Silver was walking when Cadance got through the door, just fifty hooves ahead on the road. How she had gotten there in less than a second was a mystery, but Cadance lifted her wings and flapped herself into the air, putting herself into a glide.

Silver kept walking as Cadance landed.

'how did you do that?' was on Cadance's mind, but she knew there was no chance of being told. Silver didn't turn despite Cadance staring into the side of her head. "So where are we going?"

Silver rolled her eyes.

"Silent treatment?"

...

"Fine." Cadance grumbled.

The walk continued on in silence. There were stray ponies passing by, and Cadance was waving and smiling like the Princess do; until she noticed no-one responding. As she noticed, Silver chuckled, most likely in her direction. Cadance sent a grumpy frown her way. Silver chuckled again.

Silver was leading her into the outskirts, she thought Silver might take her all the way out into the fields, but the mare turned into a short-path past a pair of houses, and into a nook. The Empire had a lot of spaces like these, the circular grid roads left pockets of space where buildings would end up. There was an old house there, made of crystal, one of the original ones from before the empire returned, there were a good hooffull still around, so it wasn't odd to see.

Cadance stopped near the porch. "Where is this?"

Silver silently walked up to the door and kicked it in.

Well... the door being kicked in wasn't silent.

Dust picked up around the edges, and Cadance spared a glance towards the majoritively dead yard, besides a few weeds, before walking up the porch and getting a breath full of stale air. Silver had already gone inside, Cadance...

Breaking and entering, yeah, this can't end poorly.

Cadance stepped inside and was immediately creeped out. Everything was covered in a thin layer of dust. Furniture laid strewn about, hoof sewn quilts. Cadance's heart fluttered, this whole room had been lived in, but it was overturned like a storm had come through. There were random objects on the floor, broken crystal glass and scorch marks on the walls. Drawers that had been pulled out and then left where they fell. There were cobwebs, but no bugs, nothing scurried along the floor or hung from the ceiling.

Cadance could feel something wrong. The place would have looked so homely if it hadn't been ransacked.

There was a staircase that had fallen into itself, and Cadance felt the dark remnants of the dark crystal before she saw them, growing up the side of the staircase like a vine.

Sombra was here.

Cadance was slowly following Silver, both of them were trying not to step on anything, but it was hard.

They turned a corner together, into an equally ransacked kitchen. Water had dried, mold had died, the whole room smelled like dry decay. Silver stopped, and gestured to Cadance's side at a bookcase. It contained books, as one would expect, dry rotting on the shelves, it was the one thing that hadn't been overturned or emptied. On the top, and the top shelf, were knickknacks, and picture frames.

Amber and another older mare of similar colours. There was a wax circle with a tiny hoofprint on it, and Amber's name stenciled in old faded colour around the rim. There were photos of the two at a festival, all shoved into one frame. There was a baby picture of Amber, an unlit candle, and a photo of two other ponies.

Cadance was looking at the memory of a family.

She shouldn't have been looking. She...

This is...

"You wanted to know." Silver said softly.

I still don't.

Desperate curiosity won out over her twisting gut, "What happened here?"

"Can't you tell?" Silver asked, genuinely.

Cadance stared blankly at the photos, and the mementos from a nicer time.

"Can't you hear the tragedy? Calling out to you?" Silver's hoof raised up towards the candle and she picked it off the shelf, "The Fate of life transposed onto another, the pain and the rage and the love that sit in this room."

Cadance could.

"Someone died here." Silver didn't add any inflection, she just said it. "Do you still want to know?"

Cadance nodded.

"Sombra took power. Shattered Princess Amore. But as a whole, life didn't change, at first." Silver put the candle back up on the shelf. "Amber was a filly when it all happened. Then one day, her parents disappeared, sent into the mines because they were both healthy enough for it. As I'm sure you can guess..."

"They didn't come back." Cadance finished.

"Amber's grandmother lived here, and took care of Amber for years into Sombra's reign." Silver took a breath, "Until Amber started asking questions... 'where did my mommy and daddy go?' She asked the wrong ponies, got caught up in the resistance movement, she was a hoof full of years away from being a mare, and she didn't know what she was doing or why. Turns out..."

"Her grandmother was a resistance leader. Old ponies know things, and Mrs. Glass knew how to get ponies from one side of the city to the other. It was all a massive mistake."

Cadance was trapped in the memory, reaching out in the emotion around her. She was cold. She was cold and she didn't know why, it was unnatural, but Silver's story continued as the ambient magic in the air rose.

"Amber's tampering fed back to someone, who told someone else, who told Sombra. Sombra shows up, demands the filly..."

"No."

"Simmer Glass offers herself instead. Comes clean, Sombra butchers her in the street."

Cadance's heart fell.

"With the example made, and the leader dead, Sombra still took Amber. Wonder why Amber is such a good aide?"

"I-"

"And... It was all her fault. She blames herself for her parents too."

Cadance's heart was breaking, she felt like crying, she probably would have if Silver hadn't told the story so jarringly.

"How do you know any of this? What-"

Silver cut her off softly. "I asked."

Cadance wiped her nose with a wing. "... You... What?"

"Look at this bookshelf Cadance." Silver pointed, "Really look at it."

She did. Like before, she noticed how it wasn't overturned, all of the cook books and scrapbooks and random knick knacks were all still on the shelf... And there was no dust. Not on the picture frames... "It's... it's been upkept."

"There were no hoof prints in the dust, were there? I haven't been doing it, neither has Amber."

So... who?

Cadance turned towards Silver.

Silver shrugged. "Ghosts are real, in case you didn't know that already."

Oh

At least Cadance knew why she was so cold... in that moment, she also noticed her fogging breath.

"Do you need a little more time? Or shall we leave this place to rest?"

Cadance made for the door without a word. Silver followed after, and Cadance only took another breath when she was outside in the post-noon sun. She warmed immediately, and the dark house stayed dark behind her. Silver quietly shut the door with a flash of blue telekinesis.

"So now you know."

"I feel awful."

"Feel worse."

Cadance glanced over her shoulder, "What?"

"You think Amber's the only mare with a story like that?"

Cadance internally winced.

Silver continued, a little more tersely. "These crystal ponies were enslaved for years, and were all waiting to die at any moment less than a year ago, from their perspective." Silver walked up and bumped Cadance, "I've been waiting for you to do something about that, but you still haven't noticed. The crystal ponies are still waiting for the other horseshoe to drop, 'Sombra came back once right?' that's what I hear them saying."

"No wonder there haven't been any..." Cadance felt sick, "The whole kingdom?"

"Not the whole kingdom, no-" Silver's eyebrows wiggled, "All of the immigrants are doing fantastic."

It clicked.

It was Silver's tone, or the words themselves. It could have been the mood of the moment, but all of that didn't matter.

Cadance figured it out.

"That's it." She said, surprised she had come to a conclusion and horrified of what the conclusion meant.

"That's your plan." She repeated dumbly.

The house behind her loomed. "You're not... this isn't some comically maniacal plot to... knock over the Spire."

Silver nodded with a smile, only serving to unnerve Cadance more. "You don't think like a normal pony. You think in terms of centuries, not... days or even years... that's why we couldn't figure it out, it wasn't about anything you were doing, not directly."

Silver waved her hoof, "Go on."

"Silver. No." Cadance shook her head, "You can't do that."

"Do what?" Silver's grin turned malicious.

"Silver, please."

She rolled her eyes, "I've come all this way, I wanna hear you say it."

Cadance stared at the other mare. In less than an hour, Silver had assaulted her, made her laugh, and told her that ghosts were real. Silver had said time and time again that they weren't friends, that she was trying to destroy the Crystal Empire.

Are you really? Is it true?

Because Silver was apparently awfully close to succeeding. All she'd have to do is stay the course.

"You're..." Cadance started, letting the words come as they did. "You're going to erase what's left of the Empire's ponies."

Silver nodded, "You've got a good idea, but how?"

"Economy, and..." Cadance winced and her wings spread, "Oh no... the Crystal Solstice... I-" She sent an angry glare at Silver, "Was that part of your plan too? Did you- I-"

I already invited everyone in Equestria. I got Silver to help me bring them here.

"And you can't go back on it now, either." Silver's smile stayed exactly as it was. The mare didn't blink, move, or breathe. She just stared back as Cadance realized what was really going on. "Not unless you want to ruin the entire Faire and butcher what's left of the ponies' trust that you can be their Princess."

Silver fast tracked cultural diffusion in the Empire. The Crystal Ponies, already hopeless from their time under Sombra, get thrust into a world filled with tourists, flashing cameras, and an economy however many times more powerful than their own.

Cadance was hit with a reminder of something somebody had said to her.

There's been no crystal pony couples, no new births, no new crystal foals.

If that continued, if Silver forced it to happen... It'd only take a few generations, and then all of that history would be exactly that.

"I'm gonna be sick." Cadance desperately wanted away from that house. The feeling of wrongness had sunk into her hooves again.

"You'll be fine." Silver joked. "Don't be such a baby."

"How could-" Cadance stomped a hoof and tried to gather herself, "Silver. You're talking about genocide." Once she said it, the fire in her chest lit up. It was real now. There was an enemy standing a hoof away from her. "It's subtle and it's not entirely you, but you knew what you were doing. You knew and you still did it. It's what you wanted."

"Yeeeup." Silver responded.

Cadance's face jumped through several different expressions. "Yup?! That's all you have to say? 'yeah- genocide, anyways'?!"

"You're about to realize something else." Silver started, "And, I'm curious, deeply curious, about what you'll do when it happens." Silver said that in a particular tone. A mix between questioning and menacing.

It raised Cadance's hackles, and she reminded herself that... she might not be able to take Silver in a fight. Not a real one, anyways. "Realize what?"

"That I'm not a liar." Silver deadpanned. "I am trying to destroy the Crystal Empire. I am not your friend. This isn't a game Little Princess, this is all very much the real world."

"You also promised me that you cared." Cadance offered, hoping that... that was true.Silver offered silence in response, her eyebrow raised, and she turned to walk away. "Where do you think you're going?" Cadance warned.

"Why would you care? I get around, so what?"

"You're not leaving until-"

"Until what?" Silver laughed a fake laugh. "Go ahead, arrest me, try, I'm begging you to."

"I'll-"

"Nothing. What are you gonna-"

"I DON'T KNOW!" Cadance whirled on the mare, "Buck! Can't you give me five seconds peace! Ghosts and genocide and my ear still hurts!" She punctuated the last comment by poking Silver in the chest.

Silver reached out and lowered Cadance’s hoof. Her look said 'unimpressed.' "Congratulations, you probably feel like me right now. How stressful do you think planning a silent genocide is?"

Cadance's left eye twitched.

Silver chuckled quietly in her face. "Cmon, you're acting like this is your first villain, where's the witty one-liners? Isn't this the drama and stage play you wanted?" Silver's expression dropped back to 'unimpressed' "or are we done lying to ourselves?"

My friend.

Cadance reigned in her emotions. Silver had pulled her in, she'd gotten surprised and led around in a circle. "Why are you doing this?" Cadance needed some kind of verbal momentum. Silver didn't respond, choosing to stand breathlessly in front of her. There wasn't an indication she had heard Cadance, or even that she was alive. "You could... you could still undo it. There's still a chance."

"Give me a good reason."

Cadance's mouth opened immediately, then closed.

Silver widened her eyes, "No, seriously. If you can give me a good reason to stop what I'm doing. I will."

Nothing I say will ever be good enough for you.

"Please Silver..." Cadance struggled to find the words. "Help me understand. What's the point in all of this? Why do you even want to hurt the crystal ponies anyways?"

Silver pretended to consider, she tapped a hoof to her chin and everything. "You." She eventually settled on.

"Me?" Cadance questioned incredulously.

Silver nodded, like she was agreeing on the colour of the sky. "Yeah, you, specifically. You're the crux of all of this."

"Why? What did I do to you?"

Silver stepped forwards, her eyes closed, and a breath of air sucked into her body for the first time in probably thirty minutes. She got right up close to Cadance, who didn't back down, until they were practically muzzle to muzzle. "You woke me up." She grumbled. "Call it... Spite." Then the smile came back. That angry, sickening, empty smile.

Silver brought Cadance out to parties. Silver cried and made stupid jokes. Those weren't lies, they couldn't have been. Silver told her she was pregnant, Silver cared about her. It didn't make any sense. If anyone cared for Cadance, the last thing they would do was genocide her subjects.

WHY. WHY-WHY-WHY!

Silver couldn't've just been evil. There was no chance. There wasn't any way to believe that Quick Silver had just been playing her the entire time. Even though she said she was, many times. Even though it all made sense. Even though all the evidence pointed to that, and that alone.

I... I can't have...

Cadance had failed. Reforming Silver? Funny. Protecting her subjects? She couldn't control Silver, her only option now was...

"Celestia."

"Go get her." Silver shot back.

"I-" Cadance blanched, "I will."

"She'll kill me." Silver answered.

"... I... I know..."

"There's the realization." Silver's smile split her muzzle. "You've had the answer this whole time. Just one letter, and it's over. The nightmare ends, all you gotta do is write a letter, it wouldn't even be you doing the deed." Silver tilted her head, "Actually, if you feel like waiting here for a moment, I'll get you the quill."

"Stop it Silver."

"Right, because we both know you won't. So don't threaten it." Silver said it sarcastically.

Would I?

The math was simple, and also wrong.

Cadance needed more time to think. Time she had already run out of. Time she'd run out of weeks ago. Luna had made it clear, Celestia didn't mix with the other immortals. Cadance had to assume that if she sent that letter, Silver would die.

"You're right. I won't." She hung her head.

"Then I've won, simple as that. You can't stop me, and I'm already halfway there." Silver, still touching distance, chuckled again, "The question is, Little Princess... What are you going to do about it? That's the part I'm deeply curious to know. Practically bursting at the seams."

The antagonism was starting to make Cadance want to cry. "What did I do to you? Why- just... why?" Cadance reiterated.

Silver shrugged. "Bye." Then she walked off.

Cadance stood in the shadow of a dead family's house and wondered where it had all gone wrong. She wondered what to do, and how, she wanted to know who she could get help from, but her mind only turned up blank. The only pony she could think of that could help her with something like this had walked away.

...

...

...

I'm so sorry.

Amber would have to wait. It all had to wait for her to fix her mistake.

Cadance took wing back towards The Spire. Hit, totally forgotten.

Author's Note

And there you have it.

What, like... 70 chapters in, and the main character has finally figured out the main plot conflict?

Whoo boy, we did get there. That's all that matters.