There was little that caused true fear in her these days.
She remembered how the years flowed without end during large parts of Luna’s banishment, how the most exciting thing in a decade was the Griffin’s sending a new ambassador or a young dragon overstepping his boundary. But this past decade had the most exciting of them beat twenty times over. No decade in her life, even before Luna’s banishment, before she was a princess, not even when they wondered a post Discord world together, had cased her as much fear and stress like this one.
There was one reason why: Twilight had been her protégé for a little over a decade.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise that having Twilight around the castle caused excitement. As a foal, she’d managed to not only hatch a stone dragon egg but grow him to massive size. Her student’s power never decreased as time went on and her studies were varied greatly. A simple report could turn into an explosion if Celestia left her alone too long.
She’d thought after Luna returned and Twilight was off learning how to be a friend, a lesson she’d tried and failed to teach her again and again, maybe her worry would fade. Twilight would finally learn that not everything could be taught from a book and she’d stay out of trouble living in middle nowhere Ponyville. Equestria rarely needed the elements more than a few times a decade. Twilight would have time to enjoy life and Celestia able to enjoy having Luna around.
Yet Twilight and her friends managed to make a dragon leave of his own will, without using the elements. He hadn’t even complained to the dragon ambassador. Apparently, he’d even apologized for the trouble. She and her friends managed to find a way to make parasprites leave Ponyville alone completely when they cased millions of bits worth of damage elsewhere. She even had a hoof in whatever happened at Appleloosa to calm Chief Thunderhooves.
And that was before they defeated Discord, almost completely by themselves.
That spike of fear, knowing that Discord had broken free and she was powerless to stop it…. She hadn’t wished for control of the elements since the night of Luna’s banishment, the feel of their power only reminding her that she last used them on her sister. But in that moment she yearned for them.
But Twilight and her friends came through. They brought down Discord more swiftly than she and Luna had all those years ago. That was the moment that she knew that Twilight wasn’t her student anymore, that Celestia may have things to teach but Twilight would learn them as an equal.
So this fear gripping her heart shouldn’t be here. Twilight was an alicorn now, a princess of her own right. She may be the most powerful magic-user in the entire world, as the element of magic. No monster that Celestia had faced had been worse than Discord or King Sombra at their height and Twilight had faced them both in only a few years.
Nothing had escaped from Tartarus, nothing she felt yet in any case. Even then the only monster in there that would stand a chance against her would be Lord Tirek and he wouldn’t have kidnapped her, he would have drained her magic and left her in the street along with every other pony in Canterlot.
“Do you know who could have done this?” Shining Armor asked. He wasn’t wearing his guard armor but he was standing like he was. Stiff as stone with a harsh frown on his face.
He was family twice over and she wouldn’t lie to him. “No,” she answered. “Nothing I know of that could have taken her so quickly.”
“There have been no demands?”
“None to myself but it’s still early.”
He nodded, he’d been trained in disappearances like all her guards. The ex-captain knew demands weren’t always sent, let alone sent early. Whoever took Twilight may be waiting for this moment even, when the fear of a sudden disappearance of a loved one becomes real.
If there were demands; where would they go? To Celestia, her family, or maybe the rest of the elements?
“I’m heading inside to tell my parents and Spike,” Shining Armor told her. “I don’t want them to hear it from anypony else but me.”
“Of course,” she agreed. “If I hear anything while your inside I’ll send a guard in.”
She felt for them, Twilight Velvet and Night Light. Two completely normal ponies with two not so common foals. Shining Armor by himself would be a lot to take in, youngest Captain of the Day Guard in a century; only to give up that extremely promising career to marry a princess. And that still paled in comparison to Twilight.
It had to be hard to be parents to such powerful ponies.
As soon as Shining Armor disappeared into his parent’s home Luna landed beside her, Cadance a moment after.
The dark look on their faces didn’t brood well. “Did the Night Guard see anything?” she asked.
“No,” Luna answered. She started to walk the empty street looking it over like Celestia had done. Hopefully, she would see something she missed. “Only that Twilight Sparkle left the castle soon after you said she left your rooms.”
Cadence looked worried, “Should one of us go to Ponyville for the rest of the elements?”
“Not yet,” Celestia said carefully. “Go comfort your husband and his family, he came outside while you were gone. But Cadence,” she looked at her ‘niece’, “this stays with them and us until we know more, understand?”
Cadence nodded easily if not happily, she was a leader of her own kingdom after all. If the news started to spread that Equestria’s newest princess had disappeared into the night in the middle of Canterlot, seeming foalnapped… It could cause a panic.
The three princesses looked up at the sounds of a group of hoof steps, Captain Golden Comet followed by a few of his highest ranking guards. Equestria was a peaceful nation and Canterlot it’s best-guarded city, she was thankful that even on an early holiday moring her guards could react quickly.
“I’m going to speak with Shiny,” Cadence said quietly, “Tell him what little we know so far.” She left the two of them, casting a sad and worried look to the spilled ink.
“Would you speak with the Captain?” Celestia asked her sister before the Captain was in earshot. “I wish to look around some more.”
Luna nodded, moving to intercept the Captain before she could speak to her. Golden Comet was a fine unicorn but she was still rather new. she may be older than Shining Armor had been when he’d become a captain but Shining had spent a lot of time in the castle before he even trained to be a guard. Comet, like most new ponies that worked in the castle, couldn’t quite handle working with Celestia closely.
Her sister didn’t have that problem, either she spoke harshly enough that a pony was scared into doing what she wanted or she charmed her way with easy. How she managed to do both while Celestia was stuck with star-struck awe had baffled her for a thousand years now.
The low shimming anger and fear also put her into a mood she’d rather not have her guards see.
With half an ear she heard Luna issues her orders. They’d were to block the street off from this point for a good messer on both sides, enough that a pony may be able to see that the Princess were there but not what they were doing. An easy enough task considering that the walkways in this part of Canterlot were rather narrow.
Most didn’t know it but much of Canterlot was new, or rather much of it was less than 500 years old.
Canterlot had been a mostly planned city. The general layout carefully planned for maximum beauty and most importantly for the time; reliable water. It had been rather different back then and unicorns never liked the hard work that earth ponies had to do. The Canterlot river ran in a huge curve in the city starting at the base of the mountain and formed an almost complete circle. At every bridge, a set of enchanted gems cleaned the water. At the farthest point of the circle sat the castle and the river ran underground so that it could have running water.
Inside the circle sat the best of Canterlot, or at least the richest. Beautiful gardens, shops, and playhouses lined the streets. The richest of Canterlot held houses there, massive estates with stone walls and their own guard ponies.
As Canterlot grew most of the growth had been done outside the circle until it had bloated to almost three times its size. Wealthy ponies rarely wanted new blood by their old estates. Foolish if anypony asked her. But Twilight’s parents home rested just on the south side of the river, as Sparkle was an old family but hadn’t ever been wealthy enough to buy a bigger estate inside. But they still firmly inside Canterlot even just off its center.
It meant that whoever attacked Twilight had to be able to walk freely inside. Guard duty had been light last night, Hearth’s Warming Eve was the most request night off of the year. But there had still been guards on active patrol. If Luna hadn’t already asked Midnight Sapphire herself, Luna’s own Captain of the Night Guard, for every guard on duty then they would need to do it soon.
But nothing had been reported last night so whatever happened must have been quite or sudden and Twilight may not be a trained guard but no pony smart would try and take on her magic. Celestia looked at the ink bottle again, trying in vain to make it do something to tell her what had happened to the owner.
“Thoughts?” Luna asked. There were now ponies starting to look at them from behind small barriers that the Day Guard had set up but most just stopped for a moment before moving on. Hearth Warming was a busy day for most ponies. Thankfully no newspapers ran today or tomorrow and what ponies saw today would only travel by mouth.
“How did they know that Twilight would be coming here?” she asked aloud. “She doesn’t stay at her parent’s home while staying in Canterlot.”
“It’s was Hearth’s Warming Eve. Didn’t you tell me that ponies spend this time with family?”
“Well, yes. But Twilight always considered the castle her home after moving out of her parent’s house. I kept her rooms open for her for that reason. And the only reason she was coming here was because of Shining Armor because from what I understand he missed not living in a castle. Even then that had only been decided a few days ago.”
“So Twilight Sparkle was probably being watched,” Luna tapped her hoof to her chin in thought. “But hadn’t she been in Ponyville until yesterday morn?”
“Yes, she had. ” she agreed grimly.
“I do not like the looks of this the more I think of it,” the dark mare said quietly so that the guards didn’t hear. “Twilight Sparkle was a powerful unicorn even before she ascended. That a villain watched her movements and caught her unaware enough that nothing was reported in the middle of Canterlot….It is must troubling.”
It was. Deeply so. And she needed to do everything in her power to find out what happened.
She thought of when Twilight left the castle, it had been a little under five hours until this sunrise, so some seven hours ago now. There was a window of time when she would have arrived here but it was a rather large one because she could have walked or flown. Celestia had to place her best bets on her being a slow flyer as there was no way she would be able to cast her spell for the entire window.
Even then looking back seven hours for any amount of time was going to be hard even for her.
“Thank goodness my court is closed for the rest of the month,” Celestia sighed. “At least I won’t have to deal with them with my magic so low.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” Luna questioned her. Of course, she knew what she was about it do. Her sister knew her too well. “If whoever attacked Twilight Sparkle attacked you or Canterlot and you were weak….”
“You and Cadence are both here, Canterlot is well protected,” she replied easily. The other mare wasn’t truly trying to stop her, only warn her. They both knew that it was the only way to see what happened to Twilight and Celestia being a little weak for a few days was well worth the risk.
Celestia took a wide step away from her sister and started pooling magic in her horn as her sister watched her with a frown. It wasn’t directed at her, not truly, but at the use of the spell itself. It had been years since she needed to cast this spell and she wished she could have kept it that way. It was meant to show the past and for normal ponies, it was draining to see only minutes. The strongest unicorns could maybe see an hour in the past but only an inch.
The amount of power it took to see seven hours would kill a normal unicorn three times over.
She stood in front of the ink well, still untouched, and released the spell. Her golden magic flowed over the sidewalk but not far as some ten feet back. The spell didn’t show the past completely. Everything was deep gold, from the stones on the ground to Twilight herself if this was when she had been here. Nothing in the spell cast shadows and if magic had been involved it would be extremely hard to see the color.
But it was better than nothing.
The street looked the same for a full minute and she was starting to feel the strain of holding it and pushing the time back in chunks. A line of sweat dripped down her cheek and once again she was thankful that her mane was just sunlight as it wouldn’t matt down on her neck.
Finally, there was movement. A golden Twilight cashed down on the sidewalk, her inkwell and a few loose papers spilling out of her bag. Her horn was lit, shining a bright gold like Celestia’s own, but she wasn’t moving. Her eyes were wide and roaming never staying in one place, they looked into her own for a single moment, the spell making the normally royal purple gold but the fear in them showed just the same.
The golden light from her horn only grew bright until it stopped suddenly. At once Twilight jerked her head up but to Celestia’s confusion, a shining glimmer at the edge of the spell grew wider and wider. At the same moment that the shimmer was brightest her student’s horn lit again and she could almost hear the pop of her teleportation spell, the small spark of magic it left behind still clear, if golden.
Then the street was empty once again, the inkwell the only difference.
Twilight’s wide fearful eyes only served to fan Celestia’s anger again, as it rose higher than the deep pit of fear sitting in her chest. Whoever the coward was that attacked her, in Celestia’s own city where she should have been safe, would pay for it a hundred times over. Her ponies may have forgotten that she once defected the monsters in their bedtime stories but whoever this was would not be getting their sweet princess. Not for making that look appear in Twilight’s eye.
“She teleported away, sister,” Luna said in her ear, trying and mostly failing to soothe her. Had her anger over what she saw been showing? Must have since a few of the guards weren’t looking in her general way.
“Yes, but what was that other spell? She didn’t seem to want to cast it,” she said as she tried to push down on her anger. Finding Twilight was much more important right now.
“Perhaps she was forced?”
She shook her head in disagreement. “Mind control and anything like it has been banned ever since the Era of Storms. Even if there was a pony out there trying to learn it there would be no books to learn it from or master to guild their way.”
Luna snorted loudly, “There is always someone learning things they shouldn’t. Banned magic or not Twilight Sparkle didn’t seem to willing to cast the first spell. I also didn’t recognize it, seeing it through your spell or not.”
“I haven’t seen anything like it either,” Celestia said. After a moment she continued as she dragged up old knowledge from far in the past. Thank the sun her memory was as good as it was.“I don’t know much about mind control magic but I do know that it takes a long time to prepare and something from the victim.”
“We already think she was being watched. Tis not hard to believe something was stolen from her as well.”
“You misunderstand, sister,” she said slowly. Not calmly, no, that was lost the moment Twilight’s frighten eyes happen to glance at her while she was frozen on the ground. Now she was at a level of anger she didn’t even know she could still get too. “It takes a far more personal connection than ownership of an object. It has to be something from them and most commonly it’s hair or blood. And for such total control….. A lot of blood. Yet she wasn’t wounded as far as I can see.”
She glared down at the blasted inkwell again, “We need to find Twilight. Whoever cast this spell has been following her for who knows how long and somehow had her blood before this. Where ever she went she’s still in danger.”