Chapter 51 - I, Bliss
Fluttershy encountered various unique creatures in her life, like manticores and recently a wingless dragon. She should be no stranger to the differences between unicorns and earth ponies, and being the lone pegasus of her group, if not the entire Empire, she often felt awkward about standing out.
But the notion of a pony with both wings and a horn should be an abomination. The alicorn before her eyes raised her levered her slender pink neck so that her purple irises pierced through the pegasus and pink earth pony. Her beautiful stare sent Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie quaking in their hooves.
"Please don't throw us in the dungeon!" Fluttershy kowtowed. "We got lost in the secret passages! And we didn't mean to steal your food!"
The alicorn shot out her front right hoof, and uttered a relaxing sigh that turned out to have a calming effect on Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. The beautifully horned pegasus wiped the remaining tears from her eyes and proceeded to fix up her mane and coat with a magicked brush from her heart-adorned nightstand. From the same nightstand, she magicked a crown she placed behind her horn. Regally groomed and ready, the alicorn stepped towards the cowering pegasus and lifted her to her hooves with a gentle upwards push on Flutteshy's chin.
"I didn't mean to startle you two," she said, "and if you are hungry, feel free to eat my dinner."
"Don't mind if I do!" Pinkie Pie cried. With that, three-quarters of the food plate was gone in less than five seconds, and Pinkie Pie pushed what little leftovers remained across the floor towards Fluttershy, who immediately began a soft chew on a tiny bushel of crystal berries.
"By the way, why are you crying?" Pinkie asked the crystalline alicorn.
"Oh, the stallion who I love is not acting like himself."
"Really? I thought it was because you didn't like the food. It's a little cold, but it's still good."
"I wish that was the case," the alicorn sighed once more. "I almost forgot to introduce myself: I am Crystal Queen Mi Amore Cadenza. But you can call me Cadence for short."
"You're the queen?" Fluttershy asked. "But you look so young."
"That is first I heard somepony say that to me directly, but thanks for the compliment. From the looks of things, it looks you've already befriended my daughter-in-law, Rarity."
"How did you know?"
"You are trying out her costumes, are you not? How is she doing lately?"
"She loves hanging out with us," said Pinkie Pie.
"And she always wants us to tell her stories about the outside world," Fluttershy added.
"I'm glad," said Cadence. "Ever since her real mother died, she hardly leaves the castle and tries to keep Sweetie Belle all to herself. Every time I talk to the King about Rarity, he tells me that she always locks herself in her room making dresses day in and day out. Then when I heard her voice outside my door, I began to realize that she finally made friends she could share a connection with."
"I never knew she was like that," said Fluttershy.
"If you are her friends, then you have my greatest thanks of getting her to come out of her depression. I was really getting worried that her sadness would afflict Sweetie Belle, but at least one prayer of mine have been answered. I wish you two would bring the same happiness to me as you did to my daughters."
"Who's making you sad? Is it the stallion you're in love with?"
"It is. You see, he’s--"
A loud, concussive rhythm of banging rocked Cadence's doors.
"Honorable Wife," boomed a deep voice. "It is I, your husband Lord Umbra."
Fluttershy and Pinkie were close to screaming as they were close to being discovered. The Crystal Queen calmed them down with a gentle gesture she waved before Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. Her horn glowed light blue. Fluttershy felt her entire body welling up with a soothing calmness that was the direct opposite fired from Trixie's horn, and judging from Pinkie's expression and her hanging and slobbering tongue, it was also euphoric. Cadence had levitated the two mares back towards the dressing room where they had emerged from, and then gently dropped them behind a tall privacy screen of Eastern design. As it so happened, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie could immediately escape through the secret passage right behind them.
Yet, the same curiosity that left them lingering at the King's Library planted them here. Peering out from the Asiatic privacy screen they watched as Lord Umbra waltzed in the chamber with a bothered stomp of each step towards a Queen who, without feigning a smile, forced herself to appear calm and receptive.
"You're up," he said, and he finally sat on a nearby pillow so as to regain his regal composure.
"Yes, my dear."
"You've eaten, finally."
"I have. It was quite delicious."
"Indeed. I've come to tell you that the Crystal Rebels made an attempt at our castle, but we managed to drive them out. Captain Armor is currently assessing the situation as we speak."
“Has Captain Armor engaged the Rebels?”
“Unfortunately, our Esteemed Guests were wounded in the process of doing so. We will bring these Rebels to justice, my Queen.”
"Husband, must you resort to force in dealing with them? They are still our citizens."
"It saddens me just as it saddens you, but we must maintain vigilance in the face of a thousand years of peace, even at great costs. The Royal Guards have completed the investigation and have cleared the crime scene. Oh, I do want you to meet our Esteemed Guests who have travelled from afar to reach our Empire. You must partake in our daughter's enthusiasm about their stories of the world outside our Barrier. Hopefully by now they are well enough to grace us with their company."
"I would like to meet them as well, but unfortunately, I am not feeling well at the moment."
She grunted. Her teeth gnashed from an unseen pain that briefly caused her horn to glow and her wings to fall flat. Cadence fell to her haunches before collapsing to the floor.
"A lone voice…" she uttered. "Screaming in agony…"
Fluttershy felt a sudden mental shock, and she saw a vision of dizzying, spinning world. Even if she heard and felt one agonizing voice, it was just as disheartening and painful as hundreds of them. In that vision, she felt herself inside another body, charging, screaming, and bucking into pieces walls, furniture, and the bones of nearby ponies. Frightened faces fled, while others attempted to calm "Fluttershy" with words or tackle her down as painless as possible.
In the real world, the yellow pegasus's tears welled up, her stomach lurched round and round, and she gripped her own mouth to prevent herself from screaming. She then witnessed Lord Umbra, seemingly unperturbed by his wife's sudden agony, calmly trotting up to her to cast powerful spell upon her being from his curved unicorn horn. The chamber flashed green for but a moment. When the light died down, Queen Cadence had ceased writhing, and her eyes rolled around her sockets until they composed themselves.
"There now," said Umbra. "All better?"
"I am," said Cadence as she struggled back to her hooves. Even standing up, she swayed minutely enough to make her appear nauseous and dizzy.
"It seems that you really are unwell. Don't worry my Honorable Wife. Our Esteemed Guests won't leave just yet, and I'll make sure of it. Now, back to bed with you."
The Husband-King assisted the Crystal Queen onto the plush mattress, and even tucked her in neatly. Umbra walked back towards the door, but hesitated before crossing over to the next room. His ear twitched, and he slowly turned his head towards the privacy screen.
Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy quickly hid from view, and any hopes of Umbra walking away were dashed when his hard hooves impacted the crystal floor with each slow and suspenseful step. Hearts raced within the uninvited mares, but fortunately they were positioned in a way that the entrance to the secret passage was obscured by the privacy screen. Risking all manner of subtlety, they quickly darted out, and they were careful to make sure their hooves did not echo throughout the passages. They no longer heard Umbra's hoofsteps, and such a relief allowed the two mares to take a breather in a landing between stairwells.
Snip. Scuttle. Snip. Fluttershy ears perked to the imaginary sounds of darkness, so she thought. Fearless Pinkie, however stood stiff and yet shaken, and her pink mane and tails flattened slightly at the dread drawing closer with each step.
Snip. Scuttle. Snip. Fluttershy and Pinkie definitely heard those sounds, and those weren't the kind heard from gardening shears and a horseshoe crab on a glass table. The snips sounded like large swords grinding against each other, and the scuttling sounded like a poles jack-hammering on concrete.
Scuttle-scuttle-scuttle! The noises became louder, and who or whatever was chasing them threw the two mares into a wailing panic. It didn't matter if they were lost or not. Up and down the stairs through the passageways, Fluttershy and Pinkie galloped as fast as they could away from the unseen abomination chasing them. Brief of thoughts being dismembered by the thing plagued Fluttershy's mind, and before she knew it, she and Pinkie Pie ended up in a dead end.
The thing was scuttling dangerously closer, and each advancing step it took pounded in the two mares' hearts. In Fluttershy's view, she could barely see what lied down the only path from their predicament, despite the darkness. She caught a glimpse of a moving shadow and a faint glimmer of a scissor-like claw larger than a pony.
"Fluttershy, I think this is it," said Pinkie Pie. "I hope the Big Pony in Heaven will forgive me for selling those fake unicorn horns and fake pegasii wings. Hey, what does this button do?"
Pinkie Pie definitely pushed a switch on the wall, and she and Fluttershy fell through a trap door before the scuttling beast lunged in for a fatal cut. The two mares now slid down a smooth and twisting incline to heaven and earth knew where. Whether they would meet their end or escape, Pinkie Pie seemed to enjoy the wild ride as she waved her front hooves in the air whilst laughing in excitement. The fact that they were speeding to yet another dead-end hardly deterred the pink pony. Fluttershy squealed in fear of being splattered against the wall. When they reached it, the wall suddenly dropped open to reveal a path into the main hallway.
North Star did not even have time to react when Pinkie's face rammed straight into the unicorn's posterior, which caused a chain reaction that toppled over a gold and silver cart carrying various colors of silk fabrics. Fluttershy managed to avoid the disaster, and she slid safely to a halt before a door, which opened to reveal the Diamond Princess Rarity and Spike, who was dressed in a blue and ruffled suit and polished boots.
"You finally made it," Rarity beamed at Fluttershy. She then turned to blush at the sight of her unconscious maidservant's behind attached to a pink earth pony.
Applejack felt no pain when her own self stretched into nigh-infinity when she entered Aether Space with Twilight. For a brief moment, she convinced herself of traveling faster than light, and all other environments within her view passed by as colorfully indiscriminate blobs.
Even with her body stretched and compressed to what might as be a tight chain of molecules, Applejack continued to hold fast onto Twilight's hoof. The rebel mare started to feel intense discomfort not due to snap-turns of the teleportation. She began to feel or least imagine her own body twisting upon Twilight's, and vice versa. For a brief moment, Twilight was inside her, and she was inside Twilight. Applejack knew not where she and Twilight began or ended, and before she could even wrap her mind in the complexities of teleportation magic, the rebel mare emerged in a whole other location. Applejack swayed back and forth with panting lightheadedness. Did she... No. This was all in her mind. Unicorns did this all the time.
"Applejack, are you all right?"
"I'm fine."
"Your face is all red. Sorry, but I had have you latch onto me lest I lose you in Aether Space. Now let's go find Shining Armor."
Right. The mission. Applejack shouldn't be flustered over a common thing like teleportation. She still needed to give the bastard brother of a pony Shining Armor a piece of her mind, and so the orange mare shook her head and followed Twilight down the night street of the Crystal Empire.
They did not have to gallop far to find Shining Armor, or at the very least, sure signs of his presence. Empire Guards formed a perimeter to keep the crystalline citizens away from a normal-looking house, but from the screams and noises, nothing normal was occurring.
The front doors burst open. Shining Armor and Sergeant Comet Tail, bruised and bleeding, carefully backed away down the porch steps and into street as a ravenous grayish mare growled and hissed at them. At each interval of her breakdown, the mare's coat suddenly lost its crystalline shine to give way to desaturated hue. Just as she lost her shine, she lost the volume of her mane and tail, and she immediately regained her crystal attributes mere seconds later. The pattern oscillated back and forth, quicker than the last, and it seemed to further enrage the poor mare.
"Bliss," frothed the mare. "Bliss! Bliss! I need more Bliss!
"Lady Amber Waves," cried Shining. "Please calm yourself!"
Amber Waves screamed and lunged at the Captain. Comet Tail jumped in to shield him, and the blow from the mare knocked him out. Amber landed ready to lunge in for another attack, and then without hesitation, Twilight fired a stun spell at the troubled crystal pony. Amber was thrown back, and she fell unconscious once she lost her crystal shine.
"That wasn't necessary," Shining Armor said to Twilight. "You could have seriously wounded her, or worse."
"The Shining Armor I know would have already taken her down by now," Twilight said. "What is this 'Bliss' she's talking about?"
"Please back away, Miss Twilight Sparkle. Even Esteemed Guests have no right in interfering with the investigation."
"But…"
Two hulking crystal stallions pushed both the purple unicorn and the orange pony back towards the crowd as Shining Armor magically summoned a two stretchers and two unicorn guards, the latter of whom teleported out with a wounded Comet Tail in tow and in a stretcher. Shining Armor used the other stretcher for the fallen mare, but before he could even summon the appropriate response team, two lanky unicorns in striped wizard hats and robes surprised him with their sudden and flashy appearance.
Applejack and Twilight were too far to listen to looked to be an argument, and the smugness of the two unicorn wizards made them look like two poisonous vipers coiling around Shining Armor with a hypnotic embrace of death. Then a third viper took the form of Lieutenant Sunset Shimmer, who had emerged from the house and appeared to have diffused the situation between Shining Armor and the two wizards. One stroke to the Captain's chin from the female soldier made him relent, and the two wizards happily carried off the fallen mare through their teleportation spell.
Shimmer nuzzled Shining's neck, and even playfully tugged his back mane with her teeth. Applejack felt like pulling Shimmer's mane as well--and then ripping it off, scalp and all. How dare she comfort him at a time like this? Forget the guards--Applejack shoved herself between them and marched over to the Captain and the First Lieutenant.
Immediately they were gone in a flash, as were the rest of the guards. The house where the incident took place had been repaired and looked as if it had not been disturbed. The tired citizenry began dispersing back to their homes, murmuring amongst themselves about the misfortune of their crazed neighbor, and then immediately reminding themselves that tomorrow would be a brighter day--as if what they had seen was just an act. They had those forced smiles again, and it irritated Applejack so much that she wanted to buck each and every one of them--children and all--with hopes of knocking some teeth in the process.
"I lost their magic trace," said Twilight, "but we can teleport back to the army base."
"Forget it," said Applejack. "I had enough teleportin' for one day. I just want to hit the hay and confront the stallion you think is your brother first thing tomorrow."
"I know he is my brother, and I really think he's been bewitched by somepony."
"Sunset Shrew, maybe?"
"Or he could have lost his memories when he arrived here. Either way, I'm going to make him remember."
"Still, we gotta get past Sunset Shrew because she's clingin' onto him like she owns him. She seems to be chummy with those two wizard-ponies as well."
"The barrier won't allow us to leave, the Rebels attack the castle, Shining Armor doesn't remember us, and a crystal pony goes crazy because of 'Bliss'. Do all these have any connection with each other?"
"Maybe we can talk about this when we get back to the castle. There's somepony watching us now."
"I don't see anypony."
"I can't either, but I can sense one. Just walk with me, Sugarcube, and I'll give you the signal..."
Twilight nodded. It put Applejack at ease that her purple friend immediately understood her. If Twilight cheated by using some kind of memory spell, she wouldn't mind. The pair then began a leisurely trot back to the castle, and it was hard for them to get lost with such a prominent landmark dominating the view. Granted, they had to walk down many blocks and make a couple of turns while keeping the Crystal Castle in sight.
The closer they approached the castle, the denser the buildings became, with little or no wide open spaces. Applejack could still sense her follower not too far from her. She immediately stopped.
"Cut her off!" cried Applejack. "Twenty feet southeast!"
Twilight vanished in a flash, and Applejack immediately drew her Sword of Truth to cut off the escape of a hooded yellowish pony galloping away from the purple unicorn. The same hooded pony somersaulted over Applejack's slash with a triple axial spin before landing on one hoof on a short wall. Twilight immediately teleported behind her, ready to cast a stun spell while Applejack spun around and faced their stalker.
The stalker just grinned, and she settled down to her haunches before pulling down her hood.
"I recognize you," said Twilight. "You're one of the Crystal Rebels."
"And you don't seem to be ordinary Esteemed Guests," said the yellowish mare. "Although one could say that all our guests have been anything but ordinary thus far."
"I saw you watchin' us back there," said Applejack as she inched her blade towards the Crystal Rebel. "Why the hay are you followin' us?"
"Easy there, I'm not here to resume our fight. Rather, I am delivering a message on behalf of my leader. She says, 'If you want to know the truth, come to Underton Village at the westernmost part of the Empire at eight o'clock in the morning. Make sure you are not followed'."
"How do we know this ain't a trap?"
"It's your decision, 'guests', but you should already know by now that this Empire is not all that it seems."
Like a pegasus, the yellowish rebel mare shot up into the air and landed on a rooftop before vanishing into the night.