//------------------------------//
// Chapter 15: Questioning an Unicorn 
// Story: Legacy of Kain: Harmony's Rise 
// by Time Reaper 
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As night was getting close, Raziel decided that it was a good moment to move to Twilight's library and finish the conversation that was started a few days ago but, as he moved from the old and lonely castle ruins to the new and homely library, he couldn't feel wonder into why she asked him to go through the Spectral Realm specifically. Perhaps there was something she wanted to try before he got there or she found a way to enter into the Spectral Realm, now that she has already experimented it, he wasn't sure but, whatever reason it was, it probably was a very important one so he complied.

As Raziel moved through the Everfree Forest on the Spectral Realm, he decided to take his time to look at his surroundings and see how the world around him was always on a state of paralysis. There was no constellation to guide you through this vicious world, there was no sun or moon to bring light into the ecosystem, there was no life to inhabit the place, nothing on this realm could be considered natural or enjoyable, which was one of the reasons why Raziel always preferred to live on the Physical Realm, a place where he once came from and he would always cherish over this desolate realm that was now his new residence. No matter for how long he wanted to run away from it, Raziel would always remember that this was the new place he would inhabit once he was unable to inhabit the Physical Realm and there was nothing he could do to change it and, as he reflected on this, he started to get close to the library in Ponyville and he was about to see why Twilight wanted so much for him to go there in the Spectral Realm.

Raziel took a moment to see the tree had an open door where Twilight would normally place her telescope, an intended way for her to let Raziel know about her welcoming her newest guest, making Raziel's wonder increase at the mystery of what was she planning and the answer came to Raziel in the moment he saw the center of the library as he saw a vortex whose origins Raziel remembered from his first days as a Soul Reaver in Nosgoth but they became unavailable as the Elder God refused to let Raziel escape the Spectral Realm so easily.

As he got closer to what he desired to be a portal between the realms, Raziel could feel the vortex calling for him and demanding him to pass to the Physical Realm through it. With his energy renewed, Raziel decided to use the portal and go from the Spectral Realm to the Physical Realm.

As Raziel transitioned, he could see, without the need of a corpse, how the library started to shift once again from its twisted and bizarre state, with ladders curved in ways that made it impossible to use, into a form he was more familiar with from the last time he came to Ponyville.

With joy overcoming Raziel, he started to wonder if Twilight was behind this and, should she be, how feasible it was for her to make more. With this, he no longer needed a corpse to shift and it would make his job much easier. Such were the bliss that was crossing through Raziel's body, that he failed to notice the scared sound made by a dragon that was next to him. As he turned around, he noticed Spike on the ground and with one of his claws grabbing where his heart should be located, clearly indicating Raziel of his scared condition.

"Yes!" - Twilight's voice shouted as Raziel turned around to find her and see her face filled with joy at her newest development. - "I knew I could find a way to link both realms together, now with this, it'll be easier to travel back from the Spectral Realm to the Physical Realm without needing a corpse to do so."

Realization hit Raziel at that moment, now understanding her desire to come through the Spectral Realm and now feeling a great sense of joy at the hope of, very soon, not needing anymore to murder other beings just so he could go back and forth between the realms. His job had now become much easier and, for that, he was thankful but first, he had to say something else.

"My apologies Spike" -. Said Raziel with a neutral tone on his voice as he turned towards the young drake. - "I was not expecting to enter into the library this way" -. He then turned towards Twilight. - "And I'm thankful for your help on this matter, now I may be able to stop relying on corpses to move myself on Equestria. Now, all we need to do is to create a portal on every city across this kingdom minimum."

At those words, Twilight's ears started to go down while she gave a sheepish smile before answering.

"As much as I would like to help you with that" -. She started to say. - "Making this kind of portals require a lot of energy and I'm still recovering from making this one so I apologize for not being able of helping you on this as fast as you need it to."

Raziel thought of this for a brief moment and determined that, while a bit troublesome, this was a better alternative to have no portals at all. If he needed to wait, then so be it, he would wait but now he was aware that he had an ally capable of supplying him on something that he desperately needed, which was a mean to enter into other sites that lacked of bodies for him to use.

But, nonetheless, Raziel didn't let any of that make him forget the reason why he was on the library on the first place.

"I see, while troublesome, I do not mind for I have no desire of straining you through the burden of making something your body can barely manage. Do this when you can and at your pace" -. As he said this, he noticed how the unicorn was trying to interpret his wording, so he decided to change the subject to what he originally wanted to do before Twilight could diverge the topic as a whole. - "But, if I do remember correctly, I didn't come here to discuss about portals. I came here to talk to you and increase our knowledge of each other out."

At this, Twilight started to smile, now remembering her original objective and, as she moved the furniture to bring comfort to both her and Raziel, she seated and invited him to make his first question.

"Sure, start right now, what do you want to know about me?"

Raziel, still standing, took a while to think about it, wondering how much he could gather from this without causing any problem, before he decided to make a simple question.

"Please tell me a bit more about you, who are you and what are you doing right now?"

Twilight Sparkle was shaken a little bit at how sudden the question was, not expecting it to be so personal but she reasoned that she also made a similar question last time, so it was the nice thing to do answering back.

"Well, I am Twilight Sparkle, personal apprentice of Princess Celestia and I am here studying friendship under her orders."

Raziel's interest was peaked after hearing that.

"Under her orders? So, you weren't interested in that to begin with? What made you change of opinion?"

Twilight's features changed for a little moment before she brought back a happy expression on her face and answered.

"Well, yeah. I used to be a pony that wasn't interested in friendship, I thought of it as a pointless distraction that would only hinder my studies. But then I met my friends and they made me realize how important friendship was, how every obstacle can be defeated and how there's always hope to win against the bad guys."

Raziel then started to move around the house, looking at the stuff surrounding Twilight, noticing how she was having much more time spent with the ponies she met in Ponyville, which was a total change in the attitude she had back in Canterlot, when he first saw her. He then went back and seated as he asked Twilight another question:

"So, you seem to care deeply about your friends. How strong do you think your friendship is? Do you think it could stand the test of time and the machinations of enemies bent on destroying it?"

Twilight got struck by the question due to how sudden it was but, nonetheless, she decided to answer it with the best of her abilities.

"Our friendship is very strong" -. She said with complete confidence. - "We have faced moments where we fight but it has never been broken and, while I'm not sure who would like to see it broken, I'm certain that it would stand against any villain that tries to defeat it."

As she said that, she hoped to see signs of respect from Raziel but, to her surprise, all she saw on his face was disappointment. Wasn't that the answer he was searching for? What was so wrong with what she said? Twilight was going to ask, but Raziel made his next question before she could react.

"What do you think of Princess Celestia?"

This was another shock for Twilight, why he wanted to know about Celestia when he previously asked about her friendship? Regardless, she answered.

"Well, she's the ruler of Equestria, she commands the sun and she has proven in multiple occasions to be the wisest pony I've ever met. She has been my mentor since I was a filly and has always been capable of sending me on the right direction even when I doubted her. She taught me the great things about magic, she has always shown to have the ponies in Equestria in her best interest and her mercy cannot be matched, proven when she forgave her sister, Princess Luna, when she had all reasons not to. She may hide information from me from time to time but it has always been for the best and, whenever she needs help, she has always trusted me anything that's needed to be known."

She looked at Raziel, hoping that her answer was good enough for him but, to her surprise, his look remained stoic and unchanged. She was now wondering what was happening on his head, perhaps something about his past made him skeptic of her answers? She did remember that Raziel's past has made him doubt of what cause was right, perhaps he was seeing pieces of himself on her?

"I see" -. He finally answered. - "But does it worry you that she may be fooled by someone else or that she makes a wrong decision based on ill advisement?"

Noticing how he had genuine concern on his voice, Twilight quickly answered to try to mitigate his concerns.

"Well, it is worrying but Celestia isn't the type of pony that can be fooled so easily. You would have to be a very smart pony to achieve something like that" -. She then looked at Raziel with concern on her features. - "Why are you asking this? Are you afraid that somepony may try to damage us by fooling Celestia or breaking our friendship?"

Raziel started to move around the library once more, as if he were thinking on a way to explain himself and, after a couple moments of silence, he answered.

"Do you remember what I said last time we met? About me searching for a dangerous creature that plunged my homeland into despair and it was attempting to do the same in Equestria? Haven't you considered the possibility of it trying to deceit your princess to cause destruction in your kingdom?"

Twilight thought about it for a moment and answered.

"Well, it's a very real possibility and it worries me a lot the idea of it but I don't think Celestia would be so easy to fool. She's always open to other ideas and she would never fell for a lie unless she had no way to differentiate what is real from what is false."

Raziel then started to get close to her and asked with a worried tone.

"And if she does? What would you do?"

Twilight started to think about it, trying to picture such scenario and trying to formulate an actual plan in case it happened. What to do if the pony you trust the most is in the wrong path and you want to put her back on the right trail? She thought about it for a brief moment and, after some deep thought, she simply answered.

"Well, then I will do my best to bring her back to what is true by using all I've been taught and the magic of friendship will help to correct the wrongs in her."

Raziel just stared at her for a while, silence filling the room as the two figures looked at each other, creating a tension that would make many feeling rather wrong. Finally, the silence was broken when Raziel decided to give his response to Twilight.

"I'll trust your judgment then."

Those words made Twilight feel perplexed, she has never been told like that and she wasn't sure what kind of thoughts was having Raziel to come to that conclusion. Nonetheless, she was quite happy to know that and made the only response she could make.

"Um... thank you. What else would you like to know about me?"

Raziel simply waved his hands and concluded.

"There's no need for that, you have just told me all I need to know about yourself."

"Oh!" - Said a shocked Twilight, not sure how to feel about it, considering the amount of questions she made Raziel last time they met. - "Well, then, what else would you like to do? It's still quite early and I don't think you know much about Equestria or how do we work."

The Soul Reaver took a moment before finally sitting on the couch and accepting Twilight's offer, now with a more relaxed tone.

"Well, what can you tell me about Equestria, young scholar?"

As Twilight beamed with happiness, she quickly started to use all the books at her repertoire while asking Spike to bring even more, and she then started to tell Raziel all about Equestria's past, how the ponies came to Equestria, about Starswirl the Bearded, about how Princess Celestia and Luna ruled in Equestria and many other details that would be too much to cover here although there was another event happening on this reunion worth noticing.

"The Grand Galloping Galla?" - Asked a very bewildered ghost. - "Are you sure about inviting me? I do not have the means to enter legally and I don't have good memories whenever I entered uninvited to someone else's territories."

Twilight simply dismissed her hoof at Raziel before giving a nonchalant answer.

"Don't worry, if Princess Celestia was capable of giving me more invites for my friends, then she would gladly give me another one for you, I'll just tell her that I've met a new friend and I want to present it to her."

Raziel gave her an skeptical eye before she assured him.

"Don't worry, by the day we have to go to the Galla, you will have a new invite, trust me."

Raziel then decided to trust in Twilight and continued with their conversations about how magic worked and its relation with Cutie Marks.

As such, as the night grew to big and the life in Ponyville fell to the world of sleep, Raziel made his leave and allowed the purple unicorn and young drake to rest while he went to the deeps of The Everfree Forest to think on what he should be doing on the day of the Grand Galloping Galla.

As such, while Spike and Twilight were discussing about the possibilities of Celestia having more tickets for the Galla, the letter was drafted as such:



Dear Princess Celestia:

Today, I want to confess you something. I've made a new friend!

I know you may be wondering why I didn't told you about him before but, the truth is, that was because I wasn't sure about him until a few days ago. After talking with him, I managed to convince him to go into the Grand Galloping Galla and I would like to know if you have another invite for him. He's very different from your average pony but I assure you that his personality is one that you would like a lot. In fact, he would be very helpful regarding that ominous danger I warned you about not too long ago. 

Sincerely, your faithful student: Twilight Sparkle.



And, much later, when the hours between the yesterday and the today were the most blurred, the letter reached the hooves of Princess Celestia, who was reading the letter with doubt in her mind. On one part, she trusted her faithful student with all her life but, for all she knew, Twilight may have been manipulated all along if this "friends" was who she thought it was. Perhaps she should give her the benefit of the doubt? After all, there was nothing she could do if things got sour.


You should be careful with your approach here


Said an all too familiar voice that has been haunting Celestia for the last couple weeks. A voice that's been managing to infiltrate its influence on her.


There's nothing wrong in putting your trust in your student
But do now that Raziel is just as capable of earning it and use it on his behalf
Perhaps a better approach would be to see if you're actually capable of helping her?
After all, if there's nothing you can do, then there's nothing she could object


Celestia thought about it for a brief moment and realized that this was an actually good idea. She would go and look to see if there were any tickets left, after all, if there were no more invites, then there was nothing she could do, right? Regardless, should Twilight's new friend decide to still come to her Galla, she would then see how trustworthy he actually was.