"Remember to pack all the notebooks, Rainbow! We don't want to miss everything we see when we get there!"

Rainbow Dash groaned a little, lifting a bundle of books reluctantly, taking care not to trip with every flit of her wings.
"You don't need this much, Twilight," she complained to her friend, who was still running through her checklist.

"...and of course, we need a camera! I know Lyra has a lot of those. Rainbow, remind me to ask her about that!"

The unicorn stopped in her tracks, looking at her friend perplexedly.
"What, Rainbow? Can't you see I'm in the middle of-"

A soft knock broke into their stirring argument, with Twilight turning towards the door and Rainbow shaking her signature mane discontentedly.
"Coming!" she shouted, cantering over the exceptional mess of books on the floor.

"Pinkie!" she exclaimed, looking at Ponyville's party pony in surprise.
"What are you doing here?"

Rainbow looked as Twilight invited Pinkie in. Her mane was still poofy, although her face said otherwise. Peewee and Owlowiscious ruffled their feathers, almost as if they were uneasy with Pinkie's presence.

An awkward silence filled the room, making all three of them glance around uneasily.

Pinkie settled herself on a small stool, her face turning somber as she spoke:
"I heard both of you are going somewhere."

The unicorn responded with a nod, trying not to look at her friend's bandaged body.
"It's about helping Rarity," she told her, slowly packing a few pens.

"You see, Twilight wants to open this box..." Rainbow looked at her friend callously.

Pinkie giggled a little. "Really? That's it?"
Twilight just nodded, giving a cold stare at the chuckling pegasus.

"So..." her pink friend continued, "I was wondering if I could come. To help, you know."

"No-" Twilight held herself back, exchanging glances with her pegasus friend.
"Um... you see Pinkie, you're still injured."

The pony in question nodded instantly.
"There's something... you should know about me, Twilight."

"The..." Pinkie trembled, her voice slightly faltering as she cringed slightly.
"The pony... the one that..."

Her mane started to flatten, the pink smile fading. Peewee fluttered his wings, letting out a nervous squawk.
Twilight strode towards her friend cautiously, beckoning Rainbow Dash to come over.

Pinkie Pie seemed to smile, although her friends could still see her despair.
"Mirror Mare," she held her breath, stifling a light sob.

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The sickening smell of ash and scorched wood made her nose tingle.
Rarity's eyes slowly opened, letting out a quavering moan. The small spring of blood dried on her forehead, running down to her neck. She struggled to stand, trying to regain her composure.

Dried tears formed a branching path down her soot-covered face. She staggered outside, shaking her tangled mane disheveledly.
"Spike..."
She closed her eyes unwillingly, trying to repress Spike out of her mind.

The bright light shone on her face, signaling the start of the third day of the siege. Rarity walked outside, her head hanging low with grief.
The granite pavement burned with the bombarded structures, succumbing into the roaring flames around them. Guns were fired overhead, ringing in all of their ears painfully along with every scream and shout emitted in the avenue. Ponies everywhere were rushing around frantically, all of their eyes filled with sheer terror.

"Why would I even care," she mumbled to herself, devoid of any emotion. She stepped forward, barely avoiding a bullet that grazed her tail.
"He's gone anyway."

Rarity stepped forward, turning her back against the world as bullets whizzed and ricocheted around her. Her heart sank dejectedly in depression as she tried to force her tears out.

Crimson galloped from the crowd, with Winter gunning down a few pursuers.
"Rarity!"

Silence filled the unicorn's head, a small tear finally managed to leak out from her eye.
"Forget about it," she muttered, stifling a sob. "It's done."

"Rarity!" Crimson shouted again, jerking and shaking the unicorn. Rarity's head still hung low, glancing away from Crimson loathsomely in resentment.
"Rarity, come on!" Winter shouted, rapidly pulling the triggers on the pair of revolvers in each hoof.
"We don't have much time!"

The unicorn hurled her head back, her pupils turning into slits as a flame of rage began to burn inside her.
"Can't a mare have some time ALONE?!"

"Get away from me!" Rarity shouted, harshly pushing Crimson away.
"Both of you!"

"I had enough! You heard me! ENOUGH!" she screamed tearfully at the both of them.
"of everything that happened here! Everything!"

Winter looked at Rarity, slightly taken aback.
"You think I want this to happen. Rarity?" he shouted.

Winter flinched, the words stinging in his heart. His eyes seemed to water, looking at Rarity in pure shock.
"You think," he shouted with a tremble, "that only your friends are getting hurt right now?"

"What about me?" Winter continued, "What about Summer? Autumn?"
He threw his gun to the side, helping Crimson stand up as he glared unwillingly at the mare.

She just scoffed unrelentingly.
"And why?! Why were we even here in the first place?!"

Winter stopped in his tracks, a little stunned as Rarity pointed her hoof at the stallion.

"Autumn's right, Winter!" she screamed accusingly, "This was ALL YOUR FAULT!"

"So it's my fault now?!" he shouted back, waving the gun threateningly at the unicorn.
"You think I wanted this to happen, Rarity?!"

"I made that mistake once, Rarity." Winter quivered slightly, pausing for a breath.
"And I don't want to make the same mistake twice."

"It's my fault she's gone!" he yelled frustratingly. "It's my fault Harmony's gone..."
Winter stomped away, leaving Rarity and Crimson behind, both slightly bewildered by his behavior.

"Come on," Crimson reach out his hoof pleadingly.
"Spike will be alright, Rarity. He'll be alright."

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The pegasus stopped rummaging through Twilight's knapsack, giving her an annoyed groan.
"But I'm hungry..." she whined like a filly.

Pinkie giggled, prancing down the pathway along the meadow.
"Don't worry, Dashie! I brought a lot of cake!"

Pinkie opened her knapsack, letting an avalanche of cakes out. She giggled as Rainbow rushed into the mound of cakes, gobbling one at a time.
"Reminds me of Windigo Mountain!" she squeaked cheerfully. "All the cream puff there really, really, and I mean really looked like..."
The pink pony licked her lips, staring into the sky dreamily.
"...vanilla ice cream!"

Twilight chuckled at her friend.
"You know? You really seem to know a lot about Equestria."

"Know what?" Pinkie turned around, a bunch of crumbs scattered around her mouth.

Her friend couldn't help but laugh at the sight. Pinkie gathered all the muffins, humming a small tune as she swept the desserts back into her bag.
"You sure they're safe to eat?" Twilight asked.

Rainbow's tummy rumbled and gurgled as she let out a small burp.
"Hey, Pinkie!" she cried out to the pink pony. "Save some for me!"

The three friends continued down the path, admiring the scenery and the gentle breeze swiftly blowing through their manes. Gummy gripped tightly on Pinkie's mane, being oblivious to the environment around him.
"You sure Gummy should tag along, Pinkie?" Twilight asked hesitantly.

"Of course he should!" Pinkie responded with a joyful grin. "He always, as in 'never leave my side' always follows me on every journey I go!"

Pinkie grinned enthusiastically. "You know! When I left the boring rock farm, I went exploring! It was dangerous, and of course fun!"
Rainbow looked in amazement at her friend. "So, you're like Daring Do?"

Twilight chuckled while Rainbow rolled her eyes in frustration. Pinkie just responded with a giggle.
"But I never went outside of Equestria, of course. Everypony knows how dangerous those places are!"

"I heard stories though," the pink pony pondered, her mind starting to whir as the three of them stopped in their tracks.
"They said ponies eat other ponies out there!"

"I'm sure they're not true!!" Pinkie giggled. "You should've seen the look on your face, Twilight!"
The unicorn chuckled with embarrassment. "I hope they're not true."

"Then I found Gummy!" she squealed, raising the toothless alligator in her hooves. The reptile responded with a harmless croak.

Pinkie laughed loudly, brushing a tear off her eye.
"That will be cool! But still... no!"

The pink pony smiled with glee as she watched her two friends' puzzled expressions.
"I give up," Rainbow finally said. Twilight nodded as well.

Both ponies widened their eyes in surprise.
"Given?" Twilight asked in anticipation, "By whom?"

"Funny thing is, I don't know!"
Pinkie sighed a little. "I was sleeping in this small hotel, with a small room, and suddenly I found this small parcel in front of my small door! And I was like: 'That's strange. Who would send this small box for me? It could be Princess Celestia, or maybe this pony I met while walking into town, or the other pony that gave me a cherry-sprinkled cupcake, or-"

"Of course! Anyway, Gummy was inside! There was also a small piece of paper! It asked me to take care of Gummy. At that time, he was just a purple egg, so you know how much fun I had guessing what was inside."
Pinkie giggled as Gummy chomped her mane again. "When he hatched, I got guess number 428 right!"

"But the strange thing is," Pinkie continued, "he was given on my birthday!"
The pink pony pranced in a circle around her friends, who looked with delight at her liveliness.

Twilight pondered while Rainbow tried to calm the bouncing pony.
"It's really cool how birthdays are!"

"Are you sure it was just a stranger? Could it just be a visiting relative?" Twilight asked.

"No way!" Pinkie responded gruffly, shaking her mane with a harrumph.
"My family always, and I mean always forget about my birthday!"

Twilight sighed in defeat, continuing down the dirt road.
The three of them stopped short, facing a threatening array of branches. Small screeches erupted from the inside as a swarm of bats flew out to the sky above.

"Oh come on!" Pinkie gave her a smile. "We've been there like, what, seven, eight times already!"
She pranced in happily, leaving her two friends behind as they looked at her.

"You know," Rainbow quietly whispered into Twilight's ear, the both of them quickly following their bouncing friend into the forest.
"She didn't really explain how that Mirror Mare pony and her are in this."

Twilight nodded in suspicion.
"She doesn't want us to know about it. But I'm sure Persimmon's box and everything happening at Pendant Lakes had something to do with it."

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"It's not deep, luckily for you."
Octavia sighed with relief as Doctor Brineheart placed his stethoscope down. He dabbed a round ball of cotton gently on her wound, making the mare wince slightly in pain.

"I won't," Octavia smiled at the doctor. "Cross my heart, hope to fly. Stick a cupcake in my eye."

"Oh, it's just a promise." the musician explained with a chuckle. "A Pinkie Promise, to be exact."

"Oh?" the doctor seemed to smile as he applied a small bandage around Octavia's body.
The grey pony bit her lip, trying to endure the pain.

"Well," Octavia continued, tightly gripping on a small rag while the doctor finished his work.
"it's an unbreakable promise. One of my friends back in Ponyville sort of invented it."

"A case where words speak louder than actions, I presume." Doctor Brineheart laughed heartily. Octavia laughed along, her face slowly growing with concern as she looked at a small, framed door perched behind the rocks.

A small voice wailed from somewhere behind her, making her turn to see a mare comforting her child.
"Would we be safe here?" Octavia asked the doctor, looking at the crystalline cavern around them.

"Winter made sure no crazed pony will enter here."
The doctor jerked the bandage with his teeth, tearing the end off. "Done!"

"Just doing my job, Miss Octavia." Doctor Brineheart bowed modestly.
"Mind if I ask, about that promise..."

"It is quite interesting, if I must say so myself." the doctor grinned slightly.
"Reminds me of something similar."

He cleared his throat as Octavia settled on a nearby rock, patiently waiting as the doctor began to speak:

"Never shall loose the words on thy tongue, the song of secrets must be kept unsung;
For thy pony that disrupted be forever in hate, the guilt he lies within the shadow of fate."

"Old Palgiot truce thing," Doctor Brineheart chuckled slightly.
"Wasn't in use since Sicarius disbanded."

"Ancient organisation." the doctor explained. "A group of assasins that once worked for the Palgiot Patriarch, bounded by his laws and ways."
"The organisation that the Patriarchs used to wipe out their enemies."

"Times were harsh those days." Doctor Brineheart settled onto the rocky floor, his face turning sober.
"I was a little younger than you back then. It was a troubling time indeed."

"I can't imagine." Octavia replied. She shook her hooves free of dust, peering again at the door beyond them.

"Crimson Lux. Of the esteemed de Cavalle family."
The doctor gave her a smirk as the grey pony turned slightly red.

"He's... different, you know?" Octavia managed to speak.
"From his family. The way he acted and the way they acted. He's like the black sheep of the family."

"Well, that's a good thing." Doctor Brineheart replied, stretching his hooves as he stood up with a sigh.
"Change is a natural and constant part of our life. It's either you follow, or you'll get left behind."

"Yeah, I mean look at this town!" Doctor Brineheart exclaimed, gesturing at the refugees around them.
Octavia scanned through the crowd. The expression of horror was plastered on all of their faces. Families huddled closely together around their oil lamps in their blankets, their eyes burning with fatigue.
"Someday, Pendant Lakes would fade. It would become nothing but a mere memory for these people. The people that called this place home."

"That day would come soon, Miss." Doctor Brineheart told her, almost as if he was warning her.
"The day when Pendant Lakes would never exist on the map."

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The sound of chirps honeyed her ears. She let out a small sigh.
The evening was peaceful, sweet.

Rarity buckled her hind legs, following Crimson with her head hung low. She rubbed her eye-shadow away, already bleached slightly with tears.
"We're almost there, Rarity." the singer assured her while searching through the broken array of tombstones.

The golden sky made the graveyard looked more like a haven. A reverie of stones. Marble fragments were still scattered on the grass, unmoved since the cascade of explosions during Summer's funeral.
Summer. The Patriarch's brother somehow got stuck in her head as she passed by his tombstone. Rarity never forgot his brashness, his attitude, his certain kindness to strangers.

"Crimson," she suddenly said, prompting the stallion to turn around.
"If Spring had a Cutie Mark, did Summer had one too?"

Crimson stood for awhile, trying to recall, before shaking his head admittedly.
"I really have no idea,"

Rarity tried to look back, the dead pony's face and his glaring stare, the way he shadily lurked around the castle.
"What about the rest of them? Autumn and Winter himself?"

"Well, Winter's was something called visual asymmetric-reality syndrome, or VARS for short."

"Doctor Brineheart told me about that." Crimson said with a shrug.
"About how he can distort reality by changing the perception of an idea or image in his mind."

Rarity looked skeptically at Crimson, letting her mind process through his words.
"So he can, like, make an elephant magically appear out of thin air?"

"Anything is possible, Rarity."
Winter trotted to her side, giving her a calm smile.
"It's just on how much you believe in. The gift of faith and manifestation. To work wonders before the eyes of many."

"Her gift is the gift of tranquility. The ability to create a halcyon atmosphere, to appease and pacify even the most outraged of beasts. To mitigate their undying wrath."
Winter beamed at the last few sentences with pride at her sister, but his smile quickly faltered.
"Something has been bothering her lately. Something discomforting."

Rarity looked at the Patriarch, who was seemingly deep in thought as they continued through the graveyard.

"Summer's was similar to Autumn, but in a more demanding manner. The gift of integrity."
Winter sighed, turning to his brother's headstone, his face darkening slightly.
"To secure the stability, to erase the corruption of a whole nation. To bring justice and authority. But now that he's dead..."

The Patriarch turned his head towards Palgiot Palace, smoke still pouring from the shattered windows, the glinting glass tauntingly reminding him of the author of the chaos around him.
"There isn't any more justice. There isn't any more stability."

Rarity followed his gaze upwards, watching as the smoke blotted out the evening sun, turning the sky a hazy red.
"And with that," Winter's voice boomed in his scowl, "no harmony."

"No harmony..."
The two words seemed to echo in Rarity's mind. What would Equestria be without harmony? Would the Princesses rule in peace? Would there be war?

Winter stopped in his tracks, turning away from the path as he started treading onto the grass
"Both of you go first. I need some time... alone." he told the other two ponies.

As Winter watched the both of them walk down the path, he worked his way around the tombstone, careful not to trip on any stray fragments of marble. The grass crunched below his feet, sometimes joined by a few snap of twigs.

Reaching a particular tombstone, he knelt down, placing his battered hooves together, his heart aching in pain.
A small tear escaped from its gathering friends in his eyes as he whispered silently in prayer.

The tombstone was carved neatly, decorated naturally at the sides with moss and small, twining stems of purple orchids. A silver-plated laurel crown perched on a miniature stone obelisk, standing tall despite its embarrassing height.
Winter shivered, letting his tears run down, staining the granite tile below his knee as the words on the tombstone flashed across his mind.

Here Lies, In Eternal Peace
The Bearer of The Silver Crown
Always True to Her Name

Harmony Peridot

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"I'm trying to, Gypsum. You know I'm not a musical pony like you, right? Always dancing around in that frilly skirt of yours."

"You're too gentle, Autumn. Sometimes you gotta live big! Ring the tambourine for liberty! The freedom of your life!

"Sometimes, duty calls, Autumn. But duty isn't your overseer! It's just a job to do!"

Autumn strode down what was suppose to be Starlet Avenue, completely absorbed in her past as she hummed the tune for her cousin's song.

"Weep not, little gypsy. You are not alone.
For we are the same in blood and in bond..."

"You gotta see the world, Autumn! There's so much in the world you can explore! Think about it! The stories you'll hear, the ponies you'll meet. It's a once in a lifetime experience!"

Gypsum's voice echoed painfully in Autumn's head. She held back a tear as the song echoed in her head again.
Her inspiration, her motivation.

"And the world will then see, you little gypsy~,
Sing of your crusading blues;
Of comedy and tragedy, your L'amour de ma vie,
These words never more true."

A small moan made Autumn froze. She whirled around, her ears perking as she tried to find the source of the voice.
She crept towards a mountain of debris with caution, trying to peer inside.

She tugged and jerked at the hand, the sharp claws sinking in her hooves. A small growl escaped from her mouth as she pulled a figure free, tumbling away as the debris collapsed before her.

"It's okay now," Autumn calmed the figure sprawled on the ground, his scales seemed to be bruised badly with a small drop of blood leaking out of his lips.
"What's your name?"

Of Laurels & Lace

by WritingSpirit

Crusading Blues