The wreckage of the wakeroller had already disappeared beneath the surface when the crew of the ship were driven to the top by the recent arrivals to the scene. Twilight had regained enough composure to return her eyes to the waves rather than focus in awe at the towering mechanical palace that now floated beside them. The other sailors on the Sunrise, however, were less aware of their surroundings. Between the sudden arrival of Princess Celestia herself on board their ship, and the surprise destruction of the wakeroller by what could only be described as a fortress on the back of a mechanical octopus, these ponies had amassed more unbelievable sea stories than most seasoned sailors would in a lifetime. It was all a bit much to take in.
Twilight recognized the wakeroller crew, largely unadorned as she and most other ponies were, but the new kelpies that circled them like sharks in the waves were clad in a vibrant coral orange and pearl white armor that resembled a more streamlined, less bulky version of the Pegasus Guard in Canterlot. Pegasus guards carried no obvious weaponry; their armored hooves were threat enough. Twilight knew from her days at the palace that the thick, heavy boots the guards wore were more than decoration. These armored kelpies, however, had no such adornment on their flippers. Instead, each possessed a spear with a long cord tethered to it, secured to their bodies, and a hook at the top just below the point of the spear itself. Twilight could see how they might be used to subdue an assailant by sheer threat, or hooked over their flippers to pin them as she was currently witnessing, but there was a certain added viciousness to a weapon that was obviously intended to pierce rather than to bludgeon. No pony that got into a fight with the Pegasus Guard ever spoke dismissively of those armored hooves, but they also didn't get impaled by them. She breathed a little sigh of relief when the visible escapees were rounded up without blood in the water. It had been a long enough night already without watching kelpies throw spears at each other.
Celestia had stepped up beside Twilight to watch the roundup by what amounted to Kelopolis' royal authority. She bore a look of active concern, as though prepared to step in should anything get too violent. It was a testament to her restraint that she was even now looking out for the welfare of her captors. It was that restraint that had resulted in her capture to begin with; ponynapped or not, Celestia was unwilling to kill to enact her own escape. Though it had made her vulnerable, Twilight found she rather liked that aspect of her gleaming white matriarch.
Something about her was different though, Twilight had noticed. A change of feeling, something about the aura. She was still brilliant, still shone in a shining light of gold and white that made the unicorn feel warm and protected to stand nearby, but there was a lack of… something. Something that had always been there before. A glance to her head, and the answer became clear. Celestia's golden crown was missing, and so was the unseen but always felt radiance of her divine right to rule. The mighty white alicorn was princess no more.
Celestia noticed her student fixated on her forehead where her crown normally sat, and smiled. “I do hope this doesn’t mean you won't write me letters anymore, Twilight,” she said. The lightness in her voice caught Twilight by surprise, and made her smile and laugh nervously.
“Sorry, Princess, I just… it's the first time I've seen you without your crown on,” Twilight stammered in response, and Celestia cracked a small smile and nodded.
“It’s the first time I haven't worn it in well over a thousand years, little one,” she replied, looking up at her brow and smirking. “It goes with the office. You tend to forget it’s there. Until it isn't.” She winked down at the purple unicorn. “Strange how you can feel naked when you're normally naked anyway, isn't it?”
Twilight giggle tiredly and looked up at the massive palace spires. Water was still running from the various parapets and Twilight could see kelpies moving back and forth between turrets and within glass-walled rooms. Celestia had turned back toward it herself, and sighed. Twilight knew the sound, having made it herself more than once over the past eighteen hours or so. It was a sigh of resignation. The alicorn's smile had faded once again, and her vision was distant.
“Are you alright, Princess?” came Applejack's voice a moment later. She, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy had approached the two ponies from behind. Windswept had likewise joined them, but was hanging back behind the trio of land dwellers. She looked none-too-sure of Celestia's opinion of her, and chose to avoid attracting undue attention.
Celestia blinked and turned back toward them, a smile returning to her face. “Fine, girls, fine. And it is wonderful to see all of you,” she knelt down to bring herself to their level and grinned. “Equestria's heroes, yet again. That's two I owe you, ladies,” she winked, “assuming the celebration for Discord's defeat was good enough. I'm not convinced it was.”
The smaller pony's eyes lit up at her princess's good humor, but Twilight had noticed her joviality fade twice now, and could no longer ignore it. Celestia wasn’t happy to see the Palace of Kelantis floating beside them. Something about it troubled her, and she was doing her best not to drop her concern on the shoulders of her saviors. Twilight caught Windswept's eyes and nodded toward the castle with an inquisitive look, before indicating toward Celestia with a clandestine hoof. Windswept appeared to get the drift, but shook her head slowly. Whatever the story behind it was, it appeared to be a long one.
The sound of rushing water broke and alarm on the deck brought the collective attention of the ponies forward to the edge of the ship. Two plumes of water, like great geysers shooting out from the top of the ocean, had arched overhead and come down like tentacle on the deck of the Sunrise. Each oceanic tendril delivered one of the armored kelpies from the water below like an aquatic conveyer belt before retreating back into the sea from which they came. The two kelpies were clad in what Twilight could only assume were the official colors of Kelantis and adorned with smooth, streamlined helms with fin and feather motifs and swooping muzzleguards that covered their eyes completely and descended in sharp, pointed chisel shapes to either side of their mouths. The material itself must have been transparent from the inside, as the kelpies seemed to be able to see without difficulty, but their eyes were hidden from external observation. Only their mouths showed, and when they spoke, the insides of their mouths glowed with an eery bioluminescence in the same colors as their hair, which served to highlight their fangs. Windswept had never displayed any sort of bioluminescence, but Twilight had noticed her fangs as well, sharp and pointed, but only on her canines and a few other select teeth surrounding them. The rest were flat, not unlike Twilight's own. Kelpies, it would seem, were omnivorous.
“Celestia of Equestria?” one of the pair asked, as though the princess' identity required some sort of confirmation, despite her obvious physical differences. The voice was male, and Twilight noticed similar differences in stature, anatomy and muzzle shape to male land-based ponies. These two were also considerably larger than Windswept and herself, but she chalked that up to simply being large guards, rather than a trait of their gender. Big Macintosh still had them beat in the height department by no small margin.
“That's 'PRINCESS' Celestia of Equestria to you,” Pinkie Pie replied without missing a beat, and her puffy pink tail twitched in annoyance.
“Actually Pinkie,” Celestia said with an amused smile, “at the moment, it;s not.” She nodded upward toward the spot her crown once occupied, before leaning down to the pink pony. “But thank you for the support,” she whispered appreciatively.
Pinkie blinked in concern, as though unable to process Celestia as being anything other than a princess. But like all the others, she'd felt the shift in power. She was nonetheless beloved, however, and Pinkie didn't let up her glare on the two guards.
“Princess Aurora requests an audience, uh… Miss...” the other guard said, and stumbled over his words when trying to think of how to refer to the large alicorn. Twilight lifted a brow in interest. They'd listened to Pinkie Pie. Clearly they didn't consider referring to Celestia as 'Princess' to be necessary given her currently less-than-royal status, but he'd shown obvious concern about calling her anything less after Pinkie's correction. For whatever reason, they seemed to have put a fair bit of stock in the words of the so far unintroduced pink pony. “She insists that your companions come as well, as guests of the palace.”
“I don't know if I like the sound of 'insists',” Applejack said as she narrowed her eyes. The two guards were difficult to read with their own eyes covered by the sleek kelpie helms, but the glowing in their mouths seemed to have dimmed slightly. That, or their mouths had closed smaller. Both effects suggested trepidation, and made Twilight all the more curious. They hadn’t given Celestia a second thought, they even had to check to make sure she was the right pony! But Pinkie and Applejack give them a dirty look, and they balk?
“Requests,” Windswept corrected for the guards, and stepped in front of them to face Twilight and her companions, “the Princess requests your attendance in the palace, girls. It would be our honor.”
“Kelantis never 'requests' anything!” the other guard retorted sharply, but Windswept wheeled on him and rather abruptly smacked him across the helmet with a flipper, which rang out with a metallic ping. The first guard grit his teeth, but was unable to meet Windswept's gaze when she lifted a brow at him, inviting comment.
“You've done enough speaking for the Princess today,” Windswept said firmly. “Shut your mouths and get a bridge down here. These ponies have had a very long night.”
Reluctantly, but promptly, both guards nodded and leaped overboard back into the ocean, disappearing into the depths within a few seconds. Twilight could make out some of the glowing mouths of the other guards down there, milling around the massive structure that was the Kelantis palace. She looked back up to Windswept and raise an incredulous brow of her own. “You can give orders to royal guards?” she asked.
Windswept coughed, and twitched her damaged ear. “You remember how I said an eel bit my ear?” she asked quietly. Twilight nodded. “Well it was a very specific eel,” Windswept said, “and a very particular bite.”
Celestia laughed quietly, with an almost mirthful humor. Windswept winced and looked at her.
“You won't tell her I called her that, will you?” she asked worriedly. The alicorn grinned, but didn't reply.
The sound of waterfalls marked the arrival of one of the palaces mighty mechanical tentacles, which extended to the ship and formed a bridge between it and one of the large, ornate doorways high above them. Windswept walked toward it, before looking back and nodding her head, to indicate it was safe to follow her.
Twilight took her position beside Celestia and the rest of her friends as they strode the damp pathway in rows of two, carefully picking their steps along the interlinking plates of opal and coral hues. Twilight and Applejack were at the front, Celestia just behind, and Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie bringing up the rear. Pinkie still wore the garb of a navy admiral, but had mercifully put her pipe away. As they walked, Applejack turned to Twilight and leaned in close, keeping their conversation private. There wasn’t much reason to hide it from Celestia or the others, but Twilight could tell the earthpony was none-too-trusting of the structure they were currently approaching.
“Twi,” she said quietly, “how in Apple Acres did you know Celestia was on board that ship?”
Twilight blinked a bit in surprise. She'd thought it obvious, hardly worth mentioning, but a moment's examination revealed to her just how large the leaps in logic she had made in the span of a few short seconds actually were. And while she was half asleep, no less. Something about that made the unicorn a little nervous, but she stuffed the feeling aside, chalking it up to the anxiety of the evening.
“It really came down to picking apart all the facts we'd picked up over the course of the evening,” Twilight replied, “particularly the circumstances behind the princess' capture, and why she wasn’t able to get away by herself.”
She closed her eyes a moment and reviewed the circumstances in her head, speaking them aloud as she walked.
“Point one,” she began, “Celestia can teleport. More than that, she can teleport huge distances. There's only one good way to hold a teleporting pony in place, and that's to not give them anywhere to go.”
Twilight was speaking louder than Applejack had been, and Windswept picked up on the conversation from up ahead. She turned and looked at them, walking backward on the tentacle with the practiced ease of somepony who'd done so many times before.
“That's how I trapped you,” she said, and Twilight nodded.
“Exactly. When Windswept grabbed me for the first time, she brought me down to the bottom of the canal before I woke up. Once I was awake, I didn't know where I was, and where it was safe to go. Without knowing where you're going to land, you can't teleport. The magic just doesn’t work that way. So whoever captured Celestia must have brought her to some place by which she had no points of reference. If it were ME, that could've been anywhere in Kelopolis. But like I said before, Celestia can transit over huge distances, all the way from Canterlot to Ponyville, for instance.”
“And she's been to Kelopolis before,” Applejack contributed.
“Right,” Twilight said. “I didn't know that, but I was reasonably sure she had been, as Windswept mentioned a somewhat extended history between her princess and ours.”
“That's among the largest understatement I've heard all day, Twilight.” Celestia commented. She'd been listening to the explanation herself, with a quiet smile on her face. Twilight felt a warmth radiate from inside her as she recognized her teacher's approval. It encouraged her to continue.
“Point two,” she continued, “was the sheer level of damage in the palace. It couldn’t have been easy to capture the Princess, and from everything I've seen of kelpie magic, it’s rather reliant on water.” She looked to Windswept for confirmation, who nodded.
“Ocean water, specifically,” Windswept replied, then thought for a moment. “Wellll, no. More like large bodies of water. We can't control the water in a glass, or the water in your body, or even the water in the clouds. But lakes, rivers, streams, natural formations like that. Really heavy rainfall, sometimes, if it’s coastal.” She made a face that expressed the difficulty of the explanation. “It’s touchy. It’s a bit like negotiating with the ocean for permission to manipulate it. You can get a lot of power out of that, but you're not creating the power like unicorns do. The power is already there, in the water. We just bring it out.”
“Like earth ponies,” Applejack said, her mood brightening at finally finding some sort of parallel between herself and the kelpie she could understand. “When we work the land and till the soil and bring out the fertility of the earth, it’s usin' the power that's already in it. We just use tools and techniques we've practiced forever.”
Windswept nodded. “Exactly,” she said, “so do we. But like you, it’s nowhere near as exact or utilitarian as unicorn magic. I'm still not exactly sure how the Lords of the Sea got inside your palace, Princess,” she said, looking up.
“They had help.” Celestia replied, her brow furrowed.
Twilight nodded. “Thats what I figured,” the unicorn said. “See, despite all the damage, there were no bodies. No major injuries, at least none so major that they couldn't be moved. Celestia has always ruled benevolently, and even when faced with her own kidnapping, she didn't want to hurt them too badly. That would go doubly so if they had a hostage, say, some unicorn they forced into teleporting them inside. Since the Lords knew Celestia's only weakness before she was submerged would be her own unwillingness to kill them, they would've had to trap her someplace where she couldn't affect a forced escape without putting a great deal of ponies at risk.”
“Like a small boat!” Pinkie chimed in, “'Cause if she just FWOOOOSH BOOM'ed her way out, and there were non-kelpies on board, they'd all drown!”
Celestia nodded. “It turns out I was wrong about that last bit,” she admitted. “I had every reason to believe they had a large collection of hostages; they certainly acted like they did. As it happened, they only had the one.” She looked up toward the palace steadily growing in their view as the slant of the tentacle increased. “I saw Aurora's kelpies pick her up. Negotiating her release will be...” she frowned in aggravation, “delightful, I'm sure.”
“There was one last bit,” Twilight said, on a roll now. “The stars. I saw the stars falling toward the horizon, the same four that helped Nightmare Moon escape. It told me how urgent the situation was.”
This little bit of information seemed to catch everypony else by complete surprise. Fluttershy scanned the sky nervously, as did Pinkie. Celestia flitted her eyes upward with practiced directness, before refocusing on Twilight. Applejack just looked shocked.
“You noticed that in the, what, two seconds you had while waitin’ for the wakeroller's door to open?” she asked.
Twilight nodded, before blinking. “Two seconds?” she asked. “I thought I was standing there for at least a minute.”
“Barely two seconds,” Fluttershy confirmed. “You're really fast on the uptake Twilight, but we've all been awake for something like twenty hours now, at least. That's really amazing. But what did it matter?”
“It meant that the star's arrival is much sooner than I thought it was,” Twilight explained, “and since the kelpies, presumably, know more about this than we do, AND had this planned out ahead of time...” she trailed off, figuring one of the other ponies would finish her train of thought. None did, and she looked at the sea of blank stares with a raised brow. “It means they were rushed, that’s all. It means they pushed this plan to the last possible minute, and the only reason they'd do that is if they really didn't have anywhere safe to keep the princess once they had her. Thus, it stood to reason that whatever ship the Lords used to capture Celestia, would be the same one they were currently holding her in, somewhere in the ocean where she couldn't get her bearings and teleport away.” She nodded. “‘If you remove the impossible, the remainder, however improbable, must be the truth,’” she quoted proudly. The silence of her companions made her look nervously back and forth. “Fetlock Holmes? Anypony? C'mon, its a book-”
“Twilight,” Applejack interrupted, “right now, I'm so tired I can barely remember my own name, and you figured all that out in a few seconds, right in time to use it?” She snorted, genuinely impressed. “There's bein’ smart, and there's just plain scary, Twi.”
Twilight swallowed, and the memory of her run through the wakeroller floated to her head. Of her need to get through the large, reinforced cargo bay door that blocked Celestia. Of the white hot magical haze that had floated through her eyes when she'd blown it off its hinges like so many twigs in a storm. Somewhere inside her, she knew, the Element of Magic was still hidden just out of sight.
“I might've had a little help,” she said, more to herself than anypony else.
“There they are,” Celestia said suddenly, and pointed out toward the distance. Twilight turned to look, as did the others, and spied four points of light on the horizon, rising upward. They were far brighter than before, and seemed to be moving in formation. Celestia snorted. “Second pass,” she said. “They'll make four before they actually land.” She turned toward Twilight's curious eyes. “My capturers were courteous to explain why I was being held,” Celestia explained.
Windswept erped and stepped in. “Princess Celestia,” she said quickly, “I've gone through considerable effort to try and explain the situation in a far less… uh… illegal… fashion, on behalf of the-”
“I'm aware, child,” Celestia replied. “Nonetheless, had Aurora not been busy playing political games, she could've come to me herself and we'd have a great deal more time to prepare for this.”
“Aurora apologizes for not being instilled with the divine right to rule, Princess,” Windswept replied, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. “She knows doing things without it is a mighty inconvenience.”
Celestia raised a brow, and leaned toward the kelpie. Windswept swallowed. “She told you to say that, didn't she,” Celestia said, more a statement than a question. Windswept nodded nervously, and the alicorn snorted. “I figured as much.”
“Um, girls, uh,” Fluttershy spoke up, and pointed forward, “I think we're here.”
Twilight turned her attention back toward the path, and gazed upward at a mighty set of double doors that were slowly opening, water dripping in streams from its edges. It was all beautifully sculpted, and even Celestia smiled a little.
“She really has improved it,” she admitted to herself.
“Improved?” Pinkie Pie asked, “It didn't always look like this?”
Celestia shook her head. “Aurora has had possession of this palace for well over a thousand years,” she said. “But before her, it had a different owner. You've met him, in fact.” Her smile faded. “Discord. And he called it the Kraken.”
“We call it Kelantis,” Windswept said, doing her best to come to the aid of her princess' reputation in front of her new friends, “and it’s been a beacon of hope for kelpies for generations.”
She looked troubled, like she wanted desperately to support Aurora under Celestia's disparaging gaze, but couldn't find the means to. Celestia closed her eyes and sighed softly, before smiling at the kelpie.
“My strife with your princess is very old, and very personal, little Windswept,” she said softly, “and has nothing to do with you or your race. I know she's helped you, and I owe you a great deal of thanks. You lead Twilight and her friends down the path to my rescue. I'll make certain you're rewarded for that, when this is through.” She stepped back a little and smiled down at the kelpie, who's lip trembled slightly. Windswept was every bit as tired as the rest of them, and no less worried. Celestia could see that in everypony, and spread her wings wide, pulling them all in close.
“Hush now,” she said with a warm smile, “quiet now.”
A gentle golden glow enveloped the collection of ponies held in Celestia's wings, spawned from her horn, and each could feel the invigorating rays of the morning sun seep into their fur. Life returned to the tired eyes of each pony, and strength seeped into their heavy limbs. When she stepped her hoof down, Twilight blinked rapidly, and her eyes widened excitedly.
“Wah… I feel fantastic!” Applejack exclaimed, and Pinkie hopped in circles beside her. Windswept joined in, and within seconds both girls were engaged in an impromptu dance of celebration.
“It’s like I've had a full night's sleep,” Fluttershy said, shock in her voice, and Twilight smiled up at the tall alicorn.
“Thank you, Celestia,” she said, relieved to be free of the burden of exhaustion on top of her already mounting stress.
“I would not have you face what's coming ill-prepared, Twilight.,” she replied firmly, as though committing to a promise. “You're safe here, for now. Windswept,” she looked at the green-blue kelpie and nodded down the hall, “take these girls to rooms, let them get washed up and unwound. I know my way to the throne room well enough.”
Windswept erped and held up a flipper. “But… I should really escort-”
“I know the way.” Celestia said, ending the conversation, and turned down the hall, striding off with her head high and her gaze even. Windswept bit her lip.
“Should we go with her?” Twilight asked the others, and Windswept shook her head.
“I don't think any of us want to be where she's heading.” Windswept replied softly.
The entryway to the throne room didn't have a door. Much like Canterlot's, it simply existed, a floor on its own. Guard kelpies like the ones outside stood sentry at the various hallways, but none stopped Celestia from approaching the inner chambers, which were more walled off than Celestia's own open reception room. Aurora didn't like having more space around her than she could keep an eye on at any one time. The large white alicorn rounded the bend of one of the ornate pillars extending clear up to the large, domed glass ceiling, and stood at the entrance, gazing upward at room she hadn't set hoof inside in a very, very long time.
“Well well,” came a voice from the top of the coral stairway. It was smooth and feminine, but pitched low with authority and a subdued, restrained power. “Celestia of Equestria, in my throne room. I never thought I'd see the day.”
“Falling Stars or not, Aurora,” Celestia replied firmly, “if one tentacle of this abomination crosses Equestrian borders, I will correct an eon-old mistake and leave the whole thing in ruins at the bottom of the ocean.”
The air in front of Celestia wavered and distorted, as though it had been sliced with a knife edge, and Princess Aurora's shape slipped through the crack like a serpent out of its hole. The analogy was accurate in both shape and movement. Princess Aurora was kelpie-shaped, in the same way Celestia was pony-shaped, but while the length of the kelpie body was offset by the width of their rear fin, which could curl to allow them to walk with more or less the same size and stature of a normal pony, Aurora's body was long and serpentine, and she moved about the floor like a snake, with her forebody held upright and her long flippers serving as hands and arms. She coloration was a vibrant coral-orange atop a deep, vivid maroon, and her hair a long, very pale pink. Blue eyes peered hard at Celestia from below a golden crown, and the kelpie princess' movements spoke at once of elegance and beauty and lightning-fast, predatory viciousness. Pink tinged, searing white bioluminescence shown from her mouth as she spoke.
“Threats, Celestia? So soon?” she asked, a cold edge to her words.
“Promises.” Celestia replied without missing a beat. “You're becoming disturbingly adept at the use of Discord's magic, Aurora.” She was looking at the golden staff the kelpie princess was holding, which was a long, sharp spear not unlike those held by the guards, but with a coiled serpent sculpted at the top, rimmed by fins.
Aurora narrowed her eyes, and lifted the long polearm. It retracted within itself, becoming a shorter, less vicious looking scepter. “Ihe Chaosium is mine by right, Celestia,” she replied, looking at the staff she held. “I'm not going to hide it in a closet and pretend it doesn’t exist. I'm not a unicorn, I've little else to fall back on.”
“You could try good will,” Celestia suggested helpfully. “You know, benevolence? It’s worked reasonably well for me.”
“Is that what Equestria defines 'forced servitude' as now?” Aurora jousted back. “Benevolence? I should compare notes with Luna, I'm fairly sure we both define it as slavery.”
“Equestria does not have slaves.” Celestia hissed.
“No, just a population of obedient sheep who never think twice about the nature of Big Sexy sitting on the throne, eh?” Aurora asked, pressing her temporary advantage. “Celestia-who-can-do-no-wrong? If any one of them knew how much you've kept secret from them-”
“Then they'd jump in a boat and blow your kelpies straight to the depths,” Celestia countered, “long before any of them would think to come after me. Or have you forgotten just why some secrets are kept?”
Aurora didn't seem to have an answer for that one prepped and ready for deployment, and for a moment both princesses stood with their noses not an inch from each other, and their eyes locked.
“This,” Celestia said finally, in a softer tone, “is a very old argument, Aurora.”
Aurora was silent a moment longer, before her tone too softened slightly, and she nodded. “It is,” she admitted, and snorted, before turning away from the alicorn and slithering like a naga smoothly across the floor in a circle. “I have your traitor in custody. She is unharmed. Says her name is 'Trixie.' Mean anything to you?”
Celestia shook her head. “Can't say I've met her. Blue, yes? Unicorn with a wand and a star cutie mark? She was the one who teleported the Lords of the Sea inside my walls.”
“That’s the one,” Aurora replied. “We captured her in our waters, you know. In an enemy ship.”
She raised a brow toward Celestia, gauging her reaction. Cold fury graced the alicorn's face at the implications of the statement. It made Aurora grin.
“But why tell you, eh?” she asked, “you're not even Princess anymore. I'll drop her off in bonds at Mustang Marina, and your new princess can deal with her. Not our problem.”
Celestia breathed a slow sigh of relief. “Thank you, Aurora.”
The kelpie princess waved a flipper dismissively. “I have bigger problems to fret than your lost ponies, Celestia. Not every transgression needs to end in an execution, you know. You seem to think we do a lot of that around here. We don't.”
Celestia bit off her own reply and remained silent. It was difficult enough to play nice with Aurora; she didn't want their tendency to bicker to blow a hole in any charity she may be extending.
“It was odd,” the kelpie princess continued, turning back toward Celestia with a boggled look on her face. “Preliminary interrogations of the crew have suggested that they picked up this ‘Trixie’ girl because she was called by not once, but several, sources, as the most powerful unicorn in Equestria.” She lifted a brow at the alicorn. “You think they would've gone after the Firemare if that's what they wanted.”
Celestia smiled inwardly. “Twilight is a little less… public… about her talents,” she said. “Outside of Ponyville there aren't many who'd recognize her.”
“It is criminal,” Aurora said sternly, “how little credit that girl has been given, Celestia.”
“Her anonymity has kept her safe,” Celestia replied, “as I intended it to. Sometimes having a few, very specific ponies who know what you've done is better than having a great deal of them who have only heard stories. Quality over quantity.”
“Does Twilight agree with that?” Aurora asked dubiously.
“Does Windswept?” Celestia countered.
Again, Aurora was left without a retort.
“Tell me about the Starfall, Aurora,” Celestia said, bringing the conversation back to a matter of relevance. “How much time?”
Aurora's staff extended in her flippered grip, and she twirled it before pointing it at the open space in front of her. An illuminated map formed magically in front of them, and Celestia stepped up beside the other mare to examine it.
“Three more orbits,” Aurora explained, pointing out a few lines that transversed the map. “Right now we're assuming they're going to land equally spaced in cardinal directions, with one here in kelpie water, not far from Kelopolis itself, and another here, just outside Equestria toward the east.”
“Just south of the Dragon Lands,” Celestia said.
Aurora nodded. “If you can get their aid, and the Griffins, you've got a chance over there. Assuming you help them personally.”
“Luna is closer,” Celestia corrected, pointing toward Canterlot, “I could send her.”
“Luna isn't in Canterlot,” Aurora said, giving Celestia a puzzled look.
The white alicorn blinked. “She’s not?”
“No,” Aurora replied, and tapped the Mustang Marina, “she's here, rallying the navy. My watchers saw her arrive not ten minutes ago.”
“Then who's on the throne?!” Celestia demanded.
Aurora affected a shrug. “No idea. I don't have spies in Canterlot, Celestia. I would ask the Firemare. According to Windy, she's remarkably well connected as of late. Something to do with the absorption of the Element of Magic.”
“Absorption...” Celestia whispered but was brought back to the map by Aurora's gesturing.
“Luna's activity suggests she's coming here, probably with everything Canterlot has. As I imagine that will be the only backup I can count on from Equestria, it will fall to the kelpies and the Canterlot Navy to repel the Star landing in the ocean, with Luna and I at the helm.” She sighed a little. “I won't lie. I wish we had more.”
“You do,” Celestia said, settling on a decision. “I'm going to leave Twilight and her friends with you. They control the Elements of Harmony, and are no slouches themselves in a crisis.”
“There are six Elements of Harmony,” Aurora reminded her. “Four aren't going to help much.”
“I need to speak with Twilight,” Celestia said, “but if what you said is correct, then the Element of Magic is hidden again. When it's re-sparked, its going to need an outlet. Last time, it focused enough power to break the spell of Nightmare Moon.”
Aurora slowly smiled. “Thats delightfully devious, Celly. I'm impressed.”
Celestia snorted, but didn't respond. Instead, she pointed toward the second star. “I'll redirect the Pegasus Guard toward here to provide support for the griffins, and go visit the dragons myself.”
“You'll be arriving late to the party,” Aurora warned her, “and thats assuming negotiations with the dragons go well.”
“They'll go well.” Celestia said firmly. “We will hold.”
Aurora nodded. “That leaves north and south. The northern star will land in the Everfree Wilds, and theres not alot we can do about it.”
Celestia shook her head, “Not really, but we may not have to. The southern star will land in the sphinx's desert. They'll handle it themselves.”
“I feel like we should warn them...” Aurora muttered.
“Feel free,” Celestia replied, “but I'll bet you they've known for months, and didn't bother telling us. They're sphinxes. They can handle it their way, I say we let them. If we handle the other two, the final one will probably withdraw on its own accord. Nightmare Moon promised these things a world of darkness already trampled under her hooves.” She narrowed her eyes. “They're going to find a world of fire. Once they no longer have numbers on their side, I don't think the last one will press the advance.”
“It works,” Aurora said, pondering, “but it leaves zero room for error. If any one front falls, the fourth star can reinforce it, and we'll be stuck fighting two instead of one.”
“No front will fall.” Celestia said, flaring her nostrils.
Aurora cracked a sly smile. “Just like old times, hmm?” she asked.
Celestia frowned. “Disturbingly so,” she replied, and turned for the hall. “I'm going to explain the plan to Twilight, then I have a long flight ahead of me. Find Luna as quickly as you can and get her ready. Things are going to heat up quickly here, Aurora.” She stopped before rounding the corner, and turned back at the kelpie princess, who was leaning against the sinister edge of Discord's ancient staff. “Can I count on you, Aurora?” she asked.
“No,” the vibrant red and orange kelpie replied, “but my kelpies can. I won't let them down.”
“That will have to do,” Celestia replied with a sigh. “I need a favor.”
Aurora lifted a brow, but said nothing. Celestia continued.
“‘When the five Elements of Harmony are present, a spark will cause the sixth to be revealed,’” she quoted. “That’s what I wrote in the Elements of Harmony Reference I created years ago in preparation for Nightmare Moon's second coming. But now that all the Elements have been claimed, they don't all need to be in the same place to be in the same heart. Friendship goes a long way toward shortening physical distances from one another. The Element of Magic is the fulcrum of that magical arrangement. It’s the balance point by which the Elements can be leveraged toward a certain end. The spark determines the shape of the Element, and the way it’s focused. When Twilight was sparked the first time, the Element became a means of removing a threat without destroying it. Since then, it's expunged Nightmare Moon while saving my sister, and defeated Discord by sealing him in stone. But now, it sounds like it’s hidden again.”
“What are you getting at?” Aurora asked, and Celestia sighed and looked up at the glass ceiling.
“I had years to arrange the steps to lead to that spark, Aurora. I placed the right books in the right library, I made sure she knew the legends, I even directed the grandmother of the Element of Honesty to Ponyville to make sure the right sort of pony would BE there at the right time to fill the right roll. Centuries of careful planning to save my sister. But now, I have minutes, and when the time comes I won't even be here to help.” She looked back toward Aurora. “So it comes to you. I need you to spark the Element of Magic. I need you to find a way to light the Firemare.”
Aurora's face split into a small, sly smile. She nodded once.
“Count on the sea ponies, Celestia.”