“–so as far as anypony knows, I am the legitimate heiress to the throne of the Crystal Empire,” Cadance concluded.
The train was packed. It was packed in great haste and military chaos, and I wasn’t even sure if everypony made it on board, because, true to her word, Princess Celestia ordered it to move out as soon as the last supply crate was loaded.
It wasn’t your usual Friendship Express, either. It had the biggest engine I ever saw, freshly painted up with the Sisters’ celestial roundel, and the chain of cars was much longer than the station platform. Half of them were cargo cars full of packaged supplies, and the other half were the usual sitting passenger cars packed with Royal Guard, three ponies per bench. Most of them were snoring.
I was still a little drunk, and wasn’t snoring myself only because I was sitting next to Fluttershy and Rarity across Cadance and Shining Armor and listening to what Shining Armor called “an improvised briefing,” which sounded more like a Third Celestial Era romance. Parts of it literally were one, because Cadance recounted much of her family history of a thousand years, going back from how Celestia found a pink pegasus filly who just ascended to alicornhood in a remote forest village. Many a colorful character preceded her, and some left their marks on Equestria’s history in very unusual places.
She still has them all beat, though. Before Cadance was discovered, the very idea that a regular pony can ever become an alicorn was mostly a philosophical daydream.
“So your gorgeous glossy hair is actually hereditary, I never would have guessed!” Rarity commented. “I was convinced there’s some secret hair care product.”
“No, it’s naturally like that,” Cadance giggled. “I didn’t get the sparkly eyes, but I definitely like having the crystal pony hair.”
“What I still don’t get is, why didn’t Princess Celestia go herself, or send Princess Luna?” Fluttershy wondered. “This sounds so important!”
“The crystal ponies have to recognize me as their rightful ruler first,” Cadance explained. “Until they do, neither Celestia nor Luna can help them.”
Rarity threw her eyebrows up. “Why would that be?”
“Ah, that’s my part!” Shining Armor grinned. “It’s actually a puzzle of hats. Or crowns. Legally, Crystal Empire is an independent nation.”
“But isn’t it supposed to be part of Equestria?” Rarity asked.
Shining Armor smirked. “How well do you remember your civics classes?”
“Our rural school has always emphasized more immediately practical disciplines,” Rarity admitted grudgingly. “I barely remember anything.”
“To remind you, originally, Equestria Accords mandated that a Princess of Equestria can’t interfere in the internal affairs of signatory kingdoms,” Shining Armor started explaining. “Including matters of royal succession. After the First Celestial Era reforms, they became the United Kingdoms of Equestria, but Crystal Empire couldn’t sign the amendments.”
“Oh!” Fluttershy exclaimed, “So it’s like Maretonia?”
Right, Maretonia still has a Duke with his own court and everything.
“Exactly like them!” Shining Armor confirmed. “United Kingdoms are not part of this relationship, but the Kingdom of Equestria, singular, the abandoned castle in Everfree Forest, still has suzerainty over Maretonia – and the Crystal Empire – on the original terms of the Accords. The Royal Guard is sworn to serve the Princesses of Equestria, which Cadance is, and she is also the heiress apparent of the Crystal Empire, which makes us going there a Crystal Empire internal affair. Neither Princess Celestia nor Princess Luna could do this. And unless Cadance is recognized as the Crystal Princess and asks for aid, sending the army in would be an act of war.”
“So why didn’t they get rid of that Sombra a thousand years ago?” I wondered. “The stallion sounds even more evil than–” I wanted to mention the changeling queen, but barely stopped myself in time. I don’t think Shining Armor wants to hear her name, and all she really wanted was to eat us, anyway. Like Bon-Bon said, no shortage of those around Equestria. “–well, I don’t think I remember anypony, most pre-classical usurpers we know of had at least dubiously legitimate claims, not to mention support. Quite an achievement for just one unicorn, really, he should be in every history book.”
More cautionary examples from a very distant past are always nice.
“That was the question I asked when I was a little filly and Celestia just told me who my birth parents and their ancestors were,” Cadance said. “Celestia and Luna went there alone, hoping to challenge Sombra to a duel. I thought it was very stupid of her to stick to the letter of the law, but… well, if she didn’t, there would not be an Equestria now. Nopony won that duel, but as far as we know, for Sombra, it happened just hours ago. It falls to us to finish it, and then, we can help everypony who survived.”
It’s not her style to dance around the point so much.
“Does this have to do with how the Crystal Empire disappeared?” I asked. “Was it some kind of super-curse that took the blood of a thousand ponies, or what?”
“Can’t say. Official Secrets Act,” Cadance frowned, squirming closer to Shining Armor and pulling him in with a wing. “I can tell you, that the reason Celestia spent centuries reforming Equestria was to make sure none of it could ever happen again. The ‘crimes against equinity’ amendment was just the first step.”
All this talk of evil sorcerers is making me chilly, and I’m getting envious of them hugging like that. Being envious is a completely wrong shade of green for my coat. And I have my own special somepony right here… “Has anypony seen Bon-Bon?” I jumped. I knew she was with me when I got on, because I was leaning on her the entire time, but somehow, I lost her in the noise.
“She went ahead to check out the sleeping car,” Rarity replied.
Right, I remember. At the last minute, they tacked on an armored car for the chest with the Elements and a sleeping car for all the civilian ponies Twilight dragged in. That is, us. The newlyweds have a nicer car all to themselves…
I slid off the bench and tried to find equilibrium between my four hooves.
“…Do you need any help, Lyra?” Fluttershy asked, and I jerked at the sudden flash of green on her dress. I heard she stared down an ancient dragon, once, but never before I actually had to experience something like this.
“No, no, thanks, Fluttershy, I’ll find her myself,” I replied, trying to maintain my last shreds of dignity. “It’s a train, right? There are only two directions to go, forward and back, right?”
“Usually,” Rarity nodded sagely.
“Which means I can’t miss her!” I grinned and trotted forward along the train, trying to keep my own wobbling out of phase with the gentle rocking of the cars.
I might have overestimated my sense of balance, because getting into the next car made for a few rather tense moments, but as soon as I shut the door on the chilly spring night behind me, I was assaulted by the warmth and cheer of the next car, which was anything but asleep.
“And now, the Great and Powerful Trixie will saw this gentlecolt in half, without harming a single hair in his coat!”
“…What’s she doing here?” I mumbled.
“Not you too, Lyra,” Rainbow Dash tugged at my dress. “Let the mare do her thing, the guards like it. It’s actually kinda fun, when she doesn’t try to embarrass anypony. Popcorn?”
She and Applejack were sitting up on a bench and trying to watch the spectacle over the heads of the enraptured guardsponies.
“Don’t mind if I do,” I said, grabbing a bunch of kernels with my magic. My, they swirl like little snowflakes… “Where’d you even get that?”
“Pinkie passed this way,” Applejack commented, “Twice in tha same direction, too. Ah don’t know how she does it.”
“It’s Pinkie,” I shrugged, clumsily climbing onto the bench next to them. “I bet she has popcorn hidden everywhere. For emergencies. But I could swear Trixie wasn’t there when Twilight had that argument with Princess Celestia.”
“Turned up at tha last minute, right as rain,” Applejack replied. “Said she’s not gonna let her rival run off on an adventure without her.”
“This is going to get awkward when Twilight finds out,” I commented, as the screeching of a saw filled the air. Trixie was doing exactly what she promised.
“Ah’ve been thinkin’ how to break it to her for the past hour, mighty awkward already ta me. Can’t see how it can get any worse.”
“Yes it can. I did tell you how I met Twilight and the rest of the old gang, right?” I asked.
“E-e-nope.”
“I was the president of the literature studies club when they all enrolled,” I explained. “Twilight didn’t discover it until the second year, because she was too busy taking care of Spike, but Moondancer, Twinkleshine and Trixie joined right off. And the very first thing Twilight did when she joined was an epic argument with Trixie about what counts as serialized fiction.”
“I bet she won that one too,” Rainbow Dash grinned.
“The first one, yes,” I confirmed. “Trixie came prepared next week. It escalated pretty quick from there. I’m not sure just how it shifted into arguments about magic theory, you’d have to ask Moondancer about that, they were in the same class. By next year, it was about whether Trixie can perform a magic trick that Twilight can’t repeat.”
“Ah think I can see where this is going,” Applejack commented. “She’s not actually doing magic here, right? Sleight of hoof, more like. The otha kind of trick.”
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” I grinned. “Trixie kept casting spells and Twilight kept repeating them, this went on for a long, long time. One day, Trixie made a statue disappear and reappear again. Twilight couldn’t cast a pseudo-space shift, and Trixie kept teasing her for an entire month.”
“A pseudo-what?” Rainbow Dash inquired.
“Kind of like teleportation that’s interrupted halfway,” I explained. “So that something disappears, but only reappears on command. Not an easy spell. Even most teachers couldn’t cast it.”
“So she found out Trixie cheated,” Applejack stated.
“After she actually managed to do it herself. They had to call Princess Celestia to get the statue back out,” I grinned. “Twilight stonewalled Trixie ever since, and eventually Trixie stopped coming to the club.”
The end of my speech was drowned in roaring clopping of applause as Trixie reassembled the thoroughly confused guard.
“Well, they’re kind of talking now,” Rainbow Dash said, licking up a popcorn kernel. “Trixie’s Princess Luna’s personal student and everything.”
“Trixie’s moving up in the world,” I commented. “She was always taking this rather seriously.”
“Seriously enough ta hurt somepony,” Applejack grumbled.
“The way Princess Luna explained that ‘trial of harmony’ thing, it’s an honest competition,” Rainbow Dash frowned at her. “Dunno about you, but I can totally get behind that.”
“Everything’s a competition to ya,” Applejack chastised her.
But Rainbow Dash just grinned back. “Well, duh, how else do you know how awesome you are? You gotta be more awesome than somepony else.”
“Thank you, thank you, gentlecolts, but we must end our show here, for while the Great and Powerful Trixie could keep you up until dawn, your captain and his princess would rightfully object. Hey, Lyra! Give my regards to the rest of the peanut gallery! Good night, everypony!” Trixie yelled, before disappearing in a cloud of smoke, which made the front rows of the guard sneeze loudly in unison.
“Wonder if she heard any of what I’ve been sayin’,” Applejack mumbled.
“I don’t think so,” I said, “She was busy anyway. Have you girls seen Bon-Bon?”
“She went ahead for the sleeping car before Trixie started the show,” Rainbow Dash replied.
“Thanks,” I replied and made my way through the sea of stallions, who were now busy interrogating Trixie’s unfortunate victim. Judging from the fragments of the questions they were tossing at him, they wanted to know how long Trixie and he have been dating.
The next car was eerily quiet and even the lights were dimmed to almost total darkness, the soft glow of two horns illuminating a corner in which Twilight, Moondancer, Mary and Spike were huddled around a book.
“This one really irks me,” Moondancer whispered, and started reading in a hushed voice. “The dragon picked up the Crystal Heart in his huge claws and held it close to Celie’s face, telling her that she had a lot of nerve coming here asking for it. After all, the crystal ponies actually stole it from him when they mined the Crystalline Mountain, which was his hoard!” She looked up at Twilight and Mary. “And what does this ‘Celestia’ say to that? ‘Return unto us the Crystal Heart or thou shalt pay a mighty price, dragon!’ She bullies him into parting with his property like it’s some… playground equipment! Because ‘dragons don’t share!’”
“I do share!” Spike frowned. “Sometimes.”
“Sorry, Spike,” Moondancer glanced at him. “I didn’t mean you. You’re the best dragon I know.”
The only dragon we all know personally, but he really has grown up to be a nice boy.
“Well, I don’t know what kind of dragon they meant, but I don’t like the guy,” Spike stated.
“Don’t worry, Spike,” Twilight said, hugging her little assistant close. “I’m not sure that dragon existed in the first place.”
“But the Heart definitely exists, and it’s anything but a trinket,” Mary commented. “In fact, finding it should be your first priority. But I don’t know where it actually came from.”
“What are you reading, girls?” I whispered, peeking into their little circle.
Twilight looked up at me, sending dancing shadows across the silhouettes of sleeping guards around us as her horn moved. “That’s how I knew about the Crystal Empire, it’s a book from the Everfree castle library. It says it’s the journal of the two alicorn sisters.”
“Oh wow, so you’re reading their private journal!” I grinned. “Any juicy details? And just how much trouble are we going to get into for reading it?”
“It’s definitely not a real journal,” Moondancer stated. “I think we’re all in agreement that it’s a forgery.”
“It’s nearly impossible for it to exist at all,” Mary piped up.
“And it’s insensitive to dragons,” Spike added.
I barely stifled a giggle. “Being a fake book insensitive to dragons is bad, but that’s not really impossible.”
“Oh, you don’t get it!” Twilight exclaimed loudly, but caught herself just in time as the nearest guard stirred in his sleep, and returned to a whisper. “The Crystal Empire returned today. For a thousand years, it was missing, and most of the information about it is classified under the Official Secrets Act. I found this book almost two weeks ago. But the book is no more than a hundred years old!”
“Show me?” I asked, lighting up my own horn.
“Sure,” Twilight said, rotating the book towards me. “Start here. These are the entries that mention the Crystal Empire.”
I skimmed through the pages quickly. The whole reason Crystal Empire exists is because of the Crystal Heart… Wow, an imprint, you don’t see these often. “…So let me get this straight,” I whispered. “The ponies, thinking the dragon doesn’t exist, took a unique gem from his hoard. The dragon woke up and took it back. Never mind that they don’t even offer to buy it off him, just one shout from the Princess is enough to scare him into hoofing it over? That’s total bunk. Especially for that era.”
“This document is full of this sort of thing,” Mary nodded.
“Did the author ever see a real ancient dragon?” I wondered. “Because I’ve read the legends of the Dragon War. They started that war, and fought Celestia tooth and claw.” The griffon ballads about it are a thing of beauty that I will still shamelessly emulate given the chance. And I’m pretty sure I heard that the Royal Disaster Relief Fund began with the loot, back when it was called the War Victims Relief Treasury.
“That’s another clue!” Twilight exclaimed. She pulled up a scroll and added a line to the bottom. “Not a very useful one, but every little thing helps.”
That heart… why do I keep remembering that other heart? Is it because the legend I started with was from the northern earth pony folklore?…
“Hey, Twilight,” I suddenly remembered, “What was that magic lesson that Princess Celestia wanted to teach you at the last minute?”
“Forms,” Twilight, replied, trying to hide behind her own ears, which looked just about as silly as it sounds, and nearly got a giggle out of me. “A whole stack of forms. Now I have a new compartmented top secret clearance, and I’m not even allowed to tell you what it is for.”
“I am pretty sure it’s a variation on dark magic,” Mary commented suddenly.
“How do you…” Twilight looked up, but stopped herself, “Right, of course you would. Tell me, Mary… Will I have to use it?”
“Signs point to yes.”
Twilight pressed Spike in tighter, and he looked at her, worried. “It was so easy,” she breathed out. “I spent more time signing things than learning it, that’s how easy it was. It’s… not a temptation I’d like to have right now. I’m not really in the right state of mind to handle it.”
“Then just don’t do it,” I smiled at her. “We’ll think of something. That’s what friends are for, right?”
Twilight brightened up a bit. “Thanks, Lyra.”
“Speaking of friends,” I said, giving it a suitable pause. “Marefriends, even. Everypony’s been telling me Bon-Bon went ahead to the sleeping car.”
“She passed by here thirty two minutes ago,” Mary replied.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’d better go find her.”
“Good night, Lyra,” Moondancer smiled at me. I haven’t seen her smile since… I don’t see her that often in the first place, but still, that was a long time. Something went right for just about everypony today. Let’s hope this keeps up.
“Good night, everyone,” I whispered back, and resumed creeping among the gleaming armored bodies in the near-darkness.
It’s still a long way to wherever we’re going, but Cadance said we should arrive at dawn. I should really try to get some sleep, but not before I find Bon-Bon.
And I’m not going to accept any complaints about the blanket.
I had to traverse one more car worth of snoring stallions in golden armor before I finally saw a long row of doors in the narrow corridor of a sleeping car.
“You got nowhere left to hide, Sweetie Drops!” I whispered into the darkness.
“I did tell you I really might have to kill you if you do that in public.”
She’s standing right behind me, isn’t she?
“Gotcha!” I breathed out.
And then I turned around and wrapped her in the tightest hug I could manage.