//------------------------------// // Chapter 9 // Story: The Witch of Canterlot // by MagnetBolt //------------------------------// So, where was I? How could I forget -- falling to my death. Teleportation had failed me. My brain, which for a while now had been my least-used asset, tried to scream something at me through the mist of panic. I caught the edge of an idea from whatever part of me wasn’t stupid and tried to grab myself with telekinesis. It wasn’t something I was good at. I’d only gotten to practice this a few times, and the biggest problem was using the right amount of force, something the suppression field was making difficult. Gravity’s sticky hooves slowly peeled away, my fall slowed, and I finally came to a stop just a hoof-width above the spikes at the bottom of the pit, which from here looked a lot like somepony had put big glass shards in the sand on purpose. I didn’t have the luxury of time to sit and examine them, though. I tried to pull myself up and only managed a body-length before I felt my grip start to fade. I slipped and slammed into the side of the pit, barely holding myself in place. I stretched for the edge, and it was just out of my reach. The weight started to drag at me again. I was still holding that curved sword. I stabbed it into the wall and pulled myself up, legs shaking. I’d spent too much time in the library and not enough in the gym. I touched the rim, grabbed at the ground outside, and gave the failing self-telekinesis everything I had, just barely getting out of the pit, flopping onto my back and panting, sand sticking to my sweat-covered coat. “That sucked,” I whispered. While I was catching my breath I felt the ground shift under me. In a panic I got to my hooves and stumbled back. The pit snapped shut like the jaws of a bear trap, leaving no trace it had ever existed. “Wow, Sunset,” I muttered. “It’s almost like somepony is out to get you.” A spear stabbed through my cloak, just missing my side. “You must be even skinnier than I thought,” the pony behind me said. I had a feeling he’d actually missed on purpose. The fact he gave me enough time to turn and face him was enough proof he wasn’t here for a surprise attack. That made me think he, at least, wasn’t responsible for the pit. He was a tall stallion, with a dark coat visible in the big, hoof-wide gaps in his iron armor, the thin plates connected by a web of bright purple strings. It looked less like useful armor and more like something a pony would design for a fashion show with a vague armor theme. He spun his spear like it was part of his body. “I’m big where it counts,” I countered, letting light play along my horn. “That’s an empty threat,” the stallion said. “We’ve had unicorns in here before. They always think fancy magic will save them, but they either can’t get their spells working or they’re exhausted before I’ve even had fun. Which kind are you?” “I’m the third kind,” I said. “I’m the kind you don’t want to meet.” His eyes flicked behind me. I grabbed for his spear, which he didn’t expect - probably because he was so used to fighting ponies who named every punch before they threw it. I’ll give him credit for having good instincts, though. Instead of trying to pull back and turn it into a tug-of-war he thrust forward into the pull. I deflected it with a minimum of force, leaning to the side and letting the spear go through my cloak again, hitting the pony who’d been sneaking up behind me in the sternum. If it hadn’t been for the enchanted weapons, that would have been a fatal blow. “Two on one?” I asked. The stallion with the spear was completely off-balance and overextended. “That’s brave of you. Ten on one would be better odds.” He didn’t have a great grip on the spear now, especially when I shoved straight back with it, letting the butt smack him in the jaw and making him bite his tongue. He yelped instead of saying whatever quip he had planned, and I tore the spear from his hooves and beat him over the head with it until he was curled up in a ball on the ground. “That’s what I thought,” I said, panting. Beating the tar out of him with a stick made me feel a little better about almost falling to my death. I grabbed the sash around his neck. The other pony, the one who’d been behind me, was still groaning on the ground when I trotted over to relieve him of his burden. “That was cheating,” he grumbled. “Attacking me from behind was cheating,” I said. “I don’t suppose you’re secretly an assassin here to murder me for getting too close to the truth?” “What?” “I didn’t think so.” He had his colored sash around his forehoof. I went to grab it, and he lunged with a hidden blade, coming right off the ground like he was on strings. Unlike me, he was clearly in shape for this kind of thing. I tried to move, and the ground went soft under me like quicksand, holding me in place. I saw the stiletto in excellent detail, time slowing as it went right towards my face. The blade had a profile like a triangle, twisting along the length. It was the kind of weapon that didn’t have a place on a real battlefield. I felt the tip scrape against my skin, and… well, have you ever felt a sharp knife? Like, the way you can touch the edge of a kitchen knife without cutting yourself if you know what you’re doing? You can feel how fine the edge is. And I could feel it now, sliding against my fur and refusing to cut. There was a tingle to it, with the same tinge as the weight that had been working against my spells. I guess the safety system wasn’t ignoring my safety after all. Now, there are a lot of ways I could have responded. With hindsight the coolest thing would have been to grab his hoof and kick his face or something. Maybe I could have done it even with the quicksand holding my hooves down. Instead I just sort of blasted him at point-blank range. He slammed into the ground like somepony had dropped a building on him. Which, in hindsight, was about accurate to the amount of force I’d used. Oops. “You just, um… stay down,” I said, trying to pull my hooves out of the sand. I’d only sunk down to my fetlocks, but it had been just enough to slow me down that it would have been fatal anywhere else. It took a moment before the suction stopped, and I stepped up onto the now-solid ground, kicking loose sand from my ankles. I checked the pony’s breathing before I took the sash from his leg. “You’ll be fine,” I decided, with the certainty of someone who didn’t have a medical degree. “Those bones will…” I hesitated. “Tell you what, I’ll send you a few potions that’ll get those fixed once somepony sets them. Yeah.” I patted his head, because his skull seemed more or less safe to touch. That was when the whole street started rumbling like there was an earthquake. I tied the two new sashes to my belt and looked around. The walls were closing in. Literally. The buildings were sliding along the streets like they were on wheels. I said something extremely rude in griffonese and tried to teleport again, the spell fizzling. “Damnit, it’s too delicate to hold up to the suppression field,” I muttered. “Okay, time for plan B.” There were three ponies here who couldn’t defend themselves. I couldn’t protect them and myself. I had a feeling I wouldn’t need to protect them was long as they weren’t between me and whatever was trying to murder me in the middle of the forge, with thousands of ponies watching. I picked a direction and bolted, running down an alleyway. I actually felt the walls against both sides of my flank before I got out into the next street. The road dropped out from under me and I jumped for it, hitting the empty hole where a window should be and getting inside one of the buildings on the far side. Predictably, the ceiling and floor decided they were going to close like a set of jaws. The window on the other side of the wall was just close enough. I got down low and slid, the sand under me letting me skid like a puck on a shuffleboard. I skipped out the window and into the blinding sunlight. Nothing immediately tried to kill me, so I had a moment to breathe and look around. It looked familiar. The cheers of the ponies from the stands washed over me, and that sound made it all click. I was standing in almost the same spot where I’d saved Shahrazad from the assassins. That same wide street, and with the distant cheering, the same sound of the crowds. Oasis was at the other end of the street. If there was anypony who was probably trying to get me killed, it was him. He looked like he was in deep concentration. I wasn’t sure why until I saw what was at his hooves. It was one of the other gladiators, lying in a pool of blood. Oasis’ sword dripped crimson into the sand. The sword that had that snake engraved on the blade. “What did you do?” I growled. Oasis spun to look at me. “Surprised to see me?” I asked. I didn’t give him much of a chance to answer. I charged right at him, drawing my sword and blocking his first swing, blasting him back with a burst of kinetic energy from my horn. He landed flat on his back and popped up to his hooves like an acrobat. “This is your fault!” he yelled. “You did this! I know all about how you lust for power!” I winced at that. “I’m not like that! Not anymore!” “If you were different you wouldn’t be here. Nopony comes to Saddle Arabia unless they’re chasing something that can’t have.” He circled around me. “And you show up out of nowhere and claim Princess Shahrazad as your own. I’m doing this for the good of Saddle Arabia!” He charged. The sand shifted under my hooves. That same quicksand sensation that almost got me killed the first time. I shoved myself with telekinesis, knocking myself up and out of the way like a cork popping out of a bottle. The snake-sword caught my mane, and a lock of red and yellow fell to the arena floor. Something dripped down my jaw line. He’d nicked my ear, too. I touched it and winced. It wasn’t a bad cut but it stung really badly. “Okay, I’m gonna have to end this quickly,” I said. Here’s a simple truth -- if an earth pony knows you’re going to try and grab something out of their hooves it’s darn near impossible to do, even if you’re me. I couldn’t yank the sword out of his hooves, so I had to make him want to drop it. The easiest way to do that was using a spell originally designed for cooking. I tossed a metal heating charm at the sword. It didn’t seem to do anything for a moment, then the metal shimmered and started glowing cherry-red. Oasis screamed and let go, the sword dropping to the street. I bucked him in the face while he was holding his wounded hoof, then while he was reeling I bopped him straight up with a force-blast, letting him fall hard to the arena floor. I’d have felt sorry for him if he hadn’t just murdered a pony. The cheering in the stands slowly turned to chaos. “Once one pony saw the body, the unrest spread,” Shahrazad sighed. “We’ve managed to get out a story that he’s recovering, but…” “But you don’t get better from being cut open like that,” I finished. “I’m sorry.” After the trouble in the forge, I’d been escorted back inside while ponies were carried away to be treated. Or buried. I’d gone back to the VIP area, and Shahrazad had immediately pulled me aside and cleaned my cuts and bruises with clumsy but well-meaning effort. Right now we were waiting in a side room for the right moment to walk into the larger celebration hall. “It isn’t your fault, my love.” Shahrazad sighed. “You brought honor to me by putting an end to things. And in the eyes of the ponies of Saddle Arabia, you’ve won the forge and put down a cheating champion.” “That weapon he used,” I said. “It had the same symbol as the assassins.” “Unfortunately it seems to have vanished in the confusion,” Shahrazad said, sourly. “I would have liked to examine it myself.” “So what now? Do we have your uncle arrested?” I asked. “He had to be involved.” “For now, we attend the after-party,” Shahrazad said. “We have to keep the ponies happy and thinking everything is normal.” She adjusted my armor. “Once this is over, perhaps we should have a custom set made for you, hm? If you’re going to attend public events as a forge champion you should be presentable.” “Don’t we have bigger things to worry about?” “You should worry about what’s in front of you at any given moment,” Shahrazad said. “If one is lost in the desert, one should not ignore water merely because they want a map.” “Yeah,” I sighed. “You’re right. Deal with this party, then the conspiracy trying to kill you.” “I would not object to you keeping me safe in case anything else is planned,” Shahrazad said. “I doubt he will try anything now, after you smashed his plans, but nopony would have expected poison, either.” I nodded, and the guard at the doorway lifted the curtain, the noise from outside redoubling. I let Shahrazad walk out first, and she waved to the crowd. I was glad to have her working them up for me, because I was pretty sure they actually quieted a little when I emerged on her heels. The hall was broken up into two parts, a little like a throne room. There was a wide raised area where we were standing, and below us, ponies milling around tables and benches with servers moving between them. All eyes were on me. “Sunset Shimmer,” King Zephyranthes said. “That was quite a showing in the Forge. You have brought great honor to my daughter, and a blessing upon your future wedding.” “It’s no big deal,” I said, trying to be modest. I realized my mistake a moment later. “I mean, uh, they were all very skilled and worthy fighters. I thank you for the opportunity to test myself against them.” He nodded. Apparently I’d recovered from that small stumble. “Take this as a token of your victory. No doubt it is only the first of many from the Forge.” Zephranthes nodded, and an attendant brought something over and I felt my blood freeze in my chest. Oh, it seemed simple enough, a token of appreciation, the kind of thing a pony wouldn’t think twice about. Unless they were me. Unless they’d made my mistakes. The servant had brought over a tiny velvet pillow, and resting on top of it was a golden crown of laurels. “What’s wrong?” Flash asked. I guess I hadn’t been hiding my displeasure as well as I thought if he was picking up on it. “A crown,” I muttered. The thing felt like a lead weight holding my head down. It was all in my head, but the freaking crown was on my head too so it all balanced out into making me a miserable mess. “It’s kind of cute,” Flash said. “It reminds me of some statues from old Pegasopilis. You know, the ones of the mares in loose robes doing vaguely athletic things?” “I hate it,” I said, trying to smile as some ponies passed us by. They didn’t actually care about me, they just wanted to gawk at the new champion. Who was me, I guess, but I felt like any second now one of them was going to start asking me questions I couldn’t answer. “Is this more of that self-loathing?” Flash asked. “C’mon, Sunset. You did something stupid, but it worked out okay! You stopped that stallion.” “Not before somepony…” I glanced at the crowd. How many of them were within earshot? “...before somepony got hurt,” I said. I didn’t want to ruin things by causing a panic. “Nopony is perfect,” Flash said. “Honestly, I’m just glad it wasn’t you.” “It almost was.” My ear still hurt. “And what a loss that would have been,” said a familiar voice, though the last time I’d heard it, it had been a lot happier. “Balthazar,” I turned to look at him. I hadn’t noticed him among the crowd. “Sorry, I don’t actually know what title you use. Princess Shahrazad forgot to tell me.” “She would probably try to get you calling me ‘Uncle,’” Balthazar said, with a short laugh devoid of real humor. “I was hoping to get a chance to talk to you alone.” “Let me guess, you’ve got some amazing secret insight you want to share,” I said. “Or maybe you want to drag me into your master plan? Everypony else in this country has been looking for a way to recruit me as leverage in some plot.” “No, I wanted to talk to you alone because I respect my niece and her decisions, even when I think she’s making a mistake. This is the biggest mistake she’s ever made. I don’t like you.” “Wow. That’s actually…” I paused. “That’s kind of refreshingly direct.” “I’ve met your Princess Celestia more than once. That mare spins everything into a game. I don’t like how she does things, but you’re even worse.” I frowned. “I know all about what happened with you in Canterlot,” Balthazar said. “I don’t think many ponies in this room do. Not a lot of news got out. Not a lot of accurate news, anyway, but I trust my sources. You were in charge for one day. One day.” My heart jumped in my chest, thumping like a wild animal trying to escape my rib cage. The edges of the room faded out. “You know about that?” I asked. The words barely came out. My throat was so dry it could be used as parchment. “I’m not going to let you get your hooves on the throne,” he said. “You might have fooled everypony else for now. Assassins conveniently attacking Shahrazad right when you were there to save her?” He shook his head. “Wait, are you accusing me of sending them?” I asked. “Why don’t you tell me?” Balthazar said. “I don’t like everything that happened here, either.” “What?! Your fighter is the one who ended up--” I stopped short. “--who ended up hurting somepony!” “There was a lot of funny business. I’m going to get to the bottom of it. I’m not going to let a pony like you just come in and take over.” He bowed politely and left, immediately spotting somepony else and greeting them with a big happy smile and laugh. From here, it looked as fake as I felt. “What was that all about?” the pony at my side asked. “It was--” I turned and expected to see Flash there. Shahrazad had quietly taken his place when I wasn’t looking. “You looked like something was wrong, my love,” she explained. “I wanted to make sure my uncle’s trickery hadn’t done anything to harm you.” “No. I’m fine.” “You don’t look fine,” Shahrazad said. She sat down so we were a little more on eye level. “Sunset, what’s wrong? What did he mean about Canterlot?” “He…” I thought about denying everything. Maybe I could have just lied and said I didn’t know what he meant, but then she’d just get the story from somepony else. It was bad enough even if you knew everything that happened. Knowing half the truth would make me look like a monster instead of an idiot. I took a deep breath. I was going to have to tell her. I was going to have to really think about it and go over everything I’d done wrong. “It started a few days after the Grand Galloping Gala…” Hey, Twilight, Sorry about missing you at the Gala. I wasn’t really feeling like being out in public, especially with all those stuffy Canterlot ponies. No offense, but I’d rather sneak out to Ponyville and just hang out with everypony there. The good news is, Luna and I have been hanging out a lot. She’s really nice when you get to know her! I’m trying to convince her to get out and do something. Do you think she’d like Nightmare Night? I don’t think she could refuse an invite if it’s to a holiday in her honor. Say hi to all the girls for me, and tell Pinkie that I appreciate the thought but she doesn’t need to try guessing my birthday every year. If she really wants a party we can talk about picking a day, but the poor pony in charge of checking all the mail for anything dangerous almost had a heart attack when the confetti bomb went off. Your friend, Sunset Shimmer I cast a quick spell to dry the ink on the page. I could have used the journal to send her the message instantly, but there was something nice about being sent something in the mail. I smirked and added a quick note to the bottom of the page. PS -- I’m just returning the glitter Pinkie sent. I folded the letter and shoved it into an envelope, then carefully poured way too much glitter -- which for the record is any amount of glitter at all -- in along with it. After that package from Pinkie I deserved a little harmless prank of my own. I held it up in my magic and wondered if I should add more glitter when the universe gave me an answer. Magic washed over me I’d been dropped into an ice-cold ocean with a thick layer of oil floating on it. It was disgusting and chilled me to the bone and I completely lost my grip on the letter. Glitter flew everywhere, mostly over me. “Buck,” I swore, then started spitting because it was in my mouth and that was basically the worst thing ever. I threw a spell at myself to try and pull the glitter out of my fur and got maybe half of it. I was going to be combing it out of my mane for weeks. “Okay, I don’t know what that was, but I have to assume it’s divine punishment for trying to pull a prank on Twilight,” I sighed. “I bet one of the students at the school turned somepony into a newt. Again. It had just better not be who I think it is…” I grumbled and stormed out of my room. It took me a few corridors full of panicking ponies before I started to actually get worried. They were scared enough that most of them didn’t even notice me, just rushing in every direction like ponies do when they’re terrified and don’t know which way to stampede. “Hey, um--” I held out a hoof to stop a maid, and she just ran past me, knocking me out of the way with very un-maid-like rudeness. I rubbed my hoof and backed out of the way. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll just figure it out myself, thanks!” Something outside caught my eye. A bright light in the castle garden, like a big blue spotlight shining into the sky. “You know, I bet that’s got something to do with it,” I said. I popped into the garden with a quick teleport, the castle wards struggling and failing to keep up with my spell. Celestia had never bothered improving the wards after I’d left. Maybe Twilight hadn’t caused her as much trouble. I would have spent more time pondering the differences between us as students, but as it turned out I was in the middle of a disaster zone. “Sunset!” Celestia yelled. “You need to get away from here!” She was struggling, all four hooves planted in place and digging into the ground like she was being shoved into the dirt. Her horn was blazing brighter than I’d ever seen before, and her efforts were focused on one of the ugliest statues in the garden, which was shaking and cracking like an egg about to hatch into something awful. “Sister, she might be able to help!” Luna shouted, from the other side of the statue. She was trying to hold her ground on the opposite end. “What’s going on?” I asked. “What can I do to help?” “Discord is breaking free of his prison!” Celestia yelled. I saw one of her hooves slip, and she nearly fell before she caught herself. “We need to reforge the binding spells, but it’s taking everything I have just to slow his escape!” “Binding spells -- this isn’t just a statue?!” “I don’t have time to explain! Just help us hold the wards in place! If we can halt his progress I can begin fixing the broken spellwork!” I nodded and got equidistant between Celestia and Luna, adding my magic to their own. It wasn’t really much of a spell, it was more like trying to hold sand in your hooves while it was fighting to escape. If we squeezed too might it would shatter what fragile threads of magic were still holding it together, and if we were too loose it would just overpower us and slip away. Holding it like that, I caught a glimpse of the magic in the binding spell. It was beautiful. Like a rainbow geode, I hadn’t even known there was something inside until it was cracked and broken. I could have studied it for years. Even while I was struggling to hold to the same pace and strength as the Princesses I was doing my best to memorize what I could see. “We’re doing it!” Luna shouted. “Just a little more!” And then it all fell apart. The statue exploded, shattering like a fossilized snakeskin over the mismatched horror beneath it. The backlash knocked me head over hooves into the bushes. When I stumbled out, I saw Celestia and Luna looking around, confused. The statue was gone, and the creature I’d glimpsed was nowhere to be found. Everything was quiet for a long, dizzying moment. “Where did he go?” Luna asked. “Could we have accidentally banished him?” Celestia muttered. “No. He must be weakened by his long imprisonment.” “Au contraire, ma princesse! He’s back!” There was a flash of light unlike any teleportation spell I’d ever seen before, and the horror reappeared, wearing a giant floppy hat and accompanied by a band. “I just had to make a quick detour to Burrexico to pick up some appropriate diegetic music for this scene.” “Who is this?” I whispered. “It is Discord,” Luna muttered. “An ancient enemy of ours. He was turned to stone a thousand years ago when my sister and I used the Elements of Harmony on him.” “How is he back now?” I hissed. Discord nodded from where he was abruptly between me and Luna. “That is a very good question. Whose fault was it? Was it Celestia’s fault, for not doing any kind of proper maintenance over the last millennium? She didn’t even keep the pigeons away! And honestly, I can’t remember the last fight she won. She’s zero for two with her little sister.” Discord snapped his talon and his band vanished. He started pacing around us, disappearing every time he left my field of view only to pop out somewhere else. “Or maybe it was little Luna. After all, she needed help just to raise the sun, and she’s just so inferior to her big sis that she threw a temper tantrum about it. Of course, if Nightmare Moon was here she probably would have known what to do. I might not even have escaped! Instead we’ve just got Luna pretending she’s a good little pony now, without any of that useful spite or cruel creativity.” Discord reached into Luna’s ear and pulled out Nightmare Moon’s helmet, rolling it along the back of his paw like a marble across his knuckles, then tossing it into the air. It hung in the sky like a pale blue moon, slowly spinning. “But you know what? If I had to pin my money on somepony to blame, I think it would be the pony who thought she was good enough to be an alicorn,” Discord said. He popped in front of me and flicked my horn, sending a painful shiver down my spine. “You really are something. You think you deserve to be an alicorn. You barely even deserve to be a pony! Celestia just takes pity on you because she wants to make sure a dangerous element like you is kept under control. That’s why I was in the garden where she could keep an eye on me, and why she brought you back here where she could see every move you make.” “That’s not true!” Celestia shouted. “Sunset, Luna, don’t listen to Discord’s lies. He’ll try to set us against each other because he knows we’re stronger together.” “Oh yes, don’t listen to my lies, listen to hers instead.” Discord scoffed. “Like when you told Twilight the Mare in the Moon wasn’t real. Not that it’s a surprise since you told all your subjects that for centuries. Did you enjoy being the center of attention so much that you couldn’t even allow your sister to be in history books?” Luna shot Celestia a look. “I wouldn’t blame her too much, though,” Discord said. “After all, maybe she was just being nice and didn’t want her subjects to remember that her sister tried to kill her, blot out the sun, and destroy the world. Of course that was just so long ago. Months, at least! I’m sure in a few centuries you’ll find ponies who won’t be terrified of you.” He turned to me. “Not that--” I didn’t let him keep talking. I threw a fireball in his face. It seemed like the thing to do. The first one knocked him down. The second one vanished in midair. The third one did a loop and came back to me. I threw a shield up and the spell splattered against it like tapioca, sliding to the ground as a glowing jelly. “That was very rude,” Discord said. “Completely against all the rules of etiquette!” “I’m not good at rules,” I said, stepping carefully away from the jellified spell. I had no idea what would happen if I touched it. “Hm. You’re really not, are you?” Discord grinned. “You know, I think I like that about you, Sunset Shimmer. I was going to go cause some chaos and let your fake little family try to come up with a way to beat me, but I think I’ll leave the fun to you.” “What are you talking about?” I backed up. Discord snapped his talon and reappeared behind Celestia. “Nothing personal,” he whispered in her ear, before taking her crown off. Celestia popped like he’d stuck a pin in her, deflating and falling to the ground before vanishing entirely. Luna gasped and flew up, looking at me. “Sunset, you must escape! Get to Twilight Sparkle and find the Elements of Harmony! They’re the only thing that can--” “None of that,” Discord said. He reached out of a cloud just above Luna’s head and plucked her crown off. Luna melted before my eyes, falling down like a thick blue shower and landing next to Celestia’s limp form. I watched in horror as eyes bubbled to the surface and blinked. A heavy weight fell on my head. Discord had fused the two crowns into an uneven, swirling mess. “You’re in charge,” Discord said. “Consider it a gift. Well, not a gift so much as a curse, but really they’re the same thing if you don’t ask for it! Go and get your friends, if you still have any. They’re good ponies, they beat Nightmare Moon while you were being useless. I’m sure they can beat me, too.” He leaned down to look me in the eyes, bending in the middle like a snake. “And when you do see them again, remember to tell them thank you for having to fix all your mistakes.” He snapped his fingers and vanished. I wished I could do the same.