//------------------------------// // Chapter XIII // Story: The Spirits of Harmony // by TinCan //------------------------------// Far up the mountainside, deep within the palace that towered above Canterlot, Princess Celestia stood at the bedside of her most faithful student. One of the doctors had used a spell to force Twilight’s voluntary muscles to relax, and now, to all outward appearances, it seemed as if the unicorn in the hospital bed was merely sleeping. Outside the flurry of activity around the patient and the princess, the palace’s infirmary looked desolate, even considering the lateness of the hour. Many of the staff were overdue to arrive and begin their shifts. The medical ponies still waiting to punch out and go to bed were quite annoyed, but unwilling to leave the infirmary unattended. The chief physician on duty, a burgundy earth pony named Pastille Panacea, shook her head as she deftly removed the electrodes glued to Twilight’s skull. “Begging your pardon, highness, but are you certain this pony isn’t under a spell?” she asked, dipping her head in the slightest hint of a bow. Luna had picked Panacea to head the infirmary at night not only because of her medical expertise, but also for her marked indifference to courtly protocol when it interfered with her duties. Several of the royal physicians of previous generations had proved unwilling to question or contradict their rulers even if they thought them mistaken. Pastille notably lacked this trait, which was alternately comforting or annoying, depending on the circumstances. Right now it was the latter. Celestia had fielded the same question three times already while the doctor had examined Twilight. “No, doctor. There’s no spell on Twilight that I or my sister could find. Have you discovered something?” In spite of her worry, the princess made herself smile to reassure Panacea that the question had caused no offense. As usual, she needn’t have bothered. The doctor pulled off the last electrode and exhaled sharply, clearly frustrated. “I have discovered this is the healthiest pony who’s ever had the misfortune of being under my care, and yes, I am including you in that list. Keep packing away baked goods like you’ve been doing and you’ll only live half of forever.” Celestia gave the doctor a sharp look. This really wasn’t the time. “Anyway, blood’s clean, organs are working fine, no nerve damage, and her brain, well!” “...Well?” Panacea tapped a printout with the back of a hoof. “That gray mush of hers is hopping like an awake pony’s would be, not an unconscious one. I think I can safely say there is no reason known to mundane medical science why Miss Sparkle is not up, about and bouncing all over the room.” She shrugged. “Thus... magic.” The princess sighed to herself. Even educated earth ponies and pegasi had a tendency to lump anything beyond their present understanding into the category of ‘unicorn stuff’. “Thank you for your help, doctor. Can she be moved? I’d prefer to keep her somewhere more secluded until the wizards arrive.” Panacea nodded distractedly as an orderly cantered up to her and whispered something urgent-sounding in her ear. “Of course, to help with the magic,” she said, taking a step backward. “She’ll need hydration eventually, but for now she’s stable as a rock. Move her anywhere; heck, use her as a paperweight if you want.” The bell above the infirmary’s entrance rang as several ponies entered. “Now if you’ll excuse me, there might be patients coming in I’m actually capable of helping.” She turned and swiftly trotted toward the entrance. The orderly, a recent addition to the staff, blanched at hearing the doctor addressing royalty so boldy as she loosened the wheels on the bed and prepared to take Twilight wherever the princess requested. The physician had gone too far once again, but the princess understood Panacea’s frustration; not only was the hour late, but to be one of the premier doctors in Equestria and yet unable to do anything for the pony lying in the bed could fray one’s nerves. Celestia could relate all too well. As she walked alongside the bed to the well-guarded guest suite she’d picked out earlier, the princess wondered what was keeping the magical experts. It had been two hours and none of the unicorn wizards she’d called had responded to her summons. Sure, it was the middle of the night, but a royal summons ought to carry a bit more weight than a few hours’ rest. Most of the recipients lived in Canterlot, for pony’s sake! She briefly entertained the idea that her sister’s worries were finally correct before dismissing the notion with a dainty snort. But why the hold-up, then? Was she too lenient with them? Were her subjects growing careless and decadent? Had taking over management of the heavenly lights from the ancient unicorns ultimately weakened the tribe? She thrust the questions aside with an effort of will. It was the worst possible time for the unanswerable what-ifs and might-have-beens that regularly troubled her thoughts. More immediate concerns presented themselves. Following Canterlot’s winding corridors, they arrived at a hall of guest rooms deep within the palace complex. After the attendant had telekinetically placed the student upon the suite’s lavish bed, Celestia dismissed her, instructed the guards outside to let nopony enter, and shut and locked the room’s door. At least one question had been settled by the doctor’s examination: Twilight was still very much alive. Whatever was suppressing her nature was neither a mundane disease or toxin nor a form of unicorn magic. If the origin of the ailment was some exotic power, most likely the cure would be as well. It was a long shot, but if nopony else could figure out what had happened to Twilight Sparkle, perhaps she could ask Twilight herself. The princess magically reached into a private storehouse of artifacts and magical reagents she’d locked away as too dangerous for common ponies to dabble in. From this stockpile she withdrew a large silver basin, shining like a warped mirror, and three diamond flasks containing clear liquid. Celestia broke the seals on all three and poured their contents into the silver vessel, filling it nearly to the brim. After several minutes, during which time there was some minor commotion outside, the ripples subsided and the water grew still. Her reflection, unnaturally clear, stared back at her from the basin. There was a mischievous twinkle in the reflection’s eye which she was certain her own lacked. That was all for the material components. She gently lifted her student’s still form with telekinesis once more and carried her to hover directly over the basin, facing down. Celestia called the incantation from memory. It ought to work even if someone other than the subject spoke the words. The princess stood well back from Twilight and the basin and cleared her throat. “And into her own reflection she stared—” There was a sharp knock at the door. Celestia’s eyebrows shot up. She had given explicit orders to her guards not to let her be disturbed for any reason. They should be right outside the suite’s doors, ready to turn away any curious courtiers and servants. “—yearning for one whose reflection she shared—” Whoever it was hammered on the door again, louder. The princess could tell from the sound that their hooves were shod with metal. “Your highness, we have to—” began a stallion outside. “Shh! We’re not allowed to call her that anymore!” another said. The voices belonged to the royal guards on watch outside the room. Why couldn’t they address her by her title? If it was a rebellion, it was the most halfhearted one she’d ever witnessed. She would deal with it later. Right now, no matter what, she had to finish the incantation. “—and solemnly swore... no, sweared not to be scared at the prospect of being doubly mared!” As she finished the grammatically-questionable rhyme, a single ripple rolled outward from the center of the magical water, and Twilight’s reflection in the basin began to take on depth. Celestia returned the original to the bed, tucked her in and affixed a magic marking, invisible to any eyes but hers, to the bottom of the real Twilight’s left front hoof. She hoped this would avoid a repeat of the confusion that resulted the last time a pony had tried to harness the power of the Mirror Pool. Meanwhile, the percussion on the door had switched from urgent knocking and requests to steady, frame-rattling kicks. Whoever was outside was trying to break it down. The princess wasn’t sure what they expected to accomplish. She could vanish away with Twilight at a moment’s notice, unless— A tingle of static electricity made the fine hairs of Celestia’s back stand on end. So they had some sense after all. Apparently several unicorns on the other side of the door were uniting their power to cast a space-flattening spell, making teleportation impossible within a 100-meter radius. The room she’d chosen, with its hardened walls and lack of windows, had gone from a place of safety to a trap. Celestia began focusing her magic energy on bolstering the heavy oak door, which was already beginning to crack and splinter under the steady pounding. While the princess’s attention was occupied, two lavender hooves, perfectly dry, threw themselves over the edge of the silver basin, followed by a spiraled horn and straight, dark mane with two lighter stripes. The exact copy of Twilight Sparkle looked around, stepped casually out of the vessel and trotted up to Celestia’s side. “Excuse me, giant pony,” the specular unicorn said, paying no attention to the magical and physical struggle unfolding before her, “which way to the nearest library? I’ve got some reading I need to catch up on.” The door began to spark and smoke as the ponies outside cast spells to disintegrate its very fibers. Other than directly attacking, there wasn’t a lot Celestia could do from this side of the door that a group of well-trained unicorns outside couldn’t undo in a moment. She’d had a good three-century streak going of not having to personally harm any of her ponies, and she didn’t want to break it without knowing exactly who was trying to get in and what they wanted. That didn’t mean she couldn’t keep stalling. Celestia telekinetically grasped all the room’s furniture other than the bed and piled it into a barricade in front of the door. A spell from her horn instantly fossilized the heap into stone. That ought to buy a few more minutes, she thought. “You can’t read right now, little pony,” the princess told the false Twilight. “First, I need you to tell me what you know about yourself.” The other Twilight looked disappointed. “But, my research...” “Just answer my questions and I’ll give you free rein of the whole royal archives. How would you like that? Think of it as a test.” The smaller pony squealed with anxiety. “Eep, a pop quiz? I didn’t study!” Celestia patted the copy with a wing, trying to keep her impatience from showing. Twilight’s supplemental letter explaining the Mirror Pool Incident with Pinkie Pie had been vague on how much the magic dopplegangers knew about the pony they mimicked, but it was dead-on about how annoying they could be. The princess tried to hide her impatience and calm the creature. “But it should be easy; it’s all about you,” she assured it. “First question: do you know your name?” “Uh, um... Twilight Sparkle! Is that it? Can I go now?” “Not yet.” Celestia directed its attention to the original in the bed. “You and your ilk are able to to broadly impersonate ponies without ever meeting them before. Somehow you just know about them. I need that innate knowledge now. Do you know what happened to her? What caused her to be this way?” Meanwhile, the ponies outside the room had finished breaking the door off its hinges and were starting to chip away at the mountain of stony furniture. The fake Twilight noticed the real Twilight for the first time and appeared shocked. “That’s... me? No, it can’t be. That’s scientifically impossible.” She reached out an inquisitive hoof and poked Twilight in the cheek. “You’re scientifically impossible!” Celestia slapped the impostor’s leg away with sudden violence. “Don’t play games with me, mirror-spawn!” she growled. “I care deeply about this pony and you are not her. I know the spell to send you back where you came from, and you’ll wish I cast that instead of what I’m going to do to you if you don’t tell me what I want to know right this instant!” The other Twilight squealed in terror and ran back toward the basin. Celestia was quicker, and the silver vessel and its contents slid to the side just as the mirror pony leaped to dive back in. The frightened mimic crashed to the bare floor and lay there, shaking with fear, as the princess approached. “Well?” Celestia asked icily. “I can’t! I can’t tell you!” it wailed between sniffles. “I’m not allowed; she doesn’t let little lowly speculars like me get in the way of her work.” The princess leaned forward intently. “Who doesn’t?” Behind her, the pile of stone furniture blocking the door exploded in a burst of magic, raining chips and dust over the room. She feared Twilight would be harmed by the shrapnel, but the pieces of debris transformed back into light, blunt chunks of wood the instant they struck another object or the ground. “Celestia!” commanded a hazy figure in the doorway, “you’re under arrest by order of the new ruler of Equestria!” “We have to do this. Please, please don’t hurt us,” a quieter voice further back added. “...And then while Princess Luna was explaining to me about the danger of alchemists, she grew two more heads on each side of her neck that looked like my parents, except they were constantly changing color and they asked me over and over where I’d put my report card. I could tell they were so disappointed in me for not having it, but they were trying to hide it because they didn’t want to hurt my feelings. I started to look inside the teacups because I just knew it was in one of them, and if I didn’t find it then my evil twin would become their real daughter and I would disappear forever! “While I was searching, Luna made this sort of strangled growly sound from her normal head like Twilight does around Pinkie sometimes and she just vanished in a puff of smoke and I woke up...um, here? Why is everypony looking at me like that?” Her audience had hung on every word. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were staring at Fluttershy as if she’d grown a second head herself, and Rarity clearly wanted to do the same, but was struggling to maintain a more tactful demeanor. The unicorn was the first to break the awkward silence that followed the end of Fluttershy’s narrative. “My! That was very... what fascinating dreams you have, dear,” she said, laughing nervously. “Mine are positively hum-drum in comparison.” “That was shore, ah, something?” Applejack agreed. “Guess I’m really missin’ out.” Fluttershy shrank and hid her face behind her mane. “Y-you mean everypony else doesn’t have dreams like that? Every single night? And they can’t remember every bit of them all the time? A-am I crazy?” As she spoke, her voice softened more and more until ‘crazy’ came out as an incomprehensible squeak. “I wish I dreamed like that; it sounds like a real trip!” Dash said, giving the other pegasus a playful punch in the shoulder. Rarity nodded reassuringly. “Indeed! With that amazing imagination, it’s no wonder you’re so creative and artistic.” “But that’s the trouble with the whole thing,” Applejack said, looking reluctant. “What with all the head-sproutin’ and burning critters and evil twins, might the princess warning you about bogeymares from some old pony tale just be a, um, ‘normal’ part of the dream?” “Well, maybe,” Fluttershy admitted. “I just thought that since she said Pinkie and Twilight were doing something else, and they still aren’t here... but you’re probably right.” Rainbow Dash sighed loudly. “Gah! Does it even matter if we never get out of this box? We’ve been sitting here nearly an hour. I’m going stir-crazy over here!” “Maybe we oughtta try the bell one more time?” Applejack suggested. Dash stood and stretched her hind legs. “Maybe we should just kick that door in!” “I think the royal palace’s defenses can handle anything four ponies can dish out.” Rarity said dryly. “Did you make sure it didn’t open the other way when you tried earlier?” “Of course I did!” Rainbow retorted. “Look, maybe I go through windows more often than not—” “Or walls,” Applejack added. “Yeah, but I think I know how a door works.” To prove her point, she stood up on her hind legs and leaned against the heavy steel door. It swung open on well-oiled hinges, causing the smug pegasus to lose her balance and fall with a yelp. The rest of the ponies groaned. Applejack threw her hat to the ground. “Consarnit Dashie!” “You mean we could have been out of here an hour ago!?” Rarity cried, then remembered her manners. “...Ah, not to say that we didn’t like hearing your story instead, Fluttershy dear.” “I-it’s okay,” The soft-spoken pegasus replied. Abashed, Rainbow hauled herself back onto her hooves and stared the door. “Well I didn’t see any of you trying to open this thing. I coulda sworn I tried pushing it before; I know I did!” A smiling unicorn peeked from behind the massive door, giving the pegasus a fright. “Oh, that’s just the way of things,” the strange pony said pleasantly. “Wise ponies say it’s insanity to do the same thing and expect different results, but they’re just trying to convince themselves that they can understand the world, and thereby control it. They can’t.” Dash took a step back into the arrival chamber. “Who are you? Did you unlock the door?” The unicorn tossed her black, braided mane proudly. “Dame Fortuna. I open and close all the doors, in a manner of speaking.” “So you work here in the palace?” Applejack asked from further inside the room. “Can you tell us what the hay’s going on tonight?” The unicorn laughed and beckoned for them to follow her out into the hall. The four friends gratefully complied, glad to be out of the bare room. “There’s been quite a big shake-up in Equestria recently!” their guide announced giddily. “A revolution in the heart of the palace!” “A revolution?” Rarity gasped. “Good heavens! That must have been all the commotion we heard outside.” Fluttershy fearfully peeked down the corridors as they passed, expecting to see hordes of rebel ponies boiling out of the doorways. “It’s so quiet now,” she said. “Is it over already?” “It is!” chirped Fortuna. “Very efficiently handled all around. Some of our best work.” Dash looked over the strange pony with distrust. No one should be so chipper bearing news like that. Was the mare a gloating traitor leading them to some sort of trap? Did she recognize them as bearers of the Elements of Harmony? Did she know where their own loyalties lay? “But we won, right?” Rainbow asked, carefully choosing her words. “I mean, the bad guys lost?” “That depends on your perspective,” Fortuna said with a knowing wink. “An associate of mine sees villains and criminals everywhere she looks, but my cousin can hardly bring himself to dislike anyone. In my opinion, it’s best not to bother categorizing everyone into teams like that. The just, the unjust, us, them;... they all go around on the wheel. You should take them as individuals.” The group turned a corner and came upon a trio of royal guard pegasi lying in the middle of the hallway, groaning and quivering pathetically. The four friends halted in shock, but the unicorn kept walking, picking her way through the fallen stallions. “Take these strapping fellows, for instance,” she said. “Royal guards. Fine, upstanding guardians of the public weal, right?” Fluttershy rushed to the nearest guardspony and checked him for injuries. To her surprise. his body was unwounded. One of his eyes, moving independently of the other, fixed on the yellow pegasus, wordlessly pleading for help. “What happened to them? Are they going to be okay?” She urgently asked their guide. The red unicorn grinned. “Oh, they were found guilty of numerous crimes, and had the gall to reject our merciful ruler when she gave them a chance to atone for their misdeeds. Do you know what ‘proprioception’ is?” The other ponies stared blankly at her. “Is pro-pyro-whatsit the crime they did?” Applejack asked. “It’s how you know where all the parts of your body are in relation to each other even when you can’t see them. They don’t have it anymore. Rather hard to trot about or even stand if you suddenly find yourself without it. Whichever body part they’re not focusing on tends to wander. Imagine, going from agile warriors to having less coordination than a newborn!” Fortuna tittered into her hoof as if the stallions’ plight were funny. “Poor dears,” Rarity cooed, eyeing the handsomest of the bunch with sympathy. “We can’t just leave them scattered out here in the hall like dirty laundry!” Applejack lifted one of the stallions’ hooves, which twisted and jerked in her grip. “If the princess did this an’ left them here, though... should we interfere?” “So... these guys were with the rebels?” Rainbow Dash asked, still guarding her words. Fortuna shrugged. “Probably? I really wasn’t listening when she passed sentence; there were so many! You can ask her yourself when time comes for your audience.” She turned to continue on down the hallway. When none of the other four made a move to follow her, she turned back and sighed with restrained impatience. “There’s nothing you can do for them, and they won’t be getting any worse just lying there. She won’t be happy if you’re late.” The four friends reluctantly left the wretched guards and continued following Fortuna toward the throne room. They began to pass by more ponies in the hallway. A distraught courtier crawled after a haughty-looking mare with a tiny filly, both pointedly ignoring him as he begged her to remember that he was her husband and the father of their child. Just a few feet away, a gray-maned pony with reading glasses went over and over the same list of tax records, looking for discrepancies and errors, unable to stop even for a second. As they got closer and closer to the throne room, more and more ponies crowded the halls. Each one seemed frightened and miserable, and no two were condemned to the same fate. Whenever one of the friends asked Fortuna about them, the simpering unicorn simply confirmed it was the will of Equestria’s sovereign and urged them to keep moving. Applejack silently motioned for Dash to fall behind, then leaned over to whisper in her ear after she thought they were far enough behind that the strange unicorn couldn’t overhear. “Does it seem a mite odd that the princess would do stuff like this?” the farm pony asked. “I know she put her sister in the moon and turned that Sombra guy into a shadow in a glacier or something, but just doing things like this to ponies and leaving them scattered all over the palace?” Applejack expressed her opinion of the punishments with a shudder. “She never said Celestia did it,” Dash hissed back. “She just keeps saying ‘our ruler’ and stuff. If there really was a revolution and the rebels won, then somepony else is responsible for all this.” “But who could possibly do all this, and when?” Rarity asked, lagging back to join the conversation. “You don’t just seize the seat of government overnight and nopony else notices. Whoever did this to all these poor ponies must have been astonishingly quick about it. Creative, too.” “And really powerful,” added Fluttershy, scarcely audible. “Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this. Maybe we should try to escape and gather other ponies to help.” Even though all four mares were now hanging back and whispering together in a tight group, Fortuna didn’t seem to mind. So long as they kept following her, they could say whatever they liked. She knew it would all be over soon. Dash’s brows lowered at the other pegasus’s mention of retreat. “Nuh-uh. We’re the Elements of Harmony! Whatever’s going on here, I wanna stop it. If we trust each other and stick together, we’ll always come out on top!” “But we ain’t,” Applejack reminded the bold pegasus. “Together, I mean. With Pinkie and Twi missing, we can’t do any of that fancy magical harmony ray stuff. We’re just four friends up against, um...” The group had to skirt around a pony who was lying in the middle of their path, hugging his barrel and rocking back and forth, gibbering to himself. “She knows! They know, they all do. Or they will. Soon. They’ll find out and it’ll all be over. They’ll hate me forever! How could they not? Why was I so stupid!?” The babble trailed off into a shrill, keening noise as they passed on. “...against whatever did that,” Applejack concluded. “I’m not running away.” Rainbow Dash declared, raising her voice. “That’s good, because we’re he-re!” Fortuna said, jolting the mares out of their huddle. The unicorn telekinetically flung wide a pair of huge double doors at the end of the hall, bowed and stepped aside. The throne room beyond the portal was packed. A long, twisting line of fearful ponies of all ages and descriptions wended its way through the room up to the dais, kept in order by similarly frightened and rueful guards. Perched atop the golden throne at the end of the room was a misshapen monstrosity cobbled together from the mismatched parts of a variety of animals. While Dash and the rest stared at the scene in shock, Fortuna pushed the four through the doorway with a magical shove, then shut the doors fast behind them. Their booming report echoed across the vast chamber. The thing dwarfing the throne raised its head, the only vaguely pony-looking part of it left, and its golden eyes shone with glee as it looked at the new arrivals. “At last, at last!” the creature said. “Bailiffs, bring these ponies to the front of the line. We have much to discuss.”