Rainbow Dash took some milk from the fridge, closed the door, and saw death reflected in the hallway mirror.

She wiped her bleary eyes and squinted at the mirror. Sometimes, in the dead of night, the light played tricks on her aging eyes, and she saw lingering shadows and spots of color that weren’t really there.

But death was most definitely there.

She knew at once what was happening, and swallowed a lump forming in her throat. “Which one?” she asked.

“You,” it spoke in a slow, spidery voice.

She let out a trembling sigh of relief. She glanced up the stairs to the master bedroom, where Applejack lay sleeping, curled up with two of the younger grandfoals who’d come to visit this weekend. They all slept like apples--which is to say, death itself could not wake them. They’d get one more good night of sleep. Good, she thought.

Dash shook the jug of milk at the reflection of mortality. “Mind if I have a snack first?”

Death raised an eyebrow. Then nodded. It moved to the kitchen table, its discorporeal hooves landing on the hardwood soundlessly, like dry ice vapors spilling across a table.

Dash ripped open a box of cereal and poured herself a bowl. She noticed her hooves trembling ever so slightly. The enormity of her guest started to set in. The lump in her throat returned.

“Do you--?” she held the box of cereal towards death, who shook his head. “Yeah. Figures.”

Normally, Dash’s midnight snack was over in the blink of an eye. This time, however, she found herself playing with her food, swirling it around in the bowl, holding the individual grains of Happy-O’s under the milk until they turned to mush.

“Am I allowed to ask you questions?” Dash asked. Death did not reply. “Oookay. Let’s give this a try. How do I go?”

Death’s gaze, if his empty eye sockets could gaze, fell upon a rickety floorboard by the kitchen entryway. Some of the nails had rusted out, and when Dash had entered the room and stepped on the floorboard she had inadvertently knocked one side loose.

“Oh. So, I trip on that?”

Death nodded.

“And then smack my head on the floor?”

Death shook his head.

“Oh. Uh--the entry table?”

Death nodded.

The revelation left Dash grappling with an odd sense of irritation. She’d wanted to put a trophy case in the entryway, but Applejack had insisted the four trophy cases in the basement were enough. To add insult to injury, AJ didn’t even let her help pick out the table.

“Couldn’t I at least go out doing a cool trick? Or flying, at least?”

Death shook his head.

“C’mon. Let me go out flying. I’ll do a barrel roll into the ground at mach two. I’ll hit a tree while I’m trying to land. I’ll fly too high and freeze my primaries. Double corkscrew into faceplant.” Her voice got louder. Bet no one’s skull would be getting cracked if they’d gone with the trophy case. Stupid. “Backflip into a tree shredder. Botched water landing. Flight hypoxia. Please.”

She pushed her chair back. The bowl of half-eaten cereal overturned. Two percent milk and Happy-O’s flew all over the counter.

“Please.” Her voice cracked. “Please let it be flying.”

Death once again nodded to the upturned floorboard.

Stupid. Stupid. It had to be the stupid floorboard and the stupid entry table she didn’t even like. Was the universe trying to teach her some kind of lesson?

Dash approached the floorboard with a defiant snarl. “What if I just didn’t step on the stupid floorboard? Ever think of that?” With an exaggerated acrobatic flair, she hopped over the floorboard. “What are you gonna do now, you overgrown calcium bug? Gonna reap my soul with a scythe? I know you don’t carry those, cuz I’ve been to Tartarus and styled on your cousins! Try again next time, you weirdo. It’ll take more than that to kill the Rainbow D--”

Dash was so preoccupied with clowning on death she didn’t notice the die-cast model truck her grandfoal had accidentally left in the entryway. She stepped on it, let out a surprised sigh of pain as the model truck took her hooves right out from underneath her. She slipped sideways and careened facefirst towards the entry table.

The impact made the whole house tremble. Upstairs, one of the grandfoals turned over. Applejack let out a happy little snore. The night went on for a little while longer.

-----

Let us clarify a few things before we continue.

Death was not really a robe-wearing skeleton with a scythe, of course. What Rainbow Dash saw was merely the small piece of the larger universal consciousness tasked with ferrying dead souls into the higher-dimensional plane and preparing them for their next life.

It appeared to Rainbow Dash in that form because her mind, conditioned by a very specific set of cultural circumstances, would recognize it for what it was. She understood it the same way a two-dimensional creature would understand a three-dimensional creature if the two somehow crossed paths. That is to say--she barely understood it at all. But she could wrap her head around that one little part of it that was on her level.

Had Dash been born a yak, death would have appeared to her as a flying three-headed wendigo with a beard that wrapped around the world. It was all very circumstantial like that.

But let's get back on track.

The soul formerly known as Rainbow Dash had done an exceptional job this time around. This iteration had been a test of her ability to empathize and love--something her previous twelve iterations had struggled with. The trajectory of her soul, buoyed by her connection to the elements of harmony, had met the challenge with a signature tireless bravado. This soul was powerful. It didn’t have far to go before it flew out of the wheel of life and death altogether.

But there was still work to be done. In order to discorporate completely, a soul had to be clean of all fears and attachments. No easy task, especially when you considered how much fear and attachment was woven into the thread of the mortal world.

Such a task was impossible for a pony to accomplish in one single lifetime, so the lessons had to be spread out over a few hundred millenia and a few hundred thousand lifetimes. In the entire history of Equestria, a grand total of twelve creatures had achieved enlightenment. They had all been ponies at one point or another, but only two had achieved it as ponies. The current leading species, interestingly enough, was the common housecat. Everyone else, the untold billions of souls, sentient or otherwise, were still working on it.

But we are getting off track again.

Empathy and love were big milestones for this particular soul. Only a few more remained before she was free.

The next order of business was something that, for a soul such as hers, would be even more difficult than learning to be vulnerable.

Before she could move on, she needed to learn to let go.

In the near-infinite catalogue of creatures about to be born, the creature known to some as death found the soul formerly known as Rainbow Dash a new life. It had a starting point suitable for her prior accomplishments and a trajectory that would challenge her to grow more humble.

An earth pony form, to boot. What better way to instill humility in a pegasus?

-----

Rainbow Bloom leapt off the cliffside and felt the rush of weightlessness. She tucked her legs in tight and let out a heroic holler just before her cannonball body hit the water.

Splash, went the lake. Perfect ten.

“Did you see that?” she asked as she broke the surface. She looked up at the shadows of her friends lingering on the top of the cliff. “I was flying!”

Summer was special for earth ponies. Their magic surged as the temperatures climbed. The earth had definitively shrugged off the deadwood yoke of winter and taken big, gasping breaths of spring. Now it was alive. It was a first kiss that came every year. It was the strumming of acoustic guitars. It was taking your share of nature’s bounty and barbecuing it over an open fire.

The trail leading from the shore to the top of the cliff was winding and muddy and gnarled with ancient tree roots. Her friends Sourpuss and Balsam burst out laughing the moment they caught sight of Bloom.

“What?” Bloom prodded at her mane. Normally a deep auburn, it had faded to almost orange in spots. One side was faded tight, almost to fur-length. The rest, once a punkishly sexy combover, was now reduced to a mangled mess.

“Trying to become one with nature, I see,” Sourpuss said.

Bloom looked down. Maybe Sourpuss was right. Her hooves were supposed to be sky blue, not mud brown. “Big deal. I’ll hop in the communal showers.”

“I just tried. Trust me. Don’t.”

“I’ll hop in the ocean again.”

“And then what? Take the same trail back up?”

“Whatever. Is the food done yet?”

Sourpuss glanced at their fire pit and the foil-wrapped vegetables cooking next to the coals. “Couple minutes.”

Bloom felt herself being pulled towards the cliffside. There was time for one more leap if she hurried. “Come with me, Balsam,” Bloom pleaded with her friend. “It’ll be fun.”

Balsam hid behind her green and brown mane and did her best to blend into the treeline. Her olive-drab fur made it all too easy in the waning light. “I dunno. Someone’s gotta stay here and watch the food.”

“Sourpuss can watch the food. She loves watching the food.” Bloom grabbed her friend’s hoof. “It feels like flying.”

Balsam’s pegasus wings twitched at her sides. “I’d rather just relax right now.”

Bloom found her gaze lingering on her friend’s feathers the same way she lingered on a skewer of spiced vegetables roasting over a fire pit. “C’mon, falling can be relaxing. You get to fly and not work your wings, and you get to swim around at the end. Swimming is relaxing. Please?”

“I’ll cheer you on from the campsite. I promise.”

Bloom realized she didn’t need Balsam accompanying her to the cliff. But it felt important to get her friend in on the action. Maybe it was a crush. That would be alright with Bloom. Balsam was cute. They’d loved and tolerated each other all four years of high school, so that must count for something. And she’d once heard from a school friend of hers that pegasus mares were into free love and polyamory. That’d be pretty rad. Probably. Bloom still wasn’t totally sure what polyamory meant, but it was something earth pony parents typically looked down on, so she was all in.

The way Balsam turned beet-red and fled everytime someone brought up dating was not a good sign. But maybe she was embarrassed because she was so into it, and she didn’t want her friends to think she was some kinda weirdo.

Balsam still looked unconvinced, and Bloom didn’t want to scoop her up and throw her over the edge--she’d just glide back to shore and tell Sourpuss on her. So she pulled out her ace in the hole.

“Actually, now that I think of it I might have seen a Kirtland’s Warbler or two in the reeds at the bottom of the cliff. I couldn’t be sure, though. Hey Balsam, aren’t those on your summer wildlife checklist or whatever?”

The ploy was shameless and utterly without merit. But before Sourpuss could muster up a properly indignant glare, Balsam had spread her wings and shot over to Bloom’s side.

“You saw two of them?” she squealed? “Yellow belly, black back, two-ish inches long?”

“Sounds about right--woah--”

Balsam grabbed Bloom’s foreleg and all but dragged her to the cliffside. “Where did you see them? I can’t believe I forgot my binoculars. I’ll have to make a sketch for the Phillydelphia Natural Observer. I can’t believe our luck!” Her gaze fell on Bloom. The poor earth pony nearly toppled under its weight. “Where’d you see them?”

“Over here.” Bloom and Balsam inched up to the cliff’s edge. “They were all the way there at the bottom.”

“In those bushes? That’s odd. Milton’s warblers usually nest in jack pines. Those are too dense and shrubby. Bloom, are you sure you--”

In an instant, Bloom wrapped her arms around Balsam’s barrel and threw herself off the edge.

In the two point two seconds it took them to fall, Bloom noticed a few things about Balsam. Firstly, despite her wiry pegasus body, she could kick. Hard. The second was that she could scream to bring the sky down.

The third was that, gosh it felt good to be this close to Balsam. What a brilliant idea this was. Perfect ten.

Then they kissed the lake.

They breached the surface in a tangle of manes and legs and smiles. Balsam let out another loud shriek of delight. She scooped up a wave in her wing and flung it over Bloom. Bloom returned the favor in kind. They drew apart, then tangled up again, like foals at play, like birds flitting through air.

They drew closer still. The water was warm, but a sudden chill sent a shock through Bloom’s heart. Something was happening between them. They were as close as close could be, but still Balsam drew closer. If they didn’t stop they were going to bump noses.

No, you idiot, Bloom realized at the last possible moment, right as Balsam tilted her head and closed her eyes. She’s gonna--

A terrified scream cut through the crisp summer air. The two young mares snapped their eyes open and looked around. “Did you hear that?” Bloom asked.

Another scream, this one cut short by a strange gurgle. Bloom was about to suggest they ignore it and go back to whatever they were about to do when Balsam’s pegasus eyes snapped towards the opposite shore. “The kids,” she murmured.

She disappeared beneath the waves in a wash of white water.

Bloom hacked and spun and tread water. “Balsam?” she called out. “Balsam, where are--”

Something flashed beneath the waves a few lengths away. Then the water broke in a spectacular spray. There was Balsam, frozen for a split second in her mind’s eye. Her mane flew back, throwing a line of droplets into the air. Her wings were poised at the apex of their stroke, a heroic pegasus pose. Her mouth was closed and her eyes were set, radiating intensity.

Perfect ten, Bloom thought.

Balsam’s wings pumped once, sloughing more water, unintentionally whipping Bloom. Then they were dry, and Balsam took off like a light towards the opposite shore.

It took Bloom a moment to realize what had happened. Pegasi were spectacularly buoyant creatures, what with the hollow bones and all. Balsam’s wings might have been too tired and too wet to get her out of the water by themselves, but diving a few meters beneath the surface had the same effect as holding an inflated beach ball underwater.

In the time it took to think all that, Balsam had skimmed to the middle of the lake, plucked a pony from the water, and shot back towards Bloom.

“Follow me!” she yelled as she flew over Bloom. Her eyes looked deadly serious. Bloom floundered, found her center, and chugged to shore in a graceless doggy paddle.

There was no time to rest on the banks. Balsam dragged Bloom over to the unconscious pony lying in the mud. Bloom started to say something, but Balsam cut her off in her typical soft, matter-of-fact voice. “No time. He’s not breathing. Start CPR. I’m flying for help.”

“Balsam, wait a second!”

But she was already gone, shooting up the cliffside and back towards the campsite.

The realization she was alone with this dying stranger--just a colt, no less--sent a wave of dizzying terror through Bloom’s mind. She’d practiced this a few dozen times in gym class, but that was on a plastic dummy. She remembered her teacher’s voice saying, “Remember kids, if you do it right, you’ll break a few ribs. That’s okay. Just keep going.”

“Just keep going,” she said to herself aloud. “Just keep going.” She held her hooves up to her face. Then brought them down on the colt’s chest softly. His fur was light brown. It would have matched Balsam’s. “Just keep going.” She pumped her hooves once. The colt flopped a little like a dead fish. The sight sent tears leaping to her eyes. It was all happening so fast.

“Just keep going,” she said. She pumped again. Then a third time. Then she remembered the song she was supposed to sing while she was doing CPR in order to maintain an effective rhythm.

She started singing out loud, but as soon as she did she felt something crack in the colt’s chest. She let out a whimper and shirked her hooves away. Keep going. Keep going. Please. She fought for control of her own hooves, and finally won enough control to get them back on the colt’s chest.

Just then, a ripple in the water caught her eye. She turned her head and saw the skeletal face of death hovering just out of the water. Bloom blinked, and the face sunk back under the water without so much as a ripple.

Balsam returned a moment later with an electrical pop, accompanied by two unicorn park rangers. They found Bloom pumping the colt’s chest furiously. Tears streamed down her cheeks. In a panting, hysterical alto she belted, “Ha, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive...”

The ranger tried to push Bloom aside. "We’ll take it from here.”

"No.”

“No?”

“If I stop now, he's a goner." Her eyes flicked back towards the water. It was deathly still and so clear she could almost see to the bottom. She saw the shadows all the way down and shuddered. "I got this."

"Miss, stop--"

"I have to do this."

"Bloom!" Balsam shouted right in her ear and broke her panic. Bloom wasn’t able to consider Balsam’s request in the moment. Mainly because Balsam picked her up and flung her off the colt.

Where Bloom’s hooves had been, she saw deep black bruises rising beneath the fur. Sickening shame filled Bloom’s heart. Her cheeks burned worse than her aching forelegs.

There was the sound of approaching thunder. The smell of ozone. Then there was a great loud pop, and the rangers and the colt vanished.

Bloom let out a shuddering breath. All her focus had just lost its target. She reared back and shoved Balsam aside. “Idiot,” she said, more at the lake than anypony in particular. She stomped her hooves in the sand as hard as she could.

"Theres another ranger at our campsite," Balsam said. She seemed unphased by being tossed aside. "We'll need to give a statement." She took Bloom’s hoof in hers. “It’s over. Everything’s okay.”

Bloom glanced back at the lake. The water was still--too still. It looked unnatural, like a mirror pool to some other place. She kicked a hooffull of sand into the water and watched the ripples distort the reflection.

Then together she and Balsam picked their way back up the root-choked trail to their campsite at the top of the cliff.

----

Sourpuss’s natural inclinations made her an excellent songwriter. While Balsam and Bloom moped around the firepit, Sourpuss pulled out a guitar and plucked a few notes. Soon, a melody and a few minor chords appeared. Then she closed her eyes and sealed herself away in her own melancholic world.

Bloom moved the cold congealed mass of vegetables around in her tin foil bowl. All her mental focus was on remembering the colt on the beach and the bruises on his chest. Earth pony strength was a curse sometimes. Maybe if she’d been born a pegasus she wouldn’t have hurt him so bad.

“I’m such an idiot,” she murmured.

Balsam sighed with eternal patience. “It happened so fast. It would have happened to anyone.”

“What if he hadn’t lived, huh? I’d be a murderer.”

Balsam set aside her own untouched food. “We’re not having this conversation again.”

“You saw the bruises. I broke the kid’s ribs. He’s--”

“Shh.”

Bloom shut her mouth.

“You helped save his life. We did everything we needed to do. You did everything you needed to.”

Bloom turned over her food one last time before giving up and setting it aside. “I think this weekend's shot.”

Balsam shared a tired but genuine smile. “Do you think it’s ruined? We saved a colt’s life. That’s pretty great as far as Fridays go.”

Bloom chuckled a little. “Yeah. I guess it is.”

“And we’re here now. And maybe after the sun goes down we’ll be hungry enough for smores.”

“Maybe.” A thought popped into Bloom’s mind. She hesitated, turned it over like she’d been doing to her food all this time, then spat it out. “What do you think happens when we die?”

Balsam examined Bloom’s face. Maybe she was looking for a reason to shoot the question down. But apparently she found none, because a moment later, she answered, “Pegasi believes in reincarnation. Do you know what that is?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of it. Is that what you believe?”

“I don’t know. But it feels right.”

Bloom nodded. “Earth pony lore says once you die, you return to nature. Your body gets eaten by the earth and you go back to the place you were before.”

“So, basically like reincarnation.”

Bloom was aware of the teasing lilt in Balsam’s voice, but the last thing she wanted was to question her friend’s religious convictions and start a fight. “If all the molecules come together again, then maybe it would be like reincarnation? But that’s so unlikely. Once you decompose, your body gets eaten by worms, which get carried off by birds. Trees can absorb parts of you and send you off in their seeds. The mycelium layer eats you too, and that can carry your nutrients thousands of miles. It's pretty wild how far you can travel once you're dead. The other races think earth ponies are sedentary, but they’re wrong. We know we’re gonna go far one day, whether we want to or not. So they stick around and admire one place while they still can.”

“Oh,” said balsam, looking slightly more green than usual. “That’s... interesting.”

“I’m just being stupid, cuz of everything and all that. I was just so powerless, you know? I was looking at the colt and thinking, boy, he’s gonna go so far--”

Balsam flew to her side and wrapped her wings around her. Bloom was about to ask what she was doing when she realized there were tears in her eyes. Stupid.

“Sorry,” Bloom said.

“I was scared too.”

“You didn’t look scared.”

“I was terrified. Oh, I was probably such a meanie to you, too.” Balsam squeezed harder. “I’m sorry.”

When the two finally broke away, Bloom wiped the last of the tears away and scooted to the edge of the log. “I’m the brawl of the group, y’know?"

“I think you mean brawn.”

“That’s what I said, brawl.” She shook her head. “I’m supposed to have it all locked down.” She gave a halfhearted flex of her forelegs. "It felt like I didn't even matter. I was just... nothing."

“You matter.” Balsam fluttered over to Bloom’s log and looked her right in the eyes. “You matter so much.”

Bloom leaned forward and kissed her. Sourpuss hit a wrong chord and dropped her guitar. The fire crackled happily in place of a melody.

Perfect ten.

-----

Let us pause again to emphasize how rare it was to surprise death.

The kiss, the subsequent long weekend spent sharing a tent, and the following sixty years of marriage had not been a part of this soul’s expected trajectory. But their relationship was healthy and more stable than most. Balsam did not, as Bloom thought, participate in polyamory. But she was cool with that.

Time and time again, the soul formerly known as Rainbow Bloom had proven herself to be particularly rambunctious. A veritable pinball of cosmic energy. This unexpected development thankfully did not knock her too far off-course. She made it another eighty years, bringing the total to a respectable 97. Not bad at all. Another nasty fall at the end, though. What luck!

What’s more, she hadn’t been able to let go when it counted. She fostered arrogance in unexpected places. She sheltered jealousy, even towards her friends--especially towards her friends’ wings. She harbored a desire to control everything about her situation, from the color and direction of her post-college summer vacation to the way she and Balsam spooned in their tent.

And on that fateful day on the beach, those negative traits manifested in a very real way. They nearly cost one colt his life.

No, the soul formerly known as Rainbow Bloom still had a long way to go.

In the near-infinite catalogue of creatures about to be born, the creature known to some as death found the soul formerly known as Rainbow Bloom a new life. This life was latent with natural power. Such things tested the best of souls and were downright dangerous to the rest. The soul formerly known as Rainbow Bloom had already proven she could handle power when she was surrounded by good influences.

Would she hold up if she were on her own?

-----

Rainbow Charm aimed her horn into the sky. Advanced calculations whizzed through her head at supersonic speed. Preserve latitude and longitude. Alter altitude. Visualize every last inch of yourself. Don’t forget anything--for goodness’ sake, don’t forget anything.

Magical lightning arked around her horn, tracing the spiral from bass to tip. The feeling of isn’t permeated her body. The lightning arked. Charm disappeared.

Only to reappear a moment later in the exact same spot. Her mane was frozen together in chunks. Sweat rolled down her face. One of the vessels in her right eye had burst. Her whole body felt tingly, and not in a good way. The feeling of is was strange.

She opened her mouth to cheer and vomited all over the laboratory floor.

“What on earth are you doing?” came a voice from behind her.

Rainbow Charm whirled around and slipped in her own vomit. She fell to the ground and gasped like a fish out of water. “Sir--sir--I--”

“Suh-suh-suh--stop blathering like a simpleton.” The other pony walked up to her until his silhouette loomed large over her. “It appears you’ve vomited.”

“In the process of experimentation. Sir.”

The pony draped his hoof with a rag, then helped Charm up. “And what, exactly, were you experimenting on?”

“Myself. And the basics of teleportation.”

“Ah, reinventing the wheel. Fitting.”

“Not reinventing. Just making it more round.” Charm paused as she hacked up a lung. “I teleported exactly one mile into the air, then back down again. And I did it without a single millimeter of deviation in latitude or longitude. Exactly up. Exactly down.”

The pony looked her up and down with impassive grey eyes. “Congratulations. You’ve accomplished something basic to an inane degree of precision. Have you even bothered looking over my notes for tomorrow’s experiment? Or have you been too busy revisiting your breakfast?”

Rainbow Charm felt a chunk of something slimy under her hoof and grimaced. She was used to this sort of reproach. But this felt important--important enough to share. And important enough to merit further study.

“With your permission, sir, I’d like to continue refining this spell. After your studies are complete, of course.”

“I think not. Now take a letter.”

“Sir--”

“Did I stutter?”

Charm sighed. Her tired horn lit up the same pale pink as her fur. Ink and quill materialized beside her. “Ready.”

The pony cleared his throat. “Dear Princess Sparkle. New paragraph. My four dimensional portal blueprint is nearing completion, comma, and will be ready to test by tomorrow evening. Period. I humbly request the palace be placed at general quarters, comma, as tesseracts are unstable and constitute a minor, comma, though not insignificant, comma, threat to the local population. Period.”

“Minor?” Charm asked bluntly.

“Minor, as in there is a minor chance it will rip the universe apart. Don’t write that down. Do write this down. My assistant and I will report back with our findings as soon as solutions reveal themselves. Period. New paragraph. May friendship spread through this world, and every conceivable world. Comma. New Paragraph. Your faithful student. Comma. New Paragraph. Kazimismo Kazimiscimo.” He lit up his horn to charge a spell. “That will be all. Clean this up, then you are dismissed until tomorrow morning. Don't forget to go over my notes. And get some rest while you’re at it. I’ll need you in tip-top shape for--”

He cast the spell before he could bother finishing the sentence. Physics went haywire for a split second as he teleported out of the castle. His magic tugged so strongly she felt herself and her papers being dragged towards the spot where he had just stood.

Rainbow Charm sighed as she magick’d the letter away. She could feel magical feedback welling up in the front of her head, leaping from the base of her horn right into her frontal cortex. She’d need to rest her horn if she wanted to be of use tomorrow.

It was getting harder and harder for her to convince herself she liked this. Kazimismo Kazimiscimo--Cosmo, for short--was a unicorn for the history books. His work with extra-dimensional portal spells leading into non-Euclidian dimensions was going to revolutionize Equestria. Instantaneous travel for all races. Space travel. The end of resource dependency. And he was the personal student of princess Sparkle to boot. And only two years older than her. And handsome.

He sucked.

Rainbow Charm trudged through the lab, punched in the passcode for the thirty six inch solid steel blast door separating the laboratory from the rest of the Canterlot mountain, and wove her way through the labyrinthian catacombs of Canterlot mountain in search of a mop.

-----

Instead of focusing on the usual morning drudgery, Charm set her mind in motion by listening to her recordings of the previous day’s experiments, both hers and Cosmo’s. She held no delusions about the danger of tomorrow’s activity. Her part of the tesseract spell was a form of safety redundancy, though it was no less important than the actual summoning of the tesseract itself. If Cosmo were to somehow lose control during his cast, there was a chance the four dimensional space would become like a small black hole and suck up their three-dimensional space. The prospect was still purely theoretical, but nonetheless something she would like to avoid.

By the time she wrapped up her morning routine and made her way to the staff dining area, she had gone over the spell and each of its component parts an additional thirty times.

Instead of focusing on the rows of pastries at the head of the buffet, or how Cosmo’s last experiment into rewiring the pony gut microbiome had left her with a savage intolerance to gluten, she gauged the weight of eggs and toast as she piled them onto her styrofoam plate. She guessed six hundred and twelve. Magic confirmed her estimation. She added it to the total precise weight for this month, then divided it by the number of days.

Her average was also six hundred and twelve. The thought made her frown. What was the definition of insanity again?

No matter. She walked to her usual two-top table in the corner, sat down alone, and lost herself in her recordings again. Strategic ignorance. The feeling of isn’t was sometimes preferable to the feeling of is.

-----

The blast doors were open when Charm made it to the lab. No sooner had she stepped over the threshold than Cosmo shouted from inside, “Seal the doors and come help me.”

Charm punched in the access code on the motorized door controls. As the locks slid shut behind her, she joined Cosmo in the center of the lab. Dozens of power cables and data-gathering probes snakes from machines around the room to a single shoulder-height pillar. Spindly magical dampeners as sleek and sharp as a griffon’s claws jutted from the top of the pillar.

Cosmo frowned and ripped one out of its housing.

“Is that wise?” she asked.

“Very. I tried to fire up the tesseract just a moment ago, but there were so many magical dampeners it wouldn’t go.”

“You... you what?”

Cosmo shrugged and tugged on another dampener. “You were running late.”

"I was not." Cosmo ignored her. "You could have been seriously hurt if things got out of hoof.”

“Which they wouldn’t have, obviously.”

“And did you close the blast doors when you did this? They were open when I got here.”

“Don’t lecture me,” he hissed. Irritation formed deep wrinkles on his brow. “You have no idea the stress I’m under.”

“Yes I do. I designed this experiment with you.”

“But you’re not me.” He shot her a withering glare and twisted another dampener free. “This has to work. And it has to work today.”

“Why?” He rolled his eyes at her. “No, I’m serious. Is there some secret deadline I’m not aware of? Am I the only pony who hasn’t crossed the finish line yet?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, you are.” He ripped one final dampener free from the pillar and tossed it on a rolling cart in the corner. “Now--”

Charm did something she never thought she would do. She walked up to Cosmo and took his hoof in hers. His reaction was like being hit with a stun gun. His whole body tensed, and he went stone-still, eyes open wide in shock. At least he finally piped down for once.

“We’re doing this experiment together, right?”

He stayed rooted to the spot until she let go of his hoof. Only then did he start to relax and unclench his jaw. “Please don’t do that again.”

“Sorry. I won’t. Now answer my question.”

He sighed. “Yes. We are doing this experiment together.”

“And this experiment is dangerous, right?”

“Some think so.”

“So we’re just two ponies doing a dangerous thing together.”

“Seems about right.”

“I think ponies who do dangerous things together can be a little more candid with each other than this.”

“Perhaps a greater level of candor could be beneficial to a more streamlined working environment.”

“So tell me what’s going on.”

The fight drained out of him. His shoulders slumped. “How old are you?” he asked.

“Uh. Twenty.”

“I’m twenty two. I’ve been princess Sparkle’s student since I was twelve. At that age, I was the oldest personal student any princess had ever taken on. Ever.”

“So what?”

“So, do you have any idea what princess Sparkle’s old students were doing by the time they were twelve? Most of them had saved the world at least once. I had ground to cover. So much ground to cover...”

Heavens above, was she feeling sympathy for this cretin? She felt disgusted with herself even as she heard herself say, “I don’t think that’s how princess Sparkle sees it. Whatever reasons she had for making you her student, I doubt it was to compete with ghosts.”

He turned back to the piller, now missing a fifth of its dampeners. “Are you going to help me or not?”

She reached for his hoof again, then stopped herself. “I have dreams too, y’know.”

“Yes, or course. The cobbler dreams of cobbling.”

“Don’t be a jerk. I want to advance science faster than any other mare in history. I want the exponential curve to go vertical.” She locked eyes with him. “Let’s do this together, Cosmo.”

His eyes flashed from her to the pillar. For a second, his lips curled down, and he thought he was going to send her away. But the moment passed, and he set his hooves down firmly on the concrete floor.

“We go again,” he said, his voice firm. “And we go together.”

-----

The experiment was simple, in principle. They would use Cosmo’s magic to open a tesseract portal on the pillar. Charm would chuck in a probe on a string. They would wait a few minutes for the probe to collect data. Then they would yank the probe out and close the portal. Easy peasy.

The thing that made Charm’s stomach flip was not knowing how a four-dimensional space would act inside a three-dimensional space. How could a 2D circle wrangle a 3D sphere into its dimension? There had to be some sort of risk involved. But such a thing had simply never been done before. She didn’t know what to be afraid of, and that made her even more afraid.

When she finished sealing the doors and checking the concrete safety barriers for signs of weakness, she rejoined Cosmo in the center of the room. The pillar stood imposingly amidst the tangle of wires and cables and dampeners.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Last thing. Hold still.” She lit up her horn and tethered a spell to Cosmo’s horn. He flinched at the sensation of magic touching him, but stayed dutifully still until the spell was complete.

It was a failsafe spell--once he started casting his next spell, a magical switch would be flipped on. If his magic cut off for whatever reason and the switch was not flipped off again, a distress call would be sent directly to princess Sparkle, along with some minor magical fireworks to get her attention.

“Rainbow Charm?” Cosmo said.

She turned at the sound of her name. “Yes?”

Cosmo fumbled with his thoughts in open-mouthed silence before saying, “I am not very good at speaking socially. I’m bad at it because it’s pointless and dumb.” Her smirk seemed to embolden him. “But I do not think it’s pointless and dumb to say that I respect you. You are smart in a great many fields I am clueless in. And as long as you stay in the sciences, I believe the curve of progress will only grow more exponential.” He let out a long, exasperated sigh. “Now can we please start this already?”

A rare smile flashed across her face. She raced behind the protective barriers and readied the data probe, a chrome-plated cube roughly the size of a baseball stuffed with wires and sensors. As Cosmo joined her behind the wall and began his cast, he nodded, and she cast her failsafe spell.

She felt the air around her grow warm, charged with strange ambient energy. Through a viewing slit in the wall, she kept her eyes glued to the pillar. Cosmo pushed more energy through his horn. The lab lights faded from fluorescent yellow to orange, then red, then black. The outline of the pillar and the wires remained as white outlines against a black backdrop.

Cosmo let out a grunt and pulled on the local ambient field with all his might. Charm felt the hair on her neck stand up as a series of lines sprouted from the pillar. At first it looked like a cube, but then she noticed another shape within the cube, something like a second cube with many tendons connecting it to the first.

This was it--the tesseract. The air whooshed with magical energy. Every bone in her body vibrated in time with the pulsing waves coming off Cosmo’s horn.

In the time it took her to double-check the data probe, the tesseract had already fully emerged from the pillar. It was only the size of a basketball, though it radiated like the sun.

“Now!” Cosmo shouted. His voice come from everywhere at once, an infinite echo feeding back louder and louder with each iteration. She stepped out from behind the blast barrier and chucked the data probe into the tesseract with all her might.

The little box of wires and sensors flew through through the air in slow-motion. Charm noted that, if she squinted, it looked kind of like Rocky. A tiny twinge of worry pinched at her heart.

Then the probe entered the tesseract, and everything went wrong.

The color of the room immediately snapped back to normal. Cosmo appeared to fling himself forward into the barrier. The tesseract remained the blackest shade of night. And it started to spin.

“What the...” Cosmo gave Charm a strange look. She noticed his horn was still pulsing with magic.

“Are you doing that?”

He looked up just in time to watch a long crack appear in his horn, running from the base all the way to the tip. His eyes went wide. He opened his mouth to speak.

The tesseract exploded outward and devoured the entire lab instantaneously. The probe, having been vomited up by the portal, slammed into the concrete barrier. The wall held, but a piece of concrete on the opposite side of the impact area flew off and plowed into Cosmo, sending him tumbling away.

Charm couldn’t see where he landed. She cried out in agony as the weight of the entire tesseract portal fell on her failsafe spell. She collapsed, blacked out for a fraction of a second, bit her tongue, then snapped back to reality.

“Cosmo!” she called. Her voice echoed back at her. With a herculean effort, she turned around and saw the blast doors at the lab entrance. The tesseract hadn’t gotten out yet. Hope surged through her. She saw a way out.

But the effort of holding that gap open grew more taxing by the second. The feeling of isn’t crept over her with icy certainty.

She looked around again. She had to get Cosmo out. And close the portal. And save herself. Princess Sparkle would have received a distress letter as soon as Cosmo’s magic cut out. But would she even be able to make it to them in time?

Just as the confusion and pain started to overwhelm her, she heard a voice crying out behind her. “Cosmo?” She turned, collapsed, got up, and started trudging towards the sound of the voice. “Keep talking!”

Her progress was agonizingly slow. She was limping. Her hind leg felt numb, but she couldn’t remember hurting them. Her whole body felt on the verge of total collapse.

She called out again, and the voices got louder. “Charm... Charm...”

“Yes!” She tripped and felt her hold on the opening slip. She wailed and dug her magic into the opening again. “Please! Help me Cosmo.”

“Charm... stop fighting.”

“What?” She stopped and fell once again. The voice was no longer Cosmo’s. A twisting, writhing body of shadows seperated and flooded the air around her, howling like hungry wolves. They snarled, showing infinite rows of teeth. One nipped at her flank. Then another. They beset her with cuts and scratches and bites. Nothing deep, but all painful.

“Stop fighting, Charm,” they moaned in chorus. “We can help.”

“Who...” Charm panted. Her jaw was no longer working properly. She couldn’t get the words out.

“Accept us,” the dark entity whispered. “We can help you. We see inside you. The jealousy. We could make you so much more powerful than him.”

Him. Charm lifted her head only to feel a hundred teeth and claws ripping at her throat. She squeaked and curled up again.

“He is beneath you,” the entity said. “Take this power and take his place. You are worthy.”

Charm dared to open her eyes for a fraction of a second. As she did, she saw the heart of absolute black atop the lab’s central pillar. Blacker than black. Black enough to paralyze her with primordial fear. The ancient all-seeing soul within cried out in terror.

And beyond it, through the dimensional veil, she saw the skeletal face of death peering in. He seemed to be studying her.

She put her head down. her magic started to fade. The beasts rejoiced and let out a howl of joy. The feeling of isn’t crept over her body like pins and needles, like a loss of blood, like unwanted sleep.

The howl died in their throats as waves of magical energy surged from beyond the veil, knocking the shadows back. Pure light spilled over the blackness in broad, crepuscular rays.

The blast door, meant to withstand the discharge of a small nuclear warhead at point-blank range, evaporated with barely a trace. Princess Twilight Sparkle in all her regal glory bounded into the room, horn, awash in magical fire.

“Teleport!” she cried into the void. “Hurry!”

Charm knew the spell like the back of her hoof. She’d studied it to inane perfection in the previous week, after all. It would require getting four magical threads through four needles, all placed in different dimensions, infinitely close and infinitely far apart simultaneously. But that wasn’t a problem for a powerful unicorn such as herself.

Her horn dimmed. She readied herself to teleport, and probably to puke as soon as she landed.

Then, in the shifting darkness, she saw the slumped figure of Kazimismo Kazimiscimo.

-----

From Princess Twilight Sparkle’s perspective, it looked like her two most prized students vanished into the darkness. Cosmo’s horn looked to be damaged, and poor Charm could barely lift her head. One moment they were there. The next moment, darkness swallowed them.

Then there was a tremendous flash of light from inside the botched portal like a flash of lightning, illuminating a pack of shadows with eyes and teeth. They shirked away from the light, howling in agony.

A clap like thunder echoed in the lab. The portal slammed shut. The concrete barrier walls collapsed. Twilight swayed slightly but kept her footing.

As the smoke cleared, the princess found Cosmo unconscious on the floor. A few paces away from him, closer to the smoldering pillar, she saw his assistant, Rainbow Charm, also on the floor. The former gasped like a fish out of water and sat upright.

“I’m okay!” he said.

Then his horn cracked neatly in two, right up the middle, and fell to the floor. He stared at the shattered keratin in stunned, slack-jawed silence.

Finally, he looked up at the princess and said, “Earth ponies... have plenty of magic.”

Twilight rushed to his side. “The portal,” she said. “How did you close it?”

“The...” he glanced over his shoulder. A fine trickle of blood ran down his face from where his horn used to be. “I didn’t close it.”

“Neither did I.”

Their eyes fell on the prone form of Rainbow Charm. Her fur smoldered. She wasn’t moving.

-----

Let us take a moment to acknowledge the significance of this soul’s accomplishment.

The soul formerly known as Rainbow Charm had done something truly remarkable--she’d surprised death twice in a row. Her life’s trajectory had extended far beyond that fateful day in the laboratory beneath Canterlot. She’d been meant to survive, carry guilt through the rest of her life, and have a hard-earned moment of catharsis sometime in her late fifties.

But that--that was remarkable. Death--the small piece of the larger universal consciousness tasked with ferrying dead souls into the higher-dimensional plane and preparing them for their next life--swelled with joy.

There would be time to work on her next life soon enough--a noblepony, perhaps, one born into wealth. The challenge of dealing with unearned savings really separated the wheat from the chaff.

But first, her soul deserved a reprieve. A short and easy life. Something to bolster her spirits, no pun intended, and remind her of the bliss that awaited her when she became the lucky thirteenth soul to escape the cycle of reincarnation.

A bird, perhaps.