//------------------------------//
// The Letter 
// Story: In The Shadow Of The Storm 
// by Summer Knight 
//------------------------------//

Starlight approached the door to Twilight's study, trying not to think about what she had to do next. Twilight kept the list of artifacts in a magically-locked drawer in her desk. That meant that Starlight would have to invade Twilight's private study, break into a drawer that she didn't want anypony looking in, and use that information to more-or-less rob her castle. Starlight could practically feel her teacher glaring at her. 
Spike had locked the door to the study so that no refugees would wander in there, but it was a mundane lock, and Starlight bypassed it with a simple teleport. However, breaking into Twilight's desk would not be so easy; only Twilight herself knew the right spell to open it, and one wrong move would set off whatever defenses she'd put on it. 
Not that Twilight would use anything too nasty, Starlight figured. Her teacher was much too kind to vaporize a would-be thief. 
Starlight held a small amount of magic in her horn and used it like a dowsing rod, searching for an answering vibration from the desk. Only one drawer gave the response she was looking for. 
Okay then. Here goes.
Starlight channeled a wire-thin stream of magic into the lock and wiggled it around like a burglar would a lockpick. She had to figure out exactly what kind of spells her teacher had put on this—how to break them, and what they'd do to her if she failed. However, she'd barely begun her work when the drawer simply sprang open.
Starlight yelped and threw up a magical shield against whatever magic she'd triggered, but nothing happened. Slowly, moving her barrier with her, Starlight crept over and peeked into the drawer. She found that it was packed with files—carefully organized and labeled, of course—but sitting on top of them all was a sealed envelope. An envelope with Starlight's name on it. 
What the hay? 
If this was a trap, it was more devious than anything Twilight could come up with. Still, she couldn't help a shiver of trepidation as she dropped her shield and picked up the envelope with her magic. What if the letter was enchanted so that she could never stop reading it? What if it had been written with exploding runes? What if the paper itself were poisoned?!
Okay, stop it. Those are things that you would do, not Twilight.
She carefully unsealed the envelope and opened it. There was nothing inside but a single piece of folded paper; ordinary, non-poisoned paper covered in non-exploding writing. 

Dear Starlight,
I don't know why you're looking in here, but I know you must have a good reason. I also know it's you, because if anypony except you or me tried to break my spell, everything inside the drawer would have been sent to the vault in Canterlot Castle. 

Yikes, Starlight thought, we dodged a laser there. All of Twilight's most private information would have gone straight to Tempest Shadow.

Honestly, I hope you never even read this letter. If you do, I hope it's for a silly reason, like I asked you to get me a file and forgot to tell you about this.

Starlight also desperately wished that were the case.

Otherwise, I can only assume that you're trying to do something that's both important and dangerous, and for some reason I can't help.

Yeah. She sighed heavily. Nail on the head with that one.

Whatever's happening, I want you to know that I have the utmost confidence in you. If I'm gone, you have my permission and my trust to do whatever you need to do, and to act with my authority in my absence.

Starlight reeled upon reading that line. Act with Twilight's authority? This letter basically made her a princess in all but name! Twilight must have had absolute confidence in her student to even write such a thing. Confidence that, in Starlight's opinion, she'd done very little to deserve. 

One last thing: Take care of Spike. If the worst has happened, he's going to need you.

A strange noise emerged from Starlight's muzzle—she couldn't tell if it was a snort or a sniffle. Take care of Spike? Fat chance; he'd been the one taking care of her.

Be well. Never forget how far you've come, and how proud I am. I love you, Starlight.


-Twilight Sparkle

This time the noise was most definitely a sniffle. A teardrop spattered onto the letter, and Starlight hastily tucked it back into its envelope to protect it from the coming flood.



Rainbow Dash lay miserably in her hospital bed. It had been several hours since Nurse Cloudtail had taken her sealed letter, and since then she hadn't seen anypony except the orderly who brought her lunch. Rainbow hadn't expected to have much of an appetite, but she'd tried a bite of the bland hospital food, and the next thing she'd known the tray had been empty. 
The worst part of it all—even worse than the thought that she might never fly again—was the fact that her friends in Ponyville and the other Wonderbolts wouldn't know what had happened to her. There was no way they could risk sending a message to Equestria with those airships guarding the border, so they wouldn't know that Rainbow was alive and that she'd gotten the message through until the Crystal Army mobilized—if it ever did. If Shining Armor got the message, believed it, and decided to take action. 
And what if he doesn't? Rainbow wondered for the thousandth time. What if Cloudtail isn't on the level, or Shining Armor decides that it's more important to keep the army here to protect his own kingdom? If that happened, then Equestria would have to save itself from the invaders; and it would have to do so without Celestia, Luna, Twilight, or Rainbow Dash. 
Actually, maybe that was the worst part: the fact that she couldn't be there to help anymore. 
With those grim thoughts whirling around her head, it took a moment for her to realize that someone had knocked on the door to her room. 
"Huh?" Rainbow snapped out of her funk and squinted at the door. The privacy glass distorted the pony's silhouette, but whoever it was looked much bigger than Nurse Cloudtail, or the orderly whose name she hadn't gotten. 
The pony knocked again. 
"Come in?" Rainbow Dash called uncertainly. The door swung open; her eyes widened and her heart swelled with hope as she saw Shining Armor himself standing on the other side of it. 
Before the prince could enter the room, two ponies in guard uniforms pushed their way in and looked around suspiciously. Rainbow couldn't imagine what they were looking for, but apparently they were satisfied that there was no one waiting to ambush the prince, because they nodded for him to come in.
"Thanks, guys," Shining Armor said to the guards. "You can wait outside."
"But, Your Highness..." one of them started to protest.
The prince looked at Rainbow Dash, bound head to hoof in bandages and casts, then over to the guards. "I think I can handle it if she tries anything," he said wryly. 
"Even so, as your bodyguard, I have to—"
"Out!" Shining snapped. His eyes blazed with the fury he'd been concealing a moment ago. The two guards scrambled out of the room and shut the door behind them. Shining Armor took a breath, then turned his attention to Rainbow Dash.
"Hey, Rainbow, long time no see. How're you holding up?" he asked. 
"A whole lot better now," Rainbow Dash answered with a smile. "I wasn't sure you'd get my letter."
"Oh, I got it, all right," Shining answered darkly, "and I've got a few questions."
Great. More interrogations. "Okay, shoot."
Shining Armor levitated a cushion over and sat on it—apparently this wouldn't be a short meeting. "First of all," he asked, "who or what is the Storm King?"
"I wish I could tell you," Rainbow Dash answered honestly. "He know that he's the leader of these creatures that attacked Canterlot, but that's about it."
"You haven't seen him, then?"
"No. The creatures we saw were under the command of a unicorn named Tempest Shadow." 
"Hm." The prince rubbed his chin. "I don't suppose this Tempest Shadow is the Storm King?"
Rainbow chuckled at that. "No, I don't think she is."
Shining had to laugh as well. "Point taken." Then his expression turned dark again. "But, what that says to me is that the group holding Canterlot was just clearing the way for the real invasion."
"What do you mean?" Rainbow Dash didn't like the sound of that one bit.
"What I mean is... look." Shining Armor's horn glowed, and a cluster of blue dots appeared in midair. "If you're leading an invading army, you don't commit all of your forces to the very first attack. If something goes wrong, then you're done." To illustrate his point, the whole collection of dots clustered together and then vanished. 
"What you do, especially if you've got a VIP like this Storm King to protect, is send a small part of your army ahead to scout." The dots reappeared, this time split into two groups, one much larger than the other. A dot in the middle of the larger group now had a crown floating above it. "Best case scenario: That advance force secures a base of operations, then the rest of the army moves in." The smaller group of dots moved ahead and spread out into a wide circle, which the larger group of dots then filled in. The whole time, the dot with the crown stayed in the center of the largest cluster of dots. "It seems like that's what happened in Canterlot."
The blood drained from Rainbow Dash's face. "You mean there are more of these things coming?"
Shining Armor nodded grimly. "A lot more, is my guess."
Rainbow squashed the panic rising up inside her. "Okay," she said steadily, "then we need your help even more than I thought. Plus, if the Storm King really has that big an army, you don't want him sitting that close to the Crystal Empire. I mean—"	
"Rainbow Dash." Shining held up a hoof to stop her. His normally bright eyes looked dark and hooded. "First of all, Equestria's my home, too. Second, Equestria and the Crystal Empire are allies; we'd help you no matter what. But most importantly, those monsters have Cadance and Twily." He lowered his hoof. "You don't need to convince me to fight," he concluded in a low growl.
Rainbow Dash heaved a huge sigh of relief, then winced as pain shot through her broken ribs. "You have no idea how glad I am to hear that," she said. "But if you were so sure, then why did you come here? Not that I don't appreciate the company," she hastened to add.
"Well, partly to see if there was anything more you could tell me about what we're up against; but mostly because you're Twily's friend, and mine," Shining Armor answered in a much gentler voice. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."
"I don't know about okay," she answered with a forced laugh, "but yeah, I'll live." 
"I'm glad to hear that. Now, if you're up for it, I've got some more questions about the invading force."
Here we go again. Still, if this was the only way she could help, then Rainbow could handle another debriefing. At least Shining Armor would probably be less intense than Spitfire. 



The lighting abruptly changed as the sun plummeted out of sight and the moon shot into the sky to take its place.
Oh, buck me. Starlight thought. She'd dived into gathering and cataloguing artifacts to distract herself, and now she was late for the Council meeting. Again. 
Well, she was already late, so she might as well finish up with this one first.
She checked the object in her telekinetic field against Twilight's notes. It was a stone about the size of her hoof, made mostly of common gray limestone, but shot through with veins of an unidentified off-white rock in a roughly spiral shape. 
Here it is: the Sleep Stone. Starlight checked off the artifact on her list. Abilities: Whoever touches the Sleep Stone directly will immediately fall asleep. Go figure. Handling: Any sort of barrier between you and the Sleep Stone, such as a handkerchief, will protect you from its effects and allow you to handle it safely.
Instant sleep on contact, huh? Probably not all that useful in a battle, but it could be handy if they needed to knock somepony out—Starlight indulged in a brief daydream of levitating the stone over to Tempest Shadow and touching her with it. Besides, it was small enough, and would be safe to transport as long as she wrapped it in something. 
She levitated the Sleep Stone over to the small pile of artifacts that she'd decided they would take if they had to abandon the castle. That pile consisted of artifacts that were either convenient to carry with them, or too dangerous to risk leaving behind. The other, much larger pile contained artifacts that Starlight had decided would be more trouble than they were worth. 
She set her list down and rubbed her stinging eyes. She'd been at this for hours, and her day wasn't over yet. 
Starlight charged her horn to teleport, then glanced back at the roomful of potentially dangerous magical artifacts behind her and thought better of it. Instead, she walked out of the room, carefully closed, locked, and magically sealed the door behind her, and then teleported to the Map Room.
"But Trixie is sooooooooooooo boooooooooooooooooored!" 
Starlight appeared outside the Map Room just in time to hear her closest, dearest friend complaining to the rest of the Council. 
Really, Trix? Starlight thought privately. With everything going on, you're complaining about being bored? 
"Well, nopony's makin' ya stay!" Applejack's distinctive twang replied. 
I'd better stop this before it turns ugly. Starlight raised a hoof to open the door. 
"Well," Trixie's voice came again, oddly hesitant now, "Trixie feels that... uh, she should... be here for her friend."
Starlight froze with one hoof touching the door. Trixie was thinking of somepony else? Trixie was thinking of Starlight? There was that rising heat in her face, and the fluttering in her stomach again. 
The silence from inside the Map Room suggested that the others were equally shocked.
"Trixie would just like something to do while she's here," the showpony continued. 
"Well, that's very nice of you." Starlight had to strain to hear Fluttershy's soft voice through the door. "She's working on cataloging the artifacts in the castle, and deciding which ones to take with us if we have to leave. Maybe you could help her with that?"
"Fluttershy, dear," Rarity immediately replied, "I don't know that Trixie is, shall we say, qualified to work with potentially dangerous magical items."
"I know!" Pinkie piped up. "You can be our Head Mare of Morale! The HMM!"
"Hmm?" 
"Right! Your job is to keep everypony happy and smiling. Normally I do it myself, but between Council stuff and baking rations, I've got my hooves full. Do you know how hard it is to make cupcakes that don't go stale?"
Trixie thought it over. "So, you want Trixie to... put on shows."
"Put on shows, throw parties, and just talk to ponies," Pinkie clarified. "Whatever it takes to keep Ponyville beaming!"
"Hmm, yes, Trixie could do that."
"HMM, yes, Pinkie knows Trixie could do that!"
Starlight finally pushed open the door, and hoped that her blush had faded enough that the others wouldn't notice.
"Hi, everypony!" she called out with painfully forced cheer. "Sorry I'm late. Again. Oh, Trixie! What are you doing here?"