//------------------------------// // Chapter 7 // Story: Shadows of the Sun // by theamberfox //------------------------------// Shadows of the Sun By theamberfox Chapter 7 “So they were planning all of this from the very beginning?” Celestia asked, getting up from her position on the floor. “Not everything, but more than we could have possibly imagined.” Twilight replied nervously. The alicorn stared at the floor and slowly paced back and forth across the room. Twilight’s story and the detailed summary of the current situation had been quite jarring and she was still recovering. “And the council was helping them the whole time?” “I don’t know if every member of the council was involved or not. Pierre was pretty vague.” Twilight replied, her eyes following the princess as she moved about the room. “I’m having trouble wrapping my head around all of this... Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner, Twilight?” Celestia said, stopping and raising her voice substantially. “Do you have any idea how important this is!? These ponies are trying to kill me!” Twilight looked away from the princess, wincing at the dramatic change of her mood and the shear volume of her voice. Celestia’s anger pulsated throughout the room as she glared at the little purple unicorn in front of her. “I was afraid of how you would react... I’m sorry, Princess Celestia.” Twilight replied, still trying to dodge her mentor’s cruel gaze. Upon hearing her student’s apology, Celestia’s harsh glare faded into a worrisome look and she practically fell backward as she sat down again and dropped her head. “I’m sorry, Twilight...” she apologized, “I’m so sorry… It’s not your fault. None of this is. It was mine for being so trusting, so ignorant… We need to do something about all of this before it’s too late.” Twilight turned back towards the princess, “But what can we do, Princess Celestia? They’ll just deny everything I’ve said and try to convince you that it’s all a lie…” Celestia shifted her head slightly as she contemplated the thought. “I know and I don’t care.” Celestia replied gently, “I believe you, Twilight… And it’s because I believe you that we will have to go to war with Prance.” “How will that help!? Isn’t that what they want?” “No, it’s not what they want. They wanted to catch me by surprise.” Celestia raised her head to stare back at Twilight with an uncompromising demeanour. It was an exceptionally focused expression that the unicorn had never seen before. The decision was hers alone and she could finally make a difference. All of the bureaucratic drivel had been pushed out of the way and she could act quickly and without doubt. “I don’t want to start a war, Celestia...” Twilight said, a concerned look crossing her face as she sensed the princess’s emotions. “It has already begun, Twilight. They brought this upon themselves and they should be prepared to face the consequences of their actions. I won’t sit here and wait for them to plunge a dagger into my heart. They’ve done enough already and I won’t let this continue any longer. “I’m tired of shedding tear after tear for all the things I cannot change. The past is not the present, nor will it ever be, but the future is quite different. We can mould and shape the future, Twilight. We can change it and create a thriving society that everyone can live in happily, not just the greedy and influential noble elite. “That is what I believe in, Twilight. Something better… But before we do anything at all, I have to speak with the former council members.” “Now?” Twilight interrupted with a troubled gaze. “It’s past midnight.” “Yes. They cannot be trusted and I don’t want them doing anything to intervene.” Celestia said as she walked to the door. “They betrayed me once before. I won’t give them time to do it again.” ~ “Did you hear that?” Goldenroot asked, breaking the silence and looking up from his book. “Mmmm… Hear what?” Vortex said, dozily rolling onto her back. “The door.” he continued from his seat across the room. “Someone’s knocking at the door.” Goldenroot was sitting at the large desk in his study, a small lamp dimly illuminating the desktop and surrounding area. The smooth, glossy wooden surface was almost completely covered with the books and papers he had been drowning himself in. “No… You’re just crazy… crazy and paranoid.” she sighed, rolling over onto her side again. “If you’re going to be crazy and paranoid and make me sleep on the couch in your study instead of my comfy bed at home then you have to be quiet.” “No, I’m being serious. I think someone’s at the door.” he said, getting up from his seat and walking over to the couch. “And I told you that you could sleep in my bed if you were uncomfortable, but you said no.” Vortex rolled over onto her back again before her eyes popped open, the amber irises piercing through the darkness and fixing on the pale green stallion above her. Goldenroot looked silently back at the navy blue pegasus, her messy hair unevenly covering the soft, contrasting red fabric of the sofa. “I said you’re pushing your luck, Goldenroot.” she said, smiling faintly and yawning. “Why don’t you have spare bedrooms like everyone else? It’s not like your house isn’t big enough for them.” “I have spare bedrooms, but they’re filled with books and files instead of beds. I never have any guests.” “Well you have one now and she’s very displeased with the sleeping arrangements.” Vortex closed her eyes and frowned superficially, crossing her forelegs over each other with a huff. She wanted Goldenroot to feel bad for her, but he just rolled his eyes at the overdramatic display of discontent. “I’m going to check the door. Even if it’s just my paranoia, I’d rather be certain.” he said. “If it’s a monster, be sure to scream so I can swoop in and save you.” Goldenroot just shook his head at her remark and walked out of the room into the gloomy hallway, closing the door quietly behind him. Despite what Vortex believed, his house wasn’t all that big and the entranceway was only a short distance from the study. Several loud knocks caused Goldenroot to come to an abrupt halt. “Hello!?” he shouted, his voice echoing down the hall. “This is Princess Celestia’s royal guard!” a muffled voice responded through the thick wooden door. “Goldenroot, we need to speak with you at once!” “At this hour!?” he continued, nearing closer to the door. “What is this about!?” “Goldenroot, you will open this door or we will break it down.” another, feminine voice yelled back. What is she doing here!? Goldenroot thought as he grabbed the handle and turned it. Pulling the door open revealed several of the princess’s guards standing all around the brilliant white monarch herself. Her mane flowed almost violently around her body as she stood at the doorstep, a bitter look on her face. “Is Vortex here as well?” Celestia asked firmly, glancing around the dark room. “No, of course not.” Goldenroot lied, staring strangely at the princess. “What is this about? Is it about her? Is she alright?” Best not to let her know that Vortex is here, at least not until I know what this is all about, he thought, maintaining his anxious expression. “Do not lie to me, I know she’s here. She wasn’t at her home and, from what I hear, she’s been spending a suspicious amount of time with you lately.” Celestia said, fixing a callous glare at the stallion. Goldenroot blushed slightly, but the weight of the situation forced the embarrassment away, “Even if she is here, why would I want to lie about it?” “You’re just avoiding my questions, Goldenroot.” Celestia said before turning to face the guards behind her. “Search the house and find that pegasus. She’s in here somewhere.” The guards reacted quickly and pushed the stallion out of the way, rushing into the home. They split into several different directions, heading towards the various rooms. Goldenroot turned and yelled loudly, his lungs burning as he forced the air out of them. “Vortex, get out of here! It’s not safe! Get out!” “So you were lying to me.” Celestia said, shaking her head slowly, “You really are all the same aren’t you? Wind Dancer, Crescendo, even Thunderhorn and Prairie Star, they all denied their involvement. They all lied to me, so why would I think you were any different? “Did you really think that you could take over my government? I’ve held this right since my birth over a thousand years ago.” “What is wrong with you!? What are you doing!?” “I’m punishing those responsible for the corruption in our country. You played your role and you will be punished for it appropriately. Your rank as a noble and a knight has been stripped, Goldenroot. You are a lowly peasant now, but I wouldn’t let that concern you. You won’t have much use for a title where you’re going.” Goldenroots stuttered, “What… What are you going to do?” “I haven’t quite decided yet.” Celestia replied, considering her options. “In the past, the punishment for treason and conspiracy was death and this has been going on for long enough that I may need to set an example for my subjects.” “What has happened to you, Princess Celestia? Why are you doing all of this?” The princess paused and just shook her head again. As the two stood in silence, the guards continued to frantically search the rooms of the house for the blue pegasus. Goldenroot hoped that his warning had given her enough time to escape. “I could ask you the very same question, Goldenroot. I trusted you as a friend, enough to knight you even, but now I find out that you were working with Prance to destroy me?” Celestia said, turning her head slightly as she asked the rhetorical question. “I just want to know why, Goldenroot. Why would you do this to me after everything we’ve gone through?” Goldenroot tried to calm himself down before replying, “Princess Celestia, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was never trying to destroy you.” “Then you wished to capture me, enslave me, or otherwise remove me from power? Are you really so arrogant that you believe you could do better?” Before Goldenroot was able to respond, a voice shouted, “In here! She’s in here!” Goldenroot’s head snapped back towards the source as he watched a guard fly against the wall, propelled by a powerful blow to the chest. Vortex emerged from the room, standing on top of the guard she had just knocked out as the rest swarmed down the hallway towards her. It was too narrow for her to fly over them, so she went straight through. After gathering her strength, she pummelled through the armoured ponies and emerged on the other side unscathed. Vortex, landed valiantly amongst the pile of unconscious guards, “Nice scream, but why are we fighting…” She paused and her smile fell as she looked towards the princess standing just inside the doorway. “I told you to leave, Vortex…” Goldenroot muttered softly as he looked at the pegasus. “It’s so nice of you to join us, Vortex.” Celestia smiled, “But now that I have all the pieces of the puzzle, I can stop wasting time.” Celestia’s horn lit up and the room grew darker as the lights were extinguished and a thick fog rolled across the floor. “What’s going on, Goldenroot? What is this all about!?” Vortex yelled through the shadows. Celestia’s voice cut through the dense fog, “I’m tired of hearing your excuses. Your actions are enough to put what little disbelief I have to rest.” Her words echoed in the room as the two ponies slowly slipped out of consciousness. The fog was lifted and Celestia stood silently among the bodies of the former council members as several more guards rushed in from the street and proceeded to carry them outside. “Put them in the dungeon with the others.” she said sternly, turning to one of the guards. “Those two lovers can share a cell the day before their judgement. It might be the only time they have left.” The guard promptly nodded and hurried out into the streets after the others. ~ A small, concrete room with two beds, a simple toilet and a sink, the dungeon was a grim place. Over its astonishingly long existence, very few ponies had actually dwelled here. Admittedly, Celestia never really had any use for the dungeon. Perhaps it was the result of the very mundane society that she ruled over. With hundreds of guards constantly patrolling the streets of the capital, actual criminals were extremely rare. It was almost impossible to commit a crime in the city when someone was constantly looking over your shoulder and nearly every offence was discovered and prosecuted within a single day. And ever since the Nightmare Moon incident, Celestia considered locking a pony away in the dungeon the worst form of torture. Instead, she forced the guilty to perform community service and improve the society that they had deteriorated with their crimes. “So is this what you thought would happen?” Vortex asked, glancing over at Goldenroot. “We’d end up in a dungeon waiting for our execution?” “We don’t know that for sure. She never actually said that we would be executed.” Goldenroot replied, “But to answer your question, no I didn’t. I thought she might change her mind about eliminating the council, but what I think and what I feel are two different things entirely. I was afraid. That’s why I tried to protect you.” The two ponies lay almost motionless in the old beds across the room from each other. The mattresses were surprisingly clean, but they were stiff and lumpy, causing the ponies to constantly shift their weight around the surface. “I’m sorry I didn’t leave when you asked me to.” Vortex said, breaking the silence. “If I had listened to you, I might not even be here right now.” “That’s okay, Vortex. I never really believed you would leave.” “Really?” Vortex asked, smiling faintly. “Why not?” “Because I would have done the same thing and we’re not actually that different from each other.” The two ponies smiled pleasantly at the cracked ceiling above as they each thought about the pony on the opposite side of the room. “Do you know why I was knighted?” Goldenroot asked. “Actually, I don’t.” she responded, rolling over, propping her head up against her hoof and gazing at the pale green stallion patiently. “Very few ponies are ever knighted in Equestria. I never really thought I was worthy of the honour and, as it turns out, neither did she… “About eight years ago, when I was still working as an arboreal researcher, a small forest in the far east of the country was dying. It was a terrible disease that caused the bark on the trees to peel off, exposing the wood to the harsh weather. With nothing protecting the trees from decay, they slowly perished and the disease only spread more quickly.” Goldenroot turned to face Vortex with a solemn expression. She was still watching him attentively and, even in this bleak dungeon, he blushed faintly at the thought of her admiring him wordlessly. But it was depressing, forcing him to turn back towards the ceiling and regain his composure. How could a sweet mare like her get wrapped up in all of this chaos? “The disease threatened to spread to other forests and eventually kill every tree throughout the land.” he continued, “Naturally, Princess Celestia enlisted the help of every researcher in the country, including me. Other than the researchers, however, the entire country was kept behind a veil of ignorance. “As time passed and the disease worsened, most of the researchers gave up looking for a cure. They urged Celestia to burn down the entire forest and save the remaining trees from harm, but would that really solve the problem? I didn’t think so and neither did the princess. “We saw what the others did not. The disease could easily reappear and we couldn’t afford to burn down entire forests every time we ran into the problem.” Goldenroot paused and leaned forward as he waited for a patrolling guard to pass. His eyes slowly following the sentry as he walked down the narrow hallway and in front of the iron bars that separated them from the outside world. “They argued with her and even convinced the council, but she refused to change her mind.” Goldenroot said, leaning back again, “So one by one, the stubborn fools abandoned her. They all just deserted their research and left her to deal with the problem by herself. “But I refused to leave. I was an inexperienced fool and didn’t know any better, but I still felt like I had to try. I spent every day and every night working on what little knowledge I had and eventually I started making progress. I had isolated the disease and had started to work on the cure. I told Princess Celestia that I needed a month, but she told me that I only had a week. “You see, the other researchers were becoming impatient and they were threatening to burn down the trees, regardless of the princess’s orders. They were gathering the materials they needed and the entire forest would soon be set ablaze. However, what they didn’t realize was that the disease had already spread. It was in nearly every forest in Equestria and my laboratory, with all the essential data inside it, was at the heart of the disease and the forest they threatened to torch. If I didn’t finish my research in that one week, I would be burned alive. “I continued to work despite the impending doom. I didn’t really care if I died. I believed that if a solution wasn’t found here and now then it never would be. This same event would only happen time and time again and so, on the very last day, I was still working in my laboratory when Celestia arrived.” ~ “I’m sorry, Goldenroot, but you need to leave now.” Celestia said, walking gradually up to me. “All my research is here, I’m not leaving.” I replied firmly. The laboratory I worked in was a large, wooden structure built in a clearing deep inside the forest. It seemed unreasonable to have such a huge, complicated workspace for a single pony, but it had once been packed with dozens of researchers, all working towards the same goal. Every one of them had been far older and more experienced than I, so why did they leave? Didn’t they know what would happen? “They’re going to burn the forest down in a matter of minutes, you must leave.” Celestia continued, trying to persuade me to abandon my work. “And then what!? Then I can watch the country rot and fade away as all life perishes and we die a slow and painful death from starvation!?” I yelled, turning to glare at her. “I’m sorry Princess Celestia, but I’m not leaving. If my life was ever worth anything at all, then its entire worth is placed on this very moment. I will find a cure or I will die trying. I refuse to follow the path that so many of my colleagues, my superiors and my idols did!” I turned around and started working again. I was following the notes I had so diligently taken on the virus, grabbing test tubes and mixing the differently coloured chemicals in glass beakers around the laboratory. The task was significantly more difficult for an earth pony. Where a unicorn could precisely control the glass containers using magic, I had to manually grab each one of them and be careful not to drop any of the potentially volatile chemicals. “Then I will stay here with you.” she replied in the same, serene tone of voice. “I can hold back the flames and give you the extra time you need.” “Are you mad!?” I asked, turning around to face her again, practically laughing. “You’re the ruler of this country. The princess! You can’t afford to die here!” “Goldenroot, your passion burns more brightly than any flame ever could. I find it highly doubtful that we’re going to perish.” she said with a smile. I smiled back and turned around quickly, continuing my work with the test tubes. “I always wondered what it would be like to have an insane monarch leading my country. I guess it’s not so bad after all.” After an hour had passed, I could finally smell the smoke of the fire burning just outside the building, but I wasn’t frightened. In truth, I don’t really know why. Was it because of what Celestia said or because of what I actually believed? The alicorn was sitting on the floor in silence. She was concentrating her magic and keeping the flames from entering the laboratory, but I wasn’t sure how long she could hold out. It was strange, I always thought that a task like this would be easy for Celestia, but it seemed like her magic was weakening. Perhaps it was the combination of the flames, the smoke and the heat, or maybe the strength of an alicorn just wasn’t as legendary as we had all believed. As the room heated and filled with an intense orange glow from the burning forest outside, I mixed the last of the chemicals together and poured a small droplet on the specimen nearby. “Does it work!?” Celestia asked. She was exhausted and the sound of her panting was barely audible over the crackling and burning timbers. “I… I don’t know. I need more time.” I panicked. “We don’t have anymore time, Goldenroot!” she yelled as she got to her hooves, “Grab your notes and let’s get out of here!” She lifted a huge desk and flung it across the room at a large window, smashing the glass to pieces. Reacting quickly, I gathered up everything that could fit in my bag. “Ready!?” she asked, glaring at me as I put the bags on my back. As I nodded, she picked me up and threw me onto her back. Dashing out the broken window, we flew out of the woods and high into the smoke-filled air. As we ascended, I could see that the entire forest was engulfed by the fire, the huge flames rising far above the canopy. “I don’t think I want to do that again.” she laughed, still panting from her fatigue. ~ “A week later, the tiny tree that I tested my cure on had prospered and it’s bark was rebuilding. We mixed the cure into artificial rain clouds and spread it over the affected forests. “When all the trees had finally returned to normal, Celestia invited me to her castle. She knighted me for my bravery, but she refused to tell anyone else what happened, forcing everyone involved with the disease into secrecy. She said it was better that way. No one really needed to hear that their country had teetered on the edge of apocalypse.” “You speak of it so casually…” Vortex smiled. “I heard about that forest fire. Everyone said it was just a natural disaster. What happened to the researchers that actually caused it?” “The council refused to punish them. They believed that their hearts were in the right place and that they were just trying to help…” Goldenroot shook his head. “Ridiculous… I would have thrown them all in the dungeon for what they had done. Princess Celestia, felt the same as I did, but she couldn’t get anything past the council. Even minor punishments were waived. “On the day I was knighted, I swore that I would become a member of the council and stop such atrocious things from happening ever again.” “And just as the council was finally getting better, Celestia got worse and the council was abolished.” Vortex smirked. “Funny how that works.” “I’m not laughing.” “While I understand how you feel about all of this, don’t you think we should make the best of our situation?” Vortex slid out of the small bed on the opposite side of the room and moved leisurely over to the stallion, who continued to stare at the ceiling and ignore her. “I don’t really understand what you mean. How could we possibly make the best of this?” he asked. “Well, we may only have one night left on this planet, isn’t there something you want to do other than just mope around.” she smiled, winking at him. “We’re stuck in a dungeon at the bottom of the castle. Forget about what I want to do, I can’t really think of anything I can do.” he replied, sounding rather annoyed that she was so focussed on their depressing future. “Oh, you are such an idiot sometimes, Goldenroot!” a pompous, but familiar voice sounded from the other side of the concrete wall. Startled, Goldenroot sat up in his bed and turned to face the wall. “Wind Dancer!?” he asked in surprise. “Yes, you ignoramus, we’re all locked up in this dungeon together, even if we can’t see each other.” “You were listening to all of that?” “Of course I was!” Wind Dancer exclaimed, “How else should I entertain myself in this concrete box?” “Then how come you didn’t interrupt me before?” “Because up until now, I was trying to respect your privacy like a proper mare, but you’ve got such a thick head, I just had to intervene.” Slightly offended, Goldenroot replied back, “What?” “You can figure this one out, Goldenroot.” she said coolly, “You may only have one night left to live and you’re stuck in a dungeon with a beautiful young mare that you’ve spent a large part of your career gawking at.” Vortex blushed brightly and rapidly turned away at the statement. “What are you going to do?” Wind Dancer asked softly. “Uuhhhh…” Goldenroot responded stupidly, glancing over at Vortex who was turned the other way and glowing red. “Oh just kiss her, you idiot!” ~ Celestia stood behind a podium on a large wooden platform, pushed to the far edge of the town square. A massive crowd completely filled the area, small fillies and colts pointing at the stage and tugging on their parent’s tails as they tried to figure out what was going on. Their parents, however, were just as lost, very little had been explained about the gathering except that it was important. So the ponies just stood and waited in silent anticipation. “Citizens of Equestria!” Celestia exclaimed, amplifying her voice with her magic. “You are no doubt wondering why I have gathered you all here today. The truth is that traitors have been living among us!” The crowd gasped and looked around in shock and awe. “Foul ponies, they have been working in the shadows, performing vile deeds and conspiring against us. They sought to overthrow the government and take it for themselves.” she continued, “I’m sorry that I let this happen to our country. I never would have believed that the very thing I created would turn against us, especially when we needed them the most.” One after another, six ponies were led onto the platform and out into the open, each with an iron shackle around one of their hooves that connected them to their companions. “Goldenroot, Vortex, Wind Dancer, Thunderhorn, Crescendo and Prairie Star, once members of the elite council and the nobility, have now been stripped of their titles and positions.” Celestia continued, turning to glare at the ponies as they stopped and faced the crowd in front of them. “They are not worthy of an honour that we reserve for only the most respected ponies in our society. “They were working with Prance, the nation of ponies we all thought to be our allies and our friends. The drought that has caused so much suffering and pain was nothing that we could not have solved on our own in the past, yet it caused such terrible food shortages now. We all asked why and how, but only now do I know the truth. These ponies were lying to us and secretly worsening the drought. They were helping Prance weaken us for a coming war! They wanted to conquer our peaceful nation to meet their own selfish ends!” “You’re making a mistake, Princess Celestia!” Wind Dancer cried, tears slowly rolling down her cheeks as she desperately tried to convince the alicorn. “We haven’t done anything wrong.” Princess Celestia left her spot by the podium and walked slowly over to the white pegasus. Wind Dancer’s once long, beautiful light blue hair had lost most of its lustre, drooping down around her in a tangled mess. Everything she cared so much for had been tossed aside, disappearing in what seemed like an instant. The threat of her execution was too great and her appearance just didn’t seem to matter anymore. “I wish I could believe you, Wind Dancer, but I can’t afford to gamble on our future. This is too important.” Meanwhile, the crowd was becoming increasingly agitated by this new realization. How could anything like this happen? Were they really so weak and vulnerable that they had let this go on for so long? Celestia turned away, leaving Wind Dancer speechless. She walked back in front of the podium and gazed out over the troubled ponies around her. “I won’t let our country fall victim to their lies any longer, but I will not degrade myself to their level. Despite their crimes as traitors, conspirators and manipulators of the truth, I will grant them my mercy.” She turned back towards the former council members and paused, glaring at each individually. Goldenroot looked at Vortex who was chained beside him. She returned a momentary glance and smiled slightly before pulling her eyes away and staring at the floor beneath them. “You will all be exiled from Equestria and never allowed to return. If you refuse to live in harmony with us, then you will be forced to live in discord without us.” The ponies all reacted at once, sighing heavily or smiling brightly at their neighbour. Relieved to be spared, their eternal banishment from the country they had all spent their entire lives inside paled in comparison to an otherwise unfortunate and bitter end. Vortex leaped over and hugged Goldenroot tightly, wrapping her hooves around the stallion’s neck. Goldenroot almost immediately returned the gesture, too happy to be embarrassed. “If you choose to defy this punishment and return to Equestria for any reason at all, I will have to resort to a penance reserved for only the most horrifying of creatures. I am only giving you one chance, don’t waste it.” All six of them were unshackled and led off the platform and into a large black stagecoach waiting nearby. The crowd booed and heckled them while the unicorns in the audience threw stones. As the first rock guided itself towards Goldenroot, a magical barrier was lifted in front of him, causing the stone to gently bounce off and fall to the ground. Surprised, Goldenroot stopped and turned back towards the stage. Celestia looked back at him with disgust, “You may not be now, Goldenroot, but you were my friend. I owe you this much, but nothing more.” Goldenroot just turned back and got into the stagecoach behind Vortex, the barrier disappearing as the door closed shut. “Do not concern yourself with these traitors any longer. To remember them would be to acknowledge their existence within our country and I refuse to give them that satisfaction. “No, we have more important matters to deal with! Our enemies lay waiting on our doorstop. They wish to see us misstep, but we cannot give them that opportunity. We must bring the war to Prance before they bring it to us. It is our privilege, no, our duty to stop them. They, not the drought, are the one true plague in this world and they must be brought to justice. We must free Prance from the tyranny of their leader and rescue its inhabitants from the corruption and brutality he has created. “But I need to ask you for your aid, citizens of Equestria. Please, will you help me? Will you help your country? I am powerless without your support.” Her speech had worked the crowd into a frenzy of emotion and they let out a deafening roar of approval, stamping the ground with their hooves and cheering loudly. Even the young fillies and colts cheered, though they didn’t understand why. “Thank you.” Celestia said, bowing her head in gratitude, “I could not ask for a greater country, or ponies, to serve. Your courage and strength truly has no equal and it is an honour to live among you all.” The crowd continued to cheer noisily as Celestia walked off the stage and towards the palace. They would support their princess. They would even follow her to the end of the earth and walk off the edge if she asked it. ~ Luna rushed down the hallway towards the throne room. Her new knowledge was nearly arresting, causing her to seethe with anger. How could she do this!? she thought, the guards eyeballing her movements with curiosity. She banished the entire council from Equestria and now she’s starting a war!? “I’m sorry, Princess Luna, but Princess Celestia is very busy with war preparations and she has asked not to be disturbed.” Luna completely ignored the guards standing on either side as she flung the door wide open and walked through the threshold, leaving the two stunned ponies in her wake. “Sister!” she yelled, slamming the door behind her. Celestia was standing at a large table placed in the center of the room. A map was spread across the surface of a massive table, almost completely concealing the intricate carvings underneath. Small, differently coloured wooden blocks were strewn all over the map, each block representing a different army or group of soldiers. As Luna drew ever closer to her sister’s position, Celestia turned around and smiled pleasantly, “Oh, hello Luna.” “Why are you doing all of this? A war!? What are you thinking!?” “Why?” Celestia repeated, turning back towards the table, “I was hardly given a choice in the matter. Prance held Twilight hostage, tried to convince us that she died and used the council, the second most influential members of our country, as puppets to further their own selfish goals. They wanted to take over our country, Luna. They wanted me gone forever. “So wouldn’t sitting here and just smiling like I’ve been doing for the past millennia give you more grounds for asking ‘why?’ than a war? A war is what they wanted and it’s what I intended to deliver to them on a silver platter.” Luna looked extremely confused, “I don’t understand where you’re getting this. Traitors..? Conspirators..? Who told you this?” Celestia spun around, “Luna, Twilight told me everything that happened in Prance. I may not have wanted to hear any of it, but it’s the truth. Why would she lie about something like this? Do you think she wants a war? She’s a librarian not a bored soldier or a maniac. She wants this no more than you do and after the nightmare she went through I’m not about to even consider that she’s lying.” Celestia shook her head and turned around again, glancing over the map and moving the small blocks around the surface delicately. Luna’s anger diminished as she thought about everything Twilight had been through. Her sister hadn’t told her everything, but she had heard about the bandits and everything that happened afterwards was almost certainly worse. “I’m sorry, sister…” she apologized quietly, “I just don’t think that a war is the answer to our problems.” Celestia, recognizing her sister’s regret, turned back to face her. With a compassionate look in her eyes, she lowered her head down to her sister’s level. “Luna, it will be alright. Prance is too small to oppose us. They will probably surrender within the first few days.” Celestia said reassuringly, “I’m not going to give them time to react and I will keep the casualties to a minimum. The only chance they had was through their dirty, indirect tactics. “And who knows? Maybe if we knock on their door they will just open it, invite us in and no one will even be injured, but I can’t let them get away with this. There has to be some justice in this world and if I need to look for it, then so be it.” But Luna’s worried look persisted, even as her sister smiled warmly at her. “You’ve changed, Celestia. This isn’t like you.” Celestia’s smiled faded away as she raised her head and answered her sister, “No… It isn’t, but the circumstances have forced me to change and I’m beginning to think that a lot of our problems could have been avoided if I hadn’t been so blind.” “Sister, please… stop…” Luna said, small tears welling in the corners of her eyes, “You sound like… her.” “Her!?” Celestia exclaimed, “Why would you even say that, Luna? I’m not some nightmare trying to plunge the world into eternal darkness. I’m trying to protect us from psychopaths and criminals.” Celestia was more surprised than angry at Luna. She was surprised that her sister would compare her to that monster spawned from jealously and hatred. Celestia lowered her voice slightly, smiling at her sister again, “You know that I would never let anything happen to you, Luna. Now please, don’t worry about all of this. I promised you that I would fix my mistakes and intended on doing just that. This will all be over soon.” Luna turned and walked away from her sister and toward the door on the far end of the room. I know that, sister, and that’s exactly what I’m afraid of. I’m afraid that when this is all over, you’ll find out that you’ve just made another mistake. _______________________________________________________________________ Author’s notes: Hello everyone. Another long chapter this time, so I hope you enjoyed it. The tension is building and the story is getting very close to its climax and conclusion. I’m going to work on a revised chapter two that will describe the important council members a little more and talk about Goldenroot’s knighthood so that it doesn’t seem like such a surprise in this chapter. As always, thanks goes to my editor, Specter Von Baren, who actually asked for a rewrite of the chapter. The original version is stored on my hard drive and I might post it after the conclusion. I think it might be interesting for everyone to see the kind of work that goes into these things and what happens when the author and the editor completely disagree. If you have any questions or comments about the story, I'm always happy to hear them. You can reach me at my email: admin@theamberfox.ca and I’ll also be keeping a close eye on the comments below the story. _______________________________________________________________________ Disclaimer: “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” and its derivatives are the sole intellectual property of Hasbro©. I do not have, nor claim to have, the rights to the intellectual property that this story is based on.