Scootaloo and her friends found themselves beside a fire less than an hour later. They’d made their way to the palace at the center of the city and had been escorted into a study by a pair of guards while Shining Armor went to retrieve his wife. The group had wasted no time in moving as close to the fire as they could comfortably get while they waited.
The study door opened and Princess Cadence entered, with Shining Armor following closely behind. The princess nodded in greeting as she came to a stop in front of them. “Welcome, everypony. Spike. I’m glad to see you. We’ve been worried ever since we returned to the Crystal Empire.”
Spike stepped forward, giving Cadance a hug, which she returned. “Yeah, Shining Armor said the same thing. I’m fine though, see?” He stepped back and spread his arms. “Uh, these are Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom.”
Cadence turned her attention to them, smiling warmly. “Yes, I remember you three. You were the flower fillies at my wedding, weren’t you?”
“Yep,” Apple Bloom said, waving. She froze a moment later, dropped her hoof, and inclined her head. “Er, Ah mean, yes, your majesty.”
Cadence smiled softly and motioned with her hoof for Apple Bloom to straighten. “I received your letter yesterday. You said you had more information?”
Spike nodded. “Yeah. We actually went to this place called Libiris.” And with that Spike launched into a full explanation of the past two weeks, with the occasional reminder from Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle.
Cadence and Shining Armor listened, asking the occasional question, until he’d finished. “And so we were hoping you could use the Crystal Heart to defeat Nocturne, like you did with Sombra.”
Cadence and Shining Armor looked at each other. Cadence sighed. “You four have been through a lot, and the information you’ve uncovered will be useful, I’m sure. Unfortunately, as you’ve already seen, we can’t risk removing the Crystal Heart from the palace.”
“Yeah, we were afraid you’d say that,” Spike said.
“I’m sorry. I wish it were different, but even with it protecting us, we’re at the edge of what we can withstand already. We’re preparing an evacuation, but it will take days at the very least to execute. Once everypony is safe, we might try to use the heart, but I don’t know how we would employ it as a weapon against this Nocturne creature.”
Shining Armor nodded in agreement. “Honestly, even now, we don’t know all that much about how the Crystal Heart works. We just sort of let it do it’s own thing, and occasionally charge it up with a crystalling or fair.”
“Well,” Sweetie Belle said, “Do you have any other super powerful magic artifacts lying around?”
“Uh, no. Sorry.”
Sweetie Belle shrugged. “Eh, worth a shot. Any other ideas, Scootaloo?”
Scootaloo nodded and everypony focused on her. She suddenly wished she’d said no, but forced the words out. “Uh, sort of. But uh... I was kind of thinking we might have to end up, sort of... fighting them? Like, with ponies, not super magic.”
The room was silent. Apple Bloom shook her head after a few seconds. “Now hold up. You didn’t mention that earlier.”
“Yeah, there’s no way normal ponies could beat her,” Spike added. “She blew up Canterlot with one spell. We can’t fight her.”
Scootaloo nodded. Like she could forget. She’d gotten a front row seat to that particular show. “Trust me, I know. I don’t mean we would actually fight Nocturne. That would be suicide.” She shook her head and paced away from the group. “We need to find something else. Something like the elements. Being able to use the Crystal Heart would have been nice, but it’s not our only option. At least, I hope it’s not. I wanted to talk to Starlight Glimmer, Twilight’s old student, to see if she knows anything that might be useful. She was supposed to be really good at magic, right?”
The others nodded. “I also wanted to ask her if she could come look at the prison Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are in. But even if we come up with some way of beating Nocturne, we need help.
“There’s an army of changelings and Rosalia to deal with. Last time we had a plan, but Rosalia beat us before we had a chance to do anything with it. We won’t even get close to Nocturne if it’s just six of us again. You’re the princess of the Crystal Empire, and you’re the captain of the Royal Guard. If any ponies can help, it’s you two.”
Cadence and Shining Armor looked at each other again. They were silent, considering her words for a few minutes, before Cadence spoke. “We want to help, but too much of this plan relies on possibilities. I can’t promise to send ponies to a fight that we have no way of winning.” She shook her head. “You can go talk to Starlight Glimmer tomorrow. She’s currently staying with her friend Sunburst. Maybe the two of them can point you in the direction of a solution. I’ll have my court wizards continue looking through the castle archives as well. We can speak again about fighting the changelings and Queen Rosalia once we’ve found a way to deal with Nocturne.”
*****
Spike gave the door a series of quick knocks. There were a few seconds of silence followed by shuffling noises on the other side.
Scootaloo shifted her weight from one side to the other, waiting. A few more seconds passed, and she considered trying the door knob for a moment, just to get out of the cold.
The door opened before she could act, and the face of a purple unicorn appeared. Scootaloo recognized Starlight Glimmer, though the two hadn’t really had the chance to get to know each other. She had been Twilight’s student, staying in Ponyville for a time. When Twilight began staying in Canterlot more often as part of the royalty, she’d sent Starlight to the Crystal Empire to continue her studies in magic.
Starlight blinked in surprise. “Oh, Spike! Come in, everypony.” She backed away and the ponies quickly entered the warm house.
Spike gave Starlight a quick hug. “Hiya, Starlight. Long time.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that. I’ve been meaning to visit, really. It’s just the work we’ve been doing has been so fascinating.”
Apple Bloom perked up, looking around the room. It should have been a living room, but instead of seating and a coffee table, it was covered in bookcases, work tables, and stacks and stacks of books. There didn’t seem to be another pony, however. “We? Do ya mean that other unicorn that was supposed to be here?”
“Oh, yes,” Stalight said. “Say hi, Sunburst.”
Another voice spoke out from behind one of the piles of books on a table. “Huh? Yeah, sure.”
Starlight Glimmer sighed. “Just a second.” She walked over to the table, horn glowing. A second later a chair holding an orange stallion slid into view. He was holding a book in a golden glow and didn’t seem to notice the movement. Starlight’s horn glowed brighter, the glow around the book changed to blue, and the book moved away from the stallion to settle down on a table next to Sweetie Belle.
“Hey! I was— Oh, guests. Hello, everypony.”
Spike waved. “Hi, Sunburst.”
“Oh, Spike! Hi. Sorry, I was just rereading Malkiora's Meteorologic Manual, and I guess I spaced out. Uh, how’d I get over here?”
“Sunburst and I have been trying to figure out a way to calm the storm clouds before they reach the city,” Starlight said.
Sweetie Belle opened the book to a random page. “Any luck?”
Sunburst sighed. “Unfortunately no. There aren’t many weather spells that take windigo magic into account. In fact, there’s almost no empirical studies on windigos at all. It’s all been very frustrating.”
Apple Bloom grinned. “Well, yer in luck, cause we know what’s stirrin’ up them windigos.”
Starlight and Sunburst blinked and asked in unison, “You do?” Sunburst grinned. “That’s great news!”
Sweetie Belle bobbed her head. “Yep. It’s the first changeling queen, Nocturne.”
“That’s terrible news!” Starburst said.
“The thing that blew up Canterlot? That’s what’s causing the storm?” Starlight asked. “Are you sure?”
Spike nodded and once again launched into an explanation of what they had learned in Libiris.
“So if we find a way to beat Nocturne, the windigos should go back to where they were living before.”
“That’s actually why we came here,” Scootaloo added. “We were hoping you could help us.”
“How?” Starlight asked.
“Well, we were wondering if you knew of any magical artifacts like the Elements of Harmony that could be used to beat her.”
“Hmm.” Sunburst pulled a book from one of the nearby shelves and started flipping through it. A second book joined the first in the air before him, and then a third. “There’s actually a surprisingly large number of lost magics hinted at in various legends. The Alicorn Amulet, the Dragon Lord’s Mantle, Archive of the Adanhym, the list goes on.” He turned one of the books to show the group a simple picture of an uneven stone marked with symbols. Scootaloo wasn’t sure what it was supposed to be. “The problem with lost artifacts is that they’re all, well, lost. Maybe if you gave me a few weeks, I could narrow the list of possible locations of a few of them down to a few dozen.”
“I’m not sure the Crystal Empire has a few weeks,” Sweetie Belle said.
Starlight Glimmer frowned. “What about the elements? We heard about what happened to Twilight and the others, but...” She faltered. Spike reached out to put a comforting hand on her shoulder. She swallowed hard and continued. “But if we can get them back, I’m sure Sunburst and I could figure out a way to change them back. I owe Twilight that much at least.”
“Unfortunately, the elements aren’t an option this time, even after we get everypony back,” Spike said. “They were destroyed.”
“Uh,” Sunburst said, raising a hoof for attention. “Sorry, but the Elements of Harmony are some of the most powerful artifacts known to pony kind. They might be broken, but it would take something extreme to destroy them outright.” Another book floated off the shelves, this one trimmed with gold. Scootaloo saw the title before he opened it: Trotter’s Tome of Reliquary. “Something that strong can’t be put back together with just one spell, we learned that lesson a while ago, but combining the spell of relic reconstitution with the element’s own magic and a few more that I’ll need to look up could do the trick. How badly were they damaged?”
Spike fidgetted and glanced away. “Uh, well, they were kind of completely vaporized into dust?”
“Oh.” Sunburst slowly closed the book and returned it to the shelf. “So, uh, Dragon Lord’s Mantle then. I think I might have a book about it somewhere around here.”
“Actually,” Scootaloo said, “there is something else you two might be able to help with. Do you know anything about the prison Nocturne came from? It’s where Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are right now. With them on our side, this would be a whole lot easier.”
Sunburst perked up. “Right, yes. We’ve heard descriptions. A giant ring of floating gemstones, right?” Scootaloo nodded.
“Enchantments always have two main components: structure and energy. We already knew Canterlot was built on a crossroads of ley lines,” Starlight said. “I’m guessing they’re what provide the energy for the prison.”
“Yeah,” Scootaloo said. “The lock to the prison was right where they all meet. I don’t really know how powerful it all was, but it was enough to knock Princess Celestia out for a few days when she was younger. I guess it has to be pretty strong magic if it’s able to hold something like Nocturne.”
“Any chance ya guys could break it open?”
Starlight and Sunburst looked at each other, hesitating. Starlight tilted her head. “Maybe?”
“Yes,” Sunburst agreed, “a solid maybe. But it would be dangerous. We’d have to be really careful.”
“Why’s that?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“Because when you’re dismantling an enchantment, there’s a chance the energy held in stasis will join with your own magic. For breaking apart smaller enchantments that’s not a problem, you might get a headache from the feedback, but if you try to smash something big enough to hold the princesses without taking appropriate safety measures, well, you wouldn’t be having any headaches. Like, ever again.”
“There are spells you can set up to mitigate the danger and protect you from any unexpected magical surges,” Starlight said, “but even they have their limits. We’re not saying it’s impossible, though. Maybe we could fashion some kind of key based on the lock’s original design. We’ll have to look at it to be sure. When are you going back?”
“Tomorrow morning,” Scootaloo said.
Starlight looked back at the room and then to Sunburst. “Well, then I guess we’d better pack our bags.”
*****
They met back up with Princess Cadence and Shining Armor when they returned to the palace. “So, Starlight Glimmer and Sunburst have agreed to accompany you to observe the prison holding Celestia and Luna?”
“Yeah,” Spike said. “They’re hoping they can recreate the key that freed Nocturne.”
“I’m glad your trip North bore fruit,” she said. “I do wish we could be of more help.”
“Then come with us,” Scootaloo said.
“Scootaloo,” Sweetie Belle said softly.
“No,” she answered more harshly than she intended. She hesitated, and then continued a bit more gently. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, Princess Cadence, but you’re in as much trouble as everypony else. If we don’t beat Nocturne, the Crystal Empire’s going to become a frozen wasteland even with the Crystal Heart. You said yesterday that you’re already organizing an evacuation, but normal ponies can manage that for you. You’re the only grown princess left. We need you.”
Cadence hesitated, looking down at Scootaloo with an expression of mixed worry and thoughtfulness.
Shining Armor shook his head. “No.”
“But—”
“You’re right,” Shining Armor said, cutting her off. “Cadence is the last princess. That means she has a duty to keep herself safe, not just for the Crystal Empire, but for all of Equestria.” He paused. “On the other hoof, I may not be an alicorn, but I could probably still find a way to be useful.” Scootaloo’s head pulled back, eyes widening in surprise.
Cadence’s gaze snapped to her husband. “Shining Armor?”
“They’re right,” he said. “We haven’t accomplished anything up here, and the changelings still have my sister.” He moved closer to her, voice dropping. “You have a job to do, but so do I. I’m tired of sitting here being useless. I’m going to go with them to Canterlot, I’m going to get as many volunteer’s as I can, and we’re going to do something about this.”
Cadence was silent for a few moments, opening her mouth as though to speak before stopping herself several times. Finally, she said, “Just be careful, okay?”
“Of course.”
Cadence raised her voice, addressing the group. “We need the Crystal Guard for the evacuation, but I’ll send as many as I can as soon as they’re available. For now, I’ll go inform Commander Sentry that he’ll be assuming Prince Shining Armor’s duties for the time being.” Without waiting for a response, she turned and left the room.
Shining Armor watched her go before turning back to the group. “Okay. When were you planning on leaving?”
“Tomorrow morning,” Spike answered. “We’re meeting Starlight and Sunburst at the train station.”
“Okay,” Shining Armor said. “Then I’ll see you in the morning. If you need anything, just let one of the guards know.” With that, he turned and followed Cadence out the door, probably to spend the rest of the day with his wife and daughter.
Scootaloo felt an uncomfortable twinge of guilt as she watched him go. He knew how dangerous this would be. She knew he was a grown stallion capable of making his own decision. Even so, she promised herself that she’d do whatever she could to make sure it wouldn’t be the last evening they spent together as a family.
*****
A path had been built on the sheer face of Canterlot Mountain, starting from the edge of the ruined city and doubling back and forth on itself up out of view. It was made of posts driven into the stone to hold up wooden ramps.
“What do you think that’s about?” Thistleroot asked once Mimic had pointed it out.
“Maybe for unicorns to get up to the prison?” Mimic said. “I imagine they’ve been studying it, trying to find a way to release the princesses. It’s probably easier than getting pegasi to carry them.”
“Yeah, probably. It’s been what, two weeks since Nocturne was released? Almost three? Maybe we should ask around and see if anypony’s learned anything yet.”
Mimic shook her head. “If Starswirl knew anything he’d have told us, and I doubt anypony else could do better than him.”
“True. Heh, imagine the look on his face once we free the princesses without him.” Though, to be fair, he’d seemed genuinely impressed with their work on Libiris.
He looked back up at the mountain. He couldn’t even make out the top of the path. “Those ramps aren’t going to be fun. I don’t know about you, but my hooves could use a nice hot soak. Maybe even a hooficure.”
“I have no idea what that is.”
Thistleroot gasped, though he couldn’t really find it in himself to be surprised. “We’re going to have to fix that as soon as possible.” He shook his head. “Okay, enough procrastinating. Let’s go save the world.”
“Yes,” Mimic said behind him, almost too quietly for him to hear.
The closer they’d gotten to Canterlot, the less enthusiastic she’d become. Not that he could blame her. He couldn’t imagine being in her position, having to act against her own kind. He knew they were doing the right thing, but even so, he couldn’t help but feel bad for her.
“Let’s get this over with,” she said.