//------------------------------// // 3. Beware of Alicorns Bearing Gifts // Story: Equestria : 1940 // by Georg //------------------------------// Equestria : 1940 12 June - Equestria “He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.” — Psalm 18:11 The impromptu Equestrian history and culture lesson lasted a long way into the trip, and eventually was moved to the back of the aircraft where it was a little quieter and the four other Army soldiers could participate. After all, Colonel Bradley did not know how long they would be visiting the US embassy, and the fewer diplomatic incidents a bunch of rowdy soldiers could get up to in a rough town like Manehattan, the better. They even convinced Vinyl Scratch to participate in a friendly little game of poker with Equestrian rules, which transitioned into a good example of why the unicorn should not be permitted to shuffle when everybody wound up with a straight flush and all she did was grin. By the time the Equestrian coastline was spotted in the early evening, everybody and the unicorn had settled into an uncomfortable nap. The sight of land cheered up Jon, since a flaming crash would be marginally survivable if he did not have to tread water for a few days. The humans all gathered around the observation blisters on the sides of the aircraft to admire the sea of green they were passing over, and to make estimates on if they would be able to land in Manehattan before dark. Equestria in the slanted light of the late afternoon was far more beautiful than the endless ocean, growing more attractive as they continued to fly east and the sun headed for the horizon behind them. Since their Equestrian native was still sleeping in her web chair, Jon decided he should take on the task of pointing out the interesting bits between the sunset-tinged mountains to the north and the distant ridge of the Canter range to the south, with a huge swath of deep green spreading out beneath them. “Canterlot is on the other side of that mountain range,” explained Jon to the rest of the Army observers. “Aircraft are forbidden in the general area because that idiot, Wrong Way Corrigan, managed to crash-land in the middle of it. What we’re flying over now is mostly farmland and unclaimed areas, with a few lumber operations, some fruit and nut harvesting, and… Oh, my.” The aircraft turned gracefully a few degrees to the south, and after a few minutes, the reason became obvious to the rest of the passengers. Highlit by the sun behind it, the cloud city of Cloudsdale was a sight to behold and nothing like anything anybody on board had seen before. Well, other than Vinyl Scratch, and she was still napping. The photographs he had seen before could not do justice to the sight spread out across the horizon a few miles away. Human architecture had a distinguished squat look to it, with larger objects below smaller objects and tapering as it ascended into the clouds, much like Jon imagined the Tower of Babel with its puny human reach for the heavens. Pegasi laughed at the concept of simply reaching when they could grab and shape the heavens to their will instead. Cloudsdale was no mere city. It rose and boiled like a line of storm clouds, all energy and thunderous power where the rulers of the air made their homes like the Greek gods of legend. Humble structures of stone and wood were scattered around the dynamic structure like decorations, little toys on the tops of titanic forces of nature, scaling up the sides of twisting vaporous mountains and stretching across the valleys where crackling lightning arced through arches of braided cloudstuff until watching eyes were baffled by the complexity and forced to blink. It was an impossible city, and more impossibly changed every day while it drifted across the Equestrian continent, adding a building or cloud apartment today, breaking off a subdivision to reside by a ground-bound town tomorrow. That alone would have made it a fascinating sight, but the colors only made it better. Rising up behind, weaving throughout, and plunging to the ground far below poured rainbows of colors, and even rainbows of rainbows. They were normally distant fixtures of the sky, and did not dip and intertwine into braids of colorful light strung around the distant structures and support clouds like some insane Christmas light decorations fight between the inhabitants of an inner-city neighborhood. These even flowed and pulsed in some undiscerned pattern, making the city appear to be in constant motion both laterally and horizontally. For a moment, Jon wished he had his camera out of his luggage, but the color film would only capture a washed-out shadow of what he could see now. “Any idea what that is over there, doc?” Major Truscott nudged Jon in the ribs with a sharp elbow. “Some sort of giant superweapon or something?” Jon looked at the distant cloud of colorful pegasi herding a set of cloud-chunks into formation next to a similar structure and shook his head. “No, it’s numbers. They’re counting down…” He paused with his tongue stuck in one cheek for concentration. “Ah, the number of days until the Summer Sun Festival in pegasus notation. It’s like a giant city-calendar.” “I thought all them ponies used the same horse-language,” said another one of the soldiers. “Do they count different?” “Well, the earth ponies use base ten math, while the unicorns use base twelve, actually,” started Jon, getting warmed up to his favorite subject. “Pegasi use base seven, which actually fits in well with the concept of weeks for us…” He trailed off once Jon realized he was being ignored, with the soldiers all pasted to one of the two viewing bubbles on the sides of the aircraft and one of them with a camera, taking photos. He tore himself away from the sight and returned to his seat instead, determined to get a few more letters written to various Equestrian colleagues in the area just in case this trip was all a big mistake. Jon had actually not written to any of them within the last year. Well, other than in his graduate correspondence on technical matters. Since the Equestrians had all returned home, they might be willing to show him around for a few days, even if he had to re-introduce himself since there were few of them he could match against their faces or cutie marks. Still it was worth a try, and felt comforting to hold a pencil and pour his experiences (that he could talk about) onto paper. Until he jumped when a gentle magical touch brushed across his arm. “Hey, man. Why aren’t you looking at the rainbows?” Despite the roar of the engines, Vinyl Scratch’s voice came straight through the wax earplugs he was wearing, and he got the feeling that whatever he said in return would be just as easily heard by the smirking unicorn. “Just writing a few letters. Man,” added Jon, trying to be ‘hep’ or whatever it was the younger set did around the jazz clubs and dance halls. The unicorn almost fell out of her web chair laughing and shook her head ever so slowly. “Man, you are so square, you’re a cube. Maybe this will loosen you up.” Jon was all set to turn down a reefer or whatever it was they smoked in the jazz clubs, particularly since they were both sitting underneath a few hundred gallons of aviation gasoline, when Vinyl’s earphones floated up off her head and over in front of his face. He took hold of them, ignoring the faint tingle of magic through his fingertips, and placed them carefully on his own head. It was not exactly the wild negro jazz music he expected, but a rich mix of Benny Goodman’s tones that he recognized from a Carnegie Hall concert, although there was no record player attached to the headphones. It was a nice gesture. Or whatever it was. Jon was not sure what it entailed, so he listened for a polite few minutes before handing the earphones back and watching Vinyl’s exuberant grin only grow. That grin stayed lurking behind him like the Cheshire Cat while the aircraft approached the city of Manehattan, making a wide circle to the north. The crew invited Jon into the compartment behind the cockpit in order to get a better view of the landing, which he accepted at first in order not to appear like a coward. It only took a few minutes of conversation before he discovered the copilot who would be making the water landing was not only a novice at handling the big twin-engined aircraft, but actually a visiting Canadian artillery spotter named Jimmy who was in the process of getting his pilot’s license. Jon returned to his seat and buckled every strap he could find, trying not to look at the grinning unicorn on the other side of the aircraft. Manehatten was supposed to be beautiful from the air, with sparkling lights denoting airborne traffic patterns and the glow of thaumaturgically boosted fireflies in lanterns as far as the eye could see, making every window shine and lighting the streets as well as the human city back home. It would make a beautiful backdrop for the certain airplane crash that was about to happen, or at least that was all that Jon could think about while the big flying boat descended toward the water in the hands of an incompetent Canadian artillery expert. Each thump or bump of air was another indicator of their out of control path, and the throttling back of the engines directly above did not make him one bit more comfortable. He would have much rather been looking into the business end of the .45 again. “Relax, man.” Vinyl Scratch’s voice came straight through his wax earplugs and made Jon jerk in surprise, even though he could not dig his fingers into the arms of the chair any harder without breaking them off. “This is cake. The takeoff from the water when it’s full of gas is real fun. The bird just waddles along like some fat penguin, slamming into each of the waves until your spine squashes flat city.” “Penguins can’t fly!” Jon managed to growl from between clenched teeth. “It’s gonna crash and I can’t move to—” The airplane touched the surface of Manehattan Harbor with a hiss of water spray and the rumble of braking, bouncing only a little more than if it had landed like God intended aircraft to land, with rubber wheels on a big concrete runway. He could not see outside, but once their speed had dropped to something sane, the big seaplane heeled over in a slow turn and taxied across the harbor to what was undoubtedly blessed dry land of some sort. A quick glance through narrowed eyelids showed the four Army soldiers in the back were getting their gear together, all except for the rough-voiced major, who had somehow managed to sleep through the landing. - - ☾ - - The efficiency of the Equestrian harbor operations was something Jon had expected, but he still was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the motorboat that was to transport both people and luggage showed up. And, of course, with the boat came the inevitable customs inspector who used his magic to scan every suitcase and passenger that came off the plane, taking extra care with Vinyl Scratch and relieving her of one package about the size of a cigarette pack. The pegasus harbormaster even made a special visit, once the seaplane had turned off its engines and been tied up to the buoy. She was an older and crusty pony who landed on top of the wing, supervised the inspection and loading of the boat under the light of the fading sunset, and then took off for the rest of her evening once the boat was putt-putt-putting its way to shore under the asthmatic power of a one-lung gasoline motor. There was a particularly human ritual involved once everybody had gotten off the airplane and reached a space where smoking was permitted again. By the time the boat reached the docks, every soldier and member of the seaplane crew had a cigarette between their lips, but waited politely until they were on dry land and away from the ever present odor of gasoline before lighting up. Although he normally held himself to only one or two a week, Jon got out his battered pack of Camels and let a few of the Army soldiers bum one off him. Standing on the dock with the rest of the passengers and looking at the seaplane bobbing at the anchor buoy made him think of the little lead pipe full of explosive nasty that Vinyl Scratch had fished out of the gas tank, and the possibility that he could have died before even reaching the secretive island nation. Provided that it had not been a random attack, the task that he had been picked to do must have been important for the Germans to have made that kind of bombing attempt to stop him from doing it. Whatever it was. And at least somebody had an inkling of what he was doing here, and if nobody in the states knew, somepony here probably did. He put out the cigarette before he was even half-way through it, crushing it under his heel and depositing the remains in the nearby labelled stone receptacle designed for that specific purpose. Tomorrow, he was probably going to be told what he had been brought here for. Tonight, all he had to worry about was a short pass through the Equestrian medical facility to make sure he was not bringing some terrible disease into the country, then a short trip to the Flamboyant Flamingo hotel and a good night’s rest. - - ☾ - - A medical check when going into most countries consisted of a quick glance by a customs officer to make sure you were breathing and not bleeding. Equestrian customs turned out to be slightly more stringent. Despite the relatively few human tourists who visited Equestrian cities every year, the medical customs center was as large and modern as the best New York hospital, although that was probably excused by the need to check entire steamships full of curious tourists in fairly quick order. Of course, a Rockefeller or an Astor waiting to shop the stores of Manehattan and visit the human-oriented entertainments of the city would not want to wait in line with the rest of the common folk. There were a few whispered helpful hints from his fellow visitors while they were waiting for their names to be called, along with one of the aircrew talking about a ‘hot young earth pony nurse from last time’ before he was caught by Colonel Bradley’s scorching glare and abruptly shut up. It took little time inside before they were all separated to private rooms for a health and safety inspection, but Jon still felt a little as if he were in a veterinarian's office, and had a vague feeling he was about to get an ear tag and de-wormed before this was all over. In typical Equestrian fashion he met with one polite doctor or nurse after another, and stuck his tongue out or lifted his arms when prompted. Thankfully, there were no paper gowns involved, but Jon did hang his tweed jacket and his shoulder holster on a hook on the examining room wall, mostly to prevent the startled reaction the ponies tended to exhibit when faced with a gun. He was asked about his previous bout with malaria, checked over by a unicorn specialist who determined that the parasite had been properly purged, but given a series of pills to take once a day as long as he was in Equestria, just in case. It was an odd but familiar sort of routine with cold hooves instead of cold fingers, and he had just about managed to shake the last of his underlying tension from the flight when something totally unexpected happened. He was sitting quietly in the empty examining room, looking at the nearby color diagram of a human heart, when the door to the corridor opened…. ...and an equine goddess walked in. * * ✹ * * Jon Walthers was aware of Princess Celestia’s appearance, of course, but to actually see her in the flesh and within a few paces of him was a considerable shock somewhat analogous to having owned several fuzzy teddy bears, then have a full-grown grizzly bear show up abruptly in your bathtub. There was an overwhelming sensation of weight about her and the deliberate way she proceeded across the floor, one large gold-shod hoof at a time. Jon’s breath caught in his throat while he tried to take in all of the horse-sized monarch at once, from her outworldly flowing mane to the wide wings tucked in on her sides, and in particular, those huge ageless violet eyes looking right at him with a faintly amused expression, much the same look as she might have had when greeting Cleopatra or John the Baptist. All of his etiquette lessons fled, and not knowing whether to bow or salute or perhaps just fall down in a dead faint, Jon settled for putting on as much of a smile as he could and nodding at the pale pony, the undisputed leader of every Equestrian on the planet. She nodded back. It was a good start. Then the door behind her swung closed with a gentle push of her golden magic, which stayed glowing on the door afterwards as if to hold it closed against any further visitors or escape attempts. Maybe it was not as good a start as Jon had hoped. “Good evening, Mister Walthers.” Princess Celestia settled down on the thin carpet of the examining room, placing her sizable rear down and getting comfortable while not so coincidentally lowering most of her body’s altitude enough to not loom over him. “I would like to apologize for inviting you into my home so abruptly. You must have so many questions.” “,” Jon could hear his own voice respond in formal Equestrian. Then, after taking a breath to steady his nerves and seeing the disappointed look on Celestia’s face, he switched back to the English she was speaking and added, “I’m honored for the invitation, Your Highness, but I really only have one question. Why?” The faintest hint of a smile formed at the corners of Celestia’s lips and in the crinkling around her eyes. “Ah, yes. The simplest of questions with the most difficult of answers. In short, you are here because I need you. I’m not in the habit of inviting humans to my beloved country, but this situation requires a solution of uniquely human nature. The problem,” she said with a pensive frown replacing her slight smile, “is where to start.” “Is it about the war?” asked Jon. “In a way.” The frown grew on her face until it turned the corners of her lips down. “Do you remember last winter?” “It was quite cold,” said Jon carefully. “The coldest in living memory. Well, human memory,” admitted the immortal alicorn. She tapped a hoof on the carpet as if trying to decide just exactly how to quantify an unquantifiable value. “Tell me, Mister Walthers. Do you watch the stars?” “Not really. I’ve only taken a few astronomy classes, but I can muddle through most of the theories.” “Indeed.” The frown left Celestia’s face now that she was traveling along a familiar conversational path. “Your school records show you have a talent for ‘muddling through’ the events of life. When something unexpected happens, you don’t run around in a panic, you don’t lose your composure, you just act.” Celestia turned her head slightly while her horn lit up again. At first, Jon did not realize what was happening until his tweed jacket hanging on the wall moved slightly and the blued steel of his .38 revolver floated out from behind it, followed by the glittering brass trail of the shells he had left in the front pocket. The divine leader of Equestria examined the revolver as she might a children’s toy, flipping the cylinder open and closed again with her magic while a quirky little smile tucked up the corners of her lips. “Both criminals who attacked you in Egypt two years ago died of their wounds, by the way.” Celestia sighted down the empty pistol and clicked the trigger once. “The local police were less than concerned. It seems they had a record of driving foreigners to out of the way places and robbing them without cutting the police in on the proceeds.” “I didn’t want to kill them,” said Jon out of reflex. “I just shot and ran when they pulled out knives.” Celestia shook her head slowly. “Sometimes, we have nothing but bad choices in life. Just one fair warning.” The six glittering .38 shells clicked into the revolver cylinder, she snapped the action closed, then slipped it back into his shoulder holster on the wall. “If you should ever find yourself in a situation where you must shoot me, and I ever find out about it, I will be most displeased.” Jon nodded. “Anyway, the best way to get to your answer, Mister Walthers, is to ask a question of my own.” Those ancient violet eyes locked onto his with a gaze that felt as if it were reflecting off the back of his skull. “What can you tell me about the moon?” “The moon?” echoed Jon. The question was an uncomfortable poke into a tender area in his academic career, and he decided the best approach to it would be avoidance. “As you are the Goddess of the Sun and Moon, I don’t think it is… appropriate for me to instruct you in such matters.” “Goddess.” Celestia’s voice was soft, stating the word not as a question, but with the contempt one would use at finding gum on a shoe. “It would be a great comfort if I were as infallible as your human God. No, Mister Walthers. I am not a goddess. I have made mistakes, so many mistakes in my long life. Some take longer than others to bite me in the flank, but I am anything but an infallible divine being.” Her intent gaze shifted to one that seemed to pass through Jon, as if he had been turned into glass and she was watching something far beyond him. “The moon, Mister Walthers. Speak to me of the moon.” “It’s just something I found while researching my thesis,” explained Jon, “since most of the Equestrian legends were already picked over. I compared most of the Terrestrial analogues of you to mythology and noticed a number of correlation pairs. Light/Dark, Sun/Moon, Good/Evil. Thea who gave birth to Helios and Selene, the American Indian legends of Sun and Moon, Xihe of the Chinese mythos and Chang’e. Even the Buddhists have White Horse Temple in Luowang, the birthplace of their religion. Out of all of them, the sun and moon were portrayed as different discrete individuals. All except modern Equestria. And you.” Thankfully, Celestia continued to look distant, as if she were thousands of miles away in her mind. “My word, I certainly seem to have gotten around. Who would this other mythical alicorn of the moon be?” Gaining a little confidence due to the calm which Celestia was taking his wild leap of fancy, quite different than his faculty advisors, Jon continued, “That’s the major hole in my theory and the reason it never made it into my thesis. Princess Mi Amore Cadenza could not be the Alicorn of the Moon, because she only started showing up in the newspapers about two decades ago as a teenager, and besides, she’s anything but dark and moon-themed. That leaves certain dark winged horses in mythology, such as Aganippe in Greek mythology, Al-Buraq in Muslim theology, and Irish phookas, but after about the year 700, they practically vanish from history.” Celestia nodded slowly. “You have a theory other than the one which did make it into your thesis, correct?” “There were some interesting anomalies in the story of Chang’e, the Moon Goddess of China.” Jon swallowed through a suddenly dry throat. “She hit all of the right notes. She drank a potion of immortality and ascended up to the moon where she is imprisoned for four thousand years. Her festival is held on the same day as the Equestrian Summer Wrap-Up, even though it doesn’t fall on the Fall Equinox every year.” “A Chinese woman?” asked Celestia in a tone of voice that was most certainly not a question. “I don’t recall her being any darker than the rest of the people of that time. Nor did she have wings.” Jon paused with the sudden sensation of having talked himself to the edge of a cliff, and not really wanting to step forward. He would not have, except Celestia leaned forward with those violet eyes once again locked onto his. “Tell me. I insist.” He hesitated again, but continued at Celestia’s subtle nod. “The missing alicorn seems to match up with the Equestrian Nightmare Night legend, where Nightmare Moon comes down to Earth once a year to gobble up little foals who don’t dress up in costumes. The rough timeline matches the time when human legends stop referring to dark winged horses, and since she’s supposed to be imprisoned in the moon, and dark…” “Go on,” whispered Celestia in a rough whisper. “Is Nightmare Moon your…” Jon paused, driven by his curiosity to ask but held back by the pain he could see in those ageless eyes. “Daughter?” Celestia seemed startled and set back, with a brief burst of nervous laughter cut off by one covering golden hoof-slipper over her mouth. “Your mother, maybe?” asked Jon in an attempt to cover for his obvious mistake. Celestia’s laugh at that was sincere, even though it seemed to contain a bitter thread all the way until the laughter died down to chortles, then giggles, and stopped with the wipe of one hoof along her face to remove a tear. Her expression firmed up and that faint smile crept back onto her face before she met Jon’s eyes again and said quite simply, “My sister.” “Oh.” It seemed to be appropriate to stop there, so Jon sat uncomfortably on the chair until Celestia decided to continue. “Be aware that only four living creatures on Earth now know this. After I used the Elements of Harmony to banish my sister to the moon, I kept the secret of Luna’s fate for a very, very long time, covered up the histories, erased the books, and turned her memory into old mare’s tales.” “Are you going to wipe my memory?” asked Jon abruptly, although Celestia simply shook her head at the question. “No. I did not call you here in order to protect my secret. My shame.” That noble head lowered until Celestia was looking at the carpeted floor of the examining room. “Quite the contrary. Soon, the entire world will know what I did.” She shifted uncomfortably in place, a noble ruler of the entire country looking somehow dull and listless while seated on the floor of the hospital room, but her voice remained strong as she continued. “Once, we were the Royal Sisters, inseparable in our rule and our love for each other. I commanded the Day, my sister the Night, and under our rule, the ponies of our lands prospered. Perhaps too much. I was blinded by the praise of our subjects and could not see the envy in my sister’s heart, nor the arrogance in my own. Her envy turned to hate, and allowed the Nightmare entry. She turned into a monster, and would have destroyed everything in her rage against me. When I was forced to resort to the Elements of Harmony to drive the Nightmare out, my sister was cast away with her, banished to the moon for a thousand years.” “Nightmare Moon,” whispered Jon. “I never knew.” “I have planned and prepared many years for my sister’s return. It is quite possible my plans will fail, because I am fallible, Mister Walthers, and if they fail, all of my actions will be in vain. But if they succeed, as I most sincerely hope they do, there is much more to be done before I may rest.” Celestia paused, then shook her head slightly and took a deep breath. “That is for later. For now, you are familiar with demand characteristics, I should hope.” Jon nodded, feeling a little like a bobbleheaded doll at the moment. “Yes, of course. They relate to an experimental subject who changes their reaction to stimuli if they are aware of the experiment.” Celestia proceeded with an approving expression, much as if she wanted to pat Jon on the head and give him a cookie for his correct response. “Exactly. You see, Mister Walthers, I am upon the horns of a dilemma. The same Elements of Harmony that I was forced to use on Nightmare Moon a thousand years ago are the only hope I have of freeing my sister when she returns.” “In a few years?” posited Jon carefully in the awful silence that followed. “In a few weeks, at the very most, although the Summer Sun Festival is looking more and more likely,” said Celestia without changing her expression. “The problem is these Elements can only be used by friends, or they can act… in an unpredictable manner.” “So when you used them against your sister—” started Jon slowly before being interrupted. “They did not free her from the Nightmare as I had hoped, since our bonds of friendship had already broken. Thankfully, they banished her to the moon instead of…” It was Celestia’s turn to break off now. Jon did not want to say anything, but after a short period of that dreadful silence, he had to. “I don’t know how I can help, Your Highness. I don’t really have any friends either.” Celestia seemed cheered by his words. “Yes, exactly. I thought that somebody as… human as you are might be able to help my student learn about the power of friendship.” “So she can use the Elements of Harmony to free your sister, right?” asked Jon carefully. “Not… quite.” Celestia ran her tongue around her lips. “Do you remember when I asked about demand characteristics? Well, my student doesn’t know that my sister is really Nightmare Moon, and if she did find out, I’m afraid… well, I don’t think she would be able to use the Elements against her. Twilight’s a little—” a muscle under one of Celestia’s eyelids twitched “—special.” Jon nodded, although he got a feeling he was only catching the edge of the insinuation. “So you want me to make friends with her?” “Yes,” said Celestia, then paused. “Only friends. I know how you humans behave around ponies.” Jon wanted to protest, but since he was already standing in a deep pit, picking up a shovel seemed counterproductive. “So you want me to meet with your student, teach her about friendship—” the ‘which I know nothing about’ being left unsaid “—and…?” “And that’s it,” said Celestia with complete finality. “If all goes well, my sister will be cleansed of the Nightmare when she returns from the moon and…” While Celestia paused, Jon tried to figure out just why that phrase made sense to him when he would have been babbling deliriously about it yesterday. Instead, he nodded. “Yes, I’ll do it. When can I start?” Celestia turned her head almost infinitesimally to one side and cocked an eyebrow in the position of Polite First Degree Query while looking back at him. “Should I have asked for a reward first?” asked Jon, a little confused at her expression. Instead of an immediate response, Princess Celestia smiled at him, and it felt as if the sun had come out and covered him with warm sunbeams. “An honest man is his own reward. Tell me, would your answer have been different if I had offered to fill your pockets with diamonds and your luggage with pearls?” “No, of course not.” “Or rare tomes of forgotten lore?” she continued, her warm smile only growing. “Look, I already said yes. I just don’t understand.” Jon gestured with one hand at everything around him. “Why me? Why now? You’ve had centuries to find one of your ponies for this task.” Not changing her warm expression in the least, Celestia asked, “Tell me, Lieutenant Walthers. Do you have many close associates you have met during your educational studies?” Jon was a little shocked at the change of the conversational direction, but he managed to say, “A few.” “And of those few,” continued Celestia smoothly, “how many have family who you can name, or have talked with for something other than your studies. How many have you walked down a path with, hand in hand, or taken to a dance? How many have you attended the funeral of a loved one with, or a wedding, or even just gone to a baseball game by their side?” It was not a very difficult answer to calculate, but it was very difficult to say out loud. Instead, Jon said rather hesitantly, “It hasn’t been a priority.” “It is now.” Celestia’s expression softened. “You’re my last hope. My little Twilight Sparkle is so much like you, only she just wants to stay in one place and learn, while you’ve traveled all over the world.” Jon was feeling a little numb, but he managed to say, “That’s where all of the interesting things are.” “Perhaps.” Celestia’s lips thinned while she thought. “Maybe I should not have given my student so many interesting things in Canterlot. Still…” “It’s a dangerous world, and you wanted to protect her.” Jon tried not to heave a sigh while thinking of the task he had ahead of himself, both the terrifying and the enticing bits. “So, we’re going to Canterlot?” “I have a few things to do first,” admitted Celestia while her patient expression returned, settling onto her ageless face like a mask. “I must admit to a little deception on my part when I told you only four living beings know about my sister. You see, Mister Walthers, you hold the most important key to my plan, but there is another human being who I was hoping to play a part.” Celestia’s horn glowed gold with magic, but instead of the corridor door opening as he expected, the door to the neighboring room opened instead. It revealed Colonel Bradley, who was looking a little trapped from where he had been leaning up against the door of the adjacent examination room in order to listen. “Come in, please, Colonel Bradley.” Celestia’s golden magic moved one of the human chairs over closer to him. “Don’t be disturbed.” Bradley cast a glance at the chair before looking Celestia in the eyes again. “Because you had them put me in this room for just this reason. You wanted me to eavesdrop on your conversation.” He paused for a second and asked the question Jon wanted to ask. “Why?” Celestia nodded, and Jon got an absurd idea that she wanted to pat the middle-aged colonel on the head and give him a cookie too. “You tell me,” she said instead. Colonel Bradley thought for a while, then looked up with confused eyes. Celestia merely nodded back, with a sense of depression sweeping over her face and a sluggishness to her glowing celestial mane. “Why do you think I favored that violent little man?” Jon picked up the prompt when Bradley did not respond. “You thought the Germans could help you save your sister. From the Earth to the Moon. It’s a book,” he explained rather feebly to Colonel Bradley. “It’s more than just a book,” said Bradley with a scowl. “Georges Méliès made a movie about firing a spacecraft to the moon, and the Germans made the Paris Guns back during the Great War based on the rough idea. Still, it’s ludicrous to think that you could fire a passenger to the moon in a giant gun. They’d be squashed into a paste or die in vacuum. And even if you could get there, how would you bring your sister back? How do you even know she’s alive there?” “I know,” said Celestia in a quiet voice. “And for how the Germans convinced me…” She used her magic to reach into a hefty carpet bag that Jon could not remember having seen in the examining room before, and pulled out a series of greyish photos that looked like they had been taken on the set of a Buck Rogers film. Mostly they were of long, slender tubes with giant fins on the bottom, and various scientists both pony and human walking around them with the standard clipboards and long white coats. There were also some speculative drawings of lumpy machines descending on plumes of fire to dusty crater-marked planets, and of human beings and ponies in space suits walking around on the surface. What was most troubling was a series of featureless long tubes, with a nozzle at one end and rounded at the other, looking unexpectedly deadly despite the lack of conventional rocket fins. “I was told it was a project to bring man’s reach to the stars. Many of my best scientists and researchers have worked at Peenemünde and other technological places across Germany for the last few years. The records I received of their activities were less than accurate, for security, of course, but the solid rockets were something special. Their cover story was that they would be used as boosters to support a much heavier liquid-fueled main stage. That in itself appeared to be true, but whenever one of my ponies heard even the smallest rumor otherwise, they would be whisked away into a different program and encouraged to put it behind them. “Since Equestria’s relations with the Reich have degraded, most of my rocketry scientists have returned, but a few of the most critical and brightest still remain. The story repeats itself all across Europe. Problems with getting permission to travel to neutral countries, problems with their visas. The Reich knows I will not dare to act against them as long as they hold hostages against my behavior.” “Once you have paid the Danegeld, you will never be rid of the Dane,” mused Bradley while looking through the photos. “It is worse, Colonel Bradley. Far worse.” Celestia passed over more photos, these seemingly taken in much more difficult conditions with dark shadows and poor lighting. Several of them showed submarines, but far longer and fatter than the ones Jon was used to seeing in newspaper photographs, with a series of hatches down both sides of the center. “Modified type IX U-boats under construction,” said Celestia. “Kept a complete secret from me and built to carry the same solid-fuel rockets in those photos. Do you know what a few of these off Equestria’s coast would do to my little ponies?” Colonel Bradley studied the photographs before giving a short shake to his head. “I’m not much of a photo analyst, but these can’t carry more than maybe half a ton of explosive each, at most. I doubt if they could land less than a mile away from their target, so all they can do is frighten people… I mean ponies. Maybe knock down a few buildings and kill a hundred of your subjects, but…” Bradley trailed off when Celestia passed over one last photograph. It was of a dark mare, twisted and contorted with lips drawn back over bared teeth and a bloody froth coming out of her nose. She was undeniably dead, with multiple autopsy incisions labelled in precise numbers which matched the notions on the white margins covered in German writing. The gruesome photo was attached to a clinical form on which several stamps indicated the critical security level of the document, and which Jon was suddenly aware that Celestia had not acquired by any normal diplomatic process. “Substance 146,” said Celestia in a cold, flat voice that brought ice up Jon’s spine. “The Germans have a plant by Münster to produce it, and have started construction on more of them. A few drops will kill a human. A single drop will kill a pony. The research was supposed to be producing insecticides to help grow food, which is the only reason I allowed Root Stock to work with the Reich on their project. They claimed her death was an unavoidable accident.” The resulting silence in the room was as cold as ice, leaving Jon to shiver while looking at the photographic evidence of the depths of human treachery. He wanted to put on his jacket, or better, find the creatures who had perpetrated this monstrosity and shoot them. Repeatedly. What was worse, one of the responsible creatures was standing right beside him, looking down at the photographs with thinned lips and narrowed eyes. Colonel Bradley broke the silence when he looked from his grim inspection of the photograph and turned to Celestia. “You helped them.” “Yes,” said Celestia in a near whisper. Bradley took a short breath, sounding far too loud in the quiet room. “Your sister means this much to you.” Celestia nodded, but said nothing. “And if your student can save her…” It could not have been an accident that Colonel Bradley was holding the autopsy photograph of Root Stock when he asked the question, but it shocked Jon when he heard Princess Celestia sniff back a tear and speak in hesitant tones. “I will have my sister back, but will have damned my beloved ponies by my actions. Far worse, because my foolish desperation will cause the deaths of both ponies and humans alike. We are supposed to be a peaceful race, but all I can think of is Mister Nobel, and the joy in his voice when he told me about his magnificent invention and how it would make war impossible.” Her voice shifted to a more lilting, distant tone. “He wrote poetry, you know. I have a copy of his Nemesis by my bedstand, and I read it when I am feeling down. It is a depressing play, all filled with death and murder, so unlike my little ponies. I tried to shelter them from such madness, only to fall prey to it myself.” Jon kept his mouth shut, unable and unwilling to say a word while Colonel Bradley handed the photographs back to Celestia. He remained seated for a while afterwards, just thinking, then Bradley spoke up. “How can I help?” Celestia looked up, blinking back tears. “It will be dangerous.” Bradley dismissed her warning with the wave of one hand. “Anything more dangerous than guarding a copper mine in Montana from the Kaiser like I did in the Great War would be welcome. When I return to the Army General Staff, I’ll pass along an evaluation of your situation and see if we can find a way to use US diplomatic pressure to save your people. I mean ponies. I can assure you, Ma’am, that the members of the staff will listen to me.” “I had something a little more direct in mind.” Celestia opened the satchel on the floor and floated it over to Colonel Bradley, who looked a little confused at being given a piece of luggage. “You will find my proposal inside, along with all the details I’ve worked out with certain of my guards. If you could please read it and let me know what you think of my idea. The box is a gift, no matter which way you decide. You have my thanks, and that of my nation.” Bradley grunted a little when he grasped the handle of the heavy satchel, but stood up when Celestia stood. “I must go now. Mister Walthers and I have another appointment. I shall see you after my sister is returned to my side, Lieutenant Colonel Bradley.” Bradley shook the offered Royal Hoof, but seemed troubled. “What if she isn’t, Ma’am? What if this ‘Nightmare Moon’ defeats your student and you.” Celestia took a long time to respond. “Then everything we have discussed, all of the plans both of us have made, will all be for naught. And the world will die in darkness, Colonel Bradley.”