Fluttershy stood in the frozen forest for the thousandth time. Just as she had before, she wore the plain white cloak that had become associated as her signature. A simple tiara sat upon her head.

Her mane, though it had already grown back almost to its original length since that time, was once again cropped short and tied back into a tight bun. Rarity herself had cut it in one smooth motion with her shears and the hair fell to the barracks floor in a pink mass.

“They will be targeting you now,” Rarity had said. “They know what you are capable of. They know exactly what you mean to the ponies out here.”

Fluttershy had said something back then.

She remained silent now.

Rarity pulled the cloak from her saddlebags and fastened the clasps around Fluttershy’s neck. The cloak ended just where her tail began.

“I know I just cut your mane so they couldn’t grab it, but…”

“It kept me warm,” Fluttershy said in the dream.

Rarity continued fussing about her as if she hadn’t heard. She seemed to be looking through her.

“Dear, please be safe. I can’t bear the thought of you hurt.”

“The same for you, Rarity.”

Fluttershy was back in the frozen forest. She was looking downward at the trail of blood that had dribbled through the snow and between her hooves. The blood came in pulses as if through an artery.

She raised her head, eyes following the blood, until it settled on the mass of corpses not fifty paces away. The stench hit her first, then comprehension at what she was seeing. Griffon and pony, all dead, eyes frozen and staring. Their limbs were stiff with frost and rigor mortis.

Her face calm, Fluttershy stepped toward the massacre.

This wasn’t how it had went. This wall of corpses isn’t how the battle went.

It had been so much worse.

Images of Applejack flashed through her mind. With her back to them, Applejack stood firm in the flame and snow. She looked immovable in her plate armor as the flames rose above her. From her. Impossibly high. Impossibly tall. Burning impossibly hot. Applejack had pulled a firestorm from the earth and sent it hurtling into the sky.

Fluttershy remembered shielding the rest of the Red Brigade from the flames. Back then Applejack didn’t have the control that she had now, just pure power channeled through her hooves.

What did it mean, to have the strength to shield the others from those flames? Was she as strong as Applejack, who had single-handedly turned the tide of that battle and the war with her legendary flame?

She had resisted those flames, hadn’t she? Applejack had trusted her to do it, as she looked back at her bloodied and beaten through the visor of her helm. With just a single look, Fluttershy knew what Applejack was planning.

Fluttershy remembered standing on her hind legs and throwing her hooves up in the air. Every inch of sky was claws and talons and feathers and eyes that desired to kill.

The small pegasi scouting unit that had been attached to them had been annihilated in an instant. Only the Red Brigade remained.

She willed her power into it just as Luna had taught them.

“Every pony can access this,” Luna had said. “Earth ponies and pegasi and unicorns — do we all not possess a kind of magic? Different flavors, different shapes. But we share something else. Something far deeper and primal.”

The white ring that encircled her cutie mark flared bright and from her raised hooves and wings erupted streams of white light. Every molecule in her body burned. Her legs shook. Sweat dotted her brow. She needed to protect the others from the coming flame.

“To me!” she had cried out. “Everypony, please! Get to me!”

Chaos surrounded her. Earth ponies from all across Equestria, once farmers and bankers and school teachers, were now caught in a battle beyond comprehension. They had been caught unprepared by a superior force. The tall trees and a complete whiteout had obfuscated all vision.

What chance did they have to see this coming when their eyes in the sky had been assassinated in the dark?

The griffons fell on them like waves in a storm. With spear and talon they attacked. Everywhere she looked ponies were being slain. Not twenty paces from her, a mare screamed as she was pinned to the snow by two armored griffins and speared through her chest. Another had been grabbed by her rear legs and hauled into the sky above the trees.

Applejack stood far ahead with the remains of her trusted cohort battling at her side. Fluttershy watched as she grabbed the closest and screamed something in his face. Applejack jabbed a hoof in Fluttershy’s direction.

“Leave me,” Fluttershy imagined her saying.

The inferno was coming.

The white circle on her flank was burning now. She had to do this. She had to protect them. The streams met at a point in the air far above her and began to form the top of a massive dome. She had to believe she could do this.

Fluttershy had never attempted a barrier this size.

The others near her had begun to notice. How could they not? If Fluttershy had her eyes open, she would have seen that she had begun to shine a brilliant pure white. Her cloak had lifted from her back wafted about in an ethereal breeze. She appeared as a sun in miniature in that frozen forest.

“To the Saint!” She heard a stallion cry.

Another. “Get to the Saint!”

“Protect the Saint!”

Fluttershy could feel the bodies piling near her, could hear the sounds of battle drawing closer. She blocked them out and focused on her task. Time passed so agonizingly slow that she feared she wouldn’t be ready in time. Applejack would be slain and all they would be left with was a bubble just waiting to be popped.

Fluttershy collapsed to the snow spent, the light from her body gone. Gasping, she opened her eyes to see that she had done it. Her barrier had now completely enclosed her and everyone within in a near-transparent dome that stretched one hundred meters in every direction.

What remained of the Red Brigade stood in a huddled mass all around her. A thousand ponies, she estimated. Only a thousand.

Applejack stood thirty paces outside the dome’s wall and already Fluttershy could hear the cries of the soldiers closest begging her to get inside. Every inch of sky beyond her magic was the entire griffon army.

They dared not approach the single earth pony.

The snow around Applejack had melted revealing the dead grass underneath. The air shimmered in a haze of heat. Embers rose from her hooves.

Applejack was looking skyward at the thousands of griffons that surrounded her. Most were hovering in place. Some were perched in the trees. Many had trained on her their bows already knocked with barb-tipped arrows. Others were poised to throw their spears. Fluttershy watched one griffon strip off her helmet to reveal a head drenched in sweat. Applejack widened her stance and a shockwave of heat pulsed from her body.

The entire forest seemed to be leaving winter.

“Y’all best run now,” Applejack whispered.

In a swift movement Applejack reared back and trailing her front hooves came screaming from the earth twin coils of whiplike magma. She gave a primal shout as she brought the coils together high above her head and then slammed the molten ball back into the earth.

Beyond the dome the entire world caught fire. Pillars of flame erupted from the earth in violent jets. The air itself burned in a blazing orange heat. Trees hundreds of years old turned to tinder and kindling in a matter of seconds. Leaves evaporated. The earth dried and cracked as rivulets of molten earth burst forth from massive fissures. Everypony around her clamped their hooves over their ears and clamped shut their eyes. The inferno was over as quickly as it came.

Fluttershy only stared.

She remembered looking skyward as smoldering, black lumps of something began falling onto her barrier. They came first like the beginning drops of rain at the start of a storm, and Fluttershy stood, numb, as she came to the dark realization that they were pieces of griffon armor, now falling atop them and outside like the worst of an Everfree flash flood.

It lasted for all of five seconds and then all was quiet save for the light tinks of metal armor and the rustling of hooves in snow.

The patch of snow inside the barrier was the only white to be seen for a mile. The forest, and everything else, was gone. Only ash remained. As Fluttershy let the barrier drop, the sudden influx of superheated air seemed to suck the breath from everyone’s lungs. Fluttershy found herself blinking to keep the moisture in her eyes.

The Red Brigade stood like sheep as they took in the sight around them. They had seen Applejack use Celestia’s flame before, but never like this. Nothing like this.

Far ahead at the epicenter of the destruction stood Applejack. She had pulled the helmet off her head where it had been dropped in the scorched earth on its side.

Applejack only stared at the ground.

Fluttershy took to the sky and landed by her friend. On slow hooves she approached.

“Applejack? Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” the earth pony muttered. “Just fine.”

“You saved us,” Fluttershy said.

A long moment passed between them.

Applejack shook her head. “No. You saved us.”

The snow began to fall once more. One landed on Fluttershy’s eyelash. She wiped it away only for it to come away brown and stained.

Not snow, but ash.

It was you that saved us.” Applejack turned to face her. Applejack’s eyes were wide and soot covered her face.

Of the innumerable amount of griffons that had ambushed them, not a single one remained.

“I’m only the one that killed them,” Applejack said, and all Fluttershy could do was look on as her friend fell to her forelegs in the ash and wept.

She had cremated them all.

Grossly Incandescent

Chapter 10 - Left Behind

In that near perfect dark, Fluttershy awoke to the sound of hooves in the hall outside their door. She could tell by the cadence of the steps and the way the floor creaked that whoever was out there was trying to remain quiet. Fluttershy sat up. Her husband stirred in the bed next to her. After a moment of listening she laid a hoof on his side. She knew exactly when he was asleep and awake.

“It’s okay, Mac,” she murmured. “It’s just your sister.”

With his eyes still closed he shifted about in bed. “What’s the time, honey?”

“Past midnight.” Fluttershy could just see the sun reflecting its dim light onto the wall by the window. They could never get the blackout curtains to fully work.

“Baby, stay,” said Mac. He looped a leg around her waist.

“I’m sorry. I Had it again just now.”

Mac remained still.

Fluttershy bent down and kissed him on the side of his head. They both knew what the dream meant — neither her or her sister-in-law would sleep again that night.

Fluttershy stepped out of bed.

****

She found Applejack in the nursery. She had lit a small candle and was standing with her back to the door by the desk in the corner. She wore nothing and her head was bare.

On the other side of Granny Smith’s old room was a hoof-carved cradle created with wood from one of Granny’s favorite apple trees. In a tangle of pink blankets lay Fluttershy’s daughter, Ambrosia, in a deep sleep. The family had simply taken to calling the baby ‘Amber’, to shorten her name and also on account of the color of her coat which had seemed to settle on the lightest of yellow-oranges. Her rose-colored mane had become afflicted with a mild case of bed head.

She had been sleeping through the ‘night’ for many months now. The blackout curtains were the only way to simulate the dark when the sun remained in the sky in perpetuity.

“Sorry,” Applejack whispered, still looking down at the desk. “Thought I heard her crying.”

Fluttershy entered the room and stopped by Applejack’s side. “Did you go to bed?”

The last Fluttershy had seen her was downstairs in the kitchen where Applejack was putting the dishes away from dinner. Mac had already retired to their room after putting Amber down.

“Nah. I went out to the orchard.”

The southern orchard, Fluttershy thought.

“Something came in just before you went to bed. Had to think on it. Had to tell him.”

Fluttershy looked down at the desk where Applejack’s leather scroll case sat opened. Her own had remained in the saddlebags she had carried with her throughout the war, long since stashed away in the back of the closet.

Applejack had told them she would handle communications with the rest ever since they had returned home. She had never dwelled on a message until now.

“What did it say?”

“She’s back,”Applejack replied.

She didn’t have to elaborate further. Spike had been keeping them apprised of Twilight Sparkle’s condition.

‘Any day now’ he had written only a week ago. And now, the time had finally come.

They both stared down at the case. She remembered a meeting they had had many years ago - the last time they had all been together - about what the plan would be if Twilight Sparkle were to ever awake and if nothing had changed in the world.

Fluttershy was sure Applejack was thinking of the same thing.

Nothing had changed. Perhaps ponykind had grown more resilient. Perhaps ponykind had developed new ways to survive. But that was all they were doing.

Surviving.

Scurrying about in the dirt and cold like cockroaches in search of food. Another day’s sustenance.

Nothing had changed.

“Had another dream,” Applejack whispered.

Fluttershy looked at her sister. She hadn’t spoken of such things in weeks.

“Maybe a couple of nights ago,” she continued. “It stuck with me. That's all I’ve been thinking about.”

“Applejack…”

“We were back in the war. I had the armor back on and you had your cloak. But we were back at the house. I remember lookin’ out the window and there was just snow everywhere. Ice.”

Applejack swallowed. The snow had never reached this close to Canterlot.

“All the trees were dead. Killed by the cold. Even inside I could see the frost on my breath.” Applejack finally gave Fluttershy a look through the side of her eye.

“We were all huddled in the center of the living room. The blankets we had did nothin’ — they were frozen stiff. It was you, and Mac. And Apple Bloom, and baby Amber. Just… shaking. We were so cold.”

Her lip trembled and tears were gathering in her eyes.

“I couldn’t keep us warm,” Applejack managed to say. “Was tryin’ to light a fire. A spark. Anything. It wouldn’t come out. I couldn’t do a damn thing. I was screaming for someone to help us. Oh, Celestia… the baby had turned blue. The tears were freezin’ to our cheeks.”

“It’s okay.” Fluttershy stepped close until their bodies were touching and pulled her close with her wing.

“The sun had gone out,” Applejack said. “No stars, no sun. Just the dark.”

“Applejack, we are going to save her.”

“Something else happened,” Applejack whispered. “Right before I woke up, I saw them.”

Fluttershy pulled away slightly to look at Applejack’s face.

The earth pony who they considered the bravest of them all only stared straight ahead, the fear apparent in her haunted gaze.

“They were standing in the windows and the doorway.”

“Who, Applejack?”

“The red phantoms.”

Fluttershy paused. They had spent many nights either around a campfire or fireplace talking about the things they had experienced together or sharing the private fears they had harbored in their hearts. Dreams often became a topic of conversation.

They had all seen the red ghosts that had attacked and killed so many five years ago. Applejack had never once disclosed dreaming of them before.

Fluttershy pulled her even closer. Unwittingly, Fluttershy could feel the white sign burning on her flank.

Why was Applejack dreaming of them now?

****

For the first time since she awoke, Twilight finally had a moment to collect her thoughts. She leaned back in her seat and let the back of her head rest on the cushion. Shutting her eyes, she lost herself to the rhythmic rocking of the train, the metronome-like ‘ba-dump ba-dump’ of old wheels on even older tracks. The train from Canterlot to Ponyville took only an hour but it was exactly what she needed.

Spike had chosen to sit in the booth across the aisle, perhaps sensing that it was space right now that she needed most.

Twilight glanced over at the dragon. Spike really had grown so much. He seemed almost a stranger to her, not just in appearance but also in how he carried himself. On top of it all, Twilight could see his caution. Where he would have once blurted something or said something else without thinking, she could now see the gears turning in his head, the words dying in his mouth and never given sound.

Was it his maturity or secrecy that was keeping things from her?

She shelved it away for another time.

Before they had boarded Spike said that Luna was going to meet them in Ponyville. In Sweet Apple Acres, to be exact. Spike then relayed a message from Luna directed toward Twilight, to ‘look back at her research on the soul’, and promised it would prove to be ‘illuminating’.

Twilight could make a good wager on what Princess Luna had meant. She thought back to the talk she had delivered just days before the gala. In that crowded lecture hall full of her peers, Twilight had posited that of the core tenets that comprised the Triumvirate Three - magic, identity and life - there existed something else that linked those three pillars, a uniting factor that bound them so inextricably together and was yet so discreet and unobtrusive - so ethereal - that nopony had ever thought to define it, let alone prove its existence. The soul - it was akin to studying gravity before the word ‘gravity’ even existed. On that stage Twilight knew that she was going to shake the world’s foundations with her lecture.

She studied the dead pony’s face that was her reflection, and then the pale skies beyond - there was no way she could have anticipated the shockwaves of her discovery would be so devastating.

So cataclysmic.

Twilight thought back to her research and the agonizing method she had developed to complete it. After her initial stumbles as a child, magic had always come second nature to her. It was akin to breathing, an unmatched visual creativity operating within the structured boundaries that was modern magic. One’s own limit in spellcasting had always been defined by the caster’s own imagination, understanding of spell structure, and the size of the personal pool of magic that one could draw upon. Where Twilight lacked in navigating social settings and understanding of societal mores, her mind flourished on the paper and in books. Spells once thought impossible came together like pieces of a puzzle in her head. She could see the finished product, a complex machine of moving gears and components all threatening to self-destruct if even one thing were out of place, but held together by the sheer ingenuity and elegance of her design. If there was a reason she was chosen to be Princess Celestia’s student, it was this - her ability to see the hard set boundaries of magic that had been laid thousands of years ago by legendary minds, and daring to push them further.

Twilight breathed magic, but daring to define the source of it she discovered was like breathing water. She drowned in that research. Pushing the boundaries? This wasn’t breathing oxygen, but noxious gas. No, this was like learning to breathe as the plants and trees. She discovered that trying to prove the existence of the soul through her current understanding of magic was impossible. When everything was filtered through that preconceived lens of magic, it was magic all the way down. No matter what she tried, it was all she could see.

She needed it out of the way. There could be no shortcuts in this. Only a concise excision of all external sources of magic until only that hypothesized single source remained, and only then could she know.

She had stopped eating - magic was found in all things and stores were greatly replenished by foods just as essential vitamins and minerals were. She had stopped drinking. She ingested only the barest amounts of treated water to keep her mouth watered and her entire body from shutting down. Magic was even found in the air, and for that she engineered a mask she wore at all times that forcibly extracted the trace amounts of magic out and filtered the treated air in. She estimated the mask was delivering only ten to twelve percent of the air that she would take in with a normal breath. Every breath was suffocating. Stifled. She gasped and choked for air in her own home and every agonizing second she wanted to quit, and yet she continued.

She then had to eliminate her body’s own function at producing magic which meant she had to stop the restful stages of her sleep. For this another device was devised. A metal band was worn around her head and secured to the base of her horn. It detected the beginning brainwaves of a deep sleep and would force its user back to consciousness with a harsh vibration.

And finally, magic was found in others. More of a theory than a hard science, it was greatly regarded that ponies were such social creatures not just for the sake of it but because the body demanded it. Daily interactions, helping others, and nurturing friendships - these have all been theorized as restorers of balance - of harmony - to the pony’s body, and the more Twilight was convinced of its existence, restoring of the pony’s soul.

Twilight thought of the Elements that she and her friends were chosen for and the great power they wielded when they came together. Was it just magic, or was it something else? The more she uncovered, the more questions that arose.

She needed to stay away from them for the sanctity of her research. If friendship was magic and harmony was sustenance for the soul, then isolation was the solution. She could not see them and they could not know.

Never know.

For twelve days she remained like this in her basement, suffocating and starving and alone, waiting for the final dregs of her magic to drain away in the long, cold hours of the night.

On the thirteenth day she came to it. She had breathed the water - the noxious gas - and had found herself acclimated. She captured that feeling in her mind. Rolled it around on her tongue, felt it. Savored it. Magic, identity and life, to be completely emptied of one of what many believed to be the three tenants of a pony’s very existence and to still be standing, Twilight knew she had arrived. She knew it in her heart of hearts, but her monitors only confirmed it - she was without a single drop of magic in her body. She shelved the feeling away. Her imagination had captured it and her imagination knew no bounds.

Twilight Sparkle reached for it then, her soul. She extended her reach deeper than she had ever gone. Deeper than her entrance exam, deeper than her battles with Sombra and Chrysalis, and went deeper still. The pool that her astronomical amount of magic resided in had been drained and now she was tunneling straight through the bottom. Untested. Uncharted. To the foundation. Something had to support all this and she knew she was going to find it.

She came upon her soul with a sudden force like something had punched the walls of her heart from the inside of the organ. It felt odd to be so directly in tune with her very being. Radiating from her soul was a warmth and a cold. An embrace from her mother. Laughing with friends.

Tears at midnight. Sinking despair.

Twilight embraced it all. At her very source beyond the preconceived understanding of what magic was, Twilight had found another source of power, perhaps the very source of everything itself.

On the train to Ponyville, Twilight Sparkle’s horn took on a black glow.

****

She remembered the feeling of being empty, and of reaching. Twilight was sure it was the same back then in her basement as it was now but without any of the physical sufferings brought on by deprivation. The magic came with surprising ease as if anticipating the weight of a heavy object to be picked up only to find that it weighed nothing at all. All she needed was to breathe differently.

Where before she had felt the warmth and cold of familiarity, here she felt only stillness. No color. No light. No sensation. Just a small pressure, a whisper of an existence that flickered in her grasp. She sensed in it an ephemerality as if it would be snuffed out forever if she squeezed it too hard, jostled it a little too much. And yet as she held the dark sprite that was now seated where her soul once was, Twilight felt what she could only call deja vu.

This… thing. She had felt it before, hadn’t she?

The dreams that came to her in death - of the darkness and the grey lands - they had felt like this. They had the same taste. The same familiarity as an open wound. A sudden dread and longing came upon her. She knew what had come next in those dreams. The blood and an eternity spent in silence. It felt wrong. This thing had a memory, so old and eternal. A stranger sat in her chest and it wanted so deeply to share with her.

To consume.

Twilight pulled away gasping. Her horn went dead in an instant.

“You okay?” came a voice from across the train’s aisle. Spike sat in the opposite booth, an open book laying spine up across his thigh.

She laid her hooves on her chest. ”Y-yeah. I’m fine. Just startled myself. That’s all.”

Spike gave her a curious look. “You figured it out. The soul arts, I mean.”

“What?” Twilight met his gaze.

“The soul arts. Your ring, it started to glow.” Tilting his head, he wagged his eyebrows in the direction of her flank. “I was a little worried that it would take you some time but Luna never was. She said if you figured it out before then you’d definitely have no trouble now. I guess she was right.”

“Yeah. It was kind of surprising how quickly it came back to me.”

“Well, that’s just you. You were born to do this. But you should’ve seen Luna’s face when Pinkie and Fluttershy started to master it. Heh, now that I think about it I guess she wasn’t that surprised. But still.” He shrugged his shoulders and returned to his book.

Maybe she hadn’t heard him right.

Pinkie and Fluttershy?

She leaned toward the dragon. “Come again?”

****

They were still in the nursery when Fluttershy heard the Wonderbolts’ whistle. It sounded from a great distance, a high pitched note that came in bursts of three before a slight pause and then starting again. It sounded like an emergency siren, the way the note slid from low to high with each burst of sound.

The whistle caught Applejack’s attention soon after - it was getting closer. The two ponies looked at each other and then headed for the door.

Outside in the dim sun, Fluttershy threw wide her wings and took to the air. Though she would never match Rainbow Dash in the sky, years of warfare had made her a competent flier. She hovered in place just above the homestead and focused her gaze on the southern horizon.

She saw them immediately by the flare they had lit. Trailing a tail of red smoke were a pair of Wonderbolts leading what looked to be small cloud. They were perhaps a mile out but approaching with great speed and descending rapidly. Old instincts returned to her and Fluttershy took in a slow breath. Her white ring began to glow and from her body emitted a bright light. When the whistling continued, she willed herself to burn brighter. She pulsed the light three times in rhythm with the whistle. When the whistling stopped, she nodded to herself satisfied. She was sure they had seen her.

Still glowing, Fluttershy landed in the Apple homestead’s front yard. As Applejack approached, Fluttershy took a couple of steadying breaths. There were few reasons anypony would seek her out like this.

The two Wonderbolts landed a good twenty paces away at the bottom of the hill. Behind them was a formed cloud, hastily thrown together judging by its construction. In it lay another Wonderbolt painfully still. Her blood had soaked through the cloud she lay on.

Nothing needed to be said. Fluttershy gave her wings a mighty flap and burst toward the wounded pony. She landed and not a second later she began her assessment.

Even through the suits that the Wonderbolts wore, Fluttershy could see it. Talon marks from a griffon, without a doubt. The wounds were numerous and deep but not life-threateningly so, and none of the major vessels were damaged. The blood seemed to be a lot but Fluttershy had seen much worse. Something else was at play. The pony’s breathing was too shallow and her color too pale to match this level of injury. With the tip of her wing she quickly pulled open one of the injured pony’s eyes.

Bloodshot and rolled back.

“When did this happen?” Fluttershy voiced. She was already willing her strength into her hooves and wings.

“Lady Fluttershy. Not even an hour,” said one of the Wonderbolts. A stallion. “Our captain said to take her to Cloudsdale, but when she started to convulse in the back, we thought to bring her here. We suspected…”

Poison.

Not enough time. Fluttershy reared back and laid her front hooves on the pony’s body. She then reached forward with her wings and laid them on her as well. With painful recognition, she saw the purplish discoloration of the blood and the abnormal amount of slimy crimson clots. This pony’s blood was solidifying inside her body.

Perhaps it was her years at the edge of the Everfree, but Fluttershy had acquired a specific knowledge of the anatomy of a wide variety of creatures. She knew how things should look and what she should expect to see if something was out of place. She knew what caused what and learned what steps she should take to help the injured animals that came to her. And with the wide variety of poisonous plants and fungi and venomous reptiles and insects, she had, secondary to her need to care for her injured animal friends, had more exposure and hoofs-on experience in the field dealing with the arcane and obscure than many of the practicing professionals around her. The war had only sharpened her senses and taken her judgment to a needle-fine point.

Fluttershy focused on the pony beneath her. She couldn’t repair her damaged blood cells, but she could at least remove the toxin that caused this.

She willed her energy into the pegasus and imagined it as a gentle wave passing through her body. With it, she wished for her a peace and calm, a serenity that transcended even the most beautiful and deepest of sleeps.

The pegasus seemed to breathe easier and her body relaxed into the cloud.

“What is her name?” Fluttershy could just see the two Wonderbolts in her peripheral vision.

“Cloud Flare, my Lady,” said the stallion.

Fluttershy frowned. The name sounded familiar. Had Rainbow Dash mentioned her before in one of their letters, or perhaps just in passing? So many names to remember these days. She was scared for the ones she had forgotten.

Fluttershy pushed the thoughts away and focused on the energy now washing through Cloud Flare. The pony’s body had taken on a faint glow.

She could feel them all with her aura, all the areas of micro damage caused by the thickened blood. She breathed a sigh of relief as she focused on the head and heart and saw the damage there was minimal.

Fluttershy closed her eyes then and reached. Her ring began to glow and burn. She then turned all her will onto the miles of vessels in Cloud Flare’s body. She breathed for her silent words of purification and prayed that things return to as they should be. She willed the corruption gone. Was her faith not more than a match for this? What was one more life when she had already saved thousands? Every day she wondered if she had really done the things they said she had done. If Fluttershy was ever sure of something, it would have been in her own uncertainty.

Fluttershy spared a glance at the pony named Cloud Flare. She had never grown complacent to the fact that in these moments an entire life either continued or ended by the actions of her hooves and the strength of her will. Every action deserved her one-hundred percent.

A bead of sweat trailed into Fluttershy’s brow.

She had to believe she could do this.

With one final burst of energy the task was finished. She had dissolved the clots and all that was left to do was seal Cloud Flare’s superficial wounds. She was going to live. Fluttershy pulled away and the glow left her patient’s body.

Fluttershy sat on the ground, spent. She looked up to see that Applejack had stepped away and was returning with a trio of glasses balanced on a tray on her back. Three glasses of crisp cider, two of them with ice and one without. Fluttershy smiled.

“Reckon you two were flyin’ pretty hard,” Applejack said to the two Wonderbolts. She pulled the tray loaded with ciders off her back. “This one’s on us.”

The two pegasi seemed to stand straighter. They had both pulled the goggles down around their necks. The light-absorbing models. They also wore the modified cold-repellent suits that had specifically been requested by that unit. They were rarely seen so close to Equestria’s interior. The balaclava portion of the flight suit had also been undone and lay limp across the back of their necks like an afterthought.

“Thank you, uh…“

“It’s just Applejack now,” she replied. “Here.”

The two pegasi each took a glass.

“Thank you,” repeated the stallion and he took a swig. He appeared to be just a little older than them and was well built for a pegasus stallion, while the mare that had flown with him was just on the cusp of adulthood. She couldn’t have been any older than Apple Bloom, and perhaps just a touch younger than Applejack and Fluttershy themselves when Twilight Sparkle had first come to Ponyville.

She beamed at the two of them.

“Oh,” the stallion began. “This is Nimbus, and I’m Gus. Gusty Gale, if we are being proper.”

“No need,” Applejack said.

Gus seemed to relax a bit. He looked at the two of them. “I’m really sorry about disturbing you ladies at this hour. We weren’t even sure if you would be here.”

He glanced at Fluttershy.

“It’s okay,” Fluttershy replied and rose back to her hooves. Applejack handed her the un-iced cider without looking. “We were both up.”

Fluttershy looked at the sleeping form of Cloud Flare.

“She might not have made it if you hadn’t.”

Nimbus took a cautious step forward. “It’s really an honor watching you work. I mean… it’s you. The Saint of the Sun. And both of you, really. In the flesh. Wow.”

Fluttershy smiled but Applejack gave an easy tilt of her head and chuckled.

“Just don’t go bowin’, now. We ain’t royalty or nothin’.”

Sensing the lull, Fluttershy took the moment to step away and heal the rest of Cloud Flare’s wounds. Their conversation soon faded from her ears. Sealing the gouges in her flesh was elementary compared to the work she had just done. Less than a dozen times before during the war she had had to deal with the aftermath of this specific griffon poison. Long suspected to be concocted from a plant native to their region in the north-east, it had been at least a year since she had last seen this kind of poisoning. The increasing rarity of it had Fluttershy thinking the plant had been killed off by the cold, and soon after she thought nothing of it all.

Until today. It was only a bitter reminder that she had saved less than half of this poison’s victims. Fluttershy frowned as she worked. She had gotten lucky today.

In that moment a snippet conversation grabbed her attention.

“- fine,” said Gus. “Oh yeah, she’s doing just fine.”

“We even thought we saw her headed this way. Or at least toward Canterlot. You know how fast she is. And these suits in the dark really do their jobs.”

“We were really sure she was going to be here. Cumulus said she was going to see an ‘old friend’, and ah…” he shrugged. “Let’s just say that the captain keeps to herself mostly.”

Not a scratch remained on Cloud Flare. Fluttershy stepped away, her gaze distant. She never took much joy in saving ponies as she would rather they had never been hurt at all, but now Fluttershy only felt cold. Perhaps she hadn’t processed the situation properly.

Of course they would be meeting again. When Spike had written to Applejack explaining that they were headed to Sweet Apple Acres tonight, of course he had written to everyone else.

Including her.

She hated to think of it, their last meeting. It had ended in a fight between the pony who had always been there for her and the pony she now calls a sister. It couldn’t be mediated then, and Fluttershy hated to think of it now.

As Fluttershy turned to face Applejack and the two Wonderbolts, she saw that same expression on Applejack’s face that she had worn nearly two years ago. She had tried to hide it but Fluttershy could see it in the tenseness of her body and the subtle creases at the corners of her mouth.

Though she looked just as she always had, a whirlwind was raging in Applejack’s mind.

“Well, she’ll turn up eventually,” said the earth pony through a false smile. “She always does.”

****

“You’re the strongest of us all. You can’t just quit!”

“I’m done. I’ve bled enough.”

The other slams her hoof on the table. Her words come like ice. “Then others are gonna die because you got scared.”

“You know what’s at stake for me. For her.”

“Fluttershy can take care of herself. Besides, she has your brother. We need you. With her gone especially.”

A pause.

“RD, we won already. What are you still fightin’ for?”

“It’s won when the world is back to what it was.”

“You think it’s gonna go back just because you put on your suit and kill a couple of griffons in the dark? Don’t you see we're all just tryin’ to survive?”

“They’re killing us.”

“You’re right. Maybe one day they get bold and come for my family next.”

“If you’re out there where you should be they will never get that deep.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. I know how they work.”

Applejack shakes her head. “I’ve done enough.”

“You walk away from this, I'll never look at you the same.”

“Girls, please—“

“No, Pinkie.” Applejack stands from her chair. “She wants me to walk away from my family. Again. I’ve done my time. Done more than my fair share of killin,’. If she can’t see why I do what I do, it’s because she’s never had one in the first place.”

“What did you say?”

“I think you heard me just fine.”

“Okay. Wow. How dare you. What we do out there, we do for everypony in this room. Everypony in Equestria. We carry the hope that there’s gonna be a future. A future for everyone. For your family. For her daughter. I respect it, Applejack. It takes courage to walk away. But I think you’re wrong. The powers we have, I can’t explain it. But what I do know is that we all have a duty to every single pony out there. If we have the means to protect them, then we should.”

Applejack says nothing.

“And what if she comes back,” Rainbow Dash says. “Solaire laid it all out for us. If she comes back we have a real shot at fixing everything. Are you gonna be able to step up? Put that hat back on?”

“RD…”

“It could be the easiest thing. Or we could die there and never come back.”

A silence fills the room.

There. A place further even than death. At least death could be explained.

“All I'm saying is I haven’t given up hope on Twilight. When she wakes up, I’ll be ready to lay everything down and go over there and fight. And until that time comes I am going to continue fighting for us. Right here.” She taps her hoof on the table and then sets her eyes on Applejack. “AJ, I am sorry for what I said. You aren’t a coward. I think we’re all just scared of what’s coming. But just think about what I’m saying right now. We don’t know what’s over there and Solaire is going to need some ponies to go with him. It’s like what Luna said - we all can’t stay and we all can’t go. But when that time comes I know where I will be.”

She turns and leaves for the door. This is the last time Rainbow Dash had stepped hoof in the Apple family home. She looks once more into the house and straight at Applejack.

“Just think about it while you’re here. Kicking trees. Helping raise the baby. We could fail without your fire and any hope for curing Celestia will die with us. Every single pony that we have ever known will be trapped on a frozen rock with nowhere to go.”

Head down, Rainbow Dash steps out into the pale sun.

“Light all the fires you want. Dig your bunkers until you run out of ground. None of it will matter if we fail over there. Everything dies without Princess Celestia.”

****

Twilight sat in silence as she stared out the train window. They were about twenty minutes from Ponyville when Twilight saw the first one. And then more and more. Where there were once rolling green fields were now smatterings of slums and shanty towns. At first they were just a small collection of clustered shacks and huts, but as they drew closer to Ponyville they were becoming more concentrated until hobbled-together buildings were all she could see.

An invisible line kept new structures from being erected too close to the railway, but past that boundary was a wall of chaotic housings thrown together without any regard for crowding or safety. As she looked she would catch a splash of color in the mess of rotting wood and corrugated metal. Ponies like ghosts wandering in the dim light.

Soon, the shanty towns gave way to rows and rows of large concrete complexes built many stories high. Massive dirt rows were lines in the grid in which the apartments were built. As she stared out into the rows she could see where the dirt roads began to curve. She imagined if she was viewing this new Ponyville from above, she would see her old home as the epicenter of a circular maze of concrete blocks and constructions.

Twilight could see the years she had missed in the buildings outside. Somepony, a city designer or planner, had probably wished to instill some order in a world in chaos, and thought to answer the mass emigrations with mass expansion of the city. The plan had succeeded for some time until the demand began to exceed the rate that even the crude concrete could be built but that did not stop ponies from needing protection from the elements, and something made Ponyville the best place to settle.

Perhaps it was the presence of light.

On the periphery of the city a couple of shacks became a shanty town, and then the shanty town became a ring around the city from which a chaos of unmitigated construction and growth expanded from.

Twilight could only speculate at the amount of ponies that had come here. How much of Equestria was now subsisting in the slums outside of Ponyville? How many more were still to come?

Somepony had given up hope in providing housing for the refugees. Perhaps there had never been hope at all.

At once the concrete apartments fell away and the Ponyville that she knew came into view. She could feel the train’s brakes engaging as the train turned slightly to enter the train station.

Though it was practically night time despite the sunlight, the amount of ponies out in the street in front of the station was staggering. Though it reminded her in some ways like Canterlot, the first thing she noticed is that the ponies here looked busy. They moved as if they were going someplace, or stood behind makeshift stands hawking their wares. Many carried worn saddlebags. Even from the train she could see the resilience of these ponies beneath the weariness.

There was not a familiar face in the crowd.

Spike had already risen from his booth when the train came to a complete stop. He was rolling up a scroll and placing it back in a leather case. He took a quick glance at Twilight.

“Pinkie’s coming aboard,” he said. “She’s gonna help you blend in since Luna’s disguise has worn off.”

Despite herself, Twilight found herself smiling. She imagined Pinkie boarding in all seriousness with a suitcase loaded with a trench coat, fedora and walrus mustache. She imagined nothing less than the pink pony herself wearing the exact same thing.

Her smile fell away when she looked down at her hooves. No amount of inconspicuous clothing would cover up her corpse of a body. Her black, sunken eyes. They may as well wrap her up like a mummy. Ship her around in a box. Twilight raised up slightly in her seat.

Toward the train’s front, the train doors squeaked open. A familiar bob of pink mane came first, and then the rest of the pony. Pinkie Pie entered the train with a casualness as if this were her normal commute. She carried with her a thermos of something steaming and had on a pair of shades. She looked around the empty train for a moment before starting down the aisle with a practiced ease. The shades obscured her gaze and her mouth betrayed nothing.

Twilight squinted.

She wasn’t sure Pinkie could even see them.

“Hey, Pinkie,” said Spike.

Pinkie Pie began chewing and blew a pink bubble. She sucked the gum back in her mouth and popped it.

“Hey, Spike,” she said, chewing. She angled her head toward Twilight. “Who’s the stiff?”

“Uh…”

Pinkie beamed a wide smile and pushed the sunglasses up her forehead. “Just kidding. Heya, Twilight!”

”Hey, Pinkie!”

With an uncanny swiftness the earth pony slipped around the dragon and pulled Twilight into a quick hug. She put two kisses on each side of her cheeks. She then pulled away and, still smiling, looked at Twilight close. “We haven’t seen you in so long, we were beginning to think you were dead!”

“Ah hah, very funny,” said Spike. “How long were you sitting on those?”

“Maybe a minute or two!” she sang. Pinkie looked her up and down. “You look a little different.”

“Um, yeah.”

“Doing something different with your mane? Trying out a new coat shampoo?”

“Well…”

“You’ve lost weight.”

“Er—“

Spike sighed. “C’mon, Pinkie.”

Pinkie gave a small smile. “You’re right. I’m just so excited! Twilight, I’m not going to sugar-coat this - you look a little rough around the edges, like… how can I put this…” She put a hoof on her chin and hummed. “Like you’ve been dead for the last five years and have come back from across the veil of death only by the grace of a curse that we cannot even begin to understand.“

“That’s exactly what happened,” said Spike.

“And seeing you now,” Pinkie continued, “I’m feeling a whirlwind of emotions, like…” She hummed again. “Like how I can phrase this, Ohmigosh it's so hard to put into words! I’m so so so happy that you’re back but it’s like… also not-so-happy? I’m excited. But also anxious. I’m hopeful, but also scared. I’m spinning all over the place and I don’t know where I’m gonna land!”

Pinkie smiled again.

“Why, Pinkie?” Twilight asked. “It’s just me.”

“This is the beginning of something,” Pinkie said. “And things need to change. Like bad. I don’t know what you’ve been told, Twilight, but one or two things might have happened and everything has kind of gone a little kooky!”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

“Things are going to change now,” said Pinkie. “Maybe slow at first, maybe fast. I don’t know. But you’re an agent of change, Twilight. You always have been. If you see a problem, you fix it. That’s just who you are. It’s taken us everything just to keep up.”

“Pinkie… I’m sorry I haven’t been here.”

Pinkie shrugged and then hugged her again. She held Twilight close. “I think we were all waiting for you. It’s not that we haven’t been trying, but so so so much has happened. I don’t know where to begin.”

She pulled away. Twilight could just see the corners of her smile quavering.

“Maybe it’s not fair of me to say all this,” Pinkie whispered. Her eyes were wet and glassy.

Twilight searched her friend’s face. She wanted to hug her again but as Twilight raised her hoof, something odd caught her eye.

Her hoof was purple.

She craned her neck to inspect the rest of her body and saw that the rest of her had been restored as well. Her cutie mark was also back, but the white ring remained. She spun around toward the window to try and catch a glimpse of herself in the faint reflection.

Purple eyes stared back at her. Her mane was neat and colored as it had always been.

She was herself.

Twilight spun back toward her companions.

“Wha…”

Pinkie winked back at her. She turned slightly and tapped her flank where a white ring encircled her usual three balloons. The ring was putting off a faint light.

“When did you…?”

“Picked up some new party tricks,” Pinkie said. ”A little bit of misdirection, a dash of sleight of hoof. Gotta keep the material fresh, y’know?”

Spike rolled his eyes. “And a whole heap of illusion magic. Can we go now?”

Twilight stood there bewildered. Was this the soul arts he had mentioned before?

Pinkie started for the train exit and the dragon fell in step behind her. “You’re no fun, Spike. I already said I was sorry for turning you invisible!”

“Pinkie! That really freaked me out!”

“And that time I turned your sword into balloons.”

“I was about to deliver an address to the Council. So messed up.”

“And that thing I put in your bathroom.”

Wait, what?”

“Nevermind!” Pinkie sang. They had just reached the exit and their voices had grown distant. “Question! Was it just you guys on the train?”

“Oh yeah,” said Spike. “We blocked off the whole platform on account of, uh…”

He looked back toward Twilight who was still standing by her seat.

“You okay, Twi?” he called back.

She had watched them go with some sort of ache in her chest. They had grown so familiar with each other. At this point, Spike has known Pinkie for more than twice as long as Twilight had. She has been dead for longer than they had known her alive.

Twilight tried to will the feeling away but it lingered like a rotten smell.

“I’m coming!” She called back, and feigned a smile.

She had been left behind.

****

Twilight kept her head down as they walked through the center of Ponyville’s streets. By some unspoken cue, they had chosen to pass through town square. The most crowded Twilight had seen the square was during the Summer Sun celebration when the whole town had come to gather. The crowd now was Manehattan dense, and during ‘sleep’ hours to boot. Just passing through, Twilight heard at least four different accents that were found natively nowhere near Ponyville.

Pinkie was on her left and Spike on her right. She couldn’t help but notice that ponies seemed to step out of their way similar to how they parted ways for Luna, but somehow different. They didn’t bow or scramble out of the way. They smiled at Pinkie as they passed and they stepped back not out of fear or obligation, but through something else.

Every so often Pinkie would acknowledge a pony with a quick greeting or hoof bump. Others she would exchange hugs with and a few quiet words before moving on. All seemed happy to see her.

Twilight had a sneaking suspicion that Pinkie knew everypony they passed. She glanced up at Spike and though he kept his head forward, she caught his eyes tracing the buildings lining the road, his mouth a thin line.

“Have you been back here much?”

Her voice snapped him out of his trance. “Huh? No. I…”

He grimaced. “Every so often. But not a whole lot. Too busy. Too many memories.”

Twilight nodded slowly. So lost in thought, she hadn’t noticed until long after they had turned down the street. The treehouse library loomed in the distance and that familiar pang of anxiety raced through her gut.

Spike seemed to notice her trepidation.

“It’s not how you would remember,” he said. “In the chaos of those first few months, some vandals had broken in and, uh…”

“Let’s just say they weren’t big fans of literature,” Pinkie said. “Or you. Mainly you. Actually, I think it was just you, Twilight.”

Spike groaned. “Pinkie…”

“They probably liked books.”

“Pinkie!”

The earth pony gave a nonchalant shrug. “They destroyed the library and all your stuff.”

“Yeah. That.” Spike sighed. “Mayor Mare then had it converted into a memorial for you for a time, but I guess she started catching heat for dedicating such a large amount of public space to a, ah, such a divisive pony, that she caved.”

“I don’t even know what it is now,” Pinkie added. “Just a tree, I guess. Ponies go in there all the time to rest and sleep. Maybe it’s some kind of shelter?”

“It is a shelter, Pinkie.”

“Huh.”

They were getting close now. The red door had become faded and chipped. Black curtains blocked the windows.

“Let’s keep going,” Spike said, continuing on. He sidestepped some ponies and didn’t turn to see if they were following.

Twilight looked at the dragon’s broad back and swallowed away the lump in her throat. Was he feeling the same things? Had he already felt them a long time ago? She wanted to pull him into a hug.

This place used to be their home. Now it was just a big tree.

Too many things had changed. The crowd was oppressive. The noise, the smells, this wasn’t the Ponyville she had remembered or even envisioned on the train ride over. Even in the center of town she could just make out the concrete complexes that bordered the town. The buildings were massive brick teeth in the mouth that was the horizon, and Ponyville was foodstuffs just waiting to be chewed, for the upper row of denticulation to fall from the skies and grind them into dust.

They were a wall closing in. All of Equestria packed into a pen.

Herded.

Twilight shook her head. Too many things had changed.

After all of this, could things even hope to go back to how they were?

****

Twilight wasn’t sure how to feel when she saw that Sweet Apple Acres had been walled off. Where there was once a plain white fence bordering the property in which even a foal could get through, there was now a large white stone wall, solidly constructed and obscuring all sight from outside. She figured a solid buck wouldn’t even shake it, let alone do any damage. As they were cresting the last hill before entering the property she had caught sight of that bright red homestead, but they were soon descending the hill and the home fell from view behind the white stone.

“That’s new,” Twilight said. She already knew the answer.

“Vandals,” Spike said.

Yep.

Further ahead at the end of the dirt road, Twilight eyed the sturdy wooden gate and the small guardhouse that stood close by. A tan earth pony stallion in a thick vest stepped out of the small construction and regarded them with passivity. A stalk of wheat hung out from beneath the thick bristles of a brush-like mustache.

Twilight didn’t miss the red and green-speckled apple on his flanks. Nor the white ring.

“Hey there, Wagener!” called Pinkie. “How’s things?”

“Just fine, Miss Pinkie. No trouble tonight. Hope it keeps.” His voice had that familiar country twang.

“Good. Good. I brought you some treats from down at the shop. Bring some to your family, will you? I know how your boy feels about the blueberry ones!”

His bristle mustache concealed any hint of a smile. His expression was a stone mask. “Oh, mighty kind o’ you, Pinkie Pie, I could just cry right now. I couldn’t tell you the amount of joy it brings me to see you. You always brighten things up around here. In these hard times we always look forward to havin’ you around.”

“Aw, Wagener! I’m just doing my part!”

”Hah! Open ‘em up!” The mustache rapped his hoof on the gate and soon after, some kind of mechanism ka’chunk’d on the other side.

The gates swung inward where two more earth ponies were pulling some heavy braided ropes attached to the gates.

“Stop by sometime,“ the mustache said. “Thistleberry and I could whip you something up. Least we could do and all.”

Pinkie winked and clicked her tongue at the stallion. She passed the threshold into Sweet Apple Acres and gestured for Twilight to follow. The two other earth ponies who stood at the gate’s interior had apple cutie marks as well.

“Pretty cool guy,” Pinkie said. “Bit of a party animal though.”

“Are they all Applejack’s family?”

“More or less,” Pinkie said. “When things started to go bad, which was like immediately, Big Mac wrote to every single Apple in Equestria. He put up the Apple signal and they all came here.”

Twilight had made a mental note of the apple trees they saw at the edge of town and lining the entire dirt path that led to Sweet Apple Acres. The walk had taken fifteen minutes and it was apple trees all the way through, and as far as she could see. She had never paid much attention to it before, but she was fairly certain the apple orchards of Sweet Apple Acres didn’t push directly to the edge of town. At least before, anyway. She remembered seeing a small homestead in the middle of a copse of apple trees about a hundred paces off the path. Another of Applejack’s relatives, no doubt.

She was not prepared for the sight in front of her. Even from just inside the gate she could see at least a dozen earth ponies engaging in a variety of tasks. All with apple cutie marks, they went about their work with a practiced ease. Some were sorting through woven baskets full of the red fruit. One was hauling a wagon back up the main path. Another stallion was coming down the path with a wagon covered with tarp. They kept the gate open as the wagon stallion wheeled past.

But what caught Twilight’s eye was the amount of ponies who were bucking trees. Stranger still, they seemed to not move from tree to tree between each kick. The air was full with the sound of hooves meeting wood, and the falling of fruit to the ground. She paid careful attention to a green mare closeby, a hat similar to Applejack’s upon her head.

She had just kicked her tree when she took a couple of steps back and scrunched her eyes at the trunk. Then the leaves. Twilight didn’t know what she saw but the mare was apparently satisfied as she nodded her head and stepped toward the tree once more. She placed her front hooves on the thick trunk. Nothing seemed to happen for a moment, and then Twilight saw it.

The ring on the green mare’s flank began to glow, and Twilight could almost sense the transference of energy. Her hooves too began to let off a faint light and soon the tree’s leaves were glowing as well. The mare had closed her eyes as if to sleep but her mouth was moving, as of voicing a silent prayer.

Twilight looked toward the tree’s crown once more and was stunned. The apples were growing back impossibly fast. In less than a minute the tree had replenished its entire harvest. She stepped back and looked up at the apples with a smile. She knocked them down into the waiting baskets not a second later.

Twilight didn’t notice the mare that had approached them.

“Pretty neat, huh?” came the voice. Unmistakable.

Twilight smiled and turned toward her friend.

“Hey, Applejack.”

Applejack wore an easy smile but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. She looked Twilight up and down before stepping close and throwing her legs around Twilight’s neck. Twilight reached up and patted Applejack on the back, but something wasn’t quite right. She wrinkled her brow. She had been on the receiving end of Applejack’s hugs before - so strong and so warm, so full of life.

Something was missing.

Applejack pulled away and though her smile was wider, it only revealed something else.

“It’s good you’re back,” Applejack said.

It wasn’t the lack of her hat, no.

Or the white ring that surrounded her cutie mark.

“Yeah,” said Twilight. “I’ve been asleep a long, long time.”

“Yup. Ain’t that the truth.” She chuckled. It came out as hollow. “Pinkie? Spike? Why don’t we get y’all up to the house? We got a lot to discuss.”

Applejack turned and started up the path they had walked so many times before. She was cold, Twilight realized. Not in warmth or in hospitality. Twilight could not pinpoint it. Applejack was just cold.

They followed her without a word.

Too many things had changed.

Flashfire

The pinnacle of Celestia’s Flame, flashfire ignites everything in sight with an intense, unbearable heat.

Only used once by Applejack the Truthbearer in the penultimate battle of the Pony-Griffon Stasis War, the flames were said to have burned so hot and so bright that nary a trace of her enemies remained.

Author's Note

Another one.