With a Twist

Chapters

1.7 The Other Side of Fear
Prologue
1.1 The Saga Begins
1.2 The Pink Side of the Moon
1.3 What You Hoped to Find
1.4 All I Need's Right Here
1.5 Share With Me
1.6 Silhouette
1.8 Sleepless

1.7 The Other Side of Fear

Chapter 7, The Other Side of Fear

Claire woke up on a couch. Rubbing her eyes she sat up. It was Sunday right? It was bright, where was the smell of bacon?

Yesterday's events came back to her and immediately she curled up into a ball, breaths coming rapidly. “I… I died.” She whispered.

“Oh, you're awake.” A voice said to her left. Looking up over the arm of the couch she saw a mint-colored unicorn descending a staircase, hair wrapped in a towel. “You… Do you want breakfast?” Lyra freaking Heartstrings asked Claire with a head motion indicating through the door in the wall at the bottom of the stairs.

“I think I'm dead,” Claire responded. Eyes seeing but brain not registering. The truck had hit her. She had felt the pain, and then… “Where am I?” her eyes focused on Lyra who had one eyebrow raised.

“Well, little ghost, you felt pretty alive to me last when you wouldn't let go of my leg. As to where you are, welcome to Ponyville. You missed the Summer Sun Celebration, though that didn't go to plan.” She slowly approached Claire. “And if you are a ghost, don't worry, you aren't the scariest thing here." she lowered her voice to conspiracy levels. “That award goes to Bonbon. Now come on and tell me what little ghosties eat.” A mint glow surrounded Claire, lifting her onto Lyra's back.

Lyra turned on the lights as she entered the kitchen. “Do you have coffee cake?” Claire asked after racking her brain. Asking for bacon probably wouldn't go over well.

“Sure!” Lyra replied, horn leaping into action, pans, bowls, and ingredients started flying about. “I'll give you the best pumpkin cream cheese surprise coffee cake you've ever tasted. And all I ask for in exchange is a story while I work. Tell me how a cute pegasus like you died and ended up in Ponyville as a solid, hungry ghost that sleeps on couches.”

Claire blushed, she wasn't cute darn it! She was, well, not that, something else. “First off, I'm not from here. I'm from Melbourne.”

“Melbourne? I’ve never heard of that place. Where is it?”

“I don't think it’s even in this universe.” Claire slowly replied. Fandom Lyra was always doing crazy things in her pursuit of humans, but this was probably canon Lyra, who didn't do much. Aside from crying about parasprites eating her cake and sitting weirdly.

“A multiverse traveling solid ghost pegasus?" Lyra laughed, then noticed the troubled look Claire had. “I'm teasing. I'm teasing. So you are a pegasus from Melbourne in a different universe, you died somehow and ended up here?” A small nod returned. “That sounds like something from a Neighpon Manega. Do you have a name?”

“Well my parents named me Claire, but everybody calls me Scoots, or Scootaloo, because of my scooter.”

“Well I don’t know about Claire, but Scootaloo has a nice ring to it.” Lyra finished pouring the glop she had made into a pan and put it in an oven. “There, it should be ready by the time Bonbon wakes up and gets ready. Do you want coffee? Who am I kidding, you're a pegasus, they all drink coffee.” she paused. “Except Rainbow Dash…” her eyes narrowed. Before taking on a mock scholar voice "Believe me young Scoot, you stand in the very epicenter of weirdness. The Everfree on the doorstep of this town is only the beginning, there are pegasi who don't drink coffee, earth ponies who teleport, and I believe that there is an infestation of bugs!”

Claire, now known to Lyra as Scootaloo tilted her head. She hadn't seen this coming. She half expected the unicorn to hold up both hands, no hooves, and exclaim ‘Aliens!’ That wouldn't be very far off, Scootaloo supposed, she herself was, after all, an alien.

“And now you add yourself to this fantastical world, join me and we will catalog every secret, unturn every stone! Eat every-”

“Lyra, calm down, you're scaring the poor thing with your conspiracy theories.” Bonbon stood in the doorway. “I don't open the sweetshop until noon today, so we have some time to discuss some things.” She looked at Scootaloo, “Like what we are going to do with you. And you!” She pointed a hoof at Lyra, “Get down from the counter!”

♢ ♢ ♢

Rarity opened her eyes. That had been the most unrestful night ever! She couldn't remember her dreams, but they hadn’t been fun. She wanted to flop over and go back to sleep, but she had to get up and ready for the boutique to open.

Groaning at the unfairness of it all, Rarity wiggled to the edge of the bed and got out, putting on her slippers and bathrobe, she made her way to the bathroom to start getting ready to face the day.

Tooth brush, check, curlers, check, eyeshadow- WHAT BY PRINCESS CELESTIA’S FLUFFY BEARD WAS THAT? Rarity dropped everything in shock and peered closer at the mirror. It couldn't be.

No!

It had to be!

“Bags under my eyes! This is the worst possible thing! I'm HIIIIdeOOOuuuseee!”

“fool”

“Who said that?” Rarity whipped around. Was someone in the Boutique? Before it opened? “Hello?”

˚₊‧꒰ა ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

“Humans exist! Humans exist! Who was right? I was right!”

“Lyra! Get off the table! … And stop dancing!”

Ѽ Ѽ Ѽ

Applejack looked up from her letter at her older brother who was reading over her shoulder. “That seem ‘bout right?”

“Eeyup!” he replied.

“Alright then, I'll go post it town and see about talkin’ to Twi.”

He gave her a look that said, You better do that Applejack, you said you would, and on your honor as an Apple I hold you to that promise. I'm going to tend to the South Orchard and check on how they are coming. Apple Bucking season is right around the corner so they are almost ripe.

“Alright, Big Mac,” Applejack gulped with a little nervousness. Before setting out with a list of self-imposed torture to complete. Why couldn't I have just worried about this on the inside instead of panicking in front of Big Mac?

Ponyville was in a state of cleanup. The visitors had long since left, either out of fear when Nightmare Moon showed up, or the next day after the Princess had failed to show up. Banners were being taken down and ponies were trying to figure out what to do with them.

Applejack ignored it and entered the Ponyville Post office. The low-slung wooden building only had one room in the front. One wall was covered in post boxes, and the opposite one was covered in stands displaying cards, envelopes, boxes, and stamps.

Applejack ignored all of these as she approached the front counter, fortunately, Kevin was working the counter today, no chance of Ditzy messing up instructions again.

“I want to post a letter,” Applejack slid the envalope across the counter. “Out of town.”

“Applejack,” the black unicorn looked at the letter presented. “This letter lacks a stamp. Do you want to buy one?”

“It's prepaid, Apple to Apple priority mail,” Applejack responded by pointing at the special stamp set.

Kevin raised an eyebrow, “I don't know how you Apples managed to get this worked into the system.” He muttered as he stamped the letter. “Do you want the bill or?”

“No thanks, Kevin” Applejack turned away, she had another task to take care of…

The Ponyville Library was in a tree. Applejack never knew how to feel about it. On one hoof, it was imaginative and cool, on the other it probably hurt the tree in the start, and she wasn't sure how it was still alive with its center hallowed out. The fact that it was thick enough to house an entire library with modern amenities for living was weird enough. And it was here that Ponyville's newest resident had taken up living and working.

Giving a sigh, Applejack knocked on the door of the treehouse. It was a library, but it currently was somepony's house, and there was a closed sign on the door

“Just a moment!” a young voice called from the inside, “The Library is currently undergoing sorting and inventory takering.”

“Spike! That's not a word!” Twilight yelled from farther inside. “It's ‘taking inventory’ please learn proper grammar!”

The door opened as one whole despite originally having three pieces.“What can I help you with…” Spike trailed off a bit, “Apple…rack?”

“Applejack,” she responded, “I’m here to talk to Twilight and ask her a que-”

Spike turned around and yelled, “TWILIGHT! Applejack is here! She wants to talk to you about something!” The door closed in Applejack's face. Shortly thought she heard the sounds of hooves walking to the door and it opened to reveal Twilight.

“Yes, Applejack?” Twilight asked

“Ah need to talk with you about something. Uh, not here.” Applejack looked around. “Do you think you could come and keep me company while I take care of some things on the farm? It would be better to discuss it there.” She knew that she was only delaying the inevitable, but Applejack didn't want to be in Ponyville when talking about this.

“Sure, I can join you,” Twilight said stepping forward, “Spike has been asking for a break for half the morning. Spike! I'm going with Applejack to Sweet Apple Acres. I should be back by lunch!”

“Yes!” could be heard from inside.

The walk was fine enough, the weather team was keeping the sky clear for the morning while building up a large cloud bank to rain in the afternoon to water the crops that hadn't had water for a few days, and to draw down the warm summer heat. But for Applejack, it was a march to her doom, all the while wondering how Twilight would react to what she had to say. After all, she had just found out that her mentor, the Princess, had been keeping a very large secret from her for years and had used her almost like a pawn to reach a goal.

Almost too soon, they reached the farm.

“Where did everypony go?” Twilight looked around. “I thought you had a large family, Applejack.”

“I have a very large family, but they all live all across Equestria. They left yesterday to take care of their own farms and businesses." Applejack responded, leading Twilight to the barn and entering it. Shafts of light pierced the darkness and illuminated floating motes of dust. Applejack walked over to grab a basket while Twilight looked around.

“Your barn has a few holes in the roof,” Twilight noted, looking up at the source of a few shafts of light.

“Yes, it does, but that's not why we are here, Twi.” Applejack turned around. Twilight could see the strain of worry on Applejack's face. “We're here because I need to talk to you about something. Particularly the elements.”

“What about them?” Twilight asked, confused about where Applejack was going.

“Ah shouldn't be the Element of Honesty.” Applejack sat down, “Ah have a really large secret that Ah've kept my whole life. Ah don't like it, but I have too!” she exclaimed as Twilight’s face got more confused.

“Are… are you going to tell me what it is? Is that why we are here?”

“No, Twi, we're here because…” Applejack trailed off, “Ah’ can't tell yah what it is, and it hurts! But Ah’ can't legally or in good conscience ‘cause it affects more than me!” She looked on the edge of tears, Twilight realized.

She felt a little conflicted, she had thought that all the secrets were gone after yesterday, but it appeared that there were still some around, and this was one that she might never learn!

“How does this affect other ponies?” She asked cautiously. “Does it hurt anypony if it doesn't come out?”

“Only my sense of honor and ability to remain the Element of Honesty.” Applejack responded, her hat was now off and held in her hooves. “If it doesn't come out, everypony goes about their day happily, if it does… Equestria might just collapse.”

“This isn't some sort of Government conspiracy, is it? I mean, I'm technically a high-level government worker.” Twilight wanted to give her friend a hug and tell her it would be okay.

“Twi, sugarcube, Ah'm afraid that I can't respond to that answer, and I need your promise that you and the girls won't look into it. If y'all ask me a question that I can't answer without lying and I say I can’t answer, I want your promise that y'all don't press.” Applejack sniffled, and Twilight couldn't help herself, she gave Applejack the biggest hug she could.

“You have my promise I won't pry, I'll even help the other girls understand that this means a lot to you.”

“It would be a lot better if it was a Pinkie promise.”

“A what now?”

“You'll learn soon enough.”

˚₊‧꒰ა ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

“School? NOOOOOOOOOOO!”

“Lyra, calm down, it’s not you going, and besides, I would have to be the one to adopt her, you just rent here.”

“And provide the entertainment.”

“She will still have to go to school, she can join your ‘gallivanting’ for mysteries afterward.”

♢ ♢ ♢

Twilight walked in on a sobbing unicorn and a bewildered Spike.

“Oh hey, Twi, these came in for you while you were out,” he motioned at the table where a scroll bearing Celestia's seal rested, and at the now despondent Rarity. “One came by the usual means, and the other drug a couch through the door with no questions asked.”

“I'll read the scroll in a little bit.” Twilight passed the table that stood in the center of the room and approached Rarity. “Are you okay? Are you upset about yesterday?” she asked.

Rarity slowly looked at Twilight, “I'm going insane.” She whispered. “Last night I had the most horrible dreams that I can't remember. I woke up with bags under my eyes because of it. And this morning I heard a voice!” her voice got more frantic as she went on.

“Relax, Rarity,” Twilight patted the hooves that were gripping at her, “auditory and visual hallucinations are a common side effect from having a lack of sleep. It also didn't help that you have had a very stressful last few days including blunt force injury and we made you relive a very traumatic moment in your life.” Twilight looked at Spike. What is up with me having to comfort my friends today? First Applejack and now her. A head tilt indicated Rarity.

I don't know Twi, something in the water? Spike shrugged back from where he had gone back to sorting books in the proper manner.

She turned back to Rarity, “I can cast a low-level sleep spell on you to help you get some sleep, and I know some basic runes to keep bad dreams away. You wouldn't believe what taking care of a baby dragon will teach you.” Spike ignored the jab at his still relatively recent night terrors.

“Please,” Rarity looked at Twilight like she was Celestia telling her that The Carousel Boutique was now the only place that she would get her dresses from, “Please, Twilight.”

“You will want to lie down then,” Twilight grabbed a piece of chalk in her magic and started to draw some runes on the ground around the couch, “you should wake up in time for dinner. Sweet dreams, Rarity.” As soon as Rarity had lay down, Twilight dropped the chalk and hit her with a beam of magic and seamlessly grabbed the chalk again to finish the last few runes.

“Ok, that's taken care of,” she walked over to the table, “I guess I better see what Celestia wants.” Carefully she broke the seal and unrolled the scroll. Two golden tickets fluttered to the tabletop.

“Oh,” Spike swept them up, “It's our yearly Galloping Gala tickets. I'm not sure that I want to go this year.”

“Too many nobles?”

“Too many nobles.”

“Want me to find someone who wants to go instead?”

“Sure, who would want to go to that boring event?”

“Excuse me for wanting to catch up with Cadence and others in the castle.”

˚₊‧꒰ა ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

Lyra turned to Scootaloo as Bonbon closed the door. “Alright, while she is off talking with the mayor to check and make sure that you aren't a runaway and then see about adoption or guardianship, we are going to go on a tour of the town.”

Scootaloo found herself encased in a mint glow and placed on Lyra's back, a lyre floated up to her. “Here, can you hold this for me?” Lyra asked as she opened the door. “I have to be in the park by two to play some music after the rain.”

“Why?” Scootaloo asked as she grabbed onto the lyre with one hoof, somehow able to hold onto it with just her frog, just like magic.

“Well, it's currently my only constant job. The town pays me bits to provide mood music in the park. It's great for pony-watching, and why I know that there are a lot of fishy things going on here.”

Scootaloo squinted her eyes at the bright sunshine as they left the building, letting her get her first good look at the town of Ponyville. The street they were on was made of cobbles though the streets that lead off it seemed to be packed dirt. at one end of the street, she recognized the town hall, its unique gigantic gazebo shape poking into the sky.

“This is Main Street!” Lyra gestured at the spread. “Most of the shops and businesses are here, such as Bonbon's Sweet Shop, Sofas and Quills, and Sugar Cube Corner. We'll drop by at some point as I'm sure somepony would love to meet you.”

Scootaloo had a good idea of who that pony would be, but she had a different question in mind that she wanted answered. “So where does Rainbow Dash work?”

Lyra turned her eyes narrowed. “I thought you were supposed to be from a different universe, how do you know about the members of our weather team?” Scootaloo looked a bit sheepish, this was going to be the hardest thing to explain.

“Well… It's like this… In my universe, this universe is fictional.”

Lyra raised an eyebrow still walking down the street. “Like a book or comic?”

“A TV show about certain ponies who live here.”

“TV?”

“Television, a box that displays moving images with sound, humans use it to share news and fictional stories.”

“I thought humans didn't have magic.”

“It’s not magic.”

“Then how does it work?” Lyra was getting excited.

“I don't know!” Scootaloo was getting frustrated at the sidetrack, “It just works and somebody made a TV show about ponies that gained a lot of fans including me, I died and now I'm in a world that was fictional, maybe this is a dream and I'm going crazy!” She threw her hooves wide in frustration before realizing that some ponies were looking at them.

“Woah there,” Lyra stopped, “calm down there filly. I don't think you are in a dream, At least I hope not.” She levitated Scootaloo in front of her and looked her in the eye. “You have too much conviction to be making anything up, Bonbon will find out if you even exist, she's really good at finding stuff out. So,” she placed Scootaloo back on her back and continued on as ponies turned away to continue what they were doing, “if you don't legally exist, I don't see a reason to not accept your excuse.”

“You are weirdly accepting of the weird," Scootaloo noted.

“A thousand-year-old myth showed up yesterday, a lot of weird things happen here.”

♢ ♢ ♢

Rarity opened her eyes. She was laying on a soft green hillock with warm sun shining down from a clear blue sky. Taking a deep breath she relaxed and felt the warmth from the sun on her fur. Her worries and fears long forgotten, Rarity drank in the peacefulness of the landscape, butterflies flittering by and vibrant colors of gemlike flowers dotted the green of the rolling hills.

Slowly getting up Rarity looked around, it must be time for her to get back to the Boutique. Somehow she couldn't see where Ponyville was, though the landscape felt familiar to her. Starting off in one direction the hills flattened out and led into a broad valley, against one slope was a tall castle built into the side of a large mountain so that the moat only surrounded the front and sides.

Something in the castle called to Rarity and she started off towards the castle. As she got nearer she saw that there were banners flying, but there was no movement on the walls. The closer she got the more she saw that there was damage, burn marks scorched the walls and a few parapets were crumbling, and holes dotted the roof of the keep. There were however no bodies in sight and the sun shone bright as ever.

Entering the castle the destruction got a little worse, forcing her to go around portions of collapsed walls. Still, something called to her and she continued into the keep. Now she took a left from the entrance hall and found herself walking up a spiral staircase. As she climbed the stairs started to look older and older, some crumbling beneath her hooves, though she found herself unfazed and continued on.

She eventually emerged onto the top of a tower high above the castle and keep that were now a heap of crumpled ruins, beyond the slumped walls the moat had drained and a forest of saplings had sprung up in a field of grass and shrubs that choked the land. Rarity gasped with recognition, this was the Castle of the Two Sisters!

“What am I doing here?” she asked peering off the edge of the tower at the ground far below.

“Answering my call” a voice came from all directions in response. The tower was beset by a sudden gust of wind that turned into a howling torrent, shaking the tower. Rarity crouched low and clung at the wood beneath her hooves.

Around her the wind ripped away the scenery as if it were a gauze veil, leaving the tower Rarity was on in a dark violet-tinted void. Beyond a shadow moved as if a shark circling a shipwreck in those sappy adventure romance novels that she loved reading before diving at her with no prior warning. Rarity's scream echoed in the void.

“Hi, Pinkie!” Twilight called entering Sugar Cube Corner, she looked around at the interior of the shop. Outside it looked like a giant gingerbread cottage, but inside it smelled like the Celestial Planes. The scent of baked bread wafted around the warm smell of hot chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven, the cool mint of sundaes and icecreams, the spicy cinnamon rolls in the kitchen and pink. That was odd.

“Hiya Twilight!” Pinkie greeted Twilight from where she was handing a blond and grey pegasus a muffin. “Welcome to Sugarcube Corner! I'll be with you in a minute.” The pegasus placed a few bits on the counter which Pinky deftly scooped into a bit register. “Enjoy your muffin, Ditzy!” she waved at the pegasus.

Twilight approached the counter eyeing the display goods, it would be lunch soon and sorting books made her hungry.

“So,” Pinkie leaned over the counter and gave her a wide grin. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, I was going to come and ask for friendship advice, because you seem to have a good handle on the whole thing,” Twilight responded. “But now I am wondering if you have any lunch items here.”

“Weeeell,” Pinky leaned back comically far to check the displays from behind. “We have fresh bread loaves, muffins, scones and pies. I'm afraid that's the closest we have when it comes to lunch items. We tend to serve desserts, breakfasts, treats, and snacks here. As for your friendship problem, tell me all about it and I can try to help.”

“A slice of apple pie please,” Twilight began, mentally counting the bits and needed change. “As for the problem…” Twilight trailed off trying to figure out the best way to approach the subject as she accepted the slice of pie. “Celestia always gives Spike and I two tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala. Spike doesn't want to go this year as the Nobles always give him a hard time. So I have a ticket to give to somepony, but I don't know who to give it to. I don't know if Applejack or Rainbow Dash would care, but Rarity would, Fluttershy would hate the crowd but might like the gardens, and I have no idea what you would… think…”

Pinkie was vibrating behind the counter, bouncing up and down like a hypercharged spodumene crystal about to explode, a high-pitched ‘eeeeeeeee’ emanating from her.

“Pinkie?” Twilight tried to get her attention. “PINKIE!”

“Oh? Yes, Twilight?”

“I haven’t decided yet, I need your advice.”

Pinkie stopped vibrating and started to droop. “Oh,” she stood still for a few minutes. “I would love to go, but so would everypony else and if one pony goes, everypony else feels left out and is sad.” Twilight could almost swear she saw Pinkie's color getting more grey and desaturated. A timer went off in the back room causing Pinkie to jump. “Thatsthebreadberightback!” she called and disappeared into the backroom.

“Mr. Narrator! Mr. Narrator!” she whispered as she took the bread that was baking out of the oven. “I need your help!”

What is it now Pinkie?

“I don't know what to tell Twilight!”

You got to stop, Pinkie. Stop using me to be a Deus Ex Machina.

“What's that?”

Not important, Pinkie, what is important is that ponies need to learn and grow by making mistakes. If you keep using me to resolve every problem, no one learns and the story is boring.

“But this is important! You come here, I am not letting you go until you tell me how to help Twilight!”

“Put me back, Pinkie! I’m the one keeping the ̴̧͇̦̝͕͇͓͌̀̊͊͒̈́̌͌͊͋̍͘s̸̟̥̦͇̟͈̰̯͇̰̪̰̖̖͑͑t̶̹͛̌o̶͔͕̣̗͖̥͈̟̖̤̮̊̀́͠ͅr̵̡̡̫̪̝̱̟͋̊́̓͘ỷ̷̧̺̾̔̿́̃̒̈͑͐̽̅̒́͗͠f̶̹̖̮͈̘̈́̀̅̒̃͋̈́́ṙ̸̟̬̹̜̺̼̅͑̈͊̅͐o̵̹̬͉͔̻̗͚̅̋́̅̑͒͜͝͠m̵̢͈̩̜̹̝̩̦͇̣̻̓͊̈̂͌̽͗͝ ̵̢̛͕̪͓̞͕͓̼̰͖̥̭̊̈́͊̏̑̓̋̉̑̈́͘̚͘̚f̶̡̘̼͚͍̳̤̍͊͐͋͐͝a̵̢͔̘̪̋͑̇́̅̄͌͋̇́̂͛͌̒͝͝l̷̡̨̼̰̥̲̞̩͈̻͚͙͐̅͂̋̂̂̎͌̕͝l̶̡̛̪̺̬̩̻͎̜̃́̒̅͆͂̾̑̌̑̊͝i̷̧̢̨̫̙̤͕̼̭̖̦̦̥͛̋̈́͜n̴͕̝̬̗̜̿̈́̀̔͐̋̽̈́̀̔g̸̮̭̗̪͈̯̠̟̒̽̾̍͛̊͊̇̄̓̒ͅ ̸͍̥̭̩̦̳̥̻̙̐̀̒̌͌̊a̴̛̬̖̹͇̥͙̝͉̹͍̤̜̗̭̰͂̔͐̐͊̚̕͝ͅp̵͓͎̍̀̇̍͌̎̑̿̇̔̑̄̈́̑̚a̷̻̝̼̠̤̜̬̲̣͎̬̮̣͍͂̈̇̀̓́̕r̶͉͓̠̜̯̖̰͚̯̞̝̯͌̓́ͅt̷̮͔͚̘͇̠̞͚̰͔̪͎͖̳̒ͅ.̶̡̜͓̰͈̱͇̝̥̜̌͗̍̒̑͘ ̸̧̫̻̭͉͇̲̰̳͇̬̟͌̌͆̋͊́̄͋ ̶̧̛̞͎̱̝͓̥̼͎͎͎̖͎̱̞̥͉̳̻̗͖̭̱̻̤̬̝̺̬̲͕̖͙͔͇͇̭̯̃͛̓́̌̊̑̅̆͊͋́̾̔̉͑̓͑͒̈́́́͛̀̍̆͌̿͒͑͊́̈́̎̓̍̀̒̐̐̄̊́̈́̂̄̆̄̒̓̓͊̎̈́͂͗̕̕̕͘͝͝͝͝͝ͅṔ̸̢̡̨̧̛̦̲͙̥͖̩̱̦̫͎̝̩̝̣̠̖͉͚̘͖̳̰̦͔͇̳̮͔̟̠̲̱̦̬͎͚͍̱͚͍͙͇̀̏̓́͆̐̽͛͂́͆̽̓̓̅̓̐̽͊̿̓͑̂̽̓͐͐͑̈͂͒̌̾̏̽̉̈́̋͌͐̽̓̾̒̌͗͐̾̇͛̆̽̃̍͑̍͌̊͆̄͑́̋͛͆̉̇̍̈́͆̈́̕͝͝͠ͅͅȗ̴̢͓̱̳͔̫͚͉̜̹͖̟͇̙͖̜̗̑͒̌̈̔͋̀͂̈́͆̄̾̈̀̋͂̅̅̒̓̓͑͐̄̾͛̿̔̕̚͜͠͝͝ṱ̵̨̛͖̱̳̳̪̱̖͓̺̯͙̯̠͔̲͖͇̩͆͋͂̔̇̾͆̔̇͌̔͛͂͊̀̀̎̋͊̓͗̂͐̋̈́̅̈́̑̃͂̃͌͆̀̾͂͋͛̊͊̾̃̍̓͋̇̎̍̄̓̇̔̂̈̑̈́̌̅̐́͑̅͛̀̀͂̅̉̀̈͘͘͘̕͘͘͜͝͝͝ͅ ̷̢̨̢̢̛̜͍̲͚͎̖͕̥̫̝̣̻̟̙̳̮̠̳̦̮̱̫̱͚͕̙̬̰͎̝̟̰̯̝̋͋̆̿̍̈͆̃̽̌̈́͒̾́͒͛̄̔͌͐̌̔̓̿́́̂͗͊͑̌̈͆̔̐͐̉͗̐̽͐͋͋͗̃͗́͘̕͘̚͘͜͠͠͠m̷̨̡̨̢̢̨͙̗̳̜̻͖͔̪̹̰̮̩͙̲͍̹̺̼̝͙̠̹̰̰̰̦͚̝͈͎͔͍͖̮̗̖͇̘̻̙̮͇͈̱̗̙͖̝͉͍̣͖͓̭͓̩͈̰̠͈͎̭̠̖̖̝̺̍͒͐̽̈́̄̅̄̔̌̀̿͋͐͗͘̚͝͝è̵̡̨̡̡̢̯̞̩̦̼̟̼̙̗̣̤͈̼͖̰̺̝̱̠͚̹͚̜͉̱̙̘̙̱͉̻̼̲̼̻̝̗͗̒͑͌̈́̍̅̍̈́͛̑̀̿͐̋͌͜͜͜͜͠ͅ ̷̨̧̛̛͔̬̗̰̟͇͙̗̯̻̙̭͈̥̙̺̟͔͕̩̼̳̩̥͌͛̏̓̆̔̂̒̅͋̌̀̑̈́̅̽̀͗͑̆̄͒͋̀̾̏͛̉̈́̅̈́͂̀̂̔̃̓͒͒͛͘͜͜͜͠͠͝͝b̴̧̡̡̛̹̝̞͇͕̼̬̗̭̝̦͇̦̰̜̲̖̻̤̲̅̂̄̃̏̀̐̊̎̓͗͊̋̿̏̔̈́̑͌͌̉̌͊͒̍̆̌̍̒̍͘̚̚͜͝à̶̢̛͍̖͍̊͒̀̏̀̅͗͌̈́͑̌̈́͋̓̐̎͗̔̋̅̐̀̆̔̀̈́͂̇̀̎̔͆̔̀͛̋̏͊̈́͗̊͂͗͑͐͗͐̇͘͘̚͜͠͝͝͝c̸̨̧̢̛̛͚̹̮̙̟͙̟̙̞̖͖̤̫̩̟̥͖̘͉̖̩̻͉̦̦̜͚̰̟̥͈̖̪̲̹͍̞͍̠̠̯̻̥̻̙͖͚̬̼̣͈̔̾̈́̾̒̾̐͑̍͗̐̈̆̔̒̃̋̆͂̏͌̓̕͜͜͠͝͝k̵̨̟͓̫͔̩͚̱̹̜̪̺͔̙͚͙͉̺͎̘̭̱̞̰̞͓̬̺̥̳̙̰̖̑̉̿̆͑͐̔̀͆̓̅͋̒̔̊̈́̀̎̓͛̂̓̂̊͛̈́͌́͌̅͛́̈̒̓͘̕̕̚͜͝͠͝,̴̨̧͓̱̝̤̝͙̞͔̹̞̞̜̥͙͔͔̦̟͈̜̞̮̳͖̖͈̺͔̫̪̗̜̻̯̤̫̹̝̠̥̺̫̖̟͉͖̣̟̖̣͍͙͛̓͜͜͜͠ͅͅ ̵̧̨̧̧̛̮̗̠͓͈͕̰̯̖̭̠͚͉͙̭̰̲̝̹̞̖̮̲̩̯̺̲̜̯̰̻͚̱͍̬̪̹͓͇̦̮̟̮̹͉̞͉̬̺̻͍̤͕̥̖͙̩̝͍̜̖̯̟̦̗͑̑͐̎͛͗͋̈́̐̂̂̃͛̉̓̅̂̔͛̾̓̂̀͌̀͌̈̅̉̋̄͑̔̀͆̄̋̈́̆̀̀͋̈̀̄̏̆̓̿̾̒͛͑̾̈́̐̐̂̽̇̔̓̎͐̓́͌̋̽̇̄͛͘̚̚͘̕̚̚͘̕̚̕̕͜͜͝͝͝P̴̧̢̧̢̨̧̧̛͍̩̠̣͙̹̺̩̯̺̖͚̮̥͖̫̭̘̙̜̝̯̬̺̭͉͙͈͕̯̯͉͕̙̱͓̟̲͓̗̯͕̟̲̰̪͈̱̠̼̗̖̲̑͗͂̓͛̄̉̊͆̏͐̀̾͋͌̀̂̔̍̏̂͌͗̈́̾̐̐̂̿̈́̓̈́̏̽͛͐̀̎̈́͌̍͗̽̌̎̾͛̽̒͆͑͛̈́̿̀̃͌̽́͑̾̂͑̈̊̆͒̽͌̚̚̚̚͜͜͠͠͝͝͠͠͝͠͝͝ͅͅͅͅͅį̶̡̨̨̟̺̟͉͎̤̱̠̞̲̱̗͇̤͓̦̟̳͚̖̗̹͈͇̳͙͔̞̥̩̹̝̹̗̤̩̤̼̳̳̞̭̪̯̪͔̬̞̫̯̳̰̳̞̬̬͙̱͎̘͕̜̠̹̯̑̊́̆̆̈͋́̓͂̈́͆̀̓̉́̀͊͊̔̅̓̆͗̔̐̃́̈̂͋͂̈́͋̆́̀̈́̎́͒͘̕̚͠ǹ̴̢̨̨̢̢̬͇̣̫̞̣̮̩̲͍͍̖͖͓̩̲͓̬̻̙̹̞̭͚̬̠͕̳̼͖̩̳̖͚͉̻͕̠͓̹̱̺̯̱͙̳̤͎̼̥̩͈͙̭̬͇̲̐͛̀̐͐̍́̐̇̓̉̒̚͜ͅͅͅͅķ̶̛̺̠̗͈͕͇̬̱̩̬͉̮̫̪̞̞̟̰̩̩̦̹̗̳̲̰̹͕̱̪̀̉̎͌̒͊̀̂͆̇̐̉̓̆̈́̐̈́́͊̋̀̀̕͠͝͝į̷̢̨̧̧̙̗̰̠̲͎̮̦̫̦̞̺̩̱̣͔̪͎̮̫̣̪͍̦͈͎̠̪͉̟͕̦̱̲̥̭̳͖̙͔̺̪̜̮̣̜̤͙͎̥̗̗̲̞̮̝̪͚̣̜̩͔͉͉̝͖̠̱̞̼̯̦̟͉̟͙̙̙̜̙͔̅̿͒́͌̅̌̈́̇́͌͛̎̀̾̍̉̓͗̽̈͛͆̀̃̍̏͌̋̑̇͑́͋̈́̓̒̀̽͐̿͐̄̽͐́̋̄̒̓̊̑̕̚͘̚̚̚͜͜͜͠ͅͅȩ̵̢̨̢̤̫̲̬̮̪̖̠͓̳̮̘͔̥̘̳͎̗̱̮̮̠͓̺̬̣͎̹̟̱̯̗͇̳̗͔̲̯̫͎̮̯̖̪͉̪͍̰̖̦̹͔͇͖̪̩̬͙̟̤̬̯͒̍̌̎̋̈͋̍̂͌̏͐̎͛͒̎̍̃̆̏̑͂̽͘͘͜͠͝͠͠͠͝ͅ!̵͇̪̞́̐̋̈͑͛̔̃̎̑̌̕͜.

Author's Note

SpikeSmolder fan Asked: “Fluttershy, Now that you met Spike will your fear against dragons be curbed down a bit?”

Fluttershy peared over the back of the giant white wolf, eyes wide searching the room. “W-w-who said that?”

Ask characters questions in the comments bellow, they might get answered!

After a week of classes ramping up, I have found the time when my writing muse is satisfied. Bad news, it only happens 3 times a week and for an hour each time. Yeah, chapters are going to be slower. Also If I remembered, I edited chapter 6 because School isn’t in. It's the summer, School won’t be in for a little bit. That's when The Cutie Mark Crusaders fun starts.

Last thing: controversial I know, but Lyra and Bonbon aren’t dating. For several reasons, one being that I don’t feel comfortable writing romance (refer to previous Sparity statement), the other being I don’t want this story to turn into a dating gaming show like other stories have, like Twilight gets a Puppy or Hazy School Days. Did you know that according to Equestrapedia, Bonbon has an interest in Geology? This is because she is a member of the Equestria Geological and Gemological Society (E.G.G.S.) in the comics.

That said, feel free to throw shade in the comments while I fix reality and get the story back on track. Am I rambling? I feel like I’m rambling. How is your day going? Should I change the chapter numbers to the Chapter names or just add the names to the title in the main index?

Prologue

Celestia looked out across the blood-soaked battlefield, cold wind blew in the twilight cast by the eclipse above. Though hidden in shadows she knew that her sister now resided there. The air was cold, and no sound save the eerie whistling of the wind through the low scrub and torn holes in the armor. The entirety of two armies was laid to waste. Quietly then a little louder Celestia heard uneven hoovesteps behind her.

Turning she beheld a white unicorn in dented armor, his left front leg dripping blood where a few shards of bone poked through the twisted and purpling flesh.

“Blue Steel!” Celestia cried out in shock, “I thought your entire battalion was wiped out! And what of my other champions? Have you seen any survivors?”

Blue Steel stopped, his light blue magic flickered out dropping the great sword that had been dragging behind him. “I held out on the west edge, my men were surrounded and held out as best they could. But we were overrun, I thought that my life was forfeit until I saw the elements fire.” He paused to cough, specks of blood splattered on the ground. “The rest of your champions are on their way to the celestial realms to your mother’s courts. I may join them before the day is up.”

Celestia felt her heart catch in her throat. “Blue Steel, I need you here. I just lost my sister and all my other champions, I can't lose you too!”

“My princess,” Blue rasped. “I doubt this is true. You always make fast friends and once the moon is lowered, all Equis will be safe once more.”

“The Moon!” Celestia exclaimed, “I have exiled my sister there and now there is no one to guide it through the heavens or be its stewardess!”

Blue Steel dropped the great sword. “Can you not take over for her and assume the stewardship of the great heavenly bodies?”

“I could but it would require more magic to wrest the moon from where it sits and answer to me than I have now. It took most of my power to keep the elements from purely destroying my sister. I simply lack the power to claim the moon” Celestia hung her head in defeat. Silence hung over the battlefield as she contemplated her failure to ultimately save her little ponies, the moon hung permanently in the sky, tied in a final act of defiance to block the sun. Nightmare Moon had won in the end. Even if she couldn't have eternal night, there wouldn't be day either.

“My princess,” Blue suddenly spoke up, “You still yet have a source of power that is at your disposal.”

“What do you mean?”

Blue coughed before continuing. “Me, Your Highness, I am your champion, empowered by you. Release me from your service and reclaim the power to move the moon. It might not be enough to…”

“No.” Celestia interrupted, “I mean yes, if I retook my power from you, it would give me enough strength to move the moon from the sun. But you would succumb to your wounds. I know that you have a wife, I- I want you to see her again. My mother told me herself that she is with foal.”

“That is good news,” Blue released a jagged puff of steam into the air. “But even more reason for you to release me. If you do not, I fear that this cold may get worse, and more will die from it. All that I ask for is that you take care of my line. Let them know that even you made sacrifices today. No one truly won…”

Celestia lowered her head. “Very well then, Blue Steel, knight champion of the sun, I release you from my service and divest my power from you. May you go in peace as a hero of the realm, with honor and dignity to one day gaze on the celestial shores.” Blue collapsed with a puff of air escaping his muzzle as he felt his last bit of energy rush out of him. He felt so, so, sleepy… just needed to close his eyes and rest, yes, everything would be fine.

Only a few hoovelengths away Celestia let out a soft gasp as she felt her soul become complete once more, her limp, dirt, and blood-stained, pink mane started to float curling upwards at the tips. The strands gained a soft ethereal quality to them.

A tear slipped past one of her eyes as she turned to face the eclipse hanging overhead. “Goodbye Blue, may one day I find you in the celestial army,” she whispered to herself as she focused all of her will on the two heavenly bodies locked together, the last work of The Nightmare chaining them together.

“Mother give me strength” Celestia prayed as she grasped her precious sun and tried to grasp the moon. She felt her will slip off like someone had smeared it with soap. A second try and again the moon rejected her.

Gritting her teeth she tried again asserting her will. Begging and demanding, she clawed and wrenched at the stubborn disk in the sky, desperately trying to remove it from its place.

With a loud crack echoing across the land, Celestia felt rather than saw the chains tethering the two disks together snap, the moon and its new marking sailing away from the sun letting its warmth shine over the land once again.

Her connection to the sun once again flowed freely Celestia watched, tears streaming down her face, and her mane newly adorned with blues and greens floating around her as the moon slowed and sunk below the horizon.

999 years 364 days later

5 am, the day before the longest day.

Applejack opened her eyes in the dim light of the predawn, though she could see just fine. Today was the day! The Apple clan had been chosen for the important role of providing the catering for the Summer Sun Celebration that was to take place in Ponyville tomorrow and that meant a lot of cooking for a large hungry crowd. She licked her lips at the thought of all the food. There was so much that they had to call in the entire clan from all across Equestria to be able to handle it all.

Rolling out of bed Applejack grabbed her faithful stetson and flipped it on top of her head moving around the gathered family members sleeping everywhere made her way out of her room, down the hall, and into the kitchen to start making breakfast for the well-over 50 members of the clan who were temporarily camped out in the cramped farmhouse. With the wood stove burning it didn’t take long to feel the wooden structure start to become busy as more family members started to wake up and join in the preparations for the day.

All of them being farm workers themselves they organized themselves, dividing into groups to start tasks and setting up the outdoor kitchen for the goods that would be baked that day and preparing the ingredients for the items baked fresh closer to the event. Applejack smiled as Celestia set the moon and raised the sun to shine on the many beings that inhabited the world waking to the new day.

6 am

Fluttershy opened the door to her cottage blinking into the golden beams of sunlight. Already many of her forest friends were awake and waiting for her to take care of them, some needing medical care or just waiting to enjoy her presence. Offering a quick morning prayer of thanks for Celestia and a more specific prayer to Pan the Steward of the Wild, she set about her morning routine.

Overnight a few bandages had gotten soiled and become loose requiring changing. A quick yip of greeting caught Fluttershy’s attention as a ball of white fluff bounded out of the underbrush of the Everfree forest.

“Orion!” She called from where she was looking over the letter she had received a month prior. “I see you have been out in the forest again.” The large wolf trotted over to the yellow pegasus large pink tongue lolling as it panted from its early run. “Eep!” Fluttershy squeaked as his large nose snorted right in her ear. “Orion! I love you too but I need to concentrate! I need to gather up the birds I need for the symphony. They want me to arrange the music for when the Princess raises the sun. Oh, I do hope that no pony is looking, they are all going to be the… Oof!”

Fluttershy’s mounting panic was cut off as Orion flopped on the ground, knocking Fluttershy down and pinning her with his large head. A large huff of air blew over her mane. The pair laid there in silence, for a few moments. “Thank you Orion, you are right, it will be ok and Celestia will like my birds. I probably should go get them practicing and make sure that they are ready for the ceremony.” Fluttershy pried herself out from underneath the large wolf’s head and started towards the perches and roosts that were tucked to the side of the cottage.

7 am

“Must. Look. Perfect!” Rarity squinted into the mirror applying the last of the makeup needed for the day. To think that she almost forgot too! Scaring Sweety Bell when coming down the stairs to eat breakfast certainly was a good reminder to make sure her hair was in place and her makeup was there. She certainly needed to look the part, She had volunteered to beautify the town hall in preparation for the Summer Sun Celebration. Good heavens, Celestia herself was going to be there!

Rarity almost swooned and would have fallen on her trusty fainting couch, but she had just curled her hair and wasn’t about to spend another 45 minutes curling it again.

8 am

Pinkie dusted her apron off and trotted to the door, it was time for Sugar Cube Corner to open! She had been up since dawn baking cupcakes and danishes and other yummy treats to sell to the happy ponies that walked through the door.

“Yuppers, Mr. Narrator!” Pinkie mumbled through the closed sign she was flipping to open. “I worked extra hard on these baked goods so that all of my friends can eat something good for breakfast! Don’t tell Mrs. Pie but I decided to experiment with the leftover dough, I wanted to try mixing in peppermint sticks for extra sweetness!”

That sounds like a very sweet treat. Are you excited for today?

“Yippa rooni! Tomorrow is the Summer Sun Celebration and there are going to be a lot of new ponies in town, and they won’t have any friends here so I am going to get to know ALL of them and then we’ll be friends and they will have a friend here because that friend is ME!” Pinkie threw herself back onto her two back legs and her arms held wide at the declaration.

Well, I am glad that you have gotten that all taken care of. If you don’t mind, I have to go introduce some other characters. I hope that you don’t mind me popping up here and there.

“I don’t mind Mr. Narrator, go and narrate those stories! Oh, and don’t forget to tell the readers I said hi!” Pinkie fell back to four legs and pronked behind the counter to wait for the early customers.

9 am

High above Ponyville a cyan mare blinked her magenta eyes and stretched. A quick morning workout and then a nap on a cloud in the summer morning sun before work always helped her feel fully charged for the day ahead. As the leader of the Ponyville weather team, it fell to her to make sure that the weather was perfect for the upcoming celebration. Of course, when you could clear the sky for a perfect sunrise in only ten seconds there wasn’t any rush to prepare.

In fact, if she got her nap early enough there would be plenty of time to practice her moves to show off when the Wonderbolts showed up to perform. There was no doubt in her mind that when they showed up and saw her faster-than-fast speeds, tight turns, loop-de-loops, and other moves, they would practically beg her to join them. Rainbow Dash sank a little lower into the fluffy cloud and spread her wings out to either side, the warm sun still at an angle felt perfectly warm and not too hot.

10 am

Twilight Sparkle, the personal student of Princess Celestia and a member of the Solar Sisterhood exited the library. If anyone saw her they would definitely not have said that she bounced with excitement. It would be improper for a Princess’s student to skip and most certainly would go against the calm demeanor of the clergy to gaily bounce down the steps with a large dusty tome held in her magic. Those people would not be well aware of the Princess’ student’s personality when presented with a new book.

Yes, it was a perfectly nice day for reading a new, to her, book outside. The sun-shaped pendant that hung around her neck clanked and sparkled in the bright sunlight as she made her way out of the castle grounds to find a nice tree to read under. This was a great day and nothing could ruin it!

Author's Note

Hello and Welcome! After over a year of watching the show and almost as long lurking on this site of chaos, I had some ideas and was encouraged to put them to (digital) paper. (Shout out to ThUndEr Ho0of) This is a slice-of-life and adventure retelling of the show with tons of world-building mixed with a ton of headcanons, fannons, and ideas inspired by fan fics that I enjoyed reading. Specifically ‘Family Secrets: The Reveal’ by Schrodinger’s Pony, ‘Twilight Gets a Puppy’ by TDR, ‘Myths and Birthrights’ by Tundra, and ‘Undead Robot Bug Crusaders’ by Banjo64 as well as a ton of others that I have enjoyed. I will try to credit the stories that inspired certain aspects of my own story. So if you loved those I hope you will enjoy this one too.

I also want to ~~rip off~~ copy Damaged’s shtick of having an ‘ask a character’ segment in the author’s notes at the end of each chapter. SO ask away, all answers will be in character as they are in the story, but will not affect the story at all. Who knows, maybe you will give me an idea of what to add.

About the story itself (If you are still here reading this I think you deserve it.) I have tweaked some of the characters’ personalities partially because it will help the story in the long run. I felt that some flaws needed tweaking, and I don’t have time to re-watch every episode to make sure that they are canon personalities. Speaking of which, this story will start out close to the canon story but ~~might~~ will get a little derailed a ~~little~~ lot by if not before the end of season 3. This means that only really large canonical events might remain. Singular episode events might be entirely different (I don’t know, haven't gotten there yet)

The first big change to address, I hate Angel Bunny (I don't know why, I just can't stand the thing, go ahead boo me), so he’s not here. Instead we have a quiet-on-the-outside, tough-on-the-inside pegasus ‘guarded’ by a tough outside but calm inside big, white wolf. I wanted to call it Sirius after Orion’s hunting dog, but I dislike HP hype in general.

1.1 The Saga Begins

Part one: The Nightmare Arc
Chapter 1, ~~The Saga Begins~~ Friendship Is Magic

“I ruined EVERYTHING!” Twilight wailed, hanging over the edge of the chariot. “I was too excited, I should have looked for more sources, cross-referenced them, and written at least an abstract before sending it to the Princess.”

“That's not true.” The young purple and green drake accompanying her spoke up from where he was sitting reading the latest Power Ponies comic. “You found two references, at least one was written by a primary or secondary source from the incident, and took initiative. If Celestia thought there was a problem she would have told you to do more research, not take a break and make friends.”

Twilight sniffed and looked at him, “But I have friends, I’m part of the Solar Sisters! Moon dancer invited me to her birthday party!”

Spike the dragon sighed, “Were you even going to show up?” he waited a few seconds before continuing. “Celestia is the Steward of the Sun, and a few minor things, and the daughter of Faust herself, so she’s been around forever, if Nightmare Moon was real and was The Mare on the Moon destined to come back tomorrow, I’m sure that she would be well aware of it and have the army mobilized or something.”

Twilight couldn’t find any fault in the young drake’s assessment. That's what I get for raising him to be the best assistant possible and maybe my only real friend. Letting out a sigh of defeat she rested her head on the side of the chariot. “I might as well be a good student then and complete the assignment she gave me. Let’s run over the list again Spike.”

“Alright, give me a moment.” Spike got up from where he was sitting, turned away from the front of the chariot and breathed a thin line of fire on the comic book he had been reading. The green flames ate away the paper in a flash of magic and it disappeared. After waiting a few seconds Spike breathed in, thumped his chest with his claw, and let out a burp of green ash and magic. The plume swirled and coalesced into a scroll which he grabbed out of the air and undid the ribbon holding it together holding it up to read. “Do you want the items in alphabetical order, chronological, or by color?”

“Just read them in the order they are written.” Twilight paused, her funk momentarily forgotten. “Did you say by color? How would you even list a series of actions by color?”

“The first thing on the list is to check the food,” Spike continued on without addressing the question. “It says here that it is being taken care of by the Apple clan at Sweet Apple Acres. The Apple clan is a large family that is spread across Equestria and provides most of our apple products and a few other goods. The next part of the list is to check on the decorations going on in the town hall. The list says that the decoration might take time to complete, as the overseer has a quote, unique fascination with perfection. Sounds like the two of you would get along quite well!” Spike glanced over the top of the scroll and was treated with a grumpy unicorn glare and decided to continue with the list before he could find out if he really could survive freefall.

“The princess wants a clear sky for the night and sunrise, so the Ponyville weather team is setting up cloud barriers just outside the valley and will be cloudbusting the clouds that are inside the area. The main worry is that some wild weather may blow in from the Everfree, but the lead buster Rainbow Dash is supposed to clear them up. And the last thing is that we need to check on the music. The location given is outside of town and there is a note here that says that we need to take care not to spook the choir director.” Spike rolled up the list. “It also reminds you at the bottom to make some friends. I think Celestia wants you to at least try on that part.”

The chariot dipped forward as the pegasus pulling it started their descent. “Landing soon,” one of the two called back to the passengers. “Please keep hooves and tails inside the chariot at all times until your captain has brought the vehicle to a complete stop. Thank you for flying Airquestria, we hope you enjoyed your flight.” The chariot rocked a little as the other pegasus lightly kicked him in the knee.

The descent was rather uneventful all things considered. As the chariot broke through the cloud cover Twilight got her first look at the town of Ponyville. It wasn’t very large all things considered, being in a valley and centered around a building that looked like a very large and enclosed gazebo. The streets were packed dirt and spread out in spokes from the center though it was obvious that once Ponyville had started growing properly this wheel vision was broken by new additions of a few small blocks encompassing a market square and a large tree that was surrounded by a large swath of road. Almost next door to the town, perched on the hills to the south and spreading out into the distance was a large dark green swath of trees and fauna. Higher up the valley the hills were covered with rows and rows of neatly planted apple trees in what Twilight guessed was Sweet Apple Acres. Neatly bisecting the town and flowing down the valley was a singular stream that fed into a small lake below the town before disappearing into another forest, this one seeming lighter and friendlier than the other that bordered it and the town.

ϙ ϙ ϙ

Pinkie Pie noticed the golden chariot descending towards the mainstreet of Ponyville, her errand to buy more nutmeg for Mrs. Pie completely forgotten. This wasn’t the usual mail chariot, this one was white with golden enlay trim and wheels pulled by two white pegasus with gold armor. “Huh,” she lifted a hoof to her chin. “I wonder if Mayor Mare is having visitors early for the Summer Sun celebration.” The Chariot set down rolling to a stop beside the main road to let its passengers off.

“Thank you again,” Twilight said to the drivers, as she stepped off the back. “I appreciate the offer but your job was to bring me to Ponyville, not be my chauffeur for the day.” She started to turn to face the town, “Ok Spike, we have a job to do, let's get it done and over wi-” and came face to face with the most pink pony that she had ever seen. From fetlock to nose the mare was solid light pink, only out done by a deeper somehow even more pink mane and tail that had more curls than the professional team from Vanhoover. “Uhh…. Hi?” Twilight nervously raised a hoof in greeting, “Can I hel-”

The pink pony jumped in the air letting out a large gasp that drew on as she hung mid air for what seemed like an eternity. “YEEEAAHHHHHHHHHH!” the pony let out a cry and finally touching down took off down the mainstreet away from Twilight.

“Wow, Twilight, what did you do?” Spike asked from beside her. “Did you brush your teeth?”

“I didn't do anything” Twilight stared in the direction the pony went. Before picking Spike up in her magic and placing him on her back. “Whatever, the ponies here must be really weird. All the more reason to not hang around too long. What direction is Sweet Apple Acres?”

Ѽ Ѽ Ѽ

Applejack knew someone was coming, with the responsibility to feed so many hungry mouths during the Summer Sun Celebration it was obvious that there would be an inspection at some point. It was a little after noon when she saw a purple unicorn cresting the road near the entrance to the orchard. “Applebloom, I want you to keep an eye on those fritters, I gotta’ go talk to the overseer. I hope she is hungry.”

Twilight looked up from the road to see an orange mare approaching, a brown stetson perched on a braided straw colored mane. “Is this Sweet Apple Acres?” She asked cautiously.

“Sure as shooten’!” came the response. “My name is Applejack, but you can call me AJ, all my friends do, pleased to meetchya!” She grabbed Twilight’s hoof with both of her own and gave a very enthusiastic shaking. Before letting go and turning back towards the orchard, beaconing for Twilight to follow her. “We Apples were very excited when we were asked to take care of the catering for the Celebration. It means a lot to us, and we want everything to be perfect, so we are only cooking up the things that will keep now, we’ll bake up the rest at the Celebration so it's nice and fresh for everypony.”

Meanwhile Spike had to grab Twilight to stop her from continuing to shake even after Applejack had let go. She shot him a look that Spike knew meant Thanks, but if you tell anypony about this you are dead.

No problem, he returned with a slight head nod.

“...why when we realized the amount of ponies that were going to be here, we had to gather the entire family and that took some time. We live all over Equestria, but with ‘em all here we can manage. Of course you’ll probably want to make sure that the food is up to those fancy Canterlot standards of yours.” Applejack stopped by a bell attached to a rope. “I hope you are hungry.” She started yanking the bell. “SOOOUUP’S OOOOONNN!”

Twilight winced at the sudden noise of the bell which was replaced by a large rumbling noise as what seemed like an entire town of ponies converged on the three’s location carrying all manner of baked, fried, cooked, and roasted delights. She quickly found herself shoved into a sitting position behind a picnic table that was being piled high with food as Applejack introduced members of her family.

“...Honeycrisp, Gala, Apple Cobler, Jonagold, Cortland, Black Twig, Apple Strudel, Apple Dumplin and gang, Cosmic Crisp, Belle De Boskoop, Orange Pippin, Evercrisp, Applebloom, Big Macintosh, and Granny Smith.” The Applejack finished as the last Apple's placed their dishes on the massive mound and looked at Twilight expectantly.

“It looks delicious and all,” Twilight began, “but I have a lot of other ponies to check up on and I’m not really hungry at the moment.”

“Awww.” Twilight looked down to see the biggest set of eyes on a filly she had ever seen. “You ain't even going to try even a bite?” The orange eyes on the yellow filly got even bigger and were accompanied by a pouting lip. Twilight felt her heart twinge, it was so… so… heart wrenching.

She let out a sigh, “Oh, ok, I'll try some, I have to make sure everything is ready for the Celebration.” How bad could it be? Right?

⚡︎ ⚡︎ ⚡︎

The food wasn't bad, but the stomach ache she had right now sure was. “These Ponies are crazy!” Twilight exclaimed between grimaces of pain, “One runs away from you if you look at them, and others will introduce you to everypony and their dog in their family!”

“You have to admit, the dog was very friendly.” Spike pointed out, still nibbling on an apple danish that he had snagged when they had finally managed to excuse themselves from the swarm of apple farmers.

“But I don't want to be friends, I have a job to -URP!” Twilight covered her mouth with a hoof as her stomach continued its rebellion for being overused as storage. “I just want to get these check in’s finished so I can do more research on Nightmare Moon. We need to check on the decorations in town hall then the weather team right?”

“Yup,” Spike replied, “then the final one is with the music and you can check out the place that Princess Celestia got for you to stay at.” He lowered his voice and whispered in a sing-song voice, “It's the town libraryyyyy.”

Twilight never had a chance to respond.

The nap had been wonderful, and Rainbow felt recharged and ready for some practice rounds of her planned routine for showing off to the Wonderbolts. Sure they had that young flyers competition in a month or two with the winners getting invited to audition for the Wonderbolts, but it was never too early to start training, and giving a private show without other competitors.

And then something went wrong during a loop-de-loop and Rainbow found herself sitting on top of a purple unicorn in a mudpuddle mixed with bits of apple pie and other baked goods. A quick self check confirmed no broken limbs or major bruises on herself. “Sorry about that,” She quickly got off the downed mare, “Are you alright?”

Twilight stood up despite feeling like Celestia had dropped Canterlot Castle on her from orbit, her stomach felt much better. Why does my stomach not…. oh. mud dripped off of her as she looked up at her assailant who was now hovering just overhead. “Well, I'm covered in mud and will be even more purple tomorrow, but just fine, Thank you.”Please just let me get my job done, you town of crazy ponies!

“Hold on, I'll be right back!” The cyan pegasus zipped off grabbing a dark cloud from the sky and placing it over Twilight. Twillight almost didn't hear her say “I’ll get you cleaned up in no time!” before a torrential downpour blasted her in the face effectively rinsing the mud off of Twilight. Spike had wisely gotten out of the way and onto a little higher ground. “Oops, guess I over did it with the water.” The mare looked down from the now white cloud at the very wet and now grumpy unicorn. “Don't worry, I’ll get you dry!”

Twilight wanted to say no, it seemed that no matter what this winged paint pallet did, it ended up failing at Twilight's expense. But before she could say a word the pegasus kicked the cloud away and dove into a tight spiral around twilight going faster and faster creating a high-pitched whining and a technicolored tornado around Twilight. She could feel the warm air pulled into the tornado and knew that the moisture was being blown off. But something was wrong.

Spike tried to keep it in, his clawed hand covering his mouth. “Twilight? Are you ok?” The tactless pegasus on the other hoof didn't bother and fell on her back in fits of laughter.

Twilight decided to ignore how ridiculous she must look at the moment and instead decided to get some work done. “You are Rainbow Dash, right?”

“Yup! That’s me!” Rainbow Dash wiped tears away from her eyes with a fetlock. “I assume you have heard of my amazing awesomeness and want a signature? No wait, you must be a press pony! Here for an interview with the future leader of the Wonderbolts?”

Twilight channeled her most disappointed teacher look she could muster. “No, I’m here to oversee the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration. One of which was a clear sky,” she made a point of levitating the list over to herself and reading it. “Which is not complete, and as the head cloud buster for Ponyville, failing to perform your job would definitely end up as a black mark on your career.” Pause for Dramatic effect™ “And would result in being removed from any lists for Wonderbolt candidates." She hoped that somepony would take her seriously, though her current manestyle probably was working against her.

“Oh, please, I could clear this whole sky in ten seconds flat.” Rainbow boasted.

“Prove it.” The challenge came.

There were many things that Rainbow Dash would refuse, a hooficure, reading books or those fancy horse doovers that fancy ponies served at ‘parties.’ But a challenge when her honor was on the line was something that Dash couldn't resist.

“You're on.” Dash proclaimed before disappearing faster than Twilight would have thought possible for a pegasus. She found that she was only able to follow the blur by following the rainbow contrail that was left behind by the speeding pegasus.

The rainbow blur danced in a maze of corners and corkscrews through the sky above Ponyville, the clouds disappearing as soon as they were touched. Then as suddenly as it had started Twilight found the blur coming to a stop right in front of her resolving into the cyan pegasus.

“You should see the look on your face right now! But as I was saying earlier, I'd never leave Ponyville hanging. Also you could loosen up a little, I don't know how it goes down in your high up committees or such, but you can have fun and still get the job done. Now I need to go take a nap. Bye!” Before Twilight could get a word in edge wise Dash was gone.

“I guess we should check on the decorations then.” Twilight sighed as Spike crossed off ‘Weather’ on the list.

♢ ♢ ♢

“We are currently 100 out of a 100 for crazy ponies, let's hope that the pony in charge of decorations is somewhat sane.” Twilight muttered as they pushed open the door to the town hall. To her surprise it looked… good. A tasteful amount of ribbons and streamers stretched from beam to beam. The wood floor had been polished to gleaming, the colors of the surprising amount of jewels attached to the walls and support columns made a color gradient around the large interior that matched Celestia's hair.

“Beautiful…” Spike muttered.

“Yeah,” Twilight agreed, ”It looks good.”

“Not the decorations Twi, her.” He pointed to a white unicorn with a purple mane that was giving instructions to two earth ponies that were both pink and light blue but inverted from each other.

“Spike, there are so many things wrong with that statement.” Twilight sighed and trotted forward. “Excuse me, are you the pony in charge of decorations?”

The unicorn stopped talking and started to turn, “Why yes darling, what can I help you wi… Dear Celestia! what happened to your mane!”

Twilight was taken back by the abrupt change in the unicorn's tone. The Unicorn reached Twilight and started tugging at her hair with a comb that Twilight hadn't seen her gather. “A crazy weather pony knocked me down and helped me clean up.” Twilight haistily tried to switch topics as her scalp screamed at the forces it was being subjected to. “I’m just here to make sure that all the preparations for tomorrow are going well.”

“You're the inspector!” The unicorn gasped, again “I’m so sorry for what Rainbow Dash did. Oh you probably think we are all backwater hicks that don't know how to be civilized. My name is Rarity and I'm in charge of the decorations, I can only hope they are up to your expectations. I would have done more, but I only found out about the job and took over a few days ago. I simply didn't have time to order better materials. It was the WORST. POSSIBLE. THING!” Rarity stopped her rambling to pull an ornate velvet covered couch from somewhere and fainted back on it.

Twilight and Spike looked at each other. Let's get out of here

Sure thing, I'll check decorations off of the list.

The two beat a hasty and silent retreat out the door of the town hall intent on finding the choir conductor.

ʚїɞ ʚїɞ ʚїɞ

The instructions said that the conductor lived on the south side of Ponyville near the dark green forest which, according to the one local who seemed nice enough when Twilight asked for directions, was called the Forever Free Forest. Spike thought this was a weird name but said nothing.

It didn't take very long to find the conductor, there was a gap between Ponyville and the forest, but it was just a few hills of grassland with a few trees. As the duo caught sight of the cottage beside the forest, they heard the sound of music off to one side of the path.

Pushing the tall grass to the side Twilight and Spike were rewarded with the sight of a yellow pegasus with long pink hair gently waving a baton. The trees that she was facing were covered with every manner of song bird, each singing or chirping in time with the conductor. Except for the one large blue jay on the end which was tapping a triangle with a clear look of birdy disdain on its face.

Once the song ended Twilight stepped forward. “That sounded lovely.”

The effect was immediate. The pegasus let out an ‘eep!’ and jumped in the air to face Twilight.

“Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to startle you or anything. I'm Twilight Sparkle, and I'm here to check on the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration. What's your name? My list didn't give me a name.”

A soft whisper of sound escaped the pegasus’ lips as she tried to pull even farther into herself. A soft twittering started to rise from the birds. A few of them flitted over to the pegasus and landed on her back.

“I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that?” Twilight wanted to lean in, but she didn't want to startle the poor thing.

“I'm…” Came a little louder but faded into mumbles again.

“It's ok, if you don't want to I don't have to write your name down.” Twilight wasn't sure how to reassure her.

“Twi, it's getting late, we might want to head back to town to get some research done and maybe some sleep.” Spike spoke up from where he was beside Twilight. A soft gasp was all the warning he got before he was almost tackled by a pegasus.

“A baby dragon! Oh my Pan, you are so precious. I’ve never seen one of you before! I'm Fluttershy and I have so many questions. What do you eat? Where are your parents?”

Spike was initially taken aback by Fluttershy's sudden change. However, after a day of being stuck on the sidelines he was ready to interact with someone who was interested in him instead of Twilight. “I'm Spike! Best baby brother and assistant in ALL of Equestria!” He spread his arms wide at the proclamation.

Twilight sighed and rolled her eyes, another pony that was completely bonkers. She used her magic to lift Spike up and place him on her back. Spike didn’t stop or pause the whole walk back as he spun the story of his life to Fluttershy who followed them the entire walk back to town. Twilight had to figure out a way to get rid of her before they got to the library if she wanted to get any research done.

Author's Note

Alright first chapter break. At first this may seem like a ctrl+C and ctrl+V of the first part of the episode with minor changes. Yes and no. Those are huge changes, and are mainly for future reference (If I get there). As I write this I plan on posting this chapter right after the prologue so no character Q&A here, next chapter though.

The first big character change I want to address is Spike. For several reasons, I am channeling as much younger brother chaotic snark as I can into him. (for reference I am a younger brother with an older bookish sister, it comes easily. Yes she agreed to be my beta reader under duress.) The show often underplayed Spike and made him make stupid decisions. Yeah he's young, so street wise, he won't be very smart. But factually he is a huge nerd. You don't have an obsessed older sibling without naturally picking up on a few of those things that they are into.

Second, no Sparity, or Rarispike. I'm not a huge shipper or romance fan. And the thing was always played for laughs but it disturbed me. Don't worry they will still have some good interactions… I think. The final thing is Spike has a subspace pocket. He does something like this in the episode “Spike at your Service” where he makes a card appear from his breath without someone sending it. It will be used and I will set some usage rules. Don't you worry.

Also don't forget to ask the characters questions, if you want, thats fine if you don't. The 4th wall will be only slightly bruised.

1.2 The Pink Side of the Moon

Chapter 2 The Pink Side of the Moon

Twilight did not manage to get rid of Fluttershy by the time she reached the Ponyville Library. To make matters worse the pink pony from earlier, who introduced herself as Pinkie Pie, had thrown a ‘'Welcome to Ponyville” party in the main room of the library. After mistaking hot sauce for a drink Twilight retired to bed early, her attempts to research were thwarted.

ϙ ϙ ϙ

All too soon it seemed for Pinkie that the night was over and it was time to head to the town hall to see Princess Celestia raise the sun for the Longest Day. As she pronked to the town hall (after cleaning up, let no pony say that Pinkie wasn't a responsible party pony) she saw Twilight Sparkle drag herself in the same direction, worried expression on her face. Pinkie didn't like this, but there wasn't anything she could do about it, maybe seeing Celestia would cheer her up.

“Hey, Mr. Narrator?” Pinkie asked suddenly.

Yes?

“I know that something is going to happen and I also know that Twilight isn't happy right now. And you know me, I like to make ponies smile. Is there anything I could do to make her smile? I know that this is your story, but she is really sad right now.”

Well you see Pinkie, she is worried because she thinks that something bad is going to happen and she wanted to do research to stop it, however, before she could she got told to oversee the preparations for this festival. What you can do for her is be supportive and be a friend. She is going to need a lot of friends soon, especially one that can make her smile.

"Aren't you worried that you are going to upset your plans for writing this story?”

No, I'm not. I knew you would be a wild card when I started. So go be you, don't worry about me, I know how to IMPROVISE!

“Oke dokie lokie!” Piniky gave a mid air salute and continued on to pronk to the town hall. She was on a mission from… well not God, the writer I suppose. Yeah I knew what I was getting into with Pinkie.

Ѽ Ѽ Ѽ

Everything was going wonderfully. The pre prepped food was ready and already being enjoyed. The oil and stoves were heating up for the next batch of goods. All the Apples were taking a quick break from cooking and manning the stands to attend the Sunrise Ceremony. Seeing Celestia was an important thing and Applejack was not going to miss this one bit.

She found herself in the middle of the room shoved by the crowd. Someone jostled her and she slammed into a hard surface.

“Ow!” Applejack exclaimed, turning to see what she had been shoved into. Nothing important, she hoped. It was just Rainbow Dash. “Goodness girl, you sure are bony ain't ya?”

“What?” came the response. “Oh, hey AJ. I gotta say, those apple fritters are almost as awesome as I am. A little dense though, I don't think I can take off if I eat too many of those.”

Applejack’s only response was to cast a sideways glance at Rainbow Dash. There was something not quite right about that pegasus, Applejack thought. She couldn't prove anything of course, but there was always this feeling in the back of her mind. Whatever, I should just focus on the event. It's what I came here for.

She saw Rarity walk up on the stage to get ready to open the curtain to reveal Celestia once Mayor Mare's speech was done. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw Twilight Sparkle looking very anxious about something. Something was wrong.

“And without further ado, I present to you… Princess Celestia!" Behind the podium Mayor Mare swept her hoof in a gesture at the curtain as the choir of birds played. Rarity pulled the ropes to open the curtain to reveal an empty stage.

Murmurs of ‘huh?’ and ‘where's the Princess’ swept the crowd. Among them Applejack heard a singular ‘Oh no.’

“She's not there!” Rarity called out as she trotted back out from behind the stage. “She's gone!”

The murmurs changed to shock, and then fear as somepony pointed upwards and cried out, “What's that?” A deep blue mist swirled in through the open skylights before landing on the raised stage and condensing into a tall figure. AJ's breath hitched momentarily when the figure appeared, but relaxed slightly, this wasn't her. This figure was black, and tall, as tall as Celestia, and was an alicorn just like her, having both large wings and a tall horn carved with a spiral. That is where the similarities ended. The mystery mare, AJ assumed it was a mare, had blue, slitted eyes, pointed fangs, the wings were sharp curves and her mane and tail were blue ethereal mists that floated about her. The mare also wore blue armor, the same color as her mane.

“Who are you and where is the Princess?” Mayor Mare yelled at the alicorn. Rainbow Dash leaped into flight to attack this mystery pony, but Applejack managed to grab her tail before she could get too far.

“Woah Nelly, settle down RD!” she tried to yell, but it came out as mumbles. I wish I had fancy telepathy magics to talk to ponies or something in times like these.

The alicorn laughed, the sound somehow echoing in the hall despite the many decorations. “Has it been so long that the day loving little ponies have forgotten my face? Have I been gone so long that my rightful place has been forgotten by everyone but the stars?” Applejack considered herself to be brave, but brave did not mean that she was foolish. A shiver ran down her back at the words, this was bad.

“I know who you are,” a voice called out.

All eyes in the hall turned toward Twilight Sparkle. She took a step forward as the ponies surrounding her moved away from her. No pony wanted to be in the splash zone should this alicorn suddenly attack this foolish unicorn.

“Then say it,” came the response. “Tell my little ponies who I am.”

“You are Nightmare Moon, the alicorn that was banished to the moon for a thousand years for wanting to bring eternal night!” Twilight looked a little apprehensive at the last bit.

Instead of blasting her, Nightmare Moon laughed. “It seems I was right, only the stars remembered me. And now I have come to finish the job. Your precious princess is locked away and now,” she took a breath, “THE NIGHT SHALL LAST FOREVER!” Many ponies collapsed covering their ears, and the closest to the stage were blown back a few hooflengths. Rainbow was knocked out of the air and on to Applejack.

Mayor Mare was the first to react. “Guards! Restrain her! She knows where the Princess is!” The hidden guards that Applejack hadn't seen leaped into action. The pegasus guards taking flight were hit by a beam of magic that sent them flying into the unicorns that were about to cast stun spells. The earth pony guards were picked up and tossed through the building's walls with magic.

“Get off RD! You're heavier than Big Mac! What have you been eating?” Applejack shoved Rainbow Dash off of herself. Rainbow took this moment to take to the air and charge at Nightmare Moon.

Nightmare Moon regarded the charging pegasus before slapping her aside with a shield. “You will always remember this night as the night you almost caught Nightmare Moon… wait no. You remember this night as the last night you ever had, for it shall last forever!” She whirled into mist once more and spiraled out of the window, Rainbow Dash somehow in hot pursuit.

Applejack glanced around at the ruined town hall, one of the spells had hit a lantern and started a fire that several ponies were trying to put out. A few guards were getting up, but AJ could tell from this distance that several had legs sticking at unnatural angles and one had their head backwards. Twilight Sparkle was nowhere to be seen.

Pinkie pronked by with an unusually serious look on her face. “Grab Rarity and head back to the library, I'm going to fetch Fluttershy and meet you there.”

AJ had no reason to wonder why, but if Pinkie was this serious about something it was no laughing matter. She had to get to the library.

♢ ♢ ♢

Rarity blinked and opened her eyes, what happened? Oh yes, she had fainted when that beastly Nightmare Moon had shouted like that. Why was she now in the Ponyville Library of all places? And what was that awful thumping?

“I told you already, I'm not a spy!” That was the voice of the inspector, Rarity hadn't managed to get her name. She looked up from where she had been laid by somepony. The purple unicorn was over by a bookshelf trying to find something. Rainbow Dash was trapped in a floating deep pink forcefield that she was throwing herself against trying to reach the unicorn.

“Oh yeah? Well you were acting shifty before the celebration and it's pretty convenient that you knew who Nightmare Moon was,” Rainbow retorted.

“Because I came across a prophecy foretelling her return. Now I'm trying to find a way to defeat her,” replied the unicorn.

“Calm down RD,” Applejack called out from where she had been standing beside Rarity. “She's telling the truth, Twilight is not our enemy.”

Had Applejack moved her? Rarity shuddered at the thought of unwashed farm hooves touching her.

The library's doors slammed open and Pinkie Pie trotted in leading Fluttershy. “Oh good Rainbow, you're here!” Her smile still in place despite the literally dark state that the country was in. “How can I help, Twilight?”

“What?” Twilight seemed taken aback by the offer of help. “Well, when I read about the first defeat of Nightmare Moon, the book made mention that Celestia used something called the Elements of Harmony.” At this point Rainbow Dash had stopped throwing herself at the walls of her bubble prison and was sitting with a thoughtful look on her face. Rarity wished she had a camera to get a permanent record of this rare event.

“Why am I here?” Rarity asked, sitting up on the couch she had been placed on. “For that matter, why did you bring Fluttershy? I doubt either of us would be helpful in defeating a mad alicorn of myth.”

“I don't know,” Pinkie responded, “Pinkie sense™ I guess. Anyways, Twilight, is this the book you are looking for?” She reached up and grabbed a thick book off of one of the shelves.

“The Elements of Harmony; by B. Lightning." Twilight read the cover before turning to Pinkie, “where did you find this?”

“It was under ‘E’ for Element! I saw it when I was cleaning up the afterparty you didn't go to.” The last little bit was underlined by a pouty lip.

“What? That's not how the Dewey Decihoove system works! Who's the librarian here anyway?”

“Nopony at the moment,” Applejack spoke up. “They got fired. But what about those elements? I have a feeling that those might be our only shot at success at the moment”

Twilight opened the book and started skimming through the introduction. Completely forgetting about Rainbow Dash, she dispelled the forcefield holding Rainbow Dash who promptly fell to the floor. Rarity got up and wandered over to the group to look at the book.

“It says here that there are six elements of harmony, but the author lists only five of them; honesty, laughter, kindness, generosity and loyalty,” Twilight read to the group. “However, it does say that the sixth will appear when united by a spark.”

“Is that a picture of them?” Rarity pointed at a picture of Princess Celestia with five gems floating around her. “If we get close I can find them. I developed a gem locating spell when I was a little filly.”

Twilight turned the page. “And here it says that after the banishment of her sister, the elements stopped responding to Princess Celestia. Later they were hidden in the Castle of the Two Sisters, which is now located in the Forever Free Forest,” Twilight looked up at the sound of a couple gasps. “What?”

“That forest ‘tain't natural,” Applejack explained. “The plants grow wild and clouds form and move by themselves.”

“Yeah, we spend more time keeping wild weather from escaping the Everfree than we do maintaining the weather from Cloudsdale,” Rainbow Dash added.

Fluttershy spoke up, “It's Pan, the Steward of the Wild. It's a holy area to him, the last truly Wild spot anywhere in the Realm.” She shrank in a little on herself at the looks from the others. “I'm one of his devotees,” she practically whispered.

“And we have our guide!” Pinkie exclaimed, bouncing around the group. “We have a full adventuring party! Let's get going!”

“We?” Twilight questioned. “I'm going by myself, I might take Fluttershy if she knows the way. I would take Spike, but he's still asleep.”

“As if!” Rainbow Dash interjected. “You're about to embark on a dangerous journey through the wildest place in Equestria and face down an alicorn, you need help.”

“I don't know how you plan on finding and wielding the Elements, but I don't think you will be able to do it by yourself. Celestia herself was only able to wield all of them only once,” Rarity pointed out. Twilight will need all the help she can get, I might be able to provide some assistance.

Twilight sighed in defeat,“Ok, Fluttershy, can you lead the way?”

✶ ✶ ✶

As the group approached the edge of the Everfree Twilight took stock of the situation. I'm about to enter a spooky forest with five complete strangers at night, and we are going to try and find a mythical weapon to defeat an evil alicorn. All on the word of one source material that we couldn't even fact check. This is madness!

“No, silly!” Pinkie bounced beside her. “This is Equestria!”

“Did I say that outloud?” Twilight asked.

“It was sort of a mutter, but I'm great at interpretation,” Pinkie responded, “especially when it leads into jokes!”

“This way,” Fluttershy called from up ahead beside a small wood and stone pedestal.

As dark as it had been outside at least it had the moon and stars to provide light. Inside the forest there was no light, the tall trees with looming branches blocked the dim light. Twilight and Rarity had resorted to lighting their horns with a simple light spell to cast some light. Applejack had shown forethought and had grabbed a lantern before they left the library as well as a length of rope.

Twilight had known that the forest had hills and gullies, but the trees and distance had hidden how steep the hills could be. After a little bit of walking the group found the trail winding up the side of a cliff that took them out over the top of the trees.

“Over there,” Applejack called out, pointing into the distance. “Is that it? it looks like it’s on the other side of this here valley from us.”

Twilight turned off the light from her horn hoping to see if she could peer into the moonlight mist. After half a minute of squinting Twilight decided that she needed better lighting. “There’s something there, but I can't make out what it is. Stand back everypony I'm going to shoot a flare spell in that direction to see if I can light it up. But it might attract Nightmare Moon.”

Twilight lowered her head with her eyes closed and horn starting to spark as she charged it. She technically didn't know any flare spells, as those were mainly used by sailors and explorers, but she did know a few sunlight and firework spells, the difficulty was tying a bright enough sunlight spell to a just powerful enough propulsion matrix from a firework spell. Not too difficult for Twilight Sparkle, student of Princess Celestia and member of the Solar Sisters.

The spell shot from her horn across the valley. As it approached the half way point the spell’s second stage fired it into an arc and triggered the sunlight spell. It flew in a slow trajectory over the derelict ruins of a castle that was built into the base of the opposite ridge. The sunlight spell also lights up half the valley before winking out into nothing.

“Well,” Rarity spoke up, “We know where it is, now we just have to get to it from here.”

“The most direct way would be down the cliff or to fly,” Fluttershy said, “But only two of us can fly and I don't know how we are getting down.”

“That's easy!” Pinkie pie exclaimed, “We're about too. Twilight's spell is about to cause a rockslide!”

“WHAT?” everypony exclaimed.

“How do you know?” Twilight asked, “There was no shock wave from that spell.”

“That's easy, Twilight, I'm an earth pony who grew up on a rock farm. This cliff face has a layer of corrupted magic gems that got overcharged by latent chaos and magic. Bada Bing, Bada, Bo-” the path the ponies were on gave way.

Twilight found herself sliding down the side of a scarp where tons of rock had just been. Huh, she thought, Pinkie was right there is a layer of gems intersecting with this fracture. Her rational self was being thoroughly shaken by her outside self and she was dimly aware she was screaming. What are you doing? We are about to fall off a cliff and you are analyzing statements? Scrabble, recall that teleport spell you learned two years ago , DO SOMETHING OR WE DIE!

A pair of orange hooves grabbed one of Twilight's flailing legs just as she was about to go sailing over the edge. She looked up to see Applejack with her hind legs firmly planted on the scarp while holding onto Twilight. “It's okay, sugarcube, I got you,” Applejack said in a calming tone. “It's going to be alright, just hold on for a tiny bit.” She looked past Twilight, “whew, it's a lot taller than I thought it was.”

A few seconds later the sound of trees snapping and booms of rocks hitting a forest floor reached their ears. Twilight estimated, 8 seconds from start of fall to sound of hitting, if she divided the distance formula by speed of sound in air, moved the variables. “Its about 250 feet,” she whispered.

“I'll take your word for it,” Applejack chuckled. “Now here's the thing, I can't haul you back up, you wouldn't be able to get a grip on this. So I want you to trust me here, in a few seconds, I'm gonna drop you.”

“What?” Twilight practically screeched, “I'll die!”

“Calm down, sugarcube, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are going to catch you,” Applejack spoke in calm tones. “I want you to plant your back hooves against the cliff and push out from it to give them the best possible chance. I am trusting you to be right about the elements of Harmony, and I want you to trust me that I am being honest with you right now.”

Twilight nodded, it made sense, she hadn't heard Rarity or Pinkie scream. They must have been caught and carried down to the bottom already. Applejack had to wait for them to come back. “Ok,” Twilight whispered. She hated the logical part of her brain sometimes, it ignored very life threatening situations. But then again the emotional part never really helped her make smart decisions.

“On three,” Applejack said, looking past Twilight and giving a small nod. “One… Two… Three!” Applejack shoved Twilight’s leg away as Twilight pushed as hard as she could against the cliff face and closed her eyes. For a few brief moments she was floating in mid air, her stomach tightened in preparation for hitting the ground and splattering.

Here lies Twilight the unicorn, she never learned how to fly.

forelegs wrapped around her barrel, under her forelegs. “We got you,” whispered a timid voice.

Twilight opened her eyes to find Fluttershy holding her hoof and a pair of cyan legs supporting her. Applejack was scaling down the sheer cliff face somehow finding hoofholds on the surface, bounding headlong towards the ground. “As if somepony as awesome as me or Fluttershy would drop you,” The slightly raspy voice of Rainbow Dash said from right behind her head.

In moments they were all on the ground catching their breath. “Honestly, that was a dreadful start,” Rarity sighed before adding, “but I don't think it could get much worse than falling off a cliff, it has to get better.”

Author's Note

Character Q&A: (ask any character a question in the coments below and they might respond here.)

Whew, getting into the adventure part. I really want to get through this to where the plot really goes off the rails that the show set. However, this is an important set up and reference for future revelations. Advice I once got, and now will adapt from academic to story, went along the lines of “mentioned once is world building, twice is coincidence, three times and it is important information.” That is highly paraphrased. Also, please forgive excessive geology and rock things, I'm majoring in geology in college and things like a rockfall lend a lot to authorial exposition. And finally a non Deus Ex Machina reason for Pinkie to know things, because she grew up on a rock farm.

So Pinkie's thing is the most like her show self except more. Yes this means that Pinkie and the Narrator (me) will have conversations, and she might even address you the reader, or take inspiration from any character Q&A's (Still no questions, the characters are wondering if you care about them.... :fluttershysad: )

I hope you have enjoyed so far, it should get crazier in the next few chapters. Also the title is inspired by the 4everfreebrony album and song of the same name.
Im going to try and add the cover art now. Cross your toenails.

1.3 What You Hoped to Find

Chapter 3 What you Hoped to Find

It did not get better. I hope you are happy, Rarity. Twilight thought looking at the massive Manicore that was blocking the path that Fluttershy had found leading in the right direction. She had felt that Rarity had deserved the roar in her face that had slicked back her hair into a straight line.

⚡︎ ⚡︎ ⚡︎

Rainbow was happy, they had finally found one of the dangerous wild animals that Fluttershy had practically promised them that they would run across. Another chance to save her companions and show how awesome she was. “Take that!” her dive was blocked by a large scorpion tail and she had to veer off before she could land a hit. Fortunately Applejack wasn't faring much better, the manticore wasn't letting her land a hit either.

The other four were being smart and hanging back, the two unicorns were trying to shoot spells at it while not hitting the two fighters. Scratch that, Twilight was trying to shoot spells, Rarity was prancing in place. Probably never learned any offensive spells. Why did she come along again?

“Wait!” A pink glow surrounded Rainbow and Applejack, yanking them back to the group. “Fluttershy wanted you guys to listen to her,” Twilight finished looking a little bashful that she hadn't heard Fluttershy at first either.

“He’s hurt,” Fluttershy called, trotting forward towards the looming monster. “Let me see it.” She reached up with a hoof towards the manticore's giant paws, which Rainbow now saw was cradled against its chest.

The manticore slowly let its paw be dragged towards Fluttershy, only letting out a growl and pulling back slightly when Fluttershy turned it face up and pulled the claws back to reveal a large black thorn stuck deep in the pad of its paw.

“This is going to hurt for a bit,” Fluttershy said, reaching forward and biting down on the thorn. Fluttershy yanked her head back suddenly while the manticore yelped in pain. Rainbow Dash started forward to grab her friend, but the manticore grabbed Fluttershy first. And started… purring?

“Huh, that actually makes a lot of sense,” Twilight spoke up. “The mantacore got hurt and came to look for help.”

“It,” Applejack pointed at the mantacore, “came looking for help. How did it know to do that?”

“Flutter's is a follower of Pan!” Pinkie interjected before Twilight could explain. “It probably knows her and smelled her from afar!”

By this point the manticore had set Fluttershy down and had limped off into the bushes leaving a slightly damp Fluttershy behind.

“Why didn't it just pull the thorn out itself?” asked Applejack.

“Kindness soothes the savage soul, silly filly!”

♢ ♢ ♢

Rarity was not having a good day. First Princess Celestia disappeared, then she decided to join a bunch of ruffians to go save Celestia, then they fell down a cliff and then were attacked by a savage beast. And now it was dark. Not the average dark that the Everfree forest had been seconds ago, it was advanced darkness. That's what Pinkie Pie had said. Applejack's lantern had been smashed in the rockfall, and the darkness had completely snuffed out the magic light of her and Twilight's horn.

“Hold on, I’m going to try overcharging a sunspell again.” That was Twilight off to her right. How is she not frightened? Rarity wondered. A few seconds went by and a glow formed a few hoovelenths above their heads. Instead of the brilliant yellow that had been the flare from earlier, this one was a dull orange that didn't cast light very far at all. If anything it made the situation worse.

Rarity found herself face to face with a gnarled face. “AAAAAAAAIIIIIIEEE!” she squealed and started backing up only to feel something grab her leg. Around her she heard four other voices scream, varying from ‘AHHH!’ to ‘eep.’ to ‘YAI YAAAHH!’ and the sound of wood snapping. She herself kicked out at whatever had grabbed her and dashed over to join the others.

“The trees are movin’!” Applejack yelled. “I didn’ sign up to deal with trees! I just farm ‘em not fight ‘em! What the hay do we do?”

“Pinkie?” Rarity looked at the one member of the party who was not screaming in terror or over reacting. “why are you smiling?" she asked cautiously.

“Because the apple farmer is scared of trees.” Pinkie took a deep breath before letting out a guffaw. “The apple farmer is scared of the trees!” she broke down into giggles.

Applejack sat and scratched the back of her head, “when you do put it like that it is a mite silly.” She grinned before starting to chuckle, “I reckon it’s because that tree looks like my late uncle Johnathan. He always scared me by poppin’ his dentures out at me,” Applejack started laughing at the tree that she had been kicking earlier.

Rarity held back a small giggle, guffawing was for peasants, but she did see the humor in the matter. In the end the laughter was contagious. “And here I was thinking that the trees were trying to grab me like ruffians!” she added, “I suppose we are all very silly.”

“That one looked like Ms. Academia” Twilight added, pointing to another tree. “She always threatened to fail me. I always fell for it.” A smile crossed the formerly worried face.

“I'm ALWAYS silly!” Pinkie exclaimed, “The best laughs are when you laugh with people.”

“Is it just me, or is it brighter now?” Rarity asked after a little bit wiping a bit of a tear from her eye.

“It is brighter,” Twilight responded, shielding her eyes from the sunlight orb that was now throwing bright light in every direction with almost no effort. “Wait, the faces are gone. Why are the faces gone?”

“Laughter is the best medicine for everything I guess,” Rainbow announced from where she was inspecting a broken tree limb.

ʚїɞ ʚїɞ ʚїɞ

The group soon found the ground abruptly stopped sloping downward onto a relatively flat stretch with an increase in fallen logs and denser brush clogging the way. “We are nearing a stream,” Fluttershy called back, “we're in a floodplane and we might have to ford it to get to the castle.”

“I do hope there is a bridge,” Rarity muttered under her breath.

Fluttershy rolled her eyes and continued wiggling through the brush. She might not have the plant and earth connections that Pinkie and Applejack had, but she was in her element here in the wild. The small creatures were getting anxious she could tell. Not only were they wondering why the day hadn't arrived yet, but a large number of them were trying to move away from the stream. Something was wrong with it.

“Be careful," she called back again, “something is going on in the stream, the animals don't know what it is but it isn't good.”

“Agh, it's always something,” Rainbow complained from where she was hovering over the undergrowth. Fluttershy admired her best friend, but sometimes Rainbow's impatience and inability to get along with wild creatures got on her nerves sometimes.

The whole thing was rather stressful. She had to lead four ponies and her friend through the Everfree, in the dark, to find weapons, to fight an evil alicorn. Not for the first time that night she wished Orion was there to help her, but she hadn't had time to get him when Pinkie Pie had grabbed her in the town hall and gently brought her to the Library. Her heart was thumping loud in her ears again and the already tight vegetation was starting to press in. What was she doing here? She should have just refused and hid in bed until someone else had taken care of the problem. I can't do this, I'm going to die here.

“Hey, Flutters,” Rainbow called worried, tinting her voice, “You okay? Are you stuck on something?”

I’m here because they can’t do it without me. My animal friends need me, be strong for them. It will be fine. A few breaths to calm herself down and she answered, “I am fine. Thanks, Rainbow. I just thought I heard something.” She lied and immediately felt Applejack’s gaze bore into her.

That was when the group heard a noise up ahead. It sounded like somepony sobbing, really loud, and a lot of splashing. Mustering her courage, Futtershy pushed ahead. She stepped out of the underbrush onto a tall moonlit cutbank of the stream and found the source of the commotion.

There in the middle of the churning and now muddy stream, a giant purple sea serpent was holding its head in its hands and crying extremely loudly, its lower half flailing all over being the cause for the waves and commotion. “Oh the indignity!” it cried.

Fluttershy held in a huff. Great, a giant Rarity is blocking our path. And I can't do anything about it because it's not wild.

The others joined her on the bank. “What is it now?” Twilight asked, her voice bordering on a whine of annoyance. The sea serpent kept on wailing. The ponies looked at each other.

“Allow me,” Applejack said, “You might want to take a step back for this.” She gave them a few seconds to press against the dense foliage before raising her hoof to her mouth and releasing a loud, shrill whistle. The serpent was shocked out of crying for the moment looking around to see where the sound had come from. “Down here!” she called out, “What's the matter that's got you all twisted up for?”

The serpent paused before answering, “well I was minding my own business when a tacky blue thing rushed by here and tore off half of my magnificent mustache! Now it's gone and my look is ruined!" Fluttershy noticed that the dragon had a brilliant gold orange slickback hairstyle and one half of a gold orange mustache that was quite large and curled.

“Really,” Applejack muttered, “That’s what all the fuss was about?”

“I’ll bet that mist was Nightmare Moon on her way to the castle,” Twilight whispered back.

“Applejack!” Rarity almost squawked. “How could you be so insinsitive! This poor serpent had a magnificent look that probably took a long time to cultivate.”

“It did!” the serpent wailed, “It took years to reach that length!”

“It ruins the whole look!” Rarity continued, now in her element. “The complementary colors”

“It was a gift!”

“The immaculately perfect eyebrows,”

“So much hard work.”

“Wonderfully groomed hairdo”

“An hour every morning!”

“Expert hoofacures,”

“It's so hard to find businesses that serve serpents.”

“And it's all ruined without the mustache!”

The serpent was now all but laying in the river having gotten a compatriot to join his pity party. “What will I doooooo?” he wailed, “I can't let my friends see me like this.”

“Come here,” Rarity motioned with a hoof, “Let me get a look at you and see what I can do.”

The serpent rested his head on the bank, big sorrowful eyes gazing at Rarity as she looked over the damaged mustache.

“I need a sharp cutting implement, you wouldn't happen to have a loose scale would you?” Rarity asked. “I don't want to risk a cutting spell, and your scales look extremely sharp.”

“Oh yes, they are,” the serpent agreed before lifting a handful of the plate size keratin shields out of the river. “I’m afraid that these fell off in my distress.”

“These will do nicely,” Rarity grabbed the scale with her magic. Fluttershy knew that it must be hard because serpents were just a subclass of dragons which had magic resistant scales. “Now, how do you feel about a two tone style?”

“It would look marvelous!” the serpent agreed, “What are you going to do?”

The question was answered as the seamstress moved the scale in perfect arc, trimming the ragged edge of the mustache and ending chopping off most of her own tail. There were a few gasps of surprise from everyone. She let go of the scale and let it fall to the ground, instead grabbing the tail and levitating it up to the stump of the mustache, changing its shape along the way. “Twilight, darling?” Rarity asked, her attention still on the floating hair, “would you happen to know any fusing spells? I’m afraid I only know a few spells outside of levitation.”

“Uh, yes,” Twilight responded, “hold on, this will take a little bit because it's a lot of little things not a single object.”

Rainbow Dash yawned, “As long as we get to the castle soon, I’m getting really tired.”

Rarity shot Dash a glare, which Fluttershy completely understood.

“You could stop hovering and walk like the rest of us,” she suggested, “you wouldn't get as tired as fast.” Fluttershy expected Dash to ignore her suggestion but to her surprise, Dash dropped with only a small sigh.

“There,” Twilight sighed and cut the spell, “All done.”

“It's simply marvelous!” the serpent gushed, “I must simply get my hair dyed to match. Thank you for your help in my time of need.”

“You are most welcome,” Rarity spared a glance at her tail now sporting a bob.

“Now how may I assist you?” the serpent went into a bow, “Steven Magnet at your service.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Steven,” Rarity responded. “I'm Rarity, and my friends and I need to get to the other side of this river and to a castle.”

“Allow me,” Steven responded. The coils of his body and tail that had been forgotten swished around in the river before rising up out of it in the shape of a bridge to cross.

“Thank you, Steven,” Twilight called as she crossed the impromptu bridge followed by her companions.

"Aren't you worried about your tail being short?” Fluttershy asked Rarity.

“Worried is generous, darling,” came the wistful reply, “I'm more sad that I have less options for styles now. But don't you fret, I'll figure something out.”

Ѽ Ѽ Ѽ

“Everypony, stop, please.” Fluttershy called out. “There's a ravine, and the bridge is out on the other side.”

Applejack pushed aside the last of the branches coming out onto the ledge that overlooked a deep, fog filled ravine. On the other side, standing in the moonlight stood the group’s objective, The Castle of the Two Sisters. “Whew! That's a sight,” She let out a low whistle, “Any way around?”

“Not that I can see,” Fluttershy responded, “It wraps around the castle, It might have been a moat at one point.” The others joined them on the ledge.

“It looks like the Bridge itself is fine,” Applejack pointed out, “If I could get to the other side I could fasten it with my extra rope.”

Twilight looked at Rarity. “Do you think you could levitate her across? I'm starting to run low on magic and I want to save some for an emergency.”

“I'm afraid that despite my talent for control, I can't reach that far, darling,” Rarity replied.

“Hey, I could airlift her across,” Dash spoke up, “I know how to tie knots too, griffin scout here.”

Applejack let out a sigh, it would have been easier if she was by herself but she had learned to not look a gift basket in the fruit selection. “Sure, I could use the help. Beside,” She motioned at the ravine, “the fog is rising and it would be a good idea to have another pony over there in case something happens.”

Rainbow Dash leapt into the air and flapped over to where Applejack was standing before wrapping her hoves around the farm mare and taking off once again. Applejack felt a little dizzy as the ground fell away and then abruptly disappeared into the mists in the ravine.

“Thanks for flying Rainbow Air,” Dash joked as they crossed, “Please keep your hoves inside the ride at all times.”

“Not funny, Dash,” Applejack held onto her stetson with one hoof. Never happier when they finally touched down on the other side.

Dash let out a giggle and a, “be right back!” before diving into the ravine to grab the loose end of the bridge. While she was gone, Applejack began preparing. She didn't know how much rope she would need, so she left it on the ground while she began inspecting the anchor points for the bridge. There was still rope in the holes with flat edges not yet frayed. Carefully she extracted them and made sure the stone posts themselves were still good.

At that point Dash came back up with the end of the bridge, panting with effort. Applejack grabbed the ropes from her and let her collapse on the ground.

“Take a breather, I'll get these ropes tied,” Applejack grunted around the mouthful of rope.

“Nuh uh,” Dash replied, “You need someone to hold the weight of the bridge so you can get a good knot.”

Applejack had to admit that she was right, it would be easier to tie the knots with someone holding the weight. “Then, I'll hold the bridge while you tie,” She argued, “I know you are tired and just as good at makin’ knots as I am.” She held out one of the ropes.

Dash took the offered rope and started to tie it around the anchor point it went to.

“Raaaiinbooow… Daaash…” A voice called softly from the darkness.

“What the hay?” Applejack muttered, “what was that?” Rainbow finished the first knot and grabbed the second rope from Applejack.

“I don't know, but it can't be good,” Dash responded.

“Rainbow Daaash,” The voice called again. Applejack saw three figures moving farther up the path.

“Who are ya?” Applejack called back, “An’ what do you want with RD?”

“Nothing that concerns you, mud pony.” The leader was now close enough that she could see the black and deep purple skintight suits that all three were wearing. “We are here for Rainbow Dash. We are the Shadow Bolts, the best stunt flying team in Equestria, and we've heard about the legendary Rainbow Dash. So we've come to recruit you to our team. Fly with us and we will go beyond anything the Wonderbolts could ever dream of.” The leading stallion held out his hoof.

Dash looked up from where she had almost finished the knot. “You've heard of me?” she asked before regaining some of her usual bluster. “I mean, of course you've heard of me. You want me to join your team? Sign me up!” she paused, “As soon as I get this bridge fixed.”

“No.” The shadowbolts took a step closer.

“What?” Dash seemed taken back by the statement. Applejack looked at the two knots that were done. She didn't want to put weight on them yet, not until at least three of them were done to hold the weight of the bridge. The bridge was getting kind of heavy.

“This is a one time offer, Dash” the leader spoke in a semi threatening tone. “Come with us now or be relegated to obscurity forever.”

“Dash, the bridge is getting a little heavy,” Applejack muttered, the only sign that the pegasus had heard her was an ear turn in her direction.

“That sounds cool and all,” Dash looked the trio up and down, “But I have some friends that need my help. Obviously you don't really want me, after all, if you really want me, you'll be back with a better offer.” She turned to finish tying the second knot and said; “Besides, if I am awesome enough to bring a few up and coming wa’na’bes I'm good enough to attract the Wonderbolts or make it myself. But we could use some help, you see-”

One of the ‘bolts charged Dash and hit her in the side, pushing her away from the knot and to the edge of the cliff. “Then die a failure!” the leader announced rising into the air with a few flaps. Applejack shifted her grip on the rope to give a bit slack.

“GIRLS!” she yelled, “WE HAVE A SITUATION!”

“Shut up the mud pony!” the leader snarled, thrusting a hoof in her direction. The third Shadowbolt darted forward at Applejack.

Applejack saw the move coming and moved the two bridge ropes to her mouth diving to the side. At this point only the left two ropes had been somewhat secured, so she dove right. The ropes met the stone pillar and tugged her off her path swinging her around and over the edge of the cliff. She tucked her legs close to her barrel managing to fit between the two support ropes before extending them in a rapid buck meeting the face of the bewildered pegasus. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Dash and the other Shadowbolt tumbling on the ground.

The Shadowbolt she had bucked was staggering from the impact, but she wasn't able to do much more while still holding the ropes. They better get their flanks over here.

“Hi there!”

“Who said that?” The leader looked around bewildered, only to get a face full of apple pie as Pinkie popped out from behind him and slammed a freshbaked pie in his face. “Gaahh!”

Pinkie dropped from his back and pronked over to Applejack, “Hi, sorry it took so long.” She glanced back at the leader who was now careening wildly trying to get the hot filling off of his face. “I had to make sure it was warm. Someponies just don't appreciate a good hot apple pie.”

Applejack looked on with a faint sadness. She knew that somehow it was an Apple Family pie, it didn't deserve to go out like this, it deserved to be enjoyed with some whipped cream and family gathered around. She handed Pinkie the ropes while she took off her hat and held it solemnly over her chest.

“Ok, the ropes are tied!” Pinkie called as she finished the last rope.

“YOU INSOLENT, INSIGNIFICANT INSECTS!” the leader roared, having finally wiped the pie off of his face. “You will PAY for your rebellion against the Queen of the night!”

“No, darling,” Applejack turned back to the bridge to see Rarity, Fluttershy and Twilight join them on the castle side of the bridge. A light blue glow surrounded the leader and started flinging him about. “I don't think we shall.”

Pinkey was trying to pry the Shadowbolt off of Rainbow Dash as they wrestled near the edge. Applejack ducked as the leader whizzed over her head screaming in a high falsetto before being encased in a glow and sent hurtling into a wall.

“I bucked that guy over there in the head pretty hard, Twilight,” Applejack said, not taking her eyes off the spectical of the leader, “I think they got this in the bag. They tried to recruit Rainbow but she wouldn't have any of it, not while we were needing her.”

“Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself!” came from the other direction where Pinkie now had the one ‘bolt all to herself and had placed a dunce cap on his head. Applejack almost felt pity for the poor stallion as Pinkie hooved the sucker a sparking black ball and ‘nyuk nyuk nyuking’ her way behind a pillar before the object exploded leaving black soot on his shocked face. Correction, almost sorry, they were working for Nightmare Moon after all.

“Uh, Applejack?” Rainbow asked as she sat down beside the other three, “Where is the third one?”

“I knocked him out over there…” Applejack realized that the pegasus she had knocked out was gone. “Where in tarnation did he go?” She whipped her head around looking for the missing ‘bolt. Her eyes caught a streak of black in the moonlight and her brain registered the direction it was headed in.

There was no time to warn Rarity. She had her back to the rest and was focused on swinging the now concussed leader in arcs over her head into the ground like a raging beast. Applejack couldn't even start to open her mouth.

The air filled with the thunk of hooves meeting flesh at a speed even faster than AJ could kick. Rarity didn't even cry out.

The stallion stopped.

The glow around the leader disappeared at the apex.

Rarity sailed through the air.

The leader sailed through the air.

Like a tossed ivory handkerchief she seemed to hang in the moonlight.

Like a drunk tossed from a bar, he shot towards the canyon.

She smashed into the wall of what might have once been a guard house.

The air was filled with the sound of bones snapping, Rarity's limbs splayed in unnatural angles, her jaw crooked and-

Applejack looked away, finally able to move her legs toned from years of apple bucking, launching her at her target. Years of herding cattle, rodeos and farming coursed through her veins.

Both front legs land, bend. Back land, crouch. Just like barrel racing. Launch. She left the ground a cannonball of orange determination.

And like a cannonball she hit. Barely able to make out the stallions scream of shock as he crashed to the ground. “YA KILLED RARITY!” she heard herself scream as she turned and delivered a buck like no other. The pegasus flopped and laid still.

Calm, AJ, keep ahold of yourself girl. Applejack let out a huff of air and looked around.

Fluttershy looked about to cry, the poor thing. Applejack doubted that anypony here knew Rarity on a personal basis before this night, but they all knew that she would go out of her way to help around the town wherever she could. Rainbow had a far away look on her face, no doubt thinking the same thing.

Twilight’s mouth hung open in shock, AJ doubted that she had ever seen a death. Pinkie had stopped messing with the remaining ‘bolt and had tied him up and was dragging him to the rest of the group. Her hair had lost it's usual puffiness and was hanging in straight lines down.

“Wha…” Twilight gasped.

“She's dead, Twi,” Applejack almost whispered, Rarity had a younger sister right? Sweet Ball right? How would she react to her sister being dead? AJ felt her throat get hard with a lump, she knew how the others must feel, Rarity just died so suddenly, but AJ was sorrowful for her sister. She turned away from where Rarity had collapsed after hitting the wall, her limbs folded in angles they shouldn't and body deformed by sharp angles.

The night was silent as if in mourning the loss of the unicorn who gave all of herself.

Author's Note

Uhhhhhhh. I can explain. Just give me another chapter. Then we should be done with the regularly scheduled rewrite and the introduction part of the Nightmare Arc. Yes, the Nightmare Arc goes beyond the first 2 episodes and it will be harder for me to plot out sequences. I'll have to make lots of Red Slippers for episodes I want to remain canon but don't want to rewrite (Read, can't figure out how to make it work and just lazy). Sorry for the lack of a song, I wanted to be original but I suck at writing songs. Also a major thing here that I want to get out of the way. Excuse me while I get out my J.R.R. Tolkien cosplay;

This is a work of FICTION set in a FICTIONAL WORLD, meant for FUN and ENJOYMENT. There IS NO allegory, or purposeful parallels to current events, political factions, groups or ideologies. This work does NOT reflect the author's ideals, religion, beliefs, or worldview. Advice given by characters are specific to the situation and are given by flawed characters written by a flawed human being. Any attempts at drawing parallels between the story and real world will result in Pinkie kidnapping you and… well… ever heard of cupcakes? (I can't stop her, and she would rather not do it, but she is adamant about this).

TL;DR, This is a work of fiction not meant to have deep meaning or lessons, so don't take anything too seriously. Seriously. This is me being serious. Thank you. Please comment and enjoy. Let me know if you guys actually read this far....
And don't forget to ask a character a question, no character is off the table. Even dead ones.

1.4 All I Need's Right Here

Chapter 4, All I Need's Right Here

The silence was broken by a low moan. Twilight’s head snapped up trying to find the source of the noise, ready to call upon the emergency supply of magic.

Pop! Her ears flicked towards the sound. She saw bewilderment and surprise on the faces of her companions.

Snapping, crunching, and popping started to come faster, filling the ruins with their sick wet and dry sounds. Twilight turned her head to the sound, horror filling her mind at what she saw, finally overcoming the calculator.

“Ow,” the body of Rarity groaned as its limbs twitched, realigning themselves. Her barrel was becoming rounder as her ribs reconnected. With a final wet crunch its jaw snapped back into place, and was tested with a few movements while tendons and muscles wriggled under the skin reattaching themselves.

Fluttershy fainted.

“Wait a moment, darlings,” it called, “I'll be over shortly, I just have to-” A loud snap signaled the lower back straightening, the thing let out a sigh of relief. “Oh I always hate that part.” It stood up and started to trot over to the group.

“HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!” Twilight yelled, her horn encased in a dark pink glow. “What, in Celestia's Holy Mane, are you. And how do we know you aren't working for Nightmare Moon?”

“I'm Rarity, of course,” it stopped in shock, “I've always been Rarity. You have to trust me, it's too long of a story to tell you all right now. But I'm not on Nightmare Moon's side.”

Applejack took a step forward. Conflicted written clearly on her face. “My logical side says not to trust anything that gets up once dead, but my other half says that I can trust you. I'm going to hope that it's right that you are telling the truth, but once we get done with this you are going to tell us everything.”

Twilight released her hold on her magic letting the energy for the spooled up spell slide back into her soul. Around her she heard a few sighs of relief. Rarity relaxed and looked at the collapsed Fluttershy.

“So now what?” she asked, spotting the gaged and bound prisoner.

“I'm hungry and tired,” Rainbow Dash announced. “Pinkie, you wouldn't happen to have any food left over would you? I know you swiped some from the celebration. That tussle took a lot out of me.”

“Okey dokie! Here you go,” Pinkie hooved Dash a cupcake “it's red velvet with a chocolate icing and surprise filling! One of my personal recipes.” Dash ate it in a few gulps.

Twilight approached the bound stallion who was watching everything with a look of disgust. “Who are you and why did you attack us?” she demanded ripping off the gag.

“I answer to no one but my Mistress,” he spat, Twilight dodged the red glob.

“I say we continue on to the castle itself,” Applejack said from where she was inspecting Fluttershy, “once Fluttershy wakes up again and we explain Rarity to her.” she shot a glare at Rarity.

“Well excuse me for being thrown into a wall,” Rarity replied, tossing her mane, “What ever happened to the sad excuse for a stallion I was flinging?”

It didn't take long for Fluttershy to wake up after Applejack positioned her on her back and held her legs in the air. It took a significant bit longer to convince her that yes, it was Rarity, no, she wasn't going to eat their soul, at least they hoped, and yes, they would get the full story later.

After some deliberation and a few more loogie dodges, they decided that they weren't going to get any useful information from the captive ‘bolt. Applejack proceeded to carefully choke him into unconsciousness, pointing out that it was safer than konking him on the head.

That settled the intrepid group approached the Castle being a little closer as a group.

The keep of the castle still stood in relatively good condition. Most of the wood had rotted away leaving no ceiling or wood supports for some walls, though a surprising amount of the castle was made of stones that Pinkey identified as granite, basalt and andesite. These were all igneous rocks that were hard and unlikely to weather unless cracked by physical means. Twilight and Fluttershy discussed how the ravine might have helped slow the spread of vegetation and animals into the castle. Though Fluttershy pointed out that there should be more trees and shrubs from bird droppings than were being seen. Pinkie suggested that the castle might have very shallow bedrock which might make it hard for deep rooted trees to take hold. Applejack pointed out that there should be more creepers.

The group decided that there was something magical when they entered the grand hall to find tapestries in good condition hanging on the wall. Rarity pointed out that in a place like the Everfree no cloth preservation spell would last a thousand years.

A brief discussion prevented them from splitting up to search. Rarity tried her gem finding spell that she claimed was her specialty but ended up with a headache.

“There's some sort of magical feedback going on in here,” Twilight concluded. “We'll have to find the elements manually.”

“My only use, down the drain.” Rarity pouted.

“Aw, that's not true.” Dash countered. “You got us past the sea serpent. I would have tried to fight him like I did the manticore.”

They turned and exited the main hall into one of the left side passages.

“They might have a special room where they were displayed," Twilight said, glancing around at the armory they had walked into, “or they could be in the vaults, wherever those are.”

“Hey check it!” Rainbow grabbed a helmet from a rack, “These babies are in the same colors as the Wonderbolts! And in such good condition too!” She turned it over in her hooves admiring the hammered and painted metal. It looked to be molded to the pony it was made for with a slot in the back to let the mane streak out. A bottom piece was attached by a strap to protect the ponies jaw in battle.

“Well the Wonderbolts do have a long and rich history of being the special air guard for the Princess. It was only recently that they moved to performing airshows and stunts as a way to fund themselves and maintain condition between action.” Twilight responded looking at Rarity who was pondering a plain white cotton suit. “Everything in here must be spelled by the elder sister.”

“We should grab a few of these, just in case Nightmare Moon has more goons." She quickly slipped the helmet on and fastened the straps before anyone else could stop her. “Whoa this stuff is super light!”

Then the rattling started.

⚡︎ ⚡︎ ⚡︎

The inside of the helmet lit up red.

“What's going on!” Dash yelled in panic, starting to scrabble at the straps holding it on her. “It's red in here!”

She dimly heard shouts of confusion from outside the helmet as an old ponish script appeared in her vision.

Improper attachment of helmet.

Please standby for suiting up.
Charge at 9% please charge armor.
What?

Rainbow yelped as something wrapped around her entirely, it felt fuzzy and weird as it slid over her and up her neck sliding under the helmet but stopped before it reached her face. “I'm being swallowed!” Rainbow yelped and started flailing.

“Calm yourself Dash!” she heard Applejack yell.

Please remain still for procedure, the script appeared again.

Something wrapped around her barrel, a few more around the base of her wings and top of her legs. “AHHHHH!” she screamed

“RAINBOW MERRIAM DASH!” Futtershy yelled. “Stop flailing! You are sending parts all over the room!”

She stopped. Fluttershy would be the last pony to be calm in this situation. And she used Dash's middle name. Rainbow Dash stopped flailing and immediately heard clangs as other things started to attach themselves to her.

Almost as soon as it started it stopped. Silence fell on the armory as Dash heard herself panting in the very snug helmet. Why were the eye holes so small? The text appeared again.

Suiting up completely.

Charge at %12 starting in low power mode.

At once the eyeholes became larger and Rainbow could see the room again.

“What. What happened?” she asked looking around at the room. It looked like a tornado had gone through the place.

“You got an upgrade Dashie!” Pinkie pronked over to Dash and rapped a hoof on the armor that now covered her from head to toe.

“I don't think we will be doing that, darling.” Rarity observed as dash started to try out her mobility. “These are all pegasus armors and I don't think Fluttershy is too keen to go through that for some extra safety.”

“I would rather not,” Fluttershy murmured.

“If Nightmare Moon didn't know we were here, I think she does now,” Twilight looked out the door into the next room, “let's keep moving.”

The next room was what looked like a small barracks. It led to a hall lined with sconces long gone out. It must have been meant for servants to move around unobserved as it connected to the kitchens, a dining hall and a few other barracks. It eventually ended in a large room that might have been a meeting room for its once lavish decorations and ruins of stained glass windows portraying long lost heroes of a forgotten realm.

Columns ringed the room reaching high to support arches of stone no longer holding a roof, letting the moon shine through to illuminate an ornate statue at one end of the room. It appeared to be a series of concentric circles, a pattern that could repeat indefinitely. Each circle had a stone sphere with a symbol carved on its surface. In the center was a stone plate that might have held something in the long past but now was bare.

“That must be it!” Twilight pointed, “The elements must be in the statue.”

ϙ ϙ ϙ

For her part Pinkey loved puzzles. The fun kind where you could spend hours coming up with many possible solutions, then once you turned your head just right and squinted before counting to 30 using the fillynochie sequence, you learned the answer. She spent hours between shifts and parties fiddling with the wooden ones where the pieces had to be put together in the right sequence. She had long ago figured out the apple, filly, timberwolf river puzzle. And this screamed puzzle to her.

“PUZZLE!” she gasped for effect before zooming over to the statue. A series of five rings around a center podium. It reminded her of a hibiscus flower, five petals around one pistil, but that wasn't right, this wasn't hibiscus land. It could be five seasons, but that was silly, there were only four.

Looking closer revealed that the orbs could come out. Maybe they were in the wrong order. Alphabetically was out of the question, these only had symbols on them. A sword, a scale, jesters cap, a flower, and a potato. “A potato?” Pinkie leaned back. “That can't be right.”

“What do you mean?” Twilight joined her at the statue.

“That!” Pinkey pointed at the statue, “Potatoes weren't in equestria until 300 years ago when they were brought over from Batstralia in 687 of the Third Era!”

“That's not a potato, Pinkie,” Twilight responded. “The symbol has been chipped off.” She lifted the sphere out of its socket, turning it over in her hooves.

Hmmmm, Pinkie thought, five orbs with five symbols, each could be connected to an idea or ideal. Six elements that are ideals for friendship, but one is missing so we only have five. I wonder. “Are these the elements?” she asked.

Twilight looked at her, “They could be,” she replied. “The book mentioned that the sixth would appear when the others are united by a spark,” she grabbed the five spheres in her magic and set them in a circle on the floor of the room before walking into the middle of them. Pinkie and the others watched as magic coalesced on her horn letting out small arcs of lightning and sparks.

Pinkie felt her left eye twitch. Oh no. Right back knee itched. Floppy ears…

“Big Baddie incoming!” She screeched and dived at Twilight as high above dark blue mist swirled and coalesced. Pinkie managed to barrel into Twilight in time, sending them out of the circle of floating elements as a black form slammed into the floor sending cracks spidering out into the polished granite blocks.

Pinkie found herself squashed between a wall and Twilight with a “Eep!” squeezed out.

“Thank you for locating the Elements of Harmony for me.” Nightmare Moon sneered at the group. “And for that I will give you a prize. Your Death!” She launched a beam towards where the other four had been standing. Rainbow grabbed Fluttershy and launched straight up while Applejack and Rarity dived in opposite directions. Nightmare Moon must have decided that two birds were a better target as she followed Dash and Fluttershy with the beam, scorching and digging into the stone walls as it passed by.

“The spark didn't work.” Twilight slumped dejected.

“Maybe it was the wrong kind of spark?” Pinkie gave Twilight a quick hug while eyeing the still floating spheres.

“I tried Static’s Statistical Spark, I tried Grounded Wire's Jump Start, I even tried targeting them with Elmo's Greater Lightning Ball,” Twilight listed, “but nothing happened. I’m a failure." Her face drooped into a flat lifeless expression that made Pinkie's heart twinge, her eyes stared past Pinkie.

Twitchy tail. Pinkie yanked Twilight to the side as an arch fell, cut in twain by Nightmare Moon's beam. Rainbow Dash must have yelled out an insult as Nightmare Moon had increased the width of her beam and was screaming something in old ponish. Applejack was sneaking closer from the right while Rarity was tossing small stones at the alicorn and screaming her own insults about the design of her armor.

“You're not a failure!” Pinkie grabbed the droopy unicorn, “You saw the signs of Black Snootie's return and took initiative. You've provided the spells to get us here." She set Twilight behind the fallen arch and handed her a cupcake from her hair. “I know you are tired from magic expenditure, Twi, so eat this cupcake and cheer up, let your friends and Aunt Pinkie deal with Black Snootie.”

Twilight took the cupcake, her eyes finding Pinkie again, “Friends?”

“What else would we be, silly?” Pinkie hopped over the arch to join in the fight.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight sat there for several seconds while the sounds of battle raged behind her. Something exploded and rained small rocks everywhere. A yelp of surprise that sounded like Fluttershy was followed by the sound of metal impacting flesh and cursing from an upset alicorn. She removed the cupcake and took a bite, a soft snort.

“At least I didn't fail at something,” She muttered, “I wish Spike was here right now. Dear Princess Celestia, I don't know where you are right now, but I followed your instructions to the letter.

“I managed to make sure the preparations were ready for the celebration, but that got ruined by the return of Nightmare Moon. I wish I could say ‘I told you so’ but that isn't very nice to say to a Princess and the Steward that you follow,” Twilight took another bite and swallowed.

“Eww, what is that! Get it out of my mane you ungrateful foals!” she heard Nightmare moon yell, followed by a loud thunk and snap of bones that Twilight hoped was Rarity.

Twilight continued her dictation; “Anyways, I dashed off into the nearby source of danger, the Everfree Forest, last domain of Pan, at least that's what Fluttershy says, I'll have to ask her more about him later. She is his follower and is very shy, except around animals, then she gets brave, she even saved us from a disgruntled mantacore with kindness… wait.” Twilight paused, the rational side of her brain pumped its hooves and started tossing coal into the burner.

“I got it!” Twilight leaped to her hooves. “Pinkie! You're a genius!”

Pinky stopped and looked at Twilight from where she was sitting on Nightmare Moon's back with a bottle of pain remover and towel. “Well yeah! If I remove her marks, she can't control the moon and Celestia comes back, duh.”

The entire battle stopped as Nightmare Moon twisted her head to look at Pinkie Pie, “What?” resounded around the room that Twilight noticed was missing a few sections of walls.

“ENOUGH!” Nightmare Moon roared, a blue glow encasing all the ponies lifting them into the air. She shook Rainbow Dash hard enough to send everything but the cotton undergarment flying off. “I have had enough of your antics and shenanigans, you only delay the inevitable," she stomped her hoof, the floating elements dropped to the floor and shattered. “There, your precious Elements of Harmony are destroyed and are no more.”

“No,” Twilight responded, logic was now turning cogs and gears at a fast pace, adding numbers, scratching tally marks. “You can't destroy the Elements,” logic spat out a fact sheet. “The Elements aren't constrained to stones.” she twisted in the levitation spell to look at her friends. Friends, the thought sent warmth through her. “Fluttershy despite being timid showed kindness to a fierce beast and helped it. She represents the Element of Kindness.”

A pink glow surrounded some of the shards levitating and flying towards Fluttershy. She ‘eeped’ as they seemed to dive at her. A bright flash appeared and she was wearing a gold necklace that held a pink gem in the shape of a butterfly exactly like her cutie mark.

Twilight didn't let Nightmare Moon get a word in edgewise, if she did something now it was all over. “Applejack, who was honest with me when I was in danger, and was brave enough to admit that she was a little silly represents the Element of Honesty!” This time an orange glow surrounded stone shards and shot at Applejack creating a bright flash and another gold necklace this time with an orange apple gem. A confused look spread across Applejack's face.

“But ah-” she started.

“Surely you can't be serious!” Nightmare Moon interrupted.

“She is serious,” Pinkie giggled upside down, “and don't call her Shirley!”

Twilight continued; “Pinkie Pie who showed us that laughing together makes everything better and has cared about us is the Element of Laughter!” A light blue glow, a flash and now Pinkie was wearing a gold necklace with a light blue balloon on it.

“Woooo, pretty,” Pinkie looked at her new jewelry.

“Rarity,” Twilight regained focus, “gave her tail to someone that she saw needed it more than she did, and gave her all when she saw her friends in danger. She represents the Element of Generosity.” Rarity's necklace was a deep purple diamond. “And finally, Rainbow Dash, who put her friends before her greatest dream, and was the first to jump to battle at the first sign of danger represents the Element of Loyalty!” A red lightning bolt was on Dash's necklace.

“But that is only five elements,” Nightmare Moon laughed, floating Twilight up to her face. “You lack the sixth, and without it they are all useless.”

“Erm, actually,” Twilight stopped her, “the six elements will appear when the other five are united by a spark. And if my calculations are correct, and they usually are, that spark is the spark of friendship. I am proud to call these mares my friends!” Twilight felt something stir deep inside her, so deep it felt like her very soul was expanding, her magic welling up as her vision became bright. Some sort of light was shining on Nightmare Moon's face. Is light coming out of my eyeballs? Twilight thought. “I represent the sixth element, the Element of Magic, because," Something tugged her out of Nightmare Moon's hold back to her friends, “Friendship,” she felt like her soul connected to something else, and she became aware of five others though she was looking at Nightmare Moon. “IS MAGIC!” Twilight lost consciousness.

♢ ♢ ♢

Rarity came to muzzle down on a cracked and debris filled floor. “Oooooh,” she moaned, “my head.” A quick inspection revealed that she was fine, any injuries healed while she had been out. In fact her fur and skin looked better than it had in years. Around her came the groanings and sounds of movement as her new friends stirred from their slumber as well.

“Wow!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed from her left, “I feel awesome! I mean I am always awesome but this is like twenty percent more!”

“Rarity!” Fluttershy gasped from behind her, “your tail is back!”

Rarity turned to find that indeed, her beloved tail was once again long and luxurious, shimmering in the pale light. She looked back at the others, the bruises that had been accrued by fighting Nightmare Moon had been erased.

“I guess the Elements restored us to what we were, or how we are supposed to be,” Twilight said looking up from inspecting a golden tiara inset with a dark pink six pointed star. It looked like she wanted to say more but a bright light shined through the new gap in the wall. The sun had finally risen over Equestria.

Rarity didn't need to shield her eyes like the others, so she saw a bright orb land on the floor and dissipate leaving behind Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria and Steward of the Day, standing in their midst. Rarity let out a gasp and threw herself into a bow suddenly fearful. Was this it? Had Celestia finally taken notice of the evil that she was and had come to deal with Rarity herself? What would happen to Sweetie Bell?

“Princess Celestia!” she heard Twilight say, “You are okay!”

A soft chuckle answered, “Indeed I am, thanks to all of you, you may rise my little ponies.”

Rarity dared to look up from her bow, surely this was the end. Instead of a rushing sunflare, she was greeted with a smile that seemed thankful and a little sad at the same time. Did she know?

Celestia looked back at Twilight and continued as if nothing happened. “There are two ponies here that I must extend deepest apologies to. In my two thousand years of existence, I have learned the hard way that it is important to stop and apologize for hurt before you can not anymore." She paused before sitting down and offering her hoof to Twilight. “I am sorry for pretending to ignore your findings and seeming uncaring, I can offer excuses such as ‘I had a plan’ or ‘it had to be done for the good of Equestria’ but the truth is that I manipulated you using my position and your good will towards me. Can you forgive me Twilight?”

A silence fell over the room, as Twilight sat completely still, mouth hanging open, Rarity and the others shocked that they were hearing the Princess apologize in person. Celestia herself still as if one motion would startle Twilight into bolting.

“I… don't know.” Twilight finally said. “I am a little hurt that you wouldn't trust me to know everything, even though I understand that I wouldn't have done everything properly had I known, and I still don't know all of the facts. But you have asked for forgiveness, and you always taught me that forgiveness is what makes ponies so strong.” She held up a hoof, “I just need a little time and a few more facts about the whole situation.”

“Very well then,” Celestia stood up, “We will talk more once we arrive back in Ponyville, however, there is someone else that I must apologize to.” Rarity’s breath hitched, was it her? Then Celestia turned and headed towards the far wall of the room. There Rarity could see a dent where something had been forcefully thrown against it. Below it surrounded by light blue armor pieces laid a blue alicorn with light blue hair draped around her, very unlike the ethereal main that drifted behind Celestia.

“Wake up dear sister, we have much to talk about.”

“SISTER?” Twilight squawked, “waiwaiwaiwait, YOU, were the elder sister?”

“Indeed, Twilight,” Celestia looked back at her, “and now you can see why I have much to apologize for today, despite a thousand years of planning coming to fruition.” The blue alicorn opened her eyes with a soft gasp and was promptly grabbed into a hug by Celestia murmuring something while softly glittering tears streamed down her muzzle.

“Sister!” the smaller alicorn squeaked, “I can not breathe!” Celestia’s grip loosened somewhat.

“Oh, Luna, I am so, so sorry, please forgive me.”

“Sister? What happened?” Luna demanded, trying to push away from Celestia, “Has thou raided my cookie stash again? And how did you get so big?”

This set off an even harsher wave of tears and sobbing. “Do, do you not remember Luna? Your jealousy of the ponies preference of my day? The Nightmare? The war? The thousand years on the, on the, mooohuohuoon…” Celestia trailed off into a high wail as her voice hitched on a sob.

“Verily?” Luna looked unimpressed at the display of emotion this regal alicorn was showing. “Sister, you are rubbing snot into my mane. And in front of the peasantry too.” She turned to the ponies who were having problems rectifying what they were seeing. “Forgive her, she has difficulty controlling her emotions. WOULD YOU PLEASE REGAIN CONTROL OF YOUR EMOTIONS, THERE ARE OTHERS PRESENT!” she screamed the last bit at Celestia.

“sniff. It's been a thousand years, Luna, a lot of things have happened,” Celestia regained a bit of composure, her horn briefly flashed and the snot and tears disappeared, “these ponies are the ones that deserve both your and my thanks. They are heroes and have saved Equestria from both your and my mistakes that we made a thousand years ago.”

“Truely?” Luna looked at her sister. “A thousand years?” a troubled look crossed her face, “Then Dough Friar is dead, this is truly something to be sad about.”

A small smile appeared on Celestia's face. “Fear not, his descendants live on and continue his legacy, though now we have to share their talents with the ponies of the lands.” her voice lowered, “And they now make them with even more varieties."

“Surely, you jest.”

“Nuh uh!” Pinky popped up between the two, “She's serious, and I would have thought you would have known her name's not Surely.” Luna was treated to a quick hug before Pinky disappeared again.

“If that is settled,” Celestia looked around at the group, “I suggest we return to Ponyville before this place crashes down around us.” A yellow glow encased them all before flaring. Upon opening her eyes, Rarity found that they were all seated in the Ponyville library.

“I must say, sister, your taste in decor has gone downhill in the last thousand years if this is where you reside.” Luna remarked looking around the library.

Celestia chuckled, “no, dear sister, this is the Ponyville library. I reside in a castle in Canterlot.”

“Verily? Twas but a small mining town obtaining gems for wizards at last I knew.”

“Yes, it has grown since then.” Celestia sat on a reading cushion, “But I believe that I must ‘spill the beans’ as some say these days, and explain everything that happened.”

“If I may, Your Highness,” Rarity spoke up, “that phrase is a little old and has fallen out of favor.” Celestia sighed and Rarity continued, “and I promised that I would give my friends an explanation for some… things that happened during our journey through the Everfree forest.”

“Very well, it seems that we will have two stories, then.” Celestia blinked as Pinkie pronked in through the door, a stack of brown parcels perched on her back.

“I brought refreshments!” she announced, slamming the stack on the ground, “You can't have a traumatic story without some nice herbal tea to calm down, and I figured that it would be a good idea to introduce Princess Luna to the new culinary delights while we are at it. You are a princess, right?” she directed the last question at Luna who was trying to get comfortable on a star embroidered pillow.

“Yes, once we are back in Canterlot, I will give her back her stewardship and reinstate the diarchy.” Celestia accepted an offered cup of tea and selected a strawberry doughnut from the opened box.

Rarity was sure that if she could sweat, she would be sitting in a puddle. She was so anxious, how would her friends react to what she had done? Forget them, how would the princess? Oh she could hardly bear it.

Author's Note

Character Q&A:
SpikeSmolder fan asked Rarity: "Where you even expecting this when you went into the forest with the girls?"
Answer: "Well no, darling, I wasn't expecting this at all. I honestly couldn't tell you what I was expecting. Losing a tail, being smashed against a wall and then becoming a bearer of an Element of Harmony and regaining my tail, weren't what I thought was in the cards for our trip."
Thanks for asking! Please ask any character a question in the coments and it will get answered here.
Anyways that's a wrap on the introduction/set up. Now I can get into the world building and story that had no previously set structure for me to piggy back off of. Who's excited to learn some secrets? Last call for theories about Rarity. Also, before anyone asks, I 100% believe that had she gone through with it, Pinkie's plan would have worked. Also the armor Dash picked up and lost was a complete accident, I didn't have any plans for it, but if you want me to use it or something, give me some ideas in the comments. According to Google docs I’ve now passed the 20k mark of total words written for this including author notes and description, soo about 18k works for the story i guess. Which means, one more chapter should pass my first fanfic length of 20k. That thing will never see the light of day. Eugh. (Don't judge. I was 12 when I started it and 14 when I finished.)

Anyways. I don't like character trauma when reading a story, but you have to add spice as a writer so…

Toot Toot! All aboard the trauma train!

1.5 Share With Me

Chapter 5 Share with Me

Twilight relaxed on her own cushion, finally ready to get some answers. She wanted to write this down, but wasn't sure if she was allowed, something in her said that wouldn't be polite.

Clestia cleared her throat and began

𖤓 𖤓 𖤓

It was a thousand years ago, you must understand, though for you Luna, it was yesterday, and the world was viewed very differently. Equestria was more wild back then, monsters roamed in the night, villains appeared and wrecked chaos every now and then. As such not much had changed in a long time, my sister and I had finally gained control of Equestria for a period of time longer than fifty years for the first time.

But ponies were still afraid of the dark, and would rise and sleep with my sun. Luna had adopted a nocturnal habit so she could catch monsters at their most active. She was always the more warlike of the us two.

☾ ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾

“Pft, it's not like you didn't wipe out an army all by yourself without magic because you were fed up with how the minotaurs wouldn't stop raiding settlements.” Luna scoffed before biting down on a randomly chosen doughnut. She froze for a second before inhaling the entire thing. “HUZZAH! Dough Friar's legacy lives on! I can see why you grew as big as thou has, Tia,” she poked her sister in the stomach, giggling. “You didn't want to appear disproportionate.”

“Hush, I am the proper size for a full grown alicorn, you still have some growing to do,” Celestia chided Luna before continuing.

𖤓 𖤓 𖤓

As such, despite providing a surface of safety and raising the moon to give the ponies a proper time to relax and be safe, my sister fell out of favor and public eye or knowledge, I know not which, as I was busy trying to run the new Equestrian kingdom. I am ashamed to admit it, I was relatively new to the whole thing. Our tutors had long since died during the Discordian era which disrupted the first Equestria, and their teachings were more relevant for a small-scale government.

I threw myself into my work and found that I was getting better at it, ponies started to love me for being the princess not just providing light for their crops. I led the armies in the day to unite the states that had split off during Discord's previous reign. The only failure was 25 years previous when the final section, Old Equestria, disappeared from the map.

As time wore on I was so focused on work that I failed to notice that my dear sister Luna was falling into my shadow and couldn't get out. I for my part thought that I was helping and ignored the issues while trying to put on a brave face for her. That was my mistake, and Equestria paid the price.

In a desperate bid for attention Luna made a deal with something, I know not what, and with it removing itself from her memories I doubt we shall ever know. The thing merged with her and corrupted her even farther creating the being, Nightmare Moon.

I realized what had happened all too late, she fled the castle to some remote area. When she returned 5 years later, she had raised an army of such ponies I'd never seen before. Thestrals, niriks, dragon born, and shades lined her ranks. All created for one purpose, to crush Equestria into submission, kill me and cast the world into eternal night.

She almost succeeded too. The Equestrian army was skilled and led by my champions, but they were no match for the sheer numbers Nightmare Moon had. After two long years they pushed all the way to the Castle of the Two Sisters. I realized that there was only one thing I could do at that point. I had to abuse the power of the Elements of Harmony.

You see, the Elements require multiple beings to wield them properly, and even then require a proper connection to the being's souls. I don't know the exact details as our mother made them to help us overcome Discord.

I meant to use them to separate the Nightmare from my sister but things went horribly wrong. Despite ambushing her army and surrounding them, she pulled a nasty trick and raised the moon over top of the sun, casting the world in shadow. Empowered by the false night, her troops were stronger and wiped out all but one of my champions. Ignoring my army, I pushed ahead and confronted her head on. In the chaos, with my power drained from direct connection with the sun, I misfired the elements.

Instead of separating the two, or purifying as I meant to, they banished her to the moon. In a last second attempt of spite, Nightmare Moon used as much power as she could to chain the moon in front of the sun. My last champion sacrificed himself to return a bit of my power to me. I was in the end able to move the moon and I have ever since.

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight watched as Celstia ran a hoof through her mane. “That was when my mane gained the blues and greens.” she paused to look at Luna, “I have been waiting since then for the day I can hand your domain back to you. I haven't the control that you once displayed. Can you forgive me for it? The pain that I have caused you, all of you?”

“Yes,” Twilight and Luna responded at the same time, Luna throwing herself into a hug around her now way older sister. The look of relief on Celestia's face was visible to the room as she accepted the hug.

“Wait,” Applejack said, “you mean that there was a whole war a thousand years ago, with niriks and thestrals and what not. Where did they go and why isn't this taught in schools?”

“Well,” Celestia leaned back from the hug, “Once the defeat of Nightmare Moon happened, the thestrals fled, as did the niriks. I was unable to track them down. As for the history, I had a thousand years to plan for my sister's return, with enough backup plans in place, I wanted to remove as much about the war from history to start my sister with a blank slate when she returned. I was very successful in some regards and unsuccessful in others. Nightmare Night for example took over the harvest festival.”

“T’is a strange thing,” Luna observed, “I have no recollection of all this happening, I remember feeling unloved and betrayed that nopony enjoyed my night, and now I am here. You all speak of horrors and dark magic, but none are in my mind. Perhaps the Elements drove them out?"

“That is a possibility,” Twilight tapped her chin with a hoof, “It's too small of a sample size to be definitive. That is something to look at later. But now, I want to hear Rarity's story. How does a pony get thrown into a wall like that and walk away?”

Rarity felt the gaze of five ponies and two alicorns dig into her, trying to worm their way past her fragile disguise. “A lot going wrong and some accidental transfer of souls.” she responded, one white hoof rubbed at the other as she looked away, unable to meet any gaze.

“I would strike you down for your admittance that you manipulated souls, save that you wield the Element of Generosity and you saved my sister.” Rarity shivered at Celestia’s declaration and forced herself to meet the gaze. Steely judgement shone in the eyes fixed upon her. "Explain."

Taking a deep breath Rarity began her story.

♢ ♢ ♢

14 years ago

Rarity sat in the hospital waiting room nervously turning the object in her hooves over and over. The air was filled with a soft high pitch hum from the new fluorescent lights installed in the ceiling, the old candle sconces were still attached to the wall, now used to hang charts and hats. Rarity felt excited and yet nervous, only a few days before she had discovered her cutie mark and made the costumes for the school play. Now her mother was about to give birth to a foal.

Rarity hoped that it was filly, a filly would become a sister she could dress up and make dresses for. A filly would appreciate the finer things like tea and fancy hats. A colt would only track mud in the house and use the scrap cloth for something like a pirate cape or something. Well, maybe if it was a colt, that would be fine too. She could teach him to be a gentlecolt, make him jackets and coats, make him a monocle, all gentlecolts had monocles right?

A scream of pain, muffled by the wall reached her ears. They flattened in response, it sounded awful. “It will be here soon,” she murmured as she continued to turn the gem over in her hooves. It was purple with hints of pink, something told her it was an amethyst. It would be perfect to give to her new sister, or brother, of course she wasn't going to just hand it to the baby as it was. The gem had a purpose, an inner beauty that Rarity need to make come out, by cutting and using it in something.

Another scream, this one joined by a faint softer crying. Rarity perked up at the sound, trying to figure out if it was a filly or colt. The door opened and a nurse galloped out and down the hall not even noticing the young filly sitting by the door. Cautiously Rarity edged off the seat, something was wrong, that much was obvious to her, but she didn't know what. The door hadn't fully closed and she could smell some weird smells as well, the coppery tang of blood was recognizable but the other ones weren't familiar. A soft crying seeped through the ajar door as she creeped closer.

The nurse returned at top speed holding something on her back, she scrabbled her hooves against the tile floor as she almost slid past the door she had come from.

“RED HEART! Don't break it!” a voice greeted the nurse as she entered the room, “We just got that!”

Rarity looked inside the door but was immediately usured out by her who was leaving, his brow creased with worry. The large stallion scooped his little filly, his little Rarity into a hug.

“What's wrong?” Rarity had a thousand questions, all of them about the new foal. “Is it a filly or colt? Have you named them? Can I see?”

Her father stroked her mane with a large hoof. “She’s a filly, so beautiful, so sweet…” he took a breath, “The doctor said there is something wrong with her heart. It's not beating right. They are going to do the best they can to fix it, but they are unsure if they can.”

Rarity looked down at the crystal she held, her sister needed a better heart? She could make one.

Two days later.

Rarity gazed down at the snow white filly sleeping in the crib, wires and needles stuck out from the poor thing. Nearby an enchanted crystal was beeping softly. Though she knew that the point was to keep her sister alive, Rarity thought they looked, what was the word, she had just read it the other day in her mother's magazine… Garish, that was- no, garish meant there were too many bright colors or something. What was that word? Gastly! That was it. Linguistic endeavors complete, she looked to the crystal that she held in her hooves.

Over the last two days she had researched what she could about hearts and had carefully shaped the crystal into one. To her surprise, hearts weren't shaped like hearts and didn't have anything to do with love. So instead of a symmetrical symbol, the crystal she held looked sort of like a lumpy and lopsided strawberry with tubes stuck in the top. At least the card ologist who had seen her bring it in recognized it. What was a gambler doing working in a hospital?

As she has carefully cut the crystal with a cutting spell, Rarity had found that the amethyst had more pink in it than she realized, amethyst also changed, what was it, diaphaneity, it changed diaphaneity from a transparent purple on one side to a translucent pink on the other.

“Here,” she whispered to her sister, who had been named Sweetie Belle, “I made you a new heart. Please get better.”

The tiny filly shifted in her sleep, letting out a whimper of pain as one of the needles dug in a little. A tiny hoof bumped the offered heart and retracted from the cold.

“Please take it” Rarity whispered, she didn't know when someone would notice her, “You need it.”

Sweetie shifted again, another whimper as a tube became taunt.

“You need to get better” She whispered, “Mom's not eating and Dad doesn't know what to do. You can help them, please.”

Another shift. Then something happened, there was a pause in beeping from the monitoring crystal, then two rapid beeps.
Rarity stiffened. That was bad. “No.”
Then it happened again. Silence then two rapid beeps.

“No, no, no,” Rarity grabbed one of the tiny hooves, “No, don't, they need you, I need you.” The hoof felt cold. Rarity shoved the heart at Sweetie Belle. “Take it! Your heart is bad, you need a new one. I made you one!” Rarity started to ramble. Trying to wrap her sister's forelegs around the crystal. Dimly she heard the silences get longer, and the beeps closer, somewhere in the hospital there was a shout of alarm.

“Don't go!” Rarity grabbed at her sister, “What's wrong?” Then the beeps stopped. “Nonononono!” In her panic Rarity fell into the crib, coming in full contact with the body of her sister.

Last week the substitute teacher at the school had gone over spirits and souls. She had explained that there were three parts to a pony, each interwoven and irreplaceable, if removed then the pony would die. Maybe not immediately but eventually. The body, the spirit and the soul. The body was the physical part, the soul was shorthoof for life force and was where magic came from, and the spirit was the personality of the pony.

Rarity realized something as she lay in shock on top of tubes and a half limp sister.

“You don't have a soul,” she whispered in shock.

Rarity looked at the heart she had made as things started to line up in her mind. Fact one, crystals are magically conductive. Fact two, souls provided life force and magic. Fact three, her sister lacked a soul, either strong enough to fix her heart or wasn't born with one, or had just lost it. Fact four, Rarity had a soul.

“We can share.”

Touching her horn to the crystal heart, Rarity started to channel as much magic as she could through the horn. Elsewhere the shouts were getting louder and hoof beats got closer. If they got to her they would ruin everything! Desperate Rarity reached inside herself and poured even more of her magic into the crystal.

“Take it, take it, take it,” she repeated over and over, her eyes closed in concentration on what she could not see. With all her heart she wanted Sweetie Bell alive. Later she learned that when the doctors and nurses rushed in they could hardly see because of the light shining from the crib.

Deeper she reached, shoveling with all her might every scrap of magic she could find she shoved out of her horn to her sister.

“Save my sister,” she told it, “be her lifeforce.”

Until there was no more in her, she felt weak, but she couldn't hear any beeping. Was this it? All the magic she had and still nothing had changed? It wasn't fair! She scraped something hard within herself, like a giant crystal. In her mind's eye she found something large, crystalline, solid, and purple. And most importantly it was leaking magic. This was what her sister needed. But she needed to move it. How?

She tapped on it and she felt her whole self resonate with the tap. She tapped again, another vibration. “MOVE!” she yelled and threw herself against it.

It moved. Not much, but it moved. That was enough for Rarity. She grabbed the magic it was leaking, and heaved. It responded, and shifted in the direction she intended.

“You are going to Sweetie!” one final heave and she felt a profound emptiness appear as the object disappeared.

Beep…

Beep… beep… beep…

Yes, Rarity sighed in relief, she felt so tired. Just needed… to sleep, yes sleep. She had saved her sister and everything was right with the world…

Intern Red Heart opened her eyes as the brightness disappeared from the room. There was a brief silence, then the crystal started beeping. That wasn't right. They had gotten the alarm only 15 seconds ago that the heart beat was irregular, and then stopped. Cautiously she trotted towards the crib and looked down.

Inside there were two fillies. One was white with a rich purple mane and a faded trio of crystals for a cutie mark, the older sister. Questions of how she got in here unobserved were pushed to the back of her mind as she saw the other filly, tucked under the first. The IV and sensors were in the right places for the filly that had been here, Sweetie Belle, but that wasn't Sweetie Belle. Instead of the albino that had been, this filly had an ivory coat and her mane was divided into light purple and pink streaks.

Red Heart reached into the crib to remove the sister, Rarity, but froze when she grabbed the filly. Rarity was cold as ice and didn't have a heart beat. “Docter Stitch?” she called in horror, “Get in here!”

♢ ♢ ♢

Rarity opened her eyes, but there was nothing to see. Panic set in as she realized there was no floor, no up or down, There was nothing. It was so dark she couldn't see her muzzle. And cold, she felt so, so cold.

“Mom? Dad? Anypony? Heeeellp!” she called into the void but nothing answered. Was she dead? Was she destined to float in nothing forever? That was boring. Nothing to look at, nothing to do.

Slowly the absolute black started to turn to grey, there was still nothing, but now there was light coming from somewhere.

“Hello?” she called, the sound of her voice obtaining a soft echo as if in a large empty hall. Her hooves found a surface, though she still couldn't see it. The light got brighter, now coming from her left. The greys around her gained color as she turned to see what was casting the light. With nothing better to do, she started to walk towards it, somehow staying on the invisible path.

“Halt!” A voice thundered, “do not come closer, lest you be burned.”

Rarity stopped, one hoof raised. “But I'm cold.” she replied, glancing around to find the source of the voice. It sounded loud and imposing, but also warm like a mother who was warning her child away from something, inviting like a grandmother offering a warm cookie, yet distant like a person separated by a great gap.

“Be as that may, you can not come closer,” the voice responded. “Listen to what I say, child, dear Rarity.”

Rarity felt as if her very being rippled at the mention of her name.

“You have made a grave mistake, and yet the most noble of sacrifices. And now you are dead.”

“Dead?” Rarity squeaked. No wonder she was so cold. “Is this the Celestial Realm then? What about Sweetie Belle? Is she here?”

The voice chuckled. “No, you accomplished the task you set out to do. You managed to give your soul to her and heal her body, you gave her a new heart. That was your sacrifice. But also your mistake.”

“How can it be a mistake if it saved my sister?” Rarity demanded, her raised hoof coming down in a stomp.

“By giving your soul to her, you sacrificed yourself. Saving your parents from one blow by giving an even greater one,” the response came. “You may not realize it, but so many ponies were counting on you. Though I suppose that the very reason that they counted on you was the reason you gave yourself away.”

“Sure they will miss me, and I will miss them,” Rarity countered, her little mind racing for a justification for her actions. She had just meant to share the soul, not completely give it away. She hadn't thought that her parents would be heartbroken if they lost either of their daughters. “I'll see them later, I already made memories with them, now they get to make memories with Sweetie Belle.”

“You will understand in time,” the voice continued, “but for now I must send you back with something to allow you to fulfill your destiny.” A piece of light split off from the bright light and floated towards Rarity. “This is my blessing, it will keep you alive despite your lack of soul. It is nothing more than a bit of power, you will need it and it will protect you from physical harm. Though be warned, it can not stand the presence of darkness. If you stray too far it will return to me.”

The mote of light floated in front of Rarity, bobbing slightly on unseen currents. Slowly she reached up a hoof to touch it, feeling the warmth it radiated. As her hoof drew close it darted forward and impacted her in the chest. She gasped as warmth flooded her body.

“Go in peace, Rarity, fulfill your destiny, one day you will understand.” The invisible floor dissolved and Rarity tumbled downward away from the light, faster and faster she fell, then it was dark again.

♢ ♢ ♢

Rarity jolted out of the position she was in with a loud gasp.

“Ahh!” screams broke out around her as she looked at her surroundings. She found that she wasn't in her sister's room anymore, instead she was now sitting on a cold metal surface, in a room that was cold and had a strange amount of drawers on the walls. Around her ponies in green smocks and face masks were panicking, in the corner her parents were trembling, eyes wide with terror directed at her.

“What’s going on?” Rarity rubbed at her eyes with a yawn.

✶ ✶ ✶

“Wait, wait, wait.” Twilight waved a hoof. “You mean to tell us that you, just having got your cutie mark, carved a crystal heart for your sister. Gave her your soul and the heart when she died, then died yourself. Basically talked to who I can only assume is Faust herself. Who told you that you made a mistake and sent you back with her blessing to keep you alive until you fulfilled your destiny. Which, I can only assume, is being the bearer of the Element of Generosity?”

“Well, yes,” Rarity responded, “I had no clue what was going on at the time. But it seems that I made myself into a pseudo-holy-litch with no study or intention. It still baffles me how I managed.”

“Baffles? It is not supposed to be possible!” Twilight threw her hooves in the air. “Lichs take years of study and need at least nine sacrifices to transfer their souls into an inanimate object. Putting it in another pony is straight up impossible!"

Fluttershy and Pinkie both approached Rarity, drawing her into a hug from each side as Celestia shot a disapproving glare at Twilight.

“And how do you know this?” Celestia asked her student. “All the works on necromancy and resurrection of the dead are locked in the prohibited section that only I, and now Luna, are able to access.”

“Er… I might have snagged one or two when I was still learning teleportation. It turns out that teleportation wards are only useful when the caster is using teleportation spells with all the safeties on and a high degree of precision…” Twilight trailed off at the exasperated sigh of her mentor. “Um, I suppose we could say that Rarity was able to accomplish it because she was giving herself with no expectations.”

“Be as it may, darling,” Rarity interrupted, “I caused quite a stir suddenly waking up in a mortuary. I found out later I had been dead long enough that they were having my parents identify my body, which was when I awoke. After everything calmed down some tests were done, they were rather inconclusive. You see I am dead, but the blessing keeps me in a state of regeneration, hence my earlier meeting with a wall ending up not as expected. There also is the added conundrum that any injury that Sweetie incurs is transferred to me.”

“Does she know?” Fluttershy whispered.

“Not yet,” Rarity hung her head, “None of us know how to broach the subject. The doctors cleared her that day, she is in perfect health. Since then I’ve been trying to live up to what I learned that day, and convince myself that I really was worthy of what I gained.” She held up the necklace that had appeared on her neck earlier. “I guess I know now what she meant when she said that so many counted on me.” Her eyes glistened as she pondered it.

“If what you say is true, and you really did meet my, our, mother that day. Then I extend my sincerest apologies that you went through that.” Celestia turned her attention back to Rarity having silently berated her student long enough for reading forbidden knowledge. “However, it is getting late in the day, and the nobles must be out of their minds. Luna and I must return and see that order is established. But first there are two things that need to be dealt with.

“The first is the elements. While I trust all of you to not abuse the power within these. I doubt that leaving these scattered here would result in anything but pain. As such they should be kept hidden in Canterlot in a secret vault. Do not worry, distance nor physical barriers can fully separate a bearer or their element, they are connected to your very souls and spirits.”

“It makes sense to me.” Applejack responded by taking off her stetson and slipping off the necklace over her head. “What?” she asked as she noticed the room looking at her.

“They have clasps, darling,” Rarity pointedly reached up behind her neck and undid hers.

“You're a silly pony, Applejack," Pinkie hooved her necklace over to Celestia, “But don't worry, you could never be sillier than me!”

“Ah,” Applejack looked a little red, “It's uh, been ah while since I wore jewelry.”

The silence was punctuated by Rainbow Dash also slipping hers over her head as well. “Well, I've never worn any jewelry. Because this is the only necklace that is cool enough.” she proclaimed.

Once all of the elements were handed over to Celestia she conjured a box around them. “Now to the second matter,” Celestia turned to Twilight, “my faithful student, it has come to my attention that the amount that I can teach you in a book is drawing to a close. As such it is time for the self study portion of the program to start. The subject matter is yours to decide, though I might suggest that it be on the study of the magic of friendship.” she leaned close to Twilight and conspirally whispered, “It’s a subject not even Starswirl the Bearded could figure out, and you already have an upper hoof.”

Twilight was shocked. In the span of 48 hours she had gone from being practically friendless, to starting her graduate program, and having friends. “Where will I live?” she asked as her mind finally caught up everything that Celestia meant.

“I will have to talk with the lovely mayor of the town, but I hear that the last librarian moved on and there is a vacancy.”

Graduated, working on a self-study, with friends, AND librarian? This was too much.

“Twilight?” Spike asked from the top of the stairs, “What’s going on? Why is Princess Celestia here and why is there another alicorn?”

Celestia winked at Twilight, “I'll let you explain, also, don't forget to send me updates on your progress whenever you learn something!” With that a golden glow flashed from her horn. Once it disappeared Celestia, Luna, and the elements were gone.

“Well,” Applejack stood and replaced her stetson, “Ah need to make sure the farm is okay and let mah family know what happened.”

Fluttershy was next for the door. “I need to check on my animals, they were so scared when the sun didn't come up. I'll, uh, see you around. Please stop by at some point, Spike, I would love to take a look at any loose scales you have.” She disappeared before Spike could respond.

Rainbow, and Pinkie excused themselves as well, one with concerns about the weather, the other wanting to start preparations for a ‘We-saved-the-world/welcome-back-Princess-Luna’ party, leaving Rarity, Twilight and Spike in the Library. Twilight walked over to Rarity as Spike left to start cooking something for brunch.

“I'm sorry about what happened earlier,” she began, “I was a little freaked out, what with everything that's been going on.”

“I forgive you, darling,” Rarity replied, “looking back it was a mistake and it has made life a lot more complicated, last night is evidence of that. But you know what?” she turned and looked at Twilight with a soft smile, “I am never sorry I did it. Every time that I see her smile, or do something, even if it is burning down the kitchen, every moment we spend together, I know that I helped make that possible, I got a gift even better than the one I gave. I am her sister and I wouldn't change it for the world.” She turned towards the kitchen. “I know that you feel the same way.”

“My situation's a little different, but yes, I know what you mean.” Twilight responded as wonderful smells wafted from the room. “Want to stay for brunch? I know we just had some tea and doughnuts, but Spike makes some mean pancakes.”

“But of course, darling, one of the few benefits of my condition is that food doesn't really do anything to my figure.”

The two friends walked towards the kitchen with the promise of pancakes, trouble was far from their minds, and no secrets held between the two.

Author's Note

No Questions were asked of the Characters. Please ask some in the coments below.
Whew, that was a tough one. So, Much, Lore. Almost all of the statements here have meant something for the story, or world building. Before I continue I want to Tolkien up again. I don't hold to the three part being system, it's just a tool I needed to make the story work, that's it. That said, we are out of the first two episodes and now things get to pick up, I hope. I originally wanted to start the fic here, but I needed the first four chapters because just enough changes have been made that somebody would point them out if I didn't, plus reference, plus character sketches. ergo, over 15k of my mind recreating the “Get on with it!” scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

That said, I will be changing the order of some episodes (e.g. Fall weather friends and winter wrap up) and completely leaving some alone (I am NOT touching Over a Barrel with a ten foot pole, despite having the ‘She's not a tree Dashie’ convo, one of the best in season 1)

The main story of this chapter was inspired, in large part, by the story Sweetie Bot - A Heart's Warming Tale by Grimweird. A well written tale about, if it isn't obvious from the title, Sweetie Bot. Highly recommended, though it gets very dark and has almost no humor. I can't say how it inspired this chapter, because that would spoil some big revelations if you are interested in reading it, so go read it.

1.6 Silhouette

Chapter 6 Silhouette

“What do Ah do, Big Mac?” Applejack practically strangled her brother, shaking him back and forth in her panic, “They said Ah’m the Element of Honesty!” She paused, her green eyes staring into his, wild with panic. She had managed to hold on to her anxiety until all the other Apples had packed up and headed out to disperse once more across the face of Equestria.

“Calm down, Applejack-”

“Ah AM calm! What is she going to think? Ah, can't BE the Element of Honesty! Not with…” she lowered her voice, “ya’ know, this secret.”

“I know you hate having to keep it, but remember, it affects more than just you.” Big Mac replied calmly. “And besides, it's mandated, you have to keep it.”

“But if Ah keep it, Ah ain't bein’ honest!” Applejack cried.

“Now hold it right there.” Big Mac broke in. “Have you ever said that you are something you aren't?"

“No…”

“Are you going around lyin’ about what we are?”

“No, I haven't said anythin’, Big Mac, but that's still lyin’ by omission!”

“Then compromise, you have friends,” Big Macintosh looked down at his younger sister, for all her smarts about farmin’ and living, she could really get stuck on some of the strangest mud holes, “so talk to them, let them know that you have a secret that you are not allowed to discuss and ask them to respect that. Be honest with them that it is something that affects more than just you, it's not something that they need to worry about, but that you want to let them know that there are some things that you can't discuss. That way if they ask you a question that might cause you to lie to keep the secret you can be honest with them and say you ain't allowed, by law I might add, to discuss that.”

“Ah can still be honest then, and maybe still keep the secret,” Things clicked for Applejack, “but still, as soon as Ah'm allowed, Ah'm telling, It don't sit right with me. And there is still Her to deal with. What is Ambrosia going to think?”

“Write to her, explain everything. I'm sure she will understand. Yah don't get where she is by not understanding.”

“That makes sense, Ah guess,” Applejack threw a hug around her big brother, “Thanks for helpin’ me get things sorted out.”

“Eeyup” came the reply as he hugged her back.

“Dinner's ready!” Granny Smith called from downstairs, "Y'all better get your hooves washed an’ geet down here!”

“Race ya’ there!” a ball of yellow and red bounced off the wall to get around the two siblings blocking the way.

“Applebloom! No racin’ in the house!”

♢ ♢ ♢

“Good night, Rarity!” Sweetie Belle called as she opened the front door to the Carousel Boutique. “I'm off to supper. Mom and I are going shopping tomorrow.” Rarity cringed at the sewing machine as the door slammed shut behind her little sister. She had returned to it after the brunch to find that it was intact and mostly undisturbed.

Well as undisturbed as it could be seeing as Sweetie Belle had taken refuge in during Nightmare Moon’s happening. Which mainly meant cleaning burned watermelon rind off the ceiling and removing marker stains from a few scraps of cloth. Rarity wasn't sure if she should sign her sister up for cooking classes or get her a restraining order on every kitchen in Equestria. Fortunately, Sweetie had the sense to not mess with anything in the front showroom. Rarity set her sewing items down and glanced at the cutout patterns lying on the floor around her. She wasn't hungry but did need something to chew on after a long day.

The kitchen was sparkling from her cleaning earlier in the day. The meal prep didn't take long, it was a simple salad, spinach, carrots, and a few cherry tomatoes in a bowl, accompanied by a glass of water. As she sat and ate in silence, Rarity thought back over the day. She no longer had to worry about her secret or that Celestia would blast her for being something evil, she had true friends and not just ponies that she worried would only value her for what she gave.

After supper, she retired to her bedroom to read a little from her romance novel before falling asleep. Eyes burning from long uses, and heavy eyelids she drifted off to what she hoped would be a peaceful sleep.

It was not peaceful at all. All night long she tossed and turned, her dreams haunted by a black shadow. It seemed to flit at the edges of her dreams, draining the color, always darting away when she turned in its direction.

Her dreams started out fine, even pleasant, with Rarity and her new friends going on picnics or dressing up in the latest fashion. But as the night wore on, they turned sour. Her friends occasionally snarled, and Applejack told her a lie! Twilight ignored her instead reading a book.

Rarity sat up drenched in cold sweat and breathed a sigh of relief… It was just a dream. Her new friends wouldn't do that to her. Right?

ϙ ϙ ϙ

“Pinkie?” Mrs. Cake called up the ladder to the loft, “We're headed to bed, it's rather late!”

Pinkie looked up at the cuckoo clock on the wall, “A quarter past 10? Oh, I really was focused on those party plans.” She looked down at the sheets of paper scattered on the floor where she lay. Color-coded diagrams drawn in crayons and lists underlined with markers decorated with glitter filled every possible space. “I guess I should get ready for bed huh, Gummy.”

The green toothless crocodile slowly blinked.

“Yeah, that's all I'm getting done tonight. Goodnight Mrs. Cake!” Pinkie called back down the trapdoor before standing up. “What do you think, Mr. Narrator?”

Me?

“Yeah, should it be strawberry juice or apple juice at the party?”

Well, I’ve had some nice juices that were a blend, I think that one had both strawberry and a little apple cider vinegar, with… something else, I can't remember.

“OOhh, I could make a harmony punch!” Pinkey exclaimed, writing down an idea while her tail started to dust the papers into a pile. “It will have six different flavors in it! Thanks for the idea, Mr. Narrator.”

No problem, Pinkie, now shouldn't you be headed to bed?

“Yippers! I'm going to clean this up and then brush my teeth. Gotta keep ‘em nice and sparkly when I smile!”

Well, goodnight then, I have other ponies to attend to.

“Okay Dokie Lokie, tell Claire I said hi!, oh wait, she won't hear you. Nevermind then. Ohh, I'm going to have to throw her a welcome to Ponyville party…”

ʚїɞ ʚїɞ ʚїɞ

“I know it was scary, Orion but we needed you to help us and you weren't there.” Fluttershy stared deep into the eyes of the massive white wolf. Orion flopped on the floor of the hut and rolled over in a show of submission. Fluttershy sighed at the show. “You are just so lucky that you stayed cute.”

⚡︎ ⚡︎ ⚡︎

Rainbow Dash slid down into her cloud bed. It was time to go to bed, she had a strict sleep and exercise schedule to complete after all, but ever since they had activated the elements Dash had felt full of energy. She squirmed a little into the covers, every part of her tingled with excitement. She was a hero now, she had saved Equestria!

“Dang nerves,” she mumbled and slid out of the covers, “milk is supposed to help put people to sleep, or is that a type of tea?” she muttered as she moved to her kitchen.

The hardened cloud tiles and enchanted counters glistened in the low light as Dash lit a candle and started to look through her ice box. “Protein shakes won't do,” she muttered as she moved the pre-mades aside with a wing tip. No, the vegetable juices also wouldn't do. “Am I out of milk?” she asked. “I'll bet all of the stores are closed.”

Grumbling at the fruitlessness of her quest, Dash tromped up the cloud stairs and re-entered her bed. “I wish I had an off switch,” she muttered raising a hoof, “just take it and… pop!” she mimicked flipping a switch.

˚₊‧꒰ა ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

Claire Day pressed the power button to turn off the TV. “Wow,” she breathed, “That was, EPIC.” She sat there for a few seconds replaying the last 30 minutes in her head. The fight with Tirek, the reveal of the season-long question of what was in the box, the new castle was a little ugly and she wished that Rainbow Dash had played a larger part. But all in all the final was satisfactory.

Hopping off the couch she ran over to the door. It was Saturday, and that meant no school. That meant she could spend all day at the skate park with her friends, discuss the new episode, and practice some new tricks on her scooter. She still wasn't sure why her parents wouldn't let her have a bike or skateboard when a scooter destroyed shins and ankles faster than a skateboarder broke bones or a person on a BMX wiped out.

She grabbed her purple helmet off of the hat rack, the smiling Rainbow Dash on the side a little scuffed from a collision last week, but Claire thought that made it look cooler. Jamming it on her head she slipped on her orange sneakers, a 10th-year birthday gift, despite being two years older than when she got them, they still held up and she had yet to outgrow them. It was getting a little annoying being the shortest in class now.

Her scooter was leaning against the steps in the shade from the fall sun. Despite supposedly being autumn now, the heat was almost unbearable. Almost. Claire grabbed the scooter and pushed off down the sidewalk towards the skatepark.

It took her several minutes to get there. It sat on the corner of two streets, an empty lot turned into concrete abstract art composed of drop-ins, bowls, steel rails, flats, and ramps. Slightly older than Claire, there were some cracks in some places and graffiti covered almost every inch of the place.

“I'm here!” Claire called seeing her friends gathered to one side while some older teens had taken over the drop in the center trying to out-trick each other. “What's up?”

“G'day Scoots!” Tim greeted her as she joined the group. Claire rolled her eyes, as the only one in the group with a scooter they had decided early on to refer to her by her choice of ride, all the others had superior skates or roller blades. “We ‘ere just waiting for tha blokes over there to knock themselves out trying to figure out how to do an ollie.”

“Have you seen the new episode?” Maggie whispered to Claire as she joined the circle.

Claire nodded vigorously, “yeah, it's so awesome!" she whispered back.

“Hey!” Tim said, “Are you paying attention? We're playing shadow ninja while we wait. You two in or not?”

Both girls nodded. Shadow ninja was a fun game to play. Each person stood in a circle and took turns trying to hit another person's hands with their own hands to knock them out. All moves had to be made in one fluid motion in one direction then freeze, if you did more than that or moved when it wasn't your turn, you were out.

The game went pretty well all things considered. Claire had gotten Maggie's left hand out before being forced into a limbo stance to avoid getting smacked in the face by an exuberant swing from Tim. That was when everything changed.

Claire heard a loud honk from the street followed by screeching of tires. Claire fell flat on her back as she tried to look behind her to see what was going on. The sound of a wire fence breaking met her ears as she started to get up. Her friends screamed and started running.

She looked with fright as she saw the source of commotion. A truck had swerved off the road and was headed right at her.

“SHHIIIIIII-”

And then she died.

˚₊‧꒰ა ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

Claire came too as her body thumped against a wall, pain-filled every single crevice of her being. A light was shining on her from the side.

“Owwww.” she moaned and tried to open her eyes, a light that had been shining on her disappeared with a pop leaving her in dark blackness. With tremendous effort, she opened her eyes and found herself lying in an alleyway amongst cardboard boxes and trash. “What the hey?” her voice came out raspy like she hadn't drunk anything in a while. “Where am I?”

The ground under her was made of cobbles and it was now night, if the dark sky and street lamp outside was anything to go by. Slowly aware of all the aches and pains she got to her feet.

Or at least tried to. She kept slipping and falling forward. “Ow, what the…” she trailed off as she looked at her arms splayed out in front of her. What should have been her arms anyway, they now looked like orange hairy logs like someone had merged the Lorax with some of the trees he protected.

a strand of hair dipped into view. “Huh?” Claire looked at it cross-eyed, her hair wasn't purple and straight! It was black with soft waves when it got long. Claire started to panic, confusion clouding her vision.

“Waitwaitwait,” she sat up, the pain pushed to the back of her mind as she started to hyperventilate. “Nononononn oh nononono.” She was orange, she was naked, where were her friends? Where were her parents? This was all wrong. She grabbed at herself trying to curl into a ball. A choked sob leaked out. She was alone, nothing was right, it was dark.

“Hey, Bon, ya hear that?”

“Hear what exactly?”

“It sounds like someone crying.”

Claire dimly heard sounds like hoof steps, “There you are. Hey kid, what are you doing out here?” the first voice asked.

Clair let out a small sob and looked up to see a face that she recognized. That couldn't be right, that was a fictional character standing in front of her, right? She rubbed her eyes and looked again. That was Lyra Heartstrings, the second most popular background pony of the fandom. “Lyra?” she croaked.

“That's my name,” the mint unicorn confirmed, “but I'm afraid I don't know yours. In fact I've never seen you around here. I'm pretty sure that I would remember an orange and purple pegasus.” Lyra paused, “You aren't a runaway are you?”

Claire didn't answer, instead, she lunged forward and wrapped her tiny legs around the front leg of the full-grown unicorn and continued crying.

“Lyra? What is it?” the other voice asked. “What did you find?”

Lyra turned around to show her walking buddy and roommate Bonbon the orange leg hugger, giving a little shake resulting in the pegasus gripping tighter and letting out a heart-wrenching sob.

“I don't know, Bon, but she isn't in the right mind for answering questions… Can we keep it?”

“Lyra! It's not a pet! It's a young pegasus terrified out of her poor little mind,” Bon Bon scolded Lyra. “We can take her back and find out where she's from in the morning.”

“Yeah,” Lyra gave another shake, “I don't think she's coming off of my leg anytime soon.”

Author's Note

Character Q&A
BifauxnenStroganoff asked Rainbow: Are you upset you didn't get to keep that kick-flank armor you found in the castle ruins? Maybe you could fly back out there and try to scavenge it?
Answer: Dash slumps a little in the chair, "Yeah I was bummed to lose it, when I had it I felt invincible! Besides, Twilight said that it could be an old Thunderbolts Armor. DO YOU KNOW how COOL that is?" she declairs getting closer to the camera, almost holding it and shaking it at the end. "Maybe when I have free time I should fly out there and see if I find it."

SO. Sorry for the short chapter, thats where the break fit best. Hmmm, wonder who that is. I had to include the classid HiE. But anyways, this is the end of the prepaired chapters, so updates will be a lot slower with no schedule. I'm half way through the next chapter and I'm working on re-writing the prologue. Add to that classes starting up today and lots of social events, I don't have much time to write. I also need to figure out how to keep track of all the story threads I have while maintaining a larger story and working in slice of life plots and episodes from the show. No biggie.
To all the reader who have put up with me this far.
Thank you.
You have made this worth it. I enjoy reading the coments you leave and I'm probably addicted to checking the statistics tab every few hours. Thank you for reading. Here's to a hundred chapters I haven't writen yet. And here's looking at you kid.

1.8 Sleepless

Twilight looked up from her pie as Pinkie pronked out of the kitchen, “Okie dokie, Twilight!” Pinkie slid a loaf of fresh bread onto a rack for cooling. “I have some awesome friendship advice ready for you. Fresh out of the oven!”

Twilight perked up and wiped a few pie crumbs off her muzzle. “Really? Thanks, Pinkie! so who should I give the ticket to?” she pranced in place, this friendship stuff was really easy.

“Silly filly,” Pinkie giggled, “I said I had advice for you, not instructions.”

“Oh,” Twilight stopped, no easy answer for her this time.

“Ah dat dat, don’t be sad.” Pinkie rolled a pink and dark purple wrapped candy across the counter. “The ticket is yours and you need to make the decision, having me make a decision would be cheating. However, my advice for you is this; when it comes to friends and friendships, there are no perfect answers, so just make the best decision that you can and if your best makes someone else angry, that is their problem. You can only do so much so don’t worry about being perfect, just do your best.”

Twilight pondered what Pinkie had said. On one hoof it made sense, getting Pinkie to take care of her decision probably robbed her of a chance to learn about friendship. On the other, if she made the wrong decision and gave the ticket to the wrong pony, then someone else would be upset at missing out and she would feel terrible. “Thanks, Pinkie,” she stood up, “I’m going to think about it for a little bit. Please don’t tell ponies that I have an extra ticket. I don’t know if others would be as understanding as you.”

Pinkie held in a tear from pain as she just nodded, her tongue currently restrained from begging Twilight to choose her. Her chance at going to the biggest party in Equestria was right there. Reality and logic would say that parties that reached critical mass would become an irresistible force for a party pony. But Pinkie spat in the face of logic, not only was she a Party Pony, she was a PINK party pony, despite the force of attraction, she would resist… and later sob her heart out on the floor of the party cave, but no one needed to know that. She waved good bye as Twilight walked out the door.

“Is everything okay dearie?” Mrs. Cake asked from behind her.

Pinkie turned to face one of her employers and land mare, blue eyes big and trembling. “Not really. I want to believe I said the right thing, but I might not get to go to a party because of it.”

“Awww, I know how much parties mean to you, Pinkie, but if it helped your friend, then you did the right thing.” Mrs. Cake turned as the door let out a little ding announcing another customer. “Besides, there will be plenty of parties in the future.”

But they aren’t the Grand Galloping Gala! Pinkie wanted to say.

“Hey, Pinkie!” a new voice called out, one Pinkie recognized as the voice of Lyra Heartstrings, resident lyre player and ‘paranormal investigator’ whatever that meant. She still wasn’t sure what that had to do with sticking cotton swabs in Pinkie’s ears, but they hadn’t ever been cleaner! What drew Pinkie’s gaze was an orange and purple pegasus filly perched on Lyra’s back. “I was wondering if you were free to throw a-”

“WELCOME TO PONYVILLE PARTY!” Pinkie screamed with enthusiasm, all thoughts of the Gala temporarily erased.

♢ ♢ ♢

Rarity opened her eyes wondering why nothing had happened. She lowered her hooves to see the dark cloud hovering on the other side of a red pink barrier covered with runes that seemed familiar.

“This is a dream,” Rarity realized, it was just a dream and Twilight's runes were keeping the nightmares away, she breathed a sigh of relief. That was when she realized something. The dark cloud outside was laughing.

“Foal,” it chuckled, “you got a mage to protect you with dream runes meant to protect a foal from nightmares. How ironic.”

“What?” Rarity was puzzled, “Aren't you just a figment of my imagination? You don't exist!”

“I do exist, I have existed long before you were even an idea of Faust” the clouds formed a grin.

“Who are you? And why are you torturing me?” Rarity demanded with a stamp, she was starting to get annoyed.

“I have called you little necromancer because I need you, I need a body to regain my strength and take dominion of what is mine to control.”

“I'm not a necromancer!” Rarity insisted, this whole thing was getting ridiculous, “And you still haven't answered my first question.”

“I am Nightmare, the rightful Spirit of Dreams. I am all that ponies fear and need. Far too long have I been ignored and forgotten.”

“What are you talking about? Princess Luna is the Steward of Dreams.”

The cloud swirled and turned dark red. “The little usurper and mommy's girl stole it from me and destroyed my physical body. I can not die as they took only the good and left what they thought never should have been.” The wall thumped as the cloud slammed into the barrier, the runes flashing bright before dying down again. The cloud seemed to slink around the edge of the tower. “I spent millennia requiring hosts before I could extract my revenge, only to be banished. Now I find myself requiring help from one of the ponies that exacted a blow that even Celestia couldn't bring herself to do.”

Rarity was confused by what she just heard. “What do you mean? Celestia and Luna killed you? And took your domain? How could I help?” This made no sense, did this thing mean to say that it was the thing that had possessed Luna? Celestia and Luna had killed another Steward?

“I require possessing you or fusing myself with your soul. Simple as that.” The cloud had settled down, small eddies and currents stirring through the void causing small vapors to ripple across its surface.

“Why would I do that?”

“For several reasons, the first being the stability of the dreamscape.” The cloud parted to show a vision of Sweetie Belle in a clothes store trying on a large hat. “The second is for your sister.”

“What are you going to do to my sister!” Rarity took a step forward.

“Not too, for. That is if you accept my offer, which I will lay out in a second.” The Sweetie Belle in the vision bumped into a rack stubbing her hoof on the metal support. “There is an interesting link between you and her. You gave her your soul and brought her back to life. because of it any injury she sustains is transferred to you.” Rarity felt her hoof throb in pain as the Sweetie Belle got up and continued on as if nothing had happened. “However, there are limitations with this. Say, for example, she loses her head or gets crushed. Something that will outright kill her and not transfer to you. Then there goes your little phylactery.”

Rarity held in a shriek as a large light fell from the ceiling on top of Sweetie Belle, the vision disappearing before she could see what happened.

“That looks like it would hurt,” The cloud made a sound like somepony sucking air over clinched teeth, “once I have a physical form, I can make her repairable.”

“You want to possess me! Just like you did Luna!” Rarity accused, taking a step backwards.

“Yes and no. I had reasons to possess Luna as I did. With you it will be much more different. You will be in control of yourself while I deal with the things I need to.”

“How do I know that you are telling the truth?”

Sillence hung in the void, heavy and oppressive before the cloud answered again. “You can not know that I am telling the truth, and you would be even more foolish than I thought if you blindly accepted my terms. For now you may go and think upon my offer, only know that you must not speak of this to anyone.”

“Why not?” Rarity demanded, “Surely a lady must be allowed some freedom of communication with her friends.”

“I do not wish to draw the attention of the sisters at this point, and neither should you. Tell your friends and they will remove your choice.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Twilight trotted back through Ponyville deep in thought. Deep enough that she didn't notice the light getting dimmer as clouds covered the blue sky, dark grey, heavy clouds pushed by the Ponyville weather team.

“Twilight?”

She pondered what Pinkie had said, obviously she was missing something if Pinkie talked about how giving her the answer would deprive her of a lesson. That mare made no sense! If it weren't for the apocalyptic situation that they had been thrust into, Twilight doubted that they could have ever become friends.

“HEY TWILIGHT!” A voice shouted, snapping her out of her reverie.

“Huh? Who?” Twilight looked around for the source of the voice.

“Up here!” She looked up to see Rainbow Dash's head poking through a small hole in the clouds. “It's about to rain, so you might want to get inside!”

Twilight now realized what the growing darkness meant, but recognized an opportunity. “Rainbow Dash! just the mare I needed to see! Can I ask you some questions?”

“Uh, sure,” Dash seemed confused, “get inside first, we need to start it raining, I’ll come find you. You are living at the Library right?” Twilight nodded confirmation before continuing on her way at an increased rate. Fortunately for her the Library wasn't very far, shortly after entering it the rain started, the plopping of fat rain drops hitting the leaves of the tree creating a sheet of white noise.

Spike hadn't done any work since Twilight had left, indicated by the large stacks of books still sitting on almost every available flat spot in the Library. Rarity still lay fast asleep where Twilight had left her.

“SPIKE?” Twilight called, “Where are you? We have work to do!”

“Hold your horses, I'm having lunch break!” Spike called back from the kitchen, “A growing dragon like me needs his nutrients!” His purple and green head poked out of the kitchen doorway on the second level, eyes narrow with suspicion. “Did you eat anything for lunch?”

“I had a slice of pie at Sugarcube corner.” Twilight responded, grabbing a pile of books with magic and reading the information pages to see where they should go. “While you are in there, can you put on a pot of tea? Rainbow Dash should be stopping by soon to answer a few questions and help me out.”

“Yeeessss, mhaastor.” Spike drawled turning back into the kitchen, fake limp thudding on through the floor.

“Oh cut it out,” Twilight yelled back, “you get paid.”

“I'm sure the child labor laws would have something to say about this if they knew!”

Twilight would have yelled back a witty comment but was interrupted by a loud bang on the door followed by angry pegasus noises. Twilight opened the door to reveal a wet Rainbow Dash standing on the welcome mat rubbing her head.

“Rainbow Dash? Did you fly into the door? Are you okay?” Twilight looked on with bewilderment.

“I'm fine,” Dash trotted in, “I thought that the top part was loose and opened inwards. What did they make that thing out of? I've hit mountains that were softer than that.”

“THE BOOKS!” Twilight cried lifting the dripping Dash off the floor where a puddle was creeping towards the stacks of precious knowledge. “SPIKE! GET THE TOWELS!”

“What's the magic word?” Came the response from the kitchen.

“NOW! OR I USE YOUR COMICS TO WIPE UP THE MESS!”

“Don't be rash!” Spike called as he rushed out of the kitchen all the dishtowels he could carry tucked under his stubby arms. He stopped at the top of the stairs and heaved them over the balcony. “Here!” he called as he disappeared into the bathroom to grab a big towel for Dash.

Once the crisis had been averted, the damp towels cleaned and dried with a quick spell and tea served, they sat down in a clear space on the floor. Rainbow casting glances at the snoozing Rarity on the couch.

“Don't mind her,” Twilight noticed, “she was having trouble sleeping after what happened yesterday. I have a problem myself and I think that you might be the only pony that might be impartial.”

“Impartial?” Dash raised an eyebrow, “About what?”

“The Grand Galloping Galla, Spike and I get invited every year but he doesn’t want to go this year so I have an extra ticket to give out. I don’t know who to give it to, and when I asked Pinkie she kind of noped out of giving me an answer,” Twilight explained.

Dash raised an eyebrow, “Normally that would be the case, yes, however, this time the Wonderbolts are slated to perform and then hang out with the ponies that are invited. Sorry Twi, I’m not impartial! I would love to come to the Gala.”

Twilight threw her head back in frustration. “Why does this problem get worse with every pony I talk to?” she cried with rising anguish. “Maybe I should ask Applejack, no way a hoity toity event would be attractive to her. What?” she noticed Dash eyeing her with a look so flat it could have made Pinkie’s balloons to deflate.

“Applejack isn’t the smartest pony out there, nor does she aspire to be anything more than a humble cowpony, but that mare can cut deals. She constantly haggles Filthy Rich into buying his supplies at a loss,” Dash paused for emphasis, “and he comes away happy. My point is that AJ would love to go and cut harsh deals with the upper-class, in her mind put them in their place.”

Twilight’s head met the floor. A high pitch whine emanating from her.

“I would love to go with you, but if it meant leaving my friends behind or making your choice harder, I’ll pass on the ticket.” Dash took a sip of tea. “I normally don’t like hot drinks, but this is rather nice.”

“Thanks,” Spike responded from behind his drained tea cup, “it’s a personal recipe.”

˚₊‧꒰ა ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

Scootaloo looked around at the sudden party that had sprung up, without warning. There had always been people in the fandom who wanted to go to a Pinkie party, and here she was now with one being thrown for her. She felt the wings on her back flutter with excitement at the thought.

It was weird having two extra appendages and she doubted that she would ever get used to them. Though it occurred to her that she would be able to fly! She just had to learn how to use them and then she could go flying with Rainbow Dash. Her wings fluttered again at the thought.

“Hey, Scoots?” Lyra’s voice broke her out of her reverie. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she replied, “it’s just a lot, I don’t know what to think. I get to experience something that many people would love to, but I keep thinking about how this means that I can't go back,” her voice cracked as a lump got stuck in her throat, “Lyra, I'm never going to see my parents again!” She fell forward onto the unicorn's back burying her face in the soft fur.

A pair of hooves grabbed her and pulled her into a hug. “Aw, don't cry,” Scootaloo recognized the voice as Pinkie Pie, though it sounded like she wanted to cry as well, “No one cries at a Pinkie Party. That would be just awful. I know that it hurts to be suddenly taken away from everything you know, but look at the bright side!” Scootaloo found herself gazing into huge bright blue eyes, “You were given a second chance at life to live and make friends. I would say it's up to you to make your own choices, but you still have a lot to grow and learn first.” Pinkie released her, “Have fun now, cry later.”

“What?” Scootaloo questioned.

“Pinkie, the one thing I will never investigate again,” Lyra nodded solemnly, “that way lies only madness.”

Scootaloo enjoyed herself the rest of the party, there were fillies and colts that wandered in and got abducted into the party by Pinkie who made them introduce themselves to the new filly. Come school year they would be her classmates. At one point a colt managed to escape Pinkie's clutches and the party and returned fifteen minutes later with a pack of friends who didn't want to miss out on the fun.

The adults mingled around the edge, continuing to buy baked goods from Mrs. Cake who still ran the counter during the madness. She was fine with it as long as Pinkie cleaned up in the end and replaced the ingredients she used. This was hardly the first time Pinkie had spontaneously sprung a Welcome to Ponyville party on her or the customers.

Lyra for her part had taken up position by the jukebox and was writing notes on a pad of paper while waiting for the rain outside and the party inside to wind down. She noticed that Berry Punch was hanging by the punch bowl again while chatting with Cherry Berry. Though her muzzle reading wasn't the best Lyra thought she made out something about ‘roof’ and ‘too high,’ though with the two of them those could mean anything.

Filthy Rich walked in at one point before promptly turning around and leaving, and she took note that Time Turner had dashed through at one point almost oblivious to the party. All of these things Lyra faithfully wrote down in her notepad to be filled at some point into her larger collection of books. Secrets would one day come to light, and she wanted to be there to see what they would be.

✶ ✶ ✶

“It would be nice if everyone could go but I only have two tickets,” Twilight pointed out. “It's only by exclusive invitation, and the only reason I get in is because Celestia is, no, was my teacher. She is now my advisor.”

“Ah,” Dash helpfully added. “So it's not like you could ask for another four tickets to go to the Gala.”

“Nope, not a chance.”

“No way at all, even though the Gala won't be for another eight months, and you and your friends are practically, no, are saviors of the realm.” Dash pressed.

“Well…”

“There's not even a glimmer of hope of asking the most powerful being on this plane in existence for four little slips of gold colored paper, what's the worst that could happen?”

“I don't know!” Twilight threw her hooves in the air, “I don't know what could happen if I ask! We could all be invited to the Gala, or get banished to the moon! She did it once!”

“Woah, calm down, Twilight,” Dash held her hooves out. “First off, that was a one time thing for a very good reason, second of all, she kind of owes us, you know, because we helped get her sister back. Inviting us to the Gala would be the least she could do. Besides this is Celestia we are talking about, everypony knows that she loves her little ponies.”

“She has a point, Twi,” Spike set down his empty tea cup and picked up a scroll and quill. “Honestly I’m surprised she didn’t do that off the bat. It might be that it just slipped her mind.”

Twilight sighed, the points made were rather solid and convincing, though she was still frightened at what might happen. “Fine, I'll ask her. Spike, take a letter.”

“Way ahead of you, Twi.”

After dictating several letters to Celestia, and vaporizing all of them, Twilight finally dictated a set of words that she thought was polite enough and managed to frame the questions in a manner that didn't seem accusatory. Spike added a few extra words on the end to add some crucial bits that he thought could explain the situation a bit better before sending it with flame breath.

“And, now we wait,” Twilight sat down trying to remain calm, “I'm sure that it will take some time for her to respond, it is after all only halfway through the afternoon session of day court.”

Spike started gathering the tea cups to take back to the kitchen. “Then it’s a good thing we have something to do while we wait.”

Twilight looked around at the stacks off books that covered the library. “Yeah, we might as well get something done while we wait, would you like to help us, Rainbow Dash?” she turned towards Dash.

“Um… Well….” Dash slowly started backing up, books were not the mare’s strong suit and sorting them would be sooo boring. Helping out with arduous tasks is the mark of a great friend, she thought. Another step backwards, all the random numbers and weird names were frightening, guess I’m just a good friend. Twilight tilted her head in confusion, “I don’t really like books, they're so egg-heady,” Dash blurted out. Well I’m alright.

Twilight watched the fading contrail of the fleeing Dash manage to open the door and leave her and Spike behind. “I guess she doesn't want to stick around and find out about the tickets.”

A groan accompanied the sound of fur rubbing on fabric as Rarity shifted on the couch. “Unnghhhh,” Rarity rolled onto her side. “What time is it?”

“About mid afternoon,” Spike replied, gathering up the rest of the dishes to take to the kitchen.

“Do you feel better, Rarity?” Twilight asked from the bookshelf where she was slotting books back into their proper slots.

Rarity paused thinking for a moment. “Why, yes, I do feel better. I don't recall having any bad dreams. Would you mind teaching me those runes for future reference please?” She fluttered her eyelashes for effect.

“Of course, let me just grab the book, it should be in the spell section under runes and glyphs.” Twilight scanned the labeled shelf for the book.

Spike returned from the kitchen and descended the staircase to the main floor. “What are you looking for, Twi?”

“101 Runes for Everyday Use, by D. Weaver, Canterlot Press 784 3rd Era,” Twilight rattled off.

Spike rolled his eyes and walked over to the table in the center of the library and grabbed a dark blue cover book that was covered in symbols from a pile of books that all started with numbers. “We haven't sorted out the pile that came from the numbered section yet.”

Twilight zipped over to the young dragon to inspect the book, “Yes, that's the one.” Using magic she pulled it out of his grasp and flipped through the pages before inserting a bookmark and floating it over to Rarity. “Here you go, I bookmarked the pages with the dream runes for you. Though I would recommend reading the whole book.” Her eyes went wide. “Oh my Celestia! You're borrowing a book from my library! We need to do this right!”

Rarity watched in equal parts horror fascination as Twilight set about clearing off a desk by the door before running around the discordant stacks of books looking for something. Spike sighed and walked to a small closet, retrieving several stacks of small cards, inkwells and quills and placing them on the desk.

“ThankyouSpike!” Twilight gave him a hug before dashing behind the desk and scribbling words onto the cards. “We need three things. The first is a record that you checked out the book for me, a due date for you and for you to sign your name on the books card with the date checked out and the date due back,” she explained as Rarity drew near, opening the book to the back cover and withdrawing a small card with lines for Rarity to sign.

Rarity drew near and levitated a quill to sign the card. Behind the desk Twilight was almost prancing. The moment was ruined by a large burp and gout of green fire. Twilight practically shoved the book at Rarity as she grabbed the scroll that landed on the desk still slightly smoking from the trip via dragon fire.

The library was filled with silence as Twilight unrolled the scroll and five gold tickets fluttered down to the desk's surface. She scanned the scroll with haste, drinking in the words on the parchment.

“She said yes!” Twilight cheered. “You all are coming to the Gala! She says that she meant to invite everyone but was rushed by the planning committee.”

“Why? The Gala isn't until the spring. In nine moons.”

ʚїɞ ʚїɞ ʚїɞ

Fluttershy left her cottage as the sun set, earlier in the day Rainbow Dash, her long time friend, had delivered news that she had been invited to the Grand Galloping Gala in the spring. As she walked down the trail that led from her house to the nearby Everfree Forest, Fluttershy reflected on what this meant. She had heard about the exotic plants and animals that resided in the royal gardens, which excited her, but it also meant that she was now in a position of importance to a Steward other than the one she currently served.

She didn't go far into the forest, though a follower of Pan the Wild was still dangerous to her, requiring respect and caution. Upon reaching a small glade where the underbrush thinned and the trees were far enough apart to let the faintest of moonlight shine through the leaves she stopped and sat down. A flash of white silently brushed aside plant stems as Orion passed, heading deeper into the forest for a hunt.

Closing her eyes, Fluttershy began her prayer.

Author's Note

BifauxenStroganoff Asked: “Question(s) for Pinkie: when did you first notice yourself hearing Mr. Narrator? Did it freak you out at first?”

Pinkie looks up from the party plans straight at BifauxenStroganoff, “NOO, Why did you ask that? Don't you see that you've created a paradox!? By asking the question you force a quantum change in the canon! Now there are two realities, the one of canon me hearing Mr. Narrator shortly after getting my cutie mark and being curious about my invisible new friend, and the fact that Mr. Narrator only exists when a story is told, and because there is no story about us meeting, it hasn't happened. Now Mr. Narrator must go and break the time stream to write the story to fix the paradox! But if he does that then this story progresses slower! You've doomed us all!”

Um yes, now I have a one shot short to write to fix the paradox, and get a story idea out of my head, mainly the paradox. Please ask any character a question in the comments, they might get answered.

That wraps up the episode Ticket Master. I meant for this to be a goofy and light hearted twist of headcanons and stupid ideas, but feelings and life advice really sneaks in there. Maybe I'll get goofier with the next few chapters, I hope so. I also hope you had as much fun (hopefully more) reading this than I did writing it. Apple Buck Season won't start until later, it will be the start of the fall episodes.

Until next time! Count the references and see if you can find them all! Clips into the ground, starts vibrating until shooting off into the distance.