Chapter 1: Reunion
“Please gasp stop moving so quickly. I need to gasp take a break.” Twilight puffed as she tried to keep up with the pegasus. The pair had been running for about two hours by that point and Twilight was beginning to crack.
“I can’t Twilight, my little sister has been out there on her own for three days! She might be in serious trouble!” Rainbow countered but her own ragged breathing gave away that she too needed a break.
“If so, then your gasp not going to be of any use if you’re completely spent,” Twilight argued, hoping that the pegasus would stop walking for a moment, Rainbow slowed down to a trot and thought it through.
“Fine, ten minutes. After that, we’re moving on. We’re almost at the spot you captured me I believe.” Rainbow relented, Twilight collapsing into a heap on the forest floor, giving herself enough of a break to get her breathing to a normal level. She may have been an excellently trained officer of the Empire but a pegasus would always have the edge on sheer endurance. Rummaging through the saddlebag she picked out the scroll they had put off reading. Rainbow sat down next to Twilight to see what was on the scroll. “Twilight, can you read it out loud?” She asked, clearly embarrassed by something.
Twilight glanced at the pegasus who was twiddling with her hooves, “Sure... What’s wrong?” the unicorn asked as she noticed Rainbow's awkwardness
”I never learnt how to read.” Rainbow muttered, too soft for Twilight to pick out.
“Come again, I didn’t catch that,” Twilight pushed.
”I CAN’T READ!” Rainbow shouted, her eyes tearing a bit. ”My parents couldn’t afford education and I had to work to get food on the table.”
Twilight felt a pang of guilt for the pegasus, she had had the best education possible while Rainbow had to struggle her entire life. “I can teach you if you want?” she offered, Rainbow took a bit to react.
“You’ve done enough for me. Since you’ve met me I only got you into trouble.” She said dejectedly.
“Rainbow, I made the decision to not execute you on the spot like my orders told me to and I don’t regret it. If I had then I would have never seen through the lies of the Empress.” Twilight explained, “You’re probably the only pony I can truly trust right now. I’d be honored if you’d let me teach you to read.” She added, giving Rainbow a friendly nudge.
"Still though, why?" Rainbow asked, still not understanding why Twilight would've given up her life for her.
"My teacher in Canterlot. She always said to judge a pony not by the length of their horn but the content of their character. In your case the lack of a horn does not mean your character doesn't seem all that bad."
That seemed to get through to the pegasus. “Thanks, Twilight.” Dash said, “Now, what’s on that scroll?”
Twilight refocused on the scroll and took a breath,
Once upon a time, there were two ponies who ruled the day and night, but a single race of ponies wasn’t happy with this rule as they no longer had any power over the other races. Led by their leader they organized an insurrection, critically wounding the younger sister. In a desperate attempt to save her sister the elder used six artifacts of great power.
The Elements of harmony.
But with only half the artifacts under her command, the effects were not those that she desired, instead of healing her sister the artifacts put the pony away in stasis on the moon.
The elder sister wept as she found the effects to be irreversible, seeing this weakness the conspirators revealed themselves and tried to strike the weakened pony down.
Not having the will or energy to fight, the sister took the elements and ran from the palace hiding the artifacts until new bearers would rise, but before disappearing the sister left a last prophecy to those who’d dared to threaten her and pushed her off the throne:
On the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid in her release and tyranny will fall.
But the elder knew that without new bearers for the elements her sister would pass still. She left clues to the location of the elements in the hope one day they would be found and her sister restored.
If you see her mark know that an element might be near.
-Starswirl the Bearded
There was another bit of text written below, seemingly somepony else’s writing...
Save my sister.
Twilight got the feeling of dread as she realized she had heard the story before only from another perspective.
“So you think that crystal on that wristband is one of the elements of harmony?” Rainbow asked, snapping Twilight back to reality. The pegasus screwed around with the crystal as it seemed to glow whenever she was the one touching it.
“It could be," Twilight admitted as since she couldn't disprove the rather simple hypothesis, "but I’m not sure how it’s possible it just so ‘happened’ to end up in the precise bag we took.” Twilight theorized suspiciously. “Camp gets attacked by a dragon, we get freed and then find a scroll in a random bag that seems to be just for us. It’s just too much of a coincidence.”
“Do you think it’s a tracking device?” Rainbow asked nervously, scowling at the wristband and pushing it back into Twilight's saddlebags.
“No, if it were then I would have heard about it before. It's also a way to elaborate story if it were just a way of finding us... I think somepony went through a great effort for us to find this,” Twilight explained. “Anyway, right now it’s a moot point. We need to find your sister and get as far away from here as possible before search parties are assembled.
Rainbow nodded and the pair ran the last few minutes to their destination. The ground still showed marks from the struggle that happened there as the two arrived. “I was scouting ahead to see if the road was safe before we moved up further when you jumped me.” Rainbow walked to the bushes behind the scuffle. “I left her in a cave a couple hundred meters that way. I also left the food we had with her so she might still be there.”
Rainbow and Twilight walked the last bit to where she left her sister, “Hoofprints,” Twilight pointed out as they got close. “A lot of them.” The ground in front of the cave was riddled with little footprints and disturbed leaves.
“Squirt, you in there?” Rainbow asked, her voice echoed against the walls. The rainbow maned pony walked into it while the unicorn waited outside to stand guard.
”Dash?” A raspy voice answered and a small orange pony with a purple mane peaked over a large rock further in the cave. ”Rainbow!” She shouted tackling the other pegasus.
“I thought they had sniff captured you and I would never sniff see you again!” She sobbed into Dash’s coat.
“Shhh, Scoots I’m here now.” Rainbow comforted the little pegasus, “It would be so not cool if I left you here.”
A few minutes of sobbing later Twilight came into the cave, “Rainbow we can’t stay here, we need to move now.”
The little filly looked past Rainbow to see who spoke, her eyes went wide. “UNICORN! RUN!” She started struggling against Dash who was trying to keep her in place.
“Calm down Scoots, she’s on our side. She saved my feathers back there.” Dash told the filly who calmed down and inspected Twilight, “Are you wearing pegasi armor?”
Twilight chuckled, “Yes I am.” She said with as warm a smile she could manage, “Are you two ready to go?”
“We’re good.” Dash said for both her and Scootaloo. “How much food do you have left, Scoots?”
The little filly jumped from Dash’s hold and dragged a large saddlebag from behind a rock, “I kept up the rations so we’ve still got a large bag left.” She proudly stated.
“I knew you would,” Rainbow told the filly and strapped the saddlebag onto herself.
Twilight meanwhile grabbed the map and spread it out,
“we’re situated about seventy kilometres west from the Dragonskeep, depending on how fast word about our escape gets out, the land between the keep and the Canterhorn mountain range will be swarming with patrols.”
Rainbow also took a look at the map, “We were trying to sneak between there and wrap around Canterlot into earth pony territory.”
“We can’t without being spotted and heading through the mountain range is also a no-go, there’s too much mining traffic going through there.” Twilight summed up.
“We can’t go back to pegasi territory either, they’d execute you and force me to give up Scoots because she’s a weak flyer.” Rainbow also added, crossing off Maresaw and Stalliongrad off the list of places where they could go.
“So we head west past the mountain range into White Tail Woods and try to get a resupply at Ponyville.” Twilight decided, “After that, we travel along the edge of the Everfree towards earth pony territory.”
“Ponyville was under unicorn control, right? You sure it’s safe to stop there?” Rainbow asked with concern.
“It’s an earth pony village maintained to supply Canterlot with food, the ponies there have been a thorn in the hoof of the Empress since its inception,” Twilight said as she recalled her history of the Empire. "It's really only still there because the earthponies are so much more productive at farming than unicorns."
Rainbow nodded, “Then that’s settled, we should also get some cloaks to hide the armour and wings so Squirt and I look like earth ponies.”
Twilight repacked the map and walked out of the cave, “We still have the entire afternoon of good daylight, we should get moving now to get as far away from the encampment as possible.”
Scootaloo and Dash also made their way outside, both of them taking a quick glance at the location of the sun and walking off. “Where are you going?” Twilight asked holding the compass from the bag in her magic. “You’re going North”
Rainbow gave Twilight a confused stare, “No, we’re not. Pegasi have a near-perfect sense of direction since we have to use it to fly. You can also see that the sun is going to set over there.”
Twilight made the mental calculations coming to the conclusion that the two pegasi were right. She studied the compass closer to see if it might be stuck, the compass was a regular red and white arm but the plate on it didn’t have any markings indicating north, in place of that there was an eight-armed sun.
“What the... Dash look at this.” Twilight levitated the compass to Rainbow while simultaneously taking out the letter. “It’s the same mark!” Twilight ran a quick magic scan of the object, being completely in awe after she finished. “The spellwork is beautiful. I don’t know what half of it does but it’s like an intricate painting.”
The blue pegasus compared the two symbols, “That letter said that that symbol would lead to an element didn’t it? So this thing might lead you to others?” She hypothesized, again demonstrating the pegasus had a knack for making connections.
“What’s an element?” The little pegasus cut in having no clue what the elder two were talking about.
“We’re not sure kid, if we figure out what exactly they are we’ll share,” Rainbow told the filly, ruffling her hair.
“Anyway, you two lead the way, I’ll follow since we're not following the compass while it's pointing at Rainbow... Wait...” Twilight took out the compass again and walked around Rainbow, the needle staying firmly pointed at the pegasus. “Well that may confirm the hypothesis you are one of these 'elements'.” She levitated the wristband over to the pegasus. “There, try it on to see what it does!”
Rainbow eyed it nervously but did as Twilight had asked, the unicorn hadn't tried to bring her harm so she probably wouldn't now. As she secured it around the wrist opposite to the sword the glow intensified exponentially for the briefest of moments, forcing everypony to look away. As they looked back, though, the wristband was gone, replaced by a large round shield behind which Dash could take cover, the gem sitting inert in its centre. "Sparkle, please explain the magical shenanigans," Dash nervously said as she eyed the thing with wide eyes.
"I-I... have no idea what happened. Some kind of transmutation spell contained in the crystal... but then why would it still be sitting at the centre of the shield..."
"It's so cool though!" Scootaloo said with awe, running her hoof over the cold metal.
"Well yeah, it's awesome, but I'm not sure how we're going to take it-" The shield glowed red, not as bright as before by far, and in an instantly reformed into the wristband. "-with us."
"I guess that solves that," Twilight said stunned as she couldn't make heads or tails of the magic happening in front of her. "The compass also changed directions, it's pointing south now."
"Guess it's pointing to another pony that's a bearer of one of these things?" Dash said. "It's moot though, we're going the opposite direction."
"Agreed. We're wasting time now."
The group turned and started walking to the west, they still had a long way to go.
Two weeks of tiring and careful travel were behind them the trio as they made their way to Whitetail forest, carefully avoiding unicorn patrols and a couple of pegasi ones that mostly remained distant. A slow-moving river now lay before the companions before they could enter the forest proper.
“Can't you, I don’t know, teleport over?” Rainbow asked Twilight, looking at the wide river. The sun was already going down towards the horizon but they wanted to reach the other end before nightfall.
“No, and if I could I wouldn’t. Even at this distance, we’re too close to Canterlot. A teleport like that would be picked up all the way over there.” Twilight answered, “If you fly over all the baggage and armour I can swim over.”
“Yeah, no. I'll fly you over before I allow you to freeze in there,” Dash pointed out and rolling her eyes, the river was nearly seventy-five meters of ice-cold water and they had been walking for a few hours already on that day. “I’ll drop off the stuff on the other bank first, wait here,” The pegasus said, taking off with the filly and saddlebags. Twilight made her way to the edge of the river, dipping her hoof in she shuddered, it was quite cold.
Yeah, maybe it's for the best that I didn't go in there.
“Alright, let's get you over there,” Rainbow said as she picked up the unicorn and flew her over the water, only the full weight of a pony might have been a bit much for Rainbow. "I... Don't... think..." The pegasus lost her grip on the unicorn and she dropped into the water. Twilight yelped in surprise and from the cold water as she tried staying afloat. Rainbow Immediately dove down and dragged her to the other edge, Twilight was shivering madly. “S-So c-cold.”
Rainbow looked at the unicorn who was curled up in a ball, “Crap. SCOOTALOO! get some cloth and use it to dry her off and keep her warm!” Rainbow quickly ran into the forest picking up some dry wood while Scootaloo went to work drying off Twilight. Rainbow having a few good sticks under her wing ran back to the river bank and quickly built a firepit. “Twilight if you can, I need you to start this fire for me,” She told the shivering pony. Twilight lit her horn and a small ember in the middle of the pile of wood, Rainbow shielded the little spark with her wings until it got big enough to sustain itself.
“Scootaloo I want you to get some more firewood,” Rainbow told the filly who immediately ran to the treeline.
“They’re going to find us because of that smoke trail.” Twilight weakly said, having sat up on her haunches, her blanket they had procured around her.
"We've been running for weeks Twi, if they were still that close on our tails now we might as well give up." Dash pulled Twilight close and wrapped her wings around the unicorn. Scootaloo came back with a small bundle of wood which they promptly used to fuel the fire. “How far are we from Whitetail now?”
“About twenty more kilometers,” Twilight answered, Rainbow grabbed a loaf of bread from her saddlebag and broke off a bit, “Here, eat.” She said holding it out to Twilight.
“I already had some,” Twilight said defensively, not wanting to take more than her share of their nearly completely depleted supplies.
Dash pushed the piece of bread into Twilight’s hooves, “I recall that Whitetail has fruit trees in it from patrols there. We can eat there when we arrive.”
Twilight quietly obeyed the pegasus and ate the piece of bread. “G’night, Twi, Scoots.”
Slowly the three drifted to sleep, a day away from Whitetail woods
“Captain Armor, Do you understand your task?” A unicorn stood in the middle of a burnt encampment surveying the damage done by the dragon whose corpse now lay in the middle of the camp. The unicorn turned herself to face the captain.
“To the best of my ability, I will make sure my sis-... Twilight Sparkle is brought to justice, my Empress,” He replied, satisfying the other unicorn. He turned and marched away, leaving the empress alone with her private guards.
“Go and make sure he does his job and if he doesn’t, kill him. Slowly and Painfully.”
One of the guards saluted and marched off. The Empress satisfied turned back to the corpse remembering the words her father had told her,
On the longest day of the thousandth year, she’ll exact vengeance upon the world that removed her from her throne.
That day was quickly approaching and somehow a promising but unproven Lieutenant's execution is halted by a dragon who should have been unable to pass the Dragonskeep unseen. She had to be certain that this Twilight Sparkle wouldn’t become a problem.
By any means necessary.
