- - -
Interlude (the end)
- - -
Eunomie (iii)
- - -
You understand now.
The Terre Rare, descendants of Arsenic all, are not normal ponies.
They do not think like normal ponies. They do not react like normal ponies. I have seen this in my Aunts Chalice and Antimony. I have even seen it in a branch member of that family, Twilight Sparkle, the very Element of Magic herself. I saw it in my step-father.
Alpha Brass, I learned, was somewhat like me. His subconscious was abnormal. In my case, it was due to the circumstances of my birth. In his, it was due to his upbringing and his special talent. All his family are fated to inherit certain gifts from their founder, the Lady Arsenic. Virtually all are talented in magic, but some of their gifts are more obvious than others. Some are darker than others. To survive, my step-father willingly let the changelings have his love. What was left, he used to push himself forward. He taught Euporie and myself. We learned how to become unpalatable to the changelings.
We also planned to destroy them.
Another pony may be forgiven for thinking we made these plans for revenge, that this entire conspiracy is an act of premeditated vengeance on a grand scale. I do not believe this is the case. Certainly, it is not for me. Revenge is an emotional reaction that is muted in me. I can remember being wronged, of course, but I don’t have the strong feelings of umbrage or outrage that go with it. Not really.
So why am I doing this?
I suppose I am doing what I am doing because I think it is in the best long-term interests of Equestria and because my life is predicated on Equestria’s future viability as a state where ponies are the dominant species. If the grass we eat could kill us, would it not do so? I think it is a reasonable hypothetical. As for my sister, Euporie once told me she does what she does because she can and because it makes sense for her to use her talents to their utmost.
“Doesn’t society look down on those who don’t use their talents?” Her own words. I couldn’t tell if she meant them or not. I think she was also making fun of me, but I cannot tell for certain. Such is Euporie’s way.
But my father… my step-father…? I know he wants to create a better world for my sister and myself. None of us simply want revenge, I do not think, though we will take it if it is presented to us on the road to greater things.
- - -
Twilight Sparkle
- - -
“Arsenic?” Alpha Brass asked, unperturbed by the news. “Alive? Really?”
“That’s what Antimony told me,” Twilight replied, leaning in closer to the wax pony on display. It was rearing in a very lifelike pose, but minus the skin and hair. Long seams of white wax, made out like fatty tissue, mixed in with the dry, dark red of striated muscle. With the legs tensed, tendons were visible, like bundled, translucent cords. It was one of many models on display at the Health and Wellness Body Art Exhibition, currently on tour in Canterlot.
“She would be well over two hundred years old, but yes, it is possible,” Alpha Brass admitted.
He idly stroked a thin strip of beard and moustache he had lately started growing in the van Dyke style. He was keeping the moustache very trim and the beard tear-drop shaped from where it tapered just below his lower lip. When Twilight had told Rarity about it, her fashion-conscious friend had explained that it was ‘en vogue’ among stallions this year. Rarity thought it was handsome and chic. Twilight was less enthusiastic. Even though Germoglio, Captain of the White Company, had a similar beard... for some instinctive, illogical reason, it gave Brass a sort of a sinister look. She was tempted to ask him to go clean-shaven again, like when they had first met.
“You never heard anything about this before now?” Twilight asked, tilting her head in his direction. It had been more than a week since Antimony had first broached the subject of Arsenic still being among the living.
“A secret like that would only be known by the family’s designated successor,” he replied, shrugging.
“But you aren’t surprised,” she observed.
“Not really.” Brass slowly trotted over to another exhibit, this one a recreation of a pegasus mare with her wings spread, about to take flight. The wing muscles that stretched like tendrils across her chest and torso stood out in her pose. “While I did not expect her to be alive, I have long considered that she may be.”
Twilight stood next to him, her eyes on the wax pony but her mind on her great-great grandmother.
“Antimony says she can teach me a how to penta-alliterate a spell,” she explained, and he nodded slowly.
“Revealing the enemy would go a long way to minimizing bloodshed when the time comes,” Alpha Brass agreed, stealing a look at the mare and smiling pleasantly. “Tell me. What’s on your mind?”
“I’m… apprehensive, I guess,” Twilight admitted, blushing faintly at his concern and the way his eyes sought out her own. She twiddled her hooves in front of her. “I wish I could talk to Princess Celestia more about… these things, but I can’t. I wonder what she would say? Antimony wants me to go with her, but she won’t say where. She just says Arsenic can’t come to me, no matter what. I’d have to go and try and talk to her myself.”
“You’re worried,” Alpha Brass said, tapping a hoof on the polished wooden floor. “I don’t blame you. We have not announced our arrangements yet, not publicly, but Antimony and the rest of my family must be aware of what we are planning. Your father and brother refusing my father’s summons will be taken as a challenge, and, very soon, my father will respond to it. Antimony is sure to take his side and involve herself, but I don’t think my sister would be going through all this just to lead you into a trap. She is much too hidebound and honorable to use low tactics of that sort.”
Twilight slowly shook her head.
“Why do you two…? I mean, you don’t sound like you dislike her,” she said, and Twilight didn’t miss Brass briefly closing his eyes and glancing away from her. She nudged him gently, prodding him to be honest and open with her. “I need to know about Arsenic – anything you know, anything that can help prepare me for – but I also need to know what happened between the two of you. You and Antimony. You’re her big brother, aren’t you? Why does she hate you so much?”
Alpha Brass sighed as if defeated. “It was a number of things, I think, but above all, she disapproves of my methods. Well, I don’t approve of my methods either, all the time, but if it had to be pinned down to a single thing… it would be my interference in the sisters’ duel.”
“The sisters’ duel?” Twilight asked, not entirely sure what he could be referring to. She had read Antimony’s public dueling records, just like she knew Chalice’s and Polished Jewel’s. Alpha Brass’s dueling record as well. She had done her homework on her kin in preparation for having to face them for control of the family and the great house of the Terre Rare.
As far as she knew, the sisters had never openly dueled with one another…
Alpha Brass quickly explained what he meant. “When we were young, my father came to Canterlot to discuss the issue of the Blueblood succession and the restoration of our family rights. This was shortly after Lady Cadenza was brought into the royal household. What you may not know is that my father and the previous Blueblood were old comrades from their youth. They served together in the Royal Guard; they had squired together, been knighted together… I believe Princess Celestia arranged most of it to build their friendship.”
“Nonetheless,” he continued, sounding a little upset. “Whatever they discussed, it fell through, and matters of honor demanded a duel.”
“A duel Blueblood’s father lost,” Twilight recalled.
Brass nodded. “My own father was terribly injured as well. A decision must have loomed before him to pick a successor. Understand that my siblings and myself… we were all born for a reason. I was born on the off chance that the Bluebloods had a daughter. My sisters were born to inherit and rule the family. My mother raised me, and my father raised my sisters… for the most part. He called to my sisters after his duel and told them to fight for the right to be successor. He meant it literally and they took it literally.”
Twilight frowned at his description of the event, unsettled by what she had heard to the point where it left a sick feeling in her stomach. All brothers and sisters competed in subtle or unspoken ways. She had long struggled to live up to her brother, Shining Armor, who was both an esteemed knight of the Royal Guard and an accomplished – even celebrated – magic user. Shining was said to have no equal in the country when it came to barrier magic.
She remembered hearing others praise him endlessly while she struggled just to get into Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, but for all that, Twilight had always loved and admired her sweet, gentle older brother. Her parents expected excellence from their children, but they would never have set one against the other. But then, Twilight had always been told she was the family heir, not her brother…
She wondered what Shining Armor thought of that. Did he think about it at all?
“They didn’t fight, did they?” she asked.
“That is a more complicated question than you think it to be,” Brass replied. “The object of the game, as my father put it, was to earn a title and lands while starting with nothing but a name and a few attendants. This, by definition, meant taking the title from somepony else. It was a quest not only to gain power but to weed out those unworthy or unable to hold onto it.”
He conjured up a little magic, and the face on the wax pony filled out, becoming that of a young unicorn mare with a dark mane, light blue coat, and violet eyes. Twilight recognized it had to be Polished Jewel, the oldest of the Terre Rare children, back when she was in her teens.
“Most ponies expected Polished Jewel to win,” he explained. Twilight glanced over at him and saw a shade of a smirk. “Worst of all, Polished Jewel also expected she would win. While I was not invited to participate in the contest, I decided that I would not sit on the sidelines, either. After my marriage to Olive Branch and the discovery of our mutual enemy, I… stepped in....”
- - -
The castle was a ruin.
Chalice’s warbling cry of pain echoed against crumbled masonry and piles of smashed lumber as she reverted back to her mortal form. The aether rushed back inwards like a receding tide, collapsing into a pool of twinkling black, shrinking smaller and smaller until it became puddles across light pink hair, mercury pools ripping back into pores in the skin, into tear ducts, into the mouth and the nose even as Chalice screamed, the air being forced out against the conjured void rushing in.
She finally fell, unconscious, into the center of a crater.
The mare was followed, a second later, by a smaller female form also collapsing. Star-spawned matter swirled around her as well, expanding one last time before retracting and returning back through the magical gateway each mare now carried within her body. A high-pitched scream followed, a filly’s body rearing up and clutching her face, pincer-like claws receding into hooves.
Then she, too, fell forward onto her face.
As Alpha Brass had expected, his youngest sister had been the first to recover.
Though she would one day grow into a tall mare, as a filly, Antimony had been short and skinny like a colt. She didn’t bat an eye, even with Sirocco standing next to her bed, a spear held threateningly close to her neck. She didn’t yell or scream, despite the bandages covering her face and chest. All she did was glare at him. It was an expression she seemed to prefer. Daddy’s little girl.
Alpha Brass sat himself down in a chair in front of his baby sister’s bed, carefully cradling his broken left foreleg so it rested against his stomach. He met Antimony’s stare with his own, unconcerned. He did not have The Caster’s Eyes… The Gorgon’s Eyes… Arsenic’s Eyes. It had taken three failed children for Mother to get that alchemical mixture just right. Antimony was the youngest but the most perfect of them all, at least going by Father’s sense of the word. Brass’s own opinion differed. If only the eyes had come in just one foal sooner! But there was no point crying over spilt milk or lost opportunities. Who knew if Chalice would even have proven malleable at all had she been as supernaturally gifted as her little sister.
“You should kill me,” Antimony stated, when it became clear he wasn’t about to speak first.
“How could I spill the blood of my dear family?” he asked, waving his one good forehoof to have Sirocco back off and raise her spear. “Especially the blood of my baby sister? You think me so monstrous?”
“You set Lady Slatestone against Chalice!” Antimony roared.
It was a strange thing, to hear such fury coming from a filly’s mouth.
“Ah. Yes. Yes, I did,” he admitted. “Lady Slatestone is my animal and always has been.”
Antimony tried to surge out of her medical bed, but Sirocco easily restrained her with one powerful wing.
“Why?” she hissed. “The succession is no business of yours! We sisters are to decide--”
“No business of mine?” Brass interrupted her, leaning forward in his chair. “It is family business, and am I not your family? Who will head this house as it rises to power? You? Polished Jewel? Chalice? No.” He leaned back again, wincing at the pain in his broken leg. “There is too much at stake now to leave things to you three. There is too much danger. Too much terror and too much opportunity.”
“Do not pretend you are interested in anything but your own self!” Antimony – little filly that she was – fixed him with a look that could very well kill. After all, it was whispered that Arsenic could kill with a stare. Antimony wasn’t on that level just yet, but the potential was there.
“Had I not acted, would you have played second fiddle to Polished Jewel forever?” he asked, and she snarled but said nothing. “Do you want to know why I set this all up, little Princess? Have you wondered why I left that second Star Key for you to find – so conveniently – before you confronted Chalice and myself?”
Alpha Brass closed his eyes and sighed at having to explain himself. He did not enjoy it, and Antimony was smart enough he shouldn’t have had to. Besides, explaining oneself was tedious and insulting.
“Don’t tell me you wanted me to beat her,” Antimony whispered, but it was loud enough to overhear.
“Both outcomes were ones I could live with,” Brass told her, and the young mare recoiled as if struck.
“Why?” she demanded.
“The purpose of all this was to eliminate Polished Jewel as a contender,” he explained, simply. “To have you destroy her organization from the inside while Chalice destroyed it from the outside. She was too independent and far too closed-minded. Her ambitions were just far too small to properly lead the Terre Rare.” He dismissed the very notion of his older sister’s rule with a wave of his good hoof, as if shooing away a mere annoyance. “Do you know what will happen to her now? At my urging, Father will arrange a marriage with Whinnychester. And do you know what else? She will be content with it.”
“Let me ask you this,” he drove home. “Would you be content with Whinnychester?”
“No,” Antimony answered.
Alpha Brass cracked a tiny smile and nodded, pleased to hear it. “That is why I gave you power, and that is why I gave that same power to Chalice… to check you. You will motivate her, just as I will motivate you. We are family, are we not? Family without equals? The two most deadly mares in Equestria should be sisters.”
Antimony was just a filly, but he could see the cutie mark she had earned over the last few days. The one that reflected the great gift he had given her. She would carry that mark and that reminder for the rest of her life, the stars superimposed over her crown. It was fate, now. Destiny. And she had him to thank for it.
Antimony briefly closed her eyes, and Brass remembered when he had first seen her as a baby. Everypony except Mother and Father had been afraid of her. Like all baby unicorns, her innate magic had run wild, and that had included her placing uncontrollable and often terrifying illusions on any who met her little eyes. Many servants at Gaskinring had quit that year, refusing to work anywhere near the terrifying foal and leaving parts of the castle near abandoned.
Alpha Brass had always thought his baby sister’s eyes to be rather beautiful.
They were a monster’s eyes.
“Everything you say is a lie,” Antimony said, finally, fixing him with a hateful glare. “Everything you do is terrible. I hate you.”
Alpha Brass closed his eyes and smirked, if only to conceal the bit of surprise he truly felt. Those words. Those words had stung, if only a little. It was his own fault; he should have expected them and been prepared for them. It made sense that she would hate him. That was fine. Hate was something he could work with. Hate was malleable and reliable. Hate was productive and motivating. This was all fine.
“Whether you hate me or not,” he said, still not opening his eyes. “Whether you even believe me or not, you will still listen to me.”
“Do I have a choice?” she asked.
“Not really, no,” he replied.
“Then I’ll listen. But mark my words,” Antimony vowed. “One day, I will make you pay for every pony you have manipulated and every life you have destroyed. For every soul you’ve damned. Including Chalice’s… and mine. You’ll pay for every single one.”
Alpha Brass’s smile didn’t even waver at the threat. If anything, it seemed to please him.
“Oh, sister,” he said with a sigh, “if only I had an entire country of ponies like you.” He patted his broken leg fondly. “All creation would tremble in terror at the whisper of the name Equestria. But until that day, you must play your part... and I must play mine.”
- - -
“Twilight. With how much she’s told you, you must have worked something out with her,” he said, smiling encouragingly at her. He gently took Twilight by the hoof, the better to turn her towards him. “I won’t pry. If you want to tell me, then you’ll tell me. But Antimony and I will always be opposed. She will never allow the family to fracture, and she will die before she sees the main branch lose power. Hers’ is the power of birthright. Mine is the power of ambition.”
“Before the wedding,” he warned. “You will have to choose.”
Twilight squeezed his hoof with her own but kept her eyes planted down on the floor.
“Can’t you both just… talk things over?” she asked, hopefully. Blindly hopeful.
“Some things cannot be settled with words alone,” Brass insisted. “You know I need the armies of the Terre Rare to defeat the changelings.” He released her hoof to gently raise her chin. She met him face to face and felt a surge of embarrassment at her earlier shyness.
He was asking her to be strong.
“Our plans are still our plans, aren’t they?” he asked.
“They are,” Twilight promised him. “But… Antimony and I… and Rarity, we… we just want the city to be safe. We want to be sure.”
She glanced away, guiltily, and hoped that he didn’t notice.
“Have you talked to my sister about your branch of the family?” he asked.
Twilight shook her head. “No. I don’t… I don’t know what she’ll say.”
“You’re afraid that she’ll ask the same thing our father asked, that the main branch be allowed to decide your fate,” he guessed, and as always, he was spot-on.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
Alpha Brass leaned down to nudge her gently with his cheek, not quite as affectionate or personal as a nuzzle, but enough to get a pony’s attention. Twilight felt her cheeks warm up even more, but she returned the comforting gesture. Since Brass had come to Canterlot to try and broker some decease in tensions between the capitol and Neighpon, Twilight had tried to meet with him and test the waters of what could be another lasting relationship. It was like friendship… a new and exciting kind of friendship.
“The future is in your hooves,” he assured her. “Go with my sister. Learn what you need to learn. When the time comes, I know you will do what you feel is right.” He smiled brightly and laughed. “As long as you spend the day crushing bugs with me, I’ll stand by how you go about doing it.”
“T-thanks,” Twilight stammered, her usual loquaciousness failing in the face of Brass’s warm smile and supportive hoof cupping her own.
“Now, about our mutual ancestor,” he began, the pair of unicorns walking past a still wax pony with a horn.
For the next hour or so they talked about the sorts of magic a pony could use to keep themselves alive for more than a century. Certainly, some ponies could be long-lived, especially powerful unicorns and earth ponies in general, but no pony aside from the Princess could survive a century and a half of wear and tear. As with any thinking being, ponies throughout the ages had made the effort of trying to artificially extend their longevity.
Alchemists devised potions to rejuvenate the body… and many poisoned themselves with mercury in the process. Transmutation mages tried to turn the body into something more permanent… usually with horrific results. The ‘dummy’ body Twilight had secretly inhabited in the Blueblood archives was the result of the last real attempt to create artificial ponies, and to their credit, it hadn’t aged a day in over eight hundred years. Arcanists tried to use known age magic to continually fight the natural aging process… but eventually the magic faded and they aged rapidly and often violently. There was simply no way to remain young, forever.
Except for the Princesses, and even then, only Celestia and Luna appeared to be immortal.
Why – Twilight had wondered during her days of research – why only them? There were records of alicorns and alicorn Princesses going back to the pre-classical period. Hundreds or even thousands of years before the Migration and before the Twin Princesses there had been alicorns, and in the thousand years after, there had been a dozen more like Cadence. All had been mortal. There was nothing intrinsically immortal about alicorns.
The question then raised itself: would, or could, Celestia and Luna remain immortal if they were unicorns and not alicorns? Was their immortality related to their physiology, or was it due to their magic? As far as Twilight could tell, the only truly unique magic the Princesses had at their disposal was the ability to move the Sun and Moon. According to the Blueblood archives, everything else could and had at one point been done by others.
So how on Celestia’s good, green Equestria was Arsenic still alive?
Then there was the fact that, according to every history ever written that mentioned her, Arsenic was an earth pony.
Earth ponies couldn’t even use unicorn magic!
“In your book, you described a ritual where zebras could practice a form of necromancy…”
“Spirit Speaking,” Brass reminded her. “Necromancy is an evil art among the zebra. This was not that.”
“Zecora told me that what you wrote about was considered an evil art in her tribe, too.”
“Matters of degree I suppose,” he conceded, holding open the door to their carriage and helping her inside. Twilight tried to ignore the occasional flash of a camera from the small crowd of ponies that had been waiting for them outside. Part of the reason they had taken this trip was to be seen together. It was seen as important to lead the public into embracing her before they made their move against the Prench Terre Rare.
Sitting down, she recalled the incident in question, recounted in one of the three books Alpha Brass had written. One was a translation of a pre-classical text, mostly poems and mythology from the Old Kingdom and Dream Valley, but the other two books had been written about his time in Zebrabar. One was a history of three tribes he had encountered on the mainland, along with an ethnographic and linguistic study of the zebra peoples. The other was a more personal account of his time spent with the Abassinians, an ethnically donkey-race.
Brass had spent three months with them, and during that time he had recorded much of their oral history, taught several of them some basic Equestrian, and recorded what he could of their rites, magic, and beliefs. Twilight had read the book twice, as both an academic study and as an anecdotal adventure novel. In the pages, the young noblestallion had recounted a harrowing game of cat and mouse as a hunting party of zebra stallions, plus one unicorn, tried to protect the tribe from a pony-eating monster from the darkest savannah. For his part in slaying the beast, Brass had allegedly been given a tattoo in a very private place. Twilight found herself a little curious if that part of the book would hold up to more intense scrutiny.
She nibbled her lower lip and tried not to let him see her now rather intense blush. Naughty thoughts aside, it was doubly and surreptitiously exciting to actually be… this close to an author. While hardly well-known, Alpha Brass was a true gentlestallion and intellectual. All the other things he had done, though, paled in comparison to when she had found out about his books.
There was just something amazingly exciting about reading somepony’s words on paper. How many other mares had read his books, too? Being with him now… it was almost like she had a part of his book all to herself, one that nopony else could read!
Or maybe she just had a book fetish like some of her friends suggested?
Regardless, in said book, Brass had documented a zebra ritual called ‘spirit speaking.’ It had involved a shaman of the tribe leading a ceremony. A great fire had been built on a bed of coals and shrouded in incense. The participants, Brass included, had partaken of ‘cleansing herbs’ of which the primary ingredient was likely crushed White Sage Hoof, a known muscle relaxant and mild hallucinogen. The shaman then used an invocation to draw a spirit close to the fire, turning the flames blue-white. In the most shocking part of the ritual, a sacrificial pony – sedated by drugs – had her forelegs cut and her blood thrown into the fire. This empowered the spirit and gave it substance and even some form and frightful agency.
“Are you sure you actually saw the spirit speaking?” Twilight asked, turning towards him as they sat side by side in the rolling carriage. “You yourself said that the herbs you were given included White Sage Hoof. That doesn’t make for the most reliable testimony.”
“It happened as I described it,” he replied after a short pause. “My blood is very resistant to toxins in general. I learned that Sage would be involved before the ritual and boosted my immunity in order to give an unbiased account of the practice and the magic involved.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, just how did…”
“My mother,” Alpha Brass answered, clearly not needing to hear the question in full. “It is tradition for the mother of the main branch, if not a blood-born Terre Rare herself, to ingest a cocktail of poisons when pregnant. My sisters and myself… we have all activated Arsenic’s blood within us. The poison in our blood negates other toxins, though it also repels healing magic just as well. It is something of a two-sided blade, really.”
Twilight recalled the legend about Arsenic that she had told her friends back when she had described her family tree. Antimony had interrupted the story and called it slanderous. Even though it was looking more true than ever, and even though Antimony would have already known all this and more.
“Why would…?” Twilight almost asked but shook her head. “Maybe I’ll ask why you have blood like that when I meet Lady Arsenic.”
“It doesn’t give us immortality, so I’d be curious as well,” Brass admitted.
“This also means your account of the zebra ceremony, necromancy or not, was accurate,” she reasoned, leaning back in the soft leather of the carriage seat. “They were actually able to bind a dead pony to the material plane as some sort of phantom.”
He nodded, head bobbing as the carriage hit a rough patch of the cobblestone road. “You sound surprised, and yet, not all too surprised.”
“I came across a spell… a unicorn spell,” Twilight said and momentarily regretted it. It was a spell she had researched in the Blueblood Archives.
“And?” Brass asked.
“And it bore certain similarities to what you described in your book,” she went on. “It was called Prattle’s Persistent Pigeon. It involved a ceremony where a bird’s heart was quickly removed and set in a circle of chalk and salt. A special candle drew out the soul of the bird, turning the flame ‘bone white.’ The spirit was bound and sealed in the circle. Afterwards, it could be used to transmit messages to anypony in the world. Being a spirit, it never tired or slept, and no natural force could harm it or prevent it from carrying out its mission.”
“A useful spell,” her companion observed. “But I can see why it fell out of favor.”
“Princess Celestia would have a dim view of any magic that enslaves an animal’s soul,” Twilight agreed and shuddered. “It doesn’t say how the pony came up with it, but maybe she learned it from the zebra…”
“Tell me, where did you learn about this spell?” Brass wondered, and Twilight cringed so noticeably even a blind pony would’ve been able to sense her sudden discomfort. Brass didn’t comment on it.
“J-just, uh, in – in the bathroom!” she blurted out without thinking and quickly covered her face with her hooves. “I mean, in Princess Celestia’s bathroom! She must’ve left the book lying around! That’s it!”
“At least it wasn’t an issue of Stallions Gone Wild,” Alpha Brass said with a chuckle, and Twilight slowly lowered her hooves.
“Actually…”
The noble’s eyes widened slightly, and he seemed to understand the tone in her voice. “I see,” he stated, simply, staring forward. “Well, I suppose Princesses are ponies, too.”
“That was an awkward day,” Twilight stated, deadpan. Slowly, she returned to normal, thankful that her companion hadn’t seemed to pick up on her frankly terrible excuse on where she heard about a spell that all but screamed ‘forbidden magic.’ Either that or Brass just saw no need to pry. She would have been thankful for either.
Blueblood’s recording had warned her about what she could find in the Family Archives. She’d understood even from the start that there had to be good reasons for certain magic being dubbed forbidden. Actually reading some of the spells was another matter entirely. It became a little easier to sate her magical curiosity in the Archive when she realized just how much of what was there was magic she really, really didn’t want to ever have to use.
Fluttershy would probably stare any pony that used Prattle’s spell right into a coma.
Researching that treatise, Twilight hadn’t even wanted to get into what Prattle’s Pernicious Puppy involved. Something horrible, no doubt. Involving puppies. According to the records from the Third Blueblood, Prattle had gone from a hero of Equestria to terrorizing the country. She’d been petrified for her crimes almost a thousand years ago.
‘Knowing our luck, she’ll probably break free someday, too,’ Twilight lamented. ‘What the heck was wrong with ponies back then? Maybe nopony developing any new magic in five hundred years is a good thing?’
“When you meet with our mutual great-great grandmother,” Alpha Brass spoke up, a serious and intense look on his face that Twilight hadn’t seen since he had first shown her the changelings that threatened their country. “Bring a gift, and keep your wits about you. My baby sister may think herself too honorable to use this as a trap, but others will be less constrained… and Arsenic herself was not a nice pony.”
“Why not…” he mused, holding out his hoof, “why not go together?”
Twilight stared at his offered hoof, his help, and took it. Her hoof in his.
“I’d like that,” she agreed but shook her head. “But I made a promise.”
“To Antimony,” he guessed.
Don’t panic. Cause it.
“To… to her,” Twilight lied, not enjoying a second of it.
Luckily, Alpha Brass simply smiled comfortingly at her words. Twilight apologetically leaned into his shoulder as the carriage rolled through the streets of Canterlot. After the wedding, she would apologize for lying to him. He would understand. She knew he would.
He would.
- - -
Eunomie (iv)
- - -
Early on, especially, father took on most of the work.
He gathered allies even as he sold enemies to Chrysalis. He made arrangements to ensure that my Aunt, Polished Jewel, could not become the family successor. In so doing, he also acquired Aunt Chalice for our cause and empowered her via one of the Star Keys. Aunt Antimony was also empowered and set on her course to become the family heir. Antimony opposes father, bitterly even, but that does not necessarily make her an enemy. So long as she acts in a predictable manner, she is really just another weapon in our arsenal, albeit one that needs to be handled with great care.
As Father has said, ‘once the reins and the blinders are affixed, it does not take much force to direct a pony down a desired path. She will move of her own free will, seeing what you want her to see.’ This is as true of orphans as it is of Princesses.
Princesses.
Like Cadance.
Before her abduction, Father also made sure to teach Lady Mi Amore Cadenza one of his family spells… in secret. Father knew she would eventually be taken by the changelings. It was inevitable that the new Queen Chrysalis would want to make full use of the alicorn she had imprinted on as a larva. In the long term, she had no choice. It was only a matter of when the changelings would make the switch and where they would keep their most valuable captive. Then we would have our Trojan Pony.
The young Princess alicorn quickly learned the remote communication magic of the Terre Rare so that she could speak with my father. It was an amusement, at first, for they had been acquainted with one another in their foalhood. It worked just as well in captivity. For my part in things, I was naturally the most logical host for the possession magic. It is a terrifying thing, you know, to lose control of your body and mind… to have both subsumed by another. Aunt Chalice would know this as well. For me, such terror is merely uncomfortable. It is for the greater good.
Princess Mi Amore Cadenza… our captive ally…
I can feel it when she takes over my body. Her suffering, her frustration, her desperation… her anger… and her love… I can feel it all. I think I feel sorry for her.
But love is a weapon, too, no different than hate. Both have their uses, just as a sword may have two edges. Princess Cadenza is our weapon, too, sheathed and waiting to be drawn.
- - -
Mi Amore Cadenza
- - -
Cadance felt the moonlight play across her skin, bathing her pink coat in a soft glow. It was a luxuriant, wonderful delectation – a pleasure that should by rights belong to another, but it was also a pleasure given freely as a release from the horrors of abuse and imprisonment. The moonlight, in truth, did not play over her real body. That remained in the crystal cell, chained and seemingly asleep. This was the body of another, but for somepony trapped in a cage for months, even a vicarious pleasure was to be treasured. So Princess Cadance clung to it like a life raft adrift in the sea.
Wings spread wide, she trotted across the marble walkway, past night-blooming flowers and gentle, bubbling waterfalls that trickled down into meandering paths cut in the stone. The grotto was partly wreathed in steam, but Cadance could see some of the green gardens raised on adjacent terraces. Even at night, here in the Hanging Gardens, ponies were still awake.
She could see lights, some moving, along with the distant, muted voices of other mares and the sounds of music. It was a gentle but thrumming modern beat, full of artificial sounds and a symphony of drums. Taken together, the secluded grotto in this perfect garden paradise… it was truly like heaven compared to what Cadance knew awaited her return to her body.
It was tempting to remain here, safe, forever…
Cadance dispelled that thought as the one indulgence above all others that she could not allow herself to fall prey to. When her allotted and agreed upon time was up, she would return to her body. Eunomie was already being exceedingly generous to give up her body and time for the caged Princess. Cadance swore not to betray the stoic mare’s trust and goodwill. It was already rather improper, the liberties she took in the name of keeping relaxed and prepared for the plans and trials ahead.
Slipping slowly, her back hooves first, into the steaming hot pool at the edge of the grotto, Cadance heard a sinful sigh escape her lips. Her real body had not been bathed in months. When the changelings were gone, and Shining was safe and by her side again, the first thing she planned to do was soak. Her whole honeymoon could well be spent in a hot tub like this one, listening to distant music and getting lost in the heady mix of cool air and hot water.
It would be her honeymoon, too, so it would only be fair for Shining to join her in the water… saving Equestria from the changelings would be cause for celebration enough, but as husband and wife, it would also be their sacred duty to consummate the marriage. As the nobles she had grown up with always said, two ponies were not husband and wife until they sealed the deal themselves.
“Shining…” she whispered, missing his voice, his touch, his company. Not just missing it. Knowing who had it. It blended the feeling of loss with anger. Chrysalis.
If Alpha didn’t deal with the changeling witch, she would make it her business to finish the job for him.
Closing her eyes and sighing, accepting a measure of powerlessness at the moment, Cadance tried to relax again and find both her equilibrium and her comfort zone. There was much to think on as she soaked in the steaming hot water. Moving to one of the steps in the pool, she shifted until her shoulders rested against a grooved waterfall. The scent of nearby flowers, together with the warbling background noise and the steam, all combined to make her a little lightheaded. She dozed, lazily, in Eunomie’s body.
“He. He. He.”
Cadance’s eyes snapped open at the sound of laughter.
“Well, well, well! Look at this!”
Cadance turned her head and saw an ivory white mare with a wild, bright blue mane. It was Euporie, she knew, the second of Alpha’s step-daughters. They had met in the flesh before her abduction, though Cadance couldn’t say she knew Euporie as well as Eunomie. She seemed… strange. Or maybe ‘intense’ was a good way of putting it? Hot, where Eunomie was cold? Fickle where her sister was faithful?
Euporie tossed a towel off her back with a flick of magic and strode into the steamy pool with a purposeful sway of her hips and a sultry flick of her tail. In the water, she swiftly ducked her head, immersing it entirely only to bring it back out again. Running her forelegs over her horn and down the back of her head to her neck, she smoothed over the thick mane behind her and then let it fall, loose and wild, over her shoulders and chest. If being in the presence of a Princess Serene had imparted any bit of propriety in the mare, she sure didn’t show it.
“So here I was, expecting my somber sister to be taking a midnight dip… when I find our esteemed Princess instead?” Euporie said with a half-laugh half-snicker. Another, ‘He. He. He.’
“This is a surprise,” she concluded, smiling coyly at her guest.
Cadance felt the need to explain. “Eunomie gave me permission…”
“I said it was a surprise,” Euporie repeated, splashing the water gently with a hoof. “Not that it was an unpleasant one. You are always welcome under my father’s roof, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. Let’s just relax together, shall we?”
Cadance nodded, relieved that the other sister didn’t seem to mind the situation. If she had been in Euporie’s horseshoes, it probably would have weirded her out to know some other pony was in her sibling’s body. Maybe it was made less creepy by the fact that the possession magic also imposed a semi-tangible illusion over her body, so she didn’t look like Eunomie at the moment. Or, maybe, Euporie was just de-sensitized to such things?
The two mares soaked in silence for some time.
To her own surprise, Cadance was the first to break the comfortable silence.
“Is…” She almost stopped, hearing the desperate tone in her voice to hear some news or even some gossip. Stars and heavens, she actually missed the gossip of all things! “Is there anything… interesting… going on outside?”
“Everypony’s getting ready for the wedding of the year,” Euporie replied, wiping a stray strand of hair from the side of her face, where it had partly obscured one amber eye. “Canterlot is buzzing. It’ll buzz even more on your wedding day, but you know that already.” She idly tapped her hoof against the stone that rimmed the pool. “If you want juicy rumors, though, I’m not the best pony to talk to. I’ve been out of town until just today. I had to drop by Ponyville, first, and more recently…”
“What?” Cadance asked, as the other mare trailed off.
Euporie’s grin widened, bearing pearl white teeth.
“Just a little trip to one of our colonies,” she answered with another snickering laugh. “They were having a party that I just couldn’t resist crashing.”
“Oh. That… sounds fun, actually.” Cadance tried to imagine just what kind of party Euporie could be talking about. If it was out in the colonies, it could be almost anything. Probably not a stale, old Gala, at least!
“Ummm-hmmm!” Euporie made a humming sound, as if thinking out loud. “While we’re chatting, I’ve always wanted to ask you something…”
“Is that so?” Cadance asked, returning the other mare’s ever-present grin with an earnest smile her own. After the company she had in the crystal prison, it was just nice to have somepony to talk to. “What is it? Ask away!”
“Oh, well! You see! I’m just curious,” Euporie explained, and her smile remained in place though the look in her eyes changed, becoming less carefree and more intense. “What’s it like?”
The Princess blinked, confused. “What… is what like?”
“Being in my sister’s body of course!” the grinning mare answered, splashing her front hooves into the calm water. “I’ve often wondered! Does it feel strange? I guess it might to me… but maybe, for you, it must feel like wrapping yourself in a warm blanket, right? Does it feel good, exchanging your body for my sister’s?”
Cadance slinked down into the hot water at the inquiry. It felt… uncomfortable to discuss. But honesty seemed the best policy. It was only proper, given the circumstances.
“It does… feel good,” she admitted, and a blush tinted her already rosy pink cheeks. “Getting away from that prison. Getting away from all of it. It feels good…”
“Ah!” Euporie replied with a wide-eyed look. “I see. Is that really it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I would expect you to feel relief in getting away. It is a respite, isn’t it? Away from that hell the changelings have you in,” Euporie explained, and her smile became crooked as she went on. “But that isn’t the same thing as pleasure. Pleasure isn’t the absence of pain. I wonder if that feeling you get comes from something else?”
Something… else?
Cadance narrowed her eyes slightly. “I don’t follow.”
“You are literally possessing another pony,” Euporie reminded her, pushing off from her side of the pool to trot slowly through the water towards the captive Princess. “You can do whatever you want with her body right now. It isn’t just a reprieve. It is an escape. That power… I bet it feels good. Everypony enjoys having power over others. On a primal level, you enjoy it, don’t you?”
Euporie, now inches from the seated Princess, leaned even closer until their noses were almost touching.
“I would,” she whispered, and Cadance had to force her eyes closed.
“You’re both right and wrong,” the Princess informed her, putting a hoof to the other mare’s chest and gently pushing her away. “I do feel a little… thrill… I guess. But it is tempered by the responsibility I have to take care of your sister’s body. I would never abuse that trust she has in me.”
Euporie’s smirk twisted for a moment at the rejection, but just as quickly she shrugged, laughing, and plopped herself down in the water. It was deeper where she had been standing, so when sitting down, the water level came all the way up to her jaw.
“You were using magic on me,” Cadance added, a little upset and unnerved.
“I was!” Euporie conceded with another exaggerated shrug. “But you’re in my sister’s body, even if it looks like yours. My mojo never did work on her, which is really frustrating, since her lame magic works just fine on me! Not that I have all that much magic left after that big party I went to.”
“You shouldn’t toy with ponies' emotions like that,” Cadance admonished the other mare. “Especially like you do, on the chemical level.”
“Am I really hearing this from Equestria’s so called Princess of Love?” Euporie asked with a raised eyebrow. “How many ponies have you tweaked over the years? A hundred? More?”
Cadance shook her head.
“It isn’t like that,” she insisted. “I don’t try to make love where it doesn’t exist. I just fan the flames… blow gently on the embers…”
Euporie, still almost entirely submerged, lowered her nose enough to blow bubbles, like a child.
“As much as I want to point out our similarities,” she said when she reemerged and sat down on the same step next to the alicorn, “I have to admit there are some pretty major differences. Your special talent’s magic earned you a horn and wings… or it is just a horn and an earth pony heart? Either way, something about it must have stood out. What was it, really?” Euporie learned closer, more playfully than last time. “Come on, you can tell little old me!”
Cadance felt the other mare give her a gentle, too-friendly shake.
She sighed. “It is as I just explained, really. I was born a pegasus pony, so it was the horn and the heart. Though I’m a little surprised you know about alicorns. Alpha must have taught you.” She turned her eyes down towards the steamy water that licked at her coat. “It wasn’t as simple as you’re thinking, either. There was this magical artifact… from the old Crystal Empire. I don’t know what would have happened if it wasn’t there. But – but I managed to bring out the love in this other pony…”
It was an incident she hadn’t thought of in a long time. Given everything else happening in the world, it was just a part of her past that had come and gone. Yes, it had changed her life, but she hardly even remembered much of it. Like so much of her ‘previous life,’ it was kind of a blur. But that was the case for most ponies. Who really remembered much from when they were a little foal?
“The important thing, Princess Celestia told me, was that I was tapping into natural love magic,” she tried to explain. She and Euporie were similar in certain ways, after all. “I’m not a walking love potion. I take what’s there – the seed of love – and I help it grow. Princess Celestia said nopony had done that kind of magic before. She said it was unique… new. That’s how I became an alicorn.”
Cadance felt herself frown, as one other detail came back to her, there, in that pool.
“And there was a space, I remember. Pictures. Flashes of light. Another world… I remember whispering, ‘It’s full of stars.’ And the Princess was there, waiting for me.”
She looked up and saw Euporie watching her contemplatively.
“Full of stars,” she repeated, and the smile returned. ‘He. He. He!’ “I’d like to see that!”
“It was cold, too,” Cadance added, though it seemed a very trivial bit of information compared to everything else. “I’d rather not go back there, myself.”
Euporie nodded, as if she really understood.
“The magical spell you’re using right now!” she suddenly said, pointing at the Princess. “Do you know where it comes from? Hmm?”
Cadance tilted her head slightly, thrown off balance by the strange question. The spell between her and Eunomie? It was contract magic. As for where it came from…it was probably some unicorn in the distant past. That was where most magic came from. Alpha Brass had taught them both… probably. He hadn’t come up with it himself had he? No, that couldn’t be. Nopony invented new magic. It was ironic coming from her, but it was true. Mostly.
“The spell is contract magic,” she said, not wanting to really admit just how little she knew about the spell she was using.
“A contract with what, though?” Euporie asked, drifting away in the water like a lurking predator. “Did you know that Grandpa Cruciger has a spell that he uses to project his image into other ponies? What you’ve got is better than that, though. You’re actually taking over another pony’s body, and then you layer an illusion over it. But that’s just one type of pony jumping into another type of pony. What do you think would happen if something else had a contract like this with somepony?”
“Something else?” Cadance asked. “Like… what?”
“He. He. He!” Euporie gradually returned to her spot on the other side of the pool, reclining like a stretching cat against the cool marble. “That’s the question, isn’t it? Right now, my sister’s body is like a door, allowing you to visit our home. Those crystal caves you’re in block mortal pony magic, but not this. Isn’t that odd? I wonder why.”
The way Euporie said ‘I wonder why’ seemed rather more taunting than teasing.
“I think you know why,” Cadance stated, and Euporie licked her grinning lips. “Are you going to share it with me?”
“Hmmm. Am I?” she wondered aloud. She cupped her chin and seemed to give it a few seconds of deep thought before nodding. “I guess I can. You told me some fun stuff just now, so it seems fair for me to do the same thing.”
Cadance found herself leaning forward, ears alert. “So what is it then?”
“The magic you’re using right now,” Euporie explained, splashing the water playfully with one kicking hoof. “Ponies didn’t invent it.”
Ponies… didn’t…? But that made no sense.
“Ponies didn’t invent fire, did we?” Euporie asked with a helpless shrug. “We just harness it. Anyway! What matters is that it works, right? You’re here and not there. So relax. We all need you to be ready for the wedding, so I’m really hoping that things are going according to plan wherever your real body is.” Euporie’s eyes narrowed behind her broad smile. “You are making progress, aren’t you?”
Cadance coughed behind a raised hoof. “Y-yes… I’ve made some progress…”
“Some progress?” Euporie asked, and there was a hint of accusation in her tone.
The Princess of Love snorted, upset not just with Euporie’s odd lines of questioning but her own problems. “Chrysalis put my brother in the cell next to mine, just like we thought she would.”
Euporie nodded eagerly. “I know. As I recall, you’re supposed to do something to him…”
“The power of love has another aspect to it,” Cadance explained, “a less obvious one. I always thought of it as a side-effect, really, but when I love another pony, I can actually enhance their magic with my own. Something about my unique magic amplifies the magic of others. I don’t really know how it works, but I’ve seen it… Shining was always a very powerful stallion, but whenever I cheered him on, he seemed able to easily accomplish things he had once struggled with.”
“We’re both stronger when we’re together,” she stressed. “It is reciprocal. That’s what true love is. That’s what we’ll show Chrysalis when I find her at the wedding. No matter how powerful she thinks she is, Shining and I will be stronger still. And… and, of course, if I have trouble getting to Shining… I need a backup plan…”
“A backup plan?” Euporie sniggered. “Blueblood?”
Cadance nodded slowly. “Prince Blueblood. We are brother and sister…”
“As brother and sister as Alpha Brass and I are father and daughter,” Euporie chimed in. “So what’s the problem? Don’t tell me! I can guess! You don’t love each other…? So no convenient super power boost? It’ll be trouble if you’re still stuck in your cage when the bug queen marches up the aisle in your wedding dress.”
Cadance grumbled at the other mare calling the power of true love a ‘power boost.’ It was so much more!
But, yes, it was also a power boost.
Of sorts.
“We have a backup for that, too,” Cadance reminded her. “Miss Heartstrings. But--” Her brows came together in a scowl, directed solely at herself. “--I got Blue into this mess. He’s in that prison because I told Alpha to arrange it. I thought: if he were close by, we could talk somehow, and then we could reconcile. We’d be like we were years ago. He was my big brother best friend forever once. Then we’d both be powerful enough to break free…”
The imprisoned Princess covered her face with her foreleg.
“But he’s kept drugged!” she lamented, groaning at how her plan had been so easily foiled by the Changeling Queen’s caution. “They keep him asleep. Dreaming! And when I try to tap into the love we used to have…”
“What?” Euporie asked, as the Princess trailed off, her sentence unfinished. “What then?”
Cadance slowly lowered her leg, her eyes hard.
“Terror,” she said, simply. “Terror and despair. Whatever he’s dreaming… wherever he is… his heart is dying.” There was no doubt in her voice, no hesitation. “It doesn’t matter that I have another way to escape. I have to save him, too. We have to save each other… both of us… or not at all.”
For a long moment, Euporie was silent, soaking in the alicorn’s words.
“But,” she finally said, stroking her long, wet mane. “Isn’t there another pony you could use? You and my father are close, aren’t you?”
Cadance nodded. Alpha Brass was an old friend, and she had only grown closer to him because of her captivity. He was one of the few ponies she had any contact with anymore. It occurred to her that she loved him, too, like a brother. The spark was there, at least on her end, but Brass’s psyche was damaged. She could feel it even through Eunomie’s senses. The spark of love in him was like a blackened and burned tree, charred down to the roots, still standing but hollow and dead inside.
Could even she salvage such a thing?
Practically speaking, how much power could she give him, even if it were just one way?
“If Prince Blueblood or even Shining Armor can’t be used in time,” Euporie proposed. “I’m sure you and my father could work something out.”
“I… suppose that’s true,” Cadance admitted, and it was sobering food for thought.
Slipping down in the hot water, Euporie continued to snicker until her mouth submerged and only tittering bubbles could be heard, almost indistinct against the background noise of waterfalls and music. Euporie was a strange, silly sort of pony, but she was knowledgeable in this regard, and she brought up a good point. Brass was like a brother to her, and if he and Twilight went ahead with their engagement, they would all become family. His heart was wounded, but there was still enough there to work with. She could use her power to enhance his.
If… if all else failed…
Then maybe it would come to that.
- - -
Eunomie (v)
- - -
So it began.
Alpha Brass. Euporie. Mi Amore Cadenza. Myself.
All four of us made our preparations for the battle to come. Father set up Chrysalis, subtly encouraging her to believe that an attack on Canterlot during Cadenza’s wedding could not possibly fail. He encouraged her to assemble the other changeling hives and rally them under her banner. From there, a number of possible scenarios presented themselves. Cadenza had her plan, Euporie her plan, Father had his. All three would result in the destruction of the changelings and, taken together, they represented overlapping chances of success. Infiltration and failure of one would do little to endanger the other two.
Father, always a patron of the arts, also took it upon himself to gather those artists who could be of practical use in the conspiracy. Art. Science. Magic. All three are intertwined in Equestria. Great minds were found and brought to Father’s new Hanging Gardens… his refuge, his castle, and his sword of Damocles, hanging over the neck of the world. As Marquis of the Frontier and the Colonies, expeditions were sent to the Old Kingdom, to the ruins of the Crystal Empire, to Zebrabar and the burning Sunset Lands. Equestria’s first great colonial expansion in hundreds of years provided the perfect pretext.
What was coming could not be stopped.
Yet, there remained unforeseen complications...
On the night Discord’s madness overtook much of Equestria, we were affected as well. My sister and I returned to normal, but we soon learned that father’s trusted bodyguard, Sirocco, had fled in the chaos. Father had been stunned by the betrayal, and our plans endangered by the fact that Sirocco had also absconded with our third Star Key. We sent assassins and bounty hunters after her, to no avail.
- -
The distraction from the scrolls and tablets also served to draw Lyra’s eyes towards the stands of jewelry near the collection of steles and other carvings. Out of a dozen different displays, featuring bijous, rosaries and ancient finery, one piece of royal regalia stood out.
“The torc,” she said, too loudly to be just a whisper. “That’s just like my torc.”
It wasn’t alone, either.
Two torcs, similar to the one she had loaned to Twilight Sparkle to research, rested on the busts of three identical mannequines. They were all unicorns, and each one possessed a prominent halo for the horn to fit through. Leaning in closer, she tried to find some sort of inscription or description, if only to shed light on what her own torc was. Twilight had been able to confirm that it was of Coltic design, wrought in gold. The twisting, rope-like etching was distinctive.
Then, it occurred to her. “One of them… you have three mannequins, but only two torcs.”
“Your torc,” Alpha Brass whispered into her ear, “was mine, before it was stolen.”
- -
In addition to that complication, further troubles arose as a result of the events following the Grand Galloping Gala. Primarily with respect to His Grace, Lord Blueblood. Nopony had considered the possibility that he would fall into the company of an untitled and lowborn mare. Nopony considered that he would actually love such a pony. It interfered with the Terre Rare succession and the arrangement of forces that would be called for during the battle that would be the Canterlot wedding of Cadance and Shining Armor. It was a problem.
Rarity was the mare’s name.
- -
Rarity kept the two heraldic crests Blueblood had won for her neatly folded, mostly since she wasn't sure what to do with them. She also made a mental note to check some of her romance novels when she got back home. They were sadly her first and oldest source of information on courtly culture, and while the knightly stallion presenting a trophy to his true love was quite a common scene, the authors never much went into what the mares did with the prizes. Keep them, she assumed. Somewhere. It wasn't as if she had many pockets in her dress, and the ripped cloth clashed far too terribly with her ensemble to try and wear it somehow.
Taken by a sudden idea, Rarity injected a little transformative and restorative magic into the ripped cloth. With a glow and a poof, the fabric repaired itself and merged together. A little more stylistic tweaking, and it became a passable shawl, the two checkered heraldic icons on either end. In a last-second spark of inspiration, remembering that the prizes were very much prizes because they were ripped, she left the ends purposefully ragged.
Draping her new shawl over her shoulders, Rarity heard a titter from the seat next to her.
“I don't believe I've seen that done before!” A shapely, thin mare with a figure to resemble a Princess' sat to Rarity's left, watching her with amusement. Unlike most of the mares and even stallions present, she wore very little: only a sun hat to keep herself cool.
“You do have some interesting tastes... and that magic?” she inquired.
“I find almost anything can do with a little extra fabulosity! Don't you?” Rarity replied with a confident grin. “I'm Rarity.”
“Fleur-de-lis,” the other mare formally made introduction. “Of the Iris Family.”
- -
It soon became clear that the Prince was not treating her as a mere dalliance, and worse, that she was gaining influence of her own. The rapprochement between Blueblood and Fancypants proved as much. She was a threat that would only grow in time. Antimony was all but forced to press her claim. It was expected that she would find a way to make this “Rarity” challenge her to a duel… and then crush her, as she had done with some many others.
Antimony was considered undefeatable after her victory over Sand Dune, years before. With Rarity out of the picture, she would then cement the engagement with Blueblood, giving the Terre Rare control over military deployment in the Canterlot Duchy. Blueblood himself could still be replaced by a changeling and without any real harm done. Antimony could not and would not love her fiancé, whom she held nothing but contempt for, and no changeling would be able to influence her through her illusions. All would have remained in place.
Except…
- -
Antimony couldn't believe it. Why was the crowd so silent in the real world, but producing this tumult in her illusion? As the real Rarity fought to get back on her hooves, looking for all the world like a strong breeze could knock her back to the ground, Antimony saw no livery around her neck. She was not wearing her Element of Harmony. Even in the dream realm, she wasn't.
This made no damned sense!
Backing away a step in both worlds, Antimony recoiled as faint wisps of magic began to form around her opponent. Rarity seemed surprised by it herself, turning her head to watch the colors of light around her as they circled and spun, leaving scintillating contrails in their wake. More and more of them appeared until Ponyville's dressmaker was all but engulfed in an ever-widening hurricane of magical energy. Antimony took another step back, lifting a leg as one of the brighter lights nicked her.
“This magic!” she gasped, recognizing it. “Pegasus magic?”
Another of the swirling lights came close to hitting her, and Antimony recognized it as well.
“And earth pony magic?” she asked, incredulous. “And unicorn magic!? And...” And others she didn't even recognize. “Just what is this? Just what are you doing!” The Baroness reared and stamped her hooves. “Just what kind of magic is this?!”
“You don't recognize it?” Rarity asked, haltingly, as she looked up with wide, bright eyes.
All at once, the swarm of colors became a screaming, lightning-fast rainbow.
“This,” she declared, blue eyes alight with a fire of their own. “This is the magic of friendship!”
- -
Against all odds, Antimony lost.
It had sent a ripple of shock throughout the noble circles. It also jeopardized what we had set in motion. As if to further complicate matters, Antimony noticed a Star Key in the possession of one Lyra Heartstrings. It was on loan to Twilight Sparkle, who seemed poised to divine the magics behind it.
- -
Antimony made as if to leave, approaching the door outside, only to pause.
“Not to pry,” she remarked, glancing back over her shoulder at the other mare. “But why is it you wish to make use of the library here?”
“Oh. That's easy enough to answer!” Twilight assured her with a happy grin. “I need to check a few references on pre-classical and classical spellwork. Specifically the structure and organization of Reinmare Star Fields, the nature and disposition of magical amplification via low-density inorganic solids, oh, and I need to double check the elastic theory of aether propagation as a result of both invocation and convocation.”
For a moment, the sheer technical density of Twilight's words baffled her fellow unicorn and magic user. Antimony shook her head in much the same way most of Twilight’s friends and acquaintances did after hearing a few sentences of technomagical babble. Muttering a soft “very well,” the Baroness started on her way... only to pause once more.
“Aether propagation?” she inquired, but didn't turn around. “And Reinmare Fields?”
- -
Yet, in every moment of chaos, one can also find opportunity. Father saw it. Through Euporie, he contacted the mares Antimony had previously defeated. Ritterkreuz needed little encouragement, and it was a given that her foolish and self-destructive behavior would cripple the peerless Wonderbolts, who would otherwise be a wild card in the battle to come. Lady Yumi was one Father had kept an eye on for some time, knowing that Neighpon was outside the influence of Chrysalis. She would be both a potential ally and potential bait to draw out Chrysalis’s most well-hidden and trusted infiltrators.
- -
“Yumi-hime!” the bound pegasus cried. “I am not injured! I can still--”
A silent glare from the Neighponese noblemare locked her jaws shut.
“I will return for them,” Yumi said, and to Applejack, it sounded rather like a threat. The noblemare rolled up the sleeve of her white dress, and a moment later a unicorn servant appeared, teleporting to her side. The newly arrived brown and yellow mare paused only a moment to collect herself, then a swirl of magic escaped her horn and she, Yumi, and Antlers disappeared. The fields of grass settled, once again swaying peacefully in the breeze.
Applejack released a breath she had been holding.
“She seems nice!” Pinkie was grinning as always.
“Positively charming,” Rarity agreed, laying on the sarcasm. “I swear I felt my mane stand on end. If there is any justice in Equestria, she will be the worst we have to deal with in the coming weeks.”
- -
Lyra Heartstrings was invited to the Hanging Gardens, where father quickly turned her from a potential threat into an asset. Twilight Sparkle followed soon after, though the process there was much more delicate and involved. Rather than steal back the Broken Star Key, or even draw undue attention to it, our work with it could continue in Ponyville. Twilight Sparkle, herself, would provide both willing and unwitting assistance. Plans changed to accommodate her until she became an intrinsic part of our inner circle.
- -
“Assume this one’s form,” Brass commanded, directing his gaze down at the caged pony. She hissed, and Twilight saw sharp, pointed needle-teeth behind her lips.
“Now,” Brass’s voice was soft, but it echoed in Twilight’s ears. It reminded her of how Celestia could whisper and silence a throne room full of squabbling. It was the Royal Canterlot Voice. But this was the first time Twilight had seen it performed outside of the royal family of the Princesses and Blueblood.
Then, to Twilight’s shock…
The pegasus transformed. Her coat shifted somewhere under the skin, the color changing like the hide of an octopus, purple spots expanding and meeting until they filled in completely. The former pegasus took on a familiar shade of lavender, and a horn materialized on her head. Her single wing melted away after folding back to her side, until it was as if it had never been there.
It was eerie, surreal, and even a little sickening when a ripple went through the creature’s blue mane, adding in her trademark violet and blush colored highlights.
“What - what on Equestria are you?” Twilight asked, staring at the caged unicorn.
“What on Equestria are you?” the other-Twilight Sparkle mocked, replicating her voice perfectly. “I’m you.”
- -
Euporie and myself made the decision to approach Flim and Flam to further undermine the new Ponyville Barony. We identified the weakness of the Barony not in the forces it could call on, as Yumi believed with her pas d’arms, but in the finances it had available. If Rarity was bankrupted propping up her friend’s farm – and by pressure from the other farms in the area to provide similar protective subsidies – then she would be marginalized by the time the wedding came around. She could even be manipulated once a third party had control of her purse strings.
- -
Flam coughed, adjusting his untied black bow tie.
“Miss Mosaic,” he said, and both mares turned to stare at him, one bubbly and smiling, the other icy-cold and glaring. The attention only added to the stallion's nervousness. “I've been thinking.”
“Go on,” Eunomie prompted.
“About what, Flim?” Euporie asked.
“I'm not... ah, never mind. When we get to Ponyville and begin to undercut the town's Apple farmers,” Flam said, repeating himself as he spoke up a little louder. “Won't the local nobility step in to protect their business interests? I mean, we've been chased out of towns before, and even when the con worked, it really only stuck until the local Baroness drove us out with subsidies. What if that happens here?”
- -
It also presented an opportunity, later, to ensure that Yumi accomplished her real mission, giving the changelings a chance to replace Prince Blueblood, thereby revealing the few we had allowed to infiltrate our teleportation unit. A changeling Blueblood, after all, would be more predictable than the existing one had proven to be, after whatever change had occurred in him during the Grand Galloping Gala.
- -
The Prince touched his horn to the window panes, inhaling the cool night air. A fly landed on his nose for his trouble, forcing him to bat it away.
“This is like the perfect storm of insane, power-hungry, star-struck mares,” he lamented. “And to top it off, I can't marry Rarity because suddenly Cadenza - Cadenza just has to have her wedding of the year. And we can't have the Prince just elope. It has to be pomp and ceremony!”
Luna brushed up alongside him, prompting nervous, ranting stallion to catch his breath.
“Nephew,” she said, jabbing him with a wing. “I have seen Rarity fight. I have seen the Element of Harmony in action. Tia wishes them to handle this on their own? Trust in her judgment, and trust in their ability.”
“Maybe,” he conceded, eyes narrowed as his frown slowly turned up into a tight smile. “But I've noticed Auntie never let faith keep her from skewing things just a little in her favor. The good thing about a spotlight is that it keeps everypony else in the dark. So I will make my moves in the dark.”
“The darkness is as fine a place as any,” Luna agreed with a cheerful titter. A flap of her graceful wings and she jumped out the window. “I will be in the dark as well. Watching for you.”
Nopony noticed the flock of bats circle the manor outside town on its way back to Canterlot.
- -
Blueblood’s replacement was the final nail in the coffin that ponies call “Canterlot.”
Chrysalis, with Prince Blueblood in her pocket, has no doubt made the fatal mistake of assuring herself that the city is ripe for the plucking. She has been made confident. After all, through her puppet-Prince, she can divert guards and other defenses from the city. She will imagine she has set the table for her feast to come.
Furthermore, up until the moment we eliminated them, she will know that she had spies in our own teleportation unit. This will make her even more confident, ignorant as she is of the backdoor means of entering father’s Hanging Gardens. She will assume she has a record of all who came and went, when in fact she knows only what we wanted her to know.
All this… was necessary to build her confidence… to make her over-confident.
She will commit to the swarming of Canterlot with every changeling that will heed her call. Her pride will lead her to bring in all her sister-swarms from outside the country. They will come to us, in all their fury and hunger, and they will abandon their normal methodology of concealment and disguise. They will root themselves out for us.
Our deception was also an essential factor in Lady Mi Amore Cadenza’s plan. She needed Blueblood. Two birds were thus caught in a single cage. It is likely neither will ever escape their cage alive.
In the end, things went well. Blueblood was replaced. The Wonderbolts were shattered. Neighpon and Canterlot were at each other’s throats, thereby making the mobilization of troops in neighboring duchies less obtrusive, most notably in Terre Rare-controlled Prance and Germaney. Even Sand Dune, another potential wild card, appeared only to retreat again, mollified by the charismatic new Baroness of Ponyville. The situation was not as favorable as if Antimony had simply cemented her engagement to the Prince, but it will suffice. Even the once-missing Star Key is now accounted for, and Twilight Sparkle has made great strides in repairing it.
The wedding comes.
We must all be ready. A more poetic pony would probably have something insightful to say about what is to come. She would have something deep and meaningful to share. I am not that pony.
- - -
Celestia (present)
- - -
When most ponies imagined the Court of the Dawn, one of two things typically came to mind.
The first and most likely was the line of petitioners that waited for an audience. This was what little ponies thought of when they imagined the “royal court.” It was actually sort of a high point of the whole affair because of the drama and surprises that could come into the court and the stories brought up by the small ponies of the land. Celestia found it was very often a joy to assist them in any way she could, sometimes by settling disputes in fair and creative ways and sometimes simply by lending an ear and promising to set a subordinate to investigate the issue.
Sadly, most of the time in court was strictly closed-door discussion and review. This was what most nobles thought of when they imagined sitting in on her Royal Court. This was their world, a world of long, rehearsed speeches, whispered alliance building, and courtly display of one’s accomplishments and talents. The actual lawmaking was all argued and hashed out in the tumultuous Stable of Lords, but it was in the Court of the Dawn that laws were first proposed and trade deals inaugurated. It wasn’t even as odious as it may have sounded: it was rather like a wild forum at times, promoting discussion and discourse, both publicly with peers and privately with one’s conspirators.
Nonetheless, Princess Celestia found the small acts of wisdom and kindness in helping individual ponies often more satisfying than whispering her desires to a cabinet member and seeing a law passed that affected millions. It was the strange juxtaposition of statehood, she supposed. As far as she knew, no other sovereign spent as much time as she did indulging herself by listening to the petitions of her small folk.
In this particular Court, the subject of international affairs came up just before lunch, during which Celestia honored the visiting Saddle Marabian party consisting of the Emir, his wife, his consort, and his head of security… who was also a consort. They presented and received gifts, exchanged pleasantries, and left with their ambassador. The griffin ambassador presented to the court next, outlining in great detail the confidence Equestria should have in Crown Roc and the lengths the rulers there have gone to recently to keep the borders safe. Much was made of the treaty signed by Blueblood and Prince Mnemon and the friendship of the two countries.
To her surprise and delight, she was informed that the Prince of Crown Roc would also be visiting Canterlot in time for the royal wedding. The eternal Princess smirked as she remembered when she had first seen the little griffin chick. Of course, Celestia remembered when his father had been a chick, too… and his grand-father. Supposedly, little Mnemon had grown into a fine young lion.
It would be nice to see him again.
Hopefully he wouldn’t still be calling her ‘Granny’ like when he was little. She shook her head and dismissed the griffin Ambassador. Who was she kidding? He would probably not only call her ‘Granny Celestia’ but yell it at the top of his lungs.
After the griffins left, the court returned to a normal, mundane review. Her ministers presented reports on the Seas and the Rivers, on trade and trade disputes, then on magical matters and finally any other miscellaneous matters. There was some argument between her Minister of Bits and Finance and a representative of the Stable of Lords regarding certain legislation under debate. Most everypony was, by the afternoon, dancing around the tiger in the room. Nopony broached it, waiting instead for the Princess to say the word.
Celestia did so.
“Let us speak of Neighpon and Canterlot.” Her voice, soft but authoritative, echoed throughout the throne room. “We would not have the friendship of many years jeopardized by hasty words or thoughtless acts.”
“My Princess and Empress,” an earth pony said, stepping forward. She was Neighponese – no other pony referred to her as an Empress – with a straight, black mane and a dark violet coat. Her dress was courtly with a high, white train supported by a corset. It was a fairly common fashion in Canterlot, but it was lent a more exotic look by the pony wearing it.
“The court witnesses Lady Unryu Cloud Dragon, representative of His Grace and Lordship, Duke Yama of Neighpon!” the court crier announced from his spot next to the stenographer.
“Princess!” A second pony, this one a unicorn, also came forward. She had a green coat and darker, forest green mane and wore the royal blues of House Blueblood instead of a gown or dress. It was akin to a royal guard’s armor, silver instead of gold, and with ruffled sleeves instead of full armor. This mare was a representative and attaché for Prince Blueblood’s ducal guard.
“The court witnesses Ser Deft Steel, representative of His Grace and Lordship, the Grand Veneur, Grand Duke and Prince Blueblood the fifty-second!”
The pair bowed, exchanged a few final pleasantries…
And promptly started tearing into one another.
“…The Prince demands, in no uncertain terms, that Neighpon extradite Lady Yumi! This is not negotiable! Now answer the question, my Lady: is Neighpon harboring this fugitive?”
“Neighpon does not recognize the Lady Yumi as a fugitive, for one!”
“Answer the question, my Lady!”
“And I will tell you, Ser, that we do not recognize Lady Yumi as a fugitive, therefore I assure you we are not harboring a fugitive!”
“It is a yes or no question, my Lady.”
“Then the answer is no.”
“You lie!”
“Be silent,” Celestia hissed, and the pair immediately bowed and brought their noses to the carpet. Smart.
“Is Yumi safe with her father, Lord Yama?” Celestia inquired.
Lady Unryu hesitated only a moment. “Yes, she is, Princess.”
“Is my nephew certain of the charges he is making?” Celestia asked, trying at least sound impartial.
“He swears on his life, his honor, and his name, Princess,” Ser Steel answered. “There are confessions as well.”
“Two sets of confessions,” Lady Unryu argued, tentatively lifting her head away from the carpet and the obsequious bow. Her eyes darted over to the Canterlot representative. “Tell me, which are we to believe? Or are we to cherry pick from the public record, Ser?”
“The laws of Equestria are clear,” Ser Steel insisted, also raising her head. “Lady Yumi must return to face her accuser and cooperate with the lawful investigation into the incident that occurred. Harboring her does no good, my Lady.”
“You hold citizens of the Duchy of Neighpon and interrogate them without a duchy representative present…! Do not lecture me, Ser, on Equestrian law!”
“Notable and well-named witnesses were present for the confessions.”
“Ah, and what of the obvious coercion that led to the confessions? Who was present for that? The good Prince and his thugs?”
“You dare to insult a Prince of Equestria, my Lady!”
“You insult the honor and sovereignty of the Duchy of Neighpon, Ser, and the great Lord Yama!”
“Ponies,” Celestia warned, and she didn’t even have to raise her voice.
The two bowed quickly.
“I will speak more with my nephew…” Celestia promised, “And I assure you, Lady Unryu, that Lady Yumi has nothing to fear by returning to Canterlot. She will be as if under my own wing.”
Lady Unryu sucked in a breath and slowly shook her head, her nose almost brushing against the carpet.
“Princess, forgive me, but Lord Yama himself has decreed that his daughter will not come to Canterlot unescorted,” she said and dared to look up at her Princess, even after telling her ‘no.’ “My deepest apologies. His own pupil, Yumi’s bodyguard, Master Shigure… was killed defending her. He does not believe her protection can be guaranteed. She is Neighpon’s only heiress...”
“You dare to defy the Princess herself!” Ser Steel growled, her offense overriding her deference and forcing her to stand up straight. “Scoundrels! All of you! Well, my Prince anticipated such a craven act! I am now tasked to issue an ultimatum! The Duchy of Neighpon will give to us the Lady Yumi, as required by law and custom, or face the consequences of their treason!”
“Do not make such threats lightly, Ser,” Lady Unryu warned, eyes narrowing. “Do not think you can sail white ships into our bays and make demands of us as you did a half a millennium ago! We will bury you at sea.”
“You foals think you can defy the will of Canterlot?” Ser Steel snapped at her. “The Prince will darken your skies with airships! Black clouds will rain fire and ash will choke you in your castles! A thousand unicorns will--”
“My little ponies, if I hear one more word of my subjects fighting one another, I will be terribly upset,” Celestia stated, and the two representatives gulped in unison. They turned, rigidly, and bowed again.
“I assure you, you would not like me when I am upset,” Celestia promised them in a soft, gentle voice. She slowly stretched her wings, fluffed them up, and tucked them back in. She knew it made for a rather inspiring sight, especially when they were at full extension and glowing like the sun itself. Theater.
It was all theater.
All except the threat. These vexing ponies really did not want to see her upset.
“I would remind you both that what has transpired… this unfortunate incident… it is still under investigation. Time will cool the initial panic, and my nephew will be reasonable,” she assured them, though it was mostly to set Lord Yama’s representative at ease. “Lady Unryu, I will write to the good Lord Yama, who has visited my hall and eaten at my table many times when he was young. I will remind him of the love he has for me and I for him. My words will convince him of his daughter’s safety, but she must face these accusations, sooner or later.”
“If my Princess can convince my Lord, then I will breathe easily,” Lady Unryu said, raising her eyes. “There is no more loyal Duchy in Equestria than Neighpon, and none that so loves our Princess and Empress.”
“We all put our faith and trust in the Princess,” Ser Steel echoed her counterpart. “May she shed light and wisdom on both great Dukes and noble houses.”
Celestia heard only a little more of the dispute, this time in reasonable tones, before taking a break from the court. Wine and food were served to the courtiers, but Celestia took her meal away privately. The dispute between Neighpon and Canterlot continued to fester in her mind. The matter was a serious one, the attempted murder of a member of the royal family, but both sides were being surprisingly obdurate.
Celestia could understand Lord Yama’s overprotectiveness, especially since his trusted stallion Shigure had been killed in the Everfree. Yumi was his only child. Yet these were serious charges, and she was clearly involved in some way. Her life outside Neighpon would be over if he just tried to hide her at home. Then there was the matter of her royal nephew. Blueblood! What was he thinking? Had that poisoning so shaken him that he had taken leave of his senses? Even as a colt, he would have known to play things more subtly. Issuing an ultimatum? Stars and Shadows.
According to her spies, both Neighpon and Canterlot were mobilizing their guards.
A thousand years, the duchies and former principalities of Equestria had been at peace, living in harmony, and now it was like these ponies were happy to throw it all away. Maybe, just maybe, she would have expected outright hostility like this from the extreme north and the extreme south. The Quartz and the Terre Rare were both powerful and ambitious families, but Canterlot and Neighpon? Did the Neighponese really still hold a grudge over the White Fleet, all those centuries ago? It was ancient history even by her standards.
Celestia found her appetite diminished by the dark clouds in her thoughts. It had been a thousand years without a real crisis, and then Nightmare Moon had returned. She had planned for that. It had been a thousand years and more since Discord’s imprisonment. She had planned for that. It would be a thousand years since Sombra had been banished. She had planned for that, too. The pettiness of ponies? She had thought she had planned for that as well.
Neighpon and Canterlot…
It couldn’t just be the pettiness of ponies and the blustering of two prideful stallions. There was more to it. Celestia could all but feel the chess pieces moving around her, and she knew she was both chessmaster and a piece on the board. Like any piece, her vision was not absolute. She could miss the enemy queen, hidden behind a rook. She could fail to see the knight, shielded behind a row of pawns.
That in mind, she met with Alpha Brass in the gardens below the Palace.
She granted him the authority to act in her name and mediate between Canterlot and Neighpon. She gave her consent, a little more reluctantly, for the stallion and Twilight Sparkle to go ahead with their plan to defang the Terre Rare with an arranged marriage. She hoped, as she always did, for the best to come of it.
“What do you think, Philomena?” Celestia asked as her faithful phoenix pet landed on her outstretched leg, the two of them alone in the gardens. “Do you think the time is right?” The bird made no response, except to preen her fiery feathers.
The Princess of the Sun smiled and brought the phoenix closer to whisper, “Sirocco. Bring her to me.”
Philomena’s head snapped up and she opened her beak wide, as if laughing.
“Bring her to me,” Celestia repeated, and with a snap of her hoof and a whiff of brimstone, the great phoenix took to the air in search of Alpha Brass’s old bodyguard. Watching Philomena vanish against the cloudless sky, Celestia narrowed her one visible eye.
Yes, she hoped for the best… and planned for the worst.
- - -
Eunomie (final)
- - -
“Lady Eunomie!” “Lady Eunomie!” “Lady!” “Her Grace!”
Eunomie paid little mind to the hushed whispers or bowed heads she received in her Good Father’s Hanging Gardens. With him gone, it was her duty to oversee things in his name. The ponies here should all have been quite accustomed to her presence after so many years. They must have known that she cared nothing for their respectful words or their genuflection. She did not feel pride, nor was her ego pleasingly inflated by the respectful words and bowed heads. Yet they persisted.
Most of them, anyway. A tiny few knew better.
The sea of female faces parted as three mares approached to meet Eunomie. The first was the famous pegasus enchantress, Siren Song, her bright fandango-pink eyes alight with excitement and mischief. Her purple mane had been done up in the flowing ‘princess’ style, and she wore a white labcoat emblazoned with enchantments over her own natural, alabaster coat. She wore silver earrings, each a gift from Alpha Brass, three on the left and two on the right.
Close behind Siren Song was Genuine Grade, a plain-faced, young mare with a very uncharacteristic white coat – for earth ponies – and brown eyes, hidden behind thick glasses of her own design. While Siren’s cutie mark was easily described as two musical notes, inverted, Grade’s was a complex and almost indecipherable set of lines and lenses. There was nopony more skilled in the science of optics in all of Equestria. It was hard to recall that the mare had once been a timid orphan from the unpaved streets of an Equestrian Colony. Now she was one of the mares who would change the world and the course of pony history.
Last of the trio was Cesian Beryl, a unicorn mare shorter and more stout than Eunomie herself. Her coat was a common pink-white, more rose than alabaster, but her mane was a bleached white and her eyes a shimmering, crystalline blue. Like the other two, she also wore a protective laboratory frock, faint runes visible against the fabric. The three mares stopped, dipped their heads in lieu of a bow, and extended their hooves to quickly shake Eunomie’s own.
“Cesian, Grade, Siren,” Eunomie greeted them all in turn. “I have come as asked. I trust you have something significant to show me?”
“We do! The very thing His Lordship has been waiting for!” Genuine Grade said with a smile. Like many, even most, of the mares in the Gardens, she all but worshipped Alpha Brass. He had only to offer a kind word or some soft-spoken praise for her hard work, and she practically swooned. Some ponies, Eunomie knew, were touched by her father’s Words more than others.
The most valuable and capable ones… It was a reward of sorts.
The funniest thing of all, to hear Euporie describe it anyway, was that father did not even need to use his power to enhance the lives of others. Most of the mares who worshipped him from afar in the Gardens had never been touched by more than the faintest hint of father’s magic. It was not necessary to establish a link with any of them to ensure their devotion. A smile was enough.
“We had hoped to have it ready before he left for Canterlot,” Siren Song explained with a long sigh. “But there were some problems. A hairline fracture developed.”
“As per his orders, we have moved slowly and taken every precaution,” Cesian said, leading the group over to a large circular platform in the middle of a huge butterfly-shaped pool. The wings of the pool were adorned with fountains of ponies of all shapes and sizes playing with sea-ponies. The droplets in the air created an ever-shifting aurora of rainbows, most lasting only seconds before reappearing somewhere else.
“Great things cannot be rushed,” Grade reminded them.
“But I would have loved to have seen my Lord’s face when we show him his dream given form!” Siren lamented with an overly affected pout. “No offense, my Lady, but to finish this when he is away of all times…?” She sighed, longingly. “We just don’t have any luck!”
“Away and with somepony,” Grade added, reaching up with a hoof to push her glasses up the bridge of her snout. She didn’t sound pleased. “This other mare… she isn’t even one of us.”
“All your hard work is appreciated. You know that,” Eunomie reminded them. The ground beneath their hooves shifted as the circular platform began to sink. “It is with the greatest affection that my father holds you three to the highest standards of excellence. Twilight Sparkle is not Olive Branch. She is a pony like you or I. We will love and embrace her as a sister or as a mother. Remember that.”
The three mares all grumbled but acquiesced to varying degrees.
“Yes, a sister.” “So long as His Lordship is happy, I suppose.” “She better not be the jealous type... or a prude.”
The platform floated downwards, within the thickest inner tier of the gardens. There, a forest of pillars grew from floor to ceiling, divided in places between two floors. Trefoil and Tudor arches crowned the pillars, holding the whole structure of the garden tier together while providing a vast inner space for storage, movement, or other uses. A pegasus pony could fly freely through here, weaving easily between the pillars, and, in fact, a few did before Eunomie’s eyes. They were hardly carefree, however. The two pegasus mares carried a wooden case between them. Elsewhere, the telltale glow of unicorn magic moved with the sharper light of earth pony torches.
The inner space itself was lit by a soft, pervading glow, like sunlight gathered from the pre-dawn.
“Three years of crystal crafting… how many thousands of bits do you imagine his Lordship has spent on this?” Cesian Beryl wondered, stepping down from the landed platform. Her hooves made a soft ‘ting’ sound on the polished pink marble tile.
“Last I checked, the price of this project stood at four-hundred and sixty-three thousand eight hundred bits,” Eunomie dryly replied.
Her magic snagged a hanging labcoat, and she donned it while she walked.
“Who would put a price tag on beauty?” Siren Song wondered.
“Accountants,” Grade answered with a smirk. “A half a million bits, really?”
“Really,” Eunomie told her.
They passed under a large, thick arch, carved with engravings of smoke and crystals. The chamber beyond was lit not just by the usual, soft amber glow but by descending pillars of light. Eunomie’s hooves splashed as she stepped down from the clean tile floor and into a shallow pool. It crackled as her natural magic discharged. Cesian Beryl’s hooves did the same, the liquid grounding and nullifying her ambient unicorn magic. Siren Song made far less of an impact when her hooves entered the pool, but Genuine Grade’s crackled like two pairs of electrodes. She was ‘only’ an earth pony, but she had a great deal of natural magic within her.
Ahead of them, the glowing pillars of lights formed two rows, and beneath each pillar grew geodes in a variety of colors. Saturated in pure magic, absent organic contaminants, they formed the raw material. The majority of the expense of the project was in growing the crystals here, so far from the frozen north where they had been harvested. Ponies on scaffolding oversaw the crystal nursery, reading light levels, testing acidity, ambient magic saturation, and a dozen other factors. Pegasus ponies here “sang” to the crystals in a melodious chorus, directing their development.
Past the pools and the neutralization liquid, Eunomie and her three ‘sisters’ ascended a pair of steps to a dry area. Here, among the seemingly endless sea of pillars and arches, lay the Effulgent Forge. This was Genuine Grade’s workshop. Long reams of paper hung from rafters, like banners, but displaying mathematical calculations instead of noble colors and shields. Suspended corkboards were covered with more papers and more measurements, while ground-bound chalkboards were strewn with notations, scribbled diagrams, equations, and ever-present checklists. Juxtaposed with the study taking place was the hammering of crystal smiths at the glowing forge, where light itself was used to bend and shape brittle crystal and glass. Mirrors and lenses larger than a pony hung overhead from a mechanical contraption of gears and wires.
Finally, past even that, they came to Cesian Beryl’s atelier. Cesian was not simply a unicorn. Her ancestry went back to the Crystal Empire itself, and she was learned in all the traditions and hermetic rites of that classical equine race. Coupled with that knowledge was the magic intrinsic to her unicorn heritage. Her atelier was no forge or manufactory, nor was it a magical pool from which raw materials began to take form. The antechamber was large and circular, with a multitude of arches coming together to form a majestic, textured dome overhead.
Eunomie felt a tingle as she passed through a magical barrier.
“We can show you the preliminary tests shortly,” Cesian said, gesturing towards the center of the atelier. “But here it is. As our Lord Brass charged us, we have recreated a Wonder of the Ancient World. Grown in song and thunder, tempered in light and the arcane…”
Set within a column of colorless light, a single heart-shaped crystal floated, serene and magnificent. It was pony-sized, with the look of pure diamond, but scintillating in blues and pinks and purples. Equestria had not seen the like of it in a thousand years. It was not just a product of light and magic, song and thunder, as Cesian had described. Fashioning such a masterpiece would have been impossible if not for the lore that had been unearthed, both by Lady Arsenic and, more recently, by Eunomie’s Lord Father.
“His Lordship’s globus empyreus,” Genuine Grade introduced the crystal, a ray of light from overhead catching her glasses and leaving behind a glint that masked her eyes. “Just as the prototype was simply called ‘the Device,’ we’ve taken to calling this one ‘the Triptych.’ Because of the redundant sections. There are three, compared to the one in the Device your sister took.”
“Very impressive. My father will be pleased. You’ve tested it,” Eunomie stated, her voice emotionless. It wasn’t a question.
“We have,” Cesian replied, gesturing to one of the alcoves. “The volunteers are this way, my Lady. Bear in mind, these are only preliminary tests…”
“It works perfectly,” Siren Song said, fluttering her wings.
“We’ve tested up to thirty thousand starswirls,” Genuine Grade added. “With Lady Chalice’s help, and our crystal capacitors, we believe we can test up to fifty thousand sometime this week. That is one fourth of the projected safe upper limit of two hundred thousand starswirls. Though… of course… we have no way to generate that much magical power. It is the best we can do at the moment.”
“Two hundred thousand starswirls is enough magic to melt a mountain halfway down to the roots.” Cesian Beryl scoffed. “If we go over that limit, Equestria will probably end up looking like a volcano went off!”
“That is an unacceptable outcome,” Eunomie stated.
“Oh! Yes! What I mean, my Lady, is that we can and will have a failsafe prepared,” Cesian promised, hastily trying to cover up her dismissive tone just seconds earlier. “I assure you! It should be simple to key it to vibration and temperature. But… do you really expect the globus will have to channel that much energy? Surely even the original Crystal Heart could not handle so much power.”
Eunomie saw the preliminary test subjects up ahead and nodded. Everything was on course.
“From the beginning, our goal has been to surpass what came before us. We are not content to stand on the shoulders of giants,” she reminded them, feeling a jump in her heart at repeating her step-father’s words and seeing his dreams so close to fruition. “We will become giants ourselves.”
- - -
I am not an eloquent pony. I do not know how else to describe it.
War.
It will be war.
- - -
Blueblood
- - -
“You'll be seeing Rain Booms!
Ooo-ooo-oooh!
Equestrian Girls, we're kinda magical!
Boots on hooves, bikinis on top!”
Instinctively, without fumbling or hesitation, a manicured white hoof reached out to tap the sleep switch on the gold and silver radio. The deed done, it began to retract… only to stop.
Still in bed, still alone, Blueblood opened his eyes.
Haltingly, his breath coming in fits that soon turned to ragged gasps for air, the Prince of Canterlot made his way out of bed and towards the window overlooking the gardens and the maze below. His slow walk only sustained him until he was halfway there. Then, like a dam breaking, he surged forward, violently ripping the drapes away with a flash of magic. Looking out at the Palace below, Blueblood’s breath choked, the air and his very soul caught in his throat. Blue eyes widened, frightful beyond description.
Below, he could see ponies preparing for the Gala.
“No.” It was just a whisper, but it was all he could manage. “Please. Not this.” Falling back onto his hindquarters, Blueblood’s hooves clung to the sides of his face. “Not this… no… not…”
He couldn’t even muster the willpower to scream.
“Not again. Not again. Not again.”