Shining Armor awoke slowly. A combination of dull aches and sunlight washing across his face pulled him from the rather dreamless sleep he had been drifting through. High ceilings and intricate stonework framed by gold trim and bathed in natural light came into view as his vision cleared. Was he in Canterlot? It had to be the castle.
He pulled himself up into a sitting position and looked around. If he was in Canterlot Castle, then he wasn’t in a wing he recognized. But everything from the colors, to the view of eye level clouds out the window told him he was back in his home city. That wasn’t right, though. It wasn’t all a nightmare, right?
Shining looked down at his body. Bandages criss-crossed his torso and front legs and his joints were stiff and achy. He brought a hoof up to feel his face and felt a line of stitches along his jawline. Either he fell down a long flight of stairs, or everything he remembered actually happened.
The latter raised more questions than answers.
“Hello…?” He called out. The room he was in looked to be a bedroom, like any of the spare bedrooms in the castle. It had a bed, a wardrobe, and a view and not much else. Mind you, they were always high quality beds and wardrobes and a top tier view, but it was the base of luxury in such a place and this one was no different.
Shining Armor stood up, he figured out that was a bad idea as soon as his hooves hit the ground. He winced and groaned, his knees buckling as his body weight settled on them. There was a time when feeling this beat up was few and far between, but it seemed like it was a little more common nowadays. Maybe he was just getting old.
After steadying himself and making sure he could properly support himself, he pushed off from the bed and slowly made his way across the room towards the door. His hooves didn’t even click against the tiles as he walked, a testament to how slow he was taking all of this. Only after his first tussle with Sombra had he ever been this sore. Even basic training for the royal guard hadn’t messed him up this bad, and Chrysalis had just left him with a pretty bad headache for a few days. So his takeaway from this was to not face Sombra one-on-one and throw himself out of a window.
Shining Armor pushed the door open and staggered into the hall, only to be stopped by a mint colored hoof clad in silver armor with gold trim. A pegasus pony trotted into view and looked at him like a plague victim.
“Y-you’re not supposed to be out of your room…sir.” The pegasus, a stallion, said shakily. “So…uh…please go back inside? I’m supposed to tell the princess when you finally wake up.”
“The princess?” All of the aches and pains in Shining’s body faded away with that one word. He stood up straight and looked through the pony holding him back. “Yes, do that guardspony. I’ll wait for her, of course.” The official tone he knew so well came back up in an instant as he spoke to the stallion. “Please, hurry up. I have a lot to talk with her about.” With renewed vigor, Shining Armor turned on his hooves and walked back into the room.
He sat on the bed and waited. It had to be Cadance, maybe Twilight, that wanted to see him. Probably Cadance, she no doubt wanted to ask him about what happened. Though, maybe she was busy dealing with all of the crystal pony refugees. Twilight was no doubt dealing with security stuff, and that would include this. Maybe her friends were already here and raring to go take down Sombra yet again.
“Maybe I should’ve asked that guardspony to fetch my armor.” That naked feeling crept up on him, which he only seemed to get when he was in a castle. Years had been spent striding through the halls in his armor, to be without it here made him feel underdressed. Plus, addressing a princess about a serious security issue
“Shining Armor?” His ears perked up at the voice and his head swiveled as fast as he could manage. His excitement had tricked him and it wasn’t the pony he was expecting. It was the white pegasus from before, standing in the doorway.
“Oh…” Shining Armor couldn’t help but let the disappointment shine through. “Sorry…” Her name escaped him in the moment so he trailed off instead. “I was expecting one of the princesses. The guard outside said he was going to fetch one. Is she with you?” He shifted seamlessly back to his formal guard voice and slowly got to his hooves.
“Well…” Zipp looked around the room then down at her hooves. “..I sorta…am the princess he got.”
“What?”
“Princess Zephyrina Storm.” The name fell from Zipp’s mouth with utter disdain. “At your service and here for…what would you even call this? A debriefing?”
“No.” Shining stated flatly. “Go and get me a princess. An alicorn princess. Cadance, Twilight, Flurry Heart. One of them, I don’t care who.” His voice raised in volume as he spoke and he could feel the heat rise from his chest up into his cheeks. “I need to talk to one of them. I need you to stop playing around and be serious!”
Another pegasus emerged from behind the doorway, this one a mare who was visibly older than Zipp. She had a pale pink coat and an expertly coiffed grayish blue mane that had an extravagant crown nestled among it. A purple collar rode its way up her neck and blended in with her wings, giving the illusion of a cape that went halfway down her back.
“Do not speak to my daughter like that.” The mare spoke in a haughty accent, one Shining had heard for most of his life from the unicorn upper crust of Canterlot. He had rarely ever heard such a thing from a pegasus. “While you are a guest, we still expect civility!” The icy glare he received from the mare let him know those words meant something. It was a warning.
“Right.” Shining Armor took a deep breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have raised my voice. My apologies, Mrs-”
“-Queen Haven.” The older mare interjected.
“Queen…?” The word felt nasty in his mouth when referring to a pony. It felt like a dirty word, something his mother would wash his mouth out with soap for even uttering. He let it settle on his tongue for a minute and decided he still hated the way it felt. “Seriously?”
“Our family has ruled Zephyr Heights for generations.” Queen Haven insisted. “The title of king or queen has been passed down to the eldest child of the ruler for a long time.”
History lessons pried their way back into Shining’s mind from a long buried section of his memories. The last time he had ever even heard of something like that was when they were taught about the warring tribes. King Bullion had been the last unicorn ruler to use such a title. Not even his daughter, Princess Platinum, adopted the moniker of ‘queen’ after his passing. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, the ponies who raised the sun and moon, even forwent the title.
Ponies just weren’t called king or queen.
“My apologies, Your Majesty.” Shining figured he would just go along with it for now. “I just really need to get to Canterlot and warn somepony about what’s happening. I need to talk with Princess Twilight Sparkle or Princess Cadance right away.”
Queen Haven shot a look of confusion at Zipp, who quickly pulled her mother away. The two mares spoke quietly to each other, with Zipp’s voice raising once or twice but still relatively hushed. After about a minute, the two supposed royals broke their huddle and moved closer to Shining Armor.
“I understand you are in a hurry, Shining Armor.” Queen Haven spoke in a calm and level voice. “But I’m afraid whatever has you worried now also concerns us as our city is closer than Canterlot.” He knew this tone, it was the same one Celestia used with rowdy nobles during her open court sessions. He was being patronized in the nicest way possible. “So please, tell us what happened, from the beginning.”
“Fine.” He slumped back onto the bed with a sigh. He wasn’t going to be let out without acquiescing to some of their demands, so he was better off just getting it over with. “A train came into the Crystal Empire covered in black crystals, some of the ponies inside were completely drained. Not just of their magic but…of their life. They were like…husks.” He shivered at the memory. “The survivors said they were attacked by a giant black cloud with glowing eyes that shot crystals at them. I immediately knew it was King Sombra. I don’t know how he returned or how he changed into whatever he is now, but we knew he was on his way.”
“King Sombra…” Queen Haven rubbed her chin with a hoof thoughtfully. “Zephyrina, please tell Thunder to fetch that old nursery rhyme book your nanny used to read to you.” She waved her hoof. “You know the one, I can’t think of the name right now, but have it brought to your friends.” Zipp nodded and trotted off for a moment, and then came right back. “Please, do continue.” Haven motioned at the stallion.
“Right.” Shining Armor closed his eyes to gather his thoughts before continuing. “We had to evacuate the Crystal Empire. All of it. So many of the crystal ponies were so traumatized by Sombra’s last reign that we couldn’t let them fall into his hooves again. “
Sweet Celestia, he could still hear their panicked cries as they made the announcement from the palace balcony. He could see them collapse into heaps and wail. He could feel the roar of the crowd as it erupted into hysterics and demanded action. He could taste the doom and gloom on the wind.
“We made a plan, a risky one.” Shining had to stop himself from mumbling as he spoke. “Sombra got there before we could even get it all set up. Cadance and I put up a barrier like before to hold him off while everypony got ready. We had to move at night when he couldn’t see, we built tunnels from in the city out to the train station. Every single pony, including Cadance and Flurry Heart, went down there and got ready to leave.” He cleared his throat as he thought about Cadance and Flurry again. “I drew him into the city. I let him chase me into the palace.”
“You set a trap.” Zipp joined in. “Some kind of magic. You said something before about it only lasting for a few minutes.”
“Yeah.” Shining Armor nodded. “Sunburst, an old friend who had been visiting, came up with a plan. A…” He tried to remember the exact words, but he just knew the specifics. “...a time loop spell, I guess you would call it. He set it on a timer. It wouldn’t start until I activated it, but when I did it would reset after 10 minutes. They were going to come back for me, deactivate the spell when they had some way to deal with Sombra. It would be a few months at most.”
“But what about you?” Zipp asked, her voice soft but failing to hide the admiring tone. “You were going to be trapped in there with that thing. Was that really the only way?”
“It was ten minutes to me. Ten minutes for as long as it took.”
“Ten minutes of Tartarus for the rest of your life” As Sunburst had put it.
“It wasn’t months, was it?” Shining Armor whispered the question. He already knew the answer, but it was a question he had to ask.
“No.” Haven and Zipp answered in unison.
Shining Armor clenched his jaw and chewed on the next words that sat upon his tongue. He was already mad at the answer before the question was even asked. He was mad at himself for even daring to ask it and mad at the world for forcing him to. He took a deep breath before he spoke.
“How long was it…?”
“We’re…unsure.” Queen Haven approached him slowly as she spoke. “Our records are not complete, but from what we could gather it’s been over three hundred years.”
He thought those words would hit like one of Applejack’s kicks to his gut. He had been bracing for the shock. Every synapse in his head was preparing for the worst and it had come. Strangely, there was no impact from those words.
He felt nothing.
“Twilight Sparkle. Cadance. Flurry Heart.” He spoke their names slowly. “They’re alicorns. Three hundred years is nothing to them, maybe a quarter of their life. Where are they?” Princess Celestia had lived for well over one thousand years and it never seemed to have phased her. This was a sizable gap, but they still had to be alive.
“Twilight, we’re pretty sure, is gone.” Zipp said with a heavy sigh. “My friend Sunny’s dad spent his whole life studying her and looking for relics she left behind. He was the expert on everything Twilight Sparkle and harmony and…there wasn’t a lot left.” Shining could feel something was being left unsaid, he could hear it in her voice. There was a noticeable apprehension and her eyes never met his.
“What about Cadance and Flurry Heart?”
“I’m sorry, but we’ve never heard of them.” Queen Haven spoke again. “Zephyrina and her friends spent all night looking through our records to find mention of them.”
“I’m really sorry, Shining Armor. We don’t know what happened to them.”
“They have to be alive.” He decided with a new fire in his belly. Even Twilight, whatever happened to her, couldn’t be dead. Alicorns couldn’t die. They just couldn’t. Maybe she was trapped or some villain of the week had gotten lucky and banished her somewhere. There was no way his little sister, a hero of Equestria, had been defeated decisively. “I have to go to Canterlot. Somepony there will know something. They have to.”
“It’s abandoned.” Zipp laid that out on the table with no preamble or care. Obviously she was getting tired of beating around some bushes. “We went and saw it. Nopony’s been there for a hundred years at least.”
His brain refused to accept that. It categorically didn’t make any sense. Canterlot had been the capital of Equestria for close to one thousand years. It was the center of culture, of pony society. There would be no reason to just leave it to rot.
“What happened?” He asked, trying to piece together the answer to that question himself but he was missing vast swathes of information. “We wouldn’t just…leave all of that. Where are we even? Are we still in Equestria?”
“I think, perhaps, you should try to digest the information you’ve already been given before we unload even more onto you.” Haven said with a polite smile that failed to hide the meaning of the words.
It got worse, and she didn’t think he was ready to hear just how much worse it got.
—-
“How’d it go?” Hitch was the first one to speak as Zipp entered the library where they had been doing all of their research. “Is he…okay?”
Laid out on the table before them were numerous books, some marked with little colored sticky notes for later reference. Pipp was on her phone, scrolling and not paying attention to the work in front of them. Meanwhile, Sunny and Misty were pouring over the books in front of them and Sunny had a notebook she was slowly filling with notes.
“No.” Zipp said with a shake of her head and a sigh. “I don’t think he’s ready to accept where he is…or ‘when’ he is, I guess.” She made her way over to the table and sat in the spot beside Hitch. “What about you guys? Find anything?” There was always hope that they had found something deep in the records of Zephyr Heights to shed some more light on their visitor.
“We got that old nursery rhyme book from the guards.” Sunny chimed in. “There is one about a Shadow King, but it’s just a rhyme made for foals. It doesn’t tell us much other than to ‘watch for eyes in the dark’.”
“Not very helpful, sorry.” Hitch said with a shrug.
“He also brought up those other ponies again, Cadance and Flurry Heart.” Zipp tapped her chin with a hoof. “He said they lived with him in the Crystal Empire, and he said they were alicorns.”
“M-more alicorns?” Misty’s head shot up at the mention of the creatures. “That’s not possible, right? There can’t be more!”
“He said they should be still alive. I told him we’ve been to Canterlot and didn’t see anything.” Hitch’s hoof gently rubbed Zipp’s back as she verbally began to work through what she had been told. “He put his life on the line, sacrificed himself to trap Sombra until they could find a way to beat him specifically for them and all of the other ponies in the Crystal Empire.”
“What if he was a knight? Like their protector?” Sunny tapped the foal’s book in front of her. “I mean c’mon, his name is Shining Armor. He had to be some kind of monster slaying knight to be named that!”
“The guard’s have their logbook of like every guard ever.” Pipp waved her hoof as she raised her phone and snapped a couple of selfies with the rest of them in the background. “If Cadance and Flurry Heart were alicorns then they were royalty, right? Maybe he was a royal guard.”
“Oh my hoofness, Pipp. You’re a genius!” Zipp jumped up into the air, kept aloft by her wings as she did a quick circle around the table. “Zoom!” The blue pegasus mare trotted over from her spot near the door to the library and looked up at Zipp. “How far back do the Royal Guard records go?”
“To its inception, Your Highness.” Zoom responded with a hint of pride. “At least a thousand years. It’s a long proud tradition of ponies who have put their lives-”
“Yeah yeah, I know. Brave ponies, lives on the line for the ponies who rule yadda yadda.” Zipp cut her off. “I need you to look for a pony from about three hundred years ago, Shining Armor, I don’t know what rank but we think he might be in there.”
“That’s…there have been a lot of ponies in the Royal Guard, Princess.”
“I’ll help!” Hitch got up with a smile. “I’ll find Izzy and Sparky and we’ll get through it in no time!” The sheriff gave a small salute to Zipp. “Don’t worry, if he’s in there we’ll find him and get back to you.”
“What about the other alicorns he mentioned?” Misty asked with a raise hoof. “If they are still alive like he says, then shouldn’t we find out where they are?” Everypony looked at the unicorn, which caused her to drop her head. “Right, sorry…I just-”
“No no, you’re right.” Sunny nodded. “It’s just, how are we even supposed to begin looking for them? We’ve been to Canterlot and all we found was-”
“-Discord!” Sunny and Zipp shouted in unison.
“There’s no way he’s still there.” Pipp added. “He wasn’t exactly thrilled that we found him last time, why would he stay? He’s probably gone to who knows where.”
Zipp bit her lip and slowly sat back down in her seat. She racked her brain for all the possible ways they could get any information on Shining’s alicorns. Discord was a longshot, but there was no guarantee that he was even reachable. Where else could they get information?
Her eyes fell on Misty.
“Opaline is an alicorn…” the words fell from her mouth with a grin. “...she knew Twilight. What if she knew the others too?”