It felt like she’d been asleep for months, her entire body felt heavy, and wind swirled around her form, giggling and playing with the strange magic she’d had since that fall in the cave.
The same magic that not only caused her to glow in the dark, but also wreaked havoc on her system, warring with one another and with the wind. She hadn’t really noticed it go on, but she knew that it wasn’t just by her own will the wind was suppressed and restrained.
Now, whatever happened in her fight against Wind Scar caused the energies to accept one another, and she could feel the energy flowing through her body, content and not demanding her to use it.
Though for some reason, she could also tell that it wasn’t happy with her, and buzzed its displeasure in her ears.
‘Alright, I won’t do it again, okay?’ she thought, exasperated, the buzzing stopped and she opened her eyes, thankful for the lack of light apart from her glowing coat.
She was in some sort of cot, and it felt far more luxurious than the ones in Ponyville General. So she definitely wasn't in Ponyville unless they decided to upgrade.
Wait, she had the vague memory of Princess Celestia’s voice along with Master Po’s.
Was she in Canterlot?
A whistling sound answered that question and she felt an eye twitch.
This was going to be a thing, wasn’t it?
Moving to get up, and surprised at the lack of IVs, she carefully got off the bed and went to the window, peering out at the night sky and taking in the sights.
She wished she could enjoy them.
Victory over that stallion or not, it doesn’t change what happened.
Amethyst Storm flashed through her mind and she shuddered, feeling sick.
Wind Scar killed her because North Wind told her the truth, she died because the reincarnation got too cocky and thought her plan was fool proof.
But it wasn’t, and a mare was dead.
Letting out a breath, North’s ears perked up at the sound of armored hoofs and eyes widening, she called for the wind and jumped out the window.
Yeah, she wasn’t going to risk it.
Taking to the air, she looked for somewhere to hide and paused, hearing the sound of voices, familiar ones in two different directions.
The latter sounded like they were in a heated argument, and the wind shuddered at the anger emitting from one of the speakers.
She flew away from that and to one of the towers, seeing a light on and adhered to the tower wall, wings tucked against her side as she peered into the window.
What the- blinking, she rubbed her eyes and looked again.
Lyra’s Uncle Fancy Pants, check.
Judge Oak, check.
Master Ruffalo, check.
A certain griffin, check.
Granny Smith, glaring at the griffin smirking in her direction, check.
A pink dragon with red eyes and two curled horns, check.
The Pie matriarch, check.
Fluttershy’s Mom, check
The Zebra chief from the Badlands, check.
A.K. Yearling, check.
This was the weirdest get together she’s ever seen, and Pinkie Pie was still in her early years as a party pony, so it definitely wouldn’t be the last.
Granny Smith smacked against the table, glaring at the griffin,
“If you think you have any right to your demands, you got another thing coming,” Cloudy Quartz and Mrs. Shy both nodded, the latter looking surprisingly serious.
It was rather scary.
North could’ve stayed a little longer, but the wind tugged at her wings in the direction of the other conversation and sighing, she detached and flew away.
Time to see what this other argument was about.
Nerves rose when she realize she was nearing the throne room, and she almost hesitated if it weren’t for a punishing pinch on her shoulder.
“Ow! OK, okay,” a window above the throne room creaked open and she flew in, surprised to see it was empty and frowned.
Huh. She went towards the doors but found herself turned around, leaves flowing into the room and forming an arrow pointing at a blank wall.
“Your enjoying this too much,” she muttered, going over and pressing the spot the arrow pointed at. It sunk in and with a click the wall slid away, just enough for her to slip in.
Her glow helped her to see in the dark and she found some stairs leading down, taking them and frowning at the dust and the lack of care in this place.
When was the last time anyone was even down here?
Oh well, at least she can go see what that argument was about.
----------------------
“I have a feeling these two don’t even know what they’re arguing about,” Raven twitched at the words, feeling mortified as the ruler of their land faced off against this strange dragon.
It has only been a week since those two came back from the Temple, and at first nothing was wrong. Princess Celestia finished cleaning up the guard, invited the fillies to stay till their friend woke up; and dealt with paperwork that had been piling up since all this mess started.
The dragon, to everyone’s surprise, stuck around, lounging in the castle grounds, staying in the hospital wing despite the clear unease of the doctor. He even went into town, causing a bit of a panic as he went to all the noodle restaurants to try their food.
The panic soon turned to anger when he insulted the noodles, called them bland, and said its a wonder ponies are known more for sweets than savory.
To prove his words he challenged all the chefs to a cooking contests, even agreeing to a no-meat dish and sent them crying when a majority of the citizens preferred his noodles to theirs.
Whatever silent treatment the Princess was doing vanished at that point and she summoned him to the castle to politely ask him to leave.
At which point the stand off turned into an argument that ended up a shouting match.
Raven could only thank Harmony that Twilight Sparkle wasn’t in the room with them and was at school, though technically Lyra should be there as well.
Instead,
“Two bits on the Princess kicking him into the wall,” “No no, three bits on him setting her on fire, the attack not working, then the Princess shoving a cake in his mouth and daring him to insult them again,” “That’s not very nice….one bit on her phoenix setting him on fire,” and here she thought the yellow one was nice.
The dragon next to them was watching the exchange with wide eyes, and she couldn’t even blame him.
Despite his opinion on ponies being weak, the last week had been very eye opening, and he’d been exposed to the group of fillies longer than he should’ve.
A rumbling by the thrones got her attention, and she stared with an open mouth as the wall behind the throne flipped, sending a familiar filly that should be in the hospital wing crashing into the chair.
The sound snapped the two immortals out of their argument and Celestia turned pink, seeing the audience watching her, while Po gave the blue filly an amused look.
“Awake I see,” the other fillies, and dragon, saw North and ran towards her, tackling the filly and sending them rolling down the stairs.
“You too Garble?” the Wind user groaned, the dragon shrugged.
“They said it’s an acceptable thing to do,” he explained, pointing at Lyra and PInkie, the former glaring at North while the latter looked torn between excitement and guilt.
Fluttershy was crying into the increasingly uncomfortable filly’s neck, blue eyes pleading with everyone to help,
No one did.
“North Wind,” Princess Celestia’s voice got her attention and the filly paled a bit, ears flattening.
“Princess Celestia,” she greeted, looking nervous, the alicorn looked pained.
“The others have filled me in on your adventures over the years, and I do want to make it clear that my decree to take Wind Blessed into custody wasn’t a negative thing,” North grimaced.
“I know that now, but the books and statistics don’t paint a positive picture,” she stated, the Alicorn sighed.
“Yes, I should’ve glanced at the book’s contents more closely,” “There are a lot of things you should have done but didn’t,” the snide tone had the mare glaring at Po who was looking away from her, a smirk on his lips.
“Be that as it may, you are one of my citizens and I wish that you could have come to me with your concerns sooner, especially after you came across those dragon eggs and discovered black market dealings. DO you realize how dangerous it was to take this on your own?” Raven saw the pegasus flinch and her friends bristling.
“She couldn’t go to you even if she wanted to,” Lyra protested, Pinkie chiming in after her,
“There were a bunch of meanies working for WInd Scar, and her dad was a guard as well. Would she even have been allowed to ask for an audience with you?” Celestia opened her mouth to answer but a scoff had her whipping her head towards the dragon.
“Do you have something to add Po?” she spat out his name, glaring at him.
“Considering you were about to say a bunch of pyrate about how you listen to all your ponies, I would say yes, I do have something to add,” his tail smacked against the floor, sending cracks through it, “If you had been listening properly all these years, maybe you would have figured out that your philosophy towards maintaining harmony throughout Equestria was a load of sulfur. Your rule has left cracks in its system, and i wouldn’t be surprised if you still did not get all the traitors in your palace out,” Celestia gritted her teeth, glaring at him,
“Well maybe if someone had told me about ponies wanting to return their gifts, I could have done something,” Po let out a derisive laugh,
“Oh so you're blaming it on me then? You got so wrapped up in being a soft ruler ruled by her nobles that you would do anything they would say, including barring non-ponies from schools,” “That is not what happens,” Celestia spluttered, “If non-ponies wish to go to school they can-” “Then tell me why dragons in Fillydelphia, the only city throughout Equestria with a Dragontown, find their admissions to colleges barred, even though they live filled out the required paperwork?" He challenged, she furrowed her brow,
"They could have come to me-" "what like Amber Coral did twenty years ago? But was barred from the court on account of her not being an actual citizen?" "I don't even know who that is, a dragon has never appeared-" "You just do not pay attention Your Highness," Raven could see the conversation was going out of control and panicked, how does one intervene without getting punished.
Fortunately she did not have to.
‐---------
As the quarreling went on, North’s eyebrow started twitching as she realized what they were saying.
Her friends saw her expression and hid behind the throne, not even stopping her as she approached the immortals with a scowl on her face.
She asked the wind for advice and smirked when a trumpet appeared.
She sent wind through it, creating a screeching noise that cut the two adults off and Lyra to shriek at her about abusing the poor instrument and Fluttershy’s ears.
Making a note to apologize to her friend later, she glared up at Celestia and Po who were staring down at her.
"Right. I do not have the energy nor the inclination at the moment to pay my proper respects to your Highness, so let me be very frank with you, alright?" Looking taken aback, the alicorn nodded and North moved her gaze to Mater Po, the dragon huffing and waving at her in a go on motion.
Taking a deep breath and reminding herself about who she is about to scold, she focused her gaze at them and set her jaw.
"What I am getting from this argument of yours is the fact that if the two of you had actually spoken to one another about what was going on, if you had put aside whatever hurt feelings you caused one another aside, you would have found out about this Blessings Murder case a long time ago," "Wind Scar never see-" "It didn't start with Wind Scar," she interrupted her, "It started with his mother, who spent decades getting away with reducing most of the lines of the Wind before her attempted sacrifice of her son led to her own death and his furthering her work for his own ends," Po snapped his claws.
"Now I remember, there was this stupid pony mare who brought her colt to me, I offered rraining and she took him away, accusing me of having nefarious plans towards him. It was rather strange because I could sense her own Blessing, though it was rather weak," he trailed off, looking down at her pointed look and cleared his throat awkwardly while Princess Celestia looked shocked.
"Southern Skies did that? But I knew her, her family were wonderful guards, and her death," she gazed down at North in disbelief, "I cannot believe she would do that to her own son, that's too much," North sighed.
"Well that is what Wind Scar said, you can search for her journals if he left them there, but it's apparently what got him interested in doing the same thing to his own descendant," she heard her friends intake of breaths and lifted her head, gazing at the alicorns pale expression, a bitter smile on her lips, "you know what's worse in finding out your related to a monster like Wind Scar? Finding out that the sole reason for your existence in this world is to be used as a sacrifice to fulfill an insane stallion's dream of becoming the first male Alicorn," Po blocked the sight of the princess, looking indignant.
"Alicorn of what exactly? I'm practically the Spirit of the Wind," "Apparently he thought the boost of my Blessing would be enough to take you out," smoke emitted from his mouth.
"Oh did he now," his shadow seemed to fill the room, a sudden pressure trying to push her to the ground, the wind around her sounding very annoyed with the dragon.
The flare of the princesses magic destroyed the shadows and the pressure, shooting an unamused look at the dragon who returned his own, left claw flexing as if he was about to attack her.
North cleared her throat, making them pause and avoid each other’s glances.
Humming in the back of her throat, she spotted the unicorn watching them nervously by the pillar and got an idea.
“Hey, uh,” “Raven Quill Miss Wind,” “Miss Quill, can you hand me two pieces of paper, and two quills,” confused, the unicorn floated them over and North numbered each one from 1 to 10 before flating them herself to the adults.
‘Show off’ muttered Lyra, she rolled her eyes, tapping her foot as they glanced at the lists.
“List exactly what you thought the other did without getting into a fight, then hand the list down to me so that we can resolve this misunderstanding you two have without taking down the castle,” Princess Celestia looked like she wanted to object, but glared at Po when the dragon actually started writing something down and huffed, writing her own answers.
North’s stomach grumbled while they were doing this, sitting down on the floor and trying not to fall asleep.
A tray full of food appeared in front of her along with a steaming cup of hot chocolate and she nodded to the mare in thanks before digging in.
Her friends sat next to her, all of them watching the two grown-ups write their answers down.
North swallowed a bite of her sandwich and narrowed her eyes,
“Ten answers only, no additional,” the two twitched and handed over their lists, causing Lyra to snort under her breath and Fluttershy to gaze at them with wide eyes.
North looked at Garble, raising an eyebrow in question but he shook his head so she just tore each list in two, took one for herself, and handed the other pieces to her friends.
“Right, we are going to take turns reading aloud the grievances you have towards one another, and then we will see what the other has to say, without the writer saying anything,” Pinkie was snickering, recalling the amount of times they had to do this kind of thing when Lyra and North would fight, or Pinkie and fLuttershy would misunderstand something about the other.
The fact they were making adults do this was rather amusing to her.
Nodding to Fluttershy, she waited for the pegasus to center herself,
“This is from Princess Celestia:
Number One: Po took the ponies I sent to him and displaced them to his own private mountain, poisoning them against Equestria,” she trailed off, blinking, and North resisted the urge to smack her face as she gestured for Po to give his answer.
The dragon glared at Princess Celestia before giving his answer,
“I did not take any ponies,” North raised her eyebrow, “You were different,” he acknowledged, reluctantly, “In the past, when they were receptive to my training, I gave it to them and sent them on their way. Others that came searching for answers on how to relinquish their Blessing I tried discouraging on the basis that they can control them, but they were under the impression that it was nothing but a curse,” his emphasis on the word and his own pointed stare at North had her avoiding her gaze, so he continued, “Whatever happened to them afterwards remained unknown to me till now.” he crossed his arms, and North nudged Lyra to read off of her list.
“Right this is Master Po’s first accusation:
Number One: You banned anything to do with combat and are so obsessed with maintaining your harmony that you’ll go along with only keeping your pony citizens happy.” the alicorn frowned.
“I did not ban anything combat wise, I still have a Royal Guard as you know, and I care about all of my citizens, even the non-pony ones, As I said before, the Wind Blessing decree was me trying to help ponies afraid of their gifts, give them the hope of learning control. I had nothing to do with this fear campain against combat talent and Blessings.” North opened her mouth to read Celestia’s sixth statement when the door’s burst open, several Royal Guards running in,
“Your Highness! The patient, she esca-” they paused upon seeing her sitting on the floor, a torn piece of paper in her hooves.
“Seriously, I left like an hour ago,” she said, the Princess frowned at her guards who swallowed.
“We’ll talk about this later, leave the room,” they reluctantly left and she returned to looking at North, refusing to look in a smug Po’s direction, tail flickering in agitation.
“Go on,” North turned to Po, lips pursing,
“From Princess Celestia:
Number 6- You started the Battle on the Winter Islands of Reigns,” which was kind of confusing, because she never read anything about it in the history books.
Nor has she found anything on that kind of island.
Master Po growled.
“That Battle started as a result of one of your ponies pelting down the beach, screaming about Dragons eating the foals in the daycare, when in fact, the dragon was there to see if they were right for their own young and ended up being attacked by some rather foolish youngsters. When that dragon dared to defend himself, it was just as more of your pony settlers arrived and misunderstood the situation for something else. They killed that innocent dragon and paraded his scales around the island, which provoked the other dragons into attacking. I wasn’t even on that island, and whoever said I was behind it was lying,” Princess Celestia was pale, and North almost decided to stop the session right there.
Almost
“Pinkie,” she muttered, the Earth filly gulped.
“Right, from Master Po:
Number 6: You helped Starswirl seal away my brother and lied about it, to mine and your sisters’ face,” ‘wait, brother?’
“W-what?” Celestia looked shocked, “Starswirl wouldn’t have done that, your brother ran away and broke my sister’s heart, abandoning his own kind and letting them scatter.” a scoff echoed throughout the room, and it didn’t come from Po.
“Is that what you really believe, Sun Princess?” Master Ruffalo entered the room, red eyes glittering and teeth bared, “And here I thought you would have a little more faith in Fenrir, but here I am talking about a ruler whose neglect led to her sister being corrupted,” and that was how the fillies and one small dragon found themselves kicked out of the room, the shouting renewing in a different direction.
“So much for that,” North sighed, trying not to think about what the canine said, “So, what- OW!” she rubbed her head, glaring at Lyra, “What was that for?!”
“For running off on your own when you promised not to, and do not say you had to,” she added when North wanted to protest, “Pinkie told us what she did and you know it was involuntary on her part, you should’ve stayed and asked for our help. Then Garble here tells us that you willingly went back to the ritual when WInd Scar threatened him, and yes, it is noble, and yes, he could hear while being encased in that weird molting statue thing, but you knew what he was going to do to you afterwards,” North flinched,
“Lyra-” “You need to understand North,” Fluttershy interjected softly, slitted eyes staring at her, “When we saw you up there with that stallion, I-i, I thought you were going to die right in front of us, that we were too late to save you, just as we were with Miss Amethyst,” Pinkie leaned against her,
“And her death isn’t on you,” she told her firmly, “It was that meany pants pegasus that chose to do it, not you, and you stopped him from hurting anyone else,” North gave a weak smile.
“I did,” something occurred to her and she quickly glanced at her flank, seeing it blank and letting out a sigh of relief, “Oh thank goodness, my Cutie Mark doesn’t have anything to do with what happened,” earning a Cutie Mark from doing that to the stallion would’ve sucked.
Then something occurred to her and she frowned,
“Wind Scar said something about knowing how smart I am from a magazine-” her friends froze and tapping her hoof, she stared at them, “Well?” Lyra and Pinkie pointed at one another at the same time.
“Her uncle did it/she gave my uncle permission!” they said quickly, North looked at Fluttershy who took a magazine from her bag and handed it over to her.
Glancing at the cover, she read the title, flipping to the table of contents and feeling her wings bristle as she recognized the titles from her research scrolls.
Scrolls she sent to be stored, not published.
“Before you get mad,” Lyra coughed, “It is a very popular magazine and the articles have helped a lot of ponies and even some non-ponies with their issues. Those struggling with magic found it easier to use it, and those uncertain of their future made use of the career articles to find their paths. Over a hundred different ponies got their Cutie Marks, even ones well into their adult hood who practically gave up hope figuring out their special talent,” Pinkie chimed in, smiling at her.
“Not to mention what you did at Hollow Shades is also in the magazine, and there are a ton of Nocturne sending you requests for how their coat color represents the Night. Plus, it’s because of you that Crescent Spiral got her Cutie Mark as well!” her fellow pegasus smiled,
“And it’s because of your quick thinking and knowledge that the victims of the Vampire Fruit Bat attacks got the medicine in time before they could become seriously ill, and they published the story in the magazine as a warning to unicorns not to repeat his mistakes." Garble looked away when they stared at him expectantly, arms crossed and refusing to look at them.
North still felt the anger of her private research journals being publicized for everyone to see. But she understood where they were coming from.
She didn't realize her research could help others like that, she just enjoyed doing it for the sake of learning.
Her stomach growled and she huffed
"Right, why don't we continue-" she bumped into someone and ended up covered in a pile for papers.
"Oh no, I'm so sorry! I was taking these papers to Princess Celestia a-" at any other time, North would've greeted the filly with weariness and helped her pick up her papers before going on her way.
Then she saw a Royal Guard walking toward ls them and the wind told her who it was.
"It's fine, guys we got to go, bye Twilight Sparkle!" She ran off. Her friends confused before the Royal Guard called out and they ran off.
"Wait, how did she, was that a dragon," Twilight stared after the strange group, skittering back a bit when the Royal Guard flew down the hall in their direction. "Royal guards are not allowed to fly in the hall," she frowned at his lack of response and huffed. Picking up her papers, she continued down the hall, grumbling about rude strangers and how she should finish her project for the next magic lesson.
‐--------------
North led her friends into the passage, taking them away from Bow Hothoof who thankfully did not see how they disappeared.
"Right, let's see if we can get back into the- what are you all staring at?" They were staring down behind her and she followed their gazes to her flank.
Oh, she got her Cutie Mark.
But.
"What in the shards is this?" It did not even make any sense.