“History is written by the bold.”
- Pensive Prose
Canterlot was peaceful at night, and also pleasantly cool, owing to the gentle breezes that Luna ensured were always blowing through the capital. Perhaps, if Celestia actually wanted to see any movement on this issue, she ought to seat the Senate during the night instead. Surely tempers wouldn’t run so hot if everypony wasn’t overheating in the first place. Of course, after working such a long day, expecting anypony to stay up for more Senate business was very much impossible. Tonight, at least, Luna was thankful that the halls of the palace were mostly deserted.
She had shadowed Pensive around the Senate’s wing for most of the afternoon, always staying back at a discreet distance as he walked in the halls with his colleagues, or sat in conference with them to write more meaningless amendments to his bill. She hadn’t seen anything that looked untoward over the course of that time, but the more that she had thought about Vermilion’s words, the more they had made sense to her. It was only natural that Pensive had to be up to his neck in something dirty, else why subject everypony else in the government to a scheme so clearly doomed to failure? Somehow, he was profiting off of the paralysis gripping the chamber, and if only Luna knew how, then she could end this miserable ordeal and get back to the work that mattered.
If there was any evidence to be found, Luna knew where she would keep it. Somewhere out of sight, yet still close by, and as closely guarded as possible. That was why she was now silently stalking the hallway of the Senate’s east wing, eying the big wooden door that marked the entrance to Pensive’s office suite.
A pair of palace guards rounded the hallway’s corner ahead, and Luna deftly ducked into a nook. A Princess she may be now, but once upon a time Luna had lived in the shadows, and lessons like those always stuck with a pony, no matter where their life ended up taking them. She tried not to think of Eridian whenever possible, filling her days with work and the inspiring sights of Equestria rising out of its former mire, but a three hundred year life had to include at least some downtime. Once upon a time, a dark nook or a sheltered alley had been her only defense from the dangers of the night. That and Celestia, always there to watch over her for as long as she could remember. The skills of a street urchin didn’t find much use in the place that Equestria had become, and for that Luna was proud. But they still came in handy on occasion.
The pair of guards passed by, whispering idly between each other, so close that Luna could hear the words passing between them. Naturally, they were discussing the protests outside. Those had only grown as the day had gone on, and even now a veritable crowd of citizens had claimed the square for the night, sure to take up their chants once more as soon as the Sun cleared the horizon. At least for now the scene remained peaceful, and Luna prayed that it would hold. The ponies out there had a right to expect some help with their situations, and above all Luna didn’t want the fervour Vermilion had shown her to spread.
But in order to get there, she needed to get the Senate another speaker. With the palace guards now safely out of sight, Luna took a few silent steps down the hallway, until she was standing just in front of the door to Pensive’s office suite. It was locked, naturally, but she had a way to deal with that. Drawing one of the pins that she used to hold her mane up, she set it to the lock. Another life lesson that Eridian had taught her. Locks in the palace couldn’t be opened with mere magic, and lock picking tools were firmly regulated. But sometimes such things were necessary. After a minute, she was in.
The office suite was large, with two desks for the speaker’s assistants at the back of a big room dotted about with decorative sculptures and tables piled up with legal parchments. On any given day, this room would be filled with activity, acting on its own as another security system against anypony trying to sneak into the back. Now, it was hanging in an eerie state of suspension, the tables still full and messy, as if the ponies in the room had simply vanished while at their jobs. Outside, the clip-clop of hooves going by announced another guard patrol, but they passed on too. So long as she was quiet, none of them should notice, but even so Luna wanted to be done with her business as soon as possible. Getting caught going through a senator’s files would throw another unwelcome spanner into the already fragile works.
The inner office was airy and dark, the blinds drawn down over the windows. The light of the stars put just a little bit of a halo under those blinds, providing enough light for Luna to see by without using her magic, but even so she would be unable to review any documents in this gloom. She could either strike up a light with her magic and hope nopony saw, or else open the blinds herself and hope again that nopony outside noticed. After a moment’s thought, she strode over to the window and opened the blind slightly, just about a foot and a half. That let in enough light for her to scan things, at least.
With that accomplished, she turned to the tall filing cabinet that stood like a sentinel in the room’s corner. A gentle tug on the top drawer revealed that it was unlocked. A dozen page dividers stuck up from the stack of documents inside, but the labels weren’t very helpful. She would just have to scan through each parchment herself. If there was any incriminating information here, it was entirely possible that Pensive would hide it with something benign, but reading through everything would take her until the morning. Instead, Luna picked out the first section of pages and walked over to the desk. She had always preferred to skim government documents anyway.
Jupiter was especially bright tonight, perched atop the five stars of Regia’s crown like a shining ruby in the night sky. Once oriented to it, Celestia gave the immediate area a quick scan with her telescope.
The constellation was just barely rising over the eastern horizon, still waiting to be joined by bright Antares when the month was finished. That star making itself visible would mark the beginning of the harvest season, and if Equestria hadn’t made itself ready by then, this year’s could very well be the last.
The telescope was a beautiful construction, a cylinder of brass filled with precisely ground mirrors and lenses, a gift that Luna had given her on her two hundredth birthday. From her perch on her balcony, the elder Princess could survey most of the night sky, only missing the low western horizon. Sometimes, she would look out at the ground around the city too, even up north to the beginnings of the North Range, or over the endless moonlit dunes of the east, always in the vain hope of spying something other than the windswept hills of sand. But most nights, Celestia kept the telescope pointed firmly skyward.
She might spend all of the rest of the day buried in paperwork, or deep in study, presiding over the Senate or mediating discussions, but no matter what Celestia always made time for her evening stargazing.
Looking out into the infinite depths of space had always brought her a sense of calm, perhaps in understanding that whatever difficulties were besetting her here in the city, they were ultimately nothing in the vastness of the cosmos.
Tonight, though, peaceful and cool as the evening was, that calm was proving elusive. After nearly an entire day lecturing the Senate on the infinitesimal details of the night sky, it wasn’t helping her to look at it more. Each glimpse only took her back to the floor again, and to feeling foolish for how she had spent her day.
With a sigh, Celestia set about packing up the telescope, removing it from its tripod and carefully nestling it back into its carrying case. Foolish was perhaps a strong word, especially given that everything she and Luna were doing was necessary to avoid the calamity that would surely result from Pensive’s measure becoming law. But it still felt wrong for her to be spending her time actively obstructing Senate business instead of working on a better solution for the thousands of ponies who were counting on her.
She had Luna to rely on, hopefully. Her mission to crack open the Senate was the only way that the logjam was going to be resolved. Yet still Celestia didn’t like it. If her sister had any free time, she would be up in the mountains again, hard at work on finding an answer. Right now, it was Celestia with all of the time in the world, but what was she doing with it? What was there to do? Her first instinct was to burrow into her library, find some inspiration somewhere in history, and craft a bill that could sweep through the Senate and avert the oncoming tragedy. But Pensive and his schemes were standing in the way of that. It was maddening, being unable to help when she could see the disaster of the future inching inexorably closer day by day.
At any rate, what she needed to do right now was find some way to relax, otherwise she would never get any sleep. Just through the arch and in the tower’s hall, she returned the telescope’s case to its spot on the wall. Without any hesitation, Celestia went straight across to her study, and pulled out her northern research. It would take time, but maybe if she filled her head with Star Swirl’s mysteries again, it would be enough of a distraction to let her forget about the Senate long enough to fall asleep.
To some extent, it was a torturous endeavour to go through that history again, to see the tale of the Unicorn Kingdom’s fall played out on the page. Gripped by the Sunless Summer, starving and distrustful, the tribes’ bonds of fellowship had disintegrated, and they had wandered south in search of any hope that they could find. As bad as Equestria’s situation was, Celestia still couldn’t envy Star Swirl’s position. Powerless, as his nation tore itself apart before his very eyes? Perhaps he had left simply to avoid having to live it any longer.
With a wry grimace, Celestia wondered how bad things would have to get before she would follow him down that road.
She wouldn’t, not ever, and yet for some reason the thought stuck with her. What was she actually accomplishing by being in Canterlot right now? Luna needed her to stall the Senate’s votes, and of course she needed to be there to deliver her own Nay’s too. If she were gone, the Senate would find her and compel her attendance, just as she had done with Luna only days previously.
She shook her head, trying to focus again on the page of faded script in front of her, but her mind kept on going. What if they couldn’t find her? The vote wouldn’t be able to proceed without her verdict, so in essence her absence would stall the agenda more effectively than any speech. More importantly, if Luna did crack the chamber and get some sane measure up for the vote, only one Princess’s assent would be required in order to get the measure passed.
Now Celestia had to sit up, watching the flames of the candles on her desk flicker in the breeze coming in from the window as the thoughts kept coming. She wouldn’t lose anything by leaving Canterlot, but what would she gain? Time away from the city, away from duties and pressing matters that stopped her from being able to really help. Time perhaps to do something that nopony else could do.
The wind suddenly gusted through the window, sending many book pages on her desk aflutter. Celestia raptly watched the flowing scripts of ink shuffle past as the pages flipped, and in a flash she knew what she had to do. Briefly, she considered going to Luna’s tower and letting her sister know everything that she had just decided, but just as quickly she realized that she couldn’t. Nopony could know where she had gone, or else Pensive might find her and force her back to Canterlot. For this, she needed solitude. Luna already knew what she needed to do, and when all of this was over the two of them would have plenty of time to talk.
In fifteen minutes, Celestia had gotten herself prepared, with a dark pegasus’s cloak to hide herself in the night, and a canteen full of water for the journey. Climbing up to the window of her tower, she gave Canterlot below her one more look. She knew that she wouldn’t see it again until Equestria’s problems had been fixed.
“Good luck, Luna,” she whispered into the wind, and then in a single motion she extended her wings and leaped off into the night.
As Luna had expected, the files were primarily legal gibberish, made all the more difficult to understand by Pensive’s flowery script. In the dark room, it was difficult to tell how time was passing, but by the way that her eyelids began to droop more and more, Luna thought that the time must have been wearing on towards midnight. Every minute that passed was another chance for somepony to perhaps notice her absence, or that the Speaker’s office door was mysteriously unlocked. And so far nothing of what she had seen had been the least bit useful.
Now at the end of the documents in the cabinet, Luna took a moment to sit down at the desk and think. Had Vermilion sent her into a dead end? She refused to believe that. Save for the lack of evidence so far, the pieces all pointed clearly to Pensive’s guilt. The evidence just had to be here! There was only one place that she hadn’t looked.
When Luna gently tugged on the desk drawer, she realized that this one was in fact locked, which was strange, but also a little encouraging. Why would whatever was in the desk be more secret and important than the files in the cabinet? She took the pin down out of her hair again, and then stopped when she saw the lock.
Pensive had a slightly larger office than most of the other senators because he was the speaker, but other than that, the furnishings were all very standard issue. In fact, Luna had been the pony in charge of furnishing the Senate’s wing when it had been added on to the palace three centuries ago. Some of those details were a bit murky in her memory now, but she remembered the locks on the desks specifically, since the original batch had had a defect and needed to be re-ordered. The locks were all of a mid-tier craftsponyship, just like the ones on the office doors. Hardened against magic, but easily picked with the right tools.
But the one she was looking at right now had a gleaming metal finish on it, certainly far newer than the three hundred year old locks in the other desks. It looked like Pensive had had it put in only about a year ago. She still worked her pin into position, but as expected she found no purchase on the inside.
Luna settled back into the desk’s chair to think for a bit. Getting a new lock installed without authorization was against the rules, though that was only a minor infraction at worst. Naturally it only heightened her suspicions about what could lay inside the drawer. But without more sophisticated tools there was no way that she could get inside and she certainly wasn’t going to get those tools tonight. While she regretted the delay, she could be back tomorrow properly equipped, so long as Pensive didn’t suspect anything in the meantime.
Rising up from the desk, Luna ran her eyes over everything that she had touched. The cabinet was back shut and full, the top of the desk still cluttered; with a single movement she had pulled the blind back down again to plunge the room into darkness. The senator may have beaten her tonight, but she would be back.
The sound of the suite’s outer door opening, and hoofbeats on the floor made Luna whirl. Somepony else was coming in at this hour? Perhaps a guard had somehow noticed that the door was unlocked. In any event she had to hide, and fast. Glancing around quickly, she darted over behind the big clock sitting next to the door, thanking the darkness of the room in the hopes that it would help in hiding her.
The sound of hooves outside stopped, then started again, coming closer. The steady, interspersed taps indicated that there was only one pony there. Palace guards always patrolled in pairs though.
Luna held her breath as the latch on the inner door was lifted, and a lantern cast its bright corona into the office. Holding the lantern aloft with his magic was Pensive himself, looking a little disheveled with his mane tossed up over his head, though he was carrying his usual work satchel. The senator advanced into his office slowly, warily almost, and gave the area around his desk and cabinet a quick scan. Briefly, Luna considered trying to slip out behind him while his back was turned, but in that millisecond the unicorn had turned around and closed the door.
There wasn’t really any chance that she could escape without being noticed now, yet even so, Luna kept quiet, huddled in what shadow remained. Pensive didn’t look in her direction, instead walking slowly up to his desk and putting the lantern down on top of it. He shuffled through the parchments littered over the wooden surface for a moment, eventually selecting one and tucking it away into his satchel. With a smile, he started to turn around, and Luna braced herself for the confrontation, but then the senator paused. After a second, his horn glowed again, this time retrieving a complex silver key. Then, just as Luna had hoped he would, he unlocked the drawer on his desk and lifted up the stack of documents held there.
Luna didn’t waste any time. “Hey, whatcha’ looking at?” she asked casually from her hiding spot. Pensive’s neck came up straight at the sound, and he reflexively moved to put the parchments back, but Luna was faster. In the blink of an eye she had reached out with her magic and snatched the pile away from him.
Pensive turned around, his eyes following the parchments the whole way. “Your Highness, what in Equestria are you doing here?” he asked in outrage. “Those documents are private, and none of your business! Give them over at once!”
“If I were you I’d be quiet for a moment, Senator,” Luna replied, serious in spite of the elation she was feeling. Not only had she gotten whatever he was trying to hide, she now had the opportunity to privately interrogate him on the spot. “The Crown reserves the right to conduct Senate investigations, and given that you found it necessary to install additional security without authorization to protect these documents, I think that I'd like to have a look at them regardless.” She gave the stack a little wave in front of him for emphasis.
“That’s ridiculous!” he countered, though his eyes kept following the parchments. “The Senate polices its own membership, without any interference from the Crown. You’re way out of order here, Princess.”
“Oh! Perhaps you should call for the guards so that I can be apprehended then?” She smiled, knowing she held all the cards. “No worries about anypony else seeing anything in here, right?” She watched him for a moment, but the senator only remained eying her hotly. “As I suspected. Let’s have a look, shall we?”
Setting the stack down on the desk’s corner, Luna swept the surface clean with her magic, unceremoniously dumping everything else on the floor behind Pensive’s office chair. Then, one by one, she spread the stack out, giving each piece of parchment its own place to lie flat.
At first, Luna wasn’t quite sure what she was looking at. The papers looked like they came from a diverse set of sources: newspaper clippings, handbills, lists of debate points, even a few that looked like scaled-down posters. Pensive’s distinct script was visible in all of them, though it didn’t look like he had been the original author of any of the pieces. Instead, the marks of his quill were scattered in the margins, marking out certain passages and noting suggestions for improvement. It didn’t make sense. What could be so important about what looked to be just a set of rough drafts?
Then Luna took a skim through the contents of the articles, and in a second it all flashed together. There were clippings here from all across Equestria, from Canterlot and Manehattan all the way west to Fillydelphia. And every single editorial was attacking farmers for holding back their harvests and hoarding food for themselves.
The handbills were the same, each one calling for unicorns to come together against the earth ponies who controlled the food production. The talking points included notes about protest slogans, and plans to rile up the crowds even more. With a heavy heart, Luna even saw that one of the clippings, from about a week ago, specifically called out the owners of Shady Acres, the farm that had burned in Vermilion’s district.
It all fit together into a narrative that Luna almost couldn’t comprehend: a concerted effort to exacerbate the rifts in the country, to pit the urban-dwelling unicorns against the farming country.
She raised her eyes up slowly, seeing the unicorn standing before her in his true light for the first time. “Why?” she asked, the word almost inaudible in her shock. “How?”
Somehow, Pensive seemed to have recovered his composure while she had read. “Just politics is all,” he replied calmly.
“Just politics?!” Luna erupted at him, pushing herself away from the desk. “Just politics? You’re pulling the country apart, creating a divide where there shouldn’t be one! This goes beyond politics, this is treason! Forget about being speaker, I’ll see you clapped up in the dungeons for this!”
Pensive sinuously moved behind the desk and sat down into his chair, now fully serious, even a little grave in spite of his situation. “While you are free to suggest courses of action, such a stroke would be wholly unwise, my Princess,” he said, now fully back into that oiled silk tone, as if he was the one in charge.
“I don’t have to take advice from you!” Luna snorted. “You’ll be lucky to see the Sun rise again once the Senate finds out what you’ve been up to!”
“And what then, Your Highness?”
“We’ll get a new Speaker, pass a sane aid bill, and get right on to your trial I should think.” There wasn’t really any point in her staying, yet even in spite of the triumph she was feeling, something in Pensive’s smooth demeanour was unsettling. How could he be so calm with his plan now out in the open?
The unicorn sat forward in his seat, the warm light of the lantern illuminating eyes that now shone, bright and confident. “Though of course I took every precaution in the hopes of keeping my party’s involvement in this matter secret, there was always still the risk of things getting out, especially as time wore on. You must believe me, Princess. I never imagined that the situation would advance this far.”
“You didn’t imagine?” Luna looked over the pile of evidence on the desk again, incredulous. “This sort of malice can only lead to conflict. What under the stars did you think was going to happen?”
“Great things, Your Highness,” he replied, almost patronizingly haughty. “Only after some crisis could the nation unite behind the necessary reforms. With a solid bloc of unicorn support behind us, we could remake Equestria into something better, something bolder, something great. None would stand in our way, and if any did, Equestria would be better off without them anyway.”
He scowled at the Princess’s now frigid glare. “Please don’t look at me like I’m some kind of monster, Your Highness. I did not create this crisis, no more than anypony did. I simply took advantage of an opportunity. If it weren’t for your insufferable sister, this whole affair could have been wrapped up long hence.”
Luna leaned across so that she could look him right in the eyes. She wasn’t as tall a pony as Celestia was, but a few extra centuries had still added a couple of feet to the height of her shoulders, well above an average pony at least. “If it weren’t for Celestia and I, Equestria would already be in the grips of a civil war, all brought on by your machinations. Every day I’m going to be thankful that we had the courage to stand up for what we knew was right, and the rest of Equestria is going to be thankful too.”
She kept up her pointed stare for a moment, hoping that he would get the message and let her get back to bed for the night. Celestia would surely be pleased by next morning’s progress report, and even better Luna would be able to get back to the Academy. By now Swift might have recovered enough to offer some counsel.
When Pensive stayed silent, reclining in his seat, she turned around and started heading for the door. Once she got into the hall, she would call for the guards to come in and arrest Pensive, but just as her magic was lifting the door’s latch, the Senate leader spoke again.
“Do you believe that removing me from my office will make your problems magically go away?” he asked, still as silky and smooth as any Manehattan salespony.
“No, but that’s not the point!” she shouted, not turning around. “The Senate will be in a much better place without you leading it. And then we will be able to start fixing things. By the way,” she added, turning around and sweeping up the contents of the drawer with her magic, “I should hold onto these. We wouldn’t want anything unfortunate to happen to them.”
“Ah yes,” he mused, still unfazed, “the sudden chaos of a scandal, and the inevitable bickering and rivalry that will come with choosing a new speaker. I’m sure that the ponies outside will very much enjoy sitting through that process.”
Luna had half a mind to call for the guards right now, yet even so there was still something about his unflappable calm that set her back on edge. “Well, perhaps I should give them some form of entertainment.” She sharpened her voice to a point. “Maybe the senator whose fault it is that they are still starving?”
He chuckled darkly at the suggestion. “It would seem you do have some political chops after all. But those ponies outside want bread, not blood. Even my head would only satisfy them for so long. And the movement I have built will not fall apart simply because I am no longer there to shepherd it.”
Pensive stood up out of his seat, all rigid and formal again, as if they had come to the end of a negotiation. “You see, Your Highness, you and your sister have but one path forward, and with or without me you will be forced to take it. Things would have been so much easier if you had seen that earlier. But even now it can still be easy, if you’re willing to let me guide you.”
He extended his hoof along with his offer, but Luna had had enough. She hadn’t had much of an expectation on what her interrogation would reveal, but getting a lecture about politics from a traitor had certainly not been high on the list. Of course, nothing of what Pensive said had mattered. Regardless of any of his backup plans, he would still be spending the night in the dungeon. She pulled open the office door without a thought, and out in the hall she was relieved to find a pair of guards right in the process of walking by. They both took a step back as soon as they saw her, but drew up to attention right away.
“Have the senator detained,” she said hotly, gesturing over her shoulder. “Down in the holding cells. We will have his trial later tomorrow.”
Dutifully they bustled past her after another salute, and once Luna was certain that Pensive wasn’t going to find some way to escape, she started making her way back up to her tower. It was far later than she usually stayed up, and with each step her eyelids fell a fraction of an inch further. She paused for a moment outside the door to Celestia’s chambers. Doubtless, her sister would be thrilled to hear everything that had happened, but Celestia would probably be fast asleep by now. That conversation could wait until the morning.