Celestia and Luna relive the past even as they race to keep it from being the future.
Equestria has been a land of peace in a world that has slowly forgotten that their plowshares were once swords. But that peace is far more fragile than at first it appears, and when the world races towards war, only two sisters can stop the seemingly inevitable.
But there is a cost to dealing in power and influence, and with long life and responsibility comes great sorrow. As the warclouds grow dark and heavy over an unprepared world, two sisters must face their own memories of loss and prepare their young counterparts for what may come.
Loosely apart of the Songverse/Nightverse. No knowledge of any of the stories in that continuity is required to understand this one.
In High Canterlot, there was a beautiful rosewood table that had been a gift to her Majesty Princess Celestia in the eighth hundred and forty-first year of her long and illustrious reign. It was, by all accounts, both beautiful and functional, but at present it was mostly useful as Luna’s rather uncompromising pillow.
It was hard to blame her, really. They were all exhausted, and she bore perhaps the most physically taxing burden.
There were four princesses in the Chamber of Beginnings, as it was called. Luna, who dozed. Twilight, with a mountain of reports. Celestia, staring at the map they had tacked to a large board. Cadance, across the long table from Twilight, writing a letter to her husband.
The air in that room was thick. Which was to say that any room where four supernally powerful beings worried over the fates of tens of thousands was bound to be unbearable to anyone below that station.
Few ponies had seen Celestia in this mood in living memory, her brow furrowed and her eyes alight with some strange fire. This was not because the fell mood was novel. No, rather it was ancient by the standards of this current generation. Celestia had worn this mask and others far more terrible in older ages.
Those ages past, her grim memories of them, was why she let Luna rest.
Cadance finished the letter and burned it with a Sending fire before coughing. Twilight flicked her ear towards the erstwhile babysitter but said nothing. Celestia didn’t even do that much.
“Are we just letting her sleep?” she whispered.
“Yes,” Celestia said. She had spoken seldom since the last messenger came.
“Doesn’t… I mean, shouldn’t she…” Cadance sighed and gave up.
“It was a long night,” Celestia muttered, lighting her horn as she rearranged some of the tacked on notes.
Before her was a grand map of the continent, and of the surrounding sea, and far to the right there was a forest of tacked on notes shrouding the eastern continent. Most centered around a single area.
They had things written on them, numbers and symbols, some of it in the common tongue and some in languages Twilight struggled to identify. Together, the sisters had worked hours and hours, slipping occasionally into a tongue that none but themselves in the palace could decipher.
Cadance sighed. “I’m sorry. I know she was up, I just… I just would rather we all be together.” She buried her head in her hooves. “This is so…”
Celestia said something in that strange tongue again, and then paused. She shook her head. “Forgive me. I think we should all take a break, to be honest with you. Twilight?” No answer, so she tried again. “Twilight?”
Twilight said nothing. She stared holes through another stack even as she worked through it.
Cadance poked her, and the poor mare startled, losing her grip on hastily scrawled reports which flew all over the table and on Twilight herself. As one slid down her horn and face, Twilight put a hoof over her mouth and stared for a moment.
“Dear Cele--you scared me, Cadance,” she hissed.
Cadance smirked. “Sorry, Twiley. Auntie was calling you.”
“Oh.” Twilight’s ears pinned back as she glanced over. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Celestia managed a short smile. “I quite understand. I was saying that a break might do all of us good. There is plenty to do, but not all of it must be done before the sun sets… and we have a few hours before that yet. Quite a few. Would the two of you mind asking the servants to supply…” she paused, and hummed. “Tell them to bring my usual to the Dusk room, would you? No, strike that. Twice my usual, and to bring the Canterlonian. Mead will know what I mean. I’ll wake my sister.”
Twilight blinked at her for a moment, and then jumped into action ahead of a weary, plodding Cadance. They both knew the room, and they knew Mead. It was her favorite, after all, and many a long night of studying had taken place in that room.
So it was that only two sisters sat in the middle of the detritus of an international crisis, one of them waking and the other sleeping. Celestia was silent, watching Luna’s undisturbed rest. She watched her slow, rhythmic sleeping and unbidden memories older than cities sprang up to stab at her. Luna, lying the tall grass of a plain they had believed in those days endless, her sister forever--her sister like the others but not like the others--her sister restless and mercurial, but still her own--her sister sleeping so soundly.
Celestia was still like a statue is still, deathly so and without any sign of changing. The younger alicorns had not learned to be as she was. They had not learned to be how Luna was, either, but they had at least a tiny glimmer of what that something was. What had they really seen of Celestia the Inexorable Sun?
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, she crossed the boundary between herself and her sister, edging around the long rosewood table with absolute silence until she stood only inches from Luna. She leaned down and kissed her sister on the cheek, and on the forehead, and then she spoke in a language only they remembered.
“Rise, sister mine. There is wine and bread for thee in my suite, and I believe some good company.”
Luna groaned softly. “Hold thy tongue, Ruby of Canter, and leave me to my sleep… Mm.” She stirred as Celestia shuddered. “Go and pester my sister, wanton.”
Celestia took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Oh, Luna,” she breathed. “I’m so sorry.”
She spoke again, this time in the common tongue. “Luna? It’s time to get up.”
Her sister stirred.
“What is the hour?” she croaked after rubbing her eyes. “By the whore-halls of Valon, my head aches!”
Celestia smiled briefly. “Those places burned down long before you were exiled and you know it.”
“Aye, I do.” Luna stretched. “But I think you have let me sleep overlong. Where are our new little sisters, hm?” She chuckled at her own joke.
Celestia flinched, but her voice was light. “Oh, just gone ahead a bit. I was going to retire with them briefly. I thought you might like to laze upon something more comfortable than a table, Lulu.”
“Certainly.” Luna rose and absently preened. “Well?”
Celestia smiled and they left.
*
Formally, it was known as the Chamber of Dusk, but she rarely used that name. It was the Twilight room, when she was feeling mischievous. It was Sanctuary when she was feeling burdened. And on those happy but rare occasions when she and her sister or perhaps a blushing Twilight decided that the night was young and wanted the baptism of the vine, it was the convivium. A drinking party, if you wanted to keep it all within the bounds of a single language, and one that occasionally moved from room to room.
But tonight, no one seemed very inclined to move. Twilight nuzzled close to Luna, sighing happily as she did. “I can’t believe you fell asleep on me, Luna,” she said, her voice hazy. Slurred. Not terribly, just a little.
Luna shifted to kiss her forehead, beside her horn, and smile into her mane. “Pray thee, Twilight of Ponyville, when would you have me sleep instead? I am up all hours of the day now as well, it seems.”
Twilight, eloquently, murmured something about beds and the proper time and place, and Luna chuckled at her.
They were quiet as they could be. Light food had been served, eaten, complimented, and then forgotten as Celestia retired to her quarters. Cadance had stumbled down the hall to her own temporary lodgings. Twilight and Luna had meant to move to their own room, but one of them was a little drunk and the other was… conflicted.
Twilight nuzzled against her neck and kissed her in that wonderful spot where it met her shoulder and Luna and shivered. Her ministrations continued, and so it took Luna slightly longer than it should have to squirm out of her reach. “Twilight! Honestly, love, this is still my sister’s quarters.”
“Mrmrbl,” said Twilight.
And Luna sighed. “Yes, something like that. I think it’s time I found you a bed.”
Twilight protested, and perhaps would have managed to give a coherent defense of her present status had Luna not nosed under her and prodded her right off the comfortable divan. Her shaky hooves hit the floor, only for Luna to be there immediately, guiding her towards the door even as she slumped.
“Are you alright?” Luna said when they had passed into the hall. The guards were gone, sent away for the night by Celestia for the sake of a few hours of genuine solitude.
Twilight nodded into her shoulder, and in the lowlight Luna’s preternatural sight caught her mouth turned up in a ridiculous smile. She relaxed and smiled herself, before putting a wing over Twilight and leading her through the halls.
*
It began as most things do, in the details.
Prance, that old colony of a younger Equestria, lay proud along the sea to the east. It shared a border with the Griffons, revitalized and encouraged. Things generally were civil—it helped that Equestria guaranteed Prance’s freedom, but there was little need to fight Griffonstone ruled vast swaths of land filled with mineral wealth that it had yet to truly exploit, and Prance was a place of bustling trade and high society. To each their own.
Maps are a great shaper of opinion. Ponies and Griffons alike revere them and trust them. Why, if it’s on a map, then it must in fact exist. Even if the map is wrong, then surely it was a miscalculation and not a fable.
So when in the restoration of the palace at Griffonstone, old maps depicting a much larger empire were found, there were those who saw and who believed with fervor.
Perhaps blaming the maps is unkind. War does not change, and though individuals often do, great masses of all races are slow to shift. All of the old ghosts follow even prosperous little nations like Prance, or haunt proud and ancient empires like Griffonia. The idea that something may, but probably does not, belong to you soon becomes a hard certainty that the thing or place in question does in fact belong to you. And soon that certainty lends itself towards an accusation that the thing in question was stolen, and that in fact it is your birthright.
It was an old story.
Luna knew it well. She sat alone upon her balcony, overlooking Canterlot in the core of the night. She’d tried to sleep. Honestly, she had. In the bed beside Twilight, she’d laid, warm and secure and yet appreciating neither. The cocoon of blankets could not satisfy. The imprint, the slight valley they made together in her mattress was not enough.
Or, if she were honest, she felt an old ache and lying beside her lover simply felt like somepony stamping on a bruise.
Briefly, very briefly, she was in another place and another time. Canterlot melted before her eyes and instead she saw a city that was now rubble on a lonely isle in the great western sea. Maldon, the island Midway, the time when she was younger and the world was younger, and creation both more vibrant and more terrifying. And she heard perhaps, or did not hear but wished so powerfully for just a moment to hear a voice, her own, saying—
“I can hear thee, shuffling about.”
“If thou were in your true demense, then would it would be I awake before you, Nightwalker.” A chuckle. The sound of sheets. “‘Tis odd to find thee at all awake at such an hour.”
“I am more comfortable in my sister’s sun than is imagined.”
“Of course, of course.”
And then a light laugh as Luna closed the gap between them. “Doubt me? That would be foolish. I am thine liege.”
“Aye, forever and beyond the count of years, I know. I remember,” came the breathless reply after a moment.
She wanted to fly. She wanted to fly until Canterlot was gone and then keep flying. Just take off and not look back until Equestria was a memory and then there would be an endless sea that did, in fact, end and then the west. And then the last plain and the wetlands where the world thinned and then last walls of Night itself and then…
Well, and then.
But she didn’t do any of that. Of course she didn’t. The desire was brief, if urgent, and it died as soon as it arose.
It wasn’t Twilight’s fault. It wasn’t anypony’s, probably. Not a single pony’s, or a single griffon’s fault. Just… just the world. That was it. The world and all it contained, these were her foes.
It wasn’t something she could share with Twilight. Not totally, not fully, not openly. How do you sit beside a mare who does not yet know what the long march of years is like and expound upon its sorrows? And it wasn’t really that, was it? Because, when she was honest, long life was short life extended and even when it was different it was yet the same. No, it was… it was Ruby. It was Ruby again. Why her? Why her always, when Luna felt the emotional rush of conflict or felt the air thicken with dread, did she think of beautiful Ruby and miss her with such an ache that she wished to die?
Celestia broached the topic first, as they stood over the table again. The reports were in from a hundred hundred officers, ponies of long lines of honor. The armies of a peaceful principality mobilized for a war they prayed would never come.
“The ambassadors from Griffonstone haven’t answered yet,” Celestia said softly.
“No.”
“I’m honestly unsure if they will.”
Luna grunted. “They will or they won’t. We will be ready either way. Whatever comes for us.”
She did not look up. She focused. Numbers passed her by, names melted on the page. War had changed but it had not completely changed--ponies and food still needed to be moved reliably. Supply lines had to be maintained. Leaders had to be selected carefully and then given the supplies and support they needed. Soldiers needed looking after and the right mixture of firmness and laxitude. She would be there among them as they moved from their garrisons to the coast. Luna would again be their princess of war, her hammer tinged with argent light as she walked among them on parade.
What a part to play, an avenging angel who seeks delight in battle like a mare in heat seeks a mate. Yet it was a part she could play well when the drums called her down to dance in the ballroom of death.
Celestia spoke again, this time in the old language. Luna paused to parse it out--she had not been on the tableland of Jannah in millenia. The language the ponies there had spoken was rust on her tongue.
“Sister. Are you thinking about it again?”
“About what?” Luna asks in return, not meeting her eyes.
“Maldon.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry. I thought… I knew you might. I have been thinking of it also. When I woke you earlier, you spoke to her.”
Luna stiffened. She did not speak for a long moment. Her eyes bored holes into the table, through the reports, through the tiled floor, through down to the earth.
She wanted to deny it, but… but no, she knew. “I am sorry. I will not let her distract me.”
“That isn’t what I’m worried about, Luna--”
“I can’t.”
“Please. Please, let me help you. I was there on the plain. I know I wasn’t… I… she was my friend to. I lost so many friends at Maldon.”
“I know.” It was a pathetic noise, more whine than speech. She dropped into the common tongue. “Celestia, I’m afraid.”
The reports were forgotten. Her sister was already beside her, on the other side of the table.
“What if we lose them? What if it all goes wrong again? As it did upon the slopes? As it was upon the shore?”
“We won’t. We won’t lose them.” But Luna was sure she heard her sister’s voice stagger. Even as Celestia enfolded her in a warm, fierce hug, she felt the sun’s shepherd waver. “We won’t. Not now and not ever. Neither of them. None of our friends.”
Luna didn’t say anything at first.
“I feel,” she spoke at last, haltingly and timidly, “I feel that maybe we ought to tell them. Twilight. Cadance. They should not go into this business unprepared. I worry how it will change them. It changed us.”
“We balanced out,” Celestia softly. “In the end, we balanced out.”
“We had time.” Luna’s voice breaks. “We had time and space to come to grips. They will not. When there were only a few thousand ponies we bore them around our necks and it was heavy enough to shatter our bones. But now we will ask them to bear the suffering and the hopes of hundreds of thousands. If I am afraid of that burden come ‘round again, what shall my poor Twilight do when the time comes to be a figure for them? How will she or Cadance bear the weight of a nation, sister? Of death?”
“They will. They’re strong.” Celestia hugged her tighter, as if that would prove anything. “So very strong, and they will learn. We can… surely we can keep them from that. There are four of us now.”
“Not unless you mean to hobble them.”
Celestia flinched.
“I don’t. I’m not.”
“I’m sorry.” Luna buried her face in the crook of her sister’s neck. “I know you don’t mean to coddle. I just… What will she become, Tia? When the war drum beats we change and I know she must or she will… she will not make it and I fear both possibilities. What will it make of her?”
Of course, in real life, high noon does not involve dueling gunslingers on the frontier, nor are there unicorn sheriffs fresh in town, just come south from the city eager to bring justice to Dusty Shades or whatever town it was. Twilight almost wished for that one cowgirl, Lonesome Dove, from the novel Applejack had loaned her years ago. First month in town. It had been alright. Way too long. But Dove had been a hardy girl in her own way, out of touch with time and the world but somehow still worth rooting for as she pushed back against the inevitable.
But mostly, Twilight was trying to distract herself.
She didn’t know why. She could guess why, of course, but being able to guess wasn’t knowing. Wasn’t even close.
The appeal of Lonesome Dove and her faded world of gunslinging duels and swift and brutal justice was illusory but also powerful. It was, if nothing else, quick. Also final. They decided the course of conflict in less than five minutes, and that was if the battle was prolonged by running or some strange accident. In Twilight’s world, the gunslinging was no less tense, no less fraught with deadly pitfalls and endless danger, but instead of seconds the ordeal drug on for days. Days without rest or respite.
Diplomacy in any given situation was the hardest path. On some level, she’d always known that--it was easier, practically, to just fight things out. Those old westerns again--spark and smoke and all was accomplished. A disagreement exploded into an argument between Twilight and one of her friends? The easy option was always just to get angry and shut down, or to get angry and drown out other ponies. Both were more or less the same.
But she hadn’t really grasped just how difficult not doing those things was until she had presided over the negotiations before the negotiations.
The table between the two sides was wide, and she was glad of this because only that quality was no doubt keeping the flunkies on either side from murdering one another. Papers were strewn about. Maps, proposed itineraries and arrangements, counterproposals, everything. The President of the Prench Republic and the Emperor would meet in private to try and cool tensions before they boiled over into a war that would ruin both nations. She’d begun today hopeful that they might all be on the downslope towards peace.
“Can you… please,” Twilight said, trying not to rub her temples to dispel the growing headache, “Minister Galba, can you let your counterpart finish his point?”
“If it pleases you, but it will be a futile use of his breath,” said the griffon, sitting down quickly.
Twilight didn’t respond to that. She spent a moment, just a moment, hesitating. How do you describe a griffon passionate with anger? The only words she could think of were bestial. But he was reasoning and cultured. She did not think of the light in an angry pony’s eyes as bestial or savage or bloodthirsty.
The middle of the trio of Prench ambassadors, still standing on his hindlegs, shifted his weight slightly. His forehooves rested on the table, where they had been as soon as the yelling had begun.
He swayed. “I will be brief then. The President will not go to Griffonstone and that is final. Even if we expected you to keep your oaths, which I will add that until very recently we fully expected, it is a security risk that the Republic will not abide.”
Galba clicked, shaking his dark plumage. “The Emperor will take this as an insult.”
“I’m aware.”
Galba’s companion to his right bristled, beginning to rise. “You’re aware and you would petulantly insist on insulting the integrity of his m--”
But his protest was cut short. Galba had thrown one clawed hand in front of the rising ambassador, and now they locked eyes. Whatever the other saw, he sat back down heavily, and looked away after only a few beats.
“I’m afraid I must take up my companion’s protest, if a bit more tactfully,” Galba said, and then glanced back to Twilight. “Your Highness, as you are our appointed mediator, I must ask you to aid us now. We are at something of a… minor impasse. To refuse the Emperor’s oaths of safe passage and asylum within the boundaries of the Empire is tantamount to war--it will be taken as something akin to sacrilege, almost as if a pony were to impugn the goodness of Princess Celestia.”
“Ponies do that more than you’d expect,” Twilight said flatly.
Galba blinked, and then resumed. “Be that as it may, it will be taken poorly in all quarters, and the Emperor will need to pursue a more aggressive means of putting this whole territorial matter to rest.”
The Prench Minister, a unicorn named Pastel, spoke. “And while we are eager to put the affair behind us, to come to the negotiating table… Princess, we cannot accept this. It is too dangerous, and I am told I cannot accept.”
Twilight sighed. “I understand. Galba, is there a way to maintain the Emperor’s face in light of this limitation? The leadership of Prance is less free to act on their volition.”
Galba clicked his beak, and Twilight managed not to flinch. She also managed to repress the shame at wanting to flinch long enough to listen to his answer.
“It is possible, but will be complicated.”
“How complicated?”
“It depends. How far into the Empire can he come?”
“The border.” Pastel’s horn lit up as he pulled a map from the many documents spread across the table. “And not very far from it. There’s a town there called Gluckstadt at the foot of the mountains.”
“A town with a significant pony population.”
“Yes,” Pastel said. “But what we are concerned with is the proximity to our mutual border.”
Galba clicked his beak again. Twilight thought it was a sort of nauseating sound, so similar to the crack of her brother’s bones when he’d had that accident as a child. Falling down the long steps in High Canterlot. Bounce, bounce, crack. It was the crack from her childhood come back again.
She tried not to glance over at him.
“They are his majesty’s subjects,” he said. “As such,the Emperor would be furious were I to call their loyalty into question. This may in fact be acceptable, but there will be conditions attached.”
Pastel’s face was red still from the yelling. Twilight wondered if it would grow even more crimson, but she couldn’t wait to see. “What sort of conditions? Concessions or merely logistical concerns?”
“Logistics,” Galba said. Pastel relaxed.
“Then I think we can hash that out.” Twilight allowed herself a brief smile.
Luna laid on her lover’s old bed, looking up at her ceiling.
“You know, the stars in the corner are incorrect.”
Twilight groaned from within her closet. “Yes, I know. I had almost succeeded in forgetting about that and now it’s going to bother me again. Thanks, Luna.”
“You are most welcome, Twilight of Ponyville.”
Another little groan. Twilight poked her head out. “What are you doing, anyway?”
“Many things.”
“Like?”
Luna rolled over onto her stomach, legs still sprawled out. She smiled. “Such as security, young princess so freshly minted. I am keeping you safe while the delegations are here.”
“I can take care of myself, you know,” Twilight replied, smiling. “I appreciate your diligence, of course.”
Luna smiled back. What you think, dearest Twilight, and what is true are far apart. At least about this.
“Tell me about the mediation,” Luna said. “And, if I might ask it of you, what are you looking for in there?”
Twilight shrugged and vanished into the depths of her old closet. “I was looking for my old Griffonian grammar.”
“Your old one? You studied?” Luna flicked an ear, and then hummed. “How odd. But you would not have had a chance to use it when you were younger. Did a younger Twilight have inklings of her destiny?”
The shuffling inside the closet quieted for a moment. “No, not really.”
The noise resumed. “Then for pure academic enjoyment, then.” Luna smiled. “That sounds very like you. But you have still not told me of the mediation. I assume that the two, your book and it, are connected. Both involve our omnivorous friends.”
“It… went,” came the answer, strained. “It was a thing that happened. That’s as positive as I can get, really.”
“Ah, so they’re all dead.”
Twilight stopped. “What?”
“I assume, as you have no good news to report…” Luna waved a hoof in lazy circles before remembering that without a line of sight the gesture was worthless. She made to roll over again, enjoying the rare moment of laziness in the sunlight…
Only to find herself looking up at a recently teleported Twilight. She startled, but there was nowhereto go. Twilight’s legs were on either side of her.
“They were alive when I left them!”
“It was a jest. Twilight,” Luna pleaded, trying not to laugh, “it was but a jest. Calm yourself.”
Twilight slumped and Luna wrapped her up in a hug. “I know. I’m a bit high strung.”
“Aye, so I noticed. What I meant, earlier, is that simply leaving the room with everyone alive is a start. If you only count the final coup de grace as a victory, you shall never taste of it.”
“I guess. It just felt so… I don’t know. I was optimistic because they were going to talk, and then they just…”
“Refuse to talk to each other. Or, rather, they talk at each other.” Luna nuzzled her cheek. “Yes, yes I know this well.”
They lay there for a moment as the afternoon sun streamed in through the window, warming them on the neatly made bed. It was something of a tight fit--this bed had been Twilight’s as a filly, after all. When she’d been young, it had been a massive thing. Growing up, it had been big enough for exactly one pony. Which, Luna lazily realized, accurately summarized Twilight before she left for Ponyville, if Celestia was to be believed.
Her room was rather spartan by an ancient mare’s standards. No great paintings or art, which she resolved must be remedied posthaste. What was not bare was covered in books, of all sizes and types. Curiously, her preternatural eyes scanned the spines. Most didn’t have titles--older books, then. Some did. She recognized a few as textbooks. Poetry? Oh, she’d have to remember to snoop through that later. Twilight’s juvenile poetic tastes would be a delight to spy through.
“It could have been worse, I guess,” Twilight said. “I mean, yeah, they could have gone berserk. But it was rough sailing until the end, and then suddenly it wrapped up. All settled! I was dizzy, almost, from how sudden it was.”
“They’ve chosen a place?”
Twilight hummed. “Mhm. Little border town. Lots of ponies live there, even though it’s Imperial territory. There’s some protocol involved with altering the invitation, but… the Summit will happen.”
“Good. You did well.” Luna smiled, and then noticed Twilight’s ear twitching as if listening for something. “I’m proud of you, junior princess.”
Twilight snorted. “Hey, I’ve been doing this for a few years no--oh, well then!”
Luna broke into her retort by nibbling on that rogue ear, and then enjoying the little shiver as Twilight tensed and then relaxed utterly. There weren’t words for awhile, just small contented noises as Luna moved to her neck.
“Saw someone...Mm. Saw someone I knew in the Griffon delegation,” Twilight managed.
Luna looked up from where she nibbled along Twilight’s chest. “Pray tell.”
“Gilda. She used to be friends with Rainbow… It was weird, because we hadn’t interacted that much but recognized each other, obviously. She called me the Princess of Dweebs, but she smiled when she said it. Changed a lot,” she said, her voice dissolving into murmurs as Luna went back to her work. “Guess she’s here ‘cause she lived in Equestria… a while. She’s just working as an aide.”
Luna stopped and kissed Twilight on the cheek. “I would ask what ‘dweeb’ signifies, but I have an inkling that your instruction will prove fruitless. I suspect it is similar to ‘cool’ in that it is a hopeless mystical sort of topic. You were hoping to be able to speak in Griffonian by the time we arrive at the Summit?”
“Kind of, yes.”
“I doubt you could learn to command much of it before then. Though… I do suppose if anypony could, it would be the Princess of Books.”
“You aren’t funny, you know.”
“On the contrary, I have centuries of experience being the funnier Princess. Tia’s playful streak was merely emulation of my own.”
“Of course.”
Twilight chuckled, and Luna felt her body shift as she stretched.
“Do you think it will turn out alright in the end?” Twilight asked. “I mean, everything, but the Summit in particular. You’ve dealt with this sort of thing before. I haven’t. Helping friends stop fighting? Lots of experience. Getting countries to step down from war?” She sighed. “It’s a tall order. I know we’re all in this together, but…”
“I have done something of this nature before,” Luna said slowly, her voice almost a drawl, as if each word had to be pulled from somewhere else. “Something like it, yes. It was different in my day.”
“How so?”
“Parlay? Certainly. But generally I was doing such things in a full suit or barding. Enchanted, forged by my own magic in the fires beneath Everfree…” Luna stared somewhere along Twilight’s wall, and then through it, somewhere else entirely. “Also, I tended to have my hammer nearby. It did more good than speeches.”
“I’ve never seen you in armor.” A beat. “I mean… I mean when you were, well, you.”
“She was me, Twilight.”
“You know what I mean. Anyway, it wasn’t full armor.”
“No, it was not.”
Twilight stirred again. “Do you still have any?”
Luna didn’t answer at first. She kept looking at the wall. Yet, in the sudden silence her mind worked feverishly.
Yes. Yes, she did have barding--many different variations, stored in the enchanted vault beneath the city. When Fort Canter had been just that, an outpost along a trade route, her sister had helped her dig a sanctuary for them both into the very rock. Within, her forge slept. The armory slept also, she was sure of it. Celestia had not walked there.
It hadn’t been something they’d discussed. The forge, the sanctum, Luna’s armory or her storehouses. Oh, the shared Vault of trinkets and souvenirs? They’d discussed that briefly. Celestia had maintained her every silly knicknack and keepsake. And she’d walked among them, stopping at each one to remember, had she not?
I remember looking away, trying not to… She wondered if it was the memory of tears or the actual feeling. She blinked. No, no it was just the memory. A vivid one, but so it was for their kind. The past just… kept happening.
“Luna?”
She blinked. “I’m sorry, dearest. I drifted. What were you saying?” Glancing down, she found herself muzzle to muzzle with Twilight, whose brow furrowed.
“I was wondering if you still had any of your old armor. I was curious about it.”
“Ah.”
“I… are you alright? You look--”
“I’m quite alright,” Luna said quickly, smiling widely. “Very alright. Would you like to see it?”
Twilight just blinked. “I… I guess?”
Luna’s grin went from wide to manic. “Good. Prepare thyself, then. Shall we go?”
“Go? Go whe--”
Twilight’s head hurt. A lot.
She also felt a little bit like vomiting, which was sort of a fitting end to a day that began with that sleep-deprived hangover feeling. But the floor beneath her was nice and cool, and it helped that the headache stopped operating at siege-weapon strength and started slowly migrating into dull ache territory.
“That… That might have been a bit, ah, impetuous on my part,” she heard Luna say somewhere above her.
Twilight frowned. Luna seemed upset. No, not upset. Words were hard and her brain felt fuzzy. Sheepish. Yes, that was a word. That one. She blinked and strung together a few words. “What just happened?”
“Don’t talk just yet. I’ll explain in a moment.”
Twilight felt… something. Magic? Certainly, but it was hard to tell where and of what type. It seemed to be everywhere. But gradually, the confusion faded and she could feel Luna siphoning the energy that clung to her like static.
“Teleportation,” Twilight said, softly. “You took us somewhere, and it shocked my system. Which… I’m not sure what that means, actually. I should have a higher tolerance for overload now.”
“We are within the mountain,” Luna said. “This is the Sanctum. I had forgotten the strength of the wards. They open easily to me, but to you? Forgive me. I didn’t mean to cause you any harm.”
“It’s alright.” Twilight shivered and stood. There was a brief veritgo, and then clarity.
The room was, frankly, stunning. They stood on a raised platform with steps all around, enclosed by smooth rock no doubt cut with magic. She felt the magic in the air all around her, clinging to every surface, smothering the air. All around them, mosaics played out on the floors, and color dashed up towards the ceiling. The lamps changed color every few seconds, first blue and then green and then racing towards red.
And directly ahead, under enchantments so strong she could feel them like a dull presence, a large portrait. Luna and Celestia, smiling together in a city she didn’t recognize, walking in… was it dusk or dawn? She couldn’t tell, but the walk was foreign to her. Trees lined it, casting shade in the failing or growing light. Ponies flocked around them, smiling, laughing, some seeming but a step away from bursting into dance, yet the sisters had eyes only for one another. They looked only at each other, Celestia’s mouth hanging open as if caught forever midword. Twilight couldn’t help but want to strain to hear it. What captivated them so that even in the midst of a celebratory air they were in a world of only two ponies.
“It’s beautiful,” she said numbly.
“Thank you. I painted it long ago.” Luna shifted, her hooves clacking against the cool platform. Twilight glanced over and saw the way her face flushed. “I am sorry for my impetuousness. I am trying, but ever has it been this way.”
“Usually, I like it.” Twilight advanced and nuzzled her. “See? I’m fine. It’s a lovely picture. What is this place?”
“Welcome to the heart of the mountain, as I said. This is the Sanctum, which my sister and I cut deep beneath the surface when Canterlot was merely an outpost. When we lived in Everfree and the city grew, we found that we missed our less complicated lives. So, from time to time, one or both of us would retreat here for a few days. We kept many treasures here.”
Luna looked at the painting and smiled. “Perhaps it would sound petty or unbecoming now, but when Tia or I set hoof where you now stand, there was no more Equestria. No more Clover growing older or that old doddard Starswirl clinging to his unnatural lifespan. No ponies of Everfree or the valley. Merely myself and herself.”
“It sounds nice, after all this,” Twilight said.
“And it was.” Luna shook her head. “Come, I wish to show you the armory.”
It was about this time that Twilight noticed that there were no doors. Before she could ask, Luna’s horn glowed and the wall to her left opened up into a perfect opening. Luna strolled through, Twilight soon on her heels.
They passed decor that left the scholar in Twilight’s head giddy. The walls, the floor, the ceiling--vibrant with enchantment, altering shape and design fluidly. For a moment they walked in a painted meadow, and in the next she blinked and the walls showed her a seascape and a faroff ship. She swore the sails billowed and that she could almost taste the salt in the air, but this too changed.
The armory, however, was something else entirely.
It was like stepping through another magically-made door into the great night beyond the moon. Twilight almost cried out in alarm, thrown off by the seeming cliff before her as Luna calmly stepped through, only to walk gracefully in the void. Twilight watched her stride without hesitation, and only then did she step out among the stars.
Solid floor. She let out a soft, strained breath, and then finally surveyed her surroundings. Dozens of mountings for armor, and what armor it was--each piece looked like a museum could be built around it as the priceless centerpiece. Hanging before the stars she found weapons bigger than she was: hammers, mostly, but axes and greatswords that she thought might be taller than Celestia.
Luna hummed, and turned to look at Twilight with her manic grin returned. “Welcome, my heart, to my domain. This is the place most mine in all of creation. Do you like it?”
“The stars… It’s breathtaking,” Twilight said, and she meant it. She swore they twinkled. She swore they were there.
Luna fluffed her wings and licked her lips. “Aye, so it is. But come, you were to see me in my finer array.”
Twilight watched as her horn glowed and summoned three sets of barding. One caught her eye, and she examined it more closely. It was brightest argent, silver as the moon in a child’s painting, designed to protect the whole form. The greaves were encrusted with precious stones and inlaid with gold like vines crisscrossing up old walls. Instead of a helmet it had a circlet with a great ruby--not just any ruby, Twilight noticed, but a fire ruby. Spikes jutted out from the legs, and the sharp angles of the armor itself lent the whole affair a savage kind of grace.
Luna eased herself into it, greaves first and then the main piece, and Twilight watched. Her tail twitched, as it often did when she was curious or excited. There was something oddly enticing about the spectacle, the care put into it, of Luna caught in a sort of ritualistic focus pitted against the stars.
When she was done, she paraded herself before her lover, glowing with pride. “Witness me as I was when the Griffons thought to annex Summervale on the coast! We met them in force of arms and they left with naught a drop spilled.” Her voice was almost a purr. “It fits well, does it not?”
Twilight nodded, smiling now herself. It did fit well. She could get used to this. “Took one look and couldn’t decide if they wanted to prostrate themselves or run?” she asked.
“Of course. You may grow complacent, but I assure you that of the two of Equestria’s first alicorns it was I who was the more desirable.”
Luna slipped out of the suit and returned them all to their places on the dummies before walking through them. She would name them, saying that such a one had been worn in such a place. Some of the names and events Twilight recognized: repulsing the Manticore migration, the Siege of Baltimare, the lichlord of Ghastly Gorge. But many she did not recognize at all.
And then, as Twilight followed lazily behind her, staring into her wavering reflection in a great serrated blade, she heard Luna begin to speak in a language she had never heard before. She turned, blinking, to find Luna humming as she held a fearsome helmet up to examine. Twilight couldn’t comprehend the words, but they were like honey on Luna’s lips, musical and soft between scattered half-whispered song.
The helm itself gave her pause. It was jagged, threatening. Luna slipped it on, and she saw how it curled around the horn, setting it off with what appeared like teeth of burnished iron. It was as if Luna herself had vanished and been replaced with something out of nightmares. Tusks sprouted now from her mouth--no, great fangs, sharp like knives--no, now teeth on teeth, rows and rows in an ever widening maw--her eyes shone with an unholy light, her coat glowed with swirling malignant energy.
She backed away, mouth agape in a silent sort of scream as the glamour took over more and more of Luna’s form, until suddenly it was all gone, and only a bewildered Luna remained. The helmet was still sinister, but it’s effects were only aesthetic now.
“I had forgotten about the enchantment on it,” Luna said, as if the horrors Twilight had seen were normal. She turned back to the rest of the set and began donning it.
Twilight swallowed. “That was… something else.”
The whole set did not morph, and she was grateful for that, but it still was unsettling. More than that, with the force of a charging horde, it hit her: this was a Luna she did not know. Even more than that, a Luna who was utterly alien to her.
She had seen the night’s shepherd angry. Passionate. Excited, focused, so many things. She had even seen her sneer with a cold and enduring hatred on that fateful night in the ruins of Everfree Castle. But even then, Twilight’s fear had been tempered with adrenaline and righteous anger, and been dampened by the presence of her newfound companions.
Never, until just that moment, had it occurred to her that Luna reformed and righteous should be a figure of genuine and well-earned fear.
If the emotions warring in her showed at all on her face, Luna seemed not to notice. She was lost somewhere in time, walking ensconced in the heavy armor. She spoke in that old language again, and though the words and the tone still sounded sweet to Twilight’s ears, they did not ease the weight in her gut.
“I wore this at Maldon,” Luna said, as she held a hoof up to stare into the plated armor that sheathed it. “On the beach, and then later on the bridge beneath the mountain.”
Twilight found her voice. “Maldon?”
“Aye,” Luna replied tonelessly. “Maldon, surely you reme--” she looked up then, color draining from her face. She blinked like a sleeper dragged from her rest. “Oh. It is an island. In the western sea, one you may not have heard of, I suspect.”
Her breathing had returned to normal. It wasn’t… it wasn’t that much more frightening than Nightmare Moon, really. More visceral, yes, but arrival of a shapeshifting mad goddess had been terrifying as well. She was just startled, that was all.
Her fear draining, she looked Luna over again. The armor intimidated, yes. But now it was the far-off look in her eye that bothered Twilight. Where was she? What did Luna see?
She thought to ask. But it wasn’t the time or place.
The border between the revitalized Griffon empire and Prance was best described as overwhelming. It was a land of extremes and gratuity. The forests were dark and endless. The mountains jagged peaks ominously waiting in the distance. There were few roads or towns to break up the inhospitable wild, and few griffons or pegasi to mold the weather towards a more gentle sort. Storms raged for days, sometimes, feeding off of the excess natural magic that seeped from the ground. All things in this world were magic, in some way or fashion. Some things possessed magic that was simply more… usable. Exploitable.
Naturally forming gaxite deposits were lucrative, with the proper infrastructure and knowledge. A mage would pay handsomely for just a smidgen of the stuff, a few crystals, and to sit on top of a vast wealth of it would be to never worry about one’s treasury again.
Provided, of course, that the nation which controlled such deposits had the proper means of processing the raw gaxite. Neither Prance nor the griffons had that vital piece of the puzzle.
Wars are about something. Pride, perhaps. Resources, more likely. Living-room, that one was a novel expression, but in the end the old adages of purpose and money attached themselves quite readily to the business of war.
It was really amazing, Tribune Ice Storm thought as he sat atop his perch, what ponies and griffons would do to acquire simple things. Sometimes, he wondered if irony were reason enough.
Not that it was his place to reason out the ways and works of those far, far above his paygrade. At least, it wasn’t his place to do so where others could listen in. No, first and foremost, Ice Storm of the Solar Guard did the job that was in front of him with dedication and precision.
At the moment, that job meant waiting.
Ice Storm didn’t mind waiting. He was a patient stallion, after all. Service in the guard, eleven years of it, had taught him a stern and stoic patience. He’d learned in those years of guard duty, standing in front of important things and signing in important ponies who wished to enter important places, that waiting should never be wasted time. The brain is a marvelous, industrious thing, and in the time that others spent staring off into space wishing to be let go for the day, Ice Storm had learned how to think.
Thinking, really truly thinking, was harder than it seemed.
He’d had a lot of time to think on the Prench border, and what he’d seen to think on had not been encouraging in the slightest.
The mission could be simply, if deceptively, summarized as observation. He was to observe and report on everything. The quality of the Prench troops, their disposition, their armament. The conditions of the border, both in preparations for war and the topography.
It wasn’t only foreigners and foreign lands that he was tasked with keeping track of, but also unfamiliar compatriots: Lunar soldiers. Namely, a contingent of Nightshades, Princess Luna’s personal guard and elite force. He’d not worked with them before, and so far he was not terribly disappointed. Bewildered, yes, but they’d performed admirably.
He only wished he could say he felt as positively about the news they had brought.
Strategically, the entire situation could best be described as ridiculous. The border was long and half of it was barely inhabited, which meant that there were few if any roads for the maintaining of proper supply. Moving troops through thick forest and mountains? The republic’s attempts at mobilization so far had been frustrated, with what little in the way of a standing army that existed making truly abysmal progress in setting up a coherent front.
No fortifications that would last. Inexperienced commanders and inexperienced troops. The only things that the Prench had in their favor were vast reservoirs of money and the chaussers, rugged bands of frontier ponies who had been recuirted to serve as the local protection against monsters for these outlying areas.
He’d observed them himself a day before and left feeling impressed, but not overly so. They were determined and they were far more suited for the kind of fighting this front would see, if things went sour, but they couldn’t hope to hold territory. It wasn’t a question of skill or courage. It was a question of numbers and supply. It always was.
The griffons, at least, were in little better shape.
Ice felt an itch in his feathers and began to preen. Another thing he’d learned in the guard: take care of the basics, and soon enough the complex things unravel right in front of you.
The griffons weren’t much better off. In the pleasant haze of preening, his mind scanned over ghostly afterimages of hastily written reports. The standing army of Griffonia was certainly larger, but the Nightshades who had crossed the border had reported a distinct lack of cohesion and discipline. Their camps were, frankly, sloppy. Their soldiers slovenly, using equipment that seemed almost salvaged at times from the wreck of history.
In a way, it was insulting. He had spent most of his adult life in the service of crown and country, learning the art and the science of combat. A decade and more spent studying diligently from a dozen generals of old, keeping up with the changing theories on supply and the impact of industry on mobilization. He was ready.
It was always the idiots, the unready, the unwitting. It was always the only ones who couldn’t handle it who got thrown into the fire. Line upon line and row upon row, waiting with bated breath like schoolcolts for the—
A rush of air and the flapping of leathery wings distracted him. Their owner distracted him even further, but that was to be expected. It was, in a way, her job, and like Ice Storm, the mare who landed landed beside him was dedicated to her work.
She kissed his cheek and he snorted. “Amaranth, you’re on duty. Moreover, I’m on duty.”
“Actually, I believe that you’re officially on your honeymoon, dear. However, if you insist… Tribune, I do actually have my report.”
Ice Storm sighed. “Forgive me. I was—”
“Brooding.”
“Yes.”
“Usually I would tease you ‘bout it, but I’m really just not in the mood today, Cap.” Amaranth laid her head on his shoulder and sighed. “I’m assuming no good news has come through since yesterday.”
“No news at all, in fact. Which is not the worst outcome.”
“Yeah.”
“Chin up, my heart,” he said, admittedly only after his eyes darted from tree to tree, hoping that no one saw them. “All will come right. I have faith in my princess, and I have faith in yours.”
“I do too. I just don’t have faith in…” she threw a hoof up. “Them. You know.”
He nodded, for he did know. “It is hard to hope. I believe it was you who first said that to me.”
“And I’ll say it again. It’s one thing to know, and it’s another to feel the truth of it, I guess. I don’t know. I just… I’d like to go home.”
“As would I.”
Amaranth separated herself briefly and slouched her way out of her flight-friendly saddlebags. Ice Storm looked her over. She was beautiful as ever—dark gray coat, jet black mane, marigold eyes, leathery batlike wings which still perplexed him even now. But she was tired. He could see it, though Ice could see her attempts to hide that the stress of constant action was catching up to her.
They’d had little sleep for a week now. Nightshades left and returned at all hours of the night, and even if he had time for sleep, Ice found himself woken abruptly to receive and transmit further reports back to Canterlot by magic flame.
Every time he looked into that green flame, he thought about her. Where was she? How was she? He had seen her flying in his mind’s eye, her tufted ears up and alert, leathery wings spread and silent on the evening breeze. He had seen her roosting in tall, imposing pines, eyes like far off stars or lamplights or campfires, something, and the squabbling griffons below. He had seen her safe and in danger, pursued and pursuing. He had seen sometimes her hoofblades spring forward into readiness and seen her bare her fangs before the brief, horrible struggle.
But he did not see those things now. He simply saw her unceremoniously stuff her face into the saddlebags to root around for the crumpled scroll and return with it in her mouth. She smiled around it before Ice rolled his eyes and took it because of course she smiled.
“So, what am I passing on to Canterlot?” he asked after he had set the scroll on the sending plate. He fumbled around in his own pack, hastily set against the tree’s trunk, for the flint.
He could hear her lying down on the observation post’s flat deck and he was once again glad that they had been given permission to use it. It was a lot better than the alternative.
“More of the same. Griffons have moved another four thousand through the pass. The wings help.”
Ice nodded. He found the flint and carefully worked it with his hooves until a spark caught the message in the enchanted plate and it went up in green flame.
“Ice, do I have time to grab some sleep?”
The tribune nodded without turning, still staring at the plate. “Yes.”
He was knocked right out of his reverie when Amaranth draped herself over his back, right between his wings.
Flushed, he nevertheless refused to shake her off. “This is a bit… ah…”
“Lunar regs,” she said, and he stilled. Such weariness in that voice.
“Yes, once again I am amazed at the laxitude of your outfit,” he said, without heat and with a small smile. “I am not sure whether it was a good or bad thing that I was asked to be the liaison between the Nightshades and High Command, Amaranth.”
“Why’s that?”
He chuckled. “If you lie down and let me drag your bedroll out, I’ll tell you.”
She grudgingly detached herself and Ice Star pulled her bedroll over to her. It had been next to his own, half-open. His wife rolled into it and groaned softly.
“Wings hurt.”
“I figured they would.”
“So why’s it bad, Cap?” she asked.
“Having the two highest ranking officers married is a bit awkward, don’t you think?”
“Eh.”
“It’s the kind of thing Solar regulations were designed to avoid. Entanglements… they complicate things.” He sat next to her now, watching the way her chest moved with each breath. “I thought about you all day.”
“Liar. You ran numbers all day.”
“When I wasn’t thinking about logistics. Yes. You know what I meant.”
“Job first, Cap.”
“You’re part of my job, Amy.”
“Glad to…” she yawned and sighed. “Glad to hear it.”
He reached out and touched her mane for just a second, and then retracted his hoof. It was a strange sight, really. She laid in her bedroll, exhausted. He stood beside it, stiff and unhappy and waiting.
The flipside of thinking, of truly thinking, is that sometimes one’s mind turns in on itself and thoughts lose cohesion. This was also a lesson Ice Storm had learned. He was learning it again.
He wished to say many things, wished to do many more. Most of those things, while not impossible, were foolish. Knowing this didn’t take away the desire to act. It never did.
Amaranth was a mystery. She had always been a mystery, and the thoughts and the feelings burning in his chest that she’d prodded into sluggish, bewildered life were also a mystery. Never, until she had dug beneath his solid lines, had he once thought of leaving behind his service to Princess Celestia before it was his time, come old age or death. Never had he even dreamed of abandoning his post, or of playing favorites.
Yet he thought about such things all the time now. Sometimes, when he was alone in the stillness, he thought about what words might sway her away from her position in Luna’s personal guard. Between maps and charts and rumors of war, he thought about how easy it would be on this long frontier merely to vanish. One last report, and then take to the sky. He had wings, after all, did he not? What else were they for but for flying away when there was little left to be salvaged?
Not that he felt so bleak about serving. Not really. It was the assignment that brought out in him. The weather, too, though it had finally stopped raining. The distance from home. A lot of things.
“Know why it’s different?”
Ice blinked and looked down.
“Come again?”
“Why’s it different,” murmured Amaranth. “In the Lunar guard.”
“Fraternization?” He raised an eyebrow and was rewarded with a soft chuckle. “Why is it, then? Besides the general and dreadful lack of decorum your lot has.”
She tilted her head up to grin at him. “Why, thank you kindly, your sunshiney-ness. I’ll be sure… Mmm. Be sure to tell the princess herself.”
“I believe you, actually.”
“As you should. But… Was gonna tell you why the regulations are different.”
“You were, yes. I was glad for it at the time, but I confess I’m puzzled.”
“Luna figured a long time ago, back when the world was different, that it would make her first warriors fight better.” Amaranth yawned. “Y’know, when it was less a guard and more a rabble of Me-Firsts and Daredevils. Made them fight for something.”
“That so?” he asked.
“Mhm. ‘S what she told me, anyhow.”
“Seems a bit archaic, then.”
“I serve… Mm. I serve an archaic mare. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
He smiled. “And a fine one. Rest up, and when you wake I’ll have food.” He paused, and then his smile turned a little pained. “And work, of course. I need eyes in the north.”
“Fun.”
“Oh, I doubt that.” He leaned in, kissed her forehead, and then went back to retrieve his charts.
