The conference ended shortly after Mihr’s departure.
With the adrenaline rush from the lhaksharut’s attack wearing off, it had been clear as soon as the angel left that no one was in the mood to continue. To that end, Princess Celestia had suggested a quick review, confirming what they’d decided upon before the lhaksharut’s attack: that they’d try and use the Crystal Heart to break the curse on Luna. That they’d issue a public notice via Equestria’s newspapers recalling the crystal pony missionaries to the Crystal Empire in order to make sure the Crystal Heart was at maximum power when they did. And that Lex Legis was an enemy of Equestria who’d need to be dealt with once Luna was restored…if he didn’t attack them before then.
Once that was done, Celestia had asked if anypony had any other questions or concerns, and when no one said anything – though Twilight, Aisle, and Applejack still looked uncomfortable with that last part – she’d thanked everyone for their help and formally brought the gathering to a close. Luna had excused herself as soon as she had, citing a need for sleep since she wasn’t usually awake in the middle of the day. A moment later Celestia had left as well, going to help Shining Armor reassure the rest of Canterlot that everything was alright. Line Byline had been the next to leave, rushing out so that he could start drafting the notice for the crystal ponies. Cozy, Aisle, and Pillow had spoken with Princess Cadance quietly for a minute before heading back to the guest room that they’d been given, clearly exhausted after everything that had happened.
But there had been one individual who hadn’t left, due to having been waylaid by another one of the guests…
“Willow!”
The purrsian turned at the sound of Twilight’s voice, a streak of annoyance marring her usual mask of indifference. “When I said that I wanted to hurry home to my son, I wasn’t just making an excuse to leave,” she remarked flatly.
“I know,” acknowledged Twilight with an apologetic grimace. “It’s just, after what happened during that fight, I was hoping I could talk with you a little more.”
Letting out a slow breath, Willow nodded toward the hallway. “Walk me to the station.”
Biting her lip for a moment, Twilight glanced back at her friends. Fluttershy was deep in conversation with Discord, and Applejack and Rainbow Dash were similarly engaged. Pinkie was pulling Soft Mane, Grass Patch, and Zecora into a group hug, and Spike looked to be regaling Rarity about the role he’d played in fighting the lhaksharut, his self-satisfied expression suggesting that he didn’t realize that Rarity’s smile was patronizing rather than impressed. The sight made the corners of Twilight’s lips curl upward, and she maintained the expression as she turned back to Willow. “Let’s go.”
But as the two of them started walking, Willow’s next question wiped the happy look off of Twilight’s face. “So what happened with the lhaksharut?”
Looking down, Twilight gave a sigh. “I made some mistakes during the fight, and it almost got my friends killed.”
“That wasn’t how Princess Celestia made it sound,” replied Willow with a sidelong glance. After everyone had returned, the elder alicorn had briefly summarized what had happened before introducing Mihr. “She said that you and your friends fought bravely against the inevitable.”
“Maybe everypony else did.” Twilight’s ears folded down as she spoke, sounding miserable now. “But none of my spells affected that thing. It shrugged off the lightning bolt I threw at it, was completely immune to my polymorphing spell, and Pinkie’s silence spell was the only thing that saved everypony after I couldn’t stop its axiomatic numinous field!” She looked at the ground for a long moment before something occurred to her. “That’s a-”
“I know what it is.”
The purrsian’s tone hadn’t been harsh, but Twilight flinched nonetheless. “Right, sorry. I forgot that your magic specializes in summoning, so you know a lot about planar forces and creatures. You probably knew about how that lhaksharut couldn’t be polymorphed either, right?”
Willow nodded silently, her eyes still fixed on the hallway in front of them, giving Twilight no clue what she was thinking. Finally deciding that there wasn’t going to be an easy opening, she instead plunged forward. “Listen, I know we don’t know each other very well, and I’m sorry that I haven’t been a better friend since you and Sunflower moved to Ponyville, but I need your help. What I didn’t know almost cost my friends their lives in that last battle! If you could teach me what you know about other planes and summoning magic and, well…anything else, I’d really appreciate it!”
Another annoyed expression crossed Willow’s face, and Twilight braced herself for a negative response. But what came out of the purrsian’s mouth next caught her by surprise. “And?”
Twilight blinked, not sure what she was being asked. “And…?”
“And,” repeated Willow, “how much are you going to pay me for my services?”
“Pay you?” echoed Twilight, clearly taken by surprise.
“You ponies.” Willow couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “I know that I’m living in the land of friendship now, and that favors are the norm, but last time I checked tutoring is still a paid position, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes, but-”
“Good,” replied Willow without breaking her stride. “So, how much are you offering?”
“Um…” It wasn’t reluctance that made Twilight hesitate. Rather, she had no idea what the going rate was for magical tutoring. She’d simply never needed to know it; during her childhood, she’d been so far ahead of her studies that hiring help had always been a non-issue. Likewise, she’d never even thought of charging anypony who came to her for help with something, since teaching was almost as much fun as learning. Even back on Everglow, Under Score had taught her about magic purely out of altruism once she’d joined the Seekers, since he’d made it clear that part of the organization’s mission was to educate would-be adventurers before they set out on dangerous excursions. (Not that knowing what that was worth would have mattered, since she hadn’t worked out the exchange rate between Everglow’s currency and Equestrian bits yet anyway.)
Seeing that Willow was eyeing her again, Twilight gave her a pained smile. “I’ll buy your train ticket back to Ponyville…?”
Willow gave a snort that was either disdainful or a repressed laugh, Twilight couldn’t tell which. “That will be a start. In the meantime, we’ll have your first lesson now.”
“Great!” Twilight’s smile returned in full force as her horn glowed, whipping out a set of blank index cards and a quill. “I don’t have any blank scrolls on me at the moment,” she explained as she saw Willow glance at her with a raised brow. “But since this will just be a quick lesson, I figured a few index cards should do! Plus, this way I’ll have some easy-to-review notes that I can use to prepare for when you give me a test!”
“…right.” Not bothering to argue, Willow instead focused on the matter at paw. “Before we begin, let me ask you something. What did you think about that announcement that angel made? About trying to make an agreement with the other powers of the planes to try and keep this world free of their influence?”
Twilight’s eyebrows went up. Her first test was happening already! “Well…I thought it sounded like a good idea. I mean, Mihr seems nice enough, but Princesses Celestia and Luna told me what they heard about that ‘belier’ devil in Vanhoover, and between that and the lhaksharut I think it’s reassuring that somepony is going to try and keep Equestria safe.”
“So you think they’re going to quarantine the world from any and all planar creatures coming here?”
Willow’s voice was pointed enough that Twilight could immediately tell that the answer was “no.” The question was why, since what Mihr had said made it sound like exactly that. “Well, he did say that they might not be able to intercept everything. Oh, and gods are an exception, since they can’t show up here unless someone living in this world invites them.”
“Good,” acknowledged Willow. “What else?”
Biting her lip, Twilight tried to think of what else Mihr had told them. But no other answers presented themselves, and she bit her lip as she gave Willow an uncertain look, shaking her head.
“What did I do when Discord first showed up?” prompted Willow.
“I didn’t see what you did at first,” admitted Twilight. “But you used an invisibility spell pretty quickly. And after that you tried to distract him with that silver-and-blue cheetah you summoned…” She trailed off as that last word slipped out of her mouth. “Wait a minute, that’s right! You summoned that thing! From the planes! But Mihr said they were going to try and stop planar creatures from appearing here! So…was that one of the ones that slipped by them?”
Willow shook her head. “No. While it wasn’t a very powerful creature, I doubt the celestials guarding this world failed to notice it. The reason it showed up here is because they let it, despite their compact.”
Twilight couldn’t help but tilt her head. “But why?”
“Think about it. Their stated reason for keeping this world quarantined is because they want to research why they didn’t notice it until now, but that angel admitted that the real reason is because they wanted to preserve this world’s autonomy since it’s such a paradise. That means letting the mortals who live here do as we like, hence why he didn’t remove Princess Luna’s curse.”
“Okay…”
“But,” continued Willow. “What if some of the mortals living here want to summon planar creatures on their own?”
The paradox was immediately obvious to Twilight. The celestials bound by Mihr’s compact had agreed not to interfere with what Equestria’s mortals were doing, but had also agreed not to let other planar creatures come into their world. If those two directives were to move into opposition with each other… “So they’ll allow summonings to function even if doing so violates their agreement to keep Equestria under guard?”
“It’s more of a loophole than a violation,” explained Willow. “I’ve studied the cultures and politics of the planes as well as the abilities and powers of their denizens. Angels and agathions and other celestial beings are all quite happy to sit back and do nothing when we’re about to step on our own tails. They might protect us from things that aren’t our fault to begin with, but when it comes to self-inflicted wounds, they take no action and say that they’re just letting us learn from our own mistakes, no matter how catastrophic they are.”
“…you sound like you don’t like them very much.” That was the most diplomatic way Twilight could think to put it. Willow tended to play things close to her chest, but there was no mistaking the bitterness in her voice just then.
“You asked me for lessons, and this is one of them: unless you find a way to summon them under your own power, you shouldn’t count on flights of angels showing up to save you if you find yourself in trouble. This compact or agreement or whatever they call it is just that on a larger scale; they’ll keep hordes of demons away, but don’t expect them to help you if Lex Legis is about to curse you and your friends the way he did to your princess.”
Knowing better than to press what was obviously a sensitive issue, Twilight tried to steer the conversation in another direction. “So, who else do you think signed up for this agreement?” The question earned her another sidelong glance from Willow, wordlessly communicating that she knew full well what her pony companion was doing, but Twilight didn’t let that deter her. “I mean, you got him to admit that creatures like demons or devils wouldn’t agree to it anyway, so I’m just curious who else is out there,” she added with a weak grin.
For a moment it didn’t look like Willow would answer, but after several seconds the purrsian sighed, letting her discontent go as she breathed out. “The evil powers either wouldn’t sign on with such an agreement, or would break their word – either overtly or through some tortured logic – shortly after they did. So the agreement was really for the neutral planar hegemonies.”
“Such as?”
“The inevitables should be obvious. That lhaksharut was here on a technicality, but it was willing to back down when pressed, so I doubt it will push the issue later. Probably the aeons too.”
“The aeons?” echoed Twilight curiously.
“The Keepers of the Balance. They’re obsessed with maintaining some sort of cosmological equilibrium between good and evil, and law and chaos, but no one can figure out exactly how they measure it. They’re kind of like the inevitables in that they just show up and do whatever it is that they’re going to do, except at least inevitables can articulate whatever laws they’re enforcing. Aeons aren’t interested in explaining how they’re trying to maintain whatever cosmic scales they think are tilted; they just do it.” Willow frowned then, but this time it was in thought. “I doubt the proteans agreed to the celestials’ compact.”
“You called Discord one of those things before,” noted Twilight. “What are they?”
“The Serpents of Chaos. They’re not malicious, but they hate all order and structure, right down to basic things like gravity and cause-and-effect relationships. They’d prefer to return all of Creation to a primordial soup. But even how they go about trying to dismantle the multiverse is unpredictable. Some of them might try to tear down the barriers between the planes, but others are more concerned with disrupting societies or even specific localities, rearranging the words in books or sharing secrets people would prefer to keep hidden, all just to stir things up.”
Twilight gave a lopsided grin. “That sounds like Discord alright.” But her smile melted away as she thought through the implications of that. “So this is an entire race of beings like Discord?”
“If they’re serious about this agreement of theirs, the celestials should try to keep them away from Equestria,” answered Willow, hearing the worry in Twilight’s voice. “Besides, if they don’t, the inevitables will. As you can guess, proteans and inevitables hate each other the same way angels hate demons and devils.”
By that time they had exited the castle, and both of them paused as they glanced ahead. In front of the entrance, Princess Celestia was holding forth, Shining Armor at her side as she assured everypony that everyone was alright and that there was nothing to fear. Willow and Twilight watched her for a moment, one with a neutral expression, the other with open admiration.
“Hopefully that angel will make sure no more inevitables come here, performing their normal duties on some minor technicality,” said Willow at last.
“Why’s that?” asked Twilight, not taking her eyes off of her mentor.
“There’s another type of inevitable, called maruts, which are almost as powerful as lhaksharuts,” replied Willow. “They enforce a different natural law, one that Princess Celestia is already in violation of.”
Alarmed, Twilight whipped her head around. “What?! That’s crazy! Princess Celestia helps enforce natural laws here in Equestria! She’s the pony who moves the sun! She moved the moon for a thousand years while Luna was imprisoned! What law could they possibly think she’s breaking?!”
Willow’s expression didn’t change when she turned to look at Twilight. But like before her mask of indifference was flawed, this time by a grave look. The sight sent chills down Twilight’s spine as the purrsian answered.
“That all mortals must eventually die.”