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(37)
Cadance: The Spider’s Law
- - -
The night sky sparkled with a thousand streaming, twinkling lights, like glitter trickling down a pane of curved glass. Bright yellow and ever-shifting shades of green and violet and red erupted from the stream of fireworks, some below, in the layer between the mountain and the clouds, and some far above where even pegasus ponies dared to fly. They cracked and fizzled and roared like dragons, the sound always fading into the cheering and partying of the crowd of ponies far below. It was New Years, and all of Canterlot was out to celebrate the nine hundred and ninetieth year of Princess Celestia’s singular reign.
Cadance leaned gently into the young stallion next to her, hearing his heartbeat mix with the thunder of the fireworks and the wild cheers of the crowd. She felt Shining Armor shift on the cloud, a little less comfortable in the air than she was.
“Don’t worry,” she said, hiding her smile. “If you fall, I promise I’ll catch you.”
“Unicorns and clouds don’t exactly mix,” he muttered and tried to put on a brave face, even as he looked over the edge. It was only a drop of a thousand hoof-lengths or so.
She wrapped one foreleg around his own and held him close.
Around them, other couples were enjoying the same cloud ride. They floated lazily around Canterlot on clouds of their own, circling it like slow-moving moons, taking in the view of the festival. The moon was full and ripe, bathing the entire city – the entire mountain range even – in a perfect glow. Cadance could just barely make out the other couples on distant clouds. Many were their friends, mares from Celestia’s school and young stallions from the military institute segregated from, but conveniently next to, the academy itself. Even Sunset Shimmer was out there, somewhere, with her latest victim.
They were all enjoying the privacy, the view, the thrill, and in every case, the company. It was a night for lovers. The young Princess of Love could feel it in the air, like a warm and soothing breeze. It tickled her senses and filled her heart like a song only she could hear.
“Cadance,” she heard her name, whispered.
Blushing hotly and turning her nose to brush her coltfriend’s chest, she asked, “Shining?”
“Do you… I mean…uh…” he stammered, embarrassingly, reminding her not for the first time that they were much younger than most of the couples on this ride. Then she felt him suck in a breath and angle himself slightly against her, so they were facing rather than side to side.
“Shining,” she said, and her heart skipped a beat as she realized what he wanted to do.
‘This is it!’ her mind screamed, or maybe it was more appropriate to say it squeed. ‘He’s going to kiss me! My first kiss! My first kiss! And everything is perfect!’
Shining stared at her, steely in his resolve. He held her shoulders gently with his hooves. He stared. He kept staring. He stared some more. Cadance’s own eager anticipation, coyly biting her lower lip as she waited with baited breath, slowly turned to aggravation and then amusement as she realized his problem. She could see it in the way he tried to look dignified and strong, but his eyes betrayed his insecurity. Nopony else seemed to see, like she did, just how unsure this aspiring royal guard could be.
“You don’t know what to do, do you?” she asked, flatly.
“Not at all,” Shining Armor admitted with a grimace. “Sorry, I…”
A firework exploded as Cadance yanked him in close and planted his lips to hers. Shining, you foal. Not like she knew what to do, either. That was the point. It wasn’t just her first kiss, or his, it was their first kiss, and the feeling was electric. It was almost as if there were fireworks going off inside her. Cadance felt her wings extend and stiffen, betraying her lack of control over them. It wasn’t a very long kiss, even, and quickly, the two young teenagers broke apart, their horns crossed as they rested, forehead-to-forehead.
“Wow,” Shining said, grinning roguishly.
“Wow,” Cadance agreed.
“Wake her up.”
- - -
A splash of lukewarm water later and Cadance shot up and out of her bed of crumpled and stained hay. The Serene Princess spluttered and coughed as the liquid burned the inside of her nose and tainted her lips, the very same lips that had kissed her husband-to-be. She instinctively gagged and screamed, hacking violently in revulsion.
“Thank you,” a voice said, regal and heartless. “That worked perfectly. You can put the chamber pot back now.”
A subservient changeling drone snickered, carelessly throwing the empty wooden dish back to a corner of the crystal prison. The creature was pony-sized and smaller than the monster it took orders from. Queen Chrysalis. The cocky witch wasn’t even bothering with a disguise. She brazenly stood on a clean carpet that had been unrolled into Cadance’s cell, wearing a flowing gown of white and lavender.
Next to the changeling Queen, surrounded and flanked by the three magically empowered bridesmaids, a stallion also looked on. Like Chrysalis, he was well-dressed, in his case with a pressed guard uniform and blue family sash. Cadance gasped and reached for him.
“Shining!” she cried, before she could even think to examine the situation. Her wings flapped to drive her forward into his embrace, only for the chain around her back right leg to go taut. With a pained yip, she fell flat and hard on her face.
“Oh, look at that! What a disgusting creature,” Chrysalis observed with a cruel laugh. “Isn’t that right, my sweet, little Shining Armor?”
“A filthy thing, to be sure,” he agreed, shaking his head. “And that smell! When was the last time it was washed?”
“I’m told they hose it down every week or two,” the Queen answered, and Cadance slowly pushed herself up onto her hooves. The Princess glared at her twin tormentors and the cylindrical seal that covered her horn began to seethe.
“Not nearly often enough,” Shining Armor replied, his loving tone now warped with disgust and disdain. He looked down on her with a sneer. “I find it hard to believe this is the creature you say I used to love.”
“It is,” Chrysalis answered, conversationally. “Magic will do that to you, my sweet.”
“I suppose so,” Shining agreed.
Cadance shook her head slowly, tears building in her eyes. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true.
“Now that I’ve been apart from her again,” Shining Armor continued with a snort, “I don’t know what I ever saw in her. It must have been her magic… affecting my mind. Making me love her.”
“No…” Cadance’s voice was small.
“It must have been,” Chrysalis agreed, laughing again. “I do wonder, though… was there ever anypony who actually cared for this disgusting little creature? Was any of it real? Or did she use her magic to make everypony around her accept her?” Chrysalis seemed to cherish what she said next like a fine wine. “Like a parasite?”
Cadance sucked in her breath and glared at the changeling Queen, violet eyes brimming with tears but hard like ice. For all her powerlessness, it was a look that could turn a pony’s blood cold. Shining Armor actually stumbled back a step in fear.
Chrysalis noticed it, too, and rolled her eyes.
“You idiot,” the Queen growled, turning on the stallion. “The real Shining Armor wouldn’t have flinched like that. You’ve ruined my fun.” Chrysalis shook her head and groaned. “Go on. Get out. Now.”
“S-sorry, my Queen!” ‘Shining Armor’ bowed low, shedding his disguise with a flicker of green fire as he made a hasty retreat.
With him gone, all the energy seemed to flee Cadance’s body. She slumped down onto the filthy floor and, for as much as she wished she could stop herself, began to cry. Her breath skipped, growing from soft to sobbing as her self-control dissolved in the face of despair. It wasn’t that she was indifferent to breaking down in front of her enemy. It wasn’t as if she wanted Chrysalis to see her so broken and weak. She couldn’t have stopped, no matter how hard she tried, and for months now, she had genuinely tried.
So Princess Cadance covered her face and cried.
It was all false. It was all fake. She tried to tell herself that. She had seen that this wasn’t her Shining Armor, but the words, the inflection, the mocking commentary and the degradation… it was all too much. It had struck home too swiftly – too cruelly – especially with the dream she had been so rudely awoken from.
The thought came to just escape again into Eunomie’s body and never return. How long had it been since she had tasted that one tiny bit of freedom? Ironically, it was that same thought, that same terrible temptation to just escape and never come back, that ultimately brought her back to her senses. Cadance slowed her breathing, wiped her face with a foreleg as best she could, and saw that Chrysalis was still staring at her. The Queen’s bright green eyes were alight with amusement.
“Mmmm! Is something the matter?” she asked, noticing Cadance’s change in composure. She used a chitinous hoof to gesture at her gown. “I wanted to ask what you thought of your wedding dress. Or, really, my wedding dress… but you know what I mean. My big day is about a week away, and I think I’m having – what’s the expression – butterflies in my stomach?”
Cadance sucked in another ragged gasp and forced herself to stand.
She was disgusting, dripping with her own night water, beaten and humiliated mentally and emotionally. The only thing that had kept her body from serious abuse had been the fact that if she died, it would interfere with Chrysalis’ use of her magic. She had just spent the last minute, maybe longer, crying on the floor. What she wasn’t, was broken.
‘You are a Princess of Equestria,’ a male voice snapped at her from her deepest memories. ‘From now until the day you die, never let the world see you as anything less than royal.’
“It is a… lovely… dress,” Cadance told her nemesis. Her tormentor. The changeling witch.
“I prefer green, personally,” Chrysalis admitted with a carefree shrug. “And the latticework gets caught in my spines when I transform.” She smirked, pleased by the conversation so far. “But thank you. It means so very much to hear you say you like it, since what looks good on you looks good on me.”
She turned to leave, and Cadance gritted her teeth.
“Wait a moment,” she called, and the Queen paused to glance back over her shoulder.
“Yesss?” she asked, playfully drawing out the question.
“Why are you doing this to me?” It was something Cadance had often asked herself. She knew what Alpha Brass had told her, that she and Chrysalis had been bonded when the Queen was a nymph or larva. That explained the imprisonment, yes, but not the cruelty. Something must have happened that Brass didn’t know about. Something must have angered or offended the Changeling Queen to make her act like this.
“Why?” Cadance asked again, and she had to gasp to keep from letting too much distress seep into her words. “Why are you doing this to me? Why do you hate me so?” Her chain rattled as she tried to step closer, her voice pleading. “What did I ever do to you? Tell me that, at least! What did I do to you?”
Chrysalis quirked an eyebrow, either amused or confused, it was hard to tell which.
“What,” she repeated, with a strange little pause, “did you ever ‘do’ to me?”
Cadance nodded, feeling as if an answer would finally be forthcoming.
“I suppose the answer is… nothing!” Chrysalis replied with a laugh and a smile that revealed two long fangs. “You didn’t do anything to me!” She laughed. Cadance couldn’t believe it. Her tormentor actually laughed. “Certainly nothing to deserve all this! What a funny question!”
The answer left Cadance aghast, and she fell back onto her haunches in shock. “N-n-nothing…?”
Chrysalis turned around to face the mare, trotting closer to her victim.
“There, there. I suppose it makes sense that you’d think something like ‘what have I done to deserve this,’” Chrysalis explained, reaching out to mockingly flick Cadance’s sealed horn. “If a fly ends up in a web and it sees the spider approaching, it must ask itself, ‘Oh fly-gods, why have you forsaken me? Why am I put on this world to suffer and die? Why am I being eaten? What did I ever do to deserve this fate? Please save me, oh fly-gods who art in fly-heaven!’”
Chrysalis laughed at her analogy, and her black hoof trailed down Cadance’s horn and across her face.
“But the spider doesn’t ponder questions like that! ‘This is a fly,’ the spider thinks, ‘So I’ll just eat it.’ That’s all the spider thinks as it sinks its fangs into the fly.” The Queen’s touch, almost gentle, turned rough as she grabbed hold of Cadance’s ear and shoved her down to the floor.
“Do you get it, now? Hmmm? Did I explain that simply enough for you, pony?!” Chrysalis snarled, mockingly, all pretense of civility cast aside. Cadance cried out in pain as the changeling Queen twisted her ear, threatening to rip it right off. “What you did or didn’t do doesn’t matter! The most sinful pony in the world is no different than the most pious! In the spider’s web, they are all just meat.”
“Why am I cruel to you?” Chrysalis asked, releasing Cadance’s ear with a flourish and trotting back to the door without so much as a glance backwards. “I’m cruel to you because I can be. If you want to assign blame, then blame yourself and your entire worthless race for not being changelings. I do not answer to your morality. I am beyond it.”
The three bridesmaids followed close on their Queen’s heels, leaving the three changeling overseers to lock up behind them. Cadance barely had the energy to watch them leave, but she heard the Queen’s final, parting, mocking words.
“Let her watch her brother squirm again,” the vile shapeshifter commanded. “She shouldn’t suffer alone.”
The crystal wall to the Princess’s right turned transparent, allowing her to see into the next cell.
Just as her cell door closed shut, the other one opened. A pony entered, approached the chained and comatose body of Prince Blueblood and the intravenous feed that hung from a nearby metal stand. Satisfied by whatever she saw, the unicorn mare then sat down, and her horn began to glow. Cadance buried her head in her hooves at the sound of her step-brother’s cries.
It was too much.
His being here was her fault, part of her plan that had imploded.
Something had to be done, and time was running out. ‘My big day is about a week away,’ the witch had said. There was no more time to lose.
“Heartstrings,” Cadance whispered to herself, eyes narrowing in resolve. Lyra was her trump card. She was there to provide her emergency escape. Brass would be unhappy if she was used too soon or for so frivolous a purpose as rescuing somepony like Blueblood. He would be upset that she used the ace they had so carefully inserted for something like this.
Too bad for Alpha Brass.
Even if it meant losing her own chance to escape, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza was prepared to take that chance.
- - -
The sting of Rarity’s hoof across his face hurt far less than the look of disgust in her eyes.
Prince Blueblood remained in the garden, the white rose he had picked for her – her favorite, he knew, even more than red roses – falling in pieces around his front hooves. Another loop… and another failure. Nothing seemed to work like it had before. Where once Rarity had come to the Gala looking for her Prince, she now had eyes only for others. Sometimes she ended the night with a suave Canterlot gentlestallion, sometimes with a well-heeled businesspony, sometimes with one of her friends. Anypony but him. Anypony… but him.
Contempt was all she had for him in these new Gala time-loops. It was as if the magic they had shared had all been expended on that one wonderful loop… and now it was gone forever, ripped away and cast into the darkness of the night. The generous, witty, wonderful seamstress from Ponyville he had come to cherish was not the only casualty, either. One by one, loop by loop, every pony he had thought to call a friend had turned their back on him.
Even the… even his own…
Slowly roused from his thoughts, Blueblood saw his Aunt Celestia trotting alongside Twilight Sparkle, the pair of mares chatting easily. Somehow, they made it through the opening ceremonies now with incredible haste. Twilight’s dream night, spent alone with the Princess of the Sun… she had it, without needing any intervention of his own. In that night before he had thought the loops broken, he had needed to spend much of the day coaxing Princess Luna to attend and to greet the guests with him. That had freed up Celestia to be with her student and to enjoy the evening, while giving his dark auntie a chance to introduce herself to the well-to-do of her realm.
Neither of them needed him now.
No one… needed him now.
It was the perfect Gala, and all he had to do – all he could do – was be alone. That very first loop he had returned to, Rarity had publicly spurned him. Dumbstruck, he had finally stumbled away, making at least a cursory attempt to check in with the others and prevent the usual nightly disasters. It was some strange fluke, he had thought. Like all those times he had inadvertently insulted the honest Applejack’s fare, even in her own home. He had vowed to be more careful next time and spent most of the rest of the night before the reset in the company of the Wonderbolts, Soarin and Spitfire, with whom he often had a Gala loop friendship.
Yet, against all he had learned of the loops, Rarity spurned him again the next night. There seemed no reason or rhyme to it, and as she went, so did his friends. Soarin had only unkind words for him, and though Spitfire remained respectful – as she tended to be when he first introduced himself – her eyes spoke only of contempt. Loop after loop, the others followed. Even the other Elements of Harmony. Even that crazy pink terror whose randomness and unpredictability he had come to both fear and find solace in… even she had only cruel words and hostile stares for him.
At last, even his Aunties, even Celestia and Luna, spat on him the very morning he awoke.
How long ago had that been? How many loops?
Did it even matter?
“Ah. Ah. Ah.” Blueblood stumbled, half-blind, through the maze and through the gardens. The sounds of the Gala, of the laughter and the happiness of other ponies, unbroken by disaster or trouble of any sort… he knew it would continue all night. All night. Tormenting him. Mocking him.
“Ah. Ah.”
He tripped over a discarded rake and fell, face first, into the dirt and grass.
Soily, the onetime Prince could only lay there, silently choking back sobs of anguish and helpless despair. He didn’t even bother to cover his face or try and disguise it. It was a pitiable and humiliating state, but what did that matter? Nopony would come looking for him. Everything was perfect. So very perfect. And all without him.
And he would relive this perfect day, over and over, always on the outside and looking in… forever…
“It hurts, doesn’t it?”
The voice was his own, and as he tilted his head to look up, a tall alabaster stallion in a tuxedo looked down on him with a disgusted sneer. Blueblood sat next to himself, leveling a look of arrogant disdain at the weeping pony beneath him.
“Don’t think I don’t feel it, too,” he said, flicking a stray blade of grass from the front of his immaculate coat. “That’s why I’m here, after all. That’s why you conjure me up. You can’t bear the loneliness.”
Blueblood forced himself to look away. “There’s no point… talking to oneself. Just go away.”
“How many nights,” the sitting Blueblood wondered, “have you told me: ‘there’s no point in talking to oneself. Go away.’ But I always come back, because you always want me to come back.”
Blueblood said nothing, determined not to dignify his growing insanity with a response.
“Solitude breaks all ponies, sooner or later,” his own voice whispered in his ear. “Despair and grief can lay low the strongest just as it does the weakest. And you know grief, don’t you?”
“To have had so much,” the imaginary Blueblood remarked with a little laugh. “To have escaped. To have loved. To have been loved. More than anything else, you had the cruel illusion of freedom. That was what really allowed you to dream and feel joy, I think. You really thought, for all those months, that you were free. But that freedom was just another lie. Just another trick.”
On the ground, Blueblood gave a wracking gasp as he remembered. That morning breaking free of the Gala Loops had been the most cathartic and hopeful day of his life, and every day after it, he had tried to live with the lessons he had learned. He had tried to do well by his station and his name, to come to terms with his place in society and to even embrace it. He had tried to do good and advocate for a better tomorrow. He had found a pony to love – ponies to trust in and feel comfortable around and embrace as friends and more. He had even dreamed of a life alongside them and of all the things he had to look forward to.
He had tried, above everything else, to endure. Just as Auntie Luna had told him that one time. Endure.
“Oh, Auntie, I…!” He buried his cheek against the dirt, the tears almost painful as they muddied his face. “I can’t… can’t endure this anymore…”
“To have everything and then to lose it? To have it snatched away?” the other Blueblood wondered aloud, craning his neck to stare at his prone self. “Oh, yes. It must hurt beyond belief. There is no enduring life when that life is without hope.”
On the ground, Blueblood weakly shook his head, trying to deny the horrible thoughts of his other self.
“You can feel it, can’t you?” The other him persisted. “There is no future. Only the Gala. Only this day…” Blueblood nudged himself onto his own back. “And this world…” he spat, “and this cursed life… until the very end of time.”
“So cruel,” the standing Prince concluded, and the one on his back wept. “This world is so cruel, Blueblood.”
Blue eyes stared up at the night sky and the full moon.
“Return that cruelty,” the other him whispered, low and seductive. “I know you have the magic. Use it. Treat cruelty with cruelty!”
“No!” Blueblood snapped, trying to rise from his back. A hoof slammed down on his chest, suddenly, painfully knocking the wind from his lungs. He blinked, dazed, and saw a dark alicorn standing over him.
It was Luna, and her eyes burned white and merciless, her wings as wide and dark as the night sky itself.
“Use your magic,” the other Blueblood snarled, angry and impatient. “Defend yourself!”
“Auntie,” Blueblood cried, reaching for his Aunt.
Her hoof filled his vision, snuffing him out before he could even say her name.
- - -
Cadance felt it, too.
She heard it, a moment later. It was a cry of despair and pain from the cell next to her own. It was her brother’s voice, sorrowful as it rose in pitch, warbling as it died away. Cadance could feel, even though the walls, as another shard of his heart contracted. They were killing him in that other cell. They were ripping his heart apart and killing him by inches. It had to stop. It had to stop before whatever was left of the pony in that cell lost the ability to love or even feel.
No more delays. Everything else had been tried. It was time for drastic measures.
If she could have torn through the wall with her bare hooves, she would have. If she could have conjured up a magical storm to rip this prison to shreds, she would have. Even if it cost her her horn, ripped from her very skull, she would have. Instead, all she could do – all she could do – was wait. So she waited. She waited, knowing only that the pony she had once called her big brother best friend forever was being tortured.
The right guard shift couldn’t come soon enough.
Given how she only had a rough sense of time, another hour was needed on top of that just to make sure.
So, as hard as it was, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza waited in her prison cell. She counted backwards and recited the names of her loved ones, occupying herself by making anagrams with their names. “Giveth Twill Vet… Hill Twig Vet Vet, Twilight Velvet, and…” she pondered this one for a while. “Quiver Neon Lax… for Vernal Equinox… that’s not too bad, is it?”
Cadance finished looping her metal chain around her throat, trying not to think about the next thirty seconds of her life. Instead, she tried to imagine Shining Armor and the last time she had seen him, before her abduction. She tried to remembered it, she really did, only to realize she couldn’t. It hadn’t been that long ago, less than a year, but… but it was almost like a blur, now. Like another pony’s life.
Feeling her nerve start to slip, Cadance bit her lip and fell forward.
The chain around her neck, fixed to a giant crystal block in her cell, had been wrapped around her body and her neck before ending in the cuff around her left hind leg. It went taut, and she made sure to scream before her throat constricted.
This needed to sound real… which meant it needed to be as real as she could manage.
Cold magic-proofed iron bit into her thin neck like the coils of a mechanical serpent. Her world spun around her: the featureless, geode-like ceiling, the filthy mat of hay where she had to sleep, the disgusting chamber pot she had to use, and the ewer of often dirty water she had to drink from. She room spun, and those items spun with it, but they were exactly where she needed them to be in case she needed to use them.
A frighteningly long second passed before the door flew wide open. The changeling wearing the buttery earth pony disguise – the one with the bon bons on her flank – stormed in first, a panicked look on her face. ‘She’s committing suicide?’ the changeling seemed to be thinking, terrified of what the Queen would do if her host died. No more love magic. No more unicorn magic. Her disguise would be found out in days if not hours! The changeling rushed forward after only a moment’s hesitation, directing the enthralled unicorn bridesmaid by her side to help.
‘That’s it!’ Cadance’s mind raced, and she whimpered, feebly. ‘Closer. Closer. Closer, damn you! Closer closer closer closer closer!!’
“Get her out of that! NOW!” the changeling roared.
“I know! I know!” The mint green unicorn she was with lit up her horn, and Cadance felt the noose around her neck begin to pull apart.
“Don’t talk!” the changeling screeched. “Just do it! Now lift her up off--”
“Close enough,” Cadance hissed and, like lightning, moved.
- - -
Lyra Heartstrings was a bridesmaid to the glorious Queen Chrysalis.
There was more to her life than that, or there had been, but none of that stuff in the past really mattered anymore. She was a bridesmaid. She had the Queen, and she had Bon Bon, her best friend in the world. Bon Bon wasn’t a bridesmaid, but she was a trusted servant of the One True Queen. Whenever Lyra wasn’t following the Queen’s orders, she did what Bon Bon said to do. There were other things, probably – maybe some family or… or something… but they didn’t matter. Only The Queen and Bon Bon mattered. She loved them so much.
So very much.
Thus, it came as something of a frightful shock to see Princess Cadance’s hoof shoot out, grab Bon Bon by the crown of her pink and cobalt mane, and then pull her forward face-first into the alicorn’s horn-suppressor. Lyra heard her marefriend’s skull crack as she hit the cylindrical horn suppressor with her left eye. It sounded like a twig being broken or maybe a stick being inadvertently stepped on. For a second, Lyra’s mind flashed back to one time as a foal, when she had been sneaking around her house. She had stepped on one of her toys and broken it underhoof.
Bon Bon’s limp body fell from Cadance’s grasp.
And as it did, white-hot rage surged into Lyra Heartstring’s body and soul. “BON BON!!”
Cadance hastily tried to pry the chain away from her neck. “Wake up!” she yelled, scrambling backwards. “Lyra Heartstrings! I need you to wake up and remember!”
Lyra was only a second away from summoning a deafening auditory string to punish this enemy of her Queen, this slayer of her best friend, when her words registered. She blinked, confused, starry-gold magical fingers only moments from plucking the strings of her ethereal lyre.
“Brass, really? Must you be so dramatic?” another voice interrupted, and a soft-pink alicorn with glowing green eyes sauntered up beside him. The tips of her wings were tinted with purple on pink as they fidgeted in sharp, sudden movements, like the claws of a hungry mantis. Her smile parted as she laughed, and for a moment, it almost looked as if she had fangs beneath her sensuous lips. “There really is no need. Of course she’ll agree to whatever you ask. I never understand why you even bother.”
“You’re early, Princess,” Alpha Brass informed her, frowning in displeasure. “I did not wish to frighten her.”
“OHH!” Lyra gasped, falling onto her front hooves with a short cry. “OH! What? What hap--!”
More memories rushed in, like a deluge. Like a broken dam. Like a second life.
Chrysalis. Alpha Brass. Siren Song. The artifact room. A chamber of singing crystal. A torc being fitted over her horn. And so much more: The caverns. Being taken away. Meeting a Bon Bon who couldn’t be the real Bon Bon. This cell. Those twisted, alien thoughts, worming through her head. Everything. Every word and act and moment of doubt. It all came rushing back in the time it took to suck in a frightened, short gasp of air.
“What – what was that?” Lyra asked, still numb, her black-tinted magic trembling in midair.
Around her neck, something snapped, flecks of pearl falling to the floor.
“An unbinding spell,” Cadance explained, slipping the metal noose around her nose and over her head. “I’m not sure how it works, but Brass said that it would snap you back to normal with all the memories of…”
“That’s right! Lord Brass!” Lyra exclaimed and ‘eeped’ as she realized how loud she was being, right in the middle of enemy territory. Clamping her hooves over her rather loud mouth, she plopped down on her haunches. It was all coming back. “That glowing necklace. I never took it off!” She reached up to her neck, feeling around. “I think I had it on all this time… even when I wore the torc and… but…”
She shook her head, trying desperately to compose her thoughts of the last few weeks.
“What torc?” Cadance asked, disentangling the chain from her body. “Miss Heartstrings, I really need you to tell me what’s going on and… what Chrysalis is planning…”
“It was this… this crown-like thing,” Lyra tried to explain, still shell-shocked by the sudden reversal. She motioned to her forehead and her horn, only to notice her magic. It was still shaded by black and twinkling with tiny, star-like lights! Curiously, transfixed by it, she prodded the magical black-and-gold hand that floated in midair. Slowly, a huge smile bloomed on her face.
“This is so amazing!” she blurted out and had to clamp her mouth shut again. “I mean,” she said, again, more quietly. “This is so amazing. I always sort of imagined claws when I played my lyre, but these are… these are even better than a Minotaur’s… they’re so supple and nimble and slender! Look at how dexterous they are! And something about it is amplifying my magic. This black stuff? Is it… aether? It can’t be, can it?”
Cadance just finished removing the chain from around her torso and allowed herself a second to watch her savior. Lyra was playfully poking the floating hand and the hand was poking her hoof right back. All the while, she giggled, and a goofy grin spread across her face.
“Aether is condensed magic! A Type-S magical phenomenon! Usually you only see it in an alchemical laboratory! How the heck can I make it with just my horn?” The magical hand poked her lime-colored horn, and she started up at it, cross-eyed. “That shouldn’t be possible. Ponies can’t control magic like this. This hand and that harp, they’re definitely my magic, but…”
Cadance coughed into her hoof.
“Maybe somepony implanted me with a focusing lens and aethereal iris? But I don’t feel like a magical cyborg…”
Cadance coughed again.
“I can’t wait to show Bon Bon; she’s so-o-oo going to freak out!” Lyra’s eyes strayed over to the fallen pony in the corner of the room. Bits of green magic, like fire, were already starting to reveal the changeling beneath the disguise. “Ewwww. Gross. Not that Bon Bon but… my Bon Bon…”
“Ahem,” Cadance said.
“Oh, sorry, Princess!” Lyra suddenly snapped to attention, still smiling brightly. “You sound like you’ve got a bad cough!”
Cadance frowned, but nodded. “That was it, exactly. Miss Heartstrings--”
“Lyra.”
“Lyra,” the Princess repeated. “I need you to fill me in on what’s happening. We also need to--”
“Make our escape!” Lyra interrupted. “I know that one! Okay! Let me think!” She crossed her legs in front of her, stood up on two legs, and even tapped one of her hooves. It looked like a rather uncomfortable pose to the Princess of Love.
“Bon Bon, or, the changeling that pretended to be Bon Bon… it didn’t have time to sound the alarm, so we should have about two hours before the next bridesmaid comes down to check on us. And, uh, as for filling you in… ummm…” She rolled her head on her shoulders. “Short answer is: we’re in the crystal caves, probably right under Canterlot. I’m pretty sure they stretch all throughout the mountain… miles and miles of caves. I think the changelings have an army gathering under the city. Some of them were going to attack from below while others attacked from the outside, but I never overheard much when it came to details.”
Lyra examined the flying hand she had conjured up again, this time with a small, slight frown.
“If I can, I’d like to ask you,” she said, looking at Cadance. “Wearing that torc did something to me. It isn’t even just my magic. Look at my cutie mark!” She fell down to all fours and pointed back to her left flank. There were a faint set of stars set against her golden lyre. “I recognize that constellation. It’s the lyre. Which fits me, I guess, but it sure wasn’t there before! You’re a bigwig Princess, so you have to know something about this, right?”
“I’m sorry. I really don’t know much about that,” Cadance admitted, feeling hurried to press on with other matters but figuring she owed her rescuer as good an explanation as she could manage. “Brass told me he had a way to make ponies more powerful. That’s why Chrysalis has her bridesmaids. They’re supposed to all be powerful enough to subdue me, even if I get free. He sent two as a gift and one – you – as a Trojan pony to help me escape.”
“Minuette and Twinkleshine,” Lyra put names to the two other bridesmaids. “It must have been that torc, then. I wore it and then Chrysalis took me and…” She frowned, more deeply. “She did things. Okay. That answers that. I’ll have to find out more later… I guess.”
“Lyra,” Cadance said, and her voice took on a desperate edge. “I need you to get me out of here, but before we escape, I need to help my brother. I need to help Prince Blueblood. He’s in the cell right next to this one. Do you know what are they doing to him?”
“The Prince?” Lyra asked and thought hard for a second. “There’s – there’s this pony, Night Shade,” she explained, gesturing to the cell over with her hoof. “I never interacted with her much, but she’s being controlled, too, just like I was. She has this artifact… a lantern of some sort.”
Lyra pursed her lips and tried to recall more. “There are only a few magical lanterns that I know of. Night Shade is some sort of oneiromancer, a draumr or dream-mage, so I can’t really imagine why she’d be using the Chirping Lantern or the Glowless Lantern or… or!” The magical hand in the air snapped its fingers, much to Cadance’s surprise. “Or it isn’t a magical lantern at all! It could be that the lantern is normal, but the candle inside is magical! And there is a magical candle that comes to mind when I think oneiromancer!”
“You’re… rather knowledgeable,” Cadance remarked, still staring at the disembodied ‘hand’ in the air. Did they all make strange snapping noises like that? “So this candle is a weapon of some sort?” she guessed.
“Not a weapon,” Lyra replied, growing more and more confident of her hypothesis. “Luna’s Shadow Candle! It was lost in a shipwreck in, um… the second century, I think? It was meant to be a gift to the Emir of Saddle Marabia. The Candle allows a pony to distort time within a dream, drawing it out or moving it forward. It can probably do other things, too! Luna was supposed to be the most powerful oneiromancer in history, and she invested her power into the candle!”
“Well! You are certainly well versed in…”
“Now,” Lyra quickly continued, leaning closer, conspiratorially, to the Princess. “What you won’t read about in the history books is that the ship carrying the candle was lost at the edge of the Maremuda Triangle, and while most ponies blame the losses at sea there to monsters, there are numerous reports of lights in the sky that…”
“Lyra,” Cadance interrupted, guessing where the other mare was going. “Perhaps we could talk about the aliens another time?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah!” The minty conspiracy theorist agreed. “Later,” she promised.
Cadance’s left eye twitched. She pointed to the magic suppressor around her horn, and Lyra started to unfasten it.
“This Night Shade mare is tormenting Prince Blueblood,” Cadance reiterated. “Why?” She thought back to Chrysalis’ earlier explanation for her own cruelty. “Is it just to hurt me? It is just because she can?”
Lyra shook her head.
“I don’t think so.” The unicorn mare finally freed Cadance’s horn and glared at the chain that fixed her to the crystal boulder. “Prince Blueblood is the only living pony who knows how to get into his family archives. Every unicorn in the world knows that the Bluebloods have all sorts of juicy, super-forbidden things locked away there! Did you ever read about the human skeleton that they found outside Rosewell? The Bluebloods have it. I’d bet my life on it!”
Her aetheral hand floated down to Cadance’s chain – the same one she had been unable to break – grabbed hold of it, and tugged.
Ripping it right out of the crystal boulder in one go.
“Handy,” Lyra quipped, bumping her hoof with the floating fist. Cadance eyed it with some trepidation, especially when it descended on the cuff attached to her leg.
“Don’t worry, Princess,” Lyra assured her. “Grabby will be careful!”
“Grabby?”
It wasn’t long before they were free.
Now all they had to do was save a pony Cadance had written out of her life for the last five years.
- - -
“Nephew. Nephew! Where are you?”
Night Shade instantly recognized the presence intruding on her domain.
“The Princess,” she hissed, sitting beside the unconscious Blueblood’s examination table. The pearl-maned mare brushed off her dark coat and took a deep, calming breath. Her eyes glowed an enchanted green as she briefly examined the room. Blueblood’s crystal prison was supposed to dampen magic. The Princess shouldn’t have been able to reach him at all, this deep in the crystal caverns.
“She’s really exerting herself,” Night Shade reasoned, feeling Luna’s faint probing in her nephew’s subconscious. She had clearly identified him. How? How?
“The Princess helps ponies fight their nightmares,” the oneiromancer reminded herself and smirked. “Of course! The stronger the nightmare, the greater the grief, the more it must call to her. His magic, his emotion, his bloodline. Even through the fog of this crystal prison, the Prince’s nightmare must shine like a lighthouse. I need more time… just a little more to break him completely…”
“Night Shade,” a voice asked from the far wall. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she replied. “Nothing I cannot handle. Trust me.”
Night Shade smiled reassuringly at her husband. Moonshine was the love of her life, and as he returned her smile, the two little fangs that belied his bat-pony heritage sticking out from under his lips, she returned to her task, eyes seething green. He had been one of Luna’s own guards, not too long ago. Now they served a much greater master.
“Of course I trust you,” Moonshine said, flapping his batlike wings and chuckling. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Night Shade told him, feeling a little light-headed. “Now, don’t distract me! Your former Princess is out there. She’s trying to interfere.”
“No pony can be allowed to interfere,” Moonshine reminded her.
“No pony can be allowed to interfere,” Night Shade agreed in monotone.
“This really is taking too long,” he mused, glaring at Blueblood’s unconscious form.
“This really is taking too long,” Night Shade repeated.
“Try again,” Moonshine growled to his wife. “Find out what the Prince knows. Tear it from his mind. Do whatever you have to do. And, if you can, try and keep Luna occupied as well.”
“I’ll try again,” Night Shade told him, oblivious to how she parroted his own words. “I’ll find out what the Prince knows. I’ll tear it from his mind. I’ll do whatever I have to do. I’ll try and keep Luna occupied as well.”
Night Shade started to return to her ‘patient.’
“Use the candle,” Moonshine added. “You haven’t been using it at full power, have you, honey?”
Night Shade turned slightly at the suggestion, giving her husband a curious look. “The Shadow Candle is too powerful for anypony but Luna to freely use like that. If I push it too far, I could…”
“I love you,” Moonshine told her, and she started to sway on her hooves. “You love me, don’t you?”
“I love you,” Night Shade droned.
“Use the candle. It doesn’t matter if you die.”
“I’ll use the candle. It doesn’t matter if I die.”
Night Shade took a deep breath and used a flicker of purple magic to float over the cast iron lantern that burned on a pedestal nearby. Behind the glass panes, a small, black glass candle flickered with an onyx flame. Instead of light, it projected lines of shadow all across the room, inverting the normal lightning of the prison cell. Light areas became dark, and dark areas became light. A small twist-valve on the top controlled the flow of air into and out of the lantern.
Proximity determined the amount of magic a pony could draw into and out of the candle.
Night Shade placed it right between her front hooves.
“Here I go,” she whispered.
- - -
Princess Luna’s domain was the night, and in that night, she was the Guardian against Nightmare.
She also understood that it was a great irony how, in her terrible fall from grace, she had adopted the mantle that was the diametric opposite of her natural duty. Nightmare Moon. In that corrupted form, she had styled herself a bringer of nightmares, rather than a balm against restless sleep. Her ability to enter dreams predated her control over the moon, and it represented a great power and tremendous temptation. It had taken time, but eventually ponies had come to accept if not embrace her desire to help them overcome their fears and their nightmares.
It was a reason why she was so very reluctant to enter into the dreams of another pony without permission and without the justification of rendering aid. Instead, she sought out the troubled and the tormented to lend her assistance. It had grown more difficult with the great pony diaspora. There were ethnic equines spread out across three continents, citizens of a half dozen nations. It was not as it had been in those first post-migration years. Luna regretted that most of those she aided were those conveniently close to Canterlot, but when she pressed herself, she could touch on the mind of a troubled pony even across the Sunset Sea.
This morning, she sought out her dear nephew.
Blueblood had experienced seemingly untroubled dreams for weeks now, and those few times over the last year that she had felt him in distress, wrapped in the blanket of the night, he had not welcomed intrusion. It was as if his dreams had some secret to them. A secret fear, perhaps, or a secret shame. She had respected his desire for privacy, then, as she did to all those who wrestled with their doubts and fears on their own terms. Hers was to assist where it was wanted and needed, not to force aid on those that did not wish for it. Since that disaster at the Ponyville Art Festival, however, her nephew had been both unusually unavailable to chat and unusually unresponsive to her dream-self.
It was peculiar.
Luna could readily admit that she had hardly known, and hardly thought much of, her nephew before the Grand Galloping Gala. He had a reputation as slothful and foppish. She did not object to him being aloof, for the nobles of her time had all been as such, but he seemed purposeless, listless, and unproductive. There was little to interest her in him, or so she had thought. She had known Bluebloods from her time, of course, and she owed her life to Princess Platinum and the First Blueblood, so she had tried not to be too dismissive of their descendant. In practice, she had mostly ignored him, and he had returned the favor.
Until the Gala.
It was most strange. Suddenly, that morning, he had struck up a conversation with her about what fun and opportunity she could have by breaking her self-imposed isolation and introducing herself to the nobles and well-to-do bourgeois. He even seemed to have an inkling about her plans for Nightmare Night! It was uncanny.
Before she had known it, she had agreed to give the Gala a try, despite her initial reservations. “I shall be with you during the opening ceremony,” he had promised. “I will introduce you to everypony. Trust me, they’ll be honored to meet you.” She would not have attended otherwise, in retrospect. Luna knew she had never been a social sunflower like her sister. It felt awkward reintroducing herself to Equestria after a thousand years, especially to the rest of the ruling and middling classes.
Her nephew had turned that around, and he had even found ways to bring a smile to her face and put her at ease. In the weeks after the Gala, they had met many times to talk, and he had taught her many new games that had developed over the last millennia. Even when she silently harkened back to her own time, before Nightmare Moon, her astute nephew always seemed ready to play an old game with her that she remembered from her youth, like ‘Across the Sea,’ ‘Pick-up Sticks,’ ‘All Fours’ and even ‘Piquet!’ Where on Equestria had he learned how to play the King’s Rules Piquet? Luna couldn’t imagine.
She had seen her nephew less and less since he moved to Ponyville to be with the Element of Generosity, but they had always taken some time to play together and speak, not just of business and the rulership of Equestria, but of their lives and themselves. Her multiple-body magic made it much easier to meet, and all seemed well. Since the Gala, she had come to feel as if her nephew was truly family… and next to her dear sister, he was perhaps her closest friend. Luna had warned the noble Lady, Antimony, once that she would not abide a pony taking advantage of or wishing harm on her nephew.
And now, she felt his distress through the shadows, like an echoed scream from far away.
It could not be ignored, even with the wedding underway.
“Nephew,” she spoke softly, secluded in her palace atelier. “Share your burden with me. Show me… where are you? Why are you not awake at this hour? What…”
She felt a sheen of magic obstruct her. A familiar magic.
“What foal has our candle?!” Luna roared, momentarily startling her two bat guards. The Princess quickly clamped her mouth shut to stifle another outburst, nodding in apology to the pair of stallions. Wrath was quick to recover, as he always was when she used the power of her voice, but his fellow Night Guard still had his hooves over his ears in pain.
“Moonshine, art thou alright?” she inquired, and the bat pony slowly lowered his hooves to the floor. “Do you wish to retire?”
“My place is by your side, Princess,” Moonshine insisted, smiling confidently. “I was merely startled.”
“Is there a problem, your Highness?” Wrath asked. All business. She had always liked that about him.
“Some mad foal is using my Shadow Candle,” Luna explained, closed her eyes, and tried to find her nephew again. “Is it one of my nephew’s retainers? Why wouldn’t he inform me that he had possession of such a dangerous artifact? It is blocking me from his dreams… no, this cannot possibly be his doing! Something is very much amiss in Canterlot.”
“Perhaps he simply does not wish to be disturbed,” Moonshine suggested.
“My nephew is in pain. I can feel it.” Luna shook her head, her ethereal mane roiling violently like a surging river behind her. “No, Sir Moonshine. The candle is being used against him, somehow. And to block me so completely… his assailant must be using the full power of the Shadow Candle. They may both perish at this rate. I must find a way through, and quickly!”
“Is there anything we can do?” Wrath asked, dipping his head in respect. “Name it, and the Night Guard will see it done!”
Luna thought a moment before replying. Yes. There was something.
Something she could use to circumvent the Shadow Candle’s Veil.
“I need you to retrieve something for me, Wrath,” the Princess finally said. “I cannot pierce the haze of the Shadow Candle alone. Like cannot defeat like in this manner.”
She told him what she needed, and Wrath left with all due haste, leaving only Sir Moonshine.
“Watch over me,” Luna commanded as she closed her eyes and began to concentrate. “My dream trance must not be disturbed.”
“As my Princess wishes,” Sir Moonshine vowed with a razor-toothed smile a shark could envy.
- - -
The Gala was in full swing. The three wings of the Palace Menagerie were full of ponies: ponies chatting, ponies dancing, ponies nibbling on treats and drinking cocktails. The discerning ear could pick up conversations in Prench and Germane as ponies from across Equestria mingled freely at the grandest social event of the year. Beautiful mares in serving outfits tended to a colorful array of noble mares and stallions in their finest formal wear, dignitaries from foreign lands laughed at jokes only they could hear, and esteemed guests walked the halls from entertainment to entertainment. In the Wonderbolt section, the flashes of cameras were almost like fireworks timed to the energetic background ambience.
“I’m back in the Gala,” Sweetie Belle realized as she took in her surroundings. “I can’t believe it.”
She smiled, despite herself, only to realize what that meant. Unless this was a new Gala, next year’s Gala, then it meant the Gala Loops had never ended, even after she left. Looking around, she tried to find any sign of this not being the Gala she knew. It could just be a coincidence, after all. So much of it looked the same… the ponies present, the three menageries, the decorations and styles of dress. It was spot on. Which also meant the worst. The loops had never broken. Blueblood had never gotten free.
Sweetie set her hooves against the floor, ignoring the looks from ponies at her lack of a dress, and pressed. Despite her efforts, the ground beneath her did not rumble or respond… It felt strange, somehow, but it was just as possible that things worked different here when it came to that sort of magic. That was both troubling and a little comforting. Schooling her features, she tried to move through the crowds, searching for a familiar face. And soon enough, she found one.
“Miss Fleur!” Sweetie called, smiling at the model as she approached. Fleur-de-Lis was as gorgeous as Sweetie had remembered her being. Tall, leggy, and gracile, she was a model in many worlds, and this one had also been the duelist who taught her I Quattro Elementi. Just as importantly, Fleur had taught her the importance of poise and beauty, not just in fighting, but in life.
Sweetie remembered how, so many times, so many loops, Fleur had smiled down at her and offered a hoof to help her up or to show her a new pose. For all the troubles she seemed to juggle and struggle with as a financially strained but noble-born pony, Fleur had always been a kind and friendly – even vivacious – mare to the young Sweetie Belle she had trained.
This time, though, Fleur de Lis looked down on her with an inscrutable look, appraising but dismissive.
“I – we haven’t met,” Sweetie said, hoping to introduce herself to a friendly face with some inside knowledge, “but I’m a big fan of yours and--”
“I’ll have to stop you there,” Fleur interrupted. “I don’t associate with fans or hangers-on.”
Sweetie’s eyes went wide at the biting remark.
“Why, look at her.” Another pony spoke up, a stallion with a trimmed blue moustache that took Sweetie a moment to recognize. “You don’t even have a dress! My word! How uncouth! Like a beggar off the streets or somesuch.” Fancy Pants looked down at her with a sneer. He didn’t even address her further, switching to the third person as he waved a hoof at her. “Do you suppose this ragamuffin snuck into the Castle somehow? Where are the royal guards when you need them?”
“I--”
“She’s still here,” Fleur observed, “Worse than that, Fancy, she’s trying to talk to us.” The haughty mare gently tried to herd Sweetie away with her hoof. “Shoo. Go on. I don’t have any bits on me. Go bother somepony else, why don’t you?”
Sweetie Belle shook her head and turned around, galloping away from her dueling mentor. Fleur had often chided or teased her during training, but it had always been playful. Never had a cruel word passed from her lips. Such a thing was too inelegant for the noble model. What in Equestria had gotten into her?
Sweetie galloped, swerving past older ponies all around her, putting some much-needed space between her and the pony who looked so much like her tutor but who just couldn’t be her. The Gala was a press of bodies around any celebrity or lordly noblepony, and the sheer number of adults she slipped through keyed her to the likelihood that somepony big had to be in the center. Sure enough, the crowd abruptly parted a respectful distance from the center of their attention, and Sweetie saw a familiar face emerge.
“Princess Celestia!”
“Oh,” the princess glanced at her, a displeased frown crossing her face. “You’re… Rarity’s sister? What are you doing here?” The tall Princess crinkled her one visible eye, and though her voice had been level, Sweetie could sense a hint of menace in the immortal pony’s tone. “No. You don’t belong here. How did you get here?”
Sweetie felt her breath catch in her throat as Celestia loomed over her like a mountain. The Princess was tall compared to an adult. She was a giant next to a young mare such as herself. Sweetie got the distinct impression that the Princess could simply stomp her underhoof, should she so desire.
“How did you get here?” Celestia asked again. “There’s something about you. Something different.”
“I’m sorry!” Sweetie, acting on some instinct, threw herself into a courtly bow. Her nose touched the tile of the menagerie floor. “I’ll leave right away!”
“Yes, that would be best.” Celestia shooed her with a hoof, and the ponies around her chortled in amusement. “I have no time to waste with you.”
Feeling the sting of the words, Sweetie stepped back, head down. ‘She said there was something different about me. Something different! Maybe they can see what I really look like…? Maybe… maybe they see me for what I am? Maybe I am a monster now. Is that why they’re treating me like this?’
It was then that she heard another very familiar voice.
“You are nothing! You are not my brother, hardly a stallion worthy of my sister, and little more than a pretentious, disgusting son-of-a-mule!” Sweetie Belle, another Sweetie Belle, dressed in a beautiful white dress growled with undisputable malice at some poor pony.
Sweetie Belle couldn’t help but approach.
This was her. This was another her. But how was there another her, here?
She ignored the mutters and glares as she made her way to the balcony, where she could finally see who her other self was talking to. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw the white coat and disheveled blonde mane. Blueblood looked miserable, his usually meticulous appearance sloppy and unkempt in a way Sweetie had never seen before. He wasn’t even trying to counter the mean-spirited Sweetie across from him with his usual wit.
For a moment, Sweetie couldn’t even think of what to say. ‘How did this happen?’
“But you… you said you and your friends wanted…” Blueblood’s voice was clipped, hardly more than a whisper. Sweetie had to press past the others to hear. “The last loop… it just doesn’t make sense…”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Sweetie, the other Sweetie, threw something at him. She then stormed away, and Sweetie, the real one – or she thought she was the real one – couldn’t help but notice that the other ponies present treated her normally. But she was normal; that Sweetie Belle was still a pony on the inside and outside, so that made sense, didn’t it?
Left in her wake, Blueblood reached for her with a hoof only to curse and slam his hoof onto the floor. He was angry, Sweetie realized. The Blueblood she knew did not get easily angered. Indignant, yes; pouty, definitely; primpy and fussy, all the time. But angry? She watched on, stunned by the scene unfolding in front of her, as her brother from the time-loops hung his head in silent misery.
She saw him look up, look to Celestia, desperate for some sort of sympathy, and then turn away.
The Princess didn’t even seem to give the scene an iota of her attention.
“I said NO! Get away from me!” Blueblood snarled, pushing aside a mare Sweetie didn’t recognize. The pony looked noble, dressed in a beautiful dress of orange and crimson, but over hundreds of loops Sweetie had learned to recognize almost everypony who had attended the Grand Galloping Gala. She didn’t know all their names, like Blueblood did, but she knew their faces and color schemes. This black and white mare was somepony new.
“My Prince,” she said to his back. “Are you just going to let them treat you this way?”
Blueblood ignored her and stomped away, leaving the seething noblemare behind. Sweetie Belle resolved to follow Blueblood and snaked her way around the guests, trying to keep him in sight. In the confusion, she also tried to get a better look at the noblemare with the white mane, only to find that she had vanished into the crowd. Luckily, Blueblood was easier to keep track of. Sweetie almost caught up to him, only to notice herself… or rather her other-self approaching her adoptive brother.
It then hit her. Even if she was a monster, even if ponies would wince when they saw her or treat her like dirt… even if Blueblood himself was repulsed… she couldn’t simply watch a pony she loved be berated and abused by none other than herself.
Taking a deep breath, Sweetie moved faster, following her counterpart who was in turn following Blueblood to another secluded area of the Gala. If she had to guess, he was heading for the maze. It was a place where he could lose everypony else. He clearly wanted to be left alone, and she couldn’t blame him. Not with how ponies were acting! Had he done something during the day to make them so angry? She couldn’t believe it.
Just when she saw him slinking out of the sight of nobles, she managed to catch up with the other Sweetie Belle, just out of immediate sight from the other ponies and Blueblood.
“Hey!” she called, drawing the attention of the other Sweetie. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Her counterpart stopped and turned to face her.
“You – You’re not supposed to be here,” the native Sweetie said, almost mechanically, and scowled at her like she was some sort perplexing apparition. “You’re… me? But I’m me! What are you?”
“I’m not you,” Sweetie muttered angrily. “I would never, ever, treat Blueblood like that! What could possibly make you say those things to him? He’s one of the sweetest ponies I’ve ever met!”
“He’s a jerk! He’ll always be a jerk, and I hate him!” Sweetie yelled back at herself. She stalked forward with a cold, calculating expression of condescension. Sweetie wondered, for just a moment, if this was how she had looked that one loop where she had torn into Diamond Tiara.
“I hate him,” Sweetie stated. “We all hate him.”
Sweetie felt herself flush with anger.
“Blueblood,” she hissed, stepping up to literally lock horns with her contemptible counterpart, “is not a jerk. Not to me! He’s loyal and strong… stronger than you might think or could ever believe. He’s seen things you never have, done things you never will… he’s changed… and grown! And I. Don’t. Hate. Him. He’s my brother, the only one who could possibly even understand what I’ve been through… and if you take one more step in his direction, I will not hold back. You’ll probably just reset anyway, you dumb-belle, so don’t think I won’t take you down!”
The native Sweetie colored with the same rage Sweetie herself felt. They were eerily alike in that respect, and when her local counterpart smirked, taking a very obvious step back, Sweetie knew she was about to try something. The other Sweetie. This was all so confusing!
The local-her inhaled deeply, no doubt to cry for help. She would scream for her sister or the guards or somepony who would cause a lot of trouble. But Sweetie was a Sweetie Belle, too. So she didn’t just let the other her have her way. Rushing forward, Sweetie tackled herself and quickly clamped a hoof around other-her’s mouth. The angry scream became a muffled ‘rrrgh!’, and the pair tumbled out and onto the grass of the Palace gardens.
Both fillies separated as soon as their roll stopped and jumped to their hooves. Sweetie was dismayed when the local, evil version fell into the familiar stance of the I Quattro Elementi. She groaned. “You learned that too?! How?!”
Quickly shaking her head, she started slowly going around her opponent, only for the local Sweetie to match her movements. ‘Perfectly symmetrical violence never solved anything,’ a wise pony had once said. Fortunately, this was not going to be a fair fight. Not for her opponent.
She followed the familiar basic patterns of an I Quattro Elementi spar, settling into the familiar rhythm and exchange of basic spells. Clearly the local Sweetie was roughly at the same level as she had been before she left. Sweetie still wasn’t sure how that was possible, but it was just what she had expected. She imitated her opponent’s level, allowing the local Sweetie to think that they were on par, all the while whispers echoed around the pair until her other self finally heard them.
“What’s… that?” she asked, ears twitching. “Some sort of sound?”
“It’s the end for you,” Sweetie replied, cantering to the side.
The local Sweetie immediately reacted, trying to turn the right way to fend of Sweetie’s follow-up. ‘Tried,’ being the imperative word. Her legs refused to budge, and when she looked down to identify why, she saw, to her horror, that she had somehow sunken down into the earth. Her hooves had already vanished into the soft grass, and she couldn’t pull them free. Her eyes sought out Sweetie’s, full of indignation and confusion. “But… your horn didn’t glow!”
Sweetie smiled triumphantly as her other-self sunk further into the ground, letting the local Sweetie see a little bit of her true self slip through her illusion. “Don’t worry, nothing will happen to you.”
“You!” Sweetie gasped. “You’re not--”
Sweetie’s hoof cut the statement short.
“Sssh,” she warned. “It’s a secret to everypony.”
The local Sweetie could just gape in stunned silence as the earth closed around her. The remaining Sweetie Belle sighed as the whispers died away. That had cost time. Blueblood was gone. Taking a deep breath, she looked at the maze and stepped in. It had been a while, after all. She hoped she remembered the way.
- - -
She found Blueblood in the center of the maze. He wasn’t doing anything other than mutely staring at the obelisk containing the long list of Bluebloods through the centuries. It tore at her heart seeing him so despondent. It was as if he was about to give up. She knew how he ‘reset’ some of the loops back when they had been going through the Gala together. She knew, before she entered the loops with him, he had ‘reset’ the timestream for reasons other than expedience. Peeking around a corner, seeing him from the front, the empty, haunted, hopeless look on his face as he started at the names etched in his family monolith made her want to cry.
She carefully approached until she stood right behind his slouched form. “Blueblood? Are you okay?”
He didn’t seem to hear her at first, but his ears twitched in response. He shook his head and stared at her, and she knew he was expecting her to say something terrible to him.
“Blueblood,” she said, simply, and touched his leg with her hoof. “It’s me.”
“You?” he asked, blinking.
Sweetie’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Don’t you remember me?” she whispered, looking up at him. “After all that we went through? After how you took care of me and helped me?” She smiled a bit, hoping to coax some sort of emotion out of him, but he only stared forward. “I went away, but I’m back for a little while… I don’t think I’d rather spend some time with anypony else than my big brother.”
She looked around the gardens, looking for a way to convince him to believe her. “Do you remember how many times we came here? How many times we went into that pocket dimension with Twilight’s crazy fragment? Do you think I would have done all that with a pony I didn’t trust and care for?” Her voice softened. “Do you remember when I said goodbye?”
He muttered something under his breath and, even as she reached for him, he scooted back and away from her. His hoof was trembling, shaking, as he pointed at her.
“You reset!” he yelled, and though his voice lowered, just those two words ‘you reset’ echoed in Sweetie’s ears. “You reset… after the Gala… after you left… I tried, Sweetie. I tried so hard to make the best of things. You were gone, I missed you, but… but I tried.”
His hooves reached up to bury in his unwashed blond mane, head shaking back and forth.
“And then… then I thought I’d gotten out, too. I got to the next day! Rarity… Rarity she…” He couldn’t finish whatever he was trying to say. His breath just came in short gasps. “I must’ve died again. Some creature killed me, and… and when I did… I was back here. Back here. I’m always back here. There is no escape for any of us. All of it is… just a joke… just a horrible joke… and it never ends. Never ends!”
Tears welled up in her eyes and Sweetie rushed forward to hug her adopted brother as hard as she could. He was still in the loops. He was still suffering. And she had left him.
“No! No, it’s okay! You won’t be trapped! It must be some mistake!” she cried and tried shaking sense into him, accidentally ripping the corner of his suit shirt as she did. He didn’t even seem to care. “Please! Please, Blueblood, don’t lose hope! You’ve kept me afloat for so long! I wouldn’t have made it this far without you… please… let me help you. I’ll stay here for as long as you do… I - I’ll find a way to come back completely. Or take you with me! I won’t let you be alone in this.” She looked up into his eyes, and it was like her words passed right through him. Like he was already dead inside. “I’ll help you…”
“Nephew.”
A chill ran down Sweetie’s spine at the frigid voice that had spoken just then. Sweetie looked up, past Blueblood, to the very top of the royal family obelisk. An alicorn with black wings perched there, glaring down at them with baleful, glowing eyes. Even as Sweetie watched, bats detached from and melded back into her body.
“Auntie,” Blueblood finally responded, tilting his head back against the monolith. “You always find me. Every night. Time…” He actually smiled, tears running down his cheeks. “Time to die again?”
“Our sister asked us to take care of you,” the terrifying visage of Princess Luna explained, and her body scattered into a thousand screeching fangs and leathery wings. “And so we shall,” her disembodied voice promised.
Sweetie closed her eyes and felt Blueblood pull her in close as the swarm descended.
And tore them to pieces.