Alicornae: The Legend of Starlit Sky
Part I - Chapter 3: Preparations To Be Made
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The two mares finished their drinks before Twilight beckoned her guest to follow her. With a swish of her horn and a tap of her hoof on the wall next to one of her numerous bookcases, the shelves and stacked tomes vanished. In their place was a secret passage leading downward, a soft multicolored glow playing on the walls of the rough staircase.
"Come along, Starlit. You have a lot of preparation to do, and there are a few things that I need to give you as well."
Swiftly Twilight trotted downstairs, and Starlit found she could barely keep up. Old as she was, Twilight still seemed to have energy enough for five ponies in her, and by the time they got downstairs Starlit was breathing heavily.
"Oh, spare me the theatricality, Starlit," Twilight chided, with a gentle smirk. "There are a few mountains in this land younger than I, surely you can keep up with my withered old bones."
"Be that as it may, not every pony is a nigh-immortal goddess with the stamina of a workhorse," Starlit shot back.
"And whiners rarely complete arduous quests. Come here, you'll need this."
The room Twilight had led her into was nothing short of wondrous, even compared to the majesty of the Golden Oak. Various machines and contraptions hummed, clacked, and buzzed as they performed their functions, solutions bubbled briskly in glass vials, and on the far side of the room from the staircase a large selection of armor, weapons, and various trinkets and pieces of equipment were hung and piled up.
"Mercy," Starlit breathed. "You could equip an army with all of this."
"If that were so maybe I would've won the war," Twilight replied. "Sadly, these pieces of equipment and armaments were all I managed to salvage from the remains of my personal guard when Canterlot fell. I've mostly occupied my time since then maintaining it all for the day when I would find somepony able to wield it."
"And I suppose that somepony would be yours truly," Starlit said.
"It would seem so. I had these armaments modified so that they could only be worn or wielded by a pony with a modicum of magical ability, and so far you're the first unicorn in ages that's been able to meet the minimum requirement."
The statement didn't sit well on Starlit's mind; proper magic had been gone from the world for as long as she had been alive and then some, so the thought of making things that only those capable of using magic could access seemed restrictive and discriminatory.
"What of the Pegasi and Earth Ponies that might've wanted a spot in your guard?" she asked. "Surely they should have been given a fair shot at joining rather than being barred from even trying."
"Oh, there were a few that tried," Twilight admitted as she organized the equipment. "The problem was that the unicorns that wished for the chance to be in my guard far outnumbered them and, given their proficiency at magic, they beat their mundane competitors out every time."
"And that was that? Not even as much as how-do-you-do on the way out the door?" Starlit retorted, incredulity worming its way into her voice.
"Not at all!" Twilight answered back, taking her eyes up from her work. "The sheer fact that they would go up against a challenge where they were unevenly matched proved they had far more heart and gumption than most, so those few that were allowed to try for the role of my personal guard and washed out would instead be given roles in the castle's security. It wasn't what they'd hoped for, but certainly a far cry above a swift kick in the rump out the door."
"I take it that clarity isn't one of your strong suits," Starlit said.
"Apparently not. I apologize for the confusion in regards to my personal rotation of bodyguards as opposed to the greater castle guards of the city. I had always preferred the company of unicorns to the other races, not out of prejudice but from shared experiences. It's tough relating to pegasi and earth ponies as a unicorn since the former two have more physically in common and don't have to bear the burden of magical abilities and all that that entails."
"I can appreciate the sentiment at least," Starlit replied. "My husband and daughter are both unicorns, so I guess this would be a situation of the pot calling the kettle black."
An uncomfortable silence fell over the room as Twilight finished organizing. Starlit still felt a dull ache in the pit of her stomach at the idea of preferring one race to the others, more than likely due to how her life had gone. It didn't matter which race you were, so long as you're willing to work for the betterment of all and to ensure that your family and loved ones didn't starve.
"And... there," Twilight said, breaking the tension. "A few neatly arranged piles of armor, weapons, and trinkets for your perusal. Take your time, there are a few things I need to take care of."
Before Starlit sat the mounds of equipment Twilight had organized; armor, weapons, and various other necessities all carefully placed together to make for easier sorting. Shields, plate armor, leather armor, swords of all sizes, knives of all shapes, and a variety of necklaces, amulets, and pouches lay at her hooves. Carefully she examined the relics, all very well maintained but definitely showing their age.
The blades and metal armors had been polished and re-polished many times and there were visible places where rust and tarnish had been ground away to reveal the metal underneath. The leather armor looked well-oiled, but there were still cracks at the joints and fading on the embossed insignia. Starlit blew a layer of dust off so she could get a better look at the insignia on the dull blue leather.
The emblem looked like a crescent moon turned upside down so that it's opening faced the floor, flanked on either side by a pair of stylized wings. In the center of the moon was a large six-pointed star, its top point extending far higher than the other five, and underneath it were five smaller stars.
"Was this your insignia?" Starlit called to Twilight. She levitated the piece of armor up off the floor with some difficulty.
"Yes, in fact it was," Twilight answered curtly, her head bowed and horn aglow over some device. "The five of us each had a particular crest from each of our kingdoms, and when we formed the unified Equestria we all took elements from ours and turned it into the nation's seal. Sadly, by the time the war broke out we had all gone back to using our disparate seals, hence why mine is the only one on that armor."
Starlit took another good look at the armor; it looked flexible with an ample amount of protection, and had a nice split in the back for her tail to slide through between the flank plates. She set the armor down behind her and went back to her task.
After a few more minutes she had selected what she would take with her from the piles; a small-sword, a thick bladed hunting dagger, a set of sturdy saddlebags, four plated horseshoes with an accompanying set of greaves, and the armor she had already set aside. The sword and dagger looked to be made of tempered steel, and the greaves were formed from leather and steel splint mail that had been blackened to better blend with the rest of the armor.
With some difficulty she levitated her new armor and weaponry into their respective places, feeling lightheaded as she finished. She soon found a mirror in the whirlwind that was Twilight's laboratory and took a good look at herself.
"Hmm," Twilight murmered from across the room. "The armor suits you, but are you certain about your weapon choice. A small-sword and a knife don't seem like they'd have the staying power for what you're going to be doing."
"Twilight, I am no warrior," Starlit replied. "The closest thing I have to martial training is swinging a sickle during the village's annual wheat harvest and chasing rodents off of my land with a pitchfork. These weapons will do fine, as I plan to prioritize mobility over power and I doubt I'd have the strength, magical or otherwise, to wield anything heavier."
"Suit yourself," Twilight replied with a shrug. "I can also see you haven't taken any of my amulets or necklaces."
"Well, aren't they just useless trinkets?" Starlit asked. "I've never been a mare that worried herself too much over appearances, especially concerning jewelry. It's just one more thing to take care of and normally far too expensive to bother with."
"To the untrained eye, yes, these are just seemingly useless pieces of jewelry, but if you have the magical acumen to reveal their true potential..." Twilight said as she levitated one of the pieces over. It was a simple necklace made with a golden chain and garnished with an opal set in a silver bezel.
Twilight closed her eyes for a moment and Starlit could tell she was concentrating, letting her considerable magic flow into it. Slowly the strations of color inside the opal began to shift and move before they aligned themselves in a perfect grid pattern and shot out a similar grid of light beams.
The beams coalesced and floated in mid air until they put together a three-dimensional image, one of a baby dragon with purple and green scales. It quickly popped its eyes open, letting its slitted pupils adjust to the light of the room.
"Starlit Sky, this is Spike, my helper," Twilight announced. "He maintains the Golden Oak when I'm away and makes sure everything stays organized."
"Hello!" Spike said. "It's not very often that Twilight has visitors over; you must be somepony very special if she let you down here. Are you a friend of hers?"
"More of an... employee," Starlit answered. Spike, while astonishing to see, didn't elicit the same sort of stunned reaction as when she first saw the Golden Oak.
"Are you real?" Starlit continued. "I had heard stories about the dragons, but I assumed that they were all gone."
"I guess you could say I am and I'm not," Spike answered. "A long time ago I was Twilight's personal assistant and friend. I helped her organize her things and gather materials for her experiments, and in return she let me live with her and made me her confidant. When the war broke out the first thing she did was store a copy of my consciousness in this necklace so that, if my real body didn't make it out of Canterlot, some of me would still be alive to help her rebuild."
"Did your real body make it out?"
For a moment Spike looked like he was about to answer, but then the lines of light composing his form stuttered and hung still in midair. He looked like a living statue, completely still save for the ebbing glow of the light he was radiating.
"What happened? Spike, are you alright?" Starlit asked.
"He's fine, I just paused him," Twilight answered, her head hung low. "I never told Spike — this Spike, at least — what became of his real self. I fear that if he were to know the truth it might destabilize the simulation of his mind."
"Then, Spike didn't..."
"No, he didn't make it," Twilight continued, tears welling up in her eyes as she looked at Starlit.
"Twilight, I'm sorry, I had no idea," Starlit said, not sure of where to look or what to do with her body.
"I raised Spike from the day he hatched, you know? He was like the son I never had and the little brother I always wanted. He was vibrant and fun and helpful, always trying to find a way to make everypony else's days better. He was so unlike his kin in that regard, you'd almost think he was a pony with scales instead of fur"
The tears in her eyes finally spilled over, staining her cheeks as hiccuping sobs wracked her chest.
"When the fighting began I copied his mind over to this necklace, but when the process finished he demanded that he stay behind, hold off the other Princess' forces to give me time to escape. I begged and pleaded with him to come with me but he stood his ground, and just as Chrysalis' Changelings broke through the window he shoved me out the door. I ran, ran as fast as my hooves would take me, never once looking back to see what became of him, and I didn't find out until many moons later."
"Twilight, you don't have to continue if you don't want to," Starlit interjected.
"When I came back to the ruins of Canterlot," Twilight continued, undeterred by Starlit's sympathy, "I headed straight for my old observatory. The window had been completely smashed through, all my books and scrolls were gone, and in the center of the room were over a dozen dead Changelings and Spike's tiny body, as cold as ice."
"Twilight, stop!" Starlit Sky shouted, knocking the Princess out of her fugue state.
"Just, stop," Starlit continued. Her eyes too were welling up, and a tightness pervaded her chest that made her feel like she was about to suffer a heart attack. "Please, I understand your grief, but just stop."
"Starlit, I—" Twilight began.
"Twilight, the only reason I'm going on this quest is for my daughter's sake, so the last thing I need to hear is how all of your loved ones died trying to fight a battle they had no hope of winning."
A long silence pervaded the lab, broken only on occasion by a small bubble or hum of some tonic or device. The figure of Spike still stood in the room, paused with a happy smile on his face and glowing with dull green and purple radiance.
"I'm sorry," Twilight said after a time, "that was selfish of me. You have your own loved ones to worry over, you don't need my troubles heaped upon your shoulders. Come, we should send you on your way."
With a flick of her horn Twilight dismissed Spike and put the amulet around her own neck. She then levitated another amulet out of the pile. It was on a dull silver chain, and looked like a perfectly polished chunk of obsidian rimmed with melted silver.
"Take this, it will protect you in dire circumstances," Twilight said tersely. She slowly levitated the amulet onto Starlit's neck, and as soon as the stone touched her chest she felt a dull throbbing emanate from it. It had a similar presence to it as the sprite that had shown her the vision of Twilight's battle had.
With a spark of her magic Twilight pulled a large tarp off of one of the devices on the far side of the room, loosing cobwebs and dust as she did. It looked like a stone slab embedded into the ground with a series of runes Starlit didn't recognize running around the rim of it. Sticking up equidistant from each other on the outer rim were four large stone spikes, also covered in glyphs and runes that glowed a dull purple.
"This is a teleportation pad," Twilight explained. "In my time unicorns could simply teleport places as they pleased so long as they had a strong mental image of the location, but without the magic to power the spell I've had to fall back on this. You simply have to stand in the center of it as I feed the location and magic into the glyphs. Be forewarned, the experience can be... disorienting for first timers."
"How disorienting are we talking here?" Starlit asked, grabbing up some food and supplies and stuffing them in her saddlebags as she made her way to the pad.
"Well, let's just say it will be a happy miracle if you don't throw up as soon as you exit," Twilight answered, feeding her magic into the pad as she did. The runes started to shimmer a brighter purple as energy raced up and across the spikes.
"There, that should be enough to get you to the outer edge of the Searing Plains. I've set the pad to put you on the edge of a town called Appleoosa. The environment is hot and arid, but the townsfolk are decent enough and should be able to point you in the right direction."
"And that's that?" Starlit asked. "Just a slap on the haunch and a 'go get 'em?' Seems like there would be a bit more grandeur to a send-off like this."
"Best not to count the chickens before they hatch, or however that saying goes," Twilight answered. "This task will be arduous, and I don't hold that high of a hope for your survival. The grandeur can wait for when you succeed."
"No offense intended, Your Highness, but did somepony else write your speeches?"
Twilight let out a weary chuckle at Starlit's half-hearted attempt at a joke as she guided her up to the pad.
"Starlit Sky, I may not be the most eloquent or charismatic speaker, but what I tell you now I say from the heart; I believe you can do this. The road will be hard, and you will not come back the same mare as when you left when all is said and done, but your courage and selflessness give me confidence in your ability. Se la duram vos Alicornae.
"Come again?" Satarlit asked. She could feel the magic of the pad permeate her body and tingle her hooves as she stood upon it.
"It's an old saying, from a language long since homogenized into what is now modern Equestrian," Twilight answered. "The best translation of it that I can give is 'May the Favor of the Alicorns follow you.'"
Starlit looked over to her compatriot, who similarly gazed into her eyes. This regent, this mare who's power dwarfed hers even in its diminished state, for the briefest moment seemed to share her morals. Both striving for something lost, both fighting for a better future. It felt sisterly, in a way.
And then Starlit vanished in a flash of bright violet light.
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