• Published 14th Oct 2012
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Celestia in Excelsis - Kolwynia



One heroic princess is all that stands between the Arch-Enemy of Friendship and all her little ponies.

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VI. The Pony in the Glass

Six:
The Pony in the Glass

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Victory Song asked her companion as they approached the ruins of the old house. It was night, and they were alone. “I heard he set all kinds of magical traps. Even though the house burned down, we still might trigger one.”

“You don’t have to come,” said Page. “The princess gave me a mission. How can I face her again if I don’t come back with that mirror?”

Victory’s lips curled in an amused smile and she rolled her eyes. “And we can’t have you unable to face her again.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Only that you haven’t shut up about her all night.” Her voice became high-pitched, and took on a bad unicorn accent. “Princess Celestia said she needs ponies like me at the magic academy. Princess Celestia studies as hard as I do. Princess Celestia gave me a mission…

“I do not sound like that,” Page sniffed.

“You should listen to yourself.”

“It’s just…” Page’s cheeks colored in the moonlight. “I never thought our tribe would ever have a princess we could be proud of. Not with Dewdream on the throne. But now we do. And so I am.”

“I get it,” said Victory, looking away. She felt the tiniest prick of jealousy, like a thorn. Why can’t the earth pony tribe have an amazing princess? She didn’t know much about her tribe’s politics, but she knew that Chancellor Sweetmeats was about as inspiring as a pumpkin. And since the battle she was doing her best to discourage earth ponies from having any relation with unicorns. Which wouldn’t have been a problem for Victory before, but now that she had a unicorn friend it bothered her a lot. She didn’t tell Page, but their friendship was straining her relationship with the other earth pony children.

“And since we are doing this for her together, you’ll get the chance to meet her yourself!”

The idea was enough to make Victory a little bit braver. Not that she was scared before, of course. “We’re here,” she said, swallowing.

The silver light of the full moon transformed the ruins of Starswirl’s house into an alien landscape, riddled with shadows. The fillies stepped into the wreckage cautiously, looking around.

“What if somepony already came and took it?” said Victory.

“I doubt it. The magicians at the Magic Academy are still afraid of Starswirl. Anypony who would be interested in coming here would be too smart for it.”

Victory gave a weak laugh. “Yeah. Good thing we don’t have that problem.”

They began their search through the charred wood and blackened stone. Their hooves were soon covered in ash. There didn’t seem to be anything valuable to find. Even metal objects had been melted into hard puddles.

“Hey, did Starswirl live with somepony?” asked Victory as she searched through the wreckage of yet another room.

“Not that I know of. Why?”

“It’s just, I think this used to be a bedroom, and I’m pretty sure I already searched through one.”

“Maybe it was a guest room.”

“Yeah. Makes sense.” Victory’s hoof kicked something and she bent down to examine it. It was burnt almost beyond recognition, but it looked like it used to be a wooden toy, the kind earth ponies made for their colts and fillies. Curious. She looked up at Page, who was wandering through the ruins of the old house as if she were in a dream.

Eventually, Page stepped into what used to be Starswirl’s study. She could not have said what she was feeling at that moment. For years her grandfather had been her hero. Even now she could not bring herself to hate him. She stepped lightly through the ruins of his house, a place she had always dreamed about visiting. It’s all gone now, she thought sadly.

“Look here,” said Victory. With her teeth she pulled something from a pile of black, crumbling wood. It was an oval mirror.

Page used her magic to stand the looking glass up. Its surface was blackened, but it appeared otherwise undamaged. Which means it’s magic, she thought. “I think you’ve found it,” she said.

Then a voice came from the glass. “Is that you? Oh, I’m so happy. I didn’t think you would ever come back.

Page’s horn sparkled and the surface of the mirror was wiped clean. A pony looked at her from the other side with an expression of surprise. It was a unicorn filly like her, but her coat was an even deeper shade of blue. Her eyes, behind a pair of glasses like Page’s own, were a piercing aquamarine.

Oh,” said the looking glass pony. She pushed her glasses up her nose. “I’m sorry. I thought you were somepony else.

“Who are you?” said Victory.

The looking glass pony turned her attention to the earth pony, and as she did so her unicorn’s horn vanished, as did her glasses. Now she looked like a dark blue earth pony. “Always the first question they ask,” she said with a sigh. She shrugged. “I don’t have a name.

“This looks like fairy magic,” breathed Page. “She’s like a copy of whoever looks in the mirror.”

“I didn’t think fairies were real,” said Victory, leaning close to the glass, where the blue pony mimicked her action until their noses were only inches apart.

Strange that an earth pony can see me,” the looking glass pony remarked.

“They’re real,” said Page. “Have you ever heard of the changelings? They are a kind of fairy race. That’s where their shape-changing powers come from.”

Victory blushed. She didn’t want to admit it to Page, but she hadn’t thought changelings were real either.

What happened here?” said the looking glass pony, shifting once more into Page’s double. “Where is Starswirl?

“Nopony knows,” answered Victory. “He ran away after the battle.”

Battle?” The looking glass pony frowned. “So, he succeeded in turning you ponies against one another, after all. And you say he ran away? Why?

“Our princess scared him off,” said Page.

I doubt that,” said the looking glass pony. “I have been Starswirl’s reflection, I know how powerful he is. If he left after your battle, it was because he wanted to.

Page and Victory exchanged a glance. “She beat him in magic. He was trying to keep the sun down, and she raised it.”

Did she now? Interesting…

“Glad to know you’re interested. Because we are taking you to meet her.”

Oh,” was all the looking glass pony said.

Victory licked her lips. “Um… Page? I don’t mean to doubt your princess, but are fairies good or bad? I mean, this mirror belonged to Starswirl the Bearded.”

Page stared for a long time at her darker reflection. She murmured something.

“What?” asked Victory.

“I said neither. They are not good or evil. They live in a totally different world from ours. Usually they take on the character of whatever pony summons them.” At least, that’s what Page’s books said.

Page was only half right. It was true that fairies had changeable natures, but on some level they were capable of preferring one mode of existence to another. And the being that lived on the other side of the mirror had recently felt what it was like to reflect a pony that was so selfless that she offered to sacrifice half her life to give her a name. That kind of goodness didn’t just disappear. It left a mark that even the fluid nature of the fairy realm could not wash away. It was the touch of Harmony, the faintest quickening of the power of friendship. And the creature in the glass wanted to feel it again.

She didn’t want to meet a princess. All she wanted was to see a little white unicorn filly once more.

“Then are we doing the right thing?” asked Victory. “What does the princess want with something like this?”

Page didn’t know. “She said she is trying to stop Starswirl from doing something bad. Maybe this creature is part of her plan.” But try as she might, she couldn’t think what the princess would need the dark mirror for. It might not be evil magic, strictly speaking, but it was unpredictable. Dangerous, even.

A violet glow surrounded the looking glass as Page levitated it. “Come on,” she said, looking around one last time. To think she had once begged her grandfather to take her home with him. “Let’s get out of here.”

But as they were leaving the study, Victory tripped over something. She bent down and pulled it out of the ashes with her teeth. Page threw an annoyed glance her way.

“What is it?”

“It’s a book.”

“A book? How did it survive the fire?”

“How should I know? You’re the magician. Maybe it’s magic.”

A magic book? She had the unicorn’s attention. Page cast a small light spell over the book so they could see it properly. As she did so, something caught her eye.

“There’s another one,” she said, picking it up with magic. She held both books under the light.

The Book of Harmony,” read Victory.

Page felt her pulse quicken. Did this have something to do with the Elements of Harmony? The princess would be so happy if it did! She could not have known that Celestia had already read the book, and that it did not reveal the location of the lost Elements. Excited, she read the title of the other book to survive the fire.

The Sea of Night.” Some feeling Page could not describe swept over her, and she had a sudden impulse to drop the book, to open up the ground with her magic and bury it so deep that nopony would ever find it. She didn’t do it, of course. An unread book would haunt Page Sparkle like a ghost. Had she known what reading the book would cost her, she would never have touched it, not even with her magic. But there were forces working that night that nopony could have guessed, not even the one who lived on the other side of the dark mirror.

Careful. Those books belonged to Starswirl,” the voice from the looking glass cautioned. “They might be dangerous.