//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7 
// Story: Tempest in a Teapot 
// by SparlightTwarkle 
//------------------------------//

Twilight Sparkle was slow to readjust to the waking world. She emerged from the covers slow and speechless as the sisters watched. 

Her hooves hit the floor. It was ice cold. Her nervous breaths condensed into clouds of vapor in front of her muzzle. A tremble shook her body as the biting chill of the room crept under her coat. Princess Luna came up to her and draped a fluffy blanket over her back. Her magic wrapped it into a cozy cocoon around her chest.

"Thank you." Twilight smiled warmly up at Luna. She didn't seem to acknowledge her gratitude, as if fearful of staring directly into the sun, before snuggling her own body warmth up to Twilight's side.

Celestia watched them, wrapped up in her own covers. Her lips twitched with endearment. No words were spoken, allowing the even colder mantle of silence to settle over them.

Twilight was the first to make a sound. "E-everyone saw that...right?"

The sisters nodded grimly.

"What that spirit said...it's out of the question." She declared. "I would never hurt you, Luna."

Luna searched her eyes, at last, but offered no clue into her own feelings in return.

"I'm going to inspect those doors personally." Princess Celestia announced. Her horn glowed as she cast a ball of light radiating comforting warmth, a harmless magical radiator. The other two princesses nodded in agreement and followed.


The double doors at the main hall endured through the centuries, even when faced by the stares of three princesses. Twilight huddled close to Luna reflexively, haunted by the intent heartlessness of the duke and the starved ghosts chanting for justice. She would never enact their will; no matter how tormented they were, the act they demanded was much too heinous. Twilight only hoped Luna felt how passionately she opposed them.

"If the castle itself is imbued with the life force of so many creatures," Celestia pondered, her features stern and severe, "then the seal protecting these doors must be tremendously powerful. It would explain why you failed to break it, Twilight."

Her words inspired hopelessness. Twilight felt her ears droop as she pleaded to her mentor for a solution. "But then what do we do? Maybe- we try together?"

Magic burst from Luna's horn towards the double doors. A barrier of chaotic swirls of color deflected it. Mentor and pupil watched fearfully as Luna blasted the same target over and over again, as if the only purpose her life was worthy of was the destruction of the enchantment which kept them at bay.

"It's not fair!" The night princess bared her teeth, wild rage driving her forward. "I did not cause this pony to go mad! I did not trap these spirits! I have enough sins to atone for without this nonsense adding to it!"

Her raw emotion touched Twilight's very heart. Her throat choked with building tears. "Luna-"

But before she could reach out against her better judgement, Celestia hooked her in place with her large white wing. She fixed her with a solemn expression and shook her head. It would be best to allow the poor mare to exhaust herself.

Luna paused her assault to raise her horn high, collecting a surge of destructive power into it, then released it into a blinding beam towards the barrier. The pillar of magic thinned as Luna's magical pool drained in its entirety. Luna collapsed onto her haunches. The doors mocked her in their unscathed state.

Yet there was far more ire and resentment contained within her, impossible as it seemed. Luna snapped in Celestia's direction. "You knew about this."

"It...was not fresh in my mind. This was so near your exile, Luna. To be frank, that time was quite a blur-"

"You knew! You sent these ponies to their deaths!" Luna advanced towards Celestia. Twilight didn't know where to place herself, what to say, but she was terrified and could only shrink despite her best intentions. Furthermore she knew better than to believe Celestia's facade of composure; her neck was strained, her wings snapped close to her torso and trembling so lightly.

And she knew better than to think Luna was merely being cruel. She was so terribly hurt.

"I..." Celestia inhaled sharply, holding her sister's gaze. "I needed to pull the kingdom together. There were cults and riots and nobles uprising-"

"If you'd shown up personally we wouldn't have to be here right now!"

"Again, darling sister," Celestia's voice trembled, "I was being pulled in so many directions; Equestria needed a leader! I know it's been a while and matters of the kingdom are so terribly complicated-"

"Do not condescend me! You are not better than me because you got to live life instead of spending a thousand years staring into the void of space!" Her voice carried, the lingering fury of a ghost. Tears stood at the precipice on either pony. "I felt every minute, Celestia."

Celestia swallowed thickly. "I'm sorry."

Luna melted. The flame which kept her going was smothered by a single drop of wetness soaking into her coat. A much more familiar, sobered mare stood in her wake, and she wasn't proud of what she had done. Luna turned away towards the double doors and touched her shimmering horn against the runes, scanning them as one would listen into the mechanisms of a locked vault.

Needless to say, in spite of Luna's exclamations, the Night Princess felt responsible for this situation.

Twilight's heart still drummed in her ears. Hoofsteps sounded in the silence, those of Celestia as she motioned towards the stairs.

"Princess Celestia..."

The alicorn in question offered a saddened glance, but turned away. She was hurt beyond her greatest abilities to mask it all. Twilight let her go.

However, in that moment she decided that the next objective in this official princess mission was to reconcile them. Somehow. Even if only a temporary truce, should the sisters find it within themselves to enthusiastically collaborate (as opposed to reluctantly endure each other's presence) for more than a second, they would stand a chance against the haunting of Castle De Roue.

Vines crept through the stone around them. Twilight stared them down until the slithering stilled. They aimed for the Night Princess.

"Um. Luna."

The light of her horn dimmed. She looked at her through the corner of her eye. "Hm?"

"I'll be back soon. I'm going to...check some other books. I just wanted to tell you- be careful. We now know the haunting is targeting you."

Luna arched an eyebrow, then laughed. "You are telling me to be careful."

Taken aback, Twilight recoiled. "Well-yes!"

"Me. Ancient Princess of the Night."

"Y-"

"General of the Ninth Battalion."

"Luna, I-"

"Herald of Harmony."

Twilight shook her head. "Alright, I get it."

Luna directed her gaze towards the doors, firmly giving Twilight a view of her thick veil of starry mane. "You must overflow with audacity to be coddling me."

Twilight was sick of apologizing, so she scoffed, narrowing her eyes at the back of Luna's neck. "I didn't become an alicorn for lack of audacity, Princess Luna."

She cackled. Her voice purred, dulcet and seducing. "Remind me to court you properly once we're out of this hell maze."

Twilight was stunned. Her hooves shifted, but she held fast against the urge to fold over for yet another princess. "I-I think-" she cleared her throat, raised her forehead high, and tossed her mane to the other side of her neck, "I think you can remember that yourself!" 

Then she whipped away, rejoicing in the giggles following her on the way out of the main hall.


The walls of Castle De Roue retained winter chill in the middle of early summer. Nature encroached. Spirits wailed. 

Twilight retreated into her temporary chambers and found an intruder; Piece of Wheel arranged photographs across the surface of a dusty vanity, her camera hanging around her neck. When Twilight shrieked in surprise, the other mare screamed in kind.

"I've been looking for you!" Twilight exclaimed, breathing deeply to calm her nerves, and closed the door behind her. "And now you're here!"

"Sorry!" The cherry unicorn bowed at her. "I didn't mean to vanish after that incident with the...thorns and the table getting wrecked. I saw something! I think..." Piece nervously glanced at the pictures displayed, "you'll want to take a look at this."

Twilight obliged, joining Piece of Wheel's side. Many of these photographs were a blur of ghostly light upon the shadow of the castle, but her hoof gravitated towards one image in particular, which she slid closer to herself for further inspection.

The silhouette of a pony's specter was clear as day. They galloped towards the viewer, their eyes solid orbs of white fixated on the target.

"It...it looks like the specter is wearing a tailcoat." Twilight remarked on the fabric trailing behind the ghostly stallion, " I don't know how many of the castle's visitors wore tailcoats, but my guess is this is Duke De Roue himself." The lord haunting his own fortress. Every fiber of Twilight's being dreaded to learn how this colt met his own demise. 

Piece of Wheel was oddly quiet. She kept cautious distance between herself and the photographs, standing as stiff as stone. Spiderwebs clung to her mane, dust caked the coat of her legs...she must've gone through a lot in the last twenty-four hours. Her eyes were bloodshot- had she even slept?

"You need to get out of here." Twilight commanded. 

Piece flinched, her brow flying upwards. "What? I-I'm fine! I promise!"

"Hear me out..." She drew close, pleading with her gaze. "The haunting of this castle...it's dangerous, even for us princesses. I don't mean to say you're weak or dumb; in fact, it'd be pretty smart to get out of here while you're ahead."

"But, Princess Twilight, I can't."

Twilight scrunched her brow. This mare's stubbornness baffled her. Piece of Wheel deflated and, after a long second of consideration, retrieved a scroll from her cross bag resting hidden underneath the large box of her camera.

Her magic unfurled the scroll. It was a deed for the duchy of De Roue. 

"I...am Silver De Roue's great great great great..." A handful more great's later, Piece of Wheel was forced to take a deep breath, "great granddaughter. And that would be meaningless if this stupid deed hadn't been dutifully passed down the family line." 

Twilight's ears pressed to her skull. "I guess that explains why you feel so bound to this place." 

"Somebody needs to be responsible for this mess! And...I don't have much to my name, otherwise." Piece of Wheel looked away with shame. "I was going to sell the deed for a few gold, if only to buy a ticket...move to Canterlot. Find a new opportunity. A new life."

"But you didn't. Why?"

"I decided to visit the estate, if you can call this run down pile of cobble that." Piece of Wheel rolled her eyes and sat her rump on the cold floor. "That's when I met Lord Talonhart. He said that I had to take responsibility for the castle, and that if I cleaned it up, he'd buy the deed from me for a pretty penny- way more than any pony 'round these parts would!"

Piece recoiled when she realized the hot anger radiating from Twilight, uniquely responsible for ticking the thermometer up in the room. Her lavender coat turned red in the face, a low grumble vibrated from her throat. 

"That dirty, filthy old..." Twilight shook her head and gathered herself, "okay. But, Piece, my request still stands. You should get out of here. It doesn't matter what Lord Talonhart says or anyone else. I'll personally make sure you have somewhere to live in Canterlot, if that's where you want to go."

Piece of Wheel smiled, true and warm. She burst forward suddenly and captured the princess in a hug. "Thank you, princess." She pulled away and said, apologetic, "I can't, though. I've seen too much. Please, let me help you banish my ancestor."

Twilight hoped that, despite whatever Duke De Roue did in his lifetime, he could be brought to peace instead rather than cast into Tartarus. A soul returned to the Wheel of Life was a soul cleansed, pure energy serving the cycles of the world. Nevertheless she understood Piece of Wheel's motivations, and that the unicorn was, perhaps, perfectly capable of watching her own back after all. Just as Twilight had way back when.

However, Twilight hadn't been alone. Although she relented with an easy smile full of understanding, she conveyed further instructions to the nervous mare. "Find Princess Luna. She's in the main hall trying to break through the enchantment. Make sure she doesn't work herself to starvation and that she drinks plenty of water."

Piece of Wheel ducked her head. "Do I have to? Princess Luna is like...the scariest one."

"I'm only letting you stay under the condition that you don't wander around all on your own. So yes, you have to."

Piece saluted her and went on her way. Twilight glanced over the pictures one last time before sweeping her magic over them, gathering them into a stack, and flashing them away into her intra-dimensional stash. Her next mission was to yell at a dragon.


Morning daylight parted through oppressive darkness. Twilight Sparkle had not planned it, but she encountered Princess Celestia at a terrace, facing the fiery gradients of dawn. The magic around her horn fizzled as she released the sun into the heavens, much like setting a great beast free in the wilderness. Celestia had been a permanent fixture in Twilight's life same as the cycles of the sun and moon, same as the seasons; she didn't change, but she endured. Twilight saw clearly now with the set of wings ruffling at her sides that Princess Celestia did a lot more surviving than...well, living.

"Hey." Twilight said, light and soft as the temperate breeze gracing them from the outdoors.

Celestia glanced her way, dimmed and gloomy. Hot sunlight traced her contours harshly. "I regret you had to witness that, Twilight. It's quite embarrassing."

Twilight shook her head, negating deeply. "If I may be blunt- after all these adventures and trials and near world-ending events we've gone through together, we could...maybe consider each other friends, at last?" The worlds continued to tumble through her lips. "I-I know, you're so much older than me, still, and you'll always be my mentor even if you've graduated me, but you can lean on me, you know? I want to help-"

Celestia surprised her with an embrace. She draped a long, elegant leg over the shorter mare's back and pulled her close. Strands of her ethereal mane tickled Twilight's nose just like when she was a little filly. When Celestia pulled back the whole world spun in her eyes, so ancient and suffering.

"As a princess, I am endlessly proud of you." Underneath the regalia lay a beating heart. "But as a mare who cares for you so deeply, I resent the fate that brought you to me, and to the Elements."

A sharp pang in Twilight's chest caused her to suck in a breath. All these years later and the mere suggestion of disappointing her mentor threw her for a loop.

Celestia continued. "The world is cruel. Eternity wears you down until all that is left is routine, and only the horrible memories you drag with you through the ages remind you that you're alive. Only tragedy makes you feel things."

"I'm...ready for that, Celestia. I understand my duty."

"I know. And it scares me." 

Celestia approached the railing of the terrace. Lush forest enclosed the perimeter of the castle, imprisoning them from the bustling outside world. Twilight refused to be dismissed with immortality mumbo-jumbo and trotted closer. 

"I need you to try to patch things up with Luna." She said, ready to embrace the naivete of her request.

Celestia didn't try to mock her, only deflated further. "If only it were that simple, dear."

"I know it's not, but it would be a start! If you agree to collaborate now, we'll complete this mission and...who knows, maybe things will be different once we return to Canterlot!"

"There's nothing I want more." Her voice was heavy, trembling with desperation, sinking with exhaustion. "But we can't force Luna into anything. It's her prerogative to reproach me. I continue to fail her, even now."

"Luna loves you. If you apologize-"

"Please, Twilight, darling. I don't think I can continue this conversation." She said, her voice tight.

Celestia didn't wish to cry in front of her student, even now. Twilight wondered if she would ever be a fully grown mare in her eyes...clearly she was perceived to be mature enough to make suggestive comments about her romantic status with her own, not that much younger sister. The ancients were so strange- was Twilight destined to become this abstruse?

She contemplated the sunrise and the rustling trees under the somber stillness of her mentor. Then, she briefly nuzzled her white neck. "Alright. I'll get going."

"Don't hesitate to report any findings." 

Twilight would have to- against her own impulses to please- conceal her activities. She figured Celestia wouldn't appreciate her interrogating an ancient dragon. 


But she was done with niceties. As Twilight traversed the castle, she swung open every door she encountered. Guest room after guest room, closets, armories...

Twilight realized why Piece of Wheel was instructed to steer them clear of these seemingly unimportant corners of the castle. They were full of gold and treasure, piles both big and small, glistening ingots, gemstones as small as a teardrop and as large as a grapefruit. Twilight had never seen such riches in her life, not even when she took a peek into Canterlot Castle's treasury. 

At last, Twilight encountered Lord Talonhart himself. She found a set of important-looking doors, tall and decorated, at the end of an off-shot corridor from the main hall. Twilight surged her magic into them, reckless and righteous, and swung them open to reveal a chapel. 

Two columns of pews lined up towards an altar, their seats covered with coins. Thick dark curtains obscured walls and broken windows. Torn banners of Lunar Supremacy hung in spidery tendrils, tickling towers of stacked golden coins. Lord Talonhard slumbered in a bed of his own riches. 

Twilight wasn't quite expecting to find anyone here, and when faced by the sheer magnitude of the scaly, bearded elder, she felt her burning courage turn to smolders. No. Twilight gulped against the ice stabbing her chest. She would convince Talonhart to dismiss Piece of Wheel, then help her reconcile the sisters...somehow.

With a hoof she reached towards the nearest stack of coins and, with a small tap, knocked it over. This initiated a chain reaction, a cascade of twinkling, clattering gold falling upon itself until it drowned the dragon lord at the very front of the chapel.

Lord Talonhart groaned, then yawned, then grunted. He stretched his arms and then his neck over the blanket of gold. "Who goes there?!" His large voice rattled the walls.

"It's Twilight- Princess Twilight Sparkle." She stamped her hoof down, then approached through the parted sea of gold. "And you, Lord Talonhart, tricked an innocent pony into servitude!"

Lord Talonhart stared her down his long snout, lazy plumes of hot smoke curling out of his nostrils. Twilight was but a bug in his presence, one he was unfortunately forced to address. "Why, I tricked nobody. We struck a very fair deal!"

Twilight snorted. "Fair. Right. And then you summon us out here to clean up this mess so you can have a new home! All for pennies!"

Lord Talonhart emerged from his nest of treasures and shook off the coins lodged between his scales. In cat-like motions, he curled over the pile and settled down, crossing one claw over the other. "Princess Celestia touted your intelligence, little one."

"And?"

"And yet you're spouting nonsense! I thought you were smart enough to comprehend the stakes of this mission: the spirits must be freed for the sake of Harmony!"

"So you sleep!" Twilight shouted. "While us princesses drink dusty old tea and an innocent, vulnerable pony is terrorized by dangerous entities!"

Talonhart rolled his eyes. "And whatever do you want me to do, little one? I have no knowledge of magic or ghouls. I'd be of no help to you!"

Twilight narrowed her eyes at the dragon. "You want the castle, so you buy out the deed from Piece of Wheel right now." Authority resonated from her chest. "And let her go."

A smile curled Talonhart's cold, dry lips. He arose, then began a slow, circling dance around the small pony. His large, muscular frame slithered, limber and light, as his slitted eyes seized Twilight up and down.

"Or else?" He teased.

Twilight gulped. Was she about to levy a threat his way?

"I dread to think my darling Celestia would approve of such insolence."

The mention of the one alicorn that could send her weeping under her bed constricted her throat. If only her friends were here...Rainbow Dash would think of an insult, and Rarity would dance diplomacy around this jerk. Twilight Sparkle was a mare incomplete without her fellow elements. 

Princess Celestia cared deeply for Lord Talonhart, as they shared a bond only forged by eons mounted on top of eons, soldiered together by pure misery. Twilight could hardly comprehend it, but...

Twilight turned around to look the dragon hovering over her in the eye. "You know her so well, huh?"

"Better than you could ever hope to, of course." Talonhart bared a sharp fang as he smirked. 

"Sure...then you know the root of their disharmony."

Lord Talonhart curled his neck, lifting his large head away from Twilight, and quirked a brow.

"It's beyond me." Twilight lamented, a clueless damsel turned around. "To Princess Celestia I am but a filly, and Princess Luna barely looks my way. And yet I could never understand why there's still a rift between them, no matter how hard I try..."

Lord Talonhart huffed thick clouds of smoke, then slithered past Twilight towards his nest of coin. "The Elements will choose any dimwit these days." He grumbled. Twilight ignored her bruised ego. "Clearly, Celestia is far too self-absorbed to really listen to her little sister, and the whiny moon princess drowns out her own guilt with her crippling sense of inferiority!"

"Ouch." Twilight felt the sting of the brutal honesty even if not directed her way.

"They can't hear each other over the roar of the sun. So, really, they're doomed to spiral around one another, forever and ever." Lord Talonhart hopelessly declared, though he didn't seem to care

So long as he had a fortress of stone and gold, it didn't really affect him. He merely wanted the spirits vanished.

Twilight turned towards the exit, having heard enough. "For your own sake, I hope you're wrong."

"Bah!" 

"After a thousand years of spirits accumulating here...there's not enough magic in any two of us to destroy that seal. And as long as it endures, the castle will remain haunted."

This assessment drew a twitch of concern into Lord Talonhart's hardened expression. "You're wrong." He said to the back of the retreating alicorn. "You're wrong!"

Twilight crossed the exit and slammed the double doors behind her.