My first impression of Discord's living room is that it's been struck by some sort of paper-based weather system. There are scrolls over nearly every surface—a blanket of white crunching under my pink hooves as I step into the room—and books are piled up in drifts. He's curled up in a sofa chair by the fireplace, in which a cheerful fire crackles; his eagle claw is curled around a plain green hardback, and the unnatural fluorescence of his pupils flicks back and forth as he reads.

"Hello again, Princess," he says, not looking up.

I don't respond at first, taking in the bizarre calm of the scene. I had braced myself for strangeness, but even so, I would never have imagined Discord as [i]literary[/i]. Maybe that's the point: he's so committed to chaos that he's trying to be unexpected in unexpected ways. But on the other hoof, this just isn't his style. He doesn't have the [i]patience[/i] for books, and I'm having a hard time seeing what amusement he can obtain out of convincing me otherwise.

He flips a page. "Well?"

"…Hm?" I shake off my reverie and force a smile. Might as well call his bluff. "What are you reading?"

His eyes flick to mine before returning to the page. "Oh, the usual. Fanciful tales of long-forgotten pasts narrated by ponies who don't exist."

"Oh, Daring Do?" I say brightly. 

At that, Discord's eyes halt—then fix on mine. His body shakes as he suppresses a snicker. A laugh bursts from his muzzle. He doubles over, then falls off the chair, whooping and rolling around on the floor.

Not understanding the joke pricks at my pride, but I put on a blandly pleasant royal mask and carry on, trying not to give him the satisfaction. "You really should join Twilight Sparkle's book club," I say with artificial cheer. "She loves the series so much! She and Rainbow Dash hold a party every time A.K. Yearling writes a new one."

Discord's laughter finally subsides, and he crawls back into his sofa chair, wiping a tear from his cheek. "Oh, me," he says, steepling his fingers and fixing me with an amused gaze. "I'd forgotten how hilarious you can be. But seriously, Cadance. What brings you here this time?"

Just off the top of my head, I can count three different ways I don't know how to respond to that. First, he's treating me like an old friend, despite the last time we saw each other being his betrayal of Equestria to Tirek. Second, I've never visited his home before. Third, and most importantly, I'm not actually sure why I came.

…That's not true. But there's no good way to say "Everything has felt subtly, strangely wrong since Flurry Heart's birth, and I don't know why, which means that it's almost certainly your fault, so I came here to ask you to please stop it." 

So I half-lie and deflect, in a way that Auntie Celestia's decade of patient coaching has made almost reflexive. "Well, we haven't really talked since we fought that Tatzlwurm together, and I don't know you all that well." I gesture at the nearest book-pile. "Clearly much less well than I thought I did! When did you start reading?"

The smile falls away from his muzzle. He stares at me—an ancient weariness settling into his expression that would look much less out of place on Auntie—then picks his book back up and flips back to his place. 

"I can't help you if you're going to lie to me," he says. 

A decade of trying to put one over on Auntie has also taught me when to fold. "Everything has felt a little off since Flurry Heart's birth," I say without further hesitation, "and—"

He holds up his lion paw, then points at an end table against the wall which seems to have survived the literary blizzard unscathed. It's got a single blank scroll on it, along with a quill-pen resting in an inkwell. "Humor me, if you would. Don't tell me. Write it down."

"…Excuse me?" 

He flips a page in his book. "Introduce yourself, as if you expected the scroll to be picked up by a complete stranger. Then explain why you're here."

I'm liking this less by the second. I should leave. I [i]could[/i] leave. It would be so simple—just decline, teleport back to the entrance to his dimension, step out into Canterlot, and ask Auntie for help instead. 

But that would feel like giving up. I remind myself that for all of his pranking—and occasional mistakes—Discord has never been [i]malicious[/i], just out for his own entertainment. The only way that this adds up is if he's playing a [i]very[/i] long game…or if there's something else going on here. Either way, I can afford to play along until I get a little context.

I take the quill in my horngrip and write:

[quote][i]My name is Princess Cadance. I'm the co-ruler of Equestria's northernmost protectorate, the Crystal Empire, along with my husband Shining Armor. I came to Discord's home because[/i][/quote]

…and I hesitate.

Why [i]am[/i] I even here, other than a vague sense of unease that I'm trying to blame on a convenient scapegoat? Because I'm the mother of the first natural-born alicorn ever? Well, of [i]course[/i] that feels weird. Because she was as rambunctious and capable as a three-year-old straight out of the womb? Given how alicorn foals were complete unknowns until weeks ago, that bit of weirdness is hardly worth throwing accusations around over. That Flurry's Crystaller is Twilight's student's best friend? Of [i]course[/i] if they were solving problems like the shattering of the Crystal Heart it would be with ponies they knew.

Am I subconsciously blaming [i]the shattering of the Crystal Heart[/i] on Discord? It seems odd even in hindsight—even accounting for Flurry's unrestrained powers. But directly accusing him of sabotage that took four princesses plus a heaping helping of blind luck to fix? I'm not sure I'm ready to commit that to paper. 

[i]…because my life has seemed a little too strange since Flurry Heart's birth, and if there's anyone that lives and breathes strangeness, it's him,[/i] I write. Vague and neutral, and perhaps a bit dishonest, but it'll have to do.

"Alright," I say, setting the quill down. "Done. Now what's this you were saying about helping me?"

"Open the drawer," he says, still reading.

I glance back down at the end table. At first I'm not sure what he means, until I rotate it out from the wall and look at the back side. There's a single skinny drawer there just under the tabletop. Inside is a single scroll with hornwriting absolutely identical to mine:

[quote][i]My name is Princess Cadance. I'm the co-ruler of the Crystal Empire, the Equestrian protectorate at the North Pole, along with my husband Shining Armor. I came to Discord's home because my life has seemed a little too strange since Tirek's defeat, and if there's anyone that lives and breathes strangeness, it's him.[/i][/quote]

I stare at it uncomprehendingly. He flips a page.

"What kind of stupid joke is this?" I finally snap. "I didn't write this. I would [i]never[/i] have written this. Yakyakistan's at our northern border—[i]everypony[/i] knows that."

"Yes," he says in a monotone, not looking up, "it's one of Discord's stupid pranks. Ha, ha, I got you but good. You can leave now, having confirmed that I'm messing with your head."

[i]That[/i] tweaks me enough to throw caution to the wind. I stomp over to him, swat his book away, and stab a hoof toward his muzzle. "You shattered the Crystal Heart."

He leans forward into my hoof, expression intent, suddenly animated. "No. And [i]please[/i] tell me that's what you wrote down."

I exhale through clenched teeth and mentally kick myself. "Don't hide behind technicalities. You [i]had something to do with[/i] the shattering of the Crystal Heart, which I watched Flurry Heart do."

He sinks his forehead into the palm of his lion paw. "Still no," he says wearily. "And please answer the question."

"You didn't ask me a question."

"A wise mare said, once upon a time, 'Don't hide behind technicalities.'"

As much as it galls me to concede anything right now, I have to give him that one. "Alright. No, of course I didn't write that."

For the first time since my arrival, his face shades into frustration. "Well, are you going to [i]fix[/i] it this time?"

Part of me sees the jaws of the trap snapping closed—getting me to commit to paper such a gross admission of mistrust. But the rest of me is more confused than ever. Discord giving blunt answers and getting frustrated when the conversation gets bogged down in technicalities? Discord is [i]all about[/i] the technicalities. He should be in his element right now. But he seems to be finding this as tedious as I am.

I'm not sure whether it's that sense of wrongness, or mere curiosity, which causes me to march back over to the end table. I stare at the scroll for a moment, still wary of whatever trap he's setting, then pick up the quill and write further down the page:

[quote][i]In a moment of regrettable passion, I accused Discord of having something to do with Flurry Heart's shattering of the Crystal Heart. He was insistent that I set that to writing, and in apology for my incivility, he deserves the courtesy of an honest confession. But to be equally honest, that was not the intent of my trip. This feeling of malaise is so pervasive and unspecific that I'm grasping at straws trying to find any explanation I can.[/i][/quote]

When I set the quill down, I realize he's standing over me, reading over my shoulder. He meets my stare and gives me a nod. "Thank you. You showed such promise at first, but it's been frustrating watching your visits devolve into vague suspicions. Maybe we can make progress this time."

I turn to face him, squaring my hooves. "Not unless you tell me [i]exactly[/i] what is going on. Right [i]now.[/i]"

Discord shakes his head and sighs. "That's never once ended well. Be honest, Cadance. Would you trust me to tell the truth?"

A tiny part of me says yes—that [i]any[/i] reasonable explanation for all of this weirdness, even his, would ease my heart. The rest of me says, "You're probably right."

He nods. "Hence having you write your own letters. Here's another." He coils his tail around a pink book from a nearby pile, fishes out a loose scroll that's wedged between the pages, and holds it up in front of my face:

[quote][i]My name is Princess Cad[b]a[/b]nce—adopted niece of Princess Celestia of Equestria, third in the line of succession to the Equestrian Throne, recently married to Prince-Consort Shining Armor of the Equestrian Royal Guard. I came to Discord's home to politely ask him to stop making ponies misspell my name.[/i][/quote]

It's in my hornwriting, too, but without the flourishes on the 't's that I decided to add after I moved to the Crystal Empire. If this [i]is[/i] some game Discord's playing, he's gone to [i]ridiculous[/i] lengths to do it.

And the worst part is…I almost, [i]almost[/i] remember having written it. The scroll has started some new sense tickling at the edge of my consciousness, similar to the one that drove me here. I remember once upon a time opening a letter addressed to "Cadence" from…who? An old friend…? But the memory is so elusive and fragmentary, and there's no way it could be real because my name has always had two 'a's. Maybe I'm misremembering based on somepony being a bad speller? And if I think about the North Pole again, it almost makes sense in the same way.

"You're not stupid, Cadance," he says, walking back over to his chair. "Stop thinking about whose fault this is for a moment, and think about what it would take to explain the evidence."

And now [i]Discord[/i] is telling me to apply [i]logic[/i]. I'll…just leave that one for last. I tap a hoof to my chin for a moment, looking down at the end table, and say, "First, the letters. You could have faked those, but if so, they're an impressive quality of forgery. Second, you telling me I've been here before. All that requires is good acting to sell a lie, but I don't see what you'd get out of it." It bothers me that I'm talking myself out of the entirely obvious conclusion that this is a prank, but I let the line of thought continue for a moment. "Alternatively…we know from Twilight's reports that time travel is possible." A light dawns. "Ah. [i]And[/i] you're not acting like the Discord I know. Maybe you've…come unmoored from your timeline, and you have these letters because you're talking to a different Cadance each time."

"A good start," he says, shattering my momentary sense of pride, "but time travel isn't going to change fundamental Equestrian geography. And if [i]I'm[/i] unstuck from time, why is it that [i]you[/i] feel so weird you have to come confront me about it?"

That [i]is[/i] a good question, I have to admit.

"I think I'd know if I was fiddling around with temporal magic," I parry. Then pause. "Unless…the timeline was changing around me."

He holds up a claw. "The geography problem. But that's good logic. Go on."

I chew on that for a moment. "You're not making this look good for yourself. If we rule out time travel, your ability to alter reality is the only explanation I can think of."

Discord looks at me expectantly.

"…you're not the one altering reality."

He flings his arms up in the air. "[i]THANK[/i] you!"

"Furthermore," I say, mental gears spinning, "your reluctance to say so up front implies that I'd sympathize with their motives over yours—" oho, [i]here's[/i] the juicy bit—"and, furthermore, that they've changed [i]you[/i] into this weird barely-chaotic parody of a chaos god." He goes very still at my triumphant smirk, and I know I've struck home. I spin around and start trotting toward the exit, a great weight lifted from my heart. "Who, frankly, the world is quite better off with than the selfish foal who decided to help Tirek. Thank you for your help, Discord, and I'll have Twilight send you that book club invitation."

"Wait," he says as I wrap my hornglow around the door handle. "Your letters."

"Forgeries to secure my assistance."

"What if they weren't? Wouldn't it matter if she were changing [i]you[/i], too?"

I hesitate, looking back over my shoulder. I had expected Discord to look panicked or upset after I figured out his plot. Instead, he has an expression of calm Celestial disappointment.

"An academic question," I say, "since anything you tell me about my alternate selves could just as easily have been made up."

Discord smiles wryly and lifts himself from his chair.

"In that case," he says, "there's something you ought to see."



[hr]



He hails a hansom cab from the Canterlot palace gardens to the Royal Canterlot Library, and I raise an eyebrow. "What," I ask, "you're not going to teleport us there?"

"First," he says, sprawling into the deep cushions of the cab's interior, "it would give you another reason to be suspicious of me, and second, magic just makes us more likely to be noticed." His eyes dart back and forth on the streets as we start moving. "This is a risk to begin with, and all of it is for nothing if she changes things again."

" 'She'?"

Discord shakes his head. "Not here."

I snort and roll my eyes, but the cloak-and-dagger act is making me more nervous than I'd like. So I stare out the window as the familiar streets roll by. Auntie Celestia? That would certainly explain his nervousness; sometimes, growing up, it seemed as though she knew everything that went on anywhere in Canterlot. Or maybe Auntie Luna? That, at least, made [i]some[/i] kind of sense; if we were all locked in a dream world, that sort of reality control would be plausible, and she'd be the one holding the keys.

As we're pulling up in front of the library, I silently resolve to go have a private talk with her later. "I don't see how going to a library will convince me of anything," I say as we get out and Discord hands some bits to the driver.

"Because the written word is sacred," Discord says immediately. "Memories are fallible, but books are [i]history[/i]. She wouldn't dare destroy that, even the awkward parts. So she hides it away."

I stifle a giggle as we walk up the library steps. It's a ludicrous sentiment, but he delivers it with such earnestness that for a moment it sounds like I'm talking to Twilight. 

I turn to the left inside front door, heading to the Star Swirl wing. Discord stops. "Where are you going?"

"The restricted archives," I say. "Duh."

He looks almost insulted. "Are you kidding? That's the [i]first[/i] place everyone goes for buried secrets. You don't [i]hide[/i] things there."

I trot back up to him. "Where [i]are[/i] we going, then?"

"To the stacks of the one genre completely without literary or historical merit," he says, leading me into the Princess Platinum wing. "The genre designed to offer dull and transparent lies when the truth is both obvious and ubiquitous."

"…Political essays?"

"Fictional autobiographies of living ponies." He puts a claw to his chin. "But now that you mention it, I ought to read through those too."

I roll my eyes. "Fine. Show me this sad little bookshelf so I can go home."

"Bookshelf?" he says. "My dear, it's [i]half this library[/i]."

I blink and, for the first time, really look at the shelves we're passing. They're crammed to bursting with books, arranged in no particular order. "Fictional Autobiographies - Misc.," the shelf in front of me is labeled, as well as the one to its right. And its left. And as far left and right as I can easily see, both in front of me and behind me. A shelf on the second floor balcony up above us is labeled identically. We're on the first floor out of seven.

I look around, startled. Besides us, the wing is empty. There's no navigation, just identically labeled shelves and regular signs pointing toward the exit. I gallop over to a nearby card catalog, yank it open, and flip to a card at random. APPLE, JONAGOLD, it reads, along with an incomprehensible string of numbers, and a simple shelving tag: FICTIONAL AUTOBIOGRAPHIES, MISC.

"Th-this is insane," I stammer. "How could anypony not notice this?"

"You didn't, until just now," Discord says. He pulls a rickety wooden chair out from a reading cubicle, carefully lowers himself into it, and leans back, lacing his fingers behind his head. "I'll be here. Happy reading."

My first instinct is to accuse him of pulling us into some sort of crazy pocket dimension to make a point, but he hasn't done anything even [i]hinting[/i] of magic since we returned to Equestria. Instead, I select a book at random from the shelves—an unlabeled black book whose blank frontispiece has a typewritten tag pasted in, stating "MOONDANCER"—and riffle through, hoping to find that this is some bizarre facade and the pages are blank. Instead, stopping at a random page, I read a snatch of text written in cramped, precise block letters: 

[i]—June 20. Last night, Twinkleshine tried to throw me a little get-together at the west castle courtyard. Maybe if it had just been her and Lemon Hearts and Minuette, I would have tolerated it, but then I overheard she invited a bunch of other students. Slipped out the back when she came over to drag me to the party. When will she learn some ponies are happier alone—[/i]

Book after book, I frantically yank tomes from the shelves, throwing them open to random pages to find dozens of different stories in different scripts. Mundane things, minutiae of day-to-day life. Diaries, letters, reports, shopping lists. Some clear and precise, some sloppy and incomprehensible, some in languages I don't recognize.

It's too much. I spread my wings and bolt for the exit. Discord flings himself to his belly, slithering with uncanny speed past me to the doorway, and as he body-blocks me I wing-flare to an ungraceful stop, flapping side to side to find an opening.

"Wait," he pleads. "You leave this place, we're back to square one."

"I am [i]not[/i] accepting this without checking your story!" I shout, grasping for some flimsy excuse to leave. "Now, out of my way!"

He stares at me, pained, then points back to the reading cubicles and their desktops full of scratch paper. "At least write yourself a note to come back here, and hide it someplace only you will find it. [i]Please[/i]. I don't want to start from scratch again."

"Let me go if I do!"

He sighs. "As you wish."

I hurriedly scrawl a note to myself—[i]RCL, Plat wing, Discord pulling super creepy trick. All fict autob's. Maybe weird memory thing?, write everything down, he blames "her"[/i]—and stomp toward him, fire in my eyes. He moves out of the doorway without a word, and I gallop past him and into the streets.



[hr]



It feels good just to move, to pretend there's nothing in the universe but the excited buzzing of passers-by and the sound of my hooves thundering down the Canterlot streets. But no matter how far or hard I gallop, I can't get Discord and the library off of my mind.

This is weird and crazy, and I need to hedge my bets—both against him being right, and him playing a long con on me. That might be tricky given that I might not be able to trust my memory. Of course, if this [i]is[/i] a con, he could easily be manipulating what's written down. But I have no choice but to trust one or the other—if I can't rely on either, I'm completely helpless.

I finally slow down on the southern edge of the city, and slip into a quiet cafe by the train station. I grab a private booth near the back, stealing a napkin and a pen on the way, and dispatch the server to find me a cup of a tea they shouldn't carry. I re-read the message I wrote in the library—at least it's still the exact same thing I remember scribbling down. Good. 

I make a copy that Discord shouldn't know about onto the napkin—adding underneath, [i]"(Hedging bets. Check against original)"[/i]—and hide it and the original note under opposite wings. Then I leave the restaurant (after assuring the server that their lack of Imperial High Mountain White doesn't reflect poorly on them), wander to a nearby tchotchke shop, and buy a small set of souvenir saddlebags and a large tacky vase. I ask the seller to have the vase shipped back to the Crystal Palace for me, slip the napkin into the bottom of the vase while he's fetching packing material, and slip the other message into a seam of the saddlebags, plucking a thread from the stitching. Even if I forget about the notes, at some point in the future I'll notice the poor construction and hopefully investigate the unobtrusive lump.

Preparations complete, it's time for some answers.

I return to the cafe for a cup of herbal tea, do my best to put my thoughts in order, then hail the guard for an air-cart back to the palace. I wander to the kitchens for a salad while Auntie is finishing up Day Court, sit patiently in the back of the room while the last few hooffuls of nobles natter at her, and catch her eye as the room clears out.

She must see something in my expression—she merely nods at me and starts trotting toward her private chambers. I fall into step silently.

Once we're in her parlor, she sits at her work-desk and gestures to the chair in front of it, head tilted quizzically. I sit, staring at the desktop. I chew my lip. I lift a hoof to the tabletop, and shift it back and forth to roll a stray quill-pen underneath the frog.

"Cady," she says, in a gentle tone halfway between reproach and invitation, and I realize I'm stalling.

I take a deep breath. "Did you know," I say without preamble, "what's in the Princess Platinum wing of the library?"

She's briefly silent. I risk a glance up. Her eyes are wide, and she's staring at me with open terror I've never seen before, not even while staring down Tirek without our powers.

"Did you read them?" she says, voice tight.

I nod.

She bolts upright, one hoof dragging an empty sheet of papyrus from her supply to the center of the tabletop, her horngrip wrenching the quill from underneath my hoof and hovering it above the page. "Cadance," she hisses, "you have to act [i]immediately[/i]. Not here—you're not [i]safe[/i]—" and she leans in, tapping the pointer in her horngrip to the scroll underneath. "If they've infiltrated the Crystal Empire, they could be in Canterlot too—waiting to strike while you and Shining are separated."

I stare in terror down at the Crystal Guard scroll in the center of the table, checking the seals, mentally comparing the validation codes against this week's codebook. It's no forgery. There [i]has[/i] been a changeling sighting in the Crystal Empire. We'd let down our guard after the wedding, but with Chrysalis still missing, it was really only a matter of time.

"You have to go home right away," Celestia says, still unnervingly panicked. "Don't be alone, even for a second. Don't let your family out of your sight. I can afford to loan you a guard complement to get you there safely, but we'll have to focus our own efforts on keeping Canterlot secure."

"I understand," I say, trying to keep the tremor out of my own voice. Nothing about this is right. Why did I come to Canterlot on my own, anyway? Why would I ever think that was a good idea? They were probably waiting for this moment to strike.



[hr]



I'm sprawling in bed—feeling Flurry nestle up to my stomach as her teeth knead my teats—and thinking about Thorax when there's a knock at the door. Shiny slips in a moment later without waiting for an invitation. It's more than alright—he's snuggled with me plenty of times while she's been nursing—but it's clearly [i]not[i] alright, from the distant look on his face.

"Honey?" I murmur, nuzzling his shoulder as he climbs up onto the bed next to me. "Talk to me."

He kisses my nose in return, instead of nuzzling me back, and my blood freezes as I realize how serious it is. "Cady?" he asks in a small voice. "You know the secret panels in the wall back there that we use to store our toys?" He gestures with his muzzle and looks away. "I…well, yesterday I couldn't find that ring you like, and I thought we might have misplaced it when we cleaned up, so I opened the one on your side."

"Okay," I say, confused. Does he think this is a problem?

"And…" Shiny works his mouth for a moment, then gives up and pulls a book out of his saddlebags. It's a modest-looking hardback, cover on the pink side of off-white, with no title or identifying features. 

My confusion escalates from moderate to utter: I don't recognize it in the slightest. I take it from his horngrip and flip through the pages. The book looks like someone compiled and bound a bunch of palace marginalia; it's full of love notes between us, little scribbled requests, and occasional suggestions to go meet somewhere scandalous and do things entirely within the purview of my station.

I don't remember writing or reading any of them.

I stare up at my husband helplessly, opening and closing my mouth, pleading for some explanation. He stares back, equally lost. "Shiny," I finally say, "I swear to you, I have no idea either."

He shakes his head. "If it was just a compilation of our notes, I'd think it was awesome you were scrapbooking, but…" His voice trails off as he takes the book back and flips through some pages near the end. "Read this." 

He floats it back over to me, and I flip through several pages. It's a travel itinerary for a lengthy and exotic vacation in the Haychelles. Five-star hotels and exotic restaurants in city after city. Snorkeling, mountain-climbing, skydiving. A six-day hike.

Then I notice the dates, and my jaw drops. I flip back through to double-check the year, just in case. The vacation started a week before my due date.

"That's impossible," I say faintly. "Even [i]planning[/i] it would have been impossible. Nopony would have been mad enough to put an expectant mare through this sort of travel, much less those activities."

"Those are our signatures on the last page," he says. They are.

"I don't know what that book was doing in there," I say with every ounce of sincerity I can muster. "I've never seen it before." I glance back at the contentedly nursing Flurry, then over at the panel. "Was anything else missing, or added, or out of place?"

He opens it for me, and we sift through the contents. Nope. I rattle off a list of the other secret panels I've discovered throughout the palace—like the one in the master bathroom, which I used last Hearth's Warming to hide his present from him—and send him off on a treasure hunt. He returns from the bathroom with a scrap of paper covered in my hornwriting.

[i]1. NEVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, WRITE HER NAME (?),[/i] it says at the top, and then [i]2. SUMMARIZE NEW FINDINGS BEFORE TALKING TO ANYONE.[/i] There's a 1-B in the margin: [i]I [s]do[/s] [s]don't[/s] [s]do![/s] [u]maybe[/u] trust Discord (don't!) but it's clear his name is OK.[/i] Smaller marginalia underneath: [i]That means it won't wipe your memory[/i]—

I've read enough. I crumple it up into a tight ball and throw it in the fireplace, trembling with rage. "[i]Discord[/i]," I hiss. 



[hr]



I kick open the door of Discord's house to find a room that looks like it's been struck by some sort of paper-based weather system. Scrolls swirl up as I stomp toward his seat by the fire, a lost-looking Shining Armor in my wake. The walls are some sort of gigantic pinboard spiderweb, with tacked-on pony pictures linked by colored bits of string. Notes surround them in two different scripts—a rounded, foalish one, and smaller, precise letters that look creepily like mine.

Discord sits up, setting his book down, eyes locked on Shiny. "Well. [i]This[/i] is new."

"What in [i]Tartarus[/i]," Shiny breathes, staring at the walls.

"[i][b]You[/b][/i]," I shout in my best Royal Canterlot Voice, "[i]are playing some [b]sick game[/b] with my memories.[/i]" I hurl the off-white book at Discord's chest, and he scrambles to catch it, holding it gingerly. "[i]And I will [b]humor that[/b], because you may not understand when you've taken a prank too far. But if you lay one more claw on my husband, [b]I will end you[/b][/i]."

Shiny's eyes widen. He shakes my shoulder and points to the nexus of the spiderweb. "Sweetie, this isn't about you or me, it's—"

Discord's eyes snap open. [i]"Don't say her name!"[/i] he shouts, and lunges with outstretched claws at Shiny's muzzle.

The next few moments are a blur of motion and contact.

I remember Shiny hitting the floor, but not why. I remember whirling and bucking Discord right through my sister-in-law's picture in the center of the wall. I remember Discord staggering back to his feet, and Shiny screaming for me to stop. Then I remember Shiny throwing himself between us. I remember almost hoofing my husband in the muzzle, and the shock of that snapping me out of my rage.

"Cady, stop," he repeats. "Stop. Cady. Stop."

I hug him instead—he wheezes as his chest compresses—and sob. I have no idea what's going on any more. I just know it's all Discord's fault, and I want my Shiny to be safe.

Shiny pounds on my foreleg until I release my grip, then gasps for breath and turns to the battered draconequus. "Tw—" he hurriedly cuts himself off—"my [i]sister[/i] screwed with time somehow, didn't she? And you're the only one who remembers."

Discord's jaw literally drops. He picks it up and puts it back on. "Why wasn't I working with [i]you[/i] all this time?" he mutters, shooting me a metaphorically icy glare. "Not exactly, but that's a good start."

"Shiny," I growl, evoking my inner mother wolf.

"Honey," he says firmly, "you mean well, and I don't trust Discord either—but I read that book, and I know my LSBFF. And the weirdness here is just not his style." His voice softens and he touches a hoof to my shoulder. "I want to hear him out."

"And here I thought you'd be too dangerous to bring in on the project," Discord says, reaching for something on the wall behind him. His eagle claw halts in front of the him-shaped hole, and he curses under his breath. "I'm going to have to risk it," he mutters, and snaps his fingers. The wall is back to new in an instant, and he plucks a red thread from in between Shining Armor and a silhouette of my sister-in-law. 

Her.

It's [i]her[/i]. I don't know what that means. I can't tell you how I know. But one glimpse of the silhouette, and a thousand almost-memories flood in, screaming at the edges of my consciousness.

"In short, yes," Discord says, tapping the silhouette. "She appears to be…warping reality around her, somehow. Rewriting everything. History, geography, memory, personality. Some are affected more than others, but nobody's left untouched."

So many almost-memories. I'm so [i]tired.[/i]

"Shiny," I mumble, feeling my control of the situation slip away.

"In long…well, it's a long story, but I'm documenting it as best I can," Discord says. "Your sister being your sister, written records are sacred, which means we can try to assemble the trail of changes and figure out where it all started. I assume from your wife's dramatic entrance that she didn't read her cheat sheet?"

"Her what?" Shiny says, glancing back at me. "…You mean that paper from the bathroom? No, she threw it in the fire."

Discord makes a strangled little noise in the back of his throat. "Cady, you [i]idiot[/i]. I haven't made a copy of that in [i]weeks[/i]."

I have nothing to say. I'm not thinking about the white book. I'm not thinking about the fact that the me in the white book wasn't pregnant. I'm not thinking about the fact that my husband—my whip-smart, amazing-judge-of-character, occasionally oblivious husband—isn't blaming Discord for this. 

I'm [i]especially[/i] not thinking about my sister-in-law changing reality to [i]give me a child[/i].

I am, however, sobbing. And Shiny is hugging me, and I'm hugging him back just as fiercely, and Discord is tapping his claw to his paw while staring uncomfortably at the wall, and I have absolutely no idea why I'm crying except that I need the catharsis. My daughter is a beautiful and precious gift, and I can't imagine life without having whispered to my beloved Shiny nine months ago that I wanted a foal, and I can't imagine life without the thrill that fluttered through my heart when he said yes, and now that I can hold Flurry Heart in my arms I love her more than life itself. That's [i]not[/i] some crazy twist of reality, that's [i]more true than my name[/i], except that all the notes in that Tartarus-damned book are written by a Cadance for whom none of that is the case.

"Why," I sob into Shiny's chest, then weakly turn my muzzle and try again. "Why?"

Discord looks supremely uncomfortable. "Well," he says, tapping claw and paw together, "asking that question to the mare herself might result in unpredictable existential collapse as she retroactively reassesses her influence and attempts to undo any subconscious changes she might find regrettable. In short, the truth might [i]kill[/i] some of us, but if you want to know what I [i]suspect[/i]—"

Shiny gets a funny look on his face. "She's projecting. She's always wanted to experience motherhood, but she thinks colts are icky."

Discord's face pales. "I was [i]going[/i] to say," he quickly adds, "that she genuinely wants you to be happy."

"Starlight Glimmer," Shiny says, on a roll. "The friendship-lesson thing? She's Celestia-mothering Starlight. That's the maternal urge in spades. But she wants to experience the whole package—foaling and everything. Just, y'know, not [i]her[/i]."

Discord leans in to Shiny. "I can state from personal experience that this is not a safe line of inquiry," he whispers, eyes fixed on me.

"This explains [i]so much[/i]," Shiny says.

[i]I love Flurry Heart,[/i] I think, wondering what would happen if my sister-in-law ever decided she'd had enough of motherhood. Wondering what the old me would say if I placed my daughter in her hooves. Wondering if there's a way I can guarantee that my feelings are never not true.

"One thing I don't understand, though," Shining Armor says. "What's your angle? Upset she's homing in on your turf?"

"Huh?" Discord says, but he looks relieved at the change of subject. "Oh, no, she's [i]way[/i] out of my league. I can disrupt reality in localized zones; I can't permanently alter things like this." He sighs, and his eyes flick over toward me before he continues. "Frankly…in my three years of life, I've been on both her good and bad side. I've [i]seen[/i] what happens to beings on her bad side. I want to find a way to make her think of me as someone who's done for good with Team Bad."

I push myself to my hooves. "I want to know why," I say quietly.

Discord freezes. "Cadance," he says, "don't. Shiny, tell Cady don't."

"Don't what?" Shiny asks.

"Cadance wants to [i]ask[/i] her. Call her out on her changes. Provoke her into throwing the big reset switch."

"That's the opposite of what I want," I say. "But I have to know why."

"That's [i]exactly what asking why will do!"[/i] Discord shouts. "Along with, oh, let's say, reminding her that her changes [i]created[/i] Discord, who she could snuff out with a thought!"

"You said she wants us to be happy," I say. "If that's true, she wouldn't."

"She wants [i]her friends[i] to be happy! Which I'm [i]not[/i]!"

"Then how can you make that claim about her, given what she's done to us?"

Discord's silence speaks volumes.

"I have to know why," I repeat. "For Flurry's sake."

"Maybe there's another way?" Shiny says, looking uncomfortably between us. "I mean, in your own way, each of you is assuming the answer is no, and having that confirmed goes nowhere good."

"It's that, or a giant library we don't have the time to search before reality shifts again to protect her," Discord says. "I'm not actually immune to that, you know. I've just got all of this for when I [i]do[/i] catch her attention."

Shiny blinks. "Is that all? They make locator spells for a [i]reason[/i], you know."

Discord grimaces. "And when the magic catches the attention of whatever force she wields, we're back to square one."

"Seems like it still beats the alternative."

"No," I say. "I have to talk to her. Make sure she doesn't change my daughter's life by accident. Reading won't do that."

"But it'll confirm that when you [i]do[/i] talk to her, you're trying the approach with the best chance of accomplishing your goals," Shiny says. "C'mon, Cady. If we're going to talk to my LSBFF about what she's doing to our lives, we need a [i]plan[/i]."



[hr]



So we document everything and set out. Discord wants no part of it, and vanishes. But I craft a divination spell, and Shiny modifies a shield spell to reflect ambient magic inward so that he can magically isolate me while I'm casting it. We have no idea if that will help us avoid the notice of whatever my sister-in-law is doing, but it's the best plan we've got.

When we reach the library and cast our respective spells, there is silence. I hurriedly scribble down some directions—"floor 5, right side, aisle 14, stand 5, shelf 3, 8th book from left"—fold them, and cram them (as noted in our plan) into the back of the first card catalog drawer.

The continued silence in the Platinum Wing feels awfully anticlimactic. I begin to wonder if perhaps Shiny's stealth approach worked after all.

The indicated book is a thin, aged pink softcover that I immediately recognize. I had a diary exactly like it, once upon a time.…Or some other Cadance did. I wonder where mine ever ended up.

I close my eyes once I have the book in my horngrip, and riffle through the pages, letting it fall open on its own. The book flops to the boundary between the hoof-creased writing-filled pages and the crisp unused ones. It's an intimately familiar motion; I was too proud to soil my diary with something so practical as a [i]bookmark[/i], and I did that every night to find my place in the book.

Shiny leans in to peer over my shoulder—and though he's got as much right as me to read this, it makes me feel uncomfortably naked. If it were any other stallion, I'd have slugged him in the nose.

[quote][i]Dear Diary,[/i][/quote]

The hornwriting is at the edge of familiar. It's got the same spacing and letter shapes that I use, but the letters are bigger, blockier, evenly stroked and without flourishes.

[quote][i]Twilight's so precocious! I asked her tonight what she wanted to be when she grew up, and she looked up from her history book and said, "A princess."[/i][/quote]

The letters aren't crude like a foal's. They're just…different. Like someone was trying to write like me and didn't quite know how.

[quote][i]"Sweetie," I told her, "that's not exactly a thing that a filly can grow up into."[/i]

[i]"Well, it[/i] should [i]be," she said, lip quivering, and I just wanted to hug the stuffing out of her. But before I could, she got up and hugged me first. "I'll go on adventures and save the world, and they'll make me the princess of friendship because then nopony will ever have to be lonely again, and you can be a princess too!"[/i][/quote]

I know that we're here to read about Twilight, but puzzling out my own changes is proving too distracting. I was made a princess when Auntie adopted me at age ten—long before Twilight and I ever met.

Then I stop, and can do nothing but blink for a minute. I've realized what's off about the script on the page: 

It's not hornwriting. 

It's [i]mouthwriting[/i].

…And that's when the changelings attack.




[hr]

My first impression of Discord's living room is that it's been struck by some sort of paper-based weather system. There are scrolls over nearly every surface—a blanket of white crunching under my pink hooves as I step into the room—and books are piled up in drifts. He's curled up in a sofa chair by the fireplace, in which a cheerful fire crackles; his eagle claw is curled around a plain khaki-colored hardback with a compass rose embossed in the cover, and the unnatural fluorescence of his pupils flicks back and forth as he reads.

Discord glances up at me, then back down without even a hello. He flips one final page, snaps his book shut, and casually flings it into the flames. 

As it starts to smolder, I bolt past him—sending scrolls flying everywhere—and snatch the book from the fire. "What are you [i]doing?"[/i] I shout.

"Fulfilling a friend's request, if you'll restrain yourself from interrupting," Discord chides, gently tugging the book out of my horngrip. He holds the book in the fire until it catches, and this time I don't stop him. 

It occurs to me to wonder why that's so hard for me to watch. I've never been half the reader that my sister-in-law is. But I suppose it's hard to be close to someone like her without picking up her sense that books are sacred.

Discord grabs another book with his claw—this one olive-green and soft-bound, diary-like—and opens it to the first page, starting to read again as if I wasn't even there. "I'm reading each one first because I feel like they deserve the respect of a final send-off. I'm pretty certain that's [i]her[/i] influence speaking, but I don't care." He shrugs exaggeratedly. "But that's not why you visited."

"Maybe it [i]should[/i] be." I push his book down with a hoof and stare into his eyes. "But first things first. When you and Starlight and Trixie and Thorax rescued everypony from our changeling pods…why did you steal the book that was in there with me?"

He meets my stare coolly. "And you're not wondering [i]why[/i] there was a book in your pod?"

The question, I must admit, is important. It gnaws at me that I know it's important, but that I can't articulate why.

"I…must have been reading it. When they attacked. Don't change the subject."

"Mm-hmm." He lifts the softcover back up to eye level and tail-points toward an oddly familiar end table against the wall. "It's right there. And to answer your question, because your sister-in-law was waking up, and you know how she gets about books."

I do. And something else gnaws at the edge of my memory, there. I push the thought away and walk over to the small pink book. It looks almost identical to my old diary.

When I flip the front cover open, it's stuffed with a bunch of looseleaf scrolls—mostly in my hornwriting, but with the final few a combination of mine and Shiny's. I read them with a growing sense of dread. Then I realize that this is the book our final plan referred to. Then I flip to the final entry, and read it once again for the first time, and my heart untwists.

I think I understand.

Discord hears me close the book. "I'm a hero now, you know," he says, staring at the fireplace. "I helped save ponykind." His voice grows faint. "It would have been so easy for her to go on another adventure…but she wanted to be saved by some friends who [i]needed[/i] one."

I think of my anguish, my doubt, in the increasingly frantic notes stuffed in the journal. I plod heavily over to the fire to join Discord, and stare into its flames. 

"She wants the best for all of us," I say.

"I'm burning my notes," Discord suddenly says. He gestures to the walls, which I hadn't noticed were empty until his motion implied they were important somehow. "I already burned all the graphs. I never needed them. I just needed to accept her friendship."

I stare down at the diary for a long time.

"I'm not," I finally say.

"You should," he says. "They've been driving us crazy for months. They're just going to keep making you miserable."

"They're going to remind me of something important," I say. "How we got to where we are. Even if those old us-es aren't us any more, they remind us of what's important about who we truly are."

"Easy for you to say," he says bitterly, and suddenly flings the little olive book into the fire. "Some of us don't [i]have[/i] a past to be reminded of."

I rest a hoof on his leg, watching the flames lap up the shadows. "You've got a future.  I'd say that's pretty important." 

Discord thinks about that for a while.  

"Which is more than I had before she came along," he finally acknowledges.

I think of Flurry Heart, and the world of friendship she'll grow up in, and can't help but agree.