Talon
Talon looked at the locked door and huffed. Sure, she wasn't really a member of the Order of Harmony. And sure, she had never really bought into the whole idea of a secret society to begin with, let alone one dedicated to following the instructions of some pony that died nearly a thousand years ago. It still stung a bit to be excluded so blatantly, though. Even Southern Storm had at least been invited, even if he didn't bother to show up. Still... even if they didn't want her in their Conclave thing, Talon was going to sit in the lounge and at least be there if one of her friends needed her.
This resolution lasted maybe an hour and a half before Talon went from bored to incredibly bored, not to mention restless. Dragons weren't meant to sit around all day in comfy chairs - maybe on gold, but that just got you Greed-Induced Bigness. She sighed at this thought and stood up to stretch - being there for her friends was a good thing, but they'd probably understand if she went for a walk or something. And with everypony focused on the Conclave, it might be the perfect opportunity to explore the House of Harmony without one of their minders on her. Talon had always loved to explore, the deeper the better. Half of Manehattan had been abandoned ruins and wartime bunkers, and as a hatchling she'd explored it all, much to the distress of the ponies who'd adopted her. But even as scared as they were for her safety, they'd understood. She never really got the chance to find out how they knew so much about dragons, or where they'd gotten her egg for that matter, but they'd understood that independence and solitude were important parts of growing up for a dragon.
The thought of them filled her mind as she quietly walked down the dark side hallways, keeping her claws up so that they wouldn't clack along the tiled floor - a trick she'd learned quite young to keep from waking the old war golems that were surprisingly common in the abandoned Loyalist bunkers. Despite being ponies, her parents - as she thought of them - taught her everything she knew about being a dragon. Her father, ever the handy earth pony, had built her a chimney at one point to safely practice her firebreathing. And her mother, worried as she might be, was ever the accomplice in Talon's little expeditions. She would knit Talon dark sweaters to protect her from the cold and hide her bright scales, she taught Talon how to pick locks and disable tripwires, and she was the one who'd taught the young dragon discipline and warned her about Greed-Induced Bigness. 'You get one item when you go out there,' her mother had said. 'One thing that catches your eye and you can't live without, and you leave the rest, no matter how much you want it.' And Talon did. No matter how poor her family got, she left every bit and every gem that she found, because she was terrified of turning into a monster.
"Oh, come on now, hon. You wouldn't have become a monster just fer a few bits." The voice that interrupted her reverie was rough but kind, with a thick farmpony drawl that actually made it hard for Talon to understand, with how used she was to the tones of city ponies. She looked around for the source of the voice and found a translucent orange pony standing by a doorway to her right. "Greed's a state of mind. You wouldn't have become some big monster just for takin' what you'd earned, especially since ya only wanted it for your family." She winked at Talon from under a bushy blonde mane, and turned to walk straight through the door - a door that stopped Talon cold when she tried to run after the ghost pony. It was locked - of course it was locked. And of course Talon had left her picks back at Stormy's house, because who takes treasure hunting supplies to sit in a waiting room? She sighed. This was going to take some preparation, and a bit of help from her favorite partner in crime.
Sour Apple
***3 Hours Later***
Sour sighed some as he walked out of the chamber. Whatever you could say about all this, it certainly wasn't boring. Even after Prism Star's rapid exit from the Conclave session, the old ponies had continued to argue for what felt like an eternity. At least they'd had the sense to call a recess after Midnight had asked to be excused - it was a little strange to keep carrying on after the pony they were arguing over had already left, but keeping it up after both foals were gone would have simply been insane.
Of course, then Midnight had muttered something about talking to a princess and rushed off to his room, leaving Sour Apple alone. Not that he minded, of course. A little quiet was wonderful after all of that excitement. He honestly only ever half-understood any of this stuff about ancient history, but even he got why the idea of Princess Twilight returning was big. When Sour was very little, his mother had always believed, or at least that's how he remembered it. Every night she'd tuck him into bed with a story about Twilight Sparkle, the wise old pony who lived in the stars and protected little colts and fillies who were good to their friends. Of course the reality had turned out far less fantastic, and in time Sour Apple had decided that only he could protect himself and his brother. Manehattan had a way of doing that to ponies. But some part of him still remembered those stories, and when times were truly desperate a lonely colt might even look up at the stars and pray. Every night, just as the little Apple was falling asleep, his mother would finish her story with a simple declaration of faith: 'Princess Twilight is gone now, but it's not forever, my strong sapling. One day she'll be back with the magic of friendship, and she'll set everypony free.'
Lost as he was in the bittersweet memory of his mother's bedtime stories, he nearly jumped out of his skin when somepony tapped him on the shoulder from behind. Sour Apple bucked his hind legs on instinct - he perhaps had Shimmer's training sessions to thank for becoming paranoid about being touched - and then whipped around to see that he had knocked a dazed-looking Talon into the wall. For some reason she was wearing a form-fitting black longcoat that admittedly suited her (and from the look of the embroidered hem and studded lapel was almost certainly a gift from Southern Storm, who if nothing else had fantastic style), but once he saw past that, he realized that she was holding one of her wings out at an odd angle. "T-Talon? You scared my cutie mark off!" Sour panted a little and looked at her wing. "Did I do that? Please tell me I didn't do that..."
She nodded and reached over her shoulder to start straightening the bones with little cracking noises that made Sour feel a little queasy. "You did, but it's all right. Wings heal fast and it doesn't even hurt that much - not as much as my chest, at least." Talon pulled a small roll of bandages out of a pocket inside her jacket and pressed it into his hooves. "Here, help me bind it up so it heals right. You know, you've got quite a kick."
"Thanks, I think?" With her guidance, Sour was able to wrap her wing properly. "You know, I kind of hoped you'd get bored and find something better to do than wait around for us, but I didn't think it would be an adventure in goth fashion."
"Ha, ha, ha," she responded sardonically. "If you must know, it was part of Stormy's apology for blowing up at me after his date with Cloudrunner. He had it custom-tailored, and thought it would come in handy if I ever went back to treasure-hunting. Um... in that vein..."
Talon began explaining the encounter she'd had with some form of ghost while everypony else was at the Conclave, and Sour could feel his right eyebrow slowly rising up in disbelief as she described it in great detail. "Okay, Talon, I'm going to stop you here," he said, raising his hoof to interrupt her just as the ghost had walked through the door. "You wandered off and you saw a ghost. A ghost. The ghost of Applejack. Applejack, Talon," he said, repeating himself as though he were talking to somepony stupid.
She glared back at Sour Apple. "Is that who it was? All I know is, I saw a ghost pony with orange fur and bushy blonde hair tied off at the base of her mane and tail, who talked to me in the most ridiculous accent I ever heard."
"Yeah, you just described Applejack. You know, legendary folk hero from old pony tales? Strong and brave and honest and all that garbage? Weren't you raised by an earth pony?" Sour felt frustrated with her for actually believing she'd seen something so silly.
Talon huffed at him, a little spurt of fire coming out of her mouth. "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot how much time my dad had to tell me about random dead Apples when he was breaking his back mining concrete!"
He took a couple of steps back at her angry response. "I... sorry." Sour Apple took a couple of deep breaths, feeling like he'd crossed a line somewhere. "I shouldn't have dragged your father into it, that was... that was probably a bit low of me." At least her father was still alive, though. "Look, um... I don't really believe in ghosts to begin with, but if I seem skeptical, it's mainly because Applejack was probably never real in the first place. All the stories are just so... out there. She's just somepony Apple moms tell their foals about to teach them to be honest."
"You know, most pegasi say Rainbow Dash was just a legend their moms told them so they'd grow up to be brave," Talon pointed out after a moment in a thoughtful tone. "After all, nopony could possibly fly faster than sound, right? And the Elements of Harmony are just a myth, too. But you-" She poked him in the chest for emphasis. "-found an Element of Harmony with her name on it. And you had visions of her or something that made you crazy enough to fight a metal dragon."
"I... I had a magic shield," he managed weakly, knowing that she'd trapped him. Forced to think about it that way, the idea of Applejack being real was a lot less silly.
"Yeah, you fought off a giant metal dragon with a three thousand year old relic from the mythical Lost Continent." She smirked at Sour's confusion. "I got Mid to look it up at one point out of curiosity. But the point is that I bet in a thousand years, ponies are going to say that story sounds pretty ridiculous too."
He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "I guess, maybe. But the fact remains that ghosts aren't a real thing. Not to mention that a pony revered for honesty supposedly told you that it was okay to steal."
Talon grimaced. "Yeah, that was a little weird. But that's just more reason to find her again, isn't it?" She shook her head. "I'd wanted to find her as much to tell her why she was wrong as anything else, but now I'm just confused and I want answers."
"You..." Sour Apple was practically speechless. "You... realize I'm a member of the Order now, right? I became an acolyte when I started training with Shimmer? Talon, there's nothing they can do to you, but but I could get into so much trouble!" He jabbed a hoof at her accusingly, then let it hang there for a moment before lowering it with a sigh. "But you're going to do this no matter what I say, because you're somehow even more stubborn than my brother. Fine. But we're going to do this carefully, because I saw Prism and her dad going that way."
It took Talon a moment to realize he'd agreed. "Come on , Sour, when did you turn into such a stick- Wait, what?"
He sighed. "I will help you sneak into a locked, supposedly haunted room in a restricted hallway, because as much as I don't want to get in trouble, I'm even less happy about the idea of letting you go in there alone. Somepony has to be there to keep you safe from whatever's locked in there." In addition to fighting and fieldcraft, his training with Shimmer had included long, boring lectures on the history of the Order - including some of the artifacts that they'd locked away over the years. The idea of what they might be keeping in a locked vault might have been scary, but the idea of Talon messing with the Alicorn Amulet or a Siren Gem was even worse.
Thankfully, making it back to the door was easy. Talon had a great sense of direction, and somehow there was nopony whatsoever between them and the door. "Alright," Sour said when they reached it. "Still time to back out, you know. Not saying either of us is scared, but... I still think this is a really bad idea."
"Sounds like you're scared," Talon said with a little laugh as she pulled a small set of steel picks from one of her coat's many interior pockets. "You can always stay here and keep a lookout."
Sour Apple shook his head. "Not a chance. What if I have to save you again, huh?" He went to hit her on the arm playfully then stopped short - he didn't want to mess up her concentration when she appeared to be sliding a small probe into the lock.
"Just tell me if you see a pony coming," she replied in an irritated tone. "Feels like... a lot of tumblers. This is a crazy lock, Sour. I'm... I'll do this quick and dirty, I guess. If anypony asks what happened to this door, I'll take the blame."
"Wait, what? What are you doing, Talon?!"
Talon pulled her probe back out and took a deep breath like she was about to breathe fire, but just as she was about to release it, Sour heard the lock open with a quiet chunk and quickly opened it before she could damage the door and incriminate them. She breathed out the fire into her claws to stifle it and coughed a couple times. "Oof... It sucks trying to hold it back after you've already started."
Sour shook his head. "You're crazy, trying to do that. They'd have known it was you in a heartbeat - you're probably the only dragon in the whole city." He sighed at her. "I guess it's done, though, right? Let's see what's in there."
"Yeah," Talon agreed. She put away the probe and picks, and pulled out a small candle, lighting it with a little cough.
"How much stuff do you have in that damn coat?" He followed her into the darkened room, sticking to the little circle of blue light produced by her candle.
"Sooo much stuff." She laughed appreciatively. "It's fantastic." What little they could see in the room looked... completely empty. But it was also large enough that they couldn't see the walls. "So... why do you think it opened?" she asked.
"Well, maybe it was your spooky ghost." Sour Apple saw the floor end at the very edge of her circle of light, and quickly pushed her aside to keep her from falling in. "Damn it... I'm sorry, Talon, you were about to fall into some kind of pit."
"Because nopony's ever satisfied with just a lock," Talon remarked darkly. She picked herself back up, checked her wing, and lit a new candle (the old one had been snuffed by the fall and rolled off somewhere) before stepping up carefully to examine the pit. "Can't see the bottom. Let's try and find the edges." Sour Apple stayed close by her side as she started tracing the edge of the pit to the left with her steps - he didn't have a light, and didn't like his chances with more pits.
"Edge looks straight," Sour noted. "What do you want to bet it goes wall to wall?"
Talon stopped and looked at him thoughtfully. "They wouldn't just put a door with that crazy of a lock on a room that just has a giant pit in it, right? And somepony had to open that door."
Sour Apple looked at her. "So there's got to be something across this. Want to risk some fire?"
Talon grinned. "Get behind me." As soon as he did, she breathed in deeply and then let out a long, thin tongue of blue flame and swept it in a wide arc. Sour couldn't really see anything from where he was, but Talon seemed like she'd had an idea. "There looks like some kind of elevator over there. I'll check it out."
"Why are you leaving-" he sighed. "Fine. "
At least he could see the light of her candle off in the distance as she went over, though he didn't like the look of how far away she was getting. The elevator - which was really just a scissor lift, it seemed - made the floor vibrate a bit as it lifted her up, easily 20 feet in the air. Oddly, she didn't seem to be going anywhere after it stopped. Why would they make a lift that didn't go anywhere?
"Hey! What's up there?!" he shouted up at her, carefully stepping closer. Talon said something he couldn't make out, and he replied, "What?"
"I said it looks really pretty!" Talon shouted back. "You can't see it from the floor for some reason, but there's some kind of bridge! It looks all shimmery and shiny from here!"
"How are we supposed to get across if you can only see it from up there?!"
Talon seemed to think for a moment. "Alright, um... do you trust me, Sour?"
"I... uh, yeah?" He rolled his eyes at her and then remembered after that she couldn't see his face. "I have a really bad feeling I'm going to be the one risking my neck."
"It'll be okay!" Talon's voice sounded a little more distant somehow, and Sour Apple took a deep breath for his growing nervousness. "Alright, wave your hoof so I can pick out where you are better." This didn't exactly inspire his confidence, but he did as she asked, raising a foreleg up into the air and waving his hoof around. "Alright, now, uh..." She paused for a moment. "Keep facing me, and start walking until I tell you to stop."
"OK, I'm walking!" He saw her breathe a tongue of fire out to see him better as he slowly walked forward, and he took maybe ten steps before she yelled at him to stop and turn to the right - directly towards the pit.
"Now take maybe fifteen more steps that way!" Talon yelled.
"Fifteen?!" That would take him right into the pit. Sour Apple took five steps, right up to the edge, and stopped with a nervous whinny. "I can't- damn it, I don't know if I can do it!"
"Sour, please! You have to trust me! We've-" Talon paused, seeming to take a breath and steady her tone. "We've been through so much together already, Sour. I trusted you when you said you'd find a way to beat that golem, and now I'm asking you to trust me when I say you're not going to fall!"
Sour took a deep breath and closed his eyes. And then another breath. He could still feel the very back of his mane standing up, but if Talon said there was a platform... Keeping his eyes closed, Sour started to walk. When he felt his hoof come down on something hard, he honestly wanted to lay down right there and start kissing the invisible ground in thanks, but he held back and kept walking until Talon told him to stop.
"Alright, now... turn back to the left... it looks like five more paces that way." Sour did as she asked, feeling a little more confident now. His knees weren't shaking anymore, at least. "Alright, take a right and then you're home free to just keep going forward!"
Sour Apple turned right and started walking, now at a normal, calm pace - until he was stunned and blinded by the lights suddenly coming on. When he blinked away the tears, he looked back to see Talon descending from her lift. The pit had indeed gone from one end of the room to the other, and had been maybe thirty or forty feet across. Now he could see the bridge- most of the faces of the platform were painted in some kind of weird black paint that seemed to drink the light without reflecting any at all, but he could see now that the top of the kinked bridge was covered in a material that seemed to glitter in the light. He could presume that maybe Talon had, from where she was, been able to see that glittering.
"It was... it was a test," he managed to say when she crossed to his side, through the steady breathing technique Shimmer had taught him to control his currently pounding heart.
"It was a test," Sour heard a thickly accented voice agree - he whirled around in his fighting stance and then nearly jumped out of his coat when he saw a ghostly orange pony, barely visible in the bright lighting. "And ya'll passed perfectly. Sometimes all it takes to be brave is to know somepony has your flank." She turned her head to look at Talon. "And it takes a very special pony - or dragon - to inspire that kind of trust."
"Are you Applejack? Why-" Sour was about to ask her why she put them through that test, but she seemed to dissolve, carried away on a nonexistent wind, leaving him to sigh frustratedly. "Well, I guess your ghost was real."
"Yeah, I told you, didn't I?" Talon shook her head, looking just as confused as Sour Apple felt. "But why put some sadistic trust exercise in here?"
"I was gonna ask her that myself," Sour Apple said. "I wonder what they're..." He was about to wonder aloud about what this might be for, then he had a sudden realization. "Isn't... isn't one of the Elements of Harmony the Element of Honesty? Do you think it might be here?"
Talon looked stunned, but after a moment seemed to take a thoughtful turn. "It might be. Wasn't Applejack supposed to be super honest, you said?" Sour just nodded at this. "And that whole thing was about trust, and the only way to get ponies to really trust you is to be honest..."
"This... this is crazy, Talon," he said as he looked around, seeing a door on their side of the room and approaching it with her. "I found Loyalty, Stormy has Generosity, the ghost of Applejack herself is practically giving you Honesty."
"We're... no." Talon's slitted orange eyes had gone wide. She hummed a tune Sour didn't recognize for a moment, then spoke again. "Stormy told me that Princess Twilight had five companions in the beginning, each one with their own Element of Harmony. Kind Fluttershy, generous Rarity, honest Applejack, laughing Pinkie Pie, and loyal Rainbow Dash. So, that was six ponies and five elements, and we-"
"Six elements," Sour Apple corrected. While he occasionally dozed off in Shimmer's explanations of history and artifacts (perhaps because they almost always followed a strenuous workout), he remembered very well her lesson on the Elements of Harmony. "Twilight Sparkle bore the sixth element - the Element of Magic. It was destroyed, but..." Shimmer had explained that Nightmare Winter broke the Element of Magic when she captured Princess Twilight, but she hadn't seemed confident that it was gone - and he had since done some research of his own, as intrigued as he was by the red lightning-bolt gem that sat under his pillow whispering in his sleep (and calling him a wimp in what he could only presume was Rainbow Dash's voice whenever he felt too tired for training). "When they pass to new bearers, it's the first to be lost and the last to be found. It only appears to the truest of friends in the direst of need."
"That's reassuring," Talon said sarcastically as she opened the door. The next room was at least lit, and lit by gentle torchlight rather than the painfully bright lights behind them. It was much smaller, with the same nondescript walls and tile floor, and between them and another door (which Sour was certain to be locked) was a small wooden table with two dusty, label-less bottles sitting on it, along with an envelope.
Sour stepped up and picked up the envelope, starting to read the letter inside. "'The door in front of you can only be opened by saying the right words. One of these bottles is an ancient potion of insight that will teach you what you need to pass. The other is an ancient poison, and those...'" He trailed off, going pale under his fur. "...Those who drink it will die without fail."
Talon looked between him and the bottles. "But..."
"There's no way to tell," Sour finished. "Do... do you think it's a trust thing? You pick one, and I have to trust you're right?" It was a desperate straw to grab onto, but he'd entertain any option that didn't involve Talon drinking deadly poison. At least with an earth pony's sturdy constitution, he'd have a chance of hanging on until medical intervention.
She seemed to barely hear him, lost as she was in thought. "No... no, something tells me they wouldn't do the same trick twice. It doesn't... it doesn't feel right."
Sour looked at the note and back at her. "You think they're lying? Or it's some kind of trick?"
"I think... I have to check something." Talon turned back around and tried to go out through the door they came in, but it had somehow gotten locked again behind them. "Damn..."
"Talon, what are you thinking? Come on, talk to me."
She shook her head at him as she returned to the table. "I think that this poison isn't as deadly as they're making it out to be. And I think if we went back and looked, we'd see a net or something at the bottom of that pit. It just doesn't feel very honest of Applejack to trick ponies into getting themselves killed with pits and poisons."
Sour thought about what she was saying, and when she put it in those terms... she had a point. "So... the last door, there wasn't a key or anything. It opened on its own when we passed the test. If..." He paused to think about it for a moment. "If we prove that we figured it out by drinking both bottles, then do you think this door would open on its own too? I'll..." He hesitated for a moment and then sighed. "Talon, I trust you. I don't need ridiculous, twisted tests to tell you that. If you think this is the right call, then I will gladly drink whatever weird stuff is in those bottles."
Talon looked him in the eye for a moment, biting her lip thoughtfully as though she was considering the offer. "Maybe... no. No, I don't think that's it. Like I said, they wouldn't test our trust twice." She stepped up to the table. "I think... it's about responsibility. When I'm up there on stage in my little stagehand suit, lighting this, that, and the other thing on fire for crazy ponies to do stunts with, my timing has to be perfect."
"Yeah..." Sour said leadingly, raising an eyebrow at her. He had no idea at all where she was going with this.
"If something goes wrong, they get hurt but the blame is on me because I messed up." She looked at him, taking a bottle. Sour Apple had the urge to knock it out of her claws, but resisted because he wanted to see what she was going to say. "I don't have any choice but to let them take that risk, but here and now I do have a choice. It's my call, like you said - I'm the one who got summoned by a ghost for these weird tests. And I'm not going to risk your life on the chance that I'm wrong. If I'm making the choice, then I want to be the one who rolls the dice." She broke open the cap on the bottle and started drinking it down quickly before Sour could stop her.
He just stared at her in shock, and kept staring at her in nervous anticipation as she set the empty bottle down. "Do you... feel any different?"
She took a minute to let it work before answering. "I think... I think that was just apple cider. Really good cider, but... just cider. I don't feel any wiser, and I certainly don't feel like I'm dying. You know, I almost feel cheated. A part of me really wanted that potion of insight."
Sour opened the second bottle and tried it. "Huh. That is pretty good. Really strong, though."
"1649 was a wonderful year for Sweet Apple Acres," he heard the spirit say behind them. He moved aside to make room as she approached the table and looked at Talon's empty bottle wistfully. "Last good harvest before the winter. Apple trees don't grow the same under a bubble - they need the sun. He was supposed to use just water, but ah guess Golden Seed thought you were somethin' special." She turned to look at Sour Apple. "You were willin' to drink poison for your friend. That's exactly the sort of stupid thing Rainbow Dash would have done. And as for you," she said as she addressed Talon, "there's more to bein' honest than just tellin' the truth - any pony can do that. You could have easily gotten this one to drink that bottle, but you knew that you had to be responsible for your own choice. One more test to go. Good luck, young'uns."
"What? I... ugh." Talon sighed, shaking her head as Applejack disappeared. "Yes, just talk in vague folksiness and go float away. I never want to talk to another ghost again."
Sour nodded in agreement as he started to pull open the heavy door. "Yeah, I thought she was supposed to be direct and always speak her mind. Never meet your heroes, I guess."
The next room was small and empty, with an identical door on the other side, and Applejack standing in between. "Now this test's simple, you two," she said as the door shut on its own behind Talon. "I'm gonna ask each of ya a question. And ya can only pass if you tell me the complete and honest truth."
"What, that's it?" Sour asked sarcastically. "No trust falls over a lake of fire? No weird puzzle while a bed of spikes descends on us?"
"Sour... just relax." Talon looked at him. "I know you're frustrated, but... it's just a question. I'll go first, OK?"
Sour Apple really wasn't sure why he felt so hostile about it... except perhaps that the questions were probably going to be personal, perhaps even embarrassing- and he didn't feel like sharing his personal life with a thousand year old ghost pony.
"Wait." The voice was that of an old stallion, and the far door slid open slowly to reveal an ancient earth pony with pale orange fur, whose white mane flowed down and made it almost impossible to see his face. "This test is for Talon alone. I already know that Sour Apple will fail." Sour stared at him, outraged. How dare he simply declare that he would fail before he'd even tried? But the old pony continued. "I would like you to come with me, young pony. Talon will continue to quest for the Element, but a different treasure awaits you."
Sour Apple looked at Talon, but she just shrugged with a confused expression. "I... I guess go with him. I'll be fine." He looked between the two living ponies and the ghost of Applejack and sighed before stepping over to the elder. He found himself being led into the back room - it almost looked like a shrine, softly lit by the orange fire of a couple dozen candles, and on the far side of the room Sour Apple could see a pedestal that had been showered with what looked like apple blossoms. On that pedestal sat a massive orange gem in the shape of an apple - but where his own lightning-bolt ruby seemed like a living entity, this one just seemed... like a gem.
But that thought was entirely moot, as the old stallion led Sour down a side passage, and down a flight of steps. The temperature seemed to get colder as they passed down. "Truth has never been your strong point, has it, young colt?" he asked Sour Apple.
"I..." Sour hesitated. He had always had to get by by lying and cheating and often stealing, but... that was just growing up poor in the city. "I guess not," he finally admitted. "Lying is almost a reflex for me sometimes now, with how much I've had to do it to feed myself or protect my brother."
"I'm not talking about honesty anymore, Sour Apple." The stallion stopped on a landing, looking up at the taller colt with knowing red eyes. "I don't mean the lies you tell to others, or even the lies you tell yourself." Sour lifted a hoof, about to interject - he didn't lie to himself! But Golden Seed plowed straight through. "You don't know what the truth is, because you've never had a chance to learn."
"Learn... what? What truth?" Sour was getting frustrated with all of this, but now he was genuinely confused.
"I'm getting to that. Let me get through my speech, I've been waiting a long time for it."
Sour Apple just sighed at this and made a motion with his hoof to keep going.
"I, as with every keeper of this sanctum since it was built, am descended in a direct line from the pony who designed it in the first place - you may know her as one Apple Bloom. She was a master alchemist, she helped bring Sweet Siren to justice, she became a Master of this order and the guardian of her sister's Element of Harmony. But before she was all of that, do you know what she was?"
"I... no." Sour sighed frustratedly. He really had no idea where this pony was going with the speech, but didn't really want to be admonished again.
"She and her friends called themselves the Cutie Mark Crusaders. They went here, and there, all across Equestria and even beyond. They formed themselves to help ponies find their cutie marks - that was their own special talent, after all. But in time they found that all of these problems, from all of these creatures, pony and non-pony alike, had one thing in common - one great question, asked over and over and over. 'Who am I?', ponies asked them. 'What am I meant to be?'" Sour Apple was about to note that that was actually two questions, but instead just sighed again and rolled his eyes. "I'm getting to the point, you be patient. Colts your age always act like they have so many other places to be... Now, er..." He stopped, seeming to try and remember where he was as he started leading Sour Apple down the stairs again. "Oh, yes. With the death of Scootaloo, the fall of Sweetie Belle, and her own brush with necromancy, Apple Bloom had come to understand all too well her own mortality... And so she created one last, great potion - a great cauldron of it, that only a few bottles remain of to our knowledge. The herbs of Equestria's last living forest, secret zebra spells, powdered gems from the Dragon Lands, a crystal feather from the prison of Princess Cadence... some members of my family believe she even strayed as far as the Lost Continent in her quest. And at the very end, when her life was almost over, she made one final sacrifice... somehow, she gave it the magic of her own cutie mark." They'd stopped at a heavy wooden door by now, and Sour Apple was paying rapt attention to his story. "You are exactly the sort of pony she would have wanted to help, I suspect. On the other side of that door, there is a chalice. You may ask it one question - the one question that burns deepest in your heart - and then you may drink of the Crusaders' Grail."
It took a moment to register with Sour what was being offered. "I... any question?"
"There is only one question you really want to ask. I think you will know it when the time comes." He opened the door and gently pushed Sour Apple in with surprising strength for his age. The room was ice cold- so cold that mist was actually forming close to the floor. A little round pedestal sat right in the middle of the room, and on it was, just as the old stallion had said, a chalice. Sour had expected gold, or perhaps silver, but it was finely crafted of some kind of blue-violet crystal, faceted with six sides rather than being properly round. On three of the sides was attached a small handle, but on the other three... each one had a similar-looking, but different, shield symbol on it, and after examining all three he realized that he must be looking at the cutie marks of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Somepony had really gone all out making this thing.
"I want to know..." He stopped dead. He'd been about to ask about his parents, but.. was that really what he wanted to know? He had one question, and he was going to waste it on ponies who were already dead? Why not ask how he could help Midnight ascend, or where the other Elements of Harmony were, or what his friendship quest was, or... "Well, you see, I have a little brother, Midnight, and he and his little friend are the most powerful wizards I've ever seen. And her sister Shimmer is this amazing fighter and Protector, and Talon's the Element of Honesty I guess and she can breathe fire and fly, and our friend Southern Storm just seems amazing at everything he tries." The words were tumbling out of his mouth before he realized at all what he was saying. "But I'm just some shifty earth pony from the poor part of Manehattan, and I don't have any special skills or talents or magic, and I guess what I'm trying to ask is... They have all these amazing talents to help them save the world, and I know somehow that Prism and Midnight are going to be amazing, but I don't feel like I fit in. What can I do to help that none of them can?" He sighed after a moment. "I'm... I'm baring my soul to a cup. This is ridiculous."
He'd already come this far, though. It couldn't hurt to go the rest of the way. Sour lifted the Crusaders' Grail carefully and drank down the contents as quickly as he could. Despite the freezing cold of the room, the potion inside was warm and sweet, and the heat of it seemed to go right to his heart and then his head before Sour Apple's legs gave out from under him and he passed out.
*****
Southern Storm sat on a cloud with his tail in his legs, wearing a suit of old bronze pegasus armor that looked ridiculous on him, with a short sword strapped between his wing blades. An impossibly old alicorn in a flowing gown, with a mane of shimmering and shifting colors, sat with him and spoke of things long forgotten. "My sister Terra was the first of us to have children. She made a thing of rocks and mud, with a mane made out of vines, and when she gave it a name - for all living creatures in those days had a secret name that only Terra knew - her child became a beautiful mare. The first earth pony. Terra gave her all the strength of the earth and the passion of the sea, and taught her the secret names of everything that crawled or walked or swam or grew, and she gave the pony a cutie mark so she would know herself." She turned her head away from Southern Storm and seemed to look straight into Sour Apple's eyes. "And in the years that followed, earth ponies, unicorns, and my own pegasi would all alike come from far and wide to hear their secret name from the first pony, so that they would understand the magic of their cutie mark." Her voice faded out, along with the vision.
"I couldn't have done this without you, Sour." Midnight Shine was looking back at him from the threshold of a mahogany door. He'd grown taller, and gotten wings, and somehow Sour Apple knew that the black iron crown of the Moon Prince was waiting for him on the other side of that door. "I was so depressed after Prism got her wings. I thought I'd never be able to do any deed as grand as that. But you believed in me the whole time. You knew who I was before I even knew how to walk, let alone fly. So... I guess I'm trying to say I love you, big brother."
The scene shifted again, and Sour Apple was sitting on a sofa with a strange creature who had layers of clothes and pale brown skin instead of fur, with dark green hair and a cute button nose and blue eyes he felt he could happily drown in. She was holding his hands - he had never seen them before but he knew that these strange appendages were called 'hands' - in hers, and giving him a smile that made his heart skip every other beat as banging and popping noises - those are guns, they're firing their guns in celebration - went off in the distance. "I couldn't have figured out who I was meant to be without you, Sour Apple. I know you have to go back to Equestria tomorrow, but..." She trailed off nervously, and Sour responded by giving her a passionate kiss that she eagerly reciprocated before his world went dark again.
******
Talon
Talon watched Sour Apple leave with a nervous expression. She certainly didn't feel more confident with him gone - wasn't this whole thing supposed to be about friendship? "Alright," she finally said with a sigh. "What do you want me to tell you?"
Applejack smiled at her. "You've come a long way, haven't you? That was, uh, that was rhetorical. That wasn't your question." She shook her head, and the mistake made Talon feel a lot less intimidated by her. Once you got past the spookiness, she really was just a kindly old country mare, wasn't she? "Look, you're in a good place now. You've got friends, you've got honest work, you feel like you've got purpose. But why are you sticking around? Why are you so hell-bent on this friendship quest stuff that you don't understand?"
Talon felt offended, and curled her claws angrily. How dare Applejack question her commitment to her friends? "You... What, do you think I'm just going to turn on them? Because I'm a dragon or something? I'm... I'm here because they're my friends and that should be good enough!" It wasn't though, and as the ghost stared at her expectantly, she realized that there was more to how she felt. "I... no." She sat down next to Applejack with a sigh. "They're not just my friends. They're like family. They're all the family I have. I never expected anyone to treat a dragon as kindly as these ponies have. Sour Apple saved my life. There had to be another way out, he could have run, but... he came back for me. I played it off as 'dragon code' and I told them that I had to stick around because he saved me, but there's no such thing as a dragon code. I try to act all cool but I really just want them all to like me as much as I like them. And it's like you said, I have purpose now. After I lost the ponies who raised me, I had no clue what to do with myself."
"Close friends are just as good as family, and ya know that there was never anything so important to me as family." Applejack seemed to want to touch Talon's shoulder before remembering she was incorporeal. "Twi and the girls, they were just as much my sisters as little Apple Bloom was. An' I loved those ponies with all my heart. I would have done anything I could for them."
Talon smiled. "I feel the same way about my own little group of misfits."
"Then you take that there Element, and you take it back to your friends. The Elements get their power from your heart, an' I think your heart is as honest and true as any I've seen. Might be I can finally rest now that the Element of Honesty is in good claws."
Talon had so many questions, but she locked them away. She didn't have a right to ask them all at once, after all, and maybe the Element would speak to her like the others seemed to speak to Sour Apple and Southern Storm. "You... you do that. You've earned it."
Applejack smiled gratefully and closed her eyes. She was never seen in Equestria again.
Sour Apple
Sour Apple woke up lying on a bed, with all of his friends looking down at him. His mind vaguely registered that Prism Star's hair had turned from a pale blue to a rainbow of colored streaks, and that Talon was wearing the Element of Honesty around her neck, but his mind was still processing the idea of learning how earth ponies were created, the idea of his kid brother as an alicorn prince, and the taste of cherry-flavored lip gloss. Somehow the last one felt like the most important.
"Are we sure he's awake?" Shimmer asked in the tone she took when she was only pretending to be angry. "Of course it wasn't enough that my sister had to scare us all half to death dyeing her hair with the most powerful source of magic known to ponykind, nooo, Sour Apple had to get whammied by a damn cup or something." She poked him in the nose with her hoof.
Talon rolled her eyes. "It was the Crusaders' Grail, Shimmer. From what Golden Seed said, he might as well have drank an entire keg of apple wine. It's one of the most powerful potions there is, with some pretty nasty side effects."
Sour Apple heard Shimmer reply with a sarcastic comment about touching everything in the vaults that made him laugh half-drunkenly just for the mental image of himself running around poking dangerous things, but his sight of Talon and Shimmer was obscured by little Prism climbing up on top of him and shining a light spell directly into his eyes. Sour groaned in pain and lifted a hoof to shield his eyes. "S-stop. Stop it, Prism."
"His pupils look fine," the filly said.
"There's actually a part of him that doesn't look weird? That's pretty surprising." Of course this came from Shimmer, and Midnight chuckled a little before quickly stopping himself and taking on an overly serious expression.
"It's alright to laugh, Midnight, I probably look just as bad as I feel." He sat up with a groan, pushing Prism into his lap. "My head is pounding... So what's this about you dyeing your hair with magic?" He directed this at Prism, wanting to take a little of the attention off of himself. The rainbow hair actually did suit her, and her eyes had somehow turned an intense yellow-orange that made him a little uncomfortable to look at for too long.
"What? I, n-no." She shook her head, blushing. "I, um, I didn't, it-it just happened. When, um, w-when I-I..."
She started stammering nervously, and Midnight quickly interjected, "She raised the sun." This hung in the air as Prism looked away sheepishly, and Sour Apple felt a sense of shock that pushed away the confusing 'answers' the Grail had given him.
"Wait, you raised the sun? How... How?" Sour was dumbfounded.
Prism started gushing about 'friendship magic' and Twilight Sparkle and how it felt raising the sun but Shimmer interrupted by picking her up off of Sour Apple and setting her on the ground. "Prism, all of you... could you give Sour and I a bit alone?"
Prism looked disappointed, and started whining, but Midnight whispered something in her ear and she ran off with a grin, the colt close behind. Talon squeezed Sour's hoof before leaving, and Storm patted him gently on the shoulder.
"Look," Shimmer said when everypony had left. "I can tell you don't want to talk about what happened - deflection can be great if you're trying to keep a secret, but you're really bad at it." She sighed a little and sat up on the bed, handing him Storm's gift. "Talon told us all what Golden Seed told her about the Crusaders' Grail. I can appreciate if you don't want to tell us what you saw or heard or whatever, because that's a really personal thing. But, um..." She shook her head. "I also know how firsthand how hard it can be keeping a secret. You can come to me if you need somepony to talk to, and I promise I'll only make fun of you a little bit."
Sour Apple thought about it, turning the offer over. It could be nice at least getting her perspective on it, but on the other hoof, he had to wonder what she'd really be able to tell him. What insights he could glean from the Grail's visions seemed... personal. Somehow it felt wrong for him to share something with her that had been meant for him and him alone. "I... I appreciate it, Shimmer. I really do. But I think this is something I have to figure out on my own. It's all really confused and disjointed, but everything I saw looks like stuff that's going to happen eventually. I think I'm just not going to sweat it that much until it happens - it's not like I saw anypony on fire, right?"
"Well... alright," she replied with a sigh. "I'm not going to force you to say anything you don't want to - just don't go around raving like a crazy pony?" She winked to let him know she was kidding, but the effect was ruined by arguing voices passing by the corridor outside. The walls muffled what they were saying, but it didn't sound good. "They've all been in an uproar since Prism raised the sun. It's not even just that she raised it, but she somehow made it... hotter, and nopony understands how or why. The city shields all burned away, we've got reports coming in that the ice is melting and the clouds have disappeared. Half the conclave practically wants to declare Prism a god, the other half is terrified of how Nightmare Winter will react, and Thunderbolt..."
"Thunderbolt just wants to protect his foal," Sour Apple finished. He didn't know Prism's father like Shimmer seemed to, but Thunderbolt seemed like a decent guy, and Sour could get behind somepony putting family ahead of the big picture.
"He's on a warpath. He's angry at the sentries for letting her slip away, he's angry at Midnight for pushing her to do it, he's angry at Peregrine's faction for wanting to rebel openly, he's angry at the others for wanting to lock her away..." She shook her head sadly.
Sour took her hoof in his. "What do you think, Shimmer?"
"I think... I think that whether he wants to admit it or not, she's not his little filly anymore - she's Celestia's heir. She raised the sun on her own. She might even have ended the winter. And no matter how much we might say she's not ready, no matter how much we might want to do last night over... we can't un-ring the bell."