That evening, Lady Cinch took her leisurely constitutional, ambling downhill from the school to her family’s country estate. Although she read as she walked, she slowed to admire the scenery.
Behind her stood the capital city of Equestria: Everfree City. Hovels and huts and humbler abodes marked where most of the citizenry dwelt, but it didn’t take long to reach the granite-grey towers of the inner circle, and beyond that to the gothic castle where lived the King and Queen of the Unicorns.
Before her ran the free acres of the county: Cosmopolitica, the largest county in all of Equestria. Green hills, picturesque fields with slate walls she could vault over – were she so coarsely inclined, that is – yet home to the cities of trees that were the private forests of the gentry. The owners of the land didn’t encourage trespassers, but for Cinch, it was calming enough to admire from a distance.
At least until she heard Celestia calling.
Scroll vanishing in a puff of sparkles, Cinch turned around as though stepping over wine glasses, whereas Celestia kicked up dust and then skidded, panting and out of breath, to a halt.
“Caught… you!” she breathed. Under Cinch’s patience, she stopped gasping her lungs out. “Going so soon?”
What little surprise made it out of Cinch’s self-controlled grasp rammed against her face. “Of course! Tonight, I must study Sensei’s assigned scrolls on Alikondo philosophy.”
Celestia gaped at her. “Homework again?”
“Well, yes. What else?”
“Are you serious?”
Despite herself, Cinch frowned in confusion. This hadn’t happened before. Daily routine dictated that they said their goodbyes at the school gates and parted ways.
“Listen,” said Celestia, breathless even now, “Mom and Dad are having a little get-together at our house.”
Although Cinch would never gape or goggle, she did give a jolt, thoroughly taken aback. Celestia’s “house” was one of the biggest towers in the capital.
“They’re inviting all the family over, and I thought you might like to come?” Celestia leaned forwards.
For the first time, Cinch didn’t bother hiding her emotions. She glanced about nervously, then took a step back.
“Well, now, er…” she began.
“Come on. I could really do with your brains in the next debate. I’m hopeless! And it’s about time you met my family, don’t you think? How long have we known each other, now?”
“Me? I’m not sure it would be…” Cinch contorted her lips, hoping to wring the best words out. “It simply isn’t done.”
Dishevelled as the rest of her may be, if Celestia excelled at one thing, it was her beautiful laugh. To Cinch’s ears, it suggested the tinkle of frost under a melting spring, or the whirring wings of a shy hummingbird.
“So let’s do it!” Celestia boomed. “There’s a first time for everything!”
“I’d have to ask my parents for permission –”
“Not a problem. I can send one of our servants down to tell them where you are. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.”
They’d probably be thrilled, Cinch reflected glumly. Or terrified.
Still, Cinch agonized in the depths of the social sea. “But they… and I’m… well, of the lower ranks. It wouldn’t be seemly…”
“Nonsense! You’d be more than welcome. Come on!”
With that, Celestia bounded forwards and lit up her horn. Cinch felt the telekinetic spell squeeze her own leg and yank her forwards. Half-dragged, half-stumbling, she followed the clearly-crazed unicorn back up the hill, listening to her laugh and chatter every step of the way.
And that was how, half an hour later, Lady Cinch found herself seated unceremoniously at one infinitesimal corner of the round table. A massive round table. The thing seemed to be a ballroom floor on legs.
Not that the room wasn’t grand enough to accept it. Circular walls towered over them, with four arches marking the cardinal points of a giant compass whilst windows hid the night sky behind stained glass heroes. A colossal chandelier hovered magically overhead like a tantalizing cake of glass, one fit for a gathering of royalty.
The opulence was nothing to the uproar.
Cinch felt her flanks prickle with sweat. Everywhere she looked, there seemed to be unicorns talking, unicorns arguing, unicorns shouting, unicorns – mostly young colts and fillies – clambering over others vying for attention. Dozens and dozens of nobles, but all packed together and fighting for verbal airspace like a family of fecund earth ponies. Her own ears had long since shut down under protest.
It was no secret Celestia came from a well-to-do family. Celestia herself was formally known as Her Ladyship, Her Most Honourable, The Marchioness Celestia of Cosmopolitica, part of the Royal Peerage of Equestria. Unicorns had always obsessed over socio-political rank. Merely founding a new nation hadn’t changed that, except to reshuffle a few names and begrudgingly allow a few earth/pegasus ponies into the mix.
Over the centuries, they had evolved naturally anyway, from the feudal and military baronages of the tribal times (when their job was basically to assure the King of the Unicorns that yes, they would jolly well whack those flying fools/earth idiots for six if they looked at Him funny…) all the way to the modern incarnation, the Peerage, which involved being in or out of favour at court and looking good in a portrait. Their fighting days were… not over per se, because the realm still needed defending, but with all these new freelance heroes running around, they were optional at best.
Whereas Lady Cinch was just that: a lesser lady, not even a baroness. Specifically, she was Lady of the Sidesaddle Estates within Cosmopolitica. Her ancestors had once owned Sidesaddle County, but that had been back in the Old Country, before the windigoes forced them to restart elsewhere.
Put another way: sitting Cinch among this rabble was like inviting the janitor to a megacorp board meeting.
Celestia leaped next to her, red of cheek and wide of grin. “Terrific, isn’t it?”
Sitting ramrod straight, Cinch coughed delicately into her hoof. “It isn’t quite what I was expecting.”
“Aren’t you going to dive in?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You know. ‘Engage in discussion.’ You’re always game for a lecture. Well, now’s your chance!”
“Yes. Possibly. I hadn’t expected… chaos.”
Along the circle, unicorns of all colours and mane-styles did seemingly whatever they wanted. Cinch observed them: one focused and caused the nearby candles to flare like streams of plumage; one might have been nothing but a dark suit of armour dumped in place; one gestured and argued passionately with her neighbour; one appeared to be ferrying grapes into his lover’s mouth; one jumped onto the table in full jester costume, dancing and singing off-key, to the catcalls and cheers of her neighbours…
Cringing, Cinch made as if to leave. Then she caught Celestia’s eye. She sighed and sat down again.
“You’ll get used to it,” Celestia assured her. “I think you might enjoy it if you give it a chance.”
“DINNER!” bellowed the butler, expertly overriding the din. “IS! SERVED!”
Now this was more like it. Plates levitated overhead. Unicorns settled down, though only a little as discussions and experiments surreptitiously tried to have their cake and eat it too. Steaming odours overwhelmed many. Cinch herself had to lick her lips to hide the drool.
“Excellent chef,” she murmured.
“Ah, this is nothing,” said Celestia, veteran of many a fine meal.
Cinch smiled warmly. As custom decreed, she bowed her head low and silently offered her thanks for the traditional grace –
– and opened her eyes in shock as the riot continued around her. Several unicorns savaged their meals already.
“Good grub, want some?” Without waiting, Celestia plucked a roast aubergine stuffed with golden oats and marinated in a honey-rich cumin sauce. Then she washed it down with a glug of finest swan-white grape juice as though knocking back a beer.
“Ah. You don’t use cutlery?” Cinch looked down. She’d expected sixteen types of fork alone, but cutlery only arrived if you asked the servants for some: she’d watched another unicorn collar a passing butler.
“If you want to,” said Celestia generously. “Lovely tune, huh? Mom loves chamber music!”
“Yes,” said Cinch, glancing at the musicians ranged along one wall. “When you can hear it.”
Concerned, Celestia noticed her hesitation. “Something wrong, Cinch?”
“I would have thought the higher nobility would have been more… well…” Cinch squirmed around her class loyalties. “…noble.”
On her other side, she heard a curt voice declare, “Mother and Father have always been rather liberal regarding traditional etiquette.”
Cinch looked. Celestia’s younger sister, Luna, was the pure opposite of her sibling. Where Celestia was a supernova war, Luna aspired to become a black hole of peace. She regarded the rest of the table with a sort of indifferent serenity, even though Celestia’s excitement had swept over it repeatedly with laser-like destruction.
“Of course, some of us believe traditions serve a purpose.” Luna politely speared a morsel on her fork and introduced it to her moderate mouth for formal champing.
Celestia laughed as she spoke. “Oh, enough of that, Loony. Just throw yourself in and have fun, that’s my motto.”
“Indeed, my sister. I never would have guessed.” Luna continued her contemplative digestion as though it were a holy ritual. After a while, she cocked an ear. “It appears our elders are debating again.”
Strong words echoed over their heads from the far table. Dimly, Cinch could see the impressive figures of the Duke and Duchess. The Duke – Celestia’s father – was smacking the table and chewing and shouting at the same time, muzzle-to-muzzle with an equally burly fellow stallion. The Duchess – Luna’s mother – was herself fully engaged in respectable dining tranquillity.
Celestia whacked the table, rattling plates and serving dishes: food had been placed seemingly higgledy-piggledy. “Go, Dad, go! You tell Uncle Jove what’s what!” She turned to Luna. “What are they arguing about, sorry?”
“The current political situation, my sister. Which you would’ve learned, had you listened.”
“I don’t have your ears, Loony! Sorry, that’s not my fault!”
“True, though my mouth cannot hope to match yours, of course.”
Cinch had to stifle a laugh, and then was shocked she had one. “Aha. You refer to Master Star Swirl’s… unfortunate disappearance one week ago?”
Graciously, Luna nodded to her. In truth, they’d known each other long before now, mostly whenever they happened to cross paths in school – Luna was a few years below Celestia’s class – and Cinch always had time for someone who studied overtime and who truly appreciated the higher needs e.g. to not pull pranks and cause undue comment among peers.
“Naturally, Their Graces –” began Luna.
“Mom and Dad,” corrected Celestia.
“Their Graces have offered the Royal Family their support in these troubled times. Master Star Swirl is proving… difficult to replace.”
“Yes, I heard,” said Cinch politely, levitating a fork: she’d decided she could afford to tuck into her Thousand-Sauce Salad without fear of any more thrown paper balls from the scribbling unicorn three seats along. “Surely, a suitable candidate for Court Mage has been found by now?”
Luna didn’t even shake her head; she was that good at self-control. “Alas, who could possibly fill those horseshoes?”
“Sensei Meadowbrook has considerable magical knowledge.”
“Sensei? She lacks –”
Celestia grinned. “Which Meadowbrook would that be?”
Wisely, Luna ignored the bait. “She lacks practical skill. Have you not heard? According to Their Graces, or so they told me, Sensei Meadowbrook has spent years trying to apply her theories and forge enchanted items in honour of Empress Sable Spirit. So far, her research has availed her naught.”
“What of Father Kindle?” suggested Cinch, dredging her memory for more mages.
“Retired years ago. He says he has long since passed his prime.”
“Clover the Clever?”
“Hasn’t been seen in years.”
“Stygian? He was quite the scholar –”
“Disappeared, apparently along with Master Star Swirl.”
Cinch hummed over her plate. “It’s not like Star Swirl to leave us unprepared. Were there no safeguards?”
Luna paused to swallow. “Have you not heard? Shortly after Star Swirl vanished, his private chambers were ransacked.”
To her embarrassment, Cinch dropped her fork in shock. “What!? Impossible!”
“No perpetrator has yet been discovered. Doubtless one of his rivals was intent on stealing his spells for themselves.”
“Scandalous!”
“Yes, I quite agree.”
“Who would possibly do such a thing!?”
“At present? Practically every unicorn in the city, I should have thought. He had many rivals. I would not even rule out Sensei Meadowbrook.”
“Lun– Your Ladyship! For shame!”
Luna’s stare was as emotionless and unimpressed as the night sky over the puny shrieks of despairing ponies. “Regardless, Star Swirl and his Pillars have abandoned us. And there is worse. More and more reports reach us from the other counties: earth ponies are on strike, refusing to till the fields; pegasus soldiers are losing morale and losing battles on our borders; government unicorns are reduced to heated squabbling. We have no pillars. Without order, we crumble.”
A snort. The spell broke: Cinch had almost forgotten Celestia.
“Oh, Loony! Lighten up! We’ve always had problems before. We just need to believe in ourselves, like we always do. And count on each other as friends.”
Yet Luna shook her head, and in that shake a thousand years of weary experience twinkled like the eternal constellations… When she lowered her fork and turned to focus on them, Cinch felt for the first time awed by such quiet power, as if blinded by a moonlight she’d long treated as weak.
“No, my sister,” claimed Luna. “I fear the time looms when our nation shall find itself on the precipice of disaster.”
“On the what of disaster?” said Celestia cheerfully, but even she faltered under those abyssal depths, that empty greatness, her sister’s rising tide of iron.
They heard, as if from a distance, the bickering and casting of spells all around.
“We shall need someone who can take control of our brave young country,” intoned Luna, as though reading from holy writ. “The Old Country fell to the windigoes; we fled its baleful influence, we defy history here, yet it hounds our borders, ever desirous, never ceasing. Master Star Swirl’s apprentices never returned to the forsaken land from whence we came. It has grown wild. Unless a soul now proves themselves worthy, I truly fear for our future.”
Celestia scoffed. “Loony! You are so dour!”
Luna returned to her meal without enjoying it. Between them, however, Cinch and Celestia ate nothing more. Their minds had other fares to feast upon. Meatier fare by far.
Slowly, sumptuously, they began digesting Luna’s words…
Another evening.
Lady Cinch stood on the border of Equestria. Staring out to the west. Fields, forests, hills, and valleys: none pleased her. Nothing trustworthy in the peace of nature.
Past those landmarks, the distant horizon faded into white mist. The edge of the wintry wastelands, the borders of the Old Country, the permafrost home of the windigoes.
She stared. Challenging it.
Lady Cinch returned to the spot repeatedly, week after week, watching the haze grow. Bit by bit, the rolling hills became a huddle, the fields and forests became strips of green, the valleys filled with snow even in summer. Wasteland, encroaching.
She returned to the spot, listening to the cries of the windigoes. Their shrieking joy. Their mocking howls.
She returned when the leaves fell, when the snow strayed further than usual, when the valleys flooded and the trees bore fruit. She returned when the heat was unbearable, when even the windigoes withdrew a few miles in summer’s wake. Yet every summer she returned, she swore it retreated less and less, grew bolder and bolder.
She herself grew as if in retaliation.
She returned once, still in her graduation gown, watching the shapes in the swirling winds. Under the haze, the blizzard killed all plant life. She knew her beloved landscape was dying.
She returned the final time, sore of throat, shaken by memories of the towns and cities she’d implored, now with the army of converts alongside her.
She returned to the same spot. There was nothing before her now, save a white, wailing wall.
This far, and no further? Cinch… Cinch…
“Cinch!”
A shout from behind. Lady Cinch frowned and shook her head at her turning soldiers, then turned herself, armour clanking. Just in time for Celestia to skid to a halt.
Celestia was taller now, longer of horn. Her mane flowed more smoothly, though there were still frayed ends and rough strays ruining the outline. She had long since learned to limit her smile.
Gasping, she managed to speak: “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I am going to test a… theory of my own,” drawled Cinch. A twitch at the corner of her mouth, for the closest thing she’d get to a joke. “I tire of the constant fickleness and endless squabbling. And besides, is it not time for all unicorns to serve their country?”
“But… this isn’t…?” Celestia took a deep breath, then her bowed neck stood tall and regal, dignified. “Cinch, for pity’s sake, this is madness. Ponies have walked into windigo territory and never come out again. You can’t possibly –”
“I will reclaim the Old Country. I will create hope where there was once despair. And I will succeed. After all those lessons, don’t you think I would be ready for this challenge by now?”
“You’ll be frozen solid! Please, Cinch, reconsider –”
“No!” snapped Cinch, suddenly enraged by the softness in Celestia’s voice; even she was caught by surprise, though she rallied at once. “Dear Luna always had the right idea. This pestilence hounds our borders, and we have worse enemies than these by far. Chaos is closing in. We have wasted years bickering amongst ourselves. Is it not time for results?”
Celestia inclined her head. “Your mind is made up,” she murmured.
“Yes.”
“Nothing I can say will change that?”
“Hard work has always seen me through,” insisted Cinch. “I don’t see why it should fail me now.”
When Celestia looked up once more, there was a gleam in her eye that Cinch had never seen before. “I see. Then… I guess we won’t meet again.”
Finally, Cinch allowed herself one minor slip. She couldn’t be made of stone all the time. She bowed to Celestia, a mark of respect.
And was shocked when Celestia seized her in a tight embrace.
Cinch stood there, unable to respond. Beside her, the ranked soldiers coughed and shuffled their armour awkwardly.
As soon as Celestia released her, Cinch stared back trying to figure out what was written in Celestia’s wide eyes, flowing and wind-swept mane, shrunken, weakly melting lips…
In the end, she responded by not responding. Cinch about-turned and stamped once. Only when the army had disappeared through the veil of winter did she follow. She didn’t dare look back. She had no defence there. She could only trust in her duty.
When she was stung by the first snowflakes, she risked a glance back. Celestia was gone. Abandoned to her memories.