Little Ponies Lost

by Al-1701


Chapter 12: The Hour of the Wolf

          Buttons watched as Truly came out of the gang bathroom, running a towel over her mane.  When down, Truly’s mane had a bit of a natural curl to it like her tail.  Though, after being toweled off, it was a tangled mess screaming for a thorough brushing.

          Truly held up her leg and sniffed it.  “I don’t know if it’s actually there or just in my head, but I don’t think I’ll ever stop smelling that infernal smoke.”

          “It’ll fade eventually,” Buttons said.  “At least you made it out alive.”

          “That’s true,” Truly replied.  “I’m not sure how I survived, but I’ll gladly take it.”

          “I have your uniform in the wash,” Buttons said.  “I can also make more since wearing the same dress everyday isn’t all that sanitary for a nurse.”

          “I would appreciate that very much,” Truly replied.  “Thank you.”

          Buttons motioned with her head.  “Come on, I’ll take your measurements.”

          They walked into the main hall of the keep.  It was oddly quiet since the rescue party returned.  There was not a pony to be seen in the halls.

          It took just one look at the long faces and slouching shoulders of those who went to that island to know things went badly despite rescuing Truly and the young dragons.  It seemed to have cast a dark cloud over the whole castle.

          “How bad was it?” Buttons asked.

          “I was in a cell trying to not die, so I don’t know all that happened outside,” Truly answered.  “However, they seemed broken.  Gusty was on even more of a hair trigger, Wind Whistler was like she was in yet another world, and the rest were just downtrodden in general.  Probably didn’t help we had to hold an impromptu funeral for those little dragons’ mother.”

          She stopped and looked to Buttons with an expression like she had seen death itself.  “I’ll tell you one thing, Buttons—those harpies are truly evil.  They talk about the villains the Element Bearers faced a century ago and the Pillars of Light a millennium before them.  They may have had world-bending powers, but I can’t imagine any of them had the utter contempt for life these harpies showed.”

          “And it took our best shot to just get you back,” Buttons added, feeling her legs get weak at the thought.  “Cupcake’s right, I don’t think there’s much we could do to really stop them.”

          They continued to walk through the quiet halls.  There was still not a pony to be seen, not even going from one place to another.  They all seemed to have retreated to their own little corners.  Paradise was in the library working on that message.  Cupcake, Gingerbread, and Sweetie were making a meal for Majesty.

          “It feels like the entire world is holding its breath waiting for what happens next,” Buttons said.

          “My grandma has a name for it,” Truly said.  “She’d call times like this the hour of the wolf.  When a relative was gravely ill, and all we could do was wait to see if they could pull through or would breathe their last, those were times that felt like this.  Of course, it’s our entire little colony here that is in the balance.”

          “What would you do?” Buttons asked.

          “Grandma would pour herself a glass of the ‘family recipe’ and nurse it while we waited for any word,” Truly answered.  “She would also have a smaller glass ready in case the wolf had puppies at the door.”

          Truly managed a screwed-up grin.  Buttons felt the mood lighten a little as well.

          “It was those times that made me interested in nursing,” Truly said.  “I never developed a taste for the recipe or just sitting there with no say in the matter.  When a pony is sick, I have to do something.”

          “What’s your suggestion for our patient?” Buttons asked.

          “Sadly it is just waiting,” Truly said.  “It needs medicine I can’t provide.”

* * *

          Fizzy knocked gently on Wind Whistler’s door.  “Wind Whistler?”

          Everything was quiet from the other side.

          Fizzy knocked on the door again, putting a little more into it.  “Come on, Wind Whistler, please come out.”

          “I want to be alone,” Wind Whistler said despairingly from the other side of the door.

          Fizzy rested the side of her head against the door.  “Please.  We’re worried about you.”

          “I am physically unharmed,” Wind Whistler said.  “I just desire a prolonged period of solitude at present.  I ask that you respect that as a friend.”

          “But—” Fizzy started to say.

          “Please,” Wind Whistler pleaded.  “Just…I need to be alone.”

          Fizzy drew in a breath and released a sigh.  “Okay.”

          She turned to Shady.  “What do we do?”

          “Maybe we should just leave her alone,” Shady answered.  “She’s been through a lot, and I heard North Star and Lofty saying Gusty really went into her.”

          “I just don’t like seeing her like this,” Fizzy said.  She turned back to the door.  “Or rather not seeing her.  She seemed to be opening up to us, and now we can’t even get her out of her room.  She needs us, she just doesn’t know it.”

          “You can’t make her come out,” Shady said.  “She’ll eventually come around.  We just have to give her some space.”

          Shady turned and walked away.  Fizzy looked back at Wind Whistler’s door again.  She wanted see her cheer up.  She was the first pony she really got to know from the non-Crystal ponies.  She just did not know how.

          An idea then popped into her head.  “Hey, that might work,” she said to herself and galloped off.

* * *

          Magic Star stared at the door into Majesty’s bedchamber.  She swallowed yet another lump forming in her throat at the thought of facing her.  However, this time she apparently had enough courage to hook her pastern on the handle and push it down.  She pulled the door open and stepped in before she could think better of it.

          Glory sat at to the side of Majesty’s bed, bringing up strawberries and blueberries in her magic so Majesty could eat them.  Majesty saw Magic Star and held up her hoof for Glory to stop.

          Magic Star cleared her throat.  “Can we speak in private?”

          Majesty nodded to Glory and she got up and left quietly, closing the door behind her.

          “I don’t know whether I should enjoy being fed or humiliated,” Majesty said.  “What do you think?”

          Magic Star was caught off guard and speechless or a second.  “Well—I—uh—”

          “Never mind,” Majesty said, adjusting her herself against her pillow so she could sit up better.  “I’ve been told you sent a strike force to the harpies’ stronghold.  It didn’t go too well from what I heard.”

          “I’m sorry, Queen Majesty,” Magic Star got out.  “I was foolish to give into demands we attack them.”

          “You saved Truly and those little dragons, and the harpies were at least momentarily forced from their home for the moment,” Majesty said.  “Although not a resounding victory, I would say we came out of the exchange ahead.”

          “You haven’t seen the looks on the faces of those who went there,” Magic Star said.  “They hit the harpies as hard as they could and barely knocked them off balance for a second.  Fortunately they couldn’t land a hit, or we would be burying ponies.  Ironically, we only saved Truly and the dragons because they were going to kill them as they made their escape.”

          She took the seat next to Majesty.  “And now the harpies are out there somewhere with that girl.  We can’t even leave the valley without worrying about being caught or worse by them.”

          Majesty bobbed her head.  “Tell me, if they had saved the girl and gave those harpies a thorough trouncing, would you be in here apologizing?”

          Magic Star stopped, her mind completely blank on that statement.

          Majesty smiled weakly.  “A plan that works is always a good plan in retrospect.  The same with a plan that fails is a bad plan.  Leadership is about making decisions and taking risks with the understanding the consequences are just as much yours as the reward.  However, you can’t let that stop you from making those decisions.  Otherwise, you might as well jump in a hole and pull the ground over you because you’ve stopped living at that point.”

          She leaned back more, clearly tired.  She took a few seconds.  “You’re a cautious one which is why I chose you to be my chief minister.  You won’t go off half-cocked.  However, there are times you will still need to act.”

          “How do you know all of this?” Magic Star asked.  “You say you were a lady of the court, I had never heard of a Lady Blueflower until we arrived here.”

          “I’ve always a minor member of Princess Celestia’s royal court even though I had been there for more than a century,” Majesty explained.  “I never climbed very high in the social rankings because of my unpopular views as you could have surmised from my little monologue yesterday.”  She took another extended pause.  “That included the Harmony Era where our dear Princess of the Sun allowed getting her pet student to learn life lessons to take precedent over safety of her citizens.”  She frowned.  “It angered me to no end to see Equestria and those who lived in it endangered constantly by her inaction.

          “I pray if we ever manage to return to Equestria, those things don’t follow us.  We may be able to overwhelm eventually with sheer numbers, but the causalities would be unacceptable.”

          She turned to Majesty with a facing show all those decades of grim experience.  Up until this point, there had always been a smirk just below the surface of her expressions, but it was completely gone here.  “Forget eternal night, Discord’s whacko land, or having love or magic or whatever drained from you.  The streets of Canterlot, Manehattan, every city and town in Equestria would run red with blood—the blood of ponies slain and impossible to get back.”

          Magic Star swallowed a sizeable lump down her throat.  “What do we do now?” she asked.

          “It’s clear brute force won’t work against them,” Majesty answered.  “At least not the amount of brute force we can muster.”  This pause was longer as her eyelids drooped.  “We need to outwit them.  That is why Wind Whistler needs to be Wind Whistler.  I’ve seen many like her in my time, a sharp mind not yet too burdened with the decades of living and old ideas.  She had also been untouched by Celestia and her intoxicating philosophies and dependence on old legends.  She is a rare gem among ponies these days, and I know she will be a vital asset to us when comes to campaigns of the mind like this one.”  She again paused.  “If she embraces her talents and those around her, she can beat the harpies at their own game.”

          Magic Star sighed.  “Then we’re doomed.  She and Gusty got into an argument that cut deep, and Wind Whistler won’t come out of her room.”

          Majesty closed her eyes, and that smile made its return.  “Then it’s time for friendship to demonstrate its real power.”

* * *

          Wind Whistler was alone with her thoughts yet again.  Her room was a familiar setting to her.  Though, it was her room in Cloudsdale until now.  However, a bedroom was a bedroom.  It was a rectangular prism she could close the rest of the world off from and be alone when she wanted to just turn the rest of the world off.  She lay on her bed and stared up at the wooden planks making up the ceiling.  The wood was oak with a distinct grain and few knotholes.

          Though, that was just what her eyes were telling her visual cortex.  Her mind was paying it little mind, consumed with so many other things.  She was thinking of home, their fight against the harpies, the juvenile dragons and their slain and consumed mother, the girl and her wellbeing, sending Gusty over the edge in more ways than one, and what Gusty had said.

An unfeeling machine with circuits for innards and oil for blood, she thought.  Is that what other ponies see me as?

          She had been called that when she was younger.  She was always the first one to know the answer, so the other fillies and colts would tease her about it.  They would gang up on her and make fun of her.  They would call her a walking computer like Gusty did.

          She figured they were just jealous of her.  She bothered to read and pay attention not only in the classroom but the world around her while they goofed off.  It would come back to bite them with the teacher, and she would get the last laugh.

          She rolled over onto her side so she faced the wall also made of planks of oak.

          However, all she did was absorb facts.  Her vocabulary came from just sitting down and learning new words when she was bored.  Multiplication tables were something her mind did just to spend the time.  She had memorized all ninety elements on the periodic table and knew why there could be no more than one hundred eighteen despite what bad sci-fi claimed.  She was swimming in facts—almost drowning in facts—she just picked up because it was something to do and she could absorb them so readily.

          Yet, reading a single pony was so difficult for her.  To her, it was like everyone could read minds like Ribbon, picking up on things that escaped her perception and putting emphasis on it despite it seeming inconsequential to her.  Even in her own behavior, there were faux pas she would commit and only realize it in retrospect.  It had led her to being as polite as possible at all times so as not to insult anyone.

          Something happened with Gusty, what she figured was shock at facing the harpy, but it had to have been something more.  And, because she did not know, she almost killed her.  What good is knowing all the elements, and mathematic equations, and all those other things if you cannot save a pony correctly?

          She pulled her tail up to hold between her front legs.  She was alone, and so she could let it out.  She let the tears flow and gave in to the urge to let out a sob.  She wondered if Fizzy and Shady were really her friends, or if Majesty was just telling them to be nice to her.  It just made her feel all the worse.

          A knock came at her door.

          This was the last thing Wind Whistler wanted at the moment.  “I told you to go away!”

          “You told them to go away,” Gusty’s voice came from past the door.

          Wind Whistler was shocked to hear Gusty for a second.  “What do you want?”

          “I want to talk,” Gusty answered.

          Wind Whistler’s sorrow turned to seething anger.  All that rage over what Gusty had said came roaring back.  Yet, she kept it in check, deciding to channel it through sarcasm.  “I thought you didn’t have time for talking, and why would you want to talk to an ‘unfeeling machine’?”

          “I knew this was a bad idea.”  Gusty’s voice became more distant.

          “Please,” Fizzy’s voice begged.  “She needs this.”

          “And you really deserve it,” Shady added.

          “Fine,” Gusty groaned.

          Another knock came.  “I have something I need to say to you, and I don’t want to do it through a door.  So, can I come in?”

          Wind Whistler wiped the tears from her eyes and took in a quivering breath to try to stop the sobs.  “It’s not locked.”

          “Not locked?!” Gusty blurted.  “She didn’t even lock the door!”

          “We didn’t want to enter her room uninvited,” Shady replied.

          An exasperated groan came in response.  The door opened and hooves clicked against the wood floor before the door closed again.  Wind Whistler did not rollover to face Gusty.  She was mad at her and figured denying her eye contact was the best way to express it.

          “Look,” Gusty started to say but paused for a second.  “I came to say—” another pause “—I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have called you a machine or say you don’t have feelings.  You obviously do have feelings because I hurt them, badly from the looks of it.”

          She paused.  “Could you at least look at me?”

          She at last got an admittance of wrongdoing, so Wind Whistler rolled over onto her other side to face Gusty.  Her eyes were probably puffy and red from crying and she could feel her jaw tremble.

          “It’s just that—” Gusty stopped.  “No, there’s no excuse.”

          Gusty stamped her hoof.  “I was just really scared and let it out before thinking better of it!”

          She walked over to the desk and sat down in the chair.  She sat there, apparently absorbed in her own thoughts.  Wind Whistler watched her, her chest expanding and contracting as she took deep breaths.

          “If I tell you a secret, will you promise to never tell anyone else?” Gusty asked.

          “Yes,” Wind Whistler answered.  “Any secret is safe with me.”

          Gusty drew in a deep breath and slowly released it.  “The reason I didn’t wink out from up there was because I was paralyzed with fear.”

          “Facing a harpy for the first time can do that,” Wind Whistler replied.

          “It wasn’t her,” Gusty said quietly.  “Again, I don’t want this to get out, but…I’m afraid of heights.  I mean really afraid of them.  I was able to make it up there by not looking down, but when I did look down all I could think of was falling.”

          Wind Whistler lay there in silence as she let it process.

          Gusty crossed her front legs.  “Go ahead, laugh at me.”

          “Why?” Wind Whistler asked.

          “Because I act all tough, but I have the silliest fear,” Gusty answered.

          “It’s not silly,” Wind Whistler replied.  “I in fact apologize for not realizing it.  My actions pushed you straight into the fixation of your acrophobia.”

          “I said I was afraid of heights,” Gusty stated.

          “That is the technical term for it,” Wind Whistler said.  “And I do not see you as less of a pony for it.  Insulting me and my friends is a different matter.  Shady also deserves an apology for your blowup in the meeting hall.”

          Gusty heaved a sigh.  “I suppose she does.

          “Those two are really worried about you,” she continued.  “They care about you more than I’ve seen other adult ponies care about each other.  Though, that seems to be the case with everyone here.  Maybe it’s just because I grew up in a big city where you’re just another face in the crowd.”

          “It’s easier to be alone in a crowd than it is in a small room with a few ponies,” Wind Whistler said.  “Believe me.  I have direct experience in this.”

          “Maybe it’s also because we’re all that’s here as far as we know,” Gusty added.  “Cupcake was right.  There are no royal guards.  There are no police.  It’s you, me, the others, and what we have in the castle against this entire world.  Makes me feel small just thinking about it.”

          “I see it as the world being just that much bigger,” Wind Whistler said.  “Equestria has been the main power in our world for more than a millennium, and there are few mysteries left.  Here, we’re just a bunch of little ponies, and this world is filled with mysteries.  I feel both terrified and assured that we don’t know everything here.”

          They sat there for a few seconds, letting it all sink in.

          “So”—Gusty broke the silence—“What now?”

          Wind Whistler rolled onto her back.  “There’s no telling where the harpies have gone now.  While I like a good mystery as much as the next pony, I wish I knew more about all of this.  We had no idea the harpies had a powerful telepath with them, him being the main reason we never reached Megan in time.”  She frowned.  “I have conflicting emotions about not knowing.  I love that there is more to learn out there, but I hate when I’m caught unawares.  We need to do something, but I don’t know what and fear we could end up even worse off if we try again blindly.  I need more information.”

          “Sometimes we don’t know everything,” Gusty said, “but we still have to do something.  If we waited until we knew everything, nothing would ever get done.”

          Wind Whistler rolled over to face Gusty again.

          “I grew up in Fillydelphia, my parents were the groundskeepers of a local park,” Gusty said.  “I would hang out with the other fillies and colts in the neighborhood, and we all looked up to Wind Striker.  He protected us, kept us out of trouble and trouble out of the neighborhood.  He always did the right thing, and he was the most awesome pony ever.

          “However, he was getting to the point where he would finish high school and have to move away.  He took me under his wing, literally, and taught me how to fight and what was right and wrong.  He told me ‘Evil triumphs only when good ponies do nothing’.  I took up his mantle when he left for college, and protected my neighborhood from those who would wreck it and the ponies living there.”

          She glowered at Wind Whistler.  “We need to do something, or those harpies will win.”

          “We still need to know a little more, though,” Wind Whistler pointed out.  “I feel like we’re missing some important pieces to the puzzle.”

          A knock came at the door.

          “Yes?” Wind Whistler asked at the same time as Gusty.

          “Paradise is done translating the message and is ready to read it,” Fizzy answered.

* * *

          Everyone gathered in the meeting hall.  Wind Whistler took her seat in the back row.  Fizzy and Shady joined her along with Gusty.  Paradise stood at the podium off in the corner and watched as ponies took their seats.

          Gasps and murmurs came as Majesty hobbled into the room with Truly at her side.  Her cloak lay across her back, the silk ribbon hanging loose around her neck.  “Please, Queen Majesty, you should still be in bed.”

          “I’m just going to listen to the message,” Majesty snapped.  “I need to be here.”

          She took a step, and everyone jumped from their seat when she faltered.  However, she braced herself against a bench and slowly sat down.

          The dragons sat down in the front row and the room became silent.

          Paradise cleared her throat.  “I translated this as best I could.  Some of the sentence structure is going to sound a little dated, so bear with me for some of it.”

She looked down at the sheet of paper in front of her and started reading, “If you are reading this, it means I have died and my family’s dynasty and the empire we built over the centuries have collapsed because of my misjudgment.  I am the last of the Valkyrie Queens and you are my descendent. Whether you are my daughter, who is but a babe as I write this, or are from a time centuries hence, you share my blood.”

          “Apparently she didn’t think talking ponies would find it first,” Firefly whispered.

          She got a hush from another pony.

          Paradise continued reading, “To begin with, my descendant, I should tell you the history of our family and how we became the Valkyrie Queens and built the empire that spanned this great landmass.  The first Valkyrie Queen was born a shepard’s daughter in highlands north of the Grand Fjord.  She was in love with a young soldier in the Grand Fjord earl’s army.  However, they were in yet another war with the neighboring Fjord of Rivers over territory, timber, other resources, and where a line went on a sheet of paper.

          “The earl’s berserker was killed in combat, and her beloved was chosen to replace him.  She feared for him.  The medicine berserkers used to release their strength stole their minds and less of it would return the more they used it.  The man she loved could be taken from her.  However, there was nothing she could do.

          “One day, she was tending her sheep in the Useless Fjord where the rocks blocked boats from entering.  Her family, looking to escape the ravages of the latest war, had hidden themselves in what the rest of the world considered a waste.  She came across a cave near a waterfall.  One of her sheep had disappeared into it, so she followed it.  She discovered a well with metal walls making it roughly square.  Being of a curious nature, she tied as many ropes together as she to send a buck down.  However, there was no water.  She decided to climb down to see why such a deep well was dry so close to water.  She found herself in a chamber with the machine you see before you.

          “Although a shepard’s daughter, she was quite intelligent along with being curious and was able to figure out how to make the machine work and what it did.  It allowed her to travel anywhere in the world instantly.  She realized it gave her power, and she could use that power to save her beloved.

          “Even with this power, the earls would never listen to a mere woman.  However, they may listen to a demigod.  Using the machine, she emerged on the field on which a great battle would be fought between two earls’ armies.  She declared herself a valkyrie, a handmaiden of the Æsir, the gods of Boreas.  She called the portal she stepped through the Bifröst, the burning rainbow bridge the Æsir used to travel between this world of Midgard and their realm of Asgard, and said she had been given its power by them.  She claimed the Æsir were displeased with how fruitless they had made war and how senseless they had made death.  The valyries were meant to choose who would join Odin in the halls of Valhalla and or Freya on the battlefield of Fólkvanr.  She said those killed in these pointless wars would be deserving of neither.  She was instead sent here and made mortal to serve as their queen and lead all of Boreas into a new era of unity and prosperity.

          “The earls objected, calling her a fraud, but their men quickly threw down their arms and swore their allegiance to her.  She was crowned queen of all of Boreas from the Great Mountains to the northern tip of its coast, and she married her beloved.  He became her consort and would never know the effects of the berserkers’ medicine.”

          “Oh, how romantic,” Heart Throb gushed.

          “Although this was initially to save her beloved, the first Valkyrie Queen dedicated her life to ruling her new kingdom and subjects justly.  She wished to end the infighting amongst the Boreans, and believed fairness was what was needed.  The earls eventually accepted their positions as nobility, and the people prospered in this new era of peace.

          “She abolished the barbaric practices such as that of slavery, making the foreigners brought to Boreas freedmen.  She made sure there would never again be berserkers, outlawing the manufacture of their evil medicine.  However, she also encouraged the arts and sciences that the Boreans had long being developing.

          “For generations since, our family has ruled Boreas.  Along with the Bifröst itself, the chamber held information and records of different technologies of the civilization that built it some untold ages ago.  It explained how to generate and control lightning to power devices, as well as formulas for making different materials.  It also had records of locations where important resources needed to build a more advanced civilization were abundant.  Over the course of six centuries, Boreas went from a backwater of feuding earls on the edge of the world to a mighty empire with a technological and cultural prowess second to none.

          “Obviously this was all built on a lie.  The Bifröst and all the technology learned from it were not from the Æsir, but a relic left behind by a long dead civilization.  That fact remains true no matter what good it did the people of Boreas.  I tell you this first to keep you grounded.  Despite the claims, we are not divine and the machine before you was not a gift from any gods but salvaged.  We are mortal and fallible, something I forgot and led to the state I am in now.

          “As I write this, Boreas has come under attack by harpies from lands to the south.  It is a plague we brought on ourselves.  Something caused the sky to become like spoiled milk and the sun to dim.  Winters lasted longer and not even the summer was safe from frost.  Our crops were dying and my people were starving.  In desperation, I decided to look to the south for food to feed my people until this long winter past.  Fearing a refusal and desperate to quell our hunger pangs, I gave in to the old instincts of our people and ordered it be a raid where the food would be taken by force.

          “However, my expedition came across these flying monsters no spear could reach and they could tear a man asunder with only their talons.  My soldiers escaped with heavy losses, but the harpies must have looked upon our Bifröst with lust.  The long winter finally ended and the sky returned to its natural color as the sun regained its original luster.  It seemed our terrible crisis was over.  However, that is when the harpies arrived, demanding the Bifröst be surrendered to them or they would bring endless bloodshed to us.

          “They are rampaging across my empire like wolves as I write this, leaving death and destruction in their wake.  All of the ancient technology we have recreated is useless against them.  Sadly, we never found records on how the ancient people built their weapons.

          “Our one light of hope is my family has kept the location of the Bifröst a closely held secret among other things.  The harpies are searching the heartland, believing it is in the highlands surrounding the capital, not in this lonely fjord no one cares about.  Unfortunately, this has done nothing to protect my people from their wrath as the harpies have only become more violent as their searches turn up empty.

          “The only possible weapon I have to combat them is the key to the Bifröst, the locket you must possess in order to awaken this machine and find this message.  The rainbow inside does not merely unlock the Bifröst’s sleep, but can also be used to attack and defend.  The locket is sealed by magic so only my bloodline can open it.  However, its connection with the Bifröst is so great, not even that magic to hold it back from performing its primary purpose of unlocking it.  That is why it must be kept safe from generation to generation.  I do not wish to think what would happen if it fell into the wrong hands.

          “I am about to face the harpies directly in what I hope will be one decisive battle.  If I succeed, then this message will be erased, serving no purpose.  I will have saved my empire and teach the lessons I have learned to the following generations.  It is my hope that is the case, as I do not wish to die or see this great land my ancestors stewarded fall back into the tribalism that once plagued it.  However, as I prepare for a final confrontation with the harpies, I realize there is a very real possibility I will lose my life and my empire and its secrets will fall with me.  That is why I have made some contingencies.

          “If I should fall in battle, the Ragnarök Protocol, instituted by my great grandmother, will come into effect.  This is a last, desperate act to protect the Bifröst from falling into enemy hands; and if you are reading this message it was initiated.  The locket will be removed from the battlefield immediately and taken back to the capital.  My daughter will be taken away along with the locket and raised as a commoner.  Fortunately, she is young enough she will know nothing of her original parentage.  All she will be taught out of the ordinary is to protect the locket and pass it on to her eldest daughter on the night she begins her fourteenth year and to continue that tradition from generation to generation.  For it is only after entering fourteenth year that it wielder can use the key as a weapon as well.  Before then, it is simply a key to them.

          “Also, the main targeting part of the Bifröst is to be removed and hidden in a secret vault in another part of Boreas.  This main piece of the machine has a primitive targeting system and limited range without that part.  Similarly, the part removed has a limited ability to make portals.  Separate, they are of limited use compared to the whole they create.  Once this machine is unlocked, the locket can lead you, and only you, to the other part.

          “Oh, and if by chance you are not my descendent, then you might have found the locket and activated the Bifröst.  However, you will never be able to find the missing part without my descendent.  You will have to contend with its limits and never learn its full secrets.  Also, while the controls will adjust to suit my descendant’s present language as it did when my ancestor first discovered it, it will remain in the current Borean language for anyone else.

          “If you are my descendent, uniting the parts will not only complete the machine’s power, but give you access to all of the accumulated knowledge of the Borean Empire including that which we learned from the ancient people who built it.  Use it to rebuild our civilization only better and wiser.  Assist the good in fighting the wicked and make this world a better place for it.”

          “Above all, this machine and its secrets must never fall into the talons of the harpies.  If they gain the power to travel anywhere and the secrets of the ancients, they will be able to spread destruction to all corners of the planet unabated.

          “I must go now.  History will be made or end within the hour.  If you are my daughter, know that I love you with all my heart.  Good bye for now and, if you are reading this, forever.”

          Paradise looked up, her eyes a little misty.  She reached under her glasses and wiped her eyes.  “It’s a bit much to know I read some of the last words of a real person.”

          Majesty was wobbling her seat.  Truly helped her onto her hooves.  “Okay, Queen Majesty, time to go back to bed.”  Truly held her up to the upper exit.

          “Well, my brain is officially fried,” Gusty said.  “Any of you get half of all that?”

          Wind Whistler sat there, synthesizing it all.  Much of it was rhetorical fluff, a relic of a civilization that had come into a means to write easily.  Tapping a few keys allowed you to create a word.  She needed to sift out the actual information.

          They now knew why the panel was so lopsided.  A part of it was literally missing.  It also explained why the machine had the ability to target by latitude and longitude, but used a polar coordinate system.

          Her mouth bent up in a grin before she could think better of it.

          “What?” Gusty asked.

          “I think I have the last pieces to this puzzle,” Wind Whistler said.

          Wind Whistler looked at the ponies in the room.  She knew she could trust any of them, but the harpies had a telepath.  As few ponies as possible needed to know the details.  “Let’s get out of here.”

          They left the meeting hall, and Wind Whistler ushered them into one of the second floor’s bathrooms.  She looked out at the empty hall before closing the door.

          “Is she always like this?” Gusty asked.

          “I don’t really know,” Shady answered.

          “Sorry for the secrecy, but knowing our enemy could read minds, the dissemination of information must be limited,” Wind Whistler said.  “I believe I know how to definitively defeat the harpies.”

          “Really?” Fizzy asked eagerly.

          Wind Whistler nodded.  “We’re going to surrender.”

          They looked at her dumbstruck.  “Come again?” Shady asked.

* * *

          “Yoo hoo, harpies!” Heart Throb called out loudly.  She waved the pole anchoring a white bed sheet she was carrying.  “Can we talk?”

          Wind Whistler watched her fly in a broad circle above them.  The sun was getting low in the sky.

          “Are you sure the harpies are here?” Gusty asked.

          “No, but this is the most logical choice,” Wind Whistler answered.  “It is the closest portion of the mainland to the islands, and local farmers reporting livestock missing and bloodstains in their fields this late afternoon suggests they have been active here since being driven from their stronghold.”

          “I’m just hoping a white flag means the same thing here as in Equestria,” Shady whimpered.

          Wind Whistler looked to Ribbon.  “Anything?”

          Ribbon shook her head.  “I’m not picking up anything as of yet.  Though, I’m not actively scanning for minds in case that male is in the area.  He would pick up on them.  I’m more concerned with any psychic energy from him.”

          “Hey!”  Heart Throb waved the flag.  “I’m here to discuss our surrender!  You could at least be polite enough to come out!”

          “If they don’t show up before the sun sets, let’s call it a night and try again in the morning,” Ribbon said.

          Several large, black silhouettes glided from some nearby mountains.  The harpies were quick to surround Heart Throb.

          “Here we go,” Gusty said.

* * *

          Heart Throb spun around at the five harpies around her.  They were massive creatures now that she could see them in flight.  “There you are, darlings.  I must say, you are all the more impressive in the air.”

          The harpy with the flame red hair sneered.  “What is this about you surrendering?”

          “It’s like I said, darling—” Heart Throb presented her white flag. “—we’re surrendering.  If you want the locket, you can have it.”  She worked the locket off from around her neck and onto her leg.

          The harpy snatched the locket away.  She looked at it and wheezed a laugh.  “We have it.  I thought the Glorious Alpha was crazy, but we finally have it.”

          “What about the pony?” another harpy asked.

          Heart Throb held up her flag, hoping it was right.  “I came under a flag of truce.”

          “Forget her,” the harpy with red hair said.  “We have what we came for.  Let’s get back to the others.”

          The harpies flew from Heart Throb and quickly disappeared into the mountains again.

          Heart Throb huffed.  “What rude creatures.”

          A flickering light caught her eye from the surface.  She looked down at a point of light from the edge of a forest.  When it stopped, Wind Whistler emerged from the cover.

          Heart Throb descended to the edge of the woods as Gusty, Fizzy, Shady, and Ribbon joined Wind Whistler.  “What are you doing here?”

          “We were keeping an on you to make sure everything went right,” Wind Whistler answered.

          “Well, I thank you for your concern,” Heart Throb said.  “The harpies have the locket, and I must say, after all that’s happened, I feel terrible to simply wash our hooves of this.”

          Wind Whistler’s mouth bent down in a slight but definite frown.  “We’ve washed our hooves of nothing.”

          Heart Throb pointed up towards those mountains.  “But we just gave them the locket.  You said we were surrendering.”

          “We had to lie to you because of the telepath,” Wind Whistler explained.  “If he had been there to scan your mind, we needed you to genuinely believe we were giving up.”

          Heart Throb stood there for a split second, struck completely speechless.  “Well, I honestly don’t know what to say to that.”

          “We need to go after them and see what they do with it,” Gusty interjected.  “Come on.”

* * *

          Alecta watched the sun slowly sink towards the horizon.  She was a little sad to see it preparing to disappear from view.  It also meant her dreams were disappearing as well.  She wished they had come north sooner so they would have had more time.  She wished she had sent a competent harpy to retrieve the locket in the first place.  Most of all, she wished she had never heard of those blasted ponies.

          She should also hunt down that greedy wizard and kill him.  She said he had until sundown for them to have the locket.  She needed to keep her word after all.

          However, what had happened had happened.  They were out of time.  Without the stronghold, keeping the girl was more of a bother than she was worth anyway.

          She turned back to the girl sitting on the ground.  She backed up from her, but Bernice grabbed her and held her down.  Thanatos waddled around them with his neck extended and his eyes fixed on the girl, apparently knowing a death would soon be at hand.

          The girl tried to wrestle out of Bernice’s grasp.  “Why are you doing this to me?  I just raise horses.”

          At this point, it was enough of a sin for Alecta to be associated with any kind of equine.  However, that was not the reason.  “You are far more important than that.  I suppose you were never told of your true lineage.”

          Alecta flexed her talons.  “It must have been such a closely held secret that not even you know.  However, after centuries of careful observation, I know your secret.  I know the blood of the Valkyrie Queens runs through our veins.”

          The girl looked at her wide-eyed.  “What?  You’re crazy.  I’m just an ordinary girl.”

          Alecta smirked.  “Why did your mother protect that locket so jealously?  It’s the key to the legendary Bifröst.  I know because the ponies have used it to unlock the thing.”

          She looked at her talon.  “I was hoping to use you to take it for myself.”  She clenched it into a fist.  “That I would complete what my ancestor began a millennium ago.”  She clenched her teeth.  “However, those ponies have interfered, and now I’m out of time.  When the sun sets tomorrow, you will enter your fourteenth year, and you become too dangerous to be allowed to live.”

          She turned the harpies still on the plateau.  “My fellow harpies, you have followed me north to this place for a chance at glory.  While the Bifröst has once again been denied to us, we will leave having accomplished one thing.”  She looked down at the girl and opened her talon.  “Witness as I forever end the direct bloodline of the Valkyrie Queens.”

          She looked back at the sun, touching the horizon behind the surrounding mountains.  She turned back to the girl raised her talon and prepared to slash her throat.  The girl looked up at her with eyes wide in terror.  A part of her wanted to make the girl suffer, but business came before pleasure.  “In memory of the harpies of the past.  For the glory the harpies of the present.  To ensure all know the fate of those who dare oppose us—” she tensed, allowing a second to bask in the girl’s fear “—I finish what my namesake started a thousand years ago!  Farewell!”

          “Glorious Alpha!” Frona called out.

          Alecta looked up.  Frona and the others on patrol with her glided in and landed.  Frona held up the locket.  “We got it.”

          Alecta held out her talon, and Frona set it down in palm.  Alecta looked back at the sun.  It was still just visible.  Although through no actions of his own, the wizard would get to live.  She had to keep her word after all.

          Alecta let the red, heart-shaped pendent dangle from its leather strap.  She smirked at finally holding it.  Her ancestor only got to see the seemingly plain trinket, and here it was in her talon.

          “How did you get it?” Alecta asked.

          Frona shrugged.  “The ponies just gave it up.”  She puffed out her chest.  “We apparently broke their spirit in the last battle.”

          Alecta’s mouth sank into a frown.  “Or it’s a fake.”

          She turned to Gergo sitting there with his third eye open.  “Sense anything?”

          Gergo closed his third eye and opened his normal eyes.  “I sense nothing.”  He closed his normal eyes and opened his third eye again.

* * *

          Ribbon had been trained in the many ways to use her telepathic magic.  Along with reading minds; she could send psychic messages through dreams, perceive the telepathic scans by others, and various other things.

          One of the more difficult powers to master was defeating telepresence.  An individual using telepresence would send their astro body out of their physical one to perceive things beyond their normal senses.  She never mastered actually using the art herself, but she learned to detect it and trick it into not seeing her and others.  The astro body did not sense light, soundwaves, or any physical stimuli.  It used its mental powers like sonar, both picking up minds and sending out pulses of psychic energy to sense the world around it.  Keeping hidden was a simple task of creating destructive interference of their brain waves so they were undetectable as well as directing the mental pulses around them so they bounced off objects behind them.

          She could tell the male was out there, an unseen ghost looking for anything.  He was powerful, more powerful than anything she had encountered before.  However, telepresnece did not rely on power.  They were safe for the moment.

          “I swear, Wind Whistler,” Gusty grumbled, trying to keep her voice down, “if that locket points them back to the castle—”

          Ribbon shushed her.

          Shady had her glasses over her eyes.  She trembled.  “I can see him.  He’s out there looking around.”

          “We’re invisible as far as he can tell,” Ribbon whispered.

          Shady relaxed.  “He’s gone.”

* * *

          Alecta picked up the girl and set her down on her feet.  “There’s one way to find out if this is real.”  She shoved the locket into her hand and held it out.  “Where is the Bifröst?”

          The locket burst open and a stream of color and light shot from it.  The others jumped back from the brilliant light washing over the plateau as the sun was gone and this stream was brighter than noon.  Alecta simply watched, smirking at finally seeing the great and powerful rainbow wielded by the Valkyrie Queen.

          The stream went forward and then curved to the left.  Alecta expected it to point towards the fjord where those ponies were, but apparently not.  Alecta turned the girl until the stream was completely straight.  Concentrating on the magnetic directions, she determined where it pointed.  “North northeast.  Interesting.”

          She pushed the locket closed the stream cut off.  They were once again in darkness.  She turned the girl to her.  “Vengeance has waited more than a thousand years.  What is one more day?”

          Thanatos turned away and hunched over.

          “She’ll be dead soon enough, my pet,” Alecta said.

          She tossed her to Gergo.  “Put her under and prepare to leave.”  She held up the locket.  “The Bifröst is finally ours!”

* * *

          Twilight Mist sat up as the map lit up with a line starting near where Wind Whistler’s locator beacon was and reached across the screen.  She stopped and made sure she was alone, and no one saw her be taken surprise.  Of course she was alone, but it was a natural impulse.

          She took a few seconds to regain her composure before tapping the microphone button.  “What just happened out there?”

“An impressive light show,” Wind Whistler answered.  “You picked it up?”

          “This machine apparently detects that rainbow thing in the locket,” Twilight Mist replied.  The line faded in brightness, but remained.

“The beam of light extended beyond the horizon to the north northeast,” Wind Whistler said.  “Can you tell us its point of terminus?”

          Twilight Mist traced the faded line up across Boreas.  “It looks like it ends at an island almost due north from Dream Valley off the north coast of Boreas.”

“Is it within the range of the Bifröst?” Wind Whistler asked.

          “Just barely,” Twilight Mist answered.

“Then we have them,” Wind Whistler stated.  “They’re leaving, so wait a few minutes to bring us back.  We have preparations to make.”