Heart of Magic
Chapter Two: Darkness Descends
Trixie found herself staring at a desk filled with paperwork. The large majority of it involved homework assignments which she was finally finished with grading. Poor Tinkerhoof not only had a horrible name, but had completely failed the assignment into arcane history. Trixie was already preparing a plan to help the poor filly with her study, perhaps paring her up with Sparklechime who had great knowledge, but little practical skill would help them both? Being a teacher wasn't exactly as easy as Trixie had once thought it would be. In fact it felt like she was a mother of twenty foals instead of two some days. Still Twilight had been gracious enough to give her this position as the local magical teacher, and Trixie would do anything to make sure she lived up to the faith put in her.
From the doorway she heard soft hoofsteps as they made the floor beneath them groan from age. Trixie looked up to see that beautiful stone colored mare that had always been there for her. "Hey, Maud. Did you need something?"
Maud stared at her with an expression unreadable by most, but Trixie could see her emotions clear as day. The stiffness in her neck, the clenched jaw behind closed lips, and the single minded stare all told Trixie that Maud was preparing to lay down some heavy news. Trixie knew better than to interrupt Maud as she worked herself up to speak to her. So she waited, patiently, for five minutes.
"Lulu," Maud said at long last.
"Yes, love?"
"I'll be leaving town soon."
Trixie smiled but let out a quiet sigh. "I expected as much. The new mine they found near Appleloosa has you interested."
Maud nodded. "I hear they found a new ore in the mine. I want to help out."
Trixie smiled at her and met the mare's beautiful strong eyes. "Don't worry, we'll all be here waiting for you when you come back. Me, Amber, and Val."
Maud's hoof pressed harder against the floor making another groaning sound. More bad news. "I was thinking I could bring Val with me..."
Trixie had to restrain a laugh. She was asking Trixie for permission to take their oldest daughter along, even though Light was a full grown mare, and had always been much more mature and responsible than Amber was. Trixie really only had one answer to the question. "Of course you can take Val with you. I'm sure she's dying for some mother daughter time with you. Also it means I won't worry about you as much with her around."
"You worry more about me than her?" Maud asked.
Trixie laughed. "Yeah, I guess I do. She's proven herself capable of being quite the young hero and able assistant to Twilight in the past. I'm sure if any trouble did show up she'd be the one keeping you safe."
Maud frowned. "I don't like that."
"You don't like that I trust her in dangerous situations more than you, or that I expect her to keep you safe."
Maud nodded.
"Smart rump," Trixie replied. "Speaking of rump... I have some time to kill before I have to finish this paperwork, and we don't have any kids around..."
Maud's eyes almost sparkled at the promise. "I'll get the bathwater ready."
Trixie grinned. "Meet you there in just a couple minutes then. I'll want to grab a few... things for our bath."
With that done Maud when back into the hall and toward the bathroom. Trixie on the other hoof went to the safe behind her and put a hoof on it. There was a sort of warmth behind the safe she couldn't quite explain. She leaned in and whispered in a low voice only she could hear. "Listen now, I don't need you to keep them safe right now. I'll only bring you out if Twilight screws up majorly again."
She waited for a moment and felt the warmth pulsate in response. It was a magical energy responding to her, almost as if to say, 'Alright, have it your way.' Trixie let out a sigh and left the room and the safe behind. She was going to fully enjoy the time she had with Maud before she left on her rock hunting trip. After all, what was a good wife supposed to do with a sexy, and emotionally vulnerable spouse?
***
Twilight felt the wind blast by her as she flew through the air as fast as she could. To anypony looking up at her, they'd see what looked like a glowing pony covered in a pink aura and sailing through the sky at an insane speed. A little spell Twilight had made after losing her wings she liked to call Telekinetic Flight. She rarely used this spell as it was taxing on her magic, and her ability to maneuver with it was very limited. Lucky for her the flight to Canterlot was basically a straight shot from her castle.
She did try to teleport there at first, but for some reason she was having trouble with the spell. So this was the best second option she had at the moment. Besides this spell was easier to use than Greater Teleport, of course it was a lot slower.
She didn't mind the lack of speed, mostly because she knew she needed the time to think about what she was going to do, say, and how she was going to act. Tensions between her and Celestia had never really eased up after the fight in the Archive. The way she used to think and feel about her mentor and adopted mother had changed massively. In fact a lot of the way she treated Amber was due to this change. Despite Celestia's good intentions, her way of training Twilight turned out to be quite abusive. She often wondered if perhaps it was because Celestia was immortal, and mortal concerns, worries, and limits were harder for her to process.
Whatever it was, she was just preparing herself to encounter Celestia more than thinking about what had Rainbow Dash running off.
Actually the better question was, what had Rainbow Dash running off in such a hurry, and had Twilight kept in the dark. It must have been something serious. Serious and possibly personal. Otherwise Twilight would have been warned too. In fact that was going to a question directed at Luna when Twilight did show up. How dare she keep Twilight out of the loop like this.
Twilight recollected every ounce of knowledge she could about what Rainbow Dash was currently doing. She was the leader of the Wonderbolts, a military general, and in charge of a lot of special operations especially involving border security. None of that seemed too personal to Twilight, so there must be something else. Probably something secret...
The ground blurred by underneath Twilight in a sea of greens, browns, and blue. Canterlot Mountain stood imposingly ahead of her. Just a few more minutes and she would arrive. This wasn't going to be any fun.
After a few more minutes of flight Twilight felt the spell slow down and her body began it's decent towards Canterlot Castle. Once the spell was slow enough she could much more easily turn herself towards the front doors and landed with only a soft clip of her hooves. The two royal guards stationed at the doorway looked at each other for a moment with a knowing glance. They lowered their spears in a cross pattern across the door and gave Twilight a stern glare.
"Princess Twilight Sparkle, we are afraid that we'll have to ask you to leave until Celestia's current meeting is over."
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "This is a joke right?"
The guard replied. "I'm sorry, but this is a very serious matter we-"
Twilight interrupted without a thought. "You two are merely pegasi, standing before me, and trying to tell me what I can or cannot do." she marched up to the one who'd dare to speak to her and looked down at him. "I am taller than you, have more combat experience by years, am trained in the most powerful of magics, and just flew here from Ponyville with a mere telekinetic spell. Do you two really think you could stop me from doing anything?"
The guard's eyes widened and his voice came out a bit shakey. "Yes, but, but Princess Celestia said you couldn't come in. Don't you respect what she says?"
Twilight laughed coldly and took a few steps back. "In addition to that being just about the dumbest thing I have ever heard, you also forget one very important thing about who you're dealing with."
The guard blinked. "Um... what is that?"
"I invented the teleport spell." Twilight said as her horn lit up and the world flashed pink for just a moment. She reappeared just inside the castle and without a second thought used a simple hold door spell to keep the doors behind her shut. It would take the guards a few minutes to realize what she'd just done, and now it would be even longer before they could get inside.
Twilight didn't hesitate to use her inner senses to feel for magic in the area. The Castle was permeated with it. The tingle at the tip of her tongue told her that the air was filled with the delicious taste of magic. Of course she was searching for a very specific kind of magic. She felt it coming from the throne room. It was powerful, and tasted somewhat like frozen sherbet with it's sweet and sour flavors. This was Celestia's magical aura.
Twilight wasted no time in teleporting to the throne room. In just a blink of an eye she went from the entrance lobby into a long hall way staring at a door. She blinked, this was not where she was trying to go. She was not inside the throne room, but in fact just outside of it. To either side of her stood a royal guard, alicorn stallions each. Behind her stood half a dozen unicorn guards. Before any of them had a chance to move on her she unleashed a mass hold person spell and froze each of them in their tracks. Now all she had to do was open the door.
The door was locked.
Twilight stared at the door in puzzled frustration. She flew here, used spell after spell to get here, and now she was stopped by a freaking locked door. Some deep part of Twilight's mind began to twitch. Her mind saw what she wanted, no, what she needed. She needed to get in there. So she resorted to what she usually did when life gave her lemons, she used magic to try and make magical lemonade. First a locking picking spell, which failed. Next she tried to create a portal through the door. Failed. Once more she tried teleporting herself, and nothing happened.
Twilight screamed in frustration. "Fine! If that's how you want to do things Mr. Door, then I'll play your game and I'll do the same thing I do when I lose at monopoly against Pinkie Pie! I'll destroy the whole darn table!"
Twilight charged up a magical spell. A red laser beam designed to teach this door the ultimate lesson in respect for what, and who she was. She was a freaking alicorn princess!
The door opened up and Celestia stuck her head out. "Please don't break my door, Twilight. I've had this one for fifty years without it being broken."
Twilight blinked. "Fine, just let me in then."
"Have you ever really grown up?"
Twilight smirked. "Not really, my ability to grow up was taken away from me by some selfish thousand year old child."
Celestia let out a long sigh and backed away leaving the door open. "Join us then."
Twilight walked in but gave the door a good final glare. "You won this round, Door."
Once inside Twilight saw a round table had been set up in the middle of the space. Luna was there, along with Rainbow Dash. Celestia closed the door behind Twilight and went to her sister's side. There were four chairs in the room even though there was only three ponies before. Twilight took the empty chair and smiled proudly for breaking her way into this meeting. Celestia grumbled something and Luna replied, "See, I told you that we'd need that forth chair."
Twilight offered her a small smile. "Thank you, Luna. But in the future can you just send me an invite please."
Luna laughed. "And miss out on all the fun of watching you tare those poor guards out front apart. No, I think not."
Celestia closed her eyes. "This is why the medical coverage has grown to accommodate therapy in recent years."
Rainbow Dash laughed. "We were all watching you and taking bets. Me and Luna won."
Twilight blinked and stared at her. "Bets on what?"
Rainbow replied. "On whether you'd respect Celestia's wish to keep you out of this meeting, or if you'd pull a Twilight and break in anyway."
"And Celestia..."
"She lost the bet."
A disgruntled pain hit Twilight's gut. Even after all these years, and after knowing how much Twilight despised her, Celestia was still believing in Twilight. Still holding out hope that Twilight would respect her. It made Twilight feel dirty for breaking in here like this, but she was justified right? Celestia had not only hurt her, but taken away Twilight's chance for a normal life. Wasn't it okay for her to do whatever she wanted now?
Twilight closed her eye and felt herself growing tense. She wasn't going to apologize, but she really wanted to. She just couldn't let Celestia have the satisfaction of an apology, or of ever being right again.
Luna spoke breaking the silence. "So we were talking about the situation down south."
Rainbow Dash nodded. "Yeah, I heard from your spy. One of the settlements was attacked, and it was bad."
Celestia replied. "It wasn't just bad, Rainbow Dash. It was a tragedy. The entire settlement was burned to the ground. Most of the soldiers were found dead, some of them horrible injured and are in the hospital with critical injuries."
Twilight responded. "The villagers will be safe at least right. The Changelings want food, not murder."
Celestia and Luna both looked at Twilight at the same time. Their expressions revealed that something was much worse here than what Twilight just suggested. It took a moment but Celestia finally spoke. "Actually a lot of the villagers were... killed."
Twilight blinked. "Wait, what? But why would the changelings do that? They need us alive to feed on our love."
Luna stepped in. "It wasn't changelings."
Rainbow Dash rose from her seat. "What do you mean it wasn't Changelings? Are you saying that something else killed my soldiers?"
Celestia's horn lit up and a golden orb appeared on the center of the table. The magic coming off it was feint but powerful enough for Twilight to vaguely recognize it. An alicorn made this, and their magic was a bit sour in flavor.
A moment later Lemon Heart's voice came out of the orb. "Princess Celestia, we are under attack by the alicorn empire!"
Twilight's mind froze. Lemon Heart was the alicorn assigned to one of the border towns. If she was there then. "Where is she? Where is Lemon Heart?"
Celestia's voice came out soft, quiet and gentle. "Twilight... I have some bad news."
Twilight's mind was racing. "No, no you don't, because she is just fine. She is always just fine. She was always one of the strongest mares I know, I mean she turned into a freaking alicorn for crying out loud. So you only have good news for me, only, good, news!"
Luna rose from her seat and stretched one of her long wings across the table. The wing brushed across Twilight's face sending warmth through out Twilight's body. "Twilight, I'm so sorry."
Twilight's mind flipped as she jerked to the side and using a hoof to swat Luna's wing away. "Don't touch me!"
Luna reeled back. "Twilight!"
Twilight was standing now. "I don't care what you say, she's gonna be alright. I'll prove it to you. I'm going there right now and I'll show you she's just fine!"
Magic began pumping into her horn. It would take every ounce of magical power she had, but she could teleport to the town, at least she hoped she could. She'd not done a teleport like this in some years, and even then she had had help from Starlight. Now she was just forced to do this without the extra help. She could do this though.
Celestia rose. "Twilight, you're going to hurt yourself."
Twilight glared at her. "At least it will be me who did it!"
Luna jumped in. "Twilight, calm down, I'll take you to her bo-"
Twilight screamed. "SHUT UP!"
She unleashed the spell and felt her body launch upwards. This wasn't right, she was supposed to disappear into a flash of pink as the world rushed past her. The world did rush past her, until she hit an unmovable solid force and felt every ounce of her body scream in pain. She collided with the ceiling. The stone cracked and broke as her body hit it. A moment later she felt the world reassert itself and it's rules as she fell. Her entire body was screaming in pain and she watched as the floor raced toward her. A soft blue and gold aura wrapped around her, gently cradling her and lowering her body until it was only a few feet above the ground. Twilight stared up at Celestia and Luna who were both holding her in their auras.
Twilight growled and spoke through a bloody mouth. "She is okay."
Luna shook her head. "Twilight, she's gone. She died giving us this message, I'm sorry but that's all there is to it. You can't save her."
Twilight wanted to laugh, to scream, to cry. All she could do was ask, "How? How could she die if she was an alicorn?"