The Golden Age

by The Quiet Party

II: CANTERLOT PALACE, 13th Day of Latespring, 1023 ASI

CANTERLOT PALACE
13th Day of Latespring,
1023 ASI
(June 4, 2016 approximate)

Seated on the golden throne of Canterlot, Luna tried for the hundredth time to calm the populace; this press conference was the latest attempt. Once again, something strange had been going on as of late, and more and more, Luna’s fears were not assuaged.

It had become an issue since two years ago. One day, Celestia had taken the step that she’d never done before, that she’d insisted was always unnecessary: she assumed the position as Queen of Equestria, a position that not been filled since the Discordian era and the death of Queen Platinum. The populace had cheered at the time, and even if it meant somewhat of a demotion, Luna congratulated her sister; it was well overdue.

But then came the cancellation of the plans to spin the Crystal Empire off as its own nation. Cadance had been shocked by that, as had been Shining; the reason given had been the discovery of a changeling living there. Despite his pleas to the contrary, Queen Celestia found Thorax guilty of espionage. Thorax begged for clemency and asylum, insisting that he was not like his sistren and that all he wanted was peace. Despite that, Thorax was sentenced to death … but somehow disappeared the day before it was to be carried out. Celestia took this as proof of his guilt and demanded that the whole of the Empire be searched. The resulting chaos left many a crystal pony filled with resentment at their “beloved” queen, a sentiment that was echoed to a lesser degree by Cadance and Shining.

Then the Bearers had been running themselves ragged as of late. Called from crisis to crisis by the Cutie Map located at Twilight’s castle, the six were constantly called to deal with problems around the realm, and sometimes even beyond. At first they were typical issues in line with Twilight’s position as the Princess of Friendship. But then came the second trip to Griffionstone and the bomber there, who had nearly killed them. He ended up being taken down by a griffin named Gilda, who had a history with the Bearers, but it was the final report of what the griffin had said – “The Whirlwind is coming! The Whirlwind is coming!” – before he committed suicide. Since that day, Twilight never traveled without her Magical Guard. The group, under the command of the earth mare captain Aria Blaze, were six hoof-picked mares that Shining pulled from the academy to serve with the Bearers.

Then came the steady disappearance of the nation’s nobility – although it wasn’t entirely true that all the nobles were unaccounted for; Blueblood had become despondent when he’d discovered that his best – some would argue only – friend, Duke Fancy Pants and his wife, Duchess Fleur Dis Lee, had been found murdered in their sleep. Finally, after the disappearance of nearly all the nobility, one had been caught; a Baltimare count by the name of Hallowed Knight, who readily and happily agreed to the murders of Fancy and Fleur, though Blueblood didn’t think Hallowed had been guilty. Luna presided over the court and sentence the prisoner to life in prison; sadly, it was later found that he’d committed suicide in his cell. But it was what Hallowed had written on the cell walls – HE LIVES IN THE BLACK GARDEN – that still disturbed Luna to this day.

And now this latest news. Upon the death of King Palladius of Minos, the Bearers, accompanied by Twilight’s new protegee, a unicorn mare named Starlight Glimmer, served as Equestria’s delegation. Spike opted to remain behind, with the Friendship Palace staff and the Magic Guard keeping an eye on him. Luna sighed in relief, at least that worry was done at the moment.

But the reason for the Bearers’ attendance was: it was a highly kept secret right now, one that threatened to get out soon: Celestia had been missing for a month now. As her sister had done during Luna’s exile, the night alicorn had taken over the movement of the sun and the moon while attending to her duties as well.

Needless to say, things were not going well, even with Blueblood stepping in to handle the Night Court. He’d changed much since his friend’s death a year ago, and it was a bittersweet change: he was more responsible now, but he’d become sullen, unhappy and filled with rage that Luna knew all too well.

“Excuse me, Princess?” a voice spoke up.

“My mind drifted briefly; my apologies,” she’d said to the reporter before her. “Please, ask your question again.”

“Absolutely, your highness,” the unicorn replied, holding pencil to notepad, ready for the Crown Princess’ answer. “How much longer will Queen Celestia be taking a leave of absence? There have been unconfirmed reports of her around the world.”

“My sister should be back soon,” Luna said, lying through her teeth. She’d had those reports investigated, and each time, they’d turned up fruitless. She herself had tried to contact Celestia, magically, psychically, astrally, and just about every method save for carrier pigeon – and only not that last one, given that the palace had none trained – but with no answer. “But please, give her space: she’s been through a lot these last few years, and we all want a rested and ready queen to lead our nation, do we not?”

The reporter would have asked his next question had not alarm bells rang through the castle and the golden doors of the throne room were thrown open. “Princess!” the guard bellowed; any sense of propriety was lost at that moment. “We have an emergency!”

As the reporters turned, interested in this newest information, Luna teleported the pony to her immediately. “What is it?” she commanded.

The guard answered, teleporting the lunar alicorn to the southwest balcony of the palace. It was publicly accessible, and had a wide view of most of the valley below, so it was often populated. Right now, it was crowded with ponies, many of them gasping in horror at what was going on. From where they landed, Luna could see a great column of smoke rise into the sky. Something had crashed at the foot of the mountain.

She took to the air, and noticed that column wasn’t large due to vicinity – it was large due to size. Below on the valley floor, a giant circle burned miles away. Luna knew that circle all too well: she’d been there many a time, and even owned a small house there when she wanted to get away from it all.

“GUARDS! TO PONYVILLE, IMMEDIATELY!” she roared, taking off like a rocket.

A few seconds later she landed on the outskirts, and what she saw sickened her: the town had been burned to the ground, with dead ponies – stallions, mares, even foals – as far as the eye could see. In the distance was Twilight’s castle, shattered and heavily carbon-scored.

The first wave of EUP Guards arrived, followed in close tandem by the Wonderbolts, the latter dressed in their blue-and-gold combat barding, something that was rarely seen in the skies of Equestria.

“Search for survivors,” Luna told the guards. She then turned to Spitfire and added, “Send your fastest flier to get to Princess Twilight and her retinue in Minos – I need her back immediately.” The yellow pegasus said something to her second-in-command, Soarin’, then rocketed off as fast as she could.

“I’m taking command now, Princess,” Soarin’ said. “Your orders?”

“Patrol flight with a perimeter of two leagues around Ponyville, including the Everfree. Nothing gets in or out without your ponies noticing. Get your best combatants and send them to the Everfree Ruins. There’s a chance that whoever did this is looking for a place to hide, and sadly, the Ruins are a good candidate.”

“And what about you, Princess?” one of the lieutenants present asked.

Luna was about to speak when a voice called out, “We have a survivor!” A guardspony raced over, saluted everyone and said, “She’s seriously injured, though.” He then turned around and pointed to a unicorn medic, carrying someone in a protective field.

“She may not have long to live,” the medic informed Luna. “If you’re going to ask her anything, now’s the time to do it.” She moved the energy field over and made it translucent.

Luna looked in, with some surprise. It was Adagio Dazzle, one-time Siren. She served as the assistant to Mayor Mare, and from Twilight’s comments, much happier now as a unicorn. “Miss Dazzle, please, tell me what happened.”

With whatever strength Adagio had, she reached up with hooves to grab Luna, leaving a smear of blood on the alicorn’s leg. Luna noticed that one of Adagio’s legs had been so scorched, even if she lived it would have to be amputated.

“Stop her!” Adagio gasped through heat-seared lungs. “You have to stop her bef––” Adagio then let go and fell back, still.

“Who?” Luna asked, though a fear began to gnaw at the back of her mind. Heat damage, not hearing from somepony for weeks, unconfirmed reports of being seen in random places in the world. Somepony using their strongest magic, traveling around the world to gather an army….

Luna, in a panic, raced towards Twilight’s castle. As she raced down the main street, she noted more and more burnt, glass-fused craters filled with nuclear-burn shadows. They were in the shapes of ponies, and many were various sizes. As much as the macabre looks disturbed her, she pushed on. Maybe it was something else. There were enemies that used the same type of power as Celestia did: Lavan the Infernal, who was one of their first foes after beating Discord; Chahwnsk the Fiery, although not evil, was always unpredictable, and her methods weren’t always clear. Even a relatively strong mage, like Sunblaze, would be able to do this sort of damage.

Except you know they’re not to blame, the voice at the back of her mind said. You’ve seen this all before – up close and personal, no less. Luna’s heart began to break as a horrifying realization came to mind.

She was all about confirmed as she reached the front doors of Twilight’s castle. The doors had been melted down to slag, while the crystal of the front was blackened and cracked. Around the doors, six dead mares lay, their armor melted around them. Luna knew their names. Sunny Flare. Sour Sweet. Indigo Zap. Sugarcoat. Lemon Zest. And, mostly burned to a crisp but still standing her silent vigil even in death, was their captain, Aria Blaze. Luna wanted to cry when she saw the brave captain, having fought to the last, if her bloodstained sword was any indicator.

Luna continued on, rushing into her friend’s castle, seeing everything slagged or torched to a crisp in the castle’s domains. She came across the remnants of the staff, many of their charred bodies looking as if they would run.

“Uuuuuugh…” Luna heard a barely-alive groan and she raced to the sound of the voice. There, in the middle of the charnel house that used to be the Friendship Council Room, she saw the thrones of the seven, completely shattered. The Cutie Map was bashed in two, and as if giving information as to who the perpetrator was, a massive amount of cutie marks flickered in black flames above the image of Twilight’s castle, so many of them that Luna couldn’t discern them all.

She heard a step and the lunar unicorn wheeled around, magic at the ready, What she found was a pegasus, mane and feathers nearly burnt off, heavily bruised, barely able to stand and looking at Luna as if she were, well, her sister!

“Princess!” she screamed, taking an instinctive step forward and collapsing. Luna, however, moved quickly and caught the poor mare before impact. As she approached, she noticed to her horror that it was Sonata Dusk, Twilight’s personal maid and the last of the former Sirens.

“Please! You have to do something before they hurt Spike! Please!” she begged, too injured to fully cry. “I tried to protect him, but they….”

Luna’s eyes got even more horrific at the mention of the young dragon and she immediately did a double teleport: Sonata to where the Guards had set up base while she directly went to Spike’s room…

...to find the room burnt and charred – and a puddle of green blood on the ground. She immediately followed the trail of blood. “NO!” Luna screamed in a panic. “He’s just a child!” she pled as she raced up the stairs towards the top floor, where Twilight’s personal rooms were, as well as her research labs and library.

The moment she arrived, Luna fell to her knees in shock. There, in the room, burning with the intensity of the sun itself, was Starswirl’s Mirror, which Twilight used to both visit and communicate with Celestia’s daughter, Sunset Shimmer. But now the mirror burned with a powerful magic that Luna was unfamiliar with. She stepped closer to look at it, and a second later, she heard a horrible, heartwrenching scream.

It took a few seconds to realize it was her own.

As she looked at what remained of Spike, she realized what had been done: the magic of dragons was within their blood, and what better way to cast a powerful spell than to use the very blood of the one dragon that was easier to capture than any of them? Few creatures on Equus knew that, and only one pony aside from herself was aware of such use of black magic.

Her words from earlier came back to her mind, unbidden: Somepony using their strongest magic, traveling around the world to gather an army…. And now that she could put everything together, one and one had equaled two, and the answer was undeniable and staring her right in the face.

After all, she had once been under the control of the Nightmare Force as well. And under its corruption had killed her best friend at the time. Celestia had said she wasn’t to blame, but deep within, Luna could never forgive herself for turning on Merrie Meet. And now Celestia was under the Nightmare’s sway, and she’d committed worse atrocities.

What will become of us? Luna wondered.

A few seconds later, she could hear familiar voices waft up the stairs. “Quick! This way!” Luna’s eyes widened as she realized whose voice that was.

She turned to the door, racing for it. “No, Twilight! Don’t come closer! For the love of the stars, please don’t come closer!”

But Twilight took that order to be Luna in need and so she teleported her and her six companions into the room. It only took a couple of steps for Twilight to realize what had happened.

Luna would never forget that day.

Twilight was never the same again.

Comments

[Shinzakura]

Holy shit, I was not expecting that. Yeah, that makes Nightmare Star completely unforgivable and magnitudes worse than her lunar counterpart ever was.

Sunset's got an uphill climb, for sure.

[Cloud blaze]

There appears to be a typo in the description
Bright get to equestria?

[The Quiet Party]

7676870
Eyup, this is what I get for writing the description on my phone. Dreaded typo monster. I'll fix.