A week after the Lunar Festival, Twilight Sparkle was hovering over a map of the old world that stretched from the Lunarian coast to the impassable Titan Mountains far west of Canterlot. She was in her overstuffed library, where the shelves built into the rock were not enough to match the mare’s love of literature. Excess books, still an insufficient number by her standards, were stacked in carefully organized piles on top of wax paper covered blankets to protect them until a new much larger archive could be carved out later.
The existence of light bulbs instead of oil lanterns made her feel much less worried about the dangers of a fire in her precious collection, even if it cast a harsh glare over everything. Seriously needs to be something to soften the light a bit.
A brief thought to drape a sheet around the bulb was pushed aside to focus on the map. On it was the current status of the front lines marked in red pen ink on top of the original black borders. While Lunaria made some progress along the largely unpopulated south close to badlands and deserts, the north and center were disastrous. Over half of the central plains and river basin were under Shining Armor’s occupation. And this is only the information Rainbow Dash was allowed to share. Shining has probably pushed further east since then. That whole area was the breadbasket of the heartland, and I truly hope we harvested enough before the troops burned it all. As dire as it was, the war itself had to be pushed aside.
“Alright then… The last battle was here.” Using a blue inked pen, she drew a circle just west of modern day Cotton Ridge. “And Canterlot is here. So if what Howling Vortex said was true, if a spell caster that was acting as an anchor point for a portal is then thrown into the very same portal, they could have landed anywhere…” Twilight drew two lines over the map that widened rapidly until it was halfway between both locations. For once, she didn’t need to do the precise math to slump in her chair utterly overwhelmed. “Seven hundred thousand square miles.”
The wooden door creeping open brought yet more distractions. Twilight smelled tea headed her way and turned to see Applejack bringing in a pot with a small stack of apple related snacks. “Hey ya boss, ya missed lunch again.”
Rubbing her tired face, Twilight put the pen down and smiled at the inviting refreshments. “I’d say you’re a peach, Applejack, but I know you had a quarrel with them a while back.
Giving off her patented snorting laugh, the sailor put the tray down and started pouring a cup for both of them. “Nah, that was the Pears, you can call me a peach all you want.”
As soon as the tea was served and the first pie of pastries were consumed, Twilight settled back in on her work. “Thanks again. I needed that.”
“‘S no problem at all, boss.”
The title irked Twilight, reminding her Pinkie Pie before she was freed. I know I own the land, but I'd like to think we're friends more than employer. “We’re not in public, Applejack, you can call me by name,” Twilight offered with a twinge of annoyance born more from pained memories.
Sheepishly rubbing the back of her neck, Applejack chuckled at herself. “Ah know, Twilight, but Ah don’t know, Ah kinda like it. Sorta like a pet name by now ya know?”
Arching a curious eyebrow at her employee turned friend, hopefully, Twilight shook her head in exasperation. “Well if that’s how you feel, then I’ll take it as such.”
“Thanks, boss.” Downing the last of her second cup, Applejack craned her neck over to wiggle her eyebrow at Twilight. “So, how’s the married life?” She asked with a touch of sass.
“You should know by now.” Twilight shot back with equal shade. “You don’t have my lifespan.”
“You're not getting out of an answer that easy,” Applejack teased while lightly tapping Twilight’s foreleg. “How is he? Some of my best hay rides were with thestrals.”
Lowering her head in embarrassment as if she were speaking in public, Twilight whisper-hissed at her. “This is hardly the kind of conversation to have with polite company.”
“Boss, Ah’m an ex-navy sailor, I ain’t that polite.” Applejack snuggled in close, knowing full well what Twilight meant. “Come on now, fess up.”
Her cheeks burning red hot, Twilight harrumphed and raised her nose into the air. “Is this what you and Rainbow Dash have been gossiping about? Honestly.”
“That and more. We got a pool going with the crew on what the foal will be.”
"You've involved the work crews? What am I saying, of course you have." Rolling her eyes, Twilight pushed Applejack off of her. “It’s only been two days since we were wed. It’s too early to know if I am with foal or not.” With Applejack still teasing her with bedroom eyes, Twilight huffed. “I’ll answer your question if you can help me for a few hours, deal?”
“Deal!” She spat on a hoof and offered to shake.
Cringing at the wet hoof, Twilight decided to shake by the fetlock. “Heavens, you’re worse than Rainbow Dash about this.”
“It’s a family matter, boss.” Applejack briefly adopted a half-mocking Academic accent. “Granny Smith’ll tell ya, a stallion who’s good at basket-making is half of what ya need for a good marriage.”
Twilight might have been further irritated, but she remembered the family staff back in Canterlot often gossiped on why there was not a third child after Twilight when they thought no one was around. As if there aren’t more constructive uses for one’s time. Her sentiments on the matter aside, if it was important to her friend, she could at least give some minor details. “Since you’ve twisted my leg over this… Yes, Silver is quite sufficient at basket-making.”
“Sufficient?!” Applejack recoiled from the word as if it was distasteful. “Come on, boss you gotta give me more than that.”
“Certainly not! It’s not like you’re going to have a pass at him. All you need to know is that he performs his duties as husband quite well.”
Mulling it over while making a show of tapping her chin, Applejack eventually smirked, leaving the pegacorn to sweat a bit from imagined scandal. “Well enough that there were left over rose petals in your chambers two nights in a row.”
“How do you know that?!” Twilight knew the instant the question left her lips. “Pinkie Pie. Oh just wait til we get my hooves on her.”
“Hey, no time for squabblin’ now,” Applejack blurted out, worried her best informant was going to be trounced. “A promise is a promise. What do you need help with?”
Twilight shot an accusatory hoof at Applejack and was about to speak further when she stopped herself. “…Pinkie can wait.” Clearing away the tea and plates, Twilight allowed the previous conversation to die so she could get to work. She placed a smaller map and an old census back where they were. “I need to reference all possible towns, camps, bases, roads, any place that would have had contact with anyone. Over the course of about nine hundred years.” Twilight sagged a bit just thinking about it. “And that’s assuming we have perfect information…”
“That is a mighty tall order.” Applejack rounded the table to get an overview. “By the salt, you’d have to take the wars into account too, and Ah can tell ya, there’s barely a scratch on this here earth that hasn’t seen blood.”
Humming, Twilight did a half-nod, half-shake. “That’ll be more work here, but would help narrow things down substantially.”
“If’n you don't have those books, Ah can run down to Tranquility tonight and see what history books Ah can fetch.”
Waving a wing at a bookshelf, Twilight couldn’t help but to grin on pride. “I know my collection is small, but I have what's important. The Cartographer’s collection of military history should be on the second shelf. Volume two should begin with the second Unification War.”
“Right.”
The mares worked long into the evening. Everything from troop movements, battles, to mass graves were accounted for. Bit by bit, Twilight shaded routes and locations where the statues wouldn’t be, but it all barely put much of a dent in things.
This time around, it ended up being Silver Vein who brought a meal. Three plates of chicken fettuccine were rolled in on a cart, complete with two fresh pots of tea and some delightfully smelling bread sticks. “Good evening, dear. Miss Applejack, I thought you might be here.”
“My hero,” Twilight nuzzled him before going about clearing the table. Everything except the main map wound up on the floor. The map being as big as it was, was partially rolled up and left in place by some books.
As everyone set their plates up, curiosity pulled Silver to look at the map. “I finished proofing the first half of your report. You’ll be pleased to know there were only three errors.” He tilted his head as something caught his interest.
“Three errors is three too much for the emperor. Thanks again.” Where as Applejack ate with the manners of a famished soldier, Twilight eagerly ate with the grace expected of her, was surprised to find shrimp was present as well. “Oh by the moon this is exquisite.” She looked to her new husband. “Come on and sit down already.”
“Sorry. Sorry.” Flashing a shaky smile, he hastily took a seat. “It’s just that something caught my eye.”
“Oh?” Applejack asked, looking up from the breadstick she was gnawing on.
“Yeah…” He studied the mares' expressions and was delighted to see both of them were enjoying his cooking. “The shaded parts, I take it those are areas you ruled out?”
“They are. Why?”
He scoffed at himself, and almost waved it away. “Well. The Mirage was shaded out.”
“That’s a druid sanctuary is it not?” Twilight commented. Her recently ignored stomach demanding her full attention. “My understanding is that they would remove a statue not venerating the Green Mother into somepony else’s care. At least if it just suddenly appeared out of no where.”
“You’d think that…” He paused suddenly. Now that he was thinking about it, he grew uneasy. “He told me quite the wild tale of an expedition he went on in there a couple of years ago.”
Not noticing the hesitancy, the mares continued eating with Applejack speaking up first. “How wild?”
“Uh - wild enough that it took eight other ponies confirming everything and reading the official report from Commander Turnabout for me to believe a word of it.” He gazed nervously at the others. “Heh, being close to grandpa has its perks. Some of it isn’t fit for the dinner table though.”
Forking in a bite, Twilight was already interested. “Well you’re certainly not getting out of regaling it now. I’ll leave the rough details to your discretion.”
A laughing sigh later, Silver claimed a breadstick. “Then I might as well begin when a druid came running into the militia HQ begging for help.”
“Then you’ll never guess who popped out of nowhere!” Silver was having the time of his life retelling the story with the best parts to come. Both mares barely spoke as he spoke of the bravery the expedition displayed. “A druid from another order! Well, not really.”
Stopping herself from sipping her tea, Twilight wrinkled her brow. “A druid who is not a crookback, but also is, or something?”
“No, no, no, not a Crookback, but grandpa said she was banished from her order. Her name was Fluttershy. Ah - soft spoken, but strongly spirited.”
“Be careful of those types,” Applejack warned while wagging a fork of food at him. “Lost a couple of sea-brothers ta the likes a them. Granted they walked into those messes drunk, but we still couldn’t find the bodies.”
“R-right.” Silver tensed a bit, and had to breathe to relax again. “Anyway, she wasn’t nearly as bad as the one she followed. The druid brought an Inquisitor with her, and get this: the Inquisitor was willing to parley to help deal with the Dark Father. Talk about a viper eating the scorpion, eh? T-this was before the war started, mind you so it’s not like any of us were strictly obligated to kill each other.”
Twilight sat there a moment, debated on how much she could actually believe that. “And you’re saying all this is in the official report?”
“Madam, you wound me with your distrust,” Silver said with overt teasing. “But I’m hardly one to talk, I had to read the report to believe it too.”
“Don't keep me in suspense, what happened after that?” Twilight enjoyed a breadstick and the tale, yet Silver was pensive.
“See, this is where I think you’re definitely not going to believe me because it feels like some kind of joke now that I think about it.” Silver dithered, unsure of how best to continue.
“Get on with it ya, idgit,” Applejack huffed impatiently.
“We - came up to the Crookback village, and it was not like the swamp that surrounded them, instead it was like some of the drawings that ponies make of normal druid homes. Grass covered houses, trees growing green and strong, some bird song. At least that’s what was described to grandpa. He said it smelled halfway decent too. But the - ah - the actually unbelievable thing was that there was a statue of both Sisters sitting smack dab in the middle of town.”
“Really?” Twilight shared a skeptical look with Applejack. “A statue of the sisters smack dab in the middle of a swamp?”
“Let alone being inside a druid village,” Applejack added while narrowing her eyes.
Silver waved his wings to ward off any more accusations. “Hey don’t blame me, I’m just relaying what grandpa told me. It's all part of the official report to, so the militia commander had to verify it was true.”
Backing off the disbelief a bit, Twilight started taking mental notes. “Can you describe it? Did somepony explain it to him?”
“A bit.” He screwed his eyes shut to think for a bit. “I know the Inquisitor wanted to take it with her, not that she could without a boat. Umm… Ah! Okay, so the Sisters looked like they were in combat with each other, and no one sister was depicted as being superior or about to win over the other.
“But the biggest thing is that the statue created a big area around itself that protected the village from the dark magic. Does that sound like something druids would create?”
The honest question left Twilight tapping her plate with a fork as she thought it over. Applejack was similarly left puzzled. “Ah do remember runnin’ into a pack a druids one time.” The curious looks she got egged her on. “The Navy likes to patrol coastal towns for what we called ‘wellness checks’. Even during peace time, independent privateers will raid towns if they think they can get away with it for slaves to sell back to Equestria. The Cover of Night dropped anchor at a logging town off the crimson coast and I got to join the landing party.
“There was a group a’ druids there wanting to trade for tools and a few compasses. Boss, they can’t even make copper, let alone iron and you can forget steel. The best they can manage on their own is bone or stone. They take pride in it for some odd reason.”
Silver had taken the time to finish the last of his food before speaking back up. “Everypony needs a hobby. As I was saying, from what Rock Salt said of the Crookbacks, there’s little chance they made that statue. Even if they had the magical talent to create it, they'd have no reason to craft it into the image of the Sisters. Not only that, but he claimed the village was founded before the statue arrived.”
The news was certainly enticing. Enough to make Twilight’s lighting spark wildly and her eyes go wide. “Did your grandfather say anything more about the magic it gave off? If it was resisting dark magic, it must have been holy magic right?”
“There’s the rub,” Silver cautioned with a shrug. “He said it wasn’t holy magic at all. Something more primitive which expunged all forms of enchantment. It was more like - like… Oh how did he describe it?” Silver scratched his head trying to recall. “Like you know how your fur feels after you wash out the shampoo? Kinda like that. You feel clean, but not uplifted or emboldened.”
“Strange indeed.” Twilight mulled over it. “The Solar Church teaches that all holy magic is actually alicorn magic that is changed as it enters the user so they are not overwhelmed by the strength of it. But then again, the Church also teaches enstripement is Celestia’s will, and that’s an outright lie.”
Both Lunarians stared at her like Twilight had just ascended to alicornhood. “Whadda mean it’s a lie? Boss, they’ve been sayin’ it is since forever.”
“Sure if you stretch her words like a wad of taffy until it snaps,” Twilight countered knowingly. “If you dig around for the old books, and I mean old, Celestia wanted voluntary reunification akin to Hearthswarming, not the bastardization of what we have now.”
Silver was left utterly speechless. He rubbed his head, unsure of how to even process that. Applejack didn’t need as much time to slam the table with sudden fury. “Are you seriously tellin’ me the Solar Church is lyin’ ta everypony and nopony outside it but you knows of it?”
Shaking her head, Twilight sighed before sipping some tea. “Can’t really be a lie if you believe it’s true. The ponies behind the lie have been dead for six hundred years. I caught inklings about this because I was assigned to write a history essay on the church. Afterwards I dug deeper into the restricted section. Barely anypony even guarded that section, and being so close to Cadence and being the heir to House Light, no pony thought to stop me. You wouldn’t believe how careful I had to be with those tomes; they were so badly decomposed.”
“Who else knows this?” Silver asked hastily, tasting the scandal.
“Only Pinkie Pie, and even then only when I was sure she wouldn’t be compelled to report me. You think I was fool enough to try and expose all this down the road from the Inquisitorius?”
“Not even your brother or Mi Amore Cadenza?” Applejack asked incredulously.
Shaking her head, regret pulled a frown over her. “No. Maybe I should have, but I felt it was too dangerous and ultimately unnecessary. Cadence grew up in Dalesville, you’d never find it on a map it’s so remote. She said they haven’t had servants out there for three generations, and she was never comfortable with them when she came to Canterlot.
“Shining Armor finds stripes distasteful for several reasons, but chief among them was how acquiring more servants blunted Equestrian battle tactics against the imperial army. They focus so much on capture that the Royal Army is nowhere close to how good it could be if it focused on depleting enemy morale or direct killing. Why do you think he’s been so effective? I warned the Emperor about this, but I guess his generals listened to me as much as my brother’s peers listened to him.”
“I remember grandpa talking about some report you wrote about your brother.” Silver leaned in carrying a fearful whisper. “Problem is, they did listen.”
It took Twilight a long moment to realize he wasn’t joking or trying to make her feel better. “Oh. oh…” Twilight felt faint and was glad she was already sitting down. “After waiting for two years I knew he’d adapt to my defection but still. Maybe… Maybe it would have been better if I was never asked about his tactics after all.”
Applejack was left just as uncomfortable and fidgeted with her empty cup. “Let’s go back to the statue, eh? What do you think, boss? Is this the one?”
“I’d say yes if it wasn’t for the odd magic.” Twilight needed a minute to mentally shift gears. She sniffled a bit, but collected herself as best she could. “But other than that, it’s the best chance I can see.” She stood up and collected both her and Applejack’s plates into a pile. “We still have another week before the report is due. Let’s keep searching for other possible leads while also coming up with a plan Emperor Eclipse can act upon.”
It ended up only being four days before Twilight sent Rainbow Dash off with the report, only to be summoned upon Rainbow’s return the following night.
Only this time, she did not meet him at the palace, but the Tranquility naval base and was quickly ushered into an office that was actually closer to a study. Books and hunting trophies lined the walls, a large globe rested by the door and the desk was immaculate mahogany. Eclipse was already present, but the stallion behind the desk was an admiral who looked much like the emperor, complete with the black fur and jaw line.
“Ah, Lady Twilight, you’ve made good time. Please come in. You too, lieutenant.”
One did not waste the Emperor’s time, so Twilight walked as quickly as dignity allowed. She didn’t have time to hide the sweat stains on her dress, so she bore them with as little shame as possible. Once she bowed and Rainbow saluted, Twilight spoke. “You called for me, your majesty?”
“I did indeed.” He waved to the admiral who dipped his head in respect. “Lady Twilight Sparkle, this is my son, Pale Light.”
He offered a hoof, “admiral of the Second Fleet, at your service.”
Barely keeping her wits about her, Twilight shook his hoof before Eclipse gestured for every one to sit. “It’s a pleasure.”
Pale Light leaned over his desk. “Father, my lady, time is short so I’ll make this brief. This whole idea is frankly a lot to accept, but if you believe her father I’ll play along. I take it this is why you delayed the ninety second rifles’ departure?”
“It is,” Eclipse answered firmly. “Lady Twilight, again you impress me. I was half expecting you would need to recruit a whole staff to work on possible locations for the Sisters.”
A choking laugh later, Twilight fixed a stray hair that had fuzzed up from her active horn. “I can’t really take much credit. Silver Vein pointed me in the right direction. As I mentioned in the report.”
“That was quite fortuitous,” Pale Light commented while glancing at his father to check for any humor. “Or luck had nothing to do with it.”
“The how of it is neither here nor there.” Eclipse allowed himself to grin a bit. “What is fortunate is that the local elements of the Second Fleet are about ready to weigh anchor. When you mentioned statues, I knew you’d end up needing to do one of two things. Either retrieve the statue and return it back here, or baring that, free the Sisters where they rest and returning with Luna. Both of which will need naval support.”
Pale Light studied Twilight, trying to gauge if she betrayed anything. “The issue of course is Celestia herself. While I can’t expect a team small enough to reach the Mirage could defeat, let alone detain Celestia, I have my misgivings about you going there. It would be trivial to ask her for a pardon and return to Equestria alongside her.”
“With respect, admiral, my place, my home, my friends, and now I have family here. I would not go quietly.”
“Spoken well,” Eclipse cheered with regal poise. “Not to mention freeing Luna offers you the opportunity to be unconditionally recognized by all as a proper Lunarian,” he faced his skeptical son, “as our ancestors were before us.”
Sighing, Pale Light stood up and straightened his uniform. “Then I have no further objections. I will see her safely to and back from the Heartland, father.”
“Good boy.” He heavily clapped his son on the shoulder before addressing the silent soldier. “Lieutenant Rainbow Dash? How have you taken to command so far?”
Standing up straight, Rainbow was growing a bit concerned she might be separated from Twilight. Even so, lying to her emperor was unthinkable. “Boring, sire, Lady Twilight barely has enough enemies to fill a cell, let alone need me around.”
So sorry for not keeping things interesting for you, Twilight huffed with her nose raised a bit.
Eclipse's laughter filled the room. “Is that right? You served well at Deer Ridge and your little maneuver at Black’s Bluff would have garnered more than a medal had you not been injured. The ninety second rifles are yours if you don’t mind commanding this little expedition.”
Rainbow briefly lost her military bearing as she staggered a bit. She straightened up as quick as a whip and saluted hard enough to make her leg ache. “I’d love nothing better, sire!”
“Excellent. Son, write the papers up. Lieutenant, you shall be gazetted captain within the hour. Both you and Lady Twilight will depart on the Night Stalker in two days.”
“Sire, thank you, sire!”
Pale Light finished writing up the orders and handed them over to the new captain. “Congratulations, captain. Make Luna proud.”
“Thank you sir, I will, sir!” Rainbow was bubbling with so much excitement she had horrible difficulty to keep from bouncing off the walls in celebration. I’d get drunk so fast tonight if I could get away with it.
Glad to see such enthusiasm from his officers, Eclipse fixed Twilight with a firm stare. “If you feel the need, you can bring more with you, but keep it to a minimum. The Mirage is deep within occupied territory and you’re smart enough to know it won’t take much to sound the alarm if you’re spotted.”
“My brother and I often debated infiltration tactics for softening besieged cities, I won’t slow the troops down. Point of fact, I can carry a far heavier load than I look, your majesty. I was planning to fly the statues back myself.”
Eclipse nodded sagely while Pale Light snorted in unamused disbelief. “How can you do that exactly? A pair of life size statues of both Sisters carried with enough care to avoid damage would take six fliers. Easily.”
Chuckling a bit, Twilight fixed him with a smug grin. “Admiral, I know this never made it into the original report on my suit, nor the display at the festival because I haven’t been able to demonstrate it. My suit can carry a chariot same as any other flier, only I can carry a heavy artillery piece.” Wearing the same grin, she turned to her friend. “Captain, I believe you said something rather good this morning before coffee.”
Smirking, but not giving the same level of sass, she answered. “The three pound grenades we have are party poppers compared to the twenty four pound howitzers we could have had, ma’am.”
“A shame, but what can you do?” Twilight shrugged.
“You made your point.” Pale Light inclined his head to the mares. “I must get to work, and so do we all. Best of luck to you, Lady Twilight Sparkle.”
Almost turning to leave, Twilight paused to bow once more before the emperor. “May I ask a question of a personal nature before I go?”
Hummed inquisitively and leveling a sly half-grin, Eclipse nodded. “Depends on the question.”
Twilight licked her parched lips, suddenly nervous to ask but was too deep to back out now. “If I success in this, what will become of you and your family? I almost feel as if it might be a mistake having such an honorable soul such as you step down from power.”
A short chuckle escaped the emperor as he shared a look with his son. “My Lady, are you aware of the saying: privilege has its cost?”
Thinking back, Twilight nodded before too long. “I’ve heard it, yes. It’s not something spoken in Equestria.”
Pale Light reclaimed his seat and Eclipse slowly walked over to the window to look out over the water. “My family has never been driven from power. Realistically because of how the heir is selected. In the eyes of the church and the people however, we rule by the mandate of Elysium because of a vow the first of my line gave to our people.” He faced Twilight once more, age wrinkling his eyes and the corners of his mouth. “That we would rule until the day Luna returned to reclaim what was hers by right. Honor, integrity, and dignity still has its place in this world, Lady Twilight Sparkle, and I’ll be damned if I’m the one to lead it astray.”
“Well said!” Pale Light politely clapped his desk.
“Hear! Hear!” Rainbow Dash cheered, pride in her leader swelling.
Bowing now in respect, Twilight felt at ease and a growing impulse to do right by him. “If Luna is there, your majesty, I will rescue her. You have my word on that.”
“I will pray for your success. Good night.”
Halfway across the globe, in a rarely used chamber in Canterlot Castle, Radiant Dawn kept watch over a mirror. A magic hourglass rested on a stand nearby, set to empty when the mirror went dormant. He grew nervous as the grains whittled down to a pittance.
A flash of light made him shield his eyes as three figures clumsily fell out of the mirror and into a heap on the floor. A crude wheelchair clattered a few paces away.
Fluttershy, Lock Stock, and Lyra groaned and disentangled themselves. Lyra all but threw Lock Stock off of her and bounced around on her hooves, cheerfully skipping around. “Oh it feels so good to be able to walk again!” She wandered by the wheelchair and kicked it against the wall. “Off with you!”
Giggles filled the air as she danced about, leaving Fluttershy to be the one to help the jostled stallion back up. “That was certainly an experience.”
Lock Stock stated daggers at Lyra until he realized Radiant Dawn waited quietly by the exit. “Your honor!” He bowed quickly, which got Fluttershy to do the same.
Lyra was slower to show respect, but Dawn was unconcerned. “Welcome back.” His displeasure was plain to all. “Just the three of you? So the Celestia you found there was false?”
Being the second in command, Fluttershy spoke for the group. “Yes, your honor. She never made an attempt to pretend she was either. She and that world’s Luna are just regular people. A schoolmistress and Luna is her second.”
Chewing his cheek in agitation, Radiant Dawn shook his head. “Blasphemous. To think of the Sisters as nothing more than academy staff. Mortal ones at that.” He fixated on Lyra. “Did you know of them?”
Sweating a bit by being put on the spot, Lyra took an involuntary step back. “No, your honor! My family was too poor to send me to school. Even if they could, they wouldn’t send a cripple.”
Dawn’s critical stare lingered a little longer before he relented. “Of course. Was there any sign at all? Even of our Luna?”
Fluttershy padded herself down, finding out her satchel was once again a saddlebag. She produced some papers and presented them. “The organization Celestia had started to contain her sister died out over five hundred years ago. What records I could find said nothing of housing anypony of import who wasn’t a native. We didn’t have time to dig any deeper.”
“Well that’s it then. They never made it into the mirror.” Dawn pulled the exit open, a faint sense of relief washed over.
Before he could get far, Lyra stepped forward. “Your honor, if I may, there is technology and weapons on my old world that could be of great benefit for the war. The natives care not for bits themselves, but gold is just as good as currency.”
Fluttershy turned to her with mild irritation showing in her slight scowl. Radiant Dawn noticed it, but held his tongue to stop and think it over, and closed the door again. “Is it not true that they are like Lunarians? What’s good would their weapons do us?”
Lock Stock raised his hoof both to get attention and to shake off the feeling of having hands. “I think she has a point, your honor. Even if we can’t build them or bring them back with us, we can at least study schematics or have them demonstrated for us on the other side. Some strategy memoirs could be of use as well. From what I can tell, they are anywhere between, what? Thirty or forty years ahead of the Lunarians?”
“I’d say so,” Lyra answered. “Give or take.”
“If nothing else it could give us a glimpse as to what to prepare for for the next war.”
Rocking his head back and forth out of interest, he focused on Fluttershy who was by now showing no signs of dissent. “Do you have anything to add, Miss Fluttershy?”
“I do. With respect I disagree with their idea,” Fluttershy shook her feathers out to get a feel for them again. Casting doubt on her friends’ proposal was hardly something she wanted to do, but as Rarity’s second she had learned the strength to do what she felt was more correct. “The problem with the humans’ war related abilities is that they have limited application for us. They have no means with which to combat a flying opponent, let alone one that can fight back. It is my understanding that is an underpinning concept with our wars.
"They have observation balloons, true, but they are not common or reliable enough by their own admission to truly influence their strategy as a whole. Not to mention they have no knowledge of magic whatsoever, and as such, their weapons would be more susceptible to disruption than a Lunarian equivalent. If we were to find anything of significant value, it won't come from the barrel of a gun.”
“The lot of you make me wonder if you were searching for Celestia or spent most of your time investigating the natives.” Dawn scowled when Lock Stock and Lyra shrunk back a bit, where as Fluttershy appeared innocent enough.
“It wasn't hard to do both, your honor,” Lyra explained hastily, fearing they had angered him. “When the Light Foundation that Celestia had created over there went under, the mirror had been transported to a museum next to a public library and a bar that army officers frequented. It was all rather compact.”
“A bar?” Dawn groaned and shook his head. "I shall leave it to Rarity on how to discipline the lot of you. If Celestia was not to be found, you should have returned earlier, not get drunk chatting up uncouth soldiers.” The idea of military officers getting drunk at such a lowly establishment soured him further, even if they weren't part of Equestria.
Shoring up her flagging courage, Fluttershy nodded weakly. “I accept full responsibility.”
Satisfied for the moment, Dawn nodded and moved on. He leaned against the doorframe lost in thought. Eventually he gave a slow nod. “As for the natives' weapons, you all make good points, indiscretions or not. I can’t see the crown sending any observers through the mirror for the time being, the war takes priority after all. Still, a whole other world is simply too brimming with possibilities to outright ignore. I’ll forward your discoveries to the crown, I’m sure once the war is over and the dust settles, we can explore matters further. For now, rescuing Celestia takes priority.”
Fluttershy stretched her wings, eager to take to air once again. Rarity was buried in her studies when we left, I don't think she'll be all that mad if she found something useful. “Has Rarity had any success on her end?”
A troubled look fell over Radiant Dawn. “Hopefully. I was planning on checking up on her. Come, she’s in the archives as we speak.”