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// Fancypants' Last Dance 
// Story: A Thing of Ours 
// by psimon 
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	The air purred with tension and potential. The landscape was barren, sand-crested dunes going on in rolling waves from horizon to horizon. Amidst it all was a fractal, draconic figure menacingly imposing its silhouette against the sun-bleached, cloudless sky. Their own automaton, an awkward sort of thing trundling about on four legs, was equally geometric though it bore some passing resemblance to a pony in its current configuration.
Fancypants tried to understand the situation as best he could. He was dreaming, but it was a shared dream of some kind. It felt more real and more vivid than dreams usually do. Could it be some form of magic? He thought back to last night, and to two day's ago, and recalled the dialogs. There was some kind of a wishing well, and he along with Prince Blueblood and a bunch of schoolchildren and chaperons from Ponyville had made some kind of a deal. Could this be the game they had to play for their wishes? There was a palpable sense of danger that betrayed the truth to any benign facade to the whole affair. Here it was, at last, though. For all the confusion, all the undefined risks, and all the unknowns, it might not turn out that bad. If this were a dream, he would just wake up, but if it were more than that, he would have it, finally... he found his thoughts drifting with the fluidity of disconnected consciousness. A past conversation filtered through the confusion to his waking ears.
“You're a good one, Fancypants. You've even been able to make me look decent.”
“Come come, Blueblood, there's a difference between self-deferential and self-detrimental. You needn't be so hard on yourself; really, all you did was make some incorrect guesses. No one can fault anyone for that. I'm sure she'll be back in Canterlot and in your presence, not throwing cake at you, before you know it.”
“It is my duty to find and provide guidance, the compass for our future... it happens to be my cutie mark, you know. That means I shouldn't make such careless errors.”
“Ah, but mine, you know, is a series of crowns. Aiding the royal family is my special talent, and where would I be if you gave me no opportunities to do so, hmm?”
It was good enough a point to ease both their minds. Fancypants wasn't royalty, no, but he made a habit of being indispensable to them. Likewise, Prince Blueblood was indeed being trained to provide the kind of foresight other more famous members of the royal family were lauded for, but he himself was just as imperfect as any other pony. Maybe a little more imperfect, for all the poor socialization his cloistered upbringing afforded him; when you only knew one type of person and they all fell head over hooves to demonstrate their loyalty, you don't really find yourself expecting anything different from strangers. Fancypants was one of those rare ponies who didn't judge him for it, and furthermore, he was a unique pony in that he didn't let that stop them from being able to carry on a conversation. He was a forgiving one, even to someone like Prince Blueblood who couldn't find the courage to ask right-out for forgiveness.
“Even if I'm supposed to be the one who charts our course, you always seem to have a knack for seeing things clearly,” Prince Blueblood complimented – something he found made him nervous, as it was not something that he found people reacted calmly to in the past. They tended to fawn.
“Seeing things clearly? Not really; it's more about poise. Even when you're confused, scared, troubled... someone, somewhere, might be watching you. It's important to maintain your grace, or else you're going to just pass those bad things on to them.”
“I see what you mean. Is that why you were so cool around that pink mare?”
“Hardly! I was 'cool' around here because I find her attractive, oh prescient one!”
“Oh … I see. That should work out well for you,” Prince Blueblood attempted to sound like an authority on the subject.
Why he thought of that conversation, of the mare, he wasn't sure. As for Prince Blueblood and the matter of poise under pressure, however, there was little mystery. He was confused and scared half-to-death – he could feel his heart squeezing as if there were suddenly much more of him to keep alive – and barely attentive enough to the situation to notice a gout of flame the dark orange color of pumpkins leaping towards the group from the direction of the dragon-like beast, obscured now by its fiery breath.
“Egads!” He declared, as the flame impacted their own automaton hard and spun it about with brute force. The group spun in kind, the world turning around with a swirling, lingering sort of inertia that lends itself to vertigo and being underwater.
“Something like that won't do as much damage as your daydreaming will,” the parasprite from earlier cooed, floating down from some unseen perch onto the scene. “Focus, or it's gaaaaame over,” it giggled malevolently.
The air around the front right shoulder of their own device, which bore the brunt of the flames, distorted with heat radiating invisibly off the unharmed exterior of the thing, some kind of material which had to be metal or very well-worked stone or... something else. Fancypants found his thoughts wandered and seemed to find information easier, making it all the more distracting to let his mind wander.
“I'm aware of that much,” he said, maintaining his balance even as it was becoming more difficult to do so. “But what I do not know is whatever we are to do about this.”
“Use your limited little mind! … To fight, I mean. You're the pilot, haven't you even noticed?” The parasprite did a little loop in the air as it spoke, which was not something expected of a parasprite.
“It responds to my thoughts...?”
The parasprite couldn't exactly nod, but it did rotate a little in ascent. “What else do you think it responds to?! There isn't much to yours, I know, but yes, you control it with your mind, and you had better hurry up and get controlling it before that one gets any closer,” in a tone that was at once angry, disappointed, and bored.
Fancypants did not need to be told twice. With a trundling gallop, the horse-like beast under his command advanced over the sands and flew towards the dragon, in a statuesque pose not unlike some immortalized in Canterlot's gardens, and knocked it over, then stamped at its chest in a most methodical manner which by some standards could almost be called primal, if not distasteful.
Scales were sheared away and fell with heavy impact on the sand, casting little dustclouds of fine particulate out from underneath them. Beneath the scales, there was no blood, no unsightly gore, but instead, stone and metal and strands, and then, beneath that, a sphere-shaped sort of oddly-discolored haziness. The core. Fancypants wasted no time in willing it trampled, and so trampled it was.
There came a stillness to the air as Fancypants finally realized he was not alone. The rest of the ponies – Prince Blueblood, who he knew as a well-meaning neophyte, the Ponyville contingent, they all were standing in something of a circle, watching the scene with diverse shades of amazement, anxiety, and just a little fear in their faces. He opened his mouth to speak, to address them, hoping to rejoice in the victory.
But no words came. His chest wrenched, heavily, and he gasped an exhalation as if he had been dealt a heavy blow. He felt his veins pulse, a tight beating of his heart sending his humor all astir in a cacophony of life and heat and surprise.
“Kehehehe, it's starting, it's starting! The quickening!”
Fancypants steeled himself and asked the little parasprite even as he felt his vision going a little fuzzy around the edges, “..What?” 
“You're still plugged in; you should be able to figure it out! Oh, the first time is always the most entertaining. The expressions....” the little parasprite cackled to itself, spinning about in a high orbit around Fancypants, but looking towards all the other ponies.
He took the advice, immediately wary, and immediately weary. Closing his eyes and stilling his thoughts, he became acutely aware of something sliding out of him towards the great beast itself. He wasn't sure, exactly, what was happening... but the consequences came upon him like an anvil does the ground when dropped. He was dying.
“No. Not.... like this, not where they will see,” he looked towards the fillies, thinking quietly to himself. There were parts of Equestria which were not given to the young. Truths of this world not lied about, but not paraded forth, either. They did not need to learn from this, from what he felt was happening, from death. It just was not how things happened. It was not normal, not harmonious, and scarcely elegant at all.
“It's too late, it's too late! You played your round, your coin's already at the bottom of the well!”
“I still draw air, do I not, you... thing, you?” Fancypants' eyes scanned about in desperation, in search of some way out, some solution, some idea.
“Ohhhh,” the parasprite hovered in close, its expression plain and only but an inch away from Fancypants' eyes, “I can feel your thoughts, you know. I'm part of this thing, too. I know what you're going to try to do... it won't work, you know. I won't let it let you. This borrowed power will not bow to your primitive little wishes, ha! Ha, ha, ha! You may as well give up now and spare yourself the trouble! I won't give you permission to do it! You're not taking their little screams away from me!”
The solution came to him like a bolt of lightning. Fancypants did not glare, though sweat dotted his brow and he found his balance difficult to maintain, “You must be new to Equestria, parasprite. I am Fancypants, the most important pony in Canterlot, a stallion of the first order and a unicorn at that. I...” he quickly threw out a hoof, maintaining balance and keeping himself from falling, “I do not NEED your permission.” His eyes were, but for the smallest moment, full of ire and spite.
“Wha--” The little impish creature was stopped short and driven back by what happened next.
With a magical warmth, Fancypants' horn emitted a field of light which expanded outward from him and encompassed the circle of ponies standing therein. The parasprite – if it even was a parasprite – was driven back with a hiss at the thing. Fancypants cleared his throat and spoke with the last of his breath and bravado in his sing-song refined tone, “Blueblood! I'm afraid this problem passes to you... take care of them. Tell her... she's beautiful,” he found his last thoughts drifting to the mare from his earlier recollection.
The world went white for everypony, and dawn found almost all of them soon after.