//------------------------------// // Part IV - Chapter 11: A Flight Worth Talking About // Story: Alicornae: The Legend of Starlit Sky // by PortalJumper //------------------------------// Alicornae: The Legend of Starlit Sky Part IV - Chapter 11: A Flight Worth Talking About * * * Frigid air, wind that threatened to blow her out of the air, and the multitude of flaming pinpricks in her leg that were getting harder and harder to ignore all made for a miserable experience for Rainbow Dash as she and Sun wound through the streets of the Crystal Empire, with only the ever present threat of being jumped by windigos and the guidance from Sun's compass stone to break the monotony. "Your friend giving any more tips?" Rainbow Dash asked, in reference to the presence in Sun's mind that she had only been told about when it nearly broke Sun's mind. "No, but I can still feel her there," Sun answered, pointing down another side street. "I just wish that I knew why she was here." "You said she was here when you and Starlit showed up and I arrested you," Rainbow Dash replied. "She was, but then when we were in the tundra Silence told me that she would be leaving me because of the anti-magic field around the Empire." "She wasn't wrong about that," Rainbow Dash replied. "Flurry said that the Empire's borders have anti-magic properties, maybe Silence just expected us to get in through the walls rather than teleporting in to where there is still magic." "But Silence has never been misinformed," Sun countered. "Ever since she took up residence in my head she's always been at least two steps ahead of me. Hell, I'm pretty sure she's doing most of the navigating for us right now without me even knowing it. She was sure that the Empire was a complete magical dead-zone, which means she was wrong about that." "And? Everypony makes mistakes," Rainbow said, taking a quick look around to make sure nothing was following them. "But not semi-omniscient ghosts that live in pony's heads," Sun countered. "And she told me that we need to find her in the Glowing Wastes, wherever that is. I didn't even think she had a physical body!" "Dude, you'll be fine, you're thinking too much," Rainbow Dash interjected. "Focus on one thing at a time; where's the compass pointing us?" Sun stole another look at the compass, which was still pointing in a generally north-western direction. "Down that street," Sun said, pointing to a wide thoroughfare that led out into a plaza. "Good, that looks like a wide area," Rainbow Dash replied. "Gonna have good sight-lines, we might even be able to see the palace." "I'm sort of surprised that we haven't seen it yet," Sun mentioned as they made their way down the street. "Flurry Heart made it sound like it would be a much bigger building, but I haven't seen a spire or anything that might be it since we got here." "To be fair, the weather isn't doing us any favors," Rainbow Dash replied. "Snow blowing through the air, sun causing snow blindness; none of this is the greatest thing for visibi—" Rainbow Dash stopped short when her nose bumped up against a force at the end of the street, nearly causing her to fall out of the air. She barely scraped her hooves against the ground, and even that small amount of movement sent a serving lance of pain through her thigh. "What the hell was that?!" Rainbow exclaimed, rubbing her nose. Sun walked up next to her and tentatively put a hoof against the invisible wall, which rippled underneath the pressure he was putting onto it. "Damn, I know what this is," Sun groused. "Twilight Sparkle has a similar spell to hide her home from prying eyes. This is probably why we haven't seen the palace yet." "Great, so what do we do now?" Rainbow Dash asked. "How do we get past it?" "I think the original caster has to give permission for it, and anypony that has permission can give it to somepony else," Sun explained as he ran his hooves along the borders of the spell. "Starlit had permission fromTwilight, and then she gave it to me when she brought me back to Twilight the first time." "And something tells me that Cadance is the only one who has permission," Rainbow Dash surmised with a snort. "Maybe… but that doesn't make sense," Sun mused, testing the strength of the spell. "Why not?" "I've done some cursory research on wards and spells like them, ever since Starlit started showing an aptitude for them," Sun continued. "The one thing that is consistent about warding spells is that they only last for as long as the pony casting them does. You don't have to actively concentrate to keep them up, but to cast them as a lasting effect you have to re-make them every so often to keep them working." "So you're saying that, if Cadance is as crazy as Twilight and Flurry Heart make her out to be, then she wouldn't have the presence of mind to keep these wards active, and they would've run out a long time ago." "Exactly," Sun answered. "You're quite perceptive for a pony that doesn't really mess around with magical stuff." "What can I say, I make up stories as a hobby," Rainbow replied. "All story-telling is is creative cause-and-effect." Sun traced all along the edges of the field, trying to feel for a weak spot or something similar, but the whole thing was a solid as solid could be. Rainbow Dash saw his eyes go vacant as he placed his hoof against the field. "Sun, you good?" Rainbow asked. "Talking with Silence, gimme a minute," Sun answered before going back to his staring. Rainbow Dash took the moment to gingerly alight onto the ground, keeping as much weight off of her injured leg as she could so that she could rest her wings. She could feel the muscles at the joints ache, and the crystals embedded in-between he feathers were starting to get heavy as she stayed aloft. Rainbow passively looked around, taking in what she could through the snow and the wind. The thoroughfare only had one entrance to it, so she could at least keep her back to a wall and know that nothing was going to sneak up on the two of them. After the last few days, she was happy for the brief moment of relaxation; even their impromptu meeting with Flurry Heart was too stressful for her tastes. Minutes passed, punctuated only by Rainbow Dash checking her supplies and Sun occasionally muttering something under his breath that she couldn't make out last her head wrap and the wind. Thankfully nothing but her suit had been damaged when she fell and gouged her leg, and even her old guide stick had a healthy red glow when she held it up. She took another look down the thoroughfare as she fiddled around with the guidestick, and had to make a double-take when she saw that there was a blue light shining down the street at them. "Hey Sun," Rainbow Dash said, trying er best to not sound worried, "there's something here." "What kind of something? I need to focus, Silence is working on the wall." Before Rainbow could answer the blue light became two blue lights, roughly spaced where a pair of eyes would be, followed by a second pair. And a third, then a fourth, until blue lights started popping up all down the street. "The bad kind of something!" Rainbow Dash answered back, lifting into the air and holding her guidestick ready. "How much time do you need?!" "A few minutes!" Sun answered, looking back and seeing the same glowing mass of lights that Rainbow Dash was staring down. "I don't think we have a few minutes!" The lights collectively let out a hollow, ghostly neigh, and as if cowed by their proclamation the snow halted in the sky and coalesced into at least two dozen of the ghost ponies that normally accompany a windigo. With purposeful stride the apparitions marched forward down the thoroughfare, completely boxing them in. "Buy some time, I need to work on this!" Sun yelled back as he slammed both hooves into the misty wall and illuminated his horn with a dull gray magic. Rainbow turned to face the oncoming horde, gritting her teeth and gripping her guidestick as she channeled a bit of the red crystals magic into a burst of electricity. The arc of magical lightning lanced out from the stick and struck one of the ghosts at the front, leaving a sizable, steaming hole in its chest. It collapsed into a pile of ice flakes, but the others kept marching forward, unperturbed by the loss of their comrade. Another bolt of lightning from the stick, and another of the apparitions fell apart. A third bolt, and a third reduced to nought but ice, and Rainbow Dash started to feel a bit more confident. Without the windigo there to coordinate them and run interference, she found that the apparitions fell quite easily. It was only when the fifth bolt released that Rainbow Dash remembered the problem with these guidesticks; they had a small pool of magic stored up in their crystals, and once it was expended it was done for. As the fifth and final bolt shot out and caused another to collapse that the glittering red gem went dull, and Rainbow couldn't get any more energy out of it. "Dammit!" Rainbow swore as she chucked the stick with all of her might into the oncoming horde. The gem side jammed squarely into another one's forehead and it fell apart from the force, but that still left over a dozen of these apparitions to deal with. "Sun, your knife!" Rainbow called. Sun quickly lifted his right forehoof off of the wall and held it out to Rainbow, exposing the scabbard. Rainbow swooped down and snatched the knife out As Rainbow wheeled back around to face her adversaries, she could feel a sneaking suspicion that this was going to suck. With a muffled roar of fury, both to psyche herself up and and try and intimidate these soulless apparitions she flew into the crowd, swinging the knife in her teeth every which way she could to try and clip and slash at the ghosts. A few fell in her initial onslaught; she knocked the legs out from under one and slammed its face into the ground, another she slashed up the chest until she nearly split its lower jaw in two, and a third practically exploded in front of her when she drove the knife into its forehead. A vivid, horrendous pain shot through Rainbow's thigh as one of the ice ponies smaller its head into her thigh, and she could feel her blood start to seep from the bandages. It took all the strength that she had in her forelegs to shove another away as its gnashing maw threatened to bite her nose clean off, and a Rainbow spun around to slash the one that had hit her in the leg. As her head dame around that same ghost's forehoof came around and slammed square across the temple, sending sparks flashing across her vision and her body onto the ice-covered street. She slid a good ten feet along the slick road, and as her vision came back she could see Sun. His hooves were pressed against the wall, the mist starting to subsume them as a gray light suffused his entire body. Through the howls and the wind Rainbow Dash could hear him grunting in exertion and frustration, and as her gaze turned back to the mob of apparitions she knew she had one last card she could play. "Do what you need to," Rainbow thought as she dragged up to her hooves. Her head was throbbing and her vision swimming, but she stared down the creatures with as steely a gaze as she could manage. "Hey!" Rainbow yelled, drawing the attention of the mob. "If you want him, you gotta get through me!" With a burst of speed from her sore wings she turned her body into a spear, flying through the horde and drawing all of their attention as she streaked by. She then made a hard turn skyward as she flew out of the pocket of calm that the ghosts had generated and into the omnipresent snowstorm that engulfed the Empire. Rainbow Dash cast a glance backwards, and her assumption paid off; without a windigo to guide them they were no smarter than animals, and she had just challenged them to a fight. As the apparitions manifested wings from the snow around them, Rainbow Dash took off into the skies above the Crystal Empire, ready to prove that she was the fastest flyer in Equestria. * * * Sun felt pressure building up in his head like a migraine as he wormed Silence's magic through the misty wall in front of him. His hooves were slowly, by inches, piercing through the veil, but the strain of it was wearing through his resolve. He couldn't hear Rainbow Dash anymore, nor the ice apparitions, which either meant that she had killed them all and then perished from her wounds, or she had led them away to buy Sun some more time. Either way he couldn't confirm it, so intense was his focus on the spell. "Come on Silence, give me some good news," Sun thought, reaching out to the intense pulse at the back of his head. "I'm doing what I can to guide your magic, but I gave up all of mine to you, remember?" Silence answered, her voice sounding like she was speaking from down the street. "I have nothing left to give, this is all on you." "Then guide harder," Sun snapped back, pressing his hooves further into the wall. The pounding in the back of his head grew faster still, hammering away at a furious, staccato pace. The noise, the force in the back of his mind, all of it was beating on his consciousness until he could see blackness start to creep into his vision. Just as unconsciousness was about to take him, Sun found himself flying forward, his hooves having finally slipped through the barrier and allowing his whole body through as well. He tumbled flank over end across the icy street in front of him before sliding to a stop. With sluggish hooves he dragged himself to a stand, watching as the grey magic dissipated from around his body. Sun's mind was slow, his vision still fogged, but as he looked around he saw a grisly sight; hundreds of ponies all around him, frozen solid in expressions and poses of terror. Some were running away in fear, others had simply frozen mid stride, a few had even huddled together as they awaited the end. All around him was a grim tableau of death that had come without warning. As Sun finally wrenched his eyes away from the mass graveyard he found himself in he saw a massive foundational pillar, one that sloped upward until it was joined by two others and ascended as a massive spire of crystal and ice. The tower grew so high that he couldn't even see the top of it, but the sheer size and grandeur of it told him everything that he needed to know. "This is the palace?" Sun asked Silence. "The same," Silence answered. "Now, the question is how we get inside," Sun mused. He couldn't see any means if entrance from the outside of the palace; the three legs of the spire were solid structures, and even if they had a door or entrance on them they were completely iced over. "That question will resolve itself shortly," Silence replied. "I can feel that Starlit Sky is about to happen upon what she is looking for in the Astral Conservatory." "And that would be?" "I think that would sound better coming from her mouth than our current brain-sharing communication," Silence replied. "You know, this is the part of our particular repartee that I didn't miss," Sun said as he made his way across the plaza, trying to find a building that wasn't completely frozen over. He could feel his legs starting to go wobbly under him, and he wanted a safe and covered place to wait in. "My delightfully charming obfuscation of the truth?" Silence asked. Sun felt that if Silence had a physical body, she would be looking at him with the eyes of a filly that was trying to hide the fact that she had knocked over the vase. "Exactly," Sun answered as he worked his way past a collapsed ice block and into a small home. "Are you just completely incapable of being forthright about anything? I'm sure it would save a lot of trouble if you would just talk to me." As Sun settled into a sitting position, back to the far wall and facing the Crystal Palace, he could feel Silence mulling something over. "At times I wish that I could," Silence replied. "It would certainly make things easier for the both of us, but I can't right now. Not where you are, and not with who you associate with." "What do you mean, 'who I associate with?' Do you mean Starlit, because she already knows about our arrangement." "Of course I don't mean her, I mean Twilight," Silence answered. "She's smart, the most magically powerful alicorn that still lives, and she would have a vested interest in keeping my association with you to a minimum." "But how could she stop you? And how would she even know about you if I don't tell her?" "Twilight Sparkle has ears everywhere; why do you think she keeps going on those little excursions while you and Starlit are busy doing her work?" "Then if she's keeping tabs on us, why are you telling me this now? She could be listening in on us right now." "That was a pretty fast acceptance of my wild theorizing about your benefactor," Silence commented, sounding genuinely taken aback. "What changed?" Now it was Sun's turn to think about what he wanted to say next. Starlit had had her doubts about Twilight ever since her incident with Spike, but Sun felt more ambivalent towards the Princess. Mostly he was curious about why Twilight would even go to these lengths to try and trick the two of them rather than just convince them that she was in the right with the truth. "Starlit, mostly," Sun answered. "I'm assuming you know about Spike and Starlit's feelings on what Twilight might be hiding about herself through his little issue?" "I do," Silence answered, "but I want to hear what you think about it. You're strong-willed, despite appearances; you must have some sort of skin in this game that they are playing." "If I'm being perfectly honest, I just want to get this done with and go home," Sun admitted. A pang of homesickness ran through his stomach. "Are you really that disillusioned with all of this?" Silence asked, her voice carrying her concern. "After all, you are getting to do things and see places most ponies haven't done and seen in centuries. Surely that must be worth something." "I thought it was at first, really I did," Sun replied, "but I've also been nearly killed, battered, insulted, and forced to murder just for the opportunity. I'm inquisitive, yes, but I'm not stupid. I just want to make sure that Starlit can do what she needs to, and then I'm going to go back home and try to forget any of this ever happened. Aren't I owed that much, after all that I've been through?" A long pause as the dull thumping in the back of Sun's brain slowed, became a more sullen and contemplative pace. It began to lull Sun to sleep, it's deep and smooth pace bringing to mind just how tired Sun really was. It was only when Silence started talking again that Sun was pulled from his torpor. "I have grown fond of you, Setting Sun, and that is a rare thing indeed for me. You have done more to aid me in my goals than any other pony I have ever entrusted to assist me, so consider what I am about to tell you as due payment for services rendered." "Twilight Sparkle is the reason for all of this; she cursed your kind long before you were ever a thought in your parents' minds, or they a thought in their parents'. This Wasting illness, the end of magic in Equestria, the abandonment of Canterlot, all of it; the blame lies squarely at her hooves." * * * The wind whipped past Rainbow Dash's face as she flew with all of her might, wending this way and that through spires of crystal and ice-covered streets while the pack of ice ghosts followed close behind. Their hollow neighs and cries moved in and out with the changes in wind speed and distance, but they were always there, and Rainbow Dash knew somepony was going to give out eventually. "C'mon, just give in already," Rainbow groused to herself as she took another look back. The pack heard nothing, consumed as they were by bloodlust, and had gained another few inches. Rainbow beat her wings to regain the distance, but she could feel her energy flagging. Thinking she could peel a couple off, Rainbow Dash made a hard right turn down a side street. She bumped her left hip into a wall as she went, sending a quick shock of pain through it as she picked her speed back up. Her right leg still hung limp, but the adrenaline in her blood was keeping the worst of its pain at bay for the time being. She heard the sound of shattering ice behind her, likely a sign that a few of the ghosts hadn't been able to navigate that turn. Taking a hard left she came out onto another wide street, just barely able to avoid slamming her injured hip into a wall, and a few more of the ghosts shattered behind her. And then she heard a sound she had hoped upon hope she wouldn't hear; a high pitched, ear-piercing shriek of a neigh, and as she looked below her she saw a pair of windigos staring up at her before galloping into the sky to join their thralls in the chase. "Dammit!" Rainbow swore, angling upward to gain some more open space. She flew high above the city's spires and roofs, keeping her pace up even as her wing muscles burned and screamed in protest. As she ascended she saw the misty wall Sun had been attempting to break through dome around the entire center of the city, but it only stood for a moment before completely dissipating away. In the center plaza of the city a massive crystal tower stood, supported by three legs that joined together into a central spire. It would've been magnificent to look at if Rainbow Dash weren't busy flying for her life. The shrieks of the windigos grew louder and louder the longer they chased her through the sky, and Rainbow Dash was running out of both ideas and energy. She felt that her wigs would soon give out entirely, and she had no safe way of losing the monsters or landing. Then, as she gave the tower in the center of the city one last glance, she had an idea. It was stupid, and would more likely than not get her killed or seriously wounded, but it was her only option. Racing to the center of the city, beating her wings furiously as her heart threatened to explode out of her chest from the strain of flight, she flew in a straight line to the top of the spire. The windigos followed her, now with renewed ferocity as they saw she was aiming for their Princess's abode. She could feel the chill of their breath touching her hooves as she flew faster and faster, expending every ounce of energy she had until she reached the top of the spire. As soon as Rainbow Dash crested the top of the spire she angled into a hard downward dive, keeping her belly just inches above the polished crystalline surface. The windigos and the ice ghosts followed suit, and a quick backward glance showed that they weren't nearly as quick in their reflexes as she was. Wind whipped through her head wrap until it unraveled and flew off. Her goggles slid up her face until they too were lost to the sheer velocity of her dive. The air stung her face, her eyes watered until the tears froze to the corners, and snow whipped into her mouth and nose as the ground careened upward to meet her. The world grew silent around her, and her eyes tunnel visioned in until all she could see was the ground, and then all at once everything exploded into an eruption of light and noise as she made a hard right turn mere feet above the ground. An explosion sounded from behind her, and when she turned her head to see if her plan had worked she saw a truly awesome sight; a ring of rainbow colored light rippling out from the point of her turn and all the windigos and ghosts slamming into the ground. The ice crystals spewing up from the crystal plaza reflected and refracted the light she had generated, scattering the rainbow fire in a million tiny prisms all around. And then Rainbow Dash turned back around to be met with an immediate snowdrift that she crashed into, through, and skidded to a halt against the cold ground. * * *