This Platinum Crown

by Capn_Chryssalid

Chapter Twenty One : Metaphors and Parables

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(21)

Metaphors and Parables

- - -

The sound of jingling metal keys opened her eyes.

A tangled bush of lime green mane shifted as a head angled towards the jail cell’s door and a gray wing brushed the wall nearby. It was hard stuff, as expected from a jail and under the surface, the four cloudwalls concealed metal rebar beneath the surface. Even for this pony, busting out wasn’t much of an option, as often as she had thought about putting the cell’s construction to the test. One golden eye watched in silence as a white pegasus guardpony unlocked the door and stepped back. There was another reason why she hadn’t bothered to try to escape. Why bother, when it was inevitable that somepony would come to bail you out anyway?

“You’ve been cleared to go, ma’am,” the guard said, and the door opened with a metallic whine.

The prisoner snorted, starting to ease off the cot in the back of the cell.

“Who came to…?” she asked. She started to ask it, anyway, but cut herself short when she saw the answer to her question standing right behind him.

“They said you’d gotten into a fight, but wow, look at you!” Spitfire exclaimed, whistling at the variety of purpling bruises her comrade sported. The shiner, and pride of the evening, had to be the hoof-mark that stood out in imprint on the side of the pony’s head.

“Well, well, well! If it isn’t little miss perfect!” Ritterkreuz chuckled, hopping onto all fours and heading for the door. “I didn’t expect you of all ponies to get sent downtown to bail me out!”

“Commander Bora didn’t send me,” Spitfire replied, to the other mare’s surprise.

“Huh? Then why…?”

“Maybe I just wanted to see for myself what it took to beat you up a little.”

Ritter laughed again, winking at her former warden. The guardpony looked like he regretted having to let the screw loose Wonderbolt back on the streets. “Apparently, it takes four drunken stallions, two chairs, three pool cues, one bottle of whiskey - for drinking - another bottle of whiskey, that one broken over the head, oh, and two mares who joined in at the end when I called them cheap whores. One of them had heels, too, the bitch.”

“You really know how to celebrate Decoration Day,” Spitfire joked, throwing back her bright orange mane as she laughed. Like Ritterkreuz, she was out of uniform, her usual Wonderbolts bodysuit packed up in her locker back at the base. Instead, maybe for the holiday in particular, she had donned one of the team jerseys in blue and gold, the color of her coat underneath. Bold white numbers on her shoulders and over her back displayed her number in the squadron.

02

Ritter bit back her initial response, which was to tell her squad leader that Decoration Day and everypony who celebrated it could go bugger themselves with the tip of a manticore’s tail. Instead, she grunted in what passed for polite silence. Together, the two mares left the cell block where the Wonderbolt had been kept for ‘disorderly conduct’ and a couple counts of other stupid stuff, like ‘disturbing the peace,’ ‘assault,’ ‘unlawful intoxication’ and maybe ‘mayhem.’ Mayhem was such a broad category, though.

What wasn’t a little mayhem, here or there?

“I don’t see the guys you got in the fight with.”

“That’s because I put them in the hospital. I called the ambulance and saw them off and everything because I’m so darn nice.”

“And then you let the police arrest you?” Spitfire asked, amused.

“Why not?” Ritter shrugged. Passing by the front desk, and waved a hoof at one of the officers, a pegasus stallion whose eyes widened frightfully at the sight of her. Or her release. One of the two. The uniformed pegasus quickly grumbled something to himself and buried his nose back into a stack of paperwork.

“So, just so I know what to tell Soarin’ later,” Spitfire began, and Ritter rolled her eyes. “You walked into a bar, a bar right outside one of the Guard Company barracks, drank yourself silly-”

“I was not silly,” the big mare protested, wings briefly flaring, “but I was shit-faced drunk.”

“Blame it on the drink, then?”

“Not at all! I’m no different drunk than sober.”

Spitfire’s eyes were half-lidded, incredulous and not sure whether her team mate was joking or not. “So, while emptying a bottle of cheap corn liquor, you picked a fight with the biggest, meanest group of ponies you could find?”

Ritter chuckled, dryly. “You’ve got me all wrong, lieutenant!” She closed her eyes, sighing. “As you’ll see on my record tomorrow, I was just out having a quiet little drink all by my lonesome when one of these friendly guard ponies comes up to me and starts making advances. Now, maybe I was looking for a lay tonight and maybe not, but he wasn’t exactly my type, so I politely declined his offer of a roll in the clouds.”

“Politely?”

“I may have said that a pencil dick like his would just break off if I gave him a go.”

“Ah.”

“And then maybe I objected to his calling me a big cow.” Ritter’s eyes narrowed dangerously when they opened, that one comment having stuck despite the madness and confusion that followed. “I then asked his friends if he was a cow bucker, since he insisted on trying to hit on a ‘big cow’ like me. The discussion became animated soon after that… and a bit hazy.”

Spitfire sighed, but didn’t voice her thoughts, not right away. For a while, the two Wonderbolt mares walked side by side, enjoying the silence. They left the police station and returned to the streets of Cloudsdale, but not before Spitfire picked up a small saddlebag from a rack where most ponies hung jackets or other traveling clothes. Outside, Cloudsdale was as marvelous as it was mundane to those who had lived in it all their lives.

Fluted Doric columns and vast open pavilions stood alongside waterfalls and shimmering reflective pools. Curling trails and tails of clouds separated squares and streets and neighborhoods, above and below, meeting only to connect the many tiers and terraces that defined the social and physical strata of the largest cloud-city in Equestria. Statuary in water vapor and imported marble, white fluff and pink stone and black with captured stormcloud, populated the city. There were said to be as many statues and busts in Cloudsdale as there were living ponies. The brightest colors came from the many pendants and flags that waved in the carefully controlled breeze, ironic symbols of pegasus pride and independence, they were all imports from the ground below.

“Here,” Spitfire said, abruptly. A piece of colored cloth hung from her mouth, fished out of her saddlebag.

Ritter retrieved it with a hoof, recognizing it right away. “My team jersey? Why bring this?”

“Put it on.”

“…no.”

“Put. It. On,” Spitfire said again, her voice no longer casual. Even though they were off duty, she said it as if it were an order. Ritterkreuz glared at the smaller mare, half tempted to start another fight.

Grumbling, she ultimately slipped it over her head. “Fine. Whatever floats your boat.”

“You’re a Wonderbolt,” Spitfire reminded her, her tone stern. “I don’t know what kind of issues or hangups you have, but you’re a Wonderbolt and you’re on my team. You’re my squad mate. You want to know why I came to bail you out? Because I’m your superior officer. You’re my responsibility now. Not Commander Bora’s.”

Ritter cracked her neck back and forth, working out the kinks.

“Is that so?” she asked, casually.

“And I’m your friend, too,” Spitfire added. “Or I’m trying to be.”

“Don’t get too attached to the ponies under you, lieutenant,” Ritterkreuz warned. “You’ll regret it. Anyway,” she hastened to add, “you got me out of there, and I’m wearing your little ‘team pride’ jersey. We done?”

“No,” Spitfire said, even as the other mare tensed to fly off. “A bunch of us are going to watch the fireworks display. We’re going to celebrate Decoration Day together. I’d like you to be there with us… instead of face down in toilet retching.”

“And why the hell would I do that?” Ritter snapped. “Because you asked me so nicely?”

“No.” Spitfire took wing, slowly lifting off the ground. “But the drinks will be free.”

“Free wine?” The gray Wonderbolt snickered. Most of Equestria drank earth pony spirits, but among pegasi, wine was still king. “Okay. I guess I can fit you guys in.”

The two mares took off.

- -

Spitfire wiped the blood from her lower lip, coughing violently amid the acrid smoke and blinding ash. Her head throbbed painfully from a lingering concussion and her vision wavered in and out, clear one moment and deep-sea-cam the next. Swaying back and forth on what should have been a stable four legs, she blinked, hard, trying to focus.

Clouds.

Was this… Cloudsdale or…?

No.

They were far from Cloudsdale, and this wasn’t cloud. It was fog – heavy, uncooperative fog – ripped free from the skies above Everfree. All around the golden Wonderbolt, wreathed in the smoke and the fog, there was destruction. And fire, too, but she didn’t fear that. Trees had been splintered and uprooted. Somewhere, far away, an animal was howling in fright. She stumbled forward, and her hoof crunched against something wooden, but yielding.

The empty eyes of a dead Timberwolf glared up at her. It ended prematurely at the torso, where fire danced around a jagged line cut into its torso, just above there the back legs would have been. Spitfire blinked, remembering –

A slash of her blazing tail, frantic, they were everywhere, as explosions rained down and –

That was right. She had done that.

Spitfire’s tail hung limp now, the flame gone. All that was left was a phantom trail of smoke, spent and exhausted. It mirrored how she felt. It was hard to breathe, hard to think, her mind raced and wandered at the same time. She coughed again. The air was thick and poisonous. Spitfire didn’t fear flames, but she still needed to breathe. Smoke would kill her where a forest fire wouldn’t singe a hair on her mane.

She saw a shape in the dust and dirt and fire. It was too large to be Fleetfoot or Eagle Eye. No. Fleetfoot had been taken down outside Ponyville. An ambush. And Eagle Eye? Eagle Eye was still around, somewhere, wasn’t she? They had gotten separated. She staggered closer to the prone form. It was a pony. Overcast, maybe, but he… no. He was down, too, wasn’t he? He had flown through a cloud, and she had been inside it, waiting for him where he couldn’t form a cloud shield.

Ritterkreuz.

The big gray mare lay in a shallow depression, her back against a broken, cracked tree. Blood dribbled down her throat and jaw, and marks covered her body. ‘Just like then,’ the thought came, unbidden. ‘Except, this time, we did it to each other.’

Reaching down, Spitfire wrapped her hoof around a stout, hard log.

“Ha. Ha. Ha.” Ritter opened her eyes, laughing through bloody teeth. “That was… pretty fun… are you… going to bash my brains in with that… Sparky?”

Tasting smoke, everything else, all her other senses blasted away by it, Spitfire nodded.

“Maybe,” she said, trying to raise the broken branch like a club. “Maybe bashing your brain in... will knock some sense into you.”

Ritter continued to slowly laugh.

“I don’t mind dying here, like this,” she admitted, taking a breath to compose herself, the chuckles gradually fading away. She looked up, snorted, and spat a wad of blood and phlegm off to the side. “We got to do the Twisting Cloud Carver again. So this isn’t so bad.”

The branch came down, and clonked meekly off the side of the Wonderbolt’s forehead.

“Buck… me…” Spitfire muttered, face down in Ritter’s chest, having collapsed on her hooves and fallen right on top of the other Wonderbolt. The branch rolled off and into the brush, adding to the kindling. For a few wonderful gulps of air, filtered through the coat of her opponent, Spitfire managed to catch her breath and breathe easily. She fumbled with a hoof for her makeshift club for a moment before giving up.

“Was it,” she finally muttered, chest greedily sucking in some relatively ash-less air. “Was it really so bad? Being one of us?”

Ritter’s chest rumbled as she growled.

Her admission was like acid on the tongue to the violent pony. “No. It wasn’t.”

She didn’t say any more than that, and the two mares remained in a heap, slowly trying to recover and will themselves back on their hooves. Around them, the flames from their final, explosive, pyroplastic Twisting Cloud Carver continued to consume the undergrowth. It was too wet to make a real fire, but the smoldering laced the falling fog with foul, black soot.

Overhead, fireworks went off, cracking and blasting, filling the sky with festive thunder.

Ritterkreuz grunted again and rolled to her left, letting Spitfire fall to the matted forest floor. Moaning, the newly promoted Captain of the Wonderbolts managed to eke out enough energy to push off and roll onto her back. For a time, all she could see was the sky, and the bursts of color as Cloudsdale and Ponyville alike celebrated Decoration Day. The holiday dedicated to all the ponies who served Equestria, and all those who had lost their lives preserving a thousand years of peace and prosperity.

Ritterkreuz blocked her view, and without a word, the gray mare craned her neck and bit down on Spitfire’s torn uniform, pulling her up. Everything went black for a second, and when she came back, Spitfire found herself in the process of being hoisted onto her former comrade’s back. Large wings stretched and struggled to fly, but eventually succeeded.

“If it wasn’t so bad,” Spitfire said, coughing up the last of the smoke from her lungs and throat as a sticky, stained spit. “Then… why?” she couldn’t even say more than to repeat, “Why?”

Beneath her, Ritterkreuz continued to fly, albeit unsteadily.

“This is just…” she struggled just as much to reply as she did to keep airborne. “This is just the way I am.”

- - -

It was almost a perfect Decoration Day. Sitting on top of the thick, comfortable thatch on her roof, Fluttershy really only wished that her other friends had been able to make it. Even since she had been a little filly, big groups had always made her nervous, but never when she was with her close friends. Somehow, they always made her feel at ease, even in the worst of situations. Watching the fireworks paint glitter across the night sky, from spiraling bright pinpricks over Cloudsdale and Canterlot to the more modest, but much closer, fireworks over Ponyville, Fluttershy couldn’t help but wonder where the others were.

Many, she knew, would be at the Apple Family farm with Applejack. The Apples always set off fireworks for Decoration Day, and more than a few ponies from town would come by to eat and drink and watch them light the candles, streamers and other pyrotechnics. Pinkie Pie had to be there, she was sure, but Rainbow Dash had said she was too busy training to do much else, and Fluttershy wondered if her fellow pegasus had at least stopped by the farm for a little while to relax. It wasn’t healthy to overdo it.

Twilight and Rarity – they were both probably in the town. It was only natural to miss them, but the night wasn’t over yet. There was still time to head over and meet up, introducing new friends to old ones. Well, one new friend to more old ones, anyway.

“Here goes two more!” Cheerilee yelled, and a second later a fizzling firework shot up into the sky. Straight as a dart, it rose up and up and then suddenly burst into a huge sphere of orange and yellow embers. The light from them receded quickly, leaving behind a few very bright glittering white stars.

“Oh! That’s the Lyre!” Chalice exclaimed, excitedly. She was on the roof, too, and pointed out what constellation each of the unicorn fireworks shot up into the sky. A moment later and a second firework went off, revealing another set of white lights within the fading dome of orange and yellow. “And the Pegasus!”

“You know, I, um… I always thought it looked sort of like a box,” Fluttershy replied, shrinking back into her shoulders and wings slightly. “The Pegasus, I mean. A box with some things stuck in it.”

“A box with things stuck in it?” Chalice asked, and smiled at her, guilelessly. “Isn’t that what a pegasus is?”

“Where are the wings?” Fluttershy insisted, feeling a little emboldened by the night’s drink and a stomach full of sweets and chips. “I don’t really see any of the things constellations are supposed to be,” she admitted, and felt the sudden urge to apologize, “Sorry.”

“I guess I don’t really see it that well, myself,” Chalice said, waving a hoof, as if to say, ‘no need to apologize.’

Cheerilee called out from below and lit one last firework, and Chalice took a moment to float the earth pony up and onto the roof. All three mares were in a good mood, and Cheerilee set down a radio next to her. She had been listening to one of the hoofball games for the last few hours, and while Fluttershy didn’t really follow sports, and Chalice had only a polite interest, Cheerilee loved it. Somehow. Despite the fact that her team appeared to be in a constant state of, “What the hell, offense? What happened to our running game?”

Before the game and all that, Fluttershy had played board and card games with her two friends, relaxing and talked about the town and her animals and the latest news. The food had been too much for the three alone to finish, ensuring plenty of leftovers for her animal friends tomorrow, though the punch and a few hard drinks were reserved for pony consumption only. Only one thing had really been missing from the event.

She had so hoped to show Chalice that some animals, her animals, wouldn’t be so mean to her.

Her critter friends weren’t like the ones in the Canterlot Palace Gardens. They didn’t come from bad homes and they weren’t rescued from the illegal animal trade or anything like that. All but a few were happy animals from outside Ponyville. They had been around ponies their entire lives. They were for all intents and purposes completely tame.

It was disheartening, even now, to remember how Angel Bunny had hissed at Chalice and later tried to bite her. That wasn’t acceptable behavior, even for her precious little Angel. He wasn’t alone, either. Her otter pals had swum away at the sight of her new friend, her squirrels had hidden in the boughs of the closest tree after she called them over, and even her birds had flown off to roost away from the house. Fluttershy was left with the sad and terrible truth that maybe Chalice had been right before: her magic really did scare away animals.

It was just too sad, to imagine that she’d never be able to have a pet or an animal friend.

“That was so nice, Cheerilee. Thank you!”

“No problem!” Cheerilee bopped the visiting unicorn on the shoulder. “I’m glad you liked it, your ladyship!”

“Please, my sisters may insist on titles, but not me,” Chalice explained, bashful. “I - I don’t really have much of a title anyway.”

“Well, did you have a favorite?” Cheerilee asked, changing the topic back to something comfortable with practiced ease. “I really liked the big dipper! There’s another name for it, too? Can you guess what it is?”

“Among unicorns, it isn’t often separated from the Ursa Major,” Chalice replied, contemplative. “And I recall the big dipper, or the great plow, was one of the old earth pony constellations, wasn’t it?”

“You know your stuff!” Cheerilee clopped a hoof against the roof in approval.

“Ah. Well. Just a few things,” Chalice answered, shying away slightly. “I really liked the Pegasus. She’s one of my favorites.”

“It is?” Fluttershy asked, curious at her new friend’s choice. Rarity had no interest in constellations at all, but Twilight had one favorite in particular: the mysterious Orion.

Chalice nodded, happy to explain herself. “Pegasus is the only constellation to love ponykind. She is also the constellation representing lost love.”

“I’ve heard about this,” Cheerilee, ever the schoolteacher, paused to recall her astronomy and pony mythology. “Pegasus was one of the mothers of ponykind, and the mother of winged unicorns. According to the unicorns, of course.” She brought a hoof to her mouth, still thinking back to her studies. “I don’t remember anything about lost love, though.”

“Pegasus so loved ponykind, she often descended from the heavens,” Chalice said, staring up at the firework framed night sky. “When she took physical form, mares and stallions alike all fell in love with her. But she was forever torn between the heavens and the other stars and the ponies below.”

“I remember now! You’re talking about one of the old Star Caller fairy tales!” Cheerilee announced, laughing. “That he saw a Pegasus bathing in a hot spring one day and fell in love with her. I wonder if that was before or after he kicked over Puddinghead’s chimney? Both are metaphors for chasing the impossible…”

“Metaphors and parables,” Chalice agreed. “I know.”

“Um,” Fluttershy muttered, hesitant to interrupt, but wondering about the story about the celestial pegasus. “You said she represented lost love?”

Chalice continued to star upwards. “They say, even though pegasi and unicorns were enemies back then, both under threat from the neverending winter, he would not let anypony harm her. Eventually, she came to love him too, but the stars refused to let her remain long among ponykind. One night, without warning, they took her away, and no matter how loudly Star Caller commanded her return, the heavens would not permit it.”

“A valuable lesson on the limits of one’s power,” Cheerilee explained.

“No,” Chalice muttered, very softly. “It wasn’t.” Before the schoolteacher could argue otherwise, the unicorn pointed off in the distance. “Look. I do believe I see somepony… heading this way.”

Shifting from a laying to sitting position, Fluttershy quickly saw what Chalice had. At the mention of ‘somepony’ she had initially thought it could be Rainbow Dash, probably wondering when they were going to head over to the party at the Apple Farm. Except, it was the wrong direction. This pony – these ponies since it looked like one was draped over the other – were headed in from the Everfree border.

She recognized one of them, as they drew closer.

“Oh dear,” she whimpered.

Her.

And the night had gone so well, too.

- - -

Lyra couldn’t help but notice that Siren Song was really making the most of the evening.

She had said she would, of course, and Lyra hadn’t had a reason to doubt the sultry pegasus. She had been to events like this before, and a few of the attending ponies even seemed to recognize her. It shouldn’t have come as either a shock or a surprise when she sauntered off with a stallion or mare, or, just now, one of each. Not more than a few minutes ago, she had been serenading the Solarium guests with a set of vocal pieces in classical Bitalian – part of the theme of the evening – and now she was partly concealed behind flowing indigo drapes, only the front half of her visible as she teased the back of another mare’s neck with her teeth. By the rhythm of the way she shifted back and forth, it was obvious what little the curtains concealed.

She had been close to the mark on her earlier predictions, however. Most ponies at the party did not seem interested in more than watching. ‘Is this really an orgy?’

The Solarium had been done up in opulent fashion to parallel the ‘Bitalian Crystal’ theme of the entertainers. There were crystal sculptures and mosaics wrought in lead and stained glass, and rivers of silk and satin gave the illusion of open air colonnade in a cool magical breeze, wafting in from the Marediterranean Sea. Marble architraves encircled the Solar where the domed ceiling met the curving walls. Sparkling glass bowls overflowed with delights: there were honeycakes with black and blueberries from Mareabia, sweet prickly pears from Equestria’s dry, desert colonies, a fragrant dish of eggs and peppers cut into elaborate flowers, crusty baked ‘coffyns’ made in the old square style, teasing Lyra’s appetite with the smell of alluring pine nuts, blue crystal bowls of steaming mushroom soup, carved, personalized wooden trenchers overflowing with raisins, oats, stewed carrots and finely chopped apples, drizzled in milk. The raisins tasted like they had been boiled in wine. Old world spiced squash served on platters of crunchy oatbread added to the heady aroma of food, drink, incense and sex.

Just as Siren Song had said before, there was a staggering cross section of Equestria’s best and beautiful in attendance. Lyra could overhear the distinctive accent of Manehattanites as they sipped imported sparkling white wine, watching a nearby couple’s spectacle with amusement. Most of the mercantile and wealthy wore suits and gowns, but the aristocrats who had been invited were clearly in competition with one another. One mare, her voice laced with Prench accents, wore an embroidered felt dress with a split back around her tail, trimmed sinfully in red vair. Another wore ivory silk with gold and deep blue velvet. Her hat may even have been one of Rarity’s designs, with plumed fascinators emerging from beneath waves of delicate silver wire.

Remaining close to her Brayehard diatonic single-row harp, Lyra Heartstrings tippled from a crystal glass and smiled in what she hoped was a friendly – but only friendly – manner at the occasional guest that made eye contact. As nervous as she had been at first, and then as embarrassed as she had been first seeing ponies behaving… like this… in relative public, it had all too quickly became interesting to watch if not participate in. That last bit was a little too much, too soon. It was a little shocking to herself that her comfort level had grown - or maybe sunk - to accommodate all that surrounded her.

A beautiful earth pony mare with flaxen yellow mane and soft violet eyes lingered as she walked past. Lyra kept her smile beaming, thankful when the mare turned her attentions toward a unicorn dam and her stallion, both from Canterlot. Lyra had already had to politely decline a few invitations over the course of the evening. One or two of them, she had been sorely tempted to accept.

How long had it been, she reflected, since she had been with anypony?

Would it really be so bad to enjoy herself, here? When she went back to Ponyville, would she look back on this one otherworldly experience with regret? There would be no complications, if she to find a pretty mare or a handsome stallion, though Bon Bon would probably be a little upset at the former. What was the problem, though? She would never see them again. There would be no awkwardness. Except, maybe, when she bragged about it privately to Bon Bon and told her she had missed an amazing evening. And, there was no doubt in Lyra’s mind, that all this was amazing. It was a party the likes of which most ponies would never see in all their lives.

But, at the same time…

“Miss Heartstrings?” a gruff, feminine voice interrupted the musician’s ruminations. Lyra turned to the side from where she sat, on one of the many floor pillows, to find one of the Garden guards. For the party, all the guards expected to interact with the guests had been dressed in dusky red doublets, black sash tight across the chest and oiled black leather swordbelt around the waist, the scabbard removed. Save for the roundness of their snouts and a few other tells like eyelashes and the shape of the torso, they could have been easily mistaken for stallions.

“Yes?” Lyra asked, still a little nervous around the fierce looking mares. The guardponies had a reputation among the other mares in the Hanging Garden: no sense of humor, no desire to mingle, no interest in conversation.

“Lord Alpha Brass has requested your presence in the verandah.”

“Oh!” Lyra bounced off her seat. “Right now?”

“Yes.”

“Should I – should I bring something, or…?”

“No.”

“I, uh, I guess I’ll just follow you, then?” Lyra asked, grinning broadly. In contrast, the guardpony’s lips remained a trim, tight line. She turned and began to trot off. Lyra stuck close behind, and as they left the solar, she caught one last look at Siren Song. She was on her back, now, eyes closed and enjoying the company of the two nobles she had corralled.

‘I’m luckier than you, after all,’ Lyra couldn’t help but think, remembering their conversation earlier. ‘I bet you wouldn’t feel sorry for me, now.’

- -

“You wore the pearls,” Alpha Brass commented on seeing her enter. “Just as I’d hoped, they bring out the color of your blush. I hope they bring out even more, in time. Please, walk with me.”

Lyra fell in step with the Marquis, the scarlet color of her cheeks burning, now doubly so at the compliment paid her. It was surprising how nice it was to see her patron again in the flesh. A statue and a few vivid dreams really couldn’t do him justice. He wore much the same fading rose red doublet as his guards, but where they wore their uniform in Spartan simplicity, his attire was more flamboyant. Ruffled lace the color of his golden coat spilled out from his collar and cuffs, and brass medallions took the place of buckle and button. A set of butter yellow gloves were clipped to his belt by golden rings. His mane, ash and honey blond, had been styled into wavy Marediterranean curls around his horn, like the bust of a golden statue given the breath of life by Celestia herself.

“Have you enjoyed the party so far?” he asked, leading her across a long, sweeping verandah overlooking the tiered gardens below. “I had a cask of Nhorse moselle opened for tonight. I’ve become quite fond of moselle since I inherited the Scandaneighvian colonies.”

“Oh, uh, no I – I don’t think I’ve tried that, yet,” Lyra admitted, trying to find her voice. She picked up her pace slightly, if only to keep from staring too lewdly at the swaying of her host’s tail and flanks. It wasn’t polite to stare at a mare like that; it probably wasn’t to do the same to a stallion, especially her new, powerful patron noble. No. No. Not at all. Defiantly not polite company.

“Mm,” he murmured, softly. “Well then, I take it you did at least sample the book I loaned you? There are only three complete copies of The Equus Formicarius outside the Royal Archives. Two are mine, but you have the only original text.”

“I’ve been very careful with it!” Lyra promised, cantering up to be side by side with him. “I didn’t smudge the ink with my hooves or anything! I only used magic to turn the pages!”

He chuckled, a worldly, deep laugh. “I’m glad to hear it. Do you know why I loaned you that book?”

Lyra opened her mouth to answer but bit back a moment. “No, I-” she muttered. “Actually, I don’t know… I assumed…?”

“The torc,” he told her. “Who else would have an eye for it, except one who knows their antiquities? A little looking around, a little logical deduction, and it occurred to me you would enjoy a little peek.”

“It provided a lot of insight into how pre-classical unicorns viewed the cosmos,” she said, but wondered just whether he really wanted her to gush on about the technical details.

“And their own place within the cosmos,” he reminded her. “Imagine, if you will, that first pony who looked up at the sun and the moon and thought: ‘I will command this.’ Was he or she mad? Or simply ambitious?”

“Or afraid?” Lyra ventured.

“Or afraid,” he agreed.

The Equus Formicarius, Lyra had discovered in her reading, contained a very real undercurrent of distress and fear on the part of the author, or authors. In modern times, the sun and moon and sometimes even the stars were worshipped and celebrated as extensions of the Princess or, more recently, Princesses. They were symbols of stability and reliability and comfort.

For the ponies who wrote The Equus Formicarius, long before the Princesses, the sun and moon and the stars were all frightful powers beyond the comprehension or control of ponykind. They could not be altered, like the land and the weather, and ponies were left at the mercy of their whims. Witches and cultists invoked the favor of higher powers at the cost of their sanity and their souls. In the night sky, a pony could behold were the pantheon of spirits, like the Windigos and Discord, who took vaguely pony-like mortal form to pursue goals ponies would not understand. More often than not, they tormented ponies and treated all the mortal races of the world as entertainment, from the lowest earth pony peasant to the mightiest dragon.

Lyra had not expected that particular slant on ancient mythology.

Sensing that he wanted to hear some of her thoughts on this, she speculated on whether the Formicarius was banned because it gave the impression that the sun and moon were, if not evil, amoral beings. This wouldn’t reflect very well on Princess Celestia and Luna, after all, and those ponies with constellation cutie marks wouldn’t be pleased with such teachings either. Alpha Brass listened, and agreed. The dangerous knowledge in the Formicarius and the reason it was heretical was because it led ponies to fear what they did not need to fear.

“It is rare that I encounter a fine artist like yourself who also has an eye for history for deeper mysteries. I would like you to meet somepony, but first, you may enjoy a small detour.” Motioning her along, he trotted away from the great curving verandah and down a wide flight of steps draped in violet carpet. “As I patronize the arts, so do I also patronize the sciences…”

The pair passed through a circular antechamber, where four kneeling Minotaur statues held up a large marble crown. Lyra passed under the impressive work of sculpture, glancing up at the glowing blue orb of magic that scintillated within the eye of the marble cincture. The light from it reflected off of a circular diagram on the floor: a map of Equestria. Lyra realized, as they passed the chamber, what it all represented.

“The vault of the heavens?” she wondered. The Minotaurs were the four pillars that held the purely magical world of the aether high above the physical realm of Equestria. Normally, this would be represented by a dome with the constellations and starts on it, not a magical orb.

“A very literal interpretation,” Alpha Brass replied. “But yes. It was a wedding gift from Lady Marmo, crafted with her own magic.”

Past the statues, the floor was stone with no carpet in sight. The ceiling grew more lofty, but no less ornate. Horseshoe archways repeated across the hall every twenty meters or so, colorless, but cut in elaborate arabesques. Passing through one arch, Lyra finally saw some color, as both walls to either side sported frescoes. The murals were beautiful, the one on the left depicting a garden with foreign looking unicorn ponies at play, and even a pegasus flying through the air with a blue banner between her teeth. The one on the right was a palace on two tiers, built on the side of a mountain, almost like Canterlot was…

“These are old?” she wondered, looking closer at the garden mural.

Alpha Brass smiled, pleased. “They are.”

“How old?” Lyra felt the need to know.

“One and a half thousand years,” he replied, studying them briefly, merely turning his head to one and then the other. “Both date back to pre-classical times, before Equestria, before the migration, and before the Princesses.”

“But,” Lyra argued, her thoughts clear despite the surprise at his admission. “The only way you could’ve gotten frescoes this old… was to…”

“Go on,” he urged, raising a hoof for her to continue.

“You must’ve dug them up,” the harpist reasoned. “From the Old Kingdom?”

He nodded, confirming it. “Does that surprise you, Miss Heartstrings?”

“Of course it does!” she blurted out, quickly stuffing a hoof in her mouth. “I mean…! No pony goes there! It’s a frozen wasteland!”

“Still chilly, but not so frozen anymore,” he replied, “and you would be surprised what you can do with enough money and resources. Both of these were recovered from a chapel cut into a cave, unearthed by my archaeological teams and transplanted here at great effort and expense.”

“Amazing,” Lyra admitted, reaching out to touch one of the murals before thinking better of it.

She studied the ancient frescoes, marveling at what it must have taken to find the treasures and to bring them back intact to Equestria. The Old Kingdom, as every foal knew, was a frozen, lifeless land far to the north and across the Small Sea Straight. Since the migration and the following invasion, it was believed that all ponies who had remained behind there had perished. After all, there would not have been an invasion at all if the Old World hadn’t been rendered uninhabitable. Yet here was a glimpse of the past: of the Old Kingdom of the unicorns, green and warm and vibrant.

Describing the murals as a treasure had proven appropriate, as Alpha Brass explained that they were about to enter his ‘treasury.’ Unlike most imaginings of the word, however, he assured her there were no piles of bits, no cases full of jewels, or rows of gold bars. His ‘treasury’ was where he stored some of his most valued pieces of artwork, past and present, and the artifacts his expeditions had uncovered.

“This is something I doubt you’ve heard of before,” he said, as he unlocked a rather plan wooden door flanked by two of his female guards. “But you must have noticed that your appearance for the evening is not entirely Bitalian?”

Lyra thought of her elaborate hair, and the crystal sheen magically added to her coat and mane.

“I’ve never been there, but I don’t think the ponies look like this,” she said, pointing to herself.

“Tonight is actually a call back to an isolated city of earth ponies,” he explained, leading her into the Treasury. “They called themselves the Crystal Empire, and like the Neighponese, they came over independently of the founders during the migration period. When they vanished, under the rule of King Sombra, many of their descendants married into the Bitalian families to the south. Their original city was on the cusp of the frozen wastes, so perhaps they found a warmer climate to be a relief?”

“How could earth ponies make themselves look like this?” Lyra wondered. “It took a unicorn stylist to…”

“Their transformation was not like what you underwent,” Alpha Brass said, trotting over to a large ice-like shard of crystal kept under glass. “It was a complete transformation of their entire race through the use of a powerful artifact. One that has sadly eluded me. When I say they ‘vanished’ I really do mean they vanished, without a trace. Maybe the Princesses sent them to the moon, lock, stock and barrel?”

“Regardless,” he continued, smiling at the crystal. “We have one of their descendants with us today as a guest of honor. It made for a humorous theme, I thought, since she both is and isn’t a crystal pony princess herself.”

“You mean,” Lyra guessed. “Princess Cadance.”

“None other,” Alpha Brass replied, “I’d like you to meet her, a little later. But first, take a look around. See if you see something you’ve seen before.”

The open invitation was all Lyra needed. Like a filly in a candy store, she darted from exhibit to exhibit. Many had only cursory labeling, some nothing more than a serial number, but she recognized many of the treasures for what they were. One large glass display in particular caught her attention.

Inside was the skeleton of a prehistoric pony, supported by wires and metal rods.

A skeleton of an alicorn.

The wing bones were delicate and long, spread out for display – the incomplete sections were filled in with white replica bones with a single black stripe – as if she was about to take flight. Her proud, upraised head sported a long, slightly curved horn. She was an alicorn in all but size. Unlike Celestia or Luna, this winged unicorn was no taller than Lyra herself, and did not possess the trademark waifish figure of the three Princesses.

Arrayed in the same display were the skulls of several other ancient ponies: unicorns in one row, earth ponies in another, and pegasi in another. Particular note was taken on their teeth and dentition, their degree of maturity, their estimated age and where they had been found. A few were just skull fragments, carefully pieced together. The pegasus and unicorn skulls were from a few thousand to even a couple hundred years ago, but some of the earth pony ones were much older. From the more horse-like slant of them, Lyra could guess that they were very old indeed: tens of thousands of years, maybe.

Not far from the skeletons, a series of racks displayed row after row of clay tablets in pre-Equestrial Tally-A and Tally-B linear, and beneath that, shelves stocked with scrolls, each one sealed in a wax case and tagged with a neat paper label. Skimming the display, Lyra saw that the scrolls were from various excavated libraries thought lost to history, from a time when a unicorn could not become a true mage without a great magical discovery to his or her name. These names read like a laundry list of the ancient world’s Top Ten. Black Harvest. Gate Crasher. Dream Walker. Night Keeper. Idle Hooves. Star Swirl.

“I intend to make a gift of one of those,” Alpha Brass informed her, inspecting a stele of a monstrous alicorn-like creature with obsidian knives for hooves and a hole in her chest. Her roaring mouth bristled with sharp teeth, including a pair of tusks. “I’ve heard tell of a mare who is quite taken with Star Swirl.”

“What… is that?” Lyra couldn’t place it. It didn’t look like anything a pony would make.

“This? Just a stele I recovered from the Temple of Tezcatlipoca.” Alpha Brass chuckled, amused by something he left unsaid. “Note the resemblance to Princess Luna. The cutie mark is even quite similar. I wonder if we’ll ever see her in a Daring Do book?”

Lyra considered it pretty unlikely they’d be including a night themed flesh-eating alicorn monster in any Daring Do books anytime soon. The distraction from the scrolls and tablets also served to draw her eyes towards the stands of jewelry near the collection of steles and other carvings. Out of a dozen different displays, featuring bijous, rosaries and ancient finery, one piece of royal regalia stood out.

“The torc,” she said, too loudly to be just a whisper. “That’s just like my torc.”

It wasn’t alone, either.

Two torcs, similar to the one she had loaned to Twilight Sparkle to research, rested on the busts of three identical mannequines. They were all unicorns, and each one possessed a prominent halo for the horn to fit through. Leaning in closer, she tried to find some sort of inscription or description, if only to shed light on what her own torc was. Twilight had been able to confirm that it was of Coltic design, wrought in gold. The twisting, rope-like etching was distinctive.

Then, it occurred to her. “One of them… you have three mannequins, but only two torcs.”

“Your torc,” Alpha Brass whispered into her ear. “Was mine, before it was stolen.”

“Oh! Oh no!” Lyra shipped around, throwing up her hooves in a panic. “I never meant to! I didn’t know! I…!’

The noblepony laughed good-naturedly.

“You didn’t steal it,” he said, and she relaxed at his easy tone of voice. “I know. But I would appreciate you returning it to me. I will more than compensate you for it.”

“Of- of course!” she assured him, speaking faster than she could think. “As soon as I get back to Ponyville! Twilight has it, Twilight Sparkle, but I…”

He gently slipped a hoof under her chin, closing her mouth. “I’d like you to do more than that. I don’t believe it to be a coincidence the torc ended up in your hooves, or Miss Sparkle’s. I’d like very much for you to tell me who sold it to you, and I would like very much to see you wear it.”

‘Shady Deal sold it to me,’ she thought, amid a haze. Alpha Brass’s jade eyes made her head swim. ‘He wouldn’t want me to snitch on him, but… but…’

“W-wear it?” she muttered, oddly overwhelmed by that one request.

“Yes,” the Marquis of the Equestrian frontier answered, leaning closer. Lyra opened her mouth slightly, lips parted, fully expecting him to crash into her then and there, wanting it even. Instead, he touched the pearls around her neck. “Look.”

Disappointed, frustrated, confused, she obeyed.

The pearls were glowing.

“The torc was stolen in an incomplete state,” Alpha Brass explained, stepping away from her and letting Lyra catch her breath. She fell to the floor, her legs suddenly weak. “By a traitor… a pony I can never forgive. She secreted it away, and now it has come to you, Miss Heartstrings. I can only wonder why.”

He turned his head over towards the three mannequines.

“I have two others,” he told her, “but each one is unique, a different door to the same place. I must have it. I must have a pony who can use it.” Those jade eyes of his turned on her, staring down into her soul. “Would you like to be that pony, Lyra Heartstrings?”

“Brass, really? Must you be so dramatic?” another voice interrupted and a soft pink alicorn with glowing green eyes sauntered up beside him. The tips of her wings were tinted with purple on pink as they fidgeted in sharp, sudden movements, like the claws of a hungry mantis. Her smile parted as she laughed, and for a moment, it almost looked as if she had fangs beneath her sinuous lips. “There really is no need. Of course she’ll agree to whatever you ask. I never understand why you even bother.”

“You’re early, Princess,” Alpha Brass informed her, frowning in displeasure. “I did not wish to frighten her.”

“This is to be one of my bride’s maids, then?” Cadance asked, leaning down and analyzing first the fallen harpist and then smiling over at her host. It was the sort of smile a fox would have for a hare. “There is certainly enough love in her heart. Very well. She will do.”

“Come, Lyra Heartstrings.” Alpha Brass held out a hoof to the prone pony. “There is much to be done. Trust me. Come with me, and I will show you things you have scarce imagined.”

Princess Cadance had been right: he need not have even asked.

Without hesitation, Lyra accepted, and took his hoof in her own.

- - -

Twilight Sparkle yawned as she descended the steps to the library that was her home, the tantalizing smell of breakfast drawing her down even before she finished combing out her mane. She was halfway down to the bottom floor and moments from asking Spike what was on the menu for the morning when she remembered –

Spike was still on his dragon quest.

Continuing down more cautiously, she inhaled, the aroma of poached apples and cinnamon faint but unmistakable. Despite the relatively early hour, seven in the morning, the shutters and the curtains had been opened downstairs, letting the risen sun’s light bathe the large open inner area. Following the circular staircase, she smiled at the sight of her beloved books in shelf-like alcoves grown and cut into the inner walls of the living tree that was Ponyville’s Golden Oaks Library. Strictly above the lower level, where most of the books were kept, smaller alcoves around the windows stored scrolls and spare candles and a few flowering spider plants that trailed vines halfway down to the floor.

Looking around, she quickly noticed Owloysius asleep in a dark nook, her bedding made. She would sleep through most of the day, if she could get away with it. Even as helpful as she was, creatures of the night were just that, and their diurnal cycles were not lightly broken or tampered with. Following her nose, Twilight soon identified the source of the cinnamon smell.

Two plates had been left on a cleared coffee table, on top of a cloth place mat. Both were domed by a phosphorescent field that Twilight identified as a “Keep It Warm” spell. It was a utility cantrip spell, usually cast on something directly like a pot or a cup. Between the two plates was a third stocked with muffins, butter and jam. A pitcher of juice perspired, still frosty, and two cups were upside down and waiting to be used.

“Good morning, Lady Sparkle.” Emerging from the library’s small kitchen was Eunomie, the fair coated unicorn holding a tray of teacups balanced one on top of the other. Her scarlet mane was still done up in a prim bun, like the night before when she had intercepted the librarian and her brother on their way to town, but now she was without her traveling cloak or other attire. It provided a clear view of her cutie mark: the impression of half a mask, the expression either frowning or at least bored.

“I didn’t think you’d be up, Lady Eunomie,” Twilight said, and reminded her, “And like I said before, you don’t need to call me Lady.”

“That is correct,” Eunomie replied, putting the tea cups down on the table. “You did say that. But I had assumed you were only being polite in giving the offer, not serious. I will call you by just Twilight Sparkle, then.”

“Or just Twilight.” The librarian sat down next to one of the plates.

“I would like to be simply Eunomie, then,” the other mare insisted, also sitting down. “It would be improper otherwise.”

Twilight nodded, glad they had gotten past that little social hurtle. “So, are these for…?”

“I already ate, but I kept breakfast warm for yourself and Euporie,” Eunomie explained, her voice and face seemingly stuck on neutral, day or night. “I hope you like oatmeal. I used cinnamon, apples, almonds, milk and honey. Nothing you should be allergic to, I think, but please do not hesitate to tell me so I can adjust my cooking and shopping schedules ahead of time.”

It was… appropriately thorough. Twilight approved!

“Thank you!” she said, dispelling the Keep It Warm spell with a touch. “I feel a little bad asking you to cook, though, since you are a guest here…” She levitated a spoon over and dug in. It was good!

“Euporie is incapable of cooking even the simplest meal, so I have assumed that responsibility when we are away from our home or our servants.” Eunomie finally used a bit of magic to retrieve the kettle and begin soaking a packet of black tea. Steam rose from the cup, but she didn’t use magic to hold it.

“What time did you get up?” Twilight had to remember to pace herself. She hadn’t had a good, cooked breakfast since Spike went off on his trip.

“I always wake up at six thirty, local time, regardless of when I get to bed.” Eunomie blew on the tea, staring down at it as it fully took color. “Breakfast will be ready by seven, on the hour, and if I am present here, I will have lunch ready by twelve thirty. I do not often cook dinner, but if I do, I will post a note somewhere with my meal plan so you may choose to either eat with me or eat out… or order in, as Euporie sometimes does.”

“That’s very organized of you!” Twilight said, liking how this pony thought. “I’m afraid I don’t really know how to make… much of anything! The kitchen was really Spike’s domain.”

“Spike. Your dragon.”

“You know about him?”

“I’ve done my research,” Eunomie replied, either not noticing or not caring that she had phrased it a little ominously.

Twilight let it go, though, since research was never a bad thing.

While she ate, she studied her new guest. Eunomie, and Euporie – who had come by very late last night – were both bunked down in the library basement for the time being. Eunomie had insisted that she remain close by as long as they were negotiating the terms of Twilight’s potential engagement, and she had made the argument that if Twilight were to accept, it would be wise to know if she were compatible with the life styles of her step-daughters. The fact that said step-daughters were a year or so older than Twilight herself was irrelevant, but the idea did have some merit. On her part, Twilight also wanted to observe the ponies Alpha Brass had sent to deal with her.

Currently, Eunomie sat quietly, reading a book while sipping tea. A quill and a roll of paper rested on a portable scribe’s lectern, and after a minute or two, the white unicorn turned her attention to it and began to write. The quill didn’t just make a quick notation, however. Soon it dipped back into an inkwell and went back to work, producing line after line, as if Eunomie was copying whatever had caught her eye in the book.

Twilight was nearly finished with her oatmeal, engaged in buttering up a muffin when she asked, “Do you mind if I ask what you’re doing?”

“Studying,” Eunomie replied, and used a tiny bit of magic to hold up the paper. It was a magical equation, repeated over and over and over and over. Twilight recalled it, too. It was an equivalence expression for inorganic transmutation and transmogrification.

“Swords to plowshares?” she asked.

“And spears into pruning hooks.” The other mare nodded, once. “When learning new magic, I like to copy the formulas on paper one hundred times to be sure I remember them. Then, when practicing a spell, I cast it three hundred times, and for every mistake I make, I repeat it another hundred.”

Wow.

“That’s… very impressive, actually!” Twilight internally winced. She loved magic, she really, really did, but repeating a spell three hundred times to remember it? If she had repeated recasting of a spell a hundred times every time there was some tiny mistake, she’d probably still be casting Levitate Grade-One today. “You must really like magic!”

“Magic is simply one of many tools a pony has at her disposal. That is all.”

So much for that.

“I suppose I do… enjoy magic, some times,” Eunomie amended, a little grudgingly. “But I prefer when it is practically applied, rather than as pure theory.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Twilight told her, smiling and hoping to eke a smile out of her guest. “Most unicorns have a very practical view of magic.”

Eunomie’s response was a dry, “Yes.”

“Your cutie mark isn’t magic related…” Twilight blurted out, and immediately regretted it. It really wasn’t polite to discuss cutie marks with a stranger, especially among nobleponies.

“No, it isn’t,” Eunomie replied, not sounding offended. Not that she ever apparently sounded offended or anything but indifferent. “My special talent is not magic, as yours is. I believe it to be ‘focus and attention to detail.’”

“I have a few friends who could probably benefit from some of that!” Twilight joked, but it was hard to be funny when your audience seemed incapable of laughter. She chuckled with herself, though it came out as a weak, “Ha. Ha. Ha?”

Abruptly, Eunomie changed topics. She pointed over to Owloysius.

“Your animal familiar is nocturnal, but you do not seem to keep a nocturnal schedule yourself,” she observed. “This seems inefficient. Have you been unable to alter the owl’s biological rhythms?”

“Owloysius isn’t really a true familiar.” Twilight finished off her bowl of oatmeal, saving a few of the delicious apple bits for the last bite. “Spike handles things during the day.”

“I see.”

A question came to the librarian, then. “Do you have a pet, or…?”

“No. Not a pet,” Eunomie said and dipped her head. “Since we are living together, this is as good a time as any to show you. Galen. Open your eye.”

The pale mare exhaled and a shape began to coalesce in front of her nose. Twilight watched, intrigued, as a spark of life entered the conjured wind, forming it into a tiny frozen crystal, like a snowflake of air. It glowed red and orange hot, like forging metal in a fire, before cooling off and assuming an almost transparent glass-like sheen. The red glow remained, but became faint, along with an amber hue around the center.

“This is Galen,” Eunomie said, looking up at her host. “You’ll forgive the play on words that is his name, but it is traditional when it comes to familiars to use puns and such. He is my assistant.”

“Hello, Twilight Sparkle,” the wind-crystal chimed in a melodious voice, somewhat similar to a young colt’s in timbre.

“It talks?” Leaning in, Twilight tried to get a closer look, but the crystal drifted off to the side and away. “I know some familiars can talk, but making sophisticated magical constructs like that…? I’d always read that it came with a price of some sort.”

Eunomie nodded slowly, her face still shrouded.

“That is correct. As you know, most familiars are animal spirits or ambient energy bound by magic. They are considered harmless, but very limited. This is usually seen as a fair tradeoff, and so they are the most popular type among those capable of such spells. If one wishes a fully capable companion, there are more extreme options, but they come with risks. Binding a pony’s soul is illegal and forbidden, of course. All sapient beings inevitably turn malevolent in servitude, and wild spirits, the most powerful of all, are invariably and instantly hostile towards any who try and command them.”

“Galen is a piece of myself, not an external spirit per say.” Eunomie raised her chin, and lifted a hoof to her left eye. The formerly amber pupil was blank and cloudy. “I do pay a price for Galen’s service, proportional to what I give up. I can assure you that I was very careful in drawing up our contract.”

“I… don’t think I would make that trade myself,” Twilight admitted, not wanting to look too deeply into the other mare’s blank and blind left eye. Galen, meanwhile, chimed happily at being summoned.

“Is there anything I can assist you with?” he inquired, floating overhead.

“I would demonstrate to our good host here how you can be of assistance to her and to me,” Eunomie said, and noticing Twilight’s discomfort, closed her left eye with practiced ease. “I hope you do not mind, Twilight, but I had Galen scan the library earlier.”

Twilight cocked her head at that, curious. “What do you mean, he scanned the library?”

“Galen,” the meticulous mare ordered, “Please retrieve for me Tanner’s Teleportation Theories, volume one?”

“Retrieving.” The glowing familiar turned to wind and blew away, vanishing for a moment.

“When I first made him, he was actually quite vexing,” Eunomie added, quickly, while the familiar was out of sight. “He kept bobbing around and getting in the way and saying ‘Hey. Listen.’ I tweaked the voice a bit and amended part of the contract and that did the trick. Initially very annoying, though.”

“Retrieved!” Galen darted back to where the two mares sat, literally appearing in a flash. With him, or it, was a tome that had to be four times the little familiar’s size. It floated easily in a magical field distinct from Eunomie’s own.

“It has its own magic!” Twilight exclaimed. “Like a homunculus!”

“As I said, Galen is quite literally a part of me, only made immaterial. Why don’t you try giving him an order?” Eunomie asked, inviting her host to give the familiar a spin. “I haven’t been able to scan your collection of scrolls yet, but he should be able to retrieve any labeled book in the library.”

Twilight thought for a moment, and grinned, giving the little construct a bit more of a challenge. “Galen?”

“Yes, Twilight Sparkle?” it chimed.

“Can you bring me Mender’s Meditations on Mana and the Journal of Arcane Science Annual for last year?”

“Retrieving…” the magical entity began to fade and turn to wind, but then sudden solidified again. “Clarification required. This library possesses two versions of Mender’s Meditations on Mana, one in Equestrian and one in the original Prench.”

Twilight’s smile widened at the familiar passing her little test. “The translated one, please. Oh, and can you also bring another blank scroll? Any one will do?”

“Retrieving!”

“Feel free to make use of Galen while I am here,” Eunomie said as her familiar vanished to perform its duties, “though I prefer to return him to my eye when I practice more intensive magical exercises. As your guest here, it is the least I can do to repay you for your hospitality and forbearance.”

“Forbearance?” Twilight waved a dismissive hoof and huffed. “I think we’ll get along pretty well!”

“The forbearance part was referring to Euporie. She can be difficult at times.”

“Oh.”

A moment passed, then, as both mares looked over at the door to the basement where Alpha Brass’s other step-daughter was still snoozing away. Twilight had only seen her for a few minutes last night, but she had looked pretty much identical to Eunomie, just with a different mane and tail color and style. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be too much of a hoof-full.

“Retrieved!” Galen appeared again, with Mender’s Meditations, the Annual Journal and a blank scroll. All three were maintained in little magical fields. As far as assistants went, Eunomie’s familiar appeared to be quite capable. On the other hoof, the whole blindness in one eye while using it thing remained a bit of a drawback.

“Close your eye, Galen,” Eunomie commanded, opening her left eye. The familiar’s light burned hot red and orange for a moment, transformed back into a rush of wind and, like on the receiving end of a vacuum, sucked into the mare’s left eye. Color returned to the orb, and with it, proper depth perception and vision. She seized the book, journal and scroll in her own magic before it could fall.

“I have to admit I’m pretty impressed,” Twilight remarked, though she studiously avoided her personal opinion that hundreds of spell repetitions was sort of excessive. “Did you go to the Canterlot Academy?”

“No,” Eunomie’s response was curt. “I required a private tutor and Mother insisted.”

“Lady Olive Branch?”

“She is my mother, yes.”

“But,” and saying it, Twilight hesitated again. “Last night, you said… the way you spoke about her…”

“My mother is dying,” Eunomie said, as blasé as always. “Do you expect me to be grieved? I have great respect for her accomplishments as a diplomat – she has done much for Equestria, and one day, it would be my honor to do the same in a similar capacity – but as a mare and as a mother, she was much less of a positive role model. Euporie takes after her in her carelessness and self-indulgent lifestyle. I must endure it in my sister, but I do not approve of it in her, and I did not approve of it in my mother. When she is truly gone, I will mourn her in my own way. Until then, I will not.”

“Lady Olive Branch,” Twilight said her name: the name of the mare she could well be replacing. Her ears drooped slightly. “She’s really dying then?”

“Yes,” was Eunomie’s churlish response, but at Twilight’s searching expression, she coolly elaborated on her mother’s life and death. “Her lifestyle, as I said before, was not a healthy one. For example, before my biological father died, she committed many adulterous acts with younger stallions. Right up until the end, I believe my father was aware of these indiscretions but said and did nothing to curb them. On his deathbed, friends of the family I had known for years mocked him as a cuckold.”

Eunomie blinked slowly and paused in her story, and Twilight imagined she had to be perturbed in some way recalling the details. She couldn’t be completely emotionless. Could she?

“You see,” she continued, “my mother’s carnal appetites were well known and even celebrated among her friends and devotees. She did not drink heavily, but she experimented with foreign practices and consumptions. She was especially fond of zebras and their hallucinogenic concoctions. For years, she employed a sadhu mystic from the black wastes, believing she could predict the future and prolong her life. Up until several years ago, she exchanged frequent correspondence with other famous libertine philosophers on the morality of excess and wrote in favor of the finding an ideal freedom of expression through pleasure.”

“In the end, her… experimentation came with a price,” Eunomie concluded, and there was a distant, repressed amusement somewhere in her voice, for just a sliver of a moment. “An unexpected price that she is now paying for. Just as Galen takes my eye, my mother’s excesses and extreme liberal beliefs sealed her fate… and those of many others around her.”

“And,” Twilight ventured. “Lord Alpha Brass was arranged to marry her. Were… were they happy together?”

Eunomie blinked, slowly, as if the question confused her.

“I would not be a good judge of that,” she finally said. “Euporie would know better. What I can say is that Mother certainly seemed to enjoy having a young husband who could better satisfy her, and Father did not hesitate to make use of his position in the family, and the new wealth and prestige that came with it.”

Twilight had read about that: Alpha Brass was the same age as Shiny and Blueblood, and his father, Duke Cruciger, had married him to Olive Branch almost as soon as he was of legal age. It would have been a good match, politically. Olive Branch had accrued a lot of power and wealth negotiating for expansion of Equestria’s colonies. She had been the most aggressive and ardent proponent of the country’s expansion in hundreds of years. The title of Marquis, and Marquesa, had become basically a Duke and Duchess in all but name.

Yet, the two had curiously never had children of their own.

Alpha Brass, like her brother, was still young. Too young, really, to be a widower. Twilight couldn’t imagine being asked to marry a pony her father’s age, and yet Alpha Brass had done just that, and at a younger age. Knowing the main line Terre Rare, he had willingly or even enthusiastically done it for the family, and probably for his own personal gain, too. From Eunomie’s laconic description, though, it sounded like a nightmarish ordeal.

“What does your father expect from this proposal, if I were to accept it?” Twilight asked, knowing this was a topic the two had to discuss in depth. There was no point assuming otherwise.

“Lord Alpha Brass will expect you to forsake matrilineal rights to the Sparkle line. Your daughters will be of Prench descent, and you will marry into the main branch rather than vice versa.”

It was the reverse of normal, where the male married into the female’s family. The Terre Rare did not put stock in traditional rules of succession, however. The biggest problem there was that it left Twilight’s mother and father without an heir. Shining would be marrying into Cadance’s line, and she would, hypothetically, be entering the main branch Terre Rare. Of course, these were also the same problems she had considered in her discussion with Prince Blueblood.

“If I have a son?” she speculated.

“He could be heir to your parents’ holdings,” Eunomie replied. “The main line prefers a daughter, but either sex will do. The most important thing is that it allows for the Blueblood succession next generation. That is the leverage we will need to win over the more recalcitrant members of the family.”

Twilight brought a hoof to her chin in thought. It was the same conclusion she had come to, with Blueblood, and it was interesting that her plan there was mirrored in the expectations of Alpha Brass. Her family was a proud one, and its identity was tied closely to the old Bluebelle and Arsenic dispute. If Antimony couldn’t secure it this generation, in the Blueblood they knew, then it would have to be the next. She had already made arrangements there, but should she reveal that card to Eunomie? Twilight wasn’t sure.

“How much support does Alpha Brass have?” she asked. “How can he be sure his father won’t oppose us? We would be taking control of the family from him.”

“Without Antimony, grandfather is not a threat,” Eunomie promised, taking a long sip of her now cooled tea. “We have much of the extended family in our pocket already, and the support of those around Lord Cruciger. Alpha Brass is his only son, we have Lady Chalice for what that is worth, and both Polished Jewel and our grandmother, Lady Twinkling Star Light, will back us. A conclave is already being called and we can petition a vote of no confidence. This is our opportunity.”

‘Their opportunity – Our opportunity…’ to turn a conclave intended to put a figurehead in charge of the Canterlot Rares into a surprise re-election of family successor. Cruciger was a powerful pony, and he had a fierce reputation, but what could he do against his own heirs taking their place by right of force and ability? It was the essence of the Terre Rare way. Once Twilight had the main line under her, she could allow the conclave to rightfully elect whoever they choose to run the family in Canterlot. Her father and her mother would be safe and protected. Everypony would get what they wanted.

Alpha Brass, she realized, may or may not have been a friend of her family in truth. Her father had described him as such, and Shining had remarked the other night that he was a friend and ally. But he had also not gotten directly involved until just now. Why?

Why the delay?

It occurred to Twilight that he must have been waiting. Crescent Moon stirred up enough trouble that Cruciger had to call a family conclave. Alpha Brass must have been waiting and mustering his allies for just such a moment. Friend or not, what Alpha Brass likely wanted was to remove and replace his father as head of the family. If Twilight could help him with that, then surely he wouldn’t object to his father-in-law running the Canterlot branch of the family as well. It would be in his own self-interest.

“I already have Blueblood’s promise,” Twilight said, revealing her ace. “That was why I was coming back from his manor yesterday.”

It was probably premature, and Blueblood would probably have gawked at her showing her hoof so soon, but Eunomie was making sense. This was an opportunity.

“He agreed?” Eunomie asked, and immediately looked for the obvious loophole. “A second or third child won’t do. It has to be…”

-

Blueblood’s racket swung through the air, connecting with the tennis ball.

“Oh, by the way,” he said, as Rarity ran to return the serve. “I promised Twilight Sparkle our first born.”

“YOU DID WHAT?!”

“Ha! Yes! You missed! Game, set, and match! I win again! Aaaagh!”

He collapsed as first the tennis ball, and then an angry unicorn mare, bowled into him at high speed.

-

“He agreed,” Twilight confirmed, clopping a hoof on the coffee table. “It was a Pinkie Pie promise.”

“…all right,” Eunomie muttered, and cleared her throat. “I don’t know what that is, or if it is really legally binding, but it would seem you have already overcome our biggest obstacle. With this information, with this promise, there is no pony who can stand against you and my father assuming control of the family in its entirety.”

“Nopony,” the red-headed mare hastened to add, “except possibly Antimony.”

Twilight recalled her dinner and her conversations with her distant cousin, the Baroness of Mareseilles. She had left soon after losing her duel with Rarity, chastened and contemplative. Since then, Twilight had no idea what she was up to.

“Antimony is proud and she respects strength.” Eunomie offered her own analysis. “Even after losing her bid for the Platinum Crown, it would be unwise to expect her to step aside as we also take control of the Terre Rare. Even if everypony else consents, she will fight. Luckily, you, Twilight Sparkle, can beat her.”

“The whole point of this was to avoid bloodshed,” Twilight reminded the other unicorn.

“Father does not wish for any of his sisters to be hurt, and he abhors violence when there are other more efficient means available,” the droll mare’s frank accounting of things rung of truth. “But, sometimes, a calculated blow must be made. If you still wish to avoid a fight with her, I do believe we can put enough pressure on her Barony to force a capitulation, but that will extend the woes of one pony to a population of thousands. A great many ponies will end up suffering for their Baroness’s stubbornness.”

“Is that really better?” Eunomie asked, and there, too, Twilight could see she was simply rational. It wasn’t right. Not when…

“I saw Antimony fight,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I can beat her.”

“You are the Element of Magic,” Eunomie agreed, though she didn’t sound impressed. Of course, she never did. “I have heard you can learn a spell by watching it cast a single time. Is that true?”

Suddenly, Twilight’s serious demeanor popped, and she blushed, embarrassed. “I’m nothing special like that! Not to downplay myself or anything, but – hahaha! I really don’t want that sort of thing blown out of proportion!”

Eunomie patiently waited for her fit of anxious giggles to die down.

“We have before us a very fortuitous set of circumstances, Twilight.” She finished her tea and fastidiously placed the cup back on the saucer and onto the table. “By blood, I am not a Terre Rare. My own say in family matters is limited. However, the Terre Rare family has achieved great things, and I believe it will achieve more in the future that is to the benefit of all ponykind.”

“I would like to get to know you,” she continued, staring at Twilight with amber eyes. “I would like to gauge for myself if you are the best mare to rule us. I am also curious, I’ll admit, to see if you can make my father happy. Princess Cadance has offered her blessings as well, if that is of some comfort. You would love and commit to one another as much as anypony can.”

“Blueblood seemed to think using love magic was a mistake.” Though the circumstances of it, as he and Twilight had discussed, were rather different than here. Here, as far as she knew, there was no Rarity or other mare who Alpha Brass loved. There was no conflict of interest.

Still, there was that lingering, niggling doubt.

“Love magic, like all magic, is simply a tool.” Eunomie still did not smile, but she did lower her eyes in what could have passed for contemplation. “It is one of many weapons in our arsenal. Either we use it, or we are used by our fear of it.”

Twilight bit her lower lip, still unsure.

“I’ll… think about it,” she said, not yet committing. “And I’ll write your father a letter expressing my interest in his proposal.”

“I can help with that,” Eunomie volunteered. “Traditional mail will not reach my father very promptly, whereas I can teleport messages to him directly.”

- - -

Shining Armor had not stayed with Twilight; not when he and his two guards would have had to indecently share quarters with unmarried mares. Instead, he had insisted on renting a room at the Silver Stable. After the mess with Blueblood and his sudden change of plans – he had ripped up his train ticket to Prance after the duel – the Guard Captain had been left a little unsure what to do with himself. Cadance was still away visiting Alpha Brass, and his trip to Marestricht was on indefinite hiatus.

He had seriously considering returning to Canterlot, but Twilight’s new proposal had convinced him to remain in town a little while longer. He had never really imagined his little Twilie getting married before, but she was of age, and anypony would do well to court her. And, if they ever mistreated her, Shining was sure he could manage a barrier spell that would suffocate the offender quite painfully.

He had largely neglected to mention much of his own wedding to Twilight before. It was a failing on his part, now that he thought about it. He couldn’t imagine her excluding him from her own espousal deliberations. So why had she been left out when he and Cadance planned their wedding?

‘I did tell her about it, but… did I forget to send her an invitation? Did Cadance forget to send it?’ it was oddly hard to remember. ‘Maybe it got sent to the wrong address? But then, if it was her old apartment, wouldn’t the invitation have come back return-to-sender? Come to think of it, I didn’t even mention it to Twilight until mom and dad brought it up. Princesses! I’m not even thirty and I’m forgetting the most obvious things.’

The day after had found him meeting Twilight as a local restaurant, the two siblings seated across from one another. Shining thought his sister to have a rather intense sort of look to her, but then, these were trying times and this was a serious matter on hoof. In comparison, his own engagement to Cadance had been carefree. He had proposed; she had accepted. Done and done.

“I talked with Eunomie earlier today,” Twilight said, folding up her menu before her. She wasn’t here for the food. “She seems nice, but…”

“But?” he asked and she began to fidget, tapping her hooves together. "What's wrong, Twilie?"

“I’d like to hear it from you,” she told him, looking up at him, to him, for advice. “Shiny, you and Cadance know Alpha Brass. You grew up together and you went to school together. Tell me about him. If this is the pony I'm going to marry, to spend the rest of my life with, I want… I want to know about him.”

Comments

[metallusionsismagic]

A real sequel?... I had no idea! Sweet!

[Themaskedferret]

Still reading had to comment.

“This is just the way I am.”

That broke my heart.

Edit: Finished and a truly gorgeous chapter. Your ability to write foreshadowing is truly masterful. The shot at Cadence by Brass was quite skilled as well. also spotted a small typo possibly. “A required a private tutor and Mother insisted.”

[psychicscubadiver]

Excellently done, my good sir.
I almost hurt myself laughing at 'I promised Twilight our first-born'.
And it is nice to have many of my suspicions confirmed. Especially in regards to what I thought about Alpha Brass and his ... connections.
I wonder when Celestia will take a hoof in all this.
...
If she hasn't already.

[Arzoo]

Any particular reason this chapter gets a name when the others didn't?

[Seether00]

Honestly the most interesting subplots for me are Ritterkreuz because she is so badass and broken, followed by Twilight's.

Hopefully you will refocus on Blueblood and Rarity soon. They don't appear to be doing all that much.

[warpd]

1652286
I wouldn't be surprised when all this is over Celestia would be like 'Just as planned' mode. I think it is a little silly that they think they can pull a fast one on her.

[q97randomguy]

The Twilight/Eunomie interaction was exceedingly well crafted.
I also like how you're working Lyra into the Royal Canterlot Wedding.
Edit: This story is in my opinion criminally under read.

[djthomp]

“Ha! Yes! You missed! Game, set, and match! I win again! Aaaagh!”
He collapsed as first the tennis ball, and then an angry unicorn mare, bowled into him at high speed.

Best exchange in the chapter.

I cannot wait for everything to come to a head.

[Otsdarva]

By the Goddess! This little chess match is alight with action as the pieces zip across the board and gather their forces.

It's hard to tell what Alpha Brass' intentions are, but it certainly looks like he's trying to position himself on both sides of the board. Then we have Eunomie. Wow, what a character, after several chapters of her appearing as second banana to Euporie she finally gets to stand out as her own character and good gravy what a turnout!

[Goat Licker]

Like Twilight, I too am anxious for Spike's return. Hopefully he'll be better able to deal with his heartbreak over Rarity.

I'd hate it if he found some filly or female dragon companion, though - that would destroy a lot of the anxiety concerning Spike dealing with his emotions.

I'm so glad this updates more often now.

[Ryleh]

Multiple chapters in the same week? You spoil me! And all of the pieces are coalescing nicely. I like that the proposal to Twilight closely resembles her plan with Blueblood, though it still reeks of trap.

What's really bugging me is what exactly Brass gains from helping Chrysalis? Unless her plan here is wildly different from the wedding, which is certainly likely, I guess.

In any case, this just keeps getting better.

[Azrael Chiaroscuro]

ohoho! i saw that ocarina of time reference, well played sir

[Radmelon]

I am currently regretting my inability to upvote twice.

[Spiritus Arcane]

*Sees Shining having memory problems in relation to his wedding with Cadance*

...Oh geez, has Chrysalis switched with her already? Sure why not, just the top of the mound for this thirty Xanatos pileup.

[Forderz]

1654020
If/when I ever write my own interpretation of Chrysalis, you can be damned sure that she'd be a far more threatening and dangerous villain. The injustice she suffered at having to fit her into 44 minutes is criminal. Changelings that feed off of love, logically, would replace a population until they hit 50% saturation, then just chill until the annihilated birthrate causes civilization to crash. Then they more on to the next town.

Chrysalis is most definitely playing the long game here. Alpha Brass gets a ever-growing number of allies be can count on, once changelings start impersonating nobles, and chrysalis gets a solid core of ponies that can be counted on to keep the masquerade in effect. Mutually beneficial.

Until Alpha Brass betrays Chrysalis so he can become "hero of Equestria" for eliminating the changeling menace, or Chrysalis decides she's comfortable enough in her security to render Terre Rare superfluous.

In other news, where is Scootaloo, and what is Chalice doing with Fluttershy? I know Chalice is the nicest one out of the family, but every rose has its thorns.

[onlyanorthernsong]

Congratulations. You are writing the single most ambitious ponyfic still running, as far as I can tell. The sheer denseness of this work is astounding. This is an incredible experience in worldbuilding. At times i feel lost while reading, not because of the writing, but because there is so much here to digest. It feels at times like i am going into culture shock. It's quite a lot like Lord of the Rings, i can feel the weight of eons of history bearing down on so many of the characthers. There is so much research and thought put into everything in this story that i would not be shocked to discover that you dear writer , like Tolkien, are some kind of academic. The Slow pace and meticulous attention to detail also bring to mind Kubrick ( and really i can't be the only one that visualizes this story with the same kind of long elegant shots and candle light illumination that Kubrick used in Barry Lyndon.)

Please do keep going. For me at least, reading this fic is a deep pleasure.

[Psykosis]

Ah, Blueblood, why is it so fun to watch you get hurt?

As per usual, excellent chapter!

[ponygrad]

Oh my do you have explanations for the season 3 synopsis worked out yet too?

Also, it's a credit to the immersion in this fic that when it switched to the tennis scene I instantly imagined them in sweat bands.

[Ryleh]

1655417 I always assumed that Chrysalis had planned on the long con and then fell back on the laser light show once the jig was up. And while conniving and vicious is the Chrysalis I totally love, Alpha has struck me as nothing if not meticulous. Supplanting most of his competition with changelings helps them both, but will eventually make her the stronger one, which means he has some sort of ultimate contingency plan. Maybe the torcs?

Chalice seems to be content to not deal with any of the surrounding events, with her black magic coming with enough of it's own baggage. But what do I know, eh?

Also I feel terrible for completely forgetting about Scootaloo.

[Shantara]

The fact that Chrysalis is planning to marry Shining Armor other than simply replacing him suggests that changeling penetration of Equestrian elite has not yet reached the degree when this operation can be performed without anyone noticing sudden change in his personality. Their overall supply of love energy must be pretty low if Chrysalis doesn't want to get rid of her personal battery yet.

What other reasons do changelings have for keeping Shining in his current position and with relatively intact mind? His shields are not an ultimate defensive ability as canon Canterlot Wedding was suggesting. That's assuming they would even come into play. All great fortresses have been captured from the inside and if everything goes as Chrysalis has planned, there would be no lack of changelings in Canterlot to strike the Guard in the back, assuming changelings would even need to resort to physical force.

Speaking of shields: they could be broken with the right application of force and, logically thinking, the amount for force to break the shield should be inversely proportional to the area of its surface. So, if a single skilled unicorn can break a personal shield, a city-wide one should be laughable in comparison. Unless Shining was using some other source of energy for large scale shields - power of other unicorns, some kind of emergency supply or artifact, or even the power of Celestia herself.

And what about magically induced love? If it's really cannot be distinguished from 'natural', perhaps it can it be used for feeding changelings? In this case optimal strategy for them would be to kidnap a large group of ponies and force them to fall in love with changelings avoiding challenging the rule of Princesses directly.

[nemryn]

>Nhorse
Hate you so much, Capn.

And, Galen sets up all kinds of shenanigans. I expect Twilight will be finding that a crucial text has gone 'missing' at an inconvenient time.

[terrycloth]

1657113 Unless Shining Armor is using GURPS magic where larger spells are inherently more powerful and vice versa. In order to keep a personal shield's radius small enough to be useful, you have to cast it with minimum mana cost.

[Rask]

Wheels within wheels... meta-knowledge comes with it's own price.

[DungeonMiner]

I saw the update, and was immediately torn.

One on hand (or hoof, if you prefer): New chapter!

On the other: 13 thousand words, and I have stuff to do.

*sigh*

Ah well.

May your muse be ever with you.

[Lithl]

1655035
Cadence's scene with Brass and Lyra also showed her being Chrysalis, and when Shining first showed up in Ponyville there were hints that his guards were changelings.

[Spiritus Arcane]

1662488
Huh, missed those clues somehow. Thanks.

[kagemao]

I'm interested in how Antimony is going affect this. I got the feeling that she would end up becoming an ally, or at least non-hostile. I don't know if I would root for her but I was definitely hurting for her by the end of chapter 8.

[Boobah]

1652464 It's been implied that that's exactly what Celestia is doing; her attempted kidnapping of Blueblood tells us that she's certainly paying attention and moving the pieces she feels she has to.

[Boobah]

.1653134 Both sides of the board? He's the Big Bad, looking to snag the power that Star Caller wielded. For him, the Platinum Crown is just a means to that end; if he can get the power he's looking for, he doesn't much care who has the Crown.

The whole Twilight gambit is a means to both secure Brass's power over the Terre Rare as a whole and to neutralize Twilight (and the Elements of Harmony) as a threat to his plans; the apparent preference for love potions to power the relationship would surely make it harder to peel Twilight off him no matter what he does.

Y'know, it occurs to me that Twilight discovering some nasty truths about Brass and making a hasty attempt at character assassination, only to have them shrugged off as family in-fighting, would be a nice lead in to her revelation of Cadance as evil at the wedding just being another example of Twilight crying wolf. Especially since 'Cadance' is known well to be an associate of Brass.

[Between Lines]

I'm intensely interested to see how Galen factors into this story. The ability to have a obedient, small, analytical, magic using assistant who can become incorporeal... It's possibly the most dangerous power so far displayed, applied properly.

And given the mirthless and sensible bent of Eunomie, I see him being put to very effective use.

Though I wonder if her contract allows for a "scalable" sacrifice. Seeing as she can invest/reclaim her eye at will, could she invest "more" of herself to make him more powerful?

[The Author of Life]

"It was probably premature, and Blueblood would probably have gawked at her showing her hand so soon, but Eunomie was making sense. This was an opportunity." Is it me, or is there something wrong with this sentence?

[Storyteller27]

1655677

Agreed! I love layered, involved stories like this.

[Bairne]

Huh, that history line paints such a sad picture for Luna then... Not even 500 years and then banished for 1000. An apparent 2/3 of her life so far spent on the moon.

[Borg]

I can't help but like Eunomie. I'm really not sure quite what to expect from her in a hostile situation, which somewhat limits my ability to trust her, but as long as Euporie is her sister she'll always look good in comparison.

“No,” Eunomie’s response was curt. “A required a private tutor and Mother insisted.”

I believe that should be "I"?

[Ono-Matopoeia]

I disapprove of evil Cadance. >=(

[websterhamster]

So, it looks like Alpha Brass wants to make an alicorn, wants to marry Twilight for power, Cadance appears to be either evil or at least not all above-board, and since when, in a country that hasn't had wars, etc. for a millennium, is dueling even legal? Seems like the Princesses could just make a law forbidding the shedding of pony blood (murder).

[iNfestedOne]

3122608
Actually, this is not cadence at all. This is chrysalis. That is why she was green and stuff.

[iNfestedOne]

3461406
Then again, this is a very old comment as I just noticed, so this is likely to be approximately 8-10 weeks old news or something.

[vampyr-pony]

3122608 i think the dueling thing would be awsome for real...it would also make fights at school legal. it would also make the whole "im gona kill you you cuz you insulted my friend" thing no longer heard.

plus throwing pastries at eachother would be fun(especially with the contact numbing agent)

[FashionablyHospitable]

I don't see the Galen pun. The only place I know Galen from is Secrets of Droon.

Heh, Nelag.

[The Countess of Tuscany]

3813050 Wind elemental. Gale. Galen.

[DerpyDucks]

I'm liking this story less and less as i read on. Which is a shame because the authors writing skills are amazing. They're all assholes other than Pinkie. And they all make stupid decisions! It started as a cool adventure story and then turned into Game Of Thrones. I hate Game Of Thrones. But that's just my opinion.

[heynow]

God, Alpha Brass is so fucking creepy.

“One and a half thousand years,” he replied, studying them briefly, merely turning his head to one and then the other. “Both date back to pre-classical times, before Equestria, before the migration, and before the Princesses.”

So I guess that means the princess weren't that old when Luna was banished to the moon meaning Celestia is now multiple times the age of her sister.

It was the reverse of normal, where the male married into the female’s family. The Terre Rare did not put stock in traditional rules of succession, however. The biggest problem there was that it left Twilight’s mother and father without an heir. Shining would be marrying into Cadance’s line, and she would, hypothetically, be entering the main branch Terre Rare. Of course, these were also the same problems she had considered in her discussion with Prince Blueblood.

I don't really understand this, why can Twilight no longer inherit based on who she marries? Doesn't this just mean that the Canterlot Terre Rares will be folded into Alpha's branch when Twilight dies and her child with Alpha inherits?

In the night sky, a pony could behold were the pantheon of spirits,

Is "were" supposed to be there?

How has no one else commented on the random old world alicorn? I suppose there's also an implication here that ponies gained magic due to the intervention of the stars, creating pegasi and unicorns.

[Blackdust]

“When I first made him, he was actually quite vexing,” Eunomie added, quickly, while the familiar was out of sight. “He kept bobbing around and getting in the way and saying ‘Hey. Listen.’ I tweaked the voice a bit and amended part of the contract and that did the trick. Initially very annoying, though.”

Oh dear lord, she made Navi at first...

[My name is R]

“Maybe I just wanted to see for myself what it took to beat you up a little.”
Ritter laughed again, winking at her former warden. The guardpony looked like he regretted having to let the screw loose Wonderbolt back on the streets. “Apparently, it takes four drunken stallions, two chairs, three pool cues, one bottle of whiskey - for drinking - another bottle of whiskey, that one broken over the head, oh, and two mares who joined in at the end when I called them cheap whores. One of them had heels, too, the bitch.”

Aha! It's a flashback. I was worried for a sec that I'd forgotten when she was captured, but now I'm all caught up.

Her head throbbed painfully from a lingering concussion and her vision wavered in and out, clear one moment and deep-sea-cam the next.

Wait, do ponies have underwater cameras?

For a time, all she could see was the sky, and the bursts of color as Cloudsdale and Ponyville alike celebrated Decoration Day. The holiday dedicated to all the ponies who served Equestria, and all those who had lost their lives preserving a thousand years of peace and prosperity.

It just occurred to me, but Decoration day is as much named for military medals as it is ornamentation, isn't it?

“Where are the wings?” Fluttershy insisted, feeling a little emboldened by the night’s drink and a stomach full of sweets and chips. “I don’t really see any of the things constellations are supposed to be,” she admitted, and felt the sudden urge to apologize, “Sorry.”
“I guess I don’t really see it that well, myself,” Chalice said, waving a hoof, as if to say, ‘no need to apologize.’

Yeah, me three. I have a hard enough time finding the right stars to connect, but even once I do they seldom bear even a passing resemblance to their namesakes. Orian might be the only big famous one that I can see the picture in.
I enjoy seeing all the pretty stars, but I just don't get the constellations.

As far as assistants went, Eunomie’s familiar appeared to be quite capable. On the other hoof, the whole blindness in one eye while using it thing remained a bit of a drawback.

I'd take that deal. Honestly, I wouldn't necessarily object even if the blindness wasn't limited to while he was active. That's a very handy ability, and I have an extra eye.

“When I first made him, he was actually quite vexing,” Eunomie added, quickly, while the familiar was out of sight. “He kept bobbing around and getting in the way and saying ‘Hey. Listen.’ I tweaked the voice a bit and amended part of the contract and that did the trick. Initially very annoying, though.”

I actually liked Navi...

“Oh, by the way,” he said, as Rarity ran to return the serve. “I promised Twilight Sparkle our first born.”
“YOU DID WHAT?!”
“Ha! Yes! You missed! Game, set, and match! I win again! Aaaagh!”

Before the game and all that, Fluttershy had played board and card games with her two friends, relaxing and talked about the town and her animals and the latest news.

Okay, I see two problems here. The first is tense. It should either be relaxing and talking or as they relaxed and talked. Secondly, for the ending I would suggest about the town, her animals, and the latest news.

In the night sky, a pony could behold were the pantheon of spirits, like the Windigos and Discord,

All a pony could behold, perhaps? Or cut out were.

Arrayed in the same display were the skulls of several other ancient ponies: unicorns in one row, earth ponies in another, and pegasi in another. Particular note was taken on their teeth and dentition, their degree of maturity, their estimated age and where they had been found. A few were just skull fragments, carefully pieced together. The pegasus and unicorn skulls were from a few thousand to even a couple hundred years ago, but some of the earth pony ones were much older. From the more horse-like slant of them, Lyra could guess that they were very old indeed: tens of thousands of years, maybe.
Not far from the skeletons, a series of racks displayed row after row of clay tablets in pre-Equestrial Tally-A and Tally-B linear, and beneath that, shelves stocked with scrolls, each one sealed in a wax case and tagged with a neat paper label.

Hold up. First you say skulls, then you say skeletons. It's an important distinction, since if they were only skulls yet distinguished between earth ponies and pegasi that could have a few meanings. I think you do mean skulls.

The day after had found him meeting Twilight as a local restaurant, the two siblings seated across from one another.

at
That, or Shining has truly been gifted by his bride-to-be in her people's secret arts.