Story Poop

Chapters

Step Aside. Quality = Medium
The Two Lovers. Quality = Bad
Giving Up The Ghost. Quality = Good
The Generation Jump. Quality = Piss Poor
Huh
The Stars, Like Dust
Puppet Master Rarity
Unknown. Quality = Shrug
Growing up
Going the long way round
The Other Princess. Quality = My Waifu ;_;
Arcainum's Story Prompts Thingy
Times I tried to write Sombra Chp 3
Times I've tried to write Equestria's End Chp 3
Poems in Poop
The Ferrets who wanted to be Otters
Thousand Years. Quality = Meh
Important; pls read. Quality = n/a

Step Aside. Quality = Medium

The sobs are muffled, quiet, but they still break through the silence of the cave, bouncing off the walls and morphing into a murmuring, discordant babble. Great, heaving breaths disrupt them intermittently as their source struggles for air.

She lies in the middle of one of the cave’s many cavities: a hollow sphere glistening with needle-like offshoots of dangling ice. Six stone balls roll in random motions round the floor, a slight, fading glow trailing after them in the air. They clink and clunk off of each other in their travels, the collisions never chipping or marring their surfaces.

A light-gold cloud envelops them, fixing them in place; an answering, conical blur of colour rises out of her forehead. White wings stretch out as she rises up, the balls floating into the air around her. She sniffs.

“It doesn’t have to be like this, you know.”

She takes a step back, eyes wide and roaming around as the balls fall heavily to the floor. Her wings flare up and out.

“It can all go back to how it was before right now. No need for any of this... waiting around nonsense.”

Her breathing’s faster now, and the whirling of her eyes is more erratic. The voice is orphaned – sourceless – and has an almost unnatural quality to it. Or perhaps it is the opposite: it sounds almost like the noise the waves and wind and thunder make. Like the sounds you think you hear inside of an empty silence.

“It’s a simple price to pay. I won’t ask for much, but in return you’ll get your sister back. Oh, and you’ll get her back before she became such a drag to deal with. Lovely Luna, all happy and untroubled.”

She’s staring at the farthest wall from her, the wall from which the voice now comes. There’s a knocking sound ringing off it, as if something is scrabbling behind the surface of a solid chunk of rock.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it? That’s the dream? The great wish? The mightiest power in the world at your hooves, and all you want is the one thing they can’t give you. Well... Why not ask someone who can?”

The sniffling’s stopped, though her eyes are still wet. She takes a single step towards the wall, not noticing that the balls have vanished from the floor.

“I can give you what you want, Celestia, because I don’t have to abide by stupid, pointless rules. And all I want in return is a small favour. I’m not going to ask you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with. In fact, I’m not asking you to do anything at all. That's – heh – that's actually the point.”

The cave’s wall peels off into a streaming rainbow of butterflies; a shadow is left behind in the gap carved out of reality. It smirks impossibly.

“All you have to do is step aside.”

The Two Lovers. Quality = Bad

Changeling. Even the name varies.

A pony would have you believe that a 'changeling' steals the reflection of those who spend too long preening in front of a mirror. A griffon holds that the 'cuckoons' sneak their young into the nests of unwary and inattentive parents, pushing the host's hatchlings out and leaving the 'cuckoon' child to be raised as 'normal' within the Clan. The dragons thinks the 'Fey' attach themselves to the their flights during the great migrations, and hold competitions to prove they're 'real' dragons in an attempt to weed us out.

Are they true? A little bit of truth mixed with a lot of misunderstanding.

A 'changeling' does not have a true form, or at least not one that our prey has ever seen. When we hunt dragons, it takes on the look of a dragon. When we hunt ponies, it resembles ponies. We hold no shape, we hold no substance; ever detached from a singular homeland, we bury our roots within the urban sprawls of the other races. There is only ever the Swarm and the hunt - unless you are a Queen.

A Queen is not part of the Swarm, in much the same way that no monarch is ever their own subject. Most changelings are males, Drones; born to protect the Queen and help in subjugating a herd. A Queen feeds off their collected adulation, protecting the Swarm as she is in turn protected. In time, she produces more Drones and, of course, more Queens.

It is difficult to tell if a town is infected from the outside, for in all aspects we strive to make it as complete an illusion as possible. An infected town is filled with denizens who laugh, work and play as if everything was normal. They gather in groups around bars and social areas; they sweat out in the fields and construction yards; they celebrate birthdays and royal anniversaries. Even in my birthplace we once had Celestia herself attend the Summer Sun Celebration, and she was none the wiser. A hive-town is nearly indistinguishable from uninfected one.

But, there are differences. Of course there are: if there were no differences, then why, exactly, would we be considered an 'infection' or a 'threat'? We are, after all, the reason why there are so many ghost-towns throughout Equestria and the world at large. In the end, the griffons were the most right.

An infected settlement has no children. How could it, when every husband, wife and lover is a changeling in disguise? How could it when the energies and substances needed to make a child are syphoned away into producing more and more of the swarm? In the end, for all our love, we never make its ultimate expression. Instead, we make the closest reflection we can: Queens.

A Queen holds a strange relationship with her parent swarm, for in the end they birthed us and, to a certain extent, own us. A town or village will not often last the length of one Queen's life, and so her children are sent out to 'seed' nearby settlements. We hunt for zones ripe with potential for the Swarm to occupy, disguising ourselves as figures of power and latching ourselves onto those of greater power (males only. There's a reason all of Equestria's highest powers are female.) If all else fails, we meld the memories of those around us, shifting suddenly into existence as if from nowhere - fortunately, I have never had to do this.

If our mother does not call on us, then our relationship with the settlement, and our chosen 'host', changes. For in the early stages, our relationship is more symbiotic than parasitic, and we truly 'love' our host. How could we not? He is our only form of sustenance; the single drip of food on which we fast whilst waiting for the call. The prop on which we lean and, ultimately, the source for our own Swarm should no call come. A female cannot reproduce alone, after all.

But usually, the call is sent flickering out along invisible leylines and we get ready for our mother's arrival. A call which says “The Swarm is coming. Prepare the herd.”

*****

I can not say I wasn't expecting it. There had been talk of a potential threat for days, and even though it is in our nature to be subtle, the prey grows ever smarter. I had successfully nestled myself into the royal Equestrian household - by no means an easy feat - and so was well placed to hear about the various goings on. A Swarm had been sighted near my birthplace of Manehattan; a whole suburb apparently vanishing into dereliction as my brethren had taken off into the sky. In all likelihood, my mother was on the move.

This in itself did not concern me much; though I was, of course, concerned. It had not been that many years since I myself was birthed, and even then the suburb had been slowly dying; its residents growing older and older as more and more of the swarm was forced underground or into self-habitation (typically, this meant several identical copies of ponies almost living in each others' backyards. Drones do not tend to be intelligent, after all.)

What concerned me was the reports of residents claiming to have 'woken up, as if from a dream'. Of frightened ponies asking for missing loved ones; of ponies mentioned 'black magic' and 'imposters'. For beings as ancient as the two princesses, this would undoubtedly lead to thoughts of 'changelings', and security as a whole would tighten. My position may have been compromised.

As well as that, what was mother thinking? It is not in our nature to leave livestock behind: every last drop should be harvested before the swarm moves on, to reduce suspicion if nothing else, and to stop our secrets from leaking out. The herd had been forewarned. Worse, she had decided to attempt to take the seat of Equestria's power from under the nose of Celestia and Luna themselves. Even as a Queen gorged on generation after generation of love, mother did not have that kind of power. I had thought picking Canterlot would make it certain that I would not be called upon. It would appear I was wrong.

But I had been selected, and even if I was only a few weeks away from my marriage (and a honeymoon that we would mysteriously vanish from), the Herd would be prepared. I would, of course, do my best for mother, which meant dealing with what she may have overlooked. Equestria has more powers in it than just the Princesses nowadays, as Discord's short release had more than demonstrated. To start off with, he would have to be contained, so that the Swarm would have only one threat to deal with. And then there was the matter of those who had imprisoned him... how to get them into one place at one time... Ah yes. The Wedding. I went to speak to Celestia.

*****

A pink barrier stretches across the sky, rippling in waves and patterns as the summer's breezes thrust small motes of dust and ferried leaves into it, the refuge from their airy passage into Canterlot sliding down the barrier's sides like a waterfall of trash. I'll admit: I am impressed. Conjuring up such a shield requires a grasp of magic beyond the ordinary unicorns. We would have made the strongest Swarm together.

Shinning Armor, my love and soon-to-be Husband is standing next to me, going on and on about some “Twilight Sparkle”, a sibling of his who should be arriving sometime soon. Apparently, she is one of the Elements that I requested, and my love, who had apparently forgotten to invite her himself, thinks that I invited her for his sake. I am happy to let him think this, as I am now firmly within his 'good books' – was there ever any doubt – and it makes preparing that much easier. That much more organic.

I lean my head against him; my nuzzle cutting him off mid-sentence. One of the guards gives a hoot, the originator hidden with a swiftly grinning line of troops, and, for a moment, my Husband seems replaced himself with a glowing-ember statue. Of course, he responds by barking out orders, smiling sheepishly at me and then stomping off after his retreating guards. I beam back widely as he turns once, twice, three times to look back over his shoulder. The devotion is touching. I will miss it.

Of course, there is a way round the barrier; a way he won't have thought off. It always pays to make sure you have an escape route in place for a hasty retreat if discovered, and even more so when attempting to sneak past the very rulers of the race you prey on. I would not have dreamed of infecting Canterlot had I not come across rumours of a 'abandoned crystal cave' beneath it; caves that, apparently, were forgotten and mainly thought to be just an old mares' tale.

As far as I could tell, old mares have been given a bad reputation.

*****

There are not many abandoned buildings within Canterlot. As a forefront of Equestria's power and might, the city naturally buzzed with far more activity than most places, and so naturally, most building were in use. Even the one I was currently in in no way appeared abandoned; any passers-by would think it a cherished household estate; any thieves breaking in would think the family was merely on vacation. The walls on the outside were polished to perfection. A slow stream of butlers and servants entering and leaving through the servants' entrance making it appear active. The indoor sofas and settees had been squashed down to give them that 'lived in' look. In fact, if I'd ever grown tired of the castle, I could have moved in here with no real fuss and changed it from unoccupied to infected.

Mother would be arriving soon: of that I had little doubt. The message had been sent not long ago, travelling across those magical passageways that linked a Queen into her immediate family. The Servants had been dismissed; the basement readied for her arrival. I was certain this house would serve as ground zero for our expansion: the swarm creeping out and infecting over-gilded mansion after over-the-top castle until we held enough power to challenge the princesses. Or die in the attempt. Either way, mother was being overly ambitious. I could only hope that she would not consider me too important a tool and that I might, somehow, escape without myself dying. Not that I would not give myself gladly, of course, but still: I did not want to die. Not on something as futile as this.

Green light splashes itself across the walls in a whirlwind of emerald aurora. Slowly, out of the flames, a figure spontaneously reveals itself. I bow low in reverence.

“Mother,” I say, and lift up my head and blink in surprise. It is not mother, but I still recognise her, though when last I saw her she was what ponies would call a foal and griffons would call an egg. A changeling larvae, appearing as a twist of shadows dancing in the air. “Sister?”

“Queen,” she replies, her eyes gazing manically into mine. “I speak for the swarm, the swarm from which we both were born. Mother has died, and now I rule. Canterlot shall be our new home.”

I blink again, my mind already working over what must have happened. Mother had died prematurely; nothing wrong with that, in many way it was to be both expected and, in a small way, celebrated. But it was not meant to happen when another Queen was present; was not meant to occur when a Queen was coming into her own and ready to leave the hive. All that attention, all those Drones filled to the brim with energy and love just looking for an outlet; a way to do what they were meant to do, and transfer energy out onto a Queen. And with mother dead, they'd done the next best thing.

'It had, of course,' I noted, with an almost detached air, as if I was reviewing all this for someone to read, “Driven her completely mad.”

All of it now made sense: the lack of coherent strategy, the plan to attack Canterlot itself, Celestia and Luna only vaguely factored in, the leaving behind of usable livestock. Every damn action screamed inexperience and the directions of something drunk with too much power.

“This is to be out main holding?” she asked, floating out of the basement and out in the house proper, her form a ghastly imitation of a pony. Warily, I followed. “It is far too drab to be our main holdings, but we suppose it will do for now.” She sniffed, eyes dancing in a kaleidoscope of merrily mad circles. “These 'other powers' you made mention of... have they arrived?”

“Yes,” I reply. “I spoke to one of the bearers not long before I arrived. The sibling of my host.”

“Good,” she smiled widely, revealing teeth that ought not to be revealed. “Your host, he is the one maintaining the barrier is he not?” I nod. “Good... then my plan will still work.”

“Plan? I was not informed of any plan whilst I was making preper-”

“Of course there is a plan!” she snaps, and I back off, ill at ease. Even though she is many years younger than I am, she has the strength of an entire swarm feeding into her. I have just one colt. This is not a fight I would win, if pressed. “The plan is simple enough, though effective. I take complete control of your host, draining him of all his power. The Barrier will fall, and the swarm can come through.”

“You... you mean to attack all at once.” Not mad with power: insane with it, inexperience battling it out with twisted logic to produce something as half baked as this. “You do not even want to subjugate the Royal Guard first?”

“No need! We shall wipe them all out!” I needed to get out of here, fast. “Ours shall be a glorious victory, enough to provide my starving Swarm with a feast to last across the generations! We shall cover all of Equestria in our loving shadow!” Whatever happened, nopony was going to be forgetting this. Equestria would not be safe for several lifetimes for any changeling. I begin to dimly wonder whether the dragon migration was still ongoing or if I could make it to the griffon kingdoms on what love I had.

“What is your form known by?” she suddenly asked, catching me so completely off guard that instead of the name 'Cadance' which most ponies knew me by, I said-

“Princess Mi Amore Cadenza.”

“Good. A name truly fitting for Queen Chrysalis,” she said, and whilst I was busy thinking 'Oh mother: she gave herself a name!' her form melted into the one I was currently wearing.

For the first time, I think I truly empathised with the prey. Seeing your appearance (for I had worn 'Cadance' so long that it more than felt like my own) reflected back at you is disturbed me on levels I did not know I had. Exactly like a mirror had suddenly sprung up between us, except my reflection was the one smiling and walking off without me and I was the one forced to mimic it.

“Stay here,” she commanded, not even looking back as she strode towards the door. “Do not be seen; do not act. Stay hidden until I call for you.” She left.

For the longest time, I was frozen; unable to move. This was not how things were meant to happen; this was not how things were meant to be. Mother was meant to give the call, and I was to assist to the best of my ability. My sister was not meant to call, and even though I had now been given the opportunity I had been longing for moments ago, I did not want to take it.

In all essence, my sister was nothing more than a rival Queen who had moved into my patch and taken over, and there was nothing I could do about. She was stronger than me. She was already out in the open, wearing my form and knowing my name. I doubted she would even act with any subtlety whilst playing a part I had perfected over many, many years.

She would not be the first Queen to try and muscle in on another Queen's territory, nor would she be the last. The difference here was that the encroaching Queen was usually the weakest one, the other having at least one food source, and they had not usually been invited directly into another's home.

I could not best her by strength, but, perhaps, I did not need too. She would not know how to act the part of Cadance: she had no experience, after all. My love's sibling had seemed to recognise me, having performed some ritual that had doubtlessly once held meaning to the real Cadance almost immediately upon meeting me. She, surely, would suspect something, particularly if I were to help nudge her along a little. And then what would ' Chrysalis' do? Send her somewhere safe to be dealt with later...

No, I could not win with strength; I would have to be subtle. But then again, we are creatures of subtlety.

*****

The cave walls glimmered softly as I teleported into one of the natural caverns beneath Canterlot, my hooves scuffing the ground up into floating clumps of dust around my legs. It took more out of me than I'd have liked: she must have already reached Shinning Armor and severed my connection with him. I feel weak, weaker than I have in years. I had forgotten how much I needed him.

I look down at myself and frown. My appearance simply won't do; Twilight will expect Cadance to have been down here for months but my coat looks like it's just come out of a spa. I concentrate, my form rippling in the air like the surface of a lake caught in a storm. The outer surface shrinks in a little, as if hugging me for warmth, and I take on a starved appearance. Cuts and bruise raise up along my legs and flank, the hair covering them growing wild and untrimmed. Finally, my mane; I let it flop out everywhere, the threads hanging down in a tattered collection of loose fibres that only just cover up my now tarnished and muddied accessories. I let out a sigh I didn't know I was holding in, my legs caving way as I flop to the ground. My store of energy is nearly exhausted. I miss my love more than I can say.

I take a quick look around before realising I'm lying with my back facing towards the sealed-off cave where she'll most likely send Twilight. She is drawing off my memories of the place, sent along with other thoughts of 'preparation' before, and if I was imprisoning somepony down here, this cave is where I'd do it. Of course, I'd never even think of trying to trap Twilight down here. It probably won't occur to her how foolish it is to put a magically talented unicorn into a cave mined by unicorns.

*****

My sister looks shocked as I step out from behind Twilight, as she has every right to. As far as she's concerned, after all, I should not be here. I'm ruining everything.

“It's all part of the plan,” I send to her, my lips saying something meaningless for the ponies around us to hear. “Just play along. I've got this covered.”

“What are you doing? Why are you doing this?” she sends back furiously, but she keeps up appearances. Good. If I can fool her just long enough...

I respond with something clever, my words matching hers as a silent battle of thoughts plays out, layered on top of a second conversation relayed for all to hear. I call her a changeling, she reveals herself, Celestia is defeated, the elements leave and it rapidly becomes clear that I need a good reason for being here, fast. She is not going to loose as I expected her to; if anything, against all the odds, she's winning. Now there's only three of us: me, her and a small, purple dragon in a tuxedo. He looks ridiculous.

“Why?” she sends, her fury lashing against me as my feet are firmly fastened to the floor. I think fast.

“The Elements. If they win, and you are defeated, I can still overthrow them later in this form. Help you back. Even if you loose, you win. The perfect plan.” Amazingly, she buys it.

“Yes... yes, of course... even if I loose, I win.” She cackles in reality, her laugh startling the dragon. I do my best to look surprised too. “Nothing can stop me!”

And then the elements arrive, bound and helpless, and it quickly becomes clear that I'm not needed at all. And then she does what no experienced Queen would do; she takes time to crow her victory, even singing part of a song that I can swear is somehow familiar. Twilight frees me, and I can see my chance.

I said a Queen's relationship with her first host is symbiotic in nature, and I was not lying. As he supports us, we support him; it is in our interests for him to be successful, after all. I close my eyes, the last reserves of my own energy spent on a pretty illusion as I re-establish our bond.

It's like fire in the air; sharp, blistering hot and with a mind entirely of its own. Thoughts and feelings and images I can barely describe surge through me and burst out into the connection, his reserves bolstering as I pulse magic drawn from out the air itself into him. We glow, rising off the ground as the after-effects take over; the atmosphere around us shimmering and flickering in a rhythmic beat of light as energy races towards us.

A changeling Queen now rules over all of Canterlot, Celestia has been defeated and Luna will soon follow. It is the triumph my race has been dreaming of for centuries. Soon, a Swarm will be birthed from a mother that will cover all of Equestria, and perhaps spread from here to the other kingdoms, land after land falling to our might. But she is not my mother and this is not my Swarm. This is a rival Queen intruding upon my territory. And Love? Love, above all else it said to be, is possessive, self-centred and very, very selfish.

She turns, and her eyes lock onto mine with a look of heart-felt horror and betrayal. I do not blame her. We are sisters, after all.

“He's mine,” I send as the Barrier explodes in full force around us.

*****

We win, of course, my Shining Armor and me. The enemy’s expelled, the damage undone and after all, there's a Royal Wedding to be had. Perhaps after that there'll be a honeymoon. I very much doubt anypony will see us after that.

Giving Up The Ghost. Quality = Good

There are a many great and interesting places in which to start a story. From epic chases to pie flinging shoot-outs; from high-brow philosophy to ankle-low comedy: all have been done before and all have been done magnificently. This story, however, must suffer under the burden of a mundane start; not because the tale itself is uninteresting, but more in that it is unfortunately necessary.

This story starts off with roads.

The carriage-way system of Equestria remains, so I am told, underdeveloped for a vast combination of reasons, the foremost of which are summarised here: the pegasi fly overhead, the earth ponies walk everywhere and the unicorns, when they deign to travel, go by train. Carriages are the last things anypony who is remotely anypony would ever think of using. As is usual with any business shackled to such unprofitable conditions, bits are always needed and are seldom spent.

The road the cart was travelling on showed it. It was one of those roads which had been laid rather than built, the grey rocks that outlined its passage having been fitted over the route of an ancient hoofpath. Drainage, it appeared, was also something that had been cut back on: large puddles scattered evenly along it gave the road a pockmarked appearance that was in no way helped by the shaggy overgrowth of weeds on either side. In short, it had been both badly built and given only the lightest maintenance over the years.

It was not a road that expected carts, and nor was it one that wanted them. In summer, the road would crack, its surface loosening under the blistering heat of the midday's sun. In autumn, it would become coated in a thick layer of damp leaves, loosened from the oaken forests that coated the surrounding hills like unkept stubble.The surface formed by this was almost as treacherous as the one gleaned during the winter months, when black ice would echo a cobweb’s pattern and attempt to snare the unwary. And in spring, the road itself would almost disappear and be lost beneath a tidal outbreak of green, as plant after plant tried to prove their dominance over all things made from stone.

This was not a road that should exist; this was not a road that wanted to exist.

And yet exist it did because, after all, if somepony was maintaining it – however badly – somepony must have been using it. Truth be told, this road was hardly alone in its suffering. All across Equestria roads as miserable as this one connected fading town to struggling village in a patchwork quilt of passageways. They existed to link together the towns that lived a strange half-existence in the eyes of the world, not forgotten so much as overlooked and surpassed, and their dwindling glory days forever retained as a patronising form of 'quaintness'.

The types of places where the gene pool had been left simmering away for far too long.

Patience. The end of this description is in sight and, regardless, this paragraph serves more as a summary for those that came before it. For those who have been, understandably, skimming through it: welcome. This is your chance to shine. The scene has been set as follows: a grey, weather-beaten road is winding through a hilltop crowned with trees. And that, in so many words, is it. Furthermore, if you can cast your mind back over such wearisome passages, there was made mention of a cart, and it is on this that we now focus our attention.

It was a simple, wooden cart: one of those made during more opportunistic times before the railroads had connected together the outlying settler towns – towns like Applelossa, and Ponyville before it. The cart had obviously been designed with two more ponies in mind than the two which were now pulling it: large, earth pony stallions both, on whom a description need not be wasted. I can assure you that they will not appear again. The cart itself had, some time in the past, been converted from ferrying building materials to carrying passengers. The archaeological record of this hasty conversion took the form of a shabbily put together tarpaulin roof. This did a more than adequate job of veiling whomever was inside from whomever might be out.

The reader may be forgiven for asking why we did not start off with the cart and make passing mention of the road instead. The answer is simple: the state of the road is important whilst the state of the cart is not, and the combination of cart and road is about to become very, though subtly, important.

A rock, perhaps loosened from its bed by some free-wheeling cart several months before, struck against the underside of the carriage's wheel and thrust it haphazardly into the air. There was a loud groan from within the depths of the cart. A shadow, sketched vaguely on the tarpaulin's walls, stretched itself into movement. A few seconds after that, and a purple nose thrust itself into a now widening gap between tarpaulin and carriage-side, its owner hastily sucking in deep breaths of the outside's salty air.

This is our protagonist, and it is probably best that she be introduced before the introduction ends.

Berry Punch was not the most famous purple pony to come from Ponyville; that honour belonged to a far more renowned lavender unicorn. However, if you were to ask amongst a more pink-coated and red-eyed population, Berry held an infamy that went nearly unmatched. Nopony could drink more cider; nopony could party harder – within normal physical limitations – and whilst it had been many a year since Berry had exercised such demons, the legends – as legends tend to – remained. All across Equestria, pubs and breweries still refused to serve anypony whose cutie mark even faintly resembled the dreaded grape and berry.

The carriage alights for a moment on the crest of a hill, pauses for a few moments in the air and then tumbles down it at a frantic pace, the rattling carriage causing the banged and bruised nose of Berry to quickly retreat from its foray outside. Here, I suppose, is as good a place as any to describe this runaway carriage's destination.

Burnstow was a curious place. Despite being one of the few settled areas in Equestria close to the shore, the village had remained underpopulated since its establishment. Perhaps it stemmed from the tales of mysterious music that were said to echo over the sand dunes, or perhaps from a residual instinct that reminded earth ponies to stay far, far away from the water. In either case, Burnstow's relevance is fleeting. It is brought up more to give a background to the stage on which we set this tale; imagine it being wheeled clunkily on during a Hearths Warming Eve play by a clever series of ropes and pulleys, and then left in the shadows for the actors to prance about before. You need only imagine a set of old, squat buildings – occupied solely by the stubborn – and set in a ring of stone, and this description is complete.

Leaving that behind, then, we move onto the real setting of this piece: Hucwind, from which the twinkling lights of Burnstow could always be faintly seen. Hucwind was one of those buildings that easily pre-dated the Return of Nightmare Moon – known as the Lunar Reunification in more polite circles – though it did not appear to have weathered the years entirely without incident. Several of the walls showed signs of having been replaced over the centuries, so that the building itself appeared to be lazily slouching to one side. It was painted in a plain white that gave off a faint suggestion of far too much time being spent around soap, as opposed to the far more healthy option of rolling in mud outdoors. A magnificently well-tended slate roof deflected the faint drizzle that was bearing down on it off into a series of gutters, which gave off a faint clanging sound as the water gushed through them. This noise, however, was more than masked by the roar of a turbulent ocean not sixty yards away from the building, the distance between being covered by a mixture of lawn, sand-dunes and shingle.

In short, the picture I am trying to portray is that of an old, yet clearly well tended-to building, close to the shore and a comfortable distance away from the glowing smudge on the horizon that is Burnstow. If you are imagining an old sea-side hotel, then you're not far wrong, and what little wrong remains is more than remedied by adding in a set of iron bars to each window.

The carriage sliped off the road and trundled its way along a side-lane, the now left-behind and more-than-adequately described road continuing off towards Burnstow. Having passed inside the boundaries of Hucwind, the carriage gradually draws to a halt, its arrival causing a buzz of activity to emerge from the building. Two pegasi dressed in the bard of the Royal Guards exit Hucwind first, their gold armour a welcome splash of colour amongst what has, up till now, been a palette composed of grey, green and white only – with the occasional, mistaken dribble of purple. They quickly trot out across the gravelled courtyard and transform themselves into living statues on either side of the carriage's rear.

Following after them is a white unicorn with a mildly pink mane, her horn aglow as a hat bearing a copy of her red-cross shaped cutie mark bobs up and down behind her. The hat makes several occasional swoops for her head that are, it seems, in vain– her pace being far too quick for it to make a stable landing. After a few moments of frantic trotting, she'd caught up to the pair of pegasi, hat successfully landed and now going through the final stages of careful adjustment atop her head. She gives a quick glance and a grin up to the rightmost guard, who seemingly breaks composure for a moment in giving a wry smile back.

After having spent a few seconds sorting herself out, the unicorn wreathed the back door of the carriage in a gentle, blue glow before carefully tugging it open. Berry fumbled out after it, falling past the outstretched hoof of the unicorn and onto the ground, where she curled up into a shivering ball, her breaths coming in thick gasps.

“Err... Are you alright, miss?” the unicorn asked, a concerned look on her face.

“I'm... I'mma.... I'mma gonna be fine, just... just get c-carriage sick, that's all...” Berry burped loudly, the echoes bouncing off the walls, scaring a few birds into the air and causing her cheeks to glow like embers. Behind her back, the carriage suddenly started off again, the wheels churning up mud and pebbles into the air. Within a few moments, it had vanished.

“Right... ahem, I mean: All right then.” The unicorn drew herself up slightly and her words took on a more formal tone. It was obvious that she'd practised this greeting before. “Welcome to Hucwind health facility, part of the Celestia's Intervention Institute, and your new home whilst we help you quash whatever addiction or ailment you're suffering from.”

Berry raised her head and blinked up at her. “Nurse... Heart?” she ventured. The unicorn looked quite taken back.

“How did you... Wait, you're from Ponyville, aren't you?” She chuckled. “Know I look quite like my sister, but we're not really the same pony.” She winked. “The clue's in the horn. My name's Marigold Heart; the pony you're thinking of is my sister Red Heart.”

“Sure look like her,” Berry mumbled. Nurse Heart once again chuckled in response.

“If you think that's bad, try having a whole family full of nurses all over Equestria, all with exactly the same cutie mark. My only fortune is that I just happen to look like Red. Got a set of sisters in Hoofington that even my parents can't tell apart, and –” The pegasus on her right gave a slight cough, and she broke off with an abashed look.

“Right. Anyway, I'll explain the rest whilst we get you to your room. If you can walk that is.” She gave her another concerned look. “Are you sure you're alright?”

Berry gulped once and pushed herself up with a set of trembling limbs. She swayed slightly as she looked around the courtyard, a faint frown settling on her face as her gaze travelled across the building.

“I'll be just fine.” She breathed out heavily and seemed to gather some sort of control over herself. “What's this place called again?”

“Hucwind health facility,” Nurse Heart repeated, nodding to the Pegasi accompanying her as Berry tottered closer. “We're here to help you get over whatever you're suffering through.”

“Not sufferin' through anything,” Berry replied, her tone sour. The group had already set off and were now halfway towards the building's entrance: a plain, oaken door that looked several centuries older than the brick it was framed in.

“We help you through that too,” Nurse Heart replied, hooves crunching on the wet gravel. She gave Berry a sideways look. “You do know why you're here, don't you?”

“Didn't get much of a chance to ask. I'd just got back from our local Sisterhooves Social, went straight to bed and then woke up in that goddam cart.” Berry shivered. “The ponies pulling it were less than helpful in telling me exactly why I was there.”

“Really? Well, that's not our usual protocol.”

Nurse Heart gave a tinkling laugh as the door in front of the group opened with a rush of heat, revealing a room that had been painted in a bright red and was well lit by a series of candles. A large quantity of doors seemed to populate the walls, the spaces between them being occupied by several pictures showing scenes of ponies frolicking together on a sunny field or napping blissfully under a glistening moon. In comparison to the weather outside, it was like opening a door out onto the surface of the sun.

As Nurse Heart and Berry entered, the two Pegasus dropped back, turning round smartly and taking up position on either side of the door. With a slight nod of farewell to one of them, Nurse Heart closed the door. The sound of the wind outside dropped dramatically, giving off the strange impression that she'd somehow shut out the world, and left this room entirely isolated from the rest of Equestria.

“Right. Now you're in from the cold, we can see about why you're here exactly.” Nurse Heart trotted off into a small side door, which quickly slapped shut behind her. Berry took a slow, serene glance around the room before closing her eyes and shaking her head. A faint rummaging sound suddenly started flowing out the side-door, before just as suddenly stopping.

“What did you say your name was again?” Nurse Heart asked, her head poking out the side door.

“I didn't,” Berry replied. Nurse Heart looked thunderstruck.

“Oh no! Didn't forget to ask, did I? Oh, I'm so sorry, it was just the way you arrived and-”

“It's Berry Punch.”

“From Ponyville, right?” Berry nodded and Nurse Heart's head retreated. The rummaging sound returned. “You know, we've got another one from Ponyville here. Don't know if you'll know him, though. Pegasus called Colonel Thunderlane.”

“Colonel?”

“Mmm-hmm. That's right. Colonel Thunderlane.”

“I didn't know he was a Colonel.” The rummaging sound paused and were replaced by a quick curse.

“Oh no, gone and put my hoof in it again, haven't I?” A sigh drifted out into the room. “We get access to all the government's information here. Guess if you don't know, he just didn't tell you. Hmm... Right.” The rummaging sound did not resurface. Instead, Nurse Heart emerged from the door with a worried look on her face and a folder floating along beside her.

“Couldn't find one with your name on, I'm afraid, and –”

“Does that mean that I shouldn't be here?” Berry interrupted sharply.

“Well... not necessarily.” The folder beside her opened like a clam and a selection of sheets flew out. “This one arrived yesterday, and it's for one 'Berry Shine'. Don't suppose that's a typo, or...”

“I don't use that name anymore,” Berry said, a curiously lost look on her face. “Not since my husband died, anyway.” Nurse Heart winced slightly.

“Ah. Sorry. Didn't mean to pry, but, you know, government records. We really do get to see everything, which means that changing anything...” She hid her face behind a fan of paper. “Right. Lets see... as an earth pony you'll be in block two, of course, and it says here... ah, room seventeen.” The papers ducked down slightly. “That's a nice one, that is; has a view.” The papers returned. “And... ah. You're here for alcoholism.”

“I am not an alcoholic.”

“I'm sorry, but if you didn't have a problem with alcohol then you wouldn't be here.” The papers neatly stacked themselves back into their folder, which was then carefully placed on Nurse Heart's back.

“Maybe I shouldn't be here, then,” Berry replied, glaring slightly at Nurse Heart, who smiled gently in return.

“That's not as important as that you're here now and it's getting far too late to be trying to be going anywhere else. Besides, this is stamped with the authority of Princess Celestia herself. She set up the Celestia Intervention Institute after the Lunar Rebellion to help ponies who needed it, whether they wanted help or not.” Nurse Heart walked over towards one of the doors, her horn flashing as it twisted open. “So, I'm afraid it's either sleeping on the floor or in your bed.”

Berry didn't move. Nurse Heart's polite smile turned sympathetic.

“Please, Miss Punch. Don't make me call the guards.”

Berry scuffed her hooves at the ground for a few moments, faint traces of dirt brushing off her hooves and onto the carpet. Eventually, silently, she walked forwards, Nurse Heart giving her an encouraging nod as she went. The two travelled down the corridor, an awkward silence establishing itself as they passed by door after door.

“So,” Nurse Heart said, “you mentioned taking part in a Sisterhooves Social? What's your sister like, then?”

“Don't have one. Wasn't that on my file?” Berry replied. The uncomfortable silence returned.

“Ah,” Nurse Heart trilled, her voice a tad too enthused as the duo stopped before a door. “Here we are. Room seventeen.” The door flashed blue round the keyhole before swinging open, revealing itself to be several layers thicker than any door seen so far. Berry padded in after it, hooves near sinking into a carpet made of a thick, blue fuzz.

“Alrighty, then. That's that.” Berry didn't turn round. “Breakfast will be in the morning. Somepony will come round to pick you up, and you'll get a chance to meet with all the other patients. Nighty-night!” The door swung gently closed as the nurse left her alone.

It was really the kind of door that should have slammed shut. The atmosphere demanded it, and the weight of the door more than made it possible. But, alas, Nurse Heart didn't really seem to want to get into the spirit of things. Or at least, so it seemed for Berry. They had, after all, locked her up in some room to cure some affliction she didn't very well have, and that was after having dragged her some unknown distance across Equestria. She was trapped here under divine authority, no less. The only things missing were bars on the windows. Berry stole a quick glance over. There were bars on the windows. This, to Berry's rightful mind, confirmed that she wasn't a guest so much as she was a prisoner.

It really was the sort of thing for which a door should’ve slammed shut. Berry extended the visual robbery of her glance into a full-on room inspection.

There are rooms which are welcoming, rooms which are intimidating and rooms which are indifferent. This room was none of those: it instead belonged to the staunch middle-ground of rooms which haven't quite made up their minds over how they feel about you yet. A bricked in fireplace metamorphosed into an upturned nose; the ugly marble bust sitting on the mantelpiece above it, an angry wart. The curtains dangling over the barred windows were a quizzical frown; a writing-desk and small stockpile of quills and paper were a pair of tense lips. A door on Berry's left actually squeaked on its hinges as she looked at it, as if the room was trying to encourage her to evacuate to what was probably an en-suite and take her lack-of-class with her.

The bed, however, had no such reservations, and beckoned merrily to her like an old friend leaning out of a pub door; Berry was never one to pass up an invitation. She sashayed over to it, kicked the dirt off her hooves and onto the carpet and slumped down onto the bed. It sank down beneath her weight, the mattress tugging her cheek up and forcing her left eye shut. A breeze blew open the curtains; Berry's right eye was granted a look outside.

The darkness which had been hovering above the earlier scene had taken its leave of the heavens and begun to descend, casting much of the promised view from sight and into a sort of murky, half-hearted blackness. All Berry could make out were a collection of lights trailing across the ground some distance off. They illuminated their surroundings enough for her to spot the tell-tale lines of grass and hills: the lights were out on the dunes. An uncharitable, if likely accurate, thought gripped her. The lights were being held by guards, out to catch anypony who tried to escape. Berry frowned one-eyedly at them.

She was only here for the night. She'd be gone by morning, after she'd spoken with someone in charge. Trying to stop her from escaping at night was a fools errand. Foals.

Berry turned over and allowed her left eye a chance to look around, though it had to be content with the same view it had seen before, that of the room. The walls, Berry noted, were stuck between cream and a mustard yellow. She didn't know why she'd noted that, but noted it she had. Her left eye rolled around in its socket, looking in vain for something interesting. It focused on the marble bust across the room from her, sitting like a squat toad beneath a painting that was too dark to make out.

It was a very ugly bust of a very ugly stallion. He seemed to be frowning at Berry. She frowned back, before getting up and turning the statue very firmly towards the wall. She'd had quite enough of that attitude from inanimate objects for today. She trotted back over to bed, slumped into it and threw the covers over herself.

The room seemed to decide, all at once, that she would do; the atmosphere lightened incredibly. At almost the same moment, the light above Berry's head went out, and a purple hoof retreated back under the covers. A few seconds later, she started to snore.

And so, under the usual quickening of time that sleep brings, night went and morning came. Berry slept through the dawn, of course, and was only woken up by somepony hammering hard on her door.

The Generation Jump. Quality = Piss Poor

This will be the only story I'll place a warning before. Don't read this. Seriously. Even the stuff up in that little box in the corner of the screen has better stuff in it than this chapter.

Don't do it, man. Go read something else. Downvote this story if you must; hell, go downvote everything I've ever written. Just please, please don't read this.

I'm worried about you.

I screwed up. Not much more you can say than that, really. Sure, we could go into the specifics of exactly how I screwed up, but I think that'd take too long and, well, it'd be kinda dull too. Not that it wasn't horrible at the time, of course, and I'm really sad it happened and all, but it isn't exactly the most exciting way to lose the whole world in the history of all things. We don't really need to go into more specifics than double-inside out loop on a pegasus without a saddle. And the crunch. If you don't mind, I'd like to not think about the crunch.

So, if I'm not going to tell you about how I screwed up, then I'll bet you're asking yourself exactly what I am going to be telling you about. Well that one's actually kinda simple: you see, the thing about screw ups is that, most of the time, you can fix them. Not all of the time, though: hay, it'd probably have been impossible to fix what I did if Moochick hadn't decided to help. Woah, boy would things have been different if he hadn't. Guess there'd have been two crunches then.

But anyway, we're getting off topic: this is the story of how I messed everything up and then how I managed to fix it again. A story about how Tirac won and the world got plunged into an eternal night for... erm, I don't actually know how long. But mostly, it's a story about how one little pony managed to save Equestria, with a little help from her friends. Oh, and my name's Firefly by the way. That probably should have gone at the top.

There hadn't even been time to blink before it'd happened.

One moment we were soaring through the air towards his chariot, and I'd been certain, oh so very certain that this was it. The next one, and I was falling through the air, my wings frozen as I became coated in a darkness that felt thick and heavy as it swarmed over me, the clashes and cries of battle drowned out as it pasted itself over my ears. There was darkness, darkness everywhere: surrounding and enclosing me within it as I was cut off from the world. Darkness wrapping itself round my body, curling and twinning itself into my mane and tail, forcing it's way into my mouth and clogging up my air-holes as it changed me. And that was the worst part. I could feel it changing me: each pulse drawing out my legs and teeth, warping and twisting me as I was remade in Tirac's dark designs. Then, without warning or indication, the violent tugging stopped, but the blackness surrounding me did not.

“Oh, no no no no no, we can't be having that. That simply won't do at all. AT ALL!” A voice called out, reminding me dimly of a strange mushroom man in the midst of a weird forest. Slowly, as if being sketched into life in front of me, the outline of a small, plump gnome wearing a frilly mushroom hat on his head appeared. His body greedily snatched up tufts of nothingness from the void around him, the pieces condensing and solidifying into being as he leant on an umbrella, anxiously regarding me as if his appearance was a perfectly natural and, quite frankly, boring occurrence.

“A said a piece of rainbow, a piece! And a little piece at that, my my, yes I did!” he mumbled at me, hands revolving round and round inside his loose sleeves and an anxious expression on his face.

“Mr... Mr Moochick?” I ventured, blinking confusedly up at him as I rose to my feet. Or at least I tried too. But I couldn't move, couldn't twig a single twitchy muscle, couldn't blink or sniff or even move my lips, and yet...

“I...I don't know what's...I can speak, but I can't: I, I-I” I started to panic. Mr Moochick waved a single hand dismissively as I tried to move and failed to. Tried to break out in a cold sweat and failed to. Tried to fall into a shivering, quaky, broken-down mess and completely and utterly failed to.

“No no, I'll be having none of that: you're not to panic, you hear? Panicking won't get you anywhere. Your body's not here because you're not here. You can't be. This is nowhere, I'm afraid. Or might it be somewhere...” His words faded into silence as he stared pensively out to his right, a puzzled expression on his face. Then, as if he'd been standing on top of a warren, a small rabbit wearing red breeches inexplicably wandered out from behind him and tapped him on the foot, prematurely drawing him out of his musing session.

“No, no, no: I was right before. We're nowhere.” he folded his arms and kicked the ground, a patch of grass appearing underneath his boot before the scattered blades vanished into the black as if caught by a non-existent wind.

“Mr Moochick, what in the hay's going on?” I asked, trying to calm down and finding it all too worryingly easy to: it's hard to panic when you don't have a body to panic for you.

“It's Tirac, my dear: he's succeeded in bringing eternal night, I'm afraid. Gone and got enough ponies for his chariot before you could stop him. It's just terrible, simply terrible what he's going to do to all those poor ponies. And to everything else too, I suppose. Oh, it's just so awful!”

“But-but what about me?” I asked, as water began to pour out his eyes and slosh down his chin like a weird, facial river.

“Oh! You died. Or almost died, I might add. I sort of snatched you up at the last moment, as it were. You see, you have to try again: pick yourself up and dust yourself down. And this time follow my instructions.”

“What instructions? You never gave us any instructions. And how in the hay am I meant to pick myself up: you just said I'm not here, that I'm nowhere!"

“Ah, yes, you see, that's the thing. You are nowhere, which means it going to be a bit tricky to get you in anywhere in this cycle. We'll have to try and slot you in somewhere else. Just let me take a little bit of a look.” He took off his hat and rummaged around inside it, going so far as to actually climb into it before emerging with a scroll about twice as long as he was tall. Rolling it out, he took a glance at me before turning his back, as if trying to hide what he was doing.

“Hmm, let's see.” he whispered to himself, apparently unaware I could hear him as clearly as before. “Ah, well: that's all of this cycle ruled out. And, well, next one's going to be tricky. Say” he spoke the last word, turning to me as he did so. “You don't think you'd be willing to give up those wings, do you?” I shook my head, his echoing mine a few moments later. “Pity, pity... ah! Well, well, well, what have we: no, no, no, no, that one won't do at all, it's horrid: horrid! Simply horrid. Hmm, I suppose- no, no: same as before...” he frowned, before turning back to me. “You know, at this rate I don't know if you'll be able to go back at all. At all!”

With that, Mr Moochick appeared to give up, arms thrown above him in frustration, the umbrella in his hand unfurling itself out fully as it went. I'm not even going to pretend I knew what he was going on about, but if he thought it would help then I guessed it probably would. Which meant him giving up was, well, bad. And I'd had it up to here with bad.

“... what about the next, er, cycle?” I ventured, smiling hopefully. Or trying to, at any rate: not sure what smiling's like without a face. It's the thought that counts, right?

“Hmm, let's see. Ah. Ah yes. Well then, this one might do just nicely.” He said, rolling the scroll up and tossing it back inside his hat. I could swear I heard a tinkle of junk shifting and settling as he did so.

“Now then: the instructions. Listen carefully, this time: I'm not so sure we'll have another go at this, so you've got to make this one count.”

“What instructions?” I asked, confusion after confusion piling onto my head. “You never gave us any instructions for anything!”

“Didn't I?” Mr Moochick looked suddenly very worried. “Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear, why that explains so much! I wondered why you didn't go and collect any more pieces of the rainbow of light. Oh, curse my absent mind!” He sat down heavily, a thump indicating that a patch of ground had just sprung up beneath him.

“Err, Mr Moochick, we didn't even use the rainbow of light.” If I had hooves, I'd be pawing the ground with them right now. “We, err. We just tried to take the rainbow of darkness.”

“Oh.” Mr Moochick, looked around sheepishly. “Erm, I don't suppose I told you to do that as well, did I?”

“You did kinda suggest it'd be our only way of stopping him, yeah.” The gnome seemed to shrivel up in front of me, his rabbit tossing me a farewell salute before scurrying behind him and vanishing from sight.

“I really haven't done a very good job, have I? Oh dear. What am I to do?” He curled his legs up into his chest before drawing his arms down onto his sides. I blinked. It was as if, before my eyes, he had transformed himself into a large, frilly mushroom.

“Mr Moochick, what instructions? Please, I've gotta know?” I called out. Mr Moochick did not unfold himself but, none-the-less, he seemed to start speaking to me.

“The pieces of rainbow will be long gone by now, absorbed into somepony and changed back into their natural forms. You'll have to remind them of what they're meant to represent: the bit of rainbow you already have should help you there. There'll be six ponies- six at least I should think- that you've got to find here in Equestria. Their names are... hold on a moment, it's in here somewhere.” I waited patiently, with only a mild nip of curiosity over how he managed to make rummaging sounds without actually appearing to do any rummaging at all. After a few moments, the noises ceased.

“Aha! Here we are. Their names are Rarity, Mistress Fluttershy, a Miss Rainbow Dash, one Applejack and a Twilight Sparkle. Oh, and a Pinkie Pie. Hmm, ah that wasn't all of it: no,no, not even half... where's the rest of it?” He fell silent again as I turned over the names in my head: I recognised Applejack, and Twilight's last name could have been Sparkle, but apart from that they were all new to me. Then a sudden cry of delight shot out from in front of me and preceded to scatter my thoughts.

“Ah, I remember now. Ahem. The one thing you will most observe is that things are not at all as they were. Everything's changed as everything's new, and the only thing constant, my dear, is you.” There was another pause, before he continued, his voice sounding fainter and fainter, as if he was walking away.

“And that's the rules of the game. Or the instructions, perhaps. Good luck, Firefly. Good luck everypony.” And just like that, he fell quiet.

I waited for a few moments, just hanging there in the blackness, waiting for him to do something, anything. After moments dragged into minutes and nothing seemed forthcoming, I ventured a small cough and a whinny.

“Err, hello? Mr Moochick?”

“Mr who? Are you talking to that mushroom?” A voice called out from my left.

I turned my head towards it, and paused as three things hit me in close succession. Firstly, the voice belonged to a blue pegasus with a rainbow mane and tail, who was gazing at me with a look caught somewhere between guarded and curious. Secondly, I was no longer in infinite blackness: surrounding me were several trees and bushes and, in front of me, a rather large collection of mushrooms. Thirdly, and from my point of view, most importantly, I had just moved my head. I could move. I had a body again.

With a laugh, I ran my legs over my coat, dragging along little surges of reddish fur beneath my hooves as I did so. I shook out my blue mane and flicked out my tail, stamped with my legs and flexed with my wings, rejoicing in the feeling of being able to feel again. Well, at least the experience had taught me one thing: you never really miss having a body until you don't.

There was a faint bumping on my chest, and I caught whatever was making it on one of it's bounces, moving it to my hoof so I could get a better look at whatever it was. There, laid out before my eyes, was a red jewel tied to a golden chain. I recognised it: somehow, as subtly as he had moved me into the real world again, Mr Moochick had managed to place the one object I needed most around my neck: he had returned the little piece of rainbow to me. Hopefully I'd be able to give it to whichever of the six ponies needed it.

There was a glint of something across the jewel's surface, and I looked up to catch whatever had made it, and then I never wanted to stop looking up again. The moonlight was casting an array of dappled shadows across both the ground and my face, the light shining down through the mists that hung about the autumn's leaves. In between that was a cascade of stars across the night's sky, and after having stared into nothing but empty darkness for what had felt like a lifetime (though it'd probably only been a few minutes), it felt so good to see the stars again.

“Hey!” I heard, and I quickly moved my head down, having, up till now, forgotten about the pony standing with me in the woods. She raised her hoof up and pointed accusingly at the mushroom patch. “Have you been eating those?” she demanded, a frown dancing above her eyes.

“Ahaha, erm, no.” I giggled, realising how that must have looked to anypony just coming across me. Then I looked back up into the night's sky. “It's just... they're so beautiful.”

“Yeah, real once of a lifetime occurrence. It's not like they're out all the time, or anything.” The pegasus snarked as she stopped a little way off from me, her hooves kicking up small puffs of dirt as she halted. I guessed the closeness meant we were supposed to start talking.

“My name's Firefly.” I offered, along with the biggest smile I could manage. “What's yours?”

“Firefly, huh?” the blue pegasus said, slowly moving towards me, her eyes slightly glaring into mine and her lack of proffered name sitting heavy between us. “Where you from, Firefly?”

“Oh, I live in a big old castle with a bunch of other ponies. It's called Dream Castle. Do you know if it's nearby? I'm kinda worried about my friends.” I replied, hoping she'd either know it or help me find it. She did neither.

The worry that had briefly flared across the pegasus's face at the mention of 'castle' faded as I continued to talk. Nodding slightly to herself, she took one step forward and then suddenly thrust her face right up into mine, yelling “Are you a spy?” as she did so.

I tried to take a step back, but was stopped by her hooves digging into either side of my body, pinning me in place.

“I, err, I don't know.” I stammered, feeling like I was sinking into a well of confusion. “A spy for who?”

The blue pegasus blinked at that, her grip loosening enough for me to wriggle out and bump myself off the back of a tree, causing a few errant leaves to float gently downwards.

“I don't know: Tirac, I guess.” The name seemed to reset something inside her head, and she returned to glaring at me. “Well: are you?”

“No.” I shot back, blood boiling as I remembered the monster who'd stolen my friends from me. The monster I had failed to stop. I stomped a hoof, before beginning to flap my wings and rise up into the air. “What about you, huh? Are you?”

“No.” She replied, also rising into the air. We both glared into the others face, perfect little reflections of each other right down to my two blue-bolt to her cloud-bolt cutie marks. Then, with a sigh, the other mare backed down, her hooves gently digging back into the forest's floor as she landed.

“Look, I know we got off to a bad start and all, but you've got to understand: I've never even heard of a Dream castle, and anypony who lives in a castle is trouble round here.”

“Here?” I asked, also landing but not letting my frown abate.

“Everfree forest.” she said, staring curiously at me, then back to the mushrooms. “Look, are you sure you didn't-”

“No.” I interrupted, not particularity willing to go through this conversation again. “What's the Everfree forest?” The pegasus froze, before batting a hoof off the ground and turning round to face me again, her eyes now more filled with worry than accusation.

“Do 'The Ponyville jewel mines' mean anything to you?” She asked, walking carefully up and around me, giving me a thorough glance over as she did so. “Nightmare moon? Crimson dawn? How about the Castle of Eternal Night? Anything?” I shook my head to all of these. She sighed, giving me a sheepish and slightly sorry look.

“Yeah, figured that might be the case. You've had your memory managed.”

“I've had what?” I asked, frowning into her apologetic face.

“Your memory managed. It's what they do to troublesome workhorses down in the mines. I'm guessing one of the guards did it then dragged you out here as some kind of joke. But I'll bet you can't even remember that, right?”

“Actually-”-I was placed here by a magical gnome after he saved me from death by taking away my body, and after that he spoke mysteriously to me for a while before turning into his hat. Hay, I'd finally managed to get the only pony I'd met so far to trust me, and my big, honest mouth was about to blow it. “-I think that's exactly what happened.” I finished, confession cut off halfway through by my thoughts already playing through exactly what would have happened if I'd been foalish enough to speak the truth.

The pegasus frowned at me, as if I'd said something very wrong, before shrugging and starting to move away from the mushroom patch. “It's this way back to the mines.” She called out, gesturing with a hoof to follow her. “Come on, I'll take you there. There's bound to be somepony there who'll know you and be able to help you out.”

*****

“So, you feel like telling me your name yet?” I asked, hooves picking their way between the knotted roots and leaf pits that made up the forest's floor. The Rainbow mare looked back over at me, her glance still slightly tinged with suspicion, before sighing.

“I can't. Look, I think you're okay and all, but I can't tell you my name. It'd put both of us in a bit of danger that I don't think you'll be able to handle.”

“Danger is my life.” I shot back, and she snorted.

“Yeah, all ten minutes you can remember of it. Look, I'm not saying you'd turn tail and run or nothin', it's just... better for us both if you don't know.”

“Fine.” I said, happily. The pegasus paused, allowing me to catch up before throwing a curious glance at me.

“Fine? You're not... worried about it, or anything?”

“Nope. If you say it's better that I don't know, then I believe you.”

“Wow, that's... well, that's way more trust than I usually get. Not that that's a bad thing, of course, it's just...”

“New and confusing?” I ventured, and she snorted again. The path we were following seemed to lead directly out into the open: not only could I see the edge of the forest, but it was only a moment's trot away!

“Yeah, new and very confusing and a helluva lot of stupid. You can't trust anypony 'cause it'll always come back to bite you in the end. Believe me: I know.” she replied, the two of us finally having made our way out of the forest and into the open air. It was far more wild than I'd have expected it to be: like somepony had just abandoned the fields around the forest and let them all go to seed. Hedges and small corpses were scattered around the landscape in front of us, and just off in the distance I thought I could make out the glow of what might be the 'Ponyville jewel mines' the pegasus had mentioned earlier.

“Hey there, Rainbow Dash: it's bin a while, ain't it?” A voice called out from ahead of us, the mare next to me skidding to a halt as the words hit her. Up ahead of us a light-brown mare detached herself from the wild-growing bush she was leaning on, a hoof raised to gently tilt back her hat as she strolled forwards. “Care to tell me who your twin is, sugar?” She paused, smirking at us, and I caught sight of the her cutie mark: three apples on her flank! I knew this mare!

“Applejack!” I called out in relief as the pegasus next to me hissed “Applejack.” Blinking, we looked at each other, before saying simultaneously “You know her?”

“Ain't never seen that one 'fore in my life, but I'm as sure as certain that I know who you are, sugarcube.” Applejack said, stepping forwards with a grin on her face. I took a step forwards too, also smiling, as the pegasus next to me took a single one back.

“Applejack, it's so good to see you again!” I said, moving forwards towards the faintly bemused looking Earth pony. “Can you tell me what's been going on?”

“Should've known you were lying, should've known...” The Pegasus muttered at me as Applejack frowned over me, puzzlement sketched in a foal-like drawing across her face.

“You talkin' to me?” She gave off a small laugh, before turning to my companion. “Horesapples, Rainbow: you sure do know how to pick 'em. What's this one got: brain damage or somethin'?” I figured this was my cue to interupt.

“I know how to beat Tirac! Moochick explained everything to me just now: we just need to find five other ponies and we can stop him for good this time!” Everything seemed to slow as Applejack considered that, her eyes widening slightly before her face settled into the widest grin I'd ever seen on her.

“Really, sugar-cube? Well then, don't be shy: why don't you tell your auntie Applejack here all about it.”

There was a blur of sound behind me before the blue pegasus reappeared before me, her eyes dancing from one side of my face to the next.

“You weren't lying!” she said, falling onto her rump and staring at me in a slightly dazed expression as the sky behind her slowly began to darken, cloud after black cloud filling up the nights sky and slowly blotting out the stars one by one. “Right now: you weren't lying. You really can stop Tirac, can't you.”

“Yep.” I said, happy enough that both of these ponies seemed to be taking me seriously. This whole thing might turn out to be a bit easier than I thought. “But we need her to help us: the Moochick specifically said 'Applejack', and that's her!”

“Yep, that's me all right: now why don't you hurry up and tell me 'fore this Tirac fella shows up. He sounds real nasty.” Applejack called to me, strolling casually over to half the distance she'd been earlier, before an accusing hoof from the gape-jawed pegasus shot out and pointed in her direction.

“Her? Her! She's the one you want to help you! She works for Tirac: she's his top henchpony! The loyalist, most dependable and evillest pony of them all! And you want her to help overthrow him?” I blinked at the pegasus a few times, before moving my head out past her to look at Applejack. The Pony grinned at me, her smile seeming, if anything, a bit too forced. A forced smile that, like water sliding off a duck, vanished into a smirk.

“You're not buying it, are you? Shoot, and I was so close too. Ah well, never said I had to have your permission or anything: go get her boys.” Three dark shapes that I'd taken as being trees or bushes suddenly became animated, growing arms and heads as three giant, dragon-like Stratodons emerged from the gloom, shaking out wings and unfurling their limbs. Applejack rolled onto her front hooves, tail lashing out as she did so, and the long, black whip tied to that flying towards us, the whip crack hitting precisely where the pegasus had been mere moments before.

“Make sure you keep the pink one alive.” She called out as the whip sailed back towards her, curling up into a perfect loop behind her back. “I've still got some questions for that one.”

“It's light-red, not pink!” I cried out as the Stratodons bellowed and quickly charged towards us, rapidly shortening the gap between us. Blinking at the giant lizard bearing down on me, claws outstretched to pluck me from the ground, I realised that I'd probably been focusing on entirely the wrong part of what she'd been saying. Then- Whack! The rainbow pegasus, from out of literally nowhere, lashed out with her rear legs, hooves colliding with the Stratodon's snarling face. The collision bought me more than enough time for me to break out of whatever daze I'd been in, and speedily remove myself from the lizard's way.

“Get out of here: your our only chance of stopping Tirac: go!” She soared round the empty field, Applejack's whip cracking out at her head as one of the Stratodons thundered directly for her, leaving, of course, the other two as special presents just for me. As quickly as I could I flew forwards, my wings beating in a frantic blur as I pushed with just how fast I could go. Glancing behind me, I noticed that one of the Stratodons was following close behind, the other holding back slightly. Good. I'd thought up a plan earlier to deal with that, back when I was with more than just one pony, and this was the perfect time to put that plan into action.

“What are you doing?” the pegasus cried out, Stratodon biting at her tail as I charged towards her, my own Stratodon in pursuit and gaining, its head almost within snapping range of my hooves.

“Helping!” I shouted out, flashing past her retreating form and only just managing to lightly skim over the back of the Stratodon that had been pursuing her. Moments after I'd cleared it's back, the Stratodon that had been pursuing me collided heavily with the other, the two tumbling out of the sky in a roaring duet of anguish.

“How about you go? I think I can handle this on my own” I called out, stomping down into the face of the final airborne Stratodon, the hit causing it to fall a few feet before it began to rise back into the air. Thunder began to roll out around us as the overcast skies threatened to turn completely into a storm.

“Or you could just leave and let the professionals handle this?” The pegasus snapped, pushing me out of the way just in time for Applejack's whip to crackle past my right ear like a miniature, skyward bound lightning bolt. As I managed to regain the height I'd lost, she sighed and levelled her gaze at me. “Or we could stop trying to one up each other and just go!”

“Agreed, and new plan!” I bellowed, the two of us breaking apart as the rising Stratodon's head snapped where we'd been flying mere moments before, the lizard trying to capture both of us at once but managing to wind up with nopony.

“Oh, I'd just love to hear it, why don't you- oh, flaming horseapples!” I glanced over to where she her frowning downwards, my own eyes quickly following. Like vengeful angels, the other two Stratodons had already taken off from the ground, jaws snapping and eyes glaring up at us. It'd probably be only a few more minutes before they got here.

“Good!” I called out, soaring towards her as quickly as I could. Her eyes flashed with alarm, and she managed a half-mangled shout before I'd hit her, my hooves quickly wrapping themselves around her wings and thus letting the two of us tumble downwards like a carefully flung stone. Bound together, we plummeted out of the sky: past the gaping mouth of the first Stratodon, past the sudden crack of Applejack's whip shooting past us and then, finally, past the astonished and furious jaws of the final pair.

Now came the hard part: pulling out of the dive. I'd angled it so that we should be able to make it, or at least, so that I'd be able to make it. I'd just have to hope the other pegasus was as good a flier as she seemed to be: if not, well... crunch.

“Pull out!” I cried, letting go and already beginning to beat my wings, hope rising when I saw that she'd already begun to do the same. My wings were already starting to burn slightly as I pushed myself, but slowly and surely I was managing to pull myself out of the ground's predestined meet and thunk. I looked over to the rainbow pegasus, expecting to see her struggling or lagging behind, only to find that she'd not only beaten me in levelling out but that she'd barely broken a sweat whilst doing so. The girl could fly.

With a whooshing rush of air, we made it, skimming along the tree tops as we raced away from Applejack, Stratodons and forest alike as the storm clouds gathered overhead, silently spreading and blotting out all the stars.

*****

“You really think we're far enough away?” I asked, throwing an anxious glance behind us. It'd been a few hours now since we'd escaped from Applejack and the Stratodons, but despite the pegasus's reassurances we were safe, I didn't feel safe. I mean, Applejack and the Stratodons. I never thought anypony'd be saying something like that. I never thought I'd be saying something like that.

The two of us were sitting on a rock pile the pegasus had led us towards during our wildly veering escape. It was a fair distance away from any paths, and the section we were nestled in certainly did its best to hide us from any watchful eyes on the ground, but it wasn't eyes on the ground I was worried about. The Stratodons had appeared before from a quickly growing storm cloud, just like the one that had been growing when we'd fought them earlier. It wasn't eyes on the ground we had to worry about: it was danger coming from the night's sky.

“Sure we will: trust me, this isn't my first time evading them.”

“They've gone after you before?”

“Course they have. I'm a spy for the Cyclic Rebellion.” she passed over a water bottle to me, produced as if from nowhere and I greedily drank from it. “Or is it the Equestrian Ponies Front? If only Lady Sparkle didn't keep on changing names all the time...”

Wiping water from off my lips, I returned the bottle to her, saying “I thought you said you weren't a spy? Why'd you lie to me?” The pegasus shrugged as she took it back, before laying it down on the rock she was sitting on and coolly regarding me.

“No, you asked me if I was a spy for Tirac, and I'm not, so I didn't lie. I'm no liar, believe me: if anything, I'm the exact opposite. I can tell when people are lying to me, any time any place.”

I frowned at her. There was being trusting, and there was this. Alright then, let's test you little power. I needed something that I know's a lie, but she doesn't... something reasonable, like... hmm... I like-

“You don't like banana's” the pegasus interrupted me, destroying my train of thought entirely as she drank out the rest of her water bottle and managed to stow it away.

“Lucky guess.” I said, swallowing nervously. A damn lucky guess, I thought.

“Nope, I have absolutely no idea what you're thinking.” The pegasus continued, throwing me a glance before smiling. “Sorry: that's the usual response people have. I like to mess with their minds for a bit, you know?”

“Right.” I said, slightly shifting myself the teeniest bit away from her, and causing a minor avalanche of pebbles as I did so.

“First bit's real, though. Completely and utterly: one hundred and twenty percent. The truth and nothing but. I simply can't be lied too, and a lie in here”- hoof to head-”is as good as a lie from out here.”-hoof to mouth.

Curious, I turned to her and tried another.

“No, your Dad didn't collect sea shells by the sea shore.”

Another, true this time. Silence. Okay, another lie then: how about-

“You can't do the macarena. Nopony can do the macarena.”

Another one after that. And after that. And on and on until suddenly the pegasus let out a gasp, breathing in and out in rapid sighs that shook her whole body. It was then, and only then, that I noticed she was sweating badly, her whole body trembling slightly as if in a breeze. Whoops.

“Erm, did I... It hurts, doesn't it? Doing this hurts.” The pegasus snickered, more to herself, I think, than to me.

“Oh no, if it just hurt I'd be fine. I can handle a bit of pain. What this does is... not good. Just... just don't do any more right now, 'kay?”

“'Kay.” I said, cuffing the stone a bit as I mentally kicked myself for carrying it on way past the point where it'd been obvious what she could do. I'd let my curiosity get in the way of me actually doing what I was meant to do. Again.

“Guess I'd better tell you about what I meant earlier then, no lies in it, I swear.” I said, and the Pegasus nodded, taking a deep breath before turning to me and giving me a smile that seemed remarkably stable given she looked like she was about to break down a few seconds ago.

“My name's Rainbow Dash, by the way. I'm guessing I don't have to worry about you getting in trouble just for knowing me any more, and I'd very much like to hear about how you think you're gonna save the world.”

Huh

“I hate you! I hate you so much! I wi-ish you’d all just go away!”

And had Equestria been any other place, that might have been the end of it. But in a land of magic and friendship, the one thing you can always, always rely on is that someone, somewhere, is listening.

Far underground – past roots and earth and crumbling mine shafts, with worms sliding ‘cross its glistening carapace in wavy, oblong passes – stone moved.

“Alright,” Spike muttered to himself, claws digging grooves into the broom handle they were holding. “Here goes nothing.”

And with that, he poked the broom handle upwards and flicked open the curtains. A rich golden light flooded into the main section of the library, dancing off the brightly polished tabletops and a floor scrubbed to within an inch of its life. Spike leant the broom against the table and stepped back, claw rubbing along his spines.

“Sun’s still in the sky. Huh.” His hand dropped down. “How about that.”

“Who?”

“We’re not getting into this.”

A few book pages rustled about, some rattling in their bookcases as Owlowiscious flew past them. He landed next to the window, his shape throwing an exaggerated shadow out across the room.

“Oh, fine. Block my light, why don’t you? It’s all fine. I’m down with it.”

Owlowiscious’s head spun round, a pair of black, beady eyes blinking down on Spike. “Who?”

Spike frowned back, before turning round with a sigh and a muttered, “Stupid bird.” He waddled off towards a book laid open in one of Twilght’s stands, with a list dangling like a tail off of it. He grabbed a chair and jumped up to its level. He plucked a quill out from an invisible pocket.

“Ok... Sun in sky. Check.” He flicked a tick onto the list, and then brought it closer to his face, eyes running along its length. There was an awful lot of ticks.

“Let’s see here... No Evil Monsters In Cupboards. Cleared that one up. Ponies screaming in streets?” He listened. “Nope. And the sun is in the sky...” Spike lowered the list down, lips bunched up to one side. “But still no Twilight. Huh...”

When Twilight Sparkle had failed to return four days ago, Spike had been prepared. Or, to be more precise, Twilight had prepared him -- her absences and weird, global crises had combined often enough that Twilight had drafted up a step by step guide of “What To Do If I’m Not Back For Tea.”

It was two thousand pages long and the same weight as two bricks. Spike had only ever read the first step -- stay in the library and keep yourself busy -- before using it as, alternatively, a door stop, a pillow or as a substitute for a set of weights.

The first day, after Twilight had failed to show up, had involved cleaning -- lots of it.

By the time the second day had rolled around, and the scent of wax had permeated everything, Spike had finally gotten round to digging out the book from its current location under the dirty laundry. He’d attempted to read through it before figuring that Twilight was bound to show up soon anyway and returning to cleaning.

He’d starting making a list of the most important parts as soon as the third day started, painstakingly copying out the “How to tell if you’re in Mortal Danger” section into a checklist, stylised images and all.

And he’d just gone through it. All of it. As far as the book and Twilight by extension were concerned, there was no crisis going on whatsoever. The world was working perfectly, no rampaging monsters or closet-hiding fiends.

“Huh,” Spike said again. It felt like the right sort of thing to say.

A few seconds later, he hopped off the chair and waddled off to pick up the Library’s second tub of beeswax.

It felt like the right sort of thing to do.

There was no beeswax. Which was a problem because there definitely was a few seconds ago.

Spike leant back, confused. Had there been? Yes, yes there had been. He was sure of it. Almost sure of it. Almost completely, totally sure of it. Almost.

He thought back, casting his mind back to three days ago when this cupboard’d been stocked to the brim. Had there been two tubs of beeswax? He couldn’t really remember: there’d been a lot of stuff in that cupboard. It was hard to figure out exactly what the individual parts of the great, remembered mass called “Cleaning stuff” had been.

It was a lot clearer now, though. Much easier to see what was here or, in the case of the missing beeswax, what wasn’t.

There was hardly anything here at all now...

Oh.

Right.

He’d used it all up, hadn’t he.

Huh.

Spike reached up and had a scratch at his face, claws clicking as they scraped along scale boundaries. A part of him dimly wondered if this was in the list.

He spent an hour browsing through the index, an hour spent in vain: there wasn’t.

Huh.

The Stars, Like Dust

The front doors of the castle open smoothly and silently; blackened rust slides off them like old snake-skin in great, tumbling waves. They hit the marble walls on either side at the apex of their swing, and more ruined metal cascades down, leaving the doors as two decrepit skellingtons of their former selves.

A white boot follows after them, crushing the rusty flakes of metal into a thick, red dust beneath its heel; another boot follows after it as a figure steps into the room. The figure’s head arches and curves about as it examines the surroundings.

The figure is in the shape of a man clothed in a bulky white suit; its face is masked by a blackened curve of glass that shines and glimmers as it reflects the ruddy colours of the sunlight. Its left arm waves slowly about, the metallic device clasped at the tip pointing into each and every corner of the room.

Up it points, angling towards the decayed rafters of the ceiling—seemingly ornamental if the gaping holes left in the tiled roof are any judge. Down it slopes, following a pitted and faded marble column onto a floor littered with debris and the tattered remains of a once scarlet carpet. Over it flicks towards the fractured remains of a series of stained glass windows, the few shards that remain showing untarnished scenes of strange and alien creatures. The device remains pointed at the latter for far longer than it has any of the others, but, eventually, the figure lowers it and steps fully into the room.

Occasional glimpses of the outside shoot out at the figure as it enters, each showing an expanse of dark, star clothed skies that are tinged red in places by the twinkling light of a decaying sun. Empty window after empty window passes the figure by as it walks through the room, the device in its hand now levelled firmly towards a door placed in the hallway's end. Faint flickers of a yellow light dance out from the cracks along the door’s edges, framing it in an otherworldly look.

The figure pauses upon reaching it, and its right hand runs smoothly over the door’s surface. Unlike the other, this one’s seemingly untouched by time and the figure finds no handles or other visible methods of opening it. Aside from the hole cast into its centre, and faint traces of a once gaudy decoration splayed across its face, the door is unmarked. Clean. Unbreakable. The figure kicks at it once; it doesn’t move.

The figure delays in front of it, head occasionally shaking from side to side as its arm presses for all it’s worth against the door. It takes a step back and raises the device up, an invisible line stretching from tip to target pouring over the door. After a few minutes of waggling the device back and forth, it stops, lowers its instrument and, with a shake of its head, turns to leave.

It pauses mid turn, shakes its head and then twists slowly back, front leg still poised to leave. An arm gestures angrily, palm flat, towards the door before bunching up into a fist. As if grudging every inch, it creeps up towards the door like a slothic version of an uncoiling snake, before carefully rapping against it. Knock knock.

One half of the door cracks open; the yellow glow of sunlight pours out into the room. The figure takes a step back, hand opening wide, before the device in his other shoots up and points into the room. And then, cautiously and carefully, it walks towards the door, arm stretching before it as its hand clasps onto the open edge and pulls it out into an unsealing swing.

The room beyond the door is masked by a shimmering, opaque curtain of yellow that hangs just beyond the door’s frame. The figure waves its device over this shining barrier with slow, purposeful gestures before stopping and pushing the metallic tip of its instrument forwards and through the barrier. The device breaks through the skin of it, causing ripples that spread freely along its surface before a backwards tug dips the device back out, unharmed. The figure’s legs stiffen as it braces itself, and then its free arm reaches out, fingers flexing as they pass in and out of the barrier. A few moments later, the hand tightens into a fist. And the figure steps into the light.

And a bright red carpet cushions the fall of its foot landing heavily, firmly and—more important than any of them—loudly; the echoes of their collision break through the silence that had, up till then, pervaded the castle. Small waves of dust billow away from the figure’s boot.

The device in its arms is quickly up and moving again, running in great sweeps round a room from out of another time. Bright paintings hang on every wall and great, white curtains trail down from brass hangers fitted onto the ceiling. Some of the perfection is marred, however; a few curtains have slumped down and gathered into great piles on the floor, and a stand in the centre holds the twisted and charred remains of a once beautiful box. The device passes over it once and then pauses, midway through its arc. The figure brings it back to bear at the box once more, and then takes a single step towards it.

One of the rags moves, and in doing so reveals a yellow cone of light rising from out of part of it. The figure steps back, the tip of its heel pressing against the shimmering curtain, before the device switches targets and the figure levels it at the stirring, moving shape. With the occasional snap of unlocking bones, the shape unfurls itself, form hidden under the glow flooding from out its top; a glow that intensifies further until all the room is drowned out before it, and all there is to see is a white-hot shape wrapped in a growing aurora of near-blinding light.

That same glow, still visibly focused into a thick line on the shape’s tip, pulses once, and the figured drops the device suddenly, hand pulling back as a yellow cloud washes over the instrument. Halfway to the floor, the device explodes into a grey cloud of sparks and metallic fragments. The light shrinks back, the intensity dying down and revealing what looks like a white, hairless horse with a conical beam of light thrust into its forehead.

Tired, wheezing breaths shake through the whole of its body as they race out and into the air, freezing upon exit into fading clouds of mist. A sort of... third appendage attached onto the side of its chest stretches out pitifully, parts of it hanging off in dangling shreds of a lifeless grey. Its head, perched at the end of a long swan-like neck, turns towards the figure. Two slits open up on either side, the whiteness of its face giving way to two large, glinting eyes of a pale magenta.

The figure takes another step back as they drift up and focus; one of the figure’s legs has now vanished onto the other side of the barrier. And then the figure takes a step forwards, and then another, the magenta eyes following it as the figure gets closer and closer, hand stretched out to—

The light flashes again, except this time there’s no answering flicker anywhere in the room, and the hand flies back up to grasp at the figure’s head as—

The figure stumbles backwards, an outflung arm catching against the ruined box and knocking it to the floor as the alien’s eyes close over, and it slumps down, and—

The figure tears at its head, hands fumbling and pulling at delicate catches as the black pane separates off to reveal a bright yellow glow coming from within, and—

And the figure’s helmet clatters to the floor, rolling round in an uncertain circle as—

The figure screams, white-gloved palms covering its face as the fingers dig into the skin, and the yellow glow encasing it all intensifies into a sickly, creamy white, and—

⌇

Hello

⌇

Puppet Master Rarity

In the secret parts of Ponyville that were hidden away down passages rarely trespassed by the town’s common residents, the cloaked ponies gathered inside the darkness. Travelling alone, they slinked warily through the shadows, sliding a second layer of darkness across the thick, black shawls that covered them completely. From afar, it would almost appear as if a piece of night itself had detached from the main and started walking; as if Princess Luna’s chessboard was missing a few pawns.

They looked as all secret societies tend to: badly in need of several lessons on how best to blend in.

One of the hooded brethren crept near silently along an alley, their muffled footsteps and anxious glances back immediately rousing a suspicion that would have otherwise been masked by a simple smile and a whistle. Finally, after several tense moments of awkward shuffling, the figure stopped and looked quickly from side to side. Finally convinced that they were alone in the empty alleyway, the cloaked pony reached up and rat-a-tat-tated quietly on a dirty, sullen-looking door that was half-hidden inside the alley’s wall. The door swung open in a silent blaze of ominousness, and the figure passed inside.

The room it led to was badly lit by a series of melted-wax candles that was scattered around like an stranded constellation inside the much too small room. A large, round and overall wooden table took up much of the space within, so that anypony who wanted to sit at one of the chairs positioned around it would have to squeeze up against the wall in order to get to their seat. A loose collection of paper notes were splayed across the table’s surface, half-legible scribbles twisting like worms along the clean, white pages. A collection of five caped heads turned to look as the other one entered, the ponies inside them masked by a thick veil of shadows that the candles seemed unable to penetrate.

“You,” the one from directly opposite the door said calmly, with an added flavouring of annoyance “are late. I thought we all agreed to have the meeting at half-past nine. It’s just gone quarter to. Now the rest of today’s schedule’s going to be completely out of order. I’ll be going to bed with Luna again.” There was a momentary pause in which the figure appeared to reconsider those words whilst mild guffaws broke out across the table. “Err... I mean, I’ll be going to bed when the sun comes up. Not with Luna. Definitely not going to the same bed as the Princess.”

“I’m sorry, but the baby bunnies were being most uncooperative,” the standing one mumbled as the laughter died down, the cloak shifting as the pony within it nervously examined the room. “I hope I haven’t missed anything. You haven’t started have you? I... I promise not to be mad if you have or anything.”

“”No, we were waiting for you to get here,” the first one continued as the newly arrived pony began the series of delicate maneuvers required to reach the last remaining seat. “We did strike up a few other conversations which you’ve missed out on, though. There was this really fascinating story that Applej-” A hoof fastening itself onto the pony’s face cut the sentence short.

“I thought we said no names!” the pony directly opposite blustered indignantly as the first speaker guiltily brought their hoof down. “This here secret society’s meant to be mighty secretive, and yet here we all are blurting out each other’s names like we’re just sitting down at the dinner table!”

“Oh, loosen up a bit, won’t you?” said the pony on her right. “It’s not like you couldn’t tell who we all are by our voices or anything. And hay: you’re still wearing your hat, AJ. It’s like you’re not even trying to hide that it’s you.”

“Of course I’mma wearing my hat!” the pony responded, and twisted round resolutely in order to face their accuser. “Have you forgotten how damp it is in here? It’d be fine and all if you could just wash these cloaks like normal, but somepony had to go and make that mighty difficult. Didn’t they, Rarity?”

“Well,” another one responded. “Forgive me for trying to conceal our identities with some style, Applejack. Though I do have to agree with your point. This room’s atmosphere does simply terrible things for my mane.”

“Yeah, and I still don’t see why we couldn’t bring any snacks,” another one chipped in, leaning forwards eagerly over the table. “This sort of thing is perfect for snacks, I mean, just the other day after I’d just finished baking I thought ‘hey, wouldn’t it be great if me and all my friends could eat these whist we told each other stories like we do every saturday’, and you know what? I was right. We need to get some serious snacking done whilst we’re doing this.”

“We can’t bring any snacks in here,” the first one to speak spoke. “You know as well as I do what the landlord said about eating in here, though I don’t see why given all the rent I’m paying him.” The pony paused, and a moment’s silence passed in quiet thought. “Are we all thinking of leaving? Because I am.”

“Well, I’d be cool with it if we could go somewhere with less pointy seats,” one of the ponies said, bouncing up and down in their chair a fair few times. “Snacks would be awesome too, come to think of it. To be honest, I still don’t see why we ever needed to hide in the first place. It’s not like doing this stuff is uncool, right?” There was a pause which nopony wanted to fill. “Guys?”

“Yeah, I don’t see why we’re staying here either!” a further pony gushed, interrupting a silence which was clearly meant to hold a response. “Hey! I know! Why don’t we all go to the basement in Sugarcube Corner? There’s comfy chairs, lots and lots of snacks, it’s not under a lake and Mr and Mrs Cake would be totally fine with it!” The cloak rustled alarmingly as the pony within positively fizzed with excitement.

“The basement in Sugarcube Corner? No way!” the pony next to her blurted out, cringing backwards. “Err, I mean, um - no! We can’t go there! We should go to the library instead: that’s where all the books are! And nothing bad ever happens to me at-” the pony clamped a covered hoof over their mouth.

“What? I don’t get it, Dashie. Why don’t you want to go to the basement in Sugarcube... ohhh!” The pony giggled, and nudged wryly at the cringing pony next to them. “Still got some bad memories about being down there, huh?”

“Shut up, Pinkie! I do not!” the nudged pony huffed indignantly, a fold in the cloak indicating a pair of crossed front-legs. “I’m not afraid of anything like that, but, err, I’d still rather be in the library so I can... um... read a Daring Do book if I get bored. Yeah. That’s it. I’m not afraid of going in some stupid basement.”

“Alright, then: my library it is. Come on, girls. Lets go and” - a single eep as each pony slid their chairs out announced a hereto unnoticed predicament - “Fluttershy? What are you doing?”

The gathered ponies paused to stare at what was undoubtedly a pony in distress; trapped in an uncomfortable looking position between extended chair and wall. The pony stuck this way wobbled a bit on their hind-hooves as they noticed everypony else in the room staring.

“I’m... I’m trying to get to my chair,” she wheezed out, pointing a hoof at the single unoccupied chair directly opposite her. The group considered both it and the pony’s respective position from it. Clearly, she hadn’t taken the easiest route.

“Err, Fluttershy darling, what exactly possessed you to try and take the long way round?” the pony whose chair rested between the space and the door asked in concern.

“Well, your chair was a bit too far out for me to just squeeze past, and I thought I could get round the other way without disturbing anypony.”

“Well, why couldn’t you have just asked me to budge it in a little? I really wouldn’t have minded.”

“I didn’t want to bother you.” The group groaned.

“I think you’re getting worse, you know,” the pony next to her said, sliding in the offending chair before quickly catching its wilting victim. A few shifts of cloak followed until the single patch of darkness formed by this re-resolved itself into two hooded figures, one of which was noticeably panting more than the other. “I could swear you weren’t this bad a couple of months ago.”

“Am - huh - I - huh - really?” The pony panted a few more times before concluding with an, “I’m sorry...”

“You could always have just flown, you know,” the pony next to her continued. “You’ve got wings, Fluttershy. We all know you do. So why don’t you use them?”

“That... might have made a mess...”

“I’m afraid I’m still slightly distressed about the idea of you joining in with this, Fluttershy, even given last week’s... well, rather interesting interpretation. I just don’t think you’re entirely cut out for horror.” The recovering figure’s head shook from side to side anxiously.

“Oh my, no! It’s quite the opposite, really. Horror’s actually my favourite.” The group paused, rotated the round peg inside the square hole a few times, before giving up and moving on. Sometimes, you really just couldn’t square that circle, regardless of what Whinneystrass or Lindehorse said on the matter.

“Well, hopefully this’ll be the last time we ever have to go through this again,” the pony furthest from the door said, gathering up the loose notes from the table and arranging them into a tidy stack. “I’ll tell the landlord we don’t want to rent this place out any longer tomorrow. Are we going to be using my Library from now on out, or do you girls want to adopt a rotating schedule?”

“How’s about you just hold onta those thoughts until we get to the library, sugarcube,” the pony nearest the door chuckled. “We ain’t even out the door yet!”

“Yeah, Twilight. Stop being so over the top fussy and compartmentalising,” another one said whilst happily skipping towards the exit.

“‘Compartmentalising’? That your new word for the day or somethin’? Like ‘fracas’ was a while back?” The pony nodded. “You sure you using it right, hun?”

“Uh-huh,” the pony nodded, drapes and folds of cloaks piling into weird outlines along where their hair would be. “Hey, Twilight! Do you think I could maybe go get some snacks from Sugarcube Corner on the way? I promise I’ll be super-duper quick, like a speeding pegasus! VROOM!”

“Sure. Go right ahead... do you think you could maybe bring along some cupcakes? In honour of this week’s theme?” One of the group’s members drew to a halt, turned and appeared to glare at the speaking pony.

“Oh, hah-hah. You don’t think it’s getting mildly overdone now, guys? It’s been, what, a few months now and you still won’t shut up about it. It’s getting freaking annoying.” The group descended into muffled giggles.

“Erm... so... are we still using the secret knock, Twilight? Do I still need to use it to get into the library, or are we going for a new one for the new door? ”

“We’ve got a secret knock?”

“Uh-huh, it goes bang bang, rattle crash, a fair few clicks and then another bang; but you have to move your hoof like this... err, I’ll show you when we’re not covered in cloaks.” The two walked outside, the muffled sound of their continued conversation still audible as they strolled away.

“Well, shucks. Nopony ever told me we had a secret knock. I feel right silly for having used an ordinary knock this entire time. I must have seemed a complete feather-brain...”

Unknown. Quality = Shrug

The skies of Ponyville rumble like an upset stomach; the clouds’ bellies look black and bloated as they pour their guts groundwards.

There’s a storm coming out of the Everfree. An unscheduled storm. The streets of Ponyville are empty, save for a few straggling earth ponies giving the garden trees a final, good-luck prune.

Scootaloo’s jaw tightens, and a momentary frown flashes across her forehead. The air outside the cottage she stands in’s murky under a light drizzle, and the wind occasionally spits globules of rainwater onto her coat, leaving the fur damp and pressed down in shining patches. The half-door against her chest protects her lower half from the worst of it. She can remember when it would’ve protected all of her.

She turns back inside; if the world outside is wet, then it is far too dry inside.

The cottage is abandoned, and has been so for quite some time. Cobwebs decorate the corners of the ceiling, and the stink of decaying feed permeates everything. The cottage is, at least, neat and tidy; its owner had not left in a hurry, and there’s not many left who’d dare disturb this place. Not many who’d think they’d have the right.

Scootloo’s wings bristle. A discarded toy wheezes out mournfully as she steps on it. Her hoof pulls back, and then kicks the thing into the corner, its landing disturbing the dust up into clouds. She doesn’t stop walking, instead continuing her aimless pacing round the cottage’s dark innards. Floorboards creak underhoof as she passes, as if the house itself is scolding her for the intrusion.

Scootaloo pauses, licks her lips and then flicks a look over to the doorway. It’s lighter outside than it is in, though the darkening sky is quickly changing that. Her jaw tightens again, and then she paces firmly towards it, barging the lower half open and then taking to the sky.

The Library’s window refuses to open at first, the mechanism having long since seized over from rust. Luckily, the branches above her head are thick and leafy, providing more than ample protection against the rain’s worst. Scootaloo still drips as she moves, the brief flight having soaked her thoroughly.

Eventually, the window’s latch gives. Seconds later, and Scootaloo’s inside the abandoned upper parts of the Library, the lower half having been too integral to daily usage for even respect to dissuade. She shakes herself out, spraying muddy water, twigs and broken leaves around the place.

The library is just as dusty, just as abandoned.

There are places where you live and places where your heart is: places where you can barely move for all the ghosts thronging round you. She closes her eyes, and on a second skin somewhere beneath her rain-drenched first, feels again the kiss of a summer’s day; the light teasing of a midday’s breeze; the clench of young muscles, tired from running, and the thunderous thumping of a worn-out heart.

Sometimes, I think the scariest thing in the world is the promise that tommorow ain’t the same as today. That time moves on: that things change. That what you have right now will eventually be lost, never to return.

The world wobbles on a knife’s edge, and then spins on.

Growing up

One dark august morning, just before sunrise, Princess Celestia woke up to die.

She didn’t wake up slowly, and nor was her awakening sudden. It was more of a steady thing, like the settling of a last jigsaw piece into place. Her room was warm, and bathed in the strange almost-light of dawn, a sort of grey that would filter over time into a brownish gold. A gust from outside fluttered at the curtains, carrying on it the scent of late-blooming honeysuckle. Celestia raised her head off the pillows and sniffed; her eyes were still closed.

She rose, and the purple blanket slid off her back as she stretched, bones cracking and muscles slackening. Her wings splayed out and waggled a V into the air, feathers glistening in the twilight. A few, loosened over night, tumbled out into a spiraling-downwards trail through the air. She paid them no mind, instead tossing her head out and sending her mane flying with it.

It was pink; not purple and pink and a rich turquoise, but pink alone, and neither did it sparkle. It hung limp around her shoulders, weighted and corporal. A white hoof reached up and brushed it from her eyes, eyes which were still closed.

She took a step forwards, following her hoof down off the bed’s rise and onto a carpeted floor. Her other followed after it, carrying her body with it, out of her bed and into her room. Her horn lit up, illuminating the room briefly as a second glow brushed aside a set of distant curtains to reveal a world outside as dark as the one in.

Her eyes were still closed. She stepped towards the breeze still trickling in, nostrils twitching and a smile tugging at her lips. Her nose and horn tip passed the curtains, sticking out into a world still ruled by night. She breathed.

And then, at last, her eyes opened.

“Tea?”

Celestia did not turn at the voice. She did not flinch or cower or tremble or quake. The only reaction she gave was a nod and a sigh.

It appeared that was enough; the hoofsteps she had not heard approaching rang out as the speaker retreated. Off to get the tea, no doubt. She could have made it for him, had he asked, and so, in fairness, could’ve he. But then again, perhaps this tea was best made by hoof. Magic... magic complicated things.

She breathed out again, pouring the air through her lips and out into the world. Her nose twitched as she gulped scent back through it, tasting, savouring the air. It was a rare thing to have honeysuckle out this late in the season, and Celestia was grateful for it. It made the approaching autumn all the sweeter.

Celestia’s ears flicked; the hoofsteps were coming back. She considered turning, but no. There was no need. She knew that voice, and even then there was only one pony it could be.

A white mug, steam drifting off it, floated out next to her in a wrap of green haze. The colour faded into yellow as she took ahold of it, and then floated it next to her lips. She sipped.

It tasted horrible. But that was to be expected.

“Is everything prepared?” Her voice was quieter than she’d thought it’d be. Almost hesitant, in fact.

“Yes, Princess. We have a squadron of unicorns ready should there be any difficulties with the dawn.” The voice was rough, male, and there was no hesitation to it: the words were spoken as they’d been waited all their lives to be said.

Which was rather strange, when she thought about it.

“And the decision...”

“It’s final,” he completed. Celestia felt like she should’ve been sitting down. This was the sort of news you sat down for, yes? And yet...

“Then I accept.” She took another sip of the tea, swallowing it down despite the bitterness it left lingering on her tongue. “And Luna?”

He stepped forwards, brown coat murky in the half-light, but the red and yellow of his mane clear under the glow round her horn. “You know I can’t tell you about that, Princess.”

“Not even for your favourite aunt, Prince Silver Saddle?” His eyes were dark and hard, unwavering. Too strong. “Please?”

He blinked. “No.” The eyes moved away from hers, looked out onto the world.

Princess Celestia sighed, but only a little one. Not one that Silver Saddle would’ve heard. She took another sip of tea, her tongue running round the cup’s china rim.

“I don’t agree.” The words were short, curt and said more to the world than to her. She almost expected to see a frown on his face when she turned her head towards him, but it was blank. “I just thought you should know that.” His eyes moved, searching for something off in the distance.

Celestia paused, nodded and took another sip of tea. It was cooler, now: cool enough for her to turn the sip into a gulp. The sooner the tea was finished with, the sooner they could get on with it.

“I mean, Princess Luna I can understand,” Prince Silver Saddle continued. “She’s already gone dark three times... We’ve had to deal with Nightmare Moon three times. But you’ve never lost it, never given us a reason to think that you could.” He paused; Celestia slurped. “Could you?”

The first hint of dawn broke over the horizon, the lights spilling out and round the distant Foul Mountains and shattering against the rooftops of Canterlot. Celestia smiled as she watched it, the novelty of being the audience rather than the performer not yet lost on her.

Her cup was almost empty now.

“Just because I could does not mean that I will.” She breathed out. One drink left. “But you are right to fear the consequences. You could not handle two Nightmare Moons, not even now.”

She nodded at the green horn growing from his head, and the green wings attached onto his sides, both half-translucent and shimmering in the rising light of dawn. The wings flapped once as he turned to look at them, luminescent muscles flexing clearly.

"That doesn't make it right," he muttered back, before his jaw tightened closed and his ears flattened back.

"Fear you've said too much?" Celestia chuckled, and found, not to her surprise, that it was a hard thing to do. "It's alright. I won't tell anyone."

She went for another sip and drank air. The cup was empty, and so she lowered it to the windowsill, grateful that her magic at least lasted.

"Besides," she continued, "it's not always about what's right. I didn't abdicate the throne so that my successors would only make morally right decisions. I... I abdicated so that they could make decisions." She swallowed; her throat felt dry. The most distant mountains were beginning to fade.

She became aware, a few moments after the event, that she was moving, Prince Silver Saddle having decided to guide her back to the bed. Her legs twinged their gratitude as she slumped down. Light flashed along her eyes as her head turned back towards the window and beheld the risen sun. A feeling blossomed in her chest, warm and glorious, and she felt the urge to articulate it:

“Do you know what my favourite name is, out of all the ones they’ve ever called me? The great mother.” She laughed, or at least tried to. “The great mother indeed...”

The world had grown blurry and breathing had grown difficult. Talking, though... Talking was easy. The same words that had felt quiet before came like a roll of thunder, now -- loud and booming and utterly overwhelming.

“Tell me, Silver Saddle: What is the last thing a mother ever does for their children?”

Prince Silver Saddle was silent. But that was alright; Celestia knew the answer.

“She lets them grow up.”

Going the long way round

It’s hard work working for Twilight. Hard... but rewarding.

Take today, for example. Even though I’d spent most of it either rushed off my feet or busy yanking what was definitely the heaviest telescope in Twilight’s collection up the side of a mountain, the sight of her grinning happily at a plan going well made it all worthwhile.

‘Well’, I adjusted, shifting the telescope on my back slightly so that it’d stop rubbing my scales the wrong way. ‘Almost worthwhile. After all: the appreciation that comes with itis never unwelcome.’

Seeing Twilight happy rather than cranky or worked up was nice too, though it always came with some drawbacks. I suppose it’s probably good to know that moving to Ponyville hadn’t changed her too much, but being woken up before sunrise just because sompony’s too excited to sleep is something that doesn’t get any easier to take with a change of scenery. I guess that’s something that’ll never change about her, though: a day that’s planned out is a day that’ll always start as loudly and as early as it possibly can.

I’ve never really gotten why Twilight likes plans so much, because believe me: if there’s one thing she likes to do more than studying, it’s making plans about studying. Or making plans about anything else, really; she’s not too fussy about what needs a plan and what doesn’t. She’ll make plans for just about everything: plans for groceries, plans for getting into bed, plans for making plans; the list - heh - goes on. About the only thing she likes more than planning is watching one come together, and boy, does she get happy when that happens.

It would explain why she looked like she was walking on air at the moment. Me, I had to dig my claws in so that I wouldn’t slip back down the surface of the mountain we were climbing. Don’t take it the wrong way, though; it’s not that the telescope’s heavy or anything like that. I just have a low centre of balance, that’s all. It’s kinda easy to tip me over when I’m busy carrying truly massive loads with my well-toned muscles. I, err, wouldn’t try and tip me over though, if I were you. I’m kinda feisty when roused. Rarr.

Someone nudged into me from the side, and I shuffled uneasily about the place whilst trying to recapture my balance. It’s just low, I tell ya: the telescope ain’t that heavy. I looked up to see Twilight giving me that bashful smile of hers.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb your balance.”

“Ah, it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it Twilight.” She nodded once at me, before slowing down enough that we were walking at roughly the same speed.

“Thanks, Spike. I was just wondering if you’re okay. I don’t think you’ve ever been this quiet before; I haven’t really heard you say anything since we left the library.”

I bounced the dead-weight of the telescope up along my back. “I can’t imagine why...”

Twilight sniggered, and I joined in with a single snort of my own. “I see.”

“Yeah. Truth be told, I’m kinda more focusing on making sure me and the telescope don’t end up falling off the mountain at the moment. I’m listening in, though: don’t you worry about that. I’m getting real good at listening.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Twilight replied, a smile dancing happily across her lips. “I guess I’d better watch what I say, huh?”

“Twilight, Spike? I hope you don’t mind me butting in?” a voice like velvet interrupted. I turned and almost stumbled. It was... Rarity. “I’m afraid I don’t see why poor Spike here has to shoulder this cumbersome burden all the way to the top of this ghastly mountain. Why, exactly, couldn’t he have just... done whatever it is he does to send things whizzing about through the air to reappear in other places? Like he did with the picnic hamper earlier?”

“Well, the thing is... Spike’s not...” Twilight looked worriedly between the two of us. I sighed.

“It’s fine, Twilight. I haven’t really got the hang of directing my dragon fire yet, Rarity. I can get it in the general area, it’s just-”

“-That the telescope’s really fragile and I don’t want it getting broken because it’s materialised fifteen feet above the ground,” Twilight butted in, apparently unable to stop herself. She gave me another guilty look. “Sorry.”

“S’fine.”

“I still don’t see why we couldn’t all take a turn carrying it, though,” Rarity continued, her eyes filled with worry for... me. Oh, wow. “I mean, we could always try sharing the load for a while if you ever feel like it’s getting too heavy for you, Spike.” I almost sighed at how perfect she was, before quickly realising my reputation as Ponyville’s resident strong-dragon was at risk.

“Pssht, too heavy? Me?” I tried to stand a little straighter, causing several muscles who’d been content to mutter up until now to burst out into full-blooded screams. “Not... A... Problem... Heh.”

“Well... If you’re sure...” Rarity replied, and then she picked up the pace, leaving me and Twilight lagging slightly behind. Twilight shot one last bemused look at me before following after her. I was left alone in the middle of the group: Rarity, Twilight and Applejack in front; Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie behind me and Rainbow Dash drifting around like a restless cloud up above us. One, big happy family all going off on a family outing... kinda.

The path we were all walking along was a loose mixture of rock and soil: light enough for me to dig my claws into, but hard enough to punish me for going any further down than the surface layer. Even the slightest scuff against it would cause a small waterfall of dirt to tumble out from the offending hoof; dirt destined to either bounce up into the face of whoever was behind or scatter off the path’s edges and become a lost part of the mountain. It probably wasn’t the safest path in the world to be climbing up, but the mountain didn’t really give us much choice. Applejack had been more than adamant that trying to tackle it by any other route was a plan fated for disaster, and by the looks of it, Twilight had agreed with her.

“Are we absolutely, positively, one-hundred percent completely sure the Dragon’s not there anymore?” Fluttershy whimpered behind me, and I risked a quick glance back. She’d noticeably shriveled up and yet was still, somehow, managing to keep up with the rest of the group.

“Of course he isn’t! You can’t see any smoke, can you?” Rainbow Dash flipped down from out the sky and landed with a thump that almost sent me head-over-heels backwards. “I don’t see why you’re so worried, though. You totally laid that Dragon out last time without even hitting him! I mean, it was a good thing for him too, otherwise I would have just totally flattened him.” Rainbow swooped back into the air and began punching parts of it energetically. “There’s no way he’ll have forgotten us that easily.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Fluttershy whispered back as Rainbow Dash fought off wave after wave of invisible enemies above her. “He might not have forgiven me for losing my temper with him. Oh, I really shouldn’t have been so harsh with him. He was only trying to take a nap, after all.”

I tuned out of their conversation. I didn’t really need to hear about that time in my life again. I was, after all, being reminded of it every single time I tried to clean out around the bookshelves. Those rabbits had gotten in everywhere. By the sounds of it, Rarity and Twilight had started a conversation up ahead anyway, which was bound to be more interesting just because Rarity was a part of it.

“... So, you see,” Twilight lectured, “it was actually a time of great experimentation and discovery among earth, pegasus and unicorn ponies alike. The rise of Nightmare Moon threw up new ideas all over the place, in spite - or perhaps because - of the civil war that came with it. You know, sometimes I regret not having been born back then. The expeditions, the discoveries...”

Rainbow Dash slipped stealthily down behind Twilight and began pulling faces at her back in a crude attempt at a mocking imitation. After a few moments, she looked round, noticed I was her only real audience, grinned sheepishly at me and flew off to start harassing Pinkie. I shifted the telescope up a bit on my back, taking a bit of the weight off of one shoulder.

Twilight had moved on a bit in her talk, and I only caught a few snippets of what she was saying before my concentration had focused back onto their conversation. “... Before then Starswirl the Bearded had entire libraries dedicated to his work alone. Afterwards, he only had a shelf. I mean, that rate of advancement in science, mathematics, magic, architecture... it’s never really been matched since.” Twilight sighed wistfully, her hooves dragging a little across the ground as she became lost in thought.

“Sounds like you really do wish you were living back then: mud, boots and all,” Rarity coerced with a little smile, drawing Twilight back out of her reverie. “Not that I can blame you, of course. It might have been a messy time, but oh - was it a well-dressed one.”

“Hmm.” Twilight nodded to herself. “Most ponies back then were more willing to experiment than we are today. I guess that’s something that could only ever happen once, though.” She lifted her head up and gazed into the sky. “I mean... to a certain extent, Luna was right. Most ponies didn’t appreciate her nights; most of Equestria didn’t even know they existed. And then, after Nightmare Moon halted the passage of day and night...” She closed her eyes and, recognising the signs, I rolled mine wearily. Miss perfect-memory was about to strike again.

“We turned our eyes up; beheld the heavens...

A cascade of stars across the night’s sky -

For without intervention, no sun dawns -

And night eternal holds her sceptred sway,

Punctured by a million gleaming droplets

That hang amongst her misty, uncoiled hair.

Dark rivulets of ice and fiery dust

That constitute the breeding grounds of stars.”

“Sisterhood Lost. By Flour Weight,” Rarity interjected, a wry grin spreading across her face as Twilight shot her an astonished look. “Oh, don’t look quite so flabbergasted, my dear. You’ll hardly find anypony across all of Equestria who isn’t at least familiar with the name, though I dare say you’ll have to search a little harder to find many who can recite it off by heart. Have you memorised it all?”

“Only the parts that sound good as a quote,” I wheezed out from beneath the telescope, earning a blush from Twilight and a dazzling smile from Rarity.

“Well then,” Rarity tittered, nudging Twilight playfully. “What have you got to say in your defense, Twilight? Surely there comes a point when it’s possible to be too well prepared, hmm?”

“Well, in my defense, I wasn’t expecting anypony to bring that up.” Twilight glowered at me. I smirked back. “But it is relevant. For most ponies, Nightmare Moon’s disruption was the first time they’d ever seen the night. Ponies even started riots after Celestia took it away: not because they supported Nightmare Moon, but because they thought they’d never see nighttime again. Even after Celestia had restored the proper balance of night and day, there were still calls for longer nights and shorter days, just so more ponies could appreciate it properly.

“And that’s why we’re here: as part of an attempt to appease the populace, Celestia attempted to replicate some of the feats of Luna’s nights. The Mihorads - a meteor shower with its radiant in the Mihora cluster - were one of her first experiments, but they turned out to be too faint to be seen from anything approaching normal elevations. I’m not even sure you can see them from the top of the tallest tower in Canterlot. Up here, however” - we reached a turning, and tackled it to find AJ waiting with a smug smile on her face in the midst of a great, flat opening - “we should be able to see for miles.”

“What did I tell y’all?” Applejack called out, her smile slipping into a grin as Rainbow Dash swooped down next to her. “Told yer I’d get us all here in one piece, and a heck of a lot faster than if we’d tried Rainbow’s idea.”

“I still think sky-skates would’ve worked!” Rainbow protested, a pretend-frown on her face and a laugh struggling against her lips. “Or at least they would’ve if Twilight had actually tried looking up that magical enchantment like I’d asked her to.”

“Oooohhh!” Pinkie exclaimed as she popped up between the two of them, wrapped her hooves round their necks and pulled them into a rough approximation of a hug. “Would it have been anything like ice-skating? I don’t need to remind you how good I am at that, do I?”

“No, Sugarcube. We, err... get the picture yer tryin’ to give us.” Applejack hooked a hoof underneath Pinkie’s front leg and quickly wriggled free. Opposite her, Rainbow Dash seemed entirely unable to replicate the feat.

“C’mon, Pinkie. We’ve had the hug and everything. Let me go already!”

“Oh, sorry!” Pinkie replied, loosening her grip just enough to allow Rainbow Dash’s head to squeeze free with a faint ‘pop’. She shaked it dizzly from side to side, mane whipping out into a head-grounded rainbow as she did so.

Shaking my own head, I turned and followed after Twilight, trying to ignore the shouts and laughter of her friends messing around behind us. After a few seconds, Twilight turned and trotted straight towards me, muttering slightly under her breath as she passed. I paused, and turned to watch, lowering the telescope to the ground after it became clear she wasn’t going to stop any time soon.

Twilight spent the next few minutes pacing round the plain, her head angled upwards and occasionally bobbing back and forth as she examined the sky. By the looks of it, I guessed she was trying to find someplace to set up the telescope where it wouldn’t be blocked by the sides of the mountain or the trees growing round the edges of the opening. Eventually, she seemed to make up her mind and walked determinedly over towards a relatively clear-skied patch of rock near the edge. Heaving the telescope back up onto my back, I followed after her.

“C’mon Spike,” she called out impatiently, horn aglow as she lifted the telescope up off my back and levitated it towards her. The sudden lack of weight pushing me down caused me to lurch forwards a little, the bones in my back clicking as I went. The pieces of rope that had been holding the telescope together tumbled down from out the sky as I stumbled, tripped and fell flat on my face.

“Urrgh,” I groaned as the telescope, wrapped in a purple cloud, descended from the sky and firmly settled itself onto the rocky ground before me. Pushing myself up, I moved closer as Twilight started swinging it around, pausing every so often to twiddle and turn the various knobs and slide the counter-weights about; all the while muttering under her breath about ‘Polaris’. Deciding I probably wouldn’t be needed for a few more minutes, I turned and looked out at the view.

Night was falling, dropped onto us by the clumsy moon that was bobbing about lazily between the cloud-continents of the sky. An entire subsection of the plan had been dedicated towards making sure the air around the mountain was clear and, sure enough, if you strained your eyes you could just about make out several flecks of colour skimming in skittish patterns amongst the cloudbanks. Somepony padded up next to me, and I turned my head to see Rainbow drawing level, her slightly stiff stance and occasional agitated tail-whip indicating that I was hardly alone in watching the far-off pegasi.

“Do you think we’ll have clear skies?” Twilight asked, her head turning towards Rainbow as she casually slipped into my field of vision. “I thought I asked those ponies to make sure it was clear by eight, and it’s nearly seven!”

“Relax. They’ll make it.” Rainbow flicked her tail a little more sharply, causing a slight crack to ring out in its wake. “I am kinda worried about the eastern banks, though. By the looks of it, Sunny Skies’ been sending the beginners out in a single group again. I might have to go out and bash some skulls together later on.” She snorted, frowned, turned round and then trotted back to the rest of the group. Twilight gave a shrug and returned her attention to fiddling with the telescope. I stared at her.

Eventually, she cottoned on to my disbelieving looks. “What? Is there something on my face?” She frowned dangerously. “Has Pinkie put hoof-polish on the eyepiece again? Seriously, can she not go one minute without -”

“No! No, it’s nothing like that!” I interrupted hastily, saving Pinkie from a world of undeserving, Twilight-flavoured retribution. “It’s just... usually you get really cross when someone tries to leave something you’ve planned after saying they’ll come. Remember back when Shining Armor forgot to bring your Fancy Pants doll to that family picnic?”

Twilight blinked in confusion down at me. “Of course I do, Spike, but what’s that got to do with this?”

“Twilight, you burnt down an entire tree.” She frowned impatiently at me.

“Spike, you know I wasn’t completely in control of my actions back then: unicorn’s have really volatile magic when they’re young; it’s not like I’d set fire to Rainbow Dash now, is it? Besides, I made sure to include time in this plan for ponies being... well, being their usual, disorganised selves. Like I was saying earlier - if you were listening in like you said you’d be - the Mihorad shower really is Celestia’s rough draft of what an actual meteor shower would be like: it doesn’t really get going until midnight. As long as anyone who leaves comes back before it ends at dawn, they won’t really be missing much.”

The Other Princess. Quality = My Waifu ;_;

Thisstory will, at certain points, contain links towards videos comprised of a combination of the text and thematic music. When you come across said link, right-click it and open the video in a new tab. Alternatively, the section of text included in the video will have the last sentence marked in purple, for those of you who would prefer to read this story sans pretention.

And yes, this is relevant to the plot.

The first thing Luna noticed was the map, bound to the table by twin daggers thrust onto either side. The pattern on it looked vaguely familiar, like a bloated, fading version of the continent she had spent years gazing at from space. It looked almost like Equestria.

It was a fairly clean and well organised map. Somepony had, with what looked like painstaking care, traced a row of black lines across it, cutting the map into several well-defined square blocks. Luna's hoof rested in the middle of one of them, the weight of the cast-silver horseshoe she was wearing pulling the map taut around it. Small, blue and red flags had been stabbed into the map in some hidden pattern, although the red ones were usually at the tip of some long, similarly coloured arrow that stretched eagerly across the map’s surface.

It occurred to Luna—dreamily; she was not alarmed—that she had never seen any of it before in her life.

Her ears twitched as she became aware of a faint buzzing on her right. The sound resolved itself into that of a raspy male voice, fainter sounds of moving objects and clanking metal providing a backdrop to whatever he was saying. Slowly, and only with her eyes—as if afraid that movement might scare it all away—Luna looked up and over to where the voice was coming from.

There was a dragon standing next to her, the pulled-out seat behind him filled up with his lavender tail. An arm covered in scales flashed violet in the candlelight; the dragon’s passion for what he was saying clear, even if his words weren’t. His arm then slapped down, impacting with the burgundy tablecloth that sloped out from under the map. Small fragments of the fabric caught onto his claws as he drew them back up, the holes left in the cloth revealing the dark, varnished wood beneath.

He caught her staring at him, and turned to her, emerald eyes glaring in a mixture of anger and respect. “Isn't that so, Lady Luna?” She had no idea how she could understand him.

Luna raised her head, moving for the first time, and took in the rest of the room.

Ivy clung onto every surface, the leaves grey and withered, as if the plant was at the end of a long, futile struggle. A wall composed in its entirety of windows curved elegantly about the sides; dark-granite columns separated the panes before stretching up to support the ceiling. Heavy, velvet curtains draped down over the windows from their golden-pole strongholds, covering off half of a night-time's view. Small motes of light glimmered out at her from what seemed like a great distance; they looked like fallen stars.

And with the room thoroughly investigated, her attention turned to the people in it. Aside from the dragon, three others were seated at the round-table: a unicorn, a pegasus and an earth pony. Her eyes flickered between them.

The unicorn caught her gaze first, mouth half-open and expression incredulous. A gold earring glinted from the tip of a vivid-blue ear and a mane of a lighter tone flowed like water across her neck. The mare frowned at her, eyebrows cutting a scowl across her pleasant face.

The pegasus was next; a black cap rose out of her blue mane where a pony’s ear would normally be, and a fine network of scars were spread like white roots across her pale-yellow body. None were deep, but all showed some past wound immortalised in her flesh. Her silver horseshoes tapped lightly on the table as Luna watched her, expression torn between concern and nervousness.

And that left the earth pony; his skewbald, mud-patchy body was covered by a thick, silver armour that stretched up to the nape of his neck. A red bandana tied back most of his hair, with only a light framing of brown showing the colour hidden beneath. His gaze never left hers as she watched him, only shifting slightly as he switched focus from one of her eyes to the other.

“I have,” Luna said, tone detached and almost casual, “no idea who any of you are.” She blinked once and then continued looking round the room. “I feel like I should,” she added, “but I'm afraid I don't.”

She was aware of their eyes burning away at her, but she didn't meet them. It had been a long while since she'd last had a dream—and she was quite convinced this was one. Nightmare Moon had never dreamt, which made her all the more determined to make the most of this one; although, truth be told, this wasn't that much of a dream. She couldn't remember a lot about them, but she was certain that her older ones had been a brighter thing than this; she was certain that they had been fun.

The dragon was talking at her again. Luna glanced back over at him, lifted her hoof up and, after having eased her hoofwear off with a telekinetic tug, prodded him gently in the cheek.

“You feel exactly like I'd expect a dragon to feel,” she murmured, hoof scraping against his skin and catching on the ridges between scales. “But then again, you would, wouldn't you?” Without waiting for an answer, she turned and said to the pegasus on her left, “That is the way of dreams, after all. What I think is.” Luna's head listed to one side, hoof leaving the dragon alone and falling back to her side. “I wonder what you're meant to be...”

“You cannot be serious! You just can't!” another voice cried out, deeper, richer and more feminine than the dragon's. Luna turned her head; the unicorn was speaking, her body nearly out of her chair and onto the table as she leant forwards. “Trixie refuses to play these games, especially when she's in the middle of a war. And she demands to know what’s going on.”

“You demand of Lady Luna?” The dragon was talking again. “There is insolence, Trixie, and then there is you! You would be advised to remember your place before recalling your tongue from the last mess it got tangled in.”

The dragon's tirade continued, though Luna had long since stopped paying attention. Her investigations had revealed a scroll-filled tub by her side, and she had already unfolded the first and started reading it. The words seemed to shimmer slightly as she looked at them, before resolving themselves into normal Equestrian. She broke off from it mid-sentence—something about aid for changelings—then rolled it back up and shoved it in with the rest.

“Hey”—the pegasus was speaking—“let's not get too emotional about this, okay? It's... it's been a pretty tense meeting. Maybe messing about a bit's in order, you know? Right? I mean, come on. It's only a joke.” She grinned hopefully, eyes flicking from pony to dragon and then back again. Luna wondered how the smile hadn't cracked her face open, given all the scars.

“She said”—a hoof was jabbed accusingly at Luna—“that she doesn't know who we are! That she doesn't know who Trixie is! What kind of a joke is that?”

“Do not,” the dragon roared, “point your hoof at the Lady!”

“Well, of course I don't know who you are,” Luna interrupted, smothering another heated argument before it could erupt. “This is a dream, and you are all just dream-ghasts based off of real ponies. And dragons,” she amended, with a nod at the wide-eyed and now seated lizard. There was a pause in which the backdrop of distant goings on re-emerged. Luna tapped her hooves together, metal clinking as it struck nail.

“I don't suppose there's any cake?” she asked wistfully, her words almost sighs. “I have missed cake.”

There was a thunder of thuds as something heavy moved towards her. Luna looked up in time to see a flash of red before her world filled with brown. The earth pony had moved to an uncomfortable distance, his gaze focused on her right eye. There was a barely noticeable flick as the black nuclei snapped onto her other. Luna felt something shift lower down, and she moved her head back, trying to widen the gap between them.

“She's not lying.” His voice was surprisingly calm, as well as tinted with the faint trace of an unplaceable accent. He backed off a bit and frowned heavily at her, his expression almost concerned.

“What do you mean she’s not lying?” hissed the unicorn, and at the exact same time the pegasus cried “It’s not a joke?” And with that prelude over, pandemonium once again broke free.

Luna looked hopefully around the room once more, but it hadn't changed at all. The walls were still dark; the table was still round; it was still night outside. She was beginning to feel bored.

Well. She supposed that that settled it, then. As Celestia had always said, beginning is close to being in more than just letters, and right now, Luna was inclined to agree. With a quick flex of her wings, she leapt over the table and landed neatly on the other side. She was out of the circular room before any of them could finish speaking. A few hoofsteps later, and she could hear them scrambling to catch up. Her lips cracked open to reveal a vein of white in the darkness.

A chase it was.

Luna rushed down a succession of dimly lit corridors, and the sound of her pursuers followed after. A selection of torches—unevenly spaced—spat out spheres of orange light into the hallway, breaking the darkness aperiodically as she ran. They hindered her more than they helped, ruining her night vision each and every time she passed through their flickering domain.

She slipped mid-stride and skidded freely for a metre or so: her unbooted hoof had landed on a patch of black-ice, indistinguishable from the stone floor in the darkness. Her wings stretched as far as they could in the confined space, and then flapped repeatedly, hooves clicking together as they skimmed above the ground.

The dream has become cold, Luna thought. I wonder why?

She noticed, in passing, an array of icicles dangling like forgotten daggers from the tip of a stone arch. She ducked beneath them, and her wingbeats disturbed them enough to loosen the icy stalactites into falling. They shattered behind her with the sound of bells.

The corridor ended, and the building followed after, depositing Luna into the confines of night-covered courtyard. Towers rose in crooked lines out of the enclosure's ground, and a zig-zagging wall cut the square into a rectangle over on Luna's left. Snow flooded out over the floor and painted it into a brilliant white; the landscape beyond the wall was the clear darkness of absent ground. Faint trails of hoofprints and wagon-lines had compressed parts of the snow into a tangle of thick, creamy ice, forming lines which splayed like fractures across the ground. The wind whipped up a scattering of crystals; they brushed against her face like sand: sharp and granular. Luna wondered why she wasn’t cold.

She noticed two bronze-armoured ponies trotting cautiously towards her, their hoofsteps muffled by the snow. Luna saluted as they approached and, as they mimicked her in confusion, she slipped past, laughing. Two more to add to the chase.

Not that they’d have much further to chase her. With a final burst of her wings, she angled herself towards the flattish edge of a tower's conical roof, horn glowing as she brushed the top layer of snow from it. Her hooves clattered dissonantly as she landed, the difference between hoof and metal more than noticeable in the clash against stone. Luna turned slowly around, wings folding in as she looked out across the landscape.

There were grey clouds up above, altering in tone from a wispy paleness through to a secretive murk as they spread across the sky. The moon winked out at her from between breaks in the clouds’ hold over the heavens; a welcome companion in an unfamiliar land. Off in the distance, she thought she could make out the sight of snow cascading down. It looked almost as if the clouds had a bad case of dandruff. She giggled at the thought.

Looking down, Luna was surprised to find that there was a city spread out beneath her. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but a city was more complex than she was used to. Most dreams contented themselves with a producing a smudge of buildings or forests, being more concerned with creating mass than individuality. And yet here, she could almost tell the difference in each building's character; almost. They all still looked alike to her, and they were far from the most interesting things to look at.

For she could spot movement—sluggish, perhaps, and indistinct, but movement nonetheless. Faint trails of light, most likely lanterns signalling a group in transit, wove like crawling fireflies along the unfocused outlines of streets. Smoke huffed out of chimneys at her, and she could smell the tint of ash in amongst the cleanness of the cold air. A cluster of catapults near the wall swarmed with activity: the tarpaulins covering them were tugged off like a blanket from a sleeping child; ponies rushed frantically between them, their cries indistinguishable; and great, glowing balls were tossed from unicorn to unicorn like a group of children playing catch. It was a curious thing to watch, and Luna wondered if they'd stop should she try to get closer.

The sound of her pursuers—long noticed, but ignored—grew louder. The main bulk of them had, it seemed, caught up, and the two guards who had wasted time calling up at her were engulfed into their group. Their voices buzzed like flies against Luna’s ears: angry and eager for attention. Her head snapped round.

“Yes! I am here. What is it? What exactly do you dream-ghasts want of—” She’d noticed something. “Is that mine?”

The moonlight danced merrily off the silver horseshoe floating by the unicorn's side, encased in a shimmering wash of pink. The garment looked, as far as her passing acquaintances with inanimate objects went, familiar. It certainly matched the one she was wearing well enough. Luna felt more than entitled to claim ownership.

“It is mine, isn’t it? I’ll be having that back.” She held out her hoof, an attempt at a stern expression on her face. She was rather surprised when the demand worked, and the horseshoe was back on her hoof within moments. Dream-ghasts were usually more playful when provoked.

“Lady Luna, if we could talk inside for just a moment.” The dragon’s arms beckoned her down. Luna snorted.

“I’m not coming down. It’s far too much fun up here on the roof!” She pranced happily back and forth, her clumsy and uneven hooffalls loosening the slate tiles enough for them to slip off. They cracked open like eggs against the ground, spreading black shards everywhere. “Whoops! Sorry about that!” She brought a hoof forcibly down and caused another tile to abandon the roost. Her horn glowed, and the tile bobbed back up. “Hey! I caught it this time!” There was no response.

Looking down, Luna spotted the six of them clumped together in a circle down below. She frowned: they were supposed to be paying attention to her. This was a very funny dream.

After having waited a few moments—most of it spent debating the benefits of trying to land a tile on one of them—the pegasus left the group and flapped on up to her. Almost simultaneously, the two guard ponies raced off and vanished like rabbits into the black holes that marked the castle’s passageways.

Is it a castle?Luna thought. She gave the buildings around her a quick glance before remembering whose dream this was. Yes. Yes, it is a castle. My castle. She frowned down her nose at the approaching pegasus.

“What business do you have in my castle, stranger?” she barked. The pegasus paused, wings flapping languidly as she hovered in place.

“I... erm,” she mumbled, hoof ruffling through her mane. “I'm one of your generals? I mean, I am one of your generals. Yes. That's my business. Being here.”

Luna blinked. A general. That was much more like it. They were playing along at last.

“Of course you are!” Luna cried, wings spreading out as she strutted off the tower and out into mid-air. The winds gently buffeted her with snow and teased her mane out into a long, flowing aurora. “I do apologise, General. I'm afraid I didn't recognise you in the dark!”

The pegasus slumped slightly, as if some invisible puppeteer had just abandoned his post, and then she grinned. “I'm glad to hear that, Luna. You had us all worried for a moment there.” Luna nodded; they'd had her all worried too.

“Yes. Quite right, Madame General. Now then. Our first order of business is the war.” Her general nodded. “We shall attack... them!” Luna flung a hoof downwards pointedly, the tip of her silver horseshoe directed at the small group gawking up at them.

“Wait, what? We... we're...” She tugged at the cloth covering her ear. “But I thought you were okay!”

“Of course I'm okay,” Luna replied, before pressing a snowball into her companion's hooves. “Prepare to fire on my mark, General!” She flicked back to the roof, landed on it and then scooped up another ball from the untouched piles of snow.

“Err...”

“Mark!”

The snowball whizzed through the air like a miniature comet before becoming impaled like a back-to-front snow-cone on the unicorn's horn. Luna huzzahed in triumph; the unicorn howled in disbelief. A gust blurred the ground below under a sudden rush of white. And then, from out of the distance, something answered their echoing cries: a roar which sounded like a thinly mixed blend of wind and thunder.

Luna’s eyes widened as she turned towards the sound. The light around her horn extinguished, and the slate tile fell, forgotten. “What is that?!”

“Oh no,” the pegasus whispered, her eyes just as wide but lacking Luna’s joyful sparkle. “Oh very no.”

Ignoring her, Luna leapt like a cat off the roof, arch tight and pointed like a needle towards the ground. One powerful wingbeat changed that, forcing her trajectory out of a downwards plummet and into a horizontal blur of blue that pointed like a spear away from the castle. Snowflakes spun into a hazy outline around her, buffeted into chaos by the air-front pressed ahead. Within a few moments, her castle was far, far behind her—not that Luna cared to look back.

There was another roar, although unlike before this one was orphaned from a source. Luna skidded in mid-air, hooves pressing small clouds out of the atmosphere as she shuddered to a halt. Her wings flapped steadily, keeping her in a hanging hover as her eyes darted quickly about. There was nothing to see but a blue, pale mist; whatever had made the noise wasn't nearby. There was only the blackness of the night around her—broken only by two twinkling stars—the now distant lights of her castle and the smudge of grey clouds swirling in hazy circles overhead. She had missed whatever it was. It wasn't here.

Or,Luna reflected, it's here and it's invisible.She drew air into her lungs, chest rising as they quickly became full. And then she shouted: “Hello out there! Show yourself!”

The answering roar was much, much closer and much, much louder, and yet still Luna could not see it. Her head darted around, but she could still only see mist, blackness and the stars—stars which were shining in front of the cloudy backdrop; not piercing it, but on top of it. On the wrong side.

Luna hovered back, her gaze fixated upwards. A dark curve in the cloud layer translated into the outline of a cheek; two hazy brushstrokes of mist stiffened into ears; the stars pulsed blue, and Luna realised—still with the faint, unworried tones of a dream—that they were eyes, and that they were locked on to her as much as hers were on it.

And then something collided with her from behind, wrapping up her wings and pushing the two of them into a falling, twisting bundle of thrashing limbs. They plummeted downwards, the misty figure above them fading back into the atmosphere. The last Luna saw of it, the vague sketch of its pony-like head was twisting away from her and back towards the castle. The stars briefly vanished as it blinked.

The constriction suddenly vanished, and Luna's wings shot out, sending her into a muddled but slowingspin. Her eyes whirled madly round until she at last located the sky, and then with a rush of wingbeats she was decelerating whilst level. A blue and yellow blur shot down towards her, and then suddenly halted. It was the pegasus.

“What the hay are you thinking, Luna?” she snapped. Snow began falling around them, gently at first but becoming thicker and thicker as time went on. “What's the matter with you, huh? One moment you're fine, the next you're loopier than I've ever seen you! What's wrong?”

Luna grinned. “Did you see that... that thing? It was just...” Her head twisted skywards, dredging the air above her for any sign of its previous spectre. “I mean, that's new! I've never seen anything like that before: ever! That's just... so... amazing.” Her wings flapped harder, driving her upwards.

“Amazing? That's dangerous,” the pegasus replied, wings flapping as she joined in with Luna's ascent. “And what do you mean new? I know you've seen windigos before, Luna, and—“

“Windigo? Is that what that is? But I haven't read anything on windigos in ages, so why am I dreaming about them? That's... I've always wondered what they’d look like. Its cries really do sound like the wind, don't they?” Luna smirked upwards. “Wanna get a closer look, General?”

“A closer... You really are mad, aren't—”

She saw the interruption before she heard it—and, for that matter, before it had truly begun to interrupt. A corner of the sky was lit up, as if the sun was dawning on the wrong side of the world, and far, far too quickly. Ignoring the pegasus's faltering words, she turned her head towards the growing, orange light. And there it was: a burning rock trailing through the air like a falling-star thrown back.

If her snowball had been a comet, then this surely must have been a meteor. Bright, and with an ethereal artery of sparks lingering after it in the sky, the stone seemed more to push the world out of the way than travel through it. The paltry moonlight retreated, temporarily giving way to the fiery outpouring of red. A scarlet, pony-like silhouette was traced vibrantly across the sky, the figure utterly unable to hide itself under the advancing blaze. Its eyes sparkled, and the now sharp outline of its mouth opened wide.

Then it howled. Gusts formed of snow and eerily white clouds billowed out from its mouth in a tidal wave of directed force. The encroaching boulder weathered it, the coronal mane of flames surrounding it merely dimming into a still-burning ember of impossibly flying rock. Undaunted, it drew closer and closer before colliding with the ghostly afterimage of the thing's foreleg. It snapped clean off, bursting into a flurry of translucent sky-skelfs and a few residual wisps of mist. Mere moments later, the leg had rewoven itself from nothing, and the boulder had vanished off into the night.

A displaced bulge of air—refuge from the collision—surged downwards towards the two bobbing fliers; the curvature of its presence was marked by a rapidly filling in expanse of white, like an explosion outlined in snow or a ripple magnified indefinitely into an expanding, three dimensional wave of rushing, thunderous air.

“Oh crap,” the pegasus muttered, and then the onslaught caught them, bundled them up and carried them along in a twisting, tumbling package groundwards.

Snowflakes scraped like glass against Luna's skin, the impact hard enough to force them into ice. Her eyelids clamped shut in an effort to protect her eyes, and in doing so, cut off her vision. Luna realised she had no idea how far away the ground was. Some weight, barely noticed up until now, loosened on her head. A few seconds later and there was a tug on her mane, followed by a few pinpricks of pain as the hairs were torn out by their roots. And then a rush of cold engulfed her into its oceanic depths in a shivering crunch of a collision.

Down she fell, the piles of snow around her flowing like brittle water across her back: hard and frosty and unforgiving. Pain lanced along her outstretched limbs, firing their way along each wing-tip until the cold numbed them into a dull throb. Eventually, as if grieving that she had to stop, Luna's passage slowed. Blue eyes opened out onto a world of white.

About a metre above her was a gap in the snowy cylinder that enclosed her, out of which she could see the last fiery after-trails of the retreating rock. What had seem like a titanic plunge was revealed before her quivering eyes as a minor stumble; she was taller standing than the hole was deep. Slowly, brushing snow off of herself and shivering in her sudden perception of the cold, Luna sat up.

The moon must have passed behind a cloud, because it was far darker than it had been before; she could see perhaps less than a few metres ahead. The ground around her was snow, great billowing hills of it that shuffled uneasily at the wind’s slightest touch, a few moving fast enough to quickly vanish from sight. Luna was buried in one of them, the small crater caused by her landing already disintegrating under a soft, persistent breeze.

The pegasus hovered down next to her, having somehow—miraculously—remained airborne. The wind from her wings whipped up a small flurry of white flakes from the snowy ground beneath her. The pegasus's lips moved; Luna heard nothing.

She shook her head, dislodging a small slab of snow from out her ears. The pegasus's head returned from a quick glance behind her, and mouthed, “We need to get out of here, Luna. There's a war going on, and we can't risk you being in the middle of it!”

Luna starting nodded in confusion and then stopped. Her head felt too light, and a memory from a moment ago whispered of a weight flying off in the fall. She raised up a hoof and felt around her horn. The crown, a barely noticeable part of her current garb, was missing.

“I need to find the... the...” She struggled for the word. “The thingy!” She gesticulated wildly about her head and pulled herself out of the hole. “It should be easy to spot: it's black and everything around here's white.” The wind tugged angrily at her mane.

“What?” The pegasus's eye alighted on her horn. “Your crown?”

“There! That's the word: my crown. It's gone and we have to find it.”

“You want to stay here and look for your... Oh, for the love of Pete.” Her hoof scraped down the side of her face. “Look, Luna, I don't know what you're thinking right now or what this all looks like to you. Maybe you've gone mad or maybe you're just having a breakdown, but staying here and looking for your crown is... is...” She sighed. “Just come back with me to the castle, okay?”

“Crown first, castle later,” Luna replied, and then trotted past her, legs disappearing up to their knees in the snow. The tip of her horn lit up, bathing the surrounding ground in a bright-blue light. She waved her head from side to side, revealing more and more glittering snowdrifts. Falling snowflakes stuck to her mane and coat. “It's black, after all. Just give me a moment and—” Her horn-light glinted off something. Two somethings. “I think I've found it!” She waded forwards in short, bouncy jumps, legs piling up clumps of snow onto either side.

The second something surged downwards in a sudden jerk of motion as Luna approached, revealing itself as a thick, smoky block of ice. It kicked the first glimmering object towards her. Luna's crown bounced across the snow, parts of it becoming coated in a speckled white. She snatched it up, pulled it onto her head and then stared at the block. Rather than sinking into the snow, it almost seemed to float on top of it, like a boat out at sea or a pegasus walking on clouds. It was the most impossible thing she had seen yet.

Luna paused and raised her head, casting her horn-light higher into the air. A figure made out of ice appeared, carved into the shape of a pony and cast in a deep, glacial blue. Her light penetrated less than a centimetre into its surface, the core beneath hidden by opaque layers signifying an unrealistic depth. The head turned towards her, and Luna imagined that she could hear it creak.

She took a step back; three more figures emerged from the darkness, their progress surprisingly quick until they came into the circle of light. Broken reflections glinted out at her from their flat and angular crystalline skin. Luna turned round and beheld ten more. The pegasus was gone.

“What are you?” Luna asked them, entirely unconcerned. She paced up and down a bit and shivered in the cold. Her head cocked to one side as she looked one over. She grinned. “I wonder if you break?” A sapphire spark formed at the tip of her horn, light overriding the conical glow of her previous spell.

“Luna!” She whipped her head up; the pegasus was flying in a tight figure of eight up above.

A windigo roared off in the distance, distracting her. The pegasus was gone by the time she looked back, and Luna noted that the duo of stars above her had been replaced by a constellation. More flaming rocks were hurtling through the sky, their arching parabola preserved in a blotted line of dwindling flames. A few inched closer to the glimmering dots that were their likely targets; most veered wildly off course.

One didn't appear to be moving at all. Luna blinked, blinked again and then realised that, far from not moving, it was heading directly towards her. It would probably land nearby. She wondered if it would chase the cold away.

She looked back down. The things—snow ponies, she suddenly decided—were closer, the radius of their surrounding circle decreasing with all the slowness and certainty of a glacier. She took a step forwards, and then another, till she was standing within hoofsreach of one of them. She held out a foreleg and prodded the thing gingerly; it did not move. She pressed harder against it, silver horseshoe digging slightly into the snow pony's chest. A scattering of blue dust tumbled out as her hoof carved into the ice. The figure didn’t move. Red light flickered off its icy skin as the flaming rock continued to descend. Luna’s hoof pulled back.

As if that was all the signal they were waiting for, the figures lurched forwards. Luna backed off quickly, wings flaring upwards as the ring surrounding her contracted once, and then once again. The snow ponies' movements weren't as jerky as she'd expected them to be, but smooth and coordinated to an unnatural degree.

“Step back!” she warned. They pressed inwards; her horn flared into a red that matched the growing light bouncing off their bodies. “Don't make me—” An icy figure pushed her forwards, and an arctic weight thudded against her back.

Blue wings blurred into a retaliatory motion, pushing air downwards as the alicorn rose. Her horn flashed continuously as magic flowed from out her forehead and rose upwards in a dizzying surge of power. The ruddy illumination cast by the falling boulder increased into a heady scarlet, and—seeing further under the added height of being airborne—Luna realised it was not a small band that surrounded her, but hundreds of figures clomping through the snowy dark; not towards her, but around her, as if the bare twenty gathered in an imperfect circle down below would be enough to subdue her. Her eyes flashed white, the charge in her horn released and a bolt of blue zapped towards one of those arrogant enough to think they could hold her.

It hit the glimmering surface of the chosen snow pony and bounced straight back. Blank irises widened further, the pureness of the white already fading into a clear blue. The beam struck her wing in an explosion of red; feathers twirled amongst the falling snow.

Luna landed heavily, snow billowing around her in a rising shower of white as she coughed pitifully. Seconds later, an icy hoof thrust into her chest and once more recreated the crash, driving her down, down, down into the snowdrift's icy confines. Her silver horseshoes slipped along the pillar's polished surface, unable to force it off or even catch a grip against it. Snow clutched angrily at the semicircle carved into her wing, tugging and tearing at it with every desperate motion. Three more columns joined the first, driving her further down into the shifting weight of the snow. Luna tried to breathe and found she couldn't: her chest was like a frozen void, dark and spreading. Her horn sparked feebly. Cold poured into her lungs.

Heat followed after it in great, billowing waves, driving intolerable amounts of boiling energy into her. The weights holding her down lifted, and Luna started to claw her way upwards, only to give a muffled cry as the snow surrounding her injured wing tugged her back. She pushed upwards again, teeth gritting together as her wing felt like it was being pulled apart.

The snow above her became softer and almost watery as she dug herself through it. Eventually, one of her hooves broke through the crusted surface and out into a world of blistering heat. It briefly retreated, before reaching back up, hooking onto the side and pulling. Luna’s head rose like a sunken iceberg out of the snow, coughing and spluttering desperately for even a thimbleful of air. A second hoof burst out of the snow and echoed the first in trying to catch onto the side. It sank into a thick slush of melting ice and water.

Her eyes creaked open, only to wince back into a thin crack of colour as the world burned around her. The rock had landed, inverting a world of frost into one of flame and driving the figures from it, though all Luna could see of this was a thin, watery blur of red. Her hooves fumbled in ever slowing motions against the melting snow, repeatedly failing to find either grip or strength enough to pull herself out. Finally, she slumped down into the half-watery slush that pressed against her, world dwindling into black as the edges of her vision collapsed.

Something pushed its way under her forelegs, lifting her up and out of her melting cocoon. Her dangling wing broke through the surface, and she was too apathetic to even flinch at the pain. A stray thought crossed her mind that she should struggle, try and get away, but she quickly quashed it. The dream was drawing to a close, and who was she to try and stop it? She might as well let the dream-ghasts do whatever it was they were doing with her.

Two more limbs wormed their way around her waist, securing her bottom half, and two more followed that. A faint, almost watery drumming sound filled the air, and Luna felt the farewell tug of the ground as she left it beneath her. The world fell into darkness as they carried her away.

I shall miss this dream,Luna thought, feeling rather than seeing the dream drifting into fractured thoughts. Though it was very, very strange.

Luna’s snore died violently as she turned over, its life ending in a fit of explosive snorts into her pillow. Her thoughts rolled sluggishly about her brain as she began to wake up. The memory of a cramp twinged at her left leg and pulled it out into an easing straightness. Luna mumbled scattered nothings into the doughy confines of her cushion, and then lifted her face out, eyes remaining shut. She turned and rested her head down on one side, sacrificing the other to a fate of sinking slowly into a world of all-surrounding softness.

There had been a... a... a something. Of that she was certain. One of her forelegs slid under the pillow and rummaged about for a patch of coldness to slump into. The something had been a vague sort of thing, as far as she could recall. It had been... well, weird. She wasn’t sure if she had or hadn’t liked this particular type of something. It was hard to tell without knowing exactly what the something was. A slow grin spread across Luna’s face as her foreleg settled in, the bulge of its entry pushing her sinking head back up above the pillow-layer. Oh yes, that was it. The something had been a dream.

Luna mumbled out a few nothings again, before squirming slightly about on her tummy. The blankets covering her began to slide off, until a cloud of blue tugged them back into place. She let out a half-stifled yawn.

Her last dream had been... oh, centuries ago now. Luna could barely remember it when she was awake, never mind attempting to try her luck whilst on the verges of sleep. She could remember that it hadn’t been that exciting, though—not that that last dream had been any better. She’d had to make that one interesting instead of just letting it play out, which was rather presumptuous for a dream. They were meant to entertain her, not the other way round.

A clock’s chime reached her from far away, and Luna began to wonder how many hours were left till dusk. She slowly opened her one free eye, and—

It was dark, and not the growing darkness of twilight or the before-its-time blackness of a thunderstorm, but the full, covering darkness of midnight. Flecks of snow fluttered like butterflies inside the gloom, their presence illuminated by a row of merrily dancing candle-flames. Luna blinked her one uncovered eye a few times, her muddled thoughts catching up with the idea that, rather than looking out into a void, she was staring out towards a window. She wouldn’t normally have considered it anything out of the ordinary, if it wasn’t for the fact that she’d had nothing to do with it. Clearly, Celestia had let her sleep in and switched the sun and moon over alone, because this was a night that was not hers.

Luna huffed once, breath disturbing the sheets, but didn't rise out of bed. Her one visible eyebrow scowled, and the pale-blue eye beneath it rolled restlessly about the half of the room visible to her, taking in the sparse decoration and shadowy reflections splayed across the window. It occurred to her, after a few moments, that it wasn't her bedroom. Her eyes flicked over to the window. Snow. They resumed their investigation of the unfamiliar room. Not yours.

There was a pattern hanging in the air, but Luna'd be damned if she could see it. She yawned again, pulled all four of her legs back under her and lifted herself up. The covers flowed down her back and gathered into a half-assembled gown as she stretched, the bones along her spine popping and cracking into place. Her mane fluffed up into a bunched, transparent cloud around her neck. Some of the sheets must have wrapped around her during the night, because her wings were stubbornly refusing to unfold from her chest. Her horn glowed as she tugged at the cloth wrapped round them; it disdained movement. She turned her head round and blinked at it. A word filtered into her mind: bandage.

The pattern’s solution suddenly arrived: she was still in the dream and it was still being strange. Waking up within a dream was... well, it was strange. No real way around that. Not unheard of, but never experienced by her. Luna sat down with plop on the bed, noticing for the first time that it was a far bigger bed than she was used to. She mulled the problem over as the sheets slid off her and into a messy pile on the now bare mattress.

This isn't very much like a dream, Luna thought. She blinked a few times and tried to remember what little she could of the dreamscapes she'd visited in the past.

This isn't like a dream at all.

Luna looked around slowly and steadily, as if she had all the time in the world. The room was a bedroom for somepony important who, as far as she could tell, didn’t seem to spend that much time in it. Other than the bed and the window, there was nothing else there. Putting aside that she'd never seen it before, it wasn't that remarkable. Exactly what she'd expect from a dream. Luna frowned and leaned forwards, a nagging suspicion at the edge of her thoughts.

It was the wall which broke it for her and revealed what had, up till then, been hidden just out of sight. It was the same dark-granite as all the other walls before it had been, but this time Luna really looked at it, taking it in as an object rather than just a background.

The stone was crumbling in places, usually around the corners, and small trails of dust hung like dangling fish inside of cobweb nets. A few more had dark splotches slapped onto them: discolourations in the rock which looked ugly against the usually uniform granite. Small sparks of sand or possibly quartz twinkled out at her from gashes cut deep into the stone. No stone looked the same. She trembled slightly as the idea hit her, eyes widening and then clamping shut.

A few minutes later, Luna gulped, her first movement in a while. Her eyelids opened in a gradual but certain lift, revealing eyes that remained focused on nothing. She stood up, and with slow, careful hoofsteps that sank slightly into the mattress, got off the bed. The sheets followed after her, having gotten tangled round one of her legs in passing; one of the bed’s two pillows rode along the fabric like a ship across a duvet sea. She stopped and, with one hoof holding the fabric firmly down, yanked her leg forwards. The blanket tore with a sound like miniaturised thunder. Feathers filled the air like storm-clouds.

The door's hinges creaked loudly as the whole of it became gripped in a thick, blue aura. The centre handle—a silver loop—clattered uselessly as the door was tugged outwards into a vicious, swinging arc. It reached the end of its path, the wall, and did not slam against it, but instead shuddered helplessly into a dying oscillation. Luna passed it calmly by as dust, disturbed from its hiding places by the violent motion, flowed down it like a waterfall.

She entered into a corridor, the dark walls and high ceiling lit by a row of torches—these spaced regularly. A glint near the end of it, to the side of a thick, wooden door, caught Luna's attention. Soft murmurs of hushed conversation grew as she padded towards the end, competing insistently with the glint for her attention.

Luna reached the door; the conversation behind it was now almost coherent, though her eyes remained fixed on the glint's source. Slowly, oh so slowly, a dark-blue alicorn crept into view alongside her, naked except for a tight, white bandage wrapped around her midriff. Luna's eyes flicked up and across to the alicorn's mane. She hoofed her own steadily, foreleg running through the twinkling, flowing curls and out into an unfamiliar length. Her eyes drifted upwards to the horn; she prodded the tip of her own, as if uncertain that it was there. It twanged audibly in response.

Her eyes lowered again, and she stared into the alicorn’s blue eyes. They glinted back in response, looking lost and frightened. It was like looking at a sister she had never known.

Luna breathed out in one long, continuous sigh. Her breath fogged up the mirror, hiding the reflection from view. She shivered once—from the cold, she assured herself—and then turned, extended hoof eking the door open. The whispered conversation that had, up till now, been muffled by the door flared into audibility.

There was a gathering hall beyond the door, cut into three roughly similar sections by two granite columns. Ponies filled up most of it, the columns separating them out into their individual tribes: unicorns on the left, earths in the middle and pegasi on the right. A sea of shining eyes flicked over to her from the purple dragon standing in the room’s centre. The dragon’s head turned with them, blinking once as his gaze met hers. She blinked back.

The dragon coughed once, and turned back to his audience. “I think that calls an end to this. You can all go now.” A quiet murmur, drawn from a crowd rather than a group of individuals, replied. “I said that’s an end. The Lady is not well and you have no business in bothering her.”

The crowd turned and, with surprising quickness, left. Soon, only the sound of their retreating hoofsteps remained. Eventually, those too vanished.

“This isn’t a dream, is it?” Luna said, still perched by the door. She didn’t look at the dragon. “I... How did I get here? I’ve never seen this land before in my life. ”

“You’ve always been here,” the dragon replied. His claws clinked off the stone floor as he walked towards her. Luna shut her eyes. “This is your home, my lady. Not a dream or a fantasy or make-believe, but your home.”

“No! No, it... it can’t be.” Luna’s eyes flung open and she stepped back. A reflection that was not her flashed out from the side: dark, tall and far more imposing than she was used to. The dragon smiled a sad little smile at her. “You’re lying.”

“I’m afraid I’m not and that this place is your home, though I understand why you may not think so. There is a... hereditary condition amongst your lineage, though calling it ‘hereditary’ is, perhaps, a little strong. As far as I can recall, only your great aunt, Queen Celestia, ever—”

“Celestia is my sister. And she’s a princess, not a queen.”

The dragon paused and huffed quietly to himself, cheeks puffing up as he did so. “Perhaps,” he said, “I am approaching this the wrong way.” Reptilian eyes gently locked on to hers. “My name is Spike. What do you call yourself?”

“My name’s Luna—exactly what you’ve been calling me this entire time. And it’s Princess Luna, not ‘Lady Luna’.”

“Princess?”

Luna nodded once, still eyeing him carefully. One of her back legs tensed slightly as he walked towards her.

“That is... curious,” the dragon continued, his eyes not leaving hers.

“It’s not wrong.” She almost took the step back, but managed to quell the urge. “I am Princess Luna.”

He paused, and then blinked lazily at her in an almost cat like fashion. “I said it was curious,” he replied. “You are, of course, whoever you say you are. No one is questioning that. I am, however, interested about your views on one thing in particular: Where do you remember being last?”

“I was in a town. Ponyville. There was a celebration. A great... evil had been lifted from the land, and they put a garland of flowers around my neck.” Her hoof rose up and began to rub the fur under her neck. “I hadn’t done anything to stop it, and they still put it round my neck. And then I... I...”

“You don’t remember what happened next, do you?” The dragon huffed, once. “My la... Princess Luna, I—”

“No!” Luna interrupted, her unbound wing flaring up and scraping against the corridor’s sides. “No, I must have gone back to Canterlot with my sister. Maybe I fell asleep along the way and stumbled out of a dream to end up here. Or maybe my being here is magical in origin, and—” Her eyes pulsed. “Big Sister wouldn’t have.” She swallowed. “She wouldn’t...”

“I must admit, I am rather curious as to what it is you think she’s done,” the dragon interrupted. He shifted his weight around, leaning back from her. “Aside from leaving you unable to speak of it.”

Luna’s mouth closed-over tightly, and she spoke her next words through gritted teeth.

“I think she may have sent me here. Wait. Where am I, exactly?” Her head tilted back and her eyes began to dance over the ceiling. She snorted once and then returned to glaring at the dragon. “Where have you brought me? What... What is this place?”

The dragon’s arms folded over, claws tucking under his elbows. “This is the fortress of Tacktagel, defender of an entranceway into the Vernian reserves. We have not brought you anywhere; in fact, it was you who brought us here to prepare for an assault against the windigoes.”

Luna’s head turned to one side and nodded fiercely up and down, her tongue dabbing out and wetting her lips. “Oh, yes. Oh yes, of course. I brought you here. I’m the one who—wait. Why would you let me bring you anywhere?”

“As sole ruler of Equestria and the orphan nations, what you order is—”

“Hah.” Luna snorted, eyebrows burrowing into her forelock. “You call this land Equestria? You can’t just—Queen Celestia? And you call me Luna, and... and...” Her eyebrows dropped down and her lips smacked shut, only to surge back open as she shouted:

“You can’t just change everything about something whilst giving it the same name!”

Except this was no normal shout; this one had volume to it. Flags hung several metres away snapped to attention as the barrage of air unleashed from her mouth forced its way past them. The dragon winced as echo after echo bounced around the hall, eyes tightly closed and claws covering the sides of his head. Eventually, after the noise had stopped, they opened out to the sight of Luna’s hoof clasped over her face.

It slid down by a centimetre. “I am so, so sorry. I... I didn’t know it would—I didn’t think it’d—I don’t, I... I...” She sniffed, and her head swung round to peek at the mirror by her side.

“I don’t know who she is.” A great heaving breath as her regular, controlled rhythm finally broke down. “I-I’m not this colour. M-my hair never used to glow or be this long, and... and this isn’t my body, or my horn or... or my height, and... and...” She swallowed once, her hoof lowering down to reveal white teeth digging into her lip. “I don’t know who she is!”

That was a tapping sound as the dragon moved forwards; Luna leapt away from him, horn aglow as the door between them slammed shut in his face. She skittered stiffly back, legs whirling in painful motions as she scuttled along the hall. The door into the bedroom—which had been left open—slammed shut behind her as she passed it, a blue glow fixing it in place.

Luna’s gasps echoed softly inside the small room, broken only occasionally by a muffled sob. They stopped, suddenly, and the echoes quickly died. And then sound re-filled the room, a sound similar to the shout from before, except somehow louder. Cracks raced like frost lines across the room’s windows before they shattered outwards, the myriad shards glinting as they twisted through the air. The torches went out all at once, throwing into absolute darkness.

The moon’s light lit the room up slowly, pouring in through the jagged remains of the windows and gradually re-illuminating the scene. It gently washed over Luna, who was hunched up in the middle of the room, breathing in and out steadily. Her eyelids opened to reveal dry eyes that blinked once or twice as they adjusted to the darkness.

Her head lifted up and turned towards the shattered window; snowflakes fluttered in and out of the room. There was solid ground outside it: a balcony of some sorts. Without much of a clue as to why she was doing so, Luna rose to her hooves and walked towards it.

[***]One: Sunset[***]

She stepped out onto the balcony, hooves clicking loudly off of the stone floor. The ground outside was covered with piles of snow and the glassy sheen of rock under ice. A flag placed less than a metre away from her flickered and cracked as the wind coaxed it into an erratic dance.

Luna sighed once, softly. The wind snatched the sound from her and carried it far across a landscape that was bleak and white and desolate.

She was an oddity, an alien. A creature utterly out of place in this world of ice and conflict. And yet, they expected her to lead them. To guide them. To rule them.

And she did not know how. All she wanted was to go home. To a world where she was welcomed, loved and wanted.

And wanted...

The wind spat snowflakes against her face, hard and cold. Luna swallowed once as it tugged insistently at her mane, pulling her focus up towards the blotted underbelly of the sky. Small streaks of moonlight tumbled down through cracks in the frothing cloud layer; the moon stained them into a pale, unhealthy yellow in its struggle to shine through.

Luna blinked up at it, her lips parting slightly to release a single, warm breath. The corners of her lips eked up into a smile.

They expected her to lead them. No, they wanted her to lead them.

Even when Luna had ruled with her sister, her subjects had never wanted her, never seen her as anything other than the lesser princess. Here, her subjects loved her and wanted her. Here, her rule was welcomed and expected.

She'd blotted out the sun for less.

Why should she try and return? What could there offer her that she could not get here? Why did she want to escape from a land that wanted her to one that didn’t? And even should she try to return, why not stay a while? This land needed her, and perhaps she needed it.

Power flowed along Luna's horn in rippling, shimmering waves. Above her head, the cloud layer tore itself up into thin fragments of mist as the full moon beamed through.

She'd been in the dark for so long, waiting for them to notice her, waiting for them to care.

She’d waited long enough.

A loud rapping at the door broke Luna out of her trance. She shook her head once, and then turned back with a shiver. The frozen hairs of her mane crunched as she walked.

She padded her way across the room and opened the door. The dragon was behind it, a torch clasped firmly in his left claw, flame flickering on the brink of going out. He coughed on it, and it flared back into life.

“My Lady Luna... I mean, Princess Luna, the clouds are—”

“Do you want me?” Luna interrupted. He frowned.

“What? My Lady, I do not under—”

“Do you want me? As a leader, that is. Does this land want me to lead it?” His frown turned quizzical, one eyebrow breaking it to rise up into his forehead.

“Of course we want you as a leader.” He turned and fixed the torch into a nearby bracket; it shone down on the two as they stood next to it. “You have led this nation through thick and thin, through the best of times and the worst. You have never abandoned it, and so neither will it abandon you.”

Luna nodded, pleased. The dragon frowned at her. “My lady, not three minutes ago, I was under the impression that you hated this land. May I ask what has—”

“Your name was Spike, correct? What is it you do around here?”

The dragon blinked. “I am indeed called Spike, Princess Luna. I serve as an... advisor to your court and the consul of the dragon nations.”

“Then you would know a lot about Equestria, wouldn’t you, Spike?” Luna rolled the unfamiliar word round on her tongue. Spike. It was an oddly apt name for a dragon.

Spike huffed. “You could say that, Princess Luna. I am not your advisor for nothing; most of what happens in the Equestrian Republic passes through my ears at some point.

Luna smiled. “Then, Spike, you have much to tell me about. When shall our lessons begin?”

Arcainum's Story Prompts Thingy

Bast Sins: “a young filly discovers she is the reincarnation of the ancient cat goddess”

“I’m telling you, DT: I can control the cats with my mind.”

It was lucky Silver Spoon’s head was currently turned downwards, towards her notebook. Otherwise, Diamond Tiara’s eye roll might have been caught and consequences might have been had.

“I like, tell them what to do.” Silver’s hoof made an exaggerated motion, pen staining the paper black behind it. “And then they do it! How, like, totally cool is that?”

Diamond Tiara gave a flick of her perfectly groomed mane. “Listen, SS. It’s, like, not cool at all when you start talking like this, okay? The other foals are starting to whisper behind our back, and you know how much I hate it when ponies aren’t whispering about me.”

“But DT, you don’t understand.” Silver Spoon’s head was up and turned towards Tiara’s; her smile was wide and hopeful. “I talked it through with Pinkie, and, like, she said that her crystal ball said I was totally the reincarnation of some cat goddess from ancient pony times! So I went to Golden Oaks Library, and then I--”

“SS, enough!” Diamond Tiara’s face was a frown, though it was focused down at the gradually sharpening pencil in her hoof. “I don’t want to hear about Pinkie’s craziness, okay? And I don’t want to hear about your craziness either! This is just like... like that time you said you were the reincarnation of some famous opera singer!”

“I said she was my mum...”

“Whatever! Look, you can think whatever you want, but you’d best not go around saying it, ok?” Diamond Tiara pushed the chair back, pencil shavings balanced on one hoof. She paused, tail swishing as her back faced Silver. “Cause if you keep going like this, you’re just gonna end up some crazy old cat lady living on her own. And I’m not gonna be seen visiting some crazy old cat lady, okay?”

She walked away.

Outside of the school, after having trudged across miles and miles of Equestrian terrain, from the far cities of Manehatten and Vanhoover, and slowly -- oh so slowly -- growing into a tightening ring of whites and black and ruddy browns, the cats gathered.

Bastille Sins: The sad tale of a pony's unjust imprisonment.

“I thought she said we could have it,” the pegasus muttered.

He looked older than he was, with slight tinges of grey already spreading fungus-like across his mane and coat. The cell he was in was dirty and badly lit, with only a high-up slit into the stone allowing light to come through. The rotting hay scratched against his coat as he shuffled in place, and the chains round his wings and legs clanked together.

“Let them eat cake, she said.” A slow tear leaked out of one eye, trickling down his face like a glacier ‘cross a mountain. “I thought she meant it.”

Pastry Sins: “The story of a young filly being unjustly eaten by Celestia” + “Woah no that's not right”

“No! Princess Celestia, you can’t eat me!” Sweetie Belle squeaked, hooves clattering against the floor as she backpedaled away. Her eyes widened as her back thumped against a wall; her legs spun on, regardless.

“Oh yes I can,” Celestia murmured, lips cracking open into a smile of incisors. “I am cannibal.”

“Nooooo!!!” Sweetie Belle squeaked, and it was her loudest squeak yet. Celestia’s jaws widened further, and with a flap of wings causing a sudden burst of speed, she pounced and --

“Cut! Cut, we’ve already done this scene.”

The two paused. “We have?” Sweetie Belle said, face inches away from Celestia’s muzzle and mildly coated in her heavenly saliva.

“Uh huh.” I said. "See this. It’s a troll fic all about Celestia being a cannibal who ate Pinkie Pie, which is why she was pink. Hell, Celestia, you ever quote yourself in this.”

Celestia shrugged. “You’re the one who wrote it,” she said. “And this too. Which is a pretty lazy cop out, if you ask me.”

I waved my hand at her. “They’re all lazy cop outs. Are you really expecting me to put any effort into this? Screw that, I’ve got lots more important stuff to waste my time on.”

I turned and left. Whilst I wasn’t looking, Celestia gobbled up Sweetie Belle.

Bastila Sins: A pony accompanies the notable Jedi on her voyage and discovers that she's fairly insufferable.

“YEEEEAAAAAHHHHH!” There was the flash of blaster fire, and a passing Ithorian exploded.

“Really? We’ve just spent, what, the last day getting that swoop bike together, and you’re just going to run in all gung ho like you did against the rancor?” Carth’s voice was echoing, and a tad incredulous. “Seriously, I don’t know how you expect me to trust you when you keep on taking risks like this!”

“Waa waa woobie waa waa wooo!” one of the aliens shouted, which, given what happened next, was apparently an order to return fire.

“What should we do? Bastilla could get hit!” Mission shouted.

“Wooooooom!” Zaalbar crooned.

Pushing past them, Snowball balled his way out onto the swoop track proper, guns blazing and miniature wings flapping up a storm. “YEEEEAAAAAHHHHH!” he bellowed, and gave them hell.

Ten seconds later, after he’d given all the hell he had, Snowball settled down. Bastilla strutted over. “What on earth were you thinking?! Of all the irresponsible, reckless, downright stupid things to --”

Snowball let her talk. And then, when she had finished, he gave her his rebuttal.

“YEEEEAAAAAHHHHH!”

And all was well.

Pasta Sins: a filly is taken in by a family of famous spaghetti chefs

“Why won’t you talk to me, eh? Am I not being a nice enough for you?”

“Please, Ah... Ah don’t know any more,” Applebloom sobbed, the hairs beneath her eyes flat from tears, whilst the eyes themselves were red and puffy. “Ah’ve already told you everything I know!”

“No, Applebloom. You still haven’t answered the question. The one question everyone must answer; the most important question that has ever been asked.” The shadow who’d spoken made a gesture, and the lamp pointed at her face moved closer, further darkening the rest of the world.

“When’s a your Dolmio day?”

“Ah j-just don’t know!”

Basterd Sins. A cast of ponies retell World War II in gory action-movie style.

…

No. I can’t work with this. I’m done, you hear me. I’m fucking done. I can’t cover the whole of World War two in the amount of time I’m willing to give this. Gore, too. There’s a limit to what can be asked of a man, and you just crossed over that limit.

Fuck you. I’m outta here.

Oh, wait the next one has pirates,

Mast Sins: “No relation to any of the other stories” + “Just has pirates.” + “Yar.”

“Yar,” Captain Pugwash muttered to his first mate, Long John Silver. Long John nodded. It was a good reply.

“Yar,” he said back, confident in his own abilities at debating. The frown on Pugwash’s face only confirmed it. He’d won.

The riggings creaked as the great ship Aldehyde bobbed up and down, helpless to the actions of even the smallest wave across the wide and vast ocean. An ocean that reflected the stars above, shining through the wisps of dark-grey cloud scattered like the discarded shell of the moon, which, inside the dotted blackness, seemed like a lighthouse glaring out of some skyward shore.

Pugwash rose and strode animatedly back and forth across the deck, hands waving as he spoke. He talked about pride and honesty, about integrity and honour. He spoke of the things that make us more than matter recombined, more than an accidental fluctuation in an ever-changing gene pool. He talked about what it means to be human in the quiet times of night, when there’s nothing between you and your mistakes but a thin scrap of blanket and the shuddering horror of causality. He talked about life, and all that it was and all that it could be.

But mostly, he just said “Yar.”

Pastern Sins. A clopfic about ponies with foot fetishes.

“Bon Bon, I want to tell you about my fetish.”

“Not now, Lyra. I’m reading.”

Blast Sins: the story of a young filly's love of demolitions, and the society that tried to reject her

Twilight’s mane was frazzled, and had been for some days now. Parts of it were singed, and other parts were cut haphazardly off: both were the victims of the many, many times she’d accidentally set her hair alight.

But that wasn’t important; what was was the murky streets of Trottingham down below, hidden beneath patches of morning mist as of yet uncleared. A peal of bells sounded out from somewhere in the city: the call for all the happy ponies down below to wake and go about their happy pony buisness.

Twilight didn’t like the happy ponies, because, all too often, the happy ponies didn’t like her. And not liking ponies who didn’t like her was just fine. In fact, ponies who didn’t like her should be punished.

Twilight’s eyes roamed again over the city, and smiled.

“I will make it all go boom,” she said, and did.

Pasteurized Sins: A documentary about the Milkmare of Trottingham.

“Erm... Who are you?”

Milky tried her best to be polite, but she still wasn’t quite sure if she’d managed it. Talking to somepon... something without... it having talked to her first of all wasn’t something she did all that often, after all. She hoped she’d done it right.

“Who, me?” The thing’s head -- like a great, green watermelon -- peered out from the side of the camera he was pointing at her. The /mlp/ splayed across his chest flashed in the sunlight. “I’m Anon, baby.” He smiled, somehow. “S’name your gonna be saying a lot tonight.”

Milky decided she didn’t quite like this anon; he had a real shifty look about him, and his eyes wouldn’t quite meet hers. He seemed to be focusing on something just behind and a bit be... Oh.

She crossed her legs. “Erm, why are you filming me, Mister Anon?”

“Because he’s a huge furry faggot, that’s why.” Somepon... Ok, something else said. There was another one of the things walking up to her, a smouldering something-else in its left hand. It was identical to the other, save for a /co/ where the /mlp/ was. “I mean, for fuck’s sake, /mlp/. What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“What the hell’s wrong with me? What the hell’s wrong with you, you basement dwelling fuckbeard! This is mah pone, not yours. You’re the faggots who turned your back on us.”

The second thing took a long drag on its stick, the end lighting up like a cherry then dying back down, as if blushing. “Course we did,” he muttered. “/co/’s been less shit than usual ever since we got rid of you and packed all the pedophiles off to Gravity Falls General. You honestly think we want you lot back?”

“Then why you here, /co/?” the first one said, arms spread wide and camera forgotten. “Why you here?”

The argument continued as Milky slunk away, shivering to herself as their neckbeards waggled in the breeze.

Pasty Sins: A Dungeons and Dragons game devolves into backstabbing and betrayal.

Rainbow Dash gave a quick knock to the top door of the library before glancing back down at the invitation in her other hoof. Some sort of Pinkie party, by the looks of it; one that Twilight had apparently help set up.

Dash hadn’t known what a ssd was. Or at least, she hoped that what she thought a ssd was wasn’t what they thought an ssd was, ‘cause Pinkie had told her to bring one. Or Twilight. Whoever’d written the note.

The door opening broke her from her reverie of trying to figure out which one of the two’d be closeted enough to make a slip up like that. She shook out her mane and focused.

Pinkie was in front of her, a long white beard sloping from her chin and a tall blue hat perched upon her head. “Glad you could make it, Dashie! Come on in. I’m gonna be a wizard, so maybe you could be a knight or --”

“Hold it,” Dash said, not allowing herself to be dragged inside. “What’s going on exactly?”

Pinkie tugged the beard down, freeing her mouth. “We’re playing Dungeons and Dragons! Why?”

Dash turned and left with nary a word.

Pastie Sins: The tell-all memoir of the most famous burlesque dancer in Equestria.

Featherweight’s breaths were fast and thick together, his heart pounding loudly against the confines of his chest. His wings fluttered, propelling him faster up the stairs. His hoof shot out, helping twist round a banister and fling towards his room. The door slammed open in front of him, then shuddered closed behind.

He placed the book down carefully on the desk, and began to read:

Dear diary,

I have decided that keeping a physical diary was a bad idea in this day and age. Scanned all of the pages into my PC this morning and burned the originals. Decided to sell you to that annoying reporter who’s been buzzing around here looking for a scoop.

So long.

Feather Weight’s “Curses!” was loud and poignant.

Parsed Sins: a sordid tale of grammar and debauchery

“Hello there, Twilight, I am Pinkie Pie,” Pinkie says to Twilight. They both pause and turn to you.

“Any of you fuckers notice what she just did?” Twilight asks, menacingly. The gleam in her eyes from four prompts before returns.

“I did it on purpose,” Pinkie interjects. “Cause I’m not so goddamn stupid I’d do this normally. Like most of you a-holes do.”

“What Pinkie just did was spilt a comma. I know most of you won’t see it, but take a close look, you shit-eating horse-sodomisers. Those commas around my name have two meanings, here: they’re parenthetical comma that also signify direct address. And because of that, one of them’s been split like your mama’s legs when your grandfather comes round.”

Pinkie takes over: “What parenthetical means, you goddamn dirty apes, is that the information can be either moved or removed from the sentence without changing its meaning. It doesn’t mean brackets, which I know’ll be confusing some of those with weight issues in the audience, but fuck you. And what happens when you take it out, Twilight?”

“You get a bastard comma without a home, Pinkie: one ready to split hairs and anger the grammar fascists of the English language.”

“So what should we do to get rid of it, Twilight?”

“Fucking period, Pinkie. Or a semicolon too, I guess, but only if you want to be the most pretentious faggot this side of the author.”

And then they have sex.

Vast Sins: One filly, a thousand eating disorders

It was too much. The pressure had gotten to Nyx quickly, and after that, the depression had snowballed. It had started small, with only a lick of cream a night. But when you’re a child-like tyrant with no-pony to tell you no, one lick just ain’t enough.

She’d moved onto salt after three weeks. Two days later, and all the salt was gone. A week after that, and with the eternal night killing all the crops, there was no food left in all of Equestria.

But when they told her this, she’d only murmured “more!” in a voice that echoed like whale-song, and her minions had scurried to obey.

By the time the Cutie Mark Crusaders came a-visiting, there was nothing left of Nyx. There was nothing left of her castle, either: nothing left but a rippling mountain of pudgy flesh that wallowed about the countryside like a slowed ocean of fat.

You could even see her from space.

Pasty Sins: She can make meat pies with the best of them, but her love is rotten from the inside.

“Hah! That’s fifty two, now!” Rarity’s laugh was a high and happy thing, ringing clearly across the gathered crowds. There was a babble of contentment as ponies nodded at her and her stacked array of pies. Rarity threw a coquettish glance over at the competition to her left: a jet-black mare with a dirty green mane and a look of deep confusion.

“What the hay’s going on?” Chrysalis asked, her face all befuddlement. “What am I doing here, in Ponyville of all places?”

“We are having a competition for the love of Spikey-Wikey,” Rarity replied, with a toss of her dazzling mane. The crowd cooed. “And I think you’ll find that I am winning!” She pointed at a stack of beautifully constructed pies to the right of her. “You can’t hope to match my output.”

Chrysalis looked up at the pies and then over at the adoring crowd. “This competition is stupid,” she said, and wandered away.

Paste Sins: One stallion's scrapbooking hobby takes a dark turn.

Flim & Flam ran, and they ran fast, hooves clattering loudly against the ground as they rushed over scattered garbage and the decaying remains of old posters. Light from the broken sun flashed off shattered windows and sparking sheets of metal: ruined armour with the magic still trying to hold against the great gashes carved into them.

Flim’s hoof hit a skull, and he stumbled, legs splaying out like a newborn foal. His brother stopped two yards away, having finally noticed his absence, and threw a worried look over.

Flam’s eyes closed, and his mouth tightened along his grizzled jawline; he had not shaved for months and months, and his dishevelled face told of it. Turning, he ran and left his brother behind.

The only sound louder than those fading hoofbeats to Flim were the hoofbeats coming up behind him. Heart in his throat, he turned over, and the jagged remains of a broken cart dug in to his spine.

Big Macintosh stood a few feet away from him, an impassive look of almost boredom on his face. A cart was hitched onto his side, a cart filled with passengers: small dolls of various shapes and sizes. A floppy Smartypants rocked back and forth as Macintosh approached.

“Hold still,” he said bluntly, pulling the straw from out of his mouth and pointing a camera down at him. “I gotta take your picture for the card, and I don’t wanna be messing this one up. Scrapbook’s nearly complete.

“Then we’ll see about getting the doll.”

(Dun Dun DUNNNNN!!!!!)

Times I tried to write Sombra Chp 3

Attempt One

Light, hot and pressing and fractured under a thousand wayward refractions, flies off a chunk of crystal and into Luna's eyes.

She winces, pulling her head further back into the carriage, black curtain sliding shut over the window and cutting off the light. She'd been trying to catch a glimpse of the City for the past ten minutes, to no avail: every angle she'd looked at had sent a searing beam towards her eye, as if the City was trying to hide itself from sight. The rays of the sun'd caused the city to practically glow with light: rays and strands of the stuff had been threaded across the air like cobwebs.

It was only now that Luna found herself asking the obvious question: What sort of fools would build a city out of crystal?

And not just the city, but the roads too. Her carriage ride after passing through the barrier had been nothing less than eerie: the crystal road was so smooth, so frictionless, that her carriage seemed to glide in place across it, giving her the strange illusion that the carriage wasn't moving at all. Luna wasn't even sure if the wheels were turning, and thinking about it, she couldn't hear them squeaking.

Her ride up to the north, to join her sister's retinue, had become dull in its final hours. Luna had been looking forward to seeing the city for herself, to seeing if the reality of the City lived up to its reputation for perfection.

And perhaps it had: it was so perfect that you couldn't even see the damn thing.

"Princess Luna!"

She wasn't sure where the guard was, or even if he was one of her guards -- though the accent was distinctly southern Equestrian.Her carriage was meant to have stopped in front of the great castle, and the sheer strength of the light flooding past the curtains had been enough to tell her that it had.

She closed her eyes, the light from her horn like a candle against the sun as the carriage's door opened. Something took hold of her hoof, helping her out. She nearly slipped when her hooves touched the floor. It was just as polished as she'd imagined.

The journey into the castle itself was mercifully short; her teeth had been gritted throughout the entire walk, her wings twitching as she followed the guard's voice through a world of glaring light, even with her eyes screwn shut.

Attempt Two

She—and you could tell from her gait that it was a she—strode forwards unbothered by the stares or whispers from the crowd of crystal ponies, unconcerned by the occasional mare swerving out of her path.

Why they did so was obvious: the mare was clothed from head to hoof in a thick, black clock through which only the tip of her muzzle extended, blue as a deep pool. She was of just above average height, though something inside the head of her cloak bulged the cover further out. It was this which drew the most glances.

There was also where she had come from—the alleys—and where she was heading too—the castle. A pair of crystal guards noticed her approach and turned smartly round to greet her, spear tips and armour segments glinting in the early evening sunlight.

“Halt. Your kind is not—” She threw back her hood, and they retreated, fast. “Princess Luna.”

Luna ignored them too, horn glowing as she tugged the castle’s door open and passed inside. They clattered close behind.

It took a full half-an-hour for the courtyard to recover from all the gossipers and rumour mongerers.

Inside was a faster thing: the buzz of her own Equestrian guards found her immediately, flocking around her like hungry ducks to a piece of bread. For the most part, she ignored them too, making her way towards the central stairs with the gaggle crowding round ehr each step of the way. Their questions went unanswered; their requests went unheeded.

And yet, a stride away from the stairs themselves, she paused and spoke with a voice that carried despite the quietness of it: “

“Our Sister told us you would be seeing the play all of this afternoon, your majesty.”

“Well, therein lies the problem.” Luna’s horn finished glowing as she dropped the cloak into his outstretched hooves. “I needed to see the play, and every last building’s swamped with light during the day.” She stormed past him, but paused on the first step and muttered, “What sort of fools make a city out of crystal?”

Attempt Three

The only parts of the play Luna was aware of were the voices; the light streaming in through the crystal walls and ceiling, though less intense than outside, was still enough to make the room, actors and audience blinding. The world before her squinting eyes was light, and nothing else.

And thinking that she liked them not,

Roseta spoke onto the mob,

Vowing to put their claims to scorn:

To find again the sunken hoard

Of old King Platinum.

Luna wanted to yawn -- ached to, in fact -- but she couldn’t. She had no clue if anyone was watching her given the opaqueness of the light, and another diplomatic slip up was something her sister wouldn’t tolerate. She’d been sent here to smile and look pretty, to be as close as possible to a princess of the Crystal Empire in some machination of Celestia’s designed to win support for her mission.

In practice, it just meant that when her nose itched, she couldn’t scratch it. Celestia had also somehow managed to find a dress in her size that still scratched against her coat intolerably. And it chafed against her wings. The colour was ugly, too, but a close enough match to the traditional Crystal Empire colours that she’d been forced to wear it nonetheless.

Luna suppressed a groan and smiled weakly, knowing that she should have double checked the wagons they’d brought with them.

She journeyed down into the rock,

Down far beneath the frozen top,

Seeking her way through ancient mines

That had been carved before the time

Saw creatures made of crystal rock

Who stretched on crystal river banks

Where trees and crystal flowers grew

Attempt Four

It is four hours past sunrise, and the City of Light is living up to its name. Thick and almost tangible sunbeams stretch across the air in great, gleaming bands of colour. It is a folly now for anypony not made of crystal to step outside, as the light has already passed blinding by, and is approaching searing.

And Princess Luna is not made of crystal, and so Princess Luna is confined and bored.

The metallic rattle of booted hoof against crystal floor stalks her as she walks down a corridor, bouncing off the walls to disappear up into the ceiling, returning distorted and confused. The inside is quite light, the walls being translucent, made up of misty shadows of the room next door. It is almost like being in absolute darkness: she can see barely less than a foot ahead of her, and the world around her seems insubstantial, like its being hurriedly painted into being a few feet ahead of her.

Luna pauses at a trident-split inside the corridor, uncertain of which fork would take her down. She’s been trying to reach a dungeon or basement or something for the past half-hour, ever since it had been revealed that the light which was making her wince at dawn would only worsen as the day went on, and that the Knight’s tourney she’d been scheduled to appear at might well be the end of her days of sight.

Luna curses under her breath whichever idiot thought to make a city out of crystal, and heads left. It feels more like the downwards direction, more like the route that’ll take her towards an underground some part of her mind’s convinced is more sensibly lit.

She doesn’t quite trust that part, but follows it nonetheless. It’s something to do.

Sorry.

Times I've tried to write Equestria's End Chp 3

The building Braeburn’d led her to was not an old house, but it wanted to be.

The architecture of it was antiquated, pointedly so. Its wooden struts looked like they’d been painted black with varnish, though whatever the substance actually was remained a mystery to Applejack’s eyes. The stairs leading up to the house’s porch squeaked as she followed Braeburn up them, yet felt sturdy enough under-hoof to fully support her weight. Its windows flashed gold in the light of the setting sun, the dark curtains behind them causing the reflection of sky, Appleloosa and a mountain ridged horizon to stand starkly out.

It was like a parody of a haunted house, as if the builders had visited a fairground at some point, and then had left, thinking ‘We can do better.’

“All right, Braeburn.” Applejack muttered the words; despite her disbelief, the house still had some sense of presence about it, one that made her reluctant to speak too loudly. “What’s going on? I know you don’t live here, else you’d have shown it to me before. Just whose house is this?”

“Well, cuz...” Braeburn’s ears were up and swivelling and his head flicked between her face and the house’s door. “You see, you might not recognise this house 'cause it wasn’t part of Appleloosa when you last came to visit. I know it might look like it’s an old building.” He gave the door a quick glance, then stage whispered, “But it really ain’t!”

Applejack stretched her hoof out towards one of the beams, a dark chunk of wood riddled with circular bore holes. She tapped against it, and the clunk in response was both solid and loud.

“I kinda figured that part out on my own.” She frowned. “I don’t even think you can get woodworm out in the desert...”

Braeburn took over: “Look, cuz, point is that I don’t so much live here as stay here. Lady kinda insisted after she came down, an—”

“Lady?” Applejack titled her head to one side, the action causing her mane to flip sides and spread into a collection of looser, messier strands of a rich golden-yellow, peppered by clumps of desert sand. “Which lady’s this, Braeburn? How come I ain’t never heard of her?” Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me you’ve—”

“No, cuz! You’re gettin’ it all wrong!” Braeburn give another glance towards the door, then leaned in, the motion causing his hat to slip forwards and cover his eyes. A quick hoof nudged it out of the way, leaving Braeburn free to whisper, “It’s the house of the Lady. And I don't quite live here.”

“The?” Applejack leaned back, expressions perplexed. Sunlight flashed off her eyes as she mouthed the word out again. The... Her eyes widened. “You mean the the? Oh, hay no, Braeburn! I ain’t going in there; not on your nelly.”

“Look, cuz, I know you don’t like her, but this is the only place we—”

“No!” Applejack interrupted, following it up with a quick hoof stomp, the combination achieving the impossible and succeeding in silencing Braeburn. “I ain’t going in any house of hers, Braeburn. She put me in dresses!”

Applejack leant forwards, eyes narrowed down to two thin slits of green. “Dresses, for hoofs sake! Do I look like a pony who should be wearing any of that frilly fro fro nonsense to you?”

“You look like a pony who’d benefit, that’s for sure.”

Applejack's mouth clamped shut, her mind only now realising just how loud she’d been. Braeburn’s face had frozen, his expression buried under a rictus grin and his eyes screwed tight shut. She glanced round him, to the black rectangle where the door used to be.

And there she was, dark frown hovering over a pair of piercing blue eyes that seemed far too lively for the wrinkled face they were sunk in. Applejack gulped, having suddenly shrunk two feet and aged backwards, mind delving into the memory of a reunion in Manehatten. The feeling left a millisecond later, though the impression of it remained.

Lady Hamilton stepped out of the house, light-brown coat seeming to crease over as she walked. A blossoming tree stamped upon her flanks glowed in the dying sunlight, patchy grey mane—curled up so tightly in its bun that not a hair was out of place—bouncing as she stepped out of the doorway and onto a brown, featureless welcome mat. And through all of it, her frown remained.

“Applejack, isn’t it. Of the Ponyville Apples.” She raised a hoof to stop an Applejack who’d made no efforts to speak. “I already heard you two talking; no need to confirm it. And I’m guessing if you’re here, on my doorstep, you’ll be looking for a place to stay.” She stopped, just a bit beyond Braeburn’s shoulder, and ran her eyes over Applejack, eyes that then tightened.

“I don’t remember any letters saying you'd be coming to Appleloosa.”

Applejack’s jaws locked together. “Well that’s funny, cause I don’t remember any letters saying you were in Appleloosa. How’m I meant to warn someone I don’t know’s there?”

“I sent word to Marigold... Sorry, to your Granny Smith a month back.” The tightness round her eyes loosened a fraction, and she stepped forwards. “Though I suppose I can’t blame you for what my sister-in-law does or doesn’t tell you.” She stopped next to a still silent Braeburn, eyes still locked onto to Applejack’s.

“You get one night, you hear me? One night inside my house, and then you’re out. Don't let it ever be said that I ain't good to my husband's family, but it's one night only and then you get. I don’t want you being a bad influence on Braeburn.” And with that, she turned and walked back into the house.

Braeburn’s eyes opened, and Applejack’s were there to meet them. Bad influence? she mouthed, face all contained fury and dirt.

Not here, was the reply, before, with a worried glance back, he followed after. With a shake of her body, Applejack, too, followed, pausing only to tap her hooves against the door's edge, shaking off the worst of the dried-on mud.

"Look, it's mighty kind of you to make this offer," Applejack called out, before stepping inside and onto the fuzzy softness of a second mat. "But I don't have any plans to stay here." She blinked, eyes adjusting to the inside's gloom.

The inside of the house was dark and horribly clean: cobwebs would’ve brightened the place, giving at least some reminder that living things had once been here. Applejack stopped in place and tapped her hooves against the door frame again, eyes wandering round. The inside was wholly featureless, with no curtains, candles or even carpet to speak off; the only change in texture was the glow around the curtained windows.

"So you won't be staying after all, then?" Applejack turned her head down and to the right, and the figure of Lady Hamilton materialised in what she thought was the centre of a corridor, insubstantial enough that Applejack wasn't sure if there was an actual frown or if that was just what she'd come to expect. "Well, I think that begs the question of just what are you here for?"

"She's here to get one of my hats!" Braeburn stumbled out of the gloom next to her, passing through an outline that Applejack had taken as a wall. Not a corridor, then. "And she's gonna be needing a place to stay 'cause I told her she could bunk with me when she came down here."

Applejack‘s eyes shot over to Braeburn. He was a surprisingly clean liar.

The flash that was Lady Hamilton's eyes swiveled between the two of them. "And I guess you didn't tell her that you were staying with me now, hmm?"

Braeburn nodded. "Yeah, sure. That's right. I forgot to tell her that I had to move in with you after you came down here from Manehatten and took your house with you."

Applejack couldn’t help herself. "You did what now?"

"What I did," Lady Hamilton said, "is unimportant. What is important is figuring out what exactly we're going to do with you." There was a pause in which Braeburn evaded Applejack's attempts to catch his eye. Lady Hamilton sighed. "How long?"

[Insert talking here]

"Then I think we should be able to manage you." And with that, she turned and vanished. Applejack turned to her cousin:

"Brae—oof!"

Braeburn’s head barged hard into the side of her, powering them away from the scene as quickly as he could. Applejack tried digging in her hooves, tried to stop the sudden abduction, but the floor had been polished just enough to keep her from gaining any traction: her hooves slipped and slod over the floor, occasionally kicking at an unexpected rug or section of skirting and knocking into tables and chairs cloaked inside the house's darkness.

They reached a set of stairs and kept going, her hooves clicking madly as she skittered up the stairs, watch thudding against her chest like a second, off-kilter heartbeat.

And then Braeburn stopped, suddenly. Carried by the momentum, Applejack slid on for a few moments more as Brabeurn paused in place, head pointed back the way they’d been. Then, after having disentangled herself from the set of curtains she’d landed in—the disruption failing to open them and let even a little light entry to the house—Applejack marched towards him.

“What in the—” Braeburn shushed her. “No, I ain’t gonna shush! What in the hay is this all about? Moving houses! My great auntie here in Applelossa! Bad influence!" That last one, she felt, bore repetition: "Bad influence! What is she on about? I'm an element of harmony, for Celestia's sake! How in the holy apple orchard's a national hero meant to be a 'bad influence'?"

Braeburn made more frantic gestures at her, a tinge of panic in his eyes. Applejack would still not be shushed: her tongue had been held for long enough.

"I—" she started, but it seemed Braeburn had had enough too, for with that his head was slammed back into her, and she was driven into a room off of the main hall, the door being barged open and then quickly kicked closed.

"Look, cuz, I get that you've got questions," he said, and his face was clearer in the brighter room, "but asking them questions loud like is what got us into this mess before I could talk you out of it in the first place."

Applejack opened her mouth to reply, before thinking better of it and quietly retorting instead. “Ain’t the same thing now, though, is it? She already knows I’m here.”

“Ain’t no reason to go shouting about it, though,” Braeburn replied, turning round and rummaging about in a cupboard behind him.

Applejack blinked, and for the first time realised that the room she was in was different, being lighter and more furnished with... well, furnishings. There was a pair of curtains and a window to the left of her, both open and looking out over the loosely clumped Appleloosan skyline, the mildly tousled heads of the orchard and the great expanse of desert encircling it all. One wardrobe and a chest of drawers flanked the bed like sentries, and a great splash of colour across the un-windowed wall turned into a map of Appleloosa after a moment's examination. She shuffled where she stood, and noticed there was carpet.

“I take it this is your room, then,” she ventured. Braeburn turned round, a worn-looking brown hat in his mouth.

“Swate ove,” he mumbled, and flicked his head up, hat spinning through the air and landing fairly neatly upon Applejack’s head. “It’s the room I spend the most time in, anyhow. Don’t quite know if that means I can go round saying it’s mine and all.”

Applejack’s hoof raised up, fumbling the hat round on her head. It was a fairly good fit, being just loose enough to not feel confining and just tight enough to not feel like it was about to fly off. Still didn’t crinkle right, though.

“Good enough?” Her cousin’s grin was hopeful, and she smiled back.

“Sure is. All right then, let’s talk. I promise I ain’t gonna shout.” She gave him a half-grin. "Much."

Braeburn nodded, walking past her towards the window. “Guess we’d best start with the main part, then.” He nodded out the window. “The orchard.”

“What about it?” Applejack said, her sentence ending in a long, drawn out yawn. She tossed her head about, shaking some focus back into her, and then followed after him.

“It ain’t... normal, I guess. Ponies been trying to get stuff to grow down south since the time of the Lying King, and it ain’t never really worked. Least, not permanently worked. You come from the heartland, cuz, so I guess it might not mean the same thing to you, but to us down south, this here orchard’s something special.” Braeburn paused and shook his head, before snorting. “Something weird, too.”

“And?” Applejack stretched herself forwards, front half dangling out of the window and nose snuffling slowly at the air.

“And... well... It’s working.” Braeburn looked over to her, eyes shining. “Really working. ‘Cording to the memories of Princess Celestia, most anybody’s ever been able to get out of the badlands is a single apple harvest. We've gotten six, with another one coming up in a fortnight’s time. That’s enough to get some attention turned this way.” He blew out, ears swiveling flat as his face took on a resigned look. “Planter attention. Seeders too.”

Applejack perked up a little, straightening herself. “That lot down here?”

“Planters ain’t yet, though we know they’re a comin’, but the Seeders sure as heck are. We got a heap of them camped up over where we used to hold the Western Dances.” Braeburn shifted where he stood, forelegs folding and unfolded as he mimicked Applejack and leant out of the window. “Keep going on about your Bloomberg. Reckon he’s a one of a kind specimen, and aren’t too pleased that we ain’t got plans to take any seedlings off of him.”

“Well wadya know. Them fusspots finally got something right after all.” Applejack knocked her hat back, allowing her grin to beam free. The fading sunlight felt just right against her brow. “Bloomberg’s sure as certain a one of kind specimen, all right. Think they’d wanna talk to the mare who raised him since he was a seedling? I could do with some good, old fashioned farmer talk round about now.”

Braeburn chuckled. “Given their reaction when we told ‘em he’d come from half a country away, I’d guess not. You know what their type's like when it comes to re-plantin'.”

“Oh.” Applejack deflated. “So, er... What’s this got to do with anything?”

Braeburn blew out again, and the breath was strong enough to ruffle the ends of his forelock about. “Well... See, I was the first pony to plant a tree in that orchard, right? And I was kinda heavily involved in getting us all here in the first place, and... well...” He blew out yet again, harder still this time. “Planters have kinda decided that it was all my doing that this time worked out, and have put me up for recruitment. And that ain’t something which sits right with me.”

Applejack rose. “Ain't something that sits right with you?! What, you objectin’ to all the not having to worry about the red line, deals that nopony else can get and free trade routes that come with being part of the Planters now?!” Applejack's voice was a little raised and almost startling against the somewhat laid-back air that’d fallen over the two. A small part of her was aware that she was snapping at him, that he’d done nothing to truly deserve the outburst, but she was too tired to act on it.

“Do you know what I’d give to be part of that sorta network back in Ponyville, Braeburn?! Why, hardly a darn day goes by back there without us nearly losing the farm, or worse, and—” Braeburn raised a hoof, and Applejack, with a sudden flush of red across her face, toned her volume down to silent.

“I said it don’t sit right, cuz, not that I ain’t grateful. Appleloosa and its Orchard ain’t all my doing, so it just ain’t fair at all that I’m the one getting credit for it. It’d be like saying that Princess Twilight friend of yours is the only one who defeated Discord and Nightmare Moon and that you weren't nothing but a hanger-on. Other ponies worked hard on this, and I don’t feel right taking that away—”

A sound rang out from somewhere in the house, loud and overriding and with a deep brass undertone. The two pulled back from the open window, Applejack’s head turning to Braeburn for explanation.

“Dinner gong. She’ll get cranky if we both don’t go. We can carry on talking after we've least shown our faces.” Braeburn walked forwards, then paused and half-turned when Applejack didn’t follow. “I mean it. She’ll take it as a slight, cuz.”

“And what if I ain’t hungry?” Applejack said, following him anyway out into the annoyingly dark corridor.

“I don’t think she much cares if you eat or not,” Braeburn muttered, and his noticeably lower tone made him that much harder to locate in the gloom. “S’all about whether you show up. Manners, you know.”

Applejack nodded, and then felt foolish. “Why’s it so dark?”

“I dunno.” There was a creak up ahead of her that she replicated a few seconds later.

“You ain’t ever asked?”

“Course I asked.” The steady clumps of somepony going down stairs. “She ain’t never given an answer.”

Applejack half-yawned, stopped herself, and then followed after, her hooves sliding noisily about as they located each step. Three steps down, and she hit Braeburn.

“Braeburn?” The darkness sighed.

“Cuz, you can get a message to the Princess, right? To Celestia up in Canterlot?” Wood squeaked out as he moved. “I... I reckon I got something to ask her.”

Celestia. Canterlot. A cloud of fuzziness left her mind as Applejack remembered the crack across the midnight sky, the memory sharp and piercing, still shocking after all this time. She’d forgotten again, slipped into the nowness just like the others had, just like it was so damned easy to.

None of this mattered, not Braeburn nor Settlers nor Planters nor Appleloosa itself. The world would not be saved through her sweating small stuff; she needed to be vigilant, to actually keep the promise she had made to herself when limping from the orchard not half-an-hour before.

“No. No, I can’t.” She brushed past him in the darkness, coat rubbing against the smoothness of his jacket. “We send letters to her through Spike, and he’s back in Ponyville.”

She paused at the foot of the stairs, uncertain of which way to go. Braeburn caught up to her. “Well, shoot. I was hoping she could help me out with the Planter problem.” He moved past; Applejack trailed behind, her ears perked to the sound of him moving. “I’d been hoping you could put in a good word with her ever since I heard you were in town.”

“What’s this about now?” The voice was sudden out of the darkness; Applejack’s ears flattened.

Poems in Poop

And to our Lady Moon we spake,

And bid her, “From your death, awake.”

Piece reconstructed from papers seized during the Celestial Intervention, 98 MB. Most likely sourced from a Lunar cult, though given the assumption that Nightmare Moon was killed rather than banished, it is unlikely they were of significant size or import.

If harmony be naught to thee, know this:

There is a movement in the earth that stirs

With thy passing; a fury in the air

Torn up by thy presence. Thou canst not hide.

I see thee in the rivers made of foam.

I feel thee in the storms of chocolate rain.

I hear thee in the cries of harried foals.

And know this, too: There’s no place thou canst run.

For I will find thee. And I will end thee.

From Celestia and the Serpent by Wither Blue, 546 MB. After the 748 MB Manehatten riots following Sugar Puff the baker’s commissioned chocolate rain-shower as an advertisement for his new muffin recipe, it is customary to remind ponies before a reading that there is no accepted historical evidence of the tyrant “Discord”.

From one to another, another to one.

A mark of one’s destiny singled out alone, fulfilled.

From Starswirl the Bearded’s third personal diary, presumed lost until presented to Princess Twilight by Princess Celestia, 1005 MB. Analysis of the text reveals the final word to have been added after the Dissonant era, approximately late-Discordian.

Pick sticks up then set them down

In a circle on the ground.

Jump inside then sing aloud:

“Hide me so I won’t be found!”

From the Canterlot Archives of Rustic Poetry. Recovered from a pegasus village in the Foal Mountains by Starry Eyes, 560 MB. Most likely a spell preserved as a song for foals. Tested: known to work with all tribe members, the circle acting as a focus, though given the significantly less costly dual couplet-power of Starswirl’s Invisibility, it is not recommend as a suitable spell for unicorns.

Show me the maiden most fair to my eyes.

And then, whilst I’m watching, make her aroused.

Outlawed spell, circa 230 BB. Was effective enough to force a decreed syllabic change with the Equestrian language, breaking the rhyme and thus the spell.

When I sleep under the moonlight,

Shall she come, shall she come?

When I wake halfway past midnight,

Is it done, is it done?

Is it over, dearest sister?

Is thy banishment no more?

Are you even now returning?

Shall all be as was before?

Or are these not of thy making?

Are these visions thine, or yours?

Thy swift presence is too fleeting

For my heart to know for sure.

Still, I see you, in the nightmares:

Crowned in silver; wreathed in blood.

Twisting lips and mocking laughter:

Not one inch the mare I love.

Yet in visions washed like water,

I see thee in thy true form.

Always just a little further

Than I can reach 'fore the dawn.

And my days are growing bleaker

As I live just for the nights.

And as years pass, I grow weaker,

Sleeping more for just one sight.

I don’t want them. Take them from me.

Let me live without their weight.

Let me sleep without her presence,

Or don’t dare to let me wake.

Reconstructed from partially preserved texts from the west wing of Canterlot Castle, abandoned during the period of interregnum titled “The Celestial Withdrawal”. Best estimates made from analysis of similar items suggest a date as late as 23 MB.

The Ferrets who wanted to be Otters

It was a mid-morning July day, and Twilight was waiting patiently outside Fluttershy's cottage, her hooves most definitely not tapping and her wings most certainly not twitching in anticipation of their later flying session.

She twitched them anyway: it'd been fifteen minutes now since she'd knocked on the door, arranged things with Fluttershy and then started waiting while the pegasus gave her animal friends breakfast. Rainbow Dash would be wondering where the two of them were, and although Twilight had gotten better at coping with being late, the urge to rush in, gut the bags of animal feed and let every mammal fend for itself remained.

And pressed. And prompted. And pushed.

No, her hooves weren't tapping, but one of them was most certainly pawing the ground.

Fluttershy's half door quietly swung open; Twilight perked up and then deflated. There was a basket inside Fluttershy's mouth with seed for the outdoor birds, a jar of honey for Harry and some fish for the otters under the bridge, all of which carried a "I'll be a few minutes more" feel to them.

"Sorry, Twilight, but I'm going to be a few minutes more," Fluttershy rasped around the basket's handle. She spat it out, picked up the birds seed and started pouring it into the various feeders clustered around the cottage. "If you'll just hold on for a teensy bit longer, I'll be able to come and help out."

Sack empty, she tossed it back into basket and switched to the jar of honey. A well dressed Grizzly took it from her. Holding it in one finely manicured paw, he shook Fluttershy's hoof with the other and then left, tipping his hat to Twilight as he did so.

And then there was just the fish. Twilight made a quiet "eurgh" of disgust as Fluttershy picked them up with her mouth and then trotted down to under the bridge. After a few seconds of non-hoof tapping and non-wing twitching, Twilight joined her.

"Fluttershy, listen. I know you said you'd be with me if I waited just a little bit longer, but, well, we've had longer and I'm still waiting. I know making sure all of your animal friends get breakfast is important, and I respect that, but if you could just... hurry it... eh?"

Twilight was under the bridge, now, with cold water crawling up and down her legs as miniature waves passed by. Fluttershy was a hoofstretch away from her. She made a "ptth" noise as she spat the fish out onto a small wooden pier where they were eagerly received.

"I know, Twilight, and I really am sorry," Fluttershy said, turning her attention back to Twilight's words as if nothing else important was going on, "but my animal friends all have really particular requirements for what they will and won't eat, so it does take a really long time to get them all ready. I'll try to be quicker next time."

Hooves dipping daintily in and out of the water so as not to splash, Fluttershy walked up to Twilight. "We're all done for today, though! The otters are the last ones to get breakfast."

"Those aren't otters," Twilight said. "Those are ferrets."

Fluttershy's eyes bulged. "Erm, no Twilight, I'm afraid they're not. Those are otters: ferrets live in the woodlands, but otters live near water." She splashed a hoof; waves failed to form.

"Yeah, um, no," Twilight said. "Look at the masks on their faces, Fluttershy: you see those stripes of brown fur next to their eyes? I've read Linneighous's work, and I can tell you that those are most -- ummph!"

Fluttershy's hoof was lodged inside her mouth.

"Goodbye friends! Goodbye now! See you later!" Fluttershy called as she walked out from under the bridge, Twilight pushed before her. The ferret-otters waved back, bright smiles on their cheery faces, before they scooped up the fish and carried their breakfast into their subterranean riverside home.

When they were gone, the hoof was removed -- then rubbed vigorously across the grass while Twilight spat its taste out of her mouth.

"I'm so, so sorry, Twilight." Fluttershy's eyes did not meant Twilight's own, and her ears were flat against her head. "I just couldn't let you say such a mean thing in front of Mr and Mrs Otter."

"What mean thing!" Twilight was not happy: her mane was in the frazzled state of 'I'm late, oh Celestia, I'm late' and her eyes burnt with the same fervour of a priest happening upon an orgy -- the world was being wrong in front of her, and it was doing it on purpose: "They're ferrets! Ferrets, ferrets, ferrets! You can't insult someone by pointing out what they are! That's not how being mean works!"

"Well, yes, I know, but... um well, you see, they want to be otters." Fluttershy peeked up from out the curtains of her mane, the smile upon her face one easily scared into hiding. "You see, they self-identify as otters even though they are, in body, ferrets."

"But... But they're not otters! They're ferrets!" Her wings flared outwards in agitation. "I might want to be Princess Celestia, but that doesn't mean you should start calling me Princess and expecting me to live inside a magic castle with guards to protect me and servants to wait on me mouth and hoof!"

Fluttershy said nothing. Twilight's wings slowly retracted.

"Bad example. Look: things are what they are, okay? Ferrets are ferrets and otters are otters, and ferrets cannot be otters. It's hard enough to categorise the whole messy complexity of life into neat little boxes without having to factor in animals who want to be other animals. They. Are. Otters."

Twilight paused and rethought that last bit. "I mean ferrets! They're ferrets!"

"What about Spike? Don't you remember, Twilight? He came back saying how all the other dragons were such grumpy guts that he was going to be a pony. You encouraged that, remember?"

Twilight waved a hoof and snorted. "That's totally different. Spike just culturally identifies as a pony. He still acts like a dragon: he doesn't eat hay or sleep in a bed or expect to get paid for his services like a pony would. Your ferrets are not doing the same: they are actually trying to be otters, the whole living next to water and eating fish shebangle. This is not healthy ferret behaviour."

Fluttershy's hoof scuffed the ground. "Well, I'm sorry Twilight, but I don't really think that's as important to them as being what they want to be, and I think you should respect their life choices and call them whatever they want to be called."

Maybe it was the blatant disregard for the noble science of taxonomy. Maybe it was that she was now half-an-hour late for her morning's flying lesson with no clear end for the conversation in sight. Maybe it was just that being a omnipotent, uber-equinsch princess had finally corrupted her as power always did. But either way, Twilight Sparkle snapped.

"Well, if they don't want to be ferrets so darned much, I'll make them into otters!" she cried.

A flash of purple lightning arched up into the heavens; false-thunder rolled and the air stank of ozone. The water under the bridge bubbled and boiled, and two faint shrieks burst from out the otter's home.

"Twilight," Fluttershy whispered, holding one hoof up pitifully. "Wait," she squeaked.

The light show ended. The thunder boomed off into the distance, sending echoes back from the far-off mountains like postcards wishing you were here. The water steadied, and two otters staggered out of their home.

Calmly, without much fuss, they began to cry.

"What?" Twilight said. "You're not satisfied, huh? Let me guess: now that you're otters, all you really want to do is become ferrets! I guess life's too boring and plain for you to just be who are you are and accept the lot fate gave you! Well, you gotta suck it up like the rest of us now. No more pretending to be otters: you actually are otters!"

"Oh, Twilight." Fluttershy, too, was crying. "Don't you see?"

"That in an ironic twist, they got exactly what they wished for and hated it?" Twilight's smugness was off the scales: mane strands parted from their usually trim cut waved above a smile that carved into her cheekbones. "It's great, isn't it?"

"No! Oh Twilight, you don't see. They weren't ferrets who wanted to be otters: they were ferrets who wanted to be ferrets who wanted to be otters!"

Twilight's leftmost eyelid twitched.

An hour later, Dash -- who had woken up from her nap and flown to the training grounds to find neither Fluttershy nor Twilight there -- flew over to Fluttershy's cottage.

Only scorched earth remained.

Thousand Years. Quality = Meh

“Princess Luna. It has been a thousand years since I’ve seen you like this.” – Princess Celestia.

It started with a crunch.

Pebbles rolled down the cave’s dark insides, clattering downwards in a miniature avalanche. Light, ghostly and white, flickered in an uncertain circle from where the rocks had fallen, a blocked tunnel at the tip of an intestinal track that wound deep into the cave's depths. There was another crunch, and then a rumble as the circle grew thicker, and the light pouring through became brighter.

And then the shadow at its centre moved to one side, so that the light looked like a waxing crescent moon. And when that light was full and round, a figure could be made out at its centre, horn ablaze as she shifted the boulder covering the cave roughly to one side. There was a boom as the rock was dropped; the light from her forehead went out, but the light pouring off the rest of her shone on.

Princess Celestia entered through the hole she’d made, her hoofsteps fast and certain. The cave’s sides lit up around her as she passed without stopping or looking around; divergences and splits inside the tunnel’s wanderings were overcome without pause or even a spared glance towards the other passages.

The grey rock that was the cave’s sides gleamed at her as she strode past them, faint traces of ice and embedded crystals glinting at her from time to time. Occasional scrabbles of things inside the rocks whispered out as the light flowing from out of her hair danced off the broken pillars and buildings of ancient ruins submerged into the rock.

Eventually, and without much warning, she stopped. The light surrounding her increased, flooding forwards to shine and glimmer off of a golden door embedded into the grey stone of the cave. A door that was on the ceiling.

Celestia paced towards it, neck craning backwards as she examined the door. She stopped when she was underneath it, face no longer a mask of indifference, but one with fixated eyes and short, almost-panting breaths. Her eyes closed over, and she shook her head once, before lowering it. She sighed out, her breathing now controlled.

Her wings almost touched the tunnel’s sides as they stretched out. And then, with one powerful downbeat that disturbed no air, she rose up, horn pointed towards a hole in the door’s centre. Another wingbeat, and it slid carefully in. The door cracked open, and Celestia fell through, gravity suddenly reversing and pulling her inside.

Then, as she entered, the door slammed firmly shut behind her; gravity, apparently fickle, threw her onto it.

“As charming and as graceful an entrance as I’d expect, Celestia.” The voice was female, dark and vicious. Celestia’s head turned to her left, eyes meeting those of a tall, black pony, legs separated and bound onto the wall by purple, humming chains. She smirked.

“Though I must admit that it at least gives me something to look forward to. Two centuries you’ve been using that entrance, and every time you end up crumpled on the floor.” She laughed. “Oh, you never learn, Celestia.”

“It’s good to see you, Luna.” Celestia rose back onto her feet, wings tucking back into her sides and the slight grey stains of dust vanishing from her sides. “Or Nightmare Moon. I forget which one you prefer to be called by.”

“Either will do. I have no real interest in what you call me by.” Nightmare Moon watched as Celestia walked towards her, the sound of her hooves loud inside the small, orb-like cavern that was beyond the gold door. “So... What are we to talk about this time, hmm? Will you be asking me why again? Oh, why gets so boring. Perhaps you’ll ask me how this time.” Her head leaned forwards as far as the chains slack would let it. “Or perhaps we’ll try and flesh it out through babbling nonsenses first of all.”

Celestia’s head tilted towards one side, her expression impassive and unreadable. Her lips remained shut.

“Or perhaps you’ll say nothing and just stare at me for the entire time.” Nightmare Moon snorted, and her head snaked back. “Fine, Celestia. Why?”

Immediately, “You gave me no choice.” Celestia gave no sign that she had spoken.

“No choice? I told you to step aside.”

“You would have shattered harmony, disrupted everything we managed to salvage from Discord.”

“And? It was ours to break; we made it, forged it, kept it strong. It was by our diligence that harmony was preserved, and by our suffering that it was birthed. Or have you forgotten the Elysian Fields?”

“That does not mean we had the right!” Celestia took a step towards her sister. “We never created it, Luna; we only found what they had lost.”

“Then perhaps they could have learned diligence too.” Nightmare Moon chuckled, head lolling back as her eyes combed the ceiling. “Oh, come Celestia. We both know where this is going. You chose them over me.”

Celestia’s lips pursed together, and she blinked slowly. The grin faded from Nightmare Moon’s face.

“You chose them over me,” Nightmare Moon spat. Sparks foamed from out her mane to splatter uselessly against the chains wrapped around her. “That’s what it comes down to, in the end. I asked you to choose, and you choose them. Over your own sister.” Celestia’s eyes had closed over; a slight frown hung over them. “You can try and pretend that what you did was right, that you still love me, but –”

“I wasn’t enough!”

Dust slid off the cavern’s sides in hazy waterfalls as the shout echoed and echoed, getting louder instead of quieter. Celestia’s eyes were red and open and locked onto Nightmare Moon’s.

“I begged with you to listen, Luna. Begged. I loved your nights and I loved you, but my love was not enough. I never gave up on you, Luna; I waited until there was nothing left that I could do. No. I didn’t choose them. You did. My love alone was not enough for you; you wanted theirs. You wanted it more than you wanted mine.”

Nightmare Moon’s green eyes were wide and staring. And then they crinkled, and the corners of her lips turned up. And then she laughed.

“Ha ha ha ha-hah... Oh, don’t yo- Don’t you see?” Nightmare’s head snapped back, tears pouring down her cheeks as she cried with laughter. “We both... We both chose them! Heh heh heh heh heh. W-We were given the choice, and – ha hah ha – and we didn’t choose each other. Ha, ha hah.” Her head flopped back down and she gasped out a few wheezing breaths. “The... The only difference is that they... they chose you.” She giggled again. “And we have this conversation every time, don’t we? Every single time, always the same. You truly never learn.”

Celestia breathed out, and it was a long, drawn out thing. She turned, walking back towards the golden outline of the door, carved into the floor like a mosaic. Her front hoof had just collided heavily with it when a louder sound interrupted her hoofsteps.

“Celestia? Sis- Sister?” Celestia stopped and turned; Nightmare Moon had stopped laughing, though Luna’s eyes were still wet. “When will you return?”

“There’s a problem with the Griffon Kingdom; it may be a while before I can visit again. Dealing with the diplomats alone may keep me more than a month this time. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

There was no response. Celestia left.

Important; pls read. Quality = n/a

It was sunny because the sun was out, but Twilight didn't enjoy it because she was not outside; she was inside instead! Though the library was dark, she could still see because of candles. Twilight was reading, but she didn't have a book!

“Spike, fetch me My Book,” she said.

“Which book?” Spike asked.

“My Book!” Twilight bellowed back.

“Which book?!”

“MYYYY BOOOOooOOOOKKKKKK!!!!” Twilight said. Spike threw My Book at Twilight. “Thank you,” Twilight said. She read My Book and learned knowledge.

“I know things!” she said.

“What kinda things?” Spike asked.

“New things!” Twilight said, and then she trotted off because horses trot, even though she is a pony and not a horse. She left the library and went to Sugarcube Corner to have lunch, but the lunch was all gone.

“Pinkie has been eaten, Spike!” she said.

“OH NO!” Spike said. “Now who will throw my birthday party? It's tomorrow!”

“I don't know Spike.”

“WHO!” said Owlucousoihoais.

“OHM!” said Spike. Then they were physicists and told physics jokes.

“Princess Celestia will surely know,” Twilight told Zecora.

“Have you gone mad?! That mare is bad, my precious lad!” Zecora replied as she merrily pranced around the room.

“Hah hah,” Twilight said. “I laughed.” And then she went to Canterlot, which was full of rich sobs.

“Get out the way, rich sobs!” Twilight told them, but they were too busy being rich to listen, so Twilight teleported them into the shops.

“Thank you, Twilight!” the shop keeper said, and then he went away.

Twilight went sad. “I am sad,” she said. So she went inside the castle to found the princesses.

“Princess Celestia!” Twilight whispered. “Someone has eaten Pinkie pie... Why is your face all pink?

“On no. It is because you ate Pinkie Pie.”

“Yes, Twilight,” Celestia said. “I am cannibal.”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooO!!!!!11!!!!” Twilight shouted calmly. She was also purple but not blue.

“Wow!” Luna said in Surprise, who was surprised. “I'm also a cannibal! Whoda thunk it, yo.”

“Yo,” Celestia said, and then they danced.

Then Twilight flew high up into the air where Luna and Celestia could not get at her, because they are cannibals and cannibals cannot fly.

“Come down from there! You'll hurt Twilight, Twilight!” Celestia called up, but Luna was too busy dancing.

“Okay,” Twilight said, and fell down. Luna said “NO!” and tried to stop her, but she was too busy dancing.

“HAH HAH HAH” Celestia replied as Twilight landed on top of her. “You have fallen into my trap! I will send you to the moon!”

“I will go pack my things,” Twilight said, but she couldn't pack Spike because he was too little for the bag? How sad!

“You will have fun on the moon,” Rarity said with a smile. “There is cheese.”

“Rarity, moon is made of cheeeeeeeeeeese!” Rainbow Dash laughed.

“Why are you laughing at me?" Fluttershy said. “Don't laugh at me!” she told you. So you stopped, but not before you killed you for making Fluttershy cry! She is too sexy to cry. Then Spike was on fire.

“Spike, why are you on fire!? Get down from there!” Twilight asked.

“I'm not on fire! You, are!” Spike told her, and everyone agreed.

“Oh no!” Twilight said! “I must be going to the moon.”

“Yes,” Celestia said. “And I will eat all your friends while you're gone. And there's nothing you can do to stop me.”

“Luna'll do it!” Twilight said, but Luna was too busy dancing. “Luna, do not bust a move!” but she did.

“Goodbye Twilight!” all her friends said as she went to the moon. “Have lots of fun and don't forget to brush your teeth!” Celestia nodded.

“That's important,” she said, and started eating Applejack and no-pony cared except for Braeburn because he loved her like a cousin, not a lover. You are so gay, just like Braeburn, who is married to Cherry Jubilee (OTP FTW!)...

I'm no homophobe. I hear sounds just fine.

As Twilight walked to the moon, she took a few moments to quietly reflect on her sad fate. How would Ponyville survive without her being there to stop the cannibalistic princesses, when nopony but her knew of their dastardly plans? Worse, how was she going to cope with this, when the pony she had trusted the most in life had turned out to be... a monster.

“I am sad, and not happy because of sad,” Twilight said, shaking her head. She was on the moon and no longer purple, but grey, which in a horse means white.

“You can still help Twilight!”

“How?” Twilight said.

“Believe in yourself!”

“Okay,” Twilight said.

And then Twilight used the elements of harmony, which are not nickel or iron and so aren't magnetic.

“Oh no!” Celestia said. “Eating ponies is wrong! Why did no-one tell me, Luna?” But Luna was too busy dancing.

“I was too busy dancing!” Luna said, and then pirouetted away!

“And Twilight is now on moon! There's no air there! She will surely die!” Celestia said.

“And Pinkie's dead too!” Fluttershy said. “Now who will voice me?” She never spoke again.

“What shall we do?” Applejack asked?

“I don't know!” Zecora said, “But we can always use the elements of harmony!” And so they did.

“I can't believe that worked!” Fluttershy said, as Twilight left the moon. “We saved her good!”

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” Twilight said. “And now I will go learn things.” So she did.

“What sort of things?” Spike said as he scratched Celestia's head.

“Oh Spike, I told you! Knew things!”

And then everypony laughed at the pun.

The End.