//------------------------------// // Celestia: And Full of Terrors II // Story: Game of Worlds // by DualThrone //------------------------------// “The Wight Flagge” was the most singular tavern Celestia had ever been in. There were no known hours of operation. The bar never closed, the music never stopped, and it seemed like being inside of it empowered ponies to stay up for weeks at a time because she could never remember seeing anypony stumble up the stairs to collapse into one of the hundred or so beds laid out in a communal sleeping arrangement over the top two floors. It embodied the spirit of the Crystal Empire, the quasi-autonomous state that had laid claim to and colonized the featureless desert of tundra and glaciers that lay between the Dragon Lands and the Griffon Provinces. With the strange artifact called the Crystal Heart a civilization of ponies had flourished in a land that should have been their death. It had been opulent, overflowing with wealth from the exquisite fruits that needed a simultaneously arid and cold climate to fully mature, veins of crystals infused with raw eldritch energies worth a monarch’s ransom, and delicate sculptural work carefully suffused with magical energy which took months to melt and was designed to reveal entirely new works as it did. Its royal family was quite openly descended from changeling and Equestrian alike, a recognition of the fact that the changeling affinity for love had allowed the Heart to be constantly tuned to resonate with the perpetually changing weather, driven by windigos that lived so far above the ground that it was nearly impossible to know they existed at all. From the royal line had come Night White. Within a decade, he was King Sombra and within a month, Celestia had watched with a broken heart as screaming winds of supernatural cold scoured the snowfield into a memorial of glory that was perfectly, horrifyingly smooth. The Glass Waste was its name now and the maelstrom of lethal cold that howled with hurricane-force velocities over the borders stopped abruptly at the edge of the mirror-like surface. The silence was absolute, and crushing. “This,” Cadence said after a long moment, “is wrong. The wrongness radiates from every direction. How is it possible?” “We have never known,” Celestia said, feeling compelled to speak in hushed tones. “Sombra was a meglomaniac, prideful, and wicked, and the Abomination seemed to come from nowhere. In a thousand years, the greatest minds in Equestria have been unable to even speculate, beyond supposing that Sombra must have used some manner of unspeakable artifact to do the deed. We have no other explanation.” “Would we have even been able to enter without your way, Your Majesty?” Shining said, watching the solid white curtain of snow kept perpetually in motion rise and fall along the edge of the Waste?” “No,” Celestia said. “Which I hope is able to prevent Sotto Voce from approaching. There is no Way running through any of the other nations that ends here.” “At least none that you know of,” Kryssa said. “We’ve been able to establish blink points--our term for them--from Scarabi to all the outlying population centers, and from Scarabi to the capitals of all the places we’ve done diplomatic business in.” “So such a thing is entirely possible without your notice,” Anori said, “meaning no disrespect to Your Highnesses.” “It’s possible, but not here,” Celestia said. “The route would have to be established by teleporting hundreds of times.” “She’d only need to do it once, Auntie,” Cadence said. “There’s nothing to accidentally teleport into here. And if Sotto Voce taught his ally the method that Evils use to teleport, it wouldn’t even be difficult.” “Which is why I can’t entrust everything to hope,” Celestia said. “And that is why we visited the palace stores. We can wait and watch for our enemy for quite a long while if needs be. Sola reward ponies like Starswirl the Ninth and Clover for laying so much groundwork for practical applications of magic to logistics.” “We would have never been able to devise the camp matrix otherwise,” Anori said as Kryssa helped him unpack a tent from where it was strapped to a carrying harness. “Essentially all the equipment we’re carrying between us ensconced in a large crystal via the same extraspatial magic that these tents work by.” “Oh, your technicians made that work?” Celestia levitated her own tent off the harness and unrolled it, sliding poles into designated slots to raise the roof and then anchoring the construct. Simple enough that even a child could do it, she reflected, permitting herself a tiny chuckle. “I remember that being one of the Ninth’s ambitions. When he presented the working prototype of the extraspatial field tent, he couldn’t stop talking about how it could allow entire armies to carry a single comprehensive unit with them that would let them set up a secure encampment in minutes.” “Entire armies is an exaggeration,” Kryssa said. “The largest you can create without it being more economical to just bring two smaller-sized ones is about a company-sized mix.” “Fifty tents and contents is still impressive,” Shining Armor said, setting up one of the auxiliary tents in between the tents already laid down. “But do you really have that much occasion to use them? Even if you occupy the entire wastes, your only borders are with the dragons and Equestria. What is there to guard against?” “If only,” Anori sighed. “Dear heart, we don’t have any need to protect our own lands against incursion,” Cadence said with a peck on his cheek. “A great many sand drake families watch the vast sands, jealously preventing intrusion on their territory, and ladies Maredusa and Mara Belle have prepared immense networks of tunnels that let them discourage invaders in their own fashion The only thing we’ve ever need to is use a variety of harmless deceptions and manipulations to deter innocent explorers.” “Then…?” “Secure passages,” Celestia said. “Is that right? Your people enforce the safety of trade and movement routes.” “Just so, Princess,” Anori said. “We are permitted to move freely through all lands except Equestria--I think it’s obvious why--and protect any traffic along the myriad of routes. An agreement made during the time of… Vespa, I think.” Kryssa grimaced. “Not the best time in our history.” “She wasn’t that bad.” “But she was bad.” “She was realistic.” Anori looked at Celestia. “Realistic about the chances of the next day being the day when all would be forgiven. Realistic about the fact that we were a nation, not children in a time-out waiting to be invited back into the room. So she treated the Hive Throne as the throne of a sovereign queen.” With something to work with, it wasn’t hard to guess at when the agreements the two bodyguards were speaking of had been made. We always supposed that the various sovereigns themselves had dedicated more attention to the matter, she thought. But now, knowing the true facts, it’s easy to see how that was absurd. The success in securing the routes had always seemed just a little too effective for a few extra warm bodies to have changed things. But a coherent, dedicated military guarding the routes? ““Now that you speak of it,” Celestia said, “I know about when Queen Vespa began extending your people’s power beyond your borders, because I remember when the effects began to be felt. I should have seen that the security was a little too good for territorial forces but there were far too many more pressing matters to look too deeply into why the world was just a little safer than it was before.” “We had suspected that was the case,” Anori said. “In fact, Queen Vespa had been counting on it, as history records it. It was her hope that everything would be accomplished before you even became aware of it. Admittedly, she didn’t anticipate that you’d never be aware that someone had undertaken to secure trade and travel routes.” “We had assumed that it was the nations that the routes belonged to.” Celestia put the final component in place and felt the thrumming pulse against her senses of the extraspatial magic snapping into being and filling the space of the tent. “Join me?” “After we’ve set up the other auxiliary tent,” Shining Armor said. “The rations look like they came out right. No indications of disjunction, or contamination, or rot.” “I can’t remember any occasion where the quartermastery fell short,” Celestia said. “I’ll be sure to thank them for their diligence when we return.” The memory of the first time that Starswirl the Ninth had demonstrated his application of Clover’s extraspatial spell development stood out vividly for Celestia as she stepped into the expanse of her tent. Understanding the need for drama and showmanship when getting a noble audience on board, he’d come to the presentation with a pup tent, barely large enough to house a single pony, and then started to carry objects out of the massive internal space one by one, starting with a sleeping pad and ending with a full dining table and chairs to the stunned amazement of his audience. Suffice to say, there was intense enthusiasm for the possibilities and generous amounts of bits flowed into making the proof of concept more industrialized and standardized. Even so, it had never become a convenience available to the average pony (to both sisters’ regret) because the component gemstones were very complicated to process and practically weekly maintenance was needed to make sure that a given space remained stable and didn’t become admixed with the ethereal nothingness where it was positioned. Even nobles didn’t use the spaces extensively, despite being able to retain servants who could maintain them, but it had proven an immense boon for Equestria’s armies and for securing artifacts that were magical enough to reinforce the stability of the space they were put into. Celestia had kept her space modest, especially in comparison to the extravagant pavilions that especially wealthy noble families enjoyed: a comfortable four-poster bed, a gem-driven machine that could adjust the temperature of the space around it, and the various pieces necessary to prepare and serve tea to many guests at once. The table and cushions were also a convenient place to lay out maps and charts, which gave the large space a more practical use, but mainly Celestia had appreciated a private place where she could visit with others over a cup of tea out in the lush wilds of her kingdom. “It comes as no surprise that you’d have a place to sit and drink tea,” Kryssa said with a broad smile. “It was always said that you are both mares of simpler pleasures than a shining white castle on a mountain would suggest.” “It’s a lonely space indeed without company,” Celestia said, her smile mirroring the bodyguard. “Is there a tea that you both prefer?” “Sage with lemon zest,” Anori said. “Likewise.” “Sage with lemon zest?” Celestia considered the two. “Sage is too rare to make tea of for us, I’m afraid.” “And most of your teas--ginger, jasmine, cinnamon, nutmeg, mint--are delicacies in Scarabi.” Anori smiled. “So whatever Your Majesty prefers would be a rare treat for us.” “Cadence didn’t serve you tea?” Celestia asked as she turned, selected a jasmine tea, and began to stoke up the small pot heater to boil the water. “Her favorite hot drink has always been…” “...bitter cocoa with marshmallows,” Celestia finished. “I understand she shared the taste with my daughters.” “That, and fruit juices,” Kryssa said. “Tea was for very special occasions, and she always served mass-produced tea. Oddly, the nobility loved it. They thought it was charming, and quaint, that the princess of love preferred the tea of the common pony rather than the rarified blends popular among the upper crust.” “You mean that one of the old Pillars families thought it was charming and quaint.” Celestia grinned a little. “And the rest of the nobility took their cue.” “There was always that, at first,” Kryssa said, “but the path from doing it to keep up appearances and genuinely liking it was not a long one. Nobility like novelty, to puff themselves up in front of their peers, and I’ve seen quite a few of them seem quite smug about how they just recently had tea with Princess Cadenza and it was so quaint and adorable.” “But of course they didn’t serve the same among their friends.” “Of course not,” Anori said. “Common pony tea was a Mi Amore Cadenza thing. You only drank common pony tea when Mi Amore Cadenza was receiving you for a social occasion. Doing otherwise would be pretentious.” “That sounds like a Di Lis thing.” “Fleur did adore her mimi,” Cadence said, stepping neatly into the gap that Anori and Kryssa had left  between them as if she was intended to stand in it, “and she learned everything from her.” “Such as manipulating social trends.” “The art of wearing a mask,” Cadence said with a little snort. “Something I never imagined I’d need to do well.” “Something you don’t actually need to do well Princess,” Anori said, smirking at her. “Of course I need to do it well,” Cadence said slightly stiffly. “I look better in pink.” “And without the dragonfly wings,” Celestia said. Cadence blushed a little. “That’s… not really an issue for me.” Celestia felt her brow furrow. “It’s not? Do you have a..?” “Yes, but also, no.” Cadence sighed. “Yes it’s a deformity--an extremely profound one--but it doesn’t appear to be one. I’d really prefer not to explain.” “Something to do with your magic?” “What? No! Not… it’s nothing like that.” Cadence sighed again. “The only thing that changes between my ordinary shape and my changeling shape is my coat color and the color of one of my mane streaks. The rest is… I look like I do now. My sister Tettidora believes that remaining in guise lock for my entire life made the shapeshifting magic ‘forget’ my natural form.” “Forget your natural...” Celestia shook her head. “Never mind, this is clearly making you uncomfortable. I’m sorry for prying, Cady.” Cadence smiled and stepped forward and hugged Celestia. “Nothing to apologize for, Auntie Tia. The problem is such an exotic one that I’m sure that Aunt Luna would be confused as well, and she has far more experience with changelings. Besides, it feels good to have someone to talk to about it.” She glanced back at her bodyguards. “Someone who doesn’t joke about it.” Both looked a little taken-aback. “We tease because it’s not a problem to…” “But it is a problem,” Cadence said, with a touch of sharpness that Celestia had almost never heard from her. “I bear no resemblance at all to my family. My sisters all have a distinct mix of features from parents, grandparents, even great-grandparents in the case of Lepi. Me? I look like a black-coated alicorn. I stand next to my birth mother and I look like the ambassador from Equestria. I can tell that most changelings don’t care, and the ones that do are putting every effort into not caring because they like the pony beneath the appearance. But despite everyone being welcoming and accepting, I still feel like an outsider among my own.” Her smile became slightly bitter. “It doesn’t help that I am an outsider.” “You’re not an outsider, Princess,” Kryssa said firmly. “You’re a long-lost daughter of a beloved queen. You’re the adoptive daughter of another queen--so to speak. Anyone who expects you to blend into a culture you just became aware of last year is being foolish, and that goes for you.” “Do what you always told Twilight to do, and think about this,” Anori said. “Give it time. Lepinora’s little dragonflies can blend in anywhere, but they’ve been exhaustively taught out to fake it. You’re pathologically incapable of faking anything…” “Gee, thanks,” Cadence said, although her smile brightened slightly. .”..and that is why it’s fortunate that your special talent is being so attractive and appealing that you don’t have to,” Anori finished. “Also, you owe each of us a box of cinnamon sticks for having to bop you over the head for the thirty-second time.” “The fancy ones from Stalliongrad,” Kryssa said with a fangy grin. “The ones capped with white chocolate.” Cadence grinned right back at her. “Not the ones that are individually hoof-crafted with spun-sugar ribbons tied around the middles?” “We’re not greedy, although…” Anori gave her an extremely over-serious look. “That’s now the price for time thirty-three.” “If your magic ‘forgot’ can’t it…” Celestia pursed her lips, searching for the right word, “...re-learn your natural form?” “What does my natural form look like?” Cadence’s smile didn’t have any trace of bitterness in it, although her tone was a little wistful. “The last time anyone saw what I looked like as a changeling, one with all the distinctive features, I was a few months old. Tettidora can use all manner of inheritance models and probabilities to approximate a form with the correct family resemblances, and imprint it into my shapechange, but…” “It’s not truly your form.” Celestia smiled at her. “If I might indulge in a slightly selfish sentiment, I think your true form is the one you’re in now.” “Imagine that,” Kryssa said. “I wonder where I’ve heard that before,” Anori said. “It sounds an awful lot like something a mother would say.” “Specifically, your mother.” “How very strange.” “Don’t make me hit you two,” Cadence said. “You know perfectly well that Mother took time to make peace with it.” She nosed Celestia. “But hearing it from my adoptive mother as well makes it even better.” Celestia patted her and turned to turn off the heat, when she paused. Just before she touched the control for the heat, she had been sure she’d heard the ting-ting ting-ting of a distant bell, but now as she listened for it, the sound didn’t repeat. Odd, she thought as she dropped the tea bags into the hot water to steep. “I don’t think I’ve had a chance for you to tell me about her,” she said, trying to affect a diffident tone. “Your birth mother, that is. Beyond that she’s using you as part of some plan, and that she likes to hug you.” “She reminds me strongly of you, Auntie,” Cadence said. “Kindly demeanor, very approachable, adored by her subjects, and her mantle of rulership is as natural on her as her wings and horn.” “And she’s an Equestriaphile,” Anori said with a grin. “An… Equestriaphile.” Cadence sighed and gave Anori a level look. “She regards Equestria with unusually intense fondness,” she said. According to Crown Prince Pharynx--my father--she used to have a minor obsession with Equestria.” “The crown prince is exaggerating,” Kryssa said. “She regards Equestria the way an adult would regard the home they grew up in: it’s not the true home of changelings, but it’s the home they came from, someplace to go back to and have fond memories of.” She met Celestia’s eye. “We still have the banners.” “The… banners.” Celestia frowned a little. “What banners?” Kryssa and Anori both looked taken-aback. “The banners,” Kryssa repeated. “The ones the Black Host carried into battle.” “Battle wasn’t my responsibility,” Celestia said, “it was Luna’s. Before you bring up demonstrations, or military parades, or other occasions where military banners were displayed, please remember that Canterlot didn’t become suitable for such things until a century after the exile.” “Did you never once visit the army?” Both changelings were looking perplexed and, Celestia noted, hurt. “No.” Celestia sighed. “In thousands of years, I made quite a few bad decisions, developed numerous bad habits, and made an unfathomable number of mistakes. I and my sister have never been equals in terms of the authority we wielded, or the responsibilities we took on. Military matters were…” “...Aunt Luna’s responsibility,” Cadence said. “You had an entire nation to watch over and guide.” “Yes, but it was more than just that.” Celstia took out a tea cups and quietly poured one for everyone. “Both I and Luna have the capacity for immense destruction. She accepts that fact; I only tolerate it.” “So you were uncomfortable around the army.” “I was.” Celestia sipped, looking at the bodyguards. “The detachment was one of many ways in which I inadvertently wronged your people, but it’s not one that I’ve ever had an opportunity to make right.” “So you kept none of them?” “Where they could remind me that I’d sent an entire race of my little ponies away?” Anori sighed and nodded, taking a long drink. “That is fair, Your Highness, although still deeply disappointing. We’d hoped that at least some memorial to all that we had done for Equestria remained.” “It has.” Celestia smiled and tapped the side of her head. “I and Luna lived through all of what you did, and remember it. The peace we enjoyed until the Guardian was also a memorial to your people. The looming threat of a grand army was a backdrop to every bit of diplomacy; by the time former enemies acknowledged that the threat no longer existed, we had beaten our swords into plows.” “The threat never went away, you know.” “I certainly know that now.” Celestia went to take another sip when her ear twitch involuntarily at the bell sound again, which again faded when she concentrated on listening for it. “Did any of you hear that?” “Hear what, Auntie?” “It’s strange but I thought I heard a ringing…” The sound came again, and again faded. “...bell. There it was again.” “I heard it as well, Your Highness,” Kryssa said. “A ding-ding ding-ding sound, like a bell being rung in pairs.” “Maybe a piece of equipment is striking…” Cadence shook her head. “No, the air here is entirely still, that can’t be it.” “There was something familiar about it.” Celestia put her cup down and stepped passed the other three to poke her head out of the tent, to see that Shining Armor had gone entirely still and was looking around, his ears flicking and rotating as he turned slowly from side to side. “Your Majesty,” he said. “I take it you can hear the bells too?” “I can,” Celestia said, “but not clearly, and they fade as soon as I turn my attention to listening to them.” “Something magical then,” Shining said. “They seem very near but I don’t see changes. It’s still perfectly flat, utterly still, and I can see the wind barrier remaining where it was. Do bells have any great significance here?” “Several. Town bells would toll the hour, as did the giant bells installed in city towers. It was common to magically synchronize bells so if an alarm was rung in one place, the entire settlement would know. They had several highly popular seasonal carols that used bells alone. Bells were rung for warning, celebration, and sometimes to just lift everypony’s spirits by tolling a favorite tune.” She frowned. “I feel that I’m forgetting something.” In truth, she also had a feeling that what she was forgetting was something she didn’t want to remember. The ding-ding ding-ding was associated with something terrible, she was certain. But the sound came again and it was far more clear this time--and when Celestia flicked her ears to try and figure out where it was coming from, it didn’t fade. The sound seemed to be coming from the direction where Celestia knew the center of the Glass Waste lay but as she turned to call Cadence and her two bodyguards out from the tent, she caught sight of the wind barrier. It had moved. The new path of the howling wind now bent inwards, towards the same center that the bell sound was coming from, and the sight forcibly imposed the memory she’d been resisting on her. “The storm bells,” she said. “The what, Auntie?” Cadence asked as she emerged, flanked by Anori and Kryssa. “The storm bells,” Celestia said, turning to look towards the center. “The bells rung when a great storm had been sighted, warning everyone to secure their homes and shelter until it blew over. The… I remember them vividly, the day that Sombra acted. A great cacophony of storm bells deafening us as the annihilating wind swept in and scoured the Empire from existence, imprisoning it in the Waste. It was horrifying to see, and I bless my good fortune that we were too far away to watch the effect on the citizens.” “So why can we hear them now?” “The only explanation I can think of is that we’re too late,” Celestia said. “Sotto Voce is already here, and he is breaking the Abomination.” She took in a breath, turning her head to watch as the winds rushed towards the center. “The Empire is returning.”