However they tried, neither Emerald nor Mercury could console the Princess of the Day. She had stopped shouting, but no words could bring her crying to cease. The loss of her sister’s body, far more than the seal itself, had stolen her hope, so that she wished only to retreat into her heart, and never to face the terrible truth that she had seen.
“We cannot waste time here,” said Emerald at last, as Celestia waved away his attempts to soothe her. “Not any more. Mercury, go and wake the members of your squad, ponies you can trust, and meet me in the Grand Hall. Quickly now.”
Right away Sergeant Mercury hurried down the steps of the tower knocking one by one at each of the chambers that housed a member of his group. Gumdrop came out quickly, having been unable to sleep, and Plum Cake too. Opalwater answered slowly, rubbing his eyes. He shot to attention when Mercury told them that the Princess of the Night had disappeared. Together they descended to the atrium, and from there into the Grand Hall which leads out to the castle grounds.
Emerald hurried to Twilight’s room and knocked furiously. The young unicorn answered with the same urgency, following him down the steps of the tower without demanding any explanation. She nearly fell to her knees when he told her.
“So what’s the plan?” she said, regaining her composure.
“I’ll tell you when we’re all together,” said Emerald.
They hurried toward the Grand Hall where the four able members of the 501st were waiting. Emerald, in a commanding voice, told them he would be setting off immediately to the east, and the others, though unaware of where they were headed, followed without question. Twilight alone spoke up a second time.
“Where are we going, Emerald?” she said. “Do you know what happened to Princess Luna?”
“There’s a man who was helping Spade,” he explained. “I would wager my life he took her. He and Spade rendezvoused in Sparkling Crag, in Glimmerwood. That’s where we’ll find them.”
“Are you expecting a fight?” she asked, nervously. “Emerald?”
“We had better hurry,” said Emerald, increasing his pace. He did not utter another word until they reached the forest’s edge. Even as they passed Spade’s ritual site, as barren as they had left it, he only breathed more heavily for a time.
“I do not need to warn you of the forest’s dangers,” he said when they stood before the majestic border trees of Glimmerwood. “At this hour the Ursas will be foraging, and the elk should be feeding, too. The cows will be extra ferocious under the influence of the Agave sap, so be sharp. I’ve brought with me an invisibility charm that should shield us all, but do not take it lightly.
“We will be heading toward the valley where the 501st was attacked by Spade and his followers only a week ago. Be prepared to do whatever it takes to rescue the Princess from her abductor. Does everyone understand?”
A singular ‘Aye!’ resounded all around.
“Then off we go.”
Emerald Alembic cleared a large opening from the underbrush and forced his way into the wood. The vines and branches seemed to part before him as he walked, as if some power compelled them to yield, though he used no magic. He forged ahead, paying no attention to the well-being or presence of the rest of his company; Twilight Sparkle took it upon herself to see to that.
The sounds of the forest, whether the cries of predatory birds or the snapping of branches beneath the hooves of wild beasts, began to spook the callow members of the 501st, who remembered all too well their last adventure here. But Emerald remained unshaken. On the contrary, each tiny sound apparently augmented his resolve, and his pace increased while the others shrank in fear. Only Twilight’s gentle reminders made Emerald aware of the great distance this put between them.
When once Emerald was paused and waiting for the others to catch him up, the ground shook fiercely once, again, and then a third time. The shaking ceased and the others hurried to Emerald’s side.
“Emerald,” said Mercury, “was that—”
“An Ursa,” Emerald said, staring intently to the southeast. “She isn’t far from here, but don’t worry. We won’t cross her path.”
“Why’s it stopped?” said Gumdrop. “Isn’t it moving?”
“No, no,” Emerald replied. “Ursas are very slothful creatures, because of their size. To move even a bit requires tremendous energy. They find a source of food, settle in, and feed until it’s gone, then return to their caves to sleep.”
“That’s right,” Mercury nodded, greedy to show off his learning as well. “They eat the tender leaves and branches off the treetops, and leave the older foliage alive to produce new shoots. They prefer young elm leaves, which is why so many have migrated east to forests like this one.”
“Actually they’re hibernatory animals,” Emerald interjected, keeping his eyes forward as if he were talking to no one; “more than anything they crave the taste of leaves in early autumn, just before they turn. Their favorite foliage is maple, so most Ursa territory is in the north where maple is abundant. The Ursas that live in this forest are most likely outliers or refugees. But because this forest is predominantly redwood, and inedible to them, they prefer the elms that grow here.”
Mercury felt challenged and began to speak indignantly.
“Where did you study Ursas?” he asked, a haughty and skeptical tone about him. “Canterlot University wouldn’t have taught you such a thing.”
Emerald gave off the slightest noise that resembled a laugh.
“I haven’t studied Ursas,” said Emerald. For an instant Mercury allowed himself a triumphant smile and a quick glance around at the witnesses to his victory. Then Emerald added: “I used to live with the Ursas.”
“You’re kidding!” Gumdrop let her jaw drop. “You lived with Ursas?”
“When I was in hiding,” said Emerald, growing reticent. “In the north. I don’t enjoy discussing it.”
Once again the earth trembled under the distant footfall of the mystical creatures, and all in the company were silent. The trees began to thin and the underbrush became steadily more edible as they progressed.
“We’re approaching the valley,” said Mercury.
“I know,” said Emerald. He felt a powerful magical signature up ahead and bade everyone to stop.
“What is it, Emerald?” said Twilight. “The abductor?”
Emerald shook his head. He parted the vines that hung like a veil against the valley. There sat the dimmest silhouette of a tall pony at the riverside, and stretched out across from her along the winding stream, casting a shadow over the entire valley, lay an Ursa Major, whose spangled coat sparkled like starlight. The great bear had her head on her paws, and intelligent eyes were flitting across the river where the pony sat, as if the two were having a silent conversation.
The Ursa turned her head toward them slowly as a tortoise would have done, and spotting them began to lift her massive frame above the mountains. The valley shook as if with fear, and all the members of the 501st knew nothing else to do but emulate the hills and shake in kind. Before the six could act, the Ursa turned away and walked along the river to the east, leaving them behind.
Her massive shadow followed and let the moonlight fall upon the solitary pony, who turned and saw the faces in the trees. She jumped to her hooves, overcome with joy.
“Emerald?” she called.
“Luna!” he cried in return.
The Princess of the Night came bounding over stones and tall orange grass, and leapt into the stallion’s arms. He felt the patter of a tear against his back, and returned her embrace with equal passion.
“Oh, Em!” she said, weeping. “You’re all right!”
“Me?” said Emerald. “How did you get here?”
“I don’t know. The last thing I remember I was standing over you when you were weak, and then it all goes black. Oh, Em, I was so afraid that they would kill you. Where’s my sister? Where is Celestia? Is she not with you?”
“The time will come, Luna,” said Emerald, seizing her shoulders and holding her in front of himself. “I need you to tell me anything, anything at all, that you have seen since waking up. Did you see anyone? Did anyone talk to you?”
The Princess shook her head.
“I woke up here like I had gone to sleep in the grass,” she said. “There was no one, and I have spoken only to Gesmene—the Ursa who guards this valley,” she added quickly to subdue their questioning looks.
“You've seen nothing else?” Emerald insisted, a desperation reaching out to her through his speckled, golden eyes.
“There was a strange bird,” she answered after some thought.
Emerald’s heart skipped a beat.
“Strange?” he said.
“It was dazzling alabaster, and seamless,” Luna explained. “It appeared to be made of neither flesh nor feathers. It was flying away when I opened my eyes.”
Emerald’s suspicions, if ever he had doubted them, were confirmed at that moment. He gazed up at the hills and saw something else that made him positively dizzy: a barren cliff face of pure white chalk towering above them.
“ ‘I saw a white bird on a white cliff,’ ” he whispered, barely able to draw breath.
“What did you say, Emerald?” said Twilight.
“Your dream,” he said, turning to Luna. “A white bird on a white cliff. It came true.”
Luna was surprised; she hadn’t noticed.
“Emerald,” she said, “there’s something else. I should have mentioned it right away but I—”
“What is it,” he said urgently.
The Princess trotted to the river’s edge and reached beneath a precipitous rock. When she had located what she was looking for she retrieved it with her magic and returned to the others. She handed Emerald a loosely wrapped package of brown paper and cotton twine. It was addressed to him.
“Where did you get this?” he whispered.
“It was beside me when I regained consciousness. I hid it to keep it safe. I somehow felt that you would come, so I waited for you. I do not know who wrote it.”
“The stallion who brought you here must have—”
“What stallion?” said Luna. Her voice took on a sudden sternness; she would not concede until she was answered. “How did I get here? What happened to me that night?”
Emerald breathed in deeply and sighed. He told the Princess all that had happened in her absence, from start to finish, including the events which had concluded only hours before. When he had finished Luna was sitting in the grass, a glossy look veiling her eyes.
“From what you say,” Emerald continued, “the one who stole you from the palace and brought you here could only have been White Bird, the same stallion who was helping Spade. The package as well must be from him. I do not know what his agenda was, bringing you here and breaking the seal upon you, but I am apprehensive.”
“Will you open it?” said Luna, gesturing toward the package.
Emerald slipped it into his saddlebag.
“Later. Luna, when we return to Canterlot I would prefer that it remain a secret from Celestia until I am aware of its contents. She is troubled enough already. Can you agree to that?”
“Yes, Emerald.”
“Then we had better return to the palace. Mercury, lead the way.”
“Opalwater,” said Mercury, gesturing with a gentlecoltly wave of his hoof. “You are better with the vines than I.”
“Aye, chief,” said Opalwater, and marched into the words.
The journey back was marked irregularly by the bugling of the intoxicated elk, and once out of the forest there was only silence. The starlight seemed to jingle as it glistened, so silent was the night, and only now and then a mouse was caught up by an owl and carried to a lonely willow tree.
Opalwater led the charge, with Mercury and Gumdrop right behind. Twilight Sparkle walked with Plum Cake, and Emerald Alembic walked beside the Princess Luna far behind the rest, restlessly taking in the scenery of the night as if to stop his gaze from seeking her. No one said a word except to say the castle was in sight, or the journey near an end.
When they reached the city gates, they were greeted by the guards as conquering heroes. The fanfare of a hundred trumpets announced their arrival, waking ponies from their sleep at that early hour to watch the meager parade of lost princess and her rescuers. The six of them marched slowly to the castle, where they were welcomed by the cheering voices of every maid and servant in the palace. The ecstatic joy at having their Princess returned to them made fillies lean precariously from tower windows to see her with their own uncertain eyes.
It was Emerald who forced the masses back to make a path for them into the palace. Yet even in the palace servants crowded and did not give them passage until ordered by the voice of Luna herself.
They made their way up the steps to the Watchtower Room, where the Princess of the Day was still in tears and inconsolable. To her the peasant fanfare was a nuisance, and enraged her by its insensitivity to her grief. When Emerald entered with the members of the 501st she tried to shout them out, as desperately as he tried to calm her temper. Although the sister she was mourning entered with them, she was blinded by her misery.
Luna herself was heartbroken to see Celestia in such a state. She approached her sister slowly, placed a hoof upon her shoulder, and turned her sister’s head to face her own. At once Luna’s heart broke anew, but for a different reason: such relief fell over Celestia’s face, so much joy was written in her features, so much disbelief hung to the floor beside her jaw, that Luna began to cry as well.
Celestia jumped into her younger sister’s arms so suddenly that Luna nearly tumbled to the floor. They held each other tightly and let their tears fall on the other’s shoulders. It was a warm reunion that melted all the coldness and despair of that old stone room. No one was untouched by their sororal affection.
The Princess of the Day pulled herself from her sister, and looked up with shining eyes at Emerald Alembic. Her smile was pure gratitude, her gaze the love a sister feels for a brother. Even in her joy she could think only of the debt she owed him, and how she would repay it.
“Ask whatever you want,” Celestia told him in her ecstasy, “and if it dwells in this world I will see that you have it.”
Emerald gazed around the room with a dispassionate expression on his face. He looked at Luna, then at Twilight, then at Mercury and the privates of the five-hundred first relief squad.
“I can think of nothing I could want,” he answered, “that I don’t already have.”
Celestia gave him a fond smile.
“Sergeant Mercury,” she said.
“Yes, Your Highness,” said the sergeant, standing full at attention.
“Find a messenger at once, and tell him to toll the bells one hundred times, to celebrate the return of Equestria’s Princess of the Night. No one should be unaware of such a magnificent occasion.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Mercury, and he sped off alone to find a messenger. Not long afterward the message was received and the bells began to resonate throughout the city. For the better part of an hour no inch of the city was silent, but rang sympathetically with the bells of every tower in Canterlot. All were awake, and all rejoiced, and there were those who ran through the streets as criers, declaring that Princess Luna was revived.
Celestia never asked how Luna was unsealed. She did not seem to wonder. In all respects it was Emerald who was her savior. Just as he defied the odds in pulling Spade out of the Nethers, in her mind nothing was impossible to him if Luna’s safety was in question.
Faithful to Emerald’s wishes, no one broached the subject of the package that was left for him with Luna, and it remained a secret. Emerald, in the chaos of the celebration, was able to make his way back to his chamber and deposit his saddlebag. He locked it in his chest of ingredients, to which the only key was his.
As the hours dragged on, the festive attitude was supplanted by exhaustion. None except Opalwater had slept since capturing Spade, and each was eager to find a bed. They all—Emerald Alembic, Twilight Sparkle, Mercury and the members of the five-oh-first—begged leave from the Princesses so they might sleep. Celestia herself was helped by Luna to the dark rotunda, and fell stubbornly asleep on Luna’s bed. Luna alone stayed awake through the daylight.
Emerald entered his now-familiar chamber and bolted the door behind him. He hurried to the chest of ingredients and unlocked it quickly. His eyes were heavy and tired, but he could not sleep without knowing what was in the little brown parcel.
Cautiously, like a surgeon he unwrapped the package. What he found inside was a parchment wrapped around six small vials of opaque, blue liquid. He pulled the parchment away and stood the vials up along his desk. One side of the scroll was blank, on the other was a lengthy letter. Emerald straightened out the page with weights and read:
To His Eminence Emerald Alembic,
I hope that tonight’s events shall be enough to prove to you that I am no enemy of yours. Do not fret over my identity: that will be clear soon enough. As for the Elements, I pray that you will not begrudge my keeping them for some time. I belong to an order whose sole charge is the protection of the Elements and their bearers. Our prophetess has warned us that there is a danger of one, unbalanced and misguided, who may steal the Elements of Harmony and harness them for more nefarious ends. To prevent this I was tasked with retrieving them, to be placed in a more secure location.
Part of my charge, Emerald, was ensuring that you achieved the Inner Harmony that all of your race strive for. Your hatred for the Earth pony Stowaway Spade was your greatest obstacle to this. I must apologize for how I have misled and manipulated the both of you. Emerald, I made Spade stronger to make you stronger. However, you should know that I had no hand in the events that took place in the Royal Garden; that was entirely Spade’s initiative, and I would have prevented it had I foreseen it. I have done what I can to reconcile this oversight.
We are proud of the compassion with which you handled Stowaway Spade. You are certainly worthy to be called a Master of Harmony.
I am forbidden from any further disclosure to you for the time being, but your training is incomplete. When you are ready to meet me, visit Callisto, the Queen of the Ursas, before the Blue Harvest Moon, and she will bring you to us. You will find the shortest path lies in the Valley where I left your friend.
P.S., The Experientias are our gift to you. Use them to master the use of the Elements, and nothing can stand in your way.
Signed Reverently,
—The Order of the White Bird
* * *
At the end of the letter was an address in Canterlot, which Emerald read over briefly before setting the parchment aside. He was tremendously tired, but he was determined to investigate the Experientias. He fetched the obsidian scrying stone from the corner of another table and set it on his writing desk beside the vials and the letter.
He poured the contents of the vial labeled Magic onto the flat, polished surface of the obsidian bowl. The blue liquid spread evenly into a thin film inside the bowl, and Emerald gazed intently into its reflective surface. His head swam with images, his heart was lost in a tug of war between emotions, and he was bathed in an incorruptible peace.
There at his writing desk, beside the bowl and vials and White Bird’s letter, Emerald Alembic drifted off to sleep, and dreamed of River Rose.
[The End.]