Once again I found myself in a position where I was no longer certain who I was. Once again I found myself in a situation spiraling wildly out of my control and unable to handle the consequences should it do so. I felt trapped, pincered, like the life was to be squeezed from me at any moment should I fail to make the right call.
"Cadence, do you prefer the yellow or the blue gem?" Celestia asked me, with both of them placed on the table in front of me.
I knew that, if I failed to tell her the right answer, she was liable to snap and kill me, along with half of the city. Half of me was telling me to go yellow, the other half, to go blue. If Celestia made a poor showing at the ball tonight, she would blame the gem. If she blamed the gem, she would blame me. If she blamed me, nothing obvious would happen until, at some unspecified time, I'd find one of my dresses had been mysteriously covered in itching powder.
Celestia was planning a shindig with many of the upper-crust types, which was nothing too out of the ordinary. However, she had recently been giving favor to the ambassador from Muletopia, probably because of some land-use arrangement or political intrigue I didn't care for. As was her wont, she never told me exactly what was going on until it was far too late for me to have an impact, and she would frequently give under-the-table hoof-bumps to my mother when they discussed me.
"Go blue. Oh yeah, that's the color of his eyes," I said, referring to the ambassador.
"Really? Okay, I hope this will work," she said, fretting too much over the small things. She always did have an eye for detail.
It had been over a year since we had conspired to bring little Twilight Sparkle into the magic school. She had almost failed the entrance exam, giving us a bit of a headache until fate intervened. The repairs on the tower still haven't completed, so we've been a bit short of office space in the interim.
Since Celestia spent much of her time tutoring the growing mare, I had time to return to my old life as I had left it. My parents had practically forgotten about the whole thing the moment the next big case or deal came up, except Tia insisted on having them over for dinner every now and then. My friends had been adapting fairly well, except Minty would constantly ask me which rumors were true and which were false, hanging off of every word. I honestly didn't know about almost any of them, since I didn't keep up with the staff and didn't exactly have any royal duties to attend to, so I usually just dismissed them all.
Gabby had taken care of everything at school. When it resumed in September, not a single pony even gave me a second glance. Not because I wasn't some sort of celebrity, but because they knew Gabby would give them a whack if they did. Even better, our biology courses, taught by Ms. Bunsen, were a breeze. She had become quite amenable for some reason, giving me C's even if I did not understand the lessons.
It had been big news around the school when Mr. Prescott and Ms. Bunsen officially became an item. By that, I mean it made the school paper's headline, which usually just reported on sports scores, since what else does a school paper report?
I had also been the only pony who hadn't known the two had an interest in one another. When I first saw the headline, I had presented it to my friends over lunch with a sense of pride. I couldn't tell them I was responsible, at least partially, yet I felt it was something that needed reinforcing.
"Oh yeah, you didn't know?" Squeaky had said, munching on a sandwich. "Those two have been eying each other for like, ever."
"Yeah, I'm surprised. Everypony knew," Gabby said, giving me a blank look.
"Well I didn't!" I said.
Why am I always the last one to learn about this stuff?
I had done my best to resume my 'job', for which I couldn't even explain had I wanted to. Having a sister who's in charge of the entirety of the government meant I'd never be short on funds, so I could leave my old foalsitting work behind me. Instead, I would wander around the town looking for the little whispers that had always led me to a soul who was in pain. I had still refused to take my sword with me, leaving it in the room Tia had prepared. I wanted so badly for it to not be necessary, and so far it had not been. Besides, what would my friends think if they found out I was roaming the streets, mostly at night, carrying a sword and slaying villains with it?
That I was a superhero?
Tomorrow night I am definitely taking my sword with me.
"So, will you be attending tonight, or shall I find some excuse for you?" Celestia said, examining her array of golden items. All had been gifts given to her over the ages, she had never commissioned a single item and would have had them melted them down were they anything but gold. As she had said, gold was a useless metal, pretty, but not much else. Had some smith presented her with a crown made of iron, she'd have it reforged into shoes for orphans.
"Actually, I was going to go on patrol tonight. As usual," I said.
"Hmm, and have you been running into any trouble?" she asked, looking at her crown as she socketed the blue gem on it with her magic.
"Never have I seen it this bad," I said, sighing. "Usually it was one or two per year, and that's all across Equestria. Now, it's one or two per month, in this city alone."
"I see. I had a feeling this would happen," she said as she put on her golden shoes and that big chest plate she always wore to formal occasions.
"Hey, should I wear the high shoes or the low shoes?" she said, with one hoof in either set.
"Tia, this is important, can you please be serious for a moment?" I said.
"I am being quite serious, why do you think I'm trying to look my best?" she said dismissively.
"Just cut the crap and tell me what you're playing at already," I said. Tia would always do this, mostly to make herself feel so clever when she eventually revealed her plan to me, as if I had been trying to foil it. We were on the same team! Just tell me already!
"Fine, if you want to be direct about it. I'm securing you special permissions to go and do your thing abroad," she said, deciding on the low shoes for tonight.
"I need special permissions?" I asked.
"Yes, unless you want the Muletopians to be arresting you for carrying deadly weapons around. I have a task for you," she said, now considering a set of earrings.
"Look, I told you, I don't do the politics stuff, that's your business, and I'd prefer if you left me out of it," I said. I felt like stamping my hoof to make an impression, but I was standing on a rug. The stamp made no sound, and Tia was facing away from me. I quickly repositioned myself for a stamp that would punctuate my revulsion to whatever she said next.
"And if I wanted someone to bungle a job, you'd be the first on the list," she said, turning around. No earrings on, I noticed.
"No, I think this is something only you can handle," she walked past me and took a quick glance towards the door before shutting it with her magic. She then turned and put her head close to my ears. "I think there's more than one bearer,"
"What? But -" I started.
"Yes yes, Twilight is one, that's obvious, and I'll keep a close watch on her. Yet, I think there's more than one. Do you remember that prophecy?" she said.
"Pah, the one I made all those years ago?" I said. It was true, I was the one who made that prophecy, though I did not remember doing it myself. Celestia and Luna had told me that my voice had changed, become much deeper, and that I had sleepwalked into the throne room of our old palace before they found me. I then spoke those words:
"And, on the longest day of the ten-thousandth year, the stars will aid in its escape, and it will bring about night-time eternal. Where the three faded, the six will burn strong, on the edge of madness and forbidden deeper, tolerance will not conquer hate, but forgive it."
I didn't remember any of it, I woke up the next day to find the two of them standing over me. Personally, I hadn't put much stock in whatever I had been dreaming about, though those two did. Celestia had copied it down, I even saw it, in a mangled form, half completed, in a book I found open in the study where she often lectured Twilight.
"You think 'the six' refers to her and some others? Why? Why should we believe in what I mumbled when I wasn't even awake, almost ten thou-"
I realized what the significance was, even if it was probably a coincidence. It was almost ten thousand years ago wasn't it? And, coincidentally, here had come Twilight. She would be of age at around the tenth millennium mark. Perhaps there was something to this?
"I see you understand now," Celestia said, giving me that wry grin she always gives me whenever she's feeling proud of herself.
"Fine, so there's more than one. What do you want me to do about it, scour every corner of the globe looking for them?" I asked.
"You have a point. No, I don't think that would even be necessary, I think that they can take care of themselves," she said, raising a hoof to her face as she thought.
"There is something else I need your advice on. I've been noticing some odd patterns recently. You know the symptoms better than any. It starts with insomnia, then paranoia, hallucinations..." she said, trailing off.
"Yeah, and if we don't fix it, full on insanity," I said simply. I was desperately trying not to think about what was happening all over the world right now, creatures being slowly and inexorably driven mad through no fault of their own, for the high crime of simply being born at the wrong time.
"There's been a rash of incidents in Los Pegasus that match that exactly, the psychologists are baffled. Our official cover story is an unidentified disease, possibly airborne," she said.
"So? You want me to go over there and clean it out?" I said. I had had to do something similar a month ago in Ponyville, and a time before that in Cloudsdale. It was nothing unusual, sometimes an outbreak would happen and I would have to go deal with it. Yes, they were becoming more frequent, yet still nothing world-stopping.
"This one is different. Every single victim has been attending a flight school, or has been in direct contact with the school at some point. Hummingbird's Flight College, that's the one," Celestia said. She took a look at the wall clock.
"Look, I have to get going. I left the reports on the bed in your room, have a look at them and tell me if you think anything is suspicious. Oh, and since you're not coming, you'll have to be on Twilight duty while I'm at the ball, only a few hours," she said, moving towards the doorway.
"You're sure you're not just seeing connections for its own sake? I know how you get sometimes," I said.
"Cadence, I hope more than anything that I am. Either way, you have much work to do," she said, stepping through the door and closing it behind her. One of these days I was going to be the one giving orders to her, I would make sure of it somehow. Until then, I settled for taking her private stash of itching powder and putting just a tiny amount on her throw pillow. She thought I didn't know where she kept it, well, she was wrong. That'll show her for putting super-spicy chili powder in my facial cleanser.
As I made my way downstairs to Twilight's room, I began to wonder about the effects that my little prophecy had had on my sister. She was always so reasonable and logical, and yet here she was, putting all her faith in a muttering that could just as soon be forgot. If anything, her belief in the prophecy would no doubt cause he to manipulate events such that it came true. Couldn't it be true that Twilight was just a strange anomaly? The timing was a coincidence, ten-thousand is exactly the same as eleven-thousand from any reasonable perspective. We are hard-wired to see big round numbers as important, yet why should fate care about how we see things?
Then again, wasn't Luna banished around one thousand years ago? The seal was weakening, that was for sure, on both hers and another's. The evil bound deep within the earth was awakening, it would happen soon, yet soon could be tomorrow, or a century from now. Could we really put our faith in such mystical mumbo-jumbo?
As expected, Twilight wasn't in her room. We had given her this room so she could be within a short distance of us at all times, should another attack occur. It had been over a year without an incident, though this was not necessarily because she was no longer a target. Rather, she could also be too dangerous to attack, since she was now under our direct supervision. On the weekends, she would go home to her parent's house, and I had to follow her around from a distance. The attacks never came. I was always within a block of her should they, but the attacks never came.
After checking Twilight's room, I started to make my way over towards the library. I took a detour to get the papers off of my bed, right where Celestia had left them, before finding Twilight in the basement beneath the main reading room in the library. She was looking for a book, she barely noticed me as she scanned the shelves.
"What are you looking for?" I asked. She turned around and widened her eyes.
"Cadence!" she said, bouncing over to me. Though she was growing up so fast, she was still a filly at heart, and I knew what she wanted from me.
"Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake!" she said, doing the little dance we had come up with when I was still her foalsitter.
"Clap your hooves and give a little shake!" I finished the song for her as we shook our tails around. Fortunately nopony else was around, I was starting to get embarrassed whenever I did that. Twilight didn't care, she loved the ritual, and she loved that fact that it was our special greeting. I wished I could be so carefree.
"Aren't you going to the party tonight? I bet Celestia would love to show off her prized student..." I said, hoping to get Twilight to go to the party. My hope was in vain.
"I'm not much into parties. There's a big book on frogs somewhere around here, want to help me find it?" she asked me. Frogs?
Frogs?
I mean, I have nothing against frogs, but the book we eventually hunted down was hundreds of pages. Hundreds of pages, on frogs! I could tell you everything about frogs in one sentence: "They hop around and eat flies a lot".
What else do you need to know?
Regardless, once we located the book, we returned to the main floor of the library. Twilight spent the rest of the evening reading it, while I took a look over the reports that Celestia had left for me.
The symptoms were exactly as expected. There were twenty-one patients all admitted to the psychiatric hospital within two weeks of one another, and, as expected, all but one was either a student or employee of the flight school. The one unusual patient seemed to have no connection, but Celestia had written on the bottom of the document, "patient found in colt's locker room, having broken in, with stage three symptoms". So, twenty patients and one filly-fooler.
I checked over the patient interview reports. What struck me was the slow onset. Often, a pony would develop insomnia and paranoia, then progress to full blown insanity within a short time, a week was the longest I had seen a pony hold out. Yet, all of these patients were in early stage two, hallucinations, except for the one who had broken in. He had spent a weekend in the building after getting himself stuck with no way out of a ventilation chamber. Once the guards pried him out, he attacked them with his bare hooves and tried to bite at them.
Twilight was totally oblivious to the horror that overtook me as I read the documents. It seemed bizarre, but, was the connection the building itself? This had never been the case, in every other situation it was the invisible corruption, manifesting itself as black tar to my sight, that latched onto a pony and squeezed the goodness from them. Yet here, once they removed themselves from the premises, they did not progress further.
Fortunately, this meant I could treat the patients. Only in stage three was the damage too much to be undone. Unfortunately, it meant others were at risk of being afflicted, and I'd need to find the cause as soon as possible.
Twilight and I didn't notice as Celestia came in and stood behind us. She looked over my shoulder at the documents I was reading before whispering in my ear, "boo".
I didn't jump up or backwards, that would have hurt somepony, instead I just shuddered in place. Twilight didn't notice, as usual, she was so absorbed in her book about frogs that she'd miss a bomb going off right next to her.
"Well?" Celestia asked me.
I only nodded.
"Did it go well with the ambassador?" I asked, trying to change the subject. Twilight's ears pricked up.
"Turns out he's a red fan. Who would have guessed?" Tia said, levitating off her crown. "Still got the job done, I'm just that slick," she said.
"I could have told you that. He also likes lemon pie for dessert, and his favorite food is carrot tarts," Twilight said, turning to face us.
Celestia shot me a look, a quizzical one. "How did you know that?" she asked Twilight.
"I read it in his memoirs. It's all right here," she said, motioning to another book on the table. I hadn't noticed it before.
"At some point you're going to need something that can't be found in a book, Twilight" Celestia said, shaking her head. "What are you going to do then?"
Twilight considered for a moment before answering.
"Find it out and write a book on it?"