Sunrise
Chapter XVII - Showdown
With a mighty crack and a resounding boom, the inner court’s dark hardwood doors flew open in a burst of white-gold light.
The proceedings within came to an instant halt. Whatever words Princess Platinum had been speaking from her red velvet-lined throne at the top of the dais suddenly died as the confused faces of the court officials and nobles turned to the entryway. Some stood their ground, some briefly scrambled for distance, and a few timidly ducked behind whatever cover they could find.
The sisters crossed the threshold from the grand vestibule into the court chamber, striding forward into the ominous, settling silence, wreathed in the floating dust still settling around them. Celestia panned her head slowly, rose-colored eyes sweeping over everything as she took in the room and surveyed the situation. Eyes of various hues met hers in return. Many of them spoke without words: of confusion, of dismay, of fear, but not of immediate resistance.
Good, she thought, they’re surprised. This was what she’d been hoping for. It would be easier to get a hoofhold in the room and contain things neatly.
Luna, it seemed, was already ahead of her on that. Her horn glowed silvery-blue and the doors slammed shut behind them with as much force as their opening, then shimmered faintly with a sealing-spell preventing them from being opened again.
Finally, just as Celestia started to wonder if anypony was ever going to actually respond, there was movement. A middle-aged yellow unicorn mare with a fiery orange mane wearing a short red cape trotted quickly across the court floor to meet them. As she closed in, Celestia could see rage burning in her pale green eyes. “Who are you and what do you think you’re doing here?” she seethed in a low voice, already waving over a quartet of royal guards.
In answer, Celestia and Luna pulled off their cloaks. Gasps of surprise and confusion rose from the court-goers watching them as they revealed their wings. The unicorn confronting them looked puzzled and apprehensive for a fleeting moment, then returned to looking angry. If anything, she seemed more hostile now.
“I am Celestia. This is my sister, Luna,” Celestia announced herself in a voice amplified by a magic spell making her loud enough to project across the court and rattle the windows. “We are here for an audience with Princess Platinum.” She dropped the spell and her voice returned to normal, addressing the unicorn in front of her. “And who might you be?”
“Sear Blaze, majordomo of the Platinum Court,” the yellow unicorn responded. “I don’t… you’re not on the agenda, and how… are those wings? What are you? Unicorns or pegasi?”
“Yes,” Celestia responded, without missing a beat, “and earth ponies, too, I’m told, if you can believe that.”
Sear Blaze blinked, processing this answer for a moment. “Pegasi are not welcome in the Platinum Court,” she finally said, after collecting herself. “Guards! Remove these savages.”
The guards advanced, menacing in their armor. They swung down their long spears and leveled them at the sisters, only to be swept aside as Celestia reached out with a tidal wave of kinetic force, throwing them back against the stone walls and stunning them. She seized their weapons, wrenching them away with trivial ease, and set them orbiting slowly about herself, oriented vertically with the tips upright and glowing softly with magic.
“What is this?” Sear Blaze cried out in desperate confusion, looking back and forth between the pile of guards and the sisters. “What are you doing?”
“Whatever agenda you had set before is obsolete,” Celestia stated loudly. “We are the agenda now. Our audience will commence immediately. Stand aside, or be moved aside.”
“I will not!” Sear Blaze scowled, stiffening her legs and locking in her hooves on the marble floor in a show of defiance. “Business in this court observes an orderly, proper procedure, and it is my job to mediate how—”
“Majordomo,” Platinum’s surprisingly soft voice interrupted, “I will make an exception for the moment. Allow them forward, lest you get hurt as well.”
Sear Blaze’s eyes widened in momentary surprise. “Y– Yes, Princess.” She unlocked her legs and moved aside slightly, then motioned for the sisters to step forward. Her flattened ears plainly showed her displeasure, but she complied with the instruction and ushered them toward the dais.
They took their position in the center of the court, and at last, they stood before Princess Platinum. She looked down at them from her throne, while they stared up at her. Everypony was motionless, watching warily for the next move. In the tense, utterly noiseless court, a pin drop would have sounded like a cymbal crash.
“So you’re the thaumites who turned rebel on me,” Platinum said, breaking the spell of oppressive silence. “The sisters who dared to steal the sun and moon.”
“Oh, no.” Luna shook her head. “I was never a thaumite. I haven’t graduated from my apprenticeship yet.”
“And clearly I am a thaumite no longer,” Celestia added. “If I were still in Thaumosciences, my discoveries and new responsibilities in solar magic would warrant a promotion to mage, at least. With the circumstances as they are, however, I think I can assume I no longer have a position there.”
“Hmmph. We stand corrected, for which I commend you, as it is something very few ponies have the courage to do,” Platinum said. “Now I understand you want an audience with my court. Very well. Have it, if that will satisfy you. What is your petition?”
“We are not here to petition,” Celestia responded. “We are here to state our demands.”
“You come into my court to demand of me?” Platinum narrowed her eyes. “By what right?”
“The sun and the moon are under our control,” Luna pointed out. “We are the bringers of day and night now, not you. This gives us rather extensive rights to set terms, which, frankly, you are in no position to refuse.”
Platinum stared quietly for a moment, with an unreadable stone face that made the hairs on the back of Celestia’s neck prickle. Seconds dragged by. Celestia almost couldn’t bear Platinum’s penetrating eyes, but also didn’t dare to look away from them. Something told her breaking now would be a disaster. How could she make demands if her nerve was so frail she couldn’t withstand a simple staring contest?
“Sun and moon, under your control?” a voice called out from the court crowd. “Let’s not entertain that sort of self-aggrandizement until it’s proven. All we really know for sure is that you two are traitors to Thaumosciences and to the Unicorn Kingdom.”
Celestia finally broke away from Platinum and turned to look. She recognized the voice and felt a sense of great displeasure as the pastel fuchsia unicorn it belonged to pushed her way forward out of the court crowd and stepped into the open floor before the dais.
“You doubt us, Mage Star Fire?” Celestia asked.
“Of course I do,” Star Fire said, with a contemptuous snort. “You were talented, when you were one of my thaumites, but not that talented.”
“Perhaps you were just so busy hating earth ponies that you never understood my sister in terms of her true talents,” Luna shot back.
“Or perhaps the two of you are simply front-pieces for the ambitions of somepony else who does have a credible claim to the kind of talent it would take,” Star Fire speculated.
“And who might this hypothetical somepony be?” Celestia asked warily.
“Ha! You came here not even knowing we’ve already captured her, didn’t you?” Star Fire grinned in the way that Celestia knew so well and hated so much. “Caught red-hooved in a lie, in this very court – a lie about the magic you’ve been recklessly experimenting with. Haven’t you? You and the Cardinal?”
Celestia remained silent and wore a blank mask as her stomach sank.
So that’s why Clover’s been silent. How much do they know?
Star Fire paced before the sisters, strutting with infuriating confidence. “Oh yes, Clover’s time has finally come,” she crowed in a rising voice. “She showed us her true colors. Clever, oh-so-clever, isn’t she? I think we all see it now: clever enough to plan to seize power for herself, clever enough to stage a coup to wrest it, and clever enough to do it from behind the scenes, hiding right under our muzzles. But no victory comes without action – so who to put in front to take action for her? If she is to be the king on the chessboard, who to make her queen, her rook, her knight? Who shall be the pieces of power that she moves boldly and perhaps sacrifices in order to win?”
Star Fire dramatically pointed an accusing hoof. “You! You and your sister, naïve pawns, here to make her move and do her bidding! Aren’t you?”
Celestia faltered. “Cardinal Clover is not—”
“Don’t deny it!” Star Fire shouted in a burst of sudden rage. “We already have the evidence of her lies. You insult this court if you try to lie to us as well!”
“How can you possibly know what we’re trying to say and whether it’s a lie?” Luna flattened her ears in irritation. “This court has not even heard us yet, thanks to your frankly very rude interruption and wild accusations derailing our attempt to conduct business here.”
“And I see no reason why this court should hear you!” Star Fire cried. “You have no legitimate business!”
“Now, really, Mage, this is uncalled-for.” Luna frowned. “You don’t understand the situation. You’re just getting in the way of—”
“The situation is that the two of you are out of your place!” Star Fire shouted back. “Is it demands you want? Fine! If demands are the order of the day, then I have one: I demand to exercise my prerogative as your superior to impart discipline and put you back where you belong, Celestia!”
“Cardinal Clover is – was – my superior most recently,” Celestia said softly.
“Even if you weren’t co-conspirators, the clever Clover is currently stripped of her duties,” Star Fire replied. “It falls to me as the next most recent of your supervisors.”
“And what do you propose you will do to me? Hmmm?” Celestia asked. “Settle the score with a contest of magical strength? Because if so, I’m warning you… You. Will. Be. Crushed.”
Celestia paused and glared straight at Star Fire, her rose-colored eyes locking onto her opposite’s purple, daring her to blink. Neither of them did.
Star Fire smirked. “Oh, how frightening!” she trilled mockingly. “Any other warnings I should heed?”
When those taunting words dripping with sneering sarcasm and their hateful, spiteful tone hit her ears, it was the last straw, finally too much for Celestia to tolerate. Something snapped inside her and her vision swam with red while fiery hot blood burned in her ears and chest. It was all she could do not to instantly blast the arrogant mage right out of her horseshoes where she stood.
“I’ve had enough of you, Star Fire,” she growled. “You’re a monster. You’ve terrorized and used me. You’ve threatened my sister. You’ve tried to find an excuse to destroy at least one of my friends. And all of that pales in comparison to your heartless greed for personal advancement at the cost of selling out the future.”
“I did nothing wrong—”
“SILENCE!” Celestia’s voice boomed out through the court, so loud that the crowd collectively winced. She felt a twinge of guilty sardonic pleasure at seeing Star Fire’s ears flatten in pain.
“And even after all that,” Celestia continued, “I was willing to just forget it for the sake of moving on and moving forward with what must be done. But if you insist… if you insist on this now, this time, I will NOT have any mercy. You are the one out of place now, Star Fire, and you get no more free passes, not from me. Get out of my way or this will end badly, I promise.”
“Do you think you can duel me, then?” Star Fire grinned her infuriating grin again.
“Mage, please, remember that discretion is the better part of valor,” Luna tried to interject desperately. “You don’t know what torment my sister has been through and what this has already cost her. Don’t make it worse by doing something foolish and finally forcing her hoof, I beg you. If you have any scrap of decency left, step away!”
“No, foolish little Luna,” Star Fire said, slowly. “You two haven’t yet shown us here in this court that you’ve earned demands. And I don’t think you will. I’m calling your bluff. Fight me, or you won’t go any further with this charade.”
Celestia felt her heart pounding as the reality of what she had to do sank in. Star Fire stood before her, consuming her focus, and the rest of the world seemed to stretch away. She was only half-aware of Luna’s voice, pleading for sanity, pleading with Princess Platinum to order Star Fire to stand down, and Platinum’s resounding, stone-faced silence as she watched imperiously from her throne, letting it all happen.
“A fight it is, then.” Celestia lowered her head and scuffed at the floor with one hoof, pointing her horn at the mage in front of her.
☙ ☀ ❧
“Celestia!” The voice was distant, rolling from across the vast open fields.
“Luna!” Celestia called out. “Luna, where are you?”
Celestia pushed through the thick grass, shaking her head with annoyance at the tips of the tall blades brushing her face and making her blink them away. It was only belly-high on grown-ups, not even a minor inconvenience for them, but for little fillies, it was a jungle, holding the promise of exploration and exciting adventure. This made it one of her favorite places to play.
It felt like a strangely long time since she’d been here, for some reason. This place felt like it was… familiar, but old. She couldn’t put her hoof on why. It didn’t seem right. She didn’t feel old enough for things to be old to her.
How old was she? She couldn’t remember, somehow.
“Tia! Tia!” Luna’s voice, in the characteristic pitch of her sister that Celestia would recognize anywhere, reached her through the grass from somewhere distant. “Where’d you go?!”
“Are you lost, Luna?” Celestia asked loudly.
“I… seem to be,” Luna answered. “I’m trying to find you.”
“Okay, well, don’t wander off any further into the grass!” Celestia called back. “Just stay where you are and keep shouting. I’ll find you. Just give me a minute.”
“Tia!” Luna yelled again, more urgently this time. “It’s coming!”
“What’s coming?” Celestia asked in confusion, trying to push through the grass in the direction she thought Luna’s voice came from. “What are you talking about?”
“The…” Luna hesitated. “The hornet’s nest, Tia! Remember the hornet’s nest? The wasps?”
“You found more hornets?” Celestia asked with worry. She picked up her pace, pushing through the grass. “Just back away from the nest, Luna, and leave them alone! They won’t hurt you if you don’t bother them. I’m coming for you, don’t worry. I’ll protect you, like last time!”
“No, not me!” Luna cried. “It’s you, Tia! It’s after you!”
“Luna, I’m fine. There are no hornets anywhere near me.” Celestia stopped in her tracks and suddenly felt very confused and apprehensive as she looked around.
“Not yet, but it’s coming!” Luna yelled back. “I’m trying to… don’t you remember, the spell you used when I was a little filly? The time I walked right into the nest of hornets and you had to use the shield spell to protect me from them?”
“What on Equus do you mean, ‘when’ you were a filly?’” Celestia asked. “You are a little filly, Luna. I know you want everypony to think you’re a big girl now, but—”
Something rumbled distantly as it moved through the grass, something dark and foreboding that Celestia could feel somehow, more than see. It emanated an aura of menace that chilled her.
“She’s coming!” Luna cried out. “You need to use the spell again to protect yourself, like you used to protect me!”
“She who?” Celestia asked with sudden dread.
For a moment, there was no answer, and Celestia stood still, listening for the approaching threat.
The grass near her began to rustle, and a moment later a small blue form pushed through it. Being reunited with Luna brought relief at first, but the look of urgency on her sister’s face now that she could see it only brought the tension right back.
And since when did her sister have wings?
“Don’t you remember, Tia?” Luna asked pleadingly.
“Remember what?” Celestia asked, in a quivering voice.
“Where we are! What we’re doing!” Luna replied urgently. “The duel! You’ve got to defend yourself!”
The rumbling grew nearer. The sound of grass being thrashed as something trampled through it started building.
“H– How?” Celestia asked. “That thing… it’s way too big…”
“Our power!” Luna said. “Use the sun and moon!”
“I… I don’t know what you mean…”
The grass around them began visibly shaking. Something tall, towering, closed in, looming over them, casting a frightening shadow.
Celestia looked up, and cowered. A colossus stood before them, a tall unicorn with a pastel fuchsia coat and pin-straight mane, dark violet and striped with crimson, framing vibrant purple eyes with a radiating aura of stern authority. It carried a terrifying sense that Celestia was about to be in trouble. She wasn’t sure what she had done, but she was sure it was something bad – very bad. It was the type of bad that meant severe punishment. Dread filled her like her soul being doused in ice-water.
Luna’s face contorted with a mix of determination and anger. To Celestia’s surprise, and horror, she puffed her tiny chest and gritted her teeth as her horn began to glow.
“No, Luna, don’t make it worse—”
A shocking wave of magic, far stronger than she’d ever remembered her little sister being capable of, struck Celestia by surprise.
Whatever Luna was doing, it was like nothing Celestia had felt before. Images flashed through her mind in a blazing, dizzying torrent. They shook her, rattling her thoughts, jolting memories into motion like rust-frozen bolts finally being lubricated and broken loose to spin free. Earth ponies. Pegasi. Alicorns. Wings. Flying. Entanglement in secret plans. Princess Platinum’s court.
A fight. A duel!
“Tell me now, who’s about to be crushed?” the looming figure overhead asked. “When I’m done with you, Celestia, you’ll wish you’d never—”
Star Fire. It suddenly came to her. The intimidating unicorn looking down on her was Star Fire.
Celestia, you’ve got to beat her! Use the sun! A thought that she knew was Luna’s screamed in her head.
The sun… the sun! The glorious sun! She remembered, and suddenly, joy filled her through and through. The exaltant feeling of moving the sun, soaking in its power, her talent, her cutie mark, her very purpose for living!
Who was this shadow over her, compared to that?
Nothing. Nothing at all!
She remembered… she remembered everything now. She reached out and let the sun flood into her, with sudden perfect clarity, brimming with energy, feeling more alive than she ever had before.
Star Fire’s face, towering so high above, contorted in anger, and her horn began to glow in a violently intense purple aura. Celestia could feel the magic building in it, focusing for the attack aimed to strike her down before she could gather power to defend herself.
“The shield spell for the hornets, was it?” Celestia muttered softly. “Yes. That should do perfectly.” In an instant, her horn lit up in white-gold and a magical sphere of the same color surrounded her and Luna.
A deadly disintegration beam shot out from Star Fire’s horn, striking the white-gold shield. Celestia barely even registered the impact. It diffracted, scattering and causing narrow swaths of grass to collapse into hot glowing dust along the paths of the broken beam, but the two sisters were utterly unharmed and unphased.
“Too slow, Star Fire.” Celestia smiled sublimely.
Looking out through her shield, Celestia was suddenly aware that Star Fire was no longer towering, no longer larger-than-life, but back to the regular height she remembered now, no taller than Celestia herself. Celestia, for her part, was grown now, standing high enough to easily see over the grass and face her adversary through a clear field of vision. She no longer saw a looming, imposing paragon of absolute authority. Instead, she just saw a bully, filled with sudden fear and doubt over finally having to face somepony her own size.
No, not her own size.
Bigger.
Much, much bigger.
She would soon find out just how much bigger.
Celestia closed her eyes and reached out with her magic. She could feel Star Fire reach back, trying to push her away, to keep her magic at bay. Strong as Star Fire might have been for a unicorn, it felt so very, very weak, compared with the power Celestia had now.
“You’re finished, Star Fire!” Celestia cried out in triumph. “Finished!”
Star Fire desperately tried to put her own shield around herself. Celestia could feel the panic from her foe as she tore the shield apart like paper and reached inside to envelop Star Fire in a steel vice-like grip. First one struggling limb was in her grasp, then another, and soon all four, then Star Fire’s entire body, her neck, her head. She was immobile and helpless.
Celestia slowly opened her eyes, and she was back in the Platinum Court. She took in the sight of the shocked faces of the court crowd, staring at her. Soft murmurs of uncertainty and dismay rose from them as she held Star Fire magically suspended in mid-air before the dais, where Princess Platinum watched, still stony-faced, from the throne.
What will you do with her? Luna asked telepathically.
Celestia thought about this for a few seconds.
Hesitant as she was, she couldn’t escape it. There was only one real answer.
What I must. We’ll never be taken seriously, otherwise.
Luna nodded, slowly, sadly.
“I… you win… I concede…” Star Fire choked out.
“No,” said Celestia flatly.
“What?” Star Fire tried to squirm but remained helplessly trapped, unable to move more than her jaw. “You’ve won! Now put me down! Mercy! Please!”
“Let you go now? Why?” Celestia asked, in a gravelly voice, cold like death. “So you can continue to plot and scheme? So you can work behind the scenes, bending the truth, creating lies, twisting words, all for your own petty power while others bear the price of your madness? So you can keep working against us?”
Star Fire’s eyes darted back and forth in growing panic.
“And would you have shown mercy, if you had prevailed?” Celestia asked. “I think not. You were going to do something even worse than kill us. The spell you used – it was clever, knowing you were outmatched, to try to circumvent our power. Cut us off from our true selves and make us feel so helpless that we don’t even fight back: isn’t that just the perfect example of how you’ve always treated the ponies around you? Aren’t you just the perfect reflection of everything wrong in the Unicorn Kingdom?”
Celestia paced for a long moment.
“No,” she said at last. “No, you were warned, more than once. Now it’s too late. Your kind of malfeasance can’t continue, not in any sort of just world. Everypony has to be made to understand: at some point, this kind of wickedness can’t be tolerated any longer – so now, you are the warning.”
Without hesitating any longer, she gripped Star Fire’s neck and imparted a sudden sharp pulling and twisting motion. Something cracked and separated with a hard snap. Star Fire went limp.
The deed done, Celestia released her hold. Star Fire fell to the stone floor and collapsed like a rag doll with a dull thud. Her eyes, still open, gazed away at nothing in a lifeless thousand-yard stare.