//------------------------------// // Part V - Chapter 2: A Castle In The Heavens // Story: Alicornae: The Legend of Starlit Sky // by PortalJumper //------------------------------// Alicornae: The Legend of Starlit Sky Part V - Chapter 2: A Castle In The Heavens * * * The constant rush of wind whipping past Starlit's ears was starting to grate on her nerves after the fifth hour of consecutive flight that day, not to mention that her hooves were practically frozen solid from the chill of the sky. It came as a welcome relief when she felt her stomach leap up into her throat, a sure sign that Spike was starting to descend. Four days she and Spike had been flying, heading in a generally northwestern direction. Their progress had only been slowed by Starlit's need to get off of Spike to stretch and sleep, and in the intervals where they weren't traveling they didn't speak much. Starlit was honestly thankful for Spike's taciturn nature; it helped her keep the important things in mind. "WHEN WE LAND, I WOULD SPEAK WITH YOU," Spike said, his rumbling voice more reduced in its grandiosity. A large clearing in the forest line below them gave Spike ample room to alight, his landing deceptively quiet given his size. Starlit gently levitated herself off of Spike's back, shaking out her stiff legs as she descended. "What's wrong?" Starlit asked as she refastened her saddlebags. "You haven't exactly been chatty over this trip." "THIS IS WHERE OUR PATHS MUST DIVERGE, STARLIT SKY," Spike answered. "TO THE WEST, ONLY A DAY'S JOURNEY BY HOOF, YOU WILL COME TO THE BASE OF A GREAT MOUNTAIN. UNLESS IT HAS FALLEN PREY TO THE RAVAGES OF TIME THERE WILL BE A ROAD THAT ASCENDS AROUND THE MOUNTAIN, WHICH WILL LEAD TO THE GATE OF ANTIQUITIES. BEYOND THE GATE YOU MUST FOLLOW THE MAIN ROAD FOR A DAY AND A NIGHT TO REACH THE PALACE, WHERE I AM SURE TWILIGHT WAITS FOR YOU." "What?" Starlit countered. "I thought you were going to fly me into the city, what changed?" "I KNOW THESE CIRCUMSTANCES ARE NOT IDEAL, BUT THIS IS HOW IT MUST BE. IF I AM SEEN THEN TWILIGHT SPARKLE WILL ACCELERATE HER PLANS, WHATEVER THEY MAY BE. YOU REQUIRE THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE." Starlit stared up at Spike, his head pointed off to the east and his eyes pointedly not making contact with Starlit's own. Gently she laid a hoof on Spike's side, a tiny dot of blue against the sea of iridescent purple. "That's not all, is it? There's something you're not telling me." A low, throaty chuckle echoed inside of Starlit's mind, a mirthless laugh if ever she had heard one. "WE DRAGONS ARE POOR DECEIVERS, INDEED," Spike said, flicking an eye down towards her. "I HAVE TO RETURN TO MY ANCESTRAL HOMELAND, THE REASON WHY I WOULD PREFER NOT TO BURDEN YOU WITH." "Spike, you can talk to me if you need to. This might be the last time you can if you're going home." Starlit saw Spike's eye flick away, almost ashamed, before shutting with that slow, slick grinding sound. After a moment the eye opened again, and from her position on the ground Starlit could barely see a few of the sparks in his pupil fading away. "YOUR CARE FOR ME IS APPRECIATED, BUT UNNECESSARY. YOU HAVE FAR GREATER THINGS TO DEVOTE YOUR EMOTIONS TO THAN ONE OLD DRAKE WHO'S BEEN AWAY FROM HOME FOR FAR TOO LONG." Starlit looked down, a small catch forming in her throat. As much as she didn't want him to go, she knew that this was how it was always going to have to shake out. Spike's prescience had told her as much, but it didn't mean she had to make the break a clean one. "Spike, could you come down here?" Starlit asked, gesturing with her front hoof. Slowly the dragon's neck curled around until he was level with Starlit, one of his massive green eyes staring back at her. With as wide of a grip as she could get, Starlit hugged the spot next to Spike's eye, letting the warmth of his scales bleed into her for one last time. "Thank you, Spike, for everything. You may not be the little dragon that I first met at the start of all of this anymore, but I wouldn't be here without you. I promise I'll make Twilight pay for all the time she stole from you." Unexpectedly, Starlit felt a small pair of arms grasp around her leg, and Starlit looked down with a start to see a familiar, shimmering, purple and green baby dragon returning her hug. "Thank you, too," Spike said, exchanging a tearful smile with Starlit before pulling away into thin threads of light that disappeared into the cavernous expanse of his true body's pupil. Spike slowly raised his head back up, flexing his wings out as he did and sending a heavy gust of wind rustling through the trees around them. "OF ALL THE PONIES IN EQUESTRIA THAT TWILIGHT SPARKLE COULD'VE CHOSEN TO LIE TO AND MANIPULATE, IT BRINGS ME PEACE TO KNOW SHE MADE THE MISTAKE OF PICKING YOU. FARE THEE WELL, STARLIT SKY, AND GO FORTH WITH THE FIRE OF A DRAGON IN YOUR HEART." With another gale-force gust of wind that threatened to blow Starlit completely off of her hooves, Spike rocketed up into the sky, shaking the trees and even blowing a couple of them over as he ascended. Starlit sat and watched the great dragon leave, and just as he crested through the clouds a great gout of green fire spilled forth from his mighty maw, a thin scar of emerald light across the graying sky. With a slow, calming breath and wiping the tears from her eyes, Starlit turned to face the west, the sun at her back and Canterlot ahead. * * * The night dropped across the world faster than Starlit had expected it to, although whether it was due to the encroaching winter or her own distracted mind she couldn't say. It took her about an hour after sundown to find an open enough spot to sleep in, although she wouldn't hazard a fire just in case there were wild animals or worse in the trees. Sidling up against a flat rock, her bedroll up behind her head and her sword and sheathe wrapped up in her hooves, Starlit slowly nodded off. It wasn't very comfortable, and she wasn't looking forward to popping every bone in her back in the morning, but it would work for a few hours sleep. The forest was filled with sounds, more than she'd ever heard in the Everfree; the calls of night-dwelling birds, the chittering and scampering of small animals making their way up and down the trees, even the chirping of insects. The symphony of sounds was soothing, and for a long while Starlit felt the weight of the world lift off of her shoulders, replaced by a blanket of chill night air and the sounds of life going on. The snap of a twig broke the harmonious sounds of the night, a discordant crack that set Starlit's ears up and alert. A long pause, and then a second snap, this one closer, and Starlit was awake, on her hooves, and pulling her sword out in a flash of magic. Slowly she turned about on the spot, taking in each and every detail that she could to try and find the source of the noise. Another snapping twig drew her attention to her right, where just at the edge of the clearing was the unmistakeable, shambling form of a thestral. As it slowly stepped into the light Starlit could see its desiccated, featherless wings hanging limply next to its stark, withered rib cage, and a low, rattling moan left its peeled back lips. With a flick of her horn Starlit hurled her sword at its forehead, burying the blade up to the hilt with a squelch of blood and a crack of bone. The beast shuddered, fell limp with its head held aloft by the sword, and then hit the ground with a heavy thud as Starlit withdrew the sword. Starlit couldn't take the time to breathe out a sigh of relief as another snap of branches through the brush made her twirl about face, coming face to face with another thestral. This one she dispatched quickly with a blow to the neck that severed its head from its shoulders, only to find that a trio of the beasts were coming up from behind. "She won't let me have a moments peace, will she?" Starlit groused to herself as she got to work. A pair of the thestrals she dispatched with a single stab through the chest followed by an upward slash that sliced through the skull of the other, before wheeling the sword around her own head and driving through the temple of the final thestral. And yet there were more thestrals, seemingly a horde of them coming from the forest. Starlit started to back away quickly, weighing whether to run or not, before tripping over the corpse of the first thestral and landing on her back. With a heavy thwack Starlit cracked her head against a tree root, letting out a cry of pain as her sword clattered to the ground. Starlit curled into herself, ready to spring her legs out and beat the monsters away when they descended on her, but the all too familiar sensation of stamping hooves against her flesh never came. Cracking one eye open, Starlit indeed saw the hoard surrounding her, but they all simply moved past and ignored her as if she wasn't there and hadn't just killed five of them. "What is this?" Starlit thought, her heart thundering in her chest as the thestrals delicately stepped over and around her. "A peace offering," a very familiar voice answered, one that Starlit could feel emanating from the black stone hanging around her neck. As the last of the hoard moved past, the black crystal, that shard of the Heart of Fate, slipped its leather strap and floated out in front of Starlit. Starlit rose to her hooves as ambient light was drawn down from the moon and stars overhead, coalescing and shifting until, much like Spike's shimmering avatar, Twilight Sparkle stood before Starlit. She was dressed more finely than Starlit had ever seen her before, with an ornate breastplate, barding, and horseshoes made of gold and fine purple stones, brought together with a five-pointed, angular crown, each point topped with a shimmering, faceted black stone not too dissimilar to Starlit's own. "You've gotten better with your swordplay, judging by the bodies," Twilight said, examining the thestral corpses that littered the clearing. "Come down here yourself and you might get a demonstration," Starlit spat back. "You seem upset with me, Starlit Sky, and justifiably so, I'd wager." "If you don't answer my questions to my satisfaction then I will flay you and use your pelt as a rug when I find you," Starlit answered, holding her bloodied sword aloft. "Hypothesis proven, it would seem," Twilight replied as she eyed the sword. "I'd say you're smart enough not to try and take a swing at me now, and seeing as I can't maintain this spell at this distance for too long then let's at least lay some ground work. You ask me a question, which I will answer as honestly as I can, and the I'll ask you a question, which I hope you'll answer as honestly as you can." "And why, exactly, should I put any stock into anything you have to tell me?" Starlit growled. "You've done nothing but lie to me for a month, and your lies have gotten me killed so often that they're all running together in my mind. You can't possibly think you are in the right, to trick and deceive me for this long." "I don't think I'm in the right, Starlit, I know I am," Twilight countered, "and what you call lies I simply call compartmentalization. There were certain things you didn't need to know to achieve the ends I needed you to achieve, so I only told you what you needed to hear. Now I have no more reason to do this; even with you on the warpath towards me there's nothing you can do to stop what is happening now, so I don't have any more reason to hide the facts from you." Starlit stared Twilight down, her brow furrowed and her jaw tense as she tried to read anything off of the Princess. To Twilight's credit, she seemed genuine in her self-assurance, but Starlit had been duped by that seeming innocence before. "Any question at all?" Starlit asked, keeping the sword aloft. "Any question, and I'll tell you if it isn't something I know the answer to," Twilight answered. "Why my family? Why did you trap them under that dome for a month? Why didn't you do what you said you would and keep them suspended in time?" "That's technically three questions, but I'll humor you since two of them have more or less the same answer," Twilight began. "As for why I picked your family in general, I needed a pony who was outside of Chrysalis's purview, a breed of pony that are growing rarer and rarer these days what with interbreeding with the tainted and the sheer gap of time. As for why I didn't suspend them in time, that's because nopony can do that, not even one as powerful as I." "Horseshit, you can't," Starlit reflexively spat back. "Profanities aside, it is the truth," Twilight continued. "In all my years experimenting with the way magic works and the nature of the fabric of reality, I have never been able to halt or alter the flow of time." "But Chrysalis could, with her Heart of Fate," Starlit replied. "She governs over fate and time and all of that, and that's why you tried to take it from her." "Oh, somepony's been doing her homework!" Twilight retorted with a sly grin. "Either that or you had an expert source from the far north to fill in the gaps. Either way, I think it's time I asked my question, and then we go our separate ways for the time being. I expect we'll be meeting soon enough as it is, and I want to prepare a proper welcome for you." "Then talk," Starlit said, her sword still held aloft. "What do you expect to get out of this?" Twilight asked, cocking her head to the side. "You've done your part in all of this, as I'm sure Setting Sun is doing his part right now, so why? You have your family back, you don't have to be risking life and limb to track me down, and yet you decided to go on the hunt of your own volition. Why, precisely, do you care?" An odd wave of relief spread through Starlit's chest, and before she could stop herself she let out a short, nervous chuckle. She knew what type of pony she was dealing with now, and now that she knew she could plan around that fact. "I guess I'll humor you, since those three questions all have more or less the same answer," Starlit began, lowering her sword. She wiped the blood off of the blade with the hem of her traveling cloak and put it back into the sheathe a few feet away. "Being cheeky won't answer my question, Starlit Sky." "But it does make me feel better," Starlit countered. "As for the why of all of this, it's because you lied to me." "It can't be that simple," Twilight replied, a smile crossing her lips. "It really is, though. You lied to me about what I was doing; you told me that I would be saving Equestria, giving everypony a new chance at a happy and prosperous future after you and the other Princesses destroyed everything. That obviously isn't your intention, or else you wouldn't have lied to me about so many things. Things you didn't even have to lie about, like the anti-magic field in the Crystal Empire or what would happen to my family while I was gone." Twilight's smirk slowly dropped as Starlit spoke, and she could feel Twilight's air of confidence started to wane even though she wasn't physically present. "So, the way I have it figured, is that I'm doing what you told me I was going to be doing," Starlit continued as she approached the shimmering figure in front of her. "I'm going to save Equestria, I'm going to protect my family, and I'm going to fulfill the promise I made to you. And if it means that I have to kill you to do it then I'll do it, because I keep my word." "How very noble of you to do so," Twilight retorted, moving towards Starlit until they were but a foot apart, "but if you truly want what is best for Equestria, then you will go home and forget that we ever met. You have your happy ending, Starlit Sky; would you deny everypony else theirs, just to keep your word?" With an errant gust of wind, the shimmering form of Twilight Sparkle dissipated into the night, leaving Starlit alone with the thestral corpses. The only sounds she could hear were just the wind, the chirping of insects, and her own heartbeat in her ears. Starlit quickly packed up her bedroll, put her sword belt back on, reattached the black stone to its leather strap, and walked out into the forest; after what had just transpired she knew that any more sleep was out of the question, and she had a Princess to prove wrong. * * * Starlit could feel her steps grow sluggish as the sun rose behind her, casting the world in a pale blue that did nothing to help her sleep deprivation after Twilight's imposition last night. If there was one thing that the Princess of Magic could be counted on, it's that she seemed to be keeping her word; Starlit hadn't seen hide nor desiccated hair of a thestral since they passed her by last night. Starlit didn't expect this gift to hold for much longer though, despite whatever control Twilight seemed to hold over them; Starlit had the sneaking suspicion that Twilight wouldn't be too pleased that Starlit was continuing on towards Canterlot. A heavy gust of wind pull Starlit out of her own thoughts, and as she focused up she noticed that she wasn't walking through dirt and leaves any more. Below her hooves were stones, obviously worn down by years of erosion and decay, but their shapes were too uniform to have been naturally formed. She was on a road, and where there was a road there would be civilization. Another few minutes of walking, with successive gusts of wind that sent chills down her spine, the wall of trees broke out into a sight that Starlit never thought she'd ever see; before her, towering up into the skies and built into a cliff face that stretched from one horizon to the other, was a city, ascending in a zig-zagging pattern along the road she was currently on. At the ground level ahead there were many ruined buildings, some barely more than piles of rubble while others were simply missing walls and roofs. The skill of the craftsmanship and architecture was a sight to behold, putting even Celestia's illusion of Sunspire to shame, which made its fall into decay all the more upsetting to see. As Starlit's eyes scanned up and down the city in the cliff, she could see, just near the top and just under the cloud layer, there was a massive building akin to Luna's palace in New Selene. Starlit couldn't make out any of its details, save for a brilliant beam of purple light that was emanating from it and into the sky beyond the clouds. "How did I miss this from Spike's back, this place is massive," Starlit muttered to herself. "This trek is going to easily take days." A clatter of stones to her left drew Starlit's attention, and she whipped into a ready stance with her sword floating before her. Slowly a thestral dragged itself out of one of the ruined buildings, a unicorn specifically. It eyed her immediately, a screeching hiss echoing out of its mouth and through the ruins around them that was almost immediately responded to with more and more screeches ascending up the road and into Canterlot itself. Another clattering of stones drew Starlit's eyes to the right, where a pegasus thestral fluttered over on desiccated wings pulsing with purple energy, and dead ahead was an earth pony thestral that had already begun a mad charge towards her. "And Twilight isn't going to make this trek an easy one," Starlit said, manifesting a shield of glimmering teal magic around herself and charging towards the thestral in front of her. * * * A faded, distant screech of a thestral echoed through the halls of the palace, and Twilight slowly opened her eyes as it reached her ears. Starlit Sky had arrived at the base of the mountain, as Twilight knew she would. A smile, rueful and mischievous, spread across Twilight's face. There was something that she could appreciate in Starlit's dogged determination, as misplaced as it was; it reminded her so much of herself all those centuries ago, when all of this had been set into motion. The willingness to see a plan through to its conclusion was a trait that she admired, and one that had drawn her to Starlit after her many years of observing the unicorn who was now laying a one-pony siege to the greatest city the world had ever known. With delicate steps Twilight descended off of her throne, now the only one left unoccupied in Canterlot's throne room save for Chrysalis's. The Changeling Queen would soon be returning to her, if Setting Sun was doing his part in this correctly, if not in body then certainly in spirit. Centuries of planning were all coming together, and it all hinged on a few key players still left in the game. "It's a shame that it all had to come down to this," Twilight mused to herself as she walked down the long hall towards the balcony that overlooked the castle city itself. "So much pain and bloodshed could've been avoided, if only you had seen fit to listen to reason." With a brief spark of her horn Twilight pulled her crown off, looking it over with a keen eye. The five perfectly angled triangular points, the glittering of the gold as it caught the first rays of the morning's light, and the five shards of the Heart of Fate that she had managed to keep hidden away from Chrysalis that shone even as their blackness threatened to absorb all the light around them. "So much effort, so much pain, for five tiny things," Twilight said. "A way to secure Equestria's ascendency forevermore, and I was the only pony ambitious enough to see it through to the end." She slowly levitated her crown back into place, nestled just behind her horn, and made her way back to the throne. Even as every piece was falling into place, Twilight couldn't help but feel a sense of melancholy weigh down her heart; even when everything came to plan, it would just be her again, seated at the top of the world. Loneliness was unbecoming of a Princess, soon to be a Queen. She needed subjects, ponies whose lives she could better, and that would take so very long to accomplish. "Then again, I suppose I'm not entirely alone, am I?" Twilight said towards the thrones. "I'll have you four to guide me, remind me of what an eternity of peace really costs." The three statues of Celestia, Luna, and Cadance, entombed in crystal and perched upon their thrones, said nothing in response. The only other sound in the chamber was the steady, low beat of the Crystal Heart, hovering above Twilight's own throne, and with each beat a pulse of magic was drawn out of her fellow alicorns. Twilight didn't know if they were in pain or not, but they should've known that this might be an eventuality if they decided to return. Twilight had made it perfectly clear the last time they had all gathered that they would become a part of the plan, by choice or by force. It's just a shame it had to be by force. * * *