//------------------------------//
// Georg and SIGAWESOME's Wicked Weave (FoME's "(Doesn't) Workhorse") 
// Story: Never the Final Word (Vol. 2) 
// by FanOfMostEverything 
//------------------------------//

(Georg)

There was an alicorn in the chandelier of the Royal Hall.  

Everypony knew it, since the process of an alicorn ascending into the ceiling and wrapping around the reinforced (because it had happened before) cluster of crystals was rather loud, lengthy, and... Well, loud.  The Royal Canterlot Scream had been known to carry for miles, and those in the castle who heard it paused briefly in their tasks to see if perhaps a matching screech could be heard from the Ponyville direction as  Twilight resonated with her teacher's terror.  In short order, a squad of armored Royal Guards stampeded into the emptied chambers and began to poke around with spears.  One notable brilliant member of the golden guards had the common sense to look in an upward direction—although not too much since Celestia's rear was pointed in the downward direction—and call out a question.

"Your Highness!  What did you see?"

"Sp-sp-sp-spidereseses!!" she screeched, gaining a little more altitude at the cost of several ill-fastened crystals.  "In the cushions!  Three at least!"





There was an alicorn and an entire squad of Royal Guards in the chandelier of the Royal Hall...

(SIGAWESOME)

The Royal Hall burned brightly, throwing the classical architecture of Old Canterlot into stark relief by the light of the roaring flames.

Luna played a jaunty little tune on a kazoo. Tiberius, dressed in jauntily dapper evening wear, sat on her mane and played accompaniment with a jaw harp.

Celestia cocked an eyebrow at Luna

"What? 'Tis a noble tradition for rulers to play an instrument while their city burns. Just like Feather August."

Celestia rolled her eyes. "First of all, that was Neighro, not Feather, and second I would hardly call this burning down all Canterlot!"

"Oh, I don't know Sister," Luna glanced slyly at Celestia with a slight smirk. "The night is still young, and besides, when have you ever done anything in half measures?"

Celestia merely sat down with a huff and stared into the swirling flames in silence while Tiberius and Luna played on.

Luna paused to raise a protective heat shield around a team of pegasi guiding a small, rain-swollen thunderhead over the blaze.

"I don't think I remember him Sister. Was Neighro the little colt who tried to swallow a frog and got bad gas from asparagus?"

"No, Luna," Celestia tittered behind her hoof, "that was not Neighro. Neighro was the colt who liked to chase and catch parasprites, and who tripped over his tail and spilled that expensive basket of strawberries."

"Oh."

"Umm... Excuse me? Princesses?"

Both Celestia and Luna turned to see a diminutive owl-tabby griffon standing off to the side wearing a natty tweed jacket.

"And who might you be?"

"Oh! I am sorry, Your Highnesses. I am Geir Gellert, Professor of Equestrian Entomology and Geology at Ponyville University. I heard something about spiders?"

Celestis visibly shuddered and closed her eyes in a wince. "Yes. Spiders. At least three of them. They burrowed out of the marble floor and into the cushion. My cushion. The cushion I was sitting on."

"You said they came out of the marble floor?" Geir's ear-tufts perked up and he leaned forward in visible excitement. "Did you see their colour? Were they blue and glittery by any chance?"

"As a matter of fact, now that you mention it, yes I do recall they were quite blue and sparkly."

"Those, my dear princesses, are no mere spiders! Those Mountain Sapphire Arocknids! Long thought to be extinct! I studied those for my rocktorate. My whole life's work, I have only had mineral fragments and oral legends, but now after all these years, you discover not one, but three specimens!" Geir was all but bobbing up and down in excitement and leaned in, "How big were they?"

"Huge!" Celestia held her hooves half a hoofwidth apart. "I have never seen spiders that large since Luna and I fought in the Great Burning of the Southern Woodlands."

Gier jerked back in disbelief. "But that is impossible! No arocknid was ever that small!" He paused, thoughtfully tapping his beak with a talon. "Unless..."

"Unless?"

"Unless... Unless they were gravid females! Oh this is wonderful Princess! Do you know what this means?"

"No?"

"It means there is a sizeable breeding population of arocknids living under Canterlot! If you saw that many above ground, there may be hundreds, if not tens of thousands of them in the old Crystal Mines throughout the Canterhorn! They are not extinct after all! Isn't that wonderful?"





The Canterhorn glowed a bright yellow-orange, slowly oozing down to the burning plains below as a searing, actinic column of magic boiled the peak into super-heated plasma.

Luna continued to play the kazoo.