Hearth's Warming Evil

by Tortfeasor

Ghosts of the Past

Disclaimer: I’m working on a time machine. Until then, I don’t own My Little Pony

"No wonder it took me forever to find this place." Rainbow Dash snorted as she finally started circling down into Ponyville

The town was barely a dot on the map at the edge of the Everfree Forest, and from the amount of green she could see poking through the slowly melting snow covering the ground it seemed as though the citizens of Ponyville were content with the forest marching right into their town. Or not, she reconsidered, as she saw the outer wall surrounding Ponyville. Compared to the tiny inner wall that presumably separated the unicorns and pegasi from the earth ponies, the outer wall made it clear that Twilight Sparkle’s brother was far more worried about what was outside the town than within.

It was terribly impolite, not to mention asking for a crossbow bolt between the eyes, to land within a city or town. That meant Rainbow Dash tumbled to a stop on the ground in a field just outside the main gate instead of in an opening inside the walls. The gates themselves were remarkably solid, made of thick oak that wouldn't have been out of place in the rougher parts Platinum City. The guards on the other hoof weren't even remotely interested in one obviously exhausted pegasus entering Ponyville. Whether that would hold true when she tried to meet with Twilight’s brother…

Rainbow Dash walked through the earth pony part of Ponyville with the trained instincts of a pegasus guard who knew to expect trouble waiting around every corner and in every hate-filled pair of earth pony eyes. Only the earth ponies walking around Ponyville seemed far less downtrodden and desperate than their kin in Platinum City. Their streets were wide and actually paved with cobblestones, the all pervading piles of garbage and smell of raw sewage in Dirtville were absent, the buildings looked as if they'd been painted and maintained since they were originally run up, not to mention looking to have been built with far more care than any building in Dirtville, and none of the earth ponies she walked by looked at her as though they were imagining all the ways they could make her die, slowly.

Rainbow Dash came perilously near to freaking out when she reached the inner wall that led to the unicorn and pegasus parts of the town. Yes there were guards and gates to be shut, but the wood in the gates was visibly rotting, and the guards weren't inspecting a single earth pony passing either way. Even a ragged pegasus clearly from elsewhere elicited only a welcome to Ponyville and asking if they could help her. Rainbow Dash decided against mentioning her destination, not like the guards would believe her. Besides, her brain was finding it more than a little difficult managing a polite greeting of her own.

The inner part of Ponyville was certainly wealthier than the outer town where the earth ponies lived, but with the earth ponies plainly less impoverished and far less ostentation by the unicorns Ponyville had a much less segregated look and feel to it than Platinum City. Rainbow Dash also noticed earth ponies coming and going, seemingly freely, into and out of pegasus and even unicorn owned shops. Come to think of it, she’d seen a number of unicorns and obviously civilian pegasi walking around in the outer town. Ponyville was a weird place to a pegasus born in Cloudsdale and raised in Platinum City.

She was only stopped with anything approaching the caution she was used to at the gates to the castle in the center of Ponyville. Even then, Rainbow Dash could tell it was more from a trained caution than the real expectation of trouble she was used to. These guards were clearly more concerned with sending her to the correct bureaucrat than worrying about any ill she might have planned for the ponies inside.

“Please state your name and business.” The guard who asked her made it sound very much a rote inquiry.

“Rainbow Dash, sergeant in Princess Rarity’s personal guards.” Rainbow Dash still wanted to fly loops whenever she thought about that. “I’m here with a message from Her Highness and Shining Armor’s sister, Lady Sparkle, the Court Sorceress.”

That shook the guards out of their routine boredom.

“Impossible,” one of the guards said with a suddenly hard edged suspicion that Rainbow Dash oddly enough found almost comforting. “A messenger from Platinum City arrived early this morning with news that the royal family has been murdered by fanatics and that Lady Sparkle perished defending them.”

“Well then I guess that makes Her Highness and Lady Sparkle the spriest corpses in the history of New Unicornia, because I talked to them just a few hours ago. I also guess that means I don’t have this letter from Princess Rarity, sealed with the royal crest, for Lord Armor.”

The guards clearly didn’t appreciate Rainbow Dash’s jibe about talking to Rarity and Twilight earlier, but they couldn't ignore the letter she flashed with the seal of the royal family in red wax. Forging the royal seal was all but impossible. It was crafted with the finest unicorn magic, and that magic was kept a very strict secret among the royal family. It was also a very quick way to a short career, to say nothing of a short life. Most important, though, the decision of whether or not Rainbow Dash was what she claimed to be had suddenly jumped way above their pay grade.

“Follow us,” the guards turned back into the castle with wariness radiating from their every step and glance.

Rainbow Dash had never been in the royal palace in Platinum City, so she had no direct comparison to what she saw in Ponyville. It still put the garrison she’d called home for the last several years to shame. The castle in Ponyville was, unsurprisingly, far smaller than the palace in Platinum City. It took hardly any time at all before one of the guards walked through some doors Rainbow Dash wasn't allowed through. After a little while he came back out to stiffly usher her to see Twilight’s brother.

Shining Armor didn’t have a particularly strong family resemblance to his little sister. White coat, neon blue mane, even his cutie mark bore little resemblance to Twilight’s. The eyes, though, one look was all Rainbow Dash needed to know Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor were siblings, the same burning intelligence showed behind both pairs.

“I hear you have something very interesting to show me.” Shining Armor didn’t look or sound like the go-getter pony Twilight had described. Of course, that was might have been because he thought his little sister had just been murdered the night before.

“Um, yeah, er… yes.” Rainbow Dash was rubbish at all this formal etiquette stuff. “I’ll just give it to you. Oh, Twilight said to give you this so you’d know she was still alive.”

Shining Armor’s eyes went wide as dinner plates when Rainbow Dash pulled the battered doll from her satchel. It practically shot out of her grasp in a burst of magic.

“This is…” Shining Armor’s eyes flicked back and forth between Rainbow Dash and the doll.

The letter shot from Rainbow Dash’s grasp even faster when she pulled it out. Shining Armor practically devoured the letter as soon as it touched his hooves. Rainbow Dash watched as his face went from disbelief, to stunned relief, and, as he finished the letter, a steely anger that she never, ever wanted to be on the business end of.

Shining Armor calmly walked to the door and stuck his head through. Rainbow Dash realized that one of the guards must have remained waited outside. A sensible enough precaution if she'd been a fraud and in desperate need of a quick trip to a cell in the dungeons.

“Could you go find Masquerade and escort her to the dungeons? I think she has a few more questions to answer. If she doesn't want to follow you, I won’t shed any tears if she arrives with a few broken limbs.

“It sounds like my sister has gotten you into quite the mess.” Shining Armor closed the door and walked back into the room.

“It’s not that bad.” Rainbow Dash awkwardly scratched at her mane. “I mean it got me on Princess Rarity’s personal guards, and it’s definitely more exciting than sitting around in Dirtville wondering what Lighting Dust is going to come up with next to make my life miserable.”

“Exciting,” Shining Armor snorted, “that sounds just like Twilight. She always has to go around sticking her nose into and trying to fix every problem she comes across.”

“I kinda got that impression.” Rainbow Dash hadn't expected to wind up discussing the Court Sorceress when she woke up that morning. “She seems kinda high strung, what’s she like when she’s not trying to fix everything around her?”

Shining Armor slowly walked over to a pair of windows that overlooked the wild trees of the Everfree Forest. “Ms. Dash, there are things in that forest so terrible that it would drive you mad if you even laid eyes on them. I’d rather face every last one of those monsters down than see the day where my little sister can’t find a problem to fix.”

Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to say how ridiculous that was. Then she thought about what Shining Armor had said. She imagined Twilight building up all her stress without the outlet of meddling in other’s problems. As the true horror of that thought dawned on her, Rainbow Dash had the sudden urge to find out what the other side of the globe was like this time of year.

“Enough of that,” Shining Armor said. “We don’t use the dungeons very often in Ponyville, but I think we should have a guest waiting for us down there who is probably going to be very surprised to hear what you have to say.”

If Twilight Sparkle had thought that either of them would be able to get up afterwards she would have tackled Rarity with her hug. Somehow, between saving her little sister, fighting off Sombra, and escaping the castle alive, Rarity had found the time to run to Twilight’s rooms and grab Clover’s journal. And in just a few more minutes she would have the chance to read it again.

Before the ragtag group of ponies stood a silent, hollow stone sentinel. The relic of a bygone era that would, once again, shelter ponies from the bitter cold.

“This is fantastic.” Lyra hopped with joy as much as her tired, overworked legs would allow. “Do you know what this is?”

“Well…” Of course Twilight Sparkle knew what it was.

“This is the ancient ‘Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters”” Lyra plowed right over Twilight in her enthusiasm. “It was built just after Platinum City was established by ponies from all three tribes who rejected unicorn and pegasus domination. We call them a cult these days, but they believed that if they worked together, all three tribes, that they could summon the royal pony sisters Celestia and Luna to bring about harmony between ponies. It’s so sad what happened to them.”

“What happened to them? What happened to them?” Pinkie Pie seemed to have missed Lyra’s sorrowful tone at the end.

“The army happened.” Twilight managed to speak first. “In a race between Celestia and Luna, who don’t exist, and the army, which does exist, the real ponies won. They tore down as much of this place as they could as a monument to what happens to those who oppose New Unicornia, and they burned all the survivors alive as heretics. This place is impressive though, it survived not only that attempted destruction, but more than a thousand years of exposure to the elements without any repairs, and it's still in this kind of condition.”

“Oh.” Pinkie Pie’s ears fell against her head in sadness. “That wasn't very nice of them.”

“No, it wasn't.” Lyra seized her pulpit again. “All these ponies wanted was for every pony to be judged by what they can do whether than if they were born with something sticking out of their head or back. It's always so nice to see what the reward for a good deed is in New Unicornia.”

Twilight was more than capable of reading between the lines. “I’m not saying I approve of what they did. I’m all for the three tribes getting along together…”

“Enough.” Rarity interrupted. “If we don't get out of this cold soon you'll be meeting those ponies who were burned here yourselves. Here come Fluttershy, Bon Bon, and Applejack, let’s see if we can spend a few hours here to recover.”

“Well it’s not much.” Applejack trotted up to them. “But it’ll keep the wind and the worst of the cold off of us, and unless y’all know somewhere else between here and Ponyville we can rest up I don’t see any other choices.”

“We need to stop here anyways,” Bon Bon said. “A number of the ponies are starting to show signs of frostbite. They need to get out of the cold and warm up now if we don’t want to be taking off hooves by the time we get to Ponyville.”

“There’s lots of wood lying around,” Fluttershy pointed out. “I’m sure we could build a nice fire to warm everyone up. It would make us feel a lot better too.”

“No!” Shouted the surrounding ponies, even Pinkie Pie.

“Fluttershy,” Twilight suddenly remembered just how timid Fluttershy was. “Normally that would be a great idea. But Sombra is still looking for us. I can’t imagine a better way to tell him where we are than a bright, smoking fire. I’m sure we’ll all get there uncomfortable, but as long as we make it to Ponyville without anyone losing a leg we’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” came the meek response.

Twilight couldn't help but marvel that the drawbridge still worked. She worried anew whether the ancient construction would hold the weight of three hundred ponies crossing it with every hoof that clip-clopped across it. If she’d had the magic, Twilight would have helped it hold up, she didn’t, so all she could do was watch. Somehow, through luck or the incredible skill of the ancient ponies who’d built this place, it held up.

“Ah, that’s better.” Rarity sunk to the ground with a languorous sigh of relief.

Twilight heartily agreed and was about to voice it when she was interrupted by a nearby snore. She looked over to see Lyra already sprawled out in sleep using her saddlebags as a makeshift pillow.

“Guess I took more out of her than I thought.” Twilight chuckled awkwardly.

“Don’t worry about it darling. You’re doing better than Princess Platinum and I are.” Rarity had pulled out Princess Platinum’s journal and was idly hoofing through it. “After you’d left, and before Sombra made a mess of the place, I had some time to myself and I spent it reading through this thing. I've almost made it to the end, and do you know what Princess Platinum, looking back on her life, thought her biggest mistake was? She wrote in bold letters and then underlined it that if she could go back and tell herself just one thing it would be to work things out with the earth ponies and pegasi rather than fighting.”

Twilight desperately wanted to go to sleep, but her best friend in the whole world came first. “Rarity, that wasn't you in that cave. There’s nothing you could have done. Believe me, I've looked for time travel spells before, I don’t think they exist, even Starswirl the Bearded couldn't crack it.”

“Don’t you see Twilight, I’m the villain here. The society I've spent my whole life believing in and standing up for scorns common unicorns like Lyra regardless of what they can do, forces pegasi like Fluttershy into thuggery, and grinds earth ponies into abject misery. Maybe Sombra is nothing more than what I've earned.”

“No way.” Came the unexpected response from Applejack. “Look, whatever your great, great, great grandparents might’ve done to mine, you didn't do it to me. Your great, great times whatever grandma Princess Platinum made a whopper of a mistake, and we've all been payin for it since. And I ain't never gonna be a fan of hers. But you're doin your best to fix it, so I don't see where you go sayin her mistakes matter to what you're tryin to do.”

“It does matter.” Rarity whined. “I’m supposed to represent all New Unicornia, and that means upholding the thousands of years of mistakes we've made. I should just go out there in the cold.”

“Oh no you don’t.” Applejack was faster than Twilight at stopping Rarity from letting her misery get the better of her. “You ain't nowhere near perfect, but you’re the best deal us earth ponies have seen in a long while. You’re actually tryin to make things better, and it’s mighty tough, but I’m trying to let go of what Princess Platinum did. Sounds like she beat herself up plenty without my help.”

“Rarity.” It turned out Twilight could stand up one last time. “Why don’t you go help Pinkie Pie keep everyone’s spirits up. I’m sure you’ll feel better if you’re out there helping the ponies you’re feeling guilty about. I'll put out your blanket and pillow so they're waiting for you.”

Twilight knew how to push Rarity’s buttons after so many years of friendship. It didn’t take her long to see that she’d made the right decision in suggesting Rarity get out among the ponies they were travelling with. Rarity was very much in her element as a social butterfly helping others, and it seemed like Applejack wasn't the only earth pony having second thoughts about their opinion of the princess they’d hated for so long.

Rarity didn’t hesitate a heartbeat to dive in among the dirty, smelly ponies of far humbler station. Twilight wished her own exhaustion could wash away as easily as Rarity’s as she laid out her friend's blanket and pillow. She couldn't see herself wrapping hooves starting to show signs of frostbite without a few hours of sleep in her. Nor did Twilight think she could so easily speak with complete strangers about how much their little siblings irritated them, but how much they still loved them. Of course Twilight was a younger sibling herself, and she could admit to herself that she just wasn't wired for such gregariousness in any event.

Sleep beckoned, and Twilight intended to heed its call, but her mind wasn't quite done. Sombra had been yelling about Celestia and Luna back in Platinum City, and here Twilight was in a castle dedicated to the two mythical sisters. She didn’t believe in such legends one bit, but Sombra clearly did, and if she learned more about what made him tick it might give them an advantage. Twilight made a note to herself to read up on the subject in Ponyville, or even to ask Lyra if all else failed. Lyra was an odd one, but her heart was in the right place, and she was apparently quite knowledgeable about all manner of outlandish stories and tales.

With that taken care of, Twilight finally let her eyelids give in to gravity. Stone floor or no, pillow-less, and wrapped only in her cloak against the cold, Twilight Sparkle was asleep almost before her eyes closed.

“Wake up, sleepyhead!” Twilight’s ideal alarm clock was not Pinkie Pie shouting in her ear, but that was the alarm clock she had, and, Twilight had to admit, Pinkie Pie was good at what she did.

Twilight could have used plenty more sleep, but she could see that the group was already ready to leave. In fact, it seemed as though Pinkie Pie had delayed waking Twilight, Lyra, and Rarity until the very end. Wait, Rarity's blanket and pillow looked not just smoothed out after use as she'd expect, but untouched.

"Rarity," it didn't take Twilight long at all to find Rarity stitching a tear in a cloak that looked to be nearly all stitched up tears. "Did you get even a blink of sleep?"

"I'm afraid not darling." Rarity's bloodshot eyes stated that fact clearly enough. "There are so many ponies here who need my help and I guess I just got carried away."

"You have to take care of yourself." Twilight almost dragged her back towards her unused bedroll. "All these ponies are looking up to you. What do you think they're going to say if you work yourself to collapse and we have to carry you the rest of the way?"

"They'll say that I'm sharing in their suffering, and that I'm willing to give everything, everything to make up for what they've endured for generations." Twilight noted with alarm a dangerous light sparking in Rarity's eyes.

Before she could do anything about it, however, Bon Bon's shout got the group of refugee earth ponies moving once more. Rarity shot her a look that said the topic was closed as far as she was concerned. Twilight begged to differ, but Rarity had already gathered her belongings and started walking before Twilight could continue their discussion.

Twilight grabbed at her pack with an experimental burst of magic. It took more effort than it should have, but her magic was returning, and that was something. She started walking at the tail of the group and pulled out Clover's journal. It had proven helpful in the past, maybe she could dredge up some more answers on the way to Ponyville.

“So can I go back in there and beat her face in?” Rainbow Dash was quite ready to make good on her threat. Masquerade had positively infuriated her.

“We’re the good guys.” Shining Armor didn’t exactly sound thrilled to be turning her down. “We don’t beat faces in unless we have to.”

“She’s a traitor!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “She’s gonna get her head taken off with an axe. What difference does it make to her if her face is beat in before that? It’ll make me feel better.”

“Sombra has already thrown the law out the window,” Shining Armor said. “If we want to keep being better than him, we have to keep following the law. Besides, Her Highness is on the way, it’ll be a five minute trial and then, like you said, her neck and an axe have a date. And she’s already plenty peeved off, she really didn’t like that Commander Whoshisface you were talking about.”

“Maremount,” Rainbow Dash supplied the name. “After the founding of New Unicornia there were still a lot of ponies who didn’t want to live here. Commander Maremount led the pegasus remnants that tried to stay independent. At least until he sold the soldiers under his command out for the prospect of a soft, cushy life in New Unicornia. Some of them found out before he could carry out his plan, and, well… you can probably guess what happened from there. Anyways, story goes that when he got to the lowest, hottest pits of Tartarus he got spit back out with a curse on him. He’s doomed to wander the earth, never knowing rest, claiming traitors and betrayers for Tartarus until the end of the world. Getting compared to Commander Maremount is one of the worst insults one pegasus can give another.”

“Well,” Shining Armor quirked an eyebrow, “I can see why Masquerade wouldn’t exactly like you for calling her a name like that. If only it were that simple.”

“It is that simple.” Rainbow Dash spoke absolute conviction. “She’s a traitor, plain and simple. She’ll get her head cut off and then she’ll spend the rest of eternity burning in a fiery pit in Tartarus. Still too good for her and the rest of those scum following Sombra if you ask me.”

“No one ever thinks they’re a traitor. That’s a label the winners stick on the losers at the end of a war. Even when we’re trying to do the right thing it’s almost impossible for a pony in any sort of position to not be breaking some sort of promise or oath at some point in their life.”

“Sure it is.” Rainbow Dash huffed. “When I joined the pegasus guards I swore to obey my superiors and to protect New Unicornia. So did Masquerade, and she's proud to be following a pony who killed the king to take his job.”

“Didn't you say you ran away from your post to warn Twilight after this Lightning Dust came back and told all of you to stay put?”

“That doesn't count.” Rainbow Dash sputtered. “Lightning Dust got sprung from The Academy, I don’t think she was actually back in command when she was going all tinpot tyrant. Besides, your little sister, who way outranks Lightning Dust, told me that I had to keep Princess Rarity safe, so I was just following that order.”

Shining Armor chuckled. “And what if she wasn't? Sombra or Blueblood probably called The Academy and overruled Twilight. So then your commander, who you swore to obey, gave you an order that would put New Unicornia in harm. It’s not a bad thing, I deal with it every day.”

“What do you mean?” Rainbow Dash asked suspiciously, clearly not liking how Shining Armor was questioning the very foundations of what made her, her.

“You noticed the earth ponies in the inner town and even here in the castle right?” Shining Armor asked just as they walked past one such earth pony. “The law of the land in New Unicornia makes it nearly impossible for earth ponies to get into the inner city without a darn good reason, and there should never be a single earth pony hoof in the castle that's not in a cell in the dungeons as far as the law is concerned. I swore to uphold the laws of New Unicornia when I took over Ponyville, so I’m breaking my oath right?”

Rainbow Dash just glared back at him, sure that he wasn't finished. She was right.

“I also swore to see to the safety and security of the ponies in and around Ponyville. Well the Everfree Forest is just a hundred or so meters from the town walls, and the next time I have enough unicorns and pegasi to guard the outer wall as much as it needs guarding will be the first. That means I’m going to be violating part of my oath whatever I do. I either obey the law and keep the earth ponies in ‘their place,’ or I let earth ponies do things normally reserved for pegasi and unicorns and keep the town and the ponies inside safe.”

Rainbow Dash grumbled. “If I knew where everyone else was I’d so be out of here already.”

“Look,” Shining Armor said in a very conciliatory tone. “I’m not saying you’re wrong. I absolutely agree that Sombra and everyone following him deserves a short step and a long fall. I just think it’s important we remember that they think they’re right, and that we understand why they think they’re right. Masquerade said flat out that Her Highness’ stance on earth ponies would lead to the ruin of New Unicornia. She didn’t deny that Rarity is the rightful ruler of New Unicornia with her father dead, but Masquerade clearly thinks that what she’s doing is saving all of us, and she thinks that’s worth following Sombra for.”

“Doesn't mean I’m gonna enjoy it any less when they do get sent off to Tartarus, bunch of Maremounts.” Rainbow Dash didn’t care that she sounded petulant.

“I’ll be right beside you cheering them on…” Before Shining Armor could continue an aide rushed up to him.

“Your Lordship, there’s a large group of ponies approaching. We think it might be the group Lady Sparkle is with.”

“Have you already put additional guards on the wall in case it’s not my little sister?” Shining Armor immediately began to trot out into Ponyville in a very business-like manner.

“Of course,” the aide replied.

Rainbow Dash wanted very much to take flight and find out if it really was Fluttershy and the others. In a rare moment of caution she decided to stick with Shining Armor rather than race through a town of nervous, armed ponies who wouldn't recognize her.

Thankfully, Shining Armor had a trot quick enough to satisfy Rainbow Dash. She did fly up the stairs to the wall though. No way she was cramming herself in any more tight spaces than she had to, pegasi were meant for the open skies.

The group of ponies was certainly large enough to be the one she’d gone ahead of, and they looked ragged enough to be earth pony refugees.

A few of the ponies came out ahead of the group and Shining Armor shouted something that Rainbow Dash knew she would keep getting enjoyment from for awhile.

“Twiley!”