Villains

Chapters

1/ The Brothers Flim-Flam: Shysters
2/ The Great and Powerful Trixie: Fraud
3/ The Shadowbolts: Demons
4/ The Diamond Dogs: Mutts
5/ Ahuitzotl: Nemesis
6/ Iron Will: Monster
8/ Gilda - Jerk
7/ Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon: Bullies

1/ The Brothers Flim-Flam: Shysters

SHYSTERS

The Brothers Flim-Flam

“Step right up!” a colt beseeched. He was tender-voiced, and slim with a round face. His eyes were pinched by his smiling cheeks as he spoke. “I present to you a high quality, pristinely engineered opportunity, comrades. Remarkably, the very best deal you’ll find this side of the Great Ghastly Gorge! No fooling!”

“It’s true!” said his brother. “Dually true! You have not one but two young bucks to give witness! How could you pass up?”

Ponies cantered and cavorted by, craning their snouts in the air, wrapping themselves up against a steely wind purring up their backs. Mountain air, tinged with the scent of stratosphere, kept the blood from draining from their upturned heads. A particular remove, distinguishing the enthusiasm of these colts and their wooden booth.

These two little colts on the side of the road should’ve been in school. It hadn’t been too long ago that they’re cutie marks appeared, but already they were tremendously far from home. And, any adult supervision.

Flam bent over the booth‘s pouting wood, pushing his ribs into it as he reached out to the passers-by. “You'll never find an opportunity so ready for the reaping! I promise!”

Not a single stir or twitch in their direction. Dead ears.

Flam stumbled his charm, darting a look his brother’s way. The back of Flim’s head received it as the enthusiastic salesman tried a new strategy. "How about a sample?” He clapped his hooves together, “A demonstration!"

The colt bound from his brother’s side, taking to the street. He floundered in a breath before shelling the ponies of Canterlot with speech. “Good ma’ams! Good dams! Good, fair sirs and sires of all prestige! Lend an ear for a chance - yes, chums, a chance - of enormous rarity! Of rare enormity!”

“Poppycock,” a stallion groused in passing.

“Flim-Flam, actually.” He beamed. The stallion trod off with a contemptuous lip buzz. Flim gambolled after him. “You see, sir, if I could but reinvest your attention in my brother’s and my invention, you could be the judge of its mavelosity yourself.”

The large stallion folded down his chin with some exasperation. “Then, what would this precarious curio happen to be?”

Flim hopped out in front of his path, straightening his posture and ears, and put on his most winning smile. “An apple cider grinder, of course!”

“Apples?” he recoiled. “I’m direly allergic. You could’ve murdered me, you tiny ninny.”

“Oh,” Flim remarked.

The stallion walked off with a harrumph.

Flim bounded around. “Surely!” he said. “There must be somepony intuitive enough to uptake the shot of a lifetime.”

Flam chimed in, “You! Um, wait no, stop- uh ... S- Sir! Si- ... Madame! Missus! ... Eh, Miss? Sir! Sir!” Finally, a stop, and Flam sighed, “Oh thanks, I- Argh!”

The pony walloped Flam in the head with a purse. "I'm a mare!"

Flim valiantly smiled whilst Flam rubbed his buckle-stained forehead.

Flim chuckled sprucely, "Why, of course, my sweet petunia. Alas- I must apologize- my brother is, uh," his face scrunched, brilliance struck, and then a savvy smile came out. "he's come down with a case of the googlies." he explained delicately, a hoof up blocking the noise from the flummoxed-looking Flam. "Can't well see having that in your eyes, can you?"

She took a breath. "Can you?"

"Sweet salamanders, no! Madame,” he told her gravely. “as a gentlecolt I implore your gracious forgiveness, and Flim Flam policy in such a situation calls for a freebie. On the hou-" a hoof plugged his yap hole.

"What my confuzzled brother meant is a discount, fair siren."

"Dear me …” she put a hoof to her neck. “A discount on what?"

Flim and Flam grinned coyly to one and other, and told her, "Why, the Flim-Flam Brothers Super Speedy Cider Squeezy Seven! No other!"

Now they'd attracted a few hangers-on.

A gangly voiced colt and his filly companion looked on in bemusement. They looked only a few years older than the brothers. The colt with a coat the colour of icicles looked on “What is that?”

The brothers Flim Flam gaped at him. Flam ran up. “You don’t know?”

“Well, uh,” his voice bubbled, with a pre-pubescent range.

Flim rushed to put a hoof around his neck. “You better keep up with the times, boy-o, the world’s a-changing and we’re a part of the tide. If you fall behind, you are left behind, and behind‘s a lonely place.”

Flam smirked handsomely to the filly friend and put a little extra sparkle in his eye. “I take it you’re more of a go-getter than your pal? More progressive, should we say?”

The pink filly giggled. She squirmed in a graceful way, her red-as-lipstick bob cut swishing around her nice smile. “The fairer sex always is.”

He pecked her hoof and winked at her from under his bowler hat. “I couldn’t consent heartier, daffodil.” Smoothly, he popped up, gesturing her towards the booth. “If you’d do the honours …”

“What?” her coltfriend blundered, bottom jaw jutting out and eyes full. “Poppy Petal, your dad's waiting.”

She winched and turned to the red-maned colt. “I’ll only be a minute, right?”

Flam brushed up against her and chuckled under his breath. “Shouldn’t take too long, at all.”

The coltfriend grimaced.

Flim zapped ahead of them. In a timely matter of moments, he assembled from beneath their wooden stand a bronze gismo of cog and spool.

“Of course, it doesn’t look like much,” he admitted to the gathering, “true opportunity never does. However, it’s that very innocuousness that heralds true fortune to those patient enough to see the brilliance. After all, when opportunity knocks, there’s no better answer than investment!”

Well, the ponies couldn’t argue with that. There was even a couple murmurs of agreement, and the assembly was rapidly growing.

“How, you may ask, is our product more superb, more splendorous than the next? Well, how smart of you for bringing it up, I see the ponies of Canterlot are much more in tune than those in the ditches of Manehatten.” He let himself smile at that one.

Chorally, the entire group gave their opinions on Manehattenites.

The shaggy haired colt put up a hoof and everypony quietened.

“I not only give you my word,” he knocked his hoof on the wood of the booth. “but allow for the unknowing consumer to give you her say. If she sees it as sublime as my brother and I, there cannot, logically, be any doubt to this miracle of ingenuity! Fair’s fair, Canterlot?”

They stomped their hooves in delight, laughing and squabbling over who saw these dynamos first. Flim grinned at Flam.

“Now,” Flam said to the filly. “If you wouldn’t mind using this apple to make some delicious cider?”

Poppy looked at it. “… How do I?”

Flim swung his head to the crowd empathetically. “Isn’t that always the trouble?”

“Not anymore!” his brother assured. “Haughty apple farmers would have you believe cider is a ‘seasonal beverage.’” He scrunched his tiny face in mock. “Humph. But, what if I told you that it was possible to make your own, year round?”

“Lunacy!” cried a dark mare.

“This is madness!” roared a stallion.

“This. Is. Reality! Not only does the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy Seven outmatch its predecessors, and its, ah, competition, heh, but each glass is guaranteed to satisfy, stupefy, maybe even change your life.”

“It’s possible.” Flim grinned, raising his shoulders.

“Plausibly possible!” Flam shouted, his enthusiasm getting the better of him as he elbowed the stack of cups behind him. They spilled to the ground.

He tittered, “Um, what an exciting offer, huh folks?”

He got his laugh from the crowd.

Flim grinned wide, slowly ducking down.

Expectantly, Flam turned on his volunteer. “Let the show go on, sunbeams.”

“How do I work this fantastic machine?” asked Poppy, laughing an odd, squeaky laugh.

He detailed the inner-workings of the mechanism. Being careful not to get too technical, for the tykes of course, he disclosed the bewitching, unconceivable, I-can’t-believable synchrony in play (sparing details like the duct tape and sparkle glue). He got a little wrapped up in it, but he turned back to Poppy with a thrilled smile. “All you have to do is put the apple in the slot.”

“Oh.” She picked up the stem in her teeth and motioned to the machine. “Jush thad simple?”

“Yep. Simple Simon,” he laughed. His cheeks stretched as he smiled.

Poppy Petal tossed the apple into the open-faced grinder, and sooner than she could blink, it was sucked away into machinery. She laughed delightedly to Flam, a hoof to her cheek.

Flam blinked, and snickered with her. In an off moment, but for only one, their laughter felt private. A little like the privacy of a playmate, or a schoolyard crew of chums laying down aces and spades.

An exceptionally off moment, but it gave him confidence.

He turned to beam at the rest of the crowd, and shooed the frog lumping his throat. “Ladies and gentlecolts! Young, old, and otherwise; witness with me the product of your affections, the attraction of your fever, witness cider.”

Baited, the audience leaned and stretched, jabbering and tweeting like a nest. A chilled wind swept their legs. They could smell the tartness, the sweet apple flavour, their taste buds revved with daydreams prickling. Then, when they stood on the tips of their hooves, a steamy tendril of fluid fell from a nozzle to the plastic cup below. Instantly, nopony could take it.

“I’ll buy!” hollered a fluffy mare.

“No, I will! I’ll buy two!” a slim stallion erupted.

“Not if I buy them out first!”

Clamour ensued, obnoxious, beautiful clamour. Flam’s heart leapt, hidden slyly in a genial, boyish smile. A genuine smile. Ponies rumbled for his call. They wanted to buy him out. They wanted to give him their wallets and let him walk away, a free colt, no time-outs. They bayed for his whimsy, and applauded his showmareship. By golly, they loved him.

“Form a line, form a line, Canterlot!” he called with glee. “No need for panic.”

As the first straggler got through, the booth behind Flam flipped over – CRASH - making the customer jump back. The clamour turned to gasp, and then silence.

Where the booth had been, Flim sat in brown puddles, rubbing his horn to stop it from twanging. Nopony had noticed, but the cups he’d gone to retrieve were already stacked away. Spilled out around him, jugs of cider blubbered their contents, “Sweet Apple Acres” hugging the sides of each.

The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy Seven had overturned. And was hollow.

A colt in the back shouted out. “Elements alive!” Aghast, the crowd gawked at them, some in injure, some offence.

Flim gasped when he saw what was sloshing in his coat. “No! Please, I didn't mean to do that!”

A deeper rage snarled.

Flam‘s throat muscles clenched. "Folks! Folks, if you will we could- AH! Don’t! Canterlot, wait!"

A pony launched an apple at Flam’s head, so barely missing.

“They’re bamboozling us!” Poppy’s coltfriend was red across his dirt brown nose. “Those tricksters, they were faking the whole thing!”

This cavalry of clatter came from mouths, rising indignation. Slow broiling temperament, spite sprinkled down on them as fuel. They were forgetting their marvelling, they were metamorphosing into growling gruffing animals, a whole crowd barking at two colts.

Poppy’s eyes narrowed. “You were bamboozling me?”

“Well-” Flam switched his glance to Flim. “We- I-”

“Why would you even do something like that?” Her head shook a little. “That's low."

“Crooks!”

“Connivers!”

“Swindlers!”

“Cheats!”

Flim shouted at his brother, “Scram, Flam!”

The Flim-Flam brothers hit the ground running. They left behind their contraption and their wooden booth. They galloped, their shaggy hair bouncing, their bowties trembling in their collars. In their speed, the wind frosted their ears and numbed their snouts. The small patter of their hooves grew as they distanced themselves from the mob. One and other racing, they dashed in allies and openings they could squeeze into.

Flim lifted diamonds, shooing his brother to scramble through the loose fence. He thought he heard the shouts coming closer.

They barrelled down the main concourse, Canterlot Castle ahead of them. Rumbling carriages migrated to and past the path to the golden gates. Flam shot to a carriage heading to the spiral tunnels of the mountain, the great rocky yawn. Flim followed after.

As carefully as was possible, Flam climbed the wooden beam backing pulling Flim up after, even their little weight shocking the wheels. The carter, evidently, didn’t catch on, as he continued rolling.

“You don’t think they’ll find us, do you?” Flim coughed. He sniffed in the frigid air to cool down the burn behind his chest. He flicked his glance. “Flam?”

His brother was faced away. He made little gasps and whistles and sniffles as their hinds were brutally walloped against wood with every pebble in the road.

Their carriage came into the enormous cave and soon, Canterlot was shrinking away. It was behind them now, and the full moisture and darkness of the throat-like cavern ate them up. In the dark, Flim threw a weak, affectionate punch at Flam, grazing his cheek. With gusto, the small colt softly crooned, "Next town, brother?"

Flam didn’t move. “I want outta the business,“ his little voice came.

They sat on the rumbling carriage for a long interlude. Flim’s mouth was locked slightly ajar and his green eyes searched the back of his brother’s head for the truth. He could only come up with a frailly spoken, “Why?”

Flam bit hard on his tongue. “‘Cause …”

His brother‘s brow hardened to rock. “’Cause why? We’ve been run out before, plenty-a-time.”

The tears began afresh, so hot they should’ve been steaming. “I wanna go home.”

“I hate it there, you hate it there,” Flim complained, crossing little yellow hooves. “I thought we’d come to a consensus.”

Flam said nothing.

His brother grunted. “Hey. Come on, already. I don’t do drama,” he stage-whispered. “What’s the hoo-ha with Canterlot? They’re nothing! Zilch, I tell you, Zilch. Don’t do this to me, Flam ... Come on. Dream up any other place and we’ll be there. Just go ahead and picture it.”

He took Flam under his arm and pointed his teary face upward, gesturing to the cavern's ceiling. “Uncle Filthy hooks us up with another barrel of Sweet Apple cider, you n’ I fine tune the blue prints, bippity-boppity-boo, we’re gangbusters! Just like that!

“The Flim-Flam name spreads around, and hey- suddenly Canterlot sees we‘re not so bad after all, and they‘re on board, too, and everypony else who ran us out. They‘ll put us on those billboards outside a town, you know the ones, we‘ll get our pictures taken.

“Barnyard Bargain’s business will triple, if not quintuple, and when we head for home Uncle Filthy won’t know what to think. You don’t wanna miss out on that because of Canterlot, do you? We can go anywhere we want now.”

With wilted enthusiasm, Flam smiled for is brother. “... Let’s go, Flim.”

Flim hooted, chuckling, “Hey-hey! Alright! Let’s go, Flam!”

It would be a little while later, but at night, bumping along the countryside with his brother asleep on his shoulder, Flam thought about Poppy. Somehow, she’d settled into a far, comfortable corner of his mind, resting there, waiting patiently for him. A good place. He thought about her. How she’d been so darn kind. That was it. Kind.

But, one and one didn't entirely make two here. Had she really been anything special? Was one little laugh really enough to take the business out of a businesscolt? It couldn't possibly be, could it?

It was really rather peculiar, the more he thought about it. He’d known kind ponies, just rarely. Scarce commodity.

Staring at the starry sky, he smiled a little to himself. Hey, now that should’ve been what they were selling. There was a good market for ponies who could use it.

Yeah, he chuckled, liking the idea. He let himself smile to the moon and he shook his head. Let’s sell some kindness.

After that, Flam let himself lean on his brother’s head to settle in, let his tired eyelids slowly sink deeper as the spangled sky above spat fat, fluttery snowflakes. His flannel shirt might as well have been paper, but Flim was pretty warm. The bumpy carriage ride took the brothers Flim-Flam into the small hours of nighttime, fast asleep.

2/ The Great and Powerful Trixie: Fraud

FRAUD

The Great and Powerful Trixie

As though possessed, Trixie bangs with the knocker on the thick oak door and sits back. This isn’t a place she hasn’t been, but not one she wants to be, either. She can just as easily slip away now, her reconstructed wagon is parked right behind her. A strange desire to see this visit through quells her anxiety.

The magician waits on her haunches, becoming more and more certain that this meeting is a bad idea. She knocks again. “Open sesame, Twilight Sparkle.”

The purple-eyed face appears, her home’s light hiding behind her like the sheepish, sleepy sun behind the protection of the hills. She’s wearing a purple, argyle cardigan, assumedly for the occasion, what little of one there is to dress for. The librarian wastes a moment on a frown, then promptly steps aside holding the door. “You’ll have to forgive me, Trixie. Welcome. Hello.”

Trixie grimaces and murmurs, “That was the most underwhelming yet … but;” she announces, trotting in. “you’re forgiven. I can make do.”

“Pardon me?” Twilight looks on after her, shutting the library’s door.

Twilight’s houseguest takes a sharp breath in before exploding into pink dust and sparkles. She reappears atop the table in the center of the room, where the horse bust used to be. “Revellers!” She looked around finding only Twilight. “Reveller! Heed me! For you, are about to take witness, and note for future generations, of the Great,” chitty-chitty-bang-bang! “and Powerful,” whimmy-wham-wham-wozzle! “Trixie!”

She throws down a spree of firecrackers, which singe Twilight’s rug and dance as they cackle along with the magician.

“Trixie!” Twilight shrieks, staggering back from the path of a writhing firecracker, stumbling until falling painfully on her rump. She scowls and frantically rubs out the small flames. “Are you insane in the membrane? We’re in a very flammable tree! More importantly, we’re in a library! Your stage magic is more suitable for- I don‘t know- oh, the stage.”

“For your information, it’s not ‘stage magic,’ it’s called class.” She hops down to Twilight’s eye level and tosses her cap onto Twilight‘s horn. “I refuse to enter any establishment without a little recognition. Suitable of a pony of my prestige, you have to admit.”

Twilight attempts to stop glaring, levitating the hat to a rack by the door. Tiredly, she rubs her neck. “Okay. How’s your stage show been in Las Pegasus?”

“I run that town. I am their queen now.”

“Oh?”

She chuckles in delight. “You wouldn’t believe it. Before Trixie arrived, Las Pegasus was hardly on the map. A dust-bowl of woe and unentertained ponies; but now,” she trumpeted before losing herself in a fit of giggles. “it’s absolutely perfect.

“They love my magic. They treat Trixie the way she should be treated, as a treasure. Soon, all shall follow; we’re building the town up, putting in some of those casinos- and an amphitheater just for Trixie and Trixie key chains.”

Twilight’s tickled by the idea as she leads Trixie to the stairs. “Wow, great. Building up a town must be a lot of work, though. You’re actually helping, or …?”

“The Constructive and Hard-hatted Trixie does her due,” although she says that in a quick manner that suggests otherwise. The unicorn hesitates. “And, yourself, Princess?”

Twilight pauses at the top of the staircase. Trixie stands half-way up, holding back her breath soundlessly and looking to the top of the steps with pompous disinterest on her face. The feathers beneath the princess’s sweater ruffle noisily as she shifts her eyes away. “I’m well. I didn’t know if you would’ve-”

“Sparkle, please.” The magician pushes past the alicorn, emerging from the stairwell in the foyer of Twilight’s private library. As she wanders slowly, scanning the oaken shelves with little curiosity, there’s a degree of coolness in her voice. “You didn’t drag me back here to catch up, did you?”

With all seriousness, Twilight nods. “No, no, you’re right. I brought you here for tea.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Her cover blown, Twilight abandons her clothes and stretches her wings. “Owlowiscious,” she beckons to the hall. “we have a guest.”

The owl glides down with a sagging bindle in his claws. Swooping up to the bedroom, he lets down the tied blanket for it to unfold into a table cloth and place setting for two, on a table waiting where Twilight’s bed should be. As the two trot up the steps, Owlowiscious ornaments the table with ornate dishes. A matching teapot floats beside them in his ready talons.

Trixie seats, her cape pluming theatrically around her.

“Green tea?” the princess offers, gesturing to the pot.

Trixie raises a brow particularly. “You had anything else in mind?”

The spout leaks a liquid grass into their dainty cups. Trixie takes it with her levitation, sips at it, then swirls it idly beside her smirk. “So, I came here, Twilight Sparkle.”

“So, you did,” she mumbles into her steaming cup. It warms her muzzle swelteringly. Twilight looks up from it. “This is dire. I’ll out and say it to begin with because there’s no use in telling you anything else.” She leans in. “When I die, I want you to do something for me-”

“When you- say that again?” Her magic sputters, spilling green drops.

Twilight puts down her cup with a flattening sigh. “… Maybe that isn’t the best way to do this.” Instead, she pulls out a round tin from under the table and smiles genially, removing the lid. “Sugar cookies?”

Trixie pushes the tin down, wide eyed, but Twilight shoves it back with an urgently insistent smile. Raising one out with her magic, the unicorn seems to be shocked solid.

“I’m sorry,” Twilight laments. “Forget I said that. I meant to say, my friends and I are under some pressure right now. It’s tough. We’re hard-pressed with our assignment, and none of us seem to have the answers. Sometimes we don’t think there are any. Or, any right ones.”

“But- you’re a princess. You’re still in school?”

“Not anymore. It’s a different kind of assignment. I did come here originally to study abroad from Canterlot. I never told you that in my letter’s, I guess, but it might be good for you to know.” Twilight slightly winches, smiling. “I was Celestia’s faithful student. I studied magic and friendship under her.”

Trixie takes a breath-

“That’s not the part I need you to believe,” she interrupts. “Princess Celestia sent me to study them, so we’re friends. I- ” She pauses. “Wait, no- I mean, I was sent to study what it’s like to be friends with them, to understand friendship.”

“Because nopony else would?” Trixie gasps in realization, “Is that why the fat newt follows you around?”

Twilight’s lip quirks up in an irritated clump. “He’s not a newt. He‘s my assistant. And no, they’re wonderful ponies, and he‘s a wonderful dragon, whatever the reason we became friends in the first place.” Twilight sits back. “If you don’t insult them again this will be easier for the both of us.”

Trixie scoffs. “If you’d get to the point it’d be a lot easier for the both of us. What does this have to do with me, Sparkle? What do you want?”

She breathes in heavily. "The princesses have asked my friends and I to select our successors. Maybe it was too close a call with Scylla and Charybdis in the strait. I don‘t blame them exactly, I was petrified when my friend Applejack … fell into the sea. And when Rainbow jumped after …”

"Scylla and Charybdis?" she says, as if begging Twilight to think of something more entertaining. "Oh, Hoofdini‘s ghost- you're lying to impress me. Badly. Everypony knows-"

"I know. You don't have to believe me with that one, either but,” a breathy grunt ends her thought. Meekly, her head turns slightly sideways as she she asks, “have you heard about the Elements of Harmony?"

There‘s a crease in her forehead. “Trixie hears of many things, from many ponies who worship Trixie.”

Twilight blinks slowly, then sighs. “Alright, the Elements of Harmony are ancient, embryonic forces that work together to-”

“I know,” Trixie declares. “but the Elements aren’t magic enchantments, or possessors, or even amplifiers, they wouldn’t be that easy to find, if anypony ever found them. Even for a princess.” Her nose scrunches slightly with the word. “No matter how far you’ve come with your magic, the Elements have been lost for a thousand years.”

“A few years ago-”

Trixie glowers at Twilight. “Furthermore, don’t think you can trick the Trixie just because you did once. I’m not a gullible mare, and I’d thank you give me a little bit of respect. At least more credit than this. I’ve been performing longer than you’ve been doing- whatever you do when I’m not here. Trixie is a master of the arcane arts, a showmare, she knows stories you’ll never find in your books- Trixie has lived them. The Great and Powerful Trixie-”

Twilight slams her hooves on the table. "Do you want to be the next Element of magic or not?"

Trixie takes a second to focus her eyes back on Twilight. Loudly, she contempts a squawking, “Ha!”

Twilight recoils in rage. “Don’t laugh.”

Tickled with glee, the showmare takes on a smug look and rests her head on her hoof on the table. Silent chuckles twitch her shoulders as Twilight talks in a quiet, contained voice, sounding as though she’s trying very hard to discover something.

“This is the most surgical selection process in existence, and I don’t even know how it works, but it does, and if I choose you, you have to take it seriously. Equestria relies on you. The princesses, your friends, your family, everypony you’ve ever known, and even the ones you never will.

“There’s so much power behind it. Sometimes I think everything you do has a consequence for somepony else, even if you never know you did anything. It’s worth it, though. It’s so worth it. Being a representative of Harmony is the most fulfilling-” Twilight grunts, “would you stop laughing at me?”

Trixie sniggers breathily. “This was all I wanted the first time we met, you know.”

The princess is taken aback. “Wh- my Element? You knew?”

“An admission of my superiority,” she giggles. “If you’d done this earlier, a lot of hardship could’ve been avoided. A lot. Was that really so hard for you?”

Twilight bristles, “Why do you make everything into a competition?”

Trixie waves her hooves dismissively. “Oh, one more and I‘m done. Finish this for me: what’s the definition of the word upgrade?”

Twilight’s nostrils flare. “Trixie.”

“Hm?”

“Stop talking.”

Trixie crosses her hooves, her chuckles turing harsh. “Why? Why invite me here in the first place? Tea and tulips? Verily, Trixie hasn't seen anypony try so hard, and for what? All I want to hear is why I deserve it.” She smirks as though savouring the words: “It’s because I’m better than you, right? Maybe you can’t admit it, but it has to be true.”

After a moment of holding her breath, Twilight softens, sitting back in her seat and looking directly down as if trying to see her own cheeks, or solve calculus equations written on the floor.

"Oh, what's that look for?"

"When I invited you I didn't think you'd come. But, out of everypony, you did, we're here ..." Twilight takes in a sigh as if her chest is constricted, in a staggering, light-headed fashion. As if it terrifies her she murmurs, "You could be my successor."

Trixie frowns. "But, of course. Trixie is best. At everything. Her b-ball skills and mad lyrical rhymes rule the underworld scene. She also does magic.”

“Stop talking,” mutters the tea-party host. Her jaw hangs slightly ajar as she takes in the proportions and ramifications of her own words.

Unhearing, Trixie takes a sip of tea and smiles, doing some contemplation of her own: “It’s true, then. Since I’m the new Element of Magic, I must really be the most magical unicorn in Equestria. Only logically. If the rumours are true, and you do have the Elements, of course.”

Twilight’s eyes flick back to Trixie, and she grunts. “There you go again. Why would I make something like this up? I don’t have that much spare time.”

“Well,” she muses. “if, in fact, anything you say has validation, why not give me your Element now and save the ink on your will? Funerals are always messy businesses, you wouldn’t want me to bother your grieving friends and family with a little matter like ‘the Elements of Harmony’, would you?”

“I-” Twilight scoffs. “Oh! First of all, I told you to stop talking. Second of all, I told you to stop talking.” Twilight’s shoulders are slightly raised around her neck, in offence or maybe even hurt.

Trixie’s eyebrow raise. Her lips perk in an amused little smirk, but she remains silent.

“Thirdly,” she continues, shoulders falling. “I don’t decide when to give it to whoever I decide to give it to. Logically, it would happen when I’ve passed away, but the last bearers didn’t have to, so I don’t know. I guess it happens when it needs to happen.”

“Uh-huh.”

Exhausted and exasperated, the princess sighs, “Trixie.”

“You realize I’m not stupid, right?” She scowls. “I’m a magician, I’ve read volumes about Harmony magic, what it did for ponies. You’re no Element. Nothing to be ashamed of. They belong to the royal sisters, and even if you’re a princess now, Princess Luna was the Element of Magic, and there’s no reason she wouldn’t be still, now that she’s returned.”

“It’s- I can’t explain it. We needed the Elements to save her, but we didn’t steal them. We were meant for them just as much as the princesses.”

The Great and Powerful Trixie groans, “But, why you? Stop acting so sanctimonious.”

“Sanctimonious?” Twilight’s ears fall. “It’s not because we’re better than anypony. I … sorry, I didn’t mean to sound that way. It’s important to me, if nopony else.”

“Hm. Fine and good, but I don’t know how reliable your word is. If you have no proof, Trixie will leave in flurry of insult for having wasted her time. But, if you do,” She raises her chin. “let’s see it.”

“My Element is in Canterlot,” she mutters.

The magician stands and levitates her hat from the rack across the room. She doesn’t waste time on a wave or a nod goodbye. She doesn’t even look her way.“I guess you’ll have to try harder next time, Princess.”

“Dear Celestia, please …” As Twilight watches Trixie speed from the room, she massages her eyes. Her guest must have noticed by now how bloodshot they were. She takes in a breath as Trixie reaches the foyer stairwell, and frowns to her herself. A frown without remorse. “Don’t leave yet.”

“Trixie is leaving,” she sings with her hooves clunking down the stairs.

“I need you to listen. Please.” the clunking continues. Twilight sighs, and wearily offers, “I’ll grant you anything you want. I’m a princess now, so ...”

The clunks stop, then revert and race back up. In the foyer, Trixie looks up to Twilight and the tea table. “Anything?”

“Okay,” Twilight mopes.

She sniffs, raising her chin to the air and shutting her eyes. “Trixie finds your offer pitiful.” She opens one eye and bubbles, “But she’s always wanted to take pity."

“Well, take pity where I don’t have to speak so loud. I don’t know if Spike is home yet.”

Trixie skips gaily up the stairs. She looks as though she might be singing a song about Twilight Sparkle owing her one in her head. Twilight’s frown sags ever deeper.

When Trixie spins around and seats again, her face is reminiscent of foals at the beach and her voice is as bubbly as soda. “Trixie’s patient, compassionate ears are yours.”

“Thank you.”

Actually concentrating on Twilight, Trixie’s smile lessens. “Your face.” she says.

Twilight looks at her dully. “I don’t owe you one if you interrupt me again. That’s a new rule.”

“Fine, fine,” this is allowed because Trixie sees age in Twilight Sparkle’s face for the first time. Real age. Twilight’s the elder of them both, but by such a small margin that this is jarring. An overall tiredness. A slight droop in her ears, a darkness framing her eyes.

This isn’t a pony who could’ve done any of the things Twilight had to Trixie. This pony is suffering, isn’t she? Trixie owns up to her end of the deal, deciding there isn’t anything else she needs to say.

Twilight goes on. “Alright. I may not be able to convince you of anything. That’s okay. But, I know it’s somehow important for me to talk to you. Whether or not you’re the next Element, you came. I know you used to hate me, and even though I never tried to, I impacted your life. So, I’m sorry you were hurt.”

“… You’ve accepted my apologies.”

She nodded once.

There’s silence.

“You never answered my question, Twilight.” Every word she says is perpetually quieter. “Why me?

“I don’t know. The same reason you came?”

“Trixie came because she thought it would be funny. This isn’t as humorous as she’d hoped.”

“Uh, sorry,” Twilight studied the oaken floor, and rubbed the table top idly.

She shrugs slightly. “Trixie forgives you.”

Twilight looks in Trixie’s eyes suddenly. “Would you be an Element, if you had the choice? Seriously. You know what that would mean?”

She softly scoffs. “What a stupid question. Were you ever asked that?”

Twilight groans, and her head falls into her waiting hoof. “No, that’s my problem …”

Trixie laughs. “There’s no need to be short, we’re supposed to be civilized at a tea table.”

“Well, you don’t answer any of my questions with yes or no. If I picked you, and if it was you, could I trust you to take care of Equestria and the other future Elements?” She narrows her eyes. “Answer as honestly as possible, yes or no.”

After a moment considering it, Trixie’s brows knit. Her eyes flit down to her left. “Yes. Without fail. So, you’ve officially picked me? The obvious choice?”

Twilight smiles. “That’s not something you’re supposed to ask in a job interview. But you’re a good applicant. Wish I’d gotten that resume, though.”

There’s another silence.

“Perfect.” Trixie stands again. “Trixie has heard enough, and if you have nothing left to say, there’s the matter of your end of the bargain.”

“What? I- oh.” The princess sinks in her seat. “What do you want?”

“Among the many things Trixie wants, she’d prefer a quest.”

“Huh?”

“A quest. You’re a princess now, if it comes from you it’ll mean something.”

Twilight narrows her eyes, trying to understand. “What? Why?”

“Whether or not you give Trixie the Element, she has incredible magical abilities and since the Great and Powerful Trixie’s career has stabilized, I want more.”

The princess’s features neutralize. “I- sure. I’ll get back to you on that. I might have the perfect one.”

“Excellent.” Trixie places her starry hat on her head. “If that’s all, Trixie should be leaving. Adieu, Princess.”

Twilight motions to the window next to the table. “It looks like it’s going to rain, you could wait it out, if-”

“And suddenly Trixie is gone!” and a smoke bomb fills Twilight’s bedroom with throat-clogging pink gas. The princess chokes on it, swearing. By the time the smoke is clear, she can hear the front door slamming shut.

Twilight chokes down more tea to stop her coughing fit. After a moment, she clears her throat, and without a breath in between, pours another cup. "She’s gone, Spike."

Above, the rafters groan. “How’d you know?” He comes down clinging to the bookshelves, very careful not to disrupt anything. As he’s grown, Spike’s been more inclined to climb things and sleep in weird places around the library. They’ve found out the hard way that little dragon boys are more rambunctious than dragon babies.

"Twilight," he begins.

She laughs tiredly. "You know, I'd pick you if I could."

"She doesn't deserve it, Twilight, she's not half the unicorn you are. Alicorn. She never will be. I don't care what kind of magic she can do, it doesn't mean she can represent the spark of friendship." He snaps his claws for affect.

"Believe me, I get it."

"You don't if you're picking her," he mutters coldly. He sits down in Trixie’s place, taking a cookie.

"I'm not sure I am. I don't think I am. I can't explain it to you, it's one of those things you just have to feel for yourself. It’s being a spirit of Harmony. There's a perfect balance between the host and their Element, but, well …” she rubs one hoof with the other. “sometimes it's hard to tell where a motivation or desire came from.”

“What?” You’ve never said that,” he grumbles.

Twilight shrugs. “These days. I think, if I had to guess, as the bond of our friendship grows, the bond with our Elements does, as well. It feels like it, anyway.”

“Makes sense,” he nods. Probably only to humour her, but maybe he’s just too consumed with the cookie tin to find objections.

“It’s not like the Element assume control or anything silly like that, but I can sense when ... oh, how do I- since it’s sort of this energy I tap into, I can tell which way its flowing. Oh, that doesn't make sense, either.” she spins her tea cup as Trixie had, and studies it. “I don't know why, but the Element is making me choose her. Well, not making me, we agree ... I think."

Vaguely, Spike‘s expression fouls. "Are you sure that's not gas? It could be gas."

"I know my Element, Spike. It's gravitating towards her, for whatever reason. Maybe-" she scoffs, "maybe not having anything to do with being my successor, but something. I think she feels it, too.”

Spike puts down the cookies and looks at her earnestly. "Twilight, she's almost the same age as you. How much longer could she carry the Element than you could?"

Twilight rolls her eyes. "I don't know. How much longer could I carry it than an immortal pair of royal sisters? I don't think the Elements are vain, Spike. They choose who they choose because ... well, if I knew that, these Elemental interviews could be a lot more efficient."

“Well, no doubts there.” he says through a double-chocolate chip. “Any of the girls find theirs yet?”

Twilight puts out her hoof, like it was exactly what she was thinking.“That’s the thing. None of us have. Fluttershy says she has a hunch, but she’s been saying that for almost a month, and nopony has seen Pinkie anywhere for a week. We hope a search party would attract her, just because, you know; Pinkie.

“Applejack seems to be pretty relaxed with all this, so maybe she has, but you know, if we ask her about it, she just gets distant and soul-search-y and we have to change the subject.

“Then, of course, Dash … well, Scootaloo doesn’t want it, but Rainbow keeps throwing it at her. Her actual Element amulet, I mean. Scootaloo has bruises on the sides of her head. She’s going to give that young mare a concussion.”

Twilight takes a breath, but stops herself, looking at Spike. After he motions for her to continue she lets it out . “… You haven’t talked to Rarity?”

“I was gonna head over toni- wait.”

Twilight held up her hooves. “Talk to Rarity.”

“Seriously?” He points to himself, horrified.

“TalktoRarity,” she repeats, eyes wide. She wasn’t supposed to say anything to him. She’s promised. Pinkie’s going to demolish her when she gets back.

Spike slumps in his chair, loosing focus. “Man …”

Twilight levitates a grand tome to their tea table and breezes through the pages. She’d ordered a new Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide after finding hers hollowed out by Discord. Her features sink into grieving over its laminated pictures and empty phrases.

“None of these choices make sense,” Spike objects loudly. As if electrocuted, his torso jerks up. “I don’t know Scootaloo that well, but why not Spitfire? Or, um, Soarin’? If age doesn’t matter, why not? And me? Rarity can’t think that’s a good idea. That’s too much responsibility. I’d do anything for any of you, but I’m not-”

“You’d make a great Element of Generosity,” Twilight argues. She does that with enough edge in her voice to make it final.

“Whatever,” But he looks at her, and says it with this ridiculous tone in his voice. “the one I can’t understand is Trixie. I mean, that‘s just,” he even laughs. “Twilight-”

"Alright, Spike," she says loudly. "maybe I'm wrong. Maybe she's not!" She flips through the Reference Guide. "I don't see anything in here! There's no criteria, I can't give her an entrance exam! It's not a science it's Harmony. And I have to know that it'll be okay when I'm gone."

"If you're gone," Spike amends as automatically as he has for the past two months. He crosses his arms.

“If. The most troubling thing is that nothing feels wrong with the idea of Trixie being the next Element of Magic. She fits. If there’s requirements, it’s these inclinations I keep getting that she has something to do with it.”

“She doesn’t fit, Twilight.”

Twilight stops on a page in the guide, a place she’s bookmarked with a photo of her friends. She watches over them. Naturally, she smiles, but then something- a thought- flares inside of her and everything around her seems to freeze. Fearfully, she looks at her assistant. “Spike … I didn’t, either. It’s why she’s perfect.”

3/ The Shadowbolts: Demons

DEMONS

The Shadowbolts

“Shutterbug, the Equis Chronicle! Is there any truth in the rumour that you had an affair with Prince Blueblood?!”

“Freelance, Ponies magazine! Does Spitfire have a grudge against Princess Celestia?! Inquiring minds want to know!”

When the crowd of ponies tumbled out to the red carpet walk, their noisiness gave way to shocked silence. Their cameras and tape-recorders fell, and they stopped to stare around. Dumbstruck. Flags of panic snipped up their bellies the next moment when they processed all that they were seeing.

It was night outside in the middle of the day.

Spitfire had to admit, seeing the paparazzi squirm put a smile on her face. Behind their clamours, their blinding camera lights that had equipped her wardrobe with many sunglasses, they were awkward and shifty. Juicy role-reversal. Spitfire herself was unphased almost entirely, but including even her wonder team, she was the only one.

“Cripes,” said Fleetfoot behind her. She stared up at the stars with her mouth flapping open. “Boss, there something I missed here?”

Rookie mistake, the Wonderbolt captain thought with a scowl. The paparazzi ponies gaped fearfully at Fleetfoot, who could only provide a slanted grin and a nervous chuckle in the way of reassurance.

Not knowing what else to do, one of the reporters sprang forward and stammered, “Uh- Star Struck, the Manehatten Times! What are your comments on this new revelation?”

Soarin’ opened his big, fat mouth to say something, but Spitfire plugged him up with a hoof. “No comment,” she commanded.

The other reporters followed Star Struck’s lead and began babbling with revitalized frenzy, sounding much like a flock of geese. They shoved recorders into faces, they blockaded paths, and they filled Spitfire’s eyelids with sunspots, even with her sunglasses.

She knew she’d be circled by them for hours. She made a smile for the cameras. Flashes. If they got Soarin’ going, she’d be trapped even longer. Which, of course, took about two seconds.

Her eyes returned to the sky. The sinister sky.

Spitfire loved Do Not Disturb signs. Enchanted by unicorn inn keeps or maids, these kept the bad out and kept the good in. Nopony could enter their room without their consent, media included.

With wayfaring ponies unable to see in the dark, there would be no vacancy in any inn for miles. For anypony else. Government-funded air aces, however, had badges and sparklers they could flash for easy access.

Soarin’ and Spitfire took a suite together. They’d stayed in a lot of places like this- motels, inns, lodgings- even before they were Wonderbolts, so it wasn’t a new arrangement or anything scandalous. Both being of highest rank, they could call dibs on bunks, anyway. And, to be honest, by then, they had trouble sleeping apart.

Soarin' kept going back to the window, pacing the floor like a rodent in a cage. He’d pull back the veil, tut-tut-tut his tongue and shake his fluffy-haired head. After a while, it grated on Spitfire’s temper. On maybe the fiftieth time, she slammed down her hoof. “Soarin’.”

“Spitfire,” he said, gazing out the window.

“I’m asking you to stop doing that right now.”

He groaned, "Spits, I don't like it. Look at it out there, that wouldn't even be normal in winter. It‘s never that dark."

"I don't know what’s going on, either," she murmured as she brushed down her coat in the wooden vanity. “But, you know, the princess never really makes a mistake, now does she?” She smiled devilishly.

The lieutenant’s brows pinched together. “But, what if it’s trouble? Seriously. It’s night out there.” She didn’t seem as impressed as him. “Oh, come on. Everypony knows something’s up, why aren’t you as stir-crazy as the rest of us?”

Because she’d been brushing her teeth while Soarin’ was speaking, Spitfire gargled and spat before answering. “Well, I’m smart, for one. The Royal Guard is on patrol with the princess, and you know them.”

"Goodie-goodies,” Soarin’ groused, crossing his hooves.

Spitfire smiled. “Even if something evil got through the Guard, I don’t think there’s any threat out there more powerful than the sun. You’ve probably never seen it, but she has some pretty powerful magic stowed away. She can take care of herself.”

Soarin’ kicked off his flight suit and grunted. He knew she wasn’t in the mood to humour his opinions. She was right. He could get as red-cheeked as he pleased, but it wouldn’t change that, nothing would. This happened aggravatingly often.

Spitfire laughed, “Get away from the window.”

He followed orders. Spitfire watched through the mirror as the lieutenant sat on the bed, hooves rubbing his knees. Then he started playing with his Wonderbolt dog tag, a tendency he picked up on their first mission overseas, and for the first time, she was worried.

She remembered that first week. The mission had been to ease tensions in relations between a tribe of savages and the Minotaur polis of the south east, which is to say, nearly impossible. It hadn’t exactly gone well; the Wonderbolts were nearly prisoners of war.

She and Soarin’ had only made the team a few weeks before. It was when the gravity of their job set in – the first mission usually was.

Spitfire had pulled a lot of strings to get in Soarin’s company, high-up stings, but that was the week she knew it was all worth it.

She sighed, and her shoulders fell in the mirror.

The Captain put her goggles on the vanity before she flew to her bed, left of his, and threw a pillow at the back of his head. She waited for a reaction as the tiny white feathers cluttered his bed. Soarin’ made no move.

Spitfire crossed her hooves. “We’re staying here, Mopey. There’s nothing we can do.”

“There’s always something we can do,” he amended, turning his head just enough to look over his shoulder. “I don’t care if it’s something stupid and hopeless.” He turned back to the window. She heard a tiny jingle as he fiddled with his tag again. “We’re Wonderbolts.”

“Trying stupid things doesn’t help anypony,” she dead-panned.

He shrugged. “Makes me feel better.”

Spitfire sat back against the headboard of the bed, her eyes raised, crumbling her forehead as she took a deep breath. Her eyes shut as she sighed it out. “Well … what stupid and hopeless thing do you suggest we do?”

He rubbed his neck instead of coming up with an answer.

“I’m not going to Canterlot tonight,” she told him.

“What if I did?”

She turned on her side and propped her neck over her folded foreleg, and put on a heavy, dubious gaze. “You’re going to go all that way? Tonight? All alone?”

Soarin’ flopped backward and looked at her upside down. “No, but at least admit I’m not going out of my mind here.”

Spitfire chuckled quietly, but said nothing. If you were going out of mind, it’d be a short trip.

“Oh, c’mon, something’s wrong, right?”

She tried to make her shrug look convincing. “Hey, maybe it’s that new ‘daylight savings’ thing the farmers wanted. I heard Celestia thought it was a pretty good idea,” she yawned. “Would make sense, and well, what else would?”

“Hay, I don’t know,” he murmured. The blood was rushing to his head, the way he was lying. He was too exhausted to fly to Canterlot, anyway, but there was the annoying matter of his conscience nagging in his ear. For some reason, it never seemed to be as tired as him.

His friend smiled a little. “Can I go to sleep?”

“Pbbt,” he sighed, buzzing his lips. “Sure. Just forget Equestria.” Soarin’ rolled over onto his stomach. He crawled into an unkindly cold satin, pulling back a comforter for lavender-coloured ripples. He tore off his goggles, slung them across the room, and put his down head, snuggling into the pillow.

“Atta’ boy,” she told him, the smile coming through to her voice.

“Whatever,” he got comfortable under the thick layers of blankets. “G’night.”

She blew out the candle on the bedside, and it wasn’t too long before they were asleep. In fact, they fell asleep within seconds.

“Night.”

Spitfire was in Canterlot Gardens.

She was overwhelmed by the solid smell of soil. The green was impeccable. The flowers, tropical globetrotters fostered from foreign gardens. She knew this place.

Spitfire looked around and was captivated by a single tree, the only tree in sight. How large it was. How tall it was, that it went on and on and if she climbed it and fell she would break her bones. Of course, she could fly now. It was only this squeamishly familiar feeling that she should be afraid here.

At the same time, she wanted to know this tree, this yard. She had a strong urge to name every flower, recall every smell they had inside of them. She wanted to remember this place, but what she remembered was long gone and from an entirely separate angle.

[That’s when she saw it below. There was the garden! It was the other way around! There were the million moths!]

There was no sky. Doming above was another garden, not entirely like the one below, but not a different garden, either. This wasn‘t a mirror. She knew that. The roofing was as supremely solid as the ground under her, packed dirt and stone, and it went on forever in both cases.

She had a sense that this wasn’t one side of a planet, or a capsule in the midst of one, but somewhere else entirely. A plane between planes, a different instance of existence not unaligned with hers, but a place where she didn’t know where she had been, or would be, but was right now, and couldn’t do anything about it. An unknowable instance of existence, yet not unable to be experienced.

Spitfire craned her neck skyward in wonder. There were ponies dancing up there, and talking, and sitting around to chat. They were giants to her, each a good measure taller than anypony should be, colourful towers. They laughed and rejoiced together. This was a happy time. She remembered it well.

Spitfire strained to follow the path of a comet, suddenly streaking through the legs of the party guests. Brilliant red and orange streamers danced and billowed on the end of the night (because it was night there, though she could’t be sure what time it is where she was standing). It was a dress, and flouncing hair: a young filly. She ran as fast as her painful shoes allowed, ran to the edge of the court, where the black fence penned off the cliffs of Canterlot.

The filly stayed there, distracted by something she saw through the cylindrical bars. Spitfire and the girl felt something at the same time, something eternally powerful on the horizon, a great BOOM. Thunder.

Soon, the filly wasn’t the only party patron to recognize it. Party guest after party guest stopped in their festivities, in their conversations, to stare off exactly where Spitfire was staring. They were all of them still. Nothing continued, nopony could ignore.

Then, one stallion muttered, “… Rain.”

Even a small utterance in the garden was booming on the other end.

And that one word ran through everypony’s tongues, “… Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain …” In disgust, disgruntlement, disappointment, and despair. It sounded huge.

Everypony covered their heads, and Spitfire, craning her neck upward, watched rain “falling” up at them. She gasped, “Elements alive …”

She watched the cavalcade of water pellets spawn from nothing, from nowhere. Being so close, she felt the mist tickling her snout. She soon writhed, holding her ears against her skull. The roar of it entering the amplified world above was almost unbearable. Ponies galloping, calling to each other, the water speckling the garden’s green.

While everypony else ran and hid away, the filly at the gate wouldn’t budge. She was captivated by something she saw in the horizon line, a hoof to the thin, black iron of the fence.

Spitfire stared incomprehensibly at the sky, knowing by now who the filly was, even what night that was supposed to be, but not what she’d been staring at. She remembered most of this night as it happened again in front of her, but not that.

The filly tensed her haunches, unfolded her wings, as if preparing to take off, when-

“Hey!” another filly called. “What are you waiting for? It’s pouring teacups out here, ‘Fire!” This was the clearest, loudest voice of all. Spitfire’s head panged above her left eye. The world was quickly being obscured by the forming rain, coming down harder on the other end of things, but Spitfire knew who’d said that. Cadence.

“Ugh! Oh! Come ooon,” little Blueblood whined, bouncing beside Cadence. “It’s getting muddy. Ack! No! Spitfire!”

The entire courtyard was blurry by now, but Spitfire remembered what happened next anyway. The other two were pulled inside by a party guest and she was the last one in the yard. They were leaving her behind.

[-the world’s a changing and we’re a part of the tide, but if you fall behind-]

Spitfire felt a heat behind her eyes, and she suddenly hated this. She didn’t want to remember anymore. She was suddenly struck with despair as an overwhelming sinking feeling clawed her away.

[-she didn’t want to she didn’t want to no no-]

She looked down at her hooves, and saw them engulfed in the ground, inching into it. She was sinking. The courtyard above was a quagmire of colours, swirling now- sweet merciful- a whirlpool was forming, by Celestia, a whirlpool.

Above her, a torrent of massive power surged, below, she felt her hooves stiffening in with frigidness in the ground. A giant anger broiled in her belly.

Blueblood and Cadence were herded into the Castle ballroom, the closest shelter from the storm. Spitfire remembered stumbling after them, losing sight of them as the crowd surged, and trying to forget whatever she saw off on the horizon.

Impulsively, she screamed, “Wait for me!” before she was slurped finally into darkness.

Spitfire’s breathing was shuddering and shallow, swallowed by a blustery squall that slashed at her bones with frost.

She swivelled left, right, and up and down, and behind herself, but most discouraging still was just how sightless she was. There were zero licks of light in any peripheral. This was a starless, moonless night.

This must’ve been- she wished it weren’t so, with all her energy she did, but it had to be Tartarus. The primeval abyss ponies knew existed, but didn’t factually, entirely conceive. The cell of titans. The bone yard of criminals. This odious bane of Equis was a hairline fracture in temporal logic, in causality. And it adhered no boundary lines.

It had always been easier to imagine Tartarus as a group of islands on the very opposite axis of the globe. When she pictured them, they were tar sand shorelines, enduringly slathered by a wash of black, foaming smooze. These isles were, in her imagination, inhabited by skeletal creatures. She thought you’d hear a constant brattle as they moved, their bones clacking together.

Miserable islets in myths were easier to think of than this.

She felt her eyes burning in the gust. She felt it stealing her body heat, as if stealing her until, by slow measure, it dawned on her that she was being frozen. Alive, if not soon otherwise. Her face, carved by anger, lost sensation, her ears pierced down by gathering ice. Her hair, her mane and tail both, seemed heavier with snow.

With burning down her throat, adrenaline and terror, she grit she teeth hard, and her creaky hoof reached foreword. Spitfire took a step in Tartarus. She went on, took another, got further, and again, and one more, and two- she was walking and wouldn’t stop.

This painful, rigid-boned slow-gait lead nowhere, from nowhere, but moving was progression, and even in a place without cause-and-effect, something like that can push a pony to keep going.

Before she could keel over or slip, let herself freeze, Spitfire was saved. She almost suddenly had to shield her eyes from a searing, golden luminosity seeming to take in the darkness and horrible sound of that nightmare.

Spitfire had fallen on her flank, digging her hooves into her eyes to protect them. Her jaw was shuddering. Soon, she couldn’t hear that bellicose roar, and everything seemed still.

“I’m here,” claimed a frail, but warm voice. “Please look at me.”

As mortally relieving as it was to hear Princess Celestia, Spitfire’s eyes were burning in the radiance. Like a groundhog, she had to squint and rub at her eyes for several minutes of blurriness before she could see the princess.

By that time, the warming effect of standing in the princess’s presence melted away the frost-bitten tremor Spitfire’d had. A soreness from shivering so hard found her back and hooves, but for the moment, her body was distracted by the warmth, and couldn’t be bothered with pain. She wiped away the tears she hadn’t known she’d been crying.

They were in a pasture of light. Spitfire could see Princess Celestia’s magic holding together a pocket just big enough for two. The pegasus looked, and beneath her hooves there was nothing, for once, a dizzying feeling.

Technically, she wasn’t standing, if she wasn’t standing on anything, so she wasn’t doing anything at all, but then, if she wasn’t, what did that mean for reality? Where did that mean she was, and wasn’t? What about time? This wasn’t one of those temporal paradoxes she’d heard about, was it?

She decided she wouldn’t think about it.

When her full sight returned, Spitfire attempted to stand at attention for her Princess, but Celestia pardoned her with a hoof. The moment of silence focused the Wonderbolt’s attention. The sun sovereign kindly rasped, “No formality tonight. There isn’t the time.”

Spitfire lowered her hoof, partly due to surprise. Princess Celestia looked sickly. That was no pretty alicorn princess. This one was old and fragile. Spitfire felt misery from gazing upon her, as any of her subjects would, because a magistrate of her majesty had never been this ruefully tarnished. Her face was craggy and pocked, her body thinned and skeletal. Her mane, at rest.

With angry stupefaction, Spitfire rumbled, “What did this to you? How did this even happen?”

Celestia’s movements were glacial, even her sigh. Her magenta eyes were pleading, sapped so much of colour that they‘d turned light pink. “Nightmare Moon.”

“Nightmare- we’re not in- wait, what?” her eyes scanned their barren surroundings. “How did we get here? Where are we?”

“Don’t you know?” Celestia asked, with a remnant of her humour. “We’re in your sleep.”

She shook her head. “I don’t have dreams like this.”

“And I should hope nopony does, but this place is yours,” Celestia’s voice stretched as she gandered around at the dark winds beyond their bubble of light. Trouble twitched her cheeks, but her attention fell back on Spitfire and she smiled beautifully again. “I like to think Nightmare is influencing you.” she nodded to herself. “Else, she could use places like this to infiltrate in ways nopony can protect you from.”

“Well, if she hasn’t yet, then there’s still time,” Spitfire puffed out her chest and squared her shoulders. “I know the Guard has priority in Canterlot but the Wonderbolts were made to protect our homeland. You need us, I get it now.”

The princess didn’t seem to hear. Though she smiled, her eyes were stony, and watery with age. It was jarring to have to talk to and a little irritating. The alicorn went on as if Spitfire wasn’t even there.

“Nightmare has imprisoned me. She wants returned to her my sister’s power, she’s siphoning it back at this very second. Though I won’t have it long, I knew you’d need me most, and I needed to … offer … I thought …”

The princess’s gaze lost her flyer for a moment, brow scrunched in concentration.

Spitfire felt a tug at her stomach. “My Grace?”

Princess Celestia seemed as blind as Spitfire had felt. Her eyes didn’t connect with anything and a tragic expression came over her wrinkly face. She shook her head and shut her eyes before she could go on.

“Of course, you realize, this all means I cannot come to visit you anymore. There‘s no longer a reason for me to safeguard Luna‘s dream watching duties; the power is gravitating back to her spirit, in Nightmare Moon. It’s happening fast. Faster than I’d hoped, but-“

“Wait, wait, please,” Spitfire begged. She licked her lips as she put it together, and looked up at the princess in a cautiously afraid way. “You're not coming into my dreams anymore? This is your elaborate way of telling me you- you’re not,” she took in a breath. “so, you’re just not.”

Celestia leaned down, and tried to explain gently, “I can’t. My form is being leeched by Nightmare; you might have noticed I‘m not as young as I used to be.” She seemed carefully sad about that, as though trying not to upset Spitfire, which annoyed the flyer more. The princess quickly hardened. “I believe this is how Nightmare wants you to see me, most likely the only reason I still have enough strength to visit you.”

“For the last time,” quipped the Wonderbolt. She bowed her head, a respect for her monarch, but this was mostly so Celestia wouldn’t see her face and the anger there. Spitfire was the paradigm of irateness- eyes as dull as a fish’s, features tight. Her breathing, even if she wasn’t aware of it, was shallow.

The princess put a hoof to Spitfire's cheek. “We'll see each other on more solid terms from now on.”

She bristled, forcibly staggering away from Celestia‘s hoof.

Their environment experienced a flickering, light failing to darkness, tendrils of it sinking in. But, the princess held her burden. Celestia scowled as her horn pulsated, breaking out in a tenuous sweat with the effort it took out of her. She seized a deep breath that seemed to push away any advance against their bright asylum. Her mouth hung open for a moment afterward.

When she opened her eyes she was met with a horrified and apologetic-looking Spitfire. The princess smiled, coughed out a quiet chuckle at that. In her own, sickly way, she attempted to look reassuring, but a tear of sweat remained on her cheek and her wrinkles seemed deeper.

“I didn’t mean it,” Spitfire grunted scornfully and uttered, “I didn’t know it would do that, I mean, whatever that was, I promise.” She felt partially responsible. It was, after all, her dream.

“Hm ... I wish I could sooth your anger,” Celestia said sadly, thoughtfully, as though deep within a memory of a time when that was possible. “Do you remember how to control it?”

“I know how to control myself, Princess,” Spitfire warbled softly, her head falling. “I breathe, and it gets better. I can stop myself now.”

“You’ve come far.” She nodded once. “I don’t doubt that. You’ve made yourself a wonderful life, Spitfire, a career, many friends. I’m exceptionally proud. A wonderful life, indeed. Nevertheless, I must protect you, and give you the decision to end it.”

Spitfire’s brows came together and she squinted up at Celestia.

The princess put up a hoof. “Not as you think, but it could well be the decision that resolves whether you survive or not. You will have to listen to me in full.” At this, Princess Celestia‘s eyes were searing into Spitfire’s own. It was frightening to be trapped under, and seemed to last particularly long as Celestia punctuated the moment. It got on Spitfire’s nerves the longer it went on. Her mouth quirked.

Princess Celestia’s voice was as firm as the bricks of the Canterlot Castle. “I could reverse the spell. The kingdom would remember- everypony would remember- everything would be as it should, and my royal guards would find a haven for you safe from Nightmare Moon. My captain would devote himself to defending you, I’m sure.

“This could be as temporary or as permanent as it has to be. You know I would only ask if I knew you were in danger. Even safe in your bed right now, she can reach you. I know she can sense who you are to me, and she’ll use that against me if I let her.”

Indignantly, the captain tore her gaze away. “Princess, I can protect myself.” She had trouble controlling her volume. She took in a breath.

“Not from nightmares. Even I can’t do that.” Spitfire’s face scrunched in doubt so Celestia went on. “My nightmares are twisted visions of the future. They-" she sighed briefly- “reveal facets of time which may or may not come to pass in the same fashion as they appear … although, I haven’t had one that was a complete lie. That’s the nature of true fear, I think. There is always some honesty involved.”

Celestia seemed caught in reminiscence. Something darkly hateful in her reverie gave her benevolence a new face. She glared at Spitfire as if she had suddenly become an enemy. As though Spitfire had done something terribly wrong. It was rather unnerving, and Spitfire herself was already pretty angry with the situation: this really couldn’t be happening.

Spitfire took to the air. She felt more in control there. She could raise herself to Celestia’s height, and say, “I’m not coming home with you, I’m staying with the Wonderbolts. They need their captain, and hay, I‘ll say it, I need them, too. You understand. You have your kingdom just like I have my team. It’s the same principle.”

“Please, know I never wanted to take this away from you. I only worry. What would I have to think if Nightmare Moon kidnapped you? Or, used you as hostage?” She still seemed blind, her eyes not following the direction of their conversation.

Spitfire shook her head slightly. “I’m not your responsibility anymore. I can do it, I really can, and the only reason you don’t know it is because you- you can’t know. You can’t understand.”

“You can’t understand.” Princess Celestia gazed at her with small, terrified smile that she was trying to quell. “One day when you have your own children, you‘ll see I‘m not as crazy as you think.”

Remembering herself, Spitfire’s mouth formed a small line. She grounded and bowed her head, saying, “I respectfully disagree, Princess.”

“Hm.” Celestia smiled with maternal grace. Even in decrepitude, for a moment, she was beautiful again. Spitfire gasped silently, lips only just parted. It was such a conflicting moment for her.

The princess nuzzled the captain of the Wonderbolts, and Spitfire felt Celestia trembling. Spitfire’s heart panged. It was a while before either one of them spoke, but Princess Celestia made her final decision then. When she did speak, it may have come out colder than she’d wanted, but she was absolutely sure of the way it had to be.

“If you aren’t coming with me, I have to leave you. We’ll have to trust in the Elements of Harmony, now. I’m sure Twilight Sparkle will take care of it. Your work will be done, Twilight is capable.”

She backed out and looked up in Celestia’s eyes carefully. “The Elements of Harmony don’t exist.” Spitfire’s throat tightened finding Celestia unmoved and smiling. Her voice wavered, “Who’s Twilight Sparkle?”

The princess took a deep breath, pushing a hoof forward as if pulling the air out. A knowing smile emerged on her face, one of acceptance, and fearlessness. Her wrinkles settled into an expressionless calm.

When her eyes opened again, she stared beyond the Wonderbolt. For one moment, a singular moment, a deep regret consumed her face. But it was gone, within a matter of seconds, and mightn’t have been there at all. She was very adept at hiding her real thoughts, Spitfire knew.

The princess of Equestria spoke under her breath, her eyes lost somewhere in the dark. “You remember those old stories? They always had lessons at the end. Charity, compassion, devotion, integrity, optimism, and leadership. Good lessons. I wish you could see what I see in you, but it’s okay. Twilight is capable.”

Spitfire wept wordlessly, scowling, unable to understand what the princess was saying, unable to care, unable in so very many ways. She was a Wonderbolt, she needed control. All she knew now was that she’d failed something the princess had set out for her. In fact, Spitfire imagined this test was the true reason Celestia had come. Not a final visit at all, this was just another test. Spitfire burned with anger.

The sightless princess was becoming translucent, she could see that now. Nightmare was draining her. At least that wasn’t a lie. “I must leave you now. Goodbye, Spitfire.”

“Yeah, okay,” she uttered through a thick voice. She couldn’t even look at the princess.

A look of longing graced Celestia’s face as she looked at the back of Spitfire’s head. Something the Wonderbolt never saw ran down her face. “Close your eyes.”

Even in a dream, she could be blinded by the sun. Princess Celestia left in a microcosmic nova, and soon, the darkness returned, but with a new feature.

Spitfire saw what the Elements didn't. Nightmare's truest form.

Everything she feared was held in a face, in a smiling face of formless night. For however long it was, she saw every horrible eventuality of her life and knew there was an element of truth to each. She screamed with rage. She was shaking.

“DESPAIR,” peeled off Nightmare’s smiling lips. Spitfire was grappled by crushing hands and sucked into its mouth.

Spitfire was hurled forward. She assumed, down Nightmare Moon’s throat, but soon fell into her destination, a window. She held her forehead as she sat. The darkness held her in place here.

“Where are you?!” she howled. The muscles in her face ached from scowling, twitching with her ragged breath.

The pegasus didn’t understand what she was seeing. It made less and less sense as things went on, but then, that first moment, when she was only looking into the Everfree forest, she was frighteningly puzzled. But she would soon find out why she was there.

She felt herself being drained of everything inside her. A short-lived process, remarkably painless, though horrifying.

Spitfire slumped over. She had no energy left in her muscles. She panicked inside her head. Her position riveted her down to gaze helplessly through the looking glass. What she found there made her feel insane, a nightmarish feeling in itself.

At first, it was easy enough to watch; a young blue mare dove into a valley of mist to arrive with a rope bridge in her teeth. Spitfire’s first impression of Rainbow Dash went well enough. She looked fine for a flyer

"Rainbow ..."

"Who's there?"

"Rainbow ..."

"I ain't scared a you! Show yourself!" Rainbow yelled. She threw punches for show, which weren’t too threatening, but admittedly spirited.

That fascinating, disembodied slithering answered Rainbow‘s warning, "We've been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the best flyer in Equestria.”

Rainbow faltered. "Who?"

"Why, you, of course."

"Really? I mean, oh yeah, me.” She smiled, with impressively large pleasure. “Hey, uh, you wouldn’t mind telling the Wonderbolts that, would you? 'Cause I've been trying to get into that group for, like, ever."

"No, Rainbow Dash, we want you to join us.”

Three forms punctured the fog and came to glide out in a uniform formation, two stallions and one mare. Spitfire gaped and her eyes watered at the sight. That one mare. Spitfire understood now.

Nightmare Moon had drained her energy to use it in recreating a pony. She couldn’t contain her bafflement and delirium, but what could she do to release it? She didn’t have use of her body anymore, Spitfire did. Those goons raised their chins as one and Spitfire said, “The Shadowbolts.”

At least it didn’t have her voice. It used her spirit as a template, but it wasn’t her. In some small way, that was comforting.

Spitfire was smiling broadly as she approached Dash. “We're the greatest aerial team in the Everfree forest, and soon we will be the greatest in all Equestria ... but first, we need a captain.” Rainbow Dash was beaming as Spitfire wafted above her head, thinking out loud.

"The most magnificent-"

"Yep."

"-swiftest-"

"Yes."

"-bravest flyer in all the land."

"Yes,” Rainbow bubbled. “it's all true."

"We need,” Spitfire watched Spitfire breathe into the mare’s ear. “you."

Rainbow Dash sprouted upwards, cheering, "Woo hoo! Sign me up!” revelling at the images in her head. Fame, respect, nobility. Every new cadet looked the same as Dash did right then, and that was even more terrible. Rainbow was giddily giggling, “Just let me tie this bridge real quick, and then we have a deal."

"No!” Spitfire flamed. “It's them, or us."

Finally, Rainbow Dash saw something wrong in them. She tottered back, staring at the pile of rope. Spitfire felt a flicker of empathy. Those Shadowbolts were supposed to be her Wonderbolts (even if they were just cheap knock-offs). She remembered her turn dreaming and waiting to be old enough, to train hard enough to get in. It was tough. pegasai built lives around it, and if they couldn’t cut it, all their dreams would be crushed. Painfully.

A clear voice rang through the fog. "Rainbow! What's taking so long? Oh, no. Rainbow!” Spitfire heard her and effectively barricaded them out, in blinding smoke with a flash of her eyes, as if using Spitfire’s temperament for strength. Rainbow’s friend seemed to drift away. “Don't listen to them ..."

Rainbow Dash weighed her options silently, her head bowed a little. She might’ve stayed that way longer had it not been for Spitfire’s impatience. "Well?"

Without a breath, she said, "You,” and Spitfire’s stomach staggered inside of her. But, Rainbow Dash continued in her most level-headed manner, “thank you, for the offer, I mean, but,” she knotted the rope bridge and turned back with a smile. “I'm afraid I have to say no."

Spitfire smiled until it crinkled her eyes.

Spitfire sneered. She and her two brethren were infused back into shadow and simultaneously, Spitfire felt herself mobile and strong again. In fact, being infused with herself was a rush. Nightmare didn’t count on that, or did, and didn’t care after failing. Spitfire woke up, free.

She seemed to shake herself awake. Her entire body was clammy, which would explain the unpleasant smell. Her tongue was dry and her heartbeat boxed her little chest, an uneven fight. She noticed with some discomfort and humiliation that the hotel linens would require a scrub.

She was aware of Soarin’. He’d sat up, sprung, awaking maybe the exact time as her. They made meaningful, panicked eye contact.

Soarin' fell to the floor with the blanket around his hooves, [thump,/i] bolting out of bed. Spitfire threw away her own comforters and started lighting all the candles. He scrambled to shut the windows, shutting out the night. She brought the candles together to enshrine them as they huddled together in the corner.

Soarin’ sat like a gargoyle, with wings pointed behind a hunched back and hugging hooves. That crazy green in his eyes made him look doubly troubled. Spitfire ran through her breathing exercises. It took embarrassingly long for their heart-rates to slow.

Soarin’ turned on her, minutes later. “Who do we tell?”

Taking long breaths, Spitfire inhaled the steam of the candles. She didn’t respond for a while, and Soarin’ asked again. Spitfire looked tired. She mumbled, “Don’t bother me.”

“But, you saw that, too. You saw-”

“What, Soarin’? What was all that?”

He squinted. “I dunno, but you were there, how come?”

She shrugged, still trying to breathe deeply.

Soarin‘s ears flattened against his head and growled, “Well, how come there was one of you and I got split?”

Spitfire hadn’t thought about it. “I don’t know- how *should I know? We should forget it. You forget bad dreams all the time, right? Give it a day, I can‘t remember some of it already.”*

That was actually the truth. While powerful nightmares left an indent, details could escape very easily. It was, in fact, part of Princess Luna’s dream watching duties to partially (if not entirely) wipe the pony’s memories clean of their unreal psychological experiences.

“But, this is a real dream,” he said, though he was trying to remember all of it too, and also unable to grasp many details. That angered him. “We can’t laze around. We take action- we’re *Wonderbolts. Come on, let’s be stupid. What’re we waiting for? Equestria is in our hooves.”*

“No, let Twilight Sparkle handle it,” she muttered, defeated.

He faltered. “Who's that?”

“If knew I'd punch her in the face,” Spitfire offered.

The lieutenant crinkled his forehead. “And we're supposed to trust her with this, Spits?” She didn’t really give an answer. It wasn’t like he expected her to, but it would’ve been nice.

He changed the subject after a while, and when he spoke again, he was as soft as his gravelly voice could be. “You know, I was okay with it- like, you not talking about why you never want to go to Canterlot, or why you never seem to want to perform for the princess. Or any stuff like that- and why you get all angry at the weirdest things- but … it was fine.”

He shifted, trying to get in a more comfortable sitting position. “You were fine, so I dropped it and I didn’t think whatever this is would be a problem. And it wasn’t, for a while, and that was good, but I think it’s getting bad again, and I’m kind of tired of being okay with it,” his voice sounded as though it had been squeezed in the middle of his sentence.

Her face contorted into one of absolute grief, and she gasped before hiding her face with a hoof. As she started to pant and sniff, hot tears came out. “Soarin’ … I don’t want to leave you.”

Soarin’ stared for a moment, but put his wing around her and she wasted no time hugging back. With a little disbelief he shook his head and told her, “You don’t have to leave me.” He tenderly stroked her shoulder. “I’d go with you anywhere in the world.” Spitfire didn’t move and he scowled. “Don’t you trust me, Spits?”

She cried into his blue fur. It was soft, and his heartbeat was stable. She concentrated so much on details like those that she forgot to answer.

Soarin’ made her look at him. “We’re best friends. If you can’t tell your best friend what’s eating you, you’ll die, or explode or- you’ll *rot. You’ll rot, Spits.”*

She thought he couldn’t possibly know how afraid and anxious she was, with her confession trapped in her throat. What a terrible moment that was for her. She guiltily looked away, outright refused to make eye-contact. The words screaming in her mind but road blocked by her tongue. It took her nearly a minute, but suddenly, she couldn’t stutter.

“There isn’t a right way to say this, but I could’ve been a princess. I would’ve gotten a horn or something, I don’t know, I never thought about it. But, everypony’s under a spell and they don’t remember I was supposed to be one.”

He stared at her, but in a cautiously imploring way, prompting her to go on. “Why?”

She tried looking at him again, light-headed. “You know how I said my mom was always putting pressure on me?”

4/ The Diamond Dogs: Mutts

MUTTS

The Diamond Dogs

He'd always seen his mother in the stars, and in the dark, he saw his father. The moon kept the stars company, kept things civil. He was glad to know her shine couldn’t be overpowered there.

Rover raised his head to the sky and his heart froze, colder than even the night itself. He seemed to be alone with a beautiful, beguiling lady, one whose face held many truths, many secrets, and many lies. Inquisitiveness and bravery were the only restrictions, both of which he knew he lacked.

The moon was just as alone, as exposed, as he was. Both the stars and Rover’s companions were fast asleep in their safe, private worlds. Maybe for the best. This way, it was like a dinner party: as the night went on, less and less could stay around to chat until finally there were two, and a more intimate talk could begin.

Ears slanted down, melting into his head, the dog felt a mewl begin in the back of his throat. His snaggle-tooted jaw clamped. He held it back for his two friends’ sakes, but the battle between his long sought after privacy and this insatiable urge to scream had not been entirely won yet.

Eyes ever upward, Rover rose from his seat and walked to the rocky outcroppings of their temporary camp. The moon kept his attention brilliantly, luring him out in with impish flourish, as though by way of a silent siren song. Inviting him to a more private place as he stumbled down the rocky hill.

She lead and he followed far past the point of him knowing how far he’d gone. Or, how he’d get back. Meanwhile, he shivered under the heaviness of holding his own tears. A thousand thoughts swam in the dark swamp of his mind, but he hoped, maybe beyond hope, that he could at least keep it from leaking. Being lost, of all things, was a welcomed sorrow at this point.

Rover’s paws finally paused on sunburnt sand, and it seemed as good a place as he’d find. A wonderful place, in fact, gazing over it. Nothing grew for miles, and yet … it was such a beautiful garden. The word, garden, stuck in his mind, and it too felt as good a word as any he’d find.

Breathing in the night as supremely as a god of storms, Rover let a great howl out of himself. His sorrow exhumed from him, up and away toward the moon. “A-wrooooo …”

He stalled a moment, waiting for her reply. Panting, his jaw clenched. Then, his features pinched again. “A-wroooooo …”

A desolate pause.

“We needs your help,” he said to the sky. “We cannot go home, but we have to. I am afraid. We need jewels. Eh- … please? I know you’re busy, Miss Moon Pony, but you know where the gems are, right? So, you could tell us where they is in our sleep, and you wouldn’t even have to wake up.” He smiled with glinting teeth, making gestures with his paws.

The Mare in the Moon held her composure. Rover waited with his breath on-hold, his head cocked sideways. Soon, his brow sagged over his eyes like an old bridge over water, and his mouth hung like a porch swing while he made the empty motion, as if to grind his teeth. His jaw stopped, teeth jutting out like a poorly made picket-fence. “You could help.”

Her reply was a cool breeze tugging at his red vest. A mere moment and the diamond dog threw his arms down, shouting, “You could help, Pony!”

Rover’s unstable wheezes and sniffs were the last sounds on the air; the vague breeze now lay still, asleep. He shivered, his collar jingling, as he turned away from the lustrous moon, in a starless sky.

<><><>

Three weary wayfarers with miserable mugs staggered down a road. It lead to a pool of blackness in the ground. They felt the heat on their backs vanish, lifted like a pick-pocket. When their frowns were masked by the shade, their padded paws felt the earth dampen and the slope even out in the underground passage.

Here, the dogs plodded along to a beat echoing from the catacomb walls. An immense buzzing erupted from the mining machinery below. The squishy, slimy soil shuddered to it.

Fido, the largest of three, sneezed when a litter of pebbles fell over his nose like pepper. Snuffling, agitated, he scowled. “Well?” His voice was resounding and angry. “What we going to do?”

Eyes down, Rover grumbled at a volume that varied with his uneven march down the path. “Wouldn’t I tell you if I knew?”

“They’re going to expect something,” Spot prompted. “If we tell them the gems is gone-“

Fido pointed a finger. “Bad.”

“If we tell them the gems is coming-“

“Bad to come.”

“If we tell them-“

Rover groaned. “Don’t tell them nothing, stupids. That’s the point.”

Spot rose his chin to glower. Fido glared down.

“Well.” Rubble fell over Rover, who snuffed and sneezed. He rubbed his pink nose, his voice as congested as his snort. “What do you think’d happen if they knew the truth?”

The two let their panting paws spoke with all the volume they needed. Fido’s jaw set off to the side, as askance as his gaze. Spot’s chin receded into his chest. Their empty-headedness gave new definition to the hollow whistle of the corridor.

Rover’s groan balled up all the exhaustion from the back of his throat and threw it down the hall. The other two looked at each other, and back at him. Spot muttered, “We- … we won’t tell nothing.”

Fido nodded. “Nothing.”

The red-vested dog sighed, moving into Hoist House. Spot managed to catch Fido’s gloomy glance once more time before they followed into the wood-paneled shack at the end of the stinky, muddy hall.

Entering a wired cage within, the three idled as Rover snatched the elevator cord. A dancing light bulb made Fido hunch over, which lit their greasy faces in pasty, ghoulish light. Spot closed the elevator cage. Violently, Rover yanked down cord, paw over paw.

The squeaking of the pulley was the only sign that they’d ever been there. Above.

<><><>

The guards came forth on ledges. Then, they began to play. Kettle drums beat with every heart in the room, burning through chests. Bum ba-bum-bum, bum ba-bum-bum …

The mob barked on every accent, spittle airborne. The limestone walls shivered from their mossy foundations. It echoed. The mismatched smells of lava and dog sweat quaked together in an exotic dance. The air hummed, visibly unsettled.

The crowd howled together toward one side of the room. One ledge remained shrouded by a crooked curtain. A big brown Labrador in silver armor came from there with a jewel twice his size. He created a circular spot-light by placing it atop a lava crater, and angled it so that the light matched up with the curtain. Saluting, he disappeared from sight.

When the room was thunderous, the three dogs stumbled out.

Rover held up a paw to save his green eyes, but stayed stoic. His chest pushed out, his other paw behind his back, and his ears at attention: he gave every confidence. Spot and Rover mimicked his stance.

The drums sped. The howls rose. Two synchronized pounds on each drum chopped through the amazing noise. There was nothing, except Rover’s uneven inhale.

“Hounds!” His voice carried remarkably well through the room, echoing. “Sit!”

Four-thousand diamond dogs followed the order, leveling the crowd.

“Beg!” Fido struck the air with a humungous paw. “Beg for your masters!”

Many did, hunching with their paws and tongues hanging in the air. They drooled for them. Watching them rise, Spot cracked a smile. “Good dogs.” He snickered. “Very good doggies.”

Rover had none of the same enthusiasm. His scum colored eyes seethed at the sight of the twenty- the fifty- the two hundred standing higher than the beggars. A heat spread through his stomach, but he remained still. “Bad puppies!”

“I’d love to see you beg!”

A chorus of laughter rumbled afterward.

“Where’s the jewels, boys? All we’re looking for is the jewels. Don‘t tell me you didn‘t find any.”

“Yeah, the jewels!”

“Where are the jewels?”

“The jewels! The jeweeels!”

This word ran through the gathering, passing through dogs like a poltergeist. Even Rover clenched his paws, trying to keep his chest from heaving. “Quiet.”

Spot curdled beside Rover, scowling in every direction. “Sit, dogs!”

“We want the jewels!” cried the young voice.

A hungry anger exploded from five hundred throats: “Yeah!”

Spot could see Fido gripping the ledge for balance. One of Rover’s ears fell as he heard the crowd. He idly rubbed his knuckles, grasping and finally settling on his response.

“Doggies,” he started. “Nice, doggies, eh, the jewels are-“ He straightened. “The jewels are many. Yes, yes. It will take time to get them.” He smiled, throwing up his paws. “But, when they get here, there will be a million!”

A million spun through two thousand tongues, hound dogs brightening, tails wagging, Fido’s claws releasing. The masters grinned and nodded spastically with the growing concurrence.

“What? When?” the young voice hollered. “We’re hungry now, we’re tired. A lot of us don’t have enough for families. Don’t you see us? We’re standing right here, standing right in front of you.”

Fido ground his massive teeth. “But-“

“No!” The young voice sounded volatile, ready to blow. “We need a new mine, we all know it. There isn’t nothing left here, and no half-truth of yours can fool us otherwise!”

The grumbles metastasized through the room, like a cancer, this time an even larger amount of the whole. These grumbles rose in chaos, but as one. A swarm of changelings in the full throttle of attack.

Fido looked at Spot, Spot looked at Rover, and Rover didn’t seem to be looking at anything. His eyes were paralyzed in anguish.

“There are enough,” Fido said, bursting forth. “They’s just not where you can see them.”

Rover’s eyes snapped onto him, his face scrunching.

“No, there’s not!”

Spot shook his fist. “Quiet, you! There is!”

“Plenny!” Fido added.

“How can we trust -”

“Take us for suckers-“

“-Can’t even afford the vet!”

“Might as well have killed the canary!”

Spot and Fido argued hatefully with the objections as the volume escalated further and further until-

“Stopit!” Rover barked. “Much gems are here, and we will stay here until they are not. We know you are angry … and hungry, because we are, too- but we is together here. Angry together, hungry together, and we needs your patience until we can get more gems. All we need is time. We will have the gems here when we can- but there are many still here in meantime.”

The grumbles remained. Not enough being the most common. They churned like an upset stomach, but Rover had no other option.

“Back to work.”

And the whistles blew.

<><><>

“My pups are starving, Mr. Spot, my wife and I haven’t eaten in days.” A big dog stood in the doorway, a silhouette to him. “We need gems for food. A little food.”

“Denied.”

“Wait, but-“

Spot, balancing on the back legs of his chair, wasn’t looking. His eyes were every else. “Next.”

The other dog barked thunder into his face. Spot’s ears twitched. A few hungry licks from his water bowl soothed his parched throat, while the swinging doggy-door came to rest.

The rations bank was a room dug out of black soil, soft but dark. Spot’s lantern-lit office had a continually replenished bread-line coming into it, and a vault directly below his desk, hidden in a hole three times the size of the office itself. Having all those gems down there, just below, just under … he hated this job, but at least he was close to them. All day, just below, just under.

Spot’s ears caught a tut-tut as the doggy-door was locked in place. His chin swivelled automatically to the source, and a snarl propelled from the back of his throat. “Don’t let the door close!”

A little red dog with a pointed nose stood with his back to it, stretching his tar-coloured lips in a frown. “You wouldn’t want them to hear this.”

Spot hopped down from his giant chair and unlatched the door with a paw, standing just an inch shorter than the red dog. His yellow eyes made solid contact with the grey ones staring down at him. “Many listen if you won’t.”

Spot squinted, growling faintly from the back of his thundery throat.

“Not everyone spoke today, but everyone heard. Remember, just because dogs come in for gems don’t mean they don’t know the vault is empty.” He waited for the reaction Spot wouldn’t give him. Tongue poking his cheek, his eyes flickered, before he put out his paw. “Rudolph.”

He put out his own. “Eh … Charmed?”

He scoffed out his nose, and mumbled, “Sure you are.”

The master stared with his lip quirked into a vague, baffled sneer, recognizing his young voice from earlier, one of the shouters. “What you want, boy?”

The grey eyes roamed the room. He didn’t respond and instead opted to distract himself, wander about, as though Spot wasn’t there at all. But Spot was watching.

“You know, worst of it is I like you. Your company …” He pouted. “Not so much, but you, you’re-you’re a good dog, Spot. You worked for what you have- you suffered, you were humbled by it. I’d trust you in jam.”

Chin slightly raised, Spot watched him migrate around the room, taking notes of the little trinkets he’d find as his paw fondled the wall. He went on after a pause. “And, I did, too. Long time. I thought, ‘least we have him, can’t all be bad.’”

He came across the pink dog tag on the bureau’s top shelf and stalled. His thumb stroked the coarse, pink band as he raised the collar to his eye to read the label.

Spot rushed over, barking, and yanked it away. He hid it in his vest as his paws stumbled restlessly around the room. He faced away.

“That’s hers?”

Spot opened his paw and watched the golden lantern light shimmer off the silver metal tag. His brow struggled under the weight of his wrinkles, and buckled as he sighed softly.

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” The stale air broke into pieces around the words, but the humidity remained to hold him in the aftermath.

He didn’t look up, and in his growling voice, whined. His ears lay back. “Rover knows what he doing.”

Rudolph’s teeth caught his tongue, forming a sneer. He shook his head with a deep frown. His rusty voice dropped into a lower hush. “… How can you think that?”

Spot closed his paw around the tag.

“He may think he know what’s happening, but does he?”

Spot’s pupils staggered up and down the length of his adversary. “How much do you?”

Rudolph’s paw went to his chest, rubbing his thinly protected ribs as his tongue poked at his cheek again. His voice lowered again, crisping like the temperature as it descends from summer to autumn. “I’ve been humiliated. Felt useless, bitter, anxious, forgotten, desperate, hungry- a hungry he’ll never have.” His head bowed deeply in a nod. “Crying because I can’t be angrier.”

The bulldog made careful movements, as if a twitch would cost him his head. He tried to pull away, back-up.

“I know what scared’s like. Not a kind of scared that goes away, it’s a kind that ruins everything- I can’t come down from that scared, can’t even think. I have to go to sleep when it’s like that, it’s better.” He took a breath, holding the back of his head. His eyes flashed up. “I know despair.”

“Rover knows that,” he said very quietly. The clock in the corner spoke over him.

Rudolph held his side, feeling his dry, damaged fur against the black pad of his paw. “Not like the rest of us. Come on, you know that.”

“… He does, he knows.” Spot was winching, looking away. “He’s better dog than me. Stronger, a-a-and braver. If you had his dad-” He gripped the tag. “You do not know who you’re talking about.”

His mouth curled with a pained ‘Really?’ ready on his lips. His scoff sounded more like a chesty cough.

Spot felt the blood washing away from his head. The quiet, broken air could barely reach their tired lungs in the seconds or hours that they stood looking at each other.

When Rudolph’s eyes broke free, he grunted, and made for the door. “I’ll leave you alone with your thoughts, Master.”

Spot’s shoulders fell. The door shut tut-tut.

<><><>

Fido knew he should hurry. At curfew, the chrome drawbridge to the shops would lift and lock into place for the nocturnal miners to use as an elevator shaft. His paws clomp-clomped on the metal path as he thought about how little time he had left, conscious of the clipboard in his front paw.

By now, the last dawdlers had dwindled. The long strips of the bazaar were growing dark, shopkeepers closing booths, pinning cloths as curtains, hanging cardboard signs with shoe-strings, and stocking themselves away, for tomorrow. Some, who had no home, cozied into allies, or behind their booths, or even in plain sight. Fido had to step over the candle-maker.

He winched. He had to move swiftly, but he tried his best at being quiet. Not an easy task for someone his size. It was times like this that his limbs were felt long and useless, his hind paws too small to balance all of his weight. Even the aisles of the bazaar were meant for the majority of dogs. Ergo, smaller.

The more he thought about it, the more he concentrated. He watched his paws carefully, his eyes facing the ground as he made his way to the butcher’s.

In the corner of his eye, he caught a quick flash of something and upturned his eyes to see it scurry into the crack between two booths. A pup. Fido realized with a start that he was trying to hide from him.

He waited before he approached, seeing the tiny guy squirm under a blanket there. Fido’s snout scrunched. “’Salright,”

The puppy flinched.

Fido sat outside the narrow alleyway with his paw extended. A long interlude passed with no action. A debate warred on in his mind. Eventually, he produced a near silent grunt, deciding. He reached into his lapel pocket with two sausage fingers.

When he did this, the puppy peeked out from under his blanket. He gasped when he saw the blue jewel being offered to him.

“For mommy and daddy.”

The puppy smiled, reaching for it, and Fido moved his paw back to his chest, now able to see the other dog’s eyes. Or rather, eye. His left eye was swollen shut and encrusted.

“For mommy and daddy.”

The blonde pup nodded and swiped the gem away in with amazing reflex. Fido stood, hearing him scurry away through his alley. As he bit his tongue, he was fairly certain the puppy had no mommy and daddy, and that he just gave his last jewel away. The latter pressed heavier into his mind.

Remembering it in his paw, Fido squeezed the clipboard and moved along. The butcher’s was at the end of the row.

Head down, he had to remind himself what he was here for. Get in, get out. He wasn’t supposed to have jewels, anyway. Everyone has secret stash, but I’m not allowed to?

His thoughts shuddered to a stop when he saw the butcher’s. His paws sped to the corner, and once there, stood as still as ancient trees. His stomach burned and he swallowed, seeing ahead of him three words on a sign he never even thought he could see there. Out of Business.

<><><>

Rover took sniveling gasps of the humid air in his workshop. He could barely stand to look. His paw over his mouth, he moaned, a trembling whistle, and swallowed.

His gravelly voice whispered, “Can-nary?”

He took the bird out of its cage, hung above his head looking haunted. Rover held the featherless bird and tried to pet it before its limp body burst into flame. He shouted and threw it down, his features tumbling into a hodgepodge of emotions

The bird’s ashes sprinkled over the greasy workshop floor.

Rover started to pant, making slobbery grunts. He scrambled for it with two big paws, ash falling through them like dirt through the roof of a collapsing tunnel. His fingers closed around it, and he beat his fists against his head. He mewled on the floor. His forehead grew hot.

Rudolph’s eyes were as wide as the moon as he hid behind the doorframe.

When Rover’s tears depleted, he left the room, passing Rudolph unknowingly and lashing the other dog’s heart with a whip. But, Rover disappeared, running.

Rudolph waited another minute before he took a breath.

When it was finally all clear, he peeked around the corner to see the ash scattered on the floor. The ash lay for only a moment more before illuminating, reforming the form of a fiery bird, flapping around spastically, and flying out the nearest hall.

His eyes bulged.

<><><>

Late into the night, the sirens shouted. The corridors and catacombs flashed red, flood lighting. Hearts leapt into mouths. The diamond dog populous funneled out of their houses to the wire elevators. All going down.

Massive confusion swept through their sleep-poisoned heads.

The evacuation lead back to the Grand Concourse. The porous walls crackled with lava. No one in the congregation, not one, seemed to know anything about what was going on. Where were the guards? Why were they woken up? Was everything okay? Four thousand diamond dogs asking four million questions.

Fido hid in the back, as far out of sight as he could be. So many little dogs complained about their size, but he’d always have a better rebuttal. He didn’t even fit in guard’s armor.

For once, it was easier to think about his size, even being a guard. The whole afternoon he’d felt as though the inside of his chest was filled with water. Just about anything could make him leak. His ears pressed against his skull.

On the ledge above the crowd, a single dog came out. Silence. He stood there. He held his paws behind his back. He waited.

Fido stopped himself from screaming. From behind his back, the dog on the ledge pulled the golden bird cage with its swinging door. Bedlam began.

“They killed it!”

“The bird! The bird!”

“Oh, mercy! Luna, please! Get me out of here!”

Rudolph stared through the birdcage bars. He’d yell his plan, to evacuate, but before that, he stood there dangling an empty birdcage over a ledge. He searched in himself for a reason he had this disgusting, despicable sensation in the back of his throat, and swallowed.

<><><>

The dogs emptied out all day long. The entire day.

Fido, Spot, Rover and their guards sat and slumped on the edges of craters and boulders around the mine’s main entrance, watching while dogs marched through all the different tunnels, carrying themselves a little higher. The conversation between the trio and their guards was mostly non-existent, lapsing in long bursts of languid, awkward quietness.

By evening, the traffic petered out. The stillness was heavy in their chests. There was nothing to say. The words died out so quickly after being thought that they often dissolved before they could reach the tongue.

Their ears against their heads, their paws between their knees or rubbing something for comfort. Rover thought sitting there was the hardest part, but nobody had the guts to get up and head in for the night. Nobody want to go to sleep.

Late in the process, Rudolph marched over, making a b-line. Spot squirmed in his seat. The red-dog held his front two paws together as if he had a small frog inside. His expression was uncharacteristically damp.

The guards arched their backs and snarled at him, hateful looks in their dull eyes, but he put up his paws. “Easy,” he mumbled. “I came to talk to Rover.”

They all twisted back to see him squinting at the dog. “Just me?”

“Yes.” His voice whistled.

Spot and Fido bartered looks of distrust, and Spot leaned forward. “Eh, why not us?” Fido nodded after.

He rubbed his side, and grunted. “Don’t worry about it, I just need to see Rover a minute. Then I’ll be out of your fur.”

Rover cast a glance back to the other two as he slide off his seat. The only sound was his paws patting the dirt, and the early-rising crickets. Rudolph led him far enough away so the others wouldn’t hear.

He’s so small. Rover looked down his nose at this dog who was half his size.

“You know we aren’t coming back, right?”

“Where are you even going?” His whisper was hoarse. “There’s only pretty, precious ponies for miles-”

He stepped forward and raised his grumbly voice. “Ever heard of the Crystal Empire? Folks say it’s up north. Not a body seems to know anything much about it, especially the ponies, but you know why? They must be sitting on a crystal gold-mine, of course they’re going to keep a secret. I figure they could use a couple paws here and there, don’t you?”

Rover squinted at him again. The way he spoke was so … odd. It sounded like he was trying for some measure of confidence, but at the same time, he was hesitant. As though he was waiting for something.

Rudolph cast a look to the other dogs. Then, back to Rover. “Think about it. A crystal mine so large it won’t run out for generations. A dog could have a girl and a litter. A family.” He hesitated, then flicked his head to the left. “Can’t get that here.”

Rover’s ear flicked. His face was tight.

“Well … fine.” He squared his eyes with the green in Rover’s, and raised his chin, as if a deal had been made. Rover thought he was terrible salesman. “All I really want you to know is that it’s your fault, anyway.”

Rover stared down at the little red dog.

Rudolph turned away and strolled off, to where the diamond dog exodus marched into a cold wind. The shadow he cast was three times his size on the red plains, and before he made it too far, the shadow turned back, hearing his name.

The trio of diamond dogs stood together in a pack and together their shadows far outweighed the small dog’s. Rover’s tail wagged, and he snickered when his guards came behind them. “Tell them that.”

5/ Ahuitzotl: Nemesis

NEMESIS

Ahuítzotl

Daring Do and --

The Thunderbird’s Call

Chapter One - Heading for Disaster

Daring Do hugged her pack against her chest, feeling the regular thump-thump of the train passing over the track spikes. The windows put on a beautiful show. The mountainside overlooked a misty jungle. Riveting. At least, the others seemed to think so.

A little colt pointed things out to his smiling, absent mother across the aisle. A nervous stallion watched his window freckle with water. Daring tried to amuse herself with little things like that, but she wasn’t a small detail kind of filly. That's what she told herself. The excitement would kick in any minute now.

The train shook. Daring jostled freely with it, so totally undisturbed that she couldn’t bring herself to care. There was too much to think about, too much to look forward to, and too much to be nervous about when they got to their destination to be worried about the ride there.

“Ungh,” her travelling companion groaned. “Why can they not drive the train straight, is it so hard?”

Daring let her head fall back against the rest again. “Aw, I wouldn’t worry about it. They have to. There’s only so many ways you can go on tracks.”

His salt-and-pepper mane and thick stubble didn’t match the foalish pout. Grumbling in his Spanish, totally-not-a-sound-alike-of-Antrotio-Banderas accent he said, “That is what I am afraid of, Daring Do ...”

She cracked a smile. “What?”

“Going off the rails, fool,” he said, eyes bulging hooves thrown out over the table between them. “If that conductear,’” pronounced with waggling hooves, “had the slightest clue about driving a train without scrambling up his passengers, I might have more faith in her in this nonsensical weather.”

Daring Do tried smothering her giggles. The stallion scowled at her. Well, she'd never claimed to have tact.

“Oh, c’mon, Atlas, do you really think the weather ponies in Machu Ponchu would let a train crash?” The fogged up windows beside her lit up with a wonky spire. Seconds later, as the train went through a tunnel, the clouds growled at them. The kind that meant business.

When they came out the other side, Daring’s smile hadn’t moved. Atlas was pressed into the seat, shoulders up to his ears, his handsome face smeared in wild, crazy panic. Daring threw her head back laughing, which came out as a series of raspy squeaks.

Atlas scrunched his snout and mouth together. “This is why I don't bring j'ou on my travels, j'ou know."

“Why? You don’t want me seeing you wuss out?” She cackled even harder when the train jostled to the side and Atlas stiffened up like a board.

Laughter dying out, she rested her head on her hooves, and her hooves on the table between them. Her shoulders bounced as she hummed out the last of it. “Good thing I have the adventurer cutie mark here, huh?"

“... And what exactly have j'ou used that talent for?”

Daring Do shut her mouth, wings tucking into her sides. “Well ... I’m using it now, aren’t I?”

“Thanks to me.”

Half the candles flickered out. The train threw Atlas back against his seat, and Daring flying towards him. Startled, passengers yelped and screamed. A terrible metal-on-metal screech plastered their ears against their heads.

Daring’s head hit Atlas’s chest. Atlas tensed every muscle that he could, a vein creeping up his neck. His eyes were shut.

Daring thought to scream out to him, tell him to hold on, because she could feel happening exactly what he had predicted. The wheels jerked. The interior lurched. The steady thump-thump that had drifted into the background flared in their chests, made enormous. Daring held her saddlebag, the only graspable thing she could keep a hold of. The car walloped her from one side to another.

With one devastating blow, the steam-filled windows burst, showering the car with glass, and rain pouring in from the outside. Daring heard herself shout. The loudest noise she could make was pathetic against the wind and droning squeal of the wheels.

“Atlas!”

Half the row of seats away, she couldn’t be sure he even heard. Her hair whipped in front of her squinting eyes, but she had to see, had to keep them open. Her heart turned over at the thought of being blind and untethered.

Her back was thrown against a door-frame. She couldn’t breathe. Hot rocks replaced her lungs. Her vision darkened.

Daring wasn’t sure she was seeing what she thought she was.

With another wave cringing the metal, the stucco flooring cracking, Daring watched as the metal was torn right open. Almost like tin-foil. The sound of it was fearsome: an industrial scream. The blackened sky was revealed to them, a curtain pulled back.

Daring’s mane whipped around her. Her head slammed against something hard. The sounds around her dulled. She went weak. With the train tipping left, it was easy for her body to slide straight down, scraping against the glass and metal. Her wings swept it with her like a broom.

A voice called out. She couldn’t hear what.

Daring felt the tug in her gut. She was vaguely aware that she was falling head-first off the side of the mountain edge. Her eyes fluttered shut before she broke the forest canopy.

Chapter Two – Machu Ponchu

“…Wake up.”

Her eyes cracked open, and stung.

“… Daring …”

Her head pounded; she’d moan, but that didn’t seem the smartest move. Little claws dug into her sides. She couldn’t feel the spot above her hip where the left wing met the barrel and that wasn’t the most reassuring sensation to wake up to. Feathers clung to her back with sweat and hopefully nothing else. In brief: she hurt. Bad.

“Please.”

Daring Do’s eyes struggled to open. Her face twitched, too dazed to scowl in pain. The sunlight burned, as if stage lights blaring down at her, breaking through the forest canopy exactly where she didn't want it to be.

She raised a hoof, and seethed, “Ach …” Her breath was ragged.

“Bless the gods,” he laughed. Her ears flinched. It took a second for her to remember who Atlas was.

The metal ripping open like paper, a black-feathered figure tearing it open, and the lightning she saw before everything faded out of existence.

Daring coughed, holding her side. Atlas knelt beside her. He checked her forehead, frowning uselessly. She felt for a sticky ooze she was sure would be under her wing, but thankfully, she was dry. She sat back, trying to take deep breaths and clear her head.

Atlas took that as an invitation to check her pulse. He nodded. “J'es, j'es. Very good.”

She laughed, and shoved him away.

”I knew j'ou would be alright, Daring Do; it would be too easy to get rid of j'ou just like that.” He smiled at her with his excellent teeth, but tiredly, wincing, because of the gash on his right cheek.

Other than that and a few minor tears in his shirt, the only evidence he'd been in a serious train wreck in the last few hours was a tussled mane. For an old dude, Daring thought Atlas had a criminally unfair advantage in the looks department.

“J'ou know,” he said, sitting back. She took the opportunity to catch her breath. “I have travelled to Machu Ponchu before. It wan't this eventful, gracias a dios, but I did learn many stories from their folklore." He made a grand sweeping gesture and looked to the sky. “Locals say this forest houses a god.”

“... A god?”

“Well, a powerful spirit, at least.” He waved off her eyebrow, smiling. “Tlaloc, master of rainfall. I'll wager all ponies in the village think he had some part in the excitement today; they may not put their blame in the right place, but so long as they aren't right, we should be okay.”

“Is he gonna smite us?”

“He isn't who I am afraid of.” He appraised her like she was one of the relics in their shop then nodded up with his chin. “The others- everypony else was shaken, but j'ou fell off of a cliff and didn't fly.”

“I was preoccupied.” Her already scratchy-voice hitched.

“I know.” His smiled became gentle, and he patted her knee. “I am made so happy by the fact that j'ou are okay.”

She spat in the dirt beside them, hawking a couple of times to get out enough. Thankfully, she didn’t see any drops of red. “Yeah. Just, you know, in a severe amount of pain, that’s all.” She squinted against the sun to look his way. “You came looking for me?”

He made a face, rocking his head side to side as if to say ‘more or less.’ “There's a search party. The local authorities must be looking for you, too-“

“But you found me.” She pointed at him, accusingly. She slurped in air, seething after trying to move. “Thanks.”

“No.” He shook his head frowning. “No thanks for me. Make no mention of it, my friend.”

He looked at her legs, and her gaze followed. “Can you stand? Or fly?”

Daring realized she was propped up against a tree; that support was the only reason she was sitting up at all. Trying out of her own accord, her muscles swore at her. She grunted, and tried to swing forward using the momentum instead of outstretched Atlas’s hoof. She bleated like a goat, sitting forward.

Daring let herself take a second, breathing rapidly. She pushed up with a terrible amount of effort, feeling a raw heat in her back- Oh, her back. She broke a sweat, but stood up right.

This time, she didn’t knock Atlas away. She outstretched a wing around him to keep steady, and he muttered words of support to her that she couldn’t really make out. He talked too fast to understand at a whisper.

Standing had a dizzying effect on her. She couldn’t focus so much on the mossy woods awaiting ahead so much as her pulse in her ears and the blood seeming to flee from her forehead, leaving wooziness in its place. Her breathing sped. “Atlas …”

“There, there,” he said, a little louder. She was surprised how soothing the softness in his accented voice was. She never thought she’d actually be calmed by somepony saying ‘there, there.’ “Take your time, Princesa.”

She turned the short distance between them, looking at him. “We have to get to town,” she panted, “and you’re officially not allowed to give me nicknames.”

He nodded, smirking. “To town.”

“Hey.” She made her voice as stern as she could manage. He looked at her. “Where’s the search party? They can get me back faster, can’t they?”

His eyes darted around. “I don’t know.”

She moaned, half in pain, half in frustration.

“I broke away from that asinine search group. They were looking in all the wrong places, and would not listen.” His eyes swished back and forth. “And ... I had to find you before sundown.”

They marched onward. She kept her crackling voice firm. “Why sundown?”

Atlas bit his lip. “I did not want you here after sundown …”

“Why?” Daring realized he hadn’t finished his story from earlier. Something worse than a vengeful rain spirit. “What’s in the woods, Atlas?”

His voice suddenly dropped into a clearer, stricter register. The low way he spoke probably gave his words a greater authority than they should’ve had. “Machu Ponchu is the birthplace of magic and wonder, as legend says, and the forest is one of its most magical parts. The land can be … easily manipulated. There’s all kinds of stories.”

Her gaze roamed the forest, her voice growing quiet. “Like?”

He looked directly in her eyes. They froze in place. She was sure he was telling her, ‘Not in here.’ Daring was surprised to find her heart pounding in her ears. “... Like what?”

Atlas stared, with his head tilted away. Then, he shrugged. “Tlaloc is the rain spirit who watches over the valleys and the forest. The villagers believe his blissful garden can only be reached by the hopelessly lost, and that his lapdog, Ahuitzotl, will do anything to fetch travelers because he cannot leave. This has made him ... insane.”

“So, this, uh, water dog, I guess, has cabin fever- but he can’t leave his little pool, right? Why does that matter if we’re headed to town, anyway? Even if we did come across him, we could just run until he can’t follow.”

“I told you,” he repeated. “The land can be manipulated.”

"But, what does that-"

“Come on.” Atlas hastened, pulling Daring’s wing over his back. “It’s this way.”

Chapter Three – The Pond

Daring grunted, “Ow, you stupid …” Her tail whipped, tempered by the swarms of horse flies buzzing around her rump as they trekked through the unclear paths of the forest. The trees as tall as titans, the weed-ridden floor of the forest provided for some pretty tight squeezes for even her lean Pegasus body. Trotting through rocky paths, she’d nearly tripped six times now.

Thankfully, Atlas always caught her. She could tell his front right hoof was bothering him, but he didn’t make a fuss over it.

She wished flying was still an option. Besides the fact that she was currently wrapped in brambles and ropey vines, and that her wings were sore beyond belief-- the canopy above was too thick, allowing few rays of light to reach down. This wouldn’t be a problem if she knew where they were going, but as it was, the idea of flying above the trees only to see the forest reaching on for miles stood to confuse and discourage her.

At this point, as hard as it was to admit, they were lost.

To pass the time and keep her mind off it, Daring cleared her throat, “So ... Were you always wearing jewelry or did that fall really do damage to my head?”

A silver something glistened from the peak of his shirt, held around his neck with string. From the looks of the lump on his chest, this was no small jewel; more like the kind a princess would wear in the hopes of finding one true love.

Atlas pawed at his ascot, trying to cloak it once more, a wonky frown on his face. “J'ou never mind that.”

“Touchy topic, eh?” She would’ve held her hooves up in defeat if she wasn’t stalking through the forest on them. She smirked. “Well, what about the train, then? Do they know why it crashed yet?”

Atlas’s already crunchy expression crunched even more. “J'ou'd not be happier not knowing.”

“Now you have to tell me.”

He sighed. “... The Thunderbird.”

She blinked at him. “That’s not ... real, though.” She shook her head slowly.

Atlas struck out a hoof to stop her. Daring Do blanched. She nearly tumbled down a steep in the trail. Her hoof kicked up dirt. She watched a pebble bouncing uncontrollably downward, not halting when the brush became thick again at the bottom of the hill.

They stayed absolutely still, perking their ears, and were rewarded with a small splash.

Atlas blinked as she took off, easily gliding down the cliff where her Earth pony friend would have difficulty. It paid to have wings. Hovering in front of the brush, Daring hardly hesitated before jamming her hoof into the leafy canvas. One painful stabbing later, she retracted it with needle-like thorns sticking out. “Gah!”

She hastily plucked the thorns with her teeth as she flew upwards, looking for the way over. By the time she’d picked out as many as she could, the hedge seemed no less thick. Frowning, she rose higher, and higher, and up even more, and faster as she went. Higher and farther, but even through the apex of the forest canopy, it seemed eternally in front of her.

“Oh, come on!” She yelled at it.

Daring swiveled around and found herself at level with the gaseous, white sun swimming in the midst of a surly grey sky, a great deal higher than the tallest trees. The breeze played with her mane and tail as she hovered there, looking back at the bush.

“Must be enchanted,” she muttered, then again, louder, so Atlas could hear as she flew back down to him.

She looked again at her thorny hoof and back the way they came. Behind them, the jungle rolled on over hills for as far as she could see. Back to the hedge. Staring it down, Daring exhaled once, before backing up a ways.

“What are you-”

Daring Do flew towards it like a pendulum ball hitting its neighbor. Just before impact, she flinched violently, gritting her teeth, and shutting her eyes to full-body pain.

On the other side, Daring gasped, all the breath taken out of her instantly. Tears pooled in her eyes because of the pain, but that wasn’t the reason. Not at all. She'd found a dreamland. Shining, in the softest, most incredible way.

The trees, perfectly round, their flowers wonderfully bright. The grass was as tall as Daring herself, and waved at her from below. Even the wind that blew it around was warmer, the sun higher in the sky, more invigorated, younger in the day.

She found herself alone in the garden, in the oasis, in whatever this nirvana was called. She gazed around and didn’t think a single thought, but breathed deeply, soundly, with warmth in her chest.

By a small pool, a low, fruit-bearing tree looked terribly lop-sided without her to sit under it. Grazing the soft grass, she trotted over, picked one of its purple fruit and sat comfortably with the firmness of the tree to support her. A single bite was all it took. The taste, by the moon and the stars above, the taste. Sweet and sour, respectful of her limits and nourishing as anything.

But, a single bite was all it took. She saw it first in the corner of her eye. From the blue darkness emerged a growing shadow, then a face, and at last a hand, a monkey’s paw. It erupted from the water, and attached to Daring Do like a grappling hook, crushing her torso and dragging her down.

Then, splash! and that same blue darkness assaulted her, filled her, a mob of bubbles flooding her vision, as the only sensation she was aware of was the hard pull on her stomach. The pull down.

Chapter Five - Dr. Atlas

Lungs flaming in her chest, crackling, squeezing, filling, and ribs each stocked with a brand of white, molten heat, Daring Do only saw the trail of bubbles jet-streaming out of her mouth as they escaped toward the surface. Surface, surface, surface.

The cold was incredible. Every part of her that wasn’t screaming in hot pain was rigid with frostiness. The sun shimmered above reaching down with great dexterity, down to the deepest reaches of the lake, and still, effortlessly, with all the slowness of a yawning wildcat, but not to her.

Surface, surface, surface.

Her pink eyes bulged, her throat seemed shredded down the length of it, and an enormous pressure was building in her ears, behind her eyes, as though she had ascended higher than the tallest tip of Cloudsdale. All she could hear was the low, garbled sounds of a pond, her own struggled moves, and the bubbles ejecting out of her throat. Gulb, gulb …

SURFACE, SURFACE, SURFACE.

There was no real thought. There was no real sound. For the journey down, lower, and deeper into her demise, she shifted into a thoughtless clarity, only fear intruding, but oh, what a fear. Her heart felt the need to break out of her chest, ramming painfully into her ribcage as though a trapped beast, as though a tempted ram, as though a bucking bull.

A blackness crept, huddled around the corners of her eyes as her head grew light and her wild flailing lessened. The hand that held her whipped carelessly, and losing her senses, her surroundings, Daring also lost any delusion of orientation. Total shock set in.

The blackness was complete.

Daring Do was thrown over the rocks. Her body tumbled, then slid to a stop.

The hand prodded her torso until she flinched, due to natural reflexes. The hand slammed into her back, and Daring Do came back to life as wildly as she left it.

She sputtered, gasping and wrenching, feeling the water dribble down her chin. Both her ears and her nose were painfully water-logged. She shivered in her clinging clothes, wheezing through the pain of her ribcage.

“Atlas?”

Her eyes snapped back and forth. She searched in ill-defined darkness. Every shape could’ve been him. “Atlas?”

Another hand clasped around her broken chest and tore her away from the ground. This time, she was a rag. Her mane and tail fell limp, dripping. She was pulled up to eye-level. Red-rimmed eyes sat at the end of an incredible snout.

Teeth as large as her hind-legs came together in a smile. This creature’s foul breath blasted through Daring’s fur as it spoke in a wild voice. “Ah, a pony. How timely.”

She beat against his fingers, albeit weakly. “You almost drowned me.”

“Almost?” he laughed, pupils re-sizing. If he was anything like the alley-cats back home, Daring was about to be swatted. “I think I deserve a little more credit than that, don’t you? You were dead. I’m sure of it.”

She scoffed. “No, I wasn’t. I’m not.”

“You weren’t?” His eyes narrowed calmly. “You seemed very dead.”

Daring stared at him a moment. “Look, I know who you are.” She licked her lips. “You’re Ahuítzotl, devourer of lost souls, Tlaloc’s lapdog. The-” She searched her flooded brain. “You’re the beast of burden.”

“Who?”

“- hey, what the-?”

Frowning deeply, Ahuítzotl turned her upside-down, as if he thought she might be more entertaining from that angle.

“Gak!” Daring gasped.

Apparently dissatisfied, he brought her in closer to his yellow eyes, close enough for her to see bloodshot spires. Daring swung in his grasp, grunting.

Inspecting her neck, his throat revved. “You’re not wearing it.”

The blood was starting to give her head that bloated feeling. “What’d-ya- ach.“ Her voice came out sounding squashed, and she coughed. She made a note that talking upside down wasn’t one of her secret talents, but she also realized what he was doing. Disorienting her. Trying to scare her into surrender.

Daring Do locked her eyes shut, barred her teeth, and braced her ears against her head. For one full second, he wasn’t there at all. And that was all she needed.

“There was another pony with me.” Trying not to cough again, she glowered at the beast. “What did you do to him?”

The kohl paint crunched around his eyes when he smiled. “Unfortunately, I wouldn’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Liar,” she said, searching in him. Her eyes grew dangerously wide. “What did you do?”

He smiled wider, oval eyes stretching with his ridiculous mouth.

“Where’s Atlas?”

Now it was Ahouitzotl’s turn to look confused. “Who?”

“Ahuitzotl!”

Across the way, Atlas hung strapped to a pole with eyes as wide as she’d ever seen them go. “You have your sacrifice and very soon, your whistle. I expect my payment in full.”

Chapter Six - Meeting Cabelleron

Daring Do had never been a ritual sacrifice before. In a way, that sort of counted as a new and exciting experience, but it really wasn’t what she’d envisioned for today. Up until now, she could handle it. Ending up in a massive train-wreck? Awesome! Staggering through unknown terrain only to end up hopelessly lost? Spectacular! Meeting a deranged pet to some wacko forest spirit? Why not?

Losing an ally, realizing that everyone in the room was now her enemy ... That hurt.

It wasn’t very difficult for Ahuitzotl to switch them out; tie up Daring, and let Atlas free. She didn’t put up much of a fight because at this point there wasn’t much of one to put up. Too weak and battered to put up a decent one, anyway.

“So!” Ahuitztol said, turning away from Daring, taking Atlas under the monkey’s paw on his tail. “You are the pony with my whistle, Mr ... ?”

“Dr. Atlas Cabelleron,” he said, Atlas took the cord around his neck, and extended it toward Ahuitztol with a smile. Frankly, Daring didn’t know how she ever trusted him in the first place; nopony with eyebrows that big could possibly have a conscience. “Dr. Cabelleron is fine.”

She scoffed.

Ahuitzotl gave her a demented look over his shoulder like she’d offended him. “You are too impatient to perish, little pony. Tlaloc will be here to take you soon enough, and then you can enjoy yourself in his garden all you please.

“For now,” he said, oozing with strange glee, “enjoy the soothing sounds of my playing the Thunderbird whistle!” He held it over his head and broke out in a peal of laughter, the sound bouncing off the grotto walls. “For with the blowing of this trinket it is I, Ahuitzotl, who is made the most powerful being in the world with the Bird at my beck and call!”

Daring Do blinked. Cabelleron had a Thunderbird whistle and traveled with a pegasus? Her eyes washed over- being the angry crier she was of course it had to happen now. Cabelleron called the Thunderbird. Cabelleron crashed the train so they’d wind up in the forest, and find Ahuitztol to make the trade. He’d never planned on going to Macchu Ponchu at all.

Daring snorted, shaking her head. No. She couldn’t get angry. Not now.

Instead, she scoffed. ”I didn’t think super villains actually told you their whole plan. I thought that was just a Ponywood/movie kind of thing, but no, apparently you are that stupid.”

Dr. Cabelleron put out his hoof. “Yes, yes,very funny; now, about my-”

“What do you mean, ‘stupid?’” Ahuitzotl said, turning around. “I am not stupid. I am Ahuitztol!”

Shrugging while tied up sort of hurt, but Daring remained aloof. “Sounds like the same thing to me.”

Ahuitzotl growled, red-rimmed eyes bulging as he tromped over. He stood about twice as tall as Daring, even now that she was suspended with rope, but she dared not break character. Even with his rank fish-breath seething through his tiger-like teeth. “You dare?”

Cabelleron chased after him, speaking loud. “My payment-”

“No, I’m Daring,” she told him, “I guess that’s as close as I can expect a dumb old dog to get.” She giggled with that raspy voice of hers. “Man, how does Tlaloc put up with you?”

“I put up with him,” he seethed, gnashing his teeth and heaving. “Soon he will be my pet, and I can put up with him all I want!”

Dr. Cabelleron raised a useless hoof. “My payment ... ?”

Daring laughed as convincingly as she could. “Wow- heh, heh- Scary. No,- tch, ha ha ha- really, that’s- aha- so frightening- Ha ha ha ha ha...”

“I am horrifying!”

“As wet puppies go, maybe. I wouldn’t quit your ... Uh, what is it again that you do here? Do you even do anything?” Just when Ahuitztol’s face couldn’t get more flush or scrunched, Daring let out a contemptuous bark, “Ha! You don’t, do you? You just wait around for your daddy to come and collect the explorers too dead to escape. How did you ever think you could rule anything?”

Unfortunately, Ahuitzotl wasn’t quite as dopey as she’d made him out to be. In a fit of rage, he growled, “Like this,” and raised the Thunderbird Whistle to his lips.

The shriek that came out of that whistle nearly broke Daring Do’s eardrums. It couldn’t be near silent like a dog whistle, could it? She just had to enjoy that screech, like the metal on metal she’d so loved hearing earlier that day. Dr. Cabelleron had his hooves over his ears, but being tied up didn’t give her that luxury. Even after Ahuitzotl stopped, it seemed to echo around the grotto (though that may have just been Daring’s ears ringing).

She didn’t think anything could top that for sheer shock value, but not ten seconds after everything settled, the Ahuizotl’s grotto began to tremble along to a beat. Earthquakes timed to a regular pace. Pebbles and dust fell from the cave’s ceiling into the quivering pools of water. Daring squinted, confused. Ahuiztol’s full-mouthed smile began to waver as a seemed to realize the Thunderbird didn’t walk.

Which is when he also realized who was coming.

Cracks blistered open in the grotto walls as a thunderous voice called out, “Ahuizotl!”

Chapter Seven - Conversations with a God

The pillar Daring had been tied to cracked, and would have tumbled down onto her along with the roof above it if she didn’t tear free of her restraints the second it started coming down. She tumbled to side, thanking Atlas for forcing her to go through all that gymnastics training along with her combat training. With the stone crashing down around her, she almost didn’t have time to realize she’d thanked that scumbag for something.

The storming night sky broke through the reflective rock that trapped them. Daring saw her chance to fly off, and was about to take it when she saw Cabelleron dodging falling debris and trying to shield his head.

Dr. Cabelleron was many things, but a pegasus was not among them. Daring Do realized in that split second, if she didn’t save him, he’d have no escape.

Before she had much time to debate it, she found herself diving toward him. She tackled him to the ground, onto some of the already fallen debris. It was admittedly a rough landing, and took the air right out of Cabelleron, but it meant there was nothing above them to fall down when Tlaloc stormed the scene.

Daring Do had the thought of escaping, really, but how often do you have the chance to see a raging god? And one so ... mesmerizing, at that ...

It was the eyes. The light made the rain around Tlaloc’s permanently angry face glow red. As far as Daring could tell, he was an alpaca, like the majority of the villagers of Macchu Ponchu; his blue glowing body was lanky and proportioned all wrong to be a pony. But, she couldn’t exactly say for sure with that boxy, but intricate stone mask on his head. The rectangular mouth with two stalactites for teeth seemed empty underneath, but the perfectly round eye holes cast the hellish light Daring and Cabelleron couldn’t tear themselves away from.

And, apparently, Ahutzotl had the same problem.

He stood on all fours, stricken, with his pointy ears bent back and his shoulders pressed inward, like a admonished dog. His jewelry looked more like a collar. The red light focused on him, like two morbid spotlights.

Once again, Tlaloc bellowed, above the sound of the rain dripping from his ethereal fur, “Ahuizotl.”

Cowering, he remembered himself, and bowed. “Eh ... Yes, Master?”

Tlaloc extended his unnervingly long neck toward him, and moved his masked head side to side like a wild animal. When he spoke, it sounded exactly like it would if thunder was sentient; guttural and booming. “You have disrespected the spirits that guard this realm.”

“Master, no, I would never-”

“You attempted to call our messenger the Thunderbird as though you it were yours to command.” He rose to his full height, which Daring could hardly believe. She knew mountains that were shorter than this guy. “And, now you refuse to take responsibility for your heinous action.”

Ahuizotl clasped his monkey paws together, assuming the classic begging position. “You misunderstand, my Lord! It was the pony!” He jabbed his shaking arm toward Daring, his tail mimicking the action.”She forced me to do it!”

Tlaloc didn’t bother even looking at Daring. He turned his head sideways again, shaking loose a year’s worth of rainfall from the fur on his neck. “Your devotion has ended. I see that now. In accordance, your reign will end, as well.”

Ahuizotl’s features fell from panicked anger. “... What do you mean, Master?”

“I shall cast you out of my gardens. Never again will you serve the spirits, and I curse your name to never be spoken with respect. You may never gain a position of power by natural means. This is your punishment for your pride, Ahuizotl.”

Before Tlaloc cast him out with his unbelievable magic, Daring noticed another gaze on her besides the god. As Tlaloc gave his speech, Ahuizotl, standing unnervingly still, stared into her. His bloodshot eyes took her in fully, as if for the first time. Something passed between them that Daring Do had never experienced before. A sort of exchange; an understanding based entirely upon mutual hatred.

Ahuizotl would never stop. He wouldn’t back down; all this only meant he’d have to be more creative. And that meant Daring could never stop, either. Distantly, she wondered how many other lunatics like this were out there ...

Unfortunately for her, she’d later dedicate her life to finding out.

Chapter Eight - A Parting Gift

Daring Do shoved the wet from her eyes. She tried scrubbing the flush from her cheeks, too, but that wasn’t as effective. She didn’t know anypony on the train platform, but breaking down on a cold backless bench surrounded entirely by ponies and alpacas in a town she didn’t know wasn’t as fun as it sounded. She nestled her head in her hooves; her spiky-maned head hiccuped.

A hoof tapped her shoulder.

Sighing, she swung her head out of its burrow, only to have the sudden urge to plunge it right back in.

Dr. Cabelleron stood there with an extended hoof. He’d wrapped himself in a pale grey trench coat as though afraid to be called out on his identity for a second time today. “Ms. Do, it has been a true pleasure working together. J'our severance package will take care of j'ou from here, I hope?”

Daring scoffed, sounding like she’s sprung a leak. She folded her hooves. “You can’t expect me to shake your hoof after today. I’d say it was a blast while I knew you, but it doesn’t feel like I’m talking to the pony I knew anymore.” Her eyes darkened in the dusk. “Now I don’t know anypony.”

Cabelleron sat next to her on the bench. “Perhaps it doesn't matter now, but for the record, I considered j'ou a great friend and a loyal assistant. Whether or not that means anything to you, coming from the most well-renowned curator of the most well-renowned museum and gift shop in Equestria it will mean everything to any future employer you wish to seek out.”

“To be honest, I think I’m done working for ponies,” she said, leaning back, exhausted.

Dr. Cabelleron smiled. “Oh? A free agent then.”

“Maybe more like a lone wolf,” Daring told him, staring him down. “One that doesn’t like to be crossed.”

He laughed. Daring wanted to sock the smirk right off of his stupid face, but then Cabelleron pulled a folded parchment from inside his trench coat, and gave it to her. She frowned at it, then looked to Cabelleron for guidance. He stood, smiled at her one last time and said, “This one ... She has no value to me. The reward is not worth the risk, shall we say. I trust j'ou will find some use for it?”

He walked off before she finished unfolding it.

Daring Do was no cartographer, but she knew a treasure map when she saw one. On the bottom right corner of the map she saw the last note her ex-mentor would ever write to her:

Find the Sapphire Statue.

6/ Iron Will: Monster

Monster

Iron Will

Three minotaur boys snuck out after sundown. The day’s last light turned the canyon walls fluorescent red, and in some spaces, uncomfortably dark. The brothers raced down the sandy hill, just past the point where mom and dad could see from the main house.

Their wrestling ring consisted of a length of rope tied together into a big circle, and four barrels set out at the corners. As the little one, Abe, climbed atop a barrel, Will’s heart inched out of its hiding spot. Orrick, the oldest, gave Abe the lantern, and ruffled his head hard enough to push his neck back.

Orric winked, “Got Wilbur’s tissues ready?”

Will spat in the dirt and smothered it like he was stamping out a cigarette. “That’s Iron Will.” He crossed his pathetic arms.

Orrick snorted like a pig finding a truffle.

In retaliation, he snorted steam.

They circled each other, shuffling right in drunk circles. Abe hopped down and watched from behind the safety of the rope with a keen eye for detail. The stakes were higher than ever.

Orrick’s eyes flared under his heavy-looking forehead, his horns aimed for Will’s chest. Will resisted the urge to raise his fists as a shield. They were matadors, not boxers. They had self-respect.

According to the radio, pony matadors wore costumes and liked carrying blankets. Since that didn’t make any sense, they left their bedsheets at home and settled for practicing what they imagined the moves to look like.

The ponies usually faced off with bison or buffalo, and in one, a bull. Anything bigger and stronger than them. Sounded about right to Will. Orrick essentially liquified him every time. Usually, it ended with his face squashed between the ground and an armpit.

Will’s hooves scraped the dust, and he stumbled. Orrick lunged, swinging his arm at his brother’s chest. He fell. His head rebounded twice. A wheeze escaped his lungs with the rest of his air supply, “Poff.”

Orrick grinned above, enjoyment glowing through the unreadably absent look in his eyes. He smacked his elbow. Will’s eyes shot open. He saw him falling over his stomach before he could do anything.

The little air vacated his lungs under the strength of the blow. Will buckled over to the side, feeling the vomit pool. He heard Abe smother a gasp from the corner, and he glared into the dirt. Who just took a blow to the stomach here?

Orrick’s hand grabbed Will’s tail. He dragged him through the ring, kicking up dust and letting the ground rug burn Will’s back. His teeth clenched. The force of a shout built up in the back of his throat, blocked in by a bitten tongue and sheer will power.

Orrick snorted -- a loud, guttural sound from the very back of his nose -- and leaned down until he was scowling over Will’s face. “Uncle?”

A moment passed. Then Will’s hand shot out and grabbed Orrick’s hoof. Orrick’s hand shot out just as fast, grabbing Will’s arm for leverage as he flew into the air, knees pointing at Will’s chest. Will’s eyes squeezed shut before the blow shocked his poor, unassuming organs.

“GRAARGH,” he bellowed.

Orrick seethed through his teeth, in one short breath expelling that little extra bit of force, like he would lifting his cart in the mineral fields. “So. It can speak.”

Smushed against the dirt, his ears were squashed, but not enough to block out the sound of mom’s voice calling out over the hill. “Orrick! Wilbur! Abraham! Get your fannies back here right this instant, misters!”

Will smiled, which looked just as much like a frown. Orrick jumped up and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, like a kitten.

“Honestly,” she said. “You’re worrying your father sick, you know that? Get in the house, all of you.”

She went ahead.

Abe’s floppy ears hit his head. He marched ahead of his brothers, shoulders fallen. The cowbell around his neck jingled with each step. Will immediately regretted letting him tag along, and had to remind himself he would’ve hated staying behind even more than getting caught.

Orrick went after. Will tried matching his steps without looking like he was trying to avoiding his brother’s eye.

When their mother was far enough ahead, the brown in his thin, hooded eyes flicked over to Will. “You think Dad knows we left the house at all?”

Will frowned. You’re the one who got to work with him! Shouldn’t you be telling me? He shrugged.

“Yeah,” he muttered, eyes falling back on the starlit path beneath his hooves.

Their hooves crunched the canyon gravel as the geckos chirped in waist-high grasslands. The wooden ranch-house door swatched against the latch ahead.

Will’s eyes only got a break from full darkness in passages glowing by the light of enchanted letters from a language he couldn’t read.

There must’ve been a lot of wanderers over the years; all kinds of ropes and chains swam through the passageways, twisting off into darkness and meeting up to compare notes. None of them tugged like his.

Every noise floating through the stale, fungal air nested in his head, laying possibilities. He plastered his ears against his square of a head. He could still hear the his own hooves scraping the gravel. He didn’t know what kind of animal could live in a place like this, but given enough time to remember the stories, he could make one up.

The glowing text following his path was the first kind of magic he’d ever seen. At first, he didn’t know what he was looking at. It took an embarrassingly long time for him to remember what a unicorn was. But, he’d never seen one in his life, and hadn’t heard of any living anywhere near the valley.

How far did these tunnels go?

A little snap echoed from the right. He tensed up. A pebble fell behind him and he thought the world was over.

Silence filled in the gap.

He wondered if his family sent a search party for him, too. When nothing came to break the silence, he wondered if he’d get to find out.

After who-knows-how-long, he ran out of steps to take. He stumbled toward a wall, and threw his back against it. The stone was cold enough to make him suck in, but it didn’t matter.

His short breath hitched. The blue hues of crumbled, cracking bricks crowded around. He gripped the fur on his knees, chest fluttering, and head falling back. I’m gonna die. No one’s going to ever find me here. I’ll rot until I’m gone, and no one will know I was here, and no one’s ever gonna care.

He sat for a solid hour, at least.

He stared, hiccuping at the ropes laying in restless lines in either direction, gripping harder onto his. Had any of them gotten out?

… They did, he thought.

Head aching, he got up and followed them back into a never-ending night.

He couldn’t have journeyed more than a mile before the words started to reappear. The inscriptions were the same blue as before, but these, he could read. They crawled on, giving him a preview of the walk ahead.

Once he read the words they burned into his eyelids like sunspots. Written over and over on passage after passage:

Don’t look at the eyes.

If it was a poem, it wasn’t a very good one.

He said the words again in his head, and even under his breath, but never any louder than his hoof-steps. Every once in a while, he’d still hear a grunt or a whine from somewhere implacably far.

He made all sorts of guesses as to what it could mean, but most crumbled into nonsense. Eventually, he had to give up before the terrifying beasts in his head whose eyes he couldn’t look at freaked him out much more.

After that, he started keeping track of how many corners he turned down. It didn’t last long. That pony’s advice distracted him too much to keep a decent count.

Then it occurred to him. If someone -- somepony – had the time to scrawl that into the wall, why didn’t they have time to include directions?

His hooves moved faster. The rope unraveled from shoulder in tugs. He snorted out his breath.

Breathe, said the voice in his head. Just breathe.

He slowed, but kept trotting along. It wasn’t long before he realized what had happened. His new buddy had given him something to think about besides the Labyrinth, whether they meant to or not. He meant to. He smiled, lips shaking.

Iron Vaughn, they called him.

Wilbur sat on a stool in his dad’s workshop, among reins and scythes and ongoing projects left to rust. He never knew why, but his dad’s shop was always a dark place to be. Daylight didn’t like it there. The blinds kept even the brightest of days at bay, even if the humidity still slithered through. Hues of blue and steaming red turned white, a sweetness below the roasted smell of coal -- that’s what he’d choose to remember.

His dad shoved a crackling rod into water, broad roan shoulders defined like a mountainside and about twice as big. He grunted like a boxer does when his fist makes contact with bone. Will flinched.

That stool was probably the most uncomfortable place to be.

“Wilbur,” he said, through the gristle of a low-toned, deeply angry voice; it almost sounded like regret, even if what he was currently doing what he was was sorry for. He didn’t turn around. “I saw you wrestling with your brothers.”

Will’s stomach contracted, so suddenly all the contents had nowhere to go. A part of him smiled, but something else wanted to run and never be found; he couldn’t tell what kind of talk this was going to be. All of that came through in a squirm on the stool.

Will could see his dad’s well-defined bags and hard-earned creases when he half-turned to grab another tool. “Get stronger. If you’d quit dancing around, you might pin him for a few seconds, but you’re never going to get anywhere if you don’t lift.”

Will nodded to his bouncing knees. His hooves clacked together. Tender-voiced, he said, “Yes, sir.”

His dad paused. He did that between most everything he had to say, so Will knew he meant what he meant.

“You know you’ve got to be the one to keep your sisters safe? Your mom, Abe, the girls; you’re the only one they’ve got when I’m out with Orrick working the draft.” Deep, heart-beating anger. “You’re responsible for them, Wilbur.”

What would never (yes, in a million years) be said, but Will couldn’t help but think afterward was a continuation so sick and horrible he could hardly stand himself for thinking it. In his father’s voice, Will heard 'it's your job to protect them from me.'

His heart dropped and his hooves stopped. The message, the lit rooms- what if it’s luring me?

He gripped the rope. No. It has to be a unicorn. It’s just a pony. He started up again, reaching back out to the wall.

One of the very few comforts he had was the forty pounds of twine he had hurting his left shoulder. By now it’d been rubbed raw, but that made him hold tighter.

Feeling the twine fall off his back was easy in the beginning.

Later on, though, he became very aware of the thinning. He reminded himself that this was the whole town’s supply of rope, and tried letting his mind wander back to that awful riddle.

Maybe it wasn’t finished. It didn’t sound finished to Will. He wouldn’t have stopped for long … maybe there’s more to it somewhere else. He didn’t like that idea. Every time he came to a corner two or more paths were his for the choosing (dead-ends weren’t common, but he found more than his share of them). Point being: he didn’t trust his luck enough to stumble on something so necessary.

When another kind of light became clear down the corridor, he dropped his stomach and ran.

Daylight.

Will never ran faster any time in his life. His strides came so long and powerful it seemed like everything around him was moving and he was staying in one place. The twine flew off his shoulder. His smile grinded against his cheeks.

He bolted through the archway out so fast he tripped. He didn’t care about his eyes sizzling. He couldn’t give a pony’s plot that he had no idea where this place was. He didn’t even care that there was nothing blocking the horizon in any direction he could see. He collapsed on the ground, laughing out the dust.

Of course, that only lasted as long as it took him to remember his brother’s name. Abe.

He pushed his torso up, propping up his head to look into the black-hole trying to suck him back in. His breath came out sounding like shivers.

He sat there for a lot longer than he ever told anyone he did. He punched the dirt. He hid his head in his knees. None of it did him any good. Eventually, he let out a sound so sad it almost matched the dread inside.

Will pulled off the ground and stood at the gate to the Labyrinth, shoulders slumped to the left. After being in there, he knew something: if he let himself sit out there for even a minute more, he wasn’t going back in. Ever.

Every step he took was as long and drawn-out as his breath. He readjusted the twine on his shoulder, favouring groove it’d made.

The darkness coming over felt so cold after the sun. He’d never forget that.

Will shuffled into the middle of the Labyrinth. Torchlight blanketed his brother, curled up against the opposite wall. He stared. The word tore itself out. “Abe!”

If only he’d seen it.

Trotting in from an alcove, its eyes burned the brightest in the room. When it moved, the metal plates in its body clinked and worked in waves to compensate. A silver ring twinkled though its pig-like snout.

Will urged him, prayed to him, to keep still, stay silent, but once Abe saw his brother it was over. Even with a scream he’d obviously already overused. It was enough. “Will!”

The mecha-bull, who’d taken interest in Will, turned on end -- a tearing movement. Its whip of tail, twice as thick as both of Will’s hooves, struck the ground. The way it trot after him, almost bucking already, set something in his stomach on fire, the smoke rising to the cheeks.

Will stamped. “Hey!”

The bull shook its head, graphite horns waving, groaning.

Panic throttled his stomach. “Hey! HEY!”

That did it. The bull charged, and so did Will; both toward the same wall.

The last second never did Will any favours before.

But, he’d never fought a giant mechanical bull before, either, so the day was full of firsts.

It projected into the wall - CRASH - and still, its golden, thinly inscribed horns didn’t take a dent. The blow came straight to the scowl. Its eyes erupted, growing white as it snorted pressurized steam.

Will danced toward his brother, shuffling like a wrestler in a stone ring. “Stay down.”

He nodded, holding his mouth shut with his hands.

The bull roared, shaking the mortar, then dove into attack. When it’s eyes fired up, burning into Will like headlights, he realized a thing: the Mecchataur wasn’t real, it was an automaton. Somebody made it, with metal, and a source of heat inside that he could turn up.

Don’t be shy, look ‘em in the eye. He smirked. “Want some?”

The bull rumbled, louder than thunder through the chamber, barreling straight for him. He stood in a ready position, hunching.

The flames turned blue mid-run.

Will charged, too, but he ran into a leap, swing his hooves between it horns. The bull ran into the ground, steaming, screaming, because he’d made its head soft with heat.

He just had to stay on top. Climbing onto its back, Will’s thighs crackled. His snout scrunched at the smell. He straddled its back, the plates kicking.

The mecha-bull screeched. It slammed its ‘hind legs against the floor, rattling Will’s bones. The heat or the sting made him woozy, but he held on long enough for the bull to collapse before he did.

The clatter was incredible.

“... Abe.“

His brother gaped down at him. “You kicked his butt.”

His lips quirked up, tears pooling, panting out a laugh. He lumbered over, held Abe’s head against his stomach and laughed, hearing him laugh into him.

He held on tight. If he noticed Will shaking from the burns on the inside of this legs, he didn’t show any sign of it. Holding on gently, Iron Will never felt so strong.

8/ Gilda - Jerk

Jerk

Gilda

Dear Gilda Beak-Breath,

Hey, sorry, but I have to bail on the visit this weekend. I really wanted to come, but some crazy stuff is going down with the weather in Equestria and everypony’s blaming the weather patrols. They have me working round the clock like it’s my job or something.

Maybe we’ll hang soon, anyway, the weather’s getting so out of hoof I might need you and the griffons to help out. Between you and me, I’m in some serious hot water. Everypony’s looking to me for answers I don’t have. If I don’t make a good call soon or fix things, they’re probably gonna can me as captain.

And on top of all that nonsense, Spitfire went missing. Like, poof. Now the ‘Bolts don’t know who’s in charge, and I’ve gotta high-tail it back and forth between two disasters.

Sorry,

Rainbow Dash

Gilda uncrumpled the dumb letter. By this point, the folds were all fuzzy and it was getting hard to read. She grumbled, smoothing it out with a fist. If she had any self-respect, she’d tear that stupid thing apart and quit moping about it.

Grenda’s head popped into the roost, and she knocked with one knuckle (in that order). “Doofus.”

Gilda ate the scroll.

Thankfully, Grenda wasn’t paying attention, anyway. Something wouldn’t let go of her eyes. “There’s some bull-plop out here for you.” She ducked back out.

“Bleck.” She reached into her beak. She winced. The scroll had officially taken enough abuse.

What waited outside disappointed her to the core. Grenda wasn’t kidding.

An elephant. Just an elephant. Well, not just an elephant, but that was the worst of it.

The nest bent underneath him, and no wonder. Between his size and his gold-plated armour, this goof clearly didn’t understand the concept of traveling light. His tiny eyes latched onto her. Her friends rallied around her door, sneering and fidgety, not exactly blocking his path, but keeping watch just the same. Gilda snorted. Those jokers.

Even if he was here to pick a fight, white war elephants versus griffons? They had flight on their side, and some of them could actually use a weapon, but why did all of the griffons she chose to spread friendship with collectively think sparring off against a war animal was a stellar idea?

They let her by no problem.

The gold tassels on the sultan’s back tingled when he bowed his massive elephant head to kiss her claw (raising his trunk out of the way). His voice twisted in a typically friendly elephantine accent as he said, “Greetings to you, your excellency. You must forgive the suddenness of my visit.”

Gilda’s claw hung in the air, wet with elephant drool. “Uh, yeah. Your liege, I guess.” She bowed for half a second, took one look at his stampers, and rose back to her full height. “You didn’t come to for scones, huh?”

The sultan’s head sunk, along with his big floppy ears. “Unfortunately, no. Less enjoyable terms have brought me to you. There is a summit of nations I have come to invite the leader of your kingdom.”

Gilda blew air out the side of her beak. “Yeah, well, that’s great and all, but-” An invisible claw slapped her. “Wait, you seriously think I’m the queen of Griffonstone?”

“Is this an untruth?” He angled his head like a dog, which was cool to look at seeing all his tassels ad jewels sift one way. “Your followers lead me to you. Am I now to believe I have been implicitly lied to on my mission of peace?”

“That’s exactly what you’re now to believe!” a gruff male voice called.

From above, another griffon slammed himself in between Gilda and the sultan. He wore a crown that was obstructed by the three feathers sticking up in a cowlick on his thin head. He spoke as if he introducing a motion picture coming this summer. “I’m ... Prince Gulliver, the greatest of all princes and Gullivers. I am the rightful heir to Griffonstone’s mighty throne. Don’t waste your time on losers, go for griffon gold. The real deal. My blood is the blood of kings, and unless I have a long-lost sister I am currently unaware of, I still work alone.”

Gilda leaned around. “We don’t pay attention to him. He’ll usually go away if you ignore him long enough.”

The sultan scratched his head with his trunk. “Well. Whichever one of you speaks for Griffinstone should attend the meeting in three day’s time in the Llamastinian palace. Farewell until I see you then, my friends.”

With that, he lumbered away.

Gulliver jabbed a talon in Gilda’s face. “Don’t think you’ve won. You’ve messed with the wrong prince, princess.” He narrowed his eyes. “I’m the leader Griffonstone wants and needs. You’re just some pathetic wannabe riding my tail feathers, like a fart trail on a summer’s breeze.”

“I don’t care who rules Griffonstone. If I have to explain that one more time, I’m going to slam your beak into the King Grover statue. Repeatedly. Until you can’t use it anymore. Ever.”

“You clever minx. Trying to lull me into a false sense of security as if I wasn’t clearly able to see through your lying lies.”

“Nope, honestly don’t care.”

“Is the desperate lie you tell yourself at night. Clearly, even you have been fooled by your own cheap trickery, but not me. I see you scheming there, scheming as if Griffonstone didn’t already have a soon-to-be King.”

“It doesn’t, the monarchy collapsed years ago. You have no say on anything at all.”

“You’re jealous of my power.”

“You live in a box.”

“Yet only I represent Griffonstone to the world, and not you.”

“Your crown is made out of cardboard. You actually cut a part of your house in the shape of a crown and you wear it around.”

“Soon, with the whole world supporting my rule, I, Prince Gulliver, will finally be coronated as I was always meant to be.” He flared his wings. “And now, I fly.”

He flew.

Gilda scowled into the sky, disappointed with existence for including him. Grenda came up beside her, pretty much the same flavour of unimpressed, but with a hint of resignation. “You should go.”

She made a face. “I don’t ‘speak for Griffonstone.’”

“Maybe, maybe not.” She shrugged she walked away, and added. “It would piss Gulliver off.”

Gila’s eyes popped.

The Llamastinian palace housed several thousand representatives and one fussy Griffon prince.

Gulliver stomped his way toward the Griffonstone seat, huffing and scowling as Gilda shook claws, hooves, tentacles, talons, and unidentifiable limbs with the other representatives on the way. They gave her the Griffonstone name-tag, after all. For all intents and purposes, Gulliver appeared to be her servant.

Gilda never saw any reason to correct them.

She kept an eye out. With this many nations all in one room, still getting themselves settled, she didn’t see the pony representatives anywhere. With all likelihood, Princess Celestia would be there, but a part of her was still convinced Rainbow Dash and her princess friend could be here.

Gulliver pulled out the Griffonstone chair, and she sat in it. He glared at her. She smirked. “What a gentlegriffon.”

He bowed his head beside her ear and spoke through a tight beak. “That’s enough playing dignitary, you salty vixen. Get up. Announce your mistake. Let me take my seat.”

“No.”

“Come now. It was cute at first, and I must admit your seduction tactics are more potent than I’d first thought, but you don’t belong here.” He spoke even lower. “Giffonstone needs a leader. It’s been on the verge of collapse for years. Just because your little band of punks thinks they know what’s best for the rest of us, doesn’t mean it’s true. Back off. I can bring pride back to our homeland. Stabilize things. Unite them under one rule, like my ancestors. Secure funds from the other territories, and stuff like that.” He twisted his head like a hawk. “What can you do for Griffonstone?”

Gilda glared ahead, but without much force behind it. Griffonstone didn’t need Gulliver, but it did need somegriffon. Friend-making hadn’t exactly been a prosperous mission; it’d taken her years to gain any sort of traction with the way things had been going. Nogriffon really felt like making friends when they had to worry about where their next meal was coming from.

The Llama Master of Ceremonies took the floor at the head of the room. “Thank you all for making the journey to be here today. Some of you for the very first time. Llamastine welcomes each one of you. We now invite the honourable representative of the Kitsunes to take the floor.”

A three-tailed fox stepped up from behind and took the podium. Whenever it spoke, three voices, one high, one tenor, one deep, rasped in unison. Instead of its mouth moving, the kitsune’s female voices projected out from no identifiable source. “Thank you.

“Good creatures, I urge you to consider the reason we have been assembled today. The ponies have crossed the line.”

Gilda’s head slammed back. She looked around. No ponies. No Crystal Empire. None what-so-ever. She sank down in her seat a little, trying not to let it show in her face.

Gulliver apparently made someone get him a chair, so he pulled up beside her, glaring pointedly, head angled to the side. He pushed the little Griffonstone name-tag over to his side. She made sure he saw her rolling her eyes.

The kitsune addressed the crowd again: “For too long have they hogged the magic resources of the world, and now, when their pegasi have lost control of their weather magic, they refuse to acknowledge the impact they’re having on the rest of the world. How can we be sure alicorn magic isn’t next to be somehow disabled? What then, when the pony Princesses can no longer rotate the sun and moon?”

The assembly grumbled.

Gilda’s jaw hit the desk. No wonder Dash couldn’t come for a visit.

“We propose an alliance. The redistribution of magic resources. The ponies’ magic isn’t as non-transferable as they’d have you believe. True, it may be produced through them, but their monopoly on our natural resources and industries can come to a peaceful end, if we all bring our demands to their attention.”

To her right, a deep-voiced Zebra Chief stood. “Zebrafrican potion-makers have always been ready to share/ the ponies act like magic is a burden for their kind to bear. This has never changed; prepare to be short-changed.”

The General of the Minotaurs rose. “If it comes to that, we’ll threaten war. They’ll have to come around then. I don’t care how much magic they’ve got, they can’t be so foolish as to think they could take on the whole world. Plus, we know they’re pansies. We mention war, they’ll faint, we take the magic. Easy.”

King Aspen, of the deer, struck his hoof down on the desk. “As patron of a realm within Equestria, and a non-violent one at that, I warn the council that talk of war will get us nowhere. The deer will abstain if that’s your aim.”

“With all due ressspect,” hissed the gorgon prime minister, “no one sssaid anything about a real war. It’sss a negotiation tactic. We have to be clear about what we’re asssking from them and how, but if they refuse, we have to be willing to ssstand our ground.”

Queen Chrysalis took the stand, chuckling. “Now, now. Don’t think so small.”

She made her way down to center stage. The kitsune stepped aside for her. “Look at you all. The ponies have you believing you’re worth so much less than you really are. Isn’t it sad what they’ve done to us? They even had the gall to lock me up away from my subjects- with no regard to how the hive is supposed to run itself.” She swooned multi-layered voice buzzing through the amphitheater and dripping with pity. “What’s a Queen to do?”

The Breezy King shouted from the front row, “Oi! You attacked their capital! The only reason they imprisoned you was to keep their own safe from your retaliation!”

Chrysalis stalked towards him like a cat on the prowl. Her sharp-toothed grin was bigger then his whole huffing torso. She laughed. “You would bring that up, tiny pony. Does that really matter when my hive almost collapsed?”

The assembly kicked up a bit at that. The Breezy King grew pink, looking around. “Breezies are not ponies.”

She smiled wider. Deeper. “Neither are changelings.” She grazed back up to the podium. “And neither are the deer, or the zebras, or the diamond dogs, or the bison. Does that mean we should accept less than total control of our own nations? They’ve taken more from us than our weather or enhanced crop cultivation. Control. Power. Freedom. Without their magic, we’ll always be ... Limited.

“Do we let them lord their power over us, or do we take what’s ours?”

“Yaks no want war!” Prince Rutherford slammed the reinforced desk in front of him. “Yaks pony-friends for a thousand moons! No war.”

The Breezies, Diamond Dogs, Deer, Centaurs, and Trolls applauded. That was it.

The rhino president grunted. “Crazy holes is right. If they don’t meet our demands before the end of the month, we attack. Full force.”

Several hundred nations raved with him. Some remained silent (and not just the ones who communicated telepathically) like the Zebrafrican Chief, but the few who stood to defend the ponies quickly found their voices out-numbered.

Gulliver rose out of his seat. Gilda watched him, gestured for his to sit down again, but he seemed pretty intent on staring off into the distance boldly. He let out a piercing squawk that cut through the crowd. All fell quiet. “The griffons are ready and willing to gather our forces and lead the armada on ponykind.”

A glorious applause rained through the palace.

Gilda stood up. “You can’t just do that. Ponies can be really, really annoying, but they don’t deserve to die. And maybe they are hogging all the magic. So what? Do we even really need it? Griffonstone’s gotten along fine without their stupid pony magic, and so has everybody else. Quit whining.”

For half a second, she thought that’d done it.

Then the dragon representative grumbled, trembling the palace’s stone. All heads turned back. He sighed. “The ponies are easy targets. When they see our forces at their gates, they’ll relinquish their magic, or their kingdoms will fall.”

Gilda watched hundreds of nations, Griffonstone included make alliances to wage war with the ponies.

She had to warn Rainbow Dash.

7/ Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon: Bullies

Bullies

Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon

Over the hills, and only technically a part of Ponyville according to the zoning board, lived a young princess, her father the King (of low, low prices), the Queen, and an old family friend, Randolph, the butler. Together, they hid away from the sleepy middle-class village in their over-sized vista: Stinkin’ Manor (which has since been renamed to Rich Manor, even though the original name stuck far better).

Once upon a stormy night, a long time before the following events, the town they were only technically a part of burned in a great and terrible fire. Thankfully, the town has since risen from the ash, and repaired as much of the damage as possible, but that great and terrible inferno in town hall took three ponies from their families.

Tragically, the Queen was one of those ponies.

Randolph watched his business partner’s son stare at that mound of dirt, tie unwound around his neck because he’d never learned to tie it himself. The bags under his eyes sucked the light from them, chained to the spot on the stone below her name that read “And I always will.”

“Might I suggest,” Randolph said in his Canterlotian accent, “you retire to the manor, master?”

Filthy Rich let the rain sponge through his suit. “... I’d like to stay, Randolph.”

To that, he nodded, giving him the umbrella. He left with the rain licking his curly grape-popsicle mane to his forehead.

As it happens, that night was the first of many happily ever afters for him. When he returned to a Stinkin’ Manor, dragging in a trail of water he’d be sure to clean before Master Filthy returned, it sung with the frightening chorus of a thunderstorm in full-tilt.

A barely-there cry sounded deep from within- and Randolph almost missed it, but a break in the thunder betrayed sobs coming from three stories above.

Refusing to abandon his drink, Randolph took his glass to investigate. What he and the cup found together would change his life forever: he’d forgotten the foal.

A sopping Randolph stood, brandy in teeth, at the nursery door. The pinkish, smallish foal shrieked every time a brute pegasus decided their loss needed ambiance. Lightning threw the bars of her crib on the floor. He set down his glass on the dresser.

He took her soft, warm bundle in his hooves, and shushed. Another crash thrashed through the house, rumbling through the floors. Diamond Tiara screamed. Biting his tongue, he held her to his chest. Tight.

“Oh, no, no, no,” he tutted into her freshly laundered blanket, smelling the newness of her little head. “Oh, no, no ...”

The storm lasted long into the next morning.

When the princess was about nine years old, it came time for Randolph to consider the unthinkable: tuck-in time was for foals.

Thankfully, the miss either ignored this fact, or had yet to realize it, but the older and more independent the princess became, the more likely she would, at some point, relieve him of his night-time duties.

Tonight in particular strung him out to dry with the terror of this hideous idea.

He dusted her silken bed curtains.

“Can you believe her?” Diamond Tiara set her name-sake on the tasseled pillow on the bedside. “Silver Spoon acts like she’s so cool, then she goes and says something like that. She’s always been rooting against me.”

Randolph sighed. “Isn’t she your closest and most trusted friend, young miss?”

She sipped the glass of milk and put it next to the pillow as he removed the covers. She sat, and he covered her again. “That’s what I thought, but it just goes to show you how cruel ponies can be. And after I’d been so nice to her.”

“Your too generous with your kind, loving nature.” He smoothed the covers, smiling.

“Clearly.”

“If you don’t mind, “ he said, reaching for her stuffed kitty, “what was it that I cannot believe?”

“Silver Spoon said she wanted to come up with the names we’d call the blank flanks today.” She growled, sitting up, ruining the nicely made bed. “As if.”

Randolph fluffed the pillow for Diamond’s head. “I’m sure she’ll come around. She’ll soon realize the error of her ways, come crawling back, and so on and so forth.” He pushed her down by the torso. “She always does, doesn’t she?”

“She did it again!” She slammed her tiara onto its pillow. “Who does she think she is?”

He blew out her bedside candles, holding his tie to his heart and turning the room from orange to blue. “She’s always had a thin grasp on her affect on other ponies.”

“She’s gone too far this time.”

He raised a fuzzy brow.

“Silver Spoon’s been acting so awful, I had to get rid of her.”

He squashed a velvet throw pillow like an accordion. “And... er, of course, by that you mean... ?”

Diamond Tiara pushed her lips to the side, eyelids raised to half-mast; the epitome of the word‘...Really?’ She snorted out an eye-roll and climbed the treacherous cliff-face that was her excessively elevated king-size bed with her stubby foal hooves. “I ditched her, obviously.”

“What did that accomplish?”

“Lots of things. She learned not to stab backs. Or conspire against me. Or get in my way. Now she knows her place. After all, if I don’t punish her, she won’t learn, Randolph.”

“I suppose she wouldn’t.”

Diamond Tiara walked in and Randolph closed the door. She put her crown down, he fluffed her pillow, and her head hit it. She curled towards the opposite wall. The blanket rode up to her chin.

Randolph’s cheeks pressed against his flat frown. “A bit knackered, young miss?”

The lump of her shoulder twitched up.

He sat on the bed.

“I think I’m being too hard on Silver Spoon,” she told the pillow. “I can’t go back on anything now, but, I mean, she’s gone crazy. She’s actually spending time in public with those lame-o Cutie Mark losers.”

She bit her lip. “I might’ve broken her.”

He nodded. “Then, is it best to let her back in?”

It was amazing how nasty of a glare Diamond Tiara could throw over her shoulder with only one eye visible to its recipient. “Don’t you listen? Silver Spoon has always been, like, the worst friend, and all she ever does is try to undermine me. I’m fed up with it. I can’t keep letting walk over me.”

He brushed back her mane around her bent ear.

The farmhouse bent under the rain.

Applejack rapped on the door. She raised an eyebrow into a dimly lit room, saying with a hush, “You hearin’ this?”

Applebloom rubbed her face. “I can’t believe the weather ponies made it so loud.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t sleep, neither.” She hustled up onto the other end of the bed. “Too weird, ya’ know? Rainbow Dash says weather patrol can’t make heads or tails of it. I woulda’ thought it came on through the Everfree forest, but she was saying how it came in from the other way all sudden like.”

Applebloom shivered. “Freaky.”

“I reckon it’s got everypony spooked tonight.” Thunder banged above to illustrate.

Applebloom made a face. “I hope my sleepover with Silver Spoon and the girls don’t get rained out tomorrow.”

Applejack sat back, smirking and shaking her head. “I still can’t wrap my head around it. You always told me she was so horrible to y’all. You turning to friends so quickly seems, well, quick.”

“You’re telling me.” She giggled, eyeing the blankets between them. “But, I don’t know. She finally had enough of Diamond Tiara telling her what to do, and jus’... left her. It ain’t like she apologized or nothing, but after being away from all ‘a Diamond Tiara’ meanness, she was easier to talk to. Least, for Sweetie Belle. That filly needs to stop feeling so bad for everypony.”

“Well, seems like it worked out. I know you ain’t best friends or nothing, but I wouldn’t expect you to be. I think it’s real admirable that you fillies could finally make peace.” She rubbed her sister’s mane. “Proud a’ you.”

She smiled. “Thanks.”

“And, hey, who knows? Maybe Diamond Tiara will realize the error a’ her ways, too.”

Applebloom snorted. They laughed together.

Thunder rode through the sky like a charioteer in the beginning. Wild, but distant. Before long, it sent tremors through the sky itself: an earthquake overhead. The nasty, guttural noise of it was enough to turn the stomach. Lightning blistered after, flaring through windows and marking up walls.

The rain wailed and whined on the roof and window panes like an insatiable foal. Randolph’s ears bowed to the sound. He moved toward the room.

Lightning cast a shadowy cape over Diamond Tiara’s empty bed.

He frowned. “Young miss?”

A head poked out underneath the curtain at the bottom of her bed. “Randolph! You dolt!” Thunder broke her voice. “What took you so long?”

Prying her out, he took her in his hooves. Tight. “I was busy cursing out the weather patrol as requested.”

Diamond Tiara didn’t acknowledge that. Instead, glaring, she’d made a spot on his suited chest warm and damp. He held the back of her head.

He waited. The windows warped, melting, taking hits from a violent and inebriated wind. His hooves held a trembling little filly who flinched at every sound, and scowled harder. She shoved him away after long enough, even with so little strength in her hooves. So, he took her to the bed, laid her in it, and sat with her, hoof over hoof.

“Go away,” she said, though she gripped him hard. “I don’t need you.”

His eyebrows drew in. “I know.” Her unreadable eyes bore into him from her fuzzy pink pillow-set, tucked into a lovely satin comforter in her big, extravagant room.

Randolph gave the same look back. “You don’t need anypony.

“But we can’t all be like you.” He watched the candle melt and pool around itself for an odd amount of time. Then, almost more to it than to her, he said, “You know, there once was a silly business pony, who thought he had it all figured out. He and his partner sold to clients from far and wide. The pair of them made different decisions in life, but neither could be happier with their own until one day that silly business pony realized he was an old stallion. With nopony but his partner by his side.

“It’s a funny thing, though. His partner, at least, had a family. He would certainly never father a child at his age. But, perhaps he needed to feel, even for a while, that he had.”

He expected a leer or a scoff, or even a full-out gag. Instead, he was treated to the gentle rise and fall of a sleeping filly’s back.