The Archmage's Last Bow

by Rytex


Relapse

The Archmage’s Last Bow
Chapter 03 - Relapse

As she swept through the streets of the Crystal Empire, wearing the form her original body resembled, Shimmer Silvermane was having an absolutely lovely day.  Her coat, mane and tail were silver, her eyes were still a very bright red, her Spirit Gem pendant remained around her neck and glinted in the sunlight, and her hidden present weighed down her saddlebags only a little.  The bags themselves were mostly for effect, after all.  No one would bother a mare who clearly had somewhere to be and was carrying things she needed.

As she surveyed the many ponies around her, some of which she even recognized from the time a great many years ago when she had lived in this city, she would always make sure to avert her gaze if they looked too closely.  Despite the Remember-Me-Not curse making sure no one who she had ever met would ever recall her, she couldn’t help but wonder if any of these ponies actually did recall her time here in days long gone...

Or perhaps if the meddling Princesses had found a way around the curse.  They always were finding ways around these supposed eternal curses.

What bucking hypocrites.  ‘Cursing ponies for all eternity is not allowed except when WE do it!’

As the chilly air swept over her, she shivered.  Partly in the cold, but that was nothing new; she had after all spent many years here, so she was used to the bitterness of the Frozen North.  No, she was also shivering in excitement.  Winter was fast approaching, which meant Harmonic Convergence was soon to occur.  That meant that all of the players needed to be in the hunt, and all the pieces needed to be found.

Including one of the relevant pieces, which she just so happened to be carrying in her saddlebags.  What better way to get that bonehead and his allies in on the hunt than to leave him a little present?  It would convince Nova Shine that he needed to find all of them before she did, and given her recent revelations, she had a feeling he’d positively leap at the chance to take her down a peg.

After a quick glance to her left and right for any onlookers, she sank into the ground, becoming a shadow and traveling along the ground, unnoticed by all of these blind, inattentive sheep as a shadow.  No wonder they had all been enslaved so easily way back when.  Not even the Royal Guards, whose job it was to notice threats, seemed to sense anything amiss as she slid under their hooves.

She was back in the halls of the castle she had once called home.  Despite the new banners, nothing had changed.  Except security, by the look of things.  There had been guard creatures everywhere when she’d lived here, who’d let her pass with impunity.  Now, however, the halls looked bare without the lumbering shadow beasts.

Not that she minded.  This meant it would be even easier to go about her business.  Especially since, according to her probing, Her Royal Pinkness hadn’t even bothered to change any of the alarm enchantments.

While they were great for catching physical ponies attempting to intrude in the castle, they weren’t so great at detecting ponies made out of shadow.  Then again, what was?  There weren’t exactly many shadow-ponies running around these days.  Or any days.  The problem was, she did need to re-solidify at some point to access her destination, but she already had a plan for that.

As she weaved through the halls, growing ever-closer to her target, she felt a giddy sort of glee well up in her.  The great game would truly be ahoof soon.  And when it was, oh, it was going to be so much fun!

As she turned a corner, she happened upon a lone guardspony, idly trotting down the hall and whistling to himself.  He didn’t seem particularly important, being an ordinary orange pegasus wearing the golden armor of a sergeant, with blue plumage in his helmet, to match his blue mane and tail.  Strange… he almost reminded Shimmer of Nova Shine.  The light messiness of the tail did, anyway, even though it was still mostly neat in comparison to that fool of an archmage.

Still, he would do.

Her tendrils lashed out, binding themselves around his hooves.  His whistling abruptly ceased, but before he could let out a cry of surprise, the tendrils reached up and bound his muzzle shut so that he couldn’t scream or alert the guard.

Not yet, anyway.  She knew the alert spells would be going off soon— she was counting on it, even-- but she had business to attend to first.

Her shadows converged on the stallion’s eyes, and she began the process of breaking into his mind.  They were, after all, the windows to the soul.  She passed right through his pupils, entering into his mental plane, and found herself standing before the aspect of his mind.  It was like this giant ball of light, not unlike what stars actually looked like, glowing with warm light in the midst of the void around her.  She had successfully made it this far.  Now came the hard(er) part of breaking in.

The thing about the usual psychic defense regimen that the Equestrian Royal Guard offered was that it had its weaknesses, and those weaknesses were consistent across the board in everyone, except those who had been given more thorough training. This usually amounted to those doing extra-credit or already at a higher rank.

Unfortunately for Shimmer, either this stallion had been given more thorough training, or they’d changed the regimen.  She rammed into iron-hard mental defenses the moment she’d entered his mind.

Unfortunately for the poor stallion, she was an expert at turning these defenses against their owners.

No matter how long it had been, she would always be particularly proud of how she’d completely undermined Princess Luna’s mental defenses before corrupting her, leading to the creation of Nightmare Moon.  Luna had crafted her own mind’s protector into a mental projection of Nova Shine himself, and yet Shimmer had been able to corrupt her protection and turn it into a vicious mental attack instead, feeding her insecurities and slowly turning her against her own sister.

Who was this mysterious stallion’s mental protector, she wondered?  Or does he even have one outside of these mental guard walls?

Oh, it seems there’s a little weakness… Shimmer observed as she began to try and find an avenue of attack, only to find a portion of his mind that wasn’t quite as armored as everywhere else.  It seemed the stallion had a soft spot in his mind for a certain pony, where if she pushed the right buttons, she might be able to seize on this opportunity and gain entry.

The image of an amber mare, with a mane comprised of fiery red and bright gold entered her mind, and the whisper of a name Sunset Shimmer

“What’s with unicorns being so uncreative with their names?’ Shimmer whined aloud as she broke through that weakness in his mind with a few idle mental whispers about the mare in question that proved just enough to break the stallion’s resolve.  “Glimmer, Shimmer, Sparkle, Shine, Gleam… and now there’s two of us Shimmers running around, because that’s not confusing at all!  Is there a third somewhere I haven’t met yet?”

Maybe if she revealed herself to everyone, she could become such a terror that no one ever named their child “Shimmer” again.  That sounded like fun, actually.

Business first, pleasure later, she reminded herself, before plunging into the stallion’s mind through her newly-created gap and trying to find everything she needed.

Which, admittedly, wasn’t much.  Dancing aside his memories of that same young mare she’d exploited to gain entry, weaving through thoughts and feelings like how beautiful Princess Twilight Sparkle was, and how crushing it had been to find out she was engaged to someone else, before finally making it to the place she needed.

I’ll be taking these, thank-you very much, she yanked out the memory of being attacked, as well as the memory of every last one of Sombra’s laboratories they’d found in this castle. She became elated to find that there was one lab in particular that wasn't stored in his memory, which meant it had yet to be discovered.  And when he’d wake up, he would have no idea what happened to him.

Retreating from her mental invasion, she assumed a physical form as the hallway rematerialized around her, and the guard slumped to the floor unconscious.  At once, there was a loud screech, like a bare hoof digging into a chalkboard, and off in the distance, she could hear hoofbeats heading her way, along with shouts.  Still, she had plenty of time.  They were too far away to stop her now.

With a quick burst of Dark Magic at a seemingly-insignificant part of the wall, she felt the world around her flip, as though she had passed through the floor itself, but gravity kept her rooted to her surface.  And as a number of royal guards came running to the source of the alert, all they found was an unconscious sergeant, who was completely non-responsive to their attempts to wake him.  He’d be fine.  A little psychological damage, sure, but nothing a little healing magic couldn’t fix.

What was more important now was to ensure everything was in place.  The attacked sergeant was the invitation, now to hide her gift, and then to give Nova Shine the surprise party when he arrived...

Oh yes, the game was well and truly ahoof now.


The Humble and Counseling Trixie Lulamoon (the Magnificent) had been having a horrid morning so far.

Why did all of her attempts at counseling have to backfire?  After several students had come to her complaining about the weird noises that came from the forest yesterday, she’d tried to spin it as Archmage Nova Shine and Princess Twilight fighting some new monster the Everfree Forest had tried to spit out, only for Princess Twilight, Nova Shine, and that new apprentice of his to come out of the woods looking very much the worse for the wear, and for Princess Twilight to reveal that she had, in fact, actually been fighting some new monster the Everfree Forest had tried to spit out, so the students had taken that about as well as could be expected.

...as had the townsponies.  Apparently this happened so frequently that “Panic” was actually Step 1 of the town’s emergency protocol, and that the panic in question was still somehow organized.

Trixie had also learned that nuckelavees were a thing, and that they were bucking terrifying.  According to the goody four-shoes, they were apparently skeletal shadow-creatures who looked like Tirek but with a horse head extending from where a horse’s head actually should extend on a centaur.

That was certainly not an image she wanted in her head.  Tirek was already bad enough, but Skeletirek?  With an extra head and everything?

Oh, and based on Nova Shine’s utterly dead look, Princess Twilight’s generally-shaken demeanor, and Bright Gleam looking like she’d seen a ghost, something more than just a monster attack had happened in the woods, though none of them would tell her what happened.  She had even said please!

But then she’d realized something was actually very wrong when she’d tried to actually talk to Nova, and Nova had just brushed her off.  Nova never brushed her off!  Except for that one time a few months ago.  Or that time a few weeks before that…

Still, if nothing else, the Great and Powerful Trixie was also the Great and Persistent Trixie, and the Great and Persistent Trixie was also the Great and Best-Friend-Of-Nova-Shine Trixie.  While Twilight and Starlight talked about whatever it is they were going to talk about, Trixie tailed Nova as he led Bright Gleam back to his old house.

Not a single word was exchanged the entire time.  Gleam kept glancing nervously at him the whole time, looking as though she wanted to say something, but Nova didn’t even seem to notice.  Hell, he didn’t even seem to notice her, and he was probably the best energy-sensor she’d ever met.

Though she hadn’t met many energy-sensors, so…

And as soon as he had gotten Gleam to his old house/her new house and told her something she couldn’t hear, he’d just teleported away, leaving Gleam on the porch and Trixie to stand there, blinking stupidly.

All that trotting for nothing!  She had come right back to her desk and spent a pretty good chunk of the rest of that afternoon just glowering at it.  She was glowering at the desk in front of her at the memory of all the glowering she had done yesterday.  The desk was seeing a lot of glowers.

There was a knocking at her office’s door.  “Come in!” the Great and Receptive Trixie chirped, assuming a businesslike posture and smiling brightly as the door to her office opened…

...and the goody four-shoes stepped in.

“Oh, it’s you,” the smile fell and she slouched.  “What’s up, Spork?”

Honestly, even the tiniest flicker of annoyance crossing her face was enough to make her days worth it.  She didn’t give a damn that one of her best friends was head over hooves in love with this mare and that she held power that could smush her into a Sweet and Tasty Smoothie.

“We need to talk,” the former most powerful unicorn in all of Equestria ordered, her voice flat and emotionless, and yet it carried the authority of Princess Celestia herself.

“Is this about what happened yesterday?” Trixie asked, a prickle of nervousness starting to creep in.  The goody four-shoes was direct, yes, but not this direct.  Usually she at least humored Trixie when Trixie needled her.

“Yes, it is,” the princess nodded.  Trixie noticed just how tense her shoulders were and just how jerky the nod was.

“Wow, how bad is it?”

Twilight turned to give Trixie an uncharacteristically-concerned look.  “Trixie, you’re involved.  That’s how bad it is.”

Even as a pang of hurt dug into her, Trixie opened her mouth to fire off some quick retort, but Twilight winced the moment she’d said it and cut her off.

“I’m sorry, that was completely uncalled for.”  She sighed.  “You’re… not gonna like it.”

“If it’s got you outright belittling Trixie, then that usually means it’s something to take seriously,” Trixie pointed out, though that didn’t stop the nervousness from creeping in.  She stood up and started to follow the goody four-shoes as she led her toward Starlight’s office.  “Kinda like that time way back when you and Nova first started living together.”

“It’s… related to that.”

Oh.  Oh no.

“Oh don’t tell Trixie…”

Twilight just nodded, and Trixie froze completely.  Memories of that awful mare started flying through her head.  Of her possession, of her imprisonment, of her nearly watching as Nova Shine died right in front of her…

“Is this a joke, Sparkle?  Because I swear, if you’re joking, I will blast you into that wall!”

Twilight turned and looked her dead in the eyes, gave her a slight shake of the head, and said, “It’s not a joke, Trixie.  She broke out.”

That prickle she felt earlier was a full chill by this point.

“No… no no, that can’t be right.  Nova himself sealed her away.  We were both there!”

“I don’t know how,” Twilight shook her head, ”but you, me, and Starlight need to have a conversation about what to do about this, given you’re likely involved again.”

“Doesn’t Nova know what to do?  He’s the one who beat her last time!” Trixie asked, muscles tense, as though an attack could come at any second.  It would be something she would do…

“I haven’t seen Nova since he took Gleam back to his house yesterday,” Twilight replied softly.

“He didn’t even come back at night?” Trixie gaped.  “He never does that!”

When all Twilight could do was give her a meaningful stare, Trixie felt herself take a step back.  Then another, and another.  And before she knew it, she had turned right around and dashed out of the school, running pell-mell toward the castle only a few hundred yards away.  The dead expression on Nova’s face from yesterday rose to the forefront.  What had he seen?

With a great crashing noise, she burst through the double doors, looked around wildly, then continued her sprint, climbing up to the third floor, and over toward the spot she knew he’d be at.

Once she found the door emblazoned with his mark, she didn’t bother knocking, but she found it barred.  With an impatient grunt, she willed the magic within her forward.  It had never succeeded, but desperate times called for desperate measures..

“Teleport!” she cried, instantly vanishing in a bright pink light and reappearing in midair.  After a momentary panic and flailing hooves, she came crashing down right on top of someone.

“Oof!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Trixie climbed off of the pony, discovering that she had accidentally teleported on top of the new Archmage.  “Never successfully teleported before.”

“Trixie?” Nova Shine asked, staring at her blearily as he got back to his hooves, though he stumbled sideways before he was upright.  “What’re you doing ‘ere?”

“I came to check on you, Novus!” she snapped, sprinting over to the other side of the door she had just teleported past, and unlocking it, before turning around and taking in the state of the stallion she was here to see.  “Twilight says you didn’t come back yesterd—”

She cut herself off as she took in the state of him and the room in question.

Nova’s room was usually in a state of organized chaos.  The basic layout of the room was always there, with a writing desk against a wall which usually had quills, parchment, and ink bottles scattered around it, a bookshelf on each of two other walls which usually had some spots in them where books had been pulled out, some a small table surrounded by little cushions that normally had a couple of those missing books sitting on them as well as his scrying orb, and the walls had been decorated with a number of pictures and posters of Nova Shine’s many hobbies.  Most notably, Nova had a large Arsenal banner that was slightly askew, and several of the books in his shelves were always improperly sorted, no doubt to mildly annoy his darling fiancee based on all the times she’d complained about it.

The room always had this warm feeling of usage.  It was clear that somepony occupied it, and loved it the way it was, something always emphasized by the windows being open to allow the sun to shine in, and also to allow Nova to peer out at the stars on cloudless nights, with or without the telescope he had sitting in a corner between the bookshelves.

Today, however, the desk was completely devoid of material, the table was completely clear, the bookshelves were full and perfectly organized, and the giant Arsenal banner was absolutely straight.  Absolutely straight.  Trixie doubted there was even a fraction of a decimal of a smidge of a degree of tilt on that thing!  Nova had clearly gone to absurd lengths to clean his room, something he never did to this degree unless something had really upset him.  The only thing out of place was that he had covered his scrying orb with a bath towel, by the look of things.

But worst was the stallion himself.

Nova was a complete mess.  There were bags under his eyes, his mane and tail were a complete disaster, and he’d made absolutely no effort to move himself from where Trixie had landed on him.  What’s more, his windows were shut and the only light came from his magical lantern on the wall, and she could smell the pungent odor of alcohol.

Sure enough, a glance at his hooves revealed that not only had teleported on top of him, but she had also accidentally knocked over a bottle, which had spilled and was currently spreading across the crystal floor.

But the part that hurt her the most to see was that his earring, the earring that glowed with the color of the mare he was going to marry in a few weeks and which was enchanted so that they always felt an odd mental pull toward each other when they were being worn, had been taken off and was sitting on the writing desk.

“What are you doing to yourself?” she asked softly, her horn shining and the spillage vanishing, along with the bottle itself.

“Hey!” Nova squawked, stumbling to his hooves and glaring at her.  “Give it back!”

“No,” Trixie replied firmly, scanning the room for any more that he would do a poor job of hiding.  When she couldn’t find any stashed under his writing desk or bookshelf, she let off a magical pulse, which didn’t return anything.

“Did Twiligh’ put you up t’this?” he demanded, swaying slightly.  Trixie scrutinized his eyes and saw that they were hazy and unfocused.  Nova was excellent at handling beer.  He was not excellent at handling liquor, and today’s beverage of choice smelled like Arstrotzkan vodka.

“No,” she said again, stepping forward and using her magic to quickly immobilize him.  He protested about a second too late to do anything about it, though, because in short order, she had leaned over, pressed the tip of her horn against his temple, and fired off the burnoff spell her father had taught her.

There was about a half-second in which he didn’t say anything, but then his left eye started to twitch uncontrollably and a vein bulged in the temple as he left it, leading him to let out whimpers of pain as he collapsed to the ground, holding his head in his hooves.  Burnoff sobered a pony up instantly but did nothing about the hangover that followed, something Nova had learned firsthoof multiple times now.

A hangover that she couldn’t do anything about except let him suffer through it.  Sparkle probably could, maybe even Starlight, but not her.  Not yet anyway.

There was the light clip-clop sound of hooves outside.  Trixie opened the door and poked her head out to see that Sparkle was there, apparently having followed her.  Sparkle looked surprised to see her, but couldn’t resist a tiny smile.  “Had a feeling this would be where you came.”

“Sparkle, get in here, it’s awful!”

She grabbed the future ruler by the back of her neck and yanked her in.  Sparkle yelped as she was forcibly dragged inside, but the moment she saw why Trixie was so worked up, her protests vanished as her face fell entirely.

Nova had now curled up against the wall furthest from the door and was doing his best to avoid eye contact with both of them.  Trixie saw Twilight’s nostrils flare as the scent of alcohol hit her, and watched as Twilight’s mouth parted in sad disbelief.

“You’ve… relapsed,” she said, staring at him.  It hurt Trixie to just see something be crushed behind Sparkle’s eyes like it had now.  It was like a certain light within had dimmed.  Her gaze flicked over to the covered scrying orb for only a moment, but Trixie could have sworn something inside of Twilight had just died at the sight of it.

“Just go away,” Nova whimpered, shaking violently as he tried to hide himself from both of them by pushing himself back into the corner between the writing desk and one of his bookshelves.  “Leave me alone.”

“No, I will never leave you alone to hurt yourself like this,” Twilight declared, stepping forward and sitting in front of him.  Her voice was soft, but there was a gravitas behind it that Trixie envied.  Nova only tried to press himself into the corner even harder at the sound of it.  “You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

“When was the last time he did this?” Trixie asked, shutting the door behind Twilight and locking it again.  No one was leaving until they talked this out.

“After Sombra’s attack.”

Trixie instantly knew why.  The things she had seen had tormented her for several days after.

“When Sombra took over everyone’s minds, Nova saw something that had him drinking for several days after that, and he’s refused to tell me what it was,” Twilight continued, giving that sentence’s subject a pitying look, even as said subject could only clench his eyes shut and allow a few tears to leak out.  “He’s done it several times over the last few years,” she added softly.  “The worst was after he lost his magic from Tirek and Cozy Glow.”

She, too, had to look away, close her eyes, and wipe away a tear.

“He… never came home on some of those nights so I wouldn’t see.”

“And now, he’s hiding in his room because he thought this would be the last place you’d look,” Trixie surmised, looking down at the broken stallion currently trying to hide in a corner.

Taking a deep breath, Trixie stepped forward and gave him the sternest look she could muster.

“What did she say?”

“Wh-who?” Nova asked, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

“Who do you think?” Trixie replied, though she was able to keep the biting edge out of her voice.  The last thing Nova needed was for the both of them to be angry at him.  Not now, not when he clearly was in a fragile state.  “You’ve faced Envy down without any issue before.  Why would this time cause a relapse?  The only thing I can think of is that she said something.”

“She says a lot of things,” Nova answered, but Trixie wasn’t having it.

“Nova, none of those other things have ever caused you to drink yourself stupid before,” Trixie lowered herself to the ground, causing Twilight to scoot around her so they could both face him in his corner.  “What did she say?  What’s so awful that not only have you let it get to you, but you’re keeping it from Twilight?

Nova shuddered, fresh tears leaking from his eyes.  But rather than answer, his horn sparked.  As Twilight and Trixie both tensed, however, it fizzled out.  Before he could try again, however, a wave of magenta magic spread over the entire room and covered the walls, floor, and ceiling.  Nova wasn’t going to be teleporting away.

“You Pinkie Promised me that you’d talk to us,” Trixie reached over and took his hoof in both of hers.  “Please… just tell us something.

“We want to help you, Nova,” Twilight pleaded, reaching out and taking his other hoof in hers.  “We can’t do that if you close yourself off like this.  Don’t you remember what Cadance told you?  The tighter you grip a thorn, the more it cuts into you...”

“...and the more you bleed,” Nova finished, his voice a hoarse whisper.  He wasn’t actively trying to fuse himself into the wall now, so that was a welcome sign.  With a heavy sigh, he relaxed, sliding down the wall and settling in a slumped heap, but he still covered his face and let out a moan.

“She’s not… her,” he whimpered.

“What?” Trixie tilted her head.

“Who’s not her?  Who’s her?” asked Twilight, leaning in closer.

“Envy,” Nova let out, his voice barely above a whisper.  “She’s not… not her.  Not Summ--”

Without warning, he cringed and broke down again.

Trixie didn’t know what to make of this, but there was a look of at least partial understanding on Twilight’s face.  She gripped Nova’s hoof even tighter.

“Nova,” she said, evidently trying to be gentle, but that only belied the urgency Trixie could sense, “are you saying she’s not Summer?”

Nova nodded, before he teared up and broke down again.  “It’s-- it’s Sh--”

“It’s Shimmer,” finished Twilight, realization dawning.  “You thought it was Summer all this time, but all this time, it turned out to be Shimmer.”

“Does anyone want to bring me up to speed?” Trixie asked, glancing between the sobbing Nova Shine and the horrified Twilight.

“Has… has he told you about the time he went back to the past?” Twilight asked softly, her face growing pale.

“Bits and pieces, yeah.”

“There was a mare…” Twilight said, her voice growing even softer.  With Nova trying to contain his sobs at this point, it was much easier to hear, but even so, Trixie had to strain.  “Two mares, excuse me.  One of them was Summer Blossom, and she was a mare Nova… loved.”

“I thought he loved Clover,” Trixie’s brow clenched.  “That’s what I understood.”

“He loved both of them,” Twilight replied, with the briefest glance over at the stallion in question.  “And due to their relationship crashing down, and because she came to the conclusion that Nova was going behind her back, Summer tried to kill Clover, which led to her becoming Envy.  Or so we had thought.”

“Or so you thought?” Trixie arched an eyebrow.  “Obviously, this means she’s not actually Envy, right?”

“She’s been--” Nova sniffled, “she’s been held captive this entire time.  In that pendant Envy always wears.”

Trixie knew it well.  The gleaming ruby pendant.  The pendant that always seemed to be gleaming, even in darkness.

Held captive in the pendant?

“I don’t understand,” Trixie frowned.  “How?”

“Soul magic,” Twilight reentered the conversation, her voice weak.  Trixie found herself alarmed at just how pale Twilight had gotten  “Some of the darkest magic the alicorns ever wrought.  The alicorns were able to use magic directly upon souls and minds without affecting the body, and they experimented a lot,” she added with a shudder.  “Envy must have put Summer’s spirit within that gem.  I knew she was capable of some pretty forbidden stuff, but… but this!?

“Shimmer Silvermane,” Nova continued.  “She… she went out of her way to antagonize me back then.  And I always thought she knew more than she let on, but… well, then Summer tried to kill Clover and there was no reason not to think it wasn’t her.”

“But it wasn’t?” Trixie asked.

“But it wasn’t,” Nova affirmed, wiping his eyes.  “She… she says she took control of Summer to make it happen, and all this time, I’ve hated a mare I once loved when she was simply a victim!” he punctuated his statement by slamming a hoof onto the crystal floor.

Trixie felt a pang at that.  She may not know quite what Nova was experiencing, but she did know how this Summer Blossom had to feel.  Though thankfully, Trixie hadn’t had her soul plucked out and stuck in a gem.  Just the very thought of being subjected to such a fate made her shudder.  Still, being a puppet and vessel for a homicidal maniac hadn’t exactly been the most pleasant experience.

Beside her, Twilight had an expression that looked conflicted, to say the least.  Trixie could clearly see sympathy, but she also seemed to be hurt by something else.

“Do you think this is going to help?” Trixie asked, giving him a meaningful look.  “Holing yourself up in your room, trying to drown out the pain with alcohol?”

Nova didn’t answer.  He just tensed up again.  He needed to acknowledge that it wasn’t going to work, or else nothing would improve.  This meant that she needed to be a bit more direct than usual.

“You’re just delaying your problems until later,” she continued, staring at him.  “Your alcoholism is doing nothing to help you, and you need to see that.”

“...hurts…” Nova mumbled.

“Okay.  I believe you,” she touched his shoulder as Twilight squeezed his hoof reassuringly.  “And we’re here to help you bear the pain.  So please, Nova.  Please come to us if it ever gets to be this bad again.”

He said nothing, he didn’t even look at them.  He just stared at a spot on the crystal floor, a hollow look on his face.

“You promised me,” she reminded him.  “You promised you’d talk to us.  If it gets too painful, we aren’t going to go back on that.”

Again, he said nothing, continuing to stare at the ground, unresponsive to everything around him.  Outside of the blinks, or the light twitches, he could have been catatonic.  Finally, at long last, Nova just nodded, his entire body quaking as he desperately tried to prevent himself from breaking down again.

With one last reassuring touch, Trixie got back to her hooves, and started for the door.  Things were going to get worse before they got better.  They always did.  But hopefully, Nova would know they would be there to help him from that point forward.

Twilight trotted after her, though she cast a nervous glance behind her at her despondent fiancee, who mustered just enough effort to meet her eye for a split second, before he went back to staring at the floor.  With that, the two of them left him to himself.

“How did you know he was in his room?” Twilight asked as they trotted out.

“It was the least likely place he would hide, because anyone would assume it would be the most obvious place for him to be,” Trixie replied, feeling no small amount of pride well up inside of her despite the moment.  “No one would look there when he was clearly trying to hide.  Nova’s a clever stallion, but he can never fool the Great and Perceptive Trixie.”

Twilight sniffed.  “I should have known,” she grimaced.  “I had to learn that lesson myself a few weeks ago, when my friends and I were trying to break into Canterlot Castle to steal something from Shining and the Princesses.”

Now it was Twilight who was trembling, and her own tears started to fall.

“Trixie… am I a bad marefriend?”

Trixie stopped in her tracks, now staring at Twilight with nothing short of exasperation and incredulity.  Willing the magic in her forward, Trixie cried “Teleport!” once again, and both her and Twilight disappeared in a flash of pink light, reappearing in Twilight’s living room, which was thankfully empty.  Twilight flailed in midair for a moment, before falling on a cushion Trixie had conjured just in time.

“Sorry, never teleported before about ten minutes ago,” Trixie apologized, wiping her brow and letting out a tired sigh.  “I don’t know how you do it all the time.”

“You get used to it,” Twilight mumbled, before rolling onto her back and wiping her eyes.

“So, you think you’re a bad marefriend?” Trixie conjured another one for herself and sat down on it.  “Why’s that?”

“I had no idea where to look to find him, yet you knew it immediately,” Twilight answered, shutting her eyes and pinching the bridge of her muzzle.  “I should have known that, and because I didn’t, he’s gone back to the bottle again!”

“Twig, stop,” Trixie cut her off, placing a hoof on her breast to quiet her down.  “Just because you don’t know every little tiny detail about him doesn’t make you a bad marefriend.  It just means there’s more about him for you to learn.  I don’t know every tiny detail about Aegis, and we’ve been dating for nearly as long as the two of you have been engaged.”

Twilight opened her mouth to interject, but Trixie kept going before she could.

“And what’s more,” she continued, staring at her meaningfully, “Nova counted on you knowing enough about him to guess where his hiding spot was, so he hid someplace you would ignore entirely.  You’re the smartest pony I know, Sparkle, but you have to remember, Nova knows that, and he knows you better than I do, and while you’re the smartest pony I know, Nova’s the cleverest pony I know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Twilight gave her an annoyed look.  “Cleverness and smartness both can mean intelligent--”

“Spork, quit playing the semantics game, you know what I mean,” Trixie snapped, glaring at her.  “You and I both know that you like facts, measurements, rules, and all manner of structure and reason.  You and I both know that you prefer to follow the letter and spirit of a law if you can help it, but you err toward the letter.  You and I both also know that your dear fiancee is not like you in that way.”

“What do you mean?” Twilight gave her an askance look.  “What does this have to do with--”

“It means that Nova is pragmatic,” Trixie continued, her tone patient but still cutting her off all the same.  “If he can exploit something to his advantage, he will.  And in this case, he exploited your thought process.  He was able to do this because he knows you that well.”

“But clearly I don’t know him that well,” she grumbled.

“I think that’s bollocks,” Trixie rolled her eyes.  Twilight just turned and gave her a blank stare.  Once her choice of words went through her head, she smiled sheepishly.  “Oh for goodness sake, Aegis’ Braytishness really is rubbing off on me.”

A small yet refreshingly warm smile crossed Twilight’s face.  “I’m happy you have someone like him, Trixie.  But,” the smile vanished, “regardless of what you think, you were the one who found him, not me.  It never occurred to me that he’d be hiding in his own room, because I thought it would be the least likely place he’d hide due to being so close.”

“That’s because you’re not thinking like him, Twilight,” Trixie punctuated her statement by lightly tapping on Twizzler’s noggin.  “You know him better than anyone else.  My advice?  Next time he does something like this--”

“Which is hopefully never,” Twilight remarked, though her facial expression didn’t show she believed that was a possibility.

“--don’t look at him through your eyes,” she continued unperturbed.  “Instead, maybe you should try to look at you through his.  When you want to find Nova, you need to think like Nova, and not like Twinkle Sprinkle.”

Twilight said nothing, staring up at her crystal ceiling thoughtfully.  Trixie couldn’t help but be envious of Starlight.  It was a beautiful building, and Starlight was going to take it over when Twinkie was living in Canterlot full-time with Nova.  Maybe she wouldn’t mind renting out the basement to her and Aegis…?

“Trixie?” Twilight finally asked, her voice thick with emotion.

“Hm?”

“Tell Starlight that she couldn’t have made a better choice in her Student Counselor.”

Now it was Trixie’s turn to paw away a few tears from her eyes.  Though unlike Nova’s and Twilight’s, hers were much happier.


“Like this, master?” asked Bright Gleam, and the western orchard of Sweet Apple Acres was lit with a green glow as she cast her spell.  Up in the trees, the fruit bats stirred, though they had long since gotten used to the light shows that the strange white unicorn and the lilac alicorn put on whenever they were out here, especially since they were always kind enough to offer fruit.  This pink one was new to them, but she hadn’t bothered them… yet.

“Not quite,” Nova shook his head, frowning as the lights faded.

He held out a hoof, and Gleam gave up the metal pole she was using.  Nova surveyed it, noticing that while she had done an excellent job of binding the energy to the ends of the pole, she hadn’t done a good job of inlaying the energy into the metal itself.

“You’re off to a good start,” he said, his horn shining blue.  “Pay attention to what I’m doing here.  You’ve done excellently to bind the magic, but you’re going about it the wrong way.”

“I’m just doing what I was taught, sir,” Gleam defended, though he noticed that she lowered her head a tad.

She wasn’t lying. He could sense that plain as day.  But the teachers at Celestia’s School were not fools.  They knew what they were doing.  Perhaps she had just misunderstood?

“How did they teach you?” he asked, now genuinely curious.

“The book we used said we needed to bathe the object in our magic and allow it to sink in and soak into the object in question,” Gleam answered, trying to recall her lectures and the book she had tried to study.

“Let me guess,” Nova smiled humorlessly, “it was The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4, 2nd Edition?”

Gleam blinked several times, staring at him in befuddlement.  “You… you have the editions memorized, master?”

“Nope!” Nova replied, with a slight snicker.  “I just happened to use the exact same book with the exact same faulty instructions in it when I was at MIM.  There’ve been two new editions since then, and Twilight’s library has both of them, so I’m sure she can loan you one of them if you want to study up.”

“Why does Princess Twilight’s library have multiple editions of the same book?  Don’t most libraries completely replace older editions with new ones?”

“Funny story about that,” Nova smiled as he recalled the memory.  “We actually found out that a newer version left out relevant information when we were looking for something.  Ever since, Twilight’s kept each older edition, just in case something similar happened.”

Gleam scrunched her face as she stared at the metal pole.  “Then how do I enchant this thing?  All you want is for it to have a simple light spell, right?  How do I get it to do that?”

“While dunking the object into your magic and letting it sit for a while, so to speak, can work,” Nova took the metal pole from her and held it in his own hooves, “Professor Hoofman taught me that the best way to enchant an object is to weave the magic into it.  Intertwine the mana with the object.  Watch closely.”

His horn shone and the pole began to glow a bright blue as Nova metaphorically stitched his magic into the metal pole.  He made sure to do it extra-slowly, so Gleam would see what he was talking about.  “I noticed when you were trying to enchant it, the pole was surrounded by your magic.  You were trying to let it seep in, like you were taught.  Look closely now,” he gestured at the pole.  “Notice how it almost looks like the metal itself is glowing, and not a field of magic in front of it?”

Gleam nodded, before reaching out.  “Can I try?”

“Not on the pole just yet,” Nova shook his head.  His horn glowed, and a navy-blue cape appeared instead, falling into Gleam’s hooves.  Her eyes widened at the sight of it.  “Twi tells me you wanted to borrow this.”

“Is that…?” she breathed.

It was.

The cape had always been one of Nova’s favorites.  But now that he was the Archmage and his new cape and brooch were the identification for the position, that cloak was now superfluous.  Why have two cloaks when one did all of the same things the other did, and then some?

Twilight had been very cross with him when he had voiced his intent to give it to her, due to it being, in her own words, “an historical artifact that should be donated to a museum and not used as a training prop!”  And in fairness, given she was the rightful owner of Clover the Clever’s Prime Magus cloak now, she was perfectly entitled to put that historical artifact into a museum, which, of course, she did.  Nova’s Night Master cloak, however, was his to do with as he pleased.

“And you’re just letting me have this?” Gleam asked, giving him a wide-eyed look.

“All yours,” Nova nodded.  “You can wear it if you want, or--”

She sprang to her hooves and practically threw the cape on around herself, though it was a little big for her.  Nova was, after all, a somewhat tall stallion, and she was still in the middle of her adolescence.  And also…

“You’ve got it on inside-out,” he said, stepping forward, adjusting it, and clasping the sapphire brooch back around her neck, the diamond-shaped crescent moon glimmering in the morning sunlight.  “There.  The gem should always face outward.”

Gleam had the biggest grin on her face as she pulled it around herself, almost like it was cold outside and it was the warmest thing she had.  “I’ll take great care of it!” she promised, dancing in place as well, before an errant step caught the hem of the cloak and sent her to the ground.  “Heheh, whoops,” she added, sheepishly grinning up at him from the earth.

“We’ll get it taken by Rarity’s to have her adjust it for you,” Nova said, helping her up.  “Not to mention, blue really isn’t your color.  But do you know why I’m letting you have this?”

“So I can practice my enchanting?”

“Not just that,” Nova shook his head, before gently pushing her into a sitting position, while he sat opposite her.  “It’s also for your protection.”  At her quizzical glance, he sighed.  “Gleam, I’m not going to lie to you.  After that mare in the woods attacked you, I’ve had nightmares about it for the last two nights.”

Each one ended with him being too slow, with Envy’s lightning striking her, while he was forced to watch, and although he didn’t do it today, yesterday morning he had found his bottle as soon as he could.

“Twilight and I contacted your mother and father yesterday, after she finished up some stuff at the school,” he continued, shaking away those thoughts.  It had also been after he’d been given some time to recover after his relapse.

“They don’t want me to come home, do they?” she asked, seeming to shrink down and her voice growing frantic.  “Are you sending me away?  Is it because I disobeyed Princess Twilight!?  I’m sorry, it won’t happen aga--”  Nova reached forward and flicked her horn.  Gleam shuddered, but calmed down just like last time.  As she came down, she rubbed at her horn.  “What-- how do you do that?”

“Little trick Princess Luna taught me,” Nova grinned.  “I had a habit of asking too many questions at once.  Luna would flick my horn to stop me from doing that.  Comes in real handy when Twilight starts Twilighting.”

Gleam scrunched her face.  “What’s Twilighting?”

“Twilight has this habit of getting all panicky when she feels she’s overwhelmed,” Nova smiled fondly.  “Thanks to her friends, she’s gotten so much better at dealing with it over the last couple of years, but she still has her moments.”  He snickered.  “I think she’s just gotten better at hiding it, to be honest.”

His smile vanished, replaced by a serious look.

“Back on topic though,” he placed a hoof on her shoulder reassuringly, “I’m not sending you away.  In fact, your parents think that the best place for you is with me.”

She blinked.  “Wait.  Really?  That doesn’t sound like Mom and Dad.”

Nova grimaced.  “They… we told them the truth about that mare and what she’s capable of.  With that knowledge, they begged us to keep you around.”

What she’s capable of…

The memory of two days ago flashed through Nova’s head.  Of himself standing between Gleam and Envy, having only just gotten between her and Envy’s terrible spell…

“Who is she, master?” Gleam asked softly.

Nova eyed her with some amusement.  “You just insist on calling me that, don’t you.”

She grinned sheepishly.  “It just sounds better than teacher.”

“Well, if you’re not gonna listen to Twilight, I guess I shouldn’t expect you to listen to me,” Nova remarked.  Gleam flinched, and Nova winced when he realized it.  “Sorry, I didn’t mean that as a barb or anything.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I like to tease my friends and family.  I’m a bit of a troll like that.”

“‘Salright,” she mumbled, looking away and grabbing onto one of her elbows self-consciously.  “I know, I should have stayed here, but… I just…“ she chewed on her lip for a moment, eyes glossing over as she stared at the grass, “it was like something was… calling me, master.”

Nova felt his eyebrow twitch slightly.  Calling her?  “Calling you how, exactly?” he tilted his head.

“Like,” Gleam chewed on her lip some more, before looking at him with an earnest gaze, “like a whisper, I guess.  After I told Sir Spike to send that letter, I started getting this weird pull toward a grate in the floor.”

“A grate?” Nova asked, his eyebrows raising.  A security flaw like that in the school?  Twilight was gonna get an earful about this.

Gleam nodded, though she did go a little red in the face.  “Uh-huh.  I pulled it open and it led me into these tunnels under the school.  The whispers led through the tunnels until it came out in the Everfree Forest.  Then I followed it some more and it led me to where I found you and Princess Twilight facing that mare.”

Nova didn’t miss the shiver that wracked her as she mentioned Envy.

“Who… who is she, master?” Gleam asked again.  Nova blinked, noticing he didn’t answer the question the first time.

“Well,” he sighed, falling onto his back and enjoying the softness of the Sweet Apple Acres grass, “as you might have guessed, that mare and I have… some history.”

“Is she your ex-marefriend?” Gleam asked.

Nova couldn’t help but let out a bark of laughter at that.  The fruit bats hanging in the trees stirred, and one even gave off an annoyed skree!  Nova saw one of Gleam’s ears flick over to the one that had made the noise, but otherwise she kept her attention on him.

“You know, you’re not terribly far off the mark,” he commented wryly, though he felt the creeping unease settle in once again.  “Well… I don’t know anymore.  The mare I thought she was, the mare named Summer Blossom, you could say that she was something of an ex-marefriend of mine.  I…” he closed his eyes and remembered his time in the past with Steelshod, Clover, and Summer, “I did love her.  Not nearly as much as I do Twilight, but… there was something there.”

“But she’s not who you thought she was, right?” Gleam asked, trotting over and standing above him.  “Isn’t that a good thing?  It isn’t Summer Blossom?”

“I wish it were,” Nova answered softly, shaking his head.  “It means that all this time, a pony has been pretending to be her, and has kept the real Summer imprisoned while her body, possessed by her captor’s spirit, committed horrific acts.  And I hated her for it,” he resisted the urge to scowl.

“But maybe she’s lying,” Gleam pointed out.

“Maybe,” he replied softly.  “Gleam, did I ever tell you I can detect when a pony lies?”

Gleam frowned and shook her head.

“I learned how to sense magical energy years ago,” Nova closed his eyes.  “Plan on teaching you how, eventually.  It’ll make enchanting so much easier when you can see how your magic interacts with an object.  But anyway, energy sensing allows me to tell when and where magic is being used.  One thing it also does is allow you to know when someone is lying to you.  A pony’s body reacts to a lie they’re telling, and the magic within them lets off a little flare-up of energy when they do.  But…” he reached up and buried his face in his hooves for a moment, before dragging them down, “I don’t know why, but I can’t sense Envy at all.  It’s like she’s not even there.”

“So you can’t tell if she’s lying or not.”

“So I can’t tell if she’s--”  Nova stopped, before opening his eyes and meeting his apprentice’s.  She looked quite pleased with herself at following along.  He smiled.  “Gleam?”

“Yes, master?” she asked, the happy grin fading somewhat.

“I’m glad I chose you,” he said.  Gleam let out a tiny squee, before Nova motioned for her to let him continue.  “So yeah, can’t tell if she’s lying or not.  But… but why would she lie about this?”

“She did say something about getting you riled up, master,” Gleam pointed out.  “Maybe she’s just saying what she knows is going to make you angry?”

“It can’t be ruled out,” Nova muttered, before sitting up and cracking his neck.  “How long did you watch us?”

Gleam scrunched her muzzle.  “The first thing I heard was the mare laughing really loudly, because I got lost trying to find you, and it led me to where you two were.  The first thing I remember her saying was something about a blind, deaf, comatose lobotomy patient.”

Nova sighed.  Of course it would be that bit that she heard first.

“She was mocking me,” Nova ran a hoof through his mane.  “She likes to do that.  Thinks it gets under my skin, and if I’m honest with myself, I let it do that too much.”

“Who is Shimmer Silvermane?”

Nova felt the creeping dread well up in him at the mention of her name, and he sucked in a deep breath, before blowing it out slowly.

“Shimmer Silvermane,” he answered, measuring each word, “was a mare that made it her personal mission to torment me when I spent some time in the past.”  He closed his eyes, remembering how she would seemingly be there at every turn to threaten him or to make life miserable for Clover or Summer.  “I thought she was the one who would turn out to be Envy in those days, only for it to turn out to be Summer Blossom instead.  And now she says she really is Shimmer, and Summer’s spirit has been trapped in that gem of hers…”

Gleam sat down and cuddled up against him, leading Nova to crack open one eye and give her a look.

“You respond well to touch, don’t you,” he observed.  “Kinda like I did back then,” he added to himself.

“Sorry, master,” she blushed, but still met his gaze, “but you needed a hug.”

Nova felt a small smile worm its way onto his face, as the memory of a younger him abruptly trotted up to Princess Luna and hugged her when she needed it ran through his head.  Rather than shy away as Luna had done, Nova slid a hoof around her and pulled her in.

“I agree,” he whispered.  “I think I do.”  He then smirked and added, “Just don’t let Princess Twilight catch us doing this.  She’s got a mean jealous streak.”

Gleam’s eyes widened, her blushing face paled in mere moments, and she scrambled back.

“S-sorry, I didn’t mean anything like that--”

Nova chortled.  “Gleam, Gleam, calm down.”  He sat up and motioned for her to sit next to him.  “Luna was very touchy too.  She liked her hugs, and her nuzzles, and her little pecks from time to time, and she would even groom my mane after particularly-strenuous sessions.  Even though she can get a little jealous sometimes, Twilight would completely understand.”

Gleam still eyed him nervously, but relented, albeit at a snail’s pace.  As soon as she had sidled up next to him, he pulled her the rest of the way.

For several long moments, they lay there, master and apprentice, just enjoying each others’ company.  It was a gorgeous day out, and now more than ever, Nova found himself grateful for Twilight making him do this today, despite it being so soon after… well, after the incident.

“I think we have delayed the lesson long enough,” he said, getting back to his hooves and helping Gleam to hers.  “Going way way back, as you guessed, the cloak is partly for you to practice your enchanting on, and it would not do for you to let it fall into disrepair.  If you probe it--”

There was a bright flash of magenta light.  Nova and Gleam both yelped and jumped backward from its source, before the light vanished, and Twilight Sparkle straightened up, carrying a piece of parchment in her magic, and looking grim.

At once, Gleam scrambled as far away from him as she could.  “Sorry-Princess-I-promise-he-was-just--”

Twilight, however, held up a hoof to forestall anything else she had to say, before thrusting the parchment at Nova.

“There’s a serious problem.”

Nova took the offered parchment and gave it a read.

Princess Twilight Sparkle and Archmage Nova Shine,

There have been a pair of grave developments.  Your presence is required in Canterlot at the earliest possible opportunity.  This is a Level Zero imperative.  Archmage Nova Shine, bring your apprentice as well.

Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.

Nova’s gaze snapped to Twilight, who was sitting on her haunches and glaring at the ground in front of her, lips pursing dangerously.

“Did you just receive--”

“Thirty seconds ago,” she cut him off.  “I teleported here as soon as I read it.”

“What’s a Level Zero imperative?” Gleam asked, craning her neck to read the parchment herself.  “Why am I needed?”

“I imagine they want you along because you’re involved now,” Nova answered, “and a Level Zero imperative means that this order is the absolute top priority, and everything else must be put on hold.  Last time we had one of those was when the princesses went missing shortly after Twilight's coronation a few years ago, and everyone devoted themselves to finding them, to give you an idea at how serious this is.”

He let out a long sigh, before the cloak, letter, and metal pole all both vanished in a flash of light 

“Get packed for at least an overnight visit,” he said, running a hoof through his mane.  “Maybe more.  We need to leave immediately.  Be at the train station in twenty minutes.”

“Yes, master,” she bowed quickly, before scampering off back out of the orchard and toward the city.  Nova and Twilight shared a brief glance, and then they followed.

“Any theories?” Nova asked.

Twilight snorted.  “Theories aren’t hypotheses, Nova.”

“You know what I meant,” he replied with a small smile.

Twilight frowned.  “Well, an airship flying a Storm King flag was escorted into Canterlot earlier today.  Something tells me it has something to do with that.”

Nova sucked in a deep breath.  Chains, the prison cell, the inmanipulon ring he had been forced to wear…

“Hey,” Twilight pressed up against him, looking concerned.  “I’m right here.  Want to talk about it?”

“Later,” Nova shook his head.  “Let’s… let’s talk later.”

“Alright,” she nodded, her eyes never leaving his.  “We’re here for you, Nova.  Trixie and I both.”

“Thanks, love,” Nova sighed, leaning down to rest his head against hers.  “Let’s go see what the Princesses want.”

As they trotted away back into the town, despite the events of the last few days, Nova had never felt closer to Twilight as he did then and there.