Rarity and Sweetie Belle raced along the dirt path which ran from the property of Sweet Apple Acres over a wide meadow to where, at an intersection, it found the main road which led back to Ponyville in one direction. They were crossing the sunny expanse of the field when Rarity began to pant, whereupon her sister, noticing a lapsing of the sound, stopped and turned to find her stalled several yards away.

"What's the matter?" she called out.

Rarity, huffing, replied with an apologetic look. She indicated by her recalcitrance that it would be better to come closer; Sweetie Belle trotted up as gawkish as a rooster.

"I just don't think I can make it," Rarity told her. "Maybe if Sergeant Spitfire had a little less to say…"

She paused to catch her breath. As they waited they looked down the path where the town rose up over a small hill a mile's distance, like a landscape picture, as the buzz of cicadas made the air heavy and the ground stink with brush and wildflowers.

"I admit," said Rarity, continuing her apology, "that I am not quite as fit as I used to be."

"So what do you need me to do?" Sweetie Belle asked in agitation.

"You'll have to go back to Applejack's while I find a spot here," Rarity replied, "and get some water that I can use for wash. They'll let you borrow a bucket."

"How will I explain that?" Sweetie Belle objected. "If I tell them you need a bucket of water they'll want to know what's happened to you and to make sure you're okay. If not… What else can I say? I have a theater performance is in less than a few hours. What would I need buckets of water for?"

"Maybe you can go to Carousel ahead of me, then. You've got more energy than I do, and must certainly be feeling less cramped. How long will it take you?"

"Too long," Sweetie Belle replied stoutly. "And water is heavy, too, you know. I'd like to have something left over for the show tonight."

"Oh, you're young!" Rarity sneered. "And what else are we supposed to do? That's where we are—those are the options, Sweetie Belle. If you want to save time I suggest you make up your mind quickly, come up with some excuse or get your bum in gear."

"Wait—" Sweetie Belle had been surveying the fields as her sister spoke, and her eyes came to the cusp of a dark wood. "I think I have a better idea. Do you remember when Pinkie Pie found the Mirror Pool a few years ago? Wasn't it not far from here?"

"And why should I tell you where it is?" Rarity answered leerily. "You're not saying—why, I can't believe you'd even think—oh, Sweetie Belle!"

"It's practically a lavatory," Sweetie Belle said. "It has privacy, a source of water, lots of space, and a refreshing, subterranean temperature. Heck, I'd go there myself even if I weren't under duress."

"Huh! I'm glad to see you appreciate the caution one must take in dealing with enchanted places. Pinkie's discovery of the Mirror Pool was a terror to Ponyville and deleterious to Pinkie's mental health—she never did fully recover from that episode, poor dear. Once she was an amicable baker and caretaker, but now she likes to wander, hocking theories about how Ponyville is founded on the suffering of a single mosquito or how the court systems would be ineffectual if Equestria were not circled with seas by which sunburnt courtiers can arrive to discover them. But by all means, if nature calls who am I to stop you."

"But you won't make the same mistake Pinkie did," Sweetie Belle replied, brushing close to her, "because we know what we're doing there. We are not tempted by legendary incentives, like she was. We are just simple ponies looking for ordinary utility," she said, taking one of Rarity's hooves and pulling her toward the forest. "Come on! Come on, come on."

"Very well, let's just be done with it!" Rarity grumbled, forfeiting the tug-of-war. "What a day this has been. If I go insane it's all on you."

"I'm eager to hear what you come up with, actually," Sweetie Belle said. "And you'll be too insane to remember to be mad at me, anyway."

Rarity groaned. "Tell me why I'm helping you, again?"

Sweetie Belle laughed as they approached the trees, and her mood made Rarity think of grape wine, dark and sweet and intoxicating.

***
***

Where the thorns crowd and jostle
In shrouded abode
A rill there shall pass into mystic commode

"Or I think that's how it goes," said Rarity, trundling behind her sister along a muddy pathway. She stopped and frowned at a mossy log which blocked the way. "Aunt Tipper used to tell us stories all the time when we went to stay at her house—before bed, you might recall. That's where I heard it. And I remember it as a curious fact about the incident with Pinkie Pie that the pool in that old limerick was not only here in Ponyville but so close by the Apple estate as to be almost within its bounds. No doubt a small oversight on the part of Celestia when she granted them the land."

"Do you remember what it looks like?" asked Sweetie Belle. She was a few paces in advance, pouncing between stones in the muck.

"All I have is the rhymes, I'm afraid," said Rarity. She wrinkled her nose like a snapping turtle at the fallen tree before hoisting herself over to the other side. "I wasn't there when Pinkie discovered it, you see, and have only second-hand accounts of its appearance. According to her, the entrance is a long-winding chute which appears as a camouflaged fissure on the outside."

"That doesn't help us much," said Sweetie Belle. "Do you see any fissures?"

Rarity shook her head. "Not one."

"Maybe it's something Pinkie made up," Sweetie Belle said, fretting her brows. "I mean, maybe something else happened to her that caused the clones, and she got it confused with a ravine or a hole in a tree trunk. Pinkie is a little out there."

"You need not worry on that count," Rarity answered as they pressed forward. "The Mirror Pool—or Reflecting Pool, as it is sometimes called—is a real place whose function is all-too-intelligible. It works like any magical apparatus in that it requires a payment of the user. In this case, the form of payment is a pining wish held by the applicant as they look into their own reflection. There they see not just their own image but the image of an actor on the stage of the world play. The separation is felt between this condensed ideal and the doughy, hairy world of the living body, and poof! a duplicate rises out of the surface of the water, the client's uncanny match. The appeal is mathematical. If one can have copies to make calls with friends, carry out professional duties, and otherwise blaze tracks around the Earth in several directions at once—well, one has extended the scope of one's life. But the matches are never exactly so, and, as we know, the scheme doesn't work out so nicely."

"Why are the clones always slightly different from each other?" asked Sweetie Belle. "Why can't there be a perfect match?"

"It would be impossible to observe yourself otherwise," said Rarity. "Once you notice you are obsessed with hay cakes your situation is radically different—now there is a recursive element, something divided in you. There is a gap between the observing apparatus and the observed world. You may do what you like with the information—treat it as a joke, self-diagnose, use it as the basis for a peculiarly meticulous denial of self-consciousness—but that's how it is. The pool is an instrument of that process of reflection."

"And that's what happened to Pinkie Pie," Sweetie Belle replied. "She was trying to make friends with her own mind."

"Exactly so."

"I see." Sweetie Belle became thoughtful. "It's not the water that's enchanted, then. If you don't make the required payment—the wish for duplicates—then the pool is nothing more than an exotic bidet, if that's what we need it to be. Does it have markers?"

"Not that I recall," said Rarity. "Why do you ask?"

Sweetie Belle pointed to a location a few feet off the trail where four small wooden posts had been driven into the ground; they were crowned by red tape and slightly hidden by a thicket of brambles. Sweetie Belle made a motion for Rarity to wait and broke away from the path through the debris of the forest to inspect the spot, then waved her over excitedly.

"Have a look!" she said. "Somebody must have thought it would be a good idea to indicate the exact whereabouts of the Mirror Pool since Pinkie visited."

Rarity stumbled over to where Sweetie Belle was standing and peered into the opening. "Oh yes," she said, "we've landed the bass. If you look, you can see the glowing blossoms of the emerald kudzu which I remember very clearly from Pinkie's accounts. You won't see anything like them in all of Equestria. Why," she added facetiously, "they are rather like dimmer lights opening to a private latrine!"

Sweetie Belle smiled at her jest. "So you're good with it?"

"I just want to get it over with," Rarity corrected her, "and perhaps it is not such a bad idea after all. I dare say I even enjoy the adventure of it." She glanced at her sister. "You are a crafty little lass, now aren't you?"

"Little?" Sweetie Belle replied. "I'm taller than you!"

"Take the compliment, dear," Rarity said, "and wait here. I shall not be long."

Sweetie Belle threw up her hooves in fisticuffs. "No problem. I can fight off a few timberwolves if I have to."

Rarity crouched down and guided herself into the hole, letting herself drop with a woo! and sliding gently toward a promontory which formed after the initial steep of the entrance. As she stood and collected herself she was struck by the ambiance of the kudzu which lined the descending tunnel in crooked festoons: a soft green light hazed about roots and fungi, matched by an effulgence of smell—exotic, like myrrh, but boasting an accent of pine—and she could not resist trying to get a whiff of one of the bulbs directly. She got down off the ledge and made her way along the tunnel to where one of the boughs hung low. Propping herself up on one of the crannied walls she craned her neck to sniff a polyp; but when she got near it shriveled up and disappeared into the darkness like a burnt ember, and she reeled back in surprise, losing her balance and tumbling the rest of the way down the chute.

"Everything okay down there?" came her sister's voice from the surface.

"We'll be on our way in no time," Rarity grunted, picking herself up. "Though I have to admit it's very distracting down here."

The cavern of the Mirror Pool was a large dome which housed a subterranean forest of ancient trees rising over one-hundred feet and filling the hollow with an untamed canopy; all around the sides were crags overrun by branches with hanging flowers and tall ferns which counted their years in the number of revolutions of their petals. The natural boundary of the dome was obscured by the great boles of the trees and their leaves and gave off the impression of a marooned world.

In the center was the pool, rimmed by flagstone and fed by a stream which dripped through some stalagmites, from an unknown source. It appeared to reflect the sun's radiance from a skylight, but upon searching for the opening Rarity found that the column of light, like everything else, terminated in a crowding of dark foliage; the sheen of the pool was a mirage, an effect of the properties of the pool itself upon the observer, like the white light found at the end of a rainbow.

As she took in the untrammeled environment of the dome Rarity felt the pang of giddy and ironic shame: "For where shall I go," said she, "where I shall not be exposed by the examining light of this gentle water? What hideaway shall I find which will muffle the echo of that sordid work? In what manner will the foul evidence of its perpetration be concealed, and not go roaming, like a confused Fillystine in this Temple of Fragrance?"

She paused and glanced back up at the entrance to cave, but saw no sign of her sister eavesdropping.

"You really must learn to stop talking to yourself, Rarity," she said, making steps toward the pool.

***
***

Outside by herself in the shade of the forest path Sweetie Belle took a moment to refocus. The morning with Rarity had been such a tornado of unexpected demands that she had nearly lost the sense of the purport of her performance that evening, which now quickly approached; she started a pace back and forth, fixing her gaze on her hooves as they kicked along the ground and reciting to herself the following blocking pattern:

"In on the courier's cue… A bucket every three rounds to keep the wheel turning… Slowly, like the first taste of a cup of coffee… Stolid, like the weight of a broomstick in the hooves… Leave and come back, without winking at the audience…"

She looked up at a burst of branches which encircled the mid-day sun and closed her eyes to internalize the routine; and, not long after, sunk in the sea of her imagination, she heard a voice calling to her from the trees.

"Hey, you!" it said.

Sweetie Belle startled out of her exercise and scanned the forest around her to see where there was a commotion was taking place. She saw nothing, and looked about her once more, before stopping and pointing to her own person.

"Yes, you!" came the voice again. A bulky stallion in a pocketed uniform emerged from the bushes and came trudging up the path. Sweetie Belle felt her hair stand up at the sight of the badge bouncing on his vest and the sudden recollection of the red tape on the markers around the Mirror Pool entrance.

"This is a restricted area," said the sweaty stallion, ambling up to her vicinity. "No visitors except by special authorization. Can I see your papers?"

He waited. After a beat he became impatient and said with gruff affectation, "this land belongs to the Royal Office of Public Services. There's a sign with big letters right out here by the perimeter which prohibits any entrance to this part of the forest. Did you not see it?"

The ranger shook his head and began his procedure without waiting for an answer, drawing a tablet from one of his pouches and skimming through it. Relaxing a little as he wrote, and without looking up at Sweetie Belle, he continued, "Nothing to get too upset over. I have to give you a ticket, though. You can contest it in court, if you like," he added as a douceur. "Now, if you had been down in the hole, then you'd be in real trouble."

He pulled out another manual—a small, thick, coil-bound volume—and leafed through it slowly, page by page. "Name?" he asked after he was ready.

"Sprichst du Deutsch?" said Sweetie Belle.

The ranger snickered. "You've got to be kidding me." He removed his hat and ran a hoof over his peppered mane. "Papers? Necesita documentos. NOT ALLOWED HERE. DANGEROUS. NEED SPECIAL PAPERS."

Sweetie Belle laughed and took his arm. "Ooh… Liken ze 'dancing'?" She pulled him into line with her, placing her hooves on her hips and performing some clogging steps. "Klompen ist gut, ya?"

"T-this is not the time, Ma'am!" grumbled the bobbling officer. He gave her a yank to get her attention, causing her to falter and get a speckling of mud on her legs. Sweetie Belle gasped and withdrew her arm from him.

"Sag mir, wo ich ein Käserad finde!" she cried.

"Look, why don't you come back to the station and we can get this sorted out." He put the notepads back in his pocket. "Eh… schnitzel?" he said, pointing back in the direction of the path.

"Ya, schnitzel ist gut!" Sweetie Belle said, taking the lead.

"And beer?" he said, following.

"Das beer ist gut!" she concurred. She made quickly in the direction of the forest perimeter, but was cut off by a second ranger coming from the same direction.

"Here you are," he said, stepping through the brush. "I told you there was someone over here, Moose Munch." He stopped in front of Sweetie Belle. "You again, eh? Oh, it's a good thing I came to check up on you, Munch."

"Yes, well," Moose Munch began, digging out his notepad more hastily than before, "everything is under control, Pennywise, as you can see. I found this mare patrolling outside the Mirror Pool. She is from Allemaneia and it has taken all of my wits to get her to cooperate. No doubt a lost tourist. We will have to take her to headquarters and make sure she gets sent off in the right direction. It really is sad how some of these tour businesses treat their ponies."

"Indeed," replied Pennywise, raising a gray eyebrow at Sweetie Belle. "You know, Ponyville First Universalist is in the opposite direction."

It was the same old stallion that had helped her up from her spill near Ponyville Square. Sweetie Belle wiped some mud from her face and answered calmly, "Which is why I need to be out here, far away from the stage and from all the worries that go along with it." She glanced over at Moose Munch, who was watching her as venomously as a toddler who had had his last tater tot stolen by the family dog. "So sorry about that. Just a bit of method acting. I go for long walks so I can really get into it."

"Method acting?" said Pennywise. "I thought you said this was black box theater."

"Of course, of course," Sweetie Belle replied, stealing a quick sidelong glance at the Mirror Pool entrance. "You learn it so you can discard it. You would not believe how many players wind up accidentally building a character when they're supposed to be inhabiting a role. It's not fair to the audience. But let's talk and walk."

"You seem like you're in an awful hurry to get out of here," said Moose Munch.

Sweetie Belle laughed. "Of course I am! Aren't you? I mean, the law's the law, and ignorance is no excuse from it—the name's Sweetie Belle, by the way," she said, pointing to where he could jot it down on his pad. "But I had no idea—is that the entrance to the Mirror Pool? Wow. I was just going for a stroll… Thank goodness you guys showed up to warn me. I'm getting shivers just being around it! The quicker we can get out of here, the better."

Moose Munch looked over at Pennywise for guidance.

"We bumped into each other a little earlier," the latter explained. "I think all we have here is an overzealous craft pony, Munch." He gave Sweetie Belle a nudge. "An 'ecstatic' as they say… Let's get her back to the station so she can fill out her papers and get going."

The younger officer smiled mockingly at their cajoling and prepared to put his ticket book away, when a cry was heard from within the recess of the Mirror Pool tunnel.

"Sweetie Belle, I have obtained the key!"

Munch stopped. "What was that—"

"I didn't hear anything," Sweetie Belle said with a shrug. "Cool, I didn't know there was a ranger station in these woods!" she then announced to the officers.

Pennywise and Moose Much glanced at one another.

"I just feel so much safer," she explained.

"Yes, yes…" said Pennywise, gesturing for her to desist. "But wait a moment. I heard a voice, too."

"Yeah!" Moose Munch agreed. "It said, 'Sweetie Belle, I have maintained something something'. You're Sweetie Belle, aren't you?" he said, pointing to his notepad.

Sweetie Belle went to answer but gave a shudder instead. "Ugh, sorry. It just gives me the creeps, is all."

"What gives you the creeps?" asked Munch.

"It's a howling cavern, this tunnel. An echo is just the reflection of sound, and the echoes of this cave reverberate for many years after a speech has been made. They say that when you go down to the Mirror Pool there's a ghastly tinnitus of ever-ringing voices in the arcades of the cavern ceiling. Anyone who hears it will go mad, or otherwise prove they are worthy of approaching the pool by enduring the peals of the chatter of long-dead ponies. It seems we're adding to the din by standing out here talking."

"You seem to know more than I do about the Mirror Pool, young lady," observed Pennywise, "which is quite something, considering you didn't even recognize where you were or what you were looking at until a moment ago."

"My Aunt Tipper taught me everything about it," Sweetie Belle replied. "She was an expert on magical places and used to try to take me on incantation quests, but I drew the line once we went beyond the practical side of her fascinating knowledge into divination through old tortoise shells."

At these words, Pennywise smiled in remembrance. "Tipper Teacup! Last I saw of her was when she was still delivering the newsletter for the square dance hall a few years back. We were all real sad when she passed—now no one knows what's going on at the hall!" he said with a wheezing laugh. "So you're her little niece, huh? You must be out of secondary school by now."

"Almost," said Sweetie Belle. "And she was quite the mystic, truth be told."

"Huh, well I'll be darned."

Moose Munch tucked the notebook into his front pocket. "Ah! I think that's all we need," he said in a brightened mood. "Come on, Pennywise, let's get going."

Sweetie Belle smirked up at the old stallion and followed along. "Yeah, Pennywise, let's get going! I'll have to tell you about Crazy Aunt Tipper some other time."

"Oh, you'll have plenty of time down at the station," Moose Munch replied with a dealer's suave. "We've got to get your parents down here. Can't have a minor snooping around a restricted area, you know."

"Wait—I can tell them myself," Sweetie Belle said, hurrying to catch pace with him. "I'll see them tonight. I'll take them whatever paperwork is needed. They might not even be home right now."

"We'll get your documents ready," Moose Munch replied, "then give them a call, and if we don't reach anyone one of us will escort you home at a good time. No worries. You'll be in good hooves with us."

"But I have a performance tonight!" she protested—but got no reply. She looked up at Pennywise, who had turned his gaze away from her, and then at Moose Munch. "You're doing this on purpose," she sneered at him; but it occurred to her that might have had equal success trying to scare a mudstone away.

***
***

Hanging from one of the species of tree growing in the Mirror Pool hollow were little bunches of coconuts, four or five to a set, in color like marble rye and each the size of a large racket ball. They drooped from fraying vines a few feet over the brush behind the larger trees like a suspended paradrop of lumpy gourds.

"Here we go!" said Rarity, reaching up to grab one; she fondled its surface and grinned. "Yes, this might do! It may be just soft enough… You're not the only crafty lass in these parts, Sweetie Belle."

She returned to the atrium and found a stone hard enough to crack the casing and struck the coconut against it with a few hard blows; the shell split open and spilt a fruity indigo liquid onto the floor. In one shell she retained a small portion of the fragrant juice and set it down beside a patch of grass she had smoothed out at the cleft of a tree root; there above it, a branch draped over with crystalline flowers that clung to the dark bark like frost and which formed an elegant veil to the leafy sconce.

Rarity walked over to the Mirror Pool with the other half of the coconut shell and turned to admire the arrangement from afar.

"It is almost worth talking about with others," she said to herself. "A good conversation piece—even a good place to have a conversation! But alas, what happens at the Mirror Pool stays at the Mirror Pool. Apropos of which…"

She went back to thinking about her plan and regarded the pool which was a few feet away from her. All she needed to do was to avoid her own reflection—from whichever end she might be reflected—and to that purpose, she had decided on the prudence of preparing a bower at which to do her business, and to bus the water from the pool to where it would be of use. Besides this, it would be less profane and more fitting the dignity of a lady to prepare a boudoir for such an excursion than to absolve oneself in the open chamber, where any Trixie might stumble on the unpleasant ode, however anonymous the authorship. It was not just respect for herself, she reasoned, but for her fellow mare, that such precautions had to be taken; and it was owing to this that she had been lured to the grove of dangling coconuts.

She creeped over to the pond with the empty coconut shell and dipped it into the water, turning her eyes away as though holding her nose at the presence of a foul smell. The surface of the pool was cool, but warmed around her like a hoof shake as she scooped into it—she cringed and quickly retracted her arm and looked around her to see if something had gone wrong; but she was still by herself in the dome, and now held a small cup of limpid water.

She returned to the bower and set the cup down in an accessible location near the tree, and, performing due diligence with regard to the space afforded, perched herself advantageously on the velvet green carpet.

"How lovely it is down here!" she thought, looking up from her spot toward the shimmer of the pool which disappeared into the foliage. "Everywhere you look a little life form is shining, scuttling, flowering somewhere. It reminds me of Ponyville in the spring…" She felt her heart palpitate as she missed the stars which would have been in the sky outside at night near the river. "I wonder how long Sweetie Belle has left in the old place… Not more than two years, I reckon. She is eager to go. Well, good for her. I feel almost bad for her, having to spend all this time with me. Look at you, Rarity… She must be so mad at you." She reached over and pulled the coconut closer to check her appearance: there was a little dirt on her coat; she had applied too much makeup over her tired features; a new, fleeting regret had tugged her face down into a frown; but her mane was luminous in the glow of the pool, spry as the tailfeather of a rare jungle fowl. "It will not be the same without her. Maybe Mom and Dad will move, too—they've wanted to retire for some time." A smile came back to her as she lighted on a different train of thought. "You know… It would be fun to do this once right in the middle of Ponyville square. No crowds, of course. Just to get rid of all that history and make the thing a huge bathroom—what better way to make it feel like it was all made just for me?"

She turned around and set to work, damping her hooves in the water of the coconut, humming to herself in a halcyon of physical and psychic relief. Thinking again of her Aunt Tipper, she remembered the wash-up song she used to sing with her as a foal, and began to recite it out loud to put her mind off the grit of her task:

And into her own complexion she stared
With rinse and rag and gumption prepared
So goblins of grime may gnash and may swear
At a filly whose hygiene can't be compared

"There we are!" she said, wresting the artifact from its mire—and, by extension, she supposed, the debut of Fritzel Fussbudget's black box theater in Ponyville from oblivion. She raised it up and called out in triumph, "Sweetie Belle, I have obtained the key!" and gave into a titter as she started to think of making her way out into the open air again, past the dragon of ineptitude, and then onward to Sweetie Belle's performance. She began a quick restoration of the bower as though she were leaving it for the next soul to find their way. It surprised her, now that she found herself on the other side of the difficulty, that, so far as it was the pretext of her visit, she hadn't given much consideration to the event itself and to the enjoyment of Sweetie Belle's work—whatever it was. In fact, the variability of what her own role might be in supporting the enigmatic performance is what excited her most—be it in the mold of a commentator or a quiet confidante in the back of the house.

"I really cannot wait," she thought, mussing some foliage. "Now I can put this business behind me and be there for whatever might come. It will be a new thing for us."

Of a sudden she heard a reply from the surface—"Cool! I didn't know there was a ranger station in these woods!"—which slowed the rapidity of her movements. It sounded off like a gun, and lingered in the dome with her like a frost, ringing around her ankles, until she was entirely stopped again, and stuck in an underground world once more. All her anticipations about the performance vanished. She had known that there was an outpost belonging to some office of the town in the other direction of the split road which led to Ponyville; but, being emboldened with the feeling of filial authority, like the Master of the Feast, she had neglected to give proper regard to her situation, and had overlooked the probable function of the patrol station.

"Oh dear," she said, tucking her mane behind her ears with both hooves. "I think I'm starting to change my opinion on the value of taking naps during the day."

Once she was sure the patrol had left the area of the Mirror Pool entrance with Sweetie Belle in their custody, Rarity crawled out of the tunnel and followed briskly the path back to the meadow, where she was able to reorient herself, and found the split road leading to the ranger station. Along the way she devised an excuse that she and her sister had been a-huckleberrying with their friends at Sweet Apple Acres, and that the callow but eager younger sister had gotten lost in the dark wood, like a medieval poet, and needed to be retrieved. As she arrived at the ranger's cabin she saw Sweetie Belle through one of the smokey windows craning her neck in an uncomfortable plastic chair. She was swinging her legs under the seat; her face was broken out in blemishes, and her frizzled hair fell over her unmake-upped face and along her shoulders like the habit of a delinquent nun, such that Rarity was surprised by a rough change in her appearance from her memories. She was seated in a shriveled yellow room staring glumly into a missing ceiling tile, next to a gummous-looking officer engaged in some deskwork; and it was from this starting point that Rarity formed her plan, and entered the cabin making a song of plaudits for the diligence of the rangers.

"My goodness, there you are!" she cried, bursting in and rushing over to Sweetie Belle, and kissing her three times on the forehead as the other winced in surprise. "I was so worried that you were eaten by a bear, or maimed by killer bees, or had fallen into a bog, that I despaired of seeing you ever again! Shame on you for wandering off like that, when we had all the berry bushes we needed right in the field—and disrupting the wonderful work of these officers," she said, indicating the pony at the desk, "who have much more important affairs to attend to in the service of the Princess, than to have to worry about fool-hearty young ponies. Why, I would slap you instead of kiss you, if I weren't so glad to see you alive."

She glowered and grit her teeth in barely constrained anger, then gave Sweetie Belle a little tap! on the cheek which sounded as vicious as raw cookie dough being dropped on dirty linoleum.

"And you, sir!" she said, turning now to Moose Munch, who eyed her sidelong like he had heard a gas leak, "you brave yeomen who mark the savage fronts, and learn from nature's rules—I cannot but offer my gratitude like an ingrate who, stealing a loaf of bread, pays back through labor and the acquaintance of those chalky hooves which rise with the sun to give us our daily each morning, but who cannot expect recognition in their line of work."

Munch frowned like he had received bad news, and went to answer, but was cut off by the lady's teehee.

"Oh, come off it now! Don't be so modest," said Rarity, strolling over to his desk. She took a seat and tossed and ruffled her hair a little, then tilted her head to bring it over her shoulder. "It is such a relief to have her here safe and sound, and I do hope you'll forgive her. She's still just a young thing, you know—a silly filly."

"I am aware," said Moose Munch, straightening his collar.

"I'm sure you'd much prefer the company of a mare," she followed, sliding a hoof over the officer's wrist. "Wouldn't you?"

She kept her gaze fixed as Munch alternated between the eyes and the massaging hoof of the lusty civilian. "I think that's neither here nor there, really," he said.

"Psst! Hey!" hissed Sweetie Belle, catching her sister's attention. She glared and shook her head in reproof of Rarity's course of action, and the latter, smiling like a forget-me-not, withdrew her hoof from the officer's arm, and went back to tumbling her coiffure with delicate strokes.

"Tell me what happened," she urged Munch.

"I found this one loitering about the Mirror Pool entrance, which, besides being a restricted area," he said, turning to Sweetie Belle, "is a very dangerous place for a young bystander to be."

"Oh, no!" Rarity gasped, tracing her neckline. "The Mirror Pool? Surely you can't be serious, Mr. Munch."

He made her a grim nod, and continued darkly, "but it doesn't end there, I'm sorry to say. When I asked her for identification she attempted to defraud an officer of the Guard by pretending to be a foreigner. Which, I'm sure you know, Ma'am, is a very serious offense."

"Oh, Sweetie Belle!"

"You hate to see it," said Moose Munch, shaking his head at the young perpetrator. "I'm sure she's a good kid." He let a pause to allow the gravity of his comment to weigh on her; Sweetie Belle stared back at him with resentful, spattered eyes.

Rarity folded her hooves against her bosom. "I try to set a better example for her, I assure you."

"I would hope so," said Moose Munch, turning back to her. "I could make this into a serious charge, if I wanted to. There's a reason we pursue these sorts of things. If this young lady is willing to lie to a petty officer…"

"Naturally, naturally," Rarity interrupted him, standing up and brushing some office dust from her hips. "I understand completely. Something needs to be done." She walked up to a map of Everfree Forest which was framed on the wall behind his desk, and set a hoof on his shoulder. "Is all of this your territory?" she asked.

Sweetie Belle closed her eyes and groaned.

"Thirteen-hundred acres," replied Moose Munch.

"That sounds like a lot to do," Rarity said, moving her hoof down along his bicep. She came up behind his chair and took the other arm, squeezing it tight in her hoof. "Tell you what," she continued softly, letting her hair drape by his neck. "Why don't you leave little Sweetie Belle to me, okay? I promise she won't bother you again. Would you do that for me, Munchey?"

She gripped a little bit more. Moose Munch looked up at her, and they were nearly nose to nose; he began to move one of her cloying hooves away with a firm touch, when there was a sound at the door.

"Gracious, Munch, what have you got going on in here?" asked Pennywise, stepping in.

Moose Munch peeped at him from under Rarity's auspices. "The mother showed up," he said fleeringly, "and is trying to persuade me to let the kid go."

"Yeah Mom, cut it out," said Sweetie Belle, sitting up, with a look toward Pennywise.

Rarity let go. "Mother!?"

Pennywise laughed. "Well, Munch, be careful what you wish for, eh? I'm sure she is just excited to see her little girl. What she would want to do with a scoundrel like you is anyone's guess."

"She's been like this since the divorce," Sweetie Belle said, avoiding her sister's eye contact for fear of bursting out into laughter. "I guess you're just such an irresistible stallion, Mr. Munch, that she got drawn into it again."

"Hey now, Munch here has been known to brandish his uniform in more ways than one," returned Pennywise. "He's no innocent bystander. Come on, Munch! We asked for a parent, and we got one, and I reckon that's all we need to get these gals on their way. Let's not waste any more of their time."

"I'll have you know I did no such thing, Pennywise," Munch replied, blushing. "And I'm very familiar with what my duties are, thank you." He turned to Rarity, flexing a formal air. "Ma'am, please see to it that your daughter knows and observes the pertinent zoning and property laws promulgated by the Royal Office of Public Services. We will let her go this time. But in the future any truant or transgressive behavior will be punished by fines or imprisonment, based on whatever is deemed appropriate by the National Court of Equestria, fifth circuit, with possibility for appeal."

He pulled the notebook out of his pocket, scribbled on the ticket, and handed it to her.

"Consider this a written warning." He stepped back solemnly and made a gesture directing them to the door. "Have an excellent day, Ma'am."

Rarity looked at the ticket, then Pennywise, and then Sweetie Belle, in disbelief. "Er… well, thank you, Mr. Munch. And I apologize if I came on a little bit strong. Things have been very hard for us since the, um, accident."

"Accident?" asked Moose Munch, breaking face. "I thought you said it was a divorce."

"Oh, yes!" said Sweetie Belle, nudging Rarity out the door. "That's how she refers to the relationship. She's a bit of an eccentric, you see. Believes in the singularity of the psyche and that we may depart from a given destiny, and all that. Old world psychology, I tells ya. But we can forgive her that. Right, Mom?"

Rarity did not get a chance to reply as the girls slipped out the ranger station. But before they were out of earshot Pennywise called out, with a laughing voice, "And break a leg!"

"You washed it, right?"

"Thank you, Rarity," the latter replied facetiously as she and Sweetie Belle galloped back toward Ponyville. "It was very generous of you, indeed, to go through such peculiar trouble to make sure my colleagues don't think of me as an irresponsible person."

"Just making sure," Sweetie Belle said. "I mean, at this point, after all, how much can you really be trusted?"

"Ugh. Now you're just enjoying this."

They rounded a bend and saw the skyline of Ponyville rise up on the horizon beneath an orange sun.

"I'm just kidding," Sweetie Belle said as though she were waiting at a bus station.

Rarity looked over at her as they crossed a bridge beneath some oaks on the outskirts of town.

"Me too," she said.