//------------------------------// // 10. Rescue // Story: Synchronicity // by Sev //------------------------------// Twilight swallowed down her panic and tried again, focusing on clearing the haze in her brain. Nothing. Not a peep of Rarity. The space in her mind where Twilight could once peer through to see the words and thoughts of her friend seemed gone now, not so much a vacant void as simply nonexistent. It was like looking for something without eyes; she lacked the tools required to see. It was frightening and worrying and disorienting and terribly, terribly normal. The bond had terminated. Twilight was once again alone in her own head. She had a feeling she should be happy about that. She wasn’t. The fact that she wasn't in a disoriented delirium told her that the bond had likely severed of its own accord, brought on by Rarity's transformation. The sequence of events leading up to the sudden disappearance of the other pony's mind were a bit of a blur in Twilight's memory. She was fairly certain she knew what had happened, but despite having mental footnotes from a first hand source, she wasn't sure she could believe it. Rarity… a princess? Fully grown and with royal authority? Twilight didn't know such a thing was even possible, and yet by all rights, her friend was probably sitting on Canterlot's throne right now. No doubt clad in the first royal dress ever designed by the princess herself. The idea made her smile, but also brought to mind the idea of adornment, and the fact that despite the link having finally dismissed itself, Twilight still didn't have the Element of Magic back. She'd expected it to return when she and Rarity we no longer linked by it, and its continued absence wasn't doing much for the state of her worry. “You’re sure she's alright?” Applejack asked. She had served as a liaison between Twilight and the bridge, as the unicorn was unwilling to leave Windswept bound on the floor without some form of friendly company, and Fluttershy wasn't much of a conversationalist. With little to report from topside save for horror stories of Pinkie Pie reciting sea shanties with lyrics the likes of which Twilight had never imagined, Applejack had recently returned to check up on the pair, just in time for Twilight's cry of alarm when her link to the white unicorn went dead. Both ponies had stepped out of the cargo hold and onto the lower decks in a futile attempt to boost Twilight's reception, and had little to show for their effort. “Yeah, I think so,” Twilight replied. “There was no immediate threat when it happened. Rainbow and Luna were both with her. It must have had something to do with the transfer of royalty.” “I didn't even think you could DO that,” Applejack muttered in response. “The idea of somepony bein’ up on Celestia's throne that isn't Celestia is hard enough to swallow as it is, let alone it bein’ Rarity.” “But you felt it?” Twilight asked, more as a means of confirming her own sanity than to check Applejack's sensory perception. The earth pony nodded. “Yeah, I felt it,” she replied, and snorted. “Princess Rarity.” Twilight waited for the inevitable comment regarding Rarity's predisposition toward abuse of power and lack of priorities, but was left surprised when Applejack made neither. “Good,” she said simply. “She'll take care of Canterlot.” Twilight blinked, taken aback by her friend's atypical response. “You think so?” she asked cautiously. Applejack raised a brow at her. “‘Course I do,” she replied simply, “why?” “Well I,” Twilight said, tripping over her words, “it’s just, I know you two are friends and all, but I always sort of got the feeling you didn't think much of her on a… practical… level.” Applejack laughed and leaned on the rail that protected her from a swift fall into the cold depths of the ocean below. “Twi, Rarity is a fussy pony,” she said matter-of-factually. “She has always been a fussy pony. What she sees in fancy dresses and yard after yard of expensive sheep fluff I'll never understand.” She shook her head in amusement, but leveled her eyes at Twilight afterward. “But I've never doubted her dedication. Her willin’ness to get dirty maybe, her ability to handle a days worth of heavy liftin’ too. But never her tenacity.” The earth pony looked out over the water, toward the now invisible shoreline. “I've lived in Ponyville all my life, sugarcube. I was there when Rarity started her little dress operation out of the garage of her parent’s house.” She smirked, “We laughed, Big Mac and I. Never figured a fancy dress shop would get anywhere in Ponyville back then.” Her smirk widened at the memory. “When Rarity sold enough dresses to get the old shop she's in now, I ate my words for dinner. No pony bought it for her. She tilled that field herself, and the odds were against her. It was only one level back then, all run down and old. She slept in the attic because she'd spent every last dime she had buying the place and wasn't willin’ to leave it alone at night. Probably the closest to 'camping' that mare's ever done.” Twilight had never pondered how Rarity's business had actually come into being. For some reason she'd assumed it had been inherited. The idea that Rarity had built the entire thing from scratch, quite literally, was impressive. “It didn't always look that way?” Twilight asked. Applejack snorted. “Shoot no,” she said, “that used to be a corral, long time ago. That's why it’s so open and round on the inside. For show ponies and stuff.” Her face lit up a bit at the memory, and she chuckled, hiding a blush. “You should have seen it, Twi. I was a bit younger back then, so, you know, bit more easily swayed by the uh… charms of the opposite sex. They used to hold a rodeo in that place that featured some of the finest examples of stallionhood you've ever laid eyes on. Granny Smith darn near wouldn't let me go watch,” she winked, “for good reason.” Twilight laughed at the idea of a teenaged Applejack swooning on the sidelines for some bucking bronco from out of town. It was humorously out of character for a pony Twilight knew to be infallibly level-headed. Applejack grinned at the memory herself. “I always used to tell Big Mac he should compete, but you know him. He's never wanted to be one in the spotlight.” Twilight bit her lip to keep from responding. She hadn't relayed Rarity's discovery about Big Macintosh's membership in the single most important group of ponies in Equestria to his sister yet, figuring that if Mac had wanted her to know he would've told her himself. Not in the spotlight perhaps, but no less important. “She didn't fix the place up on her own, you know, bein’ Rarity and all,” Applejack continued, “but she made the money to make it happen. Talked to the right ponies, held her own shows, connected and networked and everything. I know what hard work looks like, Twi. Rarity may not do the sort of work I can really wrap my head around, but she does the work. All day, everyday. Hardest working pony I know. Built her empire from nothing but dirt, and she did it all by herself.” She made a sour face. “I think that's why she frustrates me so much. I just can’t figure out why she can't put that kind of energy into something more important than… dresses.” She snorted, and looked oddly distant. “I Imagine she's doin’ that now, keepin’ Canterlot in one piece,” Applejack said finally. “She’s the right pony for the job, Twi. Were it any other time, I'd question Luna's sanity. But there's a crisis going on up there and ponies need her help. Rarity won't let them down. She'll get those ponies together and protected if she has to go door to door personally to make it happen. Ain't never been a job that needed doing that Rarity couldn't find a way to get done, not when she knew it had to happen.” Twilight smiled. Her connection to Rarity had made her innately protective of the other unicorn, and hearing Applejack's vote of confidence helped ease her worry. She turned her thoughts outward as she stared off the deck of the Sunrise toward the sea. By now the ship had traveled well beyond the sight of Equestria and was swiftly approaching open water, which had put its sailors on edge. Pinkie Pie still had command, but every league they traveled toward the horizon was another chip on every pony's shoulder. This crew had never been beyond Equestria's borders before, and as far as they were concerned, never should be. Thankfully, no rumors of their mysterious cargo had yet drifted out among the ponies manning the vessel, but the open ocean itself had its fair share of foreboding stories and mystery attached to it. While nopony was entirely certain of the reason behind Equestria's policy of not traveling too far out, most were convinced they were in place for good reason. Fluttershy dropped suddenly down from the upper deck, hovering just outside the rail in front of Twilight and Applejack and causing both ponies to jump backward in shock. She was instantly apologetic, and landed on the deck with her hooves crossed nervously. “Sorry!” she said, “I didn't mean to scare you, its just um,” she pawed at the decking, ashamed of her impolite arrival. Twilight smiled at Applejack, but said nothing. This sort of thing happened so often with Fluttershy that to attempt to ease her worry was a futile effort. Telling her 'It’s okay' would only make her worry about just how 'okay' it actually was. She continued on her own, after a moment. “We're getting close to the border, and the Admiral says that-” “The 'Admiral' is still Pinkie, sugarcube,” Applejack reminded her, “try not to let her get too inflated or she'll go floating off the boat.” “Oh, sorry, um… well I wouldn't, but she keeps hitting everypony.” Fluttershy made a face. “She says it’s the sailor's way, but um, I don't think the sailors like it much either. Although it does seem to work...” She suddenly realized she'd strayed off topic and shook her head, “Anyway, she says that they've spotted something out in the distance through the telescope. They don't know what yet, but something is waiting out there.” The other two ponies looked at each other warily. Twilight set her expression firm and cleared her throat. “Our cover story is going to fall apart here pretty soon either way,” she said with a decisive tone. “Once we get to the border and find one of Windswept's 'Wells', we're going to have to drop the act and dive in. I'm going to go get her untied.” She turned for the hatch into the cargo bay. “You two head up topside and make sure no pony gets too over-enthusiastic. We don't want to provoke a fight. We already know they're willing to kill the princess if we don't behave, and if we start looking too confrontational...” she didn't finish. She didn't need to. Fluttershy's eyes were wide and worried and she nodded wordlessly. Applejack looked more composed, but she felt the pressure too. They were walking a knife's edge. It would be one thing if the kelpies were holding the princess for ransom and wouldn't receive it if she was hurt, but they weren't. They wanted Equestria's military, and if they couldn't get it, killing her would be the next best thing. That she was still alive at all was almost a courtesy, and no pony wanted to push their luck. “C'mon, sugarcube,” Applejack said to Fluttershy when Twilight had turned for the door. “Let’s go make sure the 'Admiral' hasn’t already ordered everypony to the cannons.” “EVERYPONY TO THE CANNONS!” Pinkie's voice rang out over the ship's long, hollow communication tubes, echoing out of the fluted horns as a shrill command from on high. Applejack felt her heart jump up into her throat. “Oh no!” Fluttershy yelped. “What is she doing?!” Applejack's response was drowned out by a sudden explosion of water off the side of the Sunrise. The ship listed hard in the opposite direction and sent both ponies careening into the bulkhead, but it recovered a moment later and Applejack was back upright. Her hooves dug into the wooden decking and she dashed for the bow, determined to figure out what Pinkie had gotten them into. Fluttershy was behind her, leaving Twilight and Windswept within the ship's holds. The situation on deck was deceptively quiet. Shorthanded as the Sunrise was when it left port, only four of it's already meager ten gun complement were manned, with green sailors scanning the horizon frantically in every direction for a target. Pinkie Pie, still in the guise of Admiral Magenta McGorgamaforg, had her now infamous smoking pipe clenched in her teeth and was standing atop what Applejack knew to be her party cannon: a largely harmless device, save for its effects on a room's paintjob and wallpaper. But it looked formidable enough and was the only gun facing forward. Applejack just hoped she wouldn't have to fire it. “Steady...” Pinkie cautioned. “They're out there somewhere.” “Just what do you think you’re doin’?!” Applejack hissed when she got close enough to do so without being overheard by the crew. “Have you forgotten who they've GOT?” “They fired first!” Pinkie replied defensively, removing her pipe from her mouth for a moment. “There was this shape waaay out on the horizon, and then it disappeared into the water, and then boom!” “ADMIRAL!” one of the crewmen yelled, pointing. There was a swell in the water some distance away. A massive hump, like a whale moving just below the surface, glossy and dark, dark blue. It descended a moment later, and a low thud could be heard. “Just like last time,” Pinkie muttered, and put the pipe back in her mouth. “HOLD ON TO SOMETHING!” she thundered, returning to her grizzled, nautical character. Applejack blinked at the command, but everypony else latched hard to the ship's railings. There was another explosion of water, like before, but off the other side of the ship. It rocked harder this time, listing to the starboard side. Applejack hadn't been ready, and skidded along the decking, scrambling for purchase. Pinkie had secured a hoof to her party cannon, which was apparently secure in its own right, and reached for her friend's flailing arms but fell short. Applejack slid at dangerous speed toward the rail, until the yellow shape of Fluttershy scooped her upward, holding her aloft as best she could until the ship stabilized. She was panting by the time she put the larger earth pony down on the deck, but she'd gotten the job done. Applejack breathed a sigh of relief, and gave her shy friend a smile. “No damage,” Shipshape reported once she'd secured her footing. Despite her prognosis, the crew themselves looked more than a little shaken up. The first officer knew the feeling, beyond the simple fear of facing an unknown opponent, there was a certain aggravation that came from being attacked by an enemy you couldn't see. “They must be missing on purpose,” Fluttershy said over the chatter of her own knocking knees. “They've got to know we can't hit them while they're underwater!” “Actually,” came a new voice from the stairway, “they don't.” Windswept had emerged on deck, with Twilight behind her. Both ponies looked concerned, but Windswept's expression was a bit less confused and a bit more grave. The look of somepony who knew her enemy, rather than simply knowing an enemy was around. There was a collective dropping of jaws from every pony on deck as the kelpie walked on the tips of her fins and flippers, mimicking the four-legged gait of her unicorn companion. Pinkie pulled her pipe from her mouth and held it threateningly over her head as she stared down the crew, who promptly collected their senses and turned urgently back to scanning the seas. Shipshape's eyes narrowed. “Shouldn't that be tied up?” she asked in a low tone. Windswept raised a brow and grinned slyly. “Why?” the kelpie asked, “Did you like the view?” Twilight cleared her throat. “The uh… prisoner knows her role in this,” she said, with the hope that her presumed authority would be enough to prevent further questions. It had so far, but now that the ship was under fire, Shipshape was less eager to simply go along with things. She set her jaw and opened her mouth to protest, until Applejack put a hoof on her shoulder. “Easy sailor,” she said, “you've gone this far, right? Stick it out to the end. We know what we're doin’.” “THERE SHE BLOWS!” Pinkie yelled above the conversation. The massive swell that had been skulking underwater emerged on the surface with a crashing of the waves, and Windswept went to the rail to look with Twilight and the others in tow. Pinkie was restraining a giggle. She'd always wanted to say that. Whatever it was, it moved with a slow, restrained power that seemed to dwarf the Sunrise. Its passing pulled the ship in the water by means of the displacement it made, and the dark, foreboding ripples extended behind it beyond twice the Equestrian ship’s size. Windswept scowled. “Sweet apple acres, it’s enormous...” Applejack breathed quietly, but the kelpie shook her head. “It’s smaller than it looks,” she said, “they're trying to bait you into firing. There's never been a direct confrontation between kelpie ships and Equestrian ones before. They don't know much about what your cannons can do.” She chuckled mirthfully. “Neither do I, for that matter. They're in a Wakeroller. It’s not even a military craft. They're used to help control the tides, and they're really good at pushing water around. Helps with construction.” “It’s a tug boat?” Shipshape asked in disbelief. “Sounds like it,” Twilight replied. “Can it actually hurt us?” Windswept nodded. “Oh yes. That's probably why they brought it. One thing we DO know about land ponies is they can't breath underwater. Wakerollers won't do anything more to a kelpie ship than just shake it around a little, but it could flip this ship completely over if it worked at it hard enough, and it won't have to come to the surface to pull it off.” She put a contemplative flipper to her chin. “That explains how they planned on keeping the upper hand against the Equestria navy without using military ships. Not a bad choice when it comes to fighting ponies that can't swim.” “We can swim,” Applejack protested. Windswept smirked. “Sure you can,” she replied. Twilight cut off Applejack's retort by yelling back toward Pinkie. “Get the crew to stand down,” she instructed, “they've got the upper hoof here. We don't want to provoke them until we know what's going on with the princess. They wouldn't have long to wait. The Sunrise rocked slowly as the waves from the form under the water hit it in the bow, and Windswept narrowed her eyes. “They're surfacing,” she said, and turned to Twilight. The purple mare looked at the kelpie, as though awaiting further instructions, but all Windswept had to offer was a shrug. “It’s your move, Twilight,” she said. “They'll probably send somepony out to receive Equestria's surrender. How you handle it is up to you.” She gave the unicorn a sympathetic look. “Sorry, Twilly,” she said softly, “I wish I had a better suggestion.” Twilight swallowed in an attempt to clear the dryness in her throat, and nodded. Shipshape raised a brow as the purple unicorn walked nervously toward the bow of the ship to face the slowly rising black shape, which was now doming out of the water. Its hull was smooth and dark blue, with a hydrodynamic taper in its shape and a bank of windows in its front. Silver filigree of alien design graced its curves, but the swirls and locations of it seemed familiar. Land and sea ponies alike seemed to share a taste for decoration. The opposing vessel rose out of the water enough for the bank of windows in its bow to sit level with the top deck of the Sunrise, and remained there, silent in the moonlight. The crew seemed unwilling to so much as blink lest it shatter the silence: they were looking at something that most of them had dismissed long ago as nothing by an old mare's tale. Ponies that lived in the ocean instead of in Equestria. Sirens of the deep. Stories, that was all. Yet, here they were, and presumably there was a whole nation of them somewhere deep beneath the waves. Twilight sighed and glanced at the moon high overhead, blinking the sleep out of her eyes. It had been a very, very long day, and it wasn’t over yet. The stars... Twilight's eyes widened slightly. She hadn’t noticed until just now, staring skyward, but the four stars she'd seen vanish into the moon when Nightmare Moon had been released were missing. They'd returned after that night and been there ever since, but they were gone again now, she was sure of it. Motion caught her vision and made her glance toward the horizon. A single point of white light was vanishing just behind the clouds. Frantically she scanned in other directions. Another, to the south, was slowly disappearing beyond the horizon. She caught the slightest hint of a third to the east, but by the time she'd turned toward back toward the kelpie ship in front of her, it had surfaced completely and blocked her view toward anything behind it. She knew it had to have been there, though. The four stars that had helped the mare in the moon escape her prison were descending. The urgency of the situation was far more than she'd considered. They didn't have days; they had hours. Nothing had been stepped up. There was no reason the stars should be moving faster than prophecy had foretold, and yet Celestia had only been captured today, just before sunset. Variables flashed through her mind. How long it would take to subdue Princess Celestia. How long she and the others had spent walking from place to place. How Windswept had kept Twilight from escaping by denying her a place to escape to while they spoke at the bottom of the canal, the best way to trap a pony that could teleport at will. How the kelpies had tried to provoke a fight before surfacing. Something clicked in Twilight's head. “I know where she is...” she whispered. Clock is ticking, Twilight. Clock is ticking. Twilight Sparkle was not prone to impulsive decisions. Of all the ponies in Ponyville, it was Twilight who spent the most time planning and revising, checking every list twice before being content enough with them to even call them lists, rather than scribbles. Measure twice, then measure with three other rulers, then get two other ponies to measure it and compare results, THEN cut once; that was Twilight. So when the doorway set into the window bank on the kelpie ship slowly slid open, everypony on the Sunrise expected her to execute a carefully thought out, targeted negotiation for the return of Princess Celestia. “Pinkie!” Twilight yelled as the silhouettes of kelpies appeared in the doorway. The pink pony perked her ears. “DUCK!” Pinkie Pie was not a pony to question an order to move impulsively. She dropped to the deck immediately, just as the fuse to her party cannon which Twilight had lit magically mere seconds earlier burned to the bottom. There was a thunderous explosion of confetti and streamers contained within glimmering wrapping paper that rocketed from the barrel toward the doorway of the kelpie ship. Twilight's horn flickered, and she sparked out of existence just as the ball of galeforce friendship shot through the space she'd just been occupying and out across the water, hitting the kelpies in the door of their own ship and exploding into a joyous sounding of sparkles and horn blares. Party or no, a cannon is a cannon, and the boarding party was knocked clear off their flippers. Twilight sparked out of her teleport on board the kelpie vessel and didn't miss a beat, charging down the hallway toward the belly of the ship. She could hear yelling and alarms behind her as doors slammed open and kelpies of various shape and size rushed into the halls to respond to the intrusion. Twilight saw every color of the rainbow, just like on any other pony ship, but the walking was clumsy. This hallway was meant to be swum in, but it was dry. It had been dry for a while; there were no puddles to speak of. The unicorn grinned. She was right. It was dry because somepony here couldn't breath underwater. Magical energy ricocheted off the walls as Twilight teleported past the grabbing flippers of the ship's crew, moving inextricably downward toward what she could only hope was the cargo hold. She fired shafts of blinding light behind her and slammed as many doors as she could, forcing her pursuers to waste time opening them. Negotiating the stairways was difficult; they were made for a different set of “legs,” but it wasn’t impossible, and she managed to keep her speed up. When she spotted the large, barred double doors set into a reinforced wall, she narrowed her eyes. This was it. I need these doors to open, she thought to herself. If I have half the right to hold the Element of Magic, I need these doors to OPEN. Her vision blazed white, causing the outlines of the architecture around her to burn in her retinas as hard, black lines and the colors to explode in intensity, and all at once, the heavy doors in front of her blasted off their hinges. Startled cries from within were muffled by the sound of the doors rattling across the decking as Twilight charged in and skidded to a halt. “PRINCESS!” she cried. Chained in the middle of the room by all four legs and her neck, was Celestia. Her wings had been bound tightly to her body and there was a hood over her head and horn, tied on and trapped there by the heavy metal collar that secured her neck to the ground. She couldn't see. But she could hear. “Twilight?” Celestia responded, surprise in her voice. Twilight's heart leaped, but she restrained her excitement. The guards were swiftly recovering. “Princess!” she said urgently. “You're not underwater anymore! We're on the ocean's surface, there's a friendly ship three hundred feet in front of you. Teleport up twenty feet and forward three hundred and you'll land safely! Quickly!” Celestia didn't argue. The hood on her head glowed from the magic it was shrouding, and there was a sudden spark of violet light. A moment later, the princess' shackles fell empty to the floor. Just as Twilight had been denied an escape from Windswept by not knowing where it was safe to teleport to, Celestia had no point of reference by which to plot her own teleport. Without knowing where to begin, it was impossible to know where you could safely end. Short of killing every kelpie on board, Celestia had been effectively cornered. Twilight heard the shouts of angry kelpies approaching from the hallway, and cast one last, brief, furious stare toward the guards before she herself vanished in a flash of light. “FIRE ON THAT SHIP!” Pinkie roared, and kicked her party cannon into an upright position, dumping an entire coat-full of unlit smoking pipes into its barrel in place of a cannonball and swiveling it to aim at the kelpie craft. Fluttershy was frantically tending to the princess, who had appeared a few feet overhead from midair not seconds earlier, and Shipshape and Applejack were spinning the ship's wheel hard to starboard to bring the main guns to bare. Twilight appeared with just enough time to duck as the salvo of spinning pipes rocketed over her head and shattered through the wakeroller's windows. Pinkie erped and chuckled nervously as Twilight shot her a furious look. “Don't waste time shooting at it,” Twilight yelled, “just get us out of here! It can still sink us!” It seemed intent on doing just that. Losing the windows was little concern to a crew that could breath underwater, and no sooner was the ship half submerged than the local tides began to roll and dip violently. Waves crashed against the side of the Sunrise as it rounded back toward Equestria, but without any forward momentum they were drifting backward as quickly as they were gaining speed. “We can't break free!” Shipshape cried out above the noise of the surf. “The engines were never meant to work like this, water doesn’t flow this way!” Twilight could hear the whine of the gears down below as the currents behaved in ways the ship's mechanisms were never intended to compensate for. The screws were turning, but they weren’t biting the water as they should be. The wakeroller seemed to have control over how the ocean flowed about the vessel. Sweat beaded on her brow as she formulated other plans. So close, they were so close... There was a sudden, horrific crash and an explosion of water behind them. Twilight figured it must be another one of the bursts the kelpies had fired earlier, until she realized there was no longer a reason for them to be intentionally missing. She turned toward the eruption, and her jaw dropped in awe. The wakeroller had been lifted completely out of the water, held aloft by a massive, opal colored arm of interlinking, beautifully sculpted armor. It coiled around the vessel like the tentacle of an octopus, and Twilight could hear the timbers of the ship's ribbing crack like bones in its gleaming grip. The wakeroller split in two and crashed into the ocean, sending up great gouts of seawater that soaked the deck of the Sunrise. Twilight spat it from her mouth and wiped her eyes clean in time to see the moon blotted out by tall, pointed spires that matched those of the palace itself in Canterlot, each one a glimmering beacon of white in the moon-soaked night. Those mighty mechanical tentacles could be seen coiling outward so far they vanished in the distance, and the spires reached toward the stars, pulling more and more of castle-like structure out of the ocean with them as they traveled ever higher. By the time the entirety of the structure had emerged, the Sunrise was little more than a mouse beside a cathedral, dwarfed by even the waterfalls of seawater that drained from the donjons and bulwarks of the mighty pearl palace. “Oh, no,” Twilight whimpered, her lip trembling, “what now?” Her legs quivered under her as the oppressive sight of the structure shrouded the ship from the moonlight. Exhaustion was catching up to her rapidly. The running and the repeated teleportation had taxed her already dwindling energy and the adrenaline from the princess' rescue was draining fast. “We came so far...” “That you did, little one.” Twilight looked behind her and saw Celestia's smiling face. She flung herself into the larger pony's arms and clung tightly to her, and Celestia ran a comforting hoof over her student's head. “It’s done, Twilight,” she said softly. “It's done. You succeeded,” she couldn't help but chuckle softly, “as I knew you would, my student. Thank you.” Twilight choked back the tears that were threatening to overtake her while her body struggled through exhaustion to decide if Celestia's return marked the conclusion of the night's quest or if the sudden appearance of the towering, tentacled palace marked the start of some new nightmare. Celestia's smile calmed her enough to stare up at it again. “What… is it, Princess?” Fluttershy asked in a trembling voice, and looked toward Celestia. But it wasn’t the tall white pony who replied. It was Windswept, who was gazing upward from the side of the deck. She turned back toward the others and grinned. “Princess Celestia,” she said cheerfully, “may I present the Palace of Kelantis, Capital of Kelopolis. Home of Princess Aurora of the Kelpies.” Celestia's expression was firm and set, and Twilight could see her jaw clench. “Yes,” she replied in a low tone, “I know. I've been there before.”