I raise an eyebrow, some of my suspicion returning, but curiosity as well. What could be worse than being stuck as a statue for all eternity. Some threat to Equestria? Something... that I might be able to help with? I feel a tiny flicker of hope: could he convince Twilight to release me, even temporarily?

It all seems a bit far-fetched, but it's not like I have anything better to do. "Sure, why not? What do you want to show me?"

Pacific's memory doesn't form from mists. Instead it's drawn in glowing lines like the work of a manic magical painter, gaining detail until it resolves into a sharply rectangular window: one that looks into Canterlot palace. An ornate room filled with finery, a gold-inlaid desk and behind it, the tyrant herself. Twilight Sparkle. The sight of my alicorn nemesis isn't what chills me though: no, it's what's on her desk.

A stone carving of... me. An exact replica of my petrified form, complete with my hooves pressed against my terrified face. How very like Twilight to make a copy, a prize head on her wall. Is it supposed to remind all her visitors what will happen to them if they oppose her rule?

"I observed this in Twilight's private office three days ago," Pacific says simply.

There's another pony there: a pegasus with blue fur and a rainbow tail. Rainbow Dash, the element of loyalty. "Come on, Twi!" Rainbow says, "You don't just make a replica of the worst pony ever for old time's sake! What's it for? You gotta tell me or I'm coming back with the whole gang."

The sight of my petrified form was already like a dagger to my heart. Then Rainbow Dash chimes in and twists the dagger in the wound. I'm not 'the worst pony ever'... am I?

"Were you there? Or... is this some sort of scrying?" I ask. The castle is supposed to be warded against that, but it never stopped Discord so I guess it's not infallible.

"I was there but she couldn't see me," Pacific says cryptically.

In the memory, Twilight Sparkle gets up and looks around the room. Her horn glows and door lock clicks, while the shutters slam shut. When she answers Rainbow it's in an ominous hiss: "You have to promise you won't tell anypony about this! Not Pinkie, not Applejack, not even Princess Celestia. Nopony, do you understand!"

Rainbow Dash gulps, then answers quickly: "Sure thing, Twilight. My lips are sealed. Promise! You know you can trust me, right?"

Twilight nods. "You're the element of loyalty. And that's why I'm going to tell you... She's pure evil, Rainbow. Not just the 'worst pony'... pure, ontological evil. It's been three years... and Cozy Glow still pops up in my dreams, laughing at me. She's going to get out somehow, I just know it. And when she does, it's going to be worse than last time. I've got to stop her, Rainbow. I have to destroy her. Before she destroys us."

The alicorn princess is leaning forward over the desk, her wings spread and her mane wild. Rainbow stares up at her monarch with wide eyes.

I look between the memory and Pacific Dream, feeling confused, horrified and angry all at once. Sure, I knew Twilight was angry with me, but this... this is just paranoid insanity! "So... the mighty Princess of Friendship still isn't over me? It's almost flattering..."

In truth it wasn't flattering: it was chilling. The all-powerful ruler of Equestria just said that I'm not even a person: apparently I'm some kind of primordial evil. "Twilight's scared of me? Even stuck as a statue?"

A feeling of dread was rising in my stomach. 'Destroy me'... when I'd been trying to psych myself up to executing Starlight and Celestia, when I had them in the dungeon, I'd talked about 'destroying them'. I couldn't bring myself to do it, and maybe that's why I lost. But Twilight... she was supposed to be the good guy, wasn't she? Not just the good guy: the benevolent princess, who literally wrote the book on Friendship and Harmony.

"Indeed she is," Pacific says. His control over the memory projections seems more precise than mine: he'd effortlessly frozen it when I began to speak, and now unpauses it.

"You don't mean... she's just a filly!" Rainbow Dash protests."

"She's not just a filly! Why do people keep saying that?! She's a... a demon, a temptress, a... force of corruption! She turned my school against me, she outsmarted Discord, oh and she NEARLY DESTROYED BOTH MAGIC AND FRIENDSHIP!" Little sparks are shooting off Twilight's horn: the alicorn is practically foaming at the mouth. "She doesn't even have a horn... how could a normal pegasus filly have done what she did? No, Rainbow, this... this has to be done."

"So, you're gonna just... just smash her." Rainbow says angrily. "Kill Cozy Glow in cold blood, and replace her with that lump of rock so nopony knows what you did?"

I'm utterly aghast at the memory, staring at Twilight's hysterics with a mixture of horror and disbelief. What sort of 'Princess of Friendship' talks like this? I'd never have guessed how truly scared and obsessed she is! Making me an 'ontological evil' so she can justify murdering me.

"Twilight's lost her mind! And she's going to KILL me, when I can't even fight back!"

I'm starting to panic: I turn to Pacific Dream with pleading eyes. "You're sure this is real? That you're showing me exactly what you saw? You didn't make this up for some sort of weird prank, right?"

"Such a prank would be in exceedingly bad taste," Pacific says coldly. "And I fear mere death would be a kindness compared to what Twilight has planned."

The memory begins to play again. "She won't be... dead, exactly," Twilight says carefully, as she sinks back behind her desk. "She'll be a pile of gravel, buried in an unmarked hole. As long as the spell is not broken, she should remain conscious. No different from her current imprisonment really, save that there will be no risk of escape.

"You're going to smash her and bury her alive?" Rainbow shouts back. "Stuck in the dark until the sun burns out? Come on, Twilight! This is... monstrous! Nopony deserves that. What were you thinking?" Now Rainbow was up on the desk, stomping a hoof to emphasise her argument.

"I'm the princess, Rainbow. That means I have to make the hard decisions. What if Cozy gets loose, and actually pulls off one of her schemes? To... boil the oceans, or brainwash everypony into eating meat, or... whatever evil things she dreams of. I couldn't live with myself."

My teeth are clenched, tears well in my eyes and my throat burns. And they call me evil? Despite having to fight what seemed like all of Equestria, I didn't even kill anypony - I would never subject a creature to torture like this. If Pacific isn't making this up... then Twilight is coming for me. My only advocate is this jock with the flashy mane and she's clearly going to fall in line behind her princess.

As for Twilight... it's like a twisted parody of what I meant when I said Equestria needs to be more practical. Twilight finally admits she needs to make 'hard choices' and does she build a real army or order mass inspections to check for abused foals? No, she decides to secretly execute a helpless filly!

Pacific pauses the memory for a moment and walks over to me, standing close so that his wing brushes against mine. He remains silent as the last of the scene plays out.

"Is... is it going to hurt?" Rainbow Dash asks. "Twilight! Is she going to be in pain, after you... smash her up."

"I don't know, Rainbow. Maybe? Does it matter? This is Cozy Glow we're talking about," Twilight replies, her tone exasperated.

"What about Chrysalis? Tirek? The next villain who comes along?" Rainbow objects "Are you saying Celestia should've smashed Discord when he was a statue? Turned him to gravel?"

"Yes. No! Maybe." Twilight said, losing her composure. "Look, Rainbow: Tirek, Chrysalis, they're just monsters. We can handle monsters. They'd never work together... until Cozy Glow united them."

Twilight pauses to glare at the stone replica of my terrified form sitting on her desk. "She's... insidious, Rainbow. If Cozy gets out, she won't just try to conquer us, she'll corrupt my little ponies. Turn them against me. So... she gives me no choice."

I've never heard such venom in Twilight's voice. When Rainbow finally replies her voice is small, quiet and resigned: "When are you gonna do it, Twi?"

"Thursday night," Twilight says. "I've found some reliable ponies to- to carry it out." The memory ends, fading into the mists of my mindscape.

I stare blankly into the mental fog, my brain trying to process the horrible truth. It's all real: Twilight is truly going to kill me in the worst way possible. Buried in darkness, still conscious but suffering in agony for untold eons until the spell finally fades and I die. I can't control it any more: tears roll down my face. This is where my story ends? In an unmarked grave, with a fake stand-in so no one will ever know of Twilight's crime?

My heart is twisting, my stomach feels sick. I pull away from the hippogriff: his offer of comfort seems hollow now. What could possibly make me feel better about this?

"So this is why you came? So you could get my... my... last will and testament, before I'm executed?" I hiss.

"Why did you even show me this? So you can see me broken, crying, before the end?" My rage at Twilight is boiling over, and Pacific Dream is the only target at hoof.

"Oh, Cozy Glow..." Pacific says sadly. "Of course I would not show you this if it was truly your fate. I do confess, that when I came here I was not entirely sure: could you truly be the great, irredeemable evil that Twilight believes you to be?"

The stallion's beak opens in a smile. "It is clear to me that you are not. You recall that in Twilight's hour of need, the Royal Hippogriff Navy sortied to liberate Canterlot?"

"Even after she tried to steal your Pearl of Freedom. Because she's Miss Perfect who can do no wrong." I say bitterly.

"Quite." Pacific snorts. "I supect the Queen was more concerned with the safety of her daughter, while the Admiral wanted to strike at the Storm King while he was exposed. No matter: my point is that it is something of a tradition for hippogriffs to come to the aid of pony mares in their darkest hour. And perhaps one might be enough." There's a gleam in his eagle eye as he looks at me. He couldn't mean... is it possible?

My eyes widen... is there really a way to save me?

"W-wait... so you really did come to... help me?" The last part is a whisper of disbelief: I can't allow myself believe this is genuine. I can't accept hope, only for it to be dashed: this must be a dream, a hallucination. Yet, that gleam in his eye... I had that gleam. Once upon a time.

"How? The spell that turned me into a statue... it was cast by two alicorns and a demigod. How can you possibly pull this off?"

"Ah, now that is somewhat complicated." Pacific takes a few paces away into the mental mists, then the hippogriff looks over his shoulder at me as if inviting me to follow. "Would you like to hear my story? Not as famous or dramatic as yours, but perhaps of some interest all the same?"

I'm still wary: I'm dreading the revelation that Pacific is just some delusional bird-horse, that he believes the power of friendship or honesty or love can get me out of this. I mean sure, Cadence and Twilight can weaponise blind devotion, but they're backed up by raw magical power and hordes of followers. For regular ponies, those are just fables: dangerous ones, when it leads them to ignore more practical means.

But I'm hardly going to reject my only possible saviour, so I follow Pacific Dream into the mists. I'm still waiting for the punchline of this cosmic, nightmare joke, but... I don't have anything to lose at this point, so I play along.

"Sure, I guess. I mean, go ahead. I'm all ears."

Pacific seems to pick up on my scepticism, keeping his distance as he summons a new memory. I see a younger version of the stallion at a table, covered in handwritten notes and bits of junk. He's tinkering with some sort of rusted mechanism, maybe trying to repair it. Maps and painting are pinned to the walls, most of them pretty old and worn. He's inside a wooden room filled with carved furniture and crystals: a hippogriff home, presumably.

After a few seconds an adult stallion enters and begins to berate the colt: "Pacific! Why aren't you ready for sea cadets!? I swear, if you're late again I will throw that nonsense back in the ocean!"

"Daaaad! I've nearly got the compressor working!" young Pacific whines.

"Hmph! A future officer doesn't waste time on junk! He should be learning tactics, protocol," Pacific's father replies. A willowy hippogriff mare enters the scene, presumably Pacific's mother.

"Now dear, perhaps he's going to be an engineering officer. Chief of Naval Architecture, even!"

She smiles, trying to defuse the situation, but Pacific slams his claws on the table. "Or perhaps I'm not going to be in the Navy at all! It's my life and I-"

His father grabs him by his feathered crest. "Don't even think about it! My father was an officer in the Royal Navy, and his father before him, and you will not let this family down, Pacific!"

I watch as Pacific's parents argue. I can't say I'm not jealous of having any sort of family, but I can sympathise with being told how to feel, how to act, having your choices made for you. I don't get how this connects to a plan to save me from eternal torment, but I guess Pacific is building up to that.

The memory freezes: Pacific looks a little embarassed. "They weren't bad parents," he says, "just very... traditional."

"So... your dad wanted you to be in the navy, like him? What... what was that thing you were working on?"

"Oh yes, he was dead set on it," Pacific nods. "The old rooster was always making me practice formation flying, sailing, fencing, airship handling... couldn't handle the notion that I might want to do something else."

"I wanted... well, I wanted to do something exceptional. Unusual. Make a mark on history. When I heard all those stories about mad geniuses, strange monsters and dangerous artefacts that threatened the status quo... honestly I sided with the antagonists more than the heroes. Because they were pushing the boundaries of what was possible, exploring the unknown, while the heroes were just trying to keep things the same."

"That's why I was interested in artefacts: new and ancient. How they were built, what they could do. Hippogriffs don't have innate magic, other than our alternate forms, so that was the only way I could touch, well... the extraordinary. And... that's why I ended up running away from home."

I watch a brief image of colt Pacific sneaking out of his tree-like house and flying away into the night, with a bulging pack on his back. My curiosity starts to kick in, taking the edge off the all-pervading sense of doom.

"So you ran away from home, to be an explorer and find... what, treasure? Ancient relics? All those mysterious things nopony is meant to know?" A tiny thread of wonder manages to peek out through my despair. I've been there myself: pegasi are supposed to leave all that stuff to unicorns, but I didn't care what I was 'supposed' to do. A kindred spirit perhaps, except that I was driven to find a way to bring down the alicorn princesses, to show ponies the truth, while Pacific Dream seems to have chosen this path as an end in itself?

"And now you're... what? An archaeologist? Adventurer? Engineer? All of the above?" This could fit right into the pony fiction genre of 'ignoring the naysayers to find/follow my cutie mark', except that hippogriffs don't have cutie marks.

"Something along those lines," Pacific says modestly. "I took the opportunity to investigate a few legends, follow up on some notions I had, but at first I found nothing. Treasure hunting is a storied profession, after all, and most relics have long since been plundered: sold to collectors, placed in museums or, if they are truly powerful, hoarded by the alicorns in their vault."

"I was about ready to give up when I came to Griffonstone. The Hall of Antiquity was long since closed of course: looted and practically a ruin. And yet..."

The stallion shows me a memory of a broken-down museum, full of smashed display cases. Portions of the roof have collapsed, and junk litters the once-grand hallways. Pacific Dream makes his way carefully through the unstable structure, until he comes to an intact case holding the remains of a brass mechanism. It's been thoroughly smashed, just a pile of twisted gears... and the shards of two clock faces.

"Cozy, have you heard of the Clock of Chronorius?"

My eyes light up as the memory unfolds. This is getting promising: ancient artefacts of real power. The Clock is pretty obscure, but I'd read about it during my research, when I was looking for a way to drain the magic from Equestria.

"I sure have! Chronorius was a minotaur, right? He made it for the god-king of... Tharasas? Tharakas? Some lost city in the far south. It was supposed to control the flow of time: made the king and his nobles immortal, gave his warriors super-speed and froze his enemies in their tracks. But... it was smashed, right? In the slave revolt that destroyed the city. The griffons took the remains with them as a trophy."

That's why I hadn't bothered with the Clock: if the griffons could have fixed it, they would have. The cat-birds wouldn't leave such a powerful weapon on the shelf. That meant it was beyond repair, and the question was academic after Twilight left the Crown of Grover lying around. Still, I felt a tiny bit of pride at my ability to recall obscure lore. I glance at Pacific's flank... I'd almost forgotten about the clock faces. Could it really be...?

Pacific Dream smiles in admiration. "Excellent! Three years frozen in stone and you're still sharp as a tack, Cozy Glow. Indeed that is the legend: the idea that I could fix the Clock where the griffons failed was, I admit, a long shot. Yet when I examined the remains, I was confident that they were not from the Clock of Chronorius."

The memory skips ahead to the slightly younger Pacific extracting the mangled gears from the case, then prodding at them with tools from his backpack.

"The mechanisms were mismatched, and quite mundane: the 'runes' were just decorative engravings. In fact I identified parts from three conventional clocks, two clockwork automatons and a music box - all smashed up and mixed together. In other words, a decoy: the fate of the real Clock was a wide open question!"

I share the smile, enjoying the chance to flex my knowledge in front of someone who seems genuinely impressed. If this was the present, I wouldn't get my hopes up: the real Clock may have escaped the slave riot, but that didn't rule out any number of other things that could have destroyed it. But Pacific is choosing this particular memory to show me, skipping over all the dead ends, so I can see where this is going.

"So you were on a quest to track down the real Clock of Chronorius? I bet that was exciting."

"At times," Pacific acknowledges. "Artefact hunting is long hours in the library, weeks in the wildness searching for the ruin, punctuated by a few minutes of terror as you trigger a death-trap or come face to face with a hydra."

I nod along: I've certainly been there. Pacific Dream condenses the search into a few flashes of memory.

"Of course I read everything I could about Chronorius..." A vision of the hippogriff sneaking into the restricted section of Canterlot Library: just like I did, when we needed information on the bell. "...and it turned out he founded a sort of monastic order, on an island off the coast of Abyssinia. So I flew all the way down there, only to find their temple had become a pirate hideout." An image of bloodthirsty harpies drinking grog in the comandeered temple.

"I told them I was a historian: given my age, likely they guessed that I was a treasure hunter, but they still accepted my last emerald in return for a look at the undercroft. There was a map... an outlying shrine with a pictogram of the clock! It turns out that island sank in the Great Earthquake of 354 CE..." A memory of Pacific Dream in hippocampus form, swimming down through the tropical ocean. "...so it's fortunate I'm a hippogriff, really!"

The final image is of Pacific levering a boulder out of the way and finding the intricate brass clock nestled in the sunken ruins of the shrine. The fish-horse stallion seems overjoyed with his find. "And there it was, the Clock of Chronorius, intact although not exactly functional."

I'm completely absorbed in the story now: not that there's been much competition, since I was turned into a statue and left in the palace gardens. Searching out a lost source of mystic power is exactly the kind of thing I'd do. That wonder and excitement when you finally lay eyes on it: I'd give anything to feel that again. I just hope... that this isn't a hallucination.

"Golly... that's great, Pacific!" Excitement and fear collide in my heart: would this be enough to break the petrification spell? "Buuut... I guess being underwater for a few centuries has gotta gum up the works. You got it working though, right?"

Pacific nods eagerly. "I certainly did. Thorough cleaning, polish, oiling, replaced a few linkages and it was working like new." With a sweep of his wing, he shows me another memory: Pacific is sitting under a tree on the sea shore, on some distant tropical island. The brass clock with two faces is sparkling clean. The stallion places a pineapple in front of the device. With a twist of a lever, the fruit ages into a rotten mess. The blue-and-indigo hippogriff twists it back again, and the fruit de-ages into a fresh pineapple.

Then he tosses a pebble in front of the clock and presses a button. The rock freezes in mid-air, time itself ceasing to flow as far as the pebble is concerned. The younger Pacific Dream laughs with delight.

"Alas, that triumph was followed by the stupidest decision of my life. I resolved to return home and prove to everyone that I'd been right: that I was a great explorer and engineer."

I'm enthralled by the demonstration. Control over time itself! The possibilities were literally endless. Tharun had a good thing going, offering immortality to his vassals in return for their loyalty, but that was just scratching the surface. If I could get my hooves on that... oh. Return home? Really?

"Wait, wait, wait... you had power over time, something beyond the strongest unicorns, and your first thought was to prove you were right? To your parents?"

I can't keep the scorn out of my voice... possibly because I knew what it felt like to be that stupid. Gullible. To believe in authority figures, to want to impress them even if it meant giving up your own dreams...

Pacific Dream hangs his head. "Not my finest hour. You have to understand, the Mountain-Sea Kingdom is very big on duty. Do your part to defeat defend the Griffish Isles, for Queen and Country and all that. I'd run away, but... I didn't want to abandon my heritage. My friends. So I returned, and in my foolish pride I thought I could be a hero."

The stallion summons an image of flying to Mount Aris, reuniting with his mother, demonstrating the power of the Clock to his stunned and furious father. "Alas it didn't turn out that way."

Another memory, of hippogriff royal marines with tridents and armour, storming into the house. "By order of the Queen, I am to impound this Category A dangerous device! Pacific Dream, you will be incarcerated for questioning at Her Majesty's pleasure. Now take your claws off that bloody thing!" the marine captain shouts. Pacific looks to his father, but the older stallion only scowls.

"Okay. I guess, I, uh..." In the memory, the young stallion lunges for the button. Before the adults can react they're all frozen in time: mother, father and marines alike. Pacific Dream grabs the enchanted clock and flies out of the house.

I flinch at the scene: I knew that anguish, of being torn between doing the 'right' thing, being the obedient little filly everyone wants, and following the path that calls to your heart. The former is always a lie: you play by the rules, only to get the rug pulled out from under you.

"Yeah, that's how it goes... the second you pull out power that threatens the Princesses... or I guess the hippogriff Queen, they get scared. Try to control you, or destroy you."

I stare at the frozen soldiers: hippogriff marines are no joke. Tougher than our mostly-ceremonial royal guards, for sure. "You made it out though... right?" It was either that or spending time in the dungeons followed by a jail-break.

"It was a close shave, but yes, I escaped." Pacific confirms. The next memory is of Pacific flying frantically to a dock, where mothballed airships are kept. The hulls of hippogriff ships are organic, grown into scalloped teardrop shapes before being hollowed out. The larger cruisers and giant battleships have two or three hull segments, but Pacific heads for a smaller ship, only the size of a house. Guards shout and flap after him, firing bolts of magic from their tridents.

"Purloined an old Defiance-class corvette. The chaps at the yard weren't keen on me taking it." Pacific lands on the ship, but as he's getting the hatch open he takes a magic bolt to the gut. The young hippogriff cries out in pain, collapsing into the ship with smoking feathers. Bleeding heavily, he desperately sets up the Clock before he loses consciousness. In a flash of magic, time is rolled back and the mortal wound vanishes, like it never happened.

"Of course they sent a squadron in pursuit, but I managed to hook the Clock up to the ship..." Pacific's 'corvette' powers up, beams of light fanning out like a harp on each side as the magical drive engages. The sleek ship starts to fly away from the imposing Mount Aris, but the sole occupant is having trouble crewing the vessel alone. Several larger ships launch and quickly close the distance... until time distorts and the corvette streaks off to the horizon, moving at impossible speed.

I had my doubts at first, but it turns out Pacific Dream is a bit of a badass. My heart leaps into my mouth as he takes the hit, then I stamp my hoof in delight as he heals the wound. I actually cheer as he commandeers the airship and leaves the royal navy in the dust.

"Yeeees! Go Pacific!" I laugh happily. "So, going home was dumb, but at least you scored a sweet airship for your trouble. Those ignorant monarchists were only going to lock the Clock in a vault anyway. Uh, do- do you still have the ship?" The Clock was a good start, but a mobile base of operations would be awesome. "The other hippogriffs have gotta want that thing back, right?"

"Oh yes... they want it back alright, not so much for the ship itself, but because they can't bear to see one of their prized vessels in the claws of an outlaw." Pacific smirks. "But they haven't found Dauntless yet, and as long as I'm careful where I park her, I don't think they will."

"So you're a pirate-archeologist-engineer-adventurer?" I can't help but smile at the sheer... audacity of this bird-horse guy. I'll admit it: I love the whole thing hippogriffs have going on. Those sharp beaks and claws, always ready to defend themselves, but not on the edge of savagery like griffons... quite the opposite. Hippogriffs did 'beautiful' and 'elegant' without feeling the need to make everything cutesy. I mean ok, those fish tails do look kind of silly and the mares all seem to be airheads, but...

"The Dauntless! That's an awesome name! I bet you've got it upgraded with force shields and tractor beams and invisibility and... the laser cannons still work, right?"

"Ah, yes well I was thinking along those lines," Pacific admits. "But my initial concerns were more prosaic. Dauntless had been put in reserve and I was short on provisions and spare parts. I couldn't exactly stroll into town and peruse the marketplace, with Her Majesty's Secret Service chasing my tail fin."

"So I thought... what's better than one legendary magical artefact? Two legendary magical artefacts!" Pacific grins: the expression is somewhere between goofy and crazed. " Did you hear about the Genesis Bird? The whole thing with the Element of Generosity, covering Ponyville in gilding and crystals?"

Genesis Bird, Genesis Bird... I think back for a moment... oh right. Rarity told us about it during one of her fashion lessons. A cautionary tale...

"It's like this golden bird statue that's supposed to be able to create anything you can imagine, right? Spike found it in some old ruin and of course he gave it to Rarity, because he's got a hopeless crush on her." Bleh. Get some taste, Spike.

"She kind of went mad with power, creating all this stuff she thought people wanted, until Spike snapped her out of it by telling her that her style sucked and no one liked her gaudy crap. Turns out Rarity has self-esteem problems, who knew." I roll my eyes.

"How did it end... I remember. Twilight got hold of the bird, deactivated it somehow and locked it away in Celestia's vault." Because of course she did.

"That was a hippogriff artefact, you know?" Pacific says. "Stolen from the Winter Pavillion by the sphinx Sasamratu, eventually recovered by the griffons and purchased by Duchess Iridium in exchange for the land that Griffonreach now sits on. It belongs in a... oh who am I kidding. Queen Novo would probably just use it to magic up jewellery and canapes. In any case, I felt justified in retrieving it from Canterlot Tower."

With another wave of his wing, Pacific shows you a memory of him sneaking into the nearby palace. The bulky Clock of Chronorius is strapped awkwardly to his back. He uses it to freeze a patrolling guard in time, and then a little later he fires a prolonged burst into an elaborate magical lock. It flashes and crackles and after a few minutes fails entirely, releasing the heavy door to swing open.

Pacific trots into the vault, looking in awe at the treasures lining every shelf. He spots the Genesis Bird, like a cross between a hawk and a peacock sculpted in gold and platinum. As soon as it leaves the shelf, a magical alarm is triggered, filling the air with an obnoxiously loud wailing sound. A force field starts to form, but before he can be trapped Pacific uses the Clock on himself, slowing down time (from his perspective) and letting him zip out of the castle before anypony can react.

I watch the daring heist with excitement. Another top-tier relic, and this bird-horse just waltzed in there and snatched it! My mind begins racing, envisioning all the uses for a bird statue that can materialise any object you can imagine.

"You're gonna be the most wanted hippogriff in Equestria if you keep this up!" I giggle, wondering if Twilight finally took the hint and beefed up her security after this embarassment. "Watch out, or they'll freeze you into a statue and put it right next to mine! Or..." The mirth drains out of me as my mind returns to my alicorn nemesis: specifically the image of her ranting and raving, demanding that I be smashed into gravel and buried in an unmarked hole.

"Pacific... you're saying you've already got immortality, and unlimited wealth? Why are you bothering with rescuing me? What could you possibly need me for?" For a moment I think 'maybe he wants a marefriend', but that's ridiculous. A handsome, dashing and now filthy rich stallion would have mares hanging off him wherever he went: why would he bother trying to de-petrify a notorious villainess, who's been stuck as a filly for the last three years.

Pacific gives me an odd look... at first I think it's pity, but it's not. Regret, yes... concern? Hope? ...compassion? I can't describe it, but those soulful bird eyes makes me tingle with an unfamiliar feeling.

"Oh, Cozy Glow," Pacific Dream says softly. "This is a rescue, not a recruitment. You don't have to repay me. I'm doing this... because the secret execution of a rebellious filly is an abomination. Because rescuing a smart and courageous mare is a genuine pleasure. And because... you deserve to have something nice happen to you, Cozy Glow. The world has been cruel and unfair to you, and I for one deem that unacceptable."

This has to be a dream, a hallucination, a trick, a joke, it can't be...

I'm stunned. My cheeks are burning... phantom tears fill my eyes. I want to hold on to Pacific's soothing words and wrap them around me like a warm blanket. 'But you've seen the real me!' I almost scream. How can anyone be so... so pleasant, so respectful, so... foolish, when they know the truth?

"You... you really think that? T-That I'm smart, and... brave? You want to... to do something nice for me?" Part of me is screaming that I mustn't believe this, that there has to be a catch, but... I'm tired. Tired of being afraid, tired of being alone. I shove that voice out into the darkness, where I don't have to listen to it. I look up at Pacific with wide, hopeful eyes, like a lost little filly who's snuck out from the orphanage.

"You really think... I deserve to be happy?"

Pacific trots over and puts one of his enormous wings over me. The gesture is a gentle one, but the feel of feathers covering my whole body might as well be a tidal wave of sensation. "Of course you do," Pacific reassures me. "You tried to do what you believed was right... and in a few short years you've accomplished things most pegasi barely dream of. You never gave up, not to tyrants with pretty smiles or selfish monsters. You just need... a little help."

I shiver, despite the phantom warmth... it's such a simple thing, but how I yearned for it. The most basic expression of pegasus love: wrapping your wing around your child, or your special somepony. I used to watch pegasi hugging their children and my guts would twist with envy. Why was I denied that basic pony contact?

Even though I know it's not real, that we're still in my mindscape, I want to just... hide under here forever. The feeling of a protective, caring being wrapping me up, shielding me... it's intoxicating. But I know the safety can only be an illusion, as long as I'm frozen in stone and Twilight is coming for me.

"Gosh... this is nice... so warm and soft." I sigh, not wanting to break the moment. "But if she's really gonna to smash me... we're running out of time, aren't we? What's your plan?"

"Time... is not a concern. In fact less than a minute has passed since I first made contact." You look at Pacific in surprise: seriously? You didn't see him carrying the Clock of Chronorius. The clocks on his flanks... was he able to disassemble it? Use those pieces in isolation?

"I must confess however... I am not quite as I seem. Not exactly a hippogriff, any more. There is one last memory I have yet to show you, and when you see it... you might think better of accompanying me," Pacific Dream says gravely.

Huh. That... makes a lot of sense, actually. Time manipulation... so we wouldn't be interrupted by some random royal guard asking the suspicious hippogriff why he's been staring at the Legion of Doom statue for the last hour.

"I knew it! You're actually a changeling, aren't you!" Pacific looks utterly confused, and I have to laugh. "No no, don't tell me... you're a sleeper agent for Nightmare Moon, formed out of shadow-stuff and moonbeams! She hid you in an egg and left you to grow up on Mount Aris!"

"I- No, that's not... you are being illogical," Pacific splutters.

I giggle. "It's ok, silly. Go ahead and show me: I promise not to freak out."

Pacific Dream shakes his head, as if to clear his mind. Then he stares into the mists, and a new memory surfaces. You see a cramped space with walls that look like they're made of pearl, with pipes and wires snaking everywhere. Crates, tools and miscellaneous gear are strewn about: the lower deck of the Dauntless, presumably.

The past image of Pacific sets the Clock down on the floor, then begins to examine the Genesis Bird. Time skips forward: I watch him prodding at it with tools and referring to musty scholarly tomes. Eventually he gets frustrated and holds the golden bird up at eye level. It seems inert: a mere sculpture, not a powerful artefact.

"Come on! I know you were working, just a few years ago," *He says rhetorically.* "I wish I knew what Twilight did to you. I wish I knew... how to get your power back." It seems silly, talking to a golden bird, until... the emerald eyes flash with bright green light.

Pacific drops the bird, but it floats up in front of him, beaming its light into his eyes. The stallion is transfixed... and energy seems to flow out of him, into the artefact. His feathers wilt, his flesh shrivels... and Pacific Dream's greying corpse slumps to the floor. Maybe it's part of the memory link, but somehow I'm certain all life has been sucked out of him. The deadly Genesis Bird is left floating serenely in the silent cabin.

"No! Pacific, don't do it! Ugh, how could you be so..." My voice trails off: I'm horrified. Not so much at the sight of my would-be rescuer reduced to a corpse. Messing with magical relics is a dangerous business: Twilight isn't lying when she says some of them have to be locked away. Draining life force... yeah, that makes sense. Twilight probably dispelled the bird's energy supply, and it refilled itself from the only available source. Those ancient artisans didn't mess around, and they weren't big on safety features.

No, what's really scaring me is the paradox. Pacific Dream is here, in my mind, but I just saw him die. Either some sort of weird time magic is going on, or I've really gone crazy and I'm hallucinating this whole conversation..

"Tell me... uh, y-you... you set the clock to reverse time automatically? It brought you back to life? How else can you be here?" I stare up at him with wild eyes.

Pacific shakes his head. "That's a good idea, but alas the Clock had no such automation. With no one to activate it, it could not reverse my demise. My return was by other means."

He looks back to the memory, and the scene unfreezes. For a long while the golden bird just hovers there, emerald eyes glowing. Then it starts to move... slowly at first, almost hesitantly. It circles around the cabin, sinking lower and stopping to hover in front of Pacific's corpse. Almost like it is inspecting its handiwork, it seems to me. Can a magical artefact feel remorse?

Then it turns... to the Clock of Chronorius. For a moment I think it's going to activate it, wind back time and restore Pacific Dream to life... but instead it just settles onto the top of the casing.

Another pregnant pause, as everything remains still. Then the eyes of the golden bird glow brighter... and the clock begins to change. The casing expands and splits, while the innards sprout struts and linkages. New gears pop into existence in flashes of green light, slowly at first and then faster and faster, until it's a manic flicking. The clockwork construct rises on four legs, gaining articulation, a head and then a tail. A hippogriff... as I watch the Genesis Bird transforms the Clock of Chronorius into an impossibly detailed mechanical replica of a hippogriff.

Deep blue feathers form: first the primaries, then secondaries and contour feathers. Artificial fur covers the hindquarters, while scales and fins wrap the mechanical tail. The Genesis Bird is hidden inside, but the clock faces... they remain on his flanks. The same clock faces that adorn Pacific's hips now.

A perfect replica of Pacific Dream, standing motionless in the belly of the airship. As the magic completes his work, suddenly he's alive with motion. He blinks, then gasps. His head jerks around: he spots his own corpse and recoils. His motions are clumsy, stilted.

"What?" Pacific croaks. "What... happened to me? What am I?" The memory ends, and all that remains are the mists of my mindscape.

I can only watch in shock as the Genesis Bird fuses with the magical clock and changes it into a duplicate of the bird-horse. I've seen a lot of strange things in my short life, but this... It's an incredible display of transmutation, and honestly more than a little creepy. A perfect copy of the handsome stallion is standing there... looking at his own corpse.

"You... you're... a machine? Some sort of... clockwork golem? You're not..." I gulp, trying to hide my fright. "T-the real you died? You're an artificial creature?"

A magical artefact, so powerful that it could create anything a pony could imagine, could reproduce a living being? Was that Pacific's dying wish... to have it make a copy of himself? Am I talking to a... clone, or a magical artefact pretending to be a dead creature, or...

Pacific gives me a haunted look. "Quite a conundrum, isn't it? 'I think therefore I am' doesn't quite cover it. I remember my family, my adventures... being alive, but it seems distant, abstract. I feel emotions, but are they the same as before? Am I still Pacific Dream, or a convincing replica thereof, a doppelganger with his form and memories?" The clockwork hippogriff... or rather the image of him, in my mindscape... hangs his head. "I don't know, Cozy Glow."

"Come on! The real you is right there..." I nod to the withered corpse in the memory, drained of life. "This you is... just a magical copy. A machine. I mean sure you're very realistic and smart and... and... all those things you said..."

Something snaps inside me. This is too much, a step too far: the game is up. Anger wells up and my face flushes red.

"Alright Discord, you've had your fun! Knock it off!" I shout. "You really thought I'd fall for this? A... mysterious, h-handsome hippogriff stallion, who just shows up out of nowhere? A dashing adventurer with superpowers and a cool airship and a plan to rescue me and oh he's made of clockwork?"

I'm crying again: I try to hold it back but I can't help it. This evil asshole, not content to set me up for failure and then turn me into a lawn ornament... he's come back to toy with me, to get my hopes up with this stupid fantasy. "And I might have believed you if you'd said you needed me for some secret plan, to steal some artefact. But you know where you really blew it?" I sob. "When you said you care about me! That y-you want to be n-nice to me! Let me guess, you were going to say you love me next!" I turn my back on the impostor and trot away, waiting for the inevitable laughter.

There's a long silence. "I'm sorry. Sorry that it turned out like this, I mean." Pacific says quietly. "I'll go now. When she comes... just hang on. The spell's too strong: I have to wait until Twilight weakens it. But I swear, Cozy, I will save you even if I have to fight the Princess herself."

He's really keeping up the pretense, is he? Or maybe this isn't Discord, maybe it's just my pathetic subconscious expressing some impossible hope of escape. Or maybe... I look over my shoulder, but Pacific Dream is gone.

"W-wait!" Quickly I dissolve my mindscape and find myself back in stone, looking down at the grass... but there's nothing. No trace of the blue-and-indigo bird-horse. Save for the constant silent presence of the petrified Chrysalis and Tirek, I'm alone.

I try to ask them, 'did you see a hippogriff', projecting my thoughts through the stone. As always, there's no reply. Tirek is the kind who could sulk for three years straight, but Chrysalis wouldn't: she was prone to ranting and hated being alone. That's how I know that the spell imprisoning us blocks all communication. I guess we're supposed to meditate on our crimes, alone.

So I just stare into the sky... feeling the endless loneliness and emptiness all the more keenly, after the emotional roller-coaster of the encounter with Pacific Dream. Even his name was a bit of a giveaway: he might as well have been called 'Cozy's Fantasy'. I... I honestly didn't realise I liked hippogriffs that much. I guess I go for the whole 'griffon fierceness with pony refinement... and slippery fish tails' thing. Not that it matters now.

Author's Note

Pacific Dream comes across as a bit of a Gary Stu here, but that's to be expected as he's pretty much Cozy's fantasy coltfriend. His personality and the existential dread of being a clockwork clone gets filled out a bit later. The Genesis Bird is of course a reinterpretation of 'Inspiration Manifestation'. It seems Twilight edited the actual artefact out of that chapter of her published 'Friendship Journal' - perhaps to avoid exactly this happening.

This version of hippogriffs are inherently bird/horse/fish chimeric creatures, so they have natural shapechanging (between hippogriff and hippocampus forms only) without needing a magical pearl. They also retain fish tails in terrestrial form and beaks in aquatic form. Instead of transforming creatures, Queen Novo's giant pearl (the 'Pearl of Freedom') magically shatters restraints and dispels charms & compulsions. Twilight still tried to steal it as per canon, hoping to free all the ponies the Storm Kingdom had enslaved.