Twilight sits in for a session of court. Things quickly go wrong.
Twilight sits in for a session of the Court of Dawn to learn how to run her own court when the time comes, but is thrust into a terrifying and unfamiliar situation. An assassination attempt is made against her mentor, a well kept secret about the solar matriarch is brought to light, and someone may very well lose an eye.
The throng of mingling voices quieted in a wave with the thumping of golden horseshoes on marble. The gathered petitioners shuffled anxiously as the tired guards lining the walls stood at attention. Eyes shifted from guards to princess, wondering what had brought the debate to its sudden halt.
Celestia, groggy but hiding it well, cleared her throat and straightened her back, giving her wings a light stretch to work out the soreness. She twisted her head, slightly but forcefully, and elicited several loud pops that echoed through the deathly silent throne room. She shot a glance sideways at her purple pupil, who was seated on a pillow beside the throne to watch and listen to the daily Court of Dawn and learn how to run her own when the time came.
Twilight Sparkle was fast asleep.
Celestia extended her right wing a little further, poking the younger alicorn in the ribs and making her squeak and snap to attention, then cleared her throat again and addressed the snickering and confused audience.
“I believe,” she began, stifling a yawn, “that this Court of Dawn may, once again, have carried beyond its jurisdiction.” She looked sideways out a window, the rest of the room following suit, and the many gathered ponies shifted awkwardly as they realized that the moon was steadily rising over the horizon. “I am sorry, my little ponies, but I’m afraid this session of court must come to an end. If you will grant us a moment my sister Princess Luna will arrive shortly to begin the Nocte Curia.”
The gathered ponies bowed respectfully, though some muttered dissatisfaction at waiting so long to be turned away. Celestia returned the bow with a dignified dip of her head, then lit her horn and pushed open the massive doors at the end of the long hall her throne looked over. The crowd turned and filtered through the great archway into the Throne Room Ante-Chamber to await the change of royal authority and the start of the night court. The tall princess smiled and nodded at some further bows from lingering ponies waving sedately as they moved themselves or were gently but firmly ushered out of the room by a nearby guard.
With the room free of common-folk, the doors quietly swung closed and a collective sigh escaped the ponies that remained inside. Guards relaxed and took the opportunity to stretch, some removing their helmets and wiping the sweat from their faces and manes. Princess Celestia herself let her stiff shoulders relax and finally extended her wings to their full length to get blood running into them again.
“How was your nap,” she asked the younger princess at her side.
Twilight shied away from her sly grin and wiped the spit from the corner of her mouth. “F-fine. Sorry about. . .”
Celestia laughed and swiveled her head, drawing out a loud crack and a long sigh. “I don’t blame you, Twilight. One can only devote so much of their day to fairly adjusting the price of corn.”
“Wow,” the purple princess mused, arching her back, “is that what I missed?”
“Oh don’t worry. It’ll come up again in a few months,” Celestia smirked, rolling her shoulders. “It always does.”
Twilight snorted and turned to her teacher with a cocky expression and witty retort on the tip of her tongue, but both instantly vanished with the sight of polished steel hovering inches from the elder princess’ heart.
The young alicorn’s eyes darted to the hilt, taking in the magical aura that held it in place. They then shifted further to the unicorn that was standing on the dais behind the sword. They took in the timberwolf gray coat, amber eyes, disheveled gunmetal mane, and confident sneer. Finally they shot up to Celestia’s face—expecting to find her contentedly stretching her forelegs—and found a calm yet somehow ferocious gaze leveled at the would-be assassin.
A shout echoed through the room as guards noticed the newcomer and took up their weapons, only to find themselves with blades hovering at their throats as dozens of other dark robed figures materialized seemingly from the air. Quickly, silently, the gathered guardsponies were restrained by the threat of cold steel pressing into their necks, and the throne room was once again left quiet.
“Hello. . . my little ponies,” Celestia said evenly. “Is there some grievance you have to voice?”
“Grievance,” the unicorn parroted in a thick accent. “Aye. I’ve got a grievance.”
“The Nocte Curia will begin shortl—“ Celestia closed her mouth as the sword twisted and slid up against her jugular, lifting her head only as much as would keep the blade from biting into her skin.
“Our grievance is not with the Night Mother,” the unicorn growled, narrowing her eyes. “Do not try me, false one, or I will cut your elder down.”
Twilight, who had been rising and flooding magic into her horn, cautiously lowered herself back into her seat and let the readied spell slip away. She looked to Celestia for guidance, but the more practiced alicorn kept her lilac eyes fixed on those of her attacker. Twilight looked nervously out at the guards, who were all predisposed with swords and knives pressed to their own necks—though some met her eye and tried to give her a reassuring look, one that utterly failed to put her at ease. She glanced momentarily at the sword that lay ready at the throne’s side, debating whether she could draw it without being noticed, then looked at it again when she thought she saw a faint movement.
“And what is this grievance?” Celestia asked calmly, still keeping her eyes locked with the unicorns.
“Cut it. I thenk y’ know well enough why ‘m here,” the unicorn snorted in her heavy accent, her cocksure grin turning sour. “And I thenk y’ll find that there won’t be any interruptions this time.”
The sword pushed roughly into Celestia’s skin but she moved her head no further. The unicorn made her threat clear, but it was apparent that there was something she wanted the soon-to-be-dead Princess of Dawn to know first. Or perhaps, Celestia wagered, something she wanted her to remember.
“’This time,’” Celestia repeated dryly. “Strange. I don’t recall being in such a situation before. Certainly not in your lifetime,” she mused, taking a closer look at the mare. Something about was familiar, but what exactly set her apart from any other gray unicorn was not immediately apparent.
“Not with blades,” the unicorn admitted, “but you were a prisoner all the same. Y’ found yerself powerless to protect th’ ponies ya sweur ta protect—and worse, ya fell victim to an ambush by a foe y’ had no right ta be surprised by. A proper ruler would be embarrassed by ya, and indeed I am!” the unicorn snarled, leaning into her words—and the sword. “Ya may not reco’nize me, but I was there when ya failed yer public, and I’ll be there when yer public puts ya to th’ gallows for it.”
While the growls and controlled words were slung Twilight watched, entranced, as the sword drew itself inch by inch further out of its scabbard seemingly of its own accord. The gray unicorn, too occupied with her threats and always returning Celestia’s steely gaze, failed to notice as the sword shimmied a little looser in its holding with every angry word.
“Gallows? You expect you’ll get me out of this room yourself?” Celestia asked, the smirk in her voice not visible on her face. “You have quite an impressive pair of balls to make such bold claims.”
That had surprised the unicorn, and apparently everyone else in the room. Whatever they had been focusing on before, all eyes were now squarely centered on Princess Celestia. The unicorn screwed her face in confusion, her focus wavering, and it was in that instant of hesitation that her captive saw a flicker in her disguise and realized what had felt so familiar about the unassuming assassin.
She was a changeling.
Realization flashed over both of their faces—Celestia discovering the identity of her assailant and the unicorn noticing her revelation. The smaller combatant snarled and whipped her head aside, taking the sword with it, and, in doing so, just missed being decapitated by the self-wielding sword beside the throne. Twilight watched in horror as the assassin’s shining steel bit into her mentor’s flesh, tearing a deep gash across her throat, then spin out across the room and clatter to the floor. She felt her heart slam into her ribs, her breath catching in her throat, as the marble white alicorn sat motionless in her place, appearing, Twilight thought, as a statue so like her memorial would surely be. And then, as she watched, brilliant golden light crisscrossed over the open wound like sutures and pulled the skin back together—leaving nary a scar in its wake and spilling not a drop of blood as it went.
The unicorn was not as lucky. Though her head remained stuck fast to her neck, her ear, and more importantly her horn, had not been left undamaged. The gray flap of skin and hair flopped quietly off of the side of her head and plapped onto the marble floor before reverting to its natural black and withered state. Her horn, meanwhile, clacked and clattered down the steps between her legs, changing as it fell, and skittered away from the dais a few feet in its knotted, nicked, and oddly bent form.
Gasps rang out in the silence—from guards and gathered assassins alike. The once-unicorn now-changeling took no notice, instead whipping he head the other way with the intent to slice at Celestia again. But the broadsword once held firmly in her magic did not respond to her will. The anxious but confident grin vanished from the changeling’s face as she looked up and saw Celestia towering over her with not a mark on her coat to show the lethal slash she’d just taken to her throat. Adrenaline turned cold in her chest, and the blood running down her neck was suddenly, distractingly warm. Lime colored sparks crackled and fizzled out of her halved horn as her spell traveled through the gnarled bone only to snap and backfire. The changeling, eyes wide, raised a shaking hoof to her diminished horn, and the pain of her injuries struck her like a hammer to the face.
“AaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!!!”
The shriek reverberated through the room, followed quickly by another as the pain-wracked changeling dropped to the floor. The heavily robed entourage of would-be assassins shrunk away from her howls, shooting worried looks at each other and their wounded leader. The ear-shattering scream was silenced by a loud metallic clang!
The changeling’s eyes opened wide. Her breath caught in her throat. She cautiously turned her eyes to take in the gleaming blade that rested against the side of her neck and extended into the stone beside her head. The eyes shifted up to Celestia, who sat stone still in her throne, the same harsh yet emotionless mask still covering her face. The changeling whimpered and started to move when a second sword, this time cloaked in the alicorn’s golden aura, slid across the entrapping blade and speared into the ground at the opposite side of the changeling’s neck. The former assassin caught back her breath in short, shallow gulps as she took in the long, thin swords that crossed over her and pinned her to the floor before her face changed. Once again she looked up at Celestia with a firm resolve, glaring at the stoic lilac eyes that looked down at her from what now seemed so high above. She set her jaw, turned as much as she could, then bared her teeth and hissed a guttural growl.
“Vivat reginam.”
To Twilight’s utter horror, the changeling lurched forward and began furiously sawing through her carapace with the crossed blades. Celestia watched silently, making no move to intervene, as the thick, black shell split and the changeling began to choke and sputter on her viscous blue-green blood.
Silently one of the hooded figures raised his foreleg, a blade springing from somewhere in his sleeve, and he punched the hidden dagger into his neck, collapsing instantly. Swords fell from hooved and magical hold as more blades appeared from within the folds of the assassins’ robes and choked and gagging cries filled the room as they were swiftly plunged into their owners’ throats.
Twilight’s wide eyes took in the scene with mute horror. She opened her mouth, desperate to say something, something, to stop the gory scene playing out before her, but all that escaped was a strangled squeak. Metal crashed to the floor in front of her and made her jump. She looked down and found a sword bouncing down the stairs away from her. She looked right and felt her body become rigid. Scared, wide, blue eyes stared back at her from a masked and hooded face.
Twilight felt a cold shiver run down her spine. ’Was he there the whole time? How did—‘
Twilight’s eyes darted down and found a hoof trembling at the pony’s chest, a blade extending beyond it and hesitantly pressing into his neck. Her eyes doubled in width and shot back up to his, screaming silently to lower his arm. The pony—she was sure he was a pony—narrowed his eyes and pressed a little harder, piercing the thick cloth around his neck, but stopped once the cold metal touched his skin. Twilight shook her head, begging him to stop, and the stallion quietly stopped shaking. Twilight paused, hope flashing through the terror in her eyes. The assassin withdrew his knife.
Then he lifted his chin and speared the long blade through the softer part of his jaw and into his skull.
Twilight screamed, the piercing cry drowning out the choked sounds of death around her. Celestia blinked for the first time since the invaders had appeared, glancing sideways at her pupil, then shook herself and took stock of the situation. The changeling laughed a disgusting, burbling laugh as she drowned, grinning madly as Celestia’s stoic mask broke.
The Princess of Dawn spread her wings, brilliant golden magic filling her horn, and a warm, sunny light swept across the room.
Blackening pools stopped their flow, color returning to them, and began to shrink. Lungs inflated and emptied of stifling, suffocating fluids. Skin pulled itself taught and stitched together as arteries were once again filled with their spilled contents. A thick, chitinous shell cracked and popped as its pieces snapped back into place, and a mad grin dropped from a terrified face.
Short swords were kicked across the floor as guards turned on their attackers, spears raised, but found no resistance. What few assassins attempted to stand quickly had their legs taken out from under them by a shining aura and a powerful sleep spell. Celestia looked sideways at her apprentice, noting that the hollow fear lingered on her face despite her efforts, and sighed as she turned back to the changeling at her feet.
“Sleep,” she murmured, lighting her horn.
“Death to the Sun!” the changeling hissed, leaning into the blades again before collapsing in a heap.
Celestia closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath before opening them again. She straightened her back, adjusted her hooves, then addressed the guards.
“Confiscate their weapons. All of them,” she ordered, snapping the guards to attention. “Have their skin strengthened and set repulsive fields around their teeth. Hold them separately, do not allow line of sight between them, and have the changeling sent to the Royal Lockup.” She paused thoughtfully, then added, “Let no one see you.”
The assembled guards saluted before turning to their work. Celestia looked down at the sleeping changeling and frowned. She drew the swords out of the floor on either side of her then deftly slashed them over her head, cleanly slicing off the changeling’s newly mended horn.
A squeak as she cut drew Celestia’s attention to her right, where Twilight sat in shock on her pillow. The elder alicorn’s face became somber as she quietly sheathed the twin rapiers on either side of her throne. Seconds ticked by in silence as the guards arranged the slumbering bodies for easy transportation, all the while Celestia searched for some reassuring thing to say to her star student.
“Still bored?”
Twilight slowly turned her head to look at Celestia, the dull glassy look in her eye telling the older mare that her attempt at humor had fallen more than a little flat. The pearly alicorn studied her junior’s harrowed expression, quietly hating herself for allowing her to sit in on this particular session of court. With a sigh Celestia turned her attention back to the guards.
“It might be best if you got some sleep.”
Without waiting for an answer—and with a subtle flash of magic—the regal figure sent her apprentice topping forward into a gentle, downy surface. She carefully lowered her wing, letting the sleeping mare slide safely onto the dais. Celestia spared a final, disdainful look at the disarmed changeling, then picked up her student in her magic and left the room.
The door shut with a quiet click behind Celestia as she approached her guard on duty. Night Watch, a dark gray unicorn with light brown eyes, spared her a glance before returning his attention to the room beyond the one-way mirror. A thick mahogany table dominated the room, and at two sides were set high backed chairs—one of them holding a stone faced, hornless changeling.
“She won’t talk, Highness,” Night Watch muttered in agitation. “Hasn’t said anything since she woke up. Won’t drink either.”
Princess Celestia strode up beside him and looked through the window. Her steely gaze locked onto the changeling and remained focused on her face, her eyes boring holes into the unsuspecting insequine. A chill seemed to run through the changeling, drawing a look of surprise from the pony at the princess’ side, and her eyes shifted up to stare blindly back at the glaring alicorn. Celestia let out a controlled breath, aware—or at least assuming—that it was her emotions rather than the intensity of her stare that had attracted the changeling’s attention, and fought to reign said emotions in.
“It’s a lovely night, Night Watch,” Celestia commented absently. “Spend it with someone.”
Night Watch shot another look Celestia’s way, but quickly turned his eyes to the floor. Were he any less experienced within the guard he might have argued about his duty or suggested the princess be the one to spend time elsewhere, but the subtly unsettling tone of her voice and the haze of almost restrained magic filling the small room told him well enough that this was not a time for chivalry. Far from it, if he guessed correctly.
With a sharp salute he turned and marched out of the room, leaving the Sun Princess alone with her prisoner. With a glance over her shoulder and a bright golden light from her horn, the rosette of the heavy door to the interrogation rooms began to glow with heat. Celestia watched patiently as the scalding metal plate warped and deformed, ensuring no key could fit inside, then turned her head forward and quietly locked the door with a flick of her horn. Sure of her isolation, the solar monarch opened the inner door and trotted into the interrogation room proper.
A wall of heat impacted Chelicera as the door opened. She winced, her eyes tearing at the intensity of the anger that assaulted her senses. The changeling blinked tears from her eyes as they adjusted to the searing air and focused on the tall, blurry figure that had entered the room. She blinked in surprise at finding, at first glance, Princess Luna striding into the room, but recovered quickly.
“You will answer to us, changeling,” Luna ordered coldly, sitting across the table. “Why did you attack our sister?”
Chelicera narrowed her eyes but said nothing. The pony opposite her waited moment to hear her answer, then leapt up from her seat and slammed her hooves on the table with a thunderous bang.
“You will answer us, changeling!” the princess of night snarled, magic flaring. “Why did you attack our sister?”
“I am not a hatchling, princess,” the changeling hissed, her accent radically different than before. Rather than the sloppy, consonant heavy accent of earlier, her speech was now clear and curt, with the slightest of controlled drawls. “Do you hope or assume I am stupid enough to forget the feel of your emotions?”
Princess Luna glared daggers at the unflinching changeling before lowering herself back into her seat and letting her disguise fall away. Celestia crossed her hooves over the table and took a long breath to further suppress her feelings. It was a horrible thought to know that her usual external mask would not be enough to conceal her thoughts from this creature.
“I’ll ask as myself then,” she said once she had calmed slightly. “Why did you attack me?”
Now the changeling shut up, returning to her stoic pose and watching Celestia with a bored expression. Hot anger flared in the princess again before it was choked by calming thoughts—her face all the while unchanged—and she made a mental list of alternate approaches to the question.
“Were you left behind after last year’s assault?” the princess asked in a more curious tone.
Silence.
“Most of the ponies that were with you were indeed ponies. What did you offer them to make them agree to follow you?”
Silence.
“I don’t imagine it’s likely, but would you be useful as a hostage to draw your queen out of hiding?”
Chelicera blinked.
“My queen? Do I look like a drone to you?” she growled indignantly. “I am queen!”
Both pony and changeling stared at each other in surprise. Chelicera clenched her jaws and focused on the far wall. Celestia sized the insequine creature up with a new light. She did indeed look different from the stout legionnaires that had followed Queen Chrysalis in attacking Canterlot the year before. She was slender by comparison and much taller, similar in stature to her adoptive niece. Her eyes and membranous "hair" were also a different color; her mane and tail were a dull brown and her eyes had a shimmering bronze coloration. Her horn, Celestia remembered suddenly, was also long and knotted and wickedly curved near the tip—very unlike the short thorns of the army that had invaded her city.
Still, her voice, size, and demeanor made it clear to the princess of sunlight that the changeling was young. Younger, she imagined, than Cadence had been when she achieved princesshood.
“You?” she asked quietly, drawing the changeling’s attention. “You’re the queen?”
The changeling’s eye twitched before she gave a curt jerk of the head, which Celestia assumed was a nod.
“What happened to Chrysalis?”
“Who is Chrysalis?” the changeling asked with a frown.
Celestia’s brow creased. “Queen Chrysalis. The old queen. What happened to her?”
Chelicera quirked an eyebrow. “Old queen?”
Celestia rolled her eyes. “The queen before you. The queen of the changelings! What—“ She stopped, reigning in her annoyance, then continued. “Was she killed by the shield spell?”
The changeling sat, quietly staring at the white alicorn, for several seconds before blinking and straightening in her seat.
“You don’t know anything about changelings, do you?” Celestia shifted uncomfortably at the accusation, and Chelicera sensed a begrudging embarrassment from the princess that confirmed her suspicion. “You just said you had dealings with another queen, you didn’t learn anything from that?”
“I learned that changelings are cruel, disgusting, vehement creatures,” the alicorn growled through her teeth, snapping the confusion out of Chelicera, “creatures that feed on the purest of emotions and leave their prey drained of their lust for life, dazed and confused, and weak beyond their ability to function. When this energy is not given freely through deception it’s taken by force—that or substituted with fear,” she spat, rousing the young queen. “My dealings with Queen Chrysalis have taught me that changelings are vile. Worse, they are dangerous.” Celestia stood, menacingly stalking around the table toward the increasingly uncomfortable changeling. “Chrysalis managed to overpower me after feeding on the love of my niece and nephew. Even if I showed restraint that is no simple task. A changeling queen, fed by the love of an army, with a personal vendetta against me?”
Chelicera swallowed hard but held her ground as Celestia penetrated her comfort zone, leaning her face close to the young changeling’s and impressing on her the full difference of their height. The princess left her statement unfinished, but the implication was clear. She considered the changeling a threat, a serious one, and wouldn’t show her any leniency. Chelicera set her jaw and puffed out her chest, determined not to appear nervous in the face of Celestia’s unspoken threat. The alicorn almost looked like she was about to snap at the young queen, but her steely mask cracked as a thought crossed her mind and she withdrew from the changeling’s face.
“You have no idea who Chrysalis is?” she asked suddenly, catching Chelicera off guard.
The changeling narrowed an eye. “I don’t. Changeling queens rarely meet, but I haven’t heard of her either.”
Celestia absorbed this, her right eyebrow twitching as she thought. “Then who were you talking about earlier? ‘An enemy I had no right to be surprised by,’ you said. You weren’t talking about the changeling attack?”
Now the changeling scowled. “I was talking about Discord. A being of pure chaos and disorder, representing everything you stand against, running amok with his power the first opportunity he got—rather than execute him, as you should have, you imprisoned him. Within the walls of your palace no less. You gave him more than a millennium to gather his strength and find a way to escape and then you sat by, powerless to stop him, while he led a campaign to plunge the world into disarray.” Chelicera glared angrily at the princess, who had regained her stern expression and let loose another flare of anger. “A real leader, a proper ruler, would have eliminated the threat to her people, not put it off so that new generations could experience the terror of their ancestors.”
Indignant fury exploded out of the towering pony princess, nearly knocking Chelicera bodily from her seat. To her credit, the only sign of this that escaped Celestia’s well-practiced mask was a twitch of the eye and a flick of the ear, but the changeling’s reaction made it clear to her that her usual level of discipline could not hide her feelings from her. Instead, with the knowledge that they were fully alone in the interrogation rooms—for the first time in over a year—Celestia let her lips curl back in a furious snarl and her brow crease with anger and focus. Even though Chelicera could clearly and distinctly feel the pony’s emotions, seeing her drop her persona and let them play across her face was terrifying—mostly for what it represented.
“What do you know about being a leader?” Celestia asked in a strained, tired voice. “Tell me, what exactly do you know about ruling a nation?”
“I—“
“Nothing!” the alicorn roared, letting her magic flare with her anger and fill the room with a stifling heat. “You are a child! A renegade with three drones and a handful of ponies! Where is your hive, queenling? Where are the people you serve with such wisdom of what is right?”
Chelicera leaned away from the looming princess, her body shaking and eyes restlessly seeking a point to focus on—one that wasn’t the blazing lilac eyes that pierced her hard, chitinous shell with their scorching intensity. “I-I. . . I haven’t—“
“Haven’t?” Celestia snapped, her snout almost jabbing the changelings face.
“I h-haven’t nest—“
“You haven’t nested?” Celestia gasped in mock surprise. “How can that be? You obviously have such a vast wealth of knowledge for governing your people.” She blinked, then reeled back as though having a revelation. “My god, you’re right! You know everything about how to govern your kingdom. Because you have no kingdom! And thus you know nothing!”
Chelicera winced as the alicorn screamed into her ear, tears from the mix of blistering heat and burning rage streaming down her face. Of all the potential scenarios she had imagined while awaiting the princess to interrogate her this was the furthest from anything she had expected. It was rumored that Princess Luna still had a habit of breaking into the old manner of speaking—one of deafening volume and duotone voice—but no one had even hinted that Celestia might still know how to use the old speech. Regardless, there was the Traditional Royal Canterlot Voice, blasted at full volume, fueled by righteous indignation, all but throwing Chelicera from her seat with its sheer force.
“How dare you lecture me? You know nothing about leadership! Because you are not a leader! You are not a ruler! You! Are not! A QUEEN!”
Something heavy slammed into Celestia’s side, throwing her to the wall and pinning her there. She yelled in shock, then again in anger, and turned a blazing horn toward the thing that trapped against the cold stone at her side. She opened her mouth, a spell in her horn and roar building in her throat, but a vicious slap across the face stunted them both.
The alicorn blinked in surprise, the white hot magic instantly leaving her and relieving the room of its boiling heat. She looked again at the thing that had struck her, then reared back as she saw her sister’s horrified face staring back at her. She looked beyond the scared face into the theater, swallowing as she found the outer door destroyed and the room filled with anxious guards.
“Sister?”
Celestia shook herself and focused on her sister, the red mark on her cheek already vanishing in a golden aura. With a cough she straightened, and Luna removed herself from the taller mare.
“We heard you from the throne room,” Luna said cautiously, frowning as the princess of dawn winced as if hurt. “What happened?”
Celestia set her jaw, determined to remain composed, and spared a glance at the changeling. The rush of the other princess had knocked her seat, and the table, over and the young queen was huddled in the corner of the room, watching the alabaster alicorn with a mix of deeply rooted fear and indignant anger.
Chelicera felt a hot wave of contempt radiate from the princess—mingling with the worry of her sister and their guards to form an awful, bitter taste in her mouth—and flinched as Celestia spread her wings and turned on her heel, trotting out of the room and through the quickly parting sea of guardsponies. Luna too watched her sister’s departure with deep concern. She looked after her sister as she rounded a corner and continued down the hall beyond, then leered at the changeling in the corner.
“What did you do to her?” Luna hissed.
The changeling looked away from the door to the Night Mother, her body still shaking uncontrollably but expression unreadable.
“Answer me, damn you!” Luna growled, advancing on the changeling, horn lighting.
“Did you learn that from her or did she learn that from you?” the changeling asked, her voice quavering slightly.
Luna stopped, her eyebrows twitching, then glowered at the huddled insequine. She snapped her head back, assuming a commanding pose, then turned to her entourage.
“Return the prisoner to her cell,” the princess ordered sharply, bringing the assembled guards to attention as she strode through them. “I will speak with my sister.”
Twilight’s eyes fluttered open, then clamped shut. She groaned, rolling over and frowning as the sweat-soaked sheets clung to her frame. She threw them off with a quiet “Yuck” and shuffled drowsily to a cooler part of the large bed. Beside the bed, nestled in his favorite basket, Spike startled her with a rumbling snore. The Princess of Friendship relaxed as she recognized the source of the noise and nestled herself into the sheets with a long yawn. She frowned, fractured pieces of her dream floating through her mind, but shook her head and let the memories fade. She had already forgotten the details as it was, and cared little about what formless shapes and sounds she might recall.
“You! Are not! A QUEEN!”
Twilight sat up with a jolt, wide eyes locked on the door to her room. The echo reverberated through the hall for a moment before fading away, leaving the little lavender alicorn in dark silence and a cold sweat. She searched the dark around her door, afraid of what she might find, then carefully shifted to the edge of her bed opposite Spike to stand.
A hoof reached out from the shade and held her still.
“Please, Twilight,” Princess Luna whispered calmly, “remain in bed. It is late.”
Twilight fixed her with a hard stare, annoyed at being startled again. “What’s happening, Luna?”
“Our sister is—was, rather—interrogating the changeling. We are following her to her chambers now.”
For a moment, Twilight was confused. But, in a flash, the memories of the evening came flooding back to her, and her body began to tremble with sickening fear.
“Th-the assassins,” she muttered, rising again from her mattress, “the changeling, she—“
The hoof pressed again and lowered the young alicorn back into her bed.
“Do not linger on such thoughts,” the lunar princess urged quietly. “They will disturb your dreams even more.”
The purple princess blinked. “Even m. . . you’ve been. . .” The vague, blurry remnants of her dream returned to her mind, and she realized that the details had been intentionally obscured. “You’ve been censoring my dreams?”
“Shepherding,” Luna corrected with a slight frown. “You have relived the events nearly thirty times in your dreamscape, every repetition adding fictional details that make it increasingly gruesome. Would you prefer to keep these awful false memories?”
Twilight shuddered and let out a sigh. “I suppose not,” she admitted. “I would at least like the option of experiencing them though. I can’t come to terms with something I can’t remember.”
“I can remove the effect that obfuscates the memories of your dreams. Would you like me to?” Luna offered, her horn emitting a soft glow.
Twilight flinched, caught off guard by the question. She licked her lips, considering the offer, but eventually shook her head.
“Uh, on second thought, the true memory is probably gruesome enough,” she murmured. “I can reconcile with that.”
“As you wish,” Luna nodded, letting the spell fade from her horn.
A silence passed between them as Twilight collected her thoughts and Luna patiently awaited her return to slumber. Eventually the young princess settled back down into bed, but turned to question her elder further.
“What was that scream?” she asked nervously, noticing a sad change in Luna’s face.
“I fear my sister may begrudge me for telling you, but this is something you must be prepared to accept as a fellow ruler of Equestria. Celestia. . . has an angry streak,” Luna admitted cautiously. “It is very carefully concealed under ordinary circumstances, but something about this changeling has brought it out of her. We fear for her emotional wellbeing.”
Twilight stared in surprise at the elder alicorn as she processed her words. “Celestia has an anger problem?” Luna nodded somberly. “H-how can that be? She’s so sedate and patient and. . .”
“She hides it well,” Luna nodded again. “Thankfully she has not been pressed to use pure alicorn magic in a very long time. So she says, at any rate,” the princess muttered to herself.
She poised to say more, but paused and looked blindly past Twilight into the room. Twilight, recognizing this as a moment of mental communication between the two Lunas, waited quietly for her to return her focus to the room. After a few seconds of blank staring, the princess blinked and stood up.
“We are in conference with Celestia now. I must take over our work in the Nocte Curia,” she lingered at the window and glanced back at Twilight with concern in her eyes. “Will you be alright alone?”
A loud, rasping snore interrupted Twilight’s response and made her grin. “I’m not alone,” she reminded the other princess.
Luna returned the smile, dipping her head in farewell, then turned and disappeared into the moonlight, leaving Twilight with her thoughts and a young dragon’s monstrous snores for company.
Celestia emerged from a tall, ebony black spire into inky darkness and blistering cold. The glow of her white hot body illuminated the muted red landscape, rust colored sand vitrifying beneath her feet as she strode out into the night. The endless red plain stretched out beyond her growing gleam and the point when black land met empty space on the horizon was totally obscured.
Celestia marched, stomping her metal clad feet into the sizzling sand, nearly a mile from the obsidian obelisk that stretched out into space before finally stopping. She opened her tightly clenched eyes, taking in the dark red sand beneath her hooves, and felt another wave of heat rippling out of her body as she finally let her emotions go. Magic burst through her mental barriers, flooding her brightly shining horn, and the solar monarch felt something powerful building in the depths of her chest. She adjusted her stance, taking a deep breath of aether, and released her grip on anything that remained of her self-control.
Princess Luna trotted briskly through the dark halls of Canterlot Castle, doing her best to maintain the appearance of normalcy as she chased down her sister. Even if she didn’t already know where the princess of sunlight was going, her trail became progressively easy to follow as she neared her destination. Luna glanced around, ensuring nopony was near, and cast silent spells to erase the scorch marks from the polished marble and unsinge the grandiose rugs that trailed through the halls toward the matriarch’s private chambers.
Within minutes she arrived at the towering door to the room, and found it suspiciously devoid of its usual regiment of guards. More strangely, the door was slightly ajar and drifting inward as though it had just bounced back from being unsuccessfully slammed shut. Luna wondered at how she had managed to miss the no doubt deafening boom of the colossal doors colliding before remembering their soundproofing enchantments and cautiously approaching them.
“Sister?” she called, pushing lightly at the opening door.
The room within was far from empty, but it was devoid of anything resembling an angry alicorn princess. Luna bit her lip as she took in the badly burned tiles at the entrance of the room, then winced as she stepped in and looked back at the blackened inner faces of the doors. She stepped in further and shut the door, looking around the room for some sign of her sister.
“Sister?” she called again, leaning to look out at the balcony. “’Tia?”
Luna turned back into the room. Then she frowned, and turned back to the balcony. She narrowed her eyes and stepped out into the night, focusing her powerful telescopic eyesight on a light on the horizon.
A planet—Mars, she realized—had somehow developed a corona.
Luna blinked her eyes back into focus and turned from the balcony, cantering over to a full-length mirror set into the wall near her sister’s bed. She glanced at a dial set centered above the pane, pursing her lips as she saw it was set exactly as she expected, then took a deep breath. The lunar princess approached the looking glass, stopping for a moment to cast a tinting spell over her pupils as a last minute thought, then steeled herself and stepped through the pane.
Even with her darkened lenses the light was blinding. That, coupled with the crashing waves of sweltering heat, left the blue alicorn completely disoriented as she emerged from the obelisk at the other end of the mirror. Luna dug her hooves into the melting sand and trudged forward against the wall of heat and force toward the heart of the firestorm. Sunfire filled her lungs as she instinctively inhaled, forgetting the lack of atmosphere, and she collapsed into the molten ground as she violently coughed out the thick smoke of her smoldering lungs. The princess struggled to regain her footing in the liquid glass then began her march anew, careful to avoid breathing in any more of the inferno.
Even after strengthening the tint over her eyes, twice, Luna found it difficult to look directly at her sister. Her body was engulfed in blazing light, roiling plasma erupting from her hunched form like a supernova. The princess of night shaded her eyes against the shine of her fellow alicorn and tried to pick details out of the mass of light. She was fairly certain her wings were spread high above her head, but that was all she could tell even from a short distance. Rather than get closer, Luna began to dig and climb her way around the ball of starfire to see what she could.
Here, at the heart of the tempest, molten glass and liquid rock flowed like water. Luna found herself nearly swimming as she circled around her blindingly luminescent sister. One, two, three more times she strengthened the light blocking spell set over her eyes, and finally the shape of Celestia became distinct within the bloom.
Celestia stood knee deep in boiling slag, her head bowed and eyes clenched shut as she screamed an endless, silent howl into the airless void. Her body was wracked with tremors as scorching light, searing heat, and burning rage blasted out of her in cosmic waves, warping the planet around her as they went. A fresh burst of emotion and magic sent towering waves rippling out through the sea of glass, momentarily knocking her younger sibling below the surface. Luna breached with silent sputtering and jerking, her hooves working quickly to brush the beads of liquid stone from her mane and horn, then waded her way to the soundlessly screaming princess of sunlight.
“. . .” she called, forgetting once again the lack of oxygen. She floated and waded her way to her elder’s side, fighting her screaming instincts to reach out and place a hoof on her sister’s shoulder.
The cold of enchanted metal opened Celestia’s eyes with a start. Her head snapped sideways, once again finding her younger sister standing beside her with a face full of concern. The blistering hot alicorn shut her mouth and lifted her head, eyes facing forward in embarrassment and mild anxiety. She shifted uncomfortably as her shrinking pupils adjusted to the light and the Martian hellscape came into focus. She cleared her throat, an action that would have been lost were it not for the hoof rising to her chest, and looked again at her sister.
“The night is my time, sister. We do not need two suns,” Luna mouthed with a faint smile.
Celestia sighed—or tried to, finding her lungs long since empty—and returned the small grin. “I’m sorry.”
The blue alicorn raised her sister’s chin to bring her eyes back to her. “Let us return home. This heat is uncomfortable.”
Celestia nodded silently, her face growing red as she turned and surveyed more of the glowing hot lake that she had created. With a flicker of magic from her horn the princess extracted herself from the lava pool and stood atop it, her powerfully enchanted horseshoes carrying her lightly over its surface.
Luna, after silently muttering a few angry words to herself at forgetting that such a thing were possible, followed suit.
The Cosmic Glass expunged hot slag, as well as a majority of the heat, from the two alicorns as they passed back through to their own sphere. Despite its efforts, Celestia still glowed a brilliant white as she stepped into the dark of her bedchambers, the corner of her ornamental rug igniting the instant she grew close. With a reversion spell and a miniature raincloud conjuration the fire was quelled and her body was quenched, a thick sputtering hiss filling the room as rain evaporated against Celestia’s burning body.
The heat dealt with, and the smoke swept from the room, the two princesses finally took a moment to fill their lungs with air and allow them to speak.
“I’m sorry,” Celestia murmured. “That was. . . truly horrible of me.”
“Everyone has their mechanisms, sister,” Luna assured her with a comforting hoof. “Besides, you could have done that here. That would be one the worst ways to find out I was still not in the alpha timeline,” she mused quietly.
Celestia nodded an agreement, then shook her head. “No, I meant. . . the changeling. I can’t believe I just let go like that.”
“She provoked you,” Luna shrugged. “You showed great restraint, I thought.” Celestia closed her eyes and let out a very slow breath, one that worried her sister. “She did provoke you, yes? What did she say?”
The elder princess’ eyes clenched and her wings flared as the memory repeated itself. “She. . . she played my lack of knowledge about changelings against me. Then she questioned—outright dismissed, actually—my abilities as a leader; she threw my refusal to execute Discord back at me, she—“
“How did she ‘throw your refusal’ at you?” Luna queried, tipping her head to one side. “Discord has proven to be an invaluable asset for Twilight Sparkle’s development as a princess. You were right to refute my orders to destroy him in his petrified state.”
“Well we never knew if that would actually kill him or free him,” Celestia shrugged dismissively. “I wanted to do it, but it was too risky.”
“Regardless,” Luna scowled, “your decision was the right one. With him as an ally we are infinitely more prepared to eliminate threats to Equestrian welfare.”
“Unless he goes rogue,” Celestia said flatly. “Unless he gives us false information about our enemies’ strength and tricks us into consolidating our powers to make them easier to steal. Chaos is unpredictability by definition, Luna. I am positive that his most recent ‘reformation’ was a mood swing, just like the last.”
Luna stared at her sister, dumbfounded. “Why do you not tell me these things? If we feel so similarly and so strongly how can we not act on these feelings?”
“If I acted on every feeling I have I would be thirty light-years from this damn planet drinking Vin Lunaire like water,” Celestia laughed a little manically. “We can’t act on our feelings, Luna. We don’t get to do that anymore. Our subjects need order. More than that, they need happy endings. If that entails letting someone pick and poke at our little sandcastle in paradise every now and again then we just have to grin and bear it, fixing it up as we can.”
Silence followed as Celestia watched with a somber grin as her sister reeled. After a moment Luna decided she needed to sit, and made her way to one of the armchairs near Celestia’s desk.
“Sometimes I forget just how much older than me you are,” she sighed, massaging her temples.
“I might be insulted if anyone else said that,” Celestia mused, sitting next to the blue alicorn. “Doubly so if it was that changeling.”
“Why did you get so mad at her,” Luna asked, looking up. “If you’re so far removed from ‘mortals and their petty egos,’ as you put it, what’s different here?”
Celestia turned a bemused look at her sister. “You know just as well as I do that’s horse apples. Possibly better.” Luna’s look turned sour and Celestia put a hoof to her forehead. “Sorry, I'm still grouchy. My point is that I’m not exempt from being annoyed, especially by some teenager that thinks she could do my job better than me.” she sighed, looking at the floor, “ More than that though, I think. . .”
Luna stopped massaging and lifted her head, noting the concern in her elder’s words and face. “Think...?”
Celestia glanced sideways at her. “You know better than anyone that I do not love lightly, nor do I hate on a whim. But,” she sighed again, chewing her lip, “Luna. . . I think. . . I think I might be. . .”