//------------------------------// // Twentyfive // Story: Under The Northern Lights // by CoastalSarv //------------------------------// The only reason the evening's banquet was worthy of that name and not "fancy dinner" was because it took place in the hall of the Kings of Poatsula. While the honored guests from Hestaland had been invited - as any other night - Princess Hrimfaxi was missing, having gone to see the Russ of Trotholm and raise support for her Winter War campaign. Mustikka didn't know what to make of it. Was it the Hestalanders trying to play the Grazers against the coast dwellers, or did they and the Grazers have a point. Mustikka was a Grazer himself, technically (he certainly had done his share of grazing) and furthermore Jarl Vidar argued for them. Mustikka, who still thought of the middle-aged chieftain as "young Vidar", liked the guy well enough. He didn't like Hestalanders very much, he even held a deep and abiding suspicion of the Russ, but he acknowledged that the stupid business with them would never have occurred if it hadn't been for Ukko's attempts to bring back tribal responsibilities to city reindeer. Mustikka couldn't blame his oldest friend, the one who first had shown him what friendship was, and he was patriot enough to not blame the reindeer people. Hence, he somehow blamed himself, which was an excellent reason to drink. He was on his fourth jug of vodka and the third course, a lichen soup made edible by generous amount of mushrooms, when it happened. One of the large windows of mountain crystal and carved fir branches splintered into a million parts. A dark shape flew through it and landed on the floor and alongside the guest side of the table. To the Hestalander guests and the local equines, he must surely have looked like a black-furred reindeer. To the hosts, he was clearly a gray-coated unicorn. Of course, those reindeer who had started drinking before the banquet and who were now completely wasted might not notice. "Death to the tyrant!" he shouted in highly accented and hence unrealistic Poatsi for a native reindeer. Mustikka, whose intellect was desperately trying to dropkick his drunkenness into submission, realized that the illusion he was Seeing through must cover hearing as well, and that if you were equine or drunk enough, it probably was flawless. Some people screamed, some were stunned into silence, some tried to rise and either get to the intruder or away from him, some sat in their places as if tied to them. The "reindeer" pushed over two shrieking unicorn guests and jumped to the table, facing a stunned crowd of reindeer courtiers. Following tradition, all except the Companions had left their weapons by the door, indeed, the King and his Companions left theirs under their seats these days, but the other did have their hooves and antlers. Of course, using them was a different matter. Then, the assailant plucked a huge, ghastly green-glowing glass object from his saddlebags. It looked like a demented cabbage head from hell. A horrified courtier with his senses intact shouted: "LOOK OUT! HE'S GOT A BOMB!" This caused almost everyone, cervine and equine alike, to push away from the table and the shrieking to increase. Mustikka scrambled to get to Ukko and pull the fool out of the way, or at least get between him and the yet unthrown hellcabbage. Then another, more hysterical unicorn voice shouted: "IT'S A BALEFIRE BOMB! OH MY CELESTIA, A BALEFIRE BOMB!" The shout increased the hysteria a bit, especially on the Hestalander side. Mustikka, unlike some of his countrydeer, knew what a balefire bomb was and was a very rational deer. He knew that if they had been perfected outside sorcerers' labs, they were supposedly made to take out cities, not kings. His survival instincts, however, told him to hurry even if this obviously couldn’t be one. He could see his friends acting the same, yet hampered by vodka, shock, the guests, their advanced age or the table. Heikki the Humongous was as usual too drunk to actually move much, but what movement he could muster had placed his huge body between the bomb and the reindeer he had shared his table with. Kol the Singer, on the opposite, was fairly sober, but he was methodically preparing his lariat, and Mustikka knew he wouldn't throw it until he knew the shot was perfect. Galderhorn was obviously trying to magick something up, but if Mustikka knew him right this was just the situation where the sorcerer would freeze up. And Ukko... Ukko had started to react, by pulling out that stupid rune-carved spear of his, the heirloom of the Kings of Poatsula, the very very fake but perfectly functional heirloom. Mustikka screamed for him to get away instead of attacking the fake reindeer, but Ukko either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. He got the spear out and muttered incantations between his teeth as he bit into it. Mustikka couldn't hear them but knew he was going to call on lightning, the old fool, as if he could aim for manure in his drunken state. Mustikka shut his eyes and scrambled on through the crowd using his other senses, waiting for the lightning flash. Nothing happened. Mustikka, now close enough to Ukko to reach for his besotted friend, opened his eyes carefully. He found Ukko staring at a tacky spear with a brittle shaft and a blunt blade, without a single spell-rune but with the words MEMORY FROM SARVVIK clearly spelled out in Equestrian. “What;” said Ukko, his words almost overwehlmed the shouting and screaming. “Oh, frozen manure up my nose!” Mustikka snarled. He grappled his King and tried to drag him away from the mad bomber. This was not an easy task since Ukko struggled against him and protested incoherently but vehemently. Then the screams of the crowd changed and he looked up at the assailant again. The “reindeer” had pulled something out from his saddlebags, the bomb now hanging from a big hook on a necklace. It was the genuine spear, and it started to crackle with lightning. “Oh, frozen manure up a lot of places!” Mustikka babbled. The guards who had gotten close backed off a bit, since the lightning spear seemed like it didn't need to be aimed. Kol had got his lariat up and swinging, but hesitated and Mustikka knew why – he used a lariat with a metal wire core, necessary for fighting big beasts and gnarlies, and he would electrocute himself if he tried to snare the bomber. How can he be swinging the spear like that when he is carrying a bomb? Mustikka thought. His rump hit the back wall, which made him realize he and Ukko were still far too close to said bomb. Because he is using a bomb that would not be set off by fire or lightning, he told himself. “STAND BACK!” a loud, clear voice boomed from further down the table. As the guards and concerned courtiers who had advanced on the attacker did so, Mustikka looked to see who it was although he already guessed. He wasn't wrong. Bold as brass, up on the table, Twilight Sparkle trotted almost leisurely towards the gray unicorn, her horn shimmering with magic. “FOOL!” she shouted. “How could you think none of them would see through – this!” A wave of magic came from her horn and Mustikka felt his eyes water as it washed over him, a wave of pure clarity, of cold doubt. The shabby illusion over the unicorn melted away as sugar in hot coffee and the Hestalander guests gasped and shouted, astonished at the appearance of Lord Eminence. “No!” the gray unicorn shouted back. “You are ruining everything! It was going so well!” His voice sounded odd, almost stilted, to Mustikka, but his face looked frantic. “Well?” Twilight Sparkle stopped. “Ohohohoho! You silly old coot, your trickery has no effect on reindeer! They were already on to you!” “I did what I had to do!” he shouted and lobbed a lightning bolt at Twilight Sparkled, who casually dismissed it. “Had to?” she said as she started to walk closer to him, keeping a magic shield up against the spear which spit acid and embers as well as lightning, as she kept lobbing cups and plates and bowls at him telekinetically which he smashed aside with his magic. “You had to start a war with some poor barbarians? Surely you had other options? Besides this poorly prepared scheme?” She angled the magic shield this way and that, and used the barrier to push away and bash aside the people too close to the table – and, incidentally, Mustikka noticed, the missiles thrown by Lord Eminence – as she continued her walk. “Did you really think this messy, tacky, immoral scheme would raise you in Their favor?” she said angrily. “Do you really think you could replace me?” Of course! Mustikka mentally hit himself for not realizing it. This attack is the sort of thing they say she is doing all the time... except without her legendary skill and power... “Don't get closer!” the gray unicorn shouted. “I have a bomb!” “A bomb? Ohohohoho, just what could be expected!” she laughed and sent a magic tendril which grasped at the hellcabbage hanging at his chest, while same time her shield bent, buckled and inverted so it became like a shimmering bowl with its bottom towards her. “A bomb fits the work of a talentless hack like you, Lord Eminence!” “No!” he shouted, his own magic grappling the bomb and dropping the spear. “You won't take it! I'll detonate it!” “I'm not taking it, silly colt, just the fuse!” she said to the much older unicorn, as her magic grappled a short stem-like thing that poked out from the top of the bomb. “And you won't have to.” The stem-like thing was ripped off the glass cabbage and Lord Eminence's face contorted in the most pure horror Mustikka thought he had ever seen. The next part happened so fast it was almost a blur, but it burned itself into Mustikka’s memory anyway. Twilight Sparkle pushed her shield forward and enveloped Lord Eminence and the bomb in a sphere of magic, containing a cloud of ghastly green fire from the erupting bomb. Before his eyes the gray unicorn had almost time to scream as the fire leaped over him and turned him to fine, fine ash. Mustikka could see the shield shimmering with the intense heat, and then it was over. Twilight Sparkle, her face streaked with sweat that had made her generous makeup run, dissolved the shield. The ash left billowed over the table and the floor. Some of it settled on the noses of Ukko and Mustikka. Mustikka slowly let his stunned friend go, lowering him to the floor. He noticed half outside his field of vision how Kol threw up noisily and Galderhorn fainted. People were otherwise silent, except for Princess Ljufa, who disentangled herself from where she had been thrown to safety – by Kol, Mustikka realized – and rushed to her father. Twilight Sparkle trotted up to Ukko, lying on the floor, draped in his weeping and babbling daughter, and tossed a bunch of crumbled-up papers at his feet. “He was working with a pirate captain called Jarl Ahto to dethrone you, Your Majesty,” she said. “Seems you got the throne instead of Ahto's father. Oh, and Ahto was the deer you fired from his position as admiral.” She looked at Mustikka but continued talking to the king. “Your companions were on to him, but he acted faster than they could act,” she said. “I get the impression you don't listen to them much, Your Majesty. You probably should. On the other hand, I tried to give some hints, but...” Kol picked up the papers as he wiped puke from his muzzle. “What is this... They're all in code,” he said. “Found them where he hid them,” said Twilight Sparkle, who was fanning herself. Heikko was clumsily patting Galderhorn while a serving fawn was holding a burning taper under his nose. “He burned to cinders!” the old berserk noted. “Looking at that can't have been pretty!” Mustikka looked at Kol. Kol looked back and sighed. “Yeah, I saw it too,” he said. “I know you see falsehood everywhere, Musti old chum, but he really burned.” Then he turned to the unicorn witch, who looked curious, and made a courteous bow. “I See what others See. Poor old Galderhorn really cares about every living thing, even scum like that unicorn. Took it hard.” Ukko mumbled something and patted his daughter. “'S okay” he said. “Father is okay.” “Could have been a witch-jump,” said Mustikka. “What do you mean?” said Kol. “He could have witch-jumped out,” Mustikka said. “This could be a trick.” “Why would they do that?” said Kol, somewhat exasperated. “That doesn’t make sense!” “I just don’t trust her,” he said and glared at Twilight. “It wasn't a witchjump,” said Galderhorn who rose, supported by Heikko. “Trust me. You do trust me, don’t you? Companions trust each other.” His voice sounded pitiful. Mustikka didn't know whether the stoic old sorcerer was talking to him, Ukko or both. It didn't matter. “Companions trust each other,” he said. “I am ready to be taken into custody. Which of you gentlebucks are responsible for such things?” Lady Sparkle said, and sort of put her front hooves together as if to make a theoretical shackling easier. “What?” said Kol, Mustikka and Galderhorn in a chorus. Ljufa just looked at her while her father breathed heavily. Heikko, meanwhile, scratched himself and asked the servant fawn whether there was any unspilled ale in this whole mess. “I have just committed lethal violence in the hall of the king and made it impossible to properly interrogate a would-be regicide,” she pointed out. The companions looked among themselves. Mustikka started to speak, turning to one of the guards who had gathered and began ordering him to take Lady Sparkle to the dungeons. That made Ukko explode. “To the dungeons?! “ the king raged. “Are you complete idiots or allied with Ahto or what? She saved my life and your lives and you want to lock her up in chains?!” “Sire...” Kol was always one for propriety, “she is obviously an Equestrian agent just like your would-be assassin. And she herself told us what crimes she committed.” He looked at Mustikka who nodded in general agreement. Suddenly Ljufa spoke up, to the general surprise of the Companions. “They are all Equestrians, and not one of them helped him,” she said and pointed to the huddling diplomats. “No, they all sort of ducked and cowered and screamed, like this,” said Heikko (who had got his ale) and gave a demonstration, including a high-pitched doeish scream. “You are not locking up the one who saved me and that's final!” Ukko fumed. “Hey, I tried to drag you away!” Mustikka protested. “The King of Poatsula does not flee!” said Ukko. “It wasn't fleeing, it was a strategic retreat!” said Mustikka. “A strategic retreat into a wall!” said Ukko. “Just like old times!” Heikko sighed happily. Twilight Sparkle cleared her throat. This small sound made the King and his Tracker stop. “Excuse me, Your Highness, am I to be detained or not?” she said and fluttered her eyelashes, her mascara having melted so she looked like a skull which had cried blood. “No!” the King said. “Of course not!” Mustikka gave him a beseeching look.. “But don't leave the city,” he added. “Of course not, Your Majesty,” she said with a curtsey. “May I contact my Mistress?” she added. “Who? What?” said the King. “May I contact Princess Luna? After all,” the unicorn said and smiled forlornly as she fanned herself, “I have just been in dreadful danger!” “Well... sure,” the King said and shrugged. The unicorn stepped aside and shouted: “To our mistress! FLY, MY PRETTIES!” Her hat – her hat made of feathers, which she had worn as part of her dinner outfit – suddenly dissolved into small brown, cawing birds who fluttered away and flew out the broken window. “Jays,” Mustikka said. “The birds of ill omen. Figures!” “Do you feel better, Lord Eminence?” said Princess Celestia as she entered the small, dark chamber. “So... cold,” Lord Eminence muttered where he lay on his cot. “Not an unusual sensation given your circumstances,” said the Princess not unsympathetically and sat down beside the cot. “She set me on fire,” he whispered. “That was what I meant,” Celestia said. “When one has been burned to ashes, there is a sensation of cold afterward. It passes, trust me.” “They said... they said they would teleport me away,” he said. “Under the cover of the fire-bomb.” “Well, they did,” said Celestia and smiled. “They just teleported you using enchanted dragonfire. This method does not send you between space like regular teleportation, but disintegrates you into your component particles and rebuilds you afterward. The bomb provided the cover as well as the transport. Quite ingenious, wouldn’'t you say? Now there are a hundred reliable witnesses that you are dead, including the greatest mages in Tarandroland and all its political leaders.” “But... they didn't explain that!” said the unicorn weakly. “It must have slipped my sister's mind,” said Celestia. “Perk up, Lord Eminence: you are not the only one who had to suffer. Poor Spike, he had to first down a massive amount of vermillion oil and then expectorate fire down a retort for half a day to fuel the bomb. That must have been uncomfortable, don't you think?” Lord Eminence was silent for a while. “What happens to me now?” he finally said. “Well, officially, you are dead,” Celestia said. “Have to be. We'll provide you with a new life with all things you need. It will, of course, mean giving up your current job, title, name...” Lord Eminence groaned. “...and cutiemark,” Celestia finished. The gray unicorn sat up. “Say what?” he said. “We'll have to remove your cutiemark, Lord Eminence,” Celestia said, her voice taking on a cold, deeply serious tone. “But... why?” he said desperately. “First, it is the primary way to identify a pony,” she said. “Most importantly, it determines a pony’s talent and purpose. Your talent and purpose, Lord Eminence, is such that your former position was one of the few things you could do that was of service to other ponies. If you were not a spy, the only profession I can see fit you is sneak thief.” Lord Eminence stared at the wall, his eyes full of despair. “But if you can come up, not with a new purpose, but with a new direction for your purpose, one that neither involves my secret service nor petty crime, something can be arranged,” she said. “There is always a new way,” she added and her voice suddenly became warm yet regal again. “I will consider my options, Your Highness,” Lord Eminence said, his despair lifting somewhat. “I will consider my options.” When Luna entered her suite, Twilight was lying on her bed - that is, Luna's bed - with Spike giving her a massage. She had a soft bathrobe on and had apparently recently had a shower. Gone were her sweat, her extensive makeup and her seemingly casual determination. Her mane hung around her head, and her head hung over her front hooves. "Your Highness," she said with a dull voice. "Lady Sparkle," Luna replied with a smile. "I have been told you made a great impression." "I couldn't be there, you know, but I understood Twilight was amazing, yes, " said Spike, who looked much more positive than the unicorn although he was subdued as well. Twilight sighed. "I feel horrible," she said. "I don't know what was worse, concentrating on making each spell just right while keeping up that silly charade, lying through my teeth about saving them from something I had a hoof in making, or literally burning Lord Eminence to pieces." "Twilight!" said Spike and stopped his massaging. "If you hadn't found out about that idiot's plan, he would have set a real bomb under Ukko's seat!" "Yeah, Spike, but..." Twilight was interrupted. "And I don't give a fig about that old tuft of hair, Eminence was right that everyone is better without him, but there would have been lots of reindeer and ponies sitting close to him!" Spike continued. "Including my new best friend's mom!" Twilight sighed and looked down. "As far as I'm concerned he deserved being burned and having Celestia chew him out!" Spike said. "I hope she banishes him to outer space!" "He is certain to get more than a chewing-out," said Luna, "but I leave any punishments to Tia. I have never been good at punishments." Twilight looked up. "I have a very hard time being just, Lady Sparkle," Luna said. "If I am called to sit in judgement, I either pity the poor culprit, or he vexes me. In the first case I am too lenient, in the second case I am to harsh, and in either case he doesn't get what he actually deserves." "I don't think I would have an easy time being just either," said Twilight Sparkle. " Like with Lord Eminence - first I hated the poor guy but now I feel sorry for him." Spike started over again massaging her shoulder. "But in any case, Your Highness, we are treading on thin ice here," she continued. "I don't really see how this will be easier if they think I am this farcical creature who wishes them ill." Luna smiled sardonically. "Remember what I said about lies which are easy to believe in, Lady Sparkle," she said. "People in general and reindeer in particular are very cynical. Cynicists pride themselves in not being fooled, but when the lie is worse than reality they are more easily taken in. Furthermore, many seem to think that Evil is stronger than Good, or at least that Evil acts, while Good only reacts. Hence they will trust the fake you to get things done when you say you will, while they wouldn’t trust you. Finally, the Dark Enchantress Twilight Sparkle already has clear nefarious motives for what she is doing, like her status with Celestia, her own power and dignity. If you acted as your true self they would suspect that you act for the 'empire' of Equestria or that you have some other unknown motive which would make them wary." Luna chuckled. "We should have had all the Elements of Harmony here," she joked and nuzzled the morose Twilight. "Some of them would have had a blast." Twilight actually smiled, then giggled. "Well, Pinkie, maybe, she would take it as a prank," she said. "And Rarity if she got to be a stylish villainess. But Applejack would be horrified, since if this isn't lying I don't know what is." "I dunno, she didn’t have a problem fooling her best friend when you guys did that Mare Do Well stunt, you know," said Spike. "Speaking of which, Rainbow Dash would be really happy to get to actually be in on a prank like that this time. She would think it was 'awesome'." "Well, I'll have to do without the rest of my supervillain team," Twilight said, then sighed. "I miss them. There is such a strength in friends when you’re in dire straits. I don't know how I ever got along without them." Luna nuzzled her again. "Well, no matter what I think of it, now that we are doing it, we have to do it right," Twilight said, raising her head and stretching her neck. "We’ve got to think of the home front now, because this will definitely reach the media at home, and we’ve got to set our priorities accordingly." "You mean ponies will think less of you, because of this scheme?" said Luna. "Well, there is that, but I was actually thinking of something else," said Twilight. "We have to keep the fact that Lord Eminence is still alive secret in Equestria as well as here, given that the media will report his death and how it occured. That means that to the public it’ll look like I killed, lets call it a 'lone fanatic assassin', to stop him from murdering a foreign king. I feel bad enough about that, but I actually feel worse about those ponies who would actually agree with Lord Eminence, that would think it is alright to assassinate a ruler and start a civil war in another country to stop the pirates. So... now we have to succeed in our original mission. We have to stop the pirates and do it soon, so that these ponies are proven wrong." Twilight looked at Luna. "I know about the Winter War, but I also know it’ll take time to get rolling, and that any work on stopping the piracy will only strengthen the bonds between Equestria and Tarandroland," she said, her eyes meeting those of her Princess and faltering a bit. “From now on I insist on spending all my time - as much time as is possible - what time you seem fit - on this issue." Her face had turned very anxious. Luna looked down, then up, then into thin air, then at Twilight. "You have all the time you need, except that needed to report to me on your progress, Lady Sparkle," she finally said. "Pray tell me, do you have any concrete plans in mind?" Twilight shut her eyes and sighed. "Using what information we have from Lord Eminence, I plan to contact the pirates,” she said. “Then I will pretend to cut a deal with them and in doing that find out where they have their bases. After that, we gather a joint force of whatever royal guards can be sent from Equestria and whatever reindeer respond to a call to arms from King Ukko. We then use that force to attack and apprehend the pirates. Both getting troops from home and getting Ukko to issue that call are things that must be done anyway because of the Winter War, mind you. Then I guess any pirate who agrees to join against Winter can be offered an amnesty for whatever they did. That way we can as much as double our army, recruiting reindeer who spent the last year doing... violent things." Luna looked thoughtfully at Twilight and Spike frowned. "Then, when this Winter business is over, Tarandroland will be less poor, and will hopefully have stronger bonds with Equestria, so that piracy will have a hard time springing up again," Twilight finished. "Twilight, that sounds like a plan," said Spike. "Except that unless the pirates are really gullible, they won't believe that the pony who killed their last contact wants to be their friend." "Oh yeah, Spike," Twilight said and slowly a mischievous smile spread over her lips, "but remember that the normal pirates only wanted to milk Lord Eminence for cash. The one who conspired with him was Lord Ahto, and he seems to be, if not gullible, a hopeless romantic. Romantics tend to believe that real life works like a story. If what Luna said earlier is true, it shouldn't be that hard to convince a pirate lord who fancies himself a prince in exile who thinks life works like a story that an evil sorceress wants to work with him for her own, er, nefarious purposes." And then Twilight cleared her throat and magicked her bone fan over from the bedside table, and, fanning herself, laughed a stilted, forced laugh: "Ohohohoho!" Argh, I forgot; I had help in editing again, by LadyMoondancer.and Wheelwright! Thanks a lot.