Aces High

by Lupin

Rating: teen
Tags: Doctor Who, Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Equestria Girls, Science Fiction, Sunset Shimmer, Main 7 (EqG), Crossover
Length: 70795

After the Friendship Games, Sunset begins to have strange dreams of a life she's never lived...or did she? Who was she before the princess found her, and who is the figure with the umbrella? A Classic Doctor Who crossover

Memories. Sunset's never had all of them. She can't remember anything before the day Princess Celestia found her collapsed in a garden as a child. Over the years, she's come to terms with it. It didn't matter where she came from or what her life had been before...right?

But since the Friendship Games started, Sunset's been having odd dreams, nightmares of a house on fire, a name of a friend she never had. Dreams of time and space, dreams of a small man with an umbrella.

Sunset Shimmer's life proves to be far less straightforward and far more complicated than anyone ever imagined.

A crossover between Equestria Girls and Classic Doctor Who.

Special thanks to EchoWing and Setokaiva for being a sounding board and proofreader. Without them, this story wouldn’t be here.

Playlist of an in-progress reading done by the author.

Feature Box 09-24-24

Published 2023-04-21 15:40:00 UTC
Last updated 2024-10-04 17:34:36 UTC

Catalyst

Chapter 1: Catalyst

When Sunset Shimmer, former student of Princess Celestia and former unicorn wizard of Equestria, met her friends in the Canterlot High Library that morning, her thoughts had been occupied by one thing: The strange girl who had been lurking around the portal that led to Sunset's birthplace.

The others, however, had their minds on something else: The Friendship Games.

“Really, darling,” said Rarity, flicking back a lock of her curly purple hair. “I'm shocked you aren't aware of Crystal Prep's behavior by now. Weren't you here the last time the games were held?”

“Yeah.” Despite the name, Canterlot High School was a combined school, containing classes for what were traditionally middle school levels, sixth through eighth grade, as well as the usual high school grades of ninth through twelfth.

Sunset, who had arrived in this world in an eleven-year-old's body thanks to the portal's magic, had waited a full year before entering CHS for the seventh grade, when the last games had taken place. “But only ninth grade and above can participate, so I pretty much ignored the whole thing.”

She'd had more important things to do, anyway, like learning about this dimension and acquiring money to survive. Apparently, she'd missed some deep and bitter school rivalry. Which was ironic, since in her dark days as queen bee of the school, she could have used that information to her advantage.

The redhead shrugged. “Seems kinda silly to me.”

“Silly?!” protested the others.

Rainbow crossed her arms over her chest. “So, I guess you think the Friendship Games are silly, too?”

“Well, it's not like we'll be fighting the powers of evil magic,” she retorted calmly, thinking back to the incident with the Dazzlings, the trio of sirens banished to this dimension from Equestria who fed on negative emotions and had tried to take over the world with their hypnotic music.

That had been interesting, in hindsight, now that she was past all the emotional turmoil. It reminded her of the days in Equestria when she'd faced down manticores and dragons as part of her studies.

A school rivalry, by contrast, seemed far too...tame.

“No,” interjected Fluttershy in the softest, gentlest way possible. “We'll be fighting against a school full of meanies. Not everything has to be magical to be important.”

Sunset opened her mouth to reply, and immediately closed it. None of them had done what she'd done, and within the world of high school, this sort of thing did matter. “You're right. I'm sorry,” she apologized. “I know it's a big deal.”

Rarity scoffed. “That's putting it mildly, darling. They're still revamping the playing field in preparation.”

Sunset frowned as a new thought occurred to her. “Why is there such a big rivalry, anyway? Aren't the Friendship Games about our two schools getting along?”

“Well, it's kinda hard to get along with someone who beats you at everything,” answered Applejack flatly.

“Not anymore!” declared Rainbow fiercely. “This time, things are gonna be different.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

The athlete grinned like a cat that had eaten a canary. “Oh, you'll see. I have an ace up my sleeve.”

”I'm playing poker, and I had an ace up my sleeve!”

The room was spinning. Or was it her brain? The thought, was it a thought, pushed its way through her mind. Behind it followed images, rushing at her like an army charging through a sudden gap.

A magical portal. A sorceress in golden armor. Knights hidden among the trees. A monster bound in silver with horns and skin of blue and a face like Hell itself.

Who was speaking? It wasn't her voice, but it sounded so...

“Are you alright, darling?”

Sunset blinked, and the world reoriented itself, details merging back into focus. The decaying priory that had danced before her eyes dispelled, so that only the Canterlot High Library remained. “Yeah, I...guess I got distracted, that's all.”

“Are you sure?” asked Rarity, frowning. “You seemed a tad ill for a moment.”

“Come on!” complained Rainbow Dash. “You can’t be getting sick right before the games!”

A butter yellow hand found its way to Sunset’s forehead. “You don't seem to have a fever,” said Fluttershy with relief.

“Oh, no!” gasped Pinkie. “What if she has some magical pony plague and it infects the entire school?!” She frantically grabbed Applejack by the shirt. “She could turn into a rainbow cookie zombie, or maybe a tree!”

“Okay, Pinkie, one, there is no such thing as a cookie zombie, rainbow or otherwise,” answered Sunset, counting off points on her fingers. “Two, turning into a tree is swamp fever, and I haven't been near a swamp since I was ten, so if I'd caught it, I'd definitely have taken root by now, and three, I'm pretty sure most pony diseases wouldn't be able to survive in a human body.”

“Are you sure you're okay, though?” asked Fluttershy.

“I'm fine,” Sunset assured her. She turned her attention back to Rainbow. “What does that mean?”

“What?”

“What you said. The thing about having a...” for some reason, she found it hard to remember.

“Aw, shoot,” laughed Applejack. “That's just an old poker sayin' for when you've got a trick or two in store. You've really never heard that before now?” added the farmer with disbelief.

Sunset shook her head. “Nope. Must have missed it somehow.” She'd missed the Crystal Prep rivalry, and she knew she wasn't up to date on her cultural references, so a piece of slang wasn't that odd. What had she been thinking about, though? She tried to recall, but whatever it was, it had slipped away like a sandcastle in the waves.

“Course, I'm still wonderin' about what you're plannin', Rainbow,”. Applejack narrowed her eyes at the athlete. “You're not thinkin’ of cheatin’, are you?”

“What? No,” assured Rainbow, in a manner that was in no way reassuring. Before Sunset or any of them could press her any further, the school bell rang. “You'll find out at the assembly!” was Rainbow's only answer before she went racing off into the river of students.

“She's up to somethin',” said Applejack.

“We'll find out eventually,” agreed Sunset. “Come on, we have to get to class.”

As they all walked out of the library, Sunset passed by the main desk, and spied one of the books piled for return. Le Morte d'Armor by Sir Tinny Mallard.

A tiny part of her couldn't help but think that the book got it wrong.

Rainbow Dash’s secret weapon ended up being school spirit. Kind of disappointing, in Sunset’s opinion, considering how much Rainbow had been bragging, but the athlete always could come up with a great song, so she supposed it all balanced out.

If only she hadn’t ponied up on stage. Without playing her guitar. It was one thing to be thrust into an adventure, but it was another thing entirely to have the rules you thought you knew slip out from under you at the same time. That was...less fun. Especially when it was your responsibility to figure it out.

The games proceeded on schedule, and Sunset's suspicions about the girl, who had turned out to be the human doppelganger of Princess Twilight, were, sadly, not unfounded. Amidst the whirlwind of events, magical chaos, and the stress of trying to understand and contain the ever-changing magic she’d brought into this dimension, the strange thoughts from the library fell to the wayside.

Except during the early parts of the Academic Decathlon.

As she’d switched on the burner for the chemistry portion of the challenge, it was like something had switched on inside her as well. A sort of boundless enthusiasm overtook her, something she hadn’t experienced since she was a filly on the first day of alchemy lessons, only far stronger, enough to make her wonder if this was what it was like to be Pinkie Pie.

Her eyes had rushed over the chemical containers. She’d always been excellent in chemistry here, and in alchemy back home, a prodigy, according to her instructors. But in that moment, it was like the feeling that blazed inside her had somehow magnified her skills. Her brain worked through problems and experiments with an ease that was hard to describe, and harder for the others to keep pace with.

In the end, it was her team, mostly her, that brought home the victory with a score that dwarfed every team from Crystal Prep by, as Applejack put it, “a country mile”. It wasn’t a complete victory, there was still the rest of the decathlon to go, but for the students of Canterlot High, who had never beaten Crystal Prep at anything, it was sweet, nonetheless.

Naturally, Rainbow took credit for inspiring them all.

As she accepted the win with a smile that could have outshone the sun, a single thought passed through her mind: She wished she could have gone for a more energetic reaction.

The games had ended with the two schools calling a tie. Not precisely the win either side had originally hoped for, but after the chaos that had unfolded with the second event, nobody was complaining. Besides, it felt in the spirit of the games.

Sunset strode across the sports field, searching for one person in particular...and there she was. The human Twilight Sparkle, seated on one of the hay bales for the archery portion of the Tricross Relay.

Sunset made her way over. “So, this is where you slipped off to.”

“Oh!” Twilight jolted, and would have fallen off the edge of the bale, were it not for Sunset hoisting her back by the arm.

“I didn’t mean for you to take it literally,” joked Sunset.

“S-Sorry!” blurted the other girl, purple cheeks tinged with red. “I didn’t mean to worry...Spike isn’t searching for me, is he?”

“Nah,” replied Sunset with a shake of her head. “He’s pretty distracted with Fluttershy. Honestly, I’m not sure anyone else has really noticed you’re gone, yet.” Carefully, she sat down beside the girl, breathing in the familiar, and still delicious smell of hay, and wishing she could eat it, rather than simply sit on it.

It really wasn’t fair. Despite the omnivorous nature of humans, they couldn’t digest the stuff. Sunset would have happily taken up one of the staples of the equine diet. But, no, as she’d discovered, not only would it draw strange looks (not that her love of ketchup-smothered carrot dogs didn’t draw those looks anyway), the one time she’d tried to eat hay, her digestive tract had severely punished her for it.

“Why are you out here?” she asked, getting back on topic. Now was not the time to focus on her stomach. “Kinda thought you wouldn’t want to be alone.”

“I don’t...sort of,” Twilight fumbled. “I’m just...nervous.”

“About transferring?”

Twilight nodded. “Yeah. I mean, it’s not that I’m having doubts!” she said quickly, and then added, “I just wonder what my family will think.” A finger twirled around a lock of hair that had slipped from her bun. “My brother’s always been proud to have gone to Crystal Prep, and my parents, and my grandparents. I know Cadance will support me, but...”

“It’s a big change?”

Twilight nodded again.

Sunset leaned back, taking in another breath of hay-scented air. “Well, I can’t say I know what to do about your family. Never really had one.” She watched as Twilight’s eyes widened in sympathy. “But if they love you, I think they’ll be okay with it. And besides,” she added with a snort. “After the way Principal Cinch treated you, your parents should be overjoyed at a transfer.”

That got a chuckle out of Twilight. “I suppose that’s true. My brother will probably go ballistic.” She paused, her eyes moving across the field, and landing on the crater left behind when Rainbow had air-tackled one of the giant plants. “You’ve all been really nice to me.”

Sunset shrugged. “Like I told you, I’ve been where you are. Believe it or not, I used to be a bully.”

Twilight’s head whirled around to face her, open-mouthed. “You?!”

“Yup. Worst one in the school,” she admitted with no small amount of shame. “But with help, I got better. Turned my life around.” She paused, remembering something else that had been weighing on her mind. “Look, I want to apologize for tearing into you during the games.”

“I deserved it,” Twilight replied softly. “You were completely justified.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t feel bad about it.” The redhead sighed. “I’ve got kind of a hot temper. Always have. And despite it all, you didn’t deserve to get hit with it.”

Twilight smiled, just a little. “I’m finding it very hard to imagine you were ever a bully.”

“Are you calling me a liar?” Sunset answered in mock offense.

“Data points don’t lie, and so far my dataset suggests it’s impossible,” was the authoritative reply.

Both of them burst out laughing. “Honestly, I’m also still trying to wrap my head around all of this,” admitted Twilight. “Magic. Portals to a different dimension. Spike being able to talk. You all seem to be taking it in stride. You most especially.”

Sunset shrugged again. “Magic’s been a fact of life for me, though I will admit that even I don’t totally get how it’s working these days. At least around here.”

“And it’s really magic?” asked Twilight in disbelief. “I mean, not some form of technology or energy or...?”

Just like that, her thoughts were swirling again. No, not swirling...swimming. Images rising up from below the surface.

A vast lake. A tunnel, dark and damp, ribbed like the insides of some enormous aquatic beast. Organic. Alive. A giant fish face with steel teeth guarding a passage. A voice rang in her ears. “What’s Clarke’s Law?”

“Sunset?”

“Hmm?” Sunset snapped back to reality to find Twilight waving a purple hand in front of her face. “What?”

“You zoned out,” answered Twilight with worry. “And anyway, you got it backwards.”

“Excuse me?”

“Lark’s Law,” Twilight supplied. “It’s ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,’ not ‘any sufficiently advanced form of magic is indistinguishable from technology.’”

Sunset tilted her head. Had she said that just now? She didn’t remember even opening her mouth. Shaking her head, she decided she must have been worn down from the day’s events, and instead turned her attention to the statement in question. “Wouldn’t it work both ways, though?”

Magic in Equestria was studied and refined rather like science and technology, even if the methods and rules weren’t quite the same. In fact, the very word “science” was just another, lesser used and frankly uncommon word for discussing the study of magic.

“I...suppose,” replied Twilight, the “I just swallowed a lemon whole” expression on her face indicating just how uncomfortably the idea sat with her. “But you’ve really known about it your whole—”

“YO! There you two are!”

They both turned to see Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Applejack approaching the field. “Looks like they finally noticed,” quipped Sunset.

“We were wonderin’ where you two moseyed off,” called Applejack.

Beside her, Rainbow grinned. “Trying to find some alone time?”

“Rainbow Dash!” admonished Rarity. “What a crude thing to say!”

Sunset’s cheeks blazed as red as her hair. “I was just looking for Twilight!” she protested.

“I-I’m sorry,” apologized Twilight, her own cheeks very much aflame. “I had some things to think about and I...um...”

“Chillax,” said Rainbow, waving a dismissive hand. “I was just teasing.”

“Anywho,” said Applejack, giving the athlete an annoyed eye roll. “Pinkie Pie’s makin’ some snacks with the rest of the home ec students to celebrate the tie. Figured we’d better find you two before Pinkie noticed and went nuts.”

“Good idea,” agreed Sunset. A frantic Pinkie often led to trouble. Plus, she didn’t want to miss out on the food. As someone who had partaken of the best that royal chefs could produce, she’d put Pinkie in one of the top tiers of desert creation.

“Come on,” she said to Twilight. “You’ll love Pinkie’s cooking.”

“Alright.” Together, they walked back to the main school building. As they went, Twilight turned her attention back to Sunset. “Thank you...for everything.”

“Anytime.”

Twilight’s expression suddenly turned puzzled. “How exactly did your team manage to create a copy of the Mona Lisa inside a layer cake, anyway? Was that more magic?”

Sunset laughed. “Nah. I think that was just Pinkie Pie, and she’s something nobody could ever understand.”

Twilight huffed, pushing her glasses up her nose. “I find that highly improbable.”

“Trust me,” replied Sunset, “spend enough time around her, and you’ll see what I mean.”

A few days later, they’d all gotten together after the games to have a picnic after class, including the human Twilight, still dressed in her Crystal Prep uniform, the same one she’d be ditching by next week when her transfer went through.

Even Princess Twilight made a surprise appearance, albeit far too late to be of any help. Something about time travel, she'd said.

Sunset felt strangely nostalgic at the mention, though it was hard to figure out why. Had she ever studied Starswirl's time spells? She didn't think so. There had been so many other subjects to keep her busy. Sunset closed her eyes, leaning back against the sun-warmed stone that framed the portal, trying to remember, trying to place the feeling that itched at the back of her skull.

Basking in the sun felt so good, like one of those lazy, hot summer days in Equestria where she’d drift off for a nice mid-afternoon nap after staying up the night before. Her mind turned slowly, even as consciousness sank, turning on the question. Time spells. Time. Time travel.

“I just hope this whole thing doesn't expose magic or the portal to the rest of the world,” fretted Princess Twilight, or at least she thought it was Princess Twilight. It sounded louder, and the princess had been closer to her ear.

When Sunset opened her eyes again, she found everyone else's trained on her in formidably awkward silence. “...What?” She looked around. “What happened?”

“Wow, Sunset,” said Spike the dog. “I'm not even human and I found that harsh.”

“Not to mention a bit smug,” added Applejack.

The former unicorn frowned. “Did I...say something just now?”

“You don’t remember?” asked an incredulous Rarity.

Sunset shook her head.

“You said,” answered Princess Twilight, “'your species has an amazing capacity for self-deception matched only by its ingenuity when trying to destroy itself.'” Her eyebrows drew together in concern as she regarded her. “I know you've spent more time among humans than I have, but it can't be that bad.”

“There have been a couple world wars,” offered the human Twilight, though she didn't look happy to admit it. Her head tilted, sending her glasses sliding down her nose. “Wait, are you two not human?!”

“Yes and no,” answered Sunset quickly, more focused on the words that had apparently slipped out of her mouth, and the spark of offense they generated inside her. “And I don't think people are that bad. It must have just been something I heard somewhere.” Her face scrunched up in concentration. “Can't remember where.”

She shrugged it off. “Anyway, people can be pretty in denial sometimes, and with how prevalent photo and video editing software is, any footage of what happened is more likely to be brushed off then treated as fact, especially if it comes from teenagers. So, we probably don't need to worry just yet.”

The concern didn't leave the princess's face. “Sunset, are you sure you’re feeling okay? You seemed really out of it.”

“Just like a few days ago in the library!” chirped Pinkie Pie.

Princess Twilight turned to glance at the energetic girl. “The library?”

“Yeah!” bubbled Pinkie. “We were talking about how the Friendship Games were coming up, and Rainbow Dash was saying how she was sure we'd win this time and Sunset got this funny look on her face.”

“You did zone out a bit yesterday, too,” added the human Twilight.

“I'm fine,” replied the redhead. “I’m probably just still recovering from directing all that magical energy. That’s bound to take it out of you.” She grinned as something, or rather, someone, moved in the corner of her vision. “Besides, I think you’re about to have other things to focus on...like Flash Sentry.”

Princess Twilight gave a very undignified squeak, whirling around to see Flash approaching their little picnic. For the rest of the day, they all talked and laughed, Sunset giving the human Twilight a rough breakdown of where she was from. It was perfect, to say the least. A perfect end to a thrilling adventure, every odd word and passing image totally forgotten.

The world was made of ice and steel.

Before her stretched what looked vaguely like a 1950s-style diner, blue-green walls painted to give the appearance of frost. She stood there, young and in a waitress uniform, staring out a glass screen in the ceiling beyond, toward stars that appeared strange and out of alignment.

She didn’t know much about astronomy. But that didn’t make sense because she did. She knew all Earth’s constellations as well as Terra’s. Try as she might, she couldn’t find Polaris or Orion’s belt, or even the Alicorn and the Minotaur.

Instead, she found herself tracing out different ones, the Old Man, the Great Lever, the Waterfall, forms that did not exist, and yet, stared back at her now across the inky black sky, and had done so for months.

“Get a move on, girl! I don’t pay you to laze about!” shouted a...man? Or was he a stallion? His image flickered from behind the bar like a broken TV, shifting back and forth between species.

She grumbled something that was as unintelligible as it was profane, and picked up her serving tray to walk toward a table. There were new customers there, male and female. The woman...mare? No one or nopony stayed stable here. The female had red hair in wild curls and a bright pink shirt. But it was the man that drew her eye.

He sat there, small and unassuming with his hat and scarf, gently tapping the handle of an umbrella. A handle shaped like a question mark. His eyes, blue...gray...no, something in between, moved to her, and she froze.

She didn’t know him. But she did, somehow. The intensity of his gaze was so familiar. His name was on the tip of her tongue. It was...it was...

Sunset Shimmer’s eyelids opened blearily. Outside, the moon was still early into its descent back under the horizon. She wasn’t really sure what woke her, but awake, she was. She rolled over, turning the switch on the lamp that sat on the nightstand beside her bed. Its glow sparkled across both her phone screen, and the medal she’d won at the Friendship Games. The former proclaimed the time to be 3:32 A.M.

“Did I have a nightmare?” she grumbled, running a hand through her tangled wavy hair. She couldn’t recall one. She couldn’t recall a dream, either. Everything was blank, there one moment, and gone the next.

“Maybe I was worn out from all that magical energy,” she decided. Throwing off her blankets, she made her way down the stairs from her bedroom and down toward the kitchenette, passing her guitars along the way. She got herself a small glass of water, took a quick trip to the bathroom, and returned to her bed, burying herself beneath the covers. Luck, or exhaustion, was with her, because in a matter of minutes, Sunset returned to the land of slumber.

Somewhere, hidden deep in the recesses of her mind, something long buried was beginning to stir.

Author's Note

Inspired by wonderful little stories on whofic, the Doctor Who repository, called “Being Donna Noble” and "Anything for Family", and bolstered by the presence of stories on here like The Clock With Three Faces and The Watch. Admittedly, I’ll be taking a slightly different approach.

This story started off as one of those weird ideas that you have sometimes and think “Oh, it’s too dumb to exist outside of my head, let alone a full story.” Then I thought about it, and to my surprise...it seemed to have a strange amount of merit.

So, here I am, with this strange, and probably very niche story.

Among the Stars

Chapter 2: Among the Stars

It was lunch time at Canterlot High, and as usual, Sunset Shimmer, scuffed plastic tray in hand, made her way down the salad bar, breathing in the scent of fruits and vegetables. Granted, they weren’t exactly what you’d call great quality, but what else could you expect from a public high school? All the more reason that she brought her own salad dressing from home.

In any event, it was far preferable to the smell of frozen meat wafting from the neighboring line. Sparing a glance at the selection of meatballs, hot dogs, and chili not ten feet away, she wrinkled her nose. The glow of the overhead fluorescent lights did nothing to increase their appeal. Not that it had any to Sunset’s herbivore sensibilities.

Collecting the day’s lunch, she swiped her ID at the register and headed toward one particular table, the same one she and her friends tended to use every school day. Setting her tray down, she exchanged greetings with Rarity, Pinkie, and Fluttershy. She tried to do the same with Rainbow and Applejack, but the two of them were caught up in some sort of argument.

And that’s when she remembered that there was someone else at the table, because today, Twilight had finally transferred in.

She turned to the bookworm in the seat next to her own. Gone was her neat reddish-purple blazer, tartan skirt, tie, and dark shoes. Instead, she’d dressed in dark blue shoes, a purple skirt fitted with pockets and decorated with a starburst, a blue and white striped blouse, and a neat magenta bow tie. The only things that had stayed the same were her thick glasses and her hastily-tied bun.

Twilight hadn’t seemed to have noticed her arrival. In fact, Sunset noted that the girl also hadn’t seemed to have touched her food, too absorbed by something on her phone screen.

“You going to remember to eat?” she teased, nudging the girl with her finger.

Twilight flushed, then exchanged her phone for her utensils.

Sunset held back a chuckle, realizing that the human Twilight, like the pony princess who shared her name, had picked up “The CSGU Work Ethic”.

Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, Princess Celestia’s premiere magic school, was also arguably the most prestigious school in all of Equestria. Students were expected to excel there, and most times, they did. But along with that excellence came the frequent acquisition of certain habits, known colloquially as “The CSGU Work Ethic”.

Students, particularly in the upper grades, tended to ignore such trivial things like food or sleep in favor of studying or work, subsisting on diets of quick meals, junk food, coffee, nutrition bars, etc. Sunset herself had done countless all-nighters, especially when she’d had her own personal experiments to perform.

When it came to the subject of food, however, the CSGU Work Ethic had never stuck. The former unicorn had been blessed, or cursed, depending on your preference, with a substantial appetite and the metabolism to match it. Her lunch tray, laden with an extra-large bowl of salad, attested to that fact.

Even during her most engrossing experiments, Sunset had always remembered to eat. In fact, she tended to get irritable on an empty stomach.

“What’s got you so preoccupied, darling?” asked Rarity from across the table as she delicately laid a napkin across her lap.

“You’re not getting lost on the first day, are you?” added Fluttershy. “That happened to me, and on the second day.” She ducked behind her curtain of hair, “...and the fifth.”

“If you’re lost, you should ask Sunny for help!” offered Pinkie, whose lunch consisted of more sugar than she honestly needed. “She’s the best at finding her way around here.”

Twilight turned to regard Sunset. “Really?”

The redhead shrugged nonchalantly, digging into her salad.

“Well, anyway, that’s not what I was focused on,” continued Twilight. “The librarian at the Canterlot City Library asked me to do a read along this Saturday. She’s been asking me for months, and this time...” The girl smiled shyly. “I said yes.”

“That’s where you read to kids, ain’t it?” asked Applejack, breaking away from an argument with Rainbow Dash.

Twilight nodded. “Yes.”

“That’s really sweet of you, Twi,” commented Sunset. She vaguely recalled hearing about that sort of thing in Equestria, but she’d never been to one.

“You gonna read Daring Do?” asked Rainbow. “That would be awesome.”

Twilight shook her head. “I have to go with what the librarian picks out.” Seeing Dash’s disappointment, she added, “for now, at least. If things go well, maybe I can convince them to let me make the selection. I have plenty of my own I’d like to share.”

“So, what are you reading?’ asked Sunset, taking another bite of her salad.

“The Wonderful Wizard of Yoz,” answered Twilight.

The lettuce turned sour in the redhead’s mouth. “Ugh.”

“What is it, darling?” asked Rarity. “Is there something wrong with the food?” She eyed the far less robust salad in front of her with suspicion.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Sunset assured, before turning back to Twilight. “You could have done better than The Wizard of Yoz.”

“But it’s a classic!” protested Twilight.

“I bet Sunny doesn’t think Yoz is that impressive!” suggested Pinkie. “Since she’s from magic pony land.”

Applejack rubbed her chin. “Do you even have that story back in Equestria?”

“We have it,” replied Sunset with increasing terseness. “And it’s a classic over there, too.” She stabbed a particularly large piece of lettuce with her fork. “I just don’t like it.”

That was the way it had been ever since she was a filly. While most children were enthralled by the adventures of Dreaming Gale and her friends, Sunset had found it immensely annoying.

A memory of her fillyhood surfaced. Even though CSGU was primarily a magic school, Princess Celestia ensured it covered all subjects. Thus, the school had things like drama classes, and every year, the upper and lower grades would each put on a stage play.

One day, during her first year, she’d been called to the auditorium by the drama instructor, Clever Stagecraft. A mere few minutes in, the mare ambushed her with a request to play the lead in that year’s lower grade show, an adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Yoz. Sunset had vehemently refused, citing the fact that she wasn’t even in drama class.

“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” the other unicorn had replied. “Any student in the lower grades can participate, if they have permission. Now, from what I’ve heard, you’re a very bright and confident little filly. You’d have to be if the princess is teaching you. So, you shouldn’t have a problem with stage fright or memorizing your lines. Plus, I think you’d make a lovely Dreaming. Your colors would be just striking with the costume.”

When she’d refused again, Professor Stagecraft changed tactics, citing how Princess Celestia adored theater, and always came to the show, and how much it would please her to see her pupil in the lead. Then she’d brought out the actual costume, blue gingham dress, silver hoofshoes and all.

“Just try it on. Read a few lines. I have the script right here.”

Rounds of heated arguing followed, Professor Stagecraft growing more and more desperate, and Sunset more angry. In the midst of it, the costume got shoved in her face, and the next thing she knew, she’d lit the dress on fire.

It had been an accident. She’d only meant to shove it away, but the anger inside her had simply…snapped.

Nopony was hurt, and when Celestia had walked into the auditorium, the whole thing came out. For a moment, looking at the unhappy monarch of Equestria, Sunset had worried she’d be forced to take the part. Instead, she’d gotten a scolding on her loss of magical control, which, in all honesty, had still been pretty bad.

The only other consolation was that Professor Stagecraft was chewed out as well for her overeager desire to please the princess at the cost of respect for the students.

“Why?” asked Rarity curiously, snapping the former unicorn out of her memories. “I found it rather charming, myself.”

Sunset found herself struggling for an answer. Why did the thing annoy her so badly? She leaned back, trying to puzzle out the visceral reaction she had for the work.

She’d always been powerful for a filly. Ridiculously so. The princess had worked with her tirelessly to get a handle on it, to make sure she wouldn’t endanger anypony. Sunset wouldn’t have been sent to school otherwise.

And yet, that incident with Professor Stagecraft had marked a loss of control. The first and only real loss of control she’d ever had after Celestia took her on, the only time the princess’s training had failed. All because of The Wizard of Yoz.

It had been many years since that day in the auditorium, and yet, the actual reason why she disliked the book remained elusive. Why…?

A name rang out across the school yard, repeated again and again in a horrible, mocking chant.

“Stop it!” shrieked...herself? It sounded off. High. Squeaking. She was so young. But that wasn’t it. There was something else wrong with her voice. Some other quality that escaped her. “Keep that up and you’ll be sorry!”

She was shoved to the ground by one of her tormentors. A ten-year-old against a seven-year-old was already an unfair fight, but her attacker was large to boot, and she was not. “What are you going to do?” was the snide answer, punctuated by the haughty flick of an auburn curl. “Click your heels three times and fly off to Oz?”

Sunset shook her head, clearing away the dregs of...a thought? An idea? She couldn’t remember. “I...just don’t,” she concluded sourly, then tried to grasp for something more concrete, something other than the nebulous emotion that defied explanation, and the sudden void in her brain. “The witch dying to water was pretty stupid, anyway.”

“That is a fair point,” conceded Twilight. “I always found that odd, myself. Supposedly it was because she was so old that she was totally dried up, but even as a kid, I was asking myself how she could avoid needing to drink water.”

“Don’t forget bathing,” Sunset chimed in with a smirk.

“Maybe that’s why everybody wanted her gone,” giggled Pinkie Pie. “Her B.O.!”

Everyone got a laugh out of that, and Sunset found herself mercifully pulled away from her troubled thoughts. The conversation turned from there into a debate on favorite books, which entry in the Daring Do series was the best, and the revelation that Twilight’s mother was the famed mystery author Twilight Velvet.

Finally, the bell rang to announce the end of lunch. Sunset picked up her tray, depositing it with the others, when she almost literally bumped into Twilight.

“H-Hey, um,” began Twilight awkwardly, holding out her class schedule. “I actually do need help finding my next class. Would you mind...?”

“It’s no problem. Just let me see.” She took Twilight’s schedule, eyes moving down to the correct period. “My class is right by there. Follow me.”

Together, they cut a path through the rush of students, many of whom waved at her as she passed. A few even waved at Twilight, which she returned hesitantly.

As they turned a corner, Twilight drew closer. “Since you know the school so well, there is one other thing I was wondering about.”

“What is it?”

“Does CHS have an astronomy club?”

Sunset shook her head. “Nope, sorry. There’s a science club, though.” Seeing Twilight’s crestfallen expression, she put a hand on the other girl’s shoulder. “Hey, if it really bothers you, you could always start one.”

“It’s not that,” said Twilight. “It’s just that there’s supposed to be a meteor shower tonight, and I have no good place to observe it. I was kind of hoping an astronomy club would have some ideas.” She sighed. “Normally I could try Crystal Prep’s facilities as a backup.”

The dejected look on Twilight’s face made something twist in Sunset’s gut. “I know a good stargazing spot,” she volunteered quickly.

Twilight looked up in surprise. “Where?”

“Meet me in front of the school tonight around nightfall and I’ll show you.”

“The school? Why the—”

“Get to class, you two!” snapped Mr. Cranky Doodle from the other side of the hall.

“Just meet me!” Sunset repeated. “Your class is right here!” she added, pointing to the room before hastily entering her own a few doors down. As she got out her notebook and pen to begin taking notes, Sunset couldn’t help but smile. Twilight would love seeing…

The pen jerked hard in her hand as sudden realization struck her brain, and she fully processed exactly what her plan would entail.

“Oh, horseapples,” she groaned as her forehead smacked against her desk.

The last embers of a brilliant orange sunset were burning away to twilight as the very much flesh and blood Sunset paced across the deserted front lawn of CHS, trying to reassure herself that this was a good idea.

“Everything will be fine,” she repeated for the umpteenth time. “Twilight needed a place to see the meteor shower, and this is the best one. It had to be done,” she argued. It was a very sound argument, too, one she’d been making for the past hour. Unfortunately, the anxiety lodged deep in the pit of her stomach was incredibly stubborn.

That was when the also very much flesh and blood Twilight arrived, jogging up lightly from the direction of the bus stop. “Hey,” she huffed. A large, heavy-looking duffel bag was slung under her shoulder.

“Hey,” Sunset greeted back lowly, forcing herself to stop pacing. Twilight hadn’t seen her doing that, had she? Sweet Celestia, she hoped not. She was the one who offered. Her being visibly reluctant would be the worst way for this to start.

“I brought my equipment!” Twilight chirped, seemingly oblivious to Sunset’s emotional turmoil. “You know, to observe the meteor shower.” She adjusted the strap. “So, why did you want to meet at the school? Is your stargazing spot close by?”

“You could say that,” evaded the redhead. “Come on.” She went up the steps to the front doors, fishing through her backpack as she did.

“W-Wait.” Twilight furtively shook her head. “We’re not going into the school, are we? It’s closed!”

With a sigh, Sunset pulled on the door handle. It swung open.

“Orrr…not,” corrected Twilight.

From her bag, Sunset produced a pair of folding electric lanterns. She handed one to Twilight, and pulled open the other. The bulb inside switched on automatically, driving back the ever-growing shadows of the empty halls.

Most people probably would have gone for simple flashlights, or used their phones. But the electric lanterns were far brighter and more effective than either, and cast their glow in a full three-hundred-sixty degrees. Besides that, Sunset came from a world of low, pre-industrial technology, and the shape of the lantern just felt more comfortable.

As they passed Principal Celestia’s office, Twilight broke the silence. “Sunset, why was the door open? Is there a night janitor?”

Sunset hesitated, fingers tightening around the lantern’s metal handle. “...I have a master key.” She held the item in question up in her free hand, just to prove her point.

Behind her, Sunset could have sworn she heard Twilight tilt her head. “And why do you have that?” she asked.

“I told you I used to be a bully,” Sunset began. “—watch it, trash can on your left,” she added, pulling Twilight to the side. The natural light was fading rapidly now as they moved further in, the last dregs of sunlight peeking out from the windows of classroom doors.

“Anyway...” She licked her lips, reciting the words that she’d rehearsed earlier that day. “I pulled a lot of nasty schemes back in the day, and as part of that, I made a duplicate of the master key.”

Not that it had ever been, strictly-speaking, a necessity. She could have gone without it. In addition to learning the guitar to improve her finger coordination, she’d also learned how to pick locks. Nothing in this school would be that challenging. But on the other hoof, sometimes, you just needed to get in quickly, or you didn’t want to leave any evidence of a break-in.

“What kind of schemes?” Twilight asked after a pause. “And why would they require a master key?”

Sunset mentally kicked herself. She hadn’t planned that far ahead. No, that wasn’t it. She simply hadn’t wanted to plan that far ahead.

It wasn’t as though she wanted to completely hide her awful past. She’d admitted to it after the Friendship Games. But at the same time, delving back into it always filled her with a sense of shame. More than that, Twilight was a stranger. Someone who didn’t know anything about Sunset or what she’d done. Someone who held her in a positive light.

It was one thing to know someone used to be a bully, but it was another thing to go into the specifics, to know just how bad she’d been. Ideally, Sunset would have liked to have kept Twilight from hearing those horror stories, at least for a little while.

And yet, not only had Sunset charged right into a situation that required her to break into the school and open up questions about the person she’d been, but now Twilight had gone for the worst case scenario and asked what exactly she’d needed the master key for.

Her gaze moved to the lockers, and fell on one in particular. In the mix of shadows and electric light, she made out a cupcake sticker. She knew what example to go with, and she hated every second of it. “Like…breaking up Blueberry Cake and Norman.”

Her fingers reached out to graze the locker. “It wasn’t really a break-up, exactly, but functionally, it was about the same.” She sighed, diving deeper into the well of her past malice. “It was back when I was in eighth grade. I was working to establish myself as queen of the school, and one day, Blueberry Cake crossed me.”

Her brow furrowed as she tried to bring up the faded memory. “Or…maybe I crossed her first? I probably did. It’s hard to remember now, but we exchanged words in the cafeteria. I think…maybe she took a shot at my clothing? She’s in fashion club, so that would make sense. Anyway, I was mad, and I didn’t want someone standing up to me, so I decided to, well, ‘put her in her place.’

“When I went to the library that day, I found Norman writing Blueberry a love letter.” That part, she could remember a bit better. She could still picture the young amber-eyed boy, typing away at one of the library computers, muttering quietly to himself, but not so much that Sunset hadn’t been able to overhear.

“Norman had stored the letter in his locker, so when school was out for the day, I went back in with the master key, broke into his locker, and took the letter out. To make sure he couldn’t just print out another one, I stole his flash drive the next day.”

She moved over a couple feet, tapping Norman’s locker, still in the same place after so many years. “It was the morning after that when I slipped the drive and the letter back into his locker, and Norman passed the letter to Blueberry. Thing was, that wasn’t all I’d done.

“When I stole the letter, I’d used the copier in the teacher’s lounge to duplicate it, and I’d put those copies in the lockers of three other girls. Norman’s letter had been pretty simple, and very non-specific, so…”

The timing of it all had been perfect, in a horrible way. Mere minutes after reading Norman’s letter, the trio of girls had approached the brunette about his apparent declaration of love. In a heartbeat, Sunset had watched in twisted satisfaction as the love on Blueberry’s face morphed into hate, tears of joy turned into tears of rage.

“Blueberry was so distracted by Norman’s betrayal that she forgot all about me,” Sunset added regretfully. “Plus, one of the girls I gave the copies to was Aqua Blossom. She was popular, with lots of social connections I’d wanted to take advantage of, and she’d had a crush on Norman for months.

“In that one day I’d delayed Norman, I’d talked to Aqua Blossom about how her crush on Norman was no good, and when she found one of the duplicate letters in her locker, she believed me. So, in the aftermath, I got her gratitude, an in with her group of friends, and a favor I could call in.”

At the time, she’d considered it an artful bit of strategy, gaining revenge and improving her social standing all in one highly dramatic and scandalous school morning, all of it without any solid connection to her.

She let out a humorless chuckle. “Guess that dataset of yours is a little more balanced, huh?” She waited for the inevitable gasp, the cry of condemnation at her devious behavior.

Instead, there was just a quiet, “Are you sorry you did it?”

Sunset blinked. She turned smoothly to face Twilight. “Yes,” she said emphatically. “I mean, Norman and Blueberry eventually got together in tenth grade, but I kept that from happening earlier, and I hurt them so badly…”

“Then that’s all that matters,” said Twilight. “That’s what Cadance always told me when I did something wrong.”

Cadance. Now there was another pony she’d treated badly. Her life was one big tangle of regrets, wasn’t it? Her chin dropped to her chest. This was such a bad idea.

“Besides, a proper dataset needs more than a few samples, anyway.”

Sunset’s mouth hung open. “Seriously?! After something like that?”

Twilight flinched at her tone, but otherwise held her ground. “I take science very seriously.” She grabbed Sunset’s hand, pulling her forward. “Now, come on, I want to be able to set up before the meteor shower.”

Her brain stalled, both at Twilight’s casual dismissal of her past, and the shock of skin to skin contact. Which really didn’t make sense. They held hands at the Friendship Games. Why did it feel different now?

And was it her imagination, or did Twilight’s cheeks seem just a tiny bit pink when she finally let go?

“S-So,” the bespectacled girl continued, “Is that why you know the school so well? Your…”

“Hmm?” The redhead blinked, before realizing Twilight’s palm was no longer touching hers. “Oh, no. That’s actually for more practical reasons. When I first came out of the portal from Equestria—”

“Yet another aspect I’m wrapping my head around.”

Sunset rolled her eyes as the two resumed their trek down the hall. “When I came out of the portal, I was only eleven years old. I didn’t have any shelter, so for a while, I lived in the school.”

“You can’t live in the school,” came the argument from behind her. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“Bedding down in the library?” Sunset guessed as they entered a stairwell, her question echoing off the walls. “I did that sometimes, too. The thing is, you have to move around, otherwise you’ll get caught.” She unlocked a door on the second-floor landing. They could have gone up to the third floor, but she knew there was another set of stairs on this one that would get them closer to where they needed to go.

“The thing about CHS is that it’s pretty old, and thanks to waves of construction over the decades, there are spaces between some of the walls, or old rooms that are mostly sealed off due to disrepair, or areas people just don’t visit too often.”

That first year had been a hard one, scrounging for food and warmth, tearing through the library for every bit of information she could find, occasionally venturing out, hiding from any adults lest she be reported, dealing with the shock of both losing her magic and the complete shift in her physiology.

Hard, and very, very lonely, but a loneliness that, in hindsight, was probably unavoidable, no matter her antisocial attitude. Sunset didn’t like to entertain the thought of what would have happened had she been caught at that age. Probably put in the foster care system, or a psychiatric hospital.

But the year had reaped its benefits, too. By the time she’d officially enrolled, she’d already developed a mental map of the entire building so perfect she could practically navigate with her eyes closed.

She was forced to a stop when a hand grabbed her wrist. With a surprising amount of force, Sunset found herself almost nose to nose with a wild-eyed Twilight. “Are you telling me this school has secret passages?!”

The redhead leaned away, trying to correct the sudden loss of personal space. “Uh...kinda?” She drew a breath, and her nose met the soft scent of lavender shampoo. Sweet Celestia, that was nice. Princess Twilight had definitely never smelled like that, and...and why did she feel warm all of the sudden?

“Oh. My. Stars,” gasped Twilight, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet. “That’s so amazing. It’s like something out of a Prancy Drew novel!”

“If you say so,” offered Sunset, turning away to hide what she was sure was a red face. “Never heard of Prancy Drew.”

Twilight gasped again, louder this time. Or perhaps it was just an echo. “How is that possible? They’re...oh.” She paused, coming to a realization. “Right, you haven’t been here that long.”

For another minute, they continued on in silence, before Twilight asked another question. “Are we going into one of the secret passages now?”

Sunset shook her head. “Not this time,” she said to a slightly deflated Twilight. “Some of them are too small for me to fit through now, anyway, let alone you.” She offered the other girl a smile. “But trust me, you’ll like where we’re going.”

After another couple of minutes, Sunset unlocked the door to yet another stairwell. But this time, instead of the usual angled concrete steps, these were metal and spiraled. Keeping her lantern in front of her, she began to climb.

“Sunset…” came the groan from behind her. “Are…we…almost…there yet? This bag’s getting…kind of…heavy.”

“Just up these stairs.” She turned around, moving off the steps. “Do you want me to take it the rest of the way?”

“Yes, please!” begged the other girl.

Sunset took the bag from her friend, and let out a tiny yelp at the sudden pull of gravity. “Geez, you weren’t kidding,” she grunted, hefting the bag up onto her shoulder and laying its strap across the one for her own bag. Good thing there wasn’t far to go, or that would probably leave a mark. “What exactly did you put in here?”

“Just my telescope and some camera equipment.”

“Camera equipment?”

“I wanted to get something to examine later,” Twilight replied, frowning. “Is it too heavy for you?” She reached to take hold of the strap. “I could take it back.”

“It’s fine,” replied Sunset, gently brushing Twilight’s hand away, and trying not to focus on how the brief skin to skin contact sent a tingle up her spine. Thankfully, the weight on her shoulder made for an excellent distraction.

Slowly, they made their way up, feet clanking against the thin metallic steps. “I don’t understand,” said Twilight as they made their way higher. “Where exactly are we?”

The redhead smirked. “The clock tower.”

“The…clock tower?” Twilight parroted. “What clock tower?”

As if in answer to her question, they’d stopped at a small landing where the white glow of their lanterns glimmered on the glass of four identical clock faces. Around them, the ticking of small gearboxes clicked away like busy cicadas on a summer night.

Sunset was grinning now. Practically hopping up the last few steps despite the weight she carried, she undid the latch for the door in the ceiling, and climbed through. “This clock tower.”

The cool night breeze was like a slap to the face, but a welcoming one after the stuffiness of the building. Setting the bags down, Sunset stood near the edge of the wall, looking down onto the front lawn of the school. Directly below her, the library’s glass dome sat like a tranquil sea.

Twilight stood beside her, gaping at the sight. “I don’t understand. How did I…I was hovering in the air during the games, how did I not notice this?!”

Sunset merely shrugged as she went back to secure the door to the stairs. “I wouldn’t get too upset. From what I can tell, most people at CHS don’t remember there’s a clock tower.”

“But that goes against the function of a clock tower!” Twilight sputtered indignantly. “What’s the point of a clock if you don’t bother to even see it?”

She shrugged again. “I’m not complaining, and neither should you. Look.” She pointed up toward the sky. Night was setting in now, and above them; the stars were beginning to wink into view, shining brightly against the oncoming new moon sky like diamonds against black velvet.

“It’s…it’s beautiful,” Twilight said breathily.

“And high up enough to get away from any light pollution,” Sunset added. “It should be perfect to observe the meteor shower.”

Twilight’s gaze snapped away from the sky. “Right! The meteor shower!” Quickly, she opened her duffel bag, pulling out various pieces of equipment. “Tonight’s the peak of the last Monocerotid meteor shower, at least until November. I’ll finally be able to get some good shots of it. Dad will be so jealous!”

“Is he into astronomy, too?”

“He should be,” scoffed Twilight, busy setting down a tripod. “He’s an astronomer. He works at the Starswirl Observatory on the other side of town.”

Sunset unfolded a few blankets from her bag and sat herself down. You were supposed to bring blankets to watch meteor showers. Or at least, that’s what a quick internet search had told her. “If your dad works there, why couldn’t you just go to the observatory instead?”

“The Monocerotid showers aren’t exactly a major event, so the observatory doesn’t open to the public for them,” Twilight answered, attaching a rather expensive-looking telescope to a tripod. “Plus, the head of the observatory is really strict. The last time Dad let me come with him to look at the stars, he got in real trouble.”

Twilight pushed up her glasses as she got out a series of cameras, setting them at various angles. “I envy you. Our house is too close to downtown to have a really good view, but you have your own personal observatory right here…even if it is probably illegal,” she added with an awkward laugh.

Her own personal observatory. “Never thought of it like that before,” Sunset replied with a smile. She rather liked the sound of it.

That was when Twilight noticed the blankets. “Oh, are you staying? Well, I suppose you would be. You’d have to lock the doors, wouldn’t you? But I never even asked if you were into astronomy, and it’s okay if you don’t want to stick around. I’ve never really had anybody stargaze with me before, other than Dad, I mean, so it’s not like I’ll be offended, and…”

The redhead bit back a laugh. Sweet Celestia, the girl was awkward. “Relax. I’m staying. And since you asked, I’m not really big into astronomy. I mean, I know the constellations backwards and forwards, but the reason I came up here in the first place was because it reminded me of home.”

“You mean Equestria?”

“Uh-huh. Canterlot, specifically. Over there, the city’s built on a mountain. Lots of what you’d call medieval-style architecture, tall towers and everything. My room at the palace was in one of those towers. Some nights, in between experiments, I’d just watch the stars for a while, or see Princess Celestia raise the moon.”

The lavender girl fumbled the camera in her hand. “Raise the—”

“Different universe, different laws. Though Princess Luna is raising the moon now, from what I understand.”

She wondered what it was like. She’d always liked Princess Celestia’s raising of the moon. It wasn’t as magnificent as when she raised the sun, which was a wonder no matter how many times the former unicorn saw it. But what did it look like now, with Princess Luna back in control?

Was it more passionate? More natural? Did the moon glow brighter under Luna’s command? The shadowy image of the Mare in the Moon was gone, according to Princess Twilight, so that would definitely make it brighter. Strange, really, thinking about the moon missing something that had been there for a thousand years, now gone. Terra’s moon probably looked just like Earth’s now.

“Right…” Finished setting up her last camera, the bespectacled girl stood back, giving her equipment one last look, before seating herself on the other blanket. “Thank you for showing me this. You and the other girls must have a lot of fun up here.”

“To be honest,” admitted Sunset, “you’re the first person I’ve ever even told about this place.”

“Really?” asked Twilight in surprise. “Nobody else wanted to go stargazing here?”

Sunset nodded. “None of the girls are into astronomy, and besides, can you imagine trying to fit six people up here?” More than that, she just hadn’t wanted to tell anyone. The clock tower was something she’d loved keeping all to herself, for reasons both practical and personal.

It was one of her hiding places, a silent refuge that brought her back to her fillyhood days in the palace, a space that no one, not Flash, not Princess Twilight, nor any of her other friends, had ever breached.

Not until now.

Twilight looked completely floored. “Well…thank you again.”

“No problem…hey, I think it’s starting.”

A light streaked across the sky, and then another and another. Sunset, who had never seen an actual meteor shower before, watched in fascination spurred by Twilight’s enthusiasm, and the two of them bounced between the blanketed floor and the telescope as Twilight went over the composition of falling stars, recent discoveries in planets, and even her father’s research.

Twilight told her all about the wonders of the sky, from black holes, which Sunset had heard of, to neutron stars and the beauty of places like the Eagle Nebula and the Rose Galaxy. Sunset took it all in like a sponge, all the while feeling both swept away by Twilight’s incredible passion, and also strangely nostalgic, though she couldn’t place why.

In between the bursts of meteors, they talked about other things, too, like how magic worked in Equestria, what it was like to be a pony, or how strange it was to change one’s entire species.

“I do miss the sound of my hooves against the floor,” Sunset admitted during one of the lull points. “Sometimes almost as much as I miss my horn.”

“Horn?” Twilight questioned, removing her face from the eyepiece of her telescope. “You’re a unicorn?”

Sunset nodded. “Yup. Princess Twilight, too. Or at least, she was born one. When she became a princess, she became an alicorn, a mix between all three types of ponies.” At Twilight’s blank look, she added. “Short version: She got wings.”

“Oh, I see,” said Twilight. “If I went across the mirror, I’d change species, too, right? So, would I be a unicorn or an alicorn? I did…” her expression dimmed, just a little. “I did have wings before.”

“I’m not sure,” answered Sunset thoughtfully. “But considering I had wings when a ton of magic messed with my head, I’m not really sure that’s a good indicator. So, I’m gonna say you’d probably be a unicorn.” She frowned, pushing back the horrible memory of the Fall Formal.

Twilight remained silent at that. Her gaze turned back to the sky for a moment, and then, to Sunset’s confusion, she started to giggle.

“I don’t see how that’s funny,” grumbled Sunset, folding her arms over her chest.

“Oh, no! I didn’t mean that!” Twilight assured, but still unable to quell her laughter. “It’s just…you’re a unicorn, and I’d probably be one, and…the meteor shower…” Her words broke off in another fit of giggles.

“What does one have to do with the other?”

“It’s a Monocerotid shower,” Twilight explained, as if that were the key to everything.

Sunset just gave her a blank look. “So?”

“Meteor showers are named after the constellations they appear in,” said Twilight, still giggling. “Haven’t you noticed it?”

Sunset turned back to the sky, where the barrage of meteors was still at a lull. She eyed the stars carefully, trying to figure out what her pony tribe and a meteor shower had to do with a sudden giggle fit. “There’s Gemini,” she muttered, recognizing the stars Castor and Pollux. “There’s Sirius, so those are Canis Major and Canis Minor…”

She moved her attention to the spot where the meteor shower was hailing from. “So that constellation is…” Sunset froze, her brain tripping as it caught up with the star map in her head. “It’s…”

“Monoceros,” supplied Twilight in triumph. “Or as it’s otherwise known—”

“The unicorn,” Sunset finished dumbly. “This is a unicorn meteor shower.” Then, because she just couldn’t help it, she began to laugh, too.

“Monoceros is such an overlooked constellation, to be honest,” lamented Twilight, once they had both settled down. “It doesn’t help that its stars are so dim compared to its neighbors.”

Sunset hummed in agreement, vaguely recalling a moment when she’d been pleased to discover the celestial equine, and being disappointed by it for reasons she couldn’t remember. “Any cool mythology around it?”

“Not really. I found a constellation lore site once that said the unicorn was sent into the sky to use its purifying horn to counter the deadly venom of the Hydra.” Twilight pointed a purple finger east of Monoceros, where the great serpentine monster rested. “But considering Monoceros wasn’t recognized until the seventeenth century, I’m pretty sure that was just a modern addition.” She let out a small humph. “Not to mention misinformation.”

Sunset let out a humph of her own. “Shame on everybody else, then. We unicorns are awesome.”

Twilight giggled again.

Suddenly, the sky seemed to come to life as meteor after meteor raced through the unicorn constellation in rapid succession, like the starry equine was putting on a magic show just for them.

“I think it heard me,” gawked the redhead.

Twilight’s gasp could have been heard for miles. “It’s an outburst! Look at it! A meteor outburst! And I’ve got it on camera! Oh. My. Stars!” Her arms wrapped themselves around Sunset’s middle. “This is the best night ever! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

“Y-You’re welcome,” she stammered, feeling her stomach flutter like she’d swallowed an entire flight of butterflies. What was that? First in the hallway, and now here. Not even Flash had gotten these sorts of reactions when he’d held…her…

Oh.

Oh, that was…that was pretty big, wasn’t it? Did she actually—

Her incredibly profound thoughts were interrupted by the ring of Twilight’s cellphone.

“Hello?” said Twilight, releasing her grip on a very stunned Sunset Shimmer. “Oh, hi, Mom. Yeah, it’s going great! I—it’s what time?” She pulled the phone away, looking at the clock. “It’s ten already?” she muttered, returning her ear to the phone. “Yeah, Mom, I see the time. I…alright, I’ll start packing up. See you soon.”

Twilight hung up, turning back to her with a sheepish expression. “I actually need to head home now.” Glancing up at the sky in disappointment, she asked. “Sunset, would it be okay if I left my cameras here overnight? You said no one comes up here.”

“Um…yeah,” she answered through the swirl of thoughts. “I mean, very rarely someone will come check the gearboxes, but the roof is pretty much left alone. If you want, I could collect the cameras later.”

“Thank you. At least this way I’ll be able to get a record of the rest of the shower.”

Carefully, Twilight re-packed her duffel bag, now significantly lighter, while Sunset re-packed her own. The two made their way down and out of the school, Sunset re-locking every door as they went. The trip back was a silent one, Twilight presumably absorbed in her data, and Sunset absorbed with, well, Twilight, and the sensations she’d provoked.

Soon, Sunset was waving goodbye to Twilight at the bus stop, and walking back toward the place where she’d parked her motorcycle.

“I’m going to need advice,” she thought aloud. “Probably Rarity.” Princess Twilight was definitely a no-go. That would be far, far too weird.

She glanced back at the darkened school, eyes trailing upwards to the distant clock tower. “My own personal observatory…”

And then, her thoughts swirled again.

A house stood before her, forgotten. No, not forgotten. Avoided. A mansion capped by a single high turret with large, arched windows on all sides, like it was some kind of observatory. Old. Crumbling. But somehow alive. Something crawled inside the walls, in the beams and plaster, crawled among the insects, hidden in rot and decay.

Broken walls closed around on all sides, ready to devour her, to suffocate her in their ruined, vile embrace. She’d needed an escape, but it wasn’t. She could feel the truth of what it was, feel it inside her head, inside her soul. She knew what to do.

She had to…she had to…the hate, the anger, the evil. It was too much. It was just too much. She had to…

Sunset staggered back, gripping her head as…what? Had she been thinking of something? Her mind was blank, but her nerves felt completely on edge, like she’d just come face to face with the Windigos. Her gaze turned to the CHS building, swallowed by the darkness of the new moon, tall and looming. A shudder swept through her body.

“What’s wrong with me lately?” she wondered as she crossed the rest of the distance back to her bike. First the thing with Twilight, and now…whatever this was. Carefully, she swung her legs over the seat, and secured the helmet over her head.

“I really need to get more sleep.”

That night, Sunset Shimmer twisted in her bed, her dreams of Twilight and stargazing engulfed by a storm of nightmares advancing across her brain, flashing images and thoughts across her neurons like jagged bolts of lightning, immensely fast, powerful, and terrifying all at once.

A climb over an ancient wall on a hot summer day. A mansion, hidden away by layers of undergrowth. A stone lion half-eaten by moss, a fallen guardian. Raving madmen. Monsters. Insects and reptiles crawling free. A figure with dark glasses and covered in cobwebs. Things in the basement. Dead eyes boring into her soul.

Younger and older all at the same time. Events looping. A place she never wanted to return to. Why had they come to this place? Why had he brought her here…?

As she tossed and turned, unable to find shelter from the tempest, two words escaped her lips.

“Gabriel…Chase…”

When Sunset woke up the next morning, she remembered nothing, but found that she was strangely queasy at the idea of eating oatmeal for breakfast.

Author's Note

Five things:

Metaphorical show of hands, how many of you even remember or noticed that CHS has a clock tower? I’ve certainly never heard anybody mention it in a story.

I altered the clock tower to have a more logical design. By that I mean it doesn’t make sense. The series showed it sitting on top of the glass dome, the same dome that serves as the library roof, but if that were the case, there would be no way to access the tower, which is silly because even disregarding the space above the clock, you at least need a way to get to the mechanism. Hence, the tower is now behind the dome.

I am aware that there are no Monocerotid meteor showers past December. I made it up. Different universe, different rules as I see fit.

Yes, that myth about Monoceros is made up, too.

In case you noticed, the title of Le Morte d'Arthur in chapter 1 has been altered. This is because I realized later that since the title involves a normal human name, it did not fit with my usual rule to render all people names as puns. Oops.

Vision of Fire

Chapter 3: Vision of Fire

Over the last few days, Rarity had proven surprisingly hard to corner. School had been far too busy to draw the other girl into a private conversation, and Rarity’s after school time as of late had been consumed by personal projects or long work shifts.

But tonight, hopefully, Sunset would get her opportunity. Tonight, Rarity was hosting their regular sleepover. So, with a sense of determination, Sunset had packed her overnight bag, donned her helmet, hopped onto her bike, and sped off to 3491 Carousel Road.

She slid almost noiselessly into Rarity’s curiously empty driveway. Her parents were usually at home by now, and their cars would normally be sitting in front of the little double garage. But then, they could have just decided to park inside today, or maybe they’d stepped out. Either way, it didn’t matter. What mattered was talking to Rarity.

With a deep breath, Sunset crossed the yard, made her way up the front steps, and knocked.

“Just a moment!”

Sunset shifted her weight between her feet, eyes roaming for some kind of distraction. She examined the quaint little porch with the pots of flowers, and the cleanly painted walls. Walls which were an unfortunately familiar shade of purple, and which brought just the tiniest hint of warmth to her cheeks.

So much for distraction.

Mercifully, the front door swung open, revealing a slightly frazzled Rarity. “Oh, Sunset! What a pleasant surprise.” She checked her watch. “You’re a bit early, aren’t you, darling?” The pale-skinned girl shook her head. “No matter, I could use your help. Come in, come in!” She grabbed at Sunset’s arm, pulling her past the threshold and into the living room.

Rarity gestured to a large reddish sofa. “If you could help me move this further away from the wall?” she asked.

Sunset raised an eyebrow, but shrugged, grabbing the other end of the sofa. Between the two of them, they managed to heave the rather heavy piece of furniture over about a foot.

“Why,” Sunset heaved, catching her breath, “did you need to do that?”

“Because we’ll be sleeping here, darling,” Rarity explained breathlessly as she brushed back a lock of hair that had slid out of place. “Mother and Father left to visit my aunt.”

That explained the empty driveway. “Anything serious?”

“Oh, no,” Rarity assured. “She just twisted her ankle. In any case, they’ll be away the next two nights, and with Sweetie Belle off to spend time with her friends at their clubhouse, we’ll have the house all to ourselves, so I thought it would be good to sleep out here instead.”

Sunset nodded in approval. “More room, and we get the TV. Good plan.”

“Thank you, darling.” Together they moved back to the central hall and down to the back of the house, where Cookie Crumbles, Rarity’s mother, kept her immaculate kitchen. Sunset picked an apple out of the fridge, gnawing at it as Rarity poured both of them a glass of water.

As they both sat down at the little island, Rarity eyed the cat-clock mounted to the wall. “Not that I don’t appreciate your timing, Sunset, but why did you arrive so early?”

“I…uh…” Sunset took a quick gulp of water. “I kind of wanted your advice on something…personal.”

Rarity leaned in, resting her chin on her hand, a curious, almost cat-like gleam in her eye. “I’m all ears.”

“I think…” Sunset breathed deep. “I think I might have a crush on Twilight. The human Twilight.”

Rarity gasped; a sound so loud Sunset swore she heard a dog howl in the distance. “You have a crush?!”

Seeing Sunset wince at her ear-splitting volume, Rarity coughed politely and tried again. “I’m sorry, darling, but this comes as quite a surprise. I haven’t heard you so much as mention romance since we became friends.”

“Because I’ve never had any romance.”

Rarity looked at her in surprise. “Really? But what about—”

“I told you, I only dated Flash for the popularity,” Sunset answered. “I never really loved him, and now…I don’t even know if what I’m feeling is love. I figured you’d have a better idea, since you’ve been on more dates than me. Real ones, anyway.”

The fashionista tapped a well-manicured nail against her chin. “I have had quite a few dates, that’s true, but I sadly have to admit I’ve never really felt true love.” Sunset’s face fell, and Rarity added quickly. “However, I am quite the connoisseur of romance novels.”

Sunset held her head in her hands. Romance novels. Rarity’s biggest understanding came from fiction. This was such a bad idea. She should have asked someone else. Applejack, maybe. Would she even have time to swing by the farm? Already her brain was starting to do the math.

“Now, darling, don’t be like that,” chided Rarity. “Even if my romantic experience isn’t quite as broad as either of us would like it to be, I am still perfectly capable of giving you advice as a friend.” Pale fingers pried Sunset’s fingers from her cheeks. “So, why don’t you give me a try?”

Despite her reservations, Sunset smiled. “Thanks.”

“Think nothing of it. I must admit, though, and,” Rarity cleared her throat awkwardly, “forgive me if this is rather…uncomfortable, but I’m curious, are you not attracted to boys at all?”

“I am,” Sunset answered. “Even back in Equestria, I could tell that I was attracted to both mares and stallions. Tartarus, if I was just lesbian, I wouldn’t have gone out with Flash at all. Popularity or no, I wouldn’t have been able to tolerate it. I just…” she flushed, “I’ve just never felt any romantic attraction to anypony before.”

Rarity didn’t comment on her grammatical slip. “And what exactly are you feeling?”

“It’s like…when we touch, I feel this sort of jolt. I get warm and flustered and I almost never get flustered. Nobody’s ever gotten that kind of reaction out of me, and when Twilight hugged me a few nights ago—” She froze, mentally cursing herself at letting that slip out.

“A few nights ago?” Rarity inquired eagerly. “And what, pray tell, were you two doing a few nights ago?”

Seeing no way around it, Sunset gave her a summarized version of the meteor shower, carefully omitting the whole “we broke into the school” and the “not-invisible-but-it-might-as-well-be clock tower.” A girl was entitled to a few secrets, after all. Diaries wouldn’t be a thing otherwise.

By the end of it, Rarity’s blue eyes were glittering like a pair of finely cut diamonds. “A night under the stars! A symbolic constellation! Oh, darling, it’s all too perfect!” she swooned. “For someone who’s never had any romantic interest before, you certainly know how to pull off a magnificent first date.”

“It wasn’t a date,” Sunset protested. “I wasn’t trying to be romantic. I was just trying to help Twilight out. But she’s cute and she’s passionate and intelligent, and…” She shook her head, trying to clear away the fog of emotions that surrounded the purple bookworm. “I have no idea if what I’m feeling is just physical attraction or…” She shook her head again. “I just don’t know.”

“There, there, darling. I know love can be quite confusing,” said Rarity, patting her back. “Although it seems to me like you’ve definitely got the beginning of a crush.”

“So, what do I do about it?” asked Sunset. “Twilight’s just gotten friends. I don’t want to ruin that with some botched romance.” School had been torturous the last couple days, trying not to let her confusion show, even when every bit of physical contact sent her heart racing. But the idea of hurting Twilight’s chances at making friends was an even worse prospect by far.

“If you’re really that worried,” offered Rarity. “Then just try being her friend for now. See where it goes. Who knows? It’s possible she might feel the same way.”

“Maybe.” Twilight had blushed when they’d met for the meteor shower, but then again, you could just as well chalk that up to her generally awkward nature. “Thanks, Rarity.”

“My pleasure, darling,” the fashionista smiled. “And perhaps, since you’ve seen fit to take my romantic advice, you’ll finally take my other advice and let me work with that gorgeous hair of yours.”

Sunset rolled her eyes. They’d had this argument many times before. “Rarity, no.”

“But darling, you know how skilled I am.” She tossed her own perfectly coiffed hair for effect. “And I can see some dreadful split ends already. If you would just let me—”

“Rarity,” Sunset interrupted flatly, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You’re my friend, but I’m not letting you near my hair, especially with anything sharp.”

It wasn’t so much that she doubted Rarity’s skills. That was a concern, of course. But her friend could get swept away in bursts of creative inspiration, and where Sunset’s treasured mane was involved, that was a risk she’d rather not take. It was her best feature and she was going to keep it that way, thank you.

The pale girl huffed. “Oh, if you insist. Though I suppose I can’t blame you, darling. I’m as protective of my own hair. Still, I am confident that one of these days, you’ll agree.”

Sunset smirked. “Come to me with an actual beautician’s license, and we’ll talk.”

Whatever Rarity had to say in response was lost when something forced its way up to the surface.

Another kitchen table flashed before her eyes, just as warm, but infinitely far away and long ago.

Bristles swam through a river of glossy black. Two figures, both female. One, a girl under ten, seated before the other, a teenager wielding a brush and comb with all the concentration of a surgeon performing open heart.

“I really thought I had it this time,” she grumbled apologetically from her nearby seat, her voice young and still so strange. What was it about the sound? “I was doing what she told me to do…”

“What you had was a mess,” said the older girl with a roll of her eyes. There was no true anger in her voice. She was used to their combined antics by now. “I think it’s safe to say that you should get a lot more practice before trying to braid anyone else’s hair.”

“Sorry,” she muttered.

From her seat, the girl, dark-skinned and dark-eyed like the teen behind her, smiled gently. Her face alternated between a mouth and muzzle, but the expression never lost any of its comfort. “It’s alright,…” There was a word there that failed to reach her ear, like it was buried in static. “I know you’ll get it eventually.” The girl winced as a particularly bad snarl pulled at her scalp.

“You’re lucky I can unknot it,” said the teen. “If Ammi came back and saw this, she’d have a fit.”

“You could try teaching me,” she argued. “You have more experience at this than…” there was another word lost in the static, a vital word.

The teen undid one last knot, transforming the mess back into the pristine, nearly waist-length mane it was supposed to be, and smirked at her. “Let’s see if you can sit still long enough to learn.” She laughed. “Though I doubt it.”

She crossed the room, and the brush that had tamed her friend’s hair sunk deep into her own. “To do a braid, first, part it like this…”

“Sunset?”

The former unicorn shook her head. “Huh? Oh, sorry.” She rubbed a hand against one of her eyes. “I’ve not exactly been getting the best sleep lately.” That was yet another problem she was going to tackle, but the issue with Twilight seemed easier to deal with first.

“Well, in that case, please, relax on the sofa. I only have a few things left to do, and you seem like you need your rest.”

For the rest of the afternoon until the sleepover, Sunset sat on the living room couch browsing on her phone while Rarity shuffled a few more things around, and did a little sewing on a new outfit. While she was vegging out, she sent a quick text to Rainbow to bring her game system, since they had the TV free.

Finally, everyone started to arrive. Sunset was the one to get the door at the very first knock, and opened it to find the girl of her affection staring back at her.

“H-Hi,” said Twilight. “Am I late?”

“Nah, I’m early,” Sunset replied, taking in a breath and getting another whiff of Twilight's lavender shampoo.

Rarity’s advice rang in her ear. Be her friend first. So, drawing on her reserves of strength, she pushed down any awkward infatuation. “How was the data from the meteor shower?”

“Good!” said Twilight excitedly as they walked into the living room. “I mean, I haven’t gotten a chance to go over it all, but so far it looks amazing. I can’t wait to show my dad.” She paused. “On the other hand, if he sees the footage, he might ask questions about where I took it.”

“Probably best not to mention we broke into the school,” Sunset whispered.

“Yeah.” She looked around at the modest house. “This place doesn’t seem much like Rarity.”

“Let’s just say Rarity and her parents have very different tastes,” Sunset commented.

Twilight’s gaze slid down to her shoes. “Can I tell you something?” She fiddled with the hem of her skirt. “This is actually my first sleepover ever.”

There was a horrified gasp beside them as Pinkie Pie bounded up. Sunset hadn’t even seen her arrive. “This is your first sleepover?!” She ran toward the kitchen where Rarity was preparing a few snacks. “Rarity! First sleepover alert!”

Sunset watched as Twilight squirmed. “Don’t worry about Pinkie. She gets like that,” she reassured the other girl. “You’ll have fun. Trust me. Besides, if you want to know, my first sleepover wasn’t until last year, so you don’t need to feel weird.”

Twilight looked at her with those big purple eyes, bigger still behind the lenses of her glasses, and seemed to visibly relax. “You know, I actually checked out a book just for this. It’s called Slumber 101: All You Ever Wanted to Know About Slumber Parties but Were Afraid to Ask.”

Sunset’s eyebrow shot up to her hairline. “There’s seriously a book for that?”

Twilight nodded eagerly, pulling the volume from her bag. “See, right here is the section on ghost stories! Of course, ghosts aren’t real, but I always found the idea of them fun, even if I never had anyone to tell them to…”

For the rest of the time between then and when everyone else arrived, Twilight shared her bizarrely informative and comprehensive guide to slumber parties. Despite the fact that it was probably written for younger ages (or the socially isolated), Twilight put a passion into discussing it that made it seem equal to some lost manuscript from the library of Nyalexandria.

Sweet Celestia, she was impossibly adorable.

That train of thought probably should have sent her into a flustered tizzy, but somehow, Twilight’s intellectual energy kept that from happening, completely engaging Sunset’s brain. Perhaps waiting out this whole crush would be easier than she’d thought.

Once everyone arrived, the sleepover kicked into full swing. They’d started with a few party games, one of which Rarity called “Spin the Nail Polish”, where they’d each pick a bottle of nail polish, spin it, and whoever the bottle pointed at would get one nail painted that color.

By the time they were out of nails, both her and Twilight’s hands were an alternating blue and white, something that had Rarity politely hiding a smile, and Sunset wondering if perhaps there was some kind of matchmaking deity that had it in for her.

As the night went on, and after they’d fueled up on pizza, Rainbow Dash had broken out her gaming system and connected it to the TV. Elite Fighter 5, Sunset noticed—not a bad choice. What had followed was the usual contest between her and AJ, which Rainbow had won, and which had the athlete crowing in her usual fashion.

Then Sunset had taken hold of the controller, and Rainbow Dash was left eating crow instead.

“Aww, man!” groaned Rainbow as her character lay flat on her back. “How do you always beat me?”

The redhead smirked, blowing on her hands to dissipate invisible smoke. “What can I say? You’re going to have to practice more if you want to beat a pro like me.”

“You’re a professional?” asked Twilight from behind.

Sunset turned around. While she’d been giving Rainbow yet another electronic beatdown, Rarity had convinced Twilight to let her work her magic on her hair. Her bun had been replaced by a long, sleek ponytail, with only a single free lock on either side of her face. It was simple, suited Twilight extremely well, and somehow made her seem cuter than she was already.

“Uh…” Sunset forced her brain back on track. “Yeah. I’ve got my own game channel. Did a whole playthrough of Palace of the Minotaur last month.” Video games had been a shocking discovery, but incredibly fun. Plus, she’d been able to monetize the channel. It wasn’t exactly much, but every little stream of revenue was nice. “It’s Sun—”

“SunWizard86?” Twilight finished. “The channel with the blazing wand inside the alchemical sun symbol for a logo, right?”

Sunset blinked, not expecting to be recognized so quickly. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

“I saw kids at Crystal Prep talking about your run of Palace of the Minotaur,” Twilight explained. “I watched it, too. I can see why your channel is so popular. Your run was almost perfect, except for that one optional level. You really should have gone through the south entrance. It would have been much easier and you would have been in better shape for the final boss.”

“Really?” Sunset replied. She’d have to remember that in the event she played the game on a higher difficulty. “Are you a gamer?”

“I dabble,” answered Twilight, a flush spreading across her cheeks. “Actually, I built my own custom gaming computer back in ninth grade, since the ones I saw in the store didn’t seem to be adequate for the performance I wanted.” She laughed in that awkward, melodic way that Sunset was coming to love. “My brother ended up borrowing it indefinitely, but I’ve built better ones since then.”

Sunset couldn’t help but grin. “Sounds awesome. You’re going to have to show me sometime.” She froze. Had that come off as flirting? No, wait, friends could make that kind of request. Horseapples, this was messing with her head.

“I still can’t believe it’s you, though,” added Twilight, thankfully unfazed by Sunset’s possibly flirtatious request. “Indigo Zap kept hoping you’d show your face.”

“Sorry to disappoint her, but I’d rather stay invisible.” Besides the usual concerns about internet privacy, Sunset had worried that word of her gaming channel could reach her human doppelganger. Not that she’d ever found her human doppelganger, but better safe than sorry.

Twilight nodded. “I totally get it.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a great gamer,” griped Rainbow. “One of these days I’ll beat you.”

Sunset merely smirked, adding a sarcastic “Right.” A yawn rose up from her throat. “Anybody else getting tired?” she asked.

“Oh, my, I hadn’t realized how late it was getting,” said Rarity, looking at the wall clock, which indicated it was well past midnight.

“Reckon it’s about time to hit the hay,” added Applejack.

“Yeah,” agreed Sunset, releasing another yawn. Her eyelids were starting to feel like lead. “Maybe I’ll actually get a good night’s sleep this time,” she muttered.

“You not gettin’ enough shut eye, sugarcube?” asked Applejack with concern.

From her position nearest the kitchen (the best place to sneak away for snacks), Pinkie Pie gave a little bounce. “Ooh, you should try counting alligators.” Pulling out Gummy from some unknown space, she hugged the plush toy close to her chest. “That’s what I do when I can’t sleep.”

“I’m not having trouble falling asleep,” Sunset clarified. “I’ve just been waking up in the middle of the night sometimes. Or I just feel a little tired when I wake up.”

Twilight hummed in thought. “It could be bad sleep hygiene. Are you avoiding stimulating activities before you go to bed?”

“…Maybe.” An embarrassed hand slipped behind her head. “Honestly, I hadn’t done much research yet.”

“I could help you, if you want,” offered Twilight quickly. “Research is basically my middle name.”

“Really?” asked Pinkie. “Wow, you’re so lucky! Mine is Diane and that’s super weird.”

“I think she was using a figure of speech, darling,” said Rarity.

Sunset laughed. “I’d like that, thanks.” She turned her attention back to the others. “Anyway, if I end up getting a glass of water tonight, warning in advance.”

With a round of “goodnights”, everyone snuggled into their sleeping bags. Sunset closed her eyes, breathed deep, slipped off into her dreams.

Fire.

Her vision was filled with fire. Heat and smoke adding to the already hot August night. An inferno born from hate, ignorance, and tiny, shriveled hearts.

Her ears echoed with screams. Her screams, the screams of others. Between the heat and the noise, everything was pure chaos. Firefighters swarmed in front of her, their bodies shifting between human and equine as they raced to put out a house set ablaze on a formerly quiet street.

Two of them held her back. She kicked them in the legs, but they still resisted, still barred her from the house. Didn’t they understand? Her best friend was in there! She needed a way through! Why wouldn’t they let her through?!

She could get her out. She could get them all out, if they’d just let her try. She could stop it with her magic, part of her screamed. She reached inside, calling to the vast well of the power that had set her apart from her peers, but it didn’t come. Her magic wouldn’t work here. It wouldn’t work. She couldn’t stop the fire, couldn’t rescue her best friend.

Her best friend…

Her brain stalled. Which friend? Rainbow? Rarity? Twilight? Pinkie Pie? No, none of them. The names, so familiar to her, and yet strangely unfamiliar at the same time, even as she thought of them, did not belong in this place. They did not belong to the one inside. Another friend. But that couldn’t be. She had no other friends. But she knew she did. She had…has…a best friend. Someone…somepony…else.

As the fire hoses struggled to contain the blaze, a useless effort because she knew somehow that it was a chemical fire, she tried to remember the name. She tried and tried, but it remained lost on her tongue. She tried to scream it, to force it out with pure rage, but it still didn’t come.

Why couldn’t she remember? She had to know it. Her best friend was in there, burning and dying. How could she stand here, powerless, and not remember her name?

The fire stretched higher into the sky, and in its savage glow, time warped, and images of the future passed before her. A rescue too late. Blistered skin. Gentle eyes full of hate. Hospital. Burn unit. Gone…gone…gone…

And then, it came. It came like a geyser erupting from a place far below. A word, a name, full of love and joy and pain, so much pain. An old name seared onto her very heart and soul. The fire raged before her, the house consumed, and she screamed the name over and over, struggling with all her might against the adults that held her back.

“…Yo!…unset! Wake…up!”

In the distance, she could hear voices, muffled and broken like they were coming from behind a wall. But they couldn’t reach her. Nothing could reach her. Her own voice drowned everything out, drowned it out with the name. The name she’d forgotten. The name of her best friend.

“Wait…don’t…could be a night…error…”

Manisha…

“Pink…Twi…said…!”

Manisha…

“She’s…ot waking…”

Manisha…

“…Dash, what are…?”

“MANISHA!”

The shock of cold water against her face hurled Sunset back into sputtering consciousness. Sitting bolt upright, the first thing she saw, once she cleared the droplets from her eyes, was Rainbow Dash, a dripping, but empty glass pitcher held firmly in her hand.

Anger shot through her. “What,” she coughed, forcing back the water that threatened to go down her windpipe. “What the hay, Rainbow?!”

Rainbow said nothing. Instead, she just stared at her, wide-eyed and wary. That was when Sunset realized that everyone was staring at her like that.

“Tarnation, girl,” Applejack swore under her breath. “You said you weren’t sleepin’ well, but you didn’t say nothin’ about havin’ nightmares.”

Sunset blinked. “What?” With wakefulness settling in, she suddenly became aware of the way her heart was hammering against her breastbone, and, despite the now sodden state of her pajama top, she could identify the cold sheen of sweat on her skin. Telltale evidence of a powerful nightmare.

“Darling, you were practically screaming in your sleep,” said Rarity.

Now that Rarity mentioned it, her throat did feel just the tiniest bit sore. Sweet Celestia, she must have really scared them. A lock of hair fell forward and plastered itself to her skin, and whatever guilt she felt was suddenly mixed in with lingering annoyance, because, terror or not, it didn’t excuse her very rude and soggy awakening.

She glared at Rainbow. “For Celestia’s sake, if I was having a nightmare, you didn’t have to drown me! Why didn’t you just shake me or something?!”

“Twilight said not to,” answered Fluttershy. “She said it could be a night terror and that shaking you could send you into anaphylactic shock.”

“But I’d already done it,” said Pinkie with uncharacteristic quietness. “You didn’t stop.” Her big blue eyes slid to the floor. “So we all tried, and when you still wouldn’t wake up, Dashie decided to dump water on you.”

“It was the only thing I could think of,” defended Rainbow Dash.

Had she really been that deep asleep? She sighed, leaning back against the sofa, and pushed the offending lock of hair from her face. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Sunset,” Rarity began, “I think I speak for all of us when I say that we’re getting worried about you. You said you hadn’t been sleeping well, but that was the most dreadful nightmare I’ve ever seen anyone have.” She shuddered in her chiffon nightgown. “For a moment I thought we were in some kind of horror film.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” asked Fluttershy.

Talk about it? She couldn’t even remember it. Even now, the emotional echo of whatever had tormented her sleep was fading away like a dying wave, leaving only a placid lake behind. “I—”

“Who’s Manisha?”

The question was spoken as lightly as a feather, without malice or judgment. A plain and simple inquiry. But it backhanded Sunset across the face. She turned stiffly to Twilight, her throat suddenly constricted. “W-What?”

“Who’s Manisha?” repeated Twilight, and it was like a Manticore’s stinger had been driven into Sunset’s chest. “You kept saying that name in your sleep, so I was wondering…” She paused, seeming to notice Sunset’s expression. “If you want to share, that is. It’s clearly personal.”

“I’ve certainly never heard the name,” said Rarity, seeming almost glad for the diversion in topic. “Manisha,” she hummed. “It sounds rather exotic.” Sunset, meanwhile, felt her chest squeeze.

“I ain’t heard of no ‘Manisha’ either,” said Applejack, as the pressure inside her tripled. Sweet Celestia, it was getting hard just to breathe. “Pinkie, you heard of anyone by that name?”

“Nope, and I know everybody!” replied Pinkie. “And I really think I’d know a girl named Manisha, because it’s a super odd-sounding name. Of course, I knew a Matilda once, but never a Manisha, and I—”

“STOP!” Sunset exploded. Her legs curled up to her chest, pressing against her soaked shirt, trying to smother the white hot agony lancing through her heart. “Stop saying that name,” she begged. “It hurts.”

“Sunset,” whispered Fluttershy in disbelief, “you’re crying.”

Sunset’s hand shot up, pressing her fingers to her face. They came away with hot, salty tears. In the very back of her mind, a tiny thought echoed in protest that it wasn’t true. It was just the water Rainbow had splashed on her.

But she was. Her reflection in the pitcher betrayed the truth, revealing the rivers running down her cheeks. She was bawling in a way she hadn’t done since the Fall Formal. Since Anon-a-Miss. And no matter what she did, she couldn’t make it stop.

Fluttershy’s arms wound their way around her, drawing her into an embrace. “There, there,” she whispered, rubbing her back. “It’s okay.”

“Alright, sugarcube,” AJ said gently. “Want to tell us who she is?”

“I don’t know,” Sunset sobbed. For Celestia’s sake, why wouldn’t it stop? Why did it hurt so much? How could a collection of random syllables hurt so much?

The farm girl raised an eyebrow. “You mean to tell us you’re cryin’ over somebody you don’t know?”

Sunset couldn’t bring herself to respond. There were so many things she didn’t know lately. She’d thought it was lack of sleep, or distraction, but this…this pain…pain over a name she didn’t recognize.

Could it be?

There was only one answer she could think of.

Her lost memories.

“Ugh,” she groaned, tossing over onto her other side. “This isn’t working.”

It was the morning after the sleepover, and Sunset had returned to her apartment in an attempt to get some rest. However, despite her interrupted sleep cycle, her circadian rhythms refused to allow her to fall unconscious. Sitting up in bed, Sunset snatched her journal from the nearby bookshelf before fishing in her nightstand drawer for a pen.

“If I can’t sleep, I might as well message Princess Twilight,” she grumbled.

Dear Princess Twilight,

I know this is going to be a terrible way to start, but you were right to be worried about me.

I guess I’d better start at the beginning. The real beginning. I don’t know how much Princess Celestia might have told you about how I became her personal student. I know a lot of ponies would probably assume it was because I’d done something to impress her.

Some ponies might even think it happened at the CSGU entrance exams. For all I know, maybe you’re one of those ponies, and I wouldn’t blame you for it. After all, you said that’s the way the princess discovered you.

But that’s not how it went. With me, “discovered” was way more literal.

Years ago, Princess Celestia was at this party at the Blueblood estate in Canterlot. She was trotting through the back gardens when she found me hidden in the bushes. I was about seven, give or take, but I’ll get to that. I collapsed in front of her, and she rushed me to Canterlot Royal Hospital.

If you’re wondering what I was doing there, or how I’d even gotten onto the estate, I can’t tell you. When the doctors examined me, they found I had amnesia. A really bad case of it. Everything was a complete blank. Tartarus, Twi, I don’t even know my real birthday. The one I’ve got is just the anniversary of when the princess found me.

While I was in the hospital, the princess realized how insanely strong my magic was, and took me on as her pupil so I could get a handle on it. I wish my story was more impressive than that, but no. I didn’t pass any tests or perform any feats. I was just a random, unknown filly who was far too dangerous for my own good.

My memory never returned. Celestia searched for my family, sent agents all over Equestria, but they all came back empty-hooved. No parents, no aunt or uncle or distant cousins, not even a family friend.

It used to bother me, not knowing. I used to wonder if my family was alive, or even if they loved me. If they were alive and loved me, they’d have to be looking for me, right? In my second month at the palace, there was an entire week where I slept in Princess Celestia’s bed because I didn’t want to be alone.

But after a while, I just kind of…accepted it. I realized it was really hard to mourn a complete blank, and everything that upset me was just potential. In my imagination. So my lack of a past just became a fact of life. Most days, I didn’t even think about it.

Lately, though…remember how I zoned out? I’ve been doing that more. At first, I thought maybe I was distracted, or I needed more sleep.

My sleep has been getting interrupted lately. I’d just been waking up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. Usually I’d get a glass of water and go right back to sleep. It was annoying, and not exactly great for the REM cycle thing, but not the worst thing, either, so I didn’t consider it a serious problem.

But at the sleepover last night, I didn’t just wake up. I had a nightmare. A really, really bad nightmare. The girls had to dump water on my face to wake me up, that’s how bad it was. I was screaming in my sleep, or so they told me. Honestly, I don’t remember a thing. If it weren’t for them, I’m not sure I’d even have known I’d had a nightmare at all.

The reason I think it’s related to my memories is that there was a name I kept saying. Ma

Sunset paused, rubbing her arm against her eyes to fight the sting rising up inside them.

Manisha. Twilight, before last night, I would have sworn to you in every court in Equestria that I’d never heard that name before in my life. But hearing it, even writing it…it hurts. It feels like that time my stun spell backfired on me, and I don’t know why.

I feel like a bad friend, or relative, or whatever I am to…her. I forgot her, and I tossed her aside. I stopped thinking about her, about my past, or whoever else I might have known. Am I a bad pony for doing that?

I’m back at my place now, resting. Didn’t sleep very much after last night, as you can imagine. Still not resting much, either. The girls and I are going to meet up later today. We’re going to do a little digging and see if this parallel universe might be able to help figure out my past. I hope so.

Really wish you were here in person, though I know you’re busy.

Sunset Shimmer.

A loud rumbling reverberated in the air as the former unicorn closed the book. It was close to lunch time, and clearly, her stomach was set on reminding her of that fact.

All hopes of sleep were foregone as Sunset made her way down to the kitchenette. She scanned her fridge, eying the plastic wrapped salads, boxes of microwave veggie tacos, and other herbivore-friendly meals, before deciding that after the night she’d had, she deserved her favorite snack. She reached over into a drawer, and pulled out the old microwavable hot dog steamer.

A little while later, Sunset headed for the living room area, a plate of four freshly microwaved carrot dogs in her hands, and a large bottle of ketchup tucked under one arm. Carrot dogs were more or less what they sounded like, carrots treated with a special blend of spices placed in a long bun, just like the hot dogs over here.

They were one of Equestira’s quintessential fast food items, second only to hayburgers and fries, although why they never caught on with the vegetarians over here, she had no idea, and she had tried. Post-reform, she’d made an effort to introduce them to the eco-kids at CHS, but none of them had seen the appeal.

Well, it was their loss.

Sunset plopped herself down on the couch. As she did, the wide screen TV switched itself on. Shifting the plate to one hand, she reached down and pulled the remote from its frequent hiding place between the cushions.

“Burrowing down again, huh?” she joked at the little plastic rectangle.

Deciding to give the often-neglected realm of television a bit of attention over the wonders of the internet, Sunset lay her body across the sofa, placed the still warm plate in her lap, and flipped through the channels.

Nothing good caught her eye, but she found herself pausing on one of the local channels, where a multi-colored, maternal-looking monster puppet was teaching several small monster puppets, as well as the children in the audience, about various letters and words. She hung there for a while, letting it play while she munched wordlessly on her food, and her thoughts were once again pulled into her distant past.

She had been rather understated when she’d told Princess Twilight her amnesia was bad. The fact of the matter was that it had been the worst case of retrograde amnesia the doctors of the CRH had ever seen. It had been so bad that she’d been unable to read, write, or even talk.

She supposed, in some bizarre and ironic way, it just further cemented that Sunset had been an exceptional unicorn, even in the injury department. Of course, how exactly she’d come by such catastrophic memory loss was anypony’s guess, though the best theories at the time involved getting caught in some kind of spell-related accident.

In hindsight, it could have been rather embarrassing. Her, Sunset Shimmer, personal pupil to the princess of the sun and ahead of all her peers in school, being illiterate at the age of seven. But she’d learned quickly enough, and it wasn’t exactly her fault. Probably.

She watched the puppet on the TV continue to patiently teach her little charges, who struggled with each letter and word, and remembered how Princess Celestia had done the very same thing with her. A rueful smile graced her lips. “Hope those guys appreciate it.”

A fresh wave of guilt washed over her. The princess had given her everything, a home, food, an education, even taught her the fundamentals of all education, taught her how to speak, and how had she repaid her? By turning into an arrogant monster.

From up in her bed, Sunset heard the low buzz of a cross-dimensional message. She switched off the TV, set aside her now empty, ketchup-stained plate, and returned downstairs, journal in hand, before opening up to the new entry.

Dear Sunset,

I had no idea that happened to you, and you’re right, looking back, I guess I did sort of presume you must have become Celestia’s pupil in a similar way to me. I never really thought about asking. I hope you can forgive me for that.

I don’t think you’re a terrible pony. While I can’t say I’ve ever lost my memories to any extent (although I suppose I might not know, would I?), I can’t imagine it’s easy when you lose everything. You were coping the best way you could, and you do raise something of a point. It would be rather difficult to miss something unknown and abstract.

The nightmares are definitely more concerning. Thank goodness you had the girls! I can’t say I’ve ever heard of anypony by that name, but this is good. It’s a clue you didn’t have before.

I wish I could be there with you. Digging for information sounds like a wonderful way to spend the day, especially when it’s helping a friend. But my schedule’s too busy lately to take the time away from Equestria.

Still, I’m going to keep the journal with me for the next few days. That way, if you need help, or if you just want to talk, I’ll be able to answer right away.

Good luck, Sunset. I hope you find what you’re looking for.

Your friend,

Princess Twilight Sparkle

P. S.: Even if I can’t get away from Equestria, I’d be more than happy to do a little research on my end. Just let me know!

The redhead smiled. “Thanks, Twilight.”

She checked her phone. It was getting close to when she was supposed to meet her friends. She’d better get ready. Sunset retreated into the bathroom, rinsing the food from her mouth and giving herself a good once over. Her hair was a complete mess.

Grabbing her brush, she began to carefully work out the tangles, smoothing her wavy tresses back into place. After that, she scrubbed at her face, luxuriating in the feel of the warm water against her skin.

Smiling, she gave herself another examination. She still looked a bit tired, but at least she didn’t look like she’d just rolled out of bed, even if she sort of had, and…

Steam billowed out from the shower stall, turning the room into a miniature sauna as she stepped out onto the carpeted floor. She wasn’t normally one for intensely hot showers, but after the cold temperatures she’d been enduring for months, even in her room in the staff quarters, it seemed called for.

Besides, she had her own bathroom now, so why not take advantage?

She smiled brightly, knowing that finally, she was free. Not stuck, not trapped or stranded, but free, and off to see the universe with that strange little man. Free to wander the stars. Free to be, well, whatever she wanted, she supposed.

The mirror had been completely fogged by her blazing shower, and she grabbed one of the bar towels she’d taken with her from the diner. Her fingers ran over the light blue lettering as the condensation cleared away, and her face became visible in the glass, “Welcome to Ice…”

Ice…

Her face…

Sunset snapped back to attention, holding her head as a dull ache throbbed in the back of her skull. “Not again,” she groaned.

She looked back into the mirror, clean and shining in the electric lights. Her frowning face stared back at her, dazed by whatever had passed through her head. “This has got to stop,” she said to her mirror self. Her reflection offered no comment, but as Sunset stared at her for another minute, she got the strangest sense that there was something wrong.

But that was stupid. There was nothing wrong with her reflection. This was the way she always was as a human.

Grunting in annoyance, she headed out, grabbing her jacket and slipping it over her shoulders. It was time to find answers.

Author's Note

I feel really silly about this, but after some more consideration, I decided that my use of “The Wizard of Oz”, as in, using the title completely straight, wasn’t the best approach. So, I changed it to The Wizard of Yoz.”

Hopefully I never have to do that again.

Also, for those of you that want to try your hand, there’s a special pun hidden in Rarity’s address, and no, not the one you probably think. See if you can figure it out.

Origin Unknown

Chapter 4: Origin Unknown

The plan they’d devised had been rather simple.

While many things differed between the human world and Equestria, from place names, geography, occupations, history, and even works of art, individuals, and more importantly, the names of individuals,remained fairly consistent.

Ponies or other creatures on Terra had a counterpart here on Earth. Some were only animals, such as Spike. Or sometimes, they weren’t in the same relative time or place. Such was the case with Starswirl the Bearded and Mage Meadowbrook, who had lived in Renaissance Italy and late 1800s Louisiana respectively, rather than over a millennium ago in the same country.

The fact remained, however, that they did exist. Therefore, Sunset’s doppelganger had to exist somewhere. Sunset herself had done a cursory search years ago and hadn’t turned up anything at the time, but then her past self had never had a team of half a dozen friends ready to help her.

And even if her counterpart proved elusive, there was still the matter of Manisha. If Sunset had known her back on Terra, then, logically, they should be able to find her doppelganger as well, and by extension, glean something about Sunset’s life.

It wasn’t exactly a whole lot to go on, but it was a lead that none of Princess Celestia’s agents had possessed. More than that, those agents hadn’t possessed human technology, which would, as the human Twilight astutely pointed out, make the job of gathering data much easier.

So it was that Sunset found herself walking up the steps of the Canterlot City Public Library main branch that afternoon, ready to search for her one mysterious friend with her six less mysterious ones.

The library’s architecture was actually rather similar to the one in Equestria, from the glass dome on top flanked by the two glass pyramids, to the twin unicorn statues that guarded the stairs. On Terra, the statues were there to represent the majesty of the great capital, originally founded by the unicorn tribe. On Earth, the pair, named Love and Wisdom, were meant to rival the famous stone lions of the New York Public Library, Patience and Fortitude. Sadly, they’d never gotten quite the same level of recognition.

Inside, the difference really showed. While there were shelves lined with books that stretched over multiple floors, computers lined many of the desks, users typing and clicking away at whatever they were working on. Sunset passed the main desk, hunting for any sign of her friends, before finally spotting them at a table in one of the study areas.

She waved her hand in greeting. “Hey, girls.”

“Sunset, darling!” answered Rarity. “I half-expected you to stay home.”

“How are you feeling?” asked Fluttershy.

“A bit tired,” she admitted, rubbing her eyes when she felt a wave of exhaustion. “But..” She trailed off, realizing that someone was missing. “Where’s—”

“I’m here!” cried Twilight, rushing up to the study area. She froze, covering her mouth with both hands. “I mean,” she looked around guiltily, her voice slipping to a near whisper. “I’m here.”

Sunset chuckled. “Anyway,” she turned back to the group. “I might be a little tired, but I’m still ready to go. There’s no way I’m sitting on the sidelines for this.”

“I hear that,” said Rainbow, her right knee bobbing up and down in a clear case of restless leg syndrome. “But what I don’t get is why we had to come here.” She grimaced. “I mean,” she looked at Twilight, “I get that you had a read along here earlier, but we could just do this stuff on our phones at home, right?”

Twilight pushed her glasses up her nose. “I find the library a much more conducive environment for research.”

“I like the library,” offered Fluttershy. “But I’ve only been to the Golden Oak,” she added, referring to the local institution in their neighborhood. “This one seems a bit…” the pink-haired girl looked around, eying the towering shelves. “Big.”

“In this case, that’s a good thing,” said Sunset. “Helps give us more privacy.” Their conversation wasn’t exactly something she wanted to be overheard. “So, are we ready to get started?”

“Actually,” said Twilight. “There was another reason I wanted us to meet here. I came up with a plan.”

“I thought we already had a plan,” complained Rainbow.

Twilight flinched. “W-Well…I mean…”

Sunset threw a glare in Rainbow’s direction. “Hey, do you think you could—”

“Ah, simmer down, Rainbow,” said Applejack, beating her to the punch. “You’re just angry cause Dusty Pages took your soccer ball.”

“It’s my lucky ball!”

“You’ll get it back,” Sunset told her plainly, clamping down her own wave of annoyance. These were her friends. There was no reason to get into a fight. She turned, giving Twilight a smile. “Go ahead.”

Twilight smiled back. “Alright.” Clearing her throat, she pulled a notebook out of her bag. “Now, to review,” she began, sounding like she was reciting a school project before a class. “We’re here to find information not only on Sunset’s past, but on Manisha, whoever she is.”

If she was still alive. That was the thought that bubbled up in Sunset’s head, and she immediately shoved it back down into the well of fear it had crawled up from.

She’d been trying to avoid that line of thinking ever since last night. While the precise details of her nightmare were still unknown, all indications were that Manisha had been in some kind of danger, if her cries of “She’s in there,” or “Let me through,” and “I have to help her!” were anything to go by. The pain that haunted her at the sound of Manisha’s name also didn’t suggest anything good, either.

But on the other hand, her brain had countered, it had also been a nightmare, so it didn’t necessarily reflect reality, and Manisha could still be alive somewhere on Terra. It also didn’t mean something had happened to the Manisha on Earth, either.

Her past deserved to be found, no matter the outcome, but all the same, she clung desperately to the hope that Manisha wasn’t gone.

“While we could stick to Googolplex searches,” Twilight continued, “that may not provide the ultimate answer.”

She looked to Sunset. “You said you tried searching for yourself once?”

Sunset nodded, snapped out of her thoughts. “Didn’t go through everything, but I did a decent search and didn’t find any trace of the other me.” She really should have done more to find her counterpart, if only to learn about her own past. But at the time, all she’d cared about was the reasonable assurance that she wasn’t going to run into herself on the street.

Twilight nodded back. “Which is why we should take advantage of the Canterlot City Library’s superior resources to explore other possible avenues of research.” She waved the notebook. “I made a list of the alternatives we should try…I mean, if you girls want to do them all at once,” she floundered. “I suppose we could start with internet searches, but the results could still be low, so we could maximize time by covering our bases.”

Sunset hummed in agreement. Considering there were seven of them here, having all of them doing the same sort of internet searches would be more than a little redundant.

“Sounds like a great idea, Twi. Don’t make much sense for us all to be goin’ through the same hay bale,” said Applejack, mirroring Sunset’s thoughts. “What do you have in mind?”

Twilight practically beamed. “Well, we could look into the nature of the name ‘Manisha’. It’s fairly unusual, so gathering up books on names, and even languages, could potentially tell us something.”

“I can get those,” said the farmer, tilting her Stetson. “And Rainbow can come with me.”

“Why me?” complained the athlete.

“Cause you’re always goin’ on about how fast you are,” answered the farm girl. “Might as well put those legs to use.”

“Ooh, I’ll come, too!” said Pinkie, bouncing up from her seat.

Twilight turned once again to address her. “That symbol,” she said, pointing to Sunset’s backpack. “You said it’s your…cutie mark? Do I have that right?”

Across the table, Rainbow Dash snickered. Sunset rolled her eyes. “Yeah. But what’s that got to do with researching my past?”

“You said those marks are important and rather individualized. It got me thinking of Holy Icon’s Theory of Symbolic Connection, the phenomenon where people tend to adorn themselves with a particular image, and I thought perhaps we could do an image search of your cutie mark and see if it’s been used before. We could even look through some books on solar imagery in case of something that hasn’t been digitized.”

The former unicorn sucked in a breath. “That’s…brilliant, Twi!” Oh, Celestia, how had she never thought of that before?! Sure, the theory didn’t ring any bells, but she’d noticed the phenomenon herself. How could she not, when Principal Celestia wore that painfully familiar sun-shaped pin on her lapel every day?

It had never even occurred to her to try searching for her own cutie mark. She resisted the urge to slap her forehead. Instead, her hand darted into her bag, yanking out a loose piece of notebook paper and a pen. “Here, I’ll draw it for you.”

Twilight’s cheeks flushed. “Thank you.”

“I’ll handle the image search, darling,” said Rarity with a polite, but knowing smile, taking the sketch once Sunset had completed it.

“And I’ll get the books,” said Fluttershy.

“There are a few other options we can try,” added Twilight. “But that should be good for now.”

With a round of agreements, everyone split to their various tasks, Rainbow, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy disappearing among the shelves of books, while Rarity went to use one of the library’s scanners to begin her image search.

“So, I guess that just leaves us with Googolplex, huh?” asked Sunset. She shifted in her chair, trying to get more comfortable. A day before, the idea of being alone with the purple bookworm might have made her flustered, but right now, her mind was too preoccupied with her past to give her future much weight.

It was funny how life could change so drastically.

“Yeah,” answered Twilight, playing with a loose lock of hair behind her ear.

“Nice plan, by the way,” said Sunset as she drew her flame red phone from her pocket. “Seriously, I never even thought of searching for my cutie mark.”

“You’re welcome. Organizing and planning are one of my specialties.” She pulled out her own phone, a deep purple, just like its owner. “Sunset?”

“Yeah?”

Twilight’s voice fell once again, slipping into a half-whisper as she stared directly into Sunset’s eyes. “We’ll find something, I promise.”

Rainbow Dash rushed through the reference section, searching for every book of names she could find. It was proving a bit harder than she thought, if only because she wasn’t used to searching for anything other than Daring Do. How were library books even organized, anyway?

But Twilight said finding these books was important. That it would cover their bases, try to get more done in less time. Rainbow didn’t have a problem with that at all. She was all about speed.

More than that, it could help Sunset.

Her mind flashed back to last night. Rainbow didn’t want to admit it, but Sunset’s nightmare had freaked her out. Freaked her out a lot. Her uncle had told her once that some of his Air Force buddies used to have nightmares like that when they came back from duty, but she’d never expected to see it herself, not among her friends. And to find out that Sunset had an entire chunk of her life missing…

Once, back during winter break, Rainbow Dash had failed. Applejack and Rarity’s little sisters, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, along with Scootaloo, who Rainbow thought of like an unofficial little sister, had framed Sunset for a string of cyber bully attacks.

Under the MyStable profile “Anon-a-Miss,” the three had leaked a number of personal secrets and photos on all of them, except for Sunset herself. Soon enough, they’d started sharing the secrets of the entire school. All because they’d been jealous of their sisters spending time with Sunset and not them.

Sunset had been trying to reform, to be a better person than the bully she’d been. Hell, she’d saved them from the Dazzlings! And yet, Rainbow, like the rest of them, like the rest of the school, had fallen for Anon-a-Miss hook, line, and sinker. They’d believed the worst in the girl the five of them had been asked to befriend, were friends with. They’d abandoned her.

Princess Twilight had said Rainbow’s counterpart in Equestria was the Element of Loyalty, and Rainbow could believe that. Even before all the magical stuff happened, loyalty had always been something the athlete had valued.

Her stomach twisted angrily as she grabbed another book.

But she wasn’t going to fail again. She turned the corner, racing back to the study area, her arms almost overflowing with books, only to collide with something large and solid. Rainbow Dash fell backwards, a shock of pain sailing up from her tailbone as the books scattered around her.

“Hey, doofus, watch where you’re going…Dash?”

Rainbow looked up, and her eyes widened in shock.

“Gilda?!”

Sunset sighed, rubbing her eyes against the glare of the screen. She and Twilight were silently digging through the internet, as they had for the past fifteen to twenty minutes. Rarity, who had returned to the table for her own search, had left temporarily to use the bathroom.

For a minute, the former unicorn contemplated joining her, if only to splash water on her face, because so far, the search was going about as well as when she’d searched for her counterpart the first time. Which was to say: not well at all.

She’d begun by simply Googolplexing herself, but quickly dropped that when the first page showed the same sorts of results she’d seen last time, plus what little digital presence she’d added over the five years she’d been in this dimension. Then she’d tried searching for Manisha, and quickly found herself faced with a puzzling little conundrum.

From the way she’d pronounced the name in her fevered sleep, it would seem to be spelled with an M-A-N, like “Manhattan” was on Earth. That’s the way she’d chosen to spell it. But the logical part of her brain protested that it wasn’t right.

You were supposed to put an E next to an N when spelling names, rather like how U went after Q, or I before E except after C. Sure, there were some exceptions, but that was the rule. And yes, once she’d crossed to this side of the mirror, she’d realized her home dimension was full of equine pun place names, but they weren’t meant to be puns. It was a language thing.

The proper way to spell it should have been “Maneisha.” Writing her friend’s name that way, however, left Sunset feeling odd. Still aching terribly inside, but off-kilter, too.

Had she mispronounced her friend’s name in her sleep? Had she always mispronounced it? Or perhaps Manisha’s parents had been the type of ponies who favored strange, uncommon names or spelling variants, like with Norman back at CHS.

Releasing another sigh as the name “Manisha” failed to bring up anything in a search of Canterlot City, she swapped her phone for the notebook she was using to keep track of potential leads, angrily writing out “Manisha + Canterlot = Nothing”.

She had to figure this out. She had to find Manisha. She had to…

She was seated cross-legged on the floor, buried deep in the library’s reference section. Books lay scattered around her like autumn leaves. Her fingers thumbed through a chemistry text, searching for answers to the problem that had plagued her mind.

At the edge of her hearing, she detected the sound of the librarian, deep in conversation with someone. Her barnacle of an officer, possibly. She was pretty sure he’d followed her in here. He’d been watching her like a hawk. Just this morning, he’d come up to her, all “You been on the straight and narrow, young lady?”

She scoffed at that. As if she was a lady.

She scooted a bit closer to the shelf, trying to listen in. Yeah, that was him, alright, chatting up the head librarian as if he was one of the boys at school and desperate for a date to the dance.

Desperate for something, at least, she decided.

So, perhaps he wasn’t entirely interested in what she was doing. And it wasn’t like the librarian could grass on her, anyway. She was here “for school,” after all, and she had her homework in her bag to prove it.

Still, he’d been on her tail. Had she been careless in her secret activities? No. If she’d been caught by Constable Romeo over there, he would have told her mother, and if he’d done that, her mother would have made it known all too well.

It might have just been because he was new, she reasoned, replacing her previous warden after he’d broken his hip and retired. New and eager to bust the “infamous”…there was a blank in her mind where the name should have been, but the ragged edges of the hole carried a bitter aftertaste, one of humiliation and the grit of playground sand.

But if the new guy, whatever his name was, she’d never bothered to learn it. If Constable Romeo was anything like the other so-called “officers” she’d met, he’d probably stop caring soon enough. The last one had, and eventually, she’d be off their leash entirely.

She snatched up an encyclopedia. Yeah, he’d stop caring, just like how the rest of them hadn’t cared last year when Manisha…

Her fingers clenched the book cover, her cuticles turning white at the pressure. No! She shouldn’t…wouldn’t…think about that. She had answers to find. Manisha wouldn’t want her to stop. She’d been fascinated by her experiments, by her passions.

Anyway, that div…wait, what was a div…? He wouldn’t stop her, let alone catch her, and he certainly wouldn’t catch her doing her experiments. Those experiments had been going so well lately, too. This was the next step. She needed to crack the recipe.

If she could have gotten a hold of a sample, it would have been easier, but nicking it was too risky, even for her. Fourteen years old or not, if she got caught, that was prison…prison for what…and she didn’t even entertain the idea that anybody would sell it to her. Not with all the stuff going on in the news, and not that she had the kind of money to make it worth anyone’s while. No, the only way forward was to do it herself.

She flipped through yet another encyclopedia, searching for the right entries, before scribbling in a notebook she kept hidden from everyone. Its pages were littered with chemical and structural formulas, as well as notes on proportions, but no names. Names would have been too dangerous.

She’d already figured out how to produce the primary ingredient from materials at hand last month. She just needed to work out how to combine it with the other stuff in the proper ratios to get not only the right compound, but the right potency.

She smiled. Once she figured out this stuff, who knew, she might even be able to make her own custom formulas! But that was a possibility for later. Right now, she just needed a few more ideas. Then she’d test them out later tonight.

Just a bit more time, and she’d piece out how to properly make gelign…

Sunset shook her head as reality wove itself back around her. With a start, she realized what had just happened, and desperately tried to cling to whatever had passed through her head, trying to hold onto some scrap of information.

But it was useless. Her brain felt completely empty, like a popped water balloon. “Horseapples,” she swore, louder than intended.

Twilight turned her head away from the screen. “Sunset, what’s…” she saw the look on the redhead’s face. “You zoned out again, didn’t you?”

“Yup,” Sunset groused. “And I can’t remember a thing.” Sweet Celestia, that was getting really annoying. She looked pleadingly at the other girl. “Did you find anything so far?”

To her disappointment, Twilight shook her head. “No, not yet. But it’s still early.” She smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ve never failed a research project yet.”

Sunset smiled back. “Thanks, Sparky.”

“You’re wel—Sparky?”

Sunset blinked. Where had that come from? Sure, she used nicknames, she’d called Princess Twilight “Twi” lots of times, but the alicorn had been the one to suggest it. She didn’t give people nicknames right off the bat. Not unless they were insults, and that was the old her. “I’m sorry,” she apologized quickly. “I’m not sure why I did that.”

“N-No, it’s fine,” sputtered Twilight. She grinned. “I think I like it. Besides, it’s a more efficient way to distinguish Princess Twilight and I in conversation.” Her eyes moved past Sunset to the workbook sitting on the table. “What’s that?”

Sunset glanced at the page. Her brow furrowed in confusion. “…What the hay?”

Below the search notes she’d written, there was now a complex series of chemical formulas and equations. The entire paper was awash in a sea of nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. The handwriting was definitely hers, but she didn’t remember writing it. “Maybe I did that when I was zoned out?” she guessed, though even to her ears, it sounded pretty half-hearted.

Twilight regarded the notes curiously. “Do you think it’s a lead?”

Sunset shook her head. “Can’t be. I was seven. I might have been ahead of my grade, but not that far ahead. I guess I must have just doodled it unconsciously or something.” Which was odd, because she’d never done anything like that before. Sure, she’d doodled idly on pages, but those were the normal, artistic sort, not chemical equations. She wasn’t even sure what these were supposed to be.

Twilight hummed, taking the notebook in her hands. “These equations are perfectly balanced,” she remarked. “But this structural formula is incomplete.” She hummed again. “I can’t say I recognize these myself, although it appears to be some kind of complex nitrogen-based compound.”

Twilight handed her back the notebook. “It figures you’d be able to do something like that without thinking, I suppose,” she added with a little laugh.

Sunset tilted her head. “What does that mean?”

“You beat me,” explained Twilight.

Beat her? “What, you mean in the Decathlon? No, I didn’t. You beat me.”

“Only in the last round. I’m talking about the first round. Chemistry, remember?” Twilight looked at her with something akin to awe. “Sure, my score was excellent and I moved on to the next round, but your score was through the roof! I’ve never met anyone who could beat me in science like that before. You’re amazing.”

Sunset’s hand slipped behind her head. Her cheeks felt suddenly warm. “Thanks,” she laughed. “Magic’s my special talent, but my alchemy instructor back home always did say he’d never had a student like me.” And of course, on the day of the Decathlon, she’d just been in top form, even for her.

That was when Rarity came around the corner. “I’m back…” She trailed off, blue eyes sliding over the scene before her. “Did something happen?” she asked politely.

“N-No!” asserted the redhead, her face flushing just a little bit more. “I mean, um…”

“She zoned out again,” said Twilight.

“Oh dear,” said a frowning Rarity. “Did she say—”

“No,” Sunset interrupted morosely. She looked around. “Where’s Fluttershy?”

“I’m not sure,” said Rarity with concern. “I would have thought she’d be back by now.”

“We’re back!” cried Pinkie, bouncing up to the study area, Applejack close behind her, their arms full of various books.

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Not all of you.”

“Not really sure what’s keepin’ Dash,” drawled Applejack.

“I bet she found a good book on pranks!” offered Pinkie, dropping her literary trove on the table.

“Hey, guys!” said Rainbow, rushing up to the group. Sunset smirked. Speak of the Rainbow, and she shall appear.

“Hey, Dashie!” greeted Pinkie. “We were just talking about you! Did you find a book on…” she trailed off as someone else followed in Rainbow’s wake.

The girl was tall and muscular, and appeared to be around their age, with sharp amber eyes and a prominent, aquiline nose. She wore gold-colored pants, a white crop top, and a brown leather jacket with a fur-lined collar. Her hair was white, cropped short into a pixie cut with long, purple tipped bangs.

“Hey,” she said nonchalantly with a shrug of her broad shoulders.

“This is Gilda Ironclaw,” explained Rainbow. “We went to Junior Flight Camp together. Gilda, this is the rest of my band.”

Everyone made their introductions, and Gilda passed an amber eye over each one of them. For a moment, Sunset felt the sensation of being judged. It was something she was unfortunately all too familiar with, though not usually from total strangers, or strangers in her own age group.

Gilda’s attention turned back to Rainbow. “Where do you want me to set these down?” She raised up the pile of books in her arms.

“Put them on the table, please,” answered Twilight, already busying herself with sorting the books the others brought back.

Gilda shot her an irritated glance, and then dropped the books next to her with a thunderous bang that made Twilight jump in her seat and her glasses practically fall off her face.

“There you go,” said Gilda flatly.

Sunset grimaced. What the hay was this girl’s problem? Sunset opened her mouth, ready to tell her off, when Rainbow started talking again, seemingly oblivious to Gilda’s attitude.

“Hey, Gilda, remember when Coach Vernier took us to the flight simulator? That was totally…” The conversation rolled down memory lane, so Sunset tuned it out, and instead paid attention to Twilight.

“You okay, Sparky?” she whispered.

“Yeah,” answered the bookworm, putting her glasses back in place. “I was just startled, that’s all.”

“She’s a tad rude, isn’t she?” whispered Rarity as the rest of the girls gathered at the table.

“Definite grumpypants,” agreed Pinkie.

Sunset nodded. She didn’t like the girl much, either. But on the other hand, she was Rainbow’s friend, and given her own background, not giving Gilda a chance would be hypocritical. “Maybe she’ll mellow out?” she offered half-heartedly.

“I could help with that,” said Pinkie.

“Hey, is that your uncle’s B-3?” Rainbow practically shouted, which made Twilight cringe.

“Yeah,” said Gilda proudly, her fingers tracing across the part of her jacket where the word “Ironclaw” had been sewn on. “Dad found it in the attic.”

“Man,” said Rainbow. “You’re lucky. My uncle lost his.”

“What’s a B-3?” Sunset whispered to Twilight, feeling more than a little lost. As far as she knew, B-3 was some kind of vitamin. Or was that B-12?

“It’s a style of bomber jacket,” Twilight replied. “B-style jackets are meant for crew members, while A-style are for…” Twilight’s words died away as something shot up from the depths of Sunset’s mind.

Black jacket. Hers? No, not hers. Or was it? Yes and no. Hers…not hers…same color…but not it. Not right. Wrong shape. Too empty. Not leather. Cloth. Black cloth covered in symbols, in objects, that clicked together when she picked it up. Collected and assembled with so much care. The jacket she’d had her eye on for so long. The one she’d wanted. She’d loved it so much.

Where was it now? Where was her…

The next thing she knew, Applejack’s arm was around her, keeping her upright in her seat. “Whoa, there, sugarcube,” said the farmer. “Don’t you go fallin’ over now.”

“Dude,” said Gilda, staring at her with mild alarm. “What’s wrong with you? You looked major league sick just now.”

“It’s nothing,” Sunset groaned, wincing at a particularly sharp spike of pain in the back of her head. “I’m fine.”

“Hello, everyone,” came Fluttershy’s quiet greeting. “I’m sorry I took so long…oh, my.” Her eyes clapped onto Sunset. “What happened?”

“Sunset had another one of those flashbacks,” said Applejack. “Made her a mite dizzy.”

“Got a headache, too,” added the fire-haired girl.

“Pardon me if this is rude, but I cannot resist. I believe I may be able to assist.”

Sunset looked up to see that, like Rainbow, Fluttershy hadn’t returned alone. Behind her was a woman, perhaps in her thirties, with gray skin marked by darker patches, and blue eyes, and a black and white mohawk. Her clothes were simple, dark pants and a shirt, and the only real ornamentation were a pair of gold earrings and a multi-layered gold necklace.

“Fluttershy, dear,” asked Rarity. “Who is this?”

“Zecora is the name I go by,” answered the woman. “And you must be the friends of dear Fluttershy.”

“She’s an herbalist who lives around the block from me,” said Fluttershy. “When I told her I was here with my friends, she said she wanted to meet all of you.”

“Oh, yeah,” added Rainbow. “You’re the one who sold Fluttershy that medicine she gave to Tank, right?” She smiled. “Thanks a lot for that.”

“You must be Rainbow Dash,” Zecora said smiling. “Fluttershy often mentions her friend with colors so brash. In truth, from her descriptions, I believe I know all your names.” Her attention turned to Gilda, and she tilted her head. “But I confess, for you, the question remains.”

Eyes darting away, the teenager shoved her hands sharply into her jacket pockets. “Gilda,” she answered tersely. She looked at Rainbow. “Hey, Dash, why don’t we ditch the library and get some lunch? There’s still a lot to catch up on.”

Rainbow frowned. “I can’t. I gotta help my friends right now.”

Gilda visibly stiffened. “With all that?” she gestured at the stacks of books. “Looks to me like they’ve already got enough people to work on…whatever egghead thing this is. And your friend’s got people to look after her. Come on, Dash.” Gilda sounded almost pleading. “Don’t leave me hanging.”

Rainbow looked between them and Gilda, her lips pressed together in a grimace. “I…I…” The athlete shook her head, sending her rainbow hair to and fro. “I’m sorry, Gilda, I can’t. But we’ll totally catch up next time, okay? I promise!”

Gilda matched Rainbow’s expression with a grimace of her own, tight and angry. “Sure, Dash…sure.” She waved stiffly, and as she did, her sleeve slid down her arm, revealing the bottom edge of a tattoo.

In the moments before Gilda turned and walked away, Sunset caught the barest glimpse of something red and…was it a talon? Holding…something? An American eagle, perhaps? Her uncle was in the Air Force, so that would fit.

The headache pulsed again, harder this time. “Ugh.”

“I see you are still in some pain, Sunset Shimmer,” said Zecora, sitting down beside her in an open chair. “If you would like, I have a few remedies to make your headache dimmer.” She pulled out a bottle from her purse and took out a pair of nondescript pills. “An herbal formula of my own design, which should make the pain start to decline.”

“Thanks,” said Sunset, quickly taking the pills and swallowing them. Normally she wouldn’t take stuff like this from strangers, but Fluttershy knew her, and besides, she really didn’t feel like being picky at the moment.

“Pardon me for askin’,” said Applejack. “But why are you talkin’ in rhyme?”

“Worry not, offense, I do not take,” smiled Zecora. “Speaking in rhyme is a choice I make.”

“Cultural significance, right?” guessed Sunset. True to her word, the herbs had already begun to beat back the pain and dizziness. “Musical language of the traditional healer?”

The striped woman’s eyes widened in pleasant surprise. “Yes, indeed,” she beamed. “Healing others has always been my creed. And to that end, I follow in the footsteps of old. I must say, it is not often that I meet someone who does not need to be told.”

“I’ve been around,” was all the answer Sunset gave. In truth, she recognized it from Terra. To be more specific, from the zebras.

Over the years, Sunset had at times wondered what pony tribe or species certain individuals were back in her home dimension. It was a thought she didn’t give much attention to, since there was no way to confirm any of her guesses. Besides that, what little speculation she could offer ran the risk of going into potentially stereotypical, tribalist lines of thinking that, even in the dark days of her old self, she’d always opposed.

With Zecora, however, the striped pattern on her skin was rather a dead giveaway, even without the rhyming. It was too widespread, and too…organic, for lack of a better word, to be any form of tattoo art.

“Fluttershy tells me you are on a search for truth,” said Zecora softly. “Quite the burden for one of your youth.”

“But one I have to take on,” she replied. “I’ve spent too long just setting it aside, and now I have a lead.” She frowned. “Not that it’s turning up much,” she mumbled dejectedly.

Zecora seemed to sense her frustration. “Be patient, young one, all things come in time. It was not in a day that I learned to speak in rhyme.” She chuckled. “What you seek may have been long lost, but one day, the door to truth will be crossed.”

“She’s right, you know,” said Twilight. “There has to be an answer somewhere.”

“Yeah.” Sunset smiled. “Thanks for the herbs, Zecora. I feel a lot better.”

“You are welcome, my friend, and trust that you will find what you seek in the end.” The woman paused as the telltale sound of a text message rang out from her pocket. Her phone, Sunset noted, was held in a zebra-print case. “Unfortunately, I must take my leave. With your friends, may you find reprieve.”

“Oh, you have to go already?” said Fluttershy.

“Awww,” complained Pinkie. “I wanted to have fun rhyming with you!”

Zecora chuckled. “I would be delighted to engage in a game of rhyme. But now is not the time. A problem, there seems to be. My neighbor has misplaced her house key. It is no dire crisis, but I must attend nonetheless.” With a polite nod to all of them, Zecora disappeared around a corner.

With Zecora gone, it was just them in the study area again. “So, did y’all find anything?” asked Applejack.

“Not so far,” Sunset admitted.

“No,” said Twilight.

“I regret to say that I didn’t find anything, either,” said Rarity. “My apologies, darling.”

The former unicorn suppressed a sigh. She’d really thought her cutie mark would turn up something. She turned a rueful smile to Twilight. “Looks like you were right on the money getting those books, Sparky.”

Twilight returned her smile. “Yeah, guess I was.”

“…Sparky?” rasped Rainbow.

Sunset turned to see the rest of her friends staring intently at her. Her amber cheeks flushed. “It’s a new nickname,” she explained quickly. “Now, come on, we’ve got all of these to go through.” She gestured to the books.

Together, the seven of them silently began to leaf through the pages. Sunset’s eyes moved quickly over the words, determined to find something.

Gilda trudged her way across the library, trying her best not to think about Dash, and failing miserably at it.

Her phone buzzed. Gilda snatched it from her pocket, hoping for a split second it was from Dash, only to have those same hopes scuttled when she read the name on the text: Mom.

Are you okay? Is your father treating you well?

Gilda scowled. Her mother was still trying to figure out a way to get custody. Like Gilda would ever stay with her. Not after she’d abandoned her dad. She considered sending off an insult, but restrained herself, if only because she wasn’t sure how many texts she had left.

Then she remembered how her social life wasn’t the most thriving, and sent it off anyway.

A few seconds later, a familiar ringtone played from the tiny speakers, and Gilda found herself smiling. “Dad?” she answered.

“Hey, kiddo.” He sounded tired, but he always sounded tired these days. “What are you up to?”

“Nothin’, Dad,” she said with a shrug. “Just at the library for school junk.”

“School’s not junk, Gilda,” her father chided. “But I’m glad you’re keeping up.”

Gilda bit her lip, unwilling and unable to tell her dad about the Fs she’d gotten on her math and history tests this past week.

“Anyway, I wanted to tell you that I won’t be home this afternoon. I’ve got a meeting to get to, and it could take a while, so you’ll probably be on your own for dinner.”

The unspoken word again hung in the air. Gilda didn’t even bother asking what the meeting was for. She already knew it was with his attorney. The attorney he could barely afford. Her free hand tightened into a fist.

“I left some microwave pizza in the fridge for you,” her father continued. “Pepperoni and anchovies, your favorite.”

“Thanks, Dad. I…” she paused, pushing down the anger and the stupid tears that pricked her eyes. “Do you think you’ll be home tomorrow? There’s a game on. We could catch it on TV.”

“Maybe, Gilda,” came his tired answer, and Gilda felt herself deflate.

“How’s work going for you?” her father asked. “That Mr…what did you say his name was? Is that going okay?”

“Mr. Redbeak’s been good, yeah,” Gilda answered. “Going to get my next paycheck soon.” Which was a really good thing because she’d already had to use up her last two to fix her computer.

“Good.” She could practically see her father nodding. “Look, kiddo, I know things have been hard with your mother and all, but we’ll get through this. I promise. Just hang in there for me.”

“Sure, Dad…” she answered sadly.

“I have to go now. You keep up with your schoolwork.”

The line went dead, and Gilda shoved her phone violently back into her pocket and continued her trek through the library. Her footsteps grew heavier as her emotions simmered. No Dad, no Dash. It would just be her again. Her and that big fat rat that lived in the wall.

Why hadn’t Dash wanted to hang out? They’d been friends longer than those dweebs, even if they’d lost touch. Didn’t that count for anything? Okay, sure, one of them was sick or something, but still, she had people to look after her, including that Zecora…

She stopped as her right forearm began to itch. Rolling up her sleeve halfway, she began to scratch. Hans told her that itching was normal, but it was just so annoying. “Stupid ink,” she muttered.

“You aren’t complaining about my work, are you, small fry?”

Gilda spun around to see Hans standing in front of her, his big, brawny chest barely contained by his shirt. He smiled down at her, a kind of thin, sharp smile that did nothing to put you at ease. “Tat still itching? I told you, it’ll settle.”

“It still bugs me,” she mumbled.

Hans scoffed. “Quit whining, small fry.”

Gilda grit her teeth at Hans’s nickname for her. It wasn’t fair. Gilda wasn’t small. She was five eight, last she checked. But then again, Hans was just over seven feet tall, so he probably saw most people as short.

“What are you even doing here?” she groused. “I thought you had work.”

The large man shrugged, brushing away the dark brown bangs that fell into his eyes. “Call went faster than I thought. Figured I’d come by to get a few art books,” he said casually. “Imagine my surprise when I saw you here.” His steely gray eyes narrowed dangerously. “Interesting company you were talking to.”

“Rainbow Dash is an old friend,” she defended, doing her best to keep her voice steady. “We went to Junior Flight Camp when we were kids. Her uncle and mine were in the Air Force together.”

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Mr. Redbeak or any of the people that worked for him in general. He’d done good by her, getting her the job at the salvage yard, helping her out, making her feel like she belonged, even if there weren’t a lot of others there her age. But Hans always scared her. His size and general demeanor just screamed threat, and it had taken a great deal of nerve just to let him near her arm with a tattoo needle. Honestly, she was pretty sure he liked people being intimidated by him.

This seemed to calm the large man, because he smiled again, though like before, it did nothing to soothe Gilda. “Is that so?” he said. Then his expression darkened again, and his next question was as pointed as a steel lance. “And what about her?”

“Don’t know her,” Gilda replied quickly. “She’s a friend of one of Dash’s new fr…bandmates.”

Hans nodded. “Good. Just remember to mind the company you keep. I’m sure Mr. Redbeak would be disappointed to hear you’d fallen in with the wrong crowd.” Suddenly, there was a buzzing sound, and Hans reached into his pocket to pull out his phone.

“Keep your schedule free, small fry,” said Hans as he put his phone away. “Mr. Redbeak may have an extra job for you soon.”

“You mean…” she searched her memory for some of the other businesses Mr. Redbeak owned. “Like repossession or something?”

Hans smiled again. A bigger, toothier smile that sent Gilda’s heart racing. “Something like that.” He turned toward the library’s front doors. “And remember,” His voice was casual on the surface, but there was a distrustful edge just underneath. He pointed to his forearm, and then to hers. “You fly with the eagles, now.”

With that, Hans left, and Gilda breathed a sigh of relief. “I fly with the eagles,” she said quietly. The motto soothed her, a balm against Hans, against her life. “I fly with the eagles, high above the world.”

Underneath her jacket sleeve, her tattoo itched again.

As it turned out, books on solar imagery had provided no documented evidence of her cutie mark. A few similar designs, that was bound to happen with something like the sun, but not an exact match. As far as history was concerned, her two-tone sun, with its yin-yang center, was unique.

It was a compliment Sunset could have really done without.

There was only one thing of substantial value, relatively-speaking, that they’d discovered. According to Names From Across the Globe, “Maneisha” was a girl’s name meaning “wisdom” or “desire”, and derived itself from the Sanskrit language. This suggested her friend came from somewhere in the vicinity of India or its neighboring countries.

“I know it’s not much,” consoled Twilight as they passed between the ever vigilant Love and Wisdom. “But it’s something to follow up on. We can ask around any local communities in the city. Since India is the largest country in that region, we should start there, and work our way outwards.”

Sunset nodded slowly, her mind turning on the new piece of information. As far as she could remember, though that was, of course, the problem, she’d never met anypony from Maneipuri, Terra’s equivalent of India. She didn’t think Canterlot even had any Maneipurian immigrants back when she was still living there.

Princess Celestia often went on diplomatic trips to other countries. Over the years, she’d taken Sunset on a number of them. With the princess, she’d seen Prance, Germaney, Eagleland, and even Saddle Arabia, among others.

But Sunset had never gone on the trips to Maneipuri, never been to that particular part of the world. It made her wonder, if they had visited Maneipuri together, would Sunset’s memories have come back sooner?

Then again, they were hardly coming back, were they?

“But where would we start asking?” asked Fluttershy.

Twilight rubbed her chin contemplatively. “Well, Cadance told me about a new Indian restaurant opening up near downtown. We could ask the owner if he could get us in touch with the local community.”

“That sounds like a great idea!” said Pinkie. “And we can get some food along the way!”

“So, I guess we’ll do all of that tomorrow?” Sunset asked. It was already five o’clock, and she knew the girls had other things to get to.

“Tomorrow,” said Twilight determinedly. “I’ll get the address of the restaurant from Cadance and text it to all of you. Twilight hummed, her face brightening. “Actually, there is one other place we could look: Town Hall.”

“Why there, darling?” asked Rarity.

“We’d be able to go through local birth records,” Twilight explained. Her expression suddenly dimmed. “Oh, but we’d need an adult with us.”

“No sweat,” said Rainbow. “My mom could drive us around.”

“You sure?” asked Sunset. A lot of adults would probably be less than okay with transporting a bunch of teenage girls on a Sunday.

Rainbow waved a hand. “Trust me.”

“Alright, then we’ll meet up tomorrow.” She turned, heading off toward her bike, when Fluttershy cut in.

“Um, Sunset? Maybe you should take the bus with me.”

Sunset turned back. “Why would I need to take the bus, Shy?” She pointed her thumb to where her fire red motorcycle sat ready and waiting. “I’ve already got a ride.”

“W-Well,” said the shy girl. “It’s just that, you’ve, um, zoned out twice today already, and I thought it might be dangerous for you to, you know…be driving at all.”

“Shy’s got a point there,” said Applejack. “With the way you’ve been, I don’t think you oughta be gettin’ behind a wheel.”

“I got here just fine earlier,” she argued, though she knew they had a point. She’d already had two “episodes”, for lack of a better word, in the library, and that wasn’t even counting the one from this morning. At the same time though, the thought of giving up her bike for Celestia knew how long grated against her, not to mention the problem of leaving it here.

“Please?” said Twilight, staring at her with those big, magenta eyes.

Sunset’s resistance crumbled like an ancient piece of pottery. “I…I can’t leave my bike here,” she said weakly, voicing her most practical concern.

“I can take it back to your place in my truck,” offered Applejack.

Sunset cast one more glance at her bike. “Okay, Applejack,” she said reluctantly. “But be careful with it. I don’t want to have to rebuild it again.”

“Don’t you worry none, Sunset,” assured Applejack as she began pulling the bike over to her truck. “It’ll be as safe as a baby in her momma’s arms.”

With that particular obstacle taken care of, Sunset followed Twilight and Fluttershy silently to the bus stop. Thankfully, the bus was already there.

“You built your bike?” asked Twilight, sounding genuinely impressed.

“Yup,” Sunset beamed. “Scavenged the parts and put it together myself.” On reflection, it wasn’t something to be entirely proud of. Sure, she’d taken a lot of parts from the local junkyard, but she hadn’t paid for them. And for all the parts she hadn’t been able to sneak out, she’d cannibalized from other people’s motorcycles.

At the same time, there was something thrilling about putting together her own custom set of wheels. The fact that it had monumentally helped her understanding of auto mechanics was simply another plus.

They stepped up into the interior of the bus. Sunset had just gotten up the last of the steps when the driver, a tall man in a blue cap, held out his hand. “Fare, please,” he said.

Sunset froze.

“Tickets please…”

Hands of steel clamped around her skull. Or were they claws? Paws? A part of her brain scrambled to light her horn, to throw this…whatever it was…off of her, but her magic failed to ignite, the comforting weight of her horn non-existent.

She reached desperately into her pocket for the device, the one that he’d given her. Who? She couldn’t remember his name, or even his face. It was someone…somepony…very, very sad. Sad, and also dead. If she could only get it out.

It was thrown from her grip before she could use it. She struggled fiercely, swinging backward to hit her assailant, but only injured herself in the process when bone collided with metal. “Kingpin!” she cried. “Kingpin…Come on! Help me!”

There was a man…stallion, crouched in the barren landscape, staring fixedly at a medallion with a blue eye. His face was still as vacant as it had always been. No wonder they’d renamed him…what had they renamed him, and who were they?

“May I see your ticket, please, miss?” said her attacker in a tinny, emotionless voice. The agonizing pressure mounted ever higher, and she half-imagined she could hear the crack of her own skull, breaking apart under the ruthless grip. Or would she even hear it, before her brain matter was squashed by this stupid monstrosity?

Darkness was creeping its way into the edge of her vision. “Kingpin, please…”

When she came to, her heart was beating wildly in her chest. The driver was still there, staring straight into her eyes. Adrenaline coursing through her system, she took an instinctive step back, only to find her heel slipping off the edge of the stairs.

She yelped when two hands grabbed each of her arms, pulling her further into the safety of the bus. The former unicorn shook her head, trying to clear the cobwebs, trying to get herself to calm down. Her skull ached even more fiercely than it had before.

“Uh…” the bus driver began uncertainly, “is your friend okay?”

“She’s fine,” Twilight said quickly. “Just a little sleep-deprived. Here you go, sir!” She handed the driver the fare, coins jangling together in the collection basket.

The driver, however, kept his gaze on Sunset. “My name’s Wheel Round, miss.”

“O…kay…” was the only answer Sunset could offer before Twilight and Fluttershy ushered her to the back of the bus.

“What happened?” she whispered once they’d found a seat.

“You zoned out again,” said Fluttershy.

Twilight’s brow creased with worry. “That’s three times in one day.”

“Four,” Sunset corrected, trying not to groan from the pain in her head. “Zoned out this morning in the bathroom.”

The crease in Twilight’s forehead deepened. “It seems like they’re getting more frequent.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing?” suggested Fluttershy. “I mean, we’re all looking right now.” She ducked behind her hair. “Well, except for you nearly falling down the stairs, that is.”

“Yeah, except for that,” Sunset joked. “Ugh,” she groaned. “And this killer headache.”

Fluttershy’s blue eyes widened. “Oh, my, it hurts again? You poor thing. I’ll ask Zecora for more of those herbs.”

“One good thing did come out of it,” said Twilight.

Sunset’s face snapped to her purple-haired friend, her headache momentarily forgotten. “I said something?”

To her immense relief, Twilight nodded. “You said ‘Kingpin.’”

Well, that explained why the driver had introduced himself. She rubbed her chin. The name didn’t seem familiar. But then, it wouldn’t be. And why had a bus ride triggered it, of all things? Sweet Celestia, these episodes were so hard to understand.

“Did I say anything else?”

“No,” said Fluttershy, lips pursed together in concern. “But…you seemed like you were in distress.” Fluttershy hesitated, then added. “Do you think…maybe he got hurt?”

“I don’t know.” She was desperately hoping against it. It was bad enough that the possibility hung over Manisha. But to think that somepony else from her past had gotten hurt…what had her earliest years been like, filled with fear and pain? Maybe there was a good reason her mind was blank.

“It’s another name to add to the list,” said Twilight, pulling out her notebook to jot it down. “For now, though, we all need rest.”

At the mention of rest, Sunset yawned, the exhaustion of last night catching up to her. “Good point, Sparky,” she yawned again. She curled herself up into the cushion as she felt the bus start to move. “I’m going to try and take a nap. Wake me up if I do anything, okay?” Having a freaky nightmare on a city bus was as high on her list of priorities as getting a neon pink crewcut.

“Sure, Sunset,” said Twilight softly. “Try and sleep.”

Sunset closed her eyes, feeling the gentle movement of the wheels underneath her. Before long, she found herself lulled into sleep.

In her dreams, she saw an arid, dusty world where a broken, brightly-painted bus lay abandoned by time, and the distant sounds of a circus drifted menacingly in the sun-baked air.

At about eleven in the morning, Sunset and her friends found themselves in front of The Tasty Treat, Canterlot City’s newest Indian restaurant. The cheerful wooden elephant head that hung over the door, combined with the rows of planted flowers on either side, seemed incredibly welcoming to all passersby.

The owner, a large, heavyset man with magenta eyes and dark raspberry-colored hair, by contrast, was far less welcoming.

“Please, sir,” said the former unicorn. “We only need a few minutes to ask you—”

“I don’t have time to be questioned by a group of teenage girls. I have a restaurant to run,” he snapped, before shutting the door in their faces.

“Wow,” said Rainbow after a pause. “What a grouch.”

“He’s certainly not going to attract customers with that attitude,” agreed Rarity.

Sunset had to agree. Beside her, Twilight looked downcast. “I’m sure we can find another place to start looking,” she consoled. Honestly, she was getting incredibly frustrated by the roadblocks, but seeing Twilight so hurt was too painful not to say something.

“…Hello?”

They all turned around to see a teenage girl standing only a few feet away. She brushed back a lock of wavy fuchsia hair. “Are you customers?” she asked, her voice ringing out with a strong Indian accent. “We aren’t quite open yet.”

“We just came here to ask the owner a few questions,” Sunset explained.

“Yeah,” added Pinkie. “But the owner was all super grumpy and slammed the door in our faces like WHAM!” She scowled, an expression that was totally at odds with her level of hyperactive energy. “It was really mean.”

“Oh no,” the girl sighed, fingers creasing her long fuchsia skirt, crumbling the little saffron flowers that decorated the hem. “Please forgive my father. He’s not usually like that. The restaurant just has him really stressed right now,” she begged, her voice thick on the r’s, while the middle of the word ‘restaurant’ sounded more like ‘tao.’

She gestured to the door. “My name is Saffron Masala. Please, follow me inside. We don’t open for another half an hour, so we have time to talk.” She flashed a hopeful smile. “And perhaps, if you want, you could stay for lunch?”

“We were plannin’ on gettin’ some grub here, anyway,” said Applejack, tipping her Stetson. “Mighty kind of you.”

“It’s no problem,” said Saffron. Her eyes fixed on them for another moment. “Do you all go to Cantarlot High?”

“No, silly,” Pinkie giggled. “We go to Canterlot High.”

Saffron’s brow furrowed. “That’s what I said.”

“Yes we do,” Sunset cut in before Pinkie ended up sticking her foot all the way down her throat. “How’d you know?”

“I just started there a few days ago,” answered Saffron. “I thought I’d seen you around.”

Pinkie Pie let out a horrified gasp and suddenly bounced up beside the girl. “I can’t believe I missed you transferring in!” she cried. Her arms wrapped tightly around Saffron’s middle. “Welcome to CHS!”

“T-Thank you,” replied Saffron, struggling for air against Pinkie’s patented “Super Welcome Hug.”

Once she’d pried herself free, Saffron moved past them, and flung open the front door of the restaurant. “Welcome to The Tasty Treat!”

Sunset had seen pictures of Maneipuri a few times, and even India here on Earth. Walking into The Tasty Treat was like stepping into one of those photographs. Colorful silk drapes hung from every inch of the ceiling, interspersed by hanging lanterns. On the walls were paintings of elephants or pictures of India in years past.

The tables were simple and wooden, with a little glowing lantern set atop each, and surrounded by a mix of wooden chairs, stools, plush armchairs, and even a few couches. The receptionist’s desk lay against the back wall, placed under another smiling elephant, and beyond that was the door to the kitchen. The sounds of pots and pans could be heard, but more than that were the smells.

Some of it was that of cooking meat, which disturbed her, but the rest, oh, the rest! Fruits and vegetables and so many wonderful spices. It was enough to drive her stomach wild…and summon forth something from the depths of her mind.

The smells floated on the air as they sat in the booth of the Indian restaurant, making her stomach rumble like a lion’s roar. “How about it, Nisha?” She pointed to the new item on the menu the waitress had mentioned, extra spicy curry. “You’re always saying you like trying new things.”

“I don’t know,” answered Manisha with concern. “Isn’t that the thing that made Judy throw up?” Judy? Who was Judy? Manisha glanced at her mother, still chatting away with the waitress, and completely oblivious to their debate. The thought of puking in the woman’s presence was clearly weighing on her mind.

“Yeah.” She shrugged her shoulders dismissively. “But we both know Judy can’t handle spicy stuff.”

Manisha nodded in agreement. “That’s true.” Her head tilted, sending her long black hair spilling over her shoulder. “Why did she eat it?”

“I heard her mum got Judy’s lunch mixed up with her brother’s,” she replied, shrugging. “Sounds like something her mum would do.” Her skinny eleven-year-old legs swung wildly under the table. “You like spicy stuff, though. Remember how many of those seekh kabobs you ate last week?”

“That’s not exactly the same thing,” Manisha pointed out. “And you ate just as many as I did.”

“You still didn’t puke,” she shot back. “Come on, Manisha.” She grinned mischievously. “I dare you to try it.”

Manisha giggled. “Oh, okay,…” a name, once again lost. Manisha met her smile with one of her own. “But I dare you to eat it with me.”

“You’re on!”

Sunset held her head, once again throbbing slowly with pain. Horseapples, it seemed like the headaches were a regular feature now. Her mouth felt strange, too, hot and irritated, but not in a particularly terrible way, like the faintest echo of a meal still playing on her tongue.

“Are you alright?” asked Saffron.

“I’m fine,” Sunset groaned, taking out the bottle of herbal medicine Fluttershy had picked up that morning. She popped a pill into her mouth and downed it with a little thermos of water she’d brought with her.

“Hey, maybe this means you’ve eaten Indian food before, Sunny!” Pinkie suggested.

Sunset almost corrected her by pointing out it would have been Maneipurian, but kept her mouth shut. Instead, she looked at the still confused Saffron.

“That’s sort of the reason we’re here. Mind if we sit down?”

Saffron led them to one of the couches, and Sunset, her headache fading, gave Saffron a brief, magic-free explanation: that she’d lost her memory as a child, that she apparently knew someone named “Maneisha,” who they were trying to find.

“I see,” said Saffron, humming in contemplation. “I don’t remember anyone named Maneisha.”

“Saffron, what are they doing here?”

They all turned to see the owner emerging from the kitchen. “I thought I told you to go away,” he said brusquely. “I have a restaurant to run.”

“Father!” chided Saffron. “They’re just asking if we know anyone named Maneisha, and,” she emphasized the word sharply, “they’re going to stay for lunch.”

At this, the man’s anger seemed to evaporate. Sunset idly wondered if they should have just come in for lunch first, and asked questions second.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “My name is Coriander Cumin. I am the owner of The Tasty Treat.”

“Do you know anyone named Maneisha?” Sunset asked, ignoring the way her tongue convulsed at the pronunciation. “She might be living here in town.” Or at least, she hoped so.

Coriander shook his head. “I can’t say I know anyone in Canterlot City by that name.”

“Would you be able to direct us to the local Indian community?” asked Twilight.

“Yes,” said Coriander. “But first, I have to finish cooking. We’ll be opening soon.” Turning around, he returned to the kitchen.

“He really is very kind,” Saffron apologized. “In the meantime, I’ll get you some menus.”

Something occurred to Sunset. “Indian food has a vegetarian option, doesn’t it?” She really should have thought of that earlier. It was the first thing on her mind whenever she went into any eatery in this universe. Personally, she blamed lack of proper sleep.

Saffron nodded. “Of course.”

In short order, Saffron brought them some menus, and as the restaurant opened up properly, the seven of them picked out what they wanted. Sunset found herself gravitating toward vegetarian curry. Was that something she ate with Manisha? A favorite meal? She’d never been especially partial to spicy food before.

Rainbow texted her mother, who had, at Rainbow’s suggestion, gone off on some errands while they went to the restaurant. Honestly, Sunset was pretty sure the real reason was so she could get away from her mom’s embarrassing tendencies.

After placing their orders, Sunset sent a quick update to Princess Twilight, and was pleasantly surprised when her journal began buzzing within minutes.

Dear Sunset,

I’m sorry to hear the search isn’t going as well as you hoped. It’s shocking that you haven’t found any trace of your other self or Manisha (Maneisha?) yet.

While I know it’s early days, and you still have a lot of ground you can cover in the human world, I did want to offer up one more solution that I happened upon last night. I’m sorry I didn’t message you sooner. I kept the journal with me, but the morning has been a little hectic.

Anyway, I happened upon Princess Luna last night, and I told her about your situation. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but besides raising the moon, Princess Luna is able to walk in dreams in order to help ponies with their nightmares.

Since your memories seem to be manifesting in your dreams, being able to see them directly could answer a lot of questions. Princess Luna agreed, and added that she could even try to access your memories directly. Of course, in order for any of that to work, you’d have to come to Equestria.

I know you’ve been hesitant whenever we’ve talked about you coming back before, and I understand why. But you wouldn’t need to come all the way to Canterlot. You could just stay in my castle. Princess Luna is willing to come to Ponyville to examine you. You just need to tell me when you’re ready, and I’ll let Luna know.

Your friend,

Princess Twilight Sparkle

“Yo, Sunset, whatcha reading?”

Sunset looked up to find her friends’ eyes on her. “I got a message from Princess Twilight,” she said slowly.

“What does it say?” asked Fluttershy.

She passed them the journal. Applejack let out a low whistle. “Walkin’ in dreams? Now if that don’t beat all.”

“This certainly sounds like it would help,” commented Rarity.

Sunset bit her lip. “Yeah…” she trailed off.

It was true. Seeing her dreams directly would be a tremendous advantage, to say nothing of trying to get at her memories themselves.

“Do you not want to do it?” asked Fluttershy, catching the hesitation in her voice. “Having someone poke around your dreams does sound kind of scary.”

“I—”

“Or maybe,” cut in Applejack, “you just don’t want to go back to Equestria?”

Sunset gave a small nod. “It’s…complicated.”

It wasn’t like part of her didn’t want to go back. She did. She missed everything, the feel of her magic, the adventure, the quests, the feel of her hooves, the wind in her mane. But going back felt shameful now, and besides that…what if she ran into Princess Celestia?

Not that it was all that likely. Like Twilight said, she could just stay in the castle. Keep miles of space between her and the solar alicorn. And yet, life was infinitely unpredictable. One surprise visit, and Sunset could find herself faced with the one confrontation she wasn’t ready to have.

A powerful ache passed through her chest that seemed to ripple all the way to her core.

“You don’t have to do it,” Twilight said with a surprising firmness, before adding quickly. “I mean, if it makes you uncomfortable.” She cleared her throat. “Anyway, we haven’t gone through all the possibilities in this dimension yet. Statistically speaking, it’s highly improbable for there to be no trace of you here at all. I’d even venture to say it’s impossible.”

She adjusted her glasses. “Like I said, I haven’t failed a research project yet. We’ll find something. I know we will.”

Sunset smiled. “Yeah. Let’s all just keep at it.” She looked to her friends. “Right, girls?”

“I reckon we might as well finish what we started,” nodded Applejack.

“But not before we finish the food!” declared Pinkie, pointing at the now returning Saffron Masala, her arms laden with plates.

Putting her journal away, Sunset prepared to dig in, and pushed thoughts of Equestria from her mind. Sparky was right. There had to be a trace of her life in this dimension somewhere. They just had to find it.

There was nothing.

Sunset collapsed into her seat at the lunch table that Friday afternoon. For the past week, they’d searched. But no matter where they turned, the result was still the same.

According to Coriander Cumin, the only Maneisha he knew was a great aunt who was both dead, and had never left India in her entire life. He’d directed them to other members of the local Indian community, but they’d offered the same answer. Furthermore, no one had ever seen or heard of the spelling variant Sunset had used. Communities from neighboring countries were incredibly small in Canterlot City, and hadn’t offered anything different.

Town Hall was a complete bust. They’d even tried the local senior centers and rest homes, looking for anyone that recognized her. No one did, and while she did have another episode, it hadn’t yielded any new information, just another headache, and a phantom pain in her knee that had her practically limping for five minutes afterwards.

The name “Kingpin,” likewise, did nothing. They’d found the owner of a local bowling alley with that name, but he’d neither sparked any reaction in her, nor remembered Sunset or anyone named Manisha.

It just didn’t make any sense! Why couldn’t they find anything? Her doppelganger being invisible was one thing, but Manisha’s as well? How could both of them have left no footprint whatsoever? Her friends all had counterparts. The princesses had counterparts. Countless students at CHS had counterparts, from what Princess Twilight told her. Why didn’t she?

Why did every clue turn into some form of cruel joke, tantalizing in their possibilities, but empty and confusing in their reality. Were those far away Maneishas back in India hers? Was her counterpart displaced in time like Starswirl’s? Had there been some divergent event that kept Manisha—she still could have sworn it was spelled without the E—from coming to this country?

As each day passed into another, Sunset felt herself growing thinner, not physically, but mentally. Every morning, her mind felt blank, and her body resounded with a sense of exhaustion. Night after night of poor sleep compounded until it was a boulder pressing down on her brain.

Her schoolwork was suffering, too. She was falling asleep in class, her assignments were late, and her scores were sliding precariously downward. Her math test from Tuesday, which, under normal circumstances would have been labeled with a high A, was instead a very low B. For Celestia’s sake, her latest chemistry quiz came back with a previously unimaginable C minus.

Twilight had offered to help her, awkwardly dancing around the word “tutoring.” Before that point, she would have refused. Her pride as Celestia’s pupil would never have allowed it. Before that point, she wouldn’t have needed it. But between her grades, the exhaustion, poor sleep, and the sad look in Twilight’s eyes, she was about ready to give in.

The girls had tried to distract her from it all. But no matter where she went, the flashbacks followed her. Applejack’s farm, Rarity’s boutique, even spending time on the sports field with Dash brought back…she didn’t know what. Her past, whatever the hay it was, wouldn’t leave her alone.

Raising her head from the table, she picked languidly at her salad bowl. Even her appetite seemed muted. “This is impossible!” she moaned.

“Cheer up, Sunset,” said Applejack. “Like you said. there’s gotta be an answer somewhere.”

“Yeah,” added Pinkie. “I bet we’ll find something real soon…the Secret Origin of Sunset Shimmer!” She gasped. “What if it turns out that you’re actually some kind of space adventurer from another planet?!”

“Pinkie, dear,” said Rarity, “Sunset is already from another planet.”

“Nah-uh,” Pinkie shot back. “She’s from another universe. That’s a completely different part of space-time.”

Sunset let out an empty chuckle. “Thanks for the encouragement, Pinkie, but the way things are going, I might as well have been delivered by the stork for all the difference it would make.” She looked to Twilight. “Back at the library, you said there were some last-ditch methods to try. What are they?”

Twilight squirmed in her seat. “Checking microfilm copies and encyclopedias.”

The redhead sighed. “Worth a shot. I’ll swing by the library and…” she caught the look of discomfort on Twilight’s face. “You already did that, didn’t you?”

Twilight nodded sadly. “There was nothing, or at least, nothing we didn’t already uncover.” She bit her lip, looking almost on the verge of tears.

“Twilight dear, you’re doing your best,” soothed Rarity.

The former unicorn sighed again, nibbling on a piece of salad. Her eyes moved down to her bag, where her journal rested. Maybe it was time to take Princess Luna’s offer. They’d done so much work, exhausted so many options, and Twilight was clearly near her wit’s end. She should just bite the bullet, as the expression went over here.

“Maybe I should take Prin—” she began.

“I have one more thing to try,” interrupted Twilight.

Sunset looked at her in surprise. “What is it?”

“When I get home, I’ll start a search on a newspaper archive site, and a genealogy service.” The girl squared her shoulders. “That should turn up something, I’m sure.”

“Don’t those sorts of sites require a subscription fee?” Sunset asked, but she already knew the answer. Guilt washed over her. “I’ll pay you back.”

“Don’t,” Twilight insisted sharply, a move that seemed to startle her as much as everyone else. “I mean,” she continued. “It’s really nothing. I went to Crystal Prep, remember? My allowance is more than enough to pay a few subscription fees.” Her eyes fixed themselves on the redhead. “I’m more worried about you, Sunset. You should have just stayed home.”

Sunset shook her head. “Can’t miss too many more days.”

They ate lunch in relative peace after that. Sunset slogged through her food, her mind a thousand miles away. Why couldn’t she find herself? Why couldn’t she remember her own nightmares? It just didn’t make any sense. What the hay was wrong with her that she couldn’t remember?

Was there something wrong with her?

Across the table, Pinkie Pie began playing with her cutlery, having already inhaled her food. Tap, tap, tap, went the spoons on the table’s plastic surface.

Spoons clicked together in a rhythmic beat. She looked upon it with a mixture of embarrassment and annoyance. “Can’t you play a real instrument?”

Sunset groaned as pain once again stabbed through her skull, not even bothering to try and cling to whatever had jolted from the depths of her malfunctioning memory. “Pinkie Pie, could you stop doing that?” she said, trying her best not to sound snappish. “It’s giving me a headache.”

Pinkie Pie held out her hands apologetically. “Sorry, Sunny.”

Far too quickly, the lunch bell rang, and everyone packed up to go to their next class. As she dumped the contents of her tray, which amounted to half the entire meal, in the garbage, Sunset caught her reflection in the nearby window. She stood transfixed, taking in her tired, cyan eyes, shadowed by burgeoning dark rings, her long, messy red and gold hair, her slumped shoulders and amber skin.

“Sunset?”

The redhead turned to look at Rarity. “Do I look different to you?”

“Well, you do look rather dreadful, but that’s hardly surprising,” Rarity offered.

The former unicorn shook her head. “No, I mean…do I look…normal?”

Rarity’s brow furrowed. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Sunset pulled her eyes away from the window. “Nevermind,” she said. “I need to get to class. See you later.”

Sunset trudged into her next class, which happened to be history. Sitting at her desk, the former unicorn let out a mighty yawn. She just had to make it through the rest of today, and then after that…honestly, she’d probably sleep through the whole weekend, homework or no. Horseapples, she’d probably pick up some sleeping pills or something just to ensure she stayed asleep. Poor quality or not, raw quantity would help get her strength back.

Hopefully.

The redhead reached down to move her bag out of the walkway, she’d dropped it beside her desk, when it was kicked by a passing leg.

“Oops,” sneered Hoops Dunkington, “my bad.”

While Sunset had been the biggest bully at Canterlot High prior to the Fall Formal, she’d hardly been the only one. Hoops was one of the others, along with his toadies Dumb-Bell and Score. In fact, from what Rainbow and Fluttershy had told her, the three jocks had been bullies as far back as elementary school, when her friends had lived in a different part of the city.

Getting Hoops and his gang under her thumb had been fairly easy. Like most bullies, he was lacking in the brains and imagination department, and was, among other things, a cheat. Acquiring blackmail material on him had been foal’s play.

That threat was probably a big reason why Hoops and his gang kept away from the Rainbooms these days. Not that it was enforceable anymore. Sunset had deleted all of her blackmail material not long after the Formal.

Why he was messing with her now, she didn’t know. Had he grown a spine and decided to risk the blackmail? Or had her increasing exhaustion sent up a red flag of some kind?

She shot him a glare, but it barely had any power behind it.

Hoops smirked, but said nothing else, continuing on to his seat. From the corner of her eye, she saw her bag get picked up off the floor.

“Here you go,” said Flash Sentry, who, as always, was seated right behind her. He craned his neck to meet her eyes, and his expression shifted into a deep frown. “Wow, Sunset, you look awful.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” she answered tiredly. She yawned again as she took the bag from him and placed it on the other side of the desk where it wouldn’t get kicked.

“Seriously, though, what’s up with you lately?”

“It’s complicated,” she yawned again. “But part of it is I’m having trouble sleeping.”

“All week? Geez.” Flash gave her one of his dopey smiles. “Well, I hope you get better.”

“Me, too,” she yawned back, just as Mr. Written Record entered the classroom.

On any other day, she would have gotten her notebook out and scribbled furiously to keep up. History, for obvious reasons, was her weakest subject, and she’d always paid extra attention in class to both maintain her grades, and blend in with those around her.

Today however, Sunset placed her arms across the desk and laid her head down. half-dozing in the sunlight streaming from the window beside her. Yesterday, Written Record had surprised everyone with a special two-part discussion that veered away from the curriculum, as a reward for the tie at the Friendship Games.

The subject was, he said, one that interested him, and which he promised would interest the class: the history of the modern police force. Sunset didn’t really care, and she knew she wasn’t alone in that department. But, hey, it was basically a free class, so who was going to complain?

“Welcome back, class,” said the portly Written Record. “Last time, we talked about the machinations of London’s infamous thief-taker general, and the thief that took him down, and now, we’ll continue on with…”

Sunset tuned the rest out, feeling her eyelids grow heavy. Outside the window lay the portal to Equestria. The portal home. She wanted to give Twilight the chance to do one last look, but if it didn’t work, she’d be crossing over that threshold for the first time in months.

She wondered what Princess Luna was like. Vice Principal Luna wasn’t really the best indicator. After all, the human Twilight and human Celestia were still quite different from their counterparts. Would she be like Celestia, with that effortless grace and calm smile?

“As the twentieth century came around, policing began to develop not only in terms of forensic science, but also in terms of tools and infrastructure,” said Mr. Written Record, his words floating half-listened to in her ear. “For example, I know many of you may not be able to imagine those primitive times before the advent of the cellphone.”

He paused to allow a collective groan to rise up from the class. Only Sunset didn’t participate.

“In fact,” continued the teacher, “you may be shocked to learn that even radio technology wasn’t as prevalent as it is now. These days, a police officer can radio in for information or backup or whatever they need, even if they don’t have their phone. But this was not always the case. Back in centuries past, officers communicated with each other via a police box.”

The room went dark as Written Record set up the projector. “Here’s a picture of the one installed in 1877 in Albany, New York, the very first built in the United States.”

Sunset’s eyes drifted from the window back to the front of the class, blinking away the spots that danced in her vision.

“And here,” continued Written Record, swapping photos, “is one from London in the 1920s. I know it’s in black and white, color photos wouldn’t be common until the 1970s, but if this were in color, you’d see that the police box there was a very nice shade of blue. In fact, most of them were, with the exception of…”

Sunset’s vision cleared, and the old photo of London came into view. She could make out the street signs, the severe-faced officer in the foreground, and there in the background, as Written Record said, was the…the blue…

The blue police box.

A box, blue and strange and ever-so out of place. So small, but inside there was so much. Bigger on the inside. Everything crammed into that tiny space.

“Is it infinite?”

“Theoretically, yes, but for obvious reasons, no one’s ever had the time to prove it.”

Humming filled her ears, like an engine, but also somehow like the beat of a heart. Engines that wheezed and groaned like an asthmatic set of lungs, but which promised so much.

“Well, do you fancy a trip around the Twelve Galaxies?”

Mechanical, but not quite. Corridors that moved, walls that changed, sometimes in play, sometimes in aid. An unmappable infinity full of surprises.

“You’ve got a swimming pool in here? Wicked!”

“Yes, and over there is the sauna, I believe. Or is that the garden? One can never be too sure.”

Metal, but…

“You’re talking about it like it’s alive or something.”

“Well, she is, in a manner of speaking.”

Images fired through her brain, faster than ever before. Too many. Too much inside. Too much to handle. It was like a tsunami, sweeping her away with its raw destructive power, stealing her breath and her sense of direction as she was swallowed by the water.

Where was she? Everything was changing so fast. No, not just where. When. Time and space combined. The future…

“…look what they’ve done to the…”

The past…

“You’re still a lousy parker.”

Her whole body shook. Was she standing? Or was she still sitting? Nothing made sense. Nothing was clear. There was activity around her, but all she could see, all she could focus on, was the box. The box. Her…her…

“This is the only home I’ve got now, okay?”

Home.

“And this is your room. Decorate it however you wish.”

Not home.

“You’re not going to try and stop me…are you?”

Water transformed to air, and the tsunami became a hurricane, bigger than sanity should have ever allowed. Big, so big. So much in her head. The blue box. The hurricane.

“Bigger than anything you will have ever seen on Earth.”

The world around her spun. Faster and faster, round and round. A great big vortex of times and places. Every when. Every where. She’d seen it. Seen it within those blue walls. But the walls weren’t there now. Nothing to protect her from the chaos. Just like the…

Time storm.

Suddenly, everything shifted into reverse. Air was water again. Images ran backwards. Not a storm. Not a wave. A whirlpool, like the kind in myth and legend, pulling her down into its depths. Down below the surface. Down where there was no sun, no light. Down where she couldn’t scream, couldn’t breath. Spiraling into oblivion.

Down…down…down…

The floor rushed to meet her, and the last thing Sunset Shimmer knew was darkness.

Lights prodded at her through her eyelids. Sunset groaned, putting a hand over her face. “Too bright,” she moaned.

Sunset Shimmer cracked her eyes open, and found herself face to face with the white-tiled ceiling, and a barely muted fluorescent light. She winced as a particularly powerful headache made itself known. She felt like the time she’d pushed herself to complete magical exhaustion, multiplied by a factor of thirty.

“What happened?”

“You fainted, young lady,” said Nurse Redheart, arms crossed over her chest.

Fainted? She’d never fainted in her life! Sunset probed her memory. The last thing she could recall was being in history class, and then…nothing. Total blank.

Sunset groaned again, placing a hand over her eyes. She’d had another episode.

“From what Mr. Record said, it seems like you had some kind of seizure,” continued the nurse. She gave Sunset a serious, questioning look. “Is there any history of epilepsy in your family?”

The former unicorn’s jaw went slack. “A…s-seizure?” Fear crept up her spine in icy tendrils. Was that it? Was that the reason she couldn’t remember her past, despite all the dreams, all the flashbacks? Was there…was there something literally wrong with her brain?

“Sunset,” said Nurse Redheart. “Do you have a history of it in your family?”

“I…” The redhead suddenly found swallowing hard. “I don’t know.”

Nurse Redheart sighed, running a hand through the top of her hair, threatening to dislodge her bun. “You know, combined with how exhausted you looked when they brought you in, I was ready to call the paramedics and rush you to the hospital.”

Sunset’s heart skipped a beat. “You didn’t call them, did you? I don’t need a hospital, really! I’m okay now!” She hopped to her feet, only to find her leg muscles reduced to jelly, and her head spinning like a top.

Nurse Redheart caught her before she hit the floor, easing her back into a lying position. “I didn’t call them,” she said firmly. “Principal Celestia insisted it wasn’t necessary.” She frowned. Clearly, the idea had not sat well with her.

“I’m kind of…scared of hospitals,” Sunset offered. More like she was scared of government agents discovering she was an illegal alien and dissecting her. But none of that was something she was willing to share with Nurse Redheart. Just because the school knew about magic didn’t mean she had to blab everything.

She made a mental note to thank the principal for saving her flank.

Nurse Redheart sighed, shaking her head. “Alright, I get it. I would like an explanation, though. Or is this one of those magic things we’re not supposed to prod you or your friends about?”

Sunset licked her lips, which suddenly felt as dry as a desert. Was this magic-related? Or was this some kind of disease? Was it related to how she lost her memory in the first place?

And why on Terra did this have to be so complicated?

“I’m not sure,” she admitted, before reciting the same explanation she’d given Saffron Masala all the way back on Sunday. Sweet Celestia, that felt like a lifetime ago. “I’ve had amnesia since I was little, and lately, I think my memories have been trying to come back. Kinda made it hard to sleep this past week.”

Not the only problem, was the thing she didn’t say. From her position on the cot, she couldn’t see the window, but she knew that if she did, if she caught her reflection in the glass, she’d be hit with that same haunting sense of wrongness that she couldn’t pin down.

Nurse Redheart’s eyes softened. “And you’re sure there isn’t a doctor you can consult about this? A neurologist or a psychologist?”

Sunset shook her head. “I had an offer, uh, back home, but…I haven’t taken it.” Her mind drifted to the portal, ready and waiting to open. “I guess I don’t have a choice now,” she whispered. “Do I?”

A knock came at the door. Nurse Redheart opened it a crack.

“’Scuse us, Nurse Redheart, but has Sunset come ‘round yet?”

The woman nodded. “I’ll let you have a few minutes, but she needs her rest.”

She slipped out, and like an overstuffed closet, her friends came tumbling in.

“Sunset Shimmer!” cried Pinkie, pulling Sunset back up into a sitting position and wrapping her in a frankly suffocating hug. “We heard about what happened!”

“Pinkie, let her breathe!” said Rainbow, yanking their friend off of her.

“Thanks,” said the former unicorn. Near the back of the group, Sunset spotted Twilight, head hanging low. “Sparky? You okay?”

“I should be asking you that,” she choked. “I’m sorry.” Her lip quivered. “I’m so sorry. I should have done better. I…”

“Stop talking like that, Sparky,” said Sunset. “This isn’t your fault.”

“She’s right, you know,” added Rarity. “We’ve all been doing what we could.”

“And I think,” Sunset continued with a sigh. “That’s it’s time I take up Luna’s offer. Can somebody get my—”

“Here you go, Sunset,” said Fluttershy, holding out the worn hardback book. “We got your bag from class.”

Sunset took the book, holding it reverently for several long seconds. What should've just been a polite way to keep contact with Twilight was now, in a very real way, her only lifeline.

She gingerly opened the cover, then thumbed through the pages for the latest blank entry. Before she even had a chance to reach for her pocket, Fluttershy also handed her a pen, which she accepted with a grateful smile.

Placing the tip against the paper, she gave one final sigh, and began to write the words Dear Princess Twilight.

Look out, Equestria, Sunset Shimmer was coming home.

Gilda languidly tossed a baseball up toward the ceiling. She missed the catch this time, and it thudded on the bed next to her head.

She sighed, dragging her hand down her face. Jeez, she was bored. Dad was out…again. She’d eaten her dinner, the rat had taken to the remains. Her homework lay half-done. She wasn’t getting far on math, anyway.

She checked her phone. Still nothing from Dash. Nothing all week. Gilda’s lips pinched together, her nostrils flaring. “Probably busy with her band,” she grumbled.

Gilda flung the phone onto her mattress, digging her fingers into her hair. Why did her life have to suck so much?!

Suddenly, her phone buzzed. Gilda snatched it back up. A text from Mr. Redbeak.

Have an extra job for you. Meet up at 2750 Sapphire Street at seven tonight.

Gilda smiled. At least somebody wanted her around.

Author's Note

Double the usual length, but that’s the way I wanted to pace this one out. Honestly, at one point I did consider splitting this one in two, taking scenes 6 through 9 and labeling them “Homeward Bound” or something, but decided against it.

I did some light correction work on earlier chapters as well, fixing some VERY well-hidden typos, a month I wrote wrong, etc. And for those of you wondering about the hidden pun in Rarity’s address, the house number, 3491, spells “3 D-I-A”, as in three diamonds, like Rarity’s cutie mark.

Other things I want to mention: Gilda’s last name of “Ironclaw” is something I took from a wonderful little story called “Coffee with a Pony Princess” by Crystal Moose. Starswirl living in Italy is something that I took from The Sunlight Theory by Space Jazz. Basically, he’s the answer to Da Vinci.

As far as Gilda’s appearance, it’s based on this image, whose creator is sadly unknown.

Dreams of Fire and Ice

Chapter 5: Dreams of Fire and Ice

Another school day had ended, and most of the student body had fled. Those left inside were either in the depths of detention, or otherwise absorbed in their extracurricular activities, blissfully unaware of their soon-to-be visitor, or the drama waiting to unfold outside.

Sunset rested on the front steps, leaning somewhat uncomfortably against the center handrail, while Rainbow and Twilight sat nearby. Her eyes languidly scanned the empty lawn, stopping at the cracked pedestal that had once supported the Wondercolt statue, the rearing horse that served as the school’s mascot, and which had been destroyed in the chaotic climax of the Friendship Games.

Nothing but ordinary stone. For now.

“You two don’t really have to come, you know,” she said wearily to her companions.

“There’s no way I’m abandoning you,” Rainbow argued fiercely, crossing her arms over her chest. “Besides, I already cleared it with the coach. I’m good to go.”

“And I already called my parents,” said Twilight. “You should have someone there with you.” She paused. “When you cross a dimensional portal.” Her eyes widened. “Which we’ll also be doing. Oh, my stars, I’ll actually be crossing into a parallel universe.” Twilight’s body seemed to vibrate with something between excitement and high anxiety.

“Relax, Sparky,” Sunset told her. “You’ll both be fine.” She recalled her own trips through the portal. “First time’s going to be pretty rough, though, not gonna lie.”

“We can take it,” said Rainbow firmly.

A glimmer of light poked at the corner of her vision. One side of the pedestal began to glow, solid rock taking on the appearance of a mirror struck by sunlight. The luminous surface rippled like water, and then Princess Twilight Sparkle stepped out onto the grass.

Blinking, the young princess looked around, before fixing her eyes on them. “Girls!” She crossed the distance quickly, and whatever greeting she’d had died on her lips, replaced instead by a harsh intake of breath. “Sunset, what happened?!”

Sunset offered a pathetic wave. “Hey, Twi.”

Twilight dropped down onto the steps, sitting up against her. “You said you needed to come as soon as possible, but I didn’t think…you look awful!” she cried.

“She had an episode in class,” explained Sparky. “Nurse Redheart said,” her voice sounded like it was on the verge of cracking, all her nervous energy seemingly gone. “It sounded like a seizure.”

Princess Twilight’s mouth fell open in horror. “A…oh, Celestia! No wonder you messaged me! Princess Luna hasn’t arrived yet, but I sent her a letter. Come on,” she took Sunset’s hand in hers. “Let’s get you to Equestria.”

Sunset allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. Despite resting in the nurse’s office for the rest of the school day, her legs still felt weak. Everything felt weak, really, like the shock in her brain had rebounded through her entire nervous system.

Rainbow and Sparky got up as well, helping hold Sunset upright when Princess Twilight realized just how unstable the redhead was.

“Thanks, girls,” said the princess.

“Actually, Twi,” said Sunset, trying her best to support her own weight because somewhere inside she loathed being carried like this, “they’re coming with us.”

Princess Twilight’s head twisted around to look at the other two girls in surprise, her long purple hair smacking Sunset in the face. It smelled, she noted as she spat a few strands out of her mouth, like apples. Nowhere near as pleasant as Sparky’s lavender shampoo.

“Are you sure you want to?” asked the princess. “It’s not exactly easy changing species across dimensions. Trust me, I remember what it was like the first time I went through the portal.”

Rainbow glared. “You’re trying to talk us out of it, too?”

“I already talked to them about it,” said the former, and also soon-to-be-again, unicorn. “They’re positive.”

“Alright,” said the princess reluctantly. She looked around. “But where are the others?”

“They couldn’t take time away,” explained Sparky.

“And Rarity has my journal,” added Sunset. Which was vitally important, because the journal’s presence in this dimension is what allowed Princess Twilight to open the portal manually, rather than wait the thirty moons in Equestrian time it would otherwise take.

“Yeah, now let’s get going!” said Rainbow impatiently.

With the girls helping support her wobbly legs, Sunset crossed the distance from the stairs to the portal. The doorway home. Her fingers reached out to touch the surface, watching the way the enchanted energies rippled outwards.

“Ready?” said Princess Twilight.

Sunset nodded her head. “Ready.”

Heart beating faster in her chest, Sunset took a deep breath, and put her foot through the portal.

The trip across the dimensions was never an easy ride. Like every time before, Sunset felt her body twist and bend, fingers fusing back into hooves, her spine rearranging itself in a more quadruped formation. She wanted to scream, but it was drowned out by the swirl of light and color that seemed especially painful this time around, prodding at the back of her skull like hot pokers even as she felt the bones warp under her skin.

Sunset landed clumsily in a heap, groaning as her body hit solid stone. “Owwwww,” she groaned.

“Sunset! Are you alright?” She felt the tingle of magic against her coat…yeah, she had a coat again, and the next thing she knew, she was being gently pulled to her hooves by Princess Twilight’s telekinetic grip.

“I’m okay,” she replied. “Nothing broken, I don’t think.” Other than her pride, anyway. The last time she’d crossed the mirror, back when she’d stolen the Element of Magic from Twilight, she’d managed a far more dignified entrance.

But to be fair, back then, she hadn’t felt like she’d been trampled by an entire tribe of angry yaks.

“Hey, Twilight, I—Oh, hi.”

Sunset looked up to see a pink-coated unicorn mare with a pink and purple striped mane staring curiously at her.

“Hi,” repeated the mare. “I’m Starlight. Starlight Glimmer.”

So, this was the pony Twilight had taken on as her first student. “Sunset Shimmer,” she replied politely. With a concerted effort, the redhead managed to stand firmly on her own legs. Although perhaps the fact that she had four of them simply made it easier to support her weight.

“You’re Sunset? The princess said you were coming.” Starlight looked her up and down. “Wow, you look terrible.” She balked. “I’m sorry! That was probably really rude, wasn’t it?”

“Don’t sweat it,” Sunset assured her, waving a hoof. “I’ve been getting that a lot lately.”

A shriek off to the side made Sunset jump, and it was with little more than luck that she didn’t end up crashing back onto her belly.

“Yo, Twilight, get a grip!”

Sunset turned her head. Rainbow Dash, now a cyan-colored pegasus pony, was comforting another very familiar purple pony with glasses.

“How can I get a grip when I don’t have fingers?!” Sparky replied, hyperventilating as she tried to stand on her newly-acquired hooves.

Smirking just a little bit, and momentarily forgetting how wretched she felt, Sunset lit her horn, dark red energy flowing from base to tip. How good it felt to do that again. Carefully, she grabbed Sparky in her magic and propped her up, the same way Princess Twilight did for her.

“Calm down, Sparky,” she said, offering a little smile. “I told you, this is what happens when you cross over.”

Sparky turned to look at her, eyes widening behind her glasses as she took in Sunset’s original form. “…Sunset?”

“Last I checked,” she joked, cutting out her spell as a wave of tiredness washed over her brain. Better to take it easy, she realized.

“Hey, check it out!” declared Rainbow. “I have wings!” She stood in front of a crystal wall, turning this way and that to admire her new form.

“And I’m…a unicorn,” added Sparky. She turned to Sunset, smiling awkwardly. “I guess you were right.”

Sunset returned the smile. “Guess I was.”

She took a moment to observe her surroundings. Princess Twilight had told her that she’d moved into her own castle, but seeing it was a whole other matter. Before her was a library entirely carved from crystal, books stacked tightly on shelves that reached over a dozen feet high.

Turning around, she saw the mirror portal, and more importantly, the device it was now locked into. “So, this is the portal machine you built,” she hummed, sliding a hoof along one of the components.

“Technology’s really advanced while I’ve been gone.” Some of those components reminded her of things from Earth. Nowhere near the digital age, but sophisticated all the same. Princess Twilight had really outdone herself.

Her eyes followed the line of wires and coils to a small lectern atop which a journal rested. Princess Celestia’s journal. The twin to her own. Long ago, the princess had gifted them to her so they could keep in touch over a distance. Now, that same spell was the linchpin for a machine that forced open the gate between universes. Small gifts, big impact.

“Yes, it really has,” the princess answered proudly. “Admittedly, the design was a bit rushed, but once I saw that the transmissions of messages still operated despite the portal being closed, I realized I could apply the theory of…”

Despite her incredible curiosity to know exactly how the machine operated, Sunset’s eyes started to drift back to the mirror.

The mirror…

Small village. Isolated. Something wrong. A stain on the village green. A darkened church. A figure in the doorway. Human, but not. Equine? No. Not that, either. Looked like it…them…but it wasn’t. A fist…hoof…smashing through wood. A fist made of bone and straw and bits of corn.

A scarecrow? Yes, a scarecrow. Alive and malevolent. More than one. A small army. Stuffed and sewn as much with flesh and blood as straw in a parody of hu…equi…a parody of life. Evil from the very earth itself.

Days’ worth of time hit her all at once, compressed so tightly they felt like solid mass. Running, fighting, screaming. A pit. A silver mirror. He was in there. He’d gotten himself in the thick of it again, and she had to get him out. Always had to watch his back, make sure he didn’t die.

Smash the mirror. Smash the mirror. Get him out of there. Smash…

“Sunset!”

Princess Twilight’s scream brought her back to reality. For a moment, Sunset wondered why her right foreleg was raised. Then, the pain hit her full force, an agony that burned from the back of her skull, and whatever strength she had in her legs gave way again.

Her head fell forward, ready to strike the crystal floor, when she felt herself shoved against a bookcase by a burst of magical energy.

“I-I’m…I’m sorry!” cried Sparky. “I didn’t…I was trying to catch you!” Her voice faded to a point so low that it rivaled Fluttershy. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You didn’t hurt me,” groaned Sunset, cracking her eyes open. “Trust me, Sparky, that was nothing compared to what I did as a filly.” She turned her throbbing head to face the unicorn, offering her the best smile she could manage in spite of the pain. Then she turned her attention to Sparky’s royal counterpart. “It happened again, didn’t it?”

Princess Twilight nodded slowly, her eyes wide with fear. “Is…is this what’s been happening?”

The pulse of a headache kept Sunset from answering, so Rainbow answered for her. “Yeah. She’s been doing that all week.”

“This is so much worse than before,” said the princess worriedly. “Come on, let’s get you to bed while we wait for Princess Luna.”

Sunset didn’t protest as the princess took her entire weight in her magic and levitated her out into the hall. Twilight’s magical grip really was as light as a breeze. Sunset could just feel the pressure of the energy against her body. It was hardly surprising, though. For a unicorn, now alicorn, of her power, force control was essential, just as it had been for Sunset when Princess Celestia trained her.

A memory flashed through her mind, of days when she’d exhausted herself in magic training, and Princess Celestia had picked her up and carried her to bed. Her magic had been just as soft, but it had a warmth that Twilight’s lacked, like a hand and a radiator all in one.

She missed that, she realized with a pang in her chest. She hadn’t realized how much.

Together, everypony, including Spike and Starlight, went up the stairs to a set of double doors. The room beyond hosted a few bookshelves, a king-sized purple four-poster bed, and a small basket filled with bedding. The afternoon sun streamed through the open balcony window, where a telescope stood ready and waiting.

Twilight’s room, obviously.

“You can use my bed,” said the princess, confirming Sunset’s deductions.

The dark curtains of the bed were pulled aside, and Sunset was levitated onto the mattress. Sunset let out a little sigh of contentment. The thing was like sleeping on a cloud, or what she’d imagine it was like, since she wasn’t a pegasus. It certainly put her own bed back across the mirror to shame.

What made the difference? Was it the altered physiology? The fact that Princess Twilight had a bigger budget? Or was it a difference in materials? Perhaps all three.

“Is there anything you’d like?” asked the alicorn.

Sunset opened her mouth to say no, but her stomach beat her to it, letting out a low roar. “Food would be good,” she laughed. “Hay chips, if you’ve got them.”

“I can get those,” offered Spike.

“I was going to get something to eat, anyway, so I’ll go, too,” said Starlight.

"Me too,” said Rainbow. “I want to stretch these wings some more.” She stopped, casting a glance at Sunset. “I mean, uh…”

“I’ll be fine,” Sunset assured, waving a hoof. Her stomach grumbled again. “Especially with food.”

“I-I’ll go, too,” said Sparky quietly.

Sunset gave her friend a curious glance. Was she still that upset at the use of her magic? But the group was out the door before Sunset could bring it up. Sighing, she put that particular issue at the back of her mind. For now, what she needed was rest. Lots of rest.

And for Princess Luna to get here soon.

To say that Twilight Sparkle, aka. Sparky, was overwhelmed would have been the understatement of the century. Possibly the millennium.

First of all, there was her body, and the whole matter of adjusting herself to the motion of four legs, and the complete absence of fingers and toes. Second, there was the fact that she was in an actual parallel universe. Living proof of multiverse theory right in front of her.

But both of those things were secondary to the final issue: the ball of guilt rolling around her rib cage like a pinball.

This was all her fault. She’d promised Sunset they’d find something. She’d promised her friend. Her first real friend outside of her family. Her savior. The girl who’d pulled her from the edge of madness of magical intoxication, stopped her from ripping reality to shreds in a quest for ultimate knowledge.

It was her fault. Her fault for draining all that magic, her fault for giving into the pressure to use it. Her fault for failing the person who’d offered her hand in friendship, who’d been nothing but kind to her ever since.

The events of earlier in the day played out before her eyes. The commotion from down the hall that had disrupted her class. Standing up to see Sunset’s unconscious form carried to the nurse’s office by Mr. Record, her arms hanging limply in the air like a corpse, her skin pale, her breathing ragged.

Her fault. Her fault for what happened at the Friendship Games, for what happened to Sunset. Her fault for knocking her over with magic. Her magic.

Clip-clop, clip-clop went her hooves as she walked…no, trotted down the crystal hallway. Hooves, yes. That’s what Twilight needed to focus on at the moment. Not her emotions. Not the horrible guilt or the…terrible…powerful…magic that was once again at her finger…no, wait, not fingertips. Hoof-tips? Horn-tip? What was the equivalent word in this universe?

Better to focus on things like that. Words, hooves, and her altered physiology. Walking, too. She still hadn’t gotten down the motion of four legs yet. That needed to be fixed. She put her concentration on her legs, moving one leg and then the other, trying to remember the times she’d watched Spike, her Spike, walk around the house.

Up ahead, Rainbow and Starlight were engaged in conversation, the former telling the latter about some recent game. Twilight blotted that out, too. One leg in front of the other. One, two, three, four. Left hind leg, left foreleg, right hind leg, right foreleg. One, two, three, four.

“Hey.” Spike came up beside her. “What’s bothering you?” he asked quietly.

Twilight turned to the baby dragon, because the doppelganger of her now-talking dog was a baby dragon here, because of course he was, in surprise. “What makes you think something’s bothering me?”

Spike shrugged. “You and Twilight might be different ponies, but I still know that face. So, what is it?”

Twilight bit her lip. “This is my fault. I was the one who initiated the plan to find Sunset’s memories. I was the one who failed to find any good leads…”

“You can’t blame yourself,” said Spike. “You did the best you could, right?”

“That’s what the others said, but I…”

Spike nodded, his green eyes softening. “I think the only one who’s disappointed in you is you.”

“But how do I fix it?” Twilight pleaded. “How do I make it right?”

“Dunno,” the dragon admitted. “You’re the only one that can figure it out. But I’m sure you’ll find a way. I did.”

“You did?”

“I had the same sort of problem in the last Equestria Games.”

Twilight didn’t know what the Equestria Games were, but she got what he was trying to say. “Thank you, Spike.” She laughed, just a little, a small chip off the emotional stone in her chest. “I wonder if I’m going to get this kind of advice from my Spike now that he can talk.” Therapy animals taken to a whole new level.

“If he’s as smart as I am, I think so,” said Spike.

Twilight shook her head, picking up her pace to close the gap between her and the rest of the group. She still didn’t feel entirely better, but maybe…no, eventually, she’d find a way to make things up to the girl that saved her.

And maybe, while she was at it, she’d figure out why, as of late, Sunset’s smile made her stomach flutter.

Princess Twilight fluffed the pillows. “Are you comfortable?’ she asked.

“I’m good,” Sunset replied. “You really didn’t need to give me your bed.”

“It’s fine,” said Twilight. “And anyway, if it becomes a problem, there are plenty of other beds in the castle. I ordered half a dozen more back when Princess Luna had to deal with the Tantabus.”

Sunset, who had been digging her head into the very soft pillow that made her own feel like a rock, looked up to shoot the princess a look. “What the hay is a Tantabus?”

“A construct designed to create nightmares,” answered the alicorn as she pulled one of the curtains to blot out a window. “Princess Luna had been using it to torment herself after Nightmare Moon,” she added, her face twisting into a grimace. “But it got loose and nearly broke into the real world to turn everything into a nightmare.”

Sunset whistled. “Sounds pretty intense.” A part of her wished she’d been there.

Of course, she would have wanted to help. But more than that, she just…missed the adventure. It was a feeling that had nagged at her more and more since her reform, when she hadn’t had mad schemes and revenge plots to occupy her time.

Not that she was complaining, not too much. School was fine. Not exactly challenging, but fine. She had friends now. Plus, the neighborhood was pretty safe. It wasn’t a bad situation at all. But all the same, looking back on her life in Equestria, there had been that sense of adventure. Magical challenges to meet, mythic creatures to deal with. Clearly not on the scale of Princess Twilight and her friends, but still there, regardless.

A part of her wanted that back. Yearned for it. Which was ridiculous, when she thought about it. After all, her last two adventures had been seriously stressful. And yet, that desire still remained, burning brighter than ever before.

Twilight moved to the side of the bed, standing right in Sunset’s vision. A frown crossed her face. “So…what exactly was going on? When you had the seizure, I mean.”

Seizure. The word sent a wave of fear through her body. “I was in history class,” she answered slowly, doing her best to keep her breathing even. “I was tired, barely paying attention to the lecture…it was on…” She trailed off when she encountered the hole in her memory, deep and jagged, and her skull began to pulse again. “Owww.”

“On the other hoof, maybe it’s best to try and not remember,” the princess added quickly. “It might set it off again.”

Cause another seizure, was what the princess wasn’t saying. Sunset’s chest tightened. She felt like she was back in the nurse’s office, with Nurse Redheart asking if there was a history of disease in her family. “Twi…do you think there’s something wrong with me?”

“Well,” began the princess. “I wouldn’t call amnesia a normal situation.”

“Not just that,” Sunset answered. “I mean…” Her chest began to heave, trying to throw off the feeling attempting to crush her. Sunset drew herself a bit closer together. “I had a seizure, Twi. A seizure. What if I’ve got some sort of brain damage?”

“Sunset, I don’t think you need to go that far. Not yet,” soothed Twilight. “All we can say is that you’re having trouble remembering your past.”

“It’s more complicated than that!” Sunset retorted hotly. Nurse Redheart’s suggestions had fed into anxieties and frustrations she’d already had inside her, and now, they were blossoming. “It doesn’t make sense, Twi! It doesn’t make any sense! Why can’t I remember the nightmares?!”

“Most ponies don’t remember their dreams clearly,” answered Twilight in a lecturing tone. “The dreaming process largely suppresses long-term memory storage, so it’s perfectly normal—”

“These are nightmares,” Sunset interrupted. “The kind that make you scream in your sleep. When’s the last time you saw somepony have a nightmare that strong and not remember a single thing about it when they wake up? ‘Cause that’s me! The very second I’m awake, it’s just…gone. Nothing.”

She sank back down onto the mattress, feeling even more exhausted than before. “All these flashbacks, all these nightmares, and I don’t remember anything. All I ever get are leftover emotions, fragments I can barely hold onto.”

She sighed. “It’s not normal, Twi. Even for amnesia, it can’t be normal. I should have been able to hold onto something solid by now.”

“I know it’s hard, Sunset,” Twilight said, pulling the unicorn into a gentle hug.

Sunset returned the hug, pulling the alicorn tight. “Even if I don’t have brain damage,” she added quietly. “I…there’s no trace of me or Manisha in the human world. It makes me feel like…” her chest squeezed again. “It’s like I don’t exist.”

“Dude, of course you exist!”

Sunset turned her head to see Rainbow and the others entering the room, trays of snacks held by Starlight’s magic.

Rainbow rushed up to her, pulling Sunset and Twilight apart. “How can you say you don’t exist? You’re right here!”

“Our search results beg to differ,” she said morosely. “As far as the human world is concerned, there is no other me.”

“Maybe your counterpart has a different name?” offered Spike. “Or maybe your parents didn’t meet, or they met different ponies. I saw that once in the Filli-Second miniseries.”

“Spike,” cut in Starlight. “That’s a comic book.”

“Doesn’t mean it can’t have happened!” Spike argued back.

“He has a point,” offered Princess Twilight. “Your counterpart’s life could simply be more complicated than we know.”

“I guess,” Sunset conceded, sighing again. While that might be the answer to one of her anxieties, it did nothing for the one closer to home than her place in reality.

She’d always prided herself on her intellect, her ability to learn and solve problems. She valued it as highly as she did her magical ability, and honestly the two went hoof in hoof. But was one of her greatest strengths actually a weakness? Had there been a disease laying dormant this whole time?

What if she just started…forgetting more than just her dreams? Nightmare scenarios of neurological disorders clawed at the back of her imagination.

Her terror was interrupted by a loud growling echoing out from her stomach. She glanced down, her cheeks warming. “Mind passing me the hay chips?” she asked, placing a hoof behind her head. “I’m starving.”

For a while, things were quiet except for the sounds of snacks being eaten. Sweet Celestia, it was good to eat hay again. She downed an entire bag of chips in less than thirty minutes. She hadn’t even realized she was so hungry. But between her half-eaten lunch and how weak she felt, it wasn’t too surprising.

She probably would have eaten them faster, if it weren’t for Rainbow teasing her about the fact that she’d eaten hay as a human, which she’d let slip while stuffing her face. By the end of it, Sunset was laughing as much as eating, and her fears had been, well, not necessarily removed, but definitely muted.

And to think, not too long ago, she hadn’t had any friends at all. What would it have been like, if she’d gone through this without any of them by her side? Probably unbearable, and not worth putting much effort into imagining.

Suddenly, there was a noise from outside. Spike went over to the window. “Princess Luna’s here!” he declared.

Princess Twilight shot to her hooves. “I’d better go meet her.” With a loud pop, she disappeared in a flash of teleportation.

Sunset’s stomach clenched. This was it.

Sparky’s hoof tentatively wrapped around hers, and nearby, Rainbow grinned.

Distant voices echoed down the crystal halls, punctuated by the clip-clop of hooves, Twilight’s, and another, heavier set. A minute later, the door to the bedroom opened, and Sunset felt her jaw go slack.

Perhaps it was because Princess Twilight was still about her own size, but Sunset had forgotten just how large the height disparity was between alicorns and the rest of the population.

Most citizens of Equestria possessed body proportions more or less in-keeping with what Earth would call a pony. But the alicorns, Princess Celestia and Luna, were, Sunset now realized, closer to that of a full-sized horse. Even Princess Cadance, who, as far as she remembered, wasn’t that size, still stood as tall as the average stallion.

Sunset’s gaze traveled upwards from the floor, taking in the whole of the night princess’s appearance. Powerful hooves clad in a set of silver hoofshoes to contrast against Celestia’s gold ones. A broad-shouldered frame hung with a generous amount of muscle that was easily visible beneath her dark blue coat.

Had Celestia been that muscular? Perhaps Luna had more earth pony in her. Or maybe she just worked out more.

Two powerful wings, a slender neck decorated with an onyx-black necklace with a silver crescent moon. An incredibly long mane and tail, dark blue like the vice principal across the mirror, but sparkling with hundreds of tiny stars, making it almost seem less like hair and more like the sky itself, and topped by a black crown.

Cyan met cyan as Sunset reached Luna’s face. The night princess smiled. “Greetings, Sunset Shimmer. My sister has spoken of you.”

A thousand and one possible comments ran through Sunset’s mind, none of them particularly flattering. The princess strode forward, and as she did, Starlight moved out of the way, making herself as unobtrusive as possible.

Oh, yeah, that was encouraging.

The unicorn flinched as Luna’s silver-clad hoof reached out to touch the bags under her eyes. “Twilight Sparkle has already told me of your recent troubles,” she said with a frown. “You look grievously ill.”

Before Sunset could answer, Rainbow Dash flew between them. “Whoa, why are you giant-sized?!” she exclaimed. “Seriously, I’m all compact and stuff and you’re like an actual horse.”

Luna frowned. “Hast your memory failed…” her attention turned to Sparky, and her brows furrowed in an almost comical expression.

“Oh,” said Princess Twilight awkwardly. “I forgot to mention, two of Sunset’s friends came with her.”

“I’m Rainbow Dash,” said Rainbow, holding out a hoof. “Best athlete at Canterlot High.”

“And I’m Twilight Sparkle,” said Sparky. Her cheeks flushed in a way that Sunset found adorable. “W-Well, I suppose you already knew that,” she stammered. “Am I supposed to be bowing? I’m so sorry!” She frantically dropped to her belly.

“Please, do not bow,” said Luna, shifting in clear discomfort. “Such formality is unnecessary.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow at that. Celestia, as she remembered, had been far more formal in their interactions. Oh, perhaps not as much when she’d been very young, and even as a teenager, the princess took her on picnics occasionally. But still, there had been that formal air.

Luna turned back to her. “I am ready to examine your dreams, if you are ready.”

“I’m ready,” she answered. Or as ready as she’d ever be. She settled herself back on the mattress. “So, is there a sleeping potion I need to take, or…?”

“I will cast a spell to put you to sleep,” replied Luna. Her horn glowed, and the unicorn felt the magic wash over her, cool, but soothing. Her eyelids grew heavy.

The last thing she knew before she slipped into her dreams was the tightening of Sparky’s hoof around hers, and a whispered “Sleep well.”

Luna breathed deep as she felt her magic connect with Sunset’s mind. It was a strange sensation, going directly into a pony’s dream without first locating it in The Dreaming, the astral plane upon which she accessed the dreams of everypony in Equestria. In fact, the last time she’d done such a thing was in this very room, in her battle against the Tantabus.

Foreign or not, however, it did nothing to hinder her progress. Her own consciousness shot forward, projecting down the bridge of energy, and passing into Sunset’s sleeping mind. As her form swirled into existence, the princess found herself wincing as noise assaulted her on all sides.

Around her was the city of Manehattan, ponies busily going to and fro. The blue alicorn glanced around. This didn’t seem like a nightmare. She scanned the crowds, before homing in on a distinctive mix of red and gold.

There, in the distance, was Sunset Shimmer, and trotting beside her, head darting everywhere, was Twilight Sparkle.

No, she corrected herself, recognizing the empty sides and dark-framed glasses. The human Twilight. The two unicorns were walking along, laughing and smiling as they moved from store to store, sight to sight. Twilight pressed her neck to Sunset’s in a more-than-platonic nuzzle, and Sunset returned it in kind.

A smile tugged at her lips. Young love, it seemed, was blooming in Sunset’s heart. The two of them hadn’t seemed that close before. Was it not reciprocated, or simply not confessed?

Luna shook her head. This was more Cadance’s realm than hers.

For another minute, she watched the pair amble through the streets, before her smile inverted to a deep frown. Here was something Sunset needed: peaceful slumber. But it was not, sadly, what Luna needed.

“For Mother’s sake,” she muttered irritably. “What miserable fortune is this, that I must rip away a dream instead of a nightmare?” A wave of guilt passed through her. “Forgive me, young Sunset, for what I am about to do.”

Turning her attention to the sky, she called out in the full force of the Royal Canterlot Voice, the blasting volume once used to address crowds from balconies more than a millennium prior. “Show me Manisha!”

Luna had anticipated an immediate response. Her post-hypnotic suggestions, commands made to the dream itself, usually resulted in such. A pony’s sleeping mind was often quite willing to let her make the rules. What she had not anticipated, however, was the violence of the response.

The princess of the night was flung from the ground, her form scattering into mist as the dreamscape of Manehattan, with its smiles and joy, was blasted into oblivion. Her ears rang like bells as she tumbled end over end, fighting to regain control. When she finally managed to stop, she found herself face to face with a true nightmare.

A house stood before her, transformed into a fireball. Figures darted around, fighting valiantly to contain it. Their forms, Luna noted, were fluid and unstable, equine one moment, and some bipedal form the next.

Were these the humans Twilight had spoken of on the other side of the mirror? How strange they were.

“MANISHA!”

And there, at the very back of the crowd, was Sunset.

Even in the haze of the fire, her colors were impossible to miss. So, too, was it impossible not to hear her screams.

Luna’s first instincts were to go to her, to probe the unicorn’s dream self for information, or for comfort, as she did so often with the ponies of her realm. She began to descend, meaning to land beside the dreamer, only for her eyes to be drawn inexorably back to the fire, the very heart of the nightmare itself, when another scream rose into the night air.

There, near the house, were two mares, both dark-coated and dark-maned. Softly, Luna glided down to land a few feet away from the pair, observing them both. One was older, lying unconscious on a stretcher, her body caked by smoke and ash, but otherwise not hurt.

The other, a young mare, stood nearer the blaze, eyes transfixed upon it. She was draped in fabrics of green and gold in a style that Luna recognized from Maneipuri, and which were singed at the edges. A mixture of tears and cosmetics poured down her cheeks.

The princess of the night focused on the younger of the two. Was this Manisha? She was significantly older than Sunset would have been, but that did not mean she couldn’t have been a friend. How much of this was memory, and how much was distorted by the surreal nature of dreams? It was not always so easy to tell.

Suddenly, the mare let out an anguished wail. The firefighters emerged from the building, carrying somepony on a stretcher. As they passed, Luna’s breath caught in her throat.

The paw that slipped limply off the side of the stretcher was unnaturally red, patches of white and yellow where the burns were deeper. Blisters dotted the skin like a spotted coat. The face was a ruin, the muzzle ringed with burns, the scalp a bubbling, blistered mess. A hoofful of long black strands, once a mane, still clung to the ruined skin, their ends charred and ragged.

The constant changes between pony and human only seemed to magnify the grotesque horror of the injuries. But what struck Luna’s heart the strongest was that, despite the instability, despite the carnage to the flesh, the night alicorn could still tell that the being before her was a child. A filly, barely into her teens.

The mare in green and gold was at the filly’s side in an instant, forcing herself through Luna’s dream form, speaking hurriedly in a language Luna did not comprehend. She touched her paw to the filly’s ruined face, sobbing deeply, as if her tears could somehow soothe the horrible burns.

“Oh, Behna,” she choked.

“Nisha?” came the soft, stunned whisper behind her.

Luna turned again. Sunset was standing behind her, free from the barricade of firefighters. Luna had not been able to tell from her lofty vantage point before, but Sunset’s form was even more unstable than every other being here. Her body shifted not only from equine to human, but also in age, from a teenage mare on the cusp of adulthood, to a filly in the early years of puberty, all the way down to a child.

In all her years exploring the realm of dreams, Luna had never seen its like. Perhaps Sunset’s time across the mirror had confused her mind, her very sense of self-perception, as well as her perception of all those around her.

Sunset’s eyes were pricked with tears. A trembling paw reached up, grasping at air. “Nisha?” she repeated. Her voice was distorted, the sounds of child, teenager, and adult blended together. But even through the echo, she sounded completely lost.

Luna followed the unicorn’s gaze. It wasn’t on the young mare, but on the one in the stretcher. Her eyes moved back and forth between dreamer and dreamed, and the alicorn’s heart broke as she grasped the full tragedy before her.

This was Manisha. Not the crying mare, but the filly. A child. Burned and broken.

Manisha’s eyes, which had been fixed to the sky above, turned to them now, and both Sunset and Luna took a step back. Deep brown and ringed red from smoke, they met the world with a look of utter hatred and outraged judgment, silently hurling accusations that stung Luna to her core.

Luna opened her mouth, almost compelled to defend herself against the dream child, when she was stopped cold by a vibration passing through the world. Low and steady, it shook every atom of the nightmare. The night princess’s head darted around. It couldn’t be, but it was. The fabric of the dream was unraveling. Was Sunset regaining consciousness? Luna had barely been in her dreams at all.

Or perhaps, whispered a little voice at the back of her mind that sounded suspiciously like Nightmare Moon, her interference caused Sunset to be thrown awake by the raw pain she’d inflicted.

Guilt stabbed at her again, even as the sensation around her grew. Something was indeed terribly wrong with the fabric of the dream. It was dissolving around her, buildings and people disintegrating like dry sand.

No! Luna needed answers! She would not allow herself to return to the waking world with only pain as her offering.

“Sunset.” The unicorn didn’t seem to hear her. “Sunset,” she called again, but again to no avail. Usually she’d be able to contact them in dreams. Or was Sunset too lost in her confusion? “Please, you must tell me, where was this? What happened?”

Sunset merely continued to stare at her friend. Her chest heaved up and down in hyperventilation.

Luna pressed a hoof to Sunset’s shoulder, putting herself between Sunset and Manisha. Beneath her, the ground was sliding away, structure dissolving faster and faster, and the very air thundered as the sky itself seemed to crack apart.

“Sunset, please!” Luna begged. “I am sorry to have brought this agony back upon you, but you must tell me. What caused this tragedy? What happened to your friend?”

Above the din of it all, a new voice echoed.

“I’m sorry, honey, but your friend…she died earlier today.”

The unicorn howled with rage and grief, a bellowing sound that shook the already fragile reality to the point of no return. Her cries mixed with Luna’s as the princess was sent tumbling in the shards of a shattered dream.

When Luna regained her senses, she found herself surrounded by darkness.

“Where in Equestria am I?” she questioned aloud. Reaching out with her magic, she scanned her surroundings. To her great surprise, she found herself still within Sunset’s sleeping mind. One devoid of any dream.

Not that ponies didn’t have dreamless nights. Many did. But the fact that she was standing in a dreamless mind was…well, to be quite frank it was impossible. If a pony wasn’t dreaming, she was unable to enter their mind at all, not unless she induced a dream.

If Sunset had woken up, Luna’s connection should have been fully broken. Therefore, the unicorn was still asleep. And yet, Luna was still here, standing in the void.

Why had the nightmare ended so abruptly? That was odd in and of itself, as was the manner in which it had ended. It hadn’t dissipated in the way dreams or nightmares usually did. Instead, it had dissolved, like something had forcibly broken it down.

Curiouser and curiouser, to coin a phrase.

Still, Luna could not leave yet. Her heart still ached for the pain she’d inflicted, and her gains were too few and too heavy to bring back. She had to do more.

“Perhaps it is time, then,” she said aloud, to nopony other than herself, “to dig deeper.”

Lighting her horn, she brought her magic down on the darkness. A glowing portal appeared on the floor. Gingerly, Luna stepped down into it, traveling into the depths of Sunset’s mind.

In a certain sense, dreams were like a wetland. The soil of a dream was nourished by three sources of water—the memory; the subconscious; and the imagination. The last of these was akin to a raincloud, feeding the environment, but too abstract to be a fixed place in the mind.

The first two, however, were more like rivers, and as a pony who walked in dreams, Luna had the ability to sail them both, if she chose.

It was not, however, a choice she made often. Entering the dream of another was already a violation of privacy, even if it was to help. Entering deeper than that, even more so. Thus, Luna reserved such drastic action only for situations where no other recourse was available.

This, she decided, counted as one of them.

Memory came first, laying as it did closest to the dreaming part of the mind. A long and winding hall greeted the princess upon her arrival, lined with door upon door. It was not unlike The Dreaming itself, if only on a smaller scale.

Luna trotted along the hall, searching for signs of the elusive nightmare. It would do little good to waste her time probing every inch of Sunset’s mind, not to mention how intrusive it was. And if the nightmare she witnessed was made of repressed memories, there should be some sign. Some portion that was blocked or simply different.

The first thing that caught her attention was not a door, but the walls. Dark blue within the mindscape, they were threaded with pulsing lines. The lines weren’t odd in and of themselves. She’d seen that before in the rare occasions she’d traversed the memory. In fact, thanks to her studies of the modern world, she knew now that they were representations of nerve cells.

No, what caught her attention was that they were an aggravated shade of red.

Luna touched one, and pulled her hoof away when the surface came back exceedingly warm. She glanced down to the floor. More red nerve cells. More warmth. Her eyebrows drew together. Sunset hadn’t mentioned anything about a fever, nor had she seemed in the grip of one, haggard as she was.

So, why were the nerves so warm?

The princess broke into a gallop, keeping her eyes open for anything that stood out. She wasn’t entirely sure what the red glow meant, but she didn’t like it. Not one bit. The only thing she knew for certain was that she needed to find Sunset’s lost memories as soon as possible.

Twilight watched her counterpart pace slowly around the room, anxiously watching Sunset as the unicorn languidly turned in the bed.

It was, she decided, a strange experience, observing what was physiologically her younger self from an outside perspective. Even stranger was the experience of seeing her familiar face hidden behind a pair of glasses.

It was only the four of them left in the room now, minus Luna and Sunset. After Luna had initiated the spell, Starlight had quickly made herself scarce, claiming she had things to move in her room.

Twilight was pretty sure the pink unicorn just didn’t want to be around Luna. Given her past actions, it wasn’t really surprising that she’d feel nervous around one of Equestria’s two main rulers. Twilight made a mental note to add “dealing with guilt” and “fear of punishment” to the potential lessons.

Under the confines of the blankets, Sunset rolled onto one side. “Nisha…” she moaned, a broken quality to her voice that twisted the purple alicorn’s insides. What the hay had transpired to separate Sunset from her friend, or from her memories? Before all this, Twilight had often considered being separated from her friends to be unimaginably horrible.

Now, she had to wonder. What was worse, physical separation, or being robbed of the knowledge that you had a friend at all? It was a cruel sort of question that she decided she never wanted the answer to.

Beside the bed, the other Twilight…Sparky, the princess mentally corrected, bit her lip.

“Don’t worry,” said Spike to her anxious counterpart. “Everything will be okay. Princess Luna’s pretty awesome.”

Sparky said nothing.

After a pause, the dragon spoke again. “In fact, she and I once solved a mystery in Fillydelphia.”

That caught the unicorn’s attention. “…Really?” she asked curiously.

Rainbow, who had been floating above, still relishing in the power of her wings, looked down at the dragon in confusion. “I thought she was a princess, not a detective.”

“She is, but she decided to investigate,” Spike clarified. “It was happening in Dragon Town, see. That’s a dragon neighborhood, the only one in Equestria. The unicorn police thought that a dragon was involved, and Princess Luna asked me…”

The anxious unicorn was drawn completely into the tale, all of her worries silenced. Twilight smiled. While the two of them might be different ponies, or people, as the case may be, Spike had clearly picked up a few similarities, and he was using that to help the human girl by distracting her with Twilight’s greatest love: Learning.

And in truth, Twilight was listening, too. She’d heard this story before. Spike had told her about it after he’d gotten back. But it never stopped being interesting. She’d had no idea there was a dragon population in Fillydelphia.

Perhaps she and Spike could visit there together? Dragon culture was such a blank spot, and she had so many questions. Plus, it would probably be good for Spike to be around other dragons, or at least ones that weren’t the migratory, unfriendly kind.

“…Then me and all the other dragons helped get everybody out of the building and put out the fire,” Spike finished.

“You ran into a burning building?” Rainbow Dash whistled, having also been pulled into the story. “Dude…”

“It was nothing, really,” Spike replied, and Twilight couldn’t help but notice a blush creeping its way onto his cheeks. “I’m fireproof.”

“It’s still very brave,” Twilight offered. “Fireproof or not.” She tried to hide her smile as Spike’s blush deepened.

“And all this was caused by a…what did you call it? A Fire Snail?” asked Sparky.

“Uh-huh,” nodded Spike. “Cute little guys. Princess Luna and the Fillydelphia police rounded them up from the sewers and took them somewhere safe where they wouldn’t hurt anypony, or blame any dragons for anymore fires.”

On the bed nearby, Sunset twisted in her sleep, hind legs kicking at the blankets.

“What’s up with her?” asked Rainbow.

“I don’t know,” answered the alicorn.

“Dragon…” moaned the fire-maned pony. “Dragon…fire…”

Luna raced through the hall, searching for a sign. Nothing stood out. But her search was hardly done. Ahead of her was darkness, memories shadowed by time, and holding the promise of answers.

“Dragon…fire…” Sunset’s sleepy voice rang out, echoing down from above her. Luna barely registered the words before the hallway sprung to horrible life. The red, pulsing veins of the nerve cells glowed like fire, and pulsed with a radiant heat so high that Luna was forced to take to the air to avoid burning her hooves.

“What in Equestria is this?” cried the princess, watching as the nerve cells arched with lightning, and the floor began to rumble with the ever-increasing power of an oncoming train. Luna formed a protective shield around herself as the nerves continued to scream, fearing she’d be seared by the heat alone.

The floor shattered with a thunderous roar, and a blast of bright light burst forth, sweeping Luna away.

The princess landed on something hard. Groaning in pain, she got to her hooves, shaking the metaphorical stars from her vision. Truly, Sunset Shimmer’s mind was giving her more trouble than she’d had in many a moon.

“What’ll you be having?” came a gruff voice beside her.

Luna opened her eyes, and found herself in some kind of eatery. Around her, patrons shifted and changed from one form to another. Human, equine, and other creatures so strange that Luna couldn’t imagine where on Terra they came from.

All around her, Luna could feel the essence of a freshly woven dream. Whatever the cause, she’d evidently been shoved back up to the highest part of Sunset’s mind. She turned a glance to the stallion who had spoken, a very gruff-looking barkeep, but ignored him in favor of a sign that read “Iceworld Diner.”

Luna’s eyebrow shot up. She’d studied Terra’s political geography (among many other things) after returning from her thousand-year exile, but she’d never heard of a place by that name. Was it on Earth, perhaps?

The blue alicorn swung her gaze around, taking in the rest of the diner, the walls that looked like ice, the strange machinery, and the even stranger patrons. Moving toward the front, her attention fell on one table in particular, where a group of four sat huddled in conversation, including Sunset’s dream self.

Her form remained unstable, but her age, for whatever reason, seemed to veer toward that of a teenager. She was dressed in what appeared to be a waitresses’ uniform, white apron tied firmly around her waist, and the name tag torn completely off.

This, clearly, couldn’t be a pure memory. Sunset had been seven when she was found, far too young to be a waitress, even if this “Iceworld” existed on Earth. Although…for a brief moment, she wondered if Sunset had been the victim of an age spell, but dismissed it just as quickly. Such magic was impossibly difficult for wizards before her banishment, and remained so now.

Still, Luna was content to study this dream, if only for a few minutes. It was possible, under the layers of imagination, that it contained traces of true memory, things she could bring back to Sunset in the waking world.

Besides, after being thrown back up through the mind, she could use a brief respite.

The other occupants of the table consisted of one mare and two stallions. The mare was young, probably in her twenties, and was of an especially petite build. She wore some kind of bright pink shirt, and her mane was composed of long, wild red curls. A relative of Sunset’s, perhaps?

One of the stallions was dressed in some kind of strange garb. Was that…no, it couldn’t be leather. Nopony would wear leather. He was well-muscled, but middle-aged. Somewhere close to fifty, if she had to guess, with a heavy, dark beard, and, to Luna’s eye, seemed to emanate the air of a scoundrel.

Then there was the other stallion. Not quite as old, perhaps his forties. Short in stature with a head of dark brown curls, he was dressed in a hat, scarf, and sweater covered in…question marks? By his side was the strangest umbrella Luna had ever seen, black with a shiny red handle, also in the shape of a question mark.

His eyes, gray-blue and incredibly sharp, peered over some sort of ancient-looking parchment that had been spread across the table. Inching closer, Luna observed that it was some kind of map.

“Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating,” purred the stallion in a Trottish brogue. “It appears to show the lower levels of Iceworld.”

The redheaded mare looked at the map with a mixture of burning skepticism and irritation. “You don’t want to believe anything you get from…” Her voice was high, her accent…Eaglish? Yes, definitely Eaglish. “He probably bought two-hundred of them in a job lot.”

Luna tilted her head. There had been a word missing. Lips had moved, but no sound came out. How very interesting.

“Here, there’s nothing snide about this document,” protested the scoundrel, the apparent source of the map. Evidently, the other mare had picked up the same thing Luna had, that he, whoever he was, was not to be trusted.

Sunset glared at the map. “It looks like something from a jumble sale,” she said witheringly, her voice also ringing with an Eaglish accent.

Luna raised an eyebrow. Yet another point of interest. Though it was not unheard of, in her experience, for dreamers to take on different accents in dreams, particularly when they placed themselves inside the tales of books. Perhaps that was what this was, in part. Or perhaps Sunset was, in fact, Eaglish in origin. Perhaps that was why her family had not been found, separated as they were by miles and miles of ocean.

Truth or falsehood? That was the question, wasn’t it?

Deciding that the time for observation was over, Luna approached the table. “Sunset,” she called, tapping her hoof to the teen’s shoulder. “Sunset Shimmer, it is I, Princess Luna.”

Sunset turned slowly toward the alicorn; her eyes glazed over, just as they had been at the site of the fire. “There’s supposed to be a terrifying dragon living in the ice passages below Iceworld,” she said in the same Eaglish accent.

Across the table, the little stallion beamed. “All right, join the party!”

“I do not wish to partake of this dream,” the princess insisted. “I need you to show me where your lost memories are. I must find them.”

Sunset’s face brightened. “And can we search for the treasure, too?”

“Treasure?” asked the Trottish stallion.

“Yeah, the dragon’s supposed to be guarding a fabulous treasure.”

“Sunset,” Luna pleaded. “I know you are confused, but you must help me.”

For a moment, a look of comprehension flickered across Sunset’s face. “Down,” she said, still not breaking character. “You…need to go…down.”

Luna nodded. “Yes, I already went down into your memories before I was caught in this dream. But can you show me where they are?”

“Down,” Sunset repeated, sounding like she was in a trance.

Luna grit her teeth. “I need more than that. Please—”

“The dragon…guarding the treasure…below,” answered the unicorn slowly, as if she were trying to reform her dream dialogue. “Ice…p-passages…” Her face twisted in concentration. “No…no…sun. Permanent…d-dark side.”

“No sun?” Perhaps she was helping her after all? Luna tapped a hoof against her chin. No sun…darkness. A place untouched by light. Hidden. Could that mean…yes! When she’d been pushed back up from the memory into the dreaming part of the mind, something had come up from the floor.

“Your memories are in your subconscious,” uttered the alicorn in breathless realization.

“Ice passages,” was Sunset’s only answer. “The dragon.”

“The Ice Gardens,” added the Trottish stallion. “The Singing Trees.”

“The Lake of Oblivion,” added the scoundrel. “The Death of Eternal Darkness. Dragonfire. I should stop at home if I were you.”

“You want to see a dragon, don’t you?” said the redheaded mare.

“I want to find her memories,” retorted Luna sharply, before remembering that these figures weren’t actually real. She turned back to Sunset. “Thank you.”

“Ice passages,” Sunset repeated.

The diner’s floor shuddered, and Luna took a step back as the concrete split open to reveal a shaft punched deep into the earth. Frozen air rose up from within, playing with strands of Luna’s starry mane.

Beside her, Sunset’s face contorted in pain. “H-Help…me…”

Luna’s eyes met hers. “I will, Sunset Shimmer.” Unfolding her wings, she descended into the subconscious.

The passage below was dark as pitch, the rocky walls threaded with black ice. Here and there, pieces of steel had been worked in, ramps and stairs, an effort to utilize the cave structure. As she reached the bottom, however, the darkness was shattered by light slipping in through cracks in the ice.

The night princess landed softly, blinking hard as the sudden influx of light played havoc with her vision. The ceiling high above her was decorated with strings of ice, swaying in the wind and creating a haunting sound that echoed off the walls. Those same walls were covered in ice, but the pattern was unnatural, perfectly-formed shapes mixed with metal and rock.

There were multiple passages out from the cave, each wreathed in their own shadows. Luna ignited her horn, but none of the passages looked any more promising than any other. Ultimately, she chose one at random, hoping they would all lead to the same goal.

She never expected the attack.

A jet of flame sailed by her, singeing the tips of her feathers. Luna jumped, shifting her magic from illumination to defense, and conjuring a shield around her body.

“Show yourself!” she commanded.

From out of the shadows lumbered a fearsome dragon equal to her own size, eyes red with rage. It roared, spitting out a blast of white-hot fire that slammed into her defenses. Luna dug in her hooves, forcing more power into her shield to block the searing heat, and cursing herself for letting her guard down.

It should have been obvious. The subconscious had taken the form of the ice passages Sunset had mentioned, so naturally, the dragon had materialized as well, ready and willing to guard the treasure, which was undoubtedly Sunset’s memories.

Unfortunately for the dragon, this was far from her first battle with monsters.

“I shall slay you where you stand, creature of dream!” Luna cried, firing a bolt of magic directly at the great beast.

The dragon, for all of its lumbering movement, managed to maneuver out of the way, moving behind an outcropping of rock and ice, before reemerging to counterattack.

Luna dodged, jumping to the side to avoid the flames. She circled around, keeping herself a moving target even as fire continued to sail around her, searching for a weak point. With dragons, there was usually…there! A gap in the scales, right on the stomach. Dodging another shot of searing flame, Luna took careful aim, and struck the monster right where it was most vulnerable.

It staggered backwards, clutching at the outcropping to steady itself, before undergoing a strange metamorphosis. Like the other creatures in Sunset’s dream world, its form rippled. But it did not change into a dog, as Twilight had described had happened to Spike. Neither did it become human. Instead, it changed into…Luna wasn’t sure what it was.

The beast was still tall, but the rippling muscles had vanished, leaving only a skeleton barely covered by…something neither skin nor scales. A filmy substance stretched itself across the frame, one that alternated between grayish-white in some lighting, but purple in others.

The enormous skull turned, searching for her, and the…no, they weren’t whiskers. Two black…pipes…went from the place where the mouth would have been, and anchored themselves to the skull.

Luna’s jaw went slack, her shield dissipating with her loss of concentration. “What in Mother’s name are you?”

The dragon, if one could still call it that, regained its bearings. Its enormous head swung around, its dull white eyes locking onto her, before glowing with an intense red light. The power built and built, before firing outwards. The beams sailed high, shattering the rocks above Luna’s head, pelting the alicorn with half-melted stones.

Luna shrieked, bringing back her shield just in time to block another blast of energy. The dragon…for now it was alternating between the bizarre monstrosity and a dragon, continued to attack, pouring blast after blast, aiming at her as much as the surroundings.

Luna jumped to the right as a pile of ice crashed down from below, grunting with effort as her shield took another direct strike from her opponent, once more in proper dragon form.

“Dragon or not,” Luna muttered, adding more magic to her defenses at the first hint of heat melting its way through. “This creature is no laughing matter.”

Something tickled the back of her mind, a stirring in the fabric of the dream. Sunset was beginning to wake. Luna bit back a curse. The battle within the unicorn’s subconscious was working against the effects of her sleep spell.

The dragon, however, was unperturbed by this fact, continuing to attack with the ferocity that would have made any guardian proud. Truly, it was not, as the modern ponies would say, “her style,” to leave an opponent in a fight. But this was only hindering her real mission, to find the lost memories.

Creating a bubble of magic around herself, as strong as she could, Luna leapt into the air, up and over the dragon’s bulbous head. She spread her wings, thankful the beast did not have any of its own, and took off down one of the tunnels.

She had to close her wings not too far in, the ceiling too low to fly, breaking into a gallop, and doing her best to avoid the slippery patches of ice that dotted the floor. Behind her, she could hear the roar of the dragon, followed by footsteps.

“That’s not a dragon!”

Luna skidded to a stop, nearly losing her balance on a patch of ice. “Sunset Shimmer?!” she called. That had definitely been her voice, or at least, the version of her from up above. Had Sunset manifested herself in her own subconscious? “Sunset Shimmer, are you there?”

“Did you hear that?” echoed back the disembodied voice, low enough to be a whisper.

The sound of heavy hooffalls materialized into being. Luna swiveled her ears, trying to pinpoint the source of the sound. Something else was in these tunnels, something other than the dragon.

“Your treasure is most well-guarded,” Luna whispered.

From out of the shadows emerged a stallion. His face, no, his entire body, was coated in a layer of frost. He advanced on her, slow but steady, reaching out with his paws toward her throat.

“I have no reason to harm you,” she warned. “Stay where you are and let me pass.” Despite her warnings, the stallion didn’t stop moving, his expression completely dead to the world.

Something cold brushed against her flank. Instinct took over, and her hind legs lashed out, followed by the sound of flesh colliding with rock. Luna turned her head briefly to see a mare collapsed on the floor, her body also covered in frost.

To her amazement, despite being dealt a blow that would have incapacitated any normal pony, the mare simply opened her dead, emotionless eyes, and got back up again, as if nothing had happened.

Luna maneuvered away from them, putting space between herself and her new attackers, even as three more came into view, three more frozen stallions.

She fired bolts of magic at the newcomers, but as with the mare, the frozen ponies never stopped, seemingly oblivious to pain. A paw grabbed her throat from behind, pulling the air out of her lungs in a vice-like grip. The first pony had gotten too close. He was trying to break her neck.

Struggling for air, Luna transformed into mist, slipping out of the hold and rematerializing several feet away. As the horde of monsters advanced, now all from one side, the sensation of a waking consciousness poked at Luna’s senses. She didn’t have much time.

Luna charged her horn, readying a blast of lethal power that would slay these creatures once and for all, only for her magic to fizzle out as a paw grabbed tightly at her already bruised throat.

It was like being dumped into the Frozen North, the intensely cold touch of her attacker spreading through her entire body, solidifying the very blood in her veins. Another humanoid twisted into her vision, pale skinned and dark-maned. He wasn’t covered in ice like the others, but the cold was internal.

The stallion in the white military uniform smiled at her, a cold, empty smile that matched his dead black eyes. Luna struggled to fight, but the cold was numbing her responses.

The human’s body twisted and transformed, becoming a mass of ice and snow, the image of a Windigo.

“Bring me the Dragonfire!” he commanded, his voice roaring like a winter gale.

Then, as if in answer to his summons, the dragon rounded the corner. Letting out a roar of its own, its flame belched forth, striking the humanoid in the chest. He screamed, releasing Luna in his agony.

Gasping for breath and shivering at the bone-chilling cold, she watched as the human-turned Windigo continued to scream, his skin and flesh melting away to nothing, until all that was left was the empty white uniform laying on the tunnel floor.

The dragon’s flames flew around her, striking down the frozen ponies one by one, scorching their flesh. Every shot seemed to shake the unseen fabric of the dream, pressing the consciousness further and further toward the surface. There were only precious minutes left, if that.

With the last of the monsters vanquished, only Luna and the dragon remained. The dragon, now in the form of the strange abomination, leveled its gaze with her, its eyes glowing red. Weakened as she was by the cold, and feeling the now paper-thin fabric of the dream, Luna did the only thing she could.

As one last tongue of flame hurtled toward her, Luna let go, and returned to the waking world, the dragon roaring after her.

Sunset awoke with a start, her head throbbing yet again. At this rate, the pain was becoming pretty much omnipresent. The clock nearby indicated that she’d only been out an hour.

“Sunset?” asked Sparky, coming up beside her. “Are you okay?”

“Head hurts,” she grumbled. Her gaze turned to Princess Luna, and saw that the alicorn was breathing heavily, her knees buckling. “Are you okay?”

“Dude,” asked Rainbow, observing the heaving princess. “What happened in there?”

“I…” Luna heaved, “had quite the battle.”

“You look like you went ten rounds with Saddle Rager,” commented Spike. It took Sunset a minute to recall the reference, the comic superhero who turned into an angry, destructive giant. Considering how worn out Luna looked, the unicorn was forced to agree with the comparison.

“I’ve rarely ever seen you this exhausted,” said Princess Twilight with surprise. “Do you need some water?”

“It would be welcome, yes,” answered the night alicorn. Twilight levitated over a pitcher and glass, and Luna drank greedily. “Your dreams were most strange, and most challenging.” she said once she’d finished. “But not without interest.”

Right, her dreams. Forcing back the pain in her skull, Sunset asked the question that had raced to the front of her mind. “Did you find Manisha?”

Luna’s expression tightened. “I…”

Dread settled over the unicorn’s heart. “What happened?” she demanded sharply. “What happened to Manisha?”

“Your nightmare was of a house fire,” explained the princess quietly. “You were but a child, watching from the outside, but your friend…she was inside.” Her gaze drifted to the floor. “She did not survive.”

Sunset fell backwards against the pillows from the gut-punch of Luna’s words, barely noticing the collective intake of breath around the room. “Nisha’s…” she stopped herself for a half-second, absorbing the nickname that had slipped off her tongue from a place she couldn’t reach, before the weight of the revelation came back all over again. “Nisha’s dead?”

“I am sorry,” was all Luna could offer.

Sunset’s heart wrenched with the same horrible intensity as the night of the sleepover, except this time, she knew why. That was why it hurt so much. It wasn’t just the grief of physical separation, the thing she’d hoped against hope for, but the ultimate separation. The great divide that no being came back from. Her best friend was…was gone.

Somewhere in the numb shock of it, she managed to find her voice again, or a voice, at least. The sound that reverberated from her vocal cords was hollow. “Did you learn anything else? Did…did she have any family?”

“She did, but I do not know where they are,” Luna answered glumly. “Nor was I able to glean any other pertinent details.”

Something inside her snapped. “Why the hell not?!” Sunset roared. “You were in my head for an hour and that’s all you’ve got to give me? My best friend burned to death?!” She glared at the night princess. “Some help you are!”

Luna looked like she’d been bucked in the face. “I…”

“Sunset, that’s not fair,” chastised Twilight. “I’m sure Luna’s doing her best.”

Sunset froze, red haze fading from her vision. “I’m sorry,” she sighed, feeling once again like the bully of Canterlot High. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just…”

“You’re tired,” offered Sparky, wrapping a hoof around hers.

Sunset scoffed. “Understatement.”

“You are…forgiven, Sunset Shimmer,” answered Luna slowly, still looking stricken. “And I apologize for my limited findings. Your dream self appeared most confused, and the nightmare ended prematurely.”

“And that nightmare is what wore you out?” asked Sparky.

Luna shook her head. “No, it was not. Once the nightmare ended, I found myself still inside your mind, Sunset Shimmer, even though you were not dreaming.”

Twilight gawked. “But…but that’s impossible! From what you told me of your Dreamwalking Spell, it should have terminated.”

“I agree,” said Luna. “Twas most odd.”

“So, there is something wrong with my brain?” Sunset asked morosely.

Luna’s expression was dour. “It…is possible,” she conceded, causing Sunset’s insides to twist. “I have concerns,” the princess continued, “but I will not claim any certainty at the moment. Once the nightmare ended, I went down to search your memory, only to soon find myself caught in another dream…”

From there, Luna told the tale of the second dream, of a place called “Iceworld,” with a diner full of strange creatures, where her dream self was a waitress being pulled into a hunt for lost treasure, and how in the passages deep below, where the dream had shaped the subconscious, the night alicorn had fought a horde of monsters. Frozen people, a man with a freezing touch, and a fearsome dragon that was not a dragon.

“It had laser eyes?” said Rainbow. She turned to Sunset. “Dude, you’ve got some seriously cool dreams.”

Sparky rubbed her chin with a hoof. “This ‘dragon’ sounds more like some kind of alien species.” She turned her attention back to Sunset. “I had no idea you were into science fiction.”

“I’m not, at least not super into it,” she conceded. “Thing must have come out of some old movie.” On more than one night, when she’d been bored, or needed something on in the background while she worked, she’d switched the television to one of the movie channels.

Science fiction had definitely been among their fare. She recalled one particular week where she’d been knee-deep in schemes as much as school work. She’d spent the night scribbling plans and problems alike, all while the distant sounds of ray gun fire and UFOs in flight had passed over her hearing like so much white noise.

For the life of her, though, she couldn’t recall something as bizarre as her dream. Alien dragons living in passages below a diner? A ragtag group of treasure hunters, including a waitress? Ice people in military uniforms? Frozen zombie ponies? If that had all been one movie, somebody had a seriously weird imagination.

Either that, or her brain had stitched it together from an assortment of films like Frankensteed’s monster, and perhaps she ought to seriously think about trying her hoof at creative writing.

Still, something about it tickled the back of her brain in a way that went beyond trying to recognize a movie she’d half-watched. It was almost like…nostalgia. “Tell me more about the people I was talking to.”

Luna spoke about them one at a time. The mention of the redhead made her warm, distantly, like someone you didn’t know very well, but liked anyway. The one with the beard made her feel the way you did when you found a live insect in your food. And finally…

“And there was one other with you,” Luna was saying. “Another stallion. Small, with an umbrella with the oddest handle.”

An umbrella…

Sunset screamed as her brain was once again under siege.

Images of days gone by came crashing down on her. Days, months, years, who could even count the time? There was no real day or night onboard the…the something. Home? Not home? Everything was so jumbled. The emotions were so jumbled. Positive and negative, love, hate, pride, hurt, anger, joy, laughter, sorrow…

“Love and hate. Frightening feelings. Especially if trapped, struggling beneath the surface…Don’t be frightened of the water.”

Under the surface. Everything was under the surface. She was standing on the shore, staring down into the roiling, cold water, diving into it. Or had the water come to her? The confusion was part of the cold torrents swirling around her. Memories of him.

The mornings they’d shared. Nearly choking in laughter.

“…how many times do I have to tell you not to talk with your mouth full?”

A battle in a junkyard, in days before she’d ever been born. Explosions ringing in her ears.

“You said ten seconds.”

“Nobody’s perfect.”

A close call at a school the day after. Pain in her leg. Crash of glass. Screams of monsters in armor.

“When I say stay put, I mean stay put, not take on an entire Dalek assault squad single-handed.”

The little village on the shore. The day he’d broken her heart.

“I’d have done anything not to hurt you…”

“Full marks for teenage psychology!”

The night in the basement full of monsters and cave art done in oil paint.

“That’s my girl!”

The house above the basement, full of rage.

“You tricked me!”

Her birthday, celebrated on a moon of Pluto.

“You baked me a cake?”

“I did. Happy eighteenth…”

Another morning, and a fruitless search.

“You’ve bunged it down the waste disposal, haven’t you…”?

“Now…would I do a sly, underhanded thing like that?”

“You would if you thought it’d keep me out of trouble.”

An afternoon of music, bitterly interrupted.

“I could listen to them all afternoon.”

“And so, we shall.”

Him and her, together. Always together. Adventure and danger and injustice and cold tea. Dodging bullets and lasers and things beyond time. Her with her jacket, and him with his question marks. Question mark umbrella. Question mark pullover.

Question mark brain, more like, a part of her cut in. An enigma that seemed to enjoy being an enigma. He’d defined so much of her life. Defined it. Shaped it.

Manipulated it, echoed the angry hiss from somewhere deep, somewhere…was it young or old? How far down did the undercurrents travel? Controlled it. Just a pawn in the end. Always a pawn.

He’d been her friend, her comrade in arms, her mentor, her…another word. A nickname of some kind. He’d meant so much to her. She had to protect him. Watch his back. Protect the person she’d come to love in all the universe…the…

Who? Who was he? So many emotions, so many questions and question marks, and no answers. Where was she? When was she? Who was with her…and who was she?

“Who are you, really?”

Sunset found herself once again caught in a magical field, barely stopped from sliding off the bed. Her vision swam.

“Sunset Shimmer, what did you see?” asked the princess, propping the unicorn back into a sitting position. “Was that stallion familiar to you?”

The unicorn swallowed hard. Whatever had torn through her head was, as usual, gone, and all she was left with was a collection of feelings she didn’t know how to sort out. It was like a particularly bittersweet pill, and she held onto its taste as long as she could, willing it to stay.

What did they mean, these feelings?

An idea came forward, one she wasn’t sure of, couldn’t be sure of. But…based on what she’d gathered from the others…maybe…maybe he was…?

“I think…” she whispered, feeling a sort of desperate hope she hadn’t felt for years. “I think…he might be my dad.”

Luna frowned. “Are you certain?”

“Not entirely,” Sunset admitted. “I can’t remember anything specific. But the way it felt…” She shook her head again. “He had to be real, at any rate.” She locked eyes with the princess. “What was he like? Did he look like me?” Her questions came out in a rush, driven by what could have just been nothing more than a filly’s dream, a desperate desire to simply know her father, but she didn’t care.

“I do not think he looked like you,” answered Luna thoughtfully. “But it was difficult to tell. He was small, with a curly, dark brown mane. His eyes were blue-gray.”

Immediately, Sunset cataloged the details, searching for connections. Small, just like she was, and his eyes had blue in them. Blue-gray versus the blue-green of cyan. Not the same color, but still possessing something of him, at least.

She glanced down at her mane, touching her hoof to her curls, wondering if they too were a gift from her father. “Anything else?”

“He was Trottish.”

“What’s Trottish?” asked Sparky.

“Scottish,” Sunset answered, drifting back to her mane and separating out a few red strands. “Maybe that’s where it came from,” she muttered.

“You can’t be Scottish,” interjected Rainbow. “You don’t have an accent.”

“I couldn’t talk when I was found.” Sunset turned to Princess Twilight. “Sorry, I kind of glossed over that in my letter. But anyway, Princess Celestia had to teach me, so if I had an accent, I could have lost it.”

"It is possible,” agreed Luna. “For now, I believe what we both need is rest. I must recover from my battle, and you would do well to find sleep free of my interference.”

Part of Sunset wanted to protest, that they should continue now that Luna knew where to look, but she was still so overwhelmed by what they had found, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Then she started yawning, and she knew the argument was finished.

“I guess you’re right,” she conceded.

In short order, she pulled the blankets back over her, while Twilight closed the windows, filling the room with darkness. Her friends quietly shuffled outside, Sparky offering an almost inaudible “goodnight,” and then, Sunset was alone.

Sunset turned on her side, letting her brain stew while she waited for exhaustion to overtake her body. It was a tougher fight than it really should have been. Likewise, hope and despair fought hard in the confines of her mind.

Manisha was gone. Really gone. Her best friend was gone and she couldn’t even remember her. And she had a father. For well over a decade, she’d wished for her parents, and now, she knew he was there, buried in her memory.

Sunset only hoped that he wasn’t dead, too.

Just as she was on the edge of sleep, a small flash of light drew her back to consciousness, reflecting off the crystal walls. Eyes still firmly shut; Sunset rolled over. “I’m fine, Twilight. Just let me sleep,” she groaned.

“…Sunset?”

That voice…she knew that voice. The unicorn’s eyes shot open. Standing there, not ten feet away, gazing at her with eyes full of shock, was the one pony she’d wanted to avoid.

Princess Celestia.

Nadir of the Setting Sun

Chapter 6: Nadir of the Setting Sun

Once upon a time, Sunset Shimmer had been the student of the sun. Her mentor had been the wisest, most beautiful, most powerful pony in all of Equestria, the very pony who literally moved the sun and moon through the sky. Celestia had taught her to hone her magic to perfection, to cast spells with such precision and skill that it had awed her instructors. Under Celestia, Sunset had excelled in every subject.

But Sunset had become arrogant over the years, and deeply anti-social, focusing on her work and her magical prowess over making any meaningful connections beyond her mentor, and even that relationship became increasingly strained.

Then, one day, the princess showed her a mirror. In the glass, Sunset had seen a vision of herself, blessed with the wings of an alicorn. She’d badgered the princess for weeks about what the mirror was, but Celestia had refused to speak. Finally, Sunset took matters into her own hooves.

She’d broken into the restricted section of the palace library, digging into forbidden tomes of secrets and dark magic. She’d learned that the mirror was a portal to another world, one which opened every thirty moons. Before she could read much further, she’d been caught. She and Celestia argued, louder and uglier than they ever had.

Sunset had been dismissed, ordered to leave the palace forever. Only instead of walking out the doors, she’d disabled the guards and escaped across the mirror, ultimately terrorizing a bunch of innocent humans as part of her vendetta.

“This is the biggest mistake you’ll make in your entire life.” Those had been her last words to the princess that had kept her safe.

Oh, the irony.

This had to be a dream…but if so, why could she feel her heart hammering in her chest? A hallucination? She was absolutely exhausted, so hallucinations were on the table. Celestia couldn’t be here. Twilight had told Sunset her visits were to be kept confidential, and she trusted Twilight. This had to be a hallucination.

The lamp beside the bed flicked on with a burst of magic not her own, and Sunset blinked to clear away the spots from her eyes. When she opened them again, she found, much to her disappointment, that Celestia was still there.

The princess was exactly the same as Sunset remembered her, a rather dumb realization when you thought about it. Of course, Princess Celestia was the same. She was an alicorn, an immortal. She probably hadn’t aged a day in centuries. She certainly wouldn’t have aged just because Sunset was gone for ten years in Equestrian time.

Every little feature that had been but a blurring memory in her mind for the past few years was there in front of her. The same white coat that was as warm as a summer day, the same long, wavy mane and tail of soft blues, greens, and pinks that reminded you of the sky at dawn. The same golden regalia. The same enormous wings that were as soft as goose down. The same mighty horn that glowed with a golden magic that had all the look of sunbeams.

Sunset’s throat constricted. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t react, too choked by the unbearable shame from years of her own hate and cruelty. A part of her wanted to teleport from the room, but with the state she was in, she was more likely to land on the stairs and break her neck as much as she was to reach the mirror.

“It is you,” Celestia whispered, almost sounding in awe, no doubt at the audacity of Sunset coming back to Equestria.

Before Sunset could do anything else, she found herself swept off the bed in a hug, wrapped by those massive white wings and pressed so closely to the alicorn’s chest that Sunset could just about hear the the beat of her immortal heart.

“Oh, Sunset, I’m so glad you’re home!”

Those had been the last words she’d expected to hear. She’d predicted anger, disappointment, possibly criminal charges, but…gladness? Never. Sunset tried to force herself to speak, pushing past the emotions that closed down her airways.

“I…” she attempted, only to choke up again, and her vision to blur with unshed tears.

The hug pulled away, just by a few inches. Through the watery film in the unicorn’s eyes, she could make out Celestia’s worried face, even as a gold-clad hoof brushed her own, pressing near her tired eyes, just as Luna had. “You’re sick,” gasped the princess. Now her eyes pricked with tears. “Oh, Sunset, what happened to you? What’s wrong?”

“My…” Sunset gulped. “My memories have been coming back. But something’s gone wrong.” Her throat closed up again. This was too much. Her best friend was dead, there was possibly something wrong in her brain, she had a father, and now here was Princess Celestia. It was all just too much. The water that had built up in her eyes broke past the dam, flowing down her cheeks.

Celestia pressed her close again, wrapping the unicorn in the soft embrace of her wings. “Shh, Sunset, it’s okay. It’ll all be okay. I promise, it’ll all be okay.”

Perhaps it was the stress, or simply old habits, but Sunset fell into the hug faster and easier than she would have expected, letting Celestia’s body heat soothe her screaming heart. It had been so long since she’d been hugged like this, not since those happier years, before things fell apart.

She remembered so many nights where she cried into Celestia’s coat, weeping for the family she didn’t have, comforted by the one pony who’d been there for her. The one pony she’d come to wish was her…

“You’re more trouble than you’re worth!” snarled a mare…woman with long dark hair, and a face so familiar, looking down at her with contempt. “Getting into a fight with Andrew Fisher! His mother is one of my regular clients. She’s probably going to go somewhere else now, thanks to you.”

More words, scattered from a thousand days, played through her ears. “You really think anybody would let you into their bloody space program? Women aren’t astronauts, and they’re not going to bend the rules for some no good troublemaker with your grades.”

Hatred burned in her heart, the sort that she hadn’t felt since the night she’d run through the mirror. But these feelings were older than even those long ago days, older by decades. The shadows of countless arguments shifted across the walls of the little flat that formed the backdrop of her visions.

They coalesced at a small table, where the woman…mare…was slouched. “Did he dump you?” her words carried the slightest of slurs, her cheeks the hint of flush that told her she’d been down to the pub. “Can’t say I’m surprised. He probably only dated you on a lark.”

“You’re nearly fourteen…so grow up, will you!”

Pain lanced through her skull. Her entire brain seemed frozen, every nerve paralyzed. She couldn’t breathe. She could barely hear. Around the edges, her vision blurred. Her entire consciousness was being engulfed.

She felt the heat of Celestia’s body pull away. “Sunset?” Her voice sounded so distant, but the timbre of it was frightened, even panicked. “Sunset, what’s wrong?” Hooves pressed against her cheeks, tilting her head upward toward an increasingly blurry pair of magenta spots.

The unicorn tried to speak. She tried to scream that something was wrong, but her mouth wouldn’t cooperate, and whatever she did manage, she couldn’t even hear over the phantom din. The pain in her skull flared red hot, contrasted by a cold, wet sensation that slid down her face. The haze of color was rapidly being replaced by pitch black.

“Sunset? SUNSET!”

It had all been an accident, a twist of fate. Celestia had simply been wanting to talk to her sister. She’d been hoping to persuade Luna into seeing a new production of Hinny of the Hills. With their hectic schedules, it was often hard for the two of them to find time to do things together, and the show had always had such rave reviews.

To her surprise, however, the guard stationed outside Luna’s chambers had informed her Luna had left Canterlot on business. The fact that Luna had been off in the late afternoon by herself was strange enough, especially since Celestia couldn’t recall any social event that might pull her away from the capital. Stranger still, the guard refused to explain the reason for her sister’s departure.

“I…” he hesitated. “I can’t say, Your Majesty.”

She’d been ready to insist, when she’d noticed a crumpled piece of paper on the carpeted floor. The guard had followed her gaze, and desperately tried to hide it behind his foreleg.

Her curiosity thoroughly piqued, Celestia had grabbed the document in question in her magic and unfolded it before her. Her magenta eyes scanned the message, instantly recognizing Twilight’s neat hornwriting.

Dear Princess Luna,

Sunset has agreed to see you. She’ll be at my castle this afternoon. Please arrive at your earliest convenience.

Twilight Sparkle.

The next thing Celestia knew, she was teleporting to Twilight’s castle, heart racing in her chest. So sudden was her trip that Celestia hadn’t even bothered to pinpoint her landing, something the meticulous alicorn almost never did. She could have landed anywhere from the doorstep to the roof to a broom closet. But such concerns were overridden by one overpowering thought: Sunset Shimmer was in Equestria.

And now, here she was, in a darkened room lit only by a single lamp, looking upon her lost student. How many nights had she sat, stewing in her regrets, in losing another pony just as she had lost Luna? How long had she waited, knowing Sunset was safe, but unwilling to contact her, knowing the silence was part of the price for her own failures?

Sunset hadn’t aged a day. It was, undoubtedly, a quirk of the mirror’s magic. She knew that on an intellectual level. But on an emotional level…it was almost as if time had stood still, just for them. In an instant, she drew the unicorn into a hug, wanting to dispel those last lingering doubts that this was all some cruel hallucination.

But Sunset was solid. Real. Celestia’s long-held dream had come true. Her Sunset was home.

It was only when she was inches from Sunset’s face that the sands of her dream fell from her eyes, and she saw the differences, the paleness beneath Sunset’s amber coat, the dark circles formed around her eyes, the languor of her posture. A pang struck Celestia’s chest as if by an arrow.

“You’re sick.” Her hoof traced the path of the darkened skin. “Oh, Sunset, what happened to you? What’s wrong?”

She listened and she soothed as Sunset answered her, holding the unicorn tighter, trying to dry her tears. She whispered in Sunset’s ear how it would be alright. It had to be alright. No matter what the obstacle, no matter what was wrong, Celestia would keep Sunset safe.

She felt Sunset go stiff in her hooves. Celestia pulled away. “Sunset? Sunset, what’s wrong?” Celestia grabbed Sunset’s face in her hooves, forcing them eye to eye. Fear bolted down her spine when her magenta eyes met glassy and distant cyan.

“M….M….” The words, syllables, really, were slurred and sputtering, the sort of sound that drove panic deeper and deeper into the alicorn’s heart. “M…”

Despite more than a millennia of self-control, Celestia couldn’t keep her voice steady. “Sunset, please, what’s wrong?!”

“…Mom?”

That one whispered word struck Celestia dumb so that she could only watch in silent horror as Sunset’s jaw went slack, and her vacant expression contorted in pain. Streams of scarlet traveled down from Sunset’s nose, staining the fur around Celestia’s hooves. And then, the unicorn’s eyes rolled backwards into her skull.

“Sunset? SUNSET!” No, this couldn’t be happening. Oh, Mother, this couldn’t be happening. Please, not this. Not like this.

The doors behind her flew open. Celestia whirled around to meet her fellow diarch.

“…Sister?”

“Lulu,” she answered, her voice small. She could still feel the heat from the blood on her hooves. “Help.”

When Sunset awoke, it was to an aching head, a frustratingly common occurrence these days.

She groaned, her eyelids rising sluggishly, then squeezing shut at the assault of sunlight on her retinas. Somepony had drawn back the curtains to let in the late afternoon sun.

“Yo, she’s coming around!”

“What happened?” Sunset croaked. Her throat felt as dry as the Badlands. After a few more moments, her brain started to come back online, and she managed to connect the dots. “I fainted again, didn’t I?’ That was quite possibly worse than the headaches. Her, of all ponies, giving into such an outdated female stereotype, and twice in one day, no less.

Sunset pressed her hooves into the mattress, trying to force herself into a sitting position, only to stop when something pressed gently on her chest. She cracked open her eyes to see Sparky looking down at her worriedly.

“Save your strength,” she whispered.

Sunset acquiesced, falling back down onto the pillows. As careful as a young foal still getting control of her horn—which Sunset supposed she was—Sparky levitated over a glass of water. The pulsing of a headache made the amber unicorn think twice about using her own magic, so instead she grabbed the glass between her forelegs, savoring the cool, refreshing liquid even as she tried to piece together what had happened before her blackout. She’d been trying to fall asleep, and then…

The unicorn bolted upright in her bed, water sloshing onto the blankets. Her eyes darted around the room, zeroing in on the one pony who stood head and shoulders above them all. “Princess Celestia.”

Before she could say anything else, a layer of golden magic pushed her back down the mattress. “Please, Sunset,” said the princess, her voice strangely fragile. “Don’t…don’t get excited.”

The haunted expression on the alicorn’s face gave her pause. She’d never seen the princess look like that in her life, and it left the unicorn feeling distinctly uncomfortable. She turned back to Sparky. “What happened? Did I hit my head or something when I blacked out?”

“It was a little more than that.”

Sunset turned her attention to find two new ponies in the room. Both were unicorn stallions, probably around their forties. One had an amber coat and a dark brown mane, staring out at her from a pair of glasses with a soft, worried expression.

The other was larger, heftier, with a white coat, a sandy-colored mane, and an expression on his face that Sunset had probably seen on her own face more than once in years past. It was an expression that radiated smugness, and Sunset immediately felt her mouth drop into a frown in response.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Doctor Horse, and—” began the amber unicorn stallion, only to be interrupted by his companion.

“I’m Doctor Threaded Needle,” he answered smoothly. “You’ve probably already heard of me.” The stallion didn’t even wait for her answer, simply continuing to speak. “I have to say, I never thought I’d get the chance to meet you.”

“What?” Sunset cut in harshly, finding herself irritated by the pompous unicorn. “You mean Celestia’s student?”

“No, no,” answered Doctor Needle, shaking his head. “The unsolvable riddle! I read about your case in a medical journal about fifteen years ago. It’s still the worst case of retrograde amnesia ever recorded. Rather fitting that the princess called in the greatest—”

“I’ll take over from here,” interjected Doctor Horse. Clearing his throat, he offered Sunset an apologetic smile. Sunset returned the smile, glad that one of them was tolerable. “I’m from Ponyville General. Starlight Glimmer summoned me here after you collapsed, and once I diagnosed your condition, Princess Celestia brought Doctor Needle.”

Sunset swallowed hard. “By condition, you mean another seizure?”

The other unicorn shook his head. “You had a brain aneurysm, Miss Shimmer. A blood vessel burst inside your head.”

Sunset’s heart smashed against her breastbone. “A…A brai…”

“Brain aneurysm,” Doctor Horse repeated. “A big one. I performed a few diagnostic spells and discovered blood had leaked from the aneurysm into your brain, which was beyond my ability to fix.”

“Which is where I came in,” preened Threaded Needle. “I’m the best brain surgeon in the country. Of course, I’ve never had to do an operation under these conditions, but,” he shrugged his shoulders. “I made do.”

Panic shot through her whole body. “You performed brain surgery on me?!” Her hoof shot up to the top of her head, feeling the heavy bandage. Oh, sweet Celestia, they’d actually opened up her skull, hadn’t they? Horror stories filled her memory about the dangers of unicorn brain surgery, ponies whose magic had been irreversibly damaged, even lost, thanks to a clumsy surgeon disconnecting the very tissues binding the brain to the horn.

What if they messed up? What if they’d done it wrong? What if they’d damaged her magic? What had they done to her magic? Eyes darting to the spilled water glass, Sunset grabbed it in her telekinesis, tossing it high into the air, stopping inches from the ceiling.

“Oh, don’t be such a foal,” chided Threaded Needle. “I’m not some hack. I knew exactly what I was doing. While Horse was performing a diagnostic spell, I pinched off the leak and drew the blood out through the skin and bone. Didn’t even have to open up the skull.” His chest swelled. “Any other surgeon probably would have done it wrong, but my special talent is precision, so it was easy to—”

“Would you stop stroking your ego?!” Doctor Horse snapped. “For Celestia’s sake, you’re even worse than when we were in medical school, if that’s equinely possible.”

“You’re just jealous because I’m more talented than you! After all, which one of us works at the premiere hospital in the capital, and which one of us works out of a podunk nothing of a town?”

“Enough.” Celestia’s voice, level, but somehow harsh, cut through the argument like a sword blade. In her bed, the still panicking Sunset felt herself reflexively freeze up, all too familiar with that tone of voice.

“Doctor Needle,” continued the solar princess, “I am sorry for pulling you away from your place of work so suddenly. But that is not an excuse for you to waste our time by continuing to glorify yourself. This is about my student,” the word brought a flutter to Sunset’s chest,“and you will remember that.”

The unicorn surgeon seemed to deflate at the command, suddenly looking meek and humble. “Uh, yes, Your Majesty…”

Celestia nodded in approval, and then directed her attention back to Doctor Horse. “If you may continue?”

“Yes, Princess Celestia,” he said with a bow. Then he turned back to Sunset. “Threaded was right about one thing. If you’d been in any other surgeon’s care, you likely wouldn’t have made it out. Even one millimeter off in the procedure would have only made your condition worse, to say nothing of damage to your magic. But as far as I can tell, the procedure was a complete success.”

Sunset started to breathe a sigh of relief. She’d survived intact. She’d—

“Unfortunately, there’s still the matter of your…prognosis.”

The breath caught in Sunset’s throat as she observed the stallion’s expression fall. “What do you mean? What prognosis?”

The stallion’s lips pressed together into a thin line, his eyes dull and sad behind his glasses. “Terminal.”

The room erupted into chaos.

“What the hell do you mean, terminal?!” screamed Rainbow. “You said it was a success!”

“And it was,” insisted Doctor Horse. “But it doesn’t change the facts.” He turned his attention back to Sunset. “I’m sorry.”

Sunset, meanwhile, felt like the bottom of the world had fallen out from under her. This didn’t feel real. This couldn’t be real. She couldn’t be dying. She was still young! “What’s wrong with me?!” she screamed.

“Structurally…nothing,” answered Doctor Horse with an edge of frustration. “I did several diagnostic scans of your brain. I found nothing wrong with it. There were no malformations, no growths, malignant or otherwise. But what I did find were signs of extreme stress, which was corroborated when I spoke to Princess Luna after the operation.”

Sunset’s gaze snapped to the night alicorn, whose face resembled that of a goldfish, her mouth hanging open in a shocked O.

“She told me,” continued Doctor Horse, “that while she was exploring your memories, she saw a representation of your brain cells. It was only in metaphor, but they were bright red and very hot to the touch, according to her. And since you weren’t suffering from fever, that would seem to me to be a representation of stress.”

“You knew?” Sunset accused.

Princess Luna flinched. “I…did not know what precisely to make of it, and I did not wish to upset you prematurely, especially in light of everything else I found.” She bowed her head. “I am sorry, Sunset Shimmer.”

“There has to be something you can do!” cried Princess Twilight. “Doctor Horse—”

“I don’t know, Princess,” came the stallion’s pained answer. The emotion in his voice might have been a comfort, to know Sunset wasn’t alone in the terror and agony going through her, but somehow, it wasn’t. Not in the face of this.

He turned back to her. “These ‘episodes’ you’re experiencing are putting your brain under tremendous stress in a way I don’t understand. Combined with the lack of sleep, your entire system is extremely worn down, which is probably why the last episode triggered an aneurysm.”

He sighed. To her ears, it was a cold, despairing sound. “If this had been an isolated incident, I’d say that you’d make a full recovery with proper rest. But you’re not getting that, not with how frequently you’ve been having these flashes. Each one that happens runs the risk of triggering another aneurysm, and if it does…it will most likely kill you.”

His face was ashen now. “I’m truly sorry, Miss Shimmer. I am. But I can’t lie to you, and I…I don’t know how to fix this.” He removed his glasses, rubbing at his eyes before meeting her gaze. “The only thing I can recommend is that you make arrangements. Were you ever able to find any next of ki—”

“That will not be necessary,” cut in the commanding voice of Princess Celestia.

Doctor Horse turned to the solar diarch in surprise. “Your Majesty, I understand your position, but—”

“I said it will not be necessary,” the princess repeated harshly. “My student will not die.”

Doctor Horse frowned. “Princess…”

“If the problem is that these episodes are preventing her from recovering, then the best course of action is to make them stop,” said the alicorn. Her gaze snapped to her sister. “Luna, you have to go back in.”

The younger diarch just nodded, guilty eyes cast toward the floor. “Of course.”

Celestia turned back to Sunset, and the unicorn’s heart jumped. “I will not let you die, Sunset. Not now,” whispered the princess in the most affectionate tone Sunset had heard in years. “Not when you’ve returned home.”

Sunset’s mind felt numb. All of this was just too much to handle.

“Sunset,” continued Celestia, “will you allow Luna to re-enter your dreams now?”

Go back to sleep now? Sunset didn’t want to sleep. She wanted…well, she wanted to rest. She was so tired. But she also wanted to stay awake. She wanted to talk to her friends. She wanted to process this tidal wave of a day that was smashing her life to pieces. She…she wanted to live.

“I-I…” she began her voice unsteady. “I…can I talk to my friends first?”

Celestia’s magenta eyes moved almost imperceptibly to the other ponies in the room. It was so slight that most ponies might not have noticed. But Sunset had spent a lot more time around the princess than most ponies. “Of course,” she said with a gracious smile. She turned to the two medical stallions. “I will send both of you back to your workplaces.”

“If I may, Your Majesty,” said Doctor Horse, “I’d rather wait here in case I’m needed.”

Celestia nodded. And together, the three of them left the room. Luna followed behind, giving Sunset one last guilty look before closing the door behind her.

The minute they were alone, Rainbow let out a mighty groan of frustration. “Man, can this day get any worse?”

“Don’t jinx it,” replied Spike.

“I’m just saying,” continued Rainbow, “Every time things get better, they get worse!”

Sunset might have been hurt by the blunt, if accurate assessment of the day, but the shock of everything was still hanging on her brain, so instead she just sunk deeper into the mattress.

A hoof wrapped tighter around her own. “Sunset?” asked Sparky, her eyes shiny behind her thick frames.

The unicorn felt a light flush come to her cheeks. In her numb, overloaded brain, her burgeoning crush should probably have felt like another brick on the pile stress. But somehow, it wasn’t. Instead, the warmth rising up inside her just seemed to make Sparky’s touch all the more soothing.

She squeezed back.

Princess Twilight stepped closer to the bed. “Sunset…I’m so sorry.”

Sunset wondered which thing the alicorn was sorry for, Celestia showing up, Sunset’s best friend being dead, or Sunset’s own impending death by her stubborn, broken memories. The last of those things was too much to confront at the moment, like charging into a thorn bush, so Sunset picked a different subject to tackle.

“Twi, what was Princess Celestia doing here?”

The alicorn’s gaze turned to the floor. “I…I didn’t quite get a concise answer in all the panic, but it appears she somehow found out about my letter to Princess Luna.” When Twilight looked up, her eyes glistened with tears. “I’m so sorry, Sunset. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It was an accident,” Sunset replied.

“But you had an aneurysm!” cried the alicorn. “I made you a promise and you had an aneurysm!” She buried her face in her hooves. “I’m a bad friend…”

“No, you’re not,” said Sunset. “It was just an accident.”

“She’s right. It was bad luck, that’s all,” said Spike, placing a comforting claw on Twilight’s barrel. “I’ve never seen Princess Celestia so scared, though.”

Sunset tilted her head. “Scared?”

“After you fainted,” Princess Twilight clarified, brushing away traces of tears from the corners of her eyes. “And while getting Doctor Needle. It was probably the most frightened I’ve ever seen her.”

Celestia had been frightened? Over her? Could it be that the princess really didn’t hate her? Everything seemed to point that way, but the possibility was still so alien to her, the idea that Celestia wasn’t even angry at Sunset for her misdeeds. For a brief moment, hope fluttered in her chest. Maybe they could mend things, maybe…?

Then a little voice at the back of her mind pointed out that she was getting ahead of herself, what with her approaching mortality. “Look,” she said, her throat constricting as her thoughts collided head-on with the thorny agony of her death. “If I…if I don’t…”

“You’re not gonna die,” Rainbow snapped, a fire burning in her magenta eyes, not unlike Princess Celestia minutes before. “And you better not be giving up already. We’re the Rainbooms. We don’t go down without a fight.”

Sparky’s hoof tightened around hers. “I don’t want you to die,” she whispered.

Sunset didn’t want to die, either. All the same, the fear was gnawing at her insides. “I—”

“We’ll do everything we can to make sure you don’t,” said Princess Twilight. “And Princess Luna will, too.”

Their determination lifted the unicorn’s spirits, and despite still feeling an overwhelming amount of fear, she found herself smiling just a little. “Thanks.” Then she added, “Twi, could you…message the other girls? Let them know what’s going on?”

The princess nodded furiously, her eyes widening. “Of course! Oh, my gosh, the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind yet!”

Sunset took a deep breath. “And…could you tell Princess Luna…I’m ready?”

As Princess Twilight went off to fetch Luna, Sunset found herself being hugged by both Rainbow and Sparky.

“We’ve got your back,” whispered Rainbow.

Sparky gave her hoof another squeeze. “Always.”

The doors to the room opened, and Sunset took another breath, closing her eyes, preparing herself to fall into dreamland again.

Her friends stayed next to her, even as she went under.

Once again, Luna entered Sunset’s mind. Swiftly, her consciousness traversed the threads of her spellwork, slipping through the cracks of the dream and straight into the depths of the subconscious.

As her body solidified, Luna braced herself for combat, tensing every muscle in preparation for the monsters that had barred her way on her last visit. But no dragon assailed her upon her entrance, nor was her sight greeted by walls of ice.

Instead, she was surrounded by books, shelves stretching high overhead. A wooden globe of the planet Terra sat in one corner. Nearby, a spacious table rested under the shadow of an unlit chandelier. Rays of golden sunlight filled the room from a window set high on the far wall.

“The palace library,” she breathed. It would have been impossible for her not to recognize it, not after all the time she’d spent here during her recovery, furiously trying to catch up to the modern world.

Feeling at ease, Luna trotted slowly down one of the aisles, letting little pools of sunshine warm her dark coat as she studied her environment. She observed the notches in the shelves, breathed in the scent of old wood and parchment. Celestia had remarked on how studious Sunset Shimmer had been, almost obsessively so. Always active and experimenting, always more comfortable in learning by action, but nevertheless was often found studying in the library, absorbing tomes of knowledge that she’d later apply.

Nothing proved that studiousness more than this, for nopony who hadn’t spent ample time here could recreate it so intimately.

Her surroundings brought Luna another kind of relief, too. The subconscious often reflected the content of one’s dreams. For it to take the form of a place so familiar and tranquil, it meant Sunset was likely in the embrace of peaceful slumber, which was all the better for her fragile body.

Given the setting before her, Sunset’s repressed memories were most likely in the form of the restricted section, which meant Luna knew what to look for. In reality, it was located at the back of the library, so Luna went off in that direction. But she kept a vigilant watch on her surroundings all the same, just in case the dream world decided to play tricks.

Winding her way through the shelves, Luna turned a corner, only to come to a sudden stop as she beheld her sister and a very young Sunset Shimmer laying on one of the library’s plush carpets. Curious, Luna drew near, and their voices suddenly burst into existence from the tranquil silence, as if the two existed in a bubble of their own sound.

“Horn,” said Celestia, tapping a hoof against her own, before tapping Sunset’s.

“Ho…” the little filly began, screwing her face in concentration. “Horn.”

“Very good.” Smiling, Celestia flapped a wing. “Wing. Can you say ‘wing’?”

“Wiiiiiiiing…” replied the filly.

Celestia beamed. “Hoof.” She held up one of her legs, tapping her hoof against Sunset’s diminutive ones.

“Hoof!” Sunset answered quickly.

“Very good, my little pony.” Celestia gave the filly an affectionate nuzzle, causing Sunset to giggle.

Smiling at the innocent moment, Luna continued on her way, only to find another scene at the end of an aisle on the opposite side. Like before, the two were laying on one of the carpets, but this time they were pressed closer together, Celestia’s wing encircling the little filly. In front of them, a thick, leather-bound book lay open. Like before, Luna’s curiosity compelled her to approach.

“And so the first pig fled from the wolf,” intoned Celestia, “running all the way to his brother’s…oh, my, I can’t seem to read this part.” With a sly smile, she lowered the book for Sunset to see. “Can you read that for me?”

The tiny unicorn peered at the words, her huge cyan eyes narrowing in concentration. “Stick,” she said slowly. “Stick house.”

“Right again, my little sun. You’re getting quite good at reading.”

The little unicorn beamed.

“And so the first pig reached the stick house, and…”

A series of emotions warred in Luna’s chest, rooting her in place. She knew that her task was a pressing one. The sooner she found Sunset’s memories and released them, the sooner she would be out of mortal danger. At the same time, she knew that peaceful slumber would be just as beneficial, allowing the unicorn to recover herself.

And then…there was the scene before her.

In her mind’s eye, the figures were overlaid by others from days now ancient. Luna saw herself and her sister as fillies, pressed together by a giant white wing in that exact manner as they, too, were read fairy tales, all while a soothing voice called them my little sun and my little moon.

She glanced back at the previous memory, at the way Celestia nuzzled the little filly beside her. Tia was, at her heart, not a cold mare, but she also wasn’t the type to nuzzle another pony who wasn’t very close. And her sister also knew not to do that with a foal not her own, not unless absolutely called for.

Luna remembered her sister’s distress following Sunset’s collapse, the fear, the impulsive panic, the broken sound of her voice as she’d called for help. She remembered the worry that had hung over her sister the night Sunset had crossed the mirror to steal Twilight’s crown.

The night princess looked back at the second memory, where her sister continued to read fairy tales, slipping in reading lessons every so often, and using a nickname that had only been used one way in both of their eternal lives.

“Oh, Tia,” she whispered as realization dawned on her with painful clarity of just what the unicorn meant to her sister.

Suddenly galvanized into action, the alicorn pulled away, quickening her pace toward the back of the library. As she wove her way through the shelves, she passed by more phantom scenes, though she did not take the time to observe them as she had the others. Not that she needed to hear them, for the meaning became clear enough.

Luna saw Sunset’s life slowly unfold, years passing by with each step she took. Those early moments of closeness were soon replaced by an emotional distance, then by anger, and eventually, Sunset was all alone. It was, quite frankly, distressingly reminiscent of Luna’s own turbulent years, and the thought drove a wedge of pain through her chest as her understanding of her sister’s heartbreak deepened.

Finally, in exactly the same place as it was in reality, Luna found the restricted section. Stepping up to the thick double doors, Luna pressed her magic against the handles. Perhaps it was because the restricted section was normally locked, or because of the nature of repressed memories, but a large part of Luna thought the doors would be locked.

To her surprise, that was not the case. Though the locking mechanism was visibly present, it had not been engaged, and the only resistance that met her was the groan of rusty hinges as the doors gave way.

Luna stared into the gloomy darkness of the room beyond with a sense of skepticism. There hadn’t been any sort of reaction to indicate the release of Sunset’s memories. And yet, this seemed the ideal place for her memories to be.

Slowly, the alicorn stepped into the room, disturbing clouds of dream dust. She lit her horn, piercing the cobweb-filled darkness to discover more shelves of books. She scanned a few titles. They were indeed the sort of subjects that would be placed in the restricted section, tomes on dangerous, dark magic. But they were not Sunset’s memories.

Just as she reached the end of a particular shelf, the narrow rows fell away into an open space that she knew wasn’t there in reality. Resting against the far wall was a large cabinet of burnished oak. The glass panes that composed the doors were thick and glazed, but Luna could see that beyond them were books of all shapes and sizes. Their titles were illegible, but each one glowed with a light that alternated between iridescent and blazing white.

Luna breathed a sigh of relief. Now, Sunset Shimmer’s life would be safe. She grabbed the handles in her magic and gave a little jump as a tingle of energy went back down her horn. The cabinet wasn’t simply a mental block. It was spellwork. Sunset’s memories were bound together by the distinct energy lattice of spellwork.

Gently, Luna probed at the threads of magic, trying to get a sense for the spell and its exact function. It was a containment spell, that much was obvious. Though she had to admit, using a containment spell for memories was strange, to say nothing of burying it in the subconscious.

As Luna probed deeper, she found that she couldn’t determine the type of magic at play. It didn’t quite seem like unicorn, or even alicorn. Perhaps unicorn mixed with other magical energies as a booster? Such things had been tried before. It could also go a long way to explaining the designs worked into the cabinet.

They were hard to see at first, subtle carved lines hidden by the shadows, but now that Luna’s nocturnal vision had adjusted, she could make them out. The wood was decorated with strange circular patterns. Luna almost wanted to call them spell circles, but they were so unlike anything she’d ever seen.

The spell itself was, in her opinion, both profoundly sophisticated in its weaving, and a bit mad, containing arrangements of energy complex and beautiful, and other components that were haphazard and sloppy. It was as if it had been made with purpose, but had broken down into insanity halfway through the casting.

Luna grimaced. Could Sunset’s own magic have tangled her memories together in this place? Or, given the delicate arcane weaving that she doubted even a child of Sunset’s genius could have pulled off, had some adult done this to her?

Luna did not like the latter possibility at all.

She pulled the handles, and was only mildly surprised when they remained closed. If this was the work of malice…

Luna employed a few unlocking spells, trying to gently persuade the cabinet to open. Her efforts yielded nothing. She just didn’t know enough about the work in front of her to manipulate it, nevermind the effect the broken elements of the spell were having.

Force, it seemed, would be the proper avenue of attack. Shatter the spell completely. Her eyes slid over the cabinet, searching for the best angle of attack. That’s when she noticed it. There was a crack in the glass. It was thin, hairline at best, but several inches in length. As far as weaknesses went, it wasn’t much. But it was nonetheless a weak point, and the perfect place to apply pressure.

Focusing her power, Luna’s horn became a lance of blue mystic energy. With a long-practiced thrust, she struck the crack dead-on. The glass frame shrieked against the blow, the books rattling on their shelves, their glow becoming harsher and more violent in their pulsations.

The night alicorn inched her magic forward, slowly cutting through the first of the magic threads. It wasn’t easy. Broken or not, the magical weaving that was present was as strong as steel. But Luna persisted, because a pony’s life was literally on the line.

A pony’s life…and her sister’s heart.

Pain ripped through her skull, blinding and burning and terrible, shredded her peaceful dreams in an instant, and left her flailing for comfort. Something was forcing its way in…into where? She didn’t know where, or what was being broken, but she knew the pain of something being shattered.

And then, galloping behind the waves of pain, there came the images.

A horde of silver worms descending on a bar. After her. They were after her. A mad dash into the street as shotgun blasts rang in her ears….

An old, dark church. Fists of corn and flesh smashing through doors, trying to get in even as they scrambled to get out…

A submarine. A pleasant trip turned to danger. Claws tearing through steel. Fish things from the depths of the ocean. Creatures of rage made unstoppable. Blood in the water and a woman’s screams ringing in her ears…

Another church, this one by the ocean. Clawed hands reaching out. The smell of seawater lingering on the air mixed with the stench of death. Different claws. Different monsters. Swollen eyes and sucker mouths and people so pale with ruby red lips and voices in her ears again…no, not in her ears. In her head. Haemovores…

A graveyard in a faraway place. The howling of wolves rising up into the air with a sapphire moon…

Monsters. Monsters everywhere, trying to get in, tearing at her mind. She had to fight back. But she didn’t have a weapon. She could barely think amidst the pain. Had to make it stop. A shield. She needed a shield.

Power of faith. Faith drove them away. But there was no faith, broken over and over again.

She had no shield, no weapon. She couldn’t fight back. Pain tore through her again. She needed to make it stop. She needed to get away, from the pain, from the danger.

Running through the squalid maze of streets and alleys, trying to slip away from her pursuers like a hunted animal. Rain pouring down on her head. Her teeth clamping down on flesh. Eyes golden and unnatural. Nets closing around her body…

She wanted to run, but she could not. Her dream self couldn’t get away from the pain, and the part of her that…that was hurt…couldn’t move. Trapped. Trapped, but still in pain. She needed to put distance between herself and the pain.

She needed to…she needed to…

“You’re not going to try and stop me…are you?”

The pain spiked once again, and from the broken depths, her mind pulled out a defense.

The first time it happened, Luna shrieked.

She’d been making progress against the spell, having just sliced through two of the magical threads. The remaining number were legion, but as the spell dismantled, it would most likely become easier to break down, if not give way on its own.

And that was when the spell, for lack of a better explanation, fought back.

A beam of swirling energy had shot out from the crack, pouring into the floor, and in that moment, the environment around her had changed. The familiar darkness of the restricted section warped and twisted, and a burst of light sent Luna reeling in sudden blindness.

When the spots had cleared from the alicorn’s eyes, she’d found the palace library completely gone, replaced with…some form of modern office space. There had been chairs and desks and piles of illegible papers, as if it hadn’t been used in some time. To her right had been a large window, showing an overhead view of some form of workroom where a large silver sphere rested.

Luna had blinked several times upon seeing it. To say she was shocked was something of an understatement, but on the other hoof, she couldn’t let this…shift…get in the way of her task.

She’d resumed her attack, but the changes kept coming in rapid succession. The office became some type of earthen pit, and then, much to her alarm, the bottom of the ocean. Luna had barely managed to transform her body into a seapony before she’d drown. Less than a minute later, the water beneath her had vanished to become some kind of tunnel or underground space.

That one had been disturbing all on its own. Surrounded by darkness and what appeared to be ancient Horse rune stones, Luna’s heart had leapt into her throat as voices flitted around her. Cold, whispering voices that seemed to echo in her head more than her actual ears.

Fluid of life. The pure fluid of life…

She was almost glad when the room changed again to some kind of decrepit, cobweb-strewn castle. Almost.

The container changed, too, which she supposed wasn’t too surprising. But what it changed into often was. Oh, not the first time. Then, it had simply been a door blocking the path to the workroom below. But then it became an antique silver mirror, followed by a large, dull gray sphere buried in ocean sand, its exterior heavily dented and scarred, as if it had gone through war.

Then it transformed into an ancient, if still half-buried, flask, and then into a stone door marked by what appeared to be a family crest, but unlike any she’d ever seen. It had shown a vampire bat, wings outstretched, blood dripping from its fangs. The ears were long and sharp to the point they looked like horns, and resting beside its head, there was a waning crescent moon so sharp, it almost seemed like a sword’s edge.

With a suppressed shiver and a grunt of effort, Luna had continued her assault on the magical threads that lay beneath the inconstant surface. That attack had then led her to this latest iteration: A circus ground. Or she thought it might be a circus, based on the shape of the container.

It was an animal cage draped in a dirty tarp. Tossing the covering aside, Luna found the contents of the cage completely dark. No, that wasn’t quite right. It was an unnatural darkness, less from shade and more like a deliberate shroud that not even her night vision could pierce.

Even still, at the very back of the cage, sitting on a pile of old straw, there appeared to be a living creature hidden in the dark.

“Hello?” Luna called out. “Can you hear me?” She wasn’t sure if she’d get a response, but if the occupant of the cage was a representation of Sunset’s memories, there was a chance she’d be sapient. “I am trying to get you out.”

The figure in the cage didn’t respond, but Luna could tell they shifted, ever so slightly. Even without seeing them, Luna could still feel them. Perhaps it was an effect of the subconscious itself, radiating Sunset’s old emotions. But there was an air of sadness around the figure in the cage, a melancholy hopelessness, as well as confusion.

She attacked the cage’s lock, bringing more of her power to bear. The metal sang, the bars shook, and two more magical threads broke with a satisfying snap.

A scream rose up all around her, a wail of immense pain and terror. Light slipped from the fractured lock, and the entire world shook as if from an earthquake. Luna was flung into the air, tumbling end over end just as she had when she’d altered Sunset’s dream on her first attempt, finally slamming the back of her head into something solid and metallic.

With a groan, the alicorn got to her hooves. “Truly, Sunset Shimmer, your mind is proving to be the most difficult I have ever faced,” she muttered. Even Discord’s mind had not been this much trouble, or at least not as violent. “I would have almost preferred to face the dragon again.”

She looked around. The container was nowhere in sight, nothing that could reasonably be interpreted as the container, anyway. In fact, there was nothing at all, except for a long, white hallway.

Tapping a hoof against the floor, Luna heard the sound of metal. More than that, there was a low humming in her ears, as if a hive of bees existed all around her. A cursory spell confirmed she was still in the subconscious.

She trotted down the hallway, searching for an end, or at least a path, all while ruminating on the containment spell. To change the structure of the subconscious like this…it was unheard of. To do so was to likely change the structure of the dream above, and to change it so rapidly and so many times…

True, Sunset had experienced two dreams during Luna’s previous visit, but that didn’t mean this was normal. And what even were those places? Where had they come from? Were they built into the spell? Was the container drawing off Sunset’s imagination?

They…they couldn’t be memories, could they? To do so would be to suggest that Sunset Shimmer had been in an animal cage.

Nor would memories explain this place. Luna had been trotting for what felt like half a mile, and taking the turns as they came, and yet she found no sign of the container, a door, or anything really. The walls were a blank white, lacking any kind of art or decoration.

There were turns or divisions in the hallway that suggested it had been built in sections. Corners were sometimes decorated with a column pattern made in what appeared to be stone. Every so often, there were patches of wall covered in large white circles of some kind. Judging by the soft light they emanated, Luna thought perhaps they might be the container, but each and every one tested false.

She’d found a trace of hope at the sight of a crossroads, even if just to break up the monotony. She took the left path, and continued to travel for what she was sure was a full mile, and found nothing else.

“Perhaps I should turn back,” she said.

She turned around…only to find that she couldn’t. A wall had sprung up behind her. With growing alarm, Luna used her magic to mark a nearby wall, before galloping off down the hall. Every fifty feet, she made another mark, a hypothesis forming in her mind, even as she continued to run.

Another turn appeared in the distance. When she reached it and saw an already marked wall staring back at her, Luna knew the truth. This place was a magical maze of some sort, constantly moving and shifting. A deliberate trap.

For a moment, Luna charged her horn, ready to use raw force to blast her way through the maze, but held herself back at the last moment. Excessive violence in the subconscious could cause Sunset to wake prematurely, just as it had before. And yet, without cutting the knot, the maze would have her galloping in circles. She needed a new tactic.

She could try her post-hypnotic suggestion. It was unorthodox—she’d never tried it in the subconscious before—but it just might work. Raising her head, she called out to Sunset’s sleeping mind. “Show me the exit!”

Nothing happened. Perhaps it was too much to hope that things could be that simple. Still, there was one other approach she could try. “Bring me somepony to guide me through this maze!” she commanded, pressing all her will into every single word.

For a few moments, nothing happened. Luna began to give up hope. But then…

“What game will it be this time, I wonder?”

Luna turned sharply. A room had sprung into an existence beside her, opening into a well-furnished study. And there, seated on a wine red armchair, seemingly deep in thought, was a stallion.

Sunset’s father.

Unbreakable

Chapter 7: Unbreakable

Luna approached slowly, allowing herself a moment to observe her supposed guide in silence.

He was still dressed in the same manner as last she saw him, his jacket and hat discarded around the room, his question mark umbrella propped up beside the chair. “What new game, indeed?” he wondered aloud, his face twisted into a frown. With paws, hooves, or magic, it all changed so rapidly, he reached over to a nearby table and took a long sip from a waiting teacup. “What fresh nightmare awaits?”

Solemnly, he put the cup down and crossed the study to sit at a work desk. Adjusting a magnifier stand into place, he began to toy with a set of strange, deep black objects spread out on the wooden surface, poking and prodding them with a set of tiny tools like an old clockmaker.

Taking a few stealthy steps forward, Luna managed to make out that the set of objects were actually pieces of a singular object. Though as to what that object was, she couldn’t be sure. But Luna did manage to spot what appeared to be Anugyptian hieroglyphics painted across those ebony pieces.

After a minute, the tools were tossed aside with a light curse. “No use,” grumbled the Trottish stallion, running a frustrated limb through his dark mane. “Ruined beyond repair.”

Luna cleared her throat. “Pardon me.”

The stallion turned sharply in her direction. “Hello,” he greeted. “I’m…” His brow furrowed in a comical expression. “That’s strange. I’m not really sure who I am.” He glanced down at his rapidly fluctuating body. “And I appear rather unstable.” He looked back up, taking in his surroundings before settling back on her. “Where exactly is this place, and whoare you?”

“You are…self-aware?” Luna blinked. “That is surprising for a mental construct.” More like shocking. It wasn’t often that Luna summoned this sort of help, but whenever she did, they were never aware of their dream nature, instead content to do her bidding and fill whatever role their form demanded. They did not have conversations with her.

Sunset’s mind continued to surprise, it seemed.

The stallion’s eyebrow lifted in challenge. “A construct? That’s rather rude, don’t you think?” he said, rolling his Rs. “Who’s to say you’re not the construct?”

“Nonetheless, it is true,” answered the princess, ignoring his question. “You are a construct of the mindscape around us. I ordered your creation to guide me through this living maze I have found myself trapped in.”

For a few moments, her guide said nothing. He lifted a foreleg, letting out a little hum as he watched it alternate between a hoof and a paw. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”

Luna smiled. “You have read The Bard?” Whinney Shakespony was one of her favorite authors. A pity he’d come about just after her imprisonment. She would have loved to meet him.

“Of course,” answered the stallion firmly. “I…” he trailed off, frowning. “I can’t remember.” He scratched at his dark mane. “Are you sure you want me guiding you? My memory seems to be quite faulty.”

“It must be you,” said Luna. “No matter your memories, you should naturally be able to navigate through the maze in a way I cannot.”

His blue-gray eyes glanced toward the doorway back to the maze. “You said I was created by the mindscape,” he said casually. “But whose mind is this?”

There was something about the way he asked the question that reminded her of Celestia. The way her sister would fish for information when she was trying to work through a particular problem, assessing the pony she was speaking to as much as the issue at hoof, trying to figure out if she was being deceived.

This was a shrewd and intelligent stallion, one intent on figuring out exactly where things stood before he even considered helping her. Nothing less than the full truth would satisfy him, she knew. Not that Luna intended on lying, but she still found it a surreal experience, being evaluated by a mental construct in this manner, rather than having it bow to her every command.

How would he react to the answer, she wondered.

“Sunset Shimmer,” she said plainly. “Your daughter.”

His eyes widened. “My…daughter?” He turned away, brows furrowing in concentration. “I don’t remember her,” he muttered. “Why don’t I remember her?”

“That I can explain, though she may be mistaken,” answered Luna. “Even she admitted to the possibility. But all the same, she seems rather convinced.” From the emotions that had flickered across the unicorn’s face, Luna wanted to believe it, too.

The stallion leaned back in his chair, forehooves pressed together, humming to himself. “My daughter…” he whispered. After a few moments, he turned his attention back to her. His blue-gray eyes carried a darkness not unlike the sky right before the beginning of a summer storm. “And why, precisely,” he said, his voice threading the words with a dangerous undertone that gave Luna pause, “are you rummaging around my daughter’s subconscious?”

“I—”

“You also never introduced yourself,” he added flatly.

“My apologies,” replied Luna, forcing down the spike of adrenaline elicited by the stallion’s challenge. Moon and stars, it had been ages since a mortal had made her feel that way. “I am Princess Luna, diarch of Equestria. Watching over ponies’ dreams is part of my duties. Your daughter was a student of my sister. I can explain in greater detail on the way, but suffice to say, if I do not reach my goal, Sunset will die.”

“Die?” the stallion said breathlessly. Pressing his lips together in a thin line, he shot to his hooves, gathering his jacket, hat, and umbrella. “We best be off before we lose any more time,” he said, breezing past her to the hallway beyond.

He gestured with his umbrella. “Come on, we have work to do.”

Waiting, it should be known, was never easy, even for an immortal.

Waiting for Luna’s return, hoping against hope that maybe, just maybe, she would be saved rather than returned to the moon, had been agony. The years after Sunset’s departure had been a similar torture. And now both ponies were tied together in this new, possibly worse torture, waiting for life…or death.

By this point in time, the rest of Sunset’s friends had arrived, scrambling wildly to the edge of the bed once Twilight had finished helping them up to the room. None of them seemed to really take much consideration of the world around them, or their new bodies. They hardly even noticed her, a change of pace that Celestia couldn’t bring herself to enjoy.

Feeling overcrowded, Celestia quietly left the room, retreating to a nearby bathroom. Deliberately avoiding any glance toward the mirror, Celestia went straight for the sink, trying once again to wash her hooves. They still hadn’t come out. She poured on the floral-scented soap, scrubbing furiously. But just like every other time she tried, the result remained the same. Her snow white fur retained the telltale pink spots of faded bloodstains. Sunset’s blood.

Her hooves itched. Celestia applied more soap.

Drying her now raw forehooves, Celestia exited the bathroom, only to narrowly avoid a collision with Starlight Glimmer.

“P-Princess Celestia!” squeaked the unicorn, barely managing to keep a handle on the food-laden tray held aloft in her magic. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“It’s alright,” Celestia said evenly.

“I was just, uh,” the unicorn continued nervously. “I was bringing Doctor Horse some snacks. You know, since he’s waiting.”

It didn’t take a genius to figure out why Starlight was nervous around her. Considering Starlight’s track record, anypony would have been terrified around her or Luna. But Celestia didn’t have the energy or focus to be consoling at the moment.

“I understand,” she said. “If you’ll excuse me.” She turned, ready to walk back to the bedroom.

“Wait!” cried the unicorn, freezing up as Celestia turned her gaze back to her. “Uh, Spike got this letter earlier.” She reached into her saddlebags and pulled out a scroll. “He said it was for you.”

The solar diarch gave her a curt nod. “Thank you.” Truthfully, she’d gotten multiple letters this afternoon, but she hadn’t opened any of them. Dully, she realized she couldn’t delay anymore. She broke the seal, and began to read.

Your Majesty,

This is the fourth message I have sent today. I do not know where you or Princess Luna are at the moment, but it is imperative that you both return.

Your sudden absence has thrown your schedule into chaos. You must be here to reorganize it. There are governmental reviews to plan, not to mention meetings with the noble houses that you missed today. Your sister, too, has her obligations. The head of her staff has made me aware that tonight was meant to be a session of Night Court.

Speaking of night, the sun has still not been lowered. Ponies are starting to panic, and neither you nor your sister are here. Raven and I are doing what we can, but the nobles are raising a great deal of fuss. Duke Opal Mane is claiming your absence as a grave insult.

You must return. Canterlot needs you. This is not the time to play “hooky,” as they say.

Kibitz

Celestia groaned. The sun. She’d left the sun in the sky well past the normal time. But how could she not? At the time, she’d been suffering through yet another waiting period, waiting for a pompous surgeon to perform one of the miracles he was so acclaimed for.

And Kibitz had the gall to claim she and Luna were playing hooky. If she were clearer-headed, she might have realized his tone was an indication of his own stress. But she wasn’t, and all she could think about was how ponies were out there complaining about a little extra daylight, all while her little sun lay dying.

Celestia gave a barely restrained snort of annoyance, the sort of sound that would have the nobles fainting if they heard her make it, and then made her way to an empty room, looking out the window at the inappropriately afternoon sky. With a flick of her horn, she drove the sun back to its resting place, feeling none of the usual warmth that came with the task. Then, as she had for a solid millennium, she called up the moon to begin the night. Her sister would understand.

That done, she summoned a quill and parchment and wrote out a reply.

Kibitz,

I have fixed the sky. You can tell ponies to stop panicking. But with regards to myself and my sister, we will not be returning at present. We are not “playing hooky,” today. As far as your overstuffed schedule is concerned, you can throw it over Canter Falls.

Luna and I are preoccupied with an emergency that requires our full attention. Nothing else matters today. Nothing. You can tell that to Duke Opal Mane himself, if you wish, and if he still causes trouble, remove him from the palace.

Do not message me again, Kibitz. Do not send ponies to speak with me. You will wait until my sister and I return.

Celestia

As she sent the letter off, the white alicorn felt a stab of guilt over her brusque tone, but what was another drop compared to a lake?

Her forehooves itched again.

When she finally returned to the bedroom, Celestia found herself pausing in the doorway. The assorted ponies had shifted their positions from last time. Rainbow and the human Twilight were still at the bedside, the latter’s hoof wrapped tightly around Sunset’s. Fluttershy had joined them, whispering some kind of lullaby.

Applejack was leaning against one of the walls, the brim of her hat low and her green eyes-half lidded. Near her, Rarity fidgeted, doing her best to straighten what little was in the room. Pinkie Pie was closer to the bed, her curly hair drooping and only half-chewing some of the snacks Spike was offering her. Around the room, the pony Twilight paced slowly, completely absorbed in the wait.

Celestia was brought back to those strange autumn days so many years ago when she sat next to that lost little filly she’d found in a garden. By the sun, she’d been so small, then. So small, so powerful, and so very scared.

The doctors hadn’t been able to handle her. Only Celestia had managed to brave the filly’s wild magic surges and calm her down. Back then, Celestia had to use an ancient, highly difficult, and rarely-used Mind Whisper spell to bypass the language barrier.

She had almost used the spell today. When Sunset had thrashed violently in a fit of nightmares, Celestia had leapt forward, ready to do what she had done twenty years prior. But Twilight had held her back.

“Princess, you could interfere with Luna’s spell,” she’d warned.

Unable to argue, and frightened that she’d disrupt her sister’s efforts, she’d backed down, though it came with a great sense of bitterness, because how in the world could she be so useless? She was the pony that moved the very sun, who had ruled and defended Equestria for a solid millennium.

Decades ago, she’d been able to comfort that frightened and confused filly. But now she had nothing. Her very presence here had pushed her little sun to the edge of death, and she couldn’t even make up for it. And of course, that shock wouldn’t have even happened if Celestia hadn’t failed all those years ago.

If she hadn’t been a dirty coward, taunted a voice in the back of her mind that sounded suspiciously similar to Nightmare Moon.

She eyed her sister, still and silent, but not exerting herself, at least not like earlier. She wasn’t facing resistance at the moment. But how close was she to the goal? How close was Sunset to living?

With an internal sigh, Celestia closed her eyes, and sent up a prayer to her mother, wherever she was. “Please,” she begged under her breath, “Don’t let her be taken away from me. Not yet.”

Sunset’s father was proving, in Luna’s estimation, to be a very odd pony.

As the two of them began their trek down the endless halls, Luna had explained the situation to him in detail, about the containment spell and Sunset’s fragile body. But in the middle of those explanations, he’d broken in with questions about Equestria in general.

It was a strange thing, having to explain to a grown stallion the very basics of their world. Shouldn’t he have access to Sunset’s general knowledge, being created from her mind? Then again, how was it that Sunset’s deep memories couldn’t pinpoint her own father’s tribe?

“And this…spell,” asked her guide as they turned a corner, “you think it was done with malicious intent?”

“I suspect that may be the case,” answered Luna, drawing herself out of her musings. “To seal off memories so completely as to leave the subject as vulnerable as Sunset was, it does not strike me as the work of an upstanding pony.”

His expression tightened. “Point taken.”

For a long while, they fell in an uncomfortable silence, before Luna decided to break it. “Are we very far away from the spell?”

He didn’t answer, merely humming to himself as his foreleg brushed against the white walls.

“Are we very close?” she asked again.

“Too many holes,” he muttered, completely oblivious to her questions. “Far too many holes.”

Luna grimaced. She wasn’t really putting much force into her questions, but constructs usually cooperated without her having to try. At this rate, the novelty of his self-awareness was going to wear itself out rather quickly.

Finally, she spotted a door on her left. “There!” she cried. Luna galloped forward, reaching out with her magic to open it, only to have her path barred by an umbrella.

“That’s the swimming pool,” her guide scolded. “Ignore it.”

“…I beg your pardon?”

He sighed, tapping his umbrella against the door and somehow forcing it to open. Beyond the threshold, Luna beheld the verdant leaves of potted plants, and the crystal blue waters of a swimming pool so large, it would fit right at home in a sporting event. If she squinted, she could also make out some kind of statuary in the distance as well.

“The container isn’t in there,” said her guide. “You can check if you want, but I wouldn’t recommend going inside. Considering this place is a mental defense, there’s a good chance you could be trapped.”

Eying the room with suspicion, Luna reached out with her magic. The container was indeed absent. She turned away, letting the door shut behind her. “So there are traps now?”

“I don’t think it’s meant to be a trap,” corrected the stallion. “Only that it could be. I think it’s simply meant as a distraction.”

As they went down the hall, more doors appeared, but these, her guide told her, were not their destination, and he seemed to grow terser with each one. “That’s the garden,” he said, pointing at one with his umbrella when she began to approach. “Laundry room. Art gallery. Lagoon. No, no, that’s the kitchen,” he snapped. “We’re not looking for a jar of sugar!”

Luna knew she could be brusque herself, but even still, she chafed against the stallion’s rudeness. “You do not speak to me that way,” she seethed.

“Why? Because of your crown?” He gave her a disdainful look. “Crowns, I find, are poor substitutes for character.”

How dare he? Luna’s wings unfurled, and her eyes glowed white with fury. “THAT DOES NOT GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO SPEAK TO ME WITH SUCH INSOLENCE!” she screamed, bringing forth the full force of the Royal Canterlot Voice.

The amorphous stallion eyed her coolly. “I already told you, these rooms are distractions. We do not have time to waste on false leads.” He took a step forward, matching her glare with his own. “You told me my daughter is dying.”

Luna’s flare of anger vanished with a sudden rush of understanding. “My apologies,” she said, pulling her wings back to her sides. “I should have realized you were worried about her.” She averted her gaze. “I am…still adjusting to the fact that you are self-aware. It is the first time I have ever seen such a thing.”

“I can’t say being a self-aware construct is very pleasant,” he groused. “I know things without knowing how or why I know them.” He gestured at the doors around them. “I don’t like it.”

He turned around, continuing forward, with Luna trotting beside him. “I don’t even have my own memories,” he added irritably. “I don’t know who I am, or what I’m truly like, and I can’t even remember the one whose mind created me, my own daughter.”

It did seem like a horrible state to grapple with. Adrift in a sea of unknowns, not even truly knowing yourself. Not being able to recall your own life, or even your own foal. Having knowledge with no control whatsoever on the how or why. For a thoughtful stallion like this, it must be quite vexing.

“If you have more questions,” she offered, “you may ask them. I will answer to the best of my ability.”

For a minute, they dipped back into silence, and Luna fretted that perhaps she’d seriously offended him. She opened her mouth to offer another apology.

“What’s she like?”

“I cannot say much,” answered the princess with relief. “I only met her today, but my sister told tales. From her accounts, young Sunset is extremely bright and capable, a true prodigy. She is fiery in both appearance and temperament.” Luna felt a pang in her chest, remembering the way Sunset had snapped at her after Luna’s first foray into her mind. “But she is kind and loved deeply by her friends, who are gathered by her bedside even now.”

“At least she’s not alone,” said the stallion under his breath. “What about her mother? Have you found any clues?”

Luna shook her head. “None. Of the figures I have seen, you were the only one who provoked a significant reaction.” She paused. “She wishes to know you quite badly.”

The stallion looked away. “I wish I could help.” Sighing, he pulled out a gold watch from his pocket. He flipped open the brightly-painted lid, frowned, and then put it away. “I suppose the passage of time has no meaning here,” he said morosely.

“I might be able to check on Sunset.” She stretched out her magic, easing up into the dreaming part of the mind, careful not to disturb anything, and clenching her jaw at the effort. Finally, her magic brushed against the dream. Like a minotaur sticking their paw into a log, Luna felt around blindly, trying to get a sense for the dream’s nature and strength. What she found felt strong and placid.

She pulled back, and found her guide staring at her intently. “I cannot tell the exact content of her dreams,” she said. “But from what I can sense, she is sleeping both deeply and peacefully. She will rest for hours yet, though I will tell you now, her dreams were deeply disturbed by my previous efforts to break the container, and will likely be again.”

The stallion’s whole body sagged. “Thank you,” he said kindly. He took off down the hall again, but this time at a much more relaxed pace. Luna followed. “Why am I unstable?” he asked.

“Sunset Shimmer had a rather…turbulent adolescence, and parted with my sister on less than pleasant terms,” Luna explained. It wasn’t entirely the truth. But telling her father, even a facsimile of her father, all of the unicorn’s misdeeds seemed cruel. “Sunset fled across a magic mirror connected to a parallel world populated by creatures called humans. She has been living there for quite some time.”

The stallion nodded. “You think her sense of self-perception is confused.”

“Yes,” Luna replied. “Your form is displaying a sort of instability I have been witnessing through…out…” Luna trailed off when she realized her guide was no longer beside her.

She turned around, finding him lingering before another of the nondescript metal doors, staring at it with a perplexed and somewhat melancholy expression.

“Is this the correct door?” she asked, coming to stand beside him.

“No.” Grasping the handle, he pushed the door open, and Luna had to shield her eyes from the powerful influx of daylight that assaulted her.

When she managed to open her eyes again, she was greeted by the sight of a beautiful white beach curved against a vast, glittering ocean. Patches of palm trees sprouted here and there, and salted sea air wafted across the threshold, carrying with it the distant sounds of seagulls and laughing children.

Before she could stop him, her guide walked through the door. With a shout, Luna gave chase. “You said they could be a trap!” she hissed.

He wasn’t listening to her, though. He’d seated himself atop a sandy hill, under the shade of a verdant palm tree, watching the distant waves lap back and forth. “I took her here once,” he said mutely. “I can’t remember her, not exactly, but I know I took her here.”

Luna glanced back at the doorway. It was still there, still open. Taking this as a sign, she sat down beside him. “It is a beautiful landscape,” she commented. “Do you know the name?”

His brows furrowed, as if trying to physically dig out the memories. “Coralee,” he answered. “I took her here for a seaside holiday. I’d wanted to make up for some sort of recent difficulties.” Absentmindedly, he began to rub his neck, a gesture that, to Luna, seemed uncharacteristic of him. “Give us a place to rest and heal.”

Luna stored away these facts for later, all the while ruminating on the name. Coralee. She didn’t recognize it. Somewhere south, perhaps? The area was tropical enough.

“There was a storm,” the Trottish stallion continued, lost in thought. “A terrible one.” His face fell. “We nearly lost each other.”

“But you did not?”

“No,” he replied, breathing a sigh that seemed to carry the melancholy of decades, if not centuries. “Though it seems we’ve lost each other now. Life can be so cruel, can’t it?” He got to his hooves, brushing off the sand, before sedately heading back toward the door.

Luna followed him, stopping beside him as he stood in the threshold, casting one final look at the pristine beaches of Coralee. But for a moment, Luna thought she saw something in his expression shift. His blue gray eyes seemed fixed on something in the sky.

The alicorn turned her own gaze to the sky, following his line of sight. She frowned. It seemed like there was some kind of debris up there, and…were those two suns she saw?

“We shouldn’t linger,” said her guide, directing her back to the hallway.

It must have been a trick of the light, she reasoned.

For another ten minutes, they continued in silence, the stallion’s ever-shifting face seeming deep in contemplation even as he navigated the halls with practiced ease. “Did you travel much?” inquired the princess, wondering if perhaps he’d recalled other pieces of Sunset’s memory.

At that, he gave a small, mysterious sort of smile. “I think we were travelers by nature. Coming and going all the time. We even had a ship.” His face screwed up in concentration. “I can’t remember its name.”

So they were sailors? That would certainly explain the inability to find him. But then, Luna wondered, why hadn’t he come back, and how had Sunset ended up in Canterlot? Was their craft an airship of some sort? Or had they taken the train to the capital?

That’s when another idea occurred to her. Since he was both well-connected to Sunset’s lost memories, and self-aware, perhaps he could illuminate her as to the nature of the spell itself. “Can you tell anything about the container?”

The stallion paused again. “A very good question,” he said, sounding almost pleased. He closed his eyes, tapping a digit—oh, what had the minotaur’s called them again?—against his umbrella handle. When he opened his eyes again, his fluctuating mouth had twisted into a grimace. “It’s like a jigsaw puzzle.”

She must have given him some sort of strange look, for one of his eyebrows shot up. “How do you not know what that is?”

The lunar diarch tried her best to push down the heat steadily rising on her face. “I…have been out of touch with society for a very long time.”

Her guide didn’t comment on her feeble answer, thankfully. “A jigsaw puzzle is a simple toy. You make a picture on a piece of wood and cut it up into odd-shaped pieces so that you can reassemble the picture later.”

“So the container is made from pieces?”

“No, the contents.” He brushed his hoof against the wall. “ Her memories,” he said sadly, “broken into a thousand puzzle pieces, stuffed into a box, and shaken up. They’re constantly reforming. Pieces connecting into strings of the complete picture, then broken apart and returned to the pile.”

He stared into one of those strange glowing circles like it was a crystal ball. “Whoever did this shattered her mind,” he hissed, the handle of his umbrella shaking in his grip. “They shattered her mind.”

Once again, there was the flash of that dark anger in his eyes. It was a feeling Luna fully empathized with, for the same emotions were growing inside her the more she learned of the unicorn. But, also like before, that expression filled Luna with a sense of threat that put her on edge. His was the look of a pony who was far more dangerous than he appeared, and woe be to any who harmed his loved ones, be they god or mortal.

Just who was this stallion, she wondered.

The night alicorn cast a glance at the blank hallway. “You never answered my question.”

He turned back to her, his expression blank. “I thought I was answering your questions.”

Luna shook her head. “I meant the one I asked some time ago. I asked if we were close to the container.”

He looked a bit sheepish now. “Didn’t I tell you?”

“No, you did not.”

“Oh. Well, let’s see.” He paused, looking around his environment, before a smile broke out on his face. “Actually, we’rerather close.” He pointed his umbrella at an upcoming turn. “If we take a right there then we’ll find it in two shakes of a train’s rail.” He broke into an energetic trot, following his own invisible path.

Luna blinked. She knew for a fact that it was lamb’s tail, but chose not to comment. Instead, she bolted after him, bringing herself back to his side. “I, for one, shall be glad to be free of this maze,” she grumbled after another ten minutes. “I grow quite weary of it.”

“I don’t know,” replied the stallion pleasantly. “I think it’s quite homey.”

“Homey?” Luna questioned. “How can a place like this even be considered—” Her question broke off as he barred her path with his umbrella. In front of them was a dead end, and embedded within the wall, a single door.

“We’re here.”

Luna took a step forward. “Are you not going to open it?” A part of her was surprised he was still around, given that his intended task was complete, but another part of her was glad for the company, and the chance to learn more of this foul situation.

Her guide shook his head. “The door is the container.” He gave a rueful smile. “It’s her room, you see.” He brushed a paw against the door itself, his long digits passing over the faintest traces of those strange circular patterns, and what, to Luna’s eye, might have also been a set of letters, though they were faded and blurred beyond legibility. He stopped at the Do Not Disturb sign hanging incongruously from the doorknob. “She took this from a hotel.”

Suddenly, the muffled chords of music rose up from behind the barrier, a loud, pulsing beat that Luna couldn’t identify. Her guide’s smile widened, becoming a touch warmer and more genuine. “Yes, definitely her room.”

Luna took a step forward, lighting her horn. “Stand back, and brace yourself. The environment will shift wildly once I begin.” Aiming at the now expanded crack, she landed her first blow.

“You mentioned that before, but what—” He didn’t get to finish before the world shifted. Gone was the endless living maze, and in its place returned the locked office above the workroom. Her guide gave a shout as he was knocked onto his plot by the sudden appearance of a desk behind him.

“I see what you mean,” he commented dryly, rubbing at his sore backside.

Luna attacked again, carving at another magical thread, and the world shifted to the underground chamber, and her target warped back into the ancient flask. Seeing it again, Luna felt a strange sort of malice emanating from the object, and combined with the horrible whispering in her mind, it only made her want to attack all the more.

“STOP!”

Luna turned sharply to face her guide, his expression grim. “What is it?” she asked.

He approached the flask slowly, bending down to put his face within inches of the dirty glass, studying it intently. “It exudes an aura of evil, this flask.”

She nodded. “I felt something similar. Do you think it is some sort of trap?”

Her guide shook his head. “No. It’s only superficial, attached to whatever the original was.” He cocked his head. “I think the same can be said of the voices.”

“What are they?” asked Luna, doing her best to ignore the constant chant about the fluid of life.

The stallion’s eyes darkened. “Monsters, ones that we would no doubt encounter if we left this room.” He used his umbrella to point to a staircase Luna hadn’t noticed before. “Thankfully, I don’t think they can enter here.”

“Are they defenses?” Sunset’s mind seemed to favor monstrous defenders more often than not, particularly creatures more wild and strange than Luna had ever seen. “I have never heard their like before.”

“I don’t think the haemovores are meant to be,” said the stallion, poking at one of the rune tablets that surrounded them. “But they would act as such, merely by playing their part.”

“Haemovores?”

“They’re a type of vampire,” said her guide. Then he shook his head vigorously. “But that wasn’t why I told you to stop.” Darting his gaze around the room, he turned back to her. “Attack it again.”

Luna raised an eyebrow. “You tell me to stop only to ask me to continue?”

“Just do it,” he barked. “Attack it again. Make the environment change.”

Curious, Luna did as he asked, landing another strike against the crack. Immediately, the world shifted to the circus ground.

Her guide held up a hoof, craning his neck up toward the sky, then back to the container, and then turned to her. “I know what’s wrong,” he said darkly. “I know why she can’t remember anything, and I know why it’s killing her.”

Luna’s throat hitched momentarily. “What do you mean?”

He pointed his umbrella upwards. “Look up.”

Luna did, craning her own neck to follow. The gray, overcast sky was streaked with light. She almost would have called it lightning. But there was something familiar about the arcing motion, and of the shapes formed by the clouds.

Then it hit her. Nerves. The clouds were morphing into nerve cells, just like the ones she’d seen in Sunset’s memory. Ones just as red and angry.

“You said you witnessed light come out of the container prior to the change,” said her guide. “But I think you were so focused on your attack that you somehow missed the light going back in. You also failed to examine the ceiling.”

The alicorn looked at him blankly. “I…do not understand.”

“You call it a container, and there’s a crack in it. The contents are leaking,” he explained. “Logically, Sunset should remember the things she sees in her visions and nightmares. The things that leak out should stay out. But they aren’t,” he turned an angry blue-gray eye toward the cage, “because the container won’t let them.”

Luna tilted her head. “It is alive?” True, the spell seemed to be fighting back, but it almost sounded like he was ascribing true sentience to the thing.

“I wouldn’t go that far. But from what I can…sense,” he grimaced at the word, “its purpose is to contain. When something gets out, the container will eventually pull it back in.”

Luna turned to the darkened cage in horrified wonder as the words settled over her, and epiphanies bloomed in her own mind. “That is why the dream collapsed. It did not dissipate. It was broken down. It was pulled back here…”

“Yes,” agreed her guide. “Her memories are constantly leaking, triggered by outside stimuli, and from there, float up to her conscious mind, only to be forcibly ripped away and pulled back down into their box. That constant struggle, from conscious to subconscious, dragging information across the breadth of the mind, is causing the psychic equivalent of a friction burn.”

He jabbed his umbrella at the sky accusingly. “Look at that. If that were skin, it would be well past blistered. Her mind is screaming in agony, every new pass sloughing off another piece of her psyche, which results in—”

“Physical stress on her brain,” Luna finished, paling as she grasped his meaning. “Stress with no clear origin, and so severe it threatens to kill her.”

“Or shatter her psyche completely.” He glared angrily at the animal cage before them. “This container might as well be a time bomb planted in her subconscious.”

Red filtered Luna’s vision. What deranged mind had done this? Had they knowingly designed the spell this way, a failsafe to ensure Sunset never remembered her past? It was a cruel, ugly thing, and Luna’s horn glowed with a light that outshone even the brightest full moon, as if she were willing the cage’s unnatural darkness to dispel itself.

Her next words were an angry hiss that would have done Nightmare Moon justice. “If this foul thing be a time bomb, then I will disarm it.”

With a scream of fury, Luna relaunched her attack.

It started with a scream, a sound somewhere between fright and agony as Sunset, for the second time, thrashed in the bed as if struggling with some invisible enemy. It was a sound that nearly brought Celestia’s ancient heart to a stop.

“Tarnation!” cried Applejack. “Not again!”

“Sunny,” implored the human Twilight, “please, calm down. You’re okay!”

She couldn’t move. Her hooves felt as though they were welded to the very floor, melted by the incessant, burning heat under her raw skin.

“Getting in…” Sunset moaned. “Getting in…Can’t let them hurt…” Her right forehoof lashed out. “After me…worms…after…me…” Her whole body convulsed, and tears slid down her face. “Didn’t know his name…” She twisted violently to her other side. “…didn’t know she was…”

The raw sadness of it struck the solar princess like a javelin, hurling her to distant days.

A tiny filly crying into her side, half buried by the satin blankets of Celestia’s bed. I don’t even know their names, she whispered across the telepathy spell, pressing herself deeper into the alicorn’s side. Another flood of tears came pouring down her face, accompanied by a single, heartbreaking thought. Why didn’t they want me?

“This is dreadful!” cried Rarity. “Worse than the last time!”

“What do we do?” said Fluttershy, practically on the verge of tears. “We can’t wake her.”

“Maybe I can hug her,” said Pinkie, moving in close to try and hug the unicorn, and barely avoiding getting smacked in the face by a flailing hoof. “Or not!”

“What the hell’s Luna doing in there?!” roared Rainbow while Pinkie Pie made another attempt to hug Sunset.

“I’m sure she’s doing her best,” answered Princess Twilight, though the statement didn’t seem to comfort her at all as she watched the unicorn thrash, lost in the throes of nightmares.

“What if it kills Sunset in the process?” asked Spike.

Kill her?

Years of reproachful glances into the enchanted glass from her place on the throne, staring into her own eyes, imagining her reflection glaring accusingly back, hurling her own cowardice back in her face. Days deflecting questions about the addition of the mirror, preventing petitioners from touching it.

Nights spend in nightmares of a unicorn lost in an unknown world, devoid of magic with which to protect herself. Dark hours sitting in her bed, released from her visions, bathed in the light of her sister’s prison, drowning in self-loathing, wishing she could go back in time and undo her foolishness.

Panic choked every thought and warning in her mind. With a burst of strength that put cracks in the enchanted crystal floor, Celestia bolted forward. No. No more inaction! No more cowardice! No more running!

“Princess!” protested Twilight as Celestia shoved the alicorn out of the way. “What are you doing?! You shouldn’t inter—”

“To Tartarus with non-interference!” she snapped. “I’m doing what I have to!”

Lighting her horn, she weaved together the ancient spell with an ease that belied the decades since her last use. She pressed her horn to the unicorn’s flailing head, and whispered with all the strength and comfort she could muster.

You’re safe, Sunset. You’re safe. I’m right here.

Immediately, Sunset’s flailing began to subside, her night terrors retreating. Releasing a heavy breath, Celestia continued on. That’s it, my little sun. You’re perfectly safe with me. I’m here. I’ll always be here. You’re safe…

Sunset’s dreaming mind was in agony.

She’d known, in some vague way, that her mind had been in pain before. But she’d defended herself…somehow…she couldn’t quite remember how, and her dreams had settled into a warm, white beach. It had been so wonderful, even if the two suns in the sky were weird.

Then the pain came back. The warm beach warped into a thousand different places. Monsters flashed before her eyes, and everything burned because something was being torn apart. She’d tried to defend herself, but it wouldn’t work, and she was left drowning in the searing agony.

You’re safe, Sunset. You’re safe. I’m right here.

The words floated down from someplace beyond, a balm against the torture. She leaned into the words, drawing closer to the sound as if reaching for a hug.

That’s it, my little sun. You’re perfectly safe with me. I’m here. I’ll always be here. You’re safe.

She knew that voice, and she knew the words. So very familiar. She wrapped the words around herself, repeating them even as they were repeated to her. She was safe. She was safe.

The words triggered something from deep below, in that dark place that was hurting so badly, and the next thing she knew, she was lost in a new dream.

She stepped out onto the hard-packed snow, her boots crunching underneath her. “Bloody hell!” she cried…why did she say that? And what was wrong with her voice?

A rush of icy wind slapped against the bare skin of her face. Where was her coat? No, she had a coat, a bright red one that he’d insisted she put on instead of her favorite…her favorite something.

She hugged her forelegs to her chest, shivering a little in the thick clothing that didn’t protect her nearly as much as it rightly should have. “I thought you said these snow suits would keep us warm!” she called back irritably. “I’m freezing out here!”

Turning around, she saw somepony locking a set of doors. Or at least, that’s what the motion looked like. She couldn’t make out the doors very well. They were all hazy, as if she’d suddenly needed glasses as strong as Sparky’s…who was Sparky?

And why had it seemed like she’d missed something? Some word missing from the end of one of her sentences. A name, perhaps? Something was definitely missing, just like the details on the doors. Everything around her was an ancient, half-rotted film reel, chunks of frames damaged and obscured.

The one locking the doors wasn’t fairing much better. He—she felt she could be certain in calling it a “he,”—couldn’t seem to decide what he was. And yet, despite his physical uncertainty, his features were still intimately familiar to her somehow.

“It would be working perfectly well if you’d have let me finish,” he admonished. “Here.” He reached over, pressing a switch in the collar of the coat that she hadn’t noticed before. Intense, but pleasant heat surged over her body, as if she’d been wrapped head to toe in an electric blanket. The wind still blew against her face, but it was now as warm as a spring breeze.

“Thermal shielding,” he said in answer to her questioning gaze. “Not only through the clothing itself, but also as an invisible layer of heat over any exposed skin. Something I was in the middle of telling you about before you decided to venture outside prematurely.”

She felt a second surge of heat to her face that had nothing to do with the coat. “So, where are we?” she asked quickly. “The south pole?”

He smiled inscrutably. “Are we at the south pole?”

She recognized the tone, her mind snapping to attention. Initiative test. It was like what she did with Princess…she couldn’t remember. Immediately, she scanned her surroundings. A little ways away, she saw a piece of rock jutting out from the blanket of fresh snow. “We’re on solid ground,” she said. “So we can’t be at the north pole.”

This got her a nod of approval. “Go on.”

She kept searching. They’d landed right up against an ice cliff of some kind, which only furthered her knowledge that they definitely weren’t at the north pole. Otherwise, the landscape was pretty devoid of any pertinent details. There had to be something else, though, some other clue he expected her to find. He wouldn’t be pressing her otherwise. She couldn’t let him down.

She looked up toward the bright blue sky. That certainly looked like Earth…why wouldn’t it be Earth? Shielding her eyes, she moved her gaze to the sun, and paused at what she found. “The sun’s too small,” she answered. “Alien planet?”

“Full marks,” he beamed. “This is the planet Chione, circa twenty-sixth century. The temperatures here easily drop to below freezing even in the height of summer, which, incidentally, only lasts a single month.”

Well, that explained why he broke out the sci-fi snow gear, though she had to admit, she still felt a little uncomfortable without her…what was it?

Her companion—oh, that word sounded so familiar, wonderful and painful all at once for reasons she couldn’t quite reach—continued on. “Thanks to the thermal shielding in these suits,” he gestured at his own jacket, a cream white decorated with red question marks, “we’ll be able to walk around without covering our faces. Better to converse with the locals that way, I find.”

“What locals?”

He gestured to a nearby ridge, pulling a telescope from his pocket. “Have a look.”

Accepting the telescope, she trudged her way to the edge of the ridge, peering out at the distance. She saw an endless sea of white. Nothing but mountains and glaciers and…

“Hang about,” she said, and for a brief moment she wondered where the words came from. That didn’t sound like her. “Is that a city?”

It was. A city of white and blue, gleaming in the dim light, white spires reaching high into the sky like mountain peaks. The streets below teemed with…no, it couldn’t be. That was too insane. Or was it? After traveling with him, she’d seen enough that it shouldn’t throw her, but somehow, it still did.

“Those are penguins!” she cried in disbelief. Were there penguins in the Frozen North? She tried to connect the thought, but the line was broken, the other end slipping away.

“The Chionans are a race of highly evolved, sentient penguin people,” explained the stallion.

Though she’d seen so many strange worlds…what worlds…the sights before her stirred a sort of childish excitement in her, one she readily suppressed before it became visible on her face. She wasn’t some little kid, after all. She was a seasoned traveler.

Spurred on by this wild new world, and not wanting to keep standing in the snow, she started making her way down the slope, only to jerk to a halt as something caught around her foreleg. Or was that an arm? Was she as blurry as the world around her?

“Before we go on,” said the Scottish man. He was a man now, and the handle of his umbrella had hooked her like a shepherd’s crook. “There is one other thing I need to do first.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. They’d just gotten here, and he was already veering away? It was like the thing with the Neme…yet again, the name escaped her, but a vague image of a beautiful silver statue floated in her vision.

“What, like an errand?” she scoffed. “Like you need to head to the shop to buy more custard creams?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” he replied, before tapping a finger to his chin. “Though now that you mention it, you did rather devastate the supply with that voracious appetite of yours.”

She was about to fire off a retort when he held up his hoof. It was a hoof again. “In any case, that’s not what I mean. I need to give you something.” He fished around in the pocket of his coat, before coming to some kind of realization, and stuck his hand into her coat pocket. She’d sworn it was empty when she’d put it on, but lo and behold, he pulled something out.

She rolled her eyes. Him and his conjuring tricks.

He opened his fist, revealing a small silver key on a chain. “This is yours.”

Her breath caught in her throat. “Is that…?”

“A key to the…?” Another word, an infinite one, lost. “Yes. I’ve been meaning to give it to you for a while, but, well,” he gave her a sheepish smile. “Time gets away from me, you know.”

For reasons she couldn’t understand, she found that statement incredibly funny.

“The point is that it’s about time you had one,” continued the stallion, currently a sky blue pegasus. “I would rather you not be locked out of a place of safety, considering the trouble we run into.” His expression turned serious, eyes flaring in intensity. “Remember, if things get too much to handle, you can always find shelter in there.” He gestured back to the blurry space of blue. “Those doors have been attacked by everything from the Mongol horde, to Morok soldiers, to antimatter monsters, and they have never bent.”

A part of her wanted to argue that she could handle herself and this was hardly her first adventure, but it was losing out against the rest of her that just felt overwhelmed by the fact that he was trusting her with…with something so incredibly important. Her eyes stung.She was not going to cry. Like hell was she going to cry.

“What about junk mail satellites?” she joked, shoving back against those softer emotions that threatened to overtake her.

“Alright, yes,” he conceded with a tiny smile. “There have been a few times. But those are very rare cases. For all intents and purposes, those doors are unbreakable. Nothing can get in without a key, and as long as you and I have the only ones, you will always be safe behind them. Always.”

Gingerly, she took the key from him. Holding it up by the chain, she slipped it around her neck, the same way he kept his. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he smiled. “And please, try not to lose it.”

All her gratitude instantly evaporated. “Oi! I’ll have you know I’ve never lost my flat keys even once!” Technically, she still had them back in her room.

He tapped her nose with a finger. “Good to hear. Now come on. The Chionans are hosting a solstice festival and I’ve always wanted to attend…”

The container was starting to give way. The crack was now almost a foot long. Almost two dozen magical threads had been snapped, and Luna continued to carve away. The world around them shifted wildly in response, lit by the red glow of the burning nerves.

That last part worried her, but there was no way around it. The sooner this wretched spell was destroyed, the sooner Sunset could recover. She just prayed the unicorn could hold on a while longer.

Another thread snapped. Ignoring the voices of the haemovores that had once again risen around them, Luna let her magic probe the weakpoint, finding a cluster of five more threads. A spell node of some sort, whose purpose Luna could only guess at.

Luna hit it dead on.

For a brief moment, there was no world, nothing but a black void broken only by a blinding ball of white light, around which those circular patterns floated in the air. Then, after the span of a few breaths, the world reformed into the earthen pit with the mirror.

Her guide turned to her. “Well, that was interesting.”

“I suspect that was its true form,” said Luna, continuing her attack. “The damage it has suffered thus far was sufficient to make it temporarily lose the usual guise of the subconscious.”

“So, it’s nearly broken?”

“Nearly,” Luna said confidently, grunting as she pushed against the stubborn knot. “At a given point, it should be damaged enough to break apart on its own.” The alicorn had sawed one of the threads halfway. “Just a bit more...”

You’re safe, Sunset. You’re safe. I’m right here.

Luna froze, bewildered. “…Sister?”

“Your sister?” asked the stallion in surprise. “Is she here too?”

Luna shook her head. “No. Celestia does not know my Dreamwalking spell. She must be using the Mind Whisper spell instead.”

That’s it, my little sun. You’re perfectly safe with me. I’m here. I’ll always be here. You’re safe.

The Trottish stallion gave her a pointed look. “Little sun?”

Luna looked away. “Tia became quite…attached to Sunset after she found her.”

“…I see,” he said stiffly, glancing away from her.

Once again, the world changed. Icy wind cut through her coat, and Luna found herself standing in some sort of mountain pass, looking upon a set of blurry blue doors half-buried in snow.

“Well, that’s new,” commented her guide.

“Remember…if things get too much to handle, you can always find shelter in there.”

“Is that you?” Luna asked.

He scanned the sky. “It would appear to be.”

“For all intents and purposes, those doors are unbreakable. Nothing can get in without a key, and as long as you and I have the only ones, you will always be safe behind them. Always.”

Despite everything, a small smile found its way onto her lips. "Trying to comfort a scared filly?”

Her guide, on the other hoof, merely looked pensive. “…Perhaps.”

Luna was about to ask him what that meant, when the dream voice of his real self broke in again.

“This is the planet Chione, circa twenty-sixth century.”

The blue alicorn’s mouth clamped shut. The word planet echoed in her thoughts. A part of her wanted to deny it, to claim it was just part of a game between father and daughter. But the multitude of strange sights she’d witnessed prodded at her. The creatures in the diner…the dragon…the shapes of the container…the circular symbols…the maze…the fact that she’d had to explain Equestria to him…

It was rare for a being of Luna’s age to be surprised, and yet, she felt as though the ground had fallen out from under her. Slowly, she turned to face her guide.

“You really do have an amazing capacity for self-deception,” he commented, meeting her eyes with his. “Though, considering the environment, I suppose it would be hard to separate reality from fantasy.”

“Planet?” Luna squeaked.

Her guide seemed a tad exasperated. “Yes. Planet.” He gestured to the snowy world around them. “This is another planet, Chione, by the sound of it. Coralee, too, was another planet. Didn’t you notice that it had rings and two suns?”

Numbly, her eyes took in again the landscape, and saw that in the great distance was a city made from blocks of ice. The city that was, in a certain sense, very, very real. Luna felt suddenly lightheaded, and her mouth turned dry as bone in a way that had nothing to do with the chilly air. “Why?”

“Why didn’t I say anything?” He tapped his digits against his umbrella handle. “I wasn’t sure how you’d react. I gather you’re not familiar with life on other planets?”

“…No.” The idea had been talked about for ages, even before her banishment. And, yes, there were other universes, other versions of their planet. But life beyond Terra, on planets like Ares, Aphrodite, or even Hermes? It seemed preposterous. Or it had.

“What are you?” She glanced back toward the blue doors. “What is she?”

“That, I can’t tell you,” he admitted. “All I can tell is that we traveled from planet to planet.” He gave her a hard look. “Does that matter to you? To your sister? Does it make a difference that we’re not of your planet?” He gestured to the doors. “She’s still dying. Will you stand there and do nothing, just because she’s not one of yours?”

The blue alicorn’s memory flashed to Sunset Shimmer, the once proud and capable unicorn, looking so sickly, and desperate to know where she came from. She remembered the memory image of her sister, nuzzling the little filly like her own. She remembered Sunset’s friends, traveling across dimensions just for her.

No, Luna realized. It did not matter.

Gathering her wits, she turned back to the container. Magic blazed around her horn, and she let out a powerful blast, right on the crack. But to her shock, her attack did nothing. The magical threads absorbed the full force of her blast without a single hint of damage.

“The container is stronger than before,” she grunted.

“I told her the walls were unbreakable,” answered her guide. “You need to change it. Attack around it. That might trigger another shift.”

Luna did as he instructed, turning her blast to the snowy ground beneath the door. Above her, the reddened nerves began to blaze with building heat. Luna simply prayed Sunset could take the pain.

The dream began to fade, ripped apart like the victim of rabid timberwolves, every moment and every image torn away from the bone of her mind. Eaten alive.

Tartarus, it hurt. She tried once again to defend herself, but whatever she’d done before, it still wouldn’t come back to her. Pain spiked on two fronts, from her mind here, and from the place down below.

Desperately, she clung to the pieces of dream still within her grasp, holding them tight to keep them from the ravenous hunger of the monsters. These were hers. She would not let them be taken away. As she did, the whispers from above came back into focus, giving her strength. Safe. Yes, she’d been safe in her dreams. Safe behind the blue walls. Safe…

In a flash of brilliance, the answer came to her. With all the willpower her sleeping mind could muster, Sunset took the glittering ice crystals of her broken dream, and fused them together with the same skill she once used to weave the most intricate of spells, crafting them into a shield, and also more than a shield. Both shield and weapon in one.

The pain crescendoed, and the monsters lashed out once again to rob her of the last of her sweet memories, only to find the collective shards thrust at them in equal measure. The monsters may have taken their prize, but they took something else with them in the bargain.

So far, the plan had worked. The attack had caused the world to shift rapidly, cycling through places she’d seen before, and even a few new ones, but Luna didn’t pay those any attention. Already, she’d snapped another thread.

“Just a bit more,” her guide was muttering. “I know it hurts, but please, you have to hold out.”

The container was within inches of shattering. The crack that spread across the surface of the office door stretched almost from top to bottom. Weariness from her relentless effort pulled on her, and Luna took a breath, needing but a moment’s rest.

It was, in hindsight, one of the most ill-timed decisions in Luna’s entire life, because it was during that lapse that a beam of light shot down from the sky. It was gleaming and blue, almost like her own magic, sailing toward the crack with all the speed and force of an arrow. The minute it struck its target, there was a blinding flash.

Spots flitted across Luna’s vision as she got to her hooves. “What new sorcery is this?” she groaned.

A cry of anguish forced her eyelids open. Beside the princess, her guide was staring at the container in a mixture of horror and despair. Luna turned her still blurry gaze in the direction of the container, and felt her stomach drop out from under her.

Their surroundings had transformed once again, returning to the underground chamber filled with rune tablets. But where there should have been the ancient, malevolent flask, there was now the same set of blue doors, glimmering with ethereal light.

For a few seconds, she stood there in shock, wondering why the container’s shape would be incongruous to the surrounding environment. Then, a bolt of horror broke her shock, followed by a rush of adrenaline at the terrible conclusion that formed the emotion’s base.

All at once, Luna gathered her magic into a burning blue corona, throwing it against the doors, a force of energy to rival any bolt of lightning the city of Cloudsdale ever produced. It was the sort of blast that would have severely wounded even the mightiest of beasts that stalked the night.

But against those heavily cracked doors, her attack did nothing.

“NO!” Luna cried. She fired again and again, but her blows might as well have been fly bites against dragonhide. “This cannot be!”

But it was. Luna slumped to the hard floor, her throat thick enough that it threatened to suffocate her as she realized the terrible truth. Sunset’s memories had mixed. Perhaps as a defense against the pain, her sleeping mind had taken shelter behind sweet memory, working her very will upon the container so that it took on the indestructible nature of those doors. And Luna knew with a kind of intuitive certainty that, even if the environment were to change, the container’s shape and strength would remain.

Beside Luna, her guide seemed to have reached the same conclusion. “They’ve become unbreakable,” he whispered. “She’s going to die.”

This couldn’t be it. This couldn’t be the end of her mission. How could Luna go back to the waking world with only proclamations of death? There had to be something they could do…something…

Luna shot to her hooves. “The key!”

Her guide tilted his head. “What key?”

“In the memory, you said the doors could only be opened by the two of you because only you had the key!” Luna’s eyes fixed on him. “You can open the door.”

“But I don’t have the…” He stopped, realizing that there was now a small silver key on a chain hanging from his foreleg. “I suppose I do have it.” He held it up in front of his face, studying it, before turning to the doors.

His blue-gray eyes burned with determination. “Time to end this.”

She was in pieces.

She’d been that way for a long time, longer than she knew. Not that she knew much. It was part of being broken, floating in bits and pieces of herself, moments in space and time that couldn’t quite stay together. But there was more than that, too. There were parts of her outside of here.

One of those parts was right outside, someone drawn out from the fragments strewn around her. And there was something with it that wasn’t her, too.

“Sunset Shimmer,” spoke the thing that wasn’t her. “Your father is here. He has the key. He’s going to let you out.”

Her…father…?

“Why would you want to know anything? He’s gone. That’s all that matters. Now leave me alone.”

“I’m sure you and your daughter will find the accommodations to your liking, Mr. Smith. Farringham School treats our faculty very well.”

One of the outside things was getting close, the one made from her. Shards of memory shifted around her like iron sand around a magnet, bringing up reflections of the one outside.

Listening to jazz outside a pub. Tapping her nose. Watching movies in the theater because he’d been horrified at the films she hadn’t seen. Tending to her knee after she’d injured it at Graystairs. Reading aloud to her in the library afterwards while she lay on a sofa, even though she didn’t need him to read to her. Doing all sorts of voices and making her laugh, driving away the difficulties of the past adventure.

Her friend. More than her friend.

“Sunset?” She could hear him, just beyond the walls. He was closer now. “I’m opening the door.”

Open the door. He was going to open the door, set her free. He was coming to get her. He…he…

“If you ask me, Bozorix is a lost cause. Not that it was much of a cause to start. The Federation were fools to let that filthy backwater in.”

Dark house. Thunderstorm. A single life destroyed, and millions of others being dragged down with it. Bozorix. Luziruta. Tanope. Fighting, so much fighting.

“The Archive of Thoth…It’s any researcher’s dream.”

Lost tomb. Guarded by traps. Murals lit by moonlight. Thoth. Ma’at. Seshat. Broken family. Broken child. Broken mind. Serpents in the dark with skin as pale as bone. Chase through time. Playing games.

“Catch me, catch me, now you have to catch me!”

A woman in a black and white mask with eyes of dusky gray that didn’t belong. Thief. Parasite. Intruder.

“You’ve been such a lucky girl so far. But now your luck’s run out.”

Black and white mask. Black and white. Madness and murder and destruction, carved across both star systems and centuries. Eyes burning into her soul. Eyes…eyes…more than eyes. What was happening?

“Oh, honey, who did this to you?”

The memories whirled violently. Deep, dark shards she’d rarely ever touched stabbed at her, showering her in their slicing truth. The truth of days she wished hadn’t existed.

“You’re not going to try and stop me…are you?”

Not her friend! Not her friend!

Her guide had been mere inches from the door, the key held before him like a sword, when the whole structure, for lack of a better word, exploded. A wave of concussive force roared out from the container, and the next thing Luna knew, both she and her guide were hurled into the air.

Pain jolted through her right wing as she collided with solid stone. Opening her eyes, Luna saw a room that looked to her like some place of worship, with the high ceiling and long wooden benches. But those musings were thrown to the side in the face of the horrible hiss that rang in her ears. It was the kind of hiss that meant only one thing: Attack.

With a rush of adrenaline, Luna leapt up, barely dodging the large hoof that scraped against the stone floor right where her head had been. With reflexes practiced by years of battling monsters in the night, Luna fired a blast of magic against her attacker, causing the creature to stagger backwards with a wail of fury.

The fluid of life…the pure fluid of life…

The voices she now knew as belonging to the haemovores sung even louder than before, and as she gazed around the room, she found herself greeted by a vision from a nightmare. All around her were ponies, or humans—as with everything else, their bodies shifted wildly, and knowing what she did now, she had to wonder which one was real—and varying in other ways far more horrible to witness.

Those that were equine were deathly pale with lips of dark crimson, their hooves long and sharpened to a sword’s edge. Others were some kind of hideous, overfed leech, a giant of wrinkled skin with a sucker mouth and eyes so swollen they were practically fused shut. And still others…others were something in between, creatures with patches of equine broken up with spots where the coat had given way to slimy skin.

“Why?” came a hollow whisper beside her, and Luna darted her head to the side, just for a moment, to see her guide sitting beside her. He looked to be in shock, staring off into space rather than noticing the horde of monsters before them.

But Luna didn’t have time to deal with him. The haemovores had taken that moment of distraction to lunge. A sharpened claw dug into her side, skin slicing open. Luna cried out, using adrenaline to bolster her counterattack as she forced the creature to ram into a wall.

With a scream, she summoned a storm cloud, sending bolts of magical lightning to drive the haemovores back. Luna glanced at her wound. It was, thankfully, superficial. She was not keen to find out what kind of strain bleeding out in a dream would have on her waking body.

Another haemovore, this one a humanoid mare, advanced on her, eyes full of crazed hunger, licking a fat tongue against her disgusting red mouth.

“They’re a type of vampire.”

Luna shuddered.

The night princess put up a shield around herself and her guide as the creatures advanced again. They slammed against it, clawing to get at her dream blood. Perhaps it was their strength, or Luna’s own weariness from her long struggles, but her shield wasn’t holding nearly as well as it should.

She looked behind her, finding a doorway that must lead back to the container, only for it to be cut off by the gathering monsters. She summoned another attack, splitting her energy between it and the shield. Bolts of magic leapt out, burning two of the creatures to ash. But for every one of them gone, Luna could see more forming from the dust of dreams.

“Guide!” she called out. “You know these things. How do I stop them?”

Her guide didn’t seem to hear her. “What did I do…?”

“Please!” Luna cried, feeling the claws of the haemovores dig deeper into her shield, inching their way through. She gave him a light kick with her hind leg. “You must tell me!”

For a moment, he seemed to rouse from his stupor, gazing around at the ring of monsters blearily. “Faith,” he whispered. “Use faith. It…interferes with their telepathic communication.”

“Faith?” she questioned, but her guide had slipped back into his stupor.

Turning back to the monsters, Luna began to concentrate. Faith…faith…slowly, the emotion rose from deep inside her. She had faith in the power of harmony, in the light of the Elements. She had faith in her sister, reforged after a millennium of silence and hate. She had faith in Twilight Sparkle and her friends, the six mares that pulled her back from the mad abyss.

The claws that had been digging through her shield pulled away, and the creatures roared in pain, flailing this way and that. Luna took the feeling burning bright in her chest and wove it into her shield. The crowd of haemovores parted before her, opening a path back to the lower levels and the container.

Taking her chance, Luna grabbed her guide and galloped at full speed, diving straight into the darkness. Her wings spread out, cushioning her fall. Above her, the screams of the monsters fell away until only their chanting was left.

Sweat pouring from her coat, Luna let down her shield. The darkness of the chamber felt almost comforting in its coolness. “We are safe,” she said, turning to her companion. “What happened?”

The stallion sat there, staring ahead toward the blue doors. “She…rejected me,” he whispered. His face twisted in grief. “What did I do to make her feel like that?” The bottoms of his hind legs began to dissolve, breaking down into dust and drawn back to the crack in the door.

“You cannot leave!” said Luna, panicked. “I need a way to open the doors!”

His blue-gray eyes looked at her with utter desolation. “There’s nothing you can do,” he replied, his voice hollow. “She’s going to die.” He turned back to the doors, which by now had reabsorbed him up to the waist. His shoulders slumped. “I don’t think the real me is very trustworthy,” he said, losing his grip on the umbrella as it, too, disappeared. He smiled ruefully. “Perhaps it’s best that I lost her…”

This could not be happening. Sunset could not die. “There has to be a way to save her!” she insisted.

“If there is,” he replied, “I don’t know what it could be.” He was barely a head now, and he looked at her so earnestly. “Don’t tell her about me,” he begged. “I don’t want her to die with a broken heart.” Then, he was gone, reduced to dust.

Left alone and exhausted at the bottom of Sunset Shimmer’s mind, Luna dropped to her belly, weeping at her failure.

Author's Note

The name "Whinny Shakespony" was taken, with permission, from The Incognito Brony.

Interlude: Grasp of the Eagle

Interlude: Grasp of the Eagle

She’d gotten there at 6:45, figuring that being early would make Hans happy…or at least make sure he wasn’t unhappy. Sapphire Street was nearly swallowed by darkness when she’d arrived, the last parts of twilight already giving way to pure night.

Hans was waiting in an alley. He’d smiled his usual discomforting smile, and then introduced her to one of Mr. Redbeak’s other employees, a guy named Eggbert, or “Egg,” as everybody called him. Gilda had seen him around at the society meetings, but she’d never actually talked to him.

Egg was a stocky sort of guy, though the bulk of his body didn’t seem to be solid muscle like Hans, with dull brown eyes and thin, sandy hair. When she’d seen him at a distance before, she remembered thinking that he had the sort of face that looked like someone had taken a meat tenderizer to it at an early age. Now that she was seeing him up close, her assessment hadn’t improved in the slightest.

He’d raised an eyebrow at her arrival. “You brought the kid out here?”

Hans had simply shrugged. “Figured she’d be a good lookout.”

Gilda had wondered what exactly she was looking out for, but Hans had brushed aside her questions, and his raw intimidation kept her from asking anything else. Instead, she’d followed directions and packed into Hans’ car, an old black van, and, to Gilda’s confusion, driven around the neighborhood, leading to her current position in the backseat, feeling disconcertingly lost.

She watched the darkening buildings go by through the front windshield.

Lookout…lookout…off the top of her head, she could only think of one thing you’d need a lookout for. But that couldn’t be it, could it? Hans wasn’t a nice person, but he wouldn’t drag her into…she turned a nervous glance towards the larger of the two men.

“Hans, what are we doing? I thought you called me for a job.”

Hans shrugged casually, not taking his eyes off the road. “Just killing a little time, small fry.”

“But—”

“Shut up. I need to concentrate.” He smirked at her through the rear view mirror. “Unless you want me to have an accident.”

Gilda was fairly sure he wouldn’t have an accident, but she got the message anyway, snapping her mouth closed and letting her insides stew in ever-increasing fear. Her arm began to itch horribly, but with Hans in the car, she had no choice but to ignore it.

Finally, Egg declared it to be time, and the van parked back in the alley where they’d started. The two men got out, each carrying a small backpack. “Stay here,” Hans said, turning to Gilda. “Text if you see anybody approaching.”

Gilda settled herself into the front passenger seat, watching with trepidation as Hans and Egg silently moved to the building across the street. According to the sign, it was some kind of antique store. In the darkness of the adjacent alley, Gilda could just make out the two men snaking their way up the fire escape to the second story.

The teenager shifted uncomfortably against the old leather. She’d thought this was a repossession or something. Mr. Redbeak did that sort of thing, among others. But this? This was feeling almost like a burglary. Except without the almost.

Once again, her tattoo began to itch as if the ink in her skin were some kind of flammable. Free of Hans’s disapproval, Gilda scratched furiously. Why were they doing this? Mr. Redbeak was legit. He didn’t need to do this sort of thing. Okay, sure, he dealt partially in junk. Literal junk, in fact. But he wasn’t shady. He wasn’t…

**********

It had been early winter when she’d met him. Back then, Gilda had been desperately hunting for a job to take some of the pressure off her dad. She’d already been at it for weeks, but nobody had wanted her, and those that did, well, she hadn’t lasted long.

It had been the afternoon, and she’d been leaving her last job, dog walking, having gotten into a rather loud argument with the stupid, prissy woman who’d tossed her four dog leashes at once and expected her to handle them. The insane mutts had slipped loose and Gilda had chased them down, but not before the dogs had assaulted one mail carrier, knocked over three potted plants, and the chase had ripped a large hole in Gilda’s right pants leg.

When it was all said and done, the four little terrors had been showered in kisses and treats. But Gilda? She’d gotten fired without even a single cent for the whole ordeal.

Distracted by the guilt of telling her father about her ruined jeans, Gilda hadn’t paid any attention to her path down the sidewalk, and ended up colliding into someone, and landing flat on her butt.

“I’m sorry,” a voice had called down to her. “Here, let me help you up.”

The man that helped her was a big man, maybe in his mid-thirties, with a thick lion’s mane of deep black hair, and a pair of sharp blue eyes. He was dressed immaculately in a suit and tie, hardly a thread out of place, and as a consequence, made Gilda feel even more pathetic. The only thing that threw off the image of wealth and class was his nose, which was very slightly crooked.

His hand took hers in a firm grip, and Gilda found herself hauled to her feet. “You’re not hurt, are you?” he asked, looking her over. His gaze rested on her exposed right knee. “Did I do that?”

“N-No,” Gilda stammered. For a moment, she felt like she was in Junior Flight Camp again, shrinking into her shell as she was crowded out of the flight simulator.

The man led her over to a nearby bench. “Let me guess,” he said ruefully, “It had something to do with her?” He pointed to the house Gilda had just stomped away from. “Her mutts give you trouble?”

Gilda was taken aback. “How’d you know?”

The man smiled, more genuinely this time. “Wasn’t hard to pick up on that fight, kid. You two were pretty loud. And from what I gather, you were right to leave. That woman’s nothing but garbage.” He shot the house a disgusted look. “No girl like you should be working for someone like her.”

Gilda felt her face go red. “Y-Yeah,” she said.

And before she knew it, she was unloading the entire dog disaster right then and there, and then, the problems with her mother. The man listened through it all, nodded in agreement as Gilda relayed her anger at her mom’s betrayal.

“She just left dad! She left and now she’s divorcing him when Dad lost his job and he can’t even afford an attorney! But she just won’t stop!”

“Your mother sounds like a real traitor,” said the man sagely. “It’s such a shame you’re going through that. But tell you what, you’re looking for a job, right? How about I give you one?”

Gilda was taken aback. “W-What?”

The man smiled. “I’ve got my fingers in quite a few pies, so to speak. Why, just today I was out here for a custom car delivery. But one of my other businesses is a junkyard. How would you feel about helping sort of the real junk from the salvageable stuff? I’ll pay you well.”

Gilda’s eyes threatened to roll free of her skull. “Are you sure? I…I’ve never sorted stuff like that before.”

“Sure, I’m sure,” replied the man. “We could always use fresh, young faces around the yard. And as far as experience, don’t worry. You’ll be working under someone the whole time. We can take it slow while you learn the ropes.” He held out his hand. “So, is that a yes?”

“I…” Gilda was glad she was seated, because she might have fallen over. Instead, her hand shot out to grasp his, shaking it vigorously. “Yeah! Yeah, I’ll take it!”

The man in the suit chuckled. “Good, good.” He got up, smiling down at her as he took out a small card from his jacket pocket. “My name is Gerard Redbeak, and here’s where you’ll find the junkyard.” He tilted his head. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Gilda,” she supplied eagerly. “Gilda Ironclaw.”

“Nice to meet you Gilda.” He smiled again. “See you in, say, a couple days?”

For the first time since her parents’ divorce, Gilda found herself smiling, too. “I’ll be there!”

And she was. Two days later, she was at the junkyard, working her first shift, learning how to sort out the parts, what could be used and what couldn’t. The size of her first paycheck made her jaw hit the floor. It had been more than her last two jobs combined.

More than that, Mr. Redbeak treated her like she was somebody. And after a little while, he introduced her to the society, people that, minus guys like Hans, had really seemed to be happy to have her around. In the society, she’d found something she hadn’t had since Rainbow Dash.

She was an eagle, flying high above the world, ruling the kingdom of the sky.

**********

And now here she was with Hans and Egg at what seemed to be a burglary. Was this really Mr. Redbeak’s idea? Maybe this was all Hans. She could believe that. The guy was seriously unfriendly. How Mr. Redbeak put up with him, she didn’t know. But the fact that he did just proved that Mr. Redbeak was a good guy.

Filled with nervous energy, Gilda got out of the car, standing in front of it to better scan the darkened street. Not a single person greeted her, let alone a policeman to bare her soul to. All she had were shadows and streetlights, and neither were going to help her.

A sudden gale slapped against her face with the chill of a winter storm. The teenager shivered, pulling her jacket tighter as she braced against a wall, protecting herself from the sudden blast. Where the hell had it even come from? The air had been still just a moment ago, and nowhere near that cold.

That was when Hans and Egg came barreling back to the alley. Hans was running, but Egg seemed more like he was staggering. The fact that both men were wearing ski masks only stoked the fires of anxiety within her.

“Can you drive?” barked Hans, barging into her personal space.

“I, uh, I’ve got a permit…” Gilda answered weakly, doing her best to edge away.

“Then drive! Get us out of here, now!”

Gilda wanted to argue, but an angry Hans was not someone she wanted to mess with. Hopping into the driver’s seat while Hans and Egg sat in the back, Gilda turned on the engine and made a hasty exit away from Sapphire Street. Her nagging desire for a policeman found itself inverted into a prayer about not getting caught.

“You awake, Egg?” Hans called from the backseat.

“Yeah…” groaned the other man. “Head hurts…stupid rodent…why was he even…”

“Forget about it,” interrupted Hans. “We got what we came for.”

Gilda had just been ready to turn a corner when Hans caught her wrist in his hand. “I’ll take over,” he said. It was not a suggestion.

Quietly, they changed positions, and Gilda settled herself uncomfortably back in the front passenger seat. She cast a glance at Egg, slumped in his own seat, but still breathing. “Is…he okay?”

“Just a knock on the head,” Hans replied. “He’ll be fine.”

Gilda turned her attention to the large bag that sat on the floor between them. “Why…” she swallowed hard. “Why did you…?”

“They had something of Mr. Redbeak’s,” Hans told her, “something he’s been trying to find for a very long time, and they weren’t smart enough to give it up.”

“But—”

“They were nothing but rodents, small fry. Thieving little mice.” He turned, taking his eyes off the road to glare down at her, seeming to tower over her, even when seated. “Is that a problem?”

Gilda shook her head vigorously. “No, Hans.” Something uncoiled in her gut. Now things made a bit more sense, she supposed. Sure, it was burglary, but, well, if they were rodents…who cared all that much? And if they’d really stolen something from Mr. Redbeak, or kept it from him, as the case may be, all the better.

Her tattoo began to itch again. Gilda suppressed a curse. She’d have to see a dermatologist if the stupid thing kept this up.

As they continued the drive, Gilda felt her wild heartbeat begin to slow down, her anxiety replaced by guilt for wanting to call the cops. She decided then and there that she’d have to work extra hard on her next junkyard shift.

Her eyes drifted back to the bag. “What is it?” she asked quietly.

Hans flicked his eyes over to her, seeming to have some kind of mental debate. “Mr. Redbeak didn’t want anybody touching it, but…” he shrugged. “I suppose I can let you look. But be careful, got it, small fry?”

Gilda got the message. Slowly, she reached inside, searching until her fingers brushed against something hard and metallic. Almost reverently, she pulled out the object, revealed in the car’s internal light to be a metallic eagle’s talon. Or at least she presumed it was an eagle’s talon. And, not that Gilda had much experience, it was the strangest talon she’d ever seen.

By all appearances, it seemed to be forged from solid gold. But that was stupid. Gold-plated, sure, but solid gold? No way. Not for something this size. And size was the right word, because the thing was huge. Again, Gilda wasn’t a zoolog or whatever the word was, but she was fairly certain this thing was too big to be modeled on an actual bird. The stump was thicker than her wrist, for crying out loud!

It was also strangely human. Instead of four claws, which Gilda was a little more certain of because of her tattoo, this thing had five. One of them was even connected off to the side rather than the back. Had somebody modeled the thing on their own hand? It was about the size of a man’s hand. Larger, even. And yet, the surface was rough and bird-like, and each digit ended in long, deadly-looking claws.

Gilda also couldn’t help but notice the small red stains that glittered at the ends of those sharpened points.

“Not exactly a looker, I know,” said Hans with a chuckle, possibly the friendliest thing he’d ever said to her. “But Mr. Redbeak wanted it.”

Gilda turned it over, examining every line and crevice, spotting the outline of knuckles and the bend of each joint. Misshapen or no, it still somehow evoked a sense of being lifelike, that those curved, grasping talons, almost fingers, were mere moments away from reaching out to grab their prey. The whole of it seemed to tingle with energy, too, jolting her fingertips ever so subtly.

She couldn’t fathom why he’d want it, but if it made Mr. Redbeak happy, who was she to complain?

For the rest of the trip, Gilda was silent, staring blankly out the window, the talon returned to the safety of the bag. She took no notice of the streets outside the vehicle, nor the scattered people they passed. She took no notice of the chilly whirlwinds that sprouted as they drove by, violently buffeting against innocent people, or making them huddle in their coats as she had only a short time ago.

But why would Gilda take note of any of that? After all, it was only the wind.

And in the recesses of the bag, tiny currents of air swirled slowly around those sharp, bloodstained claws.

Author's Note

Gilda is in so much trouble…

Just a quick note here, in case anyone who’s been reading asks, yes, the name of the street did change. It used to be Ruby Road, but I altered it. I occasionally make small tweak to the story when I find something I missed, spelling errors, unclear sentences, grammar, fixing a reference to a leather jacket that actually shouldn’t be leather…

At this point, I don’t do anything major, which is why I don’t usually comment on it. So, don’t panic. In the case of a name, however, be it a piece of literature or a location, if I change it, I’d say something, as I’m doing now. I’ve been putting in a lot of effort into making sure I don’t have to do that anymore, because I don’t like doing it, period.

But with the street name…I came up with it before the Fifteenth Doctor existed, and I have this thing in my head from a fic I saw (and can’t remember the name of) where a lot of streets in Canterlot are named after gems.

“Ruby Road” was not a reference to Fifteen, and I didn’t want it to be mistaken for one. Thus, I tweaked it. Also, if in the event I end up putting another interlude in this story, not that I have any plans for that, this one will, naturally, be relabeled Interlude 1, because I have to keep track of this stuff in my files.