Oh, No! Not Another Dusk Shine Story!

by Nyxian

Rating: teen
Tags: Nightmare Moon, Princess Luna, Spike, Comedy, Adventure, Princess Celestia, Main 6, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe
Length: 81167

What if Twilight Sparkle had been born a neurotic and slightly aggressive male instead of a just plain neurotic female?

My Little Pony, Friendship Is Magic, as told by Dusk Shine, Princess Celestia's asocial, conspiracy theorist, and unrepentantly punny student. An AU fic that both expands upon and diverges from canon. Follow the misadventures of Dusk Shine as he navigates the waters of social interaction and friendship with varying degrees of success, follows the show pretty closely at the start, but as the story progresses it will drift further from canon.

Published 2012-10-26 01:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2014-03-08 03:14:56 UTC

Pilot (Episodes one and two)

Disclaimer: I do not own My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, Hasbro does. Nor do I own any of the books, movies, games, e.c.t. I reference for comedic purposes.

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Oh, no! Not Another Dusk Shine Story!

-Pilot, episodes one and two

The Canterlot library was shrouded in Stygian darkness, the bookshelves tall and looming in the blackness. There was but a single soul occupying the murky library, and from him came the only light. It was a thin light; a spectral, frail light that emanated from his very being, powered by his own magic.  He was at home in the dimness, and was busy pouring over large tomes of forgotten lore, his purpose driving him. He felt neither hunger, nor thirst, nor weariness. Such corporeal concerns were far from his mind as he toiled, his goal occupied his mind totally. His entire world had shrunk down to the pages and pages of knowledge that flipped rapidly in front of him, the knowledge they contained being quickly absorbed and processed, stored in his eidetic memory.

He had to accomplish his mission, he had become steadily more concerned over the past few weeks, as his studies had led him down an increasingly dark path. He hoped his predictions were wrong, he desperately did, but the more he looked the more the pieces fit together. It was as if they had been intentionally scattered, spread throughout the sprawling library, but that was no obstacle for him, he knew the library like few others did, arguably better than anyone save Princess Celestia herself. He knew the location of every book held therein, even if he had not read them all yet; so finding the obscure hints and fragments of knowledge presented no real challenge, the only vexation it caused him was the amount of time it took to gather the books he needed from the far-flung reaches of the great library.

He was so close now, so unbearably close, his search had started in a strange but slightly ominous footnote in a commentary on an a historical document, twisted through a myriad of increasingly old documents and scrolls, and finally to manuscripts so ancient their forms were nearly crumbling to dust despite the magical preservation they had been under for centuries. He had read them all, tearing through the countless thousands of lines of text, even the ancient manuscripts were no impediment to him, the language would have been impenetrable to a lesser scholar, but he was a pony of no mean learning. His scholarly pursuits were his life, he had devoted himself to them from the first, and now he held a store of knowledge that spanned from the mathematical, scientific, and philosophical, to the convoluted and enigmatic branches of magic. Including even knowledge that was denied to all but the most select few out of fear that it would drive all but the most resilient of minds over the brink and into madness.

Yes, he was close, oh so close, but the closer he got the more frightened he became, he who had peered beyond the veil of reality and seen the complex workings of the universe itself and was unafraid, he who had beheld the true power of Princess Celestia and stood his ground, unwavering even in the presence of seeing uncloaked the true form of a being capable of rending the land of Equestria and shattering it so utterly that not even a single electron would have remained. He was brave in a way that most would consider insane, and there were times when he agreed with them, but now…this…this frightened him to his core.

He only needed the tiniest bit of corroboration, the last piece to prove his theory. It was with great trepidation that he opened the last book, much newer and less worn than the others, and magically flipped it open. The pale green light of his magical aura causing the page to reflect its own eerie glow. He flipped through the pages rapidly until he found what he was looking for, and as his eyes danced across the page his worst fears came true. Icy veins of terror slithered through his hooves and began to clench at his heart, all this time, all the hours he had spent alone in the library had led him to a single terrible truth, the whole of Equestria was in grave peril. He needed to move, he had to act. He quickly shoved past the horror that fought to root him in place and his mind began to race, plotting evacuations, military actions, and magical defenses all in the matter of-

“Dusk Shine!” Spike called, shoving the doors of the library open with a loud crash, awkwardly holding a box in one arm.

“Gah!” Dusk Shine, rudely interrupted by the loud noise and painfully bright noon sunlight, jumped three feet in the air and came down with a loud crash on the table he had been studying at. He tried to regain his standing position, but found his legs stiff and unresponsive. So instead of glaring down at spike, he settled for glaring roughly at eye level. “Spike! How many times have I told you not to do that? Nevermind, I already know the answer, thirty seven, that’s not important. We have to warn the Princess!”

Well, that’s what he tried to say, in reality it came out more like a series of dry wheezy coughs preceded by a loud and very uncoltly yelp.

“Geez Dusk, have you been in here since I went to help the Princess send copies of the budget summary to Candace?”

“*Cough* *Cough* *Wheeze!*” Replied Dusk Shine urgently. Spike just sighed and pulled a cord that simultaneously raised all of the thick curtains covering the windows, the sudden influx of light caused Dusk Shine to squawk again and cover his eyes with his hooves.

“You’ve been in here the whole time haven’t you? How did you keep everypony out?”

More coughing.

“…You haven’t had anything to drink today have you?” Dusk Shine removed one of the hooves covering his eyes and pointed to a sign that said in large, clear letters: ‘No food or drink in the library’. Spike sighed again. He was used to dealing with Dusk Shine’s bouts of…oddness, but this was extreme even for him. Thankfully, the small dragon was prepared for such emergencies and pulled a water bottle out of the box he had been carrying.

Nary a second later it was enveloped in the royal purple aura of Dusk Shine’s magic and was violently pulled from his hand. Spike rolled his eyes, apparently Dusk Shine was desperate enough for water that he was willing to break one of the sacred rules of the library. Oh well, at least he wouldn’t have to physically drag the dark purple pony out of the library this time.

“Spike!” Dusk Shine rasped after he had guzzled the entirety of the water bottle in a series of prolonged gulps. “This is important! I need you to send a message to the Princess! The realm is in danger!”

“How long have you been in here Dusk?” Spike asked, putting the box down and eyeing his guardian/elder brother. Normally Dusk Shine was a very good role model, but there were times…

“That’s not important.” Dusk Shine asserted urgently. “We're about to be attacked!”

“By what?” Spike asked skeptically, crossing his arms. There was a pause as Dusk Shine’s eyes narrowed slightly, the socially oriented part of his brain (being a tiny, shriveled affair that never did work quite right) finally stuttered and flickered its way to a hazy semblance of life and he got an impression of Spike’s mood, and he did not like what he saw.

“…The Mare in the Moon.” There was an even longer pause, which was abruptly ended by Spike bursting out into loud peals of laughter and nearly falling over.

“The Mare in the Moon!” He crowed. “That’s hilarious! You’ve been up too long Dusk! You’re hallucinating!”

“I am not hallucinating!” Dusk Shine retorted hotly, finally getting his creaking legs to respond and painfully stood up. “You know most of those old foal’s tales actually have at least some basis in truth, and this one is no different! The historical record of Nightmare Moon somehow, through the stupidity of some ancient pony probably, got transformed into the story of the Mare in the Moon! The only force that is known to be capable of stopping her is the Elements of Harmony, but they were lost centuries ago, perhaps even earlier. Without them we’re going to have to rely on a military action to keep her occupied until the Elements can be found and implemented!”

“Dusk Shine, how much sleep have you gotten since I last saw you?” Spike asked after he got over his laughter. Dusk Shine’s eyes were more red than white around the edges.

“Spike I’m being serious!” The massive pile of books and scrolls behind him was evidence of his lengthy study session.

“So am I. How much sleep did you get? And passing out doesn’t count.” Spike said, reflecting momentarily that it was odd that he had to say something like that.

“You’re getting off track!” Dusk Shine all but shouted. “I need you to take a letter to the Princess!”

Spike sighed again, he knew that tone of voice. Dusk Shine was going to ignore everything he said until the letter was written and sent, then he would fret and rant until the Princess, who had even more experience than Spike with Dusk Shine’s obsessive-compulsive personality, would send back a response that would bring him back from the edge of panic (or violence). Then Dusk Shine would realize how hungry he was and promptly wander off to eat something and leave the cleanup to the overworked librarian…or Spike.

“Fine.” Spike agreed reluctantly, pulling out his ever-present quill and parchment with a sigh. The sooner he gave Dusk Shine what he wanted the sooner they could move on. “But after that we’re going to Moondancer’s party. There’s a really nice picnic right next to the pond and Moondancer always brings good food.”

“I don’t have time to go to some frivolous party.” Dusk Shine said dismissively. Then he noticed Spike was ready to take his dictation and started after clearing his throat. “Dear Princess Celestia, through my ongoing study of pony magic I have discovered that the realm is in great danger. The foal’s tale villainess commonly referred to as the ‘Mare in the Moon’ is actually Nighmare Moon, and she is going to be released from her millennia long imprisonment on the day of the Summer Sun Festival. If we do not take immediate action and prepare the Royal Army to make a decisive strike against her before she can gather herself to strike against us I fear there will be great loss of life before the Elements of Harmony, the only weapon capable of defeating her, are found. I am, as always, at your service and will help in any way I can. Your faithful student, Dusk Shine.”

His dictation rolled to a finish in grand fashion, or would have if his voice wasn’t still scratchy from lack of use. His messages to the princess were (like all of his other conversations) infallibly short, usually devoid of pleasantries or tact, and to the point. Spike quickly rolled and sealed the message, sending it to Celestia in a burst of green flame.

“Dusk, do you really think the Princess is going to respond seriously to that? I mean come on, that ‘theory’ is far-fetched, even for you. I mean, Nightmare Moon being the Mare in the Moon? Really?” Spike asked skeptically. Dusk shine was most affronted.

“Spike, the Princess has never in all her years of teaching me dismissed my concerns or doubted me. Yes, some of my theories and predictions have been false, but she has always given them their due consideration. I fully expect her to do the same now.” He finished, smiling a bit at his proclamation. The smile got even wider when Spike’s cheeks bulged and he took a half step to his right to avoid a gout of smoke as the Princess’ reply was ignobly belched out. Spike gave Dusk Shine an annoyed look and broke the seal, starting to read.

“My dearest student Dusk Shine, you know that I value your diligence, and that I trust you completely,” Dusk Shine’s chest swelled a bit at that and his smile grew bigger. It didn't stay for long though. “But you've got to get out of the library! You've spent more time in there than is healthy recently and I do not want to have you hospitalized because you forgot to eat again.”

“What?!”

“My dear Dusk Shine, there is more to a young pony’s life to study and conspiracy theories, so, I am sending you to oversee the preparations for the Summer Sun Festival in this year’s location: Ponyville! And I have an even more important task for you to complete: make some friends!” Spike finished reading a second letter from the Princess just as Ponyville came into sight. I would have made an articulate comment on it, but I was too busy emptying the contents of my stomach over the side of the flying platform of pain. To my great annoyance, Spike’s smug voice came from behind me just as a wave of nausea (and half of a daffodil sandwich) passed. “I told you not to bolt the sandwich like that.”

“Yes, Spike.” I ground out before lurching and getting rid of the other half of the sandwich along with whatever else had been in my stomach and a not-insignificant amount of bile. I hate flying. “I remember. I remember everything. I have an eidetic memory.”

“Well, your oversensitive stomach and mild case of malnutrition aside, look on the bright side!” He chirped cheerfully, just to annoy me probably. “The Princess arranged for you to stay in a library, doesn’t that make you happy?”

“Hmm…yes, yes it does.” I said, trying to put some energy into the proclamation, but since my body was currently down to perhaps a few bites of daffodil and a hay fry that had been too far down my digestive tract to be expelled, none of which would have been processed into glucose yet, I was running on my meager lipid stores, which had already been run down during my search for the knowledge that had gotten me exiled to this abominably pastel part of the realm and thus I was unable to be anything more than annoyed and slightly listless. “It won’t be as expansive as the Canterlot library, but I should still be able to get the information I need to convince Celestia. I’ll take care of the preparations as quickly as possible and then get onto the important stuff.”

“But…when are you going to make friends like the Princess said?” Asked Spike. We were starting to descend, much to my relief.

“She said to oversee the preparations, I am her student and I will do my royal duty, but one: it’s impossible to become more than a passing acquaintance in the time I will actually be here, so it’s a moot point, and two: the fate of Equestria does not depend on me making friends.” I gratefully got off the chariot on slightly wobbly legs and walked up to the guardsponies that had been pulling it, nodding to them respectfully. “Thank you sirs, and sorry about the mess.” They snorted in either amusement or annoyance, I moved on before I was too tempted to figure out which.

“Maybe the Ponies here have interesting things to talk about.” Spike said as we were approached by a pink female with a particularly…poofy, mane. I watched her like I do anypony who gets close to me, in a way Celestia has irksomely described as ‘like you’re afraid they’re a poisonous snake about to bite you in the plot’. Which, in my defense, is normally what most ponies are like if my experiences in school and around Canterlot are anything to go by. He looked at me pleadingly, with those huge eyes he uses to bum treats and favors from the naïve fillies in the castle. I’m extremely grateful it doesn’t work on me though. “Come on Dusk, just give it a try!”

“Um…hello?” I ventured. I never know how to start conversations, especially with ponies I don’t know, so I usually try to buy time until they get down to the brass tacks. This time though, I did not get what I expected. The pink pony jumped five feet in the air with a loud gasp that I would have expected to hear from a mother who walked in on her young son playing doctor with a filly and dashed by us at a dead gallop. Hmm…maybe it’s my breath.

“Well that was interesting alright.” I said, rolling my eyes and orienting on the sign in the distance that marked the library. Before I do anything I have to wash my mouth out.

A brief oral hygiene trip later and we were on our way to our first stop. Spike was holding a checklist I had made and unnecessarily read the first part out loud.

“First stop: Summer Sun Festival food preparation, Sweet Apple Acres.” I know a bit about Sweet Apple Acres, the zap apple jam and apple cider it produced made its way to the Castle every year…though if you wanted any you had to beat Celestia to it, a feat which I have yet to achieve (or see anyone else for that matter, she swears she’s not omniscient, but sometimes I wonder…).

The place certainly looked the part: huge rows of apple trees stretching as far as the eye could see, a sizable corn field, a chicken coop, a hay field with huge bales of hay ready for transport (which were looking extremely good in my current state), a tremendous barn, a farmhouse, and at least one more field filled with crops I couldn’t identify. I could almost hear the banjo music playing as I walked up to the main gate. The place is appealing in a rustic sort of way, but I’ve never been very good with my hooves, and I’m a logical pony at heart, so I'm not one to get swept away by the romanticism that most of my brethren attach to the farming lifestyle.

“Yee-haw!” I was startled by a loud rebel yell sounding from my left. I turned around to see a pale orange pony with a blonde mane, a triangle of apples for a cutie mark, and a Stetson hat run at an apple tree loaded down with fruit. Then she twirled onto her front hooves in a practiced motion and bucked the tree with enough force to cause all the apples to fall into pre-placed buckets. Seeing as there was nopony else in sight I approached her, wincing at the necessity of doing so.

“Excuse me Ma’am? I’m Dusk Shine and I-” I was cut off by agonizing pain enveloping my right hoof like a vice. I looked down to see the farm pony was clenching my hoof in hers like she was trying to break it and shaking my foreleg up and down frantically.

“Well howdy-do mister Dusk! Ah’m Applejack. We here at Sweet Apple Acres sure do like makin’ new friends!” She said as she tried to rip off my foreleg.

“Friends?” I asked, my voice tight with suffering. “Actually, I-”

“What can Ah do ya for?” She asked, winking and abruptly aborting her attempt to mutilate me. Spike chuckled, earning himself a brief glare. Ignoring him I turned back to Applejack and tried to sound official. I've found that it's a lot easier to get ponies to listen to you if you sound like you're important, I’m not nearly as good at it as Celestia is, but I think that’s understandable.

“Well, I’m acting in an administrative capacity on behalf of Princess Celestia, I believe that the staff here are responsible for the catering of the Summer Sun Festival, correct?” If I’d been in Canterlot, I would have had to add a few paragraphs to that and make the language much more officious if I wanted any of the bureaucrats to pay any attention to me, but I figured I’d be able to get away with somewhat less here in the country.

“We sure as sugar are!” Came the proud response. “Would you care to sample some?”

“Well, as long as doesn’t take too long.” Normally I wouldn’t have, but since my blood sugar is currently hovering around zero point six and my liver doesn’t have any lipid stores left judging by the headache I’m getting I suppose I could hit two birds with one stone and get some much-needed sustenance to ensure my body wouldn’t start leeching energy from what little musculature I have.

To my surprise, instead of an affirmative answer Applejack whirled around and dashed off to a small metal object hanging from a tree, a moment of confused blinking later I realized it was a triangle of some sort. She grabbed the striker in a fine display of the mild telekinesis that earth ponies use to manipulate objects and made quite a racket with it, driving my headache to greater heights.

“Soup’s on everypony!” She called. My my, she’s got quite the pair of lungs for a pony her size.

I heard the sound of the stampede a moment too late to react and I found myself in the midst of a crowd of unfamiliar ponies and being roughly ushered to a seat at a table I had not noticed earlier, with Spike right beside me. We were both surrounded by a truly massive group of ponies. Applejack suddenly popped up to my left and I fought the urge to let out a blast of telekinetic force at the fast-moving object in the corner of my eye. I’ve learned from unpleasant experience that ponies take a dim view of such things, even if it was entirely warranted.

“Now, why don’t ah introduce ya’ll to the apple family?”

“Thanks, but I really need to hurry-”

“This here’s apple fritter.” Came Applejack’s voice, accompanied by a pony zipping up and depositing a pastry in front of me. This was continued in rapid succession over the next few moments, with a mountain of food quickly appearing. “Apple Bumpkin, Red Gala, Red Delicious, Gold Delicious, Caramel Apple, Apple Strudel, Apple Tart, Baked Apple, Apple Brioche, Apple Cinnamon Crisp, Big Macintosh, Apple Bloom, Aaand, Granny Smith.” The final member of the ludicrously large family, a wizened old mare with a pale green coat, her mane long since gone grey white and done up in a bun, was sound asleep in a rocking chair, snoring slightly. “Up and at ‘em Granny Smith, we got guests!” The snoring ceased and caramel colored eyes cracked open. She got up off the rocking chair and made her slow way over, saying something completely unintelligible, which the apple ponies somehow understood. Applejack smiled. “Well, ah’d say yer already part of the family!”

“Well, yes, ah,” I replied desperately. No food was worth this. “I can see the food situation is well in hoof, so we’ll be on our way.”

“Aren’cha gonna stay for brunch?” Came a small voice below me. I looked down to see a small filly with a bow in her mane giving me big sad eyes that put Spike’s to shame.

“Sorry, but we’ve got a lot of work to do.” I responded guiltily. As a rule, I don’t like other ponies very much, but foals are my weakness. I am absolutely terrified of interacting with them because they cry so easily, but seeing one of them sad really gets to me.

“Aww…” Went the apple family in shockingly perfect unison. The sight of all those crestfallen faces might have successfully guilted somepony else into staying, but I’ve got important duties to attend to and-pain. I glared at Spike, who had jabbed me in the side and was giving me a significant look. I sighed in defeat.

“Fine.”

“Yay!” Went the large clan, again in unison so perfect I suspect they must have practiced.

Roughly an hour later Spike and I were on our way back to Ponyville proper. The meal had been what one of the royal guards with an obsession with food and a particularly hyperbolic disposition would call a ‘food orgy’. I don’t think I’ve seen that many apples since the last time Celestia had dragged me and my brother off to go apple picking in an attempt to ‘do something normal’. I, knowing full well that my stomach would be quite delicate after its recent…misadventures, had tried to eat only lightly, but in retrospect I should have known that at a meal hosted by farm ponies ‘lightly’ meant something entirely different than what I was used to.

“Alright, that’s done. Now onto step two, weather.” Spike said, marking off step one on my checklist, looking over his shoulder at me with eyes all a-twinkle with amusement.

“Ugh, I have more carbohydrates packed into my G.I. tract than is even remotely healthy and I think I’m allergic to at least one of the spices they used in that Bundt cake. I don’t have the patience for this.” Nausea and annoyance taking turns to try and burn holes in my stomach lining. Time is running out and I need to get to the library!

“There’s supposed to be a Pegasus named Rainbow Dash clearing the clouds.” Spike said, ignoring me and looking around the sky searchingly. I followed his example.

“Well, wherever they are, they’re not doing a good job.” I grunted, scanning the sky. “That’s like what? Thirty, forty percent cloud cover? It’s supposed to be totally clea-OOF!”

I was blown off my hooves by a sudden impact to my side, thrown a few feet laterally, and ended up in a mud puddle, cushioning somepony’s fall. The sudden blow to my gut made me gag and nearly vomit for the second time that day. Fortunately for whoever was on top of me, the pain from the impact stunned me long enough to remember violent pyrotechnics are generally frowned upon in public places. My will was tested, however, when the pony that had hit me opened her mouth.

“Hehehe…excuse me.” She said, getting off and floating above me. I gave her a steady look of stern disapproval. I didn’t trust myself to glare, if I did some magic might leak out and I’d have to explain to Celestia why I’d hospitalized somepony again. The cyan projectile giggled to herself as she looked my mud-covered form over. “Uh, here, let me help you.” She flew off and returned with a rain cloud, which she promptly used to douse me with ice-cold water, leaving me totally soaked, though the rising heat of my anger kept me warm. I could hear my teeth grinding. She giggled again.

“Oops, I guess I overdid it. Here, how about my very own, patented ‘rainblow dry?” She flew in a tight vortex around me, creating a strong wind that dried me off at the expense of leeching all my body heat and leaving my mane in even more of a complete disarray than it normally was, and then she had the nerve to tell me not to thank her.

“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t.” I forced through my gritted teeth, forcing myself to envision that disappointed look Celestia gives me when I let my temper get the best of me and I singe somepony. It kept me from doing something bad. This was made very difficult when she looked at the results of her whirlwind and broke out laughing, actually falling over and clutching her gut, followed shortly by Spike, who has the flimsy excuse of being a child and thus finding everything funny. I pretended that the sudden warmth pervading my flesh was caused by increased blood flow due to embarrassment instead of a buildup of elementally charged magic. “Let me guess. You’re Rainbow Dash.”

“The one and only!” Came the arrogant response as the pony in question floated up a few feet in the air. It was an annoying habit some pegasi had, forcing you to look up at them in mid-conversation implied dominance, though the effect was rather lost on me since I was too busy contemplating painful retribution. “Why, have ya’ heard of me?”

“I heard you’re supposed to be keeping the sky clear.” I said with a pointed look at the clouds covering a fair portion of the sky. I sighed and forced my anger down into the psychological hole I normally keep it in, right next to my anxieties and compulsions. Being confrontational was a bad idea with pegasi, no matter how things have changed they’re all a bit militaristic as a result of their heritage, and the fact that they have cities pretty much all of their own means that their culture doesn’t change nearly as fast as the rest of Equestrian mainstream culture. As grating as it was, getting down to business without getting back at her was the best way, besides, I have important business to handle afterwards. “I’m Dusk Shine, and I’ve been sent by Princess Celestia to check on the weather.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll take care of that in a jiffy.” Replied the Pegasus, reclining on a convenient cloud. “I’ll get to it as soon as I’m done practicing.”

“Practicing for what?” I asked, flabbergasted that somepony would put a personal agenda ahead of an order issued by Celestia herself.

“The Wonderbolts!” Came the enthusiastic response, along with an aerial backflip. “They’re performing at the celebration tomorrow and I’m going to show ‘em my stuff!”

“The Wonderbolts.” I deadpanned.

“Yup!”

“The most talented flyers in all of Equestria.”

“That’s them!” Replied the star-struck mare. I fought the urge to facehoof. Her mind-numbing arrogance did present me with a prime opportunity for manipulation though. I rolled my eyes and put all the scorn I could manage into my voice, which is a lot.

“Please, they’ll never look at a pony who can’t even clear the sky for a single day.” It was a not-so-subtle jab at her Pegasus pride, but in my experience, it doesn’t take much of a jab at the largest part of any pegasus’ psyche to produce a result that completely circumvents their higher cognitive functions. I wasn’t disappointed at all.

“Hey! I could clear this sky in ten seconds flat!” Hook line and sinker, and she gave herself plenty of rope to hang herself with too. Bonus! I smirked as I delivered the line that you could use to get a Pegasus to do anything short of suicide.

“Prove it.” Her eyes lit up and she instantly dashed off.

What surprised me was the fact that she actually did clear the sky in ten seconds flat. The kind of speed she was flying at, not to mention the g-forces she had to be pulling in some of those turns, made me wonder if she’d had some of those illegal skeletal implants black market doctors gave to pegasi stupid enough to take the risk. Metal reinforced bones may sound cool, but only until your body rejects the implants and you end up dying horribly. Comic books, no matter how amusing, are not a good basis for real life medicine. When she was done Spike was staring in blatant awe, I restrained my reaction to a single raised eyebrow. She perched on a bridge and puffed out her chest.

“What’d I say? Ten. Seconds. Flat. I’d never leave Ponyville hangin’!” She laughed again. “You should see the look on your face! You’re a riot Dusk Shine. I can’t wait to hang out some more!”

“Wow.” Spike said as she flew off, leaving a rainbow contrail in her wake. “She’s amazing.” Then he took another look at my mane and broke out into a fit of giggles. Brat.

“Next up…decorations!” Spike read from my list as we walked into the building where Celestia was due to address the citizens of Ponyville. It had been hung with banners of all colors, not to mention streamers and other decorative paraphernalia that I didn’t recognize. “Beautiful!”

“Yes, it is aesthetically pleasing.” I don’t really care about interior design or décor, I’d be happy with a plain white cube of a room as long as I could read there, but by my own admission this was quite nice. “I’ll be at the library in no time!”

“Not the decorations, her!” I blinked in surprise and followed Spike’s love-struck gaze to the white pony with a well-coiffed purple mane doing the decorating. I raised an eyebrow. He was decades too young to be going through puberty, so this was just a crush, but still, that was quick. “How are my spikes? Are they straight?”

“Um, hello.” I began, only to be cut off.

“Just one moment! I’m ‘in the zone’ as it were.” She said, her tone adding the quotation marks around ‘in the zone’ in a way that instantly grated. It only got worse when she kept talking. “Ah, yes! Sparkles always do the trick! Why, Rarity, you are a talent.”

Oh terrific, we aren’t going to see eye to eye. I can’t stand uppity artsy types, and the way she spoke in third person and gave herself a pat on the back was a dead giveaway. I don’t know how or why, but somehow once a pony gets it into their head that they’re some kind of highbrow artist they always look down on the rest of us as if we’re lower forms of life because we don’t ‘understand’ the ‘symbolism’ or the ‘meaning’ behind their ‘artistic vision’. I have a sizeable ego, I admit that, but the kind of frank superiority complex and blatant condescension that seems to come hoof in hoof with artistic talent is offensive to me. I swallowed my first response, which was shockingly rude, instead waiting for her to finish. And Celestia says I can’t be polite.

“Now, how can I help yo-Aah! Oh my stars, darling, what happened to your coiffure?!”

“A long story.” I replied tersely. “I’m just here to check on the decorations and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

“My hair? What about your hair?” She was suddenly behind me, pushing me towards a back door. I winced at the unwanted contact, my already abused sides sending silvery sheets of pain up my spine and neck.

“Oi, wait!” I dragged my hooves, but found myself unable to stop her, much to my humiliation, Spike practically floating along behind me.

Somehow I ended up in the back room of a fancy clothing shop apparently owned by none other than the fashionista who had just abducted me. I found myself being stuffed into various ‘outfits’, each more outrageous than the last, from an old-style frock coat, to a polo shirt that nearly suffocated me, and finally a double-breasted suit a few shades darker than my already dark purple coat. Ugh.

“Now go on my dear, you were telling me where you’re from.” She had somehow started extracting information from me with an efficiency that would make any interrogator in the police proud.

“I’ve been sent from Canterlot to-.” I wheezed out as she attempted to garrote me with a hideously ruffly bowtie.

“Huh? Canterlot?! Oh I am so envious! The glamour, the sophistication! I’ve always dreamed of living there! I can’t wait to hear all about it! We’re going to be the best of friends, you and I!” She crooned as she invaded my personal space to get her muzzle right next to mine. Then she glanced down at the bowtie that was currently causing my vision to narrow into a black tunnel and dashed off. “Ruffles, what was I thinking? Let me get you another one!”

“Quick Spike! Let’s leave before she decides to try and dye my coat a new color or cut my mane!” I grabbed my useless draconic companion and made a run for it, but not before removing the suit and leaving it on a nearby workbench. I may be rude, but I’m no thief.

“Wasn’t she wonderful?” Queried the infatuated dragon hitching a ride on my back as I walked out of town.

“Focus there Don Juan. Think with your big brain.” I grunted. "Let’s move on to the next thing on the list."

“Music.” Spike read, reluctantly tearing his mind away from whatever romantic rubbish it had been infested with. “It’s the last one!”

“Thank Celestia.” I grumbled. It was about then that I heard birdsong, not just any birdsong though, coordinated birdsong. I followed my ears and found a pale yellow Pegasus with a long pink mane conducting a tree full of birds…not something you see every day, to say the least. I saw her fly up to a branch, apparently communicating with one of the birds, which surprised me. But then again, if she was their conductor…sod it, I’m just not going to think about it anymore, if I start thinking about it I’ll have to know how she can talk to birds or else it’ll bug me until the day I die. I walked up and tried for a polite greeting.

“Hello.” The way the birds flew off and the Pegasus dropped to the ground with a squeak was a little much I think. “Oh, I apologize, I didn’t mean to scare your choir away. I’m just here to check up on the music and it seems to be going fine.”

The Pegasus very studiously didn’t look at me. Then she continued to not look at me. After that she didn’t look at me some more, and before long we had a good old-fashioned awkward silence on our hooves. I tried to smile invitingly, but I never got the hang of that, and I’m afraid I looked more psychotic than affable, ponies have told me that before.

“I’m Dusk Shine.” I ventured. Now, I’m no stranger to awkward silences, they tend to crop up a lot when I’m talking to somepony, but normally it’s because I said something wrong (and I highly doubt a ‘hello’ and an introduction qualify as wrong) or because the pony I’m talking to said something so insufferably stupid that I either can’t or won’t respond. I decided to try and be a bit more direct. “What’s your name?”

“Um, I’m…” She said something, but it was too quiet.

“I…didn’t catch that.”

“Um…I’m…” The volume was cut in half.

“I still didn’t hear.”

*Eepysqueak.* Well, buck if I knew how to respond to that. It was just then that the birds returned, good, I can use that as an excuse to leave.

“Well, looks like the birds are back. I won’t keep you any longer.”

*Squeak*

“Well, that was quick.” I commented to Spike, who took a few steps forward and (apparently) into the shy pegasus' line of sight because I suddenly heard:

“A baby dragon!” I was all but bowled over as the previously quiet Pegasus rushed to get to Spike and my well-tenderized body let me know that it was not happy with that. “Oh, I’ve never seen a baby dragon before! He’s so cute!”

“Well, well, well!” Spike said smugly, crossing his arms across his chest and lifting his chin up. Showoff.

“Oh my, he talks! I didn’t know dragons could talk. That’s just…so incredibly wonderful I don’t even know what to say!” How she managed to be so excited and still speak at a volume that falls below standard conversational range baffled me, but I was thoroughly annoyed by now. I got to my hooves, reflecting that I’d been knocked down by not one, but two ponies today, been grabbed by a third, and nearly strangled as well. That was more physical contact in one day than I normally get in a week. I swathed Spike in a sheath of telekinetic energy and floated him over to my back.

“Well then, I suppose we’d better be going.” I said, turning to the path that headed back to town and starting to walk. Annoyingly, the heretofore unnamed pony followed.

“W-wait, wait. What’s his name?”

“I’m Spike!” Responded Spike happily, encouraging her in a way I distinctly disapproved of.

“I’m Fluttershy.” So she can tell Spike her name but not me? Geez, a second ago she couldn’t even talk and now she couldn’t stop. “Wow, a talking dragon, and…what do dragons talk about?”

“Well, what do you wanna know?” Dammit Spike, stop giving her a reason to follow us.

“Absolutely everything.” I had to fight the urge to ram my head into a nearby tree. Celestia keeps telling me to be nice to ponies, but it gets really hard when they keep wanting to talk.

“Well, I started out as a cute little purple and green egg…”  I can’t believe it, he’s literally giving her his life’s story, and she’s eating it up like Prince Blueblood gobbles Oxycodone. This is why I don’t like to talk to other ponies, once you get them going they talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk until your ears are about to bleed. They even keep going even after the important things have been said and the conversation should be over. By the time the library was finally in sight Spike was just rounding off the details of his life so far. “And that’s my entire life’s story, up until today. Do you want to hear about today?”

“Oh, yes please!” Okay, that’s it. I can’t take anymore. I briefly debated using my normal approach to ending conversations, walking away without a word or a flat ‘I’m done talking’, but my conscience niggled me and I was forced to concede. As long as I’m here I’m a representative of Celestia, and as such I have to be polite, or at least try to be.

“Oh, it looks like we’re here. I’m living in the library while I’m here and my little baby dragon needs his sleep.” I said, turning around to face Fluttershy.

“No I don’t!” Spike said indignantly from my back, only to ‘accidentally’ fall in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with telekinesis whatsoever.

“See, he’s so tired he can’t even stay on my back. Poor little guy.” I’m not a naturally gifted liar, but I’ve got plenty of practice, and Fluttershy bought it. Unfortunately though, she picked him up in her forehooves and actually went into the library ahead of me.

“Oh, you poor little thing, we simply must get you to bed.” I rushed in after her and took possession of Spike and ushered her out gently but firmly.

“Yes yes, I’ll get right on it. Good night!” Then I closed the door. I turned around to find Spike glaring at me in the darkened library. I ignored the glare with practiced ease and focused on the more important thing, why were the lights off? This is a public building, it was during business hours, and the lights had been on when I came here before. Curious. I stored some magic in my horn just in case I needed to work a light spell or something and walked in.

“Huh, rude much?”

“She followed me.” I defended, scanning the room and wishing my eyes would adjust faster. “And I have to start gathering evidence to convince Celestia. I just need to be alone to study without a bunch of mentally unbalanced ponies trying to make friends with me all the time. Now where’s the light?”

“I think it’s over here.” Said Spike, still disgruntled.

He turned around with his arms out in front of him, which was made moot when the lights suddenly flicked on and loud noise erupted from all around us. I spun around instantly, getting my back end against a wall and shoved more energy into my horn when I realized that the sound was party poppers and shouts of ‘surprise’ and not some kind of battle cry. The aura around my horn abruptly fizzled out as I took in the absurd scene in front of me. It looked like half the denizens of the town had crammed themselves into the room and were now staring at me expectantly. It was only then I noticed the streamers and confetti everywhere.

“Surprise!” Came a loud, saccharine voice to my right. It was the first pony I’d seen upon landing here, the one who had run off. “Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie and I threw this party just for you! Were you surprised? Were you? Were you? Huh? Huh? Huh?” She bounced around as she talked, just following her with my eyes made me a bit nauseous.

“Yeah, I was surprised. I thought libraries are supposed to be quiet, but I guess I missed a memo or something.” I deadpanned, the sarcasm flew right over her bubble gum colored head.

“Well that’s just silly! What kind of welcome party would this be if it were quiet? I mean duh, boring! You see, I saw you when first got here remember? You were all like ‘hello’ and I was like *gasp* because I never saw you before and if I never saw you that means you’re new because I know everypony, and I mean everypony in Ponyville!”

Sweet Celestia she wasn’t stopping. This is like my worst nightmare, some mare I don’t know jabbering at me at two hundred words per second. Ugh, at least there’s a drinks table. I need some extra fluids to replace the ones I lost over the side of the chariot anyway. I made my way over to it, ignoring her as she followed me. I grabbed the first convenient bottle and poured a little into a goblet, wanting to see if I liked it before I poured too much more.

“And if you’re new, it meant you hadn’t met anyone yet, and if you hadn’t met anyone yet, you must not have any friends, and you must be lonely! And that made me so sad, but then I had an idea! That’s why I was all like *gasp*! I’d just throw a super ginormous extra-fantabular welcome party and invite everyone in Ponyville, see! And now you have lots and lots of friends!”

When I saw the ponies I’d already dealt with earlier, the ones who were responsible for the various parts of the welcome celebration I tossed back the liquid in the glass in one large gulp. This got me some wide-eyed looks and even got the pink-haired motor mouth to pause. The liquid burned, a lot, and the burn didn’t fade either, it was doing just the opposite in fact.

“Uh…that was one hundred fifty one proof liquor.” Rainbow Dash said, half in awe, half in disgust. I looked at the bottle, which I thought was apple juice. I more thorough investigation of the label proved her right. It was a bottle of Sweet Apple Acers Extra Hard Spiced Cider.

“Hmm, that explains why it tastes like solvent, at that alcohol content it nearly is.” I said listlessly, convinced that some higher power had it out for me (and suspecting that Celestia put them up to it). I wasn’t even going to fight it anymore. I sudden thought flicked across my frontal lobes, a fact I remember hearing about this particular spirit while listening in on one of the royal guards relate tales of drunken debauchery that had made me wonder how he hadn’t contracted every venereal disease in existence. I turned to Applejack, figuring she would know about the spirit since it was produced on her farm, and asked a rather important question. “What spices are mixed into the distillate?”

“Uh…cinnamon, clove, anise, and cardamom…why?” She answered, looking at me like I was slightly insane for drinking it straight. Her answer, though, proved that something upstairs hated me today.

“I’m allergic to anise.” I replied dully, feeling the start of the allergic reaction revving up in my gut. If I was lucky, it would stop with vomiting, but it would be wise to grab the epinephrine potion I always carry with me just in case. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to go make sure I don’t pass out in anaphylactic shock.” And with that, I toddled off to the bathroom to vomit for the second time today. Buck My Life.

Some hours later, once the threat of allergy related suffocation had passed, and I had left a significant portion of my sizeable lunch in the toilet, I was lying on my bed with my head under my pillow, the very picture of misery. Below me the party was still going at full-tilt, amazing given that it was nearly sunrise. I growled angrily from underneath my headcushion-turned-hat and scowled at the door, wishing the ponies would go away and let me study. I’ve been completely unable to get anything done since I got here despite the fact that the room was very tastefully designed to be made almost completely out of bookshelves. None of the books here were what I needed, and there was no way I was going back down there. My sullen brooding was interrupted around six a.m. when the door opened and Spike came in, wearing a large lampshade strewn with torn bits of streamer and letting in far too much light for my sensitive eyes.

“Hey Dusk, Pinkie Pie’s started pin the tail on the pony, wanna play?”

“No!” I snapped angrily. “All the ponies in this town are certifiably insane! Do you know what time it is?”

“It’s the eve of the Summer Sun Festival. Everypony has to stay up to watch the Princess raise the sun.” He said, looking at me with a strange mix of annoyance and something that looked awfully like pity before turning around and going back to the party. “You really should lighten up Dusk, it’s a party.”

“Here I thought I’d actually be able to be productive here.” I growled to myself as he walked away. “But no, of course not, making friends is so much more important than the safety of the realm.” I looked out the window and gazed at the moon, swearing I could see an ominous shadow on the face of the moon, and four stars moving unnaturally towards it. “Legend has it that on the longest day of the thousandth year the stars will aid in Nightmare Moon’s escape and she will bring about everlasting night…I hope Celestia was right…I hope it’s just an old pony’s tale.”

As I watched the moon, visions came unbidden to play before my eyes. Visions of a realm shattered and ponies under the hoof of a dark new empress. Visions of plants withering and animals dying as they were deprived of the sunlight that was the basis of the circle of life. Without the sun the death of the realm, of the world, would be assured. I don’t know how long it would take for the plants to completely die but I did know that by the time they were all gone I am sure we would all be thinking them lucky, if any of us lived that long, which was doubtful.

Without them recycling atmospheric carbon dioxide back into oxygen we would all literally suffocate. It might not get that far though. Social disorder and rioting would inevitably break out, martial law would follow. If the Elements of Harmony weren’t found in time and Nightmare moon banished there would be an inevitable fight, perhaps even a war if the Mare in the Moon had some kind of army of her own, and perhaps even if she didn’t. If she moved to take Canterlot the army would mobilize and attempt to defend the castle and Celestia from the threat. It would be pointless though, if the accounts of Nightmare Moon’s power were even half true the army would be slaughtered wholesale. It would be like ants attempting to kill an Ursa Major. That wasn’t the worst part though.

Most ponies don’t really take Celestia seriously anymore, it’s simply been too long since she’s displayed even a fraction of her power other than the daily rituals of raising the sun and moon, and even this feat of phenomenal cosmic power was so commonplace that nopony really thinks about how incredible it is, it’s become just another part of daily life; like the tides of the ocean and the growth of crops…nopony really stops to think how massively complicated and delicate the whole system is.  The moon pulls the tides, giving the ocean its metronome, which in turn drives the economy of almost every coastal town in Equestria, energy from the sun is converted into food for us, if you stop to think about it you can’t help but be struck by how amazingly intricate it all is, and how much power a being with control over the sun and moon really has. Which is just how Celestia wants it.

Celestia has encouraged this over the centuries, she doesn’t want her subjects to fear her like they used to in the olden times when she was called on to use her powers in a martial capacity, she prefers them to like her, so she deliberately stays innocuous and set up the parliamentary system so that she became nothing more than a figurehead, a figurehead that still has the authority to give any order she wishes if the need should arise, and has much more political power than anypony outside of the elite of the elite of Canterlot are aware of, but a figurehead nonetheless.

If her realm is threatened, however, she is not one to sit on her laurels. If the threat was great enough she would be on the front lines, fighting. This scares me for two reasons: the first being that a fight between Celestia and any being that would necessitate her presence on the battlefield would inevitably cause so much collateral damage and loss of life it would go down in the history books for the rest of time, the second reason being…that she could lose. Celestia is not infallible, I know this better than anypony. Celestia has raised me since I was a foal, and I know her better than any pony in the realm. I’ve seen her at her grouchy worst in the mornings, I’ve seen her use a bathroom, hay, I’ve even seen her slightly drunk. She is very fallible, and, if things go poorly, it might be her that finds herself banished for a thousand years, or worse. By the time she got back, if she ever did, there would be no Equestria to return to. Just dust and bitter memories.

That is what I fear, more than anything else. Many things frighten me, but beyond all of them is the failure of the realm or the death of Celestia, they’re one in the same really. If her ponies were to all suddenly die, Celestia would not be long in following, and if Celestia were to die, the realm would fragment and destroy itself within years, perhaps it would not even take that long. I closed my eyes and forced the visions away.

“No.” I growled firmly. “That will not happen. I won’t let it happen. I don’t care what I have to do, I will not let the realm die, I will not let her be harmed. No matter what.”

Determination replaced my fear and I settled down to watch the wheeling stars silently, come what may, the realm and my teacher will live through tomorrow. I will see to that, even if it kills me. Spike came in a while later, seemingly no worse for having stayed up all night.

“Come on Dusk! It’s time to watch the sunrise.” He said brightly. I nodded and got up, walking down the stairs and out the door into the main room of the library, which was already deserted. Spike fell into place beside me and we walked out of the library, heading to the town hall.

The sky was a deep velvety purple that nearly matched my coat and still liberally speckled with stars as Spike and I walked in. The hall was already nearly full to bursting. Almost every resident of Ponyville was crammed into it eagerly waiting to see Celestia, a rare occurrence outside of Canterlot. I hadn’t spoken the whole way, feeling too somber to talk much. Spike had noticed, but hadn’t commented on it. Maybe feeling a portion of the same foreboding that I did, or perhaps just tired. Unfortunately for my nerves, Pinkie Pie was all too willing to fill the silence.

“Isn’t this exciting? Are you excited? I’m excited, I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited before, well except maybe that one time that I saw you walking into town and I went *gasp*, but I mean really, what can top that?” She was cut off by a musical sting, horns sounding and Fluttershy’s birds whistling imperiously. A spotlight kicked on and tracked down to illuminate the aged Mayor of Ponyville, who began to speak.

“Fillies and Gentlecolts, As Mayor of Ponyville, it is my great pleasure to introduce the Summer Sun Celebration!” She paused to allow for the inevitable cheers. My gut tightened, something was off, I could feel it. I bit my lip, still holding onto the hope that I was wrong. “In just a few moments, our town will witness the magic of the sunrise, and celebrate this, the longest day of the year.”

I saw a slight flash in one of the windows, from the moon. Please let me be wrong, please, please let me be horribly horribly wrong. For once in my life I don’t want to be right.

“And now I am honored to introduce to you the ruler of our land, the very pony who gives us the sun and the moon each and every day, the good, the wise, the bringer of harmony to all of Equestria…” She had the crowd worked into a lather now, ponies were rearing and pawing the air, their excitement barely contained. “Princess Celestia!” There was another musical sting, birds sang, ponies cheered, and the curtain that had been pulled across a high balcony that was obviously meant to be the focal point of the room was drawn back to reveal…nothing.

No…no, please no. Please let this be one of Celestia’s practical jokes and not what I think it is. The crowd fell silent for a moment before confusion erupted and everypony started talking at once. No, no, nonononononono. My whole body started to tense.

“Dusk?” Spike asked worriedly, I ignored him, scanning the room with every magical sense I had, trying desperately to locate Celestia. Instead I found something else. Somepony screamed as a midnight blue magical aura coalesced where Celestia should have stood.

The bottom fell out of my stomach and terror flooded through my entire body. No, how was this possible? Celestia couldn’t have been taken without a struggle, there’s no way she could just have disappeared. The aura started to take a recognizable form. In that instant, fear turned from a force of petrifaction to a fuel, galvanizing my will and speeding my mind.

I dashed ahead, weaving my way through the crowd quickly as magic suffused my body, preparing it to endure the increased demands I put on it as I hurtled towards the stage. I tried to shout a warning, but I was drowned out by the spreading panic and I didn’t dare take the time to use a voice amplification spell, I already had a shield spell spinning up, my own body enhancements, and a powerful offensive spell charging in my horn, three spells was all I could do at once, my mind, body and horn were all occupied.

The doors all slammed shut to prevent any escapes and Nightmare Moon appeared in all her terrible majesty. Her coat was blacker than pitch, and the ornate blue breastplate and pseudo-helm she wore were both liberally emblazoned with lunar symbols that glinted omninously in the suddenly dimmed light. Her insane amber eyes sparkled with sadistic glee, and her presence alone was enough to root most of the ponies in the room into terrified stillness; what few weren’t captured by the aura of terror she radiated were frozen when she spoke, her courtly accent steeped in malice.

“Oh, my loyal subjects.” She began, gloating as only the genocidally insane can. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen your precious sun-lined faces.” She lingered over the last word, enjoying the drama. From somewhere in the back, some dumb buck pony whose first reaction to the eldritch abomination before them was anger rather than completely sensible fear shouted.

“What did you do with our Princess?!” Nightmare Moon just laughed, a smooth laugh that couldn’t be properly called a cackle, but was too scornful and insane to be anything else.

“Why? Am I not royal enough for you?” She asked, teleporting to the main stage with a rush of visible magic and rearing up, showcasing her greater height. “Don’t you know who I am? Did you forget the legends? Did you not see the signs?”

“I did.” I called, I had almost gained the stage, and I leapt up onto it as I spoke, facing her head on. I had to keep her attention focused on me. The ponies in the crowd didn’t stand a chance. Buck, I didn’t stand a chance against a being that could take Celestia down without a fuss, but I had the advantage of a plan and enough magic to create a suitable distraction…I hope. “Nightmare Moon.”

This proclamation caused all the screaming to start again, at least until the abominable aura that shrouded Nightmare Moon like a fogbank responded to her will and rolled out over the crowd freezing them all in a terrified silence again.

“Well, well, well.” She said, amused, regarding me like a cat looking at an injured mouse. “It looks like someone studied their history. Then you should know why I’m here.”

Every rational part of my being was screaming at me to turn tail and run. Blast a hole in the wall and get as far as my legs and magic could take me, anything to get away from this thing that was in front of me. The other parts of me though, my loyalty to my Princess, to the realm, and the sheer egomaniacal determination that rears its head at the most inopportune times wouldn’t let me. In fact, right then, as I stared down the biggest threat to the realm that had existed in a thousand years, in front of a being that intended to destroy the realm as we knew it…I stopped being afraid.

Deep down, underneath all the logic and cynicism that makes up most of my soul, I got angry. Defiantly angry. How dare this mare threaten our realm? How dare this pretender take our Princess?! My nostrils flared and my plan was formed. Anger fueled the raging torrent of magic coursing through my being, supercharging it. I wouldn’t let this invader get away with this. I only needed a little more time. Once again I drew upon my anger and did something I’m very good at: be monumentally rude.

“Apparently you’re here to spout clichéd speeches and put on a show for our benefit.” I began, smirking a bit as I broke her momentum mid-gloat, insulting a pompous aristocrat mid-rant always makes them pause, it’s an old trick I picked up a long time ago in Canterlot. I continued quickly, not giving her room to respond. “I mean, really? Big amorphous aura, echoing voice, evil laugh? If you were a stallion I’d say you were compensating for a small penis. Did you read some kind of stereotypical evil overlord for dummies book or something?”

That made the whole room gasp, and Nightmare Moon’s eyes shot open wide. It’s not every day you see a small purple pony shoot his mouth off to an eldritch horror. I suddenly felt her power constricting me and the shield spell I had been intending to protect the crowd with had to be repurposed in the interest of keeping my ribs intact.

“How dare you speak so crassly to me?” She hollered. She had me tight around the middle, but my hooves were free. Stupid move, and I’d make her regret it when my other spell was ready. I theatrically waved a hoof in front of my nose and made a face to emphasize my next snark.

“Whoa nelly, it smells like you’ve been eating rotten horse apples. What? The evil overlord position doesn’t come with a dental plan? At least have the courtesy to get some mints or something.” Insouciance is something that comes naturally to me, and I’m playing it for all its worth. “And to answer your question: I dare speak to you because you’re nowhere near as impressive as Celestia and I see no reason to-.”

“Do not compare me to her!” The shockwave that accompanied the shout was painful, but informative. Mentioning Celestia like that was a gamble, but I really didn’t have anything to lose. If she didn’t react, I got time to think up something more insulting, but since she did react, I got a bit of information that might just save everyone in the room. She had a big red ‘do not push’ button front and center in her psyche. And, as suicidal as it may be, I’m about to stomp on it until it broke.

“Aww, what’s wrong? Big scawy moon thing jewous of Princess Celestia?” I sneered, desperately hoping I wasn’t pressing her too far and earning myself an instant death. I was, for all intents and purposes, doing a high wire act here, except the wire was monofilament and instead of a net there was a huge pile of rusty knives, axes, and used needles. “Feel like you can’t measure up to the true Princess of Equestria? Feeling like no one loves you? Like you have to go cut yourself and write angsty poetry? Aww, don’t worry…even though it’s true. I’m sure you can find a broom handle somewhere that’ll love you without judging.”

“Silence!” Screamed the creature of darkness, I winced and felt something warm start to trickle from my eyes, ears and nose. Good, I’ve gotten ludicrously lucky, she’s too angry to think the obvious thought ‘hey, why don’t I just squish him’. Just a little more time and then I can make my move. Which, of course, meant that I promptly ran out of ideas.

Dammit, all my life I have a singular talent for making ponies angry without even trying and when it’s finally time to cash in on that dubious skill, it runs away. Typical. Desperation, like necessity, is a parent of invention though, and as I saw Nightmare Moon literally start to froth at the mouth a bit I switched tactics. I smirked and leaned in, taking a shot in the dark and hoping I was right.

“You know what? No. I won’t shut up. You know why? Because you’ve got no right to give me orders. You’re not Celestia. You’re not even in her league. You’re nothing compared to her. She garners awe and respect just by walking down a street, ponies love her within seconds of meeting her, she’s earned the loyalty of every pony in the realm without even trying. You, on the other hoof, have to threaten and bully ponies into fearing you because you’ve got nothing else. Beneath all your pomp and theatrics, you’re just a little foal shouting for attention. You’re not even a cut-rate imitation of Celestia. You’ve got no place in this land or this world. I’ve seen Celestia uncloaked, I’ve felt the power she radiates, and let me tell you, you don’t even come close. You’re nothing but a pale, thin, shadow of her. No, not even that really. You’re no different than a whining. Little. Foal.” I knew I had finally crossed the line when she instantly went from foaming and slavering to calm and collected faster than any sane mind could switch gears.

“You are lucky, my little pony.” She said, her voice quiet, but carrying throughout the room in a way it shouldn’t have been able to; which made it all the creepier. My shield strained as the force of her grip increased. Just a few more seconds… “You will serve as a fine example as I paint the walls red with your blood.”

“Red’s not really my color.” I snarked in a strained voice. Just…a little…yes! My face split into a grin that matched hers for crazy as I felt the magical forces I’d been gathering finally fall into line. “How about a nice shade of…plasma?”

The magic I’d been storing and shaping in my horn flowed out all at once, part of it transforming to matter for a split second before the other half of the spell took effect. My shield instantly thickened and changed magical frequency to prepare for what was happening. Right in front of Nightmare Moon’s face, right under the halfway point of her horn, a small orb of matter appeared, and was instantly heated thousands and thousands of degrees Celsius. Molecules shattered as energy flooded into them, their component atoms started moving so fast they flew apart. Solid turned to liquid, liquid to gas, and gas to luminescent plasma as my spell violently altered reality.

Heat and light exploded from the spell, igniting banners, parts of the stage, and singing a few unlucky ponies close to the stage I’m sure. My shield helped me, but I still lost a few hairs. Nightmare moon, who hadn’t been expecting the attack, had even less fun than I did. She screamed in surprise and what I hoped was pain, then I took advantage of my free forelegs and slugged her in the mouth. I couldn’t properly wind up, suspended in the air as I was, and I’m no athlete, but it sure as hay got her attention.

I was suddenly thrown violently across the stage, only to be stopped by a wall. The impact drove the air from my lungs and I fell to the ground with a grunt. When the black spots disappeared from my eyes I looked up at the smoldering stage to see Nightmare Moon glaring down at me. Damn. I hadn’t expected to kill or even incapacitate her with that, but I had hoped it would have done a little more than that. I had achieved my goal though, her concentration was broken, the doors were no longer sealed by her will. All of that was focused entirely on me. Somehow the Mayor found her voice and delivered a well-meaning, but profoundly stupid order.

“Seize her! She’s the only one who knows where the Princess is!” Dammit! I went through the trouble of getting her angry and getting her attention so you could all run! I tried to countermand the order, but my breath was still gone. The royal guardsponies leapt into action, relying more on training than thought no doubt. Nighmare Moon reared and lightning flashed, they all fell to the ground.

“Stay back you fools!” She shouted. “I will not be taken like some petty criminal! I am your ruler now, your Queen! I will rule over the eternal night that started the moment my hooves touched the soil of Equestria!”

I lurched unsteadily to my hooves and took a closer look at her, she was singed. She was actually singed. I had damaged her. Suddenly a thought flashed across the forefront of my mind. She didn’t have her full power yet. She really should have just snapped me in half when I was snarking at her, but she didn’t. Yes, it made sense, banishment spells don’t have expiration dates, they don’t just suddenly wear off one day, they’re permanent. What changes over time is the strength of the binding, the walls of the prison. They’re at their strongest at the start, but in time they wear down to a minimum strength which they maintain indefinitely. That’s why they’re so hard to pull off, they need to be set up in such a way that they pull a certain amount of magical power out of their surroundings to fuel themselves. You need enough power to keep whatever you’re banishing contained but you have to be careful not to overload the structure of the spell itself or draw so much of the ambient energy that everything in the area dies and the ambient magic in the area dies off completely.

The spell that held Nightmare Moon must have been hideously complicated and powerful, it would have to be if it was going to contain something like her. It was also a stroke of genius to seal her on the moon. The moon may be lifeless rock, but it has the advantage of having a huge area to use to construct a magical prison without worrying about harming anypony. You could, if you were skilled in a way almost impossible for a mortal, set up the spell to draw from the entire moon’s ambient magical field instead of a small section of it, ensuring that you would have enough power to maintain a barrier strong enough to imprison something like Nightmare Moon.

Between breaking the banishment spell and warping from the moon to Equestria must have sapped almost all of her strength. Even for a being as powerful as her, the banishment would have proven costly to dispel, and the power needed for a teleport increases exponentially with distance. Getting from the moon to here, hay, even Celestia would pause to think that one over. If she was weak still, biding time to restore her strength. I had another opportunity to act, but it had to be fast, she wouldn’t be vulnerable forever, and I’d already hit her with one of my best shots. I couldn’t take the time to conjure up another ghetto star, but I know plenty of other spells. Dumping more magic into my horn I fired off three quick bolts of energy, hitting  her dead center with each, wringing an extremely satisfying glare from her.

“Your efforts are futile. I am beyond such pathetic magic. Just know this, my little ponies.” She turned dramatically to address the cowed crowd. “Celestia is gone, I go now to finish her and drain her power for myself, and then…I shall return for you.”

With that she dissolved into an amorphous mass of dark magic and zipped out a nearby window, shattering the glass despite never once coming in contact with it physically. Damn, I have to move. I don’t know if she was telling the truth or not. She might have just said that to cover her retreat, but then again she might not have been lying. Doesn’t matter, lying or not, it doesn’t change what I need to do. I need to find the Elements of Harmony, quickly. If Celestia’s alive, then I’ll be able to save her, if not, I’ll kill Nightmare Moon, or die trying…most likely the latter.

Regaining my equilibrium after getting my head slammed into a wall wasn't easy, but I did it. Then I pushed and shoved my way towards the nearest door, taking a quick detour to grab spike and set him on my back via telekinesis. Once I was out the door I made for the library as fast as my hooves could take me, ignoring Spike’s shouts as I galloped recklessly through the streets.

When I got back I practically tore the rear door off its hinges opening it and dashed into the main room, searching the shelves frantically for anything that looked like it would help me find the Elements. I only stopped when Spike fell off my back. I looked down to find him blearily looking up at me. I sighed and bit back my impatience. He had been up all night, and he was just a baby after all. I picked him up telekinetically and ran upstairs briefly to deposit him on my bed, covering him in the blankets before returning to the library and tearing it apart looking for clues.

“Elements…Elements…damn it, how the hay can I do anything without the Elements of Harmony?!” I growled. Then I heard a loud crash and an angry Pegasus that I recognized as Rainbow Dash was in my face.

“And what exactly are the Elements of Harmony? And how did you know about Nightmare moon? Are you a spy?” Oh, you have got to be bucking kidding me. That whole room saw me practically blow myself up in order to distract Nightmare Moon and she thinks I’m the villain here? I can hardly expect anypony to be rational right now, but I don’t have time for this. My horn glowed and I nearly grounded her permanently before another voice piped up and Rainbow Dash was pulled backwards.

“Simmer down sally.” Came the admonition, delivered in Applejack’s drawl. The other ponies I had run into today were here as well. “He ain’t no spy. But he sure knows what’s goin’ on. Dont’cha Dusk?”

“I’ve studied the prophecies and writings regarding Nightmare Moon’s return.” I said, explaining would be quicker than fighting them, but I still resented the wasted time. “The only known weapon capable of neutralizing her is a group of objects called the Elements of Harmony. The problem is I don’t know what they are, where to find them, or even what they do. Nopony does as far as I can tell. The great library of Canterlot doesn’t have any-”

“The Elements Of Harmony, a Reference Guide.” Read Pinkie Pie from the side of the room. My eyes shot open and I bowled her over rushing towards the book.

“Where did you find that?!” I shouted. How could this little rural library have something the great library of Canterlot didn’t?

“It was under E!” Came Pinkie’s sing-song voice as she bounced a few feet away. My face fell flat and emotionless. I had walked right into that one. Ignoring that, I grabbed the book telekinetically and opened it up, reading from it.

“Introduction…not important…pretentious twaddle…outright lies…ah! Here we go! There are six Elements, but only five are known: Generosity, Laughter, Honesty, Kindness, and Loyalty. The sixth is a complete mystery. The last known location of the elements was the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters in Everfree forest.”

Jump cut a few minutes and a run later, and I (along with five hangers-on) were at the entrance to the eldritch forest that all of Equestria loved to fear. My companions were all visibly frightened, well, except Pinkie Pie, but I’m beginning to assume she’s on some kind of powerful psychoactive drug. Predictably, it was also the pink pony that spoke first

“Whee! Let’s go!”

“Hold it.” I spoke quickly, stopping her in her tracks. I’m not going to be responsible for getting somepony killed by letting them go into Everfree forest. A lot of the dangers of the place are exaggerated, but the ones that aren’t are more than enough to get you killed in any number of unpleasant ways. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m going in alone.”

“No can do sugar cube.” Drawled Applejack. “There’s no way we’re lettin’ no friend of ours go into that creepy place alone. We’re stickin’ to you like caramel on a candy apple.”

“You do realize that you’ve known me for all of a day, correct?” I pointed out.

“That don’t matter none.” She replied dismissively. I almost commented on her double negative, but they’d already started walking, and the way she said it made my insides twitch just a bit, but hay if I knew why. Dammit, I don’t have time for this. I quickly moved to catch up and we plunged into the most dangerous forest in the whole realm.

A few minutes later and they were all jumpy, looking over their shoulders nervously. It was an effect of the eldritch magic that infested this place. In a way it was similar to Nightmare Moon’s aura, but it was faint here. We were far from the sources of the otherworldly blight that had earned this forest its reputation. I could feel them, faintly, far off in the distance. The energy that had leaked this far wasn’t enough to cause the mutations and distortions in the fabric of reality that it could if it was concentrated, but it was plenty potent enough for those uninitiated in such things to feel it and be afraid of it.

“S-so none of you have ever been here?” Rainbow Dash asked, trying to be nonchalant, but her voice quavered and she failed.

“Good heavens, no!” Rarity said. “I mean look at it, it’s dreadful!”

“It just ain’t natural.” Applejack commented. This, of course, only got them more worked up. Since we were nearing a cliff, I decided to take a break from trying to formulate something resembling a plan, like I had been since we started, and try to reassure them. It wouldn't be good if one of them panicked and knocked one or more of us off the cliff.

“Relax.” I said, trying not to sound annoyed or angry. “What you’re feeling is the magic that tainted this place. It’s nowhere near strong enough to harm you, but it’s…different, different in a way that your hindbrain doesn’t like. You’re all feeling like you’re being watched right? Like there’s some predator lurking nearby, just waiting to pounce?”

“Y-yeah!” Rainbow Dash said. “How’d you know?”

“Because I’m feeling the same thing.” I replied. “I just know why. There’s nothing hiding in the bushes. What’s happening is that you’re sensing the blighted magic, which is coming from miles away mind you, and your subconscious doesn’t really know what to do with it, so it’s interpreting it as a threat.”

“You know…” Rarity began. “I do believe I see what you mean. I believe I can feel…something, off that way.” She waved her horn in the direction of the source of the foul magic. “But this place is so soaked in the awful stuff that it’s making me nervous.”

“The magic can’t spread any further than it has.” I informed them. “It’s taken centuries for it to filter this far, but the spread of the magic is monitored by the royal army, the border hasn’t moved in generations.”

“W-why can’t it spread further?” Asked Fluttershy as we got to the cliff and turned left onto a narrow path that descended downwards.

“It doesn’t work on this plane of existence, the rules of reality are different here. Linear time in particular has a detrimental effect on the structure of…” I glanced backwards to see five blank stares. I curtailed my explanation with a sigh. “Let’s just say it’s complicated and leave it at that.”

“Oh…okay.” Fluttershy said, obviously unconvinced. I opened my mouth to respond when I felt the ground beneath my hooves give a sickening lurch and suddenly there was no ground at all.

Well, buck.

I, along with the other non-winged members of this little party, tumbled down the slope uncontrollably. I felt approximately ten thousand rocks try to lodge themselves in my flesh as I went, leaving bits of myself all over the ground. Thankfully the grade wasn’t quite so severe closer to the cliff and I was able to get control before I slid over the precipice and tumbled to my death. Unfortunately I was already halfway over the edge when I was finally able to stop myself. The cliff, being an overhang at the end, offered no purchase for my hind legs, so that wasn’t an option. I searched around for anything large enough to use for a platform for levitation, but there was nothing but small rocks. Seeing no other option I started scanning the internal structure of the cliff side, hoping I would find it stable enough that I could pull a portion of it out. No such luck, the whole thing was cracked and unstable, the instant I tried to grab a portion of it the whole thing would give way and I’d be falling down to my doom accompanied by a large number of rocks which would be more than happy to cause my end if the sudden stop at the end of the long fall didn’t.

My mind worked rapidly, speeding up as minds can only do under the influence of adrenaline. The only feasible plan I could think of would be to levitate myself. This, while sound in theory, has gotten almost all the unicorns who tried it killed. Primarily, this is because levitation, true levitation, the act of making gravity ignore something, involves pouring carefully structured magic into the object you want to float. This works fine most of the time, but if you did it to yourself the feedback produced by your magic entering your own body would cause an arcane short-circuit that would at the very least leave you brain-dead, or worse, completely destroy your ability to use magic at all.

The other option, the one I would have to use, would be to use telekinesis. Once again this sounds simple in theory, I’ve used telekinesis on living things countless times, but doing it on yourself is tricky for the same reason that levitating yourself is suicidal. The only difference between the two is that telekinesis is an external application of magic whereas levitation is internal. I could try teleportation, but the ground up slope is covered in debris I could end up accidentally teleporting a portion of myself into, which would be unpleasant in the same way that getting stabbed in the gut is unpleasant, and I had no idea how far I was to the bottom of the cliff, so odds are I would just end up falling from a lesser (if no less fatal) height; or I could overshoot and end up underground, where I would be instantaneously killed and never be seen or heard from again. It was just too dangerous to try. I was just getting ready to carefully wrap myself in bands of telekinetic force when I heard scuffling and Applejack called out.

“Hold on! Ah’m a-comin’!” She slid into view and grabbed my hooves.

“Can you pull me up?” I asked desperately. She tried gamely, but she was in the worst possible position for leverage, lying on her belly, legs splayed awkwardly. There was just no way she was going to be able to do anything. I resumed my preparations and broke character by asking a question that was rather pointless and I already knew the answer to.

“Any other ideas?” I was just getting ready to get started when she replied, and the reply was enough to break my concentration.

“Dusk, let go.” ...What?

“I know I’m a jerk but you can’t want me dead already.” I grunted, my hooves starting to slip.

“Look here, what Ah’m tellin’ you is the honest truth, let go, and you’ll be safe.” I felt something just then, a tiny spark of…something. I hesitated to call it magic, but it was certainly something similar, coming from the blonde pony. Her eyes were…well, she was convinced, and convincing. She really did believe I would be safe. So I, hardly able to believe what I was doing, let go. Gravity took effect immediately and I slid off the edge and began to plummet. All I could see was sky and ground repeated in a sickening procession, and then, just as I was sure I was going to strike the ground and die after all, I stopped.

“Oof!” I grunted as my momentum was abruptly halted. After my vision stopped swimming I noticed Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy holding me up and…smiling at me. We were descending slowly, and Fluttershy’s smile became a bit strained.

“Sorry, I’m not used to carrying anything more than a bunny or two.” She murmured. I thanked them both distractedly, watching Applejack jump down a series of ledges. I had definitely felt something from her. I don’t know what, but something had happened and my instincts were poking the back of my mind with a stick, telling me it was important. Once my hooves were on the ground again I scanned myself for injuries, found dozens, and decided to ignore them for now, no medical supplies and an important goal after all.

A quick reorientation later, and we were all headed for the castle of the royal pony sisters. Rainbow Dash started recounting a tale of her exploits in the rescue almost as soon as we started walking, but I tuned her out. Something was off about this whole thing, Celestia was too powerful to be taken without a fight, and even though she may not be omniscient, she still has more senses than you can shake a stick at, and I know for a fact that if she is in the same room she doesn’t need to physically look at something in order to see it.

If Nightmare Moon was so drained by her release that I was able to actually singe her, then a fight between her and Celestia should have played out like a rat getting hit by a chariot. Unless there is some way of restraining or incapacitating her that I’m not aware of, which is a distinct and uncomfortable possibility, I can’t think of how she could have disappeared like she did. Also, something was niggling me about the castle, about the royal pony sisters. Nothing I can put a hoof on, but I feel like there’s some kind of hugely obvious connection I’m just not making. My reflections were cut off when I became aware that Rainbow dash was addressing me.

“-then me and Fluttershy loop-de-looped around and bam! Caught you right in midair!” She finished smugly, landing on the ground beside me and strutting.

“Yes Rainbow. I was there, I am quite familiar with the situation. Intimately so. In fact, it’s given me a few grey hairs and knocked a few years off my total lifesp-” I was cut off by a loud roar. The roar was then cut off by a rock impacting my head. I hit the ground hard and was momentarily blinded and deafened by the neurological effects of the impact.

When I got ahold of myself I saw the rest of the group, minus Fluttershy, fighting a manticore. I was surprised to see Rarity, the last pony I’d expect to actually participate in a fight, get her hooves dirty and buck the thing right in the chops. After that though, she made the classic newbie mistake of stopping to say something. I couldn’t make it all out, but I distinctly caught the word ‘ruffian’. Then it roared and took a swipe at her, which resulted in her turning tail and running. Not a bad plan actually.

I staggered to my hooves, ruing the amount of cranial damage I’d taken today, and assessed the situation. Manticores are resilient suckers magically speaking, to say nothing of their physical strength and endurance. In order to get rid of this thing I’d have to conjure up something powerful, powerful enough to endanger anypony near the thing when I let it loose. I started charging my horn with fire magic, compressing it and tightening it in a way it distinctly didn’t like, preparing to make something like the mini-star I’d used on Nightmare Moon earlier, except more directed and not quite so likely to kill anypony near it.

Then Applejack jumped on top of it and, to my complete disbelief, tried to ride the thing into submission…or something. I’m not entirely sure she thought it through. Either way, it bucked her off quickly, which Rainbow Dash took as her cue to get in on the action. She started whirling around the thing at high speeds, maybe trying to create a vortex powerful enough to lift it and throw it, but unfortunately for her, it managed to swat her out of the air rather magnificently. Finally, I had a shot, I ducked my head and sighted my horn onto the hairy bucker’s center mass, preparing to char it from the inside out when Fluttershy jumped in front of it to stop the rest of us from attacking.

“Wait!” She shouted, in the loudest voice I’d ever heard from her. Obligingly, everypony stopped.

“Get out of the way!” I shouted uselessly. She had already turned around and started speaking to it, ignoring everything we all shouted at her. My heart clenched, I didn’t want to see her get torn apart by that thing. She got closer as I desperately ran to the side, trying to find an angle from which to make my shot without catching her as well, but the narrow defile we were on foiled me. Her body blocked my view of it as she got within striking distance. No! It roared, lashed out, and…hugged her? I got closer, noting that everypony else had the same gobsmacked look on their faces that I’m sure I did. When I got close enough to edge past I could hear her talking to it as it licked her and purred. I noticed a large thorn on the ground, and saw that one of the manticore’s paws had a lightly bleeding hole in it.

“Aww, you’re just a cute little baby kitty aren’t you? Yes you are, yes you are!”

“It’s not exactly ‘little’.” Rainbow Dash said under her breath as she walked by the thing, eyeing it warily the whole way. A sentiment with which I agree wholeheartedly. I lagged behind the rest of the group as Fluttershy caught up with us, smiling, happy, and seemingly unaware of the fact that her mane looked like someone had dipped it into a bucket of styling gel and sat her out in a force five gale. I powered down my horn, wincing a bit as the heated energy coursed back through my magical circulatory system.

“How did you know about the thorn?” I asked.

“I didn’t.” She said, her eyes getting a far-away look as she spoke. “Sometimes, we all just need to be shown a little kindness.”

I felt that twinge again, what the hay? I know neither Fluttershy or Applejack are capable of the kind of magic that I can passively sense. Something is definitely odd here, and for the life of me I can’t figure out what. The words of the reference book kept scrolling past my mind’s eye as we continued to walk, venturing into a darker section of the forest now. The legend of the royal pony sisters was bugging me more though. It had been part of what clued me into Nightmare Moon’s return, and the legend, if you could really call it a legend since it was obviously grounded in fact, was inextricably tied up with the Elements of Harmony. It was Something about the famous illustrations of the legend, the ones that had been found by an expedition to the very castle we were headed to. They were plastered all over every book about the legend that had been made since adding illustrations to books was made cheap and relatively easy by modern printing technology.

I feel like the big, obvious connections are right between my hooves, ready for the taking, but they’re like bars of soap in the shower. My contemplations were, once again, halted, but this time it was because I almost tripped on a tree root. I looked around and found that the area we were in was as much swamp as it was forest, the ground was soft and soupy in place, the trees had hanging lichens and mold coverings so thick it was hard to find actual bark in some places, and the whole place smelled like wet rot. Ironically, this is actually a good thing. It meant we were on the right track. The castle of the royal pony sisters is located on the rim of a giant (and slightly oblong) geological bowl that spans for miles and miles at its widest and only about two at its thinnest. Due to the difficult geography and general abandonment of this place, the only way to get to it was to go directly across it in a straight line, which meant crossing the fringes of a swamp (where we were now) and the river that was at least partly responsible for the geological formation.

“Ugh, my eyes need a rest from this awful muck.” Rarity said disgustedly. Now, saying something like that in a dark spooky forest is equivalent to showing the universe a big sign that says ‘screw with me’. Murphy, being a pony I am intimately acquainted with but completely loathe, took the invitation, and not a second after she said that the forest around us was blacker than pitch. “I didn’t mean that literally…”

“That ruin could be right in front of our faces and we’d never even know it!” Rainbow Dash muttered. Then there was a squishing sound and Applejack made a sound of disgust.

“Ah think Ah stepped in somethin’.” She grunted. Fluttershy screamed. “It’s just mud-ah!”

More screams followed. I only wondered why for a second. The trees around us had taken on a distinct glow and were looking uncomfortably carnivorous for autotrophs. I could swear they also started moving towards us. I hastily dumped the magic back into my horn as I backed up, ending up in a circle with the others. Fire magic would be risky here, a forest fire would kill us for sure, but if I’m about to fight a bunch of hostile ambulatory trees fire is probably my best bet, and besides, the area here is plenty wet. The girls were screaming loudly behind me as I charged up my shot. Which was about when we all noticed that one of the loud sounds wasn’t screaming, it was laughing. We all turned, incredulously, to (who else?) Pinkie Pie. She was right in the ‘face’ of one of the strange trees and was laughing like she’d heard the funniest joke of her life. She even started making faces at it. Ugh, first Fluttershy and now Pinkie, what is it with these ponies and putting themselves in danger.

“Pinkie, move!” I shouted. She ignored me (and the others, who made similar invocations). She just turned to us and shook her head slightly.

“Oh come on, don’t you see?” She paused and bounced slightly in place in a way that was familiar to anyone who had ever performed music before. She was getting into a beat. “When I was a little filly and, the sun was going down~,”

“Tell me she’s not.” I said flatly.

“The darkness and the shadows they would always make me frown!”

“She is.” Confirmed Rarity.

“I'd hide under my pillow, from what I thought I saw, but Granny Pie said that wasn't the way to deal with fears at all!” Oh you have got to be bucking kidding me. “She said, Pinkie you gotta stand up tall, learn to face your fears! You'll see that they can't hurt you, just laugh to make them disappear!”

She stopped to laugh directly at one of the trees and, to my utter shock, the face on it vanished in a puff of smoke. It was an illusion of some sort, something that was subtle enough not to be noticed up close and that fed on…fear? I’d never heard of something like that, but in a place like this and with Nightmare Moon around you could never know.

“So, giggle at the ghosty, guffaw at the grossly, crack up at the creepy, woof it up with the weepy, chortle at the cooky, snortle at the spooky.” She started pushing us all in front of various trees. The others laughed and sure enough, poof went the illusions. I didn’t laugh at mine, I stared at it, the energy felt familiar, and it only took me a few moments of feeling it out to detect the taint of Nightmare Moon’s influence in it. I’d never forget the feeling of that aura. Just remembering it made me angry. She had apparently made off with Celestia somehow, and although I hadn’t felt the massive surge of magical backlash that would have signaled Celestia’s demise, I was still impatient to move on.

“Come on Dusk!” Said Pinkie, suddenly appearing right next to me. “Laugh at it!”

“Yeah, come on! It actually works!” Crowed Rainbow Dash, the others voiced similar thoughts. I scowled at the tree, not finding anything about this situation remotely funny, before I remembered that my horn still had a substantial charge of magic in it, and I had a convenient target that is. Then I smiled…right before unleashing the magical charge all at once. The bright red beam of superheated magic reduced the tree to cinders and continued onto a convenient hill, where the energy dissipated itself into the wet, swampy earth, making a rather magnificent steamy crater in the process. After that, the tree was reduced to a few small wood chips and dead leaves raining down on us and a slightly smoking stump. I turned to leave and saw the others giving me shocked looks.

“You were supposed to laugh...” Applejack said. I looked at her and then back at the stump.

“Ha ha ha.” I deadpanned. Time waits for nopony.

The next segment of the forest continued in the general downhill fashion that the first bits had, and before long I could hear running water coming up. I wasn’t really interested in that though. After that shockingly incongruous musical number (I had to give credit where its due, Pinkie can improvise, and do it well) I had, once again, felt that odd tingle of magic, this time coming from her. It was really starting to drive me insane. Pinkie, as strange as she is, is still just an earth pony, she shouldn’t be capable of magic, and yet, she apparently was.

The more I think about it, the more my mind keeps going back to the Elements of Harmony, still getting the infuriating feeling that I was missing something manifestly obvious. I had to curtail my contemplation when we came up to the source of the running water sounds I had heard. It was a river, and one hay of a river at that. It wasn’t too big as far as rivers go, at least not this particular part wasn’t, but what it lacked in size it made up for in rapids. The whole bloody thing was a class five whitewater. I didn’t see any rock formations to cause the disturbance, and I was momentarily puzzled as to why the river was so rough. Then, as if to answer my unasked question, a large segment of purple serpentine flesh reared up out of the water and splashed back down, splattering me with river water. Oh. A sea, er, river serpent. Terrific.

“Does anyone else hear…crying?” Fluttershy asked. I pricked my ears and, sure enough, if I focused and tried to listen through the cacophony of raging water I could, indeed, hear somepony or something crying. In unspoken agreement, we all started following the sound. What we found at the source was one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen, and coming from somepony who grew up in Canterlot and dealt with the hallucinogen-addicted artists and actors that make up a decent amount of its population on a daily basis, that’s saying something.

Rising up out of the water was a purple serpent, but this one was not like most of its kind. Instead of a cold-blooded carnivorous killer completely without higher cognitive functions, this one was apparently intelligent…and it had hair. Dark goldenrod locks were carefully arranged about its vaguely draconic head in a fashion that even I recognized as being fashionable, which begged the questions: how does a serpent know what’s in vogue, how does a serpent style it’s hair and keep it that way, and most importantly, why the buck does an aquatic reptile have hair in the first place?

“Uh…” I began, how does one go about speaking to a well-coiffed serpent anyway? “Why are you crying?”

“Why, I was just swimming here, minding my own business, when suddenly this tacky cloud of blue magic swipes by and tears half of my beloved moustache clean off!” It pointed a webbed digit at…half of a moustache. “Now I look simply awful!” It fell backwards into the river dramatically, soaking all of us in a freezing deluge. I summoned my magic to heat myself up and started calculating the amount of power I’d need to remove the rest of the thing’s facial hair, as well as its head.

“How're we gonna get across?” Applejack asked, looking at Rainbow Dash contemplatively. Rainbow shook her head.

“I’m a good flyer, but I couldn’t carry you guys across without a harness, not as wet as we are. You’d slip.” She explained.

“I could blast it.” I said. “One good shot to the bottom of the jaw, around the base of the tongue, and he won’t be worrying about his moustache anymore…or anything else for that matter.”

“You can’t be serious?” Rarity asked, rearing up and sounding appalled. The others didn’t seem too happy about it either, Fluttershy in particular.

“Princess Celestia could dying as we speak, the realm is in danger. If I have to blast a hundred serpents to get to her I’ll do it in a heartbeat.”

“Oh, do stand back. I will handle this.” Rarity said, looking at me sourly. I just raised an eyebrow.

“And how do you plan on doing that?”

“Excuse me, sir?” She called, getting the serpent to raise its head again. “Ignore my boorish companions, I know how important it is to look good. I mean, just look at those polished scales of yours!”

“I know…” Responded the serpent glumly.

“And that expertly coiffed mane!”

“I know, I know!” It replied dramatically. This is ridiculous.

“Your fabulous manicure!” Okay, that’s a stretch even for-

“It’s so true!” I resisted the urge to facehoof and resumed my power calculations.

“All ruined without your beautiful moustache!”

“It’s true, it’s true! I’m hideous!” Sheesh, between these two there’s more drama than those soap operas Celestia watches.

“I simply cannot let such a crime against fabulosity go uncorrected!” She declared dramatically, making up a word in the process. Then, lightning fast, she gripped one of its scales in her teeth and ripped it out before neatly severing her own tail. Everypony blinked in surprise, and the serpent fainted theatrically. She dropped the scale, which was probably for the best, given how unsanitary it probably was, and levitated her tail magically, fusing it with the cropped half of the serpent’s moustache. Another one of those strange twinges skittered across my magical senses.

“Oh! My moustache! I look fabulous!” Gushed the serpent, preening.

“You look simply smashing.” Said rarity, admiring her work.

“R-Rarity, your beautiful tail…” Fluttershy said.

“Oh, it is fine.” Rarity replied, though it sounded a little strained. “Short tails are in this season, besides, it’ll grow back.”

“So will the moustache.” Grumbled Rainbow Dash, ignored by all. The serpent, happy again, had stopped its thrashing, and the river was calm. I took the opportunity to wade into the water and start crossing.

“Finally.” I said. “We can cro-ah!” An arch of scaly flesh erupted beneath my hooves.

“Allow me!” Declared the serpent, forming its body into a series of arches. Not one to look too closely at a gift of serpentine provenance (I’m not a very good swimmer), I jumped from arch to arch and was quickly on the other side.

If the map I’d consulted before this catastrophic little adventure was correct, we were very close to the ruin of the castle. The sudden uphill slant the path (the only one that ran through this part of the forest) reassured me that we were on the right track. I set a quick pace, wanting to locate the Elements of Harmony as soon as possible. The others were chattering excitedly behind me, any fear of the forest apparently forgotten. I was, as usual, lost in my own thoughts. So far, all of my companions except Rainbow Dash had displayed a spark of magic that they shouldn’t have, even Rarity. The magic wasn’t the kind of magic ponies use, it felt more like some other force was behind it, like something was leaking through them somehow, which was patently ridiculous. If some kind of magic was leaking through onto this plane of existence they’d have all sorts of awful side-effects, and since none of them were showing signs of massive internal bleeding, dementia (except maybe Pinkie Pie), or magical incontinence I had to assume it was something else. It was frustrating in the extreme, like I had every piece of a puzzle except one, and I still couldn’t make out the picture regardless.

I grit my teeth hard as I continued on, weaving through the suddenly thinning trees. When I found the Elements I’d have to first, figure out how they worked, find Nightmare Moon, and finally utilize them against Nightmare Moon. Hopefully they wouldn’t require the kind of raw power that other high end magical weapons did, the only things in the league we're talking about require five unicorns who specialize in that sort of magic to completely dump their reserves into the capacitors just to fire off a single shot. I'm powerful, but not that powerful, nopony is. Between the encounter with Nightmare Moon, the forest, and my lack of food, water, and sleep the preceding days (which I was now regretting fiercely) I simply did not have much left to give. What made it worse is that my magic was automatically speeding the healing of the innumerable lacerations and bruises I’ve accumulated today, which is an automatic function I can’t stop without effort. It’s a good thing in most situations, but I need all the energy I can get right now and-oh, that’s a cliff I nearly stepped off. Good to know.

“Stop!” I shouted, just to make sure I wasn’t bumped into and sent tumbling to an ignominious (if ironic) end. The ruin was before us in all its ancient, crumbling, glory. The only problem being, it’s on the other side of the cliff, and the dubious looking rope bridge is out. It’s still attached at this end, but not on the other one.

“How are we going to get across?” Pinkie asked.

“Um, duh?” Rainbow dash said, fluttering her wings before leaping into the air and diving below the cloud cover that obscured the other end of the fallen bridge. She came back a second later with the rope clenched in her teeth and she flew over to the other end of the bridge, only to be obscured by more fog. We waited for the bridge to be secured…and then we waited some more, and then some more after that. I got a bad feeling in my gut.

“Rainbow? What’s taking so long?” I called out. Then the wind managed to blow a hole in the fog bank that had settled on the other side of the bridge and I saw three figures talking with Rainbow Dash. I probed them with my magical senses and was immediately rewarded with a surge of nausea as my aura came into contact with Nightmare Moon. The figure in the middle turned to glare at me, having felt my touch, and its eyes glinted, the fog bank swirling unnaturally. “Rainbow! Don’t listen to them! That’s Nightmare Moon in disguise!”

Dammit! I doubt she heard me. If Rainbow Dash gets turned by Nightmare Moon we won’t have a chance to get across, even if Fluttershy was willing to go across (which I doubt she would be since I just announced to all of them that Nightmare Moon was on the other side) She would just get turned or worse, and…and just then Rainbow Dash flew across the bridge, dispelling the fog and garnering cheers from everypony but me, I was too shocked to make a sound. How had she gotten away from Nightmare Moon without a scratch?

I scanned the other side furiously, but couldn’t find anything. That worried me, if Nightmare Moon was already at the castle she would be waiting for us. I doubt she had the Elements already, if she did she would have engaged us and wiped us off this plane of existence, but she would be searching for them just as we were. I could only hope we got there first, though the odds of that weren’t exactly heartening. As we walked across the bridge Rainbow Dash flew alongside me and said something that sent another odd sensation creeping across my magical senses.

“See? I’d never keep my friends hangin’!” The others went on ahead, and I found myself lagging behind a bit, frowning severely. They were connected with this, I knew it, one burst of magic could have been a random thing, two, a coincidence, but three is a pattern, and I’ve felt five. I could feel myself inching laboriously closer to that revelation that’s been eluding me all night; I just needed that one last spark of inspiration to close the gap.

As we finally entered the ancient palace I couldn’t help but find myself in awe of it despite my troubled mind, and my fear of Nightmare Moon lessened as my senses failed to detect her presence and the power of the castle filled me to the core. Our hooves made echoing sounds as we walked on the stones. We traversed empty rooms with what had once been grand murals and majestic carvings liberally applied to the walls. Ancient sconces that would have held torches or lanterns were filled with dust and pebbles. The whole place was steeped in an air of reverence, nostalgia, and a strange sort of sweet sadness, the same kind you hear in a grandpony’s voice when they tell stories about their youth; fondly reminiscing about the past and missing the days gone by while still accepting they were gone and enjoying the present.

This place had once been vibrant and full of life, but no more. There was no lingering bitterness about it though, as there could be in abandoned places. This place, the magic that so obviously permeated the very building, didn’t resent its lack of occupation. It accepted it, and only wanted any who crossed into its boundaries to see the fragments of history that it held, to show them a glimpse of past glories. Even after all this time, it still felt welcoming in a way. Many doorways had collapsed, and halls had caved in, but it seemed almost deliberate, as if the building was guiding us on a tour.

It led us through the remains of once-grand banquet halls and ball rooms. Through dust filled reliquaries and dilapidated statue gardens. The whole time it was like it was whispering to us: Do you see, young ones? Do you see what once was here? Look around and take it all in, little ones. See the ghosts of our past glories and think upon them, that you may return from whence you came with a greater understanding of how things truly are.

Time may have worn these halls, and they have held no life for centuries, but the memories that were made here endure, as they will until the very last stone crumbles into dust and the very foundations upon which this place was built are consumed by the earth. None of us spoke as we walked, falling into a respectful silence as we subconsciously acknowledged the grandeur of the far flung past.

The crowning moment, though, was when we entered the room with the Elements of Harmony. There, in the middle of the otherwise empty room, with a broken ceiling, supported on a pillar with radiating arms somewhat like a giant candelabra, were grey stone orbs that exuded such power that I was surprised none of us were harmed by it. They were so powerful that even the earth ponies and pegasi in the group could feel it, judging by the way they all looked at the objects with reverence. Rarity and I shared a glance, we could feel them in a way the others could not, and I could tell that she was just as strongly affected as I was. Tears were shimmering in her eyes as she felt the wondrous power they emitted, and I felt my own eyes get damp as I beheld the sacred relics. The aura was immensely powerful, but…beautiful in a way I just can’t fully describe.

The Elements; laughter, honesty, loyalty, kindness, and generosity…they radiated from each stone like moonlight, flowing softly over each and every one of us, encircling us in their gentle embrace. If I had any questions about how the castle was spared from the eldritch magic of Everfree forest, they were gone now. Not even the blight that stained the world at the heart of the forest could have come close to matching the power of the forces contained in these stones.

“Isn’t this what you were lookin’ for Dusk?” Applejack asked, her voice carrying strangely in the large room, echoing even though the vaulted ceiling had long-since collapsed and left the room open to the sky. I nodded, still enraptured by the stones. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash flew up to retrieve them.

“Careful.” I admonished. The last thing I needed was for one of these to break. I approached the small circle of stones and knelt down, examining them closely, astounded by the power they held.

“There’s only five.” Pinkie Pie piped up. “Where’s the sixth?”

“The book said that when the five are gathered, a spark will cause the sixth one to be revealed.” I said distractedly, the revelation I’d been seeking was so close now, I could practically taste it, the breakthrough was there, I could feel it.

“What the hay’s that supposed to mean?” Applejack asked, brows furrowed.

“I don’t know.” I admitted as I lit up my horn. “But I have an idea. You may want to stand back, I don’t know what will happen.”

“Come on y’all, he needs to concentrate.” I heard Applejack say, followed by the sound of hooves trotting and wings flapping. When I was alone I opened up my magical senses to the fullest, ignoring everything else, and immersed myself in the aura of the Elements.

Oh my…I’ve never felt anything like this, the sheer power was unimaginable, these…they rivaled Celestia’s level of magical might! No wonder they could be used to defeat something as powerful as Nightmare Moon. The two were like poles of a magnet, opposite, but equally strong; and now that I really felt them I realized that these weren’t the true form of the elements. It was like I was viewing them from a distance, or behind a cloud. Their presence was muted slightly. I delved deeper and I felt the thing that was obscuring them from me, but I couldn’t pin it down. It was like the answer I had been seeking all night, so similar in fact, that the two had to be connected. I pushed myself deeper, throwing my whole being into my task; allowing the power of the Elements to flow through me, using my mind as a filter, trying to find that one last little thing that would let them break free from whatever was-

Loneliness, fury, bitterness, resentment, spite, fear, envy, pain, despair, and a vehement, all-consuming hatred for all things that lived under the sun slammed into me with such acute force that I screamed. The abrupt shift in ambient magic nearly tearing my mind in half. I opened my eyes painfully and blinked away the tears that had formed to see a familiar midnight blue aura. Nightmare Moon. She had somehow managed to sneak up on me, drawing close to me while I was absorbed in trying to figure out the Elements. How she had done it I don’t know, an aura so steeped in misery should have been like a signal fire, alerting every pony in a mile radius.

Her aura was swirling rapidly, picking up the stones with it. She was going to teleport, to take them away. I couldn’t let that happen. I lurched to my feet, ignoring the caustic pain that the unprotected contact with her aura had sent coursing through my mind and body and hurled myself clumsily forward, getting caught up in the vortex and teleported along with the stones.

I’ve never been in so much agony in my entire life.

Being teleported transforms you, briefly, into nothing but magical aura, and mine was mixed in directly with Nightmare Moon’s. It was like having every bad memory, every horrible experience I’ve ever had magnified a thousand fold and replayed all at once, except there was no separation between the mental and physical. I felt like every cell in my body was being roughly scrubbed with a red hot steel wool brush dipped in sulfuric acid and my mind was rent by seething clouds of despair and anguish. I screamed noiselessly as the teleportation was thrown off balance by my added mass and had to be terminated prematurely. The emergency stop deposited me roughly onto a cold stone floor, and for a second, I laid still and didn’t move, panting and trying not to sob, it would hurt too much.

My body felt wrong, wrong in every way possible. My bones hurt, my muscles hurt, my skin hurt, my intestines hurt, my mind hurt, my soul hurt, everything hurt. I could still feel her foul magic infesting me, constricting my muscles and bones like a slimy parasite, draining me of energy and hope. I cracked my eyes open and saw her on the other side of the room, glaring at me. I had to get up, I had to. I will not lose, not after coming this far. Summoning my will and ignoring the pain I flared my magic, flushing the foreign power out of my body and cleansing myself somewhat. The pain was still there, but it was manageable. I stood up and faced Nightmare Moon for the second time, gathering every last bit of energy I had left, and feeling my heart give a sickening lurch as I started tapping into the well of energy that kept me alive. She was, as you would expect, not amused.

“Insolent little insect.” She seethed. “How dare you befoul my presence with your taint?”

“You think I’m just going to let you walk away with the Elements of Harmony?” I asked, charging three spells at once and preparing them, I would have to execute this flawlessly if it was going to work, and at least half of this was going to be guesswork. She saw me preparing my spells and threw her head back, laughing.

“Seriously? You think you can defeat me? Me?! You are mad!” She howled, slowly walking towards me, intent on finishing me off.

“Oh, probably.” I agreed, forcing the spells to charge faster, my vision dimmed slightly as I started to pull out yet more magic. “But then again, you never know. I’m the most powerful unicorn in all of Equestria, Celestia’s personal student, and…I know something you don’t.”

“And what is that?” She asked, stopping in her tracks as her eyes narrowed and her own, shadowy, magic, formed into counterspells as she saw one of my spells visibly warp reality, causing light to bend and refract unnaturally. I smirked, perfect.

“Now that.” I said as I released the high level antimatter detonation spell I had charged, used the second spell to warp it right in front of her nose, and then used the third spell to warp myself behind her, in the middle of the Elements, all in mid-sentence. “Would be telling.”

To those of you who are uninformed in such matters, antimatter and matter don’t get along. They don’t like each other at all. When they get together, they fight, and the result is an explosion that would make any explosives technician, or movie director, drool.

The antimatter mine I created was enough to blow what little roof remained off of the room we were in, and if there were intact windows in the room before there sure weren’t any afterward. My ears were ringing abominably, and I got hit with some shrapnel, but the shield spells Nightmare Moon had concocted protected me from the worst of the blast. I crouched down, flaring what magic I had left to me into my horn and touching the nearest Element stone, my vision shrank to a grey tunnel, and breathing suddenly started becoming difficult as my vital functions were affected by the magical drain. The rest of the stones started to glow and I broke out into a smile despite the searing pain that lanced through my body as my internal magic well ran dry and my body completely refused to give up any more. That was the spark that was needed, magic! I drained my reserves to the dregs, forcing it all into the stones in order to-

“No!” I was violently grabbed and hurled backwards, skidding to a painful stop. Nightmare Moon had survived, and she was angry. But more than that, she was scared. She knew the Elements were the only things that could harm her, and she wasn’t going to let me have my way. In a burst of stygian magic she rushed across the room and was suddenly standing in the circle of glowing stones, right where I had been just a moment before. She flared her own magic, desperately trying to snuff out the magical glow that had surrounded them; and, to my complete and utter devastation, she didn’t even have to. The glow faded of its own accord and the stones once again fell to the ground, inert.

“No.” I protested weakly. “The sixth Element…”

Nightmare Moon just laughed, cackling in triumph as her aura swelled, starting to fill the room slowly but inexorably. Then, in what would be perhaps one of the most horrible moments of my life, she reared and brought her hooves down with a flash of lightning, shattering the last hope of Equestria beneath the weight of her mad glee. The presence of the stones that had permeated the castle vanished instantly. How? How could this have happened? How could it not have worked? It had to work, it should have worked! Why didn’t it-

“Dusk!” My ears perked up.

“Dusk Shine!”

“We’re a-comin’! Hang on!”

“Dusk Shine!”

“Duuuusk Shine!”

It was the others. They came. The thought warmed my soul in a way I didn’t think was possible. They came even though they had to have felt the ambient energy of the Elements dissipate, even though they knew I had failed. They knew that Nightmare Moon had won and that they should have run away, but they still came. Their voices were frightened, but not just of the foul magic spreading through the castle, the way they shouted my name touched something deep inside me. They were frightened…for me. Me. The strange, awkward, rude pony that they had just met the day before. I moved my head towards the door to the room and saw them come in, each of them with concern writ large on their faces. The twinges of magic I felt before returned and something…just…

Sparked.

I understood now, that niggling feeling that I’d been getting all night, it was as obvious now as the sun at midday, as most things are in retrospect. I briefly closed my eyes again and a single, breathy laugh passed my lips. I reached out to those ticklish streams of magic surrounding the others, and for the first time, I saw them.

I could see, truly see, the others…my friends, how they truly were. Each of them was like a star to my unclouded vision: radiating a power they didn’t even know they possessed. A power that was waxing as I watched, growing stronger by the second. The spark had been ignited, the barrier was burning away, now it was time to cast it down for good. I got to my hooves, pain and weariness falling from me as the ambient energy of the Elements returned. I turned to the ponies beside me, each of them staring at Nightmare Moon’s hysterical form in terror, and I smiled.

“She hasn’t won.” I said simply, and as if those words were an incantation the shards of the elements started to glow and float upwards, circling around Nightmare Moon rapidly. She noticed and stopped laughing, her eyes wide with fear as her aura clashed violently with the burgeoning magic.

“W-what is this?!”

“The Elements of Harmony aren’t physical things you can break.” I said clearly, unafraid for the first time tonight. The power of the Elements was growing stronger by the second, and we could all feel it. “They’re more than that. Each one of them exists as a force, a force beyond you Nightmare Moon, and now, we’re going to use them.”

“B-but the sixth Element!” She shouted, as if reminding me of it would stop me. I smiled wider.

“Was here all along.” I finished and turned back to my friends, addressing them one by one.

“Applejack, when you reassured me, when you told me the truth, you convinced me where nopony else could have…because were honest. You represent the Element of Honesty.” A group of shards flew over to her and started to circle her, much to her evident surprise. Then I turned to Fluttershy.

“Fluttershy, you defeated a manticore by showing it compassion, by showing it you cared. You represent the Element of Kindness.” Another group of shards separated from the whole and flew over, glowing brightly.

“Pinkie, you literally laughed in the face of danger and saved us all in the process. Nopony can make ponies laugh like you can. You represent the Element of Laughter.” The power in the room was staggering, and Nightmare Moon was visibly struggling against it, her dark aura being repulsed by the power of the Elements.

“Rarity, you sacrificed your own tail, giving of yourself to soothe another’s pain. You represent the Element of Generosity.” Nightmare Moon’s aura was being compacted into a ball around her now, and every attempt she made to escape was foiled as her spells simply dissolved on contact with the power of the Elements. I turned to the last pony.

“And Rainbow Dash…you gave up your own personal ambitions, staying true to your friends in the face of great temptation. You represent the Element of Loyalty.” They all had shards orbiting them now. I turned to face Nightmare Moon as I felt the last stone materialize above me.

“And the sixth Element? It is the spark that ignites a friendship, the warmth you feel in the presence of those you cherish, the happiness that spreads through you as you are with somepony you care about. The sixth Element…is Magic.”

I closed my eyes as the Elements were finally revealed in their true form. Light washed over the room as the shards were transformed, each Bearer receiving their own symbol of their newfound power. Before, the power of the Elements had been like gentle moonlight, softly bathing us, but now, it was like the noon sunlight on midsummer's day, a fierce joy welled up in my chest and my eyes filled with tears of pure, ecstatic, hapiness. The others made sounds of amazement, and I found myself sighing in awe as I felt my own Element wash over me, pull me to itself and connect with me on a fundamental level.

Magic, pure magic, flooded into my body. A well of power so inconceivably vast that I doubted it could ever run out poured into me, filling my depleted pool of mana to the brim and then some. Then I felt a weight settle on my head. A helm, a golden helm, my own symbol of power. I felt myself floating upwards, buoyed on the combined power of the Elements. I looked to the side, and I saw my friends floating beside me, awe on their faces. The tremendous forces of magic welled up, and I floated higher, fixing my gaze on Nightmare Moon.

And then, for the first time in Millennia, the Elements of Harmony burst forth in all their chromatic glory. Nightmare Moon was enveloped, then engulfed in a wave of magic that contained every color of the rainbow, and was no more.

Rainbow Dash was the first to come to.

“Ugh…my head.” She groaned, rubbing her skull with a hoof.

“Is everypony okay?” Called Applejack, standing up shakily.

“Oh, beautiful!” Rarity exclaimed, her restored tail waving through the air.

“Rarity, it’s lovely!” Fluttershy said.

“I know, I’ll never part with it again!” She said happily, nosing at her tail.

“No, your necklace. It looks just like your cutie mark.” Fluttershy said.

“Hmm? Oh! Why, so is yours!” Rarity said, inspecting first her own, then Fluttershy’s necklace.

“Look at mine, look at mine!” Pinkie Pie bubbled, bouncing up to Applejack.

“Aww, yeah!” Exclaimed Rainbow Dash, inspecting her own adornment.

“Well done my little ponies!” Came a merry voice. Outside a window long bereft of glass, the sun made its long-delayed ascent into the sky, and to the ponies in that room it seemed to travel into the room with them. A shining ball of golden light alighted onto the floor and Princess Celestia stood before them in all her glory. The ponies all bowed to their Princess reverently. She continued on, turning her gaze to the side. “I cannot be more proud of you. You have done all I hoped for and so much more. I saw the signs of Nightmare Moon’s return, and I knew what must be done to stop her. Only the magic of friendship would be enough to strip away the façade of Nightmare Moon, and reveal her true form…Princess Luna.”

Indeed, lying there in the midst of shattered armor and swirling energies, was a small, dark blue pony, just waking up. When she fully came to she gasped and shrank back from Celestia, who approached her and knelt down in front of her.

“It has been a thousand years since I have seen you like this, it is time to put our differences behind us. We were meant to rule together, little sister. Will you accept my friendship?” The smaller pony’s eyes widened and filled with tears.

'“I am so sorry! I missed you so much big sister!” Came the alto voice of the moon princess. The two sisters embraced, reunited after a thousand years of painful separation. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room as Luna leaned against her elder sister and Celestia wrapped her wings around the smaller alicorn, both sisters reveling in the catharsis of their long-awaited reunion. After the long embrace was broken though, Rarity asked a question that startled them all, except, perhaps, Celestia.

“What happened to Dusk Shine?” In the confusion, and the arrival of Celestia, not to mention the revelation that Nightmare Moon was none other than a corrupted Princess Luna, they had not noticed their friend’s absence.

The ponies scanned the room quickly and frantically, but the rubble that had accumulated during the years of ruin and the fight made their search difficult. Then, just as they were on the edge of panic, a cough echoed off the walls and a section of rubble tumbled to the ground, revealing a much battered Dusk Shine. His coat was covered with dust, and his front left foreleg was swollen almost to the size of a grapefruit not far above the hoof. He coughed a few times and awkwardly righted himself, or tried to, but his injured leg wouldn’t support his weight. Celestia stepped forward, Luna trailing behind her, and inspected her student.

“That’s a fetlock injury. You won’t be walking out of here my faithful student.” She said, her voice warm. He was swathed in a glow of magic and gently lifted. He was obviously weary, but his eyes were sparkling.

“It wouldn't be the first time I’ve been injured in my studies.” He said, looking from Celestia, to Luna, to his friends, on whom his fond gaze lingered the longest. “And I’m sure it won’t be the last. But…I think this was worth it.”

“I am glad to hear you say so Dusk Shine. Now come, my little ponies, let us leave this place and return to Ponyville. Once we get out of the castle I will take us there directly.

The party moved out then, Celestia setting an easy pace that the tired Bearers and her still slightly wobbly sister could easily keep up with. The Bearers were silent, in awe of the royal sisters among them. Or five of them were anyway, Dusk Shine, injured and exhausted or not, had no qualms speaking to the Sun Princess plainly.

“You know.” He began, giving his teacher a sidelong look. “It seems to me, that this whole situation could only have worked out under very specific circumstances…circumstances that would take years to set up.”

“Are you implying something, my most faithful student?” Celestia asked, her eyes lighting up with amusement and a small smile playing over her face.

“Well, if one wanted to engineer such an improbable series of events I suppose one would have to…take artistic license with the history books, monitor a great deal of the population in order to find the ponies that bore the Elements of Harmony, ensure that they would be in the right place at the right time, and then one would have to beat the truth about friendship through the remarkably thick skull of a certain recalcitrant and asocial student.” He said, his tone an acknowledgement of his shortcomings, which made Celestia smile wider.

“Why Dusk Shine, are you accusing me of manipulating events in such a fashion?” She asked, not even bothering to hide her amusement. The Bearers and Luna stayed silent through the exchange, though they were a little surprised to hear somepony talk to Celestia that way, and even more surprised to get the next best thing to an admission from her.

“I know you manipulated these events.” He responded flatly, then he chuckled. “Thank you.”

“You are most welcome Dusk Shine.”

Teacher and student regarded each other, and everypony could see the mirthful pride in Celestia’s eyes as her wing gently draped over her sister and her magic embraced her student. They could also see the unabashed trust and affection on Dusk Shine’s face as he looked at his mentor. Then he leaned over to her and nuzzled her, softly and lovingly.

“I’m glad you’re back.” He whispered, the softly spoken statement rebounding across the stones. Celestia laughed softly, holding her sister close and looking at all of the bearers warmly.

“And I am glad to be back, Dusk.”

As soon as the sun rose over Ponyville, the hearts of the ponies there were lifted, and the terror that they had felt was forgotten. They began to crowd the streets, basking in the light that had been denied to them, and shedding, perhaps, a few tears of relief. Then, scarcely an hour later, word came through a herald of the royal guard that Celestia had returned! And what’s more, the fabled Princess Luna was coming with her, and they would preside over the Summer Sun Festival together. Their arrival was set to be at high noon, two hours from the time the herald gave the announcement. The residents of Ponyville, who had gathered in the town square to hear the proclamation, let out a resounding cheer at the news and preparations began for the celebration.

Food was brought out, musical instruments were set up on hastily erected stages, decorations were hung, and the whole town degenerated into the happiest form of chaos imaginable. Each pony worked diligently at their given task, and if many of them often paused to anxiously check the time, nopony faulted them for it. As the time wound quickly down a regiment of the royal guard arrived ahead of time, making their own preparations for the arrival of Equestria’s royalty, and with them came exciting news, the princesses were going to be accompanied by six regular ponies, Bearers of the fabled Eelements of Harmony. Six ponies that had, if the whispered mutterings of the guards could be believed, braved the dangers of Everfree forest and fought Nightmare Moon herself, saving both princesses in the process. What was more, these weren’t trained soldiers or court wizards, they were regular ponies, residents of Ponyville no less!

If the townsfolk had been excited before, now they were all nearly foaming with curiosity and pride. Time seemed to grind to a near halt as the set time slowly drew nearer, the anticipation growing worse and worse as the seemingly endless number of tasks necessary to make their town fit for the festival were all seemingly done, and suddenly nopony had anything to do but wait and watch the town’s large clock with growing resentment.

Finally, after what seemed like years, the clock tower read noon and the great bell was sounded. Everypony froze when the first note was struck, and all eyes turned eagerly to the sky as the second note was struck, then the third, and the fourth. For the next few agonizingly long seconds the whole of Ponyville held its breath. The bell was struck for the final time, and silence reigned. All ponies, young and old, strained their eyes looking for any sign of the approach of their Princesses, and for the longest half minute of everypony’s life, they saw nothing.

Then, suddenly, a call came down from above. A single Pegasus had flown high above the rest, and it was her who first sighted the gilded chariot bearing down on the town. That single call from on high broke the spell of silence that had fallen on the town and leapt from pony to pony, voice to voice, growing only louder as the chariot came into general view. The royal guard marched out, resplendent in their polished armor, and they quickly cleared a path for the rapidly approaching chariot. Trumpets and horns sent forth a clarion call, the royal anthem heralding the arrival of Princesses Celestia and Luna. The ponies of Ponyville roared as the chariot landed, overjoyed to see their rulers.

Many among them eyed Luna curiously as the princesses strode up onto a stage in the town square, eager to compare her to the fable they had grown up with. Any doubts they might have had about her being an imposter were stifled by the obvious bond between the two princesses, Celestia’s wing was draped over the smaller princess and if one looked very closely, a shimmer of tears was visible on both of the royal alicorns’ faces. Celestia waited until most of the furor died down before speaking, her strident voice carrying across the crowd with no need for magical enhancement. Silence fell immediately when she spoke.

“Ponies of Ponyville, today I come before you, on this, the longest day of the year, the Summer Sun Celebration. With me is my sister, Princess Luna!” Another cheer went up, just as loud and joyful as the first. A few tears slipped from Luna’s eyes, but only the ponies closest to the stage were able to see, and if anything it only made her seem all the more real. When the cheer died down Celestia continued.

“I am sure you have all heard rumors, and wish to know what happened in these past few hours. Many rumors have spread, I am sure, and the fable that has been passed down through the centuries is at the forefront of your minds. But the truth is this: Long ago, when the realm was young, an evil force from far beyond this world beset my sister and took control of her, using her form and shaping it to its will, creating what you knew as Nightmare Moon. This foul parasite attempted to use my sister to take over the realm, and without the Elements of Harmony, the only force strong enough to break the foul creature’s control over Luna, I had no choice but to banish it and my sister, to the moon. The magical binding I cast lasted a thousand years; long enough for me to ensure that upon its release there would be new Bearers, and that the Elements of Harmony would be ready to vanquish the abomination that dared attack my sister. These Bearers made their way through the Everfree forest, risking their lives and facing numerous dangers, to the ancient castle that was once the capital of the realm, unlocked the true power of the Elements of Harmony and cleansed my sister!”

The crowd cheered as Celestia’s story built to a crescendo, her masterful oratory imparting the grief she felt at the loss of her sister, the rage that filled her at the thought of the otherworldly creature that had taken hold of Luna, and the boundless joy that filled her heart at her beloved sister’s return without making her seem any less regal than she was.

“I ask you now, ponies of Ponyville, will you accept Princess Luna as co-ruler to your realm?”

“Yes!” Cried the crowd in one voice. Luna smiled and bowed her head in obvious relief. Celestia wasn’t finished though.

“I am overjoyed to hear your acceptance, and I thank you for it. But we are not the only ones you wish to see. So now Ponyville, I am proud to present to you the ponies that saved my sister, myself, and the entirety of the realm: the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony!” She called, her voice ringing out clearly despite the lingering noise of the crowd.

Then, in front of the princesses, there was a swirl of magical energies, the full spectrum of colors bent and twined together in a kaleidoscopic display of power, shaping into an opalescent dome for a split second before bursting with a flash to reveal six ponies. Five wore golden necklaces, and the last, the one that some in the crowd recognized as the one that stood up to Nightmare moon some hours before, wore a golden helm. The crowd cheered with such force that the ponies on stage nearly fell over and all of them were a little wide-eyed at the reaction, a few even scuffing their hooves a little in embarrassment, but all of them were smiling widely. At an unheard signal they stepped forward in unison and bowed, causing the crowd to cheer even louder.

“Fair residents of Ponyville!” Said Princess Luna, stepping forth and speaking for the first time, her relatively voice and aristocratic accent having no problem carrying over the noise, catching the crowd’s attention immediately. “Let the Summer Sun Celebration commence!”

Joyful music filled the air and the crowd gave one last cheer before dispersing and starting to celebrate. The Bearers and the Princesses moved to an open pavilion not too far from the stage, where an overjoyed Spike was waiting for them.

From the pavilion they watched over the jovial celebration and were still visible, but could at least get a measure of privacy. The white cloth the pavilion was constructed from and the brightly colored cushions that had been set out for comfort, made it seem warm and inviting. It was, at first, filled with a constant stream of ponies that wanted to get a closer look at the occupants, and all were accepted.

Many who went were those who knew one of the Bearers and wanted to speak to them, Applejack alone got a half dozen visitors in the first ten minutes. Everypony who came had their chance to talk, and many of them were surprised to find themselves talking with the alicorns as much as the regular ponies. Eventually though, the excitement wound down and thoughts turned to food, drink, and games. The line diminished, and the pavilion was closed, the guards outside telling any who approached that the Bearers and the Princesses wished for some privacy in order to discuss the ramifications of the recent events. This was true, but it was only half the reason, the other half being that the occupants of the tent needed the rest.

“Whew, I feel like I flew from here to Canterlot and back!” Rainbow Dash said, sagging into her cushion. “Who would’a thought that standing in front of a crowd could be so tiring?”

“Welcome to politics.” I said, sharing a smile with Celestia. “Enjoy your stay.”

“I t-thought I was g-going to faint.” Fluttershy murmured.

“It is something you never quite get used to.” Celestia chimed in; smiling at us, though I’m sure that smile was equally due to pride and amusement at our expense. “But you need not worry, I do not plan on involving you in any more political spectacles.”

“Ah still cain’t believe what happened.” Applejack interjected. “They were cheerin’ for us, like we were some kinda heroes or sumthin’.”

“Well you are.” Celestia pointed out. “You defeated Nightmare Moon and brought my sister back to me. For that you all have my eternal gratitude.”

“And ours as well.” Luna said as she leaned against Celestia’s side and was embraced by her sister. Her grammar was a bit outdated, and the way she referred to herself using plural pronouns had been confusing at first, but by now it was no big issue.

“It was fun!” Pinkie bubbled excitedly. “Especially when Dusk made that rainbow dome thing and we all stepped through it and went like zing, and landed on the stage!”

“‘went like zing?’” I asked, quirking an eyebrow.

“Yeah, because when we teleported it was like zinging across the whole town all at once like rubber bands flying through the air!” I don’t think I’ll ever understand Pinky logic.

“I must admit, I am rather curious about that teleportation spell myself.” Rarity asked, she was carefully reclining on her cushion and somehow managing to look like she was in a posh parlor and not an overgrown tent. “Do tell Dusk, how did you add that dome? I’ve certainly never heard of a teleportation spell like that.”

“Oh, that? After I created the anchor points and the safety tether I pushed a little magic through and applied Starswirl’s theory of luminescence to attach an additional prismatic affect to a dome of water elemental magic reinforced with a lattice of semi-rigid heliotubes that provided proper dispersal of protons throughout the structure of the radial matrix and…” I paused mid-explanation and noticed the blank stares my friends were giving me, along with that annoyingly parental twinkle Celestia gets in her eyes when I do something she thinks is cute. I sighed and amended myself “I made a magic dome that worked like a prism.”

“See, was that so hard?” Spike asked.

“Oh hush you.” I responded, shifting to a more comfortable position.

“Do thine injuries pain thee?” Luna asked, concern touching her voice along with some guilt.

The reason the royal address had been scheduled for noon, a few hours after we had arrived in town, was to get all of the Bearers cleaned up and any wounds we had received in the forest looked after. We’d all gotten a few of them, and the immersion in river water (that particular river being very slow moving and running through swampland was not the cleanest body of water in existence) caused some worry of infection, so we all got inspected thoroughly. I was the worst off, having accumulated plenty of dings and scratches over the course of the past two days, the worst of which had been the fetlock injury and the blows to the head. Fortunately my skull is approximately as hard as steel plate, so there was no permanent damage and once I was bound to the Element of Magic and my magical reserves restored I had been able to cast a numbing spell on my leg, which would have been quite painful otherwise; and Celestia had been careful not to stress the wound at all when she had carried me out of the castle. Between the doctor’s care and the natural magical regeneration that all unicorns have it was well on its way to recovery.

“Not really, the doctors did a good job and I swear getting bound to the Element of Magic enhanced my regeneration a bit. But thank you for asking.”

"We feel awful about the pain we hath caused you." Luna said, her ears lying flat against her skull.

"Don't worry, I've done worse to myself over the years I've been studying magic." I waved my (non-injured) hoof dismissively, and the sentiment was echoed by my friends a second later.

“What’re ya’ gonna do now Dusk?” Applejack asked. "Ah mean, with the Summer Sun Celebration taken care of and all..."

“Well, our business here is drawing to a close.” Celetia answered for me. “I will stay long enough to close the festivities, but then we need to return to Canterlot.” Her tone included me, and a few days before I wouldn’t have been able to agree with her fast enough, but now the thought of leaving makes my guts all wobbly. Silence stretched on as I made no sound and didn’t meet Celestia’s eyes. My friends didn’t look happy about it, which actually made my throat tighten up a bit. I’d never had friends outside my family before. My brother had been my only friend until Spike came along, and Celestia had all but raised me; now that I did finally make some real friends I was going to have to leave them right away. It wasn't fair. "Dusk Shine?"

“Yes?” I still couldn’t look her in the eye, but my ears perked up at her tone, she was smiling, I could hear it.

“Would you rather stay?” I looked at her for the first time, and she was indeed smiling. She can read me well.

“I would like that.” I said. Her smile got wider and she turned to Spike.

“Spike, take a note please.” His ever-present quill and parchment were readied in an instant. Celestia started speaking once she saw he was ready. “I, Princess Celestia, hereby decree that the unicorn Dusk Shine shall take on a new mission for Equestria. He will begin study of the magic of friendship and report to me his findings from his new home, Ponyville.”

“Thank you.” I said, pretending my eyes weren’t watery and my voice wasn’t thick. I would have said something else but I suddenly found myself in the middle of a pony pile, surrounded on all sides by my new friends.

Celestia laughed at this, but I didn’t care. It felt good to be surrounded by friends like this. For once, I didn’t care that ponies were touching me, or that that they were talking a lot. For the first time in my life it actually felt good. Yes, this is nice. The best part though, is that for some reason this doesn’t feel like an ending. After the huge ordeal the past few days have been I would have expected this moment to feel like the end of a movie, but it doesn’t. It feels like a beginning…the beginning of something wonderful.

I can hardly wait to see what comes next, just so long as my friends are there with me.

Ticket to Disaster (Episode three)

The sun was hot and the day had been long, even though it was not yet midday. The smell of apple trees and heated earth perfumed the land as I walked. A shimmer of sweat coated my body and the heavy saddlebags slung over my sides were a testament to my labors, as was the ache in my muscles, the ache that signified a strenuous but healthy workout. I had been up some hours before the sun, as was my usual habit, but today I had not risen early in order to study. Today I had risen early and left my comfortable home at the behest of a friend.

They say ‘a friend in need is a friend indeed’, and my friend had indeed been in need, so I had answered her summons post haste, which is how I find myself in my current situation.

“Ugh, I mean no offense Applejack, but I have no idea how you do this every day.” I grumped, my head lowered as my joints creaked and groaned under the added weight of two huge sacks of apples and a singularly lazy little dragon, who was busy sorting through the bags on my back and tossing out the bad apples.

“It ain’t even lunch yet Dusk!” Applejack laughed. “Ya cain’t tell me yer tired already.”

“I can, and I will.” I grunted, glaring in the general vicinity of the sun, sure that Celestia was making it shine on me more than it should have. Applejack had insisted I not use my magic, which is patently ridiculous, I could have cleared half the bloody orchard by now if I had been using it; but I’ve learned over the past two months that sometimes you have to put up with ridiculousness from your friends. “I’m not a farmer Applejack, I’m a scholar, the most exercise I’ve ever gotten occurred in the gym classes at boarding school.”

“It’s good for ya.” She returned, still laughing.

“Tell that to my spine. I’m sure I can feel a few thoracic vertebrae slipping out of place and pinching some important nerves…though that might be due to my passenger more than anything else.” I gave my scaly barnacle a significant glance over my shoulder, which he ignored. Brat.

“Well anyway, thank you kindly for coming on short notice. Ah bet Big Macintosh Ah could get all these golden delicious in the barn by lunchtime. If Ah can, he’s gonna walk down stirrup street in one of Granny Smith’s girdles!” She said, bouncing and giggling like Pinkie Pie.

I recalled the mental map I had of the apple orchard, made a rough estimate of the number of trees producing golden delicious apples, calculated our rate of bucking, factored in my approximation of the current time…and came to the conclusion that Big Mac knows a safe bet when he sees one.

I don’t know him personally, but if he’s anything like my brother he bet Applejack on purpose, knowing that it would get her to work harder. Siblings know each other’s minds like that. Celestia only knows how much I can aggravate Shining Armor if and when I choose to. A smile came unbidden to my mouth as fond memories of his enraged shouts and frantic pleas to Celestia to make me leave him alone burbled to the forefront of my mind. Serves him right, he always was a bit sanctimonious and condescending.

I kind of miss the days when I could quadruple his blood pressure just by walking into his room at the castle…Ah, good times, good times.

“I think you may be a bit optimistic Applejack.” I ventured carefully, lest I make her angry.

“Nonesense!” She returned quickly. “Between the two of us we’ll have this licked by-”

*GROWL!*

Huh, either we walked into an Ursa Major’s territory without noticing or my stomach decided to inform everyone within a two mile radius that it is empty and not happy about it.

“Gettin’ hungry there Dusk?” I blushed a bit.

“Well, I didn’t eat anything this morning.” I said sheepishly.

“Yer tellin’ me you came out to do farm work on an empty stomach?” She asked with a quirked eyebrow0.23. “You sure yer as smart as you keep tellin’ us?”

“Well I could have eaten something, but if I did you would have seen it about a half an hour later.” I replied, a little heatedly.

“Dusk can’t eat anything before nine in the morning. If he does, he pukes his guts out!” Spike explained cheerfully. He finds the numerous quirks of my gastrointestinal system endlessly amusing, insufferable little scaly urchin that he is.

“Careful squirt, remember who you’ve been lounging on all day.” I growled. Applejack laughed and slapped me on the back in a rough country affection sort of way. Ow. I don’t understand how pain equates to an expression of affection, but I’ve never quite worked up the nerve to ask.

“Once we get this load ‘o apples to the barn y’all can go rustle up some grub and Ah’ll take care of the rest of the apples.” She said, still somehow ignorant of the plain truth that it just wasn’t possible…or maybe she was in denial.

“Thanks.” I replied gratefully. “What do you think we should do for lunch Spike?” He opened his mouth to answer, but then his eyes went wide and he slammed it shut, holding his paws over it and his cheeks bulged out. I know that face.

“Not on me, not on me! Aim your head up!” I shouted, ducking to get my head out of the way of the burst of green fire that soon erupted from his mouth at the same time as a loud belch. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lost my eyebrows to that over the years…

“What in tarnation?!” Applejack blurted, trying to rear up but being held down by the weight of the apples attached to her sides. The green fire swirled upwards and with a burst of magic formed into a sealed scroll.

“That’s a letter from Celestia.” I explained as spike hopped down and grabbed the floating message before it could hit the ground.

“All that fancy magic and ya cain’t find a better way ta send yer mail?” Applejack asked.

“It’s the most secure form of exchanging letters in existence.” I said, though deep down I agreed with her. Spike cleared his throat after he broke the seal, telling us politely to shut up and listen, which we did.

“To my most faithful student Dusk Shine. I am writing to inform you of the upcoming Grand Galloping Gala. More specifically, that you will be attending this year. You have squirmed your way out of it the past four years running, but this time I am not giving you the option. You will attend the Gala this year, like it or not. Bringing a date is highly recommended. Enclosed are two tickets; and do not try to burn, sell, shred, or disintegrate them. It was funny the first few times, but I am done playing. Your ever patient teacher, Princess Celestia.” Two golden tickets were affixed to the bottom of the scroll.

“The Grand Galloping Gala!” Applejack said, in awe.

“The Grand Galloping Gala!” I groaned, aghast. Spike just laughed.

“Ah’d love to go!” Applejack said, her eyes dreamy. “Land sakes, if I could get an apple stand set up ponies would be chawin’ on our vittles ‘til the cows came home! Do you have any idea how much business I could drum up for Sweet Apple Acres? Why, with all that money, we could do a heap o’ fixin’ up around here! We could fix the barn, get a new plow, and even pay for Granny Smith’s second hip replacement! Ah’d give my left hind leg ta go to the Gala!”

“Uh, Applejack, the Gala isn’t-” There was a shout from above, then there was pain, and then there was dirt.

“Are we talking about the Grand Galloping Gala?” Came a voice that I recognized as belonging to Rainbow Dash.

“We really have to stop meeting this way Rainbow.” I growled after I extricated my face from the (thankfully) soft, loamy soil that made Sweet Apple Acres so successful. For such a skilled flyer Rainbow has a tendency to use other ponies as landing pads a whole lot…

“Rainbow Dash, you said you were too busy to help, what were you doin’? Spyin’?” Applejack accused, completely understandable anger in her voice.

“No, I was busy napping.” She said, indicating a pillow and blanket located in a nearby tree, causing Applejack’s face to mottle with anger and making me wonder how exactly anypony could fall asleep like that. “And I just happened to overhear that you have an extra ticket?” She fluttered upside down and got right in my face, it was a bit creepy.

“Yes, but-”

“YES! This is so awesome! The Wonderbolts perform at the Gala every year! I can see it now…” Her eyes fogged over as she was lost in some kind of personal fantasy sequence. “Everypony will be watching the sky, their eyes riveted on the Wonderbolts, but then, who would fly by? Rainbow Dash! I would draw their attention with my Super Speed Strut, mesmerize them with my Fantastic Filly Flash, and for the grand finale, the Buccaneer Blaze! Everypony would love me, the Wonderbolts would insist that my signature moves be incorporated into their set, and BAM! Welcome me as their newest member! Don’t you see Dusk? This could be my one chance to show ‘em my stuff! You gotta take me!”

“Your talents for alliteration and theatrics are duly noted Rainbow, but you don’t-” Rainbow was yanked out of my face by Applejack pulling on her tail.

“Now hold on just one pony pickin’ minute here!” She said, spitting out the rainbow colored tail in her mouth. Eww, there’s no knowing where that tail’s been. “Ah asked for that ticket first.”

“So? That doesn’t mean you own it!” Rainbow rejoined angrily.

“Oh yeah, well I challenge you to a hoofwrassle. The winner gets the ticket!” They actually set themselves up on a nearby stump and started hoofwrestling. This is ridiculous. I extended a weak telekinetic field between them and pushed them apart.

“Stop! First of all, they’re my tickets. Second, you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. The Gala isn’t your average-”

“Do you know how much business I could drum up for the farm?” Applejack interrupted enthusiastically, taking a large step closer.

“A chance to audition for the Wonderbolts!” Rainbow Dash said just as energetically, taking a step forward to match Applejack.

“Money to fix granny’s hip!”

“Living the dream!”

New as I am to the whole friendship thing, I can recognize a no-win situation when I see one. No matter whom I pick somepony’s going to be hurt. At times like this the advice of an old, grizzled, royal guard colonel comes to mind. I asked him one day (while interviewing him for a thesis on military history) what to do if you find yourself in a situation you just can’t win. I’ll always remember what he said to me: ‘Colt, if you’re in that kind of fix, there’s no shame in running like hay. Best thing to do is get the buck out and regroup. Get some distance from the enemy and buy yourself some time to come up with a real plan.’ I trust the wisdom of my elders, and I was aided at that moment by the fortuitously timed growling of my stomach.

“Sorry guys, I haven’t eaten anything yet today and I can’t make decisions like this on an empty stomach.” I said, putting on my best sheepish face whilst taking a step back. “I’ll go eat and think about it. I’ll get back to you when I’ve decided.”

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

“So, who’re you going to give the ticket to Dusk?” Spike asked after I had made it to the entrance to Ponyville.

“I’m trying to think of a way to send them back to Celestia.” I growled, echoed by my stomach. “And if I can’t find a way to get out of it, my friends are the last ponies I’m going to give the tickets to, I actually like them, and I’d like them to keep liking me, which will promptly stop if they attend the Gala because I brought them.”

“It can’t be that bad.” Spike said. I gave him a stern look.

“Spike, what have I said about saying that?” My nose picked up the scent of hay fries and I automatically started heading towards Horte’s Cuisine.

I can’t eat out very much at all because I’m very sensitive to chemicals, and the preservatives and cheap synthesized almost-food that all fast food and even some of the better restaurants sell will have me vomiting and breaking out into hives. Horte’s, on the other hoof, is completely organic, so I can actually eat there without worrying about getting an inflamed colon. It’s on the pricey side, but it’s worth it.

“Never say anything that tempts fate.” Spike said, his voice taking on the sing-song cadence of somepony reciting something from memory.

“Like?” I prompted. He sighed.

“‘What could possibly go wrong?’”

“And?”

“‘That was too easy.’” He said with the sing-song cadence of somepony repeating a memorized fact.

“Good, you remember. And for your information, the Gala is, in fact, that bad.” I was going to elaborate, but then I was tackled by Pinkie Pie.

“Hiii Dusk!” I only had that for warning before I was knocked off my hooves and roughly deposited on the ground. Why is it that ponies around here think running into somepony at a full gallop is an appropriate greeting. Oh, yes, then Pinkie started screaming.

“Bats! Bats on my face! Help!” She was running around rapidly, trying to dislodge the imaginary bats. I love my friends, I really do, but there are times I find my limited patience strained. This happens much more often when Pinkie Pie is around.

“There are no bats Pinkie.” I deadpanned. “You are free of nocturnal echolocating flying mammals.”

“Oh, hey, you’re right!” She stopped in place, and then spied the tickets. “Wait! Are those-”

“Tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala!” Spike offered, grinning. He thought that getting tackled was fun since he has scales and his sense of touch is muted compared to a pony’s and the flying through the air part appealed to him…at least I think so, it’s not like there’s any other reason that comes readily to mind. Pinkie gasped at the revalation.

“The Grand Galloping Gala?! That’s the most amazing, incredible, stupendous, super magnificently humongous party in all of Equestria! I’ve always always always wanted to go!” Her eyes closed and she started to bounce rhythmically in place. I recognized that bob and weave, she was about to- “Oh the Grand Galloping Gala is the best place for me, oh the Grand Galloping Gala is the best place for me! Hip hip hooray, hip hip hooray, it’s the best-mmp!”

“Pinkie, listen.” I said, stuffing a hoof in her mouth to interrupt her nascent musical number. She’s definitely had some musical training at some point, and her improv teacher should be given a medal, but like so many other times in her life her vision of events and reality are about as closely related as I am to a Diamond Dog. “The Gala isn’t what-”

I heard a cultured, ladylike gasp from behind me and promptly removed my hoof from Pinkie’s mouth in order to slap my forehead with it…and then promptly regretted doing so since it still had Pinkie spit on it, which means I probably just got some kind of contact diabetes or something.

“Are those what I think they are?” Rarity asked. Statistically speaking, this is impossible, the odds of my friends’ schedules and movements coinciding in such a way that they intersect like this are literally astronomical.

“Yes, yes, yes! Dusk is taking me to the Grand Galloping Gala in Canterlot!” What?! I never said that! Dammit Pinkie!

“The Gala! I design ensembles for the Gala every year, but I’ve never had the opportunity to attend. Oh, the society, the culture, the glamor, it’s where I truly belong.” Rarity said, swirling around dramatically and bouncing her mane on a hoof. How is it that everypony I know here seems to think the Grand Galloping Gala is some kind of ballroom dance party out of an old pony’s tale? “And where I’m destined to meet him!”

“Him?” I asked, feeling nauseous for more reasons than just my empty stomach now. I really hope Rarity isn’t talking about what I think she’s talking about. Sure enough, her eyes glazed over and she became the latest pony to elaborate her vision for the Gala.

“I will stroll through the Gala, and everypony will wonder, ‘just who is that mysterious mare?’ They would never guess that I was just a simple pony from little old Ponyville.” Stars and stones, I think I’m going to vomit what little gastric juices are in my stomach. “Why, I would be such a sensation that I would be invited to an audience with Princess Celestia herself!”

“You’ve already met Celestia.” I pointed out. “We all did, and-”

There is no interrupting Rarity’s fantasy sequences, no matter how…harlequin, they sound.

“Then the Princess would be so taken by my style and elegance, that she would introduce me to him!” In all honesty, Celestia would be more likely to slowly and surely bleed her ego down to size over the course of a few minutes of conversation. She’s quite good at it… I know this better than anypony. “Her nephew, the most handsome, eligible unicorn stallion in Canterlot!”

“You can’t mean Blue-”

“Our eyes would meet, our hearts would melt, our courtship would be magnificent!” Oh no, she has to be disillusioned and fast. I opened my mouth to say something, but Rarity had left the building. There’s no way I’m getting a word in edgewise while she was in full-on fairy tale mode, so I shut my mouth and waited impatiently.

“He would ask for my hoof in marriage, and of course I would say YES! We would have a royal wedding, befitting a Princess, which is what I would be if I married him, the stallion of my dreams!”

“Rarity, I know that romance is important to you but please listen to me, there’s no way-”

“Dusk! I can’t believe you would invite Pinkie so she could…party.” She said the last word with cultured distaste. “And prevent me from meeting my true love! How could you?”

She turned her back on me and sniffed regally. My metaphorical hackles shot up. Rarity can really rub me the wrong way when she starts getting dramatic, and especially when her theatrics and affectations of culture get overbearing. Adding a passive aggressive element to it was like dousing my already frazzled nerves in carbolic acid. I’m no stranger to manipulation like this, and make no mistake, that last little dramatic huff was manipulation. It always pisses me off, without fail.

“Hey!” Spike shouted. I turned to look at him, which was probably a good thing because it gave me enough time to realize what the uncouth response I was about to shoot back at Rarity would have done to the state of our friendship.

I saw a flash of gold in the mouth of a passing rabbit. For a moment my hopes rose, if the tickets were genuinely lost I could tell Celestia that, and (with a lot of convincing) maybe get a chance to stay away from the Gala. My hopes plummeted back down again when I saw the rabbit climb onto a familiar yellow-coated and pink-maned mare.

Celestia, I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you can, this isn’t funny, it’s petty cruelty.

“Oh Angel, these are just perfect!” Murmured Fluttershy to her kleptomaniac rabbit. I took the opportunity to try and defuse the situation.

“Look, I haven’t decided who I’m going to give the extra ticket to, and I’m not-”

“You haven’t?!” Rarity and Pinkie said in unison, Rarity’s voice was full of hope and Pinkie’s was full of dread.

“Um, excuse me, Dusk, I’d just like to ask, if it’s alright, if you haven’t given the ticket to somepony else…”

“You? You want to go to the Gala?” Rarity asked incredulously, and I have to agree with her. Parties of any sort don’t seem like something Fluttershy would be interested in at all. To the contrary, they seem like something she’d run away from as fast as her hooves could take her.

“No, oh no…” She said untruthfully, then her rabbit kicked her. “Um, well yes. Kind of, you see…”

“Not again.” I grumbled as Fluttershy went into her own little world and dragged the rest of us along with her.

“It’s not so much the Grand Galloping Galla as the wondrous private garden that surrounds the dance. The flowers are said to be the most beautiful and fragrant in all of Equestria, and for the night of the Gala, and that night alone, they will all be in bloom.” Well, she had me there, the gardens she was talking about are nice, Celestia liked to take me out there for lessons occasionally, and it also served as a very nice place to just relax and talk…and they’re a prime spot for all sorts of taboo liaisons between the castle staff. If Fluttershy knew how many foals had been conceived in those gardens at night I highly doubt she’d want to go.

“Fluttersh-”

“And that’s just the flora! Don’t get me started on the Fauna!” Why do I even try? “Loons and toucans and terns oh my! There are hummingbirds that can actually hum and buzzards that really buzz! Blue jays, red jays, and green jays, and pink jays, and pink flamingos! And that’s just the start!”

I can see where she’s going with this, sort of. Fluttershy is a veterinarian by trade and her house is the biggest (well, only) animal shelter in all of Ponyville. Animals are her passion, and getting a chance to meet and observe species that weren’t found anywhere near her home would be very enticing.

“Fluttershy, I hate to break this to you but-”

“Wait just a minute!” Am I ever going to get to finish a single. Bucking. Sentence?

“Rainbow Dash.” I scowled accusingly as she dropped down from the building where she had been perching. “Were you following me?” Hey, look, I actually got a complete sentence in!

“No, I mean yes, I mean maybe. Ugh, look, it doesn’t matter! I couldn’t risk a goody four shoes like you giving the tickets away to just anypony!”

“Excuse me?!” Well, there’s complete sentence number two, I’m on a roll!...now if only I wasn’t seeing red. The ticket isn’t hers in the first place, and I am not a goody four shoes.

“Wait just anuther minute!” Came Applejack’s voice from behind me. There are days I wish I stayed in the library, this is shaping up to be one of them.

“Applejack, please tell me you haven’t been following me too.” I asked despairingly. “I’d like to think that some of my friends aren’t that creepy.”

“No, Ah was following Rainbow! To make sure she wouldn’t try any funny business!”

“In this case that’s the same thing!” I pointed out.

“And she’s still tryin’ to take mah ticket!” She continued as if I hadn’t said anything.

“Your ticket?!” Rainbow asked angrily. The whole group was coming together now, and before long they were all in a five way fight. This is one of the reasons I hate the Gala, more ponies are injured over the attendance list each year than are injured in chariot accidents or. The argument escalated rapidly and after a few moments I stopped listening, it was impossible to follow all the accusations and counter-shouts anyway.

Spike gave me a concerned look as he ambled over, having retrieved the tickets from the Lapine thief and hopped on my back, recognizing it as the only safe place for him as long as he held the tickets.

“Dusk, they’re really arguing…” He said, pointing out the obvious.

“Yes, I’m aware.” I ground out, rubbing between my eyes with a hoof. I’m getting a hunger headache of massive proportions, and the noise isn’t helping.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’d tell you, but I’m so hungry my higher cognitive functions have been disabled to save energy.” I grumbled, my head was seriously starting to pound now, throbbing in time with my heartbeat, which was (along with my blood pressure) rising at an exponential rate as the argument continued.

“Shouldn’t we stop them?”

“Spike, once a fight like that has gained that much momentum, there’s nothing in Equestria that can stop it. Not even

Celestia. All we can do is wait it out and hope for the best…which won’t happen of course, but you can dream.”

Then the noise suddenly stopped. The abrupt change got my attention and I looked back at the group of mares and I saw that they were all staring at me with equal measures of expectation and indignation. Here’s a quick exercise for you: go get your favorite dictionary and look up ‘no-win situation’. I guarantee you there’s a picture of the six of us right next to it.

“Well?” Rarity demanded officiously.

“Well what?” I replied dully, already knowing the answer but wanting to delay a little longer in the futile hopes of getting lucky and conceiving a plan that would solve all this and let everypony be friends again. Needless to say, it didn’t work.

“Who are you gonna give the tickets to?” Rainbow Dash yelled, like it was the most obvious thing in the world; which, to be fair, it was.

“I haven’t decided.” I replied, and was nearly blown off my hooves by the indignant shouting. Once it died down some I finished. “Look, I just got these damn tickets this morning. I’m so hungry I’m literally starting to shake. I can’t think properly. I’m going to go get lunch, wait until my blood sugar isn’t in negative numbers, think about it long and hard, and then I will tell you. Not. A moment. Sooner.” I turned to go to Horte’s, pausing after half a step. “And don’t follow me, your chances of getting the ticket and how much you pester me while I eat are inversely proportional.”

I could practically hear the crickets chirping.

“If you bug him he won’t give you the ticket.” Spike translated.

“Thank you Spike.” I said, walking off for real this time, ignoring the angry muttering behind me.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

“Man Spike, I’d think Celestia set this up, but she wants me to keep my friends…” I grumbled as I waited for service (normally very speedy at Horte’s, but of course, today it had to be swamped).

“They all have their reasons to go the Gala.” Spike agreed, looking at the menu. At least the table (made to resemble a purple mushroom) was sparkling clean and the cushions were comfortable…ish.

“Reasons?” I snorted. “Delusions more like. Applejack wants to sell apples, Rainbow Dash wants to show off, Pinkie wants to party, Rarity wants to find true love, and Fluttershy wants to cavort with nature.”

“What’s wrong with all that?” Spike asked. I gave him a flat look.

“You have been to Canterlot right? You know, capital city of Equestria, home of Celetia, Luna, my brother…and completely infested with the lowest form of parasitic scum on the planet…” I trailed off.

“Well, yeah, the ponies there can get…haughty, but they could still have fun.” He said, scratching the back of his head awkwardly.

“Spike, those…I’m reluctant to call politicians ponies because I’m hesitant to insult the whole of my own species, are the most dangerous predators on the planet. The others don’t have any experience with the kind of manipulation that goes on there, and since they’re all Bearers they might as well have a huge target painted on their flanks. They’ll be eaten alive.”

“Oh come on, they’re savvier than that.” Spike said dubiously.

“No Spike, to be completely frank, they’re not. I grew up in Canterlot, read the files Celestia keeps on all of the major players in Canterlot, got my own blackmail on a few and I’m not savvy enough to keep myself safe. That’s why I don’t want to go…well, that and I think that every attendee bar Celestia and maybe the Wonderbolts should be strung up by their own intestines and left for the crows to pick at.”

Horte arrived just in time to keep Spike from replying, but late enough not to hear my violent statement. Bless him.

“What will you have sir?” He asked, notepad at the ready.

“Daffodil and daisy sandwich and two servings of hay fries please, extra crispy.” I replied. I personally like my hay fries with less crunch, but Spike is probably just as hungry as I am, and he’s going to be eating the bulk of the order anyway.

“Anything to drink with that?”

“Water is fine thank you.”

“It will be right out.” He trotted away swiftly. I quickly resumed venting. Thank Celestia Spike is so patient with me.

“I can’t give my ticket to one of them, my name is indelibly marked on one, and I’m not about to waste energy trying to undo something Celestia magicked into place; besides, whoever does go is probably going to require watching over to make sure they don’t do something that they regret for the rest of their lives. Which will be hard enough given that I’m probably going to be tethered to Celestia’s side like a pessimistic purple fashion accessory since I’m her student and she has to ‘keep up appearances’ or something like that; Ugh, there’s no way this won’t end in tears. Mark my words Spike, tears.”

“Well, you could write Celestia about it. It’s not like there’s an expiration date on the tickets and they’ll go bad if you wait a while.” He pointed out.

“She’s dead set on me going, and now that the secret’s out I’m going to catch hay If I don’t give the ticket to somepony, and soon.” I countered.

“Have you thought about trying to explain it to them?”

“If I get them all together they’ll just start to fight again, if I do it individually they’ll accuse the others of getting to me beforehoof or just not believe me at all. They’re too emotional to think anything through right now, and I’m afraid if this goes on much longer somepony is going to say something that goes too far and there’ll be a real fight, one that breaks up the friendship for good.” Despite how I’d felt even just a few months ago I’ve found that I like having ponies I can talk to and enjoy being around, and the thought of losing them over something like the Grand Galloping Gala makes me sick. Just then Horte came by with my order and my eyes nearly filled with tears of joy. “Thank you Horte. Maybe I’ll be able to think straight after I’ve eaten.”

“Mmph, doubt it.” Spike said, his mouth full of hay fries.

“Oh really, how do you figure that?” I asked, inspecting the sandwich to make sure there wasn’t anything on there that would make me sick.

“It’s just that kind of day.” He said, displaying wisdom beyond his years.

“Heh. Yeah, it is isn’t it?…Why is everypony running?” All the ponies that had been eating on the patio of Horte’s were now making for the building at full gallop.

“Sir, are you going to eat your sandwich in the rain?” Horte himself asked from the door.

“What rain?” I asked stupidly, immediately kicking myself for asking that, especially since the moment I said it a downpour soaked everything…that wasn’t in a five foot radius of me. I buried my face in my hooves as a few data points connected into a line of logic in my hunger-enfeebled mind.

One: I hadn’t checked the weather forecast today. Two: Rainbow Dash is Ponyville’s weather officer. Three: She’s currently motivated to suck up to me.

“Hi there Dusk my pal!” Rainbow’s voice drifted down from the low-hanging ceiling of clouds. I looked up and saw her wearing her biggest and least convincing innocent smile. “I saw that you hadn’t noticed the weather and just thought you’d rather be dry!”

“Bribery will get you nowhere.” I replied flatly. “I’m not going to give you the tickets because you did something like this Rainbow, now close up the rain cloud.”

“But-”

“I don’t accept bribes. Period. Close the clouds.”

“Ugh, fine.” She said, frustrated, and mended the rain cloud above me.

I realized how stupid I had been just a second too late. My sandwich, my mane, and my coat were instantly soaked. I growled fiercely, Spike just giggled to himself. Oh well, at least some of the dirt from my run ins with Rainbow and Pinkie is getting washed off.

“Dusk Shine!” Came Rarity’s voice from behind me. She was sporting a fancy umbrella, which was almost non-gaudy enough for me to consider actually using…almost. “It’s raining!”

“No, really? I never would have guessed. Your powers of observation boggle the mind Rarity.” I ground out as politely as I possibly could…which was not very.

“Come with me before you catch a cold!”

“You don’t catch colds from actually being cold, you catch them because you come into contact with a pony carrying the rhinovirus, the common misconception about weather affecting cases of the common cold stems from-urk!” She grabbed me and started dragging me off to the Carousel Boutique despite my (admittedly feeble) protests. Spike was, as in all things related to Rarity, completely useless.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Once I was ensconced in the back room of the boutique I shook myself as energetically as I could manage, and managed to get myself from dripping wet to merely damp; soaking some fancy looking busts and ostentatious wallpaper in the process. Rarity didn’t look too happy about it, but she hid it quickly.

“Sorry about the water.” I said, wanting to see what she would do next and simultaneously planning my escape route. The main problem was that I’d have to get past her in order to get out since we were in a room with only one door.

“Oh, that’s no problem. We are the best of friends are we not?” She asked, her tone sickly sweet. “And you know what best friends do, correct?”

“Um…what?” I asked reluctantly, I don’t like that tone…

“Makeover!” She sing-songed, her horn lighting up with magic.

“Not a bloody ch-ack!” I should have shut her down the instant her horn lit up, but I didn’t and I paid the price. A movable privacy barrier quickly transposed itself between me and spike and within three seconds Rarity had affixed an outfit to me against my will. Her telekinesis is surprisingly strong for somepony who isn’t combat trained. Unfortunately, the scarlet and gold frock coat she had dressed me in looked like something out of a history book, only not as appealing.

“Nice outfit Dusk!” Spike chortled, tears welling up in his eyes. “Planning on going to the opera? You may not be able to hear it over your jacket.”

“Oh don’t worry Spike, I have one for you too!” In a flash the barrier moved and Spike squawked indignantly as he was promptly dressed in a blue suit not dissimilar to my own…except he got a poofy blonde wig and a hat.

“What were you saying? I couldn’t quite hear you over how loud my jacket is.” I said, smirking at him and keeping rarity in sight at all times. If I could get her to move about a meter and a half to her left I’d be completely in the clear.

“You cut quite the dashing figure do you not? I even have a matching ensemble, for myself!” She announced, pulling a sheet off a mannequin with a similarly outdated dress that (I have to admit) was quite fetching.

However, I stand by what I told Rainbow. So, while Rarity was going on about what a pair we would make at the Gala, I telekinetically removed the abomination that I’d been forced into, and I helped Spike as well. He would have had trouble undoing the tiny buttons with his claws.

“Rarity, I’ll tell you what I told Rainbow Dash: I don’t accept bribes. The suit is nice, but I’m not going to give you the ticket because of it.” Okay, so I lied a bit. I learned a long time ago that (as much as everypony says it) nopony really wants to be told the truth. When you go around telling the truth ponies get all mad because you ‘said something mean’ and ‘hurt their feelings’ and they start harping on you to ‘learn to be nice’ it’s a nightmare.

I was folding the shirts now: align the buttons, left sleeve back, right sleeve back, fold in half, make final adjustments to make sure all the edges were ruler straight, and done. I did it in that order for a reason. I, like every other right thinking pony that owns a suit, folds the left sleeve under the right sleeve. Rarity, on the other hoof, folds the right sleeve under the left on. So why fold it ‘wrong’? Well, Rarity can be just as neurotic as I am about minutiae, and her compulsion to re-fold the clothes would buy a few seconds for Spike and me, or at least I hope so...

“Why, whatever gave you the idea that-”

“Rarity. I grew up surrounded by aristocrats and politicians, I know a bribe when I see it.” I said, starting to lose what little patience I had. “I haven’t decided who I’m giving the ticket to yet. When I decide, I will let you all know, but not before then.” Spike hopped up on my back and I walked out, Rarity trailing behind me. Thankfully the weather had cleared up and all I had to worry about was a badly placed puddle or two instead of a downpour.

“Dusk Shine, wait!”

“No Rarity. I already told you.” I said, not looking back.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

I was fuming as a stumped back towards the library, intent on ingesting half the pantry. One of my favorite things about Ponyville is the fact that the inhabitants of the town aren’t actively vying for status every waking hour. In Canterlot everypony whose anypony is constantly trying to one-up one another, be it through money, status, material possessions, relationships, blackmail, the list goes on.

Around Ponyville you can walk out in town and you don’t get the immediate impression that everypony is alternately examining you like they’re going to try and stab you in the back at the first opportunity or use you to do the same to somepony else. It was a major culture shock for me, if a pleasant one.

Now, with my friends at each other’s throats over tickets to the Gala it’s just like being back there again. I could hear my teeth grinding as I went, parting the sparse crowd on the streets of Ponyville like a boat cutting through water. It’s a body language thing, if you see somepony that looks like they’re about to buck you in the face as soon as look at you, moving a step or so away is an instinctive reaction, and one I was very grateful for here.

“I really think you should write to Celestia about this.” Spike said from his perch on my back. He sounded worried, probably by the hungry look in Rarity’s eyes when we had left.

“I probably will, just as soon as I eat lunch.”

“Did somepony say ‘lunch’?” I stopped in my tracks when I heard the cliché, debating whether I wanted to acknowledge Applejack or not. If I’m completely honest with myself, I think she has the best reason out of all of them, but I’m sure as hay not going to tell her that. Reluctantly I turned around and my eyes unintentionally widened at the sight before me.

Food. Glorious, glorious food! She had a cart full of it, and my stomach instantly sent a message to my brain stating in no uncertain terms that it would start digesting grey matter if I didn’t take her offer of sustenance.

“Howdy there Dusk Shine, Ah remember ya said you were hungry, so Ah-”

“Got a whole bunch of assorted apple pastries that, indubitably, are the namesakes of your various aunts, uncles and cousins, and brought them here in order to get me to give you the ticket.” I finished for her. To her credit, her strained smile quickly broke and she looked away.

“I won’t accept any food Applejack,” My stomach attempted to ascend esophagus and envelop my brain, but I stopped it through force of will. “Now, like I told everypony else. I will tell you who I’m giving the ticket to when I’ve decided, and I won’t be rushed.”

“But Ah could-”

“No means no Applejack.” I said firmly, and then I turned away so fast I nearly dislodged Spike.

The short walk to the nearby library was interminable. I could feel Applejack’s eyes on me the whole way and I dreaded the possibility of her working up the gumption to try her sales pitch again. Just a hundred feet and I was home free. Ninety feet…eighty feet…sixty feet…thirty feet…dodge a small foal with a ball…ten feet…five feet…yes!

______________________________________________________________________________________________

I opened the door and started walking through the main area of the library itself, the public part of the building. I was pretty proud of it actually, after the previous librarian (a venerable old mare who had run the place for over sixty years and done as fine a job as the caretaker of the great library in Canterlot, something which made her positively glow when I told her) retired, I had gone through and changed things around a bit.

The changes I made were…well, they were streamlining. The former librarian, as I mentioned, did a spectacular job of it, her records were neatly organized, her master list was up to date and showed regular revisions, and the adult section was neatly cordoned off so adventurous foals couldn’t get their hooves on things their young minds weren’t yet ready for.

When I came in I changed the orientation of the shelves and I organized the shelves, by subject, in alphabetical order. The great library in Canterlot is arranged by the dewey decipony system, which is great…once you learn to use it, and honestly, unless you’re a dedicated student or scholar alphabetization is much easier to understand and use. It also makes my job easier, hence the switch.

I had also made a few aesthetic changes as well, the first had been to get rid of the tacky motivational posters that had lined the walls and replacing them with reproductions of famous paintings. The next change was the music that was piped in over the speakers, and yes, I was just as surprised as you to find that the library had a speaker system. Turns out that the town council had some extra funds and when they decided to repair and refit the library they’d decided to throw in some speakers. It doesn’t make any sense to me (or anypony else), but I decided to roll with it.

When I found the controls for the speakers I had changed the radio station they were on immediately. It had been tuned to a pop rock channel. It played nothing but colt bands and other commercialized drivel that is to real music what powdered grape flavored drink mix is to a fifty year old Los Andalusian pinot noir. I refuse to allow that tripe anywhere near me if I can help it, the radio was set to a classical music station now. I had debated tuning it to blues or jazz, but decided that classical was the safer bet.

I trudged through the public part of the building, noting sullenly that there was nopony here (a depressingly common occurrence if my predecessor is to be believed) and made for the living quarters at the back of the place.

Back by the public bathrooms (gross) and the public drinking fountain (also gross), was a door that led to my own, private, quarters. They were nothing extravagant: I have a kitchenette, a private bathroom, a bedroom and a tiny living room; that’s it. I don’t mind though, I like it actually. It feels snug, and I really don’t need any more than I already have so I can hardly complain. Besides, all of the walls are made of bookshelves, what more could you ask for? All I can think about right now, anyway, is food. There’s a large bowl of hay hot dish in my refrigerator that’s calling my…Why do I hear singing?

“Oh no…” I groaned as I mounted the stairs.

“Is that…Fluttershy’s voice?” Spike asked, understandably flabbergasted.

I opened the door to my quarters with great trepidation and was faced with a scene out of a foal’s movie. Animals were cleaning my apartment. Animals. Were cleaning. My apartment. There’s only one pony that could be responsible for this…

“Fluttershy.” I intoned, too hungry to summon much energy, so my voice came out very flat and rather hopeless sounding. “I think I know the answer to this, but why are you in my apartment?”

She paused in her cleaning (and her singing, she has a very nice voice, though I’m pretty sure she isn’t formally trained) to give me a much more convincing innocent smile than the others had, after pretending to notice me suddenly.

“Oh, Dusk, I hope you don’t mind. We’re just doing some spring cleaning for you.” I looked at her flatly.

“It’s summer.” I pointed out, gazing at her levelly.

“Oh, well, better late than never right?” She replied, sticking to her story. “It was Angel’s idea.”

She indicated a rabbit that I recognized as the ticket thief from earlier. I felt Spike shift uncomfortably on my back and clench the tickets closer to his chest, good boy.

“Angel’s idea.” I replied, just as flat as before. The rodent in question was wearing a chef’s hat and was currently tossing a salad that was attempting to occupy the whole of my attention.

“Angel’s idea.” She repeated as her rabbit winked at me.

“You’re not just doing this for the ticket are you?” I asked.

“Oh, no. I’m doing this because you’re my very best friend. Isn’t that right Angel?” Came her self-assured, and completely false response. The rabbit gave her an impressive glare when she looked at him for support. Then, seeing that, she turned to me and replied (completely without shame) “Oh, yes. We are just doing this for the ticket.” Then her rabbit hopped over to me and held the salad bowl right under my nose. My stomach roared its demand to eat, but I ignored it.

“Ugh, no no no!” I said, careful not to let myself yell. No matter how mad I get I make sure I never really yell at Fluttershy, she has enough issues without adding my temper to the mix. Sometimes I’m tempted though. “I’m not accepting any favors for the ticket. Fluttershy, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Thankfully Fluttershy didn’t raise a fuss, she’s hardly the type after all, but the crestfallen look she got was just as effective. Ugh, she’s almost as good at guilt trips as Celstia. It didn’t have much effect on me at the moment, seeing as I was both ravenously hungry and monumentally frustrated, but under other circumstances I would have felt awful.

I escorted Fluttershy and her animal companions downstairs, leaving Spike in my room with instructions to scorch anypony who tried to get the tickets from him. Fluttershy had the grace to look sheepish as she walked down the stairs, and she made sure there were no animal messes on the freshly cleaned carpet in the public area, for which I was immensely thankful, as I would have had to clean them up since the janitor the city pays only shows up every other day.

I got the door ahead of her telekinetically and followed her out. When she was finally out of the place I sat down by the door with a loud sigh, lifting a hoof up and seeing it tremble slightly, I really need to get something in my stomach.

“Finally, I can e-”

“Surprise!” I was hit in the face by colorful streamers and party horns sounded close enough and loud enough to cause my already-formidable headache to nearly blow my brain out my ears. Of course, I hadn’t run the full gauntlet yet. How could I forget about Pinkie Pie?

I felt myself being grabbed and pulled outside suddenly, and before I knew what was happening I was being tossed in the air repeatedly while Pinkie sang something about me. I would have listened, but the fact that I was wildly spinning through the air made me nearly vomit. The only thing that stopped me was, well, there was nothing in my stomach to expel.

“Pinkie!” I shouted, and was blithely ignored as she continued hopping and singing. “Pinkie!” I vaguely heard Pinkie mention the ticket in her song. “Pinkie!”

The last one got results, if not desirable ones. The singing and the tossing stopped, but instead of catching me and lowering me to the ground safely I was allowed to drop and I soon experienced what pony pilots call an uncontrolled collision with a planet. I landed on my back and got the wind knocked out of me. Ow. My vision was soon filled with pink pony and large blue eyes, framed by colorful sparkles caused by my head hitting a hard patch of dirt and my visual cortex rattled uncomfortably against the interior of my skull. I repeat: ow.

“Yes, Dusk?” Pinkie asked, fluttering her eyelashes at me ingratiatingly.

“You know, the others at least made attempts to be subtle about the ticket. Laughably bad ones I’ll admit, but at least they tried.” I said reproachfully. It flew over Pinkie’s head of course.

“What ticket?” Asked one of the partygoers. Apparently Pinkie hadn’t told them why exactly she was throwing this little bash.

“Oh, you didn’t know? Dusk has an extra ticket to the Grand Galloping Gala!”

Celestia.

Dammit.

Pinkie.

There was a collective gasp from the crowd, and then the noise erupted.

“The Grand Galloping Gala!” This isn’t going to end well…

“Do you need any help with your gardening?”

“I have a cartful of extra carrots!”

“I’ll paint your tree!”

Oh this is bad, this is very very bad. This is rapidly devolving from a group to a mob. Mobs do not think, they react, and they can become violent at the drop of a hat. Mob mentality is extremely dangerous, especially if you’re the one the mob is fixated on. I looked around for a way out, but I was blocked on all sides by eager faces. Right, time for a plan.

‘Go inside? They’ll break down the doors. Run? They’ll follow, spreading the news as they go. Reduce them all to subatomic particles…’ I paused and weighed the potential satisfaction against that disappointed look Celestia gives me when I use combat magic forbidden by international treaties in public places. The satisfaction nearly won out, but I decided not to at the last second. ‘Okay, so…get the hay out of dodge and then warp back to the library.’

I charged my body with mana, reinforcing my muscles, giving them the strength that my day without nourishment had robbed them of, formed a weak telekinetic barrier in front of me in order to make sure I’d be able to get through the crowd, put my head down, and charged.

As eager as the crowd was, they weren’t prepared for that, and I actually bought a few seconds while they regrouped in shock. They chased me soon after though, and the game was afoot.

Then I led them through a grand, if short, chase sequence. Anypony can run from a crowd, running from a crowd that’s in better physical shape than you is difficult, but doable if you’re smart. Ditching a crowd that’s in better condition, not having hunger pains, and is bordering on fanaticism, now that takes skill.

Rule number one: always remember that they outnumber you. Rule number two: remember that that’s not always a bad thing. Rule number three: keeping rules one and two in mind, use the terrain to your advantage.

First chance I got I put on a burst of (admittedly rather subpar) speed and pulled a hard left to get into the cartway/loading docks area of a small shop, slid behind a dumpster, and charged my teleportation spell. It only took a second, which meant I barely escaped without the telltale flash of the spell giving me away, but I made a clean getaway.

Mission: Accomplished.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

When I rematerialized in the library I was woozy, running the physical enhancements on an empty stomach and teleporting isn’t exactly the best idea. Normally the physical improvements work by enhancing the body’s natural processes at the cost of burning extra fuel, but when you’re running on empty like I am you have to burn mana for energy, and the interference that the extra mana flooding through your body causes during the teleport (always a bit disorienting) is nasty.

Dizzy or not, I made sure to lock the doors behind me, closing the windows and shutting off the lights as well. Then I wearily trudged upstairs, thinking of nothing besides food and curling up in bed with a good-

No.

Oh no.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

I could hear arguing. Coming from my apartment. My weariness burned away as my patience was reduced to its last tiny thread. I stalked upstairs, growing angrier as I listened to the loud voices coming from behind my door. They had come into my home, without permission. That’s the last straw. Dusk Shine has had all he can stand, and he can’t stands no more.

I opened the door to find Spike huddling miserably in a corner as four ponies argued loudly. Fluttershy was doing her best, but couldn’t match the others for volume. The instant I walked through the door they turned to me and started clamoring at me. I couldn’t hear any of them over the blood pounding through my ears. My teeth ground together so hard I may have chipped one.

Spike noticed how angry I was, and tried to say something, but he was drowned out by the others. This is it. They have crossed a line. You don’t enter somepony’s house without permission. I. Have. had it.

I took a deep breath, charged a voice amplification spell, and shouted.

“ENOUGH!” The sheer power of my highly amplified, bass boosted voice actually broke one of my windows, glass shattering and falling backwards as my voice, backed by a spell normally used by heralds to give royal proclamations to a town square, nearly blew the other ponies off their hooves. My horn and eyes were glowing as my magical aura responded to my anger and flared wildly. The amplification spell died down somewhat as I stopped actively feeding magic to it, but my voice still carried a distinct rumbling echo that old manuscripts always describe Celestia and Luna’s voices as having. “You all have done nothing but bicker and whine like foals all day and I’m sick of it! Act your bucking age before I throw you out of here by force!”

They all cringed back, and Pinkie actually fell over backward as I ripped into them. Spike tried to stop me, but I’m so far beyond caring I ignored him.

“You’ve all been acting like foals on a playground arguing over somepony else’s fancy new toy! It is immature, aggravating, and I can’t take anymore, do you understand me?”

When none of them said anything I finally noticed how they were looking at me…they were afraid. Genuinely afraid. My aura died down. I was panting. The blood in my ears wasn’t pounding quite so hard anymore, I could think straight. Guilt started to creep in, but I wasn’t done. I’m not tolerating any of the fighting anymore.

“Dusk…” Spike murmured nervously, he’s the only one whose ever seen me in a real towering rage, so he knows how bad this could get, but I’m not stopping until I get my point across.

“All day, all bucking day all I’ve heard from you all is begging, whining, and pleading. I’m done. If you are willing to listen to me and talk like mature ponies I’m willing to explain my reasoning. If you can’t listen without fighting again, leave until such time as you can, then we’ll talk later. Can you do that?” I said, my voice finally back to normal volume. The others nodded, still stunned. I sighed and covered my face with a hoof, dammit, I shouldn’t have snapped like that. Thankfully I don’t have the energy to really get going, when I do get into a state things tend to spontaneously combust, whether I want them to or not.

“Dusk.” Spike said again, more insistent this time.

“Mmph. I know Spike, I know. Don’t jump down my throat, I’ve been simmering all day.” I rubbed my forehead near the base of my horn gingerly, attempting pointlessly to alleviate the excruciating headache that was currently making me wish for a hammer and chisel to take the afflicted part of my skull off.

Another glance at the others was sufficient to douse the last flames of anger, especially Fluttershy. Sad Fluttershy should be canned and weaponized by the military, we’d never lose another soldier.

“I’m sorry.” I said, genuinely. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Well…we weren’t really actin’ right and proper ourselves.” Applejack admitted, to the murmured agreement of the others, even Rainbow Dash.

“Regardless, I shouldn’t have yelled, especially not with a magical enhancement.” Celestia had pounded the fact that magic was not a tool for winning arguments into my skull from the very beginning. It didn’t completely take though, something which I’m not exactly proud of. “Look, I’m literally about to pass out if I don’t eat something. I’m gonna grab some food and then I’ll tell you why I’m so reluctant about the tickets, okay?”

“Go ahead and eat dear, we will wait.” Rarity said. They weren’t all eyeing me like a rabid manticore, so at least there’s that. They were still a bit wary, but not quite as bad as before.

“Get comfortable…well, as comfortable as you can anyway.” I said before turning to the kitchenette, my pad is decidedly ‘bachelor’ in its furnishings; fine for one pony plus Spike, but I don’t have much in the way of seating arrangements. They settled on the few cushions I have and when those were full Rainbow and Fluttershy had to settle for the tops of some bookcases, but since that appealed to their avian perching instincts they seemed to be fine with it.

Meanwhile I pulled out the hay hotdish left over from last night and divided the two pounds of food in half. One half went in the stove to heat up, the other half I would eat while I waited. Spike walked in beside me and I telekinetically opened the cupboard, pulling down the box of gems I keep on hoof for him.

“Thanks.” He said, I grunted in reply. The more I thought about what I just did, the worse I felt. I’ve tried really hard to keep my (considerable) temper in check since I came to Ponyville, and I just royally messed up. Spike noticed the glances I was giving my patiently waiting friends as I put the empty baking dish in the sink and filled it with hot water. He didn’t say anything about it, but he did give me a hug. I smiled wearily down at him and wrapped a foreleg around him in response.

“Thanks Spike.” I murmured, leaning down to nuzzle him. “I needed that.”

“No problem.” He murmured back.

I gathered up my plate of food (and lifted Spike’s box o’ rocks) and brought it into the living room with me, taking as many opportunities to fill my face as possible. By the time I settled into my own cushion in front of the waiting ponies half the plate was gone and I was starting to feel better. Spike sat beside me, happily crunching on some amethysts (he says they taste like cranberries, but I’m not buying it).

“Alright.” I began, having gathered my thoughts on the way over. “The first thing you have to understand is that the Grand Galloping Gala isn’t what you think it is.”

“It’s not a huge party?” Asked Rainbow, genuinely confused.

“It is the social event of the year.” Rarity stated authoritatively “All the important ponies go there: the Wonderbolts, Fancy Pants, all of the aristocracy, the list goes on.”

“Not quite.” I said, jumping in before she could get going. “Most of the aristocracy doesn’t attend because, well, to be frank, there just aren’t that many of them left. When Equestria was first founded there were three royal houses, the heads of which were the Pegasus General, the Unicorn High Wizard, and the Earth Pony King. Each royal family had a huge number of subordinate families attached to them, chosen when the leaders of each race of pony were chosen to take their respective positions. Over time though, the increasing influence of parliament relegated the aristocracy to an increasingly symbolic role and the houses started to die off one by one as they became less and less necessary. The inbreeding didn’t help either. Nowadays all that’s left is the Pegasus General, age one hundred and fifty three, who barely leaves Cloudsdale, the two hundred year old Earth Pony Queen who stays in Celestia’s castle and hasn’t had the energy to attend the gala in decades, and then there’s Prince Blueblood.” I finished contemptuously. I hate that bastard.

“That’s it?” Rainbow asked. “The pictures of the Gala always have, like, hundreds of ponies in them.”

“Well, there are some minor families still in existence, and a few scions of illicit relationships of course, but they’re so far removed from any kind of real authority that it doesn’t matter. The ponies you see in the pictures are mainly support staff. Caterers and the like.” I explained, taking another bite of hot dish and swallowing audibly before continuing. “The vast majority of the attendees are politicians, bankers, and rich businessponies who see attendance to the gala as a status symbol, and that’s the important thing.”

“What do you mean?” Fluttershy asked from her place in the back, her head cocked slightly to the side so she could actually see through her bangs.

“The fact of the matter is: the Grand Galloping Gala isn’t a dance. It’s an excuse for all the rich ponies in Equestria to get together in one place, drink high end booze, tell each other how important they are, and conduct all sorts of backroom deals and illegal business under the veneer of high society.” I said, looking them each in the eye. “The ponies there only care about wealth and power, nothing else. If the population as a whole knew the kind of cheating and illegal business that goes on in the private rooms at the Gala there would be riots.”

“It can’t be that bad.” Rarity said, disbelieving. Applejack wasn’t so sure though.

“Ah’m not so sure Rare.” She drawled. “Ah’ve got some…family friends, that go to the Gala ev’ry now and again. And now that Ah think about it, Ah’ve heard some mighty fishy stories when they came back.”

“She’s right Rarity.” I said plainly. “Bribes, blackmail, illegal mergers, you name it I can guarantee you it happens.”

“But Celestia is there, and so is the Royal Guard.” Rainbow said. “How could they get away with any of that?”

“Heh, you place a lot of faith in the guard and underestimate the power of some well-placed bribes.” I chuckled. “Canterlot’s squeaky clean reputation is the biggest joke in Equestria. Everypony likes to look at the Diamond Dogs and sniff because ‘we’re so superior to them’.” I snorted derisively “Our parliament is just as corrupt as their packs are, the only differences are that our politicians are a bit more subtle and Celestia can play the political game better than any other being on the planet.”

“And that’s why you don’t want us to go?” Fluttershy ventured.

“Yes. As Bearers of the Elements of Harmony we’re quite…ah, well, not really ‘famous’ per se, Celestia’s seen to that, but we’re a known factor, that’s as good a way to put it as any. The politicians and businessponies will recognize us on sight, and if you went you’d be singled out in a heartbeat. Everypony would want to either get you on their side or get some kind of advantage over you, likely both. Having one of us speak on their behalf would be a political coup, and if more than one of us went I can guarantee you there would be somepony who would try to pit us against each other.”

“Why?” Pinkie blurted, confused.

“Because we are, for all intents and purposes, a magical superweapon.” I replied. “Think about it, you all felt Nightmare Moon’s aura. You know how powerful she was. We destroyed an eldritch parasite powerful enough to subvert the will of a being on par with Celestia. We destroyed it and left its host intact. Add to that the fact that Celestia was very openly friendly with us and half the population of Canterlot now thinks that we’re Celestia’s hit squad.”

“That’s stupid!” Rainbow almost shouted, and they all looked similarly taken aback. “We’re not a…they can’t…that’s stupid!”

“Eloquent as ever Rainbow.” I said, grinning. “Yes, it is moronic to a truly staggering degree, but keep in mind that most ponies don’t know much about the Elements, if they did, they’d know that the Elements only work against a very specific set of creatures and energies…also, your average politician just isn’t very smart. Some of them are, and they’re the dangerous ones, but by and large they’re either charismatic idiots or rich idiots who bought their way into power in order to stuff their bank accounts with taxpayer bits and reap all the immoral benefits of being a lawmaker. In their minds, we really are a legitimate threat, so they’d try to do anything they could to undermine us.”

“That’s horrible!” Rarity exclaimed.

“That’s politics.” I countered.

“How do ‘ya know all this?” Asked Applejack.

“I grew up in Canterlot. Celestia started teaching me when I was six. I didn’t so much learn politics as absorb it through my pores.”

“Is that why you got the ticket? Because you’re Celestia’s student?” Rarity, for all her melodrama, can be pretty shrewd when she wants to be.

“Yes, I’ve managed to avoid going for the past four years, but my relationship with Celestia is…infamous.” I said, trying to find the right word for it and failing.

“What do you mean infamous?” Rainbow asked. “You two are close yeah, but how is that weird?”

“I’m the first pony Celestia has directly taught in over a century.” I said, unable to keep the pride out of my voice. The smile that had started to creep onto my face dissipated quickly as the train of thought progressed though. “But more importantly, I’m also close to her personally, very much so. You wouldn’t believe the rumors that fly around. Everything from me being her lovechild to me being her lover.” I said, cringing.

“You? Her lover?” Rainbow burst into laughter at the thought, the others looked uncomfortable at the thought (poor Fluttershy looked like she was about to faint). I glared at her.

“It’s not funny Rainbow, she raised me for pity’s sake.” This only made her laugh harder. I rolled my eyes and sighed in exasperation. “Anyway, ignoring her. I got the ticket because ponies start to talk when the Princess’ only student is conspicuously absent from a major political event like the Gala. Oh yeah, there’s also one last reason why you wouldn’t want to go with me.” I said, remembering a specific detail from Celestia’s letter and figuring that it would be better to cover all my bases.

“What’s that?” Pinkie asked.

“Because you would be going as my date.” I said flatly, Rainbow’s laughter came to an abrupt halt.

The looks on their faces said it all.

“Yeah. Thought so.” I deadpanned. “So there you go, that’s why I haven’t decided who I’m going to give the ticket to.”

“You could give it to Spike.” Rarity suggested.

“I can’t go.” Spike replied, grabbing a sapphire out of the box and popping it in his mouth, sucking on it like a piece of candy.

“The other guests would be outraged that a ‘dangerous bloodthirsty dragon’ was in the same building as them.” I said, adding air quotes where appropriate and rolling my eyes. “Spike has legal protection, the only dragon to ever have protected status in fact, but it isn’t wise to push the boundaries. Most of Canterlot would rather forget about him.”

“Eh, who needs ‘em?” He said, hiding the hurt in his voice admirably. He’s taken his fair share of verbal abuse over the years. He used to have nightmares about the royal guard coming into his room at night and mounting his head on a wall.

“They’re all jerks.”

“Yeah, they are.” I said, reaching a foreleg over him and drawing him against me. “Stupid jerks, and never you forget it.” I gave him a brief squeeze and then let him go.

“So what will you do with the ticket?” Fluttershy asked.

“That’s a good question.” I sighed. “I still haven’t figured that out. Besides you guys I don’t know anypony here well enough to ask them, and if I give the ticket to one of you not only would the rest of you feel left out but it would be a political mess. If only two of the Bearers showed up it would be like Celestia was showing…favoritism…” I stalled as an idea popped into my head. The idea quickly grew into a plan, I grinned triumphantly. “Spike! I need you to take a letter to Celestia!”

Spike, who had just been popping another gemstone into his mouth when I shouted, nearly choked. I pounded him on the back until he coughed up an emerald and he glared at me before taking out a quill and parchment. My friends watched intently as I dictated.

“Dear Celestia, I have learned today that one of the best and most rewarding parts of friendship is sharing your blessings, but this can be tricky sometimes and you have to work hard to make sure none of your friends feel left out, and it’s never good to play favorites. My friends all want to attend the Gala, but since I have only one spare ticket that would leave four upset ponies, which is not fair. Besides, if only one or two of the Bearers were to make an appearance at the Gala it would look like you were showing favoritism. I cannot in good conscience let down four of my friends and make you look bad, therefore I am returning the tickets. Your most faithful student, Dusk Shine.” I rolled to a grandiose finish, proud of myself. Spike sealed the letter and torched it, sending it off to the Princess. Then he looked at me skeptically.

“Really Dusk? ‘I cannot in good conscience let down four of my friends and make you look bad’? That’s pretty obvious even for you.”

“What? It’s true…sort of.” I replied grinning. “If ponies think Celestia’s playing favorites with the Bearers it’ll reflect badly on her.”

“That’s stretching it a bit, don’t you think?”

“Not at all. Besides, it gets me out of going to the Gala.”

“Yeah, but-” His eyes bugged out and his cheeks bulged. I ducked out of the way as he belched a plume of green flame. Rarity, who was closest to us, yelped and had to duck out of the way as well, which made her accidentally crack heads with Applejack, whose hat fell off as she squawked in pain. Fluttershy squeaked in surprise and Rainbow’s head hit the ceiling audibly.

“There has got ‘ta be a better way of sendin’ mail.” Applejack grumbled, grabbing her hat. This was met by grumbled agreements.

“That was quick.” I said as Spike sheepishly grabbed the scroll and unrolled it after breaking the seal. “What’s it say?”

“To my dearest student Dusk Shine: I am glad you have learned such an important lesson in friendship, and you have made an excellent point. Were only one or two of the Bearers show up it would look odd. Fortunately there is a simple fix. Enclosed are six tickets, one for each of you.” He said, and six golden tickets fell out of the scroll with perfect timing. I could feel my eyes widen with horror. “P.S. Nice try, but you’re coming. Wear your suit and do something with your mane, and yes, that’s an order.”

“Dammit!” I shouted, burying my face in my hooves.

“I told you.” Spike said smugly. Then I felt a hoof on my shoulder. I looked up to see Applejack smiling at me.

“It cain’t be that bad Dusk. Ah mean, we’ll all be there together right? What could go wrong?” My eyes widened in horror. She just tempted fate not once but twice, in the same sentence. I groaned pessimistically.

“Yeah! I mean, if one of us gets in trouble the rest can come and help right?” Rainbow said, excitement back in her voice.

“It’s not that simple.” I grumbled. “These ponies are more subtle than that, odds are good you’ll be up to your eyes in trouble before you even know it.”

I’m speaking from personal experience. Painful personal experience.

“Well…” Fluttersy said. “Think of it this way: Celestia’s ordered us to go right? We don’t have a choice in the matter, so, um, we might as well enjoy it right?”

“Well said dear!” Rarity interjected. “All we can do is stick together and hope for the best! Ooh, I could make us all matching outfits!”

With that little statement, any well founded fears they might have had of the gala disappeared under the overwhelming weight of maretalk and they were soon happily discussing what they would wear and do when they got to the damnable thing. Fluttershy had a point though, as much as I didn’t want to admit it. Attendance was an order, one we had to obey. It’s time to stop thinking in terms of avoidance and start thinking about damage control.

They still don’t understand how bad this could turn out, I’ll have to warn them periodically between now and then. Hopefully repeated warnings and a few horror stories that the general public isn’t supposed to know will get them into the properly paranoid frame of mind, and if not I suppose I can always have a quiet word with Shining Armor and have him artfully rearrange a few security measures to keep us separated from the general crowd. The others might not like it much, but if it comes down to a choice between one of them getting blackmailed by a politician and them being safe, but miffed at me, I'll take the latter in a heartbeat.

“It’s going to be an unmitigated disaster, just you watch.” I said to Spike, watching my friends united in energetic banter. There are so many things that could go wrong, so many ways this could end badly. I just hope we’ll come out of it with our friendship intact.

Dammit, I bucking hate the Grand Galloping Gala.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

And that, my reading several, is the end of chapter two of Oh no, Not Another Dusk Shine Story!.

Not much action in this one, but there isn’t much action in the episode and I’m okay with that. I did insert a bit of drama here and there, and I tried to expand on the canon a bit by making Fluttershy a veterinarian, which will come into play later.

I’m also thinking about what I’m going to do with the episodes that Dusk wouldn’t make an appearance in. Part of me wants to just skip them, but that’s the lazy part of me, and it feels wrong to listen to that part. The other idea I had was to have shorter chapters called Dusk Shine Gaiden. They would be (as I mentioned) shorter than the full chapters, and would cover what Dusk Shine does when he isn’t gallivanting with the Mane Six. Overseeing the library, continuing his studies for Celestia, that sort of thing.

If I did that, they would come in two flavors: slice of life/comedy, i.e. the cutie mark crusaders spend an afternoon trying to get their hooves on a book that will tell them where foals come from and Dusk Shine stopping them; and plot expansion. Plot expansion chapters would revolve around Dusk Shine studying magic, and would serve the purpose of me being able to elaborate on the way magic works in more detail than is provided in the show. I would also probably throw a selection of Celestia and Dusk Shine’s correspondence, which would flesh out their relationship as well as provide a handy vehicle for discussing political events in Canterlot and the rest of the world.

Thanks for reading and please give me a comment down below.

Of Apples and Altruism (Episode four)

It was my mistake really, I should have known something bad was going to happen, the signs were there, writ plain for all to see. First, I had woken up with a crick in my neck so bad I actually saw stars when I stretched it out, then Spike’s box of gemstones had fallen apart when I went to get it for him and I had been deluged with rocks, and to cap it off I had actually fallen down the stairs to the library as a result of my morning haze.

Clearly, it was going to be another one of those days. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. So, what did I decide to do? Go grocery shopping. Could I have waited another day? Yes. Did I? No. I followed my schedule, and Tuesday has always been grocery day. I always have enough food on hoof to last for an extra week or two, just in case, but if I start eating that then I have to replace it on my next grocery trip or I’ll get all twitchy and nervous until I know that all of my food stores are in order. So a shopping I did go…Which is how I found myself, strapped to a pair of heavily-laden saddlebags, facing down a stampede.

The rumbling had been quiet at first, as you’d expect, and nopony paid it much attention, but it quickly grew louder and louder until it was unignorable. Then someone up above (Rainbow Dash I think) yelled the magic word and panic set in.

Brilliant, just bucking brilliant.

Ponyville square instantly descended into chaos as everypony tried to run in conflicting directions and got tangled up. I found myself at the foot of the bridge that the stampede would quickly be crossing over, assessing my options.

Running was out, the square was a mass of confused ponies and I’d get trampled if I tried to go that way, which was (of course) the only way out. I could attempt to use combat magic to turn the incoming cows into cow pulp, but anything I used that had the kind of widespread destructive power necessary to do that would probably cause a fire, a localized seismic event, or give off a disconcerting amount of radiation and/or eldritch energy, and I’m pretty sure Celestia wouldn’t want me to turn Ponyville into Everfree Forest lite.

Besides, I liked cows. They’ve always treated me better than most ponies do.

I could try whipping up a wall, though that would end up killing a lot of them too, the sheer numbers in the stampede contained combined with the lack of rational thought (and ability to brake) would guarantee a few of them couldn’t stop in time and, well...cow pulp.

I started charging my horn with an elastic barrier spell I learned from my brother, the least potentially lethal option I could think of, and was preparing to use it when suddenly, much to my shock, who should come running in to save the day but Applejack.

I heard her distinctive rebel yell and I saw her running alongside the rampaging heifers with a small dog in tow. I couldn’t see the details perfectly at the distance I was at but there was definitely a lariat involved.

Regardless of how she did it, she was successful. The cows were diverted from the town square, which avoided a potentially messy incident in more ways than one given that non-pony rights are a hot-button issue in Canterlot right now and half of Parliament were sweating in their fancy suits because they stood to lose a lot of money if the new equal rights bill gets passed into law. The other half, of course, stood to profit from it passing, so there was a deadlock.

I watched Applejack have a word with the lead cow distractedly, making a mental note to ask her what caused the stampede. If there was foul play involved Celestia needs to know, and depending on the circumstances and how they were spun when the story was reported by the media it could be used to help push the equal rights bill through. If not, well, at least nopony was hurt.

A general cheer went up as the crowd of cows dispersed peacefully, ambling slowly back to the land they control (but don’t own) just beyond Sweet Apple Acres. Applejack didn’t come into town to bask in the adulation of the crowd, probably going back to her farm work. That responsibility and humility is something I like about Applejack very much, maybe it’s because I grew up in a city where not shouting your every accomplishment to the heavens is a guarantee that the credit will be stolen by somepony with less moral fiber, but I’ve found that the ponies in this quaint little hamlet are much more, well, likeable than the vast majority of Canterlot...granted, saying that somepony was more likeable than your average Canterlot resident was like saying that one kind of food is better than swallowing red hot iron pellets and washing them down with isopropyl alcohol, but the point was still valid

I caught a glimpse of Rarity and Mayor Mare in the corner of my eye and ambled over, intent on asking the Mayor about the state of local cow-pony relations, and perhaps making a few cow puns while I was at it. It may be in poor taste, but I’m no saint.

“Why, Applejack was just…just…” I overheard the Mayor saying. I was about to interject, but Pinkie got there first.

“Appletastic!” Pinkie blurted so enthusiastically she actually knocked herself off her hooves. Pinkie is the only pony I knew who could actually overbalance herself just by talking.

“Yes, exactly.” Mayor Mare said indulgently, giving Pinkie an almost maternal glance. “We simply must do something to reward Applejack for single-hoofedly saving the town.”

“Ooh! I know!” Burbled Pinkie from her place on the ground. Anypony who has spent more than five minutes around her knows exactly what’s coming next. “A party!”

A general chorus of assent was voiced by the remaining ponies who had been listening in. After all, Pinkie is Ponyville’s resident Party Pony for a reason, any party she had a hoof in was practically guaranteed to be good…and besides, Sugar Cube Corner caters almost all of Pinkie’s parties. Hay, they use them as test platforms for potential new product, with the partygoers as the willing test subjects.

The Mayor was visibly amused, but agreed to formally sponsor a party in Applejack’s honor, which got a small cheer. Pinkie Party ™ plus government funding equals fun times for all…well, and a few cases of diabetes too, but who’s counting? I waited for the most basic of plans were made and a date and time were set by the Mayor and Pinkie, and then I approached the grey-maned pony myself, before she could be accosted by other townsponies.

“Ah, excuse me ma’am?” She turned to face me as she walked and smiled kindly.

“Oh come now Dusk Shine, there’s no need to be so formal, not after you saved the town from Nightmare Moon.”

“That was a group effort if I recall correctly.” I said, grinning back. “And as I am a Spec Six Commissioned Officer in Her Majesty’s Royal Army I am mandated to show proper respect to recipients of the Solar Emblem of Valor.” I said, throwing her a quick salute as we walked.

‘Specialist Sixth Class’ meant that I was just a civilian consultant with a security clearancec absolutely no authority to order any soldiers about, and my only function was to serve (if Celestia wishes it) as her eyes and ears at a military outpost and pitch in on military Research and Development projects from time to time, I did still have to follow certain rules though.

“It’s been a long time since I retired from the military.” She replied, her voice less cheerful than usual. She was looking me over intently. “And I’ve never seen a Spec Six actually obeying regulations. How did you find out and why mention it now?”

“Brigadier General Iron Hide has a picture of you on his desk and still tells stories about you after he’s had a glass or two. I had the…opportunity, to interview him for a personal project. I recognized your face, it just took me a while to be sure, it’s an old picture.” She had angled our path away from prying ears.

“Mmph, Iron Hide was always sentimental deep down, regardless of what his troops think. But you didn’t answer my question, why mention it now?” She said, beginning to look suspicious. I grinned at her.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to blow the whistle, you obviously don’t want the publicity and I can’t say I blame you. I just want you to know that I know, and inform you that in my capacity as an officer I am at your disposal should you need to send sensitive information to Celestia if the need should arise.” She quirked an eyebrow at me.

“Just what kind of information do you think I have? The blueprints for the Diamond Dogs’ dens? This is Ponyville, the quietest, quaintest little bit of the realm, hay, that’s why I retired here.”

“You never know when something might come up, and Celestia often uses me and Spike as a way to move important information around fast. So if you’re sitting in your office one day and a scroll that smells like brimstone magically appears on your desk, it’s important.” Spike can send and receive scrolls from anypony anywhere, not just Celesia in the castle, a fact that Celestia has and does use rather frequently. “Besides,” I added. “We’ve had schematics of the Diamond Dogs’ dens for years.  Anyway, now that that’s out of the way, I was wondering if you could tell me what the state of cow-pony relations in the region.”

“Looking to investigate the stampede?” She asked, obviously happy to have changed the subject. I nodded.

“Yes, Celestia is pushing the equal rights bill through parliament, and once news of this reaches Canterlot it could…cause problems.” Giving her that information, technically classified, was an olive branch, extending some trust her way...and something Celestia told me to do when I wrote her to tell her I knew Mayor Mare’s actual identity. I knew politics in the broad sense, I could look at an action and tell you how it is likely to play out, but that’s only because I’ve studied history and sociology, on a pony-to-pony basis I was…out of my depth.

“We’ve never had problems that I can remember.” She said assuredly. “In fact the whole town is downright friendly with the local cows, and they’re friendly back. You can tell that by the milk prices in the market, cheapest in the realm.”

“That’s good. I can give that to Celestia, she’ll be able to use that to help push the bill through…granted the stampede was caused by an accident on the cows’ end and not some idiot who wanted a cheap thrill or somepony deliberately trying to sabotage the state of inter-species relations in the region.”

“Anypony ever tell you that you’re paranoid and cynical?”

“Thirteen different ponies counting you, Spike, Princess Cadence, the Griphon ambassador and a mule.” I recited, chuckling. “Both are life skills in Canterlot.”

“I suppose they are.” We were now back on the main thoroughfare, and the town hall was in sight, though the crowd was still a bit thin around here, not that I minded. “I forget what it’s like there, been a while since I’ve had to go. Not that I’m complaining mind you."

“Anypony who seriously wants to stay in Canterlot is touched in the head. Anyway, thank you for the information Ma’am.” I was about to make my (semi) graceful exit there, but she stopped me unexpectedly.

“Hold on a second Dusk.” I dutifully stopped in my tracks and looked at her attentively. “I want you to give a speech at Applejack’s party.”

“Why me?” I asked, confused. She gave me an odd look.

“Because of all the ponies that I could get to give the speech you’re the most articulate.” Well, okay then.

“Is that a compliment or an insult?”

“You’re the smart one, you figure it out.” And with that she mounted the steps to the town hall and left me standing on the street with a chagrined look on my face. Oh well, at least something good came of this almost-disaster.

I meant to go talk to applejack about the stampede right after I got my groceries put away, but unfortunately I was interrupted by one of the teenage ponies who thinks it’s funny to vandalize the library. I caught the little bucker carving…risqué, images and innuendos into my bookshelves. We had a chat. The chat devolved into a disagreement. The disagreement devolved into a tiff. The tiff pushed him far enough to take a swing at me, which is when  I lost my patience and threw him out of the library with what could possibly be defined as ‘excessive force’, but I prefer the term ‘firm insistence’. After all, if I really wanted to be forceful I could have used any number of painful and potentially amusing gravity manipulations that I’ve mastered over the years.

Having evicted the ruffian out of my library I went back to my normal duties, which in a larger town or city with a university would have involved quite a lot of public interfacing, but in Ponyville I was largely symbolic, at least during the day. After the library closes I have to go through the books that have been returned and do all the recordkeeping and re-shelving, though since Spike can do the re-shelving most of the time (with a little help from a moveable ladder) I mostly end up doing the paperwork and taking care of the registry.

It was a pretty good gig really, I got to spend most of my day reading and furthering my studies and I can also help the residents of Ponyville discover what it’s like to truly lose yourself in a good book. I already had a few projects planned to bring in some more ponies, first and foremost being a story time for foals. Start young after all. After I get my hooves on some decent foal’s books I’ll look for a few ponies willing to do the actual reading (I’m not good with foals and reading foal books would drive me insane) I'd have talk to the teacher of the elementary school not too far from here.

Maybe I'd go to Applejack and get information on the cows at the same time, two birds with one stone.

By the time I finished putting my groceries away and pondering my plans for other initiatives for the library (Weekly author and book recommendations being the first step, along with free book giveaways) I was in a pretty good mood. Then two of the town guards showed up with the ruffian who dared deface my library in tow. The young snot immediately began bleating and whining about how I treated him and generally made an annoyance of himself. The guards, unfortunately, seemed to think his sniveling had some merit because they actually started investigating me.

I showed them the tasteless additions the vandal had made to the library and informed them that I was perfectly within my rights to throw somepony out of the library if they did such things and that it was, in fact, my job to do so. They seemed to agree with my point in theory, but they apparently had a problem with my execution. When I asked for clarification the guardspony gave me a very strange look and said that if you’re going to throw somepony out of a building, you’re supposed to open the door first.

Hunh, well, I guess you learn something new every day.

As far as I was concerned, anypony who thinks that it’s okay to vandalize something as sacrosanct as a library shouldn’t complain when they get tossed through a door, and hay, I’m the one who had to fix the hinges. Regardless, I ended up talking to them for a good hour before they left with the little jerk, with promises to be back the next day with a few of their colleagues. Oh joy.

Ah well, I’m in the right, it’ll just take a little while for me to convince them that. Besides, I have bookshelves to fix, and these are made of oak, real hardwood. I’ll have to be very careful not to damage them when I do the repair job and even more careful if I want the repair job to look good. So off I went to find the catalyst I’d need to do the delicate bit of magic that would revive the wood of the bookshelf just enough for it to be able to grow into and fill in the vandalized bits without it running rampant and eating up the local magical field in order to grow into a giant tree. It's happened to me once, and it’s not something I ever want to deal with again, the splinters were unimaginable.

Later on, after a close call with magically induced wood rampancy, about which I was sure there were a million crude jokes to be made, I closed down the library and made a quick dinner. During the course of the meal I casually informed Spike of my little encounter with the guard earlier, to my surprise, he took it pretty seriously.

“You what?!”

“I threw him out.” I repeated myself, confused, as we lounged around on the couch in the living room. Despite how much Celestia has tried to make me ‘civilized’ over the years, there are still some things I find patently ridiculous, the dinner table for instance. I mean, why would you want to sit down and talk while you’re eating? The whole point of eating is to, well, eat. The couch is more comfortable anyway. “He was carving phallic symbols all over my bookshelves, he should be happy I didn’t pitch him out a second floor window.”

“Dusk, what you did was practically assault!” He insisted, his big eyes worried. He’s afraid of anypony in the military or the civilian militias that police the smaller towns in the kingdom. It stems from an incidents years ago in Canterlot involving members of the guard who ignored his protected status and tried to go after him anyway. The attack was foiled by my brother, who happened to be with him at the time, and the ponies were dishonorably dismissed from the Guard and are still serving out prison terms, but the incident left its mark.

“What I did was my job.” I corrected. “They can’t get me for anything serious and since he was dumb enough to carve those symbols into shelves in the foals’ books section he’s going to look like a pedophile when I give my report to the Guards tomorrow, and one thing about the Guards that I can wholeheartedly support is how zealously they go after foal molesters. Trust me Spike, once they have that report any bruises I may have given him will be the last thing on their minds.”

“I don’t know Dusk…if you threw him out with enough force to bend the hinges as bad as you said…”

“If I knew for a fact he was a foal molester I would have thrown him through a wall.” I said dryly. “I’m pretty sure he’s not, but I could be wrong and either way he’s going to have the Guard breathing down his neck for the foreseeable future.”

“I still think they’re going to go after you for assault and battery.” Spike insisted. “And whatever happened to magic not being a tool to win arguments?” He finished by quoting one of Celestia’s major tenets of magical education.

“In this case it was a tool for me to do my job. Hoof to hoof combat isn’t my specialty, if it was I would have bucked him out the door. Plain fact of the matter is that in a purely physical fight it would have taken me a long time to put him down if I could do it at all. Using magic the way I did was the most expedient and least harmful route to take. Don’t worry about it Spike, everything will be fine.”

“Famous last words.” Spike returned ominously.

I can’t believe I actually said that. I should’ve known the instant I let those four damned words out of my mouth I was in for it. I handed the report over to the guard alright, but they didn’t go after the little bucker as fervently as I’d hoped. He got off with community service and I got fined. Unbelievable. I got fined for doing my job. Ugh, I’ll never understand how they expect me to throw somepony out of someplace without, you know, throwing him out.

My friends weren’t much help either. Rainbow Dash just fell over laughing when I told her about it and had only the slightest sympathy for me, which I have to admit is sort of par for the course with her. Pinkie said that even if he was being a ‘naughty vandalism-pants’ I shouldn’t have been a ‘mean meany pants’ and thrown him out physically, well, that’s what I drew from it anyway, ‘Pinkie’ is the hardest language I’ve ever tried to learn and I’m not fluent yet. Rarity thought we were both in the wrong and mildly chastised me for being so ‘uncouth’ as to resort to using physical force; and Fluttershy…I didn’t ask Fluttershy’s opinion on it because she’s so damnably nice. She’d probably murmur something about him being wrong and then trail off inaudibly. She did say she was sorry it happened to me though, which was something.

Of all of them I expected Applejack to be of a mind with me given that she’s extremely moral, in her own way, and if she doesn’t always agree with me on issues of right and wrong we share an opinion on poetic justice and she probably would have gotten a chuckle or two out of the story.

The problem was, I hadn’t seen her at all from the time she averted the stampede to the day of the party. That worried me a bit; normally she was in and out of town pretty much every day. Part of her absence was explained by Granny Smith and Apple Bloom taking her usual spot at the Sweet Apple Acres apple stand.

Apparently Big Mac was in Canterlot seeing an orthopedic specialist, which explained why the aged matriarch of the Apple Clan was temporarily out of retirement, and accompanied by the youngest of the family (who was more than happy to get out of school for a few days, poor misguided little thing).

I almost went to Sweet Apple Acres to see if she was okay, and get some information about the stampede, but with the whole mess with the vandal and the guard I had my hooves full all week and I made the stupid decision to go to cow territory to try and get the information first, but I forgot I was dealing with cows instead of ponies. You can't ask a cow a direct question, they don't think in straight lines. If you want to get any information from them you have to wait for an hour while they tell you Every. Single. Thing. that happened to their herd in the past week and read between the lines to get what you want. I spent three and a half hours talking to the head of the herd, drinking abominably strong coffee, and got absolutely nothing out of it

Which was how I found myself trotting up to a podium on a stage set up in the festively decorated Ponyville square with a couple notecards floating in front of me, preparing to give a short speech on her behalf.

The crowd was sizeable, and comprised most of the residents of Ponyville who could manage to wrangle some free time in the middle of the day (much to the chagrin of their co-workers no doubt), a fair amount of whom I’m sure were only attending because Sugarcube Corner was catering.

Once I reached the podium, Spike riding on my back as usual (and earning a few chuckles and coos from the crowd), I neatened the stack of notecards absentmindedly as I scanned the crowd, hoping to see Applejack somewhere. Still conspicuously absent. After I’d delayed as long as I could I started my speech, ignoring the notecards, which were only for show. I had the whole speech memorized, but having them would give me something to fiddle with while I gave it.

“Hello and welcome everypony, today we are gathered to celebrate a pony we can always count on in matters great and small, a pony whose contributions to-” I was nearly knocked off balance by Rainbow Dash zooming up to the microphone to add in her own two bits.

“Did you see how slick Applejack was when she totally derailed that stampede?” She crowed. I gave her a chagrined look as Spike clambered back into position and I caught my drifting notecards in my telekinesis. “What an athlete! This week, she’s gonna help me with my new super-secret, super-awesome training regimen!”

“Yes.” I said insistently, moving back into position. “I’m sure that will be spectacular Rainbow. As I was saying-”

“This week I get to run Sugarcube Corner by myself for the first time!” Pinkie blurted, popping up in front of me in that impossibly abrupt way only she can. Ignoring her apparently magicless use of teleportation her statement confused me. Pinkie may be scatterbrained, but she’s not selfish enough to interrupt a speech about another pony to blurt out something like that. Knowing her though, she was assuming that everyone was following her own incomprehensible logic.

“What does that have to do with Applejack?” I asked, drawing an explanation from her.

“Oh, well, Applejack is like one of the best bakers of all time and she’s gonna help!” Pinkie burbled. Interesting, Applejack’s mentioned cooking meals a few times before, and it hardly surprises me that she’s an accomplished baker (those mind-blowingly, tongue-numbingly, pancreas-meltingly good fritters have to come from somewhere after all, and Granny Smith alone couldn’t be making all of them), but she hasn’t to my knowledge done any baking for someone besides her family or the apple cart before.

“Oh, well, that’s fantastic. The diabetes rate in town is probably about to quadruple, but it’ll be worth it.” Whoops, that slipped out before I thought about it. Thankfully it got a chuckle from the crowd instead of insulted stares. “Anyway, if I could make a point without being-” I felt a tiny tap on my shoulder and saw pink mane and pale yellow fur in my peripheral vision. “Interrupted…yes Fluttershy?”

“Oh, um, I’m so sorry Dusk,” She said, giving me that small little smile that makes everypony that’s ever known her want to give her a big hug and go ‘aww’. “But I just wanted to say that Applejack has volunteered to help me with the annual bunny census this season.”

“Thank you Fluttershy.” I said, reigning in my annoyance. Fluttershy’s tear ducts were set on a perpetual hair-trigger, and sad Fluttershy is a weapon of mass conscience destruction. I didn’t need that kind of guilt. “Does anypony else have anything they’d like to share?” I asked the crowd. “Anypony?” Still no answer, good. “Alright then, as I was saying.”

“Ahem.” Oh for buck’s sake.

“I hereby bequeath the podium to Mayor Mare.” I said, walking off the stage. I couldn’t help but notice a certain semi-malicious twinkle in the old General’s eyes as she smiled at me.

“Thank you Dusk Shine. Now, it is my pleasure to bestow the Prized Pony of Ponyville award to our guest of honor. A pony whose trustworthiness, reliability and integrity are entirely without question, Ponyville’s most dependable friend, Applejack!”  The crowd cheered appropriately and the curtains on stage retracted dramatically to reveal…nothing. No Applejack.

The cheering died off almost immediately and faded into a horribly awkward silence. My brow furrowed as the worry that had been percolating on a back burner in my mind suddenly leapt to a full, rolling boil. Applejack had apparently had contact with Rainbow, Pinkie, and Fluttershy sometime in the past week, but from some of their comments earlier it was towards the beginning of the week, not long after the stampede. Years of Canterlot-born paranoia started whispering in my ears. The Equal Rights Ammendment had very fervent opposition, ponies who wouldn’t think twice about abductions or worse. Applejack single-hoofedly averted a stampede that could have been a valuable arrow in the quiver of the Anti-Reformation party, add to that her status as a Bearer and she’s a prime target for-

“Ah’m here!” Came Applejack’s voice suddenly, from behind the curtains. My legs went a bit wobbly with relief, the fear that had started to gather abruptly vanishing…only to be replaced by an entirely new set of worries once I got a good look at Applejack herself.

She wasn’t moving with the same solid ease that she normally did, she stumbled up the stairs clumsily and if I hadn’t known any better I would have said she was drunk when she walked by me, but there was no alcohol on her breath despite all evidence to the contrary. Her eyes were bloodshot to a degree that I could only describe as horrific, and they had more bags than your average grocery store. What’s more, her normally frizzy mane and tail were even more disorderly than usual, and her back hooves had some serious cracks in them that were liable to get extremely problematic if she wasn’t careful. That’s very unlike her, she may have no patience for anything ‘frou-frou’, but she’s careful to take care of herself.

“Wow Dusk, she looks like you after one of your week-long studying binges in the Canterlot library.” Spike mumbled, concern evident in his voice. I ignored what Mayor Mare said next, focusing on Applejack.

She was yawning frequently and I noticed that her eyes didn’t seem to be able to focus quite right. She was obviously sleep deprived to a dangerous degree. Even more worrying, her right forehoof was currently canted at an angle that had to be painful due to the broken board she was standing on, but she didn’t seem to notice. Either she was so sleep deprived she was becoming delusional or sompony drugged her. Suddenly I became aware that I was expected to say something. Fumbling for something on the spot I stepped forward and blurted the first thing that came to mind.

“Thank you Applejack, for saving us from that stampede.” She yawned so widely that her jaw cracked before she responded.

“Well, ah do like helpin’ the pony folks and stuff…” She yawned again and apparently fell asleep on her hooves for a second. Okay, yeah, Applejack needs a quick trip to Ponyville General. Even if this is just massive sleep deprivation; she’s clearly gotten to the point that she’s a danger to herself. She started awake after an awkward moment and seemed to realize where she was and what she was doing. A blush appeared on her cheeks and she chuckled nervously. “Eh heh…well, thanks everypony…”

Then she grabbed the trophy in her teeth and started dragging it offstage. Nopony said anything until she was out of sight. It was easily one of the most awkward minutes of my life. When she was gone the crowd dispersed and I drifted over to Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy, who were all staring at Sweet Apple Acres, just like me.

“Is it just me, or did Applejack seem…” I trailed off.

“Tired?” Rainbow volunteered.

“Dizzy?” Was Fluttershy’s contribution.

“Dirty?” We all glanced at Rarity, who looked affronted. “What? Didn’t you see her mane?”

“She seemed fine to me!” Pinkie proclaimed, bouncing into view from…somewhere. It might be a good idea to pay a visit to Sweet Apple Acres.

The trot to Sweet Apple Acres wasn’t a very long one, but it was plenty long enough to get me good and worried. Applejack was, without a doubt, the sturdiest pony I know physically speaking. Rainbow Dash is a hay of an athlete, but strength wise nopony I know beats Applejack. The sheer amount of physical labor she puts in on a daily basis would run any Canterlot Special Forces operative ragged, and yet she still somehow has energy left over to hang out with the rest of us at the end of the day. Seeing her in the state she was in genuinely scared me. I didn’t feel any better after seeing her in action once I got there either.

I found her in the middle of one of the orchards, attempting to go about applebucking. Attempting being the key word. In the thirty seconds or so that I observed her before getting close enough to talk she bucked the same tree four times before realizing that she’d already harvested it. When I was walking over to her, she had her head bent over a spilled tub of apples (overturned when she mistook it for a tree apparently).

“Hey, Applejack?” I ventured, trying to inspect her condition without being too obvious about it. “Applejack?” No response. “Applejack!”

“Huh? What? Oh, howdy Dusk. Sorry, cain’t talk. Ah’m applebuckin’.” She said after starting awake. She was slurring a bit, not a comforting sign.

“I can see that.” I said, following her as she unsteadily made her way to a laden apple tree. “Are you doing all this alone?”

“Big Mac done hurt hisself.” She explained, telling me something I already knew. “Ah gotta get these apples off ta market.”

“Isn’t there anypony that could help you? Like your multitudinous aunts, uncles and cousins?”

“What’d you say about mah family?!” She rounded on me angrily. I sighed and facehooved.

“Multitudinous Applejack. It means ‘many’. You have an extended family roughly the size of Canterlot, couldn’t you call for a helping hoof from them?”

“Oh…well, they were only in town fer the Apple Family Reunion, they’re gone now. Busy with their own fields.” She said, apparently taking my explanation of multitudinous at face value, for which I was thankful. The first time I described her little sister as cherubic it took me ten minutes and a dictionary to convince her I hadn’t insulted Applebloom. “Which means Ah really should get back to work...hint hint.” I cocked an eyebrow at that.

“Really?” I asked, unable to stop myself. “Normally I would expect Rarity to fall into the trap of spouting conversational clichés, not you.”

“Ah haven’t fallen into nuthin, and Ah really gotta get back to it Dusk. Could you please step aside.” I wasn’t standing in her way.

“Applejack, I’m standing off to your right.” I said; worry bleeding through into my voice. “Are you sure you’re alright? You’re not looking too good. I think you might need to see a doctor, the rest of us can help-”

“Ah don’t need no help!” She snarled suddenly, taking me aback. “And Ah don’t need no doctor neither! Now if you’ll excuse me, Ah’ve got Apples to buck!” She got right into my face and growled the last part. My ears flattened and my own (impressive) temper flared in instinctive response, but I suppressed it. She was clearly not thinking straight, but I couldn’t exactly subdue her and drag her off to the hospital.

“Alright, alright.” I placated, taking a few steps back. She snorted angrily and tried to whirl around smartly and walk away but ended up tripping over her own legs in a fashion not dissimilar to Ponyville’s resident walleyed mailmare. I chose not to comment on that in the interest of keeping her somewhat calm and walked away, resolving to keep an eye on her and take action as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, I was unable to keep an eye on Applejack much for the next day and a half. As much as I would have liked to haunt her every step until she inevitably collapsed from exhaustion and then carted her off to Ponyville General, the Civic Guard Legion takes a dim view of such behavior, to say nothing of Applejack’s response if she discovered me, so I was limited to remote observation. The problem with that is Sweet Apple Acres is a big place, and just finding Applejack was a problem. So much so that I didn’t see her at all until she had her appointment with Rainbow…

I should have known Rainbow Dash was involved immediately when I saw the stupid thing in the town square, but I foolishly held out hope otherwise. Nopony else would go through the trouble of building a diving board and seesaw in the town commons. The rickety disaster-waiting-to-happen looked like it had been constructed in a hurry and wasn’t something I wanted to get within fifty feet of, but since I saw two familiar ponies next to it I felt it my duty to intervene before someone ended up in the hospital. So, leaving Spike to take over library duties, I marched on out.

“Uh, Rainbow?” I began, noting with great trepidation the manic look in her eyes that I’ve come to equate with one of her fits of suicidal overconfidence.

“Great! Dusk! You’re here! Now you can watch me try out my greatest, most awesome trick ever! It works by-”

“You standing on that seesaw and Applejack jumping onto the other end.” I finished for her. “I have eyes Rainbow, I also a working knowledge of physics, which is why I can tell you that this isn’t going to work.”

“What? Of course it will! Applejack’ll land on that side and I’ll get launched-”

“As high as the platform she jumped from. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less, depending on your mass relative to hers. It’s basic physics Rainbow. The laws of conservation of mass and momentum.” I pointed out. How could somepony go through flight camp without knowledge of basic physics? “Unless Applejack is made of dark matter and somehow managed to conceal that fact from everypony, you’re not going to get more than a few inches above that platform and even that’s doubtful.”

“Ha! Watch and learn egghead! Go ahead Applejack!” She called excitedly. I rolled my eyes and waited for the laws of physics to work.

They did not disappoint.

Applejack jumped off the platform and (surprisingly) landed dead center on her end of the seesaw. From there physics took over and Rainbow Dash was propelled…right into the platform. She had launched and angled her flight expecting a much greater amount of initial thrust, and when she didn’t get the thrust she needed to do whatever alliterative trick she had dreamed up this time she ended up plowing through the platform skull first with rather spectacular results.

I casually trotted over to the wreckage after making sure Applejack wasn’t injured. Rainbow is probably the only pony I know who’s accrued more head trauma than me, but her skull is harder than your average boulder, so I wasn’t that worried. Besides, the ricketiness of the platform actually played to her favor, instead of holding together and seriously damaging her it just sort of ablated the instant she hit it, sending a comical amount of debris all over the place. I found a confused Rainbow lying face up in a pile of debris and quirked an eyebrow at her.

“So, how was your flight?” I asked brightly, breaking into a smile when she scowled at me and insinuated something that would have had Fluttershy blushing redder than Big Mac. “Aww, come now, colossal failure is no reason to cast aspersions of that sort upon my family line. Besides, the badger would never have stood for it. Everything in one piece or should I call Life Flight? I’m pretty sure they know you by sight by now.”

“Buck off egghead.” She grumbled. Her language got much more colorful when she wasn’t around the rest of us. Granted, I’m the last pony who should talk about foul language, but I still find it amusing.

“So that’s a ‘no’ then. Alright, in that case I’m going to go see about Applejack.”

“Is she okay?” Rainbow asked, suddenly serious. “She seemed a bit off when she showed up and I may have been…uh…”

“Too enamored with your new stunt to see it?” I filled in for her. “No, to be frank she’s not. She’s apparently trying to harvest the whole of Sweet Apple Acres’ apple crop all by herself.”

“What? Is she nuts? There’s like…a billion trees!” Rainbow said, neatly summing up the problem.

“Crazy, no. Sleep deprived and stubborn, yes. If this goes on much more I might end up calling Life Flight for her.” I replied, looking Rainbow in the eye. “I’m trying to convince her to get some help, but she’s not hearing any of it.”

“Do you want me to tell Pinkie and Fluttershy? They’d pitch in in a heartbeat.” I considered it for a second before sighing.

“No, I don’t think we should. If they cancel on her she’s bound to question why and get angry, and even if Pinkie could deflect her, which is doubtful, Fluttershy can’t stand up to an angry and irrational Applejack. I’ll keep an eye on her and keep trying to convince her to get some help.”

“I could keep an eye on her too!” Rainbow said hotly. I grinned. She wasn’t the element of loyalty for nothing.

“Yes, you could, but I can teleport her to the hospital if worst comes to worst.” I was struck, mid-sentence by an idea. “You could talk to Carrot Top though, she hires freelance workers to help her with the harvest occasionally, she might know a few ponies who could be hired on to help Applejack.”

“Could the Apples afford it?” Rainbow asked doubtfully. My brow wrinkled and I grumbled a curse, she had a point. Sweet Apple Acres, despite its size, isn’t nearly as profitable an institution as many residents of Ponyville like to think. It seems like Applejack is always worrying about the financial status of her family business, and occasionally when we all go out together the way she attacks the hard cider hints at escapism.

“No, probably not. Damn it…where’d she go?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder and noticing a pointed lack of orange pony by the remains of the seesaw.

“I dunno, I thought you were watching her with your magic or something!” Rainbow said, hopping up off the ground and floating a few feet upwards, rubbernecking all the while.

“I can’t do that Dash, it’s illegal. I’d need either the express permission of the Canterlot High Court or a black market version of a military surveillance construct, and I only have three of those left after the last one crashed into Everfree a week ago. Okay, could you go and see if she went back to Sweet Apple Acres? I’ll look around town.”

“Check with Pinkie and Fluttershy, AJ had plans with them.” And with that, she went streaking off towards Sweet Apple Acres, kicking up some dust with the speed of her flight.

I didn’t know the timeframe of Applejack’s plans, but trying to wrangle any usable information out of Pinkie Pie was an exercise in frustration, so I headed out to Fluttershy’s cottage figuring even if I was wrong and Applejack wasn’t there I’d be able to get the information I wanted faster.

“Oh, I’m so sorry Dusk, but Applejack isn’t due here for another hour or so.” Fluttershy had been distracted by her bunny census thing when I came, but when she heard about Applejack she’d been more than willing to listen.

“You don’t need to apologize.” I sighed. In all honesty, it’s better that Fluttershy hasn’t had to deal with Applejack in her current state. This rabbit thing had been stressing her out enough recently and she’s not exactly the type of pony who deals with stress well. “Just be aware that-”

I was cut off by Rainbow Dash skidding to a halt a few feet away. Fluttershy squeaked and jumped out of her skin at the sudden ruckus, I settled for wincing and taking a step back. I hate it when she does that. What’s wrong with a quiet, sedate, normal greeting?

“Dusk, we got a problem.” Rainbow said urgently, pressing her face into mine and twitching with nervous energy.

“Applejack related I take it?” I pushed her back with a hoof to reclaim my personal space.

“Her plans with Pinkie came first and it’s a disaster!” Rainbow shouted practically right into my ear.

“She said she was helping run Sugarcube Corner…” Chains of logic cascaded through my brain and I hit a fairly frightening conclusion. “Oh horseapples.”

“That’s what I said!” Rainbow replied. “Nurse Redheart set up a clinic right outside the building and-”

“I’ll go there and see if I can get anything out of Pinkie. You fly back to Sweet Apple Acres and try and find her. If you do, do not engage her, just circle overhead and keep an eye on her, if she’s anything like she was when I last saw her she might try to fight and if that happens…well let’s just hope it doesn’t. I’ll find you after I’m done in town.” I snapped out the order the same way my brother used to snap orders at me and teleported into town before Rainbow could talk back.

The clinic wasn’t hard to find. A huge tent had been set up right beside Sugarcube Corner and the sounds I could hear emanating from the poor unfortunate souls inside were enough to start turning my stomach. Nurse Redheart was pacing to and fro out front and barking out orders to her underlings who were, by and large, ferrying buckets full of…emissions, off to be disposed of. Seeing no point in waiting I trotted over to her and got her attention.

“How bad is it?” I asked in lieu of greeting. The harried nurse shot me a disgruntled look before giving me what I wanted.

“Food poisoning, real bad. I don’t know what went into those muffins but I’ve had to pump a few stomachs already and I’m going to have to do more before this is all said and done.” She growled, eyeing a foul smelling bucked being carried by a disgusted assistant with utmost distaste. “If this was somepony’s idea of a joke I won’t be treating them once the crowd finds them out.”

“I doubt this was deliberate, though whether that makes it more or less frightening is a matter of personal perspective.” I mumbled as my stomach did a quadruple gainer.

“You think you know who did this?” She asked sharply.

“Think, yes, know, no.” A large Applejack’s financial livelihood depended on her baking, and this incident was going to bite her in the plot with the quickness, but I wasn’t going to start that particular train wreck. “Look, is Pinkie Pie in there? I need to talk to her.”

“Not a chance, she’s sick like the rest of them.”

“If I can talk to her I can find out who caused this-” Just as I was about to finish, an assistant fumbled a bucket and splashed no less than three of his colleagues in half digested food and stomach fluid. This being the metaphorical straw that broke the Mareabian Camel’s back, caused a chain reaction of such horrific proportions that I was sure it would go down in Ponyville history. “Mess.”

“Celestia’s radiant flank!” Spat Redheart. “Scalpel, start cleaning that bucking mess up, Pipette, get a few of the nurses inside to come out here and take over bucket duty, the rest of you just…go clean up and get back here in five minutes. Five bucking minutes, you hear me? If you’re one feathering minute late I’ll have your hides! Go!”

Something told me Redheart had done a stint in the Army.

“Can I go in and talk to Pinkie now?”

“If you can find out who did this you can go bugger the Griffon ambassador for all I care.” She snarled, stalking off to start the unenviable task of cleaning up after her assistants, who all looked equally disgusted and terrified. Not wasting any time I trotted over to the tent and, after taking a moment to gird myself, walked in.

The tableau I saw was nothing less than nightmarish. Ponies were stretched out on folding cots, occasionally rolling partway over to vomit energetically into buckets placed near each cot. They all looked understandably miserable and some of the younger ones were openly crying. The older ponies generally restricted themselves to moaning or cursing, though Derpy had tears streaming down her muzzle and was mumbling about feeling betrayed.

The smell, trapped as it was by the tent, reached dizzying heights and I retched a few times before I got my traitorous gut under control. Once I was reasonably sure I wasn’t about to add to the problem I located Pinkie and went over to try and get Applejack’s itinerary out of her.

“Pinkie?” I was trying to breathe as little as possible, which made my voice rather quiet. “Pinkie? You awake?”

“Huh?” She asked weakly. She was sprawled out on a cot, looking as green as a pony with her coat color could possibly be. Judging by the numerous ring shaped divots in the dirt she’d thrown up frequently.

“Pinkie, it’s me, Dusk. Was Applejack with you when you made the baked goods for the giveaway today?”

“They weren’t baked goods, they were baked bads.” She emphasized the last word strongly. Then, before she could say anything else, she made an uncomfortably wet burping noise. Her face twisted into a grimace and she rolled over, tilting her head over the side of the bed. “Oh no oh no oh no. No no no no no. Not again. Please not-”

She didn’t get to finish.

She started filling the bucket noisily and, judging by her expression, painfully. I stood, watching in morbid fascination, for a second before feeling very awkward. I had no idea what to do in this situation, so after a second of deliberation I fell back on what Celestia had done with me when I was sick as a foal.

Walking behind her as she continued to vomit I ran a hoof up and down her back, murmuring to her as I did and hoping it wasn’t as awkward as I felt it was.

“It’ll be okay Pinkie, don’t fight it. You’ll be okay.” Somehow Celestia was much better at this than I was. “It’ll be over soon…” When she finally stopped expelling liquid she dry heaved a few times before flopping back to the cot with exhausted tears running down her face.

“What are mister and missus cake gonna think? I run Sugarcube Corner for one day and I get everypony sick…” She lamented, holding her belly.

“This wasn’t your fault Pinkie.” Well, there was a chance Pinkie had messed up the baking, but given Applejack’s involvement and her own prodigious skills I highly doubted it. “Here, wash out your mouth.” I levitated the water out of the glass that had been left by her cot and broke it into amorphous blobs. After cleaning her mouth with the first mouthful I fed her she drank the rest and flopped back down listlessly. Mimicking Celestia again I tucked the blankets around her gently and fluffed her pillow. “I’ll be back later okay? I gotta go find Applejack.”

Once I was out of the vomit scented air of the tent and far enough away that I couldn’t hear constant retching I took a few deep breaths and formulated my next move. If Applejack was done here odds are she would be at Sweet Apple Acres, but Rainbow hadn’t come to find me so she was either in transit or hadn’t arrived yet. Damn it, how can one pony be so bucking hard to find?

“Son of a nag Applejack.” I growled as I seriously contemplated breaking out a surveillance construct to find her. I was only able to stop myself by imagining that awful disappointed look Celestia gives me when I use black market military equipment to spy on civilians. “If you weren’t so feathering stubborn…”

Underneath the copious anger I was getting increasingly worried for her. The fallout from this incident was going to be nothing short of catastrophic and it wasn’t going to help Sweet Apple Acres any. Despite the numerous farms the Apple clan held across the country their profit margins couldn’t be as high as other farms because of their borderline egomaniacal refusal to incorporate new technology into their farming methods. I could, academically, appreciate the appeal of sticking to traditional values but the extent to which they took it boggled me. The last thing they needed was bad publicity.

This needed to stop, as soon as possible, before any more harm could come to anypony. I started trotting down the lane that would take me to the distant farm but I was distracted by screams from the closest residential area.

I changed course and bolted toward the source of the screaming, dodged a carrot cart, made a right turn down Craft Lane, through the town square, cut across the lawn of the Ponyville bank, and into the middle class neighborhood I went only to find…

“Rabbits?” The square was full of rabbits and, apparently, unconscious ponies. Roseluck was the closest, and the most coherent looking, so I approached her. “All this fuss over rabbits?”

“It’s a disaster!” She wailed with enough melodrama to make Rarity blush. “Our gardens are ruined! Every petal devoured!”

“All this fuss…over rabbits?” I repeated, annoyed.

“Ah, Dusk Shine, I hope you aren’t responsible for this.” Mayor Mare said from behind me, nearly scaring my coat grey in the process. I turned to find her, looking thoroughly unamused, flanked by two town guardsponies. “I’ve heard that summoning animals is a common prank in Celestia’s Academy, but I assure you it isn’t regarded so highly out here.”

“I did not summon these rabbits.” I returned evenly, though I was offended that she assumed it was me. “In fact, unless I’m gravely mistaken it was-”

“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness I’m so sorry miss Mayor ma’am!” Fluttershy appeared from behind a nearby house, frantically trying to herd recalcitrant rabbits ahead of her and failing miserably. “I was trying to take the bunny census and they just got out. By the time I got here they’d-oh please stop little bunnies, those aren’t your flowers!-they’d already started eating town property. I’m so so sorry, I promise I’ll get them rounded up in a second.” The yellow mare was quivering in near panic and the Mayor’s visible unhappiness with the situation wasn’t helping.

“Was Applejack, perchance, helping you take the census when the great escape occurred?” I asked. The consequences for this would be unpleasant, but if it was a choice between Fluttershy getting undeserved blame and Applejack getting punished for what she did do it was an easy choice to make, however uncomfortable.

“Yes she was-please stop mister bunny!-I’m so sorry Mayor!”

“Is something wrong with Applejack?” Mayor Mare asked, displaying memory and a level of genre savvy that I rarely saw in ponies.

“Besides a skull harder than thundersteel plate?” I couldn’t keep all the irritation out of my voice. “Yeah, she got it into her head that she could harvest the whole apple crop by herself while keeping her promises to help out various ponies around town. She’s been at it non-stop with little to no sleep. Last time we talked her vision and motor function were noticeably impaired, to say nothing of her mental state.”

“Mmph. Damn. Earth ponies are tough, but even we’ve got our limits…relax Fluttershy, no one is angry with you.” Even the Mayor’s military-trained disapproval couldn’t hold up against upset Fluttershy. “Just work on rounding up the rabbits, nothing too valuable was destroyed.” She said, sparing a derisive glance and snort at the fainted ponies.

“I’m going to go find Applejack.” I informed the Mayor.

“Please do, I’ll need to have words with her.” The former general confirmed icily before turning to her subordinates. “Now, you two, help Fluttershy. I’m going to Sugarcube corner to see if Redheart needs anything. Bring her in quick Dusk Shine, it would be...awkward if I had to send the guards after a pony I just gave an award to, but if I have to...”

Not waiting to hear any more I charged my horn and teleported to the entrance of Sweet Apple Acres.

As soon as I popped into the third dimension again I saw Rainbow hurtling towards me. Before I could react she was skidding to a halt in front of me and kicking up a cloud of dust.

“She’s off that way.” Rainbow pointed a hoof westward and followed me as I started walking in that direction. “I think she got lost on her way here or something since I didn’t see her come onto the farm. I tried to talk to her but she got real mad and started yelling at me. She didn’t make any sense Dusk, I think something’s wrong. She keeps trying to buck the same trees over and over again and she’s doing it wrong.”

“Doing it wrong? How?”

“She’s not kicking right, if you do it the right way you absorb most of the impact in your muscles, the way she’s doing it she’s gonna break something.” Trust Rainbow to recognize bad athletic performance.

“She’s not thinking straight Rainbow. She caused a rabbit stampede in town. Mayor Mare’s furious. We have to get her to stop or the Mayor’s going to have the town guards do it.”

“What?! That’s crazy!” Rainbow’s voice nearly popped my eardrums for the second time in the day. Ow.

“She gave over two dozen ponies severe food poisoning and the rabbits she antagonized are eating town property, Fluttershy’s beside herself. The only reason we get a chance to do this is because the Mayor doesn’t want to arrest a pony she just had an award ceremony for.”

“But-”

“Either we do this or the guards do Rainbow.” I interrupted. “Will you help me or not?”

“I’ll help.” She said uncomfortably. “But how are we gonna get her to go in?”

“We ask first, and if that fails you get her attention for a second so I can bind her.” The thought of turning my magic on Applejack made my insides hurt, but there was nothing for it.

“Didn’t you say she could hurt herself if you do that? Couldn’t you just put her to sleep or something? She needs to sleep, why can’t you just do that?” She implored. The same part of my brain that was planning how to magically assault Applejack noticed Rainbow’s behavior and contemplated that her sense of loyalty might lead her to take Applejack’s side if it came down to a confrontation, especially if I had to use magic. Then that same part started contemplating how to subdue Rainbow as well. I stopped myself before it went too far though, just the knowledge that I was capable of planning that sickened me a bit.

“Sleeping spells are dangerous at the best of times, but using them on somepony whose gone without sleep long enough to act like this? I could put her into a sleep she’d never wake up from. It’s too risky. Look, hopefully it won’t come to that. Let me start and…and if things go south, then just get her attention for a second and I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Okay…” Rainbow was still obviously not convinced, but arguing with her would only make things worse, so I shut my mouth and grimly trotted on.

After a minute of walking I caught a glimpse of orange fur and yellow mane through the neatly ordered trees and angled towards it. Rainbow made a nervous sort of sound in her throat and bit her lip worriedly. It was very telling that Applejack didn’t notice us until we were two body lengths away.

“Applejack?” No response. I looked her over and found her in even worse condition than the last time I’d seen her. Her mane was in complete disarray, her eyes were horrifically bloodshot, the cracks in her hooves were much more pronounced, some of them had blood seeping into the cracks, and she was having trouble walking in a straight line. “Applejack!”

“Huh? What?” Her head whipped towards me and she stumbled, nearly falling into a dry creek bed/irrigation channel that served as a dividing line between the apple orchard and hay fields. “Whozere?”

“It’s us AJ, Rainbow and Dusk.” Rainbow looked like she was about to do something stupid, like grab Applejack and fly away.

“Oh, why’re y’all here? I gotta finish applebuckin’.” Her speech was slurred and she couldn’t even focus on us. Her legs were trembling with fatigue. Forget going home to rest, she needed to get to the hospital.

“The Mayor needs to talk to you Applejack. It’s important.” I lied, stepping partially in front of Rainbow just in case.

“Why?” Her red rimmed eyes narrowed in suspicion, or sleep depravation, hard to tell.

“Because you ruined Pinkie’s thing and caused a bunny stampede!”

Dammit Rainbow. Now is not the time for brutal honesty.

“Ah helped!” Applejack snarled, anger stealing across her features. “Ah made a promise and Ah kept it! Like always!”

“The Mayor needs to talk to you, after that you can go right back to applebucking, I promise.” I placated, or tried to. The shocked look Rainbow shot me didn’t help matters any.

“Ah’m not goin’ nowhere, not until Ah’m done! Now git outa here! Go!”

“But the Mayor told us AJ!”

“It was a direct order Applejack.” I stood my ground under her baleful glare, which didn't seem to please her.

“Wait a pony pickin’ minute…yer lyin’ ta me!” Of all the bucking times for the feathering element of Honesty to rear its bucking head it just had to choose now. Of bucking course.

“Whoa, easy AJ, we just need you to talk to the Mayor.” Rainbow took a few (wise) steps back, holding a hoof up defensively as Applejack stalked wrathfully forward.

"She told-"

“Ah cain’t believe it! Y’all’re lyin, ta me!” I backed up along with Rainbow and started charging up a binding that would hopefully paralyze her before she could do anything drastic. Unfortunately she somehow noticed it and changed targets from Rainbow to me, whirling around with shocking celerity for a pony clearly on her last legs.

Then she stepped on a loose stone and fell into the creek bed.

Her benumbed brain didn’t even register surprise before the loose earth collapsed out from under her hooves. If she had been well-rested she would have been fine, but in her state she didn’t have the reflexes to save herself. Rainbow and I both lunged forward to try and save her, but we’d both backed up too far and all we could do was watch her fall.

Once, twice, three times she bounced down the steep slope of the ditch, tumbling wildly and flailing her hooves in a desperate attempt to regain control. The impacts only served to send her into a wild spin that whirled her around and brought her skull into contact with a knobby rock with terrifying momentum and a sharp crack that sent a jolt of sympathetic pain and fear through me.

She didn’t move. She didn’t make a sound. Slowly, a trickle of red spread out onto the rock as Rainbow and I stood, rooted in place with horror.

“Applejack!” Rainbow shrieked and attempted to jump down but I grabbed her out of the air with telekinesis before she could. “Oof, What the buck Dusk?! We need to get her!” She struggled wildly, trying to escape the bands of force I’d netted her with.

“We can’t! She’s got a head wound!”

“That’s why we’ve got to save her!”

“If we move her we’ll only make it worse, now stop struggling so I can call Life Flight dammit!” I bellowed. She reluctantly stopped struggling, stood still, staring at Applejack’s motionless form and grinding her teeth audibly.

My heart was pounding and I could hear blood rushing in my ears, but I didn’t let that distract me. I poured energy into my horn and shot up a gargantuan bolt of cobalt energy that detonated with a concussive boom and lingered in the sky above our position, the universal emergency signal. It’s the first official spell every Unicorn learns to use and it would bring a Pegasus paramedic to the scene of an emergency at any time of day or night.

It took just less than three minutes for three winged forms to appear spearing through the sky towards us, but it was easily one of the longest collection of miserable seconds I’d ever had to live through. All I could do was alternately watch the pool of blood under Applejack's unmoving head expand slowly and Rainbow dancing on her hooves in futile desperation. My gorge rose as I found it increasingly difficult not to stare at the blood and I had to work to keep my breakfast down. Rainbow's eyes constantly darted up to the sky, searching for the medics on the way about once every five seconds.

When the paramedics finally arrived Rainbow noticed them first. She launched into the sky with a sound somewhere between a sob and a shout, and the Pegasi instantly oriented on her. What came next was a textbook Life Flight air lift to Ponyville General. Rainbow refused to leave Applejack, which left me to go back to town to inform the Mayor…and find Apple Bloom and Granny Smith.

All in all, it took three days before all of the Elements could be reunited again. Applejack sustained a severe concussion and a mild skull fracture, but nothing worse than that from the fall, but her overexertion was another story altogether. Extensive hoof damage, stress fractures in both hind legs, muscle tears, ligament damage, tendon damage, dehydration and clinical exhaustion. It wasn’t until two days after her fall that she regained consciousness, surrounded by an extremely distraught sister and grandmother. Big Mac, I heard, was on his way back from Canterlot and had been in the hospital there receiving osteoregenerative treatments for similar injuries. Treatments which Applejack would have to undergo in the near future. which partially explained how the whole mess started. In Applejack's desperation to bring in enough bits to keep the farm afloat in the wake of her brother's medical bills she pushed herself beyond her limits, and refused to (as she had said many a time) 'make a liar of mahself' by not fulfilling any promises she had made.

Rainbow's offhoof comment about the Apples not being able to afford hired help, unfortunately, turned out to be true, and the reason Applejack had been so zealously determined. Their finances were going to be tight enough as it was and I seriously doubted any of the Apples would ever have applied for a loan, they had too much of the Earth Pony independent streak in them and the the concept of debt was anathema to many earth ponies who (however subconsciously) recalled the bad old times when they had been kept as indentured servants to the more militaristic Pegasi or manipulative Unicorn noble houses and kept in line by a vicious cycle of owed money and insufficient pay.

By the time we got in to see her the news of her condition had spread through the town rumor mill, though Mayor Mare had prevented any truly scandalous stories by giving the masses a (slightly edited) version of the truth, leaving out some of the more personal details. The old general also had her promised ‘talk’ with Applejack, though I was sure she wasn’t as harsh as she originally intended to be. It was only after the Mayor and her family were done visiting her that the rest of us got to go in, just a few minutes before the end of visiting hours.

Walking into any hospital room is always uncomfortable, just knowing that somepony you care about is badly injured or sick is enough to make anypony feel bad, and this was no exception. While the room was well lit by a south facing window, the white tile floor and identically colored walls gave the impression of sterility and clinical detachment instead of any sort of warmth or hope. Similarly, Applejack’s cream bedding made her  coat and mane look sallow and unhealthy, to say nothing of the bandages swathed around her head.

What was even worse though, was Applejack herself.

After having the Mayor and her family have a go at her for her actions, which I had no doubt they did, she was still obviously smarting. She wouldn’t, or couldn’t, look any of us in the eye when we came in and I could see wet spots on her pillow. Spike, who was riding on my back as usual, tightened his grip on me but said nothing

“We came as soon as we could get in. How are you feeling?” Fluttershy was, predictably, the first to try and console her. Applejack said nothing, though her face tightened noticeably and fresh tears sparkled in her eyes. A long, horribly awkward pause followed.

“I brought you some flowers darling.” Rarity announced with forced cheer, adding them to a small collection of similar arrangements on her nightstand, mostly from family. “Just in case you get hungry later. Hospital food is notoriously dreadful after all!”

“Thanks.” Applejack’s voice was toneless, but only because she fought hard to make it that way. The tears built.

“We’re not mad at you AJ.” Rainvow said awkwardly, rubbing her mane with a hoof. “We came to see how you were feeling.”

“Ah feel stupid.” She scrubbed at her eyes with and sniffed. “Ah wrote a check mah legs couldn’t cash and Ah got other ponies hurt. All ‘cause Ah was too featherin’ stubborn to accept help.”

“It’s okay Applejack, we aren’t mad at you.” Fluttershy found herself face to face with somepony who needed nurturing and her natural instincts took over, she walked up to Applejack quite unabashedly, giving her a soft nuzzle and adjusted the blankets to cover her more completely. “Don’t feel bad.”

“Yeah, no one got hurt like for serious.” Worry had reduced Pinkie to a mere shadow of her normal perky self, but she was still quick to jump in. “Everypony’s better now and they’re still buying stuff from your cart, so you don’t have to be a sad mopey dopey poney anymore!” The cheer in Pinkie’s voice only seemed to make Applejack feel even worse. "Look, mister and missus Cake had me bring this!" How Pinkie produced the (large) arrangement of flowers, complete with heavy duty vase, was beyond me, but I wasn't in the mood to question it.

“Ah’m sorry.” Applejack rasped. “To all of ya, Ah’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay Applejack.” Fluttershy said instantly, nuzzling Applejack again. Pinkie didn’t waste time with words, she just hopped over and gathered Applejack into a hug.

The physical contact was what finally opened the floodgates and before long Pinkie, Fluttershy, Applejack and Rarity were clumped up in a watery group hug. Rainbow and I stood off to the side awkwardly for a few moments before joining the others as best we could with the limited space available. Spike had to hop off my back and carefully crawl over Rarity to join in. We all politely ignored the tears falling from Applejack’s eyes and the quivering, labored breaths she took kept silent until she got herself under control again and we broke apart. Except for Fluttershy who, being Fluttershy and thus unable to not nurture anything that needed nurturing, kept close to her. Spike looked like he wanted to stay but apparently thought better of it and clambered back on top of me.

“Thanks. Ah…Ah needed that.” Her muzzle was wet with tears and her eyes were almost as bloodshot as they had been when I had seen her in the orchard, but she sounded infinitely better for the catharsis.

“Don’t worry about it.” I said, eager to change the subject for her sake as well as everypony else’s. “So, how long are you going to stay in here?”

“The doctor says he wants me ta stay for anuther two days, and Ah won’t be able to go applebuckin’ fer at least a month.” The anxiety in her voice was obvious. “And with Big Mac’s legs just the same way there’s no way the apples are gonna be harvested on time.” The way she blurted that out convinced me that she’d been brooding over it for a while and needed to vent. Fortunately, her family had seen fit to acquire some additional help though I was surprised they hadn’t mentioned it to her.

“Uh…AJ, the apples are all harvested.” Rainbow said, looking worried. “Are you sure your head’s okay?”

“Rainbow!” Rarity hissed, tossing her an indignant glare.

“What?” The ever astute Pegasus replied eloquently.

“What Rainbow means is that we harvested the apples.” I informed a stunned looking Applejack.

“But…how did…there was still so much left to do…”

“You’d be surprised what you can do when you put your mind to it darling.” Rarity said, patting her gently. “Why, with the five of us working together and your magnificent brother directing us we were able to harvest the apples in a trice!”

“Wait a minute, yer tellin’ me that Big Mac taught y’all how ta applebuck?”

“Well yeah, duh.” Pinkie said, bouncing happily now that Applejack wasn’t looking so gloomy anymore, and I could swear her mane got...poofier for a second. “It’s not that hard. Rainbow cleared, like, a bazillion trees, and so did Dusk! Big Mac said it was the fastest applebuck season ever!” She reared and waved her hooves excitedly nearly overbalancing herself.

"Y-y'all did that fer...fer me?" Her voice got tremulous again.

"Of course darling, we could never just leave you hanging, so to speak, and if you ever need any help in the future you simply must tell us! We will always be there for you!" For once I appreaciated Rarity's flare for the melodramatic, as it seemed to be exactly what Applejack needed at the moment.

"Thank 'ya." She sniffed, smiling widely. "Ah...Ah appreciate that more than Ah can say."

"No problemo!" Pinkie said with a wink. "Just make sure ya tell us before things get out of hoof again okay AJ?"

"Ah promise."

"Good." Fluttershy said. "Oh, yes, I almost forgot, I brought you some egg noodle soup to help you get better."

"I brought you some stuff too!" Rainbow's memory was apparently spurred by Fluttershy's contribution of several containers of soup (which, combined, took up all of the remaining space on the small bedside table.) and she reached into her own Pegasi modified saddlebags and pulled out a red plastic jar with a screw top lid and giant striped Haysian jungle cats liberally printed on it. "I use this stuff when I'm done working out, it burns like hay, but your muscles feel at least thirty five percent more awesome after that!"

"Dusk and I brought stuff too!" Spike was all to eager to reach into my saddlebags and remove the envelope I had carefully packed away earlier. Once he had fished it out he hopped down and presented it to a slightly confused Applejack.

"Passes to the University of Canterlot arboretum." I explained. "I heard that you're going to have to visit the Canterlot Orthopedics Clinic and I figured you'd want something to do while you waited for the late train back to Ponyville."

"The arboretum is huge!" Spike gushed. "It's got all kinds of fruit trees there and sometimes they even let you pick some of it!"

"I'm pretty sure they only let you do that because you gave our tour guide puppy eyes while your stomach growled." I pointed out. Spike had one of the best begging faces I'd ever seen. It took a hard pony to say no to him when he looked  up at you with those big, bright, hopeful eyes of his. "Anyway, there are four season passes in there so you could bring Big Mac, Apple Bloom and Granny Smith along if you want."

"Thanks Dusk, that was mighty kind a' ya." She said, allowing Fluttershy to place the envelope on the table where it wouldn't get sodden from spilled water. "Ah almost expected 'ya ta bring me a book."

"Uh..." I froze in the middle of pulling out a copy of History of Comparative Agriculture from my saddlebag.

"Bahahaha! Only you egghead!" Rainbow laughed, joined by everypony else much to my chagrin.

"Oi, I thought it was very appropriate." I sniffed, my ears canting back. "Here, it's not a completely thorough treatise, but it what it lacks in breadth it makes up for in depth. I highly doubt Mareabian farming techniques would be very effective around here anyway."

"Thanks Dusk, Ah'll read it on the train to Canterlot." She accepted my gift with mirth in her voice and a sparkle in her eye, which was a win.

"I told you Dusk." Spike said smugly. I shot him a repressive glare and returned my attention to Applejack.

"Anyway, ignoring the peanut gallery." Another laugh from the peanut gallery was summarily ignored. "Can I ask you about the stampede the other week?" I'd been waiting to ask about this since it happened, and Celestia was if not impatient then...eager, to know the details.

"Uh, sure, what do ya want to know?"

"I saw you talking to the head cow, did you ask what caused it? I tried to get through to the herd but they're..." I struggled to come up with the proper word to describe trying to have a succinct conversation with a cow.

"They're cows, so they flapped their gums for hours and didn't tell ya a thing." Applejack finished for me knowingly.

"Yeah. It was...an experience." One that I would never repeat if I could help it. I like cows, but they can get wearisome. "So what caused it?"

"One of them saw a snake."

"...A snake."

"Eeyup."

"Ugh, of course. Oh well, at least it won't do any major damage in the long run."

"What?" Applejack, and everypony besides Spike, was understandably confused, and I would've elaborated, but I was interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Excuse me," Said Nurse Redheart, poking her head in. "But visiting hours are over. I'm afraid you all will have to leave and give the patient time to rest." Her tone was professional, but the way she looked at Applejack lead me to believe she hadn't forgiven her for the mess at Sugarcube Corner.

"What? Can't we just-"

"No, miss Dash, you can't." Yes, Nurse Redheart had most definitely served in the military at some point. You don't learn to glare like that anywhere else.

"Ugh, fine." Rainbow grumbled, eyeing the nurse mutinously.

"It's alright y'all. A nap sounds pretty good actually." Applejack said.

"Okay, we'll come back to see you tomorrow." Fluttershy nuzzled Applejack again, unable to fight her urge to nurture.

"Yes, oh! I can bring my hooficure kit and-"

"Not a chance Rares." Applejack deadpanned, much to my amusement.

"See you tomorrow AJ! Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!" Pinkie promised, making a ridiculous hoof gesture.

"Yeah, see ya tomorrow." Rainbow took her turn. I tried to follow her up, but something rose unbidden from the depths of my subconscious and I aborted before I could begin. A brief but vicious war waged in my mind and my face screwed up as I debated fiercely. Apparently the others noticed, because they gave me some odd looks. Spike just covered his face with a paw.

"Oh just get them out of your system Dusk." He grumbled.

"Get what out of-"

"So Applejack," I interrupted, grinning painfully wide, her before she could finish her question.

"Yes?" She said warily.

"About that stampede."

"Yeah?"

"It's a good thing you were able to steer it clear of Ponyville."

Dead silence.

"Uh...Ah suppose?"

"I bet that, after all that running you had to do, your calves were burning something awful." I snickered to myself and Pinkie broke out into peals of laughter.

"Haven't Ah suffered enough?" She groaned, covering her face with her hooves

"The newspaper really milked the story for all its worth."

"Really Dusk, I thought better of you." Rarity glowered at me. "This is not the time for-"

"What? Do you think my jokes are cheesy?

"Ugh, that's like, anti-awesome Dusk." Rainbow said, wrinkling her nose.

"I read an account of what happened in the Ponyville Post, it was a very moooving story!" I laughed until Applejack's pillow collided with my face.

"Git! Git outta here!"

"Oh come on now Applejack, what's your beef with me?" Pinkie was writhing on the floor at that point.

"Ah said Git!"

At that point Redheart came back to glare at us and we all walked out, me and Pinkie still laughing.

"I hope you're proud of yourself." Spike grumbled as he followed me.

"Of course I am!" I picked him up telekinetically and plonked him down on my back, feeling happier than I had since the stampede. "I've been waiting to use those for over a week now!"

"You're a bad pony." he said assuredly.

"I know!" I replied gleefully. "Now come, we have a report to compose!"

Dear Princess Celestia,

I finally have the information you wanted about the cow stampede: one of the cows saw a snake and they panicked. Yes, seriously, that's what happened. Applejack told me herself and while it is entirely possible that there were ulterior motives on the part of the cows or one of the Parliamentary families in this case I'm willing to take Applejack's word. She's like a walking lie detector, if the cows lied to her she would have known. Besides, the cows here are about as friendly as friendly can be, hay, some of the foals go and play with the calves after school.

Speaking of Applejack, she's doing fine. She's healing fast now that she's getting proper food and sleep. She'll be feeling the effects of her overexertion for a while, but there won't be any permanent harm done. In a way I suppose it will be a good lesson for her to learn, to accept help when she needs it I mean, but I wish she had been able to learn it without fracturing her skull.

That's all I have to report for now, but if you need more information about the stampede just tell me and I'll see what I can dig up.

Your faithful student, Dusk Shine.

PS- I talked to Mayor Mare like you said I should. She's still noticeably...military, though she hides it from the regular townsponies.

PPS- Also enclosed is a list of cow puns I came up with when I was dealing with this whole mess, I thought you and Luna might like them!

PPPS- I removed the cow puns before I sent this, they were abominable, you can thank me later.-Spike.

Dusk Shine Gaiden, chapter the first. A Day In The Life

It was a dark and stormy night, and deep within the bowels of the Golden Oak Library madness crouched. Seething tentacles of horror and pain twisted and writhed withing the confines of their worldly cage, fighting to free themselves and strike back against the puny mortal that dared summon them forth from the depths of the ancient grimoires from whence they came. Long they fought their most vile war, and most viciously did they resist the will of the single unicorn who stood in their way, holding back the terrors they would unleash with sheer force of will.

It was a battle of attrition that had been waged every night for months, unbeknownst to the general population. Each night the brave unicorn would venture down to the bowels of the library and do battle with forces eldritch and ineffable, never once giving an inch, never conceding. Though his mind was battered and his body weakened by his ongoing struggle he knew in his heart of hearts that he could never give up, never show fear, lest his foes scent his weakness and devour him.

Long was the struggle in the depths of the library, two great armadas of mind and will clashing over and over again, each seeking victory in hopeless battle after hopeless battle, only to come away battered and wounded with the cold comfort that they had given to their opponent just as good as they had gotten. Yes, it was a mutual siege, one that would shrivel the hearts of the average citizen of Ponyville with terror and twist their minds with agony, ultimately leaving them broken and piteous, gibbering nonsensically in pain and fear. It would take a miracle to change the course of the war, something new to break the endless cycle of unstoppable force meeting immovable object, something powerful enough to tip the balance in a battle more deadly than mortal minds could comprehend, and both sides knew it. It was the Unicorn's greatest hope and his enemy's worst fear, for though the Unicorn could, at desperate need, summon unto himself many a relic and ally of unimaginable power, the eldritch monstrosities had no such recourse, as all it's contemporaries were locked in pitched battles of their own. Their entire race was on the front lines, leaving no reinforcements.

It was to their great dismay, then, that the Unicorn found his siege-breaker.

They knew when he first brought forth the new power into their battle, they knew its form and its radiance. Many times had they faced it in the past and every time it had cast them down. They knew their battle was over, yet like the wild beasts they fought all the harder for knowing that their end was nigh, and though the Unicorn knew that victory was finally within his grasp he was in more peril than ever, but despite his enemy's greatest efforts and cleverest tricks he stood firm and with his ally by his side he pierced their defenses, scoring the first blow that would lead to their downfall.

After they were first struck it was only a matter of time, but though they continued to fight on they were unable to muster the same terrible power they once had. Their strikes became less and less coordinated, more feeble, as they bled and strength left them until they succumbed to their wounds and fell, awaiting the final blow they knew was coming, yet had no power to resist. The Unicorn did not keep them waiting.

Beaker, B., Titrate, C., Distiller, W., & Nitor, N. (1217 AC, 1ALR) Thaumaturgic Resonance Factors and their effects on Medical Potions and the Pony Body. Canterlot Journal of Medicine, 56(14), 1147-1223.

"Finally done." I groaned, letting my much-abused quill drop to the table. "I'm so glad I ordered the cheat sheet for the latest update in CAS citation. Whoever decided that each citation should have to be cited in the appropriate version of the style according to the year they were written in should be institutionalized." The base of my horn had been aching something fierce for the past hour and my bed was singing a sweet sweet siren song. "Ugh, I'll mail this out to the University later, it can wait."

Slowly ascending the stairs and listening to my joints creak and pop as they were forced into mobility after hours of being locked in the same position as I finished my graduate thesis on the alchemical effects of magically enhanced opiates. It had been sent back 'for revisions' a dozen times over the past half year, though since the pony who had to approve it didn't have a good history with my family I expected that. My problem had been when she decided to apply the new citation rules that shouldn't have gone into effect until the current semester was over. Obstructive bureaucracy was, is, and forever shall be the foundation upon which all of Canterlot was built, but some ponies take it to an extreme. Fortunately I've kept records of all the 'errors' that she found in my paper and with the latest fixes and the new citation I can bring my case to the Dean who, while not exactly a friend of mine, hates the head of medicine passionately. As I understand it the two of them had a fling that ended badly and never forgave each other, which (while an apalling breach of professional etiquette) worked well enough for me.

Once I got to the top of the stairs I went through the long process of deactivating the security seals and other various barriers that protected my lab from unwanted intruders, or protected unwanted intruders from my lab, it all depended on how you wanted to look at it. I had originally asked for permission to install some automatic defense systems of a more ballistic nature in addition to the shields, but all that had won me was the horribly disappointed look Celestia gives me when I try to install military point-defense weapons in a civilian area, so I had to make do with hermetic seals and a heavy duty kinetic barrier.

With that finally done I opened up the heavy duty steel door and entered into the back office of the library where I found quite possibly the most horrible thing I had ever seen.

Sunlight.

It was morning. Not just early morning, morning enough that I would actually have to do things in the library. Somehow I had completely lost track of time while I was working. What the hay? That hadn't happened in a week and a half, I thought I had finally gotten the hang of checking the time while I worked.

"Dammit. There's no way I can deal with the usual horseapples after being awake for..." I checked the clock in the room, which had a built in calendar. "Twenty seven hours. Buck. And it's saturday too, so students are going to be coming in to try and find books for their assignments all day long...and the new Daring Do just came out so there's going to be the rush for that. Buck me sideways." I snarled, grateful for the energy that frustrated rage provided. "That tears it, Dusk Shine needs caffiene. Stat."

It was almost seven, so I'd barely have the time to heat to heat the water for tea, much less go through the hour long process of preparing proper coffee, so I had no time to waste. I quickmarched up the stairs to my apartment and made a beeline for the kitchenette and my hoofmade heater urn. Like a store bought electric kettle, but more magical and thus better. It even had a built in oxygen monitor so I could use an oxygenation wand to make sure my water was exactly perfect for tea brewing. It stood out in the kitchen for being the only thing on the wooden countertops that wasn't a technological device.

I filled it with water from another urn with a built-in water filter and primed the heating sigils that I had oh-so-carefully scored into the interior surface of the brown pottery jug. Then I left it to do its thing while I opened the pantry and perused my tea selection.

Row upon row of clearly labeled but otherwise identical circular tins took up an entire shelf of the pantry, organized not by alphabet or by flavor, but by caffiene content. Weaker brews on the left, beginning with the ginger/mint medley I used to allay my virulent motion sickness and running the spectrum to the far right in the back, specimens of difficult to find tea blends that had been specifically grown to be extremely potent and actually required a license to buy. I grabbed two tins, first was the most hideously caffinated blend I had, a black tea with no flavor profile whatsoever, and a lemongrass/spearmint herbal that I kept on hoof just for flavor purposes. After that came my hoofmade pewter teapot, extra large with heating sigils just like the heater urn, and I measured out large spoonfuls of both teas and dumped them in the bottom of the pot, trusting to the built-in strainer to catch any particulates. All I had to do then was wait, though that was always the hardest part.

Celestia had gotten me started on tea back when I was a foal, as a way to break me of an (admitted) addiction to Island Nectar, a cheap citrus soda which I had been consuming on the order of roughly two liters a day. She had been smart about it too, in the beginning she had the royal chef make pitchers of sweetened fruit tea (not too different than flat soda or commercial fruit juice now that I look back on it) and heavily sweetened hot chai. Once I had accepted that without complaint the tea slowly got less sweet and less fruity until about a year after she took me on as her apprentice I was drinking straight green tea by the pot. I still drank Island Nectar occasionally, but nowhere near as much as I used to, and I had recently taken to carrying a thermos full of iced tea with me wherever I went.

As I waited for the urn to heat I heard an odd sound from my bedroom across the apartment and went to investigate. Inside the darkened room I saw my bed (sweet, sweet, wonderful bed) was still neatly made, just as I had left it. Spike's basket was another story. The small dragon had kicked the blanket off himself and was sprawled halfway out with his limbs hanging over the edges, twitching periodically. When I walked closer he started squirming and bumped a clawed paw into my nightstand, the source of the noise from earlier. His face was scrunched up into a grimace.

"Spike?" I called softly, walking over to him. "Spike, you okay?"

"Hunh? Dusk?" He slurred sleepily, his eyes cracking open slightly. "Wha's wrong? Time'ta work?"

"No, it's too early. What's wrong bud?" Normally he would have been up and ambulatory by now, since baby dragons were crepuscular, seeing him still sleeping at this time worried me.

"Couldn' sleep." He whimpered. " Guardponies got me."

"Everything's fine Spike." I laid down next to his basket and nuzzled his cheek. "No guardsponies here, you're okay Spike." The follow-up investigation into the vandal I'd had to deal with had meant that some town guard ponies had been in and out of the apartment a lot and I'd been afraid that would trigger his nightmares again.

"Y'sure?" His sleep deprived mannerisms reminded me uncomfortably of Applejack's debacle just a week previous, but I suppressed my discomfort so he wouldn't pick up on it and nuzzled him again.

"I'm sure. You can go back to sleep." I let him wrap his arms around my neck and hold onto me for reassurance, the water and the library could wait. Technically he was supposed to assist me by re-shelving the books and other things like that, but if he was this out of it he could stay in bed. He'd done plenty of work the previous night when I'd briefly come up from my lab to help him get the new Daring Do books shelved and entered into the ledger anyway.

"Stay here?" He asked hopefully.

"Sorry, but I gotta go down work the library." If I hadn't had anything to do I would've let him curl up with me on my bed and taken a nice long nap, but as tempting as that was I simply didn't have that option. "You'll be okay Spike, I promise."

"Dun' want you ta go." He tightened his grip.

"I know Spike, but I don't have a choice." I reluctantly pulled my head back and he unhappily let me go. "Go back to sleep, everything will be fine, you're totally safe." As I said that I helped him get back into his basket all the way and wrapped his heavy denim blanket snugly around him, simulating the inner membrane of a dragon's egg, and laid a gentle heating spell on it to make the similarities even stronger. The effect was immediate, his eyelids drooped and with one last indecipherable mumble he was hovering on the edge of dreamland. Seeing him like that made the urge to ignore the library and stay with him even stronger, but I ignored it, knowing that would only cause problems. "You can sleep on my bed tonight, I promise. Sleep well Spike." I kissed his forehead and tiredly walked out, closing the door silently behind me.

Back in the kitchenette the water was ready, so I prepared my teapot, dumped in the leaves, grabbed my favorite mug, a large black one with an artful rendering of the caffiene molecule on it (a birthday gift from my brother), and marched downstairs to face the day. My level of optimism, directly tied as it always was to the amount of caffiene in my bloodstream, was nonexistent.

Downstairs I was faced with a group of chagrined ponies standing outside the front doors, mostly staring at the Daring Do display Spike had set up, and some of them even were even wearing shirts with the titular heroine on them. Great, fanponies my favorite things in the world. Thankfully it was still a few minutes before opening time so I had a chance to get myself set up.

Urn and mug went down behind the librarian's desk, register book came out, quills lined up, and a quick inspection of my Cloudsdale Thundersteel Battery Baton was performed. I was as ready as I was ever going to be. Wearily and with great reluctance I opened the doors to the library and unleashed the stampede.

The instant the doors started moving the crowd of Daring Dunces rushed for the display and promptly began fighting, bowling over a mother and two foals in the process. Then the mother started yelling at the rabid fanponies while her foals cried, and it was my job to deal with it. Such is the life of a small town librarian. Sighing, I left the counter and walked over after glancing at the timer on my urn, not much longer thank Celestia.

"Alright alright, stop fighting. There are more copies in the Action/Adventure section." I was immediately innundated by a flood of painful noise as the ponies who got copies of Daring Do and the Sorcerous Goblet of the Phoenix Prince yammered at me to let them check it out, the other ones urgently asking me where the Action/Adventure section was, and the mother yelling at me for not yelling at them. Oh, and the foals had only gotten louder. I was tempted to silence them all with magic, and in my pre-caffeine haze I nearly did, but after weighing the (tremendous) satisfaction of doing so against that dissapointed look Celestia gives me when I use morally dubious magic on other ponies just to make my day easier I decided it wasn't worth it.

The foals were silenced by hard candy (which I keep behind the desk for just such emergencies, even though it technically violates library rules) and the mother was silenced by a firm remonstration to the Fanponies and a threat not to let them check out. The threat also had the fringe benefit of shutting up the Daring Dolts, which was always satisfying. After that it was back behind the counter to attend to the already long line of ponies waiting to check out.

I thought about Spike as I went through the tedious rigamarole that was the bulk of my job. We hadn't done anything fun together in a while and he deserved a bit of a break from the late hours in the library we'd been sharing. I felt kind of guilty for letting him help me so often, especially since he had his own education to worry about, but his grades (sent back via flame to his tutor) were top-notch and he had never taken well to being on his own for a long time at a stretch. He had just passed a mathematics test with flying colors as I recalled, that was more than reason enough to go into town and Celebrate. Horte's for dinner and then Sugarcube Corner for dessert maybe. Ever since Pinkie started making gemstone laced cupcakes he'd been begging to go. Yes, that sounded nice. I could get something a little less detrimental to my intestinal integrity and we could enjoy a sugar high together.

"Bit for your thoughts Darling?" I was snapped out of my wool gathering to see Rarity across the desk with one prim eyebrow raised and a small smile on her muzzle as her library card floated onto my desk.

"Just making plans for later, was it that obvious?" I checked out her books Mareabian Culture, a Study in Sand, Stars, and Caravans, Comparative Studies of Earth Pony, Pegasus and Unicorn History, and Textiles of the Ancient World.

"You did not recognize me when you looked up dear."

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to." I glanced behind her to find that there was nopony else in line, so I felt comfortable talking a little more. "I didn't expect you to get these, except maybe the last one. What's the event."

"Why, Renaissance fashion has been coming back into vogue darling. Didn't you hear? Just yesterday I saw the most exquisite dress in an old book and I was struck by inspiration! My next line will be inspired by Mareabian Nights!" Her eyes got starry as she trotted off into fantasy. "Just imagine it Dusk! Flowing robes,  starry nights in the desert, romantic flying carpet rides..."

"I see you've gotten a few ideas from pop culture." I noted. "I think you'll find reality to be a whole new world. A world filled with inter-tribal raiding, decidedly non-romantic hostage taking, and dry trade records."

"Oh hush." She sniffed primly. "You musn't always be such a spoilsport you know, besides, my customers do not want reality, they want to be swept away on the winds of fantasy, to feel bold and beautiful, and if I must suffer through dry treatises such as these in order to give them that, then that is what I will do."

"Ah, I see, you're taking a page out of my book and studying." My joke was met with dead silence and a flat stare. "Get it? We're talking about books, I'm a librarian, we're in a library, it's funny on three levels!"

"Yes dear, I am aware that it was meant to be a joke, I just did not want to dignify it with a response."

"You're just jealous that I'm naturally punny." I felt a spontaneous grin form on my face and I giggled like Pinkie Pie reading a cookbook.

"One would think an extensive education at the hooves of the princess herself would have included the study of humor at some point." Rarity said as she gathered her books, not quite intending me to overhear.

"Oh, Celestia tried to stop me. Plenty of times, but I'm puntamable."

"It has been nice talking to you Dusk Shine, I will see you later this week for our usual get together."

"Puncontrollable!" I blurted, unable to stop myself. The continuing giggles I had made me think I was a bit more sleep deprived than I thought.

"Good bye Dusk." Rarity deadpanned on her way out.

"Some ponies just can't appreciate humor." I chuckled. A brief look over at my teapot revealed that the timer was ten seconds off. I flicked it off with my magic and counted off the remaining time in my head before pouring steamy caffeinated goodness into my mug.

Unfortunately I didn't have time to savor it, at least not the first mug anyway, so I magically cooled it down to a safe temperature and slammed it back, downing the whole thing in five long gulps. The effects wouldn't be instant, but the warmth in my belly and the knowledge that I had a massive dose of my favorite stimulant headed straight towards my intestinal villi would be enough to keep me going until it actually kicked in.

"I'd like to check out please!" I looked up from pouring myself a refill and was greeted by the grey coat and misaligned yellow eyes of the town mailmare. She had a copy of the new Daring Do book as well as a do-it-yourself fireproofing guide.

"Sure, just a second." Register came out, card got checked. "I didn't figure you for a Daring Do fan Mrs. Doo."

"I'm not, but my oldest daughter, Sparkler, is." She chirped. Of all the ponies in Ponyville she was the only one who could give Pinky a run for her bits in the bubbly department. "She's been having a rough few days so I wanted to do something nice for her."

"Well hopefully things get better." I felt kinda proud of myself, even a year ago small talk was completely foreign to me. I was holding my own pretty decently by now. "Here you go."

"Thanks Dusk!" She waved with a wing as she walked out.

No one in line checking out books meant I had time to pour myself more tea, and soon the delightful scent of lemongrass was wafting ever so pleasantly up from my mug. Celestia was an earl grey fanatic, but bergamot never did it for me. It smelled nice enough, but it was so unpleasantly bitter to my palate that I've never been able to enjoy it. My favorite kind of tea was a white tea that was flavored with spearmint and lime. Iced and lightly sweetened: heaven. It's only made by one little tea shop in Canterlot, and it's extravagantly expensive, so I saved it for special occasions. I had been tempted to make some since I'd finally finished my paper, but it didn't have nearly enough caffiene for my needs.

"Hiya Dusk!" I looked up from a swallow of hot tea to see golden eyes staring intently back at me.

"Ah...Ms. Heartstrings?" Lyra wasn't easy to forget, not with her coat color.

"Yep! Lyra Harpflank, that's me! I wanna check this out!" A Beginner's Guide to Cocktails

"Alright, can I see your library card?"

"Nope." She smiled cheerfully back at me.

"Well then I'm afraid I can't check you out." I said after a long, awkward pause.

"I don't have a card." Sweet Celestia, is she related to Pinky or something?

"Here, sign this." I floated one of the blank cards I kept under the desk up and let her use my quill. While she (sloppily) signed the card I checked her out and stuck a free bookmark in the book, trying not to cringe at the ink that spilled onto the desk.

"There! Oh, awesome! How long until I gotta bring this back?"

"One week."

"Cool, now, let's see, where's the whiskey section? Heheheh...Beaker isn't gonna know what hit him." I ignored the creepy laugh and focused on removing ink from my desk. At our last weekly get-together Rarity had been thrilled to talk about Lyra and Bon Bon getting together with Bunsen Beaker after what had apparently been a long and involved courtship. Since I knew none of them I didn't really care that much, but after hearing Lyra laugh like that I might warn Beaker if I ran into him, out of male solidarity if nothing else.

Also, now that I thought about it, we were each supposed to pick something to do for our weekly get togethers and I had been...lax in my planning. As I checked out a procession of Daring Dumbells, whose behavior was eerily similar to drug addicts now that I took a closer look at it, I pondered plans for my turn.

Book club? No, Rainbow Dash alone made that impossible, to hyper to sit still and too impatient to read something that wasn't licensed by the Wonderbolts. Stargazing? Maybe, I have a very nice collection of telescopes, but somehow I doubt that would go over well. Rarity has a very strict bed time after all, and once again Rainbow would be a problem. Perhaps we could just have some tea? No, best not, tea and gossip was almost assuredly Rarity's plan. Games maybe? Spike is a board game fanatic so there's a copy of just about every board game known to ponies upstairs in a closet. Sure, that could work. I'd have to pick something mentally stimulating, yet simple, otherwise Rainbow would whine and Pinky wouldn't be able to focus.

Alright, activity was partially nailed down, now for the food. Since I don't have nearly the sweet tooth the others do I'd probably have to order some cupcakes from Pinkie at the very least. I'd definitely have some smoked almonds and cashews, though I doubt the others would like them. My culinary repertiore didn't include many snacky things, but apple cinnamon bread was hard to argue with, and it would go nicely with some spiced tea. A tomato and olive salad wouldn't go amiss either. As for Spike, I'd talk to Rarity about getting some of the more exotic gemstones for him to munch on, and now that I thought about it some new research suggested that tourmaline plays an important role in the growth of young dragons and I don't have any on hoof.

Another lull in the action gave me enough time to re-fill my mug with the last of the tea and survey the library to see if there was anything suspect going on. Ever since that brat carved a phallus into my shelves I started scanning much more frequently. In Canterlot no librarian would've had to worry about that kind of graffiti, but in Ponyville I found it depressingly common for young ponies to try and 'mark their territory' as it were. My first notable eviction made the youngsters a bit more wary of trying anything in the library, but it didn't stop them unfortunately.

Sure enough, my weary eyes caught sight of a group of secritive looking teenagers huddling around an end cap muttering and laughing to themselves. Sighing, I grabbed my Battery Baton and cloaked it before walking over. It was nothing but a knobbly eighteen inch Thundersteel rod, but it was heavy and heavily enchanted. A minor application of magic would charge the whole length with electricity. The bumps periodically spaced across its length would give the buildup a chance to arc dramatically. It was mana-inefficient, but it was designed as a self-defense weapon and as such intimidation was as much a factor in its design as functionality. I'd picked it up on the advice of a local guardspony after my recent run-in with them. It had been expensive, but I figured it was worth it if I could use it to avoid fines for 'excessive force' in the future.

"Excuse me?" I asked when I got within conversational distance of the three shifty looking ponies. Two mares, one stallion sandwiched between them. The mare on the left had a dull orange coat and a comb Cutie Mark, the stallion was off-white with a barrel Cutie Mark, and the mare on the right was dark blue with a tool I didn't recognize for her Cutie Mark. Both mares were earth ponies and the stallion was a unicorn. They all jumped about three feet in the air and whirled around to face me with the speed of the guilty.

"What do you want?" The stallion asked defensively, he was sweating and he couldn't look me directly in the eye.

"You three looked like you needed some help." I lied, looking at the end cap and finding it blocked by a wall of pony.

"We're fine." Tool mare said.

"You sure?" I leaned to the left, only to be blocked again. Very subtle.

"Yeah, so leave us alone." The stallion said gruffly, trying to puff himself up.

"Mind if I take a look at the shelf?" No need to beat around the bush.

"Why?" Tool mare asked querulously.

"Because I'm the librarian and I'd like to see what you were all so interested in." They were all sweating now, but handling it differently.Tool mare and stallion were looking increasingly belligerent while comb mare was looking terrified.

"We weren't interested in nothin'." Stallion said, taking a step closer to me and getting into my personal space bubble.

"'Weren't interested in anything'." I corrected absently, taking a step to the side to see if I could get a view of the end cap only to find my view blocked by stallion, who took another step towards me.

"Cooper, don't..." Comb mare said nervously, edging away slightly. By now Cooper's not-very-subtle posturing and loud protests had gotten a minor crowd. Damn, if he was anything like the other brats I've had to deal with he'd be even less likely to be reasonable when he thought he stood to publicly lose face.

"We weren't doin' anything wrong, so buzz off." His Phillydelphia accent was coming to the fore.

"If there's anything wrong with the end cap I need to know. It's my job to take care of the library." I said with what I thought was admirable decency given how annoyed I was.

"Just 'cause-hey!" My patience ran out mid sentence and I moved past him to find that my shelves had been vandalized yet again. The names 'Cooper , Bouffant, and Lathe had been burned into the wood of the shelf. Ugh, that was going to take at least an hour to fix. Stupid foals. "Whaddya think you're doin'?"

"Did you burn my shelves?" I asked evenly, turning around to find the group of them on the opposite side of the aisle.

"No!" Lathe and Cooper lied simultaneously.

"Really." I deadpanned. "Because I know that wasn't there last night and I'm willing to bet if I ping your horn I'll see that the last spell you used was a branding technique used to etch barrels."

Not giving them any time to react I flared my horn and sent a tiny bolt of magic right into Cooper's. It was a fairly simple spell that called forth an echo of the last spell a unicorn used. It's standard training for any Guard and fairly easy once you get the hang of it. It's intrusive and rude to use on somepony without permission, but I couldn't care less at this point. These brats had extended my working day longer than it had to be. Sure enough, when the spell connected the tip of Cooper's horn glowed red. He yelped and shook his head back and forth, charging his own magic to dispel mine.

"You can't do that!" Lathe shouted indignantly.

"Yeah, okay, I etched the shelf. So what? You can't do nothin' about it." Cooper said confidently. Lathe was definitely backing him up, but Bouffant was slinking backwards miserably.

"What gives you that idea?" I asked, taking the time to charge the cloaked baton since I had a feeling I was going to need it.

"You got busted for throwing Flan out! The guards fined you and everything, you ain't gonna do squat!" That other moron's name was Flan? Huh, learn something new every day.

"Yeah, you're right, I can't throw you out. I'm going to summon the Guards and let them deal with you." I had to fight not to smirk at the way his face dropped. Defacing public property carried a hefty fine and some community service and it was much harder to look cool while cleaning up trash while wearing an orange vest than it was to look cool marching defiantly out of a library.

"F-forget that!" Cooper said, still trying to be tough. "We're out of here."

"Cooper, please don't!" Bouffant pleaded.

"I can't let you leave Cooper." I sighed. At least the crowd was getting a good show out of this.

"What're you gonna do? Bind us? You'd get sent to jail. You ain't stopping me, scrawny. Outta my way, or do you want this to go bad?" He growled, getting right in my face. My eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Foal," I growled right back, de-cloaking the baton and floating it right next to his ear. "I have no patience for your brand of horseapples. You have two choices: wait quietly in my office for the Guardsponies to appear, or I use the rod." Arcs of electricity pulsed up and down its length, shockingly loud in the normally-quiet library. "I'm fine with either outcome, just make up your mind so I can get on with my job."

I could see the gear turning in his head, weighing his fear of electrocution vs his fear of backing down. For a second I thought I was going to have to zap him, or bludgeon him, which would make me feel even better, but Bouffant broke in again just as he was about to take a swing at me.

"Cooper, please! You're only gonna make it worse! Come on, let's go wait for the Guards. I don't wanna get in trouble for assault too."

"Y-yeah, I mean, he's stupid and all," Lathe said, licking her lips and staring at the charged baton. "But it isn't worth getting zapped. T-the guards'll probably have to fine him for using that thing right? We can just tell them about that that and they'll ignore us."

A few long moments passed as he processed the changed situation. I stared him down steadily the whole time, not budging an inch. Finally, after a tense few seconds he lowered his gaze and backed up a step.

"Fine." He grumbled, glaring in my general direction.

"Good choice." I powered down the rod, but kept it visible, just to keep him from getting any ideas. "Follow me."

I led them to my ground floor office. It was nothing special really, just a room with a desk and some filing cabinets I used to keep track of inter-library loans and new book orders. The walls were unadorned and you could clearly see the grain of the wood in the tree, there was a small window to the left of the door and the blue carpet was old and battered, but clean. Stacks of scrolls, folders, and seven ink bottles each of a different color sat on the desk, all neatly arranged for efficiency.

"How long will we have to wait?" Bouffant asked timidly when I finally got them in.

"As long as it takes." She was the voice of reason, apparently, but I wasn't in a forgiving mood. "And don't get any ideas about breaking anything. The whole room is warded and I will know if you've done something, which will only make things worse for you."

Now that he wasn't in front of a group of ponies Cooper wasn't nearly as brave, and he settled for glaring at me sullenly.

"It wasn't that bad." Lathe blurted. I fixed her with a steady stare, which made her flounder for a second before she decided to commit herself. "I-I mean come on, it was just three names!"

"Three names burned into living wood. You can't just scrub that off. I'm going to have to scrape out all the burnt wood, plus some extra to get the cells that were destroyed by the heat but didn't actively burn, then I'm going to have to feed the tree extra energy to repair the damage, cut down any over growth, sand the shelf and re-seal it."

"How were we supposed to know?" She responded, a bit of teenage self-righteousness coming back.

"Irrelevant." I glared her down. "You acted without thinking and you're going to have to face the consequences. Welcome to life, enjoy your stay. Now stay here and be quiet until the Guards come."

With that I abruptly marched out of the office and closed the door behind me, laying a seal on it to prevent them from leaving and making sure it was visible on both sides of the door just to keep them from getting any brilliant ideas. When I came out I found half the occupants of the library staring at me almost greedily. Ugh, small towns and their bucking gossips.

"Show's over." I said, trotting back to the front desk and returning the baton to its shelf. "Anyone who needs to check out form a line please."

Nopony moved at first, but then one of them trotted over with a book, and then a second, and after a few minutes everything was more or less back to normal. News of my little escapade would be all over Ponyville by nightfall, and I could hear the other patrons yapping about it, but at least this time I wouldn't be fined. In the brief space between one pony and another I charged a small crystal under my desk that would have a Guardspony at the library in a few minutes. Then it became a short waiting game until the armored ponies showed up to get a report and gather their new charges. When they arrived I showed them the names, gave them a brief testimony, and hoofed the brats over to them, happy to see them out of the library, making a mental note to make a list of ponies not allowed into the library.

When all that was finally done I glanced at the clock to see how much time had passed. Two and a half hours from my lunch break, most or all of which would probably have to be sacrificed in order to fix the damage to the shelf. Then I would have six more hours of work until closing, when I'd have to fix finish the work on the shelf if I hadn't already.

Buck me.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Today I learned that teenagers are bucking stupid and shouldn't be allowed in public spaces. Three of them vandalized my library today, though at least I didn't have to remove the image of an erect phallus this time. On the plus side, I'm finally done with my paper for the University so I can spend more time with Spike. Speaking of Spike, he's having some nightmares about Guardsponies coming to get him, which worries me a bit. They were bad enough to disturb his sleep last night so he ended up sleeping late, and when he did come down to the library he immediately hopped up on my back and refused to move for most of the day. As I write this, at ten in the evening, he's curled up with me and just now getting to sleep. I'm planning to do something special later this week, just the two of us, and I've decided I'm going to let him sleep in bed with me for a few nights. Hopefully that will take care of the nightmares. I hope you're doing well, and please give my regards to Luna,

Your faithful student, Dusk Shine.

P.S: If you can, please get in contact with my thick-headed brother and have him contact me. He's been ignoring me recently and I know it doesn't have anything to do with any of his Guard duties. It's entirely possible that he may have finally taken one to many blows to the head during practice and forgotten how to use a quill, but I'm pretty sure he's just being himself.

Star Studded Disaster (Episode six)

Star Studded Disaster (Episode six)

"Oh come on Dusk, please?" Spike begged from his place next to my desk.

"No, Spike. It's silly."

"Oh come on, do it for completion's sake! You got the rest of the book down, and you just know it'll bug you if you don't do the last one!" He said, switching tactics.

"It won't bug me." I said, trying to sound more assured than I was.

"Liar." He said with a smirk. "Just imagine it, months, maybe years from now when you check over your Finished Books and Completed Magical Exercises List you'll never be able to check off that one entry. The one book in the big big list that you never finished. The checkbox will be staring at you, glaringly empty compared to it's-mmph!" He stopped talking when I telekinetically shut his mouth.

"Fine, I'll do the stupid spell." I grumbled, annoyed at how...right, he was.

"Yes!" He cheered and took a few steps back, looking at me expectantly. I rolled my eyes and telekinetically grabbed a copy of 25 transmogrifications for the socially awkward Unicorn: How use transmogrification to break the ice and impress your fellows off the shelf where a box of them was waiting to be rotated into my general stock and flipped to the last page before the index. It was a simple spell really, but applying it to Spike's unique biology would present some interesting challenges. Granted, nothing I hadn't done before, but I'd never exactly attempted to do much with hair follicles aside from the memorable time my brother accidentally dissolved half his coat when he tried to dye himself a different color with magic. Good times. Regardless, a few seconds of running through the calculations and a double check involving actual paper and a quill and I was ready to give it a shot.

"Alright, here we go. Now hold still." I focused on his muzzle and formulated the spell carefully, being careful not to charge it too much lest any errant energy seep out and cause unintended side effects, and only when I was absolutely sure I had it right did I let fly. Light flew from my horn and impacted Spike's face. I blinked from the unexpected luminosity of the spell and when I opened my eyes Spike was practically bouncing in place, admiring his new mustache.

"Ha ha! You did it! Growing magic!" He crowed, twirling his newfound facial foliage.

"Spike, I've been able to do growing magic for years now. How do you think I passed my Agricultural Science courses?" I found myself without an audience as Spike was lost in his own little world, still fiddling with the moustache and muttering about Rarity. I sighed and facehoofed. Thank Celestia Rarity doesn't encourage him. "Hey, Equestria to Spike, Equestria to Spike, do you read, spacepony?"

No answer.

"Oi. Spike." I nudged him telekinetically.

Still no answer. Fine, two can play at that game. I smirked and enjoyed his indignant squawk when I reversed the spell and perma-shaved him.

"Hey!"

"Well, you shouldn't have ignored me. Besides, you know what they say," I said back with a puckish giggle that Celestia would have been proud of. "The good Dusk giveth, and the good Dusk taketh away. So there." Then I stuck my tongue out at him like the mature adult that I am.

"Oh yeah, well, pbthbthbthbthbth!" Spike blew a raspberry at me.

"Yeah. Pbthbthbthbthbthbthbthbth!" I retorted.

"Oh yeah?" He said, half giggling. "Pbthbthbthbthbthbthbthbth!"

"Yeah! Pbthbthbthbthbthbthbthbth!

"Pbthbthbhbthbthbthbth!"

"Pbthbthbthbthbth!"

"Pbthbthbthbthbth!"

"Pbthbthbthbthbthbth!"

Which is, of course, exactly when Rainbow Dash chose to barge into my office.

"Hey Dusk! There's a...what the hay?" She froze as she took in the sight of me and Spike sticking our tongues out at each other like four year olds. Then there was a long moment of awkward silence as Spike and I both blushed and tried to salvage a semblance of dignity. Fortunately, for once Rainbow's inability to not laugh at anything immature or puerile was superseded by her apparent haste. "Nevermind, come on! We gotta go!"

"Go to wha-hey!" I squeaked as Rainbow grabbed me and started pulling me out of my office. Spike followed out of habit, though he looked just as confused as I was. "Rainbow! What have I said about touching?"

"Fancy unicorn sissy stuff." She said. Translation: I didn't listen to you because I thought it was a wimpy excuse or you got technical. "Come on! There's a new show in town you gotta see!"

"Wait, by show do you mean a show show or that thing you tried to go get me and Applejack to go-"

"No! Not that kinda show, geez, I wouldn't bring Spike to something like that. At least not until he comes of age."

"Comes of age for what?" Spike asked, intrigued in the way children are when they hear about stuff they shouldn't know about yet.

"Tell you later." I said, trying not to blush at the memory of Rainbow's idea of friendly bonding time. Honestly, I hadn't even known there was a bar like that in Ponyville. "Now what the hay is going on Rainbow, and stop pulling me, I told you I have a sensitive coat." I tugged myself free and levitated Spike onto his usual spot on my back, where he settled in quite comfortably. "And besides, I can't exactly leave the library unattended."

"Dusk. The Library is closed. It's not like it's going to run away." She snorted, indicating the prominent 'closed' sign in the window.

Ever since the second vandalism incident the local contingent of wangsty teens decided to embark on their own crusade against me and my totalitarian ways. Well, they tried anyway. The latest and greatest incident, the one that necessitated the closing, occurred when one of them got uppity enough to earn himself a prolonged application of the shock rod. From there things got a little out of hoof and when everything was said and done I was going to be getting five brand new shelves courtesy of Ponyville's Problem Youth Rehabilitation and Community Service Program. At least this time an off duty guardspony was there to clear me of all wrongdoing and help me keep things in order until his uniformed fellows arrived. Not exactly the sort of subtle maneuvering and machinations that Celestia taught me, but the sudden change from victorious to agonized when the ring leader managed to wrest control of the rod away from me only to get a jolt of my own lightning magic was worth the disappointed look Celestia gave me whenever I used combat magic on a Minor. I hope those scorches leave a mark. Little bastard.

"It's the principal of the thing Rainbow. I am on duty from seven thirty to-" My mouth was suddenly full of cyan hoof.

"It's important Dusk! Money is on the line!" Rainbow shouted.

"Rahnhow." I growled around the hoof, my ears flicking in irritation. I'm getting used to the nonsensical amount of touching most ponies tend to do, but hooves are not intended to go anywhere near mouths unless scrupulously cleaned first, and Rainbow's jagged appendage didn't taste anything like clean.

"Oh, sorry." She had the good grace to look awkward for a nanosecond before jumping right back on her train of thought. "Anyway, come on, you gotta settle a bet for me!"

"What kind of bet, and for pity's sake wash your hooves at some point." I said, spitting grit out of my mouth and shivering at the thought of what it was.

"Well, yesterday this new magic showpony came into town and set up shop. Thunderlane, Derpy, and Blossomforth all went to see it and Thunderlane was all like 'Whoa, it was really cool She did stuff with ropes and flowers and stuff.' and Blossom was like 'It was totally amazing and like the best thing I've ever seen' so then Derpy says-"

"The point, Rainbow, get to the point." As much I enjoy hearing Rainbow try to imitate other ponies, her imitations are always good for a laugh even when her point of view isn't quite as at odds with reality as it usually is, I wanted to get back to work.

"Ugh, fine. I bet that this new pony isn't as all powerful as she says she is and I figured you would be the one to know. Now can we go please? The show's about to start."

"If somepony claims to be 'all powerful' that's the first sign they're not. First off, beings who really are powerful don't go around advertising it unless they want to end running afoul of one of their fellows, second, it's a traveling magic show. Those things run on hyperbole. She's not all-powerful, now can I please go back to work?"

"We haven't been to a show in a while." Spike said, breaking out his begging voice when he saw a chance to ditch work. "It sounds like fun."

"Yeah! See! Spike wants to go!" Rainbow said, pointing unnecessarily at the young dragon on my back. "You don't want to let him down do you?"

"Even if it's bad we can laugh at how stupid it is, just like when Celestia used to watch those soap operas." Spike said, scooting up onto my neck and leaning down into my field of view, giving me his best cute face.

"I really do have to get back to work." I said, hearing the hesitance in my voice and hating myself for it.

"Oh come on, Applejack's going to be there, and so is Rarity, practically everypony will.." Rainbow said with a smirk, knowing she just won.

"Ooh!" Spike said, perking up instantly when Rarity's name was dropped. "Yeah! We haven't gotten together with everyone in a while and this is a good chance! You said yourself you were just doing makework until the new shelves got installed. Let's go Dusk!

Dammit, I have enough problems without worrying about Spike's cross species crush and the potential havoc it could wreak if it grew out of proportion. Rainbow really wasn't helping by provoking it even further, and I was probably going to have to have a word with her in private about not doing it again in the future. Still, Spike would be mopey and whiney for the rest of the day if I didn't give in now. Son of a nag.

"Fine." I sighed, ignoring Spike's cheer and glaring daggers at Rainbow. "Lead the way."

"Heh, I knew you'd come 'round." She said smugly, fluttering up to her usual ponylength above ground and beginning to fly towards the town square. I grumbled something shockingly offensive in Old Equestrian in response.

"What was that?" Spike asked

"Something Celestia got quite cross with me for saying to the Griphon Ambassador once." I replied. Stupid magic show. Stupid Rainbow. Stupid crush. Ugh.

*

When we got to the town square it wasn't hard to find the show in question, as there was already a large crowd that we had to wade through to get a good view, and by 'we' I mean 'I' since Rainbow just flew above it. When I finally managed to get through the crowd I was able to see the spectacle for what it was. A rather ornate wagon had been set up in the town square. It had a red roof and wheels but the sides were butter yellow sides and had inset windows with hearts in them. Speakers had to have been hidden somewhere on it because almost as soon as I got to the front of the crowd a female voice could be heard blaring from its general direction.

"Come one, come all, come and witness the amazing magic of the great and powerful Trixie!" As the speaker shouted her introduction, trilling her 'r's far more than necessary, a musical sting played and the wagon unfolded to reveal a proper stage with a red curtain, a large teal pinwheel...thing, with attached stars popped out of the top. With that done, there was a very theatrical pop and a cloud of smoke appeared on stage, masking the entrance of the performer herself.

Trixie was...well, a spectacle. Just a shade or two darker than Rainbow Dash with violet eyes, a light grey mane, and wearing a ridiculous purple cape with stars and sparkles galore that was clasped at her throat with an obscenely large faux-diamond. She also wore a fake wizard's hat that matched her gaudy cape. Beside me I heard Rarity murmur something in disgust and couldn't help but chuckle. It was pretty heinous, even for a showpony.

"Watch in awe as the great and powerfu Trixie performs the most spectacular feats of magic ever witnessed by pony kind!" Right on cue another musical sting played, accompanied by some pyrotechnics launched from what had to be hidden compartments near the stage. Credit where its due, they were very nice fireworks, but I had to wonder how she hadn't burned down the wagon given the sheer volume and how close they got to the curtain.

"My my my, what boasting." Rarity muttered under her breath in a fashion that could be construed as quite unladylike.

"You just don't like her because of her outfit." I muttered back, snickering at her affronted look and Spike's glare. "It's a traveling magic show, of course it's going to be cheesy. Besides, the show hasn't even started yet. She may actually be good." I highly doubted it, but Spike dragged me into this (indirectly) and I felt a need to tweak his tail.

"Even if she is talented there's no call for...this." Rarity sniffed, flipping a hoof at some the rest of Trixie's introductory spiel which I had mostly tuned out.

"Yeah, there's nothin' wrong with bein' talented, but she's showin' it off like a schoolfilly with brand-new ribbons." Applejack joined in. She was looking up on stage with her eyes narrowed.

"Actually she's pretty good." I said, turning my attention back to her act with an appraising eye as she 'conjured magical flora from dimensions unknown' (read: teleported a bunch of trick flowers from back stage) and 'magically transformed them into the rarest of lunar butterflies' (translation: reversed the teleportation and used illusory magic to create some prismatic butterflies). "Granted, she's not moving mountains or splitting atoms, but she's dual casting and she's got to have a good grasp on the higher tiers of light magic to pull off some of those sparkles. That's not half bad."

"Just because one can perform lots of magic doesn't make one better than the rest of us." Rarity said derisively. I was about to ask her if she was indirectly referring to me when Rainbow jumped in.

"Yeah! Especially when you've got me around being better than the rest of us!...uh-" She quickly backpedaled when Applejack gave her a dangerous look. "I mean...yeah! Magic shmagic, boo!"

"Rainbow, no!" I hissed.

"Well well well, it seems we have some neighsayers in the audience!" Trixie said, transitioning out of her act with a smoothness that let me know she was well-accustomed to hecklers. Dammit. If one of the Elements of Harmony gets caught doing something stupid, like Rainbow is sadly given to doing, it could be bad. Very bad. Celestia may not be above manipulating the press every now and again, but there are limits, and I'd rather not become a tabloid article, even by proxy. "Who is foalish and ignorant enough to challenge the might of the great and powerful Trixie? Do they not know that they are in the presence of the most magical unicorn in all of Equestria?"

She said the word 'challenge'. Rainbow Dash is in aural range. This is going to end badly. Horseapples.

"Rainbow, I am begging you, in the name of all that is decent, please don't-"

"Just who does she think she is?" Rarity said, (understandably) annoyed by the constant bragging.

"Yeah!" Spike chimed in. "Everyone knows Dusk is-"

I clamped his muzzle shut with telekinesis and gave him a glare over my shoulder. I wanted no part of the coming train wreck. Unfortunately, the time it took me to silence Spike was time I couldn't spend curbing Rainbow's impulsive tendencies and I knew the instant I felt the wind and grit of her takeoff that the inevitable disaster was about to start.

"So oh 'great and powerful Trixie', what makes you think you're so awesome anyway?" Rainbow asked, flapping into her personal space. Trixie, for her part, didn't give an inch and instead polished her hoof on her cape and basked in the growing drama, preening in a way that reminded me strongly of Rainbow.

"Why, only the great and powerful Trixie has magic strong enough to banish the dreaded...Ursa Major!" This was accompanied by a burst of fireworks that resoved themselves into the outline of a glowing blue bear, further proof that she had planned for hecklers ahead of time.

Okay, imminent disaster aside, that's hilarious. I clamped down on the belly laugh that welled up deep in my gut even as the pyrotechnic bear proceeded to wave a paw around. Ursas, both major and minor, are sentient masses of pure magic and classified as walking natural disasters. There's no way in tartarus one pony, no matter how powerful, can take one down without outside intervention or a very clever plan. Everypony knows that. The urge to laugh only got stronger as she continued her speech.

"When all hope was lost, and the ponies had no one to turn to, the great and powerful Trixie stepped in, and with her awesome magic, she vanquished the Ursa Major and sent it back to it's cave deep within the Everfree forest!" Trixie is the only pony I've ever met with a more dramatic speaking style than Rarity, and that's saying something. My laughter was abruptly curbed, however, when the crowd proceeded to swallow the line she was feeding them hook, line, and sinker. Some foal near the stage started singing her praises, followed shortly thereafter by the rest of the crowd. Sweet Celestia, do schools even teach critical thinking anymore?

"How do you know? You didn't see it happen." Spike asked the foal in question before I could stop him. Though I had to admit he was voicing my exact thoughts.

"Oh, it's true my enthusiastic admirers! The great and powerful Trixie is the best in Ponyville!" Trixie purred, oozing the sort of narcissism that I normally associated with the old-blood nobility in Canterlot. "And if you don't believe it, I will prove it! I hereby challenge you Ponyvillians! Anything you can do, I can do better! Any takers? Anyone? Or are you conceding that I am the greatest Equine that has ever lived?"

If there was ever a line that was guaranteed to set Rainbow off, it was that one. In all honesty I was surprised she had stayed quiet this long, but if there's something I've learned over the course of my association with Rainbow, it's that if she's bound and determined to do something she's going to do it. Applejack looked pretty fired up too, though I hoped she would be sensible enough not to do anything stupid.

"Please, Dusk, she's unbearable!" Spike lamented in a manner so dramatic I momentarily wondered if he had taken lessons from Rarity at some point. "Ya gotta show her! Ya just gotta!"

"No Spike." I said firmly, ignoring the look he gave me. Unfortunately, Trixie caught his little outburst and she began theatrically scanning the crowd, but keeping her eyes on me the whole time. Son of a nag.

"How about...you?" She asked, pointing a hoof right at me. Then she sashayed down the length of the stage until she was standing almost directly over me and staring me in the eyes. "Well? Is there anything you can do that the great and powerful Trixie can't?"

Ah buck. There was no good way out of this one. Rule number zero of Celestia's school of Magic is that magic is not to be used to win arguments. I've got a bad track record with that one, and with the my recent blowup at the girls over the gala tickets I've been trying extra hard not to fall into that bad habit again. No matter how much I wanted to show her up, and Celestia in Elysium did I want to smack her arrogant flank from here to Griffonia and back, I couldn't do it. It would be one of the very few things that would get Celestia genuinely angry with me, and even if I wouldn't have to face her wrath there would be the law to consider. The Gendarmes tend to take property damage pretty seriously. So, in light of all this, I restrained my indignation (with some difficulty I must admit) and kept my voice level as I replied to her.

"I'm not going to get into a bout of magical one upsponyship." I said evenly, meeting her gaze without backing down but trying not to be aggressive about it.

"What's wrong little hayseed? Afraid to be humiliated in front of the whole town?" She taunted.

"Magic is not meant for winning arguments or showing off." I replied, quoting one of Celestia's famous essays. "Magic must be the servant of ponykind, but never its master." It was a bit rich for me to be quoting that particular line given my checkered past, but it was one of Celestia's most well-known quotes and it resonated with a great deal of the general populace, especially the unicorns of course.

"Ha! It does you no good hiding behind high minded rhetoric! The great and powerful Trixie can see right through you!" She pointed an accusatory hoof. "You use the quotations of Celestia to hide your fear of defeat, but do not worry, I understand." She lowered herself down so that her muzzle wasn't more than six inches from my own. "Why fight fate? After all, there is no shame in cowardice."

"I have nothing to prove to you." I replied flatly.

"I'm sure you don't, bumpkin, I'm sure you don't." She actually reached out and condescendingly patted my cheek with a glowing hoof, temporarily mingling our magical auras like a mother would do to calm her foal. I flinched away from the unexpected magical contact reflexively and took a step back, flaring a bit of my own magic to clear out the residue she left behind.

"Alright, that's it!" Applejack snarled. "Ah cain't stand no more of this. Can your magic powers do this?"

This wasn't going to end well. Buck me sideways.

She grabbed a rope from her saddlebags and hopped up on stage, proceeding to perform a series of increasingly acrobatic lasso twirling tricks including some I recognized as being a part of a routine she was working on for some sort of cowpony competition. She really was quite adept with her tail, though I was unable to really enjoy it as I still felt like Trixie's hoof was still on my cheek. The crowd was suitably awed though, particularly when she snagged an apple off of a nearby tree and yanked it through the air right into her mouth. Trixie watched the whole thing with an air of patronizing indulgence until Applejack was done and sarcastically clopped her hooves together afterward.

"Bravo, oh ye of little talent. Watch and be amazed at the magic of Trixie!" Her hat floated up and her horn glittered as she lifted the end of Applejack's rope, waving it in front of her face and distracting her while the other end snagged another apple. Then she hogtied the cowpony in a flash and had her suspended upside down with the apple in her mouth. Then she left Applejack to hop her way off the stage as she bowed to the crowd. "Once again Trixie prevails!"

"There's no need to go struttin' around and showin' off like that! That's my job!" Rainbow was behind Trixie in a flash, saying perhaps the most ironic thing she'd ever said. Still, the nag had the nerve to meld auras with me without permission, so I was willing to look past Rainbow's comment if she could buck the showmare down a peg or ten. Unfortunately I was fairly sure that no matter what she did Trixie would find a way to turn things back on her.

Buck me sideways. With a wooden spoon.

"Oh, really now?" Trixie asked, sounding very amused.

"Yeah! Just watch this!" Rainbow replied before rocketing off. I couldn't help but wince internally. Nothing good ever happens after somepony says 'watch this'. In spite of my initial worries though, Rainbow's little exhibition went fine. She shot over to the windmill on the outskirts of town, flew a circuit around the vanes and making them spin much faster than they'd ever been designed to go, then she shot up into the sky, piercing a row of clouds as she made a beeline for the sun  before she abruptly reversed her course, dragging a cloud of turbulence-formed raindrops in her wake. When she finally made it back to the stage the water hit her at speed and sent up a cloud of fine mist that a rainbow showed in. "They don't call me 'Rainbow' and 'Dash' for nothing!"

The crowd cheered, and my gut sank when I saw Trixie's smirk.

"When Trixie is through, they only thing they'll call you is loser." She said, reaching out with her magic and using a hybrid illusion and telekinetic spell I hadn't seen the like of before to grab and rapidly spin Rainbow before launching her off the stage. Rainbow landed in a heap of splayed limbs a few feet away and just laid on the ground, feebly twitching and groaning.

"Well, it seems like anyone with a dash of good sense would think twice before tussling with the great and powerful Trixie." Then her horn lit up again and she used one of the errant bits of cloud that followed Rainbow to shock her just as she was getting up and I felt my teeth starting to grind. That wasn't showponyship, that was sadism. This nag was getting off on humiliating my friends, and I couldn't do anything about it. If I stepped in there's no way I'd be able to keep my temper in check and I'd probably end up destroying her wagon or injuring her, either way I'd end up in jail and have Celestia furious with me. Unfortunately, Spike chose that moment to put in his two bits.

"What we need is a unicorn to challenge her. Someone with magic of their own." He said pointedly, staring at me.

"Yeah!" Rainbow said, having walked over just in time to hear Spike's comment. "A unicorn to show this unicorn who's boss!"

"A real unicorn to unicorn tussle!" Applejack interjected, apparently having no idea how illegal that was.

"Enough, enough. I get your hints, but Rarity is above such nonsense." Rarity said, breaking her long silence. I wasn't sure if she was trying to be funny or not, but she sounded too much like Trixie for me to be laughing, and I couldn't help but facehoof. Still, at least she won't end up taking Trixie on too.

"Ooh, what's wrong? Afraid of getting a hair out of place in that rat's nest you call a mane?"

"What?!" Rarity snarled, whirling around to face Trixie with righteous indignation in her eyes.

"Please Rarity, don't rise to the bait." I begged. "You know what could happen! Think of the lawsuits!"

"Oh it is on!"

Buck me sideways. With a wooden spoon. With splinters.

"You may think you're great with all your so-called power, but there is more to magic than your brutish ways." Rarity declaimed as she hopped gracefully up on stage. "A unicorn must be more than just magical muscle. A unicorn must have style." In a flash a section of nearby curtain was flowing through the air and swirling around Rarity, blocking her from view, and I had to admit it was quite the sight. Say what you will about Rarity, she's nothing if not an artist, even with her magic. "A unicorn must have grace and beauty!"

The flowing, glowing cloth suddenly fell away to reveal Rarity, who had managed to make an elaborate costume out of it including a golden saddle piece, and piled her mane into a gravity defying beehive like construction that I was sure had to involve magical supports somehow. The crowd oohed and ahed, and for the first time Trixie seemed genuinely annoyed, which worried me. If she was playfully malicious before, who knew what she'd do when she was actually angry. Sure enough Trixie's horn flashed and Rarity's mane was partially transmogrified into an olive greeen rat's nest, complete with tails. The hiss of the crowd's intaken breath covered up Rarity's squeak, and when the first and largest of the tails dropped down between her eyes I thought for sure she was going to pass out, but instead she shrieked and bolted from the stage, Rainbow and Applejack close behind, leaving Trixie laughing and polishing a hoof on her cape. Nag.

"Come on Dusk! You gotta do something now! You're better than her!" Spike said desperately, stinging at the insult paid to his crush.

"Ha! You think you're greater than the great and powerful Trixie? You think you have more magical talent? Well, come on! Show Trixie what you've got! Show us all." The maddening pony made her way across the stage, a triumphant grin on her face.

"I've already told you, I'm not going to do this." I sighed, wishing Spike hadn't said anything.

"But-" Spike opened his mouth but I gave him a warning look and he stopped before he could finish his protest.

"No Spike." I told him softly, but firmly.

"Oh come now, don't disappoint the crowd. They all want to see you try." She waved her hoof expansively.

"I'm not going to waste my time in a horn measuring match." I replied, trying to keep my temper out of my voice and picking Spike up telekinetically. It was past time to get out of here. "Come on Spike, let's go."

"Ha! Go ahead and leave! You'll be better off keeping what little dignity you have!" I ignored the urge to punch a gaping hole through her stage and made sure I was ready to restrain Spike as I left in the direction I'd seen Rarity go. She was going to be too emotional to undo what Trixie did to her, and if I knew anything about Rainbow or Applejack I would probably need to at least try to keep them from doing something stupid. No matter how much I wanted to join in.

I found them all at the Carousel Boutique, unsurpsisingly. I could hear Rainbow and Applejack's angry voices and Rarity's sniffling from outside, so I ignored the closed sign in the window and poked my head in, finding pretty much what I expected. Rarity was staring into a mirror, tears running down her face as she repeatedly tried to dispel the enchantment on her hair, but in her emotional state there was no way she was going to be able to pull that off anytime soon. All her efforts did was provoke the rat tails into increasingly frantic wiggling, which only made her more upset and less able to use her magic effectively. All the other two could do was sit and watch, muttering angrily to themselves. Spike had resigned himself to a sullen silence on the way over and slid off my back as soon as I was in the door.

"Hang on Rarity, I'll take care of it." I said, announcing my presence. I expected the fresh bout of tears from Rarity and even Rainbow's twitch of surprise. What I didn't expect was for Applejack to round on me furiously.

"What the hay was that Dusk?" She asked, getting right into my face. "What's wrong with you?!"

"What are you talking about?" I asked, my temper straining against my willpower once again.

"You didn't do anything! You let that nag romp all over us!" She growled.

"Yeah! You could've done something!" Rainbow added , walking up to me.

"Magical pissing matches aren't exactly smiled upon by the Gendarmes." I replied, taking deep breaths to stay calm. "If I got into a fight with her, I would most likely have been thrown in jail."

"Horseapples." Rainbow scoffed.

"No, he's right." Rarity said, her voice creaky. Applejack and Rainbow started guiltily and turned around to face her. She was still facing the mirror and trying to cast, but apparently she'd been paying attention after all. "The more powerful the unicorn the stricter the laws are. For a low level Talent like mine the worst that can happen is a fine, but for somepony like Dusk a prison term is not unheard of."

"Just for knocking a two bit tramp like her down a peg?" Applejack asked skeptically.

"Justice is blind to circumstance." I said dryly, walking over to Rarity and settling down next to her, scruitinizing Trixie's work. It was, though I was loath to admit it, very good. It was a fully tangible illusion anchored to Rarity's own magic. The more she tried to dispel it the more she fed into it and reinforced it. The only way she would be able to get it removed was by another unicorn, and it would disappear on its own only when Rarity's reserves were completely tapped out or the residue of Trixie's own magic degraded enough that the structure of the spell popped, either way it would have taken hours, or maybe even over night. The side effect, aside from the obvious inconvenience, was that the invasion of a foreign mana connected directly and invasively to her own magical circulatory system was causing a sort of allergic reaction. I couldn't imagine the kind of migraine she was probably getting. "Alright, I've figured it out, now just hold still a second."

Rarity sniffled an affirmative and I lit up my horn, sending streamers of energy into the spell's matrix, disrupting it as quickly and painlessly as possible. It was like poking holes in a pile of foam, with each new hole the overall structure weakened and within a minute Rarity's mane was back to normal. Then I set about the more tedious, but just as necessary, task of cleaning out the residue. I very carefully structured my own mana until it matched her own aura as closely as possible and went to every affected mana node, essentially scooping out Trixie's magic. The process was similar to what Trixie did to me earlier, but in this case it was actually meant to be soothing, like it was supposed to be. Rarity calmed down significantly once her mane was back to normal, and by the time I cleaned out as much residue as I could she was just about back to normal, if a bit tired.

"Feel better?" I asked, doing one last check to make sure everything was okay.

"Yes. Thank you Darling." She said when I withdrew my mana entirely. "I feel much better with that awful brute's magic out of me."

"Casting is probably going to be a bit painful for a while." I warned her. "And you won't have as much fine control until the inflammatory response calms down."

"I will make do." She said, smiling at Spike who had settled beside her with a brush. "Thank you Spikey."

"No problem." He said, starting to carefully brush her mane as she wiped her eyes.

"Ah still wish you could'a done somethin'" Applejack grumbled.

"Believe me, if I wasn't worried about going to jail, I would've done something."

"You're Princess Celestia's student. Couldn't she get you off the hook?" Rainbow asked, settling down beside Applejack.

"Absolutely not." I replied, much to her apparent surprise. "Celestia made it very clear to me from day one that if I ever harmed somepony with magic she wouldn't lift a hoof to help me out legally. It would be showing favoritism and defeating the purpose of the justice system to begin with."

"You wouldn't have had to do nothin' harmful, you just had to have done somethin'." Applejack replied. "We were defendin' yer honor!"

"You were what?" I asked, completely and utterly flabbergasted.

"She was bullying you in front of all those ponies." Rainbow said, her wings twitching. "We couldn't let her get away with that!"

"I...you didn't have to do that." I was oddly touched. No one's ever done that for me before, except Celestia of course, but in her case the defense was much more literal. Now that I thought about it, I wasn't surprised that Applejack at least had been acting out of chivalry. Rainbow was unexpected however.

"Of course we did." Applejack said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Yer the only stallion in the group. Someone's gotta stand up fer ya." Apparently she's a bit more old-fashioned than I thought...

"I appreciate it Applejack, I really do, but she didn't do or say anything I haven't dealt with before. Besides, I'm more than capable of defending my own honor." I said with a smile.

"Ah know ya can Dusk, but it's the principle of the thing." She said airily.

"Yeah, it just isn't right picking on a stallion like that." Rainbow joined in.

"My, I never knew you two were so chivalrous." Rarity said with a small laugh.

"Heh, my mares in glinting armor." I chuckled. "Seriously though, I don't want to see anypony get hurt on my behalf. If she had crossed a serious line I would've launched her narcissistic plot into the magnetosphere. As it stands there's not much we can do. We technically have cause to slap her with Misuse of Magic charges, but she'll claim it was part of a competition or defense."

"What about that shiny hoof thing she did to you? That was some kinda fancy magic stuff right?" Rainbow asked.

"'Mr. guardspony, mr. guardspony, the mean pony over there touched my cheek, go arrest her!'" I deadpanned. "Yeah, that'll go over swell."

"Ah should'a hog tied her." Applejack grumped.

"She'd file for harassment." I pointed out.

"Yeah, sexual harassment." Rainbow chuckled.

"Rainbow!" Applejack and I hissed as Spike perked up.

"What?" She blinked cluelessly.

"Yeah, what?" Asked Spike.

"Nothing you need to know about yet." Rarity said, sternly, covering his ears with her hooves. "Really Rainbow, must you bring up such topics with a foal in the room? What you do on your own time is your business but Spike is much to young to be hearing about...such things." She finished, coloring slightly.

"Oh, uh, yeah, sorry." Rainbow muttered, scratching her mane in embarrassment.

"Yes, well, I'm officially changing the subject. Anypony know how long Trixie's going to be in town? I'd rather not run into her again if I could avoid it."

"She only showed up yesterday." Rarity supplied, removing her hooves and leaving a confused but curious young dragon I was going to have to placate later. Dammit Rainbow. "So one would think she is going to be a while."

"I didn't exactly look at her showtimes." Rainbow said, proving to be about as useful as she usually was in matters like this."

"Nope, sorry." Applejack shrugged.

"Mmph. Ponyfeathers." I grumbled. "Avoiding the town square is going to be inconvenient."

"We could always trash her wagon at night." Rainbow suggested with a smirk.

"Rainbow, you do know that Equestria has these things called laws, right?" I rolled my eyes. I'm absolutely sure Rainbow has a juvenile record, and there have been times I've been extremely tempted to pull a few strings in order to take a look at it, but that's the kind of privacy breach I won't stoop to...unless ordered. "If they didn't exist,we wouldn't be having this conversation to begin with."

"Well, we gotta do something." Rainbow protested.

"It's not worth getting in trouble over. Just stay away from the show. If, on the off chance, she comes to us and does something stupid we'll call the guards on her and get her for harassment. Other than that we can't do much of anything."

"Oh yes we can." Rarity said, gently taking the brush away from Spike with a smile of thanks and began working on her tail. Spike smiled back and ambled over to me, choosing to flop down and use me as a back rest. "I will spread the word around that she is an absolute ruffian."

"Ooh, good point. One of us should make sure to get around to Fluttershy and Pinkie...but especially Fluttershy." I winced at the scenario that played itself out in my mind. Fluttershy inspires parental instincts in everypony she interacts with, and since she's the town's only vet she has a lot of very loyal customers who wouldn't take it well if she were to be harassed. Hay, if she had been at Trixie's show and treated the way Rarity was I'd be sitting in a jail cell right now.

"Yeah, good point. I'll fly out to her place." Rainbow said, her expression telling me she had similar thoughts running through her head.

"Ah gotta pick up somethin' from Sugar Cube Corner, so Ah can talk to Pinkie." Applejack volunteered.

"Good." I said, glancing at the clock above the door. "Well, Spike and I should probably get going. I've got a few things to check on in my lab and Spike has some homework to do."

"Aww, do we have to go?" Spike whined expertly.

"Yes. Because I'm a horrible horrible pony who makes sure you get your assignments done on time and that you eat your borax so you grow up big and strong. Oh, and bed times, can't forget the tyrannical bed times." I grinned and lifted him onto my back, where he promptly started grumbling.

"I should go too I guess." Rainbow said, standing and stretching her wings. "See you guys on thursday for our get together."

"Yeah, Ah got an early mornin' tomorrow. See y'all later." Applejack hopped up and joined the pony train heading for the door.

"Good bye." Rarity called, standing up to see us out. "And thank you again Dusk Shine, I appreciate it."

"No problem. If you still have problems tomorrow morning it wouldn't be a bad idea to go to the clinic and get checked out."

"I will do that Dusk. Good bye!"

"Bye."

"Bye Rarity!"

And with that we walked out into the late afternoon sun, our course set towards home.

I was grateful to get home after that train wreck of a day, and seeing as I had a few hours of free time once I set Spike down with his reading assignment and his History of Equestria essay (and ignoring his grumbling about pointless assignments and sadistic teachers), I ambled on down to the lab to set about doing what needed doing, setting up the privacy wards along the way to ensure I couldn't be bothered.

I couldn't help but smile as I entered my lab and the lights flickered automatically to life, revealing the large space that had been hollowed out far underneath the roots of the library tree. My lab was divided into two roughly equal sections. Immediately when you came down the stairs you entered into the airlock/decontamination chamber which resembled nothing so much as a large shower stall with a plethora of glowing magenta runes on the walls that facilitated the cleansing and purifying magic that was the room's sole purpose. The decontamination and cleansing field was unpleasant to walk through, like fever warm static electricity, but it kept my specimens safe from outside influences and me safe from my specimens, so I tolerated it.

After that you walked into the part of the lab dedicated to the material sciences. Five long tables loaded with more laboratory equipment than some small hospitals filled the rectangular space. The walls and ceiling were set with large metal tiles with a matte finish, each containing thousands of tiny runes that worked together to create the powerful wards that sealed the lab off from the outside world. Directly to the right of the entrance was a stainless steel desk that held my inbox, outbox, a few office supplies, and a special teleportation device specially designed for sensitive samples and delicate equipment. It was also the second most secure means of transmitting written messages there was, the first being Spike.

The other half of my lab, the part that didn't get as much use was the half dedicated to magic. The two portions, separated by magically reinforced polycarbonate, couldn't have been more different. Where the material science area had microscopes, centrifuges, and even a mass spectrometer, the magical area had crystals, wands, and grimoires stacked on it's warded tables. That was where the equipment I used to study the Everfree was located, along the far wall closest to the forest itself. A giant growth of clear quartz crystal carefully grown to specific sizes, lengths, and dimensions that let it resonate with and reflect the constantly changing aura of the blighted forest. That last bit of arcanotech was the main reason my lab existed in the first place. The army's Battlemage Corps had a keen interest in keeping the blight from spreading out of Everfree, and they were more than willing to throw money at somepony who wanted to set up another monitoring station dedicated to the forest.

I couldn't help but smile as I walked in and took a deep breath of the sterile, recirculated air. My lab was my sanctuary, away from the bustle of life in Ponyville, protected from my fellow ponies and their bizarre and confounding idiosyncrasies, and surrounded by the firmament of facts and logic that was science I was truly at home. The symphony of clicks, whirs, beeps, and dings that my instruments emitted was a balm to my nerves. It was impossible to think about Trixie and how aggravated I had been when I was recording fluctuations in the meteorological data from the Everfree or checking up on the ongoing experiment tracking how certain types of luminescent fungi reacted to prolonged exposure to specific levels and frequencies of magical energy. In here I could truly be at peace, and I could feel the stresses of my day melting away as I donned my hermetically-warded lab coat and my favorite pair of safety goggles, the ones I enchanted with built in magnification.

A quick review of my inbox told me that my first task was to send a report about the levels of magical taint seeping from Everfree Forest to the Eldritch Defense Battalion, which worried me slightly since that particular batch of monster hunters didn't usually tend to bother those of us monitoring that tartarus pit unless they thought something was about to (or already was) going wrong. Now, don't get me wrong, Everfree Forest is fascinating, it isn't every day you can literally see what happens when two different polydimensional realities meet and clash, but its something I like to watch at a distance measured in miles at the very least. I have no idea how Fluttershy can stand living even under the outskirts.

Oh well, no sense in borrowing trouble, so I gathered my readings for the last month and a half, wrote a quick half page summary amounting to 'nothing's changed' and put it in a magically sealed envelope before dropping it in my outbox to have Spike torch later. No sense using the teleportation locker and the massive amount of energy it drained from my mana capacitors when I could just have Spike torch things instead. Then I made a note to myself to keep an ear to the ground about potential Everfree-related trouble. It also wouldn't be a bad idea to send a note to Mayor Mare, I've found her to be pleasantly proactive about matters of public safety and I'm pretty sure she'd appreciate a warning.

The next thing on the list was to run some comparison tests on bacterial samples shipped in from a few hospitals across the realm. The official wording on the envelope attached to the stack of petri dishes in the secure teleportation locker rambled on in a disinterested sort of way about antibiotic resistance in differing strains among the pony subspecies but judging by the urgency of the note and the frequency of spilled ink I suspected there was a slip-up in another lab and the strain in question wasn't exactly naturally occurring. One more thing to tell Celestia about. The tests themselves were fairly simple, all I was looking for was a specific mutation on the genome of the bacteria in question, a particularly nasty strain of streptococcus, but the sheer number of samples meant I was at it for a while. In other circumstances I actually enjoyed running tests like these since I didn't have to bother using any machinery to do it, I was able to use an advanced medical visualization spell to look directly at the chromosomes in question. It was an awesome spell, very colorful, and I was lucky to have studied under the doctor that created it. He was a bit of a jerk, but his results were unquestionable.

In the end I came to find that the mutation that rendered the little bugger resistant not only to the typical antibiotics but the standard healing spells was unique to the northern regions of the realm. Not too surprising there, since the further north you get the more unicorns there tend to be. Still, any time a bacteria was able to develop a resistance to magic was bad, so there was something else I'd have to keep an eye out for in the future, so I made another note to myself after I destroyed the specimens and loaded up my second secure envelope of the night.

Next up was a pleasant surprise. Celestia wanted me to canvas local opinions on an educational decree she was thinking about bringing up in Parliament. That would be easy enough. I scanned the summary she attached to the note and mulled it over as I destroyed it for security's sake. Nothing too outlandish, shortening the school year by cutting down the number of holidays and leaving the foals with a longer summer vacation. Part of her constant tweaking of the educational system. I would be able to get that information pretty quickly, since I ran the only library in town I got a lot of parents coming in to help their foals check out books for homework assignments. I could also get in contact with Cheerilee through Rarity or Applejack. She'd probably have a few things to say about it. I could even talk to Mayor Mare, seeing as she'd have to deal with the complaining parents after Cheerilee and the other teachers passed the bit. I dashed off a quick reply telling Celestia that I'd have the information she wanted in a week or two and used yet another one of my special envelopes.

Back once again to the inbox and I couldn't help but groan, it was a letter from the Board of Directors of Canterlot University. The university was doing a study on the genetic traits of the original twenty four noble houses of Canterlot and their offshoots, and I was slated to compile lists of common ponies descended from dead houses so the University could contact them to further the study. Translation: the pureblood families that comprised the board of directors were trying to find excuses to either A: leave somepony out of a will, B: include somepony in a will at the expense of somepony else, or C: hunt down somepony technically related to them but genetically different enough to continue the family line.

What that meant for me was days of digging through genealogies and reporting innocent civilians to be hunted down and harassed by the plotholes from the University. I pitied the fool caught up in a binding contract with one of the old houses, legal, financial, nuptial or otherwise. My family's been a rabid pain in my flank for years, and that was after they accepted me as the black sheep. Thank all that is good and just that they realized that I wasn't ever going to play ball not long after I became Celestia's student, otherwise I might not be the sane and well adjusted individual I am today.

I didn't have a choice about the study though, I couldn't exactly blow off a direct order from the people that determine whether I got my degree or not, no matter how unqualified they were. So it was with a heavy heart and a bevy of profanity that I started hauling out the lists of family trees that the University had been thoughtful enough to provide me only to find that they wouldn't be nearly enough to do what the directors wanted. The books in questioned only covered six of the twenty four families, and a quick skim of the indexes showed me that even that data was sparse at best. Terrific. I'd have to dig through my own records at the library and send off to the University for more complete documentation before I could even start.

"Diamond dog bucking, minotaur licking, developmentally delayed plotholes." I growled to myself as I marched out of my lab, annoyed at the fact that I'd have to go through the decontamination field a few more times since there's no way I'd get all the books I'd need down the narrow staircase in one go. Even worse, with the library closed down for a few days I'd taken the opportunity to reorganize things again, meaning the books I needed wouldn't be on the shelves and I'd have to dig them out of the boxes they'd be entombed in. "Son of a bucking nag. Why the hay did the board of inbreds have to drag me into this? Ugh, oh well. Better check on Spike and see how he's doing."

Changing course from the main floor of the library and up to my apartment above, I thought I felt the ground shake for a second, and I almost stopped to investigate but decided not to. There wasn't a fault line within a thousand miles of Ponyville, meaning an earthquake was one of the few disasters that hasn't befallen the town at some point or another. I quickly trotted up the stairs and opened the door, finding Spike sitting in his favorite spot under the window in the living room. The lights were on and there was a box of rubies next to him that he had obviously been munching on. He was frowning at his history book and writing lines of notes in his impeccably neat cursive. In the few seconds it took me to cross the length of the room to where he was   I took a deep breath and switched mental gears to make sure I wouldn't give him any undeserved grump, noticing another odd tremor as I did and deciding to look into it after I was done. If the tree had termites in it and they were eroding the foundation I'd have to get on top of that quick.

"Hey Spike, how's the report going?"

"It's fi-"

The rest of his response was cut off by a bone shaking, eardrum shattering roar. I flinched and reared in shock, and had just enough time to see the wall of the tree get torn open and Spike fall screaming into the resulting hole before half a bookshelf hit me in the temple. Then everything went black.

It was the blood that brought me back. The salty, coppery tang that invaded my mouth and nose made my stomach roil and an instinctive fear flickered to life, a light in the darkness that I'd been floating in for I didn't know how long. I weakly tried to spit, only managing to dribble a thick gob of saliva across my cheek. My neck and head hurt abominably, my ears were ringing, and I felt incredibly weak. As consciousness and control slowly returned to me I became more aware of my surroundings. Something large and heavy was pinning me down and making it hard to breathe. My spine around the base of my skull was throbbing fiercely, as was my forehead near the base of my horn. The rest of my body felt mostly fine except for the parts the heavy thing was pressing directly onto.

Opening my eyes was a struggle. Try as I might, the just wouldn't open. Fear of blindness spurred me onto greater and greater efforts until I was finally able to force my eyes open, realizing that it was dried blood that had gummed them shut. With my vision restored, I felt a bit better and I was able to focus better. Everything was fuzzy, but I remembered something. One of the first lessons I ever learned. If you were hurt and you couldn't see anypony, flare your magic. Your magic would help. It took everything I had, but I managed to force my horn to glow and spread a glowing aura of mana through my body. Immediately I started to feel better. The pain faded and the ringing in my ears died away, only to be replaced by a much more frightening sound. Screams. The citizens of Ponyville were screaming.

Looking around as the pain and stiffness in my neck lessened I tried to remember where I was, things were getting easier to do as my magic continued to heal me and I was better able to focus on healing myself, but I was still confused. Nothing around me looked familiar. Then a familiar roar shook the world around me and it all came flooding back. I had to take a few deep breaths to fight the panic that threatened to overwhelm rational thought. Deep breaths, just like Celestia taught me. Whenever you're in a crisis take a deep breath and take stock of the situation before you act. Breathe and then act. Breathe and then act.

I was still trapped, and a glance upward revealed that it was nothing worse than a couple of bookshelves. I was fortunate too, if I had been a little further to the left I would have been covered in broken glass from the windows. As it was I was still trapped, and the weight on my barrel was making it painful to breathe. Right, that had to be taken care of first. Another look at the collapsed bookshelves told me that they weren't wedged on anything, they'd just fallen over when the wall had been blasted inwards. A quick telekinetic shove had them off of me and somewhere where I wouldn't have to worry about them. Then I carefully rolled onto my belly and tried to stand up. The floor was covered in broken glass and other assorted debris, but I was in a relatively clear area so I felt okay trying to stand. My living room had been obliterated, a huge hole in the wall and floor had been opened up presumably by whatever was doing the roaring, but the rest of the place seemed intact. No debris in the kitchen and the bedroom was completely unscathed, being located in the core of the tree far away from the affected wall.

I was a little wobbly at first, but that passed quickly and I was able to focus on some of the less urgent injuries. I could feel blood oozing from my forehead and I took a second to close the wound with magic. It was a quick and dirty job that probably left a scar, but I was beyond caring. Looking down at myself was pretty gruesome. I was covered with splinters, blood and dust. What the hay happened? I was just walking upstairs to check on Spike when...wait...

"Spike?" I called, looking around. It was dark, twilight was falling and the lights were out. He could be somewhere nearby, hiding. "Spike?" I could hear the fear pitching my voice up an octave. My head whipped around painfully, scanning the wrecked room for any sign of him. Nothing. "Spike!"

The roar sounded again and I had a brief flash of purple scales falling through a gaping hole. Oh Celestia. Oh sweet diarchs. Spike was alone out there with whatever the hay had blown up the wall. I couldn't lose him. I couldn't lose Spike. Not him. Not ever. No. What was I supposed to do? I had no idea how long I was out. He could be buried under some rubble, he could have run out of town, he could be d-no. No, he wasn't...he was alive. He was alive dammit. He didn't die. I refused to believe he could have died. No.

Horseapples. Buck. How could I find-wait, tracking spell! Yes!

"Come on Spike, please be okay, please." I begged, lighting up my horn and activating the most powerful tracking spell I could. Years ago I'd planted a tracer on him that would let me find him in case something went wrong. A magical beacon. It resonated with my magical aura and it would let me find him no matter what. As long as I was able to get within a square mile I'd be able to feel him out and track him down. My horn flooded with magic, frequencies were changed, my optic nerves were bathed in mana, and a link was formed between my horn and my visual cortex was linked to my horn, turning me into a magical radar.

I was almost blinded instantly.

"Buck!" I cursed, deactivating the spell, my eyes watering and tingling. Something nearby was putting out so much raw magic it had overloaded the spell. Probably whatever was roaring so damn much. I growled and flared my magic, clearing the last spell's mana pattern out of my horn and set up another spell, a simpler one that I could key to a different sense than sight. I tied it into a tactile sense of warmth. I'd literally get warmer the closer I got. This time the spell went off without a hitch and I was able to orient myself to his general direction. He was in or around the town square. I could also sense another presence near him, one powerful enough to cause magical interference great enough to nearly break the spell. Spike was in danger, I was still lightheaded from casting so soon after a concussion, I had deep tissue bruising on my barrel, and I was trapped in a wrecked room on the second story of a building of which the structural integrity was suspect. I wasted no time blasting the debris between me and the hole in the wall out into the street and used a convenient plank to levitate myself to the ground.

Spike was in danger, that's all that mattered.

Ponyville was in chaos. Whatever was destroying the town, and was it ever destroying the town, had carved a swathe of ruination that beggared belief. Amazingly, my tree got off easy. The damage was confined to my living room and the wall of the library directly below it. Other buildings nearby hadn't been so lucky. Carts were lying in the streets abandoned by their owners, houses were collapsed, and there were pillars of smoke curling up from multiple places across the town. There were also bodies. Still bodies. I didn't let myself look at them as I sprinted through the wreckage, following the trail of destruction as it was the most direct route to Spike.

I ran through lawns and houses, shops and outbuildings. I vaulted fences and skirted housefires that were raging unchecked, all the while listening for Spike's voice in the cacophony that rose up around me. The screams were constant, and constantly changing, but they had a pattern to them, almost like some kind of infernal symphony. Individual voices called out for help, shouted the names of their loved ones, or just screamed in pain or fear. It took me only a few minutes to make it to the town square, but they were some of the most horrendous minutes of my life, and I was sure they would be coming back to haunt my sleep for years to come.

What awaited me in the town square wasn't much better. There, stomping across the area Trixie's crowd had been just hours previous, was a translucent ursine giant. Even without my tracking spell I could feel the mana radiating from the raging creature, it felt like standing near a bonfire twenty feet high. As I jumped over one last bit of rubble to get into the lawn of the square itself the Ursa raised a paw and swiped down at something in front of it, bellowing furiously. The strike rebounded off a glowing shield and I realized what was going on.

Somehow, despite all odds, the guardsponies had managed to stop the Ursa's advance at the far end of the town square. Now that I was paying attention I noticed that there was a three pony team of unicorns at every street attached to the square, each of them working together to put up a shield to stop the beast from rampaging into the center of town and the residential neighborhoods therein, while still others were doing whatever they could to keep it from simply walking through a building. They were fighting a losing battle though. Without a squad from the Eldritch Defense Battalion or maybe twenty of Royal Army Battlemages there was no way they would be able to subdue it. My stomach twisted as I realized their true purpose. They weren't a containment force, they were a rear guard. A sacrificial company sent out to buy time for the civilians to be evacuated.

I came to a stop, breathing hard. My barrel and my head ached despite my enhanced regeneration, I was lightheaded either from the Ursa's influence, the ill-advised casting I'd done, or maybe even blood loss, and I wasn't even able to sense Spike anymore. The Ursa was putting out too much interference. Standing there, watching the furious bear repeatedly pound on the guards' wavering shield I was struck by a profound sense of  uselessness. I couldn't find Spike, I couldn't run away, and I couldn't help the guards. Ursas were alien intelligences formed when the moon's magical aura clashed with Equestria's. The turbulent area where the two fields met was full of eddies and swirls that occasionally spawned the fragments of crystalized mana that Ursas really were. When the crystals fell to Equestria they absorbed ambient energy and projected it into the bodies ponykind is familiar with. They're literally beings of pure magic. You could throw all the spells in the world at them and all you would do was temporarily destabilize their bodies. They'd reform in a matter of minutes and all you would've succeeded in doing was make them angry.

Another roar and another strike befell the guardsponies and I knew it wouldn't be much longer before it broke through. The other teams were moving to support the one blocking its path, but they wouldn't get there in time, not if they had to move through rubble. I felt my teeth grinding together and tears fell from my eyes as I watched helplessly and waited for the inevitable.

As I watched the closest team to the battered one struggling to find their way through what had been a grocery store within paw's reach of the Ursa, a flash of movement in the wreckage caught my eye. It wasn't random enough to be shifting detritus, it was quick, purposeful movement. Furtive movement. I strained my eyes to see closer and after a wasted second I belatedly remembered that I was a wizard and cast a sight enhancing spell, cursing my stupidity and clamping down on the almost painful surge of desperate hope that caused my throat to tighten. In the twilight with the shifting shadows caused by the fires it was hard to see, but...

"Spike!" I shouted, seeing a flash of purple and green. He was crawling desperately, trying to get away from the Ursa without being seen. When he heard my voice his head shot up and he looked around wildly, trying to find me. "Spike! I'm here!"

Without thinking I started to run towards him, injuries and weariness forgotten. All that mattered was getting to Spike and getting the hay out of town. Everything else would sort itself out later.

"Dusk? Dusk, where are you?!" He half sobbed half yelled.

"I'm coming Spike!" I shouted back, wishing I could teleport to him, but I was so close to the Ursa that any kind of spatial manipulation was simply impossible. The local gravity well was distorted all to tartarus and the ambient magical field was being drained into the Ursa's core. It was a wonder the guards' shield had held so far.

"Dusk!" Spike screamed again, getting to his feet and sprinting blindly out into the open.

Right into sight of the Ursa.

What happened next was sickeningly predictable. The Ursa saw the movement out of the corner of its eye and turned with terrible, predatory swiftness. I shouted something about ducking or moving out of the way, but I knew it was useless as I did and all I could do was watch as the Ursa's paw lashed out with perfect accuracy, gouging up divots of turf as it got closer and closer to Spike. He tried to run, he tried so hard, but he was too small and the Ursa too fast. The translucent blue paw smashed into him at bone shattering speeds and the next thing I knew Spike was just gone.

Images flashed through my head. Jumbled bits of physics and physiology clattered together, forming into a terrible conclusion. At that speed with that force even dragon scales wouldn't have saved him. Splintered boards would become spears, trees would be like stone pillars, the ground would be like a giant anvil to the Ursa's hammer. Tissue would be compress, bones would shatter, organs rupture, scales crack...there wouldn't be anything recognizable. I stopped running, rooted to the spot by horror. Tears welled up in my eyes and fell down my muzzle one after another, turning the dried blood and dust in my coat into a clumpy mess. I heard myself make a few small, meaningless sounds of pain and grief as my legs threatened to give way.

He was gone. Just like that. Gone. Spike. My Spike. Gone. Gone forever. He'd never ride on my back again, we'd never go to the Geology museum in Canterlot again, we'd never go see Celestia again. I would never be able to read to him or tuck him into bed. I would never see him grow up and fulfill the wishes of his sire and dam, he would never become the ambassador to the dragons that he was meant to be. He would never have a mate, he wouldn't have dragonets. He was gone.

I'd known Spike since I was ten and he was barely a year old. I'd started helping to take care of him since I was twelve, taking more and more responsibility until I was his parent in all but name when I was fifteen. Now, three years later, he was gone and all that was left was a series of divots in the ground. I felt like somepony had reached inside me and ripped out something vital. My insides burned and I thought I would vomit right there. It wasn't fair. He was too young. He should have had hundreds of years ahead of him, maybe even a whole millennium, but it had been taken from him.

Then the ursa roared again, snapping me out of my state of shock. I looked up at the creature that had taken Spike and I knew I had a choice: do nothing and let fate decide whether I lived or died, or fight. It was an easy choice to make.

Something deep down in my gut changed. Shock and disbelief faded away, the tears stopped. Pain gave birth to anger, and that anger grew. It was a primal sort of anger, the kind of anger that drove ponies to do unspeakable things. As the Ursa spotted me and its attention focused on me I expected to be consumed in the kind of burning rage you read about in books or see in movies, but I wasn't. It was a cold, sickly fury that gripped me as I faced down the Ursa. It was going to die here. That was that. No hyperbole, no threats, just fact. It was going to die. Because I was going to kill it.

"You like picking on little ponies huh?" I muttered as chains of logic cascaded through my brain. Disparate facts and ideas coalesced into a plan. "Well, why don't you pick on someone your own mystic weight class?"

I reached deep inside myself into the primordial well of my being and called to the Element of Magic. The golden helm that was the symbol of my power appeared in a burning surge of energy as I was overfilled with pure mana. My own magical aura pulsed out and crashed into the Ursa's, causing a sound like a gong struck by lightning. The Ursa bellowed and whirled around to face the new threat, reacting with the smooth speed of a hunting predator. I deflected the paw with a concussive blast of magic powerful enough to temporarily destabilize its leg. It roared in what I hoped was pain and staggered backwards, nearly crushing the guards as it did. Perfect.

Four giant streamers of energy flew from my horn and capitalized on its temporary distraction, plunging themselves into the Ursa's half corporeal body, one above each forelimb and the other two into its flanks, each one perforating deep into the amoeba like structure of the star beast and hunting for its core. Finding nothing I pulled two of the tentacles out and struck again, keeping the Ursa at a safe distance as I searched for my prize. It struggled and swiped at me, but I was able to skate backwards with a burst of mana and keep just out of reach. Each time I gouged at it I was weakening it, just like I had disrupted Trixie's spell. All I had to do was poke enough holes in it and cause it to lose so much power it would disanimate.

It fought back as best it could with two of its limbs effectively disabled, it roared and snapped, bathing me in a cloud of wild and chaotic magic that would've singed or outright burned most ponies, but my own aura was so dense the assault evaporated before it could get close to me. As I struggled to find the core I distantly noted that the guards had formed up into a single group and were hitting it with all they had. Their attacks barely registered, but every little bit helped and I would need all the help I could get. In order to keep the Ursa from absorbing the mana I was using to attack it the tentacles I was using had to be so dense the mana was almost a liquid. The amount of power it cost wasn't an issue, as my mana well was literally endless due to the Element of Magic, but I was straining my body well past what it should have been able to take without breaking down on a cellular level. The constant overflow of mana I'd experienced since I was bonded to the Element of Magic had allowed my body to adjust to high-mana conditions somewhat, but nothing could prepare it for what I was putting it through.

To make things worse, the Ursa seemed to be aware of that somehow, because it started absorbing mana and reinforcing its shell as fast as it could to make up for what I was disintegrating. I couldn't win a war of attrition, I just couldn't, I'd literally cook myself from the inside out first. I needed to find the core. Once I found that it would be over. The problem was that it kept moving around and slipping out of my grasp like a wet bar of soap. I had no idea if the Ursa was consciously controlling it or if it was normally a free floating part of the Ursa's anatomy, but I had to find it fast. My whole body was starting to ache with the strain and I began to feel the telltale tingling around my forehead that indicated the beginnings of mana burn. If this went on too much longer the tingling would give way to numbness as nerve cells started to die, then muscle and epithelial cells along with them, and on down into my vital organs if it went on long enough. The tentacles wavered for a second and I put the potential damage I was doing to myself out of my mind, refocusing on my goal.

All I had to do was find the Ursa's core, once I got my tentacles on that I shouldn't have any problems destroying it. The Ursa continued to roar and struggle, flailing around and hitting a few more buildings as it did. A split second of thought later I spawned two more tentacles and speared the Ursa through the hips, effectively immobilizing it. The added strain was severe and I felt my body temperature rising dangerously, but I had it where I wanted it now, and the desperation I could see in the Ursa's eyes felt good. Now, with four stationary ruptures and two constantly moving ones to its shell, it was having a much harder time regenerating and the core stopped moving around as fast.

The guards, seeing my success, redoubled their efforts and began hammering it with synchronized strikes targeted next to my tentacles for maximum damage and distraction. Good thinking. It struggled and thrashed against the rods of semi-solid energy holding it down, going berserk in rage and pain, but there was fear as well, it could sense its end coming and it was afraid. That fear was ambrosial to me, the motherbucker took Spike and I had no intention of giving it an easy passing.

My legs started to shake and my horn was felt like a branding iron, but I finally managed to grab the core. Instantly the Ursa went still and its shell wavered and bulged oddly as my magic disrupted the most vital part of its being. Then I quickly moved all the tentacles to the core, surrounding it with my mana and completely dispelling the shell, leaving a smoking hole where it had been. The core was an unbelievably dense jagged spindle of crystal that continued to fight for its survival just as hard as it had before, and random pulses of blue energy seeped through my hold on it and blasted nearby buildings. I lifted it up high enough that they would dissipate before doing any real damage and started bearing down on the crystal as hard as I could. Then a bloody guardspony in battered armor galloped up to me, and I vaguely recognized him as the same lieutenant that had investigated me for throwing out the vandal from the library what felt like years ago.

"Dusk! Hold on! Just a few seconds longer and we can get a Containment Cube in place!" He shouted, turning to bellow something at his comrades who were busy levitating a heavy metal box in our general direction. It would be made of lead lined with depleted uranium and crammed as full of mana capacitors, converters, and vents as it could possibly be. Such devices were the only things that could hold an Ursa's core until it could be transported to a safe disposal site, and every town or city in the realm had at least one stowed away somewhere.

"No!" I snarled back, battering at the crystal I had in my grasp until i found what I was looking for, the weak points at the poles where the crystal was adding onto itself like coral growing in the ocean. I forced my own mana into the structure of it and began to break it down.

"Dusk, you have to lower it into the cube!" The lieutenant shouted, nearly panicking.

I ignored him and poured mana into it until I felt cracks appear. I was sweating profusely from the fever I was subjecting myself to and my vision was swimming horribly, but I was able to summon the effort for one last push that broke through the last defenses of the Ursa and shattered the crystal into hundreds of pieces. From there nature took its course

Bereft of the magical 'gravity' that held it together, any semblance of cohesion vanished and the crystal sublimated into pure cobalt colored mana with a concussive explosion that was followed by a sudden inrush of air and a deafening thunderclap that raised a huge cloud of dust and almost brought down a nearby building.

There was a long moment of silence as everypony's ears rang horribly and they tried to process what happened. I couldn't pay any attention to it though. I had pushed my body too far and I paid the price. My legs completely gave way and I hit the ground hard, my vision going grey and blurry. Half my body was numb and the other half burned like fire. The sudden lack of mana flow through my horn made it hurt so badly I would gladly have snapped it off just to get some respite. Then a tremor started somewhere in my gut and quickly grew into uncontrollable spasms that wracked my body and made me flop around in the dirt like a struggling fish. Sparks and lights started dancing across my eyes and I smelled sour cherries. My mouth was full of the taste of pineapple. Then I bit my tongue and I tasted blood instead.

Hooves held me down and multiple voices assaulted me from all directions. They kept telling me to hold on or stay with them or something as I felt myself get moved onto a stretcher and lifted off the ground. I didn't see how it mattered. I may have defeated the Ursa, revenge is cold comfort. I lost Spike, and no matter how many Ursas I destroyed, he'd never come back.

For the second time that night, blackness took me.

I woke up feeling like horseapples. I didn't even get the few seconds of blissful ignorance that normally comes with waking up. One moment I was unconscious and the next I was awake. Exhausted and in pain, but awake. I knew exactly what happened and exactly what I'd lost. I don't know how long I wallowed in the acute sense of loss that hurt more than anything the Ursa could've done to me, or anything that I did to myself, but sounds kept intruding on my mental solitude and kept me from completely shutting out the outside world. I could hear indistinct voices nearby, some quieter, some louder, but there were a lot of them. I also heard the steady beeps of a heart monitor, the constant hiss of pressurized gas I assumed was the feed to the oxygen cannula I was wearing and the rhythmic 'wheew-wheew' of a mana monitor.

Deciding distraction was better than despair I opened my eyes and looked around. I was in a hospital room, unsurprisingly. The windowless metal plated walls were etched with runes that glimmered the same dull purple of my magical aura. It was a suppression room I realized after a second of confusion. That and the ring I felt at the base of my horn explained why I wasn't hurting quite as bad as I expected to be. The room was devoid of any ambient mana and my own was suppressed to near nonexistence to give my abused body a chance to recuperate from the damage I'd done to it.

The bed was your standard issue hospital bed, complete with papery sheets and thin blankets, though a few extra had been piled on me and somepony had tucked me in thoroughly. I had been bathed at some point and my wounds were dressed with bandages and maybe even a few stitches, but the bandages were soaked in some kind of topical anesthetic, leaving me in the odd position of hurting everywhere I wasn't cut or gashed. I tilted my head towards the instruments I was hooked up to, going slowly to avoid as much pain as possible, and tried to make sense of the readouts. My oxygen level was fine, but I wasn't worried about that. My magic was at just about the lowest possible ebb, no surprises there. Pulse was slow but not troubling, again, unsurprising. Blood pressure was a little low, but not dangerously so. I was just about to try figuring out what meds were in the IV I was attached to when the door slid open with an irritating creak. I looked up weakly to see a weary looking tan earth pony in a lab coat followed by an equally haggard Rarity with a magic suppressing ring on her horn.

"Oh, you're awake. Good." The doctor sighed and walked over to my bedside, examining the monitors as he did. "I'm doctor Healing Hooves, your primary."

"How long was I out?" I asked, my voice a dull rasp that sounded grating even to my own ears. The doctor offered me a drink of water from the bedside table as he answered my question.

"About two hours. You had a seizure after you...destroyed the Ursa." He stumbled slightly but caught himself quick. "The amount of magic you used seriously strained your body, and we were pretty worried about you for a while, but you're recovering quickly."

"Element of Magic." Explaining made me think of something besides Spike. It felt good to lecture. "Constant but slight mana overflow. My body had to adapt to it over time. Sore for days after I was merged with it. What about everypony else?"

"Hush darling." Rarity said softly, reaching out and stroking my neck gently. "It's okay now, just try and rest. You've done enough."

"She's right, you need to rest. Toughened magical circulatory system or not you still did plenty of damage. I'm keeping you here for observation for at least forty eight hours and I don't want you casting at all for at least four days, and then nothing more than minor telekinesis for at least a week."

"Tell me about everypony else and I promise I'll go to sleep like a good little colt." I said, annoyed. He mulled it over for a second before giving in with a sigh.

"At this point we just don't know much. New patients have stopped coming in for the most part. Most of the fires are still going and it's still pretty chaotic in the town proper. The suburbs, except for the ones the Ursa went through, are pretty much unscathed, and most of the damage was confined to the commercial district, but unfortunately it destroyed the firehouse and almost got the guard barracks too. The Mayor's mansion caught fire as well, but Mayor Mare got out fine and she instigated martial law. That's all I've heard."

"What Rainbow and Pinkie and...us?" I asked Rarity. She smiled a little weakly and fussed with the blanket at my chin.

"We are all fine darling. Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rainbow's homes were out of the Ursa's path. My boutique has some broken windows and a few water pipes burst when the Ursa went by, but that is all. Sugar Cube Corner is in a similar state. As for the girls themselves Fluttershy is on assignment from the Mayor, herding all the animals she can out of the town and keeping them corralled. Rainbow and her weather teams are split between hauling in rain clouds to douse the fires and acting as search and rescue teams, Applejack is with her brother as a part of a rescue team, and Pinkie is with a few others at the elementary school with the foals whose parents are lost or hurt."

"There now. I promise we'll tell you more as we hear it." The doctor said when she was done. "But you need to rest now. You saved a lot of Ponies today Dusk Shine." He added in an undertone.

"I'll stay with you as long as I can." Rarity said. "We will try to keep you company as much as possible."

"Thank you." I whispered.

The doctor took that as his cue to leave and walked out, closing the door behind him and leaving us alone. The silence that followed left me no recourse but to think about what had happened and tears sprung up in my eyes. For a second I considered keeping it to myself but I just couldn't. It hurt to think about it, and maybe it would hurt less if I told somepony.

"It took him Rarity." I said, my voice tight and my vision blurred with tears.

"What? Took who?" She looked at me for a second and I heard confusion and apprehension in her voice.

"The Ursa. It killed Spike." It came out as a sob. "He tried to run, but it hit him and he was just gone. I saw him disappear."

"Oh Celestia, no." She whispered, but I couldn't talk anymore, I just curled into a ball and cried. A second later I felt a hoof drape over me and Rarity's cheek rested on the back of my neck, her own tears soaking into my fur as she cried with me.

For what felt like an eternity all I could do was shake painfully and occasionally call out Spike's name. Time passed, and took me with it, but I couldn't move on. I was still stuck in that single moment when Spike was taken from me and everything fell apart. Rarity cried until she couldn't anymore, but when her tears dried up she stayed right by me, a comforting presence that made the grief the tiniest bit easier to bear, and I knew I'd be grateful later, but I didn't have any room for anything but the grief.

Part of me refused to accept what had happened, and a gibbering voice in the back of my head kept saying that it was just a bad dream and that I'd wake up to find Spike still with me. Another part of me, a dark part that I was normally very ashamed of, began whispering about options open to me.

My magical background is diverse and multifaceted, including things that I'm ashamed of. When I was young and stupid I snuck into places I shouldn't have been and learned things no pony should know. There were things out in the wide world that could allow me to swim against the currents of time, ancient artifacts of long-dead races, spells written in tomes bound in leather made from the skins of newborn foals and written in blood, beings of the same mold as Celestia with far fewer moral scruples or no scruples at all. I could even harness the Blight in the Everfree if I wanted to. It would be easy, the voice said, all I had to do was hide from Celestia and the guards long enough to make it work, then I could have Spike back.

I knew I wouldn't do it though. Anypony with an iota of common sense could tell you how that would end. I would get caught, or worse, I would succeed. Even drowning in grief I knew that Spike wouldn't accept what I would have to do and become to bring him back. So I was stuck, buried under the weight of the love I had for him.

As the long minutes passed the tears slowed, and eventually halted, leaving me with a soaked pillow and a jagged hole inside. Rarity was still there, silently pressing her cheek into my neck. I wrapped a foreleg around her and we stayed like that until the door creaked open once again. Nurse Redheart held it open for and accompanied the lieutenant from earlier, minus his helm, and she didn't look too happy about it either.

"Just a few minutes, he's still in bad shape and even if your magic is suppressed it isn't good for him." Nurse Redheart said firmly, casting a jaundiced eye on Rarity.

"Dusk Shine, miss, I'm lieutenant Iron Shod." He greeted wearily, his chestnut coat was covered with soot and grime, and numerous small wounds covered the spaces on his body that weren't covered by his similarly-disheveled armor. "I was with the squad sent to detain the Ursa."

"I remember." I replied, grateful for the brief distraction. "What is it?"

"I want to know what the hay happened." He said bluntly, apparently too tired for tact. "You disobeyed my order to put the Ursa in the Containment Cube and next thing we know it's gone and you're seizing on the ground. You didn't teleport it, did you?"

"Excuse me?" Rarity said, taking offense on my behalf.

"It's alright Rarity." I said, forestalling her and saving him a serious reaming. "No, I didn't teleport it. I killed it."

"Horseapples." He replied flatly.

"Look, it isn't that hard." I growled, my temper reigniting and taking me by surprise, but I didn't care. It felt better to be angry than sad. "After I grabbed the core I forced my mana into it and destroyed it. What did you think the burst of magic at the end was? A party favor?"

"No, I...sorry." He sighed, rubbing the space between his eyes. "The captain went down when the Ursa first hit and since the Mayor declared Martial Law I've technically been in charge of the whole town for the past few hours, I only just found out about it when we brought you in here and I've been pissing out fires ever since. Now I've got a company of Royal Army headed my way expecting to run into an Ursa at any second and a Captain that's frothing at the mouth trying to get a location for it. I need to know what happened and you'll have to excuse me if I find it hard to believe that one pony took down an Ursa, Element of Magic or not."

"Mmph." I grunted in acknowledgement. "How much do you know about what happens to captured Ursa cores?"

"They're carted off to special facilities out in the boonies for 'disposal'. Conspiracy nuts say the military uses them as mobile power sources and crazy nature types say its cruel and they should be let back into the wild." He said, rolling his eyes. At any other time I would've had a chuckle about that. The idea was absolutely preposterous, they were way too dangerous to be set free.

"I challenge anyone of them to think that after having their shop ruined by one of the brutes." Rarity grumbled under her breath.

"That's right." I ignored her well-deserved grumping and focused on Iron Shod. "The disposal facilities destroy the Ursas by channeling tightly focused beams of highly concentrated mana right into the poles of the crystals. I did the same thing, only less precise."

"Well, that would explain the huge amount of mana permeating the area, but you're telling me you did on your own what it takes a dedicated disposal facility to do?" He asked, understandable skepticism in his voice.

"Lieutenant, I couldn't have teleported it if I wanted to. There was too much distortion, I'm sure you felt that." I nodded weakly at his horn. "It's not a difficult thing to do, it just requires raw power. Lots of it. It nearly burned me out, but I killed that motherbucker and I'd do it again." I couldn't keep the satisfaction out of my voice, but it quickly faded away, leaving me with the hollow feeling again and when I continued my voice was much quieter. "It took Spike from me. Any other time I would've run, but not after that."

"Ah, so that was what made it turn around." His ears drooped. "I remember seeing somepony hiding in the store, but I didn't have time to do anything before the Ursa noticed us. I'm sorry for your loss...and I'll relay what you said onto the Mayor and the Captain coming to replace me."

"Thank you. Could you have somepony look for his..." My throat clenched up and I couldn't say it.

"We'll find him." He replied with false assurance as he turned to leave. "I'm going to station a few guards outside the door just to be safe. Never can tell what ponies will do when-." There was a mild commotion outside door and it opened as he was talking. Iron Shod stepped between me and the door, apparently thinking it was an assassination attempt or something.

"Oh git outta mah way, Ah gotta see Dusk!" Twanged Applejack. Iron Shod stayed in place like a good Guard until I spoke up.

"It's okay, she's safe." I said, eager for a new source of distraction. Iron Shod moved out of the way, allowing me to get a look at Applejack herself. She was sooty, sweaty, and she'd lost her hat at some point, but she was smiling. Nurse Redheart very much did not approve of another visitor in the room.

"Finally. Ah cain't believe how long it took me ta find ya." She said, trotting up to me.

"Applejack." Rarity said warningly.

"What is it?" I asked. Ponies were good, even if they just wanted to talk. Talking made the thinking stop.

"Somepony wants to see 'ya." She said simply.

"He's had enough visitors already." Nurse Redheart said, putting her hoof down. "Now I must insist that you all leave and let him get some rest."

"You'll let this one in." Applejack said, not giving an inch.

"No, I most certainly will not. He has a lot of healing to do and having a bunch of ponies around keeping him awake won't help him."

I tuned out the rest of their argument, which Rarity joined, and wondered who it could possibly be. If this was some kind of badly written book, Spike would walk through the door, but I'm not that lucky. Applejack not coming out and telling me exactly who it was set me on edge though, she was the Element of Honesty, even lies of omission were just about impossible for her. The only pony I could think of was Celestia, and that didn't make sense. She would just have come in unannounced. Regardless, I was about to get my answer. The door creaked open yet again, revealing a couple guards I didn't recognize. Then I looked down.

"Dusk!" Despite all the odds, despite what I saw, despite what knew was impossible, Spike was standing between them, tears falling down his cheeks as he sprinted across the floor.

Redheart and Iron Shod had to pin me down to keep me from flying off the bed to meet him.

"Stay still!" Redheart practically screeched, dropping her full weight across my whithers and damn near catching a hoof to the face. If my magic wasn't suppressed I would have launched her across the room with extreme prejudice.

Spike was alive. Beaten and bruised, but alive. Applejack gave him a hoof up to the bed when he got close and I pulled him against me, curling up around him as much as I could. Some of his scales were cracked, his tail had been set with a jury rigged splint and the tip of his largest green spike had been snapped off, but he was alive. Tears started falling all over again, but I didn't feel like my whole life was in pieces anymore. Instead I felt like when I was bound to the Element of Magic. Radiant joy welled up in my barrel until I felt like I was going to burst. Apparently my life is like a badly written story after all.

"I'm right here Spike, I'm right here." His whole body shook as he sobbed into my chest, the kind of frantic crying that foals do when they've been scared out of their minds. I hushed him gently and rested my cheek on his head as I forced all the grief and pain and confusion into a mental box and jumped up and down on it until I was sure it wouldn't pop open at a bad time. Spike needed me right now, I had to wait to break down until later.

"We found him by the Mayor's Mansion." Applejack said and I glanced up to see her regarding us with a tired smile. "He was unconscious on the shore of that big ole pond right out front. He woke up when the doctor with us started patchin' him up and we spent the next few hours tryin' ta find you."

"He must have landed in the water after the Ursa tossed him." Iron Shod said. In the back of my mind I noted that it made sense. Dragons bones are hollow like bird bones, and the internal gas bladders that stored the hydrogen and oxygen that fueled firebreathing made him very light for his size, and the large sinuses in his skull would have helped too, but his survival was still just a matter of sheer dumb luck, If he had ended up face down in the water or lodged under something...no, I couldn't think about that, not until I could be sure I was alone. Then I could curl up in a ball and have a panic attack, but not now.

"I-I woke up and everything hurt. I didn't know where you were and I was afraid you'd...you'd..." He dissolved into a sobbing mess and I clutched him tighter.

"I'm fine Spike, I'm not going anywhere." I nuzzled him and clumsily wrapped a blanket around him, struggling a bit without telekinesis. Then I looked back at Applejack and gave her a watery but genuine smile. "I can't ever thank you enough for this Applejack."

"Don'chu worry none about that." She said, leaning in and nuzzling Spike, followed shortly by Rarity, who whispered something to him and kissed the top of his head. "Just get better so ya can help us rebuild and lecture us about pre-Celestia architecture or somethin'."

"He will not be helping to rebuild anything anytime soon!" Redheart said, practically frothing at the mouth at seeing such repeated and  flagrant violations of visitation protocols. "Now all of you out!"

"Spike stays." I said firmly, fixing her with a glare and pulling him tighter against me.

"But-"

"Ma'am, he just fought an Ursa because it attacked the dragon. Pick your battles." Iron Shod said dryly as he turned to leave, following orders like a good soldier. "I'll have the guards posted in five."

"Fine, but he needs to rest. Now. No more talking. No more visitors until tomorrow." Redheart said, tacitly conceding Iron Shod's point while glaring at Applejack and Rarity.

"Good night Dusk." Rarity said, accepting the dismissal, though not before a final nuzzle for Spike, who had quieted down as I shushed him and nuzzled him. "Sleep well. Good night Spike."

"See ya tomorrow Dusk. Yer gonna have quite a story to tell." Applejack said with a sly grin. "Hay, you probably won't have to pay for a drink ever again."

"Out!"

I chuckled as Redheart escorted Applejack out the door, lecturing her (and being staunchly ignored) the whole way. It felt good to laugh again, even if it was a fragile sort of laughter that was just temporarily holding back the flood of fear, guilt, and panic I knew I was going to have to let out of its mental safe at some point down the line. I didn't care though, I had Spike, and that's all that mattered.

"Feeling a bit calmer Spike?" I asked when we were alone and he'd had a few minutes to compose himself. He mutely shook his head, refusing to separate from me.

"Yeah, I know how you feel." I kissed the top of his head and nuzzled him gently, a few tears falling from my eyes. I had a feeling that would be happening pretty frequently over the next few days. "It'll be okay though. It's over now, everything will be okay."

"Did you really fight the Ursa?" He asked in a small, strained voice.

"Yes. It's gone now. Forever. It can't hurt anypony ever again."

"Good." He sniffled.

"Does anything hurt?" Ordered to rest or not, I'd make sure he was taken care of first.

"Everything." He whimpered. "Especially my tail and the scales on my right side."

"Did you tell them?"

"Yeah, when they brought me here House Call was waiting and he wouldn't let me see you until he finished fixing me. He said he did as much as he could but I still hurt." He said plaintively, his voice muffled by my coat. He was referring to the doctor that had taken care of me since I became Celestia's student and Spike since he was born. Dr. House didn't have the best bedside manner, but he got results.

"Tomorrow you can go see him again, I promise. Right now we both need to sleep." I may have defied Nurse Redheart's order to rest earlier, but now that The everything was winding down I was feeling the exhaustion all the more acutely. My eyelids were getting heavy and I was fairly sure I couldn't have gotten out of bed if I wanted to.

"I don't think I can sleep." He sounded exactly like he did when he was sure he was going to have guard pony nightmares, though in this case it was pretty obvious what he was afraid of.

"The Ursa can't hurt you Spike, it's gone forever." I assured him gently. "I'll be right here all night, nothing will get you. You're safe bud, totally safe.

"Promise?" He asked in a tiny voice that nearly made my heart break all over again.

"Promise." I whispered back. There was a long moment of silence, long enough that I was sure his own wounds and fear had caught up to him and he'd passed out, but he proved me wrong.

"Hey, Dusk?" He asked timidly, just as I was settling in to sleep myself.

"Yeah?"

"Do you, uh, do you think you could..." He trailed off into levels of inaudibility that would have done Fluttershy proud.

"Sorry, I couldn't hear that Spike. What is it?"

"Do you think you could maybe sing the Annie Cat song?" He looked up at me with those big hopeful eyes and I felt something inside me melt a little.

"Sure Spike. I can do that." Back when we were both living in Canterlot Castle but before I had unofficial custody of him he was taken care of by some of Celestia's hoofmaidens, and one of those hoofmaidens had a cat named Annie who absolutely loved Spike. he would play with her for hours and hours, and she would sleep with him at night to keep the bad dreams away. Sadly, she was a fairly old cat and she died when he was still pretty young. He was completely devastated. I can still remember how hard he cried when he found out, and he didn't stop crying for most of three days. I ended up sitting down with my music teacher and writing a song about her to make him feel better. Well, I ripped off another one shamelessly, but it worked, and as time went on it just sort of ended up being his lullaby.

"Thanks Dusk." He said with audible relief. Then he snuggled closer against my side and nuzzled me. I couldn't help but smile and for the first time since the disaster earlier in the day, I felt like things were pretty good. The day Spike looked at me like he didn't know me, then I would know I'd crossed the line, but until then everything was okay

"No problem Spike." I whispered, tapping a hoof to get the beat of the song and smiling as I remembered the white and orange tabby.

Annie Cat, Annie cat, oh Annie Annie Annie Annie cat! Annie Cat, Annie Cat, oh Annie Annie Annie Annie cat! Annie Cat, Annie Cat, oh Annie Annie Annie Annie cat!

Call the kitty Annie cat, tell you why, ‘cause she’s sweeter than an apple pie, and when she does her shaky swayin’ dance, nightmares just don’t stand a chance!

We call her Annie Cat, Annie Cat, oh Annie Annie Annie Annie cat! Annie Cat, Annie Cat, oh Annie Annie Annie Annie cat! Annie Cat, Annie Cat, oh Annie Annie Annie Annie cat!

Softer than pillow, silky slick. Kiss those nightmares good bye! If you see her ‘round, pet her quick, but Annie Cat does fine.

We call her Annie Cat, Annie Cat, oh Annie Annie Annie Annie cat! Annie Cat, Annie Cat, oh Annie Annie Annie Annie cat! Annie Cat, Annie Cat, oh Annie Annie Annie Annie cat!

Sweet the way she holds me, tell you why, just like an angel from up on high. She loves to play with me the whole day straight, gee my Annie cat is great!

We call her Annie Cat, Annie Cat, oh Annie Annie Annie Annie cat! Annie Cat, Annie Cat, oh Annie Annie Annie Annie cat! Annie Cat, Annie Cat, oh Annie Annie Annie Annie cat…oh Annie cat!

I'll be the first to admit it wasn't the best example of the lyricists' art, but I liked it, and it put Spike right to sleep every time. His body was tightly tucked against mine and a small smile was on his face as he (hopefully) dreamed about the cat he loved so much. He didn't so much as twitch when I curled around him a little more tightly. His hot breath caused rhythmic blossoms of warmth to spread through my coat as I closed my eyes and felt sleep coming to my overtaxed body.

"I'll keep you safe Spike." I mumbled as I felt myself slipping away into sleep. "I love you, bud."

And with that I fell into a deep, deep sleep, the emotional stress and physical damage of the day catching up to me as I curled around the dragonet I loved like my own foal.

Correspondence

Dear Princess Celestia,

It's been two months since the whole Ursa disaster, and as I'm sure you've read in the newspapers, Ponyville is finally almost back to normal. The damage the Ursa did has been mostly fixed, but there are a few things that just won't be the same anymore. The fire station had to be completely rebuilt, and some of the buildings (including my tree) have incongruously new parts on them, but life moves on. I'm finally out of convalescence, thank elysium, because I couldn't stand it anymore. First it was a week in the null magic room, then they wanted me to stay in there for ten days, then two weeks. You can imagine how well I took that. Nurse Redheart yammered at me about damage to mana vessicles in my horn for about ten minutes straight when I first complained, but then I pointed out that the statistics on recovery times she quoted at me were from a paper I had written. She turned a very interesting shade of puce and threatened to have me restrained.

In the end they only let me out when my mana started evening out again and started...well, breaking the suppression room. The suppressor they put on my horn four days after the attack overloaded in a half hour, and when they came into swap it the mana sinks in the room were filled to capacity in the time it took them to put another one on. And before you ask, no, I didn't do it on purpose...not totally anyway.

Anyway, after the whole room nearly blew out they agreed to release me on my own recognizance, which was a big relief. Redheart and a few of the other doctors insisted on bleating at me about recovery times and everything, completely disregarding the fact that my normal mana levels would fry just about any other unicorn like hay bacon (related note, hay bacon from Sweet Apple Acres: tear-inducingly good. First time I had it I swear my mouth had an orgasm.). I mentioned that, pointed out that my mana levels were almost back to normal already without any ill effects, and listed many other reasons why I would be fine without one of them hanging around to wipe my plot all the time, but they refused to listen to reason so they went and got the others involved.

Pinkie made me a bunch of get well soon cupcakes (carrot cake, my favorite, and they were right and proper, meaning they did indeed have nuts in them. Walnuts, to be precise.) Rainbow dug through the wreckage of my apartment and somehow managed to salvage eighty three point seven percent of my books. Rarity went through the library and inventoried the damaged books for me, which was a huge load off my whithers, I was not looking forward to that. Applejack, being chivalrous to a fault, offered to let me and Spike stay at Sweet Apple Acres while my tree was being regrown. That was pretty ridiculous, the re-growing I mean, not the offer, that was nice and I took her up on it after she insisted for the twelfth time. I could've re-grown the tree in about an hour, even fresh out of the hospital I can manage that much, but Mayor Mare left explicit instructions with the guards that I wasn't allowed.

While I was staying at Sweet Apple Acres (which is when I discovered the hay bacon, seriously, you should order that for the castle. It won't make mornings any less miserable, but you'll be able to have something to sop up the cement you call coffee and protect your innards) I managed two days of bed rest, which is pretty admirable as far as I'm concerned, but unfortunately the others didn't listen to reason any more than Redheart did, and after my third attempt to go to my re-grown tree to get something worthwhile done they sicced Fluttershy on me.

That was just low.

So I ended up spending a week getting Flutternurtured, which was kinda like that time I got the flu when I was eight, but instead of a stern look from your hoofmaidens whenever I got out of bed I got the world's biggest guilt trip instead. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if we could bottle whatever it is about Fluttershy that makes anypony and anything around her just want to give her a big hug and never make her sad ever, we'd never lose another soldier. She means well, but I think she's unaware of how bad she makes you feel when she turns those big sad eyes of hers on you.

I will say this though, as annoying as I found being confined to bed away from the town, it was probably good for Spike. He's...well, he's not back to normal yet. The top of his largest spike was snapped off when he was attacked and though I've been looking into ways to fix it I haven't found anything yet. More than that though he's been very clingy, which I can understand, but it still hurts to see him that way. I don't think he's willingly left my side at all since the attack and he's taken to spending most of his time on my back or leaning on my barrel. Plus, all he really wants to do is cuddle, not that I'm much different. I hope he'll be alright, but I think it might be a good idea for you to talk with him. There aren't any dragon psychologists after all, and honesty dictates I admit there's no way I'd be able to conduct therapy lessons with him even if I did have the qualifications, I'm way to emotionally involved. I've been spending as much time with him as I can but as each day passes and he seemingly isn't recovering the more worried I get.

He's also been having nightmares again, mainly about the Ursa now of course, but about the guardsponies too. He hasn't had any bad reaction to going back to the tree, but I'm pretty sure he's going to be sleeping in bed with me for a while yet. I can't exactly say as I mind though. I've, well, I haven't been sleeping that great either. I'm not as bad as I was during the custody fight with mom, but I keep waking up thinking I heard something. Having him right next to me and knowing I can check up on him at any point is...reassuring.

Moving onto something else, I managed to pester the Guard Captain and Mayor Mare into giving me a look at the records of the investigation into the attack itself. Good thing I did too, because there's no way in tartarus the unedited version is going to be sent off to the Inquisitors. Apparently there have been unsubstantiated reports of Ursas living close to town in the outskirts of the Everfree for years, but since they were mostly just local legends that parents used to scare foals into eating their alfalfa somepony in the Eldritch Defense Battalion decided they didn't need to investigate whether a bucking Ursa was living within walking distance of a bucking population center. In hindsight it makes perfect sense. The Blight at the center of the Everfree isn't the same kind of wild magic that spawns Ursas, but it's similar enough that it might attract them, though I shudder to think what would happen if an Ursa got infected by the Blight.

Anyway, the the official report is going to say something along the lines of 'a migrating Ursa just happened to get attracted to the town, because reasons'. Bits to bon bons it won't mention the fact that the Detachment Commander of the local contingent of the EDB is an inbred twit who couldn't find his plot with two hooves and a map. At least Iron Shod (the new Ponyville Guard Captain) isn't buying it. He's going to send a contradictory report onto the Inquisition, though it'll just get buried when Detachment Commander Penumbra gets wind of it and pays for it to be conveniently misplaced.

Speaking of Iron Shod, he might have a lead as to what provoked the Ursa to begin with. Some of his officers, not the smart ones, went on an impromptu scouting expedition to try and find the Ursa's nest. They managed to follow its trail back to the cliffs in the Everfree a few miles out of town. They found a cave with magical residue consistent with Ursa habitation, and they also found bodies. Five total, three adults (two mares, one stallion), and two local foals, Snips and Snails. What was left of them all was found strung out along the trail leading to the Ursa's den on the outskirts of the forest and the last body was almost within sight of Ponyville proper. As best anypony can put together they were trying to run from the Ursa and back into town when it got to them.

As for why they were out there to begin with, that's an interesting story all on its own. Remember that Trixie mare I mentioned in my last letter? The one bragging about defeating an Ursa? She was the last one the foals were seen talking to, and her diary was found in the wreckage of her wagon in the town square. Turns out, 'Trixie Lulamoon' isn't just a stage name, it's an alias. Her real name is Sunset Shimmer, and she's my cousin twice removed. She was born (illegitimately) into the cadet branch of house Noctis. I had to bend a few laws regarding family records, but I found out a few very interesting things about both my much esteemed family and little miss sparkly plot. Since mommy was stupid and forgot to use protection during Estrus season, derailing an arranged marriage with a banking family that would've brought House Noctis one step closer to having more net worth than bucking Manehattan, she got kicked out of the family and ended up drinking herself out of rented house and home before getting an eventually fatal venereal disease during the course of her side job as a mare of the night. The last thing she did on her deathbed was explain everything to Sunset Shimmer.

Well Sunset, who at that point already had a rap sheet longer than I am including but not limited to theivery, forgery, and unlicensed prostitution, was rather upset about the whole thing (not unreasonably, I have to admit) and stupidly went to house Noctis to try and get recompense. The records don't say exactly what happened between her and mom, but we both know how that meeting would've went. Incidentally, Sunset checked herself into Canterlot general not long after her chat with mom. Her medical records show three broken ribs, a mild concussion, and multiple lacerations along her barrel with embedded glass fragments consistent with a wine bottle. Funny how that works, huh?

After that she drops off the face of Equestria for a few years before getting busted in Trottingham as a part of a ring of thieves and fences specializing in high end magical and alchemical materials. Sunset, who was just a mid level fence at that point, sang like Philomena on Hearthswarming eve and ended up with a five year sentence instead of twenty. Fast forward three years and she was out on good behavior, then she promptly skipped out on her parole officer and disappears again and as far as official records go she's never seen again. That's where her diary comes in.

Well, 'diary' is a bit of a misnomer. What was recovered was a large tome filled with her accounting records interspersed with footnotes and side comments, with only a few real diary entries. Trying to make sense of it was a serious pain in the plot. Her bookkeeping is spot on, but everything else is rambling and slapdash at best. The first thing she did once she got out of prison was visit an underground clinic to get her coat, eye, and mane colors permanently changed, then she went to Manehattan and reinvented herself as Trixie Lulamoon. She used  the mobility her new job offered to get in contact with some old pals and reform the thief ring. She laid low for about a year until a few ex-military friends of hers from prison finished their sentences so she could invite them in. With their help she was able to expand her operation into military grade equipment and black market artifacts. She mentions thefts, black market contracts, and general bad behavior in almost every city in the Realm. On an unrelated note, she also kept records of her carnal...exploits, in her diary along with the accounts of her 'business' ventures. The amount of detail she goes into can only be described as obscene.

Anyway, the reason she was in Ponyville was to meet with an associate to pick up a shipment of charged Capacitor Crystals for the old Linear Acceleration Cannons the Royal Fusiliers phased out five years ago. Apparently the old blunderbusses are popular enough among a few Griffon insurrectionist groups that Sunset was able to make a tidy profit smuggling them across the border. As you can probably guess, the adult ponies found in the Everfree outskirts were, in fact, smugglers with a record almost as long as Sunset's, and it was probably the charged crystals that got the Ursa's attention. Even when their containers are properly sealed (which, given the nature of their acquisition, I highly doubt they were) those things leak enough energy to attract all sorts of creatures. Hay, they probably seemed like a nice snack for the Ursa. The crystals themselves weren't found, but there was a rather large crater that suggests either heavy duty combat magic or that somepony destabilized the crystals enough for them to blow. Since the smugglers weren't exactly magical heavyweights I'm going with the second option. We don't know why the foals were out there, maybe they followed Sunset for some reason, I don't think we'll ever know.

As for what happened to Sunset herself that's a mystery too. Her cart was wrecked, but there was no blood, and nopony's seen hide or hair of her since the attack. My guess is she's hiding out somewhere out of the Realm by now. She's got the contacts and the skills to get into Griffonia without raising an alarm, and she'd know that there's no way in tartarus the griffons would extradite her even if she got caught by the Imperial Civic Guards while she was hiding out with her terrorist friends.

And that's all there is to say really. As odd as it feels to write this, things are almost completely back to normal now despite how horrific that night was. Though that reminds me, the service for the fallen was held last week. Mayor Mare insisted on hauling me up on stage to play hero for the townsponies, I tried to get out of it but she wouldn't listen. I knew it was going to be hard on Spike, but Rarity held him while I was up on stage and afterwards he hid between my forelegs like he used to do. He kept it together during the service but afterward I had to take him home so he could calm down. I read to him for a while and he fell asleep leaning on me, after which I took a nap myself. It was...pretty nice actually. Then Rainbow Dash woke us up later that afternoon and we all went out to eat at Horte's. Looking back on it I think they were all a bit shaken by the service like I was (Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie especially) and the...normalcy of finally having our weekly get together  with all of us there and none of us in recovery or having to leave early to deal with some kind of fallout from the attack was therapeutic.

Well, I think this has gone on long enough and Spike looks pretty tired so I'm going to call it here. I'm including complete copies of Iron Shod's report, the unaltered EDB report and Sunset's diary for your perusal (though I've clearly marked the icky parts of the latter so you won't have to read them).

Your faithful (and tired) student,

Dusk Shine.

P.S. Since you're insisting on dragging me and the others to the Gala I want to look into having either Shiny or Cadence look after Spike while I'm there. I'm hoping he won't be quite so clingy by the time the Gala rolls around but just in case he isn't I think it's best to have a back up plan. Besides, without any of the others here in Ponyville there aren't any ponies I feel safe foalsitting him.