Twilight grumbled to herself as she blew annoyed bubbles in her soda, her sour expression fixed on the rail station.
“This notice was put out during the night shift, your highness. A fight between some territorial dragons brought half a mountain down onto the tracks between Galloping Gorge and the Unicorn Range. Even with a demolition team, it’s estimated to be at least a week in clearing.”
It wasn’t the ticket seller’s fault, and that fact had kept her from blowing up until after they had stopped at a cafe outside of shouting distance.
A week.
A week!
It wasn’t that she didn’t like the idea of Sunsparkle being around for awhile -the princesses would probably love having an extra week to hoard their aunt’s attention, for one thing, and then there were all the contributions she could make to missing history- but… she’d made a promise. And that kind of delay just didn’t go along with said promise.
Wait… did promises like this even have a deadline? It wasn’t the same thing as promising to help with an event, right? Or it was, because the event was getting Sunsparkle and Silver Swirl back to the afterlife, and- Tartarus, she was starting to get a very unpleasant throbbing right behind her eyes.
Finally, she sighed and lifted her head from the table and spat out the end of the straw, turning her attention to Sunsparkle’s perplexed expression as Rarity and Fluttershy were describing their destination.
“I apologize, but the entire concept of this place remains… Oh, what is the word I am looking for… A bit farfetched. An entire city of crystal and a power source that turns its ponies into the same? All the way up near Yak territories?”
“Well, when you put it like that, it does sound rather fantastic,” Rarity said.
“How have you never seen the Crystal Heart?” Twilight asked, curiosity gently pushing aside her irritation and the pain in her head with it. “You’re a crystal pony.”
“Well, as I told you, this was more or less accidental,” Sunsparkle said, waving a glittery translucent hoof at her own coat. “As it was for the others caught in the backlash. Though… I do remember the others who were transformed did not stay at the castle for very long after.” She frowned and tapped her hoof against her mouth in thought. “If I remember correctly, when she came to tell me she was leaving, Sky Rocket called it a… a pull to go north and settle. To think they would have gone so far north, though… ”
“It sounds very likely they found the Heart,” Twilight replied, pulling her map and one of the books she’d borrowed from Cadance on her last trip out of her saddlebag to spread them out in front of the other girls. All three leaned in, paying attention to the notes she scribbled around the Empire’s location. “The archivists working under Cadance and my brother have been reconstructing the history Sombra suppressed when he came to power, and the time periods line up… You didn’t feel the pull, though?”
“I did not. However, the bond loop between myself and Silver Swirl had been established for roughly three years at the time, perhaps that interfered.”
Rarity rested her chin in her hooves, looking starry-eyed. “Aww, you didn’t need the Heart because you already had your true love!” she gushed.
Twilight fought the urge to roll her eyes. “That’s not how the Heart works. And as fascinating as this is, it doesn’t get us any closer to the Empire.”
“I’m not seeing the problem.”
Twilight turned her head as Starswirl approached, his ever-present mug now filled with tea instead of coffee. “What do you mean?”
“We have two spellcasters of considerable power,” the old wizard replied. “And a decent kinetic.” Rarity made an offended huff at the backhooved compliment, but he ignored her and continued. “As well as a pair of extra hooves. There’s no reason we can’t deal with a simple landslide.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Twilight saw Sunsparkle bristle at the none-too-subtle snub of her own ability to contribute. Luckily Fluttershy intercepted the ghost mare, gently holding her hoof to calm her down.
“That’s not… a bad idea,” Twilight admitted slowly, trying to be diplomatic. “Even if we can’t clear the entire thing ourselves, the lot of us could shorten the demolition time by quite a bit.”
“Getting there still poses a little snag,” Rarity said as she smoothed the map out flat. “Even if we take the train as far as Tall Tale, it would still be several hours of hiking.”
“Hm.” Twilight chewed at her lower lip, staring at the map. There was one way to shorten the hike, but it was the same problem as when they were traveling from Ponyville to Canterlot.
Well.
Nothing ventured…
“Sunsparkle, could you give me your hoof for a second?”
The ghost mare raised an eyebrow, but got up and did as requested, walking around the table to take hold of Twilight’s offered hoof.
Paying no heed to the cold, Twilight closed her eyes and focused instead on the strange presence Sunsparkle had, the odd feeling of there/not there that normal ponies lacked.
And then she pulled at it.
A sharp wave of dizzy nausea like falling out of the sky hit her and she stumbled forward into Sunsparkle’s chilly hold. When the world finished spinning, she found they were standing on a hill several blocks from the table they’d been sharing, though not far enough for her friends to be out of sight.
“Can I let you go without being concerned that you will meet the cobblestones with your nose?” Sunsparkle asked, and Twilight couldn’t help a dazed giggle at her wording.
“Haha… Hurgh...Gimme a couple more minutes,” she said and, despite Sunsparkle mostly keeping her steady, sat down hard on her haunches.
“Considering the… interesting shade of green your face has turned, it would seem teleporting is out as a travel method, yes?” Rarity said as the others approached, Twilight’s saddlebags in tow.
Twilight only groaned in reply, but it turned into a groan of relief when an icy hoof pressed against the base of her skull and the vertigo began to ease. “Thaaaank you,” she slurred, and Sunsparkle made an amused noise and obligingly kept the hold in place while she slowly got to her hooves, her wings drooping at her sides.
“According to the timetable, the next train to Tall Tale isn’t for another two and a half hours,” Fluttershy said. “That will give you some leeway for recovery.”
Rarity clapped her hooves. “Ooh! Idea! Why don’t we use the time to visit a couple of the city museums?”
Starswirl grumbled something into his tea at that, but Twilight didn’t much care to ask him to repeat it, not wanting another tense situation. “That could be interesting,” she said instead before looking up at Sunsparkle. “We could see if there’s anything you recognize.”
“I am curious,” Sunsparkle admitted.
“Splendid! Let’s go stow our bags at the station, then we can start on Golden Hoof Avenue.”
---
“Hm. Twilight, you said that there are archivists repairing the history of this Empire we are traveling to, correct?”
Twilight looked up from the case containing troop reports from the Battle of the Nightmare Phase-Spiders to see that Sunsparkle had stopped before a memorial case dedicated to Majesty. “I did. Why, is there something wrong with the exhibit?”
“Well, I confess I am not sure which would have irritated her more; the concept of putting her in dresses at all, or the fact that they believe she would have fit in one of mine.”
Twilight’s wings puffed in surprise. “Yours?” she asked, quickly trotting over to join the ghost. “Are… are you sure?”
Sunsparkle pointed to the throat of the dress, where a carved wooden clasp held the neck closed. “Observe. My fate sign is etched into both sides.”
She squinted at the neckline, then gave a small gasp at seeing the stylized sun that matched the ghost’s cutie mark. “It is,” she murmured, then turned to Sunsparkle. “So… I take it Majesty wasn’t much for formal wear?” Twilight asked as Rarity was coming over from another clothing exhibit.
“Oh, she would have lived in her armor if she had the option,” Sunsparkle said with a smile. “I have never met a mare who loathed pomp and circumstance more.”
“Hah, then it’s a pity you won’t meet our other friends,” Rarity said. “But do go on about her fashion sense, or lack thereof, as it seems.”
“We usually managed to convince her to wear a pegasus-style chiton for official events. She hardly enjoyed it, but at least it gave her much more freedom of movement. Honestly, the only thing she liked was being able to loom ominously over all the stuffy nobility.”
“Loom? How big was she?”
“Hm.” Sunsparkle held a hoof above her head, murmuring to herself as she adjusted heights until she was satisfied. “Here we go.”
Both Twilight and Rarity stared. “But that’s… that’s almost as tall as Princess Celestia. Unicorns don’t- was she part Saddle Arabian or something?” Twilight asked.
Sunsparkle bit back a snort. “No, although you are not the first to guess so-” she said as she turned back to the exhibit, only to stop short. “This… what is this?”
Twilight leaned around her. “Oh! That’s one of the museum’s most prized artifacts,” she said as she pointed to the broken horn laying on a velvet pillow behind the glass. “It was acquired at the-”
“A-hem.” Starswirl stood at the entrance to the next exhibit hall, a scowl on his face and an uneasy Fluttershy behind him. “If we could move on? I would like to actually finish this place before we have to leave.”
Sunsparkle’s eyes narrowed at his demanding tone, but before Twilight could cut in, she drew herself up and let out a cold breath. “Fine.”
Another fight averted, Twilight and her friends fell in behind the two as they continued deeper into the museum. “Everything okay?” she asked Fluttershy quietly enough not to catch attention.
“Well… I’m not sure,” Fluttershy admitted.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s just… He never really said anything to me, he just kept muttering to himself and barely looking at anything. The only place he actually stopped was at the records of important spell discoveries.”
Twilight frowned. Something about that felt… off. Very off. Surely Starswirl would have updated his spell history during the time he’d been back, so why would he be so bothered by…?
Maybe it had something to do with Silver Swirl?
She filed it a note into her head to ask him about it on the train, once they had some privacy. Once she had it written in stone, so to speak, she quickened her pace to catch up with Sunsparkle. They hadn’t gotten to finish their conversation about the broken horn, and her curiosity was piqued. “So… ah, like I was saying, the horn was recovered at the siege of the Gargoyle Wigh- wait…”
The Gargoyle Wights had attacked in 177 A.U. If Majesty had been killed by the Pony of Shadows, there was no way-
“That’s not actually her horn, is it?” Twilight asked, disappointment sinking in. How many times had her brother dragged her to see that exhibit, excited over such a formidable unicorn battler? Babbling about his inspiration to become a guard one day?
And half of what was on display wasn’t even…
“No,” Sunsparkle said gently. “It is not.”
She paused by a rack of weapons and Twilight stopped with her, the others continuing to pass other cases. Twilight sat down. The shallow part of her mind wondered how upset her brother would be when the corrected history books were published. The rest of her ached at the resigned, tired expression on Sunsparkle’s face at finding more of the history she'd lived having been forgotten. “How could you tell?”
Sunsparkle sat down beside her. “The girls guided us back to retrieve her after we’d determined the danger was gone. She…” The ghost mare hesitated, then raised a hoof close to Twilight’s own horn. “It had only broken off about here,” she said, indicating between a fourth and a third of the way down. “We searched for a full day for the missing piece or pieces before we had to accept that it had probably been dusted in the attack.”
Twilight stared at the floor, fighting back a shiver. The spot Sunsparkle had indicated was right at the beginning of a horn’s magic-channeling core. The most sensitive pain spot a unicorn had. For Majesty to have been shot there, not only would she have lost her magic, she would have been in unbearable agony in the moments before her death.
It made her sick to imagine.
She tilted her head back and sucked in a deep, sharp breath to make her stomach calm, and as she did so, she thought she noticed Starswirl watching them. For a moment, she even thought he looked guilty, before the metaphorical spell broke and he turned away.
That was weird…
The bell chime from the clocktower outside broke into her thoughts, and she hissed and puffed her wings in alarm as she realized the time. “We gotta go or we’re gonna miss the train!”
---
Twilight huffed as she flopped into her berth. They’d made it by mere hoofbeats before the train pulled out and, with the way the other passengers had stared at one of her companions in particular, she was very glad she’d splurged for a private compartment.
Stretching, she rolled over and watched as Sunsparkle investigated the berth they’d given her. “Everything good?”
“I admit, I am slightly jealous,” Sunsparkle said, patting the mattress before climbing in. “You have very much improved from the days of sitting in the back of a wagon.”
“Good thing, or this would be a very long ride,” Rarity said from the berth above Twilight’s.
“Once we get good and moving, we can show you more of the cars, since we didn’t get the chance on the way to Canterlot,” Twilight offered. “Especially the dining car,” she added when her stomach growled.
“I look forward to it,” Sunsparkle said with a smile. A smile that quickly vanished when Starswirl entered the compartment to claim his own berth.
Watching them avoid each other, Twilight closed her eyes and did her stress release exercise before snuggling into her pillow.
With their luck so far, this might still end up being a very long trip.