The time had finally come for the actual wedding ceremony to be held. All the tables had been set around the spiral staircase, and those attending the wedding had been placed in their proper positions according to their relations with bride and groom, as well as their roles in that ceremony.
In the two star positions (upper left and lower right) were respectively Twilight, the sister of the groom, and Aura Music, another one of Cadance's avatars, who had just arrived earlier in the day. The Knight was seated in a very fancy cushioned chair, which wasn't her favorite, but was the most comfortable type of seat available, and she needed to rest and recover as fast as possible.
Spike was waiting at the bottom of the staircase. Different from most of those present, he wasn't wearing any sort of fancy clothing, but was instead dressed in rough white robes, which seemed very well worn. That was due to his role as Questioner.
Another important role was that of the Witness, which was fulfilled by one of the crystal ponies that had come to attend the ceremony, a teenaged mare called Bonsai Leaf. The only clothing that she was wearing was a conical black hat with a simple circle design.
Apart from that, there were quite a few other spectators with more minor roles, who only had just as minor additions to their wardrobe in order to represent those roles, but none of the other Knights or the close relatives of the couple had gotten one of those parts. Most of the roles were sorted by lottery, so that wasn't strange.
Anyway, regardless of all of that, the ceremony was about to begin, so we shall dispense with further boring explanations and turn our sights towards it.
It started with the music in the venue, which had been light and nondescript until then, suddenly changed into a tone of anticipation. The spectators noticed that, and they knew what it meant, so the hubhub of conversations quickly quieted down to the point where it was possible to hear everypony's breathing.
They did not have to wait long, as soon those who were looking at the spiral staircase could see the couple slowly descending the stairs. Their current clothing was slight but ornate, only a few head adornments. Venus' were silver, while Shining's were gold.
They walked down at a steady pace, and soon the sharper-eyed expectators were able to make out their expressions, which were calm and peaceful, with a hint of anticipation. That was a good sign.
Weddings between ponies in Equestria traditionally started with the couple talking with each other in seclusion from everypony else. No one but the couple knew what they talked about (though some couples revealed it to other ponies many years later), sometimes it was about their deepest secrets, about their highest expectations and biggest fears. Sometimes they made promises or broke them, and sometimes they simply talked about casual matters, confident that they had already said everything they meant too.
Once they reached the bottom of the staircase, Venus stopped next to Spike while Shining Armor walked three more steps and kept his back to them. She had been marked as the first to speak to the Questioner due to the silver color of her clothing.
Spike then started asking questions of her in a low tone. So low that besides him and her, the only one who heard the questions was the mare with the Witness role, who had approached shortly before the couple reached the bottom of the stairs. The Questioner had the role of asking 10 questions to each pony in the couple. There were some classic questions, but they also had the right to think of questions on their own.
Once all the questions were asked of Venus, both she and Spike turned to look at the Witness, who responded with a nod, indicating that she confirmed the validity of that testimony. That was mostly just a ritual, but there were times when a Witness did indeed answer with a refusal, and there was a whole set of rituals for that case as well.
Regardless, such did not happen that time, and it did not happen the second time either, when Shining Armor took the position of the questioned and received his own set of questions while Venus went to stand in Shining's previous place. After that was done, Shining Armor went to stand beside Venus.
A couple of fillies approached the two, carrying a pair of cloak-like pieces of cloth, which they put on the bride and groom. It soon became clear that these cloth pieces had been made with a design imitating armor, in order to represent the martial focus of the two. As might be expected, ponies with different backgrounds, jobs and interests would have different designs.
The two fillies were the first Carriers, responsible for giving clothes to the bride and groom. As the name implied, there were going to be other Carriers, with other sets of clothing, but the first Carriers had a few interesting aspects. Starting with the fact that they were two of the few positions not decided completely by lottery, but one where duos of foals could candidate themselves to.
That was a position that never had any shortage candidates because of the meaning traditionally attached to it. Said meaning was that the first Carriers would marry each other in the future. That was obviously not always the case, but it happened often enough that romantically involved foals would line up for a chance at taking that role.
Once that was done, and the Witness had returned to her previous position, both Shining Armor and Venus walked side by side, heading towards the first star position, where Twilight was waiting. The star positions were reserved for close family, and of course had nothing to do with lotteries.
Twilight received the two with a huge smile, and hugged both groom and bride, before speaking a few words that everypony in the audience could hear, mostly congratulations, well wishes and hints to Venus about how to heal with her brother. Truthfully speaking, Twilight would normally have spoken a lot more, and had a more active part in the further proceedings, including walking part of the way with the two, but she was still recovering, so that was cut short.
Twilight sat back down and the duo of Shining and Venus began walking through the room, taking a very winding path that made them pass next to every single table where the spectators were sitting. That was a way for the couple to simbolically present themselves to pony society.
As expected, the path the couple took ended up at the second star position, where Aura Music, instead of simply talking, sung and played a small piece that essentially boiled down to the same thing, except with three times more grandstanding. She also lifted both bride and groom with her telekinesis to hug them at the same time.
After that, a teenage colt approached, and put some beautifully colored necklaces on their necks. As it should be obvious, he was the second Carrier, responsible for bringing more clothes. It was also obvious that the position didn't have the same traditional meaning, but it had its own importance.
Finally, the two main stars of the wedding started slowly walking towards the opened doors, which gave time for most of the participants in the wedding to stand up and follow them in a line. (the ones who didn't were mostly the old ponies and the Knights who were in recovery).
And so the ceremony continued, first with a lively song and several more ceremonies and changes of clothing before they returned inside for the final vows.
And when the bride and groom finally kissed, the cheer that was raised was immense.
+0+
It was the next day after the wedding, and all of the current generation Knights were gathered in a room for a meeting with Princesses Celestia and Luna. The five who were relatively uninjured (Spike, the Crusaders and Trixie, though the last one was still nursing a head-splitting headache) were standing casually, while the other seven lounged on confortable seats.
"So here's where the situation stands," Luna started speaking "Me and Celestia have managed to prevent the worst case scenario for this situation. The Congregation of Chaos did not split up into several events, and instead has currently taken the form of a region sized cloud of reactive chaos that is drifting towards the center of Equestria like a weather formation."
"And although that makes it seem like the cloud is moving slowly, in actuality it covers territory at an astonishing pace due to its sheer area." She concluded.
"We have already executed the anti chaos emergency measures, including the evacuation of everypony on the path of the cloud." Celestia spoke "I had to do a lot of mass teleports but it was worth it." She sighed "But those measures are limited. The Cloud of Chaos slowly becomes more powerful by infecting everything in its path, and while we can prevent it from taking in a lot of things, there is a certain location in its path that we absolutely must not let it infect."
"It is the field of Rich Dunes, because beneath it sits the magma chamber closest to the surface in all of Equestria." Luna took back the word "If the Cloud of Chaos reaches that point, it could infect the chamber and create a chaos infused volcanic explosion that would spread chaos (the concept) at a massive scale, which would increase the chaotic power of the Cloud to the point where it might start attracting the rest of Discord's pieces towards itself, thus growing to the point where we might see an early return of Discord." Luna shivered "That would certainly be the worst case scenario."
"Why?" Rainbow Dash asked "We managed to beat Discord while we were much weaker than now, so what would be the problem with doing it again?" All other Knights in the room (besides Sunset), looked at her in disbelief.
Celestia shook her head "That would not be so simple. Didn't Sunset explain to you about the Phases of Chaos?"
Said unicorn groaned "There were a lot of things going on, and I just kinda kept thinking 'I'll do it after this crisis passes', and forgetting about it."
"Well, we have time to say it now, so no harm done." Celestia said with a slight smile "Luna, you're better at explaining that than me."
The other alicorn nodded and began to speak "Discord is a being of chaos down to his very soul, so it should come as no surprise that even his state of power is chaotic. He is stronger sometimes and weaker others, his skills and magic change from time to time... Those kinds of things. We call that Phases of Discord.
"When he broke out the last time, he was in one of the weaker Phases, and he happened to do something just after breaking out." She continued "He immediately launched a blitz attack to defeat and imprison us." She glanced at Celestia.
"That, of course, took a considerable amount of power, so he was weakened further." Luna looked at Pinkie "Then, he became interested in the two chaos users nearby, and became distracted playing with them, which allowed some of you to wipe out a good portion of the chaotic energy in the city and rescue us, which weakened him yet more.
"After we were rescued, I went to reduce the chaos in the city even further by saving people, while Celestia prepared to do whatever was needed. Discord was also not taking the fight with Twilight and Pinkie anywhere near seriously, thus wasting energy, and when he won, he attempted to hijack their wills, which is not a trivial spell even in the best of times." Luna shook her head "He could easily do it, specially because the targets weren't very strong, but doing the spell caused him to drop his guard."
The night princess looked straight at Rainbow Dash "Then he got hit with a close range explosion of pure harmonic magic."
Rainbow Dash's expression changed.
Luna nodded "That was when Celestia saw her chance, and restrained Discord to prevent him from easily recovering from his injuries. And our three Knights took advantage of that to hit him with an even more powerful harmonic attack. That was the situation, and if any of these things had not happened the way they did, it would have been a lot more difficult to stop Discord."
Rainbow Dash nodded.
"And that's still not all." Luna kept speaking "Because Discord is a being of chaos, the very nature of his defeat would prevent it from happening so easily again." She sighed "His shards started spreading around Equestria, causing chaos. We (well, mostly you guys) prevented it from getting out of hand, but they still caused chaos, and thus gathered power for Discord's return.
"And even with doing everything we can, reducing the chaos to prevent Discord from amassing too much chaotic energy by the time of his return, it is still certain that he will be in a much stronger phase than before. That's just how his ressurrection works." Luna's voice turned grave "That is still manageable considering how much stronger you've become, but if a Congregation manages to cause enough chaos to bring Discord back early, he will be in a state of chaotic critical mass.
"We have only seen that happen a few times in history, and every time it took enormous sacrifices to stop him, and it took centuries for Equestria to recover from the events." She finished.
There were several moments of silence "Okay, then I guess we shouldn't let that happen." Rainbow Dash said, with the tone of someone screaming internally.
"Right. So going back to the previous point." Celestia spoke "We absolutely must not allow the Cloud of Chaos to reach that point. However, a lot of our Knights still need to recover and regain their strength.
"As such, in order to buy the highest amount of time possible for your recovery, we've dug out one of the oldest anti-chaos rituals we have available, and our researchers modified it for the purposes of slowing down the advance of the Cloud. The plan is that Luna, Cadance and I will power the ritual." She finished.
"What? All three alicorns?!" Rarity asked in disbelief.
"Yes." Celestia nodded "It might seen extreme, but this is an important matter." She sighed "And it is necessary. Even doing all of that, the time you'd have for recovery will not be more than four days."
"Four days?" Pinkie gasped "How much time would we have without that, then?"
"Two days and a half." Luna stated.
There was a lot of silent swallowing at those words, but then Celestia spoke again.
"So, for the Knights who were the most injured in the last mission, how much do you think you can recover in four days?" She asked.
"I should be at about 80%." Sunset said.
Most of the reason for it to be taking that long was Sunset use of that Great Curse. The burden it had taken on both her body and her magic was definitely no joke.
"85 to 90%." Was Twilight's answer.
The other Knights gave their own assessments, which fell in those ranges as well. Celestia nodded.
"Okay, this is not ideal, but it should work." She turned her head towards Spike "Spike, you and the Crusaders have a different mission."
"What? Really?" Applebloom asked, mirroring the reaction of the others.
"Yes." Celestia nodded "We have recently received some information from our changeling allies that Starlight Glimmer has reappeared."
There were several grimaces and a few curse words around the room at that. It was clear that the unicorn had left quite an impression on the Knights.
"And of course she would do that at the worst possible timing." Sunset groaned "It was hard to miss the state of high alert Equestria is under, so she would definitely assume that would be her best chance."
"Indeed." Celestia spoke "So, we are going to send you four, and there are two reasons for that:
"Reason one is because you did very well against her the last time you fought, so you should be able to repeat the feat.
"Reason two is because, different from the other Knights, the four of you have not faced down against Discord personally." She finished.
"And why does that matter?" Scootaloo asked after a moment.
Celestia looked at Luna, who nodded and began to speak:
"We haven't gone into detail about the Cloud of Chaos yet, but one of the most troublesome aspects about such high concentrations of chaotic energy is that they create a sort of chaotic miasma that covers everything around them." She sighed "For most ponies, it would be impossible to get close without being subsumed by the chaotic miasma.
"Even for Knights at your level, your actions would be heavily hindered during a fight, and even Spike's draconic constitution wouldn't help that much." Luna continued "Meanwhile, the Knights who faced Discord directly have been "innoculated" against the chaos, for lack of a better word."
The dragon and three fillies mulled over that in silence. Celestia spoke again:
"For the same reason, we can't give guard support in the battle." She shook her head "Besides, the guards will be needed for a different mission."
"What mission?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"It's because of the Blue Field River, isn't it?" Twilight asked. Pinkie Pie was the only one who seemed to understand what she was talking about.
"That's right." Celestia said "The route the Cloud of Chaos is taking also happens to be within the course of the river.
"Usually, it is difficult for chaos to affect running water, but the sheer magnitude of the Cloud is enough that we're going to be seeing scattered effects way downriver and into Equestrian territory. The guards will have to keep control of that situation, and they will be supported by the avatars, who are also not particularly suited for dealing with the chaos."
"But going back to the original topic." Luna spoke once Celestia had finished "The four of you are going to Yellowmarble city in order to deal with any possible plots Starlight Glimmer may try. Understood?"
Spike and the three Crusaders nodded, and Luna smiled in response.
"With that set, the next order of business is the planning for the Cloud of Chaos operation." She spoke again "But for that we need the most accurate possible information about the threat." Luna sighed "That is another issue, but I will let my sister explain." She moved her front legs as if presenting Celestia to the others.
Celestia smiled at her antics before recovering her calm expression. Then she began to talk:
"Since we have already talked about the chaotic miasma, it shouldn't come as a surprise that getting concrete intelligence about the Cloud of Chaos is very hard." Was what she began with.
The Knights nodded. If it was difficult to even get close, it would be difficult to gather detailed information.
"Of course, we have long experience in dealing with matters related to Discord, so it isn't completely impossible." She continued "But chaotic energy, by its very nature, actively resists elucidation, which goes trouble for the kind of concentration of chaos we are talking about here.
"So, our best researchers, using every single method available to them, only managed to gather a small amount of information about the wavefront of the cloud, which seems to be the core." Celestia said "To add to that, there was also a lot of reports about Congregations of Chaos of a similar scale and spread, mostly gathered from the Knights that dealt with them.
"Even with narrowing the search so much, there were still quite a lot of different types of havoc that could be wrought by so much chaos, but with the reports and the informations we were able to get, it should give you girls an idea of the kinds of threats you are about to face." Celestia lifted eight scrolls with telekinesis and sent them to the Knights.
"The most important points and speculations have been compiled in these, but before you read, I would like to ask the opinion of the two foremost experts in chaos magic in Equestria, Twilight and Pinkie: What do you think is the most important thing to consider during the operation?"
"Chaos is unexpected." Twilight replied instantly.
"It'll be a surprise!" Pinkie exclaimed, throwing her front hooves into the air (literally).
"Indeed." Celestia nodded "What you girls must never forget is to always be flexible and adaptable. I know you have gotten good at that with how much experience you have, but a reminder is always good." She smiled "If you do that, I'm certain you'll do fine even without being fully recovered.
They responded with a smile and a bow, promising themselves to meet her expectations.