Magicka Lager

Event Horizon could walk away from the door. It was all she had to do, really. Just walk away from the door and it could be over. Go back to the little cave in the woods and crawl back through the fluorescent tunnel, back to manufacturing the food that they needed so much. Just turn around and start trotting away from the tree, and breathe in the brisk autumn air one more time before going back and staying there. Go out and learn something. She could go out and be adventurous for two days, instead of walking inside and staying shut in the library. She didn’t have to be Twilight Sparkle anymore. She didn’t have to live under the stress of being a pupil to the Princess, saving the world every six months. No more stress. Just staying with Jared and Elijah and Samuel and Emily and being part of a family that works and plays like a family and doesn’t save the world every time math is done at a family reunion. She could walk away now and have something similar to a normal job, a normal life as Victoria Nox. Besides, she didn’t look like Twilight Sparkle anymore. Her mane and tail had changed drastically, with grey hair coming in stripes all throughout. The single, distinctive pink line was gone, fading away to a grey that was lighter than the rest. Her bangs were gone, burned off during the second month of experimentation, and she habitually tied her mane back into a second tail behind her head. She never had a chance to look, but apparently her eyes were different from before. She looked like a different pony, acted like a completely pony, sounded like a different pony, even her lingering scent changed from the smell of paper and fresh ink to the harsh undertones of raw magic and burning hair. The only things she could think of that were the same about her was her overall personality, her intellect, and the cutie marks on her flanks. Just walking away had a pretty good argument. But her friends still needed her. There was so much that she still was needed for, and she would be mourned heavily. She couldn't bear the thought of so much pain in the family and friends that raised and cherished her.

Event Horizon could walk through the door and drop the disguise.  She could show Spike that she wasn’t dead, just captured by the changelings and forced into working for them. She could bring news that the changelings weren’t a threat anymore and that they don’t need anything else. She could be back with her friends, and could work out a way to survive on her new ‘diet’, or even make it so that she could eat real food again. Back home again, living in her tree with her family and friends. Hanging out and having the life she had for the past two or three years. Saving the world, being a hero and being a friend to the mares who were with her forever, it seemed. She could be Twilight Sparkle again. She could be the protégé of the greatest pony on Equestria. She could be part of a group that liked and accepted the nerdy shut-in that lived in the giant tree. She could open that door and feel restored, whole again. Opening the door had arguments that were rooted into her from experience. Besides, the changelings didn’t need her anymore. Nopony would miss her. Well, almost nopony. She had friends in the Hive, however few, and Samuel would almost certainly miss his mentor and ersatz mom. Also, her new ‘diet’ would have to be accommodated. She was a freak, and it made her uncomfortable. She didn't want to be any more different than she already was before all of this started. And it seemed Chrysalis was determined to keep her in the hive, keep her working, until

She wanted more than either of these two options, just to go back in time and reject Emily's offer. It was so stupid! She couldn't even resolve an identity crisis that would change her world forever! Twilight Sparkle, Victoria Nox, whoever she was, would be able to solve this, but not her. She wasn't either right then, just sitting on the knife's edge trying to choose which side to fall off from. And she knew with certainty that if she couldn't choose, if she stayed on that knife's edge, that she would end up dead, cut in half by the razor she was perched upon. It was almost as if she could feel the blade cutting slowly into her soul, and she would be dead to both worlds. Of course, that was an option as well. Simply vanishing like a wraith, a phantom. Becoming nothing. But that left too many abandoned friends, too many ponies asking, ‘where did she go?’. She knew that a choice one way or another was coming, and it would have to be made within… forty-eight hours. It looked impossible. All she wanted was to be normal again, even after the months she was in the hive. She wasn't normal in Ponyville, she wasn't normal in the Hive. She couldn't figure this out on her own. She needed somepony to talk to. She calmed down, especially now that she remembered who she could confide in. A smile finally formed on her face.

Princess Celestia.

Twenty two hours later, in Canterlot

"Day court is now in session!" A guard announced to the crowd of ponies waiting to petition their ruler. "Let the first petitioner step forward!"

A young mare came up to the dias, and began her speech about the one mining towns having too much rain, and that they could use the storm clouds elsewhere. According to the mare, there have been mudslides in the mines. Princess Celestia nodded, smiling at the young mare. "We can certainly use the rain elsewhere. Thank you, and I will have the local weather team redirect the storms, I don't need anything going wrong down there." Celestia giggled in her head at the young mare's sheepish face as she backed out of the throne room. The only physical sign of her mirth was a slight smirk. "Bring the next."

The next petitioner was young stallion with a tinfoil hat on his head and what looked like a radio strapped to his horn. He was holding a petition in his magic with exactly three signatures on it, the same ones that were always on every petition he came forward with. He opened his mouth; about to begin his long, complicated speech that he always started every other Sunday about the ‘aliens’.

“No.”

The stallion slouched and walked out.

The rest of the petitions in the next hour seemed to be completely made of nobles squabbling for land. She thought that at least one of them came in twice, the second time wearing a fake beard. The Princess settled in for the next petitioner after the ashamed young lord she had just shot down from a power grab sulked away from the throne.

The grey and orange unicorn mare that came in next looked extremely worried and haggard, ready to drop. Celestia looked at her hunched form and told the lone guard in the room to fetch a glass of water for the poor mare. She looked exhausted. "What is wrong, my little pony?"

The mare looked around. "Are we alone?"

The princess nodded. "What do you need?"

"Lock the doors. No one can see me but you. Please." The mare was looking around with her eyes, like she was nervous. She put her saddlebags down on the marble.

"You are safe here. What is wrong?"

"You sure?" She took something from one of her saddlebags: a bottle full of what looked like light blue-and-orange pills. She swallowed one and proceeded to collapse to the floor.

The Princess shot to her hooves with concern. What happened?

"I'm fine, Princess, but we needed to be alone, without the guard."

The mare slowly and shakily began to rise to her hooves, but quickly regained her composure. She looked much better, standing up straight with a confident, almost cocky look in her eyes. She turned to Celestia and let her horn fire up. The magic was a violent shade of emerald green, and it looked out of place for a mare that was orange and gunmetal like she was. But then, she started to burn. Her entire body was enveloped in a green fire that looked all too familiar.

Changeling.

Celestia backed up quickly and began gathering the sunlight in the room. Her horn began glowing as it rapidly started taking energy from the individual photons of light, the total work being collected by a thin magical membrane that coated her horn. The changeling would be blown to pieces before it could do anything more than transform.

A voice came out of the burning, and the shape began to show itself again.

"Wait, Princess! It's me!" An accent she didn't recognize, but sounded almost familiar, came up from the flames. She stayed her attack long enough to see who she might recognize.

Princess Celestia stared at the form emerging from the burning husk on the ground. The straight blue mane came out of the fire, followed by the rest of Twilight Sparkle. She shook to get the burning glamour off of her back. She looked different, her mane cut and tied behind her, and her bangs were gone. There was a grey stripe in her mane and her tail that seemed to have replaced her pink one, as well as several other darker grey streaks, and her eyes were off color, but it was still her. Definitely.

"Twilight Sparkle." It was not a question, but a statement. She started flinging possibilities through her mind, but they all read like bad fiction, every one of them. Capture, betrayal, spying, discovery, accidents, all of them seemed unlikely.

"At your service." Her accent was throaty, but still sounded something like Twilight's normal voice.

"You're not dead." She struggled to keep her voice neutral, but her heart was sinking. Her first thoughts were about Twilight. She wasn't dead! It was great! But her transformation, the type of glamour she was using, that was a changeling technique. She was almost afraid to ask. "How did you obtain that disguise?"

"I didn't choose it. Jared liked it, not me." What? She let Twilight go on. "I can only use it once, though."

"Why?"

"Because the stupid membranes in the disguise room take like all night, and it is not comfortable sleeping suspended in magic jelly. Of course, it did get rid of some wrinkles I've been getting. Worry lines do not look good on me."

"...Huh?" Twilight was smiling mischievously now.

"Oh, sorry, Princess." She looked like she was on the brink of laughter. "I forgot. I've been away, haven't I?"

Celestia put on a stern face. "Yes you have. Could you please tell me what's going on?"

"Sure, sure. But I'm starving. Could we sit down? It will be easier to talk about sitting down." Twilight was getting very odd very fast. "Let's go."

Princess Celestia turned to the guard, who just came back with the water. "It's time for lunch. Day court will resume at two." Her voice was shaking slightly.

"Yes, Princess." The guard made to go outside and announce it with the glass of water in his magical grip, while she went and followed Twilight to the dining hall. Twilight was already inside, looking up at the bright red and yellow tapestry, waiting for her. The noon meal was sitting on the arranged plates as well.

"Thank you," she told the chef as she made her way to the table. Twilight was being brought a salad as the Princess sat and looked down at the food before her. She began eating slowly; she was still trying to figure out how to begin the conversation that loomed in front of her, and noticed that Twilight was looking almost warily at her salad. Twilight slowly picked up her fork with her hoof, not magic, stabbed a tomato almost violently with it, and put it in her mouth, her eyes closed, her mouth a tight line of apprehension. She chewed, swallowed and waited, then visibly relaxed. Her eyes opened.

"Good. I didn't-" Her sentence was cut off by the tomato coming up again, along with a small amount of bile, all over her salad. She retched again, wiping her mouth and quickly pulling out what appeared to be a whiskey flask from her bag and taking a drink. "Shit. It came up. Oh, well. Had to try." It sounded like she was talking to herself.

"Uh... what was that, Twilight Sparkle?"

But Twilight wasn't paying attention anymore. She was rummaging through her bags and pulling out several brown bars that looked almost like taffy, a green stick, and another whiskey flask. She bit on the green stick, and it snapped like it was made of hard candy. She chewed on the... whatever it was for about ten seconds before proceeding to put the stick away and swallowing. She was halfway done shuddering and gnawing her way through one of the brown bricks of taffy before she looked up again. "...."

"What are you eating?" Celestia felt her patience falter slightly.

"Lunch." Twilight said it almost brightly.

"What is it, Twilight Sparkle?" Twilight's cocky mood and strange form of secrecy was becoming infuriating.

"Oh, story time!" Twilight sounded strange. Again. "Well... let's start at the beginning. A mare named... oh! What was her name at the time...? Right. Doesn't matter anymore. Well, this mare came to Golden Oaks about... say... three or four months ago. When she came in, she added spells to the privacy matrix on the tree, something that was supposed to force my silence. Well, it didn’t work, as you can tell. Then, she dropped her disguise and boom! There was a changeling sitting there in the middle of the library. She gave me this vial, see, and told me that her people were dying. Then, she told me to drink it then decide whether or not to help them in their time of need. I drank the liquid in the vial, 'in the name of science', yeah, right.... and proceeded to collapse on the floor. When I woke up, I went… crazy. Very crazy. I felt sick, and nauseous, and all these other things that felt almost exactly a hangover, but not quite. It was insane. I vomited all over Pinkie’s new recipe-“

“Wait.” Celestia stopped her there. “How do you know what a hangover feels like? I never knew you to be a drunkard, or even to drink wine or anything at the formal functions.”

“Huh? Oh yeah… forgot. I really thought that it would be an interesting experiment. It was not, thank you.”

“Oh. Continue.”...

“Well, then after I recovered, I went to the area specified in the woods, and I was brought into the hive.” She finished the sentence with a smile and a wave of one of her forelegs.

“The hive?” Celestia was getting even more confused. Did she mean changelings, or something else?

“Yes, they brought me to the underground hive of the changeling horde.” She was smiling, and it was really off-putting. Celestia wondered at the news, but decided to hear the entirety of the story before coming to any conclusions. “I was… given a name, in their hive, and put to work creating magical filters to create food. Quite exhaustive work, and dangerous. A boiling flask set my bangs on fire, so I cut them off. I had several explosions, three fires, five acid burn incidents, and at least one accidental creation of non-sentient life.”

“At least one?”

“Yeah, I wasn’t sure about the second time, if it was alive, or if it was one of those weird reactive solids that we got sometimes. Super-repellants and other things.”

“W-what?” This was getting out of hoof. Twilight was acting too... happy. It was almost creepy, at this point, but Celestia wanted to hear the rest. She shook her head. “Continue.”

“Right. Uh, before that, I got Wiz. I almost forgot about Wiz.” That was when a sentient pair of insect wings somehow got into the throne room. They landed on Twilight’s back and fluttered lightly. Twilight suddenly looked annoyed and looked behind her. The wings then detached themselves from her back and landed on the saddlebag on the table. “Yeah. That was Wiz, my flit. He helps me get around places in the hive. After getting Wiz, I, uh, continued with my research with Samuel.”

“Who’s Samuel?” And what in Equestria is that?

“A unicorn colt living with me and the rest of the Nox bunch. Samuel is a little genius, and I’ve been teaching him alchemy and magic theory. Jared and Elijah, the others I’ve been living with, have also helped occasionally, but it was mainly Samuel and I making the weaves. It took most of my time away to perfect the weave, but it was a final solution, thank goodness. Apparently the filters work like a catch-all. As long as it is complicated enough, the correct layers are in place, the weave works on every single emotion. Love is really, really complex, and it took almost twenty-five different weaves to finish the filter, but it works on all the available emotions on the planet. So after I finished the weave, I was 'rewarded', let's say, with a weekend pass up top, and now I’m here. But I am slated to get back tonight, so that I can go back to work in the morning.”

“Incredible. How long did you say it took?”

“Most of three or four months. Why?”

“You aren’t even emancipated or anything. What have you been eating? Did the changelings ever bring you food?”

“No need. I ate what they ate. See?” She held out a hoof with one of the bars of taffy on it, and started listing  off what she held in her hooves. “This is palatability. It tastes fine, but not exactly like anything.  So, I added a little bit of kindness in there, and it tastes sweet. This,” she said, pulling out the bottle of pills, “was a blend of confidence and arrogance, concentrated with other calming and jolly emotional blends. It helps you perk up and is good for social situations, as you can see.” Finally, she presented the green stick and the whiskey flask. “This bar here,” she said, waving it in the air, “is calm that has been caramelized and hardened. It settles my stomach some, after I vomit or do something stupid.” She took a drag from her flask again, and then held it up in one hoof. “And finally, the greatest achievement in the Hive for the past two years: distilled and magically fermented love.”

Princess Celestia finally was caught off guard, and saw Twilight’s smirk as she blanched.

“Surprised? I thought so. The changelings have enough of the raw stuff that they could swim in it. But, raw emotion always has side effects, in the case of love, insanity and suicidal tendencies, as well as being violently explosive. So, that’s why they needed me. And now, I eat and drink emotion, just like them.” She took another drag and frowned. Twilight then pulled out what looked like a liquor bottle out of her satchel. The glass was clear and etched with what appeared to be a magical interlace with several layers in the bottle, and the liquid inside was a violent pink. She filled her flask again, drank deeply, then put all of her ‘food’ away, except for the flask. “But now, I can’t eat anything besides the emotions. I vomit anything else. However, I’m not really distressed about anything, it seems to you. ‘Why is she not crying or begging for help, I wonder?’ That’s what you’re thinking, right?”

…right…

“That is because I just ate. I’m currently feeling the effects of all the emotion I just consumed. And no matter how I want to feel, I can’t. I’m going to be in a permanent positive mood for about two hours, and then I will probably go back to being a senseless, nervous wreck with a split personality disorder, unless I keep drinking until my mind reaches a consensus. But for now, I’m here, and mostly sane.”

“This… what in Equestria?” This was borderline fiction! Twilight Sparkle completely different, but still the same as she always was. Like there was another pony that looked exactly like Twilight Sparkle she knew, sitting and talking with the Princess. She wanted it to be true, with a near desperation. But the (secret) magic scans and the conversation was completely Twilight Sparkle, it could be nopony other than Twilight Sparkle. There were only a few curiosities that still wanted answering before she left the table.

“What did they call you in the hive?”

“Oh yeah. They called me Victoria. Supposedly, it meant triumph. My full name, Victoria Nox, is in a language called Latin that roughly translates as Victorious Night, or Night of Triumph. Take your pick. I also think that there may be some sort of inside joke going around. Something about cheese?”

Celestia blinked. “And Wiz? Can you explain about him?”

“Wiz is a flit, a pair of wings that is sentient, and forms semi-empathic links with its host. Wiz on his own is a bit cocky, but he’s funny and more importantly, he’s powerful. I found that out only recently. Flits feed on magic, but apparently if I keep eating, then neither he nor I are going to die from malnutrition anytime soon. Wiz was called Wiz, which is short for Wizard, by the way, because he always needed more magic than the rest, and so had a preference for unicorns or changelings with a high mana capacity.” Twilight was still cheery and happy, even after explaining things that should have horrified her every step of the way.

“So he’s a parasite?”

“He doesn’t like that word, actually. He prefers being called a symbiotic organism.”

“Right… right.” Celestia winced at the migraine starting to boil behind her eyes. “I… I need to go think about this. May I ask you to leave me alone for the Day court session? Go home. Visit the girls and Spike. While you can.”

“Oh… sure, Princess!” Twilight smiled as she collected her saddlebags and Wiz clamped to her back. She was starting to leave, when Celestia stopped her.

“Oh, one more thing, Twilight?”

“Huh? Yes, Princess?”

“Why do you hold things with your hooves now?”

Twilight furrowed her brow in thought. “Huh. I never thought about that. I just do now, I guess.”

“I see. Goodbye, Twilight.”

“Bye, Princess! See you later, maybe.” Twilight gave a wave and proceeded to teleport out of the room.

In Ponyville

Rainbow Dash was flying overhead, cloud in tow behind her. She would be pushing the cloud, but the last time she tried to push a cloud the size of the one she was hauling now, she collided into a spire of Mayor Mare's office. So now, she was pulling a cloud using a harness over from the station to help clear the sky for the upcoming stretch of sun that was scheduled for the whole of the week. She wasn't sure why she was working on a Sunday at four thirty in the afternoon, or why for the past two months she really made some bits on the overtimes she had been pulling and the subbing she took for Cloudkicker. Rainbow Dash threw herself into her work. But however fast and awesomely she did it, or how slowly, it was distracting, and she really needed something to distract her from... recent events. She needed to be drop-dead tired when she was done with work. If she wasn't, then it gave her too much time to think.

"Right. Three more, then I can call it a day for this area. Then, dinner and back to work."

She was pulling along the cloud to a large bank that was headed for a long haul to Canterlot. Luckily, she had some help in the form of Cloudchaser and Sunny, the new recruit, to help her make the drop-off to the Canterlot weather patrol. She puffed the cloud and stuck it with the rest of the batch, then turned around for the next one.

The train was coming in to the station as Rainbow Dash grabbed the next cloud. The whistle was loud, but she ignored it in favor of grabbing the cloud floating above the coal deposit. She gathered it together and tethered it to the magical harness that Rarity outfitted for her, and began dragging it away. It was a large cloud, and the drag from the harness forced her to slow down considerably. She took a look down at the crowd of ponies flooding out from the cars on the train, then looked away to continue her tow... wait.

She looked back at the flood of ponies now in the open air pavilion. One pony popped out at her, the color of midnight and lavender, and a hood on her head. She flew down to get a closer look, and saw that there was a horn on the pony's forehead.

"Twi...?"

But then the pony turned and looked directly at her. How she knew that Rainbow was up there was anypony’s guess. Her eyes weren't the recognizable shade of purple, but almost a grey-blue color. There was a grey streak in her mane, and she didn't have bangs like Twilight did. Rainbow could only barely make out her mane from under the hood. Her cutie mark was covered by the saddlebags she was wearing, but she did have a liquor flask strapped to her hind leg. It wasn't her.

Rainbow Dash dragged the cloud away from the station, fighting tears and memories and the drag from the cloud the whole way.

In Town Square

Applejack was sitting behind the stall, patiently waiting for either a customer or closing time at five. She was looking around lazily at the ponies in the square, the last few before the market closed. She could see the other produce vendors sitting at the same level of boredom. There were a few ponies passing through, of course, and all of them were familiar. Rarity had just stopped by to say hello, and to pick up some apples for herself and Sweetie, as well as some fabrics that came in from the mail service from Canterlot. According to Rarity, they were precious, and didn't want to see them damaged. She showed them to Applejack, and they were beautiful, but they were all in dark blues and black. It seemed different for Rarity. Carrot Top was sitting by the stall, and the crowd of foals out playing before dinner was making a small racket on the other side of the square. There was only one pony that Applejack didn't recognize, a lavender mare quietly walking through the town square. She had a hood on, as well as a wide set of saddlebags, so Applejack couldn't tell if she was a unicorn, a pegasus, or an Earth Pony. But she looked familiar, somehow. Her tail was a strange mix of dark blue and a light grey, like Granny's aging mane. The next thing she noticed was the strap on the mare's far side hind leg. Applejack couldn't see exactly what was attached, but from the look of the strap, it was probably some sort of holder, possibly for a piece of medical equipment. She looked carefully at the figure as it walked past her stall, trying to remember if she met anypony that looked like that. She racked her brain, trying to remember...

"Twi..." she muttered. “She looks like Twilight."

But the pony paid her no attention as she made her way to one of the stores on the main street: the glassblower, Crystal Clear. As she turned, Applejack caught a glimpse of what was strapped to her leg: a classic metal liquor flask. The stranger gone, Applejack went back to being bored, patiently waiting for either a customer or closing time at five.

On Main Street

After emptying the trash cans, Pinkie Pie made her way to the side of the shop, empty bins in tow. She dragged the bins back to the front of the store, placing them behind one of the many decorative fixtures that dotted Sugarcube Corner. She was walking back inside the store, getting ready to start icing a batch of cake tiers for a wedding party, when she felt the shudder and twitch that hallmarked her Pinkie Sense come in a way she had never felt before, and caught a glimpse in the door glass of a reflection behind her, coming out of the glassblower's shop.  A hooded pony wearing dark brown saddlebags and a blue hood was carrying something in her magical grip. Pinkie, being bored at the time, turned to look at what the unicorn was carrying, and discovered it to be a glass bottle. It looked almost like a perfume bottle, rectangular in shape with an ornately shaped bulb that served as a cap, crisscrossed with thin lines. Pinkie noticed that the lines were being scratched into the glass by the unicorn, and they were glowing in pretty colors. The unicorn, luckily, wasn't paying attention to Pinkie rubbernecking at the spectacle, but was busy performing magic on the bottle. When she finally stopped messing with the bottle, she opened the lid and pulled an ugly, raw looking cider from her bag, then proceeded to fill the bottle. As the bottle filled, different colors flashed on the lines she scratched, seemingly being controlled by the unicorn. The contents of the bottle began to lighten, changing from an ugly brown to a light shade of wheat. When the color of the liquid was to the unicorn's apparent satisfaction, she put the bottle away. That was when she looked up and saw Pinkie Pie. Her blue-grey eyes seemed strangely determined as she turned away and walked down Main Street. Pinkie Pie walked back inside as she started thinking about the mare on the street. She started icing the bottom tier of the cake, looking out the window at the pony walking away, the strange magic bottle sticking out of her satchel.

In Carousel Boutique

Rarity was busy, very busy. She had just today gotten the fabrics required to finish the clothing line that had been commissioned for one Spark family, creating fashionable formal wear for the entire family. The silk was for the stallions' coats and the mares' outer trim on the dresses they would be wearing, and she sincerely hoped they would like the outfit design. The color scheme, they told her, was a midnight sky, and she did her best to keep it smooth and simple like the beauty of the inky darkness of the sky. The stallions had a jet-black blazer with a blue inner suit, along with a simple, blue and white bow tie to represent individual stars. The mares had a more complex but hopefully pleasing layered dress with each individual layer being made of either black or dark blue or purple cloth. The second layer was studded carefully with glowing yellow gemstones underneath the sheer outer layer, allowing them to be seen along with the other colors of the dresses. She was placing the gemstones on a tray to begin the process of getting them to glow, when the tinkle of bells announced a customer. The mare who walked in was wearing a hood, but Rarity could tell who it was immediately.

"Is that you, Miss Triumphant Star?" The name was awkward on her tongue, but the mare was foreign, based on her accent and clothing. She came in yesterday with an order of a single piece of cloth, about a meter long and twenty centimeters wide. It looked almost like some sort of head wrap to Rarity.

The mare looked up, smiling. "So you finished?" she asked in her deep accent.

"Yes, dear, I only received the last bit of cloth today, but I finished immediately. I really liked the design you gave me, and I made sure to make the stitching strong."

"Great." the mare smiled. She pulled bits from one of the outer pockets of the saddlebag she had with her, and placed them on the counter. Rarity, in turn, handed the black and green wrap of cloth to the mare. The pony looked over the flow of the cloth carefully, then said "Thank you, Miss Rarity."

Rarity nodded, smiling. "By the way, Miss Night, what do you want with such a small piece of cloth?"

"I will be using it in a... display in my homestead."

"Really, now? How nice." Rarity smiled at the thought. "I hope it is to your satisfaction. Please, come again!"

The bell tinkled as the unicorn left the Carousel Boutique, waving with a fore hoof without looking back.

In Golden Oaks Library

Spike was sitting on the ground floor couch, reading a book. He was still depressed, but he had a job to do, and he needed to be ready for when somepony came in looking for a book. He was beginning to nod off when a pony entered the library. He jolted up and looked at the pony, her saddlebags heavy and a hood on. She barely glanced at the shelves before pulling three tomes off of the lower shelves with a hoof, flicking through each of them quickly, and then placing them on the stand near her. She sighed, and began speaking in a near guttural, but scarily familiar accent.

"Still nothing..."

She walked dejectedly out of the library. Spike, still confused, went to check what books she pulled.

"Changeling Sciences and Magic, Third edition, Magic Theory for the Advanced Unicorn, and Affluent Members of the Prohibition Movement of 973?" Spike couldn't see how the books were connected. Maybe the mare could tell him what she was looking for. He went to the door and pulled it open, but the mare was gone.

At the edge of the Everfree

Fluttershy was feeding her animals their dinner. They needed to eat several times a day, and some only ate at night. So, she fed the animals a total of seven times on a cycle every twenty-four hours. It was relatively easy for her, because it was hard to sleep for more than three hours at a time, lately. She was on that cycle now, feeding Barry and the fish, as well as some of the birds that were ready to sleep. She was busy trying to get Woody Woodpecker to eat, when she saw a shape moving through her living room from her window. Being Fluttershy, she approached with borderline extreme caution, and carefully opened the front door to her cottage.

“H-hello?” No response.

Sitting on the table was a stout liquor bottle with a beautiful pattern etched into the face and sides, filled partly with honey-colored liquor. The bottom was wrapped carefully in a shining piece of black and green cloth, and surrounded with several crystal glasses. There was a note on a small piece of stationery in a loopy script.

Drown your sorrows ~T.S.

She looked around the back door and saw a pony walking calmly away into the forest.

At Wolf Rock

Victoria sat on top of Wolf Rock, waiting for Jared and Samuel to arrive. She sat, staring up at the setting sun, wondering if she made the right choice. Celestia's reaction confirmed her immediate decision in favor of her current lifestyle. But she still couldn't leave her friends behind. She thought back to the trail of breadcrumbs that she left for the girls, the sightings of the mysterious unicorn. If they went to Celestia, then they would know everything. If they followed the crumbs themselves, then maybe they could find her. But for now, this was her choice.

She made another decision, waiting on the rock: she wanted to look as close as possible to Twilight as she could. So, she started weaving magic and began dying her mane and tail. Her tail was easy, quickly returning to the dark purple it once was, and for the most part her mane was relatively simple as well. But the single stripe of pink seemed forever lost to her, remaining that shy light grey, no matter what she tried with the means of magic dye. So, after about twenty minutes of fussing, she let it go. She would settle for that. There was nothing to do about getting her bangs back but to wait, and her eyes were unchangeable without the risk of damaging the receptors in her irises. She didn’t want to go blind. Otherwise, she looked almost like Twilight Sparkle again, after letting her mane free. Almost, but not quite.

She knew that she would always be almost Twilight Sparkle, but not quite. Not Quite Twilight took her flask and made a toast to the descending sun.