Chapter III: Aftershock
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White walls of pure cloud stretched down an endless corridor. They were smoothed, hoof-puffed, and made from the thinnest of cirrus stripes, threaded together. The doorways set into both sides of the hall, at uniform distance a dozen steps apart, screamed of wealth and class. Above each door was a number, and beside each door a name, set in fine wood carefully mounted in the surrounding cloud.

A mare walked this endless hall, scanning the numbers above the doors for a specific room that she knew very well. She passed the countless rooms, ignoring the warm comfort of the air and the pleasant lighting, until she stopped before her destination. Room 424D was indistinguishable from its neighbors, externally. Beside the door, on a plaque, filigreed letters proudly proclaimed that the room's occupant was one 'Rainbow Dash'.

The mare smiled, and glanced back quickly at herself. Her wings were perfectly pruned. Her pure-white mane had been pulled back into a short neat ponytail. And, of course, her cyan coat was brushed low and smooth, without the tufts of stress and sickness that had been present when last she met with Rainbow Dash.

The door opened with the slightest push, sliding fully open without hitting the wall on the other side. Inside, the room was just as plain and perfectly white as the hallway. Rather than doors, it contained a plush cloud bed, a plain cherry nightstand, and most importantly, a pony. She was sitting quietly, staring out the window nearest the bed. The soft pitter-patter of raindrops masked the hoofsteps of the approaching mare, while an expanding ring of rainbow light spread through the distant sky, countless miles away.

The mare walked forward slowly, smiling as she observed the radiant rainbow mane that decorated the bed's occupant. She looked so wild, and yet, so peaceful, sitting there.

Rainbow Dash only looked away from the sky when she felt a pressure behind her, on the right side of the bed. When she turned, she nearly started crying.

Easy Breeze smiled, and put a hoof around the neck of her not-so-little daughter. "Rainbow. I'm so, so proud of you."

"Does it matter?" Breeze ran a hoof through her daughter's unruly mane. "You're here now." Then came the affectionate nuzzle that Rainbow had missed in her youth. "You've grown up so much since I last saw you. You were so little then; I could still hold you in just one leg. But I bet you don't just want to sit here reminiscing, right? Not when we could be flying."

No sooner were the words out of Easy Breeze's mouth than she shot off through the room's one and only door.

Rainbow rose to her hooves, confused and alone. She felt perfect, devoid of the numbness and the fatigue of waking. Her hooves settled onto the clouds gently, and she began to slowly walk toward the door.

On the other side were clouds; perfect, puffy cumulus clouds over an endless stretch of sapphire-blue water, clear and deep as the eye could see. The air was warm with tropical heat, but a smooth breeze left the temperature invigorating, instead of draining. It certainly didn't match the weather out the windows on the other side of the room. Rainbow took a tentative step through the door, then twisted her head to look behind it.

There was nothing there. No walls or structure to which it attached; it stood on its cloud alone, just as Rainbow felt. She might have stood there for minutes, pondering, were it not for the sharp and welcome voice behind her.

The younger of the pair had to run forward to catch up with her mother. Once her wings were spread, it took Rainbow no time at all to clear the distance. The two pegasi flew in wide arcs, rolling, diving, and crisscrossing in midair, before the mother said something about speed and shot off into the blue.

Rainbow struggled to keep up - it shouldn't have been so hard. She could outrun the Wonderbolts; her mother hadn't been known for her speed, all those years ago. And that was before she got sick…

Memories came flooding back. Cloudsdale General. A dark room, with a shut door. Outside, Papa was talking to a doctor that Rainbow didn't recognize. They were using big, complicated words. 'Ensefalie-tis'. 'Affairs'. 'Morg'. She didn't like the way they sounded. When she tried to push through to see mommy, Papa scooped her up with one strong leg and held her tight. "Not today, my only sunshine."

Rainbow followed after her, her questions growing with each passing moment. Far below, the ocean gave way to beaches, and then grassy plains and rolling hills. The sun never seemed to move from its place just below the crown of the sky. Always, Easy Breeze lay at the edge of her vision, just above the horizon, flying away, never growing closer or farther. Rainbow couldn't catch her, as hard as she tried.

Finally, she stopped. Not out of fatigue, but desperation. She ought to have caught up by then. Below, she saw a cluster of trees. If she wasn't mistaken, they were peaches. She swooped down and found a comfortable branch, before reaching out to the nearest fruit. The tender treat came away from its stem with only the tiniest tug, and found its way into her mouth with no greater struggle. It was succulent, sweet, and perfectly ripe.

Rainbow almost fell out of the tree. There was her mother, looking not a day older than the last time she had seen her, fourteen years earlier in that hospital - and considerably more healthy.

"Don't," the mare whispered, as she pressed a hoof against Dash's lips. "You don't need to worry about that now, Rainbow. It's all in the past. For you and I both."

The words felt wrong, but Rainbow decided not to push them. She was already in enough confusion, so she instead turned to another, stranger topic. "What about Dad? Is he here?"

She shook her head. "No, though I wouldn't talk to him if he were. Not after what he did to us." Then her soft but perpetual smile returned. "What are we talking about this for, anyway? We could be flying. I thought you were supposed to be fast."

Rainbow knew all the unanswered questions should have been bothering her, but they didn't. Was it the air? The fresh, open atmosphere? Or perhaps, the thought that she was seeing the mother she lost so long ago?

When Easy Breeze flew off, faster than she had any right flying, Rainbow didn't follow. She instead lingered in her tree, enjoying her solitude while pondering the world around her.

When she was half-done with the fruit, her stomach protested. She was full. She found that odd, since she had not been hungry when she began to eat it. Regardless, she threw the half-eaten fruit over her shoulder and waited for the satisfying splat.

Dash looked down when the sound didn't come. Below her, the grass was gone. Instead, extending to immeasurable depths, she could see only darkness. The peach fell, unhindered, through the vacuum. Slowly, the darkness began to greedily consume the tree.

Rainbow jumped into the air, hoping to fly away from the expanding dark. Her plan lasted until her wings were meant to spread. No warm wind flew through her feathers. In the place of that perfect sensation, her stomach lurched in protest, and she began to fall.

It was the worst feeling for Dash, to fall. She had always hated it her entire life, as the sign that her one special gift had failed her. Every time, without exception, it ended in pain. That was the easy part, though; physical pain. The fear of the fall was where it scared her the most.

That fall was her worst nightmare made manifest. It was falling without end. Most ponies would be worried about the unknown landing. Dash would have welcomed the momentary pain. Instead, she saw nothing. No ground below, no painful crack, just falling forever, on and on, into endless darkness.

Rainbow looked back desperately, hoping to find her wings freed of whatever was holding them. What she saw instead was the greatest of terrors. In place of wings, her body bore a pair of nubs. Clean cuts left only tiny drops of blood on her cyan mane. The wounds were far too familiar. Far too haunting.

A softness pressed against Rainbow's face in the fell chill of the darkness. She turned back to look 'below', and saw shadowed blonde feathers. There were hundreds, floating free, that slid past her face and body with gentle tickling motions as she continued to plummet. The feeling was unearthly, grisly, and left Dash with none of the comfort that a warm wing might have given.

As she fell, more and more feathers pressed against her, until they were less of a loose cloud and more of a choking mass. She couldn't see, and all she felt were their teasing touches. She screamed, and her voice was the only noise in the void.

Then it stopped. First, the falling, then the feathers, and finally, the noise. Something under Rainbow's hooves was hard. Was it stone, or steel, or something else? Everything was still dark.

Rainbow shot bolt upright, and almost immediately collapsed against her pillows from the very real pain of the motion. Sweat clung to her fur, and matted down her mane against her face, obscuring her from her surroundings. Thick and heavy layers of fabric weighed her down against an incredibly plush mattress. It was warm. The sun was shining onto her exposed neck and head from somewhere to the left. Her wings, just as wet as the rest of her body, twitched idly, begging for exercise. She breathed a sigh of relief when she felt them, present and accounted for. Her next action was to twist her right fore-leg up to her hair, and sweep it out of her eyes. Some instinct told her that the limb should have hurt, or lay useless at her side, yet it heeded her will without question.

When the rainbow mane was swept away, Dash was able to fully take in her surroundings. She lay on an opulent four-post bed of enormous size, spread with blankets and pillows of gold and purple. Apart from the bulges that marked her legs less than halfway down its length, the mare could see two other places where the fabric had been disturbed. One was a huge area of roughly circular twisting, as though something large had been set down. The other was a space with two small groupings of water droplets, a few inches apart.

The room beyond the bed was an opulent and airy space, spread haphazardly with cushions and plates of half-finished food. The walls played host to bookshelves, as well as cases for numerous works of finely finished art. Directly across from the bed was an oil painting, almost twice as tall as Dash herself, depicting Celestia and Luna standing side by side, smiling. The faded tones of the paint, and the peeling of the widest strokes told far more of the image than its actual subject. Few works of art were old enough to have captured such a scene first-hoof.

The top of the painting's heavy wooden frame was obscured by a few strands of ivy hanging down from somewhere unseen, high overhead. Dash leaned forward, trying to get a view of the source of the plants, and in doing so, caught a glance of something else entirely. Perched on the very end of the thickest length of ivy, there rested a flower. It must have been a lily or a lotus or something similar, seemingly made of solid gold.

In that tiny glance at the flower, Rainbow's memories came flooding back to her. Her meeting with Twilight and the Princess in the very same room. Her first encounter with the would-be Commander. The plot, the confrontation… and the fall. The pegasus slowly began to move her hooves across her body, checking for scars or markings. All she could note, instead, was a sharp but quickly fading pain that accompanied her movements. It was a welcome surprise, but it still felt wrong. She shouldn't have walked away from that crash. She was lucky to be alive, but anything less than a fractured skull, wing, and ribs would have seemed like fiction.

Then her mind shifted to Luna, and the assassin—Masquerade, she had said. What had happened, after the Sonic Rainboom? Another quick glance around the room gave no answers to the obvious question, but it did reveal an incredibly opulent veggie burger resting on a solid gold plate to Rainbow's side on the nightstand. She gave it a cursory glance, and smiled. Double pickles, no onions, and an extra thick helping of ketchup. Whoever had arranged the plate knew Rainbow well. It was exactly how she ordered her favorite meal, even if it wasn't usually served quite so 'gourmet'. There wasn't any sense letting it go to waste, especially given the growling in her stomach. She wolfed down the burger as quickly as she usually flew, lacking only a shattering of the sound barrier to set a new record as Equestria's Fastest Eater. 'Sonic Burger-Boom' sounded dumb anyway.

The next step was to go back to what she had been looking for moments before: answers. There obviously weren't any to be found in the empty room; at least, for somepony without Twilight Sparkle's impressive deductive skills. Instead, she rolled (or rather flopped, though she would never admit it) out of bed. After extricating herself from the complicated mess of blankets that had coiled around her midsection, she stepped toward the door of the room.

"Coo!" It was a soft, curious noise, yet for the way it put Dash in the air, it may as well have been a bolt of errant lightning. The pegasus relaxed slightly when she saw the noise's source.

"You must be Princess Celestia's pet. What did Twilight say your name was? Philo… something? Philha… Philharmonic, that's it! She wanted me to come hear you sing, can you believe that? I mean, not that you sound bad, Philharmonic, but-"

"Yeah, I wouldn't call myself that either. How about Phil?" The phoenix shot her an awkward glance. "I know it's still not that cool, but I've gotta work with what I got. I mean, Philharmonic? What's up with that?"

"Right, you too. Anyways, I've gotta go try and find the Princess. Catch you later."

Rainbow left the phoenix behind and threw open Celestia's doors. Without so much as glancing forward, she darted out into the Royal Palace's hallway. Things were much the same as they had been the day before, save the surprising lack of servants and guardsponies. The hallway to the left led back toward the Commander's quarters. Rainbow didn't even consider heading that way. She'd seen enough of that room to last her a lifetime. Instead, she turned to the other path, and took to wing. Her speed carried her through the double doors at the far end of the hall, and for her trouble, she found her nose smashed against somepony else's chest.

Rainbow collapsed to a sitting position, and in the awkward silence that followed, the only motion was the swinging of the door behind her as it slowly shut.

The mare standing over Rainbow was not somepony she had ever expected to meet: a mare who could narrowly beat Big Macintosh in a 'being big' competition. She had an off-white coat, an eggshell mane pulled back into a tight ponytail, and an icy demeanor.

"Rainbow Dash? We were not expecting you to be awake so soon." Though it was subtle, Rainbow didn't miss the hints of a Stalliongradian accent. "The Princess wants you. Follow me."

Without waiting for an answer, the towering mare began walking off. On foot, Dash struggled to keep up with her massive stride without running. After a few moments, she took to the air, hovering beside the guide and trying to ignore the sudden twinge of pain accompanying each beat of her wings.

Rainbow waited a good ten seconds, before it became perfectly clear that the name was all she was going to get. Soldier On didn't even glance over to check that Rainbow was still following. "Okay… Well, it's nice to meet you. I'm Rainbow Dash, fastest flier in Equestria, and future Wonderbolt."

"Huh?" Rainbow cocked her head for a moment, before realizing exactly what was meant. "Oh, yeah, that too, but that's more of a special occasion thing, you know?"

The question earned Rainbow the satisfaction of seeing the massive pony's face change for just a moment. Unfortunately, it was for the negative. Her lips twinged downward, as if bringing up the subject of the black-armored pony had hurt her. "Acting Captain. The real Commander is missing. Likely dead."

Nothing had a hope of quietly smothering their conversation as quickly as the blunt acknowledgement of the grim truth. They continued on their way, accompanied only by the noise of On's hoofsteps and Rainbow's wingbeats. The Palace wound around Rainbow, but its stained glass and towering ceilings seemed less welcome with the subdued sense of urgency she felt. They kept walking and walking, until finally Rainbow couldn't take it any longer.

Unfortunately, seeing required Dash to wait through the rest of the winding halls and shadowed corridors along their path. Nevertheless, patience did eventually win through for the young pegasus, as a pair of rather bland wooden doors were pushed open by the leading guardspony. Inside, Dash found a room that she would have expected to find in Ponyville or Cloudsdale, but certainly not the glorious halls of Canterlot's most decorated feature. Sterile white tile walls and a linoleum floor left the enormous space looking at first glance like a bathroom. Within, dozens of blue curtains hung in clumps against the walls, failing to conceal anything of note. The stainless steel fixtures attaching them to the ceiling made it obvious that they were meant to conceal the half-dozen cheap, plastic-lined beds set evenly along the walls. The smells of antiseptic and chalky pills filled the stale, barely-circulated air.

At the far end of the room, one blue curtain was drawn shut, concealing inaudible murmurs of some quiet conversation, as well as a piercing, rhythmic beeping, which followed the rhythm of a heartbeat.

Waiting for no acknowledgement or patience, Soldier On marched across the room, steel-shod hooves clicking sharply with every step, in time with the pulses. Whether she consciously timed her steps or not, the noise led into a sort of grim percussion, with two potent taps of hooves on linoleum escaping into the air between each beep.

It seemed to take an eternity, enduring the noise, before they finally reached the curtain. Rather than draw it open, Soldier On stood up to her full height, drawing her legs together into perfect posture. Only when fully at attention did she speak.

The curtain was flung open with a burst of gold magic. The force tore part of the blue fabric, leaving it hanging off-kilter from the wall.

Inside the space, Rainbow counted four ponies. The first was Shining Armor, who wore the entirety of his gem-laden armor and stood stiffly at the bedside. When the curtains moved, his eyes widened slightly, and his jaw dropped just as far. Though he obviously intended the question only for himself, the words that escaped his lips were audible to all present."How are you…?"

The second was a much smaller stallion in the white coat of a doctor, standing next to Shining by a white metal machine near the wall - the source of the beeping. Rainbow recognized it as a heart-monitor, though the other various readouts that held his attention meant nothing to the pegasus.

Beside the machine, laying sprawled out on the bed, was Luna. Neither her tiara, nor her ornate peytral were present, leaving her with a much more approachable appearance. Her decidedly mundane blue hair was spread every which way, eerily plain when she should have been surrounded by a starry window into the void. She was breathing softly, but her eyes were closed. With her legs and torso concealed, Rainbow couldn't tell any more about her condition, or the source of the wound which had incapacitated her.

Beside the princess, there was another mare, sitting with her head on the blankets beside Luna's feet. She was tall, certainly, but her long thin legs looked much more like those of a model than a warrior. Her mane, a soft and welcome pink that reminded Dash of Fluttershy's, hung loosely down her back. In places, it was ruffled, and twisted, and it had clearly not been combed in any recent time. Her wings, folded idly against her side, bore off-kilter feathers and obvious kinks. They were the sort of marks that showed after either an incredibly stressful flight, or poor personal care over an incredibly long period of time. Given the circumstances, Dash automatically guessed the former. Meanwhile, her horn bore a burnt tip, though Rainbow didn't have the magical experience to appreciate what that might mean.

It took Dash a double-take to realize that this mare was an alicorn. She lacked the potent size that marked Celestia and Luna, as well as the cosmic qualities of their manes, but the horn and the wings were there. When she spoke, the surprise only grew larger. The mare turned to Rainbow, and eyed her with a look that melded panic and desperation.

"I am fine!" Celestia snapped. Rainbow couldn't help but draw back in alarm at the sound of the Princess's anger. It took only that reaction for her to lose the bladed edge that occupied both her voice and her expression. "I'm sorry. I spent a great deal of magic. I am fine, despite my appearance, I promise."

It wasn't enough to really convince Rainbow, but the obvious stress of her voice was enough to get her to play along. "That's good. How's she doing?"

The question finally got the doctor to look away from his charts, and acknowledge the presence of ponies other than his patient. He was a young-ish stallion, for a doctor, with a bone-thin face, who looked as though he hadn't slept in days, nor shaved in weeks.

"She's alive, thanks to you. Her fall resulted in three cracked ribs and rather even bruising on her right side. Externally, she should be fine, but she's been comatose from an unknown cause since she was brought in. We're running tests now to see why."

Nopony said anything for a long while. The doctor just stood there, looking from one face to another, clearly wishing there was something he could do, or at least, somewhere else he could be. At last, Soldier On spoke up. "You should go, Dr. Asclepius."

With that, the tired-looking stallion marched out of the room, pausing only to restore the torn curtain to a half-way closed position.

Once again, the group was left in silence, and once again it was the grim-faced Stalliongradian titan who took the initiative to speak up. "Miss Dash, tell us what you saw. Start when you flew off from the group."

Masquerade panted not from stress or necessity, but from the sheer exhilaration in risking it all. Of course, nopony was going to catch her. Nopony even had a decent chance of stopping her. She slid the warehouse door shut behind her, and stalked into the dark with a smile on the face she was wearing. It was a unicorn stallion, though she had to look down her nose to remember the colors. Puce? Why had she chosen that?

She shrugged off the robe of magic that enveloped her and swept down rows upon rows of unmarked boxes with abnormal grace, and silent hoofsteps. She couldn't help but spin, giddy as a school filly. She'd done it! The impossible! She'd taken down a goddess, by herself. No one else could claim that; no pony, no elk, no griffin, no nothing. Her work was perfect.

Finally, her horn burst with magic to ignite a pair of torches as her last twirl ended. Sitting in front of her was a cage, and inside that cage, there was a stallion. A gray old stallion, probably forty- or fifty- something, covered in scars and silent, simmering rage. He had been the biggest block to her plan, and it took her nearly a year of work to get him out of the picture. Yet there he was, lying in his cage, his chin laid upon on his forehooves like an old dog waiting on the porch for its master. He didn't even bother looking up to acknowledge her.

"Sorry about the wait, Captain. I know it's been a few days, but I just got so busy up in Canterlot, playing with the guardsponies."

"Oh, you're being a spoil-sport, Captain! Unless you're just afraid to hear it. Is that it? Too scared to hear the truth?" She leaned up to the edge of the cage. "Princess Luna's dead. I got her."

"Luna?" he asked, in the same gruff tones she had used so carefully a mere few days prior.

"Why, of course. You don't think I'd go after Celestia, do you? She doesn't deserve to die." Masquerade laughed another of her innocent, youthful laughs. "No, just Nightmare Moon, gone from the world, at the hoof of a mere mortal mare. Maybe they'll build me a statue. Do you think I'd look good in gold? Or maybe marble would be better?"

She leaned up, putting her nose a few inches through the bars of the cage. "I imagine it must feel horrible, knowing that you failed. I'm sorry about that."

He was drugged, of course, so she didn't expect much of a response. The lunging swipe from his right forehoof, therefore counted as incredibly surprising. She pulled back in time to avoid having her head caught against the bars, at his mercy, but she didn't get away unharmed. A bleeding gash leaked down on the end of her muzzle, ruining her otherwise pristine coat. It stung, terribly, but the sheer glee flowing through her dispensed with the disappointment quickly.

"You know I get to decide what happens to you, right? I'd think you'd be a bit more kind."

He responded by putting his head down again, and closing his eyes. She thought of him like an old wolf. He was certainly beyond his best days, but the slow, resigned quality that dominated his emotions and actions concealed a dangerous speed and an incredible ferocity that would snap out at the first sign of vulnerability. That was why she had to keep him drugged. It wasn't a question of if he would escape, but when.

He was losing weight, clearly, and his wings were molting, but he hadn't taken the time or effort to clean them. She'd been drugging his water and his food, but when he stopped eating, she had to start injecting the whisper salt straight into his flank. His resistance to the stuff was admirable. She'd already gone to twice what that drug dealer, Going Solo, had recommended as a daily limit, but he was still 'up and roaring'.

Her magic pulled three tiny white rocks from a bag, and placed them in a glass of water. There, they were stirred into dissolution, and then poured into a syringe. At last, the item lifted into the air at the whim of her magic, and began floating through the bars of the cage.

"You might as well not try to fight this," she whispered. "You know I'll win anyway."

To her surprise, he didn't. The syringe slid sharply into his flank, just above the cutie mark of a steel shield, flanked by bolts of metal lightning. Either he didn't notice the pain of the syringe, or he didn't care. As the soup of drugs entered his veins, he didn't bother moving.

"Come on, Captain. You used to always fight this bit. Are you finally giving up?" She smiled. "Here, I thought you were the sort who'd keep fighting forever."

He still just lay there, unmoving. She could see his nostrils flaring, even beneath the scars on the end of his muzzle, but otherwise he seemed dead. There was only one solution. She walked slowly over to the other side of his cage, and picked up a long metal stick - a fire poker she'd found by the fireplace at a hotel suite in Fillydelphia. She clutched it in her mouth (magic just didn't give the same results) and pointed it straight at his back right flank. Where he should have had his other cutie mark, he instead bore a massive fleshy burn. His other minor cuts and scrapes marked him as a soldier and a stallion who wasn't afraid of a fight. On a younger stallion, she thought, they would have been a real turn-on. This scar could never be construed as attractive. Its raw flesh extended from just beneath his right wing all the way back to his flank, and partway down his leg. Masquerade could only guess at its origin, but she knew it was painful. It had also been what revealed her disguise to Rainbow Dash, the ever famous bearer of Loyalty. That cunning little filly had been the one hole in a perfect plan—not that it mattered anymore.

Still, the thought of getting caught by somepony so untrained angered her. So, naturally, she decided to take out her fury on the one subject she still had.

When the poker met the burn, the pegasus screamed in agony, so loud that the cage bars rattled and Masquerade feared she would be caught by somepony outside the warehouse. Of course, that was before she remembered the enchantments she had put down to mask all noise from the structure, and to draw attention away from it.

He added no words to his soulful scream, and in fact, didn't even bother to slide to the other side of the cage. She had to admire his resilience. In that light, she dropped the poker just outside his reach, and walked back to the front of the cage. Again, he chose not to acknowledge her. Too bad. She still felt like tormenting him; just in a different way.

"You want to know the worst part? None of the guardsponies figured it out. Not the gatekeepers. Not your precious Honor Guard. Not even Shining Armor."

"Who did?" he asked. Whether it was a lucky guess, a stab at her pride, or something else entirely, she didn't know. She was just happy she'd gotten him to ask a question.

"Rainbow?" The Commander's eyes grew very wide for a very short moment. Then, with a sigh, he lowered his head again to his hooves, and gave into the pain and the fatigue and the chemicals sweeping through his blood. Sleep overtook him gracefully, leaving only a smile on his face.

When Rainbow's story was finished, it became entirely clear that no meaningful questions had been answered. Knowing Masquerade's name didn't give the guardsponies anything to work with, or anywhere to go.

Celestia, who had remained silent as the captains asked their questions, finally mustered the will to step away from her sister. "Thank you, Rainbow."

Shining Armor had to cover his mouth with a hoof, and even Celestia cracked a slight grin. Only Soldier On seemed unaffected by the sudden spree of mirth. Nevertheless, everypony felt the room warm several degrees as the icy shade of danger was held back, even for just a moment, by the humor of Dash's misunderstanding.

Celestia was about to offer a kindly reproach when Soldier On spoke up. "Your Majesty, we don't have time for this."

Celestia glared back. "I have every intention of thanking Rainbow properly for her bravery."

Shining stepped up to the Honor Guard's side to offer his support. His face again went cold, and the mood in the room fell with it. "With respect, Princess, Lieutenant On is right. Equestria needs you now."

Armor frowned, building up the courage to contradict the Princess. "The press is clambering at the Palace gates, Your Majesty. The Stable of Nobles is demanding a council. We need you."

"And Luna is dying, Armor!" Celestia snapped, as a few more tears fell from her already wet muzzle. "What do you expect me to do? Would you leave Twilight's side?"

The unicorn winced at the low blow, though it didn't stand up long to the force of reason. "Nothing's going to happen to her," Shining Armor protested.

"You expect me to believe that?" Celestia's pitch cracked, before she forced a hoof to her eyes, to clear herself up. She looked embarrassed, and raw, and emotional, and in every other way the opposite of the distant perfect ideal that she usually appeared.

"I can stay here," Dash offered, in her quietest voice. It stopped all noise, save the soft, steady beeping from Luna's heart. "For now, I mean, Princess. If you need to go, I'll stay with Luna."

Nopony actually acknowledged Rainbow's offer. Their silent concord was enough that one by one, they simply left. First went Shining Armor, who offered Rainbow a hoof on her shoulder for just a moment as he passed. Then Celestia left, prodded along by Soldier On. The princess offered a final glance back to her sister, and a desperate, silent plea to Rainbow.

Shining Armor led the Princess and his new Honor Guard counterpart out of the infirmary and down the halls to the second-nearest private space available. He felt that using Luna's quarters would be in poor taste for the distasteful business that needed to be discussed.

It was time to do the part of his job he really truly hated. It was time to make hard decisions. He had liked being a lieutenant, when the hard calls were somepony else's problem, and all he had to do was be really good at catching the bad guy. Perhaps he liked that part of the job so much because he was the best. When he thought on it, though, it was also the easy part. Decisions were so much more dangerous than criminals. In that moment, he felt sorry for Celestia.

The room in question was a recently-refurbished dining room, still devoid of the distracting decorations (ancient paintings, sculptures older than any living pony, and other novelties) that dominated the rest of the palace. Instead, it simply held a thick polished ebony table, surrounded by ornately carved chairs of the same near-black wood. Holding the door open, he allowed Celestia and Soldier On to enter first.

Celestia didn't so much sit as collapse into the chair nearest the door, at the foot of the elongated table. He and Soldier On took up the flanking seats, and each waited for the other to speak up first.

Shining Armor knew next to nothing about Soldier On, as was the case with most of the mysterious and intimidating Honor Guard. Given recent events, he wasn't about to put much trust in her. Maybe it was the fatigue, or the painful tug of his duty, but he quickly caved in to his own sense of obligation and spoke up.

"Princess, Equestria is falling apart. Everypony saw Miss Dash's Sonic Rainboom; it blew out some of the stained glass windows all the way back here. I didn't want to put out a statement without talking to you first. But, well, they want answers. The press is basically printing rumors at this point." Shining levitated a rolled bundle of papers from some pocket in his armor, and tossed them in front of Celestia. They were the front-page headlines of the biggest papers in Equestria, hailing from Canterlot, Cloudsdale, even as far as Stalliongrad.

Nightmare Moon Returns?

R.I.P: Rainbow Dash, Hero of Equestria

Assassination Plot!

Royal Blunder; Princess Falls Drunk from Balcony

"That's the least of the problems," Soldier On responded coldly. "The Stable of Nobles is convening over this. We can let the Royal Guard deal with the masses."

"I'm not leaving Canterlot for a trip to Trottingham," Celestia snapped. "Not now."

Soldier On shook her head. "They're coming here, Your Majesty. So are Lady Valdria and Emperor Magnus."

Shining Armor couldn't help but betray surprise. "The Griffon Emperor? And Lady who?"

"The Ruler of the Elk," Celestia explained, vacantly. "They're coming to see just how weak Equestria is. They want to play the oldest game with me, while my sister is dying." She took a long, slow breath, then turned back to Soldier. "And I'll have to tell them a civilian saved her." She shook her head. "Where is the rest of the Honor Guard?"

"White Flag is on the Grivridge Border, though she ought to be back to Baltimare soon. Reckoning is in Zebrica, and Image is still dealing with the necromancers on the Gallopagos Islands. We have a few leads, but none are promising. Even if we had them all here, we would still be two guards short, with Star and the Commander gone."

Celestia hesitated for just a moment, as if lost in a wistful though, before turning to Shining Armor. He had spent the entire night writing messages, dispersing troops, and throwing around all the force he could bring to bear for what he feared was the greatest challenge he would ever face. The stress had ground his actions into his mind firmly. He outlined, from memory, just how he had allocated all the regional forces and scouts that were scouring the Equestrian Countryside, and exactly what they were looking for. In the end, though, what he didn't say was what Celestia really came to understand. If Masquerade had been able to replace the Commander, and sneak into the Palace undetected, there was no way that a normal guardspony would have any chance of catching her.

He concluded with the hard truth. "The fact is, Princess, we've been scaling back the guard since the Dragon Wars. With Twilight and her friends to handle Discord and… similar problems, I can understand why, but now we're short-hooved."

Shining Armor shrugged. "I can increase recruitment, but we don't have time for training if we're expecting to catch Masquerade."

Soldier On offered an icy glance. "Appease the nobles. If we could call on the domain guardsponies, we'd be able to find Masquerade, and make an impression on the Griffons and the Elk."

"They see a power vacuum forming," On replied. "Some of them might be here to console you, but most are here because they want to take up Luna's position if—"

"Absolutely not!" Celestia slammed a hoof on the table, splintering the wood and shaking the room's chairs. "I won't hear them talking about this, hovering like vultures and hoping behind my back that Luna dies!"

On gave a cold nod, though her expression betrayed no sense of empathy for the haggard alicorn. "Your Majesty, I will do everything I can. I'm sure Captain Armor's forces will as well. But you do need to face the possibility that we might not be able to save Princess Luna."

They were the wrong words, Shining Armor knew almost instinctively. Soldier On was brave to have uttered them, but she was about to pay the price. Celestia stood up, and her eyes began to glow a potent white. Worst, though, was her voice. Much like the now-infamous 'Royal Canterlot' pronunciation, Celestia's words were accompanied by an unmistakable echo. However, they were not shouted, but instead stated plainly, as fact.

"Perhaps you don't understand, Lieutenant. Let me make this perfectly clear. Equestria will go to war before I see my sister taken from me!"

Shining Armor flinched back at the impressive display. He'd heard from older guardsponies that 'Tartarus had no fury like Celestia's', but he hadn't had the imagination to comprehend her angry, so far gone was she from her usual tone. It made the stiff posture with which Soldier On stood up to her all the braver. When the arcane force surrounding the Princess began to fade, the Honor Guard spoke up.

Shining Armor was shocked almost beyond words. "What are you saying?" She ignored him completely. What went through Celestia's mind, he could not comprehend. Soldier On simply got up, knowing that she was no longer welcome, and walked to the doors. Only halfway through them did her Stalliongradi accent break again with an uncharacteristic and unexpected tone of sheer anger. "I know something about revolutions, Your Majesty. You walk on thin ice." With that, she let the door swing shut.

Celestia stared at the door, silently controlling her rage. Shining watched her face slowly lose its creases. Then, all at once, she collapsed back into her chair. The fatigue that plagued her body was no more obvious than in that moment, as she sat, resigned to the fact that there was perhaps nothing she could do to help her sister.

"The Honor Guard has never loved Luna..." Celestia's eyes flitted away, deep in thought. Shining knew there was more to the story, but he said nothing on the topic. Instead, he waited, until the mighty and heartbroken ruler deigned to speak again. "What should I do?" she asked, weakly, barely holding on to hope that some answer might be offered. Where was she expected to go for direction when she didn't know what to do?

Shining Armor simply shrugged, trying as best he could to look meek. He knew what he had to say, and unlike Soldier On, he was utterly terrified to say it. "I haven't lived a thousand years, Princess. I only know how to be a Guardspony, really. There are plenty of others like me, and all of us are looking after Princess Luna. But right now, Equestria needs a Princess. And there's only one of you."

Celestia nodded, then stood up slowly. "I think… I think I have a plan. Tell Captain On I'd like to apologize when you see her." Shining's brow rose with curiosity. The Princess's face returned to the plain and passive state it always bore, fixed and unchanging like a mask over the countless years of her life. "Her words may have been wrong, but she was right, as are you. I have to think about Equestria. Do what you can for Luna. Please."

Rainbow sat there, watching Luna breathe in and out slowly. It was sad, the filly thought, that the respect she had finally gained in everypony's eyes had been taken away so swiftly. All of the things Luna had gone through over that one mistake; why couldn't ponies just forgive her? It seemed like the simplest thing in the world.

The heartbeat monitor kept a slow, soft, but above all, steady tempo. The noise was the only thing really keeping Dash any company. She hated just sitting, waiting for nothing at all to happen. So she started talking.

"Hey, uh, Princess. It's Rainbow Dash. You know, the fastest flier…" Rainbow stopped, gaining a new appreciation for the sound of her own words. "I sound really stupid when I say that, don't I? Maybe its like that guardspony said. Rainbow Dash, Bearer of Loyalty." To her ears, the title didn't sound much better. "Anyway, I just wanted to say, I'm sorry. This shouldn't have happened. You did great out there. Everypony loved you. When the doctors get you fixed up, you've gotta' do it again. The sky… thing. I didn't really get to watch. I was a little busy. But I wanna get a chance to see it. So will you?"

Naturally, the Princess didn't answer. She just lay there, slowly but smoothly breathing, her heart beating steady.

Rainbow's ears perked up when the a second noise joined the heartbeat monitor. The clicking of hooves on the linoleum approached her, but without the perfect timing or the piercing weight of Soldier On's steps. Rather than keeping Luna's tempo, they trod on the beats, in an unsteady pattern that brought to mind fatigue.

Dash pulled herself up by the side of the bed, and then pulled back the curtain. There was Celestia, still pink-maned and tired. Mortal. That was a good word, to contrast the way she normally looked. Like she had to sleep, and eat, and worry, in the way that she seemed never to care about when she towered over ponies with her radiant, tri-color mane and her brilliant aura.

"How is she?" the Princess asked. Dash noted that her tone had returned to the calm, smooth, almost musical way in which she normally spoke.

"Nothing changed. The doctor came in to look at the machines, but nopony else came by." Celestia sat down slowly opposite Dash, and just stared at her sister's unmoving face. "Do you, uh, want me to leave you alone with her, or-"

"Let me start by saying that I owe you more than I can ever repay. If there is ever, ever anything I can do for you, you need only ask."

The shadow of some hidden thought crossed Celestia's mortal face in that tiniest of moments. Then she spoke. "It would have been wrong of me to make you suffer for helping Luna."

"Rainbow, you-" She had to stop and shake her head, clearing her thoughts. "You very nearly killed yourself, saving Luna. That's a sacrifice I cannot overstate. There are very few ponies who would do what you did for her." The Princess stopped speaking for a moment, and turned to a window behind Rainbow, where she looked out at a beautiful blue day. "That's what makes what I'm about to ask so difficult."

"Rainbow Dash, I won't mince words. I would like you to replace Morning Star as Luna's bodyguard." The Princess' ancient eyes moved away from the sun, and with an utter seriousness that bore the weight of untold centuries, she added her last hoof-full of words. "I need you to join the Honor Guard."

Dash was quiet for a long time. A very long time, in fact; especially for a young mare who usually made decisions on the fly, and knew exactly what she wanted out of life. Never before had she really been faced with a request that caused such internal conflict. She finally came to an indecision.

"You saw through the assassin, when she fooled all the guardsponies, Rainbow. You were willing to give up your life to protect my sister."

Celestia looked down. When her visage rose, it was that of an entirely different pony, not merely tired but ragged and weathered as well. "Rainbow Dash, how old do you think I am?"

It was question Rainbow had neither really considered, nor given any thought to. "Two-thousand?"

Celestia shook her head, looking more tired than ever. "Forty times that, Rainbow, and then some. And despite what all the little fillies and colts think, it isn't all fun and games. For eighty-thousand years, Luna's been my only real friend. With everypony else, I blink, and they're simply gone. Eighty years might seem like forever to you, Rainbow Dash. A lifetime, for a lucky pony, but for me, it's barely more than a drop of water in the bucket."

Rainbow didn't know what to say. She had nothing to say. No experience could compare to that.

Celestia looked back at her, pleading and desperate. "That's why I need you to protect her, Rainbow. She's my only companion. The only one I can count on to be there. If I lost her..."

For Dash, the worst part was that she didn't cry; her face instead went back to looking the way it always did when she made public appearances. Like a mask. Hollow. Empty. Devoid of… anything.

"So that you understand that I don't ask you this lightly. I wouldn't trust anypony else with this, Rainbow Dash. Not Twilight, not Shining Armor, not even…" She closed her eyes for a second, and Rainbow did notice a little bit of moisture, even if nothing came of it.

"If you were, I wouldn't want you," Celestia answered. "Rainbow, yesterday, Luna told me about when you talked to her. You believed in her. You saw past the Nightmare. Even Morning Star didn't give her that. I don't want somepony to just protect her from assassins and monsters. I want somepony who cares about her; who'll trust her and forgive her, and be loyal to her. And you're the only pony I can trust to do that." That blank face stared for a long moment, before it finally drew out its last hoof-full of words. "Is there anything I can do to convince you, Rainbow?"

The desperation in Celestia's eyes pushed her over the edge. She nodded slowly. "If you really need me, then yes. When this is over, and everything settles down again, you find somepony else. Until then, I'll do it."

Celestia smiled, though she didn't understand. It was easy enough for the ancient mare to read Rainbow's face, and know that she wasn't ready to explain. Maybe she never would be. It didn't matter.

Celestia smiled, honestly and warmly, rather than the little thing that she put on for show. As Rainbow watched her without her usual glow and her ethereal mane, it became clear just how often she put on her hollow mask. The smile she had been using all those times simply did not compare. Rainbow felt reinvigorated. Renewed. And, above all, rewarded.

"If you're hungry, I'll have the Palace chefs prepare anything you like. You're welcome to my chambers again for the night, as well. And if there's anything else…"

"Can I get a ride back to Ponyville?" Dash wondered aloud. "Just for a day or two?"

Celestia shook her head slowly. "Luna needs you, Rainbow Dash, and the other guards are too busy to pull a chariot. But if you want to talk to your friends, we do have other ways."

Celestia smiled knowingly this time. "I'll be back in a few moments." Then she stood up, and cast one more look over Luna's sleeping form. This time, she didn't seem nearly so sad. "Stand tall, Rainbow Dash. You're my hero today. You've helped me more than you can ever know."

The doors to the infirmary swung shut in her passing only moments later, leaving Dash to her own devices. She waited for a long time, and then turned back to the sleeping Princess by her side.

"Do you hear that, Princess? I guess I'm your new bodyguard. That's cool, right? Sounds better than 'fastest flier in Equestria' when I'm introducing myself. Hey, Wonderbolts, name's Rainbow Dash, Princess Luna's Bodyguard." Dash smiled a little. There were certainly upsides to the job. "Yeah, definitely cool."

It wasn't long after that the doors swung open again, and Celestia entered. The golden glow of her horn carried an inkwell, a quill, and a piece of parchment.

Where Loyalties Lie: Honor Guard

by LoyalLiar

III - Aftershock