Myths and Birthrights
By Tundara
Book Two: Duty and Dreams
Chapter Twenty: Sheltering Light
Thanks to Whisper’s map, with its many notations, Twilight was able to get fairly close to the final resting places of her missing stars. The first few were buried in various graveyards under assumed names. The Sisters responsible for tending to the holy sites were less than pleased when Twilight appeared and began to unearth graves and pry open tombs. Silently, judgmentally, they frowned and murmured from the sidelines as she retrieved a small, hard lump of metal that were the star's hearts.
Starmetal. The fabled jet-black material used in the construction of all manner of mythical objects. Objects Twilight invariably began to collect.
Much as with Wynn, Twilight’s touch was enough to awaken the star within from their endless dreaming. There were broaches, mane-pins, collars, and more. Nearly anything imaginable by an artificer had been crafted using the heart of a dead star. One star had been turned into a set of shoes that’d been spread throughout an old earth-pony family. Another had been used to craft the binding for a spell-book of a unicorn lost to the mists of history. Jewellery was the most common, necklaces and horn-rings in particular making up nearly half of all such former stars.
Incensed with how anypony could use the heart of a fallen star to make a thing, Twilight retrieved these stars with extreme vigor. Protests by the star’s current owners were outright ignored. A couple, especially belligerent unicorns were forcibly pushed aside and bound in arcane ropes. She found her stars in vaults, resting on mantle places, in the bottoms of dusty old trunks, and hidden in the back of curio shops.
Their magical properties were even more varied, each star imbuing the items with their own unique properties. As shoes, Electra granted anypony who wore the full set unending endurance and swiftness. Qinlan’s broach allowed the wearer to turn into a gentle mist for hours at a time. If completed, a set of hairpins made from Avior could change the colours of a wearer’s coat and mane, or their entire appearance. As threads in a cloak, Phione granted perfect invisibility. Piori had become an earring that allowed one to commune with the dead. A horn-ring forged from Therionis' heart made the wearer unbeatable with magic. The binding made of Agamya granted the book infinite pages.
Shyara took great interest in Agamya’s tome, even after the star had been extracted and the enchantments became inert, the pages within now blank and their accumulated knowledge lost.
Unlike Wynn, who’d been cursed to possess the sword she'd been wielding, the process of returning these stars to the heavens was rather easy, all things considered.
Melting the starmetal into glowing orbs, Twilight crushed and poured her power through them until the star re-ignited. This was not an act of destruction but rebirth, and each star remade left Twilight feeling lightheaded and giddy. Fresh emotions from the stars poured into her. Everything they'd been in life, every hope, happiness, or bitter disappointment resonated anew through her. Tears of the deepest loss filled her eyes, unable to be shed. Ringing laughter tumbled from her throat. And, her hooves dragged with terrible weariness from the efforts of shouldering the disc's many, many burdens.
Twilight never considered herself dispassionate before. Her passions merely ran along different lines from most ponies, focused on knowledge and study until she’d met her first true friends in the Elements. Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie, Rainbow, and Rarity broke her out of her shell. Yet, those passions, those flights of emotion were pale in comparison to those that gripped her as she gained the stars who’d fallen by choice, who’d been lead by their hearts to leave the heavens in search of adventure, love, or duty.
All was not perfect with the stars’ retrieval, however.
The Scorched Wastes were a place few no ponies ever dared to enter. Ruins dotted the edge of a bleak, sunburnt plain flattened when Sol fell to the disc so long ago. Further in lay blasted hills separated by canyons of black glass where the land had turned into molten rivers. Wind like knives slashed anypony who ventured any further into the wastelands, shelter impossible to find. Few signs remained of the once thriving civilization that made verdant jungles their homes before their utter destruction.
Out of these wastes, where the winds blew fiercest, rose the malformed, lumpish shape of a changeling hive. At a distance it looked little more than a colossal, slate grey termite mound.
Twilight stepped out of the black winds and stared up at the hive of Queen Chrysalis with a slight grin. At long last she had found the home of one of her old enemies. Somewhere in its depths lay one of her missing stars. Unconcerned with what traps may have been lain, Twilight brazenly marched towards a set of heavy basalt doors.
Memories of her time in Canterlot’s crystal caverns at the mercy of Queen Chrysalis roiled in the back of her head. The image of Cadence, wretched with head bowed from months of neglect prowled along the edges. Poisoned, tortured, cursed, and power siphoned by a loathsome parasite, imprisoned in a cell of enchanted crystals, only a select few knew the full depths to which Cadence had been lowered.
Anger bloomed in Twilight’s chest, fueled by the stars already recovered in raging inferno, and she wrenched opened a path through the hive. Doors and walls alike were hurled out of her way. Twilight was a mare on a mission, her gaze fixed on a point where one of her broken chains lead.
Foolishly, a few bulky changelings attempted to stop her destructive descent through the hive. Little more than a casual flick was required to send the changeling guards sprawling.
Smaller changelings hissed and skittered just out of site, like shadows around the edge of light cast by a torch. Twilight’s skin crawled, and she clamped down on the urge to deal with the changelings once and for all. She wasn’t here for the pests.
As they neared the hive’s hidden depths, the changeling queen finally made her appearance.
Queen Chrysalis was a gaunt shadow of her former terrifying glory. Burnt stubs of wings created a clattering buzz against her cracked carapace. She stood with one leg partially raised, as a wounded animal would do with a maimed limb, body shaking with even that minimal effort. Holes large enough to a pony to stick their hoof through pierced once elegant legs. Sickly grey bags clung beneath her eyes, a crusty green film covering a cheek where one eye continually ran with a pussy fluid.
“So, the mighty Twilight Sparkle has finally come to finish what the so-called Princess of Love started?” Chrysalis sneered, a slight buzz at the back of her throat.
Twilight wondered if it was caused by nerves, or if it was simply her normal voice. Chrysalis certainly hadn’t sounded any different than a regular pony last time.
“You have one of my stars,” Twilight stated simply. “I am here to retrieve her.”
“A star? Here?” Chrysalis creased her nose with incredulity. “I think I would know if there was something like that in my hive.”
“Doubtful. This star has been dead a very long time.”
“Really? And what could you pos—”
“My reasons shouldn’t be your concern right now,” Twilight snapped, lips curling into the beginning of a smile. This time she had all the power. This time there was nothing Chrysalis could do to her, or to stop her.
Seeming to reach the same conclusion, the changeling Queen’s defiance slipped from her scarred face with a weary sigh. “And when you find this star, you will leave us alone?”
Twilight gave a half-hearted shrug. “I have no reason to stay, unless you are harming my little ponies, and am very busy.”
Chrysalis caught her lip beneath a fang, and gave a slight nod. “We’ve avoided ponies since the invasion failed. If you haven’t been able to tell; I am dying. You are lucky, as my daughter is far more sympathetic towards your kind. Had I a few more years, I might have been able to break her of that habit.”
Twilight let out an impatient sigh.
“Is there a point to your ramblings?”
Raising a shaking hoof to her breast in faux annoyance, Chrysalis purred, “You are the one who suggested you’d stay if we were harming ponies. I am simply trying to assure you we are not.”
Annoyance twinged in Twilight’s chest as aether alighted along her horn. A spell powerful enough to turn the entire loathsome hive into a crater formed in the back of her mind. Runes black-gold laid the base on which thrumming towers of blistering bright lattices could grow. The air around her crackled at the mere preparation of the spell’s weave, small stones lifting up around her.
Momentary surprise caught in her throat at how easily she'd reached for so destructive a spell. It was so natural. So reflexive. As if she'd done it a thousand times before. Even more shocking was how much she wanted to unleash its full, cataclysmic potential on the vile hive.
Changing the spell a little to limit its effects to Chrysalis alone, Twilight wondered why she didn’t just expunge the disc of the monster’s loathsome presence once and for all. Everypony would be better off without the parasite. The stars protected only good things, and only a true demon could be considered worse than Queen Chrysalis.
A small form darted out of the shadows to interpose itself between Twilight and Chrysalis. Trying to keep her head held high, a young changeling princess trembled on thin legs almost knocking together. From behind a lanky blue mane, her gold flecked green eyes bored into Twilight with blazing defiance.
“Leave my mother alone!” The changeling princess puffed out her chest. Twilight almost laughed at the absurdity of the little slip of a creature challenging her.
“Polyphenic, I commanded you to gather the other younglings and get as far away from the hive as possible.” Fury and disappointment in equal measure rattled in Chrysalis’ voice.
“Mother, I—”
Tapping an impatient hoof as she forcefully dissipated her unformed spell, Twilight demanded loudly, “My star?”
“Y-Yes. Right this way.” Underneath her mother’s stern glare, the young princess turned and unlocked the grand doors into the lowest reaches of the hive.
“We will have words later,” Chrysalis promised her daughter as she lead the way into the catacombs.
The upper section of the catacombs was a series of cavernous halls situated around a central burial temple. Each of these halls were filled with small alcoves containing changelings that had in some manner distinguished themselves. Usually this meant they’d performed some great feats, or especially resolute service. Most were infiltrators or praetorian guards. They were the only changelings with any opportunities to perform such acts. Only a few of the alcoves were given over to simple drones, most of whom spent their entire lives in the darkness of the hive.
Traps made of everything from pressure plates that would drop glass globes filled with acidic gasses to wards placed down by various queens filled the catacombs beyond the temple chamber. Why the changelings bothered when they were the only ones who used the catacombs briefly bothered Twilight. For an equally short moment a giddy tingle wormed up her spine as she imagined what Daring Do would have done in such a place.
The traps proved utterly ineffective against an alicorn. A sweep of her horn disabled mechanisms and shattered enchantments. It was with a sense of disappointment Twilight descended into the next section of the catacombs.
Tombs for queens stretching back into antiquity lined a narrow passage. Each was placed into a nook of sorts. Where the rulers of other societies would have had gold or worldly possessions, the changeling queens of old were buried with their favourite sources of Love. Mummified ponies, deer, buffalo, and halla lay around sarcophagi. From how the bodies lay it was evident they’d been interred alive, left to linger in the darkness until claimed by starvation. Twilight’s stomach tightened at the horrific sight.
“This is monstrous,” Twilight said in a low growl.
Anger welled higher, filling her breast and clouding the edges of vision. Focusing on the nearby star, Twilight pushed the anger down. It served no purpose being mad at the changelings. ‘Focus on what matters,’ she hissed to herself; protecting her little ponies from Hades.
Half-way along the passageway Twilight stopped.
She turned and entered an average sized tomb, utterly indistinguishable from the others they’d passed. The mummies of two ponies lay in the tomb, one small, no more than a filly, the other of a plump, older mare. Heart beating faster Twilight approached the pair.
The filly had been bound and mutilated even before death. Stubby nubs pushed against taught, dry skin where her wings had been hacked away. Special shoes were fitted over deformed hooves that would have made running almost impossible. Even her tail had been docked. Whoever she’d been, the filly had been tortured.
Nostrils flaring with revulsion, Twilight spun back to the changelings. “What is the meaning of this?” Her voice thundered through the catacombs.
“It would be one of my forebears with her favoured food slaves,” Chrysalis responded with sneering disinterest. “Odd choices, if you ask me.”
Tension ran along Twilight's jaw, a crimson haze boiling along the edges of her vision. The beginning crackle of a flame issued from the tips of her mane, and the stone about her hooves started to sizzle from building heat.
“Please, Princess Twilight, t-this isn’t who we are anymore.” Polyphenic frantically pushed herself up against the opposite wall. “We haven’t kept food slaves in generations! Honest!”
The lie was foolish, and obvious. Changelings were monsters. Of course there were ponies in the hive. There had to be. It was in the changelings’ nature. “So, if I sent some of my stars to explore this hive, they’d find only changelings?”
“Yes!” There was a bit more force behind the young princess’ voice. She obviously believed what she said, even if it were factually wrong. It had to be wrong. “Since the failed invasion, we’ve barely enough love to feed the grubs, and drones that tend them. Those four guards you encountered were all the warriors in the hive, when there used to be hundreds. We don’t have the resources to keep any prisoners.”
Chrysalis stayed silent, her expression stony.
“I can’t believe you allowed the changelings decline so far, Chrysalis.” Twilight tried to clamp down on the anger burning up her throat, but found it difficult. Confronted by her old enemy, surrounded by reminders of the horrors committed on ponykind, the sense of failure to safeguard her ponies only increased.
“Unlike me, my daughter never lies, Princess Twilight,” Chrysalis sighed, and a shadow of embarrassment crossed her face as she averted her gaze. “I am dying, and my hive is in ruins due to my errors. We barely have the strength to keep the scavengers of the Badlands away, let alone hold ponies.”
Prostrating herself before Twilight, Polyphenic emphatically pleaded, “Please, believe us! We take only small snippets of love here and there from the towns near the Badlands, and nothing more. And that love is freely given, even if given in the belief it is to a pony and not a changeling in disguise.”
Snorting, Shyara said, “I find it surprising Celestia never did anything about this hive, when she clearly destroyed the nation that used to reside here. Gaean alicorns are not so soft as to leave wounded enemies on their doorsteps.”
Letting out her building rage in a grunt, Twilight swept into the tomb, leaving the changeling princess gasping and sobbing in terror. A tiny, almost insignificant part of Twilight recoiled in horror at how she’d threatened the young princess. She’d been close—oh so close—to hurting the changeling. It would have been all too easy. The changelings would have been unable to stop her from tearing their hive down once and for all.
And then the ponies of the region would be safe from the predators.
Safe to go about their lives in peaceful ignorance of the monsters that had been lurking in the shadows.
Bending down she reached out, and laid her wing across the brow of the mummified mare. She’d grown proficient over the last week at re-igniting her missing stars. It took only moments to complete the task.
The young princess had to cover her eyes as Tali burst back to brilliant light and roiling heat. Newborn stars burned with an intensity comparable to Sol, and in the darkness of the catacombs she was all the more overwhelming. The stone began to glow, a sizzling crackle filling the otherwise silent tombs.
Dead for over a thousand years, Tali wobbled around Twilight.
‘Mistress?’ Tali whispered.
“Your sisters are waiting for you,” was all Twilight said before she swirled her mane over the star and returned her to the sky. The oppressive heat vanished with the star, leaving the area crackling as it cooled.
Edging cautiously towards Twilight, the young princess wore a cast-down expression that belonged more on an anxious puppy. “Perhaps this helps prove that not all changelings are bad?” A timid hoof was extended.
Twilight looked at the offered hoof, and then marched past the princess.
Tali’s hatred for the Changelings blazed brighter than the star herself in Twilight’s chest. It fanned her own anger, each making the other hotter; feeding, roiling, and screaming in her ears. Giving urgency to her legs and wings. Wisps of flame danced along the edges of her mane like a haunting procession of revenant ghosts.
Setting her jaw, Twilight stopped, and over her withers whispered, “Run.”
Backing away a half-step, the frightened changeling princess darted a glance between the alicorns in the depths of her hive.
“Leave Equestria, and never harm a pony again.”
Around them the hive began to shudder. Bits of mortar and stone cascaded in a building shower. Twilight could feel the key points within the hive that would, when crushed, cause the entire structure to collapse. Raw, primal forces rippled through her, compelling her to protect her little ponies. The need to safeguard her ponies burned from fur and feather in a violet plume. The princess, to her credit, refused to flee. Chrysalis was nowhere to be seen. When the queen had disappeared Twilight couldn't quite place.
Typical cowardice of a changeling. It only made Twilight more disgusted with their entire race.
“I beg you, Princess Twilight, have mercy on my hive.” The princess had to shout to be heard over the crackling energy filling the tomb. “Punish me if you must, but please, spare my brothers and sisters.”
Twilight felt as if slapped by the changeling. Jaw clenched tight and back arched, she quenched the flames raging from her heart. Between her teeth she decreed, “A month, that is the span of time until I return and tear this place down at the foundations.”
The ground stopped shaking, and the fire emanating from Twilight guttered.
She and Shyara were gone before the first proclamations of gratitude and relief were offered. Twilight’s insides twisted in a topsy-turvy tumult, like stones in a barrel rolling down a hill. Her thoughts were flustered, and refused to find stable footing for the remainder of the day and long into the night.
She was of two hearts, two minds. One growled in rumbling tones like a dragon waking to find a thief in her horde, proclaiming that the changelings were a danger to good, honest, regular ponies that could not be countenanced. No matter what the changelings promised, it was in their very nature to leach emotions from the other races. They would return, and some town, village, or family would suffer. Better to have been done with them, once and for all.
Her other half recoiled in disgust at the atrocity she’d nearly committed. How could she claim any moral authority if she willfully wiped out an entire city? It would have made her as bad as Hades.
Twilight snapped her tail like a whip.
No. She was nothing like him.
It would have been to protect her ponies. Hades acted only out of revenge and self-interest. Hatred of the changelings curled in her belly, but it hadn’t been the driving force.
Her little ponies needed her protection. That was her only goal. Her singular reason to act.
Twilight remained in an unsettled state when she arrived in the blasted lands of southern Prance.
She’d seen the damage wrought by Faust and Zeus from the heavens many times, but to be among it, to see the destruction left by a battle between alicorns, drove home the dangers unchecked power presented. Homes toppled. Landmarks shattered. Mountains reduced to rubble, and the land forever altered. Surrounded by lives devastated only further bolstered Twilight’s resolve.
Clouds of stray aether cast off by Faust and Zeus still floated through the valley, obscuring the precise location of her missing stars. She could sense them nearby in a cluster, but coming from every direction like light filtering through a fog.
Landing next to the damaged fountain in the town square where Faust confronted Zeus a month prior, Twilight looked around for a guide or local who looked knowledgeable. What she found were cringing ponies on trembling legs pressed into tight pockets. A gasp and few shrieks echoed across the square as Shyara landed next to Twilight.
“Now, this is a familiar response,” Shyara idly mused, kicking a loose chunk of stone into a pile of debris where a store once stood. “Almost makes me long for Gaea.”
“Excuse me,” a hesitant voice warbled behind Twilight. Turning about, she found her shadow falling over a soft tan mare with a bright orange mane done up in a prim bun. The mare dipped into a stiff, lopsided bow. “Jardin Reves, your Highness. Please, forgive my neighbours. Our wounds have barely begun to heal from the last time alicorns paid us a visit.”
Twilight inclined her head just a little in return. “I’m so sorry. I wish there was something I could do. A lot of ponies were hurt or,” Twilight swallowed a sudden lump in her throat, “died."
Eyes darting towards the watching crowd, Jardin leaned in to whisper, "If it isn't too bold, could you not bring the ponies back? They say you are the alicorn of Wishes, and everypony here wishes so deeply to have their loved ones back."
The request sank a dagger into Twilight's heart. "Experience has taught me that even a wish is incapable of bringing back the dead.”
“Perhaps that is for the best,” Jardin replied softly so only Twilight and Shyara could hear. “If it became known that it were possible to resurrect loved ones, many ponies would go mad in the effort of bringing them back. Now, if you’ll excuse me, why are you here?”
Around them Twilight could feel the town holding a collective breath. Her stiff smile did little to appease the crowd, and sent only a wave of further unease. Worried knickers sounded from a few throats. Putting the frightened villagers out of mind, Twilight focused all her attention on the single brave mare. “I’m looking for my missing stars. I tracked… you know where they are, don’t you?”
A glimmer of understanding brightened Jardin’s face, and she only gave a quick nod before limping between Twilight and Shyara towards a lane leading deeper into the valley. “They are this way, your Highness.”
The crowd shuffled quickly to get out of Twilight and Shyara’s path, hanging back in the town square, and only once the alicorns and their guide were out of sight did they begin to relax.
Moving further up the valley the destruction caused by Zeus and Faust lessoned. Patches of pristine forest were broken by long gashes left by spellfire. Lead up one such gash, glass crunching underhoof where stone had been super-heated, Twilight spotted the roof of an ancient manor. Through her hooves, Twilight could feel the lingering presence of Iridia, Luna, and Celestia. They’d lived here in happy times, and known some of their greatest anguish on these grounds. Specific details were lost, eroded by the long grinding passage of many years, but enough remained even through the aether cast off from Faust and Zeus to be detectable. This had been a place of great magical importance.
And then recognition hit Twilight. Her eyes widened, wings thrusting out in shock.
“This is the Manor of Dreams from the Books of Sol and Selene! Where Luna took the first steps on becoming the Nightmare. Where Iridia became the Tyrant of Winter. It was supposed to be lost and destroyed,” she said to Shyara.
Slowing down next to the ruins, Twilight laid a wing on the aged stone frame for what would have been a wonderful home, and with a push toppled it to the ground. Jardin jumped at the crashing refrain, mane standing on end. Shyara remained silent, nothing more than a passive observer.
Spite was unfamiliar to Twilight. She had trouble parsing the anger in her breast and satisfaction at seeing the last remnants of her birth mother’s old home crumble. It was only a monument to yet another failure of the alicorns. Failures she would ensure never happened again.
A short distance beyond the manor they reached a crystal glade.
Twilight’s nostrils flared as they left the trees behind and five great menhirs of crystal came into view. She could taste Algol’s magic, her fallen star’s presence pungent in its disharmonious evil.
“I should have done something about her weeks ago,” Twilight seethed, circling the haphazardly placed crystals.
Rage, revulsion, hate, despair, and betrayal battled for control of her heart.
Clamping down on all emotion, on the firestorm raging in her chest, she brought back the stars one by one. Crystal was crushed, cracked, and shattered to reveal the hardened lumps that’d been the stars’ hearts.
Tian Yuan Liu was first, then Posey, Zana, Maia, and finally Acamar was granted new life. Even after so many other stars had been revived, bringing five back in quick succession left Twilight weak, her head spinning from using so much magic in such a short time.
‘Mistress?’ Tian spoke hesitantly, almost as if afraid that her voice would break the spell.
‘It’s happened!’ crowed Zana, the star racing around her sisters. ‘The mistress has restored us! She has come and restored our sisters! Just as foretold!’
“Almost,” Twilight said with a laboured breath, guiding the stars towards the heavens. “Only four left to retrieve.”
Onward Twilight and Shyara journeyed to find Whisper’s source on the locations of the fallen stars, leaving Jardin alone to ponder what she’d just observed.
Stalliongrad was split into two cities; the pegasus half, which rested on a crescent shaped ancient cloud; and the earth-pony half, situated along a river between four hills. Airy, expansive mansions floated above tightly packed, small hovels, the two halves as divided in wealth as they were in physicality. At the very heart of the city stood an ancient tower built by the Thulesians to watch over their empire’s neighbors that pierced the clouds and acted as the center of governance.
Thulesia… Another empire from the clouded chronicles of history allowed to collapse despite to so-called protection of an alicorn. Faust had been weak, permitting herself to be distracted while the ponies about her fell into decadence at Leviathan’s temptations.
Once she was whole, Twilight would never allow such to happen again. She was close to completion. A few more stars, and she’d protect not just a single sliver of an empire, but the entire disc.
Everypony would be safe underneath her sheltering wings.
They were nearing the end of their journeys. Other than the mark for Whisper’s contact, only Samalla in Zerubaba remained. After Algol and Sirius, only a single, solitary star was lost somewhere on the disc, her resting place unknown to everypony. Twilight was certain she’d find the two living stars somewhere in Zebrica. Perhaps still in Zerubaba. That would be too convenient. Probably near Hades himself, if experience and the movements of past villains were anything to go by.
As had become rote, Twilight extended her senses to locate any nearby star. Against expectations, she sensed the steady pulse in one of her broken chains.
“Of course Whisper’s friend has the last star.” Twilight growled under her breath.
At least it solved where to find the missing star.
As Twilight circled down towards the cloud district she prodded the broken chain, and found it remarkably vibrant. Sparkles flitted along its length at her ‘touch’, where all the other chains had been dead lumps of metaphysical not-metal.
Exploring further, Twilight sensed a name and a title etched into the aetheric links.
Oropolla, the Guidepost of Winter’s Fury.
Twilight frowned, wondering what the title was about, and why this chain should be so active while the rest had been cold.
Her answers came the moment she touched down before a perfectly average Stalliongrad pegasus home and knocked on the plain blue door. She could feel her star approaching, warmth and amusement tinged with irritation delicately brushing the edges of perception like a spring breeze tickling her face.
With a harsh yank, the door was flung open, and a sharp, nasal voice demanded in Eastern Pegasi, “What is it now?”
The Guidepost of Winter’s Fury stood in the doorway, a bright green and gold bandanna holding back her mane, dark bags beneath her snowy blue eyes. She frowned upon seeing who was on her doorstep, and with a deep sigh, muttered, “Thought it would be longer before you found me. Come on in Princess. Wipe your hooves, I just finished cleaning the floors.”
Deep surprise caused Twilight to freeze for a moment before a polite cough behind her snapped her to her senses. As Twilight and Shyara entered a couple fillies darted past, barely slowing to give Oropolla a kiss on the cheek mid-point of exclaiming, “Be back later mom!”
Once out the door they spread their large wings and took off, looking back after a few seconds at the pair of alicorns as if only then realizing their presence.
The house was extraordinarily normal. Pictures of relatives on the walls, a low table with cushions in the middle of the living room, doubling it as the dining room. A countertop divided the living room from the kitchen, a fruit bowl sitting on the edge. In the pegasi fashion, there were no stairs to the upper floor, rather a balcony overhung the living room where they could fly to the bedrooms. Toys were scattered around an occupied playpen, a tiny foal no more than a few months old gazing up with huge, round eyes at the strangers.
“I know why you’re here, and no, I will not return to the heavens,” Oropolla stated, scooping up the tiny foal with one wing and depositing her on her back as she checked on the temperature of her oven. “So, you may as well turn around and go back to Equestria.”
“If you truly know why I’m here, then you know it isn’t that simple.”
“As simple as you wish it to be, Princess.” Oropolla refused to so much as look at Twilight, and instead focused on filleting a large bass.
“I need to be whole again to stop Hades! Do you know how many ponies are suffering because of him? How many lives he has ruined already?”
Slamming down her knife and almost unseating her foal, Oropolla thrust out her wings. Protesting with a long gurgle, the tiny filly wrapped her hooves in her mother’s mane. A noticeable chill descended on the room. Eyes flashing brightly, Oropolla's breath came out in a frosty mist as if it were a winter morning. “I know perhaps better than you!”
Oropolla snapped, “Follow me,” as she marched past Twilight to set her youngest back into the playpen. Without waiting to see if Twilight was following, she flew up to the third level. At first curious, Twilight’s stomach began to twist as they went to a bedroom door. She knew what awaited on the other side, though it shouldn’t have been possible.
On the bed slept a young mare, chest rising and falling slowly.
Twilight scrunched up her brow. “But, it is supposed to only be first-born daughters the thanes are attacking. You have an entire family line. Descendants living spread out across the disc.”
“From a point of view, yes,” Oropolla snorted, entering the rather cramped room. Pushing her way past a wardrobe, she sat on a simple stool and reached out a wing to brush a lock of mane away from her daughter’s face. “She is the first born of me and Cloud Skimmer, and that was obviously enough for the thanes.”
“Only if they are looking for technicalities.” Tension hardened Twilight's jaw as she stared at the comatose filly.
This filly was but one among thousands, all just like her. All stolen from their families. Locked in endless, dreamless slumber, their lives stolen by Hades. Their families tormented by him. They needed her protection. They needed her to save them.
Her heart beat faster and faster. The room began to spin about her, colours bleeding away from everything except the small figure on the bed. Twilight’s breath hitched in her throat.
Maatsheptra’s words came back, haunting in their truth, ‘My Empire comes first, even before my own foals. I hardly need inform you the weight of such responsibility.’
The weight of the disc itself pressed down on Twilight in a howling roar only she could hear formed of endless voices demanding her attention, praying for her guidance, protection, or just a comforting sign.
And then, all at once, a calm fell over her like funeral drapery. Any final, lingering doubts grew silent. The Gaean alicorns were the source of all the recent woes to befall the disc.
“What is one against millions?” The question hissed almost silently across her tongue. Louder, she said, “I will expunge Hades and all the other Gaeans. After them I will deal with the last remnants of Leviathan’s court, wherever they may be hiding. To do that I require my stars.”
Not looking up from her daughter, Oropolla sighed, and said, “I can direct you to the graves and tombs of the other Valla. That is the most I will do for you, Princess Twilight. I chose to fall, and I will do so again if you put me back into the heavens. I will keep falling until you give up. My life and my family is here, not up there.”
“Sadly, we don’t have a choice in the matter,” Twilight said keeping her gaze focused on Oropolla, and not the well lived and loved home.
If she looked at the walls or mantles, with their pictures, or the toys strewn about the floor, if she thought of the playpen tucked into the corner, she’d falter. And if she faltered, tens or hundreds of thousands would continue to suffer. More fillies than just Oropolla’s daughter had been taken by the thanes.
Oropolla set her jaw and entered a half-crouch, ready to pounce. A futile gesture.
The magic came so much easier, practice proving to make skills perfect. Oropolla lunged, an icy blade forming over her wings only to halt mid-air, held in bands of scintillating aether.
A heavy weight pressed down on Twilight. She shook her head at Oropolla as the mare struggled against ironclad bindings. “I am sorry, but I must be whole to defeat Hades and save all the fillies. The math is simple. What is one life against so many thousands?”
“I will fall! Again and again and again! Until you either grow tired or the disc cracks from my repeated landings.” Oropolla shouted between attempts to break the chains forming about her.
Twilight continued to shake her head slowly. The guilt cast curling in her heart made her voice cold as the mountaintops that touched the heavens. “No. You won’t.”
Power infused her next words, her voice becoming a low rumble that echoed across the town. “I bind you, Oropolla. I bind you to your true home. Your only home. To the Heavens I return you, and there you shall stay as the Guidepost of Winter’s Fury. Now, and until I alone decide otherwise.”
Silently, Twilight promised herself she’d release Oropolla once Hades was stopped.
In her heart of hearts, she also knew it to be a lie.
Hades would hardly be the final threat to her little ponies.
By now the process of returning a star to the heavens had become almost rote. Enough so that Twilight could close her eyes and look away as she stole another mare's freedom.
Over and over Twilight reminded herself it was for the greater good. That Oropolla was a star and therefore an extension of herself. Purposefully Twilight avoided the philosophical quandaries. At the depths of her heart, where she placed all emotion in a bottle, she knew beyond a doubt that what she was doing was wrong. Wrong, but, necessary.
Within moments nothing remained of Oropolla on the disc. In the heavens, bound in an invisible cell, Oropolla raged and shrieked, and her sisters did not come to greet her, instead casting their gazes away in shame.
Stepping out of the bedroom, the door softly closing behind her, Twilight was confronted by a wine dark mare in a mirror. She was hauntingly beautiful, troubled lines around her eyes conveying the weight on her heart. Tall, with angular features chiseled from marble. Her sparkling, dark mane fell down one side of her neck. Navy blue dress with its gold trim and rune inscribed belt hugged slender sides and narrow flanks. The image was so familiar, yet so shocking that Twilight just stared unable to recognize herself.
Eventually Twilight turned away from the judgmental mirror, and returned to the living room. There she was confronted by Shyara.
“I am returning to my realm.” The smaller alicorn tried to stand tall enough to look Twilight in the eyes, despite only barely reaching her chin. “All—”
“Good. I was going to suggest you leave as you’ve done your part,” Twilight rolled her wings in a dismissive shrug. Shyara took a quick step back, surprise flinging her eyes wide. Advancing closer, Twilight’s stretched over Shyara. “My disc is no place for outsiders any longer. After Hades I will remove any threat to my little ponies, whether they are alicorns, demons, queens, or nations. My starlight will guide them. Protect them. Shelter them. Keep them all safe. And if not all, than as many as possible. It is my duty. I am their guiding light. Now and forever more.”
Gathering the thinnest wisps of aether, Twilight vanished in a clap of distorted night. Trembling, Shyara rubbed a hock down her legs, her breath misting in the freezing room as Oropolla’s foal screamed for her mother.
“And so, it is done, Trixie. The Titan of the Stars is born, and all the disc will see her the same as you. Somehow, I thought it would be more satisfying. I wonder how this will end.” Shyara sighed, and then she too vanished.