//------------------------------// // Chapter 10 // Story: The Witch of Canterlot // by MagnetBolt //------------------------------// Canterlot was a disaster. I mean, it usually is. I’m not going to cherry coat it and say that anything ever ran smoothly -- the government was essentially an engine designed to move Celestia around all day and keep her signing things and smiling for the camera and she had to fight for every moment of free time. Every governmental body was more or less self-sufficient except for one little problem Somepony still needed to sign on the dotted line, and with the crown on my head, that meant me. I had a half-dozen books open in front of me when the first scroll was slapped down over them. For a brief moment, I thought somepony had found something so exciting and relevant that they had to interrupt my attempt to find a solution to the current issues. Then my tired eyes focused on the text, which was written to be as long and boring as possible to provide employment for scribes with nothing better to do. “This is a budget proposal,” I said. “Yes,” the pony holding it agreed. “A budget that needs to get passed, Your Highness.” “Don’t call me that,” I corrected. “I’m busy right now. This can wait.” “This can’t wait,” the shaggy, short stallion sighed. “If this budget doesn’t pass, work will stop on the northern rail lines.” “So?” I frowned. “There’s nothing up there! Who cares?” “Aside from the fact that we’ll have several hundred ponies who suddenly don’t have a paycheck, who will care very much, there are the suppliers for the steel, who have a contractual agreement to get paid as part of this budget, the miners they employ, and if work stops on the concrete foundations for any of the several bridges along the way, it won’t set properly and we’ll have to tear them down and start again, which will inflate costs by a factor of three or four, delay the construction by something close to a full year, and make ponies lose faith in the crown.” He let that sink in for a minute, not that I needed it. “So one could say there are quite a few ponies who care, Your Highness.” I glared at him the whole time I signed that paper. “Thank you,” he said, bowing. “By the way, when should we expect the sun to set this evening?” I glanced at the clock. It was already eight. I swore loudly. He left without giving me a chance to answer him or, more likely, throw things at him. “Okay, all I have to do is set the sun and raise the moon,” I said. “I’ve done this before! Sort of. Luna did it. But I was there to help!” I got up and walked past a mirror on the way to the balcony. I stopped and tried to fix the crown. It was a swirly mess of metal and the worst thing wasn’t even that I couldn’t take it off -- it was stuck on my head like it had been nailed in place -- no, the worst thing was that it was just a little crooked, and I could feel it, just a little heavier on one side, just a little uneven. Just enough to drive me bucking crazy after a few hours. There wasn’t time to think about it. There wasn’t time for anything, really. I shook it off and walked outside. The sun was low on the horizon, and the moon was on the other edge of the sky, and it was like they could tell Celestia and Luna weren’t there because I’d swear they were staring at me. “You’re going to move,” I said, firmly. “This is something I can do, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.” Ninety percent of success was confidence. As long as I believed I could do it, I was most of the way to actually doing it. I started pulling on the sun. Step one would be getting that big stupid thing dunked down out of the sky. It was as stubborn and inscrutable as Celestia and I’d swear it looked at me with the same subtle disapproval I always caught from her when she thought I couldn’t see. I strained and pulled and the stupid sun just wiggled like the big, fat-- I yelled and stopped being so gentle and the whole thing changed color for a second before it slammed down like I’d kicked it. “That’ll teach you,” I grumbled. I reached for the moon, expecting the same resistance. It didn’t feel stubborn. It just felt sad. It was like I’d been yelling at a pony and I turned them around and they were crying and helpless and it was all my fault. I recoiled, stumbled back, and almost fell right off the balcony. You know, like an idiot. “Ma’am? Are you okay?” somepony asked. Feather Duster was in the doorway, looking at me. “I’m fine!” I snapped. I didn’t mean to yell at her. It was shame taking control. “Just get out of here!” She backed off and bolted like she’d seen a ghost. I took a deep breath and forced myself to touch the moon again. I had to do this. Just one night. As long as I could buy a few more hours and pretend everything was normal, I could fix things myself. It’d be fine. I didn’t need anypony else. I nudged the moon, just a tiny bit and it started to respond. I had to be careful with it. Like trying to keep a feather hovering with your breath. Somewhere far beyond it in a direction I couldn’t properly feel, there was this sensation like it was nearly in place. Imagine trying to hang a picture on the sky, and the hook keeps moving around where you can’t see it, but you can feel you’re close. The moon visibly snapped into place, and I let go before I could mess anything up. I really hoped nopony in the observatory had been looking. I walked back inside and the fatigue hit me all at once. I could count the number of times I’d been truly magically exhausted on my hooves and I didn’t even have to use the bad one. Usually, when things got bad it was my body that gave out first, not my magic. Just putting the sun and moon in the right places felt like it’d almost killed me. “It’s fine,” I whispered to myself. “By morning, I’ll have this figured out and Celestia can deal with it all then.” I sat down behind the desk, my head pounding and the crown making it worse, and before I could even turn one page, there was a knock on the door. “What?!” I snapped. A grey mare looked inside and held up a stack of papers and letters. “Ma’am, the diplomatic correspondence is here. We need you to go over some of the proposals, there are letters from Saddle Arabia and Griffonstone, and there’s a threatening letter.” “Why can’t Cadance deal with all that?” I asked, the word ‘diplomatic’ helping a few of my brain cells rub together the right way. “She’s got better hornwriting than I do anyway.” “Cadance?” the grey mare asked, sounding as confused as I was becoming. I narrowed my eyes. “Cadance. Princess of love. Actually has a title and some kind of official authority. Does diplomacy stuff professionally, unlike me! Cadance!” “Ma’am, I, um…” the mare blinked. I grabbed the stack of papers and got up. “Fine, I’ll find her myself. You stay here and tell anypony if they need something signed, put it in my inbox.” I shoved a garbage can into her hooves and stormed off. Cadance’s wing of the palace was surprisingly subdued. It was the newest part of the castle if you didn’t count the bits that had blown up because of one magical accident or another. The gold details were subtle rose gold, the curtains were all pastel colors instead of white, and they’d made the corridors a little smaller and more intimate than the huge hallways of the rest of the building. Usually, there were a bunch of guards around. I didn’t see anypony. It was like the whole wing had been abandoned. “Cadance?” I called out. “Are you here?” Maybe I was just being stupid. I could have sworn she was around, but if she’d gone on a trip it would explain why the mare hadn’t gone to Cadance with all the letters. Still, it was weird there were no maids or just guards on patrol. Shining Armor usually had a couple of his best ponies trotting around. There was a weird sense that I didn’t belong, that I was an intruder. It wasn’t like this was my first time in Cadance’s wing, nor was it strange for me to be alone in a castle. “Hey, is anypony here?” I shouted, trying to break the silence. “Sunset?” I turned my head and followed the voice, pushing open a door. Cadance was there, carrying a tub of ice cream. “I knew you’d still be around,” I sighed, a tiny fraction of my stress dissolving. “I’m not sure how much you know about what’s going on--” She pulled me into a hug before I could finish. I dropped the letters and froze up. “I thought everypony forgot me!” Cadance sobbed. “You’re the first pony I’ve seen all day that even knew my name!” “What?” I asked. “It’s true!” Cadance let go and started pacing. “Ever since this morning, it’s like… it’s like nopony here knows me! They just look right past me and if I talk to them, they forget about it a few minutes later!” “That’s…” I hesitated. “Discord must have done something.” “Who’s Discord?” “Some kind of chaos spirit. It’s why I’ve got this stupid thing on my head.” I tapped the crown. “He also, um… put a curse on Celestia and Luna. They’re alive but literally in no shape to run the country.” “I wasn’t even supposed to be here today,” Cadance sighed. “I was supposed to be going on a trip overseas.” “I’m glad to have you here,” I told her. “Ponies keep giving me paperwork to sign and I already had to go to the dungeon once and tell the guards that just because I get annoyed at a pony and yell at them, it doesn’t mean I wanted them locked up!” “Wonderful,” Cadance groaned. “If I can get all this sent to you, could you take care of it?” I asked. “You’re better at it than I am, and your signature actually counts for something. I don’t even want to know what kind of horseapples are gonna fall out of the tree once they snap out of it and realize everything I put my name on is about as valid as a wooden bit.” Cadance smiled. “And while I do that, you can figure out this whole… Discord thing?” “Exactly!” I grinned. “See, Cadance, this is why you’re one of my favorite princesses.” “I bet I’m in your top three,” Cadance agreed, giggling. “You know it.” I winked. With Cadance taking some of the administrative load off my back, I was finally able to sit down and really crunch the books. I had peace for a solid hour before I was interrupted again with a knock on the door. “It’s open,” I called out, my mood a little better than it had been. The door opened slowly, and the last pony I expected looked inside. “Princess Celestia?” Twilight Sparkle asked. The expression on her face said that I wasn’t who she wanted to see either. “I wish,” I muttered. My headache doubled. “What are you doing here?” “Shiny sent me a letter that something was wrong and I needed to get up here,” Twilight said, stepping in without asking. She left the door open behind her, and her eyes trailed up to the crown on my head. “What happened?” “It’s--” I paused because I could hear more ponies outside. “Let me guess. You brought everypony in the palace.” “Just our friends,” Twilight said. I sighed. “I don’t want to explain this twice. Or three times if Dash isn’t paying attention. Just get them in here.” Twilight waved, and I sat down behind the desk again. It was too big for me, but just the right size for the problem I was trying to solve. “Princess Celestia and Luna are out of action,” I said. Might as well rip that bandaid off right away. “Apparently she likes to collect villains and keep them as lawn ornaments and one of them finally escaped.” “Out of action?” Applejack asked. I looked up at her. She wasn’t the kind of pony I could lie to. None of them were. “I don’t even know how to describe it,” I told her. “They’re alive, but, um, not in good shape.” Literally, since one was a puddle and the other was stretched taffy. “But I think if I can catch the thing that did this, I can make him undo everything.” “Um, darling,” Rarity swallowed. “There’s… you realize…?” “I didn’t ask for this stupid crown!” I snapped. “I know it’s crooked, I know it’s ugly, and I don’t need anypony to tell me!” “I was going to say you look pale,” Rarity said, like she was talking to a foal. “Maybe you should rest for a moment.” “I can’t rest right now,” I said. I closed my eyes, trying to make everything stop spinning. I was getting an awful migraine. “I have to fix this first.” “Then let us help,” Twilight said. She put a hoof on my shoulder. “It’ll be easier with all of us working on it. You don’t have to do this alone--” “You mean you think I can’t do it alone!” I shoved her away and glared at her. She looked shocked. “This is my fault! I should have been able to help, but they just-- I was useless! Again!” “Woah nelly, calm down!” Applejack said, like right now, when everything was going wrong, was the time to calm down. “We just wanna help,” Pinkie said. She was… subdued. Maybe she was the smartest pony in the room. I couldn’t handle her pronking around right now, and being more calm and quiet than usual was a welcome surprise. “You seem like you can use a smile. And a cupcake. And probably some coffee.” “I probably could use coffee,” I admitted. “I just… asking for anything from the staff right now is… I don’t deserve anything until I can fix this mistake.” “How about we walk down to the kitchen and talk on the way?” Twilight suggested. “You always said you thought better on your hooves, and maybe explaining what you’ve found out to us will help you put it together yourself.” I took a deep breath. “Okay. Right. You’re right.” I stood up. “Come on.” I walked outside. The guards there saluted, and that nearly sent me running. It would have, if the step backward I took hadn’t ended with me bumping into Fluttershy. I lowered my head and walked forward very quickly until I was alone. Alone with a half-dozen ponies following me, but the point is there wasn’t anyone saluting me or asking me to sign tax documents or needing to be blasted in the face for being Blueblood. “So how worried should we be about all this?” Dash asked. “Just ballpark it for me on a scale of Scootaloo to Nightmare Moon.” “That’s a really narrow scale,” I said, once I’d composed myself a little. I took a deep breath and turned to face them. Something caught my eye. I’d run right into one of the castle’s stained glass galleries, and the perfect one to illustrate my point. Literally. I pointed to a window. It was one of the few that had both Celestia and Luna, and showed them triumphant over a cowering, twisted form. “From the research I’ve done, his name is Discord,” I said. “He’s some kind of chaos spirit. I’ve already tried blasting him, and he got the drop on Celestia and Luna. Maybe they could have taken him if they’d been ready for it.” “Are they using the Elements of Harmony in that picture?” Twilight asked. “It’s not exactly historically accurate,” I said, trying not to sound as annoyed as I felt at the question. “But it’s possible. Records from that time are sketchy at best.” “Are they really the Elements?” Dash asked. “They’re doing the whole wham-bam-rainbow but they’re just sort of floating there. The ones we found looked like necklaces.” “And a crown,” Fluttershy corrected. My eyebrow twitched at the word. “Unfortunately, the artist got it right,” the window said. The twisted, screaming form of Discord suddenly animated, the glass flowing like water even while I watched. “But can you imagine them trying to wear all that jewelry?” The window shifted, and the picture of Celestia suddenly had a long, goose-like neck, just perfect for wearing the five Elements she had around it. “Very lifelike,” Discord said, rubbing his chin. “I swear I’m looking at the real thing!” I blasted the window. It shattered, exploded out over the garden, and hung there, the shards of glass spinning in mid-air. “You girls get out of here,” I said. “I’ll take care of him.” The glass snapped back into place like it was exploding in reverse. “That was rather rude,” Discord said, appearing in a flash of light in front of us. “You know, I wasn’t even done speaking, and here you are making me fix things. My powers aren’t supposed to be about fixing things! That just goes to show you who the real villain is, hmmmmm?” “I guess it was too much to hope you’d obey the laws of physics for once,” I muttered. “I’m a repeat offender,” Discord admitted, his skin and scales changing to black and white stripes. “But I’ve served my time, and I’ve learned a valuable lesson. It’s almost like one of those trite little friendship lessons you’re all so fond of.” “They’re not trite!” Twilight snapped. Apparently, he’d hit a nerve. “I apologize,” Discord said. “I should have said they’re insipid. Shallow. Pedantic. Inshalledantric.” “They’re none of those things! Especially not the last thing since that’s not a word!” Twilight yelled. “Somepony’s touchy about her personal correspondence,” Discord said, rolling his eyes right out of his head. “The important thing isn’t you, it’s me! And what I learned from being a perch for migratory birds for a dozen centuries is that Celestia is an incredibly boring ruler and all of you should be thanking me for making your lives more interesting.” “I’ll thank you if you fix what you did to Celestia and get this stupid crown off my head,” I said. “You’ve tried to kill me! Twice!” Discord scoffed. “Frankly that already makes you much more fit for the throne than your quote-mother-unquote. If there weren’t already so many ponies throwing themselves at your hooves I’d be tempted to try a little shipping industry of my own, if you know what I mean.” “What?” I frowned. “Darling, you really don’t want to know,” Rarity whispered. “You’re already in a bad mood.” “You girls just find the Elements while I keep him busy,” I said. “Celestia has them in a vault somewhere. The guards have to know where they are.” I didn’t like the idea of using the Elements, but maybe it would still count as me solving things if I held him down while they blasted him with rainbows. “Let me save you the effort,” Discord said. “I’ve already removed your Elements from where Celestia was keeping them. It would be cute to have you act all shocked that they’re gone, but I’ve got things to do and I’ve already had my dramatic appearance in this scene. If I wait for you to crack open Sunbutt’s Mystery Box I wouldn’t have time to make it rain vanilla milkshake over Seasaddle.” “They’re gone?!” Rarity gasped. “I’ll give you a door prize since you came all this way,” Discord said. He tapped her forehead, and a hat appeared on her head, sprouting feathers and then flying away. “One size fits all, if you can catch it. No refunds.” “Stop playing stupid games!” I shouted. “If you don’t fix all this now, I swear--” “Oh, did someone say game?” Discord grinned. “And perchance for interest’s sake, a game with the highest stakes?” “Knife monopoly.” Dash nodded. “I was going to make you go on a scavenger hunt for the Elements of Harmony, but now I’m interested in whatever knife monopoly is.” “It ain’t a thing,” Applejack said. “Don’t listen t’ Dash, she’s an idiot.” “That’s too bad,” Discord sighed. “It could have been as fun as Dart Tag.” “Stop interrupting me!” I yelled. “None of you are taking this seriously!” “Oh, it’s very serious,” Discord said, his tone turning sinister. “I’m giving you a chance because it’s no fun unless you think you can win. I’ve been waiting for hours for someone to do something interesting, but all this one has done is paperwork and light reading!” He motioned at me and rolled his eyes. “Between that and the attitude I can see why she didn’t qualify for your little Elements of Harmony club.” I grit my teeth so hard my molars felt like they might crack. “So, here’s the game,” Discord said. “I’ve hidden the Elements of Harmony. I would have enjoyed destroying them but I have a nasty feeling it wouldn’t end well for anyone, myself included.” “Are we supposed to search all of Equestria?” Dash asked. “I’m fast, but not that fast.” “I suppose you do need a clue. I had plenty of time to work on a little something while Equestria’s new worst ruler was trying to find a spell that would get Luna out of her bucket.” He cleared his throat and pulled out a scroll. “To retrieve your missing Elements, just make sense of this change of events. Twists and turns are my master plan. Then find the Elements back where you began.” “What the heck does all that mean?” Applejack asked. “It means… Good luck,” Discord said, snapping his talon and vanishing. “Twists and turns?” Fluttershy asked. “It’s some kind of riddle,” Twilight explained. “I guess that’s not a surprise. Riddle contests are very common with powerful magical creatures. It’s a traditional contest.” “And you really think a monster like Discord cares about tradition?” I asked. “I think when you’ve been locked in stone for a thousand years you probably haven’t been able to learn about more recent developments in dramatic challenges,” Twilight countered. “It wasn’t a very good poem,” Pinkie noted. “It really needed some stronger rhymes, but maybe all those half-rhymes sort of fit better with it being a chaotic mess? I donno. What do you think? Is it subtle theming or sloppy slam poetry?” “I think I need something stronger than coffee,” I mumbled. “It’s the hedge maze!” Twilight gasped. “That must be where he hid them!” “He could have put them anywhere,” I said. “Even if he told you exactly where they were, you couldn’t trust him! This is just a sick game!” “Exactly,” Twilight said, with a grin like she’d figured something out and she wasn’t just being tricked like an idiot. “And that means there are rules! We just have to figure them out and we can win!” “If you play his game at all, you lose,” I said. “We’ll go back to the library and figure out our own plan.” “Sunset, as much as I’d love to spend all night in the library, we don’t have a choice,” Twilight said. “If he’s really stronger than Celestia we need to play along for now.” “That’s the dumbest thing you’ve said all night!” I snapped. “Twilight you’re supposed to be the smart one and you want to run off and do what he wants you to do! He’s playing you!” She shrank back, ears folding. “If you want to walk right into a trap, go ahead! But you’re doing it without me!” I stormed away, slamming every door I could between me and my friends. “Is there anything else I can help with?” Ruby asked. She put a big book on the desk, struggling to lift the tome with her magic. “No. Thank you.” I sighed. “At least you believe in me. Thanks for finding those books.” “No problem!” Ruby smiled and saluted. “I know you can do anything.” “Not anything, but Celestia beat him once already. If she did it, it can be done, and if there’s one way to solve a problem, it means there’s probably another. He’s going to be focused on whatever Twilight and the others are doing, and that means I have the opportunity to get him by surprise.” “Are they the friends you told me about?” Ruby asked. I sighed. “Yeah, and they’re being really stupid right now,” I said. “Any minute now, they’re going to walk through that door, and…” I trailed off, tapping my hoof and looking at the door. “And what?” Ruby asked. “Wait for it,” I said. The door slammed open, and Twilight stomped inside, her head hung low. I glanced out the window. The sky was currently a checkerboard of night and day, and the nearest cloud waved at me. I waved back, because what else do you do in that kind of situation? “Let me guess,” I said, before she’d even had time to sit down. “The Elements weren’t there and it was a gigantic waste of time.” She nodded mutely. “I told you what would happen,” I huffed. “You could have been helping me instead of playing around with someone who was never, ever, going to give you a fair chance!” “He never even said they were in the maze,” Twilight whispered. “He just separated us, and we ran through the whole thing, and now everypony is acting weird.” I looked past her at the others. There was something about them that looked a little off. Fluttershy was trying to chip some big rock Rarity was dragging around. Dash had been dragged in by her ear. Applejack was babbling something about how it had gone better than she expected, and Pinkie Pie just looked the way I felt. “They’re fine,” I decided. “And you know what else?” Twilight asked. She looked up to meet my gaze. “Discord said you’d do this. You’d just… yell instead of trying to help.” “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, slamming my hoof down on the desk. “Trying to help you do what? Run around like an idiot?! I’m the only pony doing anything useful, as far as I can see! You went chasing off after some rumor and it bit you on the flank!” “If you’d come with us--” “If I’d gone with you, you would still have failed, and I wouldn’t have these books checked off my list!” Twilight frowned and walked up to the desk, looking over my work. I could tell she was already regretting running off and not listening to me. “These are…” she hesitated. “Sunset, these are all about dark magic. The Neonomicon Ex Libre, Naturan Demanto, De Daemonis Mysteriis? Why are you looking at these?” “What do you think, Twilight?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “I need to beat Discord! That doesn’t mean some happy little book about spells to clean a window or turn apples into oranges!” “Sunset, these books are dangerous,” Twilight said. “They’re just going to make things worse. If we can find the elements of harmony…” “If you can find them, what?” I demanded. “They didn’t work the first time! Otherwise, he wouldn’t be running around turning Equestria into a mess! A mess I have to rule, because he stuck the crown on my head!” “That doesn’t mean anything!” Twilight shouted. “Please, Sunset, if we put our heads together I know we can figure this out! We just need to work together and--” “If you want to work with somepony, work with them!” I yelled, pointing at her friends. Our friends. Not that any of them had bothered coming to see me since I’d come to Canterlot. “You’re such a special pony you didn’t just replace me as Celestia’s student, you got to steal my friends, too!” “Sunset, it’s not--” “Not what?! Not that you come out of nowhere and suddenly you’ve got some special magical connection to ponies I’ve known for years?!” I grabbed her ear and pulled her closer. “Stop, you’re hurting me!” Twilight wailed. “You just want to find the Elements to show off how special you are and how much better you are than me!” I screamed. “Well they’re not bucking here, and you can go find them yourself!” I shoved her away. She looked up at me like she wanted to say something, then silently plodded out of the room. Her friends followed her. Most of them. I had to shove Dash out. I slammed the door so they’d know they weren’t welcome back, then I slammed it a few more times just to try and calm down. I stormed back to my desk-- I mean, back to Celestia’s desk, and tried to remember where I was. I’d been reading up on an amulet that was supposed to increase a pony’s magical power, but now I couldn’t find the page. “Where’s Encyclopediae Majika?” I muttered. “Ruby, did you see where I put it?” She didn’t say anything. I looked up. Ruby Drop was cowering in the far corner of the room, staring at me. “What?” I asked. “You were--” She swallowed. “Y-you were yelling, a-and now you’re even more pale than you were--” “I didn’t ask you about how I looked!” I snapped. “Either help me find that book or get out so I can focus!” Ruby looked at me, then the bookshelf, not moving from where she was. I growled, watching her do nothing for several very long seconds. Then I opened the door and threw her out. I didn’t have time to foalsit. If she wasn’t going to help, she was in the way. I sighed. Now that I was alone, I could really get down to brass tacks and find an answer. “Most evil book in the world my flank!” I growled, throwing the Book of Vile Darkness across the room. It hit the wall and slid down slowly, faintly screaming. “More like the most tacky and edgy book. Like anypony has fifty gallons of blood stored at high pressure just lying around to try any of the spells to begin with.” I’d spent all night trying to come up with an answer. I’d found nothing, unless I really wanted to try doing a lot of necromancy all at once. I wasn’t sure an army of the restless dead was going to do much against Discord, though. I rubbed my eyes and looked out the window. I’m not sure if I looked by chance or because I’d felt something tugging at my attention, but I saw when it happened. A wave of rainbow light was rushing towards me. In its wake, the sky returned to normal, a patchwork mess of swirling colors turning into a pleasant morning. It washed over me like a tide, and the crown flew off my head, hitting the floor and breaking apart, the two crowns coming untwisted and reforming back like they should have been. I stared at them, not understanding. I was still there a few moments later when Celestia and Luna teleported into the room. “Sunset, you’re okay!” Celestia said, relieved. She ran over, hoof hitting her crown and knocking it aside. Like it didn’t even matter. She pulled me into a hug and squeezed. “I was so worried.” “Whatever you did, it has freed us from his spells,” Luna said. “I didn’t do anything,” I said, confused. “I’ve been doing research and trying to find something, but…” “I’m just glad you’re safe,” Celestia said. “Discord is an incredibly dangerous being.” “If you didn’t defeat him, it could only have been the Elements,” Luna said. “That’s impossible,” I said. “Discord took them. He hid them somewhere. I told Twilight it was stupid to even look. For all we know, he dropped them in the ocean!” “It’s not that easy to separate the Elements from their bearers,” Celestia said. “I doubt he could have moved them too far…” As if on cue, a swirl of green flame appeared, dropping a scroll on her overfilled desk. “And that must contain our answer,” Celestia said, picking it up and unfurling it. She smiled. “There’s only a short note, but apparently Twilight wanted to let us know right away that Discord had been resealed in stone. She’s also asking if you’re feeling any better.” Luna, meanwhile, was looking at Celestia’s desk. “The Black Yoke?” She asked, glancing at the title of one of the dozen forbidden books I had open. I swallowed, sweat starting to drip down my face. It all hit me. All the things I’d said to my friends. Kicking them out of the castle. Screaming in Twilight’s face. I’d screwed it all up. I’d burned every bridge I’d ever had, and for what? So they could prove me wrong? So they could go and beat Discord while I was useless? Again? Just like when they’d beaten Nightmare Moon. “I have to go,” I said, breathlessly. “Cadance!” I yelled, running into the conference room. She looked up. “You said you were supposed to leave the country, right?” She nodded. “I was going to Saddle Arabia for a treaty signing,” she said. “Why? What’s going on?” “I just…” I hesitated. “I need to get out of here.” “What happened?” Cadance asked. She put a hoof on my back. "You look so pale. Maybe you should lie down." “Please, just…” I swallowed. “I…” She rubbed my back for a long few moments. “Okay,” she said, very quietly. “If you really need to go, you can take the trip for me. But I want you to promise me that you’ll come back.” “I will,” I said, even if I felt like I was probably lying when I said it. “I just need to…” To what? To make up for it? I couldn’t just apologize. I needed to make up for it. I needed to prove I deserved forgiveness. No matter how long it would take.