The Immortal Dream

by Czar_Yoshi

Boundary of Knowledge

With a soft rush of wings, Rainbow Dash landed at Corsica's side.

"Uhhh," she said, gaping at the secondary landscape that extended all around them, sparse shrubland gathered at the edges of the chasm around the train tracks. Quickly, though, she tore her attention back to Corsica.

"You okay?" Rainbow asked, looking her over. "Your cart's like, over here..."

"Dunno," Corsica whispered. "Prolly not, but nothing worse than a little fall. No magical... ow."

The others started gathering around the hole in the sky as well, peering down through the illusory terrain attached to the train to glimpse the world below. "Oh my," Fluttershy murmured. "Corsica, are you okay?"

Nice that they were focusing on her, but weren't there bigger things to talk about, here...?

"Uhh," Rainbow repeated. "We probably should get you back to town. But I kinda want to explore down here... We're not leaving for Ironridge literally tonight, right?"

Corsica stared at the world around her. From the angle she had landed at, she couldn't see what was back in the direction of Snowport, or much of the nearby terrain, either. And she was all but certain she had just injured herself again.

Exploring sounded fantastic, but no amount of stubbornness could deny her situation, and it was better that someone got to look around than no one at all. "Good idea," she breathed, relenting. "Keep an eye out for anywhere Maple would have gone if she got down here. And I'm gonna need a lift."

Between Rarity's telekinesis and Rainbow helping out, Corsica was slowly lifted out through the hole in the sky. Passing through the crack in the illusory terrain gave the kind of discontinuous sensation she had been expecting during the train ride out here; the moment she was past them, she couldn't quite remember how the jagged edges of reality looked when she had been staring at them head-on. But the others recovered her roller as well - now broken from the fall - and soon she was aboard the train again, carefully braced on a bench, Fluttershy checking her over for fresh injuries.

"I don't know what I should be making of this," Wheelcakes warned, standing awkwardly out of the way. "As far as I'm concerned, I'm just the engineer, and you all made a hole in the ground...?"

"Well, darling," Rarity explained, "I'd hazard a guess that whatever we saw down there was the real, objective state of the terrain, and whatever we see up here is the part that changes to hide how far we've really gone... I think. As an artist, I want to view this as an optical illusion that's simply more physical than usual, but we'd need Twilight if we want to describe what's actually going on."

"Here's a question," Applejack said. "What are we hoping to find down there? Ain't nothing wrong with being curious for curiosity's sake, mind. And Rainbow, I know you were saying something about searching for a lead on Starlight's mom. But even if you go poking around and somehow find a fifteen-year-old letter from her laying out where she's going next, do you have time to do something about it? I was under the impression this Ironridge business is pretty urgent."

Rainbow bit her lip. "Yeah, I know, but-"

Pinkie Pie rapped on her shoulder and pointed a hoof out the window. "Not to interfere with your choice about what to do next, but I kinda sorta think your choice is kinda sorta being interfered with."

Rainbow looked, then blanched.

"What?" Corsica asked, unable to see out the windows from her bench. "Something coming out of the hole?"

Applejack looked too. "Nope. Hole's gone."

Rainbow groaned.

"Did it disappear the moment none of us had an eye on it?" Rarity postulated with a frown. "I know I turned my back for a moment to focus on Corsica..."

"I didn't see anything," Fluttershy volunteered.

Neither, apparently, had anyone else.

"So, uh..." Rainbow turned to Corsica. "I'm guessing you're really not feeling up to doing whatever you just did back there again, huh?"

"I barely even know what I did," Corsica grunted. "Aside from digging a hole. But if that was all it took, wouldn't this have happened before?"

Rainbow Dash rubbed the back of her neck. "I mean, this whole Maple hypothesis is that it has happened before..."

"Do any of you mind if I take us back to Snowport?" Wheelcakes cut in. "I'm still feeling uneasy out here, and we've got an injured passenger. Plus, you mentioned bringing your other friend into the loop."

"Might as well," Applejack told her. "We can at least see how the return journey stacks up to the one that got us out here."

"Hold up," Rainbow said. "While you do that, I'm gonna just sit out in the field where the hole used to be. Try to leave me behind. I flew all the way to get here in the first place, so it's not like I can't get back to Snowport on my own. Might as well see what happens, right?"

"Good luck out there," Rarity agreed, sending her off with a nod.

The ponies all returned to their stations, sans Fluttershy, who stayed with Corsica. The train felt hesitant to start, somehow, not picking up speed nearly as fast as Corsica felt like it should... but it was barely a few minutes until they were back in Snowport nevertheless, much more quickly than they had taken on the journey out.

"Still not feeling better, huh?" Wheelcakes asked Corsica as everyone else disembarked, sans Fluttershy. "Think I need to leave the train here while a medic comes to check up on you?"

"That would be good," Fluttershy agreed for her. "I'm sorry to take so much of your time tonight..."

It did sound good. Corsica was exhausted: not the paranormal soul-crushing exhaustion of being drained by her special talent, but too many days of running around had fully caught up with her, and now it felt like her skeleton had gone on strike and her body needed all its energy not to turn into a puddle of meat.

She should have listened to her doctors and stayed on bed rest until the chance of re-injury was gone. Now, she had no choice.

---

"Back again, are you?" asked a wide-faced dragon doctor who looked like an upright lizard. "Can't say I'm surprised. Kids these days..." He tapped a clipboard, standing over Corsica in a familiar hospital bed. "You do know what going easy on yourself while you recover means, yes?"

"Apparently not," Corsica grumbled, some sort of painkiller taking the edge off her situation, though she could still barely move. "What's the prognosis, broken spleen?"

The doctor sighed. "Three cracked ribs, a sprained hip and you're up to your ears in bruising. You will recover, and it won't even take that long, but only if you can be kind to yourself and not play extreme sports the moment I discharge you. I want you out of bed for no more than an hour each day at least for a week, and then we can look at getting you a physical therapy program to rebuild your strength in a way that won't just re-injure you. Take this seriously, and you could be back to living your normal life in a month or so."

"Wish it could take one night instead," Corsica said, exercising the one thing she could now do without consequences. Predictably, nothing happened.

"With that attitude, it'll take a lot longer," the doctor said, giving her a stop-increasing-my-workload glare. "Since it's getting late, I'll keep you here for the night, and tomorrow I can see about discharging you after I give your friends a proper lecture about proper outpatient care. Being friends with a princess might let you skirt legal rules, but healing bones follow their own-"

A knock sounded at the door.

"May I get it?" Fluttershy asked, the only one of Twilight's friends to have stuck with Corsica all the way here.

The doctor rolled his eyes. "I suppose this means I get to give my lecture tonight instead of tomorrow..."

Fluttershy opened the door. In walked Twilight, Starlight, Seigetsu and Princess Luna.

"At ease, my good doctor," Seigetsu said, noting the doctor's expression. "Well," she continued, turning to Corsica. "You've been busy."

"Twilight!" Fluttershy brightened.

"How did you get back here again?" Twilight asked, giving Corsica a concerned frown. "We're all ready to make the repairs to the Immortal Dream, but Princess Luna mentioned it would be better if you were here for it, and Seigetsu tracked you down in here?"

"Fell off a cliff again." Corsica rebuffed the look with a feeble, cheeky grin. "Have you not talked to anyone else? We had an eventful time."

Starlight sighed. "What did you do...?"

Fluttershy glanced at the doctor. "Maybe we shouldn't talk about it in public..."

"Not. So. Fast," the doctor declared, squaring his skinny shoulders and staring down the newcomers. "Princesses, Special Inquisitor, I respect your domains and your jurisdictions, but my jurisdiction extends to this hospital room and ensuring this patient doesn't become a bigger patient tomorrow. Whatever repairs you're trying to take her to work on or secret business I must not be present to discuss, can it wait until I've had one more moment to see my job through?"

Seigetsu raised an eyebrow at Corsica. "What have you done to prompt this?"

"Fallen off a cliff," Corsica repeated. "I told you. Twice."

Princess Luna bowed. "Do not let us interfere with your work, Doctor Mercurius. Perhaps I ought to wait in the hallway instead."

Twilight gave the doctor an expectant look.

Doctor Mercurius sighed, then fixed her with a pointed stare. "Bed rest. One week. On her hooves, roller or no, for not more than one hour per day. Then we can talk about getting her strength back. As a government official, I assume you are responsible enough to enforce those conditions for my patient. Also, welfare only covered the first roller, so someone is paying out of pocket if she wants a new one that isn't broken."

Twilight raised an eyebrow at Corsica. "Do you realize how recently I couldn't convince you not to stay in bed for a week?"

Corsica returned the look. "Do you realize how embarrassing it is for me to remember that?"

Something pensive died on Twilight's lips. "Right. I'll do everything I can to keep her to those instructions," she promised, then turned again to Corsica. "And if you want to come with us to Ironridge, I hope you'll make that easy for me. But let's discuss this after we fix the ship."

"Hey," Starlight volunteered, lifting a hoof and flashing her horn and encasing the hoof in a solid block of conjured crystal. "If we had to move her around, would an immobile full-body cast be a decent way?"

Corsica blinked, catching her meaning. "There's no way that's comfortable."

Doctor Mercurius gave her a skeptical look as well. "Would that not interfere with rib cage movement while breathing?"

Starlight shrugged. "Somehow, it doesn't. You don't even need to breathe if it covers your face."

"Then I suppose it would be fine," the doctor agreed. "Get a new roller from the front desk. I have another patient to check in on, one who actually doesn't deserve to be here..."

---

Getting around on a roller had been undignified, but it had been cool, too. Getting floated along inside a chunk of crystal like a balloon towed by a filly was just embarrassing. And it wasn't even comfortable to compensate.

"...And Rainbow Dash stayed behind to investigate," Fluttershy finished, recounting what had happened on the train quietly enough that bystanders couldn't easily hear her - not that there were any who didn't give a wide berth when they saw two alicorns and a Special Inquisitor coming through. "I don't know if she's back yet."

Twilight frowned in thought. "There's certainly some kind of spatial distortion at play; we knew that much before this." She turned to Luna. "Princess, is this something you know about? And is there a reason I shouldn't know about it? You're being pretty quiet."

"Apologies," Luna said. "My thoughts are on the things I have witnessed in your airship's engine room. The trains belong to my sister and her domain."

"You have to know how they work, though, right?" Starlight asked, glancing up at the taller mare.

"Prior to my banishment, the only ways to travel the breadth of Equestria consumed months of time," Luna explained, lowering her voice. "I experimented with the working of the trains long enough to find a way to bypass their restrictions so that I could make use of them, but I have scarce had time to adapt to this new age and take stock of my own duties and interests, much less question actions my sister took in the direct wake of our feud."

She shook her head. "That is not to say I have no thoughts as to the matter. I have merely been too busy to dedicate more than a cursory amount of time to unraveling why my sister chose to design the system as she did."

Twilight tilted her head. "You can't just ask her?"

Luna immediately bit her lip.

"It didn't go over well?" Twilight asked. "Is this related to bad blood from the Nightmare Moon incident?"

"If you have a compelling reason to know her motives, you would be better off asking her yourself, Twilight Sparkle," Luna said, her voice stern. Softening, she added, "If it is only a matter of curiosity as to their working, I can explain some of the methodology behind the system's mechanics."

Twilight met her eyes. "Is looking for hints about where Starlight's mother could have gone a compelling reason?"

"You are referring to Maple," Seigetsu noted. "Equestria as it stands is a system made up of towns and cities and the rails that connect them. It is not impossible for creatures to find their way outside of the system. Your methods, in fact, were unnecessarily forceful to the point where I can't even claim to understand how they succeeded. In truth, all one need do is leave a populated area on foot, unaccompanied by any trains. It is possible that she could simply have wandered into the wilderness. But for the trains to fail her, she would have to know the scale of distance she was attempting to surmount, and would surely find it implausible."

Starlight shook her head. "I started my journey all those years ago by running away into a mountain range everyone thought was the edge of the world. Maple knew me. Whether she would find it plausible or not, she would certainly assume that this was the kind of thing I would do, and she came here looking for me."

"If that is the case," Seigetsu said, "then she very well may have attempted to travel to another Equestrian city on hoof."

"Equestria's true lands are vast," Luna added. "Even having free reign of the continent for a thousand years, my sister and I did not come close to seeing all that it had to offer. And not for lack of trying. With neither flight nor a powered vehicle, reaching another settlement beyond this one would take years even for a seasoned caravan."

"How far out from the city does Snowport manage?" Twilight asked. "In terms of real space, not what the trains can cover."

"The city has a modest agricultural radius," Seigetsu explained. "The dragons have expanded a fair bit to the north, and much of the south and west is claimed by the monsters of Freedom Town, who work the orchards and fields. As most dragons harbor little desire to interact with monsters, they are far more familiar with the settlement's outer areas than most of my people. Beyond those fields, about half of which are close enough to be worked by day, there is a perimeter maintained by the castle's scouts, as large as we can spare the soldiers for, to provide some manner of warning in case Snowport should be invaded. And past that, the land swiftly fades to uncharted wilderness."

Twilight frowned. "So barely a day's walk away, it's completely uncharted? You haven't even explored your own backyard?"

"As Her Majesty said," Seigetsu replied, "most of Equestria's physical land exists in this state. A thousand years ago, before the trains were created and before the Crystal Empire disappeared, things in this particular region were different, so we do have some maps dating back to that time. And cartographers or adventurers attempt a survey every hundred years or so, though the most recent one is nearly seventy years out of date. And when those are attempted, it is up to the undertakers where the survey should go and what should be its limits."

Twilight's frown grew incredulous. "Is nobody curious about the world around them at all?"

"I think you underestimate just how vast this world is," Seigetsu said.

"As I said," Luna agreed. "My sister and I spent a thousand years attempting to map our realm, and it was too great to accomplish even within that span of time. Through the enlistment of explorers and agencies within our government, we were able to trace out a rough shape for the continent and place the locations of its boundaries and major geographic features. But ponykind would need to number a thousandfold more than it does today for that knowledge to even become relevant. Should you ever view our world from the surface of the moon, you will understand."

Seigetsu sighed. "Lest you mistake me, this is not a state of affairs I find wholly convenient. I am an inquisitor, not a cartographer, but I have made an effort myself to travel beyond those boundaries and ensure Abyssinia is not planning something just beyond our sight. But no matter how large our city grows, there will always be a limit to how far from it we can maintain a current survey of."

"You could start another city," Twilight offered. "Have some of the residents here branch out and plant a new one a day's travel away. Then trade information and let them expand how far you can see."

Seigetsu shook her head. "And then couldn't you say the same about that city as you currently do of us? There would always be a frontier. Moreover, we lack the people for such an endeavor, constrained both by our birthrate and the need for soldiers for the war. All of this is to say nothing about Equestria's opinion on the flow of information across a distance."

Princess Luna nodded, her mane shimmering in the newly-fallen night air. "The phenomenon you suggest is also what has already been occurring ever since Equestria's founding, Twilight Sparkle," she added. "Ponyville itself was planted by the Apple clan within mortal memory. Can you say for certain how far from Ponyville you could explore, independent of established roads or vehicles, and be confident of what you would find?"

Twilight blinked. "I guess you've got a point, then. So, I guess what you're saying is that even if Maple did decide to ignore the trains and leave on hoof, we'd be combing such a big area that it would be impossible to find her."

"Not impossible," Starlight corrected with a grimace. "You're forgetting how my power works. Just... impossible to hit a barrier we couldn't overcome."

Twilight glanced at her. "Starlight?"

"I wish I could find her," Starlight sighed, squeezing her eyes shut. "But Gazelle might have been right. We can't afford to get distracted from the north. I... I'm ready to face it, if I need to. Or at least ready to make myself be ready. Whatever happened to her, it's less likely that every single day will make a difference than it is for everyone in Ironridge. I appreciate everyone digging into this for me, but we should just go."

Twilight's ears fell in worry. "Starlight, I know how much effort it's taking for you to say that, and that you'd rather avoid all of this. I'm just, well... I know it's progress, but I feel like you're using one thing you don't want to do to avoid facing up to another."

Starlight shook her head. "Maple will still be wherever she is when I go looking for her, Twilight. That's how it always works. You'll see."

The conversation drifted off into uneasy silence. Personally, Corsica wanted to hear more about the weird bug-Celestia things that were apparently the trains' true forms, or what the premonition flux was for, or why the one they passed had been shooting a giant laser into the ground. Could any good scientist live with not knowing more?

Apparently, Twilight and Starlight and Fluttershy could. Everyone seemed more concerned with how this discovery could relate to finding Starlight's mother. Which, to be fair, was Corsica's reason for investigating the trains in the first place. But now that she saw it from this angle, everyone down below worrying about their friends as she floated along silently in a crystal, it became more and more apparent that this had been less of a reason than an excuse.

What she had really wanted was a direction to point herself in, now that she was reunited with her desire to do things.

---

"Careful," Twilight said as they moved towards the Immortal Dream, which was riding conspicuously lower in the water than it had before. "We've got you-know-who parked invisibly on the deck so we don't freak out any locals. Try not to bump your snoot on anything you can't see."

"I noticed, darling," Rarity remarked dryly, rubbing her muzzle for emphasis. She was among the sizable posse that had come out to greet them as they approached the ship, everyone sans Rainbow Dash now present, and had just finished confirming that Fluttershy actually told Twilight and the others everything they needed to know.

Applejack nodded along. "So you got the old thing working well enough, then?"

"More or less," Starlight explained. "Aegis listens to Twilight's commands now, though we couldn't figure out how to get her to stop listening to mine. We can move her around, use the invisibility, give orders in person or by remote... It's good enough for what we need to fix the ship."

"Hold on a moment," Pinkie cut in. "Is it a she, or is she an it? I'm confuzzled."

Seigetsu nodded. "The Aegis is traditionally regarded as feminine, as per our scriptures. But the writing makes it unclear whether this was the gender of her body, or merely of her soul. And there are not many contemporary analogues for soulless metal bodies that are nonetheless capable of speech."

Twilight frowned at Corsica. "Wasn't there that one with you, when we first met...?"

"You mean Braen?" Corsica asked, realizing that she was in fact much more comfortable when she wasn't speaking.

"Yeah, her..." Twilight nodded.

"That one was an interesting case," Seigetsu agreed. "Though from my own observation, your Braen was possessed of a soul - in a mechanically attached fashion, like a primitive version of the interface the Aegis uses to connect with her pilot."

Rarity wiped her brow. "It's quite something to think about technology created by ponies being comparable to primitive forms of that which went into a god, I must say."

Princess Luna shook her head. "The science that created the Aegis might be incomprehensible to society's current standards, but it was a science like any other."

"So, you think you've got what it takes to get the ship running again?" Applejack asked, steering the conversation back on track.

"Right..." Starlight took a deep breath. "Here's a quick beginner-level summary of what we're going to do. The ship's engine is a crucible and cyclic amplifier for harmonic energy. Currently, it's full of premonition flux that's tied to a disembodied cutie mark. Premonition flux is a type of harmonic energy that, for reasons, is traveling backwards through time. That means that when we perceive it going away, it'll actually be getting created, which will consume an inefficiently large amount of energy and probably create a shock wave that will be very dangerous in addition to draining whatever it uses as a source."

She turned to the ostensibly empty space on the deck. "Aegis is the body of a god, and more importantly it's been used to fight another god, both of whom had powers that we now know have become the foundations of this world, and the Elements of Harmony. Part of how Aegis functions is that it has a harmony extractor built into its tail, which is essentially the same thing as this ship's engine. While the engine here was initially designed to use ponies' innate harmony as harmonic life forms to fly, Aegis was designed to use the divine harmony of a god. Somehow. You see how they're the same?"

Pinkie Pie bounced in place. "So you're trying to take the storm clouds down there..." She pointed through the deck floor at the engine room. "And put them in there instead?" She pointed at nothing, where Aegis probably was hidden.

Starlight nodded. "Aegis is much higher spec than this ship, and has even interfaced with the engine before, during my adventures as a foal. If we try to reboot the engine with Aegis right here, hovering inside the formation area for the harmony comet, they should be able to form a connection. And since Aegis is currently powered by both me and Twilight, that stored energy should be more than sufficient to create the premonition flux, which from our perspectives would erase it."

"And this takes care of the explosion?" Applejack asked, wary.

At that, Twilight took over. "I've been studying Aegis's design, and it's extremely likely that the reason the harmony extractor is positioned externally, on her tail, is because it's also a defensive system. In other words, she can power herself from external energy as well as from her pilot, such as the kinds of attacks her opponent god might have been launching. I'm more sure of how this works with harmonic energy than plain old kinetic energy, but since any potential shock wave would be generated by the formation of the premonition flux in the first place, I think Aegis should just be able to devour it harmlessly."

"And if she can't," Starlight added, "projecting a shield to protect us and the ship will be much easier on the deck than inside the engine room."

"Huh," Pinkie remarked. "So it'll be like when you put too much hot sauce on a burrito and it makes you run around really fast."

Everyone looked sideways at her.

"What?" She blinked. "Never had that happen before?"

"Anyways." Twilight shook her head. "Myself, Starlight and Princess Luna will remain on the deck to project a shield in case something does go wrong, though I think we've done enough research and testing to ensure that's a formality at this point - Princess Luna actually helped us create a weaker premonition flux to test with on the way here. Seigetsu, would you go to the engine room and follow our directions on that end?"

"Very well," Seigetsu agreed. "I pray your plan succeeds."

Corsica found herself released and set down as Starlight readied her magic for a bigger task, and Fluttershy was thoughtful enough to come over and ensure she was stable. Several more instructions were passed around as Starlight and the alicorns coordinated, and Corsica began to feel a stiff crackle in the air, like static along her coat.

"It should be ready," Twilight declared. "On three, then! One... two...!"

Her countdown completed, and the harmony comet exploded to life with a violent surge of thunderclouds, midnight blue and crackling with black lightning. In the middle of the stormy comet was a distortion, a hole shaped like the Aegis with wings spread... and then a hexagonal shield flared to life, humming with power and arcing across the deck in an upward parabola, ready to direct any explosions harmlessly into the sky.

Aegis's outline grew brighter at the tail for a moment, and the comet drained away in a swirl, like water leaving a sink that had just been unplugged. And then, with a slight puff of smoke, it was over, the Immortal Dream rocking gently in the sea.

"...Well," Twilight said, tentatively letting the shield drop after a minute of no further action. "I'd say that worked about as perfectly as possible. Have we got our ship back?"

Starlight teleported, and a moment later teleported back. "Out of power, but nothing looks damaged. I could have her back in the air in fifteen minutes, tops."

Pinkie let out a cheer, and Applejack and Rarity joined in. Even Fluttershy added a soft "Yay!"

"You three put on a bigger light show than Aegis did," Corsica remarked, almost disappointed that there hadn't been more. "It's not even going to shoot a giant exhaust laser or something, to re-balance its energy?"

Twilight shook her head. "That's something we actually haven't tested yet. I figured maybe it wouldn't be the best idea to practice giant lasers in a populated area, though that would definitely be a thing to try out before we actually need it..."

"There is still the matter that I am curious about," Princess Luna declared, her voice cutting across the celebration. Her horn glowed with a strange gray aura, and something floated down from the space where the premonition flux had disappeared.

Corsica recognized it with a chill: her special talent.

Luna stepped closer to her, floating the glyph up close, where she could see it. Freed from the storm clouds that had been trailing it, it was now just an innocent mass of lines and geometry... An innocent-looking mass that held the power to grant her deepest wishes, and destroy her life in the process.

"I don't want it," Corsica said flatly. "It was yours originally, right? The Artifice of Hope, or something? I don't even want to be tempted by that kind of power. I'm not a goddess. I know what it did to my mind."

Princess Luna frowned. "Is that so?" She turned to examine the disembodied talent. "I was hoping you could shed light on that, but apparently not. Because this is not my Artifice of Hope."

"What?" Corsica blinked, then blinked harder. "Literally everyone in the north told me that's what this was. Even you told me, before we left to fly to Our Town! What do you mean-"

She was interrupted by a rush of air as Rainbow Dash arrived, speeding to a stop with a windblown mane and a saddlebag hanging from her side. "Did I seriously just miss the light show?" she complained, looking around and waving to Luna. "Oh, hey, Princess. So anyway, I found a city..."

Comments

[Boopers]

You are such an evil person, Czar!
Not only did you make Corsica fall off a cliff twice.
Now we also get two cliffhangers in one chapter!
;)

And oh wow, I absolutely did not expect what just happened.
That's intriguing.

[Venlinelle]

The conversation drifted off into uneasy silence. Personally, Corsica wanted to hear more about the weird bug-Celestia things that were apparently the trains' true forms, or what the premonition flux was for, or why the one they passed had been shooting a giant laser into the ground. Could any good scientist live with not knowing more?

You know, I feel similarly, funnily enough.

That’s quite the double cliffhanger! I wonder why there’s a second Artifice? Presumably you couldn’t use an Artifice to make one, so it didn’t come from Garsheeva, which narrows it to Celestia or Starlight—or Discord, or Unnrus-Kaeljos, or another similarly powerful entity. My money is on the latter option; Corsica got it while unconscious, and I believe right after Halcyon’s talk with the light spirit. I’ve assumed for a while he interfered to give it to her; maybe he just made it wholecloth?

The city, who knows. Mystery extradimensional (or actually specifically not that) field trip!

[PropsValroa]

I think we have a clue to where Maple is now. But, I was hoping the ponies could have reacted to the weird bug creatures that were the trains - but the bit at the end about the Artifice is interesting.

[Okie Brony]

I, too, was also hoping to learn more about the spider-trains.

Princess Luna frowned. "Is that so?" She turned to examine the disembodied talent. "I was hoping you could shed light on that, but apparently not. Because this is not my Artifice of Hope."

I genuinely laughed at the mental image of Corsica encased in crystal, floating around like a balloon.

I loved Dash's casual reaction to Luna at the end. I'm giving a 25% chance that Maple is in the town that Dash found, and better than 50% that she was.