The bed was old and the covers musty, but both were a welcome ward against the chill of the night. The cold that settled every evening made Fluttershy wish for day, but she knew that would only last until the baking heat made her long for night again. That very same chill was what made it so terribly unpleasant to be awoken in the middle of the night.
A thin sliver of light from the hallway grew as someone opened the door. Fluttershy slowly sat up, taking care to keep her wings pinned to her back and out of view. Next to her, Applejack stirred, the farmpony reaching for her hat before she even had her eyes open. Tadar slept on by the bedside where he lay, having offered them the bed proper.
“The hay’s going on?” A bleary-eyed Applejack asked. No sooner had she spoke than Shadowtop slipped inside, closing the door behind her. In the pre-dawn, she was barely a whisper in the darkness as she approached. Fluttershy shrank back against the pillows, and Applejack tensed up at her side—until a hard object landed on the foot-end.
“The book,” Shadowtop whispered. “He seems not to care about it any more, but I will not risk bringing you before him myself. That, you will have to figure out on your own.”
“How?” Fluttershy asked. “Don’t we get to see him?”
The little pause was the worst. The way Shadowtop waited before elaborating, averting her eyes, it all set Fluttershy’s every alarm blaring, the fear that had been almost surmountable in a soft bed with friends now nearby returning in full.
“He has given very specific orders not to see you ever again. I do not know why he is acting like this, but after I took you before him, he has been sullen and moody. He’s having the dungeons prepared, and I think he wants you gone. Add two and two together. Act quickly.”
“That’s it?” Applejack hissed. “We need to see the prince!”
“We do?” Fluttershy asked, not feeling very sure of exactly that.
“Think, sugar. We ain’t got a way out of this except by talking, do we? If we can’t see the prince and ask him why the hay he’s doing this, get a proper answer, we may as well start fighting’ now and take our chances!”
“Don’t,” the gazelle replied with a sigh. “Don’t even joke about that. I’ll take you in the morning, then, if you promise not to make a fuss.”
Applejack puffed out her cheeks and nodded. “That’ll do. Thank you kindly.”
“Don’t thank me. Just don’t fail at whatever you’re planning,” Shadowtop retorted, the gazelle making her retreat as silent as her arrival. Applejack wasted no time in slipping out from under the covers and making for the moonlight of the balcony, Fluttershy helpless to do anything but follow. It was different from the other times they’d been forced to rely on books or journals; Applejack barely took the time to put the book down before she was parting its covers, her movements hurried.
“You’re sure we need to see the prince?” Fluttershy asked. She received no reply. Applejack was squinting and tilting the book against the moonlight.
If Celestia and Luna wanted for them to come home, perhaps they were looking down at them, then. Fluttershy smiled at that, turning her face towards the silvery orb. It was comforting to pretend that Princess Luna was with them, even here. Far from home, yes, but at least they knew it was the same moon.
“Well, don’t this beat all,” Applejack murmured. Fluttershy tilted her head and leaned closer, trying to see what she saw, but Applejack couldn’t be reading this fast; the orange mare was leafing through the pages with an ungentle hoof, her brow creased until she finally gave a low sigh and pushed the book away.
The book was mainly written in a strangely familiar yet unreadable scrawl. The elegant glyphs looked a lot like what they had found in the books of the libraries in the lost lands, but the old Equestrian was not half as familiar as the translation written between the lines in common, modern script.
-creations to combat what I perceive as the true threat/problem (word can mean both); the windigoes. I have began researching ways to create constructs to combat these-
Fluttershy blinked. “Wait, this is—”
“One of Starswirl’s journals, translated. It’s just sayin’ things we already know. Nothing much new in here except what we learned when we actually were there ourselves.”
“I thought the prince already knew this,” Fluttershy whispered. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“Actually, it sort of does,” Applejack grumbled. “Think about it, sugar. People around here have cause to hate us ponies if they’re out to hold a grudge. At least, if they think we’re the cause of the windigoes. Don’t know if the prince is about to hold a grudge for something that happened a hundred generations ago, but the book here’s about everything, including the malices. They were our fault, no matter how you shake it, and they were let loose recently.”
“He feels we ponies are responsible for his daughter being lost,” Fluttershy said, voice thin.
“Makes as much sense as anything. What the book doesn’t tell us is who sent it, who told the prince. We were all alone down there,” Applejack replied, staring at the tome.
Fluttershy bit her lower lip as she leaned closer to inspect the book again. In the margins, to the sides, above and below what had to be a translation, notes were scribbled. One of ours, dated experiment. Harmony resonance?
“I’ve seen this writing before,” Fluttershy whispered, a chill worming its way down her back as she turned and walked back inside the room, muttering to herself. “Oh goodness.”
“You know who did this?” Applejack asked, fetching the mystery tome and trotting up to her side, but Fluttershy couldn’t think of what to say in reply. Mute, she walked up to their saddlebags and opened them one by one until she found a certain small book. Nosing open Brighthoof’s journal, the exact same style of writing greeted them.
“Well I’ll be,” Applejack muttered. “Have we been followed? Don’t like this at all. How did somepony get a hold of this? The book looks just like the ones in Starswirl’s study, or the ones in the Dreamspire.” Applejack leafed through the larger book as she spoke, a fine spray of dust eliciting a sneeze from her.
“And why is it translated?” Fluttershy asked. “He didn’t do it with any of the other books we found. He could read the language, so he didn’t need to translate it for himself.”
“If someone were in either of those two places before us, we would’ve seen the signs,” Applejack retorted with a hum.
Fluttershy swallowed, shaking her head as she turned her back to the impossible tome that now filled her with dread. “Can—can we go back to bed now?”
For the longest time, Fluttershy lay in the darkness staring at Applejack’s back, the farmpony’s form rising and falling with her steady breaths. It had taken a while to stop thinking about the journal and the mysterious book both, but all that did was bring her mind back to the present, to the threat of the palace dungeons.
Fluttershy had to trust Applejack. She had to believe that she had a plan. Perhaps the stoic earth mare would share her plan in full if Fluttershy asked, but it was almost better not to know, to wait and believe. She’d certainly seemed content with what she found in the book, even if its sender was a mystery.
Wasn’t that how it went? Keep the peace and wait?
The thought didn’t mesh. Where she’d before been content to think thus, it no longer fit. Her words to Applejack two nights before could well be a lie; she’d told her she wouldn’t tell Rainbow Dash, but it was impossible to say what she would or wouldn’t do if they got back to Ponyville. Her wings itched and her eyes drifted out past the balcony to the night sky. She couldn’t force the truth back inside the box and pretend it had never been spoken.
And she had to know they would be free, she needed to know she would have a chance. Even if she didn’t know what she’d do, she knew she couldn’t bear to lose the option to tell her. Somewhere out there, she knew Rainbow Dash was flying this very moment, up in the air looking for her. An invisible string tugged at her heart and wanted her home, and she couldn’t ever take another breath without being keenly aware of that connection. It was getting harder and harder to breathe, but with every breath, she felt more alive, too. Her heart started racing, and she couldn’t say exactly why. Her wings twitched and spread of their own accord.
“Applejack,” she whispered out of desperation, trying to find distraction, or at the very least some confirmation that she herself was awake and hadn’t slipped into a dream.
“Yup?” came the reply, calm as ever. The earth mare rolled over on her back, squinting in the darkness. “Weren’t sleeping. Trying to figure out something.”
“But, um, sorry for asking, but you do have a plan, right? For all the things we’ve talked about?” Fluttershy asked.
“I intend to walk up to the prince and tell him he’s a liar. Whether or not you’d call that a plan, that’s up to you,” Applejack replied before stifling a yawn.
“Oh,” was all Fluttershy managed, her heart sinking as she hung her head. Applejack didn’t seem to share her doubt, slowly sitting up. After a moment’s deliberation, the earth pony started to work her hooves through Fluttershy’s mane.
“Can’t sleep ‘cause there’s just one thing that won’t add up,” Applejack continued.
Fluttershy made an inquisitive noise. She wasn’t feeling very sleepy anymore anyways. Impending doom had that effect on her, sometimes.
“His daughter. They’re family, and everything that’s in my bones says he should care about her,” Applejack replied, still with the soft strokes along Fluttershy’s mane. “It doesn’t add up if he doesn’t care about her.”
“I’m sorry?” Fluttershy asked.
“They said there was no love lost between’em, prince Enjaryn and his daughter, whatever her name was—”
“Rynna,” Fluttershy murmured.
“Right, Rynna. These people’re so different,” she sighed.
Fluttershy nodded, making the movement as small as she could. Applejack’s tender ministrations felt so good, it would be a shame to interrupt. “What about the room?” she mused.
“Beg pardon?”
“The room opposite of ours,” Fluttershy replied. “I think it may have belonged to her.”
Applejack’s hooves stopped moving for a second. “Alright, I don’t follow. Why in the wide world do you think that?”
“Well, um, the palace is symmetrical. I noticed when we were walking through the halls, but every room looks just like the room opposite. We’re in a large and nice bedroom, so I guess the room on the other side of the hall is another bedroom. The palace isn’t that, um—I mean, I’m sure they’re doing their best, but—”
“It ain’t much of anything. Say it like it is. As far as palaces go, it’s more like my barn than Castle Canterlot,” Applejack commented. Fluttershy made a little noise at that, not wanting to agree in full.
“It’s not quite that bad, but rooms like these are probably reserved for important things. Or important people. That he put us in one means he doesn’t want to hate us, I think. These two are the only rooms we’ve seen where the doors are closed, but there was no guard in front of the other one.”
Applejack grinned. “Bless your attention to detail, sugarcube. You think the other bedroom was hers then?”
Fluttershy deflated a bit at the praise, sinking into the pillows in the darkness. For a brief moment, as happened every so often, she was home again.
“It’s nothing special,” she muttered. Resting on her bedroom desk, she knew a certain little bracelet waited. “I just, um. Sometimes, ponies—and perhaps other people too—they like to have keepsakes around. A secret little way to remember things, reminders.”
“Got that right,” Applejack agreed, letting go of Fluttershy’s mane. In the faint outline given by the moonlight, she raised her foreleg to nudge her hat.
“I didn’t mean—” Fluttershy tried, the words forming a lump in her throat. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to remind you.”
Applejack gave a low chuckle and leaned over to gather Fluttershy in a tight hug, the farmpony’s legs firmly wrapped around her neck as she nosed the top of her head and mussed up her mane.
“Stop fussin’,” she rumbled. “Told you it ain’t a problem. It’s a done deal. I just want to get home, same as you. Don’t want my family to have to wonder about me, too. You’ve given me the last little piece I need tomorrow, I think. I couldn’t for the life of me understand how somepony could think so little of their own family, but you solved that. I don’t need to check or know for sure, I just need to know it adds up.”
“And we’re getting home by arguing with the prince?” Fluttershy asked, one of her wings questing under the cloak she wore even as she slept, finally coming to rest atop Applejack’s side. At last, sleep was calling.
“By telling him that he’s being thicker’n a hundred-year old oak,” Applejack said in a voice that sounded a lot like agreement.
Ten minutes, Shadowtop had said. The guard captain had stuck her head inside the room right before dawn saying she would return in ten minutes.
Applejack stretched and tried to focus on the way her neck protested. She’d fallen asleep holding Fluttershy close, and her neck had been hurting something fierce ever since she woke up. It was a nice distraction good for five or six seconds, just like putting on her tattered saddlebags had wasted half a minute, but there was no putting it off any longer. It was applebuck season, though she’d much prefer the literal version to the metaphorical one.
At the other end of the room, Fluttershy was adjusting her cloak. Despite her never saying so much as a single word of protest, smiling as sweetly as only Fluttershy could whenever the pegasus saw her looking, Applejack also saw the fear in her eyes. Perhaps even worse, Tadar said nothing. The zebra maintained a stoic silence, and that, too, spoke volumes. Perhaps he was repaying the ponies’ trust in him, then.
And just like that, the wait was over. Seconds after the light of dawn began spilling into the room through the balcony and its ornate windows, the door opened with an ominous creak. Shadowtop wasn’t wearing her helmet, and the guard at the door was nowhere in sight.
“The entire palace will be having breakfast now. Come along, and please don’t run away. This is all on my head,” she said, the lithe gazelle scratching at the ground in an obvious display of nervousness.
“Time to play, I suppose. High stakes,” Tadar muttered as he set for the door. Applejack swallowed and adjusted her hat, letting Fluttershy walk in front of her. The next moment, the four were walking single file through the palace, following the same path they had thread yesterday. This time, the halls were almost completely empty, but some of the rooms were host to camels, giraffes and gazelles chatting amicably around breakfast tables. Aside from the guards, not a soul was to be seen moving.
“Let me guess, eating breakfast all at once was the prince’s idea, and it wasn’t always like this?” Applejack asked.
“Yes, and no,” Shadowtop replied, glancing over her shoulder with an eyebrow raised. “How did you know?”
Applejack pursed her lips as she trotted on, mulling that over. It fit. When Shadowtop got no reply from her, she instead turned her attention to Fluttershy.
“Equestria must be a very hot place indeed if you wish to wear clothes inside during the day.”
“Oh. Um. Sorry,” Fluttershy mumbled. “Yes. Very hot. Equestria, I mean. Or I’m cold.”
Applejack couldn’t keep the grin from her face when their escort shook her head, apparently having had her fill of conversation for the moment, and Tadar was pointedly avoiding both of their eyes. It lasted for about as long as it took them to walk down the stone staircase that landed them in front of the large doors they’d passed through the day before. Now they stood open, and faint murmurs could be heard from inside, the sounds of quiet discussion that were brought to an abrupt halt when they entered.
The prince sat not upon his throne, but rather, at a small table off to the side along with a half-dozen others. Scattered around the room and on the long balcony that dominated one of the sides of the room, guards and other palace staff were having their morning meal together, and to a one, they looked up at the procession that entered. All were silent except for the prince.
“Shadowtop? What is the meaning of this? I specifically asked not to see these vermin again. Who ordered them here?” he asked, his voice a low rumble that easily carried across the room. If social norms forbade him to express himself too loudly, the way his eyes narrowed spoke volumes.
“No one did save they themselves and I,” Shadowtop replied, marching onwards until they stood before the prince’s breakfast table. Applejack widened her stance, bracing herself.
“You know we ain’t done nothing at all. You have no right keepin’ us here,” Applejack said, fixing the prince with a glare. For a moment, his eyes slipped over to meet hers, but he was quick to turn his attention back to Shadowtop. It was as if looking at Applejack hurt him.
“Then I suppose I am in need of a new captain of the guard,” Enjaryn replied. The camel pushed his plate away and smacked his lips trying to affect nonchalance, but Applejack could see his forelegs trembling with suppressed rage. None of the others in room seemed eager to take action. Guards stood tense, but didn’t move, and those who ate had paused mid-bite.
“It’s a shame, really. You’ve done a good job for these past what—eight years?” the prince added.
“Then perhaps my resignation will be a message,” Shadowtop replied with a shrug just as Applejack opened her mouth to speak again. Fluttershy and Tadar both cast glances her way.
“And what message is that?” Enjaryn asked. “That guard captains should be allowed to willfully ignore orders and bring these—” he sputtered. “These before me?”
“That you’ve changed,” Shadowtop retorted, craning her neck to undo the clasp that fastened her cloak to her back before letting it fall to the floor. “I don’t know—”
“That you’re scared,” Applejack spat, taking a step forward. That got a reaction. The guards all jerked to, the closest pair advancing to stand within reach, and all the palace staff made little noises that together became a collective gasp, loud in the otherwise quiet room. The prince could ignore her no longer, finally forced to look upon her, and in his eyes she saw she was right.
“We’ve seen the book,” Applejack went on, ignoring the glance Enjaryn shot the rather unapologetic guard captain at that. “And I know what you’re thinking. What you’re doing. You think you’re protectin’ your people by being’ up in everybody’s business, but it’s pointless. The windigoes and their ilk? They’re sleeping on the mountaintops or long gone. They couldn’t care less if you holler’n scream!”
“You would say that, of course,” the prince snorted. “You would say anything to try to save your hides using empty lies. I am starting to think the dungeons would be too good for you.”
Slowly, the prince rose to stand, and despite the distance, despite him standing behind something as mundane as a breakfast table, he seemed to loom over them. “I am protecting this city! We have always know the threat that looms, but I have seen the proof. I have suffered because of that which waits to the south!”
“So you ain’t disagreeing,” Applejack barked. “And save ourselves? You ain’t done your research. If we wanted, we could have left yesterday!”
In one swift move, Applejack leaned over to tear Fluttershy’s cloak off of her back, exposing the pegasus in full. Fluttershy squeaked and shrank back, her wings jammed tight to her sides. A murmur went across the room as Applejack placed herself between the guards and Fluttershy.
“Might be that she couldn’t have carried us all out of here, but there’s no way your guards can stop her from escaping. You may have me, but unlike you, I ain’t afraid. Fluttershy’ll fly out of here and tell the truth if you try anything fancy.”
“The truth,” the prince echoed with a grim smile on his face as he stared straight at Fluttershy, the pegasus shrinking further behind Applejack. “There is no truth to be had, but regardless, there is no sense in the common folk being subjected to your inanities. Leave us!” he snapped.
It took less than a minute for the room to clear out, only a few of the guards remaining after the prince’s court and staff vacated the premises. In the silence that settled, it was a rather sour-looking prince that settled atop the throne of pillows on the dais.
“Tell me then your ‘truth’,” The prince said, simple as that. “Tell me what could possibly justify your presence. Tell me why I shouldn’t have my guards seize you right now.”
Applejack drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Perhaps the prince was finally listening, but he looked none too happy all the same. “It’s like I said. You’re tryin’ to do something good, but you got it all wrong. The windigoes were gone long ago. They ain’t doing anything.”
The prince’s jaw went slack for a second before his expression hardened, voice tight with anger. “You serve me bold-faced lies?” he asked. “Your truth is to tell me that Rynna—that—that my suffering, that the threat—” he sputtered. As if reacting to some unspoken signal, the closest four red-cloaked guards began closing in on them, forcing them tighter together.
“They’re gone!” Applejack repeated, squaring her jaw. “They’re gone, and something else, something old and evil took their place, but we took care of that. If they’re what took your daughter? Ain’t nothing we can say that’ll fix it, but it weren’t us! I know you’ve lost someone, but hurting us won’t bring her back!”
The prince growled. His eyes were red as the silks he wore, and his face contorted in a mask of anger so pure and honest, it was almost a relief to see if not for the guards. “And what, exactly, do you young squirts know about loss?” he asked.
Applejack snorted and shook off a hoof that had grabbed her shoulder, but before she could make a reply, Fluttershy stepped up to next to her. Just as the fires of anger lit up, the pegasus’ right wing poked Applejack in the side to quiet her.
“We’re sorry, we really are, but if we can’t get home, then we have lost absolutely everything, prince,” Fluttershy said, her head hanging low. “You can do something good, here, and if you did this all for your people, then you’re a good pon—er, um, camel. Sorry.”
“You can keep this all up,” Applejack said. Her eyes on the closest guard, she slowly leaned back to fish out from her saddlebags both Starswirl’s journal and the larger book Shadowtop had brought. With two rapid flicks of her head, the books landed on the carpeted floor.
“Or you can look here. We have proof. Says somewhere in that book of ours that they’re gone. Same pony’s written it as the book you have. Windigoes are gone. It’s one book against another, but we came from down south. Don’t matter if you don’t like us, but we’re telling the honest truth about the things that took your daughter, too. How else would we have this book if we didn’t come from there ourselves?”
Prince Enjaryn was staring straight at Applejack, gaze unwavering and unblinking. Applejack gladly met it. The ire, the anger, the hurt and the fear in the old camel’s eyes were no threat to her so long as she had the truth, but the truth couldn’t always soothe by itself. Sometimes, it was not enough.
Just as Applejack was fumbling for words, Tadar cleared his throat, the zebra almost forgotten for a second. “If I may speak, it’s not too late. The Bazaar cannot change in a day, and perhaps it shouldn’t at all. Let its people be. Let them decide for themselves. If you did all this in response to a threat that does not exist, then you’re not doing anyone any favors.”
“Is this true? You’re running a regime of fear because you yourself are afraid?” Shadowtop asked. “My word may not matter to you if I am fired, and haul me down to the dungeons yourself if you wish, but this is not the way.”
“You think me weak,” the prince accused, leaning forwards from his plush throne. The guards still loomed, and the threat was not gone from his voice. Applejack closed her eyes for a moment to help her to breathe steady. For one brief instant she forced herself to remember that one day so long ago. The day Granny Smith had nudged open her bedroom door bearing the news she had so desperately feared, the words she’d wanted never to hear. That memory alone managed to keep her calm when all she wanted to do was shout. She knew how he felt.
“No,” Applejack breathed more than spoke. “I think you’re hurt. I think you got hurt bad ‘cause you lost someone you cared a great deal for, and that’s makin’ you do stuff you wouldn’t normally stand for. Ain’t weakness to get hurt. Weakness is when you can’t own up to it, when you can’t do right by yourself and others despite that.”
Slowly, the anger melted from the prince’s visage. Lowering his head, he held up a hoof to halt the guard. The red-cloaked camels and giraffes all looked to him, doubt in their eyes as the menace was replaced with weariness.
“I was trying to keep the Bazaar safe,” he muttered, his fire down to embers. “Yet you are saying I have failed my people.”
“No,” Applejack said, pushing past the press of guards to advance upon the throne. “But I think the strongest leaders are those who ain’t afraid of being afraid. Maybe you gotta do all that fancy stuff, keepin’ up appearances and whatever else I don’t usually have to worry about myself, but admittin’ your mistakes ain’t failure. It’s good sense.”
“If you cannot do it for these ponies, and if you cannot even do it for your people, do it for Rynna,” Tadar said.
“Don’t—” the prince snapped, his anger reignited for a brief instant but gone again as quickly as it had came. “Don’t speak her name.”
“This isn’t what she'd have wanted,” Tadar continued in a softer voice by far. The zebra lowered his gaze. “Prince, you know I cared a lot for her, and she for me. If she was right, then give her the pleasure of honoring her memory.”
Applejack cocked a brow and looked over at Tadar at that, but it was hardly the right moment for questions. Up on the throne, the prince nodded at that, sinking into a contemplative silence.
Fluttershy unfurled and refurled her wings, and even Tadar and Shadowtop shifted their weight from side to side and let their eyes roam before the prince finally nodded again and spoke.
“On her memory be it, but I will speak no more of this misstep, and I will make no apologies.”
Applejack let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, taking a step to the side to lean against Fluttershy. For her part, the pegasus hung her head and shook with relief.
“Captain Shadowtop? Would you take these two ponies to the storeroom and give them whatever they want? Get them out of my sight, and see it to it that they take the damnable book with them, too,” Enjaryn said.
“As you command,” Shadowtop affirmed, picking back up her discarded cloak without another word.
“I need to think. Tadar? Don’t leave town for a while. I need to talk to you,” the prince added, rubbing at his forehead.
Tadar dipped his head and smiled. “I will be happy to. You have done a good thing today.”
“If I didn’t think I had, I wouldn’t have done it, but don’t you go organizing any festivities just yet. You’re going to be leading the expedition south past the border to investigate,” the prince shot. “Now leave me be, before I change my mind.”