Diplomat's Quarters, Canterlot 12:16pm
"Lunch...is served!"
Red Carpet wrinkled his nose at the slightly overdone smell of too many species tucked into a set of rooms that was likely a hair too small for the lot- but they HAD insisted on staying together. He did produce a titter of laughter from the crowd, which only made his face go even tighter than usual.
"Her Highness has assured me that everyone will find something to their satisfact-" was broken by one of the flapping creatures laughing hard enough to begin to do involuntary spins in mid-air.
"-their satisfaction-" And now the masked ones were snuffling in what had to be good spirits, a deep SNEEEERRRK! through a breathing hole putting yet another hole in the unicorn's snooty balloon of a speech.
"AHEM! So that all will enjoy the highest quality the Royal Kitchens produce for their most honored guests." Sweet Sun-In-Wing, the bloody rock farmer was grinning at him like he'd just walked in painted pink!
"WewishyouapleasantmealandpleasepullthebellropeshouldyoudesireanythingfurthergoodDAY!" he finished in record time and exited hastily, leaving a small army of pleasantly steaming covered dishes to cover his retreat.
As the door closed, the entire feast jawed away in perfect timing to Discord's best Red Carpet imitation- seeing as every cover was connected to a set of puppet strings held by the ceiling-walking chaosity and had been miming along to the butler's stolid announcements. Dish covers wiggled and pronounced their virtues to all and sundry.
"You shall be SO fondue of my cheese and breadsticks!" "Salad, salaam!" "Open, sesame-roasted sandwiches!"
Angel proceeded to kick one cover clean off a mountain of mixed greens and simply dove in, causing the rest of the meal to remark.
"That rabbit's got a mean streak a mile wide!" "It's a killer!"
Lunch was self-serving and high-spirited.
---
Rarity minced by the door as Red Carpet led a line of serving-ponies back towards the kitchens. The Prench-born servant was less than amused at being the butt of Discord's performance.
"Discord, vous batard delicate! Douleur DANS LE CUL!". She almost lost her wig as her ears twitched to the harsh words. "Such language!", she thought. Grabbing a lunch cart with her teeth, she guided it to the back of the line and detoured it away when the rest of the help had rounded a corner.
Princess Celestia was having her lunch at one-fifteen sharp. She had a few extra menu items to pick up beforehand.
---
"Oh, and Red Carpet? I forgot, Princess Luna will be here for lunch. We'll need..." , Celestia began piling on the extra dishes as the butler began to grind his jaw with barely contained agitation. "....and a few extra things, Luna's supposed to be having a guest for lunch."
"Table por quatre? Agrebale.", he said, though it was not lovely in the least. Not enough servers on shift, the kitchen would be running double-time....and he almost forgot to bow politely before heading for the lunch chef to utterly wreck HER schedule as well.
---
12:36pm
Fluttershy let out an adorable little "choo!" as Rarity thoroughly powdered the last bit of her cutie mark under a layer of makeup. The mane dye had (of course) come in perfectly, leaving the pegasus a blushing bottle-blond. Another bit of dress over the top and...
"Celestia's staff will be extra busy today, and you're going to be the perfect set of hooves to help with lunch!"
"But...but what if someone makes me do something or wants me to say something?"
"You're the help dear, just like me. Why, you may as well be invisible to most ponies here! Just keep your teeth on the cart and don't say a word. Now, follow me! I just -know- they're going to need all the help they can hoof into the kitchen."
And with that, Rarity lined up next to her and flank-to-flank, they pushed the rather broad wheels-for-meals towards the delicious smells of an army of cooks, hard at work.
---
Royal Kitchens, 1:04pm
"Next in line, desserts on the bottom, main dish on the middle, appetizers on the top! Go, go, go!"
Fluttershy barely managed to keep a plate of tea cookies stable as she tried to slide it into the covered shelf at the bottom of the cart. The load bobbled and began to tip halfway in...
...and a pink hoof on the other side took up the slack, drawing the sweets into the shadowed alcove.
Rarity discretely shoved a strand of green tail back into the cart as she tucked a final plate of watercress and saffron-sprinkled wraps into the middle shelf, then the two wrestled a plate of carefully arranged flowers that could easily serve as both table decoration or snack tray on the roof before finding their way to the tail of the caravan heading for the Day Court.
A crimson hoof tapped in barely-contained wrath as they squeaked by. "YOU!", the owner of the hoof pointed in the finest Prench fashion of "J'accuse" at Rarity! "WHERE HAS ZE CART BEEN FOR AN HOUR!"
Fluttershy's teeth began to leave dent marks in the silvered mouth-railing.
"Why...why....someone had left it full of dirty dishes and I HAD to clean it! And....and...", Rarity bent to whisper in Red's ear.
"They scratched the top. I had to polish it for half an hour!"
"ZUT!" spat from Red's mouth as he shoved Rarity back into position. "I will find ze pony responsible and he will be SACKED! SACKED! Go!"
"A sack doesn't sound too bad..." Fluttershy managed to get out around the handle. 'DEPECHEZ-VOUS!" roared from behind the two. Rarity actually had to dig a thin groove in the carpet to keep the cart from plowing into the ponies pushing the next in front!
The thin line of shiny, sparkling meal tickets made their way down the carpeted lanes of the court and found themselves swallowed by a pair of tall double doors, beyond which four ponies shared the long stretch of table that marked the Royal Dining Room. Celestia's serene form occupied one end, Luna's the other, and Twilight and the cape-and hatted Trixie could be found at opposite sides of the center.
"Why, Red Carpet! As always, impeccable." , and the Solar monarch smiled in a way that made the butler's ill mood melt away in seconds. "I think...yes, we'll have those two over there serving for lunch today. The rest are free for an extra hour's break today for their meal, and that includes you...especially you! Your perfection deserves it's reward."
Save for the relatively unfortunate pair, the servants rapidly took advantage of their boon, a few whispering condolences and encouragements at the pegasus-maid who looked positively stricken at the idea of being almost alone with the Princesses as she conferred with her cart-partner.
"Oh, oh! We have to do all these for...what if I drop a plate!", she wailed as the last one pulled the doors shut behind her, leaving the two servants to handle the meal by themselves.
And with that, Twilight's face unbent from it's regal (actually, she'd been studying portraits of royalty) mien and broke wide open.
"Fluttershy, you can drop the act now- it was very good, but they're gone. Lunch, then we save the world?"
"Umm....are you sure I can't just serve lunch and then go on break with everyone else? Maybe go walk in the flowers and save the garden or something?"
"I think we have two ponies who already started on lunch-", Celestia said. Trixie didn't take half a moment afterwards and gracefully whipped the cloth covering off the cart. Curled on the bottom was Pinkie Pie and a rather empty plate, while Rainbow Dash was revealed with half a wrap sticking out of her mouth and the crumbs of more decorating her fur. The dish on top barely waved a petal.
*MRPH*, Dash commented as she failed to unstick the mouthful currently going down her throat for more. Pinkie simply clapped her hooves, then winced a bit and kept applauding anyway.
"- perhaps someone would be kind enough to get them a drink? The sauce they put in those wraps always makes my mouth stick together, never mind that many cookies."
Two pitchers of water later, the meal (and a great deal of "how to save Equestria" small talk) began.
---
"...and Ramuh mentioned grimoires, so I started reading and I think I know just what to do here...", Twilight continued. For the third time. While Trixie was glazing over and not even trying to feign interest at this point, the rest of the table just let her talk her way into circles while she convinced herself that yes, she really could do it. Anything else lost it somewhere around the "thaumaturgical impressions" and a long equation written on the tablecloth in chocolate sauce with a fondue fork.
"Twilight? Dear? I'm sure this will work, you've thought this out -perfectly- and we're all ready to help you. And I'm afraid Pinkie may have finished the last of the dessert you've been writing with, so shall we clear the plates and get to work?"
Six heads managed to nod as one. Trixie managed to make things clear by snoring.
"We did wake Mistress Trixie a bit earlier than usual today.", Luna said with a hint of embarrassment. "TRIXIE?", she inquired at a polite level of "too loud for mornings" at the unicorn, who by this point was leaking a small puddle of drool from under her hat. The pointed headpiece shot up to attention, revealing a face that would have looked right at home in Cheerilee's schoolhouse. Right before the rest of the class started laughing about Trixie getting extra homework.
"Trixie's almost done with the exam! One more minu...um, Trixie is prepared to do what it takes for Equestria. Yes. She is honored that you would invite her into the company of royalty to save the world, and cannot fail you." "Or I'm about to be blasted into dust in one of Twilight's crazy plans and there's no way in Tartarus you refuse a direct request from two Princesses unless you enjoy lunar excursions for the next century."
Tables floated to one side, carts were herded to another to clear the center of the room as Twilight fussed over placement.
"Princess Celestia, right here...", as she pulled a compass from her saddlebags. "A step to the left, and perfect. True north."
"Rarity, another two steps to the left of Princess Celestia and...a little closer to me.". The compass wavered a bit in mid-air. "Northwest. Good. Pinkie! I know standing still is normally a little tough, but PLEASE...oh, I'm sorry. Right there. West IS best, Pinkie. Trixie, the same distance away from Pinkie as Rarity...yes, I know you never miss a mark. Very good, Southwest on the button. Rainbow Dash, you can figure out which pose is most awesome for saving Equestria but -don't move from that spot-. South! Applejack...oh, you already knew? Southeast."
The cowpony waved her hat at Rarity as she moved into position.
"This ain't the first dance I've been called at, Twilight.". Rarity giggled. "Does this mean we need to find Twilight a fiddle? Or a cello for the waltz?"
The image finally managed to break Twilight out of the increasingly nervous state she'd been in all day- crafting the ritual, whether everyone would be together, everything. "I have the best ponies anyone could want to help me. Everything is going to be fine." She snorted as her lips curled into a grin. "Fluttershy, would you mind landing here facing Pinkie? That is very good, Fluttershy. And thank you, Philomena never talks that way around me. I promise, extra incense for dessert tonight- and I'm buying. East, just right. Princess Luna, the final place, northeast...yes, yes, yes."
A dozen sparkling pages arranged themselves around Twilight as she stood in the center of the mystical formation and began a widdershins dance, circling just outside the stretch of Twilight's wings. She examined each of the feathers Philomena had donated, each cut to a precise quill's edge. Two was enough, but a third just in case.
"I'm going to start. Everyone, remember what I asked you to focus on- all of you have been the bearers of relics of great power, and that residual connection is what I'm using to bind this book together once the ritual is complete. Whatever you do, DON'T STOP CONCENTRATING."
The alicorn's horn blazed with aura and reached out to kindle a white glow from Celestia.
"The light that guides, now blinds."
In turn, it touched Luna, whose skin was shrouded in obsidian.
"Darkness has fallen, shrouding us in the cloak of ignorance."
Emerald sprang from Fluttershy, who shivered as the miasma left her powdered fur a sickly tone.
"The winds blow cruel across the summer sky."
A yellowed tone oozed from Applejack's pelt.
"And the earth grows barren and wild."
Sparks kindled from the eyes of Rainbow Dash, and the scent of ozone seeped into the room.
"Storms curse all below them with spears of betrayal."
Trixie's blue fur bubbled motes of magic to float around her in a sea of mana.
"And the jealous rivers reach from their banks to drown us all."
Pinkie's ears pricked as a halo of sourceless fire lit above her head, sending fat sparks to scorch the marbled floor.
"The heavens rain fire and tribulation on the world as portents of sorrow."
Rarity's horn grew a sheath of hoarfrost that covered it's upper tip, sending snakes of icy mist to caress the spinning sheets of parchment.
"For all ponies despair that the Windigo Time has come. I call it upon this place, I bring it forth, I name it and witness it by these words and write it large upon these pages."
A thick, almost pestilent drop of dark magic wept from Twilight's horn to stain a phoenix-quill with venomous ink as it scrawled symbols that made the eye burn with tears to read them. The auras mixed and circled the nine ponies, and a wordless, silent scream flattened their ears, the promise of a predator to leap on their backs and tear out their bellies in primal cruelty. The world outside the circle became monochrome, almost as if the colors were draining it to fuel their malice.
The quill, complete in it's task sparked into flames and consumed itself, taking the last stained bits of blackened magic with it.
"I have called, it has come, and by it's name I shall command it and abjure it's wickedness from the world.", and Twilight's eyes became burning lanterns in her skull. Her wings spread on their own accord, barely missing the rotating words that painted the golden pages around her.
"For the sun still rises to bring hope to the lost, and blesses both the wayward and the wise." -and Celestia's light gentled from the glittering spikes of painful glow to her familiar solar radiance.
"We look to the night sky and know the signs that the time is right to bring healing and restoration, for it is writ in the stars above.", as Luna's blackness faded to a somber blue-black of the night just before dawn.
"The winds bring sweet tidings of spring, the thaw of anger in the warmth of love." , and with a whole-body shake, Fluttershy's fur-powdering found itself wafting through the room, tickling the nose with it's perfume.
"No evil shall deny the land, for it's destiny is to bear fruit and be prosperous." , and indeed, shoots of green sprang from what should be barren marble at Applejack's feet and the stone crumbled to the richness of farm-tilled soil.
"The storm passes, and the wild lightning is tamed to our hooves." Rainbow's scent turned from the nostril-searing touch of a near strike of electrical wrath, and the light dimmed from her eyes. A distant, gentle rumble of thunder filled the room as her wings opened and flapped, leaving her hovering inches from the floor.
"Gentle is the rain, that brings new life and heals the scars of the world." The malicious magical humidity in the air around Trixie dissolved into clouds and mist that stroked across flesh like a balm.
"No more the sign of coming tribulation, but the hearth-friend, house-keeper." Pinkie's halo spread and diluted itself across the earth pony in a ruddy overcoat, no longer searing, but the warm scent of a bakery at work.
"And the Windigo Time shall pass and ne'er be seen again, for the land sleeps beneath a snowy blanket in peace." Rarity's icy horn-shell crumbled into flakes of snow, which kissed the brow with a delicious coolness as they melted away, only to be replaced by more that seemingly formed from the unicorn's horn in an unending eddy of frozen sweetness.
At the last, the sounds of predatory hatred faded, and colors began to return outside the circles as a second quill scratched a harmonious tapestry of colors that wove itself across the hateful writings that had come before, the blend turning what had been dissonance into something that delighted the eye rather than striking it out. With a second spark of Twilight's more ordinary aura, the feather joined it's mate and ashed away.
"We who have borne great bindings of power upon us, call upon these words to be bound in turn, and restore the magic which was torn from it's place as we tie these pages together." A rainbow of colors swirled from the nine ponies into the spinning sheets of vellum, which rose to stack themselves in a neat, precise row above Twilight's head. Flecks of phoenix-ash floated into the colorful blend, and the magic solidfied to form a prismatic cover for the grimoire that the ritual had successfully inscribed.
"Let the power of the world be as it should be ONCE MORE!"
The book closed with a clap. The world's colors faded from a vibrant richness to ordinary sight as the last of the ritual's power was drawn into it, and Twilight sighed with relief as she felt the pure pony-rific rightness of the book, it's energies the familiar tones of the magic she had lived and learned with all her life. She looked up at the salvation of Equestria that floated above her horn.
Why was she heading so quickly towards it all of the sudden? What was that sound?
Eight pairs of eyes watched Twilight's sudden ascent towards the ceiling in absolute shock as a spear of crystalline magicite drove from the floor, through the alicorn's heart and into the book, smashing first the grimoire into sparkling shards of dust and then pinning the princess to the ceiling like some kind of freakish, purple insect.
She squeaked briefly at the impact as it knocked the wind from her lungs. The white fire in Twilight's eye sockets vanished, leaving behind only a look of surprise. There was no blood as the body sagged on it's post, but animation fled from her like a suddenly quenched torch. A *CRACK* from the door revealed the forms of a half dozen guardponies with an improvised ram and the snobbish Blueblood, a look of smug satisfaction on his face as the locked door finally gave way to their panicked battering.
An instant later, the mortal coil of Twilight Sparkle became a haze of formless, purple dust that spread across the witnesses like a thin coat of paint. Only the blue pillar remained, it's glow harshly filling the room with an uncaring light. The circle around the pillar burgeoned with tears...
"And so, Twilight Sparkle pays for her crimes at last.", Blueblood uttered into the silence, desecrating the moment with the alchemy that transmutes utter sorrow into blinding rage with it's heartless formula.
The stallion found himself flung from the room as four horn-auras grabbed him by a leg each and launched him like a catapult into the audience room beyond, where he left a deep dent in the entrance doors and the ring of bending brass to herald the coming of the Sisters into their court. Terrible in fury, a killing haze blinding the ponies that stampeded behind them, teeth bared to tear and punish the stunned prince by flaying his skin to ribbons.
The Court has at least two dozen Guard at all times. It took six each to keep the Princesses from making sure Blueblood was never a pretty face again, three to hold a screaming Dash down, another three for Applejack, two to lift a sobbing Rarity off her feet and bear her back before she stabbed the FILTHY GELDING through the eye with her horn, but only one to support a crushed, joyless Pinkie Pie and another to keep Trixie at bay, her horn sparking.
None of them managed to stop Fluttershy, her face twisted into a mask devoid of any kindness, love, or mercy as she latched her hooves around Blueblood's throat and tried to choke the noble with her bare hooves. A petitioner in the crowd gently pried the shuddering pegasus off her prey and without a word, just hugged the poor thing as she screamed and wailed on a stranger's shoulder. Freed, he staggered upright to lurch out the listing pair of doors.
A strange smile briefly would have been seen to cross the "noble" stallion's face, if anyone had been looking. In the chaos of thrashing royalty and raging mares, none were.