She turned to step outside, and nearly stepped right into Pinkie Pie.

“Hi Rarity!” she said. “I have a problem!”

“Oh! Uh—” Rarity cocked her head, her anger slipping away. “What is it, darling?”

Pinkie turned, pointing a hoof at her backwards-twitching tail. “Twitchy tail! It’s getting worse!”

Rarity took a reflexive step back into the confines of the station, stealing a nervous glance up. “Well that’s quite alarming, dear, but I don’t think that’s really a big—”

“No, you don’t understand!” Pinkie grabbed her, dragging her out into the noontime sunlight. She leaned in close to Rarity’s ear, whispering loud enough for anypony around to hear. “I think it might be a doozy!”

Rarity frowned, pulling away. “Well do you know what kind, Pinkie?” She looked to the mare’s tail and saw that yes, it was twitching. Violently, at that—and in a pattern she had never seen it make before.

Whitehorn cleared his throat, following the two outside. “I’m sorry, what’s happening? Her tail is twitching and that means… what, exactly?”

Rarity turned to answer him, only for the words to die in her throat as she felt a peculiar sensation pass through her horn. It wasn’t something she had exactly felt before, but it reminded her almost of the feel of stepping outside a warm house in the middle of a clear winter morning, or of biting into a meal only to find it cold in the middle. She was suddenly aware that there had been some magic existing in the background, so faint that she hadn’t even noticed it until it just now was peeled away.

She frowned. Her heartbeat had sped up. There was a sudden urge to flee, and yet she knew not where to or what from. “Did you feel that, dears?”

A chorus of screams echoed up from the nearest river. Rarity’s heart skipped a beat as she galloped to the closest railing, looking down into the valley below to see the refugee camp had been thrown into a sudden panic. Ponies were running everywhere, stumbling desperately up the neighboring hillsides where Fellis citizens were watching curiously. Through it all, one particular shriek came clearly to her ears.

“No! Celestia, no! Not again!”

Rarity took a few slow steps, turning to her friends behind her. “Do you think we should head for—”

A deep rumble shook up Rarity’s hooves, and she was struck with the inexplicable sensation of falling.