“Sugary Market.” Cadence said, her face alight with warmth as she looked at the armored stallion. “You are most welcome.” She looked over all the strange-looking ponies and the thestrals as well. “You all are. I wish I was welcoming you in better times.”
“Yeah, um, speaking of those times, we kinda kicked a lot of plot here but this ain’t the main event,” Keen said. “Bet those gremlin sorts would be plenty happy if we hauled an airship over to do ‘em a solid.”
“Pfft, this?” Trixie turned her head sharply at the sound of Scootaloo’s voice, only to find herself looking at one of the unusual ponies who, as Trixie thought about it, looked like she was just barely old enough to be an adult. Her mane was violet and streaked heavily with orange, and trimmed in a ‘pixie’ cut, and her eyes were even the slightly off-violet of Scootaloo’s, and Trixie found herself staring at her.
“Miss Lulamoon, why are you staring at me?” Trixie blinked and shook her head.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You look and sound almost exactly like a filly I know.”
“Haven’t been a ‘filly’ for a few years now.” The mare smirked a little. “Glad you Equestrian sorts got style, though. So anyway, ya don’t need to worry about the little guys in the gray uniforms. Spent the entire trip since we could see Ponyville watching them kick the pies out of Twisted and they were chasing them off just before we got ready to save your tails. Little guys got some big fight in them.”
“Yeah, big fight,” Keen agreed. “Lots more fight than these mindless victims that turned and ran like Cerberus was chasin’ them. Am I the only one who thinks that’s just a bit… yanno, weird?”
“Not as weird as they are,” one of the soldiers called from the direction of the heaped bodies.. “Major de Luc, you need to take a look at this.”
“Why the hay do I need to look at it?”
“Because I don’t get it, but you hang around Ratchet, so you might.”
Major de Luc turned around and started through the crowd of soldiers, who scrambled out of her way as she walked. “What’s there to get? They’re all dead.”
“Yeah, but I think they started that way.”
“And what the hay is that supposed to…” There was a pause of several seconds. “Princess, Miss Lulamoon, please come over here.”
The ranks of ponies parted ways, showing the major standing over a body, her horn alight and one of the dead victim’s limbs lifted limply into the air. Although she couldn’t see him passed Cadence’s greater stature, Trixie could also hear General Market clanking along beside the alicorn. Trixie tried not to look at the ruined bodies as she approached Major de Luc, concentrating on the form of the oddly Scootaloo-looking pony. When she was only a few steps short of the major, the young mare turned.
“Constructs,” she said. “Bucking constructs.”
“What do you mean ‘constructs’?” Cadence asked. “These poor things are the victims of…”
“...nothing,” the major practically spat. “These things were never alive, nor were they ever ponies. Hell, I’m not even sure their flesh is actually flesh.”
Trixie gaped at her. “But… but I saw some poor colt being turned into one of these things by the disease! It wasn’t complete--Princess Celestia stopped it--but it was changing him and the changes all look like, well, these.”
The major shrugged. “I can’t speak to that because I didn’t see it happen and couldn’t examine the colt. What I know is, what we just curb-stomped ain’t ponies and were never ponies. No wonder the jackanapes throwing them at Ponyville don’t care about us killing them by the hundreds: they have as many of them as they have materials to build them and magic to animate them, and I’m guessing they’re nowhere near running out of either one.”
“That’s a pretty bold proclamation, Major,” Market said.
“Yup, but I can back it up. Corpsman?” The pony nearest her floated a scalpel out of his saddlebag and Major de Luc promptly stabbed it into the leg she’d been holding and smoothly drew the blade through the skin and muscle.
Or what should have been skin and muscle. Trixie had gotten only a basic education in anatomy and physiology but it didn’t take much learning to know that there was something under the skin other than more skin going all the way down to ‘bones’ that were perfectly round and smooth. Speechless, Trixie watched as several of the other soldiers assumed the beasty form they’d used for combat and used claws and blade-like appendages to cut into other bodies. Many oozed a tarry sludge, all were missing any sign of internal organs or anything that resembled them, and Trixie’s feeling of relief that they hadn’t been forced to kill victims of a disease mingled with a rising feeling of dread. Misdirection, illusion, sleight of hoof. Keep the audience looking to the right while you work on the left. “We were meant to pay attention to them instead of something else,” she said.
“A distraction,” Cadence nodded. “But from what?”
“Can’t imagine anything, Princess,” the major said. “We’re days away from Scarabi and quite a distance from Canterlot, so distracting us from either is pointless. There’s a derelict castle in the Everfree…”
“...where we’re living,” Keen added.
“...that has no real value,” the major concluded.
“Actually, um, that’s not strictly true,” Market said. “Really, really large library and the princesses had no reason to take anything with them when they left, seeing as how no one’s gonna look for anything there. Even though, yanno, there’s a lot to find.”
Cadence gave him a very level look. “Are you serious?”
“Um, y...yeah, pretty serious.”
Cadence sighed. “And no one felt like sharing this?”
“Um, no?” Market gave her a wide and sheepish smile.
“Can’t be the castle,” Keen said. “Whole bunch of us there, yeah, but those scary buckers with the weird swords are holed up there too. I don’t think these types with the zillion constructs want to tangle with them, ‘specially since the pair spent the entire time goin’ from one to the next takin’ off their heads. Don’t know where you dug them up, Princess, but they’ve got a lot of power.”
“But we don’t know what they’re trying to do,” Trixie said. “They disappeared when Ponyville was attacked before Princess Celestia stopped it, they weren’t around the second time, and you can’t put on a show if everypony does their part on their timing instead of the show’s timing. I don’t think these… whatever are going to be stopped by us doing one thing, while Forheest Sadow does another thing, while her gremlins do yet another thing, and the two Bloodwynd--yes, I know--siblings do something else. Now we have… whoevever these…”
“Ponies,” Major de Luc supplied after a couple moments had passed.
Trixie gave her a level look. “I assumed that you’re ponies, I just don’t know what kind.”
“Changelings. Move it along.”
Trixie nodded at her. “Now we have changelings, a race of pony I’ve never even heard of, stepping in to do their thing, whatever that thing is.”
“We need everyone reading the same script,” Cadence said.
“You can’t have fireworks on cue unless everypony is working together and from the same book,” Trixie agreed. And I’m sure that Princess Cadence will stand by and smile until I direct everyone so... She turned and looked at Keen. “Miss Keen, please find Forheest Sadow--looks like a fox walking upright, hard to miss--and tell her to retrieve the two Bloodwynd siblings and meet us at the library. If Colonel Kipper is with her, tell him to come as well with whomever he needs. When you’re done, be there with whomever you need.”
Keen looked at her for a long moment before looking at Cadence, getting a stern look, and then sighing. “Gotcha, see ya at the library.”
Trixie turned to Market, catching sight of Keen sweeping into the air in her peripheral vision as she did. “General Market, I need you there as well. I’m not sure what we can do for your soldiers, what with the center of the town still smoldering, but do whatever you can and then be there.”
“Sure!” Market beamed at her then turned to the major. “You’re in charge Major,” he informed her before immediately starting back towards his airship, his step light and oddly carefree for the situation at hand. Major de Luc seemed to take this in stride, as if she expected it, and as Trixie turned away from her to look at Cadence, she could hear the youthful-looking mare issuing commands to the ponies around her in a calm and authoritative voice that still sounded like an eerily near-perfect duplicate of Scootaloo’s.
“Princess, who are these ponies?” she asked. “I mean, they’re your help from this Scarabi place, wherever that is, but who are they?”
“Changelings, as Major de Luc said,” Cadence said. “Another race of ponies, like the thestrals.”
Trixie frowned at the Princess and started walking towards the library. “And?”
“And what?”
Trixie sighed. “I’m a stage magician, Princess, the ‘answer the question without answering the question’ is just one of the methods in the misdirection toolbox. Who are they?”
Cadence started walking towards the library, going several steps with her. “Changelings, the fourth natural pony race. Thestrals were created during the time of Nightmare Moon; changelings have been as they are for as long as there have been unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi. According to one of their scholars whom I’m very close to, their existence has always been expressed in the mythology of the other three races rather than our history. They have lived apart from Equestria for over a thousand years now, banished by Aunt Celestia just prior to the rise of Nightmare Moon for reasons I’ve never really asked about, although being natural shapeshifters has made that banishment more official than actual.”
“So that’s not an illusion?”
“No, a changeling actually alters their shape both internally and externally.” Cadence said. “In theory a changeling could take any form they wished, including that of a dragon, and have all the form’s characteristics. In practical terms, however, only the most talented can take a form substantially different from their own.”
“So they could look like alicorns of they wanted.”
“With virtually no effort,” Cadence nodded. “A straight horn and feathered wings are only a slight alteration from a spiraling or crooked horn and insectoid wings. They would gain nothing by the change, however, and lose everything.”
“An alicorn would draw more attention than their natural forms.”
“Yes, and the personal attention of the princesses.” Cadence chuckled a little. “I speak from personal experience on that. I’ve been told that Aunt Tia was pulling the door off of my adopted parents’ home within seconds of hearing about me. I was too young to remember, of course, but as you can well imagine I was news all over the world. A unicorn reaching a point of magical prowess that they can ascend to alicorn has happened--twice, as a matter of fact--and an alicorn has been born of an alicorn mother, but I was the first time one was just found.”
Trixie turned to look at Cadence. “Found where?”
Cadence shrugged as the library came into view. “Aunt Celestia never told me, and my adoptive parents died before I was old enough to be told by them. Where I come from is a mystery to the world, but I’ve always cared more about my future than my past.”
“I hope there’s a future to care about,” Trixie sighed. “I thought it was bad when I thought that sickened ponies being controlled by the atermors but this is worse. If they can just make armies at whim…”
“...they wouldn’t have withdrawn when General Market and the First Tantalus arrived,” Cadence finished with a small smile. “If you enjoy murder and have unlimited resources to do it, you don’t flee when more victims walk into your grasp. They gained nothing by leaving, unless they can’t afford the loss.”
“Or unless they did what they wanted to do and elected not to waste their time.” Without a sound or any indication of approach, Sadow was walking at Trixie’s side, her sea of tails flowing behind her as she went. “I heard the situation, Miss Lulamoon, and can attest to the accuracy of Major de Luc’s conclusions. But with respect to you, Princess, your conclusions cannot be correct. A supply of warm bodies to twist and use are finite; a supply of materials for constructs are not.”
“Then why did they withdraw?”
“General Market and his hoof-picked forces under his personal direction, and a warship that sails the air instead of the water, were an unknown factor,” Sadow said. “They were a threat, and so the atermors withdrew to learn before trying again.”
“Aunt Celestia appearing in Ponyville and annihilating them with a thought didn’t seem to give them pause.”
“They have seen wrathful gods, suffered that wrath, and accepted it as a paltry cost,” Sadow said. “Mortals who do not fear them and attack with brutal fury, they have seen but a handful of times and each time, they were chastised most severely. Even arrogant fools learn when thrashed repeatedly.”
“So they’ll be back,” Trixie said.
“Until so badly harmed they’re compelled to flee, yes.” Sadow frowned. “This fixation on a single town is strange nonetheless. There is nothing here they value and a true city like the nearby Canterlot would give them vastly more playthings. Have you any magical artifacts or places especially infused with magic, or of mystic significance?”
“The Elements of Harmony are in a vault in Canterlot,” Cadence said. “All components of Clover the Clever’s magitechnical devices are likewise secure under the palace, as are all the magically-infused runescripts devised by Starswirl the Bearded. The Crystal Heart is beyond the reach of anyone and if the so-called ‘Alicorn Amulet’ was in Ponyville, it would be impossible not to know. Places of mystic significance, though…” She gestured in the general direction of the Everfree Forest. “That entire forest, and the decaying castle in the middle. General Market mentioned that there could be a large magical storehouse in the castle as well as many volumes of knowledge, but it’s news to me and he just conveyed it a few minutes ago.”
Sadow nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll speak to Lord and Lady Bloodwynd and bring word…”
“Actually, I want them here,” Trixie said. “There’s too many actors on the stage following too many scripts. We need to know what’s going on, what everyone is planning to do, and how they plan to do it.”
“That is fair.” Sadow bowed. “I shall also summon Colonel Kipper and his staff. If Fortuna smiles on us, the captain of the artillery reserve has sorted things out and is back on the road.” She glanced at Cadence. “I recall that you said you’d teleport them here once it was sorted out?”
“I will.”
“Thank you.” Sadow smiled very slightly to her. “Forcing the gremlins to abandon a position by assault is always a challenging task; with their artillery reserve, it will become nearly impossible. I don’t know the atermors’ true purpose but preserving a refuge while we learn it is vital.”
“I just hope they stay away long enough for the gremlins to do whatever they need to do,” Trixie said.
“You shall have to speak to them about that, Lady Lulamoon.” Sadow bowed once again and once again simply disappeared into their air. Trixie looked where she’d been for a second before looking up at Cadence. “What are all the magical things you mentioned? Other than the Elements, I know what those are.”
“The legacies of some truly exceptional ponies,” Cadence said as they resumed their walk. “Powers that must only be touched in the most dire need, powers sealed beyond even my power to retrieve, and objects that I dearly hope the atermors don’t even know about and if they know, cannot steal.”
By the time General Market had secured his airship, Sadow had located the Bloodwynd siblings, and both the gremlins and thestrals had arrived from wherever they’d been when summoned, the sun was drifting towards the western horizon (moved by Princess Luna, Trixie supposed) and Spike had somehow devised a light supper in between disappearing out the door every couple minutes to look after Doctor Hooves’ renovations. Time Turner seemed no more pleased about her being in charge, and Cadence had been forced to give him a stern look once or twice more, but there was no denying that the stallion was useful. A library with a laboratory basement and a couple of bedrooms on the upper floor had been turned into a complex of small shelters for displaced townponies covered over and divided up with what appeared to be every last curtain, blanket, and sheet in Ponyville. With him affirming the soundness of most of the damaged buildings, ponies were able to get the small things they needed to be comfortable until the town had been repaired and the makeshift meeting space was nearly bare of anyone not directly involved.
Representing the changelings was General Market and Major de Luc, who seemed just barely old enough to be considered an adult yet somehow seemed a natural fit as the right hoof of a general. Sadow and the Bloodwynds were there, as was Keen Edge (who apologetically said she couldn’t pull her advisors away from their work). The thing that surprised Trixie was the germlin contingent. She’d met Colonel Kipper, and the germlin officer who’d been in the trenches turned out to be a major named ‘Nib’, but the other two members of their group barely resembled gremlins at all. The male bore a fastidiously-groomed beard, short clean hair, and a well-tailored suit under a broad robe, and he had the air of a scholar of some kind or perhaps a noble; the only thing that marked him as a gremlin was his greenish skin and the slight bulge of his yellow eyes. He was accompanied by a slender reptilian female no taller than a gremlin wearing the tastefully understated finery that Trixie’s experiences in Canterlot told her meant very, very old money that was highly concerned with keeping a dignified appearance and demeanor. The way she hovered near the other gremlin she arrived with gave Trixie the distinct impression of a trusted servant keeping a close eye on her lord’s health.
“Miss Lulamoon, you’ve met Major Nib,” Colonel Kipper said after everyone had settled into their places around the coffee table being pressed into service. “And Adjutant Sadow, and both Lord and Lady Bloodwynd. It is my honor, my signal and…”
“Don’t flower it up Colonel,” the well-dressed gremlin said, his voice having an accent very strongly reminiscent of Bitalty. He looked to Trixie. “Princess Cadenza, Madame Lulamoon, I am Leonid, oft called ‘Maestro’ by my kin.” He gestured to the servant standing beside him. “Kestra du Lanceli, my housekeeper, cook, advisor, bodyguard, steward, accountant, and about thirty other vital roles I can never quite remember.”
Kestra smiled and curtsied to them. “The honor is mine Princess, Madame,” her voice silky and almost purring with a very slight lisp.
Shining Armor looked between the well-dressed gremlin, his servant, and the two officers, and then back at Leonid. “And you’re on the Colonel’s staff?”
The other two gremlins looked aghast. “The Maestro? On my staff?” Kipper gasped. “He’s… he’s the Maestro!”
“The word means ‘master’, dear,” Cadence said before Shining could ask. “What my fiance means, Maestro Leonid, is that he wonders why a civilian and his servant are attending a meeting on military matters. With all due respect, sir.”
“With answering respect, Princess Cadence, Colonel Kipper wishes us here, and is certain that we will aid these deliberations,” Kestra said in a polite tone, Leonid not appearing to have even made a move to reply to the question. “If it pleases your highness, ought we to move directly to matters of greater import than whom the Colonel wishes at his side?”
Cadence looked curiously at her before glancing to Trixie. Trixie shrugged. “If Colonel Kipper considers them his advisors, why not? It’s not as if a dapper gremlin is an odder participant than a right-hand mare who looks like she’s barely older than the Crusaders.”
Cadence nodded her assent and looked around the table. “Trixie asked Sadow to gather you all so we can discuss a coordinated strategy. At the moment, we don’t know what the atermors want here and Adjutant Sadow can offer no definite insights. Lord and Lady Bloodwynd, can you offer any?”
“Only that they are the tool of someone else,” Elena said. “The atermors know when they’re defeated and have always been wise enough to slip the grasp of anyone who can destroy them before destruction happens. To win at Ponyville is not possible for them even if they threw all of Equestria against us here.”
“Winning isn’t their game,” Trixie said. “I know a sleight of hoof when I see it; I use them every day, nearly. We’re supposed to be watching Ponyville while they do something else that they don’t want anyone to notice. Or, I guess, whoever’s telling them what to do doesn’t want us to notice.”
“They desire the castle,” Ersari said. “There is magic there buried deep in its ruins, under the surface. It has been very carefully concealed; the tingling against the senese can only be felt when you stand practically atop it. It’s impossible to know what they could use such a thing for, for its magic is a brilliant white, and it is certain that approaching it would simply wipe them from existence by the hundred count.”
“So they want something they can’t even approach?” Keen eyed him. “That’s bucking stupid. Even if they could kick my colony out--not impossible at all, but it ain’t easy either--we could build a city from all the heads we take off of ‘em. Yeah, sure, losses ain’t a big deal to them but it’s a helluva pile of effort for something that’s they can’t do pies with.”
“Maybe their sponsor can.” Ersari said. “It matters little. They want it, they most certainly want it because they believe it valuable to some purpose of theirs, so they must not have it. I say that we dispense with Ponyville’s defense and defend the castle instead. There is no power the atermors can muster that can pierce the quarantine, and to lay it on Ponyville would take little effort.”
“Doesn’t a quarantine imply that whoever’s inside is trapped there?”
“Yes, and it is the case with the quarantine laid by the flag,” Ersari confirmed.
“And how long does it last?”
“Until the sickness is done.”
“And it can’t be lifted early.”
“No.”
Trixie shook her head. “I don’t know about trapping all of Ponyville inside a fishbowl until whatever point the spell decides that the sickness is over. Unless this magic lets ponies leave to gather food, and I’m sure it doesn’t, the town would starve if the magic decided that the sickness was still around.” She tapped her hoof on the floor. “Last resort.”
“As it was meant to be,” Elena nodded. “Yet we must have some solution to the problem of being forced to defend two points at once that are separated by thick and hostile wilderness. If not rendering the one invulnerable to attack, what?”
“Drop it on the castle,” de Luc said. “Get all the thestrals out, string up some tents and shelter for them, then lock down the castle. No one cares about getting into there ‘cept the atermors and we don’t want them in, and if there’s no one inside there’s no one who’ll want to be getting out.”
“The Quarantine Flag protects the living, not physical places,” Ersari said. “It would not shield an empty ruin, for there would be no one inside to keep well. It also cannot halt those that tunnel in the earth, and so the atermors could simply go beneath the castle if they realized their goal is there. And before you ask, the Flag must fly above the ground, for it is meant as a visible warning of danger as much as a barrier against sickness and those associated with sickness.”
“This magical weapon of yours sounds awful limited,” Major du Luc said. “And pretty specific.”
“It’s meant to be a weapon against a very specific foe, in very specific circumstances, and is extremely powerful,” Ersari said.
“When you make a magical weapon, you have three essential dimensions,” Leonid said. “Duration, flexibility, and power. To increase one, two must be sacrificed a little; to increase two, one must be sacrificed to a very great degree. The Flag can last nearly forever and is enormously powerful; its flexibility, therefore, is very limited. It is the same with your Elements of Harmony: they are extremely powerful, their effects can last a thousand years, they require very specific circumstances to be used, and the solutions that can be reached with them are inflexible and, on the scale of a thousand years, short-sighted.”
Cadence looked strangely at him. “That’s… oddly complete information from just reading about the times the Elements have been used.”
“Complete understanding of the artifact is key to replicating the artifact,” Leonid said. “Although there’s no way…” He paused, thinking visibly, then continued, “no way that wouldn’t offend the Reaper to duplicate the semi-autonomous nature of the constituent Elements so it would have to be a unitary artifact.” Another pause. “Kestra, I believe I…”
“Ready, sir.” Kestra had produced a pad of paper and a pencil a split-second ahead of Leonid saying her name and gave him a solicitous smile.
“Please, Leonid, this is emphatically not the time,” Forheest said. “The capabilities of the Elements have nothing to do with our situation because none of them are here.”
“My apologies, Forheest.” He nodded to Kestra, who put the writing materials away.
“So the Quarantine Flag is the last resort,” Trixie said. “What’s the first resort?”
“Fight until Princess Celestia wakes up,” Shining Armor said. “Even if she doesn’t deter them by merely existing, I’m sure she can destroy their hoards faster than they can possibly make more, and then start making ash piles of them. She did it with the ones in the town square just by looking at them.”
“I wish that was a realistic option, love,” Cadence sighed. “What I was forced to do to stop her could well have done very grave harm, despite Redheart’s optimism. If she wakes up, I can’t be sure she’ll be in any state to help.”
“That isn’t the problem though, is it Princess?”
Cadence looked at Major de Luc and shook her head. “You’re right, her state of health isn’t the problem. I’m afraid she’ll be far more concerned with being betrayed by her niece than slaughtering atermors and their constructs.”
Trixie swallowed. “So she’ll go back to…”
“No.” Cadence shook her head. “Not even in her blind rage would my aunt direct the flames of her wrath in the direction of a building full of her subjects. She was barely aware of anything but her foe before; things will be different this time. But the bottom line is, we cannot plan around my aunt being awake, being able, and being willing, not after what happened the last time.”
“So what do we do?” Trixie said with a frustrated huff. “We can’t resort to the last resort first, we can’t hope for Princess Celestia to save the day, all the truly powerful ponies--except you Princess Cadence--are off doing things too far away to get them back, we have no idea what the state of anywhere else in Equestria is, and we have all these soldiers sitting about and Twilight Sparkle put a showmare in charge.”
“She could not have known what you would face,” Cadence said gently, extending a wing and resting it on Trixie’s back. “And yet, she was sure that you would prevail. You are, after all, the Great and Powerful Trixie.”
Trixie gave the princess a weak chuckle. “Overblown titles are… kind of required when you’re putting on a show.” She sighed and looked down at the table, then over to Colonel Kipper. “Adjutant Sadow said that with your artillery reserve, driving you back would be nearly impossible.”
“That is true, Miss Lulamoon.”
“But you need time, I suppose.”
“That depends, Miss Lulamoon.” Kipper looked to Market. “Will you stand with us, General?”
“Of course!” Market beamed. “It’s why Thryssa told me to come here with First Tantalus. And my Black Mambo, of course.”
“We don’t need more than a few minutes, Miss Lulamoon,” Kipper reported. “Maestro, General, Majors, if you please?”
“Of course, Colonel,” Leonid said, nodding to Kestra as he turned to follow the other gremlin out. “Incidentally, did your artillery captain remember to pack the barrels in the 33-66 ratio?”
Colonel Kipper’s response was lost as they disappeared out the door with General Market clanking cheerfully after them. Major de Luc paused at the door and looked back at Trixie. “That filly you mentioned mistaking me for… does she live here?”
Trixie blinked at the odd question. “Um, yes, yes she does.”
“Good.” de Luc turned and stepped out of the library. “The fight is so much better when you have something--or someone--to fight for.”
Trixie stared after her for several seconds before turning back to the table. “Alright then.” She looked to the Bloodwynd siblings. “Can you take care of the castle with the help of Keen and her colony?”
“So long as the Adjutant is with us,” Ersari said. “She has quite the gift with plants, especially hostile ones.”
“So that’s why Colonel Kipper was annoyed with you,” Cadence said, looking at Sadow.
“He was right to be irritated,” Sadow said. “But at that time, I hadn’t learned about the flora of your world and especially the flora near this Everfree. It’s been centuries since I’ve had weapons like these to work with. The deep vines alone could break entire armies.”
Trixie exchanged a confused look with Cadence. “The deep vines?”
“Step outside,” Sadow said, striding towards the door, “I will show you.”
Trixie blinked and then followed the vulpine out, flanked by the rest of their little group. Sadow stood near a patch of open ground with her hand extended above it, her fingers moving about in tiny, precise motions as if tugging at invisible strings, her lips thinned by concentration. There was an aura of power about the kitsune that seemed to still the air around her, making things somehow softer and quieter. The stillness struck Trixie as being oddly familiar and in the time that the thought occurred to her, the silence suffusing the air around them was shattered by the sound of a door being shut behind them and the faint shadows of a setting sun became black and distinct from the brilliant light radiating from what Trixie was sure could only be one pony.
“Lord and Lady Bloodwynd, Adjutant Sadow, We would ask thee to leave us be with Our niece and her companions.” The enraged Celestia’s voice had been the roar of an inferno and made Trixie cringe; the quiet, calm gentleness of her now made Trixie shiver.
“Your Highness, we…”
“Please,” Celestia said, her quiet calm touched with the slightest hint of sadness.
“Your Majesty,” Ersari and Elena said, and somehow, Trixie could tell they’d disappeared.
“Your Majesty,” Forheest bowed and vanished as well.
Trixie could feel rather than see Celestia walk slowly beside her and then, she was before them. Although her coat glowed a blinding white, looking at her wasn’t uncomfortable. Her mane was still the beautiful pastel, flowing and flickering as if it were flame but not with the guttural fierceness of a raging fire, and from horn to hoof, she was clad in golden armor that seemed to mold itself to her rather than be worn. As when enraged, her eyes were pupiless and white, but amethyst smoke now flowed from the corners of her eyes with the steadiness of candle flames.
She and Cadence looked at one another for several moments before Cadence swallowed. “Auntie I…”
Celestia held up a quelling hoof and continued to look at her for several moments before the solar diarch look in a breath and let it out. “I was angry with you,” she said softly, the touch of sadness now more audible. “Angry at being deceived. Angry that the niece I love and brought into my home and raised like a daughter was pretending the entire time. Angry that the changelings would so blatantly breach the exile, and slip a spy into my home.”
“Aunt Tia…”
“Please, let me speak.” Celestia took another deep breath. “I had time to consider a great many things within my own mind while I was still in a state of shock from the light touch of induction you used to snap me out of my enraged state.” She paused and looked at Cadence with visible gratitude. “Thank you.”
“You’re… you’re welcome, Auntie.”
The blinding glow of her coat faded and the gold armor melted away into motes of sunlight, and Celestia’s amethyst irises once again looked gently out from her eyes. “You still call me that, even now.”
“I don’t know what else to call you,” Cadence said. “‘Auntie’ is the only name I’ve ever had for you. It’s the only thing I’ve ever called you, the only way I know how to address you. I’ve called you ‘Auntie’ since I could speak. I don’t know how to not call you ‘Auntie’.”
Celestia smiled a little before her expression became somewhat bleak again. “I was angry at you, but I gradually realized that I was being angry so I wouldn’t have to be ashamed.”
“Of…?”
“Not of you.” Celestia hung her head. “Of myself.”
The silence brought on by Celestia’s words stretched out nearly a full minute before the door opened again and Spike emerged, carrying a paring knife in one hand and balancing a plate of apple slices arrayed around a caramel dip on the other. “Hey Trixie, Cady, I made some apple…” He stopped as he saw Celestia standing there looking sad. “Hi Princess,” he said. “Feeling better?”
“I’m not comatose anymore,” Celestia said, “but I had a lot of time to think and my thoughts have not made me feel better.”
Spike considered this. “Would you like to come inside? I made some apple slices and dip.”
Celestia smiled at him. “Yes, that would be wonderful.” She looked at Cadence, Shining Armor, and Trixie in turn. “I feel… we should talk. Just the four of us and yes, that includes you Trixie.”
“Are you sure, Your Majesty?” Trixie asked tentatively. “This sounds like a… family problem.”
“Of course I’m sure, Trixie.” Celestia patted Trixie’s shoulder with a hoof. “I can’t confess to every one of my little ponies immediately, but every journey starts with a first step and you will be mine.”
“Confess?”
“Letting myself surrender to despair and become Nightmare Flare, and letting myself surrender to my pain and rage and endanger my subjects, are hardly the first time I’ve made mistakes, and they are nowhere near the last.” Celestia sighed. “Sending the changelings away was one of my mistakes, and it’s time that I admitted it aloud.”
“Auntie, before you begin this confession, or apology, or whatever you want to do, I think there’s something I need to say,” Cadence said as they all settled into the comfortable cushions Spike had arranged for them around the table.
“What is it, Cadence?” Celestia paused. “Unless you prefer a different…”?
“As far as I’m concerned, my birth name and given name are are equally correct,” Cadence said with a smile. “My birth name is Chidinida, but I have always been your Cadence, and always will be your Cadence, and I would… greatly like it if you called me by that name.” She took a breath and leaned across the table so she was looking directly into Celestia’s eyes. “Aunt Celestia, whatever you did a thousand years ago, whatever injuries you might have inflicted, whatever hurts came from it, the one thing my birth mother would want you to know is this: we do not hate you.”
Celestia looked back at Cadence, looking suddenly uncertain. “You… don’t?”
Cadence smiled and shook her head, returning to reclining beside the table. “Hating you personally has been a hatchet buried for centuries, especially when it became clear that the exile wasn’t meant to be enforced in any way.”
Celestia looked a little rueful. “I did mean for it to be somewhat more… vigorously but Luna at first contravened any attempt I made on her own authority, and then the affair of Nightmare Moon happened, and then… I suppose my heart just wasn’t in it.”
Cadence grinned. “The way Tetti tells it, we could sort of tell when a changeling on vacation walked all the way into your throne room in mixed company and no one paid any attention.”
Celestia blinked. “Really?”
Cadence shrugged. “Young and dumb changelings are just as dumb when they’re young as any other pony. And by the time it was done, there was only one living pony who knew what changelings look like from direct personal experience. The other ponies seemed to think it was a talented unicorn illusionist looking to create a ruckus.”
“And… how long ago was this?”
“About nine hundred years ago.”
Celestia eyed her and then sighed. “So in effect, a thousand-year exile lasted less than one hundred.” She smiled a little. “I can’t be too disappointed by that, I suppose. At least you were polite enough to maintain the fiction.”
“It wasn’t quite a fiction, but the person to explain that would have to be my birth mother.” Cadence leaned over to quickly kiss Shining’s cheek. “Ultimately, I’m not the one who made the plan, or am really executing the plan, or was even aware of the plan prior to a year ago. My role is to be the hook, the reason for you to listen to my birth mother when she speaks of tearing down the barriers between changelings and the other pony races. Beyond that role, I’m just a princess head over heels for a handsome Captain of the Royal Guard, and the adopted niece of a very warm and motherly ruler.”
Celestia smiled warmly to her, looking slightly off to the side at Shining. “You aren’t surprised by any of this.”
“It’s a funny story but… yeah, known for months.”
“And you said nothing.”
“She wasn’t a danger to you, the ponies of Equestria, any of the nobility, or Equestria as a whole,” Shining said, “and my fiance asked me to let her pick the time and place to tell you.”
“And of course you were happy to do it for her,” Celestia sighed. “A thousand years later, even with a memory like mine, I can’t imagine I must have been thinking to believe that permanent separation was the best solution. I remember that Amaryss told me I was being foolish and would regret it; Luna said the same thing, in a different way. I brushed both of them aside and now…” She glanced sadly in the rough direction where the changelings had arrived from. “They were both right, and I was wrong.”
“Your Majesty, I don’t understand,” Trixie said. “Are you saying that these ponies who came and helped us were… exiled? Why? And who’s Amaryss?”
“To my shame, Trixie, that is exactly what I’m saying,” Celestia said. “The why isn’t really important; with how earnestly my daughter and her companions work to create friendship and understanding in Equestria, the reasons for the exile would sound truly pathetic. I thought it was the right thing to do at the time; looking back, I can’t imagine how I could have ever believed that.”
“And… Amaryss?”
“Amaryss was the queen of the changelings a thousand years ago,” Celestia said. “Almost cripplingly shy in public, but a resolute ruler behind closed doors and in person. Her shyness led her to have her younger sister Malyss act as her proxy in public and in larger conferences that involved more ponies than the smaller council of her sister-queens.”
“There was more than one queen?” This time the question came from Cadence.
Celestia looked oddly at her. “You don’t know?”
“My visits home tend to involve 10 parts hugging to one part history,” Cadence said wryly. “Mother works hard to make up for lost time, or at least what she sees as lost time.”
Celestia smiled a little at this. “Yes, there were more than one queen. Seven total, in fact: the mother-queen and the six sister-queens. As I remember, the sister-queens represented the six houses of changeling nobility: Sylvi, Aquin, Ard, Closs…”
“..Dune and Luc,” Cadence finished. “I know the last two, never heard of the first four.”
“Something I shall have to ask your mother about.” Celestia took a moment to eat one of the slices of apple Spike had laid out. “As I was saying, Amaryss had severe social anxiety and used her younger sister as her proxy. One thing she was never aware of, blinded by her adoration for her little sister, was that Malyss was a… supremacist. I wouldn’t go as far as to call her a racist--her venom was focused on anyone not changeling, not specifically on other races--but she was a hateful creature with the added menace of being both extremely charismatic and extremely intelligent.”
“Malyss created hatred, suspicion, and eventually violence between changelings and the other races,” Cadence said quietly. “Something had to be done, and your decision was just, even if you regret it.”
“I know you mean well, Cadence, but there was no justice in rooting out a malign influence by punishing an entire race.” Celestia looked down at a second slice of apple. “And there was great injustice in rewarding Amaryss’ earnest attempts to uproot what Malyss had done, bringing her own beloved sister to me in chains even, by exiling her people. I did not fully realize the utter depth of my folly until I reflected upon it some time later.”
“Your folly in sending Equestria’s defenders away?”
“My folly in how I dealt with Amaryss,” Celestia nibbled the apple slice a moment. “She was a resolute ruler but far more than that, she was the mother-queen of the changelings, I and Luna’s peer in terms of raw magical prowess, and unlike either of us is by far the most lethal against a single foe. It was not my intention but I took a heartbroken pony who had come to her princess with proof of her selfless intention to make things right trailing her in chains, and I kicked her in the face. A lesser pony with the frighteningly lethal abilities of Amaryss would have killed me on the spot; I’m both fortunate and unfortunate that Amaryss was a great pony.”
“Unfortunate how, Aunt Tia?”
“A limited pony with limited insight would have killed me and been done,” Celestia said. “But wiser and greater ponies realize that there are worse things than death. After staring at me for several minutes, Amaryss told me that she would be obedient to my command because there would be a day when I would be desperate for the aid of her people and when that happened, my grief would be as ashes in my mouth and I would know that the wrong I had done the changelings had come full circle to wrong me in turn.” The princess smiled a little wistfully. “Amaryss was prone to being extremely dramatic but she was also exactly right.”
“Well, the changelings are here for you now, Aunt Tia,” Cadence smiled to her. “I can’t say that everything’s perfect but…”
“...it’s been too long since Equestia has had its sword and shield. I should have called you home after the first century, after no one was alive who’d ever met a changeling, and the prejudices would have gone to the grave with Malyss’ generation.”
“And that is why not everything is perfect.” Cadence’s smile became a little sad. “You never even looked. There is... a great deal of bitterness about that, even among my sisters who are fully supportive of Mother’s plans for a future with Equestria. For the common changeling, part of the story of the exile is that not only did the glorious and motherly Princess of the Sun cast them out, she didn’t care if they lived or died. Add to that our general veneration of Amaryss as a great queen, the queen of the Exile, the one that led and sheltered her people across a vast waste until they found a new home, and… well, we all have a long road to trot after this is all over.”
“Hey, speaking of this, is it just me or is it kind of quiet?” Spike said.
Everyone around the table paused and listened. “You’re right,” Shining said, rising from where he’d been lounging against his fiance. “I thought we were racing the clock to get ready for an attack but I don’t hear preparations, and I don’t hear any attack.”
“Maybe we have much more time than we thought?” Trixie suggested hopefully.
“Maybe you’re right,” Shining said as he trotted up the steps towards the second level of the library, disappearing into the small room Twilight used. A moment later, he was at the railing and looking down at them. “I see entrenchments but no sign of their artillery.”
“They haven’t indicated to me that it’s organized and ready to be brought by teleport,” Cadence said, “So I’m not surprised it hasn’t arrived yet.”
“Strange that they’d leave us to prepare,” Princess Celestia said pensively. “I’m not my field general sister with her innate grasp of tactics, but I know enough to know that once you have a oe by the throat, you squeeze until you must stop. Did any of our visitors indicate why they gave us this respite?”
“Forheest Sadow--the one that looks like a fox--said that they were surprised by the arrival of General Market in his airship with changeling soldiers, and pulled back to decide what to do,” Trixies said.
“General Market. General Sugary Market?”
“Yes.” Cadence looked curiously at her. “Do you know him?”
“Interviewed him once, when he arrived in Equestria. Exceedingly pleasant pony, part of a mercenary company called ‘Tantalus’ I’d never heard of, seemed more bent on exploring in that airship of his than anything else. It doesn’t surprise me that his meandering would take him across the Barrens and into the hooves of the changelings.” She smirked a little. “And now he’s a general; that must be quite the story. To the subject at hand, I awoke an hour ago and the changelings were already here, so they’re being remarkably generous with the time they’re giving us to prepare.”
“An hour is ‘remarkably generous’?” Trixie said.
“In military terms? When they can simply whistle up as many soldiers as they have materials and magic to spend?” Shining’s pensive look mirrored Celestia’s. “Absurdly so.”
“If the fox lady is right about the gremlins being nearly impossible to beat when they’re dug in with their artillery, the atermors could know it and be circling to look for a weakness,” Spike said.
“I am right.” The entire table looked up towards the landing that Shining had just left and found Sadow leaning on the bannister and looking down at them with a grim expression. “And was right about one other thing, but wrong as well. I am right about the gremlins being nearly impossible to dislodge when emplaced with artillery, and I was right about the atermors being fixated on a single target. I was wrong, however, about what target they were fixated on.”
Trixie swallowed. “The castle in the Everfree?”
“No.” The table looked to Celestia, who seemed slightly more pale than she had been a moment before. “What’s underneath the castle.”
“And what’s that, Your Highness?”
“The Tree of Harmony.” Celestia said. “They mean to destroy the Elements.”