Prelude: Ragnarök

Prelude – Ragnarök

The wind was a light breeze that swept somewhat lazily around the valley, making its way through the throng of snowflakes without considerable hurry.
The relenting windspeed didn't matter much, however. After all, the temperature hadn't relented for almost three years, now. It didn't really matter how cold it got anymore.
No matter what, it was always, always cold.

Thorulf Hrimgjärsson let his eyes wander across the whiteness. Gyldvik had once lived up to its name – in the past, golden heads of dragon and eagle had shone on every longhouse roof, and gilt crimson shields furnished every inch of wall in the village hall. Back home, they would have appealed to some king for city rights or whatever, but the lords that ruled the lands of Asgård didn't really care much for the details. So, Gyldvik had remained a settler village. Hardly likely it'll ever be anything more, now.

The eagleheads, to be fair, were still in place. Probably. Nobody had bothered to check, but then again, nobody would've bothered to steal them, either. Probably. Either way, they would still be just like anything else that wasn't under a roof or shoveled clear twice a day. Buried beneath a year's worth of snow.
He ran his mitten-clad hand through his golden beard – not a single streak of gray yet despite his proud age of fifty-seven years, a fact that he was proud of. He tugged a bit. Felt the pull downward, the slightly prickling sensation that weaklings would call pain. At least that was still around, stubbornly sticking on like a leech in a stream. The rest, on the other hand... Thorulf turned his gaze on the tall pole in the center of the village square, and then let them wander a bit further until they settled on an undefined spot in the whiteness beyond. There used to be water, there. Seawater, salty blue painted white with cresting waves and nesting gulls. Now it's ice all the way through. They'd had a massive stroke of luck in that their icefishing pit had been open the day the shallow fjärd had frozen solid. The fish, having nowhere else to go, had actually gushed out of the fifteen feet hole, like some freak frozen variant of a geyser.
That was one and a half year ago, now. They'd dried and salted the lot of it and saved it all; rather than – as some fools had proposed – prepare them all right away and sacrifice half in a grand feast to celebrate the gods' favor returning to them. Once again, Thorulf's wisdom and harsh words had gotten his village – his clan, his people – through a crisis without much more than a few groans and bruises. Rationed well, it would last them another half year. Another half year of hoping for this blasted winter to finally end. Then again, it was just that. Hope. Only fools trusted hope.
Three years of winter, growing harsher every month. The first year had been cold enough to snap-freeze the sap of the trees, making scores of them burst open with terrifying cracks on the worst nights. The second year the wind had blown down twice as many in furious blizzards, that screamed across the land like a pack of wolves.
This last year hadn't been particularly cold or windy, true. Despite that, his heart felt heavier than ever. He hadn't seen the sun, or the moon, or even a pocket of sky for a whole year. Hel take me, I wonder if the mountain on the other side of the lake is still there. You never know with this damn weather. Can't see anything in this damn world anymore.

In the past, he would've been able to see to the north the whole blue width of Gyldfjarsvatna from where he was now standing, along with the ever snow-capped peak of Efstfell on the opposite shore. The green, forest-spotted reaches of Merrmonland would spread out in the south and west, and the roaming herds of wild horses would be as little spots in the vast plains. On rare occasions one would even be able to spot the outermost parts of the Aesir holdings, as tiny glimpses of gold and silver just on the horizon – like someone had taken a handful of stars and rooted them in the earth.
In the east, the only difference would've been the addition of mountains far in the distance and the occasional stray giant wandering out of Jötunheimr. For a village so close to giant territory, the strategic placement atop a decently high hill was important; perhaps even more so than the palisades that marked the village's border. After all, while giants could quite easily break through a wall, they'd be hard pressed to hide in plain sight.

As the winter had gone on, however, the regular bergrisir had slowly been replaced by vast numbers of hrimthurs. True, the frost giants were smaller and weaker physically. In a winter like this, however, their magics were fiercely strong, and their wintery coloring made them damn near invisible to all but the sharpest of lookouts. Many battles had been fought until he'd finally led a massive raid into Jötunheimr himself and razed the two mountain passes leading out of the giants' fortress-kingdom, trapping them all inside. It had cost his clan a lot of good blood, but it had been worth it – all of Asgård was now safe from the giant threat.

The week after they'd come home, the snow had started falling. A year ago now, and while no giants had come, nothing else had done so either. He was thankful, still – with this visibility, the hrimthurs could've marched up all the giants in Jötunheimr to his doorstep without him even noticing until their horners blew to charge. Even from the lookout tower on the crest of the hill, all he could see was the village itself. Not the palisades, definitely not the snow-covered plains beyond, and not by a long shot Efstfell on the other side of the fjärd. The whiteness covering the sea was indistinguishable from that covering the sky, and they simply melted together to his eyes. Not fading away into the falling snow, like the edges of the village did – it was as if the world simply ended at the edge of the pier. A pole in the water, a single boat that hadn't been taken up in time, and then – nothing. Nothing but whiteness and a tiny smudge of-
Wait a second...

Almost unnoticeable at first, then slightly larger – then immediately emerged from the sheet of white a great form clad in fur. His fair hair flew gently in the wind, and atop it burned pale an image that was not there, yet was just as true nonetheless.
Freyr, lord of the Vanir, ruler of Svitjod and its domains, fairest of all the gods in Asgård. The crown of horns flickered slightly as its flames were stirred by the wind, but the image stayed alight.
Thorulf stared for a moment, then took his horn from his belt and put it to his lips. He shaped the call in his mind, before he put the words in his mouth and blew.
The King has come! Hear, Gyldvikings! Hear, Ynglings! The King has come!
The call echoed bright and clear from the tower on Gyldhädh's crest, reaching miles further than the village as it spread its message throughout the lands.

Before long, the long hall was bustling with his clansmen. Not to the brim, of course; the wars of the long winter had taken its toll, and not enough people were left in the village and its hinterlands to fill the enormous building. Even so, the benches around the long table didn't have much space to spare. Like most clans, Ynglings weren't exactly known for being small, quiet people who calmly shuffled themselves into their seats without ruffling any feathers.

Tankards and horns were filled and the mead passed around the throng of burly berserkers and their often equally burly shieldmaidens. Blacksmiths and old shipwrights were engaged in hearty shouting matches with the warriors – crafters and warriors always had some differences they needed to solve – and and a few teeth had been lost already by men who were too drunk or stupid to realize when to stop. Weapons had been drawn, but that was in the other end of the building where the less rowdy folks were engaged in an axe throwing game.
Thorulf had planted himself in the high seat, and he was rebraiding his beard. He was feeling rather small at the moment – despite the fact that he was a very large man, measuring over six feet of length and three of width, his burly arms well a foot wide each. At his side stood Freyr – who had no high seat beneath him, and yet stood well over a foot taller than Thorulf. Though not quite as burly as the chief, and not nearly as big as your average jötun, he was still a giant of a man standing well over eight feet tall on his feet. That, along with the great crown burning atop his head, made him resemble a moose standing on its hind legs.

Yet, for all the majesty of his king and forefather, he could not bear the foreboding signs that were building in his heart. Whenever he set his eyes on the king, he saw disaster and downfall; not at all the best signs for your king and clanfather.
Thorulf, like all Ynglings, had as kin of Freyr the blood of the Vanir in his veins. The gifts of the Vanir were weakened from ten generations of human blood now, true, but at times the diluted bloodline rang truer than most. Thorulf bore the strongest gifts of Van the clan had seen in centuries, and all of his men praised him and his forebears for their strength and luck. He could read the lines of fates future and past nearly as well as the Vanir gods themselves – Norns aside, of course. Truly blessed a man must be, favored by fate so greatly that it reveal its face to him!
The truth was both lesser and greater in glory than that, however. His father Hrimgjär had been a bastard, son to king Thorberg, the shieldmaiden daughter of Erik, king at Upsal. Half a century and eight years ago he, as cousin to the reigning kings Yngvi and Alf, had been selected to lead the great Viking expedition to Asgård. However, when Bifröst had opened and was to be crossed, the Danes – who had arrived under the leadership of the royal Skjöldung clan – refused to accept the leadership of a bastard, and fighting arose between the Swedes and Danes upon the rainbow bridge itself. Hrimgjär was severely wounded in the melee, and got lost on the pathways; eventually ending up in a great field, where he was rescued by a woman named Ynga.
A year and nine months later, she had borne him a son – Thorulf – and by powerful magics healed his ails and wounds fully, whereafter she sent him to where Bifröst stood opened to send them both to Asgård, so that Hrimgjär could join his men.
As the story that his father told him as a child went, Thorulf had thus figured himself the son of a strange sejd, or even a disa – but nonetheless, a witch of the outer worlds. Which would've been a further shame to the son of a bastard, but other than that, not much to care for as long as he brought himself enough glory in battle to make up for it.

If that had been all there was to the story, that was. Twelve years later, as his father laid on his deathbed, their Vanir ancestors had come to Gyldvik in score from Vanaheim to witness the chieftain's passing. With them, scores of valkyries and their chosen einherjar. Among them, the host of the valkyries herself, king Freyr's sister, Freyja.
Despite his father's sickly disposition, the old chieftain had managed to stay smug when revealing his mother's true identity – something that could definitely not be said for Thorulf himself.

So it was. Thorulf was not one-thousand-twenty-fourth Vanir, like all other Ynglings of his generation. He was half-and-one-thousand-twenty-forth Vanir. Which was considerably more. After he had learned of the fact, it was his one source of shame. Before that day he had taken great pride in his gifts, and praised the blood of his ancestors for it – after, he felt as if he had cheated the gods of their gifts, rather than earn them properly. As time had gone by however, his father's last words had entrenched themselves in his mind, and he was now mostly at ease with that part of himself.
Cheated? Gods, son! With Odin as my witness – aside from all others gathered here today – the god you have your gifts to thank for was cheated of nothing. Those gifts she was ever so willing to give, as willing as I am giving myself to Valhalla!
Chills went down his spine as those thoughts went through his head, the flaming hearths be damned. Well, as much at ease as any sane man could be with the fact that he's half god. He shook his head and returned his attention to the scene before his eyes.

The din had surmised in the long hall, and Thorulf looked to his king – he methodically avoided thinking of him as his uncle, because that was just wrong – who gave a slight nod and drew himself up to his full length. The crown of horns grew with him as his muscles and bones filled themselves with his power, swelling and bulging with blood and magic. Lines of silver smoke formed in swarms around the pumping veins, and his kneecaps burst free of their caging with a violent crack that sounded through the already quiet room, leaving an ominous echo behind. The smoke cords finally settled around his neck and shoulders in a tight net, like glowing chainmail crafted of the clouds themselves. A few ends stayed free in the air, though, and they rose and bulged like serpent heads as Freyr drew breath.
“YNGLINGS!”
Ten feet tall and four feet wide stood the king in his Visage, but his mighty bellow of a call must've reached all the way to Valhalla itself. The pillars supporting Thorulf's high seat were shaking like willows in a storm, and he could swear he'd heard the ice crack down by the lake. The strength of a god – even one only using his voice – was not to be trifled with. That was, after all, what made them gods, rather than simple magicians and outworlders.

“My kinsmen,” Freyr continued as the minor earthquake he'd caused died down. “Greatest of all honors upon ye all, Gyldvikings. When the ice came, I feared the worst from the jötuns of the east. As did the court of the Westbound jötuns – my wife has been sending me the most important tidings, and they were close to panic until your host shut the Gate of Jötunheimr. Ynglings, my kin! Raise your horns in honor of those brave warriors. Raise your horns for those who lived that day, for those who fell raise theirs in Valhalla every night!” The serpent heads rose again, and the bellow sounded once more – though not quite as violently as before, merely as a measure to sound his words across the steadily rising din of cheers and shouts. “Tonight we shall feast in honor of this victory! To you it may seem distant, but every night Odin's table honors the victory of your fallen kin. Time enough now for the survivors to share the glory of the slain. My horns I raise to Thorulf, son of Hrimgjär, without whose bravery and cunning we would not be here tonight!” The cheers rung sharp and bellowing that rivaled the King in terms of sheer volume, as Thorulf stood up on the high seat and raised his horn. Horns rose and were emptied, refilled and emptied yet again, and a second round of cheers erupted – yet louder, albeit somewhat more scattered as the men finished their drinks in turns. Not that they all couldn't drink fast, but there were only so many people refilling their horns. This was not Valhalla, after all.
Once those cheers had died down, the King raised his horn again. “My horns I raise to Anund son of Audun, without whose axe and shield our Chieftain would not be here tonight!” Indeed, the man standing on the end of the long table had been his savior many times during that rampant melee. He had lost three fingers for a hrimthurs' blade, but saved Thorulf's neck. The triumphant roar he let out now was loud enough to be heard even across the shouts and cheers of the entire clan.

“My horns I raise to Ragnvald, son of Ingjald...”
So the evening went on – though the pace slowed a bit once the first few had been honored. Each of the 58 warriors who had survived that fateful battle had their moment of standing roaring on the long table, with the horns of the entire clan and the king himself raised to his honor. Tears were shed by some, most of all by the ever emotional berserkers; and those crying who were not, would probably join their ranks within the week. Their magic, their strength lay in their emotions – and those who had that strength were few inbetween, especially since they had a fantastical talent of getting to Valhalla early.

The loud chorus of cries and shouts eventually settled down into a more orderly din. It wasn't much a difference in volume, but with the youths trundling back home to sleep the mead away, you could at least hear yourself think again. Crafters and warriors were separated into small clusters of drinking, boasting and talking business in their respective corners. Thorulf had mediated some disputes between the warriors who managed the few mines they still could reach, and the blacksmiths; Anund was apparently arranging terms for his eldest daughter's marriage, among other things. The evening had been a feast, but even that had held its moderation – they had very limited resources, after all. Now the nightwinds had started rolling in, waves of chill from the frozen sea, and it was time for chieftains to be chieftains. And, he thought grudgingly, for uncles to be uncles.

He made his way back to his high seat, weaving through the crowd – although smaller than before now that the youngsters had left, it was still fairly packed – raising his horn to whomever raised their own to him. Soon enough he was planted upon its meager cushioning consisting of a single wolf pelt, and face to face with the king – who was still standing right where he had at the beginning of the feast, his feet burrowed into the floor at the right side of the high seat.
Freyr had a brooding look on his face. The Visage was mostly back down, but some of its magic still persisted in the air around him, floating free like wisps of silver-blue smoke. “Thorulf.” A pair of wisps departed from his lips as he spoke, fleeing swiftly to the roof before bounding down to join its friends in orbit around the king. Thorulf wasn't too sure of what was to come, but he didn't have any patience to wait further tonight. He raised his eyes, and locked them against Freyr's. “Freyr. I have read the signs of fate, and they show nothing but doom for us all. What tidings are you bringing from Valhalla, uncle? What events could be so grave that the Aesir risk your absence from the halls at this time? I know they've been hogging every single god they could get their hands on ever since the winter came. Are they calling for us now, as well?”

Freyr stood silent a few seconds, a frown creasing his forehead. He drew breath – then hesitated, and let it out again. A slight shake of his head, rustling the horns like a strange wind, and then-
“Muspelheim is marching.”
It was merely a whisper, but from the king's lips it pierced the hall all he same. Conversations cut short in a swift wave spreading from them, and heads turned, eyes widened. Thorulf felt as if his spine had turned to ice, that very instant – and so would many of his men. Which the king knew, all too well. Not a moment later, the Visage lit aflame on Freyr's body, and he raised his voice to thunder yet again.
“MUSPELHEIM IS MARCHING!”
Freyr's voice did not shake the earth or the pillars of the building, this time. The hearts of the men inside shook far more than enough.
“The fire giants of the south are marching on Valhalla,” he continued as the whispers died down. “The dragons of the north have all left the realm of Asgård – the last pair took off on Bifröst not a month ago. And while the eastern giants have been locked out by your bravery...”
The king hesitated again, and the Visage shrunk greatly – before disappearing entirely, crown and all, with a small fizzle. Gasps went through the crowd, and Thorulf was hard pressed not to do the same himself. Freyr went on.
“The Westbound court have slain our envoys, and turned their arms and walls against us. They have broken the prison of the deceiver and his spawn – Loki once more walks free!The wind giants of the west stand with Muspelheim in their deceit!” He struck his fist against the wall, and the stone cracked like dry leaves before his rage.
“MY WIFE HAS FORSAKEN ME, AND BROUGHT HER ENTIRE PEOPLE WITH HER IN HER BETRAYAL!”
Tears ran down his cheeks in silent sorrow and rage, and a chill wind went through the hall as the stray wisps of his Visage fled the scene. A moment later, the scattered berserkers gave a unison cry of rage and hatred; so timed as if they were of one mind. Shouts and bellows of malice soon joined theirs, the warriors and crafters alike cursing the blood of the traitors. All they roared, except Thorulf.

Thorulf was experiencing something extraordinary. To be precise, an extraordinary amount of pain, that had joined in in a little personal chorus with his rage when he was just about to scream it out. Every bone and joint in his body was in uproar, burning with a fire he had never thought was there. Faintly glowed wisps of red and black, that floated around his sweaty hands and feet; as he drew breath, the fire spread to his throat and lungs. That forced him to pause for a second, and made a curious thought form in his mind. I wonder if it hurts this much when he does it, too? He eyed the king, but he – as the rest of the clan – seemed too caught up in screaming at distant traitors to notice what was going on. Or form any sort of coherent ideas, for that matter. Then we go, Thorulf thought. He spoke.

“YNGLINGSowwww my ears.”
That, Thorulf stated to himself, was entirely too loud. The sheer force of his voice had actually blasted the closest table into pieces, and thrown the men around it to the floor. Not to mention, it had probably broken several eardrums – his own had likely escaped total destruction only thanks to the same magic that projected his words.
It had very definitely caught the attention of everyone in the hall, however. So, he went on.
“Last year we broke the Easterners, by the force of our axes and swords. We paid a price in blood to Odin, god of war, for our victory. Now, Odin needs our favor – and the blood we paid march with him as he meet the hosts of the Westerners and Southerners in battle!”
He slammed his hand on the armrest of his high seat, and the fire in his lungs once again burst to life – he paid heed to control its inferno this time, however. “Our fallen march before us in battle, ready to again take the highest marks! Ynglings, what say you to this contemptuous greed of our brothers? That they be the ones to steal all glory from us, who still walk the world outside the reach of Valhalla's horns? That once more we who remain to guard and strengthen the Clan, shall be sung of lower tones, of lesser words? Or, pray tell, remain unsung?”
A unison cry rose in response from the warriors. “NAY!” Feet thundered as they stomped the ground, and within moments an impromptu drumbeat arose from the shivering planks of the floor. Not seconds later that too was drowned out, when someone found an actual wardrum and started beating it steadily with all his might. Thumm. Thumm. Th'thumm. So Thorulf, again, went on. “Then, hear me, Ynglings! We shall be the ones to hold the gates of Valhalla! We shall make war side by side with our fallen brethren, and bring the greatest of all glory to the name of our clan! None shall forget Gyldvik, who remember Asgård! None shall forget Clan Yngling, who remember Asgård! None shall forget...”

So the night went on for quite some time, the men drinking and drumming, until even the hardiest of warriors had gotten enough mead in their bellies to waggle home swaying like overloaded longboats in a storm.
Left were only those two who were to share the hall's sleeping quarters for the night. As the last of the warriors passed through the door into the snow outside, Freyr put his hand on Thorulf's shoulder, and eyed him intently. “I think it's good time we had a little talk, my dear nephew,” his uncle said, a thin smile on his lips. Thorulf managed to smile back, but he didn't need to read anyone's fate to know that this night wouldn't end in his favor.

Then again, that was all secondary. There was little time to worry about his own – divinity – now, when all power that could be found was of enormous importance. Nothing else mattered, now. The war was coming. The war to end all wars, the war to end the god of war himself.

The end of Asgård was at hand, and Thorulf was now the end of its line – twilight had come for the line of the gods.

Ragnarök has arrived, he thought sleepily, before he fell into a deep slumber.

-/-/-/-/

A certain pony stood on the crest of a small hill. At least, such was the appearance of it to others, unaware of her actions on planes beyond what could be seen with the naked eye. Then again there were no “others” except a small family of feral werehamsters trying to hide from the horse-beast lumbering across their territory, so appearances didn't really matter much.

She had climbed this hill crest every night for almost two months now, and frankly, she was getting tired of it. Luckily, tonight was going to be the last. She could feel it. It was a strange feeling, true, one that made her insides squirm and shiver in anticipation – not altogether enjoyable, but not all too bad either.
She had tied the last knots. Drawn the two strings out. She had, rather surprisingly, found the pole – thus sparing her the effort of making one of her own – and tied them together around it. She had bound it all together, and though it was rather makeshift, there wasn't exactly anypony else around who could do it better. Or at all, for that matter.

Now, it was time to make the pull. The pony steeled herself – this was going to be, if not painful, then at least very, very weird. Then she smiled. Oh well!

She pulled.

Ch1: Tantibus Regia

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CHAPTER 1 – Tantibus Regia

A loud, frustrated groan thundered through the stone corridors of the Royal Palace. It was loud enough that everypony in the entire west wing quickly covered their ears with something, not caring whether they dropped a tray or two in the process. This added considerable amounts of clamor to the noise. Those too unfortunate to be able to get their hooves free in time added their own part to the choir, consisting of high-pitched screams of agony.
Once the immediate danger to the palace staff and its collective sense of hearing was gone, the wing was summarily emptied. Anypony who wasn't deaf, wearing industry-grade ear protection, or somehow had managed to sleep through the vocal assault undisturbed, were outdoors within half a minute. The others didn’t take long to follow.

Such was the way of the world. Broken plates could be replaced a lot easier than broken eardrums. And when the Mare of the Night forgot to turn off her much-intimidating Royal Canterlot Voice – especially indoors – other ponies covered their ears or suffered the consequences. This forgetfulness had gone unremedied for some time now, since the princess in question simply had no energy to listen to anything other than things in the spirit of “Yes, your Majesty”, “No, your Majesty” or “I brought your Coffee, your Majesty”. Even raising the moon was tiring. For the Princess of the Night, that simply would not do.

Princess Luna’s jawbones cracked loudly as she let out a silent yawn. She was not a pony that tired easily. Not at all. She had even gotten a most fierce reputation among the students and professors at the Canterlot University for just that – utter tirelessness, and especially in matters of work. Seeing as those ponies themselves were examples of the very same virtue, that said something of her own case.
This last month, however, that had not been much of a case anymore. The first time, one week after the Summer Sun Celebration, she simply hadn't been able to find rest after lowering the new moon for the seventh time of the year. Once she had fallen asleep, it had been an uneasy one – three hours in, she had woken up, sweating and panting, from a most unsettling nightmare. As the weeks went on, she found herself getting less and less undisturbed sleep – which this last month had been reduced to none at all.

So it had started, like many other unpleasant parts of her long life. In the past, her dreams had always tended to give her some manner of vague premonition of events to come. Unfortunately, this time it had continued as nightmares as well; rather than switching over into some less trivial, more manageable (or at least tangible) problem. Nightmares, and in a much greater magnitude than she could handle.

A peculiar irony indeed, that We would end up so troubled by this phenomenon, Luna mused as she half walked, half stumbled through the palace corridors with a tired gait. She had always considered the dream-visions as a gift of sorts, and in earlier times she had taken great advantages of those few she had managed to decipher, when negotiating with foreign dignitaries, nobles and rebellious (or at least highly displeased) subjects. A few tired nights and uneasy days sleeping had been a small price to pay. This time, though, it was proving more than she could handle.
At first the servants had offered compliments and concern, and later on home-baked goods, to try and help alleviate her troubles. Now, the corridors were emptied of other ponies long before she got there, the arrhythmic clinking of her tired hoofsteps (along with the occasional ear-shattering groan) announcing her presence long before she got close enough to them to be a real threat. She sighed. And here We thought Our days of grieving seclusion from Our little ponies were finally over.

The first few weeks after being cleansed of Nightmare Moon, she’d been haunted by a similar streak of bad dreams. Those Nightmares had, because of her insecurity and mental weakness, utterly terrified her; she had slept with Celestia by her side for all of the first month. All in all, that first year had been something like a second fillyhood – her power and confidence both gradually returning as the horrifying memories and dreams of her possession receded into the past.

That was two years ago, however. This time the problem was quite different – it was hardly an issue of the dreams themselves scaring her, now. While Luna still hadn’t caught up to all the modern world’s newfound quirks of technology, magic, culture and language – and by the stars she was trying hard to learn that last one properly – she had very much regained the regal spirit and strength, mental and physical as well as magical, that she had so much prized before her fall. Fright of dreams was no concern of hers, now.

Nay, the crux of her problems was the heavy disturbances to her sleep cycle – which had always seemed odd to everypony else, nocturnal as she was. After enduring a full month of having her sleeping hours reduced to a multitude of tiny naps, her duties to the Court had suffered. The Court, meanwhile, had suffered her. Either her numbed-down overtired self; or, upon a few occasions, the frightening creature she became after consuming enough caffeine and sweets to cross over from ‘stupidly tired’ to ‘dumb as a brick and on a massive sugar-high’.

She had tried various methods to combat the dreams, but to no avail. Finally, two days ago, she had taken it up with the one pony who might have some answers she didn't; her sister. Upon which Celestia had, in a surprising show of exasperation, dived into parts of the Canterlot Archives that even Luna herself had yet to go through. After raising the sun this morning, she had announced she'd found something that should be able to solve Luna's problems. Luna wasn’t sure of how much hope she dared put into it, though. It seemed a bit too good to be true.

The corridors seemed to have multiplied this last month, for she could've sworn it wasn't normally this far between the kitchens and her sister's personal chambers. Oh, stars and galaxies, Our head feels like one of those strange, mushy "pancake" things the cooks serve up. Floppy, flabby, flattened and covered in jam. It was quite accurate, for once, since the amount of sugar and caffeine she used to support her collapsing mind - amounts almost on par with what the Element of Laughter consumed, apparently - made this metaphor not so far-off from the truth as it normally would've been.

It was well past dinner, and she had - with considerable discomfort - woken up, done a (mite sloppy) arrangement of the night sky, and gone down to the kitchens to gorge herself on unhealthy foodstuffs for an hour straight. Having replenished some energy this way she went off to see her sister, fervently wishing that her faint hopes would not end up mercilessly ground to dust this time.

After way too much walking, she finally reached the right corridor. Luna opened the door to her sister's private chambers, and was met with a most unexpected sight.
All unnecessary furniture had been shoved off to the sides of the room, leaving a large, empty space in the middle. Empty, at least, except for her sister's royal flank; as well as two sets of magical circles drawn on the stone floor, using proper high-grade glyphdust rather than ink.

Yes, she'd been expecting something magic-related. But her sister very seldom bothered using spells that needed more than a single circle, or any circles at all. Never, to the best of her knowledge, had Celestia put her horn to a multi-tiered drawn spell.
These circles had four tiers each, each one of the smaller inner rings just as perfectly scribed as the others. Additionally, high-grade glyphdust was essentially unobtainable, as the secrets of its make had been lost with the shattering of the Third Dragonflight four centuries ago. It probably would remain so, unless the dragons managed to overcome their individual differences again for long enough to create a new proper civilization rather than the ramshackle migratory collective they presently were – or at least, a functioning wing of dracomancers.

Celestia was really ‘pulling out all the stops’, as it were. And that wasn't all. The glyphs themselves were ones Luna hadn't seen in millennia – and even then, only as theoretical sketches on scrolls. Besides, it would've taken somepony far closer to an Archmage's level of skill and practice to figure out, nevermind actually doing it and getting it to work. Twilight Sparkle, perhaps – if she had five years and a laboratory, filled with assistants and specialized reference material. Her sister, in the Canterlot Archives, most likely alone, in two days? It'd be madness to even consider the possibility!

All those improbabilities added up to one firm conclusion in Luna’s head. This shouldn’t have been possible to make. Yet here it is. The contradiction made no sense to her sleep-deprived mind, and she sincerely doubted she could possibly have come very far even if her mental condition had been normal. Or anypony else alive.
Then again, the books and equipment lying around the room had probably outlived their creators by a good margin. After all, nopony had, to the best of her extensive knowledge – and that of the archives of research done at the University of Canterlot, lists of which she had committed to memory quite thoroughly – done any dabbling in the ever so useless field of Astral Projection for well over fifteen centuries.

/-/-/-/

I hate waking up. Her eyelids were trying to glue themselves together, and gravity did its best to drag her tired upper body back down again as she raised herself from the pillow and sheets. She resisted the temptation, however. The beds in this stupid castle are uncomfortable, anyway. Taking in her surroundings, her sleepy mind tried to discern exactly what it was that had interrupted her slumber this time. No nightmares. So not that. She slowly turned her head as her eyes moved across the room, landing on a calendar of September 1634. Not likely. They moved on, finding two copies of Machiavelli’s The Prince shoved into a corner. Not unless someone threw them at me. With this in mind, she completed the turn of her head and looked toward the door. Where, of course, she found the perpetrator. Who was having a giggling fit, now that her ears were catching up to reality. Too loud to sleep through, with or without book-throwing, she concluded. I really, really hate waking up.

Kristina sat on her bed, grumbling to herself as she patted her disheveled clothing to some base level of propriety, shuffling her generous mane of golden blonde hair into a sloppy arrangement as she went. She had gotten changed, true, but she had slept twice since then; once right after lunch, after she'd stormed back to her chambers to sulk. She had just woken up from her second nap, not feeling much better for the meager rest it offered her, but she hadn't really had anything else to do with the time between 4 and 6, and these days, napping was a good a pastime as any. The nightmares had started almost three weeks ago. At least, that was what her chambermaids called them.
Ha. Nightmares. I'm not scared of no dreams, or dream-horses, or horse-dreams, or any type of horse for that matter. I love horses! Though stallions are probably better than mares. A warhorse is undeniably the second best mode of transport there is, besides airplanes. And anyone who tells me that's improper - or that I'm too small for anything bigger than a pony - needs a good whipping. Even better, whoever it was that made up the whole "night mare" thing, needs a good whipping. It's a stupid word. I should tell papa that. Then again, they might not be alive. It's a pretty old word, I think. Maybe Axel knows, he's usually good with nerdy stuff like that. If nothing else, he can probably make up a better word.
No, she wasn't scared. Kristina was a princess, and the sole heir to her father's throne. Being scared was for lesser people, be they ignorant peasants (as opposed to informed ones), enemy troops facing down papa's armies (which they seldom did for long) or stupid noblemen (as opposed to sensible ones) who made bad decisions and ended up taking what came for them head first. Or, depending on how the rebels decided to dispose of them, head off.

She was, however, thoroughly annoyed. She hadn't had a single good night's sleep in the past week; every three hours or so she would wake up, sweating and cursing loud enough for her chambermaids to wake up and hover around her anxiously, and bad enough for her ladies-in-waiting to admonish her for her foul language when she finally awoke. While they only spoke German or, in the case of Countess Platzer, English, it wasn’t too hard for them to guess the meaning of the angry gibberish she was yelling in her sleep, despite the absence of her governess Lady Ulrike.
She was very tired, too. Eight year old girls were generally not at all very capable of dealing with severe disruptions in their sleep cycles for any extended period of time. Despite her great prowess in most fields conceivable to her tutors, she was not quite above the limits of her human body. Leastwise, not yet, she thought stubbornly. She was rather certain that there was very few things that could not be overcome in this world – save, possibly, papa and his will, or that of God himself. Admittedly, she had some doubts about the second one.

All this had, ultimately, led her into throwing a quite extreme fit at lunch, earlier today. While there were no Danes in the little clique surrounding her (though she was fairly certain that would change with time, staying at Frederiksborg Castle as she was), she had managed to quite firmly embarrass herself in front of most of the Danish court as well. And while King Christian himself, the sodden drunkard, had been absent from the dining hall, Ulrik had been there. Ulrik, the young hero-prince of the Danes (and her betrothed) who had, using nothing but spar torpedoes, rowboats and his own utter recklessness, managed to sink an ironclad during the defense of Copenhagen. And papa. Who was, well, papa.
She was still visibly sour over her father’s presence, and quite annoyed over the prince’s as well – despite the fact that she still hadn't quite managed to stop thinking of him as the enemy. And even if Christian wasn't here, that doesn't exactly make it any better. Besides, what was he doing instead? Flying. Getting bloody joyrides from his pet Colonel-
She broke off that train of thought. It would not lead to anything productive whatsoever, and she would probably throw another fit the moment the moment she saw the man. Which wouldn't be all too good. Probably. Christian was a strange man. And a sodden bloody drunkard. Even if he's stopped being an enemy.

So Caroline Platzer, the newly raised Imperial Countess of Narnia (a small village west of Lübeck that had been renamed by Kristina herself because she, and all the up-time Americans, thought that “Nütschel” just sounded too ridiculous) had offered Kristina her services. Kristina, after some guffawing and angry muttering to blow some salt off the wounds to her pride (dealings with the countess came at that price, so she was simply working up a surplus in advance), accepted. After which she promptly retreated to her chambers in order to sulk a bit, and nap. No matter how useful the countess could be in staving the nightmares off, she was rather certain that she'd be mad at someone afterward. And Kristina Vasa, Princess of Sweden, was very seldom wrong – especially in matters of being mad at people.

Besides, seeing the Countess stifling yet another fit of laughter at her charge's efforts to make herself presentable five seconds after waking up from yet another restless sleep wasn't really the best way to dampen her anger. Not at all. God, I hate waking up.

/-/-/-/

“So you see,” Celestia continued, “it would seem that this field of research has been abandoned purely due to the fact that none of the three pony species have the aptitude for its usage. The astral-side makeup of an alicorn is, however, similar to the yhmaár described in this document – down to the colors and everything – and thus, quite capable of it. Impressive, wouldn't you agree?”

They were not, as it was, in her sister's chambers, speaking to each other. Not quite. Celestia had listened to her annoyed complaints about pseudoscience and whatnot, and instead of reasoning with her had simply used the spell she had conceived for the purpose. To Luna’s surprise, it had worked. Remarkably well, at that.
They were now inside Luna's mind. Vivid and sprawling, two ponies standing on a ridge of logic, amidst hazy bubbles of memories and thoughts. All fully visible to their eyes. Their “speech” was merely a projection of thoughts, echoed on the “other side” inside her head.

Astral projection had always been a dodgy business, but even in its prime days – if it could be called that – it had never even come close to anything like this. Back then, she had been impressed whenever somepony managed a reasonably logical depiction of how the physical and possible astral parts of the body interacted, or a decent thesis on the correlation between magic and the astral plane; never in her wildest dreams had she thought of something like this. And certainly not from our sister!
That was an oddity in and of itself – Celestia had always spent most of her time on governing, while Luna had tasked herself with long ambassadorial tours to states near and far. Thus, whenever she had been back in Canterlot, Luna had found herself with a great deal of time to spend on her favorite pastime – scientific research and study. While their workloads had been more or less equal, Celestia's had been constant; thus, she had never had the same time to take interest in, nevermind research, any special subject of science or magic. Now, her sister had managed a feat which the wizards of old would've awed at for centuries, and that was far beyond the understanding of the scientists of their current time.

Despite the alien, layered look of the mindscape, she was quite able to grasp the structure of her astral body. She was not quite floating free – although the lack of any semblance of gravity surely made this possible. They were standing on the surface of one of the many layers of her own internal logic that the framework of her astral body was composed of. Beneath them spread wide the still recesses of her subconscious, and at the peaks of the space visible above her was the sputtering cauldron of activity that was her very thoughts. She could reach out, with a part of herself, to that very peak – listen to her own consciousness. She only tried that once, however. It became quite dull rather quickly, and besides, the odd stereo made her uncomfortable.
The rest of the space was an odd spiral of mismatched colors in motion, intensifying the higher up it was; at the mid-level where they were currently standing, the swirling was gentle yet swift, like the meandering flow of a countryside river. The colors seemed to be related to emotional states, but following much more complex rules than that, if what the document said held any value here. Besides, that was an issue much unrelated to her current mission.

Nay, she had rather more immediate worries at hand. For one, to find the source of her nightmares – that was what they were here for, after all. But the more pressing concern to her right now was a different question. Where, when, how had her sister managed to find this “document”? Who had written it, in the first place? And it surely said nothing of alicorns, either. Or any kind of pony, for that matter. Where was it from?
She had read the thing herself, before confronting her sister and being bounced off to this imaginary realm inside her head. It was a fragment, to be sure, and the thought of whoever had written it must have been in quite a fragmented state as well. It read like the mental journal of some half-mad scientist who had been trapped in a dark room for years. Or on the moon, came a whisper from somewhere. Dark, muddy bubbles whirled up from below, swiftly traversing to the peaks of her consciousness – and a spiral of colorful shapes dropped down past her, sinking like a school of fish, swimming downward.
There was no name on it anywhere, either. The closest it came was a number of references to one “E. E.”, and she was fairly certain that was someone other than the author. It was disconcerting.

So, she asked. “Sister,” she called as she drifted downward through the layers, to meet Celestia on the little platform she was standing on. “We must wonder of the circumstances that placed this document in thy possession. Fairly certain, We were, that no research even close to this magnitude of progress had been done before Our Incident, and the university archives tell of none whatsoever since then. Tell Us, sister – how didst thou acquire it?”
Celestia pawed at the invisible ground with her hoof, and looked upward, as if trying to remember. “It was some 400 years ago, I believe. I was returning from the late court one night, and when I entered the private parts of the palace I got this... feeling. Tugging me. I just opened the door right next to me – it was a storage room for cleaning equipment, quite recently built. And yet, one part of the floor was covered in dust. A perfect circle. That was the shape of the original document, as well; I reprinted it once I finished translating it. It was a calm midwinter when I found it, so there was not particularly much to do for a month or two – but soon I had to put the project on hold. The text took me well over a year to understand, and even now there are some discrepancies. It is mainly the letters themselves – it was written phonetically, in a strange script – the language is rather understandable, with some discrepancies. The workings of this spell was not included in the text, but there was a lot of references to its function and principles; enough that I could construct a working version of it some ten years later. It took me a lot of time...”

Celestia went on about the research she had done through the course of four centuries, sparse trial and error and overbearing amounts of reasoning for every step forward she made. But Luna had gotten what she had asked for. A feeling. And a mysterious circular document, covered by a pile of dust. In a newly built cleaning room. Most every alarm bell in her mind was going off at this point – she knew a plot when she saw one, and this had all the signs of an ambitious noble’s machinations.
There wasn't much she could do about it, however. Hardly would any harm come to her from this, and hardly would there be much use for the spell outside this peculiar opportunity. Unless Luna got her sister to teach it to her. And Luna really, really wanted to learn the history of how the various cadet branches and noble houses of the realm came to be. With a very explicit first-hand account of all the events, and not a single fleshy detail left out. Her face reddened slightly, but that was more from the fact that the ‘sky’ was burning bright crimson, rather than any amount color on her projection’s face. That was a moot point, however, seeing as what she’d just done was the mental equivalent of a full-body blush.

She shook her head, dismissing the thought. No, there wouldn't be much use of this spell later, and certainly few dangerous ones – even if it got out to common unicorns for use. It mattered little if its procurement was the result of some unicorn plot four centuries ago or not; better to now focus on the matter at hand, so she finally could get some decent sleep.
“We understand,” she said out loud. “Now that We have a better grasp of the situation, we should make effort to investigate Our, hrm, nightmare problem. Shall we?” With a look at Celestia, she glided down further into the subconscious parts of the astral body. Since she was actually manipulating her own awareness of her mental states in doing so, an uncomfortable sensation slowly crept up the limbs of her projected body and up into her head; before proceeding to spread throughout the mindscape as winding carpets of murky green thread. The sinking feeling was strange, to be sure, but there were worse things than feelings to be worrying about now. Besides, she would be running out of caffeine soon enough – and stars help her, if she managed to fall asleep while still inside her own mind. If nothing else, Celestia would be absolutely insufferable for at least a decade afterward.

-/-/-/-/

“So, about the nightmares. Do you remember them? What are they about?”
Kristina had to admit - Caroline Platzer had some experience in the field of providing counsel. She had been one of those providing the service to the fresh army recruits down in Magdeburg, many of whom had quite terrible mental scars from the decade-and-a-half of insane war that had swept though the Germanies. Additionally there were those who had gotten the close end of the accidents that the booming industrial towns of the USE, and in particular its capital Magdeburg, produced from time to time - such as Thorsten Engler, her betrothed. She didn't want to admit it, but Caroline supposedly knew quite well what she was doing, and seemed well understood with the workings of the mind. The mind of her patients. She didn't want to be a patient. Caroline had some other word for it in English, true, but the meaning was still the same to Kristina. So she would sulk. Later. Now, though, was a time for her to get rid of this annoying sleep-deprivation. Quite well past time, even. So she blew a little raspberry before sliding off her bedside and, in the fashion of worried grown-ups, started pacing about the room.

“I...remember most of them, yes, but patchily. It's hard to make any sense of it – though I suppose that's rather natural, nightmares and all, no?” She cleared her throat and shook her head a bit – she was becoming a wee bit dozy. Later! she admonished her tired mind, and blinked a few times before continuing. “I think it's some sort of 'future me' that I'm seeing, though. I'm...older. Taller. And queen, I think. But there is so much chaos around me, and every time I sleep I see someone I know...die. Killed, usually. Once mama and papa fell off a cliff riding a horse. The same horse. Which doesn't make sense, there's no horse that big. Or at least, papa wouldn't ride it like that. I think. It was a dream, though, and dream-horses probably work a bit different. But anyway. It almost always ends, for some odd reason, with me stabbing someone to death, or getting stabbed to death, or both. Usually it's Axel, or Christian, or even that hothead Torstensson. Once it ended with all four of us stabbing each other. Another time, I even took an axe to my head!” The way she was recalling this so clearly – so many variations of horrible deaths, ranging from frighteningly realistic to utterly silly – made her feel somewhat detached. Her voice kept its usual, cheery tone despite the murkiness of the subject.

Caroline Platzer, for her part, had never once encountered a child (or anyone else for that matter) who made cheerful remarks about getting axe-murdered in her dreams. Or anything to that effect. She was of course well aware of the princess' prodigal intelligence, true, but she hadn’t expected Kristina to be this... jaded on the subject of dreams. Cynical, even. Impressive girl, she thought briefly. You'd think at least she'd have a concept of fear worth speaking of, but I suppose that's what you get for being the kid of that crazy goddam emperor of ours. Bloody madman probably up and wrote it out of his DNA or something! She was certainly an interesting girl, even as a patient. Of course, the princess wouldn't like that term one bit. She had yet refrained from using it to refer to her directly, but sooner or later it'd pop up. In her journals, if nothing else.
Despite the many irregularities of the situation, there was little else than she could do than keep up her usual counseling regime. “And? Where do you suppose these dreams could spring from? As you might know, dreams are generally accepted to stem from various parts of our memory, old and new. Normally, recurring nightmares are a result of some sort of trauma, but it may also be caused by a subconscious recollection of old events triggered by something current.” It could also be an entirely unrelated figment of your imagination that's running amok for no particular reason, which I can do nothing at all about – which is probably the most likely explanation what with you being A: a kid, and B: way too smart for your own good, her inner voice added, but she had a distinct feeling that the princess wouldn't take kindly to information of that kind. Kristina was quite capable of royal temper tantrums – a trait that certainly ran in the family. She nurtured a faint hope that insane cavalry charges did not, for the sake of the girl's own safety, but it was a faint one at best, what with her combined love of all things war, horse, warhorse or related. Very, very faint indeed.

The rest of her hopes – most of all those related to her being able to solve this nightmare problem in any logical way – were also quite quickly being ground into dust. She was almost so busy being confounded by the situation that the princess' surprised exclamation didn't register in her brain. Almost. But, then again, it was sort of hard to miss.
“Whooah.”
Caroline looked up. Kristina had stopped pacing, and was half-sitting on the headboard. The tone in her voice had sounded a bit too much like that of a crack addict describing his first high for her to be comfortable with it. And while the princess certainly wasn't smoking any kind of narcotic substance at the moment, her eyes did have the same sort of glassy look to them as is commonly associated with a far-gone pothead.
Caroline's reaction to this was a rather subdued widening of her eyes, a slight opening of her mouth, and a quite oppressive feeling of being absolutely fucked over.

Once this moment of paralyzed despair had passed over into frantic panic, she stumbled to her feet. “What's happening, Kristina?” Her voice was a bit too shrill than she would've liked – she did have professional image to keep up – but there was scarce little territory left for such thoughts in her mind right now, most of it being occupied by the forces of Panic and Despair, with the republic of DO SOMETHING staunchly holding onto its last forts by any means available.
“Uh. I'm having a nightmare, I think. Except I am still awake. How does that work? And where are you? I can't see anything. Or, well, I can. But it's mostly blood and gore and a train, and I don't think any of that would be able to get here without making any noise. Besides, I can still feel the chair. Bed. Whatever it is I'm sitting on. Wow, this is really weird. It feels like I'm- hey, what was that sound?”
The very same question was going through Caroline's head as well, but at the moment it was a far subordinate of the question Caroline had managed to leave unspoken. Namely:
Oh god, why is the princess turning into a rainbow?

It was quite a sight, really – chromatic bands of light were playing across the princess' body, almost like a showing of the famous aurora borealis. Except it was on her skin, not safely tucked away on the night sky some thirty thousand feet above them. If not for the panic, she would most definitely have awed at the sight of it. At the moment, however, panic had prevalence. So she did what most sensible people did in a panic: run for help.
“Listen, Kristina. Stay where you are. I'll go get someone who can help us with this. Don't go anywhere, and I'll be back in a minute. Okay?” Not waiting for a response, she did a swift 180 and strode over to the door, opened it, and stepped outside, forcing it shut with a firm hand.
Then, she started running for her patient's father, while loudly cursing whoever thought it would be a good idea to have the two rooms separated by almost half a mile of palace corridors.

-/-/-/-/

Things were not going as planned for Luna.
They had been making some progress in discerning the source of her nightmares, drifting up and down through the various levels of her subconscious mindscape. Some conspicuous black clots of mind-matter (or whatever they were supposed to be made out of) were floating around in a loose formation, swirling slowly about themselves in a little whirlwind-like shape as they roved the mindscape. Analyzing them and their surrounding area, she had indeed discerned that they ought to be the source of the nightmares. Images and sounds, vivid as yesterday's memories and just as horrific as the dreams that had been haunting her sleep, were left as clear, dark bubbles in their wake as they made their progress across the inside of her head. It was strange to watch; a foreign force, exerting its power to manipulate her very mind. Strange, disconcerting, and frighteningly familiar. “What could possibly have such power?” she had asked Celestia, dreading the obvious answers to that question. Her sister had no response to offer, and they had split up to get to the task of expediting its removal.

She’d done a few bouts of probing the mysterious darkness with magic, thoughts and what else she could come up with that wouldn't cause her to come into actual ‘contact’ with the substance. Without luck. So, she decided to throw caution off and down the cliff face, and – squinting her eyes somewhat – plunged her hoof into it.

As one might imagine, that wasn't exactly Luna's brightest idea ever.

The darkness was slimy and thick, and quite promptly turned to a massive orb of chromatic goo. Then, it exploded, enveloping her in its cold, wet grasp. A spray of color enveloped her eyesight for a moment, before she felt a frighteningly familiar sensation: that of being whisked off to somewhere far, far off.

A few moments later, she touched down hard. She felt her forehooves dig several inches into the ground from the force of her landing, and she struggled to keep her balance for a few moments before she could get her hindlegs in their proper place. At first all she could see was a vivid mass of color, but the world around her gradually became visible as the blinding rainbow sludge evaporated. With a single look, she concluded one thing – which, at least, put to rest her fears that she had somehow managed to recreate her own banishment. This was most definitely not the moon.

On the other hand, she was quite certain that there was no physical place that could ever sustain this much breaking of its natural laws and systems. The hill she was standing on was covered in purple grass, and small isles of detached rocks and dirt hovered in the air. There was no horizon in sight; instead, the landscape curved upward as she followed the lines of the earth in the distance A swift look to the sky confirmed that there was no sky in place at all, merely – she had to strain her eyes a bit – more oddly colored vegetation and various natural formations in decidedly unnatural formation, perched far, far above her in effortless defiance of gravity, hanging upside-down as they were. From her perspective, at least. And in the middle of it all, the obvious giveaway. She drew a faint breath, feeling her blood rush to her head in fear.

Candy cotton clouds, hovering pink in the approximate middle point between the up-ground and down-ground. Stars, confound that creature and his misdirecting grip on reality, she cursed silently.
That made her sit down on her haunches and think for a moment. So, what does this mean? Are We in his, mindscape? Astral whatnot? She shuddered at the implications of this – the inside of a chaos god's mind was most definitely not someplace that she'd rate as likely to have a therapeutic effect on her sleeping troubles. Quite the opposite. And besides, where is he? What will he do when he-

“Well, well. If it isn't, a, visitor to my humble, abode. The second in such a short time, even. Tell me, dear, has the Directional Monopoly board started packing “Go Visit Jail” cards in multum besides the usual decks, now, or am I due for my third turn already? Indulge me, for I am ever, so, blandly, distastefully, explicitly bored.”
Luna stood up and brandished her horn in the direction of the voice. Which was everywhere at once, of course, on par with the draconequus' normal fashion. “Discord,” she uttered silently.
In the distance – no, on the very wall of the space she was, an enormous eye opened. An eye turned inside-out, looking backwards. At her. His taste really is utterly macabre, she mused. A second later, the comical yet fearsome creature materialized with a zoom in front of her. “Why, now! I dare say we have a little reunion of the perished here, miss Moon. And here I thought dear Celly-welly would never dare touch her little precious sister again for fear she would break.” Discord sputtered a laugh, flopping over on his back in the air, letting a couch materialize underneath his twisting form. “And yet here you are again, in the very same spot as Yours Truly. What did you do this time, hm? Experiment on somepony you shouldn't have, perhaps?”

As the seconds went by, the laugh became a smile that crept downward as Discord's thoughts began to collect themselves into something resembling logic. “Speaking of experimenting, I am fairly certain that last time I checked you ponies hadn't managed to figure out that the Directional even existed. At least, not beyond the notion of 'where we send the big baddies to rot'. Certainly not enough to navigate it with any accuracy. So how is it that you, of all ponies, are here? Randomly being banished here is an utter impossibility. Simply isn't done, doesn't work that way, the passageways being as they are.” Luna, stunned at Discord's words and sudden appearance as she was, simply gaped. Discord, being Discord, stepped forward, claw raised. And poked her flank. “I asked you a question, loony. How. Are. You. Here.”
Luna, now instead stunned at her old nemesis' curious activity, reacted meagerly. She blinked, once per poke. Discord kept poking. And poking. Suddenly a gleeful smile entered his mien, and with his paw – conveniently enlarged for the purpose – he took hold of her midsection and squeezed.

The resulting tickling battle (as decidedly one-sided as it was) went on for at least ten minutes. Somewhere amidst all the frantic laughter and halfhearted attempts to fight off the appendages administering the offense, Luna started babbling incoherently about the nightmares, and how she'd gotten here. At least, it would've been incomprehensible to her, but apparently Discord made enough sense out of it to suddenly cease his attacks when she mentioned astral space. When, gasping and babbling a bit further, she mentioned the strange E.E from the document, Discord's eyebrows dismounted from his face and climbed a pair of stairs upward. It looked absolutely silly, and Luna had another fit of giggles. It was cut very short when he promptly dropped her on the ground, however, giving her his best interrogation stare. “So you have discovered the Directional, after all. With outside influence, even. Oh, you ponies. I mean, I could hold a long, boring speech now on how you're breaking the rules, being goddesses and all, but, alas, spirit of chaos and disharmony here, don't exactly give those much thrift.” He scratched his goatee with a claw, continuing. “But what I most definitely don't get, is what it is that caused the initial breakthrough. Something like that doesn't simply pop up. Besides, the other one mentioned nightmares too, so it's probably part of the same occurrence. But how? Breakthroughs take a lot more sheer force than either of you ponies could manage, and frankly, you definitely don't have magic for it either, as it is. So how...?” His eyebrows climbed back down into a bored frown again, fixating his eyes to hers again. Without much reason, seemingly, monologuing as he was. “Though I do suppose it could be another of those garbage-tossers again. Or a poohoo. Or either of the interdirectionally advanced conglomerates currently in conceptual probability. Oh, Equestria, why don't you ever get to have any real fun? Always so, very, boring.” He blew a raspberry, and sat down in the air, sulking – drinking from a summoned candy cloud with a glassy straw.

Luna hadn't caught much of what he'd said. She was much used to holding monologues of her own, but to actually listen to one – and even more, one from someone like Discord, what with the utterly nonsensical terms he was using all the time – and comprehend it to any degree was utterly impossible. But one term she had caught, and remembered from the very first words the draconequus had uttered as she had come here.
“We heard you say, another one? A second visitor? Here?”
Discord raised an eyebrow at her words, then nonchalantly started sharpening his talons with a muffin-shaped grindstone, spinning in the air in an impossible orbit that kept its surface level. “Why, certainly. Another princess, in fact. She was going the other way, though. Might end up in your place, though the chances of that are utterly dismally small. Which, of course, by the way directionality works, means that it's practically guaranteed she will. And by the same ill logic, you should probably be ending up in hers. She was quite bouncy, I give. Not quite as squeezable as you, I suppose. Speaking of which, it does seem like it's time for you to go, don't you think?”

So it seemed. A swirl of dark pearls were swirling around her body – astral or physical, she wasn't too sure at this point, really – and again the chromatic spiel ravaged her eyesight with its seizure-inducing light-and-goo.

This was not her day.

-/-/-/-/

As it was, Discord did not manage to hit home with either of his guesses, however well informed they were. Oh, the initial breakthrough on one end of the passageway he was right about, at least partly, but the incident currently in motion was in fact almost nothing but a well-mismanaged spillover from prison breaks, general mayhem and combat that had – unwittingly to its actors – flung off quite large pieces of conceptual momentum into the interdirectional, all compressed into a single timeframe's worth of data. Or, as researchers of the subject called it, a freak accident / your average day at work (yes, they were hypocrites, it was in the job description).

However, none of it would have ever taken place, had not the initial breakthroughs been in place, and been as firmly so as they were. As one scientist of the Great and Bountiful Fourth Human Empire described it in a frustrated letter to his colleagues:

Walls are built for a reason, and that's to keep things from passing through. If they take a beating, they can be repaired – and though that might take a while, it'll still be functional in the meantime. When broken down, on the other hand, walls provide absolutely no protection whatsoever – and walls are quite notorious for taking a long time to build, not to mention rebuild. And if you have a wall that's supposed to hold for the lifetime of any given worldline's entire chron – well, you get the picture.

His colleagues had, interestingly, gotten the note, and promptly fired him for explaining it in a way they could understand. Hypocrites, indeed. That was their job, after all.

-/-/-/-/

His royal majesty the Emperor-High King of the Swedes, Goths, Vandals, Finns, Lapps, and the assorted motley of Germans under his banners, was not, alas, to be found in his chambers. Gustavus Adolphus Vasa was in the throne room, meeting with the recently flown in Prime Minister, among other notables. Thankfully, the rooms were next to each other, so Caroline Platzer was spared another bout of Very Running. Panting heavily from exertion, she bashed open the massive double doors with a body slam – thus utterly ruining any semblance of propriety her dress might've had until now. This was the least of her concerns now, however, what with the whole rainbows thing, alongside the fact that she had just barged into the presence of what amounted to pretty much northern Europe's entire chain of command. And they were all giving her the exact same look; that half-offended, half-incredulous stare that more important people gave other, less important people when they were doing something they most definitely shouldn't and certainly weren't authorized to.

Mike Stearns, prime minister of the United States of Europe, threw the first line, unshakable as he was. “What the hell are you all worked up for?” A general mumble of agreement and confused annoyance at the situation (and her presence) rose through the small crowd gathered around the Big Old Stone Table – which for once actually was a big old stone table, candles and everything. Caroline, having absolutely no idea what else to do, decided she had to act fast. And promptly started babbling. “It's- princess Kristina. She's- I don't know what's happening. She's- got nightmares and I'm trying to fix and- she's turning into, literally turning into a goddam rainbow and I don't know what-”

It took a few minutes of explaining what all the fuss was about to guards, generals, admiral Simpson, Stearns, and most importantly Gustavus himself, before she got her point across. At which moment two of the biggest shots in Europe simultaneously decided to start very running – and Caroline once again had to struggle to keep up her pace.
Gustavus was, despite his massive size, very well-conditioned indeed, King of War and what else. Stearns had been a coal miner up-time and, before that, a goddam pro boxer, before his entry into down-time politicking. Caroline, while certainly no sloth herself, was a social servant, now and then. No part of that line of work included any sort of physical training – possibly apart from her recent efforts to keep up with the princess' escapades. And the run was long. She fell behind, whimpering slightly as her eyes for the first time really processed the sight of the two absolute authorities way above her taking fancy-carpeted palace corridor corners like dragracing bikers, skidding and all. How they managed that with their fashion of boots, she had no idea.

She was probably a minute or so behind when she finally arrived at the scene of the crime. And alas, she had once again been much too late to be able to get anything done. Gustavus and Stearns were standing in the doorway to Kristina's chambers like a wall of flesh, and it took much prodding and poking and polite nudging before they noticed her presence. And when they did, the King threw her a gaze that she most definitely did not want to understand the meaning of.

Gustavus Adolphus blew his mustaches. “You said my daughter had a... nightmare problem.” By now, Stearns had turned around to look at her as well, mouthing some equivalent of you have got to be fucking kidding me at her. “Barring this being a very clever ruse from your part, I do think I have to either find myself out of somebody else's nightmare, or, by god, start up a bloody witch process right here and now.” Her Prime Minister summed up the situation at hand quite perfectly, as he stepped to the side and pointed at the inside of the room. “What the hell is that thing!?”

It was horse-shaped. It was dark blue. Its mane was not a mane, it was a flowing bloody night sky, stars and all. It was royally dressed up, crown and all. It had a crescent moon emblazoned on its flank. And going by what she knew of horses – and plain old gut feeling – it was most definitely not a stallion. A horse. A dark horse. That felt wrong. She tried again. A horse. A mare. A night mare. She got the joke, and wondered who the hell was responsible for the existence of such terrible humor. “Who ordered this!?” she cried out in exasperation, before collapsing into a sobbing heap on the velvet floor. This was not her fucking day. Not at all.

Ch2: Transitaes Mundia

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Chapter 2 – Transitaes mundia

Gustav Adolf, King of Sweden, was not having a good day. It had started well, turned decent and then proceeded to roll itself in the mud somewhere around lunchtime – after which it had just started going plain crazy. Now, he was faced with a situation straight out of some old fable.
He tried analyzing the situation in his head. One. Kristina throws a fit at lunchtime. So far so good. That happened at times, and the Vasa temper was nothing but legendary.
Two. Lady Platzer storms in during the council meeting, babbling about my daughter having nightmares and turning into a rainbow. This wasn't all too good, but it had happened before. Admittedly the whole rainbow part of the business wasn't something he was acquainted with, but stranger things had happened. If nothing else, we can always look back to the Ring of Fire that started all of this. Ha! Hard to trump that in terms of strangeness.
Or so, he would've thought, at least. Until today. But. Three. I run here as fast as I can and see not my daughter turning into a rainbow, but a rainbow turning into some...dark blue horse thing wearing a crown. And my daughter, my heir, is nowhere. To. Be. Found.
No, this was not a good day, his subconscious confirmed as his considerable royal bulk finally budged enough for lady Platzer to get a view of the scene.

-/-/-/-/

Luna's eyes had been plagued by chromatic assaults for what seemed like several hours, before the light finally had started letting up. She had during this time given much thought to the situation she was in and its possible nature, tried to understand the cryptic words of Discord, and slept a bit – undisturbed, for once. How she slept, or where it was, she had no idea of whatsoever. The day had brought her enough peculiarities that by now, she simply didn't stop to think too much about it.

Not that she could “stop”, in any event. She was rather sure that she was moving, despite the fact that all the senses she was used to counting among her bodily features was telling her otherwise. If for nothing else than the fact that last time – the first time – these color swirls had happened (although that trip had been much, much shorter) she had been brought to Discord's prison-world. His astral body. Verily the mind itself of a spirit of chaos. She shuddered slightly at the thought. It was only a theory, of course, but all the more it seemed likely to her the more she thought about it. After all, it wasn't as if any of them – neither her sister nor herself, and definitely not any of the Elements who had done the sealing this time – had any sort of detailed concept of worlds beyond their own, certainly not to the levels needed to use one as a spell target. Until now, at least. And barring a random hit sending the draconequus off somewhere undetermined – which he had, during his ramblings when she was there, called out as utterly impossible – it seemed quite likely that the sealing bound him inside his own mind, rather than some exterior realm. After all, he was most likely more than powerful, not to mention knowledgeable, enough to make his way back from wherever he ended up. Discord's downfall had always been because of his underestimating other ponies, true, but there was so much that they didn't know – possibly things that he himself didn't know, even – about the chaotic powers he used and represented, that not underestimating him was simply an impossibility.

Nay, it was quite likely that the Elements, in their mysterious ways, had determined that the best prison for him would be one that inhibited the scope of his power by its very nature. And by sealing him in stone, thus cutting off any sensory input from the outside world outside what he was able to gleam through the barriers, he would have no means of establishing a connection to the physical realm again, making an escape virtually impossible to facilitate.
That is, unless a nearby astral-side object projected energy in a form he can process and use... Discordant emotions, perhaps. Are emotions astral energy? I need to look over that document again, but this seems to make sense, to some extent.

Looking back and theorizing on the past was rather pointless now, however, regardless of how much it affirmed her ideas. It did nothing to help her current situation; moreover, it would do very little to help her with the situation that was undoubtedly about to unfold. At the rate this day was going, she was highly doubtful that she was just going to be kindly shuffled back into the castle again – they rather tended to come midway into some enormous disaster. Indeed, the last time she had had one of these days had been in the time just before her final fall (much of which was still clouded to her memory), when her many years of pent-up envy and spite had shrouded all but the most base parts of her mind. There had been a great deal of disharmony and strife between the small nations of the time, and thus Luna had yet again donned her mantle as Head Ambassador for Equestria. Her peacemaking mission went on without much success, however, and the pettiness of the rulers and politicians she had met with during the tour had, little by little, driven her utterly mad with rage.

On that final day, she had been forced out of her embassy at Moch Pal'hamr, one of the larger holdings of the Third Flight, fought her way through half a brood of dragons to retrieve missives and artifacts they had plundered from the embassy, gone head-to-head in a screaming competition with the local brood lord that neither of them understood a word of (Old Canter Equestrian doesn't mix well with South Tyrr-Draconian) and subsequently placed the entirety of Tyrr'him and the southern reaches of Equestria under a spontaneous (and very unscheduled) eclipse for four days in response to the dragons' show of disrespect. Needless to say, her sister hadn't been very happy at her for that. Two weeks later on the eve of the new moon, she had, at last, given in to the Nightmare.

She shivered slightly at the recollection. However, that situation was quite different from what she was currently facing. She was mostly at peace with herself, very much at peace with her sister (aside from some pastry-related issues that she managed to get ever so worked up over whenever they arose), and the only real problem she had was that she couldn't sleep. A problem which seemed to have fixed itself somewhere in the middle of this rainbow-drenched tunnel. Or whatever it was. Nay, moreso likely it was to be whatever new quandaries she came to face whenever this star-cursed color trip ceased, that would come to trouble her for the coming time.

The streaming colors were letting up further now, and she was starting to see something. Holding up her hoof she was able to make it out, but it looked – felt, too, now that she thought about it – as if it was covered with some sort of pastel goo of various colors. It was quickly drying away, however, though it seemed to be dematerializing rather than evaporating as she felt no residue of it released into the air.

That observation made, she set her eyes upon the scene before her. And made a list.
Primary. We are likely in a castle. Luna had lived far too long a life and seen far too many variations upon the designs of such housing to mistake a castle chamber for anything else. The implications of this fact was more troubling than reassuring, however.
Secondary. There are two- no, three bipeds in this chamber with us, all looking quite distressed. And perspiring. The last seems to be lamenting its existence.
This was both promising, as it likely meant that she was not expected, and thus less likely to be a part of any intricate evil scheme that some far-off overlord might have summoned her to (it had happened before); however the obvious anguish in the last individual indicated something had clearly gone very wrong here, which meant that she (as a conveniently materialized newcomer without any ties to anypony) would quite possibly become a scapegoat and/or be forced to attempt some sort of reparation of whatever damage had occurred. Finally, the perspiration meant they were probably not machines. She had never gotten along very well with those types.

Lastly, their language is entirely incomprehensible, and bears little recognition to any tongue we speak or know of. This was most likely not very good at all, since her chance of explaining the situation (and/or talking her way out of any eventual scapegoating) was reduced to nil, along with any chance of getting a clue on where she had ended up. Alongside the obvious fact that it was somewhere she'd never been before, or alternately that the language and inhabitants of the place she was had changed so much in the thousand-or-more years since last she had been here that they were utterly unrecognizable, which would indicate that culture and tradition had done the same as well, rendering any prior knowledge she might've had entirely useless.

Footnote. That is a crown, on the big one's head. That, or very metallic horns. Neither of those were good prospects, and barring the chance that the local variety of unicorns sported multiple growths and adorned them with what was undoubtedly solid gold and gems in the name of fashion, she was dealing with royalty. And from what all the signs read, it was a male. A Prince, then. This was not good at all. There was a reason male rulers was a trend that had never caught on with ponies – they were always so very temperamental about things, which always made negotiations a bloody hassle. And this one was not, it seemed an exception.

His pinkish complexion was reddening deeply – he did not have much fur to speak of, aside from some fair tufts on his head – and, staring menacingly at her, he said a few words. Not knowing how, or if, to answer, she simply stayed silent, causing him to redden even deeper and keep talking – it sounded a lot different this time, though. Is he trying different languages? A small sliver of hope, at least, if the man was at least trying to get through to her. Very small.

She was just about to open her mouth and try some of her own various options, when the dam finally burst and the man started roaring and stomping around like a mad buffalo. Which meant that whatever it was that had happened, it was bad. Very bad.

With a fervent wish to just go back to sleep and disappear tethered in the back of her mind, she shut her eyes, folded her ears and tried not to listen to the gibberish royal tirade. Or at least, not go deaf.

-/-/-/-/

Mike Stearns, Prime Minister of the United States of Europe – formerly head of the local branch of the United Mine Workers of America and before that pro boxer – wasn't liking the prospects of this at all. Or any part of it, for that matter. He would've been very glad to have finished the whole unexplainable, supernatural and just generally weird book of his life with the single chapter of the Ring of Fire that sent them back through time; but whatever was going on here, it was a dead ringer for an entry in that same section.
What more, though, it was riling his emperor/king/lieutenant general/whatever other title the man wished to use at the moment-'s temper up. Real bad. If there ever was a worse case of royal rage break noted in their uptime history books, they had nothing on what Gustavus could muster on a particularly bad day.

And this wasn't just any particularly bad day, either. The emperor's daughter was missing, and had possibly been turned into a rainbow and/or been replaced with some blue horse thing dressed up in regalia. It was a ridiculously bad day, and the emperor's temper was going to match it. He brought his meanest stare to bear, and shot lightning through his eyes at the creature haphazardly slumping on the floor to make up for the mildly silly accenting of his English.
“Where. Is. My. Daughter.”
Though the general weirdness of it all made Mike suspend part of his disbelief for it, he wasn't exactly too surprised when the creature remained silent. It only seemed to annoy Gustavus further (no surprise there), however, as his face literally became beet-red as he repeated the phrase in German. “Wo ist meine Tochter!?”

The look on the equine's face as he repeated the words was a bit too, human for Mike to like it. However, it remained quiet, and the royal dam finally swung loose, the king breaking out his preposterously large magazine of Swedish badmouthery like an angry hillbilly dad with a box of shotgun shells. “MÅ TONDÖFVA ÄLGAR SKITA PÅ DIN HUSEVÄGG OCH YLA LOCKROP PÅ DIN BEGRAFNING! DIN SOTKALKADE ÄGGRÖTA TILL-”

-/-/-/-/

A good five minutes had passed of the biped Prince's tirade, and it showed no signs of letting up. He hadn't done anything other than scream and yell and make angry gestures, though, which meant that he, however much of a royal temper he possessed, at least seemed able to restrain it to some point of reasonability. As she cringed yet again from the latest verbal assault, the words contained therein took a few seconds to trickle themselves into the proper part of her mind and poke a bit.
“- thinn voordémdah SÁTMÁRA!”
The situation was a bit different, true. But not by much. And however odd and jumbly the other words were, the last one was exactly the same as what one certain broodlord of North Tae had called her during yet another famous shouting match between pony and dragon – albeit a lot more well understood by both parties, as she spoke and read North Tae-Draconic fluently. The language had been gone for a while now, of course, but she had a very good memory. And accursed soot-mare wasn't the type of insult a pony well versed in dragon culture forgot in the first place. Soot, to dragons, was not only an excrement of the body, but messy, hard to clean, got into the scales, smelly, ugly and generally all things bad in the world. A dragon invoking a soot word meant he was pressing the big button labeled “unspeakably disgusting” for all he was worth and pouring it all over your face.

Her first reaction was of sheer shock. Her eyes widened at the fact that she was no more entirely lost as to the location and linguistics of this region, and cringed slightly at the fact that it somehow was closer connected to the Second Flight than ought to be possible this long after its decline.
Once done with that part of it, though, the fact that she had just been called that again took priority in her mind, and brought to bear the Voice. “WHY, THOU LITTLE-”
It occurred to her too late that she had been overlooking one of the basic facts about bipeds. Seeing that familiar utterly disbelieving, mocking look officially known as “Why, the creature doth SPEAK?” on the Prince's – and his companions' – faces, She stopped just short of flying into a full-on outburst, reminding herself of the observation she had done ever so many times on ambassadorial missions to bipedal races.
Bipedal sentients have some sort of inborn superiority complex toward quadrupeds. We will never, ever be taken seriously when among them, if we stay in our natural form. Fortunately, she had devised a Bipedal Negotiations spell for the purpose a long time ago, which she now wove deftly around her with her magic, scanning and copying the general structure of the creature before her (for accuracy, she used the lamenting one she presumed was a female rather than the Prince as a base) into the magical template. A blinding light pierced the room as her horn shone up, and she cringed slightly as the spell started taking hold of her flesh and bones.

-/-/-/-/

And of course, the creature did speak up in the end.
The look on Mike's face was utterly astonished, but on the inside the cynic in him was giving a bad case of I told you so to its roommates. The words were quite incomprehensible, of course, but they were very clearly words, despite the short and cut sentence. And angry words, too. And a quite female voice. Night mare, indeed. Ha. More importantly, they sounded like they had been shouted through a huge loudspeaker system, rather than a freak horse-creature's snout. He felt wind against his face when she spoke, god damn it. This was racking up the score for weirdest thing ever and closing in fast on the Ring of Fire itself. And Mike was not happy at all about it.

Then, the thing threw them all a very strange look, before the crown on its head lit up like it was some goddam lightbulb, scratch that, a fucking stage spotlight. He covered his eyes, and simply tried to ignore the odd tone hanging in the air alongside the decidedly creepy sound of crackling bones.
A minute or so later, he was wishing the light had stayed on.

Before them stood no horse, but an honest-to-god angel, blue-black of wings and with hair that looked a lot less like hair and a lot more like someone had taken a picture of the night sky and glued it to her head. Very meticulously. And as if that wasn't enough, the crown she had previously been wearing was now a full-fledged suit of moon-themed regalia; silver, amethyst and sapphire in an intricately woven mesh, with an enormous tiara featuring a crescent of what likely was one huge cut diamond.

Oh, fuck you, Mike Stearns thought. And the cynic reminded him again, I told you this was going to be a fucking great day, didn't I? Whoop-dee-fucking-doo, all aboard the crazy train. First disappearing princesses turning into rainbows, then rainbows turning into horses, now horses turning into angels! It's a real fucking good day, Michael, the cynic finished. Oh, fuck you, Mike thought again.

Ch3: Non Omnis Puella Somnio

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Chapter 3 – Non Omnis Puella Somnio

Celestia was not at all sure of where her sister had disappeared to. While sensing things and memories in general was as reasonably straightforward of a process on somepony's astral side as one could get, sensing them was at the least tricky. Somewhere in the middle of looking things up, however, the “aura” that indicated Luna's projection and its location on the astral plane had simply vanished for a few seconds. Then it started reappearing in a flickering dazzle all over the place. Did she do something to the spell, maybe? It was, after all, a piece of magic they knew very little about. Influencing it in any way could have unpredictable, albeit likely not dangerous, outcomes.

Whatever Luna had done, however, seemed to have done its job. The fluttering black spots that had been the sources – or telltale signs, she was not sure which was the symptom and which was the carrier, but it hardly mattered now – of the nightmares she had been having had disappeared only a short while after Luna's aura had. Another day, another disaster averted. Celestia smiled.

There was only one problem. She wasn't quite sure how to get back “out” again. A few minutes here or there scarcely mattered, of course, and the worst she could fare would be her sister assaulting her face with a multitude of colored pens while she dozed. Or whatever it was one's body did while the psyche was inside another. There was lots of strange conjecture involved, in this whole debacle. If it took much longer, however...
Yes, this could be some magnitude of problem in and of itself, Celestia confirmed to herself. She wasn't quite sure what to do. Magic didn't work the same way in here as it usually did – it barely seemed to follow any sort of rules at all. A most frightening memory came upon her, and she tried not to focus too hard on it. Magic without rules...truly the uttermost example of chaos there ever was.

For the moment, however, she had to figure out how she was to get back. And hopefully, do so quick enough to avoid being entirely too humiliated by her sister when she woke.

-/-/-/-/

Kristina wasn't quite sure what was going on anymore. She had heard Caroline say she would go get someone to help, which at the time had seemed unnecessary. Now, she was fairly certain that it had been a good idea. Whatever other things they might do, social servants most certainly did not double as... whatever sort of people one employed to solve this sort of problem. Whatever it was.

Kristina was, all in all, extremely confused. Some half minute or so after the duchess had run off, the sounds of her dream/vision/hallucination-thingy had started to overwhelm the slight input she was still getting from “reality”. Then things had just gone off kilter entirely, and now she wasn't entirely sure of what was, and what wasn't, real. Sure, this place looked even weirder than usual, but something about it told her it wasn't quite a dream. Mainly the fact that she was pretty sure she would never have bothered to dream up something this...this...

She found no appropriate words to describe it. It wasn't a landscape, but that was probably the best word she could put on it – however utterly alien its design was. She was surrounded by a crazy quilt of checkerboard patterns, black and white squares bending in ways that ought to be impossible. She was standing on a rough little hill, on a tiny white square that, despite the utter clarity of its color and shape, was wholly transparent. It simultaneously was and was not. Through it, she could see endless layers of hills, plains and various other more or less realistic shapes constructed out of the same white-black textures, extending below her. For that part, it was largely the same above her as well. There was no sky, she was just squeezed in between a pair of ethereal checkerboard hills. And it was all slowly floating by, as if the world itself was moving, going somewhere.

True, it was most definitely a new experience. It would've been interesting – exciting, adventurous even – had she not been so utterly out of her mind from sleep-deprivation and annoyance. Now, she was simply confused, and even that was steadily approaching the worst thing there was in the world: boredom.

Squatting, she poked the checkerboard ground. It was soft. Almost bouncy. Could've been fun enough to do something with, had she not been so very tired. Certainly soft enough, she thought, to try her luck with getting some sleep on it. She had some doubts that sleeping inside a dream (if it was one) would do much good, but her body was giving her quite clear orders on this point, and she wasn't going to say no. Thus, she promptly lay down on the reasonably bouncy ground and closed her eyes.

As it turned out, that was a bad idea.
With a sensation much like sinking through the surface of a bathtub filled with syrup, she fell through the ground. Not quite falling, as there wasn't any of that feeling in her stomach that you always get when you lower your altitude, be it by falling or diving in an airplane. But she was moving down. And there wasn't much she could do about it. To hell with it, she thought after a few moments of consideration (and a few more to remember the phrasing of the up-time saw); too tired to panic, she fell asleep.

And then, she immediately was someplace else. This is definitely a dream, Kristina thought. There's that thing where I can't see my own body, what's it called, disembowelment? Wait, no, that's the thing they kill people with. Well, I suppose I COULD be dead, too, but that wouldn't make much sense. Besides, I am fairly certain the gates of heaven would look a bit more...defined.
She was a hovering, immaterial presence, just sort of hanging in the gray ether. At first there wasn't much of any tangible anything to see, but soon a wide (albeit still colorless) grassy field sort of faded into view, like it had been in the corner of her (invisible) eye all along and she just now decided to look at it. It was an odd feeling, but she'd gotten used to those by now. Today had been a very odd day, so far, and it was hardly looking to get any better on that point.

She looked around for a bit, trying to discern if this was any sort of definable somewhere or anything, or just another random dream-fabricated spot. It did look like the latter, true, but there was a strange feeling in the air – and in her, seeing as she was sort of part of the air as it was – that led her to believe otherwise.

“Hey! Ooh, lookie, I'm back here again! Did I do it? Did we get it? Does that mean we're done? Does it? Does it? Huh? Huh? Huh?”

An intensely high-pitched voice echoed through the space she occupied, and her perspective shifted a bit, as if vibrating. She looked around, but there didn't seem to be anybody around – the field was still just gray grass, a few small hills and a small horse standing in the middle of it for no apparent reason.
A frown creased Kristina's nonexistent forehead. The horse was moving. Strangely. Very strangely. Bouncing, almost. And – when she looked closer – so was its mouth. And the sounds kept coming.
A talking horse.
She had heard about some street frauds or circus acts that involved talking animals, true. They were mostly exotic animals, however. Never, ever a horse. She liked horses fiercely, and having to associate that safe haven of her mind with all this weird stuff that's been going on lately didn't go too well with her. At all.
But there wasn't really much to do about it at them moment. So, she kept watching. And listening. It was definitely a girl's voice, sweet and bubbly. The – mare – was talking to someone. But there's nobody there, who is she-

A bright flash filled the air, and a shape that was undoubtedly a man stood before the mare – half-visible, half shrouded in an even deeper gray than enveloped the rest of wherever she was. Some sort of chains or ropes extended taut from the ground and were wrapped around his chest, legs, neck and arms, but he appeared to be moving freely regardless. His voice was echoed as well, and somewhat airy and nasal; it reminded her of Axel in one of his worst droning moods.

“Yes. Your anchoring made the use of the bridge possible – despite its guardian's absence. How was the experience, by the way? I have always heard him say it was a wonder in itself to make it open.”

The horse tilted her head a bit – it was very strange to see this sort of expressiveness on an equine – and frowned slightly.

“Well, I don't know about 'wonder', really, but I suppose it wasn't too bad. It was sorta iffy and weird, but then it was kinda cool and then it went all like swoosh and then like twang and then I had to shut my eyes real hard because it got all bright! And then I think I was kinda done with it, so it doesn't really seem that impressive to me but I guess it was kinda good now that I think about it, I just don't really know what it was that was good. Huh! That's a new one for me, undefined-unwinded-unpredictable goodnesses! I'll have to write this down in my notebook!”

All this time the horse – undoubtedly a pony, by look of its size, but she didn't really want to think too much of the equine parts of this equation too much – had been bouncing about and gesturing wildly in the air with her hooves, rearing up on her hindlegs and demonstrating a quite disturbing amount of dexterity that no equine possibly could have. Utterly disregarding this crime against logic and the laws of nature and what else, the man simply nodded and walked a few steps toward her, swirling some sort of coat or cape in the air behind him.

“All is well, then. Excellent. In that case, yes, then we are done for the moment. You shall return home and standby as usual. I don't see any particular things that might arise from this, but do be ready if something should come up. Certain conditions for unpredictable events are, after all, in place already. Are we clear?”

The man came up right next to the mare, patting her on the head with his half-visible hand. The mare, in turn, gave an extremely bubbly giggle that made her body bounce about almost as much as her face did.

“Oki, doki, Loki!”

She was fairly certain she could perceive – not quite see, as his face was still very much hidden – a smile on the man's face.

“I always thought that was a very odd way to address me, you know, but you are quite adept at making people like things. That is a good talent, and you should culture it well. Farewell, girl, until we meet again.”

And as he said the last word, her perspective of this strange dreamworld zoomed away, as if her “eyes” were rapidly ascending skyward. The horse and the man quickly became little more than spots on the field of gray, and soon enough not even that. The gray field blended in with others, and were soon one untraceable spot in a little neat patchwork of dark gray and black. They too soon melded together into a dark mass as her eyes rose higher and higher, until she started to see a border of sorts; which revealed itself to be a clean line separating the field of black from another field of clear white. As she rose higher the fields took shape, becoming small, defined squares among a myriad of others like them. Squares in a pattern so chaotic it could not possibly be anything other than-

The ascent stopped, and a small strand of color entered her field of view. Gold and hazy to her vision. It flicked back and forth for a bit, and, curiously, she tried to grasp it. And as she did, a great, light-pink mass came into view.

Her hand.
And the golden strand of color was her hair.
She was back in that strange, strange place she still didn't quite know if it was a dream or not, and all of what she thought had been the “dream” had actually taken place somewhere far, far down in one of those tiny tiny squares of black. It had been a black one, that was all she knew – it was quite impossible to pick one apart from the others.

She had stopped sinking downward, at least. While previously her mind had been sufficiently hampered in its thought by her lack of sleep, she had now somehow gotten some rest. Looking at the chaotic monochrome mess around her, she was starting to feel more than a little sick – nauseous, even (Kristina had always felt that the more complicated words were more powerful, since they were the ones grown-ups used). Her sense of balance was entirely out of commission, logic seemed to have been killed in action, there was not a single speck of color in this entire place except for herself, and most importantly she didn't have a single little smidgen of a clue where “here” even was.

This was the point where most children would've fainted and given up. And most of those who didn't would've at least sat down and cried a good deal.
To be fair, Kristina did reflect on the latter option, but she realized there wasn't really much of a point to it, seeing as all she'd accomplish would be to injure her own pride. Instead, she chose to appeal to the powers that be, and hope that God wouldn't have reception problems just because she was on a different channel. Or something. She wasn't entirely aware of how the radios worked, but from what she had managed to understand of what various operators and technicians had told her, that metaphor ought to have been pretty solid. Not that it mattered to anyone else, but seeing as she was extremely alone at the moment, things that mattered to others were a moot point anyway.
So, she drew a deep breath, and yelled as loud as her 8-year old lungs could manage. Which was fairly loud. She was Vasa, after all.

“Hello! Is anybody there!? Can anyone hear me? Where am I? WHY IS THERE NO COLOR HERE!?”
Andafter a few moments of reflecting upon recent events, she added, “Can you make the horses stop talking? Or at least make them stop looking like ponies? I find it VERY disturbing, you know!”

-/-/-/-/

I am so very, very bored.
Being bored was one of the most dangerous things in the world – to him, at least – and this time, it was bad. He felt it. It was so bad that he even had stopped making up new ways to refer to it, or even bother sticking uncommon superlatives to the word. Right now he was so bored that he actually referred to his very very bored state of mind as very very bored and that was not good at all. It was a disaster. An utter catastrophe. Certain doom. A total...

He lost steam and stopped that train of thought. He had even stopped actually visualizing those – a few cycles back this place had been very lively, with every new little idea springing up on an invisible railroad track and going all choo-choo across the psychedelic magenta hills and the little islands of dirt floating in the air, taking twists and turns and tunnels and loops here and there just to make the distance it went a bit longer.
Not anymore. There was precious little fun left in this world of his now, and what of it there was seemed tired and dry to his eyes. Not even revenge made him go all wild anymore. He'd achieved that already the first time he'd broken free – and then his glory had been ruptured by the fact that he'd been stupid enough to underestimate those placed as his gatekeepers. The Traitor was gone, and only the prison she'd built remained. And Harmony, of course, but he'd never really been able to think of the ponies as enemies. Not really. Not even after they'd sided with the Traitor. They were much too colorful for him to actually dislike them on any larger scale. And now, they'd taken all the color for themselves, and started the party on their own. Without even inviting him. Or sending him any cake as an apology.

He materialized himself on a whim, putting down his tail on a mat of marshmallow needles, standing on it like a stilt. He felt like monologuing. Or at least saying something. So, with a grumpy, annoyed tone in his voice, he did. “Why did they have to take all of it? They're not the greedy kind, so why? Why didn't they leave any color for me? Why is there no color... here...?”
The last sentence trailed off into the air, as he felt something. Something strong, something big. Something he vaguely recognized from somewhere, but more importantly, something else than himself. Someone else. An echo, bouncing across the space outside his little bubble like little stoutbunnies on pink grass. And so he listened, and repeated, his tone somewhat incredulous. “Can you make... the horses stop talking? Or at least make them stop looking like horses?” Well, this is odd, he thought, amused. Odd was good. Very good. “I find it very disturbing, you know!” he finished loudly, exclaiming his joy to no one in particular as he felt the sound of his own voice reverberate with the echo from the directional. And he smiled, his single fang glistening in the strange light. It seems like a very unexpected storm of chaos is due...right now. A quiet chuckle escaped his lips as part of the edge of his bubble was torn to shreds, and a vivid rainbow bridge splattered chromatic goo across the hills of his revitalized prison-world.

This was going to be a very good day.

-/-/-/-/

Kristina stumbled a bit – wherever she'd arrived, she seemed to have had a pretty rough landing. She couldn't see a thing, though – some slimy something or other was covering her eyes, and colors were floating across her field of vision like she'd dived headfirst into a painter's color palette. The goo was evaporating, but not fast enough – she tripped over something and fell flat on her face.

It wasn't painful, though. Something extremely fluffy cushioned her fall, and filled her nose with an almost sickeningly sweet smell. It was mesmerizing. She drew a breath or two, before giving in to her instincts and opening her mouth wide, chewing down like a starved wolf. She was fairly hungry, after all.
It was possibly the most delicious thing she had ever eaten. A hypnotically soft fluff of pure sugary goodness, with not a single ounce of weight to it – but when she crushed the tiny bubbles of it between her teeth, they burst out into drops of flowing, juicy chocolate. She just stood laid there dumbstruck for a while, savoring the sweetness – ignoring the fact that some of the chocolate was dripping out of her mouth like some twisted kind of drool – and feeling the energy flow straight into her blood, revitalizing her tired limbs one by one. She opened her eyes to get a look, and saw a mass of pink. She rubbed her nose in it, and felt fantastic. Wherever this was, this was truly a world of dreams – the kind worth dreaming, that was.

“I take it you appreciate the cotton candy clouds, then?”

She twitched violently, trying to get back up on her feet and look around. It was fairly easy, seeing as she just bounced up off the pink fluffy mass beneath her. She all but fell down again when she ended up bouncing into the owner of the voice – in all its alien glory.
In the years before the Ring of Fire, “mysterious technology” had, among other things, included the various works of those who called themselves alchemists. Once, when she was very little, one of her tutors had let her read through a book he'd found on the subject, to teach her of the dangers of something or other – she wasn't really sure what the point of that lesson had been, and the man had been executed shortly afterward, so she hadn't had opportunity to ask. Among the images she'd seen in the book was one labeled Chimera, with a simple description – an artificial creature made by fusing parts of different animals together into one body. With some modification, it was the spitting image of what was standing before her.

I did NOT scream, she told herself promptly. That was a yelp. Not long enough for a scream. Still, red spots grew on her cheeks as the echo of her surprise bounced around in the air, and the chimera opened its vaguely equine mouth and fell into a fit of laughter, squirming on the pink grass that covered the ground. Why does everything have to be horses? Kristina felt duped. She had asked specifically to make the horses stop talking or stop looking like horses, and instead she'd gotten something that while it clearly wasn't a horse, yet reminded her of one in the entirely wrong way. She crossed her arms and puffed herself up, cresting her forehead with a fierce frown. Feeling it was time to get some answers out of someone, she unleashed her best Royal Angry Voice (with accompanying Stare) upon the creature before her.

“You! Chimera! Inform me this instant where in god's name I am! And if you stop looking like a god-damned horse right now, we might be able to have some semblance of a conversation seeing as I'm rather starved for company right now and thus, in my royal grace, willing to give you a second chance. So! Have I made myself clear enough?”

The chimera gave her a confused look, before frowning slightly and standing up. On its head. Kristina was no geek like some of the more science-proficient Americans called themselves, but the physics of this place still gave her a headache.
“Well, well. Don't you have a fair bit of spunk in you. Fair enough,” it finished, and with a soft popping noise it vanished into a puff of smoke. A second later, the smoke rearranged itself into a tall man with a goatee, sporting a head of hair that was unevenly split between black and white, and a suit of clothing just as crazy as his original appearance had been – silk mixed with corduroy, pinstripes and checkerboard patterns blending together with a myriad of colorful dots, all somehow on the same fabric – and an ebony cane. He tugged his beard and gave a thin smile, revealing a single, glistening fang in the corner of his mouth.

“Welcome to my humble world, dear assumed unintentional traveler of the directional realm. I made this place some time ago and now I've gotten stuck, but your appearance would suggest the problem has been solved. Fantastic! Unfortunately I can give you no information whatsoever as to where you are, as the directional is utterly whimsical when it comes to things like regard for common sense – and besides, common sense makes everything boring, so trust me, you're better off this way.”
He took a few steps closer to her, and looked her in the eyes. Hard. Kristina shivered slightly.
“I can tell you, however, that wherever you started, you're not likely to be heading back. Forward momentum and all that, which you still have plenty of, by the way, so expect bouncing off again in a few minutes or so. Too bad, but really, there's not much point to developing attachments to places anyway. May I, Aspect, receive the honor of knowing your name? I mean, I could just rummage through your brain for that, but since you're a visitor, I figure I might as well be a bit, hm, courteous for once. Besides, I figure I owe you something, with the break and all that.”

Kristina stood dumbstruck again, as she tried to make sense of the creature's monologue. The most important part clicked into place rather quickly, however, and her frown deepened considerably. I'm not likely to come back home? She shook her head fiercely. The vagueness aside, it didn't brighten her prospects in the least. The rest of the speech made about as much sense as one of lieutenant Cantrell, well, the Imperial Count of Wismar's, rants on that Sye-Fye stuff he was such a sucker for. Though admittedly some experience in that direction might've helped her in this situation, if she'd interpreted it right. She made a mental note to thoroughly interrogate the lieutenant on the subject when she got home, and read as much of the stuff she could get her hands on. She could probably pass it off as English studies for her mentors, if anyone complained.

Before that could be done, however, she needed a way back home. “Aspect, you said you were?” Strange name for a strange fellow, Kristina thought when the man gave a short nod. Well, I have weirder things to worry about. “I am Kristina Vasa, crown princess of Sweden. And how do you think I can get back home, if that's not where I'm headed? Why is this happening? It seems like you have some grasp on the situation.”
The echo of her voice carried disturbingly well through the air, bouncing around from a dozen different directions at the same time. Stranger still was the sound of it. It was definitely not Swedish – which was what she thought she'd been speaking – nor was it, as far as she could tell, any other language she knew or recognized. She decided to ask about this, as well. Intelligence oft comes coupled with curiosity, and Kristina was a very intelligent girl. “Are you doing something to my voice? Or my words, rather?”

The man smiled briefly, baring his fang, at her last question. “Observant little thing. You are quite right. Like I said, this is my world. While I am quite able to understand your words as they are, rummaging of minds and all that, the echo translates it for me anyway. But that's complicated and boring, so let's not get into that.”
He clapped his hands slightly, and they made a tiny clicking sound as they struck together. “Now, your original question, how to get back home? I have no idea! I don't do this stuff anymore, and I am frankly quite behind on the times, shut-in and all. Hopping between worlds was never a very straightforward business, and business being business, it's changed quite considerably since when I was on the market. But since you seem to have no idea what's going on either, I'd say you should try asking when you arrive at your final destination, wherever that may be. Since the place you come from doesn't have any grasp on the concept, the instigators are probably on the other side, which means they hopefully have some idea of what they're doing and not just a stupid old wagonload of luck with bashing the directionality equivalent of sticks and stones against each other.”

He took a step forward and, to Kristina's utter embarrassment, patted her on the head – even squeezing it a bit, which made her very uncomfortable. “But don't worry! I'm sure you'll be just fine. But you should probably stock up on some provisions while you're here – never know where you might end up, after all. Might be a desert! Or a forest full of angry badgers! Or an oversized beehive! Every world is full of strange possibilities like that, so you'd best be well prepared. Care for some chocolate milk, fresh squeezed from the cloud? Or some puffle fluff? Popcorn? Whiskaramel and catnip? Or a poohoo?” A table appeared out of nowhere, which immediately started littering itself with an enormous variety of objects.

It took a few minutes of suspicious questioning for her to discern what, of all the goods that Aspect procured, was actually edible and what was decidedly not so – or, in the case of whiskaramel, edible but so saturated with alcohol it'd make her blind drunk from a single sip. Once she was done with that, however, she happily threw herself into the veritable feast that Aspect had laid on the table for her. She was utterly starved, and strange as most of the things might be, they tasted reasonably good. There was even a haphazardly shaped backpack lying in the midst of it all, and she filled it up with some of the less surreal varieties of food she found. Which was just as well, because just as she started buttoning its lid, spots of color started invading the corner of her eyesight again, just like they had before she arrived here. She slung the backpack over her shoulders – it fit reasonably well and wasn't too heavy, and there weren't any ladies-in-waiting to complain about the way it wrinkled and messed up her clothes, so screw them – and took Aspect's hand, shaking it briefly before letting go again. “I'm very grateful for your help, Aspect. You have done a great service to me, and my realm, today. If our paths cross again, I shall be sure to reward you as best I can. I shall make sure to give your name to the Magdeburg and Stockholm courts, as well. Vasa shall remember your name, Aspect of Humble World!” She finished her last line just as the rainbow sludge started forming over her body. The last thing she saw of Aspect's world was an island of earth and rock, floating in the air like a balloon – then everything went chromatic, and the sensation she'd now come to recognize as leaving the world enveloped her.

-/-/-/-/

He was dumbstruck. It was utterly amazing. He, master of monologues, dumbstruck! This day was really putting on a good show. Eventually a few choice words appeared in his mouth, and he savored them for a bit before speaking them out loud. “Aspect of Humble World? Really? That's a new one. She even got part of it all right. Spunk indeed! She even ate the poohoo!” He chuckled lightly, but saved the sputtering laugh for later. “Not the time.” No, now wasn't the time for sheer enjoyment. He could do plenty of that later, when he'd figured out what all of this actually meant.
He was quite certain his prison was broken. Not quite shattered, like last time, but there was definitely a leak. Two, even – the rainbow smudges were gone now, but there were two big rips in the fabric of the world around him, one on each side. One in each direction. One for each world.
He had possibilities, here. But he was not going to repeat his past mistakes. This time, he was going to plan ahead. And take his time doing it. And most importantly, make sure not underestimate anything.
A crooked smile took form on his face, before he dematerialized in a roar of cackling laughter that shook the world to its bones.

Ch4: Vigilemus Me Ante Tu Ire-Ire

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Chapter 4 – Vigilemus Me Ante Tu Ire-Ire

ᛗᛚᛈ ᛒᛖᛚᚩᛝᛋ ᛏᚩ ᚻᚨᛋᛒᚱᚩ ᛫ ᚨᛋᛋᛁᛏᛁ ᛋᚻᚨᚱᛗᛋ ᛒᛖᛚᚩᛝᛋ ᛏᚩ ᛖᚱᛁᚳ ᚠᛚᛁᚾᛏ ᛫ ᚾᚩᚱᛋᛖ ᛒᛖᛚᚩᛝᛋ ᛏᚩ ᚡᛁᚳᛁᛝᛋ ᛚᛁᚳᛖ ᛗᛖ

Gustav just about managed to keep his mouth from hanging wide open. He himself was a devout Lutheran – champion of the protestant cause and all that – but he had never exactly had much doubt that the first angel he would see would be the one guarding the gates to heaven. Or the ones bringing him there. However God had set it all up, seeing one in his life wasn't something he'd been expecting.

Now, one was standing right before him, and was decidedly displeased with him. Understandable, since he'd just unleashed the mother of all angry outbursts at her. A great example of getting stuck in the muck on my part, the king mused.
There was another part to all of this, however. One that did not, in any way, fit into the puzzle his mind was trying to solve.
The angel had, when she was still that horse-thing, cried out in response to his final insult. Initially he had, of course, been overtaken by the mere fact that the Horse Could Talk, and then gotten quite busy with the fact that the horse had stopped Being A Horse and started Being An Angel. Now, he'd had a few more moments to think, and the words the horse had said were starting to decipher themselves in his mind.
Best they could, at least. You, your something. He couldn't quite put his finger on the last word, but he didn't really need to. Whatever it had been, he damn well knew his own bloody language well enough to recognize it being spoken – and enough to at least recognize its ancestral tongues.

Which was the part that made absolutely no sense at all. Why in heaven's name would an angel speak in Old Norse? The vikings were bloody pagans!

That was not what he said out loud, however. He turned to Stearns. Then, reconsidering things a bit, he turned to lady Platzer, who finally had stopped sobbing. Likely in sheer shock of what she was seeing, of course, but it didn't really matter. “Lady Platzer, I want prince Ulrik here. Now.” His tone was, perhaps, a bit harsh, but he didn't really give a damn anymore. His daughter was missing and this angel-horse-viking-thing was the only clue he had to this whole damn debacle. Giving the matter a few more thoughts, he added the little failsafe. “And make sure – make bloody well sure! – he brings the Norwegian, that Norddahl fellow, with him. I need a god-damned translator.”

The tongues of olden times were long dead, of course. That's why they were 'tongues of olden times' in the first place. However, he was quite sure that Ulrik's henchman had done considerable dabbling in the myths and languages of the Scandinavians of old. If nothing else, the – undoubtedly fake – name was a dead ringer. I mean, honestly speaking, why else would he walk around calling himself “Baldur”? Aside from the obvious case of him being a complete lunatic, that is.

The complete lunatic in question had, however, engineered most of the maneuver – and weaponry – that had let the Danes cripple the ironclad Monitor and completely destroy one of its timberclad escorts, the Ajax, during the battle of Copenhagen. He was the local 'tech wiz', as the Americans called it. Eddie Cantrell, the Count of Wismar, had on several occasions half-praised half-mourned his intellect. In his own peculiar way.

So Gustav Adolf had a feeling, and he trusted his instincts very, very much. After all, they had made him the most powerful monarch in all of Europe. Why would they fail him now?
He tried to disregard his doubts as much as possible as Caroline swiftly exited the chamber, and he turned his eyes back to the midnight-blue angel. “Any thoughts, prime minister?” he said to Stearns. A few moments of silence later, the man replied. “Not really, your Majesty.” Gustav sighed heavily, and fought hard to suppress the urge to start pacing. “But the phrase 'catch a royal hell' comes to mind.”

The king let out a loud groan, and started pacing.

-/-/-/-/

“I don't want to set the woooooorld ooooon fire...”

In what was undoubtedly the most cramped, overheated chamber of the entire palace, the royal gramophone was spinning happily on its little pedestal. Spinning happily and, as was the way of gramophones, playing music.

“I just want to staaaaart... a flame in your heaaaaaaaart...”

In prince Ulrik's opinion, extremely boring music. As was the way of gramophones. Apparently, the mediums that stored the music were different from the more advanced “cassette” or “compact disc” players, but the technologies that those formats used were impossible to replicate with the resources available to the Danish crown. Or those of the Union, for that matter. And I rather doubt the USE is any different.

So, a gramophone it was. He had built it himself – with some help from Baldur, of course, but that was true with just about anything he did. When Eddie, his very good friend and likewise brand new brother-in-law, had seen it he'd merrily arranged for a few vinyls to be sent to Copenhagen.
Unfortunately for him, the only recordings available in the format used by his reinvention were, well, old. In the Americans' perspective, at least. The fact that this meant they were from a mere 320 or so years in the future rather than 370 reflected the rather jaded view on the subject of time and age people had these days. In any case, this made it practically impossible to get anything other than music that was...
Well. He had to admit, there was some level of charm to it. The calm, simple tunes, the slightly buzzy sound to the recording, the lyrics that quite often referenced the horrors of war versus the wonders of love and peace. That was just as relevant now as it had been then, in the time of the infamous Second World War.
Regardless, the point stood firm. As useful as the records had been in helping him calibrate the machine to ensure proper “play back” and “compatibility”, as the terms were called, the only purpose they served at the moment was making him sleepy and grumpy.

Which was not, as one might understand, the best way to be when constructing the propulsion system of a submarine. From the inside.

He wiped the sweat off his brow with his napkin, idly shuffling it back into his pocket. Why am I even doing this? There are any number of things I could do instead, and not too few of those that I would much rather prefer over this...labor. By Christ, just about anything would do!
Ten minutes later he was learning two lessons the hard way: the old fashioned 'Thou shalt not blaspheme', coupled together with the more modern 'Be careful what you wish for'. With the possible addition of 'Baldur finds you, not the other way around'.

“What was it you needed me for again?” Baldur wore an incredulous look on his face as they were trotting down the hallways at a brisk pace. Ulrik just shook his head, not having understood the message too well himself. With lady Platzer having run off to have an intense counseling session (presumably with herself, because no other shrink was available) there wasn't exactly anyone else around to give them the correct answer.
“I think they needed you to translate something. The rest, I have no idea. The countess is normally a very sober woman, but now... Absolutely, ah, flipped. Which only leads me to assume whatever has happened must be of a most horrible and extraordinary nature; or alternately, that Caroline is practicing witchcraft, taking drugs, or both. I'm not sure which one of these are least far-fetched and silly, so I'm not even going to make a guess.”

When they arrived at Kristina's chambers, Ulrik was in a quite suspicious mood. The sight that met them there didn't make it much better – ten USE marines were posted outside the door in a tight perimeter, all of them with up-time shotguns or pistols in their hands. While the small space they were compressed into made it look rather silly, it still gave a clear message; something big had happened. In my betrothed’s bedroom. A tight knot formed in his stomach. If something had happened to Kristina, it could threaten the whole Vasa dynasty; and by extension, the entire empire that Gustav had built up. Now, Denmark was included in that realm as well. Not to mention, he had actually managed to become quite fond of the girl.
Ulrik straightened his back and marched up to the soldiers, who saluted him and cleared the way. “Go on in, your highness, mister Norddahl. His Majesty is expecting you.” The commander gave him a comradely pat on his shoulder – and a respectful nod to Baldur – as he opened the door and let them in.

And to think that Americans and their odd behavior used to be counted among the strangest things in the world, Ulrik thought a few moments after the door closed on them.

A few confused minutes later, they finally got to the matter they came for; which of course only served to make things even more complicated. “She does what!?” Ulrik was unsure if he should burst our crying, laughing or savage his royal uncle's behind something fierce with his feet. His first thought was: This must be the worst joke in history. And I'm the butt of it. After that: God is an arse, and he has no sense of humor whatsoever. Finally: Fucking submarines in a basement!

While he was busy blaspheming inside his head, the Prime Minister took over the explaining. “As his majesty said, she speaks in Old Norse. As far as he can tell. Which we need mister Norddahl here to translate for us. And,” he continued, gesturing to Baldur, “since nobody ever knows where to find him – no disrespect of course – and since it would be sort of rude not to let you in on what has happened with Kristina, we brought you both here. Yes, I am aware of how stupid this situation is. No, that doesn't make it any less important, because we're still missing a princess. Yes, she can fly with those wings, despite the physical impossibility of it. No, the sparkles aren't a hallucination. Or anything else for that matter. No- look, can you sit down for a minute so we can get to business, your highness? We've spent enough time being generally confused today already. Please, Ulrik?”

The prince of Denmark sighed in resignation, before sitting down on the bed beside the angel. He looked her in the eyes – she was giving him a very skeptical look – and shook his head. I must find Kristina. He shook himself a bit, and rose again. “Let's get on with it,” he said resolutely. “Baldur, if you would.”

-/-/-/-/

Luna had spent the last half hour or so in a quite contemplative state. The lamenting female had rushed off somewhere after the Prince had given her a few orders. Since then, a cluster of guards had arrived (bringing a couple of chairs with them) and taken post outside the door, and the Prince and his advisor had nurtured a very awkward silence between each other. This had left her without anything to disturb her thoughts; and so, she had got a lot of things done.
A lot of wild mass guesses, that was.

What she had observed, however, was that the two males seemed to have some sort of reverence for her. This held true with the recent arrivals as well. Their first reactions upon entering had been wide-faced looks of awe, that then had turned over into frustrated confusion. Her best guess had to do with the wings. She had stretched them a bit and taken a few flaps some minutes ago; this had enticed a great amount of surprised shouting and intense whispering between the Prince and his advisor.

Suddenly the slimmer of the newcomers sat down right beside her. He was quite obviously a noble, from the way he dressed. She raised an eyebrow at him, not sure what to make of the gesture. His eyes were prying, searching for something in hers – as if he was looking for something that should be there, but wasn't. Then, just as abruptly he rose again, and spoke a few words. Luna gave a tired sigh, leaning backwards. I really hope they are not intending to keep this up any-
“My lady.”
Her ears perked up. I understood that! The pronunciation was a bit off, but it was North Tae, no doubt. She flapped her wings in excitement, propelling her into the air briefly. A bit unsightly perhaps, but in her defense things had been very boring for some time now. The man who had spoken was the tall newcomer, who was undoubtedly the most plainly dressed in the room. Rugged, even. But who is he? A servant? An actual translator? Another noble, despite the looks?
Luna took a few moments to – literally – get back on the ground, before eying the man carefully. She took care, this time, to keep the Voice off while speaking. “State thy name, clan and liege, speaker.”

There was some intense back-and-forth between the speaker and the Prince; the advisor said a few words in the exchange, but not many. The slim noble was still just staring intensely at her, as if that would tell him something. Then the speaker turned back to face her. “I am Baldur, of clan Norddahl. My liege is Ulrik, jofur of Danemarkriki.” As he gestured to the slim noble, Luna cursed the dragons and their off-kilter hierarchies. She was fairly certain jofur was a title of some sort, but whatever it meant had no equivalent in dragon society.
Then she shook her head. What am I thinking? I am actually conversing with these beings, by some stroke of good luck. She regarded the speaker – Baldur – with some curiosity. First things first, as they say. “We are Måána, crown of Éykhaestir-reyka, ruler of the night and the moon.” She had said that line to just about every dragon she'd met for over a thousand years, so it had stuck. The rest of her vocabulary was a bit rusty, though, so she stayed to the basics. “How come thou speak the tongue of the Second Dragonflight? Where is this place, Baldur?”

Despite his obvious efforts to keep his cool, equal amounts shock and awe competed with disbelief in the speaker's eyes. He seemed to be concerned about something different as well, however. “Dra...dre..drag-un? Drag-un-fliet? I don't understand this word.”
Luna facehoofed briefly – though it wasn't a proper facehoof since she didn't have hooves anymore, she was fairly certain it would translate nonetheless – and gave Baldur an irritated look, before she started gesturing with her forelegs. “Oh come now. Great, scaled lizards with wings that fly around and spew fire and such. Surely, thou must know of them!”
Baldur's eyes went wide in disbelief, and after a few swift words to the others, they followed suit. Luna rolled her eyes. This was going to be a tiresome conversation.

-/-/-/-/

Celestia had started exploring her sister's astral body, in order to get a better idea of how to navigate herself out. She had tried to avoid breaking into obviously private memories and such, but some things – like the few memories her sister retained from her possession by Nightmare Moon – had been impossible to avoid. Literally, in fact. They had seemed to sense her presence when she came close, and then proceeded to follow her like homing projectiles, until the bubble-like objects containing them finally caught up and forced their way into her head. The process itself had been quite unnerving, but the memories...

Horrified, she gazed on the broken pieces of the Epihruss coastline. The peaks of its once majestic mountains had been torn off and lay smashed against the ground, the earth gaping dark where they had been used as sledgehammers against her enemies. Her eyes peered – she peered with them – and she could see the pools of red mixed in with the soil and broken marble. Thessaponiki. Algothens. Conkanterlople. Every city owing allegiance to Celestia's Throne in Semper Liberum – crushed like flowers under a minotaur's cloven foot. Far off in the distance, the burning ruins of Cavalarthage, looted and raided by her minions. Not only Equestria, the land itself was in upheaval, seas and deserts switching places in confusion as the earth roiled and quaked.
“I...did this...”
The tears formed like burning tongs gripping her eyes, but they never fell. The helmet absorbed them, and her cackling laughter soon overtook everything she could hear or see.

They lay like open wounds inside Celestia's head, throbbing and unleashing a torrent of horrifying visions and mad, hateful ravings every time she lost focus. So, she forged ahead, thinking as little as possible of the things she had seen.

Time was impossible to discern, but eventually she came to a barrier of sorts. A sheet of glass, softly flowing downward like a waterfall in slow-motion, blocked her path. She put a hoof to it, and she felt it slowly go through – but to her eyes, it was simply disappearing. This must lead somewhere else, then. She felt a sliver of hope to grasp at; without a single second of thought, she thrust her body through the barrier.

The next moment, she was falling.

-/-/-/-/

Ulrik was tapping his foot rhythmically – he had somehow managed to get the music from the gramophone stuck in his head, and it was playing over and over again to his mind's ear. It actually helped, in a way. The distraction took away some of the nervousness the situation brought on him. Taking a look around the room, however, he could easily find comfort in that he wasn't the most overtly nervous person present. Gustav was gripping the armrests of his chair so hard his knuckles were turning white, just to keep himself from pacing; Baldur, who was face-to-face with their angelic newcomer, was showing all of his usual discreet signs of a, “poker face”, about to break. Stearns didn't seem too fazed – come to think of it, he never did – but that was more or less expectable. For one, he didn't have any personal stake in the incident; no daughter, fiancé or whatever Baldur termed his rather odd relation to the princess. Additionally, he was most likely the best politician in the world, and an old prize-fighter of sorts. Naturally, his skills at concealing his feelings would be far better than most.

After what seemed like an awfully long exchange, Baldur finally turned around to face the rest of them again. Immediately, Gustav popped out of his chair. “Well? Where is my daughter?”
Stearns let out a quiet sigh at this, and Ulrik's cheeks heated slightly when he realized he had been about to ask the exact same thing. Of course he won't have an answer for it yet, you hotheaded nilwit. Stop being so bloody restless for one minute, would you? He shook his head, before looking up at his old companion. “Tell us what you've learned, Baldur. Who is she?”
Baldur shot a glance to the king, before facing Ulrik. “Her name is Måna. She says she 'owns the domains of night and moon', and the crown of someplace that I think translates into something like 'horse-nation'.” Stearns sighed again, loudly this time, muttering something about 'points to griffin door', whatever that was. Baldur threw him an annoyed look before continuing. “She also would like to ask us where she is, and – I'm not sure about this part, because even coming from an angel speaking Old Norse this translation seems far-fetched – why I am speaking the language of dragons.”

The room was silent for a few moments, before Stearns started chuckling. Thoroughly. Seconds later it evolved to a full-body laughter, and Ulrik could only brace himself for the outburst inevitably coming from the king as his face grew redder and redder.
“ENOUGH!” Gustav roared in anger. Ulrik felt some of that emotion mirrored in himself, but Stearns did not stop laughing. Rather, it only got worse. Man must've lost it, Ulrik mused as the famous prime minister leaned toward the wall to steady himself, his body quivering in laughter. “I SAID, ENOUGH!” Louder this time, and standing up, but still in vain. Ulrik felt himself compelled to do something about the situation. More importantly, he was getting thoroughly annoyed at the damn American. He rose, walked over to him and gripped the man's shoulder.
“Stearns.” His icy tone, and its proximity, finally got through somewhat. Still laughing, though not quite as hard, the prime minister turned from the wall to face him best he could. Ulrik took a moment to get a good look on exactly how big the man was. Most importantly, the – very considerable – size of his arms. Oh, as they say, fuck it. Ulrik slugged him in the face, and he dropped to the floor.

“...Ow.”
“Ow. Ow. Ow.”
“Owwwww.”

Stearns was up by now, still grinning. “You know, your highness, there's a reason boxers wear gloves. Punching hurts. Though I gotta say, you've got a mean right hook.”
Ulrik's hand was burning. Hot like the fires of a furnace. If not for the fact that he hadn't felt any sort of cracking, he would've sworn he had broken a finger or two. He waved it haplessly in the air. Gathering his thoughts, he began. “I...ow.” He looked at the offending appendage sternly, and tried again. “Good thing I finished the gramophone already, I won't be able to calibrate anything for a week with this hand...” He was panting slightly, but his pulse was starting to back down again. “Are you quite finished beating yourself up, your highness?” Baldur asked, seemingly back to his usual, quippy self. “Quite,” Ulrik answered, doing tiny movements with his fingers to see if everything was still working. “Ow.” It didn't exactly help. “Fine, no, but I'm working on it.” Baldur gave a brief smile, before facing the king. “Then, let us get back to the matter at hand. I would rather get this over with and out of my head as soon as possible. If possible.” He shook his head slightly, sighing.
Gustav was still mostly red. Mostly. He blew his mustaches. Snorted once. Twice. A third time, and an angry look to Stearns for good measure. “Your majesty. I'm sorry about that,” the prime minister offered. The king snorted a fourth time. “Fine!” He boomed, and sat back down on the chair, which creaked loudly under his weight. He looked back at Baldur, his anger finally starting to subside. He blew his mustaches again. Snorted. “Tell her,” he began in a sharp tone, raising a hand. He crooked it. Took it back. Drew a deep breath. Sighed heavily. “Tell her,” he repeated in a calmer tone, “that the court of Gustavus Adolphus welcomes her to his realm. Copenhagen. Denmark.” Stearns made a gesture. “Europe,” the king added. Another gesture, more firmly this time. The king frowned. “Earth? Really?” He shot a look at Stearns. The American sighed sharply. “Look, your majesty. There aren't, have never been, and hopefully will never be any dragons on this planet. Definitely none that could speak. Archeology is rather firm on that point. Since we are dealing with a goddamn angel or whatever she is, I'm going to take her words at face value and assume she's not just a total nutjob. If she's talking about dragons – not to mention the whole part where she magicked herself into an angel or whatever – then she means dragons. And that means she's not from around these parts. At all.”

Everyone in the room was looking at Stearns, trying to grasp the words he'd just said. Then, someone chuckled. Everyone was already looking at Stearns. It wasn't him. Everyone looked at each other. The chuckling continued. Their eyes collectively worked themselves to the other end of the room, where the angel was sitting. She was frowning deeply, certainly not chuckling in any sense of the word. The chuckling grew louder. Actually, Ulrik realized, not so much a chuckle as a...chatter. Like someone took bits and pieces of sound and pieced it together, then broke it apart again. Pieces of a...
Over the course of a second, the scattered sound became a single, unbroken scream of terror that made the whole room vibrate. Then, the room was filled with golden light.

-/-/-/

Something isn't right, was Luna's first thought. It was a small, nagging sensation that had been growing inside her mind for a while now, but since the advisor's random outburst of laughter had been quelled – rather forcefully, which didn't exactly increase her hopes about her hosts – it had taken prevalence over everything else. They weren't paying any attention to her at the moment, either, so she had all the time she wanted to brood and wonder over what exactly was wrong. Then-
Something poked her.
Inside her head. Inside her newly acquired forelegs. Something ran its touch over her spine, under all the flesh and furless skin. All at the same time, everywhere.
Disgust was the first thing she felt, but quelling the immediate instinct to throw up only gave rise to further suspicion. What in the moon's name is-

Then, all of a sudden she knew. She felt it – with some sense she didn't even know she had, she felt it – Celestia was there. Inside.
Luna frowned, thinking back. Yes, she was there on the inside. With me. Before, when we were doing the experiment. The cure. But that was long ago, wasn't it? Then-
Her own thoughts drifted off, refusing to answer the question she didn't ask.
Then what? a familiar-sounding voice asked.
What if she never left? Her thoughts pushed ahead, disregarding the wishes of their owner.
Why would she have? the voice replied.
Then she is-
Here as well, it seems.
But her body, I, what is-
Then we have a problem.

Suddenly, all of her sister was pressing against the walls of her mind, screaming inside her head, trying to get out. Her horn was vibrating. She was vibrating. The air was swirling around her, trying to make room for something that came, seemingly, from nothing. A bright light, the sound of water drenching fire, then-

There she was.
She looked nothing like herself, but Luna knew. She could feel all of her sister in that shining, swirling orb of golden light, connected to herself with a string of silver tied to her horn. She could feel her, and-
“Where am I? Who- What are- Luna!”

Luna could only stare for a few moments, eyes wide at the sight before her. Her sister's voice was echoing from the orb of light, spreading in a chaos of sound without any mouth to focus it. Then they widened yet more, as the full realization of what all this meant hit her with the force of a meteor strike.

I am in an unknown land, far from Equestria, with creatures that speak draconic yet have never heard a dragon speak it. Celestia is here, in spirit. Literally. And I have no idea how we got here, or how to get back home.
There is nopony in Equestria to raise the sun or bring the night.
There is nopony to protect- She stopped. Now she was being overly pessimistic, and panicking. Still...
Be strong, Elements. Be strong, Cadence, Shining Armor. Keep Equestria safe...for all of Tartarus might break free any second, and we cannot help you.

“Sister...” She couldn't go on. The feeling of impending doom was too strong to touch on that subject now. Instead, she turned to Baldur and the others, who now (of course) were staring mouths agape at the two of them.
“Baldur. You are in the presence of Stejärnshímja, crown of Éykhaestir-reyka, ruler of the day and the sun.” She gave her sister's floating, ethereal shape a nod. Then caught herself, and shook her head. With her magic, she forged and attached a curtain of light to Celestia's miniature star-like body, giving her an appearance much like her own. With a few stylistic differences, of course.

“Luna! What is the meaning of this!”
She turned back around, to seea wide-eyed Celestia flailing her illusory legs about in a futile attempt to walk. “'Tis but an illusion, sister. Our guess is that thou must float, as thou have been since thy arrival.” Celestia gaped slightly, before realizing what she was talking about. “Oh.” After moving about some, Celestia shook her head. “No! I mean, Luna! What is going on here? Where are we? What are...those things?” She frowned, seemingly having realized that their own shapes were not much different.

Luna sighed. “The very questions we have been seeking answers for this last hour, those are. To little avail. As to how we got here...” She closed her mouth for a few seconds. Then continued, “Our guess – our hope – is that thy body remains asleep in the chamber where we did the experiment. We are here, though we shifted our shape for the purpose of...negotiations. How we came here with, or how thou so did without, and why, we cannot even guess.”

Celestia was obviously flustered. “Asleep!? Why can't you wake me up before you go, go...”
Then, the elder diarch went silent for a few seconds. A second later, Celestia floated forward, closer to Luna, until her forelegs disappeared as they came into contact with her own. “I can't even hug you.” Her sister's voice was filled with sadness and fear. “It was so strange, so frightening, being alone in there, inside your mind...” Luna frowned in confusion. What is she talking about? “The memories...I'm sorry, Luna. I'm so, so sorry.”
From the illusion of Celestia's eyes, a tear fell. Then another, and then one more. The fourth tear that fell from her sister's eyes left a small, wet patch on Luna's cheek. Luna jumped. Or tried, at least. Suddenly, she was being weighed down by the weight of her sobbing sister's new body, as she was crying herself into existence. Standing was all she could manage. Celestia was heavy.

Ch5: Interregnum

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Chapter 5 – Interregnum

The ancient foundations of Castle Concord shook like banners in a storm. Its inhabitants were few, however, and used to it. It wasn't much of a mystery to them why the old crown seat of Equestria had been abandoned.
The very land it stood upon was in uproar, trying to shake off its rather recently renovated buildings like an enraged ursa. Some even claimed that the entire Everfree, or parts of it, stood on the back of an enormous specimen of the star-speckled bears of legend. While few paid any heed to such rumors, it was a reasonable conclusion to draw for the less educated. It was truly a wild land, and it did not appreciate being tamed in the slightest.

Lord Solid, duke of Throne, muttered a few curses before lighting up his horn and spreading his magic through the marble and bedrock beneath him. The marble of the castle itself was easy enough – it simply needed calming and soothing. Little wonder that it'd be scared of the turmoils from below, Solid thought. But you'd think it would have gotten used to it, by now. It's been almost four years since we rebuilt this place.

Still, he knew very well how wrong that was. Four years was barely measurable to the earth. Castle Concord was less than a newborn foal, in comparison, and only the fact that it was built partly with the ruins of its predecessor had let it remain standing as far as it had. It would take many years for the knowledge to sediment, far many more than Solid expected out of his life – despite his own young age of twenty-eight. His connection to the earth had given him a certain perspective on time, but he still hadn't gotten used to its ways entirely; in many ways, he was still like the marble. Freshly carved from his quarry, barely aware of the world.

The bedrock was the real problem. It was Throne itself; wild, proud, ancient, isolated. A single enormous island of unbroken stone, far from others of its kind, dating back to times older than anypony alive knew of. The best home one could ask for if you knew it well; the worst possible place to settle anew.
By Celestia, he began, but he quickly cut that train of thought. The old gods were many decades gone. That's why we're fighting in the first place, he reminded himself and the rock. The Deceiver and her false knight, who stole the crown of the true Princesses. Neither you nor I can bring them back – but at the least, we can reclaim their crown. At least, we can reclaim this land, their land.
Reclaim Canterlot.

The bedrock grumbled slightly, and the shaking eased down to a mild turbulence. It knew its duty to its lost sibling. It couldn't stand the presence of the newcomer – the marble – but even less it could stand the knowledge that forever, its sibling would remain led astray by the enemy. The land of Throne stood with Celestia and Luna, as it always had, and the enemies of the princesses were the enemies of Throne.

As he let go of his magic, most of his determination followed. I hate doing this, he thought as a sigh escaped his lips.
It turned into a dramatic pose and gesture for nopony in particular – he flicked his streaked violet curls with his marshmallow white hoof, rearing up on his hind legs before falling back to the stone floor with a soft thud. He bounced a bit on the marble before coming to rest, hoof on his forehead. The earth cared for him, and would never let him come to harm. Still-

“Oh, Thomas. He so worries me, Throne does,” he said in a moan. “He's so... militant. Barbaric, almost! I know his spirit is right, but his heart...” He rolled around, grasping his necklace with his forehoof. The small, diamond-shaped stone dangled from its chain, unresponsive. He glared at it. “Thoomaaaas,” he begged.
Well what do you expect, boy? Thomas' reply came. He's possibly the oldest of all our kind. Not even the mountains can measure themselves with him. When he was in his prime, war was everywhere! Earth fighting Earth, dragons fighting dragons, ponies fighting ponies, the princesses fighting dragons, the princesses fighting griffins, the princesses fighting Discord, the princesses fighting dragons again, blah blah blah, the princesses fighting each other. Bloody conflicts, millennia after millennia, and he's always been on the same side in all of them ever since the princesses came. No wonder he lost his mind fighting Nightmare Moon! Do you have any idea how bad that must've been for him? That was half of himself, and he sided with the other half. Now he's just happy to finally see clearly again, and he's dealing with this just the same way as he's always done. A war is a war is a war. And he's damn well going to win it, no matter the cost.

Solid rolled around again, and let go of Thomas. They'd had this conversation many times over now. He was a unique kind of Earth, not only for the fact that his perception of time seemed to be largely the same as a pony's, and he had a great many answers to most questions somepony could think of asking. Back before the war had gone bad, he'd even provided Solid some hefty advice on running the family company.
He spent a few moments in reminiscence. He had been granted the duchy of Throne – which encompassed the Everfree itself as well as the surrounding area, including his hometown of Metroponis – by the Council as a reward for restoring the ancient ruins of Throne to a functional palace, four years ago. Not much had happened to his ducal seat since then, however. The castle stood alone, surrounded by the wilds on all sides; there had been proposals to populate the area within its walls, but nothing had come of them. Instead, Metroponis had flourished in unparalleled wealth under his administration. A golden age, some had said – and he had been quite inclined to agree with them.

Now, however, there was probably little left of his success. Metroponis had taken the brunt of the last battle between rebels and the Council's army, and he had been forced to flee to Throne itself. The city was probably in ruins now, and his Carousel Boutique with it. He hoped with all his heart that Revelant Flair, his grizzled steward and right-hand stallion, was still alive, even if the company and profits he'd spent most of his life running for Solid's family were not. He should be, he said to himself. Nothing he ever did was connected to the rebellion. He made sure of that. He wasn't ever very fond of...’bickering about with your betters’, as he put it. Solid smiled.

“You look like an absolute idiot.”

Solid snorted, not bothering to rise. “And you look as fabulous as ever, Radiance.” The mare who'd spoken thrust her head right above his, and gave him a hurt stare. “No, sunshine, not like that,” Solid offered apologetically. “I mean it. Especially with that armor on, really, ah, brings out your...” He didn't get any further. Radiance's sad eyes told enough. I said something wrong again.

She disappeared from his view as she dropped herself onto the marble floor. “That just means you think my coat is ugly,” she mumbled into her crossed hooves. Solid sat up on his haunches, and his eyes inevitably gravitated toward the sulking mare.
Radiance was a fairly small pony, all things said, but every bit of her was worth twice that of anypony else, in Solid’s eyes. Her coat was the same velvet color as a good red wine, and her mane shone in a shade of blue that was ever so close to silver. Her eyes were a calm indigo with glints of green. The old, refurbished ceremonial armor she was wearing obscured part of her bright green cutie mark, depicting a wave form of some kind. The horn on her forehead was sharp, but not too long. Stars, she’s beautiful, he thought, before realizing his look had turned into a smothering stare that was much too far gone for his favorite mare’s comfort.

“Why do you keep staring at me like that? Stop it!” Her voice broke slightly as she pushed him back to the floor with her hoof.
Nopony else ever did that to him. They always had treated him differently, with much more respect and adoration – fake or real – than he had ever deserved. After his parents’ tragic passing only his dear grandmother, heavens guard her soul, had ever treated him with the same honesty and forwardness. I guess that might be one reason she draws me so.

Except where his grandmother had been polite, charismatic and loved by everypony, Radiance was rude, blunt and more socially inept than your average dragon. All his advances, however careful, had only served to make her angry, sad or frightened.
Where his grandmother had been envied by the entire court for her looks even in her twilight years, and well aware of it, Radiance had always had a massive complex about her looks.
Or rather, her condition.

Raising himself again, Solid squinted as he forced himself to look past the beautified picture of his Radiance that was stuck in his mind. Great spots of sickly translucent green covered Radiance’s coat, as if someone had thrown a can of paint over her. They played in the light, but the sheen of their glow was eerie and unnatural.
Her fetlocks were unshorn, and her hooves were tainted by the same garish color that spotted her body. Parts of her mane and tail shifted between their natural silvery color and green as well, and the green glints in her eyes weren't just glints; small shards of her iris were actually shining with the color.

The most important part however, was the extra pair of horns growing from the sides of her head. They weren’t curved, overly sharp, exceedingly long or otherwise unnatural; however, that made their presence even more disconcerting to behold.

He had never inquired in detail as to why this condition had manifested, but her deep phobia of collars and ponies in labcoats said enough. She didn't ask for this, just like she didn't ask for the power plant in her hometown to blow up and take her entire family with it. Priponyat was a smoldering ruin still, and nopony could come near it without falling ill. A curse, some said. Poison, others said. The ones who'd built the Cumanobyl plant had remained extremely quiet about the issue.

Except, Thomas finished for him, she's a traumatized freak, and nopony would ever accept her at the side of a royal duke. She knows it herself; even as your captain she has kept herself away from the eyes of the public whenever possible. Face it, it is only thanks to the rebellion itself, as much as the fact that you're basically running things here, that you can at all be together. At the university she was as much a subject as a student. She will never be any more than that.
She can’t.

The words touched on an old, gnawing pain inside him, but he didn't have any time for the unsolvable riddles of the heart today. He stood up, grasped his ducal weapon, the Scepter of Throne, with his magic and brought it to his side. Standing on ceremony made it easier for him to ignore the parts of reality he didn't want to bother with at the moment. So he did.
“Captain Radiance, your report.”

Shooting him one last hurt stare, Radiance retrieved a small scroll from her saddlebags with her hoof. It still confused him somewhat to see a unicorn doing mundane tasks without magic, but Radiance's magic field was severely altered by, presumably, her two extra horns. She had a tendency to violently shred or shatter things if she held them with her telekinesis for too long.
Looking at it that way, she's not even a unicorn anyway, Thomas remarked surly. Thomas was Earth, despite the oddities, and Earth could hold grudges that not even dragons could.

Radiance unrolled the scroll. “The Interregnum council has chosen your replacement. He's a unicorn known as Revelant Flair, and is in charge of the greater Metroponitan area. He was elected as the replacement of the ducal court by popular vote of Metroponis and its inhabitants.” Solid's eyes widened, his ears perking up as Radiance kept reading. “Fairly popular among the masses, the nobility tolerates him, none too radically opinionated anywhere. Ring any bells?”
Solid sighed, nodding slightly. “Many. I feared he was dead. He's my steward, and I do believe you've met him. And heard me talking about him. I...”

As he trailed off, his eyes went to the window. Not even the high tower of the throne room was enough to reach above the massive treetops, but he knew what was out there. So far, yet so close. Canterlot.
He closed his eyes, and made his decision. “I have to talk to him.”

Radiance tapped the marble with her hoof nervously. “Solid...”
He paid her no heed. Turning about, he climbed the few steps up, grasped the scepter with his magic and seated himself on the throne of Throne. “This has gone too far! I can accept, understand at least, that the citizens wish for stability. They've known nothing else for over a thousand years. I can understand that the masses would rather hide their eyes from the truth, than face the consequences that comes from embracing it. I am not faulting them for it. Well, not too much. BUT!” The scepter banged down against the ground, ringing its myriad of miniature bells in amazing cacophony.

“This! My own Revelant! He's practically raised me! I spoke to him every day for a whole year before we rose up, discussing the secrets and lies of the council. He discovered some of them himself! I'd expected him to keep running the company, triple the profits without my interruptions, become even grumpier than usual and die at his desk from overwork in a few years. But this!” He banged the scepter against the marble again.
A few moments too late, he saw Radiance was covering her ears, clenching her teeth in pain. “I... sorry. I'm really sorry, sunshine. I shouldn't have...” He shook his head fiercely, drawing upon his magic to steel his resolve. “But there's no way he doesn't know. I must talk to him. Either he's betrayed me, after all these years, or... I have to talk to him.” He snorted. “Besides, it's well past time I left this castle anyway.”

He stood up, leaving the scepter where it was. “Meet me by the Underway entrance in an hour. And as fabulous as you look in it, I must ask you to lose the armor, dear. Won't go through with all that metal.” He stalked off toward his dressing room, leaving a significantly fidgety Radiance behind.

-/-/-/-/

This is insane.
In complete silence, the enormous boulders and rocks surrounding them floated aside at a terrifying speed, leaving a tiny sliver of space for the two ponies to travel through.
THIS IS INSANE!
Solid's horn shone bright enough to clearly illuminate their surroundings. The sight would've been fascinating if not for the fact that she was all too busy fighting her panic to care. Solid was holding her with both of his massive forelegs, his crossed hooves pressed tight against her chest. She would've told him to loosen his grip, let go, she could walk herself, but-
WE ARE NOT WALKING WE ARE SWIMMING THROUGH THE EARTH AND THIS IS CRAZY AND LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME–
Radiance shut out the terrified voice in her head and shoved it aside into a small corner. True, she was a bit afraid, but this wasn't the first time he'd brought her into the Underway. She wasn't exactly used to it, but at least she'd stopped expecting the earth to have second thoughts and collapse on them at any given moment.
At least, most of her had. The uncooperative parts of her psyche were normally easy enough to shut out, but the Underway was apparently special somehow. Oh, no, really? The Underway is special? I couldn't have guessed. What a genius you are, I guess that must be why you're running the show here and not–

The snark got the same treatment as the panic. After a few seconds of muffled echoes, her head was finally silent. She sighed uncomfortably. Solid shifted his position slightly and gave her a worried look through the corner of his eye. “Are you alright, sunshine?”
She gave an irritated snort. He knows the answer to that already, so why does he keep asking? “You know I'm not. Just... keep going. I don't like this place.”

She could barely see the frown on his face from the awkward position she was in, but she knew it was there. He frowns way too much. He turned his head back up, and she felt a slight shift in the magic he was using. The next moment, their speed was picking up, and soon they were hurtling through the earth's crust at a speed most pegasi would envy. It did nothing to soothe her innate fear, but the logical parts of her mind told her they'd be out sooner this way. She calmed herself best she could, and shut her eyes.

Minutes later, she felt their speed decrease. Opening her eyes, she could make out glimmering reflections in the walls, myriads of gemstones shining in the light of Solid's magic. They weren't traveling through the solid earth anymore, and the cave around them only had to bend slightly to allow them through. She let out a small breath she'd been holding. They weren't quite all the way there yet – the Canterlot Caves were pretty extensive – but the fact that they weren't completely surrounded by solid rock anymore was reassuring.

Finally, after a few more minutes of navigating the labyrinthine caves, they reached a large chamber.
Solid let go of her as the magic of the Underway released its hold on them, and their hooves were let down to touch the cavern's stone floor. Not for long. She took a few steps forward, before she turned around to face him. “Are you ready?”
Solid frowned, and closed his eyes. Radiance shivered slightly. The caves were damp and cold, and it was hard to shake the eerie feeling that being underground usually gave her, even if they were out of the Underway itself. After a few moments, Solid shook his head and opened his eyes. “I'm ready. Let's go.”

Radiance reflected on the contradicting body language and what he had said – is he hearing voices again? – for a moment, but let go of the thought. We have other things to worry about. She hesitated for a moment. Like this. She pinched her eyes shut. Separating her courage from her fear, she took both emotions and gathered them into separate little balls in the corners of her mind. Then, she took hold of the magic.

IT BURNS!
The voice's scream was loud enough for her to cringe. An agonized, endless wail pierced through her head as the magic came, violent waves of power that pulsed in the same burning agony as the screams.
IT BURNS! IT BURNS US! IT BUUUUUUURRRNNS!
The magic fought to free itself from her grasp, but she held fast, forcing it out through her front horn. It was hard to control, but she didn't need much subtlety at the moment. Her horn lit up in a blazing red glow, and through the black of her eyelids, she saw the air.
IT BURNS US. THE FIRE! IT BLAZES, IT HURTS! WE MUST PUT OUT THE FIRE. STOP THE FIRE! IT BURNS US, SURROUNDS US! IT BURNS!
She lost her balance for a moment, as the screams intensified. Just a little more, she urged herself. The air was still in the calm of the caves, but she took hold of it and made it run. The wind and earth was silent, but she took the air and made them all scream.
For a few seconds, the screams were everywhere: in her head, in her eyes, in her ears, ringing like bells in the air around her. Then, a crack formed in the rough stone of the ceiling above them. Moments later, everything turned to dust – and fifty meters up, the ground opened with a sucking sound.
The way is open.

She let go of the magic, and the screams subsided until the voice was just sobbing lightly in the corner of her mind – easily shut out. Opening her eyes, she shook herself up a bit before giving Solid a nod. “Let's go.” He nodded back, and enveloped them in the light of his magic, sending them upward through the hole.

Interlude I: Valhalla

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INTERLUDE I – VALHALLA

Four days after Freyr's arrival at Gyldvik, the Ynglings left their proud village for good. Leaving their home had been tough, but everyone had known they'd have to sooner or later. Now, the final battle loomed; every warrior in Asgård was going to fight on one side or the other. It wasn't much of a choice, really. Those who stayed behind would undoubtedly die. If they survived the inevitable cold and starvation long enough, they would simply be killed off by the victors in their process of purging the land of their last remaining enemies – or nidings and traitors, depending on what side you were on.
Besides, who could resist the promises of glory that lies just beyond the horizon? Thorulf thought as he trudged on ahead in the snow. The fate of an entire world lies in the balance. Nothing can surpass it!

Regardless of any promise of glory, the march had been hard. The snow and cold had persisted, and grown worse as Gyldvik disappeared in the whiteness beyond. Of course, they were quite hardy enough to handle the damn weather. They had been for three years, now. Besides, they had no shortage of food for the journey; half a year's supplies were more than enough to last them on the trip to Valhalla.

The difficult part of the march had been the fact that it soon degenerated into less of a march and more of a refugee caravan trail. What first was only constituted by the proud, victorious Yngling warriors of Gyldvik and their families, was soon joined by scores of forces less fortunate – and far dimmer in morale. Kornbirke, inhabited by danes of the Yving and Gamje clans, was the first village they walked into. Literally. Built on a small plateau, they ended up marching full score into the market square.

Needless to say, it gave the inhabitants quite a scare, but as soon as Freyr emerged they were quite willing to listen to what they had to say. Before long the entire village was on the march, and their forces were almost doubled in size. The Kornbirkans weren't exactly well off, but they had held out.

That was not the case with the vast majority of people they came across, however. Most were already marching to Valhalla, simply to save what they could of their clan before they ran all out of food; and many had also suffered great losses. Caravans of half-starved Jormings and Gördings, Vallungs and Björkungs, all fleeing the only foe they could never hope to defeat. Time, with winter's endless hunger as its instrument.

They were close to their goal, however. Their home plains of Merrmonland were almost two weeks' march behind them, and they were now marching ever upward to reach the plateau upon which Valhalla was situated. Not the easiest climb; the Valhalla plateau was almost twice as high as any of the nearby mountains, and its slopes excruciatingly rocky. According to Freyr, at least – the snow made it just as impossible as ever to see anything beyond a stone's throw away. It was a tiresome hike indeed.

Freyr, who was leading the pack, came to a stop by a small ridge. After breaking their camp at the bottom of the plateau, they had been marching since before dawn in order to avoid being forced to make camp on the slope. Thorulf had no idea how far they'd come; the only time he had been to Valhalla was when his father had taken him from his mother's home to Gyldvik, on the Bifrost – and since he had been about 1 year old at that time, it was quite understandable that he didn't exactly remember much.

He approached his king, stopping a few steps behind him. “Your hi-” he began, before he remembered The Talk. Luckily he'd stopped himself in time to avoid another reminding session. He acts like I'm some misbehaving little brat. Baldr's balls, I'm over fifty! He shook his head. Though I guess I am a brat, by his standards. My own now, as well. Fifty years is not exactly old for a Vanir... I mean, how old am I supposed to get, anyway? How old is HE? Not that it matters with the final battle coming up and all. Still...
Fighting his instincts, he took another step. Then one more, and another until he was side by side with Freyr. My uncle. Not my king. My elder, not my liege. Gods, this is hard. “Uncle Freyr. Why are we stopping?”

Freyr gestured ahead of him, a deep frown creasing his face. “The gatekeepers, nephew. They will fight with us in the battle, oh they will, but they aren't used to change. Centuries of nothing but gods and einherjar in their bonds, and now we're bringing a host of men to walk their stone. I have to speak to them to ensure our the safety of your people, and they're taking their time showing themselves. I...” He trailed off, noticing the look of total confusion on Thorulf's face, and sighed deeply. “I really need to teach you more than just a thing or two, don't I. We're dealing with trolls.”

Thorulf couldn't restrain himself from sputtering at this revelation. “Trolls!? In Valhalla? And they're fighting with us? I–”
Before he could continue, however, the air was filled with a thundering cacophony of rock against rock. The earth shook slightly beneath his feet, but that was nothing compared to what happened next.

An enormous construct of rock and earth, many times bigger than any jötunn, sprung from the ground like water from a spring. Not a single cloud of dust or snow escaped into the air as it did. Like it's been here all the time. Which actually isn't too far off, trolls being what they are, Thorulf realized as the creature lowered its massive bulk, bringing it closer to them. I can only hope they are as loyal to the Allfather as the k– uncle Freyr says they are. Fighting something like this...

His thoughts trailed off as he noticed the thing was looking at him. Not that it had much in the ways of a head, eyes or any other sort of defining features, but the feeling was unmistakable. Moments later it spoke up, with a booming voice as filled with gravel and stone as its body was.
“Fear not, Van-child. The wildkin are similar to us only in shape. They are fleeting incarnations, risen from mere desire to exist. We are permanent. We are the Allfather's wisdom. We are Valhalla. Welcome to our grounds, Van-child Thorulf.” Every time it mentioned itself, an echo of voices reverberated through the snow-laden air.

As the behemoth paused, Thorulf noticed a loud racket coming from behind. Turning around, he saw good number of his clansmen running towards them from the front of the pack behind them, axes in the air.
Having noticed the troll – which, considering its entrance, they'd be really hard pressed not to – they had most likely done what any man worth his name would have done when spotting a troll. In one well-trained movement they'd have slung their shields off their backs and raised their axes, breaking into a charge less than a second after spotting the beast.

Had things ended there, Thorulf could easily have defused the situation himself. Which things would have, had his men been like most men. That is, lacking the magical abilities that comes with only the slightest presence of Vanir blood in the flesh. Which, as they were Ynglings all through and through, was not the case. Decades of Thorulf himself insisting they train those talents certainly did not help either.

What happened was that half a dozen Ynglings lowered their shields to draw their horns from their waist belts, and sounded their Calls. With a deafening echo it washed across the white-laden grounds of the Valhalla plateau, its message ringing through bone and skull of all who heard. To arms! Trolls afoot! Trolls on the cliff! To arms!

Utter chaos ensued as the Call spread to the ragged masses of refugees that made up most of the caravan. For one, they'd probably never heard Calls before – magic had a tendency to inspire fear in those who didn't understand it.
However, they all knew very well what a troll was. Or, at least, they' have d heard the stories. Thorulf felt his eyes dim for a moment as a vision came upon him – thousands upon thousands fleeing down the steep, rocky plateau, dying in scores as they tumbled and fell over each other, all adding to the panic. The vision passed, and fire flowed through his veins. Red flames burned in his eyes and clouded his sight somewhat, and the now slightly more familiar feeling of his power rose up within him, gripping his spine and chest. He drew a breath, and fed the embers in his lungs with power, fanning them until they burst alight and sent black sparks coursing out his mouth. He let his breath out, and drew another – and suddenly the flames were an inferno, holding His entire body in its blazing armor, melting any snowflakes that strayed too close. He saw, and He spoke.
“Heel.”

As one man, the men on the cliffside came to a stop.

My voice... Thorulf thought briefly. I'll have to take that up with Freyr when I'm done with this. He's got a lot of explaining to do. Anger drifted across His mind, flashing briefly where it stopped. Later. Now, the humans...
He regarded them where they stood, an immense throng spread out over the massive slope. He could feel their fear – it was almost laughable how easy it was – and if He let them out of His thrall now, panic would ensue on even greater scale than before.

He would need to take action.

“Do not disrespect the guardians of Valhalla. Defy the land, and you defy the gods. You shall enter our grounds in peace and humility. March.”

And as one man, the humans started walking again. Walking in an orderly, if somewhat confused and uncertain, manner. He swept his gaze across their ranks a few times, until He felt satisfied. The fire died out as He let the power feeding it ebb–

By the Ravengod, what am I DOING?
He felt as if he'd just fallen off a cliff – both mentally and physically. His body ached everywhere, and he could feel small surges of magic still coursing through his body, spreading like fire in his veins and dying out as fast as they rose.
I never meant to... I tried to make myself heard, wanted to take control of the situation. I wanted to...

I was controlling them.

The cold numbness of his realization beset him in force. He would've remained frozen in place had nobody roused him. However, the gatekeeper had lowered its massive bulk, even shrunk in size to a more manageable height not much greater than his own. It put one of its immense limbs on his shoulder, and he could feel the weight of the world itself bearing down on him as it spoke. “You handle yourself well, Van-child, and there is much honor in your words. We are pleased, and grateful.”

Then, it smiled. A tiny fissure opened in the massive rocky surface of its head, revealing a small row of shining gemstones beneath the crust. “Few gods could have done what you did here today. I shall stand at your side in the final battle. Land guide you, Vanir Thorulf.”

Moments later it sunk back into the earth it had come from, leaving only a deep hole with a patch of uncovered granite at its bottom, surrounded by towering walls of snow. Seconds later, the walls collapsed, and all trace of its coming was gone.

Thorulf looked around him, looked for answers in the eyes of his men. They shied away from his gaze, and gave him none.
Sighing, he turned back to his uncle, who had already started walking. Scrambling slightly to catch up before falling into his quiet trod, he moved to his side to talk to him.

Fear.

They trudged on in silence, just like the rest of the caravan.
Not a single word was uttered during the march to the halls of Valhalla – in respect of the souls they held, they were as silent as the fallen themselves in their march to join the Warhost of the Gods.

-/-/-/-/

A certain pony lay in her bed, restlessly flinging her limbs about as she struggled to catch some sleep.
It was hard. Very hard. She usually had no trouble sleeping when she wanted, and since she usually didn't have to sleep until she wanted to, it had never been much of an issue.
Until now.
Something just wasn't right, and she had a feeling that she was the one who'd made things wrong.

She didn't like those feelings, because all too often they turned out to be true. She was good at feelings. A little bit too good. That was just how things were.

“Having trouble sleeping?”
The voice wasn't really there, but it sounded like it came in through her ears. He'd told her it was because it made things easier to understand. Secretly she also suspected it was because he was too lazy to keep track of her thoughts, when he could just talk to her like anypony else. He was strange.
“Nopey-lopey! Not at all,” she said confidently. After which she immediately realized the exercise in futility it was to try and lie to someone who was effectively inside your own head, even if they weren't paying much attention. “Well, I mean, a little. Maybe. Just a teensy little bit. Which is weird! I usually don't have any problems at all sleeping and I don't think I've done anything unusually unusual today so it doesn't really make sense that I'd have it now because things are just as usual and–“ A massive gasp cut off her rant as she came to a realization. “Omigosh! What if I've done so much of my usual things that they've stopped counting? Does this mean I can't do them anymore or I won't get to sleep ever never ever again? Because I want to sleep! Sleeping is fun! Well, kinda. Sometimes. When you're tired. But I am tired! Sometimes. When I've really done a lot of things. And I mean really! Sometimes I... just take... a...”

there so there wasn't anyone to talk to. Then again, she was usually pretty good at talking to herself, so that probably wasn't it.

“I see you're just as energetic as ever.” A pause. “You know they say that if you stay in bed for more than fifteen minutes without getting sleepy, you should do something else before trying again?” She perked her ears at this. “Perhaps tonight is a night you should try doing something other than sleeping. There's always a tomorrow, even if you don't sleep as much. And if you stay up, you might even get to have some kinds of fun like you've never seen before. Right?”

Her eyes were wide and her mouth hung wide open. That actually makes sense! She shook her head before thinking it over for a second. I can either stay here, not sleep and keep getting bored and frustrated, or I can go out and have some night-time fun! That's not even a choice, you silly! Her face split up in a smile, and she bounced over to the mirror, retrieving a variety of party hats from its hangers and putting them on her head all at once. “Okie dokie, Loki! Boy, I'm going to have so much fun tonight! Thanks a bunchie-lunchie!”

For a brief moment, she saw him in the mirror, smiling with that strange, scarred mouth of his. “It was my pleasure to help you, my child. Now go, while the night is still young.”

She did. Bouncing toward the door until she stopped, realizing she'd wake the twins if she went down the stairs at this hour. So instead she bounced over to the window, popped it open, and jumped.

“Hey, Ponyville! Guess what time it is!?”
There was a pause, as the empty streets echoed her high-pitched voice around town. Then:
“IT'S PARTY TIME!”

Downstairs, two baby foals woke up and started crying, as the figure in the mirror in her now empty bedroom gave a quiet little chuckle.

Regina et Equi Nox

by NejinOniwa

Prelude: Ragnarök

Ch1: Tantibus Regia

Ch2: Transitaes Mundia

Ch3: Non Omnis Puella Somnio

Ch4: Vigilemus Me Ante Tu Ire-Ire

Ch5: Interregnum

Interlude I: Valhalla