The Jackelope Valley Festival

Chapters

Two: The Ballad of Jackelope Valley
Three: Crystaphony
Four: You Believe But What You See
Five: Jackelope Dreams
Six: Jacknapping
Seven: Desert of Disruption
Eight: The Heart of the Desert
Nine: The End of the Festival
One: Two Meetings and a Departure

Two: The Ballad of Jackelope Valley

The train barreled along under a bright blue sky, the sun blazing gold at the peak of its climb. In the second-class sleeper car, two unicorns and a pegasus shared a compartment.

Raindrops blinked. "Um, curse? I thought--"

"That there's no such thing? There isn't," said Lyra. "It's just a story, and maybe a bit of old magic."

Vinyl Scratch grinned. "Real old magic."

Lyra sighed. "Look, if we're going to talk about this at midday, can we at least close the shades?"

Raindrops shrugged and pulled the shades closed, plunging the compartment into cool shadow.

Lyra concentrated, her horn glowing briefly. Displaced air bamfed quietly as her lyre disappeared from her bag and appeared floating between her front hooves.

"Ooh, nifty trick," said Vinyl Scratch.

Lyra strummed her instrument, thinking. "There's an old song about it," she said. "I memorized it for Traditional Ballads freshman year, and then made an illusion spellsong for it the next year. I haven't practiced it in years, but let's see how much I can remember..." The mint-colored unicorn began to sing along to the lyre's accompaniment, sweet but sad.

In days of old when Sun and Moon
Were sources of our hope
Before the Sun betrayed us all
There lived the jackelope

The lord of fire in the earth
And earth beneath the sea
Of water in the airs above
The beast in you and me

"I didn't know you played folk," said Vinyl Scratch. "Thought you were all hoity-toity about classical."

Lyra shrugged. "Folk is where classical came from. Besides, I love music, and I love old legends, why wouldn't I love the combination of the two?"

She played two themes at once, one slow and stately, the other quick and shy. They should not have harmonized as well as they did. "The jackelopes, according to legend, were half deer, half rabbit. The song tells that their buck was one of the oldest and wisest animals in the world, with great power over the magic of blended things--combinations that shouldn't work, but do. Like how water can float in the air as clouds, even though water's heavier than air."

Raindrops snorted. "No, every pegasus learns that in weather kindergarten! See, the water droplets--"

Lyra shook her head. "No, I meant, you know, symbolically."

Raindrops frowned. "This is a poetry thing, isn't it?" Lyra shrugged, and Raindrops sighed. "Okay, go on. Where's this curse come in?"

"I'm getting to that," said Lyra. "See, when the three tribes came together to found Equestria, the legend says they went to the jackelopes for advice. Mixing things that didn't belong together, you see?"

"It's like, what the jackelope's all about," said Vinyl Scratch, to Lyra's surprise. "Before, nobody ever thought of making a country with more than one kind of pony. But now, it's hard to think how any country could work without all three."

"Well... yes, exactly," Lyra continued. "Nobody knows what the jackelopes told them, but it worked, and in return they decreed that the most beautiful valley in Equestria would belong to the jackelopes forever."

"And that's Jackelope Valley?" asked Raindrops. "Where we're headed?"

Vinyl grinned. "Oh yeah. It's totes gorgeous. Big pretty lake, hella flowers. You can totally get your nature on."

Lyra sighed. "Well, that's what they say it used to be like." She began to play two new themes, one brash and bright, the other cool and soft. They passed in orderly cycle, taking turns stepping forward as the melody or back as the harmony.

Lyra's horn glowed, adding just a touch of magic to the music, and in her mind's eye Raindrops saw them, the white and gold alicorn of Day and the black and purple alicorn of Night. Beneath them spread the round, placid lake and peaceful meadows of Jackelope Valley. Day and night cycled, centuries passing, but the valley remained unchanged and untouched. "Oh," said Raindrops, guessing what was coming.

Slowly at first, and then faster and faster, the Sun theme slid out of sync, trying to drown out the Moon theme and take over the song. But the Moon held its ground, and finally the Sun theme lashed out in a violent clash, only for the paired jackelope themes to return.

Down came the Sun on that sweet vale
To ask the Buck a boon
"Tell me the truth, o creature: how
Can Sun absorb the Moon?

No answer gave the jackelope
The Sun pressed him in vain
Enraged at last she flew aloft
To bring down heaven's flame

The four themes twined together, and Raindrops saw Luna, her wings spreading wider and wider, great shadows of night that enfolded the entire valley--but fire stormed down from the sun and burned through her wings. The Moon theme faltered, and the jackelope themes sobbed softly as the Sun theme rampaged over them. The valley shriveled and burned, the lake boiling, the flowers and grasses consumed in the blaze. At last the torrent of flame ended, leaving a desolate waste, and the Sun theme faded away. All that remained of the music was a soft, mournful echo of the jackelope's themes, now broken apart and dying away.

Where once was meadow desert lies
No life, no rain, no hope
Yet we still sing who still recall
And mourn the jackelope

Raindrops settled back on her haunches as Lyra put down her lyre. "And we're going to this place... why, exactly?"

"Oh, the whole curse thing is just a legend," said Lyra. "No one's ever seen a jackelope, and there's no mention of them in any record until the first performance of the ballad three hundred years ago. The valley's probably named for some old Buffalo word, and then somepony thought it sounded like a cross between antelope and jackrabbit, so they made up a critter."

"I dunno," said Vinyl. "I've been there. There's something weird about that place. They say pegasi try to bring in clouds, so the festival would have water, y'know? But the clouds just dissolve as soon as they bring them in the valley, or this invisible wall thing stops them from coming in at all. And it seriously never rains. There's this little muddy patch at the bottom of the valley, and that's it. No water anywhere else in the place--and that patch gets smaller every time I go!"

Lyra shrugged. "It's right on the edge of the southern desert, it should be dry. Anyway, doesn't really matter whether the story's true, the point is it gives the festival its theme: Mixing things that don't go together. In this case, every kind of music there is, from traditional folk music," she lifted her lyre again, "to classical compositions, jazz, you name it. Even, apparently, crystalcore."

Raindrops grinned. "Like the DAUGHTERS of DISCORD!" she whooped. "This is going to be seriously epic!"

Vinyl Scratch grinned. "And with the low turnout, there might be a chance... nah, forget I said anything."

Lyra frowned and pondered that a moment. Before she could ask what Vinyl Scratch meant, however, Raindrops spoke up.

"I can see what you mean, though," the pegasus said. "Even if the curse is just a legend, with Corona back it's a little creepy to go somewhere she's supposed to have hated."

"Meh," said Vinyl Scratch. "Don't tell me you believe that old mare's tale!"

Raindrops sputtered. "You're the one who brought up the curse in the first place!"

"Sh'yeah, I don't mean the curse, R. That's real. I mean that whole evil-sun-princess-back-from-the-dead thing, obviously.'

Lyra could only stare, while Raindrops sputtered more. "But, we... you... We fought her! I know you saw it, you were there!"

Vinyl Scratch shrugged. "If I believed everything I saw, I'd be crazy," she said.

Lyra buried her face in her hooves as Raindrops tried to argue with Vinyl. This is going to be a long trip... she thought.

Three: Crystaphony

Lyra had never really spent much time with Raindrops, especially not without the rest of their friends around. She fully expected to learn many new things about her friend. For instance: Raindrops snored.

And not gentle, soft snoring, the kind Lyra was used to from Bon-Bon. That could be almost soothing. No, Raindrops alternated between grinding growls like an Ursa Major made of lumber mills and whistling like a freight train. Worse still, sometimes, without warning, she’d go completely silent. At those moments Lyra froze, wondering if her friend had stopped breathing, perhaps finally slain by the evil ghost of the spacebeartrainmill that was clearly trying to possess her… and then, just as suddenly as she stopped, Raindrops would start up again, snorting like an offended dragon before settling back into spacebearmilltrain mode.

Lyra rolled on her side and attempted to wrap the thin train-issued pillow around her head. She glared at the peacefully sleeping form of Vinyl Scratch. The moment they’d decided to go to sleep, she’d pulled on a pair of enchanted music-playing earmuffs and dropped off. Lyra had been drifting away in warm cottony thoughts when they were so rudely interrupted by the train crashing into a volcanic eruption—or at least, that’s what Raindrops had initially sounded like. Lyra had spent much of the next three hours trying to find the exactly perfect metaphor for Raindrops snores.

Lyra whickered in frustration and sat up in the bed. She glared at Raindrops, wishing for deadly eyebeams, or at least enchantment-of-silence-inducing ones. She slid to the floor and slipped out of the compartment. The dining car would most likely be deserted at this hour; maybe she could grab a couple of hours of sleep there before the next stop.

She walked down three cars of the gently swaying train. As she approached the door to the dining car, she heard a faint music from within. An ethereal, mournful sound, in her sleep-deprived state it made her briefly wonder whether the evil snore ghost had a more musical friend.

She opened the door of the car to see it was nearly empty; one pony stood in the middle of the floor, engrossed in something between her front hooves. As she was facing away from Lyra, the unicorn couldn’t see what it was. The strange pony had a coat of grayish-cyan and a white tail with mint-colored highlights. She had neither horn nor wings, but she was more lightly built than most earth ponies; judging by the shimmer of her coat and tail, she was most likely one of the crystal ponies of the far north.

As Lyra finished sliding open the door, the crystal pony turned toward her, revealing a cutie mark of a heart-shaped spider web with glistening, jewel-like droplets of dew suspended in it. The haunting music trembled into silence.

“Uh, hi,” said Lyra. “Sorry.”

The crystal pony shook her head. “My practice didn’t disturb you, did it?” she asked. Her voice was soft and curiously flat.

“No,” said Lyra. “My friend’s snoring was keeping me up. I didn’t think anypony would be here, so I was going to try to take a
nap…”

“Sorry,” said the crystal pony. “I can never seem to sleep on trains, and I also thought no one would be here, so I thought I’d get some practicing done. I will go elsewhere.”

“No,” said Lyra. “It’s okay.” She stepped into the room. “You’re very good; I didn’t recognize the piece, but I could feel the tension in the way the strings were distorted, the slight giddiness of the bells, and the underlying frustration in the rest of the percussive voices.”

The crystal pony smiled shyly. “That sort of thing’s easy with a crystaphone.”

Lyra shook her head, looking at the multibranched hexagonal crystal between the other pony’s hooves, visible now that Lyra was farther in the room. To the untrained eye it looked like a rock, albeit a pretty one, but Lyra knew it was a musical instrument, painstakingly grown from the emotion-reflecting crystal that gave the Crystal Empire its name and the crystal ponies their unique appearance. “No it’s not!” she countered. “It takes real skill to get a crystaphone to sound like an instrument at all, let alone multiple different ones, and tying different emotions to each?”

The other mare bowed slightly. “You know your crystaphone. I’m impressed.”

Lyra shrugged. “When I was a little filly, my parents took me to see a crystaphone concert in Canterlot. For weeks after, all I wanted was to play like that mare did. My mother finally tracked down an instrument shop that had one, and I tried it out. Closest I ever got to music sounded like a duck being eaten by wild cat-tubas.” She giggled slightly as she imagined a cat-tuba. “Not long after, I discovered the lyre, and, well…” She turned slightly and gestured with her tail at the lyre on her flank.

“The emotional control is one of the hardest parts,” the other mare agreed. “I’m Carda,” by the way. She held out a hoof.

Lyra shook her hoof. “Lyra. Are you going to the Jackelope Valley Festival?” Carda nodded, and Lyra smiled. “I’m glad. It’ll be good to have a real, professional crystaphonist there.”

“What do you mean?” Carda asked politely.

Lyra gestured vaguely with a hoof. She felt slightly cotton-brained, unsurprising given that it was about three in the morning after a long day of traveling with no sleep. “You know what I mean, not just that crystalcore stuff. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but, you know it’s all passion and noise. No technique, no artistry.”

“Ah,” said Carda. “Yes, so I’ve heard.” She paused a moment. “You mentioned going to a concert when you were young, do you remember who it was?”

Lyra nodded. “Her name was Psyche something.”

“Ah, Psyche Chorde,” said Carda. “I thought it might be her. There’s not that many crystaphone masters who’ve been to Equestria.” She ran a hoof along one of the branches of the crystal. It glowed softly at her touch, and a soft, clear, flutelike tone filled the air.

“That was it it!” said Lyra.

“It’s a funny coincidence,” said Carda. “You know, a crystaphone are made of living crystal. It never stops growing, and every so often you have to trim it. I grew this one from a trimming of Psyche’s.”

“Really!” said Lyra. “That’s amazing! Were you a fan of hers? I still listen to the recording of that concert sometimes. It’s not quite the same, but still so good.”

Carda smiled and turned her full attention to the instrument. “Grandam was good.” Her hooves moved with blinding speed, tapping some branches, stroking others. Music swelled from the instrument, powerful and insistent. Ominous, fast-moving viols, just slightly distorted, laid down a simple, repetitive harmony while cellos, redolent with old pain, swelled above them. Something between bells and a drum beat insistently, adding urgency and energy to the blend, while brasslike voices pompously proclaimed tragic triumph. It was the burning of Jackelope Valley from the ballad Lyra had played earlier that day, but where Lyra had used a touch of spellson to create images of destruction and devastation, Carda’s rendition achieved the same effect with the magic of her instrument alone.

She broke off her playing and turned back to Lyra. “I’m better.”

Lyra struggled to pick her jaw back up off the floor. “That was… wow.”

Carda grinned. “Congratulations. You just got a private concert from the greatest crystaphonist in the world.” She picked up her instrument and walked to the far end of the dining car. “I’ve practiced enough for the night. I’m going back to my compartment to get some reading done.”

As the door slid shut behind Carda, Lyra thought, Wow, ego much? Okay, she’s good. Really, really good. But even Trixie just claims to be ‘Great and Powerful,’ not greatest in the world.

She slumped in a booth, suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion. Whatever. Music over, sleep time now.

Lyra woke with a start as the train lurched to a halt, brakes hissing. She blinked sleepily; was somebody calling her name?

She glanced out the window, stretching painfully. Her back and rear legs were not appreciative of her attempt to sleep in the cramped booth. Something caught her eye, and she stood looking for a moment, trying to figure out what about the view was important.

“Lyra!” someone shouted from far enough away that she could only faintly hear it.

“Dodge Junction Station,” she read aloud from the sign. Her eyes widened. “Dodge Junction!”

She ran for the door to the second-class cars and nearly collided with Raindrops.

“There you are!” said Raindrops. “I’ve been looking everywhere! What were you doing here?”

“I--" started Lyra.

“Doesn’t matter. Come on, grab your stuff! We’ve got to go!”

Two minutes of frantic scrambling later, Lyra stood on the Dodge Junction platform, Raindrops on one side of her and Vinyl Scratch on the other. Lyra and Raindrops had their bags, while Vinyl Scratch was again levitating a sphere of assorted sound equipment twice her size.

“Why do you even have that stuff?” asked Raindrops.

Vinyl Scratch gave her an odd look. “Um, because I’m a DJ?”

“No, it’s a good question,” said Lyra. “Do the techs really need to bring their own equipment? I would have thought the festival provides it.”

“Oh, well,” said Vinyl. She laughed nervously. “I mean, they do, but… you never know, right? Better safe than sorry.”

Raindrops narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “That’s a little--"

The train whistle cut her off. A moment later, the train began to pull away, beginning its long journey back to Canterlot.

“We should get moving,” said Vinyl Scratch. “The train to the valley’s in only fifteen minutes, and we have to go through the station to reach the platform.”

“Fine,” said Raindrops. She looked around, scratching the back of her head with one hoof. “Phew, is it always this… dry here? Makes my coat…” she trailed off, staring at something behind Vinyl Scratch.

“Mare, if you think this is bad, wait until the valley,” Vinyl answered.

Lyra turned to see what Raindrops was looking at. Standing on the platform a couple of cars down were four mares: two pegasi, one carrying a guitar and the other several percussion instruments, one unicorn carrying another guitar, and Carda.

“Omigosh omigosh omigosh,” squeed Raindrops, attempting to hide behind Lyra. “It’s them!”

Oh no, thought Lyra. No no no. She felt a blush spreading across her face. After what I said last night… don’t tell me Carda is—

Raindrops continued to stare. “Oh man, we just rode a train with the Daughters of Discord and I didn’t even KNOW!”

Four: You Believe But What You See

Raindrops swung to Lyra, who was looking distressed for some reason. "Should I say something? Omigosh omigosh omigosh, it's really them!" She turned to look at the foursome of ponies walking along the platform. "They're headed this way!" Momentarily panicked, she tried to hide behind Lyra, who was trying to hide behind her, and they went down in a tangle of wings and legs.

By the time they were back on their hooves, the Daughters of Discord had walked off the platform and into the station.

"Well played, girls," Vinyl Scratch giggled. "Very smooth."

"Thanks for the help," Raindrops snapped. "Come on, we're going to be late for the next train." She fumed at herself as she stormed off the platform. What if they saw me? I'll be 'that fan that fell over' forever!

Her funk only deepened as they boarded the next train, a small one that clattered and shook its way down poorly maintained tracks, though that wasn't the main cause. The three ponies sat in silence for a good twenty minutes, although in Raindrops' case it was more squirming in silence.

"Are you okay?" asked Lyra.

Raindrops jumped to her hooves and paced around the tiny compartment irritably. "My eyes itch," she said. "There's something heavy in my chest and there's an itch wandering around between my wings, and oh yeah, I just totally flubbed my first opportunity to meet my favorite band. Any of that sound okay to you, Lyra?"

Lyra sighed. Before she could say anything, Raindrops interrupted.

"You asked." Raindrops flopped back into her seat. "Shouldn't have asked if you didn't want me to answer."

"You brought some of their music, right?" asked Vinyl Scratch.

Raindrops' eyes narrowed as she turned to Vinyl Scratch. "Yes," she said cautiously. "Why?"

"I could do with some good travel music," Vinyl Scratch said.

"Well, I have records, but you put your turntable in the luggage car, remember?"

"Pfft," said Vinyl, levitating Raindrops' bag out from under her seat. "Ye of little faith."

"Hey, be careful with that!" said Raindrops, snatching the bag out of the air and Vinyl's telekinetic grip. She wrapped her forelegs around the bag and eyed Vinyl for a moment, before hesitantly pulling out a record and offering it, sleeve and all, to the DJ pony.

"Don't worry, I won't hurt it or nothing," Vinyl said. She pulled the record out of its sleeve and held it up in front of her a moment, staring at it with intense concentration. The electric-blue glow of her telekinesis flared brighter, and music began to play, thin and tinny at first, then suddenly swelling as she found her groove.

"Wow," said Lyra, "that's actually pretty impressive."

Vinyl grinned, though there was a hint of strain in her posture and voice. "Hey, this cutie mark ain't just decoration," she said.

Raindrops settled back. She didn't know that much about unicorn magic, but she'd been to enough concerts to know that most unicorn musicians couldn't create sound from magic alone; they needed some kind of instrument to channel it through. Vinyl Scratch really was good at what she did. Besides, it was one of her favorite songs, and she hummed along as the train rattled its way west into the desert.

War between her and the day
Need someone to blame
In the end, little she can do alone

You believe but what you see
You receive but what you give

Caress the one, the Never Fading...

She knew Vinyl was trying to cheer her up and calm her down, it wasn't exactly subtle. Still, she appreciated the gesture. If only she could do something about that damn itch!

Two records later, the train chugged and rattled to a stop. The three Ponyville ponies gathered up their things and stepped out onto the Jackelope Valley station, if one platform and a booth with nothing else around for miles could be called that. Lyra stepped off first, glad for the chance to stretch her legs and rest her ears.

Behind her, Raindrops took one step onto the platform and halted like she'd walked into a wall, which in a sense she had, a wall of hot, dry air that felt more like the ovens at Sugar Cube Corner than any weather she'd ever felt before. The itch wandering between her wings immediately fell in love with the heat, married it, and had a few thousand little million-legged baby itches that swarmed all over her back and flanks.

Raindrops shook her head, trying to get rid of the intense feeling of wrongness that filled her. The sky above was utterly cloudless, a washed out pale blue that seemed to go on very nearly forever before it finally dipped down to meet the red earth. There wasn't so much as a blade of grass in sight, just flat, desolate red rock stretching out ahead of her and to the right until it reared up in broken slabs to meet the mountains. To the left the rock broke downward, a series of broad rock shelves descending down into the bowl shape of the dry lakebed.

"Ugh," said Raindrops. "It's, um... very dry."

"It's pretty, in a desolate sort of way," said Lyra. "But yeah, I see why they tell the stories."

"Well, it is a desert," Vinyl chided as she stepped out of the train car and slipped around Raindrops. "I'm going to grab my stuff. If you want, go ahead and check in with the boss-mare."

Raindrops sighed and tagged along with Lyra as the unicorn trotted down off the platform and toward a cluster of trailers that stretched from the platform to the north shore of the "lake." The nearest trailer had a large banner over it, reading "Jackelope Valley Music Festival." Underneath that was a sign on the trailer itself, saying simply, "Office."

The door to the trailer was open. Inside, a middle-aged brown mare with a brick-red mane waved in greeting as she bustled between two file cabinets and the cluttered desk. "Hello-hello," she said, a trace of bovine in her accent. "What can I do you for?"

"Um, I'm Lyra Heartstrings. I'm a performer..? And, uh, this is my guest, Raindrops.”

The mare nodded and pulled a clipboard out from under a pile of paper on her desk. The pile teetered and swayed, but didn’t quite fall over. The mare flipped through the pages on the clipboard. “Ah, here you are, darlin’,” she said. “You’re sharing trailer 27,” she said, passing Lyra a key and a sheath of papers. “There’s a map of the festival grounds and a schedule for your performances. I think we’ve got you twice a day on Stage 5.” She smiled. “I’d have someone show you there but everyone’s busy setting up, half my staff isn’t showing up until tomorrow’s train, and as you can see,” she waved her hoof at the tottering stacks of paper that covered every available surface in her office, “I’m still scaling Mount Paperwork.”

She pulled a quill from behind her ear and checked a box on the paper. “Safety warnings next. Don’t want none of my precious musicians getting’ hurt, y’hear? So drink all the water you can hold. Somepony passes out on stage every year, don’t be that pony. Tell Dusty if you’re plannin’ on exploring the valley—that’s Dusty Cliff, the park ranger for the valley. Wandering around the desert is dangerous if you’re not prepared.” She smiled. “Anything else you need, that’s me an’ my little ponies. Red vests are security, yellow is techs, and blue for medics. Or you can just ask for me, Strawb’ry Cheesecake.”

Lyra thanked her and then turned to Raindrops. “I’m going to see what the acoustics are like on the stage. You coming along or going to explore?”

Raindrops stared at her. “And miss a chance to see the Daughters of Discord practice? Of course I’m going exploring!”

Lyra chuckled as they left the trailer. “Okay,” she said. “They gave us two maps, but only one key, so meet me at Stage 5 when you’re done. If I’m not there, I’ve already gone back to our trailer.”

“Gotcha!” said Raindrops. As soon as she had the map, she flew up to get the lay of the land. Spotting what she was looking for, she swooped down to land a respectful distance from what the map informed her was Stage 2. She trotted the rest of the way, trying her best to be silent and invisible to not disturb—ohmigosh omigosh omigosh it’s them! On stage!

“Awright, ladies,” said Vinyl Scratch, emerging from behind the stage and trotting around to the front. “That’s everything, give it a try and let me hear how it sounds.”

“Honestly,” said the pegasus standing at the left of the stage. “Shouldn’t you have had the speakers already set up? Adding one just as we’re trying to practice--"

“Yeah, yeah,” said the unicorn at the front. “Needed an audience to do any real practice anyway. Complain later, Thunder, because now!” She turned to face Vinyl and Raindrops. “It is time! TO ROCK!”

“No, actually, it is not,” said Carda. “Unless you intend to rock without Thunder Axe.”

“You’re STILL not ready!?” demanded the unicorn.

“Sorry, Sauce,” answered Thunder Axe, the pegasus who’d already spoken.

“Hey Raindrops,” said Vinyl, as they started in with the same song that Vinyl had played on the train. “Typical, isn’t it? It’s always the one who yells at the techies that screws things up.”

“Hey, lay off Thunder Axe!” Raindrops objected. “She’s the coolest pony on the planet, she’s probably just cranky because of the weather.”

“Sorry, sorry,” said Vinyl. “She your favorite?”

“Yeah,” Raindrops agreed. “Most people go for Awesome Sauce--she's the black unicorn with the zebra haircut? But it’s cheating. I mean, her special talent is being awesome, that really shouldn’t count.”

On stage, the argument seemed to have been settled. Thunder Axe spread her wings and flew up a couple of feet. Raindrops took in a slow breath; she’d known what to expect, but it was still disturbing to see.

“What’s wrong?” asked Vinyl.

“Steel shoes,” said Raindrops. “Nailed into her hooves, see?”

Vinyl looked. Once or twice she’d met unicorns or, more often, Earth ponies who wore permanent horseshoes. It helped protect hooves and reduced the amount of care they needed, but at the price of being heavy, noisy, and, well, permanent. But she’d never, ever met a pegasus with them.

Before she could ask, Raindrops said, “It means you can’t walk on clouds anymore. Can’t touch them, sleep on them--it means you can never do more than visit a pegasus city ever again.”

On stage, Thunder Axe was beating her wings rapidly, shaking her feathers as she did so in an odd flailing motion, causing little sparks and crackles of static electricity to form around the edges of her feathers.

“Why?” asked Vinyl.

“Look at her guitar,” answered Raindrops.

Vinyl did. “Whoa,” she said. “That’s… is that even possible?”

Thunder Axe’s guitar was not the acoustic instrument most ponies played. It was a unicorn guitar, made to be played with magic. Flat and utterly lacking any hollow space inside, it couldn’t work without magic.

Thunder Axe cradled her guitar between her forelegs as she hovered, and brought her hooves to the strings. Electricity flowed from her wings, down her forelegs and into her hooves. The shoes glowed dull blue as a continuous flow of energy jumped the short distance into the guitar, and then she stroked the strings, making her instrument scream like an orphaned angel.

“Now I’m ready,” she said.

The drummer--the only stallion on stage--counted them into their first song of the practice set. Strings swelled from the crystaphone and Awesome Sauce’s surprisingly sweet voice soared, full of nostalgia and regret and sour old anger.

Sparkling angel, I believed
You are my savior in my time of need
Blinded by faith, I couldn’t hear
All the whispers, the warnings so clear

As the song continue, the strings were joined by a chorus vocalizing, an ethereal sound that slowly grew louder and darker.

I see the angels, I’ll lead them to your door
There’s no escape now, no mercy no more
No remorse, ‘cause I still remember...

Suddenly the anger ripped out from under the sadness in an explosion of guitars and drums and strings, and Awesome Sauce's suddenly furious song:

The smile when you tore me apart!

The first song continued in rage and sorrow for a time, a lament of betrayal and lost innocence. After it ended, they moved immediately on to another, one Raindrops had never heard before. “New song!” she screamed, completely inaudible over the band. “I’m hearing a NEW SONG!”

She recognized it as being basically the same as Lyra’s song about the Jackelope, but subtly different. It started with ominous, low strings from Carda harmonized with a slow, sinister bass line by Awesome Sauce and an aggressive, almost tribal beat from the bass drum. Then the snares kicked up and Thunder’s guitar blared out the Sun theme for a couple of lines, before Awesome Sauce began singing the destruction of the valley from the Ballad of the Jackelope over top.

The chorus was not something Lyra had sung. Raindrops didn’t know if it was because she forgot or because the Daughters made it up, but it was sung to the Moon theme with the ominous bass and strings behind it.

There’s no one here
There’s no way back again
This empty valley’s burning
And I can never see you!

The band played on, Awesome Sauce’s clear high voice contrasting with the grinding, despairing rage of the instruments, the swelling tide of darkness the flowed from the strings and up the drums, but never quite made it past Thunder’s guitar. Awesome sang of ending and failure, of being unable to protect the ones she loved, but of being absolutely determined to keep trying. Near the end of the song, haunting, echoing bells replaced her voice for a time as Carda took a solo, and it nearly broke Raindrop’s heart.

The song ended as the drums and bass gave way to mournful horns and strings. Slowly everything else died away, and there was nothing left but a single viol playing alone in the silent dark--and then with a clack of drumsticks like an echoing hoofstep in a long black corridor, even that ended.

Raindrops blinked and looked around. She was still in the desert in the middle of the day, not a night lit only by the dying embers of a once-beautiful forested valley. “That… was… AWESOME!” she shouted into the sudden silence. “Yeah! Wooo!” She flew up into the air and began clapping wildly. “You rule!”

Awesome Sauce grinned fiercely. “Not bad,” she said to the band. “I think we’re ready to play that one tomorrow night.”
Raindrops did a long slow loop-de-loop of joy.

Hours later, exhausted, starving, and her throat sore, but with the itches and discomfort of the desert nearly forgotten, Raindrops staggered back in the general direction of Trailer 27. Or tried to--she was too tired to fly, and in the twilight and from the ground the festival didn’t look much like the map at all. She soon found herself on the edge of the cluster of trailers, which didn’t make any sense at all.

She turned slowly in a circle, trying to figure out where she’d ended up, and saw something glinting in the last rays of the sunset. It looked like the rainbow shimmer of a soap bubble, but hard-edged instead of round. Curious, she tried to walk toward it, but it was on the far side of a slight ridge, and in her attempts to go around Raindrops lost sight of it.

“What was that?” she wondered out loud. She shook her head; her eyes were dry and her head pounding from a long day of glare and bone-dry moisture-stealing evil desert air, so she was probably just seeing things.

Raindrops sighed. Tired as she was, she was going to have to fly up and get her bearings. She beat her wings slowly and rose in a series of ungraceful surges, a few feet at a time. Just as she cleared the top of the ridge, she saw the rainbow shimmer again out of the corner of her eye.

She turned to face it. Inches away was the most bizarre rock she’d ever seen, two multi-branched iridescent gray crystals almost like a crystaphone, each one a good three feet tall and half that wide, sprouting from a brown boulder that looked almost fuzzy.

Then the brown rock—slowly, in obvious pain—uncurled and wasn’t a rock at all. It was a large, lean brown bunny, with a longer face and ears than the bunnies Raindrops had seen in Ponyville, bigger than most cats. It turned to face her, its eyes enormous, almond-shaped, and pitch-black, ancient seas that seemed to swallow everything they saw with perfect peace and endless sadness.

It could not be anything but a jackelope.

Author's Note

A couple of people have asked what crystalcore sounds like; basically, it's symphonic metal, with the crystaphone taking the place of the "symphonic" part--in other words, any instruments other than the guitars and drums are reproduced by the crystaphonist. The Daughters of Discord have a tendency to sad songs and an operatic sound that in our world would lead to them being labeled a bit goth; Within Temptation's "The Howling" is exactly the right sound, though the Daughters of Discord's lyrics are generally a little less murderful.

The Daughters of Discord song Vinyl plays is Nightwish's "Amaranth," though I changed the gender of the person they're singing about to fit the world and story better. I feel it can be read equally well as being about Luna or Raindrops.

The first song the Daughters of Discord actually sing is Within Temptation's "Angels."

The second song's lyrics I pulled out of my tail, but musically it's from what I *think* is a Madoka Magica tribute album. I'll link it in the comments when I'm somewhere I can access YouTube.

Five: Jackelope Dreams

Raindrops’ breath caught in her throat as she stared. “Are… are you real?” she asked.

The jackelope stared back unblinking. It had thick dark eyelashes that seemed strangely cute given the eeriness of the rest of its appearance.

Raindrops continued to stare back until her itchy eyes forced her to blink. When she opened them again, it was still there. Still watching and waiting expectantly.

It wanted something. She wasn’t sure how she knew that, but she knew it with absolute, crystalline certainty. It needed something, and it needed it from Raindrops.

The jackelope shivered and slumped over, wheezing lightly.

“Oh no,” said Raindrops. “Oh no oh no oh no. Are you sick?” She worked her hooves in a fidgety little dance, an instinctive pony response to panic. “What do I? What do I do?” She looked around desperately, and spotted the trailers in the distance. “I’ll get help! You wait here!”

She flew back toward the trailers, wishing desperately that basically anypony else were there. Fluttershy would know exactly what to do. Ditzy would say she doesn’t know what she’s doing, but whatever she did would turn out to be the right thing anyway. Even Rainbow Dash would be able to get help faster than me… stupid slow, itchy, stiff wings…

She didn’t see the stallion walking toward her until he shouted. “Hey! Are you Raindrops?”

Raindrops cupped her wings to slow her flight and circled back to see a yellow Earth pony with a tan mane under a hat similar to Applejack’s, but smaller and dark brown. Rarity would probably know what it’s called. Great, I’m officially less useful in a crisis than Rarity.

“Yeah!” she called back. “Can’t chat, I need help!”

“Help?” he called up. “You’re lucky you’re alive! What are doing leaving the fairground without water or light or telling anyone!?”

“Gah!” Raindrops landed next to him. “Sorry, I got lost, but there’s no time. He’s hurt!”

The stallion’s expression immediately changed from annoyance to concern. He was wearing a green vest with Royal Park Service emblazoned on the flank, and Raindrops realized he must be the ranger Strawberry Cheesecake mentioned. Dusty, that was it.

“Who’s hurt?” he demanded. “Where?”

“A ja-- an animal!” Raindrops said. I don’t want him to think I’m crazy. I’m not crazy, right? “This way!” Raindrops scrambled back into the air, leading Dusty back to the ridge.

“I don’t see it,” he said when they arrived.

Raindrops looked up and realized the jackelope was completely hidden from below by the rocks it was sitting on. She pointed at the rocks. “Up there,” she said. “I’ll bring him down.”

She started to fly higher, but Dusty interrupted her. “Wait,” he said. “It could be dangerous. This is a wild animal we’re talking about.”

Raindrops shook her head. “It’s not a predator.”

“Even an herbivore can be dangerous.”

“Believe me,” said Raindrops. “I know. And this herbivore is tough.” She flew up to find the jackelope in the exact same spot she had left it, but slumped over slightly. Its eyes were still open, but seemed somehow flatter than before.

Carefully and slowly, Raindrops reached for the jackelope with her front hooves. “Shhhh,” she said, trying to imitate what she’d seen Ditzy do once with a pigeon that got stuck in Raindrops’ mailbox. “I won’t hurt you…” The jackelope twitched when Raindrops touched it, and Raindrops flinched away.

“You okay up there?” Dusty called.

Raindrops waved him off and then turned back to the jackelope. “It’s okay,” she said softly, approaching slowly. “I know I’m not Fluttershy or Ditzy, but I’ll make you a deal, okay? You let me pick you up and take you somewhere safe where people can help you, and I’ll bring you right back here after, all right?”

Then she snatched the jackelope off its ledge. It made no sound, but she could feel it freeze as she picked it up, and knew she’d hurt or scared it. Once again she wished desperately that anypony else were handling this. Dusty would probably know exactly how to pick him up.

Slowly she flew down. The jackelope was surprisingly heavy, but she managed to get him down without dropping him or hurting him further. Once on the ground, she held him out to Dusty.

“Is that… it’s a… are you kidding me?” he stammered.

“I don’t know much about animals, but I think it’s a jackelope,” Raindrops said.

“Somebody must be playing a prank,” Dusty answered. “It can’t be… is it real?”

“Feels real,” said Raindrops. “Heavy, too. And listen to him breathing, that can’t be good.”

Both stood silent a moment as the jackelope labored to breathe, lying silently in Raindrops’ arms.

"Okay," said Dusty, pulling a folding basket and harness out of his saddlebag. "Let me get this on, and we'll carry him back to the infirmary. Between me and the doctors there we can probably help it."

Raindrops nodded as Dusty put on the harness and basket. "It's a good thing you had this with you," she said.

"Always prepared," answered Dusty. "That's the Ranger way. Besides, helping injured animals in the park is part of my job, just not one I have to do very often."

Once the jackelope was secured, Dusty raced off back to the festival grounds, Raindrops following as fast as she could. Still, it was at least a half hour before she arrived at the infirmary.

She entered the large trailer to find a pony in a nurse's cap sitting at a desk. "Can I help you?" she asked, sounding bored.

"Dusty brought in the... an animal I found? Is he okay?"

"Dusty? He's fine, he and Saw Bones are--"

"Not Dusty!" snapped Raindrops. "The jackelope!"

"Oh. Dusty and Saw Bones are in with it. Let me check with them." The nurse moved behind a curtain that blocked off most of the trailer from Raindrops' view. A moment later, he returned with a cranky-looking elderly pony with a cutie mark of a scalpel and stethoscope.

"You're Raindrops?" asked the doctor. In response to the pegasus mare's nod, he continued, "Thank you very much for bringing the jackelope in."

"How is he?"

"Resting," said the doctor. "I couldn't find any evidence of physical injury or infection. I suspect dehydration, so we've done our best to get some water in him."

"Can I see him?" Raindrops asked.

"I'm sorry," said the doctor. "Best to just let him rest for now. Go get some food and sleep, come back in the morning and we'll know more by then."

"Okay," said Raindrops, drooping slightly as she turned to leave the trailer.

Outside the night was clear and the stars more numerous and beautiful than Raindrops had ever seen them, but still cold and dry and distant as ever. Closer to earth, what looked like the last remnants of a bonfire was burning in the open space between the musicians' trailers. Raindrops wandered over to find it mostly abandoned, just a few scattered ponies plucking at instruments or munching on grilled yam and hay kabobs. Her stomach growled.

"Raindrops!" a voice called. She turned to see Lyra galloping toward her. "Where were you? We were getting worried!"

"Sorry," Raindrops answered. "Got a little lost. Looks like a missed dinner."

"I saved you some," said Lyra, leading Raindrops over to a picnic table where Vinyl was waiting. Raindrops deflected questions about where she'd been until after she finished eating, and dug in heartily.

"So anyway," said Vinyl, "like I was saying, you take a steady bass tone and--"

"Bass what?" Lyra interrupted. "Viol? Guitar? Harmonica?"

"Just... just a plain bass tone with no over- or undertones. Just a steady low note, like one pipe off an organ, right?"

Lyra shook her head. "You can't separate notes from the instrument that plays them. A high C on a flute sounds really different from one sung."

"I know," said Vinyl, "I'm talking about the part of the note that isn't different."

"As a theoretical exercise, sure," said Lyra. "But you can't actually play that."

"I can!" Vinyl's horn glowed, and a steady, deep note filled their ears.

Lyra sighed. "Okay, and then what?"

"You add oscillation!" Vinyl responded. "Rhythmically drop the volume or shift the pitch to make a new sound." A second glow surrounded the first, and the sound shifted from a steady tone to a rhythmic pulsing.

"Ugh!" Lyra covered her ears with her hooves. "That's one of the most obnoxious sounds I've ever heard, make it stop!"

Vinyl drooped and the sound and glow both faded. "Aw... that's what everyone else says, too. But imagine all the different sounds you could build like this? Stacking them together to make entire new musical structures?"

"See, that's worth trying," said Lyra. "I just don't think this... wobble bass of yours is the place to start."

Vinyl sighed. "Maybe. What do you think, 'drops?"

"Huh?" asked Raindrops. "Sorry, wasn't really listening."

"You okay?" asked Lyra. "Did something happen while you were lost?"

Raindrops sighed. "I, uh, may have found a sick jackelope?"

"What." Lyra stared in shock.

"Yeah," said Raindrops. "He's in the infirmary now, they won't let me see him."

"'Him?'" asked Vinyl with a hint of a grin.

"I dunno, I just... know he's a he. And he needs help."

The other two ponies studied Raindrops curiously. "Are you sure you're okay?" asked Lyra gently.

Raindrops shook her head sharply. "I'm fine, I'm just tired. I'm going to bed." She stomped off, leaving the other two to look after her baffled.

What's wrong with me? she wondered. Why do I feel so weird? Why do I keep saying weird stuff? Why do I know these things?

To her surprise, given her whirling thoughts, the unfamiliar bed, and the still unending itch across her entire skin, Raindrops dropped off to sleep almost immediately.

***

He was dying. He could hear the ponies, and though he didn't understand words, he felt what lay beneath them. He was dying, and they wanted him to live. The one who had carried him from the desert to this place, the one who poked and prodded, and one more, the one that seemed to lead them. They all wanted him to live, because they were kind, but the leader had other reasons too. He couldn't comprehend them, but he knew enough to fear her.

He called out to the fourth one, the one who had found him in the desert. Would she hear? He could not stay. He must travel to the Heart, and he could not do it alone. He cried out for any who could hear his need, and hoped.

***

Raindrops snapped awake. He needs me, she realized. I have to go. She glanced over at Lyra's bunk and saw the unicorn sound asleep. Quietly she slipped out of the room, then galloped to the infirmary and burst inside.

"Excuse me!" shouted the night nurse as Raindrops made for the curtain. "You can't go back there!"

Raindrops tugged it aside, to find herself face-to-face with Strawberry Cheesecake.

"Raindrops," she said. "I thought someone would try to get in here once word got out, but you're the one who brought him in! You've already seen him."

Raindrops shook her head. "It was a mistake. He can't stay here, he needs to go back out into the desert."

"No can do," answered Cheesecake. "He's much too sick, and the water isn't helping. I've sent to Las Pegasus Zoo for their vet, but until she gets here and pronounces him well enough to go he's staying put."

"You don't understand!" Raindrops snapped. "He needs--"

"He needs to stay alive!" Cheesecake snapped back. "Which means rest and comfort and medical care, not cold nights and blazing days and no water or food."

"Can I at least see him?" asked Raindrops.

"No," answered Cheesecake. "He needs rest, and that means limiting his visitors. Obviously there'll be a lot of interest as word gets out, and we need to find a safe, fair way to give him his space while accommodating those needs."

Remembering the dream, Raindrops asked slowly, "You mean like charging everyone who wants to see him 50 bits apiece?"

Cheesecake's eyes narrowed and she spoke extremely quietly. "You have no idea what it costs to run this festival. No idea how badly Corona's return has hurt our ticket sales. If helping a sick animal will save my festival, you betcha I'll do it--and don't you dare judge me for it!"

Raindrops muscles tensed. For just a moment, the urge to strike Cheesecake was overpowering, but she fought it down, turned and stomped out of the trailer. Fuming, she walked back to her and Lyra's trailer, scowling at the ground while she tried to figure out something to do--so she never saw Lyra and Vinyl until she was almost on top of them.

"What're you girls doing up?" she asked.

"You were checking on the jackelope, weren't you," asked Lyra.

"So what?" Raindrops pawed irritably at the ground. "I woke up from a dream, went to check on him. They wouldn't even let me in. Sorry if I woke you."

Lyra shook her head. "No, I woke up the same time you did. I... had a dream too."

Raindrops looked up at her, eyes wide in surprise. "You don't mean..."

"Yes," said Lyra. "I dreamed I was the jackelope. There was a doctor, and a park ranger..."

"...and Cheesecake?" Raindrops asked.

"We all had the same dream," said Vinyl. "We know he needs to go to the Heart, and I think I know where he means."

"It's impossible," said Raindrops.

"Not really," said Lyra. "Dream magic isn't well-studied, but--"

"No, I mean we won't be able to take him. Cheesecake's planning to use him as an attraction, she thinks charging people to see him will save the festival."

"Then there's only one option," said a fourth pony, flying in for a landing next to them while the other three started in surprise. "Sorry, but I was headed for the infirmary when I heard you talking and... I had the same dream."

Raindrops stared. "But you... you're..."

"We can worry about introductions later," said Thunder Axe. "What's important is this: How are we going to break into the infirmary and get the jackelope out?"

Author's Note

Sorry this again took so long to update. I've been extremely busy, mostly with my new book--it's a blend of postmodern analysis of MLP FIM Season 1 and discussion of the brony phenomenon, and it's now about halfway through the editing process. I've got a Kickstarter (if that link didn't work: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1567917619/my-little-po-mo-volume-one-season-one) to fund said editing with a few hours left if you're interested in chipping in--we're fully funded but there's stretch goals remaining.

Overall, this is a transitional chapter, which I always find very hard to write. I know I need to get from A (finding the jackelope) to B (stealing the jackelope), but how do I make the path from A to B interesting? As always, the answer is to listen to the characters: Raindrops' worry and irritability, and the endless amusement I find in letting Lyra and Vinyl's ideas about music collide. (Lyra's feelings about wubs may be a bit autobiographical).

Six: Jacknapping

The next morning, Lyra woke early and went directly to her assigned stage. The remaining musicians and most of the festival attendees would be arriving today, and she wanted to get a chance to practice in peace and quiet before the cocoa butter hit the fan, as Bon-Bon might say.

When she finally finished and left the stage, to her surprise, Cheesecake was waiting for her. "Hey there," the older mare said. "Have you seen your friend? I was hoping to talk to her, she left in such a hurry last night and I don't want her getting the wrong idea..."

"She's probably watching someone practice," Lyra said coldly. "I'm too busy to keep track of her for you."

Cheesecake reddened slightly. "Hey now, don't you go getting the wrong idea neither! I'm not some kind of evil money-grubber--I want that poor li'l guy to get better! I just care about this festival, too, so what's wrong with trying to do both?"

Lyra turned to her and sighed. "What if it turns out he's better off out in the wild?"

"He's not," Cheesecake countered. "He was starving and dehydrated when Raindrops brought him in. Dying. We can save him and save this festival at the same time!"

"And if you're wrong?" Lyra asked.

"Then at least we did our best! We're not just going to give up on him and turn him back out into the desert!"

Lyra shook her head. "Your best to save him, or the festival?"

"Both!" Cheesecake was starting to turn decidedly pink around the face.

"Believe it or not, I understand. This festival is your life's work, isn't it? And that's incredibly important to you--so important that it blinds you to who you might hurt. You're not the first pony that's happened to, believe me."

Pink was shading rapidly into purple. "You--" Cheesecake sputtered. "How dare you!? I stayed up all night with 'bones and Dusty and the jackelope! I sang him to sleep! I'm trying my best, and I don't understand why you and your friend are suddenly determined to make me out as some kind of villain!"

"...No," said Lyra. "You're right. Listen... the truth is that the jackelope spoke to us. Well, not 'spoke' exactly. He called to us in a dream and told us to take him out of the infirmary and to a place in the desert. That's what he really needs. So if you're telling the truth about caring for him, please, let us take him there."

Cheesecake stared at her a moment, and then burst out laughing. "Are you for real? You want me to let you take a sick animal out Luna-knows-where in the desert because of a DREAM? That's ridiculous!"

"Okay, I know how it sounds," Lyra began, "but we all had the same dream at the same time, and--"

Cheesecake raised a hoof. "Spare me," she said. "Look, I don't know what's up with you and your friend, but if that's the attitude you're going to take, fine. Don't expect to get anywhere near the jackelope any time soon, but rest assured we'll take good care of him. Enjoy the festival." She turned and stormed off, back the way she came.

At lunch, Lyra ran into Vinyl Scratch by the commissary trailer. "You're sure you know this place the jackelope wants to go to?" she asked quietly.

Vinyl nodded. "'Shyeah. It's way down at the bottom of the valley, maybe seven, eight hours walk. If we stick to the plan, we're back by noon tomorrow. I'll miss my first shift, but you and Thunder will make your sets."

Lyra nodded back. "Okay. Well... then I guess there's nothing to do but wait for nightfall..."

Nightfall. Another bonfire crackled merrily in the open space by the commissary trailer, and the cooking staff were busy dishing out plates of grilled corn on the cob, baked beans, and fire-roasted veggies to the crowd of musicians, performers, and attendees, all eagerly awaiting the morning and the festival's true beginning.

In the shadows behind Lyra and Raindrops' trailer, three dark figures gathered, clad hoof-to-mane and muzzle-to-tail in form-fitting black suits. "We all here?" whispered Lyra.

"Almost," said Raindrops. "Thunder Axe was right behind me."

"Here I am!" said Thunder Ax, earning a "Shhhh!" from the other three as she dropped out of the sky into the middle of the group. "Hey, neat outfits."

"Where's your stealth suit?" demanded Vinyl.

"My wha? You mean those things you're wearing? I don't have one."

"Don't have a--who doesn't have a stealth suit?" asked Lyra.

"C'mon, guys," said Raindrops. "She's not from Ponyville, remember?"

There was a two-pony chorus of "Oh yeah"s from Lyra and Vinyl.

Thunder Axe blinked in confusion. "Wait. Are you saying that every pony from Ponyville--at all times...?"

"'Nah," said Vinyl. "Not foals, obviously. Or in the shower."

"Or on Hearts and Hooves Day," added Raindrops.

Vinyl looked at her curiously. "You don't carry a stealth suit on Hearts and Hooves Day? But what if you need to be stealthy?"

"Well," Raindrops started, "you don't need the suit, because--"

"Ladies," Lyra interrupted, as sternly as possible while staying quiet. "We have a job to do. You have the, uh, getaway vehicle ready, Vinyl?"

"Heck yeah I do," Vinyl Scratch said. "I'll be out front of the infirmary in seven minutes."

Lyra nodded. The two unicorns both had perfect rhythm and knew at least one instrument's part in Xylo Phone's "Seven Minutes of Heaven" crystaphone concerto. They could both play it in their heads to time seven minutes precisely. "All right. Start timing... now." She turned to Thunder Axe. "I guess not having a stealth suit will make you a better distraction," she said. "You ready?"

Thunder Axe patted the guitar slung across her back. "I was born ready!"

"Great," said Lyra. "Give us time to get in position before you set it off."

"Gotcha," said Thunder. She lifted off and flew in the general direction of the infirmary.

"Raindrops, let's go," Lyra said.

"Right!" said Raindrops.

The two trotted to the infirmary while Lyra went over the plan in her mind. It was fairly simple. Raindrops had seen that the jackelope was in a bed on the east side of the infirmary, curtained off, and Vinyl had noticed a window on the west side of the trailer that was kept open, probably for what little in the way of breezes the valley got. The window was a little small for a pegasus to squeeze through, what with the shoulder muscles and wings, but Lyra was small enough that she could fit. Unfortunately, she wasn't confident in her ability to lift herself up and through it, at least not without taking a while and making a racket.

So, while Thunder Axe created a distraction, Raindrops fly onto the roof of the trailer and help Lyra through the window, then Lyra would open the front door, let Raindrops in, and the two of them would sneak in and snatch the jackelope while the doctor, Dusty, and Cheesecake were distracted. Then Vinyl would meet them out front in a cart, and off into the desert they'd go.

Just as Lyra and Raindrops reached the infirmary, there was a screech of guitar music and a sudden explosion of lightning arced up from the ground about fifty feet past the far side of the trailer. It curved over in midair, splashing back down and sparking harmlessly across the tops of several trailers. Another arc followed it, and then another.

"Guess that's our distraction," said Lyra.

"Yeah..." said Raindrops, staring at it starry-eyed. "Sweeeet..."

"Yes, it's great, now come on," Lyra whispered urgently. "We have to move. We can't know how long that'll keep Cheesecake and them at the east window."

Raindrops nodded and sprang for the roof of the trailer, the sound of her hooves on its metal surface masked by the power chords and electric sizzles of Thunder's display. She lay down on the roof and extended her forehooves to Lyra, who jumped up and grabbed them. Almost effortlessly, Raindrops swung her and tossed her into the open window. Gracefully, Lyra uncurled and landed in the trailer.

And that's when everything went wrong.

"Um," said Dusty, turning to face her. "Did you just... through the window?"

Lyra thought quickly. "No?" she hazarded. Not quickly enough, I guess. She cursed herself for not thinking it through--of course they wouldn't all stay at the window watching the show. Of course Cheesecake would send Dusty to check it out, and of course that would mean she would run straight into him!

"...So to judge by your outfit, you're trying to sneak in and kidnap the jackelope. And also you're from Ponyville."

"Well..." said Lyra, still thinking quickly and trying to edge toward the door, which was difficult with Dusty standing right in front of it. "I guess I am from Ponyville, but I lived in Canterlot for a while, too."

Saw Bones stuck his head out through the curtain, a syringe in his mouth. "What's the ruckus about--wait, who are you!?" He stepped out into the main area of the trailer, Cheesecake right behind him.

"Raindrops' friend," said Cheesecake. "I did warn you. Dusty, take her to security."

"Yes ma'am!"

This was bad, very bad. Lyra could see a solution... but she was going to get in a lot of trouble for it. Still, what choice did she have? No choice at all. She'll forgive me. Probably. Eventually. Taking a deep breath, just before Dusty reached her she let out a bloodcurdling scream and used her magic to fling the door open.

Hearing Lyra's scream, Raindrops rushed into through the door as swiftly as she could. Quickly she took in Rusty standing menacingly near Lyra and Sawbones standing by with a syringe in his mouth, and drew the logical conclusion. "Lyra!" she cried, and rushed at Dusty, knocking him to the floor with a blow of her hoof. She whirled to face Cheesecake and Sawbones, who backed up slightly as the enraged pegasus stalked toward them.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Lyra dashed past them, through the curtains. Seeing the jackelope, she levitated it along with its blanket, and then turned to race out of the trailer. "Raindrops, c'mon!" she shouted, and then Vinyl was there with a cart, several pillows in the bottom making a nest where Lyra gently deposited the jackelope. The two unicorns galloped toward the edge of the festival ground, Raindrops flying above them, shortly joined by Thunder Axe.

"Woo!" cried the Daughter of Discord as they crossed into the desert. "We did it!"

Lyra and Vinyl collapsed on the ground while the pegasi landed next to them. "Five minute break," gasped Lyra. "Then we continue on. Cheesecake knows we're taking the jackelope into the desert, it won't be long before she sends someone after us."

"Wait, how does she know that?" asked Vinyl.

Briefly, Lyra explained.

"You did WHAT!?" shouted Raindrops.

Author's Note

The chase is on! Will they get the jackelope to the Heart before Cheesecake's ponies find them? What awaits them there? Find out... whenever I get around to writing more!

So yeah, barring sudden inspiration or things being unexpectedly long, I'm guessing about three more chapters to this story. The stealth suit conversation in this chapter is actually one of the two scenes I thought of first when I had this idea. The other is... well, you'll see in a couple of chapters.

Sorry about how long the delay for this chapter was! I've been RIDICULOUS busy this year, since I'm not only doing the weekly postmodern Pony analysis, but now weekly postmodern Puella Magi analysis too! Oh, and remember that Kickstarter I was running last time I posted a chapter? Yeah, that succeeded, and I published the book, and now I'm running a Kickstarter for my SECOND book of Pony analysis/Brony ethnography. As of this writing it's got $45 and 5 days left, you should check it out!

That's about all the news from me. I promise I'll write the next chapter faster! Now that I realize I'm almost there, I'm really excited to get to That Scene!

Seven: Desert of Disruption

Raindrops shivered as the four ponies trudged through the desert, dragging behind them the cart with the jackelope. Despite the incredible, oppressive heat of the day, it was freezing cold now, but Raindrops didn't mind much. She grew up in a cloud city thousands of feet above the ground; she knew cold like an eccentric, not particularly beloved but still familiar aunt. Besides, she couldn't feel the itching through the cold, so that was a relief.

She and Thunder Axe pulled the cart while Vinyl and Lyra helped levitate it over out toppings of rock and down cliffs.

"You sure you know where we're going?" Raindrops asked Vinyl.

"Yes," said Vinyl patiently. "Just like the last time you asked. We just have to head down."

"Easier said than done," grumbled Lyra. She had a point; the slopes leading down to the[ancient dry lake bed were a tangled maze of crisscrossing canyons, blind alleys and dead ends.

It was at the third dead end that Lyra's patience finally snapped. "This is ridiculous! How are we supposed to get anywhere in this stupid maze? I thought you knew how to get to whatever this place is!"

"Heart of the Desert," said Vinyl. "And look, I've been there once. As long as we keep going down, we'll get there eventually."

"If we keep doubling back, Cheesecake's goons will find us!" Lyra grimaced.

"Calm down, you two," said Thunder Axe. "Let's just relax. Maybe we need to take a rest for a minute before we continue on, marshal our strength and calm everyone down."

That's weird, thought Raindrops. All the interviews I've read say Thunder Axe is the hardest working Daughter of Discord. She would never be the first to call for a break... unless something strange is going on... or she isn't really Thunder Axe. She eyed the other pegasus suspiciously, but she looked like Thunder Axe, and it wasn't like iron horseshoes were common among pegasi. Still, Raindrops knew she would have to keep an eye on her, just to be sure.

In the cart, the jackelope twitched and made high-pitched muttering sounds. Thunder Axe looked over it. "Poor little guy," she said. "I think he's dreaming."

"Lucky him," grumbled Lyra, but no one paid her any attention.

"We've rested long enough," said Vinyl. "Come on, let's get moving before they find us."

And now Vinyl's tense and determined? No, this is all wrong, I don't know who these ponies are. I'm the only one who's acting normal.

The four ponies walked back out of the canyon they'd rested in and tried another path that seemed to go down. This one actually worked for a while, twisting and crossing several others but generally heading downward, until abruptly they turned a corner and found themselves facing yet another dead end.

"Sunshine!" shouted Lyra while the others looked at her in shock. The word echoed through the rocks, bouncing back and forth and overlapping itself, the sound of it distorting. "Sunshine sunshine sunshine" murmured the desert echoes, mocking them. Raindrops shivered, and not from the cold. She could feel it now. Something vast and ancient, alien and powerful, lurking just out of the corner of her eye, where she couldn't see it...

"Well," said a masculine voice from behind them. "Fancy meetin' you here."

They whirled to see Dusty Cliff, flanked by two rather burly Earth pony stallions in the black vests of festival security. "I reckon that's about enough chasin' through the desert for one night, don't you?" he asked.

"Up!' shouted Vinyl. Thunder Axe and Raindrops each grabbed one of the unicorns, the two of whom combined their magic to lift the jackelope. In a matter of moments, they were up and over the cliff wall.

All four collapsed, panting, on the other side, in yet another canyon slightly lower down. From above, they heard a shout. "Thought so," said Raindrops. "They've got lookouts at the top of the valley. They'll be able to spot us if we fly." She looked out over the desert. The sky to the east was starting to turn gray. The sun would be up soon, and as soon as that happened this trip would become much, much more difficult.

"Raindrops, can you carry the jackelope?" Thunder Axe asked.

Raindrops nodded. "For a while, at least. Tie him in place, though, I don't want to drop him."

Lyra and Vinyl floated the jackelope over to Raindrops, but as soon as his horn touched her flank she flinched away.

"What's wrong?" asked Thunder Axe.

"The horns," said Raindrops. "They tickle!"

The other three ponies stepped in to surround Raindrops. "They're vibrating," said Thunder Axe. "If you listen closely, you can hear the hum."

"There's a bit of magic coming off them, too," said Lyra. She bent down low. "You know, they're that same sort of iridescent gray as a crystaphone. Maybe they're responding to our emotions the way a crystaphone does?"

"What, you mean amplifying them? Playing them back?" asked Thunder Axe.

"Okay, that's interesting, but we have to keep moving," Vinyl reminded them. "Dusty knows where we are, remember?"

Lyra looked like she was about to snap at Vinyl, but she visibly bit back whatever she was going to say. They finished tying the jackelope to Raindrops, careful to keep the horns pointing up so they didn't touch Raindrops. Then they continued on as the sun slowly rose over the valley.

They took another break at Thunder Axe's insistence about an hour later, just long enough to sit for a moment in the shade of an outcropping and sip some water. Then it was up and on once more. The jackelope was starting to feel heavier and heavier, but Raindrops didn't let it show. She didn't trust the others, not when they were acting so strangely.

As they got closer to the lake bed, the maze of paths grew less complicated, and they began to pick up speed. After half an hour, as they passed another patch of shade, Thunder Axe said, "We should stop again."

"Chya, seriously?" Vinyl Scratch turned to face her. "Do we really need to stop again with a bunch of big stallions after us?"

"Yes," said Thunder Axe. "We're almost to the lake bed, and there'll be no cover at all there."

"Which is why we need as much lead as possible when we get there!"

Thunder Axe shook her head. "No, it's why we need to be completely hydrated and ready to move fast until we get to... wherever you're taking us."

"Oh, I don't CARE!" hissed Lyra. "Stop, don't stop, whatever, will you two quit flirting?"

Thunder Axe blushed. "I'm not--we're not--" She turned to Vinyl Scratch. "I mean... not that you're not cute, you are, I mean really, really cute, and... wait. Why am I..." She blushed harder, and at the same time began to look worried. "I'm... I like stallions, why am I--"

"Hyah!" shouted Dusty as he and the two security ponies leaped over a ridge and down among the four mares. Thunder Axe whinnied in surprise and danced nervously in place, while the other three ponies fell back onto their rumps.

"UGH!" shouted Lyra. "Why don't you LEAVE us--" a large boulder pulled itself out of the ground, surrounded in a pale-green glow--"ALONE!" The boulder flew with tremendous speed directly at Dusty, while Raindrops watched in helpless horror.

"Lyra!" shouted Thunder Axe, as she clapped her wings together, toward the boulder. There was a flash of light, a crack of thunder, and a smell of ozone, and the boulder exploded, showering down on the three stallions in a hail of pebbles. They yelped and ran back up the ridge, covered in bruises and scrapes. "What were you THINKING?" Thunder Axe demanded. "You could have killed somepony!"

Lyra shrank back in horror. "I... I don't, I didn't mean..." She looked on the verge of tears. "I just got so... so angry, angrier than I've ever been... what's happening? This isn't like me. Vinyl, Raindrops, you KNOW this isn't like me."

"No," Raindrops said. "It isn't. And it isn't like Thunder Axe to be stopping for rests, no matter how sensible it might be. It isn't like her to be attracted to Vinyl, either. And it isn't like Vinyl to be constantly pushing us to go faster. All three of you are acting strangely. Don't you get it? They're doing something to us!"

"They?" asked Thunder Axe. "Who's they?"

"I don't know!" Raindrops admitted. "But I'm going to find out."

"Yeah, I don't think we're the only ones acting different from usual," said Lyra. "Normally you'd be threatening whoever 'they' are, not investigating."

"You're right," I said, beginning to get it. "But instead you have my temper... and Thunder Axe is keeping us together and organized and safe, like the Element of Loyalty should..."

"Oh!" said Lyra, starting to get it. "And she's attracted to Vinyl..." Lyra blushed. "Well, you really are cute!" she admitted. "And don't you tell Bon-Bon I said that, or else I'll--" she stopped in midsentence and shook her head.

Raindrops watched her friend. So this is what I look like from outside. Nothing but a thug who can barely keep from attacking her friends, and has to be violently prevented from attacking her enemies...

"But what's causing it?" asked Thunder Axe. "What's blending all our personalities together like this?"

Oh, Raindrops thought. She jabbed a hoof at her back. "Isn't it obvious when you put it that way? Mr. 'Mix Things That Don't Belong Together."

Lyra groaned. "We're trying to help you, you stupid jackelope!" In response, it snorted and stirred fitfully in its sleep.

"Hey now," said Thunder Axe. "He's tired and sick. He's probably not doing it on purpose, just losing control of his magic in his dreams."

"He does feel very hot," Raindrops said, "and not just from the heat."

"Okay," said Thunder Axe. "Everybody drink up and then we move. Hopefully Cheesecake's stallions will spend some time licking their wounds, and we'll be able to beat them to the Heart."

For once, nobody argued, just drank quietly alone with their thoughts. "I think I get it," Raindrops said after a while.

"What?" asked Thunder Axe.

"Why us. It's the blending thing... you're a pegasus with iron in your hooves, that's not supposed to go together. Lyra spent some time as an omnivore a while back, that's another thing that doesn't belong in a pony."

"Ew," said Thunder Axe.

"Not my fault!" Lyra protested. "It was all Trixie's fault! She--" She bit back her response again. "Sorry. Having trouble with that temper."

"Yeah," said Raindrops. "That's me. The temper of a griffin and the strength of an Earth pony in a pegasus. Things that don't belong together. The only one I'm having trouble with is you, Vinyl. What do you blend?"

"Uh..." said Vinyl.

"I think I see it," said Lyra. "Vinyl's special talent isn't playing an instrument, it's air manipulation. That's a pegasus talent in a unicorn."

"Yeah," said Vinyl. "That makes sense. That must be it." She chuckled.

"So... what does it mean?" asked Thunder Axe. "What does the jackelope need us to do?"

"Only one way to find out," said Vinyl.

She was right, so they set out again, scrambling over the last slopes to at last reach the broad, flat expanse of cracked earth that was the lake bed. "This way!" said Vinyl. "Toward the center!" She began to trot, and the others followed.

As they neared... something, Raindrops felt it looming ahead of them. The itch, which had been steadily returning ever since the sun came up, flared suddenly and spread vicious tingles dancing along her back and sides. A headache exploded between her eyes before narrowing to a razor-sharp point. She could feel it, something enormous and enormously powerful under the earth, but also spiking upward into the cloudless sky.

"The Heart of the Desert," said Vinyl proudly.

Raindrops felt something shift, and suddenly the vast web of shimmering connections she had slowly, over the past few hours, discovered collapsed, and a familiar surge of irritation swept through her.

On her back, the jackelope stirred, and then it cried. It started like a cross between a whimper, a meow, and a musical note, but it built slowly, swelling, getting sweeter and sadder until it sang out in a shimmering wail over the desert. The jackelope was awake. It was at the Heart of the Desert. It was time.

"Now what?" asked Thunder Axe.

Author's Note

This was... kind of a weird chapter to write. I had to write everyone out of character, because of the effects of the jackelope. I kept having to take one character's reactions and give it to another character, but then try to keep in elements of that character's voice... not easy, and I'm really not sure how well I pulled it off...

In case you're wondering why Raindrops got paranoid when the personalities were scrambled, rather than acting like Vinyl Scratch, it's the same reason Vinyl was cagey about how she's "two things mixed." If I ever get around to writing the Vinyl Scratch "Everypony's Day" entry I promised years ago, it will likely become clearer exactly what's happening here.

I am seriously excited about next chapter. And the chapter after, for that matter.

Eight: The Heart of the Desert

"Wow," said Lyra, trembling in the aftermath of the jackelope's cry. She barely registered Thunder Axe's question as she turned slowly, feeling the thrill of magic shimmering around her. "Girls, are the rest of you seeing this?" A fountain of magic--pure, wild, full of joy--poured out from an otherwise unremarkable point in the ground, curling and growing and swirling across the desert floor. Or it should be, at least; only a tiny fraction of the Heart's power was actually free, while the rest was being pulled upward. Lyra craned her neck, trying to see where the octarine fountain led--

"I don't see anything," said Raindrops, "but I feel something. The air here, it's... alive."

"Yeah," said Thunder Axe. "It's a good word for it. The air in the rest of the valley is--"

"--dead," finished Raindrops. "That's why I've been itching so much. On top of the heat, I mean."

"Hey, Lyra?" asked Vinyl Scratch. "Did you know that you're glowing?"

Lyra blinked and looked down from her examination of the sky. "Uh, so are you." It was true; an electric blue aura surrounded Vinyl, and occasional multi-colored sparks sizzled from her horn. Lyra supposed she probably looked the same, though her aura would be mint green. Meanwhile, Thunder Axe's hooves were glowing like they did while she played her guitar, and Raindrops crackled with the occasional burst of electricity.

"What IS this?" asked Thunder Axe.

"Magic," said Vinyl Scratch simply. "A ton of it."

"A natural font," Lyra explained. "Not all of the world's magic comes from living things, you know. The land itself generates magic, too--and just like some living things generate much more magic than others, so do some places."

"So..." Thunder Axe said slowly, "this is like the land equivalent of a draconequus?"

Lyra nodded. "Hmm, I wonder..." She bamfed her lyre into her hooves and plucked a couple of notes, then hummed experimentally. "Yeah, no wonder there's legends about a curse. There's some kind of really powerful fire magic caught in here, resonating up and down like an echo."

Raindrops' jaw dropped. "You're saying the ECHO of one of... her... attacks is enough to keep this place a desert for a thousand years?"

Lyra was glad Raindrops hadn't used her name. Here, in cloudless desert under the hot bright sun... "Why didn't you tell anyone about this place, Vinyl? It's the geomantic find of the century!"

Before Vinyl could answer, the jackelope moaned again, softer and sadder than its previous cry. All three of the other ponies immediately rushed over to the jackelope where it was bound on Raindrops' back.

"He doesn't look good," said Thunder Axe.

The jackelope whimpered in agreement. Lyra noticed, looking closely, that the sounds were coming from his vinrating horns, not his mouth. They really were tremendously like a crystaphone...

She stretched out her hoof toward the iridescent, pearly horns, and the colors seemed to swirl together to meet her. She almost imagine she could hear the faintest shift in the jackelope's music...

"Well, he wanted to come to the Heart," said Vinyl Scratch. "Maybe he needs to actually be in it?"

"Worth a shot," said Raindrops, and walked directly into the font of magic. "Oh." She said. "That's nice..."

Lyra watched as Raindrops seemed to get just a little taller, as if she'd been slouched the entire time Lyra knew her and only now stood up. The jackelope's moaning stopped, and his breathing became a bit less labored, but after a while it became clear nothing more dramatic was going to happen.

"I don't think it's enough," said Thunder Axe. "We need more."

"More what, though?" asked Vinyl.

"Why can't you tell us what you need!" Raindrops demanded, stamping her hoof in frustration.

"...Maybe he did," Lyra said slowly. "Think... was there anything in the dreams? Anything that happened since?"

They fell silent, thinking.

"I don't think it was anything in the dream," Thunder Axe said after a while. "I've been running through it in my head, and we've done what it asked."

"The only other thing that the jackelope's done is... swap us around," said Vinyl. "No... not swap us," she continued, realization dawning. Her eyes twitched side to side as she put ideas together. "He blended us!"

The jackelope sighed again, a complex musical tone that began at their ears and vibrated down through their hooves.

"Of course," said Lyra. "It's not just that each of us is a combination of mixed things... it's what we can do together!"

"What we can..?" Thunder Axe started. Her eyes widened. "Oh. Oh!" She drew her guitar from where she had carefully slung it across her back.

"Right," said Lyra. "Why else bring three musicians?"

Vinyl grinned broadly. "I think it's time I told you what I was planning to do here..."

Strawberry Cheesecake struggled to keep from rolling her eyes in frustration at the gray Earth pony mare in front of her. I guess that fiasco with the jackelope wasn't enough. No, one of the Daughters of Discord is missing only hours before their concert, and on top of that I have to deal with this mare's complaining? "I'm sorry, miss, but I just don't understand what the problem is."

"I thought Stage 5 was going to be all rock music," the mare said flatly, for possibly the thirtieth time in Cheesecake's hearing alone.

"Yes?" said Cheesecake. "We're starting for the day in a few minutes. I think the Neighsayers are opening the stage."

"I know. I memorized the program."

But we only gave them to visitors this morning--ugh...Cheesecake, by dint of enormous effort, did not bring a forehoof to one of her suddenly aching temples. "Okay, let's try a different approach. What are you expecting from the rock music stage that isn't there?"

"Rocks."

Before Cheesecake could respond, a strange crackling noise echoed through the festival grounds. One by one, at each stage, a piece of Vinyl's own sound equipment she'd mixed in with the festival's turned on.

"You can do that?" Lyra asked incredulously.

"Normally?" responded Vinyl, her horn pulsing with electric-blue light. "No way, not even close. But here? Shyeah, no prob." She concentrated, and the aura around her horn grew bigger and brighter. Across the festival, faint blue light spread from Vinyl's familiar, personal equipment to all the festival sound systems, until every speaker in the valley was under her spell.

"Why?" asked Thunder Axe.

"Because they're never going to let me be a performer," said Vinyl. "And the world needs to hear what I've discovered."

She concentrated again, and a low bass tone began.

"Oh no," said Lyra. "Not that... wobble thing again?"

Across the valley, from every speaker the festival had and the Heart of the Desert itself, the beats began, sounds as much engineered as they were performed, an edifice of interlocking beats slowly built up, layer by layer, by Vinyl.

"Ow..." moaned Lyra.

"Hey, that's kind of cool," said Thunder Axe. She flapped her wings a few times and gently let power flow into her guitar, shrieking out the opening riff of "The Ballad of Jackelope Valley." "You planning on joining in?" she asked Lyra.

"Right," said Lyra, summoning her lyre and strumming her own version.

"What should I do?" Raindrops shouted over the swelling tide of music.

"Uh..." answered Lyra.

"Oh," Raindrops said, though Lyra almost couldn't hear her over the music. "Right. I'll, uh, hold the jackelope and make sure he's okay."

Raindrops stood in the fountaining magic of the heart of the desert. The three pony musicians stood in a triangle around her, facing her, belting out the ballad. Vinyl provided the bass line, as well as feeding their music into the the festival sound equipment. Thunder Axe traded the melody back and forth with Lyra, whose lyre should have been drowned out by the big, magically amplified sounds of the other two--but the horns of the jackelope shimmered, and sang along, and folded the music together so that somehow, impossibly, it worked.

But then the wise, soft tones of the jackelope's theme began to falter. Lyra played his refusal, while the bass thrummed and thumped like the hoofbeats of doom and Celestia's wrath blared from Thunder Axe's guitar. She cried out as a burst of lightning leaped from her guitar to the jackelope. Light flashed, a massive white jagged column of lightning wreathed in flames that shot from the jackelope high into the sky.

Across the dry lake bed, Dusty saw it as, having finished treating his cuts and scrapes, he was once again in pursuit of the jack-nappers. A moment later he felt it, just as every other Earth pony in the valley felt it: a dry, broken land, screaming as the moisture and life it desperately needed was snatched rudely away.

Up in the festival grounds, the unicorn Soundcheck, one of the festival techs, saw it while she investigated the spell that had let someone hijack all the sound equipment. A moment later, she felt it, just as every other unicorn in the valley felt it: a wave of dark magic, as if some terrible spell had been stretch out and snapped back with all the elasticity of Tartarus itself.

In the Heart of the Desert, Raindrops was nearly blinded by it. A moment later, she felt it, just as every other Pegasus in the valley felt it: a near-solid wall of heat, like swooping from a nice cool downdraft directly into a blazingly hot thermal.

"...I think that might have been the wrong song," said Lyra.

"You think? YOU THINK!?" shouted Raindrops. Sweat ran down her flanks from the suddenly rising temperature. The desert was rapidly turning into an oven while the morning dragged on.

"...Sorry?" offered Lyra.

Raindrops snorted.

"It was doing a thing, though," said Vinyl. "Dunno what, but something."

"So we need to figure out the right song, right?" asked Thunder Axe. "But how?"

Raindrops sighed. "I guess that's what I'm really here for--carrying things and pointing out the obvious. Or haven't you girls noticed how dark it's getting?"

She pointed upwards, and the other's eyes followed. Ominous-looking dark clouds were streaming in from the east, but seemed to be piling up against some kind of invisible, curved wall surrounding the valley. As the ponies watched, the clouds broke over the top of the wall, which turned out to be a dome, throwing a shadow over the entire valley. Within moments, they had blocked out the sun.

"Did... did we do that?" asked Lyra.

"Don't you get it?" Raindrops jabbed a hoof at Vinyl. "Your instrument."

"I don't have an instrument," answered Vinyl. "I work with pure sound."

"Which is another word for moving air," countered Raindrops. "Wind." She pointed at Thunder Axe. "Lightning, obviously." And finally, she gestured at Lyra. "Little tinkly noises? Gee, what does that sound like?"

"'Little tinkly noises!?'" Lyra stopped when she saw Raindrops' expression. "Yeah, okay, I get where you're going with this. He doesn't just want us to help him."

"He wants us to help the valley!" Vinyl said, understanding blossoming on her face. "We have to play the rain."

Thunder Axe's eyes widened in awe. Then she grinned. "Even Awesome Sauce's never done anything like this! Wait'll I tell her!" She stroked her guitar's string, and it sparked and sang. Thunder rolled in response.

"But what song?" Lyra asked.

"You're not playing a song," Raindrops answered. "You're playing the rain. Just... take what rain feels like, and play that feeling."

Thunder Axe played a low, distant chord, a rumbling punctuated by bright flashes. Vinyl listened for a moment, then joined in, amplifying the rumble and adding motion and energy. Last of all, Lyra joined in with delicate, falling arpeggios. The jackelope's horns glowed with rainbow light, swirling and shimmering all around Raindrops, and the sky darkened steadily as black, rain-pregnant clouds blotted out the sun like the wings of Luna herself.

But no rain fell. After nearly a half-hour of continuous playing, the musicians broke off, panting.

"Nothing," said Raindrops. "The air's dry as ever."

"It's that fire spell," said Lyra. "It's just too strong. Maybe if we had the Elements of Harmony here..."

"I don't know if the jackelope would last long enough to go get your friends," said Vinyl. "He's not looking so good..."

Raindrops had to agree. The jackelope felt heavier by the minute, and his breathing was growing rough and ragged again. "What if we could get outside the fire spell?" she asked. "Those clouds are outside its reach, right?"

"Yeah," said Lyra, "but we need the magic of the Heart to fuel the song. We can't reach it from out there."

"Maybe you don't need to," said Thunder Axe. "Vinyl, your spell is still sending our music to the festival, right?"

"Yeah," said Vinyl. "But that's still inside the valley. And anyway, I had to prime the equipment to receive the spell, that's why I used my own."

"Could you prime something else now? Like, say, the jackelope's horn?"

Vinyl grinned, though her tiredness was showing. "...I can try." She closed her eyes and grimaced. The aura around her horn--which had not completely gone away since she first linked the festival's speakers--flared up again.

Lyra watched sympathetically. She had seen before how hard keeping up multiple spells--or even one very complex spell--could be, and Vinyl's magic capacity wasn't exactly huge to begin with. Still, she obviously had a knack for musical magic--almost the inverse of Lyra's own magical music--and after a couple of sputters, a wavering column of light extended from her horn to the jackelope's, electric blue swirling into their rainbow iridescence.

"Whew," said Vinyl. "Okay. If you're going to want me to play while we keep this up, you'd better do what you're going to do fast. I dunno how long I can keep it all going."

"Okay," she said. "Now all we need to do is get the jackelope outside the valley."

"That's miles and miles!" protested Raindrops. "Do we have enough time?"

Thunder Axe grinned. "Miles and miles across... but those clouds are pretty low for cumulonimbuses. I'd say six, seven hundred feet to the lower edge, tops."

"Ah," said Raindrops. "You guys play, I carry. I get it." She almost managed to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "It's what I'm good for."

Lyra sighed. "Raindrops," she said, "you're the first of us the jackelope called, the one who found him in the first place. None of us would be here without you."

"Yeah, I'm the one who found him, so I could be the one to carry him back." Raindrops shook her head. "I get it, okay? You felt my temper when the jackelope switched us around, and you nearly killed Dusty! That's me all over--the big, angry, dangerous one. I'm just the muscle."

Thunder Axe snorted. "Is your special talent whining? Is that why your cutie mark looks like tears?"

The others stared at her in shock, while Raindrops stomped one hoof and shook out her mane.

"Thunder Axe--!" started Lyra.

"No, wait," Thunder Axe said. "I just meant--"

"Whatever," said Raindrops. "There's no time." She flapped her wings and took off, slowly circling higher. But when I get back...

Below her, the musicians resumed their song. This time, they started with "The Rains of Castamare," then segued into "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall," and then something else Raindrops didn't recognize. She struggled slowly higher, the desert falling away below her. She saw Dusty, now halfway across the old lakebed, drawing steadily closer to the trio of musicians--not that it would help him, now that Raindrops was carrying the jackelope away.

No matter how high she climbed, she could still hear the music--at the moment, Led Arabian's "Rain Song," that had to be Thunder Axe's pick--relayed through the jackelope's horns and Vinyl's spell. As she rose higher, however, it began to be harder to hear, compared to the sounds of wind, thunder, and lightning. It was very strange; the air in the desert was mostly still, with a bit of thermal updraft from the heat, but as she approached five hundred feet she could see the clouds swirling, lightning splashing against the invisible dome of Corona's spell and splintering across it in jagged purple lines. There must be tremendous winds just beyond the dome.

Raindrops lowered her head and dove slightly, then swooped upward for the last few dozen feet. She expect to feel something when she hit the dome, but all she felt was the difference in the air, a powerful torrent of wet wind that threw her sidewise into a waterlogged stormcloud with a squelch. Raindrops picked herself up and steadied herself against the cloud, staring into the wind. Over its howling, she could barely hear the music, but it sounded like a repeat of "Rain Song." They're running out of things to play, she realized. "Okay, Raindrops," she said to herself. "You're a weather pony. Make some weather!"

Wings flapping furiously, she worked her way up the side of the raincloud to its top and pushed it down, toward the dome. Around her, the storm was growing more and more intense, though it had yet to drop a single drop. The music, meanwhile, was...

"Seriously, Lyra? I thought we agreed to never mention that again!"

Despite her annoyance, Raindrops found herself singing along under her breath as she worked. With great effort against the wind, she pushed the raincloud against the dome, then with a powerful thrust of wings and forehooves, shoved it through.

Or tried to. The cloud split in two as soon as it hit the dome, and the two halves skidded away over the top of it. Raindrops' momentum carried her through, and smacked her into the dome--into, not through.

Standing on nothing, she pushed a hoof against it. It gave very, very slightly, but the harder she pushed the harder it pushed back. "Now I'm locked out of the valley, too!?" She reared up and brought her hooves down against it, hard. Nothing. She tried again, several times, punctuating her blows with snippets of the song Lyra was singing. "Though I've bungled! All my bangles, left my life twisted and mangled! The rain helps me to untangle! All the things that trouble! Me!"

Still nothing. She collapsed against the dome, panting, as sudden light and heat washed over her. She looked up at a tear in the clouds, through which she could see the fiery noon sun glaring straight down at her. "I'm sorry," she told the jackelope. "We tried our best, but it's all coming apart."

The rift was kind of pegasus-shaped, she noticed, although that gap there could be a horn--

You could never have succeeded, a voice said, and like one of those pictures that looks like a vase at first, and then becomes two mares facing each other, the rift wasn't a rift with bright white sunlight pouring through anymore, it was a shining white pony, her eyes blazing white and her mane wreathed in flame.

"You," Raindrops said. "No! You can't be here!"

Yet I am, the other said. Now tell me, little pony, who are you to challenge me?

"It's not you," Raindrops said "Not the real you. The real you would recognize me as one of the ponies who beat you!"

Beat me? Little pony, I am the Sun itself, I cannot be beaten!

"No you're not," said Raindrops, straightening to stand upright on the dome. "You're--you're just a spell, an echo of old magic, like a mirage. You're empty--I can see through you!" And she could. Very faintly, she could see black clouds and bursts of purple and yellow lightning through the image of Corona.

The translucent alicorn floated majestically down to tower over Raindrops. Yes, she laughed, I am empty. Emptiness itself! I am Fire, and Waste, and Desolation, the pitiless Sun and the scorched Earth! She took a step forward, and despite herself, Raindrops took an instinctive step back. I am Desert Itself, tiny pegasus! And what, pray tell, are you, that you dare challenge the Flame?

Raindrops looked up at the alicorn. Her mind was suddenly whirling nearly as fast as the wind whipping the stormclouds.

"We have to play the rain."

"You're the first of us the jackelope called."

"Is your special talent whining? Is that why your cutie mark looks like tears?"

"You're a weather pony. Make some weather!"

And what, pray tell, are you, that you dare challenge the Flame?

The pegasus smiled slowly up at the shimmering, shifting image of the alicorn. "I'm Raindrops," she said.

She reared back, raising her hooves once more, as sudden light flared from her cutie mark. Then she brought both hooves down one last time.

A great bass ripple rolled like thunder out from her hooves, spreading out across the entire dome while lightning screamed and licked at it. Then the bass roll and shrieking bolts were joined by a fountain of delicate arpeggios as, without any further thus, the dome came apart in a thousand thousand tiny shining shards.

The echo of an alicorn screamed.

Raindrops fell.

Author's Note

Headcanon on magical fonts: We've already seen one in both the series and the Lunaverse, it's called the Everfree Forest. Presumably, the Tree of Harmony is growing on top of the font itself, which is why ponies' magic doesn't get amplified there--the Tree is soaking up most of it. What's left is enough to make the Everfree... weird. My thinking is that fonts are really, really rare, maybe two or three in all of Equestria and a dozen in the entire continent. Since their magic is tied to a place, they're less useful than they sound--for example, if you use the font's magic to enchant an item, the enchantment only works near the font. (The exception would be magical creatures that evolved at the font, whose powers become tied to the creature instead of the place. That's why the Elements of Harmony work anywhere, because they're the fruit of the Tree of Harmony.)

Much of this and the next chapter are inspired by (read: pretty much ripped off from) Ian McDonald's science fiction* novel Desolation Road, which is a contender for my all-time favorite book (though it's got plenty of competition) and hardly anyone seems to have ever heard of it. That book actually describes the Hand's song when he plays down the rain, and it's incredible.

*Ish? It's like magical realism, but in a science-fictional setting instead of a realistic or historical one.

Speaking of next chapter, that's the last one, and there'll be an epilogue which I'll probably post at the same time.

Nine: The End of the Festival

Throughout the festival, heads turned to the sky as music throbbed from the speakers. Attendants and musicians alike watched in open-mouthed wonder as the sky shattered, shining shards scattering high in the air. Wind whipped through the valley, a cool, wet breeze that moistened dry throats and healed chapped lips even as it gently cleansed sweaty flanks and manes.

The Heart of the Desert silently groaned as a thousand years of flame dissolved. Magic rushed into it, and then back out. Blue and violet lights flared around Vinyl Scratch as she played the wind, flashes and bursts of illumination that made her shadow dance and writhe. "Aww yeah," she shouted over the rising wind.

"This is incredible!" laughed Lyra, rainbows sparking and shimmering with every pluck and strum of her lyre.

Across the Heart, Thunder Axe struck a chord. Lightning flashed and flickered, too fast to tell whether it flowed from her guitar to the clouds or the other way around. She crowed in joy and struck another, and another.

High above them, spiraling down, Raindrops began to sing. The song had no words. It needed no words, was older than words and bigger than words, yet small enough to fit in the voice of a single pegasus mare. It was a song of wind, and of sand, and of desert, of loss and fire and a never-ending noontime of blazingly hot despair. It was a song of rage and pain and terror.

But it was a true song, a song of wind, and that meant it was a song of change. So, as Raindrops sang, it became a song of wind and water, of the fiery sun beating down on distant seas, of tree leaves sweating in the breeze, of tiny wisps of cloud growing up to be towering black walls, wreathed in lightning and speaking in thunder.

The Heart groaned again. The world could not take very much more truth.

The first raindrops hit the ground just before Raindrops did, right in the center of the trio of musicians. Raindrops kept right on singing, and the musicians played and the raindrops sang with her, a song of wind and the thirsting earth quenched at last, of gentle rain, drizzling rain, laughing rain, dancing rain, joyous pounding torrential wall-of-water rain...

From the train station, to the festival grounds, down the ridges and slopes, to the shores of the old dead lake, vast, towering columns of pregnant cloud burst open. From the Heart of the Desert, the old dry heart of the once-shining lake, to the mountains at the far end of the valley, the rain fell, a thousand years of rain, like an ocean had lost its footing and fallen out of the world beyond the sky.

The song went on. Waterlogged, barely able to see each other through the plummeting curtains of cool clean pure water, Raindrops, Vinyl Scratch, Thunder Axe, and Lyra Heartstrings could not play or sing, simply looked at each other and laughed and kicked up their hooves and rolled in the mud--but the song went on, too big and true to stop just because nopony was playing it any more.

They splashed and played in the mud like foals, and when, a few minutes later, Dusty joined them, all he could do was splash and play and laugh with them. Across the valley in the festival grounds, everypony was doing the same. Cheesecake was dancing with Soundcheck, and Awesome Sauce with Carda Chorde, and all of them laughing splashing playing shouting as the song played on and the rain sheeted down.

Down deep in the valley Raindrops splashed in mud, and then in ankle-deep water, and then in knee-deep, and it was starting to be a little bit more difficult to splash--Lyra was shouting something over the rain. "What?" Raindrops shouted back, after a brief pause in which she tried to remember how to make words that weren't "rain."

"--ground!" Lyra was saying. "We're at the very bottom of the valley!"

Raindrops didn't understand for a moment, but then there was a crack of thunder and a flash of lightning, and she realized the old lake bed was rapidly filling. The five ponies immediately struck out for shore, the pegasi flying while the two unicorns and one earth pony half-ran, half-swam.

And the rain came down. It fell and fell, a thousand years of rain filling the lake and turning the dry, stony slopes of the valley to rich red mud. At the festival grounds, finally, one by one, ponies collapsed to the ground, exhausted and giggly and happy, smeared with mud and soaked to the bone. And slowly, as slow to end as it had been quick to start, the rain slackened. Jackelope Valley was still in one of the driest parts of Equestria, after all, and even a thousand years of rain could not last more than a few hours.

The curtains parted, pulled back, separated slowly into individual sprays, then drops, and at last, drop by drop by drop, the rain drizzled down to nothing. Three tired, bedraggled ponies pulled themselves ashore onto a large flat rock, washed mostly clean of the red mud by the rain. Two waterlogged pegasi sat waiting for them. All were tired; none minded.

Above them, the clouds began to come apart, rents and tatters forming as the last of their magic song dissipated. Shafts of golden sunlight descended through the holes in the clouds, illuminating round patches of lake a glowing, deep blue. Slowly, as the sun drifted down in the general direction of setting, the light spilled across the lake to the mountains on the far side.

"What is that?" asked Raindrops, her keen weather-pony eyes the first to see it.

"What's what?" asked Dusty.

"No, I see it," said Vinyl, standing.

Lyra came over to stand beside her. "Whatever it is, it's beautiful."

Everywhere the light touched, the dust-brown of the mountains seemed to dissolve into a chaos of rainbow colors, a kaleidoscope of reds, blues, yellows, and greens. It spread rapidly outward from initial colors, up to nearly the mountains' tops, and down to the edges of the lake itself, then sweeping around the valley.

"It's coming closer," Thunder Axe observed lazily. None of them felt any particular urgency to do anything about it.

From either side, the wave of color swept around the shores of the lake, converging on the five of them; then it was on them, and past them, sweeping up the slopes toward the festival.

"Flowers!" said Lyra delightedly.

And so they were. Ancient, countless seeds of flowers and grasses, lying in wait under the desert for a thousand years, erupting suddenly into shining life, roots twining through the wet mud, petals and leaves reaching for the sunlight filtering down through the rapidly parting clouds, rising to meet the widening expanses of bright blue afternoon sky.

Lyra flopped herself back down and just enjoyed the view for a while.

Eventually, Dusty was the first to break the companionate silence. "So, uh, whatever happened to the jackelope, anyway?"

Lyra sat up. "I'm... not really sure. Last I saw him was when Raindrops carried him up into the--" she gasped. "You didn't drop him, did you Raindrops!?"

"No, I didn't drop him," said Raindrops. She was trying to sound testy, but too tired, too happy, and in much too good a mood to really pull it off. "Once the spell broke, he... just sort of wasn't there anymore."

"So he's still out there somewhere?" asked Vinyl.

Raindrops considered this a long time. "I don't think so," she said finally. "I think... I don't think he made it. I don't think he ever really brought us together to save himself... it was to save the valley."

"Cheesecake won't like that much," said Dusty.

"That's Cheesecake's problem," Raindrops responded.

But, as it turned out, it wasn't. When they finally clambered back into the festival grounds that evening, Cheesecake was ecstatic. "I've sent word to all the papers!" she told them giddily. "The Miracle of the Jackelope! This is going to be a huge tourist spot--we're already getting people asking about tickets for next year's festival!

So they joined the gathering of ponies by the bonfire, and ate voraciously, and told their story ten thousand times. And then the next day Lyra played her sets, and the Daughters of Discord played there, and it was almost as if it had all never happened.

Except there were flowers everywhere, and red caked-on mud all over everything, and the valley was gentle slopes and rolling hills of bright green grass and flowers waving gently in the breeze, leading down to an azure lake, so really it was only the silly ponies at the festival who acted at all like it had never happened.

At least until the very end of the festival. The last attendees were gone, only musicians and techs and festival staff remaining around the bonfire, while the huge bright desert stars floated above them. The air smelled of rosemary and ever-so-faintly of water, and didn't make Raindrops itch at all.

"So this is it," said Lyra from next to her, looking up at the stars. "Tomorrow we all head back to Ponyville."

"Yeah," said Vinyl Scratch. "Back to real life, I guess."

Lyra laughed. "It's been pretty unusual, yeah. Is the festival always like this?"

"Not really, no."

"Didn't think so," said Lyra.

"Hey, you never told us," Raindrops said. "What happened with your music? Are you coming back as a performer next year?"

Vinyl shrugged. "Nah, I'm fired. Cheesecake said, even if it turned out for the best, she can't trust a tech who sabotages the performances like that. Guess I can kinda see her point."

"That's awful!" said Lyra.

Vinyl shrugged again. "No biggie. I wanted people to hear my music, and now I'm one-fourth of the band that played away the thousand-year-old curse of Jackelope Valley! You think I'll have any problem at all getting ponies to listen to my new experimental solo project?" She laughed.

"Might have a problem if they've heard it before," Lyra mumbled, but Vinyl thankfully didn't seem to hear her.

The three Ponyville ponies heard the distinctive hum of speaker-spells activating. They looked up to see that a circle of ponies had formed around a circle of cables and speakers and amplifiers, and in the middle of that circle the Daughters of Discord were setting up their instruments. "We, uh, have something new for you," Thunder Axe said into the mic. "It's a bit... different from our usual sound, and we wrote it during the festival, so we figured we'd save the first public performance for just the people who made this festival." She looked down at her guitar, stroked it with one hoof, then spread her wings and flapped into the air. "This is for a friend I didn't get to know for very long, and some other new friends I hope will keep in touch."

She played a brief chord, then waited while Awesome Sauce and Carda started playing, a simple, repetitive three-note rhythm on the bass made elusive by the delicate tones of the crystaphone playing tinkling hints of the song of the rain. Strings slowly rose as the volume built, and then the drums kicked in and Thunder Axe's guitar joined Awesome Sauce's bass in harmony, while the strings played a soaring, haunting rendition of the jackelope theme from the Ballad of Jackelope Valley.

The instruments fell quiet for a moment, and then there was a shiver of cymbals and Awesome Sauce returned to the simple, slow rhythm, while the strings played a new melody and Thunder Axe sang softly:

Life is in bloom
The rain washed away the desert's doom
Four voices sang as one
The curse has been undone
Because...

The strings died away, but then the drummer crashed out a beat on the cymbals and both guitars leapt in. Awesome Sauce sang out much more strongly while Thunder Axe carried the rhythm:

Life is in bloom
Let's sing it out now, beneath the moon
I said life is in bloom
The jackelope stopped the valley's doom
For us...

Thunder Axe echoed Awesome Sauce's last line ("for us, for us..."). Raindrops cheered along with the crowd, swept along with the energy of the song. Yeah, it was a different sound for them, less gloomy, less angry, taking the same techniques and using them to be energetic and happy. Maybe it wouldn't work as an everyday thing, but this once? Raindrops thought. Yeah, I think it works. Today's a good day for it.

Strings swelled, joining in on the melody as Awesome Sauce repeated the second verse.

Life is in bloom
Let's sing it out now, beneath the moon
I said life is in bloom
The jackelope stopped the valley's doom
For us...

The audience cheered while the Daughters of the Discord segued into the fanfare they used to end every show. Next to Raindrops, Lyra's voice carried above the cheering crowd as she bounced up and down shouting, "You rock, Carda! Whooo!"

Raindrops laughed. Note to self: Tomorrow I need to make a certain somepony listen to a certain somepony else's entire discography on the way home...

The sky was dark and starry and cloudless, just as it had been yesterday and the day before, but not the day before that.

The moonlight shivered on the placid silver waters of the lake. The young jackrabbit bent to drink. He did not remember as ponies remembered, or know things as ponies knew them. He could not count days or recite his knowledge to himself with an inner voice. His mind was not divided into voices chattering to one another or layers of thoughts and feelings; he was at once simpler and more unified.

Nonetheless, he knew in some sense that when he was small (he did not know that that was two years ago, or even how many seasons had passed) this lake, these nourishing grasses and tasty flowers, were not here, and no rabbits entered this valley. But an enticing smell of water and food had drifted over the hills, and he was one of a few rabbits adventurous or hungry and thirsty enough to follow.

He sat back, his thirst sated. Tiny brown paws rubbed at his forehead. It hurt. He was vaguely aware that his head hurt a lot lately, but did not have the capacity to connect it with the rainbow shimmers that sometimes danced across the water.

He froze, ears twitching back and forth, searching for the source of the faint, musical tone he had just heard. Tiny silvery nubs on his forehead shimmered with gentle iridescence.

He turned and bounded off into the night.

Author's Note

Since it was SO short, I decided to just include the epilogue in with the chapter, instead of making a separate chapter for, what, 200 words?

The song "Life Is In Bloom" is, obviously, a rewrite of the lyrics to "Love Is In Bloom." Yes, I took probably the single easiest song in the MLP canon to rewrite. If you look at the comments for Chapter 2, you'll see why--I'm AWFUL at writing song lyrics and needed a ton of help from readers on the little bit of "The Ballad of Jackelope Valley" that I included.

The YouTube video I embedded in the chapter is something I uploaded, but not something I created. I explain more fully in the description of the video, but basically it's a pair of excerpts from The L-Train's INCREDIBLE A Symphonic Tribute to "A Canterlot Wedding", which you should go and listen to, and then tell him how awesome it is. (He does all of "This Day Aria," and it is BETTER THAN THE SHOW'S VERSION.)

Anyway... that's it. End of my one big Lunaverse story. I hope you liked it! Thanks to everyone who read, and especially everyone who commented!

If you want more of my writing, you can find me at my blog, My Little Po-Mo. I post fiction (mostly original) on Fridays, Friendship Is Magic episode analyses on Sundays, Puella Magi Madoka Magica analysis on Wednesdays (thought that's going to be finished within a month or so), and random crap the rest of the days of the week.

I may also still do some things on FIMFiction! I have one more (short) Lunaverse story in me, and I have quite a few ideas for a what-if AU of my own...

One: Two Meetings and a Departure

The sky was clear and blue and cloudless, just as it had been yesterday and the day before and the day before that.

He did not remember as ponies remembered, or know things as ponies knew them. He could not count days or recite his knowledge to himself with an inner voice. His mind was not divided into voices chattering to one another or layers of thoughts and feelings; he was at once simpler and more unified.

But he was very very old and very very tired and it had been hot and dry and cloudless a very very long time, and in some sense he knew all these things. He knew that he was thirsty and he knew that he was tired.

He knew that soon he would die.

Raindrops stormed across the sunny sky and down to the ground, grumbling to herself the whole way. She slammed open the door to Berry Punch's shop and stomped over to the bar. "Cider. Hard," she said.

"It's only three in the afternoon!" objected Berry Punch. "Wouldn't you rather--"

"Cider. Hard," repeated Raindrops.

Berry Punch hastened to comply. Clearly, whatever was bothering Raindrops was worse than the usual.

Raindrops took a long pull of her cider, then sighed. "Snow," she said.

"What?" asked Berry Punch.

"Snow!" Raindrops growled. "Bucking snow! Straight out of the Everfree, and at this time of year. Do you have any idea what that would do to the crops? It's all wrong, and there's a ton of it, and where's our oh-so-responsible weather manager? Nowhere! And with half the team down with the feather flu, who does that leave to handle the entire storm? Just me and Thunderlane!"

"Sounds rough?" ventured Berry Punch.

Raindrops snorted. "Six hours of cloud-corraling in high winds, racing to get the clouds dispersed before the snow could fall on any of the fields? Yeah, I'd say it was a little rough! And then, when our fearless leader finally bothered to show up, you know what she said?"

"Uh... good job?"

Raindrops wickered bitterly. "She said she could've done it in half the time!" She thunked her head on the table. "This is officially the worst day ever, got it? If I so much as see another pony in a good mood, I'm going to go berserk!"

The door to the bar swung open and Lyra walked in, beaming from ear to ear. "This is the best day ever!" she announced.

My little pony, My little pony
Ahh ahh ahh ahhh...
My little pony
Friendship never meant that much to me
My little pony
But you're all here and now I can see
Stormy weather; Lots to share
A musical bond; With love and care
Teaching laughter; It's an easy feat,
And magic makes it all complete!
You have my little ponies
How'd I ever make so many true friends?

Lyra stared as an infuriated Raindrops hovered in front of her, nose-to-nose, the pegasus' wings beating slowly and menacingly.

"You may live, because you are my friend," said Raindrops. "But: Smile. Reason. Tell."

"Because I'm going to Jackelope Valley!" Lyra announced.

"Oh wow," said Berry Punch. "That's awesome!"

Raindrops blinked. "That... is that some kind of... thing with Bon-Bon?"

"What?" asked Lyra. "No, it's a festival! One of the biggest in Equestria! All the big names performed there early in their careers, Canter Culture, Sapphire Shores, the Trotting Stones, everypony! Even Octavia was there a couple years ago."

"Oh. A music thing." Raindrops returned to the bar and her cider. "Well, congrats."

"Aw, c'mon," said Lyra. "This is a big deal for me. Lime sodas for everypony!"

"I'll stick to cider," muttered Raindrops.

"At three in the afternoon? Are you Trixie in disguise?"

"Har-de-har," muttered Raindrops. "Look, I'm happy for you, I'm just having a lousy day..."

But Lyra was already reading her letter of invitation. "Look, it's got a list of other invited musicians--oh hey, Salt Lick is on here, Octavia's mentioned him a bunch of times. And, ooh, I've heard recordings of Ivory Tickle, his keyboarding is amazing... eh, Daughters of Discord, never been much for crystalcore--"

Raindrops snatched the letter from her hand. "Daughters of Discord? The Daughters of Discord? The ponies who did 'Spellfire' and 'Ice of the North'?"

"Uh... I guess so?"

"Tell me you get to bring guests," said Raindrops.

"Well, one--"

"Oh," said Raindrops. "So you picked Bon-Bon, of course..."

"Uh, actually," said Lyra, "Bon-Bon's got the Trottingham Chocolate Festival to get ready for, so..." So I was going to ask Cheerilee, but...

Berry muttered something darkly about making sure no Apples were in the contest, but Lyra ignored her. "I take it you're a Daughters of Discord fan?"

"You kidding? They're the best new crystalcore band in years! How could anypony not be a fan?"

Lyra glanced sideways a moment. "Well, um..." I don't think I've ever seen Raindrops this excited about something that isn't a rainstorm. I can't just leave her hanging... "Would you, uh, like to come?"

"YES!" shouted Raindrops. "I'll go pack now." She hugged Lyra, nearly crushing the lighter-framed unicorn, and rushed out of the bar.

As the door shut, Lyra weakly called after her, "Uh, we don't leave for two days..."

Lyra arrived at the train platform shortly after ten in the morning two days later. She'd meant to be a little earlier, but the particularly pleasant way in which Bon-Bon had woken her meant a bit of a delay. Specifically: Waffles and boysenberry syrup, some of which eventually found its way onto the waffles.

She trotted onto the Ponyville train platform, humming happily to herself. She found Raindrops already waiting for her. Lyra's own saddlebag contained her lyre, sheet music, snacks for the trip, a couple of books, and two or three outfits for performing in--more than enough for a two-week trip. Raindrops, on the other hand, seemed to have brought half of Ponyville with her, if the two bulging saddlebags hanging from her flanks were anything to go by.

"Funny, you always struck me as a light packer," said Lyra.

"Eh, I don't travel much, but normally, yeah," answered Raindrops.

"So, uh..." Lyra gestured at the saddlebags with her horn.

Raindrops actually blushed slightly, to Lyra's surprise. "Uh... I was hoping to get some autographs, so I brought my autograph book... and all three of DoD's albums... and all four singles... and my complete set of band member shot glasses... and all six posters... and both tour t-shirts... and..."

"Okay, I get the idea," said Lyra. "I haven't seen you this excited since that one rainstorm last--"

"We agreed to never speak of that day again," Raindrops growled.

"I know," Lyra said. "I was just--"

"Neeevvveeeerrrr..." Raindrops glared.

Lyra laughed weakly. Oh, this trip is going to be loads of fun. Why didn't I ask Cheerilee again? She sighed. Because Raindrops is your friend and you've never spent time alone with her, and she really wanted it, is why.

As the candy-colored train chugged into view, an irregular clatter of hoofbeats sounded and a floating mass of speakers and turntables hove into view, suspended in the glow of unicorn levitation. "Look out!" cried a voice as a subwoofer slipped out of the mass and plummeted to the ground. Lyra's horn flared, and with a grunt of effort she managed to catch the speaker just before it hit the ground.

"Sorry, sorry," muttered a sunglass-clad white pony. She settled the other equipment on the platform and shook out her wild, electric-and-dark-blue mane. "Just in time, huh?"

Lyra repressed an urge to roll her eyes. "Vinyl Scratch? Are you taking the train, too?"

"Sh'yeah," said the unicorn. "And it's DJ Pon3 when I'm working, L."

"Uh... huh..." Lyra glanced at Raindrops. Did you know about this? she mouthed.

Raindrops shook her head.

"You, uh, weren't on the list," said Lyra.

"Ah, that? Nah, I go as a techie. Set up speakers, keep 'em running with the ol' horn magic, that sorta stuff."

"Oh," said Lyra. "I guess that makes sense."

"So we're all on the same train, huh? Sweeet. Let's get this party started!"

"Uh... sure. Need any help getting loaded on the train?" Lyra asked, against her better judgment.

"Yeah, thanks," Vinyl Scratch answered, of course.

When the speakers and mixing table and other equipment Lyra didn't even recognize were all finally loaded, and the trio of ponies safely ensconced in their sleeper car aboard the 10:43 overnight to Dodge Junction, Vinyl Scratch thanked Lyra. "It's your first year, right?"

Lyra nodded, looking around the small compartment that would be their home for the next twenty-two hours. It wasn't much: three bunks, one on each of the walls that wasn't a door to the hallway, a space for their bags under each bunk, and a card table bolted to the floor in the middle of the room. "Octavia's not going now that she's got a royal appointment, and she recommended me to take her place."

"Sweet. Connections are awesome in this business." Vinyl sprawled across one of the bunks. "It's my third. Too bad the turnout's so low this year."

"What do you mean?" asked Raindrops, still engaged in trying to force her second bag into the space under her bunk.

"Well, there were almost twice as many acts last year. Not a lot of ponies signed up this time around, because--"

"Maybe," Lyra said thoughtfully, "we should wait until after midday to talk about it?" Outside the windows, the Ponyville train platform began to slide toward the back of the train as its engine started chugging.

"Talk about what?" Raindrops insisted.

Vinyl Scratch grinned. "You mean you agreed to come without anypony telling you about it?"

"Seriously," said Lyra, "I really think we should leave it for a couple of hours--"

"And I think I should know about it," Raindrops said. "Especially if it's a reason not to go."

"Fine!" said Lyra. "It's because of Corona's curse."