grayed? When his eyes were hazed and his mind clouded?

I shuddered.

It had been inevitable, to a certain degree. After every party, there was a choice. Either go to bed before the crash hits, or live through it. I had not been fast enough to do the former, so I was damned to do the latter.

The adrenaline receded. The exhaustion hit. And with the tiredness came the flood of unwelcome, nagging thoughts and doubts. I walked through an empty house. I was supposed to call it mine. Just a few minutes ago, I did just that. But I knew better. It was a house. It was not even Aurora’s, since she did not intend to stay here forever either.

At some point, Greenwood was done. We already reached the stage where we could call it a village. All I had to do now was… what, exactly? What else was required of me? I had secured the town's funding. I had brought together a bunch of ponies — and others — to establish the foundation. And as far as I could tell, it was a solid one. Greenwood would thrive, given time.

What else was there for me to do?

At which point was I allowed to go back home? Where I truly belonged in this cycle? Home to Ponyville, to the castle, to Twilight and Sunny and Luna and my families?

The answer was obvious to me, but uncomfortable. I would have loved nothing more than to shy away from it. But I was granted no such luxury. I had to face whatever would try to destroy this town. Because there would be something. Or somepony. Or someone.

Greenwood faced trials and tribulations. Always. It was as much a constant of all cycles as the existence of this town itself. Something would happen.

I sighed, lowered my hoof and walked to and then up the stairs. I tried to be sneaky as to not wake up Aurora as I moved past the door leading to her bedroom. Even in the dark house I still noticed that she had already decorated her door somewhat. Without any light, it was just a dark gray image on an even darker gray door. Maybe she used the pink paint they had bought for all the frames.

A stylized sun high up in the sky. Two clouds left and right. A few waves, probably symbolizing wind. I traced one of those waves with the edge of my hoof and smiled. “Have a good night, sunshine,” I quietly whispered.

And with that, I went to bed.

The next couple of days were a blur. With the golems in tow, our workforce was doubled for almost all tasks. Aurora sometimes complained that she barely managed to keep up with the blueprints. And we all agreed that that was a good problem to have.

I found back to my routine as my mood swings subsided and evened out. I got up in the morning and even managed to not scold myself for getting out of bed so late again. Most of our group were morning creatures. I decidedly was not.

I prepared breakfast, ate with Spike for company as his job mostly involved sitting around and watching the others and eventually I fired up the smithy and got to work. It really did help a lot with my strange feeling of detachment. Smelting down the iron scraps into nuggets, bars and poles was the first order of business. To get more refined material. And something that had less danger of getting a splinter. Metal splinters really were nasty.

In the afternoon hours, I went to the river, took a dip to clean myself, went back home to grab the books and then met up with Dawn to continue our adventurous journey with Cunning Can, unwilling adventurer and scholarly wizard extraordinaire.

As soon as sunset came around, we finished our reading for the day. At that point, we had options. We could spend another evening marveling at the stars, trading stories about constellations and finding new and exciting ways to express how pretty everything up there was, or we just went down to the village and mingled. That was what the evenings were for. Everyone was tired and spent, so we gathered for dinner and talked and mingled. But it was optional, of course. Sometimes someone was just too tired and went straight to bed after eating something. Because no matter how far we got already, it was still very much a construction site. Greenwood was still in its infancy.

Late midday. Less than an hour until I would finish up work for today. I worked out in the open, the forge emitted a lot of heat. A light gray blanket of clouds blocked out the entire sunlight. Maybe it would rain later on.

I thought about nothing in particular. With hammer, chisel and telekinesis, I toiled away at my to-do-list. It was a finicky task to craft all the fines required for various other parts. Locks and hinges and doorknobs and whatnot. But my routine was suddenly disrupted by a rather unwelcome warning.

Something changed. We’re in danger.

And no matter how much I despised hearing from him, how it irked me that this voice in the back of my head made itself known again after what felt like weeks of silence: He had a point. Despite my grudge with him, he usually had a point. I could feel it. My hair stood on end. I shivered slightly. A really, really bad feeling washed over me like a wave and made my stomach queasy.

I immediately looked around, frantically. The smithy? No. The building was stable, decidedly not on fire. I quickly scanned the walls surrounding the village. But no timberwolves currently scaled them. The two gates stood wide open, but that made perfect sense throughout the day when work required many of us to walk in and out all the time.

Spike was missing. Not a particularly alarming revelation, he sometimes flew circles over the village to ensure safety of everyone even if they went further out. Or maybe he was currently helping out Hefty again. It happened.

Actually, Greenwood seemed pretty quiet. Hefty was working outside. Honey was in the carpentry and I heard the occasional knock when her hammer met wood. She was busy building more furniture out of the wood her companion gathered. Graphite was probably at her quarry, with Gabby as escort. Aurora was at home, drawing up the next iteration of blueprints for the sewers. I saw Kaleb hovering over the fields, but no sign of Roseluck, Doctor Whooves or Derpy.

Behind us!

I quickly turned around. Nothing was immediately behind me, but I trusted his instincts more than mine. He had always wanted to keep us safe. And it was usually his part to ensure our survival. And right when I was about to ask him what he noticed, I saw it.

A figure emerged from the ruins. I saw it through the wide open backdoor. Dull scarlet skin on his arms. dark gray coat and mane, a light gray beard. Black eyes and a nose ring. Blood rushed in my ears, louder and louder. My rushing heart kept pumping more adrenaline into my brain. I shook my head lightly, tried to deny reality, but within fractions of a second, I just…

I snapped.

The very same moment massive tremors ran through my body as my mind was flooded with images and sounds, I lit my horn and in a dazed panic, I grabbed everything. Everything that was not nailed down. Everything within reach. Everything I was aware of.

Before my mind's eye, I saw the destruction. I heard pleas for mercy and hard, callous laughter. I saw blasts of raw energy stream towards buildings and creatures alike. I heard a power-mad cackle. I felt tremors in the earth under my hooves as something enormous moved at a lazy pace towards its next target. I saw ruins. Felt ashes land on my muzzle like snowflakes in winter. I smelled the pungent odor of burned hair and skin, of singed flesh underneath. I saw friends cry out and vanish in the violent explosions of fireballs. I saw swaths of blackened earth through green woods where a path had been cleared without regards to anything or anyone.

It was too much.

Just too much.

Wide open eyes, trembling in fear, my eyes full of free-flowing tears, my vision a blurry mess and yet I could still make out his form. A black-red splotch somewhere over there. It was enough. It was all I needed. It was the epicenter of my universe in that moment, the focal point of all my terrible dread.

And I flung it all.

I had no idea what I held in my telekinesis. It was a lot. I felt the strain on my horn due to the sheer weight of my weaponry. But I flung it. With as much power as I could muster, I flung every single piece. Only to grab more and throw it as well. And to grab more and throw that, too.

I pelted this figure with everything I got my telekinesis on. I accidentally even tried to lift the anvil itself, but that quickly proved too heavy.

Blood rushed in my ears. A loud stream that drowned out any and all other noises. The strain of my magic only added to the chaos in my mind and it took him forever to break through that heavy curtain.

Stop!

I stopped. Mostly because there was nothing left to grab and throw in my immediate vicinity.

I stood rooted to the spot, my shoulders rose and sagged with each heavy, labored breath. I felt strangely light-headed, but at the same time all my senses were sharp, alert, my muscles ready to burst. And so I remained for seconds. They trickled by with the speed of running molasses. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

My mind finally came to a screeching halt. Everything stopped. Not just my attempts to throw more stuff, but even the chaos in my mind subsided and left a void in its wake. Finally I became aware of that thread he wanted me to grab so desperately. I pulled at the familiar magic and not a second later, I felt the heavy weight of my night guard armor settle on my back and my head. The transformative illusion magic washed over me. My telekinesis grabbed the called sword. Now armed and armored… I still trembled, frozen in place.

Move!

I hated how he could command me. I hated even more that he was successful where I failed. That his input was necessary. I lifted one front hoof. And that was enough. The spell was broken, the paralysis overcome. I slowly walked, then quickly trotted, cantered, and ran.

Within moments I stood by the entrance to the castle ruins, in the massive courtyard. Apple trees sprung from the ground, Bruno among them. Old friends. Despite my own efforts to distract myself from my work, I looked at the bleeding mess on the ground. And I saw my fears confirmed.

The one. The only. Lord Tirek himself.

Although he was a shadow of his former self. Shredded by a violent shower of metal shrapnel. Run through with several metal poles. He bled from so, so many wounds. He coughed blood. Parts of his sickeningly twisted body twitched. How was he even still alive?! “I-I’m s-so sorry…! I-I didn’t know what came over me!” I muttered quietly.

I grimaced. Because deep down, I knew that I lied. Even now I could feel the uncomfortable shiver run up and down my spine, I could still hear the screams of his victims, my friends, even my own cries of pain. I could still smell the burning ruins of the library, my home, you bast—

I firmly shut my eyes. Tried to breathe. Tried to regain control. A modicum of composure. And I failed horribly. My next breath was a shuddering mess. I opened my eyes again, my vision blurry. And I was horrified. I had done this.

And the worst part?

Lord Tirek did not even look angry. Neither did he look sad. He did not even look like he was in pain, despite his body telling a whole different story.

No. He mostly looked… confused.

I took an involuntary half-step back as the puddle of blood beneath him grew larger. Seeing it seep out of him, seeing him became paler, weaker, it scared me even more. And with a desperate urgency, I told myself: He could still be saved! I could rescue him. I could do something. Anything. But as soon as I tried, I realized that I was frozen in place once again.

This time though, it was not by my own volition. It was not my failure. It was not any choice, consciously or otherwise. “Void! We need to get help! Let me go! Spike!” I yelled my buddy’s name two more times before the voice in the back of my head deigned to answer. And when he did, he did so with a single, cold, devastating word.

No.

And once again, I just… stopped. I stopped struggling. Because there was no sense in it. I would not be able to win. Not under these conditions. Not in my current state. My own blade, meant to defend, wobbled in my magic as said magic threatened to lose its grip any second. My armor felt constricting, breathing became harder and he was in full control and he made me stand there and do nothing.

So I watched. It was the only thing I could do. The only thing I was allowed to do. I watched as Tirek bled. I cried again for Spike, my voice broke off halfway through, into a strangled sob. And the light in Tirek’s eyes slowly faded, dimmed and ultimately, vanished. One last time his chest rose in an unsteady breath, then fell… and never rose again.

And seconds later, with a heavy thud, Spike landed in the courtyard.

“… what?!” He quickly came over. “What in Tartarus’ name happened here?! Where did he come from? Dream? Dreamwalker, are you okay?” He grabbed my shoulder and shook me. The contact felt strangely cold. My skin tingled where he touched me. Of course he was worried. About me. I was his buddy after all.

I slowly shook my head. No. I was not okay.

I was grateful. For the void in my head that relentlessly devoured every single thought that dared to pop up. I was grateful to not have to think for a while. Not now especially. Spike pulled me a few steps away and then ushered me out of the courtyard, away from the ruins and back to my house. Once we were past the gate, he called for Gabby and quickly told her to ‘take care of the body’. I shuddered.

She would not eat him, would she? No. No, of course not. This was Gabby. No sane griffon would do something like that. Right?

The void swallowed those thoughts, too. And I was grateful.

“Aurora! Help!” Spike yelled as soon as we entered the house.

My little sunshine looked out of the living room. She took a single glance at him, at me, and immediately realized that something dire was up. “What happened?” she asked, her warm smile replaced with urgency. And worry.

“I’m trying to find out,” Spike replied.

They brought me upstairs. Set me down on my own bed. With a towel beneath me. Because my front hooves were dripping red. Most of it I had left behind when we walked home. But some color still clung to my hooves. And now the towel. What a sickening shade!

Spike tried to question me. Tried to get a full picture. And for my part, I tried. I really tried hard to cooperate to the best of my abilities. It was just a shame that right now, these abilities were rather limited. I gave curt answers at best. Sometimes just a head shake or a nod. But he was nothing if not patient. And smart. Twilight had raised him well, rubbed off on him.

“You just killed Tirek. The Lord Tirek,” he reiterated not for the first time and pulled a claw across his face.

“He was weak,” I managed to string a couple of words together. The first whole sentence in a while. “He barely has the strength of a stallion in that state…” No superior physique. No magic lasers to shoot around. Certainly no fireballs. Just a single ‘snack’ and I would not have been able to hold my ground against him. But in the state he had been in? Even a simple pony, even a weak unicorn like myself, was more than enough to bring him down. To… kill him.

“I don’t know what went wrong,” I murmured. “I just… I don’t… know what went wrong.”

Spike and Aurora exchanged glances. They excused themselves, walked a little over to the side and in hushed voices agreed that I must be in shock. Spike assured that he would search the ruins immediately, for any clues as to where Tirek had even come from. He should have been locked up in Tartarus, after all.

And then my buddy left. And my little sunshine remained.

She sat down beside me. Pulled me closer, so I would lean against her. I did not resist. I did not care. I could not shake that image from my head. No anger. No remorse. No indignation. Just confusion. The void stopped working properly. It did not devour that image. Or the lingering thought of: What was he so confused about? That this was the reaction he garnered when he showed his unchained mug around ponies? That an unassuming unicorn like me would dare oppose him? That any pony would draw blood in such an unrestrained manner? That he could be hurt? That he was capable of bleeding, like all the other fallible creatures of this world? What, I wondered. What was his last thought? What was going on in his last moments. Minutes.

It took Spike at least an hour until he returned, maybe even more. Judging by the commotion outside, I assumed that the entire village had been informed about the incident. But nopony else showed up. I was glad about that. I did not feel like yelling at friendly and worried faces, but I very much dreaded that that would have been the reaction. My reaction. And I could not even tell why.

When Spike returned, he had made up his mind. He had crafted a theory. That Tirek had somehow escaped his chains in Tartarus. Again. After all, he had done so in the past. Several times, in fact. There was precedent for it. And he was getting good at escaping. He most likely hid in the woods beyond the ruins. The Everfree Forest had always been a hotspot for trouble. And troublemakers. Because of its wild and dangerous nature, many fled here to escape from prosecution. Many of those escapees then faced timberwolves and manticores and decided that the inside of a cell with two regular meals per day was still better than the insides of a belly while being a meal.

But Tirek was cut from a different cloth. He must have heard the commotion of our various workforces. Those golems were not exactly stealthy. Hefty chopping down trees was not quiet. Or Graphite breaking solid stone. He noticed us. Studied us. Made an educated guess about the size of our camp, the resistance he had to expect. An easy target. A good and proper headstart for his upcoming, next attack on Equestria. Because in all those years, throughout all his escape attempts, this was the one silver lining. He had never given up on his ambition to conquer Equestria. Surely this had been his latest foiled attempt.

Surely.

I stayed silent.

Spike stayed with me for a while. It was impossible for me to tell how long exactly. Eventually though, Gabby came by and after a brief discussion with Aurora, they decided that my little sunshine would look after me and Gabby would take her gentledrake home. It was fine, really. I even mustered my strengths and managed to mutter a quiet “Thank you” when he bid his farewell and left.

I was grateful, after all. Always grateful.

Aurora herself remained with me for another hour or so. Long into the night, I assumed. However, even with her now working in an enclosed space, without being battered around by the elements and without the wind constantly playfully trying to steal her blueprints, it was still a taxing day. They all were. She was tired. She yawned. And I sent her off to bed.

“Would you tell me a story?” she asked.

That undertone of hope hurt. “I’m sorry,” I croaked. My voice felt strained. As if I had not spoken in years. “Not today, little sunshine.” She accepted it without complaint and hugged me as a good-night. Her body was soft, warm. Her fur brushed against mine. And for a brief moment, her closeness stirred my frozen spirit. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. Sorry for so, so many different things. But right now, most importantly, I was sorry that I could not hold myself together all that well. That I could not offer her the father she knew. “I love you, my little princess.” I kissed her cheek.

“I know, dad. I love you too.” She squeezed me for emphasis and then pulled away. And a part of me wanted to lunge for her. Wanted to keep her close. Keep her pressed against me. As if her proximity was a shield, keeping a tidal wave at bay. What a silly notion.

Yet as soon as the door closed and I was left in an empty room with nothing but my bed and myself in it, that dreaded tidal wave picked me up with ease and flung me around like a toy. The walls cracked and crumbled and the chaos resumed. A headache quickly rose to prominence. All those thoughts and doubts and accusations flung every which way, it was too much to bear. I wanted to scream so badly. I wanted to scream until my voice would give out. And even further than that. Until my lungs burned and my throat became numb from pain.

Not a single noise crossed my lips.

I simply flopped down onto my side, closed my eyes and lit my horn.

One of the reasons they did not send for Twilight, Luna or Celestia immediately was this moment. Gabby, flying at top speed, might have been able to reach Ponyville before I went to sleep. Spike could have sent a message to Twilight. Heck, maybe he even did. But other than that, dreamwalking was the fastest way to spread the news.

Luna was already waiting. Fair enough — I was late. And similar to Aurora before, she only needed a single glance to realize that something was amiss.

All my life, everypony and their granny had been able to easily read me like an open book. Never had I grown angry because of it. And why would I? It was a fact of life. A fact of my life, at least. But every couple of years, a situation arose when that fact irked me. When it just rubbed me the wrong way. Tonight was one of those days, it seemed.

Despite this, I tried my best. I sat down and recounted to the best of my ability what had transpired. And to my own credit — my ability to tell a story had recovered significantly in those last few hours.

And what was my precious kitten’s judgment?

“You are exempt from your duties for the time being.”

I stared at her blankly. I blinked, continued to stare for a moment and then slowly shook my head. “Luna, don’t. I just… I really don’t want to deal with that right now. I could use the distraction. Le me work.”

She sat down in front of me and pulled me against her form with her wing. It was easy for her. It would have been even in the waking world. And I nestled into her chest, almost instinctively searched for safety at her side. I hated how pathetic it must have looked as I almost tried to crawl into her. But she said nothing to that extent. She embraced me. Held me. And closed her wings around me like a cocoon. A safety shelter.

“I know that you do not want to,” she started and already I could tell that I did not like the direction this was going in. Because her tone implied a ‘but’. “Rare is the instance that we wish to face our fears, is it not? You know that as much as I do. Remember what we keep telling these dreamers each and every night.”

“This is different,” I claimed, even though I could not say if it was, or how it differed. But what she suggested frightened me.

“’Tis not,” she disagreed. “You will need to properly process these events. I will speak with my sister and Twilight and we will start our own investigation into this matter, but right now, it is important that you give yourself space and time for your mind to process what has happened. You know where it will lead if you do not. And I am utterly unwilling to lose you this way, or any other.”

“You won’t lose me,” I quickly assured. And too late I realized that I had involuntarily stepped into her trap.

“Then listen to me. Please.”

I looked up at her. I was dissatisfied with her dirty tricks. Luring me into that position where I could not argue any further. I sighed deeply. “You want me to sleep.” She nodded. “I won’t sleep for long.”

“I know. You will face a couple of… rough nights,” she estimated. “I am sorry about that. I will aid you as much as I can, but stopping these nightmares entirely will not benefit you.”

Because they ate fear. And anger and sadness and whatever else I had an excess of as a result of these events. Nightmares were nasty creatures, but not without merit. Every ecosystem featured lots of ugly critters doing nauseating things, but they were still essential parts of that system, required for it to run smoothly.

I buried my muzzle on her chest again. With flared nostrils, I drew her scent as deep into my lungs as I could. It was the dreamscape however. So everything I heard and saw and smelled was still only as real as my imagination. And hers. Still — it was better than nothing.

“Are you ready?” she asked quietly. And in response, I shook my head. Almost violently. No, I was not. I would not be. Ever. And she understood. “Shall I do it anyway?” she asked. Her voice was so gentle. Soothing. I wished I could take her with me. How many times had we bested nightmares, side by side? How many times had we laughed in the face of danger and overwhelming odds? But it was different when I was an unconscious dreamer. I would be helpless. A plaything for the violent, rampant elements in my mind. I would be unaware of her presence. Of her guiding light.

I was scared. Yet I still nodded. I did it quickly, before this lapse in thinking faded.

I felt her magic. Cool like a night breeze. It caressed my body, sent nice, welcome shivers down my back. And then I was plunged into darkness.

I woke up in a silent scream as I jerked up. My coat was matted with cold sweat. My heart raced in my chest, my breaths came in quick, shallow bursts and my eyes immediately scanned an empty room for danger. Every shadow seemed threatening.

What a lucky coincidence then that my room contained nothing.

I collapsed back down onto my bed. The sheets had become a tangled mess, the blanket was a bundle at the end of my bed, the pillow was on the floor beside it. It took half a dozen conscious, deep breaths to steady my nerves and calm down.

Cool moonlight filtered in through the window. It was soothing and pretty and familiar.

I looked out of it. Watched the night sky. The many twinkling stars shone as if nothing of note had happened. And truly, what did they care? Nothing down here was of significance to them. There was a certain peace to be had, thinking about their ignorance. Or maybe it was less ignorance and more… acceptance. Because no matter what happened down here, they could not influence it at all. They could only bear witness to it.

I crossed my front legs, closed my eyes and tried to focus my mind.

“Guiding Light, Lady Luck, Matron of the Arts and whoever else might listen. Please, I… I could use some…” Could use some what? Answers? Decent sleep? Aid against nightmares? Redemption? “… help.”

It was silly of me to pray to Luna. I knew her. I had talked to her a few moments ago. It had been her idea to send me to sleep, to face my inner demons and nightmares. It was because of her that I was wide awake, soaked and sticky. Yet I still felt compelled to seek out aid from a higher authority. A higher power. Anypony. Anyone. Anything.

I just felt so… lost.

I continued my prayer in silence for several minutes. I felt like I got caught up in a tangled web of thoughts as time passed by. But that mess was cut short when after an almost inaudible knock my bedroom door opened and Aurora entered. She carried a candlestick in her telekinesis. “Dad? Are you still awake?”

The light of her own magic aura and her candle illuminating the path for her hooves interfered with the moonlight. It was no wonder she had difficulties seeing me on the bed. I was torn between answering and remaining silent, and once her candle quickly floated over to me, the decision was made for me. She entered without another word, closed the door and sat down next to me.

“I’m sweaty,” I warned with a voice I initially did not even recognize as my own. It was hoarse and sounded like a dying croak. Maybe my wakeup scream had not been as silent as I remembered?

“Don’t care,” Aurora curtly replied and leaned against me.

We both stared out of my bedroom window. We watched the stars twinkle the night away and how the moon followed an invisible path across the nightly sea. And somewhere along those hours, I finally dared to utter the question I had been dreading this entire time. “What have I done…?”

I did not know initially if she had heard me. For all I knew, Aurora could have fallen asleep at my side a good while ago. But she simply stayed quiet for a moment. Maybe she had difficulties finding the right words. I knew that issue well enough myself. “It’s okay, dad,” she assured me. How? How could she sound so sure of it? How could she know? How could she be convinced of it? “Everything is going to be alright.”

It was the task of the parents to comfort their children. To provide safety and shelter and nourishment for body, mind and soul. So I failed in yet another critical area as the walls broke down, as tears silently streamed across my face and I leaned into her. And she just held me. My own daughter was there and she carried that burden I failed to lift. Until exhaustion claimed my consciousness once more.

The rest of the night was a dreamless void.

When morning came, I still slept. And I continued to do so until the midday hours. I woke up groggy and alone and I could not fault anypony for it. After all, Greenwood was still there and needed attention. Work needed to be done. The initial grogginess quickly faded and I actually felt a clarity of mind that made me hopeful that maybe, just maybe, I would be able to bury myself in my work today.

Those hopes were quickly dashed when I left the house.

I had not heard Aurora downstairs and I had not dared to disturb her. Somehow, the events of last night filled me with a strange sense of embarrassment. Not that I went out of my way to avoid seeing her, but I was not keen on doing so sooner than later either. Even though I was determined to properly thank her for her backup. Somehow.

But once I stepped outside and I saw that dark gray blanked in the sky, I wondered how I had failed to notice it upon waking up. A faint drizzle came down. Not enough to stop anypony from working, but enough to be annoying. And getting the forge started would be a challenge in this weather.

It did not get any better when Spike landed next to me and just from his body language alone I could already tell how awkward this would be. He clearly tried to be cautious, but I had not become a glass pony overnight, had I?

“Hey Dreamwalker! How are you doing?” he asked.

I sighed. I had braced myself for his restraint and I had hoped that maybe I would be able to cope with it. But I quickly realized that I simply did not want to just ‘cope with it’. He was my buddy. One of my best friends. “Stop tiptoeing around me, please,” I requested. I stopped walking towards the river and instead turned towards him. “Listen, Spike. I’m—“ I cut myself off. I was quickly growing tired of using the word ‘grateful’. “I appreciate your effort. Your help. You. But come on, buddy. I’m still me, you know?”

Spike quickly looked around to make sure that nopony else was within earshot. Then he lowered his voice. “I know. You are the same you that freaked out because it’s impossible to tell what is real and what isn’t. The same you that had abandonment issues for years. The same you that never felt fully comfortable in his own skin.” With every strike he hit another nail right on the head. And I winced every time. Until he put his claws on my shoulders and stared into my eyes. “I’m your friend. I just… I don’t know what to do. How should I behave?”

The moment he awkwardly fumbled around was the moment I recognized him again. I put my hoof over his claw and managed a genuine smile. Why was it so easy for me to forget how mature he could be? How old he was by now? “Thanks, buddy. But don’t try to invent hoops just so you can jump through. Just… be yourself? Please? It surprisingly doesn’t get any easier if I constantly notice everypony around me changing who they are and how they are in an effort to make it easier for me. Go figure, eh?”

Spike studied me for a good, solid minute. My expression. My sincerity. Eventually, he nodded and let go of me. “Alright. Honestly, that’s such a relief to hear! Gabby said maybe it would be best to—… you know what? Doesn’t matter. If you need me, if you need to talk or just need an open ear, call me.”

I swallowed and briefly hugged him. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind. But right now, I just want to distract myself. From yesterday as much as from this crappy weather. I mean, who ordered that?! Doesn’t Derpy have a weather machine?!”

Spike blinked twice before he suddenly broke out in laughter. “Oh, uhm, so sorry! I completely forgot that no one told you! That is actually ordered weather, yeah. Roseluck said it would be useful to get the planted fields started, but she didn’t want to order a proper rainy day because it would interfere with the others' work. So Derpy used her machine to generate that. It actually surprised just about everyone that it worked and the Everfree weather hasn’t thrown a spanner in the works so far!”

“O-Oh. Huh.” I looked up again. A large, wide blanket of dark gray. More importantly: An evenly distributed cloud cover and rain, without any lightning or weird effects happening so far. With that new information in mind, it truly was astonishing that no rogue clouds had interfered with any of this yet.

Still: Why a drizzle, for Celestia’s sake?

“So what’s your plan for today?” Spike asked.

I looked in the direction of the river. The forge was nearby, but now I somehow did not quite ‘feel’ it anymore. “I don’t know. I think I’ll just go grab the books and maybe bother Dawn a little bit earlier than usual. After I take a bath. As much as I hate cold water, I feel like I need it today.” To properly wake up. And to flush out any remnants of last night. Fractured pieces of unwelcome dreams for example.

We said our goodbyes for now as I went ahead and took a dip in the river. And as expected, it was freezing. I quickly cantered back to my house to fetch a few towels and dry myself off and still managed not to run into Aurora.

I quickly walked up the stairs, retrieved our current book from beneath my bed and snuck out of the house again. I kept the book shielded from the everpresent drizzle outside by literally carrying it below me, pressed against my belly as I walked out of Greenwood and into the ruins. Things got a little bit better once inside, as there were still many parts of the old castle that had some semblance of a roof.

Much to my surprise, I found Dawn already on our balcony, even though I came by considerably earlier than usual. “Can you read the future as well?” I asked in a weak attempt at humor.

He gazed out and across the Everfree Forest. Dawn showed no outward reaction to hearing my hoofsteps, but once I addressed him, he slowly turned his head to face me. His expression was difficult to read. Traces of worry, intermingled with other impulses and emotions I could not pinpoint. He wordlessly offered me a place by his side, as usual.

I quickly glanced upwards to make sure that yes, indeed, the balcony was sheltered. So I stepped outside and sat down. Assuming no sudden gusts of wind decided to be annoying, the book would be safe. I would have to explain myself to Twilight otherwise.

“Divination magic is surprisingly common in some parts of the world and almost all cultures I encountered had dabbled in it to some extent,” he answered with a suave grin. But it was a façade. He was merely playing along. For my sake, probably.

Once I sat down, I opened the book on the page we had last left off. But I did not start reading. And neither did he. We both stared out into the dull gray of the covered sky. We both dwelled on our thoughts. Until eventually Dawn broke the silence. “I misjudged you,” he opened. After a brief silence, he sighed. “I did not think you were capable of ending a life, even on impulse. I am sorry that this weighs on you as much as it does.”

Intentional or not, his words dragged me back to yesterday. Screaming and flailing and twisting in attempts to get away. But ultimately futile attempts. And I saw it before my mind's eye again, clear as day. Tireks face. His bushy gray beard. His scary black eyes. The little protrusions on his forehead, marking where massive horns would spring up if he got even a small amount of power.

“I am so… scared of what I might be capable of,” I quietly mumbled. “You should never end a life. Never. There are certain… limits. Boundaries. Thresholds. Whatever you want to call them. Lines you should never cross. Because if you do… you lose something. Something important. A part of yourself. A part of your decency. Of what makes you a good pony. Or creature. It is frighteningly easy to lose those parts, piece by piece, and so incredibly hard to recover them. If it is possible to begin with.” I still stared out into the gray sky. Somewhere beyond that cloud blanket was a wide blue expanse. And swimming in its midst was the massive fireball of light that was my love’s sun. Warming a world to a degree that made life possible. Bringing creation to an otherwise barren world.

I clung to that mental image. I consciously conjured this memory of my love smiling at me. She told me she would be there if I needed her, and she smiled. A warm, tender, loving smile. It carried a silent promise. And it almost choked me to think of it.

“You did what you had to do,” Dawn defended my indefensible actions.

I almost violently shook my head. I rarely claimed to know anything, but this, this I knew: He was wrong. “When I saw him… I remembered how many times I lost homes and friends and entire families to his blind rampages. Twilight confidently, genuinely believes that every creature is redeemable and I want to believe her, I want to feel that trust she has, that conviction. I want that in my own heart… but I can’t. I saw that light in his eyes falter and I felt… relieved… and empty.” It was a hard admission to make. And it was a strange feeling to make it here, now, with him, when only a couple of minutes earlier Spike had offered to listen to me. But talking to Spike was different. I felt like there were things Dawn could emphasize with, he could understand where Spike could merely listen and maybe pretend. And I did not want him to pretend. Not with me, not ever. “It was the same cold emptiness I felt in… other situations, when changeling drones attacked my home and stole my foals. As a bargaining chip for their queen. I hunted them down in the hallways and while I did not manage to catch them all, I caught some of them. And I ended them without any mercy. Without blinking or thinking twice or even regretting my decisions later. And that scares the shit out of me, Dawn. To think that maybe it’s not just Void who is a monster… but me, too.”

Interlude: Iron Hoof II

The Everfree Forest was dangerous terrain to navigate. Especially for those who knew nothing about its many inhabitants. One had to look out for patches of Poison Joke and Stranglevines as much as the more well-known hazards like timberwolf packs.

Iron Hoof knew enough to get around. Not enough to make this hostile place his home or anything like that, but enough to get around. One of the reasons why he preferred for his camp to stay near the border of the forest, to allow for a decently quick exit should the necessity arise. Of course, standing right outside the forest did not quite cut it for most situations. A manticore on the prowl would not just give up its hunt just because there were no trees in the way anymore. But as an earth pony, Iron Hoof felt the connection to the land when his hooves touched down on Equestrian soil. A connection that was still there within the premises of the forest, but it seemed distorted, weakened. In here, he would not dare to fight a manticore. But outside he might survive such an encounter.

He ducked low to the ground when he heard a rustle nearby. His ears trained themselves on the source, he tried to gauge distance. And breathed a sigh of relief when a few seconds later, a squirrel gave its last panicked squeak as a nightly predator found its meal.

He felt naked without his armor. Vulnerable. But leaving it at camp had been the smarter choice. It added another layer to his plausible deniability should he encounter anypony else. Ideally, that would not happen of course. There was a reason why he went through all this effort to sneak around. But he had been told that the village nearby, Greenwood, had a dragon, a griffon and a pegasus. Fliers were fast. If one of them decided to keep watch through the night, or go for a patrol flight over the surrounding area, he might be spotted.

Iron Hoof snuck up to a larger collection of bushes and underbrush and made his way inside so he could sit down and take a breather. Sneaking was most certainly not his strength. It was tiresome and annoying. And as soon as he took a deeper breath, he started to regret certain life choices. Again. It was not the first time this night that he had made that particular mistake, but apparently he was slow on the uptake tonight.

Wildfire had given him clear instructions, two vials and a little satchel with powder. While Iron Hoof had an inherent appreciation for the former, he really started to regret ever using the latter. ‘Alpha manticore musk’, Wildfire had said. A great deterrent for both timberwolves, younger manticores and just about any other creature that was capable of moving out of the way. Cragadiles would not care, sure, but he had no plans of going anywhere near any large body of water.

Having a natural shield seemed convenient, but dear Celestia, the smell.

He resumed to keep his breaths shallow and moved on. The longer he lingered in one place, the stronger the odor would become and at some point, no shallow breathing would be able to save him from that pungent odor.

A couple of minutes passed and he finally beheld his target. In between the gnarled and twisted trees, he could see the deteriorated walls of the castle ruins. It was therefore time to add the last layer to his ‘disguise’. It was made infinitely easier by the fact that it had rained only two days ago and the forest floor took a while to absorb all that water.

He quickly found a puddle of sufficient size, sat down on his haunches and got to work. His bright orange mane and tail vanished under a thick layer of mud. Not only would that help with visibility, it would add to the story he intended to present in case he was discovered. The poor sod who got lost in the woods, had been running for days from monsters of all kinds and now finally hoped to find safety and shelter.

While the cover story was in theory a good one, he knew his rather lacking acting skills. He was a soldier, not a scoundrel or actor. But as Princess Luna said time and time again back in the day: ‘Tis better to has't a planeth and not needeth it, than needeth it and not has't one.

He did not appreciate how his now wet and sticky mane and tail clung to his backside and neck. The mud was cold enough to draw all warmth through his skin. But ignoring these influences, that was finally something he was good at. Blending out discomfort and pain, how his muscles ached as the cold seeped in. Standard fare for a day guard.

Iron Hoof continued towards the ruins. He could see the lights of Greenwood, probably from wall-mounted torches on the other side as they illuminated parts of the forest in a different light than the occasional bioluminescent fungus or insect. And he had every intention to stay clear of those areas. He instead entered the ruins from the backside through a gap in the walls.

Getting close and getting in had been easy. The old castle of the two sisters was in an awful state. Dilapidated, crumbling, abandoned. It was a shame, really. He had been in these halls, patrolled these corridors. Back before the curse of king Sombra, this castle had been more his home than the actual house containing his actual possessions. He had found his calling wearing that armor.

And now the sound of his hoofsteps was muffled by the squelchy, moldy carpet. The once proud banners picturing the heraldry of the diarchy limply hung in tatters. And every so often, he could hear the stone work as the nightly cold seeped into it. Considering the circumstances, it was a small miracle that the castle was still in this good of a shape. One thousand years of neglect and lacking maintenance. One thousand years surrounded by the chaotic, ever-changing forest, subjected to the freak weather. And on top of all of that: It had somehow survived the initial clash between the sisters.

That was really something he could not wrap his head around. How quickly things must have fallen apart after the liberation of the Crystal Empire. Had he ever seen any signs? Had they been there, and he merely failed to notice? How many holes in these once sacred walls had been blasted by his princesses fighting each other?

A shame.

Despite how icky it felt to walk on what remained of the carpet, he still did it. Because he could not afford to be caught. Out in the forest, his story would have worked just fine. Probably. But in here, that was an entirely different matter. He could pretend to have stumbled into the ruins to escape predators outside, sure. But there were numerous gaps in those deteriorated walls. How convincing would his story be if whoever found him had to be convinced of the fact that he managed to lose whatever creature was after his hide?

Wildfire had never asked how familiar he was with the old castle. He did not care, Iron Hoof assumed. Or maybe he did not know that any connection between the two was even remotely possible. Either way, the sorcerer had given him a precise description of the path he was supposed to take. Which, according to Wildfire, was chosen for quick and easy access as well as safety, as some parts were in even worse shape than the outer walls. And the last thing the old unicorn wanted was for his lackey to be buried beneath a collapsing ceiling.

That said, Iron Hoof remembered the layout well enough to know where his employer wanted to guide him. The main staircase that led to the basement.

Once Iron Hoof arrived at the top of it, he quickly understood why he carried those two vials. He was told the passage was not possible without them and that the contents of these vials would turn him into a cloud. Whatever alchemy went into them, it was impressive work if it was capable of such feats. Though Iron Hoof had really hoped to get by without having to drink them. He did not trust this stallion more than he needed to and after seeing the collapse and the sheer size of some of those boulders that blocked the staircase, he made a simple, slight change of plan.

He turned and checked the other staircases first.

There were two more, one of them concealed behind a secret door in a wall. The first one was located in the former kitchen area. Dinners for galas and guests alike had been prepared here. The finest cuisine in all of Equestria. Fit to serve the princesses. It had been considered a great honor to be invited as a chef to work at the palace. A badge that guaranteed that, if one were to leave the employment of the crowns at some point, one's reputation would ensure financial safety for years to come.

Now it was just another empty room with a few crumbled, rotten pieces of wood where once tables and cabinets stood.

Iron Hoof was no gourmet. He had tasted the food from this kitchen a couple of times. It was good. Pretty good. Although he never understood the fuss everypony else made about it. Maybe his tongue was just not fancy enough.

In the corner of the room was what remained of a wooden trapdoor after all these years. He tried to open it up, but it simply broke apart as soon as his hoof touched the solid-looking surface. He managed to quickly chomp down on the largest piece and kept it from falling into the pitch-black abyss beneath, although his attempts to keep the silence intact was rewarded with the taste of foul, rotten wood in his mouth.

He laid the piece off to the side and looked down. The stairs were still there. That said — that ladder was made out of wood. Again: It looked solid. As if it was in decent shape. Ready and eager to carry his weight. But that trapdoor had looked very much the same and he was not willing to take that chance.

And with how narrow the passageway was, even a pegasus would not be able to fly down there. He heard that some unicorns were capable of imitating flight via levitating themselves. Maybe a unicorn would have been able to get down there without breaking its neck.

He shook his head and moved on to the next target. And what a drag that turned out to be! It took him almost an hour walking up and down the hallways of the castle. He tried to remember where that damn secret passage was. And he was sure that he knew. But the wall would not budge. So he became unsure and inspected other parts of the wall. Other walls in other hallways. Until he remembered that there had been some kind of switch or something to open the passageway. With that resurfaced information equipped, he returned to the spot he initially suspected and searched for loose stones he could push in, or for sconces to pull. Those had been Princess Celestia’s and Princess Luna’s favorite means of activation. Those and pressure plates.

A small shudder ran through him as he remembered the pressure plates. His only first-hoof experience with the sisters' ongoing prank-war.

This time, it only took him about five more minutes before he found the relevant sconce. It was a little rusty, but after a second careful attempt with a smidge more force, he managed to pull it down. Where it immediately got stuck. He heard a part of an old mechanic move behind the wall, and it sounded as rusty as the sconce looked. Then something rattled, something screeched quietly and something snapped.

Then silence followed.

“Figures,” Iron Hoof sighed. He tried to push the wall open a couple more times, just to make sure, but it would not budge. Back to the main staircase then. Apparently there really was no way around drinking whatever Wildfire had brewed up. The thought occurred to him that maybe he had not brewed it himself. Maybe he had simply bought it from somepony with appropriate alchemical knowledge. Even though Iron Hoof could not tell if Wildfire had alchemical knowledge. He simply seemed like the kind of unicorn that would take a single look at an alchemical setup, compare it to his own magic and sneer in superiority.

Though Iron Hoof could not decide if the thought that these concoctions might have been bought made it better or worse.

He sat down on top of the rubble, took the first vial from his belt and removed the stopper. A brief, cautious sniff and he was surprised to find that the mixture had no scent at all. “Well, bottom’s up.” He gulped down the entire content in one swig. And was surprised again to learn that it had no discernable taste either. He was just about to furrow his brow in thought when his stomach responded with an upset rumble and a second later, his entire body just — poof — dissolved.

Reformed, reshaped, restructured, whatever. He was a cloud. Wildfire had warned him that it was in his best interest not to dawdle, as the transformation had a very brief duration and even the slightest gust of wind would pose quite an interesting problem.

He tried to move forward. Lift a hoof, consciously.

It worked.

So he stared at the very narrow gaps out of non-existent eyes. How his senses still functioned in this state was beyond him and he was not the type to get nightmares over failed attempts to figure this out. Instead he moved forward, pressed his muzzle against the biggest gap that he could see — a whole three inches wide, wow — and tried to simply roll with it when he felt his entire head squeeze in. It did not hurt. Even as his head was deformed, it did not even feel uncomfortable, even though he could feel the stone pressing against his skull. Or rather, the other way around. He tried to dig forward and in time realized that it was less about conscious movement of his body parts and more about his intentions.

He thought about moving forward, so he did.

Clouds moved agonizingly slowly and he tried to stave off the thought of what would happen were the transformation to end while he was still squished in between these boulders. Instead he simply followed his eyes and ears and the sense of air current. He emerged on the other side and reformed into his full pony shape, mere seconds before the transformation ended and he was a creature of blood and flesh once more. “Cutting it a little short there,” he grumbled.

It was dark beyond the collapse. Even after several seconds of staring into the pitch-black void, he still failed to make out anything. “Incento,” he quietly uttered. And much to his relief, the old enchanted sconces still worked. With a snap and a spark, the fires lit up and illuminated the staircase leading down. Rough, hewn stone. Every now and then, the actual individual cellars branched off to both sides.

He followed the stairs deeper and deeper, past several cellars which once upon a time contained all the castle staff needed in reserve. Tools and cloth, dyes and crates full of durable food, barrels of water and wine — the stuff a fortress could survive on were it suddenly surrounded and under siege.

It was telling, really.

The old castle had been constructed in a time when Equestria still had plenty of enemies. Griffons and dragons to the east, Kirin to the west, Yaks and bugbears to the north and the arimaspi to the south. Surrounded by hostiles. Or in the kirin’s case at least non-allies.

Yet after his return, the political climate and landscape had changed so dramatically, he barely recognized this world anymore. None of the old foes were still enemies. The Griffon Empire was in shambles and what remained was now allied with Equestria, which in turn sent support to rebuild their civilization. The dragonlands were open to not just visitors, but tourists.

Tourists!

The yaks had a cultural exchange program. The kirin were not fierce warriors anymore, but rather several independent communities, all of which had withdrawn from the world at large. Well… the arimaspi were still somewhat hostile. But only towards those who did not respect their borders. And the bugbears, while still a threat, had been pushed back by such a degree that a single one witnessed in Equestria was something the whole nation would write newspaper articles about. For months.

And they have newspapers now.

Many of these changes were reflected in the new castle in Canterlot. He had been there. Once. After his return. He had been so confused. Apparently a bunch of Equestrian national heroes had battled a reemerging king Sombra and defeated him for good this time. He had failed to notice them or the fighting. He had been disoriented. He searched for his comrades. For his princesses. And found neither. Eventually, some of the crystal ponies could enlighten him to his fate.

It took some time after that.

But he needed to see for himself. He needed to see this new Equestria. This new palace. This new capital city. Canterlot was full of snobbish unicorns. The guards were soft, squishy, lazy. The day guard had become a laughing stock and the night guard seemed to have no cohesion anymore. The entire city was indefensible as far as he was concerned. Who’s idea was it to build on a mountainside?!

He barely recognized anything.

And he did not dare approach the princesses. With his mind befuddled, his world gone, this new day and age so peaceful and… soft. They had no need for him anymore.

Iron Hoof's mood darkened. Something that was quickly reflected in his expression. Eventually, he reached his destination. The stairs went further down, but the seventh cellar on the right was his target. He opened the door and just as Wildfire had said, found a completely empty room. Thirty by thirty feet, ten feet high. Like all the other cellars, it was hewn into the solid stone that made up the foundation beneath this castle. One sconce on every wall, with the door being off-center in one corner.

“Vera Monstra,” he said the phrase he had been given. Nothing immediately happened, but after he blinked once, the room had indeed changed, albeit only slightly. It was still very much empty, but there was an assortment of strange glyphs on the ground now. He cautiously stepped closer to inspect one of them. They had been carved into the stone floor. No signs of tool work. So it was either done with acid — a very precise application of it — or magic. And there seemed to be some sort of glowing paste in them. Maybe some sort of alchemical reagent. He was no expert on any of this, so Iron Hoof decided to stay clear, not walk directly over them and heed Wildfire’s words: Get in, do your job, get out.

He looked around and found the little chisel his employer had mentioned. The tool laid discarded in a corner of the room, ready to be used. Iron Hoof picked it up and carried it over to the glyph he was supposed to manipulate. The shape had been described in detail and Wildfire even went so far as to draw it in the dirt, just to make sure that he would not mess up whatever this was for.

A line shaped like a C or a crescent moon. Two lines in parallel crossed the thicker middle section horizontally. His job was simply to add a third line. He stood there for a moment and looked at the glyphs again. Two dozen of them, aligned in a circle that encompassed almost the entire room, but the center featured only a single glyph. Some of them repeated in patterns, but the middle one was unique. He could even spot other C-glyphs which already had three bars. So maybe he was merely here to finish up work that had not gotten done in time?

He placed the chisel and sighed. A hammer would have been nice. In the absence of the right tool however, a guard had to make due with what he had. And what Iron Hoof had was earth pony strength. He held the chisel in place with a hoof, raised the other and slammed it down. It was not exactly graceful work. He was no stone mason, no artisan. It was clumsy. But what mattered at the end was not how it looked or how silly he felt, but that the job got done.

As soon as the third line was finished, the strange, almost oily looking glowing substance that filled these glyphs expanded to fill the newly created third line. He had briefly wondered how it refrained from doing that before and seeing how it seemed to have a mind of its own now, it only further solidified his suspicion that this was some magic macguffin.

Once the line was evenly filled, something changed in the glyph arrangement. Some of them changed their eerie glow from a ghostly-pale greenish to a soft bright blue. And that middle rune changed as well. Some of the lines rearranged themselves. It almost looked like a blooming flower now, with petals and all. And one glyph in the outer circle shone a tad brighter than the others. Which one it was changed, however. And it took Iron Hoof only seconds to realize what this was.

The brighter glowing rune changed with each second. The next one was the one beside it. Clockwise. Clockwise. It was a clock. Or a timer of some kind.

He watched it make one full circle and one of the petals from the central glyph vanished. Iron Hoof grimaced. He was not keen on sticking around long enough to see what this glyph circle would do once the timer ran out. This thing surely looked too intricate to be a mere alarm clock. And his employer had gone to some lengths to ensure that he would not mess up and this thing would stay hidden.

Right, time to go. He cautiously stepped around glyphs to make his way over to the door again, put the chisel down next to the door and closed it. He trotted up the stairs, back to the blockade and consumed the content of the second vial. This time, knowing roughly how much time he had, he wasted none of it as he made his way through the collapsed section. Once back outside, he waited for just a few moments for his body to return. The old castle had more holes than windows at this point, and that resulted in some hallways being a tad too windy for his liking. He had no intention to get blown around as a cloud. Especially since manifesting mid-air and falling was a real possibility.

With his task done, he sighed and stepped onto the moldy, soggy, rotten carpet once more. He would take a long, preferably hot bath once he was back at camp.

Iron Hoof exited the castle the way he came in, with nopony in Greenwood any wiser. And he was already a good distance away when he stopped and looked back.

Wildfire had first captured an entire dragon hoard and made sure that the dragon it belonged to would not become a problem later on and then had spent this massive fortune to recruit him and a bunch of weirdos. You are my campaign, echoed the sorcerer’s voice in his head. He was a good soldier. He had climbed the ranks because of it. But Iron Hoof knew that despite his pride in his talents, he was not that good. Something big was going on. This stallion did not like meddling. Obviously. He had started his employment explicitly as a countermeasure because his plans had been interfered with.

So, he would not interfere. He was smart enough to not do that.

But his gut feeling told him that not only was this entire thing something bigger, it also told him that out of all the shady employers he had worked for in the past few years as a mercenary, Wildfire was the strangest and the most dangerous. By far.

And no matter how far he had fallen from grace, no matter how shady his businesses went, he would not allow for any harm to come to the princesses or Equestria as a whole. Extortion was one thing. Blackmail. Roughing somepony up. He usually shied away from outright assassinations, but modern ponies usually already caved if a few good kicks landed. But he had heard stories of the villains that had emerged over the years. Changeling queens and shadow ponies.

If Wildfire had aspirations to become the next Lord Tirek, then Iron Hoof had a responsibility to ponykind to stop him. It really was that easy. His loyalty, ultimately, lay with the crown. Still did. Always would.

“Fuck,” Iron Hoof quietly grumbled before he turned around. He would search for a good spot to watch from afar. Some sort of chaos was about to happen and it would most likely involve that little village out in front of the ruins.

His two companions had both noticed how quiet he was. They knew him for less than a month and both could already tell that despite how taciturn Iron Hoof could be, this was strange behavior for him. But the old soldier had a lot to think about. And despite his best efforts, it just… it did not get any easier. He contemplated opening up to the other two, telling them all he knew and all he suspected, but while he would have liked some input on the matter, he knew well enough that it might paint a bright red target on their heads as well.

And he really wanted to keep the kid safe, at least. No, he would carry that burden alone, for now. Iron Hoof sighed. Not for the first time this evening. The other two were currently out in the woods, training. So when he heard hoofsteps, from the wrong direction as well, he knew his employer had returned.

“You did not retreat!” hissed Wildfire. The clear accusation in his voice only helped to underline how pissed he was. Although Iron Hoof suspected that him witnessing the events unfold was not the main reason for his crankiness.

“That is true,” he freely admitted, “however: You did not command me to either.”

Wildfire, as per usual, stayed near the treeline, half-hidden in the shadows beside a thicker trunk. He remained silent for a moment. Maybe seething in anger. Maybe contemplating. Probably the latter, actually. As far as Iron Hoof could tell, this stallion was not the type to linger on emotions overly. “I do not pay you to satiate your idle curiosity,” Wildfire chided him.

It almost made him chuckle. He remembered a scene from his youth, when his own dad had tried — and failed — to chide him. That failure was the result of small Iron Hoof deconstructing the entire educational premise on which the chiding was based. He was not the smartest pony around, but he was not dumb either. And more importantly, he almost always had his wits about. “That… is true as well,” Iron Hoof replied with a well-hidden smirk, completely unfazed by the tone his employer used. “This was a fully private interest, payment not required.”

“I do not appreciate you taking ‘interest’ in my affairs,” Wildfire responded. And the icy voice already made clear that there was a threat in there. And a warning to treat carefully.

Iron Hoof sighed. He wanted to mollify this clearly agitated, frustrated unicorn, but at the same time…

He shook his head. No. He had two soldiers to look after. One was dangerous in his own right, and in all the wrong ways too, but the other one was less of an adult than he would like to be seen as. Iron Hoof wondered for a brief moment if that was the reason for Wildfire's weird choices. To tie him down with the responsibility for a recruit that was still more colt than stallion. Plus one that was a clear and obvious danger to everypony. “Why so grumpy?” he asked as a diversion. “Your plan worked, didn’t it? Just not quite as intended, but still. It worked.”

Again, silence. The fire crackled. Iron Hoof did not bother looking towards his employer. If he did not have the decency to step into the light and talk face to face like a normal pony, why should he then bother looking towards him. Wildfire probably preferred it this way anyway.

“And what, pray tell, do you think I intended?” the sorcerer asked, again in that chilling, emotionless voice. That said, before Iron Hoof could reply, a quiet sigh followed. An unexpected sound that actually made the old soldier look up and over. He was even about to ask if the sorcerer was okay when he saw him shake his head. “It did not.”

For a brief moment, Wildfire seemed almost troubled. Conflicted.

Iron Hoof thought back to the previous night. To his own thought: If Wildfire wanted to become the next Lord Tirek…

Bittersweet irony, really.

“I think you’re a smart one,” the old soldier answered. “I think you were confident that they would find a solution for the Tirek-fiasco. I don’t see you as the kind of pony that unleashes someone like Tirek without doing their homework first and properly researching him and his abilities, because quite frankly, if he gets too much of a power boost, I doubt even you could stand against him.” He himself had been lucky. When Tirek attacked Equestria, he had been in Griffonstone. To intimidate a couple of griffon merchants. He had told his employer multiple times that that was not how griffons worked, but that idiot had no wish to listen. And he still paid, so Iron Hoof merely shrugged and took the next train. Dodged a bullet, as they said. But in the aftermath, he had heard more than his fair share of stories. From many, many traumatized ponies who, for the first time in their lives, had felt truly lost. Because their destinies had been ripped from them. “However, you did not expect your friend to just straight up kill him — honestly, that caught me off-guard as well. He seemed so… I don’t know. Bland. Unassuming. You wanted to keep them occupied and in that regard, the mission was a success — I’ve seen soldiers battle their inner demons after their first kill for months. I don’t think your buddy will recover quite so quickly. I do have to wonder though why you do this to somepony who seems so intent on befriending you — couldn’t you just ask nicely? “Keep your muzzle out of my ruins” or something like that?”

Wildfire grumbled in dissatisfaction. “You are more perceptive than you look.” The sorcerer sighed again. “I miscalculated, that is true. He seems quite gentle most of the time, but apparently, there is a certain strength beneath that I did not anticipate.”

Iron Hoof stared at the conflicted stallion. It became clearer and clearer that he wished to keep his new friend away from his plans, but at the same time, the sorcerer willingly became increasingly entangled in this whole friendship-business. The wear and tear became more visible. “No refunds,” muttered the old soldier in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Wildfire silently chuckled and shook his head. “That won’t be necessary.”

Both parties fell silent for a moment that stretched further and further. Maybe this was a good moment. To ask. To try and get some clarity. “You know,” Iron Hoof started, “you pay me a lot. A fortune. And I’m good at what I’m doing. And I know when I’m not good at something. In that case, I’m usually good enough to find somepony else who’s good at it. Point being: I could be of considerable help if I knew what this whole thing was about. I get it if you don’t want to involve the other two. I won’t tell them. And I don’t mind continuing with our current status quo either. I’m offering help. So, that being said: What’s all this really about, Wildfire?”

He hesitated. Iron Hoof watched the unicorn hesitate and struggle with himself. It was good information to have. There was no immediate ‘no’. No outrage or indignation. He would decline, of course. Wildfire would refuse his offer. And that was fine. Knowing that things could change was enough. He could work with that. Worm his way in. Earn trust.

And if necessary, dismantle the thing from inside.

“In time, Iron Hoof,” answered the sorcerer meanwhile. “In time.” Two voices became audible. They had been drowned out by the nightly forest so far, but as they neared camp again, they became louder. They would return within a few minutes. “Tell me. How are your recruits doing?”

Iron Hoof’s gaze followed Wildfire’s in the direction of the nearing voices. “Good. They accept me as their leader. Teamwork has been established. Icy is almost ready for deployment.” He turned back to look at Wildfire, but the sorcerer was gone. Of course he was. “I hate when he does that.”

Recruitment Efforts II

There was this saying about how the world resembled a carousel. And sometimes, it spun so hard and so fast that ponies got dizzy and sick. Who would not want to slow down from time to time? Who could honestly claim that never in their life did they wish for the carousel to stop, so that they might get off for a while, walk around a little, center themselves again?

But that was not how this ride worked. It started, it went at its own pace without ever asking consent or permission, and it stopped randomly.

Life… was a pretty shitty ‘fun ride’.

The days after my conversation with Dawn blurred into each other. Mostly due to the rampant sleep deprivation I suffered. And I was enough of a snowflake that something as simple as a bad night’s sleep would derail my entire day. I zombie-shuffled my way across the village, fulfilled some minor tasks in an unthinking stupor and sometimes looked up and wondered how my beloved’s sun had already moved so much. Time was in a strange place, somewhere between sand in my hooves and molasses sticking to my coat.

Still. I got by. Somehow.

That said, I was in no shape to make any profound and meaningful decisions. And the others knew that. So I was not too surprised when Spike informed me that I had a visitor, only to then stick around within earshot almost the entire time. Maybe that should have irked me. Maybe I should have been grumpy, and stomped up to him to give him an earful. But no. All I could see was my buddy looking out for me. And it helped. A little.

That left me with said visitor.

“Hey Pristine! It’s so nice to see you!” I greeted her and then proceeded to rather clumsily hug her. As usual, she smelled really nice. A faint, flowery bouquet. Like a meadow full of flowers in spring. Probably one of those very pricy perfumes they sold in Canterlot. And her alabaster coat was so smooth, brushed to perfection.

It was around midday, the sun was high up in the sky and various noises of working ponies could be heard from different directions. She did not seem to mind much. Neither the construction noises, nor the ambient forest noises. Or the muck she walked through, for that matter. In that regard, she was less like her mother. Rarity did not mind getting dirty when it was absolutely necessary, but she tried to shy away from it if possible. Pristine was more pragmatic. Maybe something she inherited from Fleur? Or maybe Fancy? I knew neither of them well enough to even attempt an educated guess.

Pristine reciprocated the embrace, but as soon as we pulled apart, she kept me close and inspected me rigorously. I tried to pull free, but she simply would not let me. And her grip proved surprisingly strong. Or I was weaker than I thought. “You look dreadful. Nice to see me, you say. Are you sure you only see one of me? Because your eyes are unfocused and those bags under them could probably fit Spike in them.”

I grimaced and pulled myself free with a little more force. This time, she let go of me. “It’s not that bad,” I disagreed.

“Sure, whatever you say, darling.” I grimaced even more, but Pristine only smiled.

She clearly waited for some kind of explanation to my apparently terrible state, but I was rather unwilling to give one. “So, uhm… not that I mind you visiting. Quite the contrary, you’re always welcome,” I started with a wry smile. “But what brings you all the way out here, of all places? Aren’t you supposed to rub shoulders with the high society up in Canterlot?”

Pristine kept her expression perfectly in check. That smile never wavered, not even a little. “I traveled out here to ensure that Carousel Boutique’s investment is spent wisely.”

Her tone immediately conjured up images in my head, of ponies with disapproving glares staring over my shoulder. And I knew that was her intention, because just like Rarity, she was a master manipulator. A social engineer. So I concentrated on the facts instead.

Right now, somepony else led the Canterlot boutique. Finding a decent replacement was easy enough if one had no expectations, but that was just the thing: Both Rarity and Pristine had rather high ones. So it could not be just anypony filling that position. And finding somepony suitable for it would have taken time. And effort.

Then there was the train ticket. Those things cost bits. Not a lot, really, but still — it was another potentially unnecessary expense. And traveling by train was boring. Sure, everypony found their routines to cope with that boredom eventually. Some, like Rainbow, took extended naps. Others, like Twilight, enjoyed a good book. Applejack preferred to stare at the landscape, Pinkie brought party games along, Rarity gossiped like there was no tomorrow. I had no idea what Pristines preferred travel distraction was. And that did not matter as much as the fact that a travel distraction was required.

Then came Ponyville station. The closest point to Greenwood the railway could spit her out at. So she had to walk across town. Probably dodge her mom, maybe some conversations with local friends. Or she would have to account for even more time spent trying to get here.

Then she walked through the Everfree Forest. Along a secured path, sure — but as far as I was aware, the news of said security had yet to spread wide and far. But apparently, she had come here alone. Maybe she went to Twilight and asked about the situation. Maybe she used Rarity's techniques to learn about the enchanted torches. I did not know.

What I did know was that all this sounded like a hassle. A lot of effort for very, very little reward. She came here to make sure we did not mismanage her funds? What did she expect us to spend them on? Blackjack and hookers?

No. This was a façade. It had to be.

Which then begged the question: Why was she really here?

And honestly, after being close friends with Rarity for fifty years, I had some suspicions. Sure, maybe something happened in Canterlot. Maybe she modeled the wrong dress and needed to lay low for a while for things to cool off. Maybe she stepped on the wrong hooves and a couple of clients were pissed now. It could be. But usually, the most mundane things were the likeliest. And Rarity could be terribly nosy. Especially when her own daughter was concerned, of course. So I simply assumed that she was fed up with her mom again. It would not have been the first time. And I was perfectly willing to give her a break, a little hidey-hole to relax in and breathe. I just wondered why she had such a hard time saying it.

To be fair, even that was perfectly in line. Neither Rarity nor Pristine had an easy time outright telling ponies what they wanted, needed, felt. They left clues. They gave hints. They wanted to teach their surroundings an entirely different language to understand them.

But I was just awful with languages.

“Right. Investment. Sooo~, let me give you the tour then?” I offered and Pristine’s smile widened as she nodded. I stepped close to her side, put a hoof around her withers and slowly turned us. “There we have the well. I know, I know, it looks like a hole in the ground. Because it is. Currently. We’re working on it. And that house over there is almost finished. They’re laying the foundations for the next one in a few days, I’ve been told. There we have the carpentry where Hefty and Honey live and work, with the warehouse behind it. We store… well, just about everything in there, for now. It’s a huge building and we don’t have a lot to tug away for now, so it’s doing a perfect job and then some. Those are the houses we already built for all the current inhabitants. The wall surrounds the entire village, as you can see, and the mounted torches help keep the place safe at night. The blue ones you probably recognize from your way over here, they line the road to Ponyville and emit a passive magical field that keeps predators at bay. It’s not perfect, but they have served us well so far. Ehrm, what else? That’s my smithy. They built it for me so I could become less useless. A nice touch, isn’t it? I’m forging hinges and really simple keys and such. It would be an insult to my smithing skills any other day, but with the rather tight means we have out here, limited resources, huge need to improvise, and my head recently being all over the place, well… it suits me just fine. Oh, right, and back there we have the backdoor gate and the castle ruins beyond it. One day, when the village is stable and all that, I hope the castle gets rebuilt. It would be nice to see it up and running again.”

A full three-hundred and sixty degrees later, we stopped where we started. “Sight-seeing in Greenwood is currently really worth it, you get so much in such a short time! Everything is very accessible.” Pristine giggled. It was such a lovely sound that it actually pierced through the haze of my befuddled mind and made me smile. I was in a rough spot. A couple of awful days in a row. But I was still able to entertain those dear to me and bring a smile to their faces. That was worth a lot to me. “As you might have guessed by now, everything is still a smidge rough around the edges, but we’re working on it. So maybe looking after your investment isn’t something you should already be doing. You could of course always come back later for that.”

I would have gladly admitted that my attempt to coax the truth out of her was clumsy. And I was under no illusions that she saw right through that. Therefore, it came as no surprise that she shook her head, still smiling. “No, that is fine. This will do.”

I watched her for a moment. And I was surprised to find the usual bastion of self-confidence less sparkly than usual. Less imposing. Less intimidating. “That bad, huh?” Maybe they had gotten into an argument? A bad one? Even that would not have been a first, of course. Though in that case, I would be curious why she came to me of all ponies. Usually when things went south with her parents, Pristine fled to Fluttershy, Rainbow or Whisper, as far as I knew.

It was this point when Pristine looked up at me and with her shoulders sagging a little, she sighed quietly. “Whatever theory you have in your head about why I am here is most likely wrong.”

I chuckled and nuzzled her mane. “Well, you could always just, you know, tell me. Then I wouldn’t have to spin false yarns.”

Pristine looked around to see if we had any unwelcome witnesses listening in. And she obviously noticed Spike who still hung around nearby. There was some kind of exchange of messages between the two as their eyes met, and after a brief moment, Pristine quietly cleared her throat. “Let us take a little walk, shall we?” I nodded and followed her along, while Spike remained behind and turned his attention back to the others. “Some elements of the circles I move in have recently managed to gather information about a private part of my life,” she started. I could already tell how personal and unfortunate this was for her, as her entire body language changed. Her ears splayed back against her head and her confidence drained out of her. “This information was leaked to the public with ill-intent and several elements of those circles, who don’t have the mental capacities to form opinions of their own and merely accept whatever those who crow the loudest say, disapprove of said information.”

There was a buildup of anger in her voice. Or frustration, at least. But in my current mental state, I had difficulties following her excessive linguistic flourishes. “… what?” I saw how her determination wavered and threatened to falter. It clearly had cost her some willpower to open up about it to begin with. And my failure to comprehend was not making it any easier. “I-I’m sorry. I’m really trying, Pristine. It’s just… it’s been a couple of rough days recently. I didn’t get as much sleep as I would have liked, my concentration is kinda crappy, I’m more functioning than living right now. It’s just bad timing. That said, I still care a lot and I would love to help if I can, just… I fear you need do dumb it down a little, if that’s alright with you.”

She grimaced once more. I could not tell why exactly. But after maybe half a minute of us walking a large circle within the confines of the village, she spoke again. “They learned that I’m a raging lesbian and despite how much society changed in the past decades, some still disapprove of such ‘tastes’. Unfortunately for me, some of those old-fashioned, narrow-minded parrots are customers of Carousel Boutique and where Rarity suggested I navigate this minefield with diplomacy and grace, I honestly find myself lacking either when it comes to that. If they cannot accept me for who I am, then they simply don’t deserve me. Thus, here I am. Ready to supervise the new boutique and bring a little chic and charm to this desolate place.”

I chuckled. It might not have been the kind of reaction she wanted or even expected. But I was lucky enough that the good nature of my intentions shone through and after a brief moment, Pristine chimed in with a light giggle. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” I asked, still a little light-headed. “You know I don’t judge. You’re always welcome with me.”

Pristines own amusement ended in a soft snicker. “And my ‘raging lesbianism’?” She sighed and shook her head. “Sweet Celestia, I do have inherited my mothers flair for dramatics, have I not?”

“Well to be fair, it’s not just your mom,” I objected. “Fleur isn’t much better, is she? I think Fancy is the most grounded out of the three of them, so I fear the deck was always stacked against you.” I smiled and bumped my shoulder against hers. “That said, it’s fine. I endured your moms theatrics and I am not embarrassed at all to reveal that I might even have enjoyed them on occasion. Both you and your raging lesbianism are more than welcome here anytime.” My eyes lazily trailed along the wall, over buildings and treetops. I worked down a mental checklist of our current staff and no name of those stuck out. “I don’t expect anypony here to disapprove. But if they do, just come talk to me, okay?”

I was surprised when Pristine suddenly hugged me. She clung to me like there was no tomorrow and for a few fractions of a second, I struggled to find my balance again. After half of a heart attack survived, I gladly embraced her as well. “Thank you,” she mumbled into my mane. We pulled apart again and she was fully back. Her confident smile on full display, her ego ready to fill any room, but in her eyes I could still see that echo of vulnerability. And gratefulness. “Well, time to spruce up the accommodations.”

I blinked and chuckled. “I fear we don’t have much in terms of shops. Or furniture. Or even pretty flowers.”

Pristine slowly walked away with a ‘here I come’-sway in her hips. She giggled and looked back at the silly pony that was me, apparently. “Oh puhlease!” she uttered in such a similar tone to her moms that it was almost eerie. “A lady always finds ways to pretty things up a little, one simply has to… improvise.”

Sometimes, those similarities between her and her mom were just astonishing.

I watched Pristine walk over to the carpentry. She briefly talked to Honey, and next thing I knew, she hooked herself up with the harness and pulled the cart out the front gate, in the direction of Ponyville. I outright laughed at that point. We had no shops, no furniture, no flowers. True enough, all of it. Ponyville did, however.

It took hours after that encounter for me to realize that she apparently actually intended to move here. That we would have another inhabitant of Greenwood around. That we would have a seamstress in our midst now.

My head really was not up to par.

I was drowning.

A current tried to drag me under, but I struggled against it. However, no matter how much I struggled, I could not get away, could not get free. It never felt like I actually moved somewhere. I could not see in this pitch-black void, could not even see what I was struggling against. Water, surely. Water, I told myself as it clung to my coat. Just water.

Then the moment came when I could no longer hold my breath. I tried to resist the urge, but the burning sensation grew stronger with each second until it simply overwhelmed me. I drew the liquid into my lungs, felt my limbs twitch and twist as my body failed to gather any usable air. But I tasted it. I tasted the heavy metallic nature of what I was drowning in. I tasted blood.

My panic increased manifold. Somehow, I could still panic more than I already did. I struggled harder, tried to swim up, wherever up might be. And I believed in miracles as my head broke the surface. I coughed up blood, spit and spewed it while my legs frantically trod more blood to keep me afloat, to keep me at the surface. I would grow tired eventually, my mind realized. My muscles would tense and cramp and I would drown again and again.

Then they came.

As I struggled against the water, just water, only water, hooves grabbed my back legs. They pulled me under, tried to anyway. I blindly kicked whatever was grasping at me. I felt my hooves make contact with muzzles, I heard sickening crunches as skin broke.

No. Not skin.

Carapaces. Exoskeletons. Chitin.

Changelings!

And all of a sudden, I was a lot less hesitant to kick downwards. The crunching sound was still sickening, but there was a nauseating satisfaction alongside it. And without actual voices, I heard them in my head.

“Monster!” they screamed in a choir of many voices.

“Why did you do this to us?”

“How many have you killed?”

“What did we ever do to you?”

“Murderer!”

I kicked harder. I kicked in panic and anger alike. I had answers, oh boy did I have answers! Images flashed before my eyes. Dark castle hallways. Distant screams echoed in high ceilings. My foals, charmed into sleep with foul green magic, held afloat by the very same color, carried off into the dark of the night by invaders. What you ever did to me? I kicked harder. And harder. Faster, too. I would break them. Every single one of them! They would never, ever hurt or even so much as touch my family again!

I would raze their nest. I would destroy what they held dear. I would cripple their entire hive and subjugate them, I would teach them to leave us alone!

Suddenly my hooves connected with something squishy. A face not shielded by chitin plates. Instead soft muscle tissue under skin and coat. A grumpy groan. And a voice, deep and commanding. “How dare you, you insignificant—“

I did not wait for Tirek to finish. I kicked again. Right in his stupid face. I heard him grunt. Then his hand suddenly grabbed my leg. “I will make you regret that!”

I screamed. He dragged me under with such little effort. I tasted blood again. Their carapaces were everywhere. All around me. Their hooves grabbed at mine. Tried to tear me apart, limb to limb. And Tirek dragged me deeper and deeper down.

And suddenly he stopped. He pulled me to his height, face to face. An eerie green glow illuminated the dark. A single, crooked horn, wreathed in magic. In this faint light, I could see Tirek grin, his face shredded by shards of metal and glass. His left eye was gone, his right one damaged. Stripes of skin and flesh hung loosely here and there, torn from their bones by the onslaught of my assault.

He leaned forward. I knew that the worst was yet to come. We were surrounded by my enemies. I could see it. More and more horns lit up with green magic. They were everywhere. As was their blood. But he, he was the true danger. He was the end-bringer. I could not tear my gaze away from him.

He smiled. His hand, splinters and all, caressed my cheek. “We’re alike, you and I. Can’t you see?”

My face hurt from all the shards stuck in it. My eyes were almost unusable. I was in such incredible pain. Every movement hurt. Breathing hurt. Every heartbeat hurt. But I stared into Dreamwalkers face. A smug smile on his lips. A heartless coldness in his eyes. “We’re alike,” he said in that bland, unassuming voice.

I tried to pull away. Tried to rip myself free. Dreamwalker started to cackle. He pushed me away, waved at me. With a strong kick to my stomach, ripped open as it already was, he pushed me back. Into the waiting flood of changelings. To be torn apart.

And as they dug into my sliced skin, I saw him grin. “We’re the same,” he claimed.

I shot up in my bed with a scream.

My throat was sore. The third nightmare. This night. The… what… was it? What was it? Eighth night? Ninth? Tenth? I lost count. I lost track of time. How long, I wondered. How long could a pony endure something like this?

Cold sweat clung to my coat. My sheets were drenched. My pillow was damp. My hooves shook. I knew the drill by now. I stared out the window. Focused my gaze on the night sky. Searched for solace in that beauty. But the longer this went on, the more nights I had to scramble back to her night sky, the less enjoyment I managed to squeeze out of it. The less it helped.

My door was flung open. “Dad?”

“I-I’m fine,” I lied.

It mattered little how many days it had been. They knew. Everyone in Greenwood knew. They were just… nice enough not to mention it. But I kept them awake at night, I assumed. Aurora especially. Or maybe that spell she cast over my room every evening was a sound dampener. I had never bothered to ask. I just knew that she came in here every time I woke up screaming.

Every.

Single.

Time.

“You are not fine, dad,” she insisted and came over to the bed.

I knew the drill by now. She would try to comfort me. She desperately wanted to help me. And I hated myself so much for it. I was her father. I was supposed to be stronger than this. I was supposed to comfort her in her times of need. Not the other way around. “Just… go. Please.”

“Dad, no, I—“

“Please,” I begged her. Because if I was degrading myself anyway, why not go all out.

She fell quiet for a couple of seconds, then slowly retreated. “I am right next door if you need me.”

I nodded. I know, sunshine. I loved my little princess. And it killed me to see her sad and worried. But I knew of no way she could help me. I would have gladly accepted her help. Any help. I had tried everything my muddled mind managed to come up with. Spike had prevented me from getting black-out drunk. I was not allowed to take any pills either. Probably because they did not trust me with the dosage. And I had given up on the idea of distracting myself with my dreamwalking. I was not even allowed to throw myself into my work. I had this cool butt-sticker that told everypony that dreamwalking was my gosh-darn destiny, and I was denied entrance.

Well, not entrance per se. I had snuck into the dreamscape a couple of times. I only stopped after Luna caught me for the third time. At that point, she actually got cross with me. She raised her voice. She knew. Everypony close to me knew how much I hated it when anyone raised their voice. How I reacted to it.

I froze up. I cowered. I complied.

I was not allowed to dreamwalk.

So I woke up every night with screams of terror. Sometimes two, sometimes three times. Luna refused to tell me how my dream sphere looked in the dreamscape. I imagined this little soap bubble, just swarmed by dozens upon dozens of nightmares, like sharks in a blood frenzy.

And it was not getting any better. It certainly did not feel like it. Quite the contrary, actually. It felt like it got worse. Like I was getting less and less sleep each and every night. I started to make mistakes when working the smithy. Dumb, stupid mistakes. Unnecessary ones. How long until they forbade me from using the smithy? For my own good, for my own health and safety. And what would I do then?

I still met up with Dawn every afternoon. Our roles had switched. I was unable to read. It was a shame, really. He had enjoyed my voices and how I got into the roles. It reminded me of Ogres and Oubliettes. I missed my table, my players. Now more than ever.

Now he was the one who read those books to me.

I told myself that it was fine. Even though I knew better. I despised how useless I had become once more. How everyone tried to look out for me now. How I dragged down production and progress. Because they had to keep an eye on me. So they were distracted in turn.

I had become a liability.

I tore my eyes away from the moon. I found no solace in it at all. Not tonight. I flopped back down into my damp bed. It was uncomfortable, but I had quickly given up on the idea of changing sheets every single time the bed was a mess. Because I could not be bothered to wash my sheets that often. I suspected Aurora snuck in my room every day to cast some cleaning magic on them or something.

Just another insult to injury, somehow.

The one positive about all this? Falling asleep, even under such dire circumstances, had become really easy. I was so out of juice that the moment the environmental light level was low enough and my head hit anything soft, I was just gone. Instantly.

I dreamt.

It was such a simple, yet utterly profound revelation. And for a split second, the only sound I could hear was my own, mangled sob of relief. I had experienced lucid dreams before. Maybe three or four times. In fifty years.

They were there, of course. The sea of blood, the changelings, Tirek’s mangled face. But with me in control, with me knowing that this was a dream, it was less scary. I could just erase them. And I did. I replaced the lightless sea of blood with a nice scenery. A small pond nearby Ponyville. A favorite spot of Applejack. She loved to come here in the summer, preferably with Rainbow or her family. A single tree near the edge of the tiny beach spent some well-needed shadow, as the warm summer sun baked the ground everywhere else. The water was comfortably warm. A few white tufts of clouds lazily drifted along the sky overhead. Some crickets and birds provided a relaxing background music.

I swallowed hard. It was… nice. We had not been to this place in over three years. We should totally do that again soon. And with a mere thought, I corrected the only thing that ever bothered me about this place. I pushed the tree even closer to the water, so that its shadow fell far enough. Then I walked over, settled down on the beach and with my front legs in the water, I did something I had desperately needed for the last two weeks.

I relaxed.

“Mind if I join you?”

My muscles instantly tensed up again when I heard his voice. But instead of jumping to my hooves and readying myself for battle, I remained where I was and just turned my head to look at him.

Voidwalker stood maybe five feet away, in the sun. It was an eerie sight. He looked just like me, just…

“Less you. Like something’s just… off,” he offered.

I nodded. “So I don’t get privacy, hm? Not even here?”

He shrugged with a dry, humorless chuckle. “Guess not.”

I sighed and patted the spot beside me. I knew that we had a lot in common, despite several fundamental differences. We both loved Sunny dearly, but we were both night owls at heart. We shied away from heat and bright light, we died slow, painful deaths in summer and he would most certainly prefer to have a spot in the shadow. And just as predicted, he quickly trotted around me and sat down with a relieved sigh.

“How are you even here?” I asked. He never showed up in the other lucid dreams. But it was hard to tell if that had been his choice or if this dream was somehow different.

To my dismay, he just shrugged. He did not know either. “You’re the one constantly overthinking things.”

“Yeah. Sure. You’d never do that,” I shot back. Maybe a little snarkier than I should have.

He inhaled deeply, held his breath for a second or two and exhaled slowly and purposefully. “Listen. I’m not here as your enemy.”

I crossed my front legs and put my head down on them. “I know,” I mumbled with a sigh. “You never are. Even when we fight each other. We just…”

“We disagree,” he offered. “A lot.”

“A lot,” I agreed.

We both fell silent for half a minute. I closed my eyes. Listened to our surroundings. Manipulated the sounds to my liking. I mostly drew from fond memories of past visits to this place. Then he spoke up again. “I have a suggestion.”

My first instinct was to tell him to go buck himself. His ‘suggestions’ usually were of a nature that made me feel sick. But despite my disagreements with his methods and opinions, he did usually have our best interests at heart. Our survival, at least. Because my survival meant his survival, and that made sense to me. “Fine.”

“I might be able to get us operational again.”

It was such a simple thing to say. But the implications…

I cracked one eye open again to look at him. He gave no further clues as to the nature of his proposal. Or his ulterior motives. “How? And why?”

Void mimicked my position. He crossed his front legs and laid his head atop, albeit turned to the side so he could look at me. “We’ve never been a fearsome warrior to begin with, I think that we can agree on, yes? But right now, we’re a mess. And we fail to notice obvious changes. And I do mean ‘we’, as in: Both you and me. I don’t like that. And I think I can phase that memory out over, say, a week or so.”

“That memory?” I asked for clarification.

“Tireks death,” he replied with an enviable nonchalance. “Yes, yes, we have deeper-seated issues, spare me the monologue. His death is the current trigger. I have high hopes that if we remove the trigger, the rest will sort itself out quickly and go back to its dormant state.”

It was a tempting offer. He knew that. At this point, I would have done a lot to go back. Maybe not quite as much as Twilight when she missed that assignment and jumped to the obvious and very rational decision to use time travel, but I was not too far off either. “And how would you do that?” Before he got a chance to answer, I concluded the simple mathematical formula. One plus one equals two. “By pulling it to yourself.”

He simply nodded. As expected.

I cracked the other eye open as well. Somehow, this lovely little pond seemed a little lackluster now. The sun less warm, the water less enticing. There had been times when I wished so much pain and suffering upon him. Times when we struggled for control over this body. My body. When our survival was at stake, he took over. And sometimes, I let him. His reflexes were better. His mind was sharper. He was more perceptive and had a better intuition. But he was ruthless too. And we did not always agree if our survival was at stake to begin with. And in those edge-cases, we fought.

His attempts to take over control had endangered my loved ones more than once. And that was something I could neither forgive, nor forget. However, I knew so little about him. Since we rarely saw eye to eye and we had a rather skewered power dynamic, we did not exactly chitchat that often. After five decades of living a good and prosperous life, I knew almost next to nothing about the other me that lived inside of my own head.

“That place you come from, where you reside in,” I murmured in thought. “What is it like?”

While he did not open up to me, he had talked to Sunny and Luna on one or two occasions. Because at the end of the day, we somehow still were the same pony. We loved the same, despised the same, got angry at the same.

“You don’t want to know,” he briskly decided for me.

“Why?”

Void groaned quietly. “Because you’re the one with the empathy-issue here. Even right now, it’s running rampant. You would befriend every single creature under the sun if you could. If only your time and dedication and standards and whatnot would allow for it. You would mend every fissure between creatures, heal every wound. If only it were possible. But you fail to properly look after yourself. However, somepony has to do that. So this task falls to me. And honestly, this is a boomerang-situation and I cannot afford to burden you any further.”

I fell quiet. Mostly to not irritate him more than I already had. Yet despite this, I watched him. I watched how his eyes trailed the horizon. How he appreciated the sky’s blue. The sun’s warmth. The splash of warm water against his hooves. The sand under his belly. How his eyelids fluttered when a soft breeze swished by and carried the scent of grass and dirt. How deeply he inhaled and how content he seemed in that moment.

“You don’t get that often, do you? Sunshine, trees, grass?”

His gaze fell onto the water's surface. He stirred his hoof in it and watched the waves. And our contorted reflections. “I don’t.”

This was a lucid dream. My dream. I could change any detail at any time. I could construct any scenario, no matter how complex. I could even grant semblances of life and sentience to creatures I dreamt up. The only limit was my imagination. “Would you… like to spend some time with somepony?”

Maybe that was a weird question. Probably. And I did feel a little strange immediately after asking. However, Void took no offense and dismissed the atmosphere with a mere hoof wave. “Don’t dangle that in front of my muzzle. It’s painful to resist that temptation.”

It got me curious though. I knew he was there. Maybe not always. I had no idea how the specifics worked. But he could choose to be there at any given moment as far as I knew. “So you… you never watch?” It was a strange thought after all these years. Maybe I did have some semblance of privacy.

“Not constantly. Not anymore,” he replied, with his expression suddenly guarded. “I’m not sure if you remember, but there was a moment many years ago when you were busy with Twilight and I… I wanted to experience that so badly at that moment. I tried to take over. It wouldn’t have mattered much, I thought. You were half-gone anyway. I have no idea how, but she looked me in the eyes and noticed the change immediately. She freaked out and threw us off with a shield spell her brother had taught her a couple of weeks earlier.”

I grimaced as I remembered the incident, and I blushed as well. How could I not be embarrassed? “I-I… vaguely remember that, yes. That was a long time ago.”

Void nodded absentmindedly. “Well, I remember it as if it was yesterday. Bruised spine, two weeks.” He sighed. “I share your love for her. But all I can have is rewatching your memories.”

I tried to imagine that. I had been in love in other lifetimes and it had not worked out. I distinctly remembered one cycle where I had married Derpy. It was a wild ride. But I also remembered these tucked-away feelings for Celestia. She was a less central part of my life in that cycle. The ruler above me, supposedly. But even then, I saw a beautiful mare instead. One who always seemed just a little bit sad somehow. And I wanted to see her happy instead. I wanted to make her happy.

It had not been meant to be. I watched her from afar, and I loved her from afar. And it hurt, sometimes.

And now I tried to imagine that, but closer. So. Much. Closer. Because I lived with Twilight. Year after year, we lived together. Laughed together. Had sex together. A family. And he was there. Always there, right behind my eyes and ears. Like a prisoner, with everything he desired just out of reach. It was a cruelty of unfathomable design.

To me, that was torture.

“I’m sorry.” It was a lame answer. It did not make up for what had happened. For what he was still trapped in.

But Void just sighed and then chuckled. The same dry chuckle he had employed earlier. “See? You prove my point for me. Rampant empathy issues.”

And as usual when the two of us got into an actual conversation that did not just consist of the back and forth of exchanging insults, he found all the wrong buttons to push. Accidentally or otherwise. “Well, somepony should care!” I blurted out in a raised voice as my temper flared.

“But you’re terrible at drawing the line!” he objected and raised his voice as well. “You cannot decide what to care about, so you just try to care about everything and that’s exhausting and I’m trying to keep us from falling apart, with bandaids and spit on most days.”

A well-familiar silence fell over the pond as we both tried to bite down on our tongues and keep ourselves from further losing control. He was basically me, just slightly different. A part of me wondered why it was so difficult for me to get along with, well, me. Another part however simply nodded and accepted that this was perfectly reasonable and nothing else should have been expected to begin with. It was irritating.

After a moment, the grimace on my face slowly relaxed and a chuckle actually bubbled up in my throat. I imagined a crystal pony — like literally made out of crystal — held together with bandaids. And spit. Ew. As my chuckle grew in strength, I shook my head. “Thanks.” He deserved at least that much for his efforts.

At the end there, he even chimed in. We eventually both fell silent again and he sighed. “You’re welcome.”

And of course he said it with his typical ‘buck you too’-tone. I contemplated strangling him, but decided against it. That was my way of accepting his proposal. “Shut up and enjoy the pond.”

And so we did.

I was not entirely sure what to expect. All Voidwalker had told me was that he would ‘phase out’ a memory. But what did that even mean? What would that look like? What exactly was he doing?

Clearly this mistake was entirely on me. I should have asked and I failed to do so. There were certain implications with this procedure as well. Even if I assumed that he removed a single recent memory with surgical precision, it would still affect my very being, would it not? After all, our memories were a massive part of what made us us.

Yet despite this, I could hardly complain. Over the course of one week, he had predicted. And true to his word, it took about two days before I noticed any changes at all, four days until the first improvements showed and after six days, I was… well, not exactly ‘back to my old self’, but the situation had certainly improved a lot.

I did not wake up screaming each and every night, multiple times. In fact, after just a couple of days, I did not wake up at all and barely remembered anything from any dreams I might have had. And what little I could remember gave no indication of any horrifying nightmares.

With my sleep schedule back on track, my concentration and perceptiveness improved steadily. I still felt groggy for a while. Like I could sleep for days. And I tried that, but whatever he had done, it was not that good.

I never reached the point where they disallowed me to continue my work in the smithy. As such, I picked up where I left off and managed to get the output back to where it was prior to this whole disaster. Even if it was still just the output of hinges and door knobs.

Pristine proved herself to be quite a resourceful designer in those days. She made multiple trips to Ponyville and returned with crafting materials she stored in her house — plus some odd bits and pieces others had asked her to fetch. She worked from home, so to speak, until a proper building for another Carousel Boutique could be erected. And she almost immediately made several suggestions for proper work clothing and improved gear, such as tool belts and hard helmets.

Something told me she would fit in quite well with our little ragtag bunch. Maybe there really was a pioneer deep within her.

And after a couple of days of restored normalcy, I even dared to approach Dawn about our reading habits again.

“I think it’s time,” I said with a wry smile.

The stallion beside me answered in kind. “I am more than relieved to see you make such a quick and thorough recovery!”

“Well, I did have a lot of help,” I replied with a chuckle. “I would still be stuck in that ditch without you and the others. I don’t know how many times Spike tried to encourage me to eat something. I probably turned him off of the idea of having kids anytime soon.”

Dawn accepted my attempt at humor with a gracious smile and levitated the book over to me. “We all merely did our part to help you, as surely as you would have done the same, were our roles reversed.”

He made it sound like a platitude. Like a mere ‘bless you’ after somepony sneezed or an obligatory ‘good’ following the question ‘how are you?’ I did not like that, not one bit. So I gently laid a hoof on his shoulder to get his attention. He looked up, mildly surprised about the touch. I usually respected his private space enough to not touch him without any kind of hint or warning. “I mean it,” I insisted. “When I say: Yes, I would do all I can if you needed my help… I mean that.”

He suddenly looked so disarmed. And it was rare that I actually managed to catch him speechless. But for a couple of precious seconds, he attempted and failed to utter any response. He eventually regathered his bearings and quietly cleared his throat. “Well, yes, that is… I appreciate the thought, Dreamwalker. Now, I believe we stopped last time at chapter twenty-nine.”

I opened the book and read the first few lines. Dawn probably noticed how I grimaced. I recognized barely anything about the context. For over a week, maybe even three weeks, we had read through a book and I could recall almost nothing. “It is fine,” he softly assured me.

I sighed. “I miss Cunning Can,” I admitted. “Twilight said the fourth installment in the series should be published in a couple of months, but judging by the author's speed, it will be three to five years for the fifth one after that. If there is a fifth one.” I tapped the book in front of me. “These are fine, but… it’s just not the same?”

Dawn chuckled. “Well of course not. We may discuss the intricacies of the differences after we finish it to see if it has any merit of its own.”

That would be an interesting discussion with me barely recalling anything. “Alright, alright,” I replied after some more stalling and sighed. “I’m sure I Cunning Can read this book.” Dawn snorted. He snorted. The moment I heard that, I started to snicker. He saw me snicker, blushed slightly, but still started to snicker as well. And a brief moment later, we both quietly laughed. I loved these moments. I always loved to share some quality time with any of my friends. And that was exactly the point. Dawn was my friend. And I was decently confident that by now, he saw me as a friend as well.

“Right, right, starting now. For realsies this time,” I tried again.

Dawn held his breath and nodded. I watched him in bewilderment. Why did he hold his breath? I leaned slightly over and he leaned back. I narrowed my eyebrows and his crawled up.

A moment later, we laughed again.

No, we probably would not get anything done this afternoon. But that was fine too. It was a strange phenomenon, an incredibly rare one, to see Dawn be silly. To hear him laugh. That was certainly worth a lot more than finishing chapter twenty-nine of… goodness gracious, I didn't even remember this book’s title.

The important part was — beside sharing a good laugh with a friend — that I had made my intentions clear of reading again. When I left the balcony a couple of hours later, my sneaking suspicion had been confirmed. Not a single page had been read. Well, it won’t flee either, I told myself.

As I made my way across the village towards my home, I noticed Spike flying in my direction. “Hey buddy,” I greeted him as he landed.

“Huh. Somepony’s in a good mood! That’s great!” He grinned from ear to ear and hugged me. I had no objections. Spike rarely was one to initiate hugs, so I quite cherished this moment as well. Once he gave me free again, he stepped back and pointed towards the front gate. “Seems like Greenwood is really taking off now, we have another visitor.”

I followed his hint and saw a familiar pegasus near the gate, but already inside the village. Her sunflower-yellow mane was tied in a braid, which struck me as rather unusual for her. But her hot pink coat gave her away immediately anyway. That and the fact that she looked lost. Whisper was not as shy as her mom, but she still struggled at times, especially when confronted with new ponies or thrust into a new environment. And for her, Greenwood was both.

“I’ll greet our guest. You have everything else under control?” I asked Spike.

“You know it,” he replied with a confident smirk and lifted off again.

I watched him spiral higher until he turned left and flew off towards the quarry. And with that, I made my way over to our newest arrival. “Hey Whisper! Want me to give you the tour?” I already asked with a slightly increased volume when I was still a bit away.

She winced a little, stared in my direction in surprise and then immediately relaxed and smiled. And honestly, that reaction alone was worth her weight in gold. To know that she felt comfortable enough to relax with me. Once I was close enough, I raised a hoof and gestured for her to make a first step. A greeting hug later, I inspected her closer. And immediately noticed the bulging saddlebags.

“Hi!” I could almost hear that ‘uncle Dreamwalker’, but she bit her tongue and held it back. “I, uhm, sure. I would love to have a tour.”

I remembered vaguely how I had trolled Pristine by just turning us around in a circle once. But that was not the kind of humor Whisper would appreciate much. Or even get to begin with. So instead I gave her a proper tour. We left for the outskirts of the village so I could show her where the golems and Hefty retrieved all the wood from. I showed her the carpentry where Honey seemed busy cobbling chairs together. She admired the craftsmanship on display, the enticing scent of freshly cut wood and especially the flower beds with roses once we went over who was living where. I also showed her our hole, as we collectively referred to the incomplete well by now and explained Dawn's presence in the ruins to her, but I decided it would be smarter to introduce them to each other in the evening, if Whisper would stick around for that long. But those saddlebags told me that I would not have to worry about that.

In between my explanations and hints, we had a bit of small talk. But I could already tell that there was an elephant in the room she tiptoed around, despite the fact that she should know better. And she did. Because every time I asked what was going on with her — and I made no additional fuss about it and asked that very same question again and again — she got quiet and averted her gaze.

Something was up.

So I decided to give us some privacy and ended my tour… in my bedroom. Maybe not the best choice in retrospect, but Aurora was busy downstairs and I could hardly drag Whisper into my daughter's bedroom either. Lucky for me, Whisper was nopony to read too much into situations. Plus, she still saw me as her ‘favorite uncle’ who carried her around on his back when she was little. Somehow she never lost that naivety and innocence. And it was precious. It made her precious.

We sat down on our haunches by the now opened window. She unclasped her saddlebags and put them on the ground, off to the side. And we both just stared out the window for a minute or two. The forest was never quiet. Strangely enough, even I had grown accustomed to it. The constant chitchat of birds and crickets, the nightly hoots of owls and distant howls of timberwolves, it did not bother me as much as it initially did.

My second floor window was not high enough up to be above the treetops. But it allowed for a nice view over the village wall, at least. And in the direction of the castle no less, so we had historically important ruins and twisted old trees to look at. All the excitement one pony could ask for.

It was nice though. Fluttershy would have loved it. And so did Whisper, I presumed. Judging by her content smile. “So, I think it’s time. Spill it,” I gently asked with a warm smile.

She still hesitated though. “I… I don’t understand?”

I sighed, but kept my smile. “Sure you do, Whisper. Come on, butterfly. Why are you here? With packed bags no less?”

The use of her old nickname made her smile in fond nostalgia. She freed herself from its grip after a while and tried to answer. “I am not sure if you remember, but when I was little, you promised me something.” I nodded and made a gesture with my hoof for her to go on. “You promised to never leave me hanging.” I nodded. Yes, I remembered that. Of course I did, it was not exactly hard to forget — I promised that to each and every one of our children at some point, both mine and those of my friends. And then, for just a brief moment, her eyes displayed something different. A flash of disappointment. “You left me hanging!” she accused me.

I furrowed my brow. Had I broken any promises? Had I not shown up at some point? I racked my brains for the moment I had failed her, but came up short. “Okay, I need you to elaborate,” I asked her. And at this point, I took this seriously. Because it was. I had a bad memory, I knew that. But when I gave my word, I meant it. I intended to keep it. Something went wrong here, obviously.

“A few days ago,” Whisper explained, “you came by moms house and I asked for your help because she interrogated me. And you just left me there!”

I was decently sure that for a moment there, I looked like a goldfish. I stared at her and my mouth just opened and closed as if I was breathing. I remembered that, yes. Obviously. At the time, things were light-hearted. Had they not been light-hearted? Just a bit of banter, a bit of prodding? It was a parents job to annoy their children and constantly ask about their lives, was it not? I vaguely remembered even saying something to that extent. But here we were now, with Whisper apparently hurt and me being the responsible party.

“Shoot. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you were serio—“ I cut myself off when I heard a whistling. The whistling itself was not the reason though, it was Whisper's reaction to it.

Quite a few of the creatures here whistled. Derpy loved to whistle when she flew around and kicked a couple of feisty clouds out of their lane. Hefty whistled when he chopped down another tree, though that was harder to hear due to the palisade. And our newest inhabitant, Pristine — she whistled whenever she made her way from our warehouse to her house, usually with a bunch of new fabric and dye and whatnot in her levitation, mentally preparing her new work.

And this tune was indeed Pristines. I had recognized that in an instant. Whisper however seemed to have recognized it even faster. Her head whipped around and her eyes scrutinized every inch until she concluded that the backside window did not allow her to see Pristine. She still smiled though. Not the kind of passive smile one had when generally being happy, no. I had been friends with Pinkie for long enough to know a thing or two about smiles. This was what the expert called an ‘active smile’. Whisper was actively happy right now, because she heard Pristine whistle.

And my gut told me that it was not about the tune.

In fact, my intuition told me something I had not been told in a long, long time: Make it happen. It was the reemergence of a very old impulse. To meddle in other ponies’ private affairs and love lives. I had felt such an insistent urge in those early days after my arrival to ‘fix things’, to ‘make the obvious happen’. Applejack belonged to Rainbow Dash. Fluttershy belonged to Pinkie Pie. I had seen other constellations work out. I had seen Rarity and Twilight become very happy with each other as a monogamous couple. I had seen Fluttershy become happy with a griffon whose name I could not remember for the life of me. But immediately after my arrival, with that chaotic soup of very few memories in my head, certain couples seemed like the obvious choices and I worked my rump off to make them happen.

And I felt it again. Here. Now. With Whisper of all ponies. And Pristine, apparently. Maybe Luna was right. Maybe I had been connected to Cadance’s domain in another cycle, the same way I was connected to hers this time around. Maybe I had not always been Dreamwalker. A scary thought.

One I decidedly shoved out of my head, or at least to the back. There were more important matters right now. “Tell you what,” I addressed Whisper with a sly grin.

She winced and turned her attention back to me. “Huh?”

“You’re right, I do owe you,” I admitted graciously. “That was horrible behavior of me. So let me offer you this: a contract. You work for me as part of the Greenwood project, you get a house here in the village as your own and a solid, regular income. I wanted to recruit a wildlife negotiator anyway, it would add another layer of protection from the Everfree Forest. How does that sound?”

She positively beamed at me. “It sounds lovely! Thank yo-I mean, that will do!”

I chuckled and gave a curt nod. “And if you need any important gear for your task by any chance, say a neckerchief or a hat or other essentials like that, I can gladly redirect you to our resident seamstress. She’s new in town as well, wouldn’t you know?” A lovely, deeper shade of red rose to her cheeks. “You know, the funny thing is, I remember Pristine telling me a couple of days ago how some private information of hers was leaked. So strange she never mentioned you would come as well, just a bit later.”

Whisper's eyes went wide. And with that, I already had all I needed to know. “No. No, they can’t know that! We have always been—“

“Gotcha,” I cut in, just to make sure that she would not rile herself up further or spill something that I really did not need to hear.

She shut her mouth and pressed her lips to a thin, fine line. Her cheeks puffed, she regarded me with disappointment yet again. It took her a while to calm down, mostly from her fears of what might have been leaked, I assumed. “That wasn’t very nice,” she chided me.

I sighed, leaned over and nuzzled her mane. “I know. And I’m sorry for the trickery. But you guys can be quite a hoofful at times and… by coming here, you kind of made it into my problem as well. Now I know what I’m working with, which will help me help you. And I promise you, nopony shall ever know if you don’t want them to.”

She still seemed a little miffed. Or at least she wanted to stay angry a little longer, but she could not. Being resentful was so far removed from her kind and gentle nature that I could count the seconds before she sighed in defeat and nodded. “You promise?” she asked.

I grinned from ear to ear as I went through the motions. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!” My oath at least seemed to mollify her completely. And with us still sitting comfortably by the window, I deemed it appropriate to get back into a bit of small talk. To ease out any remaining tension. It also allowed me to mentally prepare new checklists. One for the contract I would need to write up for Whisper. Another one for the ‘welcome’-party we would throw this evening to properly, well, welcome her in our midst. And maybe one to snoop around and gather information about the current state of their relationship. Pristine’s poker face was a lot better than Whisper’s. I had not noticed anything, heard anything, not even from Rarity who I presumed would be thrilled to learn of this news.

Oh, maybe that’s the reason Pristine fled from Canterlot. Huh. Maybe I had spent too much time with Rarity. My romance-sense was tingling. I needed to know. And I had their best interests at heart, of course. I just wanted to help. Nudge a little, if required. And be happy to see them happy.

Really, just like Rares.

Rarity would rip my head off if she found out that I knew and had not told her. But she would respect a Pinkie Promise, of course.

Head would still come off though…

Interlude: Rock Solid I

Smelly stone, made from bone,

Looks so ugly, fat and smugly,

Dad’s an oaf, bright as a loaf,

Mom’s a dragon, wide as a wagon,

…

Foals were so creative.

The ‘poem’ continued, of course. Gray Scale sat right behind him and murmured their newest version, and although Rock Solid did not turn around to look him in the eyes, he could still hear his wide, wide grin. Rock looked down at his hooves. They were dirty, of course. But this time around, nopony had called him a mud pony yet, or a dirt pusher. Maybe because of the ratio. There were a lot more earth ponies in this school than the last one.

The break would be over soon. Math class would start with Miss Golden Ratio. But Rock was restless. Gray had chanted that stupid poem religiously for the past few weeks every couple of breaks they got, always with a new line in between, or an insult exchanged, or a new verse added. They were still testing things out. They still tried to get under his skin.

And that was just it. They tried.

Rock did not care how he looked. He did not care if they called his father the dumbest creature beneath Celestia's sun. He was not his father. If his old man took offense to this bullshit, then he would come here himself and teach them a lesson.

He did not care how wide his mom was either. Rock deemed it more likely that she would be hurt by this, but again: He was not his mom. Why would he care?

It was the same. Just like last time. Just like the many times before.

They moved at least once a year. Due to job reasons, his parents told him. Yet it always sounded so strange to him, so forced. As if they made that up right then and there, on the spot.

As far as Rock Solid was concerned, he had adapted to these frequent changes of location. He had a thick hide, both figuratively and literally. He made no friends, because, well, what for? So he could bid them goodbye once they moved yet again? No. It barely made sense learning the names of his schoolfellows. Names of teachers were difficult enough as is, seeing as there were a dozen of them each time and they expected him to address them ‘properly’. Because that was about manners. About respect.

Respect.

He had told his parents, of course. About the constant teasing. About the poems.

None of these colts and fillies dared to do anything, of course. Nothing serious anyway. If he left his saddlebag unattended, his stuff would be hidden all around the place. His food would be given to school pets, if they had any. Or outright thrown into the trash. It was still wrapped in foil though and they never put enough effort in to unwrap it. So it was perfectly fine and edible.

They teased him relentlessly for eating trash, of course.

And what superior wisdom had his dear old mom and dad bestowed upon this young and impressionable colt?

Mom had basically told him to endure. Shut up. Keep quiet. Bear the brunt of it. Dig deep and stay there, survive the onslaught, day after day. They would grow tired eventually. They would get bored. They would stop. Someday.

And he could see that. Sometimes, when they stayed in one place long enough, he saw that starting. How some of the self-proclaimed bullies just stopped bothering him, because they continuously failed to coax any interesting reaction out of him. So they looked elsewhere for their gratification. For easier prey, more amusing targets.

These dolts had never seen a true bully in their lives. A true bully was thirty years plus old, twice their size, with a gruff voice and always ready to let actions follow words. Or just skip the words entirely, seeing how useless those were most of the time.

But they moved a lot.

Rock had no idea why, but they did. And every time, it started all over again. He was the new colt, he was larger than anypony else in his class, his coat was strangely thin and already somewhere between beige and gray. There were crusty spots in his coat where his skin had hardened considerably. These spots were bald, not a single hair of his coat grew on them, and the hardened skin had changed coloration to an almost brick-like red. They called it eczema even though they could barely pronounce that. His parents had seen a doctor with him. They could not quite explain these spots, but called them unassuming.

Probably a medical term or something. They meant that it was harmless. It did not endanger his health. But it did seem like a joke in bad taste to call them unassuming.

And his dear old dad, he had given completely different advice. You need to assert yourself, he said. They will never stop unless you gain their respect, he said. Rock both understood that, and did not. So he dared to open his mouth. Cut in and ask: But how do I gain their respect?

A good lashing later for rudely interrupting his old man, he even got an answer. You make them respect you.

He wanted to ask how, sure. But his rump was still sore, so he just nodded instead and kept quiet. Or as his mom said: He dug deep and endured.

An empty yogurt pot hit the back of Rocks head.

Several of his classmates giggled. “You know, we’re actually wrong I think,” Gray murmured with a smug tone. “Your mom can’t be a dragon. Dragons are, like, so cool. And you’re just you.”

They tried to hurt him. Again and again and again. They failed, but that did not matter. They tried and they never seemed to grow tired of it. And it was so infuriatingly annoying.

Make them respect you.

Alright.

Rock slowly pushed against his desk. Since it was bolted to the floor, his chair relented and he pushed himself away. Enough to stand up and turn around. His gaze trailed across the room. The large open windows showed a cloud-covered, gray sky. The blackboard was as empty as the teacher’s desk. The little bookshelves in the back, the aquarium with the goldfish in it. Miss Goldy Locks, they called her. So creative.

Then his gaze settled on Gray Scale. He was a lanky colt. His first few growth spurts made him grow high, but not particularly wide. Still — Rock Solid beat him in width and height. Maybe he was just pissed because he used to be the largest colt in class. Rock did not know, and neither did he care.

All eyes were on him. Waiting. Some holding their breath, ready to snicker and giggle as they expected him to run away or break down into tears or some bullshit like that.

But he was Rock Solid. And he would make them respect him. “Step out,” he said and pointed towards the narrow path between the rows of tables, right in front of himself.

With a smug scoff, Gray Scale did just that. “And what now, you lumbering—“

Rock gave him a shove. He controlled himself well enough, he only employed a fraction of his strength. But it was still sufficient to get Gray off-balance. He stepped up and gave him another shove and Gray tumbled to the floor, landing on his rump first and then on his back.

Gray Scale was too surprised to even feel any pain from his involuntary seating.

Rock stepped up, over this flabbergasted idiot. He leered down on him, but kept his attention mostly with the others in the room. One of the fillies giggled quietly. When she noticed him staring at her, she lit her horn and proudly presented a scribbling she had done within these few seconds. Two rough shapes, maybe supposed to be ponies, probably supposed to be him and Gray, touching snouts or something?

“You gonna kiss him now?” she asked and giggled again.

Following her comment, others chimed in with giggles. Rock looked down at Gray Scale. The colt seemed disgusted. He seemed to think that he was actually considering this suggestion. But there was an entirely different reason why Rock hesitated.

This felt important.

He knew he was just a young colt. No matter what he thought he knew, the truth was: He knew nothing. Yet still, this moment felt like it would define him for years to come. He felt a pressure in his chest. He felt the weight of fate itself settle on his shoulders. He felt observed. As if someone, or something, was tracking his progress, his decision.

He pondered this feeling. The importance of this moment.

Gray Scale was nothing. A meaningless waste of space and time and effort. It was not even worth teaching him a lesson. Gray was beneath him. But! He could be used. For demonstration purposes.

He looked up to that nuisance of a filly again. Her stare had only become more expectant. “Watch closely,” Rock told her. “You don’t want to miss any of that.” Although he talked to her, he addressed all his currently present classmates. And they understood that.

They wanted a show. So he gave them one. He raised his hoof and struck the first blow. Gray Scale wheezed as Rock’s front hoof connected to his stomach. He tried to speak, but the next blow already followed and connected to his lower jaw. Rock heard them gasp in shock. The entire room went deathly quiet. He struck again. And again. And with each blow, he felt his restraint slip. Or maybe rather unravel. He put more and more and more of his power, his true strength into each blow. He pommeled that little prick until his dark gray coat started to change color like a damn inkblot test.

And it felt good.

All this frustration, finally vented. There was a lot more of it than Gray Scale could take, of course. A lot more than even Rock Solid could bear to release right now. His body would grow tired before he could finish emptying that barrel.

But sweet Celestia, did this feel great.

Somewhere in between his strikes, he took a break. He felt alive. He felt energized. His lungs greedily accepted fresh air, his hooves burned with a desire to continue, but for a brief moment, he raised his gaze and looked around. Some of his classmates had fled. Probably to fetch Miss Golden Ratio, the little snitches.

But the others just watched in stunned silence. And fear.

Now they respected him. He could see it in their eyes. They would not mumble their stupid little poems again. They would not hide his food again. They would not call him names again. Because now they saw and knew and understood that if they did, he would come for them next, he would pummel his food out of them and he would shut them up.

He was larger than them. Stronger than them. More powerful than them. And they owed him respect.

This was an important moment in his life.

The aftermath did nothing to course-correct the young colt.

Gray Scale, leader of the art club, had been hospitalized. His injuries were severe, but nothing long-lasting. Rock Solid got a stern talking-to by the dean. They demanded he talk to the school counselor. Yet all he had to do in that one hour was to sit there and idle sixty minutes away. Easy, really.

And less than two months later, they moved again anyway.

This time, he did not take weeks of patience before he drew the line. The first idiot that crossed his path and thought he had an easy game ahead of himself was pounded into dust.

Rock Solid was a force to be reckoned with.

And he never felt better.

“I tell you, it was madness,” gloated Wide Swerve. “It’s like he came out of freaking nowhere! We were in those lockers for ten minutes, maybe fifteen, and we told these jokes the entire time. I have no idea why he waited so long. Maybe he didn’t, maybe he just passed by randomly. But dude, like… what the fuck, right?”

Wide’s four companions chuckled in amusement. It was a boozy round this evening.

The Last Round was the closest bar to the training fields in Canterlot, where new guard recruits were pummeled into shape. It was quite lively from early afternoon into the late night hours, and at any given moment, half the customers were recruits or members of the guard mingling with recruits. Or family members of recruits. As such, while some customers could get quite rowdy at times, it was generally accepted to be a safe place to hang out in. The classic tavern brawl was a rare occurrence indeed, basically no pickpocketing ever happened and the worst the staff had to deal with were miffed gamblers and loudmouths.

It was a nice place. A little rough around the edges, but still a very nice place.

Wide was one of the new batch. First year cadets. Each week on the field was grueling and they had enough days where all they wanted to do was crawl back home, zombie-shuffle into their beds and hope they would die in their sleep so they would not have to get up in the morning to drag their hooves back to the field again. But this was a weekend, so things were a little different. It gave them two whole days to live and recuperate and actually socialize with ponies other than their classmates.

Wide was on good terms with his family. They lived over in Baltimare, thus it was a little trickier to see them as much as he would have liked. So his weekends were mostly spent with other cadets who were in a similar position. And what better thing to do when they met up than to shamelessly gossip and exchange urban legends and horror stories over a couple of pints.

There was a kernel of truth in every story, they said. He had his doubts about that and was pretty sure that some of the stories his fellows told him were complete and utter bullshit, made up on the spot to impress or amuse. And that was fine, really. Not like it mattered much.

His favorite this evening had been the one about a member of the Pie family. They were known rock farmers, even though nopony could really explain what the heck ‘rock farming’ even was, or how that looked like. Was that not just a quarry?

Anyway. One of his companions had allegedly met one of the Pie sisters in Manehattan right before he boarded the train to Canterlot to start his training. She was working on her rocktorate, whatever that was, and they got into an utterly weird, alien, beautiful, bewildering conversation.

It was no horror story, that was for sure. But it was his favorite one because it was just so… quirky. This mare sounded like she was a riot.

And when his turn was up, he tried to one-up the last story.

“So you’re telling me you met Rock Solid and you didn’t even get a scratch?” one of his companions asked, his voice laced with clear doubt.

Wide scoffed. “It’s not like the dude is a natural disaster or anything, he’s not some dumb beast that constantly lashes out.”

“Not what I~ heard,” sang another one.

Wide sighed. “Anyway. Story time. So he heard us joking about him and he barreled into the room like a force of nature.”

“See,” came an unwelcome cut-in.

Wide shot him a warning glare and continued. “This guy is massive. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen him. He could be the size of Princess Celestia. Certainly Princess Luna’s size, minimum. And yet despite this, he was so incredibly quick. Seriously, those earth ponies scare the living shit out of me sometimes.”

The only earth pony at the table bowed gracefully. “Thanks. You’re welcome.”

The entire table laughed before Wide continued. “So he comes in, runs straight up to this one guy and just smashes his hoof in his snout. Poor sod flies into the wall, but he’s not done, oh no. He lunges after him, grabs his mane in his teeth and whirls him around to smash him into the wall again. The poor sod slumps down to the ground, bruised and dazed. The others finally come out of their shock and yell at him. Stuff like: What the fuck, Rock? What are you doing?!”

“Yeah. I bet that went over smoothly,” one of the others quipped.

Wide shrugged with a grimace. “No. No, of course it didn’t. He kicked the wall with his hindlegs to push himself off, towards the next loudmouth. Actually one of the reasons why the western locker is still inaccessible. They still have to fix that wall, there’s, like, two dents in it now. And that’s solid stone, I might add.” Wide shook his head in disbelief. If he had not been present, he would not believe this story himself. So he could hardly fault his drinking buddies for their doubtful glances. “Anyway, he reaches the second guy and just outright smashes his forehead against his. They both stagger, but Rock recuperates so much faster. He uppercuts the guy and he’s just flat out gone. Lies on the floor, wincing, groaning. Rock meanwhile kicks back, literally, and just breaks the jaw of another one. Sweet Celestia, I heard that bone crunch and let me tell you, that is such a nasty noise. Still gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

“You’re just a pansy,” one of his friends teased with a snicker.

“Call me whatever you want,” Wide replied, “A couple of recruits were smart enough to run for the hills. They fetched one of the sergeants to sort things out, but until that mare arrived, Rock had demolished six more recruits. And don’t get this wrong — after those initial two attacks, they did start to fight back. They didn’t just stand there like training dummies, they tried to take him down. It’s just… I’ve never seen scary shit like that. He was pummeled by kicks and blows and he just tanked them like they were feathery little tickles. I know some of those recruits. Best of the family, trained for this career from a young age, some of them are almost twice my size and strength and they couldn’t even make him wince. Not once. And every blow he landed was just devastating. I’m not on top of the count anymore, but last time I heard, they had to deal with, like, three broken legs, one bruised spine and a dozen broken ribs. He was just a machine. And when Clarion Call finally showed up with the two recruits who alarmed her, do you think she managed to take him out? Heck no. She sent those two back into the hallways to get a bunch of unicorns while she would ‘hold him off’. When they fought, it was just… I mean, there are ponies who would pay good bits to see that. They were dodging and rolling with the punches like crazy. Clarion is a quick and agile fighter, like most pegassi. But she just couldn’t afford to be hit once. And, well, she was on a timer so to speak. He would land a hit eventually. And when he did, he outright broke her wing, I’m pretty sure. Kicked her in the gut and smashed her into the wall of the hallway outside.”

“No, yeah, but seriously, how did you get out of that?” one of his comrades asked.

For a brief moment only, Wide stared at the tabletop in shame. “I didn’t fight him. I had heard enough stories about him by that point. I saw what raw strength he packed. What little he took in terms of counterattacks. It’s like he doesn’t feel pain at all. And my magic is mostly focused on protective shields.”

“You should’ve tried to shield your allies then,” one noted with a disgruntled tone.

Wide sighed and his shoulders sagged. “Maybe. But he was supposed to be my ally as well, wasn’t he? Rock Solid was a day guard. Not just a recruit, but a full-fledged guard. Attacking a superior like that? And worse, I would have intervened. The only reason he did not care about me was because I did not interfere. I wasn’t keen on broken bones. Maybe I’m a coward. I don’t know. I just hedged a risk.”

“So what happened?” another asked to skip over the awkwardness that threatened to topple the mood. “Unicorns took him down with magic?”

Wide sipped at his tankard. He loved the rustic atmosphere in the Last Round. “No,” he answered with a head shake. “They tried. But there’s this rare thing with earth ponies where they have a natural resistance to magic. He’s one of them. He shrugged off some of their spells and broke the others before breaking some casters as well.”

Two of his companions whistled. “Wow. That’s just… wow. That’s carnage,” one said.

Wide nodded. “It was. At that point, basically everypony in the stadium knew about what was happening and all flocked to his hallway to either watch or put an end to it. Several officers came and after a while, they tired him out, I think. They clasped his hooves in iron and I had to restrain myself so hard to not laugh. Like… had they seen what he did? To these ponies? To those walls? A few iron chains wouldn’t hold him if he tried to break free. But I think it was more about the gesture. To reassure the others.”

“What’s the total?” the earth pony asked.

“I’m not sure. A dozen injured or something like that,” Wide answered with a shrug. “They took him to the dungeons, stripped him of his rank. Last I heard, he might end up in front of a judge. Mostly depends if some of those injured wish to press charges, I assume.”

“Jeez,” one of his buddies muttered. “It’s so scary to think that something like that is running around. I hope they lock him up for good.”

There was a part of Wide that hoped the same. He had never truly known that ponies like Rock Solid even existed. These primal, feral creatures capable of incredible feats. He had defended that stallion earlier, saying he was not a monster, not a mindless beast, and he stood by that statement. Still, Rock Solid was so much closer to that unrestrained nature of raw strength than anypony else. Wide had heard of incredible strength being displayed by earth ponies under dire circumstances. The same way some pegassi displayed astonishing speed when a pressing need arose or some unicorns found vast power boosts when shit really hit the fan.

But with most ponies, that was some sort of last resort. A last hooray before the lights went out. With Rock Solid, it seemed like a grinning predator’s face right beneath a paper-thin surface.

It baffled him to think that this stallion had made it through training without beating half his class to a pulp. How he had made it in the day guard for years and years, enough so that many regarded him as a taciturn and rough senior. Wide had even heard that Rock had enough years in the guard under his belt that he should have been a higher rank by now. Maybe his violent behavior was a reason why he was constantly set back?

The table fell quiet for a moment as all the recruits contemplated the story. The Last Round as a whole was never fully quiet though, especially not at this hour. The various conversations from other tables sloshed over. Laughter from other recruits telling their stories to their friends. Accusations of cheating from tables where cards were flung around. Giggling from tables where couples enjoyed a nice outing.

After what felt like several minutes, his earth pony friend broke the silence again. “Alright, I’m done moping. I’m gonna order a new round. As for your story, Wide? It was a gud’n, as my grandma would say. I have some serious doubts about the capabilities of your Rock Solid though. I feel like you exaggerated his abilities just too much. An imbecile like this thing wouldn’t stand a chance against a sergeant of the day guard, let alone a dozen unicorns. I get that he’s big and tough and strong and what have you, I’ve heard those stories as well, but jeez, come on, we’re not that gullible!”

“Also, a bastard with that poor of an impulse control would never make it into the guard. They wouldn’t even accept him as a recruit,” another of his friends mused. “I don’t mind you bullshitting us either, it’s still amusing, but I have to agree here. The guard has standards, and I can’t see them accepting a brute like that guy.”

It was fine, Wide told himself. They did not believe him. Each one of them drank at least two full tankards so far, for better or worse. He was fine with them not believing him. He would not have believed himself either. It was fine.

While his friends started to discuss the various issues with Wide’s story in excruciating detail with each other, Wide’s attention was drawn elsewhere. Another corner of the Last Round had become eerily quiet. And as a unicorn with mostly defensive focus, he had a good intuition when it came to brewing trouble. Especially when he heard a noise that almost sounded like a snarl. He turned his head. Looked towards that darker corner two tables over. And froze.

It was fine, he tried to tell himself as he soiled his chair.

Rock Solid slowly stepped out of the corner. His face expressionless, emotionless as usual. Stony. Harr. Harr.

Wide wanted to warn his friends. He wanted so desperately to scream at them. To run. To scatter. To flee. Get out of here, now! But he was frozen, rooted to the spot. Again. Just like last time. Just like in that locker room. He could only stare in disbelief. How. How was this possible? How was this guy here, of all places?! What had he ever done wrong to deserve this cruel twist of fate?

Rock stopped right at their table. His friends stopped bickering and slowly turned their attention to the newest arrival. Too slow. Rock put a hoof on the table's edge and Wide could only squint his eyes shut for what was to come next.

A couple of seconds later, a pegasus was thrown out the upper story window of the Last Resort. He managed to get his bearings quick enough to open his wings in an attempt to slow down his rapid descent towards the ground. And it would have worked, were it not for the table that was flung out the window after him.

Screams of surprise, terror and pain grew louder from inside the bar.

The Last Resort was a safe place, usually. Close to the training fields, many of the customers were recruits or guards.

It took twenty-four of them to take him down this time.

Ever since Queen Chrysalis’ attempted invasion of Canterlot, the higher-ups knew about the vast network of caves and tunnels beneath the city. While many city officials had lobbied for the network to be closed off entirely and many of the noble families, hoping for yet more riches, had lobbied for its exploration, the decision was ultimately left to Princess Celestia herself.

In her infinite wisdom — and as per usual trapped between opposing forces which got along as well as rats and snakes —, she decided to do both and neither. The stable, more well-known part was transformed into a second dungeon to house the more unruly prisoners of Equestria, right beneath the castle where the Princesses themselves could keep tabs on them. Meanwhile the unexplored parts of the network were slowly explored and mapped. Very slowly. And very cautiously.

This way, the city officials were reassured that the city and its populace was not put in unnecessary danger, while the nobles could still hope for more wealth, albeit at a considerably slower pace than they had expected to gain it at.

After many, many, many incidents, Rock Solid had hit rock bottom.

Attacking a superior was a grave transgression. Enough of an incident to actually drop him from the guard. And many officers had breathed a sigh of relief that day, hoping that with him gone from the ranks, things would finally look up for them. For many years he had been a liability. If one needed a living, breathing battering ram, if one needed to break bones and smash heads together, then Rock Solid was a perfect choice.

But this was Canterlot, for crying out loud. The guard did not need that kind of help here. They needed ponies with enough smarts to understand the social web of influences and enough finesse to navigate them. Rock Solid would have been a perfect choice to employ in some backwater town where he could bandy blows with the local flora and fauna. He would have been a good pioneer, settling on Equestrian borders to squabble with the locals.

But he refused. Stubborn like a mule, he refused to move to another town, he refused to lay down his rank and exit the guard gracefully and he paid shallow lip service to those demanding restraint of him.

With this latest incident at the Last Resort, he had gone one step too far. The guard could not afford to be associated with this pony any longer. He besmirched their good reputation by being a crude cudgel that attacked just about anypony.

So he was thrown into the dungeons. The ‘lower levels’, as the guard referred to the caves beneath Canterlot.

Metal sconces lit up the hallways. Most of them were rough, natural stone, but every now and then, massive geodes of purple crystals broke through. Their polished surfaces reflected the light and gave the entire network an eerie atmosphere.

Rock was stuck in a small cell behind massive metal bars. He had looked at them in detail, only to notice that breaking free would not be easy. Not impossible. He was still confident that he could break these bars free either at the bottom or at the top. But he could only kick against them at full strength when the shift change happened. And he had to be careful not to damage the bars themselves in a visible way or else they would probably inspect his cell and fix the damage.

The guard watching the entire complex was not even in sight. He sat on his table, probably munching on some treats from Donut Joe’s, somewhere further down these winding, labyrinthine corridors.

And Rock… was bored.

That changed however when a bright orange light briefly flashed off to the side. He heard soft hoofsteps as somepony snuck around, closer to his cell.

Rock grunted and rose from the simple bedding they had given him. This ought to be interesting.

A hooded figure approached his cell. The wide, dark cloak, coupled with the dim, flickering light of too few torches made it almost impossible to properly see any details. It clearly was what his visitor was aiming for, so Rock did not even bother gathering any more information than the obvious: This pony was bold enough to break the law by teleporting straight into a prison. And Rock knew that they had some sort of magical field or something in place to prevent that very thing from happening. So this pony had gone to some lengths to get in here.

“I heard you are for hire whenever you do not sit in a cell?” the stranger asked.

A deeply satisfied smile grew on Rock's rough face. “Sure.”

His visitor waited. He clearly expected more. More of an answer. Contract negotiations. Questions. Anything. When nothing came, his visitor awkwardly cleared his throat. “Right. Do you even care what I ask of you? Or what your payment will be?”

Rock scoffed. “Why? Do you pay me to care? You went through a lot of trouble to come here. So you better know who I am and what I do. The payment just makes the fun sweeter. And getting out of here is worth a lot.” He looked up at the ceiling. At the clear lines his escape attempts had scraped into the blunt stone so far. He would have totally gotten free within the next couple of days. No point in lingering further to prove it. As such, he turned his attention to his seemingly speechless visitor again. “So. We done talking now?”

A magical aura the same color as the teleportation flash encompassed the lock of his cell and melted the whole thing into a steaming puddle on the floor. “Nice trick,” Rock commented and opened the gate. His visitor reached out with a hoof to signify their agreement. And as a cruel grin grew on Rock's face, he shook this stranger's hoof. He could already tell.

This would be fun.

Storytime

The day before…

Once all preparations were done, smithing became a waiting game. Not entirely, of course. But one had to wait for the forge to properly heat up, for the base material to melt, for the liquid metal to cool — there were just a couple of steps that involved standing around and looking sharp. I did my best to do just that when a familiar voice reached my ear and made me smile. The kind of fond smile I always got when somepony I internally labeled as ‘sweet, must protect’ came to me.

“Uhm, Dreamwalker?” she said.

I turned ninety degrees and my smile grew into a grin. “Hi, Whisper. How may I help you?”

She fiddled around with her hooves, rubbed her forelegs together and her wings rustled occasionally. She was building up courage to ask for something, I could tell that much already. But instead of backing her up, I waited. She got this.

“So, uhm, I was thinking that, maybe, I could take the cart and go to Ponyville and get us a few supplies?” She was so incredibly hesitant to even ask.

And of course that made me wonder why. So I looked over to the barn where we stored the cart whenever it was not immediately needed and I saw the barn doors wide open. The cart stood at the ready, and Pristine currently inspected the harness and fiddled around with the straps.

I grinned even wider and allowed myself a little fun with Whisper. “Well, I would love to, but you see, it appears that Pristine had the same idea and since she technically isn’t part of the project, I can’t order her to stop. I mean, I suppose I could forbid her from using our stuff, that cart technically belongs to Hefty and Honey… see, that’s the thing though, it belongs to them, technically I can’t order anything here. If they gave their permission, she’s free to do whatever. She’s an investor after all, not one of my ‘employees’.”

And just as expected, Whisper retreated half a step, slightly overwhelmed by the response she got. “O-Oh, uhm, I mean, uhm, i-it’s okay, I can just—“

Sweet and lovely Celestia, she’s just too kind for her own good. I chuckled briefly and dropped the act. “Hey, don’t worry. What I meant to say is this: As far as I am concerned, you are free to walk over there and ask Pristine in a nice and polite manner if she would be fine if you tagged along. Given that she wants to take the cart and visit Ponyville to begin with, I mean it’s still a possibility that she just inspects it for potential upgrades or whatever. Does that work for you? If she’s okay with you tagging along, you may go. Just be back tomorrow, eh?”

And with that, her frayed nerves calmed down, she sighed in relief and went in for a hug. I snickered as I embraced her and could not help myself. So I added a little something extra. “You know, there’s this new Prench restaurant, Heure De Minuit, it’s two streets down from Café Hay. It looks super-fancy and the food is great, but they are relatively new and still worried about establishing themselves, so their menu has quite affordable prices for now. Just saying.”

With Whisper's hot pink coat color, it was always hard to tell if she blushed or not. But I liked to think so as she clearly averted her gaze and retreated while mumbling a ‘thank you’.

She had been here with us for a few days now. In that time, she constantly ventured out into the woods in search of animals. Neither Spike nor I were a big fan of that and we both offered to accompany her, but she declined with the same explanation each and every time. The more of us would go into those woods, the harder it would get for her to find and talk to those she searched for. She had found a couple of tracks from several timberwolf packs, but they seemed to stay clear of the village for now. Which was already good and solid information. But Whisper was not satisfied with just that. She wanted more. She searched for manticore tracks and so far, she had found none.

It was highly likely that Greenwood lay smack dab in the middle of at least one manticore’s territory. She just had to find him. And ask forgiveness instead of permission, because we were already here and we would not leave either.

A soft rumble shook me from my daydreaming. I grimaced slightly. In the past couple of days, we occasionally felt these earth tremors. There was no pattern to them and Graphite reassured me that we would not have to deal with tectonic plates or volcanoes or the like. But she was stumped as to what caused them. So I did what I could. I asked Spike yet again to fly around a little, watch for changes in the landscape, anything out of the ordinary. But I already expected the same result as the last couple of times: Nothing.

Only a couple of minutes later my expectation was confirmed. And I noticed Pristine march up to me. That should serve as a good distraction. And indeed, marching she did. Not a leisurely walk, not a relaxed stroll, oh no. She looked like a mare with a mission, and nothing would stand in her way. Unfortunately, she fixed me with a glare that made very clear that she currently considered me standing in her way. I had no idea how or why, but I would find out soon enough — if I wanted to or not.

“Dreamwalker, we need to talk!” she opened our conversation while she was still a couple of feet away.

Despite having a hunch about what was going on, I still could not help but gulp. She used that tone that made me feel small and somehow guilty. And she knew exactly what she was doing. Why did she think she had to bring out the big guns right from the start?

Despite her best efforts, I still remained outwardly unfazed and even managed to plaster a smile across my muzzle. “Hey Pristine, how nice to see you! You look lovely today! Especially what you did with your mane.”

She raised an eyebrow, but smiled nonetheless. “I brushed it. You should try that, the results are magnificent.” She reigned herself in somewhat, sighed and shook her head ever so slightly. “Thank you, however. I appreciate the compliment. Now, will you allow me to take the cart to Ponyville to fetch some essentials? And I would love to take Whisper along for company if you don’t mind.”

No further explanation given. Just straight to the point. She clearly tried to steamroll me and it was funny in a way. I had no objections to any of that. That said, she was a little too confident for my tastes. “Well, I’d love to, but no.”

She blinked. Stared at me in disbelief. “No? What do you mean, ‘no’? We are talking about essentials here! I thought I was doing you a favor!”

I chuckled. “Right. About that. What exactly are these ‘essentials’ anyway? We did make a supply run a couple of days ago, I believe. Mostly for ores, coal, tools and such. What came up now? Without me knowing about it, no less?”

Gotcha! I knew it the moment her smile wavered ever so slightly. Pristine was good. Really good. But she was no Rarity quite yet. Catching Rarity off-guard was next to impossible. “Well, you see, we-I mean I… am still working on the finer details,” she answered. “I am currently compiling a list. So if you have anything you need, or maybe want…?”

I laughed quietly. Straight to bribery. Hoo boy, Rarity and I would have a great time talking about this. “Well, we shouldn’t splurge all our money on what we want, should we? But! I can see the point in occasionally getting something as a treat. Especially in those rough first months. Everypony is working their rump off here. Alright, fine.” I looked around the village. Took stock of what we had. What we needed. What some of our current residents might want. And time and time again, I came back to the same wisdom: good food was food for the soul.

“Alright, got it,” I announced. “While the vegetable fields come along nicely, we’re still lacking in other departments. If you could fetch us some fruit, that would be nice. A bushel of apples or two, maybe some strawberries. Whatever the market has to offer, basically.” Pristine acknowledged my wish and made a mental note. And with her distracted for a second, it was a perfect opportunity. “The cart belongs to Hefty and Honey, I fear. So you will have to ask those two. Most of us treat it as a communal property, but it really isn’t and we shouldn’t without their explicit permission. That said, I already gave Whisper the go-ahead to visit Ponyville alongside you. But it’s great to see you two communicate so clearly and openly with each other.”

That got her attention. She snapped out of her thoughts and stared at me. The tint in her pristinely white cheeks grew more pronounced as the meaning of my words slowly trickled in. “Oh. Well. That is… nice, certainly. Thank you.”

I grinned from ear to ear. “You’re welcome. Now shoo, off you go. And have fun!” To my surprise, she actually nodded and retreated without complaining. And judging by the wide smiles Derpy overhead, Spike from the sidelines and even Honey leaning against the wall of her workshop had, we all knew what was going on. They would get to Ponyville via a leisurely stroll through the woods, safe and sound, then arrive in the evening with perfect timing for a romantic dinner, maybe rent out a room somewhere, fetch supplies in the morning and be back around midday or afternoon. Tasteful fade to black for everything in between.

None of us minded to give them a little nudge in that direction.

The midday hours had come and gone, similar to how Whisper and Pristine had come back and gone to work. Everypony had noticed their beaming smiles, how they glowed from within. It seemed like it had been a very successful evening. Full of essentials.

I had already cleaned up the forge for today. Work was done as far as I was concerned. Or at least I was done —I needed a break.

So I snuck up to the barn where they were still busy debating over what would best be stashed where and I noticed two particular items I had a growing interest in. A couple of minutes later and I snuck back out of the barn with a piece of cheese the size of a foal’s head and a bunch of grapes. It was perfect.

A little detour to my house to fetch both our book and that precious, precious letter Pristine had brought along and I was on my way to my ultimate destination. “Dawn, balcony!” I yelled into the ruins as I made my way across the courtyard. “Celestia knows where this stallion is,” I muttered as I crossed the threshold, went left in the main entrance hall and up the stairs. I reached the balcony first. And since we always came here and made it our ‘usual spot’, we had opted to bring a couple of seating cushions up here. So, with my cushion in my telekinetic grasp, I settled down and made myself comfortable. I put the book down in front of me, put the small bowl of grapes and the plate with the cheese off to the side and waited.

A chilly breeze swooped by. I closed my eyes and inhaled. And for a fraction of a second, I felt peace fill my very being. Peace and silence. A different kind of silence, considering the Everfree forest was never truly silent to begin with.

As I opened my eyes again, I saw. Not just staring ahead, navigating the environment. I saw trees decades old, maybe even centuries. They had stories. Down below in the courtyard, I saw the strangely ill-fitting apple trees from Sweet Apple Acres, my pal Bruno among them. I saw Spike, all grown up into a smart and tough gentledrake, as he ushered around a couple of ponies. I saw Derpy fly around over the canopies with her weather machine strapped to her back, battling away a pesky Everfree cloud. I saw a speck of order in a sea of chaos. And yet, somehow, the order was winning. It was persistent. Stubborn. And even though I could not see the soft blue glow of those enchanted torches, I could imagine them. Like a lifeline, a trail to follow in the dark beneath the treetops. I saw infrastructure. I saw a future. I saw Greenwood, full of plucky ponies, fortune hunters who were willing to get their hooves dirty for the betterment of everypony around them. A community forged by adversity. A home for many. And maybe, one day, a town, or even a city. Right next to a magnificent castle. Who would live there, I wondered.

“You are far, far away, my friend,” I heard Dawn say in mild amusement.

I blinked a couple of times to free myself from my imagination. The unicorn settled on his cushion beside me, with the book laid between us. “Whisper and Pristine went to Ponyville,” I explained without addressing his initial statement.

“I know. I saw them leave yesterday,” he replied and eyed the plate and bowl on my other side.

I grinned, grabbed both and offered them to him. “Grapes?” He picked a couple and popped them into his mouth. And just seeing him chew made me want to have a couple more myself. So I placed both down between us and switched the book to the other side. “I usually prefer red or blue grapes over the regular ones because they are sweeter, but the sour punch these have is a nice change. We had a lot of Sugarcube Corner-stuff recently.”

“I will freely admit that I cannot remember when I last had grapes,” Dawn replied. He levitated one in front of his muzzle, close enough to inspect it, close enough that he had to cross his eyes a little. He seemed satisfied when I giggled.

I grabbed the knife from the plate and cut a piece of cheese out. “This one’s from Sweet Apple Acres. They don't make cheese regularly, so this is a real treat.” And it was perfect. Soft, smooth, just a tiny bit chewy, like cheese should be. In my humble non-gourmet opinion, at least. There were so many cheeses to pick from. Pepper cheese. Salted cheese. Curry cheese. Ponies mixed all kinds of stuff into just about anything, but Sweet Apple Acres cheese was plain. No frills. That made it perfect to combine with whatever else one wanted.

However, I noticed that Dawn never did. Never even hesitated to consider the possibility. He ate a couple of grapes, then ate a piece of cheese and then he just… stopped. “Have you ever tried to combine the two? In general?”

Dawn stared at the food and furrowed his brow in thought. “No. Have you?”

I could almost see his thought process. Is that even edible? How would that taste? Doesn’t that feel weird on my tongue? I chuckled. “I used to despise the mere thought. Grapes are sweet, or sweet and sour, depending on the kind. Cheese is, well, it’s cheese. Certainly isn’t sweet at all. Ergo: Those two things don’t belong together. Right?” Dawn vaguely nodded. “A close friend of mine, Pinkie, she urged me to try it. She was so insistent over years, made up all kinds of weird rules and pranks and party games. At one point, she compared me to cheese and herself to grapes and let me tell you, that analogy went weird places.”

We both laughed for a moment. “I can imagine,” he stated.

After I calmed down, I continued. “Anyway. I resisted her, let’s call it ‘superior persuasion’, for quite some time. However, unbeknownst to me, she also tried to convince Twilight. Pinkie is… she’s smart like that. She knew that we would only reaffirm our beliefs to each other if we knew. So she kept it a secret. Successfully. She managed to convince Twilight to at least try it. And after she didn’t keel over in disgust, Twilight then asked me to give it a shot.”

“And now you are asking me?” Dawn concluded with a wry smile.

I silently offered him the cheese knife and the grape bowl. He complied, cut a small piece free and, after a final moment of hesitation, ate it together with two grapes. I watched him closely and I had to make use of every ounce of self-control I had to not laugh. His expression went through so many changes that it became hard to read. And Dawn rarely had that lively of an expression to begin with. But I kept silent and awaited his final verdict with bated breath.

“It is… weird, I would say,” he started and licked his lips. He also eyed both the cheese and the grapes in thought. “Not in an unpleasant or unwelcome way, however.”

I grinned from ear to ear. “You’re welcome. Also: It gets better with time. You get used to it and eventually, you’ll grow to like it. That actually happened really quickly for me. Usually when ponies use the term ‘an acquired taste’, I think of something revolting. Something that is so bad that I question why anypony would want to grow to like that. Like coffee. Just utterly disgusting stuff. But this?” I popped another piece of cheese and a couple of grapes into my mouth. “This is great.”

Dawn tried it a second time. It was still weird, I could see it on his face. Still not bad. But weird. “I must admit, I do not experiment much with my food. Not anymore.”

While his eyes spoke of fond memories, of nostalgia, his voice betrayed a sorrowful tone. “You did at some point?” I dared to ask. And it was a dare, really. Talking to Dawn was fun. It always felt like this massive well of unfathomable knowledge, so deep one could get lost in the pitch-black down there and never reemerge. But he was a close-guarded pony with many secrets, a very cautious pony to boot. Asking direct questions always entailed the risk of scaring him off.

“I—… yes,” he answered after some initial hesitation. “I loved to cook, actually. To try out new spices from foreign lands, to see how they fit in with the cuisine I knew, but… back then, I cooked for someone. That made it special. And different.”

He regarded the grapes once more. There was something familiar in his eyes. An old, weary indifference. It took me a while to identify it as such. It was a feeling I had been spared this cycle, for the most part. But I remembered it from other lifetimes. He gave the cheese the very same look. And although he tried to keep it hidden, I noticed that silent sigh of his. “You don’t enjoy food anymore, do you?” I asked.

His shoulders sagged a little. “There are a great many things I do not enjoy any longer, my friend. I dread to put it into words, but the truth of the matter is that I eat to sustain myself, my body. Fuel to the furnace, and little else.”

I sighed. “That… is sad. And it sounds a lot like somepony else I know.”

Are you talking about me?

Take a guess.

“You are talking about Void, are you not?” Dawn asked. He saw how surprised I was that he even knew that name and he smiled lopsided. “You mentioned him. And without wanting to brag: I am a smart unicorn. I had my suspicions and I think I figured it out.”

You mentioned me? Are you dumb or something? Me being a hidden secret was one of our best strategic advan—

I faded his voice out. Just white noise in the background of my own thoughts. He was pissed, he would be for a couple of days, probably. It was fine. We never agreed on how much trust was too much trust. His opinion on the matter was clear: Any. I disagreed. And that was that.

“He has difficulties enjoying the smaller things in life as well, yes,” I reiterated.

“Tell me about it,” Dawn replied. When I kept silent because I misunderstood the meaning behind his words, he rephrased it. “No, literally — please, tell me about it.”

Void would have a field day. Me spouting all his dirty little secrets? All the private information I had? All his weaknesses and vulnerabilities? It mattered little that what I talked about was none of that. In his opinion, any information could be turned against him. Against us. So sharing none of it would be beneficial. For our defense, our survival.

But what worth did survival have when the life it allowed was so dreary?

“For him, everything just seems… dull, somehow. Bland,” I explained. “The colors are muted. There is no joy in sounds. No melodies in running water or the breeze in the woods. Yet at the same time, his emotions can be devastatingly volatile. They flip-flop between extremes. There is either only true neutral indifference, or extreme spikes of searing passion. And this passion I speak of doesn’t just concern desire. More often than not, it is anger. And there is little else in between. Flatline or spikes off the charts. No middle ground. He too cannot cherish simple joys of life, like eating good food or enjoying somepony’s company. That’s why he can be so incredibly clingy and fiercely protective towards all he perceives as ‘his’. And when he defends such ‘possessions’, he does so with disproportionate force. It’s… it can be scary.” Without realizing it, I had pinned my gaze to the Everfree forest below us again. Stared at the seemingly endless green of the trees, without seeing any trees at all. Now back from my small monologue, I turned my attention to Dawn. “Sounds familiar?”

He intently stared at the weathered stone beneath his hooves. Beneath us. The balcony was in bad shape, crumbly in places, the stone railing broken apart and almost gone completely. “No. Not at all,” he answered. Then he turned his gaze to me and smiled. “However, it is nice to learn new things about a friend.”

I grinned and agreed. “I tried to teach him a couple of times, but it’s just… it’s not that easy.”

“Such things rarely are,” Dawn agreed.

“How about you, then?” My question lingered in the air like the echo of a particularly loud yell in the middle of a massive, snow-capped mountain range.

Yet instead of the dreaded cracks and sounds of impending doom, I heard a soft sigh from him. “It is only fair, is it not? I wonder, though — and please forgive my rudeness by asking a question in reply first: It is noticeably rare that you ask me such questions. You must know that there is more to it, yet you never inquire about my past. Why is that?”

I chuckled. That was at least a question I could answer. One where I felt quite comfortable with the answer as well. “It’s simple: I don’t want to force your hoof. I don’t want to corner you. I don’t want to force you to lie to me. You have secrets. A lot of them. I don’t mind those. Keep them if you wish. I want to be your friend. I want you to feel safe with me, comfortable. I want you to share information in peace. Whatever you feel like sharing. At your own pace. Everything else wouldn’t be very friendly, you know?”

I quietly laughed. He did not chime in. Instead he furrowed his brow in thought. And then nodded, after making whatever decision he had to make. “We hail from very different worlds, you and I.” The very moment he said that, my eyes lit up in excitement. If he was really ready, if he was willing to talk about his past… I was here for it. I had been curious for a while and it seemed now was the time that my patience was rewarded. So I settled in and made myself extra-comfortable.

“I am sure it comes as no surprise when I say that I am a lot older than I look. Much older. Enough so that I did not expect to find ponies in this region of the world. What you ponies call tribalism is, if I understand it correctly, something deeply frowned upon, as it endangers the unity of the three pony tribes. But you have to understand: For me this was merely everyday life. And in the unicorn culture of old, knowledge was everything. You wanted to prove your worth? You better get your muzzle glued to those books. Precious books. Rare books. Back then, they had been so much rarer than they are these days. We did not have book presses, print media, magazines. Each book was unique. written by magic and the force of will of a single unicorn. And we felt superior to those earth ponies who conveyed all their knowledge via folk wisdom, who talked instead of writing, who spun precious lessons into elongated tales. If you wanted your voice to be heard, you had to prove yourself. Write your own book. Fill it with worthwhile knowledge. Or better still: Learn spells. As many as you can. Knowledge is power, but spells are worth so much more than just understanding the fundamentals of engineering or botany. That said, you still had to be cautious. Learn too much magic and you may qualify yourself as a viable candidate for raising the sun. No unicorn wanted that position. It was a grueling task, it cut your life expectancy short by a couple of decades. It was considered an honor, but only so unicorns would not constantly shirk their appointed duties.”

I knew the Hearth's Warming Tale. I watched the play every year. I sang the songs alongside Spike, Twilight and my other friends and family members. I knew them by heart. I believed in them. With passion and fervor. I hated singing. I disliked hearing my own voice. But that one evening in the year, excluding birthday songs, I really, truly sang.

And every year, the storyteller in me sighed with a heavy heart as he tried to imagine. As he emphasized with ponies long dead and gone. How hard that life must have been. How different. We had so many amenities these days that we simply took for granted.

“I was ambitious back then,” Dawn continued. “Our civilization formed us that way and if one wished to become anything other than ambitious, he really had to struggle hard from the very beginning. I wanted my voice to be heard. I wanted to change things, I wanted power and influence. In retrospect, I was a young fool. I craved things I did not understand and I lacked the foresight to realize that I had no goal in mind beyond acquiring what I was denied. Had they given me power and influence — I would not have known what to do with it. But that was just one of many problems unicorn society had back then.

I thought my time had come when a unique opportunity arose. A proposal was made and accepted, and many spells were employed to construct one of the largest ships ponykind had ever seen. Several of the storage rooms were enchanted to keep the supplies of food and water fresh. Supplies that would last almost four dozen unicorns several months. We would ride the waves, with magic billowing in our sails, and we would venture to new coasts and foreign lands. We would be the first unicorns to set hoof there, to learn of new varieties of stone, to see and study and collect samples of new species of flora and fauna, and maybe, just maybe, we would even encounter other civilized races, other kinds of magic, new spells. It was daunting. It was an adventure of life-changing proportions. And I fought tooth and hoof to get in.

Life on a ship is… a strange mixture of boredom and exhaustion. Either your work is done for now and you feel just how much your tasks have drained from you and you are faced with not being able to do much aside from staring out into the water or interacting with your fellow unicorns, or… or you are busy doing said tasks, which require constant concentration and the expenditure of magic. Each spell drains your reserve, your energy dwindles until you are spent and you are faced with the same issue again and again. Card games can only help you so much. It was forbidden to remove any scrolls or books from the secured vaults, as no unicorn wanted to endanger them by exposing them to the salty sea air. And keep in mind: While you work with those unicorns day in, day out, side by side… they are still your competitors. No matter your friendly rivalry, at the end of the day, you all aim for the same goal. It was still a hard-fought competition.

It was a small miracle that we had so few fisticuffs. And that none of us went mad.”

That as well served to inspire my imagination. The storyteller within me gave a wistful sigh as I dreamed up a truly massive three-master. How many decks would it have? Was only one single captain responsible for it all? I almost imagined this thing as a floating city, but four dozen crewmembers actually were not that many.

And the endless sea could surely be both frightening and enthralling. Had they encountered whales? Dolphins? Sharks? The legendary carcinus? Or a kraken? I sighed deeply. Today was not the day — but one day, I would ask him about his travels. What he had seen and encountered. All the creatures of the wild. I was sure Fluttershy would love to hear all about them. And Whisper too, of course.

“At the end of our journey, we all breathed a sigh of relief when the scout yelled: Land, ho! Some of us had lost their faith that we would ever reach another shore. Our maps, supported by dozens of tracking spells, marked out our journey and ensured us that we truly had reached an entirely different landmass. A new continent.

And what a land it was!

Wild and untamed beasts the size of houses roamed these coastlines. Fish large enough to swallow a unicorn whole swam in the deeper waters. The mountains rose high and spewed fire and brimstone. Cracks in their sides were plainly visible at night due to the lava constantly flowing from them. There was little in terms of vegetation. Mostly rock, with the occasional hardy shrub. We learned about cacti. The hard and very prickly way.

We learned that some of these creatures shared the same magic resistance some earth ponies had developed. These magnificent, enormous beasts. Everything in this strange new land seemed oversized.

We ran our ship onto the shore. With our combined spellpower, it would be easy to get it back into deeper water. And we swarmed out. A few were designated to stay behind to keep an eye on the ship, just in case. The sore losers of a lottery. But the rest of us? We were explorers. Researchers. Pioneers. A few first days went by with us constantly coming back to the ship to load off a new saddlebag full of samples. The laboratories on the lower decks, unused to this point, were constantly churning out new information about the geology of this land, about the mixture of its air and the processes happening in its plants. And I was at the forefront of it all.

And then we encountered our first dragons.

Ponykind had not known such beasts. We were utterly caught off-guard by their fire breath. They too were towering beasts, easily double or even triple the size of a pony. It took us a while to realize that those were still considered young, barely adolescent. But a group of them formed and hunted us for sport. They seemed less interested in ending lifes and devouring us and more in studying us, in their own cruel, primitive way.

We retreated to the ship in a hurry, fools that we were. Of course they followed us. And the first assault was a brutal battle. Many of the beasts of this new land had proven considerable vulnerability to mind-affecting magic. They were tough and strong and resilient, but their minds were small and fragile, easily controlled. These dragons however, they were cut from a different cloth. Attempts to control them were made and while some succeeded, we quickly learned that failure backfired horribly as it enraged these creatures.

Half the crew was put into shifts of six hours to maintain a force shield around the ship. After all: If we lost the ship, we would be lost as well. With this ongoing assault, we could not hope to ever build a new one to cross the ocean. Especially since our supplies had almost run out and we needed to restock in his hostile place.

But our foes were sloppy.

What we perceived as an act of war, as pure unbridled aggression, was merely playful ribbing from their side. Came nightfall, they retreated to sleep. And they squabbled amongst each other so much. There was no rhyme or reason to their attacks. No emerging patterns, no commanding officers.”

I snickered. And I was deeply grateful that Dawn did not seem to mind, he smiled even.

These ponies arrived in the dragonlands. The dragons of old were probably a bit different from our modern allies as well and I could not help but wonder what Ember would have to say to this story. Would she be proud of her ancestors giving these pony intruders such a hard time without even trying? Or would she berate them because they were not trying?

I also wondered if dragons knew. If they remembered these invaders. I assumed that the three tribes, fleeing the Wendigos, arrived in today's Equestria a long, long time after this first encounter. Did the dragons see these new neighbors and thought: ‘Ah, those guys again’?

“We used whatever advantage we could get,” Dawn continued. “We coordinated snoop troops. Yes, laugh all you want. Some of us lost a little bit of sanity and deemed this a good name. These groups were to sneak out after sunset to retrieve food and water to restock our supplies for our eventual departure.

Venturing out at night came with its own risks, of course. Different kinds of predators roamed these lands at night and even though these were oversized as well, they were still a lot sneakier than their daylight brethren. It was rare that we actually lost somepony. But it happened. And every loss was a hard hit for morale. Despite this, it made the workload for the rest of us a little easier. One mouth less to account for when it came to water and food. We knew now how long we would travel. How much we needed. And we tried to work with as little surplus as possible.

That said, we were still unicorns. We were still ambitious. Many of us who went outside at night still sought what we had come for initially. Samples of strange things. Traces of new magic. Knowledge.

It just so happened that I was part of almost every team that went outside the shield. I had a really lucky hoof in the lottery. And I did not make myself any friends with that. And one night, we overstayed our welcome. The sun was rising in the east and we were still half an hour away from the barrier. We could make it just in time if we hurried.

And I got stuck. Twisted my ankle in a bad way when I stepped into a crack. They did not even blink, they just… left. I was furious, of course. Not disappointed, no. But furious. But I was a lucky fool back then. I was eventually discovered by a dragon, and it was the one dragon who did not care about attacking our ship or its crew. Hm. Maybe I should be clear here: I learned later on that there were several dragons who had noticed our ship drawing closer before we even set hoof on the shore. The larger ones just did not care much as long as we stayed clear of their volcanoes and hoards.

She was different though. She helped me. Saved me in more than just one way. She freed me from that crack and took me to her lair, where she nursed me back to health. I thought she held me prisoner, but I was free to go. When I demanded as much, she even flew me back to the barrier and left me there. Although she made sure that neither my people saw her, nor hers. And when they asked me how I survived, I failed to give a proper answer. I just snapped at them for leaving me behind.

And the next night, I went outside again. This time in search of her, and nothing else.

We stayed for weeks. Weeks turned into a few months. The ship was fully restocked, but we waited. Since a predictable pattern had emerged, we were fine with keeping that routine running. Defend the ship throughout the day, gather knowledge and samples at night. I went out to meet up with her every night. Talked to her. For hours and hours and hours. She told me so much about her homeland. About these wild plains and fire-spewing mountains. About her kind and the many beasts roaming around. She never asked for such knowledge in return. What she did ask though… was why I was the way I was.

She was unhappy with her own kindred. Their greed and unruly behavior irked her, even though she felt the pull of gold just as much and her manners and politeness had very harsh limits. But she asked me and in turn made me question myself. Why was I so ambitious? What was my ambition? What did I wish to accomplish in my life? Was power and influence really what I wanted? What for? What would I do with it?

Things changed almost a year after our arrival. These teenage dragons had a gathering of sorts. For the first time since we ‘invaded their lands’, they actually shared their observations and information about successful and failed tactics. And they decided on a coordinated attack by their entire force. Even with all crewmates jumping in, we would not be able to hold the shield against that attack.

I only learned any of that because she told me. We would all perish. And she was averse to such wasteful treatment of life. I immediately informed the others and within one day, they prepared for our departure. I snuck out in bright daylight and managed to make my way across the plains, past beasts and dragons alike. I would not have succeeded then were it not for the vast knowledge she had so freely shared with me.

Weeks and months of her intriguing company, plus the exotic beauty of this strange land and a lot of soul-searching.

I could not tell when exactly I had fallen for her. Me, a unicorn. In love with a dragon. It was ridiculous. And I don’t think I ever told her with plain words. What I assumed would be our last goodbye was in fact the start of a new life for me. I just could not. I looked into her eyes and I… I could not leave her.

But I could leave the academy. I could leave what little family I had. I could leave my colleagues, as I had no friends. I could start over. A new beginning. Find out what life had to offer. What I truly wanted. Where I truly belonged. It would be hard, of course. The only unicorn, small and squishy, in this land.

We were happy.

For years, we were granted a blissful, happy freedom. The other dragons did not dare bother her. She was fierce when she defended her own. Her passion was unrivaled by anything I had ever witnessed, and she directed it towards me.

And all too soon, she was… taken from me. Ripped out of my life.”

I swallowed. My throat felt dry and itchy. And my vision became a little blurry as I imagined that, too. I knew loss. I had lost so many over so many lives. Such accidents happen, a doctor's voice faintly rang in my ears. Stunt flying is extremely dangerous. Rainbow. I shook my head. I did not wish to know. I did not need to either. I suppressed the memory as fast as I could.

Love can only hurt you, somepony said to me once. I defied that sentiment back then. I could only agree now. I knew that. Yet still I believed, hoped with desperation, that love was worth the pain.

The pain was inevitable.

It was a trade-off. Always.

To dare to love. And to make it worth it with the time we got.

Because not loving at all, well — that was not an option either. We were not built to have that option.

“I am so sorry,” I whispered half-choked.

Dawn had better self-restraint. His expression was neutral and remained so. He faintly nodded. “So am I. After I lost her, I started traveling. The events that ripped her from my side seemed so arbitrary, so meaningless. I needed to understand. I was so intent on finding her again. Obsessed, one could say. Nothing else mattered anymore.” Dawn sighed and his shoulders slumped a little. It must have taken a lot to talk about this story. “I lost interest in the ‘finer things in life’, as they say. Food, water, sleep, those became base requirements at best, and obstacles at worst. Weather was either a hindrance or unimportant. Landscapes lost their grandeur and splendor and simply became obstacles of various shapes and sizes.”

It tickled the back of my head. There was a song about that. I could almost remember it. What really stuck with me was that one line from the refrain. Because nothing else matters. I usually tried to be careful with my usage of superlatives. Nothing, always, ever, never. Those were dangerous words. They were meant to have a profound meaning because they encompassed so much. Using them willy-nilly made them lose meaning.

Nothing else matters.

A scary thought.

“I cannot imagine being that driven,” I murmured.

“Oh, I think you can,” Dawn replied quietly.

The silence stretched. It was not uncomfortable per se, but it certainly was heavy. My mind tried to dissect his story and I had a hard time stopping that. At the same time, I felt empathy for him. I wanted to comfort him, to make him feel better — but I knew that it was not quite that easy. He had lost his center. And he desperately scrambled to regain it. Probably by any means necessary. And for who knew how long.

“You came by a little early today,” Dawn spoke up, much to my surprise. “May I ask why? Surely you did not just wish to share cheese and grapes?”

I looked down at the bowl. The fruits seemed less appealing than they had earlier. I sighed. “Why not? What’s wrong with cheese and grapes?”

“Nothing at all,” he reassured me. “However, you do not tend to do things without reason.”

I furrowed my brow, but had to concede the point. “Fair enough. We got our first letter today. It’s from Periwinkle. Apparently she’s ready to move, has all her stuff packed up and she will arrive here soon. I think. She just wrote, and I quote:” I unfolded the letter again and searched for the correct line. “Look to my coming on the first light of the fifth day, at dawn look to the east.” I shook my head and put the letter away again. “I don’t think she means Baltimare. Or Appleloosa.”

“Unlikely, yes,” Dawn agreed.

And another rumble went through the ground. It was actually more pronounced here on the balcony, as we could hear some stones crack and dust fluttered from the ceiling. “Right. And then there’s that,” I continued once the tremor settled and everything went quiet again. “They’ve been occurring for the past two days now, maybe twice a day, roughly. I talked to Graphite and she’s clueless. No volcanoes, not anything else she could identify. Did you notice anything? Does your vast knowledge offer any suggestions to a plausible cause for this?”

Dawn mulled this over for a moment before he shook his head. “I fear I cannot offer you any explanation either. That said, the Everfree forest is a very chaotic place and usually abhors the infringement of order. Maybe this is the chaos revolting against our presence?”

I grimaced. “Ew. I sure hope not. I’m not sure how we’re meant to battle earthquakes. Or chaos itself. Well, they’ve been small and rare so far and nothing got damaged. It just spooks ponies. Guess we’ll hope for the best for now. Still, it was worth asking, right?” I shot him a wink.

Dawn replied with a smile. “Of course. Say, how are you doing? Overall, I mean?”

I knew exactly what he meant. And I grimaced because of it. My immediate impulse was to snap. To hiss the obligatory ‘I’m fine!’ in his direction. But I did not want to snap at him. “Better actually. Thanks for asking,” I answered instead. “I think I’m actually going to start work on the castle again soon. Map out the floors, mark down traps, maybe see if I can clear rubble here and there. My magic isn’t exactly the strongest, but it’s worth a shot, right?”

Dawn furrowed his brow. “Are you not busy forging items for the village?”

“Oh, I am,” I replied quickly. “I could go on for weeks and months at the current rate. We will need to fetch ourselves an actual smith sometime soon. After we built an actual smithy. But I need a bit of a change of scenery every now and then or I will go mad. Unsurprisingly, smithing usually isn’t exactly the most riveting stuff.”

Dawn tilted his head slightly, deep in thought. “I see,” he mumbled.

The bait is laid out. Let’s see what happens next.

I sighed. I did not like this, but neither could I reason with him. So I kept quiet for the most part and ate a few more grapes…

We were granted peace and quiet for two days.

It was early midday when the tremors started. The difference was: They did not stop. Not this time. Instead they got stronger and stronger. Most of us gathered inside the village walls. Hefty came back from the woods, the golems were commanded inside by Spike, we all felt it in our bones. Something was happening. Something was coming.

“… the bell!” I heard a faint voice. I turned around to see Dawn running towards the open backside gate. Even despite the distance, I could tell that there was urgency in his face. “Ring the bell!” he yelled again. So I did. I quickly grabbed my forging hammer, cantered over to the bell and gave it a couple of solid strikes. The bell was of good enough quality to withstand the blows and it rang loud and clear. Whoever was not within the village proper was called back by the emergency signal.

Graphite and her escort golem were the last to make it in as far as I could tell. Dawn had almost reached us in the center of the village when the ground beyond the western wall suddenly just exploded. Cart-sized chunks of raw earth flew through the air and rained down, entire trees sailed across the landscape. One of them smashed straight into the workshop, breaching the building's roof like it was made out of thin paper.

“Take cover!” I yelled. Everypony scrambled to get to safety, close to house walls but not inside them.

And in the midst of that eruption I saw a glimpse of color.

Oh no…

An enormous body snaked its way higher and higher into the air. Violet scales hid layers of muscles, protecting them like impenetrable armor. A slick, dark-red mane sprang from beneath its head, it was folded along the body. Massive tripartite jaws split a pinkish head and tiny white pupils stared out of pitch-black eyes.

A tatzlwurm.

I only knew of these creatures because of an encounter Twilight and Cadance once had. They were massive, subterranean beasts that tunneled deep underground. They had eyes, but their eyesight was so bad it was practically nonexistent, only capable of noticing quick movement and differentiating between light and dark.

The creature’s maw split wide open and with a dozen black tentacles inside it, it roared. Then it reoriented itself. Towards us. Towards Greenwood.

The jaws of that thing could easily bite through armor, bone, wood. Its body weight would crush every building we had. It would hunt down any stragglers and escapees relentlessly. It moved underground as fast and effortlessly as a pony in the plains.

The long and the short of it: We were done. We would all die here.

While I started to feel light-headed, I looked around. Looked for an easy fix. A way out. A solution, an idea, anything. And my gaze quickly settled on Dawn. Who stared at the beast in bewilderment and shock while he himself stood out in the open. “Help us,” I asked. I was not sure if he had heard me. But as the tatzlwurm reared back to attack, I yelled at the top of my lungs: “Dawn, help us!”

He flinched. And within seconds, he lit his horn in a sickly-pale purple aura. A massive dome sprang from nothing. A translucent hemisphere that encapsulated the entire village.

And just in time.

The maw of the tatzlwurm crashed against the magical shield, gnawed at it, scraped its many razor-sharp teeth over it, but the shield held up. As it realized this new obstacle, the creature instead decided to smash its considerable bodyweight against it, again and again.

“Whisper! Can’t you talk him down?” I asked, but Whisper was not exactly in any condition to do anything, let alone square off to a giant angry monster. And honestly, I had no idea if it would have worked anyway. I knew that she had never learned The Stare. It was an ability her mother alone wielded.

We’re missing one.

An ice-cold shudder ran down my spine as I heard those words echo in my head. “Everypony to me! Headcount!” I yelled. Five golems, easy enough to spot and count. Hefty, Honey, Kaleb, Roseluck, the Doctor, Graphite, Gabby, Spike, Aurora, Whisper, Pristine, Dawn… and I.

Derpy.

“Where is Derpy? Everypony, please, focus! I know that’s kinda hard right now, but where is Derpy?!” I grabbed the Doctor, shook him. It would not help. But I just felt the need to do something. Lest my own imagination would drive me insane.

“She’s outside,” Roseluck confirmed my worst fears. “She was about to wrangle up some clouds for rain.”

Half of us immediately looked up. It was harder to spot anything through the purple shield. Harder still because we all tried to ignore the massive beast smashing its entire, enormous body against it again and again and again, sending vibrations of the impact through the air itself.

“There she is!” Gabby screeched.

We all saw her. Derpy hovered a bit above the entire scene. Stationary. Hesitant what she should do.

That thing can jump, she’s an easy target!

I turned around and wanted to ask, but Spike already spread his wings. “I got her,” he muttered to himself and pushed himself off the ground. With strong wingbeats he raced towards the shield.

“Dawn, can you time it?” I asked as Spike rapidly approached the barrier that kept us safe.

“It is one-sided,” he informed us. “So please do not leave the barrier if you intend to return!”

I had no idea if Spike simply trusted that I would get this done in time, somehow, or if he simply assumed the shield would let him pass. Maybe he had heard Dawn, although I doubted that with the constant violent noise. Either way, he did not slow down, quite the contrary. He picked up more and more speed, shot straight past the barrier, dodged two of the tentacles lashing out in his direction and grabbed Derpy midair.

It took a massive load off my mind to see him barrel into her, grab her and just continue to fly up. “Higher!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. I had no idea if they heard me. Probably not. Either way, Spike did it with or without my input. Maybe he remembered Twilight's recounting of this experience as well.

At least those two were out of harm's way. Safe, for now.

And I was pretty sure that Dawn could hold his own against a tatzlwurm if need be. That said, the rest of us were in trouble. “How long can you hold this shield?”

“Indefinitely, if I can stay awake. However, I mentioned its one-sided property. Air is currently free to leave, but cannot be replenished.” I looked around. The dome was huge. I was pretty sure that we would die of thirst and starvation before we could use up all that air. Spike was outside. So, worst case scenario: We would have to wait until he flew to Ponyville to fetch Twilight. And she would fix this. Right? Right?

“Alright, that buys us some time. Guys, ideas!” Nopony reacted. Of course not. Some of them were frozen solid in horror and the others could not tear their eyes away from the enormous creature fully intent on killing us all.

It was especially hard, seeing as this ‘indefinite’-shield showed cracks where the tatzlwurm repeatedly smashed against it.

“Hey, come on folks! Attention!” I commanded. That seemed to do the trick and at least some of them snapped out of it. “Hefty, where’s your axe?”

He had trouble remembering. And I would not have put the spotlight on him if I had not been confident that he could deal with it. He stumbled over his words the first two attempts to form a coherent answer, then he shook his head. “Outside.”

I nodded. There was no need to tell them that it would not have been of any use anyway. Twilight and Cadance were both alicorns and they had barely managed to keep that thing at bay and force it to retreat. That axe would probably break before it managed to even scratch one of those scales.

“Does Kaleb have any offensive abilities?” I continued down the line.

“No!” the Doctor immediately replied. I was confused by his insistence, but this was not the time or place to dwell on it.

“Graphite, could you—“

“I’m not touching that thing!” She cut in with such a harsh tone that there was no doubt that she would rather fight me over this thing.

I looked at Gabby. She was a griffon. Her claws were sharp, her beak was pointy. Her wings would allow her to attack from different angles and aim for this creature’s head instead of having to make due with whatever was closest to the ground.

But Gabby was old. Way past her prime. She was not as fast or agile as she once had been. Worse still. Were I to ask… she would try. Because she was Gabby. She loved to help. Even if it was to her own detriment. No, I could not justify even asking her. Not in front of myself.

And one look at Whisper made clear that she would not be any help in this situation either. I wanted to ask her so badly what she needed to talk to that thing, but I dreaded the answer would be: For it to be calmer than it currently was. And we had no idea why it was so pissed to begin with.

That left Pristine and Aurora. Both powerful unicorns. Not alicorns though, but still. Maybe we could work with some diversion and subterfuge? They are very sensitive to vibrations, Twilight's voice rang in my ear. They use it to track prey and orient themselves.

I grabbed Aurora and Pristine. “Can you cause tremors?” Both stared at me blankly for way too long, I did not have that kind of patience, not right now. “Can you blast the ground and make it vibrate?” Both exchanged glances with each other and nodded faintly. “We might be able to use that to distract it!”

“I can help with that,” the Doctor said from the sidelines.

“Great! Dawn?” The unicorn stepped up and nodded. Between the five of us, maybe we would be able to make enough noise to distract this thing from how angry it was. We ran as close to the shield's outer limit as we dared and started to fire bolts of pure energy, not into the tatzlwurm itself but the surrounding area.

It did not seem to have any effect at all. “Keep at it!” I still yelled.

It seemed like we kept our barrage up for minutes, even though it was most likely a lot less. We were suddenly interrupted by a new noise, one very different from the constant crashing of the beast against the shield. A rising crescendo from within the forest.

We heard a horn. Several, in fact. Mixed in with other strange and very loud instruments.

We stopped with our barrage and looked down the road. And for just a moment, I wanted to sob in relief, even though we were far from safe. A single pony barreled down the road. Her caravan bobbed and swerved behind her as she ran towards us at breakneck speed, pulling the entire wagon along. Dozens of organ-like flutes shot fireworks into the air. Each rocket detonated with a loud bang.

Periwinkle came to save us.

Please, please, please, heaven have mercy, please be half as good at magic as your moms are and we’re good, I silently prayed. That said, I was utterly unwilling to leave anything to fate if I had a choice.

“Dawn, keep the others safe!” I ordered him and slipped out of the barrier before they could disagree. With an almost violent tug at the magical string around me, I summoned my night guard armor to me. It landed on my body with a comforting weight, even though I knew that it would do absolutely nothing against the enemy we faced.

“Void, we’re going to use your ice magic to slice it open! Channel it along my beam, are you ready?”

Sounds all kinds of messy, I love it, I’m in!

I nodded as I ran at top speed towards Periwinkle.

The tatzlwurm had already changed course. It was not just distracted by Periwinkle's massive performance, it once again roared in anger. And traces of agony, I hoped. For a creature sensitive to vibrations, this fireworks display must have felt like torture. And I was decently sure that Periwinkle was burning through a decade’s worth of firework supplies.

I would make it worth her while once this was over, and if we were still all alive by that point.

“Now!”

I focused energy into my horn and shot a single, weak, continuous beam at the side of the creature. It did nothing, as expected, but then I felt Voidwalker’s ice magic flow through me. Like a rapid quickly overtaking the still river, it surged along my spine, up and down my legs and focused along my beam like a beacon guiding it to its destiny.

It was painful. The ice slowed me down as well, it threatened to freeze me over, my muscles ached as if I was running a marathon in the deepest winter, and worse still — the plan failed. We could not penetrate the tatzlwurm’s scale armor.

Slice and dice is not an option, but I might be able to slow it?

I considered if it was worth it when Periwinkle yelled something. It was impossible to hear over the ruckus however, and she seemed to quickly realize that as well, because next thing I knew, her voice was inside my head, clear as day. “I have a plan, but I need you to buy me a couple of seconds!”

I did not know how. But I nodded and gave it my all. “Void, spears!” It almost felt like a relay race. I cast telekinesis to grab a bunch of rocks and threw them with precision at the tatzlwurm’s head. The moment the projectiles were thrown and my magic died, his magic lit up and manifested a dozen lances of pure ice. The moment they were on their way, I was ready to grab a bunch more stuff from our surroundings. I made myself into a nonstop catapult. It was trash, of course. It was nowhere near the amount of annoyance Periwinkle had caused with her caravan hurtling towards town. Or with her massive firework show.

But I tried.

The tatzlwurm reared back for an attack, still focused on her wagon..

“Ground spears!” I yelled and slammed my forehooves into the dirt road.

Gotcha!

With blinding speed, a frozen trail shot out of my hooves towards Periwinkle and several almost needle-like ice lances shot out of the dirt road. They reached almost thirty feet height when the wide-open maw of the tatzlwurm came down.

And then they pierced its flesh.

I could feel him pouring every ounce of magic we had left into generating more and more of those needles. He used up his own magic and mine in tandem, and the creature reared back with a pained cry.

I spotted maybe a dozen glyphs rapidly circling around Periwinkle. Then her horn exploded with magic, a massive corona of blinding energy as she cast a spell powerful enough that my entire skin became so itchy that I wanted to scratch it all off.

Yes!

And a second later, the entire spook came to an abrupt halt.

The dancing glyphs around her vanished, and a single one remained on her forehead. The same one I could vaguely spot on the head of that beast, right between its eyes.

The world itself seemed to have stopped. Everything stood still. The forest held its breath. As did we all. Even Periwinkle cautiously regarded the enormous creature that, just a few seconds ago, had been about to devour her and her entire caravan in one fell swoop.

But the tatzlwurm did… nothing.

With the realization that maybe, hopefully, we were out of danger, my legs started to tremble like crazy. I sat down on my haunches and after just a second, had to sit down entirely. And I did not leave that gargantuan thing out of my sight for even a second.

But it remained frozen.

Periwinkle slowly started to pull her caravan up to my position. She smiled. No, grinned. From ear to ear, in that strained ‘this is normal’-way. “I promised my mum not to use any of her various mind-control spells. Worked out great so far. So, uhm… this won’t be an issue, will it?”

She looked up ahead. I had no idea how far exactly I had managed to run before I stopped to stupidly square off against a tatzlwurm. But it was clear to me that she was worried about the others. “Don’t worry, most of them don’t know anything about magic to begin with, and the others… you just saved their hides. Mine included. As long as you don’t use it against us, we’re golden. Oh and… thanks, by the way.”

“Puh, great, that’s a relief to hear,” she quipped. “You’re welcome!” Quipped. How. Just how could she be so jovial about all of this?

“You got many tatzlwurms in Las Pegasus?” I dared to ask, unsure if I wanted to hear the answer.

“Oh, no. No, no, no. Not at all. This is the first one I encountered, actually,” she replied.

“How?” I asked and blinked, as I heard the same question echoed from behind. I turned around to see Dawn standing a few dozen feet away. For somepony who usually had such a guarded expression, he seemed completely baffled.

Periwinkle chuckled uneasily. “Oh, you know, just the usual, uhm, behavior-altering spell, nothing too out of the ordinary! It’s actually very useful for brutish beings such as this one. Because as my mum used to say: The bigger their body, the tougher they are, the smaller their brains. And small-brains can be easily con-uhm, discouraged. To attack. For instance.”

She offered me a hoof and I let her pull me to my hooves again. “I—… we just… I feel like I need to sit down.”

“But you just stood up?” she asked in confusion.

“I know,” I replied and tried very hard not to whine. “We just almost died, altogether, all of us, and you came by right on time to save us, a few minutes later and there might not have been a Greenwood anymore, I just… I feel sick.” And appropriately, I puked. Off to the side, because I had manners. And I dismissed my armor again in hopes that I would not spoil it.

I was surprised to feel Periwinkle's hoof rub down my back. “There, there.”

This felt so surreal. “How are you so calm?!”

“Hm? Oh. I don’t know, actually. I never freak out. It’s just how I am,” she answered.

Desperate to talk about anything else, I looked over to her caravan. And that actually managed to make me smile for a brief moment. It looked so much like Trixie’s old wagon. The star-strutted roof with the crooked small chimney. The window on the side with currently closed shutters. A half-glass door with a fake balcony out front and a proper door with a ramp out the back. The picket fence-design on the lower half. Even the color scheme seemed almost identical. The only thing that was noticeably different was the presence of two distinct cutie marks. Both Trixie’s and Starlight’s.

“Is that your mom’s old wagon?” I asked. Because as far as I remembered, when I met Periwinkle at the Blue Moon Charity Ball, I went with the story that I was a huge fan of her mom’s performances as a street magician. Which was not even a lie, Trixie’s performances were something to behold, even if her personality was an acquired taste.

“Oh, yes, it actually is. A new layer of paint does wonders, doesn’t it?” She tapped the wooden front a few times and then looked over to Dawn. “So, while he seems a little scatterbrained for the moment, why don’t we introduce ourselves. I’m Periwinkle Lulamoon, nice to meet you!”

Dawn stared at the tatzlwurm. Then managed to tear his eyes away and bowed his head slightly. “My name is Dawn, the pleasure is all mine. You are a unicorn of marvelous potential, if I may say so. How long does your hold on his mind last?”

Periwinkle looked up to the tatzlwurm. “I’m not entirely sure. It’s the first time I’ve used that particular spell. I would guesstimate… an hour, maybe?”

Dawn nodded. “Impressive. Well, we best be off then to make good use of that time! The others will surely want to know that the danger has passed and that we are safe once more. And I should probably take down the shield now.”

One and a half hours later, a decidedly unfrozen Whisper returned to us. We were still all gathered in the middle of Greenwood as none of us were particularly keen on venturing out anywhere, especially alone. That monster attack had been one heck of a scare. And all our bones were rattled. Even though I suspected Dawns for slightly different reasons.

Whisper on the other hoof seemed content now. Almost happy upon her return. And the tatzlwurm was right outside the village walls. It had mostly retreated back into the ground and only its head peeked over the palisade. Which meant slight unease for all of us, but Whisper assured us that further defensive measures were no longer required.

And we put a lot of trust in her word.

Like, a lot.

“So,” Whisper started as she settled down in our midst, “this is Peter. He’s very, very sorry for being so cranky earlier. But he says there was this pony who just would not let him sleep. A very bulky earth pony with a gray coat. He followed him in this direction, but somehow lost his tracks. And when he went further this way, he noticed us and thought that we probably harbored the one responsible for disturbing him. I told him that we do not. Because we don’t. Right?” Suddenly stricken with doubt, she looked at all of us and one after the other, we shook our heads. None of us had ventured that far west. “Right. Good. So I explained that he could have caused a lot of damage—“

“He did,” a disgruntled Honey cut in and pointedly raised a hoof towards the collapsed roof of their carpentry.

“Right,” Whisper admitted. “I explained things to him and he saw reason. He would be willing to help out if we ever need him.”

Spike whistled. “A favor from a tatzlwurm. Not bad.”

The longer we talked about this, the queasier my stomach felt again. Maybe that was whiplash from the sudden arcane exhaustion. I had been in considerably better shape. And they just kept talking. As if it was the most normal thing in the world. I knew that I should be tougher, that I should be able to just move past this. I was a Ponyvillian as well, was I not? Monster attacks happened all the time. Half the town got rebuilt on a monthly basis. One of the reasons why buying property in Ponyville was so dirt cheap.

But the fact of the matter was: We had not had any major monster attacks in years. And I most certainly had never faced off against a foe like that in… ever.

My legs trembled again.

“Dream?” Spike asked and put a claw on my shoulder. “Dreamwalker? You okay?”

I had grown soft. What a nasty realization. I grimaced. “Oh I’m fine,” I said as I fainted.

So unfair…

R&R

I looked up and saw the sun setting. The sight filled me with a mixture of relief and frustration. I was done with work for today — yay. Go me. But on the other hoof, I had not managed to make as much progress as I would have liked. Adding to that, I had forgotten about Dawn and my shared reading time. Again. For the third time in a row.

I sighed and shook my head. He understood, I was sure. He did not seem to be the type to hold a grudge. Too much of a hassle. So I watched the forge’s glow dim down. I made sure it was cooled off enough so that no sparks and embers would go flying around. It would not do, burning down the village myself out of sheer negligence.

With the smithy secured and closed, I looked at the crate. I tried to feel any sense of pride. Doorknobs and hinges, screws and bars, dozens upon dozens of small metal pieces, used all around Greenwood for various tasks. My work was helpful, I tried to tell myself. I should be proud.

But all I could see was the crate being less than full. Not enough.

I caught myself thinking about heating the forge up again. Working late into the night. And with a grimace, I violently shook my head. “No, no, no, nope. Not gonna do that,” I insisted. I closed the door, locked it and took a couple of steps back. It was fine. This was fine. I would work harder. Tomorrow. And Dawn? Dawn would understand.

He will cheer. Probably does so even now, an unwelcome voice in the back of my head commented.

Be quiet, you.

I sighed. It sounded incredibly tired and now that I heard just how exhausted I sounded, I actually started to feel it as well. I looked around to see how the others were doing. No signs of Hefty or Honey, of Derpy or Roseluck, Gabby, none of the others. I heard the commotion from the ‘tavern’. Inn, I quickly corrected myself. Or what we currently used and labeled as such until Aurora and Periwinkle figured out a way to make the latter’s dream building come true. Most of the village was in there. Including Spike it seemed, as even he was nowhere else to be seen. I had overdone it. Again.

I was not exactly used to ‘working late hours’. My work was done while sleeping. And that thought stirred a new impulse to life. I felt beat. Completely spent and just… done. “I’m working too much,” I realized. “I’m burying myself in work.” It was a problem. One I should face and work on.

Tomorrow.

I turned around and walked towards the river nearby. It was just outside town. The shore was shallow, I could walk right up to the water. I could have easily walked into it, but I hesitated. I knew it would be freezing. After a quick consultation with myself, I noted how sluggish I felt. Every move, every thought. Like molasses. Maybe the water would help.

I stepped into the river, up to the point where it drowned my fetlocks. It was cold, sure. But other than that? Nothing. “Fine, have it your way,” I grumbled and spread my front hooves wider. And after a brief moment of hesitation, I dunked my head in.

A sudden chill ran down my body as the cold seeped in, numbed my skin and made me want to retreat in haste. However, I firmly planted my hooves in the riverbed, dug down a little further and willed myself to stay. I had no intention of drowning myself, but I did come to realize that the water — or the cold, more precisely — had its benefits.

My hazy thoughts cleared. All the anguish, all the worries, everything was washed away. The excess heat was sapped from my head, and with it went all the turmoil. For a precious few seconds, I felt… at peace.

Then came the need to breathe.

I slowly exhaled under water, but it could prolong my position only for so long until I had to come up for air. I raised my head again, my soaked mane flung through the air and smacked against my neck like an ice-cold whip. And for just a second, that made me snicker. I could not even properly tell why.

“Phew.” I shook my head and noted how wide awake I felt. Ready to tackle some stuff. “Thanks, river.” I really should look up at some point if this river had a name. It had become a routine that I would talk to it. If I kept that up, I should probably learn how to address it properly.

I returned home. By the time I reached the door of our house, most of the effect the water had was gone. While I did not feel as sluggish as before, I still caught myself yawning. And I moved through the village on autopilot, not really seeing what my eyes perceived, not really hearing what my ears caught.

I grimaced, but dismissed any and all concerns that immediately sprang to mind. “I’m fine,” I spat, despite knowing the contrary. I entered our house and listened. No signs of life from anywhere. Aurora was probably over at Periwinkle’s, having a blast with the others. “It’s fine.” That sounded a lot more pathetic than I would have liked. With yet another grimace, I closed the door and went upstairs to my room. It was time to hit the hay and go patrolling the dreamscape. Maybe Luna would manage to take my mind off of things.

“You. Look. Breathtaking,” I mumbled as I stared at her.

Luna giggled like a filly. She even pranced in place, just for emphasis. “Thou art fartuous!”

I snorted. Not the most dignified sound I ever made, but I couldn't help it. Sometimes, when she lapsed back into old habits of hers, the results were comedic. “I’m a fart. Right. And here I thought you were older.”

She stopped prancing and regarded me with a slowly raised eyebrow. And more importantly, she somehow effortlessly slipped into her regal aura, exuding this feeling of superiority. It always baffled me how she did that at all, not to mention at such speed. “Do not start wars you are bound to lose,” she warned me.

I chuckled and shook my head. “Don’t worry, I don’t intend to. Still, the compliment stands.”

Her expression softened again and she walked over to my side. A wing laid itself across my back, its soft, feathery embrace more than welcome, and she nuzzled me. The feeling was heavenly. I leaned into her, closed my eyes and sighed as I relaxed. For the first time in weeks, it felt like. Even though I knew that was not true.

“How can I look breathtaking when I am not even wearing my armor?” she purred into my ear.

I felt the heat creep up to my cheeks and my muzzle. She always knew which buttons to press. But I was done complaining about how unfair this was. I had been done with that many, many years ago. I simply cherished how well she knew me. It probably was not exactly hard, I was as easily read as any open book. Still. She made the effort. “Your armor makes you look hot,” I replied with a voice meeker than I would have liked. “But without it, you look beautiful.”

She snickered. “Is that so? I have to wonder then where ‘breathtaking’ falls in between those.” She lifted her wing from my back and took a single step off to the side. I knew what it meant and I was willing to comply, even though I missed her presence immediately. Following her silent ‘shall we?’, I manifested my armor and sword and she conjured her own armor onto her body.

And I still fell for that decades old trick. She put on piece by piece, slower than was necessary. She made a show out of it. And I realized that only after she was done and looked at me with a sultry gaze that melted right through my heart and into my loins. As I swallowed dryly, she laughed in amusement. I did not mind. I got to watch her get dressed. Totally worth it.

“Let’s start,” I pressed and walked forward. Luna quickly fell in line and kept pace beside me. And for a while, everything seemed fine. We patrolled the dreamscape, walked between the many lazily swirling, dancing dream spheres and no nightmares showed up. No dreamscape creatures eager for a fight. It was… peaceful.

And that irked me.

It left me with too much time. To think and worry and start the whole ordeal all over again. Was it not enough that my days were spent like this? Could not even Luna's pretty night offer any relief? Please?

“There is a matter I wanted to speak to you about,” Luna started. I nodded eagerly, probably a bit too eagerly, without missing a step. “It appears that we had a visitor last night. My guards notified me of an intruder. Apparently someone tried to sneak into my personal library.”

I knew the layout of Canterlot castle by heart. Her library was down the hallway from her bedroom, left turn, first door on the right. Not far away from her chambers. But an intruder at night would not find her in her chambers anyway, since she held Night Court at that time. “How did they notice?” I inquired.

There was a playful glint in her eyes when her smile grew crooked. “Ever since Chrysalis’ invasion and the shenanigans of too many ambitious unicorns, I developed a couple of alarm spells in cooperation with Twilight. They detect mobile illusion and transmutation spells.”

I smiled. It was a serious topic, I knew that, but Luna did not seem disturbed or alarmed or in dire need of protection. My kitten had claws, she was perfectly capable of protecting herself. No, what made me smile was that image in my mind of her and Twilight sitting down in the library, surrounded by towers of books. Maybe with a saucer and a cup of hot chocolate. The fireplace was lit, opened inkwells offered their unique scent, and occasionally a quill would scratch over parchment. It was a peaceful image. Harmonious. Filled with warmth and love and tenderness. And nerdy arcane babble, as was only befitting those two.

Aaand I almost got lost in it. I blinked when I realized that my mind started to project and the dreamscape reformed to adapt the images in my head. “Sorry, got distracted,” I quickly replied and turned back towards the topic at hoof. “So they went off because somepony was sneaking around using means to disguise themselves,” I offered my understanding of the situation.

“We believe so, yes,” Luna replied. “The guard did a full and thorough search of the castle and the premises with no result. I accompanied them on a second round after they informed me, but to no avail. Our guest was quite an elusive one.”

My shoulders sagged a little as I realized in which direction this was going. “You suspect Dawn?”

I felt her primaries trail over my back in an attempt to comfort me. “I have considered it an option, yes, albeit not the only one. Whoever — or whatever — it was, our guest was very careful not to leave tracks or traces.”

I sighed and grimaced. “Well, he does tend to be cautious and meticulous.” I looked up to her, tried to read her expression. But I saw no ill will, no urgency. “Do you want me to bring it up with him? Shall I press the point in a conversation?”

Luna shook her head. “No. I merely wished to ‘keep you in the loop’, as they say.” Despite her words, she stopped and so did I shortly after. I turned to her and was about to ask what was wrong when I noticed her intently staring at me. Her gaze trailed up and down my body, and I felt strangely naked. It was not her smoldering ‘what a delectable treat’-gaze, but rather a neutral stare, searching, studying, taking stock. “You look exhausted,” came her final verdict.

To distract myself from the slight discomfort of being in the spotlight, I looked around. But this was the dreamscape. On a very calm night. The endless, starry void stretched in all directions, filled with the soap bubbles of dreamers. I searched for any signs of problems. For any dreamscape creatures sneaking in between the dreams to hide from our sight, maybe in an attempt to prepare an ambush. I searched for signs of nightmares tormenting sleeping creatures. But everything was fine. Everything was in order.

When her words reached my ears, I turned my attention back to her and flinched. Her stare had become more intense. “Uhm…”

She ignored my lack of eloquence. “Are you alright?”

Should’ve been faster.

I dreaded this question. The answer was never easy. And rarely a ‘yes’. Of course, ever since I had started project Greenwood, everything went downhill. It had been inevitable from day one. Greenwood always faced trials and tribulations. In some cycles, we spent literal years battling hordes of timberwolves. We paid for the existence of Greenwood with blood and lives. In other cycles, things went peacefully for the most part, until all the required drama and resistance came crashing down in one massive, earth-shattering event.

And this time? This time we had Dawn and whatever he was planning. This time Tirek showed up out of nowhere and I had blood on my hooves that I just could not wash off, no matter how hard I scraped. This time we had a tatzlwurm ‘visit’ us. And apparently there were hostile ponies in the forest. Somepony had woken up Peter. As it turned out, tatzlwurms had terrible eyesight. All he could tell us about this unknown stranger was that he was quick, strong and heavy.

It should have been funny how quickly both Honey and Hefty reassured us that they had not been walking around the forest to wake up random monsters to lead them to us.

I looked at Luna. My fierce kitten had such a soft, warm smile on her inviting lips. “Well, I mean, it’s been a couple of busy days. You already know that. Lots to do. And everypony got a really good scare from Peter's arrival. But it’s fine now, I think. They calmed down and Whisper made a new friend who helps us protect the village and everypony celebrated Periwinkle as the new hero of Greenwood. We had a proper welcoming party, Pinkie would have been proud. And she brought gifts along. Periwinkle, that is. Pinkie wasn’t there, I think. Half the town has stuffed toys now, almost made me suspect she had robbed a fair on her way over.” I smiled wryly and chuckled awkwardly.

Luna stepped closer and, dismissing one of her armor-plated horseshoes, put her hoof on my shoulder. “I asked if you are alright.”

I hesitated. I could try to worm my way out of her question again. And again and again and again. It would not change anything, though. I knew that. It would only test her patience. Which she usually struggled with. So relying on her weak spots to get out of an uncomfortable situation, that was a low blow. A tactic I did not wish to employ. “I—… I’ve been better,” I admitted. “I know you wanted me to visit Doctor what’s-his-name.”

“It was an offer,” she interjected. “A suggestion at best.”

“Offer or not, you wanted me to accept it,” I insisted. Because I knew she did. “And you’re not alone. Twilight had an intimidating number of names to throw my direction. Celestia suggested her royal physician. I’m…” I struggled to find the right words. It was a frightening prospect. To sit in an unfamiliar room with an unfamiliar face. And the silent expectation was that I would talk. To them. To tell them my dirty laundry. All my secrets and what bothered me. To tell them of all my thoughts and worries and concerns. I was supposed to lay bare who I was, what I was, how I thought. To a total stranger. On the basis that surely, hopefully, their aim was to actually help me. And I was not just supposed to trust his stranger, I was supposed to work together with them to find a way to… to what? ‘Heal’ me? Help me?

How does one ‘heal’ having killed?

Tirek was dead. Maybe Sunny could have brought him back if she had been there quickly enough. But she was not. And now he was gone. There was still a point to be made about how the world might be better off without him. And in the back of my head, it worked. This discussion was a minefield, an active battlefield, and I fought on both sides. It was exhausting. And painful. And how could I sit in a strange room filled with unknown bric-a-brac and tell this strange pony about that?

For decades I had struggled with trust issues. With my self-esteem, self-worth. With my paranoia and lingering doubts. With my skewed sense of reality. But in between all these problems, this sea of madness, there was a guiding light. A lifeline. I had friends and family, loved ones, children who depended on me, a job where I was of actual use. It kept me stable. In check. Sane.

“I don’t need a shrink,” I spat. And the moment I heard my own voice, the aggression in it, I flinched. “Sorry.” I shook my head, avoided her gaze and stared at my own hooves. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach where this conversation would lead from here on out. And I needed to change that direction somehow. “Void helped me deal with that nonsense,” I blurted out. “B-But now with the tatzlwurm and everything, I think I just, uhm… I think I’m just shaken, Luna. I’m fine. Just shaken.”

She was quiet. Stayed so for a long while, it felt like. I made several attempts to raise my head, to look her in the eyes, but every time I failed at the last hurdle. On a rational level, I knew that I was wrong. She was not disappointed. There was no gosh-darn pity in her eyes. She would not look at me like this broken thing that needed to be discarded. She would not berate me for the way I thought. Luna loved me. And I loved her. She knew I had issues. But for goodness sake, who didn’t? Every single pony, maybe even every single living creature, started life whole and healthy and undamaged. But with each passing year, with each experience we endured, for better or worse, we changed. And more often than not, we got damaged. Wounds heal, sure. But the saying never mentioned the scars they left behind.

And to make everything more ridiculous, I could not even remember where I had gotten mine from. Because I just plopped into existence, pre-damaged from years lived before I could remember. It just wasn’t fair.

And I continued that unfairness by expecting to find all those things in Luna's eyes. The judgment, the pity, the realization that I might be too broken to be in a relationship with. It was not there. Nothing of that was there. But I could not raise my head, I could not look her in the eyes and make sure. Because despite how small and quiet it seemed, there was a mighty voice in my head whispering:

But what if…?

I swallowed dryly.

“You could always take a break, you know?” Luna offered a simple way out.

And no matter what her intentions might have been, that was exactly what it was. A simple way out. To return home. To return to well-established routines. To return to my normal life. The one I built for myself and my loved ones. To return to normalcy and familiarity.

I shook my head. “I know. But it doesn’t feel right just yet. I fear that if I retreat now, I might not return there.”

Luna sat down on her haunches. Right in front of me. She cupped my chin with her hoof and forced my gaze to meet hers. And with that alicorn strength of hers, she had an easy time overcoming the resistance I put up. It was a relief. It really was. I adored those beautiful cyan eyes of hers. I wished to stare into them forever. They were cool and calming like the night sky. And more importantly, there was no pity in them, no regret, no anger or disappointment. Just love.

“I know you better,” she claimed. “You would not let them fend for themselves.”

There was such conviction in her words. As if all the confidence I lacked was tripled in her voice. It was hard to respond to that at all. Even more so in any doubtful manner. “Maybe,” I squeaked out.

A warm smile bloomed on her lips. I wished to kiss her so badly, but I resisted the temptation. She was currently spending time with Twilight. And the rules of our arrangement were clear. Maybe she noticed my stare. She did always have an easy time reading me. She leaned down and placed a faint hint of a kiss on my cheek. “Well in any case,” she restarted the conversation with a jovial tone. A sudden shift. “It is good that I have prepared a little gift for you then.”

I blinked. There was unbridled mischief in her eyes. “What.” I could not even frame it as a question. Was she pulling a prank?

“Time to wake up, firecracker. Enjoy your day,” she replied and winked at me.

I blinked again. And looked around. And somehow, somehow, only now noticed that strange glint on the dream spheres around us. How the dreamscape itself had a subtle wobble to it. I grimaced. “You tricked me!” I accused her. It made no sense otherwise. We had not been on patrol for that long. Certainly not for an entire night. The only way this made any sense was if I was dreaming. Actually dreaming. And if any creature had the power to make a dreamwalker fall asleep and seamlessly move him into a lucid dream, it was her. “You tricked me into dreaming, didn’t you?”

We had talked about the possibility of this. I had been of the opinion that it would be impossible to not notice the change. Yet here I stood as my ‘dreamscape’ dissolved. I stared at her and in turn, Luna smirked back at me. I could not decide if I wanted to be furious with her, or proud.

In the end, the decision was easily made. “I can’t even be mad about this,” I mumbled.

“I love you, firecracker.”

My heart swelled from hearing that. The darkness ate everything around us, I would wake up any second now, but I could not stop smiling, I could not stop staring at her. “I love yo—“

“—u too,” I mumbled as I slowly woke up.

A fine tuft of hair tickled my nose, so I wrinkled my muzzle. And not a second later, I heard a familiar giggle. Just hearing her voice made me smile from ear to ear, made me inhale in a sudden, deeply felt tranquility. I welcomed the scent of ink and parchment, of dusty old books and lovingly cared for wood, sprinkled with a hint of a flowery shampoo.

I finally opened my eyes and found Twilight in my bed.

I was still lying on my side, curled into fetal position, but my blanket was gone. I must have kicked it down to the lower end of the bed again, as I did the prior days. Yet the coldness of the room's air did not dare touch me. Her wing extended over me, covered me, replaced the security my blanket was supposed to give. My forehead was inches away from touching her chest. So I followed the first impulse that came to mind and reduced that distance to zero. I nuzzled her. And breathed in deeply. And with each passing second, I felt a heavy weight bear down on me further.

She was here. But why? How?

I was so grateful for her presence, but I did not understand how this came to be. I failed to comprehend, to connect the dots between this surprise and Luna's last words. Yet I still felt the burning need to know. I uncurled myself, which already took great willpower, and I looked at her. She gazed back at me, waiting for the direction I would take with this situation.

“Hi,” I croaked with a crooked smile. And I could feel my lips tremble more and more as my eyes teared up without my permission.

“Hey,” she replied softly, quietly. My mind was a chaotic mess. I could not make heads or tails of this. Any of this. But I knew what I wanted, and I wanted it badly. I cautiously stretched my hooves out, and she welcomed me. So I hugged her. Clung to her for dear life. Squeezed every bit of comfort out of her as uncomfortably hot tears silently streamed down my face.

And she just held me. Wrapped in her hooves and her wings, we lay there and she simply held me.

“You are incorrigible,” she softly chided, her voice filled with nothing but warmth. “You feel spread too thin again, do you not?” But instead of waiting for an answer that we both knew would not come for a long while yet, she continued. “You have taken on so many responsibilities here. You even try to shoulder burdens meant to be carried by others. There are a lot of ponies out there, outside of this house, right now, working towards fulfilling your goals — and theirs. Yet you are afraid to ask, afraid to depend on them, to rely on them. Because what if. What if they do it wrong? What if all this fails? What if you could have prevented that? And it wears you down. This need to make sure that everything is in order. To check and double-check. To minimize every risk, to consider every possible risk and threat. Each day, you feel like you barely scraped by. You feel like you are running on fumes alone. All the time. But in some moments, you suddenly grow so incredibly self-aware and you feel like you cannot even breathe properly anymore. There is just this massive weight on your chest, choking the air out of you. You wonder how you managed to even get this far, since it always seems like you are just one single, misguided sentence away from falling apart. You loathe how you have become this minefield for others, with them completely unaware. But in every conversation, in every interaction, you mentally flinch when they speak, when they gesture, when their body language changes. Because what if. What if they mention this thing now, or refer to that thing, or express doubt or worry or frustration? You cannot bring yourself to not care. And here you are, willing to support each and every one of them. Always willing to lend a helping hoof. Intent, driven, to make things better for everypony around you.” She fell quiet for just a brief moment. And in that moment, I could hear the silence loom over me. I could feel that weight crush me. “Did I hit the nail on the head?” she asked.

A strangled sob escaped my throat despite my best efforts. I nodded. What else was I supposed to do at this point? I barely held on, clung to what little of my self-control remained.

“You are a supporter by nature, Dream,” Twilight continued and nuzzled my mane. “Yet you fail to look after yourself. Because you do not deem yourself worthy of care. Worthy of having your needs fulfilled. So… this responsibility falls to us. Me, in this instance. To look after my spouse and take care of you.”

I tried to swallow and even that felt strangely difficult. I squeezed her a little more. She was an alicorn. She could take it. And I attempted to crawl further into her as I pressed our bodies together. As if I could just meld into her and vanish.

Yet despite the desperation, something in her words resonated with me. There was a strange familiarity in them. As if I had—

“You read that in a book, didn’t you?” I asked, my meek voice so strangely mangled and quiet.

Her hoof trailed over my back, followed the waves of every shudder. She giggled softly. “Maybe? Even so, it does not change the truth.”

I tried to nod, but I could not bring myself to do it. I could not force myself to feign acknowledgement. I was fine, after all. Was I not?

She put distance between us. Pushed me off. Just a little bit. And similar to how Luna had done earlier, Twilight forced my chin up, forced me to confront her. Nothing but love. She cared. She worried. I wanted to apologize so badly, but I did not trust my voice anymore, did not trust that the first thing out of my mouth would not be just another sob. My vision was blurry, my eyes probably bloodshot, a damp patch had formed on her coat and I just, I could not, I just—

“It is alright,” she spoke. Softly. Quietly. “You are alright.” My throat grew tighter and my vision became even blurrier, somehow. “Let go.”

It was pathetic — or so a voice in my head claimed. As if I had waited to hear that. As if I had needed permission to feel something. And suddenly the floodgates sprang open and I was wholly drowned in pain and desperation and fear. Good old-fashioned fear, my long-time companion in this carousel of misery.

At that moment, as I broke down completely and wailed like a foal, I really, really wished Tirek had never been born.

It was hard to tell how much time had passed. Could have been mere minutes, could have been a couple of hours. I found it especially hard to tell — or care.

My tears had dried. I occasionally rubbed over my puffy eyes. My sobs had died down and my throat was hoarse, but free. I could breathe, I could probably talk if I wanted to and the tremors had stopped. It took effort to deal with the inevitable self-deprecation that followed. I was allowed to feel. I was allowed to show feelings. I was allowed to cry if I felt like it. It was necessary sometimes. I was allowed to seek comfort for myself. It was not a one-way street. I was allowed to receive aid and help and hugs and whatever else I might have needed. I did not have to be strong all the time. Heck, I did not have to be strong, period. Out of the three loves of my life, Twilight was probably the physically weakest — and she could crush stones barehoof.

But of course, that was not the kind of strength that I demanded of myself. Being physically as capable, as strong, as enduring as any of them was out of the question, had been from day one. And they continuously reassured me that yes, maybe I was asking too much of myself when it came to other forms of strength. They did not require it from me. I was the only one laying out such ridiculous standards. And I was the only one I held to those standards, too. I was the one setting myself up to fail. A self-perpetuating cycle of frustration and fear and ultimately, madness.

“You are brooding again,” Twilight cut in.

I looked up, caught, and blushed. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she quickly objected. “Feeling better?”

The impulse was there. To just say: I’m fine. But I took a moment, bit the immediate answer back and listened into myself. After all this, after what she put up with, she deserved honesty. Also, Applejack would know otherwise, somehow, and I could spare myself a stern talking to. “A little,” I therefore answered.

Twilight smiled in contentment. “Good.”

I remembered that. Little steps, they used to say. Little steps every day, already makes three hundred and sixty a year. Which is a lot of steps. I sighed and cuddled up to her. “Thank you.”

Early midday. My sense of time was completely out of whack. My conversation with Luna felt like weeks ago, and my emotionally tumultuous morning felt like an entire day. But when we finally actually got up to do stuff, I quickly glanced out the window to check on my love’s sun and it was… early midday.

What the hay.

We disentangled ourselves from each other and made our way down the staircase. Aurora was out, it seemed. We did not hear her anywhere and certainly did not find her in the kitchen, our current destination. Upon arrival, Twilight quickly opened up several cabinets and drawers to make herself more familiar with the layout, only to realize that our furnishings were still a little… basic. Not to mention we lacked many of the utensils and tools Spike presented with pride whenever someone asked for a tour of the castle kitchen. Something that happened surprisingly often.

“That will not be an issue,” Twilight assured me with a manic grin. “Not for long, anyway.”

Knowing my peanut quite well, I braced for the inevitable teleport and closed my eyes. And indeed, a bright raspberry flash and a popping noise later, she was gone. Only to reappear a couple of minutes later with what appeared to be half the kitchen from our home.

“Overkill much?” I teased with a smile.

“Well, do you know what we need?” she shot back.

“No,” I admitted. “But that’s mostly because you haven’t told me yet what we’re even going to do.”

Twilight was already busy sorting several stacks of ingredients, bowls and platters. “Breakfast.”

“Well, duh,” I replied and chuckled. “Figured as much. You know, with us in the kitchen.”

Two glasses levitated over to me. Cherries and strawberries. I grinned from ear to ear. “Waffles!” she triumphantly exclaimed. With our favorite toppings.

I laughed as she put on a bit of flair. Twilight was no Trixie, never would be. But every time she tried to make a show out of something, she was just so… so incredibly… adorkable. “I love you,” I murmured and stole a quick kiss from her as I started to busy myself with what I did best.

I was a supporter by nature. She said so herself. I helped.

I try, it echoed in my head. It’s what I do. I try a lot.

“Am I right to assume there is a plan, then?” I asked as we worked side by side to get the batter ready. She caught all the ingredients in the right amounts, I mixed the ingredients in the bowl. It was a good division of labor.

Twilight grinned. “There is always a plan.” She dumped the last ingredients in and watched me do my thing with the whisk. “I asked Spike to take care of your administrative business for today.”

Administrative business. The term made me chuckle. Which, judging by her satisfied smile, had been the intention all along. It made me sound so important. Which really did feel strange and undeserved. Still, it was funny to say and hear. “Well, he is a great assistant, isn’t he?”

“Number one,” Twilight added.

“Also very brave,” I continued.

“And so glorious,” she finished. We both giggled. I did make a mental note though to come up with an idea how to properly thank him for today. I was unsure if his taking over for me did anything to his day and schedule, seeing as I usually had nothing much to do to begin with aside from smithing, which was certainly not part of the ‘administrative business’-side of things. But still, it was nice of him.

I blinked in confusion as Twilight's hoof booped my nose. “Huh?”

She giggled. “Gotcha. You were distracted. Lost in thought?”

“Oh, right, sorry.” I hooved over the bowl of mixed ingredients. Time for the next steps. While Twilight was busy with that, I prepared the plates, set out some saucers, made first preparations for somepony more competent than me to make tea, then remembered Twilight's preferences and tried to prepare for coffee instead.

“I want you to focus on yourself,” Twilight meanwhile spoke up. “Or in lieu of that, let me focus on you.”

I looked out the window towards the small makeshift forge they had erected for me. I had spent most of my last days there, toiling away for the village. “So I take it I’m not going to make much progress with my smithing today, am I?”

She smiled and shook her head. “No. After we are done with breakfast, you will come back upstairs with me and I will massage you. That is non-negotiable.“

I nodded in thought, only half-listening. If Twilight was here, that meant that either nopony was in Ponyville to keep things straight and in order over there, or that she found a replacement. Quickly. Or maybe this was planned for quite some time? It was hard to tell. “What about your own—“ I yelped as the kitchen towel suddenly spanked my flank. Made me jump out of my skin for a second. And I stared, wide-eyed, at a smirking Twilight.

When. How. What.

“You’re learning too much from Luna,” I mumbled, with my entire face burning.

“And you,” she replied while walking over. Once in front of me, she placed a kiss on my nose. “You think too much.”

I chuckled. “Oh look, and here’s my adorkable pot calling the numbskull kettle black!”

She grinned, turned around and flicked her tail across my muzzle. What a tease. “We are both awful when it comes to overthinking. It is only natural that we help each other out,” she explained while she returned to the kitchen counter.

She was in a good mood. Bright and chipper and apparently flirty, too. It was hard to brood and stay moody with such good company. And the prospect of a good massage was enticing. So I gave in and sighed. “Fiiine.” I chuckled and followed her to finish up with preparations. “I think I might be able to live with that.” Barely.

The massage had to wait a while. We quickly cleaned up after breakfast, because if done together, even something like cleaning could be fun. After that, we retreated back upstairs, but we both just flopped down onto my bed and cuddled together. We silently agreed that an early-afternoon nap was not the worst thing to have and I simply reveled in having her here, close to me, next to me. I closed my eyes, dozed a little every now and then, and in between I had the pleasure of my other senses being heightened. I could feel the warmth her body radiated. I could hear her soft and rhythmic breathing as it lulled me into another round of shallow slumber. Her coat on mine, the occasional rustle of her wings.

These were the moments when I felt closest to Fluttershy in spirit. Because this, this was… nice. And in these moments, I was convinced that I fully understood what Fluttershy meant when she said that.

Twilight was the one who ultimately decided that we had enough of a nap and that we apparently should not loll around all day. She angled her wing and poked my barrel and wordlessly maneuvered me around until I was lying on my belly, with all legs stretched out.

I heard a bottle open and while I suspected some sort of massage oil or lotion, I had to wonder where it came from. Bed aside, I still had no furniture in my room. But neither had I heard the telltale pop of teleportation. Had she stashed away stuff under the bed before she climbed in?

It was hard to focus on those thoughts as she applied the surprisingly skin-warm massage oil and started to work out those muscles. “It’s funny, you know,” I mumbled while I relaxed more and more. “I distinctly remember a time before I dared to go to the spa, before I learned to massage others and before I ever got one myself.”

“That sounds like a very old story,” she teased with a grin.

I had my eyes closed, but I could hear her grin. Still, she was intrigued as well and that was enough of an invitation for me to continue. “I had heard too many good things about it. ‘Oh, it’ll make ya feel like a pig in mud’, ‘you will relax so easily’, ‘it’s simply divine, darling!’, ‘you don’t even know all the kinks in your system until somepony with capable hooves straightens them out!’ It seemed promising. I really wanted to get into that, I wanted to be able to give that to others. And even more impressive, I even wanted that for myself. So, so badly. But I was a chicken. It took me ages to research where one could have a massage. Were there massage parlors? Did we have one in Ponyville? Stop giggling! I wasn’t exactly familiar with the concept of a ‘spa’, I had no idea what that was and what they offered there.”

“What did you think they offered?” Twilight inquired in amusement.

I shrugged as she slowly made her way to my shoulders. “I don’t know. I never gave it much thought. Anyway. So I figured out: Okay, spa is where it’s at. And it should have been easy from that point forward. But it was so ridiculous. I was being ridiculous. I went to the spa and stood out front. As if waiting for somepony to ask me inside. And strangely enough, a couple of times that actually happened. And I fled. Every time. I just… I can’t even tell you what I was afraid of. Until summer, when they decided to leave the door open. It was like this… like this barrier they had taken down. Instead of lingering outside in the brutal heat — and you know me and heat, we mix sooo well —, I went inside. One step closer, yay. Aloe and Lotus had the patience of saints, I tell you. Eventually, they told me what they offered. And they quickly learned that I understood none of that. What even is a full-body massage? Does that include your horn? And mane? And, uh, private parts? How does one massage a horn, exactly? Would I be led into a different room? Would I lie down on the floor? Or on a bed? Don’t they use oils? Wouldn’t that spoil the sheets? Or would I lie down on a table? Wouldn’t it feel weird? To lie on a table? And I had seen guests of the facilities walk around in these white robes. Would I get one? Would I need one? What for? Would I need to disrobe in front of whoever was supposed to massage me?”

Twilight giggled again. Of course she did. On one hoof, she probably recognized some of this behavior from herself. While she never had this specific issue, she easily could have been in this situation. And on the other hoof, it once again showed a problem we both shared: Overthinking stuff.

“So, what did you do?” she asked.

“I? Panicking, fretting, the usual,” I replied nonchalantly. “Rarity took pity on me. Maybe they told her about things, I don’t know. She booked a massage for me. Basically forced my hoof in the matter. Because she wasn’t even there, I couldn’t complain or make her go back on her word or anything. It would have been wasted bits, which… is exactly the kind of thing one can easily use to rope me into just about anything.”

“She is sly like that, yes,” Twilight fondly acknowledged. “And did you enjoy it?”

“Hm. Bit of a mixed bag,” I admitted. “It hurt. Like, oh sweet Celestia, did that first time hurt. They told me I was one of the worst customers they ever had. Not due to my behavior or anything, they told me I was as well-behaved as a lamb. But I was tense and wound up like a coil. I was so embarrassed. Which is silly. I know that. But still. A couple of hours later, after the massage and after I slunk home, it started to feel good. Like, really good. And I went for a second round a few days later. Been a fan ever since. But those awkward first moments, they are so vivid in my memory.”

I fell silent as my story ended. And for a while, we both stayed silent. Twilight concentrated on her work, I relaxed as best as I could, and everything was fine.

Then I felt her breath tickle my ear. And not a second later, her teeth cautiously nibbled at the edge of it. Her hooves and magic were still busy, she had moved on to my back in the meantime. But nibbling my ear was an interesting addition to the massage routine.

I cracked one eye open and peeked at her. “Is that part of the massage?” I asked with a grin.

She softly exhaled against my ear, her breath hotter than before and I could not help but shudder in pleasant delight. “Maybe?” she replied, tracing the tip of her tongue along the edge she had just nibbled on. “Would you like that?” she asked.

Another shiver ran down my spine and I felt a tingling from downstairs. I searched for a clever answer when suddenly, the door was flung wide open and we both jumped a bit.

In came Aurora, oblivious to the moment she interrupted. But she quickly became aware of it once she stood in the room and stared at us. “Uhm… sorry for… intruding?”

I chuckled. “You could’ve knocked, you know?”

Aurora grimaced and looked apologetically to Twilight, before her attention returned to me. “I forgot that she’s here!”

I puffed out my cheeks in protest. “I could have been busy by my lonesome!” I teased.

“Ew! Dad!” she recoiled and I could not help but laugh.

“So, what’s so urgent that you barge in here like that?” I asked after sufficiently traumatizing my little princess.

Aurora needed a moment to recompose herself before she blinked and smiled. “Right. Nothing major, I was just wondering if you have seen Mister Cuddles anywhere?”

My first impulse was to snort again, but this time I managed to keep a lid on. “Remind me who — and what — that is again? One of the stuffed toys Periwinkle gifted everypony, I presume?”

Aurora nodded. “Yes. A stuffed griffon. She gave it to Derpy.”

I furrowed my brow. I remembered that. Despite the last few days being a bit of a blur in my memory, mostly due to me overworking myself, I still remembered that. Derpy had squealed in delight. She instantly fell in love with that toy. Smushed it against her chest and cuddled with it and carried it anywhere one could reasonably see her. “Did she lose it?” I asked. “She basically took it everywhere for the last few days. Well, except when she was flying around with the weather device.” And whenever Derpy and Mister Cuddles went on an adventure — so basically whenever they went anywhere — Derpy beamed. It would have made Pinkie shed a tear of liquid pride.

“Yes and it seems she has lost him somehow,” Aurora answered.

“I see. I will keep my eyes peeled in case I see him, but no, I can’t remember coming across him recently. Last time I saw them together was yesterday around midday, I believe.”

My filly furrowed her brow in thought while she nodded absentmindedly. “Well, thank you anyway. I will not keep you from continuing… whatever that is. And sorry again for the interruption.”

Pride. It was the prevalent emotion I felt towards my sunshine at that moment. Here she was, running around the village in search of a stuffed toy to mend Derpy's undoubtedly broken heart. I was more or less forbidden from helping right now, but I made a mental note to search the village myself tomorrow. I could only imagine Derpy’s face, and I rather not sour my mood by doing so. A friend in need indeed. That said, a stuffed toy was still something that could wait until tomorrow.

That left me with the itch to tease Aurora a little further. “Since we’re on the topic, how is… what did you call yours?” A faint tint rose to Aurora's alabaster cheeks. She refused to answer. “Starfox?”

The tint bloomed into a full-on blush. “Daaad!” she whined. “He’s on my be-shelf!” she quickly added — and corrected.

I could feel my smile grow into a predatory grin. “Uh-huh. Strange. I don’t remember us having any shelves…” As if to make a point, I looked around my own very unfurnished room.

“Anyway, thanks, later, bye!” Aurora blurted out in quick succession and hastily retreated, slamming the door shut in the process before she cantered down the hallway and down the stairs. I craned my neck to get a look at Twilight, who had been very patient and very silent the entire time. And we both broke out in laughter.

It took us a few minutes to calm down again and I even had to wipe away some tears again. “Phew, that never gets old,” I cackled.

Twilight grinned and looked around. She found the small key on the floor and locked us in with a devious smile. Interesting. “Where were we?”

I chuckled. “You asked if I would like you to continue massaging my ear with your teeth and quite frankly, after this little break, I decided that I would love that!”

Her expression, her entire demeanor changed. Subtly, but surely. Bedroom eyes, a slow stroke of her hoof down my back, and the way she bit down on her lower lip. It made my heart skip a beat or two. “So be it,” she replied promisingly. “Be a good pony and roll over, will you?”

I swallowed and complied, rolling onto my back. She leaned down and my eyes fluttered shut again as she kissed me. A little nip on my lower lip made me suck in air as she pulled back, only for her eyes to betray a fire that surely had not been there — or not this obvious — a few seconds earlier. She lunged for me and I was easy and willing prey. As our tongues intertwined, her wing extended and caressed my barrel with feathery strokes.

Eventually the need for air forced me to break the kiss, but she would not let me go that easily. I had to tear myself free and raised my head onto the cushion, taking a greedy gulp of air in the process. But her lips were already all over me. I felt her teeth nip at the skin on my lower jaw, felt her tongue trace over my throat. For a brief moment, she even opened her jaws wide and clenched them around my throat entirely and for whatever reason, it triggered something wild and primal within me, an instinctual fear and thrill, a massive kick of adrenaline.

I gasped, my front hooves flailed aimlessly until I found her, stroked through her mane, tried to guide her back up to me, but again she would not let me.

I felt slightly light-headed as the excitement and anticipation built up. I had not even realized my member emerging from my sheath until she grabbed it with her telekinesis. Another gasp and this time, she lunged for my muzzle again, used the opportunity to plunge her tongue into my mouth, to wrestle control from me more and more while her magic tightened ever so slightly and moved up and down in agonizingly slow strokes.

I was completely overwhelmed by the sheer onslaught of emotions and her apparent aggressiveness and I was here for that. Sweet heavens, this was incredible.

“If you keep this up, I won’t last long,” I managed to string a couple of words together. It did not seem like she cared much as she only increased the speed of her strokes slightly while peppering my neck with more nips and kisses.

I tried to stem the tide, tried to get a modicum of control, to exert some resistance. But she would have none of that. The moment she became aware of it, she repositioned herself slightly. I heard the rustle of the sheets, opened my eyes and saw her barrel from the side. I had barely a second to be confused before she aligned herself with me and a twitchy, throbbing part of myself vanished in her mouth.

“T-Twilight!” I hissed as she plunged deeper and deeper. It became harder to hold on with every second as the tight, warm wetness of her muzzle enveloped me.

I wanted to reciprocate so badly. I tried to reach her, tried to grab her flank, but she had positioned herself cleverly. Enough so that she could reach me, but not vice versa. And with my current state of mind, there was no chance in Tartarus to get any spell successfully off my horn.

A soft pop made me look up. I could feel the cold air on my nethers, felt both relief and sadness, felt another sharp breath filling my lungs as she fondled my balls with her hoof. “What did I tell you?” she asked with a smile, even though there was a certain toughness in her eyes. “Let me take care of you today.”

I had a bad conscience. Instantly. For disobeying her. And that confused me to no end for about five seconds. “I know!” I replied. But this was not right, I felt. There was no doubt that she was left wanting as well, I simply wished to make her feel good in turn. “I just waahhh—“

My explanation was cut short by a drawn-out moan as she resumed her ministrations.

Sex, for me, was a lot about hearing. Hearing her ragged breathing, hearing her moan, hearing her utter my name. Hearing the sloppy slurping sound she made right now as I felt the soft suction on my member, as I felt her tongue trace along its length with the rapid movement of a dancer.

But my little peanut had made a crucial mistake.

She had given me a few seconds of relief before. Enough that I had managed to reposition myself ever so slightly. Just enough to reach her, grab her and pull her over me. She yelped in surprise and probably would have chided me for it, for disobeying her again, but I did not care, I grabbed her cutie marks with both hooves, pulled her down and buried my muzzle beneath her involuntarily flagging tail.

As expected, she was dripping wet. I quickly lapped up everything around her nethers before I dove right in and pushed my tongue as far as I could in between those marvelous quivering walls of hers. Her long, satisfied moan reverberated into my own loins and we quickly fell into a sort of competition. There was no chance in Tartarus that I would manage to get her off before she finished me, but still — I appreciated being able to reciprocate at all. Feeling those tremors in her haunches made me eager, her arousing taste on my tongue and lips, the scent of her excitement filling my nostrils with every breath I took — it was all intoxicating.

I failed to notice at which point my hips developed a life and will of their own. I started bucking upwards, and Twilight merely adapted to my rhythm, moving forward every time I bucked up. The sensation of ebb and tide, heat and cold, it quickly drove me to the edge.

I tried to intensify my own actions in turn. I broadly stroked over her clit as she winked at me rapidly in excitement, but in the end, this ‘duel’ had been decided from the very start.

“T-Twi-!” I uttered. The sheer thought of me climaxing deep in her throat made her shiver all over, made her moan deeply as with one last buck, she tested out her own limits. And the very moment my already crumbling self-control was blasted to smithereens, I sucked her clit in between my teeth and gave it just the faintest squeeze and she came fractions of a second after me.

While I still bucked and twitched and one spurt after another went into her mouth, Twilight in turn flooded mine. And I was just as greedy with what I was given as she was.

Eventually, after long, stretched seconds of bliss, I collapsed onto the bed in exhaustion. And my peanut collapsed right on top of me. It made me chuckle. This was fine. I loved feeling her close to me, especially after sex. With my shrinking, retreating member sloppily flopping from her mouth, she took a couple of greedy breaths, coughed once and made me laugh, outright laugh, as she placed one last, chaste kiss on its shrinking form and mumbled a quiet thank you.

She then turned around. Her face was flushed. Her mane matted with sweat and disheveled. Her coat was ruffled and her eyes glazed over with remnants of bliss and arousal. The entire room smelled of sex. Her movement was sluggish. I raised a hoof to her cheek and she leaned into it. “Sweet heavens, you’re beautiful,” I murmured.

She giggled faintly and flopped down beside me. And I instantly curled up around her, pulling her against me. “Glad you enjoyed it,” she replied.

“Sorry for disregarding your commands,” I teased her with a grin.

“It is fine,” she replied lazily, clearly ready for an afternoon nap. “I will get you for that later. Now it is time for cuddles. Postcoital cuddles are the best.”

Ominous. I smiled and nodded. That was fine with me. We cuddled long into the afterglow. And again after a second round later on…

I had dozed off at some point. That became clear when I opened my eyes again and I noticed how the quality of daylight flooding in through my window had changed. The light was closer to a warm orange now, the shadows had moved considerably. Late afternoon, early evening, something along those lines.

It took me a while to figure out what had actually woken me up. It was not the presence of something, but rather the absence. “Twilight?”

I turned my head to peek at the space beside me and found it suspiciously empty. There should have been a plush and feathery and warm bundle of joy there. Instead I was greeted by empty space. And the telltale signs of recent movement. She had snuck out. Huh. Rare was the instance when she actually managed to do that.

Either I must have been really exhausted, or she had outdone herself.

I did spot a slightly crumpled note though. I unfolded the small piece of paper and read what she had left for me. “I will make dinner,” I read aloud. “Huh.”

I put the note back down, put my head back down as well and closed my eyes again. Dinner. That sounded nice. I could go for a snack. Or maybe even a full meal. And despite me mentally joking about a different kind of snack afterwards, I was more than satisfied with our recent activities.

That said, something about this note just kept bugging me.

I will make dinner.

Why did that sound like a threat?

I will make dinner!

This was getting weirder.

I will make dinner, and you cannot stop me!

Yes, peanut. I know I cannot stop you. Why would I want to, though?

Because Spike exiled her from the kitchen, dummy!

I grimaced as he made his opinion known. Only to then quickly realize that no, that was decidedly not an opinion, it was the truth. And worse still, I knew why Twilight was forbidden from using the castle kitchen for anything other than making tea, coffee, hot chocolate and plain water in a glass.

“Oh shoot!” I cursed and tried to jump out of my bed, only to immediately faceplant. “Ow.” I disentangled myself from my bedsheets, haphazardly threw them back onto the bed and stumbled my way over to the door. As soon as I opened it, I could smell burnt… something.

“Well at least it’s not the entire kitchen again… yet… I hope…” I murmured as I quickly made my way down the darkening corridor, then down the stairs and into the kitchen area.

The moment I pushed the door open, I was greeted with… well, chaos. Despite what some ponies believed about Pinkie, she was very organized and even when her kitchen looked like a mess, it was a meticulously organized mess. Twilight however, she inverted that. She really tried to stay organized in a kitchen, it just always failed for some reason. Which usually led to fire, somehow.

This in front of my eyes? This was just an ordinary, plain mess.

Spotting Twilight was not hard. She was glued to the ceiling. Some sort of adhesive, transparent, toxic-green substance clung to the ceiling in a big slimy blob. And Twilight was caught in it. Her wings were stuck, her left front hoof was stuck, her horn was stuck, her… tail was stuck. I did quite enjoy the view for two seconds.

I tore my gaze away from her rump and took stock of the rest of the kitchen. There was a pan. Melted to the stove. Somehow.

And a bowl containing what looked and smelled like batter. On fire, of course.

The moment I looked back up after taking everything in, Twilight stopped struggling against the glue and grinned awkwardly. “I can explain!”

I burst out laughing for about less than five seconds, because I really did not wish to hurt her feelings, but the entire situation was just so comically over the top that it was hard to believe that any of this really happened. Yet, such was the fate of those living with alicorns, I assumed. Or maybe this really was more a Twilight-thing. “Right. That one I must hear!” While I carefully phrased my answer, I went to the sink and was relieved to see some water in it. I grabbed the still-on-fire bowl and considered simply dumping it in there, but that would most certainly ruin whatever was left. Maybe something could still be salvaged?

So instead I put the lid of one of the pots on top and extinguished the fire by suffocating it. With the bowl safely placed on the metal part of the sink, I looked back up. “Are you okay up there?”

Twilight sighed. Things had clearly not gone according to her plan. “Well, at least the glue should dissolve any sec-ah!” The entire slimy-green blob vanished instantly and Twilight fell. There was a dull thud accompanied by an “oof!” as she hit the floor as neither of us was quick enough to catch her in our telekinesis. After a brief moment of stunned silence, her voice emanated from the other side of the kitchen counter. “I’m okay!”

Despite her reassurance, I still rushed over and inspected her for any injuries. I knew that actually hurting an alicorn was rather difficult. I had seen Sunny break a cleaver by accident while hacking herbs to pieces and getting her hoof in the way. Still, it was a natural response, I assumed. Even after five decades of marriages.

“Are you hurt?” I asked and helped her to her hooves.

Twilight smiled wryly. “Only my pride.”

The impulse was there to tease her a little, maybe with a snarky comment or something like that, but she looked seriously bummed out about this failure, so I bit back any ideas in that direction and instead levitated the bowl over to see if anything could be salvaged. To my surprise, what I quickly recognized as some sort of batter had little sparkly dots in it. I grabbed a bit of the dough and lifted it, turned it in the light and it really did sparkle. In various shades of colored light.

Took me almost half a minute to realize why.

When I did, I chuckled. Salvageable, this was not. “You accidentally brought along the gemstone powder for Spike’s treats, didn’t you?”

Twilight did a double-take. “What? No! No, no, no, no, no, I did not! I picked exactly what his kitchen- and supply plan indicated should be—“ She fell quiet when she took a closer look at the small piece of batter I held up with my magic. It was harder to see, so I put it on my hoof and turned it a little, so she could see the same sparkling I had observed. Her shoulders sagged even further. “Aw.”

I shook my head, discarded the sample back into the bowl and went to hug my peanut. “The perils of living with a less-than-perfectly organized young dragon.” I kissed her cheek. “Don’t worry, it’s fine. See, we got an inn now, and Periwinkle turned out to be a surprisingly good cook, even relieving Spike of his post. Well, not entirely. They change it up every few days or something like that. She claims she learned cooking from her mom, Trixie, who did not wish for her to live off of trash food.”

Twilight pulled back a bit to look me square in the eyes. “Are you insulting my not-so-secret love of hayburgers… again?”

I was relieved. If she was willing to go along with this silliness, then her failure in the kitchen did not dampen her mood as much as I feared. This was a good development. So I grinned and shook my head. “Nah, I would never! How dare you insinuate that I would even think of teasing you with something as profound as this!” Twilight raised an eyebrow, but smiled. And she seemed mollified for now. “So, how about it?” I continued. “Dinner at the tavern? My treat!”

Twilight let her eyes wander through the kitchen, over the half-melted pan, the blackened bowl and the sparkly batter within it. “You don’t even pay there,” she grumbled.

I was unsure if she grumbled because of her failure, or because not paying was a disappointment, or what she meant. But that was fine, I did not need the explanation. “Neither do you,” I simply retorted. “Come on. It’ll be fun! You will get to see all the quirky ponies we collected so far.”

She sighed one last time before she put on a brave face and nodded. “Fine.”

Dinner had been an interesting experience. One I mulled over as we made our way back home. The tavern I referred to was not the building Periwinkle wanted. That one still needed to be constructed. She arrived in town three days ago and in that time, Aurora and her had been busy drawing up some blueprints, but even those were unfinished. It took time to build a house. And Periwinkle's demands were probably an interesting challenge to work with.

From what I had heard over dinner from others, she wanted a large, open space for everypony to mingle, for tables and chairs and maybe even a dance floor. Compromise was required — an open space was all well and good, but the upper story she also wanted needed to be supported by something or the entire structure would eventually come crashing down. Then there was the need for an actual stage as part of the open seating area. And a bar counter. And so much more.

Aurora really did have her work cut out for her.

No, what I — and the rest of Greenwood so far — colloquially referred to as our ‘tavern’ was just another ordinary building, in theory meant as a house for somepony to live in. But since we barely had any furniture yet, Honey and Hefty stored anything they managed to finish in there. Which basically made it the only house with tables and chairs. And since Periwinkle's arrival, that had somehow served to transform the empty storage house into a makeshift tavern where everypony met up to share stories, updates, gossip and the occasional bowl of soup. It basically became the new campfire spot.

A side effect of the building being a house was the fact that it was rather crammed in there. So walking back home was a bit of a relief. It was quiet. It was less stuffy. And cooler. The evening breeze guided us home and sapped the excess warmth from us, not unlike the river's water had done this morning.

Back inside, I ushered Twilight up the stairs and we returned to my bed. “Phew, I am done,” I announced and rolled onto my side, gesturing with a hoof for her to come to me. She gladly complied and I hugged her back after her wings had settled. Despite the nice evening topping off a very nice day, there was a certain melancholy in the air. I sighed and addressed the mood head-on. “You are going to leave soon, aren’t you?”

Her wings betrayed her before she even said a single word. They twitched slightly. Still, I waited. And after a while, she raised her head and kissed my cheek. “Kind of,” she answered. “I do have an important appointment with Ember in the morning and Luna can only substitute for me for so long, but! I will stay the night with you and sneak out in the morning.”

I loved her. In moments like these, I became incredibly aware of just how much. Just sleeping with her side by side, having her here when I fell asleep, that alone was worth a lot. And she had already done so much for me today. I nuzzled the back of her head. “Thank you.”

We cuddled together, her horn lit up one final time to grab the blanket from the lower end of the bed and wrap it around the both of us, and at some point, we both fell asleep.

Too early, my sleep-drunken mind realized. I despised the fact that I was capable of conscious thought. It really was too early for that. And I insistently refused to open my eyes. I would just go back to sleep. Sink down into the sea of dreams again and continue a nice, long, restful night.

But something had woken me up. And my mind was on a roll. I simply could not stop it and within a few moments, the memory clicked into place. Twilight was about to sneak out. And my sleep-addled mind was filled with foalish discontent. So, as she cautiously tried to wiggle her way out of my embrace, I only tightened my grip on her and pulled her back in. At that point, she became aware that her attempts to not stir me had failed. “Go back to sleep,” she quietly whispered.

I wanted that so badly. But at the same time, I did not want to let her go either. What little I could consciously remember from the last day had been nice. So nice in fact, that her getting out of this bed was completely out of the question. “Sleep demands kisses,” I murmured into her mane.

She could teleport at any moment. I knew that. But she did not. And neither did she struggle against me to escape. She did move around to reposition herself, which was fine with me. Until we lay muzzle to muzzle. I could feel her breath tickle my nose. It made me smile.

A moment later, she lifted her head off the cushion and placed a trail of three consecutive kisses on my cheek, lower jaw and throat. I hummed in appreciation as the pleasant gesture seemed to linger even after her lips had left me. And somehow that worked to trick me into not realizing as she slipped out of my grasp and out of bed.

“Aw,” was the only comment my disappointed but still half-asleep mind managed to muster.

She giggled faintly, barely audible. It made me smile once more. Then Twilight tugged me in properly and tried to sneak to the bedroom door. She would most likely teleport from the hallway or downstairs.

And every second step, the floorboards creaked.

And with every noise, she audibly flinched and muttered something under her breath.

And with every curse, the smile on my face grew wider.

It was a strange satisfaction. Greenwood was my home. I went to great lengths to build this village, to assemble a team capable of helping me out with this task. I was willing to brave the chaos and magic and wild flora and fauna and worse. Even in this cycle, where my heart and home was already firmly planted somewhere else. Because Greenwood always needed to exist. And I was willing to face down whatever would stand in its way.

It felt like a thankless task sometimes. Most of the time, actually.

But here was this house, built a few weeks ago from freshly cut wood. Nothing in this building was old or badly maintained. Yet the floorboards creaked to notify me of somepony sneaking around in my house.

That was nice of my house. Very nice.

“Good house,” I proudly mumbled into my cushion as my consciousness drifted off again…

Interlude: Icy Whisper I

His legs were weak and wobbly, but that was more or less normal these days. He could always tell when his hunger got really bad, because his stomach would not stop growling at him even as the adrenaline of the chase kicked in.

His pale, light-blue mane whipped in the wind, flung around by the occasional collision with low-hanging branches. Sweat dampened his coat in a futile attempt to cool his body. Twigs snapped beneath his hooves. The pitch-black woods around him were eerily silent. Forests should never be silent at night. Or at day, or ever. He knew that. It only further creeped him out.

A quick one. Just a really quick glance over his shoulder. He dared it and was shocked to see his pursuer still hot on his heels. This stranger had approached him out of the dark. How had he known where to find him? Or did he just stumble upon him?

He had addressed him very politely. It only made him more wary. Polite or not, he could tell — this stallion wanted something. They always did. And judging by prior experience, they wanted him gone. Not necessarily dead, but gone. And some would not mind if he broke his neck whilst fleeing.

So he ran. Again.

He ran as fast as his jittery legs would carry him. He ran as fast as he dared, because while his pursuers usually would not mind him becoming a meal for timberwolves or the like, he would very much appreciate not to be eaten. The Everfree Forest was a bad place to be. But it was the only place safe from pursuit. Or so he had thought, until this stranger had shown up out of nowhere.

Maybe he should have listened, he scolded himself. He should not have visited Appleloosa, not even at night, sneaking around and collecting a couple stray items. An open window was good to quickly slip in, rummage through some drawers, find thread and needle and leave with those. Another backyard offered a table cloth. The cloth would serve well to patch up his cloak. The hood was currently annoying him, because it basically acted as an air trap, but it was a necessity whenever he had to go near any sort of settlement.

A few pieces of discarded food here, two cans of beans there. He felt like a racoon, living off the trash of others. It was not a glorious life. Certainly not the life he had hoped for. But at least he was still alive at all. That had to count for something, right?

He should have listened to the advice and stayed clear. Appleloosa had been too large of a settlement to sneak around in. Somepony had probably spotted him. And now this. He could hear his pursuer gain on him. It was only a matter of time before either his legs would give out or this stallion would catch up to him.

What else could he do…?

“Shock him!” an angry voice demanded. He flinched, even while running. That all too familiar voice. Why did he have to show up now? He could see him as he ran beside him. And for just a brief moment, he envied him. He effortlessly kept pace. He did not run out of breath. His path was not impeded by the undergrowth of the Everfree Forest. His hooves did not get caught on any roots.

He saw how his companion quickly glanced back. His muzzle was contorted in anger. “You have a clear line! Shock him, you lazy bag of bricks!”

He winced. The impulse was there to look back. To ensure that yes, he really did have a clear line of sight. But the issue was: He already knew that. Mere moments before his new company had arrived, he had risked looking backwards. He knew.

So instead, he looked up. The canopies of the trees were dense. In some parts of the forest dense enough to make the forest beneath the treetops appear as dark as night. But here he could see the occasional spot of night sky. “I can’t!” he breathlessly replied. “There are no clouds around!”

It was an excuse. And a flimsy one at that. He was stalling and they both knew that. His current company knew that. And his anger only flared in response. “And what are you, a mud pony? A snooty wannabe-wizard? Are those wings for decoration only? Get your lazy flank up in the air!”

He ran on fumes. Quite literally, possibly. Yet this voice. This all too familiar tone. He did not dare disagree. He did not dare disobey. His wings trembled as he cautiously spread them. A few flaps and he started to gain altitude. Enough to break through a hole in the treetops. Maybe his pursuer would give up now? Maybe he was safe now?

A quick glance down and he could see movement between the trees. What a stubborn stallion this was.

He gracelessly landed on just about the only cloud he could spot in the air. And almost immediately his wings snapped shut, exhausted, pushed beyond their limits. And for a brief moment, he was deathly afraid. If he were to fall now, to fall down from this cloud, this height… he doubted he would get his wings to work again. He would simply plummet to his death.

So he grabbed the cloud tightly. Clung to it for dear life. He was safe up here, right? His pursuer was no pegasus. Why would he not have followed him into the air by now if he were, right?

“Get rid of this bastard!” the angry voice demanded.

He did not dare disobey. Despite his fear of heights, he stood up and gave the cloud a kick. A single lightning strike lit up the dark and pretty sky. The bolt of electricity surged towards the ground — or from the ground up, rather. A crackle could be heard. He really hoped he had not unintentionally hit anyone. Even critters of the Everfree did not deserve to be struck by lightning in the middle of the night.

His warning shot was dismissed. The pony below still ran. He tried to get beneath his cloud, it seemed.

“Shock him, you useless waste of space!” was yelled right into his ear.

He flinched, grimaced, tried to retreat, to pull his head away, but the transparent shape only advanced on him further. “Now!” he yelled.

Why. Why had he never been able to stand up to him. Never in his life. Not even now. Even when he tried, he ultimately failed. It was inevitable. And he did try. Again. “I-I don’t want to hurt him!” he replied in fear.

The expression on that transparent face changed. From white-hot, searing anger to a stone-cold determination. And disgust. Oh so much disgust. “Then I’ll do it myself,” he spat.

His eyes widened in shock. He tried to backpedal, but there was nowhere to run to. “No! Dad, no!”

The shape dissolved and pushed against him, into him. A cold, numbing presence flooded his body, effortlessly tore through whatever laughable resistance he put up and within seconds, he wrangled all control from him. His hooves and wings stopped trembling and jittering due to the sheer force of will that made them obey. His body rose in a new-found strength. And that was just it. This strength was not new as such. Lying dormant, untouched. A reserve this fool never dared to dip into. He was simply too afraid of his own power.

His front hooves rose high as he reared back. A final glance down to where his pursuer was and then he slammed them down onto the cloud.

An ear-splitting crack followed.

For a brief fraction of a second, the night was as bright as day.

A mighty lightning strike crashed down into the forest…

… only to be met by a shimmering golden force shield. The spell bubble dispersed the electricity, broke it apart and led it into the ground, where it harmlessly vanished.

“No!” he growled in displeasure, but before he could try again, his body finally collapsed. The angry voice faded from his consciousness, his appearance faded from his eyes as his vision shrank to an ever-smaller tunnel. He could feel the air rush past him at frightening speed as he fell and yet, despite understanding what it meant, he was… relieved.

The chase was over. And whoever was down there, whoever followed him here — he had not hurt him.

That was good.

Then, blackness.

He was not strong enough. As always.

Icy knew that he messed up. Again.

He slunk home from flight school, bruised and beaten. Again. He tried to shield the worst bruises with his wings, so others would not stare more than they already did. Most of those pegassi were neighbors, and most of those knew him as ‘that strange colt that told creepy stories’.

It was fine, he told himself. He was fine. And supposedly, if he were to tell this to himself often enough, he would eventually even start believing it. That would be a nice day, he assumed.

Icy opened the house door silently, slipped through the gap and quickly closed the door behind himself. With his haunches firmly planted on the cloud floor and his back pressed against the door, he allowed himself a moment to relax. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and tried to ease the various pains in his body by letting it flow away.

Then he heard clatter from the kitchen and the moment was broken.

His mom was busy. He knew that. She always was. So he opened his eyes again and snuck past the doorless frame of the kitchen without being spotted. He walked up the stairs past the few framed pictures that still hung on the wall, down the empty hallway and into his room. And he made sure that none of his hoofsteps were audible, and that the door to his bedroom was opened and closed just as silently as the house door.

He had become very good at sneaking over the years. Very good at being silent and nigh-invisible. It was a necessity to a certain degree, but he found solace in making it into a game of sorts. A game with just one player and nothing to win. It was fine. He was fine.

He lay down on his bed, the soft, plush cloud blanket offering him a welcome respite. A familiar room with familiar walls. The scent of his bed was familiar, the Wonderbolt poster above the headboard was familiar. The nightstand with the small twittermite lantern was familiar. He had named the pair Greg and George. They were foul-tempered, as all twittermites were, but he appreciated their company anyway.

He looked around the room. Took notice of the chaos. Sportswear strewn across the floor. A stack of books from school on his desk. Little doodads. A young colts room was supposed to look messy. But truth be told, he did not like it much. The urge to clean it up was there. But it would defeat its purpose. If he cleaned it up now, nothing would change. He would feel a little better about the room, sure. But what was that really worth?

On the other hoof, if he left it like it was, his mom would eventually come in here, see the mess and ask him to clean it up. She would ask nicely. With a warm, genuine smile and only mild exasperation in her voice. He would clean up, talk to her to say he was finished and she would inspect the room again. She would be proud. Another smile. A hug. A wistful sigh. She would be happy. And that made him happy.

He sighed deeply. The mess would stay for now.

He let his head flop down onto the bed again and stared at the ceiling. Various parts of his body ached. A warm bath would have been great right about now, but he could not bring himself to stand back up again. Also, taking a bath took time. And neither did he want to talk to his mom right now, nor did he wish for her to barge in again because she had to use the toilet or something.

No, this, right now, just lying here — this was fine.

Everything was fine.

And he slowly started to drift off. He surely would have fallen asleep within minutes had it not been for the sudden intrusion of a voice. “What happened?”

The moment he heard the voice, his relaxation was over. He tensed up and grimaced as he quickly sat on his bed the right way. “Nothing,” he replied to the slowly forming shape beside his bed.

“Don’t lie to me, boy!” the voice warned.

Icy flinched. “N-Nothing!” he repeated, but he could already see the anger glowing in those slowly forming eyes. “They—… it just… it was a normal day!” It was a weak defense, he knew that.

“They beat you up again, didn’t they?” his father demanded to know.

Icy hesitated for a brief moment before he sighed deeply. “Y-Yes.” And he braced himself.

A few seconds passed without the expected verbal onslaught before it finally did come. As reliable as a sundial. “And what did I tell you, huh?” A shapeless limb swooshed down and passed through Icys head.

He could feel the sudden, cold presence of this contact. But what really made him wince was the memory. He could still feel the pain burning in his cheeks. The gesture alone, despite missing any actual physicality, was so eerily familiar that he could still feel it. And just like back then, tears welled up in his eyes. “I-I tried to fight back! I promise!” he pleaded. “I-I’m just, I’m not strong enough! A-And there were four of them!”

“Don’t talk back to me, boy!” his dad spat. “I told you what to do! You’re just too fucking useless to actually do it!” Another strike. Nothing happened. Nothing real happened, anyway. Icy tried to keep that in mind. It was all just in his head. But it felt real.

A few minutes later, Icy felt like he had run a marathon. He was exhausted, both in body and mind. And oh so tired. He left his room, his father still yelling into his ear, cussing and berating him. The young colt slunk down the staircase and into the kitchen.

“Mom?” he quietly asked.

She was busy. She always was. Currently with preparations for dinner. The table was set. Something was on the stove. She was busy cleaning up all the used tools and bowls. “What is it now?” she asked.

Icy winced. She was annoyed already. But he could not bear it any longer, he needed something, anything. “Dad said I should not let them beat me up, but—“ He quickly cut himself off as soon as he saw the change in her eyes when she turned around to face him.

She had been stressed. Busy. Annoyed. Now that annoyance turned to anger. “What did I tell you?” she scolded him. “Icy Whisper, what did I tell you?!” she immediately repeated more forcefully. Yet she still left him no chance to answer for himself. “Your dad is gone. Dead. He’s rotting in his grave and the two of us, we are both better off without that abusive, neglectful, unfaithful piece of shit! Good riddance!”

His dad had started to yell at his mom. More curses and cusses. But those last two words, they really hit home. Icy could see his dads legs tremble in sheer outrage. Hatred burned in his eyes as he glared daggers at his wife. He stomped over to the kitchen counter. That vase had been a gift from her first ever love many, many years ago. It was a cherished memento. A treasure.

Icy stared in shock as his dad put his hoof against it and threw the vase across the room. It shattered into a thousand pieces upon impact with the cloud wall. Both he and his mom jumped due to the sudden crashing noise.

The room fell deathly silent as they both coped with the events. Icy knew this was bad. Really bad. Never since his death had his father been able to actually manipulate anything real. He knew he should be sorry for his mom’s vase. He knew he should be sorry for her. He knew he should think about her and how sad and angry this would make her, but he just could not.

All he could think about was how much that next slap from him would hurt.

His mom looked at him. She slowly turned her head and looked at him like he was some sort of freak. And with a voice that sent a chill down his spine, she uttered a single, emotionless word. “Out.”

Icy did not dare to turn around. He retreated backwards until his rump hit the doorframe. A slight adjustment and he made it into the hallway. She still stared back at him. It scared him.

Then he raced up the stairs. His lips were glued shut, he could not even apologize.

And to distract himself, he started to clean up the mess in his room.

He was not strong enough. As always.

Icy woke up with a silent groan. His head felt like it had been struck by a hammer blow. And his stomach was strangely queasy, although that mystery was solved once he came more to his senses and realized that he was being carried by somepony. The rhythmic up and down, his stomach on the other pony’s back, it was as if his belly was a bellows. He tried to open his eyes and was surprised by the resistance his body offered. Everything felt so sluggish and heavy.

“You are a sneaky one,” a vaguely familiar voice addressed him in a chipper tone. “Do not worry, you are perfectly safe for now. However, since we have yet to travel a certain distance, I would prefer if you go back to sleep. So, if you do not mind…”

Just as Icy managed to crack an eye open, he saw the disgustingly bright orange light illuminate their nightly forest surroundings. He spotted an orange coat and some kind of cape, but then this brightly glowing horn made contact with his head and the blackness returned in an instant.

He was on his way to flight school. Lazy Turn was right next to him and repeatedly got a kick out of passing through other pegassi they met on the way. They shuddered and shivered as it happened and always looked back, only to spot Icy walking away from them. No real surprise many of the ponies in Cloudsdale associated him with creepy chills.

Icy would have preferred their usual routine of him softly chiding Lazy for his behavior and asking him to stop, which Lazy would then utterly disregard and ignore. However, this morning was different. Icy was still busy trying in vain to get the yolk residue out of his mane and coat.

Also, they were arguing. Occasionally. When both of them found the time to briefly pause their other activities. “So what I’m saying is,” Lazy continued his tirade as he caught up to Icy again, “you can’t stop doing this, Icy. And I don’t mean, like, ‘oh no, please, Icy, our lord and savior, rescue us, boo-hoo-hoo!’ And more like… I don’t think you’re capable of stopping. Like, physically or mentally or something. Also, it would really suck if you did. We don’t know of anypony else with your special talent. So, what else are we supposed to do? Who else are we supposed to turn to for help?”

Icy grimaced as a sudden gust of wind blew beneath his hooded cloak. It was no big deal, in theory. Cloudsdale was a windy city. That was inevitable with living so high up in the sky. But he just did not like it when other ponies saw his cutie mark. They already labeled him a weirdo and freak and creep and whatnot because of the sudden chills and occasional other spooky stuff, but their reaction was twice as bad if they saw a Celestia-damned pony skull on his flank, empty, hollow eye sockets and missing lower jaw included.

After the breeze passed, he turned his attention back to Lazy and sighed. “But that’s just it — I’m not much help!”

“Pfff,” Lazy replied in a clear demonstration of superior maturity. “Don’t be silly!” Seeing as his response did basically nothing, Lazy put some more thought into his reply and belatedly added: “You helped Jaded find peace and get out of here, didn’t you?”

Icy rolled with his eyes. “Lazy, all Jaded needed was for his dad to learn where his secret stash was.”

Despite the odd looks he garnered, Icy did not cut himself off once he became aware of them. Yes, yes, he was talking to himself again. The usual. This argument with Lazy however grated his nerves and he therefore deemed it more important than to avoid further odd looks from other pegassi.

Lazy however simply stared at Icy dumbfounded. “… you haven’t figured it out,” he noted. Lazy shook his head in sheer disbelief and chuckled. “You really haven’t figured it out. Hoo boy, wow. It wasn’t so much about the location of his stash, Icy. It was about his dear old dad learning and accepting that his beloved son was gay as fuck!”

Icys eyes grew wide in shock and embarrassment. And within seconds, a heavy blush rose to his pale, mint-green cheeks. “Language, Lazy!” he chided his companion with a hiss and tried to hide deeper within his hood.

“Excuse me?!” a sudden, unexpected voice spoke up.

Both Icy and Lazy froze in place and slowly turned around to see another pegasus standing behind them, outrage written all across this mare's face. Luckily for him, this did not happen to Icy for the first time. He quickly put one and one together and offered an apologetic smile. “Sorry, ma’am, I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to myself.”

It was plain to see that she did not believe a single word he said. However, she was sufficiently mollified with him taking all the blame onto himself and she therefore decided to let him off the hook. She turned her muzzle up, spread her wings and flew off.

Icy sighed in relief and watched her vanish before he turned to Lazy again. His companion raised both hooves in a defensive gesture without falling over, despite Lazy being an earth pony. Because he had the luxury of floating, the old cheat. “Sorry, sorry!” Lazy offered, only to immediately turn back to their original topic. “And what about Big Bertha, then?”

“I didn’t help her escape!” Icy groaned. He wished Lazy would just give in and accept the reality of things. But of course he would not. Nopony ever did. They all just trampled over his opinions like the doormat that he was. He should be grateful to have friends like Lazy at all. Sure, he was a little more… dead than he would like his friends to be, but at least he listened. Occasionally.

“No, maybe not,” Lazy even agreed. “But! You did help her feel better about being stuck here in the first place!”

“That was by sheer coincidence!” Icy argued in exasperation. Lazy was one of those ‘the glass is always half full’-types. And if the glass was not, he would fill it. There was no reasoning with such types. They dug around in the dirt until they found something, anything positive. Or they used their own, twisted perspectives on life to twist whatever conundrum they had to turn it into something positive. Sometimes they just used a different way of saying the exact same thing, only to put it in a more positive light, to put a positive spin on it.

And to Icy, that was exhausting.

“It doesn’t matter if it was a coincidence!” Lazy shot right back. “You. Help. Ponies.”

“Ghosts,” Icy corrected.

“Ghosts of ponies! And other creatures!”

Icy could already tell how this conversation would devolve and end. Neither of them would be happy by the end of it. Eventually, one of them would say something hurtful and the other would withdraw for a couple of days. Maybe that was just how things were meant to be. In school they taught him how great of a nation Equestria was, how beloved Princess Celestia cared for all of her little ponies and how harmony ruled over everything.

It sure had not reached his corner of the world yet, it seemed.

When Gorok showed up, Icy was simply relieved. He would not have to talk about silly nonsense anymore, he would not have to argue with Lazy, neither of them would hurt the other. That was a good thing — until he saw the distress on his griffon friend’s face. Distress and urgency. “You can’t come to school today!” the young griffon said instead of any ‘hello’ or ‘how are you doing today’.

Icy slowed his pace a little. They were not that far away from school and Gorok was not one to quickly fly into a panic, contrary to Icy. “What? Why?”

Gorok looked back over his shoulders, back towards the school. Icy followed his gaze, but could not spot anything out of the ordinary. Sunny day, lots of cloud houses, lots of pegassi, lots of younger ones near the school entrance. So far, so normal.

“The bullies. They planned something,” the griffon half-explained.

Icy gave a defeated sigh. His hooves felt a lot heavier all of a sudden, but he still trudged forward at a snail's pace. It reminded him that there were still two spots of yolk on his neck. They had dried by now, no doubt. “Again?” he tiredly asked, only to immediately shrug. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. It’s fine, I can take it.”

Gorok tried to stop him. He flew down, put his claws on his shoulders and… they both shuddered as his claws went straight through. The griffon quickly retreated again. But every alarm bell in Icys head was going off now. Gorok never tried to get physical. Never tried to touch anyone, especially Icy. “No, no you can’t!” the griffon insisted. “You don’t understand! You didn’t hear them talk, Icy. They don’t just want to prank you.”

He slowed down further and shifted uneasily. He felt uncomfortable in his own skin again. “W-What did they say?” he asked.

“They want you to crash into a thundercloud,” Gorok replied.

“What?!” Lazy suddenly chimed in. “During the flight lesson? But there are no thunderclouds on the obstacle course!”

Gorok nodded. “That’s why they roped some of the older colts into this.” The griffon turned to Icy again. “They don’t just want to humiliate you for telling spooky stories this time. They want to hurt you, Icy.”

Icy grimaced. He remembered them well. The bruises. The cuts. The pain in his legs, his head, his stomach. How uncomfortable it felt to wear a bandage for several days. Still. He had been through all this before. He sighed and shrugged and forced his legs to move forward again. “I’ve been to the infirmary before.”

Gorok again tried to stop him, even though the attempt remained as futile as it was before. “Don’t you get it?! They want to send you to the hospital! Or worse!”

This time, his instincts barred him from simply forcing his way through. He stopped dead in his tracks, his hooves rooted to the spot, his eyes wide, his ears splayed flat against his skull. “I-I’ve been in a h-hospital before, too…” he meekly replied.

“Or worse,” Gorok repeated with emphasis. “They are done joking around, Icy. They want you gone.”

The griffon flew in front of him. Flew with flapping wings, generating no wind. His tail swished from side to side in agitation, constantly clipping through the solid cloud sidewalk. It had taken Icy almost a year to finally understand how to read a griffon's facial expression. It was so different from ponies, with their beak and all.

And he saw deep worry and concerns and worse still: Fear.

A griffon was a mighty predator, a carnivore, a powerful beast of the air, capable of flight, equipped with deadly talons and a sharp beak. They should fear little else. Yet here Gorok was. Afraid. For Icys safety.

Icys gaze drifted past his friend. He could see them in the distance. A bunch of the usual bullies were already waiting at the school entrance for him. They had clearly spotted him a while ago. Wasn’t hard with his hooded cloak. They grinned and laughed and talked among themselves, occasionally pointing towards him, or looking towards him. It did not seem so much out of the ordinary at first.

But their laughs were crueler than usual. His ears slowly rose, stood ramrod straight and listened as best as he could, given the sizable distance. They cackled. Harsh and hard. Harder than they usually did. Something was up.

Icy retreated half a step. Then another.

From this distance away, it should have been impossible to notice. Even given the sharp eyes of pegassi, it should have been impossible. But the bullies by the school's entrance noticed anyway. Immediately. Maybe it was something about his posture. Or maybe they simply caught on because he had stopped walking. It did not matter. They gave chase. All of them, all at once, they turned towards him, yelled something incomprehensible to him and they all ran. Towards him.

Instinct took over.

Fear gripped his heart. Made his hooves move. He ran. Back down the street, quickly past a cussing stallion. The bullies quickly gained on him, so he did what he hated most. From beneath his cloak emerged two large, pristinely cared for wings with pale, mint-green feathers. Despite his fear of heights, he was a pretty good flier if he needed to be. He turned into a side alley, ran to its end and jumped off the cloud.

He fled from his problems, once again.

He was not strong enough. As always.

Icy woke up yet again.

This time however, he refrained from announcing his change in state by any means and instead tried to get his bearings before he was forced into unconsciousness again. As his senses slowly returned to him, he could make out the expected. Crickets, owls, wind rustling in the leaves, small critters running around in the bushes. No bobbing up and down this time. He lay on the ground, soft dirt beneath him. He could hear the crackle of a fire nearby, felt the heat of the flames on his belly and the cold of night on his back. His cloak was still on him, but the hood had been drawn back.

And there were voices. He tried to swivel his ears around without anypony noticing.

“I am unhappy about this,” a gruff, deep voice the quality of sandpaper announced. “Look at him, Wildfire. He’s barely a stallion.”

A sigh from a different throat. “Are you referring to his age or his current state of obvious malnourishment, bordering on starvation?”

“Both,” the gruff voice answered.

“I see,” came the immediate reply. Then a couple of seconds of silence. “Well in any case, go take a dip in your riches to dry off your tears. I do not pay for your ‘happiness’. I pay for your services. As such, I would appreciate it if you would take Rock and make yourselves scarce. I intend to have a pleasant conversation and I do not expect either of you two to be beneficial in such a situation.”

A bit of grumbling, but eventually four sets of hooves retreated deeper into the forest while the snooty one came over. The stallion sat down close to the fire, but not immediately next to Icy. “You are one elusive pegasus,” he repeated a statement from earlier.

It served well to remind Icy of what had happened. The stranger in the dark, the polite request for a conversation, the chase, his fall—

His fall!

Icy shot up and fumbled around at his neck. He then checked his wings, his legs, but nothing appeared to be broken or mangled. He did not feel dead or less substantial than before and his mysterious benefactor stared at him as if he could see him clearly. With a glint of amusement in his eyes.

So he somehow had survived falling off that cloud.

Icy stared at the stranger. “Please don’t hurt me,” he pleaded. He still had no idea what this stallion wanted. Icy did not look like anypony with money or worthwhile contacts. Nopony would pay ransom for him. And there was no way this… Wildfire was the name the other stallion had used, was it not? There was no way Wildfire knew anything about his talents.

Right…?

The orange-coated unicorn adjusted a pair of reading glasses and shot him a charming smile. “My, my. I can assure you, I mean you no harm. None at all. Quite the contrary, actually. I wish to help you. I tracked you down to offer you employment.” And with that, Wildfire picked up a wooden bowl, levitated it over the kettle that hung above the campfire and filled it with what smelled like a rich and delicious vegetable broth. He then offered the filled bowl to Icy, who took note of the egg swimming around within the broth. “Please take it.”

While Icy did dare to take the bowl, he kept it away from his watering mouth. As enticing as the smell was, he tried to stay wary. There was this saying about how one should never look a gift horse in the mouth, but in Icys experience, that was just plain bad advice.

Wildfire chuckled briefly when he noticed his expression. “I wish to hire you, my friend. It would not do for me to poison you now, would it? I like to think you are more capable in your current, very much alive and un-poisoned state. Additionally, whatever my devious, malicious mind would have wished to inflict upon you — surely I could have done so by now, while you were less than capable of defending yourself, no?”

Maybe he made good points. Maybe his smile was just too charming to resist. Maybe it was the aching in his stomach, the growing pain due to his resurging hunger. Icy caved and started to eat. And a few minutes later, he silently asked for seconds and thirds. “What do you want me to do?” he asked only after emptying his third bowl and asking for a fourth.

Wildfire smiled. It seemed smug in a way, but at the same time so warm and appreciative. Like a fat cat lolling around in the sun after an opulent meal. “That is much better, is it not?” he asked without expecting an answer. So Icy gave none. “It must get awfully tiring to run from just about anypony all the time.” Half a minute passed with Icy further filling his stomach. Then, and only then when he finally lowered the bowl and Wildfire had his full attention, did he continue. “I want you to do what you do best. I want you to spook ponies.”

“I don’t hurt anypony! I just want to be left alone!” Icy immediately defended himself.

Wildfire sighed and shook his head. “I am not asking you to hurt anypony. I rather prefer you would not do that at all, actually. No, I merely wish to keep them… occupied. Distracted. Their attention directed elsewhere. Via creepy whispers and moving objects, opening windows and doors and sudden chills, that kind of thing. If I am not mistaken, that is your forte, yes?”

It was not quite that simple. The things this ‘Wildfire’ described were not abilities Icy possessed himself. However, he could communicate with the restless dead and many of those were friendly and helpful. And the Everfree had a frightening amount of those souls. “I-I might be able to arrange that,” he hesitantly replied.

In a strangely unfitting display, Wildfire excitedly clopped his front hooves together. “Lovely! Then may I tell you where to find your new allies? The main camp is not far from here. They will hoof you equipment as needed, a secured shelter and…” Wildfire looked him up and down once more. “Food. Lots of food. It will take a while before we can rely on your abilities. Until then, rest up, train with your allies and get some actual body weight back onto those bones.”

The Ruse

I was so, so tired.

I could not explain how or why, given I had done little to cause such consequences, but every bone in my body seemed to ache, despite seemingly consisting of nothing but lead. But I put on a brave face and trudged on, dragging my heavy hooves over the crumbled stone floor of the castle hallway. I made my way to our usual spot, the first floor balcony overlooking the castle courtyard, and of course Dawn was already there and had been waiting for me for Celestia knew how long.

I flopped down on my prepared sitting cushion beside him. He had his eyes closed, his chin raised proudly and his mane occasionally fluttered a little when another breeze whisked by. He looked majestic. It made me chuckle. And the noise inevitably notified him of my presence, though I assumed it to be impossible that he did not hear me shuffle down the hallway.

There was a neutral curiosity in his eyes as our gazes met. It was strange. Even when I was late — and I was… again — he never really seemed to care much. He never judged. He just silently waited for me to explain it or not. And if I chose not to, he would not push for an answer either. I sometimes wondered if this was a sign of disinterest, or of him respecting my wishes to be left alone. I liked to think it was the latter, but his admitted lack of social graces made the former seem more likely.

I could not tell for sure.

“Sorry for being late,” I croaked with a voice so raspy that it surprised me as well. “Oh boy, gosh, sorry about that, too.” I looked around for some respite and noticed how a waterskin floated towards me, carried by a slightly orange glow. I shot him a wry smile. “Thanks.” And took a couple of sips. I had not realized how parched I felt. A few sips turned into me emptying the entire thing, my lips greedily clinging to the opening. I had simply forgotten to drink anything all day. Whoops.

“You have no need to worry, I assure you,” he replied.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m late though,” I implied and looked over. It was funny to realize. He studied my face for a moment. My expression. My probably apparent eagerness to tell him. So he concluded that no harm could come from allowing me, and he nodded. It almost felt like a dance. Careful, considerate steps, a choreography. “Things have been crazy the entire last week,” I announced. Even though he obviously knew about that.

Obviously.

Well, maybe. Despite how close to Greenwood he lived, he usually preferred to keep to himself here in the ruins. So maybe he did not notice. And I could not remember if I had told him about any of this the last few times I visited.

“We’re cursed,” I opened my explanation. “Or at least that’s what some of the others think. With a bunch of ponies huddled together, it takes surprisingly little for all kinds of spooky stories to spring up. The Everfree Forest finally strikes back, hoooo!” I waved my front hooves in his direction to underline the supposed spookiness. “I’m not sure what’s going on either, to be fair. But I don’t think it’s a curse.”

“What happened?” he finally asked.

I grinned. Almost proud of myself for making him show some interest. “Well, lots of little stuff, actually. Tools get misplaced constantly. And remember those dolls Periwinkle brought along?”

Dawn nodded. “Yes. She tried desperately to make me take one. I refused.”

I chuckled and nodded. “I remember that one, yeah. Well, those dolls go missing all the time now. We still haven’t found Mister Cuddles, which was Derpy's stuffed griffon. She’s heartbroken.” I sighed. Seeing Derpy sad really got me. It was something that got under everypony’s skin. “Oh and things to bump in the night. Quite literally. Periwinkle swore she heard a door creak in her house when nopony else was around, in the middle of the night. She went to investigate and found nothing, except for a slightly ajar door. She searched the entire building by candlelight to make sure that no snakes or raccoons or whatever had snuck in, but no, nothing. Hefty and Honey had issues with unexplained noises. They were busy working on furniture in bright daylight when they heard a sudden bump from upstairs. Nopony was supposed to be there, it’s their house after all. They investigated aaand… found nothing. No source whatsoever. They suspected something had fallen off a shelf, issue being: They don’t have shelves yet.”

Dawn's lips creased ever so slightly. They seemed to quiver a little, too. And by now, I knew him well enough to suspect that he struggled to keep his amusement contained. So I shrugged and nodded. “You may laugh if you want.”

He did not. But he did allow himself a very wide grin. “It does sound like… like a spooky story one would tell their foals to make them behave. Work hard, brush your teeth, do your homework or the souls of the damned will haunt you!”

I grimaced and smiled at the same time as two separate impulses pulled at me. On one hoof: It was nice that he loosened up a bit. He even joked around. That was a good sign, right? However, on the other hoof:

“I never liked the idea of that particular education method,” I answered. It was a joke. I knew that. But I still could not stop myself from imagining how I would tell such stories to my foals. Arcana would have just destroyed them. She would bore into those spooky happenings with logic and reason and would dismantle them for their inconsistencies until the entire story fell apart and lost both appeal and emotional impact. Stardust would have disregarded them. Ghosts were not real, this story was dumb, and why could we not return to me telling pirate stories or other adventures, his by far preferred genre.

But Aurora? My little sunshine was susceptible to such manipulation, especially if it came from me. And my imagination was once again cruel enough to show me, in great detail, how that would have panned out. How her eyes went wide in fear. How she clutched her blanket. A silent plea in her eyes to ask me to stop. To ask me to tell her that this was not real. It sent a pang of guilt and regret through my mind, despite me never even doing such a thing.

So I grimaced. And shook my head. “Nope. Not a fan.”

Dawn regarded me once more, traces of wonder and surprise in his expression. “So you intend to tell me you never had to lie to your foals to make them behave?”

The question made me think for a moment. “I don’t… I wouldn’t say ‘never’. I can’t say that for sure. But no, I can’t remember any particular instance where I had to lie to them. Arcana is my youngest and she was always easy to reason with. Show her the consequences of her actions and she would consider them. Maybe she deemed it worth it and did it anyway, but she was always easy to deal with in that regard. Stardust was well-behaved because he adored his mom and wanted to make her proud, and she used that to drag me under that protective umbrella as well. He misbehaved occasionally, sure, but never in a way that made me think: Oh, yeah, scaring the crap out of him will surely help. And Aurora was more fixated on me than her mother. She had her tantrums, sure. She sometimes made me despair with her stubbornness when she was still little. But we found ways to set things right. Ways other than… I don’t know, I consider this to be cruel. Maybe I’m too much of a softie, but I don’t like the idea of intentionally scaring my children. There is a vast world out there, full of bugbears and manticores and eldritch magic and power-hungry unicorns and deranged griffons and whatnot. The world itself can be a scary place without even trying. Why cause even more fear?”

Typical.

Well, thank you.

Spare me the snark. That was a compliment, believe it or not. You’ve been afraid of so many things for all your life. You know fear. Its many faces and facets. What it can do to your reason, to your mind, how it affects your oh-so-rational decision making. This? It’s a healthy attitude.

I blinked a couple of times. I was so unused to this voice in the back of my head actually complimenting me that I had no idea what to do with it.

“I assume you were busy searching for Mister Cuddles, then?” Dawn suddenly intruded upon my bafflement.

I was grateful. It was an easy out. Something to cling to, to turn my attention to. “No. I don’t like admitting that, but Mister Cuddles has not been spotted for almost a week. Most of us have given up on finding him again. Periwinkle actually started a secret project, she’s trying to replace him with an identical stuffed toy, but it’s difficult to finish that when her needles and cloth and whatnot go missing all the time as well. No, I spent most of today on a ridiculous search for Hefty's axe. We did find it. In a haystack in the barn. We searched that barn thrice over and found no traces earlier. But all of a sudden, there it was, laying out in the open.”

Another breeze. I closed my eyes for a brief moment, took a deep breath in to calm myself down. These irregularities were vexing.

“Hm,” Dawn mumbled. “I did notice some of my alchemical equipment getting displaced. I wondered if somepony from the village might be sneaking around my place.”

“And if they played pranks on you?” I asked and shook my head. “I had the same idea, but despite how tame these incidents are, they do throw a spanner in the works. At this point with this consistency, I think it’s fair to call it sabotage. However, neither do we have any dedicated, notorious pranksters among us as far as I know, nor do I think any current resident of Greenwood has anything to gain from stalling our progress. Also, the timing of some of these incidents don’t match up with anypony and I don’t think we’re dealing with a secret duo, trio or whatever else.”

He did not have to say it. I could read it plainly on his face and I had the same thought: There were a lot of assumptions involved. We knew next to nothing for sure.

The issue was: I had no idea how to fix that.

“What do you intend to do?” Dawn asked the inevitable question. Something I had been asking myself for the past few days.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “So far we’ve been busy fixing things. Busy enough that I barely made any progress with anything else. I’m behind on my smithing work, I wanted to continue mapping out these ruins for ages now, Spike asked me to take a gander in the surrounding area of Greenwood for security and safety reasons and it feels like we’re treading water. The project is losing momentum and I don’t have any good ideas yet on how to fix that.”

I sighed. It was frustrating. And yet despite these issues, I had to laugh when our current book suddenly floated in front of my muzzle, as if preparing to feed me bite by bite. “Maybe some light reading will put your mind off of things,” Dawn suggested. “A bit of diversion can work wonders to get the creative juices flowing again.”

I knew that he was right. I knew it because in different lives, I had been a writer of various kinds. One time, I wrote little poems for event cards. It had been my whole shtick. My business. And at some point, I inevitably merged my business with Pinkie’s party-planning service. We had been a power couple in Ponyville. Even though we were not even a couple.

But back then, I did the same thing. Whenever my creativity ran head-first into a wall and lay flat on its back, dazed and confused and slightly in pain, I distracted myself. I read a good book alongside Twilight or took a couple of losses against Rainbow in any sport of her choosing, because it never mattered what we did, she always won anyway. Or I would go to Sweet Apple Acres and help my sister-in-spirit out with her chores around the farm. Meditation with Fluttershy. Stargazing with Twilight. Or just a plain old stroll through the grassy plains outside town with Derpy.

Can’t go wrong with the classics.

My wry smile slowly morphed into a genuine one as I regarded the book and the silvery magic holding it aloft. I had half a mind to ask Dawn about his changing aura, but disregarded the thought yet again, as I always did. He would tell me, maybe. Someday.

“Alright, let’s do this,” I replied and picked up the book.

A bit of light reading. However, even as my eyes trailed along the lines and I read aloud for both of our entertainment, I could not help but notice that something he said stuck with me.

A diversion could do wonders to get the creative juices flowing…

Thanks, Dawn. An idea was slowly forming in my head. And considering the whole barrage of other assumptions in my head, I deemed it more promising to not let him in on any of that. So I kept quiet and continued with our book into the late afternoon, when the sun slowly sank towards the horizon in the west.

I closed the book and sighed again and my gaze traveled upwards. Looking at the blues changing into oranges and reds usually put my mind at ease. It made me think of my love. It made me wonder how her day had been so far. If Day Court had been bearable. If yet another noble annoyed her with some outrageous request. And I suddenly felt a little stuck here in Greenwood. I yearned to see her smile again. To hug her and press my muzzle into that fluffy chest of hers.

I missed her.

Despite this, I found no solace in looking upwards today. It only served to remind me that there would be a tomorrow. Yet another day of mischief. Anything that could go wrong probably would, because somepony made it happen. It seemed… inevitable.

We’ll see about that, I promised myself and rose to my hooves. “Alright, that was fun, as always. But while I greatly enjoyed your company, I. Am. Beat. And considering how tomorrow will likely pan out, I think I’m going to hit the hay early.”

Dawn rose as well and dusted himself off. “Of course. I had fun as well, so thank you for the break. I will most likely continue my work into the late-night hours, but that does not have to concern you.”

I grinned. “A wise old pony once told me: Don’t overdo it. Remember that exhaustion can be cured with a good night’s rest, but an injury takes weeks to heal.”

He grimaced slightly. “I am not that old. Or wise.”

We both held each other’s gaze for a moment and then chuckled quietly. A last farewell and we each went our separate ways. We would meet up on this nice balcony again tomorrow afternoon. And if Lady Luck was by my side, I would have to tell him something different then…

“Have I ever told you how gorgeous you look?” I asked Luna.

She laughed merrily and even struck a pose, just so I could better marvel at her alluring physique. Despite how she sometimes chided me for gawking at her, she reveled in the attention. A part of this was probably due to the fact that I was a lot more forthcoming with my attraction, my appreciation of her body, than Twilight was. And goodness me, she looked fierce tonight.

Luna snickered in amusement. “Somepony is happy to see me,” she murmured.

I had not even noticed until she pointed it out, but now I could feel the distinct throbbing downstairs. And just because she was a relentless, lecherous old tease, Luna turned around, took a couple steps back to bring her rump right close to my muzzle and lifted her tail.

For just a second, I felt an almost painful pinch in my nethers as I stood ramrod straight at attention in more ways than one. I felt my tongue slither out between my lips on its own accord and I wanted to lean forward so badly.

It took all of my willpower to resist her temptations. I shook my head, forced my tongue back in its cage and focused my attention to dematerialize my throbbing erection. And I laughed hard when I saw Luna pout. “You are impossible,” I unsuccessfully chided her. I could still feel my cheeks and ears burn.

My kitten let the façade fall away and revealed that intimidating, predatory grin of hers. “Playing with you is so much fun though.”

I sighed and smiled wryly. “I know, I know. However, my Princess, I’m at work, you see. And there is work to be done.” I looked around. The dreamscape seemed to be quiet for now, with a couple dozen dream bubbles lazily swirling around in the star-speckled void. None of them displayed any signs of a dreamer's distress, of nightmares or dreamscape creature infestations. But that could change at the drop of a bit.

Luna quickly shifted gears despite her playful mood tonight. She had noticed something I did not, it seemed. “You are tired,” she noted matter-of-factly.

I chuckled dryly and shrugged. “Yeah. Guilty as charged.”

“Another incident?” she asked.

“Isn’t there always?” I replied with a sigh. “Hefty's axe got stolen. We found it in a spot that we searched previously. More than once. These entire last few days have just been cursed.” Yet despite my grievances with these last few days, I found myself smiling. And I felt oddly exhilarated.

“And yet you seem calmer than in these past nights,” Luna noticed.

I gestured for us to begin our work and she acquiesced with a silent nod. A few quick steps and we walked side by side, keeping an eye on our surroundings in case any feisty nightmares or other creatures thought they had an easy time ambushing us. But I was willing to use these calmer early-night-hours and make the best of it. “If I’m being honest, I still suspect Dawn is behind all of this. However, he might have involuntarily contributed something to remedy the situation as well. He said something earlier that made me think.” I relayed his statement to Luna, and it was satisfying to see her eyebrows slowly creep higher. “I have a proposal for you.”

“Yes!” she suddenly squealed, surprising me. She grabbed me and almost crushed me with the power of her hug. “I bethought thee wouldst never asketh!”

I laughed and squirmed a little, but quickly gave up on that and just cherished the moment. “You know, I wouldn’t mind marrying you again, it was a lot of fun the first time around…” I did notice how something in her posture changed, a subtle shift in her demeanor.

“You mean that?”

I snorted and hugged her back as fiercely as I could manage. “Don’t you dare think about divorcing me!”

“But it would be funny! Just imagine all the publicity! The tabloid headlines!”

“Luna!” I tried to impose a warning tone, but could not help but laugh at the same time. Because she was right, of course. That was funny. In theory. In practice, it would be a bureaucratic nightmare.

My kitten snickered for a while until she finally let go of me again. “I wonder if you can just… marry twice.”

I grinned. “Well, we kind of already know that, don’t we? You did, after all. I do you one better, I married thrice.”

She gave me a playful shove with her armored hoof. “The same pony, you nutcase!”

I chuckled and tried to shove her back. I failed. Of course. Because I had nowhere near enough strength to make her move if she did not allow for it. “Yeah, sure, I’m the nutcase here.” We both grinned like idiots for a while longer before I managed to backtrack mentally. “Right. Back on track. I request your aid, oh fair princess of mine, in a devious plot to bedazzle, befuddle, bamboozle, baffle and… other words that start with ‘B’, probably.”

Luna laughed. However, she quickly regained control, put on a dead-serious expression, took my hoof in hers and nodded solemnly. “You had me at ‘devious’, firecracker!” We both snickered again. “I love the sound of that! Tell me more!” she eagerly requested with a fire in her eyes that was usually reserved for the worst kinds of pranks she would play on her sister. It was the instance when I knew I had done the right thing to ask for her help. They had no idea what was coming.

“See, I want to employ a ruse,” I explained. “I need you to come to Greenwood. Stealthily. Nopony can know you were there. I need you to help me set something up. We’re going to fake my death.”

She furrowed her brow, probably already busy figuring out how she would escape the palace and her own guards, how she could avoid the notice of the castle staff, how she could come over and be back home in time without raising suspicion. But as soon as I mentioned my death, she stopped and looked at me puzzled. “Are you sure about this? How is this supposed to help?”

I invited her with a gesture to continue our patrol once more. “Dawn doesn’t strike me as the kind of stallion that shies away from getting his hooves dirty if he needs to. He doesn’t avoid it at all cost like some ponies would.”

“Other villains,” Luna suggested.

I sighed and shook my head. “I know how things sound and seem and… I just… maybe I’m too sympathetic. I don’t think he is a villain. He doesn’t strive for power for power’s sake. He doesn’t want to rule or conquer or subjugate. Luna, he just wants to be reunited with his love. That… that’s something I can understand quite well. Every cycle means I lose another family. Another circle of friends. Another life I had built for myself. With others. I have been lucky enough to have spent fifty years here. They were good years, each and every one, and I am eternally grateful. Not just for this life. For all of them. But I can understand the desire, no, the need to recapture something, to find a way to go back and have that again, to…” I cut myself off and sighed. It was hard to put into words. They seemed so… inadequate.

I looked up when Luna put a hoof to my shoulder, her armored horseshoe dismissed for the moment. And in her eyes was nothing but warmth. Maybe she understood, maybe she did not. It did not matter. Important was that I saw a friend, struggling and trying his best and I could not see him as an enemy. He was misguided, not malicious.

And I had to explain none of that. I had no need to defend him, or myself, or any of what I thought and felt. And I was grateful for that. I briefly leaned in, leaned against her and just relished her warmth and closeness. “Thank you,” I mumbled quietly.

“Always.”

As we continued our patrol of the dreamscape, so did my train of thought. “With that said, he’s smart. If he sees the option to avoid drawing attention to himself without the need to accept massive strain on his resources, he would go for it, I think.”

Luna quickly put one and one together. “You suspect he has minions of some kind.”

I nodded. “I do. Tirek did not release himself, did he?”

“No. My guards found remnants of powerful magic,” she replied. “He was bailed out by someone else. Someone with an intricate understanding of Tartarus’ magical structure and a power level comparable to that of an alicorn.”

I had no idea how strong Dawn was. He had some impressive tricks up his sleeve, but he did a great job of hiding his true power. He always referred to things in hypotheticals and theories. “Also, when Peter showed up—“

“Who?” Luna cut in.

I stopped and tried to remember if I ever told her, only to come to the realization that no, I did not. “Oh. Right, sorry. After the attack, Whisper told us that that’s the name of the tatzlwurm.” Luna nodded in understanding. “Apparently somepony annoyed him enough to wake him up. That’s why he showed up at our doorstep. I talked to Whisper, at length, after this whole ordeal was over. And she told me that it would require somepony as strong as Applejack, who would need to kick him with her full strength, to make this beast feel something beneath his thick layer of scale plating, fat and muscle. Adding to that, this intruder seemed to be quick despite his tremendous strength, but he moved on the ground. And led Peter straight to our village. And now we have these recent oddities happening.”

“You suspect three henchponies then?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I’m not sure about the exact number, to be honest. Tirek was freed with magic. Could be a unicorn, could be a changeling, a kirin, maybe Dawn himself, who knows. We have somepony with tremendous strength. And whatever in Tartarus’ this current thing is. And that’s just it, that’s what struck me as odd: These recent events, they seem to be a lot less dangerous. Less harmful, less… malicious. I’d go as far as to say: They are not inherently dangerous, period. All they do is annoy the crap out of everypony. But while the mounting frustration could maybe lead to some heated debates, misunderstandings, maybe even false accusations and reach a boiling point eventually, they are tame compared to the other two instances. Right? That’s not just me seeing that, right?”

Luna smiled and shook her head. “It does seem to be an attack of a different quality. However! You told me about Dawn's reactions to everything that happened in reply to these events. Your quick and decisive reaction to Tireks appearance surprised him. He underestimated you. The appearance of the tatzlwurm seemed to surprise him as well. You told me he came running, yelling about the oncoming attack. He was willing to demonstrate his power in a rare display by enveloping the entire village in a protective shield.”

I sighed and nodded. “You think that after all these extremes he finally figured out a decent mediocrity. Not too much drama and danger, but just enough to stall us.”

She nodded. “It would be an explanation.”

“I can’t dismiss that, I know. There are many possibilities, but we are dealing with uncertain circumstances. We have to take a couple of risks and I think this one is the least dangerous of them.” I pointed a hoof towards a dream bubble off in the distance. Its display of swirling colors was hectic, overbearing reds and blacks devouring almost all friendlier colors. Luna stomped her hoof onto the dreamscape and the dream acquiesced. It floated towards us and she inspected the sphere.

“I will have to help this dreamer. Are you coming along?” she asked.

I looked at the bubble and shook my head. “Nah, thanks. I’ll keep watch for others, you’ll be fine.”

Luna snickered and dove into the dream head first. I could see the battle progress as the display of colors got even more hectic, then the lighter tones shone brighter and eventually, the aggressive glow of red dimmed down and everything returned to a slower balance. And my kitten returned to my side.

“And? What was it?” I asked out of idle curiosity.

She stuck her tongue out at me. “You would know if you had come with me.”

I chuckled and shrugged. “Fine. Next one, we’ll both go.” We had agreed a long, long time ago that our patrols were highly inefficient. I served her well for five decades now. She had been back in business for over six decades. Both of us were experienced enough to master any challenges the dreamscape might throw at us by our lonesome. But these patrols were just a lot more fun if we stuck together. We got each other’s backs, we could take turns, we could talk and spent quality time together whenever the night was calm — and therefore boring.

I did not mind ‘boring’ nights. Even after all these years, the dreamscape was a marvel to gaze at. However, Luna got mischievous when bored. Keeping her entertained, keeping her company, that was a simple matter of survival — for the nerves of her sister and the castle staff alike.

Eventually, our surroundings quieted down again. “My theory is this: I don’t think whoever is causing our current predicament is the same pony as the one who willingly led a tatzlwurm to our doorstep. He or she seems to have a friendlier nature, and it irks me to say that, but… I totally want to use that against them. I suspect whoever is causing this watches Greenwood closely, albeit from a distance. I want to use one of these spooky happenings to fake my death, say… in the early morning hours. So that there’s time to retrieve my lifeless body. Time to comprehend what happened. If I’m right with my assumptions, that pony will have nightmares about what they caused. If I’m wrong and it doesn’t work out, I can admit to a prank in very poor taste the next day.”

As expected, Luna quickly picked up on what I was aiming for. “And nightmares would create a trail here in the dreamscape. A trail you could follow, given that I help you sort dreamers by proximity to your location.”

I grinned and nodded eagerly. “Exactly! And once we found him, you keep him locked in here, you keep him asleep while I go in and interrogate our saboteur.”

“Interrogate? You?” she asked in surprise. “Why would you do that part yourself when I have considerably more experience with such matters? You never scramble to get the spotlight.”

I grimaced. “Well, yes. And believe me, I wish we could switch. However, I can’t keep dreams stable from the outside when the dreamer starts to panic. And if Dawn tries to interfere with the plan in any way, shape or form, I can’t hold a candle to whatever power he could unleash. And on top of all that… I have Voidwalker. He can distract the saboteur while I scour his subconscious for information.”

… I what?

Luna mulled the plan over and nodded, satisfied with whatever clicked in her mind. “It is clever, I like it. It requires a lot of aid, however. You owe me help for a couple of pranks of my own.”

Her cheeky smile told me all I needed to know and I had no qualms about giving in. “With pleasure, kitten.”

Her smile grew to an almost shark-like proportion. “Good, good. Because I already have an idea how we can kill you…” I ignored the giddiness in her tone as best as I could. But it still felt weird. The jovial moment passed and a serious expression returned to Luna's face. “There is one more thing, however.”

“What is it?” I asked. Apparently it was not an amusing matter this time and I was more than willing to consider whatever issue she might bring up.

“Think about what you are about to do, Dreamwalker,” she said in such a quiet, soft tone that it caught me off-guard. “My initial concerns were not just for your safety. You wish to make others believe you died. Amongst those are your daughter and your best friend.”

Aurora and Spike. Shoot.

It would be unlikely that Aurora would ‘find’ me. However, it was true that she would learn of the incident eventually. That was how it was supposed to go, after all. Everypony learns of the tragedy so that the hidden observer has a good chance of being affected by it and its consequences.

The last time my ray of sunshine thought I was about to die, she joined forces with her half-siblings, went on an epic adventure around the globe, braved trials and challenges and at the end of that massive fetch quest, she assembled what basically amounted to a cure-all that might have granted immortality. While staving off their disgruntled pursuers. None other than Twilight and Luna, two out of three very annoyed and very worried moms.

This time though, I would not lie dying in a hospital bed. I would already be dead. Would that make a difference? Would that make it any better? What if she just turned around, said to herself: Yepp, I can fix this! And then she turned to necromancy?

This was not my daughter, of course. She never would, I told myself. Yet I knew that desperate times made desperate measures possible. Even made them seem reasonable. Justifiable.

And Spike? My buddy did not deserve this sort of kicking. He would live for thousands and thousands of years. He would already outlive many of our mutual friends. He would be there when we bury Pinkie, Fluttershy, Applejack, all of them. He would be there and he would find solace only in that Twilight, Luna, Celestia and I shared in his fate. Well, and Cadance and Ember, but that was beside the point. Every loss hurts. And an eternal being could be in pain, eternally.

They deserved better.

I grimaced as the severity of what I was about to do sank in. “You’re right. But… I’m not sure what to do about that. Uhm… help? Please? You had an idea when you brought that up, right?”

Luna smiled and stomped her hoof onto the dreamscape. Two dream bubbles floated from the nirvana of the void over to us. “Why not tell them? It would be the simplest solution.”

“Yeah, but… don’t we risk blowing our cover if we do?” I noted.

Luna quickly gave it some thought and then merely shrugged. “Maybe. However, from what you told me everypony in Greenwood is currently sleep deprived to some extent. Playing the role of a grieving zombie should be less demanding. She could avoid you that day, or lock herself into her house and bury herself in her bed. After all, she would only need to play along for one day. And you never grow tired of telling me how much Spike gets into his different roles when you two play Ogres and Oubliettes together. Surely his dramatic prowess can be put to good use here, yes? And there is a simpler reason to involve him as well. They will want to send a message to Ponyville.”

I nodded. “And I treated Spike as my right hoof so far. They will look to him for guidance and leadership. He could stave off the message for a day, so the ripples of this ‘ruse’ don’t spread farther than we intended.” I was unconvinced that Spike had the required acting chops to fake this. Even more so that Aurora had them, seeing as Sunny and I had always emphasized the importance of honesty. But Luna made good points. She only had to keep the spiel up for one day and she could do so by locking herself away. And while I had little faith in Spike’s acting — it only had to be good enough to convince this unknown saboteur. “If you can make the accident look convincing enough, that would give us a decent head start on convincing any onlookers. Which might take some pressure off of Spike's acting.” I felt uneasy as I looked towards the two bubbles. But she was right. She usually was. The benefit of a long and storied life: Experience. “Can you do that?”

Luna laughed, somewhere between mirth and outrage. “Tell me again, firecracker, who did they call the Matron of the Arts again?” Her laughter died down to a darkening, chilling grin…

The next day was a mess.

As was the day after that, and the day after that. I tried to follow my established routines as best as I could, and it just never worked out. Missing tools were the new norm, it seemed. Windows left open that the owner swore he left closed. Doors creaking despite being new. Greenwood remained haunted.

At night, I plotted with Luna. I shared all the information I had about every incident. We tried to find a pattern and after three days of brainstorming, we finally came up with something we both deemed viable. It was time to go on the offense and hunt for our saboteur.

I woke up that morning and felt groggy, yet still excited. I had a plan. Well, two, actually. One I was more than willing to share with Aurora when I ran into her as soon as I left the house. “You’re returning home?” I asked, seeing as she came in my direction. She looked frazzled, with bags under her eyes.

“To quote uncle Big Mac: Eyupp,” she replied and stifled a yawn.

I furrowed my brow. “Are you alright, sunshine? Had a rough night?”

We met in the middle and hugged each other. She sighed wistfully. “Plural. And yes. I do not understand how you can just sleep through such a ruckus, as if somepony was running around outside, tapping against the wall. It was almost rhythmic. Almost. And I swear I heard somepony snicker.”

I squeezed her for extra comfort. “I’m sorry to hear that. It’s… easier to stay asleep when I dreamwalk. I don’t notice anything except direct physical interaction. Like… if somepony were to haul me around, that I would notice. I hope.” My little addendum made her snort in amusement and she retreated with a smile. And seeing that I managed to lift her spirit, at least a little bit, made me smile in turn.

“Thanks, dad,” she mumbled. “I am going to head home now. Maybe I can get an afternoon nap.”

I furrowed my brow and looked up at the sky, just to confirm that it was early morning. “Ehrm… not to be a spoilsport or anything, but it’s still early?”

Aurora nodded. “I know. I have plenty of work to keep me occupied and drowsy until I can lay down.”

I grimaced and shook my head. “Don’t. If you’re tired, just lie down. We can’t afford for you of all ponies to work while exhausted. If you make mistakes with your numbers, we have structural instabilities. I’d rather not have to pull injured ponies from piles of rubble that were supposed to be houses.”

She wanted to argue, I could see that in her eyes. And all I had to do to cut her off was to slightly raise my eyebrow in defiance. She hesitated and mulled things over, only to come to the same rational conclusion I did: It was not a risk worth taking. Nothing would be won if she kept herself half-awake. Her thoughts were sluggish at best, her work speed was therefore halved anyway.

“Fine,” she replied with a sigh. “I’ll lie down.”

I smiled and hugged her once more, albeit briefly. “You do that. I will fetch my tools and map out another part of the castle and then I’ll return and make you some tea, how does that sound? We can take a breather today, take it slow, recuperate.”

“Sounds delightful,” she replied in a manner that made me think of Rarity or Pristine.

As she trotted off towards our house, my gaze lingered on her for a while longer. I felt bad for misleading her like that. But I needed my cover story to be solid. That said, nothing stopped me from making a slight adjustment. I walked across the village in search of Spike, who I quickly found next to the entrance gate. “Hey buddy! Can I ask you for something?”

He scratched over the scales on his neck in thought and nodded. “Yeah, sure, I don’t have anything to do right now.”

“Great. Could you go over to my house and make sure that Aurora takes a break? She’s had a couple of rough nights. Oh and could you make her a pot of tea? Pretty please?” I tried my puppy dog eyes out, despite the situation not requiring them and it made Spike laugh. So that was a win in my book. Another one already — the day was off to a good start.

“Tea and break, sure, got it,” he replied.

“Thanks, you’re the best!” I hugged him and chuckled as his “You know it!” followed me.

Scraping together my mapping supplies was a horrific task. With everypony’s tools going missing all the time, we had been busy. I had been busy. And only now did I find out that half of my own tools were strewn across various places in Greenwood. I found my compass under Roselucks bed, for goodness’ sake! And my ruler was on the roof of Graphite’s house. I would never have found that one, were it not for Derpy flying by and notifying me of its presence.

It was still missing minor bits and bobs when I decided: Screw it, this will get done. Now.

So I made my way over to the castle ruins, through the courtyard and into the entrance hall. I quickly checked my maps, what little I had managed to do so far, and decided to start with the west wing of the first floor. I worked for more than two hours with almost consistent interference, much to my chagrin. I wanted to take a sip of water? My waterskin was not where I left it, but a few feet away on the ground. I put my pencil down? Of course it immediately rolled off my clipboard and away from me. I growled and grumbled and muttered curses under my breath, but I stubbornly persisted in my task.

That was until I decided I needed a change of scenery or I would start yelling at the wall. Literally. And the wall, being a wall, would most likely not answer. Which would only serve to infuriate me further. Which might lead to me punching a wall. I could not see that end well for my poor hooves.

So instead, I packed up my things and went towards the staircase. Back down to the ground floor, at least that was the intention. However, there was a broom. It stood on the top third of the staircase, casually leaned against the wall. I could not remember ever bringing a broom into the ruins, but maybe it was a part of Dawn's equipment. Either way, I did not bat an eye. A mistake, as it turned out.

The broom came to life as I walked past it.

It levitated upwards without any magical aura manipulating it, and it slapped me on my rump. I yelped and retreated startled, but the broom did not let up. It followed me despite me flailing with my front hooves in an effort to keep it away from me. Then I felt the brittle stone banister as I pressed my back against it. Keeping my balance on my rear legs alone was difficult enough, but with the sudden barrier stopping me and my front limbs still flailing…

I lost balance.

“Ahhh!”

With a scream, I toppled backwards. I heard the stone crack and crumble. I fell and much to my horror, the entire staircase fell after me, in pieces. Some of these chunks were as big as I was. And before I even hit the ground, I realized: It was not just the staircase. An entire part of the upper floor caved in.

I landed with a dull but painful thud and was buried beneath tons of stone and debris.

Lucky for me, Luna was competent. Especially when playing tricks and pulling pranks. It always struck me as odd how she had been the Element of Honesty, yet illusion spells were one of her fortes.

The moment a massive dust cloud shielded me from prying eyes for even a fraction of a second, she teleported me out and an illusory double in. Luckily before the main bulk of debris landed on top of me. I still got away with quite a few scrapes and bruises, not to mention the queasiness of almost being smashed and buried and teleported, but all things considered — this was fine. All according to plan.

She stood a good distance away behind a row of support columns, within sight of the collapse. And with our plan executed, I stood right beside her, cowering a little as I leaned against her. She put her wing over my back in a silent effort to calm me down. Her invisibility spell kept us safe and allowed us to remain in our observation position, to follow what happened next.

The broom stood still in the air, right where its last advance had pushed me over the edge — quite literally. Now it simply floated above nothing, as most of the staircase was simply gone. It seemed to shake and tremble, and a few seconds later it fell to the ground below, almost as if someone had simply dropped it.

Spike was the first to arrive. Even though Dawn was living in this ruin, my buddy was the first to investigate the ruckus. After all, Greenwood’s safety was his top priority. And I still felt horrible, despite knowing that what was to follow was fake. He had to drag the crushed, lifeless body of his friend out of the debris.

I knew that an invisibility spell only blocked sight. I could not afford to utter a single word. But seeing him dig through the rubble in a rapidly growing panic, hearing him scream… It still hurt. It hurt so much.

I wanted to retreat, but Luna stayed still and forced me to witness how Spike yelled for help, how he wailed my name as he retrieved my corpse with such care as if I was made out of glass.

I tried to shy away from this scene. Especially as others started to arrive. Honey and Graphite first, as they had been closest, it seemed. Spike had laid me down onto the ground. And curled himself around me, as if to protect me.

This did not look — or feel — like a prank. Or a trick or a ruse.

It felt cruel.

My attempts to retreat were thwarted. The wing that gave me comfort kept me locked in place. A grip as hard as steel from feathers I knew to be so soft and warm and inviting. She eventually led me away once enough ponies were around that the potential noise of any misplaced hoofsteps were lost in the chaos. We turned around and slowly, silently snuck out of the old castle ruin. They were in shock and disarray. At some point, once they dealt with Spike, they would carry my body back to the village. My body. My corpse.

This felt eerie.

As soon as we stepped into the forest and vanished in between undergrowth and bushes, I hugged Luna fiercely. “I know it worked just fine and everything, but gosh darn, that was awful… I don’t know how you can constantly prank others without drowning in guilt…”

She sighed and hugged me. “Well, to be fair, my pranks are usually a lot tamer than this. I prank with whoopie cushions and flying cakes. Throw in the occasional spear launcher, with sufficient care taken that my sister is the only one who could be hit under any circumstances… the point is: I faked my own death. Once. And I saw the devastation it caused. What it inflicted upon my sister. I revealed myself within minutes as I heard her sobs and cries. This had not been what I aimed for at all. Yet while I managed to calm her down and she smothered me with her love, I never forgot how I had hurt her. I did not wish for you to repeat my mistakes.”

“I’m… I-I… thank you. I’m sorry that you had to learn this lesson, but I am grateful that you share it with me.”

She shot me a wry smile as we made our way through the thick and thorny undergrowth. I did not mind the occasional branch whacking me in the face — right now, that felt deserved. “I would like to share something else with you, if you do not mind.”

I nodded. “Okay? Sure. What is it?”

Luna looked forward. She navigated the forest in a strange, almost clumsy way. As if she was walking a path she knew by heart, only that the path was not there anymore and some trees had stubbornly decided to grow in its stead. “There is a stream running through a clearing nearby where you can wash the dust off of your coat. And I quite like the tranquility the area exudes. It might be a good spot for us to spend the day.”

When we arrived at our destination, I had to admit that it really was a lovely area. The trees here stood tall and regal, less like the crooked, twisted and gnarled things outside this perimeter. The stream made a calming pitter-patter noise and a bunch of butterflies showed great interest in the various blooming flowers in between the wild grass. “It’s beautiful…” I murmured as I cautiously explored. “How is this here?”

As I turned around, I stumbled and chuckled. A picnic blanket, red and white karos. A classic. And a basket, of course. It looked like the perfect date setup. It was so strange, so silly, so… perfect. And perfectly Luna. She stood there with a hopeful smile on her lips and a strange vulnerability in her body language.

“Give me one second,” I asked and only moved once she nodded. I quickly cantered over to the stream, dunked my head in to get rid of most of the grime and levitated globs of water out to splash myself. It was a poor stallion’s shower replacement, but it worked well enough.

With the sun out and about, it would take a few minutes at most for my coat to dry off. Not that I intended to stand around waiting for that to happen. No, I trotted over to the blanket, stopped opposite of her and grinned like an idiot. “I just died and you’re taking me out on a date…?”

Luna's smile remained delicate. “I saw an opportunity. You do not mind, do you?”

I glanced around us once more. The trees at the edge of the clearing stood almost dense enough to block out curious glances. Many of the flowers looked delicious. And pretty. And the grass itself gave off a nice scent. This place was made to relax. And we did need to kill some time, after all.

Of course, that was not what she meant. Right now, my illusory body was carried into the village. Ponies were informed of my accident and subsequent passing. Ponies would grieve. Some of them I had more personal connections with. Graphite, Pristine, Derpy, Whisper — they would mourn. Friends and the children of friends. I had seen them grow up. I had been part of their foalhoods. Was I really allowed to have a nice picnic date with Luna while I caused this pain?

I sighed. One day. It was for one day. I denied myself the nicer things in life on so many occasions that my loved ones basically had to force them on me every so often. As a system, it worked. It was not good. But it worked.

And now, I forced myself. “I’d like to try,” I answered. Her smile lit up, gained strength and she seemed almost relieved as she stepped onto the blanket and settled down. I quickly followed and settled right against her side. A deep sigh emanated from my throat as she draped her wing over my barrel. “This place is lovely. Where are we?”

Luna took a moment to look around as well. “I am glad that the clearing remains untouched to this day. We used to play here, sister and I. Later on, when our relationship cooled, I used to retreat to this place to have some alone-time. Not that I lacked in that department, but sitting here was different. It reminded me of more joyful times.”

It was a part of her history. Something she wanted to share. And it baffled me — in a good way — that we still found these little tidbits to show each other, even after so many years. “Thank you for sharing this, kitten. It is beautiful.” She smiled and looked at me out of the corner of her eyes. “And so are you,” I added with a grin.

Her giggle was unusually dainty. It was downright adorable. I sighed in content and laid my head down. Luna followed suit and we decided to take a sunbath.

A sunbath.

Me.

That mare really did numbers on me.

Given the circumstances, it turned out to be a surprisingly pleasant day. We spent several hours in that clearing, lolling around and enjoying the sun's warmth and each other's company. And sunset eventually marked the end of our efforts to kill time. Luna cast some sort of protective spell over the clearing to ensure that predators of the Everfree Forest would ignore us and we settled in for the night. I would have preferred a bed of course, but at least the grass was soft and plentiful and Luna's wing kept me warm and cozy.

I sighed in relief once I opened my eyes on the dreamscape. It only took a few moments for Luna to follow me. “Alright. Ready to enact plan ‘stake-out’?”

She snorted in bemusement. “When did this plan of yours get a name?”

I shrugged. “I had a lot of time recently. I was torn between several variants. Stake-out, ruse, trap, ploy… a plan needs a good, short name. I learned that from Pinkie.”

Her amusement only seemed to grow and she nodded in fake-solemnity. “I see. Of course. Pinkie would—… how do you say that? Pinkie would know her stuff.”

I chuckled and agreed vigorously. “Exactly! Despite Pinkie being, well, you know… Pinkie. Her plans usually work out! So there’s gotta be something about her plans that makes them work. And if you can’t tell which detail that is, just use them all.”

Luna downright snorted this time. “Right, right. Of course.” We grinned at each other for a moment longer, but eventually the reality of the situation caught up to us again. “Shall we begin, then? There is one more thing I need to do in preparation, however.”

“Yeah, sure, go ahead. I’ll wait here?” She nodded and walked away. And it was always strange to witness that. Because the dreamscape was somewhat inconsistent when it came to ‘walking anywhere’. Sometimes she just vanished. Plopped out of existence, it seemed. Other times, she faded away like a ghost and became more and more translucent. Or she zoomed off at ridiculous speeds. And I never quite managed to figure out how that worked or what happened when and why. This time, she simply vanished in an instant.

Considering both time and space were relative in the dreamscape, her absence could be a matter of seconds or hours and I would not be able to tell the difference. That said, she was Luna, Princess of the Night, Steward of Dreams, Matron of the Arts, Protector of the Little Ones, Gobbler of Backsides and whatever else we made up on the spot. She had a decent control over many of the mechanics at work in this place. As such, it was little surprise that she returned rather quickly. But I could hear her before I saw her.

“Prithee accepteth mine own sincerest apologies for intruding upon thy peaceful slumber. Especially given recent events and circumstances. But we couldst useth thy assistance.”

While her lapse back into old habits amused me, it was the fact that she was talking to somepony that gave me pause. More so considering that she apologized ‘given recent events’.

“It’s fine, Princess Luna. I’m glad I can help. It must be really hard for you right now and I’m so, so sorry for your loss…!”

That second voice sent a chill down my spine. Luna, what did you do?! I frantically looked around in a sudden bout of panic, but of course there was no time to dodge this confrontation by jumping into a bush. I could have manifested anything and everything. With my imagination alone, I could have created labyrinthine castles, endless mazes of cave tunnels, I could have recreated the Canterlot Garden hedge maze — but of what use would that be? Luna was considerably stronger than me. If I created something to hide in and she did not wish for me to hide, she would simply dismiss my creations. And I would end up right where I was, except for the fact that they had seen my failed attempts to escape.

And she brought Derpy. And Derpy was a friend. A dear, loved friend. I was not exactly pleased by Luna springing this ‘surprise’ on me out of nowhere without a warning first, but I could even understand why she did it. Letting Derpy suffer longer than was strictly necessary was cruel. Something I would have thought about later on. Yet another reason for regret.

Adding to that, Derpy's unique talent would be a great help here. I just had not thought about that. It never crossed my mind. I did not want to involve her at first, because Derpy was baaad at lying. Which included acting. She frequently overacted at our Ogres and Oubliettes-table. So seeing me dead, her reaction would have given the ruse away immediately. But involving her now actually made sense. Dreams sang to her. Told her of their woes. She could help us find our saboteur so much quicker.

That was still assuming that he had observed Greenwood as expected. That he even had nightmares about the whole ordeal. Goodness, it assumed that there even was a saboteur. All of this was based on a rather flimsy chain of assumptions on my part. But in my head, it just made sense. And my gut feeling told me I was right.

I managed to distract myself with these doubts until they both suddenly appeared in front of me.

The awkward silence stretched far too long as Derpy stood frozen, rooted to the spot and I failed to articulate any of my chaotic thoughts. Until I could bear it not longer and just resigned myself to whatever would fall out of my mouth as I opened the floodgates.

“H-Hi Derpy,” I started awkwardly. “I know this must be strange, but there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for this! See, I’m not really, uhm, dead. We faked that and Luna teleported me away in time and replaced me with an illusion so that we could hunt down whoever is responsible for all these spooky events in recent days and maybe we find Mister Cuddles and I feel really bad about letting you think I actually died but we couldn’t afford to risk the success of this plan and—“

I cut myself off when Derpy suddenly lunged for me. A second later, she clung to my neck and sniffled as she hugged me. “I’m so, so, so glad you’re okay!”

“I-I—…” I stuttered and nothing else came. No thoughts. No words. I drew blank cards, lots of them. “I’m sorry,” I finally finished in the lamest way possible and hugged her back.

And then… magic happened. Derpy leaned back, and she smiled. Somehow. She raised her hoof and booped my nose. She even told me as much. “Boop!” She giggled and shook her head and everything seemed to be fine again.

I could never, would never understand how she did that. She was not the only one capable of such feats, but she was the best at it. Just… water under the bridge. Meanwhile I got stuck on the tiniest details sometimes. An off-hoof remark in a side sentence, not given much thought at all, and it would gnaw at me for days, maybe even weeks, living rent-free in my head, decorating the walls with doubt and over-analyzation until I went a little bit mad.

Twilight had been prone to similar routines once upon a time, but she had gotten a lot better to deal with those over the years. She — and all my other loved ones — tried hard to help me reach that same point. Walk that same path. So that I, too, would someday be able to just dismiss such worries. To let such remarks just be water under the bridge.

I envied Derpy for this ability. It was a kind of imprudence, levity, that I sincerely lacked.

“You think too much. Again.”

I blinked as she spoke to me and returned to our current situation. And once her words registered in my head, they made me smile. “Guilty as charged,” I admitted. I knew my Derpy well enough. Actually, come to think of it: It was nice seeing her here. Since the dreamscape was a reflection of willpower and thought, she always appeared as her much younger, less wrinkly self. Because she was still young in her own mind. And seeing her like this made me think about ‘the good old days’.

“We could really use your help,” I attempted to redirect myself towards a more productive topic.

“Luna already asked me for help and I will gladly help you two, but she did not tell me what I can do,” my friend replied.

We both looked over to our beloved princess and she merely stood there, with a ‘d'aww’ written all over her face. I blushed as she stared, and only after I averted my eyes did she briefly giggle and turned her attention elsewhere. She stomped her hoof onto the ground and the dreamscape heeded her call. Dozens of dream spheres drew closer to us, appearing from the endless, star-strutted void of this realm. Their colorful exteriors marked them as active dreams and as expected, quite a few of them displayed the telltale signs of nightmare infection. I felt a pang of guilt again, but this had been inevitable. The price I had been willing to pay to catch our saboteur off-guard.

A price paid by others. This was all kinds of wrong.

“These are all the dreamers within the Everfree Forest,” Luna muttered under her breath as more and more spheres appeared around us. It clearly put a strain on her concentration to call them all. “And these are the ones in proximity to Greenwood.” Some spheres left our immediate area again to dance around outside of the bubble we surrounded ourselves with. Luna looked over her shoulder, towards Derpy. “We could search each and every one of those nightmares in hopes of finding our perpetrator. We would need to search all of them if we were to assume that he is less bothered by the events of this day than Dreamwalker hopes. Entering and exiting a dream takes precious time, and dealing with whatever a dream contains can be exhausting. You should be able to cut this process short by a considerable margin.”

Derpy seemed a little overwhelmed with the sheer amount of dream spheres surrounding us. It was not much of a surprise, given that she was decidedly not a night guard and despite her generous offer, we rarely asked her for help.

“Oh boy, that’s a lot…” she muttered and looked around.

I sat down beside her and laid my hoof on her shoulder, giving her an encouraging smile. “It’s alright if you can’t help. We know you want to. Just tell us if it’s possible.”

Luna continued to sort the dreamers. By proximity. By dream status. Nightmares to the left, non-nightmares to the right. Eventually, everything was as ‘in order’ as it could get. It made things neat and clear. And it also served to give Derpy some confidence, it seemed. She nodded with a resolute expression. “I can do this!”

Both Luna and I smiled and kept our silence as she closed her eyes. She slowly spread her magnificent gray wings until they were fully extended, braced her hooves and simply… listened.

Soon enough, she started to hum a little melody. She dove into their song, submerged herself in it. Derpy had tried on many occasions to describe to me how her interactions with dreams felt. And while I never quite got a decent grasp on it, her comparison to a lake stuck with me. A lake of song. Different tunes interwoven with each other like layers of waves forming a current. It was harmonious. Even the nightmares did not disrupt the harmony as such, they merely added more aggressive passages.

She swayed. Like a young tree in a summer breeze. Her wings angled and aligned themselves with ethereal, unseen forces. At one point, she even giggled quietly. A joke only she could hear or understand.

I could read it plain as day on Luna's face. She envied Derpy. As much as I did, if not more. The dreamscape was her domain. Yet Derpy possessed an ability to interact with dreams in a manner that eluded Luna, and continued to do so to this very day. We both desperately wanted to know how that felt for her, what she did, how. But it was not meant for us. It was her cutie mark. Her special talent. And she looked so incredibly at peace when she just listened.

Despite the contradiction: It was a very humble spectacle. And I almost felt like I should applaud when Derpy finally opened her eyes again, when she refolded her wings onto her back and stopped swaying like kelp in the sea. “I think I found something?” she offered and pointed a hoof towards one of the nightmare-ridden dream bubbles.

“I might be the princess of this realm,” Luna replied as she stepped closer to Derpy and laid a hoof on her shoulder, similar to what I had done earlier. “But you, my friend, truly are the queen of dreams.”

Derpy blushed furiously. She giggled and after a brief moment of hesitation, hugged Luna. Who reciprocated the gesture immediately. “You know, that’s really funny considering I thought I’m the queen of bubble baths for aaages,” she answered.

Once they pulled apart again, we collectively walked over to the dream she indicated. “What made this one stand out?” I asked.

“The other nightmares are full of fear and regret, which… is normal for nightmares, I think? But this one is full of guilt,” she explained. “It’s the only one, too. And it has a strange melody. Hefty’s dream is humming the same melody he actually hums when he works in the woods. Or Honey's dream, it hums the same melody she hums when she works in their carpentry. But I don’t recognize the melody of this dream.”

I loved music. I could not imagine a life without music in it. Even though I needed my quiet alone-time every so often, and I needed it more than many other ponies did — I dreaded actual silence. However, I never understood music. Not on a technical level. I remembered that I tried my hoof at learning instruments a couple of times, and I failed spectacularly every single time. I loved music. But I did not understand it. It was therefore a mystery to me how Derpy saw the world. I never noticed Hefty humming the same melody over and over. But apparently that was a thing. Something remarkable enough to somepony like Derpy that it defined him to a certain extent, that it helped her recognize him. I was a little in awe.

“I will risk a look,” Luna stated and stepped up to the sphere. She put one hoof against it and a small ripple of her magic extended from the point of contact. She stabilized the dream so that the nightmare would not suddenly wake up the dreamer. Then she slowly, carefully pushed her muzzle against the sphere until it reluctantly accepted her in. Her head vanished in the bubble, along with half her neck.

I used the opportunity to turn my attention to Derpy again. “I wanted to apologize for misleading you like that. It was a cruel thing to do and I am so, so sorry about how I made you feel.”

She did not want my apology the first time. She did not want it now. She merely giggled again and booped my nose once more, for good measure. “You’re silly, you know.”

I sighed. “Yes. Pinkie told me as much. On more occasions than I care to admit.”

“Well you should listen to her more then,” Derpy emphasized with a nod. “She’s a very wise mare. And fun.”

I snorted, but nodded anyway. I knew Pinkie was wise far beyond her years — of which she had a lot under her belt by now —, but rare was the occasion when somepony other than me acknowledged that. “Alright, fine. I’ll stop apologizing. You helped us out a lot here, do you want me to bring you back to your dream?”

Derpy fidgeted around with her hooves. “Can you put me in charge?”

It made sense. Luna had probably retrieved her from a nightmare and it was more than understandable that she did not wish to return there. “Of course.” I summoned her dream and conjured my armor on my back and my sword to my side. It took two attempts to pull the nightmare out of her dream, and the little critter was an ill-behaved weasel with a foul mood, but I nevertheless gave it one single chance as I held it at bay with my sword. “Flee now and you get away, stay and this will only end badly for you!”

It hissed and snapped and finally made up its mind. I saw that lunge coming from a mile away. It had made its decision and therefore sealed its fate. Derpy firmly pressed her eyes shut as I decapitated the creature mid-air. Its body dissolved into nothing and I quickly dismissed armor and weapon again. “It’s gone,” I told Derpy.

She looked around, probably in search of any traces. But this was the dreamscape. Bodies were vessels created by willpower. There was no actual blood, no actual corpse. Her expectations alone could have manifested a slain creature on the ground, but she was experienced enough in these matters to avoid that. And maybe her imagination was not capable of depicting such gruesome scenes.

“I don’t like this part,” Derpy quietly remarked.

I had little to say to that. I knew what she meant. I did not feel great slaying these creatures either. They were at home here, while we were the intruders. However, it was Luna's designated duty to guard and guide the dreamers. And many of these creatures were threats, both active and passive. There simply was no clear-cut ‘good’ solution to this issue.

But I understood that it was one out of two reasons why she never even considered joining our ranks as defenders of the dreamers. The other being that she already had a fulfilling job that she cherished. She had already found a different calling. “Alright, your dream is ready and prepared, milady!” I bowed deep as I gestured towards her sphere.

She giggled. She quickly found her humor again, her light-hearted demeanor. It was a marvel. She took my offered hoof, unnecessary as it was, and let me usher her towards her bubble. “Sweet dreams, Derpy.” She quickly darted forward and placed a smooch on my cheek before she pressed her hooves into her dream sphere and slowly sank into it.

Once she was gone again, I sighed in relief.

Until I turned around and saw a smugly grinning Luna watching me. “You… are evil,” I said.

“Yet you married me anyway,” she shot straight back.

I chuckled as I walked over to her. “Would I have married you had I known just how bottomless this well of evil is? Yes. Yes I would. Absolutely. Would I have complained about it? You bet!” She snickered and we shared a brief kiss. “Thank you, kitten. You are my guiding light.”

She snorted and guffawed. “Take that, Celestia! Your sun might be many times the size of my stars, but I am the guiding light!”

I chimed in and laughed alongside her silliness. It was hard to stay gloomy with her for company. “And you’re constantly guiding me towards danger and ill-advised life choices, so there’s that. My dear Sunny at least guides me towards… I don’t know… inner peace or something.”

Her laughter increased in strength and volume as she shook her head. “You need me to counterbalance how awfully calm and serene and orderly your life would be with her alone!”

I chuckled, lit up my horn with mischief in my mind and grabbed her mane. I pulled her down and used her sudden gasp and outraged surprise to entangle her in a more passionate kiss. And I was soaring high on happiness when I noticed how she melted into the kiss immediately. Our tongues intertwined, a quick and fiery dance, before I pulled back again. “I never claimed otherwise, kitten. I really do need you. Always and forever.”

Dazed for merely a second, a fond smile quickly replaced her devious grin as I alluded to our wedding vows. “Always and forever, firecracker.”

We turned our attention towards the dream in question. “What did you see?”

“A pegasus stallion,” she replied. “I do not recognize him from any description of the ponies you told me about. And he does seem to have a campsite nearby Greenwood from where he occasionally ventures closer to the village without ever announcing his presence or entering the village proper. He is still quite young, and… thin.”

I furrowed my brow given that description. “Thin?”

She nodded. And her face spoke volumes. Thin as in: Starving. Maybe this was not so much one of Dawns henchponies out to harass us and more a case of just a poor sod trying to get by somehow. Maybe he stole food in all the chaos he somehow caused. We never checked our food supplies, since only tools and dolls and such things seemed to go missing. If he was smart about this, he could have shaved off some pieces here and there without anypony noticing. Even though this still failed to explain how he did this.

“Alright, if you don’t have any further surprises up your sleeve, I think we proceed as planned. I go in, you play lookout.” I looked to her for confirmation and saw her grin again.

“I do have some surprises up somewhere,” she teased, but quickly returned to the topic. “But yes, I will have your back. And please, Dreamwalker. Be careful.”

Her sudden shift in tone gave me pause. “Aw, are you worried about me?”

But there was no cocky remark this time as she nodded. “I am. As much about you as I am about him. Innocent until proven guilty. Keep that in mind. And keep Voidwalker on a short leash.”

I grimaced. Right. That. “I will,” I promised. And with that, I put my front hooves against the sphere and slowly sank into the dream. It tried to push me out, it resisted my attempts of entering to the very last moment, but ultimately — an unconscious dreamer was easy prey. That was the sole reason why our frequent dreamscape patrols were so important.

It took a moment until I got my bearings again. My blurry vision was a mismatched mix of colors until everything sorted itself out, screeches and painful, otherworldly noises realigned themselves into bird songs, chirping crickets and running water and eventually, I even felt the soil under my hooves and a soft breeze in my mane.

I stood in the middle of the woods.

“Oh. Great,” I commented with slight annoyance. We were in the Everfree Forest. I could tell just by looking at the trees. Gnarled and twisted. Each and every one of them gave off this aura of hostility and malice.

What frustrated me was the need to actually find the dreamer. Depending on how vivid his imagination was, this section of the forest could literally stretch forever.

I looked down at my hooves. I was a pony, currently. But even with my brown coat, I stuck out like a crooked nail. Changing details within a dream took time and effort and energy. It was taxing, because any attempt to change major details meant fighting the dreamer’s subconscious for control. However, maybe this was worth a shot. So I strained against his will. The dream once again tried everything in its power to keep me from manipulating anything, but ultimately, I had years and years of experience under my belt and this dreamer was both young and asleep and therefore disadvantaged twice over.

I changed into a bird. I could not tell what kind of bird this was, I never bothered to learn their name. The same kind of annoying little critter that chirped and chirped and chirped at the edge of the forest every single time a new cycle started. They were the most abundant birds in the entire Everfree. One could not throw a stone without accidentally hitting one. And Fluttershy would be appalled by this thoughtless and cruel idiom.

I sighed… and quickly shut my mouth. Beak. Whatever. Because a sighing bird would be strange and I only imitated its appearance, not how it sounded. I gave my wings a few flaps for testing purposes and everything seemed fine so far. So I flapped harder, gained lift-off and flew through the forest on my hopefully brief search for the elusive pegasus stallion.

This hunt was thankfully cut considerably shorter once I dared to fly above the treetops. It allowed me to spot Greenwood. An actually pretty faithful representation of the village. I flew close to some of the windows of Honeys and Hefty's carpentry, I peered through the upper story windows of my own house, and I was shocked to see the level of detail inside. Whoever this stallion was, he knew way too much about our village. Had he been sneaking around inside houses? Unbeknownst to anypony? It was a creepy thought.

But flying around in the village allowed me to witness another peculiarity. Something that certainly did not have its roots in reality. There were eerie whispers. They grew louder in one direction, so I decided to follow them. It was a mishmash of voices, maybe even several different languages. Tracking their origin allowed me to find my target.

Just as Luna said: A thin, young pegasus stallion. In his early twenties, was my guess. He looked malnourished, despite a wide, undyed cloak covering most of his body and hiding the true extent of his sorry state. His pale, mint-green coat made him look like a zombie, as if all blood and life had already been drained from him. His eyes were a similar color to Twilight's coat, but again: Pale and faded. He wore a necklace around his neck, a simple string with small clumps of pyrite threaded on it. And much to my dismay, several small skulls hung from this necklace, connected to it by their own strings. Skulls. Polished bone, white as chalk. Two I could identify as birds, one seemed to be from a squirrel or something like that. Small critters, all of them. But others were unidentifiable to me. Then again, I rarely got to see skulls.

Why he carried those around with himself was a mystery to me. On one hoof, there was the simple option that this was merely a detail of his current dream. But why this? What purpose did it serve? Because dreamers rarely manifested details that were not required for the narrative of their dream. And this one was pretty upfront with its goal. These voices were yelling at him, screaming. A cacophony of guilt and accusations. Why did you kill me?!, they screeched in various voices and languages. Young ones, old ones, male ones, female ones. Some raspy like Rainbow’s voice, others smooth and silky like Rarity’s voice, but all of them accused him of the same thing.

Murder.

On the other hoof — these skulls reminded me of conversations I had with my love. Once upon a time in ages past, she and her sister traveled the world. They had seen the homeland of the zebras with their own eyes. And those had some really eerie traditions. Eerie to us ponies, but not so much to them. Bonecraft and such things were part of their daily lives. Maybe this stallion did not exactly originate from around these parts? It was possible after all. Or maybe he learned some Zebrican magic that required him to carry around a bunch of skulls?

Too many possibilities, too little information.

Being a bird and all, I flew up to a higher branch in the tree he currently stayed beneath and I observed for a moment. His position in these bushes was ideal for spying on Greenwood. Sure, the palisade around the village would block the view of certain parts, but he could see into some of them through the wide open entrance gate. He could hear the hammer strike metal on an anvil. Which was… probably me? Doing my smithing work over there? He could hear the chop-chop of an axe as Hefty retrieved more wood for our carpentry to process.

It was a good spying-spot. And I managed to get a grip on my position to realize where exactly I would have to search for his hiding place as soon as I woke up.

Yet he did not spy. Not currently. He lay on the ground, clutching his cloak, in a fetal position. He shivered and trembled and every time the chorus swelled to a new level of volume, he winced and flinched and tried to make himself even smaller. And he mumbled and muttered the same thing, over and over again, much in the same vein as the accusations were always the same.

He was stuck in one of the worst kinds of nightmares. Not just a loop, but a short loop. They accused him of bloody murder, and he begged forgiveness and implored them that he never meant any harm. It was such a pitiful sight that it actually threatened to make me emphasize with him. And after the grinder of those last few days that he put us through, I was unwilling to let that happen.

“Void?” I chirped as quietly as I could. The other voices drowned me out completely, which was a good cover.

Yes?

“Could you help me? We need to take over his dream. He’s of no use to us in his current state.” I was certainly not looking forward to working with Void of all ponies, but I tried to tell myself that it could be worse still. I could be forced to work with… Chrysalis, or something like that.

Charming. But alright, I’ll bite. Sounds like fun.

I grimaced. Yes. ‘Fun’. Exactly how I would describe the necessity of interrogation.

We focused our efforts on the dream itself. The woods, the ground, the air, the sun and sky and every bird and butterfly and squirrel. We managed to overpower the dreamer’s will and wrangled control from him. Void already knew what I wanted him to do, so I let him choose the scene for his distraction.

And of course he chose the void.

The current dream scene was replaced by an empty, inky blackness. No walls, no ceiling, no floors, no features that would allow for orientation or to gauge distances. I hid myself from sight by dismissing my body entirely and held still while Void stepped out of the darkness and up to our dreamer. I hated how he looked almost like me. Like the image I saw in every mirror. The only thing that made the difference obvious was his demeanor.

The pegasus remained on the non-existent floor for a brief moment longer until he realized that the voices had stopped. He then slowly uncurled himself and rose to his jittery legs — and immediately took a precautionary step back when he found himself face to face with my less than pleasant alter ego. “Wh-Who are you? What is this? W-Where am I?”

Sweet Celestia. He even sounded young. My own children were probably twice his age.

“We are in your subconscious, little pony,” Voidwalker replied. “I… am the reaper.” The pegasus could not see me. Or how I rolled my eyes. Void might have known, but he completely ignored me.

“But… b-but you’re a pony!” our dreamer objected and pointed at him.

Voidwalker looked down on himself and acknowledged the statement with a nod. “I may appear as such to you, I suppose. In the same manner a griffon might see one of his own kind. This makes it easier to interact with mere mortals. Believe me, you do not wish to see me otherwise.”

Icy looked around for the first time. He did a full turn, only to see the gaping nothingness in all directions. “W-Why are you here?” he bravely dared to ask.

Voidwalkers expression stayed completely neutral, disinterested. I suspected that he got a kick out of this, but he seemed professional enough for now.

“Do not worry,” he replied. “Your time has not come yet. I am here because you veered onto a dangerous path, young one. Taking a life brings you closer to your own demise, such is the balance of this world. I am here as an obligatory warning, if you will.”

The pegasus violently shook his head. “No! No, no, I did not mean him any harm! I swear! I-It was an accident!”

Voidwalker nodded solemnly. “And yet, here we are.”

I had to force myself. I had to tear my eyes and ears away from this farce, lest I grow furious with my alter ego. He was a bastard. And I despised how good he was at gaslighting this poor sod. Because if he could do it, so could I. What made the difference between us was that he was willing to use just about anything to his advantage, without remorse. And it sometimes felt like a very, very thin rope to balance on. To not let loose and join him.

I sighed, felt my ears snap to my head and turned around. He had this under control. For better or worse, I had to trust Voidwalker. I focused my attention on this dreamer's subconscious instead. On his being, his thought patterns, his traits and quirks and especially: his memories.

I closed my eyes and imagined a subsection of this dream, creating an invisible, winding path, a star-strutted road not unlike our usual patrol path on the dreamscape. I imagined myself walking on it, along its gentle curves. And to each side, little windows popped up, each one of them displaying another memory of this dreamer's life.

The glimpses I caught told a devastating story.

A toxic marriage leading to an abusive father and a neglectful mother, until a repressed event took the father out of the picture. A burial, but no tears shed by the freshly minted widow. And in the years following, a change in character. Overwhelmed with having to live alone again, neglect slowly morphed into the same abusive behavior his father once demonstrated. A weird special talent, bullies at school, no friends, shy, alone, reclusive.

Eventually a chase. And he had been on the run ever since.

Chased out for stealing food. Chased away from town because he told spooky stories to their foals. I stopped and listened to one of them partially and realized that it was not even what they accused him of. He never told ‘spooky stories’. He told stuff that would reasonably be considered spooky by many, sure. Stuff like: Your grandpa really loves you and he wants you to know that he is proud of your achievements, proud of the pony you became and that he cheered you on every step of the way.

A dead grandpa. Obviously.

For me, it was not even that hard to grasp as a concept. I had no idea ghosts were a real thing. But I found it surprisingly easy to accept. Ghosts were real and this stallion could see and talk to them. That explained the skull on his flank. It just fit.

I sighed and moved on. There was no point in arguing with ponies, not here, not now. These were merely memories. What I witnessed had long since transpired and left their marks on his soul and mind. I moved further down the road until I found more recent memories. These windows were dominated by dark greens and traces of orange. The Everfree Forest. I slowed down considerably and basically started window-shopping.

It was harder to get a good grip on his recent memories. Something clearly worked against me. And it all came to a head when I learned a couple of names. Iron Hoof. Rock Solid. Icy Whisper. And Wildfire.

The very moment I learned that last name, a bright, yet dark red light encompassed the dreamer behind me.

“What?” I gasped as I felt foreign magic overpower my mind in a rushed attempt to exert control over the dreamer himself. A second later, the stallion just vanished. Ripped out of his own dream, which immediately fell apart and spat me out back onto the dreamscape, right in front of Luna’s hooves.

“What happened?!” she asked in alarm and helped me up.

I could not help but notice that she was in her full gear, her enormous scythe floating beside her, ready for any trouble. “I was about to ask the same thing!” I replied. I cautiously moved around and took note how mangled I felt. As if the sudden disruption of the dream had left me exhausted. I shook my head. “I think I might have triggered some kind of defensive spell or something. Hooowever, the mission was still a success. I did not return empty-hooved.”

Luna still kept a wary eye on our surroundings, but seeing as no ambush took place, she slowly lowered her weapon and turned her attention to me. “Oh? What did you learn?”

“Names. Four of them, to be precise.” And not knowing what I had uncovered, I proudly presented them all. I got a little worried however as soon as color drained from Luna's face. “You recognize one?”

She took a moment to recompose herself and shook her head. “No. I recognize them all.”

I blinked. Once. Twice. “What.”

“Iron Hoof was a name I never expected to hear again,” she explained. “He was a sergeant of the Day Guard back in the days before my fall to the Nightmare. He could easily have been two ranks higher, given his prestige and success, but he refused to be promoted. He was a noble warrior I had much respect for. Last we heard, he fought alongside us in the battle to free the Crystal Empire from King Sombra’s subjugation. He was pronounced dead after we could not find him anywhere after the empire vanished.”

The implications were mind-boggling. He was a living relic. A blast from the past. He was a true warrior, a thousand years old, who returned from a different age. What the heck. “I-Is it possible that he vanished with the Empire due to Sombra’s curse?” I asked. Even though we both knew the answer. Probably.

“It is… unlikely, but… maybe not impossible,” Luna hesitated to reply. She did not like the implications either, then. Good. Made me feel less alone and overwhelmed. “I will need to speak to my sister about this.”

“What about the others?” I dared to ask. And really, I hoped they would be less… astounding.

“Rock Solid is another former member of the Day Guard, albeit its current iteration,” Luna answered. “He is an earth pony. He was dishonorably discharged a few years ago after a string of violent outbreaks in which he caused serious injuries to civilians and superiors alike.”

Oh boy. Sweet Luna. Great. “This guy sounds like a lot of fun.” I grimaced. Someone with anger issues. Well, that could fit the bill for the incident with Peter.

“My sister mourns greatly to this very day that he managed to make it into her guard to begin with. She faults herself for not being involved enough with the recruitment process to spot bad apples like him as it soils the good name of her guard.”

The ‘good name of the guard’ had suffered over the years, but they were in recovery mode. It was an arduous, slow process. It had been a long time since Equestria had last seen any major, significant military conflict and these peaceful times made it hard for any guard to prove his mettle.

What bothered me more was my love's apparent impulse to punish herself. Again. “While I can see and understand that, she can’t—“ I cut myself off and sighed again. There was no point in arguing this with Luna. She understood. She was on my side. We collaborated frequently in attempts to make Sunny see the bright side of life. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter, I will talk to her about this at some point. We need to sort out our priorities first — what about Icy?”

“I only ever heard the name from my guards, who reported of an elusive young colt visiting smaller villages,” Luna answered. “He was rumored to have a deep connection to the Realm Beyond. A talent nopony ever displayed before. It intrigued me, but any investigations ran into dead ends. Come to think of it, my guards reported strange occurrences and sabotage as well.”

I nodded. “That aligns well with what I saw in his mind. I didn’t see any ghosts, but he seems to see something, and he speaks with someone.”

“Those were rumors, Dreamwalker — we do not know what he does or how he does it,” she argued. And while I was all for reason and caution and such, at this point our base of information had improved considerably.

Still — no point in arguing yet. “And Wildfire?”

And this was the point where she grew quiet for a while. As far as I could tell from reading her changing expression, it was less so because she had to remind herself first where she heard that name before and more because she struggled to sort the amount of information and how to sort it and what to start with and maybe even what she would rather not tell me.

“He was supposedly a monster of legend,” Luna recounted. “A horror throughout many histories of many civilizations, an eater of powerful casters, devourer of foals. It was deemed horrendously dangerous to make deals with him, but he supposedly offered them. He demanded sacrifice and in return spared tribes. His devastating name and power were known to zebras and elephants, yaks and kirin. Even the deer and changelings feared him.”

The long and short of it: He was a legend.

The bad kind of legend.

I grimaced and dared to poke into that bee nest. “Let me guess — until he suddenly stopped and vanished?”

Luna nodded. “Something like that. Many assumed he just died of old age as many monsters eventually do, or he finally met his match.”

A powerful creature capable of vast devastation. A creature of great cunning, as he offered deals that rarely turned out well for the other party. Someone who carved his path through history with blood, if need be. It struck me as odd that he demanded sacrifice. One could sacrifice a lot. A day’s worth of time. A mane. Food. A foal. Knowledge. Magical items. I grimaced the more my own thoughts bullied me in that particular direction. Eventually, I looked up and searched for Luna's eyes. When our gazes met, I dared to ask, albeit quietly. “Is it possible…?”

She sighed. “That Dawn uses this moniker to disguise his identity towards his henchponies? Yes, absolutely.”

I shook my head. “Not what I meant.”

But she already knew that, of course. She even said as much. “I know. And I dread the other answer more than I care to admit.”

Wildfire. The almost mythical monster.

Dawn. My awkward new friend.

I sighed.

Interlude: Icy Whisper II

The moment he woke up was the very first moment of this day that made him regret doing so. It was cold, he could feel the tension in his body due to his less than ideal sleeping arrangement, his legs were stiff and his nose runny. He also dreaded the tasks ahead. As much as he dreaded them yesterday, the day before that and all the days before that.

Icy still had difficulties understanding how and why he was here. Accepting Wildfire’s deal was strange. He never sought to work for anypony. Never sought employment. He got by on his own and really, that was for the better. For everypony involved. But now he had given his word, and he tried his best to honor it.

Maybe the unicorn had put a spell on him. Something to twist and bend his mind and will?

It was not all bad. He met two ponies who did not look down on him. Rock Solid was a gruff, violent sort with a short fuse. He recognized a lot of his behavior from his own dear old dad. Which was why he stayed clear of him most of the time, just like Iron Hoof had said. However, Rock appreciated his survival instincts and skills. That was nice.

And Iron Hoof himself was an entirely different story. The stallion was inspiring. Confident and capable, competent and a true, born leader. Icy could not quite explain it, not even to himself, but he felt drawn to Iron Hoof. He wanted to follow him. It was therefore nice that he was so, well, nice. A little gruff as well every now and then, sure, but there was warmth and care beneath that battle-hardened exterior shell.

“Time to wake up, sunshine!” a way too excited, energetic voice blared outside his improvised tent.

Icy grimaced, but complied. He wiggled himself free of the blanket and out of the ‘tent’. “Good morning to you too, Topaz.” The teenage dragon floated nearby and she grinned from ear to ear. An impressive row of teeth put on display. It would have been intimidating, especially to a pony like him, but he had known her for years now. They were good friends.

The white dragon ‘landed’ in front of him and due to her miscalculation, she sank right into the floor. Halfway in, she noticed her predicament and corrected it. “Right, so! Are you ready?”

“I-I… I don’t know,” Icy mumbled. He was tired. He always felt tired. Tired of running. Tired of flying. Tired of hiding. Tired of scavenging and foraging and talking. He took a deep breath to calm himself.

“Ah. One of those days, huh?” Topaz asked in a softer, quiet voice. He merely nodded. Next thing he knew, she floated closer and hugged him. Well, she tried. As per usual, she sank into his body and he shuddered slightly due to the cold contact, but she quickly realigned herself and gave him the equivalent of an air-hug.

It was still nice. He appreciated the gesture.

“You can do this,” she said quietly, but resolutely. “You are Icy Whisper. You are capable. Powerful, even. And you need to do nothing. Just tell us what to do. We’re your friends. We will listen. We’re here to help. It’s easy, right? Just talk to your friends and it will be fine.”

A pang of guilt and pain. Brief, but noticeable. Her words were meant well. But he could not help but hear them wrong. It’s easy, she said. Then why did he struggle so much? Just talk to your friends, she said. Yes. Yes, that sounded easy, indeed. So very easy, and yet here he was, having to psych himself up to do this.

“Give me a moment,” he asked for her patience. Topaz just nodded and he walked a little. Just a quick stroll to get his blood flowing, to fully wake up — and to risk a little peek at the village they were pranking. Grundel had called it ‘harassing’, but Icy despised that label. They did little things. Caused little inconveniences. Mischief. Kept them busy. Nothing more. Certainly nothing worth calling harassment.

Once he returned to his camp, he assumed his usual position in front of his tent. It was awkward to bend his legs like this, but a traveling mare he had met a couple of years ago on the road had taught him this position to focus his mind, and for whatever reason — it worked. It did not feel like a position a pony was meant to assume, but he had to acknowledge that it made him look and feel like some sort of enlightened guru or something. Anypony with even a sliver of knowledge about the topic could easily recognize it was a more intricate meditation pose.

He did his breathing exercises with his eyes closed. He blended out the chit-chat around him as the others slowly arrived, lured in by Topaz’ initial shout. He concentrated. Felt his heartbeat. Felt the blood rush in his body. The birds all around them seemed to quiet down, the voices muffled as he turned his senses inwards.

You can do this, she had said. A sheepish smile tugged at his lips. She was always so nice to him.

When Icy opened his eyes again, he was in control mode. “Listen up everyone.” And they all did. All conversation was cut off and all eyes turned on him. He usually hated the spotlight, but this… this was fine, somehow. “Topaz, prepare the forge for the prank we talked about yesterday.”

She saluted. “Aye, aye, me capt’n!” Everyone snickered briefly.

“Ivy?” The young mare stood straight. “You follow Hefty into the woods and see what opportunities arise. If none present themselves, feel free to switch over to Roseluck and Kaleb. They will be on the fields caring for the crops and should therefore be easy to find.” Taking a leaf out of Topaz’ book, she quickly saluted with a wide grin.

“Marcel?” Icy addressed the slightly preoccupied third ghost.

Even for a teeny-tiny river serpent, he was still long enough to coil himself around his friends. His head shot straight up when his name was dropped. “Yes?”

“I gave your report from recent days some thought and decided that…” Icy stopped. He sighed and his shoulders sagged a little. Guilt and regret written all over his face, he forced a smile onto his face. “I would like you to take Mister Cuddles back to Derpy's room. Hide him under her bed, somewhere where she can find him eventually. She is still searching. We don’t really want to make anypony suffer. And you were right. This went on far too long.”

Marcel smiled warmly and nodded with vigor. “Will do, boss.” Another round of snickers.

“Grundel?” Icy turned his attention to the last one currently present. There were others, of course. So, so many others. But most ghosts he encountered were mere acquaintances. They did not stick around. Some disapproved of his ‘chosen lifestyle’, as several had labeled it. As if it was his choice of constantly being on the run. Others berated him for his weakness. His unwillingness to turn his talent against those who threatened him and chased him away. Against all those who were unwilling to leave him be, or aid him.

But he refused. For all his weakness, he would never turn to such actions. That he swore to himself. Because in his eyes, abusing his so-called ‘power’ like that, that was outright villainy. And he was not a villain.

Also, he was not powerful at all. Sure, he was decent at tickling lightning out of clouds. But any pegasus could do that to some extent. And he was a terrible flier due to his crippling fear of heights. As for his ghost-buddies — they were innocents. Well, most of them anyway. Asking them to do his dirty work just felt all kinds of wrong.

Many ghosts were not even capable of affecting things in the world at all. That was one of the reasons they needed him so much.

“You’re spacing out,” Grundel said.

His raspy voice cut straight through Icy’s musings. “Hm? Right. Sorry. I would like you to follow Dreamwalker around. See if you can annoy him further. You know him better than any of us at this point. Keep it safe, though. That said, Wildfire asked to make more pressure if he tries to explore the old castle ruins again, so keep that in mind as well.” Grundel gave a sharp nod to acknowledge his task.

“Alright, everyone — that’s it for today. I’ll stay here and keep an eye on the street and the village, you have your tasks. Dismissed!” He chuckled as he spoke that last word. It almost sounded confident. Like something Iron Hoof would say. And his friends left for their respective tasks with a snicker.

It was nice. Having his friends here. Working alongside them. Of course he knew that it would not last forever. Could not. His dad would find him eventually. Icy had no idea what caused him to take so much time. He hoped that it was the Everfree Forests wild magic. Because if that was the case… maybe he would move here. Permanently. Living in the woods, living off the land. Did not sound too bad. He had to contend with timberwolves and poisonous flora and such, sure. But was that really that much harder than dealing with judgy ponies?

And he knew it could be done. Grundel liked to explore a lot. When he first entered the Everfree Forest to hide, his friend had done his thing and vanished for a couple of days. When he reported back, he had visited a town called Ponyville. It was hard not to have heard of that one. The interesting fact was: Grundel had overheard conversations telling of a zebra living in these woods. For years and years. All by herself. It was possible.

Uncertainty. Insecurity. Worries. Those were traits ponies exhibited at every given opportunity. But not a griffon. Not a fearsome, proud, mighty beast like him. So why did he feel like he was slinking back home with his tail firmly tucked between his hindlegs?

Because he did.

His mom had always told him that the truth tasted bitter. He was not sure if he ever understood that to the extent he did now.

It had taken less than three hours for him to mess up this day. And he dawdled a lot on his way back. Because his mind was frantically running around in his head in a panic, screaming at the top of his lungs. What have you done?, it yelled. What have we done?

He flew through the palisade, but pretended there was a need to fly around trees and bushes. Every second he could prolong this flight seemed important. Eventually though, he reached Icy’s camp again. The stallion was still there of course. Scribbling a few notes in his diary or notebook or whatever that was.

Grundel felt like he had come up with a good idea. “Icy?”

The pegasus looked up. He seemed surprised to see him back so soon and his brow furrowed. “Is everything okay?” he was quick to ask. And Grundel could tell: He asked this because he was worried for him. Worried for his friend. Even though he was already dead. Really, what else could happen to him at this point?

“I’m fine, don’t worry,” he replied and casually leaned against a tree. Which, given his condition, was not as casual as he wanted it to look. After all, the tree did not provide any actual, physical resistance to his non-existent body. “So as you suspected, Dreamwalker tried to scour the ruins again. And I did what you asked. I gave him a really good scare.” He even forced himself to laugh and pretended to wipe a few tears away. “You should have seen the look on his face! I spooked him with a broom. A broom, Icy. It was priceless.”

Icy was worried. He could tell something was up. Mostly because Grundel never tried to pass anything off with humor. And he never beat around the bush either. “So he won’t map out the ruins today? You made sure of that?”

Grundel nodded vigorously. “Oh yeah. Not gonna do that. Yupp.”

A frown slowly grew on Icy’s muzzle. “But he’s okay?”

The griffon kept himself from grimacing and thought back to what had transpired. How he grabbed the broom and spookily waved it around. How the totally-not-superstitious egghead recoiled in fear. How he screeched like a filly. Aaand… then the rest. “Well… I mean, yeah, sure, probably.” The very moment that last word slipped past his beak, he cringed. Stupid griff!, he scolded himself. Because now the next question was utterly inevitable.

“… probably?”

Grundel looked around. His sharp eyes scanned the camp, the surroundings, everything in sight for anything to distract the distraught stallion. And he was distraught, he could tell. Icy clearly started to get an idea there. But this forest was just… boring. Trees and shrubs and birds and squirrels. Even the tent was a poor excuse. A tarp over a couple of sticks was not a tent, not in his books. No fireplace either. But that at least made sense. If he made a fire, the inhabitants of the village could see the light and smoke. They could find him. The camp was not that far away from them after all.

“Grundel?”

Oh how he hated how Icy’s voice grew quieter. Fearful. “I, uh… kinda lost sight of him?” he offered.

The wrinkles on Icy’s forehead only deepened into crevasses. “What? But how?”

It was a quick question with an even quicker answer: Could he lie to his friend’s face? He took one glance at Icy and felt like that would be the equivalent of kicking a puppy. And for all the ferocity bred into each and every griffon, they were not inherently cruel. It was their upbringing, their society that usually led them down that path eventually.

So he sighed. “He fell over the staircase railing—“

“It’s called a banister,” Icy briefly cut in.

“Right. Whatever. He fell.” Grundel grumbled. A griffon is never at fault, his moms words rang in his ears. As such, he hated admitting to such stuff. And really, his mind was already busy piecing together an explanation how this was not his fault at all.

“But—?” Icy seemed more confused than worried now. Maybe that was a good thing, Grundel hoped. But Icy shook his head. “You told me that the ruins are relatively empty? How did him falling over the banister lead to you losing sight of him?”

Grundel grimaced harder. “Uhm… funny thing, you see… the staircase kinda… came after him?”

A forest never falls silent. Yet despite this fact, there seemed to be a thick, heavy blanket of silence hanging over the campsite. Dense enough to cut it with a knife. The birds still chirped their songs, the crickets still played along, the sun shone and the world moved, but everything just felt slightly off.

It took Icy several excruciatingly long moments to process these words. When he did, his eyes went wide and his attention snapped back to Grundel. “He was buried?!”

Icy never yelled. As long as Grundel knew him — and he had known him for two years — he never yelled. Not even once. And it was probably a stretch to call this yelling. But a pony like Icy, they did not like raising their voice. Increased volume scared them. They were naturally inclined to tip-toe around everyone and everything, to make as little noise as possible.

As such, this was yet another moment making it clear as day that he had fucked up. “Yeah?” he meekly replied.

The answer should have been obvious. Why else would he have returned so early in the day. But as soon as the obvious was stated, Icy blanched. He quickly twisted his body into his strange meditation position, closed his eyes and tried to find his center. Grundel could only look on in silence. He saw Icy’s legs trembling.

“Everyone, come back please. Immediately,” Icy whispered. And the ethereal winds carried his voice far and wide, calling Ivy, Topaz and Marcel.

The prospect of having his mistake made public gave Grundel another reason to dread their return. “Maybe I should—“

“Please,” Icy cut in. He opened his eyes again. He begged him, without saying a word. Please stay.

Grundel grimaced and nodded. He never really had a friend. He was not willing to lose one. But he was willing to bear this for the sake of keeping one.

Ivy was the first to arrive. She took one look at the situation and decided to wait for the rest to arrive, knowing something serious had happened. Marcel arrived second and was less observant. He tried to get an answer from Grundel why the mood seemed to have dropped below freezing temperatures, but his attempts were met with silence. Then Topaz showed up. “What’s going on here?” she asked after one glance at Icy and Grundel.

“I am sorry for the abrupt interruption,” Icy started. “There has been a… a-an accident. I need all of you to go to the village and the castle ruins to find out what happened to Dreamwalker. P-Please?”

The desperation in his voice was enough that Topaz shot a murderous glare at Grundel. Neither Ivy nor Marcel seemed to be in the know, meaning he was responsible for whatever had happened. But what worried Topaz even more was the fact that Icy did not even try to make her stop. Not a single comment on Grundels behalf. He instead started to pace in the camp. Icy never paced.

So they went out and did what he had asked. Even though his plea had lacked the usual clarity. No one was designated with a specific area or pony, just a general ‘go take a look how bad it is’.

And it was bad.

“I saw Spike carrying a body from the ruins to the village,” Ivy reported. “He looked… crushed.”

“I saw that, too,” Marcel quickly added. “I followed him to the house where he laid him down. It was Dreamwalker. He… he didn’t breathe anymore. Looked bad. Like, his legs were all twisted and mangled and his head was…” Marcel cut himself off. Ghosts could not puke, obviously. But he really wished he could. He should not have been able to feel nauseated, yet these images he would never get rid of, he was sure.

“I looked at the ruins,” Topaz announced somberly. “Tons of solid stone crashed down. Not even a dragon would have survived that. It’s honestly a miracle that they managed to find an intact body at all.”

With their reports done, all eyes lay on Grundel. The griffon avoided their gazes and instead stared at the ground between his claws.

A griffon was a mighty creature. Powerful and quick, sharp-witted and deadly. Bugbears feared them. Dragons respected them. But right here, right now, Grundel wanted nothing to do with his race’s legacy. It was just a stupid joke, he repeated in his head. Not for the first time. And would it actually have changed anything were he not a griffon? Would Dreamwalker have been less spooked by a broom had it been held by a pony ghost?

“I’ve been to the village,” Grundel spoke up. “I just… I didn’t know what to do. I just looked at everyone and they were so… heartbroken.”

Silence reigned supreme once more. Seconds passed, then minutes.

“What do we do?” Topaz dared to ask Icy.

“I… I-I… I don’t know,” he quietly replied.

In the hours following the incident, he sent his friends out to monitor the situation. But nothing changed all that much. Everypony in Greenwood seemed in shock. Some denied the events and demanded to see the body, only to get angry as soon as they were allowed. They wanted to know what happened. No, demanded to know. Nopony knew. And Spike was in no mood to tolerate anypony throwing accusations around. His roar shut everypony right up. And reminded them of who had the highest stakes in this.

Nopony had seen Aurora all day.

Icy sent his friends to check up on her. She had locked herself in her room. She lay on her bed, stared at the wall, expressionless. She did not come out of her room the entire day. Even when others knocked and asked if she was alright.

And with hours passing, the gravity of the events dawned on Icy as well. It manifested as a stone-cold, sinking feeling in his stomach. It had been an accident. Clearly. After Grundel had retold the story over and over and over again, asked by his friends or on his own volition, that much had become very clear.

Just an accident.

But a life had been lost.

There was no coming back from that.

Icy did not recover from his indecisiveness. When the sun started to sink towards the western horizon and the sky went through the usual colors, he dismissed his friends entirely. He would have answers tomorrow. Hopefully. Maybe. But he could not think straight, and at least he was able to acknowledge that much.

His nightmare had been inevitable.

He could not quite remember each and every detail once he came to his senses again. But he remembered the village. He remembered the voices. The seemingly endless chorus of voices. The endless stream of accusations. It was nothing like the stuff his dad usually told him. That he was too weak, too incompetent, too fragile, too soft. No, these voices played a different tune.

He was a villain.

The voices were in pain. Full of despair. And he vaguely remembered images. Pictures his mind conjured up in an attempt to make him see the full extent of his actions. A pony’s body beneath the rubble, almost unrecognizable. It was horrifying. The skull slightly dented inwards. The belly, soft and squishy, popped like a ripe melon with gore everywhere. Like mortar, smeared between the stones.

Not with a scream but a whimper he woke up. Or so he thought. But as soon as his eyes opened and he saw nothing, he knew his nightmare was not over yet. But why was he aware? Why did he know that this was a dream? Just another way of his subconscious to torture him? To keep him in this empty, endless void, so that he had nothing to distract himself with from his thoughts and memories and his rampant imagination?

He froze when a pony stepped out of the blackness. Not just any pony. Dreamwalker himself. Though his face looked strangely expressionless. He asked him the obvious questions. What. Where. Why. Who. Because surely, pretending he did not recognize Dreamwalker would serve him well here.

And it became crystal-clear that yes, this was just another part of his nightmare, another way of torture. This Dreamwalker claimed to be the grim reaper. And grim he was. Telling him of the path that lay ahead. Of his fate, now tainted. And despite knowing that this was just another figment of his imagination, he still tried to bargain with it.

Until a sudden light flashed, dark red yet bright at the same time, and with a choked yelp Icy awoke in his makeshift tent as if he had been slapped across the muzzle. He stared into the dark yet again, but it was different this time. His eyes managed to adapt somewhat to the dead of night and he could see the outlines and shapes of trees and bushes. He could hear the endless barrage of forest noises. He was wide awake — and he realized with dread that no… no, that certainly had not been part of his dream. He could not tell what it was, but this had not been a regular nightmare.

“Bad dreams?” Grundel asked.

Icy almost screeched. He stuffed his mouth with a hoof and kept himself quiet that way, though a muffled sound still made it out of his throat. “You startled me!” he replied in a mounting panic as he pulled his hoof back out. Had he been here the entire night? Watching over him? Icy shook his head. It did not matter. Not right now. “I-I need to talk to Iron Hoof,” he stated. A fraction of a second later and he grimaced. “I need to confess. Oh… oh no, he’ll be so mad…!”

Icy crawled out of his tent and started to pace again. Frantically. “They told me to keep watch, but I can’t just—… I really need to—… what if he just—…” As much as no sentence got finished, neither did his thoughts. A jumbled mess that quickly sprang from one point to the other without rhyme or reason. Ultimately, Icy landed on one sentiment that always stuck out, that never changed. The golden thread in all of this. “I need to tell Iron Hoof.”

Grundel had watched his friend spiral into his panic helplessly. Because dealing with a panicked Icy was Topaz’ job, and she was not here. He had no idea what to do. He only knew that Icy’s current ‘plan’ was terrible. “Icy, no! You can’t just—“ But he was already gone. Flapped his wings hard and flew straight into the dark forest. Probably bee-lining it towards the main camp. “—leave me here…” Grundel lamely finished. He looked in the direction his friend had stormed off in.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Icy’s return to camp was an unforeseen interruption in their plans. One Iron Hoof thought he had been equipped to deal with. Speaking from experience, plans rarely survived exposure to reality unharmed. There was always something. One had to adapt and improvise constantly. The important part was to have a plan to begin with and be able to adapt it according to circumstances.

That said, it was hard to even get the gist of it when Icy’s panicked retelling of some incident seemed to be all over the place in terms of chronological order. He also used a bunch of names Iron had never heard before. He assumed that these were some of Icy’s ‘friends’ due to context clues. But he quickly realized that the young pegasus only rambled on and on and it got worse instead of better.

It left Iron Hoof with a few minutes to ponder his options, since Icy was so keen on making excuses. It was obvious that Icy would not respond well to a military commander-tone. While he seemed to be the type who shut up immediately when such a tone was struck, it was for all the wrong reasons.

Complicating matters further, Iron had gotten to know Icy a little bit better over these past few weeks. He realized that despite his rough past, there was something beyond that hardened shell. A young colt, still searching for things every foal craved: Appreciation. Warmth. Praise. Things he had probably lacked from his parents.

And as much as Icy latched onto him in search of these things did Iron Hoof have to acknowledge that he had started to see this young one as the son he never had. Which was ridiculous, really. They knew each other for a couple of weeks, not years and years.

But they had hit it off really well.

Iron Hoof sighed. He put a hoof onto Icy’s shoulder and just as expected, the colt shut up immediately. He stared at him out of wide eyes, both fearful and hopeful. Iron Hoof accepted his fate and role with an internal sigh. “Calm down, Icy,” he told him. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Alright? Whatever it is, we can work on it. Together.”

What he had gotten from that messy report was this: Somepony died in an accident. That was tragic, sure. But ponies died all the time, as far as Iron Hoof was concerned. And they were on sabotage missions. They had to break a few eggs to make an omelet.

He would not tell that to Icy, of course. The colt was distraught enough as is and he valued life like this sacred thing that had to be protected at all cost. An admirable notion, but one horribly ill-suited for this kind of work.

He therefore came up with a simple plan. Let Icy retell the story once more, in greater detail and chronological order this time, and then present him with a couple of excuses and explanations. Nopony wanted to feel guilty. And Iron Hoof was sure that if he offered an easy way out of it, Icy would lunge for it. The colt had been through enough already, there was no need for him to suffer further.

“Listen, I want you to tell me again what exactly—“

And that was all Iron Hoof managed to get out before a bright purple light lit up the forest nearby and a few trees gave way with an audible crack. A wave of heated air blew past them in a gust of wind.

Wildfire arrived.

“What happened?!” he asked Icy the very moment he stomped out of the dense, nightly forest and into their camp. He tried to march straight up to Icy and there was an unsettling fierceness in his eyes.

That was the main reason why Iron Hoof stepped in. Literally. He stepped in between Icy and their employer. “Wildfire…” he addressed him. And he did so in a warning tone. Telling him to think before he did anything he would come to regret later. Telling him to avoid rash actions.

And indeed, the unicorn stopped dead in his tracks. He glared at Iron Hoof for a brief moment before he closed his eyes, took a couple of deep breaths and reopened them, visibly calmer than before. “What happened?” he reiterated his question. This time he addressed all three of them, but Rock successfully pretended not to be there at all and Icy was still wide-eyed and frozen, clearly expecting a beating of some kind.

So Iron Hoof took it upon himself to answer. “There has been an accident. One of Icy’s pranks went awry and it seems that one of the villagers died in the process.”

Wildfires brow furrowed. “I need the whole story.”

Iron Hoof nodded. Wildfire was calm and collected again, the request was reasonable enough — he turned to look at Icy and the colt had recovered somewhat. Enough to attempt a new explanation. So they let him give his full report once more. To Iron Hoof, it was still a marvel. Actual ghosts. A little bit creepy too, sure. But he could see the potential.

However, the old sergeant took note that Wildfire sat down on his haunches midway through the tale. And for a pony so powerful that he was left unfazed by most events, for a pony capable of keeping his cards close to his chest all the time, it was disturbing to see him shaken and visibly distraught.

“I see.”

That was all the reaction Wildfire gave at first. I see. It meant everything and nothing. It was just a bridge. To have said something while his mind drew blanks. Iron Hoof knew of course of Dreamwalkers and Wildfires budding friendship. But Wildfire had willingly employed a bunch of mercenaries for sabotage missions. And he had not been hesitant with the kind of threats he was willing to unleash to stall their progress. Surely he had been aware that this kind of outcome was possible.

“Does this change anything?” Iron Hoof dared to ask.

Wildfire shook his head absentmindedly. “No, no… not at all…” He looked up and stared at Icy, who flinched under this intense gaze. Intense and hard to read. There was a lot in his expression. However, the moment was brief and Wildfire got up again. He brushed himself off and turned his attention to Iron Hoof. “I will give you the details of your next mission soon.” And with that, he teleported away. He did not wait for any answer, he did not retreat into the forest first, he did not keep up appearances like he usually did.

It was a crack in his façade. And Iron Hoof did not like that at all. Much in the same vein he had not liked the part in Icy’s retelling when he woke up from his nightmare due to an unexplained light, because that sounded awfully like magic, like some sort of alarm spell in case of somepony snooping around in their heads. And it begged the question then: If Icy had this spell placed on him, what magic did this unicorn put on the rest of them?

He stared at the spot his employer had teleported from. He stared at it in thought for a solid minute or two, with no other sound than the constant forest noise audible. Eventually, he gave up and sighed. “This means trouble,” he offered his final verdict. The exact circumstances did not matter anymore. They — his employees — had just killed his friend. Iron Hoof had been very clear about this from the very start: These were his recruits and therefore, whatever fuckup they fabricated, he would carry that burden. Their failures were his responsibility.

And Wildfire had accepted that.

“I’m so, so sorry, Iron Hoof!” came Icy’s meek voice from behind him.

The old guard sighed quietly and braced himself. Not just for Icy’s sake. There was trouble brewing, he could tell. He turned around, put on a grin and bore it. “Don’t worry, kid. If we stick together and have each other’s backs, we’ll get through this.”

Rock just snorted. “I might. You two? You’ve just become liabilities.”

Always The Same

I woke up with a sigh, both wistful and tired. I already grimaced before I could orient myself. Every bone in my body made itself known. “I’m too old for this,” I muttered and finally cracked my eyes open. The early morning sun sent her rays all over Equestria — and right into my eyes, it seemed. I blinked a couple of times to help with the adjustment, because that totally worked like that, and my current issue was alleviated before I knew it.

Luna raised her soft wing from me. Without my blanket, the crisp morning air rushed in and made me shudder, but her wing rose to shield me from the daylight. “Too old for what?” I heard her ask.

“To sleep on the ground,” I replied and made no effort to stand up. Not just yet. But I felt her shift behind me and a moment later, I was granted the beautiful sight of her pretty cyan eyes. I smiled. “Hey there.”

Luna snickered briefly and booped my nose with her own. “Hey yourself.” She glanced around. The clearing was bathed in morning light. It was a beautiful sight, no doubt, but it was not exactly what either of us wanted. She usually spent her nights in her court, advising budding artists and dealing with the pesky nobles her sister referred to her so she may give them an earful. Daytime was sleepy-time. And it showed. While there were no bags under her eyes yet, she looked a little bit drowsy.

“Are you alright?” I asked and raised a hoof to cup her cheek.

She leaned into the gesture with a content smile. “I am fine.” I played around with the idea of pulling her closer again. Giving her a kiss, morning breath or no, but before I could come to a decision, she sighed and I knew that the moment had passed. I had missed my window. “We should get up.”

“Lots to do?” I asked. I did not wait for an answer. The question was rhetorical. We both rose to our hooves and we both grimaced. She shook herself, flapped her wings a few times, twisted her neck until a satisfying pop was heard. And I did very much the same, minus the wings. And all the while, I marveled at the clearing. It was such a pretty place. And so close to the castle. How had I never come across this place?

“Dreadful, is it not?” she asked with a hint of amusement.

I looked at her and followed her gaze up to the sky. The brightly illuminated, cloudless, daylight-bathed sky. “Eyupp. Absolutely abhorrent.”

“You just say that to make me like you,” she teased.

I chuckled and admitted as much with a vigorous nod. “Of course, my princess. Truth of the matter is, while I’m very much a night owl, I could never despise the sun. Even though she is very bright. And very warm. And oh so inconvenient at times. It reminds me too much of Sunny.”

“Does my moon remind you of me, then?” she continued her little play.

I nodded once more. “Of course. And I must admit, you do have the advantage there. I’ve been told from a trustworthy source that gazing upon the sun is kinda unhealthy. But I love to gaze at the moon. It’s almost as beautiful as its mistress.”

Luna outright laughed. “Flattery will bring you far, little one.” And she laughed a tad harder once she saw me pout. She knew I disliked being called that. I knew that with the vast difference in age and experience, there was some truth to it, but it felt awkward when I was made aware of it.

“Right, so… how do we proceed?” I switched the topic.

Her amusement dimmed down, quickly replaced by the same seriousness she demonstrated whenever we encountered a significant hostile force in the dreamscape. “I will teleport back to Canterlot. My sister needs to hear about this and we will have to… change some plans. We need time to research Wildfire’s potential reappearance.”

“Get Twilight involved. She loves research. And resurfacing villains,” I added with an uneasy chuckle.

“I will. I am truly, deeply sorry, Dreamwalker. I know you wanted to reform him by befriending him, and I am sure Twilight would be proud of your attempt, but with a foe like this, we cannot risk too much.” I sighed and found comfort in her wing as she draped it over my back. “We will prepare to face him and then do so at the earliest opportunity. As much as it pains me to say this, but this is out of your hooves now.”

I was a night guard. She was technically my commanding officer. I was obliged to agree. Though her voice made it clear that even now, she avoided talking to me as my commander. Because we were reasonable adults. Right?

I sighed. “Alright. You don’t expect him to be at the ruins anymore, do you?”

“Do you?” was all she needed to ask in return. My consideration was brief. I shook my head and my shoulders sagged a little. “Fret not, Dream. You made a good case on his behalf. We will see to it that no harm shall fall upon him. Or at least as little as we can manage.”

I shuffled half a step to the side, leaned against her and closed my eyes for a while. “Thank you.” I dreaded this confrontation. I always dreaded any confrontation. There was already so much strife and conflict out there in this world. It was a beautiful place, but it was not perfect. Nothing ever would be.

“You should not dawdle any longer,” she softly chided me after what felt like a minute, maybe two. After I started to feel drowsy again. As if I could just sleep right here, right now, standing and leaning against her.

“And what am I supposed to do?” I replied with some half-hearted defiance.

“You should return to Greenwood and explain yourself, first and foremost,” she retorted. “And once you did, it would probably be best if you checked if Dawn still remains within the confines of the ruins. Just to make sure. We cannot afford going off of assumptions.”

“Fiiine,” I relented. I distanced myself from her and she even gave me a little nudge in the right direction. However, I turned around one last time before I left the clearing. “Be wary, will you? I don’t…” … want to lose you. See you hurt. Get you into trouble. A lot of thoughts vied for attention, battled for the right to be spoken aloud. But I closed my lips. I saw it in her eyes. She understood.

And she replied with a proud and confident smile. “I will.”

I sighed, turned around and walked into the Everfree Forest. I had an apology to make, and it would be a doozy.

Had I made a beeline for Greenwood, I would have arrived in the village maybe twenty minutes later. And Luna had asked me ‘not to dawdle’. Yet I still spent almost an hour walking through the thick underbrush of the forest, listening to the incessant bird noises and the rustling of leaves due to critters scurrying around and the wind blowing through the treetops.

I labeled it a stroll, to calm my nerves and sort my thoughts. After all, I needed a plan.

Once the palisade came into view in between the gnarled trees, I slowed down further. I knew that Hefty was probably out here somewhere, chopping down trees. Then again, I had not heard a single axe hit. Maybe they took a day to mourn or something like that? The idea only made my stomach queasy.

It had been a good plan. I was willing to die fighting on that hill. But now that the consequences of said plan became reality, I became fidgety. It would be easy to avoid them. I could turn tail and run towards Ponyville. Hide under Twilight's wing. But that was cruel, was it not? And Luna would certainly not approve of such cowardly behavior. Not from me of all ponies.

These ponies were my friends. Or at least colleagues and acquaintances. Employees?

I sighed heavily and gave myself a shove. “Just do it.” And I cringed for some reason. However, it served me well enough. I took those last few steps and walked through the main entrance of Greenwood. Just to be faced with an almost entirely empty village. The only inhabitant I could spot was Spike, who seemed… bored? He leaned against the well and tried to look attentive. With moderate success.

I had already breathed in but cut myself off at the last second. Yelling across town would certainly not help my case. So I briskly trotted over to him instead. He obviously noticed my approach early on and a certain tension rose as he straightened up. “Hey Dream!” he greeted.

“Hey buddy! It’s great to see you again.” I wanted it to sound casual. But in truth, I was too relieved to not show that. So I decided: To Tartarus with it. And I hugged him fiercely. “How’s it been?” I dared to ask. Quietly.

“It’s… I mean… I don’t know? Not so good?” He was a little overwhelmed with the question, but he reciprocated the hug with equal force and that already made me feel so much better about this. And not just because I could not even hope to retreat now. There was no path left to worm my way out of this. The only option was to move forward.

“Is everyone alright? Aside from, you know…” With my head pressed against his torso, I felt a rumble in his chest. Maybe a chuckle. I hoped it was a chuckle.

“As alright as they can be, I guess? Is it over now?” he asked.

“It is.” Kind of. Not really. “Could you do me a favor and round up everypony? For a meeting in the barn?” That was the full extent of my masterplan. The genius idea I had come up with that had taken me an hour of contemplation. No procrastinating involved, nu-uh. Instead of making the rounds and explaining myself over and over and over again until eventually I would just blurt out some rehashed phrases — which would be unjust to whoever I told them to — I would do it all in one fell swoop. It would be more efficient. Albeit a lot scarier. Public speaking always was.

“Alright, yeah, sure, I can do that!” he answered with more enthusiasm than I expected. It made pretty clear that he was just as glad for this charade to be over. I could only imagine how miserable it made him feel, seeing everypony so devastated, knowing what he knew without being able to share that knowledge, without being able to relieve their pain and misery.

As Spike made the rounds from house to house, I trotted over to the barn at a brisk pace. I wanted to get out of the open space quickly, just in case anypony would come around and spot me after all. Not that I was building up to some sort of ‘big reveal’, I was no stage magician like Trixie after all. But it seemed cruel to tell somepony ‘yes, I’m alive, I will explain later so I don’t have to repeat myself’.

Once I opened the heavy wooden door to our barn-shed-storage-thingy, I slipped inside, closed it behind me and sighed in relief as I leaned against the wood. “This is going to be awful,” I stated the obvious. I looked around in hopes of finding something to hide behind for the time being, until everyone was gathered here. But the storage shed was still as empty as it had been the previous days. My only real option would have been to hide in the pile of food supplies, and that did not sound sanitary. Or advisable, given I was not about to perform a Proven Pinkie Pie Party Prank, but a sincere and serious apology and explanation.

So instead, I swallowed the bitter pill, walked to the middle of the barn, sat down on my haunches facing the entrance door and tried not to freak out as I waited.

I kept myself occupied and distracted as best as I could. I studied the wooden framework of the building and tried to compare it to one of Applejack’s barns over at Sweet Apple Acres. I tried to use my knowledge of Spike to gauge what exactly he would tell ponies to get them to come here. And I grimaced slightly when I realized that I had not been very specific in my request. Surely he would not go around telling ponies ‘hey, please come to the barn, Dreamwalker has an announcement’ or anything like that, right?

The dread rising in my chest evaporated almost instantly when I heard the hinges of the door creak. “Oh for Celestia’s sake! I oiled them two days ago! Come on!”

I was so relieved that Hefty was the first to arrive. He inspected the door for a moment longer, swung it open and closed it to repeat the motion, to figure out what the issue was. Eventually, he turned his attention away from the door, albeit with a final grumble and the muttered promise of ‘taking care of that later’. The moment he saw me, he froze in place. “Are you—“

“Not a ghost,” I assured. In truth, I had no idea what he had been about to ask. I did not know him even remotely well enough to make assumptions about that. But I figured: It would probably derail his thought process a little. Maybe help grease the situation.

“Right.” He furrowed his brow and came closer.

“Please, just… sit down for now? The others will hopefully be here soon and I—“ I was relieved once more, even more than previously, when the door opened again. I would not have to ask, it seemed. Everypony was just streaming in now, and many of them showed similar reactions to Hefty's. Stunned silence. Disbelief. Furrowed brows. I saw a glint of anger or fear or pain here or there. Things I would need to address eventually. But not right now.

They were all nice enough to not bombard me with questions immediately. Nicer than I probably deserved at this point. And with Whisper and Graphite by his sides, Spike came into the barn last and closed the door. “That would be all,” he announced.

I took stock of what I was working with. Roseluck seemed surprised. But surprise was a mild reaction to a supposed resurrection. The Doctor pointed some sort of pen or wand or other blinking doodad at me and occasionally shook it or nodded or grimaced. Derpy, due to our little excursion last night, smiled. And I was deeply grateful to see her smile. Honey was a little paler than I remembered her being, and she stared. With her mouth slightly ajar. While Hefty still stared as well, albeit in expectant silence. Spike kept himself at the back of the barn. He leaned against the door, his arms crossed before his chest. He did not smile, but he gave me an encouraging nod when he noticed my gaze in his direction. Gabby sat in the back of the throng. She stared at me out of wide, wide eyes. Aurora sat right beside her, and she seemed relieved, above all else. Her days as an actress were over, she would not need to hide from observation anymore. Periwinkle reminded me a lot of her mom. It really was like staring at Trixie, who tried to figure out the trick of somepony else so that she might be able to use it in her own shows. While Periwinkle did not have her own show, she still analyzed me, clearly suspecting some sort of trickery.

That left the three I was most worried about. Pristine sat in the middle. Attentive. With a neutral expression. Her attention wrapped. A lady does not gawk, dear! This and several other rules of etiquette echoed in my head, carried by Rarity's melodic voice. It was easy to see so much of her in her daughter.

Graphite was less pleased to see me than anypony else. She probably already put the pieces together for the most part, and she was no fan of such methods. Growing up as an Apple as much as a Pie, two families with strong ties to honesty and a certain way of dealing with secrets — it was understandable that she was miffed, at least. Even so, ‘miffed’ was a reserved reaction. Something I could work with.

Whisper however, she had probably taken this the worst. She stood still near the entrance, rooted to the spot. Despite the low lighting within the barn and the distance between us, I could see her legs tremble slightly. I could see the tears rise in her eyes. And I silently begged her: Please don’t cry! Please, please, please, don’t cry.

Silence reigned in the barn. One could have heard a needle drop. But the moment I inhaled to say anything, Whisper's wings sprung wide open and with a few surprisingly powerful flaps, she propelled herself forward. I had barely enough time to brace for impact. “Oof,” I grunted as she flung herself bodily against me. She hugged me fiercely, almost as if she was trying to squeeze the life out of me. And I felt her tears on my neck. She was silent for a few seconds before she started to spout apologies and excuses, even though she did not even try to dislodge herself.

“It’s—“ I started and cut myself off. Everyone was here. They were all staring. Waiting. Nopony moved, but they all watched. I grimaced and closed my eyes. Whisper had priority right now. “It’s fine,” I replied quietly, cutting through her seemingly endless stream of apologies. Really, she was not the one meant to apologize here. I stroked her mane, rubbed my hoof down her back and held her in a tight embrace while the trembling in her body got better and worse in tide-like waves.

It was almost too much to bear.

I had hurt her. Severely. That much became crystal-clear. Everyone in attendance knew it. And they wanted answers. They needed them. Deserved them. But Whisper would not calm down, not anytime soon. So I resigned to continue anyway, with her still firmly clinging to me. It’s fine, I told myself. They don’t mind.

“Hello, everyone,” I lamely began. “Thank you for coming here on such short notice. For coming at all, given the circumstances. And thank you again, Spike. You probably have… questions.”

“Damn right we do,” Graphite growled.

I grimaced, but moved on quickly. “I owe you an apology. I owe it to every single one of you. I lied to you. Tricked you. Tricked you into believing that I was… gone. And I am deeply sorry for the pain I caused. I know that ‘being sorry’ doesn’t quite cut it. Doesn’t fix anything. I knew this would have consequences, and… I-I accepted them. Doesn’t change that I regret having to do this in the first place.”

“You’re rambling, cut to the point,” Graphite interjected again.

“Right, sorry.” I felt so incredibly uncomfortable in my own skin. I tried to squirm around, but with Whisper still clinging to me, that was made a lot harder. “You are all aware of the uncanny events that plagued our village in recent days. Tools that constantly got misplaced. Dolls that went missing. Doors that remained open, even though they were closed. I suspected sabotage from an outside source. Spike had not found any traces on his patrol flights. And we started to suspect and blame each other. Something needed to be done before it would tear us apart. Before the tension reached a boiling point. This plan to fake my death was my idea, therefore I will take all the blame for it. Lu-I mean, Princess Luna helped me with the execution. We suspected observation of our village from an outsider and tried to instill guilt and nightmares. We managed to track the perpetrator down on the dreamscape.”

“So my axe won’t go missing again?” Hefty asked.

It was such a mundane question. It allowed me a breather and I shot him a grateful smile for that. “We managed to… dissuade the responsible party from continuing their assault.” It felt weird to tiptoe around this. But I had lived long enough to know that carelessness could have grave consequences as well. Icy seemed like a decent stallion, albeit severely misguided. I failed to see anything good resulting from me using his actual name or giving any hint as to who or what he was. The same held true for his accomplices. “We also managed to figure out that the same party was responsible for our troubles with Peter and the release of Lord Tirek from his prison cell in Tartarus.”

“So the culprit has been apprehended?” asked Doctor Whooves.

I grimaced. “Not quite yet. But now that we know a lot more about who is responsible, it is only a matter of time.”

“This sounds like a larger threat?” Aurora figured.

“It might be,” I admitted with a sigh. “There will be a proper investigation. I… I can only hope you can forgive me for this, but I assure you that I did it with the best interests of every one of you and Greenwood as a whole in mind.”

“Was this really necessary though?” Graphite cut in once more. “Had there not been any other way to figure this out?”

She really was giving me a hard time. It was her right, sure. Every one of them had the right to be royally pissed right now. But a tiny voice in the back of my head hoped that maybe, just maybe, she did it on purpose. She led the charge so nopony else would. “I will admit that… I don’t know. I’m far from perfect. I’m not as magically capable as Periwinkle here. I’m not as smart as Aurora. Not as tough as you. Or as strong as Hefty. I’m just… me. But securing the safety and future of Greenwood is my responsibility. Your safety.”

“So why did you not ask, then?” she continued. “You said it yourself. Aurora is smarter than you. So ask her for advice. Periwinkle is more powerful. Ask her for spells. And so on.”

I took a deep breath. If I was honest with myself — at this point, I clung more to Whisper than she did to me. She was tangible. She was a lifesaver. And I vaguely noticed that her own trembling had stopped at some point. Maybe she only remained because it would be awkward to dislodge herself now and take a place in the crowd, under everyone's eyes. Or maybe she remained because she felt that I could use the support.

“The issue there is twofold,” I replied to Graphite. “For one, I… I hate bothering you. I know that’s not how it works, I know I’m free to ask for help at any point, but I just… I can’t. Most of the time, I just can’t. And it’s not some macho-BS about ‘not showing weakness’. I know that I’m weak. You guys have important stuff to do. Every single one of you has a use in this project. Building homes. Designing sewers. Gathering resources. Watching over everyone. And I’m just like… a bureaucrat. This wasn’t supposed to be a whiny pity-party. This isn’t about me. I could have asked for advice and help, and maybe I should have. Had there been better ways? Maybe. But this is the way I chose.” I swallowed hard. My throat felt like it was slowly tightening up. “As for the other issue — none of you are famous actors, I assume. None of you are actors, period.”

The moment I said that, Pristine lifted an eyebrow and cleared her throat quietly. While Periwinkle had even less restraint. “Excuse me?”

I grimaced again and shook my head. “Not what I meant. You are an entertainer. A performer. But how easy would it have been for you to fake being devastated by these… news? How easy would it have been for you to make your reaction believable? Not too much, not too little? I needed to involve as few of you as I could, so the plan actually had a chance to work. If the observer had noticed anything fishy, he wouldn’t have fallen for the trap.”

Silence.

Periwinkle seemed mollified for now, or at least deep in thought discussing the question with herself. Pristine relented and let the issue drop. And everypony else seemed busy digesting the new information.

It was Whisper who eventually broke the silence. “I am just really, really, really glad that you are okay!” she quietly murmured. Yet due to the all-encompassing silence, every word was heard by everyone in attendance. She realized this and in a reaction that could have been her mom, a little squeak escaped her throat before she hid her muzzle on my neck again.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I replied.

She finally gathered the strength to pull away from me. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot. A subtle yet strong smile graced her lips. “It is fine. I understand why you did it. You wanted to help us. All of us. And that is nice.”

I had half a mind to laugh. In desperation. Or maybe because she was so unfathomably adorable. I could not tell. I instead cupped her cheeks with my hooves, angled her head downwards and kissed her forehead. “Thank you, Whisper. I just… yeah. Thank you.”

As she stepped away from me, that seemed to break the ice for the rest as well. Most of them stood up and a couple I was closer with came over to hug me.

I was forgiven.

It was such a relief. Even as Graphite came to me and almost broke my neck with the ferocity of her embrace and then glared daggers at me on short range. “If you do that again — ever again — I will hurt you. Just so we’re clear.”

I chuckled uneasily and nodded. “Understood.” It was still a marvel to me how open and free she was with me, despite her usual shyness. She would never have dared to talk to anypony else like that. She would not even talk to her own parents in such a confident way. I had every reason to feel blessed. And a little cursed, sometimes.

With that, the hardest part was done. For now. None of us wanted to dwell on the events and none of them pressed me for more details or answers. But none of us wanted to return to daily routines either. Maybe we just couldn’t. We stayed in the barn for an hour, maybe two. We mingled. Told stories. Talked. Reacquainted ourselves.

It helped me so much to calm down again.

No matter how many times this place served as the backdrop to some epic battle, spooky story or hostile invasion, a part of me always felt at home in these walls.

I left the assembly with raised spirits. Hopeful and determined was I as I stepped outside and into the intense midday sun. I bid my love a greeting and with a smile on my face and maybe even a spring in my step, I made my way over to the castle. Or what was left of it.

My stunt with the staircase really had not helped. If we continued to collapse parts of the remaining structure on purpose, there would be no structure left to speak of soon enough. Just a pile of rubble and debris. Despite the bad conscience, I remained firmly of the belief that I had done good. The plan had worked. Even if it pained me to see my home further reduced.

“Dawn?” I half-yelled as soon as I stepped through the massive main door and into the entrance hall. There was no answer of course. According to Lunas assumptions — and mine — there would be none the entire time. Everything else would be quite… interesting. And I had no plans on how to deal with it if he showed up all of a sudden.

Wildfire, the monster of legend, devourer of magic, force of devastation.

A simple ‘hi, how’s your day going?’ probably would not do.

I made my way through familiar hallways. And if I focused enough on my torn memories of previous lifetimes, I could still conjure up the distinct smell of carpet, stone, books, rain and freshly baked pie. Sans the stale air and dust I smelled now. I could still see Stardust giggling merrily as he chased after his half-sister. “Don’t run too fast or you’ll stumble and scrape your knee again,” I muttered in unison with my memory. I could hear the abundance of warmth in my own voice. Stardust looked up to me, his eyes full of awe and love — and mischief. He grinned, nodded eagerly and chased after Aurora again. Little flaps from his wings propelled him forward at impressive speeds, especially considering his age.

Wings. The Stardust I remembered from that cycle was a pegasus. ‘My’ Stardust here, he was a unicorn. It made me wonder. Years ago, my children went on this epic adventure because they could not let me go. My time to pass on had come, but they glared my advancing death straight in the eyes and refused. I distinctly remembered that one moment when Arcana and Aurora burst into my hospital room. They engaged Sunny and managed to keep her in a standstill. Because my love allowed for it. Always curious, always a puppet master. And I remembered Stardust yelling from right outside, from the hospital hallway, how he kept Twilight busy but was losing ground fast. I wondered if he would have been able to keep her at bay at all had he been a pegasus this time around.

I shook my head to free myself from the swamp of memories, only to immediately stumble into the next one.

“Long day?” her voice caressed my ear.

My throat grew a little tighter. I closed my eyes and searched for the responsible memory. “A day and a half,” I replied. “How about you?”

“I see. I am… fine,” she dodged the question.

“Be honest, my prickly princess.” I chuckled. Epiphyllum oxypetalum. Otherwise called ‘Princess of the Night’. A sort of cactus. It was not even prickly at all, but it served well as a little in-joke between us. Her night garden was beautiful. She sighed. And she sounded tired doing so. “I see,” I echoed her prior sentiment. “Well, let us retreat to our room then. Maybe take a bath, order food, maybe a massage, see what the evening holds.”

And for a brief moment, I could even feel the caress of her feathers as her wing softly stroked along my back. But that was the point where the memory ended. It did not fade out, it was just cut off. I could not remember her answer, or whatever came after. I sighed as I opened my eyes again. Now they were gone. My Luna from that cycle was nowhere to be seen, neither was there any smell of baked goods or the giggling of foals filling the air. Just a dusty, crumbled hallway again. With moth-eaten carpets.

“Dawn!” I yelled again. This time with much more force. I picked up the pace and trotted down the hallway, deeper into the ruin itself. I checked the ground floor, room by room. I knew the entire layout by heart. For all the details that changed over time and with each cycle, the layout of this castle never seemed to do so. Foyer, small kitchen, dining room for guests, large castle kitchen, storage, barracks, toilets, throne room and more. Plenty of guest rooms and bathrooms upstairs, the treasury downstairs. Which was still inaccessible due to the cave-in blocking the staircase.

So I checked upstairs. I knew Dawn settled in this one room for his work. When we first ventured into the ruins, we found his laboratory in there. Once upon a time, it had been a sort of multi-purpose chamber. Needed an additional guest room? Put a bed and some furniture in it! Needed an additional storage? Cram it full of closets, barrels and cupboards. But those times were long gone, as much as whatever wooden feature had existed in this room once upon a time. All that remained were the massive and weathered stone slab tables.

I peeked inside the room as the door stood ajar. The gap was wide enough to squeeze through without having to actually physically touch the door, because quite frankly: The wood looked deteriorated and I did not wish to be the one who finally made it crumble to dust.

“I should’ve thought this through,” I grumbled as I tried to look around in the pitch-black. I had none of my gear with me. No candles, no lanterns, no other light sources—

You are a unicorn, dumbass.

I grimaced as his voice echoed in my head. “Buck you,” I hissed back. But he was right, of course. I sighed and lit my horn.

Let there be light!

“Will you shut up already?” I listened for any defiant replies or snarky comebacks, but nothing followed. Maybe he was not in a mood to squabble right now — that was fine with me, really. I refocused my attention on the room, only to immediately gawk in surprise.

It was almost empty.

“What. The. Heck,” I muttered. I walked along an empty wall, in between empty stone tables, across an empty floor. Dawn's entire alchemical gear had simply vanished. This had been a fully stocked laboratory. It would have taken him at least—

But I cut the thought off. There was no use in it. My surprise, while genuine, was stupid. The last time I had been in this room was when we met Dawn. That had been weeks ago. Months, even. Ever since that day, we met at the upper story balcony, overlooking the castle courtyard and the village. I had asked about his research of course, about the progress of his work. On numerous occasions. And he never seemed to grow tired of talking about it. Some of that stuff I could even comprehend.

In theory, it was entirely possible that he had cleared out this room yesterday. There was no layer of dust to speak of. Which at least indicated that he did not move all his equipment right after we found him hiding in here.

And through all of this back and forth with myself, only one underlying thought seemed truly relevant to me: There was a chance that he did not lie to me. There was a certain unknown probability that he actually did research here, and that he did share his findings and progress updates with me, and that he did not pull all that stuff out of his rear.

He could do that. I knew that he had the mind and knowledge to effortlessly do that. But I wanted to trust him so badly. More than I realized, even. We were like-minded. He could understand a part of me like nopony else ever had. And I desperately wanted to keep that in a positive light, I wanted to keep him from falling from grace, from becoming the villain that he might have been in previous centuries.

There was a chance. That he had been a villain all along. That he just played me. Gaslit me. If so, I would have made for an all too easy target. What if my refusal to push him for answers, to dig deeper into his research, allowed him to proceed with his dastardly plans?

I sighed heavily. “No use in bemoaning that now,” I chided myself. I wanted to trust him. It was a decision I could make, I told myself. Have faith. I had seen glimpses of the real Dawn. Of a pony desperate for acceptance, driven by his one purpose, a goal he set out to achieve not for his own sake alone. And I wanted him to succeed. Because if he could do it… maybe I could, too?

The lab was a bust. No sense in arguing there. There was nothing left in here, no clues, no hints, no final messages ala ‘sorry, forgot to buy milk, be right back’. He sure was somewhere, but it wasn’t here. Still, I was nothing if not thorough. I exited the lab again without so much as touching that door and continued my search. My yells for his name were half-hearted at best and no answer came, just as expected. The castle ruin was empty.

So I left the castle again. After checking each and every room and not even wondering about never finding a bed or bedroll or anything that vaguely looked lived in, I just left. I walked back to town with my spirits less high than they had previously been. And I went straight home.

Once I entered our house though, I stopped. I stared at the staircase that led to the upstairs bedrooms and I briefly considered taking a nap. I sure felt like I could use one after the emotional rollercoaster that was today's morning. Plus the almost literal trip down memory lane when I scoured the ruins for my pal.

But I quickly reconsidered. There was still stuff to do, and it took me just a couple of seconds to realize what I should do next. Dawn was gone. On the loose. It was not even that relevant if he was the source of all our troubles at this point. Somepony needed to know.

I knocked at Aurora's workroom. “Come in,” her muffled voice chimed through the door.

I entered and found her at the one table we had in this entire house. And she looked tired. “Hey sunshine.”

The moment she heard me call her that, her ears perked up and she smiled. “Hey dad.”

A few steps carried me over to her and we hugged. It felt strangely invigorating, feeling her body warmth, her coat on mine, the familiar scent. Almost took me back to those seemingly ancient times when Sunny gave her to me for the first time so that I may hold her. She babbled nonsense, like all foals did. And she started to cry. Until I began to sing. It was horrible, probably. I was no singer, amateur or otherwise as I could not hold a tune. But the sound, the melody, it fascinated her. She fell quiet and listened. And soon enough, she fell asleep.

I sighed and squeezed Aurora before I pulled away again. “You look beaten. Did anything happen after I left?”

“Hm? No. No, no, everything went fine,” she replied with a sigh. “We talked a little bit more about things. Spike and I admitted that we knew already after Honey straight-up asked. I just… I think it is just the lack of sleep these days catching up with me. Those ‘incidents’ really did a number on us, more than I expected. That is weird, is it not? That something as huge as a tatzlwurm-attack can be resolved in one afternoon with nopony losing sleep over it, but let a few tools and dolls go missing and everyone is barely scraping by.”

I shot her a wry smile and nodded. “Sure, tatzlwurms are totally harmless.”

“His name is Peter,” Aurora reiterated with a thin smile.

I chuckled in response and nodded. “I will admit, that does take the edge off somewhat. Oh nooooo, here comes… Peter. It’s a bit anticlimactic. Anyway, you should probably take a nap. Whatever you’re working on can surely wait an hour or two.” I tried to peek at her desk, but only saw yet another blueprint. Maybe a house, maybe the sewers, maybe something new. I was incapable of deciphering these technical drawings.

“No, I cannot really sleep now,” she replied and sighed. “But I might go for a walk. That is actually a good idea. Maybe I can visit Graphite, distract her a little. She seemed…”

“Angry?” I offered as Aurora gestured with her hoof in an uncertain manner.

“No. Exhausted?” she countered.

I furrowed my brow and considered that. But it made sense, I concluded. She was not used to the spotlight. She did not like leading positions. Yet she had taken charge in a rather aggressive manner when I showed up to apologize. Maybe that had worn her down. Or it was just another side effect of these past days, similar to Aurora's current state. “Whatever she may be, it’s a good plan,” I agreed. “Go play outside, my little princess.”

She grimaced slightly, but giggled anyway. “Maybe I am too old to be sent outside ‘to play’.”

I grinned from ear to ear and she already braced for the inevitable. “You are ‘too old’ once you introduce me to a nice stallion — or mare, I don’t care. At that point, I might consider letting you off the hook. Until then, off you go!”

“Daaad!” she whined in an overly dramatic manner, now fully embracing the cringe. And she immediately started to squeal once I lit my horn and tickled her through. After all, I knew all her spots. And it made her flee the scene faster than I anticipated.

I still chuckled a few seconds after she had already left, then grabbed the door and closed it. “Right. Now I have her workroom for myself. My master plan worked, mwahahaha.”

Was that supposed to be your villain-laugh?

“It’s called a ‘mockery’, Void. You wouldn’t understand,” I answered with much less snark than I would have liked. Because I was a self-restrained pony, and the bigger of us. Figuratively speaking.

I quickly took stock of what I was working with. To my relief, everything I needed was already present: Inkwell, quill, paper. So I grabbed a new page, carefully put Aurora's plans to the side and started writing my letters. The first one quickly turned out to be more of a ‘note’ than an actual letter.

Hey Twi!

I hope you’re doing okay? How’s Ponyville been in my absence?

I suspect Luna kept you in the loop about Dawn. I don’t know how ‘up to date’ you are, but basically… turns out things might be worse than we initially thought and maybe he’s this ancient evil. Honestly, I don’t believe that, but as Luna said: If there is even a chance for this to be true, we cannot afford to risk it. We’re not doing anything rash, of course. At least I hope Luna doesn’t.

But I’m basically just writing to you to let you know that he’s gone. Luna already assumed as much, as did I. I will inform Aurora and Spike about things later on. If you have any brilliant ideas left for this mess — now would be a good time.

That said… I miss you, peanut. I miss home. I miss the castle and the endless library-hallways. It’s strange, really — I even miss Spike, even though he’s here. But it’s different. He’s different. Out here in the wild, he has to be this decently serious protector, defender of the village. The safety of so many lies on his shoulders. And he takes it on with vigor and responsibility. It’s great to see him tackle this task, don’t get me wrong. But I sometimes miss my dorky buddy and his silly comics.

I can’t wait to come home.

With love, Dreamwalker.

I stared at the note for what felt like several minutes. I knew it would not get any better. I knew that. Yet the urge to change things was still there. To grab a new page, write a second letter, a better one. But that was just the thing: Maybe it would be better. Maybe. But it would never be good enough. And that was the issue I constantly struggled with, whenever I took up the quill to write something. I had written so many silly love poems for my spouses over the years. Fairytales for my foals. Even the odd birthday card. But I always struggled to let it be. To accept the current result. To avoid meddling with what I already had.

The thirst for improvement, for nothing short of perfection, was unquenchable.

I gave myself a nudge, rolled the letter up after the ink dried and put it aside. I would ask Spike later to send it. This one, and the next one.

To my oasis in the desert.

This is how you start a proper letter, right? Look at me, being old-fashioned and writing letters and stuff.

How have you been, love? I haven’t seen you for months now. I think of you daily. With each dawn and each sunset. I feel your lights touch on my coat and it makes me miss your actual touch. Memories of seeing you smile can only tie me over for so long. And my heart aches to return to your side.

I’m sure ‘your little ponies’ kept you busy. Day Court was probably a blast. In the sense that you secretly would have wished you could just blast the cheeky nobles out the next window. Alright, maybe not, that’s more a Lu-thing. You want them to understand. To learn and be respectful, considerate of the needs of others. Which they still often refuse.

And I can see you slink down the hallways, from your throne room to your study. You would hold your head up high, proud and regal, of course. But on some days, you’re just tired. You sit down on your desk, and you face your second mighty adversary of the day — the mountain of paperwork that never ceases to grow.

I like to think that sometimes, you stop. You idle and play around with the quill. You look out the window and daydream a little. Just for a short while. A brief respite you allow yourself. You gaze into the blue sky, track the fluffy white clouds lazily floating high above. Maybe you open the balcony door, let some fresh air in.

I would love to inject myself into so many parts of your daily routine. Or maybe I should say: I would love to do so again. To accompany you from your throne room to your study. Maybe keep you company for a while. Maybe distract you a little if the mountain isn’t too high that day.

I miss you.

When I close my eyes, I can still sense you. Your scent in my nose. Your lips on my neck.

Greenwood is doing well so far. I think this is the first time I actually give you a proper status update, isn’t it? I’m so sorry. There’s just been… there’s been a lot going on. Maybe you heard some of it from Luna. We had to deal less with timberwolves than I would have expected, and in retrospect… I’m not sure, maybe the timberwolves would have been easier to deal with.

We are currently thirteen members. Bad number, ey? Doctor Whooves is here. You probably heard of him from Twilight. He supplies us with machinery. Made a weather control device that Derpy can strap to her back to fly around and deal with the feisty Everfree clouds. He also contributed Kaleb, some sort of robot-thingy that helps Roseluck with our field. I should probably ask her about how things are going. The crops look good and I assume our first harvest should occur sometime soon. We should totally celebrate that. Somehow.

Honey and Hefty are our carpenters. They are currently still busy with building houses, but at some point soonish, they want to start with actual furniture. I’m writing this letter on the only table this house has. I think we have, like, five tables in all of Greenwood or something like that.

Graphite has her quarry near town. Spike and Gabby ensure that everyone stays safe. Periwinkle keeps morale up with magic shows. Pristine moved here. Officially to ‘ensure that her investment is treated well’. But she’s really just chasing Whisper's tail. Whisper, right. Our local wildlife-whisperer. We have a tatzlwurm living nearby. His name is Peter. It’s a long story.

That’s just it. These are all long stories. There’s already so many of them. I would love to tell them. To you especially. We could sit down in front of the fireplace, open a bottle of wine, have some grapes to go along with it. We could laugh together. Cuddled up under a blanket.

I’m constantly trying to stave off the urge to just… go. Go back. Go home. And I’m chiding myself: Stop being so clingy. It’s not the end of the world, you’re not gone for good. It’s just… a couple of months, before everything settles and you can return to your normal life.

Greenwood needs to be there. Always. In every cycle. This, right now, it needs to be done. It needs to get done. But it’s just… it’s hard. And I’m whining. Well, you know me. And for whatever reason, you still said yes. Silly you.

I love you.

You know that, right? Well, it bears repeating anyway. I love silly old you. With every fiber of my being. I love how you could lecture me on the finer points of tea culture for hours. I love how frazzled your mane looks in the morning, before you tame it with a brush. I love that I get to see that, and barely anypony else does. I love how you always strive to achieve the best for everypony. I love that I could go on and write page after page full of all the things I love about you.

But despite the current tenor, this wasn’t really meant to be a love letter. I just can’t really help myself.

I mentioned some ‘issues’. And you’re well-aware of the Tirek-incident. And I already mentioned Peter, who was slightly grumpy when he wasn’t allowed to sleep. Somepony is stalling our progress. Sabotaging us. Keeping us at bay. I’m not even entirely sure how to label this. Luna might have told you about Dawn, or maybe she kept it to herself for now. I don’t know. She told me she would talk to you. And now that things seem to be a bit more serious, maybe she actually does. She does tend to try on her own, doesn’t she?

Dawn might be Wildfire. Apparently a name you are supposed to be familiar with. I already informed Twilight, to a certain degree. Asked her for advice. For any super-smart ideas. Heck, I’ll even take the regular-smart ones. If you have any input, please share.

I think he’s my friend. I would very much like him to be my friend. And over these past weeks and months, I think we grew closer together. I honestly, sincerely think that he sees me as his friend as well. You know how I am. I have this… this gut feeling. Things are heading to a point. A climax of sorts.

Gosh, I hate adventures.

This wasn’t intended as a farewell-letter either. And don’t worry, I have absolutely zero intention of never seeing you again. It’s just that… I can feel that something big is coming. And halfway reasonable as I am: That scares me. I don’t think you have much to worry about in Canterlot. These recent events were all focused on Greenwood. Heh, we’re finally giving Ponyville a break, I guess.

Just… stay safe, is what I was trying to say. I don’t think you have reason to worry, but stay safe. Please.

You know, writing this, I smiled more than I did the entire last day. Or week. My cheeks ache. I can’t wait to sit down with you and tell you aaall about the nonsense I did out here in the wilds.

With love, Dreamwalker.

I sighed wistfully and rolled up the second letter as well. I rambled a lot in it, and I could have gone on forever and ever. But that was not the point. I needed to write this as much as I assumed she needed to read this. To tie us both over. A couple of months — that has been the longest period we had been separated since… ever.

With my letters written, I grabbed them and left Aurora's workroom. It turned out to be good timing, as she returned from her stroll and we ran into each other at the front door. She shot me a crooked smile. “Out for a walk yourself?”

“Aye! Ye old dad got a fine bounty he needs his matey to smuggle to me voluptuous lady!” I had no idea where the sudden urge to speak pirate-ish came from, but seeing how Aurora cringed and snickered was worth it.

“I do not wish to know anything about your… your lady!” she hastily stated.

“Yer mom’s got a fiiine booty, me lad!” I teased and I immediately broke out in uproarious laughter when Aurora quickly trotted past me, her horn lit and her magic stuffed in her ears, singing ‘la la la la la, can’t hear you!’

It. Was. Glorious.

Once outside, I quickly spotted Spike and asked him to send the two letters to their respective recipients. I also asked him to come by our house later this evening for a super-secret conspirator-meeting.

I tried getting some work done after that, but nothing really stuck with me. Or I did not stick with everything in particular. I basically just walked around town, looked at things, talked to ponies, asked Roseluck about Kaleb and the field and still forgot to ask about the harvest. In the end, I did exactly what Aurora had teased me about: I took a walk.

By nightfall, most of Greenwood was either asleep in their homes or busy mingling and socializing at Periwinkles place. Except for Aurora, Spike and myself. Cooped up in our house, I asked them to stick around for a while. I did not expect this conversation to take all that long. So I summarized the entire Dawn-debacle one more time. In excruciating detail.

“Graphite was right in that regard,” I concluded my monologue. “I should have asked for help waaay sooner. But I didn’t. I should have asked for your advice, instead of just keeping you in the loop to spare you the grief. I’m telling you all of this because I… I’m not sure if you can help, this time around. If you can, I’d love to have your help. Dawn is somewhere out there. I want you to stay sharp and alert. We don’t know what will happen next, but… with how things went down on the dreamscape, there’s a high likelihood that we pushed him. The one thing I never wanted to do. I always hoped he would trust me someday, that he would eventually confide in me. Guess we’re past that point. Anyway — his lab is as gone as he is. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of stallion to give up when faced with a roadblock or setback. He’s too determined. Whatever’s coming next, it will be quick.”

I knew that I was not exactly making Spike's job any easier. And neither of them had any immediate ideas springing to mind that would solve all our issues. Mostly because right now, it was not even that clear what our remaining issues were. Aurora eventually proposed the use of magic to find Dawn, but most spells used for locating creatures required something of that creature. And we had nothing. Arcana might have been able to alter such spells to fit our purposes, and maybe she would have been able to make these adjustments within a couple of days — but I was not sure if we had days, and Arcana was busy in Canterlot. I was unsure if we could afford to leave Greenwood at such a critical time. My gut feeling told me it was all hooves on deck or we would suffer for it.

So when Spike left with the promise of keeping his eyes peeled, it was the best I could hope for, currently. I bid Aurora a good night and retreated upstairs, with unease, uncertainty and anticipation brewing in my mind.

I felt decidedly odd as I woke up again. In my daze, I failed to comprehend what caused this perception. So instead of getting up and out of bed, I lay still and stared at the ceiling as minutes trickled by. I thought about all and nothing, my drowsy thoughts meandering aimlessly. But the haze did not disperse. A more mundane impulse finally urged me to get my day started as my bladder refused to keep quiet any longer.

“Ugh… fine,” I muttered as I finally rose to my hooves. The immediate plan was simple: Grab my things, go to the river, dunk my head in. Hopefully that would wake me up and disperse whatever this odd feeling was.

So I did just that. I went and grabbed the stuff I needed for my morning routine — toothbrush, towel, soap — and went downstairs. However, I stopped in confusion the moment I opened the door as I found Spike leaning against the house's wall right next to the entrance.

“Uhm… mornin’?” I greeted in an involuntary Applejack-impression.

“Oof, that sounds rough… you okay?” he asked in reply. After he chuckled. Because looking at me was amusing, it seemed. Maybe my mane was disheveled? More than it usually was? Or maybe my coat was ruffled? Bags under my eyes?

I sighed and stopped questioning what was wrong with my appearance. What did it matter anyway? “Maybe,” I answered. “I don’t feel like I slept at all.” And then all of a sudden, the riddle was solved. I slept. While I could not remember any particular details about any dreams I might have had, there was no doubt left that I had dreamed. Because I had slept. Though without my input, without my decision. I had wanted to dreamwalk, to confer with Luna. Why had I not been able to access the dreamscape? How odd. Maybe I did something wrong? This had never happened to me before. Not in fifty years in this life, or in any other as far as I could remember.

“Dreamwalker?”

Spike's voice cut through the thickening haze. “Huh?” I looked up and he furrowed his brow in apparent concerns for my well-being. “Nah, I’m fine,” I finally answered his question. “Just a little… you know, confused, tired, something along those lines. I wanted to talk to Luna last night, but something went wrong with my dreamwalking.”

“Maybe you needed the sleep,” Spike guessed.

It was hard to tell what messed me up. This theory of his was as good as any other and if I gave it just a teensy-tiny bit of space, I would be able to come up with a dozen more of my own. It did not matter, I decided. I would simply shift my plans to next night. “Maybe. How are you? Any particular reason you seem to be waiting for me?”

He pulled a scroll with a familiar purple wax seal from behind his back and grinned as he offered it to me. “I’m not used to playing the mail-mare role. This came about an hour ago. I thought it could probably wait until you were awake.”

I grinned and took the letter in my telekinesis. “Thanks, buddy.” A brief hug later and I continued on my way towards the river while Spike assumed his usual position, more central in the village square.

Once I reached the river shore, I gave the scroll another glance. It seemed surprisingly heavy for a letter. And the parchment would certainly not survive contact with water. So I sat down on my haunches a good distance away from what I hoped would finally relieve me of my perturbed state of being and broke the seal to read her note.

Twilight's letter was brief. A note, truly. With simple instructions included. The weight of the letter was finally explained as a single firework rocket was wrapped up in it. “In case of emergency,” I reread the line of her letter for the third time. I blinked a couple of times and stared at the rocket. It took me a minute or two to understand how that thing would help. It only made sense if Twilight was somehow monitoring the Everfree Forest. Specifically the airspace above Greenwood.

I vaguely hoped that I did not throw her into panic mode with my letter and that she did not just reschedule all her plans to cling to her telescope. Whatever the case may be, there was little I could do about it right now. So I put her letter down and acknowledged with a sigh that it clearly had been written by somepony just as drowsy as I currently was. It read very business-like. And I tried not to let that get to me.

I brushed my teeth in a stupor. And once I was done with that, I cautiously stepped into the shallow water along the shore. It felt like ice, sapping all warmth from my hooves. Little needles pricking my skin. “Here goes nothing.” I plucked up my courage, took a deep breath and dunked my head in the water. As soon as the liquid ice surrounded my head, I slowly exhaled, focusing entirely on my breathing as the effect I had noticed on my hooves recurred tenfold as strong.

Whatever drowsiness remained was utterly annihilated.

Once my lungs were empty, I held my breath for a couple of seconds longer. I felt and heard the water rush past. I listened to the gurgle of the river. And once my lungs started to scream for air, I raised my head again and eased their burn with a fresh inhale.

“That’s more like it,” I commented and shook my head, inevitably smacking myself with my dripping wet mane. I chuckled briefly and sighed. I felt ten times better now. Ready to tackle the day.

So I made a new plan. Some work in the forge would probably do me good. A return to normalcy. Slipping back into familiar routines like a pair of well-worn horseshoes. I grabbed Twilight's letter and disregarded the whole impersonal touch as just Twilight reading while sleep-deprived and probably answering in much the same state. Maybe she did another all-nighter. With both Spike and me absent, there was nopony to stop her. I wondered if she even ate decently.

My letter and rocket floating behind me, I trotted over to the smithy and shoveled a bunch of coal into the furnace. Once the fire was up and running, I went inside and checked up on my supplies. I still had plenty of iron ore left, and a bunch of bars of more refined quality. The molds were ready as well. I wanted to grab the hammer and go back outside to the anvil, but something made me hesitate.

It’s crooked, I noticed. Like a painting on a wall that was nudged by accident after years and years of hanging there. The hammer hung on the wall in a specific place, in a specific manner. The head was held up by two nails in the wall. One on each side of its handle. Said handle was meant to point downwards in a straight line. Straight as an arrow. Perfectly vertical.

But it’s crooked, I reiterated for myself. The reason was easy to explain. The hammerhead had a little curve to it. It was not a perfect, rectangular block. The thing was: I hung it there perfectly. Because I always made sure that it pointed downwards. Exactly downwards.

It was a silly little detail. Nothing any sane pony would get hung up over. It was nothing, probably. And yet despite this, I found myself venturing down a surprisingly deep and dark rabbit hole as I could not stop myself from dissecting this oddity.

Icy was gone. I was pretty sure about that. But there was a chance that he did not flee after all. I merely assumed that he freaked out and left. And nopony else ever came into the smithy. They stopped by to say hello and chitchat a little, to dawdle away a few minutes as a breather in between tasks. But none of Greenwood's inhabitants ever went into the smithy. There was just no reason for it.

Then why is it crooked?, I kept asking myself.

And the longer I stood there and pondered that question, the more the odd feeling resurfaced. As if it had never truly been gone, merely suppressed. Hidden. Hiding. The longer I engaged this odd sensation, the more I prodded and poked it, the better I understood.

I felt watched.

As if somepony was staring at me from the corners. I slowly felt the hair of my coat bristle and rise as I managed to creep myself out. I even took half a step back, as if the hammer would spring to live and bash my head in any second now. But it just hung there. Crookedly. This was wrong. All of this felt wrong. And I was starting to panic.

This could be a dream.

Rare was the instance that I was grateful to hear his voice in my head. But it truly helped. I felt less alone, less by myself. And he did make a good point. What if none of this was real? I had half a mind to call out for Luna. Maybe she sent me here, maybe there had been an incident on the dreamscape? Maybe this was not even my dream. It opened up Pandora’s box again, which I had managed to close years ago: The whole struggle with reality and what was and wasn’t real and how nothing could ever be truly proven to be real.

But before I could actually make any noise, he offered another thought.

However, there’s only ever been one kind of situation when we felt like this.

My half-opened mouth immediately snapped shut. And I stared at that hammer with a changing mix of emotions. Fear of the unknown slowly morphed into dread. Dread and anger.

Changelings, I replied to his theory. My eyes scanned the room in a futile attempt to make out anything else that was not quite how it was meant to be. If this was a dream, breaking it would maybe attract Luna to my position. Help her find me, make her aware of my predicament. However, if this was real and his second theory turned out to be true, then I had an entirely different can of worms to deal with. Changelings never worked alone. There were always multiple, there was always an entire hive to deal with, a queen behind it all, a plan, a scheme, an end goal.

Shall we see how bad it is?

His offer was more enthusiastic than I would have liked it to be. He was looking forward to finding out. He wanted there to be a dozen changelings. So that I needed him again. So that I would have reason to unleash him again. To give him control and let him… play. I grimaced and inspected my smithy once more. Nothing else caught my eye. Nothing else stuck out. Just the gosh-darn crooked hammer. Maybe it was nothing. It was just a silly, crooked hammer. But for Celestia’s sake, it was crooked!

And I needed to know.

“Do it.”

I could feel it. I could feel the cold void rise up from the depths, along with him. I braced myself, dug my hooves into the ground as he added his strength and magic to my own. I shuddered due to the sudden cold that started to creep through my body. And I felt him channel his magic into my horn, amplifying this otherworldly coldness.

Like frost in winter. Rime spread from my hooves and covered more and more surface areas inside the smithy. It was a good thing then that the forge itself was an outside attachment to the building. The fire heating up in that would have made this part so much harder. But I understood what he was going for. He pumped more and more magic into my horn, the cold grew more intense by the second and the ground itself started to freeze solid.

If any changelings were hiding in here, they would have to deal with the cold as well. And maybe that would make them reconsider their life choices. Or at least give any indication to their number and location.

I watched as the rime covered the items in the room and started to move up the walls. It crawled over the barrels full of acid, it crawled over the crates full of coal and ore. It covered the tools I had put in here as a sort of storage shed. I started to see my own breath in ragged bursts of vapor as the air cooled considerably. It was almost winter-like now and it really got uncomfortable. I had no idea how changeling perception worked, exactly. If they assumed the shape of a crate and they got the perception of a crate. How does a crate see, after all — it had no eyes, right? But that was magic, so everything was possible, in theory.

And just as I was about to ask him to stop, just as I considered this to be a dream or something else entirely, several of the items started to jitter. The shovel in the corner behind me. I heard its blade clickety-clack on the ground as it trembled. One of the coal crates. And the gosh-darn crooked hammer.

Void still pumped magic into the room, decreasing the temperature further and further and it slowly got to the point where it started to actually hurt. “Void, you can stop. I think they got the message.”

No. You know how bugs are. There’s only one way they ‘get the message’.

I sighed with a trembling breath. Luckily, his defiance did not come unexpectedly. I wrangled control from him with ease and took over again. He was banished back to the void like a petulant foal, screaming and kicking about my mistakes, about how I was too soft and weak of will. No, Void. Call it whatever you like. I’m not a murderer. I was better than him. The loss of life was irreversible. And while accidents happened, while circumstances sometimes prevented someone's survival — the intent of killing was abhorrent.

And I tried to tell myself that while my disgust and hatred for these creatures remained insurmountable.

Green flames licked across the surfaces of the three items. And within the blink of an eye, they transformed back into their natural shapes. Jetblack exoskeletons. Insectoid wings. Crooked horns. Holey legs. Bug eyes. Fangs. And a forked tongue they hissed at me with.

“You’re pretty pissed for someone who’s been caught trespassing,” I chided them. But they did not answer. They merely sidestepped. And I quickly realized why. They encircled me. As best as they could with three drones.

Many, many years ago, I told Twilight about the Everfree Forests hive. I knew of its existence because I had been there. In numerous cycles. And every time, my visit was part of some sort of rescue mission, rampage or revenge trip. Twilight wanted to change that. She almost desperately wanted to help me overcome my animosity towards these creatures.

Filthy bugs!

Not helping, I chided Void. As far as I knew, she took the location I told her and just straight up marched into their hive. Because that was Twilight Sparkle, my little peanut. Confident in the power of friendship. And diplomacy. And international understanding.

When she returned, I was half-done with my preparations to follow her and burn down their entire hive had they even harmed a single hair on her head. It was fine, of course. Because she did not fail. She did not get captured. From what she told me, they had been more scared of her than she had ever been of them. The Everfree hive remained hidden because they stuck to rules. They never left the Everfree Forest. They survived on a diet of cave-grown mushrooms and wild animals. They never engaged or captured ponies. They avoided making their presence known. And according to Twilight, Queen Forsestri was a wise and clever ruler. Once the hive was discovered, she realized that there was no point in hiding anymore. They had been found once. Their presence was known. Relocating the hive would not solve this issue. And caught between the options to either attack and fight an unwinnable battle or trod down the path of diplomacy like Twilight offered, she chose the latter.

Wise indeed.

However, they were firmly set in their ways and saw little reason to deviate from it more than necessary. They had decently well-established diplomatic relations with Canterlot these days, but I knew of nothing else that ever came of this. After the initial contact was made, they were simply happy to do their own thing. They did not mind being left alone entirely, either. Maybe they even hoped Equestria would somehow just forget about them.

The issue now was: These drones in front of me, they were different.

First of all, my gosh-darn hammer had been crooked. These guys were crappy infiltrators. If that was the quality they usually displayed, it was a miracle that they managed to stay hidden for so long. Because Forsestri told Twilight that they had been here in this forest even before ponies came to this land.

Also, they looked nothing like the drones Twilight described. She told me they looked more ant-like, with antennae on their heads in addition to their horns. These three were the run-of-the-mill changeling drones. They were aggressive, they refused to answer me even though I knew perfectly well that they were at least capable of speech and they resorted to hissing and cackling instead. And they grinned at me with malicious intent.

Their presence here could mean many things. Could imply many things.

Maybe the Everfree hive was finally fed up with this whole ‘diplomacy’-thing. Maybe they bred a new caste of drones just for combat. Maybe this had nothing to do with the Everfree hive at all. Maybe another hive expanded their territory and tried to gain a foothold in this forest. Maybe the Everfree hive had been taken over by another queen. Too many options to count and account for.

All I could tell for certain was that their behavior made crystal-clear that this was indeed an attack. Originally planned as an ambush, I assumed.

“Alright,” I sighed. “And here I thought I could get old and rusty in peace. Fine, have it your way. Let’s dance!” I saw them prepare to pounce. Changelings always were a problem for Greenwood. In every single cycle, there was always some sort of changeling-related issue. I knew them. Better than I knew my own kind. I could read their body language. I saw that tiny flutter of their wings. How their joints bent just a little. They prepared to strike — and I prevented that by attacking preemptively.

While I charged forward, I focused on the magic line connected to me. I gave it a solid tug and summoned my gear to me. My night guard armor landed on my back, my helmet on my head, my sword in my telekinetic grip. I was fully geared up by the time I met the drone right in front of me head-on. Literally.

And I grinned grimly due to the vision of me transforming midair. It probably looked wicked as Tartarus.

The drone before me had not been ready. I smashed into it and gave it a solid push, putting it off-balance. I used that to push it back further until it reared up on its hindlegs and struggled to keep itself from toppling backwards. Until it was against the closed door of the smithy.

Perfect, I concluded. It was a matter of fractions of seconds. I charged my horn, grabbed the rocket and galloped forward. I hit the changeling square in the chest. One attempt was not enough though. It turned out that it was not as easy to smash a door as books made it seem. A second attempt was all I got, I knew that. If that failed, then the other two drones would be all over me. So I gave it my all and was relieved, so incredibly relieved that the door opened outwards. It probably would not have yielded to my assault otherwise.

As it were, the lock snapped and the door sprang open, both the drone in front of me and myself tumbling out of the smithy. “Changeling attack!” I yelled at the top of my lungs as soon as we came to a stop. I did not care for the currently dazed drone beneath me. I snapped my head around, quickly lit the firework rocket in the forges fire and held it stable and upright until the propelling charge made it swoosh high into the air.

“Changeling attack!” I yelled again as the rocket exploded overhead and I knocked the drone beneath me out with a well-placed hoof smack. And the very moment the other two drones from the smithy tackled me, I saw them.

Dozens and dozens of green lights, flame bursts. In all the houses. Around them. On top of them.

Here we go again!

Interlude: Velvet Dusk

With one last sweep, he was done. He stared at the wall, the shelves full of trophies, some more grisly in nature than others. His gaze wandered to the side, to the massive hoard of treasures of various kinds. A satisfied nod and he placed the duster back where it belonged. The massive ostrich feathers made it difficult to wield the thing properly, but it clearly was not meant for a unicorn of his size. Any creature of his size. Nevertheless, as far as he could tell there was little in this world that could not be fixed with a generous application of magic and intellect.

He turned his attention back to the firepit. He had given up on calling it a ‘stove’ long ago, because quite frankly, it was too primitive to be labeled as such. A bunch of rocks as a border for the layered wood inside, a cauldron jacked up on top. He did not mind the simplicity. In his first months here, it actually served to enhance the thrill of this adventure, this new life. And now, years later, just looking at the dreadful cauldron filled him with a sense of nostalgia and fondness. Oh, how often she had jested to put him in there and make a tasty stew out of him.

He chuckled as he walked over to the bubbling cauldron. A small wooden spoon floated over, gripped by his magic. Yet another taste test, because he wanted this broth to be perfect. He did not even flinch. Not anymore. The soup had been merrily bubbling away for hours now, the meat was most certainly tender. And the taste was not uncommon on his tongue anymore. While he did not eat any meat himself for obvious reasons, it had proven difficult to stick to an entirely vegetarian diet throughout. The Dragonlands offered so little in terms of edible vegetation. And really, it was just about habits. One could get used to the taste of meaty broth. Tolerate it, at least.

Another pinch of salt, a few freshly grounded pepper corns and he deemed it perfect. Any more meddling would threaten to overcorrect the aroma.

His gaze traveled towards the entrance. He saw specks of white lazily drifting by. The occasional gust of wind blew inwards, ruffled his mane with impotent force. The blue of the sky lured him there. So, with a sigh and a smile, he put the spoon back down and walked towards the mountain ledge. He sat down right at the edge, overlooking a massive expanse of land.

It was rough out here. Everything was oversized, it seemed. The dragons themselves included, lords and ladies of this hostile environment. Their prey was enormous. The food of their prey too. The mountains. The valleys. The rivers. The lava pools. Everything was gigantic. And he was just a small unicorn, an ant lost in between towering behemoths.

It made him chuckle.

But soon enough, his brow furrowed again. He had tried to stave off the intrusive thoughts as long as he could, but it was time to face facts: She was running late.

His eyes scanned the sky for familiar swirls in the clouds. She loved to play around with them, to draw little pictures in them, or burst through them, leaving a hole in the middle. She played, she said. She was an artist, he countered. She snorted and ruffled his head and he tried his best to tackle her. It always ended the same.

A grateful smile played on his lips, even as his eyes failed to see any trace of her. His love was a powerful beast, more than capable of looking after herself. There was no reason to worry. And just as he pondered reiterating that to himself, she appeared.

Her sleek body moved with grace across the sky, her deep blue scales reflected the sun like a sapphire. She spotted him, he assumed. Because she went into a dive, her magnificent wings tucked closer to her body as she picked up speed. She was trying to scare him, he could tell. And it made him grin in defiance. He braced himself. Sat down with intent. Kept his hooves in check. But once she came too close, his instincts still triggered and he shuffled back a few inches, until his rump hit the mountain wall.

And she landed with a very satisfied grin on her snout. “Made you flinch!”

He chuckled. “You did.” He had pride in spades, much like her. But his pride was not threatened. Not now, not by this — not by her. She lowered her head and he brushed his cheek against hers, felt the familiar heat in her snout, the rough texture of her scales. “Welcome home, gem.”

The usual reply… went missing. It was the second instance telling him that something was amiss. Not only was she late, she growled. He could feel it in their brief touch, even if she clearly tried to keep it hidden. A deep, dissatisfied rumble in the back of her throat that she failed to swallow back down.

She picked up on the fact that he had noticed and quickly scanned their cave for a distraction. “You were dusting the place?”

But he kept silent. Watched her. The subtle flexes of her muscles. How every couple of seconds, when she kept her snout shut, her teeth grinded a little. How her wings never quite seemed to come to rest. He looked back at the cave, followed her gaze. The place looked immaculate. Because he kept it clean and in order. His love was not messy per se, but they clearly had different standards for calling something ‘tidy’.

He allowed himself a smile for a brief moment. He never expected to adapt so well to domestic life. He never expected to end up as the house stallion when he set hoof on that ship so many years ago. Or to live in a cave of all things. But the reminiscing was clearly what she intended to conjure up, so he resisted and turned his attention to her. “You are upset,” he finally dared to state the obvious. Another low growl was her response, this time even audible. “Eclipse, please. Tell me.”

Gem — short for gemstone — was such a nice pet name. But it did not fit the situation. And she immediately recognized his concerns and care for her well-being when he used her name. It was disarming in a way she could not easily defend against. Her claws dug into the solid floor, leaving deep gouges as the stone yielded to her might. Fume rose from her nostrils and her wings flared again, displaying their beautiful night sky-pattern as she struggled to keep a lid on her anger. “He asked for our support,” she spat. “Again.”

It was a start. He knew that. He managed to make her talk about it, and from here on out, it would run its course. The dam was already broken. So instead of saying anything, he merely walked over to the kitchen area, making her subconsciously follow him. Albeit not too close. After all, her temper could be ridiculously volatile at times and he spent hours perfecting that meal.

“No,” she continued, picking up speed as she started to rant. “Actually, scratch that! He demanded our support this time!” She slammed her claw down in outrage. He very much preferred that. While it made the ground tremble a little, at least it did not leave gouges he would have to fix later somehow. “You should have heard him, Velvet! It was all ‘burn his enemies with the might of the sun’-this and ‘maybe stars are good for something too’-that!” Her tail whipped from side to side in agitation. “I could tear his throat out!” she hissed.

He grimaced. The use of names was special to them. Maybe that was a general couples-thing, he could not tell. He never talked much to other ponies about their love lives and this was the first time he actually tried to make such a social construct work at all. The first time he pursued someone in earnest. For her to use his name, despite how cute and affectionate she acted on any other day? This was bad, clearly.

He knew what she was ranting about, of course. It just did not quite add up yet. “What about your sister?” he asked. No matter how low said sister's opinion of him was, he accepted that they were close and cared for each other deeply. He had an easy arrangement with her. He did not bother her unnecessarily, and she did not try to talk her sister out of this ‘soft-hearted nonsense’, as she called their relationship.

Eclipse only flared her wings further, a roar even escaped her throat as the outrage mounted. “Flare is half the reason I am this angry in the first place!” Her voice, while not quite a yell yet, still reverberated throughout the room. “She thinks she can just negotiate her way out of any tight spot! But there is no reasoning with this tyrant anymore! His greed will devour the whole world and set aflame whatever puts up even a modicum of resistance.”

She was close to losing control. Velvet realized that, but Eclipse did not. He stepped up to her, pressed his hoof against her scaled leg. Her almost serpentine eyes, slitted with rage, fixed on him. “On the ceiling, sweet pea,” he asked.

Eclipse tilted her head back and opened her maw wide. Razorsharp teeth were bathed in eerie light before her breath weapon erupted from her throat. Swaths of noxious gas were pushed against the cold, hard stone in an urgent stream. Velvet watched the spectacle from the ground, marveled at it as he always did. Dragon breath weapons could take so many different shapes and forms. Fire breath, ice needles, some even vomited tides of lava. It had been a fascinating topic for his studies. But no other dragon he ever came across had a breath weapon like his Eclipse. There were others who exhaled gas. But her gas was unique. It looked like a nebula. Stars forming and dispersing within it. Rapidly changing constellations. It looked as if she was exhaling the night sky itself. Coupled with her deep blue scales and a similar pattern on her wings and she could turn invisible within her own attack.

He was quite familiar with the effect the gas had on his body, due to some misfortunate early arguments, her quick temper and his initial stubbornness. And a couple of more controlled experiments later down the line. But even knowing about the dangers of it, he could still appreciate the sheer beauty.

Once the stream slowed down and finally died, he tore his attention free and put his hoof against her leg once more. “Feeling better?”

Eclipse sat down with a low growl and a deep sigh. She avoided meeting his gaze. “I do not know what to do, Velvet.”

Dragons were prideful creatures. Admitting to that must have taken her a lot of effort. And he appreciated it. The least he could do in turn was to make it worth it. He sat against her, knowing full well that his presence alone would help her calm down and relax. Eventually. But he was not banking on that alone. He racked his brains for any hint, any solution, and suggestion he could make for her admittedly difficult situation.

“As your Dragonlord, he demands your respect and obedience,” he started. He could feel how she tensed up again. “He wants you to share in his vision of a dragon-ruled world. However, from what I know and understand of your people's customs and traditions — it is possible to challenge him for his title, is it not?”

Eclipse snickered. It was a good sound. If she was capable of showing humor, she was clearly getting over her rage. Still, he grimaced a little bit. His suggestion had not been meant as a joke.

“It is,” she admitted. “That said, he is the mightiest fire dragon we have ever seen or even heard about. His flames burn so hot that even fire-immune dragons wince in pain.”

Velvet furrowed his brow. “I see the issue, but there is an easy solution for that, is it not? Do not fight him with your brawns then. Fight him with your brains.”

Eclipse shifted her body to lie down. The last piece showing that the immediate crisis was over. He sat down on his belly in front of her head as her entire body curled around him. Back in the days after his arrival, when their fling was still new, he managed to appreciate the gesture on an intellectual level, but his instincts merely told him that he was in the grasp of a predator and he should run for his life. Now though? Having her all around him filled him with a sense of security he had never known before.

Velvet saw that wry, lopsided smile on Eclipse's face and leaned forward to place a kiss on her nose. He chuckled briefly as a plume of smoke escaped her nostrils. “My brains, you say,” she answered. “But we are dragons, love.”

And with that, they were seemingly back to teasing, jesting and ribbing each other. “So… what you are insinuating is that dragons are required to have no brains? That is such a shame, gem! And here I thought I had made a great catch with you!” He chuckled as her vaguely threatening growl filled the air. “I think I have made my point.”

Eclipse sighed. “I have had an exhausting flight to the summoning, a rather tiresome shouting match with our Dragonlord and an even more useless argument with Flare afterwards, not to mention the flight back. Can we talk about something other than this tyrant and his rampant madness? Or my sister's blinders?”

Velvet grinned from ear to ear. “With pleasure!” he exclaimed. “How about dinner? I made your favorite!”

Eclipse lifted her head off the ground and peered over at the firepit. She closed her eyes, focused her senses on her nose and her nostrils flared as she sensed the lingering aroma of that soup. A quiet purr emanated from her throat as she smiled and turned to him. “Velvet Dusk, I do not deserve you…!”

He blushed as her demeanor and body language changed. She was clearly as far from rage as he could get her…

Miles off the shore, a gigantic vortex in the ocean collapsed. Thousands of tons of water roared as they swooped in to fill the gap and bury a secret.

On said shores, two mangled bodies lay. Bloodied and bruised. Beaten to a pulp.

Of the many eyes watching the spectacle, the disaster, the unfortunate events, only two gleamed with tears and horror. Dragonlord Dagon was defeated. The mighty tyrant bested and banished into the deepest reaches of the sea, where his eternal flame would not be able to consume any more lives.

And with Eclipse's life dwindling, the shackles she cast upon him finally broke. Velvet teleported to her side in an instant. He stared at her body, stared speechlessly at the damage the battle had caused. Her beautiful wings, torn to shreds. Deep gouges along her flank, from whence she bled profusely. Piercing wounds from claws and horns, burnt scales. Half her face was a molten mess.

His application of spells was fast. Precise. Generous. Cauterization of the deep gouge on her flank, then a few spells to improvise a solution to staple together those holes. But she was bleeding. Too fast and from too many wounds.

“Velvet,” her voice called out. He grimaced, clenched his teeth. Her voice. It sounded so weak. So soft. Flare had always chided her for being too soft. But this was different. This was not about her unguarded heart, her passion, her empathy. This was about her life force as it quickly drained away.

“Velvet,” she repeated even weaker.

“No!” he half-yelled. “No, don’t you dare to—… I can fix this!” His horn thrummed with magic. A headache was already building up. He used too much, too quickly. These spells were advanced, complicated. Not meant to be rushed. But there was no time. Just. No. Time.

“Please, love,” she begged. She managed to lift her claw. Somehow. And cautiously stroked down his spine. He felt the tremble in her appendage. The implications made him shudder. “It is time for my star to set, Velvet.”

Her voice was barely audible. She grew weaker by the second. “Please,” he begged. And for the first time since he arrived on this dreaded beach, he dared to look her into the eyes. “Please don’t say that!” He hated how peaceful she looked. How content. How she could smile. He saw it even despite his blurry vision as hot tears streamed down his face and droplets splashed into the sand below. His throat grew tighter.

“Would you prefer that I lie to you?” Eclipse asked.

It was meant as a rhetorical question. He knew that. He tried to answer, but his voice failed. He felt like being choked. He nodded instead, right before he managed to croak his answer out anyway. “Yes! Just this one time, yes. Please, please lie to me!” His voice trembled as much as he did, and yet each new step pulled him closer to her.

Eclipse laid down her heavy head. The sand of the beach was nice. Warm and soft. The occasional wave lapped at her tail and the sound of the ocean was relaxing. All these worldly worries seemed to drift away further and further. And there was little to regret at this point. She glanced at this pony. This stranger from a distant land. They had found company with each other under such unlikely circumstances. And that it happened at all, it made her grateful. He had made her happy. A sigh escaped her. “I cannot bring myself to do so,” she refused. She raised her claw and tapped against the orange gemstone her necklace was inlaid with. One of three gems.

It was not about the gemstone. They both knew that. It was about her staying true to herself. She had never been good at lying or even omitting the truth. But she always had the strength to stand up for her beliefs. And face the consequences, if necessary.

Oh how he wished he could curse those rocks.

“Mourn me if you must,” Eclipse continued. “But please, Vivi. Please remember what we had. No matter how brief it was. You made me so incredibly happy…”

Dragons did not die of old age. Their ‘brief time’ had been years and years. Maybe even a decade. He had stopped counting at some point, it seemed so… useless. What did that number matter? But now it mattered. Because he wanted more. Needed more. He shook his head violently, refusing the inevitable. “N-No, I-I can fix this, I-I can—“

Her claw silenced him as she laid it across his muzzle. “I love you, Velvet.”

A fresh batch of hot tears accompanied his strangled sobs. The light in her eyes dimmed. “I love you too, Eclipse.” She lowered her claw to the ground. He had hoped for many more years. They deserved many more years. After everything they had been through, after everything she had faced, for the good of the Dragonlands, for the good of her kind, for everyone. Did she not deserve some recognition? Did she not deserve to have a break? To retire in peace?

As that last spark in her eyes faded, he made his vow. “On every sunset, after darkest night, a new dawn follows. This is my promise to you, love. We will see each other again. You will get what is owed.”

Gone.

She was gone.

Her body was still warm. But his love had perished. It sickened him to think how dragonkind would call this an epic battle, how they might tell exaggerated stories about this fight centuries from now. Or worse still — how they might forget this moment ever happened at all.

She was gone.

Gone.

As the realization slowly sank in, he broke down. For all the dragon code and traditions, he cared little at this moment. He showed as much weakness as he wanted. He wailed for his broken heart, ripped to pieces by tragedy. Minutes passed. His throat hoarse and his voice merely a croak, he regained a sliver of composure. And still his tears ran unimpeded. But he knew they were there. He had been the only one bound by magic. They merely watched.

And they still did.

Some had vanished. Probably walked away, bored. Others gawked at him and the beach and… them. Only briefly did Velvet allow his gaze to be drawn over, a few dozen feet down the beach, where Flare lay. She had taken the brunt of the hits and flame breaths in an attempt to shield her sister. Parts of her body were barely recognizable as those of a dragon anymore. Her alabaster white scales, burnt black from otherworldly fire.

He puked. His stomach was not just upset, it was… was there even a word for that?

And in an instant, his anger flared. His head snapped up and he glared at them. Colorful scales, but motionless. Empty, mindless eyes. “And what do you lot gawk at?!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “You ungrateful imbeciles! She died for you! They both did! And you useless bottom feeders did not raise a single claw to aid them while they defended your despicable, cowardly hides!” He could feel the buildup of magic. It was a fundamental principle of the arcane: Never cast spells under extreme emotional disturbances. The magic had a really good chance to go haywire and there was no telling what it would do then.

But he did not care.

Let it rip them to pieces, or me, or everything, what does it matter?!

“None of you spineless lizards deserved either of them!” he spat.

There was only so much provocation they were willing to take. One insult too far and one of the teenagers decided he had enough. He was three times his size and probably more than capable of tearing him to shreds. But that was the nature of the Dragonlands. Everything that lived and thrived here was a monster to some degree and it was a daily roulette to see who was the bigger one, the stronger one, the quicker one.

Velvet unleashed whatever magic he had as the dragon charged him. He saw red scales come closer quickly over the blinding glow of his magical aura, but then… nothing. It took Velvet a moment to realize that his magic had manifested not in any combat spell, but in a teleportation spell. He sighed in disappointment, only to then realize where he was.

He stood at the ledge of their cave, just outside.

And he could hear them. Inside.

Despite knowing better, he stepped into what had been his home for several years. Multiple young dragons were already busy looting. He remembered the thinned-out line of observers at the beach. Maybe they had not gotten bored as much as they saw an opportunity. These vermin rummaged through their belongings. Eclipse’s hoard was already gone for the most part. They had almost cleared out the entire cave. Within minutes of her death.

Maybe they started looting even before that. Maybe the first greedy vultures already snuck in here as the battle was still ongoing.

He braced himself, dug his hooves into the ground and charged his horn. He would rip them apart, limb to limb. But no matter how much he fumed with rage, Velvet Dusk was not a warrior. He was angry, yes. Angry beyond words. He would have loved to do nothing else than pummel these imbeciles into the ground and teach them a lesson in respect.

But what purpose would that serve? What good would that do, him or anyone else? There was nothing to win here. He could beat each and every dragon in the Dragonlands into submission and it would not change a thing. These creatures were irredeemable.

He let the magic dissipate harmlessly. They were too busy looting, they had not even taken notice of his arrival yet and there was no point in making them aware of his presence now. He did not have any personal belongings he cared much about. Eclipse had taught him early on not to care much about material possessions, as they switched owners frequently because everyone just stole from everyone else. And that was fine as long as one got away with it. What belonged to whom was a question of who was strong enough to take it — and keep it. It was the dragon's way of life.

He stared at them for a while. Seconds that felt like minutes that felt like hours. Eventually, he remembered his oath. He had given his love a final vow. The Dragonlands were not a place for a scholar like him. Not without the protection and guidance of some… locals.

His homeland, on the other hoof — he had not been there for many years. But the vast knowledge unicorns had accumulated over the centuries and millennia, the several huge libraries full of secrets and spells… surely there was something useful there. Anything he could make use of for his newly set goal.

And what would be the best way to bring her back?

She was dozens of times heavier than him. He could not carry her corpse around willy-nilly. And neither did he have any desire to do so. The image of her bloodied body on the beach had burned itself into his memory and served as quite enough of a grisly reminder of this day. A reminder he would not manage to get rid of for the rest of his life, no doubt.

It was possible to bring back the dead. He knew that. Necromancers were feared spellweavers back home. But their way of doing so was flawed. Their creations imperfect. Mindless husks that shuffled around, groaning and drooling. He needed to ensure nothing short of perfection. He needed to restore her body in full, without damage and wounds. He needed to restore her soul and mind. A full, complete resurrection. But how?

It was possible. Without knowing for sure, he could tell. Magic was limitless if one was willing to bend a few rules. Or break them, if required. And at this point — why should he care about any rules anymore? He did not care about his standing with his scholarly colleagues anymore. He did not care about the exchange of knowledge. Or about the balance of this world. Or about who he would have to blackmail or pressure into compliance.

There was only one goal remaining. To bring her back. By all means necessary. Because she deserved it.

To do that, he needed time. More years than his life currently offered, probably. But that could be fixed as well, surely. Yes, those old libraries back home would serve nicely. A good point to start. He charged his horn with another teleportation spell. He would need to retrieve a blood sample from his love. Maybe he could preserve it somehow. It would probably come in useful later.

And after that, he would make his way back home…

Changeling hives were such dreary places. The monotonous gray everywhere was just downright depressing. One would assume the ever-changing layout would keep things fresh and interesting, but a keen eye could notice patterns. Patterns that were unique to each and every hive and once figured out, they became predictable. Coupled with his invisibility spell and he simply strolled around the hive at his leisure.

The only thing he really needed to look out for was to not accidentally bump into a drone or make too much noise. Hives were busy places after all. Maybe that was the reason why they were not bothered by their dreadful interior design. Too busy to look at all the jagged spikes and organic-looking architecture.

Wildfire made his way deeper and deeper, level by level. He cared little for exploration and would have straight-up teleported, had he known where he would need to teleport to. As it were, he was focused on navigating around busier parts of the hive, to which the hatchery and the barracks seemed to count. Or what he assumed were those rooms. There was no signposting, of course.

Eventually though, he tracked his target down. As expected, she lounged on a throne in the deepest reaches of the hive. The throne itself looked impressive. It could have been intimidating, even. To anypony other than him. Once one faced down an enraged, adult, charging dragon, a spiky throne with a changeling queen on top was somehow less worrisome.

He looked around and took note of several holes in the walls. Probably the point where her reinforcement would come from, or where her guard was already lying in wait. He sighed silently, stepped in front of her throne after making a full round inspecting every nook and cranny — just to be sure. And with a final sliver of concentration, he changed his spell.

It was a bother, really. The one thing he had never managed to find a good solution for. Sure, the Zebrican way of tattooing spell effects onto skin to keep them active was a nice way of circumnavigating the issue somewhat, but at this point his actual skin had barely any space left and truth be told, he was not an avid fan of needles or the pain they inflicted.

A unicorn's horn however could always ever keep a single spell active. So he dropped his invisibility and instead charged a physical sphere, a domed shield spell that encapsulated Queen Chrysalis, himself and her throne. The hemisphere had barely half the radius the circular throne chamber had, leaving plenty of space for all her royal guards to immediately pour out of their hidey-holes like scared up ants.

“Hail, Queen Chrysalis,” he greeted in a respectful manner and even offered a little bow. “I wish to present a proposal.”

The queen herself did not give any indication if she was startled or not. If so, she did not show. Her guards filled the room like a tidal wave, but were incapable of penetrating the shield spell and therefore gnawed and hammered against it without any visible effect. She took note of that and then turned her attention to the feisty intruder.

“I do not care about your filthy pony rituals, unicorn!” she spat as she slowly, menacingly rose from her throne.

Wildfire furrowed his brow. It took him a few seconds to understand where things had gone wrong. “Ah. I see. No, this is not that kind of proposal, I assure you.”

She bared her impressively sized fangs in a wicked smile. “Oh how reassuring indeed. Now, my little morsel, you seem to have misunderstood something. You may think yourself safe with your magic, but I am not locked in here with you, you are locked in here with me!”

As she advanced on him like a cat on the prowl, he furrowed his brow yet again. “Those two things are not mutually exclusive, you know? That said, if you prefer for your guards to make an example, I can arrange that.” Without hesitation, Wildfire dropped the shield spell, only to immediately cast a light spell. The bright burst in these dank, dark caverns blinded all of them immediately.

“Guards! Fetch him!” Queen Chrysalis yelled as she recoiled from the blinding light.

Wildfire acted quickly. He shot several of the drones with stun rays before reinstating the shield spell. A few seconds passed and the changelings recovered, with half a dozen of them lying on the ground and their limbs twitching uncontrollably.

Chrysalis took note of this development with a hiss, a glare and another hiss. “Very lively expression, very nuanced,” Dawn muttered before he addressed her louder. “Does that suffice as an example? I can repeat this simple routine until they are all in very much the same useless state, of course. That said, I hate to repeat myself and I do not appreciate impoliteness. Can we talk now?”

She had half a mind to lunge for him. He could read it in her body language. How tense she was, how she kept her legs slightly bent, ready to jump, how her wings buzzed occasionally. But she glanced at her incapacitated drones again and made a wise decision. “Speak then, pony.”

It was amusing to Wildfire how she wielded that word like an insult. “Terrific!” He collected his thoughts for a moment. “There is a changeling hive in the Everfree Forest. I know you seek it. I also happen to know that they managed to evade detection so far. Your infiltration attempts, your scouting missions, all failed.” She bared her fangs again. Listing her failures was maybe not the most diplomatic decision. But he was a little rusty when it came to actual negotiations. “I can help you take it over,” he therefore cut straight to the case.

And for once, Queen Chrysalis seemed taken aback. She immediately suspected foul play, of course. “How?” she asked.

“I know where it is,” Wildfire casually replied. “I also know a thing or two about how they managed to escape your pursuit so far. So my proposal is this: I send in my strike team to clear a path straight to their queen. You take your drones to secure the hive and follow said path. You face her and prove that you’re worthy of your title and the fear you inspire. And thus, the hive is yours.”

“Why would I show mercy to your… your ‘strike team’?” she snarled in amusement, followed by half a chuckle over the ridiculous proposal.

Wildfire shrugged with a glint in his eyes. “I don’t expect you to.”

That managed to shut her up. The changeling queen stared at him in bemusement. She clearly did not like being on the back hoof. She did not like not being in full control of any given situation. But she was cunning enough to recognize an opportunity when one presented itself. “You would sacrifice your own kind?”

“Without hesitation,” he answered.

Now it was the queen's turn to fall silent for a moment, to sort things and consider which questions actually required answers. “And what do you gain from this?”

A distraction. The answer was obvious. She probably suspected as much. That taken into account, there was even less reason to say it aloud. “That is none of your business.”

Her rough voice echoed through the cavern in a sharp laughter. “Sounds like a trap.”

Paranoia. He was well-acquainted with that. And maybe he should have expected as much from a changeling queen, of all things. The company he kept in recent months really made him soft, in head and heart alike. He almost believed others to be trusting. “If you must know: Your first goal after taking over the Everfree hive will be to conquer the budding pony village near the old castle ruins. Because it is an easy target full of weak ponies in decent numbers. You will need this quick and easy victory to demonstrate to your new drones that you are more capable than the old queen. You will also need their love to replenish and heal whatever damage and loss you took while securing the new hive. None of the other settlements around the forest offer such opportunities. Aid could arrive too fast. Your drones could be followed while they transport their captives. Too much risk of interference. And you know as much as I do that if your presence here in the forest would be discovered, they would send the Elements of Harmony against you. Again. I am certain you are eager for a rematch. Another one. But you are wily enough to see an easy snack when there is one. Your attack on that village will serve my purposes well enough.”

She clearly disliked the idea of serving anything or anyone other than herself. More so if she just provided a distraction for someone else's plan. That said, Wildfire was confident that he had her in his bag if he gave her one last nudge. “Now, do you want that hive or not? Because frankly, I do not have the patience for prolonged negotiations and I could just as easily goad the other queen into an attack or at least something these ponies would perceive as an attack.”

Queen Chrysalis. The Shadow of Canterlot. He had not been in Equestria when this fabled wedding took place. Nor had he been around for her several other encounters with the defenders of this nation. She had a track record of losing, because she was too ambitious and overconfident. Wildfire took that into account and was willing to bet on it. She would mess this up again, somehow. Either way, even if she did not — changelings did not stand to gain anything from outright killing ponies. Dead ponies were worthless. As such, this was the perfect solution. And her greed would undoubtedly—

“I do not like you, pony,” the queen spat in his direction.

But there was an undertone that made him smile long after his initial surprised burst of laughter died down. “Terrific!”

Error Margins

When I needed him most, he was just there. I had no idea where Spike came from. I did not even hear his wings flap as frantically as they must have, given the speed with which he crashed into the two drones lunging at me from my smithy. With a single, precise swipe of his leathery wing, he flung them off to the side. They tumbled to the ground and remained dazed for seconds before they got back up again and hissed in his direction.

“Need a claw?” he quipped.

I chuckled in relief. “Always.”

There were no quips from our enemies. The changeling drones did not share in the joy of cheesy one-liners or villain monologues. There was no warning, no second thought wasted. I glanced around briefly to get a rough estimate of our chances, and it truly looked dire. We were thirteen. They outnumbered us five to one, if not worse. This was going to get rough.

“What’s the plan?” Spike asked.

I was no Twilight. Twilight was a capable leader. A brilliant strategist. Able to adapt to any given situation quickly. Meanwhile my mind ran in circles, screamed in a panic, and the only thing I could really think about was: So few of us are fighters. And it got so much worse the more I thought about it. Because in actuality, none of us were. Even myself included. I wore this night guard armor and wielded a standard issue guard sword and yet I lacked any real combat experience, and neither did any of the others—

We fought them time and time again. If you don’t have confidence in yourself, then let me lead.

I grimaced. While his interruption did serve to keep the immediate panic at bay, I was not too keen on putting Voidwalker in charge. I knew how that would end. I still shuddered from memories of other cycles, from the massacres he inflicted upon their kind. Truth be told: The blood baths we caused.

The brief respite at least gave me a decent idea. “Back to back,” I told Spike. “We need to get out of the open, but we can’t hole up either. Non-combatants secured in the barn, combatants defending our one point of interest.”

Spike furrowed his brow and nodded. “Get the herd together, safe and sound. Then full defense. Gotcha!”

The last syllable left his scaly mouth as the first drone charged and I barely managed to deflect an energy bolt from another one. With the combat starting in earnest, chaos immediately took over. The swarm came over the village, making use of their ability to fly to at least circumnavigate the possible counter-attacks of our ground-bound defenders.

And despite the currently seemingly hopeless situation, we did have defenders. It was not just Spike and myself who stood up for Greenwood.

From the direction of Roselucks fields rolled Kaleb towards the town square. A tiny protrusion extended from within the midriff of his metallic body and the other one on top started to glow as he kept repeating the same word over and over again in his metallic, monotonous rumble of a voice. “Exterminate! Exterminate!”

That should be fun.

I grimaced and quickly looked around. I could not spot the Doctor in this madness of drones everywhere, as I needed to keep most of my attention on dodging their attacks and flybys. “Doctor!” I yelled in hopes he would hear me. And understand.

And indeed, as I ducked for cover with another drone swooping down, I briefly saw a blue light emanating from one of the windows. The Doctors, Roselucks and Derpy's house. All three of which were obvious non-combatants, given Derpys age and the pacifistic inclinations of the other two.

However, whatever that light was, it seemed to influence Kaleb somehow as the machine changed its tune. “Incapacitate! Incapacitate!” And the lower protrusion immediately started to shoot barrages of energy blasts not dissimilar to those of unicorn horns — or changeling horns. A couple of drones tried to swarm the weird, slow-moving machine as it hovered closer to us and were hit by those rays. They fell to the ground, their limbs and wings twitching uncontrollably.

I grimaced yet again as I immediately imagined one of them falling from greater heights. But such was the nature of combat — it was never clean.

Within seconds, a dozen drones clung to Kaleb and tried to tear him apart, but their hooves struck solid metal and their fangs scratched over the surface with no result other than some really nasty scraping noises. They tried to shoot it with their energy blasts point-blank, but Kaleb seemed utterly unaffected. Which currently probably made him our strongest asset in this fight.

“How can we help?” Honey asked from a small gap in the door of her carpentry. I saw Hefty behind her, both of which were clearly eager to do something.

They were carpenters. As Spike swiped another drone out of the air and I blocked another shot with my sword, I realized that I was about to recruit carpenters for our fight. But we needed each and every able hoof. “Get the others to the barn!” I answered, quickly followed by a “Oof!” as a nosediving drone pummeled into me.

We tumbled a few feet, both of us lost orientation and we remained dazed for a second, maybe two. Just long enough for other drones to try and attack me as well.

And again, out of nowhere, he was there. Spike towered over me, plucked the drone from my back and flung it to the side. A mighty roar emanated from his throat, making several drones reevaluate their decision to attack him, and his fire breath caused a couple of others to redirect their flight pattern away from us.

He could have burned them to a crisp, I realized. He could have torn them apart, ripped limbs out, slashed carapaces open. He was a dragon. Their exoskeleton was flexible. Certainly not hard enough to withstand dragon claws. But it served well as a really good replacement for a pot, to be cooked in alive.

Your imagination never ceases to amaze and entertain me. But sure, tell me again how I am the monster.

I wanted to tell him to shut up so badly. But we simply lacked time for this nonsensical squabble. I got back up with Spike's help. Just in time to see Honey and Hefty deal with their own contingent of drones. And they held their ground surprisingly well, with some… interesting tactics. Hefty wielded his axe like a boomerang. My mind boggled as I tried to comprehend how that was even physically possible, and the short answer was: It was not. Probably part of his cutie mark magic then. It certainly was as surprising to the drones as it was for me. He flung his axe and it swerved in a wide bow before returning to him, knocking drones out of the sky or at least interrupting their flight patterns.

I thought that was a pretty neat trick. Impressive, even.

Then I saw Honey pick up an entire tree trunk and wield it like a club.

She flung it to one side and four drones crashed to the ground. She raised the trunk high above her head and whipped it downwards. They got out of the way just in time. And they would have failed to escape, had Honey not hesitated for a fraction of a second. But she did.

Weak.

“Spike!” we both suddenly heard Gabby yell. We looked up and saw her being chased by a couple of drones.

With Hefty and Honey slowly getting the others to the barn and Kaleb drawing so much attention… I sighed as I made the decision. “Help her!” It was not a hard decision per se. I was always inclined to put the needs of others before my own. Especially for my friends and family, and Spike was both. And Gabby was his love. I saw him hesitate for just a moment, as he knew just as well as I did what this meant for me, most likely. I gave him an encouraging nod and with a flap of his wings, he was gone from my side.

He was a great protector. But he was just one dragon. He could not be everywhere at once. He chased the drones away from Gabbys tail and they both did what I had done with his aid mere moments ago. They kept each other safe.

And I was a prime target once more, seeing how I apparently gave orders to the others and kept things halfway organized. Take out the leader. Good tactic.

Half a dozen drones dove for me. I readied my sword, hoped my armor would hold and knew that I was screwed anyway. I did not have eyes in the back of my head and they came from all directions. Even if I somehow managed to defend myself against two, three, four at the same time, the others would break through.

Stop being mister nice guy then!

Voidwalker yelled at me. I could feel him grow agitated, itching to get his hooves on these drones. Fighting one battle was hard enough. Fighting two was impossible. I managed to distract one drone by throwing my sword at it. It dodged, of course. It was a decently telegraphed attack. I went down onto my knees and rolled to the side, making two more drones crash into one another. But the other three managed to land in time. One immediately punched me in the muzzle while the other two tried to restrain me. I kicked with my rear legs in a once more rising panic and hit one drone in the snout. It hissed and immediately grabbed my leg with its magic.

The decision came up.

Not for the first time in my life. Not even the first time in this cycle. Either I focused all my efforts fully on defending myself — which would leave the gate wide open for Voidwalker to take control and do what he did best. Or I would keep him at bay, locked behind bars of self-control — which would probably result in those drones knocking me out.

I. Can. Help!

I know your ‘help’. I don’t want it, I answered. I felt strangely peaceful. A wave of relief just washed over me and I felt… good. Like I had made the right decision. And when I saw that eerie green glow charge up, I knew that this was it. A blast straight to the face. That would not kill me, I was sure. They did not stand to gain anything from killing anypony. But I would not wake up again. Ever, maybe.

Incapacitated victims were cocooned. The fluid inside kept them fed and breathing while also serving to sedate them. Only victims with tremendous willpower were capable of even becoming conscious inside a cocoon. Which still did not mean that they became able to move a single muscle. All the while the changelings were able to leech the love off of them. It was an admirably clever system. Elegant in its design, efficient.

Disgusting. Despicable. Worthy of utter eradication.

The shot hit the ground beside my head.

I blinked in surprise. And due to sudden blindness. A brief flash of golden light had caused this misfire. “Don’t just lie there! Get up!” a familiar voice chided me.

I blinked and did as I was told. Aurora stood close to me, her horn thrumming with magic. She currently wove a shield spell around us, the hemisphere of golden light kept us safe for the moment. “Thank you,” I mumbled as I reoriented myself.

I saw an injured drone crawl into our well to hide. I grimaced just thinking about the possibility of finding random hidden drones for weeks to come, or the paranoia everypony would have to deal with for the next few months. I saw Kaleb lying on his side. Apparently the drones managed to topple him, but he still kept shooting and they still failed to do any significant damage. Honey used her tree trunk of choice as a flyswatter against the drones, accompanied by a well-coordinated flying axe as they ushered Graphite and Pristine into the barn. Spike and Gabby led over a dozen drones on a merry chase across the sky, occasionally knocking one out of the wide blue expanse with a fire breath, a mighty roar or an eagle scream.

This is madness, my stunned mind concluded. But I remembered. So many lives. So many battles. Always the same. It was always madness. And this was not even a large-scale combat. This was just a bunch of plucky settlers holding their ground against an overwhelming force.

“Dad? What do we do?” Aurora's voice was urgent. Five drones clung to her shield. They repeatedly smashed into it. Every attack drained her magical reserve. The shield would not be able to hold forever. And once it failed, it would do so because she was exhausted. And therefore defenseless.

But my great ‘plan’ had made good progress. Roseluck, the Doctor and Derpy were inside the barn. Graphite, Periwinkle and Pristine were on their way there. I had no idea where Whisper currently was. Maybe already inside. Worse still, I had no answer. Even after precious seconds trickled by, I still had no answer. ‘Defend the barn’ had been the initial credo. But they outnumbered us so heavily. Could we even hope to achieve that?

“Dad!”

Stop holding back!

I felt cornered. Like a trapped animal. My eyes scanned every little detail, searching for an exit. I felt sick, pressured, hot… desperate.

And things would have gone downhill fast, I assumed. But in the midst of my panic attack, Spike burped. It was such a strange sound to hear in the middle of a fight. I looked up and saw green flames and something materialized before him. Hope.

He quickly caught both items in his claw. The letter was probably sealed. I would not have expected him to open it up in the middle of combat otherwise. After reading, he scanned the ground. Our eyes met and Spike seemed confused more than anything else. “It just says ‘incoming’?”

He showed me the letter from afar. While I could not read it for obvious reasons, I still managed to see what I needed to see. The mulberry-colored seal was broken. And in his other claw, he held the teleportation stone. My vision became blurry as my eyes teared up and I started to laugh. A manic cackle at first, it sounded utterly deranged even to my own ears. But over the course of a few seconds, it morphed into a deep, bellowing laughter carried by gratitude, by relief.

We were saved.

Our clever peanut.

Even Voidwalker could appreciate this maneuver. “Land!” I yelled towards Spike. So he and Gabby swooped down. Just in time, as a mere fraction of a second later, the stone was activated. I was surprised to see a day guard in front of me. He seemed rather surprised as well. Probably because of the changelings in the immediate vicinity. The battle itself did not faze him much, as he had arrived armored and with weapons drawn, clearly ready for trouble.

“Princess Celestia sends her regards,” he quickly conveyed the message he was asked to give. And then he engaged the drones that currently tried to break through Aurora's shield. Meanwhile another guard arrived beside Spike. And another. And another. They came in quicker and quicker succession.

Dozens of day guards poured out of the teleportation stone. Battle-trained and ready for a scrap. I wanted to just sit down, have a good cry and a good laugh, at the same time. But despite the much-needed help bolstering our ranks, we were far from done yet. The tide was turning, sure. And the drones realized that as fast as I did. Several of them quickly morphed into, well, us. Green spouts of flame shot up here and there, and suddenly we had to deal with a dozen Spikes and a dozen Auroras and a dozen Derpys. The nastiest trick in their books.

My attention snapped to my buddy. “Spike!” He stared at me. “You need to stay on the ground until nopony else arrives or you need to catch them if they fall. Keep that stone away from anyone!”

It certainly was not nice of me. Necessary, but not nice. I painted a massive target on his head, basically. The drones heard what I said as much as he did. They realized that he was the sole reason the battle was turning in our favor. Or rather, the stone he now protectively clutched to his chest with a grim nod. He ran away from us, leaving behind a trail of newly arrived guards. Gabby wanted to follow him so badly, wanted to stick to his side and keep him safe. But there were multiple Gabbys flying about. She knew that it was too dangerous. That in the midst of this madness, she could not ensure his safety. She kept him safe by staying away.

With the guards helping us, Aurora was finally able to disperse her shield spell. I could see how it took its toll on her. “Are you alright? Can you go on?”

She tried to catch her breath. “I-I am…” A brief moment of hesitation before she stuck to the truth. “I don’t know. I’m not used to fighting.”

She was a powerhouse. Capable of tremendous magical feats, second only to Arcana. Well, and their mothers. I knew that as much as I knew that Aurora was no fighter at heart. A shield spell had been her first choice. It made sense for her, it made her nature apparent. I hugged her, making good use of the brief few seconds our arriving support offered us. “It’s alright, sunshine. You did great! Go to the barn. Keep the others safe.” She hesitated. Asking a dozen questions per second, wordlessly. I smiled and nudged her. “Don’t worry. I’ll be alright.”

As she galloped across the square towards the barn, I could not help but wonder if I had lied to her or not. I could not say with certainty. At the same time, I wondered how many more day guards would arrive. I still saw Spike running around, chased by several Doctor Whooves and Pristines with new day guards teleporting in every couple of seconds.

Charging the teleportation stone took a lot of energy. Even after decades of fiddling around with it, Twilight had never managed to reduce the required amount to a degree that satisfied her. And if she had sent that scroll, with day guards arriving on Sunny's order, then this was most likely Twilight's stone Spike carried around. Meaning the stone in Canterlot was repeatedly charged for each and every teleport. I could only imagine the strain it put on Sunny to do this. Expending such massive amounts of magic on such short notice. Or maybe Twilight charged the stone and that was the reason she had not teleported to us yet? Because I fully expected her to show up sooner or later. Maybe Luna contributed as well?

It was a funny image. All three of them charging the stone in sequence and all the guards piling into the room vanishing one by one. To me, it made perfect sense to send guards instead of themselves. When a princess entered a battlefield, it changed everything. It was no longer about capturing or winning, but about pure survival. It was a reason to no longer hold anything back. To fight desperately, because the chances of getting out had diminished to the point of basically not existing anymore. Princess Celestia could have cleared out this rabble in seconds. But at what cost? She was the benevolent ruler. A counselor. Guide. Teacher. Mother. Not a brute who used the sun as a magnifying glass on drone-shaped ants. It would put all the wrong ideas into everypony's heads.

Luna could have gotten away easiest with her image barely taking a hit from participating in combat. But she tried so hard to change the perception of ponies. This would have signified a step in the wrong direction.

Twilight however, everypony expected her to show up. I certainly did, and I was sure everyone else did as well. She was Equestrias go-to problem solver.

I was rudely interrupted in my musings as another drone tackled me to the ground. “Where the heck did you come from?!” I spat as we traded a couple of blows. His hooves mostly hit my armor, which I was eternally grateful for once more, but two hits landed straight on my belly before I managed to buck it off. The drone had a rough landing a few feet away and before he managed to get up, two guards charged it and knocked it out.

“Thanks, guys!” I told them as I got back up.

I had a sudden sense of vertigo and faint nausea. Everything was spinning a little bit too fast. The colors were a tad too bright and vibrant. The sounds just a smidge too loud. I turned around. Took in the scene before me. Running ponies everywhere. Flying ponies. Chased by drones, chasing drones. Madness, I repeated in my head.

And it clicked.

It was. It truly was. Very, very distracting madness. There was so much going on that it was nigh impossible to focus on any one thing. Attacks from all sides. The need to defend oneself and others. The worry about potential property damage. Who was who — the guessing game where a wrong answer could land one in a cocoon.

All very distracting.

Dawn.

Void came to the same conclusion I did. This was just another play of his. A feint. I had unknowingly pushed him, and this was what he came up with on short notice. Or maybe this had been the plan all along. I only knew: He was not here. He had vanished from the castle ruins, abandoned the guise of the charming, scholarly loner and cleared out his lab. And the next day, our place crawled with changelings.

Arranging for a full-scale invasion was a tad much. A bit more extreme than the other ruses had been. The tatzlwurm attack might not have gone down as intended. Neither had Lord Tireks emergence. But these events kept the ball rolling. They kept things on track. That much could be confirmed by his continued presence. But now he was gone.

Or is he?

My eyes were drawn towards the ruins. And my guts told me: It was now or never.

I wanted to tell somepony. Anypony. But as I looked around, I saw the madness continue. I could not even tell friends from foe anymore, as the changelings merrily morphed back and forth between all their guises. I could not even tell for certain if a guard I might tell things to actually was a guard or not.

They were as much on their own as I was. I could only hope for Twilight's arrival sometime soon as I charged towards the ruin. I rammed one of the drones out of my way, called my sword back to my side and blocked two energy blasts with it before discarding it again by throwing it at yet another drone in my path. And I left through the village's back gate. I ran all the way to the castle and quickly crossed the courtyard, silently greeting Bruno and the other apple trees in the process. The noise of the fighting seemed strangely muffled out here. One could easily have misinterpreted it for a rowdy celebration of sorts.

I stopped at the entrance and sighed. Did I really just abandon the battlefield? My friends? Because of a hunch?

Any lingering doubt that they would be fine was suddenly and rather abruptly dispersed when the earth shook. The tremors quickly added up to a proper earthquake and moments later, good old Peter broke through the ground with a terrifying screech. Seeing a live, fully grown tatzlwurm would never not be intimidating. The only thing making this sight a relief was the comparatively tiny hot pink speck with the sunflower-yellow mane on top of Peter's head. Oh. So that’s where Whisper was.

I shook my head, turned around and made my way inside the castle. The entrance hall was grand. Deteriorated, but still grand. And once inside, the sound of combat was muffled even further to the point where I could barely hear anything anymore. The silence in these walls however seemed almost oppressive.

“Where, oh where…” I muttered as I cautiously walked down the hall. I had done a decently thorough search for Dawn just yesterday. I checked all the rooms of the castle, all the floors. At least all that I could reach. I was not strong enough as a unicorn to cast telekinesis on myself and use it to levitate or even fly. There were areas inaccessible to me due to completely broken-down staircases or entire parts of the castle just crumbled to dust. Other parts were not fully inaccessible as such, but the ground was treacherous and unstable and I had no intention of actually getting buried by a staircase. But all the places I could reasonably reach, I had.

There’s only ever been one place he got skittish about.

This was so much better. I actually lauded him for his contribution instead of having to keep him at bay like a rabid monster rattling at the bars. And he had a point. I mapped out parts of the castle time and time again. Dawn occasionally showed up to keep an eye on my progress and sometimes to — arguably — distract me from progressing too quickly. But in this entire ruin, there was only one place that made him hesitate. That caused some sort of incident each and every time.

The staircase to the cellar.

It was blocked, of course. A cave in. Tons of stone and debris in the way. But whenever I suggested clearing that path, something came up that occupied us, that demanded our attention elsewhere, that kept critical resources bound in other projects. A powerful unicorn like him though — was a bunch of rocks really such a great hurdle for him? He could probably just teleport straight past them. Which, given my lack of teleportation capabilities, meant I would face a problem. At least I expected as much as I walked towards said staircase, but my expectations were met with a faint gust of wind carrying stale air and dust while I gazed upon rubble indeed — rubble blasted to smithereens, from the looks of it.

If you ever wondered what it looks like when somepony powerful doesn’t bother being patient anymore — here you go.

The depths below were not as pitch-black as I expected either. The occasional torch in a wall-mounted sconce lit the staircase just enough to give it a gloomy atmosphere. “This is great. Just great,” I sighed as I mentally prepared myself and then stepped downwards.

I was intimately familiar with the layout of the castle, and that included the cellar. However, such familiarity was not even required. I walked down the stairs following the trail of light, past closed and barred doors or those withered away by time until the trail of lit torches ended. There were two rooms on this layer, one to each side. The left one was barred by a half-rotten wooden door, with utter darkness lingering behind it from what I could tell due to the multiple holes in it. The other door however, that one was an entirely different matter. It was clearly cared for, maybe even repaired or entirely replaced at some point.

“Well. Here goes nothing,” I quietly muttered under my breath.

Good luck.

I was taken aback to hear something so… genuinely nice from him. It even made me smile, despite all the things going on right now. “Thank you.”

I grabbed the door handle in my telekinesis, pushed it down and slowly opened it. Light streamed out from within. Colorful light. Accompanied by the sound of occasional hoof steps. I slipped inside once the gap was large enough and closed the door behind myself. Because I already had a sneaking suspicion that I would not try to flee this room, and with the door closed, that would be more difficult for anypony else as well. Just in case.

Dawn stood there.

I was less surprised than I had imagined myself to be. He stood there with his back to me, wearing a nondescript dark cloak. He had dropped his illusion and therefore, all the runes were visible on his coat. Some emitted a bright glow, others only glowed dimly. It mingled and mixed with the colorful display on the ground.

Runes, glyphs, sigils. And symbols of power, can’t forget about those. I knew that there were differences between these. Nuances. Somepony like Twilight would probably understand what she was looking at here. I did not. To me, this was all just: magic. Symbols of different sizes and colors, some carved into the stone floor, others painted on it with various means. I grimaced slightly when I noticed some of these symbols looking like blood.

Dawn stepped very, very carefully in between them. The ritual he conducted clearly was fragile in nature, susceptible to disturbances. He stepped in between patterns of symbols, staring at them, muttering quietly under his breath. He probably checked, double-checked and triple-or-quadruple-checked. I waited for a good opportunity to address him and eventually found one when he moved to another section. “I hope I don’t disturb you.”

I had been curious about his eventual reaction this entire time. And knowing Dawn, I was not surprised at how… measured it was. A sigh briefly battled the room's silence, but he did not turn to me yet. “Despite what you might believe: No, you do not.” He hesitated a moment and finally turned around to face me. “My work here is almost done, Dreamwalker.” He grabbed a bottle from the corner of the room. With the light show being too in-my-face, I had fully overlooked it even being there. A bulgy flask of transparent glass. But what swirled within it really caught my eye. A dark-blue, almost blackish haze with specks of light glittering every now and then. It almost looked like condensed dreamscape matter. Which was utterly impossible, of course.

“Is this what you wish for?” Dawn asked, curiously tilting his head to the side ever so slightly. “To disturb me?”

I had to be honest with myself. And him. “I don’t know. I hope not.” I looked at his intricate setup again. Some symbols might have been drawn with blood. But that was not evil per se, right? In an attempt at gallows humor, I shot him a wry smile. “No ‘welcome back from the dead’?”

Dawn chuckled briefly. “Do not insult our intelligence, please. However, I am glad that you are in good health. It was a marvelous trick you pulled off.”

“You knew?” I asked.

He smiled wryly and shook his head. “Not with certainty. Not until now.”

I tried my hoof at a graceful bow, like an actor on stage, no matter how silly I felt. And his smile confirmed that he appreciated the silliness. “I had some help. From friends.”

He nodded. “I figured as much. One in particular, I assume.” He set the bottle down with utmost care, lifted the cloak that was draped over his back, just enough to get a good look at one of the many spell tattoos he wore. He plucked one from his coat as if it had just been a sticker. The glow of the symbol faded, and with it faded the illusion that apparently had been layered over the room. Little changed aside from the appearance of a sphere in the middle of the patterns of symbols. It floated several inches off the ground, transparent like a soap bubble, and caught within it—

“Luna,” I gasped.

Her dark blue coat was ruffled, but her ethereal mane still floated as if submerged in water. Her eyes were closed, her wings tucked in. As if she was sleeping. And indeed, after taking a closer look not at her, but at the intricate patterns on the ground, I managed to spot some symbols that had not been there before, clearly hidden by the illusion as well. And these I even vaguely recognized.

I had spent years and years living with Twilight. Eventually, no matter how dense one was, knowledge started to rub off. There were… patterns. I always found them hard to explain, but easy to recognize once I had seen them. Similar patterns were the foundation for similar spells. Evocation spells — those that made things go boom or sizzle — usually had spiky designs with sharp, pointy corners while abjuration spells — protective charms — favored smooth curves, ovals and interconnected circles.

These new symbols were enchantment spells. And since they were roughly the same pattern and given Luna's incapacitated state, it was hopefully not too much of an assumption to figure them to be sleep spells of some kind.

All of this within a few seconds. And really, it should have served to calm me down. She had no visible injuries. Sleep spells were harmless for the most part. But the fact alone that he involved my wife in his ritual at all, the fact that she was incapacitated, that panicked me.

I had to weigh in with every ounce of self-restraint to not say or do something rash. And he knew that. He watched me with the same curiosity he had before. He was the audience cheering for the raging battle in my heart and mind, uncaring for who would win. “What have you done to her?!” I asked through gritted teeth.

Dawn briefly glanced to the side. “Nothing. And if everything goes according to plan, neither will I ever have to. Her name was Eclipse, Dreamwalker.”

Eclipse.

It finally made sense that he always tiptoed around that. Had he used her name earlier, I would have managed to figure out that Luna had to be involved somehow. Eclipse, the dragon. With what I knew about Lunas and Celestias cycle of rebirth, it made sense. And it was devastating. A noble sacrifice and her time in this world came to an end. She returned to where she came from. And she carried all her mortal memories with her. Richer in experience, but a bodiless force of nature once more. Until eventually, she would have recovered enough from the ordeal of dying to once more form a mortal vessel for her spirit. But to regain mortality, even a limited one, she would need to leave behind as much as possible. Say, all those memories from all her previous lives, for example. They would still be up there. Waiting for her return once she died once more. Enriched by yet another lifetime once she did. But she — Eclipse —, she was gone.

Except she was not. Not fully. Not if one searched at the right time.

“Dawn… please!” I begged. I made no illusions about it. “We can talk about this!” They rose from the depths of my mind with terrifying speed and immediately started to torture me. Those infamous two words.

What.

If.

What if something went wrong?

Dawn meanwhile shot me a sad smile. “Dawn. It is a moniker I have used for so many years now. A new dawn for a new life. A second chance. But you do not wish to call yourself ‘Chance’, it makes you sound like a semi-professional gambler. Believe me, I tried. My name, my actual name, is Velvet Dusk. I like to think I would have told you sooner. Introduced myself properly. But somewhere along the path, I… I lost it. I lost my name and forgot. It is only in recent times that I remembered. In no small part thanks to you, my friend. You have done everything in your power to befriend me, and a good friend you have been. I am truly, and will always be, deeply grateful for your companionship. For your efforts. And our time together.”

This is his farewell, Void commented. Be ready.

Ready. Ready for what? I tried not to tear up. With less than stellar success.

“But this is the end, my friend,” Velvet continued. “There can only be one way for this to end. I went to great lengths to get my love back. I went to the end of the world, beyond and back. I did terrible deeds you cannot hope to imagine. I terrorized entire civilizations, tortured, killed, stole. You do not come back from such deeds. I lived for thousands of years on stolen time and bent history itself to my will to get here. Right here, to this point in time, to this place. To this very moment.” He sighed and sounded so terribly exhausted. Tired. Resigned. Yet that small smile persisted on his lips. Slowly, he grabbed the bottle with his magic and once more lifted it off the ground. “Tell me — with that kinship between us, with your alleged understanding of my plight… do you claim you would not do the same? For her?”

Despite the vast emptiness of the room, it suddenly felt crowded. The arcane symbols were concentrated around the middle of the room, the radius of their patterns did not extend beyond three quarters and I still stood near the entrance and yet I found my hooves frozen, rooted to the spot. My mind raced. Dawn — Velvet, I quickly corrected myself — had stepped in between these symbols with utmost caution. Disrupting ongoing rituals could provoke volatile magical resonances. And those heavy-duty sleep spells… maybe she would wake up if I were to disrupt them. But at that point, what would happen to us? To him? I felt choked and needed to buy myself a couple of precious seconds to sort my thoughts. And he had delivered me a suitable distraction. “Velvet Dusk, hm? It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance. I’m… still just boring old Dreamwalker. May I call you Vivi then?” I shot him a lopsided grin.

His sudden bout of laughter sounded strangely unbridled, especially for him. “Please don’t!” he quickly replied once he was able to. “I imagine it would be a very awkward conversation to try to explain to her why you use my pet name.”

At least we were still able to joke around. Even if the tension was palpable and easily heard in both our voices. “And what is all of this then, Velvet?” I asked as I vaguely gestured towards the room full of arcane symbols — and the bottle in his grasp.

“I call it the ‘time vortex’,” he replied without specifying if he meant the content of the flask, the room itself or the array of symbols. “It is an anomaly I had chased for centuries before I finally managed to get hold of it. With the right incantations, preparations and spells, it can be used to access the timestream itself.”

I grimaced immediately. Twilight had dabbled in time travel on occasion. And never, not once, had anything good ever come from that. “You want to reverse time… by several millennia.”

I made no effort to hide my incredulity. And Velvet quickly shook his head. “Not quite. Neither am I powerful enough for something on that scale, nor do I wish to undo so much history, so many lives lived, so many lessons learned, so many memories made. I will turn back time on your wife to the moment she was mine. I will copy her body, mind and soul. And then reverse the time flow for your wife back to its original point, back to her current state of being.”

Maybe Twilight. There was no pony other than these two who could say something like that and make it sound halfway reasonable. Make it sound possible to begin with. It was baffling. Yet despite this, my gaze wandered over to Luna. How she peacefully floated in the middle of this massive array of magic. She was the focus, the heart piece of this ritual. And I spoke freely from my own heart. “Velvet… a single mistake, any miscalculation…”

“I know,” he quietly whispered.

I felt my throat tighten. “Nothing like this has ever been done before. Not even attempted. There are no guidelines. You’re flying blind.”

“I know.”

I swallowed hard. “Velvet… this is my wife.” It was finally there. The point of mutual understanding. I can’t let you do that. It is too dangerous.

He smiled sadly. “I know,” he uttered for a third time. His shoulders sagged. “I am sorry, friend. It truly has been a… nice time. I had forgotten how that felt. To live and enjoy doing so. To have company and relish it.” He sighed, but then squared his shoulders with effort and turned around to finish his ritual. “You will not fight me,” he stated.

I wanted to puke. We reached an impasse. And I hated each and every option. “Neither could I, even if I wanted to,” I mumbled. Velvet had made clear not just how long his story had been at this point, but he had demonstrated before how powerful that story made him. He could have ‘dealt’ with me at any given moment. The fact that we talked at all, that I still stood here, was all due to his concessions.

“What is our hero’s plan, then?” Velvet asked without taking his eyes off of his ritual.

I shook my head almost immediately. “I am no hero,” I rejected the label. “Neither am I an arcane prodigy like my daughters or wives, or a warrior like her.” I briefly glanced at Luna. It hurt.

I carefully walked towards Velvet. Similar to him previously, I stepped cautiously in between the symbols without ever touching any single one of them. Meanwhile Velvet lifted the bottle higher and then smashed it onto the ground right beneath the sphere Luna was contained in. Whatever that content was, it now welled up in a misty vortex. The whirlwind of pure night sky rose higher and higher and slowly but surely, the sphere with Luna in it vanished from sight within its midst. Strangely enough, I felt no threat from this thing. It instead felt oddly familiar. Almost like an old friend I had not seen in ages.

Either way, there was no going back now. For any of us.

I felt the jittering in my legs. How wobbly my knees had become. It took sheer force of will to move my hooves forward as every fiber of my being wanted to escape from here so badly. “But you know what I do?” I asked Velvet as I had almost reached him.

He did not turn around.

I understood that. I would not be here had he not allowed for it. Maybe he could not teleport at all — or maybe he could and consciously decided to blast the rubble from the staircase, hoping I would find him in time. Maybe he wanted to be stopped, but could not do it by himself anymore. Too many maybes and not enough certainty, as always. Life was frustrating like that.

And Void screeched down my ear that this was the moment, this was the opportunity ‘we’ had apparently waited for. I was supposed to summon my sword and… stab him. Stab my friend. Who I understood. Who I emphasized with. His question still lingered in the back of my mind: Would I not do the same in his situation? How could I judge him for that? How would I have any right to judge him at all?

I reached his side and put a front leg around his withers while placing one of my rear legs on one of the heavy-duty sleep spell symbols. The display right in front of us was magnificent. A beautiful swirl of light and darkness, dancing with each other. As beautiful as the dreamscape itself. Not a bad last sight. Not bad at all.

What do you mean, ‘last’?

I smiled serenely as I grabbed Velvet tighter. “I try a lot.”

One last push. I made sure that my rear hoof destroyed the symbol on the floor as I pulled Dawn with me forward. Into the maelstrom of time itself.

What’s the worst that could happen, right?

I bet he didn’t see that one coming!

Fear not, my little pony.

Ex Tempore Immemorabili

Fear not, my little pony.

This is a nightmare… quite literally.

Don’t… don’t… don’t look…

I came back to my senses mid-fall. Oddly enough, there was no wind rushing past my ears. There was no wind at all. And despite my several frantic blinks, I failed to see anything other than a vast, empty blackness. I quickly recognized this place, and this recognition was accompanied by a worn-down dread and tired familiarity.

The void.

His place.

I briefly wondered why I was here. Briefly only because I hit the ground shortly thereafter. A sudden stop to my fall that neither increased in speed, nor did it slow down. And despite the impact, I failed to feel any pain either. Just another piece in the puzzle, telling me that maybe, this was not what it seemed. That this was not… real.

The voices were faint echoes. Whispers from the inky emptiness that surrounded me on all sides. They were a mirror of my innermost workings. Accordingly, they felt ugly. Some of them could not stop spouting accusations, curses and cusses. They belittled, chided and reprimanded me for failures past and future. Others were shy mumbles, trying to solve impossible puzzles, trying to figure out life itself. But the vast majority, towering over all the others, were afraid. Afraid of a million and one things. Fearful of the future and the secrets of the past. Fearful of my own impulses and urges, and those of others. Fearful of the dangers of this world, and even the things that might not be dangerous yet.

Many of these voices I recognized as my own. Many, but not all.

Don’t look.

I looked. Of course I did, how could I not?

And it was there. A horrible, unpleasant tingling crawled down my spine and raised my hair. I had seen this creature before. And without understanding, without knowing anything about it, on a purely subconscious, instinctual level, it induced terror in my heart.

“Who are you?!” I half-yelled. Because I did not dare raise my voice any further. What if it answered? What if I angered it? “What are you?!”

Maybe it was blind. Or distracted. Preoccupied with other matters, somehow. But the moment I addressed it, the moment I acknowledged its presence, its stance shifted ever so slightly. It turned towards me. Focused. A first step on clumsy, wobbly legs, but full of intent. Then another one. It approached, slowly.

It felt like a revelation. To realize that it was walking towards me. The speed did not matter. The intention did not matter. The direction was enough. Unadulterated fear gripped my heart. I heard the blood rush in my ears in the quick rhythm of a rising panic. “No! No, get away from me!” I flailed with my hooves wildly in its general direction. And I hit nothing but air, of course. If such a thing even existed in this place.

It was so far away still. But was it? Did distance matter in this place?

I backpedaled away from it. My hindlegs were busy increasing the distance between us, my front legs still flailed wildly and my mind was swamped with angst. I wanted to cry so badly. I wanted to curl into a teeny-tiny ball and pop out of existence. Just gone.

I knew not what this thing was. My first thought was to somehow associate it with dragons. I had no idea why. It lacked their scales. It had neither a tail nor wings or horns. No claws either. Not even a proper snout. Just soft, squishy flesh, covered by pink, hairless skin. Maybe it was just the bipedal walk that conjured up this association. If so, it was a flimsy connection at best. Only young dragons walked on their hindlegs.

What does it matter?

Idle musings did not diminish the mortifying fear I experienced. I scrambled. I finally, finally managed to get enough of a grasp of the situation, enough clarity of mind, to realize the futility of my current ‘defense’. It advanced slowly, step by step, and despite its lack of speed, it still gained on me. Because I was an idiot.

I turned around, managed to get solid footing again and ran.

I looked over my shoulder, because I did not dare leave it out of my sight completely. And my blood froze.

There were others. Built differently. But some were clearly of the same species. Broader shoulders. Grim faces. Clad in armor, wielding weapons. Clad in tunics, wielding books. And other creatures entirely. Griffons among them. I spotted a dragon or two. An entire legion behind it. So many other creatures. They stood still. Expressionless faces for the most part. Dull eyes. Lifeless. Waiting to be filled with motivation. With purpose.

With a story.

I saw the strings. Attached to their limbs. Wrapped around their joints and necks. They hung loose. Dragged on the ground behind them. But the fact that they were there in the first place…

And the creature, it carried a wooden cross in its hand. And an oddly sad smile on its flat face.

I ran as fast as my legs would carry me, yet it always seemed to be at the same distance. Slowly advancing towards me, step by step. It terrified me. More so once I felt its influence.

An unseen force that wrapped itself around my head and did not get dislodged once I violently shook my head in response. No, instead it bore into my mind with his icky tendrils and started to mess with my thoughts, molding them like wet clay.

‘So many other creatures’, a simple observation, was meddled with, transformed. ‘Creatures’ became ‘people’. ‘People’ became ‘prota—

“No!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Leave me be!” I cried out, half a threat and half a plea for mercy. “You’re not real!” I could not help the desperation in my voice. I felt fear. Fear in its simplest, purest form. There was no word for it anymore. ‘Fear’ seemed wholly inadequate. I felt whatever the grand-daddy of fear was. Whatever its source was, its origin. I tapped into something so primal that it effortlessly overwhelmed my being and—

I fell.

Again.

In my frantic run away from it, I apparently stepped past solid ground. Not that I could tell solid ground from anything else. I fell through an invisible hole. Deeper, deeper, deeper down. Deeper down the rabbit hole. Let’s hope we’re not too late. I shuddered and tried to block out the voices. I tried to brace for impact, as it would surely follow eventually. But when the moment came and I was abruptly stopped again, I still felt as unprepared as the first time.

I landed in a heap. And I made no effort to hide anything. I was so done. I was tired and afraid. Too afraid to be tired. Too tired to be afraid. A constant switch between too hot and too cold. I wanted to curl into a fetal position, I wanted to shiver it out until my body would stop from sheer exhaustion, and I was too tired to care who witnessed it. So I did.

I lay on my side and made myself small. As small as I could be. I could still see its face if I closed my eyes. That sad smile. It seemed so… genuine. And that frightened me even more, for some reason.

“He is not real,” I muttered to myself.

Is any of this real? The question was not a new one. I tried to manifest something. Anything. Twilight's voice, to soothe me. Sunny's smile. My friends, any one of them would do right now. A freaking coffee mug. But nothing happened. It was a stupid, inconclusive test. It did not tell me anything worthwhile. Either this was real, not a dream, not the dreamscape, not my subconscious… or I was in a mental state of such utter disrepair that I lacked the required concentration to manifest anything.

Either was possible.

Either seemed equally likely.

And I felt too tired to care.

“And finally,” a strangely familiar voice suddenly intruded upon my misery, “we reach the ultimate pickle: What even is reality?”

I swallowed and replied in an irksomely raspy voice. “Oh, great. Torture by existential crisis. Such a novelty for me. And what is your answer?”

The following silence stretched. I was almost convinced that whoever said that was gone. That it might have been a figment of my imagination to begin with. That finally, finally the day had arrived. The day I had gone mad. Completely and utterly lost my shit. Was this what insanity felt like? Looked like?

But the voice was not done with me. “That I don’t have one,” she answered. I could tell from the brief pause, from her very deliberate intonation that she picked her next words carefully. “But I did always cherish our discussions of the topic. This one and many others.”

I don’t want to. It was such a profound statement. And yet I raised my head anyway. Uncurled myself just enough to finally take a look at this intruder. At the source of this voice who was so intent on not leaving me alone.

I saw the void first, of course. All around us. I hated the familiarity I had garnered with this place over the decades. But more importantly, I saw her. I gawked at an alicorn, with my mouth hanging wide open.

Her features seemed strangely familiar. It was the same odd sense of familiarity that her voice rang with this entire time. Her amber coat. Her mane was the color of mahogany, with vibrant turquoise highlights. The same turquoise as her eyes. She wore a full set of regalia as well. Made from brass, it seemed. These strange knee pads were a unique addition, inlaid with turquoise gemstones. And they looked oddly technical. Like mechanical pieces one would expect from the inner workings of a clock. Her peytral looked half machine as well and prominently featured her cutie mark. An hourglass.

Everything about her felt familiar, yet I failed to recognize her in full. There was no name that sprang to mind, no memory of shared times and events, no sudden flash from a previous life. Who are you?!

I slowly uncurled myself fully and rose to my hooves again. I still felt exhausted, but it also felt like I should be ashamed to cower before her like I had done. And only then did I realize: She was an alicorn. And she wore regalia. I quickly bowed low.

She’ll go for your nose. Not the intrusion of yet another foreign voice, not a creepy whisper from beyond the veil. My own voice. My own suspicion. It was hard to tell them apart sometimes, and I failed to see how I came to that conclusion, to that expectation, it was utterly unfounded and—

She booped my nose with her brass-clad hoof. I blinked in confusion and looked up at her. Her giggle sounds like wind chimes. I waited. A second, maybe two. In stunned silence. Her lips curled upwards. Her bottom lip quivered as she tried and failed to reign her amusement in. And when she finally broke, when she giggled, it really did sound like wind chimes. Floaty, breezy, airy.

She’ll hug you. This was one step too far. Relying on my intuition had served me well for the most part throughout my entire life. Throughout many lives, in fact. And right now, I could not deal with that. So I took a step back. And despite how much I trusted my own gut feeling, I was still surprised to notice that at the very same moment I stepped back, she made the effort. She moved in. She stopped halfway through when she realized I refused, but the ambition, the impulse had clearly been there. Uncanny.

Her amber wings rustled. I looked up at her, but she did not seem annoyed or alienated. Surprised, if anything. “How do you do that?” I asked her. It was futile, I told myself. How could she know? “How do I know you without remembering you? Without remembering anything about you? I can’t even pin a name to your face!”

Wind chimes. She giggled briefly. While I dealt with confusion and dismay, this entire situation seemed quite amusing to her. “That sounds as if it would hurt. We have been friends a long, long time ago, Dreamwalker. In eons past, one might say. Although I will admit that time plays a different role in our lives. I would love for you to treat me as your friend once more.” She opened her wings to their fullest… and bowed. To me. “My name is Tempora.”

This is ridiculous. I gulped and tried not to freak out again. But the name did ring a few bells. Faintly, deep in the back of my head. “You are a princess,” I, Captain Obvious, noted my shrewd observation.

Tempora rose to her full height again and refolded her wings. I was glad for that small mercy. Her smile still persisted. “Technically, yes. And you have been my brave knight.”

Everything within me balked at the sentiment. The implications did not even matter, not at this moment. “I am no knight,” I immediately replied. It was all I could do not to snap at her.

And for the first time since we met, I saw a very old toughness emerge and take over her expression. Putting myself down was not on the menu, it seemed. “And what makes a knight, old friend? Is it the shining armor he wears? How ready for blood and battle he is when he raises up his weapon? Or is it his mindset with which he tackles challenges set before him?” The hardness in her voice drained away as quickly as it had appeared, and only a fond smile was left behind as she sighed. “I have missed our discussions.”

I shook my head. “I-I don’t remember them. At all.” This entire time, I had waited. For a flash of insight. For a random memory to pop up. But there was nothing. Silence. Just a vague feeling of familiarity that permeated everything about her. Was it possible that whatever connected us had been so long ago that my memories of it faded entirely? It was a scary thought. Because if I could forget about her, completely and fully forget, then surely I could forget other lifetimes as well. Other worlds. Other families I had left behind. Other experiences I had made. How many had there been?

Tempora acknowledged at least my lack of recognition with a nod. “I know. And that is fine, do not worry. It will come back to you in time… or maybe it won’t, it doesn’t matter either way. I don’t mind having to forge new memories with you either. A mortal mind was never meant to hold such vast knowledge. Side effects had been inevitable from the start, and we both knew that.”

I had questions. So. Many. Questions. And for the first time in ever, it felt like there was an actual, decent chance to get answers. But before I could utter a single one, Tempora raised her hoof, brought it down onto the still very much invisible ground with force and suddenly, something manifested right next to her.

Luna.

She was still curled up in a fetal position, trapped inside a magical bubble. But it was a sharp reminder of where I had come from. What had happened before I landed in this place.

Tempora turned her attention to Luna. She raised a hoof and put it against the magical sphere. Her eyes briefly shone with a burning white light, and a moment later the bubble burst. Tempora giggled as she shot me a frisky grin. “I can see you have developed a certain taste.”

I had no idea what she did. Or saw. Or how any of that worked. But with Luna especially, it was easy to imagine any of the countless… things we had shared. And I blushed furiously. “Is she alright?” I asked as I walked closer to my kitten. I did not dare touch her, as I was unfamiliar with the specifics of what Velvet had done to her. Tempora seemed to have no such qualms and placed her armored hoof with a gentle gesture on Luna's cheek. She did not wake from the touch, but the gesture seemed intimate somehow.

“No harm has befallen her, I can assure you that,” she told me. “You always have been a resilient one,” she whispered towards Luna.

It really was a relief. In retrospect — diving into that unknown anomaly with Velvet in tow, not knowing what would happen next, might have been one of the stupidest moves of my entire life. And I had done a lot of stupid things in my many, many years. It felt as if a mountain was lifted off my heart and shoulders to know that others did not have to suffer for my rash actions. Although, that still remained to be seen, did it not? After all… where were we even? What was this place? Was this the dreamscape? If so: How? If not: What else?

“What happened? Where are we? Where is Velvet?” He should be in here with us, right? As the first questions tumbled out of my mouth, the dam broke and I had to fight tooth and nail to keep myself from spouting more and more questions before she could even get a single word in to answer any of them.

“The anomaly you found was my hibernation capsule,” Tempora replied with a sigh. “It can get quite boring as the steward of the timestream and I lack the seemingly unending curiosity for mortal life that my sisters have.” She closed her eyes with a warm smile on her lips and leaned in. Her cheek against Luna’s, she sighed happily. Tempora opened her eyes again and regarded Luna with nothing but fondness as she continued to explain. “I sleep for long phases. Sometimes through entire cycles of their rebirths.”

I blinked. And shook my head. “You’re… their sister?” Another one? It was silly, of course. There really were not that many. Luna and Sunny were sisters, sure. Twilight wasn’t. Cadance wasn’t. Yet it still felt strangely crowded, did it not?

Tempora grinned in reply. “In spirit, of course. Alicorns are not automatically blood-related, that would make certain developments in this timeline and others horribly awkward, don’t you think?”

I inevitably had to think about many of our double-dates. Visits to expensive restaurants. Sharing a few bottles of wine in front of the fireplace in Canterlot Castle. Or better yet, gorging ourselves on canapes in the living room in Twilight's castle. Eventually, after talking for ages, the evening calmed down. Conversations faded away. Everypony became a bit more cuddly. I vividly remembered leaning against Luna, her soft plumage keeping my back warm, a blanket surrounding both of us as we merely watched silently as Sunny and Twilight shared a series of increasingly intimate kisses.

I still remembered what I had thought at that moment: Took them long enough.

While this evening had been unique, there were many like it after that. Some of them ended in serenity, others in exhilaration. I found myself nodding in response to her ‘question’. While ‘awkward’ might not have been my word of choice for that, I had to agree that no direct relation was very much preferable.

Tempora did not tease me about any of it, thankfully. I still could not tell if she was able to read my mind, or if she simply knew me so well that she could predict my thoughts. Either way, her knowing smirk told me that she easily could have and chose not to. “If your question was if I had always been a pony however,” she continued like nothing had happened, “then the answer is no. Our connection runs deeper than mere consciousness. Even in my slumber I can feel when their lives come to a close once again, when they return to their celestial state of being to recover from the trauma of death, as much as I can feel when they choose to delve down into yet another body and another life. My own form changes to match theirs in every new cycle they start.”

She stretched her wings wide and craned her neck all the way back to take a good look at herself. For somepony unfamiliar with a pony's body, she did surprisingly well. Then again, how long had they been doing this? How many experiences did she have? Maybe at some point, the experiences with all quadruped bodies somehow blended together?

I sighed. This was getting out of hoof fast. I refocused my mind on a more pressing matter. “What about Velvet?” I recognized that she did not answer my question about our current location. Either because she forgot, or she did not want to answer. Or any of the myriad of other possible reasons. I chose to respect her wishes — or failings — and moved on to something more important. After all, whatever this place was, its featureless void served well to keep my mind on track.

Temporas eyes briefly flashed with white light again. I suspected that every time she did that, she gathered information via some kind of vision. And when the light dimmed this time, her expression was one of seriousness. Contempt, even. “I see the issue,” she muttered with a sigh before she raised her voice. “I will be honest with you for old time’s sake, Dreamwalker. I have little patience for fools or fanatics, and he appears to be both.”

Harsh words. Spoken in a voice bereft of empathy. It tugged at my heartstring and made me fear for a friend of mine. “He was misguided.”

“By himself,” she cut in.

“He was desperate!” I defended him.

Tempora raised a hoof to stomp the ground, but lowered it softly as she recognized her own temper flaring. “Time does not yield to the whims of mortals like he wished it did. His attempt to bend it to his will was… dangerous. Dangerous in how close he came to fulfilling his wish.”

Maybe the implication was correct. Maybe I simply could not hope to fathom the consequences had he succeeded. But he should be here. We both tumbled into the anomaly. And I started to fear for his life. “Please, Tempora. He just wanted to be reunited with her. Can’t you… I don’t know… send him back to her or something?”

She cocked her head to the side and stared at me in bemusement. “You wish for me to hurtle him through space and time, into a long-dead past where he does not belong and every breath he takes may change the future and rewrite history? I think not! The consequences of such an action would be unforeseeable even to me.”

“Please, I—“ I cut myself off as a disturbing thought crossed my mind. He should be here with me. Yet he was not, clearly. What if…? “Did… did you kill him already?” What a brave knight I was. Welcome back, old friend — here, have some murder accusations.

Tempora sighed and shook her head. “I do not end life lightly, Dreamwalker. The moment both of you entered my capsule, I readjusted it to keep you safe and in stasis. This place is not meant for beings other than myself.”

“So he is… fine? For now?” I needed to know. I needed to hear it, I felt. Yet the nod she gave me in reply was enough of an answer to satisfy that need for the time being. I sighed in relief. Wherever he was, at least he was safe. And my gaze was inevitably drawn towards Luna as a curious idea sprang to mind. After all, she had called this a hibernation capsule, had she not?

Tempora sighed deeply. “You have grown soft, old friend,” she half-heartedly chided me. It lost even more of its impact due to her warm smile. “I do not mind this change. It is merely… that I am surprised by it.” She looked over to Luna as well and nodded. “You may search for a ‘solution’ for his predicament if you wish to. And yes, Luna would be capable of affecting him with a manufactured dream while he is in my custody. However, I assure you that this is wholly unnecessary as he is kept fully unaware of the flow of time.”

I felt strangely naked every time she did that. Every time she predicted what I was about to do or say or even think. I did not mind being an open book. Nothing I could do about that. And even if I could — I failed to see it as something bad, as a flaw of mine. Sunny always knew how I felt. If I was down, if I was happy, if my thoughts were gnawing away at me again. Luna could always tell if I tried to keep secrets from her, and often enough even what kind of secrets those were. She pried into them hard if it was anything personal that bothered me, but she kept her distance and let me be if it was something silly like ideas for birthday presents. And even Twilight, who lacked the vast experience of the other two, could easily read me anytime.

But that felt different. Tempora’s gaze felt more scrutinizing. As if I had to meet certain standards. There was a perceived pressure behind it. And it was so… thorough. She was not just reading my mood or my current state of mind. She was reading everything, all at once.

I shook my head in an effort to clear it. Focus, I told myself. We were talking about Velvet. This was about the fate of a friend who… had done something silly. We’ve all been there, right? But no matter how much I tried to play it down, there was no way around acknowledging that Velvet could have ended the world.

And yet I still liked my idea of giving him a dream for his time of waiting. “It would still be… nicer. For him,” I told her. A foretaste of what was to come. A nice dream of a reunion, until his actual reunion. Velvet allowed me to stop him. Because he could not stop himself anymore. And now that the situation had changed so dramatically… maybe there was a way to reunite him with his beloved?

Tell me — with that kinship between us, with your alleged understanding of my plight… do you claim you would not do the same? For her?

His voice echoed in my head. As a sharp reminder of how thin the rope we balanced on was. One wrong step and we fell into the pits of madness, chasing insane ideas in futile attempts to undo time itself.

Tempora nodded at my side. “As you wish. And good luck with convincing Luna of such a foolish idea. You will need it.”

I smiled and found myself leaning into Tempora. I even tried to put a leg around her in a clumsy attempt at a hug. Until she turned towards me, sat down and allowed for us to embrace each other properly. “Thank you,” I mumbled.

Her smile shone brightly. “You always had a way of spinning tales that intrigued me.”

I chuckled. “And what does that mean?”

Tempora shrugged. “Merely that I am curious as to where you will lead Velvet's story.”

Well, I am a storyteller, I thought with a wry smile. With Velvet's fate resolved for the time being, the myriad of questions returned with a vengeance. “What happens now? With Greenwood? With me? And you? I still have so many questions. Like… where did I originally come from? Do I have parents somewhere? Or should I say ‘sometime’? Was this all just… timey-wimey shenanigans then? These cycles I went through? To find you?”

She had the patience of a saint. Not dissimilar to Sunny, she merely waited with a knowing smile until I stopped myself. “You have nothing to worry about,” she claimed. “I will not force you to break camp here. Your involvement with my sisters intrigues me as much as the revelation that our small circle has grown by two new members. I am eager to get to know these two, Cadance and Twilight.”

I had to laugh. The mental image of how their first encounter would likely pan out was just too amusing. Twilight, confronted by the… what would one call her, even? The Alicorn of Time? Princess of Time? Especially after all the usually failed time travel shenanigans of Twilight's past, this sounded like a prime opportunity to tease the ever-living heck out of her. “I think you’ll hit it off nicely,” I replied with a wide grin.

She snickered. “I hope so as well. As for your current life and pastimes: Again, you do not have to worry about that. You are currently under no obligations. You heeded my call to free me and I have no further need of your services right now. That said, there are many questions you have that I cannot — or will not — answer. Some I do not know the answers for myself, and others are too dangerous to answer. Truth be told, you have always been an odd creature, even to me. Even when we met the first time so long ago.”

Metal smelled, well, metallic. I had never perceived this as a particularly pleasant scent. Neither the gold Sunny wore, nor the silver Luna preferred. But the faint trace of brass that clung to Tempora’s coat was oddly calming. Nevertheless, I pulled myself free and stared at her with my brow furrowed. Despite my disappointment about not getting all the answers right here, right now, there was still a chance of getting some of them. Eventually.

But she mentioned it again. I heeded her call to free her. “Why had you been imprisoned in the first place? With this thing being your capsule to begin with?”

Tempora grimaced ever so slightly, but more importantly, her wings rustled again. It was something she had difficulties to come to terms with, it seemed. For as much control as she could exert over her facial features and expressions, her body language betrayed no small amount of anticipation. “That is something I will have to investigate myself. I suspect someone has found it and tampered with it, which should already be impossible by itself. And despite my vast array of abilities, I have yet to figure out who did it, when, where, why, and most importantly: how.”

I shot her a lopsided grin as I remarked on the obvious. “You sound excited.”

It was oddly satisfying to see her blush for a change, to see her squirm in place for once. “I will admit that I might be. I already implied that I do not have strong feelings about participating in mortal life. But I do like to make use of any and every opportunity to share some quality time with my family. This investigation will surely carry me across worlds and timestreams, allowing me to catch up with just about everyone.”

I chuckled. And within a moment, that chuckle rose to a bellowing laughter as I drew a hilarious analogy in my own head: This was like celebrating a murder, because the who-done-it afterwards would allow the intrepid investigator to talk to all his friends. Who might or might not be suspects.

“You know you can just… ask them, right?” I asked her as my laughter died down again and I wiped a few tears away. “’Hey, I’m bored, wanna hang out?’ Something like that might work. Sounds way less complicated and doom-y.”

Tempora chimed in with her own laughter. “It is a relief to see that so much of the pony I knew is still there. Thank you, Dreamwalker. However, it is time for you to leave this place. Do not worry, we will meet again soon.”

The surrounding darkness encroached on us, on my field of vision, as colors drained and I slowly lost focus. I felt strangely at peace. I knew in my heart that she was not lying. I wondered if I would simply wake up, down there in that cellar of the castle ruins. I wondered if any time would have passed at all. If the day guard was still busy mopping up the remaining changeling forces. If Twilight had arrived as I expected. I wondered if they struck out against the enemy, carried the fight to them and traced fleeing drones back to their hive to settle things. I wondered if Greenwood had sustained any significant damages. If Luna would wake up there in the cellar alongside me. If she remembered at all how and when Velvet managed to ambush her. If she held a grudge or if she would be embarrassed by it. I wondered if Sunny knew. And if maybe she would be there as well.

And I still had so many questions for Tempora.

Just as she started to fade as well, I saw them again. Like eerie specters. The haunt stood right behind her, with its ever-present sad smile and his legion of… creatures. And I shivered as it slowly waved at me.

Stories never end. We just stop telling them.

Epilogue

Several busy but ultimately eventless months of toil later.

It was okay, I told myself. And I tried to keep my pace measured. I tried to not speed up into a canter or outright run down this very familiar dirt path. My target was in sight. The anticipation had been building up for hours now, the entire way back. My original plan had been to have a nice morning, slow and peaceful, get things in order one by one and head back around late morning to early midday.

Turned out I was way, waaay too excited for that.

I could not sleep properly. I tossed and turned in bed until I gave up with an annoyed groan. The sun was nowhere to be seen, Luna's beautiful night sky was still on full display and it was therefore way too early for me. My body did not care. Neither did my mind, it seemed. So I snuck out of our house without waking Aurora. I trotted to the river and finished my morning routine in record time. And I had everything else in order before the sky even dipped into lighter shades of blue.

My own eagerness made me chuckle several times on my way back.

There was plenty to do. There always was. Greenwood was a busy village, a newly founded, quickly growing bloom on Equestrian maps. The call had been sent out. Ponies heard of this new place, full of opportunities and maybe chances to start over, turn a new leaf. And they came from far and wide. Only a trickle, sure. That would change soon enough. It would get busy. Real busy. And as much as that excited me, it also made me feel antsy. New and unfamiliar faces. Not hoof-picked by me. Not strange outsiders and outcasts whose quirks I knew well. Or at least: Knew at all.

Greenwood was in a good spot. Stable. It did not need my continued presence anymore. The changeling invasion had been… repelled. Somehow. I was assured multiple times that they had ‘dealt with it’. I did not know what that meant in detail, I never asked, I tried not to care. The less I heard about pesky bugs, the better.

Nopony had witnessed Tempora. Nopony in Greenwood, at least. She decided to visit Canterlot first, to catch up with her sisters, make proper introductions again if necessary, and get a ‘lay of the land’, as it were. She was out there. Somehow, that filled me with pride and joy. And ease of mind. Answers were out there. I finally knew that they were out there, at least.

And I had a new friend. Velvet Dusk. Who I was not allowed to call Vivi. Who sometimes called himself Wildfire, to sound edgy and mysterious, I presumed. Similar to Fizzlepop Berrytwist calling herself Tempest Shadow. Ooohhh, spooky.

Other times, he called himself Dawn. As a reminder to himself why he was still going.

He loved adventure novels. And the academic pursuit of magical research. He was smart. Witty. A family stallion at heart. He would fit right in in Ponyville. I was eager to introduce him and Twilight to each other. I was eager to make him familiar with the concept of Ogres & Oubliettes.

Velvet was sleeping. It sounded nicer than ‘being in a state of temporal stasis’. He dreamt of the day he and his beloved were reunited. It would happen eventually. I would make sure of that somehow. One day.

And I was finally allowed to go home.

Greenwood needed to exist. Celestia knows why, but it had to. And now it did. And I was free. I had paid my dues. The name was on maps.

Are you pleased now?

I walked up the steps of the Crystal Castle. And as I came to a halt right in front of the grand entrance door, I suddenly grew horribly self-aware. I checked my coat. It was… okay. Not brushed to a sheen. Rarity would have things to say about that. But it was fine. My mane was a mess, but considering I had occasionally sped up into a gallop, canter, outright run before I managed to reign myself in and slow down back to a brisk walking pace — and adding the occasional gust of wind —, it could have been a lot worse.

I could feel the slight bags under my eyes. I was even sleep-deprived enough to check for my saddlebags. I wore none. The missing weight did not clue me in, no. Only when I stared at my own flank did I remember that I had talked about this with Spike. He and Gabby considered staying in Greenwood for a while longer. The village did not need a fierce protector anymore. They had Whisper and Peter now, and a pack of timberwolves secured forest north of town, and a couple of manticores kept the southern parts peaceful.

But they wanted to stay a little while longer and I did not mind. They would bring back whatever needed to be brought back. So I traveled with a light load of… nothing.

I sighed and tried to calm myself down. I closed my eyes, focused on my breathing, my rampant heartbeat, my slightly jittery legs. And I counted. “It’s fine,” I coaxed myself. I opened the door and the thin line of my lips quickly grew into a face-splitting grin as I saw Twilight sitting a dozen feet behind it on the carpet in the middle of the hallway.

How long had she been there? How long had she waited for me to finally open that door? I had informed her of my return with a letter, delivered courtesy of Spike. But surely she had not planted her pretty rump there as soon as she woke up. Right?

Either way, I closed the door behind me and that seemed to rouse her from her stupor. She blinked twice, then smiled from ear to ear as well as she stood up. She advanced towards me, slowly at first, measured. Movement I recognized easily. And before I knew it, she sped up. “Eeeeeeee!” she squealed as she ran into me.

I was ready for her. Sweet Celestia, stars and heavens above, I was so ready for this. I sat down firmly, caught her in my front legs and hugged her and I would never ever let her go again ever.

The warmth of her body. The brush of her coat against mine. That subtle scent of old paper and ink and her lavender shampoo wafting from her mane. I ingrained it in my memory. This moment, I had waited for it for months. Way too many months, it felt like.

I relished it. Every facet of it. I closed my eyes and slowly stroked my hoof down over her neck, her shoulders, her back. Felt the subtle up and down of muscles. The tension from her latest late-night research binge. Her body was so intimately familiar to me and it was such a relief to return here and reacquaint myself with it. With her. With this hallway. With the little details. Like the distinct light level the sconces and lamps managed to imbue these tall corridors with. The almost unnoticeably faint scent of ‘library’ in each and every room of this place. The subtle coolness of the crystal floor beside the plush and fluffy carpet. The sheen of the crystals. Their coloration. The color of these bookshelves that lined the walls. My memory told me how they had changed over the years. They were darker now than they had been the day Stonewood and his employees installed them.

I drank it all in. This place. Her. Everything. Broad strokes and details alike. And there was only so much I could do to not choke.

I was home.

Twilight nestled against me. The sudden stirring caused my attention to snap back to her. “Everything alright?” I asked. Quietly, as if I did not dare to disturb the peace and quiet. Or maybe I thought the moment was sensitive to loud noises, fragile. I could not tell — my mind was swamped in a chaos of spaghetti-thoughts. Long chains, slightly sticky, definitely entangled, would go great with tomato sauce.

Twilight sighed happily. I felt her nostrils flare against the coat of my chest and realized that she did very much the same thing I did. “Now it is,” she murmured back. She placed the faintest kiss on my chest. “I missed you so, so, so, so, so much!” Another kiss slightly higher, on my neck.

I grinned. “And yet you didn’t write me a single letter…!” I faux-complained.

“Mhm,” she replied as she peppered a line of kisses and even a little nip along my neck, throat and lower jaw. Until finally, she reached my muzzle and… pulled back. Just enough to look me in the eyes. “And it took great effort to do that!” she insisted. “It would not have helped you in the slightest otherwise. You would only have missed us even more and I did not wish to be the one who tested your resolve.”

She was probably right. She usually was. And even if she was not — now? Now that did not matter any longer. Because I was back home. I cupped her cheeks with my hooves, tilted my head ever so slightly and kissed her. A proper welcome-home-kiss. Oh how I loved how she melted right into that one. It was hard not to build upon that. Hard not to get frisky and let my hooves trace all over her body again, but with purpose and a different intent. “I’m home, peanut,” I mumbled as we broke our kiss. And I felt choked again. By sheer happiness. How ridiculous was that?

She nodded eagerly. “I know.” She embraced me fiercely once more, only to then pull herself away entirely, almost as if she had to tear herself away. As far as I was concerned, we could have spent the entire midday hours and afternoon right here in this spot in the middle of the hallway, right behind the entrance door.

She had other plans. “As soon as I got that letter, I wrote a couple myself. I invited Celestia and Luna over for dinner. I thought we could celebrate your return together. I hope that is okay with you? Not too much, too overwhelming?”

Always considerate. One of many qualities I loved about her. “I think that’s a lovely idea,” I replied with a fond smile. The three ponies I loved the most in this world, and I got to spend my entire evening with them? No. Overwhelming, this was not. I just knew that I would make myself look like a fool, babbling nonsense and clinging to whoever was closest to me at the time. I was not that touchy-feely most of the time, but right now… I felt the incessant need of actual physical contact. I just hoped that I would continue to avoid sobbing in joy. Because that was embarrassing. And I could not tell why that was the point where I drew the line.

I wanted to kiss Twilight again. And with a coy grin, she kept herself a hoof’s width away from me. She giggled as I pouted and gestured for me to follow her as she turned around and walked down the hallway. My gaze was transfixed onto her flank for just a couple of seconds before I scrambled to my hooves and closed up the gap.

If we had guests incoming, we needed to get some preparations done. And we had no Spike to lead the charge.

The afternoon turned to evening. Sunny would set her sun to sleep, Luna would coax her moon awake and sprinkle the sky with stars and they would arrive shortly after. So basically any moment now.

Twilight and I were almost done with our preparations. I was busy cutting the last few vegetables and she had preheated the oven and prepared the baking dish. Our glorious plan for tonight? A massive lasagna. Cut veggies drowned in spicy tomato sauce, separated from the next layer by lasagna sheets and a probably unhealthy amount of grated cheese. Not enough to trigger Twilight's aversion of course, and we were careful to use cheese with the least cheese pull, one that did not get as gooey as others.

A relatively simple dish, but a filling one.

And we had managed to not set the kitchen on fire, despite Twilight actually working in it for more than just making a cup of coffee. Spike would be so proud of us.

Soon enough, the last layer would be put on top, the dish could be placed in the oven and we would migrate over to the living room to await the others' arrivals. It would be a celebratory feast worthy of such a label.

And yet I found my mind wandering. And my eyes followed towards the kitchen window. I mindlessly stared out into the encroaching dark. And a heavy weight slowly, carefully, settled on my shoulders and pressed down on my heart.

I felt like I could almost see it.

It and its ever-present, sad smile.

Twilight stepped up to my side and her gaze followed mine towards the window and out into the dark. “Did you see something?” she asked.

I did not. Not really. Neither did she. I sighed and shook my head. “No. No, just… a closing window, I guess.”

Storyteller lingo. Was there such a thing?

She recognized… something. Out of the corner of my eyes, I noticed her looking at me with worry. She slowly lifted a hoof and placed it gently on my shoulder. I felt bad for making her worry about me in the first place. “Stay with me,” she said. The intonation was not clear to me. It was as much a plea as it was a question, a suggestion, a direction, an order, and so much more.

I heaved a heavy sigh. The smile that followed felt… easier, somehow. I leaned over and kissed her. Her warm lips were welcoming. She faintly tasted like the spicy sauce we used for the lasagna. It made me grin into the kiss. “I will,” I told her as we parted again. “I’m fine. Don’t worry, I’m home.”

I’m fine.

We Don't Do Small Talk

Exiting the castle felt strangely good. I stepped forward, out into the wider world and therefore out of my comfort zone. It felt brave, in a weird way. I nodded a silent greeting to the guards on my way out and left the castle premises behind me shortly after.

My love’s sun was still patiently climbing up the sky, but I could already tell what day this would become. Not a single cloud up there, the light was already quite warm… it was good. I usually did not deal well with heat, but this was no summer sun, not by a long shot. Another two months maybe and it would get unbearable again, but right now was that time of year when everything, from flowers to trees and all plants in between, from critters big and small, was still waking up and taking stock of what the winter had done and left behind.

As I dodged and weaved my way along the sidewalks of Canterlots streets, a little tune sprang to mind and somehow bypassed all my usual walls of hesitance. I whistled it for a while, a few minutes at best, until I remembered the exact lyrics. With a wide smile, I quietly sang. “It’s a brand new day… and the sun is high… all the birds are singing… that you’re gonna d—“

I cut myself off when I noticed some passersby giving me a wary side eye. “—dance,” I lamely ended the lyrics. And it really bristled my coat to know that I did it wrong.

“That doesn’t even rhyme!” a little filly complained and was promptly pulled closer to her mom and along the sidewalk, further away from me.

I cringed mostly internally and sighed outwards. “Luna would’ve liked it,” I quietly grumbled as I averted my gaze to the ground and moved on. It was a gross understatement though. Luna would have loved it. She would have bellowed the lyrics for all of Canterlot to hear, right alongside me. And her doing that would have given me enough courage to go on, despite odd looks from other ponies.

I sighed again. I still stood by my opinion that avoiding breakfast in the castle had been a wise choice. That obviously did not mean that I could not regret it anyway. I missed her already. Missed them, really. Sunny would not have sung along with me, but she would have smiled that genuine ‘I like what you’re doing because it seems to make you happy’-smile. Different types of support, same effect.

I dared to look around. I had not moved far enough yet, so a few ponies still occasionally looked at me like I was a lunatic. Funny, really. Maybe not the best choice to sing in public. Singing in public, on second thought, was a bad idea in general. What had I been thinking? Well, the short and quick answer was: Nothing. That was the point. I had not been thinking. I had just enjoyed the day. With a good song. A really good one. One that never failed to make me smile, which was really weird, given the context.

Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along was a new piece. Luna and I had watched it in the theater a couple weeks ago when it first premiered. Public interest in it had been almost non-existent, which was reflected in how few seats they managed to fill with pony butts. Or other butts, really. Any butts.

But goodness gracious, I was into that. The songs were catchy. The characters were lovable oddballs. Yet they did not fail to convey a sense of dread, desperation and drama at the same time. And it was hilarious. Despite the drama, it was so incredibly funny. A very difficult balancing act, I imagined.

I honestly had difficulties understanding why so few ponies seemed to have a good opinion of it, given they heard of it in the first place. Maybe ponykind was just not ready for this kind of dark humor. Maybe ponies were fed up with the string of emerging and reemerging villains of the recent decade. Pondering the why and how kept me busy for a good few minutes. Long enough for me to reach my destination.

I pushed past the door and ignored the doorbell as best as I could.

“Mornin’!” came the obligatory customer-greeting from behind the counter.

Jasper readied another order for a different customer and then turned his attention to me. His smile grew a little as he recognized my face. So did his father beside him, who had already started to fill my order without me even saying a single word. I liked that. Made me feel at home.

“Good morning, Joe. Good morning, Jasper. How is business today?” I asked. I had eyes and ears, of course. Half the tables were full, many ponies were chatting away the morning hours and the duo had their hooves full with orders and refills and brewing coffee and whatnot. And to be fair, it did feel horribly stilted to me to ask this. But I had been told this was how one did ‘small talk’. And I tried.

Joe knew me well enough to merely grin in appreciation while he silently kept at it. Jasper on the other hoof made a little show of regarding the interior of his shop, looking over all his customers. I was decently sure that it was a subconscious thing.

“Well, it’s morning alright. Folks are busy getting to work, some are coming home, and all of them want coffee, tea, hot chocolate and-or some sugary delights,” was his final answer.

I nodded with a small smile. “Good to hear. Wouldn’t want you running out of business, after all. Where would I get my fix then, right?”

He gave a good-natured chuckle and agreed with a nod. I was spared further words because another couple of ponies came in after me. He greeted them properly and they quickly trotted past me, up to the counter and started with their order.

It was probably rude. Bypassing me like that, ignoring me completely. But then again, neither did I feel offended, nor did I particularly care. I was glad to blend into the background. Most of the time, I was glad that it was so easy for most ponies to simply overlook me.

Joe finally placed a small paper bag on the counter. I levitated a bit out of my purse once I had that retrieved from my saddlebag. Just one, to indicate the number. He smiled and shook his head. I grinned, both satisfied with his work and a little intimidated by it as I put enough bits on the counter for two. How he could tell by simply looking at me was a mystery. I usually ordered one. Just one. One muffin. One donut. One pancake. One something.

I didn't even know what exactly he had packed this time. I knew that it made no difference for the price and I liked the surprise. I would be content with any of those treats. But how did he always know?

Or maybe he did not. Maybe he simply accepted that I would probably go along with whatever he packed up. It was an interesting thing to think about as I tipped my non-existent hat as a goodbye and left Donut Joe’s again. Donut Joe. He was old. At this point, who wasn’t? His son Jasper already officially owned the place and his dad only helped out because of business expertise and because most customers knew him, liked him, wanted to see him. I wondered if they would keep up tradition. If Jasper would have a foal someday, would he stick to a name with J? Would Jewel be next? Or maybe Jelly?

My own silliness amused me enough to grin while I levitated that paper bag to my muzzle and took a whiff. The scent of cinnamon was strong, but there was an underlying fruity something. A second inhale and I managed to identify cherry.

The weight was too much for a pair of donuts. Those were more on the fluffier side. Muffins, then? Cupcakes? No. Cupcakes were a bad choice for a paper bag, because the icing would stick to the inside of the bag. Muffins. I placed my bet on muffins. Cinnamon-cherry-muffins.

I stopped walking to take a look inside. Because while I learned slowly, I did learn. I had walked into lamp posts, other ponies, doors and at one point even a waiting carriage enough times to know that it would have been a bad idea to walk blindly while I stared into the bag.

“And the winner is… me,” I quietly announced as I levitated one of the two out of the bag. “Hello, pretty. What say you? I really need—“ you inside me. I did not finish that sentence. There were other ponies around. Ponies that could hear. And while I simply meant it as a silly joke that was not even that funny, I could already see the looks I would draw with my mind's eye. The singing really had been enough.

So I stuck to the basics. And ate a muffin while I walked towards my next destination and pondered if I should take the other one with me to give it to Derpy. My musings were cut short when a certain shop came into view. Carousel Boutique. Where every garment is chic, unique and magnifique. I was not sure if that was part of the name, her slogan or what. But the fact alone that I could recite it from memory was scary.

I peeked through the massive window and in between a couple of ponyquins wearing all sorts of probably very fashionable clothing. I had no idea what the current trend was. Green, maybe? I saw a bunch of scarves, reduced in price because the end of the season was close. A few hats. Boots. Vests and pants. And one prominently displayed, very elaborately designed and tasteful saddle.

It was all very much the same to me.

The important part was: I could see Rarity behind the counter. And that surprised me. Officially, she was retired. Had been for a few years now. I knew that she still helped out quite a lot with her several boutiques of course. They were her babies, after all. But I had expected her to be in Ponyville, in her bedroom on the second floor, designing new patterns or something like that.

I shrugged and decided to be a little playful. I was in a good mood, so going along with the silly idea was easier. I opened the door just enough that I could see the gosh-darn doorbell and held it with my telekinesis. It made no sound as I snuck into the shop and silently closed the door again. Rarity was distracted, seemingly reading some sort of magazine. No surprise there — despite the garishly decorated interior, there were currently no other customers present. Well, it was quite early, still.

My experience with sneaking on bare marble tiles in the castle came in quite handy as I snuck closer to the counter on the polished floor. I veered a little to the right, towards the winding staircase that led to the upper floor and stepped onto the carpet to further muffle my every sound. It also allowed me easier access to the counter entrance. I wondered if I would be able to sneak up right behind her when she crushed those hopes by simply addressing me.

“’Tis not a gallant thing to sneak up on a lady like that!” she softly chided me without looking up from her magazine.

I froze when the first syllable rang out and sighed in defeat when her statement finished. And I relaxed a little as I stood up properly and simply walked over to her. “Hey Rares.” I pushed past the little section that held an imaginary ‘employees only’-sign, found myself behind the counter as well and closed in for a hug.

She accepted it with grace, as was to be expected. “Why hello there, dear. We have not seen each other in some time.”

I held her for a moment and simply enjoyed her closeness. “A few weeks,” I admitted. When I pulled back, I looked her over. She was dressed, of course. A fashionista probably had to wear something, at least when manning the counter of her boutique. The laughter lines on her face were both a reminder of a life lived well and of many years gone by. I was at least glad that either she did not notice me staring or she did not care to hide them or be embarrassed by them.

There was something else though.

I looked around the boutique again. A door led to a different area on the ground floor. Maybe changing booths, maybe storage, I did not know. I heard no noise coming from there. Nopony rummaged around anywhere else. No sound from upstairs either. We were alone, for now.

“What’s up with the illusion?” I therefore dared to ask.

Her pristine indigo mane, curled to perfection, bobbed a little as she moved her head to look at her similarly colored tail and the locks of her mane. And for just a fraction of a second, she scowled. “You saw right through that, didn’t you? It appears I am getting sloppy with my magic. I ought to practice more.”

I swallowed that sigh coming up my throat. She would have misunderstood it. “Don’t worry, your spell was perfect. I just like to think I know you a little.”

I felt her critical gaze bore into me. She searched for lies and betrayal. Even something as little as a white lie would have sufficed. After all, her spell had to be perfect. Anything less simply would not do. Yet she did not seem to find any indication of me simply placating her, so she harrumphed and averted her gaze. “I do not feel comfortable with most ponies seeing me like this.”

I was about to tell her that she did not have to do anything when she dissolved the spell. The glamor faded and left behind a mane and tail fully grayed by time. And despite her best efforts to appear regal and proud, I could see the shame burning in her eyes when she tried to stand her ground.

She could be so silly sometimes.

“Fancy and Fleur don’t mind, do they?” I asked with a smirk.

And that actually did make her smile. “Well… I said ‘most’ ponies. You should count yourself lucky to be part of such an illustrious group!”

I chuckled and bowed as a knight would before a princess. “I do, my fair lady. Believe me, I do.”

I cherished the little rose tint in her cheeks and that thankful smile on her lips. “So what brings you to my humble abode then? Not that I mind your company.”

“One hundred sapphires,” I answered. “Actually, make that one hundred and ten. Never hurts to have a little reserve in case something goes haywire. It’s for a big project I have in mind. They need perfect clarity and a specific cut. I could make a little drawing, if you’d like?”

Rarity giggled quietly, daintily. “As much as I would love to help you, you have to realize that I am, well… retired.”

“Officially,” I added.

“Officially,” she agreed with a lopsided smile. “I limit myself to the creation of new patterns and occasionally help out selling stock. If you want to place a custom order, you will have to talk to Pristine.”

I nodded. Honestly, I had expected as much. “And where, pray tell, may I find your precious daughter these days?” A part of me hoped she would be here in Canterlot. But there were other options. Carousel Boutique had successfully established itself in several major cities. Manehattan, Fillydelphia, Baltimare, even Vanhoover. And little old Ponyville.

“Well, she is supposed to be upstairs,” Rarity replied with a smirk. “Pristine!” she suddenly yelled at a very unladylike volume. My ears instantly splayed flat against my head and I retreated a step away from her. There was no reaction from upstairs. “I am sorry, I should have at least warned you,” she conceded.

I shook myself free of the initial surprise and tried to stand firmly. “I… it… uh… it’s fine. Really, I’m fine.” Rarity’s eyes snapped to a point to the side and within a blink of an eye, her horn lit up and her colorful mane and tail were restored to their perfect glory. Half a second later, the doorbell rang out and announced the arrival of other customers.

I knew that this was the part Rarity came here for. She did not care if the stock was sold or not. She had enough bits to live the rest of her days in luxury. But she truly cared for the ponies coming to her shop. She wanted to help them. To make them shine.

I smiled and retreated out from behind the counter, lest the customers get a wrong impression. “Don’t worry. You go have fun counseling those ponies and I shall fetch myself somepony pristine.” I waggled my eyebrows at her. Get it? Get it?

I was pretty sure that she did get it. She simply chose to ignore it, kind of. She pouted instead. “Are you saying I am not pristine enough for you?”

I chuckled and shook my head. And because I could and felt like it, I leaned over the counter and placed a chaste kiss on her cheek. “You look fabulous, Rarity. You always have. Because what makes you as beautiful as you are, as you have always been, is your heart. And your heart has not aged a day.”

My kiss faintly lit up her cheeks, but my words lit up her entire muzzle. She looked down and tried to regain composure, I could tell. Yet I had not expected to see unspilled, held-back tears in her eyes when she looked back up at me. “Thank you, darling. You truly have been exactly what I needed this morning. Thank you.”

She did not trust her voice enough not to crack. And I did not trust myself enough not to say something stupid. So we left it at that, exchanged simple, grateful nods and that was that. Rarity took a deep breath, used her sheer force of will to pull those tears back in and strengthened her posture before she left her place behind the counter and walked over to her customers. Not before she brushed along my side a little as she passed me by, though.

I decided to use that opportunity to reinforce my belief a little more. “It’s not gray.”

Rarity stopped and looked at me. “Come again?”

I leaned over and nuzzled her neck, eliciting a quiet sigh from her. “It’s not gray,” I repeated. “It’s silver. A liquid, flowing silver, precious and beautiful, like moonlight.”

For a few seconds, Rarity imitated a guppy to the best of her abilities. With a faint tint in her cheeks, she opened and closed her mouth a couple of times before she ultimately decided to simply smile. She leaned in and placed a kiss of her own on my cheek. “You really do have a way with words sometimes, my noble knight,” she whispered before she walked away.

And I stood there, frozen on the spot, my mind going nuts.

Exactly what I needed this morning, it echoed in my head. I watched her go and that smile on my lips gradually died a slow and painful death as I suddenly, vividly remembered waking up after sunset. I remembered sneaking through the castle, reaching Sunny's bedchamber. I remembered crawling into bed with her, feeling safe and sound and happy in her embrace. I remembered sleeping. I did not remember any particular dream I had. But I was awkwardly aware of the fact that I had failed to dreamwalk. It simply had slipped my mind.

Maybe Rarity had a bad argument with one of her paramours the prior evening. Maybe her morning so far had been stressful or tiresome. Maybe her own mind played cruel tricks on her. It did that occasionally, I knew. Because she told me. Because mine did that as well.

There were many tiny voices trying to explain how I was not responsible for her state.

But they fought my sense of duty. My overwhelming need to help those close and dear to me. They were the many Davids, fighting two towering Goliaths. I knew how this tale was supposed to end, of course. Like any decent griffon tale. With a lot of bloodshed and the griffon's winning. And the griffons would not tell a story where they lost to some Arimaspi brute.

And yet.

There was another layer, of course. Even if I had remembered to dreamwalk last night, I could not play favorites. My duty was to all the dreamers. Luna had made that quite clear. And I had been clear on that to begin with. I could not simply sit there on the dreamscape, keep the dreams of my loved ones close and watch them all night long to make sure they were fine. There were thousands and thousands and thousands of dreamers. Dragons, griffons, yaks and so many more. They all needed help. Protection. Guidance.

And yet.

Maybe I could have helped Rarity. Even as a voice meekly informed me that, judging from how that interaction went, I might have done so right now. Even so, I could not help but feel guilty. Because I had shirked my duty.

I sighed and shook my head. No sense in crying over spilled milk. I looked over my shoulder and saw Rarity talk animatedly with two mares. They all held up some pieces of fabric. Dresses, maybe. And they gestured and the noise of their voices swelled and receded like ebb and tide. I could see the happiness in Rarity's eyes. She connected with these two. Rare was an instance where she did not find some common ground with a pony entering her shop. And she lived for these connections.

It was balm for my soul, really.

After watching for another minute or so, and after catching the encouraging smile she shot me in a brief moment when she looked my way, I finally managed to unfreeze my hooves and made my way upstairs.

The upstairs of Carousel Boutique Canterlot strangely reminded me of the upstairs of Carousel Boutique Ponyville, despite the former being considerably larger, more spacious. However, with all the doors neatly labeled, it proved easy enough to find Pristine.

I once again opened and closed the door silently. While I had to worry about my hoofsteps outside on the polished floor, inside this room was carpet to further help me muffle any noise. My target sat on a chair at a massive table. The kind of table an architect would use, as it had enough of a surface to display even larger blueprints. And I supposed the same held true for seamstresses and artists. A couple of scrolls lay at the right side, rolled up and neatly stacked. A few stacked books to the left, two or three of them open before her. I saw her quill dip into the inkwell every once in a while, so she was writing something.

To make better use of the daylight streaming in through the large window, the desk was placed right in front of it. And Pristine therefore sat with her back to the door, to me. It aided me in my quest of sneaking around and allowed me to watch her for a moment.

She was a middle-aged mare. That never failed to baffle me. It still felt like yesterday that a very, very tired looking Rarity, freshly crowned mother, had introduced her to us. Pristine had inherited the tall, slender build of her ‘father’, but almost everything else came from her mom. Her mane and tail were colored in a softer shade of mulberry, her coat was the same pristine white as both her parents had. And currently, her tail was swishing from side to side, either in excitement or in building frustration. Or maybe concentration.

It made me curious about what exactly she was doing, so I snuck closer to catch a glimpse of those books she seemed to study so intently. And indeed, I managed to sneak up right behind her.

Spellbooks. Huh. I wonder where she got those from…

I immediately suspected Arcana. It might not have been fair. It probably was not. But after what my daughter had pulled in these past years, I would not have been surprised to learn that she snuck a couple of spellbooks out of the Royal Archives again. And that ‘again’ was the issue, really.

I softly shook my head to dislodge the thought and took a closer look at the opened pages. Runic transfigurations to ease the casting of more complex spells. And the only reason I could understand that was due to me living with Twilight for so long. Passive absorption, so to speak.

The book on the right was about internal pony anatomy. The lingo screamed ‘medical literature for doctors’ to me. The opened pages displayed a stallion's genitalia, however. I was proficient enough to recognize the image. Proud moments, really.

I managed to sneak a peek at her notes, even. A list about differences between the penis of a stallion and the appendage a spell could create. There were a multitude of different gender modification spells, of course, so she had made a complex looking table comparing several variants of spells to each other.

A grin formed on my lips as I brought them near her ear. “Who’s the lucky gal?”

“Gah!”

Pristine was startled enough to flail her hooves. The quill was flung towards the ceiling and I managed to catch it with my magic. That is, until one of her wild hoof swings managed to catch me. In the muzzle. I staggered backwards and lost concentration and the quill landed… probably somewhere. Pristine meanwhile snapped around, off her chair and stood ready to defend herself.

Quite literally.

A small voice in the back of my head bemoaned this display. Her mom was a fashionista. A seamstress. An artiste. Yet at the same time, she had been involved in so many fights. Battles that sometimes truly were life-or-death-situations. And it was clear that this had formed Pristine as well, in a way. She might not have been a fighter just as capable as her mom had been in her prime, but Rarity had taken great pains to ensure that her daughter knew how to deal with any upstart villain.

I, luckily, was no such thing.

Pristine took a moment to realize that and quickly went through several emotions. Indignation and anger, relief, guilt, embarrassment. I was glad that her expression finally settled on something so simple as joy. “Dreamwalker!”

She walked over and hugged me. It was a relief, really. “No ‘uncle’?” I joked. She had not been using it for years. Probably felt weird, seeing how I looked younger than she did. She replied with an amused snort and pulled back to quickly and efficiently close her books and stash away her notes. As if that had never happened and never been seen. “What brings you here?”

“Who,” I simply reiterated.

A faint tint lit up in her cheeks and across the bridge of her muzzle. “Nopony,” she tried to evade.

I raised an eyebrow at her, but she held her ground as best as she could. I could see her resolve wavering. She would give if I persisted in silence. But the thing was: Pristine was dear to me. I had seen her grow up. While I had not been involved in her life as much as I had partaken in Rarity’s, she was still close family to me. I was not willing to break her resistance. “You know… I could probably help you. If you told me.” You know I would, I sent with a mere glance.

She chewed her bottom lip in contemplation and ultimately sighed and shook her head. “Thank you for trying, but it’s not that easy, actually.”

I looked around the room. It was designed as a workshop of sorts. A couple of other desks, or rather workstations. They offered a chair that I grabbed and pulled over. I sat down and looked at her expectantly. “Tell me.” I even grabbed her chair and pulled it up behind her.

She noticed it and sighed again. Albeit accompanied with a smile. And she sat down. Good girl. “She doesn’t want to be the target of such a spell. And I don’t want to get impregnated by some random sperm donation!”

So this was about family. Not just for fun, for experimentation purposes. It was about actual procreation. Interesting. “And a target switch?”

Pristine grimaced slightly before it was replaced by a wry smile. “She’s very, very gay.”

A statement that confused me. It was probably meant to explain something, but honestly… I did not get it. “And you’re not?” I half-teased with a smirk.

“Oh, I am too!” she quickly established. “… just… just less so than her, I guess?”

It took a moment for the pieces to fall into place. Very, very gay. I was not. So I had no idea if that was how such things were meant to be communicated. Or if this was a mere quirk of her, specifically. All I managed to understand was that she was under a lot of stress due to this. It was enough of a bother that she worked on it while at work. And I knew for a fact that Pristine had a strict sense of duty. Something else she had inherited from both her parents. Fleur had never taken her job as a model easy. And Rarity had to work to allow herself vacations, at times.

“It troubles you, doesn’t it?” A simple statement, meant to drag the obvious out into the open. “Does your mom know?”

She shrugged. “We’ve been talking about this for years now. Her and I. And no, mom doesn’t know. I don’t want her to know. I know she means well and you two go way back and all, but please, please, please, don’t tell her. This is my problem. I need to fix it.”

You miss the forest for the trees, little one. I could not tell her that, obviously. “I won’t,” I promised first. “You thought about adoption, haven’t you?”

She sighed and nodded. “We considered it for a long while, yes. But… it wouldn’t be the same. And the process is so long and arduous.”

It was their choice, I reminded myself. Personal preferences. Before we had Aurora, I had not known if Sunny would ever conceive a foal. Alicorn pregnancy was an incredibly rare thing, after all. We too had several talks about foals and various means of becoming parents. It worked out in our favor in the end, and quicker than expected. But had it not, we would probably have adopted a foal — or several — at some point. Because my lovely Sunny had all the mom-energy.

I realized that I grinned like an idiot and shook my head to clear it a little. “Does your mysterious special somepony have issues with magic in general?”

Pristine giggled, a clear and bright sound like a young filly. She tipped a hoof against her horn. “I sure hope not. Why?”

Not what I meant, but okay. I chuckled briefly. “Well, there is a potion that allows two mares to conceive.”

Her jaw figuratively hit the floor. “What.” It was not even a question. Her mind visibly went into idle mode as she tried to process this new information. She was a smart mare though, so the mental stutter only derailed her for a few seconds before she found her footing again. “How? How did I never hear of this before? How is there no indication of such a thing in any of these books? How did you know?”

My chuckle grew into a quiet laugh. Some indignation mixed in with her incredulity at the end. I rubbed my neck in a bit of shame, even though I realized on a different level that I had no reason to be ashamed. “Applejack and Rainbow used it. The potion sidesteps a lot of stuff they had issues with. And you know how they are, they just didn’t make a fuss about it. It had some minor side effects, but they never mentioned what, so I assume it wasn’t something drastic. As for those books, well. As far as I know, Zecora is the only one who knows how to brew it. Probably uses weird Everfree plants and stuff like that.”

“Zecora,” Pristine echoed as if she had to taste that name first. “That’s the zebra in the Everfree mom told me about, isn’t she?”

I grinned. “The one and only.” I wondered how she was holding up. I had been… hesitant to enter the Everfree. Therefore, I had not seen Zecora in maybe a year or two or… three?

Pristine remained silent for a while until her horn suddenly lit up and yanked her notebook in front of her. She retrieved the quill from Celestia-knows-where, cleaned it, dipped it into the ink well again and made a couple new notes. I craned my neck to read a bit of it. Apparently, she put alchemy on top of her research list. And the Everfree right below it.

“That… might actually have helped, yes,” she said as she finished and put her notes back onto the table again.

“Glad to hear that,” I replied. “Just… it’s a potion. I’m not entirely sure how it works, but it basically cuts out all the fun parts. Which, from what I gathered from your story so far, is basically for the better?”

She vaguely nodded, obviously not willing to divulge any more information than strictly necessary. It felt weird, really. She had apparently been in a stable, long-term relationship. Without me knowing. Without her mother knowing. Although honestly, I could not imagine Rarity not catching on. Rarity letting her know that she caught on however, that was an entirely different story.

Point being: She was at a point in her life and her relationship where wanting to found her own family had become a primary concern. Enough that it made her stress out and research and study dusty old arcane tomes. Somepony else held her heart.

Maybe I was simply worried for her well-being. Without knowing that other pony, I could not tell anything about their intentions or character, about the kind of influence they might have.

I was not even her father and I still wanted to protect her.

Silly.

“Say, what exactly brought you here anyway?”

Pristines gentle voice led me back. I blinked a couple of times. “I, uh, wanted to place a custom order. I need gemstones. Sapphires, specifically. From that guy who grows crystals, I guess. Perfect clarity, specific cut. I could draw the cut.”

“That guy who grows crystals?” she repeated in amusement. I simply nodded. “Dreamwalker, he did that ten years ago.”

I blanched. I could physically feel the color draining out of my face. “I… I’m so, so sorry! I didn’t know! Were you two close?”

She blinked in confusion and then grimaced slightly. “No, no! That’s not what I meant! It’s just that… he has an entire gemstone empire now, basically.”

“Oh.” A wave of relief washed over me as I sighed and sank into the chair a little. “Well that’s good for him, I guess. You still work with him?”

“I do. His name’s Mudbriar, by the way.” There was a soft chiding in there somewhere, but I could not bring myself to care. Judging from the look she shot me, we both knew that I would not remember his name. Even though I had to admit, it sounded strangely familiar. “What’s this order for?”

“I’m going to build Greenwood!” I proclaimed almost proudly.

“Greenwood?”

“Eyupp.”

“Like that village you told me about when I was little?”

“Eyupp.”

“That village in the Everfree?”

“Eyupp.”

There was a longer period of silence following, until she expressed a lot of those chaotic thoughts swirling around in her head in one simple question. “You?”

I cringed a little. Just a little. “What? Don’t believe me?”

Pristine held her hooves up in defense. “Oh, I… I do believe that… you’ll try.”

We held each other’s gazes for a moment, seeing who could remain serious for the longest, but eventually we both failed and giggled. “It’ll be so much work. And I barely have any idea what I’m doing. Greenwood has always been an outpost for oddballs, weirdos and those seeking a second chance. But I can’t rely on prior knowledge this time, because most of the ponies that lived in Greenwood in other cycles are grandparents by now. So this will generally be… let’s call it interesting. I just thought I would get a start in with some stuff that, speaking from experience, takes ages. Those sapphires being one of them. I need one hundred and ten.” I then proceeded to scribble a little note on a sheet of paper she graciously offered me, with a pencil that was lying around on her desk. The exact measurements of the sapphires varied, but I knew why and how much and therefore could pick and choose.

“That is going to cost you a fortune. You know that, right?” she asked with a wry grin.

I smiled and shrugged. “I know.” I stood up, placed my chair back where it belonged and walked over to hug her again, as a farewell. “Consider not spending your entire day in this room with dusty books for company. I know Arcana makes that sound like a dream come true, but there’s ponies downstairs sometimes, you know? And your mom seems to have had a difficult evening or night or morning or something. Maybe look after her?”

She smiled warmly and nodded. “Don’t worry. I will.”

I left the room and went back downstairs. The showroom was empty once again, and Rarity was behind the counter reading her magazine. She looked up when she heard me come down and smiled in such an oddly similar way than her daughter just had. They really were related. I wondered if Sweetie Belle smiled like that.

And just as we both attempted to say something, that gosh-darn doorbell chimed again. We both cocked a quirky smile and nodded in mutual understanding. “I am so sorry I do not have more time,” she excused herself, “but do have fun today, dear!”

I smiled and nodded. “Will do. Same to you, Rares.”

Hope to see you soon.

Half an hour later, I sat down on my bench in the train car. My saddlebags occupied the seat beside me and I was now the proud owner of my own notebook and my own pencil. Yay.

I knew it was kind of rude to put my baggage onto the seat, but the rest of the train was relatively empty and I would rather deal with miffed glares than with somepony sitting down next to me. That obviously would not prevent anypony sitting opposite me, but there was only so much I could do to accommodate my several anxieties.

I did wait for the initial lurch the train gave as it started to move again and pull out of Canterlot Station. I always got travel sickness quite easily, but I was willing to risk it this time as I felt I needed that time to get a rough outline of my plans.

“Alright, me. Let’s do this.” I retrieved my notebook and pencil, opened the first page and… stopped. How does one start planning an entire village? I had heard the tale of Ponyville's foundation a million times over. From various Apples. From Sunny. From Twilight. At some point even from Mayor Mare. But as far as I could tell, Ponyville had never been planned as such. It just happened. The Apples sought land to settle on. They were granted said land. They settled on it. Everyone after just followed the trail of money, basically. The Apples were good farmers, they had produce and a unique one at that. Merchants came. Merchants attracted competitors. Everypony brought their families along. Voila. Village.

Without trying to be smug or arrogant: I thought I could do better.

Because at the end of the day, I had something the Apples did not. I kept my eyes closed and tried to conjure images. Memories, to be specific. Greenwood had always been a central aspect of my life. My many, many lives. Thus, memories of Greenwood were aplenty. Before my mind's eye, I once again wandered those gravelly dirt roads.

Pure nostalgia, isn’t it?, a voice in my head rang out.

I scowled. “Help me or buck off,” I spit in reply.

“Excuse me?!” came an unexpected answer from my left.

My eyes shot open and my head snapped to the side. Out of shocked, wide eyes I regarded a middle-aged mare and her filly. She held her daughter's ears closed. I felt the heat creep into my face at a record speed. “I-I a-am so, so sorry, ma’am!”

She did not answer. She simply pulled the filly along with her and shot daggers at me with that glare of hers. And I wanted to growl so badly as I heard that amused snicker in the back of my head.

“Having fun, are we?” I grumbled quietly.

Not like I planned that. It just… happened to work out, you know.

I rolled my eyes in annoyance. “Just die in a ditch already.”

Been there, done that. Not keen on a repeat.

“Wait, we died in a ditch? When? Why?” The mere thought was… uncomfortable. Mostly because of the implications and potential scenarios that led up to this outcome.

You wanna take a literal stroll down memory lane or not?

“You want to help me?” I cautiously asked. After all, I knew not to trust him. Myself. Whatever.

I don’t mind. Shit’s going to hit the fan eventually though, and I’m curious about how it’ll turn out this time. So yeah, sure. Let’s do this.

There was a lot on my mind. A lot I would have liked to say. A lot of pointy, stabby insults. Choice words for such crude language. Accusations of previous failings and general untrustworthiness. But what did any of that matter, really? He could help. I knew that. He had always been better at sorting through the mess of fractured memories than I was. He was even aware of pieces I did not consciously know about. It was maddening at times, really.

“Fine.”

I closed my eyes again. Took a deep breath. Held it for a few seconds. Released it slowly, evenly. And before my mind's eye, a scenery started to form. Thick vegetation all around me. The Everfree is a dark and moody forest. The chaotic energies twisting every gnarled branch, every bothersome root. Mires and bogs and caves and hills. A land of manticores, hydras and timberwolves, where ponies truly had reason to fear the dark.

I stepped out of the dreary forest. There was a small, narrow strip of land between the forest's border and the barricade surrounding Greenwood. A barricade of wood. Trunks of trees, rammed deep into the ground by forces only an impressively built earth pony could muster. One beside the next. The wall served well to keep predators at bay. To keep out unwanted guests. To keep out any and all that could not climb it.

But it was not the first line of defense.

Enchanted sapphire torches were. They had been placed along the path leading from Ponyville to Greenwood itself. They had been placed throughout the entire village. And their ghostly blue light burned from the tops of the barricade.

The enchantment was genius. It mellowed the aggression of creatures within a certain radius. A manticore that was starving or was already enraged would not be affected by the light. But one that merely prowled through the thick underbrush would. A timberwolf simply walking around would be subtly diverted. Sent somewhere else.

Hunters would lose interest more quickly. And they would avoid the general area to begin with. While it did help little against determined creatures, it still served well to carve out our niche.

My pencil floated and quickly scribbled in my notebook. I kept my eyes closed, so that I would not lose the vision. It inevitably meant that I would poke myself with my pencil as it left the confines of the pages, but I quickly corrected that mistake and tried to stay on the page. With my eyes closed, this notebook surely would look like the rambling scribbles of a madpony by the end of it.

I walked through the gate.

Immediately to my left was a massive building. Three stories high, completely made out of wood. One of the resources we had in abundance. Trixie’s tavern. A really good show every afternoon and evening. A good place to drink. Mingle. Eat, even. The only place in town for guests and new arrivals to get a bed.

The place was officially owned by three ponies, though. Trixie, Flim and Flam. The two brothers had initially suggested building the tavern. They had plans. Stupid plans, of course. They were con-artists. But their reasoning had been solid. They quickly realized the error of their ways. Realized that they were not truly interested in the entertainment business as such, or in keeping up with the demands of customers. They were builders. Visionaries. Masterful engineers. And sly bookkeepers. So they came to an arrangement with The Great And Powerful. She was the pretty face. She put on shows. She kept everyone decently happy and supplied. And they, they supplied. They built machines. They crafted inventions to ease the lives of everypony in town.

Such a workshop produces a lot of noise.

One of the reasons why their workshop was on one side of the town. To the right. Where few houses were built. Few meant as living quarters, anyway. Warehouses, yes. Other workshops. A forge. We had a forge. The masonry.

Too much. To quickly, more importantly. I could not keep up with the stream of information. I tried my best, but I had to slow down. I opened my eyes briefly, disregarded my utter distaste for the mess of scrawled letters I had created and flipped over to a new page.

I knew that villages could pop up from nothing more than a couple determined ponies and a few tents. But whoever would settle there had basic needs. Needs that needed to be fulfilled in order to guarantee that success had a chance. We needed water.

There’s a river nearby, actually. But at some point, we built a groundwater well. Wasn’t hard to do, we didn’t have to dig deep. The river made us vulnerable. One could argue: So did the well. But at least it was inside the village. Lower risk of poisoning and such.

We needed food.

Farmers. There was a time when Applejack went with us. She had the land wrangled in no time. Okay, ‘no time’ is a bit much. It still took her months and it was grueling work. But she did it. Another time, we recruited Lily and Daisy.

“Who?” I asked in confusion. The names did not ring a bell immediately, even though they sounded familiar.

The flower girls.

“Oh. Right.” Now I remembered them. While I would call everypony in Ponyville a friend of mine without second thought or hesitation and would treat them as I would treat a friend, including my willingness to help as much as I could, there were still some ponies I could relate to less or less well than to others. Rarity was a drama queen. Sometimes that annoyed me, sometimes it amused me. But it was part of her. Lily, Daisy and Roseluck however, they had been different. A different kind of drama, maybe. Something I found particularly hard to stomach. Harder to deal with.

That said, it was still valuable information. I wrote their names down as potential recruits. Somepony would have to provide us with food, or this entire house of cards would already fall in on itself.

We would also require shelter from the hostile environment. A tent was a start. The bare minimum. Tents were not that pricey, but I honestly hoped to mostly skip that part as best as I could. Maybe get a single massive tent for everypony in the beginning and quickly build up from there. The next best resource to build shelter with was wood.

We needed a woodcutter. And a carpenter. Or several.

Applejack. Again. Or Stonewood, that one time.

I nodded. Both were too old. An issue I was doomed to run into quite a lot, actually. However, I remembered visiting a woodcraft store in Ponyville a few years ago for a particular Hearth's Warming present for Fluttershy. I made another note.

At some point, we would want to upgrade our building materials. And all our buildings alongside. It would be quite an annoying process, but it was a necessary one to form a little collection of wooden huts into an actual teeny-tiny town with stone structures.

Building a quarry in the Everfree would be a daunting task. A decent site had to be found first—

No, we have one.

“Alright. Fine.” I scratched a note. Still, the site had to be cleared and secured. The path between the quarry site and the village had to be secured as well. And upgrading a building was not easily done. This would most certainly be a step of the village development reserved for the later to latest stages. It still did not hurt to think about potential candidates, though.

Stonewood. Although, most of the time, it was actually Marble. But she usually only comes along if we manage to drag Big Mac out of Sweet Apple Acres. For that to happen, Applejack and Rainbow must decide to take on the farm together. You know where this leads.

“Rainbow can’t be a Wonderbolt.” I sighed and sat the notebook down. I rubbed the bridge of my muzzle with a hoof. I would not destroy the hopes and dreams of my dear friend just so I could—

“Wait.”

I blinked. Rainbow was old. Too old. She had been a Wonderbolt. For most of her life, actually.

We needed a different solution for a potential stonemason. However, considering how it would probably take a few years for Greenwood to reach the stages where implementing stonework was feasible, that could probably wait for now.

“Entertainment,” I muttered and took up my pencil again.

Trixie. We had Pinkie a couple of times, but generally, it’s always been Trixie. If Greenwood is a thing, she’s drawn there. It’s like Flim and Flam or Lightning Dust. They belong in a place like this.

I nodded, then froze. “Lightning Dust.”

Weather control. Whoever is our farmer — or farmers —, they will rip your head off at some point if you don’t find a way to deal with rogue weather. Rainbow had filled that role at one point, but it’s usually Lightning.

“Huh.” But now that it had been mentioned, I could remember that. I remembered seeing her soar through the sky, busting wicked looking, blackened clouds that spontaneously grew thorns and tried to fend her off with lightning strikes. I remembered her landing, bruised and beaten and spent, but standing firmly and grinning with pride. I remembered seeing joy dance in her eyes, knowing that these ponies depended on her. She was responsible for their safety, and she excelled at it. It was a stretch from the pony I knew as Lightning Dust, but I could see her get there at some point. With a lot of work. And time.

I made a note, both for Trixie and Lightning. They, too, would be too old. It was still a position that required being filled by somepony though. When raising an entire village, there was always so much work to be done. But a pony could only work so much per day until their hooves fell off. Or horns. Or wings. And at that point, there was usually still a good deal of hours left to be spent before they could fall into bed and sleep like logs. Those hours were best filled with something that kept morale up. A good show with fireworks and illusions, for example.

“Do we need a toolsmith? I saw a forge at the edge of town.”

No. The initial tools can be bought. It’s cheaper and less of a hassle. Honestly, even I can’t tell you why we had a forge. Maybe for Flim and Flam?

It was strange hearing uncertainty in his voice. In all our spats and arguments, never had he wavered like that. But then again, rarely had we agreed to cooperate. I decided not to comment on it. It would have been easy to poke fun at him. To make a jab. But I was better than that, I decided. Better than him. For I was sure he would have used such an opportunity without hesitation.

Instead, I closed my eyes again. I marveled at the buildings as I passed them by. Solid hoof-work. We had started with mere tents, worked our way up to thatched roofs and now we had proper ones. My gaze fell past the house I was currently looking at, at the only house that stood outside the barricade. Because she preferred it that way. According to her, it was a sign she was willing to send to all the critters of the forest. She was part of our community, but at the same time part of theirs. The wood of her house seemed less tamed. Fewer straight lines. Solid shutters, but no glass. A little more of this and it might have started to blend into the forest itself.

I only briefly wondered what Fluttershy had to do in Greenwood. As far as we knew, the entirety of the forest was territory of something. Manticores hat their territories, packs of timberwolves had theirs. Then there were the hydras, cragadiles, twittermites. Many of these territories overlapped in some way. It would have been a mess, really. Without her anyway.

I briefly considered if we could use somepony for that sole purpose in an official capacity. What would such a position even be called? A wildlife wrangler? A predator tamer? A forest negotiator? It was out of the question that Fluttershy could fill that role, of course. And it was a troubling thought indeed that I had to constantly remind myself of these facts. The more I focused on these memories, the more the line blurred between these different lives.

I was a worrywart. A scaredy-cat. I knew that. And yet I found myself frightened by the prospect of losing my grip on reality. I tried to focus. The sooner I ended this trip down memory lane, the better for my sanity. “Anything else?”

As you might’ve guessed, Rarity came along in one cycle as well. Royal seamstress.

I furrowed my brow. “Royal—… what? Why?”

Well, because we had Luna. We reconstructed the castle for her. Us, really. It was a monogamous cycle, I think. Anyway, having a seamstress proved useful. Work clothing, tool belts, those hard helmets. She had to learn to work with less fru-fru and gemstones, but it was definitely helpful.

While I had little appreciation for the way he talked about my friend's hobby, career and calling, I could understand the reason given for his approval of such a position. Another note was made. And now I remembered Luna being helpful in another way as well. We had the enchanted torches to discourage creatures coming near the village. We had barricades to keep them out of the village proper. But if a creature was determined, it could resist the subtle enchantment and climb over the wall. It could then wreak havoc amongst a population that was tired and exhausted from daily work, and caged in by the very walls that were meant to protect them.

We needed somepony to deal with such a worst-case scenario. Warriors. Protectors. Guards. Something along those lines.

We had Bernard back in the day.

“Who?”

That one manticore Fluttershy helped waaay back. Pulled a thorn out of his paw. When we came back to establish our village, she reacquainted herself with him. He helped us get along with the other manticores. We even made some kind of deal or something, which then resulted in the manticores helping us deal with rowdy timberwolf packs. Because there’s just no reasoning with those. A couple manticores can even take down a fully grown hydra. Not a dragon though.

As far as we knew, there were no dragons in the Everfree. That could obviously mean that there was at least one, but however many there were, they were simply sleeping. Then again, we should have seen the smoke plumes from them. I deemed the scenario unlikely. But that was about the same chance I gave for finding somepony who could recreate such a scenario. Forging an alliance with the manticores of the Everfree sounded like a one-in-a-million shot. Still, the memories proved that it was possible, at least. So another note was made.

No need to tell you I suspect, but when Luna was around, we didn’t exactly need further protection.

Images flashed before my eyes in quick succession. Images of brutality. Violence and bloodshed. Luna never reveled in it to the extent that I started to worry about her sanity. But she was thorough. Rarely did she risk enemies escaping after her warning was made, for she deemed the risk of it returning better prepared unnecessary. To my dismay, that also brought up a memory where I had accused her of double standards. Had Celestia finished her off instead of allowing for an alternative to play out, she would never have had a second chance to redeem herself.

And in my face she screamed that it would have been better for everypony involved. There had been so much pain and anguish, unresolved, unprocessed, right beneath the surface and I had not noticed it.

It was a different life, he said in what almost sounded like empathy. She was different. So were we. Mistakes were made, and eventually corrected.

“Did she get better?” I asked almost inaudibly quietly, because I was so terrified of the answer.

Yes. With our help. At least… this time.

I still breathed a sigh of relief. I knew what he was getting at. I had seen it. A burning world. All slag and ashes. The horizon constantly aflame. He was deeply afraid of this scenario, as much as I was. In truth, it was the only thing I knew he was afraid of. And I could not even tell why. What made this so much worse than other cycles where things had gone sideways in a really bad way.

I shook my head. I was about to distract myself again, and right now, I needed to focus. At least the blurred lines between my current life and my memories had become somewhat stable again. And I had quickly learned to be grateful for small mercies. “That should be about it, right? Food, water, entertainment. Shelter and therefore building materials. Getting clay, wood, peat, that shouldn’t be hard around those parts. A few wagons are going to be necessary.”

Do you know how to build a house?

I blinked. “What?”

Do. You. Know. How. To. Build. A. House.

“I mean, I heard you, it’s just… it’s a house, right? Four walls and a roof, if you keep it simple. Maybe a few windows, maybe a door. Can’t be that hard, right?” There was a long silence in my head, followed by a mad and quite frankly insulting cackling.

Oh boy. I do hope this part of the conversation will stick with you through the ages and cycles. It’ll be hilarious to see you get your comeuppance one day, from an actual architect preferably.

“Okay, okay, fine, I get it,” I grumbled.

Doubt that.

“I will research architecture basics. Maybe see if I can get a hold of ‘an actual architect’.” I rolled my eyes and sighed. This was starting to give me a headache. “Look, the Apples were farmers. They traveled for ages before they settled. And they knew how to build a house, right? Because it’s just walls with a roof and an opening to get in and out.”

We had Moondancer.

“We… we what?”

She was our architect. Took her several months to worm her way through an entire section of the library. By the end of it, she sent us blueprints from Canterlot. Trixie’s tavern, version one. Version two. Version three. Street layouts. Barricade upgrades. Bridge designs. Even made a couple of blueprints for a future sewer version.

Sewers. That… was a good point. “Fine,” I grumbled once more and relented. And finally made a note to actually search for an architect.

My gaze also fell upon a few of the prior notes and I realized that we never actually resolved the entire ‘we need protection’-issue. Luna might have kept us safe in the past, but I had my doubts she would be willing to do so again. And really, I did not want her to move to Greenwood. Because this time around, neither did I intend to. Jumping around between two homes was messy enough. A third one would only further overcomplicate things. And Luna would most certainly not want to break away from her sister. She had been willing, even glad, in some other cycles. Not this time around, I suspected.

I flipped through a couple of now horribly mutilated pages. I would transform these into a clean copy at some point, but right now, my temples were pulsating with the frequency of my heartbeat, telling me to put the pencil away and stop. And I was willing to listen.

There was no farewell and goodbye between me and him. He simply fell silent and I saw no reason to do anything else. A part of me wanted to thank him. He had provided help, after all. He did not have to do that. But at the same time, I remembered too many instances where his existence had been more than enough cause for trouble, grief and pain. And he rarely apologized, if ever, for causing any of that. Or anything else, really.

I closed my notebook and put it and the pencil back into my saddlebag. And for the first time in ages, I looked around me.

I was shocked to find a couple of ponies occasionally throwing glances my way. One elderly mare stared at me like I was possessed. “I mean… fair enough, I suppose,” I muttered quietly while I shrank back under the gazes and certainly unwanted attention. Maybe I should have been more careful. I should have kept my voice down. I didn't even know if I had spoken aloud, but apparently all these ponies had noticed something at some point.

I wilted, cowered. And hid as best as I could. And then I tried to distract myself by staring out the window.

With the train rattling along the tracks, a certain monotony tried to take over. And I was more than willing to give in. The clear blue sky, the trees rushing by, the landscape slowly evening out from the mountain we had left towards the plains we aimed for. Soon, I would arrive in Ponyville.

I would be home.

I took barely any notice of the train slowing down. Even the announcement from the speakers failed to stir me. I saw colors outside the window smear by without rhyme or reason. Like little dots on an artist's palette. And then he took his brush and made swirls and curves and little areas with blurred lines where one color bled into another. It was pretty, sure. But it had no meaning. It was there to occupy the mind, to keep it in a state of idling, thoughtless.

What finally broke me out of my reverie was another pony. An elderly stallion, a blueish-gray earth pony. In my mind, I called him elderly. But there was a certain chance that he was not even that much older than me. I was just terrible at gauging ages. And a decade more or less had a different meaning when one was fifty, as opposed to being twenty.

He startled me slightly when he walked by. Or rather, tried. His suitcase got stuck between the benches. Not immediately realizing that, he walked straight into it and gave a little “oof” before he stopped. I blinked, looked over and plastered a well-practiced, friendly smile on my face.

“Please, let me help you.” I lit my horn, grabbed his case and gave it a gentle push. It became unstuck quite easily. He would not have had any issues doing it himself.

So why did you do it, then?

“Because it was the right thing to do,” I mumbled.

“Thank you, young friend!” the stallion said with a slightly embarrassed smile. “Didn’t quite see where I was walking, it seems.”

In the back of my head, it finally registered that we had stopped. The train was in the train station. My train station. Ponyville train station. I shook my head, grabbed my saddlebags and flung them over my back as I stood up. I did take the second to properly secure them and close the clasp, because I was no Pinkie Pie or Rainbow Dash. And I walked towards the exit myself.

Which inevitably led to that awkward moment when two ponies wanted to go through the same narrow door at the same time, and both stopped because they were just too darn polite. The stallion stopped because I had helped him. I stopped because he was older. Both reasons were silly, really.

"After you," I insisted. And I did insist. Because I could already see the same thought in his head, the same words on his tongue. Maybe he was a kindred spirit. The thought amused me a little.

His smile turned wry and he simply nodded before this whole debacle could escalate further and the train just decided to move on, quite literally. Thus, the elderly stallion exited the train first.

A bomb of confetti exploded on the train station platform. Glitter was everywhere. And a very familiar voice screamed: “Happy fiftieth Arrival Day, Dre-hey, wait, you’re not him!”

Whatever that weird mood had been, it vanished. Like morning mist, burned up by the rising sun of a new dawn. I stepped out, beside the only other pony that left the train at this station, it seemed, and patted his shoulder. “I think that’s my cue. Sorry for the confusion.”

The stallion looked a little startled, but he took it in stride and simply smiled. Not a newcomer then. Somepony who was at least vaguely familiar with Pinkie. I looked around the platform as the conductor's whistle shrilled. And while Pinkie managed to hide herself well enough with her usual quirky physics, completely concealed from prying eyes behind one of the two wooden pillars holding the roof of the station up, her puffy tail stuck out nonetheless.

I knew she was there. She knew I knew, surely. She certainly knew I snuck up to her. And the only reason I could imagine why she stood still was pure curiosity. She wanted to know what I had in mind. Which put me in a bit of a predicament. I had started walking over here with the simple intention of rounding the wooden pole and greeting her with a hug. But now I felt like I needed to put on a little show. Or at least have something cleverer than that. Problem was: I had a very, very limited repertoire of spells and an even tighter budget of magical energy. Basically, telekinesis was all I could offer.

I looked around for a moment and noticed how the glitter and confetti still slowly drifted down onto the wooden floor, like lazy snowflakes in winter. Quite a bit of the stuff had already amassed there, though. It formed a thin layer.

Enough to scoop some up.

Well, wasn’t that an idea. A wicked grin spread on my muzzle as I did exactly that. “Ohhh Piiinkiiieee~,” I sang quietly. “I have a surpriiise for youuu~”

“What, really?”

The moment she looked, a ball of confetti and glitter hit her straight in the muzzle. I would not have done such a thing with anypony else. Ever. Not with Twilight, who could raise shields faster than I could think ‘horse apples’. Not with Applejack who could probably kick the thing straight back at me, and maybe through me. Because no matter how capable any of my other friends were, there was always the risk of a slip-up. A mistake, no matter how small, that could result in glitter getting flung into their eyes when the stupid impromptu-snowball burst on their muzzle. And breathing in glitter in a shocked gasp was probably unhealthy as well. And no matter the fun it might be, I could never not think about these things.

Pinkie, however? Pinkie was Pinkie. She would be fine. Because she had Pinkie-sense. And Pinkie-physics. And probably Pinkie-eyelids.

True to expectations, she merely shook her head in confusion and then giggled. “Good throw!”

I used the opportunity to grab her cheeks with my magic and slowly, carefully dragged her out of her hiding spot. And while she did not resist, she did not walk over on her own either, instead preferring for me to drag her over the entire way. I grinned and shook my head when I was finally able to properly greet her. “Hey silly!”

“Hey, that’s my line!” she objected, but promptly threw her hooves around me to give me one of those bone-crushing, soul-mending hugs.

“You jumped the gun a little on the yelling, eh?” I teased once we pulled apart again.

Pinkie sighed and dragged a hoof down her muzzle. “I’ve been all over the place with the timings. Speaking of…” She looked up. Another confetti bomb went off. This one was considerably smaller and served to unroll a large banner that hung across the station platform.

Happy 50. AD, Dreamwalker!

Pinkie nodded, at least satisfied that the bomb went off when it was supposed to, even if she miscalculated when that should have been. “I wanted to write Arrival Day in full, but then the banner would’ve been waaay too long and I would have needed to extend the station platform and Twilight insisted that we didn’t have time for that, so I asked Shyshy if we couldn’t just move the tracks over to the library or make an outdoorsy party over here, but she said she wouldn’t like that very much, and if she wouldn’t like that, then neither would you, I thought, because that’s basically why I asked her in the first place.”

She took a breath. And before she could continue — something she inevitably would have done — I briefly hugged her again and used that to turn her around towards town proper. And I started walking. She effortlessly kept pace, of course. There was a familiar spring in her step, as usual. Even if it had dimmed a little over the years. “So I gather you’re just the welcome committee? Sent to fetch me?”

She gasped. In that overly dramatic, drawn-out way that only she could. “How did you know? Are you… a psychic? Or from the future? Are you a time traveler?”

Neither of us even tried to stay serious. We both just started laughing the moment she ended her last question. It had become somewhat of a running gag between us. I gave her a little bump with my shoulder. Because I felt grateful. And I smiled at her. Pinkie returned a beam. I loved that I could make her look like that, that I could make her smile like that. “So, cry on my shoulder. What else went wrong?”

She giggled. “Oh you wouldn’t believe it!”

“Try me.” And off we went. I knew she would keep talking without effort for hours and hours. I was glad she was willing to fill the silence, even though Ponyville was never truly silent anyway. Not even at night, and it was still late afternoon. Plenty of ponies were milling about and I waved and greeted them with nods and smiles and they gave them in return. I felt at home. Note quite as at home as I felt within the castle, but being in Ponyville again was already a really good start. And hearing Pinkie's voice in the background was just a really nice way of easing myself back in. It sped the whole process of acclimation up.

I was decently sure that she knew what was happening and that she did not mind that I was not paying her full attention this time. Then again, as much as I watched fillies and colts run after a ball, as much as I watched Lyra cuddle up to Bon Bon on a park bench, so did she probably watch me. I drank in the life and joy and happiness around me and let it fill me up, and she in turn delighted in seeing me slowly peek out of my shell again.

When we reached the castle, I felt reinvigorated. Ready to tackle a dragon. A very, very young one. Or a regular day. Just one. Or one of Pinkie's parties. And I had a sneaking suspicion about what awaited me inside.

Pinkie bounced ahead and opened the door. I stepped past the threshold and as soon as I heard that familiar click as the door closed again, I breathed out, slowly, evenly, and back in. The scent of books filled my nose. Books and ink, with faint traces of dragon fire and… incense? Huh. I shot a questioning glance over to Pinkie and she immediately raised both hooves in defense. Without sitting down on her haunches or toppling over of course. Somehow. “I swear I did not try to cook while Spike was busy in the kitchen and I certainly did not attempt to use the oven at the same time as he did and I most assuredly did not raise the temperature by mistake and we did not try to hide the charred remains by just burning some incense!”

“Uh…huh. Sure you didn’t. So… how would you get rid of those hypothetical charred remains, then?” I dared to ask. Because getting rid of the smell was one thing, but—

“Spike.”

I grimaced. “Is he okay?”

Pinkie mulled the question over for a bit before she merely shrugged. “I guess? He said it was fine.”

I should probably check on him. However, before I could do that, Pinkie dragged me in front of the library door and flung them open. Which immediately startled Fluttershy, albeit less than I had expected. “We’re heeere!” Pinkie announced.

Sometimes, her enthusiasm was a little bothersome. In an instant, all conversation that had filled the room previously stopped and all attention was drawn to us. To me specifically, since Pinkie simply stepped out of the way and to Fluttershy’s side.

I stared back for a moment. Just a moment. It was not a huge crowd. Ten ponies, myself excluded, Pinkie included. Really not a lot. And they were all familiar faces. Well, most of them. Warm, welcoming smiles all around. And yet I still hesitated a little.

My eyes danced around unfocused. To the banner above, displaying the same message the one at the train station had. To the nice, large cake that smelled of marzipan and strawberry. To the selection of cookies beside it, because not everypony was such a big fan of marzipan. My focus quickly shifted from thing to thing to thing, avoiding the ponies in between.

Until Twilight popped into existence beside me and she draped her wing over my back. I stiffened for half a second before I relaxed into it and slightly leaned against her. I’m home, I told myself. And I smiled contently.

With Twilight's intervention, things quickly went back to normal. My ‘arrival day party’ was the substitute for my birthday party, a celebration Pinkie and I had agreed upon shortly after my, well, arrival. And year after year, Pinkie did her best to make it the best party she could while simultaneously accommodating somepony like me, who was not exactly a wild party animal or social butterfly. She usually did that by consulting Fluttershy, which had worked out well in the past and did so again. The conversations our sudden introduction had abruptly stopped continued and Twilight led me to the table. So that I could get rid of my saddlebags, as well as grab a plate and cut the cake.

And without much fanfare, everypony lined up. It was funny in a way. And I had no words to express my gratitude. A simple smile would have to suffice for now.

Twilight was the first to get her slice. “Welcome home,” she said. Her tone alone indicated already that it was not just this time I came back, it was something more profound. I hesitated a moment, seeing as everypony was looking and waiting, but ultimately gave myself a little push and kissed her anyway. And it felt good. It would never not feel good, witnesses be damned. And despite my eyelids fluttering shut, I could tell she was smiling into the kiss.

“Aw,” I heard Gabby quietly squeak.

“Take a room, you two,” Dinky protested with an amused giggle.

“Technically, this is one of their rooms,” Derpy objected.

Twilight and I parted and I chuckled. “Way to ruin the mood, guys,” I softly chided with a grin. “We can continue this later,” I promised Twilight and even dared a wink.

“Oh believe me, we will,” she threatened me in return. A little bit of heat rose to my face and I tried my best to ignore it. Especially given that she had spoken so quietly that I was sure nopony else had heard.

I gave the second, third and fourth slice to Dinky, her mom Derpy and her daughter Ditzy. “Are you sure you’re old enough for cake?” I asked the filly. She was what, maybe ten years old? Maybe too old for such stupid jokes.

“Come ooon, I’m not a baby!” she insisted.

I backed off a little. “I know, I know. I’m just teasing you.” I gave her her plate and after a quick thank you, she hopped off to the side and patiently waited for her mom.

“They grow so fast, don’t they?” I asked as Dinky stepped up and hugged me.

“They do. I still remember when I got lost that day on the market and you promised to find my mother for me. You placed me on your back and it was such a change in perspective. I could suddenly see beyond all these ponies.” Dinky giggled and shook her head. She accepted her piece and followed her little one.

Derpy, well. Derpy was a Pinkie in disguise. She did not wait for an invitation, she barely recognized personal space at the best of times and I was actually quite happy that she embraced me without second thought and this tightly. “Happy birthday!” she mumbled.

I chuckled in reply. “But haven’t you read the banner? This isn’t even a birthday party!” I fake-gasped. “Derpy! Oh no! Have you accidentally gone to the wrong party?”

A mild punch against my shoulder only further increased my chuckle to a quiet laughter. “I have done that once! And you’re never going to let me hear the end of it!”

“Twice, actually,” I corrected with a wide grin. “That’s what makes it so hilarious.”

“Fine, twice. Still a good quota. I dropped more pianos on ponies, you know.”

This time, we both laughed. “Yeah, I vaguely remember Twilight mentioning something like that.”

Derpy blushed a little as we pulled apart. “I’m just glad she’s so lenient. I don’t even want to know how many bits of property damage I caused over the years. Or the hospital bills.”

I waved it off. The same thing Twilight did each and every time. Derpy rarely dwelled on the past. She was too much of an optimist to do that. But every pony had their weaker moments every now and then. And in those moments, it was important that the ponies close to them were there to offer support and reassurance. “Knowing you is worth a lot more than you could break, really.”

She jabbed my shoulder with a hoof. “It’s your birthday party! I should say nice things to you!”

I laughed a little louder and nodded. “Alright. Fine. Here I am. Say something nice.”

“I—… uhm… I like your… mane?” Ditzy was the first to laugh. A silence followed her question, unbroken by anyone in this room, until the laughter of Derpy's granddaughter broke the spell. Her daughter quickly followed suit, and in mere moments everycreature chimed in. Derpy blushed a little, but laughed with us. “I was put on the spot!” she weakly tried to defend herself.

I pulled her into another hug and squished her a little. “Thank you,” I murmured close to her ear.

Once Derpy made room, Spike and Gabby sauntered up. I immediately checked the former for any visual clues of food poisoning. “Are you okay?”

Spike furrowed his brow. “Yes? Am I… not supposed to be okay?”

“No, it’s fine, I just… Pinkie told me that—… you know what? Nevermind. I’m just glad you’re okay.” I struggled a little as a part of me wanted to probe further, but what use would that be. So instead, I hugged it out with both of them at the same time. Gabby was still impressively strong, and so was Spike. He was a young gentledrake and stood proud and tall, his headfin a smidge higher than Celestia herself. Considering what sheer physical abilities I was holding onto, I did a reasonably good job of not thinking about it.

I gave both of them their slices and sent them off. Despite my attempts to ignore the presence of ponies initially, I had noticed how he had tried to impress her by subtly posing. It was silly and endearing and I was sure Gabby loved it. As far as I was concerned, they were free to return to that. There would be time later in the afternoon or evening to share a few moments, talk, catch up, joke around, things like that. Because surely, Spike would not try to flirt with his better half for the entire time. Surely.

The next guest in front of me was an unexpected one. I immediately recognized her, though. A pale yellow coat, a raspberry mane and a name-giving rose as a cutie mark. What made it so much easier to recognize Roseluck, who I was sure I had not seen in quite a few years, was the simple fact that she had not aged a day.

“I was—” I started, but was quickly cut off by her.

“It’s nice to see you again, Dreamwalker. You have other guests waiting, but I look forward to talking a little with you.” I was easily steamrolled. This was no exception. I nodded sheepishly and offered her a plate with a slice. She took the edge of the plate in her teeth and went her merry way.

I looked after her for a moment before a pink hoof violently waved half an inch in front of my face. “Huh?”

“I have been drooling over this cake forever and Twilight wouldn’t even let me taste-test it, not even to make sure that it had not been poisoned by ninjas yet!” Pinkie lamented her horrible, terrible, cruel fate. She almost threw herself at my hooves. “I am staaarving, Dreamwalker! Starving, I tell you!” I snorted. And snickered. And tried to keep it in. “Staaahaaahaaarviiihiiihiiing!”

I briefly glanced over to Fluttershy. She was smart enough to hold a wing half extended in front of her face, but by the subtle tremors running through her feathers, I could tell she silently giggled as well. And that was really all I could take. The moment I started to laugh, Pinkie stopped her melodramatic display, rolled onto her back and merrily laughed with me. And despite her subdued demeanor, Fluttershy gave up on self-control as well and chimed in.

“She has been asking me to convince Twilight for the past hour or so,” Shy told me after we regained some semblance of composure. “And you know she can be very convincing.”

“I have my… wily ways,” Pinkie teased with a smirk.

Fluttershy instantly turned beet-red and refused to comment further, even though I was pretty sure that whatever they had done within the confines of this castle was most certainly quite tame. She would probably faint were I to tell her what Luna and I had done in some rooms of the palace. The thought made me laugh all over again.

I gave Fluttershy her slice, put two more on plates for my last guest and myself and offered Pinkie the rest with a wide grin.

“Ohhh no no no no no! I can’t accept that!” she insisted. “That is yours!”

“I know. And I have my piece of it, and so does everyone else.” A sly grin grew on my lips as I continued. “You may have yours now. I had always been awful at gauging volumes, numbers, ages and such by mere eye, you know. I think your slice might’ve gotten a smidge bigger than the others, but oh well. I really have no way of telling for sure. Guess you’ll have to deal with it. I hope you have the stomach for it!” Pinkie wordlessly grabbed into her mane and offered me measuring tape. “No way of telling,” I repeated and pushed the tape back into her mane. She drew a ruler from her mane. It was decidedly too long to fit in there. “No. Way. Of. Telling,” I repeated more forcefully and shoved the gosh-darn ruler back in.

Pinkie giggled and thrust her hoof back into her mane. I briefly wondered how much more unique measuring equipment she would be able to produce. But I was determined to win this battle. “Then again,” I offered, “if you really don’t want it, I can of course offer everyone else a second slice. I’m not sure if anything will be left over for you after that, though…”

Her eyes grew to the size of dinner plates themselves. And quickly filled to the brim with tears. “You wouldn’t…!” she gasped in a ghostly, faint voice.

I grinned and chuckled and tried so hard to keep my countenance. “Try. Me.” And I made the plate float in front of her muzzle for good measure.

We held each other's gazes for a few seconds before she grinned and finally took her plate. “Okie dokie loki!”

I chuckled and shook my head and watched her bounce away with her plate balanced precariously on top of her mane. The cake bounced with every ‘step’, but always landed safely back on the plate. I looked over to Fluttershy and she simply marveled at her better half the same way I did. “She’s special,” I whispered.

Fluttershy did not even blush. She simply nodded, her gaze full of warmth and love. “Yes. Yes, she is. Will you excuse me?”

I hugged her briefly. “Go get her.”

She nodded again. “Oh, and Dreamwalker? Happy Arrival Day!”

I sighed deeply as I watched her slowly walk after Pinkie. Pinkie, for her part, was busy trying to be a part of every conversation going, which, with a crowd this size, was maybe even feasible. And thus, I turned to my last guest.

“Hey sunshine,” I greeted Aurora.

A brief moment passed by before she gave herself a little push and quietly answered. “Hey daddy.”

The tightness in my throat vanished. It was… nice to hear that. To hear her say it. We embraced each other, and I cherished being this close to her. Three kids. I had been blessed with three wonderful, amazing, incredible kids. But time marched on relentlessly, and they grew up and were kids no more. They had jobs. Houses to pay for. Tables to fill with food. Families of their own. Responsibilities.

I knew how this party had come to be. I was no fool. I had told Sunny of my plans over checkers this morning. That left her with enough time to send a note ahead. Which in turn left Spike and Twilight enough time to inform Pinkie and get things set up. I was not disappointed to see that out of my three children, only my little princess had made it here. They were all swamped with… stuff. With life itself.

No, I was simply amazed that she was here.

“Arcana and Stardust send their best wishes,” Aurora explained. “Arcana was held up with some tasks at the Royal Archive and Stardust is currently in Griffonstone. That’s a little far for teleportation. And he’s still not exactly good at it either.”

I simply smiled. And squeezed her a little. “Thank you. But honestly, I think Arcana simply forgot. And I don’t begrudge her that. I know how she is, and how she gets when she has work to do. And she always has work to do.”

Aurora was silent for a moment. Eventually, she sighed. “Stardust was really bummed about this though. He really wanted to be here.”

I grimaced a little. “Well to be fair, my return to Ponyville was originally planned for the end of next week, that would’ve left all of you with almost two weeks of preparation time. I just… I had an idea. A stupid one. And I thought, knowing it was a stupid one, that I would be awfully clever in following up on it immediately. You know how I get.”

She snickered and pulled back enough to lean her head against my chest. “I know.”

It felt so familiar. Her sitting in front of me. Me holding her. I stroked through her mane. The colors of fire in a gradient from yellow to red. I stroked down her back, her coat the same immaculate alabaster white than her moms. For a brief moment, it felt like decades and decades dropped from both our shoulders. She was my little princess again. And I spoiled her rotten to the best of my ability. My heart swelled with pride with every single one of her accomplishments. I told her stories and she loved them, even long after classic bedtime stories had been put to rest, because she had grown too old for those. But we had made story time a weekly tradition for a while. Until eventually, it was every other week. Then every month. Every other month.

Life was cruel like that.

“It’s nice to have you here,” I whispered and squeezed her again. I knew that Aurora was good with teleportation. Not quite as good as her younger half-sister Arcana, but still good enough to teleport a decent distance. Meaning she had to be in the general area to begin with.

“I came by yesterday to talk with Rarity, but she’s currently in Canterlot,” she explained my unasked question.

“Mindreader,” I mumbled and we both smiled. “I know, actually. I met her this morning. She’s helping out Pristine.”

“Oh? And how is she doing?” Aurora asked.

I shrugged. “Oh, you know Rarity. She’s…” You truly have been exactly what I needed this morning, it echoed in my mind. I cleared my throat. “She’s had a bit of a rough stretch recently, I think. I hope it was just a bad morning or something.”

Aurora nodded and finally pulled away from my chest. I felt a sting of cold and sadness for a brief moment. I would not have minded holding her for a while longer. A long while longer. “You helped her, didn’t you?”

I shrugged. “It’s what friends do. I did what I could. I might look into what else I can do, but… I’m not sure how limited my arsenal is in this case. I need to find out what’s bothering her, first.”

“And Pristine? How is she?”

Her curiosity made my smile widen a little. Fifty years ago, I arrived at a turning point. The seemingly endless flood of villains finally dried up a little. A generation of ponies came into their best years, their bloom. And then another generation slowly but surely rose. And I watched them grow up into fine ponies as well. I had always hoped that we would be one big family one day. I called Applejack my sister, and I did so with pride. We were obviously not related by blood, but I liked to believe that she had adopted me into their ranks as a friendly spirit. In the same vein, I felt protective when it came to Fluttershy or Pinkie. But honestly — who didn’t? And I would have stood beside Rainbow no matter what idiocy had befallen her this time. They truly were my family. My chosen family.

And with a new generation, I hoped it would simply… add. Not water it down, not help every piece of the whole to drift apart, but add. And for a while, it looked really good. Pristine got along so well with my kids, as did Whisper. Ambrosia was a bit of an oddball initially, but quickly grew to like all of them and saw herself as everypony’s big sister, disregarding that some were older than her.

And then they grew older and life happened.

It really was like a tree. Branches could not stick too close together without impeding each other's growth. They had to stretch and reach for their own little space, they had to assure a certain distance so both could flourish to their full potential. It was a necessity, really.

It still broke my heart nonetheless.

I sighed deeply. “You’re getting melancholic again,” Aurora warned me.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry.” I shook my head and cut her off before she could say it. “And I know I’m not supposed to apologize for it. Don’t tell your mom or she will have a patient and very understanding conversation with me again.” I gave Aurora a wry smile.

She answered it in kind. “I promise.” And she made the hoof signs for a proper Pinkie Promise. That as well warmed my heart. Because while she had grown up partially in Ponyville, a Pinkie Promise did not hold the same value to her as it did to me. At least it should not hold the same value. But somehow, she adapted the gesture and its implications. Just like that. Because she wanted to. Or maybe just for my sake — I could live with either, really.

“Alright, tell you what,” I restarted our conversation after a minute or so of silence. “I’m quickly heading over to Roseluck to discuss something with her. I have a building project in mind and she might be able to help me. And once I’m done, we can make the rounds and see who we can chew an ear off, eh?”

She smiled and took her plate in her levitation. “Sounds fun. I’ll be waiting over there.” She pointed towards Twilight. My gaze followed and for a brief moment, I felt the heat rise to my muzzle once more as I remembered her threat.

I distracted myself by pouring myself a cup of punch and taking a good, long swig. And then I marched over to Roseluck, who seemed less interested in mingling and stood by one of the bookshelves, idly browsing the display for interesting titles. “Found something to your liking?”

She looked over her shoulder as I stepped up to her side. “Not quite. I’m currently trying to understand Twilight's sorting system.”

I snorted. In truth, I had almost snorted punch, but I managed to avoid that embarrassing display. “Right. Good luck with that one.” I was pretty sure that the only ones who understood it were Twilight, Arcana and Spike. Sunny and Luna certainly could, but did not bother with it.

Standing this close to Roseluck gave me a good opportunity to really study her face. No wrinkles whatsoever. No lines, no shadows haunting her eyes. I could not help but wonder. Had she gone through the trials? Had she been on an epic journey, undertaken this entire adventure my kids had been on, to achieve a vaguely defined, uncertain ‘immortality’? Or maybe it had something to do with the good doctor. Despite both of us living in Ponyville for decades and frequently encountering one another on friendly terms, I had never managed to learn much about Doctor Whooves. He was more than just a quirky oddball. He invented machines with questionable functions. He talked about things even Twilight had difficulties following.

Some things are not meant for pony minds, I advised myself.

Maybe this was a decent opportunity to further practice small talk. And maybe find a few kernels of useful information in the process. “Sooo… how are Daisy and Lily doing?”

A sad smile graced her lips and immediately told me that I had once again failed. This was a blunder. A big one, it seemed. “You haven’t heard, then? They moved to that weird little village in northern Equestria, roughly a year ago. Daisy died shortly after. Avalanche, they say.”

So that’s why I saw so little of them in the last months, they mo—wait, what?

I stared at her slack-jawed. It took a moment for the information to finally, properly register. A friend of mine had died. True, Lily and Daisy had never been even remotely as close to me as many other ponies. But still. I knew them. I liked them. I knew the way to their house by heart. I knew the primary color of their living room décor, for crying out loud.

And now they were gone. Or at least Daisy was gone.

“I-I… I am so… sorry. I didn’t… I had no idea,” I stuttered my way through.

Roseluck sighed and cradled the spine of a random book. “It’s fine, really. Time ticks on relentlessly, doesn’t it? We will both have to make that experience a couple more times before we might get used to it.”

While the implications should have been earth-shattering, her words left me strangely hollow. And scared. “I actually hope we never will,” I whispered in reply.

She nodded, simply to show that she accepted my opinion. Even if she probably disagreed. And indeed, time ticked on. I could hear it due to the damn clock. I had not consciously noticed it ticking the entire time, but somehow, now I did.

“You wanted to talk about the Everfree village, didn’t you?” Roseluck picked our conversation back up.

“I—… uhm… how do you know that?”

She smiled again. With less sadness, Celestia be blessed. “It’s alright. I’ll ask The Doctor if we can help. I’m sure he’ll figure something out. I didn’t want to crash your party like that, but it was the nearest point of entry we could find and Pinkie invited me anyway once I showed up, so I hope that’s okay. But I think I’ll leave now. You seem to have really, really good friends and they all wait for you to share a few precious minutes. You should make good use of those.”

“I… I will. Thank you.” I watched her go. And I stared at that door long after it had closed. Up until I felt the warmth of another radiate beside me. I looked over and saw Aurora smile. A demure, subdued little smile.

“Hey dad. Ready to make the rounds?”

I pinched my eyes shut for a moment and when I reopened them, I nodded. “Yeah. Let’s do this.” I gave that door one last look. I felt a creeping uncertainty bubble within the deeper reaches of my mind. But it was something to be addressed later.

Aurora led me to a table that had not been there upon my initial entry. A present table. I stared at it, sighed and chuckled. “Y’all are crazy!”

They would not let me back away from that table if the castle were suddenly on fire, I knew that. So I gave in and grabbed the very first present I saw.

“That’s from Rarity,” Twilight informed me.

Oh is it now?! I stared at the wrapping paper. It had a nice motif. Waves of different shades of blue, with a sparkle of brightness here and there. As if some artist had done his best to capture the essence of the ocean surface. The ribbon was neatly tied as well. Of course it was. Rarity was an artiste, after all. Nothing less than perfection would do.

I snorted and shook my head. “Rares, you silly swan.” Because calling her a ‘goose’ would have been an insult. Even though I thought geese were graceful animals. But as Rarity playfully insisted: That only showed how little I understood about true grace.

The presents were only the start, of course. After making the rounds and catching up to everyone, there would be time for games. Silly little party games, meant for fillies and colts, that were surprisingly a lot of fun even at our age. One just had to jump over his own shadow and allow oneself to be a tad silly.

Interlude: Rock Solid II

He was trekking through the Everfree Forest for hours already, and he had another hour or so before he would reach his destination, it seemed. Rock stopped at a small creek and took a couple of sips. He opened his saddlebags with his teeth and pulled the stupid map out. The moment it started to paint his surroundings in artistic flourishes with stylized trees and moving symbols representing timberwolf packs and whatnot, he rolled his eyes in annoyance. He stared at the shovel on his back and growled a little. They dressed him up with ‘equipment’ that he would ‘need’ like he was not capable of doing his job otherwise.

Following commands again did not sit right with Rock Solid. For all he could tell, Iron Hoof was a decent leader. But that mattered little to him, as he only saw yet another stallion wearing some weird-ass armor and feeling undeserved pride because of it. And it unsettled Rock how eerily similar Iron Hoof’s armor looked to those old pictures of ancient day guard armor he found in books when he was still a wee little recruit himself.

As far as he was concerned, he was done with the guard. They could all go die in a ditch. And he cared not what faction Iron Hoof belonged to. Maybe he was some fancy-schmancy mercenary leader. Maybe he was a member of a revolutionist underground network. It did not matter.

But — following Iron Hoof’s orders and instructions had been part of the deal. So here he was, with a magical map and a supposedly magical shovel. Their mutual employer Wildfire had tried to tell him about this ancient pony hero who saved his village with this shovel or something, but again — he did not care. And the old coot was smart enough to notice that quickly, so he shut up and let him leave to do his thing.

Rock did not mind wandering through the Everfree. On the contrary, he quite liked it here. Most of the predators did not make a fuss. If they wanted one dead, they straight up went for it. He could respect that. Even if he still beat them to a bloody pulp. Or whatever that green stuff had been that had seeped out of those timberwolves. Manticores were a bit more difficult, but still manageable. And that was the fun part: Living here, walking around in this place, even sleeping in these woods was a challenge. It was primal, it was basic, it was survival. This was the stuff he was made for.

But he could respect Iron Hoof. He managed to get by in the forest as well. He generally seemed to be cut from a different cloth. An old-school stallion after his tastes. But he allowed himself to be weak. He had a soft spot for that shy pegasus colt Wildfire had dragged in like a lost kitten. He snorted in frustration, rolled up the map, stashed it away and moved on. His target destination had not moved.

When he reached the area, it did not look any different from other parts of the forest. Densely packed with gnarled and twisted trees, the canopies overhead so tightly interwoven that it became dark as night in some places, thick and thorny underbrush in all directions and a constant buzzing of insects and birds and the rustling of small predators going about their day. He appreciated the wilderness. The wildness. Some creatures had tried their luck. Tried to subdue him. Make a meal out of him. And he had shown them his superiority. He was the alpha predator now. Wherever he went, he was the biggest threat. And any challenger was more than welcome to try his luck. He would beat them, too.

Not his target though. Rock Solid was not as stupid as some ponies took him for. A tatzlwurm was a wholly different beast. He had never seen one. But he heard the stories. Everypony knew the stories.

He grabbed the stupid shovel, put the miner’s helmet from his saddlebag onto his head and lit it and started to dig. And it quickly became apparent why the shovel was supposedly magical. He removed decently large chunks of earth with each hit, the work went by fast and easy, he encountered no resistance by stony terrain and did not even feel fatigued when his work was done. It was a cheater's way of doing things, as far as he was concerned. That said, he had to work within a given timeframe. He simply did not have the time to do it properly.

His idea would have been to track where the beast had emerged last. And they did emerge occasionally. To place another air ventilation hole in their network of underground tunnels. To take a literal breather. To hunt for food, which they usually found on the surface.

From there, he could have followed the tunnels to his target. But that would have taken days, maybe even weeks, and Wildfire — for all his scholarly patience — was not that patient, it seemed.

Rock had dug a ramp down into the tunnel network. A steep incline, but it was still possible to run up and escape the tunnels if necessary. And there he found it. A living, breathing tatzlwurm. The creature was truly massive. He walked alongside its body. It seemed to sleep. And according to Wildfire, it would continue to do so for a couple more weeks, maybe even months. It had a proper meal a few days ago and now it was time to rest. That obviously implied that it probably would not mind a snack in between if he got careless. But that was the reason why Iron Hoof decided to send him in. He was tough. And quick. And resilient.

But he was not patient.

Rock Solid hated the nature of his assignment down here. To keep away from the most dangerous part of the tatzlwurm — its head — he walked down the body’s length and dug a little alcove into the wall near its rear. He placed the helmet down as a light source, walked over to the creature’s backend and gave it a good, solid whack with his shovel. Not at full force, of course. His orders were to let it sleep. But the sudden sensation stirred it enough to make it move for a moment. Like a sleeping pony scratching an itchy spot in the middle of the night. Its movement alone was enough to make the earth rumble and tremble. A few seconds, and the tatzlwurm went back to a more peaceful slumber.

And Rock Solid sat down in his alcove and sighed. This was stupid. Were they really expecting him to sit here for days, only occasionally getting up to slap the beast?

Slap the beast. That thought made him chuckle.

That was his order, yes. But five minutes later, he could already feel himself getting bored. So he grabbed the helmet once more, left his saddlebags with the map and the shovel behind — because screw those toys — and went back up. Not only was the air better up there, less stale and pungent since no tatzlwurm constantly breathed and farted into it, but there was actual daylight. And a lot more to see and experience than just tunnel walls. Maybe he could kill a couple of hours by exploring the tatzlwurm’s tunnel network at some point, but right now with his frustration levels way too high to sit still for extended periods, he needed a decent distraction. So he went off to search for something to beat up.

He did not have to go far before a supposedly threatening growl emanated from a nearby clearing. A manticore, probably. That would do just fine…

Days later and his agitation was at an all-time high again.

Rock could not take as many strolls as he would need to become less twitchy. He grew familiar with his surroundings and he did not like that, not one bit. He recognized trees and oriented himself on rock formations. There were basically no large threats remaining. They had all tried their luck and a solid hierarchy was established. With him at the helm of it all. It should have been a point of pride, an accomplishment. But he felt nothing. Just ever-increasing boredom.

At one point, it got so bad that he regretted the absence of a city or town nearby, or a pub to get a few drinks in. He quite liked the slight buzz alcohol gave him. Not once in his life did he get black-out drunk though. It just seemed like it was impossible for him. And he had tried several times.

When he started to miss a dozen pints of beer or whatever harder stuff they had to offer, his frustration peeked and he uprooted a tree with a solid kick. The trunk cracked and then the whole thing went down with a muffled thud, as the leaves and branches cushioned the fall. He did not scream. He growled.

And then he returned to his joke of a ‘post’.

Over the course of these days, he had also grown familiar with his charge. This beast was a good two hundred feet long from head to tail. He had tried to lever one of its scales away with the magical shovel, but an impressive amount of muscles beneath the scaled hide contracted and the thing clamped shut. He had brushed through its reddish mane, but cared little about the surprisingly soft hair. The head was sleek, smooth. Perfect to push through solid rock, he assumed. And from its weird, three-part mouth hung a couple of rubbery black tentacles. They oozed, probably saliva, and occasionally twitched. Maybe the tatzlwurm was dreaming.

And that was the full extent of his study.

Rock Solid assumed that there were countless eggheads out there, frothing at the mouth, eager to be in his place and study this magnificent creature in full detail. And magnificent it was.

Not for the first time, he walked along the length of this monster and marveled at its sheer size. Imagined the unfathomable destruction it could cause, if only it chose to. He raised his hoof and placed it on its scales. The beast did not even feel that. He was too tiny for it to notice his presence. Too insignificant.

It was an insult, really. Every time he picked up that stupid shovel and slapped this creature’s booty like some three-bit-whore, it was an insult to the force of destruction that lied slumbering. “They should treat you better,” he growled. This was a monster. A monster! Not just a convenient tool in some eggheads arsenal. Like all the other big-brain fools, Wildfire seemed to believe that he could use this creature, that he could wield it like just another pawn in his games.

Why was it that the sheer endless arrogance of unicorns usually caused so much grief? Was a superiority complex just an inherent trait of all unicorns, baked into their frail bodies?

Maybe they needed to be taught a lesson.

“They don’t give you the respect they ought to,” he said to the beast beside him as he walked further up ahead. “They think they can control you. They think they understand you. Enough that they think they can manipulate you into doing their bidding. But you are a wild creature. You are mighty and powerful, you are a force of destruction and they should fear you! You bow to nopony! And they. Will. Cower!”

With his mind quickly made up, Rock Solid turned around and cantered back to the small alcove he had used as a shelter. He flung his saddlebag over his back, grabbed the dumb helmet and put it on and picked up the shovel.

Pony hero my ass, most ponies are wimps!, he spat in thought and lifted his head high — and therefore the shovel between his teeth. A solid whack and the tatzlwurm shook once more to get rid of whatever was bothering it. But this time, Rock Solid was not done. Oh no. He hit it again a dozen feet up its body length. And again. And again.

Until the enormous monster finally awoke. Disgruntled and foul-tempered, as it should be. Because some nasty, stupid-ass ponies meddled with its might.

Rock Solid ran up to and then past its head. Two of the dozen tentacles hanging from the creature’s mouth managed to catch his hindleg and wrapped around it. He could feel the paralyzing poison numb his skin and the muscle beneath, but he was Rock Solid and he did not care. He hit one tentacle off with the shovel and kicked the other to the ground to stomp on it. The beast screeched in pain and relented, withdrew its tentacles and turned his newly opened eyes upon him.

They were blind like a mole, he assumed.

Still, there was no reason to dawdle any longer. “Come and get some, beasty!” he yelled into the tatzlwurm’s face.

The massive jaws opened wide, as wide as the tunnel would allow and a dozen tentacles shot out. The creature screamed in outrage and Rock felt a flutter in his heart. This. This was how this monster was supposed to look like, to behave like. He turned and ran past the tatzlwurm’s head, back to the ramp he had dug. The creature needed a moment to turn around, but it was astonishing with what speed it could dig new tunnels.

“Wormed its way through,” Rock chuckled in amusement.

For the first time in days, he felt awake again, alive again. His hooves thundered onto the ground, he barreled through thick underbrush and past trees, and the earth rumbled and quaked beneath him due to his unseen pursuer.

“Follow me!” he yelled back at the creature when it broke through the forest floor. It missed him. Not by much. But maybe on purpose. He liked that thought. Maybe it was playing with him. Like a cat with its food.

Rock knew that there was a village nearby. Nopony had said anything about it, but he assumed that his orders to occasionally stir the tatzlwurm into movement was meant to do something with the inhabitants of that town. And he was done being patient.

So he led the creature there. Straight bee-line. He plowed through everything in its path, swatted a couple of overly curious foxes and even a regular old wolf away with his shovel and continued straight ahead, until the village walls came into sight. At that point, he executed his formidable plan.

He abruptly stopped running and ducked into a thicket.

He knew that this beast oriented itself via vibrations. But it currently burrowed beneath the earth at top speed. Which he assumed caused a lot of vibrations as well. That should make it difficult to properly and precisely track him while it was moving itself. Therefore, with him stopping and the vibrations of his hoofsteps suddenly gone, it should focus on the next best thing it could notice. And that was probably a bunch of ponies walking around in that village.

It was genius, really.

And a grim, satisfied smile grew on his face when the earthquakes continued… right on past him. A moment later, the beast erupted from the ground once more.

They will know fear.

The evenings were Rock Solid’s favorite time of day. The day's work was done. Everything calmed down again. Time to rest and relax a little, to eat and then go to sleep. And really, despite his farewell to supposedly more civilized society, not much had changed. Iron Hoof sat close by and stirred the large wooden ladle in the massive metal pot that hung over their campfire. The kid sat on a log on the other side of it, keeping his distance from Rock — which he could appreciate, at least. He actually found it hilarious how much that colt dreaded his presence. Maybe he too had heard stories about him. But he would not let his expression betray that. And the nice smell of a good, old-fashioned stew hung in the air.

Life was good.

Well, that was until it wasn’t anymore. Rock Solid sat on his log with his soup bowl beside him when all of a sudden, he could feel it. The rapid build-up of residual magic. He had not expected their employer to show his mug around camp so soon after. But it was all the same to him. That said…

“You might wanna take cover or something,” he warned Iron Hoof with a dark and twisted grin. He could respect the stallion for his capabilities, but it still just did not sit right with him to be under the command of a uniform-wearer again. So this was all the warning he would get. And he immediately whiffed it.

Iron Hoof tensed up. “You said your mission was a success!” he spat.

Rock’s grin turned sideways. “It was.”

“According to whom?” his ‘leader’ inquired.

But it was too late. Rock was not sure if he could have come up with an adequately snarky reply in time anyway, so he did not mind things escalating at this point. An invisible shockwave of pure force raced through the forest. The wind it pushed along in its wake was surprisingly hot and Rock, intrigued by this observation, looked over his shoulder towards the epicenter of the spell.

There was a patch of ground completely burned. The grass was gray and crumbled to ashes. The tree nearby glowed in orange from the heat of the arrival while the rest of its trunk was blackened. A radius of several feet around the spot were just… dead. Burnt.

“Huh,” was all Rock mustered, seeing that.

And of course, in the middle of it all stood their employer. Wildfire did not hesitate. The moment his softly glowing horn cooled down somewhat, he lit it up again, raised his head and shot a volley of stun rays. There was fierce anger in his eyes. The colt was hit immediately, Iron Hoof froze in place a second later.

“You illiterate, boorish, incompetent imbecile!” spouted Wildfire.

“Lots o’ words,” Rock nonchalantly replied as a barrage of stun rays hit his back and fizzled out without doing much of anything. He knew he was only fanning the flames of Wildfire's anger, but truth be told — that was the point. It was very amusing to see the usually well-composed, scholarly, smarmy egghead lose his cool and throw a temper tantrum.

As expected, the unicorn tried to double down on his usage of magic. And while not all spells failed, it became apparent rather fast that even a capable caster like Wildfire, if confronted with the need to concentrate while being agitated and the inherent magical resistance Rock Solid had, needed to take a step back and reevaluate his approach.

And he did.

He grabbed Rock Solid instead, and even though his telekinesis flickered and threatened to fail at any second, Wildfire raised him up into the air and then used excessive force to smash him into the ground. What he had not accounted for however, was the simple fact that he lifted him up with a band of magic around his barrel. Therefore, Rock had his legs free to brace for impact. When he came crashing down, he exerted most of the force via his earth pony magic and sent it as ripples through the soil, in turn generating his own little earthquake. It felt kind of funky.

“That was fun,” he commented with a chuckle.

Wildfires' rage reached white-hot levels and several things in and around their campsite started to lift off the ground, grabbed fiercely in the unicorn's telekinesis. Rocks. Logs. Burning hot coals from their campfire. Saddlebags. Even the massive pot of stew.

It was a sad day for the stew.

And a moment later, all the various items started to pelt Rock in a seemingly endless barrage, as every item was lifted up again as soon as it had landed a hit. And they did hit him with enough force to hurt. In theory it was meant to be enough force to break bones if only a smidgeon more willpower was added, but due to his physique, Rock merely felt the onslaught.

One of the saddlebags slapped him into his face. It made Rock think about being mauled by a grandma. “This is getting ridiculous,” he commented while the metal pot that once contained stew hit his back again. The ladle hit his head, a few rocks hit his legs. It would certainly leave a bunch of bruises, but why would he care about those?

After probably a minute or so, Wildfire realized what Rock had stated to be true. He was a spellcaster. A unicorn. A scholar. A supposedly refined being. It was unbecoming of him to act like this. To lose control over himself and his powers so utterly. So he held his assault and put all the various bits and pieces back down.

Including Iron Hoof’s sword, which he had grabbed in the last wave to end this cretin. “I should finish you off for good,” Wildfire spat.

With his magic relenting, the stun rays effects were lifted as well. And while the young stallion on the other side used this opportunity to quickly fly past the tree line to hide somewhere safer, Iron Hoof merely stood up and positioned himself between Rock and Wildfire. “If I may?” he asked. Wildfire was utterly unwilling to listen to him. First and foremost because he probably had something very reasonable to say. So he remained still and silent, but the former day guard continued anyway. “You told me that I am your campaign. You paid me a fortune for my services. You told me that I am a leader. That I would be most successful in supporting your endeavor by leading those who you recruited. I have worked with these two for a couple of weeks now. Rock is… difficult to control.” And the stallion in question shot him a threatening glare. He was under nopony’s control whatsoever. “I told you that your idea to deploy him for this particular mission was less than optimal. You ignored my advice. That said, he is stronger than any regular pony I have ever seen. And while I have heard of earth pony resistance to magic, I have never heard of anything like this either. We need him.”

Wildfire wanted to scream in frustration. Instead, he closed his eyes for a moment, took a couple of deep breaths to steady his nerves again and when he opened his eyes once more, he felt calmer. And he looked less like a maniac ready and willing to burn down the entire forest. “I must apologize for my slip of control,” he opened and focused his attention entirely on Iron Hoof. Because he already knew that Rock was grinning like the bumbling idiot that he was, and if he saw that, he might just lose it again. “I should not have made such frivolous use of property that does not belong to me.” With that, he gave Iron Hoof his sword back. “That said, I am… displeased, to say the least. This mission was an utter failure. Not only did your recruit show severe neglect of responsibilities by leaving his post time and time again, he willfully decided to go against his direct orders to not wake the creature, and furthermore decided to lead it to the village. Future plans involving this beast have thus been thoroughly derailed. My safety was endangered. Lives were endangered. How do you intend to rectify this, commander? What disciplinary action do you intend to deliver?”

Iron Hoof was as surprised to hear anything about ‘disciplinary actions’ as Rock Solid was. The latter furrowed his brow and shook his head. “Now wait just a darn minute, tinderbox. This wasn’t part of the deal!”

Wildfire's head snapped around and his gaze fixed itself on Rock. “Be glad that I allow you to breathe, you pestilent waste of space!”

Rock did not care for Wildfire's insults. They sounded funny. He used big words because he believed them to be more threatening or intimidating or something. But now he wanted to hurt him, and the fun was over. Rock stepped forward. “I get a say in this,” he growled.

Wildfires horn lit up. The corona was bright enough that one could assume he was about to cast another long-range teleport. But no, nothing of that ilk. He simply charged an abundance of energy into his attempt to overcome Rock's magic resistance. And a second later, the enormous earth pony collapsed to the ground, gasping for air but unable to breathe in, clutching his throat with his hooves.

“Do you now?” Wildfire asked and turned his attention back to Iron Hoof. “You have a minute or two to answer before the conundrum becomes obsolete.”

Iron Hoof grimaced and shook his head. “This is not how the guard worked or operated. Ever. We are working under completely different circumstances here, with you constantly changing the rules, interfering with my training, disregarding my suggestions. I will think about adequate consequences, but I will do so on my own time.”

The gasping noises slowly went quieter. Iron Hoof held Wildfire's gaze for a couple of seconds more before the unicorn relented and dispelled his magic with a frustrated sigh. “Fine. But you better do come up with something — or I will.”

Rock took one deep breath and rose to his hooves again. The impulse to attack the wizard was there and it was almost irresistible. But instead, he held his hooves and resorted to words. “I don’t ‘do’ sneaking. I don’t patiently wait around for days. I don’t do detailed work or finishing touches.”

Wildfire whipped around once more and stomped up to the stallion two sizes larger than himself. “You will do exactly what I command you to do!”

“What I command him to do!” Iron Hoof intervened resolutely.

Rock stared down at the unicorn and grimaced. He was still far from threatening. But he could see it plain as day in his murderous eyes. This stallion would try to get him killed. He would not do it himself. That was not how Wildfire ‘ticked’. He would make it seem like the inevitable result of Rock Solid’s own shortcomings.

So, if he would try to get him killed anyway, why hold back? “I told you,” Rock growled in a deep, rumbling voice as he lowered his head to get on eye-level with Wildfire. “I told you when you came to me: You better know who you’re recruiting, wizard. You better know who I am and what I do. Don’t pretend this little mishap isn’t on you.”

Both stallions glowered at each other for a couple of seconds longer before Iron Hoof once again stepped in to defuse the situation. “That’s enough,” he cut in. “It’s been a long day for all of us. And we just lost our stew. Icy, could you fetch more water, please? Rock, get some more veggies.”

Rock Solid did not move.

“Now,” the commander insisted.

Only when Rock finally caved in and went to their hopefully not completely ruined stash of food did Iron Hoof turn to Wildfire. “Are you ready to listen to me this time? Because if I’m allowed to be honest here, I don’t appreciate wasting my time and breath.” Wildfire grimaced, but made a gesture for him to continue. After all, this old day guard had proven himself not just a capable leader and even a decent negotiator, but somepony who could keep a clear head on his shoulders even in dire situations. His input was probably worth listening to.

Iron Hoof nodded. “Icy is… fragile. And he’s young, barely worth calling him a stallion. Your idea for his deployment is nothing I can support. It’s too direct of an approach and his training will still take a couple of days just to reach the point where I can send him on scouting missions. I have a different idea though. I talked to him and we figured something out that could achieve what you hope for while still being somewhat subtle or at least hard to trace back to you.”

Wildfire looked over to Rock. He had dismissed Iron Hoof's advice once. “I am listening,” the wizard hesitantly replied.