Chapter 3
Putting the Gang Back Together
Breaking Dawn blinked, "I don't understand. I, I'm not going to be your student any more?"
Celestia shook her head, her expression melancholy, "I'm afraid not, Dawn."
"But why not?" Dawn cried. "If it's something I did I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you. I'll work harder. I won't even get in trouble any more. I'll do anything you want, but please, don't send me away."
"It is nothing to do with you," Princess Celestia said kindly. "You have been a good student, and I have enjoyed our time together. But that time must end now."
"Why? Why does it have to end, why does everything have to change?" Breaking Dawn asked. "Why can't it carry on the way it was? You said that I was special, that I had great potential, you said I had a destiny you said─"
"I know what I said," Celestia replied. "I am well aware of everything I told you. Each word is a leaden weight upon my heart. I was... mistaken, in you. It... was another that I was searching for."
"No it wasn't!" Dawn was shouting now and didn't care who heard her, standing in the centre of her tower room and yelling at the princess who stood opposite. "I'm still the pony that I was, I'm still me. I've still got all the power I used to have! Look!" Dawn crunched her amber eyes tight shut, her horn glowing with a yellow aura as she began to levitate the objects in the room: the giant hourglass, the books, the chairs, practically everything in the tower that was not nailed to the floor she lifted into the air.
"That's enough!" Celestia said loudly, and Dawn opened her eyes as everything dropped to the floor again. "I do not doubt your power, Dawn, or your willingness to work hard. In truth, this is all my fault. I should not have told you of my plans for you until I could be absolutely certain you were the one, and you were ready. But in my eagerness and delight, I forgot myself and placed too heavy a burden on you. Your destiny is not what I thought it was. I have found another."
"You're replacing me?" a tear rolled down Breaking Dawn's cheek. "But, but you promised that you'd guide me every step of my journey. You can't just get rid of me like I'm some ragged old doll and you've just picked up a new one from the toy store!"
"I don't want you to think of yourself as my possession, Dawn, or anypony else's," Celestia said. "You have the chance to find your own destiny now, carve your own path through life. I beg you, don't waste it in bitterness and despair."
"Find my own destiny?" Breaking Dawn murmured dully. "But you said I was the Chosen One. That was my destiny."
Celestia closed her eyes in quiet despair, and turned to go, "I will give you a few days to pack, but you must leave this room soon. You will be boarding with the other students from here on. This tower will be wanted for...other purposes."
***
"Good morning, children. I am your new governess, Miss Laurel."
The foals, the young colt and the slightly older filly, stood up from their desks, "Good morning, Miss Laurel."
Laurel nodded approvingly, impeccable manners. She would have expected nothing less considering who their parents were, "Very good children."
They sat back down, their chairs scraping along the floor. Laurel's horn glowed brown as she deposited her black hat on the hat stand and her umbrella in the umbrella stand. She wore a black dress that made her chalk-white body seem even paler than it was and concealed her quill-and-book cutie mark from view, and her grey mane was tied back in a severe bun. Adjusting her spectacles on her nose, she sat down at her desk by the classroom fireplace.
"You father, Sir Fancypants, feels that you have now reached the age where you are too old for a nanny. He has engaged me to take charge of your education from this point on. While I am here you may call me Miss Laurel; not Laurel, not Miss, Miss Laurel. What may I call you?"
She already knew the names of both children, but she had found it helped to have them introduce themselves to create a sense of familiarity.
"My name is Crinoline, Miss Laurel," the filly, a white unicorn already showing signs that she would inherit her mother's elegant tallness, curtsied before her.
"I am Velvet Waistcoat, Miss Laurel," the colt on the other hand took more after his father, slightly stocky of build. He bowed.
"I am very pleased to meet you both. Please sit down."
They sat, chairs scraping along the floor.
"Your parents have instructed me to give you all the education which a young lady and a gentlecolt shall require," Laurel said. She levitated paper, quill and ink over to each child. "I shall begin by assessing the quality of your hoof-writing and your composition skills. Your father has, as I am sure you aware, gone to Manehattan to welcome the distinguished zebra visitors on behalf of the Princesses. You will each write him a letter in your best hoof-writing in a tone and on a subject which you consider suitable to be sent to your father in expectation that he will receive it."
"Please, Miss Laurel, what shall we write about?" Crinoline asked.
"I hardly know, Crinoline," Laurel said, enunciating every word with impeccable crispness. "It is quite up to you. Can you think of nothing of interest you wish to tell your father? A lady who can neither conceive an interesting topic of conversation nor articulate her thoughts on words or paper will soon acquire a reputation as a featherhead. No stallion indulges a fool for long. Only the worst sort will marry one." Oh how she wished that that were true, as she had believed or rather hoped it to be true in her younger days. When she had believed that those stallions who would pick her brains with their prep might actually enjoy her company, when she had sat in the corner at the Last Ball and hoped that a good mind, the ability to play the piano and write in a graceful hoof might make up for a plain face and a home made dress.
Well, she would not suffer any filly under her charge to let her mind rot. Crinoline would have a fine mind to go with her mother's body if Laurel had anything to say upon the matter.
There was a knock upon the door and one of the housemaids came in, curtsying, "If you please Miss Laurel, there are two young mares outside asking after you."
"What do they want?"
"They won't say, Miss. Best if you come quick Miss, the steward tried to send them round to the tradespony's entrance and I'm afraid they're going to cause an awful scene."
Laurel cleared her throat, "Continue with your work children, I shall return shortly." She followed the housemaid out onto the elegant balcony to the spiral staircase where she could look down upon the hall and the front door. She could see the steward in livery standing in the doorway barring entrance to─ Breaking Dawn? And Razor Wind!
"What in Celestia's name? Dawny?" Laurel murmured, resisting the urge either to shout or clutch at the banister for support. A governess never lost her composure. Setting her face in her very best stern expression, Laurel began to descend the stairs with a prim and proper step.
"No I will not use the tradespony's entrance you insolent diamond dog!" Breaking Dawn yelled, spittle flying from her mouth as Razor Wind tried to restrain her. "And I am not your good mare! How dare you speak to me in such a way, do you know who I am?"
"No, he really doesn't," Razor Wind hissed. "And I don't think he cares either so─ hey! Laurel! Look at that our old friend Laurel is here to vouch for us! Hey Laurel!" Razor grinned nervously, "Please tell the flunky that we're okay before he has us arrested."
Laurel rolled her eyes, "Everything will be quite all right, Blizzard. I know both these ponies."
Blizzard the butler coughed loudly, "Miss Laurel. Sir Fancypants would not approve of such─"
"Sir Fancypants has engaged me to educate his children, what I do or who I associate with outside of my employment is my own concern," Laurel said, cutting him off before he could let the word 'riffraff' roll off his tongue. If Dawn heard herself called that then there really would be trouble. It seemed she had lost none of her pride since leaving school. "In any case, in spite of their bluff manner I assure you there is no real harm in either of these mares. We shall take a brief turn around the garden and then, I assure you, they shall not trouble you again."
"Very good Miss," Blizzard said, though he continued to glare at Breaking Dawn as Laurel strode, head high, through the door and led them towards the fountain that dominated the front garden of the Fancypants town house.
Once the door closed, Dawn scowled, "What a jerk. Who did he think he was looking down at me? Me! I've half a mind to come back and─"
"You will not come back here again," Laurel's voice was cold and sharp as ice.
"What?"
"Do you know how easily you could get me dismissed," Laurel snarled. "If anything about what we used to get up to as children comes out, if Sir Fancypants thinks I might be a bad influence upon his children, then I will be out of the door faster than you can say vacancy! And once he spreads word around the town I won't get another position in Canterlot again! Then what will I do?"
"But you said─" Razor began.
"I was bluffing," Laurel hissed. "What are you two even doing here? What do you want?"
"Aren't you even a little glad to see us, after all this time?" Razor Wind asked, her voice small and childlike. "It's been years."
Laurel nodded, not meeting Breaking Dawn's eyes. The last time she had seen any of them was when Dawn got expelled from Celestia's School. Laurel had continued her studies, and had not wanted to jeopardise that by sneaking out to visit an expelled student and her delinquent friends. Dawn, proud Dawn, hadn't made much effort to see her either. And she was the glue that had held them all together.
And yet, in spite of the passage of the years, she still felt a thrill, a spark, at the sight of them both. Breaking Dawn's haughty gaze, Razor Wind's ever ready smile and eager gaze, both stirred a gleam of gold within her mind and woke up distant silver sounds like trumpets long ago. Memories of halcyon days when the world was green and pastures endless. Before the winds turned cold and the leaves turned brown and the walls went up to hem her in.
She felt a smile spread across her face, "I apologise. It is wonderful to see you both darlings, absolutely wonderful." Laurel took their hooves in hers, "Please, sit with me and tell me everything."
She led them over to the fountain, crowned with a statue of a cherubic pegasus, and sat them down upon its rim while she sat beside them, "How have you been, both of you?"
Dawn scowled. Razor reached around and scratched the back of her neck, "We, uh, we get by. Keep on keeping on I guess."
"Five years and you have not changed a whit," Laurel shook her head. She knew enough of Dawn's pride to read between Razor's words. "Why didn't you come to me for help dear, if you needed it. I know it's been a while, but if there's anything that I can do-"
"What, are you going to loan me money on a governess' salary?" Breaking Dawn demanded in a voice dripping acid. "Or get me a job as a maid to Sir Fancypants? No thank you."
"I would never ask you to descend into servitude, Dawn," Laurel said firmly. "As for money...I could get by on a little less. I live simply. I could live simpler still."
"You won't have to by the time we're done," Razor Wind declared encouragingly. "If you're in that is."
"In? In what?" Laurel's blue eyes narrowed behind her spectacles. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm going to take what is mine," Breaking Dawn stated firmly. "All that I am due, all that was taken from me: the love of the Princess, the respect of the people, my rightful place at Celestia's right hoof, my crown, my dear ambitions and my destiny. And revenge, for my years of humiliation. I will take it all, if you will help me."
Laurel's brow crinkled with a frown as she asked the question to which she already knew the answer, "And who will you take it from?"
"The one who stole it from me," Dawn nearly shouted. "The one who stole from all of us! The lavender thief, the false princess, Twilight Sparkle."
Laurel exhaled loudly. What she had just heard skirted very close to treason. Might even be treason for all she knew, her academic knowledge did not extend to law. This will not end well.
"I need your help," Dawn continued, in a more quiet tone. "I can't do this by myself. I need you, I need everypony, the whole gang. Razor Wind and Cherry Blossom are already in. So how about it?"
"I," Laurel hesitated. It seemed so ungenerous to refuse outright, but at the same time it seemed so mad to agree. "I don't know..."
"Come on, Laurel, is this what you imagined your life would be like back in school?" Breaking Dawn demanded. "Is this where you'd end up when you graduated valedictorian? When you won the Old Girl's Prize for Ancient Unicorn, did you think 'great, now I can go and teach snot-nosed kids to read!'
"You're better than this. You were made for greatness, we all were! We were promised glory, and we can have it if we only have the courage to reach out and take it."
"I like teaching," Laurel said reproachfully.
"As a governess?" Dawn replied. "Not quite a servant, certainly not family?"
"I can't deny that I would rather be doing real teaching," Laurel said, "treading our alma mater's halls as mistress, not student, even if what I do is a step up from a country school-house."
"I won't be like Twilight Sparkle," Dawn whispered softly, temptingly. "When I shine across Equestria I won't forget the friends who helped me get there. When I am given my due I'll build you a school if you want one.
Dawn got up, faced Laurel, and bowed her head, "Please Laurel, I can't do this without you. Without you it's just no good. I need you."
Laurel smiled sadly, "Oh Dawny, how can I resist a heartfelt plea like that. I'm in."
"Yes!" Razor Wind leapt into the air, her wings beating furiously as she pumped one hoof. Dawn smiled in quiet relief.
"What do I have to do?" Laurel asked.
"We'll all get together tonight, and discuss our plans then," Breaking Dawn said. "Come to number 16 Dumas Street at eight o'clock. It'll be just like old times."
"I hope not, that would be quite inappropriate for a mare in my position," Laurel murmured. "But I'll be there."
Dawn nodded, smiling.
For now they were four.
***
In her dressing room, Hard Candy took the wig off her head and began to wash off her stage make up. As she did so, she started humming to herself. Some disdained comedy, and held tragedy to be the highest form of theatre, the true form for an actor's craft. But for her, the laughter of the crowd made a good comedy more worthwhile than the best written of tragedies.
There was a knock on the door.
"Come in," Hardy Candy said.
The door to the dressing room opened and Breaking Dawn walked in, levitating a large bunch of flowers in front of her. She closed the door, kicking her heels a little.
"Dawn?" Candy's peppermint eyes boggled. "Dawny, is that you?"
"I'm not really sure what you're supposed to say in these situations," Dawn said. "It's not encore is it?"
"You're a little late for that," Candy chuckled. "Did you really come to see the show?"
"It is a matinee," Dawn replied. "You were actually pretty good. I really felt for you, having your island stolen by a magician like that. Do you have anywhere I can put these?" Dawn shook the flowers.
"Here," Candy produced a vase, clutching it in her mint-green legs as Dawn placed the bouquet inside. "But I'm sure you didn't look me up after all this time just so you could compliment me on my portrayal of Sycorax in The Storm. You want something, don't you?"
"Hey," Dawn looked hurt as she sat down. "Aren't we friends? Didn't we say that we'd be friends forever, through thick and thin? Aren't I allowed to just miss you?"
"But you do want something don't you?"
"Yes." Dawn said immediately. She looked around Candy's dressing room, "Is this what you want out of life? Are you happy?"
"You told me I was the Element of Laughter, I make ponies laugh," Hard Candy said.
"Oh," Dawn frowned, "I was kind of hoping you'd be bitter and jealous so I'd have something to work with."
"What's this about, Dawny?"
Breaking Dawn said, "I'm planning to bring down Princess Twilight Sparkle, strip her of everything she holds dear, and leave her broken in the knowledge that I won and there's nothing she can do about it. Razor Wind, Cherry Blossom and Laurel have already agreed to help me out. How about you?"
Candy started laughing, "Thank you Dawn, that is the best joke I've heard all week, hahaha... sweet Celestia you're serious aren't you?"
"Do I look like I'm joking?" Dawn asked as her face got even more stern than usual.
"But what do you need me for?"
"I need everypony. All of us, the old gang. I don't know for what yet, but I know that getting the gang back together is the answer to all our problems. I never should have lost touch with you in the first place, and I'm sorry. Will you help me?"
Candy shrugged, "When could I last refuse you anything, Dawny? Sure I'll help you. It'll be a fun ride if nothing else."
"Great!" Dawn shouted. "Eight o'clock, number 16 Dumas Street, everypony's gonna be there."
"Have you talked to Hardy yet?"
"No, she's next, why?"
Candy leaned back, "I don't think she'll go for this."
"You worry too much," Dawn said, refusing to let any misgivings put her off.
For now they were five.
***
As the sun set, Breaking Dawn and Hardy Bloom sat upon the balcony of the office of Hardy Bloom, Attorney at Law, looking out over Canterlot as they drank some of Hardy's cocktails.
"You know, you had some crazy ideas when we were kids," Hardy murmured, swilling her glass reflectively. She was a dun-coloured earth pony with a light brown mane. "But this, this is nuts."
"You've said that already," Dawn said.
"It bears repeating," Hardy muttered. "Besides, the fact that I'm free with my opinions is what you always used to like about me."
Dawn shrugged, "It's true that I think every powerful pony needs somepony to speak truth to them, and once upon a time that pony was you. But I'm not powerful no more and it's been a while since I was, so could you sugarcoat it for me just a little please?"
"Sorry, no can do," Hardy Bloom took a drink. "This is nuts."
"Sugarcoat!"
"Sugarcoat what, that you've gone insane?" Hardy said. "Should I tell you the stress has been getting to you and you need a holiday in the sun, would that be sweetened enough? You. Are. Crazy!"
"Oh come on," Dawn said. "You don't even know what my plan is yet."
"That's because you don't have a plan," Hardy Bloom shot back. "And you don't have a plan because there is no good plan. You can't just bring down a princess no matter how hard you might want to."
"I can and I will," Dawn replied with a pout. "She isn't fireproof."
"Her dragon is."
"Smart-flank," Dawn drank. "You were always too smart for your own good."
"That's why you need me."
"I don't need your brains, I have Laurel for that."
"Laurel has knowledge, I have smarts, there's a difference," Hardy Bloom. "You realise that even if I say no, now that you've told me what you're up to you've made me an accessory before the fact?"
"Does that mean you're in?" Dawn asked with a smile.
Hardy sighed and shook her head.
"Even you can't deny that we had some interesting times together."
"That's one way to describe it," Hardy said. "Another way to describe it was that I almost had my life ruined because you thought that you owned me."
"What?"
"You were selfish, demanding, you always had to have your own way and looking at you now I can see that you haven't changed a bit. Stamping your hoof because life didn't turn out like you planned. Well guess what, it never does! Get over it before somepony gets hurt. You realise you've uprooted Laurel and Candy's lives for your own benefit."
"I'll pay them back."
"That's what you always said," Hardy growled. "How are you going to pay them back for getting exiled?"
"We aren't going to get exiled, we're going to win, you were always such a gloomy downer. Why are we even friends?"
"Because you're just self-aware enough to know that your ego outstrips your talent, and you don't have the self-control to rein it in without somepony to pop it for you. I'm that pony."
"You certainly are," Breaking Dawn said. "That's why I need you the most. I always did."
Hardy sighed, "I suppose you're right, my life did get more boring without you around. Oh what the hay, let's commit treason. If, when, this whole thing falls apart I'll just defend you and all and represent myself and get us acquitted of all charges."
"You really think you could do that?"
Hardy smirked, "I could get Queen Chrysalis acquitted on a charge of fraud."
"I've missed you," now it was Dawn's turn to smirk. "The little thief isn't going to know what hit her."
"I know I said I'd help you, but as your honest friend I feel like I should tell you that you'd probably be better off seeing a therapist about this obsession you've developed. It'll probably help you more than revenge will," Hardy shrugged. "On the other hand, revenge is a lot cheaper."
"You got that right, I tried seeing one of them once, and by the time I got the bill I had something new to make me angry," Dawn said.
"So do you actually have a plan for your revenge, or are you just hoping to wing it?"
Dawn smiled sheepishly, "I was kind of hoping you five would help me crack the details."
Hardy Bloom rolled her eyes, "Of course you were."
***
The living room was a little crowded with six ponies inside, but Breaking Dawn didn't mind one bit. The little house she shared with Razor and Cherry, which had in days past seemed a stage claustrophobic, crushing her ambitions and grinding her dreams to dust beneath its smallness and banality, was transformed in her spirit to infinite space by the presence of other ponies even though in truth they made it hard to move around. That did not matter. The fire was roaring, the wine was sweet, and her dull domestic prison had been turned into a vista of possibilities.
She did not voice these thoughts aloud. That would have been very cruel to Cherry Blossom, who had done her best over these past years to make a home for herself and her friends. But a mare made for palaces could never rest easy in urban squalor however homely.
I will not tailor my ambitions to my means, I will not curb imagination's sprawl to dwell solely in this grey province cynics call reality, I will not settle for a smaller dream merely because heart's desire seems far off and out of reach. I shall leap into the nothingness and trust to friendship's wings to carry me safe to the far side of the abyss.
"Thank you all for coming," Dawn said. "I know I have to take the manticore's share of the blame for the way that our friendships fell apart back in the day. I was humiliated and angry, and I was afraid that, if you saw me like that, without any of the things I had when you became my friends, you wouldn't want to know me any more. And I was even more afraid that you would stick with me out of pity."
"Don't be absurd dear," Laurel said firmly. "We would have done anything for you, always. You should have known better."
"Yeah, just because you couldn't get us out of trouble with your name any more wouldn't have changed that," Candy said.
"I told you that you should have had more faith in them at the time," Razor remarked.
Dawn smiled, "But you're all here now. We're together again, and being together we're unstoppable. Princess Robber cannot stand before us while we are united."
"She has friends of her own, doesn't she?" Cherry asked.
"They're deserting her already," Razor Wind shook her head. "One of them has gone home already."
"That will weaken them more than the loss of just one pony," Dawn declared. "Princess Celestia taught me that the effectiveness of the elements is more than just six ponies working together; you can't just throw six bodies together and tell them to get on with it. It's more than that, it's synergy. That's what we have and that's what they don't since she let one get away, and maybe more to follow. She's vulnerable, now is our time."
"Can I ask a question," Hardy Bloom leaned forwards. "We all know why we're here, but I'd like to know one more thing: just how far are you willing to go against Twilight Sparkle. Do you mean to kill her?"
"No," Dawn shouted in outrage. "Is that what you think of me? I am not the bad guy here and I don't mean to become the bad guy just so that that thief can seem better by comparison. I mean to leave her as she left me: frustrated, powerless, alone. I mean for her to know who beat her, and that I was better all along. But then we will be even. I will not take her life, I am not the monster in this story."
"We all knew that, but it's a relief to hear you say it," Laurel said. Cherry Blossom nodded enthusiastically, and Dawn sensed that they had all been waiting on the answer to that question.
Dawn herself found that she was glad Hardy had asked. She would not be tempted now, no matter what. She had given her word to her friends, the friends who trusted her, had put their lives on hold to follow her. She would not break it.
"If you are going to strip Princess Twilight's life from her, then you'll need to get close to her," Hardy remarked, putting her head in her hooves. "You need to get into society."
"The reception for the zebra ambassadors," Laurel smiled. "Everypony whose anypony will be there, and so long as we can get you noticed before they arrive then you should be able to get a ticket for it. And then you'll have a hoof in the door."
"Not as yourself," Hardy said. "You'll need a knew name, something that sounds foreign, like you're from a very remote part of Equestria. The Countess of...something, we'll figure it out."
"How does going to a party help you bring down Princess Twilight?" Razor Wind asked.
"It doesn't," Breaking Dawn smiled. "But it gives me an excellent place to start."