I sit at the base of the mountain on the cold ground, and even though the sky is overcast, I know that I am in the mountain's shade. The peak is obscured by clouds, and I fear that they will come down on me as fog. The air smells distantly of rubbing alcohol. I look at the ponies trying to pull out my cart from the mud and repeat their names: Applejack and Fluttershy. Memory hasn't served me well lately, which is why the most important piece of paper is in the pocket of my jacket, next to my heart. Only this I know for certain: My name is Rarity, and the only pony who can save me is on the top of that mountain.

I had travelled for long and from afar, pulling by myself the heavy cart with everything that mattered to me. I rode through the featureless plains for longer than I could remember, and just as the expanse turned to hills, my cart got stuck in the mud. It is only thanks to fortune that two ponies were walking by who were happy to help out a stranger.

"Well, this is useless," Applejack says, wiping sweat from her brow. "It's stuck and it's not going anywhere."

"Are you sure?" I ask.

Fluttershy hovers over the cart and picks up a dressing mannequin. "Maybe if we take a few things out, it'll budge?"

"The mud isn't the problem. The wheel must've caught in a groove in the stone. Say, what do you even have in here?" Applejack looks into the cart. "Mannequins, a sewing machine, and… party favors?"

"I assure you, all of these items are highly personal and important," I say. "Vital, even."

"So why are you going up the mountain? Starting a boutique for clowns?" Applejack asks.

"I heard a legend that on the top of this mountain lives a wise mare who can answer truthfully any one question for anypony." I stand and walk right up to Applejack, looking her in the eye. "And I have a question that I absolutely require an answer for."

"Well, gosh, in that case you definitely won't need any of this baggage. If I know anything about wise mares—and I happen to have one as my granny—it's that they hate hubris. Besides, it'll still be here when we're back."

I open my mouth to protest, but Applejack puts a foreleg around my shoulders and whispers, "Think seriously, sugarcube, what is more important to you? An answer or all this stuff?"

I fight with myself for a moment, but the answer is apparent. I touch the pocket on my chest and nod. "Applejack," I say, "did you say, 'when we're back?'"

She grins. "Yup. Ain't no way we're letting you hike up that far all on your lonesome."

All my protests are swept aside. "We couldn't get your cart out, so we might at least supply the pleasure of our company," Applejack says, and Fluttershy adds that they won't slow me down.

They start the walk up the hill before me, and I only sigh and follow them. With a trembling in my chest, I realize that I've never seen the mountain's peak from down on the ground.

---

Eighteen years ago—or was it a lifetime?—I was but a filly with a dream about gems. They were my cutie mark, and in them I saw my purpose. I had a phase when I was little when I tried to put gems on everything. I even tried to encrust my favorite rubber ball. When I had found no way to put the gems on the ball and still be able to play with it, I instead painted an intricate pattern of gems on it.

But it was this ball that gave me pause about what I was doing. Did it matter that I stitched the gems to cloth or glued them to my mother's silverware? And were it the gems themselves that made my spirit smile or was it some idea behind them? I was too young to grasp such concepts, but a brief apprenticeship with a gem cutter confirmed my theory that diamonds and rubies themselves were only rocks.

All through my school years, I kept sewing dresses at my desk, but I carried the rubber ball with me in my thoughts. Eventually I decided that my cutie mark, like many others, was metaphorical, and it was more the idea of revealing beauty where it was hidden that attracted me. I began to look at the world not as an object to be made beautiful, bust as a rock concealing precious gems within it.

I studied the various ways this beauty could be expressed. Surely, clothes were hardly the best medium for such efforts. I lost the enthusiasm I had for making clothes and wandered instead through the town, searching for beauty in the streets, parks, and homes, and thinking about ways to capture it.

During the last year of school, I read "Weathering the Heights" by the Bronto sisters. The book was nothing like the bodice-rippers that were my choice before. Every word, every gesture, every whisper had something special hidden behind it, just like my gems, a greater idea of beauty not seen but perceived. But it was so much more than rocks could express!

I found no sleep that night, instead pacing my room with thoughts about the new world revealed to me. I had made my decision.

On the next day, I put away the sewing machine on my desk and placed in its stead a stack of paper and a set of fresh quills.

---

My fear is confirmed, and the clouds come down from the peak to meet us as fog. We are walking blindly, our only guide being the trail chiseled into the stone. The incline has become noticeable now, and I begin to want for air—or is it only because of fear? Fluttershy says something, but I let it go past my attention.

"Is something wrong, sugarcube?" Applejack asks me. "You were miles away for some time there."

"Sorry, I was just… reminiscing."

"I said how terrible it must be to get lost in this fog," Fluttershy says.

"Yes, I am so very thankful for this trail," I reply.

The wind slaps me in the face with a sudden gust, and the fog before us is dissipates. Just ahead, the trail disintegrates into at least twelve directions. The new trails seem to go everywhere: three turn back on themselves and lead somewhere downhill and to the side, another traverses a bramble-covered bridge hanging in thin air above the crossroads, and another turns sharply and disappears somewhere into a hole in the ground. The only direction not apparent is up, and in the middle of this trail stands a tall post bristling with black signs.

"Damn my mouth."

We approach the signpost, but it is a solid black, as if charred by flame. Fluttershy flies up to look closer, and just as she touches one of signs, a pair of yellow eyes open and turn to look at her. The creature stirs, and I can just about make out its charcoal-black reptilian body as it crawls to sit on top of the sign.

"A chameleon!" Fluttershy says. She's pretty happy for somepony hovering so close to a black-scaled reptile. "If he's local, he could know where each trail leads."

"Sure," I say, "let's just ask it."

The chameleon loudly inhaled and increased in size like a balloon, and then let out the air in one croak, and we could clearly hear words in the wet vibrations. "I do."

"Oh, great, nevermind then. This place is getting better and better."

"Mister chameleon, sir, do you happen to know where these paths lead?"

The chameleon croaked again, its body rising and shrinking as it continuously blew air like an accordion. "The rightmost path leads to Heart's Exploratory Hospital. The one that traverses the bridge goes to the Angel's Tears Cemetery. The one that runs underground comes to the River Styx…"

"We appreciate your help," I say, "but maybe you could save us some time and just tell us which one leads to the peak and the wise mare who lives there?"

"Every path leads to the same wise mare," it says, looking as if through me, "but to a different answer."

"In that case, could you tell us which route is easiest?" Fluttershy asks.

The chameleon's mouth splits in two with a grin and it croaks out what sound like two hearty laughs. "Down."

"Riddles upon riddles. Useless. We are wasting our time." I start down one of the paths and let Fluttershy catch up before speeding up.

"It is," the chameleon says, "if you do not have the wise mare's payment."

"Payment? Nothing was said about a payment."

"The wise mare will answer a question only in exchange for a feather from a phoenix."

"And where am I supposed to find one?" I ask, but the chameleon slinks down the signpost and disappears in the dense grass.

"Well, it's too late to go back now," Applejack says.

Fluttershy touches down next to me. "It's alright. Phoenixes are magical birds, they can be found anywhere."

"Hey, Rarity, this is the road to that hospital," Applejack says. "Why did you choose this one?"

"Because the cleaner cobblestone here will be gentler on my hooves," I say, and pick up my pace.

My steps are unsteady. I have no idea why I chose this path.

---

Three months after graduation, I am in Soiree: capital of both prance and the romantic arts. The humid city air revitalized my mind, and the busy streets reminded me pleasantly of Canterlot. Through great fortune and effort, I had secured for myself via correspondence a seat on the private workshop of Professor Brand, a lecturer at the University of Soiree, who was said to be a teacher not of literature or writing, but Art.

Our classroom was a coffee house, our desks—beanbag chairs. He sat us in a circle and asked us to think of him and of each other not as students and teacher, but as friends and equals. He maintained that art, even capital-A Art, was available to everyone.

"What do you desire to learn here?" he asked us on the first day, and pointed at me.

"I want to learn to create beauty," I said, my voice wavering.

"Only the gods can create beauty, my dear. We can only discover it," he said. "Don't think of yourself and of other artists as of creators, but rather as of explorers. Everything beautiful has been created before, and we are only left to humbly find and express it in words. Like astronomers, we scour the night sky to fill out our maps and delight when our calculations prove that an unseen star exists in the black void in its proper place, and no amount of imagination will create a star more beautiful or suitable for its place than the one that was put there by nature.

"Now substitute ponies for stars and you get the basic principle of literary writing." The class pealed with laughter, and he continued. "Thus, the magic of beauty is not created, but found, and it can be discovered anywhere whatsoever."

My quill never left the page. I hung on every word, every phrase, drinking them in like they were fresh water to a castaway. Never before had anyone spoken so directly to me and answered my questions so clearly.

After the class was over, I was dying to share my experience, so I turned to the stallion who was sitting next to me. "It was amazing. It's like he read my mind, like this whole class was created just for me alone."

"He has that effect on ponies. I admire his passion for the art," he replied. "You are not from Prance, right?" He introduced himself and offered to buy me coffee. I said yes.

Sadly, I cannot remember the stallion's name.

---

The hospital looks massive from the outside, but inside it is empty. We walk through the halls and every room we look into has nothing but empty beds and trolleys. The smell of medicine—bleached cloth, sterile metal, and the somber kind of alcohol—pierces my nose. But we are not alone: there are voices in the distance.

"So," Applejack asks, "what is it that you wanted to ask this wise mare so much?"

"I don't know. Or, rather, I have forgotten, but I have the question written." I touch the pocket on my chest. "It came to me in a time of great distress, you could even call it a delirium, but I was fortunate enough to write it down. I dare not try to recall it for fear of meddling with my memory even more. I only know that my life depends on the answer."

"Well, maybe those doctors will take one look at ya' and tell you what's wrong, and there won't be any need for a wise mare."

We come to a door with light shining through the gaps. I hear at least a dozen ponies on the other side. I knock, and the voices stop. There are hoof steps, and a nurse with wide purple circles under her eyes opens the door.

"I am very sorry," I say, "and I know it sounds weird, but we were wondering if such a scientifically-minded institution might have a phoenix feather they could spare for a traveller?"

The nurse looks at me as if I had three eyes. "Lady, you can't 'spare' a phoenix feather. You can't even take its feather—not unless that phoenix is attuned to you, and there is only ever one phoenix for every pony in the world like that."

I want to ask clarification when I look inside the room. A dozen doctors in masks and glasses, each looking the same as the last, stand around a table covered with a bloody shroud. Two white hooves peek from under the cloth.

"We are very busy and cannot provide consultation," the nurse says. "This mare had a bird burst out of her chest, and we are having a consilium on how to cure her. The doctors have been discussing for a year now and they are close to a breakthrough. If you want answers, go look for the dragon higher on the mountain. He's got answers to everything that matters." The door closes in my face, and the muffled conversation continues.

I and Applejack turn and walk to the exit. Fluttershy sighs and settles behind us. "Dragons," she says. "Why does it always have to be dragons?"

---

He had a jawline that every single Commander of the Royal Guard in history could envy, and both a voice and an air about him that were worthy of theatre. His coat was whiter than my own. We bonded over coffee after each and every class. We discussed the things we had in common: He grew up among the windmills and wineries of rural southern Prance, I was born in the poetic Nowhere of Equestria. He had a three-story house on the Reine, I rented a room in an attic.

One day, he brought his stories. Not for the class to read, but for me. I swallowed word after word, my coffee completely forgotten as I was astonished by the flow of prose and the genuine feelings. "You are a master," I said. He was humble. "How do you make the rhythm flow so well with the action? How do you make your heroes make so much sense? How do you capture a lover's passions so vividly?"

We discussed the written word until the shop closed and we stood outside. Neither of us wanted to end the conversation, so we walked. The walk led to a discussion of poetry, which led to dramatic readings of Cannon and Wolf's romances under the street light, which led to midnight, which led to his house being closer, which led to my skirt forgotten on the stairs and his cologne filling my breath.

Lost in passion, he forgot himself and spoke only Prench. I understood half the words. The other half my imagination filled with words from Cannon and Wolf. After it is done, the duvet is like a bed of hot coals.

A full moon shined through the open window. He is asleep, but I lie for an hour, maybe two, in a trance, feeling something simmer inside me. Then, a spark lighted behind my eyes, travelled down my throat, and started a fire in my chest which lifted me from the bed onto unsteady hooves and to the writing desk by the window. I found blank pages amidst the chaos of strewn manuscripts, picked up a red quill, and wrote.

---

The steep hills turn into walls, and we have to find places where the rocks form stepping stones for us to climb on. Why did I have to be born a distant relative of a mountain goat, and not a Pegasus or an Earth pony? Then I'd either get to the top easily or never want to climb in the first place.

"You really like to daydream, don't you?" Applejack tells me from the plateau I am climbing towards. "Kind of a bad time to do it now."

"I was just remembering a stallion I met once. He had passion like I had never seen before or since."

"Aw, shucks, that's a good thing to daydream about. What was his name?"

"Sadly, I can't seem to remember."

Applejack gives me her hoof and pulls me up. The plateau is fairly big and it overlooks a side of the mountain. I contemplate camping down for a little while when I notice Fluttershy hovering on the other side of the clearing, holding her body still as if mesmerized.

"What's wrong?" Applejack asks.

Fluttershy points and I see it—just beyond the plateau, on a long tree growing from the mountainside, sits the red, fiery bird.

"What are you waiting for?" I say. "Go on, ask for its feather!"

"Oh no, phoenixes are proud birds, they don't respond well to being asked for favors, even politely. But I could never bully an animal."

"Fine then. Applejack, you have your rope, can you lasso it over here?"

Applejack rubs her chin. "Well, I could catch it alright. But my ropes' mighty strong. I'll crush it in the loop and then the bird'll just fall into ash, feathers and all."

"Well what am I supposed to do then?" I ask.

I look around the clearing and notice the thick, long grass growing by the mountainside. A light bulb goes off in my head, and I light up my horn. I gather the grass and weave it into a primitive cage open from the bottom.

The phoenix sits with its back to us, and it is too busy cleaning its feathers to notice how I sneak up to the edge of the plateau, cage levitating in my aura. The bird is right outside my range, and I lean right over the edge to reach it. But just as the cage is an inch from the bird's head, it shuffles further away on the branch.

I walk over to the base of the tree and test it with my hoof. It is hard as rock, and my movement doesn't even shake it. I lie prone and crawl onto the tree and up the trunk, doing my best to not look at the drop below me.

And again, as I reach the phoenix, it walks further away, as if playing with me. It probably is, but I continue to crawl after it. There is only so much of the tree left and, finally, the bird reaches the top of the trunk. Gathering my hooves underneath me like a cat, I quickly lean forward and bring the cage down on the phoenix, holding the open end tight with my magic.

I forgot what phoenixes were made of. A single flap of its wings and the grass cage disappears in a cloud of smoke. The phoenix screeches with the sound of hot iron being struck with a hammer and flaps its wings again, lifting off of the branch.

Without thinking, I jump after it. I catch the bird in my hooves and laugh. The only thought I have is that it's strange that the feathers don't burn me. But then the phoenix flies up and the rest of my body pulls me down, and the bird slips from my grip.

And there is nothing under my hooves. I only remember that ponies usually see their life flash by as they meet their end, before something grips me tightly by the leg. I swing down and hit the side of the mountain face-first.

---

I wrote well. Page after page I filled, sparks flying from under the tip of my quill. The words branded themselves onto paper, glowing like coals. But then, I wrote something wrong, a word that did not fit and mangled the idea. Fiercely I struck it out and continued, but more and more came in after it. They stayed on my perfect pages like blemishes, spreading out from my quill as if commanded by some malevolent force. Surely, it wasn't me who created such ugliness, for I desired only beauty. I kept pushing through, slowing down, striking words. I remembered the beauty of the stallion's prose, it's flowing rhythms and ponies who read like actual ponies, and it only made my own seem that much worse. The words that were good before suddenly turned dark and blurry, turning into inkblots. When the first hints of sunlight colored the sky, I threw the quill on the floor and, utterly cold on the inside, climbed back into bed.

I was awoken shortly to an empty bed by a mare looking at me contemptuously from above. I sent her away, thinking that she was his maid. I was mistaken: she was his fiancée.

Somehow, through sheer strength, twenty minutes of determination, and the ferocity of an alley cat, I had managed to come out not only with most of my clothes, but also my pages held tightly to my chest. I felt sympathy for the mare—later I learned that I was her stallion's "strike three." I should have felt sad, and I wanted to feel sad, but the only thing I felt was rage, lying inside me like a charcoal brick.

I thought, momentarily, about throwing the pages into the Reine, but I didn't. Even then, I had developed a hoarding instinct towards my creations.

On the next day, I returned to the coffee shop, but I did not enter it. He was there, chatting with another mare, and the disgust bubbling in my stomach turned me away from the door. Denied everything that I came for, I boarded the train back home, hoping to remove the bad memories from myself as I removed myself from Prance.

But the spiteful imps followed me home. Time and time again, my quill produced things that should not have been there. Only unreadable dross came out on the page when I tried to write, and when I tried to focus on the problems, my mind turned blank, and my evenings turned into prolonged exercises in quill-chewing.

My parents started asking questions: about prance, about my career, about money. A friend told mother that she was looking for a new dress to wear to her sister's wedding, and mother told her that her daughter used to be a great clothing designer. The only thing missing from her delivery was an inconspicuous wink. Still, the ponies remembered me as that girl who made gem-studded dresses, and I needed the money.

Reluctantly, I took out my old sewing machine from the closet and put my manuscripts in the desk drawer, fully intending to return to them on the next day. I never did.

---

I awaken to a terrible headache radiating through my skull from my snout. Immediately, I sit up—the headache worsens—and look into the pocket on my chest. The little paper square is in place and I sigh with relief.

"Caught ya' with my rope, if you're wondering," Applejack says. "You can thank me later."

I stand up and rub my head. "Can't hold it too lightly, can't hold it too tightly," I say. "How in the Tartarus am I supposed to catch that bloody thing?"

"Wait, isn't that from a poem about love?" Fluttershy asks.

"For shame, girl," Applejack says, "haven't you heard what the nurse said? There's only one phoenix for you in the whole world. If you caught it, who would be left there to drop feathers for you?"

"I don't know. This entire situation is beyond confusing and ridiculous, and simply thinking about solving it hurts my head, in addition to the trauma already suffered."

"Well, maybe we don't need to look for answers ourselves." Applejack points at the wall, where a cave mouth opens into darkness. "We've carried you all the way to the dragon's cave."

On the inside, the cave is dark, yet not dark enough to be considered blind and damp, yet not damp enough to be humid. Luminescent crystals jut out of the cavern walls, lighting just a little around themselves and increasing with frequency as we went deeper into the cave. The only sounds in the cave are the water dripping into pools on the floor and the constant chattering of teeth.

"Land sakes, if you're so scared, stay outside, Fluttershy!"

"Oh no, I'm fine," she replies. "I'm sure you might need me there. Got to share that team spirit and all."

We follow the crystal's rising light into a new chamber of the cave. It is a most peculiar sight: The far wall of the chamber is blocked off by a wrought iron fence, and behind it are bookshelves, dozens upon dozens, each reaching to the ceiling many meters above and stacked fully with tomes, scrolls, and bound papers. The shelves continue far back, farther than I can see, and only the flickering candles burning in the rows give me a clue to how many there are. And before all this, on a tall lectern standing like a castle tower between the iron spikes, sits a purple-scaled, green-spined thing no bigger than a foal and scribbles something furiously with a quill.

Fluttershy exhales loudly. "Well, that was far less scary than I imagined."

The little dragon stops writing and looks over the lectern. "Do you have any business?"

"We've been told that we could find answers here," I say.

"As have everypony else. Well, don't just stand there. There's a specific procedure to be followed, protocol to be upheld. We are a serious banking establishment."

"Oh, this is a bank?" I take a step forward. "I don't suppose that phoenix feathers are considered a kind of currency in this crazy part of the world?"

The dragon puts down his quill and looks at me with a raised eyebrow. "Lady, we do not deal with things to be spent or quantified. This is a memory bank. Give me a topic, and I will find an answer."

"Ah, that explains the books. Fine then, how about phoenix hunting?"

The dragon takes one look at his paper. "Nothing."

"What do you mean, nothing? This is supposed to be a library!"

"Not a library, a memory bank. Have you ever hunted phoenixes before?"

"No."

"Then I don't see why you are surprised. Let's try this properly. Think of the first thing that comes to your mind."

I huff, but close my eyes and focus. A moment later, a bell chimes at the top, and the dragon produces an envelope from his lectern. He hands it to me and I take it with my magic. There's a picture inside.

"But, that's the ball I had when I was little!" The pattern doesn't lie. "I painted it myself, there's no other one like it. How did you do it?" Without waiting for an answer, my hoof reaches for the pocket on my chest. "Can you answer my question?"

"How would I know without knowing the question? But we only have things here that were had and then were lost, not things that are yet to come."

I sigh and look towards the ground. Applejack puts a hoof on my shoulder. "Hey, how about you try asking for the name of that stallion you forgot?"

"I'm not sure I want to, but I can try. Can you help me remember?" I ask the dragon.

"Let's try. Just focus."

I think about the stallion, about the cool wind blowing from the river, about the words whispered into my ears. There's a bell chime, and the dragon takes a box from under his seat.

I levitate it down. "Coffee?" I open the lid, and there are papers inside. It takes me only one line to recognize them.

"It's the prose I wrote on that night." I take the pages out, read through them quickly. The words still shine like smoldering coals, and the blemishes I remembered are not so bad after all. "I remember, I used to write, and not just write, I searched for beauty and wrestled it to the page. I looked for things inside ponies, things that made them beautiful and passionate and I tried to show it and—"

I stop. From between the pages, I pick up a glowing, fiery feather. "Well, there it is."

---

The mare was exctatic with her dress, and couldn't wait to introduce her friends to me. Each of them wanted me to make the same for themselves, and I was happy to oblige. The mares were happy enough to brag to their friends, which led to postcards being sent in the mail, which led to new orders, which led to fame, which led to the cover of Fashion Weekly, which led to money, which led to me buying an old store and renovating it into a boutique and my new home. I was invited into a designer's club in Canterlot, where clothesmakers with more experience than me welcomed me and praised every stitch that I made on the latest summer dress.

I walked that path as it pushed me forward, and it pushed me far. I could do dresses, I did them many times before, unlike stories. It was easy and pleasurable. I did not forget my artistic training and I used the techniques I learned as I searched for beauty: I walked the streets pretending that I was a child seeing my own home for the first time. I listened to the din my thoughts made in my head right after I awoke in the morning. I stilled my mind as I looked at the sketches, and waited for the full picture to appear before my eyes.

But more than that, I cultivated a persona. I was the provincial prodigy, the secluded artist delighting in her craft. Canterlot loved it. But somehow, I knew that deep down, I betrayed some part of myself. Glamour replaced beauty. Fashion replaced art. I began to imitate others, both old and new, shamelessly to make more dresses, faster. In the rush to set new trends, I blindly followed them.

Then I met an amazing unicorn from Canterlot and saved the world from eternal darkness, and the past became distant and uninteresting.

A client came into my shop. He had a strong jawline to envy any guardsman, a voice for the opera, and a coat whiter than mine. No, he was five years too old to be him, and the stallion swore that he'd never been to Prance, but the resemblance was still uncanny. He asked me for a tuxedo for his wedding. The deadline was neither near nor far. I agreed.

For days I avoided my work desk and did not even dare to think about the stallion's order, because some dark feeling had settled in my stomach and made itself known as fatigue each time I tried to imagine a suit for such a stallion. Finally, spurred on by the deadline, I sat before a blank page.

My quill stopped an inch from the paper. I found myself empty.

---

We are at the summit, and I feel a surge of gladness at seeing the peak for the first time. I clutch the feather to my chest, right next to the piece of paper with my life written on it. The entrance to the wise mare's cave calls to me.

"Well, sugarcube, it's time for you to find that answer you've been so dying to hear."

"Applejack, are you telling me that you're not going with me?"

"I think we've learned by now that this climb was all about you," Fluttershy says.

"You'll be fine," Applejack says. "Besides, you've got a whole cartload of stuff waiting for you down by the foot of the mountain, and somepony's got to look after it. We'll be waiting for when you come down. Just make sure you do."

They turn around and head down the mountain. A part of me feels like the three of us were always friends long before we met, maybe even before this mountain existed. We wave our goodbyes and I notice a sadness in my friend's eyes that I don't recognize. I try not to think of it and enter into the mouth of the cave.

The light from the outside disappears quickly, and I can only feel with my skin how the walls of the tunnel constrict around me without touching. It seems that I am walking for hours when the feeling disappears and I realize that the walls have not simply moved away, they ceased to exist. I am in a dark void and there is only a plain white door on the other side of it. I walk silently to it, take a moment to listen to my breathing, and enter.

A full moon shines through the open window. I am in a hospital room—I recognize the green walpaper, so warm yet sterile. There's an empty bed by the wall, flanked by a drip stand and a disconnected monitor on one side and a nightstand with plastic carnation on the other. There's chairs and in the corner—

It's me! No, Sweet Celestia, it is me, from when I was eight. I sit in the corner and bounce a rubber ball painted with gems.

"How? How can you be me? Where is the wise mare who will answer my question?"

She answers without taking her attention away from the ball. "Is it not obvious?" Her voice is nothing like a foal's, clear and loud. "I have to be you, because how can anypony else answer a question that can only be true for you?"

"But why a child?"

"Only an unlucky few ever grow up on the inside."

She keeps bouncing the ball while I let her words sink into me. It takes a while.

"So it is true. This is happening. You are going to answer my question and save my life." I levitate the feather in front of her. "Here is your payment."

She stops the ball and takes the feather in her hooves, looks it over, sniffs it. "What is the question?" she asks.

I am ready. I undo the button on the pocket, take out the little twice-folded paper square, and levitate it before my eyes. With a deep sigh, I unfold it.

It is blank.

The paper falls from my grasp. I feel tears coming up. My lips contort, my throat locks up, and I lose my footing and fall to the ground, where I weep like a foal.

---

I was prepared for such creative emergencies. I took a step back from the work and analyzed my creative block. I saw there had been a great deal of work and obligations assaulting me from my daily life: Sweetie's birthday, the work on Twilight's new castle, that stack of mail I've been dying to read through. It was this baggage that's been holding me back, I decided. Thus excused, I stepped away from the work and went to do all those things. But for each thing I did, two took its place, while the deadline approached day after day.

I had decided to push through instead. I set aside an entire day and sat at the work desk, a glass of wine by my side for resolve. I drew rapidly, and the pictures came out plentifully. Too plentifully. There were a hundred tuxedos that I could make, ten times that that I could imagine, and each one of them as viable as the last, yet none satisfied me. There was no picture in my mind that told me of my destination.

Finally, seeking help I boarded the express to Canterlot. The designer's club met every saturday in a tea room in Upper Canterlot, where they discussed the dresses worn to the last year's Grand Galloping Gala. I interrupted as they were debating the finer points of stitching the inside seam of a hat to ask my question. "Did you say, a tuxedo? For a stallion we don't know?" They looked among themselves. "Dear, if you need help with that, are you sure you should be here?"

One of the mares gave me the address of a stallion who helped her when she had creative blocks. It was in the lower city, a room in a moldy motel. The charcoal-coated stallion showed me a rattling yellow bottle. "To relieve anxiety," he said. "For special ponies, but I think you're special as well." I cursed the mare for suggesting me something like that, and cursed myself more for the bottle that rattled in my purse on the ride home.

It was already night, but I went to my workroom. The pill tasted like chalk. I steeled myself and sat down at the desk. I willed an image onto paper and began to trace it. The quill went as hard as a chisel through stone. My head began to pound with effort, and I distracted myself by taking sips from the glass every few minutes.

I just about finished the outer curve of the lapel when the quill broke, spilling ink all over the page. A moment of quiet rage was followed by my hooves pounding on the desk. I shouted, "How do I create you?"

There was a moment of vertigo, and I lost my bearings. There was a pressing heat in my chest, pounding harder and harder, like something was trying to get out. Inkblots filled my peripheral vision, lungs refused to take air. I took a step to brace against the desk, my hooves faltered, I tripped over the chair and fell. The half-empty glass of wine spilled over the drawing. I saw the rubies dripping to the floor and tried to cry out. There was one last hit in my chest, with the strength of a train, and the light went out.

---

I lie, clutching my legs to my chest, and the room seems to shake. I cannot see anything through the water in my eyes, but I see myself looking at me and I wonder what she thinks of me. I scream. "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know how to do it! I don't know how I did it before and I can't take this torture any longer! I had it, but it slipped away, like it always does!"

I drop my head to the ground. My younger self purses her lips, as if thinking about something, and starts bouncing the ball again. The convulsions in my chest eventually die down, and I don't gasp for breath between sobs.

"Calmed down?" she asks.

"Help me."

"Only you can help yourself."

I climb on my hooves to sit up. The effort is collosal, but I am on level with her. "What is the answer?"

She stops bouncing the ball and looks me straight in the eye. "There are no answers here. There is only the climb."

I close my eyes, and the events of the past day—how long was it?—flash before my eyes. The useless baggage I left at the base. The maze of trails leading to places of fear. The doctors standing around the body of a mare with a hole in her chest. A phoenix that escaped my grasp, because I was so desperate to hold it captive, I tried to build a cage for fire itself.

My heart beats normally again, and I understand everything.

My other self nods. "You're going to need this for the next part." She hands me the feather, which I happily take.

"Thank you." I press the feather to my chest and walk to the bed, at last feeling sure of my footing. I get into bed, get comfortable, and close my eyes.



I awaken in bed and blink away the blur from my eyes. A full moon shines through the open window. I recognize the wallpaper. There's a plastic tube going into my foreleg, and the monitor beeps softly to the beat of my heart. Applejack and Fluttershy sleep in the chairs by the wall. Across the room hangs a black-on-white picture of a chameleon.

Fighting through the soreness in my muscles, I reach for the nightstand, careful to not pull on the drip tube in my leg. Weeping with joy, I find in the drawer a sheaf of paper and a red quill, and begin to sketch.

The girls wake up as soon as the first hints of sunlight color the sky. They jump at the chance to welcome me back, and I have to maneuver my papers away from their hugs.

"Rarity, we were so worried!" Fluttershy says. "Everypony came to see you, and we volunteered to look after you overnight. We read you fairy tales!"

"Her idea," Applejack adds. She looks at the papers strewn in a circle across my bed and picks one up. I don't mind, it's an early sketch. "Not to rain on your parade, sugarcube, but should you be working so much right now? You just had a heart attack."

"And I'm sorry to worry you, darling, but I just received an answer to a question that's been holding me back for years, and I don't intend to stop."

Fluttershy gets the hint and tells Applejack that they should leave me alone to my work. They promise to stay nearby, we share one more hug, and they come out into the hallway. I plunge back into my sketch.

At the foot of the bed, my phoenix sleeps, preparing to drop his fiery feathers for me again, while I craft into the form of a tuxedo the memories of a stallion whose name I forgot.