Bright.
She saw yellow and orange swirling on the other side of her eyelids.
It took her a few seconds to realize she was awake. There was a dim ache in the back of her skull that told her that she had awoken far too early.
“Spike.” Twilight Sparkle’s voice echoed through her bedroom. The word still clung to the comforts of sleep, so it came out groggy and indistinct. Twilight curled deeper into her covers, trying to find refuge from the disturbance somewhere under her comforters.
“Spike,” she said again, slightly louder. “Turn that lamp off...”
Much to her chagrin, the rest of her senses were beginning to awake with her, and she heard an unfamiliar noise – a strange popping sound. Surely it’s not morning already, and Spike isn’t awake, making me breakfast?
As if in answer, she heard the dragon snore loudly from across the room. Course not. The noise didn’t sound like breakfast fizzling in a pan, anyway. It sounded more like...wood splintering.
Twilight shot up in her bed. Just as she suspected, there was no sign of morning in the room. There was still a strange light shining into the room through the window. She jumped out of her bed, and struggled shake away her exhaustion as she rushed to the window as fast as she could manage.
For a moment, her observation was a mess, full of color and noise that lacked shapes. Twilight felt a wave of powerful heat a second before her brain could sort through what saw and cognize something coherent.. When it does, she almost let out a shriek before repressing it, so it expressed itself a strangled moan.
The Carousel Boutique was on fire.
She stood and blinked, as if she expected to just open her eyes and find everything back to normal, or perhaps herself back in bed waking from a dream.
Rarity’s home continued to burn. It wasn’t a small, contained house fire – the entire building had lit up like tinder. Dark clouds spun into the sky as the cinders of the Boutique flittered in air like a horde of fireflies.
Like an Autumn tree swaying in the breeze, the plumes of scarlet and yellow engulfed the building and consumed it completely. They cast deep, dancing shadows around the town, lighting up the center like a massive spotlight. It was daylight in the Carousel Boutique – the building was a flickering torch that lit up the town.
Twilight noticed some figures in the field below, surrounding the fiery building in a sort of half circle. After first she thought that perhaps the spectacle had already gathered it’s requisite audience, but then she noticed something glimmering in the light – a glint of gold. The way the small group moved around the home was too methodical and organized. The shouts that emanated from below, though she can’t make out the exact words, have a sense of urgency to them.
She squinted and stared at the scene, trying to decipher what it meant.
The Royal Guard had arrived.
Twilight couldn’t help but consider the situation abstractly. Why was the Royal Guard here, of all places? To attend to a burning building? The Boutique didn’t look like it’d been on fire for long, so how had they gotten here so quickly? Perhaps, more jarring than anything else, was the fact that they weren’t doing anything. They were moving around the building, yes, but they weren’t making any move to douse the flames. It’s almost as if they were waiting for something, or were sequestering the fiery home from any interference.
Rarity’s safety was paramount, and that was the foremost thing in her mind as she swept from her room and made for the door. However, her forte was research and problem-solving; once her friend’s safety was guaranteed, she had a mystery to solve.
The brisk air rustled Twilight’s coat and mane as she stepped out to embrace the night, but she noticed none of the cold – she could feel the heat even from her door. A crowd of townsponies had already formed, but they were keeping a healthy distance from the parading group of guards. For a moment, Twilight considered, asking some of the townsponies to see if they had any idea what was going on, but decided that with the guards so close she’d just as soon ask them. She pushed her way through the crowd, the fire getting bigger and brighter with each step she took toward the Boutique.
There was a stallion who had detached himself from his patrol. He was sitting on the ground, staring at the fire. As Twilight advanced on him, he turned to look at her, and she saw the awed, child-like grin fade from his face as rose to meet her trespass. He scowled at her.. The fire still flickered in the reflection of his eyes.
“Why aren’t you doing anything about this fire?” Twilight shouted to the stallion, trying to be heard over the murmuring crowd and the cracking inferno.
“Under official orders, citizen. Please do not interfere,” he said, his voice quivering. It sounded to Twilight like he was reciting from some handbook. He tensed up like he was ready to pounce if she took another step forward.
“Who’s in charge here?” Twilight asked. Neither she nor Rarity had the time for a distraction like this.
“I said, who’s in charge here?” Twilight asked again. “If you don’t answer me, I’ll make sure that the Princess hears about your insubordination,” Twilight said, after the stallion gave her no response.
The recruit made a step towards her – but before there could be any further escalation, a booming voice cut through the night like a chariot.
“I am.”
Twilight spun around. Behind her stood a tall, regal earth pony, a stallion decked out in all the accoutrements of a high-ranking officer. He was old – his mane was ash and lifeless. He looked far too old to still be in active service.
“Who wants to know?” he said. His voice was gruff, and discordant with his expression. His face looked almost jovial; the way the shadows of the flames played on the creases and laugh-lines of his face made it look like he was smiling even though he wasn’t.
Twilight Sparkle?” the stallion said, his voice becoming quiet.
The stallion broke into a genuine grin. He seemed brighter, despite the covering of soot that had settled on his coat. An inescapable boyishness overcame his features. “Twilight Sparkle! Why, I knew you were operating out here but I never thought I’d get to meet you! Captain Gladburr, at your service, ma’am.” He reached for Twilight to pull her into a hug, like he was a familial uncle that she hadn’t seen in years. Twilight deftly dodged the unwanted affection, but the Captain didn’t seem perturbed at all by the avoidance. He simply continued on speaking, the same youthful joy capturing his voice. “I’ve worked with your brother before, did he ever tell you—”
“Captain, what’s going on here? Why aren’t your men putting out this fire?” Twilight cut him off abruptly. How did a man like this ever make Captain?
Gladburr raise an eyebrow at Twilight, as if she just asked a question that was too stupid to be sincere. “Why, put it out? Twilight, ma’am, I ordered them to burn this place to the ground.”
“What?” Twilight said, “Why? My friend Rarity lives in that building!”
He paused, as if considering this. His sentence began slowly. “I’m...sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, ma’am, but I’m on orders to root out Changelings in Equestria. Your friend Rarity here wasn’t your friend anymore; she was a Changeling. Confirmed to be. She had to be contained” His voice shook, and he looked at the ground as he continued speaking. “I’m sorry. These boys here are just a clean-up crew. I’ll send an investigation squad down tomorrow to find your missing friend.”
Even if everything he was saying was the truth – no matter how much he suspected Rarity of being a changling, Twilight couldn’t believe that a guard Captain would resort to unbridled acts of arson in the middle of town.
“Why, of all things, did you feel that fire was the solution?!” Twilight shouted
“Only way to get rid of them for good,” Captain Gladburr said, nodding at her. “Gotta burn the bugs out. There’s no telling what kind of traps she might have had waiting for us in there. They have some nasty stuff at their disposal, Twilight Sparkle. Gotta light the place up. Hopefully, she’ll stay in there and burn. These changelings aren’t too bright. If she flies, though, I have pegasi on standby. And whatever incubation chamber or anything she had in there set up will be nothing more than ash by the morning.”
He turned and gazed fondly at the crackling glow of the flames. Twilight regarded his shoulder, now. She felt like he barely knew she was there anymore. He was looking at the fire like it was his child putting on a performance.
“I order you to put out this fire.” Twilight said, enunciating each syllable.
The Captain turned on her, eyes widening.“What? Under no circumstances!”
“What evidence do you have that Rarity was a Changeling? It must have been compelling to have necessitated arson,” she said, looking for a give.
“It was,” he countered, as stern as ever. “Multiple eyewitnesses. Reports. They saw her shifting in and out of her disguise. Not hard to put two and two together, Twilight. I know it’s hard to accept, but your friend is a Changeling. Only thing left to do is pick through the ashes and hope we can figure out what happened.”
“Eyewitnesses? That’s it?” Twilight hoped the Captain could see her skepticism in the flickering light of the fire. “Even assuming that they were accurate and not just a victim of the hysteria that’s been spreading lately, did it ever occur to you that a Changeling might shift in and out of disguises when they know they’re being watched in order to sow suspicion against innocent ponies? Such a tactic might cause, say, overzealous guard captains to light an innocent mare’s house on fire.”
The captain didn’t respond. Whatever response he had planned was silence after a syllable and he moved his gaze from Twilight’s eyes to the ground.
“Whose orders were you operating under?” Twilight said.
“I’m in charge of this operation,” he replied, cringing. The sentence was slow and reluctant. “But...the Mayor approved this action, so long as I took care not to le-”
“And I’m operating under the orders of the Princess. If you need a lesson on which of those two have superiority, I’d be happy to assign you an entire course in the Canterlot Dungeons.”
“I have my orders...” he said, weakly. He had been cowed into submission. The fire was evidence of his crime, and he tried to hide from its tendrils of light and heat, diverting his eyes to the soft, cold ground.
“So...once again, and for the last time, with the full weight of Princess Celestia and all that she surveys behind me, I order you to put out this fire.”
The Captain turned and locked eyes with her. One final battle, as the flames licked the house behind them and their saliva blackened the house. The egos of Twilight and the Captain were finally summed up all in their gazes, orders and conflict and suspicions were transmitted entirely in the thin line that connected their eyes. This was nothing simple, no cursory argument. A friend’s life was held in the balance. Twilight refused to back down.
Neither would move until the other acquiesced.
Their disagreement was reduced to a simple staring contest.
Captain Gladburr blinked.
“You heard her, boys!” he shouted, his voice tremendously loud. “I want this fire out on the double.” He was suddenly smiling again, as if there had never been a confrontation. “Earths and unicorns, get a bucket line going from the river. Pegasi, fan out and get as many rainclouds back here as you can find. I don’t care where you take them from; this is more important than any pony’s weather plans.”
These ponies truly loved their Captain—Twilight could feel that. The second Gladburr shouted, he had their rapt attention, and once the orders were given they fanned out and followed the contradictory orders without hesitation. Soon, Twilight and the Captain were left alone outside the burning house as the rest of the ponies dissolved into the darkness.
“I’m...awfully sorry about that, Twilight Sparkle, ma’am.” Gladburr managed a weak smile in Twilight’s direction. “I’m not usually so...rash. I hope you can forgive me.”
Twilight only answered with a curt nod. Everything would be okay – everything would be forgiven assuming that Rarity was okay. She hoped that she hadn’t spent too long arguing with the Captain, and that Rarity wasn’t already...she couldn’t bare to think about it. Too much would be ruined.
Twilight and the Captain stared at the fire as the shouts of the guardponies grew more forceful, more deliberate, then lapsed into silence as they picked up a routine.
Twilight still found it hard to believe that this was the state of Equestria. That a friend of her could have her house lit ablaze, just like that. The fear of changlings had proliferated across Equestria like pollen – kicked up in the wake of their failed invasion. Twilight had been at the meetings. She remembered sweating in stuffy rooms deep beneath Canterlot, where anxious councilors had been argued and debated and demanded with Celestia, and all of them tried to work out some legislation to combat this invisible threat. Suspicion had sprouted like a virus in the ranks of the monarchy, and after one of Celestia’s secretaries was exposed as a changling, it became an epidemic.
Twilight pawed at the ground anxiously. There had to be something else she could do and wondered if perhaps she should have marched right in there herself. What if Rarity was, even at this moment, surrounded by flames, yelling for help? Twilight shuddered, and the rushing ponies trying to put out the flame seemed ponderous and frivolous.
The burning of Rarity’s home was by far the worst thing to come of this crisis so far, but it was hardly the first – she’d already experienced her fair share of problems, just here in Ponyville. Strangers to the town became pariahs. Twilight tried her best to calm the hysteria, but it wasn’t easy. Ponies panicked, and accused friends and enemies of being changlings based on specious evidence or an old, unsettled grudge. Peddlers came to town, hawking ‘sure-fire’ ways to identify changlings that always ended in unfounded accusations. She had to get used to regular patrols throughout the otherwise peaceful hamlet, and military checkpoints along every road. There was no doubt – this isn’t the Equestia Twilight Sparkle had grown up in. The once idyllic country had been left a smouldering wreck, and the survivors weren’t sure how to pick up the pieces. Ponies naturally turned to Twilight as a mediator, and Twilight wasn’t always sure how to balance following the edicts of Celestia’s new anti-changling laws with the safety of common ponies.
The first of the buckets reached the blazing building and splashed futilely against the flames. Twilight’s agitation at the procession only continued to grow. For all the guard’s haste, for the the way they sprinted to the water and filtered by one another in a perfect pattern of ponies, all hauling gathered or stolen buckets in their teeth, the entire act seemed to meander by ponderously. The flaming building contained such bright light that its illumination and life seemed to make the actions of ponies insignificant in comparison.
“How long is this going to take?” Twilight grumbled, half to herself and half to the Captain, who was still sitting and watching his men, his brow furrowed as his gaze moved from one to the next.
There was a massive splintering sound, like the trunk of a tree being rended in two. The sound echoed through the town and the ponies nearby stopped and stared. Half of the top floor the Carousel Boutique wavered and rippled like a wave for a moment, then caved in on itself.
“Too long,” Twilight said, as she quickly vocalized her thoughts in passing. Without waiting for a response – without needing one – she jumped and rushed for the door.
“Ma’am! Wait!” Captain Gladburr shouted and leaped after her.
Twilight didn’t hear him. She slipped through the threshold of Rarity’s home, and entered a room of red and orange. The flames were consuming the entirety of the outer wall, but, whether through some design or coincidence in building materials, seemed to be having a hard time finding a foothold towards the center of the room. Rarit’y beautiful dresses were still on display around the room, though they were much brighter. The clothing demonstrated its combustibility with a grand enthusiasm – each one was now glitter and sparkles and fabric sheathed in fire. They curled up as the fire touched them and shriveled into blackened butterflies.
Twilight ducked and weaved through the fire, trying to look for any sign of her friend. The Captain entered behind her, announcing his presence with a curse.
The smoke was rolling like thunderheads on the ceiling. Some of it trickled downward, and Twilight’s vision was obscured. She squinted in an attempt to see through the smoke, and to try to find some indication of her safety.
“Rarity!”Twilight bellowed as loud as she could, then immediately started coughing from the inhalation of toxic smoke. She took the lesson to heart immediately, and lowered her body closer to the ground.
The Captain took the hint behind her. “Miss Rarity!” he shouted, his trained voice exponentially louder than Twilight’s. This close to her, it made Twilight’s ears ring.
Through the smoke, Twilight could see down the hallway that connected the amphitheater to Rarity’s design room. It was already a roiling inferno, its flames licking the ceiling. Hundreds of design sheets and stores of material had become perfect kindling for the blaze.
Gladburr jutted a hoof out towards a cabinet, and attracted Twilight’s gaze to it. She noticed why he had sought to identify it: the flames had begun to catch at the bottom and work their way upwards, but the entire cabinet was shaking slightly from some internal disturbance – and, beyond the crackling of the fire, Twilight heard a sound emanating from it. Twilight rushed over and pulled open the cabinet, ignoring the way her brief contact with the metal handle almost seared her hoof.
As soon as the wooden tear came open, a terrible shriek and a flash of white flew past Twilight’s legs, scratching her in the process. She turned in time to see Gladburr shout and leap out of the way of the roving ball of fur. Opal bounded across the floor, bouncing from safe spot to safe spot until she reached the door and fled into the night without a moment’s hesitation.
It was all over in a second, and Twilight was left staring at the empty door.
“Cursed cat,” she muttered under her breath.
That was it for the downstairs – a quick glance around the room revealed no other plausible locations that Rarity could be in, even if she had fallen unconscious in the smoke. The continued shouting never garnered a response. Twilight surmised that Rarity had to be upstairs. Either that, or she was trapped in her design room when the blaze had started...
No, Twilight assured herself, steeling her mind against possibility. Rarity was definitely upstairs.
The omnipresent smoke became even heavier as Twilight and the Captain climbed the stairs. She held her breath and marched up the rickety staircase, fearing it would give out under her or the Captain’s weight. The structural stability of the entire Boutique was in question, and if the flames or the heat didn’t get them, a total collapse might.
“Rarity!”
She reached the entrance to Rarity’s room, still calling her name.
“Miss Rarity, are you in here?!”
“Rarity!”
“Miss Ra-”
“Shh!” Twilight cut him off. “Do you hear that?”
They both stood still, hearing nothing but the crackling flame and their own heaving chests – but soon enough, a faint voice whispered from beyond the door.
“Twilight...?”
Twilight grinned back at that Captain, and rushed forward with renewed vigor. “She’s in here,” Twilight said to the stallion beside her, and tried the doorknob. It was hot, but not burning – the flames had much more readily consumed the other half of the upper floor. In fact, that was part of the building that had caved in, and Twilight could see the dark, smouldering woodwork that made up the destroy supports poking through down the hallway.
The door wouldn’t give. The collapse of a part of the building had shifted the structure, and Rarity’s home was so perfectly designed that even a small shift disabled the door. It wouldn’t fit through the frame anymore. The knob turned perfectly, but no matter how hard Twilight pushed, the door wouldn’t budge.
“Twilight?” Rarity shrieked, almost hysterical on the other side of the door.
Twilight slammed her full body weight against the door. Her shoulder began to hurt.
She felt a gentle hoof rest on her back, and she turned to see Gladburr nod her out of the way. She complied, rushing to one side. With a snort, the stallion pawed the ground and rammed into the door, breaking it clean off the hinges and pushing the entire frame to the ground. He stumbled ungracefully into the room, but was already picking himself up as Twilight rushed in after him.
“Rarity!” she shouted.
Rarity was hiding under her bed. Her mane was a disheveled mess and her eyes were puffy and watery. Luckily, the fire had not taken much of the room in its greedy grasp yet. Twilight saw a massive piece of wooden frame jutting out from the wall opposite of her. The cindering piece of woodwork had lite the wallpaper aflame.
“Twilight!” Rarity cried.
Captain Gladburr pushed himself towards the mare as she pulled herself from her hiding place under the bed. He bowed elaborately at her, throwing his front half to the ground almost as if begging for forgiveness.
“Miss Rarity! I am so sorry for my indiscretion. Please, whatever I can do for your forgiveness, I will do.”
Rarity blinked at him, as if not able to believe the sight in from of her. Hysteria still stung iin her voice. “Well, I certainly appreciate the sentiment, but is this really the proper time for something like this?” The words were out of her in one loud shriek, but she glanced at Twilight after she had finished, and saw her moving behind the stallion.
“Err...” Rarity continued, “you may rise?”
The stallion picked himself off the ground, and grinned widely at Rarity.
Captain Gladburr was still holding that smile when a dull wet thwack, like meat thrown against a steel wall, rang out just loud enough to to be heard over the crackling and hissing of the surrounding flames. His knees gave out, and he slumped to the floor. He lay there, unmoving.
Behind him, Twilight threw the smoldering wooden beam to the side. The heat of it had burned her hooves. She could almost already feel the massive blisters that would appear in response to her action, but it had to be done.
“How were you discovered?” Twilight asked Rarity, looking down at the Captain to ensuring that he was indeed disabled.
Rarity paused for a second, blinking at her friend. “A colt saw my disguise flickering. He screamed and ran home to cry to his parents. I tried to chase after him, but in the end I decided that no one would take him seriously, and left it at that.”
“That was a serious error on your part. The ponies are getting too zealous in their efforts. We’re going to have to be more careful from now on. You should have reported this to me immediately,” Twilight said flatly. Rarity nodded. There was no shame in making mistakes; only lessons to be learned.
Above them, there was a low groan and a large, arcing crash. The pitter-patter of rain on the blackened wooden frame filled the room. The water began to leak through the holes in the wall. Already, the flames began to die and the room to cool.
They had to time, now. They had to make use of it.
“You said your disguise flickered. That wasn’t intentional, was it?” Twilight continued.
“No,” Rarity said, and grimaced. “I lost control of it towards the edge of town. I think Twilight Sparkle had something to do with it. When I was tying up the Earth Pony yesterday, I resecured her restraints. Her horn started glowing slightly. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but she might have done something to me.”
“That’s a huge problem. If you had flickered in the middle of the town, our entire plan would have fallen apart. If Celestia suspected that one of her elements was already compromised, all of this would go to waste,” Twilight said. She began pacing around the room, a multitude of free-form plans laying themselves in front of her as she sorted through them.
“Still, we could make use of this. Here, change into him,” she gestured at the motionless captain.
Rarity stared for a second, then closed her eyes and concentrated. A brief shimmer of phosphorescent fire started in a low ring around her neck and engulfed her body. Rarity disappeared – consumed by the fire, becoming pales ashes. Rebirthed, like a phoenix through the flames, a second Captain Gladburr appeared in the room.
“Once we get outside, order all of your men to disperse. I’ll say that I have already teleported Rarity to the hospital – she was in critical condition. If we’re lucky, this incident will compel Canterlot to be more cautious in the future.”
Twilight walked over to the first Captain Gladburr and began dragging his still body under Rarity’s bed. The second Gladburr soon picked up on the action and rushed over to help.
“I’ll think of something to do with him later. For now, stay as the good Captain. I’ll try to find a drone to come back and take Rarity’s place after a few weeks.”
A boyish shout called from somewhere downstairs. “Captain? Are you okay?”
Captain Gladburr breathed in deep and closed his eyes in pleasure. The love radiating from these recruits was almost palpable, and he took it inside his body like a pleasant haze of smoke. It made his pulse quicken and his blood rush through his body in euphoric tremors.
“Yes,” he called back down, his voice booming.
Twilight nodded to him, and they walked down the stairs together. The first floor of Rarity’s home was irrevocably damaged, almost to the point of being unrecognizable. Her life’s work was destroyed, all her dress now black soot that a dozen guardponies kicked around and brushed through as they hastened to put out the last of the fires. Three of them were currently combating the fire in the design room, which was still ablaze.
“False alarm,” Captain Gladburr said, his face a perfect effigy of guilt. “Once we’re done here, we’re going to pack up and go back to Canterlot on the double. There some things we have to sort through before we try another expedition like this.”
Twilight and the Captain walked through the assemblage of ponies, stepping outside. The cool summer air was a welcome relief to the astringent smoke and fire they’d been breathing in, and they both took in a lungful of it. The outside reeked of wet charcoal. There was only a smattering of ponies still watching the event, the stragglers who remained behind after the film was over.
Twilight turned the Captain. “Captain Gladburr seemed to be quite high up in this operation,” she said in a low voice. ”When you get back to Canterlot, see if you can get your hands on any of his records.”
She paused, and turned her gaze upward toward the lonely sky. The smoke curled into the rainclouds that occupied the night. The stars glistened, each of them a shimmering part of a greater skyscape. She shivered.
She tried to shake it off. She’d made it this far in a world that hated her. Lost, flailing, and almost completely alone. She couldn’t lose resolve now, because she wasn’t alone. Others were already depending on her. One setback had became an opportunity.
Twilight turned to the stallion beside her, and gave him a thin-lipped smile. Her eyes shimmered – cloudy with the tears that they had to hold back. A single one trickled down her cheek and fell to the ash covered ground, already lost in the rain.
“Maybe he knows where our Queen has fled,” Twilight said.
