First, flickers of light in the infinite dark, then shapes - odd, distorted. Screaming. Splashes of gray and white, sparks burning and dying in an instant against the pitch black. It is a part of the dark, or it is the dark, it does not know. All it knows is that things are changing.

The world comes back in pieces. Glimpses. Figments. Where there is once silence is now a deep rumbling bass, constant and thrumming. It exists within this boundless space, a shadow of a forgotten memory, awaking for the first time in a sea of eternity. It does not know how long it has been. All it does is contemplate the shapes and sounds.

The figures are changing in their abstractness. Where they once bled into black at the edges are now defined shapes. A delineation. A border.

Then a change. Indescribable. The shapes change.

A thought of color.

It remains here for a century and watches as the colors swirl. The blues and yellows, the purples and greens, they dance around each other but never mix. She is an eye encased in glass, and all around her is liquid like paint. Oil and water, never mixing.

A liquid.

Like blood.

She is drowning. The blood engulfs her. Gone is the glass and gone are the colors. There is only red and she breathes it in. Chokes.

Fear is the first thing she feels. She clings to it. Focuses on it. The fear - suffocating and all-encompassing - is better than the black. Anything is preferable to that.

She had been scared before. The fear she had felt then, it is the same fear she is feeling now. Writhing in an iron grip, death coming not from the knife held to her face, but a hand. It clamps down over her eyes and mouth and she screams.

A hot iron through the brain. Something lost. It slips from her - consciousness. It slips from her like smoke through fingers and she knows that she will die.

She kicks her hooves in the blood. She clings to the fear as it is all she knows.

But that is not true.

She stills her body. Stills her mind. She knows more than just fear. She knows of sadness. Of peace, and love. Of laughter, and happiness.

She spends no time lingering.

It returns in pieces. Faster now than before. Images in her mind. Faces. Spells. Names. They combine and coalesce. As each piece joins together with another, she knows more and more. The memories cascade back to her, her thoughts.

Her mind.

She gasps awake.

****

Twilight Sparkle stands in a dead, grey land. Nothing moves. Not the air. Not the fog. All around her the land is dry and cracked, and she knows that for an infinity in all directions nothing will change.

So she stands looking skyward. She had created eons ago a spell to still her mind. A complete, perfect, death-like stillness in which she can spend an eternity in nothing but an instant. The spell was designed to last forever.

She had lost count how many times she had cast it.

A thick layer of the gray dust had accumulated on her coat. Her mane. Her eyes. Nothing moves, yet the dust found its way onto her all the same.

The last time she had moved was eons ago, long after the times she had built palaces that stretched far beyond the horizon. Long after the times she composed symphonies and wrote massive multi-tome epics. She wrote essays in one eon explaining her actions, and then essays damning them in the next. She filled a planet’s worth of libraries with her writings, and still she wrote more. She found herself repeating stories that she had already written, scribing letters that she had already penned but never sent.

Twilight stopped writing then, when every thought she had ever had and will ever have had already been committed to words on paper.

She had cast a spell on every parchment and paper that she used that ensured that even in this grey land where nothing moved, they would not erode.

She thought she had begun to understand what it was to be immortal. Even with all the time Twilight had wandered, built and created within the grey land, the vastness of forever - the cold, uncaring march of the passage of time - the understanding of it all still eluded her.

All her spells and countermeasures were nothing in the face of a perfect eternity.

It all went away.

Her writings faded. The palaces crumbled to stone, and then dust. And Twilight, casting spell after spell to erase her consciousness from existence for billions of years at a time, wished for nothing more that she herself would turn to dust just as everything else had.

Twilight Sparkle wept.

Grossly Incandescent

Chapter 9 - Five Years

Consciousness returned to her in pieces. The first lucid thought Twilight had was that her cheeks were wet. The next was that she was laying on her back in a bed with white linens. The ceiling too was white, nondescript as if it were a blank canvas awaiting paint. To her left a warm light tried to fill the room from a single candle but the light couldn’t quite reach. The shadows danced in the corners of the room.

She blinked the mistiness from her eyes and wiped at the line of tears that had streamed down her face.

Breathing was hard. She focused on each breath.

In.

Out.

In.

She paused after each breath and held.

Twilight closed her eyes. Why did she feel so sluggish?

Twilight turned toward the tiny flame that burned atop a tall candle. The candle stood on top of a nightstand next to her bed. A small smattering of books and loose papers were strewn on the table’s surface, but it was the large figure in the chair behind the nightstand that drew her gaze. Purple scales and green frills. Brawny arms joined to a wide chest, and atop a thick neck was a dragon’s face she couldn’t quite place. He peered at her with an expressionless gaze, an unknowable look in his green eyes.

A rumble sounded in the dragon’s chest as his mouth opened.

“Twilight?”

His voice was a deep bass that seemed to shake the room.

Did she know him? Twilight searched the dragon’s face, looking for something, anything, that would hint at his identity. She felt in a haze as she stared back at him. Even her mind was sluggish, her thoughts going in circles and down spirals but never arriving at an answer.

“It’s Spike,” said the dragon, and then leaned forward slightly. He remained expressionless and asked in a flat tone, “Do you remember me?”

Twilight stared at the dragon, unblinking, as the tears returned anew. They came unabated, recognition rushing back to her in painful pulses like blood into a numb limb.

Spike.

He was only a boy, and now —

“You’ve grown,” Twilight choked out. Why was she crying? Why did her chest hurt? She felt like she knew the answer but her mind swam around it in circles.

Spike gave a closed smile and stood from the chair. He was a giant among furniture for toys. He shuffled closer to the bed, his thick tail dragging on the tile. Twilight could only look as the smile fell away. His eyebrows turned upward and his large mouth opened into a pained grimace. His shoulders shook, and Twilight could see the child again. Tears threatened to spill from his eyes.

Twilight opened her mouth to speak but Spike moved in that moment, kneeling by her bed and holding his arm inches above her body as if she would break at the slightest touch. Twilight saw his mouth quivering and she nodded, and Spike lowered his arm onto her and pulled her into a gentle hug.

His silent sobs shook his giant frame, and all Twilight could do was remain in his embrace. Her mind raced in place, a thousand thoughts and questions raging for her attention.

“Oh…” he breathed between sobs, “Please let this be real.”

For a minute they remained there, Spike shaking as he held Twilight close. She eventually extracted her leg and rested it across the back of his neck.

“Spike.” Her voice was still weak. She knew she had to ask. “What happened?”

The dragon pulled away slightly, and Twilight’s leg fell down to her side. Her limb was completely grey.

He searched her face.

“You died, Twilight.”

****

She didn’t know how long they sat there.

Spike at one point had pulled his chair closer to the bed, but before sitting, operated a device on a cord that slowly raised half of her bed so that she sat almost upright. Spike pointed to the far side of the room where a large mirror was built into the wall over a sink and counter.

A hospital room, Twilight thought, and she became acutely aware of the scent of chemicals.

But she didn’t linger on the room long.

It was her reflection.

That grey pony who stared back at her. Emaciated body. Lifeless eyes.

The image made her sick.

Those eyes, completely black save for the thin white rings where the purple of her eyes used to be. They sat in dry sockets. Her face was sunken, and her mane - though still tri-colored - was now a black, grey, and white. Her mane hung limp and lifeless in a scraggly mess.

Dead. Is that what she was?

Spike stirred in his seat.

“What do you remember?” He began.

The dark.

Those dreams.

Twilight only stared at the dead pony in the mirror.

“It’s all so fuzzy,” she whispered. “Like a dream. Or…”

“It’s okay,” Spike said.

He sat for a moment longer before reaching for one of the papers on the nightstand and jotting down a quick message. He held it in front of his face and breathed out an almost invisible flame as if he were exhaling cigar smoke. The paper took on a green flame and turned to ash.

Spike offered a small smile at her.

“To the Princess,” he said. “She needs to know you’re awake.”

She beamed inside at the thought of seeing her teacher again. She knew she would tell her what was going on.

“Where is Princess Celestia now?”

Spike winced as if struck.

“Princess Luna,” he said. He shook his head and pinched the space between his eyes. He dropped his arm and said, “I’m sorry. It’s been so long, I sometimes forget how that night went. You weren’t there. There’s no way you could know.”

The memories eluded her, like trying to read fine print through fogged and rain-dropped glasses. She was afraid to ask. Afraid of the answer.

“How long—“

She paused, her voice becoming shaky. She steadied herself.

“How long was I asleep?”

Spike seemed to be anticipating the question. He looked to the door and straightened in his chair. He rested his hands on his thighs and only then looked at her through the sides of his eyes.

“Five years,” he said. “Almost to the day.”

The breath caught in her throat. Twilight leaned back in her bed and looked toward the ceiling.

“Where is Princess Celestia?”

“Luna will answer that.”

“Spike, please.” The tears were coming back. “Where is she?”

She angled her head slightly toward the dragon.

Spike looked to the floor. He stared at the floor, his fingers drumming a rhythm on his legs.

“She’s petrified. She’s in stone.”

Why.

Twilight could only press forward. She needed to know.

“Why?”

“It was the poison,” Spike said. “Luna was there. She said that Kirk breathed some kind of poison on her. She had no choice.”

Confusion boiled within her. Or was it anger?

“No choice? Where is she, Spike? I need answers.”

Answers for this. All of this. Five years?

“I told you already, Twilight. She can’t see you.”

“No. No.” Twilight leaned forward in the bed. “No. Spike, please tell her I’m here. Please. What is happening to me?”

Twilight watched as Spike sank further into his chair.

A minute passed.

He leaned forward, his head parallel with the floor as he rested his eyes in the palms of his hands.

It was in that silence that the door took on a blue glow and opened on quiet hinges. In stepped Princess Luna, unmistakable by her mane and color, and unmistakably taller. As tall as Princess Celestia.

The princess looked to Twilight and then Spike, who had turned his head toward the princess.

“You should have waited for me,” Luna said.

Yeah,” Spike let out, and then smiled, his shoulders relaxing. “Yeah, I know.”

Luna looked back toward Twilight. Her eyes were kind and a smile played at her lips.

“So!” Luna started. “Let’s begin, shall we? I am sure you have a lot of questions, Twilight Sparkle. As do I. But for now, let us start at the beginning. What is it that you do remember?”

****

And so they talked. With some light queueing the early memories started to come easy for Twilight. She remembered her parents and Shining Armor. She remembered Princess Celestia and her lessons and being sent off to Ponyville to make some friends.

When Twilight asked them about what had happened since she was asleep, Luna only deflected and asked that they stay on track.

And so Twilight continued, recounting the mundane, a specific friendship lesson, a random memory that entered her mind. As she recalled, the easier the memoeries came. Soon, she could remember entire days, entire conversations - even the most minute details - with surprising clarity.

All the while, Spike and Luna sat and listened, the former having produced a clipboard at some point and sporadically took notes with an oversized pen.

Twilight felt a twinge of happiness at this. Something had stuck after all.

Twilight recounted the changeling invasion of Canterlot, of how they expelled Queen Chrysalis with the Elements of Harmony, and then paused.

Twilight furrowed her brow.

“Twi?” Spike asked.

Luna held out a hoof.

“No, it’s…” Twilight shook her head. “It’s getting fuzzy again.”

“Try to remember,” said Luna.

“I…”

Spike looked concerned.

“I was trying to do something. In the library. The basement.”

Why was this painful? Why now?

“I was looking for something. Studying and experimenting. I was the subject. There was no one else who could do it.” She looked toward the dragon. “Just me and Spike. We were looking for the soul.”

Luna nodded. “Good. Please continue.”

Twilight didn’t miss that Spike had leaned back in his chair and exhaled.

She couldn’t shake that familiar feeling.

Why did she feel that this was a test?

****

They pressed on. They spoke of her lecture, the fire atop the tower’s balcony. They spoke of their first encounter with the interdimensional being named Solaire and of how he died and came back to life.

Twilight knew not to ask of his current whereabouts.

She knew of the Gala now. She knew that’s where it happened. The memories came back to her unbidden, the memories of how she died, but she knew she had to continue in chronological order not only for her own sake but for the sake of the test. If she dwelled, she knew she would break down.

And so she faced them as if they were proctors for a verbal exam and continued.

She spoke of the duel between Luna and Solaire, and the promise made between Princess Celestia and Solaire.

“I made a ring,” Twilight said. “A ring that would let Solaire return to Equestria after he left to continue his mission.”

Was he still even here?

She was watching them now for some kind of clue into what they were wanting from her. They tried to not give anything away but she knew Spike. He may have been older but he was still the same dragon that she had raised. She knew his tells, and they were telling her that she was close.

Twilight closed in.

“I had created the ring to only respond to my magic, and a very specific magic at that. An encryption that only I can unlock. And of course one other pony—“

“Celestia,” Luna said. The only time she had offered information in the hours they had talked.

“Yes,” Twilight said. “Princess Celestia.”

Twilight swallowed.

“She told me that she would tell you how to operate the ring in time, but I’m guessing she never did. You could never get the ring to work.”

“True,” Luna said. “The ring, as you said, only responded to your magic frequency. And since you were otherwise indisposed, we had to search for another way to activate it.”

“But the encryption. Even if you could perfectly match my frequency, the ring would still be locked to you without the key for the encryption.”

The pair sat in silence.

“We need the ring, right? Skip the Gala. I was… and Celestia is petrified.” Twilight focused on Luna with all the intensity she could muster.

“Five years. By the sun and stars, you wouldn’t have waited all this time if there was no other way.” She gestured to her body, her grey coat and black eyes.

“Whatever happened to me can wait. You need the ring for something.” She leaned forward, looking at Luna. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have brought it here.”

Both Spike and Luna shared a look. Luna then sparked her horn and from thin air appeared the silver ring. Twilight had sensed faint traces of her magic when Luna entered the room but now with the ring in plain view, her frequency was apparent.

Luna floated the ring over to Twilight but when she tried to reach out with her own magic, nothing happened. It was as if she were grabbing air.

A pang of panic shot through Twilight.

No, it was as if she had no magic at all.

Luna looked at her with a calm expression and stood. Luna’s horn then took on a magenta glow, and Twilight could only balk as an almost imperceptible change occurred within the ring.

It sensed her magic. Or rather, the exact frequency of her magic.

“How…”

Her magic was her own, unique completely to herself. To imitate it so perfectly as to fool the spell on the ring would take years of intense tuning and calibrations by a team of dedicated experts. Really, the field was so niche and abstract that the only unicorns skilled enough to do so worked outside the law, beyond the purview of the Princesses.

Luna disappeared the ring and let out a small breath, a distant look crossing her face. “There is a lot that we need to tell you, Twilight Sparkle. The lengths we have gone to to do even this should speak to our desperation.”

Spike rose from his chair, the furniture creaking as he did so, and took a hesitant step toward the bed.

He held out a hand. “Please, Twilight. It’s best if you see for yourself.”

****

On shaky legs Twilight exited the room. Luna led and Spike took the rear, the dragon walking a little too close as if afraid Twilight would fall. She only became more confused as the next room they entered was a massive circular chamber. The white hospital tiles and the sterile white of the plaster walls gave way to old stonework with an odd bluish hue. There was no ceiling she could see - only an impenetrable darkness that seemed to eat the stone walls the higher they rose. She made only a passing notice of this as stranger still was the object situated in the center of the chamber - a massive freestanding mirror with an ornate silver frame. It was square in shape and multiple times her size.

With no explanation and without looking back, Luna made her way across the chamber, stepped through the mirror and disappeared from sight.

Spike stood at Twilight’s side. “She had to make a new one because I was getting too big.”

“What is it?”

Spike paused.

I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “Some kind of portal? She used to have one in her tower because she doesn’t like stairs, but now she has a whole network of them all over Equestria.”

Huh.

“And where exactly are we right now?” Twilight asked. Now that she thought about it, neither the hospital room or this chamber had any windows.

“We’re in some kind of pocket dimension,” Spike said. “She created this space to seal you from the rest of the world.”

Her brows furrowed, Twilight turned and looked up at the dragon. The questions kept piling up.

“C’mon,” said Spike and gestured to the mirror. “This will take us back to the top of Luna’s tower.”

Twilight had no choice but to comply. Together they approached the mirror, and gingerly, she raised a hoof to its surface and was not too surprised when it met no resistance. Closing her eyes, she pushed her head through and then the rest of her body.

They emerged into what could only be Luna’s private quarters - another circular room dominated by scroll-laden shelves and pushed to the side a large crescent-shaped desk littered with a bric-a-brac of items and artifacts. A plush cushion the size of Twilight’s bed sat on the opposite side of the room. A small artisan table was close by, a smattering of cups and papers on its surface. The floor itself was a beautiful stained wood of intersecting crescents. On the ceiling was an artful rendition of the night sky.

But what drew Twilight’s eye was the round table in the center of the room. It appeared of carved granite, roughly hewn, and large enough that it would take several paces to walk its circumference. Projecting from a blue crystal in its center was a full color spherical projection of Equus, accurate to the point that it appeared to be the planet in miniature floating in the center of Luna’s office. For some reason something felt off.

Luna stood by the table’s side in front of the unmistakable continent that Equestria resided on. She watched Twilight with expectant eyes.

“There’s another one in the Council Chambers,” said Spike. “They mirror each other. If something changes on one it will change on the other.”

Twilight gave a wordless affirmation and continued her approach. As she drew closer she noticed little shapes in various colors dotting its surface. The depiction even simulated night and day. A minimalist rendering of the sun and moon floated a foot above the planet’s surface and cast accurate shadows across the model.

Twilight noted that the sun was positioned directly above Canterlot.

Old memories crept to the forefront of her mind.

Old memorizations, so rote and ingrained that she recognized it immediately.

Something was terribly wrong here.

The sun’s path never crossed over the center of Canterlot.

For a whole minute she watched the sun, even stepping so close that she could have touched it with a hoof.

“Is this real time?” Twilight voiced suddenly.

“Yes.” Luna’s voice.

“It’s not moving,” Twilight said as she faced the princess. She jabbed a hoof at the tiny sun. “A model this size, it should be moving.”

Neither Luna or Spike said a thing.

Twilight looked at them both, a ringing in her ears. The implication of this. She couldn’t bear to think of it.

She needed to see it.

As if knowing what she was thinking, Luna stepped back and angled her head to the pair of double doors that led out to the balcony. A pale yellowish-green light streamed in through the glass.

Twilight couldn’t shake the feeling of dread. She stepped toward the doors and pushed them open with a shaking hoof. With painstaking slowness, Twilight stepped out into the dim light that emitted from that diminished sun.

“Oh, Celestia…” Twilight whispered. This was wrong. This was all wrong.

Luna joined her on the balcony and started in a somber tone.

“For five years the sun has remained above Canterlot. It grows weaker with every passing day.”

“We can’t move it,” Twilight said. She found herself sitting on the tile. From weakness or shock, she did not know.

“I wish we had good news for you, Twilight Sparkle.”

She didn’t hear her. All Twilight could do was stare at the dying sun.

“Oh, Celestia. We can’t move it.”

****

Twilight Sparkle looked down at Princess Celestia’s petrified form.

The stone statue that was Celestia lay on its side, her body stone-frozen in all the pain that she must have felt in her last moments of consciousness. Her legs were splayed out in front of her. Her topmost foreleg appeared as if she were reaching skyward while the one touching the ground was curled beneath her piteously and weak. Her head and neck were raised off the ground and angled toward her back, eyes staring but unseeing at someone who stood over her five years ago. Most striking of all was Celestia’s face — twisted into a permanent grimace, mouth agape and eyes wide and pleading.

Princess Celestia had spent her last moments in agony.

There in the throne room, Twilight stood just out of hoof’s reach.

Gone were the twin thrones of the princesses. Only Celestia - twisted and grey and lifeless - remained in their place.

Twilight dared not touch her, dared not make this real. To feel the cold stone would wake her from the nightmare.

This was better as a dream.

There, among the countless flowers and written prayers that were left for the Princess of the Sun, Twilight wished that she hadn’t woken up.

Through the stained glass behind Celestia’s prostrate form Twilight could see the sickly green glow of the sun outside.

She dared not think of the implications of an unmoving sun.

The devastating ecological damage. Entire cities, nations, continents, left without heat and light. The damage to crops. Food shortages. Mass upheaval of entire populations. The bitter cold on the far side of the planet.

She thought back to the model of Equus back in Luna’s tower, of how the colored shapes on its surface formed and joined into what looked much like battle lines.

Wars have been fought over much less.

How many have already died?

How many will continue to die?

She thought of her friends - of Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. Rainbow Dash and Rarity. Her parents and Shining Armor.

Applejack.

Twilight Sparkle did not know if her friends or family were still alive. How had she not considered them until this moment? She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut and curl into a ball and scream.

But she only stared at Celestia — her teacher and mentor and hero — and then arrived at the same conclusion she had reached on the day she herself was killed a half decade ago.

“This is all my fault.” Twilight’s voice came out watery and choked. “Oh, Celestia, this is all my fault.”

The silence in the throne room was deafening. Spike and Luna had not spoken much when they walked from Luna’s tower to the palace proper, but she remembered Spike saying that they had the palace emptied the moment she had awoken.

Twilight looked down at her grey form, her sinewy legs. She could just make out her reflection in the polished tile on the floor.

A hideous creature with black pits for eyes stared back at her. She could understand why they didn’t want anyone to see her. She spared a passing glance at her companions.

Luna and Spike stood a respectable distance behind and Twilight somehow got the impression from their stance and familiarity that they themselves had spent a lot of time here. Cried all the tears that needed to be cried.

Twilight felt another twinge in her chest. She thought of all the time she had lost, of everything she had missed. Would things have turned out differently if she hadn’t failed the night of the gala? Where would they be if she hadn’t studied the soul at all?

She couldn't avoid it any longer. She had touched upon it like a foal learning to swim in cold waters, but had never fully considered it. It had lingered in the back of her mind all this time, rotting. Festering. It was simply too much to think about. The full weight of that singular truth slammed into her like a runaway train.

She had died.

The analytical part of her brain was able to parse it and shelve it away for future consideration, an anomaly to be worked through later. But there in the throne room as she stared down at Princess Celestia, the truth she had been avoiding cut through all the rest of her thoughts and coiled itself like a rod of molten iron into her brain.

She had died and was now walking around the palace as a…

A what?

A corpse?

The truth was evident enough on her flank. Gone was her purple starburst cutie mark. In its place was a single white ring. It looked wrong on her.

If one’s cutie mark was a visual manifestation of one’s soul, what did it mean to have lost the original and gained another? Was the truth as simple as that?

“None of this is your fault,” said Luna, “ but I understand why you would think so. It does not take a large amount of thought to arrive at that conclusion, Twilight. Many ponies did and still blame you.”

Twilight turned then to face them fully.

“Mine and my sister’s,” Luna continued, “our mistakes from one-thousand years ago have followed us here. I think of my own delves into magic that utilized the soul. I think of the ponies who followed me. Of Sombra, who would go on to commit atrocities using knowledge and skills that I had taught him.”

Luna pressed on. “Does the fault lie with me then, Twilight Sparkle? If I had just seen what Sombra would become, would Celestia still have forced me to stop studying soul magic? Or is it Celestia’s for feeling she had to stop me in the first place? Or is it mine for losing control and becoming Nightmare Moon? Or is it hers for sealing me away and destroying all evidence of my work, only for you to rediscover it a millennium later? I can go on forever like this, Twilight. Shifting blame, pointing hooves. The fact is, your actions were merely the last in a long chain of mistakes and errors that started long before you were born.”

Luna stepped forward, her tone growing soft. “The only thing we can do is to try to fix this and move on. That starts with helping my sister.”

Twilight looked from Luna to Spike, and then back to Luna. She willed some firmness back into her voice.

“What happened to me?”

Luna wasted no time in responding. “We believe that Adria took your soul. This had, for all intents and purposes, killed you.”

“But I’m here.”

“Solaire arrived just moments before. We dispatched her, and in our haste and grief, Solaire said that he could save you. We did not know what that meant. We still do not. After five years, we still do not.”

Twilight shut her eyes. “What did he do?”

“He produced something in his hand. A black shard of an indescribable energy. He took it and forced it into your chest.”

Twilight recalled the time Solaire had shown her something similar atop Celestia’s tower at the fire she had created. It was just the two of them, and Solaire produced a black mass, balled it in his hand and stuck his fist in the flame. He called it a disease.

“The curse,” Twilight whispered.

“We did not know what he was going to do,” Luna said.

“But you’re back,” Spike said. “It took all this time but you’re back!”

“Truthfully, Twilight. We were not counting on you returning to us. We watched you for many years in complete secret - less than a dozen ponies know. It wasn’t until the last six months when we noticed any sort of change in you.”

Twilight thought of those dreams, of being nothingness in the dark and of the eternity she had spent in the grey land. They remained with her, a brand in her mind.

“I dreamt of things,” said Twilight. “Of being born in a dark place, and of… some purgatory. A literal Tartarus.”

“The machines detected your brain waves first,” said Spike. “Luna tried to enter your dreams but—“

Twilight shook her head.

“I don’t think they were just dreams. More like…”

Memories.

“…I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t matter.”

Why bother them with this when the world was collapsing outside? She pushed the thoughts away.

Luna herself had said they were not expecting her to return so there had to be a reason she was spending so much time with her now.

Enough dancing around the subject.

“Please. Just tell me what it is you want from me.”

Luna nodded slowly.

“Twilight. I will not hide things from you or try to lessen the blow — the end of the world is upon us. We have exhausted all options to gain control of the sun. And even if we were able, that does not change the fact that the sun is dying.”

“How much time is left?”

“By our estimates, less than a year. The sun is tied to her life, Twilight. Even petrified, the poison is killing her. She will perish in that stone and the sun will die with her.”

“The world will become a frozen wasteland,” Spike said. “Ponies are already talking of moving underground, living as the diamond dogs do, but how long can we last really? The dark side of the planet has already gone cold. It’s a taste of what will come.”

“So we help Princess Celestia,” Twilight said. “We develop an antidote for the poison and pull her from the stone.”

Luna shook her head. “We have tried, Twilight. In the first month the world came together to try and help her. Scientists from all nations pooled their collective knowledge here in Canterlot and came up with nothing.”

“Then talks collapsed,” Spike said. “We could not convince the other side of the world that Equestria’s best unicorns— Luna herself— could not take control of the sun. They were convinced we were keeping the sun for ourselves, and how could we blame them? Their people were the first to starve. The wars started, and—“

“Let us not talk of that,” Luna said. “The cure cannot be found on Equus as the poison did not originate from Equus.”

The pieces began to fall in place for Twilight.

“You need the ring because you plan to go there. To Solaire’s world.”

There was a long silence between them.

“He says there is a plant there that can cure her,” Luna said. “A very rare plant that grows only in close proximity to the poison’s source. He says he can retrieve it for us but when both you and Celestia fell that night, the fire atop her tower grew dim. He somehow travels through the flame. The chances of him returning without the fire or your ring are slim to none.”

“Solaire begged us to let him go but we couldn’t. The risk was too great to let him go on his own with no guarantee that he would be able to return.”

“So this is it then,” Twilight said. “I take the encryption off the ring and Solaire brings us the antidote for Princess Celestia?”

“Yes,” said Luna. “This is one plan of dozens, but the one most likely to succeed.”

“Princess Luna, you should know about my magic. I haven’t been able to use it since I woke up. The encryption…”

“Worry not, Twilight Sparkle. You need only guide me through the procedure. I will carry out the rest. And as for your magic and what has happened to you, we are beyond uncharted waters. I will assist you in whatever capacity I can but there is so much we do not know.”

Twilight considered her words for a moment. The normal pathway for her magic had been disrupted, or rather, completely removed from her. In its place was something else entirely different, some foreign entity that had taken root in the place where her soul had once resided.

She was reminded of her youth when she struggled to cast even the most basic of spells. The circumstances now were different and the stakes much more dire, but at its core this was a problem that was in need of an answer, a puzzle begging to be solved.

Twilight felt as if she had awoken in the midst of a raging storm at sea with only some driftwood to cling to and no land in sight. If only she could get her magic back then perhaps things would make sense again.

She would at least have a compass.

A memory of Princess Celestia sprang forth in her mind.

A lifetime ago Princess Celestia had said over some tea, “there isn’t a problem in this world that cannot be solved with the help of some friends.” She smiled. “And a little bit of magic.”

As Twilight looked from Spike to Luna, and then to the petrified form of her teacher, the words only reminded her of everything she missed, and what was now missing from her.

She had no idea of the whereabouts of her friends. Her magic was gone. Her greatest supporter and confidante was slowly dying in stone, and she herself was brought back from death by an interdimensional curse.

“There isn’t a problem in this world…” Twilight whispered, then shut her eyes.

What would Celestia say now, she thought, when the problems didn’t come from Equestria, or even Equus, but another world entirely?

A place so far beyond their comprehension that the slightest brush with it has left theirs on the brink of total collapse.

Celestia’s cure lay in that place. Equestria’s salvation can only be found in that place.

For the first time since she awoke, Twilight felt a spark of anger in her chest.

My soul is in that place, she thought.

Twilight needed her magic back. Just as Adria used magic to rip Twilight’s soul from her, she would use magic to take it back. Rip it from her cold, dead hands if she had to.

She would pummel her into oblivion. Smash the air from her lungs for what she did to her. For what she did to Celestia.

“Twilight?”

Spike’s voice, tinny and distant.

She would crush her broken and bloody into the dirt and take back what was rightfully hers.

She needed her magic back.

She needed her magic back to kill the one who had killed her.

“Adria.” The name dripped from her lips like venom.

Twilight Sparkle was going to kill her.

****

The disguise spell felt odd on Twilight, like loose fitting clothes that belonged to a stranger. Twilight Sparkle was a pale green unicorn in a plain white coat. A small emblem of a half-crescent moon was pinned to the coat’s lapel. At her side was Luna and Spike, neither in disguises.

They did not need any however as most ponies they encountered on the streets of Canterlot either stepped away or dropped into a deep bow. Only a few offered any kind of verbal acknowledgement to which Spike was quick to answer with a smile and a hoof shake. Luna only stared straight ahead, not giving any indication that she saw the ponies who took great pains to not stand out.

Canterlot had always been a crowded city but there had always been a sense of order that came with it. Despite the uppity nature of Canterlot’s upper-crust, they always behaved in a manner that did not disrespect their station. Whether wealthy or working class, everyone who walked Canterlot’s streets could feel as if they belonged.

Now, as Twilight walked by Luna and Spike’s side, she saw what she could only perceive was a small microcosm of the pain beyond the city walls. It left a bitter taste in her mouth, seeing the ragged, bedraggled ponies lining the city streets. Some sat pressed up against the buildings like the empty bottles and assortment of trash around them. Others roamed in place, all with hunger and anxiety in their eyes. All with no place to go.

They passed an earth pony laying too still on the pavement.

A mare sitting on flattened cardboard watched as they passed. A young foal lay asleep at hooves. Spike dropped them a few coins.

A building which used to be a sandwich shop had a line of ponies that started in the alley and extended down the street. A sign that used to be an old piece of plasterboard read, ‘Kitchen open til’ 12:00 PM. Bring own containers!’

They passed a pair of guards adorned in Canterlot’s gold. Their armor was battered and worn, the polish weathered to nothing. One of them wore a bloody bandage over an eye. They saluted Luna and bowed.

All stayed out of their way. And everywhere, the scent of unwashed bodies. Accumulating filth.

Twilight wrinkled her nose. Averted her gaze. She couldn’t bear to look at them, to see the consequences of her actions. Of her failure.

Above them all, Celestia’s dying sun remained a never-ending, never-setting reminder that things will only get worse. Each day it grew a little dimmer. A little colder. Every day more refugees arrived at the city’s gates. Entire families fleeing their homes with all they could carry on their backs searching for sanctuary and succor, only to find more of the same.

Starvation staved off by vegetable water and soup kitchen bread. The cold not by a warm hearth and a roof overhead, but by the ragged blanket brought from home, the body heat of the pony next to them on the pavement.

Down an alley on the once white brick, something caught Twilight’s eye. Her own face as she once was, larger than life and beautifully painted in a resplendent purple stared back at her with a cold, uncaring gaze. The mouth was slightly downturned into a frown, the eyebrows pinched at the center. In bold white script above was written,

‘I DID THIS TO YOU’

Spike stopped by Twilight’s side.

“That showed up one night maybe two years ago. Whoever did that used some kind of enchanted paint.”

“Smart.”

“Won’t come off without taking down the whole wall. I petitioned the Council, and well…” he waved a dismissive hand down the alley.

Twilight chuckled. “I don’t know how Shining ever dealt with the bureaucracy.”

Spike’s smile fell away. “Yeah. Let’s keep going.”

****

It was only when they got to their street did Twilight realize they were going to her parents’ house. Luna instructed Spike to write to her once they had finished here and flew away. Twilight and Spike watched her go.

The two of them stood out in the street.

“Well, I guess we should go in,” said Spike.

“Wait. Just wait.” Twilight sighed. “Why are we here?”

“Because they’re your parents, Twilight. They need to know you’re alive.”

“I’m… I don’t like this. I either come back as they remember me or not at all.”

Spike looked down at her with that expressionless gaze of his. Why did she feel like she was getting scolded?

“I’ve never stopped visiting them, Twi. You know that they love you, right? They always have.”

“Yeah,” Twilight said. “Yes, of course.”

“Then can’t you do this for them? They deserve to see you.”

“I… yeah. You’re right.”

Spike smiled then knocked on the door.

****

An earth pony colt answered the door. Blue eyes peek out from beneath his tousled brown mane. He looked to Spike first then at the green unicorn that was Twilight Sparkle.

Spike gave a casual wave of his hand. “Hey there, Marble! Your parents home?”

The colt named Marble looked between the two of them. “Mom’s at work,” he said.

“Oh cool. Cool. Can I come in? Just visiting Twilight Velvet and Night Light. You know.”

Marble fixed his gaze on Twilight.

Twilight offered a smile. “I’m an old family friend. Uh, Twilight Sprinkle.”

For a moment, Marble only stared at them. Some seconds passed and he let the door swing open.

“She’s in the kitchen.”

****

They found Twilight Velvet sitting at the kitchen counter nursing a cold cup of tea. The mare spared a passing glance at Spike before settling her gaze on the green unicorn entering her kitchen.

“Uh, hey,” said Twilight.

“Hey Velvet. This is Twilight ‘Sprinkle’,” said Spike.

Velvet opened her mouth as if to speak, and then closed it. The mare appeared haggard, her eyes wrinkling at the corners as she inspected the stranger closer. Without removing her gaze she stepped down from the stool and approached the pair.

“I…” Velvet swallowed. “I think I know you.”

Twilight smiled in her disguise. “It’s me, mom.”

Twilight found herself pulled into a swift, sobbing hug.

****

Night Light arrived shortly after in a pop of displaced air. They had moved the reunion to the living room where they continued to talk for another thirty minutes. There was not a moment where at least one if not both of her parents were sniffling and dabbing tissues at their eyes with magic.

Her parents sat on the couch with a coffee table in front of them. Twilight sat opposite of them on the recliner, holding a cup of coffee in her hooves.

It felt strange not to have her magic.

“Let me tell you, dear,” Night Light continued, “I can’t believe how good it is to have you back. We must celebrate when Shining gets back. Maybe I’ll dust off the old grill. Do up some Parmesan eggplants like we used to do.”

“Yeah, dad.”

Velvet waved a hoof at the dragon sitting in the corner.

“And Spike, you’re coming too, of course. The Council can afford to let you off for one evening, can’t they?”

“Those bunch of dullards can’t do too much damage in your absence, eh, big guy?”

“Eh heh. Right.”

“When is Shining coming back anyway, dear? Perhaps you have heard something in those meetings of yours.”

“We don’t know,” Spike said to Velvet. “There are no hard time frames on his missions. He has complete say on how long his team is to remain out in the field. All his discretion. Could be tomorrow, could be a month from now.”

“Ah…”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” said Spike. “He keeps busy. And his men… they look after him. He actually sent word a couple of days ago. It’s too early to say but he thinks he’s on to something.”

A thought came to Twilight.

“How is Cadance doing?”

The air was sucked out of the room. The smiles fell away from her parents’ faces. Spike froze. The dragon let out a rumbling cough into the top of his fist.

Night Light grimaced. “Dear Cadance has, ah… well.”

Spike only sat, his eyes wide and staring at the carpet.

“Twilight.” Velvet offered a fragile smile. “Your sister-in-law disappeared almost three years ago.”

****

Ten thousand feet above the surface of Equestria, two dozen pegasi in blue cold-repellent suits sat among the clouds in wait. High altitude masks sat upon their muzzles—the air was thinner here. Light-absorbing goggles rested on four dozen sets of eyes—pegasus eyes, as sharp as they were, still needed some light to see. Their enemies had the edge on them in that regard.

Griffons were born to fly by night.

Of the two dozen, half of the pegasi were equipped with long spears that were able to be retracted and expanded with a twitch of a hoof. Lancers they were called, and they specialized in delivering precise, lethal blows from up above. Diving with all the speed they could muster, the lancers aimed for center mass and drove their spears into their enemies at near supersonic speeds.

Though only half had spears, all the pegasi were equipped with foldable blades that attached to each wing. Ancient pegasus weapons from the old times, the wingblades were the first and final answer to combatting griffons in the air.

Griffons were ferocious in drawn-out aerial scraps. Their front talons would grasp and sink into flesh. Their rear claws would rake through coats and slip through armor. Disembowel. Then the beak would gouge out eyes and tear at the vital blood vessels in the neck. Every part of the griffon was designed to service the species as an apex predator.

A hunter of pegasi.

Centuries of warfare taught the pegasi how to fight back. Technology was developed and tactics were honed in the crucible of battle and war. Though Celestia’s reign brought peace between the two species, the pegasi never forgot what it meant to have to fight for their place in the sky.

Despite the near pitch-black conditions, the rainbow mane and tail that peaked out from one of the masked flight suits was unmistakable. She sat at the head of the formation with only three other pegasi on her cloud, her most trusted lieutenants.

A muffled voice sounded just to her left. “Captain, a signal from the forward scouts.”

Rainbow Dash gave an almost imperceptible turn of her head.

Cumulus had punched a hole through the thin layer of cloud and was peering through the bottom with high-powered binoculars equipped with a thermal-tracking lens.

“It’s them,” Cumulus continued. “Confirmed by the scouts. The ones we’re looking for.”

“How many?” Her voice came out gruff. The first words she had spoken in hours.

Cumulus paused. “All of them. Headed our way. Gentle flight.”

Rainbow took a deep breath. Despite everything she could never shake this feeling, the racing in her gut that always came before a battle. She rose and turned to face the twenty-three pegasi behind her. They all stood in unison.

Wordlessly, she signed to them with a wing.

Dive.

Sixty seconds.

Fourteen targets.

She tapped a hoof on the cloud.

Lancers lead.

She angled her wings forward then clapped them out with force out to her sides.

Engage.

No survivors.

The pegasi under her command repeated her signs in perfect unison, and she nodded in satisfaction. Rainbow turned forward once more and slammed a hoof down on her spear’s haft that was nestled in the cloud. The spear popped into the air and Rainbow caught it in her hoof with a practiced ease.

Another breath.

“Thirty seconds,” voiced Cumulus.

Rainbow stepped toward the edge of her cloud and looked down into the pitch black.

They had been tracking these griffons for two days. Twice her team had to stop and pick through the bones of the refugees they had eaten. The first a family of five from Appleloosa. The next was a relief caravan from Canterlot to Dodge Junction.

None of the food was eaten.

Just the ponies. Seven lives lost.

Rainbow Dash snarled through her mask.

The griffons had gone mad with the times. Or perhaps mad with hunger. Rainbow didn’t care. The next time a griffon got hungry it would be the bones of one of her friends.

“Ten,” said Cumulus.

A pair of bloody wings plucked and picked clean. A rock nearby, discarded bones smashed and marrow clawed away.

Another breath. She tried to will the images away.

A slender pink horn torn away from the skull.

Rainbow Dash dove.

****

The griffins lay like scattered toys atop the snow. The deep crimson leaking from their bodies steamed as it touched the air. Rainbow stood amongst the corpses, her breaths coming slow.

The skirmish had lasted less than a minute.

She walked close to one of the slain griffins and saw the tattered uniform of the Griffish Aerial Forces. Perhaps four of the others wore the same. The rest wore nothing.

“Deserters and scavengers,” said Cumulus who landed nearby.

“Yeah,” Rainbow said. She flicked the goggles off her head and turned her eyes on Cumulus. She could just hear the cries over the raging blizzard.

“Cloud Flare?”

“She’ll fly again. Missed her lance. Dumb luck for the griffin — saw her coming. She went in with the wingblades but he had gotten his talons on her.”

Rainbow clicked her tongue.

“Already got the rear guard putting a cloud together for her,” Cumulus said. “They’ll get her back to Cloudsdale.”

“No one else, right?”

Cumulus shook his head.

“Good.”

The rest of her troop were already picking through the dead, searching for any supplies or communications that Command would be interested in. Rainbow was about to signal them to take to the sky when a rolled up scroll appeared from a green flame in front of her. It landed without a sound in the snow.

Rainbow Dash eyed the scroll. She hadn’t received a message from Spike or Luna in nearly a month.

She took it in her teeth and unrolled it with her hooves.

“Captain?” Cumulus had stepped to her side, eying the scroll with Luna’s seal.

Rainbow Dash swallowed away the lump in her throat. “Cumulus, get the Wonderbolts back to Cloudsdale. You’ll be taking over as interim captain until Command can appoint someone else.”

He didn’t miss a beat. “You mean until you come back. Where will you be going?”

The battle didn’t increase her heart rate but now it hammered in her chest.

Rainbow shook the snow from her wings and knocked the goggles back over her eyes.

“To see an old friend.”

****

Despite the crowd, the atmosphere in the bar was quiet and subdued. Before the stasis, the building would have had a certain rustic charm with its all wood interior, swinging saloon doors, and the long, polished bar as the room’s centerpiece complete with multiple taps and hard liquors on the shelves behind it.

Once upon a time somepony had taken great pride in this building. It was probably once a jewel in the crown of this town, its owner known to everyone and a friend to all the locals. Dodge Junction was an earth pony city after all.

Now, as with everything else, the building had only become a reflection of the times.

The only lights came from the oil lanterns that burned on each table and cast odd shadows on the ceiling and walls. Dust and detritus had collected in the corners and underneath furniture. The floor was sticky with spilt beverages and slick from entering hooves wet with melted snow and mud. Mismatched tarps were haphazardly nailed over the doorway and each window. The glass had long since been broken and evidence of boards being put up, torn down, and put up again was apparent on the frames.

The tarps did little to keep the cold and snow out.

Seated at the far end of the bar tucked away in the corner of the room was a white pony with a nondescript grey wool cloak wrapped close around her body. The hood was pulled over her head and concealed her face. A protrusion that could only be a horn made a point in the hood’s fabric.

She sat with her back to the wall and kept her head down. A dirty mug sat on the bar’s surface in front of her. To anypony who looked her way, she was just another weary traveler with not enough cares to talk but too many horror stories to tell.

The room was loud with the sounds of bodies shuffling in seats and private arguments, each table an island and isolated from the troubles of the others. Yet all were running from the same thing.

The biting cold howled outside.

Dodge Junction was just another step in the long road to Canterlot, where the sun still shone and the air was warm.

The two unicorns who had been seated to her right, a mare and a stallion — likely partners by how they talked — made a silent acknowledgement to each other that it was time to go. They took up their sacks and headed for the door. No one bade them farewell or safe travels. The stallion pushed open the flap and they disappeared into the cold dark beyond, ghosts once more.

The two earth ponies who had been standing by the stairway close by started for the stools and slumped down in the seats. One of the stallions rapped on the bar and signaled to the bartender.

The hooded unicorn wrinkled her nose.

“Two of whatever’s on tap,” said the ash-colored stallion.

The Manehattan accent was unmistakable.

“Thought they’d never leave,” said the tan one. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat next to the unicorn. “Sheesh. This place is a damn dump. We shoulda went to that joint down the street.”

“Nah.” The ash stallion leaned forward in his chair and brought his voice low. “I like the crowd here.”

Even two chairs down she felt his eyes on her—his leering gaze and lecherous tone.

The bartender approached and slid two mugs across the surface of the bar.

“Six bits,” said the stubbled stallion. Yellow stains dotted his apron.

“Yeah, yeah,” said the ash stallion. He bumped his friend with an elbow. “Swifty, you got the coins for the guy?”

Swifty took the mug and took a long draw. He set the mug back down with a clatter.

“Ehhhh, I think they’re out in the cart,” said Swifty. Foam lined his top lip. “Have a heart, pal. We only just got warm.”

The bartender shook his head. “I don’t forget faces. I don’t get my bits, you won’t set a hoof in this town ever again.”

The ash stallion chuckled and said under his breath, “As if we’d ever come back to this rear-end. Maybe for you, though. What’s your name, sugar?”

She felt both of the stallions’ eyes on her now.

“Y’know, me and my pal have come a long way. Looks like you’ve been, too. Pretty mare such as yourself. Hmph, shame to be travelin’ alone.”

“Dangerous, too,” said Swifty. “Y’know, me and ol’ Coalbreaker here, used to run with the Apples. Before the whole northern border went sideways anyways! Hah!”

This piqued her interest.

“The Apples, huh?” She turned her head to the right just enough for her left eye to peak out from beneath the hood.

“Oh yeah,” continued Swifty. “Just after the big guy left but before the little sister joined on. That Applejack though. She coulda smoked the whole griffin army if she just stayed on. Damn shame.”

“Mares,” muttered Coal. “Anyways, we’re headed to Canterlot. Seems everybody’s bought into the great exodus. I imagine you too.”

“Gonna see what there is to see,” said Swifty. “Only seen it once back when Celestia was still around. Ways I hear it, her sister’s run the place into the ground. Maybe she shoulda stayed up in the moon huh?”

“Figs, don’t remind me,” said Coal. “If it weren’t for that damn Twilight Sparkle she’d still be here. Place used to run like clockwork, not a care in the world.”

Coal took a long swig of his drink, his eyes darkening.

“She just had to go and kill us all,” he said, and stared down into his beer. “So whad’ya say, sugar? The world isn’t coming to an end. Y’know why?”

He didn’t wait for her to respond.

“Cause it’s already over. There ain’t no sun. No food. The cold that feels like you’ll never get warm again.”

“And the white ring on us all,” said Swifty. “They say she’s cursed us. It eats your cutie mark until all that’s left is the ring.”

“All hearsay,” said the unicorn.

“We seen it ourselves,” said Swifty.

“Hey.” Coal shot him a look and shook his head.

Swifty shrugged. “What’s the harm, Coal? It already happened. Besides…”

Coal glanced at the unicorn and sighed. “Out in the woods out by Baltimare. We was out there tryin’ to keep warm in a blizzard. Had a fire goin’, tents up. Was about ten of us out in those woods.”

“Thought we heard a mare cryin’. Like she was hurt. A… a shriek. We wasn’t sure, but the wind stopped for a second then we heard it clear as day.”

The unicorn turned fully to face them. The stallions only nursed their drinks.

“Then we saw the red eyes,” said Coal. “We was all lookin’ at it then, gettin’ closer. It shrieking all the way.”

“Never seen anything like it.”

“A pony. No… a damn corpse. Stepped into the light.”

“All grey and red eyes. ‘Cept for the white ring.” Swifty brought the mug to his lips.

“We bolted. Our group split apart—couldn’t decide what it is we seen. Or where to go. Never looked back since.”

The unicorn sat in silence. This was the fourth report she had heard in a month, and all so similar to one another. Was it a coincidence that they have only now started hearing them after brain waves were first detected in Twilight Sparkle six months ago?

It was at that moment that she felt the scroll case rumbling in her satchel. She sparked her horn and pulled the scroll case out. The case was faux-leather well-worn with use and enchanted to respond only to her magic. The cap bore the symbol of a moon. The lid popped off with ease and she pulled out the parchment inside and unrolled it with care.

The words appeared before her eyes as if the ink was bleeding through from the other side. When the words stopped she took out her own quill and penned her response. She didn’t wait for the ink to fade. She stashed the scroll back in its case and replaced it back into her satchel.

It seemed her business here would have to be placed on indefinite hold.

She stepped off the stool, reached up a hoof and pulled the hood off her head. Her lavender mane spilled out in curls. She straightened her cloak with her magic and made sure the two stallions could see Luna’s emblem pinned at her neck.

“Gentlecolts, I really do appreciate you for taking the time and sharing with me.”

They looked from her face to the emblem and then back to her face.

“Y-you’re—“

“Hm! As it so happens, I also know of the Apples. Applejack in particular I am especially close to. Some might call me a family friend.” Rarity smiled. “Perhaps I should inquire about you two when I next see her?”

“Uh—“

“Er—“

“N-no need, Ma’am!”

“And about our dear Princess Luna.”

“Just—“

“She is very open to constructive criticism. Even in the extremely taxing and incredibly thankless role she has been thrust into as the last bastion against the encroaching darkness, she still makes time to hear the concerns of her ponies. Would you like me to call a sky chariot for us so that she may hear your concerns in person?”

“I, uh—“

“And I am sure she would be very pleased at how one of her agents and foremost representative on the Council of Equestria was treated by such fine, upstanding gentlecolts such as yourselves. I will be sure to include how I was solicited to have… relations with you both. And to have not even been offered a drink!”

“…sorry.”

“And—“

About Twilight Sparkle.

Rarity paused. She couldn’t think about that just now.

The entire bar was staring in her direction. She gave a sweet smile to the room and stepped closer to the stallions.

“The world isn’t ending,” Rarity said. “Not if Princess Luna has anything to say about it. Come to Canterlot. There will be food. The sun still shines there.”

From her pack she pulled out six bits and placed them in a neat stack between the stallions. For a moment she hesitated, then pulled out a pink button with a trio of balloons on its smooth surface. It gave out a small honk when she pressed it into Coal’s hoof.

“Pass through Ponyville and give this to Pinkie Pie. We all need a little taste of home.”

Coal appeared on the verge of tears.

“Lady Rarity…”

“I can see it. You both fought with Applejack. The Red Brigade.” She tapped him on his chest. “No one without a good heart fights in the Red Brigade. Find it again. The world will need us all before all this is over.”

She looked them both in the face and started for the exit. She was at the tarp when she heard a shout behind her.

“Lady Rarity!” Coalbreaker called out. He and Swifty had stepped out of their benches and stood in the center of the room. Their postures had changed, standing as the proud earth pony soldiers they once were.

Rarity had read the reports of those first battles, the ferocity in which the griffins fell upon the earth pony guard. A single battalion against the entire might of the griffon army.

Not a single deserter. All stood fast in that sea of claws and talons. The Red Brigade did not break.

“Find it,” she said to the pair.

Find your hearts.

Rarity stepped out into the dark.

Twilight and Spike stood alone at Canterlot station. The clocks all read 11:00 PM but the sun still shone its pale green light overhead. The train was not due to arrive for another ten minutes.

They had stayed longer at her parents’ than they had anticipated. Velvet had begun to talk of her daily routines and the neighbors and the earth pony family that was staying in their empty rooms. Night Light had insisted on making the eggplant parmesans after all and had stepped outside to grill.

Twilight knew that they just wanted her to stay. If even for a moment longer.

At one point Velvet had asked about the lime-green unicorn disguise, and Twilight had waved a dismissive hoof.

“Ponies don’t want to see me,” Twilight had said, and Velvet left it at that.

Nor did they ask about the night of the gala, or the official report that came days later. Forty-two casualties in total. Many of them were guards, most of them civilians who had been caught outside when the freezing fog descended, two ponies in the palace kitchen, and one missing unicorn, the notable Twilight Sparkle – final student of Princess Celestia.

They showed Twilight the report that was written in the Canterlot Times five years ago. She looked at the full-color image of the ponies found deceased in the kitchen. The one named Autumn Run was lacking color, her coat a near perfect match to the grey that was now hers.

Twilight had shown Spike the picture and he shook his head.

“She was dead once the guards found her,” Spike had said.

As the clock approached 10:30, Spike said they had urgent business they had to attend to. Teary goodbyes were had and Twilight found herself whisked in the direction of the train station where they now waited.

“Spike,” she began. She couldn’t shake the feeling that Spike and Luna were both withholding something from her. “I noticed something strange when we were walking to my mom’s.”

“Yeah?”

“And on my parents, too. Maybe it’s something that has been going on for years and I’m only just noticing it because I’ve been gone for so long.”

“What is it, Twi?”

“The rings,” she whispered. “The white ring that’s where my cutie mark should be.”

Spike remained silent.

“Every other pony has it,” Twilight said. “My mom, my dad. The colt in their house. Every single pony that we passed has the ring.”

Twilight shook her head.

“I have too many questions and not enough time to ask them. I know you and Luna are trying to fill me in as quickly as possible, but…” she paused. “Why is it there?”

Spike stared straight ahead.

“It appeared on you in those first days. You were still locked away in one of the palace suites. The entire wing on lockdown. The only ponies who knew what happened to you were our friends. And Solaire.”

Spike took in a shaky breath and let it out.

“Before we knew it, it appeared on Applejack. Then Rarity. Then Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. Then everyone else. It spread so fast. By the time Luna thought to seal you away, it had already spread to half of Equestria.”

“Spike.” She wanted to scream. Twilight continued in as calm and slow a voice as she could manage. “You know what this is, right?”

“Yes.”

“This ring is the curse’s mark on me. Are you telling me that the curse that has turned me into this has spread to every living being in the world?”

“Only the ponies,” he said in a low tone.

“Oh, Celestia,” Twilight whispered. “So even if we are able to… somehow, get the antidote for Princess Celestia and fix the sun, all of ponykind will still be cursed with what I have?”

“We are workshopping it, Twi.”

She gasped. “W–”

Remain calm.

Twilight drew in a slow breath.

“What have you guys discovered?” she asked. “Is it affecting ponies or is it like a benign thing?”

Spike’s silence wasn’t reassuring.

“It’s uh… whew.” Spike tilted his eyes in her direction. “At first it didn’t do anything. Freaked out a lot of ponies, but now? Ever since we first detected the brain waves in you, we’ve gotten a dozen reports of grey ponies wandering the countryside. They look just like you. Only their eyes are a glowing red and they attack anypony that they see.”

“That was six months ago.”

“Yeah. And four of the reports came in since the start of the month.”

“It’s speeding up,” Twilight said.

“The curse is eating cutie marks, Twilight. It’s fading the cutie mark until only the ring is left.”

Oh, Celestia.

“Well, uh…” Twilight swallowed. “What’s its mechanism? There has to be a way that it works. It clearly doesn’t function at the same speed in every pony or we would all be walking zombies right now. And if I’m patient zero, why am I still sane? There’s a solution to this, Spike. We just have to find it.”

For a moment Spike said nothing, then a curious look crossed his face and he chuckled.

Twilight raised a brow.

“I missed this,” said Spike. “Missed you just… doing your thing.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just if anyone can solve this thing it’s you.” He smiled at her. “It’s good to have you back.”

The number on the electric sign above them changed from a six to a five.

‘FIVE MINUTES ‘TIL ARRIVAL. EXPRESS TRAIN TO PONYVILLE’

Darksign

The Darksign signifies an accursed Undead. Those branded with it are reborn after death, but will one day lose their mind and go hollow.
Death triggers the Darksign, which returns its bearer to the last bonfire rested at, but at the cost of all humanity and souls.

Author's Note

Returning to this after many years. Five, to be exact. Stories are very fluid in their creation. You can plan and plan and plan until the very last detail is plotted out, but once you start putting down words the story takes on a life of its own.

That isn't to say I haven't planned where to go from here. I know where this thing is headed. I hope you will join me.

As for my absence, a lot has changed for me since I last published. I won't bore you with the details but I'm finally in a place where I can comfortably sit and write without having to feel a guilt that I should be doing something else.

I won't jinx it.