//------------------------------// // XIX - A New World // Story: Sunrise // by Winston //------------------------------// Sunrise ​    Chapter XIX - A New World ​    Puddinghead looked around at the ponies variously standing or sitting throughout her office. Her gaze crossed Clover, Celestia and Luna, Commander Hurricane, Private Pansy, a pair of additional pegasus military attachés, a trio of representatives from the unicorn noble houses, and several earth pony local burghers. The room, spacious as it was, felt crowded. The crowding, in turn, made it feel too warm, even with the winter’s chill outside. It struck a sharp contrast in Celestia’s mind to her memory of the last time she’d been in here, when it was too cold. “I dunno, this all sounds pretty wild. You just expect me to roll with this craaaaaazzzy plan?” Puddinghead spun her hooves in circles around the sides of her head. “I mean, marching us earth ponies away to create a whole new country somewhere else? Really?” “It’s the plan we have, and we’d like your help, but frankly it's happening with or without your support,” Cardinal Clover said pointedly. “I think by now you know the situation the Unicorn Kingdom is in, and I think we—” she indicated herself, Celestia, Luna, and Hurricane “—have explained our position quite well. And most of all, I think you know you don’t want to miss being aboard this ship when it sails.” “I would like it noted for the record that the Quartz City Interim Emergency Council of Nobles has agreed to this ‘plan’ only under duress,” one of the unicorn representatives stated. “Yeah-yeah, sure-sure.” Puddinghead waved dismissively. “I don’t think we’re actually keeping a record, but just to be clear, you have agreed to it.” “I–” The representative stopped silent when Clover, Celestia, and Luna all gave her a look. “…Yes, we have,” she finally finished, fidgeting uncomfortably. Puddinghead snorted. “Well, then that’s that.” She shrugged. “If you all agree on what you’re doing, then I guess that’s how it is. The only question I have is, who’s gonna run this clown show?” “Excuse me?” Hurricane looked at Puddinghead quizzically. “Guh!” Puddhinghead threw up her forelegs in an over-the-top display of incredulity. “I said, who’s in charge?” “That’s why we’re here,” Hurricane said. “The pegasi are responsible for military support, but seeing how it would be primarily a migration of earth ponies, we assumed you would take an interest in the civil leadership side of things.” “Whoa ho ho ho!” Puddinghead laughed, rolling in her chair. “Yeah, no. You really think that’s a good idea?” “Are you arguing against yourself leading your own ponies?” Hurricane turned to Clover in bewilderment. “Okay, I thought we were trying to get her onboard so she’d help. What just happened?” “Look, I’ll let ya in on a little secret,” Puddinghead said in an exaggerated faux-whisper, leaning forward across her desk toward the other ponies. “I’m kiiiiind of just a figurehead for the unicorns.” “Y’don’t say,” Smart Cookie muttered almost inaudibly from her tiny desk in the back of the room. “Well, gotta give you credit for at least knowing the score,” Hurricane said. “But still, we need somepony at the reins. You’ve faked it convincingly enough this long, and your earth ponies listen to you, so maybe it’s time you give it a try for real.” “I don’t know.” Puddinghead shook her head doubtfully. “I’m just a status-quo keeper. This all sounds kinda big to handle, even with my trusty crisis kit. Shouldn’t one of you guys be taking this?” “Come on, we can’t try to install a pegasus or a unicorn into the civil leadership!” Hurricane gritted her teeth in frustration. “How would that look? ‘Oh, hey, earth ponies, good news! You’re gonna be ruled by other pony types again!’ Yeah, that totally won’t come across as a massive betrayal.” A pall of silence fell, followed by rising murmurs of doubt rising up and filtering through the room. The sense of uncertainty loomed ever larger as seconds passed. Puddinghead suddenly leaned over her desk and pointed to Luna and Celestia. “Hey, what about them?” All the talk ceased again. A beat passed. Nopony moved. Celestia tilted her head. “What about us?” “You two jokers took things this far already, destroying the Unicorn Kingdom’s thaumocontrollers and whatnot,” Puddinghead pointed out. “We’re only here having this discussion because of you. Seems pretty fair to me to make you finish what you started. Also, from what’s been explained to me, I understand this alicorn thing means you’re also earth ponies, right?” “She’s got you there,” Hurricane said, nodding slowly after a moment’s thought. “Hmmmm.” Clover turned her head to look at Luna and Celestia. “I have to admit, you may be the closest thing there is to a good choice.” “Good choice, are we?” Luna asked. “Maybe, other than having no experience and no idea what we’re doing.” “You’ll figure it out,” Clover insisted, a little forcefully. “We’ll figure it out, or you’ll figure it out for us?” Celestia wondered sourly, under her breath. “That’s not…” Clover rubbed the bridge of her muzzle in exasperation. “You know. Look. All princesses have their advisors, don’t they? Yes, I can advise you, if you want to appoint me to that sort of role to help figure things out for you. But the decision-making authority, in the final sense, really needs somepony clearly defined to rest in, and it needs to be in the right somepony. I think you’re the ones who fit the need that exists right now.” “Princesses?” Celestia was taken aback. “After we did all this to get the earth ponies out from under the hoof of a princess, is that what you’d make my sister and I? More princesses?” “Well, why not?” Clover looked around the room, challenging anypony to disagree. “You’re not like Platinum, and recent history notwithstanding, ‘princess’ is a perfectly fine title. It carries the legitimacy of long previous use. It would also at least nominally establish the permanence of an ongoing royal house. There’s a sense of stability to it which is surely going to be an asset.” “But they’re not of noble blood! How can—” one of the unicorn emissaries started protesting, only to be silenced by a discreet kick in the leg by one of her fellow unicorns, causing her to emit a muffled “Oof!” “She's got a point, now that you mention it,” Clover agreed. “No familial ties to the ‘noble-blooded’ unicorn aristocracy means nopony can claim they have conflicts of interest in that regard. See? Perfect!” “Uhhh…” One of the earth ponies spoke up. “But two of them?” “The sun and moon must work in concert as coequals,” Clover pointed out. “And anyway, who says there can only be one Princess? I don’t see that in any rulebook, and in uncertain times, having a measure of redundancy is good insurance. The Unicorn Kingdom might not be down to zero princesses available to take charge there right now if they had a spare.” The last part earned Clover a silent but angry glare from one of the unicorn emissaries. Clover, looking pleased with herself, didn’t seem to care. “I know what happens when Clover gets like this,” Luna lamented to Celestia. “It’s another one of those things we’re not going to get out of, isn’t it?” “I think so.” Celestia nodded reluctantly. “But, as usual, she’s right about it being the only real choice, like it or not. I’m afraid it’s princess crowns for us, Luna.” “Greaaaaaat,” Luna groaned, burying her face in her hooves. Celestia rubbed Luna’s withers, comforting her. “At least…” “…We’re in it together,” Luna finished, with a resigned sigh. “Just like always.” ​    ☙ ☀ ❧     Rain fell on Celestia’s face. Rain! At this time of year! She’d only ever seen it snow, up in the north. There would still be a thick blanket of it covering the land outside Quartz City right now. In these new southern lands, what little had fallen was already gone. As they traveled, the fields had become green and verdant instead of stark white and icy. The weather wasn’t exactly warm, of course—barely above freezing—but compared to what she’d known before, it seemed like a paradise. She relished the feeling of the droplets gathering on her eyelashes and running down her muzzle while she walked through the soft grass underhoof. A subtle tingling feeling, almost electric, coursed up her legs. It was her earth pony magic responding to the vitality of the plant life of this new land in the shadow of the mountain from her vision, and it filled her with joy. This land was rich and unspoiled, every bit as perfect as the visions promised. When she reached the tent to which she'd been summoned, it was so enjoyable to just walk the fields, drink in the rain, and feel the essence of this beautiful new place, she almost didn’t want to go in. But there was work to do, no doubt. Always so much work to do. Who thought building and settling a new country would be so demanding? She smiled helplessly to herself, then sighed and shook out her mane and her wings as she stepped inside. The pegasi had provided this spacious command tent, fit for one of their own generals. It served well enough as a temporary center for directing settlement efforts, but she would be glad when more permanent structures would finally be finished. They’d all been living out of tents or the backs of wagons for weeks on the long southward journey, and it was getting old. Clover was inside, standing at the central table strewn with books, letters, scrolls, and notes written on scraps. She looked up. “Celestia, good. You’re here.” Something else moved around in the tent beside her. Celestia looked down to see the light from the glow-crystal hanging above the table reflecting in an iridescent shine off of the intensely blue and green plumage of a peacock. “Hello, Clover,” Celestia said. “I see you’ve brought Beryl with you to this meeting. Is there something we need to consult his expertise on?” “She said we’d see why he’s here in good enough time,” Luna said from a corner of the tent, where she was sitting on a sturdy wooden chest, waiting. “Yes, I did, and you will,” Clover replied. “Please, could you close the entryway and privacy-seal it for us?” “Alright.” Celestia magically pulled the weather-flap shut and cast a quick spell to keep it from being opened from outside. “I’ve already sound-proofed the tent,” Clover said, just as Celestia was about to ask. “That should be secure enough for what needs to be done here, I think.” “Why?” Celestia looked at Luna with a little bit of concern. “What are we doing here?” “She won’t tell me yet, either,” Luna said with mild irritation. Clover paced around the table. “It’s something necessary, and you two need to know, but I think you won’t like it,” she warned them. Celestia frowned. That certainly killed some of the joy she’d had from being outside in the rain and the grass. A shadow of anxiety grew in the hole it left behind. “What have you done this time?” she asked. “You have to understand, an arrangement was made,” Clover said. “And it must be kept. That was her price.” “Whose?” Luna stood up in alarm. “Price for what?” “Platinum.” Clover stopped her pacing and looked up. “I have to teleport Princess Platinum here. I’m springing her from detention in Cloudopolis.” “You can’t do that!” Celestia nearly screamed. The world briefly swam in red anger. “That’s our leverage! And the pegasi would—” “She’s not our only leverage,” Clover cut her off, in a more level voice. “You two and your ability to flatten Quartz City building by building if it comes to that was always our real advantage. We also have far less need for leverage now that we’re here, well outside the Unicorn Kingdom’s effective reach. And anyway, Commander Hurricane knows about this. Just her, though. None of the other pegasi. None of the unicorns. No one. Nopony else must know about this, ever. Do you understand? Ponies have to think she escaped somehow.” “Then why even tell us?” Luna glared suspiciously. “Because I can’t keep secrets from you two,” Clover answered her. “Not when you’re going to be the new princesses of this land. You have the right to know, and you have to be able to trust me if I’m going to be any good to you. I can’t risk setting up a situation that could undermine it. So complete transparency is the way it has to be.” Celestia scowled and considered the situation. On the one hoof, she thought, at least Clover was being honest about her scheming. And so far, all of her schemes, admittedly, had worked, and they’d all proven important to getting where they were. Given the track record, it seemed perhaps foolish to quell this one. Yet, on the other hoof… “And if we say no?” she asked. Clover sighed. “You could do that, of course,” she conceded. “But it would accomplish nothing other than to throw away Platinum’s good will. As I said, this deal was made with Hurricane’s knowledge. If I don’t do what was arranged, then Hurricane will just do it instead, and Platinum will know that my end of the deal wasn’t upheld. I think she’ll be able to guess why. It might not make her very inclined to help us in the future, should we ever find ourselves needing it.” “You’re right, I don’t like it.” Celestia weighed all this for a long moment. “But fine,” she finally acceded. “You may be right, Platinum could be useful someday, and I’m sure she’s not exactly having a picnic, sitting there in prison. So… do it, if you must.” “I must.” Clover nodded her head. “And Beryl’s here because he’s going to help, aren’t you, you beautiful birdbrain?” Beryl paused his quiet strutting around the tent and looked at Clover, sensing he was being spoken to. He cocked his head, perhaps expecting to be fed some tasty seeds. Instead, Clover’s horn glowed and she gripped him gently but firmly in her telekinetic field. Beryl squirmed and let out a plaintive squawk, while Clover scrunched her muzzle in concentration. “Now which one is it?” she muttered to herself softly. “I hate having to try to do this through living tissue, it feels so squishy and… Ah! Yes, there! That one!” Without warning, a teleportation spell triggered, bursting with a blinding flash. Celestia blinked. When her vision returned a half-second later, Clover was holding something – a ruby the size of a large olive, shining with the most intense, vivid red color that Celestia had ever seen. Beryl, now released from Clover’s grip, looked unharmed but somewhere between puzzled and resentful at the bizarre ordeal he’d just been through. He fluffed his feathers and shook himself, then started trying to soothe his indignity with a good preening. Celestia found herself sympathizing. Having wings was teaching her to appreciate the calming repetition and satisfying feeling of smoothing and maintaining her plumage. “This ruby is a beaconstone, tuned to Platinum,” Clover said, staring into the gem. “We left it in Beryl’s good custody just in case a day ever came when she would need to make a covert escape over a very long distance.” “But that was – you had him swallow it as a gizzard-stone, then smuggled it out of Quartz City inside him!” Luna exclaimed. “That’s why she asked you to take care of him!” “Clever,” Celestia said, grudgingly. “That’s what they call me.” Clover nodded. She picked up a scrap of paper with a complex sigil drawn on it from the table and studied it intently, then grabbed a pen filled with a strange luminous silver ink and started copying from the paper onto the ground in the tent. After a few moments, she stepped back and examined her handiwork critically. “Just needs the summoning salt,” she mumbled, picking up a vial filled with white granules and sprinkling them throughout the design. “I hope that’s enough, at this kind of distance… well, we’ll find out, won’t we?” Clover set the ruby beaconstone down gently in the center of the sigil. It started glowing, softly at first, then growing in intensity. The sigil emitted a low buzzing hum, and the silvery lines seemed to shake and blur ever so slightly. All the salt sprinkled in it seemed to turn from solid granules to hazy, translucent magic fog, rising and swirling in a glowing vortex. The hum rose in pitch and grew towards a crescendo, and finally a flash of light burst from the sigil. Princess Platinum, appearing from nowhere, suddenly stood inside it. She blinked and looked around the tent. “Well, this isn’t prison.” she said, looking surprised but her voice understated. “So I suppose it worked.” “Yes, and I believe you’ve just set a new non-mechanized teleportation distance record,” Clover replied. “Shame nopony can ever know.” “Nopony except for them, you mean?” Platinum glared at Luna and Celestia. “They’re part of this,” Clover said. “They have the right.” “If you think that’s wise.” “You know wisdom was never my strong suite.” Platinum rolled her eyes. “Neither is giving yourself enough credit, for better or worse.” “You weren’t so bad, either,” Clover countered. Platinum shook her head. “I don’t suppose it matters anymore whether I was wise or not. What’s done is done, no going back. My time as Princess is over. I am… somepony else, now.” “Speaking of which, I have your ‘new identity’ prepared, as we planned.” Clover picked up a vial from the table. It held a purple liquid, cloudy and swirling as it moved. “Thank you.” Platinum took the vial, uncorked it, and drank the contents in one swift gulp. Over the course of a few seconds, her coat changed color from snowy white to the same purple as the vial’s liquid had been. Her mane changed as well, from silvery to a paler purple. Platinum looked down at her new coloration. “I just realized, I neglected to think of a new name,” she mumbled. “Always some detail you miss, isn’t there?” “So you’re running away from the Unicorn Kingdom, then?” Celestia asked. “I’d hoped I might be able to stay here,” Platinum said. “There must be some unicorns dissatisfied with the Kingdom who followed you to this new land. Perhaps I can start over again among them, even if only as a commoner.” “This is to be a land where all equines are equal and welcome, and as such there are some unicorns who decided to come with us, but they came because they were unhappy living in the oppressive atmosphere of Quartz City. Why should we have you, when you were one of their oppressors?” Luna wondered. “Because it would be the least we can do.” Clover looked at Luna in surprise. “She helped make all of this possible. That’s what I meant when I said this was her price: her escape to new life, for her help in freeing the earth ponies.” “She… she helped?” Celestia was confused, then narrowed her eyes. “You could have fooled me. Why did we never know?” “Because Cardinal Clover convinced me long ago that something needed to be done to avert the disaster the Unicorn Kingdom was on course toward, but the situation was… complicated,” Platinum answered. “I didn’t know if she would actually succeed until now. I couldn’t risk revealing anything until I was sure, nor could I risk acting openly from within the court. The most I could do was give her free rein under my patronage.” “You had to pretend? You were an insider this whole time? You were the Princess! You couldn’t do anything, or you wouldn’t?” “The nobility of the Unicorn Kingdom is so entrenched that we needed a crisis from outside to break their inertia, and I couldn’t be on the throne when their hoof was finally forced,” Platinum explained. “As princess, I would have had to be the one to order the Unicorn Kingdom to give you the concessions you were demanding. Hardline elements of the noble houses would have responded by having me deposed or killed and replaced with a monarch more to their liking. Politics as usual. They’ve done it before and they’ll do it again.” “But with an emergency council in place, the blame is more diffuse, making them more willing to respond to demands with less fear of reprisal,” Clover added. “It was also sheer luck that you thought to capture so many of them to use as hostages for compliance, since that increased the pressure greatly. Not to mention, taking Platinum was lucky. Otherwise, I’d have had to stage her disappearance somehow at the critical moment. But it seems it’s true what they say, great minds really do think alike. Even inadvertently.” “You know, it’s easy to want to be angry at all this deception, but I admit it’s hard to blame you for not wanting to die,” Celestia conceded, pacing the room. “I’d like to think it was more about a ruler needing to know when to step down for the good of her people,” Platinum responded. “But, well… yes, not wanting to die, I will admit, is no insignificant thing to consider. This is not a totally selfless decision. I saw a way out and I took it. I won’t insult you by pretending I was being entirely noble about it.” “We’ll need some time to think about this and decide whether you will stay here or not,” Luna interjected, glowering at Platinum. “I agree.” Celestia nodded. “There are many issues we have to deal with right now. You may stay until we get down the priority list to your case, but I think my sister is right, we can't say yes or no just yet.” “I suppose I can’t ask for anything more,” Platinum said. “You’re asking for plenty as it is,” Luna said with displeasure. “Thank you for at least considering it, all the same. I’ll leave you alone now.” Platinum bowed, then turned to look for the exit to the tent. “Wait,” Celestia called to her. Platinum stopped and looked back over her withers at Celestia. “What is it?” “You still need to choose a new name,” Celestia reminded her. “I suggest you do it by the time we call you back to make our decision. Think about it carefully, my little pony. Who do you want to be in this new world we’re creating?”