“Alright,” Applebloom said excitedly. “Fuel?”

“Check,” Sweetie Belle reported.

“Matches?”

“Check,” Sweetie replied again.

“Rags n’ such?”

“Hrnng,” Scootaloo confirmed.

“Everypony ready?” Applebloom asked, glancing across the deserted plaza to make sure nopony else was around.

“Uh,” Sweetie hesitated. “What was the, um, objective here?”

“Gettin’ our cutie marks, silly,” Applebloom admonished. “Just like always.”

“Yeah, but which cutie marks exactly were we going for with this?” Sweetie inquired, looking anxiously at her own hooves. “I lost track.”

“Nrrk,” Scootaloo agreed.

“Well, uh,” Bloom stuttered. “I… hold on, I’ll get it.”

With a grunt of irritation, she pulled from her saddlebags the scroll the trio had used to plan their day’s activities hours earlier. Since then, it had absorbed a great deal more abuse than could reasonably be expected of it. The bottom half was soggy and pungent, having been submerged in a pool of liquid whose nature none of the crusaders were willing to acknowledge. Where it wasn’t wet, the paper was hole-ridden and the ink smudged.

Taking care not to unfurl the scroll too quickly lest the wet paper tear, she spread it before her as her companions leaned in to look.

“Now, see?” she asked, pointing to a crude drawing that might have included a representation of one or more fillies. “This is where we … wait.” She moved her hoof to point at an unevenly drawn box beside a vaguely circular scribble and a question mark. The rest of this particular diagram was obscured by a green splotch that the fillies carefully failed to notice.

“So I think this is the buildin’,” Applebloom guessed, then trailed off.

“It doesn’t look anything like a building,” Sweetie Belle said flatly.

“Well I’m not a drawer, alright?” Bloom shot back in frustration. “This is the buildin’, and this here’s the… fuel, probably.”

“How is that fuel?”

“It don’t matter, Sweetie, it just is,” Applebloom fumed. “This is what we planned up, I’m sure of it.”

“It’s been a long day,” Sweetie noted, looking pointedly up at the full moon almost directly above them. “Maybe it’d be better if we came back to it tomorrow.”

“No!” Applebloom exclaimed. “You remember what Twilight said: you wanna achieve anything, best way is to write up your goals and follow through on ‘em.” She fixed both her fellow crusaders in turn with a look of determination. “We said we were gonna try everythin’ on this scroll today, and that’s what we’re gonna do. We ain’t never gonna get our cutie marks if we can’t even finish a to-do list..”

“But I don’t remember planning this part at all,” Sweetie Belle argued tiredly.

“Frrg,” Scootaloo added, exasperated.

“Let’s just get it done with,” Applebloom insisted. “Then we won’t have to worry about it no more.”

“Fine,” Sweetie Belle agreed at last. “But we’d better make it quick, or somepony is going to see us.”

“Naw.” Applebloom shook her head. “Everypony in town is asleep — long since.”

“Not everypony,” Twilight Sparkle corrected from behind them.

The crusaders yelped in surprise, then quieted as they realized who had joined them.

“Oh, hey Twilight,” Applebloom said as casually as she could manage as she turned to look at the alicorn. “What’re you doin’ up at this hour?”

Twilight ignored the question.

“Girls, it’s late, so I’m just going to get to the point: were you going to burn down the town hall?”

Applebloom studied Twilight’s stony expression for a few seconds, then looked back to their gathered materials. “Well, I mean… sure looks that way, don’t it?”

“And why,” Twilight started, clearly making an effort to control the tone of every word, “were you going to do that?”

Applebloom hesitated. “Well, it’s gotten a mite confusing,” she admitted finally. “But it’s just like you said this morning — can’t let something silly like not knowin’ what we’re doing get in the way of doin’ it.”

“You interpreted that lesson very differently than I had hoped,” Twilight said after a moment’s silence, prompting the crusaders’ heads to bow in synchronized shame. “I want to be clear: nothing I tell you should ever justify arson. Understand?”

“Yes, Twilight,” Applebloom and Sweetie Belle said in unison.

“Nngh Mrngh,” Scootaloo added.

“I don’t suppose I could convince you to appreciate the unconstrained potential that a blank flank represents, or perhaps the ambiguous nature of fate?” Twilight asked hopefully. Confused expressions were her answer. “Right, then. Go home, and go to sleep. For a while, please.”