//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: The Ponies Cannot Hear the Alicorn // Story: The Twilight of the Crystal Heart // by WanderingPony //------------------------------// CANTERLOT HERALD SPECIAL EDITION PRINCESS TWILIGHT SPARKLE DIES IN FORBIDDEN RITUAL "TRAGEDY" AS ROYAL GUARDS CHARGE IN "PAID FOR HER CRIMES", PRINCE BLUEBOOD SAYS - PRINCESSES NEARLY MURDER PRINCE IN ROYAL RAGE REMAINING "ELEMENTS OF HARMONY" TO STAND TRIAL BEFORE LORDS AND COMMONS FOR HIGH CRIMES PRINCESSES ASK PONYDOM, WORLD TO "REMAIN CALM" IN LIGHT OF EMPIRE DISASTER, MASS SPELL FAILURES --- (warning: lots of Very Unhappy Ponies ahead - the Author.) Princess Celestia's bedroom was a storm of tatters and feathers that had once been the Royal Bed. A few splintered bits of wood and tufts of cloud were flung from one side to another in absolute fury as she expiated insomnia, grief, and fury in stomping on the one thing that she was ALLOWED to stomp on. Because Blueblood had become strictly off limits- even to the highest of high. Her -own guard- had stopped the maddened monarch, even as Blueblood himself had rapidly sealed off the dining room (as the crime scene of magic most foul that had resulted in the death of a crowned head of Equestria), asked the House of Lords to put HER in "mourning" (and effectively out of power) due to her "grief for what must be Celestia's daughter-by-another-mother driving Our Solar Highness to a state of temporary incompetence to govern" - and the foalish herd had used the law she'd disbarred Luna with over a thousand years ago for the second time on HER. And her rampage in the throne room? They'd voted nine hooves for every one against after THAT got out- in less than an hour after poor Twilight had perished. Her sister? She'd raised the moon that night and the entire castle had suffered a brief snowstorm in the process. The castle was rife with the act being a sign that the Windigo Time was upon the land, brought by Twilight Sparkle's madness. The Night Court literally had the chill of winter in it as blue-maned Luna sat, as dispassionately cold as Celestia was burning hot. The final rock under the saddle had been having to walk with a full-double-shift of Royal Guard behind her to the Diplomatic Quarters to inform Twilight's parents that a few days after their son was missing, their daughter had blown herself to bits trying to make everything better. To her shame, they had tried to comfort -her-. Thanked her. Twilight Velvet had -hugged- her while she wept midway through the speech she'd prepared in her head on the long walk, instead of the other way around. Celestia, Great Ruler Of Ponies, being comforted by the mare who'd just lost her only two children to tragedy in a single week. And with that thought the anger left her, hollowed out. The day-bright light of fury that had been shining out of her balcony at midnight faded to a dim glow which, if you'd been stumbling around the wreckage might have been enough to keep from stepping on something. Deep inside Celestia's heart of hearts, something was lost, and nothing replaced it. --- Below Canterlot Castle, five ponies sat, each in their own cell with a stonefaced guardspony watching them- three on one side, two on the other. The rough stone was padded by a thick layer of hay, and only decorated by three buckets. One for gruel, one for water - and one for whatever you got after enough gruel and water. No talking was allowed, but the prisoners could think all they like. Blank walls and bland food with a seasoning of silence encouraged bad ponies to contemplate their deeds and behave, after all. Applejack sat in the middle of hers, her hat pulled down over her head. She'd done what she'd done, and she'd told herself it was for the good of everypony, time and again without a doubt with all of her heart. Then she'd seen what Rarity was reading in the cell across the way. Then that stupid goldarned fancy Element had turned her into some kind of killer zompony, and then....then...what were they gonna do without her? Granny, and Big Mac...and Apple Bloom. She knew was all the mama that little filly had...and if she was locked up in a dungeon for all of her days? A vision of endless rock-breaking in a black-and-white striped outfit under the desert sun ran through her mind's eye and trampled her hopes to death like a broken-backed rattlesnake. Nothing replaced it. Fluttershy...was troubled. Not alone, since she was sharing the hay with a nice family of mice, but some things you just couldn't talk to mice about. A mouse would tell you that life was short, eat the cheese, and one day, the snake or the hawk comes and takes you away. Fluttershy had watched Death swoop down with it's claws and...she had squeaked like a dying little mousie when their neck gets broken before they're eaten and- she closed her eyes and tried to sweep more straw around her to keep a chill that had nothing to do with the stone or the air away. Blueblood's face, starting to turn red as she began to crush his throat under her hooves. He was beyond "meanie"...she hated him for what he said about Twilight. With that, something snuffed out inside Fluttershy. Nothing replaced it. Pinkie Pie wrestled with the greatest challenge of her life. Twilight was gone. Everyone else was sad or mad and all she could think about that would fix it would be Twilight...but Twilight was gone and everyone else was sad or mad and all she could think about that would fix it would be Twilight with just the right idea they could save the day with but Twilight was gone and everyone else was sad or mad and all she could think about that would fix it would be Twilight with just the right idea they could save the day but Twilight was gone and she wasn't coming back and everyone would be sad or mad forever. Pinkie's mane had long lost it's puffy happy state to hang in long stringy strands across her sides as she walked in circles, but the circular thoughts are what had exhausted any idea of "fun" in the pony's head. Fun dribbled away into the dry grassy stalks, down her face, off the tip of her nose, left little white streaks as it dried and died. Nothing replaced it. Rarity, from some generous benefactor had been given a few newspapers from the past few days- the Herald, the Hoofington Trotabout, Fillydelphia Free Press, what have you. The implication that someone had greased the guards with some extra bits for her had left her feeling good at first...until she read the news. While the articles had a dozen different names on the bylines, they damned Twilight Sparkle and the rest of them with pointing hoof. She read the accounts of the few who had been close enough to witness but far enough to escape the ravenous blast, tale after tale of the Elements spreading a burning radiance that had killed and blinded without a thought for what lay below their hooves. HER hooves. Celestia and Luna had kept the press far at bay while they recovered, almost sequestered in the palace...but here the whole story was, as everyone else saw it. Even if they had been slaves to whatever horrible thing had been hiding in the Elements, there was no proof, only results. She saw the courtroom, saw herself pleading before a faceless judge before being led out in chains to the cries of an hungry mob. What could she give to show her contrition, how could you pay back the loss of so many lives, so many ponies? The tally of the dead stretched into a bill no number of bits would pay, no mountain of clothing would warm, no time enough given could amend. She poured her future into that gaping wound in her soul, and it drank it dry, to the bitter dust and dregs. In the end, she had nothing more to give, and nothing alone rested in the ledgers of her heart. Rainbow Dash hovered in place at the center of the cell, the straw having fled the sulking pony to hide in every corner of the room lest she tear it in her teeth for daring to think they could hang out. Everything was stupid. The guard was stupid because he wouldn't let her keep punching the stupid wall. The way they looked at her when they shoved another bucket of whatever in was stupid because they looked at her like she was a bad pony for doing the right things, for being awesome, for helping Twilight and all of her friends save everything and oh sweet summer sky why did I just follow whatever Twilight said to do like I had blinders on and not stop her from doing something so totally STUPID LIKE DYING. And with that, she punched the wall with a chipped hoof, sending another stab of pain up her foreleg and rattling her head. The echo of the punch addled her still-shaky brain, leaving the pegasus to flutter drunkenly about the cell like a rainbow-colored bumblebee. "HEY!" the guard finally uttered and thumped the door with a spearshaft. "That's enough of that, or I come in there with wing hobbles and you can SIT for the rest of your stay!". Stupid guard. They're all stupid for locking us up and not trusting us and Fluts and AJ and Rarity and Pinkie are all SO STUPID BECAUSE NONE OF THEM STOPPED TWILIGHT AND WE'RE ALL SO BUCKING SCREWED. I AM SO BUCKING SCREWED. STUPID, STUPID, STUPID! Rainbow Dash's thoughts ended as her increasingly disoriented flight turned into a head-meets-ceiling experience. The stunning impact left the pegasus in a tangled pile on the floor, thoughts running like a bowl of spilt spaghetti as something inside her skull came loose. What was lost, nothing replaced. --- Twilight Sparkle floated in the Astral sea, senseless and bodiless, a vaguely purple glow on the endless ocean of light. While she would likely have preferred nothing at all to be there with her, many somethings eagerly awaited her to pull herself together. Judgement and reckoning was at hand, and it rested on curly horns and woolen hooves for the proper time.