Interlude 1: The Princess Summit
Princess Twilight Sparkle, the newest of the alicorn princesses, looked upon the shattered remains of the artifact before shifting her gaze to her mentor, Princess Celestia. The magic blast that had woken up her and her friends had preceded the guard coming and asking her to come to this room, which she had not known of before, on the behest of the princess. When she arrived, however, all she was met with were two unicorns piecing through the debris and her mentor looking over it, stony-faced and silent. Not wanting to disturb anything, Twilight took her place next to Celestia and waited. Now that a few minutes had passed, however, she was starting to get a bit worried that something was even more wrong than she thought.
A moment later, Princess Celestia seemed to shake herself out of her thoughts and spared a glance at Twilight. “I apologize, Twilight,” she said, eyes returning to the base that the artifact had rested upon. “I suppose I’m lost in thoughts, mainly regrets.”
“Regrets?” Twilight asked, tilting her head. “About what, necessarily? Is it something to do with the artifact?”
“Indirectly,” came the deflective response, before Celestia sighed. “My apologies, it’s always… difficult for me to talk about my Little Sun.”
“Little Sun…?” Twilight asked, hoping for an answer.
“That’s a name I haven’t heard for a while,” came the voice of one of the unicorns piecing through the debris. “You’re still looking for her? Thought you gave up on Sunset after you took up Twilight.”
“Twilight was not a replacement for Sunset, Colonel Far Sight.” Celestia’s voice was stern, brokering no argument. “I do not believe there ever will be. It would be prudent for you to remember that.”
“Apologies, Princess,” Far Sight replied. “Though, you can’t deny the ways that they became your student were similar.”
Twilight’s ears flattened at that admission. “You were at my exam?” she asked, abashed.
“At yours? No, I just heard about it from the grapevine. No, I was just a private when little Sunset showed her face. What a thing that was.”
Celestia chuckled at that, eyes clouded in reminiscence. “Yes, it certainly was.”
“Er, Prin-Celestia?” Twilight asked. “What exactly do you mean by that?”
“Well, you see,” Far Sight began, “when Celestia went out for one of her daily walks about… how long ago was it now?”
“It will be twenty five years as of next week,” Celestia responded.
“Ah, yes, twenty five years ago, Celestia was out on one of her walks in Canterlot. Lots of ponies wanted to see her, and wanted to be seen by her. Sunset Shimmer was one of them.”
“As far as I knew, she was an orphan living on the streets,” Celestia continued. “Even without her cutie mark, she felt she was special. And so, seeing me on the streets, she decided to impress me with her magical prowess. She brought all the magic in her soul to bear, and tried to create a second sun.”
“Celestia always loves upscaling what Sunset did,” Far Sight butted in. “She was just trying to create a very large light spell. Any unicorn could tell you that.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Celestia conceded. “However, what she happened next was definitely not what anypony expected: she Flared. Suddenly, she actually was creating a second sun, and right in the middle of a crowd. It was lucky that I was there; I could stop the flare in progress, but then again, she wouldn’t of flared in the first place if I were not there. When it was over, she was puckered out and had her cutie mark.” Celestia’s face, for a split second, showed a shadow of concern, but her neutral mask returned before Twilight could make note of it. “When I asked her later, she didn’t remember the flare, which was a good thing. In the end, though, I took her in as a student of mine, as well as let her attend my school free of tuition.”
Something about the story bugged Twilight, as if Celestia was leaving out something, but before she could ask more questions about this previous student, the other unicorn piped up. “Princesses! I found something!”
Immediately, all focus turned to the stallion, who was clearing an area around a suspicious splotch, almost immediately in front of the base. Moving over to the splotch, whose dark red color immediately connoted blood, Twilight’s concern grew as much as her puzzlement. The size of the splotch was of immediate puzzlement; even a small piece of the debris would’ve caused more blood than this splotch, so the rapid unscheduled disassembly of the mirror, as one of the guards outside the room had put it, was unlikely to be the cause. Furthermore, there was something odd going on with the splotch, as the magic inside it was over-excited, moreso than anything else in the room. Peering closer, she noted the odd piece of debris in the middle, and oh so carefully lifted it up with her magic. Bringing it closer to her eye, she asked a question while examining it. “Princess? Was there any iron used in the construction of the mirror?”
A few moments passed before Celestia answered. “No. Steel, crystals, glass, and silver were the only materials used in the construction of the mirror.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Twilight murmured, rotating the debris in her magic. “Then this piece of iron is even more unusual than normal.” Before anypony could ask why, she continued, “The magic in this piece is very excited, as if a large amount of magic had been poured into it recently, but…” She trailed off for a second before picking back up right where she left off. “But the amount of magic in it is completely ordinary for a chunk of steel this size. How could that be?”
“It came from the mirror,” Celestia abruptly said, and everypony turned to look at her. “The mirror is, was a portal, and the world on the other side was nearly devoid of magic. Starswirl and I visited there when he first crafted the mirror.”
“So if it came from the mirror,” Twilight continued, “then it can be thought that the blood also came from the mirror, and due to the blood still being fresh, we can conclude that the pony who broke the mirror was a pony who came through the mirror, and also left the blood.” Twilight’s thought process hit a snag, and took a few seconds to catch up with her mouth. “Of course, there’s also the fact that more than one pony came through the mirror, but, well, we can’t say, so it’s nothing but speculation at the moment! What we can say, though, is that the iron was taken out of the body and the wound was bandaged due to lack of any blood trails elsewhere in the room, which means we only need to look for somepony with bandages on their body.” Twilight beamed at her thorough explanation, before her smile morphed into a sheepish one, with her furling her wings that had extended during the explanation.
Celestia’s smile almost seemed forced. “Very good, Twilight. We’ll talk about this more tomorrow.” Without another word, she left the room, leaving a very perplexed Twilight.
Far Sight sighed before turning back to Twilight. “You must forgive her, Princess. She-”
“Twilight,” Twilight interrupted. “Please, just call me Twilight.”
“Very well, Twilight. Getting back to the point, Princess Celestia and Sunset Shimmer were very close to one another, and the fallout of their relationship was catastrophic. She had fled through the mirror, and it only opened every once in a while. And now, she may never see her student again.” He shrugged. “Or she was here, and her student, which left with a very… explosive personality, is out in the world with no guiding forces. Regardless, your explanation most likely lead to some unpleasant thoughts of her, so please be patient with her.”
Twilight mutely nodded, stood processing her own thoughts for a few moments, before excusing herself. The trek back to her room was done in silence, only pausing in her internal musings to ask for directions. Soon enough, she found herself in the corridor where she and her friends were rooming and came upon the unusual sight of Applejack sitting outside of Pinkie’s door, silently glaring at it.
“Uh, Applejack?” Twilight asked, to which Applejack sleepily turned her head towards Twilight.
“Twi’,” she yawned in a sleepy drawl. “In case ya were wonderin’, Pinkie’s been goin crazy for the last fifteen minutes, and Ah can’t git a lick o’ sleep because of it. Ah think she’s plannin’ a party, but the things she’s saying don’t make no sense.”
“Really?” Twilight asked, interest piqued. “What’s she saying?”
“She’s just sayin’ descriptors, like ‘black cupcakes to match his black mane’ and ‘green and blue treats to match their eyes’ and something about interlocked keys. Think ya can do somethin’ about it?”
Twilight processed the question, and, a moment later, answered as honestly as she could.
“No.”