When the bubble breached the water's surface, it split open, popping as though its removal from the water had destroyed what structural integrity it had. It was still dark outside, which, Twilight realized remorsefully, it would remain until the princess returned to raise the sun. It stood to reason that Luna could handle that job herself, but Rarity had filled Twilight in on the situation unfolding above, and it didn't sound like Luna was going to have time to spare. For the immediate future, Equestria was in for a long night.
Twilight sparked her teleport as the bubble ruptured and transited herself to the nearby shoreline. Teleportation had proven so useful during the fight with Nightmare Moon, what seemed like a lifetime ago, that Twilight had made a point to practice the spell with regularity. She'd gotten rather adept at it, but the long distance transit tunnel teleports Celestia and Luna could perform were still beyond her grasp. For now she was limited to locations she could see, or at least knew well.
It had been the combination of the dark outside and the depth of the Canterlot canal that had made Twilight so unsure as to her location previously. As she and Windswept had ascended, the walls of the canal had slowly emerged from the gloom, and the shore on which she now stood was a lush green landscape near the base of the falls, albeit diminished in color due to the night. Twilight knew this shore more through reputation than actual experience. That, and long distance observation from her study room in the palace during those scant times when even she tired of dwelling on books. The mountain rivers that fed the Canterlot canal all converged here at the bottom in a sizable lake and flowed toward the sea. A day's gallop away, give or take, lay the Mustang Marina, home of the Equestria Royal Navy, which Twilight had considered until some ten minutes ago to be the premier in pony nautical excursionists.
Windswept's story had put the sheer size of the ocean into perspective for the young unicorn. Equestrian ships weren’t charged with exploration; they generally traveled back and forth between one or two island territories and shore towns to drop off resources for places who lacked the room to grow their own, and to remind them that the mainland hadn’t forgotten them. Twilight had seen of of the ships before, and it had occurred to her that they were far larger and more grand than was necessary for their jobs, to say nothing of their considerable armament. She'd asked Celestia why, many years ago, and the princess had replied that sometimes, a job could change. In light of her recent discovery, and the knowledge that Celestia had been aware of the kelpies for centuries, Twilight worried over that statement more than she had at the time. She put it from her mind, and sought a landmark by which to orient herself. Canterlot glimmered hundreds of feet above her, and with a sickening sink of her stomach, she realized she'd actually taken that fall from the aqueduct's exit while unconscious.
Windswept arrived on the shoreline some moments later via more conventional means. Her wide flipper made for powerful thrusts in the water and whatever magic she or her kind possessed did a good job of counteracting the drag her hair produced. Twilight hadn’t seen the kelpie traveling at full speed, but she guessed it at considerable. Considerably more, at least, than her landspeed. Windswept kicked her tail once and hopped free of the water, landing on the shore line. Her land locomotion was distinctly less graceful that the slow, elegant roll she'd made underwater. The wide flipper she possessed was flexible and strong enough to double as a set of rear legs, with each side “walking” the way Twilight's did, but without muscles designed specifically for galloping, and with front flippers that were wider and thinner than legs were, Windswept appeared limited to a canter, and even then, a wobbly one. She wore a rather adorable look of determination on her face, with her tongue pinched between her teeth and her brow creased in a frown, as she tackled the stoney shoreline and made her way to the grass. While land-capable, this was clearly a pony more comfortable in the water. She arrived at Twilight's side some seconds later.
Twilight had returned to looking at waterfall, and shivered. “I don't think I could've kept myself safe through that drop,” she said, and turned to the kelpie. “You must have some pretty powerful magic.”
Windswept shook her head. “Different,” she replied, “not powerful. And don't be so modest, Twilly. You would've been fine if I hadn't uh… gotten you all wet.” She looked down a bit, ashamed of her reaction, but Twilight found she couldn't blame her. She'd been provoked, after all.
“That's the second time you've called me that,” Twilight said, narrowing her eyes a bit. She wasn’t entirely sure she appreciated the nickname, not from somepony she'd just met.
Windswept opened her mouth to reply, then bit her tongue and reconsidered. “Its… you know how you write about your friends to Celestia every week?” she asked.
Twilight nodded, but Windswept's diversionary tactic had not been lost on the unicorn. Twilight knew she'd looked for some parallel between the two of them before responding. That must have been the whole reason for all they spying: so that when the time came for Windswept to approach Twilight for help, she'd have a whole host of examples as to why it was necessary that Twilight would be innately responsive to. She simmered a little internally, but resisted outright anger. There was one parallel she couldn't ignore: had Celestia asked her to do the same thing, she would have, and their roles would be reversed.
“I have to do the same thing,” Windswept continued, “and my letters tend to be largely centered around you,” she considered a moment, before adding, “and maybe whatever dress Rarity's come up with lately. I swear if that mare would stop thinking about how great she could be, she’d realize how great she is.”
“You're digressing,” Twilight said, and Windswept bit her lip.
“Sorry, um,” she replied, returning to the explanation, “the letters are in code, you know, just in case.” Windswept was noncommittal on what exactly the code was 'just in case' for. Twilight assumed it was something to do with the apparent division between the kelpie princess's loyalists and the descendent faction that had kidnapped Celestia. Windswept continued with a look of slight embarrassment on her face. “I abbreviate your name when I write it, to TwLi. It always sounded like 'Twilly' in my head, I guess it sort of grew on me.” She glanced up to Twilight and shrugged apologetically. “I haven't had anypony to talk to in a long time, Twilight. You spend enough time having conversations in your head and you start to believe they've happened. Like I said, I'm no trained spy. I'm just a mare that's good at staying out of sight and likes to see new places.”
“And apparently,” Twilight added, “in good standing with your princess, if she sent you on something this important, for this long.”
“I'm her student.” Windswept commented simply, and Twilight raised a dubious eyebrow at the obvious similarity. The kelpie shrugged. “I can't prove it here, Twilight,” she said flatly, “I'm not very well equipped to prove anything to anyone at the moment, so you'll just have to decide to believe me. But when you think about it, it’s not that hard to believe. My princess is as old as yours, give or take. She has a lot of the same habits, including raising proteges. And when it comes to matters of importance, she's more willing to trust someone she's seen grow up around her than anyone else. You were sent to Ponyville to learn to save Equestria. I was sent here to find you. It’s less coincidental than it seems.”
“What does she teach you?” Twilight asked with interest, curious if Windswept's magical instruction took place in the same fashion hers did.
“How to lie.” Windswept replied, in a resigned voice. She glanced up at Twilight's look of concern and smiled. “To my credit, I'm a terrible student.”
Twilight was denied a chance to respond when she heard her name being yelled from high above her, followed shortly by a harsh correction on the part of Fluttershy, with a voice too small to make out. Twilight figured it was her cautioning Rainbow to not be so loud. Both pegasus ponies dropped from Canterlot to the shoreline, with Fluttershy landing gently on the grass. Rainbow, however, didn't land at all. She banked low and used her momentum to level a charge at Windswept. The kelpie, too far from the water to use whatever magic she possessed to defend herself and too slow on land to avoid the blue cruise missile that was Rainbow Dash, brought her flippers up in a futile gesture of harmlessness before Rainbow collided with her in an attack that no doubt had some creative rhyme for a title somewhere in the pegasus pony's mind. The two ponies tumbled across the grass in a flurry of flippers and feathers before Rainbow had the smaller mare pinned on her back. The pegasus pony snorted in her face and unleashed a torrent of anger-tinged questions.
“Who are you?!” She demanded, with one eye opened wide and glaring, the other in a narrow squint. Windswept looked rather taken aback, and being a smaller pony in general, ill-equipped to dislodge the athletic pegasus from her position. “Why did you take Twilight?! What have you done with the princ-”
Rainbow's impromptu interrogation was cut short when an aura of purple surrounded her and lifted her abruptly off Windswept's prone form. Twilight levitated the pegasus swiftly back to her position and locked her there magically, despite Rainbow's protests.
“Rainbow!” Twilight said harshly, “Leave her be! She’s… with us.” The unicorn stopped herself from using the term 'friend'. As far as she was concerned the kelpie hadn't earned it yet, not until a few more floating issues had been resolved. She noticed the slightly deflated look on Windswept's face, though, and felt a twinge of guilt. Windswept would undoubtedly have preferred 'friend' over tag along.
*Twilight,* Rarity's thoughts filtered into Twilight's mind, accompanied by a bit more emotion than the last time they'd spoken. She must be getting closer, Twilight thought, if emotion was mixing with speech again. Rarity must have heard the thought, because she confirmed it a moment later. *We're on the way,* the other unicorn 'told' her. *Rainbow and Fluttershy went ahead in case you needed help with your new… acquaintance. I'd watch out for Rainbow, she seemed a tad aggressive...*
*Thanks for the head's up,* Twilight thought back as she rolled her eyes.
“Twilight, put me DOWN!” Rainbow snarled, still held aloft by Twilight's spell. The unicorn short her a glare, but Rainbow didn't relent. “You don't know her! She's… weird and flippery! And she said her kind took the princess!”
“She also said she represented a side of that coin who didn't,” Twilight reminded her. Rarity had clearly been conveying conversations to the others as they occurred.
“You can't believe her!” Rainbow argued.
“But you believe what she said about the other kelpies taking the princess?” Twilight questioned. “If you're going to doubt half her story, why believe the other half?”
Rainbow frowned, and stopped her squirming.
“Right now, lying or not, she’s the best lead we have, Rainbow,” Twilight explained, releasing her hold over the pegasus.
Rainbow smoothed out her wing feathers and huffed as she shot Windswept a glare. The kelpie had rolled upright and was dusting herself off. Fluttershy was still some meters away, her mouth slightly agape.
“Oh my goodness,” she breathed, “they do exist...”
Windswept glanced upward toward Fluttershy with her back arched slightly, as though anticipating a second attack. At the sight of the yellow hued mare though, she relaxed a bit. Twilight noticed the look of recognition across Windswepts face and filed it in her mental evidence collection. Lying or not, Windswept's claim of having watched Twilight for some time appeared true enough, the kelpie was familiar not only with her, but the behaviors of her friends.
“You know about kelpies?” Twilight asked, and Fluttershy startled and stammered, looking downward.
“Um! Um… sort of. I mean, I've… heard of them. I have a book about mythical ponies,” her eyes widened a bit and she backed away from Windswept, quickly uttering apologies. “Not that you're mythical!” she said. “Just that, um, we thought you were mythical. We thought Nightmare Moon was too, and Twilight looks an awful lot like a Firemare if she gets really angry, so there might be something to-”
“Hey!” Twilight protested.
“She does have a point though,” Windswept commented, her mouth twinged upward in a teasing grin. “You lit a bookcase on fire with your mane when you found out Spike had been digging around under your bed.”
Twilight blushed hard and glared at the kelpie, who giggled fiercely and tried to hide behind a rock.
“What's under your bed?” Rainbow asked, not catching the relevance of the statement. She lived in a cloud, and didn't have much of a 'bed' to speak of.
“Nothing!” Twilight insisted. “He just shouldn't be poking around in my room.”
*Nothing? That's not what IIIIIII saaaaaaw~* Rarity called into Twilight's mind in a sing-songy voice.
*You stay out of this,* Twilight warned her, *Or I tell everypony what's behind all the fabric in your closet. Awwwful lot of buckles on that harness, Rarity. Awwwwful interesting attachments. I'll bet that feels preeetty invasive when its all tightened up-*
*I ACCEPT YOUR TERMS!*
Twilight savored her little victory and set herself down to business. “Rarity, Applejack and Pinkie Pie are on the way down the side of the cliff. There's a path there, hopefully they'll be with us soon. In the meantime,” she turned to Windswept, “why don't you tell us where we're going?”
“Shouldn't I wait until the rest arrive?” Windswept questioned. Twilight had been keeping her link to Rarity as a trump card should Windswept turn on them suddenly, but felt that, with the others with her, it wasn’t going to stay secret for long anyway.
“I have a bit of a… connection… to Rarity right now,” she explained. “She can hear us.”
Windswept's eyes widened. “You're psychic? Really?” she asked, amazed.
“Its a recent thing,” Twilight admitted, “as in, within the last day.”
Realization dawned on Windswept's face, and she pointed a flipper at the Unicorn. “Thaaaaaat's what was going on when you looked like you were going nuts back at the aqueduct! You were talking to her!” She lifted an inquisitive brow. “What were you two talking about?”
“Nothing important.” Twilight said quickly.
“Thrumming.” Rainbow whispered sidelong to Fluttershy, who blushed fiercely.
“IT’S JUST A MAGICAL EXER- oh why am I trying.” Twilight said with a roll of her eyes. “Can we get back on topic?”
Windswept erped and nodded. She didn't want to try Twilight's patience more than she had to; it had been only too clear that her casual familiarity with the unicorn was less than mutual.
“Both factions,” Windswept explained, “Princess Aurora's and the separatists, we both have the same objective. That much we have in common. We need Equestria's help for the coming fight against the Stars. It’s the way we're going about it that's different.”
“How do you fight a star?” Rainbow asked. Her expression betrayed an innate distrust of the whole situation.
“How does a star free a pony from imprisonment on the moon?” Windswept asked back, and shrugged. “Honestly Rainbow, we don't know how to fight them. We just know we don't have the power to do it ourselves. We need magic only Equestria has, and we need your allies.”
“What allies do we have?” Fluttershy asked, but Twilight knew what the kelpie was referring to.
“The dragons,” the unicorn answered, “and the creatures of Equestria that live in common with ponies. Griffins and the like.” Windswept nodded, but Twilight continued before she could. “I don't know how good your information is,” she said, “but ponies aren’t exactly the best of friends with the dragons. Spike is an exception, not a rule. The race on the whole is a bit… contemptuous… of us.”
“You, maybe,” Windswept said, “but not Celestia. Many of the dragons living in the Everfree lands were alive when Discord first attacked this world. They fought in that war, and they know who won it. It wasn’t them.”
“That's why you ponynapped her! So you could force her to call in old favors.” Rainbow said with a low growl.
Windswept met her snap with a cold stare, and her damaged ear twitched. “I didn't ponynap her,” the kelpie repeated, “the princess ordered me to get to know Twilight so I could impress upon her the importance of Equestria's help, and Twilight could serve as my advocate when I went to see Celestia. The separatists kidnapped her in order to deny her the chance to say 'no'.” She looked downward and brushed a flipper across the dirt. Twilight shivered in the cold breeze as true nightfall set in. “Our sources told us they're using Equestria itself as a hostage to force the princess into compliance. We don't know where the stars will land, but by removing Celestia from Equestria, it becomes the easiest target on the planet. If she doesn’t help them, this land will almost surely be the first to fall.”
“That's why your princess didn't come here herself, isn't it.” Twilight said softly, filling in the rest of the blanks. “She was worried about a power vacuum. If she left Kelopolis to talk to Celestia personally...”
“Then somepony might have made a move for the throne, and we'd be in a weakened position when the stars fell.” Windswept confirmed, “So she sent me, and the rest is… what it is.”
“What it is,” came a new voice with a southern drawl to it, “is entirely inconvenient to everypony, and a fine mess to put us all in.”
Applejack had descended to within earshot while Pinkie Pie bounded joyfully behind her down the trail like a mountain goat, and Rarity carefully picked her way at the rear. Rarity had been filling the others in during the climb down and when all three ponies hit the damp, waterlogged grass at the bottom of the falls, Twilight could feel a rush of relief from the other unicorn. No words, though; it would seem that Rarity had passed into a range too close for conversation, and the link had once again become empathic. She could feel Rarity's anxiety over the steep climb releasing, replaced by excitement at regrouping with her friends and a lingering worry over the progress of Luna, who had left them some time ago, presumably under pursuit. Twilight made a note to address that issue, but was spared the necessity when Rainbow did it for her.
“Nothing from Luna?” Rainbow asked, worry written on her face. Applejack shook her head, and the pegasus pony stamped at the dirt. “I never should have left her alone...”
“Now, don't you be sayin’ that,” Applejack scolded her, “Princess Luna can take care of herself, Rainbow. I'm sure she's doing fine.”
Rainbow seemed unconvinced. “I just don't like the idea of leaving somepony in danger. We were being chased-”
“Actually, um,” Fluttershy interrupted softly, “we weren’t.”
Rainbow blinked and looked at the other pegasus pony, who shrunk back reflexively. “Are you crazy?!” she demanded, “You were there! They were right on us!”
“They were,” Fluttershy replied as she dug at the ground, to give her hoof something to do, “until Luna knocked them out of the sky. Then they stopped, and they really shouldn't have, when you think about it.”
Twilight cocked her head at the yellow mare and Fluttershy swallowed, looking for her voice.
“There's… um… there's twenty pegasus ponies in a basic cloud-fort, which is where we were. Plus reserves in adjacent ones. They're all designed so that anyone fort can dispatch two other ones to any area of Canterlot without losing any time waiting.”
“How do you know that?” Rainbow asked dubiously, and Fluttershy narrowed her eyes a bit.
“Because I graduated flight school,” she replied quietly.
Rainbow found herself without a reply to that statement.
“When we um, when we escaped,” Fluttershy continued, “They sent something like ten or twelve of the Guard after us. Easily enough to stop three normal pegasus ponies, but not an alicorn. Not Princess Luna. And on top of it, it’s not like Rainbow is a complete unknown either, she won the biggest flight competition in Equestria!”
Rarity interpreted the comment about Rainbow to be a nod toward the previously shut-down pony's usefulness. Most ponies didn't question Rainbow's long list of athletic achievements; she was beyond a doubt the best flier any of them had ever seen, and a fine commander of the Ponyville weather team, but there were times, now and again, when her attitude reminded all of them that she hadn’t quite finished what amounted to basic pegasus pony education. The details of her dismissal were outside of Rarity's knowledge, as well as Twilight's.
“You're saying they didn’t send enough,” Twilight said, “when they could've sent more.”
Fluttershy nodded, “A lot more,” she insisted, “and when Luna knocked a few of them out of the air, the rest peeled off. By the time we made it to the palace, there was nopony behind us. Rainbow can outfly them, but me… I would've gotten caught, if they'd been trying.”
“So they may have some kind of plan up their fetlocks,” Applejack said as she peered warily up toward the palace. The Canterlot city lights were on, but the palace itself was dark. Its beautiful spires, usually aglow at this time of night with the orbs of light that the palace's unicorn staff maintained, were all out. The structure was abandoned, and that in itself cast a chill over the visage of Equestria's capital. “Maybe they're tryin’ to get Luna to lead them to something important, like the members of parliament, so they can-”
“It may be less sinister than that,” Rarity said, speaking aloud for the first time in a while. “When I made my trip to Canterlot to collect new fabrics, I did so with the intention of networking. I made a point to look up every name of every royal officeholder I might accidentally run into while I stayed at the palace, so I could make the best first impression I could.”
She beamed with pride at her own preparation, and Twilight had to question her own sanity when she realized the likelihood of her doing much the same thing, in the same situation. Being in connection with Rarity had exposed more similarities between the pair of them than she'd ever had guessed at without it.
“Captain Midnight is a Pegasus Guard from a very, very long line of Pegasus Guards,” Rarity explained. “He and his family have stood by the Princess Celestia for generations and are sworn to obey her, and the law of the land. That law, whether he likes it or not, does not include Princess Luna. It was written while she was gone and never revised. He's sworn to obey it! To do anything less would be treason.”
“But then why imprison us?” Rainbow asked, “Why not just ask for our help?”
“Because he couldn't,” Twilight breathed, having realized what Rarity was getting at. “The first job of the Guard is to defend the citizens of Canterlot and protect them from dangers, foreign and domestic. If Luna isn't a 'Princess' princess, then she's a citizen, and their oath dictates that she be protected. The only decision he could make that makes any sense by the law of the land was to hold her and the two Elements of Harmony in protective custody.”
Twilight looked at the others, including Windswept, who had been taking the opportunity to revel in the actual company of ponies she'd been able to do nothing but watch for months. There was a certain glow about her, a thrill of companionship. Twilight knew it well.
“If they've really declared martial law, then they're going to be stretched to the limit trying to keep Canterlot and the rest of Equestria calm during the princess's absence. Midnight probably can't spare a large enough force to go after Celestia himself, especially not when he knows nothing about who took her. But if he loosens his grip just enough on the ponies who CAN help...”
“They'll slip free,” Rarity said with a nod, “and take of the problem themselves. We may have an ally we didn't know we had.
“It’s a hard theory to test,” Twilight admitted, “but if it’s true, it might buy us juuust enough leniency to spare somepony to help Luna. The faster she can reassemble the Canterlot government, the faster we can fix this situation. And somepony should tell her about the kelpies.”
“I'll go,” Rainbow volunteered, and saluted firmly. Fluttershy raised her hoof to object, but stayed quiet, not wanting to tread on her friend. Twilight chewed her lip, before her eyes settled on the one pony she knew she could count on to deliver the message accurately. Rarity felt the stare through her link, and nodded.
“Best if we stay out of each others way anyway, Twilight,” Rarity said, stepping next to Rainbow Dash. “The distance does seem to help keep our mental jousting at a minimum. I shall accompany Rainbow and set about searching by land.” She made a dissatisfied face and looked at her hooves. “Miserable as that proposition sounds.”
“The rest of us are going to hijack a rickety boat and try and sail to Kelpieland to save the princess without getting toppled by angry waves or captured by pirates or eaten by giant sea monsters!” Pinkie declared, and grinned at Rarity, “Wouldja rather do that?”
“W..We are?” Fluttershy asked in a trembling voice, and eyed Twilight worriedly. Twilight looked over toward Windswept, who nodded.
“We are.” Twilight said firmly.