Since Twilight is finally about to get involved in the actual plot, she's granted a flashback, of the first time she met/got foalsat by Cadance. Despite her fears at all of her family (seemingly) leaving her alone, the filly is soon disarmed by Cadance's friendliness, and they come up with their "Sunshine, sunshine" secret rump shake on the spot. Cute, and sad in light of the present-day events, but not much else.
Present-day Twilight and her friends, along with Shining Armor and Celestia, visit the psychiatric hospital ward where the amnesiac Cadance is being held. Rainbow demands why the doctors haven't at least told Cadance her own name, but they had- not only has her memory been wiped through tonight, she can't retain any new memories relating to identity or history. Celestia recognizes the effect of the Tears of Nightmare Moon. Twilight goes in and tries the memory spell which rescued her friends from Discording, and indeed Cadance's memories of Twilight resurface, but after a moment the light goes out again:
For a moment, Twilight was too shocked, too stunned, too defeated to speak. Her mouth hung open until it must have looked as though she, not Cadance, was the one with the problem. Finally she shook her head, "No, no you don't. I'm sorry."
"That's a pity. I bet we could have been great friends."
Twilight smiled sadly, "Yeah. Maybe in another life. I'm sorry, but I should go."
She turned away, the door opening for her. As she made to leave Cadance said, "Do you know where I am?"
Twilight hesitated, "No. I'm afraid I've no idea where you are."
As the following dawn breaks, with everypony still at the hospital, Twilight sulks for a bit until Fluttershy comes by. Turns out her mother apparently died of a lengthy illness when she was young, so the hospital experience is nothing new for her- and neither is feeling helpless and not wanting to let anypony share your pain. Rainbow Dash had helped her through it despite it all (namely Flutters snapping and lashing out), and Twilight promises not to forget that her friends are here for her.
Shining Armor heads out and running into Lancer, attempts to put on a stiff upper lip. Lancer, having been the one to teach him to do that, will have none of it and convinces his Shining to let it all out in one private, not-very-stallionly cry before pulling himself together and joining the other guard captains to go over the situation. While professional enough, since Police Are Useless, they end up barking up the wrong tree as to when/how the poison was administered, but for once we see their full logic process and it at least seems to make sense; who, after all, would be stealthy and gutsy enough to poison a Princess's cup or plate? (The commander of the city guard, remembering one case where a stallion murdered his brother to marry his sister-in-law, suggests it might have been poured into Cadance's ear as she slept.) Still, they resolve to roust the city for those selling the poison, and Lancer offers to help despite this having nothing to do with his charge Princess Twilight- just in case it actually does.
Dawn (briefly seen disguised as an orderly and having had soap inadvertently kicked in her face by an apoplectic Rainbow) returns home, much less jubilantly than she had expected. Turns out that, as much as she wants Twilight ruined, actually seeing the collateral damage (from the emptiness in Cadance's eyes to the pain in Celestia's) gives her second thoughts about going through with it all. Razor vows to stick with her no matter what she chooses but thinks it's a bit late to call things off now, Cherry feels it's not too late at all, and Candy...
"This isn't a play, Candy," Cherry Blossom said. "In a play or a story it doesn't matter who dies, whose lives get ruined. Once the curtain comes down the actors take their costumes off and go home. But these are real ponies who are getting hurt, and Dawn could get hurt too. You can't just tell her to carry on because you want to see how it all ends."
"Play, story, real," Candy giggled. "You really think there's any difference to us, Cherry? All the world's a stage and all the ponies on it merely players. We're all just playing roles to amuse an audience somewhere. Life is a comedy of errors and that's fine, I love comedy but sometimes you want to elevate the material a little and that means you have to work at it. And you can't just chicken out at the start of Act Two! You promised a revenge tragedy and you have to deliver on that."
"Why?" Cherry demanded.
"Because we don't get a lot of choices in life, but we do get to choose what part we play," Candy replied. "Dawn, if you go through with this all the way then you can be Princess Silver: complex, compelling, immortal. Or you can turn back now and be Mal from Sixth Night, striding from the hall yelling 'I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you' and then never being heard from again. A clown, pathetic. I thought you'd had enough of being seen that way?"
"Stop it!" Cherry shouted. "Just stop. You talk about this like it's a game, like it's a story that you want to have a dramatic ending well you're wrong! The world isn't a stage and ponies aren't actors. That wasn't coloured water that we gave to Cadance, the spells aren't harmless flashes of light, the dead aren't coming back for their bow. What we're doing is real and it's wrong, Dawny it's wrong.
"I should have said something before, but I didn't think you'd listen; but if you're thinking the same way then you know it too. What are we doing this for, Breaking Dawn? Is hurting people really going to make you happy?"
Dawn bowed her head, "There's only one thing that will make me happy. If Twilight Sparkle appeared before me now, and knelt and asked my forgiveness. I could give it to her. I could let her keep her crown, and her palace and everything else, so long as she gave me back the most precious thing she took: the love Princess Celestia. If I had that, and she did not, I could live with her being a princess. Tartarus, I could live in a cardboard box on the street so long as Princess Celestia would smile at me like she used to, when she loved me instead of her," Dawn scowled. "But that will never happen unless I pass her final test and defeat my rival. And I can't defeat her because I'm not strong enough to do what is necessary," Dawn made a growl with the back of her throat. "So what am I supposed to do, Cherry? Should I live in misery all my days so that other ponies can be happy?"
...eh. In for a bit, in for a bushel.
And Dawn agrees.
Two things to remember: this story still had a Comedy tag through the posting of this chapter, and it was things reaching this level of Oh, Crap that made me end up putting off the rest of the story for a year just so I wouldn't rush it.
By the time the next chapter went up, the Comedy was replaced by Tragedy... and it was the next chapter ratcheting up the Oh, Crap even more that inspired this liveblog.
