Equestria
Canterlot
The Throne Room of Canterlot Castle
Present Day
...Again
There was a dull clatter as the inkwell Twilight was using to take notes tipped over when she leaped to her feet in shock. "What!?" She blushed as her cry echoed through the room.
Celestia smiled. "Yes, Inkwell managed to ascend and became the alicorn Midnight Star."
The purple mare stared at her. "But...then...if...he...wait...no...if...then...who...wait..." Her eyes widened as she shook her head at the princess of the sun. "No. No way. That's just... It's not... You can't be..." Her old mentor nodded, prompting the younger alicorn to burst out laughing, much to the confusion of the rest of the audience.
Discord laughed. "As usual, Twilight seems to be ahead of the game."
"Ya'll mind explaining what in tarnation Twi's figured out that the rest of us ain't?"
The diarchs looked at each other and smiled. Flames erupted from their hooves, white for Celestia, black for Luna. The fires began to work their way up the alicorns' legs in a show vaguely reminiscent of Chrysaslis's reveal, even as they began to speak.
Celestia began. "A thousand years ago, Equestria was a very different place. The reign of the Draconequi made it so that we could not simply become alicorns the way that Princesses Mi Amore Cadenza and Twilight Sparkle did."
Luna took over from her sister, "The fact that the disguise spell that Inkwell had placed on us mingled with our alicorn transformations gave us an opportunity. One we took. Our alicorn forms gained the names that we had given to the interrogation teams. While our civilian identities remained protected, the six alicorns rose to fight to free Equestria."
"Nopony realized that even as Lotus Blossom, Contrail, Dust Runner, Inkwell, Moonchaser, and Sunbeam seemed to be going about their slightly abnormal but still relatively peaceful lives..."
"They were leading the revolution as Lace Heart, Mirror-Sister of Ponykind, Afterburner Blaze, Conqueror of the Eternal Storm, Shade Darkwing, Ruler of Eternal Shadows, Midnight Star, Lord of the Night Sky, Luna, Queen of the Moon, and Celestia, Empress of the Undimmed Sun and Heir Apparent to the Throne of the Universe."
Celestia leveled a glare at the assembled ponies' giggles. "We shed the titles the instant we could and destroyed all of our interrogation records."
Luna cut her sister off before she could get into a familiar tirade. "Inkwell's meddling with the magic of our ascension gave us the ability to move back and forth between forms. That's actually something that became quite useful as our lives became increasingly more complicated."
The sisters suddenly began to float into the air, the fire flowing up around them to form a pair of floating spheres. The light grew until everypony was forced to close their eyes and turn away.
When it died down, they heard a familiar voice say, "You can look now."
The group turned and stared. The pair of ponies that stood before them was no bigger than they were. That was the first thing that struck the ponies who had been listening to the story. Then they noticed that the princesses were gone. Then they realized that the two mares in front of them were alicorns.
The one alicorn six of them recognized. It was Luna, but not Luna as the others knew her. It was Luna as she had been on the night of that Summer Sun Celebration Three Years ago. Luna as she had appeared after Nightmare Moon had been blasted away from her by the power of the Elements of Harmony. The only difference was that her cutie mark was not that of Luna, but rather a crescent moon not unlike the one in Nyx's cutie mark superimposed on a full moon's silhouette, with a silver star in the part of the full moon not occupied by the crescent.
The other mare was one that none of them knew. Her coat was tan, with a red half sun on either flank. Her mane and tail were blue, with a gold streak running through each. She was the one who spoke. "These are the forms we grew up in... relatively... In those days, my name was Sunbeam."
Luna smiled at them. "And mine was Moonchaser."
Twilight spoke up. The others were more than happy to let her lead the investigation. "But... In your story, Moonchaser was a pegasus and Sunbeam was a Unicorn..."
Sunbeam nodded. "We were."
"But all the history books say that the two of you were born as alicorns!"
Moonchaser stepped forward. "And Celestia and Luna were born as alicorns... so were Sunbeam and Moonchaser for that matter, we were just raised differently because of... complications."
"And you're supposed to be sisters biologically!"
Sunbeam rubbed the back of her neck. "Again, complications..."
Moonchaser stared at her sister. "Really? It's that much of a habit that you can't volunteer information even after they already know your biggest secret?"
"Not our biggest secret sister, they still haven't heard that one yet."
"They will soon enough."
"Yes, but..." Sunbeam's eyes danced around the room. "Spoilers?"
"You're stretching sister, you're really stretching."
"No, I mean... Some of us still haven't lived through it yet."
"We were already much further along when those two showed up for the first time."
"Yes, for them, but we stopped just before the first time they showed up for us."
"Sunbeam... It's time to let secrets go. You're not the only one anymore, there are a half-dozen immortals in this room alone."
Sunbeam's eyes widened. "You weren't supposed to... they didn't know! They weren't supposed to know! How can they-"
"They deserve to know! They deserve to know how short their time truly is so that they can treasure it." Moonchaser put a hoof on the other mare's shoulder. "Sometimes the kindest thing we can do for our little ponies is to show them their illusions for what they are."
Sunbeam wiped a tear out of her eye and nodded. She turned to the ponies who had silently watched the entire exchange. "Moonchaser and I were born alicorns. But Moonchaser lost her horn to a disease that turned her magic to rot it from the inside out. It had to be amputated to save her life. I lost my wings even younger than she lost her horns... but all events in their order and we're not yet to that part of the story."
"Umm..." Nyx's quiet voice came from near the forgotten statue. "Something's happening..."
The 'something' in question was that the base the statue was on had lit up with an unusual pattern. Luna and Celestia trotted over to examine it. At Twilight's raised eyebrow, Luna laughed. "What? The transformation sequence? That was a one-time thing. After the changeling invasion Celestia thought that it might cause a panic if anypony saw us as Moonchaser or Sunbeam, and so she had the brilliant idea of locking us in our full power forms. A thousand years of Chessmastering an entire country and she still can't tell when an illusion is completely inappropriate." She turned to look at the symbol. "Where's the ink?"
Celestia turned to look at her. "What?"
"The ink. Where is it?"
"Luna, what are you talking about?"
"That's the spell circle he uses when he needs to do that notetaking thing. The one that lets him telekinetically control the ink directly. How do you not know that?"
"I didn't build the platform, he... had... it... ready... I really hate that stallion."
"I found it!" Everypony's eyes turned to Scootaloo as she pointed to the inkwell that Twilight had spilled earlier. It had poured out across the floor in a pattern.
Pinkie pointed out the obvious. "Ooh! It's a message! It says 'Discord... me...' Now just what is that supposed to mean?"
The Draconequus in question floated forward and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. A lightbulb appeared over his head, which he reached up and turned upside down. It promptly began filling with sand, until right as it topped off... "That's it!" Discord began to laugh. "Oh that's clever. You know, he always was my favorite pony. Let's see what happens when you give Hope a little chaos..." He tapped the stone alicorn on the tip of his horn and promptly vanished.
Wind began coming from nowhere, impossibly pulling starlight from the windows. The beams of light began to coalesce, forming up and taking shape around the statue like a second skin. The starfield that had surrounded the stone alicorn began to gain color, and soon what stood in front of them was not statue, but a very real black alicorn with a mane and tail two shades of deep blue and a picture on his flank of a pale blue starburst and a silver fleur-de-lis.
He smiled at them softly. "Hello, you'll have to forgive me for not shaking hooves, I can't really leave the spell circle."
Luna walked up to him with tears in her eyes. "Midnight, I... we..."
He stopped her with a raised hoof. "You and I need to talk, but it's going to need to be longer and more private than present circumstances allow." At her nod he continued, "On that note, I come bearing gifts! First Luna, I ran into an old friend of ours, and she gave me something for you."
In front of the base he stood upon, starlight began again to gather, forming up into a small pendant, a white flower whose six petals could easily be mistaken for a snowflake. The Stallion was smiling widely. "The Winter Star sends her regards. She also wanted me to tell you that she can finally see your night, and it's as beautiful as she imagined."
"Then, you..."
He laughed and shook his head at the mare. "No, by the time I got there, she had already been destined to become a star. I was quite literally the last one to mark her for ascension. She earned her place there on her own, and continues to earn it."
"So then, she can come back right?"
His smile slipped. "No Luna, she can't come back. She's not like me, she lived her life. Now, she's happy to look down on Equestria and help ponies as a Wishing Star. You know, she's actually one of the ones that helped me release you from the moon."
"...Is she happy?"
The soft smile was back. "The best friend she ever had has finally been released from her prison and nightmare after a thousand years, and she gets to help ponies every night. She's very happy."
The alicorn mare nodded. "Alright, I'm sure I'm not the only pony you need to talk to."
Now the smile was sad. "No, I wish I had more time, but this is taking a massive amount of energy." He looked out over the small crowd. "To the sandstone pegasus in the back, I can only say 145 North, 16 West. For the bat pony mare on the far left, I can say that you need to trust yourself and your friends, it all works out in the end. And now things get complicated. Doctor!"
"Yes?" The stallion in question moved to the front of the crowd, a pegasus mare in tow.
"You came here to ask a question. I'm going to give you your answer. 27F64K1C6.6F039, 8V548D3.8645JK."
"...How could you possibly know that?"
"Because that's what you told me to tell you the first time around."
"A causality loop?"
"It was the only way you could think of to save her."
"So I told you so that you could tell me. So now why don't you tell me why I didn't just prevent this happening in the first place?"
The alicorn flinched. "Because it needed to happen. It had to happen. It was the only way that it could happen, because when it was time for it to happen, it had already happened."
The Doctor stared at him. "How many causality loops are we actually dealing with here?"
"Enough to make it impossibly dangerous to try and break one. Besides, this was the only way to save her."
"Save her?"
"Ditzy Doo... such a sweet and innocent filly, with such an absolutely amazing mind. I once accidentally entered her Dreamscape... it took me a week to find my way out. So how do you take one of the most intelligent fillies in the universe, one whose brain works on a level quite literally anachronismically, and protect her when the last two guardians aren't speaking and while one is ignorant, and the other cannot interact with the physical world?
"There really is only one answer, only one thing I could do. I had to make it so that she could never understand. Because how could she ever understand? How could the filly who would grow up to become the hope of dozens of races, a symbol of mercy the universe over, ever understand what was being done to her... by her own mother...
"She couldn't. She couldn't understand all of that at such a young age and still grow up to be the mare the universe needed. Because it does need her, the angel of mercy to temper the traveler's wrath. So I delayed the inevitable. I made it so that she could grow up in perfect innocence, and then when she was old enough, when she was mature, when she was ready, she could understand."
"So why now? Why not just let her be the innocent forever?"
"You already know Doctor, you have already seen it. You can't just take a pony's mind and tell it to work differently. The spell is deteriorating, and it's going to take her mind with it."
"How long?"
"Long enough."
"HOW LONG DO I HAVE!?" In any other situation an earth pony roaring at an alicorn in that tone would have been humorous. For some reason, their audience found it terrifying.
Midnight Star sighed, "Two weeks. You have two weeks to get her to me at that point in time."
The Doctor sat down. "I... I can't. I haven't been able to fly the TARDIS that accurately since..."
"Since you came to this world." All eyes were once again on the stallion on the stand. "I know. And I know why. You and I, we are not born of this world. You are still sitting outside, looking in, and you can't be. You are a force of destruction, The Oncoming Storm, The Wizard of the Traveling Box. Your name is spoken at night in different worlds to frighten or comfort children. You. Are. The Doctor.
"But here, you've found an entire world where innocence and goodness thrive. You're afraid, terrified that if you let yourself become attached, then It'll all go up in flames. It's just a matter of time before someone comes for you and all of this gets caught in the crossfire.
"And you can't let that happen. Which is why you have to let go. You've been stopping yourself and you haven't even realized it. You cannot bounce around time and space meddling in the way things happen knowing that you will never have to live with the consequences. You have to let yourself become a part of this world."
"I have obligations, back in the world that I... we come from."
"Forgotten who you are? There'll be time enough for that later. Right now you have a choice to make. Become a part of this world and save Ditzy... or let her descend into madness as the universe burns around her and all life everywhere goes out in the exact same instant."
There was silence for a moment before the Doctor looked up from the spot on the floor between his hooves. There was a light in his eyes that was quite literally the stuff of legend. It had been seen by dictators, warlords, orphans, pirates, soldiers, and hundreds of others of every creed, race, code, and class imaginable. Everywhere you went, any being you asked would tell you exactly what it meant. They would always say the same thing, A miracle is about to happen."You already knew which choice I'd make, didn't you?"
"Doctor, by the time I met you, you already had."
"Come on Ditzy, we've got some history to show up in. Allons-y!"
The two galloped out into the gardens. There was a brief pause before a light began to flash and a rasping noise echoed into the throne room. There was a brief silence that Twilight suddenly broke.
"Wait a second, I know that pony!"
"So do most sentient races."
"No, I mean we know them, that was Derpy Hooves!"
"No," The firm statement was given simultaneously by each of the elder alicorns. Midnight explained further, "That mare was Ditzy Doo, companion to the Doctor and bearer of over a dozen titles. She is a symbol of mercy that is quite literally universal. She also happens to have one of the largest targets in history strapped to her back. Derpy Hooves is a mailmare from Ponyville who lives there happily with her family."
There was a sigh. "No, it's alright, at the very least they should know." Derpy Hooves walked around a corner, the same brown earth pony who had just left trailing behind her. "Told you I wasn't a single mother." Twilight turned a very interesting shade of mottled red.
Derpy sat down, looked around at those from her own town, and sighed. "My name now is Derpy Hooves. I originally gained that name as a derogatory term after Midnight Star helped me protect my mind and soul from my mother's... actions. Because of that, I gained a reputation. I had to deal with a lot of bullying growing up, but I was better off in the end than I would have been. Needless to say, when the main character of the one fairy tale I had actually known growing up showed up on my doorstep, I left with him in a heartbeat. I never saw my mother again, and I can't really say that I care.
"After we left here, we went back in time to have Midnight remove the spell. We kept travelling, and one day we found ourselves looped back on ourselves, caught up in a revolution that took place before we had even met the ponies we were fighting alongside. Things got complicated, and towards the end of the war we were forced into retirement after breaking reality one last time. But I'll let the ponies who lived through things chronologically tell you about that.
"Time Turner and I are happily married now, though we still have to pop around to stop crises and keep our enemies off our tails, and he can't be seen around Ponyville a whole lot, so he uses a disguise spell that Midnight gave us. When we realized this morning that we were out of the disposable runes, we realized today was the day. Time Turner and I popped over in the TARDIS, the girls are on the train, they should be here for the next part of the story in the morning... which begs the question of who's going to tell Dinky? We already bounced Sparkler back for the first time, so she already knows, but Dinky... We've tried to avoid telling her, let her have a normal fillyhood for as long as possible." She looked a little sheepish.
"We got comfortable, we got careless. Just when we thought we could keep the ruse up forever..." She shook her head. "I still want to know just what we did to get Fate so vindictive."
"NO!" The three elder alicorns looked at each other. Celestia took the helm this time, "No, believe me, you'll find that out soon enough. for now, take comfort in not knowing. A lot of comfort."
"Fair enough," Time Turner spoke up for the first time, "Spoilers and all that."
His wife shot him a look. "We really are going to have to rethink those rules. But that's beside the point. A few weeks ago, Cheerilee's class got far enough to cover basic pony anatomy. They even had a pediatric physician visiting. Dinky was just a little too quick on her hooves for her own good in this case. Long story short, the fact that she has two hearts threw the entire class into disarray. We were lucky that somepony apparently set off a ridiculously large number of high explosives at the exact moment that she blew her own cover. Or was it really luck?"
Her pointed look drew laughs from Midnight and Luna, a gentle smile from Celestia. "No." Seemed to be the general consensus. Midnight paused though. "Actually... It might have been her... I'll have to check, I didn't think she took it yet, but..." He smirked at the questioning gazes. "Not my secret to tell. Anyway, continuing my gift-giving, I have one here..."
A small door on his platform opened and a scroll rolled out onto the floor. "For the... intrepid Cutie Mark Crusaders." The look on his face was familiar to both Celestia and the brown earth pony with the hourglass cutie mark, though neither could quite figure out why. "In the hopes that you might find it useful, a map and key to my old lab."
Rainbow Dash wasn't quite fast enough to keep the scroll away from the fillies. Twilight stepped forward, confused. "Wouldn't your lab currently be in the ruins in the Everfree Forest? How do you expect them to find it with a thousand-year-old map?"
"That lab is not bound to any one place. As long as you know how to get there, it can be anywhere you need it to be." At her blank stare he sighed. "Honestly, you mares make it so hard to be mysterious. The lab is enchanted. The map will keep them running around for a bit while it attunes to and tests them and then create a room for them to find that will have supplies and equipment already inside of it. The actual location will have specific meaning to them, and can actually be changed if it truly needs to be. Because they have one of my keys, they will also have access to a small portion of my research notes, which should help them get started."
"Isn't it a bit reckless to give those fillies access to whatever they need to play around with dangerous magical forces?"
The alicorn stallion sighed. "Honestly, it was a desperate gambit, although it seems to have at least partially worked." He motioned to the space that the four fillies had once occupied and the smaller door that had formed and opened in the middle of Discord's drawbridge to let them out. "I don't know when they'll be back though, so I have to make this short. Rainbow Dash!"
The pegasus in question looked up from where she had crashed trying to catch the scroll before the fillies. "Yeah?"
"I need you to understand that I'm breaking a completely ridiculous number of rules to tell you this."
The mare flew forward and stood to attention. "Umm... isn't breaking rules usually a bad thing?"
"Yes, and there will be repercussions, which is something you need to understand." She nodded and he continued. "Scootaloo's parents are both very good ponies, but good ponies can make mistakes, and the one that's coming... Rainbow Dash, understand that I'm doing this for you as much as for her."
She gave him a confused look and he took a deep breath before continuing, "I know the secret wishes. You hung one wish on me over a thousand times. I know your secret, I know your shame. There is no way to undo what has been done." Rainbow was whiter than Celestia and shaking.
"So this is the only way I can grant your wish. I cannot change what happened all those years ago, but I can give you a chance to change things this time.
"I know why you have to be the fastest, the most loyal, the best, the hero. I know that you have to win because of the one time you lost, you have to succeed because of the one time you failed, you can't leave your friends hanging because of the one time you did. You absolutely have to be the fastest pony in Equestria because you are constantly running from the memory of the one time that you weren't fast enough.
"Fluttershy I created The Stare, it won't work on me, so don't bother. Twilight, I have centuries of magical experience and several wars under me, you don't have the power. Applejack, I'm a spiritual manifestation, you can't actually touch me, so if you try to buck me you'll just go right through. Rarity, you aren't a combatant, you could be, but you just aren't on a high enough level to beat anypony in this room. Pinkie Pie, breaking reality won't do anything since I am presently both outside of it and manifesting via chaos magic. That should take care of everypony who was about to do something stupid, now let me finish.
"I know Rainbow Dash. I know where you are. So now, I'm going to give you a chance. This time, you have enough warning. This time you can be fast enough.
"Get Scootaloo out of that house. In one month, Scootaloo's father will lose his job. This is the final domino that will lock in a chain of events that was started a long time ago. There will be nothing you can do. He will have a full mental breakdown. At his lowest point, he will make a mistake. a terrible, terrible mistake. He realizes what he's done, actually commits suicide because of it, but by then its too late. The damage has already been done.
"You have to save her Rainbow Dash. There was once a pony who you meant more to than anypony else, who trusted you to be able to take care of her no matter what. You weren't able to save her, and that wasn't your fault, but you still haven't ever been able to forgive yourself. Now there's another pony, and she looks at you the same way that that first pony once did. If anything, she sees you as an even greater hero. Scootaloo you have a chance to save. Let this be your recompense."
When the pegasus mare looked up at him, the tears had already dried. "What happens if I fail?"
"We lose Scootaloo."
"She dies?"
"...Eventually."
The mare stared at the door that the filly in question had left through. She looked into the stallions eyes, her gaze daring him to lie to or coddle her. "What's the catch? I've seen enough movies to know that you don't get something like this without paying a price."
In a single instant, a thousand possible responses flashed through Midnight Star's mind. In that same instant he settled on the best course of action overall. The bald truth. "Yes, there is a price. One that Scootaloo will pay. We're breaking reality to save her, and the universe only has one punishment for that. Somehow, someday, someway, she will gain the same curse as the rest of us. She will gain eternal youth."
"Eternal youth is a curse?"
"You have no idea." Echoed out in five separate voices.
Midnight continued, "It's a lot worse than it sounds. Scootaloo will remain young even as she watches everything around her, her parents, the other crusaders, you, maybe even Equestria itself, grow old, sicken, and eventually die. Lonely Eternity, that is the price for going outside the rules. Young, forever, alone."
There was a sound. A sound that was not a sound, but a feeling. One that four ponies present knew well. It was the sound of a barrier breaking, of Destiny gathering up her cards and Fate restringing her loom, of reality running scared as the boundaries of the universe bent under the force of sheer willpower. It was the sound that was heard when the impossible was about to happen.
Rainbow Dash looked deep into Midnight Star's eyes. Huh, so that's the feeling they always talk about... "No. Not happening. I don't care how hard it is, or who says it can't be done. I am never going to let Scootaloo face that. She. Will. Not. Be. Alone. Do you hear me?"
There was a laugh, a soft gentle laugh from Rainbow's right. She turned to glare down the immortal alicorn princess of the night. "What are you laughing at? You don't think I can do it? Is that it?"
Luna paused for a moment before shifting back to Moonchaser. "No, I'm laughing because I think you can. You're going to save the pony who's counting on you, and just try and stop you. The Elements did indeed choose well, I couldn't have picked a better pony to wield Loyalty."
Rainbow Dash gave her a questioning gaze. This time Luna (she was doing a lot of back and forth) was joined in laughter by Celestia, Derpy, and Time Turner. "You still haven't figured it out? We were the original bearers of the Elements of Harmony. Before they manifested on that execution platform, they were aethereal forces before then... sort of. They manifested once every generation to pull off a single miracle. With us they became physical objects, bound to us until we severed those bonds in various ways."
Midnight picked up from Luna, "Nopony can truly bear more than one element. At least... not for long. It's too much, the feedback of energy destroys the bonds... It's how Celestia lost her bond to the elements, when she was forced to turn them on us in that last battle, where we stood against her as Nightmare Moon and Starless Night. When I was a younger pony I wielded the Element of Loalty. You are my successor Rainbow Dash."
"And," The Doctor spoke up, a slightly manic grin on his face. "That comes with some baggage."
Derpy nodded. "Responsibilities, expectations, capabilities."
Luna reverted to her Moonchaser form. "You are the new bearer of the Element of Loyalty, which means something to beings across Equestria."
Sunbeam looked kindly at the blue pegasus. "Their eyes will be on you."
Derpy Hooves, Time Turner, Sunbeam, and Moonchaser, the only four ponies in the room who had experience with that special kind of oath Rainbow had just made began to circle the pegasus with the technicolor mane, speaking in turn, overlapping and letting their voices flow into each other in that way that only ancient beings and ponies who have known each other for a ridiculously long time can.
"They will be watching you because they know the power of Loyalty, and they know the meaning and might of your words. Across Equestria, even beyond, you can go, find anypony with true power and ask them, ask them what it means when a bearer of Loyalty makes an oath. And they will all tell you the exact same thing.
"When Loyalty swears by nothing, but gives you their word and binding oath. When they tell you that they are going to challenge fate, destiny, and reality. When they say that they are going to take on the entire world and win. When Loyalty has somepony to protect and they tell you that they will come through, hang the odds, buck the rules, and clop the consequences. When Loyalty tells you that they are about to do the impossible while everything in the universe tries to stop them, Then there is exactly one thing you can be sure of.
"One fact that transcends all others. One constant that will always define the truth. One ideal, one concept, one uniting factor that will always be there. Because when Loyalty stands up, and challenges the greater plan, it will always, always mean one thing:
"They're selling themselves short."
The four ponies stopped circling the mare in the middle, stepping back to the crowd to let Rainbow Dash face her predecessor. Midnight smiled as he stepped to the edge of the platform. "You will save Scootaloo, from both of her fates. If you have to build door number three with your bare hooves, you'll save her. I know you will. I know because I felt it, what you did just now, I felt the powers of the universe shift as you made your oath before you even spoke the words.
"But always remember Rainbow Dash, the true power of Loyalty is not what we can do. Loyalty gains power from those it is loyal to. Trust your friends, because at the end of the day, they're the real power of loyalty."
The mare smiled, nodded, and slauted with a wing.
Midnight returned the mare's nod and turned to her friends. "Pinkie Pie, a word of advice on those surprise cupcakes you're planning for Spike's birthday, have Twilight check the gems before you put them in. Rarity, don't go with the wire frames you were considering buying from that one dealer, that particular alloy has an unhealthy attraction to lightning. Applejack, there are currently two pairs of travelling salesponies on their way to Sweet Apple Acres, they'll both arrive in about a week and when they do you need to let old grudges go and trust the Flimflam Brothers.
"Flutteshy, my message for you comes from two very desparate friends of mine. When you get home, you will find a package left on your doorstep by the stars right before your arrival. Please... take care of it.
"That's it for the warnings on this next month's disasters, and also as far into the future as I dare look. Which leaves me with only one thing left to do. If the young filly listening at the door could please come in now?"
A small black alicorn sheepishly looked around the corner. "Are you done with the 'grown-up' stuff yet?"
Her mother gasped, "Nyx! How long have you been there?"
The filly shrugged. "Pretty much the whole time. I wasn't actually trying to listen or anything, I just... I got worried. Nopony would hand us something like that without a good reason, and the only thing that really happened was..."
Midnight nodded. "The Crusaders, the only foals in the room, left. So you got suspicious, and you snuck back." He lowered himself to bring their eyes as close to level as he could get them. "We do need to know how much you heard though."
The filly looked the stallion in the eye. After a few minutes, their staring contest ended when she slowly nodded and threw him a winning smile. "Absolutely nothing. Besides, it's not like a filly could do anything to help a mare anyway."
Midnight chuckled, "Atta girl. Alright then, back to business."
"Twilight Sparkle, if you could please step forward." The purple mare walked up to the base of Midnight's stand. The stallion smiled at her kindly. "Celestia chose her student well, you really are just like the pickpocket who started a war so long ago. A librarian who regularly holds the fate of Equestria in her hooves. And what's more, you regularly save it with a performer, a farmer, a dressmaker, a baker, and a veterinarian. Not very far from the street thief who inspired a noblemare, a maid, a gardener, a grocer, and a student to take down a world-spanning government.
"But you are more than that, aren't you? You are a scholar, a mare, a mentor, but above all else, you are a mother. A mother whose child will never be able to escape the reputation she gained because the adults in her life made some very bad mistakes." Nyx's eyes widened in shock and some red began to creep into her mother's mane. "But those mistakes lie on the heads of those much older than you."
"I have a debt to repay.
"After the final battle, where Celestia sealed Nightmare Moon away as the mare in the moon, the Elements were turned on me, turning my body to stone while my mind, heart, and soul were sealed into my star. I became one of the wishing stars, and as such I have the responsibility to help ponies achieve the hopes and dreams that they hang on me. I am responsible for protecting those wishes.
"A little while ago, I failed at that, and one little filly had her wish of being able to live in peace with her mother shattered completely. I tried to stop what happened, and in doing so, I inadvertently caused it.
"Celestia had stopped listening to me, and had in fact placed spells on the castle to keep me from appearing to ponies here. I knew what Spell Nexus was up to, and I tried to get a warning out. I made a mistake. I tried to contact Celstia's unicorn protege, thinking that she had enough magical power for me to manifest to her. Had my timing been better, it probably would have worked.
"Unfortunately, I was so desparate to stop what was about to happen, that I got careless. I forgot to account for her own internal conflict and state of shock.
"It was just too much. She went into sensory overload and froze up. Her brain shut down almost completely, stuck looping through the same few thoughts. It took her daughter's terrified cry to restart her mind.
"But by then it was too late. The mare was unable to keep her child from being taken away from her and forced to bear the mantle of dread that others expected of her. Because of we unthinking immortals, Nyx will never be able to escape the fact that some ponies will look at her and see only Nightmare Moon.
"Funny thing," The stallion smiled for the first time since he had begun his monologue. "For a good third of the occupants of this room, the fact that something can never be done is basically an excuse for them to be able to do it.
"So Twilight Sparkle, if you happen to have a rather large supply of parchment and ink on hoof, then I happen to have a way to begin repaying my debt to you and your daughter."
Fifteen minutes later the light of a spell circle died down as the last page gently floated down on top of a stack taller than Celestia. Midnight began speaking again, "Gather those supplies and study those research notes. When you're done, contact Luna and we can get the spell working. I can't promise anything drastic, but we should be able to make it so that ponies don't look at her and automatically see Nightmare Moon returned. Also, a word of parenting advice that the Star of Prophecy asked me to pass on: 'When the innocent are in danger because of the memory of the terror, when all magic fails and even the last light cannot reach you, trust in the ancient one.' I have absolutely no idea what it means, and I doubt even you lot could make that star stop being cryptic."
The stallion stood tall and proud as he faced the ponies assembled in the Throne Room. "Alright, thank you everypony for coming, it's been a lot of fun seeing the physical world again, but-" He was cut off by a flash of light. When it cleared, he was staring at the new jewel that had shown up in the row along the side of his platform, where there had previously been an empty socket. "The seventh..." He tipped back his head and laughed. "Featherdancer I don't know how, but apparently you even saw this angle, didn't you?" He looked at the six mares wearing six of the most precious pieces of jewelry in existence. "Well, things are moving along quite quickly now. Prepare yourselves, I get the feeling that the game is about to change."
"Completely." The assembled ponies turned to see a black filly slightly older than the Crusaders. Her coat was black and her mane and tail were ice blue. Her cutie mark was a white outline of a single large cut gemstone.
"Black Diamond!" The voice from behind her belonged to a colt of roughly the same age, or so they supposed. The only real feature that they could see was the cutlass blade sticking out from under his cloak. "We're not even supposed to be at this point in time! What are you doing interfering with events!"
"Relax 'Time Pirate,' we'll get back to her soon enough, but I've got to close this causality loop first."
"Aaagh! We don't have time for this! She's in trouble, and we have to get back to her-"
"In a completely different point in time. We've got room for me to close this loop, Distra, back me up here."
A light blue unicorn mare with a darker blue mane and tail stepped out of the shadows to join the squabbling duo, her cutie mark - a swirly circle of some kind - making The Doctor freeze up. "Black Diamond is right, she needs to close the causality loop. Besides, in my current state I can't open the time vortex for another few minutes anyway."
"Fine, but -"
"Would you relax? Honestly, you'd think you're the only one with somepony waiting. I'm just as worried about Nightingale as you are about her, probably moreso, considering he doesn't get a come-back-from-the-dead-free card."
"We've told you, she didn't inherit that trait! If she dies, then that's it, she's gone!
"Black Diamond! Time Pirate! Nopony is going to die. Trust me, this next vortex should drop us there right on schedule. Besides, Stopwatch, Spell Nexus, and Zap Apple should be able to keep things under control."
Black Diamond burst out laughing. "Yes, because we're all so good at keeping things under control. I mean honestly, the school was taken. Ponyville Elementary. The most well-defended fortress in Equestrian History. To cap that off, all of the alicorns and the elements have been removed from the game, as has every hero we've ever had, the Crusaders have all been captured and are being held at the school that they once called safe, the trio is MIA, and our resident pirate's fillyfriend is about to sacrifice herself to stop -"
"DIAMOND!" Distra's scream cut through the filly's tirade. "You can complete the causality loop, but you can't reveal any other future information. At this point in time, it might just cause all of us to stop existing."
The black filly sighed, "My point is that we are well and truly bucked. Are you sure that this vortex will open up in the right place and time? Because if we're all gonna wind up gone anyway, I'd at least like to save some ponies."
"I'm sure, this will get us to the exact place and time we need to be to turn the tide of the battle."
"Alright then, just let me close the loop." Black Diamond nodded at the mare and then stepped forward. "Rarity, bearer of the Element of Generosity, someday soon, you are going to find yourself facing a choice about the direction you want your life to take. When you do face the choice, you will know that it was the one I spoke of. That day will come, and when it does, remember my words. Follow your heart, trust in your friends, ignore reality, throw destiny, fate, chance, and caution to the winds, it will all work out in the end."
Rarity slowly stepped forward. "Any clues as to the choice in question?"
"You'll know it when you face it. You will know."
"...Why tell me this?"
Black Diamond looked away with a smile. "Because. Because someday a filly will come to you with a question, one that only you will be able to answer." The filly took in her hoof the pendant she was wearing, gazing at it as she spoke, "And you'll give her the same advice." She let the pendant drop to hide again in the shadows pressing against her chest, the white scale flashing in the light before vanishing.
Midnight Star cleared his throat from the back of the room. "I'm sorry, but that armor, is it..."
Black Diamond smiled at him and saluted. "Yes sir, I wear it with pride and honor."
Midnight raised an eyebrow "Aren't you a little bit young to be one of my guards?"
The filly sighed. "You didn't have a lot of options sir. I was the only pony you could recruit at the time. Nopony else was close enough to do anything, near enough to darkness, and not an actual part of the threat themselves. It was a case of right time, right place, and I'm trying to make it right filly."
The stallion looked at her for a moment before slowly nodding. "You know, I think you just might be."
She returned his nod and dropped her salute with shining eyes. Her cloaked companion stepped forward. "Alright then come on, let's go. We've got to..." He trailed off and paused for a moment before taking a deep breath and turning back to their audience. "Is Derpy Hooves or Ditzy Doo here?"
The gray pegasus and her husband stepped forward. "That depends, do you want the time traveler or the mailmare?"
The colt paused for a moment as if weighing his answer before speaking. "The mother."
Across time and space, the names of The Doctor and Ditzy Doo were known. Tyrants feared them, the helpless loved them. In some worlds, there were even religions that had been formed around them (they tried to stop it, but usually it took a couple of centuries for them to even find out about these cults). At those two words, the literally universal heros ran screaming from the personas of Time Turner and Derpy Hooves respectivelly. The mailmare and repairpony felt a chill run down their spines as they recognized the tone of the colt's voice. Whenever a time traveller had that tone, it meant that something had gone very wrong in the future and that said time traveler was about to break the rules to fix it.
The gray pegasus looked at the cloaked colt for a moment longer before nodding. "Go ahead, I'm here."
The colt took a breath. "On the day when the skies turn black and your two lives collide, an enemy will rise. When the buildings are bathed in flame, and fire and lightning rain from the heavens, Ponyville will burn. One mare's body will be lost to flame and ash. When the sun rises in a black sky, you will know that the day of my prophecy is here. When that day comes, the only thing you will be able to do is run. It is the only way to prevent the slaughter. Run for your life, your country, your town, your family. Take nothing with you, not even your husband and children. They will be fine, you will be fine. Vanish into the Everfree. Seek refuge with Zecora. Once it happens, you can come out of hiding, you can fight. But don't be in Ponyville when they arrive. Please, I don't know how much good it will ultimately do, but don't be the casualty that starts the war."
The mare nodded. "So, sunrise against a black sky, run and hide with Zecora. Leave my family to an uncertain fate behind me with only the promise that it might prevent the fire and destruction you're talking about. Yeah, do you even know who you're talking to?"
The colt gave a soft, sad smile that many of the room's occupants were familiar with. "Do you?" He withdrew two halves of a wooden sword from beneath his cloak, setting them on the ground in front of him. A stray breeze blew a part of his cloak free from his leg, which he was just barely too slow to withdraw. The pegasus mare was the only one to see it, and she rushed forward to peer beneath the hood of the colt's cloak.
Her eyes widened in shock as she stepped back. She sat down and stared at him. He gave her a moment before speaking quietly, "If you don't yet, then I can only hope that by the time that day arrives, you will know just how much I care about your family. Please don't make them go through the pain of watching your death spark the war that destroys their home."
The blue unicorn mare and the brown earth pony stallion both cried out at the same time that Derpy's tear hit the floor. They turned to gape at the cloaked colt. Distra was the first to speak. "You... you changed time."
The colt smiled, "Oh good, it worked."
"Do you have any idea what you've done?"
He turned around to look at the mare. From behind him, the ponies of the present felt his grin turn feral and his gaze harden. "Nope, I haven't got any clue at all as to how things changed, but frankly, it's got to be better than the Tartarus we left."
The Doctor stepped forward. "Colt, while I appreciate what you just did, messing with things like that is dangerous. The universe doesn't like that kind of thing, there will be consequences."
"Let them come." Those bearing witness would have almost called it a passing of a standard. "The universe can go stick it up their plots. The ponies that I care about were hurt. I changed that. If the universe has a problem with that, then they can come and get me."
"Why would you risk so much?" Distra inserted herself into the conversation again.
The colt's grin turned natural. Something again felt by those around him rather than seen. "Because I met this stallion once, and he taught me that sometimes there are things that are important enough to break all the rules for." He cocked his head at the same time as Black Diamond. "Oh look, new memories. Wait... why didn't anyting change? Nothing's different until..."
Distra gave him a sad smile. "Because I had to seal everypony's memory. On the day when the sun rises in a black sky, they will gradually begin to remember, but until then, they will forget this moment where the throne room slipped outside of time. You will be given a dream last night, where you watch this whole scene play out. you will forget it until the right moment when the words ring through your mind. All of your memories of the previous timeline will also be given to you in the dream, and released slowly, as they would have occurred. This will be done via psychic projection, and the causality loop will prevent the majority of the paradox. Black Diamond will receive her memories of the old timeline in the same way. Everypony here will forget until that day everything that has tranpired from when I dropped us out of time when you stepped forward to the point where time restarts in 3... 2... 1...
"Alright then, now that that causality loop is taken care of, it's time for us to go." Distra was herding her companions away from the crowd. Her horn briefly lit up and a spiralling hole opened in the air. "Everypony through the time vortex please, I can't hold it open forever thank you. Time Pirate, Black Diamond, it's time to go, come along." The two younger ponies cast one last look back over their shoulders before leaping through the vortex. Distra smiled, winked at her audience, and then vanished through herself, the vortex closing behind her.
"Well... that was interesting. Why didn't you tell me that there were more time travelers out there?"
Time Turner shrugged. "There aren't. Not yet. Although if that unicorn's cutie mark was anything to go by, then there's at least a few more generations of us... Eh, timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly. I suppose we'll figure it out when we figure it out."
Derpy nodded. "I suppose so, I just can't shake the feeling that there's something important we're all forgetting..."
"Try not to think about it love, we'll know when we need to, I'm sure."
In the future, an army marches into a small town. A certain mare is not in the market at the time. Thus she is not one of the ponies rounded up and taken to the town square, and is not there in the wrong place to say and do the wrong thing at the wrong time. Because of this she is not executed, and her execution cannot spark the outrage that escalated back and forth between one earth pony and an army, culminating in Ponyville's town square being bombed off the map by airships. Hundreds of ponies escaped slaughter that day because a certain mare had serendipitously been somewhere else.
Hundreds of years down the road, somepony let slip about a certain prophecy. The Pirate became a name with almost as much baggage as The Doctor basically overnight. Of course, with time travellers, overnight can be a very long time, or literally impossibly short. One fresco depicts a pony with a strange sword locking the gates of Tartarus. Archaoelogical tests put it at predating Celestia and the elder alicorns by three thousand years.
Derpy sighed, "I suppose so."
Midnight Star spoke up. "Alright then, I'm running out of time here, the spell is putting too much of a strain on myself and Discord. It won't last much longer. Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, if you and your husband could please come to the base of my little platform here, I have a final gift of hope for the two of you."
The two stepped forward, sitting down at the edge of Midnight's platform. He leaned forward to the very edge of the spell circle that formed his boundary and spoke in a quiet voice so that only the couple before him could hear. "I'm not going to say which, but one of you hung a wish on me, and I'm going to do what I can to see it granted. I know that the two of you are undergoing some tension over the subject of children. I know that you, Cadence, have been trying to hold off because you were worried about immortality and potential lifespan issues. With what Luna said earlier, I have no doubt that you are now positive that you will outlive your husband, and any children that the two of you may have.
"If I had a physical body, this would be the part where I lightly bop the two of you on the head.
"Put bluntly, I'm sorry, but you're one of the immortals. You bear the curse of eternal youth. You will remain young while almost everypony you know grows old and dies around you. That is part of the burden that alicorns bear. But alicorns also bear the burden of having to interact with those same short-lived ponies that we cannot help but come to care for, whether asfriends or something more. This is because we are bound to an attribute - dreams, emotions, revelations - some ancient force, strong enough to need an alicorn to represent it and bring it.
"I am the Alicorn of Hope, and so now I bring hope to those who have lost it, as is my duty. Princess Cadence, you are nearly immortal and eternally young. You are the alicorn of love.
"So how could your love ever die?" He paused for a moment to let the thought sink in. "Love is a force eternal, unchanging, and undeniable. But it requires two ponies. The alicorn and her lover, an immortal pair."
He smiled as he stood back up, the two of them looking at him with tears in their eyes. "You two take care of each other now, your life forces are bound to each other. If one of you takes on that last great adventure, then the other one will follow them. Considering I'm the only midwife with experience with delivering the children of immortals, I expect to receive a notification via Celestia within the year." He winked at them and raised his voice so that the others could hear.
"Alright then, wishes granted, messages delivered, time running out, yep, I'd say that I'm pretty much done here."
"Wait." Luna walked up to the alicorn stallion. "You and I still need to have that private talk. How do I contact you?"
He smiled at her. "Hope and stardust, that's all I really am right now. Sound like anything familiar to you?"
She smiled softly. "You still chase your dreams after a thousand years of banishment?"
His tone changed slightly, as if he were unsure of his next few words. "Do you still dare to believe in hope?"
The two alicorns locked gazes and for a moment seemed to have a silent conversation. Then Luna nodded and stepped back, making a noise as she did so. The Doctor and one of the mares in the room went wide-eyed.
Twilight stepped forward cautiously. "Princess Luna, was that... clicking just now?"
The princess of the night smiled at the younger mare. "Was what clicking?"
The purple alicorn shook her head. "You know what, I'm not going to bother." She turned and looked at Midnight Star. "I do have one more question for you though."
"I will answer what I can."
She pulled a book out of one of her saddlebags and flipped through it, stopping when she found the right page. She spun it around so that he could see. "Right here, The Pony Who Went to the Stars, it's one of the last stories in the book, placed just after the one that warned me about the events of the Summer Sun Celebration. The pony it talks about... It's you, isn't it?"
He looked at her amd smiled with a tear in his eye. "Well I'll be... Yes, the story is about me, and the other Inkwell too. How did you... of course. More meddling Sunbeam? Although I have to say that it was a slight stroke of brilliance on your part to give her my book."
The white alicorn actually blushed while the pruple one looked confused. "What do you mean your book?"
"I mean my book. As in the book I wrote. Over a thousand years ago I took portions of two separate tomes, combined them with the stories of myself and my friends, and wrote them into a single book. The one you hold in your hooves right now, the Chronicle of Legends.
"All of those stories are true, if you can decode them. Some are straightforward like Luna's, others are symbolic, like mine. There are numerous tales in there, all of them true and powerful. The Alicorn Prophecies, The Forgotten Legends, folk tales and fables that I met personally. Everything I could discover about the greater game."
"Greater Game?"
"Twilight Sparkle, you have been to the other side of the mirror and into the plane where alicorns go. You have seen many mysteries and marvels, so let me ask you, who do you think planned it all out? It wasn't the alicorns, we came after things were already set in motion. So who?"
"Faust?"
"I thought so once too. She says that there are those even above her, and I believe her. The Alicorn of Equestria was very emphatic about the fact that while she forged this land into something better, it was already here when she found it. She still won't tell us what the answer is, probably for the same reason that The Doctor will never check.
"There are some things we just aren't ready to know yet.
"When I came to that conclusion I stopped looking for the players in the greater game. Frankly I'm not sure what I'd do with the answer. But I do know that Equestria isn't ready yet. Honestly I hope that we never are, because we only get to see the ultimate chessmaster when the game is done. We'll find out the answer when the world dies, and that's more than enough for me. I'll find the answer to that question someday, in the meantime I'm going to live my life.
"And now my time really is up." He stepped back to the center of his platform and reassumed the pose he had been in when they brought him here. "Until we meet again." There was a flash of light, and the pony was replaced by a statue as the spell circle began to die down. There was a moment of silence and then the stone alicorn's horn sparked a deep midnight blue before spitting out a multicolored blob that bounced off of several walls before turning back into Discord as he hovered over the ponies.
The draconequus snapped his fingers and the drawbridge turned back into the doors that the throne room usually had. Only Fluttershy noticed the slight tells that he was in pain. "If its all the same to you, there's a good deal too much Harmony in this room, so I'll be on my way." He snapped again and teleported away.
The gahered ponies looked around for a moment, unsure what to do. There was a knock at the recently restored doors and a royal guard walked in. "Princesses, I'm sorry to interrupt, but there are some ponies here to see you." The door opened wider to reveal some familiar faces. Standing there with saddlebags over their backs were Lyra, Bon-Bon, and Lyra.
Wait...
Lyra, Bon-Bon, and another mare who looked exactly like Lyra save for the fact that she didn't have a horn. The not-Lyra could have passed for the other mare's twin. Even the cutie mark was the same. The only odd thing was that Not-Lyra seemed to have something white stuck to her hooves. Closer inspection revealed these small white blobs to be bits of cloud that she was wearing like hoofshoes.
The guard started to speak again, only to be shoved aside by an ever-so-slightly irate Bon-Bon. She marched straight up to Celestia, saluted almost mockingly and spoke. "Agent Sweetie Drops of Her Majesty's Secret Service reporting as requested Ma'am. Coming in off of almost five years of deep cover on assignment in Ponyville. Accompanied by assignment Lyra Heartstrings and civilian Lyra Heartthrob Ma'am. I'm afraid my cover may have been blown Ma'am, may I enquire as to the impending crisis that would require you to reactivate an agent, loose cannon, and civilian so close to a major state secret Ma'am? Or to rephrase:
"I have been in deep cover in Ponyville for five years now! I couldn't not build a life! Lyra and I were living out our lives completely normally! She managed to fully adapt to the culture, as I told you in my reports, and we. Had. Lives! And now you call us back up here again, drudging up old wounds, even calling in Heartthrob, and blow our lives straight to Tartarus! I can understand wanting to brief the newest princess. The Elements of Harmony, sure. But no, you had to call us all the way up here to blow our cover in front of everypony and the mailmare! So I am going to ask you exactly once Ma'am: JUST WHAT IS SO CLOPPING IMPORTANT THAT YOU WOULD FEEL JUSTIFIED IN LITERALLY DESTROYING THE LIVES WE WORKED FOR FIVE YEARS TO BUILD!?!?!?"
Celestia flinched. A part of her wanted to point out how much she was getting yelled at today. A much larger part of her quashed that thought with the point that she had earned every decibel and then some. She looked at the loyal agent she had sent into deep cover five years ago to help a human adapt to pony life. She sighed, "Isn't Miss Heartstrings usually the emotional one?"
"She is. The two of us had a talk on the way over here. When we met with Heartthrob, we ran it by her and she agreed. I was the only one of the three of us who stood a chance of getting through an interview without physically assaulting you."
The Solar Diarch flinched again. Yes, she should probably just be glad that Midnight hadn't had time to light into her. It had been a long time since she had last been humbled. She supposed that she was going to have to get used to the feeling again. "I'm not sure I wouldn't deserve that. For the nonexistant record, everypony in this room is either a sworn guard or has a clearance level of at least... Blue... Delta... Three. Half of them are Black Omega Zero." She would have to remember to upgrade Cadence's clearance level, an Equestrian Princess that was married and led her own small kingdom really shouldn't be at the bottom of this group... maybe two-thirds of the way down the list, but at the bottom? Well, Celestia supposed that was what happened when you made a filly a princess and then got used to keeping the more volatile secrets away from her.
"I'm looking at a mailmare and a repairpony by the names of Derpy Hooves and Time Turner. How are they Blue Delta Three?"
The earth stallion was wearing a trenchcoat that had been in a now discarded saddlebag. He reached into it and pulled out a six-inch piece of metal with a light on the end. He spun it around his hoof and pointed it at a part of the wall near the main doors. An archway appeared. It was quickly filled as the cloud that the gray pegasus mare had just pulled out of the sky flew through it and into the hall. It hit the wall and there were cries of shock and mild pain as it spat lightning.
The gary mare landed next to her husband and hollered to the guards she had just zapped, "And that's why you should always apply an anti-lightning spell to your metal equipment, regardless of where you're expecting to be." The archway vanished as the mare shot the dumbfounded agent a winning smile.
The stallion held out his hoof. "Hello, I'm The Doctor."
"What?"
"I'm The Doctor. I travel around time and space with my lovely wife and companion Ditzy Doo, fixing things like history and reality whenever they have something go wrong with them."
"But-But-But... You're Time Turner and Derpy Hooves, you live in Ponyville. You're a repairpony and a mailmare."
The Doctor and Ditzy both laughed. The Doctor caught his breath first. "Yes, and you make candy for a living. Really though, the whole repairpony/mailmare thing was a bit of a joke on our part. Problem was that nopony in Ponyville knew enough about us to get it. I fix things and ponies, travelling around to save time and space, making sure things work out alright in the end. Sort of the universe's ultimate repairpony.
"Ditzy's pretty much the same. The universe's ultimate mailmare. She travels through time and space to deliver messages from me. Usually messages of hope to opressed races. Sometimes something along the lines of shape up or ship out. And rarely, very rarely, she delivers a warning. That there's an Oncoming Storm, and you'd better get out of the way. Her tears are legendary throughout the universe, they're called the Harbingers."
"...Why would they be called that?"
"It connects to an old legend of another world. Four beings who ride out to signal the end of time. Pestilence, Famine, War, and finally Death. The bringers of the appocalypse. But that's not what you asked. You wanted to know why that particular name would be attached to her tears.
"A long time ago, when I was a very different stallion, Ditzy delivered one of my messages. She tried to be an angel of mercy for a particularly warlike nation. She made her appeal to their high command during a session that was being broadcast on an intergalactic frequency. They laughed at her, scorned her, and clipped her wings. They made her cry, four of her tears fell, caught forever on camera for all the universe to see.
"There is now a rather lovely asteroid field where their capital planet used to be."
"Y-y-you killed an entire-"
"No, I did something much worse. I landed my TARDIS in the middle of their senate floor. I stepped out and picked her up off the floor. I turned to look directly into the cameras. I said four words, 'The Grey Angel cries.' I turned and looked directly into the eyes of the high commander. I gave him a final warning, 'You should run now.' I took Ditzy into the TARDIS and left. I looked away. I still don't know what happened to the planet, I just know it isn't there anymore."
Bon-Bon sat down hard as she looked at the secretary of the local PTA and the repairpony who couldn't seem to get her toaster to work right for longer than two weeks at a time. The mailmare stepped around the candymaker gingerly. "If you'll excuse us, we really need to get to the train station to pick up our children."
Two of the most terrifying forces in the universe walked out of the throne room, nodding to some sheepish and slightly singed guards on the way. It was Princess Luna who broke the silence. "Well then, Lieutenant, if you could please see our guests to their rooms, I think that will be all for the night."
The guard who had led in Bon-Bon and the Lyras looked at her in shock. "Uuuh... M-Ma'am, that's usually something that-"
"I or my sister handle as a royal duty, yes. And under most circumstances it would be, but the rooms have already been prepared if you'll just check with my sister's staff to see who goes where. I'm afraid that we are going to be slightly busy for the immediate future, and will be unavailable for the next few hours. My sister is going to be writing an exception regarding my chambers into certain spells that have been placed on the castle." The mare in question winced at Luna's tone.
"A-and you Ma'am... Thatisifyoudon'tmindmyasking?" The poor guard broke into a cold sweat.
Luna smiled at him. "I... have some dreaming to do." And with that she walked out into the garden, and took to the air in the direction of the castle's tallest tower.