Borealis Glow stormed through the halls of his home in a quiet rage. The magic-held lamps cast long shadows around him, their lights reflecting off of the finely polished floors, walls, and even the ceiling, such was the lavishness of the Glow mansion.
As he passed by a portrait of his late beloved Starshine, he paused to pay his respects to her as he always did. Borealis closed his eyes and touched the tip of his horn to the base of her portrait, thinking back on the events of the night. The red welt on his cheek still stung and burned, more with indignity than pain.
He grimaced and cracked his shoulders, pulling his head away from the portrait, his eyes narrowing in anger.
As if tonight hadn’t gone badly enough.
First, his plans to acquire Cozy and prevent her from bringing any further shame to their family anymore had been put unexpectedly on hold, all because that disgrace of a unicorn, Tempest Shadow, had the gall to strike him across the face in front of all of the self serving, so-called nobility of Canterlot. And now... now he was forced to deal with...
Them.
The baleful wretches that deigned to make his ancestral home their safehouse while they schemed and plotted in the shadows.
To add a further insult, not only did they use his ancestral home as their safehouse, the mangy curs, but their leader had had the sheer brazen audacity to summon him. Him! In his own house!
Such it was that he was left with no choice but to immediately respond and excuse himself from Lord Fancy Pants’s engagement ball, if only so that these malcontents may learn their rightful place under his, and all of ponykind’s, hooves.
He turned swiftly and continued marching down the corridor until finally he came upon his study. After cracking his thin but muscular shoulders, he pushed open the door and surged forwards, scowling at the creatures within. “I will not be summoned like I am some mongrel pup,” he snarled, putting as much disdain and authority as he could into his voice.
The crackling fireplace was the only answered he received as a majority of the wretched creatures sullying his property silently glared at him.
The snow-white, pink-eyed earth pony mare flicked her tongue out in displeasure, swaying on the spot like a serpent. As he understood it, Borealis supposed that was a given due to her... unique nature.
Then on the other side of the room, the changelings watched him with the savage cunning he expected of their verminous kind, one sporting three legs and the other reeking of decay and rot. Borealis quickly composed himself to keep from gagging at the foul stench and pressed on, coming to a halt by their ringleader, and the primary source of his disgust: a donkey, of all things.
An ordinary-looking, mud brown donkey with long ears and green eyes, casually nursing a glass of his host’s finest brandy.
“Apparently,” that same donkey said, raising his glass to his mouth for another sip. “You will.” He smiled and looked up at the lord. “How are you, Lord Glow? Keeping well, I trust?” His eyes flashed as they travelled over his cheek. “Judging by that mark I take it you have met the good commander?”
His words were twinged with an almost sort of admiration for that wretched breakhorn. It sickened Borealis, and he let out a cautionary growl as his answer, levelling a hoof in the creature’s direction.
“Do not test me, Bray,” he snarled, spitting his name out like it left a bad taste in his mouth. “This is my house. It is by my will that you and your despicable cohorts are allowed to reside here.”
At the insult the earth pony mare let out a soft hiss while one of the changelings, the three-legged one, stifled a quiet giggle behind her hoof.
Bray simply looked at the lord with a calm, collected smile and gestured to the seat opposite from him. “Be that as it may, my lord, won’t you join me?” he said, raising up and balancing the glass he was tending to on his hoof. “Would you care for a drink? It really is delicious, I commend you for your taste.”
Stunned only for a moment by the donkey’s brazenness, Lord Glow soon felt his anger overcome him. With one swing of his hoof he batted the glass away, sending it smashing to the floor and causing the golden-brown liquid to seep into the carpet.
“Do not. Test me,” he repeated, lowering his voice to a growl.
The silence of the others grew heavy with tension as they waited to see what their ringleader’s response would be.
But Bray himself looked rather nonplussed, if anything only a bit disappointed. “A simple ‘no’ would have sufficed. What a waste,” he muttered as the scent of brandy wafted up their noses. He leaned back and again gestured to the seat across from him. “But no matter. Now... please. Sit.”
Not an offer but a command, the donkey’s last word sent a shiver to run down Borealis’s spine as he looked into the eyes of madness itself. A lower form of equine life though he may be, it was clear to Lord Glow that Bray certainly held no small amount of power--he had to, after all, given the company he travelled with. He swallowed his pride, and his fear, and reluctantly, begrudgingly, sat down across from him.
“Wonderful,” said Bray, the warmth quickly returning to his voice. “Now, first you must tell me, how fares the dear princess? Did she believe you will aid her as we discussed?”
“Yes,” Borealis answered curtly, turning his head to one side. “Twilight Sparkle remains none the wiser to my true allegiance.” He glanced at Bray out the corner of his eye and curled his lip. “But I highly doubt you did not call upon me for an update on the princess. Say what you will and be done with it.”
His unwelcome guest’s eyes flashed and he raised a hoof to his chest. “Your true allegiance, was that, Lord Glow? My, my, I never knew we meant that much to you,” he practically giggled.
A scowl formed along Lord Glow’s forehead. He immediately turned to face him and leaned forwards in his chair. “My allegiance lies with Equestria,” he growled, pointing a cautionary hoof at the creature. “A true Equestria, led by its rightful rulers. Not to you, not to a child groomed by Celestia to replace her, and certainly not to this... Cabal as you call them.”
A condescending smile spread across Bray’s face as he squinted his eyes. “Mhm. Be that as it may,” he said after a few moments. “You are correct, my lord, for an issue far more troublesome than that of Twilight Sparkle has arisen and I would discuss it with you.”
“Issue?” Borealis narrowed his eyes and slowly leaned back again. “What issue?”
“I believe you are familiar with an individual named Sacanas?”
The lord flinched, twitching his head to one side. “Sacanas?” he murmured. “Why? What of it?”
“He was a powerful lord in his time, no?” Bray continued smugly, watching for his host’s reaction. “Perhaps the greatest sage to have ever walked Equestria’s grass, the original founder and first emperor of the Crystal Empire and builder of its capital: Crystal Hills.”
Borealis swallowed. “I ask again, what of it?” he rasped. “Sacanas has long since fallen into myth and legend, and the city of Crystal Hills is enchanted to never be found.” He waved his hoof and stood up. “If you have summoned me simply to entertain rumours and myth then I am finished here.”
“I thought you couldn’t be summoned, my lord?” scoffed the three-legged changeling. The wheezing thing at her side hissed and croaked with a sick, twisted laughter.
Lord Glow rounded on her. “And who are you?” he sneered. “A crippled cockroach and her pet? Keep your forked tongue behind your teeth, insect, and know you place amongst your betters-”
“Enough.” Bray cleared his throat and spoke calmly. The smile he had been wearing had long since vanished, and a stern frown had taken its place. “Lady Pupa and her sister are my guests, Lord Glow, I will not hear you disparage them so. Now kindly apologise to one another so that we may continue in our conversation.”
Borealis’s eyes shrank and his breath grew hoarse. “Apologise? Your guests?” he rasped.
“Yes, Lord Glow. My guests. My friends,” Bray answered, fixing the lord with a stern glare, speaking similarly to how an adult talks down to a misbehaving child.
It was enough to silence Lord Glow into a quiet, seething rage. He grumbled something under his breath and sank back down into his chair, letting the crackling fire dance in his eyes.
Somewhat satisfied, the donkey turned his attention to the changeling, giving her the same look. “And as for you, Lady Pupa, I expected better from one such as you,” he continued. “Lord Glow is our most gracious host and you mock him in such a way? For shame.” He tutted and shook his head.
Pupa bowed hers and cast her gaze to the floor. “I apologise, Bray, and to you, my lord. I meant no offence,” she said quietly.
The hulking thing, her sister, apparently, growled softly and raised its ugly, wretched head. “Why are we here, Bray?” she asked. Her voice made Borealis clench his teeth, sounding like metal grinding on meal and as if it caused her great pain to speak. “Not to... hnng...” She grunted in pain and rustled her black, fetid wings, sending a horde of mites and filth showering into the air. “Not to bandy words and ‘play nice’?”
“Right you are, your grace,” Bray said, returning to his usual joviality in an instant. “Where was I? Oh yes, Crystal Hills, the fabled lost city of the unicorns. I have in my possession a key. Here.” From the folds of his cloak he retrieved a small, silver and ornately carved key with a ruby embedded into its head.
Borealis made a sputtering noise, his eyes fixed solely upon the sparkling piece of metal in the donkey’s hooves.
“It was gifted to me by my master for safe keeping,” Bray explained, turning it over in his hooves, seeming to delight in how his host’s attention remained fixated upon it. “To wait for the opportune moment. I was hoping that you, Lord Glow, being an expert on unicorn history, could tell us all exactly what this key unlocks.”
The lord’s gaze remained firm as his horn lit up and with his magic he retrieved a book from the nearby wall, planting it on his lap and flipping it over. “There,” he said, wrenching his gaze from the key enough to jab his hoof down onto the page detailing an ancient legend about what was once the seat of power in the Old Crystal Empire.
“That key is said to release the spell containing Crystal Hills and reveal it to the world. With it, its holder could unlock the gates Sacanas himself built and enter the old palace.”
Bray nodded thoughtfully. “I thought as much.”
“We must find it,” Borealis continued fervently. “Form an expedition of the finest mages, scientists and historians we can find-”
A grin started to spread across Bray’s face. “Oh? And why is that, my lord?”
“The untapped bounty of an entire kingdom rests within Crystal Hills,” the lord said, letting the book fall out of his grasp as he inched forwards on his seat. “Fame. Wealth. Power, not to mention the collection of artifacts Sacanas had collected over the years, including his-” He stopped himself short, fearing he had said too much already.
But Bray’s eyes flashed and his grin reached his ears. “Ah yes, the Crown of Sacanas,” he cooed, “said to allow its wearer to tap into the unseen weave of the world and commune with the very essence of magic, yes? The tool with which Sacanas built his empire.”
Borealis gave him a reserved nod and bit his tongue. Finding the legendary Crown of Sacanas was to be his life’s greatest achievement. Not only would he be the finder of Crystal Hills, he thought, but with it he could use it to reinstate the old aristocracy, and perhaps even rule Equestria in its entirety.
And not only that, he thought, he could even use its power to resurrect the dead themselves, and restore his beloved Starshine to life...
“What do you want with the crown?” he whispered, his eyes darting back and forth over the donkey’s face.
“My interests in it are purely academical, I assure you,” Bray replied sweetly, his smile resembling that of a devil more than a donkey. “For it is not the crown itself I care for, but rather the magic imbued into it. And, needless to say, once I have what I need from it I would gladly gift it to you as a show of gratitude for your hospitality. But, for now, Lady Pupa would you kindly...” He tapered off, holding the key out to the three-legged changeling.
Pupa bowed her head and ignited her horn, taking it from him.
Gritting his teeth and narrowing his eyes as he watched one of ponykind’s most hated foes hold such a precious item.
“Give me the key,” he whispered, looking at the silver object longingly--almost lustfully.
“No,” replied Bray as Pupa placed the key safely under her wing. Beside her her sister, Imago, rumbled and hissed softly, narrowing one weathered, yellowed eye at the pony and the donkey.
“What?” Borealis’s voice caught in his throat. He gripped the arms of his chair with such force his hooves started to turn white. “What do you mean?”
The self-called magician sighed half-heartedly. “Because Crystal Hills was lost to the world for a reason, my lord. Sacanas, for all his brilliance, was a fiend. I have no doubt that his last act of vanity was to ensure Crystal Hills, should it ever be found, is filled with countless and unimaginable horrors.” He chuckled softly. “And so I will not risk mine, nor any of my friends’ lives in venturing out to such a terrible place.”
The lord flinched and rose up once more. “So, what?” he sneered. “We hold the key to our future and you are content to do nothing?!”
“Calm yourself, my lord,” the donkey said, gesturing at him with his hoof. “For instead of ourselves venturing out into such a dangerous and wild place as Crystal Hills, I know of a few others who will do it for us. Rest assured, should, and when, they succeed, the Crown of Sacanas will be yours.”
The lord stared at the donkey. “Who?” he hissed, giving a quick glance around at the snake-mare and then at the changelings. “Your cohorts, I assume?”
“When you assume you make an ass out of you and me, my lord,” Bray chortled, breaking out into a wide grin at his own joke. “No, not my associates. But rather, our old friends the Nightmare Knights.”
The room fell quiet for a few moments, with only the crackling fire daring to break the tension.
Lord Glow stared at Bray in shock. The red welt on his cheek stung again, reminding him of the shame he had been subjected to earlier in the night. “You’re insane,” he said in a little more than a whisper. “You wish to enlist that thug Tempest Shadow and her... faithless allies, who we act in direct opposition to, might I add, in retrieving the Crown of Sacanas?”
“By now I believe an anonymous tip has already found its way to the ear of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza of the Crystal Empire,” Bray replied smugly. “And with a prize such as the crown involved, I suspect that when met with the challenge of Crystal Hills, the Nightmare Knights will be unable to resist such bait. Why expend our own strength when our enemies, as you put it, will do it for us?”
Borealis saw his reasoning, yet was loathe to admit it. A strange, gnawing feeling had begun to form in the pit of his stomach. Was it guilt? Shame? He didn’t know. But to think, a breakhorn would set hoof in Crystal Hills before him. What a disgrace... He fell back with a sour expression and waved his hoof in resigned approval.
Bray arched one eyebrow at him before he stood up and cracked his shoulders. It was not lost on Lord Glow that when the donkey moved, the room, fell silent. Even the fire seemed to die down a touch, darkening them all in his presence. His entourage, the snake-mare and the changelings, all watched him in silent reverence, awe and with a hint of fear. Bray shook his short mane and glanced upwards out the window and at the moon. “And now that that matter is settled, my lord, I must be off.”
“Off?” Lord Glow sneered in contempt, flicking his gaze up at him. “And where will you go? What of your associates, am I to be their housekeeper while you are away?”
Bray laughed and shook his head. “Oh goodness me, no. Queen Imago will accompany me across the ocean, as will Lady Pupa, once she has delivered the key to Princess Cadenza, and Kiyohime will return to Canterlot to keep an eye out for our missing stallion. Won’t you, my dear?”
The snake-mare hissed and flicked her tail out sideways. “Of course, Bray,” she muttered. “And Drog.”
Bray’s face fell as he looked at her. “Naturally.”
Kiyohime’s eyes met his. Like a disobedient daughter and a disappointed father they glared at one another in silence.
Borealis meanwhile regarded the hulking changeling thing with utter disdain and a morbid curiosity. “Queen Imago?” he murmured.
“Ahh!” the donkey cried, roused out of his staring contest with the girl to suddenly clap a hoof to his head. “So caught up with plots and schemes I have forgotten my most basic manners, haven’t I? Lord Glow, allow me to introduce you to her grace: the Risen Queen Imago of the Third Changeling Hive, First of her name and the Bane of King Morpheus. And accompanying her, her sister: the Witch Queen Pupa, also of the Third Changeling Hive.”
Lord Glow felt a ripple and a shiver in the muscles along his back. “The Third Hive?” he murmured, musing over what he knew of changelings as he regarded both sisters warily. “The Third Hive went extinct over a thousand years ago. It fell to Queen Chrysalis and became the Fourth, if I am not mistaken, and then to Thorax and the Fifth.”
Imago growled and bared a set of jagged, rotten fangs at him, stopped from lunging forwards only by Pupa stroking her carapace gently. “Shh, sister,” the three-legged changeling cooed softly. “Shh, you mustn’t exert yourself...”
Bray cleared his throat. “You know your history, Lord Glow. But allow me to clarify. Queen Imago is Chrysalis’s-”
“Mother,” Imago rasped, keeping her eye trained on Borealis.
The donkey nodded. “And thus Lady Pupa is her aunt. An intriguing family, if I do say so.”
Borealis swallowed. So, he thought, this horrid abomination of life that reeked of death is Queen Chrysalis’s mother? The same Chrysalis that threatened Equestria once upon a time and now serves as its attack dog? Of course she was, only a fouler creature could produce such a hateful spawn as Queen Chrysalis. He stole a glance at Bray. The donkey simply smiled at him and clapped his hooves together.
“Well,” said Bray. “Family history and introductions aside, shall we?” He gestured to the changelings. “Lady Pupa, would you do the honours?”
Pupa bowed her head and ignited her horn. She looked up into the yellowed eye of Imago as it shifted onto her. What was left of the queen’s mane, of its singed, ragged edges, hung down like a clump of seaweed along her rotting skin. “Yes, O sister mine. Take us... hnng... to the sea.”
Whatever had left her in such a state, thought Borealis, would surely prove to be a valuable ally... or a terrible enemy.
“If I have need of you,” he said quietly as the two changelings and the donkey touched hooves. “What then?”
Bray blinked and looked around at him. He opened his mouth, but with a flash and a pop, they vanished, leaving only a bad smell, a smear along the ground where Imago had once sat and Lord Glow’s question unanswered.
Kiyohime chuckled softly under her breath and moved towards the door. “If it is all the same to you, my lord, then I will leave as well,” she said softly.
Borealis remained by the fire, half watching her go out the corner of his eye. He waved a hoof at her dismissively.
Pursing her lips, Kiyohime bowed and slunk away, silently slithering off to search for this ‘missing stallion’ and whoever--or whatever--Drog was.
The fire crackled and spat as Borealis watched it. He felt something inside of himself begin to rise up, until an unexpected laugh escaped his muzzle.
“The Crown of Sacanas...” he murmured. “Finally within my grasp... and all I have to do is wait?”
It felt like a dream. His thoughts turned to his Starshine, at how he may one day hold her again.
Another laugh left him. His laughter filled the otherwise quiet halls of the Glow family mansion, echoing off into the distance and the night as the moon shone down below like a watchful protector.