//------------------------------// // Chapter 11 - Wait...What? // Story: Twilight Daylight // by thedarktome //------------------------------// "This... Is actually really good," Arcadia commented. Her eyes were trained on a dress that Merry had created. It was made of silk that touched the floor behind her while in the front bottom corner on the sides were her cutie marks. "You made this?" "You bet your sweet flank I did," Merry replied proudly. She was sitting behind a large red wooden desk looking at another dress she made. The two of them were in Merry's large luxury apartment in the castle, which had two floors, a kitchen, dining room, and three bedrooms. It was a house in itself. "I have five more styles with your name on it! Although, one of them wasn't really sewn," Merry admitted. "What do you mean?" Twilight looked from the ponyquin to her with a confused expression. "It's just flowers that go on your wings and end of your mane. It also comes with a crown and necklace." Merry leaned back in her chair and kicked up her rear hooves onto the desk. "It has the same little gem in it, just without the magic and all. And instead of it being gold with all that other mess, it's just a curved silver. Totally simple and without all that weight. Same with the necklace." "Well, I can't wait to see it!" Arcadia cheered enthusiastically. She held the dress in her magic then trotted over and sat down in front of her desk. "Yeah, you're wearing it on your Timool." "Oh my Faust, not again," Arcadia groaned, rolling her eyes. "Come on, girlfriend!" Merry scolded, throwing one of her pincushions at her. "You've been dating King Butt for approximately nine months, don't you think it's time to tie the knot?" "I don't know," she answered nervously, looking away for a moment. "I love Shimmering, I really do, I just..." She sighed, looking at the windows behind Merry. "I just don't want to go down a smooth road, trip over a large boulder, and fall into a bunch of mud that I can't get off, you know?" "I understand, but now YOU have to understand." She took her hooves off the desk and walked around to Arcadia. Then wrapped a hoof around her neck. "No matter where you are, where you come from, who you are, how SMART you are, etcetera... You will never know what will happen when you get married. It will be a mix of good things and bad things, it's never perfect. In some cases, one will outweigh the other. In MY case however, it was good! Look around, you see all this?" She gestured to the home around them, shifting Twilight's eyes. "Believe it or not, this was not a perk of being part of the royal family. Before, I just had a room like yours. This is what teamwork does. Me and my husband actually bought part of the upper floor thanks to my connections, along with this one, and changed it all. We worked and we planned. There's a laboratory on one side and a boutique on the other, a kitchen there, and three bedrooms. We even have a small library, which is mostly used by Blazing for his textbooks and such. We actually didn't plan this until AFTER the marriage. Many couples don't plan BEFORE marriage here. I don't know what it was like in Equestria, but here we just wing it because we love each other. We just let whatever happen happen." "So... I should just relax?" Arcadia asked. She wasn't so sure about that. "Relax and enjoy Psera. Actually, now that I think about it, the only places, excuse me, buildings you've ever really seen so far are the skyscrapers of Snow, Castle of the Gods, and Events in Eventa. That's it! Time for a tour!" "But I don't wanna—" "Shut up, Twilight, you're getting a tour if you're going to rule Psera alongside my brother. Now go get one." "Wait, I thought you were going to give me one," Arcadia assumed. She pointed at Merry. "Uhhh... No. Get your boyfriend to do it, more romantic. And, if he doesn't, just say 'I'll tell mom.' Get's 'em everytime." After grabbing her dresses, floral items, crown, and hoofshoes, Arcadia left her room and headed down the grand beautiful but mostly empty halls back to her own to drop them off. Afterwards she was going to look around Cop, hopefully with Madun if he isn't busy. He has been a little drowned in work lately, managing Psera Skies, the new cloud cities she created. There were eight of them, one over every city, named after each direction with a prefix of "Psera Skies". So it would be Psera Skies North, Northeast, East, Southeast, and so on. And they were all beautiful. Psera had multiple lakes set between each city, making a lot of clouds. They were much larger than Cloudsdale. Much larger. It took a week to make each since all it needed was to be molded with a lot of clouds, along with with a large circuit of her magic, allowing everything on the cloud to hold. Really useful for the Pserateps. And her magic hadn't barely even sunk. If anything it was only at ninety-eight percent. But that was also a little concerning. These ponies didn't know a thing about magic, only learning about it through her, when she restored the continent. But she also had a question about her magic. Would it fade away if the ponies of Psera didn't appreciate her? Shaking those thoughts away, she turned onto her hallway and froze, nearly bursting out in laughter. King Madun was knocking on her door with a load of Daffodils and roses attached to his body. He looked like a giant puff ball. Arcadia put a hoof to her mouth, trying not to guffaw. "Twilight, it's me! I have a gift...well, gifts." He knocked again and waited patiently, making the mare laugh as she walked towards him unnoticeably. He sighed and knocked again, hoping she was okay. "Twilight, are you okay? Do I need to come in?" "Have you thought that I'm, you know, maybe NOT in the room?" He looked to his right at his girlfriend smiling and raising an eyebrow at him. "Umm....uhhh...guh....mmm..." He stammered in embarrassment. Twilight chuckled and opened the door with her magic, walking in with the dresses and accessories behind her. "You're so cute when you're stumped." He waddled into the room with the huge amount of flowers attached to his body, looking at the dresses. "Yeah, well... Those dresses would make you look stunning. That's Merry's work, I can tell." "Yup!" She took the dresses and hung them up inside the closet carefully. She didn't want ruffled clothes. "This is all her. Thanks for the flowers, sweetheart, I can smell them from here." After they were hung up, she turned around and took the flowers off his body to hang them up around the room with some ribbons she conjured. "You're welcome. I'm done with work for the day, so I figured I'd spend it with you." He stretched out his wings, nearly knocking off a lamp while Arcadia grinned and walked over to him, giving him a nuzzle that he kindly returned. "I'd love that. Merry wanted me to take a tour of the cities, so I'm gonna do that and investigate the Ursa Major's tracks. It had to come from somewhere. Were there any enemies Psera had in the past?" "No. We have always kept to ourselves." "Are you sure? Her Majesty Molten Ice didn't have any contacts years prior?" Madun put his hoof to his chin, thinking. "Maybe. The only records I have of visitors and contacts is when I started in power, age fifteen." "Okay, I'll ask about those later. Right now, let's go out. YOU owe me a tour." "Nuh uh, MERRY owes you a tour." Arcadia pouted at him, making him cringe. "Twilight...." When her bottom lip started quivering, that did it. "Fine I'll give you a personal tour." She grinned and gave him a kiss before grabbing a rose and sticking it in her mane, along with her crown that was placed on her head. "Thank you. Now lets go." After everything that had happened in Ponyville with Twilight being seen rummaging through her library, Cloudsdale was held on a high alert with a noticeable Royal Guard presence. Luna was still skeptical about Twilight not wanting to attack Equestria, thus giving out the order to the guard. That was all nice and dandy, but there was still the matter revolving around her family. It was a beautiful calm day in Canterlot. An amazing one to Captain Shining Armor and Princess Cadance, who were standing with Flurry Heart on the steps of Twilight Velvet and Night Light's home. Shining Armor sighed before knocking on his parents' door, which opened almost instantly. Twilight Velvet looked at them with a hopeful smile. "Any news?" She asked. Shining and Cadance sighed, shaking their heads while Flurry Heart jumped off her father's back and onto Night Light's muzzle with a babyish giggle. He looked at her before plucking her off and tossing her onto his back. "Nothing," Shining answered. He walked past his parents to the inside. "At all. We started our own private investigation and still nothing. Leave it to Twilight to outsmart Equestria." Twilight Velvet sighed and coalesced. "I'll say. Nine months and still nothing. Cookies?" She held out a pan that was sitting nearby with chocolate chip cookies while Night Light shut the door. Shining and Cadance took one and Flurry four. "Thanks mom. We're doing everything we can at this point." They walked inside and took a seat in the living room, sighing. Cadance took a bite out of her cookie and let the chocolate hit her taste buds. Humming in delight. Then said, "We were informed by Celestia for her reasons." "What was it?" Night Light asked desperately. "The respectful crowning. She was never informed that it was out of respect and wasn't ascended to Princess." Twilight Velvet grunted. "Celestia told me they were going to tell her way, way, wayyy before the crowning. Four years later, she finds out on her own, of course she's upset!" "She must think she was mocked. Used. Made fun of." Night Light ate a bit of his cookie before continuing. "Most of Equestria knew about her status, yet no one told her. She's upset. Angry." "Probably hating everything about Equestria," Cadance whispered while Flurry Heart settled between her legs, crumbs on her face. "Flurry, you're four. You have to wipe your face after you eat." "My face is fine, see?" She looked up and gave her a smile. Cadance sighed and grabbed a napkin. Then began wiping it herself. "I'll have to get aunt Rarity to teach you how to be a lady," she thought out loud. Flurry tried pushing away her hoof and groaned, making the others chuckle. "Where's aunty Twilight?" She asked once Cadance finished. "Aunty Twilight is out of town," Twilight Velvet answered. After finishing off her cookie, she walked over and picked up the little filly. "Somepony's starting school soon." "I don't wanna go to school!" She cried, crossing her hooves. "Everyone goes to school, little Princess. You can make some friends and have fun, all learning in the process. You'll like it, I promise." Flurry Heart only gave a grunt in response. *** Just like he promised, Madun took Arcadia out for a tour of Cop. It was once again a sunny day, heating up the coats of the Pserateps that would bow to King Madun as he walked past and wave to Arcadia, and the armor of the guard that accompanied them. Besides governmental buildings, Cop had a collection of restaurants, skyscrapers, museums, parks, homes and apartments, highways for the quickly flying Pserateps, and so much more. The two were currently walking around a circle in the city, surrounded by tall office buildings that had a lot of glass windows. "And this is a restaurant, specializing in smoothies," Madun said. He pointed to his right at a small black and white building. It's front had windows, allowing them sights of the inside. It looked like a small casual lounge. "Ooohhh, why have we never gone there?" Arcadia asked in disbelief. Before they left, she decided to wear one of the designs Merry had made for her. The necklace. It did look really good on her. "Because we barely leave the castle. We really should get out more. You see anything strange yet?" Twilight nodded before lifting her wing, and pulling out a plastic bag with something black in it. "Chitin," she announced. "What?" She turned his way and repeated, "Chitin. It's a material found on the exoskeletons of arthropods and is the cell walls of fungi. I feel like I've seen this somewhere before, but I can't remember where. I found this caught onto one of the destroyed structures we have yet to move and rebuild." They stared at it for awhile before Twilight sighed and put it back under her wing. "I'll figure it out later. Where did the Ursa Major first attack?" "Snow." "Okay, we'll have to go there soon, there could be more clues around destroyed structures. If there's more Chitin, then it's a clue of the Ursa. I can then analyze and find its source, helping me discover the origin. It'll take awhile though." "How long?" The two waved at a group of Pseratep foals passing by eating ice cream. Three of them. "Well, probably a month or two, because there could be more leads. So far, the only thing we know of is that the Ursa Major attacked Snow first. What about all the other cities?" "Oh, we have a list of the attack times and where it struck next. But there was something really strange about it." Arcadia looked at him intrigued. "All eight cities are in a circle, with cop in the center. Strange thing about it is—" "Wait wait, hold on. I think you're forgetting something. You said Cop is in the center with eight cities, but......I only remember you counting seven. What's the eighth?" Madun made an "oh" with his mouth before clearing his throat. Arcadia was practically family and a registered citizen. She had the right to know this. "There is a compound northeast of Cop, called Serl. It is more of a compound than a city because it is a large facility. There isn't anything there that you would call fun.....unless you like all that science stuff." "I do and I'm going there!" Madun just stopped and stared at her, a smile on her face. "Well, let me tell you this first. It helps us get better and find out what materials to make, build, and to help us grow. The foundation of Psera. Fortunately, it was not attacked by the Ursa Major because it is so far away from the rest of us. Whereas the cities are all eighty by eighty, Serl is a little ways away from here. You take the road northeast through the mountain and travel at a Pseratep speed for a few hours until you see the city. Along the way, you will see nothing at all. Except sand and heat. It is a very stressful journey on hoof, one of the things we believe caused Pserateps to have large wings. We get to places far faster than another pony, I guess. Don't have anything to compare us to, but it's alright. "The reason we put it so far out there is in case of an attack, like recently. Believe it or not, without Serl, we would have none of this. The food we eat, the air we breath, the massive amount of gold we are walking over right now, was all discovered by the brilliant minds of Serl. Which is why I didn't tell you. Serl is over Top Secret. We cannot tell anypony about it." "Wait, what about gold?" "Did you hear anything else I just said?" Madun asked blandly. "Yes I did, but we're walking on concrete right now, not gold." "And underneath this concrete is gold. Yes you have your soil, pipes, and power cables. But underneath all of that, three miles down, is a land full of gold. So much so in fact that we are making a new line of armor and weaponry, in case of another attack. We believe... That this dirt, water, and everything else was piling up on top of this land during the years, allowing us to live here." "Are you telling me......there is a gold mine as big as big as this continent underneath us?" Arcadia asked tentatively. Madun nodded. "Yep!" Arcadia just stopped and stared at him wide-eyed. This place was just unbelievable. "This country is so... Nevermind. What other places are there to look at?" Madun wrapped a wing over her and walked her around some more, letting her finally get a feel for the place. *** That afternoon after the tour, Twilight gave her boyfriend a kiss and walked back into her room, placing the evidence bag on the bed, and the crown and necklace on the table beside it. Afterwards she stretched and looked out the window. The Twilight in the distance was making a big impact on the sights of the city below. It looked so peaceful. Very peaceful. Reminded her of her real name. The only one that was really allowed to use it was Madun. And he only uses it if he's trying to woo her, make a point, or something else. Hopefully, she wouldn't forget her name. She really doubted that she would, but... Things happen sometimes. Twilight just hoped this isn't one of those times.