Ch 1. No Time to Celebrate

War for the Sun

Chapter 1, No Time to Celebrate.

“Pinkie Pie! Quit it! You’re going to tip the carriage!” Rainbow Dash scrambled around in the small carriage, trying to pin down the feisty pink pony, whom was bouncing around in her normally eager fashion. It wouldn’t be too big of a problem, except the carriage they were traveling in was particularly small for the six ponies traveling in it.

“I can’t help it!” she told her, finally taking a seat, although her tail twitched uncontrollably behind her, swatting Twilight and Applejack with each pass, “This is going to be such a great party!”

“Pinkie, this ISN’T a party.” Twilight told her, trying to hold the active tail down long enough to get her attention, “The princess just wants to meet with us about something as representatives of Ponyville… there are going to be representatives from all over Equestria about this, and we need to BEHAVE.” She gave Pinkie a glare, trying to hint to her that she needed to be… less like Pinkie Pie today.

“Aww! But that means people from all over Equestria will be there! We can have a global theme! With snacks from all over the world! We can have chocolate nests with marshmallow eggs for the Griffins, Spicy dragon fruit punch for the dragons-“

“They’re already providing food pinkie.” Twilight interrupted quickly before the ideas got too much for Pinkie to handle, “They’ve got things under control, we’ll have a party when we get back, okay?”

Pinkie pie just smiled as she finally took her seat, a glint of hyperactive joy in her eyes. With the loud one finally calmed down to a reasonable level, Applejack spoke up with a few questions, “Why us anyway? I mean, I can understand you, being her student and whatnot, but why are the rest of us suppose to represent ponyvlle for this… thing? Wouldn’t it be better for the Mayor to handle?” the attention of the other ponies shifted from Applejack to Twilight, this was apparently something that had crossed their mind as well.

Twilight nodded, it was a genuinely reasonable question to ask, “Well, according to her letter, we’ve all taken part is saving Ponyville and even Equestria a few times… so she believes that we are more than qualified to represent our friends in Ponyville.” She gave them all a smile, as if telling them she was proud to have such brave and heroic friends alongside her.

Rainbow dash was unfazed though, her own curiosities boiling inside her, “What are we all meeting for? What’s going on that they need people from all over Equestria to meet so suddenly?”

Twilight frowned, her head dropping a little. She didn’t have the answer to that, and although she quickly replied to Celestia’s letter asking this herself, she got no reply, “I’m not sure… but it seemed important, so I’m sure we’ll find out soon!” she tried to bring her smile back, but everyone could see the worried look in her eyes. The group quieted down for the short remainder of the trip, feeling their questions could only be answered by Princess Celestia herself.

Spike hopped off the drivers seat of the carriage, opening the door for the six friends, “We’re here!” the girls slowly exited the carriage to be formally greeted by a royal guard, “It’s good to see you ladies,” he glanced up as a rainbdrop fell onto his nose. The clouds were rolling in quickly, and the rumbling in the distance made him feel uneasy. “Please, follow me. The others are waiting in the main hall.” The girls nodded and followed him, but their curiosity began to boil once more. Rainbow Dash was the first to voice her wonders.

“So buddy, what’s the deal?” she asked, hovering by his side.

“Princess Celestia has asked ponies from across Equestria to come together today for discussions…” he said simple as he led them into the castle.

“Uh, yeah, we got that… anything else? Like what we’re talking about? Or why?”

The soldier stopped outside the large set of doors leading to the next room… he was quiet for a moment, as if thinking of what to say… or rather, if he should say it at all. “I’m not entirely sure what it is that’s going on… But a few days ago there was an attack at Trottingham.” The girls froze in place, their hearts stopping briefly. Fluttershy mouthed the last few words he spoke, as if trying to comprehend them fully. He continued when he noticed the sudden silence amongst them, “No one was killed, although there were a few injuries… word is that dragons crossed over the border and began to destroy the town…” the rain slowly began coming down with more force, and in greater numbers on their heads.

“Why would they do such a thing?” Rarity asked, appalled at the idea that these creatures, with their beautifully colored scales and gorgeous wings, would do something so violent without cause.

“I don’t know, even what I was told was limited… Princess Celestia and Princess Luna apparently went out that way as soon as we got word of the attack… My guess would be to confront the dragons about this…”

“She… she wouldn’t start fighting with them, would she?” Fluttershy’s voice was soft and timid, but amongst the silence of the others, it was clearly heard by all.

“I don’t think so… you know her, she’s a peaceful pony… even after Nightmare moon tried to take over Equestria, she found it difficult to confront her a second time.”

Memories of the incident flooded back to the girls…. Nightmare Moon’s return after one thousand years, and her threat to bring eternal night to the land of Equestria. At the time it seemed bad enough, but over time they all realized how things would be today if her takeover had been seen through; no light to grow the plants, time would stand still, the naturally invigorating light would be replaced with the cold, dim stare of the moon. The worlds creatures dependant on it’s light to see would be no match for the creatures of the night. The broken balance of the world would be devastating for everypony.

“I think you should head inside… The others are waiting… although the princesses has yet to return from their trip to Trottingham.” He nudged open the door before stepping aside to let them through. Twilight was last to pass, but she stopped by his side, “When will she be back?” she asked quietly.

The guard looked away slightly, “She should have been home hours ago…’ he quickly realized what he said and tried to fix it, “B-but you know her… she loves the scenery! heh… I’m sure she wont be much longer…” he gave her an awkward smile… it didn’t work for her. She quietly followed her friends into the large room, where others were gathered, standing around, chatting and discussing their thoughts on what they knew. Mostly rumors and hearsay about what had happened, many ponies argued that they had heard something completely different, while others stood back to avoid the confrontations, figuring the rumors would only spawn more rumors.

“I heard the Princess was killed!”

“Ridiculous! She’s too powerful to be taken down by a couple of dragons!”

“I thought she blew up their continent…”

“No! She used her powers to create a barrier so they couldn’t get over.”

“Celestia didn’t blow it up! Luna used the moon to crush them all!”

“The moon is still in the sky you twit!”

“I don’t see it!”

“It’s because of the storm you foal, you can’t see ANYTHING up there.”

“It’s the dragons! They’re changing the weather to hide their army so they can attack canterlot!”

Twilight wasn’t one to absorb rumors like those, but all the talk along with the princesses mysteriously missing gave her a bad feeling in her gut. Her head hung low as her mind began to come up with their own ideas of what terrible things might be happening…

“Hey Twilight, don’t get so upset…” Spike gently stroked her neck, trying to cheer her up, “Princess Celestia will be back soon… she’s just taking the long way home… “

Twilight smiled at her trusted assistant, “You’re so sweet, Spike… always trying to cheer me up when I’m down.” She rubbed her cheek against his, showing him her thanks.

His cheeks turned pink, “Aw, you’re such a flatterer, twilight, hehe…”

“You should try that charm on Rarity some time.” She grinned a little, while Spike flushed red. He sputtered a bunch of words, not really making a clear sentence… however they quickly got distracted by a sudden cheer.

Pinkie Pie was standing up on the table, surrounded by cupcakes, “Woo! Come on everypony! Who says we have to wait around doing nothing? Lets make sure when the two princesses get home they come home to the GREATEST PARTY IN EQUESTRIA!” She popped a record onto a record player, one that until now, no one knew was there, if it was even there to begin with. Loud music pumped into the room from the player, echoing off the walls of the main hall.

Many of the guests seemed reluctant to party, considering what most of them were discussing amongst each other… but Pinkie’s cheerful and contagious demeanor brought them out of their nervous shells, cutting through the tension like a hot knife through butter, and soon the entire room was full of ponies bouncing to the music from the record player, and popping cupcakes into their mouths.

Pinkie made her way around the room, bouncing around, finding those with lackluster dancing ambitions, and giving them a ride as their dance partner until they too were jumping and bouncing with just as much fire as her. When her goal to liven up an individual had been completed, she would quickly move onto the next pony who gave little energy into their dancing efforts.

Rainbow Dash didn’t have this issue with her dancing, always wanting to be the center of attention, was dancing wildly in the middle of the dance floor. She was making most of it up as she was going along, but from time to time she would lift her self into the air and do a few moves that her friends were familiar with. Loops and spins, anything to impress the crowd. The wonderbolts were nowhere to be seen, but she figured if she impressed a crowd here, maybe word would get to them about how she not only dominated the skies with her skills, but the dance floor as well.

Although Rarity wasn’t going as wild as the colorful pegusus, she was just as flashy and was getting just as much attention. She didn’t know that a party would ensue, although she wasn’t very surprised considering Pinkie Pie was coming along, she DID however know to dress herself in a stunning gown. She danced fairly modestly, but still gathered much attention from across the room. She knew she looked good, and she was happy for the attention, but she kept mostly to herself, enjoying the gaze of those admiring her.

Applejack quietly cursed herself for not thinking about bringing some apples with her to sell to the enormous crowd. Luckily for her though, she overheard a few ponies chatting about business, and her curiosity led her to scoot closer. Her ears perked when she heard one mention that their town’s apple orchard had been wrecked by a wildfire. Applejack quickly poked her head into the conversation, eagerly offering her assistance to them. “Well if you need some apples, our orchard has a bit more apples than we can sell… I would be more than happy to sell you our overstock at a discount… and maybe I could offer some of my services to help restore your orchard…” her warm smile grabbed the eyes of the business ponies and her proposition quickly grabbed their wallets. She knew she had them, now they just needed to get through the boring paperwork. It had become a surprisingly good day for Applejack.

Even twilight found herself dancing alongside her friends, although her concern for her mentor was still poking at the back of her brain; Why would she be gone for so long? Why would the dragons attack so suddenly? What would their future hold now?

“This is a wonderful party, isn’t it, Twilight?” Fluttershy walked over to her from her secluded corner, she liked to dance, but with all the strangers around she felt a little reluctant to join them. Although that’s not to say she wasn’t enjoying herself.

“Yeah, it’s great huh?”

“I was thinking though, what do you think an already BIG celebration would be like if Pinkie were to host it? Like the Summer Sun Celebration or the Grand Galloping Gala?” it was a simple thought for a wandering mind to come up with

Twilight giggled, “Didn’t we already see how Pinkie Pie turned the Grand Galloping Gala into a wild party just a couple of months ago?”

A giggle escaped Fluttershy’s lips as well, “Oh yes, I almost forgot… although… sometimes I kinda wish I would forget…” her smile faded fast, she still hadn’t gotten over how she acted during the gala, it pained her to think how crazy she got over the animals…

Twilight moved in quickly to get her mind onto a new path, “I bet the Summer Sun Celebration would be wild too… I can imagine Princess Celestia being strapped to a couple of sparklers before rising up to bring the sun up,” The two laughed, but it quickly reminded her of who she was worried about…

“Although it was nice that the princess invited her sister to start the night before with a celebration too… I’m so glad she’s being so sweet to her sister like that…”

Twilight smiled, it was nice to watch the moon rise into the sky the night before the Summer Sun Celebration. She seemed so happy to take place in royal events with her sister. The look of happiness and admiration in her eyes toward Princess Celestia… it was a magical moment. “Yeah… they truly love each other, don’t they? Didn’t Celestia mention the possibility of having a similar event in the winter for Luna to host? The Winter Lunar Cel-”

A sudden crash caught everyone’s attention. The sudden slam rocked the room, causing the record player to slip and go silent, along with the rest of the room. They thought it might be thunder from the storm brewing outside, but the true cause was lit up by a bolt of lightning outside. Standing in the doorway was the Princess of Equestria, Celestia. The doors had swung open at her arrival; her horn was just fading to normal from the magic she used to push them open.

“Princess!” Twilight exclaimed, seeing her mentor was alive. She took a step toward her, but her eyes focused on her face... a face of a tortured soul.

Celestia’s eyes lacked the glow of the sun she took command over, her long mane lay limp against her back, hanging off her side and dripping wet from the rain. Her wings were collapsed by her side, dragging across the floor as she began to walk. As ponies saw how their princess looked, they gasped, they had never seen this lively spirit crushed like this.

The princess carefully took a step forward, holding her left hind leg up in the air, hopping the other to make up for the injury. Across her body were cuts and bruises, tainting her pure white body. She slowly made her way toward the center of the room, and was quickly joined by Twilight, “Princess! What happened to you?”

The Princess didn’t even acknowledge her by her side… she continued to walk slowly into the room, approaching the guests. One of the guards barked out to the other to get a medical team to come as quickly as possible.

“Did… Did the dragons do this to you, Princess?” Spike overheard the question, feeling his heart drop… would his own kind do something like this to the princess? But again, she didn’t answer her. “Where are all of the gaurds that you took with you? What happened to them?” Celestia continued to hobble closer to her intended spot. Suddenly a more important question came to the young pony’s mind…

“Princess… Where is your sister?”

The princess stopped midstep, her body shivered as she stood in place. Her blank stare looked at the fresh memories of what had happened. A drop of water ran from her eye down her cheek, whether it was a tear or just water from the rain, Twilight couldn’t tell.… It was silent for a moment as she stood there, but she finally regained her thoughts, and lifted her head to speak, “As I’m sure you all know… the Dragons of Dracozard attack the town of Trottingham a few days ago, and I went out to speak with them.” Her voice was weak, but she tried to speak up so everyone in the room could hear. The utter silence from everyone made this a fairly easy task, even with the weak leader. “I thought it may have been a group of ruffians playing games… but as it turns out… it was directed by military to get my attention… We tried to talk peace with them, but their lust for power drove them to attack me… and those who I brought with me…” Twilight felt her heart twisting in her chest, her thoughts on all the guards who tried to protect her… and her sister… “They seek to overthrow my reign, and take my power I hold… They threaten to make Equestria burn to try and take it, and they plan to send our world into a dark chaos when they do… I will not allow that to happen… but I must ask you all to help me… They plan to attack us with their strongest, and the army we have will not be enough… I ask everyone here to please return home and help gather supporters to join the fight against those who wish to destroy us…”

Many ponies in the room seemed eager to join her in the fight… but others, including Fluttershy, seemed unsure, and reluctant to fight. “Please, I know its not easy to fight… I don’t want things to go this way either… but if they are willing to take such bold moves like attacking out people and royalty on our own soil, than think what move they might take next… we have to strike back… before they come to us…before they kill everyone” her final words came out a bit sputter, her body falling to the ground.

“PRINCESS!” Twilight cried, jumping over her legs to look at her face. She was out cold. The medical team quickly arrived on the scene, the unicorn lifting her up with their magic and quickly making their way to the medical tower.

Twilight stood there in shock, staring at the door that the medical ponies used to exit the room. Around her ponies began to chatter wildly, some eager to join the cause, while others desperately wanted to avoid ending up like the princess in a war. Twilight didn’t hear a word… her own thoughts were more than enough to start a fight in her own mind. Would she fight for the safety of her friends? Or hide away to try and protect them from getting hurt in battle? Opinions fly between her friends as well, Rainbow Dash was eager to kick some butt, while Fluttershy was already emotionally tucking herself away.

A war in Equestria… millennia without conflict was about to end… soon a battle between ponies and dragons would take place… Love and tolerance is a hard thing to find in war.

Ch 2. Nightmare

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War Over the Sun

Chapter 2, When the Moon went Dark.

The dark room was silent. Celestia had been left alone to rest in the lonely room at the top of the medical tower, The doctors and nurses did all they could for the princess. A few voices could be heard through the door, discussing further treatment for the princess.

The dim light of the moon gave Rainbow Dash a decent view of the tired soul resting in the large bed. She didn’t dare approach the princess though. It was a sacred object in this world, and now it was more fragile than ever before. She even feared the flapping of her wings would disturb the air entering her lungs, she was genuinely scared and unsure of what to do. Although all she was asked to do was to check up on the princess, she wanted to do more but feared further investigation would harm the princess in some way.

When she felt like she had observed long enough, she quickly descended to join the other girls by the ground, landing by their feet, “She’s breathing…” she said softly, it was about the only information she gathered hovering outside her open window, “She seems real peaceful…”

“Don’t say it like that…” Twilight snapped quickly, her head hanging low “Dead ponies look peaceful…”

Dash bit her lip, a bit of a grim look on her face, “Sorry… I-I just meant…” her words drifted to silence, deciding to just let it go.

Applejack nudged the purple pony, trying to cheer her up a bit, “Maybe ya should go see her… I’m sure she’d love to see her little pupil by her side when she wakes up.” She knew they were close, a bond between teacher and student was strong.

“Maybe… I don’t know…” she kept her gaze low, the fresh memories of her teacher collapsing on the floor into a small pool of her own blood. It was horrifying to watch, and just as much so to think about it.

“How about I go up there and throw her a PARTY instead?” Pinkie pie blew hard into a noise maker, making a loud buzzing sound echo through the courtyard. “It’ll be great! She’ll wake up and we’ll have streamers and balloons and music and cake-OH! And candy! Lots and lots of-“

“NO!” all of the ponies spoke up quickly, twilight moreso than the others, her head no longer aimed toward the ground beneath her feet.

“fine… I’ll go up and see her…” Twilight turned from her friends and slowly walked into the tower, making her way to the stairs quietly.

Pinkie pie giggled to herself, a sly grin tugging at her lips, “I knew that would work…”

Rainbow Dash gave her a confused look… before realizing what just happened, “Did you just convince Twilight to go see the Princess by threatening to throw a party?”

Pinkie pie giggled, “I’m not dumb y’know… ” the girls gave her a smile, heading off to get to bed for the time being.

Up in the tower, Twilight quietly entered Celestia’s room, seeing the pony sleeping quietly under the thin sheet placed over her lower half in an attempt to keep her warm while she rested. The pupil sat quietly by her side, watching her chest move up and down slowly with each breath. Her cuts were stitched and bandaged, while her broken wing was placed in a cast. An IV was attached to her side, replacing the large amount of blood lost during her fight. A bell sat by her bed, heavily enchanted with unicorn magic to ring if something happened with the princesses. The extra magic made it extra sensitive to any sudden changes in her condition.

Twiilight soon found herself unable to just sit there quietly and watch her teacher sleep, her curiosity and concern were flaring up to unbearable levels. She took a look around the room, taking a look at the door before look at her teacher once more. She closed her eyes, and her horn began to glow faintly as she began to concentrate on her teacher.

“Twilight, what are you doing?” the voice shocked her, making her lose her focus. She quickly turned to the door, seeing her little assistant, Spike, in the doorway. “Twilight… you were using magic on the Princess…” he feared she was using her powers in a desperate attempt to heal her. He knew she didn’t know enough about medical magic yet, but he DID know she was crazy enough to try anything to help her teacher.

Twilght bit her bottom lip, giving him a quiet nod, “Yes… I was trying to take a look at her memories… I want to know what happened.”

He sighed, feeling relieved that the inexperienced pony wasn’t trying something reckless. However, now the thought of knowing the truth frightened him just as much. Spike quietly made his way over to her, making sure to shut the door silently, “Why do you want to know so badly?”

“Princess Celestia has never lost her temper… she’s always been so sweet and kind… and just now she’s declared war with the other side of the world…” Twilight seemed flustered by all these thoughts in her head, he questions filling her skull, threatening to burst open. “I want to know what happened to make her make a decision like that… It’s so unlike her…” she continued to watch her teacher sleep… not much had changed since Rainbow Dashes report…

The young assistant finally spoke up after a moment of silence, “I want to know too.” Spike said quietly to her, “I’m a dragon too… I want to know what they’ve done to make her want to have a war against them…”

“Spike… if you’re worried that she’s going to go after you, you should know better… You’ve been my best friend for ages… there’s no way-“

“Please Twilight!…” he raised his voice just a bit, still whispering compared to what a normal outburst like that would be, “just tell me what you see…” Spike had a look in his eyes… something more than curiosity was in there….

Twilight felt a bit intimidated by the young dragon snapping at her. However she didn’t want to keep him waiting. She looked back at Princess Celestia and began to focus again on her, slowly diving into the mind and memories of her teacher. She traveled in reverse through her memories… her speech at the party, her braving the storm with a crooked wing, a fire burning in the night, a pained cry calling out, screaming… and finally she got to the point where she was being escorted into the town of Trottingham. Twilight was scared going back through the memories… just the brief cries of an unknown pony made the student frightened to find out who they would belong to… who’s cries Celestia heard amongst the fire.

“We’re arriving at Trottingham Princesses,” called out one of the guards flying their royal carriage. Through Celestia’s eyes, Twilight saw her turn to her little sister, she felt a smile spread across her face, as the princess had done in the memory. The moonlight shined against her little sister, her mane sparkling like the starry night sky.

“I’ve never seen Trottingham like this before…” Luna said to her big sister in an eager tone. To Twilight, the voice sounded a bit fuzzy, echoing a bit. The memory was still forming around them and taking shape. Even the younger Princess Luna hadn’t completely rendered into the exact shape of Luna. After a few more seconds the memory felt real, the air felt like it was flowing through her mane, and the air tasted salty from the sea not far from them The area below was grassy, but the details were dulled by the dim light of the crescent above them. “I’ve only seen it from up in the moon…” she turned to look ahead toward the town they were approaching, “I’ve always wondered what it looked like up clo-… oh no…” her eyes widened as she looked off into the distance… Celestia quickly looked as well, spotting smoke rising from the town. Celestia’s eyes caught sight of something below them. She looked over the edge and saw many ponies pulling carts of their belongings with their families, frightened fillies clinging to their parents, while they themselves walked close to one another in fear. Though the dark night gave them little light to see, their frightened tears glimmered brightly as the families escaped the burning wreckage that was their home town…

Celestia glared at the flames, seeing two large dragon on the other end of town standing side by side, watching her approach. Her wings lay close to her back, as her self control tried to keep her from jumping out of the carriage and head butting the ones waiting for them “There, that is where we are to meet them.” She said quietly, more to herself than those around her…

The younger princess fidgeted nervously as the carriage descended lower, Celestia could see the fear in her eyes. She now wondered if it was a mistake to bring her along.

Their eyes locked onto the large dragons, standing side by side, towering over the ponies. Between them though was a more moderately sized dragon, just about Princess Celestia’s height. He was clothed in dark regal attire, holding a cane in front of him. He didn’t seem to be weak or impaired; the cane was most likely for show.

The princess dismounted as soon as they had slowed to a moderate speed, walking up to the three dragons, “I am Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria, and I demand to know why you have crossed our borders and attacked our ponies!” the guard’s that pulled her along quickly detached themselves from the carriage, helping her little sister out before taking their place by Celestia’s side.

The dragon grinned at her, shifting his stance a bit, “Wonderful to meet you Princess… I’m Salazar… I am the ruler of my people as well. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

His casual tone and toothy grin angered the princess. She glared daggers at him, he acted so calm and confident amongst the flames of her ponies homes, “So you came and attacked us yourself… this is an act of war, you know…” she hoped that the idea of a full blown war would frighten the dragon enough to send him on his way.

“A war is not what I want, but if you don’t cooperate, a war is what you’ll get.” The princess felt a tinge of pain in the back of her mind… she didn’t want a war, she wanted everyone to be safe… “Than what do you want from us? What do we have to do to avoid a war?”

He shifted again, raising his head to speak. From the way he spoke, it seemed like he had planned out this speech of his. “You see, princess… as Dragons, we are cold blooded… Reptilian people always have been this way… since the dawn of time we have endured the cold nights, and only basked in the warm sun for mere hours, touched by its glorious warmth for only a short time before reverting to the cold dark night.” Salazar rubbed his arms, shivering a bit. His own words reminded him of the cool night they were standing in. Even with his thick royal garb, it was chilly for him tonight. Celestia listened quietly, although she wasn’t sure how this could relate to a solution… but she didn’t say a word, waiting for him to get to the point. “Last year in the land of Equestria, the night before the longest day of your year, a miracle happened on our end of the planet…” he grinned a little, his own memories of that day flooding through his, “Normally the shortest day of OUR year, and the most hated day to us dragons… it didn’t end… the sun stayed high in the sky for so long, much longer than normal… its warmth warmed our bodies. It was absolutely wonderful…”

Celestia felt her heart skip a beat, that night; it was the night Nightmare Moon made her return. That night she was given the choice to either try to get the elements of harmony gathered once again and free her sister from the evil inside her… or completely destroy her in a fight to save her kingdom. She was happy that things turned out for the better, but even now she still feared what might have happened if she chose to confront her sister and fight her. Her mind quickly moved back to their current situation, so she spoke up, “So, on our end of the world, when the night lasted for almost twice as long for us, on your side of the world, the sun stayed up.” she repeated the information as if double checking her notes, if some sort of agreement were to be made, she would need to make sure all her facts were accurate.

Salazar grinned widely, “It was a wonderful day indeed… but sadly, it did come to an end… and the night the followed remained the longest and coldest as it was every year. we heard stories of how the princess of Equestria had briefly fallen, and how that was the reason the sun did not rise for you.”

“So… you expect me now to give you a longer day?” Celestia moved her position, showing a stronger stance, as if she was unmoved by his demands.

“We can’t do that!” Luna suddenly interrupted, “We need as much daylight as possible to keep our plants growing, we can’t simply shorten our day to give you a longer one… and if we make both our days longer, than the night will last longer for both sides as well, it won’t work that way.” Celestia shot a look at Luna, she knew she was only trying to put a bit of reason into their minds, and her reasoning was excellent by any standards, but this was not the time for outbursts.

“That’s not what we want.” Salazar said calmly, not affected by the young one’s outburst, “Celestia, you rule over Equestria, but your powers affect the entire world. We of Dracozard believe you have too much power…”

“So you wish me to share it with you?” The princess was slowly getting concerned with their intentions, “I’m sorry, but there is only one sun, there would be no way-“

“But there IS a way, princess.” He insisted, his smile returning, “Right now the sun shines bright in our land… I have a theory… if you were to fall right now, to DIE right now, your powers would vanish, and the sun would stay in place, as it did when you fell a year ago, keeping the dragons warm for the rest of time!”

The guards quickly took their place in front of the Princesses, “We won’t allow you to hurt our princess!” Salazar smiled at the ponies in their act of defiance. He slowly raised his hand, and snapped his fingers. The two large dragons by his side raised their heads, gathering fire in their mouth before bellowing it out at the group. Celestia used her unicorn powers to shield them, but more dragons began to emerge from the fires around them, jumping into the fight.

Twilight tried to focus on the memories of her teacher. Groaning as she focused on the fight. The entire memory here was blurred with the fountains of fire, yells, screams, roars, all molding together into one loud painful sound… finally the memory grew clear again. Celestia was surrounded by flames, staring at her little sister, “Luna, Run… Please, you have to escape.” She pleaded, trying to get to her feet again. The roars of dragons could be heard somewhere near, but the two seemed hidden in the flames…

“No sister, I can’t… I can stop them… you’re too hurt… I’ll go with them, I’ll be their hostage so that they won’t come into Equestria and hurt anypony else…” Luna slowly took a step back, while Celestia looked on in horror.

“NO! You can’t! They’ll kill you! We can get out of here! We can be safe! Please, we have to-“ A painful cry echoed from nearby… and the helmet of one of her guards landed by her feet, singed and charred.

“no one else will get hurt… please sister, run…” Luna backed into the flames, slowly moving out of sight.

“LUNA! Don’t go! Luna!” she cried out many times… but soon, Princess Luna was out of sight… the roars began to fade… all that Twilight could hear from her memories were her screaming for her sister…

Twilight snapped out of the spell, breathing heavily. A few tears escaped her eyes, rolling down her cheek.

“it was that bad?” Spike asked softly.

“Yes… it… it was bad… come on… let’s let her re-“ the bell by the princess’ side began to ring violently. Twilight looked at Celestia, who was shifting violently in her sleep, groaning and breathing erratically. The doctors and nurses rushed in, ignoring Twilight and spike, quickly getting to work to calm the princess.

“We should go.” Spike pulled at Twilight’s mane, trying to get her out as quickly as possible. Twilight reluctantly turned and headed back down the tower, the images she gained in her teachers memories burning in her eyes. The dragon with the evil grin, and Luna vanishing into the flames, it was so hard to take in. Spike still wanted to know, but he decided to keep quiet until Twilight was ready to talk.

Ch 3. Preparations.

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The next morning, Spike was sent to gather the other five from Ponyville into the main hall. The remains of Pinkie’s party were still scattered across the floor and tables. With streamers hanging limply from the ceiling and Styrofoam cups lying on their sides in small puddles of leftover liquid. A few groups from other towns were gathered together, still discussing what they would do. Many other groups had already left, their members eager and ready to gather forces to fight for the equestrian army.

Twilight had a cup of coffee hovering at her lips, tipping it slightly from time to time to sip the hot liquid. She looked like an absolute mess. He hair mangled from a sleepless night of tossing around in her bed. The bags under her eyes seemed like they carried the weight of the world in them. She was lost in thought, staring off into space as the others approached. She barely noticed them until they gathered around her, “Oh, morning girls…”

“Sugarcube you look like an absolute mess… You doing okay?” Applejack seemed concerned, of course she knew the young mare was not ‘okay’ by any normal standards considering what had occurred the night before. she had no idea that Twilight would end up looking like this after seeing the princess last night. She had hoped a good night’s sleep would help rejuvenate her and get her back into her old self again, but apparently things had not improved over the past few hours.

Twilight just replied with a soft grunt, sipping her coffee again. She looked up at her hair as Rarity’s magic seemed to take over, straightening it out to something more acceptable to her standards.

“Well, are you going to tell us what happened last night dear? I can understand your worry, but you just look… so…” Rarity’s words couldn’t seem to connect properly. She was usually one to use a sophisticated tongue, but even this here was too much for her to comprehend… So Pinkie spoke up to finish her sentence.

“You look like a mess.” Her words seemed to fit better than anything anyone else could think of, so they all just nodded and turned back to Twilight, hoping for answers.

Twilight nodded, guzzling down the last bit of coffee before tossing it aside. It was immediately lost to the rest of the mess scattered around the floor, “I went and looked at Celestia’s memories…” the girls remained quiet, hanging on her every word. Even spike was listening intently. “The ruler of Dracozard attacked the princess and kidnapped Princess Luna… Simple as that…”

“What?” Of course, Rainbow Dash was the first to voice her outrage, and of course, she would also be the loudest, “They got some pretty big apples if they think they can just waltz in, attack our towns and kidnap our princess!” her wings beat harder against the air, her rage maing her lift up higher. “Who they Hay do these guys think they are?” she was tugged back down to earth by Applejack, landing her on her backside with a light thud.

Fluttershy whimpered a little, already having a deep seeded fear of these dragons, “b-but why? What on earth would make them want to hurt ponies?”

Twilight shook her head, letting her hair fall down naturally now that Rarity had finished straightening it out. “They want to control the sun… they don’t like being cold so they want to control the sun.”

Dash cursed under her breath, rubbing her bottom to ease to soreness of the fall “Can’t they just use a blanket?”

“Dragons are cold blooded Dash…” the ever knowledgeable Fluttershy quietly spoke up, feeling the need to explain why the creatures would need the extra heat, “A blanket won’t help much… sometimes dragons and other cold blooded creatures just lay out in the sun all day just to stay warm…”

“Are you defending these nutjobs?” Rainbow glared at fluttershy, taking her insight as a defense for their actions. She immediately pulled back, mumbling quietly before falling silent. Pinkie stroked her hair gently trying to comfort her.

“She’s not defending them, she’s just stating a fact.” Applejack stepped up to defend the poor girl, “You of all people should know how cold it can be to fly around in the air.”

Rainbow crossed her arms and let out a humph. She turned away, apparently defeated for now. Applejack smiled a little at her victory, and turned back to Twilight, “So Twilight… are we going back to ponyville to announce what’s going on?”

“You all can go ahead… I’m staying by the princess just in case… I want to know more about what’s going on and what her plans are… If she has a special task I want to be the first one to take it.”

“Alright sugar, You stay here, we’ll head on off to Ponyville and see what we can do there… You sure yer gonna be okay up here by yourself?”

“Hey! I’m staying with her!” Spike called out from the other side of the group. His arms folded and his gaze a bit angered.

“Oh, heh… of course sweety, y’know what I meant…” she said with an awkward smile, “I was just saying if she wanted one of her friends to hang out here to-“

“I’m her friend too, applejack.” he quickly interrupted her before she could continue. The awkward feeling in the room was thicker than any fog Rainbow could fly through.

“I-I know sweetheart… I just… meant ANOTHER friend…” she hoped that would satisfy him for now… he didn’t seem happy, but he stayed quiet…

“I appreciate it everypony, but I think I’ll be okay here with Spike… We’ll send you letters as often as we can, I couldn’t leave without my number one assistant.” She levitated the baby dragon over to her, giving him a little hug, hoping to squeeze out any remaining anger he may have had hidden away. It seemed to work, he smiled and hugged back happily.

“Alright, so we’ll head on back to ponyville today. I better pack my things…” Rarity gave the other a nod to signal her departure, while Rainbow Dash took to the air, “Alright! I’ll head out now so I can tell them sooner!” She looked like she was about to speed off right out the window, But the ever vigilant Dash-watcher stopped her.

“Hold it there missy, I think it would be best if we all stuck together and talked to the mayor about the whole situation TOGETHER…” Applejack seemed intent on keeping Dash from rushing off and starting a riot of some kind in town. It wouldn’t be a surprise to her to arrive to a town full of pitchfork wielding ponies due to her overactive nature.

“Fine, I’ll get my stuff.” The girls started to head out, while Twilight stayed behind…

Spike looked up at his friend, a look of concern in his eyes, “y’know… you should probably try to go back to bed and get some rest… you won’t be any help if you’re tired”

“I know spike… but I’m so worried…”

“I’m worried too, but I’ll be more worried if you have to go fight dragons when you’re half asleep…” his grip around her neck tightened a bit. She could tell he was earnestly worried about her safety.

“okay Spike… I’ll go try and get to bed… maybe I can conjure up a sleep spell.” She got to her feet and placed spike right on her back as she started to walk, “I think I’ll check on the princess first.

He held onto her gently as he rode on her back, “Okay, just don’t stay too long… they’re still not happy with you disturbing her last night.”

“Yeah, I know…” she sighed softly, recalling the nurse that tracked her down and scolded her the night before…

Twilight quietly entered the recovery room the princess was staying in. now with a nurse and two guards accompanying her. “You aren’t all here because of me, are you?”

“No,” nurse Redheart replied, “If we were guarding her from you, I would have you thrown in the dungeon…” she gave her a disapproving look, a ‘mothers glare’ as it were…

It pierced Twilight’s heart instantly, “Yes, I know, I’m sorry… I just wanted to know…”

“you should have waited” she snapped back before she could continue, “and you’re very irresponsible for putting so much strain on a pony who’s recovering… but, what’s done is done… you don’t plan on doing anymore of that, do you?”

Twilight quickly shook her head, “OH! No no no no! I-I just wanted to see if she was doing any better.”

Redheart gave her a nod, her glare briefly taken off of her, only to be shot back at her once more, “She’s much better NOW, but she’s still sleeping and still recovering.” Every word from he mouth screamed ‘Get Out!’ to Twilight, even though she was calm and collected, never raising her voice to the purple pony.

“So you want me to leave then?” twilight’s head lowered, feeling more and more guilty about her actions.

“I’d appreciate it…” Redheart continued to glare, and even with Twilight turning her back to her, she could feel the cold stare. However there was a groan in the room that caused everyone to turn toward the princess.

Her eyes were open, and she had shifted to her side to look out the window. She had a small smile curved across her face. Nurse Redheart was the first to get to her side, “Princess, how do you feel?”

The princess just smiled as she turned her attention to the nurse, “The sun came up…”

Her simple words confused the nurse, “y-yes, you’ve been out all night princess…”

“The moon went down… It’s okay…” she added softly, closing her eyes once more, seemingly falling back to sleep.

“Princess?” Redheart stroked her hoof gently, trying to get her attention, but she was out cold again.

Twilight heard her random babble from the door. She wanted to try to talk to her, but she could tell she had fallen asleep again. She decided to keep moving, heading out the door toward her room to get some rest.

“Twilight, do you think she’s okay? She was kinda… off, don’t you think?” Spike took a quick glance back at the door to the recovery room, the two gaurds outside were trying to lean over just enough to peak through the door without technically leaving their station.

“Yes, she did seem to be that way. Post traumatic stress,” a yawn took over her, her mouth opening wide as she inhaled, “That’s my guess anyway… I’m not sure…”

“You don’t think it meant something?”

“I don’t know, I’m too tired to think… let’s get some rest and we’ll think more later…” she managed to find her room in her exhausted state. Her mind was eased a bit after seeing the princess wake up, even if it was brief. But it was enough of a load off her mind to get her into bed and send her to sleep.

Her sleep wasn’t a very restful one… it seemed like it ended too soon, but in fact the morning had come and gone, and the sun had made its way to the far end of the sky before Twilight woke up again. She opened her eyes to see Spike curled up beside her, sleeping soundly. There was a pile of scrolls nearby, apparently written by spike while she was out.

Although the pile of scrolls by her bed seemed to be odd enough, there was another scrolls halfway under her door that caught her attention. She tried to will herself out of bed, but her strength just wasn’t there yet. Instead she used her magic to bring the paper to her. It had Celestia’s seal on it, so she immediately recognized it’s importance. Her magic made quick work of the string before opening it up. It was a simple message, “The princess is awake and requests you to see her.”

The words gave her strength, and it finally made her get up and get out of bed. She decided to let spike rest while she headed up to see her teacher. The guards were still standing watch, but parted for Twilight to head inside. She thanked them kindly before heading inside.

Princess Celestia was sitting up, sipping some tea from an elegant looked cup hovering over a small plate. She lowered the cup, making a soft ‘Tink’ noise. The room was otherwise silent. Twilight noticed the guards stood as still as statues, reminiscent of Discord when he was imprisoned. It made her a little weary, but at least Redheart wasn’t around to give her some cold stare of disapproval. And with Celestia’s gentle smile, it calmed the purple pony immensely.

“Hello Twilight… did you sleep well?” she asked, setting her tea aside to speak with her student.

“Mostly, yes.” She told her as she took a seat by her side.

“I could tell you were worried… I apologize for making you so concerned.”

“Oh no! don’t apologize!” Twilight replied quickly, “You were hurt, it wasn’t your fault.”

Celestia smiled a little, nodding, “True… Can I assume you already know what happened?”

Twilight’s pupils widened, feeling a bit nervous about her actions the night before. “Y-yes… I saw your memories… I saw Luna…” she bit her lip, deciding to try and apologize for her own actions, “I-I’m so sorry, Princess… I just wanted to know what happened to you…”

Celestia nodded, “It’s alright, my student… To be honest with you… I don’t know if I could have recounted to story without… losing myself…” already, recalling the memories she had was making her choke up a little. The cup she held with her magic shook a little, clinking rapidly against the tiny plated beneath it She took a deep breath and let the air out slowly to relax herself, silencing the cup, “So you know why I’m so concerned about protecting the ponies of Equestria, and finding my sister.”

“I’m sure she’s fine, princess, She’s a very strong individual. A-and If they really are… holding her hostage, than they would never hurt her without running a huge risk.” She smiled a little, hoping her words would help the princess cope with the loss… but somehow she felt like her words might only hurt.

“I know she’s fine Twilight… I know she’s alive and well.” The princess replied with a soothing smile.

“I’m glad you believe so Princess.”

“Oh, I don’t think you understand.” Her smile continued to widen, her thoughts apparently giving her hope, “I was unconscious last night… I had no control over the sun… but Luna has control over setting the moon…”

Twilight seemed a little confused, “But… the sun rose this morning… didn’t you…”

She shook her head, “no, I had no power over it. However the sun and the moon are connected, much like me and my sister… the sun can never rise without the moon setting, and the sun can never set unless someone raises the moon. Therefore, Luna must have sent the moon down in order to raise the dawn while I was unconscious.”

Twilight was quiet while she processed all the information. It made sense, but more important thoughts came to mind, “So, if you two are connected so well, can’t you try and find out where she is?” Celestia’s bright smile faded, making twilight immediately feel guilty and responsible for her teacher’s sadness.

“No, unfortunately I cannot. I can sense that she is okay, but I can’t tell where she might be.” She took another deep breath before returning to her tea.

“Oh, I see… so… you really want to fight the dragons? You want to go to war with them?”

She shook her head without hesitation, “No, I don’t… but if we don’t fight them, they might attack again… I’ve considered just giving up my power… but if they take that from me, than the ponies won’t survive if the night lasts forever. No light, no plants, no food… no life.”

Twilight thought about the option… but from what she understood, Celestia couldn’t just give up her power. The only time she didn’t have her power was when she was unconscious… the only other time would be if she were dead. She shivered at the thought of her teacher’s death, seeing her collapse on the floor the night before scared her enough as it was.

“So I want to gather up supporters who want to help defend our citizens. I can’t believe I’m asking this of everyone… but it’s painfully apparent I can’t defend them by myself. It’s either fight for the safety of everyone, or lie down and die under their feet…” she spoke softly, she didn’t want this to be their solution, but it was the only one she could think of, considering how up front and violent the dragons were about the situation.

“So… how can I help?” Twilight finally asked, trying to find a way for her to fit into this situation.

“I want you to head to ponyville and try to get some support there… I’ll have some of my guards come down to sign ponies up, but until then, just try to get whatever support you can. Even if it’s just donations, it’ll help. I have a few ideas of some special projects I want you to help with, but for now, just get the word out that we need help.”

“I can do that, princess… I’m happy to help.” She took a stand, happy that she could do some good for her teacher.

“You run along now, it’s getting late… if you head out in the morning, come say hi before you leave.”

“I will princess! I promise.” She eagerly headed back to her room, grabbing some fresh parchment and a pen to scribble down her ideas on how to help with this. She got really excited when she thought of a creative way to gather support, but she couldn’t help but think that she was supporting a war. It made her feel torn inside, thinking of wonderful, creative ideas to help support a bloodbath. It pained her, but she strongly believed that it would be better to fight than to just let the dragons take over.

Ch 4. Fearing the future

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“So…” Rainbow Dash spoke up, interrupting the awkward silence that had filled the carriage since they left that morning. Everyone seemed to have their own thoughts on their mind, staring off into space and keeping to themselves. It was only when Dash spoke up did everyone seem to come back to reality, “What does everypony else thing about this?”

The others were quiet at the question, uncertain of the proper way to answer.

The awkward silence was too much for Fluttershy now, she had to say something to keep the air filled with noise, “About what exactly? Us going to war? What we’re going to do about it? Are we going to fight? Are we going to be FORCED to fight? What’ll we do if something happens to our homes?” It seemed like she just couldn’t stop asking questions, all the worry and concern she had been bottling up had broken free and was spilling out into the carriage, “What if we have to evacuate Ponyville? Where will we go? What if someone else gets captured? What happens if the dragons win? What if they take us prisoner? I don’t want to be a prisoner! What’ll they do to us?” she began to tear up, shaking a little as her words began to strike fear in her own heart, “Will they force us to work in their mines? Forced labor? What if they EAT us? Or worse? What if they keep us around a-a-and-“

Applejack had enough, quickly hugging the sobbing pony, “It’s alright, Fluttershy, none of that is going to happen, I promise.” Fluttershy got quiet and allowed herself to be held, sobbing silently into Applejacks shoulder…

Rainbow dash bit her lip, no longer wanting to know what the others were thinking. If the innocent fluttershy had such dark thoughts on the situation, she didn’t want to know what the others were thinking.

The rest of the ride was quiet, but luckily they weren’t far from Ponyville. When they arrived, Applejack decided to take Fluttershy home to give her time to calm down.

“Why don’t we wait for her at Sugarcube corner?” Pinkie smiled a little, although noticeably less hyper than usual. “We can have a snack and talk about what we’re gonna do about all this craziness.” Rarity couldn’t help but smile. The idea that Pinkie Pie had found something that she considered to be crazy seemed funny.

“A cupcake sounds amazing right about now.” Rainbow dash let out a little chuckle, the idea of something sweet already calmed her nerves.

Rarity seemed to enjoy the idea as well, “Some tea would be absolutely lovely, dear. You DO have some, is that right?”

“I’m sure we have some somewhere.”

The group of three headed into Sugarcube corner, taking a seat around the table. Pinkie headed into the kitchen to fix up some drinks and snacks, leaving Rainbow Dash alone with Rarity.

“Well, Rainbow Dash… You seem to be curious about other people’s thoughts… what are yours?” Rarity rested her chin on her hooves, staring at the pony across the table.

Rainbow dash shifted, still feeling awkward about causing fluttershy to burst into tears. “Well, I dunno… It pisses me off that they would just attack us like that for no reason! And I want to smack them across the country until their scales pop off!” she slammed her hoof down on the table, making a loud noise. Pinkie poked her head out to see if things were okay, but she figured it was nothing to fret about.

“I completely understand your concern Rainbow Dash… And to be honest if I could give them a wallop in the face I certainly would… but…” she shifted a bit, her gaze shifting from Rainbow Dash.

“What? What is it?” Dash wasn’t sure what was going through her head now, but it was obvious something was on her mind.

“I’ll be honest, Dash. I don’t want you to go and fight. I know you want to and I’m sure you could protect many ponies with your speed and strength.” She let out a little sigh, still keeping her gaze away, “But you’re my friend… All of you are the greatest ponies in my life and I don’t want to lose any of you.”

Rainbow dash couldn’t argue with her about that, “Yeah, I know, I don’t want to lose any of you girls either… You’re all great! But… If they make it to ponyville I’m going to make sure they don’t get anywhere near you guys. I’ll knock ‘em down and bury ‘em in the forest!”

Rarity smiled a little at her words, they were sweet in Rainbow’s unique style, “I know you will, Dash…”

“Yeah, and you could join me!” Rarity was a bit shocked by the invitation, but before she could question it, Rainbow continued, “You could sew up a straightjacket and hold them down for me while I knock them around like a punching bag.” Dash began thrusting her hooves out in a quick rhythm, making impact noises and short grunts as she bobbed and weaved in her seat. Rarity couldn’t help but laugh at the entire situation. She couldn’t stop long enough to answer Pinkie when she arrived at the table with a tray of drinks and sweets.

“What so funny everypony?” Rarity just pointed at Dash while she continued to giggle uncontrollably. It became contagious and soon Rainbow Dash was also laughing at the imagery she had created. Pinkie didn’t need a reason to join, she just started to laugh and giggle along with her friends around the table…

Applejack sat down with Flutershy when they arrived at her little cottage. “You doing okay sugar?”

Fluttershy quietly nodded, curling up on the couch to relax.

“Hey, don’t get down… I’m sure it’ll end up being okay…” she rubbed Fluttershy’s head gently, trying to comfort her.

“But ponies are gonna get hurt… I don’t want everyone to fight.” Her head bobbed gently to the rubbing of her friend’s hoof, but other than that she seemed fairly motionless in her current emotional state.

“I know fluttershy.. I don’t want it either, no one does… but we gotta protect our friends… Think about your little animal friends outside right now… If those dragons came here, wouldn’t you want to defend them?”

Fluttershy’s head immediately shot up, looking Applejack directly in the eye, “Of course I would! I would never let anyone harm my friends!”

AJ smiled at the sudden burst of emotion, “See? That’s the kinda attitude you need to have. I know you don’t wanna fight, and nopony is gonna force ya to fight anyone… but you gotta keep that feeling in your heart to defend those you care about if the time comes…. You remember the dragon at the top of the mountain you stood up to in order to defend us?”

Fluttershy nodded, it wasn’t hard to forget that moment… she was absolutely terrified of the huge dragon, but something clicked inside her heart that gave her the strength to stand up to him and get him to move along. “Yes, I remember it… I couldn’t just sit back and watch him hurt you all.”

“Exactly! See what I mean?”

“although you all DID kind of force me up that mountain…” Fluttershy seemed to be holding a bit of a grudge against that, but her facial expression made it apparent that she didn’t mean to let that slip out.

Applejack had an awkward look of her own appear from her short statement, “Well… you know what, you’re right about that… I won’t tell you that you’re wrong about that… But if we hadn’t brought you along we’d be dragon chow by now!” she gave Fluttershy a gently nudge, “you have a special talent… and you’re a special person to us. You have more ability than you give yourself credit for.”

Fluttershy sighed, turning away, “I suppose…”

“We won’t force you to fight… I promise… but we’d really appreciate your support; in any way you can give it.”

Fluttershy turned back to her friend, now a look of worry filling her eyes, “Are you going to go and fight?”

Applejack was quiet for a moment… she had given it thought, but she seemed uncertain, “I don’t know… I want to help out, but I think I might stay at the farm… maybe donate food to those fightin’, but I can’t just leave Big Macintosh to take care of Apple bloom and Granny Smith by himself… not t’mention the farm. I think I would do more good there anyway.”

Fluttershy smile a little, “I’m glad… I think it would be best for you to stay there with your family.”

“Yeah… me too. I’m a family mare as it were, heh…” she smiled a little, suddenly receiving a big hug from her friend. She gladly returned the affection, holding each other like two old friends.

The next day the girls got a letter to meet up at Sugarcube corner, Twilight was heading back home to Ponyville and let them know she would be there soon. The girls gather inside, with Pinkie Pie already gathering drink and breakfast for everyone to enjoy while they waited. It wasn’t long before Twilight walked inside to join the girls. They exchanged a quick good morning to one another, no one was too excited to see her, since they knew what would need to be discussed now that she arrived.

“So Twilight, is Celestia okay now?” Pinkie placed a plate of food in front of her before returning to her seat.

“Yes, she’s awake and feeling much better.” Twilight levitated the fork full of eggs to her mouth, eagerly taking a bite.

“Great! I hope she enjoys my super special ‘Get Well Soon’ gift” Pinkie seemed happy about it, but everyone else stared at her, worried about her mystery gift.

“Uh, please tell me it won’t like…” she paused, trying to comprehend what could possibly be in this box of pinkie magic, “Explode or anything, will it?”

Pinkie giggled, “No, silly, not this time. Just a few cupcakes and a card.” The group let out a sigh of relief.

“Okay, well… What did she say about what she wants us to do?” Rainbow seemed curious about what she wanted to have done…

Twilight nodded, knowing it was something that needed to be discussed thoroughly, “Well, she said we just need to talk to everyone about what’s going on and drum up some support… I’ve come up with some ideas, if you’re interested…” the girls nodded, listening quietly to Twilight. She began to list off ideas for everyone to contribute. Rarity would make promotion patches, Pinkie would hold bake sales, with the help of Applejack. Rainbow dash would create promotions in the clouds. Rarity offered to get some strong fabric to help make more clothes for those who would actually do the fighting. Rainbow Dash offered to keep watch from high in the clouds to keep Ponyville safe, and Applejack offered to build a barrier around the town to hopefully slow down any attackers if they were to come their way.

“Um… h-how can I help?” Fluttershy asked softly when she found the opportunity. The group seemed quiet. The others glanced around the room, as if hoping for someone else to give an answer… there didn’t seem to be one on anyone’s mind.

Finally Twilight tried to get something out into the room of silent ponies. “Um, well you could always help Rainbow Dash put up the promotions with the clouds… You’re probably more artistic and… articulate when you do something.”

“Hey! I’m artsy” Dash interrupted, looking around the room for support… none came.

“Well, I’m sure you’d appreciate the help, get it done more quickly…” The idea of finishing a job early intrigued the rainbow pony. “what do you think fluttershy?”

“I-I suppose… It might be fun.” She said with a little smile. The rest of the group smiled, glad that she could join in and assist. “But what about you Twilight? What did you have planned?”

“Well… The princess said she had some special ideas in mind… I have no idea what she means though.”

“Well, I’m sure it’s something important. She’d only give you the most important tasks to take care of.” Rarity sipped her beverage once before continuing, “Do you think it’ll be something soon?”

“Who knows? It could be today, or six weeks from now…” she sighed, continuing to eat, “To be honest, I’ve been thinking about this all morning… lets try talking about something else…”

The others seemed to agree, and began trying to find other topics to discuss…

Ch 5. Search for help.

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War over the sun Ch 5

A few days passed and all seemed fairly calm. The dragons hadn’t made any moves as far as anyone could tell, although nopony dared leave their borders to investigate. The ponies of Ponyville continued to gather support in their own ways, managing to gather a couple of ponies who wanted to join in the direct fight, while others were kind enough to donate their time and money. The mane six gather at Sugarcube corner once again to talk more about their plans.

“So everypony is doing well?” Twilight asked to start their little meeting.

Pinkie bounced eagerly in her seat, “Yeah! I’ve been selling cupcakes like crazy!”

“Pinkie you ALWAYS sell cupcakes like crazy” Rainbow pointed out, rolling her eyes at her comment. However she did have a little smile on her face.

“Am I the only one thinking of a double meaning in that statement?” Rarity grinned slightly, and within a second Twilight burst out into giggles.

“I thought I was the only one!” Rarity and twilight began to laugh together while the others looked on in confusion. Applejack finally let out a little chuckle, joining the other two.

“Wait, are you thinking I meant ‘Pinkie is selling them like SHE’S crazy’?” Rainbow looked around, hoping for some help with the grammar joke. The girls began to laugh harder now; it was always funnier when someone didn’t get the joke.

Applejack was the only one with enough composure to respond, “Yes Dash, that’s the joke.” Pinkie Pie started to giggle as well, and soon the entire group was laughing together.

“What’s going on in here?” Spike was standing in the doorway, a little confused at why the girls were laughing so much.

Twilight wiped a tear from her eye, still chuckling, “Nothing Spike, we’re fine… What’s up?”

Spike decided to ignore the craziness and get on with their business, “I got a letter from the princess! She has a job for you guys!”

The group quieted quickly, now all eyes were on his as he unrolled the letter and began to read. “Dear Twilight, Rainbow, Rarity, Pinkie, Applejack, and Fluttershy, I have seen the work you’ve been putting in since you’ve arrived back to Ponyville, and I’m grateful that you’ve helped so much. But I have my own guards coming there soon to continue the effort. Now I would like you all to help with a special assignment to start on very soon.” Spike glanced up from the paper, seeing the looks on everyone’s face…

Twilight had a look of eager determination; as if she wanted accomplish whatever this task was to impress her teacher and make her proud. She already accepted the task in her mind, and she would do anything and everything to make sure it was done right.

Rainbow Dash also had an eager look on her face, but the grin on her face seemed like she would get more personal satisfaction out of it. Maybe she was thinking of a battle, knocking some dragons out of the sky, or drag one back to Celestia by his toenails. She wanted to knock someone around at least.

Rarity had a curious look on her face, she wasn’t expecting anything, and yet she suspected everything. She was uncertain about what they could possibly do now that would have such an effect on this fight for Equestria. However uncertain she may have been, she was interested in finding out what they would be doing.

Pinkie Pie was hard to read… she seemed eager, but she always did. She had a smile on her face, but it wasn’t one that seemed any different than any other smile she had. It was kind of creepy at how this situation didn’t seem to have an effect on her.

Applejack was more distant than the others. She was willing to listen, but she had pretty much made the decision to stay on the farm and help her family. Her eyes glanced around at the others, trying to gauge their reactions. She wanted to know what her friends had planned.

Fluttershy looked absolutely terrified. She feared the worst of course, even before anything was actually said. She shivered at her horrible thoughts… but she hoped for the best.

Spike looked back down at the paper in front of him and continued, “I was thinking of your friends and I recall you mentioning your friend Zecura. I know of a group of zebra tribe far to the south in the Dry Plains. I haven’t had much contact with them, so it may take some time and effort, but I would like to ask them to help if they could. I have direction leading you to them. just do you best and come to me if you need any help.” Spike rolled up the letter and pocketed it, the girls looked around the room, trying to figure out everyone elses opinions on the assignment just from the looks on their faces.

“I think it sounds fine…” Fluttershy admitted, smiling a little, “I mean… I think it’s better than going out to fight… maybe one of them knows Zecura! That might help us get them to help us out.”

The others seemed to agree, feeling comfortable with the idea of this project, especially Twilight, “Okay, maybe we should go talk to Zecura, maybe she’ll want to join us.”

“That sounds like a reasonable idea.” Rarity gave her a nod, “I’m sure she’ll agree to help us.”

“No.” she didn’t give them a cryptic rhyme, or even a smile for that matter. Zecura simply gave them a No with no explanation.

The girls stood outside her home, their shocked expressions apparently not moving the zebra. The group seemed to be waiting for more, but when she remained silent for a moment, Twilight finally spoke up. “B-but, we need your help.” She stammered, a bit surprised but the way she responded.

“Your intentions, are kind this I know. My family is not one I wish to see, so you can go along without me.” Somehow she finished the rhyme of her first statement, and still continued on. It was still odd to hear her rhyme in casual conversation, although it would sound eve more odd to heard her talk normally at this point.

“Maybe we can help you get back together with your family! I’m sure we can fix things if there’s a problem.”

“A solution to my issues is not one to be found. I will remain here, and I’ll see you around. I wish you the best on your future endeavors, and I wish you happiness forever.” She closed the door gently, leaving the others stunned outside.

“Well… That could have gone better…” Twilight was still in a bit of a shock, she had put all her assumption on this working, now that it failed nothing about her seemed to be functioning correctly.

“Yeah, no kidding, Sherlock…” Rainbow was getting riled up again, taking to the air suddenly, “What now?”

“Well… I suppose our only option NOW is to go ahead and try to talk to the zebra tribes ourselves… see if we can convince them without Zecura…”

“I bet this is going to be fun…” Rainbow shook her head and started heading back to town, “We were planning on heading out tomorrow right?” Rainbow didn’t seem to be sticking around for the others, but since she was holding the conversation the others decided to follow in order to keep up with everything.

Twilight caught up before continuing the conversation, “Yeah… tomorrow morning, by train to Appleloosa and then walking to the plains…”

“Alright, so who’s actually going?” Rainbow turned her head, looking for anyone who might be backing out.

“I can’t,” Applejack spoke up first, “Sorry girls… but I gotta stick around the farm with my family.”

“That’s very noble of you Applejack.” Rarity respected her decision, she had thought long and hard about her own family, “I’d like to go along with the others… Sweetie Belle will be fine with our parents while I’m gone.”

“WOO! I’m so glad you’re going too Rarity!” Pinkie bounced alongside the group, having recovered quickly from Zecura’s rejection. “This is gonna be fun!”

Twilight was beginning to see problems already… She knew she shouldn’t judge her friend like this, in fact it was one of the letters she had to write to her teacher, but something seemed to nag at the back of her head. “Pinkie we need to think this through… We need to think of a way to get the zebras to believe in us and help us.”

“Easy! We give them a giant buffet of sugary awesome!” the crest of her bounces seemed to get higher now, reaching to Rainbow’s casual floating height.

“Uh… well yeah, an offering of food might help… but we need something else.” Twilight turned to Fluttershy, giving her a smile. Fluttershy’s eyes widened, knowing that the attention was shifting to her. She didn’t have time to respons though, or even time to whimper at the thought of being involved. Applejack stepped in front of Twilight’s gaze, “Yeah, some diplomacy, I’m sure you could think of something…”

“Well, yes, I might…” she crooked her head back, trying to make eye contact with the yellow pony behind Applejack, “But I was thinking Fluttershy might be good at talking them into helping us.”

“Have you asked her yet?” Applejack asked her friend, her eyebrow cocked as she gave her a bit of a glare.. She couldn’t help but want to defend her friend. She knew she was scared, and didn’t want to be a part of most of this.

“Uh… well I suppose I haven’t… Um, Fluttershy?” Applejack moved away, letting twilight look at Fluttershy. She seemed quiet… staring off to the side of twilight, already thinking of the answer to the question that she knew was coming, “Would you mind coming with us and helping us talk to the Zebras?”

She was quiet for a moment… everyone seemed silent as well, listening for an answer… “Will there be fighting?”

Twilight didn’t answer right away, double checking her thoughts, “There shouldn’t be… we go in, talk to them, and hopefully they say they will help… if not, we go home… no fighting…” Fluttershy seemed to be thinking of the worst case scenario… she didn’t reply for a while, “Zecura talked about her people… They are trained to fight… but they would never start a fight without a reason…”

“What if they found a reason?”

“You remember Zecura… we broke into her home and said she ate Apple Bloom, after all that she didn’t attack us.” Twilight smiled, feeling her evidence supported her idea well.

“Well… yes, that’s true…” her head raised a little, feeling a bit more confident, “and she’s helped us out a lot… maybe her family is the same way?”

“Probably! And I’m sure if we told them we know Zecura than they’ll come and join us without hesitation!” Twilight smiled brightly, seeing her growing more comfortable with the idea.

“Well… I-I suppose I might be able to help out…” she replied with a little smile.

“WOO! This’ll be great!” Pinkie pie pulled her feathery yellow friend into her arms, hugging her happily, “Well, that’s almost everyone… We’ll miss you while we’re gone Applejack.” her arms surrounded her other pony friend, hugging Applejack now.

“heh, calm down Pinkie, you don’t leave til tomorrow… you can say goodbye to me then… “ AJ patted Pinkie gently as she was hugged, “Besides, if you want to bake enough sweets for the Zebras, you should get started soon right?”

Pinkie let out an overzealous gasp, “You’re RIGHT! I’m gonna go ahead and get started! See you girls tomorrow!” she rushed off out of the forest, disappearing from sight.

“I suppose we’ll all meet up at Sugarcube Corner again in the morning… You all get some rest.” Twilight broke off from the group, heading home.

“You too dear! I don’t want to see you look like you did the other morning!” Rarity called out to her, heading the same direction to head to her home. The others headed off to their own homes, preparing to rest up for the night.

Morning arrived fast, no one wanted to get up, but they all forced themselves to get up. Twilight was up around sunrise, looking around, “Spike? Spike you here?” she called out, looking around the room. His bed was empty, so she began to grow worried. “Spiiiike!” she called out as she searched. She found a big pile of scrolls on the floor. With Spike lying in the center of them, fast asleep. She recalled this scene before at the castle… she was curious about the contents of the scrolls, but she didn’t want to invade his privacy. Instead she used her magic to organize the scrolls, and place spike in bed, leaving a reminder that she would be gone. She realized she was running late, and rushed out with her saddlebags packed.

She walked into sugarcube corner, hearing stifled giggles coming from the kitchen. She quietly walked in, about to ask what was going on, but she was quickly hushed by Rarity, who seemed like she was about to burst out into laughter at any moment. The girls were gathered together, all looking at something… Twilight quickly made her way around the group, taking a look at what was going on… and now she too was stricken with the desire to burst out laughing.

Across the room were cupcakes and mini pies and cookies and all sorts of goodies. The dirty dishes were tossed in the sink, still covered in leftover dough. In the middle of the room, lying on a half filled bag of flour was Pinkie Pie, sleeping soundly. Twilight snorted quietly, trying not to laugh. She couldn’t recall a time when she saw Pinkie sleeping… or staying still for that matter. She seemed surprisingly peaceful for Pinkie, it was so unlike her. Maybe that’s why it was so funny. It was ironic and strange to see her like this… although it didn’t last long. Fluttershy let out a few soft giggles, causing a chain reaction to happen. Slowly everypony started to giggle, but it quickly escalated to laughing hysterically. Pinkie pie shifted, opening her eyes and seeing the others, “Hey! What’s so funny?”

The girls couldn’t respond, they just continued to laugh, falling over onto each other. “I can’t breath!” Rainbow dash exclaimed between fits of laughter. Pinkie just naturally joined in with the laughter, the group enjoying their time with one another.

After a while the group calmed down a bit, wiping the tears from their eyes, “so… I see you’ve been baking a lot, pinkie…” Twilight sniffed, trying to control herself once more, “I don’t know if we’ll be able to take it all with us….”

“hehe, I dunno, I’ll try to pack them up real quick and see how much we can carry…” pinkie smiled, letting out a little sigh to help recover from her laughing fit.

With the bags packed and ready, the group moved their things to the train station, gathering into the next train headed for Apploosa. The group tried to keep things light and cheerful; the last thing they wanted was to get in a gloomy mood before setting out on their mission. There time in Apploosa was brief; they grabbed a carriage and gathered their things inside, taking turns pulling the massive load.

After a couple hours, twilight took a look at their map, “looks like we should be reaching Zebra territory soon… We’ve already left buffalo territory…” she took a look around, seeing a few worn out paths, probably their stampeding grounds. The land seemed to be much more flat out here; with light vegetation here an there… mostly grass layered ontop of the dry earth.

“Stop right there Ponies!” called out a voice ahead of them. Rainbow Dash obliged more so out of being startled than by cooperation. The others poked their head out to see who it was that called to them.

A tall Zebra stood on the side of the path, glaring at them, “What business do you have in Zebra territory?” he stood there in a strong, unmoving stance. He looked intimidating from his size. Although he was very lean, his muscles were clear to see and his height rivaled Applejack’s big brother. He wore many rings around his legs, neck and ears, like those Zecura had. His eyes seemed to resemble a much kinder zebra though, a bright shade of blue… it seemed strange to have such soft eyes on the body of such a menacing creature.

However, Rainbow Dash seemed to stand up to him “Whoa! Calm down Zebra boy! We’re just-“ Rarity used her magic to tighten the reigns around Rainbow’s mouth, quieting her before she said something they’d regret.

Twilight quickly got out of the carriage and approached him, “Uh, H-hello Sir, we uh.. We were coming to hopefully speak with your leader… we come by the order’s of Princess Celestia an-“

He huffed loudly, “You can take your princesses order and shove them in a cave. We do not bow to her.”

Twilight gulped, “I uh, I understand that you are not exactly within Equestria, but you see, we’re on the brink of a war, so we-“

“You want soldiers? So rather than sacrificing your OWN people you thought you could gather us up to be wiped out first?”

“NO! No we just… We need help, anything you’re willing to offer! Your people are in danger too! See, the dragons-“

He interrupted her again, “I know of what the dragons are up to, and we don’t care… We know about our geography, and if the dragons did indeed stop the sun we would still get daylight, so we don’t care about your problems.”

“Surely you must know that even eternal day would be harmful, all you water would dry up and-“

“WHAT WATER?” he bellowed, causing Twilight to jump back, “We haven’t seen rain in months! Your Pegasus ponies have been sending all the clouds around Equestria, and leaving us dry! Our lakes have becom mudholes, unfit for drinking, and are crops are barely able to survive in there conditions. If it weren’t for a spring underground we’d be dead months ago! And even then we’ve had to ration it sparingly. We want nothing to do with you Ponies. Leave our land and never return!”

Twilight found her legs frozen in place by fear. She didn’t know what to do now… she couldn’t leave, but she was being demanded to go. The others watched silently, even Rainbow Dash found herself unable to move… however one pony took a step forward.

“You have beautiful eyes sir…” Fluttershy took a step forward. The zebra glared at her, finding her flirting to be a insult… “I bet your wife admires them.”

This comment started him, “Wh-what? How do you know about her?”

She pointed to one of the many rings on his leg, one that seemed like two rings spiraled together, “That’s a ring that represents the bonding of two Zebras, isn’t it?”

He lifted his hoof, looking at the ring, “Yes, yes it is…”

“You’ve been married for three years now?” She asked, noticing a couple mark on the rings.

He hesitated to answer, looking between her and the ring, “That’s right.” He was too surprised by her knowledge to put up his tough façade. He just sort of stared at her unsure of how to respond.

“I bet your children have your eyes too.” The other girls just stared in disbelief as Fluttershy spoke with the Zebra, she didn’t seem intimidated at all, and she knew so much… it was unbelievable.

He smiled a little, his hoof lifting 5 rings around his neck, “Let me guess, you knew because of these?”

She smiled a little, giving him a nod, “Yes, three boys and two girls, is that right?”

“Yes! That’s absolutely right…” his smile quickly faded though, and his big tough voice came out again, “You must have read up on Zebra culture on your way over here…” he gave her a glare, but she didn’t seem to be bother by it.

“Well, no, actually… A zebra lives just a little ways away from me… I visit her often and she taught me a lot about her culture… Um… Zuba keekway ushulum!”

The zebra seemed surprised by her babbling. He gave her a little grin, as if he accepted a challenge. He gave her a short reply in their language, still grinning.

Fluttershy nodded, “Cho, Yome teh cofcote.”

His smiled broadened, “Ochi may qwuest ca teh?”

The two continued back and forth, speaking in the zebra language until finally the zebra burst out into laughter, “I’m surprised you can speak our language so fluently… I thought maybe that you learned a few phrases on the way here… or that one of your unicorn friends was helping you with a spell… but you carry a conversation too well for it to be a hoax.”

“I find your culture fascinating to be honest… It’s very interesting… I wish we could talk more, but we really do need to discuss some other things first…” his smile faded at Fluttershy’s topic change… but his hard glared didn’t return, “We aren’t asking you to donate your time for nothing… we just want to try and discuss a way to make everyone happy.”

“I see… Well, I suppose it would be best to talk to the chief about this…” he said as he looked off into the distance, “Alright… I’ll ask if he wishes to speak with you… don’t be surprised if he refuses to let you talk to him…” his anger and ferocity seemed to vanish, although it was apparent he still wasn’t happy. He turned and motioned for the group to follow. The girls quickly gathered into the carriage, all crowding around Fluttershy.

“Fluttershy that was AMAZING!” Twilight said with a gleeful smile, “I had no idea you knew so much about Zebras!”

She blushed, shying away from them a bit, but she clearly had a smile on her face, “As I said… Zecura and I talk a lot…” The girls continue to praise Fluttershy for her work, Rarity even started to ask about the culture herself… Or at least the fashion sense they had.

The zebra led them to their village, which in actuality was a fairly big place. It wasn’t quite as modern or big as Apploosa, but the homes were well constructed and there seemed to be plenty of small businesses around where the zebras could barter for goods. At the far end of town sat a large tree, and like Twilight’s library, it seemed to have been hollowed out to allow a family to live inside. The zebra leading them slowed his pace as they entered town to avoid running into anyone. However at the sight of the carriage and the Pegasus pulling it, the Zebras seemed to quickly move out of the street, eying it cautiously with an uncertain look in their eyes.

Again, Rainbow couldn’t stand the silence, “So uh, Buddy… I don’t think we ever properly introduced ourselves… My name is Rainbow Dash.”

“Rainbow Dash? Hm… that name sounds familiar… My name is Shaleel. It means ‘quick foot’ in our language…” he paused momentarily, still processing her name in his head, “Wait, are you the one who performed the Sonic Rainboom?”

She couldn’t suppress the smile appearing on her face, “Yes! That’s me! I’ve done it TWICE in fact!” she seemed pretty proud of that fact.

“Yes, I’ve heard… word of such fascinating phenomenon spread fast in our land. I had hoped to do the same as a young colt… I’ve become the fastest zebra known in the land because of my ambitions… but I’ve never come close to going sonic speeds.” He seemed a little disappointed, but he knew it was impossible.

Rainbow Dash admired his ambition, and tried to cheer him up, “Hey, don’t be like that… You’re still the fastest around here, so that’s really cool!”

“Yes, I suppose it is ‘cool’… Maybe you and I could race before you leave…” he turned around and gave her another challenging grin.

She returned the look, a gleam in her eyes, “The fastest of Equestria versus the fastest in the Dry Plains? Hehe, sounds like fun!”

He continued to grin, heading toward the tree, “although I find it a bit unfair that you can fly… of course you would go faster in the air… so why not just try running?”

“Well, I’m better at flying… but I’m still pretty fast on my feet…” she had a challenging tone, as if saying ‘I’m still better than you without my wings’.

“heh, we shall see… for now, I believe you have business to attend to.” Shaleel stopped outside the large doors into the tree, “Wait out here while I talk to the chief.” He headed inside while the girls waited, gathering out around the door.

“Okay, so what exactly do we have to offer these zebras?” Rarity looked at the others, her brow raised.

“Sweets! Remember?” Pinkie pulled out one of the cupcakes she baked and popped it into her mouth.

Rarity rolled her eyes at Pinkie, “I mean long term offerings… Surely you came up with something, Twilight”

Twilight bit her lip, “well… I was hoping we could talk about it… maybe a trade system between Apploosa and the zebras? I dunno, we’ll talk to see how things go…”

“Wait, the Princess didn’t give you ANYTHING to work with before we got here?” Fluttershy seemed shocked that they came here basically unarmed.

“Don’t worry… we seem to be having some luck… do you know of anything that they might want? You seem to know more about their culture more than any of us…”

Fluttershy thought quietly… “Well… They like Rings… mostly to show off their family and their social status… Different designs mean different things, but they cherish them a lot…”

“What are they made of? Gold?” Rarity seemed curious, and eager to help as well with her knowledge of fashion.

“Mostly, but sometimes they just make them out of whatever they can find… string, rope, grass… It’s a preference thing…”

“Well that might be something! I could offer to make them exquisite rings! I’m sure their chief will admire a nice diamond encrusted ring or two!” Rarity seemed to have diamonds in her eyes as she spoke, imagining the creations in her head.

“Oh, well, see, its just that-…” before Fluttershy could say anything, Shaleel returned to them.

“The chief will see you… I’ll let you know he doesn’t seem very happy.” He figured they seemed okay, and deserved a word of warning…

“Okay, thank you… Oh! We brought gifts! Pastries and sweets to offer…” she motioned to the boxes behind her, to which Shalees inspected,

“Hm, alright, let me get some help for those…” he walked to the door, calling inside. Two zebras came out and helped carry the boxes inside. However Rainbow Dash and Shaleel remained outside. “You aren’t going to join your friends?”

“Eh, I’m not much of a talker… I think I’ll just stay out here and hang around the carriage…” She replied with a shrug.

“Would you want to race like we discussed?” his grin returned, and a fire in his eyes seemed to shine brightly.

Rainbow couldn’t help but smile, “Lead me to the starting line and tell me where you want to meet me at when I BEAT YOU!”

He laughed heartily at her enthusiasm, “Than let’s go, Rainbow Dash… Let’s see if the rumors are true…” he led her out of town, while the others headed up to the chiefs royal chamber.

He stood tall as a noble would, looking down at the ponies from his high throne. It wasn’t laced with gold or jewels, just fine fabric lining his seat. It seemed warm and comfortable. “So… I understand Princess Celestia has sent you…”

Twilight stepped forward, nodding, “Yes sir, we were sent by her… We uh, brought gifts!” she stated, motioning toward the sweets.

The Chief walked down from his throne, sniffing the treats. “Hm… Would you mind joining me for one?”

“Of course!” Pinkie jumped over to the box and popped two into her mouth. Twilight used her magic to quickly pull her aside, quickly apologizing for her outburst.

“I-I am so sorry about that… she uh… she like treats…” Twilight let out a dry laugh, trying to smile.

The chief was amused by the pink one, “No that’s fine… please, you can join me too.” He said, grabbing a random cupcake out of the box.

Twilight did the same, nervously holding it close, preparing to take a bite. But the chief stopped her, “That one seems tastier… would you mind?” Twilight was a bit confused, but agreed, trading the cupcakes. She took a bite of hers without hesitation, easing the mind of the chief, who was concerned about the possibility of poison in the gifts. He was a leader of his people, so there were bound to be those after his life. Nevertheless he took a bit of the cupcake that was given to him and smiled, “This is delicious… I have to admit…” he motioned his guards over, letting them take a couple. “Who baked these?”

“I did!” Pinkie bounced to his side, taking another pair out and eating them quickly.

“Hm, I should have guessed…” he grinned, taking another cupcake and taking a big bite, “but I know you didn’t come here to share sweets…”

“Well, yes… We were… hoping to talk to you about lending a hoof for us…”

“Why?” he said simply, taking another bite as he listened to Twilight.

“W-well… Dragons have invaded and the plan to take control of the sun… It’ll destroy everything in one way or another-“

“We can adapt” he pointed out, “We have adapted to hardships, and we will continue to adapt…” he said in a flat tone.

“Y-yes… I’ve heard that you’ve adapted to… many hardships-“

“Drought, famine, sickness… yes, plenty of hardships,” he wasn’t being particularly mean about it, but he was obviously not happy.

“Y-yes, I’ve heard…”

“And now that your ponies are looking their own hardship in the eye, they fear it and don’t want to face it alone… so you want help.”

“W-well, in a way, yes… B-but we’re willing to offer help to your people as well! Anything that you can think of, we’re willing to offer help to your people. All we ask is for help in any way you can offer it.”

“I am not.” He said simply, “I haven’t heard a word from Celestia in years. She must have known about our ‘hardships’… and yet not until this moment when she believes she needs help, does she come to us to offer help…” the room was silent… Even Pinkie Pie had a half eaten cupcake in her hoof, but she didn’t dare take another bite, or even chew the bite in her mouth for fear of making a noise. “I cannot believe in a leader who is so… so uncaring for anyone not under her rule… So I will refuse any offer she has, and I will have none of my people serve for her.”

“B-but sir! She does care! She’s just… been preoccupied for a while… She does care and WE care!”

“I don’t think you do… I’ve heard stories of common pony folk from my daughter living in your land… uncaring, deceitful, and ungrateful… Your people shunned my daughter and claimed she used black magic on them with no evidence, but suddenly when she offered them the cure, oh they were MORE than eager to be friendly to them… Only when she had something to offer you did you show her any kindness or care.”

“That sounds like Zecura!” The other ponies had the same idea… but Pinkie was the only one to speak it out… they knew the reaction to this would be… less than pleasant.

The chief’s eyes widened, “you know my daughter?”

“Yeah! She lived just outside Ponyville!” The girls looked at her, begging her to stop talking with their eyes, “We actually got her to cure us of Poison joke! It was kinda funny looking back on it, but she was really sweet once we got to know her.”

“But before that you shunned her! Claimed she was an evil enchantress, and only when she offered to help you did you decide she was worth calling your equal.” He raised his voice, standing high above the ponies, “I want nothing more to do with you ponies… I want you to leave by morning and not a moment later. I want nothing to do with your people and we will endure our own problems like we always have. And you should work on doing the same… now leave!”

The ponies felt defeated; uncertain of how to fix the situation now… they simply nodded and left quietly to their carriage. Twilight took a look back before the door closed, noticing the chief waving the box of treats away. The two guards seemed unhappy that they had to throw away the tasty gifts… but the took it and left…

The four gathered by the carriage, assuming that somepony would have a plan for their next move… but they were all fairly silent for some time, “Um… I wonder if we can find a hotel around here…” Rarity finally spoke up amongst the silent ponies.

“Even if we could, I doubt that anyone would let us stay…” Twilight mumbled, looking down at the ground, “If he hates us this much, I’m sure his people don’t like us either…

“What’s that?” Fluttershy’s words seemed to come from nowhere… but the other looked around, spotting two dots in the distance, kicking up a lot of dirt… and heading straight for them…

Out in the plains, Shaleel led Rainbow dash to a fairly large boulder poking out of the ground. “So then Rainbow Dash… we start together here… and we race to the plateau in the distance… then we come back, and the first one to touch the carriage will be known as the fastest in the world…” he grinned a little at her, but she simply grinned back

“Alright Shaleel… I won’t even fly to try and beat you…” she descended and stepped down to his level, lining herself up to him, “Are you ready?”

“Oh I am… Are you sure you want to risk embarrassing yourself?” he asked, moving a smalle rock behind him, “I’m going to kick this rock against that boulder, making it fly high into the air… when it touches the earth, we start… deal?”

“You can start right now and I’ll give you a head start if you want to.”

“heh, your confidence could be your downfall Dash… we shall do this fairly…” with a hard kick of his leg, the rock flew into the boulder, and just as he predicted, reflected and flew high into the air. The two took their position and waited, watching each other carefully. The tension between the two was thick… but the tension was shattered as the rock fell to the ground, sending the two flying. Rainbow was shocked at how much distance he gained in a matter of seconds. She had to push herself harder than usual to catch up. She closed the gap slowly, already giving it her all just to catch up to him. He looked back, grinning, “You tired already Dash?” he called out to her, “Or is it that you LIKE the look of my backside?” he waved his tail at her mockingly, teasing her.

She growled, pushing herself harder to catch up with the Zebra ahead of her. He laughed, turning back ahead, continue his quick pace. The two approached the wall of rock ahead. Shaleel began to slow himself down, in an attempt to hit the rock wall and bounce away without hurting himself. His front hooves landed against the wall, and he pushed himself off to get going in the opposite direction… however he didn’t see Rainbow Dash. He looked around, then up, seeing her flying above him. She had run full speed into the wall, jumping up, running up the wall briefly before pushing herself off, gilding back toward the ground, maintaining her speed as she descended, landing and running off, “Hey! You said no flying!”

“I wasn’t! I was gliding! There’s a difference!” she called out, running quickly toward the town.

“That won’t stop me!” he yelled at her, closing the gap quickly. By the time he caught up to her they were approaching the town, she could see the carriage ahead. She closed her eyes, pushing all her muscles to their limits, forcing her legs to do more work than ever before. Shaleel was doing the same, sweat pouring from his body. The two were tied, rushing toward the carriage. In a flash the two slammed into the side of the carriage, collapsing to the ground together in a pile of sweat. They breathed heavily, unable to speak. The other ponies standing around them just stared silently.

Finally after a moment, Rainbow dash spoke up, “I-I won!” she said out loud, letting out a laugh.

“No… No way!” he replied, poking her side, “I got here first!” he started to laugh as well, enjoying the competitive game they had.

“Uh… are you two okay?” Fluttershy was unsure of what was going on, and was concerned about her friend.

“We’re okay… I just had to prove that I am the superior speedster around here.” She said, looking at Shaleel.

“Oh you know you cheated back there, I obviously won that race.” He replied with a big smile, “I can’t be beaten.”

“You just were! Hehe.” She leaned against the carriage, still catching her breath.

“Um… I think you both crashed at the same time…” Twilight butted in, trying to end the argument.

“heh, okay… a tie I can live with.” Shaleel said laughing again.

“Yeah… I can accept that, I guess.” Rainbow replied, joining in the laughter, “Oh wait, how did the uh… thingy go?” the blood wasn’t getting to her head, so she couldn’t think of the right words at the moment.

“Well, we were kicked out…” Twilight said with a frown. “They won’t negotiate with us.”

“Oh… crap… I’m sorry…” she replied, starting to get her mind around all this.

“I’m sorry.” Shaleel sat up, frowning at the group, “I was sure he wouldn’t be very agreeable…”

“and now we’re stuck in a town that hates us…” Rarity let out a huff, grumpy about the situation, “and it’s almost dark, we’ll never get to appaloosa in time…”

“Well… I have room… we can let you stay in our spare room.” Shaleel offered, looking at them.

The group looked at him with a shocked expression. Rainbow was the first to speak up, “You would do that for us?”

He nodded, “You don’t seem so bad… you’re nice ponies… you came all this way to help your people, and offered gifts without getting anything in return… I can’t be mad at you…” Shaleel took a stand, wobbling a little, “It’s no problem to me.”

“Won’t you have to talk to your wife about it first?” Fluttershy asked quietly.

He sighed, “That was a long time ago… I just haven’t gotten rid of the ring.” He explained, taking a breath before starting off toward home.

The girls looked at each other nervously. They weren’t sure what he meant by that… but they decided not to ask… instead they just followed behind, pulling the carriage with them…

Ch 6. Her first and last fight.

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War over the Sun Ch 6

The girls were quite as they followed Shaleel down the beaten path through town, passing by still concerned onlookers. They were a bit shaken up by Shaleels comment about his wife, although they were still unsure as to what had happened to her. They decided just to keep quite for now and follow him home.

The door opened before Shaleel could even reach out to push it open, five small zebras rushed out to see him, calling out to him in their native tongue. He laughed and greeted them all, nuzzling their heads gently. However it didn’t take them long to notice the other ponies behind him. They grew quieter, whispering to their father cautiously. The five ponies just smiled, trying to put on friendly faces for them.

Shaleel stepped aside to let the children see the ponies, “Children, these are Daddy’s new friends. Say hello.” The children nervously said hello to them in Equestrian, still a bit unsure. “I’m sorry for their behavior. They’ve never seen ponies like you all before… I think it’s a new experience for them.”

“Aw, they’re adorable Mister Shaleel.” Fluttershy said with a little smile, approaching the kids. She kneeled down and said something in their native tongue, again, leaving the other ponies in the dark as to what she was saying. Whatever it was that she was talking to them about, it seemed to warm the children up to Fluttershy, as well as her friends.

“Come inside everyone, it’s getting dark… I have soup cooking inside, and I have plenty for everyone.” He held the door open for his guests and children, making sure everyone got in. “Aluu, get inside please.” One of his children seemed distracted, running around outside. However when his father called, he reluctantly headed back in.

The inside of Shaleel’s hut looked very similar in style to Zecura’s, however it seemed a bit messier, although it was harder to tell. There weren’t may potion bottles laying around, but they did seemed more scattered and out of place, “Excuse my mess, it’s hard keeping the house clean with five little ones running around.” He chuckled a little, heading to a kettle that was simmering over embers. “Please sit and make yourselves comfortable.”

Everyone took a spot nearby, except for Rarity. She seemed a bit… unsettled by the mess, and the dirt floor beneath their hooves. “Um, Please excuse for just a moment girls…” she excused herself out for a moment, heading to the carriage.

The other seemed to get pretty comfortable, considering their next move. Twilight was already getting ideas, “Well, I think our best option now would be to go to the princess and tell her how things went.”

“Couldn’t we just send her a letter like we usually do?” Fluttershy laid herself down a large rug, keeping her head up to continue the conversation, “Canterlot is awfully far away.”

Twilight shook her head, “No, we need spike to send a letter… I can’t send a letter through magic this far from Canterlot… I can’t focus in that well from here.”

“I could take it.” The group turned to Rainbow Dash, a bit surprised by the idea, “I mean I could get it there in a day and come back the next with a reply… Maybe she’ll want us to try something different, we don’t want to have to go ALL the way back to Canterlot just to come ALL the way back here…” she elaborated the long trip by swaying to one side then ALL the way to the other side, nearly tipping over. no one seemed to object the idea yet, so she continued, “I’ll zip on over there with a letter saying what’s going on, and zip on back… Hey! I can drop by Applejacks and let her know how thing’s are going. Maybe she can talk to Zecura and see if she can give us some advice.”

Shaleels ears perked as the name, “Zecura?” he mumbled through the ladle in his mouth, stirring the soup once more before putting it down, “You don’t mean the daughter of the Chief do you?”

Pink nodded, “Yeah! Apparently, we didn’t know it, but apparently she is. He recognized her pretty quickly when we mentioned that we were the ponies she mentioned in her letters.”

Twilight gave her a blank stare, “You mean when YOU admitted that we were the ones in her letters…” She still wasn’t too happy about that… but she wouldn’t hold a grudge.

Shaleel nodded, “Ah, I’ve heard of the letters…”

“Y-you have?” Twilight was a bit worried now, If the chief kicked them out because of the letters, he might too…

“Yes, I have… I believe the chief may have overreacted a bit…” Shaleels statement relieved twilight a bit, but she stayed quiet as more was to be said, “I believe Zecura’s letter consisted of much praise to you ponies; having fun and so forth. Although it was your first encounter with Zecura that seemed to leave a bad taste in the Chief’s mouth.”

Rainbow Dash quietly listened to Shaleel as he spoke, although something touching her tail caught her attention. She looked out of the corner of her eye to see two of the boys batting at her colorful tail. It was strange for them to see so many colors at once, so of course, they were curious. She smiled a little, moving it quickly toward them, and rubbing their faces with it playfully. The two curious colts jumped back, surprised by the fuzzy attack. They looked over to see Rainbow Dash giggling under her breath, waving her tail back and forth, tempting the two.

“You judged her by her strange looks and odd practices and assumed she was bad, correct?” Shaleel noticed Rainbow playing with the boys, so he directed his attention to the others.

“Yes, it’s true… we overreacted and assumed the worst…” Twilight’s head hung low, still holding a bit of resentment towards herself for that.

“Wait, what did I miss now?” Rarity asked, returned into the home with a rug hovering in front of her. It was a plush purple rug with jewels sewn into the tassels for decoration, certainly something Rarity would enjoy. She laid it down carefully by twilight before taking a seat in the center.

“We were talking about our first time meeting Zecura.” Twilight answered softly.

“Oh.” Her immediate response was just a quick acknowledgment of her reply… however it took her a second to process the information, “Ooohhh…” she suddenly felt stricken with guilt as well, her head hanging low.

“Do not fret my friends… It’s understandable… after all; I was the same way when I saw you today.” He admitted, shifting a bit.

The boys were still playing with Rainbow Dash’s tail, nipping at it in a playful way. Rainbow moved it around quickly, avoiding their capture.

“And I know that the Chief is much like that as well… he has been very bitter towards ponies for a long time, it’s nothing new… he assumed nothing has changed. Even though Zecura’s notes to her father have been mostly positive and happy, he picked out whatever he could to use against your kind and threw out all that was good.”

“I see…” she quietly pondered the situation, trying to think of some sort of solution to their problems. “So do you think there is any way we co-“ Rainbow Dash let out a sudden yelp. The two boys tackled her and were now ontop of her, laughing. She too was laughing, rubbing the boys’ heads playfully. Rarity smiled at the children playing, but she wondered where the girls had gone. She looked around and noticed them right beside her, eying the rug she sat on. She gave them a smile and carefully moved over a bit, giving them room to join her. They seemed uncertain about her, as well as the elegant rug she sat on. She thumped the rug with her hoof, trying to coax the girls over. They walked to her slowly and touched the rug, feeling the soft plush fabric. One of them finally braved to lay down on it, rubbing her face against the plush, giggling to herself as she felt it against her nose. The other two seemed eased by this and joined her, curling close to their sister.

The other ponies were a bit distracted by all the adorableness around them; they didn’t notice that Shaleel was putting soup on the table. “We can talk more later… for now lets eat. Come on children.” It seemed like there was a chorus of groans around them from the children, they had all gotten comfortable where they were and now they had to get up.

Fluttershy couldn’t help but smile from the cuteness, but she had a concern. “Are you sure you have enough for us? I know you weren’t expecting company.”

“I was making more than enough so we could have some for a few days. I got lucky and had plenty of ingredients so I made a lot.” He smiled and took a seat, waving for his children to hurry. They slowly got up and bounded over, taking their seats. The five guests quickly made their way over as well, taking a look at the food they were being offered. It looks like pure broth. Twilight was a little concerned and dipped the spoon into the soup. There seemed to be bits of vegetables… but not much. The portion they were offered was meager at best, but the family seemed more than happy with what they had. Even Rainbow could see a problem here, and although normally she’d complain about such a small amount, she kept her lips sealed. Fluttershy nearly felt her heart break at the sight, they had so little and yet he was kind enough to offer it to them.

“Uh, s-sir...” Fluttershy quietly spoke up before anyone had a chance to eat. “I don’t think I’m that hungry… I had a big lunch today…”

“Nonsense, it’s been a long trip, you need your strength.” He said with a knowing smile. He had a feeling he knew why she was refusing to eat.

“I don’t think I’m that hungry either…” Rainbow said as she pushed her bowl away nervously.

“I have to agree.” Rarity gently pushed the bowl away, moving it closer to the two little girls.

“I understand what you’re doing… and I promise you it is fine. We have plenty here to share, eat up and enjoy… like your pink friend.”

The girls were a bit confused and looked at Pinkie Pie, who was just finishing guzzling down the bowl, “Mmm, Delicious Mister Shaleel!”

“P-Pinkie!” Twilight was offended by her actions, but Pinkie quickly replied to her with a smile.

“He DID say they have plenty to spare, plus this is only the appetizer! We still have a whole lot of food in the carriage remember?”

The others blinked, a bit unsure of what she meant, “I thought you gave them all away.”

“Nopey! I kept some juuuust in case.” She seemed very cheerful about that.

Shaleel smiled a little, “the desserts? Heh, well lets wait until we finish dinner before we have some of them.”

“Okay! But I got real food too!” Again, surprised looks all around, “I’ll go get it!” before anyone could stop her she bounced out of the room. The others began to eat quietly, deciding to wait for Pinkie to return before asking questions. She returned hold a sack by the mouth. She trotted in with a gleeful smile before tossing it at the table. With her odd ability to perform feats of magic, the pots and plates of food landed perfectly onto the table without spilling a drop, even the watered down soup already in front of them didn’t budge. The children gawked at the sigh before them, unable to keep themselves from drooling over the feast before their eyes, “There! Now THAT is a dinner!” Pinkie exclaimed before taking a seat.

Shaleel was stunned at the sight, “You… you’re offering this to my family?” he asked quietly. Even the children were unsure about taking the food; it looked too good to eat.

“Of course! Brought it for an emergency and I’d say this is as good as any!” she started filling her plate up with an eager smile. Twilight smiled as well, taking portions of the food and spreading them to the children. Even with the feast right there in front of their faces, they weren’t sure what to do. They all looked to their father for an answer.

Shaleel looked like he was about to cry. He smiled at his children and gave them an approving nod, signaling them to dig in. he just stared at his own plate for a moment, realizing how hungry he was, “Thank you Ponies… Thank you all so much…” he watched his children eat happily for a moment, seeing the joyful looks on their faces and admiring the change. He soon started to eat as well, along with the other ponies.

By the end of the meal and dessert the children were tired out, half asleep in their seats. Rarity decided to use her magic to lift them up. Of course they were shocked by the floating. But their father assured them it was okay in their native tongue. They relaxed as they were laid on Rarity’s rug. The boys enjoyed the plush feel to the rug, and began to rub their noses into it like the girls had done. The girls giggled; too full and tired to play around with their siblings, so instead they laid down and cuddled up to rest. The others helped clean up the table; all smiling happily at one another. Shaleel probably was smiling brightest of all, “Thank you all… tonight was wonderful.”

“It’s no biggie.” Pinkie waved the compliment away, “Just some leftovers to share with a new friend and his family. Glad you liked it though!”

“I’m glad too, although, now I’m really tired.” Twilight said with a little laugh. “You wouldn’t happen to have a spare bed would you?”

Shaleel nodded, “Well it seems like they are already half asleep on your rug… I might join them there… our bed is much bigger, I’m sure you could all get comfortable in the bedroom.” He told them, laying with his children and nuzzling close. The others watched for a moment before leaving for the bedroom to rest for the night. They didn’t talk much as they settled down, deciding to just relax and get some sleep.

Fluttershy found herself startled awake in the middle of the night; a bad dream plaguing her mind. She quietly got out of bed, feeling the need for fresh air to clear her head. As she walked through the main room, she noticed the children cuddled up on the rug, but no father around with them. She quietly made her way outside, seeing him standing alone in the darkness, only illuminated by the dim moonlight.

“Mister Shaleel? Is everything alright?” she asked as she approached. He was a little startled by her sudden appearance, but he just smiled at her. He had no reason to fear her.

“I’m okay… I just like to come outside at night to think. It relaxed me.” He explained in a soft tone, “What are you doing up so late?”

“Oh, I just had a little nightmare… nothing too bad.” She replied, taking a seat beside him.

“mm, I see… I have those often as well.” He continued to stare up into the sky, watching the moon as it sat there beyond their reach.

“Oh, I’m sorry…” Fluttershy shifted awkwardly, unsure of what to say, “Um, I hope that they’ll go away soon.”

He nodded, “They’ve been getting less and less frequent, so that is good, but… That day is still haunting me.”

“What day?” she didn’t think that maybe he didn’t want to discuss it, or that it might bother him to talk about it. It was just instincts to ask such a question.

He didn’t seem to hesitate to answer though, “The day my wife was taken from me.” He said softly, “Dragons attacked our land and she was the only casualty. They said that the dragons that came over were sick and didn’t know what they were doing. They also told me they were punished but I still loath them for what they did.”

“Oh… I see… I-I’m sorry.” She was quiet for a little longer, before thinking of something to try cheering him up. “You know… Rainbow Dash said she wants to beat up some of the dragons for what they did…” she gently punched her hoof into her other hoof, making a little clop noise as she did, “maybe if you asked she give them a good old kick to the butt just for you!” she smiled awkwardly, hoping it would get him to smile.

It worked, making him chuckle, “Yes, I’d like to give them a kick or two myself… but I can’t… I have my children to take care of. I have to stay here and protect them.”

“Oh, yes, I see… you care for them deeply don’t you?” she asked softly, shifting a bit as she began to look up at the moon.

“More than anything. I would do anything to protect them.”

“Would you fight?” she asked, looking at him curiously.

“If I had to, yes I would… of course, I would try to get them away first. Get them as far away from the fighting… but if had no other choice I would fight with every breath I had left to protect my children.” He looked over at her again, tilting his head, “Don’t you have anyone you’d fight for?”

She blushed a little, looking downward, “W-well… I hate fighting… I can’t stand it. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“But if you’re forced into a corner… and you’re all that stand between danger and the ones you care for… what would you do?” Shaleel stared at the timid pony, trying to tell her that these are things she needs to think about…

Fluttershy found herself breathing more heavily, her heart racing faster at just the idea that she would be pushed into a corner… “I… I…” she couldn’t bring herself to imagine herself fighting, not at all. “I would pick everyone up and fly them out of the corner…” she said timidly.

Shaleel wasn’t happy with the answer, but he decided to drop it, “Just make sure whatever you do it’s the best decision to save your friends…”

She nodded slowly, her head hung low. Her active imagination began to run loose again, and he body began to shake. Shaleel noticed this, and began to regret the conversation. He lifted a hoof and placed it on her shoulder, “why don’t you tell me about your friends? They seem like good ponies…” he said with a little smile.

Fluttershy looked up, with a curious look on her face. She wondered why he changed the subject so fast, but she had no problem with it. “Uh, well, you’ve met Twilight, Pinkie, Rarity and Rainbow Dash… we also have a friend back home, her name is Apple Jack. She runs an apple farm with her family. I also have a pet bunny named Angel, she so sweet and adorable.”

He smiled, nodding at her comments, “I see, tell me more!” his request made her smile, happy to talk about her friends to the curious Zebra. They two talked nearly the entire night, until they were both on the verge of falling asleep where they sat. The two said their goodnights before returning to bed.

The morning arrived quickly, and it wasn’t long before everyone was up and about. Twilight was working hard on writing the letters while Rainbow Dash and Rarity entertained the children. Fluttershy just watched quietly, smiling at the two grown ups playing with the children.

Shaleel sat in the corner, watching them all. Pinkie Pie bounded over to join him, “Hi! Whatcha thinking about?”

“Huh? Oh, um… I’m just happy that my children are happy.”

“Yeah, it makes me happy to see other people happy too! So I’m happy that you’re happy!” She gave him a big hug, making him laugh., “Happiness for everyone!”

“Thank you Pinkie. You’re too kind.” He hugged her happily, making her smile as well.

“Girls I think it’s about time we got ourselves out of here…” Twilight called out, wrapping up the letters with her magic.

The children all groaned, as well as Pinkie Pie, “But we’re all having so much fun!” she whined with a big frown.

“I know I know… but we really should get going. We don’t want the chief to get upset with us for staying… let’s head back to Apploosa and wait there. Rainbow, you ready to get going?”

Rainbow quickly got to her feet, spreading her wings, “I’m ready! I’ll get there in no time!” Twilight’s magic brought her a set of saddlebags, putting the letters inside along with a few provisions, “Alright, come back as soon as you can, okay?”

“Will do!” she rushed outside and was in the air within seconds, flapping her wings hard to get up to speed high in the sky.

The girls watched her fly off, finishing their packing before climbing in.

“Oh! Miss Rarity, you’re forgetting your rug!” Shaleel called out to her, taking a look back at the rug inside.

“Oh you can keep it dear! I’ve got another in here, it’s nothing really.” Rarity waved it away, deciding they were enjoying the rug, so she didn’t need it.

“Thank you… you’re all too kind… have a safe trip!” he called out to them, waving goodbye and Twilight used her magic to get the cart going again. The girls waved goodbye as they traveled toward Apploosa.

Rainbow dash soared through the air at a brisk pace. At least it was brisk for her, most other pegasi would have trouble keeping up with her for a long time, and earth ponies would be lost in mere minutes. She wanted to get the letters out as quickly as she could so her friends wouldn’t have to wait very long for her to return, but she also had her own reasons. She was still itching for a fight. She wanted to buck some dragons around and show them who was the boss around Equestria. Her mind was scattered with these thoughts for a while until she realized where she was. She looked down at the Everfree forest, a bit surprised that she had made it so far so quickly, or maybe it was just that she was daydreaming so long she lost track of time. She kept her eyes down toward the ground, making mental notes of what she was seeing… but something caught her eyes, and her heart began to race.

Three dragons, about medium size, probably just bigger than she was, were walking in the general direction of Ponyville and Canterlot. They seemed to be walking side by side from tallest to shortest, although the middle sized one seemed to be leading them. They still had a lot of ground to cover; Rainbow Dash couldn’t even see the first signs of civilization over the horizon. She stayed high, watching the dragons walk. They seemed pretty buff, and they seemed to have plenty of supplies with them. However what were in the bags they carried was still a mystery…

She decided to get closer… she grabbed onto a nearby cloud and buried herself inside, floating closer to the dragons, just above the trees, hidden in the fluffiness. She moved slowly like a shark after its prey, listening quietly as they talked.

“So how badly was the princess hurt?” the shortest one asked the others.

“Pretty bad, heard she passed out when she got there… I dunno about the other princess, nobody’s said nothing bout ‘er yet.”

“hm, she was in Trottingham though, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah she was there… but she kinda… vanished, I dunno. They said she flew off and there wasn’t anybody around once the fires went out.”

“What about the guards that were with her?”

“Heard they were all found nearby and taken to a nurse in a nearby town or at least some of them… no bodies that they could see, so I doubt the other princess was killed… but the other one looks a lot different. kinda… messed up from what I was told.”

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno, that’s exactly what I was told, ‘messed up’…”

“Huh… I can’t wait to see her then, sounds interesting…”

Rainbow felt her tail twitching, she could tell these dragons were bad news… and she wanted to take them out. But she needed to know for sure… she popped out of the cloud and flew down in front of them, blocking their path. She glared at them, and the glared back, although they were more surprised by her than she was of them.

“Hey there boys… Where are you all headed?” she asked, giving them a knowing glare…

“We’re just roaming… What’s it to you?” the leader asked, giving her a defiant stare.

“Well from what it SOUNDED like, you all are part of the same group that attacked Trottingham a week ago…” she spread her legs a bit, preparing herself for anything.

“Hey! We’re Equestrian Citizens…” he quickly snapped back, sounding offended. “We have every right to be here…” he pulled out an ID card, being a registered dragon citizen of Equestria. “And I find your hate towards us to be racist!” Rainbow Dash was a bit surprised by the sudden turnabout. “We respect and love our leaders, and that fact that you think all dragons are harmful and heartless… you should be ashamed, you’re a despicable pony.”

Rainbow growled, her nostrils flaring, “I’m going to keep an eye on you all…” she started to lift off into the air, turning around to continue on her way. She had no evidence against them… and she knew jumping the gun would get her in trouble.
“YEAH! Run away you little pony! Feather brained pegasi like you should be sent to the moon!” Rainbow gritted her teeth, wanting to beat the stubbier looking dragon senseless for his comments, but she kept on flying. Suddenly a noise caught her attention, a ‘whoosh’ of some sort. She turned her head and spotted a fireball heading toward her. She quickly reacted, dodging it easily. She knew it wasn’t big enough or powerful enough to harm her, but it was still something she didn’t want to hit her.

The stubby little dragon was laughing at her, as was the tall skinny one, but the other one, the leader, shoved him, “Hey, we’re not suppose to mess with them…” he mumbled to him, he didn’t think Rainbow could hear. Suddenly an apple smacked the short one in the forehead, sending him to the ground.

Rainbow dash bucked another apple at the tall one laughing, but he managed to dodge this one, “Hey you little creep!” He took off after her. The leader couldn’t grab onto him in time to stop him. The dragon rushed up to her, swiping at her. She easily slipped past the attack, giving him a kick right between the wings, sending him to the ground. She followed and stomped on him as she landed. She continued to wail on the dragon, grinning excitedly, finally getting her chance to knock around a dragon like she wanted. However her shining moment soon ended as the leader swiped her away with his sharp claws, knocking her away. Before she could get up the short one had rushed over, kicking her in the gut, sending her into a tree. she let out a cry of pain as she impacted the tree, causing it to shake violently. Before her limp body could hit the ground the leader had come back, taking another painful swipe at her, cutting into her skin as he sent her flying down the pathway. She landed and rolled a few feet like a ragdoll being tossed across the room, before coming to a stop. She laid motionless in the dirt, feeling her ribs aching in pain, her back leg twisted unnaturally in the wrong direction. She swore she could feel some liquid running down her cheek. The liquid dripped into her mouth, grazing her tongue. It tasted salty, but bitter. It wasn’t sweat dripping down her forehead.

“Come on! Let me kill her!” the stubby one said as he wiped the apple off his face. “It’s just one! No one will know! We’ll bury her in the forest and no one will ever find her!”

“It’ll be good practice… we might be fighting Pegasus guards while we’re there…” The tall one encouraged the behavior, thinking a bit more logically than the short one. However the leader was still undecided.

“We can’t… we still have things to do… then we have to see about the princess.” He explained to the two, trying to calm them down, “We can’t cause any unnecessary attention…”

Rainbow Dash began to stand, wobbling a bit as she put pressure on her back leg. She glared at the three dragons, her teeth showing and her nostrils flaring, “I won’t let you get to her… I’m going to take you out here and now! I’ll never let you get to Princess Celestia!” She called out to them.

The looks were surprised all around. All three seemed to have just heard something they were expecting. “So then Princess Celestia is alive is she?”

Now Rainbow dash shared the shocked expression. “wh-what do you mean by that? You were just talking about the princess! You said she was messed up! You said Princess Luna vanished…” The leader’s smile was growing fast, and the wheels in Rainbow’s head began to turn, “You weren’t talking about Luna… Celestia vanished from Trottingham…” he simply nodded slowly in response, “A-and Luna was the one you said was messed up! And you are going to go see Luna! Luna is alive! And you have her!”

The leader began to chuckle, and the other two joined in with him, “Hey for a featherbrain this one is pretty smart, huh? Hehe…”

She was shocked, and worried. Now beating up dragons wasn’t the first thing on her priority list… “I have to tell Celestia” she said aloud, although that probably wasn’t the best thing to do.

“Oh no, NOW you’re not leaving yet…” the leader said, stepping forward. His cohorts smiled devilishly, stepping closer with him.

Her heart began to race, she had to go. She bounded off the ground, flying as quickly as she could. But the tall dragon was fast, faster than she was. He grabbed her back leg and tossed her downward, where the leader punched her side. She was headed straight for the dirt path, but she managed to get her wings out and slow her descent. She looked over just in time to see the stubby dragon blowing a line of fire at her, catching nearby trees. She managed to avoid his attack, getting back into the air, but the tall one came from behind and hit her again. She turned to face him, but another Whoosh noise caught her attention. She looked up just in time to see a large ball of fire engulf her body. She screamed in pain as she fell to the ground, slamming against the dirt and rolling to a stop not far from impact. She had rolled out of the fire, but she was still singed and in pain. She panted heavily, feeling dizzy and hurt. She tried to get up, but the leader grabbed her by the throat and lifted her off the ground. She began to squirm in his grip, barely able to breathe.

He smiled as he stared at his prey, “You want answers? I’ll give you some… Yes, we have Princess Luna… we know where she is… and we had orders to see if Celestia was indeed alive or not… but you just saved us a lot of time by answering it for us. So now we can head back home and prepare for our next move…”

She coughed, trying to hold herself up in his grip so she could breathe, “W-Why are you telling me this? You planning on letting me go so I can deliver this message for you?” she grinned a little, trying to put on a tough face.

He grinned back at her, “No… You’re not delivering anything.” Rainbows smile faded as she looked on in horror “Let me explain what I plan to do here… I like to hunt… but I like to play with my prey… First thing I think I’ll do is BREAK on of your wings.” As he said this he reached up with his free hand, grabbing onto her wing with great force. Not enough to break it, but enough to make her cry out in pain, “And then I’m going to let you go… watch you flutter away, trying to fly with a broken wing… Then I’ll grab you and break your OTHER wing, and let you go again. I’ll catch you again and break a bone in your leg and watch you limp away, and I’ll just do that again and again until all you can do is lay there on the ground, crying and bleeding…” Rainbow dash felt her body going limp, too scared by the words that were coming from this dragon to squirm anymore. He smiled, he loved the way she looked, helpless and scared. The claws at the end of his fingers began to cut into her skin, letting little trails of blood roll down her neck, “Then I might start cutting at you… maybe take those wings right off and mount them in my cave… or maybe your cutie mark instead, I bet THAT would look good on my wall, two lightning bolts of a pony I slaughtered myself…” his grip around her wing tightened, still grinning at her. The bones in her wing began to fracture slowly. If she could get enough air in her lungs she probably would be screaming now. “Or maybe… I could take you home alive… it gets so lonely back home… I could use a little pet… or a slave… That way I can torture you every day for the rest of your life… maybe I could bring your friends over…” this set off a spark in her head, he was threatening her friends now. The ones who cared for her and the only family she had in Ponyville. “and kill them in front of you one…. By… one.”

That was it. Rainbow couldn’t listen anymore she let out a loud cry as she pulled her hind legs up, bucking him hard in the chin. The impact was enough to get her loose and within a flash she was flying down the path. The stubby one was blocking her off, preparing to blow fire at her, but rather than slow herself down, she flew full speed, slamming into his stomach. The flames sputtered out of his mouth harmlessly. At the same time, Rainbow Dash grabbed him by the tail, and dragged him across the ground as she flew. The thin one cut her off, but she didn’t care, she flew directly into the trees with the stubby dragon in tow. The leader joined the thins ones side, looking into the thick forest for any sign of her. All they could hear were sound of the stubby dragon yelping in pain as he was hit against trees and rocks. The sounds didn’t seem like they were going away, just traveling around the forest. They couldn’t tell from where though, with all the echoing going around. The leader and the thin one watched carefully… until there was a yell behind them. In the blink of an eye, Rainbow dash had gotten the stubby dragon on the other side of the path, and in another blink she was tossing him into the other two dragons. The large dragon was like a tree slamming into them, forcing them past the bushes, knocking over a smaller tree in the process. The bags that were on their backs practically exploded on impact, leaving their previsions scattered across the pathway.

Rainbow dash let herself down, her body wobbling painfully. Their attacks earlier hurt her leg terribly. Her wing was crooked badly from the dragon gripping it so tightly. The rest of her body was sore and bruised, a couple of cuts letting blood drip to the ground into a red puddle beneath her. She knew she couldn’t outrun them in her condition, but at the same time, she knew she couldn’t fight them directly.

The shadows of the dragons rose up on the other side of the bushes. It was heavily shaded, but their large figures were easy to spot. The leader seemed to be glaring at her with glowing red eyes, the fires of hell brewing behind them. Rainbow Dash felt the heat of his glare burning into her, but a sudden coolness began to run down her cheek. It wasn’t blood this time, the trail had moved on to the other side of her head. These trails of coolness were running from her eyes down her cheeks, dripping from her chin. Her eyes were pouring out tears, she felt absolutely helpless here. She couldn’t run, she couldn’t fight, and she couldn’t call for help. Her legs began to shake as the situation became more and more clear, “I’m going to die.” She whispered to herself, “I’m going to die.” She began to repeat the phrase over and over, “I’m going to die.” unable to escape that painful truth in her mind. “I’m going to die” The dragon seemed to approach slowly, “I’m going to die.” as if they knew she had accepted her fate and that there was no need to hurry. “I’m really going to die.”

“Is anypony down there???” a voice called out from above. Rainbow looked up into the sky, seeing half a dozen or so Pegasus ponies flying toward her, seemingly following the smoke coming from the fire in the trees from one of the dragons.. In that instant she realized she wasn’t looking at the dragons anymore. She feared she wouldn’t be able to look back down in time to see them before their final blow. She forced herself to look back down, but the dragons were nowhere to be seen. They vanished in an instant. Her legs wobbled beneath her, the danger had past. She collapsed to the ground, weeping loudly into her hooves. The team above her heard the cries and quickly got down to her. They were asking lots of questions, but she couldn’t focus. She was too scared now. She had just faced death and was only spared by good luck.

She opened her eyes after a moment, seeing a piece of paper in the scattered mess. The Pegasus seemed preoccupied with the fire, so she picked it up, looking at it. It seemed to be a map with strange writing. It seemed important, but she was too out of it to focus on it. She slipped it into her bag before a sudden lightheadedness hit her. She didn’t realize how much blood she had lost until just now, but she didn’t have much time to think about it. She blacked out within seconds.

Ch 7. Wash Away the Hate.

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War over the sun Ch 7

A cheerful whistling could be heard for miles around Sweet Apple Acres. An orange pony was pulling a cart of apples up toward the barn, obviously happy with her day’s harvest. Her big brother and little sister were off in town somewhere while she worked the fields for the day. She was off in her own little world, enjoying her work like she always seemed to, but a familiar voice caught her off guard.

“APPLEJACK! APPLEJAAAACK!” the little yellow filly, and Applejack’s sister, Applebloom came running up to her in a hurry, but Applejack just smiled, not think much of her easily excitable sister’s cries.

“Hey there Applebloom, I thought you and your friends were out and about today look for y’all’s cutie marks.” it wasn’t anything new, they always seemed to be doing that. But she quickly noticed her little sisters pained expression.

“Rainbow Dash is in the hospital! She’s hurtin’ real bad! You gotta come quick!” Applebloom couldn’t stand still, she was so unnerved by what she had heard she couldn’t stop bouncing around, trying to get her sister to hurry and come with her.

“Rainbow’s hurt? H-hold on sis, let me get this up the hill and you can lead the way.” She put all her strength into pulling the cart up the hill, rolling it into the barn and unstrapping herself in mere seconds. She locked the barn door before running at top speed toward the hospital. She didn’t even hear her little sister calling for her to wait for her as she fell behind the much faster mare.

It didn’t take long for Applejack to get to the hospital. She demanded to know where her friend was, startling the nurse, “Where’s Rainbow Dash? Is she okay? What happened?”

The nurse moved back slightly, intimidated by demanding questions, “I-I need you to calm down miss, your friend in fine.”

“y-you’re right, I’m sorry miss. Where is she?” she asked in a much kinder tone.

“Upstairs, third door on the left.”

“Thank you kindly miss.” She rushed up the stairs and barged in through the door, spotting her blue friend in the bed.

Rainbow was half awake at the time, but when her friend slammed open the door it shocked her a bit, sending her heart rate skyrocketing for a moment. The heartbeat monitor began to beep rapidly, but once Dash got a goo look at the intruder she began to relax, “Applejack, it’s you… heh, you scared me there for a sec.” Applejack looked her over, seeing her wing bandaged up, her hind leg in a cast and various bandages covering her body, a slight redness bleeding through to the outer layers. Rainbow Dash could see the concern in her friend’s eyes and the stunned look covered her face, “Hey, I’m okay… It’s me we’re talking about here, I’ve broken the sound barrier dozen of times and crashed into houses at top speed… no need to worry…” she smiled, hoping her friend wouldn’t worry so much about her.

“What in Celestia’s name happened to ya, Rainbow?” she asked, approaching her side, unable to stop herself from looking at the damage that ran across her body.

“I… saw some dragons on the way here…” it seemed she wasn’t oto eager to explain her story. She was still shaking from her thoughts just before she was rescued, and now she had a friend here that she knew would freak out once she explained her story to her, “they were just a little bigger than me, and… I got into a fight with them.”

“You FOUGHT with DRAGONS? As in more than one? BY YOURSELF?” Applejack stared at her for a moment, stunned by her story.

“Hey! I’m still here, I handled it, heh…” she let out a dry laugh, and a fake smile. Although deep inside she knew she wouldn’t have lasted much longer if they pegasi hadn’t arrived. She shivered a little at the feeling she had in her gut. The thought that she was about to die.

“Rainbow you…” she gripped her head with her hooves, trying to contain her frustration, “You featherbrained moron!” she snapped at her, “You could have DIED! You thought you could just waltz up to a pair of dragons a-and try to take them on yourself?”

“It… was actually three…” she explained, although it didn’t seem to help.

“THREE? Rainbow are you losing you mind? What the hay were you thinkin’? Applejack was furious with her friend and her foolishness, her temper was flaring, but even under the circumstances she seemed to be holding back.

“I… I don’t know. I thought I could take them…”

“You weren’t thinking at all! Your recklessness almost got you killed, you know that?” outside doctors and nurses gathered, silently watching them. They weren’t sure what to do, from what they heard the yelling seemed justified, but if things got out of control they wanted to be close to help.

Dash lowered her head, quietly letting out a soft ‘yes’ to her question.

“Wait… you do?” Applejack was a bit surprised by the response… something actually got through Rainbow Dash’s thick skull? It was unheard of, and it caused her to stop yelling for a moment.

“Yes… I know I could’ve died out there… I almost did…” she began to sniffle, her body shaking, “they almost killed me… they were about to tear me apart. He was going to clip my wings and break my legs just to watch me crawl away before he was gonna kill me. I was so scared Applejack.” she began to sob louder now, letting the tears fall down, “I was so scared. They were about the kill me, I was going to die. I was so scared Applejack.”

AJ felt her heart drop at the sigh of her friend crying. It was enough to make her own eyes well up with tears, “Hey, it’s okay… you’re okay now, you’re safe… your friends are here and there not a thing in the world that could hurt you right now.” Applejack leaned close, pulling her weeping friend into a hug. She graciously accepted it and held her close, sobbing into her shoulder. The crowd departed slowly, seeing the situation had calmed down considerably. The last one to leave closed the door, giving the two friends time together without any interruptions.

Spike stepped back from his handiwork, smiling at the book case, “There! All done!” every book was placed neatly into the shelves, packed just tightly enough to keep them straight, but just loose enough to be pulled out easily for a quick read. They all sat in alphabetical order by author, followed by title. He couldn’t help but be proud of his achievement, even though he was sure when Twilight got back she would immediately take out a dozen books to read and then immediately forget to put them back where they belonged. “How can such a neat freak be so distractible?” he mumbled to himself, going over to check off ‘organize bookcase’ on his checklist. It was a habit that Twilight had gotten him use to, but he did find them to be quite useful in the long run. He wasn’t nearly as detailed as twilight, like double checking the triple checked checklist of all previous checklists, which WAS actually listed in a checklist of hers… He couldn’t help but think of how long that particular day dragged on…

He stroked a check with his quill by the box, moving onto the next piece, “Make sure Owloysius food bowl is filled.” He mumbled, taking a look over by the window. Their pet owl was still fast asleep, it was much too early for him to wake, and his food bowl was still full from earlier, “Okay, check that too… and… That’s all… wow… I never noticed how little I have to do around here when Twilight’s around…” he put down the quill, sighing softly, “I miss Twilight…”

The door suddenly swung open, with three little ponies in the doorway, “Spike! Spike! Come quick! Rainbow Dash is hurt!” they all said in unison.

“What? What happened???” he called out, running to the Cutie Mark Crusaders, “Where is she?”

“Come on!” Sweetie Belle ordered, already beginning to turn back around, “She’s at the hospital! We’re headed there now!” the three girls began to run, with Spike close behind them. His first thought was of Twilight. He cared for Rainbow Dash, but at least he knew where she was. He couldn’t help but think that a fight occurred, and Rainbow Dash might be the lone survivor. Why else would she be here in Ponyville without the others? Where had everyone else gone? What happened to them? These questions rattled around in his mind until they all rushed into Rainbow’s hospital room.

She had calmed down considerably from before, now relaxing against her pillow with Applejack still by her side, “There you are Apple Bloom… I see you brought your friends,” she looked around, noticing spike right behind them, “Hey there Spike, she went and got you too?”

Spike ignored Applejack for the moment, hopping up onto the foot of Rainbow’s bed, “Rainbow Dash! Are you alright? What happened? Where are the others?”

Dash was a bit surprised by his sudden bombardment of questions, but she calmly answered them all, “I’m fine spike… The other’s are in still Apploosa … I went on ahead to deliver a message to Celestia… but I got into some trouble…” her voice withered away at the end, looking off to the side a bit.

“Oh thank goodness…” Spike mumbled, happy to hear the others were okay, “oh, i-I-I’m glad you’re okay too Rainbow! What happened though?”

Applejack feared another breakdown was coming their way if she started to answer his question, and she didn’t want the children to see their role model for being brave and tough to break down, so she interrupted, “Maybe we could let her rest… everyone is okay now, so lets just all let her rest a bit.”

Rainbow smiled at her friend, she knew what she was trying to do. “It’s okay, I’ll tell them… I got attacked by some dragons…” she replied simply.

“DRAGONS???” Everyone seemed to say at the same time. The girls joined Spike on the bed, staring in disbelief.

“A real live dragon?” Scootaloo seemed to be the most curious about this new information.

Dash gave her a nod, “Yeah… I gave them a good whack in the head and showed them who’s boss… but they roughed my feathers a bit during the fight.” She smiled, putting on a brave face as she thrusted her hooves forward, punching an invisible dragon.

“WOW! You’re SO AWESOME Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo seemed the most impressed, bouncing around in her seat, “I bet you knocked them clear across Equestria, Didn’t you?”

Dash chuckled, deciding to embellish her story a bit for the sake of the kids, “Yeah… I sure did! You should’ve seen them running away once I showed them a thing or two.”

“I bet they were HUGE!”

“Bigger than a house!” she laughed again, seemingly normal with the kids around.

“Hey uh, Rainbow Dash, you said you had to deliver something to the princess, right?” Spike hated to interrupt the… amazing tale of awesomeness… but he knew that there were important things to be done.

“Oh! Yeah, I’m going to have to leave here soon to finish the delivery.”

Applejack quickly put a hoof on her shoulder, “Oh no you ain’t! you’re in no condition to fly across the hallway! Let alone to Canterlot! You are staying right here!”

Even injured, Dash was still stubborn, “I’m not that bad! A couple hours and I’ll be good as new! I just need a nap, that’s all.”

“I kinda agree with Applejack.” Spike quickly stated before an argument could ensue, “you really shouldn’t fly for a couple days at least…”

“Look, we need a letter delivered to the princess and I’m going to do it! The reason I took this job was because you weren’t around and we needed a letter delivered quickly! And being the fastest pony in all of Equestria, it is my sworn duty to do my best to aid my friend when they need me! To uphold the honor o-“

“Uh, Rainbow Dash…” Spike interrupted again, to which Rainbow responded with a curious, yet at the same time, annoyed look, “I’m here NOW… just give it here and I’ll send it to Celestia lickity split!”

Rainbow Dash blushed a little… “Oh, right… that makes sense… it’s in my bag, there should be three of them, one for her, Applejack, and you Spike.”

Spike hopped down to her bags, sifting through and finding the letters. After a quick glance he pulled out the one for Celestia.

“You might oughta write a note telling the princess about Rainbow Dash so she knows why she didn’t deliver ‘em herself.” Applejack pulled out another blank sheet, handing it to the little dragon.

“Ah, good idea…” he made quick work of the note, explaining the brief details he knew; adding in a few words of how he believed Rainbow might be downplaying her injuries.

“OH! Also I found some sort of map when I got into the fight…” Dash shifted in her bed, adjusting the position of her wing to better comfort herself. “I can’t tell what it says though, send it with the letter.”

“Gotcha, so we have Twilight’s letter, our note, and the map, is that all?” he got an approving nod from everyone, so with a puff of fire, the papers were sent off.

The girls seemed to gather around Applejack’s letter as she began to read aloud, “Dear Applejack, We arrived at Apploosa just fine, and went onto the Zebra settlement to discuss things with the chief. He seemed calm by our arrival, but quickly sent us away…”

While Applejack read her letter, Spike opened up his own letter. He wondered why she didn’t just address one big letter to both him and Applejack, but nevertheless he began to read. “Hey Spike! How are you doing? I wish you were here, everything is going the exact OPPOSITE of how we planned. I’m sure you’d know how to help us out of this mess.” Spike couldn’t help but smile, even at the bad news. She was talking to him like a close friend, not like her official letters to Celestia. It made him feel closer to his friend. He continued to read, hearing Applejack somewhere in the background as he read. The stories matched pretty similarly from then on, talking about their decision to wait while Rainbow delivered the letters, and how they’d wait there for more news.

“So then… I s’pose we just wait around and see what Celestia says about what we should do next…” Applejack rolled up her letter and put it aside, “Unlees either of y’all can think of anything…”

“Well, I was thinking we could try talking to Zecora again…” Spike said while he rolled up his own letter. “At least let her know how things went with her dad… I’m sure she’s at least curious to know.”

“hm, yeah, that sounds like a good idea… you all think you can watch Dash while I’m out?”

Scootaloo grinned, “You mean can we pin her down if she tries to fly away?” everyone suddenly had a grin on their face, looking at Rainbow Dash.

“I’m not! I’ll be good… I’ll wait for Celestia to send a letter back…” She pouted, letting out a huff and crossing her front legs. She obviously had a bit of longing in her eyes to fly again, but it was apparent she couldn’t. Her wing twitched and she suddenly had a look of pain in her face, as if a sharp force pinched her wing.

The girls giggled at Dash’s response, imagining a little halo above her head like in the old cartoons. But AJ and Spike could both see she was in pain, and needed to be taken care of for a while. “Alright, y’all behave… no roughhousing around Dash for a bit… I’ll be back after a while.” She tipped her hat to spike, silently thanking him for watching Dash while she went to talk with Zecora.

The girls immediately turned back to Dash, expecting to hear more stories… however it hadn’t been but a minute or two since Spike sent the letters when he suddenly felt a rumbling in his stomach, and belched out a letter. He snatched it out of the air and took a look at it, “Hm, it’s addressed to you, Dash.” He explained, hopping back up onto the bed.

“Could you read it for me? My leg is still a bit… off…” she explained quietly.

He nodded silently, opening up the letter for her. He cleared his throat before speaking, “Dear Rainbow Dash, I see that things are not going nearly as well as we had hoped. I’m deeply sorry for your injuries and I hope you recover soon. I’ll send my best doctor out right away; I know you want to heal and get back to helping out.” Spike glanced up at Rainbow Dash… from the look on her face she had no interest in fighting anymore… he only hoped she’d still be willing to help out some other way. “I understand the Zebra’s dislike for me, it’s something I’ve been meaning to handle for a while… I may have a solution, but it may take a little time; a day maybe. As soon as you are healed, I think you should run tell your friends to stay at Apploosa until I can get preparations ready. But until then, rest up and wait for the doctor to arrive. Let Applejack know you’ll be staying around a while, I’m sure she’ll keep you company while you wait.”

“And that’s about it, just ‘from Celestia’ after that.” Spike rolled up the letter and put it aside.

“Hm, alright… I wonder what she has planned…” Rainbow Dash leaned back and thought quietly, wondering what the mysterious princess had in mind…

Applejack made her way through the outskirts of the Everfree forest, cautiously looking around as she went in deeper. It wasn’t her first time alone out here, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of uneasiness it gave her. Luckily Zecora’s home wasn’t far, and before she knew it she was knocking at her front door.

The door opened not a moment later, with Zecora gently pushing it ajar. She seemed a bit surprised to see Applejack, “Oh my, you have returned quite quickly! But this expression I see…” she moved closer, eying Applejack’s face. AJ knew she probably didn’t seem in the best of moods, but she didn’t think it would be so obvious so soon, “It looks almost sickly…”

“Yeah… things apparently didn’t go so well for the others… I just got a letter telling me what’s goin’ on.”

“Ah, I am not surprised… Pony kind always did seem off in my father’s eyes…” she motioned for Applejack to come in, stepping aside to let her pass.

“Yeah, they mentioned your father was the chief… and that he wasn’t really happy about them being there.” She headed inside, taking her usual seat. It seemed as though the crescent shaped carpet on her floor was meant to seat an audience while Zecora sat across from it. The others always seemed to naturally gather on that carpet whenever they had troubles to talk about. “Why didn’t you ever mention your pa bein the chief of the Zebra tribe?”

“It is not something I wish to discuss…” she replied as she took her seat, “I feel that sort of thing might put a barrier between us. My father rules my people, this is true, but I don’t want you to think of him, just me and you.”

“I understand, I can imagine being the daughter of a ruler would get you more attention than you’d like… but they said you sent of really nice letters about us, why does he hafta hate us so much?”

“It’s not for me to say… it simply has always been this way. He feels his hardships are being unseen. While Celestia hoard her blessings, he sees that as mean.”

“hm, yeah. I suppose… But we’re offerin’ to help him out now, why won’t he accept it?”

“I’m sure he is still angered by her apparent greed. And does not wish to help her in HER time of need.”

Applejack let out a sigh of defeat, feeling like things were never going to be figured out, “I know you don’t like your father, but do you think you could come with us and talk with him? I mean… from what Twilight said in her letter, they’re not doin’ so well… If I had known myself I would’ve gladly gone out and tried to help them, but… well I just didn’t know… Maybe you could convince him to let us at least help him out, even if he won’t help us…”

Zecora sighed; shaking her head, “You have a kind heart, my friend…” she stood up, walking away to a book. She opened it up, looking through the pictures inside.

Applejack sat patiently, waiting for a response. She knew there had to be another line to her rhyme, and she was trying to figure out what she might say, “Bend, blend, mend, spend, end…” nothing that went through her head seemed to match properly, so she stopped thinking and just listened.

“I suppose my support is something I can lend. I’ve got nothing to lose, and everyone else has all to gain.” Zecora turned to Applejack, smiling, “Give me a day to pack, and I will meet you tomorrow at the train.” She smiled at Applejack, who seemed to be beaming with happiness.

“Thanks Zecora! You’re the greatest! I’ll go see about going along with ya and Rainbow Dash, hopefully she’ll be well enough to take the train with us.” She was about to rush out the door before Zecora stopped her.

“What is this you say? Did Rainbow Dash get hurt today?”

“Oh, right… I forgot to tell you…” she turned back around to deliver the news, “Rainbow dash got beat up by dragons on her way back here… Doctor’s say she’s fine now, but… her wing was busted up and the rest of her ain’t that good neither.”

Zecora’s heart dropped, “Oh my, this is terrible news… hm… I may have a potion that she could use… Get her bones back to where they once were, just need a little of this, that, and a quick stir!” she began to gather up some ingredients into a pot and set it to boil, already working hard on something for Dash.

“Alright, we really appreciate it. I’ll meet you at the hospital tomorrow morning before we grab a train, alright?” Zecora gave her a nod, her mouth holding a bottle at the moment as she worked. Applejack left and headed back towards her home to let her family know where she was headed for the day.

The following day, Spike headed into the hospital with his own bag packed, preparing to go to Apploosa with Applejack and Zecora. He overheard their intent to leave today, and decided he was going too. He wanted to help and he figured if something went awry, he could deliver a message to Celestia more quickly than anyone else. He rushed into the room, finding the others had already arrived.

Zecora was handing Rainbow Dash a bottle, to which Rainbow eagerly took it and guzzled it down.

Applejack waved at her a bit, “Slow down there Dash! You’re gonna choke on it.”

“Nah, she won’t choke.” Spike said as he entered the room, “I’ve seen her guzzle down a barrel of apple juice once without losing a drop.”

“Hm, you’re right…” Applejack suddenly gave Rainbow a knowing glare, “I’ve seen her suckin down one of my barrels of apple juice too… without my permission mind you…”

Rainbow finished the drink and set it down, “I said I was sorry! It was a really busy day and I was thirsty!”

“Yeah yeah, I’ve forgiven ya already.” She said with a little smile, ruffling her rainbow mane with a gentle hoof,“So how do ya feel?”

“Eh… I dunno…I got a funny taste in my mouth, but nothing yet…” Dash looked to Zecora, hoping for an answer.

“Give it time, my friend. Soon your troubles will be at an end.” Zecora gave her a cheerful smile, giving her the assurance that she would be fine.

Dash smiled at her monochromatic friend, “Alright, Thanks Zecora… are you guys about to head out now?” she sent the question over to Applejack, waiting for an answer.

“Yeah, I think we are… you gonna be alright without us?”

“I think so…” she rubbed her wing gently, feeling a bit of a tingle brewing inside, “With Zecora’s potion and Celestia’s doctor coming over today, I’ll be better than ever!”

Applejack smiled and turned to Spike, “you come to say your goodbyes, Spike?”

“No! I’m coming with you guys!” he declared, holding up his bag, “I’ve been to Apploosa before, it’s not big deal.”

“Oh, well… alright then! I’m sure Twi will be happy to see you.” He had a point, and she figured no harm could come from the dragon joining them, so she graciously accepted him. The two girls grabbed their things and began to walk out with Spike. As they headed out they noticed a doctor walking by with Celestia’s crest on her jacket, “Hm, must be the specialist she was talkin’ about…” she mumbled as she headed out, feeling better now that someone was here to help out her friend.

The trip took half the day, but soon the three had arrived at Apploosa. Luckily Breaburn seemed to be away and didn’t give them the traditional ‘Apploosa greeting’ that he seemed to like giving out. They small group headed to the inn and found the room where the rest of their friends were at. A gentle knock at the door got Twilight up to her feet to answer it, “Applejack! Spike! Zecora, you decided to come too?”

“I feel I can help in some way… or at least TRY to cure this dismay.” She silently hoped that her presence wouldn’t make thing an even bigger mess than they already were…

Spike ignored casual greetings and quickly jumped up to Twlight, giving her a hug, “I missed you Twilight!”

Twilight giggled, hugging him as well, “I missed you too Spike, how is everything?”

“The library is clean as a whistle and Owloysius has plenty of food to last him a few days, just in case.” He held on gently, still smiling.

She giggled, “Well I kinda meant how are YOU doing?”

“Oh! Heh, I’m fine! I’m great now in fact! Now that I’m back with you!”

“heh, you’re quite the charmer Spike, I see how you got Rarity so interested,” Twilgiht grinned down at the now blushing dragon. Luckily Rarity was busy greeting Applejack and didn’t notice After a moment Twilight used her magic to pull him from her neck and set him onto her back to ride him into the main room where the others waited.

Fluttershy perked up as she spotted the other heading in, “Yay! Everyone’s here! So, does this mean we’re going to head out now?”

“No, it’s a little late…” Twilight replied, taking a seat with the others, “And I don’t want to force Shaleel to give us another night in his home… We’ll wait until tomorrow morning…” she took a look around, noticing something was off. “Hey, wait… where’s Rainbow Dash?”

Applejack and Zecora looked at each other, both with worried expressions, “Oh uh, your rainbow friend stayed behind. Hoping a solution Celestia soon would find.” She gave an unconvincing smile to everyone. They looked back perplexed, wondering what was going on.

The looks soon became too much for the element of honesty to bear, “Rainbow Dash… she’s got into a fight on the way to Ponyville… she’s in the hospital now.” A wave of confusion and questions began to fill the room from the other ponies, quickly becoming too much for the orange pony to bear. Applejack quickly tried to calm them down, “It’s okay! It’s okay! She’s fine! Zecora gave her something and even Celestia got one of her personal doctors to take a look at her. She’s gonna be alright.”

The group calmed down, taking her words to heart.

Fluttershy was particularly thankful, shivering at the thought, “What attacked her? Was it… a dragon?”

Twilight moved close to try and reassure her that this wasn’t what had happened… but Spike spoke without thinking, “Yeah, apparently three dragons.” The room was silent… everyone looked at him with horrified expressions… he quickly tried to fix his error, “She’s fine though! She’s alive and well! She’s okay! No problems, heh.”

The room remained still other than Spike trying to calm everyone down. After a few more assured blurbs, he got quiet too. Soon Twilight finally spoke up, “So dragons are already in Equestria…”

“That isn’t helping the situation Twilight…” Rarity quietly pulled Fluttershy close, trying to comfort her as she sat there shivering with fear, “It’s okay Fluttershy… No one got hurt…”

“Rainbow Dash got hurt…” she replied softly.

“Yes, but she’s okay now!” Pinkie started up, trying to cheer up everyone, “We’ll go see her the moment- NO! The SECOND we get back to Ponyville! We’re all gonna sign a get well card and have a BIG party for everyone to enjoy! It’s gonna be a blast!”

Even with Pinkie’s enthusiasm, the rest of the room remained silent, causing Pinkie to lose her luster… and eventually everyone separated to their own rooms to relax until morning came.

The girls were gathering outside the inn again, deciding since they had no gifts to bring, they’d just walk there. “Alright, is everyone ready to go?” Twilight asked as she looked around to the others.

Everyone gave an approving nod, not saying much at the moment.

“Alright. Thank you again Zecora for coming with us.”

“It is my pleasure to help my pony kin, but I am uncertain that we will win.”

Twilgiht nodded, “I understand… just try your best and see if we can convince him…”

She gave her a nod, and with that, they were all on their way toward the Zebra settlement. The trip was quiet, everyone seemed lost in their own thoughts, mostly about Rainbow Dash’s health, and possible attacks in the future…

“You! Ponies are not wel-… OH! It is you girls!” Shaleel stood atop the rock he met them at once before, quickly climbing down, “I didn’t expect you back so so-… Zecora?”

Zecora stepped forward, smiling at Shaleel, “Ah, my friend Shaleel, has life been full of luster? It is so good to see you again, it’s almost hard to muster”

“Hehe, still rhyming as usual, huh?” he asked with a little laugh, “You don’t ever get tired of it? I know you know a cure to it.”

“Oh silly Shaleel, this is no curse. I find this most enjoyable, and it could have been worse.” Zecora smiled at him, walking over to give him a brief hug.

“heh, I still think I can mess you up.” He said with a little gleam in his eyes.

“You still think you can disrupt my rhyme? HA! Let’s see what you’ve got for me this time.” She stepped back, prepared for the worst.

“Orange.” He said simply with a sinister grin. The other ponies seemed confused, but listened quietly.

“Silly filly, you think I can’t rhyme with ‘Orange’? You see I’ve thought of a solution, and that would be ‘door hinge’.”

The others cheered, Zecora won the little game. Shaleel cursed under his breath, but laughed it off, “Outwitted again… I shouldn’t be surprised by now… well anyway, I assume you’re here to try and talk to the chief again? Well, let’s go I suppose… Best of luck to you again.”

Shaleel led the group back through the town, and up to the chief’s home once again. The guard eyed them with a raised brow, “Again? I don’t think the chief will admire persistence…”

“We know… we just want to try talking to him, at least try and help if nothing else…” Twilight had an earnest look in her eye, the desire to help them out and make their lives better.

“Alright…” the guard said with an exasperated sigh, “I’ll let you in…” he opened the door and allowed them inside.

As the approached Pinkie Pie’s eye caught a glimpse of the boxes of sweets they had brought on a table in another room, not thrown away, and still full of her treats. It made her feel a bit better that they didn’t waste it.

The chief frowned at their presence, “Back again… I thought I told you not to return.” He didn’t sound angry and he didn’t raise his voice. He just sounded annoyed and uninterested. However his eyes spotted the zebra in the center of the group, and it immediately caught her attention, “Zecora? Is that you?” he asked, quickly charging down to the ponies, who quickly stepped aside to let him by. “Zecora it’s… been too long…”

“It has father… Too long indeed.” She moved close and hugged her father, who quickly pulled her into an affectionate embrace, “I believe it’s been three years, so we are agreed. I must admit, I’ve missed you with all my heart. But I’ve had fun since we’ve been apart.”

“You have?” he asked, seemingly surprised.

“Yes, father, have you gone blind? I sent many letters of these friends of mine.” She said, pointing her hoof at the girls.

“Them? They were the ones who persecuted you! The ones who shunned you without reason! I remember THAT from your letter!” he gave the six a menacing glare, causing them to back away a little.

Zecora put a hoof to her father face, pulling him back so he looked into her eyes, “Father, you read only what you want to. These ponies are good in their hearts; I know it to be true. We’ve celebrated and had many merry days. Now quit your bickering, get out of your hateful haze!”

He huffed, looking over at the others quietly… staring into their souls. His eyes moved around the group before finally locking onto one set of eyes… “So your goal is to fight the dragons, is that right?”

Twilight, feeling the eyes were looking at her, nodded, “Yes sir… Well, sort of… The dragons are threatening us and we have to defend ourselves…”

“Than why is it that you brought a dragon into my home?” Spike felt his heart stop, now knowing the eyes were locked on him, “Dragon attack our home, ponies ignore our pleas for help, and yet a pony carrying a dragon comes to my home requesting he-“

A sudden crash caught everyone’s attention, a yelp and the jingle of glass shard landing on the floor filled the room. The eyes of the room all found the broken window, with shard still falling from the newly damaged window. Their eyes quickly searched for the intruder, and they all locked onto Rainbow Dash, lying in a pile of books and rubble, “Chief! I-I’m sorry! I lost control! I have a let-“

“AND NOW YOU PONIES RANSACK MY HOME?” his voice bellowed, causing the room to shake.

“N-no sir! I was just trying to get here as quickly as I could! I have a letter from Princess Celestia!” She pulled out a letter, wrapped nicely in her hoof.

“TO HELL WITH THE PRINCESS!” The room shook once more, the thunderous voice made the bottle jiggle and clatter on the tables, “I will have nothing to do with you ponies! As far as I’m concerned you AND the dragons are our enemy! I can only hope that you both KILL each other in your petty war!” his loud words were accompanied by loud booms that continued to shake the foundation beneath their feet.

Rainbow pointed to the letter, as well as out the window in a frantic manner, “But-but-but, Chief! Just list-“

“NO! YOU LISTEN!” he shouted, another that caused the room to shake, “You are all evil and selfish! And you! Zecora, if you condone the action these ponies take part in, than I banish YOU from my land as well!” Zecora’s face looked mortified and hurt. Even after their brief heartfelt reunion, he still wished her to be gone, “I want you all off my land! Away from my people! And never darken our city with your presence EVER AGAIN!”

The room was silent, all staring at the chief. Even Shaleel and the other guards looked horrified. The room did seem darker with his shouts of anger. A cool moist breeze blew through the broken window, and blew out the candles that lit the room, making it seem even darker and more menacing, even though it was the middle of the day… however a familiar rumble caused the room to shake once more, even though the chief was silent. “What… was that?” he mumbled, looking out the window. The sun had been blotted out, and it quickly struck fear in his heart. The others wondered what was going on as well, and all at once they rushed outside to see.

The zebras of the town were gathering outside, staring up into the sky. Everyone had a look of concern in their eyes, watching the unknown approach them. The chief stopped just outside his door as the other spread out, staring into the sky. “What… What is going on?”

High above them were massive clouds, coming from Equestria toward them. They were black as sin and quickly blocked most of the sun’s rays. Twilight squinted, seeing dozen of Pegasus ponies pushing the clouds toward them. Rainbow Dash walked to the chief and poked his side, “Here, I was told to give you this along with the clouds…”

The chief was still in shock, but took the letter and began to read, “Dear Chieftain of the Zebra Tribe. I understand your pain and suffering, and I truly believe that it is due to my own negligence. I have ignored your people for too long, and I apologize for that. As leader I should have listen to everyone no matter who they were or where they were from. I have been a terrible ruler, and I personally wish to apologize to you and your people. I’ve asked the Pegasus of Cloudsdale, our weathering producing city, to create special rainclouds that will hold their moisture until they arrive to your land. This is not an attempt to tempt you into joining our cause; this is an apology for years of neglect. These clouds will arrive to your land weekly, and I expect nothing in return for them. I hope you can forgive me for-“ A drop of water hit the paper, blotching the ink and making the rest of that line illegible. The chief looked upward and another drop hit his forehead. The single drop was just the beginning of an onslaught of rain, pouring down onto the buildings, the zebras and the ground. The zebra’s seemed unsure of how to react; even the elders could hardly remember rain. They all just stood there, frozen in time as the water poured down on them.

Finally, the town with only the sound of water pattering in the puddles was filled with the joyful laughter of children, running through the rain, getting their manes wet and splashing through the puddles. Soon the blank stares of confusion turned to joyous laughter and cheering, as they took began to run around, letting the rain soak their dry skin.

Even the chief found himself smiling, the rain washing off the dust and sand from his body, and the hate and distrust from his mind. He started to laugh heartily, a few stray tears blending in with the rain as it flowed down his face. Zecora smiled at her father and moved close to him, rubbing her face against his neck.

The mane six, and Spike smiled at the sight, everyone seemed to be so much happier. Rainbow dash spoke up above the sound of the rain, “The princess said we should go once the rain starts!”

“What?” Twilight was surprised by the news, “But… We need to-“

“She said we just gotta go… Let them enjoy this and just go.” The girls seemed a bit uncertain by Celestia’s orders, but nevertheless they followed without question, heading back toward Apploosa.

They didn’t get far, the familiar rock formation that they met Shaleel at was right behind them when they heard a yell over the rain, “Wait! Ponies!” The chief and Zecora were rushing up behind them, “Ponies wait.. I… want to talk to you…”

The group of seven shared glances before looking back at the chief, “Yes? Is something wrong?”

“Well… I was thinking… Maybe I could… at least TALK with my people… Tell them your situation and how it affects us… and… IF they feel like they must help, than I suppose I can’t stop them.” The chief shifted awkwardly, glancing at her daughter. Zecora smiled at him, happily nuzzling her father.

Twilight gave him a soft smile. “You do whatever you’re comfortable with. We’d appreciate any help, but please, don’t force yourself to do something you’re not comfortable with.”

The chief smiled back, “We’ll see how things work out… I’ll be in touch with the Princess… You all head on back home and stay safe.”

“I will stay with my father, catch up on time we have lost. But soon I will return home at any cost.” Zecora smiled up at her father, a wondrous look of happiness on her face.

He chuckled as well, smiling at his daughter, “Still enjoying your rhymes I see… Come, it’s been too long. Tell me again about your pony friends and your adventures…” he turned away with Zecora, heading back home “I believe we still have lots a treats to get through, thanks to your friends.”

The ponies exchanged smiles before they too began to head on back toward Apploosa, all soaking wet by now, but it was a refreshing rain; rinsing out their worries and fears.

Ch 8. Forget the Pain

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War over the sun, Chapter 8

The girls gathered together in the Apploosa inn, all chatting together about the victory to help the Zebra population. They were all happy to see the zebras smiling, especially their friend Zecora when she was finally reunited with her father. They all sat together in the middle of the room while Twilight and rarity brought over a dozen towels for everyone to use. The heavy rain had soaked most of them to the bone, and they were all eager to get back to a much drier state.

Fluttershy had a deep blush on her face, one that had appeared as they were walking through town. She had noticed the looks they were getting from the stallions in town as they were on their way to the inn. She had heard of the interest in wet manes many guys seemed to have, and the idea that the guys were staring because of that embarrassed her a bit. “Did anyone notice the guys staring at us?” she hoped that she wasn’t the only one who had seen it.

Most of the girls seemed to be oblivious, but Rarity let out a little giggle, “Oh boys can’t help it… They think it’s cute when our manes are wet… Isn’t that right Spike?”

Everyone looked over toward Spike, who had been staring at Rarity since they left. Once he realized he was being called out he blushed a deep red, “I uh… well um…”

Rarity giggled, pulling him over and pecking his cheek, “Silly Spike, you know I don’t mind you staring… It’s cute.” She pulled him close, a loving tender smile on her face.

Spike was still bright red, more so now in her arms than before. He still wasn’t suite use to being loved by someone, at least in this sense, so it was an unfamiliar feeling to love someone and be loved in return.

Everyone smiled at the cute couple, Rainbow dash even chuckled at the almost sickeningly cute scene. She pulled the towel back over her head, ruffling her hair up in an attempt to dry it.

Applejack moved to another topic that had her concerned, “You doing alright over there, Rainbow Dash?”

Rainbow heard her name from beneath the towel. She removed it from her head, revealing a fuzzy mess of rainbow hair on her head. “Yeah! Actually I’m doing amazing! The doctor came and used her magic, and told me it was really easy to fix everything because of Zecora’s potion… Oh! I never did thank her…” she bit her lip, looking out the window. She considered rushing over to the town again to thank her real quick, but the rain was falling much too hard for her to want to go back out again, “don’t let me forget to thank her next time I see her!”

“heh, Sure Dash.” Applejack smiled, she was glad her friend was feeling better… but of course, she was still concerned… the look of defeat in her eyes as she sat in the hospital bed bandaged and bloodied… how she cried into her friends arms, fearing her own death. It wasn’t an image that would be leaving her memory soon, “You sure you’re okay though? You took a quite a tumble when you ran into the chief’s house.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, I’m good as new!” she insisted before going back under the towel to continue drying her hair.

“So what next?” Pinkie pie spoke up, the towel rest around her neck. Her hair seemed to poof back up to normal without any issues.

“Well, I suppose we just head back home…” Twilight replied, her own hair a poofy mess that needed to be tamed by a comb, ”Maybe go to Canterlot to see about the Princess, and make sure she’s doing well.”

“Yes, I think that would be best.” Rarity spoke up as she pulled out a brush, brushing her own hair as she held spike gently to her chest, whom didn’t seem to mind the attention at all. “I’m sure we’re all hoping that she is well.”

“Than it’s decided… We head to Canterlot!” Twilight cheered, causing the others to let out a cheer as well. The group continued their chatter, enjoying their time together before deciding to head to bed, hoping to get some rest before the long train ride back home.

The group gathered into the train, all in their own private cars at the end, the caboose and the one in front of it were all theirs. Traffic towards Ponyville and Canterlot wasn’t doing too well since the attacks; most ponies who hadn’t decided to stay in their homes were heading as far away from Dragon territory and the capital as they could. It was a lucky break for the girls though, plenty of room for them to stretch out their legs and enjoy the ride.

Most of the girls were chatting and enjoying their relaxing trip in the next to last car… but Twilight found herself alone in the caboose… lost in thought. Spike had grown concerned about her and left the other to investigate, “Hey Twilight?” She didn’t answer, she was delving deep into her own thoughts and didn’t even know he was there, “You okay Twi?” he quietly approached her, gently tapping her shoulder. She jumped at the touch and quickly looked over to him, “Oh! Hey Spike… You okay?”

“I’m fine, it’s YOU I’m worried about… you seem really out of it, what’s wrong?” he seemed genuinely concerned with her. His friend since birth was feeling down and distant and he wanted to know why.

“I’m just… thinking... about this whole mess.” She told him, scooting over so he could join him. “Ponies are going to get hurt… DRAGONS are going to get hurt… plenty of creatures that want nothing to do with this are going to get hurt over something one guy says belongs to him… I just wish there was a way to avoid anyone getting hurt.”

“I know Twilight… It’s not an easy thing for anyone to think about, and there’s no clear cut answer.” Spike leaned against her, hugging her gently. “Maybe things will calm down before things get out of hand… maybe the dragon leader will just say ‘Eh, it’s not that important’. Or maybe you and Celestia will think of a way to get things straightened out in a peaceful way.”

“Maybe… I hope someone does…” she nuzzled against her friend gently; glad to have him by her side, “I just hope we get through this with as few people hurt as possible…”

“We will, Twilight, as long as you’re the leader of our little group, we can handle anything that life throws at us… You’re a smart pony, you always think of the right thing to do.” he hugged her tightly around her waist, but a sudden grumbling from inside her made him move back.

“Oh, yeah, did I mention that? My stomach is a bit unsettled as well…” She was blushing a bit now, having almost forgotten the whoel reason she stepped away from the others, “Another reason why I came back here to be alone…”

“Oh? You think you’re gonna be sick?” he asked, thinking about getting something from Fluttershy’s first aid kit.

“n-no… it’s um… Gas actually, I think something they served at the inn wasn’t quite right… you don’t smell it?” she was amazed he stayed with her THIS long with that… unsavory aroma wafting in the air…

“No, not really… You know I’ve never been good with smelling bad smells. Fire breathing really clogs up your sinuses.”

Their attention was directed toward the door; Rainbow Dash was taking a look inside for the two, “Hey! You two alright in here? You’ve been gone a lo-… Whoa! Jeez! Spike! What on earth did you do in here?”

“Sorry Dash!” Spike quickly spoke up, hiding Twilights bright red cheeks, “Breakfast isn’t settling well with me.”

“Yeah, APPARENTLY! YOU should be locked up in here alone, not Twilight…” she waved her hoof in front of her face, trying to get the smell far away from her face as she tried to escape the car. “I was just checking on you two… Bye.”

Twilight snuggled against Spike once again, “Thanks Spike, you’re too sweet.”

“Hey! It’s what a number one assistant does for his number one friend.” He hugged her once more before hopping down from the bed, “Hope you feel better soon, and don’t stay in here too long…” he waved goodbye before heading out the door.

Twilight sighed, laying her head back down. Her stomach wasn’t going to give her a break, so she thought she’d try to sleep it off. As she laid there resting with her stomach rumbling, she couldn’t help but think about the situation more… certain words and phrases seemed to stick as she slowly lost consciousness, ‘as few people hurt as possible’, ‘best solution’… but one thing Spike said seemed to stick strangely to her mind… ‘Our leader’. She felt it seemed strange in her mind, although she did seem to lead the group often. She didn’t think of herself as much of a leader, but she couldn’t help but think of all the times she led her friends to success. Winter Wrap up and Applebucking season seemed to stick out the most, where she took a problem and led everyone to getting things done in a proper fashion. Even with all that though, the word ‘leader’ seemed to bother her. The only leader she could think of was Celestia, the one person she respected more than anyone. The one person she knew would lead everyone to happiness. She couldn’t bring herself to give herself the title of ‘leader’ when the person she considered to be her leader was so much more than she could ever be, at least in her eyes. But soon, these thoughts too seemed to fade as the world around her blacked out and left her to sleep a dreamless sleep…

She shifted under the covers, just beginning to regain consciousness. She felt the bed beneath her and the cover tangled up around her body from an apparently eventful night of tossing and turning. She tugged on the blankets, pulling it more and more closer to her. She found it strange that she couldn’t seem to find the end of it even though the train bed was so small. Another curious thought came to mind. The blanket seemed much more plush, thicker and smoother than the somewhat rough and thin blankets the train provided. She finally opened her eyes and looked at the blanket in her hoof. She held a royal purple blanket that seemed so familiar to her, but at the same time to see it here was odd. She blinked hard a few times, seeing a few light sources around her, candles scattered around. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and took another look around. She was in one of the bed chambers of Canterlot Castle. Her eyes widened as she continued to look around. Outside it seemed relatively dark, possibly some light coming from the courtyard, but not much else. Around her were candles scattered on the mantle above the fireplace and one on each side of her bed. She was a bit scared now; she had no memory of getting to Canterlot, or anything after the train ride. It wasn’t even a blurred memory, it was just nothing. She quickly jumped off the bed and immediately tripped over something. She rolled over, looking at the objects that had tripped her up.

The royal shoes that Princess Celestia had always worn had been tossed around by Twilight own feet. All four were scattered now, but even so their gold coating shimmered in the dim light. She moved over, sitting up and lifting one up, eying it carefully. She had been with the princess for years, so she knew what her attire consisted of. There was no doubt in her mind that this was an exact copy of them. Another gleam of gold caught her eye on the nightstand, two more familiar objects sat beside her. Another set of copies of Celestia’s royal garb; her collar, complete with the perfect purple jewel in the center, and of course, the crown with the matching jewel. She examined them carefully, they weren’t nearly as big as Celestia’s, none of them were. They were all obviously made recently for a much smaller pony… but what were they doing in this room?

She quickly got to her feet and began to search, first taking a look out the balcony and over the large vista that she could see. The closest thing was the courtyard, dimly lit by various torches and a few decorative firepits, nothing out of place there. However as her gaze moved to further destinations, thing became quite odd looking. Ponyville was easy to see from the dozens of lit homes. In fact it seemed as though every home in the town was lit up. It seemed strange to see the town still alive at this hour. It was pitch black out and yet it seemed like all the residents were wide awake and carrying on with things. Finally she looked even further, just able to see the Everfree forest, and of course, Sweet Apple Acres. What struck her as odd were the large orbs of light floating around the farm, lighting up the hundreds of apple trees with a bright light. Were they searching for something? Maybe it was to keep an eye on anyone sneaking around, although she wondered why something like this wasn’t brought up before. Another thing seemed to snap into place in her mind; the view from this particular window. It wasn’t her normal room, or any of the guest rooms she stayed in. it wasn’t a mystery to her though, she knew EXACTLY which room she was in. This was Princess Celestia’s bed chamber. It made more sense now to find the Princess’ clothes here, but then what was SHE doing in her room?

She decided to search the castle; she needed to know what was going on. She quickly left the room and headed down the steps in search of anypony to tell her what was going on. It wasn’t long before she found a pair of guards chatting together at the bottom of the steps. One noticed her out of the corner of his eyes and immediately stood at attention. The other quickly followed his friend’s actions, but Twilight just smiled, “you two should know you don’t have to be so formal around me… but tell me, where can I find Princess Celestia?”

The two seemed confused, giving each other an odd glance before one finally answered, “Uh, well, she’s in the garden… just as you requested…”

She blinked, “I requested her to be in the garden?” The guards shared another awkward glance, but nodded, “Well… okay… if you say so, thank you.” She started to walk away again, glancing back at the guards. Both seemed dumbfounded by her words, and she couldn’t help but feel the same way, having no idea what they meant. They began to whisper to one another, although Twilight couldn’t quite hear them.

She continued down the tower, suddenly noticing Rainbow Dash hovering down another hall, “Rainbow Dash!” she called out to her when she spotted her. The Rainbow Mane was covered in a golden helmet, dotted with gemstones, along with an elaborate looking breastplate, “Playing dress up Dash? I didn’t think you were the type.” She giggled as she approached her friend.

“Oh! Hey Twilight, sorry, kind of in a hur-… Dress up? Whadya mean?” she seemed confused at her remark, “It’s what I’m suppose to wear…”

She looked down, taking another look at the breastplate. It was way too fancy for her to WANT to wear. “You’re suppose to wear that? Why?” She tilted her head, staring at her curiously.

“Uh… cause it’s what the captain of the Royal guard is suppose to wear.” She replied, still staring at them with an uncertain expression. “Isn’t it? This is the right thing, right?”

Her jaw dropped, “Captain??? You’re the captain of the royal guard? When did that happen?” her mind began to race, what did she miss? What was going on?

“Yeah, YOU’RE the one who appointed this to me… Twilight, you okay?” Rainbow hovered a bit lower, rubbing her friend’s forehead, looking for a fever or something.

“I-I don’t know… How did I get to Canterlot? I don’t remember anything after the train trip from Apploosa…” she rubbed her head, trying to piece together what was going on.

“Aploosa? Seriously?” she held Twilight’s face between her hooves, forcing her to stare into her eyes, “You’re telling me you don’t remember anything since Apploosa? ANYTHING?”

“No, just half of the train ride up here… and then I wake up in Celestia’s room…” she was getting a bit worried now.

Rainbow dash stare at her a moment, slowly backing away, “In ‘Celestia’s’… oh boy, I-I… I gotta go Twilight… you really should go talk to Spike…” she slowly started to float away, still watching Twilgiht with a concerned look.

“Yeah, I was going to talk to the Princess first….” She commented, watching Rainbow. Her reaction to Twilight’s statement seemed to drag her heart down.

“y-yeah… that might be best…” she started to speed up, as if she wanted to get away from the topic as quickly possible.

Twilight watched her fly off, left in a pile of her own confusion. She decided to hurry up and get outside to the garden.

Outside she searched through the garden; feeling a bit scared of the unknown. Something was wrong with everything but she couldn’t put her hoof on exactly what that was. She noticed a dim light beneath a random pony statue, where her number one assistant sat, reading through some papers, she didn’t care to get a look at them, “Spike! Spike I have to talk to you!”

It sounded urgent, so Spike stood at attention, as the guards had done, “Yes Ma’am! What can I help you with?” he still sounded friendly, but much more formal than before.

“Spike, what happened after the train ride from Apploosa? How long has it been? Why can’t I remember anything? Where is the Princess?” Twilight was beginning to panic, scared of the unknown.

Spike blinked, giving her the same astonished look that the others were giving her, “Whoa, wait, back up… You remember nothing? Like… how much of nothing exactly?”

Twilight eflt like he knew something too, like EVERYONE knew something that she didn’t, “I remember the train ride up here, or at least most of it. When I fell asleep in the caboose alone… I don’t remember anything after that until just now! I talked with Rainbow Dash and she seemed to know something but wouldn’t tell me!” she was becoming frenzied, speaking more and more quickly to accompany her growing confusion and concern, “I came out here to speak with the Princess and figure out what’s going on.”

Spike stared, in a bit of shock, “Twilight… You ARE the princess…” he wasn’t sure what to make of her reaction, but slowly and carefully tried to explain, “You’re the new princess of Equestria.”

“I’m… I’m the princess? The NEW princess? Than… where’s Celestia? What happened to her?” Spike could see the look of gloom in her eyes… he knew the truth was going to hurt. He simply held the torch up, aiming it at the statue. Twilight looked up and her heart dropped. A large statue of princess Celestia, standing tall, staring up into the sky.

“W-what… Who did this! Who turned her to stone?” She demanded, looking back down at Spike.

“Twlight… this isn’t the princess… this is her memorial statue. She’s… actually buried beneath us.” He told her quietly, his head hanging low, “ ‘In memory of her sacrifice to her people to protect those she cared for’.” He sounded like he was reading the plaque at the base of the statue, but Twilight couldn’t bring herself to look at it. Already tears were streaming down her face.

“N-no… Why… Why did she sacrifice herself like that?” her bottom lip quivered as she stared up at the statue of her teacher, “Sh-she said that she was going to do what was best for everyone…”

“And we all agreed that this was what was best… You agreed too, Twilight…” he tried talking with her, but at the same time it seemed like he didn’t want to talk, “She died for everyone in Equestria… no one got hurt… She… appointed you as the new leader of Equestria once she was gone.”

“No! This can’t be true! This isn’t right! She’s not dead! There’s no way! She’ll be back to raise the sun like she always has! She’s not gone!” she yelled out at spike, as if she was offended he would even suggest that the princess was truly gone.

“Twilight... she’s not coming back..” he tried to be as gentle with his words as possible. He couldn’t bear to see her upset, “She’s gone; she sacrificed herself for your happiness”

“You’re tellimg me that my teacher is DEAD! I’m not happy! She would never do that to me! She would never EVER die like that!” she found herself running away from Spike, rushing away toward her old room. She passed by guards and others who tended to the needs of the castle, but she didn’t give them any attention whatsoever. The just looked on in confusion and worry as the girl ran up the halls, crying her eyes out.

She reached her old bedroom and collapsed onto the bed, bawling uncontrollably, “she’ll be back by morning… she’ll be back, I know it… She isn’t gone…” She cried into the pillows, only peaking out to see if the sun had come up or not. It felt like she cried for hours and hours. After a while she was only sobbing dry tears into a moist pillow, staring out of the window, looking for the sun that would greet her every morning when she was a child. But there was no sunrise, no hint of hope in the sky. Finally Spike returned to her room. He walked over to her and sat beside her, “It’s been 10 hours Twilight… there’s no sun… Celestia’s been gone for almost a month now… It’s time to let her go.”

She shook her head, “No… she’s not gone, she can’t be…”

“Twilight, we need you to be strong for us… you’re Equestria’s new ruler… Everyone looks up to you now, you’re the face of Equestria and if you don’t come out with a strong look, no one else will be strong.” He stroked her mane gently, “I know it’s not easy to lose someone, but please… you have to pull yourself together.”

She sniffed, wiping her face on the pillow, “Where is everyone else? Rarity, fluttershy, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie…”

“They’re all in the castle… Fluttershy tends to the garden and the animals. Rarity is the royal seamstress and has her own business starting up soon in canterlot. Pinkie Pie is the castle’s cook, and Applejack controls the market and trading in the country. I guess you saw Rainbow Dash already and know what she’s doing?”

“Yeah… captain of the guard… good for her…” she mumbled, still trying to absorb all this information. “What happened with her and the Wonderbolts?”

“She’s the leader of them too…” his claws gently sifted through her hair, stroking the skin beaneath in an attempt to comfort her, “After the… incident, and after she was appointed, she met up with them and they asked her to lead them… You’re telling me you honestly don’t recall ANY of this?” Spike continued to stroke her head gently, trying to soothe her.

“Nothing… I don’t know about any of this stuff… How long has it been now?” she pulled her eyes from the window, looking at Spike.

“A bit over a month since you took over… We made a treaty with the Dragons and they’re not going to bother anyone anymore…”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Well, I’m the Dragon ambassador. I have constant contact with them and I personally promise that nothing will happen.” He gave her a smile, trying to convince her that things would be alright.

“How is everyone else reacting? The ponies of Equestria?” she asked, starting to lift her head from her pillow.

“Well… That’s something we need to talk about…” Twilight looked at him curiously, listening intently to his words, “we’ve been busy getting things fixed around here… there hasn’t been any official word to the people yet… we had that scheduled in a few hours… for YOU to tell the ponies how things are going to be from now on. They’re still scared of an attack, and with the sun gone, they’re even more scared.”

“What am I suppose to tell them, exactly? ‘Hey, there aren’t any dragons to worry about anymore, but the sun is gone”.” She looked at Spike, hoping for more encouraging words and assistance.

“Well, maybe not like THAT… but let them know things will be alright… You figured out a spell that mimics the sun, so if anyone needs one, the unicorns can conjure up one. They can use it for plants or just lighting in their home. Nothing will go wrong. Nothing will change.”

Twilight thought quietly, she did recall seeing stuff about fake sun spells in a few books she had read in the pas… so she believed that. “I suppose…”

“You just relax here… if you can’t make the speech, I’ll get somepony else to do it until you can get yourself together, okay?... Princess Twilight?”

Twilight mulled over the title in her head, again, she didn’t see herself as a leader, and yet now she was entrusted to lead thousands and thousands of ponies. In her lost state she didn’t notice Spike had gotten up and left her to allow her time to think.

Spike stood inside by the balcony, hidden by royal blue curtains. He checked the time, uncertain about Twilight’s arrival. He waited with Rainbow Dash, who was also getting impatient and uncertain. She poked her head out of the curtain, looking down at the crowd that had gathered. Commoners and nobles all stood together, while Pegasus ponies hover close with camera’s, preparing to photograph the historic event.

Dash shut the curtains and let out a sigh, “Alright, they’re getting antsy out there… we gotta go out and say something!”

“I know… I don’t think Twilight’s coming, she’s been out of it for a long time now…” Spike rubbed the back of his head, thinking of the reaction he had gotten from Twilight.

“Well you gotta go out and say SOMETHING, They’re worried!”

“Me? No way! If I go out there and say something they’ll think the dragons took over, we got to have a pony say something.”

“Don’t look at me! I’m no public speaker! Just walk out there and say Twilight was going to come out, but she’s not feeling well.”

“I’m here.” A voice called out to the from down the hall. Twilight walked with her head held high, the crown sitting atop her head, and the necklace carefully draped around her neck. Each step she took made a light ‘tink’ noise from the golden shoes she had slipped into. She was the princess now, and she had to look the part. She had a little eye shadow and a bit of makeup to try give her face some more character, again, a princess had to look the part. She still was terribly upset, but she knew she had to say something to her people. Spike and Rainbow dash joined her as she walked out onto the balcony, staring down at her ponies…

Thousands of eyes stared up at her, waiting for words to ease their troubled minds. Many of the faces look familiar, she recognized Lyra and Bon Bon fairly quickly, while in the corner she noticed a few famous faces of Canterlot like Sapphire Shores and Hoity Toity Even Photo Finish was here, with camera in hoof of course, taking a moment to stop photographing the others to listen to Twilight. A few more faces stood out amongst the crowd but she couldn’t help but think that the rest looked like a sea of unfamiliar faces to her. She had lived in Canterlot for many years, and even Ponyville, but the faces she saw just seemed to be very generic, nobody stood out… in fact many seemed to look like other ponies she swear she saw on the other end of the crowd, although when she looked back she couldn’t find their match.

She finally took in a breath and began to speak, “My fellow Ponies of Equestria! We all face dark times ahead… but thanks to the sacrifice of Princess Celestia, there is still a glimmer of hope for our future. The dragons have what they want and now no longer wish us harm. They will not come into our land for war, and therefore we can sleep soundly at night with this in mind. I’m sure many of you are wondering how we will be able to handle our lives without the sun gazing down upon us… and yes, although it will be hard to handle, we WILL prevail. The Pegasus ponies still control the weather, so our crops will still be watered, and I have discovered a spell that replicates the suns rays so that the crops will get all the nourishing rays that they need. These changes will not be easy, I know… but we are strong! And we cannot simply let Princess Celestia’s sacrifice go to waste by not trying to continue our lives, and live on for her. This is a hurdle that I know we can overcome, I just need you all to believe in yourselves… and believe in me.” She looked out at the crowd once more; they seemed satisfied with her response and began to applaud her. It wasn’t a wild cheering or anything special, but the seemed satisfied with her response and reacted accordingly. She turned and quickly headed back inside.

“You did great Princess Twilight.” Spike quickly told her as they headed in, “You’ll make a great princess.”

“If you say so… I still need some time alone though.” She told him, quickly heading back to her room to remove the clothing she adorned herself with and to wash off the makeup that was now beginning to run down her face as she began to cry again.

Twilight recovered and grew to accept the new facts that she had been presented, although that’s not to say gallons of tears weren’t shed in the process, but she had come to accept the facts: Celestia was gone, the sun would never rise, and she would be the leader of a kingdom of terrified ponies. She held the crown with her magic, examining it carefully. The details were all there, just like she remembered them, just smaller. She wondered how they came to creating this, whether by some magic they shrunk it, or if they just had skilled craftsman create a smaller version. She sighed, tossing the crown onto her bed before getting up to explore the castle, and hopefully find her friends.

She decided to head out to the garden, in hopes of finding Fluttershy tending to the animals. She intended to stay away from the Celestia memorial though, not wanting to have another breakdown. She headed down the path, looking up towards a sign that gave direction to the main destinations outside of the castle. From afar she couldn’t tell what they read, but even as she moved closer, she found something strange…

She couldn’t read the words on the sign. She knew what they were SUPPOSE to say, but even then the words seemed to change as she tried to read them. It was gibberish, not something that could be read. She blinked hard, trying to will herself to read the words but it just wouldn’t come to her… she finally just decided to walk away, shaking her head as she walked toward where the animals were usually kept.

She quickly heard Fluttershy singing with a chorus of birds to back her up. Her voice was happy and strong, even from a distance Twilight could hear the kindness and love in her voice. She continued ahead until she found her hovering with her bid friends, singing a gentle tune with them. After a moment the pegasus noticed Twilight and quickly stopped, “Alright my little birdies, we can sing more later.” The birds all seem to let out a sad chirp, or sigh of some sort. It was clear they were sad that she had to leave. “I know I know… don’t worry, I’ll come back soon.” She hovered down to Twilight, giving her a smile.

“Hello Twi- er… Princess Twilight.” She giggled, “I’m sorry, I’m still getting use to calling you that… how are you? I heard you’re having a bit of a memory lapse…”

“I’m better… I still don’t remember anything, but I’ve come to accept it… how are you doing?” Twilight took a look around, even in the darkness of the eternal night, the light from the moon above their heads was enough to show that the animals around the garden were happy. The birds were chirping cheerfully, the deer were sipping from the pond, and the fish swam around without a care in the world.

“Oh, I’m wonderful! I couldn’t ask for anything more. I have so many animal friends now and so many friendly ponies in the castle, I’m absolutely unbelievably happy!” the smile on her face seemed to express this fact better than the words she spoke, and Twilight believed it, but something was bothering her.

“So… you think that Princess Celestia’s sacrifice was worth it?”

Fluttershy seemed to nod without hesitation, “Yes, if it weren’t for her hundreds of ponies would have died… It’s better that only one was taken from us.” She explained softly. “It’s a terrible loss for everyone… but it was for the best, right?”

“hm... Alright… if you say so… Any idea where Applejack would be?”

“She’s probably in the back of the castle doing paperwork… She’s the marketing person of the castle now.”

Twilight nodded, beginning to take her leave, “Yeah, I know… Thank you Fluttershy. You have fun with your animal friends.” And with that she was gone, heading back into the castle in search of Applejack.

The halls seemed fairly barren, not a soul was around most of the time. Every so often she’d pass a guard or an attendant and they give her a royal greeting, but other than that, nothing.

Eventually she discovered Applejack’s work room, where she sat looking through paperwork, “Hello Applejack, are you busy?”

AJ looked up, a big smile covering her face, “For you Twilight, A’course I got time for you. Come on in. You feeling any better? Heard about your apparent memory thing…”

“Yeah, a bit better I suppose. So what are you up to in here?” She asked, seeing all the paperwork. The words were too small to make out, so she just looked up at Applejack instead.

“Well, I control the market, I help distribute goods across Equestria, making sure every town has plenty of everything. It’s a pretty easy job… at least for me anyhow, heh.” She smiled, seemingly proud of her upscale business here…

“I see… don’t you miss being on the farm though?”

Applejack shrugged, “Eh, I don’t mind it. It’s gotten a bit boring lately, so this is a nice change. Macintosh can handle everything though.”

Twilight eyed her friend curiously, but nodded at her response. “I was curious about something… has the night had any effects on the crops?”

Applejack nodded, “Yeah actually, in a good way! The apples seem to taste sweeter without as much sunshine. The moonlight actually seems to allow it to retain its natural flavors more.”

“How on earth does that happen?”

Applejack shook her head, “It’s a bit complicated… but it seems like the sucrose that occur naturally in the apples don’t get dried out as much, since the trees are now in a constant cooler temperature, therefore making the apples much more sweet!”

“Hm… interesting…” she continued to watch Applejack before turning around, “Well I won’t keep you form your work… Have fun and don’t be a stranger!”

“Will do Twilight!” Applejack gave her a wave and continued to work in her little office.

She headed towards the kitchen, now on a mission to talk to all her friends before it got late… although it occurred to her with no day time now, there was no early or late… either way she made her way towards the kitchen, finding Pinkie Pie with an apron on and a wooden spoon in her mouth. She headed to a table nearby and stirred up something in a bowl before pouring it into a muffin pan and sticking it in the oven.

“What have you got baking in here Pinkie?” she asked as she walked in.

“OH! Hi Twilight! Just some blueberry muffins! I know you’re gonna love em!” she said, bouncing over toward Twilight.

“Ooo, I bet… Do you plan on baking anything else today?” she asked, noticing that there still seemed to be ingredients set out for something.

“Yup! I was planning on it! What would you like?” She seemed eager to continue baking.

“Hm, I dunno… how about something we can bake with a song?” she asked, giving her a smile.

“OH! Yes! That sounds great! How about CUPCAKES!” She bounced over to the table and suddenly broke out into song, “All you have to do is take a cup of flour, add it to the mix! Than you take a little something sweet not sour,” Her song seemed to come straight out of her memory. She listened to her singing while trying to teach Applebloom how to bake cupcakes while attempting to get her cutie mark. “A bit of salt, just a pi-“

“Actually, I was thinking of something other than cupcakes…” Twilight interrupted, hoping she wasn’t intruding.

Pinkie seemed surprised, but smiled, “Okay! That’s no problem, what would you like?

“How about… Apple turnovers?” Twilight suggested, still smiling.

“Oh! Sure! I’ll just grab some apples, chop them up-“

“Can’t you do it in song?” Twilight asked, hoping for a little tune to brighten her day, “It would make baking so much more fun, don’t you think?”

Pinkie seemed a bit stunned, “Uh, well yeah… but I don’t think I know a song for Apple Turnovers…”

“Oh, that’s too bad… well, I suppose I could help, right?” Twilight walked over, picking out a few apples.

“Uh, well I think apple turnovers are something I can do myself.” She insisted with a little smile.

“Oh, I see… well I suppose I could just watch, would that be alright?”

“If you’d like, yeah!” Pinkie pie began to chop a couple apples, pouring them into the bowl of flour.

Twlight watched carefully, taking note of the ingredients, “So are these for a party? Or just for fun?”

“Just for fun.” She replied, pouring in water and a few other ingredients into the bowl. “I don’t really have any parties planned yet.”

“Oh… too bad…” Twilight replied, still watching her intently.

Pinkie seemed to feel like she was being put on the spot for some reason, “You okay there Twilight? You seem strange today.”

“Me? Strange? Nah, I’m just trying to enjoy my time with my friends…” she insisted, smiling cheerfully. She noticed Pinkie placing the dough onto the pan, but it seemed like the cookbook was blocking what she was seeing. She lifted her head to try and get a better look at what Pinkie was placing on the pan, and it looked like just small piles of yellow dough… “They look good so far.” She told her as Pinkie slipped them into the oven.

“Thanks! They gotta cook for a while, so I’m gonna go clean up… We’ll talk more later, okay Twilight?” Pinkie smiled, giving her a big hug before heading out.

Twilight still felt strange… but she continued her journey to see her friends, next heading out to the fliers course, hoping to find Rainbow Dash.

“Alright you guys! This is going to be our best show yet!” Twilight could hear Dash as she headed outside, seeing the clouds dotting the obstacle course for Pegasi to hone their skill in flight. She saw a line of ponies in blue suits, with another pony with a rainbow mane instructing them, “We are the Wonderbolts! And we’re going to blow some minds with our next show! We are not here to screw up! We are here to perform!” the Wonderbolts saluted their leader and flew upward, into formation. However Rainbow stayed below, watching them.

“Hey Rainbow, Why aren’t you up there with them?” Twilight called out as she came to the edge of the stands.

Rainbow turned around, smiling at her friend, “Hey! Oh, I’m just instructing them on how to work better… I got other work to do; I don’t have time to fly with them.”

Twilight just looked at her, looking up at the Wonderbolts flew around in their wild formations. “Well then I hope you have fun with that… any idea where Rarity will be?”

“Yeah, her room is actually right up there,” she said, pointing up to a window with lavish curtains hanging just inside. “She’s been asking for you too, says she wants to make you a royal dress or something…”

“Hm, I’m not surprised… okay, thank you” with that, she headed off, not spending much time with Dash at all…

She headed up to her last friend, opening up the door and taking a peek inside. It looked much like Rarity’s home in Ponyville; dozen of rolls of fabric lined one wall, mannequins with unfinished dresses lining another, and various scraps of fabric scattered across the floor. Rarity was humming softly to herself, sewing up a dress on the other end of the room. She heard the door open and turned to see Twilight.

“Twilight! Dear it’s good to see you, are you feeling well?” she asked with a chipper smile.

“I’m doing fine Rarity, how are you?”

“I’m absolutely FABULOUS! Thank you again for giving this room for me to work in, it’s so spacious! It’s just wonderful!” She quickly ran over to her, giving her a big hug.

“Heh, you’re welcome… So Rainbow says you wanted to make a dress for me?

“Yes! That’s right! I want to make you something that will stun everyone! Come on in! I’ve already got ideas!” she quickly moved her inside, to which Twilight didn’t object, just going along for the ride. Fabric began flying around, scissors snipping away large and small chunks while needles armed with thread sifted through them, tying the fabric together around the purple pony. During all this Rarity was talking… a LOT. “I can’t believe how wonderful it is to be here in Canterlot! Just the other day I got an order from Saphire Shores again! Another difficult order, but nothing that I couldn’t handle. Oh! And Hoity Toity came by to get some advice for his next fashion line, but of course I kept the best ideas to myself. I also got a letter from Photo Finish asking about-“

Suddenly Twilight had a sharp pain in her head, deep within her brain. Something was stabbing at her thoughts but it seemed gone in an instant. Everything was blurry for that instance, but now things seemed fine. However she noticed that the fabric was no longer active. They seemed frozen in the air, as did everything else. Rarity wasn’t speaking anymore, did she just stop? Or was she asked something and didn’t notice, “Uh, sorry Rarity… did you ask me something?” she turned to see a peculiar expression on Rarity’s face. She was looking around cautiously, as if something was on her mind. Maybe she felt the tinge of pain too? Should she ask?

Rarity finally seemed to get back to herself and continued to work on her dress, “Oh, no dear… nothing at all… although I did want to ask… are you feeling alright?”

Twilight nodded, holding her head up as some fabric wrapped around her chest and neck, “I told you earlier, I’m fine.”

“Oh, yes of course… but… are you sure? Nothing’s bothering you? Nothing seems… out of place?” her earlier quickness and eagerness to make her dress seemed to have faded away, everything was moving much slower and was more precise rather than the hectic flurry of fabric and scissors flying around.

Her questions confused her… but she decided to go ahead and be honest, “Well, yes… I don’t remember anything up til today… And frankly… Everything seems a bit… strange.”

“Strange? How so?” Rarity continued to work, but it seemed as though her attention had shifted to Twilght now.

“Well… nothing seems quite right… nothing seems WRONG, but I can’t shake the feeling that something is just… off.” She kept glancing over at Rarity, who seemed highly intrigued by her words.

“I see… could you be more specific though dear? I’m never good with vague responses…”

Twilight took another look back, but it seemed as though Rarity was avoiding her gaze, “Well… I have to admit… everyone seems a bit strange, like… they’re not quite themselves. They seem happy, but they don’t… they just don’t…” Twilight tried to find the right words, luckily Rarity was there to help.

“They don’t seem quite like themselves?” She asked, loosening the fabric around Twilight’s body.

“Sort of yes… They’ve said a few things that don’t seem right, and I don’t like it… I don’t feel like I’m talking to my friends.”

“Let me tell you something Twilight… There are times when a gut feeling is just a bad sandwich not agreeing with you… but there are times when that same feeling is something trying to tell you that something is wrong… that things aren’t quite right in the world.”

Twilight looked over at Rarity curious, feeling her muscles tensing up. “Really? What exactly are you trying to tell me Rarity…”

“I’m trying to tell you Twilight that sometimes you can’t trust what anyone tells you… that sometimes, what seems like reality is just a veil covering the truth…” Rarity gently pulled the half finished dress from twilight, mounting it on one of the plastic ponies.

“Really… Than how do I know I can trust you?” Twilight asked, raising her brow.

“I’ll be honest Twilight… I don’t know if you can… The only thing I can guarantee you can trust coming out from between my lips is this: if someone tells you something and It doesn’t feel right… than chances are it’s not.”

Twilight stared at Rarity, their eyes locking. She stared for a long time, and Rarity stared back… she had no gut feeling, nothing seemed wrong about her words. With all of her friends something felt out of place, but for the first time in days she heard something that sounded absolutely right. “What’s going on Rarity?”

“Be careful Twilight… sometimes the people you can’t trust are the ones you hold closest to you…”

There was a knock at the door, and it opened before anyone could allow them in, “Spike! Hello my little Spikey Wikey.” Rarity rushed over to hug her little boyfriend, pecking his cheek lovingly, “How are you doing?”

“Heh, I’m fine Rarity…” he had a goofy smile on his face from the kiss, and a glimmer of happiness in his eyes, “I just wanted to talk to you for a bit… Oh! Twilight, I didn’t see you there.” He blushed a little; feeling caught getting kissed from Rarity.

“Hi Spike, heh. I suppose I’ll leave you two alone to chat… have fun and don’t get into trouble!” Twilight had a cheerful tone in her voice, trotting past them and heading back to her room. However the words Rarity spoke were nagging at her mind… she couldn’t get them out. Who could she trust? Who COULDN’T she trust? So many ponies in her mind that she didn’t know what to do with. She decided to head to her room to relax.

She pulled some books from the shelves, feeling a good story or educational textbook would calm her nerves. She opened up the first one she could find, and quickly discovered her new found reading disability was still with her. No matter how hard she tried, the words never quite looked right, making it impossible to read. She tossed all the books away in a frustrated groan, and instead sat there quietly thinking too herself… She felt like hours passed before some commotion outside her window caught her attention. She casually walked over, looking around the courtyard… before finally her eyes caught sight of a horrible image.

Below in the courtyard, a guillotine had been set up. Even in the dim light of the torches below, the blade shined brightly, its sharp edge clear to anyone who could see. A hooded pony stood by its side, his hoof already on the lever. Twilight quickly looked down, spotting the pony locked into place, a flowing purple mane and white skinned pony, her head hung low, but her eyes seemed to be locked on Twilight. Rarity seemed to be staring into her soul, no panic, no sense of urgency, but her eyes seemed like they were trying to tell her something she couldn’t quite out her hoof on. In a flash she teleported herself down to the courtyard, rushing toward the executioner, “STOP! Don’t pull that lever!” She cried, only to be grabbed by Rainbow Dash and Applejack, pulling her away.

With that the executioner pulled the lever, and the blade began its descent. Twilight’s eyes locked onto Rarity’s once more, seeing a soft glow within them. Her words from before echoed in her mind, “sometimes the people you can’t trust are the ones you hold closest to you”. She felt herself blinking, a reaction to the wind in her eyes. She didn’t want to blink, she wanted to keep her eyes on Rarity, to tell her it would be okay… but when she opened them once more, the blade had reached its destination… Twilight could no longer see the eyes of Rarity looking back at her, only cold steel tainted with a red smear.

“NO! WHY? Why did you stop me?” she demanded, pulling herself from the others. She quickly backed away, realizing that everyone was there, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Pinkie, Fluttershy, and even Spike, who quickly tried to calm her down.

“I’m sorry Twilight… We found out Rarity was actually plotting to take you out. She wanted to be the ruler of Equestia… and she was willing to kill you to do it. I’m sorry, but we had to do it.” He said in a solemn tone, his head hanging low…

“WHAT? No! Rarity would never do that to me! I’m her friend!” Twilight shook her head, slowly backing away fro mteh group.

“Twilight, we’ve been keeping something from you… about the incident.” Spike twiddled his fingers, looking downward.

Twilight blinked, now staring silently at them for a moment, “What? What haven’t you mentioned? You told me everything that happened, didn’t you?”

Spike shook his head, “Not everything… Twilight, it… wasn’t exactly a… unanimous decision.”

Twilight apparently wasn’t getting the message Spike was trying to convey, “What wasn’t a unanimous decision?”

“You see… when we came back here to Canterlot… you went to speak with the princess alone… After a while… we heard some crashing noises and rushed in…” he bit his lip, desperately wanting someone else to take over the story so he didn’t have to finish it. But the others were dead silent, no one looked her in the eyes. “We found you standing over Celestia. the floor was just… COVERED in blood and… She was dead.” Twilight’s eyes were wide in disbelief, but Spike continued. “We begged for an explanation, we couldn’t believe our own eyes. You said that it had to be done. One life to save thousands… You… You convinced us that it was the right thing to do.”

Twilight slowly shook her head, “No… No this isn’t… I would never…”

“Twilight, it’s the truth…” Applejack finally spoke up, taking in a deep breath before sighing, “You told us that she would’ve preferred it this way, And that you would lead the country in her place. ‘You all say I’m a great leader, so I’ll rule this country!’… at least that’s what you said to us.”

“You’re all trying to tell me that I killed the princess for the country…” he head hung low, the last few pieces of the puzzle were clicking together in her mind… “And that Rarity was so upset by this she planned to kill me next… but to avoid that, sSpike, you killed her instead?” she looked up, an angered look on her face, “No, this isn’t right!”

“I know it’s hard to accept Twilight, but… What’s done is done” Spike started to approach her, trying to be friendly, “We can only move forward now, we have to try and make things right for our FUTURE, even if it means without Celestia and Rarity…

“No Spike!” she snapped, “ALL of you aren’t right… not a SINGLE ONE of you!”

The group looked at her curiously, sharing glances of uncertainty. Spike, although shocked like the others, spoke up first, “What on earth do you mean?”

“Let me run the list by you all.” She said, feeling confident in her observations. “Fluttershy.” The timid girl let out a little ‘eep’, shocked that she was suddenly being called out, “There’s no way she would find Celestia’s sacrifice to be acceptable. Even if it did save lives she would’ve been devastated by the loss of ANY life.”

“Oh, w-well of course I was devastated!” Fluttershy peeped up, trying to defend herself. “But it’s been a while, and I’ve-“

“Don’t give me that… I know Fluttershy, she could never get over it, and she would never consider it an acceptable loss! But then there’s YOU Applejack.” AJ quickly turned her head, her eyes locking on the accuser. She stayed quiet while Twilight had her moment to speak, “Cooped up in a little office? Away from your farm and your family? That’s not the Applejack I know! She’d be out there right now bucking for Apples with her loved ones! Even if she IS a good business pony, She loves her family too much to stay away from them for so long. Then there’s the apples! That explination about why they were sweeter made perfect sense.”

Applejack seemed confused, “So what’s the problem then?”

“Applejack knows a LOT about apples but nothing about science! If anything the REAL Applejack would’ve said something about treating them with kindness and respect would make them sweeter… Or that the apples KNEW we were all scared and they made themselves sweeter to make ponies happier. Scientifically, that would have made NO sense at all! But that’s what Applejack would’ve said, and I would’ve believed that more than anything she could quote from a textbook.”

Applejack didn’t respond… it seemed the whole group was listening to her excuses… waiting for the list to finish up.

“Who did I visit next? Pinkie Pie! That’s right… But first, let me say why I know Rainbow Dash here is full of bologna.” Dash frowned, giving her an icy glare as she was brought up, “Rainbow Dash, the fast pony in Equestria, the pony who dreamed of becoming a Wonderbolt and flying with them suddenly becomes the leader of the group, and yet she says she doesn’t have the time to fly with them, HA! That was an easy find.” Rainbow Dash continued to glare, but said nothing… in fact they all seemed to be glaring now…

“Okay, so with that, I knew something was wrong with you all, but I didn’t know what… But then I thought about Pinkie Pie.” Again, the ponies just stood there quietly, watching the accuser speak, “First of all… Pinkie Pie with no parties planned? She had a party planned somewhere for some reason every day!” Pinkie seemed like she was about to talk, but was quickly cut off, “But okay, maybe the transition to Canterlot didn’t give her much time to plan, maybe she was in the process of planning one… But I know Pinkie Pie has a song for every recipe she knows how to make.”

“Well YEAH! I was TRYING to sing a song for you-“

“Yes, the ONLY song that I knew all the words to… you didn’t know the song for Apple Turnovers because I didn’t know your song for Apple turnovers…” the group continued to watch her, eyeing her cautiously… “And I don’t know how to make Apple Turnovers, but I know enough about cooking that you can’t make them the same way you make Cupcakes just by adding Apples! That’s right I saw that… You don’t know how to make them because I don’t know how to make them…”

“What are you trying to say Twilight?” Pinkie asked, her brow raised to give herself a questionable expression.

Twilight smiled, “I believe this is a dream… this is all an elaborate dream, but why I’m having it I don’t know…”

“How can you be so sure of that?” Spike asked curiously.

“Well, I read some books when I was little about dreams, and I found an interesting little fact… you can’t READ when you in a dream… reading is controlled by one side of the brain while dreams are controlled by the other… and when you’re asleep, the don’t connect. But even with all that in mind, I still wasn’t entirely sure that it was a dream… until just now… First off I know under NO circumstances I would take the life of my teacher, or any of my friends… but I don’t recall this ‘event’ happening, so even then, I wasn’t absolutely, 100% sure that this was a dream. But thanks to you Ppike, I know for CERTAIN.” She lifted her hoof, pointing toward Rarity’s body, still strapped into the guillotine.

The group looked, but they seemed confused… “What are you trying to say?” Spike questioned with a brow raised.

“You’ve loved rarity with all your heart since the day you met her… and even before she showed her affection back to you, you swore you would keep her safe and protect her… and in an instant you murdered her… There’s no way you’re Spike…” a victorious smile crossed her lips, she was certain that she was right, and that she had won.

“Than why don’t you just wake up?” he asked, folding his arms, glaring at her. “Either that or… just accept that this is reality and move on…”

Twilight looked fiercely back at her opponent. She lifted her leg up and bit into her leg hard, trying to shock herself out of it. But even when she began to taste blood, the reality hadn’t vanished…

“You see Twilight? This IS reality… I think you should head to your room and take a nice long nap…”

“I had a feeling that wouldn’t work anyway…” she stated, putting her hoof back down, “You’re all obviously not exact copies of what I imagine my friends to be… so someone or something Is making me dream this. It’s very elaborate and feels very real, so whoever is doing it is very powerful in controlling a dream. A simple shock like that won’t do it.”

“Than… what do you plan to do?” Spike asked, now starting to show a little worry.

“This isn’t my reality, but it IS my dream… and I’ll tear it apart at the seams if I have to in order to get out.” She closed her eyes and began to focus. Her horn was lacking its magical glow, but even so, the ground began to shake.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

“I’m going to start by putting this back the way they should be…” the walls of the castle began to crumble apart, but the debris lifted upward rather than away. The royal clothes that were draped around her friends vanished into this air, something even unicorn magic couldn’t do. The statue of Celestia began to shake, and pieces began to crumble off. Underneath the outer layer was a bright light, glowing brighter and brighter as it crumbled. Soon the alicorn broke free, shaking the debris from her body. She turned to Twilight and smiled, “That’s my number one pupil!” She cheered to her as twilight continued her work.

The guillotine began to fade, and the body of Rarity seemed to spring back to life, her head reattaching itself as if it were never removed. “Aha! Twilight you figured it out! Now get the sun up! Destroy this fake world!”

Twilight heard her words, and although she was confused as to why she was the only one here making sense, she decided that the sun would be her next goal. The horizon in the east began to glow faintly, as the sun creped up slowly.

“NO! Stop it! You can’t wake up!” Spike cried, trying to get to her. Twilight just smiled, shoving him away with an unseen force, while continuing to pull the sun upward. As the light shined down on the world, it began to fade. With one last cry from Spike, the world was nothing but a white light to her.

A new image began to take shape. She felt the bed beneath her shake gently, and a soft rumble outside. Every so often she heard a slam, along with a lot of chatter. She blinked a few times, realizing that she was back in the train. She was relieved, it truly was a dream. However a feeling of helplessness overcame her. She couldn’t move her body. Her muscles were limber and refused to obey her will to move. Her eyes moved over, and what she saw shocked her. A hooded figure was standing beside her, with his scaly hands hovering over her, emitting a strange velvet colored magic onto her. Even with his hood she could easily see that he was a dragon of some sort, just a bit taller than she was. She couldn’t bring herself to scream or call for help, it seemed like everything but her eyes were under his power.

She quickly looked toward the front door of the train car, seeing familiar faces in the window. It seemed like the whole group had gathered around the window, trying to push their way into her car, but the same velvet colored magic seemed to be keeping it closed. One of the faces caught her eye though. Rarity had her eyes closed, and a blue aura circled around her horn. Twilight quickly looked down at her body, seeing that the velvet and the blue auras were swirling around one another, it what seemed like an intense battle of the minds, and she was the battlefield.

She heard the thumping again. And her eyes headed toward the back of the train. She saw Rainbow dash, bucking at the back window as hard as she could, but to no avail. The dragon had that covered in magic as well. She looked back up at him, and now his eyes were open, “You’re making this very difficult for me… Now why don’t you just go back to SLEEP!”

With his commanding words, everything went black once again. There was no longer an illusion of a fake world for her to interact with. It was just her and blackness, “Who are you? What are you trying to do to me?” she demanded, yelling fiercely at the blackness.

For a moment nothing replied… but soon a fuzzy image of the dragon appeared not too far from her, “I tried to make you a world to live in… but you just wouldn’t accept it.” He told her, crossing his arms, “It’s not easy creating that big of an illusion in ones mind... especially with the marshmallow pony interfering like that.” He grumbled, shifting a bit, his dark robes flowing a bit as he turned.

“So Rarity WAS doing something… That explains why she was the only one making sense in that crazy world of yours…”

The dragon shifted again, turning his attention back to here, “Oh really? You must be SO happy that you’re out of that now… Do you realize what I was trying to do?” of course before she could answer the rhetorical question, he continued, “I don’t like killing anyone, even ponies like you! I don’t like it. But that’s my job! To kill those who interfere with my boss’s plans… So what do I do? I trap them in a dream world where they get to live a nice wonderful life until the day they die in their dreams, happy and peaceful. And when you die in a dream, you die in real life. All in an hour or so in the real world… All is well, the target dies after living a long fulfilling life, and I don’t get in trouble back home. But no! you couldn’t have that… so instead, I’m just going to trap you here until you lose your mind and kill yourself…”

“I escaped once with the help of Rarity!” Twilight grinned, focusing her magic once more.

“I don’t think so… See, this is a dream, your magic is unfocused and distorted right now in the real world… there’s nothing you can do other than WAIT.” He smiled, holding a smug look on his face and a wide stance, conveying his power through his posture.

“you think so? This isn’t YOUR mind, it’s MINE, and I won’t allow you to keep control of it… I have my friends to help me!”

“Your friends? They can’t get in here, not even the marshmallow. Without having to worry about conveying a world to you, I can concentrate on keeping them at bay until you finally pass away.”

“You don’t understand… Friendship has bonds that magic can’t break. They run deeper than anything you could comprehend…” The dragon wizard looked on with curiosity, but made no effort to fight her on this topic, “I have their love and kindness in my heart, I can feel them right now!” the ground around her began to glow, causing the dragon’s shoulder to slump, losing the strong stance he once held.

“I can feel Rainbow Dash’s courage! The will to stand up for what’s right!” As she spoke a faded ghost of Dash began to form beside her, staring down at the dragon with a smug grin on her face, “I can feel the generosity of Rarity, and her desire to help all of her friends.” With this a faded image began to take shape of Rarity on her other side. “I know Applejack would tell me that I can beat you! And with her honesty, I know she’s right! I can feel the kindness in Fluttershy’s heart and her desire to love and care for everyone and everything!” More shapes began to take shape. The older ones were now beginning to solidify into the ponies themselves.

The wizard could only watch as this all took place in front of him, it was unlike anything he had ever seen. No one had ever had the power to conjure up forms in the dreams once he took over, not that he had seen. It was incredibly fascinating yet at the same time terrifying.

“I can feel the laughter and joy Pinkie Pie always brought to me, I can feel the joy Spike has brought me over the years. I can feel the love and affection of my parents and my teacher! I can feel the friendships of all the ponies I’ve met flowing through me!” all around her an army of everyone she knew gathered around her, all staring at the wizard standing alone. “There’s no way you can beat me when I have friends like this!” She began to charge at the dragon, with all her friends alongside her. It was too much for him to control.

The wizard’s concentration was broken. Twilight, now in control of her body and her magic, shoved him away with a magical shove, getting up out of her bed. With him no longer using his magic to keep the doors shut, the others rushed in. the wizard prepared an attack, however a roll of fabric quickly wrapped itself around him, while a needle and thread sewed him into submission, leaving him wrapped up on the floor with no way to conjure his magical abilities.

Fluttershy was the first to get to Twilight, tackling her into a hug, “Ohmygosh Twilight! Are you alright? Did he hurt you? What did he do to you?”

Twilight just smiled, eagerly hugging her back, “It’s okay; he just gave me a bad dream, that’s all. The others quickly gather around to hug her, all worried sick about the incident. All except Rarity, who lifted the troublemaker with her magic, glaring at him, “Alright Dream weaver… What exactly are you doing her? What were you doing in her dreams?”

“Heh, sorry, trade secret.” He told her with a grin.

Twilight recalled what he said clearly, “He said he was trying to let me live my life in my dreams so I would die… he was trying to kill me, in a way.” All eyes glared at the dragon, even Fluttershy had a glimmer of hate in her eyes. “Why didn’t you just suffocate me in my sleep? Or… ANY other way?”

“I don’t like blood… I don’t like violence…” he stuck his nose up, showing his disgust for those things, “I just wanted you to live to death in your dreams. It’s better that way anyway, better to live happily in your dreams than out here…”

“And just WHY did you want her to die?” Rarity asked, turning the Wizard burrito towards her, forcing him to look at her again.

“It’s my job, and she’s my target, what more do you want?”

“I WANT answers! Like what exactly your little group has planned next?” Rarity held up her needle in a threatening manner, although it didn’t seem to phase the dragon.

“Ha! What are you gonna do with that? Sew me a scarf?”

“Yes, and strangle you with it you little urchin.” The fabric around the dragon tightened, making him yelp.

“You better start talking, Dragon Boy!” Rainbow took a stand, glaring at him, “Or else you’ll have to deal with me too!”

“Oh really?” he coughed, the tightened fabric knocked the wind out of him briefly, but not enough for him to stop making comments toward the ponies. “You think so? I think you know three friends of mine who would be more than happy to have an excuse to toy with you again…” Rainbow Dash froze, her eyes wide with fear as memories of the fight rushed back, “Remember Dashie… One… by… One…” Dash felt her legs force her to walk backwards, behind the group of friends around Twilight, “That’s a good gi-Urk!”

“I’m not intimidated by some ruffian.” Rarity reminded him who was currently speaking with another quick tightening of the fabric. “I want some information out of you right now and I’m not afraid to take you into the other room to get it.” She didn’t want to interrogate the dragon in front of the others, knowing it might not be an enjoyable sight to watch.

“Heh, too bad I won’t be staying very long…” he opened his mouth wide, a fire brewing in his mouth. Before Rarity could react he released it, but it enveloped him instead of Rarity, burning up the fabric and leaving a pile of ash on the floor.

“D-did he just…” Fluttershy stared in horror at the remains.

Rarity sifted through them carefully, giving Fluttershy a smile, “So sweetheart, it was merely a teleportation spell… He’s probably long gone right now…” Rarity stroked her shoulder gently, giving her a little smile.

Twilight was already gathering a piece of paper and a quill, starting to write furiously.

“Twlight? What are you writing?” Applejack looked at her words curiously, noticing the first few words were ‘Dear Princes Celestia.’

“I’m telling the princess that we were attacked… she needs to know that the dragons are getting bold. We need to warn her.” She explained, writing down the details of the wizard who tried to kill her.

“That’s probably for the best…” Applejack nodded knowingly, “she needs to know.”

Twilight finished writing and handed it off to Spike, who quickly burned it and sent it off to Celestia.

“So… Twilight, what exactly did you dream about when he was taking over?” Fluttershy was curious, hoping Twilight would be alright.”

Twilight nodded, taking in a breath before starting at the beginning. The girls listened quietly to her story, and when their doppelganger was brought up they seemed to fidget a bit more; hearing how they were portrayed by this dragon. Twilight was almost finished, getting to the point where she woke up when Spike let out a loud burp with a letter from Celestia escaping the flames. He immediately grabbed it, looking at Twilight for the order to read it, or wait until she was done with her story.

Twilight was more interested in the letter than her own story “What did the princess say?”

With that Spike opened the letter, finding two pages, “Hey! Isn’t this the map you found Dash?” he held up the first piece, showing it to her.

Dash quickly nodded, “Yeah, looks like it, why did she send it back?”

“Let’s see… Dear Twilight, Thank you for the warning. I’m glad that you and your friends could handle things; I knew you all could do well. I think I will buff my guard around the city and move some citizens closer to protect them more easily. But I have more interesting news. I’ve been examining the map, and it seems like a group is moving toward the castle of the ancient pony sister.”

“Oh no! They’re already that close?” Fluttershy didn’t mean to interrupt, but the news seemed to catch her off guard.

“They’ve still got a long way to go through the forest though.” Twilight reminded her, recalling how long their journey took to get there.

“Uh oh,” Spike had continued reading ahead just a few lines, and something caught his eye, “It says to look at the symbols on the map… There’s something important there.”

The entire group gathered around the map, looking around for symbols. They all seemed to recognize the castle of the pony sisters, and paths leading up to it. There they found about a dozen symbols, all seemed very dragon like. The first one Twilight noticed was a crown atop a dragons head, “That must mean the ruler of Dracozard will be there…”

Rainbow Dash noticed three dragons; a short chubby one, a tall thin one, and a medium sized one all standing together. “Th-Those are the dragons I got in a fight with!” The group looked at her, and then looked back. If those three dragons could take down Rainbow Dash, than with the rest of the dragons there, if a fight broke out, things might end badly…

“Girls…” Fluttershy spoke up, pointing at one of the symbols, “Did anyone notice this one?” her hoof pointed at one of the bigger symbols, it was almost as big at the crowned dragon, while they others were much smaller. The others looked carefully, and quickly the symbols seemed to click in their memories.

It almost looked like an ink blot that someone spilled by the king’s symbol, but inside was a carefully drawn crescent shape, along with a few dots in the shape of stars surrounding it randomly.

“That’s… Isn’t that…?” Rainbow Dash didn’t want to say it, she knew what it was, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to tell the others.

However Rarity was the one to finally let it out, “This is Princess Luna’s cutie mark, isn’t it?” she asked, looking at the others, “Do you think… do you think the princess would be with them?”

“Those three dragons I fought mentioned she was still alive!” Rainbow Dash quickly added, hoping the information she had gathered would help.

“Than… she might be, but why would she be with them?” Twilight stared on in confusion at the symbol, wondering what possible reason they would have to bring her along.

“Uh, Girls,” Spike snapped his fingers, trying to get their attention again, “More from the princess..” the girls quieted down, looking up at Spike, “I’m sure if you’ve looked at it, you know why I want you all to head out to the castle now. Again, I don’t want anyone to go if they don’t want to, but if Luna is there, I want her back. I’m still in no condition to leave; not by my own choice mind you, but the choice of my doctors and guards. I had an idea of someone you could recruit to help you on your journey if you wanted some help; a powerful unicorn who I’ve heard much about. I believe she could help you all if you would go to her and ask. Head over to Hoofington before you return and see what she says; I have her address enclosed in the letter.”

“A powerful unicorn in Hoofington?” Applejack pondered this quietly, “Why is that ringing a bell?” she asked herself, although the others seemed to wonder that as well. It sparked something in their memories, but no one could quite get it to click into place. Nevertheless, they all unanimously agreed to stop in Hoofington and see about this mysterious unicorn…