The stallion did not even groan as he got to his hooves.
　　He was gray, both coat and mane, almost blending into the murky emptiness around him. His cutie mark was a silver quill - not out of the ordinary for the ordinary-looking unicorn that he was. And, aside from the utter lack of anything except heavy, scentless smoke in his surroundings, there was nothing out of the ordinary there either.
　　His head spun, but he did not kneel down, opting only to stand rigid and wait until it passed.
　　When he had regained his bearings, and made out that, in the bleakness, there was some form of plane which served as a floor, he walked on forward.
　　
Teleportation: the unicorn’s greatest boon above the other races. What magic could do, flight or strength, combined with enough focus and effort, could do too - all save for instantaneous displacement. It is as difficult as it sounds. Not all unicorns can do it, for not all unicorns have the same attunement to the leylines, those transcendental channels of magic; it is not just a matter of closing one’s eyes and picturing one already there. There is one fundamental step to perform first, one which, interestingly, fillies can do more naturally than grown ponies, and so it came to be that every so often a child would ask: What happens if you teleport half-way and then stop? This was often accompanied by the deep worry of having a limb or a head end up in Manehatten, the schoolyard or the toilet, with the rest of the pony being said member short, etched across their burrows and in their eyes.
　　Over time, thanks to generations of puzzling and sharing, the answer to this question was generally agreed upon to be, more or less, No, you do not end up severed/ dismembered/gutted, my dear child, so do not fret/continue your chores/do not ask me this again. Upon further grilling, the addendum was offered: You end up in the middle. In between. But not in Equestria-in between. The magical realm-in between.
　　
The stallion had not walked for very long when he stopped, for something had caught up with him.
　　It was a small ball of light, flitting about in front of him like a friendly firefly. There was even a small tinkle as it dipped and rose mid-air.
　　“Hello,” it said, in a tinny female voice, invoking for whatever reason the image of harps and bells in the stallion’s mind.
　　“Hello,” said the stallion uncertainly. “Who are you?”
　　“What a kind soul,” replied the ball, seemingly nodding to itself. “I am a guide, here to lead you through the realm of in-between. That is where you are. Though you must have figured that out.”
　　“I hadn’t,” replied the stallion. He looked around. “Thank you. For telling me.”
　　“Ah,” replied the ball. It flitted about a bit more before settling an inch below his muzzle. “Then where are you headed?”
　　“Forward,” said the stallion, “but as you are a guide I suppose you wouldn’t mind letting me know if I’m mistaken?”
　　“Such a kind soul,” repeated the ball, falling to the floor, only to bounce back up again. On the spot where it landed, a square of light faded into view, and began replicating itself, tile by tile, until it stretched out before him, a single glowing path.
　　“Mister stallion, this is the way out. The last thing you did was attempt teleportation, yes? This is what separates point A and point B - you could say that you’re in transit.”
　　The stallion looked around again. There was a lot of “this”.
　　“At the end of this road lies your destination. However, following the road is not enough. I need you to trust me and do as I say, lest you become lost for eternity.”
　　He seemed unfazed at the bold statement. “Very well. What must I do?”
　　“Firstly, you must not set hoof outside of the path. Secondly, you must stay close to me. I will give further instructions when necessary.”
　　“Lead the way, then,” said the stallion, and without another word the ball flew forward, the stallion following at a brisk pace.
　　The pair travelled in silence for a good while until the stallion harrumphed:
　　“I am sorry... slower, please...”
　　“No, I’m sorry!” The ball did a loop-de-loop as it slowed down. “I forget that not all who enter here are tireless as I. It is all right. We have time, after all. The destination is not headed anywhere.”
　　The stallion grimaced. “No, we do not - I have a mission to complete. I have no idea how much time I have left, so the sooner we reach the end... Just let me catch my breath and we can run again.”
　　“Mission? What is your mission?”
　　“I don’t think you want to know.”
　　“Surprise me,” giggled the ball.
　　The stallion regarded it for a while. It could not stay still, it seemed, always buzzing, darting up and down, left and right. The tinkling sound had dissolved into the silence, and he had almost forgotten to notice it.
　　“Maybe later,” said the stallion.
　　
“It has been forty minutes,” said the stallion, after forty minutes of alternating running and resting.
　　“How can you tell?” asked the ball curiously.
　　“I, ah, was playing a song in my head.” He had long given up on trying to follow the ball with his eyes; they were tracking it automatically. “The song is about four minutes long, and I’ve repeated it ten times. But that’s not the point - what I want to ask is, shouldn’t there be others like me around? I can’t have been the only one who failed at teleportation...”
　　For the first time, the ball stopped moving, landing on the stallion’s mane. The tinkling stopped.
　　That was when he heard the laughter.
　　He spun around as a cold draft shot up his spine. It was distant, but distinct in the absence of other sound - childrens’ laughter, giggling, delighted shrieking, snorts rang out in bursts. Amidst the cries he could even hear the occasional word: “Momma!” “Papa!” “Big sis, no!” “Another!”
　　“What is this?” he half-shouted, trying to find the source to no avail.
　　“We have travelled for forty minutes at a fairly fast pace,” said the ball quietly. “However, for these poor children to get this far it must have seemed like days, weeks to them. What you hear are the sounds of children who have tried to find the end of the path and given up, either out of weariness or out of hope.”
　　“But they’re... they’re laughing...”
　　“The only grace we - I can give them.” The unchanging melodious air of the voice made him shiver even more. “Illusions of having reunited with their families, living out ageless, happy lives.”
　　“Illusions?” The stallion batted the guide off his head and tried not to shout. He was gasping. “Can’t you lead them out? If you just showed me where they are, I could-”
　　“I have tried,” said the ball simply. “Believe me, I have tried... But when a pony loses hope, they can no longer proceed. And I cannot help those beyond help.”
　　“But they’re children! What about their parents?”
　　“Long gone,” sighed the ball. “You must understand that the chance of a child ending up here is minuscule, and the voices you hear are decades, even centuries old. This is the collective of lost children who failed to make it back out. They have no more family nor friends, and to resurface outside will only mean loneliness and despair. Believe me, I have tried. This is the only grace left for them.”
　　The chill had spread into his chest. He could feel something boiling inside him. “You’re a guide, aren’t you? You obviously have some kind of power. Can’t you just make them-”
　　“I cannot.” The ball sounded tired, and that was all it said before proceeding forward.
　　The stallion gulped and took a few deep, trembling breaths, trying to focus on the tinkling instead of the voices. He bit his lips, stomped his hooves, screamed at the sky - and followed in pursuit.
　　
There was nothing to see but smoke as the stallion walked on. It was like gauze, thick enough to see but thin enough to offer to resistance, no sensation as his ankles dabbed in and out of it. It was gray, just like the realm, and blurred the edges of the path.
　　As he ran on, the laughter faded, and the smoke thickened. He wanted to ask the guide, but there was an invisible wall between them - probably not literally, though he would not have put it past the world.
　　‘Believe me, I have tried,’ the voice echoed in his mind, to the drumbeat of his heart. ‘This is the only grace.’ I can’t imagine.
　　“Guide,” he said, choking as the interruption to his breath tripped a bit of spittle down the wrong pipe.
　　“Yes? Do you require rest?”
　　“No, I just wanted to... I apologize. Sorry.”
　　“For what?”
　　“For just now.”
　　The tinkling sang for five counts before the ball said: “It is all right. Anypony with a heart like yours would have felt like that.” Then, as an afterthought: “Not a very chatty one, are you?”
　　The stallion tried to laugh. It came out strangled and pitiful. “Yeah. I don’t have much to say.”
　　“Perhaps you could tell me your name?”
　　“I’m Blue Stone. Son of Gray Stone, ex-quarry master of South Castershire.” He managed a weak smile. “Dad didn’t have much naming sense, I know. I don’t know how other ponies had the luck to have names that fit their futures.”
　　“It happens,” agreed the ball. “You are a scribe?”
　　“More or less,” said Blue Stone, tilting his head a bit. “My special skill is auditing, though it’s really just an affinity for lots of little bits of paper. I keep good track of them, I can piece them up together, I can find them all if it’s hidden, and it’s just a matter of comparing that to the actual situation.”
　　“A very useful skill to have,” said the ball.
　　“Now that I’ve told you about me, if you don’t mind... what are you? Why are you here?” asked Blue Stone.
　　“I am a guide,” said the ball. “I am here because I do not wish for anypony to remain lost.”
　　“And your name?”
　　“I have none,” replied the ball. At that, their slow trot halted, and the ball became still, resting on his mane once more.
　　“You have noticed the smoke,” said the ball. It was not a question.
　　“Yes.”
　　“Be warned. This is where most fail. You see, we are in the realm of in-between, regnum intero, but what it actually is, well, you may know it as the thaumic plane...”
　　“You mean the plane of magic?” frowned Blue Stone.
　　“The plane of leylines, yes,” replied the ball. “The one crucial step for teleportation is ‘conversion’ - changing one’s essence into magical energy, and travelling along a leyline highway to reach the destination, and reverting back to physical form. Getting stuck as you have occurs when you, ah...”
　　“Break concentration?” offered Blue Stone.
　　“Gain awareness,” replied the ball. “The most powerful tool a unicorn has is the mind. You could say that the on-off switch for conversion lies in there. You, like almost all the others here, have activated your switch prematurely.”
　　“And what does this have to do with the smoke?”
　　“We are on the leyline highway. And as with all leylines, once they come into use-”
　　The ball pressed down with surprising force, half a second before he heard the unearthly roar. He ducked just in time as a huge ball of fire screamed above him, blowing across his body with a wave of heat as it passed by. Immediately he raised a hoof to the back of his head and felt powdery ash.
　　“Listen to me!” the ball shouted in his ear. “Whatever you do, do not look back! And do not, do not lose sight of the path! Run!”
　　There was a strangled cry to his left as the smoke around him took, very briefly, the face of a mare he had never seen before.
　　His chest tightened again. Without even a second’s delay, he ran.
　　Another ball of flame surged by his right, searing his side. He could feel his skin dry up, itch. From above, another ball of fire fell through the sky, and he stopped just short of it as it crashed through the path of light, shattering it. He could hear another shriek behind him; he leaped over the gap and clung to the left as yet another fireball roared by.
　　He realized that he was keeping low, noticing the smoke billow and twist around him, too close to his snout for his liking. As he charged forward, dodging the fireballs, he could hear the crackling of ice, feel the air around him drop temperature rapidly.
　　Something in his heart sank, and his instinct kicked in - he jumped forward just in time to see the smoke twist up into a spike of ice where he had been a moment ago.
　　He squeezed his eyes shut. This was something he had noticed a while back - even when he closed them for a long period of time, the shimmering road in front did not fade from sight. He had attributed it to the afterimage effect at first, but a quick test confirmed the strange reality: he could still see the way even without his sight.
　　Trusting in his ears and senses, he ran on, sightless, yet seeing everything, until the roaring stopped and shrieking died.
　　Only when all he could hear was the tinkling of his guide did he dare open his eyes to realize that he was in a field full of flowers.
　　The grayness had disappeared, replaced by lush grass. Here and there, patches of dandelions, daises, tulips and petunias flourished with their bright hues of violet and red and yellow. The sky above him was empty still, but it was a rich blue emptiness, and the sun - what wonderful warmth! - hung high, too bright to stare into as always.
　　He blinked as his ears filled with thumping, the pounding of his heart from the remainder of adrenaline. He lost his breath and gasped for a new one - his lungs filled with sweet, fresh air.
　　And in the horizon were two figures - two very familiar figures...
　　He was running to them already, and in no time drew close enough to confirm what his heart was telling him.
　　The most beautiful mare he knew, with a cream coat and sandy mane tied in a ponytail, smiling for him her radiant smile.
　　The dearest foal in the world, who had her mother’s coat but his mane, waving at him in soundless joy.
　　He felt his eyes tear up, and shut them.
　　The path of light remained, burning bright in the darkness.
　　“No...”
　　He tried to take a step forward, but in the recesses of his mind, there was a voice, cold and clear, telling him what he did not want to know, accompanied with the faintest of tinkling.
　　“No!”
　　When he next felt the nudge of the ball on his head, his tears had dried up, and he was back in the realm of in-between. The path of light continued to glow with lukewarm luminescence. There was tinkling. There was no horizon nor flowers nor sun.
　　The ball floated in front of his sight, before tentatively floating away.
　　“Wait,” said Blue Stone, only to choke and cough. The ball waited. He finally asked:
　　“Why?”
　　“Magic is an expression of both mind and soul,” said the ball. “As you are, you are a working mind without a physical body. Unless you are practiced in the art of astral projection, some of your thoughts and desires will definitely leak out into the leyline.”
　　“So the smoke...”
　　“Ether. Formless magic that collected as more of your inner being leaked, taking form as it reached critical mass. The fire, the ice and the illusion were all expressions of yourself.”
　　The ball flitted about for a moment, as if searching Blue Stone’s expression for clues.
　　“I will not require you to return the favour, Blue Stone,” sang the ball. “But if I might ask you the same... why, why is it that, though you have such a kind soul, you wish to take the life of another at the end of this path?”
　　
The trip had always been silent, but this was a different silence - instead of mere absence, this was a tangible, suffocating silence. Blue Stone tried to think nothing of it as he ran on, but he found himself wishing for even the sound of his steps - the realm did not even have that - to drown out that ever-present tinkling.

It felt like hours. Blue Stone had lost track of how many times he had repeated the song. He had hummed it softly to himself at one point, but now his lips were dry, and still there was no end in sight.
　　The guide was not speaking any more, content to just flit ahead.
　　“Hey!”
　　The male voice was coming from behind. Blue Stone turned to look back; galloping up frantically was another unicorn, one with an orange coat and green mane.
　　“Hello?”
　　“It’s another pony!” cried the unicorn, falling at his hooves. “Thank Celestia!”
　　“Woah there. Come on, get up.” Blue Stone was about to stretch a hoof out, but the pony was too far outside the path to reach. And the guide was still flitting on, as if it had not noticed. “Hey, guide! Mind stopping for a bit? There’s another pony!”
　　But it did not stop.
　　“Who are you talking to? Guide?” asked the unicorn curiously.
　　“You know, the ball of light over there,” said Blue Stone, pointing. “Can’t you see it?”
　　“There’s nothing there.”
　　Blue Stone frowned. “Ahh... Come on, let’s move on. I’m sorry, but I can’t stop walking. You’re free to walk alongside me though. Care to step into the path?”
　　“Path? Are you all right?”
　　“I suppose you can’t see that either,” said Blue Stone, thinking hard.
　　“I can pretend I can if you like,” said the unicorn cheerily. “Why, I’ll do almost anything with you. It’s been ages since I got lost from the group, I was so worried that I almost went loopy, you know... It’s so good to see another pony.”
　　“I know,” replied Blue Stone, nodding. “What’s your name?”
　　“Gilhort. Yours?”
　　For a brief moment, he turned to look at the guide. It had stopped for two seconds, as if to give him a warning.
　　“I’m, uh, Stone. Stone, er... Stone’s Throw.” He returned the confused look with a smile. “Call me Stone.”
　　“Sure thing. Man, I’m so glad to have found you.” His face was pinched, and his eyes were, upon closer inspection, bloodshot. “Never seen you before, so I’m guessing you aren’t with the Nation?”
　　“The what now?”
　　“The Nation. We’re the country of in-betweeners,” he explained. “All of us are just like you, stranded here with no way out. All we can do is stick together and live out new lives here.”
　　“But there is a way out,” said Blue Stone, lightening up. “I’m on it. Follow me!”
　　“That’s nice, but...” Gilhort stopped in his tracks, looking reluctant. “Say, you’re new, right? Haven’t been here too long?”
　　“Well, it has been a while. A few hours, maybe?” “Only?” Gilhort laughed. It was a curt, stifled laugh. “Ah, no wonder. You still haven’t come to terms with it. Explains all the stuff about a path and a guide, too.”
　　“What are you talking about?” Blue Stone frowned. Meanwhile, the guide was moving on mercilessly; he tried to do a backpedal, but Gilhort remained stubbornly still. “Come on, we can talk while we walk.”
　　“You’re going the wrong way.” Gilhort turned and pointed to the far right. “I can see them! The Nation!”
　　At this Blue stopped and squinted.
　　“I don’t see anything.”
　　“I do, though. They’re over there. Come on, Stone, let’s go!”
　　“But the way out is-”
　　“There is no way out!” yelled Gilhort, his smile shattering into a look of pure fright. “There’s only you and I and the Nation, and I bugger all as hell don’t want to be alone again! Why won’t you come to your senses? Come with me!”
　　“Why won’t you come to your senses?” shouted Blue Stone. “You come with me! I have a guide, it’s taking me along the path...”
　　“There is no path! There is no hope!”
　　Blue Stone looked into his eyes. They were wide, frightened, tired eyes.
　　He shook his head and chased after the guide.
　　When he caught up to it, it stopped.
　　“I was almost worried that you wouldn’t show up,” it said.
　　“Why wouldn’t you stop? He needed us!” said Blue Stone angrily. “I had to leave him behind because of you!”
　　There was a moment of quiet. “Would you like to see his true form?” asked the ball.
　　“What do you mean?”
　　“Look.” The ball moved behind him; he followed it, and watched as the path behind faded, square by square.
　　Blue Stone screamed as out of the emptiness, a skull the size of himself leaped out, only to crash into pieces at his hooves, where the last square of light had not yet disappeared.
　　“There are creatures worse than these,” said the ball simply as it resumed its position in front. “But you have done well to trust me first. The end is almost near.”
　　
What is a pony? This has troubled philosophers, magicians and scientists alike. Infamous experiments such as burning cadavers to measure the weight of a soul still persist, and will, at least in the parts of the world where ethics still restrain action.
　　In Maretopia, a land equal to Equestria in every way except for its deifical princesses, advanced, abhorrent techniques have proven that ponies truly are the sum of their parts. They have minds, free wills, souls, instincts, and the main characteristic which lets them interact deeper with the world - an earthed strength and a connectedness to nature, flight and a sense for cosmological motion, or magic - and a body to host these in. Where teleportation is concerned, the process of conversion is a matter of translating all of this into magic, tapping into a higher dimension, and relying on magical instinct, so to speak, to bring the body back into physicality.
　　Most unicorns do not possess the mental capacity to override this instinct. It is, in a way, nature over nuture - just as ponies can, through breeding and psychology, deny inherent pony nature such as the grazing of grass and the estrous cycle, so unicorns can keep their will alive during teleportation.
　　Of more interest is the application of the principle, where the will can be made to be awakened during teleportation. The time interval for external interference is understandably short, but there have been systems developed to toggle the switch, so to say, of unicorns entering a prescribed field. One excellent example is the anti-intrusion field maintained in Equestria’s own Canterlot Castle, which inhibits unauthorized magical signatures, cutting them short by means of adverse wave cancellation.
　　It is with this abstract that I, Gauss Wicherwonder, present the next chapter: Teleportation Interruption Mechanisms[...]
　　
-Xerxes, Wicherwonder & Clover: Comprehensive Manual of Arcane Defenses, 1898, Canterlotian Magicians Society, Canterlot.
　　
“Princess Twilight?”
　　Blue Stone steadied himself as he took in everything. He was, just as the rouge magician had said, in a guest room - it was much larger than any room he had been in, with rich carpeting, tapestries of gold and crimson on the walls, a gauze curtain that diffused the harsh light outside - and the wonderful aroma of baked cinnamon - even though it was spacious, compared to the realm of in-between, it was claustrophobic, and he found himself taking shorter gasps.
　　But the mayor of South Castershire was not there. Instead, sitting on the bed a safe distance away, was the pony whose face was splashed across the front page of every newspaper, the youngest addition to the monarchy, dressed in royal garb. Princess Twilight Sparkle.
　　What is going on?!
　　“Have a butterfly wing,” said the princess. As she placed a thick leather-bound tome back on to a shelf on the far side of the room, a silver plate with three of them was levitated in front of Blue Stone, and the smell filled his nostrils. As if on cue, his stomach growled, and he felt his mouth water.
　　“It’s not poisoned,” she added, lifting one to her lips and taking a generous bite. “I meem, I know how much these can - mmm - take ouf you. Did you know that some unicorns experience a whole fifty percent drop in blood sugar level post-teleportation?”
　　Blue Stone nodded dumbly and chaffed down the other two, sinking to his knees.
　　“Your Highness,” he mumbled, eyes widening as reality sunk in. The princess had been waiting for him. That could only mean that she had known from the start - yet, how?
　　“Please, call me Twilight Sparkle. After all, we know each other now.” “Princess, I-”
　　“Tell me something, Blue Stone,” said the princess, smiling faintly. “Why have you come to visit Canterlot on the last day of the counties’ biennial summons?”
　　“I...”
　　“No, rather - why have you come to the room of your mayor?”
　　“Because I want to kill him.” There was no hope left. To admit, grovel, whatever it took - he had to grasp at every last straw. He fell prostrate on the floor and felt his body tremble violently. “I am here because I want to kill Glimmerstone!”
　　“Tell me why,” said the princess quietly.
　　“You don’t know?” His heart was racing wildly now. Everything that had happened before... He had felt oddly calm at the start. Hollow, even, as he set out. Paid the money to the rouge magician. Stepped into his circle of runes. Set out to Glimmerstone’s room, to suffocate him in his room, a solid two thousand miles away from South Castershire. And all of that had happened, and now it was collapsing all on him. He wanted to scream, but his throat was sore, and his muscles had gone weak.
　　“You’re a princess! You see everything, and you don’t know?”
　　“We are not gods,” said the princess tartly. “I am asking you to present your case.”
　　“Fine then. I’ll tell you.” He lifted his snout, out of the rustling carpet. His sight was blurring; his breathing was erratic. He could feel a spark of rebellion, anger at the condescending monarch, but he was too fatigued for it to become anything more than a splutter.
　　“Since you know my name, I’m guessing you know my profession too - I audit, I make sure money and authoritative decisions are properly documented and handled.
　　“Glimmerstone came into power five years ago, when the old mayor died. Right from the beginning no-one liked him. He had come from Manehatten, the son of the official who selected replacements for administration or something... what does it say about a pony that expected us to bow to him upon arrival?
　　“On the third year when the town audit was due, I found out what all of us had suspected - Glimmerstone was a no-good thief. He was siphoning off funds for private expenses, writing off amenities like coaches and orchard-planting assistance as community benefits when all of this was for his own use! I told him as much, and he tried to bribe me. To share in his filth and change the report I was about to send.
　　“Of course I didn’t, and I was looking forward to the day that Canterlot would revoke him for his corruption. But that day never came. The next thing I knew...”
　　Through sniffles and chokes, Blue Stone managed:
　　“My house had been broken into. My wife and daughter were gone. Neighbours told me that Glimmerstone’s private bodyguards had bound them up and took them to the county house. With help I managed to sneak in - the county house was huge, surrounded by the fruit trees and vineyards that he had funded with our money - but I never made it inside...
　　“My Honey Glaze... Sally Stone... they were screaming... and he was... laughing...”
　　As his nostrils ran and his cheeks streamed, he felt a gentle warmth cover him like a blanket. The princess gently entered his vision, horn glowing softly, leaning down so that their faces were level.
　　“I travelled to Canterlot to demand justice. I bribed a few officials when my requests for information were denied without cause. Turns out that Glimmerstone had friends in the audit department too, who tipped him off. There would be no justice. It was hopeless.”
　　“So you decided to exact revenge yourself,” replied the princess.
　　Blue Stone nodded and cried.

After the longest time, the princess spoke.
　　“Blue Stone. You have a kind soul, yet you’ve suffered so much. Despite the darkness filling your heart, you managed to stay on the path and not lose sight. I want to ask a great favour of you: please, turn back.”
　　He looked at her in horror.
　　“You want me to turn back?” he stammered. “After all he did to me, after all I went through...”
　　“This matter is not for you to deal with. I am your princess. Allow me.”
　　“But-”
　　“Can’t you trust me?”
　　The princess extended a hoof, and the ball of light drifted out, flitting around as usual. “You were so willing to though I was nothing more than a bright speck, and I did not fail you.”
　　“You... you were-”
　　A lopsided grin. “I am the bearer of the Element of Magic. This used to be one of Princess Celestia’s realms before I was entrusted it. Guiding lost ponies to the other side is kinda what I do.”
　　“So... the children...”
　　“They were like that before I took the job,” said the princess, turning her head away defensively. She sighed and lowered her gaze. “There were worse things in there that I shielded you from. Things like the wraiths or the countless assassins who refused to believe me, and ended up mad... The Nation is very much real, but they would have been less pleasant than the shapeshifter who called itself Gilhort.” She waved her hoof and the ball returned. “You were not like them. You weren’t lost, just misguided... so I guided you, because I know that you’d hold on to your hope.”
　　She stretched out a wing and lifted his despairing face. “And now, I want you to place that hope in me. Just like you did before. Lest you be lost for eternity - stay on the path of light, and do not lose sight of it, and walk on forward...”

“Ugh, my head!”
　　Glimmerstone woke up and looked around. His instant reaction was a frown - for some reason, there was nothing at all, simply grayness and smoke, where there should have been his reception room. Reporting to the princess had been uneventful; she had asked him a few questions, but he had cleverly deflected them all with his trusty forged paperwork. He had expected a nice long nap and a good deal of brandy after stepping into the castle’s teleportation circle for South Castershire; this was not it.
　　“Hello?”
　　In response, from behind his ear, a small ball of light drifted into view. But before anything could happen, Glimmerstone gave a shriek and smacked it squarely with a hoof. It fell to the floor and faded away as soon as it had appeared.
　　“Yuck. What was that?” He arched his shoulders and shivered. “Ugh. Hello? Hello, anypony? Is this some kind of prank? Hello?...”