Succession

by Helrael

18 - Bound Anew

Silence. She touched her palms to her ear holes, verifying that they were actually still there. Silence. She felt a perverse desire to turn back, but it was quelled when she found that the passageway from which she had entered had been replaced by a black stone wall. Silence. The eternal, tormented screams of ancient spirits, their ever present mutterings, the shrieks of fury and fear that came from nowhere and everywhere at once, the demented cackles that had kept her awake day and night… all of them gone.

Her multi-jointed legs folded together as she fell to her knees, as if weighed down by the sudden, heavy stillness that surrounded her. Her surroundings too had mellowed from what she was used to. The stone around her was smooth. Still. The jagged, twisting, screaming tunnel through which she had been wandering for weeks or perhaps just minutes had opened up into a cave nearly fifty feet tall and many times wider. The stone surrounding her was bright, almost glaring, and when she turned to look at the source of light, she was blinded by its intensity.

“Sure you’ll be alright?” Spike asked worriedly as the palace guards parted before Twilight and the doors behind them swung open. The dragon had met her just outside her temporary cell, and the two of them, along with an escort of a dozen soldiers, now stood before the council conclave.

Twilight took a deep breath to steady herself. “I’ll be fine, Spike. They’re not happy with me, but I’m sure they won’t imprison me.”

“It sure sounds like they want to.”

“They won’t. Besides, it’s not like they even can, right?” she tried joking, but failed to cheer up Spike. “I’ll find you as soon as I’m done with the council,” she promised him. “Just to say ‘I told you so’.”

The dragon managed the slightest, fleeting hint of a smile and nodded as Twilight limped through the open doorway, wincing with every movement her left foreleg made. Her escort followed her inside, and the doors closed behind them almost immediately, allowing Twilight only a quick glimpse back at Spike before they were separated. The soldier standing between her and the door motioned for her to keep going, and the unicorn returned her gaze to the council table. At the moment, the conclave was almost empty, save for Artemis, who had already found her seat. The head of Equestria’s sciences gave Twilight an uneasy smile as she noticed the new arrival, skimming through a few papers in front of her before making them vanish into thin air.

The chairs reserved for the council members had been rearranged for the occasion, standing now in a wide semicircle around the table and facing a single chair on the opposite side, no doubt intended for the defendant of the trial.

“How’s the leg, Twilight?” the violet unicorn asked, shifting into a more comfortable position on her seat.

“Full of bone-deep gashes,” Twilight replied with a grimace, sighing as she reached her designated seat and was finally able to sit down.

Artemis winced and nodded her head understandingly. “The horn? I heard about your ceratic overload.”

“Better than the leg. It’s healed pretty quickly.”

“I suppose that’s always something,” Artemis observed, flashing her another nervous smile before turning her attention to the escort. “You can all leave now, thank you. She isn’t going to run off.” The guards nodded their heads stiffly and retreated, and Artemis watched them carefully as they went. “Feel ready for the trial?” she asked as the doors to the conclave closed once more.

“Well, I haven’t really had a chance to prepare anything,” Twilight grumbled. “I’ve been locked up since Coup brought me here yesterday. Don’t I get a lawyer?”

“Uh, no. Not per se,” Artemis admitted guiltily. “The council wanted to resolve this matter discreetly, so we’ll treat this more like a regular, private council meeting and less like an actual trial.”

“That doesn’t seem fair.”

“Quiescent Atonement will be the judge,” Artemis told her. “The alternative would be a court-martial directed by Scarlet Bolt. I shouldn’t need to tell you which scenario would suit your interests best. Besides, I’ve got your back.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow, but Artemis didn’t get a chance to elaborate before the doors to the conclave opened. ‘Trust me,’ she mouthed silently before Scarlet Bolt strode into the chambers, followed by the two other pegasi of the council, Rain Dancer and Quiescent Atonement as well as, to Twilight’s dismay, Coup de Grâce. It wasn’t long before Penning Draft, Lucre, and Civil Tenet, one by one, came down the stairs set into the walls and seated themselves at the table with the others, filling out the last of the eight seats facing Twilight.

On the center chairs sat Quiescent Atonement and Scarlet Bolt, the former’s calm eyes carefully scrutinizing the lavender unicorn, his face a mask of apathy indecipherable to her. Lucre sat at the gray pegasus’ side, both he and Scarlet Bolt looking less than pleased with Twilight. Coup de Grâce sat beside Scarlet Bolt, her face set into a scowl so deep it made Twilight wonder whether the pegasus had allowed herself even a hint of a smile since departing Ponyville. The unicorn mares of the council, Civil Tenet and Artemis, were seated next to Lucre, and the two remaining seats next to Coup de Grâce were occupied by Rain Dancer and Penning Draft.

“Where are the rest?” Twilight asked in confusion, regarding the eight ponies before her. “Amity and Bramley?”

“Yesterday morning, we got a piece of bad news,” Penning Draft explained sadly. “Coltdoba’s finally made good of its threat. They’ve declared complete independence from Equestria and have ceased all export of crops to the rest of the nation. Our two farmers are off ta salvage the situation.”

“The heads of military and justice, however,” Quiescent Atonement offered, his voice as painstakingly slow and dull as ever, “are still present, and have been deemed sufficient to make a decision on this matter regarding your... insubordination and subsequent desertion.”

Twilight nodded her head grudgingly.

“Then let’s get to the point,” Scarlet Bolt cut in, leaning in across the table. “You sit here accused of entering the Canterlot danger zone, which goes against the orders of not only your acting superior at the time, but the Council of Nine! Both of us have expressly forbidden you to do so! Your actions led to the death of three soldiers under your protection, and at an unspecified time, you left Canterlot and headed for Ponyville, effectively abandoning the duties set before you. How do you plead?”

Twilight sighed and looked at her hooves for a moment before answering. “Guilty, I suppose. But not without reason.”

“Indubitably,” Quiescent Atonement said. “No crime without a motive. Enlighten us.”

“It’s not… Ugh, the alicorn, the one from Neighbury, was down in the caverns,” Twilight tried explaining, but was almost immediately cut off by Lucre’s snort of derision.

“The alicorn? Again? You keep seeing this creature, but conveniently enough, nopony else seems to be present when you come upon him! Everything that goes wrong, including, it would seem, your desertion, you blame upon this stallion of whom we have no records or eye witnesses!”

“He does exist! What about the citizens of Neighbury?” Twilight countered. “Don’t they count?”

“The few that caught sight of the perpetrator do indeed describe an alicorn standing in the town square,” Quiescent Atonement explained. “But every witness describes this creature as Nightmare Moon.”

“They look alike!” Twilight insisted with frustration.

“You will forgive us if we are more inclined to believe half a hundred witnesses over your own testimony!” Lucre shot back, but the gray pegasus held up a hoof to silence him.

“When it comes to the existence of this alicorn, I, for one, remain undecided. The witnesses of Neighbury all claim to have seen Nightmare Moon, but... I must agree with Twilight Sparkle on this matter. When frightened ponies fleeing their home see a dark alicorn, and the Council of Nine has, prematurely, declared that Nightmare Moon has returned, some degree of bias is to be expected. There is evidence suggesting Lucre is right to question the belief of this alicorn of yours, but there is also reason to question whether the return of Nightmare Moon is a reality.” The judge was silent for a while, deep in thought, before he continued. “A discussion will likely prove inconclusive, so I question the relevance of the identity of this… creature in the caverns.”

Twilight shook her head slowly, letting the matter go. “It’s not irrelevant, but fine. Something was down in the caverns, and that something was killing off a lot of ponies. You can’t deny that,” she told Lucre. “I’m of the belief that this creature was the one behind The Great Tragedy, Neighbury, and Dragoncrest, but most importantly I suppose, the creature was the one Coup had ordered me to kill. I left the caverns in order to do just that.”

“And did you?” Coup challenged the unicorn. “Did you kill the creature?”

“No,” Twilight admitted, giving the pegasus a glare that was promptly returned. “It got away. But I bet you didn’t have any trouble with it after I left! I chased it into Canterlot!”

“Fact remains you went against an order given to you both by me and the council!” Coup insisted, but Twilight wouldn’t hear it.

“That thing was laughing while it murdered everyone in Team Cyan!” she insisted angrily. “It was probably laughing as it decapitated Iron Sword! He was one of your closest friends, right? Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing in my situation!”

“This isn’t about what Coup would or wouldn’t have done!” Scarlet Bolt countered. “This is about what you have done, and why you have done it!” The scarred pegasus gave a sigh of exasperation. “So, you entered Canterlot in order to track this... whatever it was, down. Because you wanted to follow Coup’s second order?”

“Yes.”

“So you had no qualms with killing on this particular mission?”

Twilight’s brow furrowed, and her gaze fell to her hooves again. “Not with him. Not after what he did.” Her left foreleg twitched involuntarily as she dwelled momentarily on the black alicorn’s crimes, and Twilight winced at the pain that immediately gripped the torn muscles. Something within her, something that was part of her and yet not, enjoyed the sensation, and Twilight felt a surge of anger replace that of pain.

This is my body!

“And what did ‘he’ do?” Scarlet Bolt pressed, interrupting Twilight’s minor battle with the stray mind within her mind. “Is this about Neighbury?”

“You have to respect that she’s not ready to talk about that,” Artemis broke in, noticing Twilight’s darkening mood.

“I do not see why!” Lucre objected. “She’s here to defend a crime she committed! If we ask her to tell us why she went against one of our most important orders, she had better tell us!”

“Surely you must understand,” Civil Tenet offered unexpectedly, looking at Scarlet Bolt. “You refused to talk to anypony about your scars for the first few months after getting them if I recall.”

“I didn’t kill a burrow of diamond dogs after Zebrica,” Scarlet Bolt muttered.

“He killed Celestia!” Twilight erupted, suddenly and belatedly, as if the answer to Scarlet Bolt’s question had been dammed up for the past few seconds. “He killed half of the ponies I knew and loved! I know you don’t know, I know some of you don’t even believe it, but I know! Yes, I want to kill him!”

While most of the council members seemed to be at a loss for words immediately following the outburst, Scarlet Bolt found it within herself to chuckle. “Fair enough. So you do admit that this was a personal matter rather than a misguided attempt at following Coup’s orders?”

“N-no, it was more than that!” Twilight insisted, her anger dissipating when she realized Scarlet Bolt was using it against her. Temporarily, at least, the mind within her mind was forced away by an instinctive need to defend herself. “I did it for Equestria! As long as that alicorn is around, things won’t get any better around here!”

“We still haven’t agreed upon the existence of your alicorn,” Lucre pointed out, eliciting a glare from Twilight.

“Someone was there when the Canterlot palace was destroyed!” she hissed through clenched teeth.

“Someone indeed,” Lucre replied drily, giving the unicorn a disdainful sniff.

Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Scarlet Bolt cut in. “You went to Canterlot to kill this creature, and you failed. But then you went to Ponyville instead of returning to the Sword of Equestria. Why?”

“Her path back was destroyed,” Artemis reminded Scarlet Bolt. “She couldn’t have gone back.”

“I’m asking Twilight, Artemis!” Scarlet Bolt growled at the unicorn. “I’m sure she has a much better idea of what happened than you do!” She returned her gaze to Twilight. “You got down the mountain somehow, but the mining outpost would have been a lot closer to you than Ponyville.”

“Miss your friends?” Lucre remarked, his tone more than a little mocking.

“How did you get there with you leg looking like that?” Rain Dancer asked, eyeing the bandages on Twilight’s leg.

“I… didn’t mean to go to Ponyville.” Twilight explained. The rebellious mind within her returned and was joined by more of its brethren, all rushing out from the dark corner of her mind she had allocated them to, all of them clinging to the memory that Scarlet Bolt’s question had now brought to the forefront of her mind. “I was being hunted by hundreds of creatures from… from Canterlot, and I just... wanted... to get away from them! So I… teleported!”

Artemis raised an eyebrow both at the statement and the increasing difficulty with which Twilight seemed to speak. “All the way down the mountain?”

“To Ponyville.”

Several ponies’ eyes widened. Rain Dancer leaned over the table to look at Artemis. “Is that possible?”

“If you can recall the destination with sufficient clarity, the teleportation is... possible,” Artemis explained to the pegasus, her own eyes not leaving Twilight. “Twilight’s hometown qualifies. But the distance... That requires a monumental amount of magic. Did your magic increase again somehow?”

Twilight nodded, but didn’t say anything.

Not… now! She felt her horn vibrating slightly, not nearly enough for anyone to notice, but enough to fill her head with a soft humming noise.

The humming grew louder as she approached the only source of light within the cave she had lost herself in: A gate large enough to fit a dragon, wrought entirely of an alloy she had never seen before. But through the incredible brightness of whatever lay beyond the gate, she could see the metal bars glowing softly in a myriad of colors, warning her that they were more than they seemed. The colors themselves, for a reason she could not quite understand, brought to the forefront of her mind a name she had occasionally heard, a growl emitted from the ground itself when one was listening for it.

Celestia.

Abruptly, the glow of the gate flickered, and a segment of a nearby metal bar, as thick as her arm was long and many times longer than she was tall, was cut loose from something beyond the gate and blasted into the cave, sailing over her in a short arc before landing on the ground with a clatter that made her wince and clutch her ears.

She looked back to the hole in the gate, but the light was gone. In the center of her vision, she found instead a pair of amber eyes, shining with… darkness, it seemed, draining the surrounding world of its color and brightness, sucking it all in until the eyes were all she saw.

A loud thud brought Twilight back to reality, and she looked at Lucre, whose hoof had just been slammed against the table.

“I said, care to elaborate?” he hissed.

Twilight blinked. “W-what?”

“She’s hopeless!” Lucre grimaced and looked at Scarlet Bolt and Quiescent Atonement. “So, what? We skip this too?”

“We are straying from the purpose of this meeting,” Quiescent Atonement replied. “How Twilight Sparkle escaped Canterlot - beyond her teleporting - is of little relevance. She admitted herself guilty of both insubordination and desertion, and she committed both crimes deliberately‒”

“I told you I didn’t mean to go to Ponyville!” Twilight objected, managing to once more push away the other occupants of her mind for the time being. “It just happened!”

Now it was Quiescent’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Are you not the unicorn who studied under Princess Celestia herself? Is your special talent and Element of Harmony not magic? I find it difficult to believe that one such as you would overshoot a teleportation spell by such a wide margin unintentionally.”

“Captain Coup located Twilight partly due to a lightning bolt being fired from the Ponyville hospital,” Artemis broke in. “During or shortly after the captain’s… disagreement with the Element of Loyalty” ‒ Artemis threw a dissatisfied glare at the chocolate brown pegasus, who seemed entirely unaffected by the subtle hint of accusation in the unicorn’s voice ‒ “Twilight suffered from some sort of self-inflicted magical overload. I’m reminded of the episodes following Twilight’s comas, both the one from Neighbury and the one she suffered under while in the Canterlot hospital. Twilight walked away from both of those events with higher magical power than before, and I believe the same is true here. All three instances involve mishaps caused by out-of-control magic.”

“Slaughtering diamond dogs is a mishap now!?” Lucre demanded incredulously.

“Primrose, a medic on the Sword, did mention something about Twilight having too much magic,” Scarlet Bolt added reluctantly. “But entering Canterlot in the first place still counts as willful desertion in my book, even if you didn’t mean to go to Ponyville afterwards.”

“I was chasing the alicorn!” Twilight insisted, slamming a hoof down on the table.

“That doesn’t matter!” Scarlet Bolt returned. “The fact of the matter is that you went directly against our‒”

“It doesn’t matter!? That alicorn is the root of all of our problems! You can kill all the crazed animals you want, make as many solites as you please, but as long as he’s around, he can take away all of your progress on a whim! Despite the danger, I went into the depths of the Everfree Forest to defeat Nightmare Moon several years ago, and I went into Canterlot to defeat that alicorn!”

“But did you succeed?” Lucre asked of the unicorn, shaking his head. “He got away, didn’t he? Provided he’s real, that is.”

“I met him,” Twilight revealed, staring pointedly at Lucre. “And I’m one step closer to defeating him. That’s more than can be said of any of you!”

“He melted the Canterlot palace!” Scarlet Bolt objected. “What do you want us to do!?”

“Not imprisoning me for trying to kill him would be a good start!”

“Your ability to… perhaps end the threat of the murderer of Princess Celestia and Luna does not raise you above the law,” Quiescent told the unicorn. “No matter our status or power, we are all required to follow the rules of society. You broke one very important rule, and three ponies died for it.”

Twilight shook her head angrily. “I refuse to be blamed for that! The alicorn killed those ponies!”

“Of course he did,” Lucre sighed.

“Shut up!” Twilight snapped at the brown unicorn, who bristled at her words. “You don’t know anything about it, Lucre! I’m the one who’s been out there! You haven’t faced that monster like I have! You haven’t seen his magic! If you had, you would know. That thing murdered Celestia and Luna, my big brother, my sister-in-law, and destroyed Canterlot and the sun! He’s traumatized me out of my mind and ruined the relationship I had with some of my closest friends! He is a monster through and through! I’ll kill him if it’s the last thing I do, and none of you would get in my way if you… just… knew!” She slammed the table with her hoof again as she finished her tirade, and had to hold back a groan of pain as the movement triggered a sharp pain in her left leg. Once the pain had passed, she looked back up at the gathered council ponies only to find that the majority of them were regarding her with shocked expressions, her outburst having been met with complete silence again.

“What were you thinking when you let her back on the Sword!?” Coup de Grâce hissed quietly at Scarlet Bolt, who glared back at the large pegasus.

“After what you did in Ponyville, you are not going to criticize my judgment, Coup!” the pink pegasus hissed back.

“Twilight?” Civil Tenet asked worriedly of her, the silver unicorn’s expression reminding her all too much of Celestia. “What... happened to you?”

Twilight shuddered at herself, but before she could begin to form any sort of coherent explanation, Artemis answered. “We’ve abused her. That’s what.”

“Abused her?” Civil Tenet echoed, looking at the unicorn next to her with surprise. “Why, what do you mean?”

“Princess Celestia was killed and we lost her sun in the process,” Artemis explained, her gaze fixed on the rim of her glasses rather than anything else. “The mission to Canterlot confirms that our capital, something that survived even Discord’s reign, is now in ruins, and that we’ve lost the Elements of Harmony. With everything else gone, you could say that Twilight here is all that remains of Princess Celestia’s legacy.”

Scarlet Bolt’s brow furrowed. “And so?”

“Celestia’s legacy shouldn’t be used as a weapon, Scarlet. It’s a waste of her potential and a bad idea.”

Scarlet Bolt snorted. “A bad idea!? If that ursa from Wild Weald hadn’t been stopped, you’d be whistling a different tune, I can tell you that much! It’s easy to wave off everything the Equestrian Guard does for you ponies when you’re living in a palace!” She threw a hoof at the large window behind the council ponies. “Ponies die out there every day! And I don’t just mean soldiers dying for their country, I mean regular old, innocent ponies! Mugging and murdering is almost a common sight nowadays! On top of that, there’s the ursas, the wolves, the windigoes, the dragons, you name it! Without the ponies under my command, none of you would be here! I can tell you, the Sword of Equestria is not a waste of Twilight’s potential! The effects of her service may not be apparent to you, but they are there!”

“Then enlighten us,” Artemis challenged the pegasus. “The way I see it, the windigoes in Vyatkiev are being dealt with entirely without Twilight’s help, and from what I read of the crystal cavern mission report, Twilight’s powers were hardly employed. The ursa major was destroyed by Lightning Rod, Dragoncrest was scouted out by pegasi, and I daresay the timberwolves would have been dealt with easily with or without Twilight Sparkle. I don’t know why you didn’t realize this sooner, Scarlet, but Twilight doesn’t seem all that ‘invaluable’ to these missions of yours. She saves you some time, but that seems about it.”

“That is an incredibly abridged recount of those missions,” Scarlet Bolt grumbled in response. “What you say is a half-truth at best!”

“At the opening of this very session, you accused Twilight of being responsible for the deaths of three soldiers,” Artemis reminded the other coolly. “Her decision at Dragoncrest got a hoofful of Equestria’s best soldiers killed. That doesn’t sound like an invaluable asset to me. More like a liability. She’s a failure as a military commander, her combat contributions are negligible, and all this killing is clearly getting to her.”

“Her usefulness as a soldier has nothing to with what we’re discussing now!” Scarlet Bolt argued heatedly. “Did she do it, why did she do it, and what should we do about it? That’s what this is about!”

“In her own roundabout way, I think that is exactly what Artemis is trying to discuss,” Civil Tenet responded in place of Artemis. “What to do with Twilight? I cannot say whether it was right or wrong to draft her in the first place, but seeing as how she obviously will not be serving in the military anymore, we should focus on how she should service Equestria in the future.”

“You mean outside of being locked away in the dungeon?” Lucre asked of the silver unicorn, raising an eyebrow at her.

“Well, of course!” Civil Tenet exclaimed, her eyes widening at the idea.

“She’s responsible for three soldiers’ deaths!”

“We cannot seriously consider imprisoning Celestia’s only legacy!”

“It would be a monumental waste,” Artemis agreed. “One we cannot afford as things currently stand.”

Lucre rolled his eyes. “You make her out to be some sort of saint! She’s not! Feel free to visit that diamond dog burrow if you disagree!”

Civil Tenet grimaced, but did not yield. “Even so, you cannot deny Twilight’s services could be put to better use. Not only her sheer magical power, but her status as well. Who better to publicly condemn the actions of Coltdoba than the cornerstone of the Elements of Harmony herself?”

Twilight was about to voice a halfhearted protest at the idea of being turned into a political figurehead when Quiescent Atonement finally spoke again. “It seems everypony agree that Twilight Sparkle is guilty of the crimes of which she stands accused. As could be expected. What remains to be decided is what disciplinary course of action should be taken.” The other council ponies stopped their bickering and nodded, and after a moment’s hesitation, the gray pegasus continued. “As I see it, two parties of conflicting interests have formed: Lucre and Scarlet Bolt wish to see Twilight incarcerated, while Civil Tenet and Artemis want her services transferred to one or more members of the council; community service somewhat similar to our initial punishment for the solite incident.” Quiescent Atonement turned his attention to the two ponies sitting to his far right. “Which leaves us with Penning Draft and Rain Dancer.”

“And yerself,” the elderly earth pony shot back, clearly debating the matter with himself as he brought a hoof to his chin.

“There are some purely practical problems with imprisoning Twilight as far as I can see,” Rain Dancer offered as she too considered the choice. “I mean, do we have a cell that can hold her? Unicorns aren’t supposed to be able to break ceratic seals, but Twilight did… somehow.”

“I can think of several ways to contain her,” Lucre assured the pegasus confidently. “One of them involves a cockatrice.”

Rain Dancer shook her head. “In most cases, I would’ve probably gone with imprisonment, but these are hard times. We need Twilight’s help. I’d rather have her making solites than sitting around in a prison.”

“I can’t let Twilight go with a clear conscience,” Penning Draft sighed as he too came to his conclusion. “My gut tells me something’s... off about ya, Twi.” He turned to the rest of the council. “I say she needs to slow down for a few months and get her problems sorted out, not experiment with solar magic or what have you.”

Beside him, Coup de Grâce nodded her approval while Quiescent Atonement closed his eyes, once again retreating into deep thought. The silence wore on as everypony waited for the head of justice’s verdict, and after half a minute, he finally opened his eyes, looking straight at Twilight. For a full minute, the pegasus simply stared, as if gazing straight through her, his amber eyes disconcertingly reminiscent of the dark alicorn’s.

“You are keeping something from us,” he finally said, his voice so calm that Twilight was unable to tell whether it was an accusation or a statement. A shiver went up her spine, however, as she briefly considered what secrets the pegasus might be referring to. “Something that so very easily justifies some of my colleagues’ mistrust in you.” Quiescent Atonement fell silent again, his eyes still boring into Twilight’s. “But when I look at you, deep within you, I see the light of Princess Celestia. It is clouded by this darkness you keep from us, but I believe you when you say you wish to help Equestria. The question, then, is whether you are capable of doing so...” The pegasus closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat.

After a moment, he spoke again, his eyes still shut. “A decision has been made. Prison... does not seem a viable solution; not for Equestria’s sake, and not for the sake of Twilight Sparkle’s rehabilitation. I believe she suffers from several undisclosed emotional traumas, and as Primrose informed us, it seems her magical powers have somehow risen to a level in which they have become a burden to her, threatening her mental stability. Is it so?” His eyes opened, waiting for the unicorn’s answer.

Twilight gulped at the question, unsure of what the best answer for her would be. Her eyes found Artemis’s, and Twilight noticed the other unicorn nod her head ever so slightly, staring straight back at her. “Y-yes,” Twilight answered Quiescent Atonement timidly, hoping that Artemis knew what she was doing.

The pegasus nodded his head slowly, closing his eyes for a few seconds again before speaking. “Then I must leave Twilight Sparkle to serve under council member Artemis, who may use her services as she sees fit, provided these duties reduce Twilight Sparkle’s available reserves of magic to a manageable level.”

Attention turned for a moment to Artemis, who nodded at Quiescent Atonement’s decision. “Equestria has plenty of uses for Twilight’s magic. I’ll keep her busy.”

“Are we seriously going to let a deserter do exactly what she wants!?” Scarlet Bolt demanded angrily. “She defied her superiors! That calls for disciplinary action!”

“Which is why we are assigning her community service,” Artemis countered.

“I know you’re going to use her for your solite research,” Scarlet Bolt argued, “and we all know that’s exactly what Twilight wants! It’s not a punishment!”

“If we reward this kind of disobedience,” Lucre backed the pink pegasus up, “it’s no wonder we’ve lost Coltdoba!”

“Twilight Sparkle’s interests align with those of Equestria’s,” Quiescent Atonement offered calmly. “Such is a rare trait in a criminal. I am therefore disinclined to treat her as one. My ruling is not meant as a punishment, Lucre. Its purpose is serving Equestria and rehabilitating Twilight Sparkle.”

“I can’t help but doubt the wisdom of yer decision, though,” Penning Draft opted as the rest of the council fell silent. “As you yerself said, Twilight’s... not stable.”

“All evidence points to this, yes,” Quiescent Atonement agreed. “So, if you will allow me to finish: Twilight’s service under Artemis will continue for a trial period of one week, during which time Artemis and two impartial ponies appointed by myself will take note of Twilight Sparkle’s behavior and mental condition. Should it be deemed necessary, a psychologist will be assigned to Twilight Sparkle, and her service under Artemis may or may not be discontinued... depending on the potential severity of mental disorder disclosed during the trial period. Should Artemis have any complaints with Twilight Sparkle’s services, or should Twilight Sparkle violate any Equestrian law while working under Artemis, the council will reconvene on the matter. I will reevaluate my ruling and be more inclined to agree with your standing,” he finished, nodding at Penning Draft.

The earth pony leaned back into his seat as he considered the decision. “So we give her a chance to pull herself together and then crack down on her by the end of the week.” He sighed and then nodded slowly. “A’right. It’s a compromise I’m willing to make.”

“We too are in agreement with the ruling,” Civil Tenet spoke for herself and Artemis.

“As am I,” Rain Dancer added.

“I was right about throwing Discord in the ocean,” Scarlet Bolt sighed as she surrendered to the majority, “and I’m right about this. But it seems the council has spoken.”

Lucre said nothing, only rose from his seat and gave Twilight a frosty glare as he strode out the doors to the conclave, soon followed by Coup de Grâce.

“It’s decided then,” Quiescent Atonement concluded after the doors were shut by the guards posted outside. “Twilight Sparkle, you will be left in the custody of Artemis, effective immediately. Your trial period will commence as soon as I have appointed the two adjudicators, who will then follow you wherever you go.” The gray pegasus gazed at each of the remaining council members and Twilight. “Any further questions?”

“Not one that has anything to do with this,” Twilight replied, “but... I never found out what happened to Rainbow Dash.”

“She’ll be alright,” Scarlet Bolt assured her. “Coup broke her nose, and she’ll need a few stitches, but she should be back on top in a week or two.”

“We will need to decide what to do about Coup de Grâce before the week is out,” Civil Tenet told the scarred pegasus, who nodded grudgingly.

“We will leave that to you,” Quiescent Atonement declared, giving Scarlet Bolt a nod before he rose from his seat. “I suggest one hour of recess. We will allow Lucre to calm down before we finalize our emergency plans should negotiations in Coltdoba fail.”

“Which they will,” Scarlet Bolt remarked cynically, she too rising from her seat. “We have little to offer them and we ask for a lot.”

With a satisfied smile, Artemis rose from her seat and headed toward the stairs set in the side of the chamber, gesturing for Twilight to follow. “That went pretty well,” the head of science remarked as she and Twilight started up the stairs, the former trotting up the steps at a brisk, excited pace while the latter struggled with climbing them due to her maimed leg. “No more wasting your time with the tasks of a common soldier, but working to secure a better future for Equestria. We have so many options...” The violet unicorn reached the top of the stairs and opened the door leading out of the conclave, standing by the exit and waiting somewhat impatiently for Twilight to catch up. “I’ve waited a long time for the opportunity to work with you!”

“Thanks,” Twilight could only reply, her three healthy legs still shaky from facing the council. “It was a pretty close call.”

Artemis waved it off like it was nothing as they both passed through the doorway, her pace down the hallway beyond picking up to the point where Twilight couldn’t possibly keep up. “I was partly responsible for roping you into that whole mess to begin with. Consider this a way of apologizing. If it’s not enough, I even have a gift for you. If you’re still interested in that amulet we talked about before you left, that is. Should be ready by tomorrow.”

“Could you, uh, slow down?” Twilight asked of the other unicorn that was now twenty feet ahead of her, wincing in pain as she tried to close the gap.

“Oh. Sorry, sorry.” Artemis trotted backwards so she could once again walk at Twilight’s side, this time at a much slower pace. “I guess I am a little excited. There’s just so many opportunities! I-I was thinking we’d start off with Neighbury: I’d like you to take a look at the markings this alicorn, whoever it is, left. It’s definitely not Equestrian, nor is it any older kind of known pony script. We’ve had griffon historians and zebra shamans of ten different tribes out looking at it, but none of them recognize a thing. A diamond dog will be looking at it in two days’ time, but I doubt he’ll find anything of use either.”

“What makes you think I’ll find anything?” Twilight asked of the other unicorn who now stopped at a door fairly close to the conclave entrance. “Historical linguistics isn’t exactly something I’ve ever studied.”

“Well, whatever script it is, the symbols themselves exude large quantities of magical energy,” Artemis explained as she opened the door, and Twilight realized they had reached the head of science’s private quarters. They entered a darkened, modestly sized circular living room, and Twilight assumed that they now stood within one of the palace’s smaller towers. A tiny mote of indigo light zipped from Artemis’ horn to a small crystal set into the center of the ceiling, and it immediately lit up with the same color. “Different symbols have different frequencies and patterns... It’s as if the markings are... spells given physical form.” Narrow columns set into the black marble wall behind them and between the floor-to-floor blue-tinted glass panels along the far side of the wall lit up as the indigo light in the crystal was transferred to them, illuminating the room completely. “And if anyone knows spells, it’s you.”

Artemis gestured at two cushioned armchairs on the other side of the small living room, and Twilight raised an eyebrow as she hobbled toward one of them. She could have sworn there was only one when they had entered. Reminding herself that she was in the company of Equestria’s former Archmage, Twilight dismissed the thought. As she and Artemis seated themselves, a circular marble tile between the two detached itself from the floor and became a table as it hovered a few feet into the air. Twilight couldn’t help but smile at Artemis’ satisfied grin.

“It’s an impressive setup you’ve got here,” she remarked, lowering her head briefly to confirm that nothing physical was supporting the tabletop hovering in front of her.

“I bet it’s nothing compared to your library,” Artemis returned, waving a hoof at the compliment.

Twilight shook her head. “Ponyville mostly follows traditional earth pony values, and the library is an iconic building. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be allowed to change anything. The lightning rod is the only magical thing about it.”

“Took a while for me to convince Penning to let me modify this place,” Artemis admitted, “but I’d just grown too accustomed to living with my gadgets to take no for an answer.” She gestured at the table in front of her. “Can I interest you in a drink? Snack?”

“Uh, water, I guess,” Twilight replied. “I ate just before the court session downstairs.”

Artemis nodded, and the tabletop departed, moving ‒ it seemed ‒ not as a result of the violet unicorn’s magic, but the magic infused in the home itself. An indigo circle appeared on the ceiling just above the two, and the tabletop moved through it, passing through the black marble ceiling as if it weren’t there.

“Kitchen’s upstairs,” she explained, once again smirking at Twilight’s surprised expression. “Used to be the stairs took up the majority of all but the top room of this tower, so when I took the whole thing as my living quarters, nopony really objected. Would you mind if I took a bite of lunch? I’ll probably be stuck in the conclave the rest of the afternoon once this break is over.”

“Uh, sure.”

Artemis nodded appreciatively and leaned back in her chair. “Alright, back to business. As I said, the symbols in Neighbury seem to constitute some sort of spell. Or spells; I have no idea. Given that these markings cover approximately the same area as the entirety of Neighbury did, however, I suspect the magic’s pretty potent. I’d rather find out what the nature of this magic is first, but if all else fails, the council’s agreed the markings should be destroyed.”

“That sounds like the best course of action,” Twilight agreed. “Whatever that alicorn wants, it’s probably not in our interest.”

“You’re an astronomer, right?” Artemis asked of Twilight, who nodded.

“It’s a hobby of mine, yes. Why?”

“This alicorn destroyed Neighbury and placed his markings there shortly afterwards,” Artemis explained. “Not directly on top of where the town used to be, but slightly askew. Either he’s a complete sadist and destroyed the town for no other reason than to destroy the town, which isn’t entirely unthinkable, or the location of those symbols plays an important role in their function. Lately, I’ve been thinking the symbols might require some sort of special stellar configuration above for them to activate or something.”

Twilight considered the suggestion for a while. “Might be. But unless there’s some direct connection with the pattern of the symbols and the stars above, it would probably be impossible to find out which constellation would trigger an effect. It might also have something to do with the underground. Maybe there’s a large deposit of crystals underneath Neighbury?”

“Scans haven’t shown anything, but I doubt spells like that are entirely reliable given the huge amount of magic radiating from those markings. We’ll excavate the area once we’ve destroyed them,” Artemis informed her, nodding her agreement. She paused for a moment before speaking again. “Would you be up for leaving Manehattan later today to go to Neighbury? I figured the sooner we did it the better, right?”

“Uh, well, I wouldn’t mind,” Twilight replied, “but what about Quiescent Atonement? He wanted two ponies to go with me wherever I went, right?”

“They’re supposed to do that during your trial period,” Artemis clarified with a mischievous grin. “And the trial period doesn’t start until he’s assigned someone to follow you. Either we go now and study the markings in peace, or we go later and try to study the markings while two psychologists ask you how you’re feeling every five minutes.”

Twilight chuckled. “When you put it like that, going now sounds like the best option. As long as you deal with any mad council members when we come back.”

“‘The fluctuations in the energy emitted by the markings seemed to suggest that the magic might dissipate over time, perhaps even at an accelerated rate. This would of course make the symbols unreadable, so time was of the essence if Twilight and I were to decipher the meaning of the markings,’” Artemis said in a tone of mock professionalism and smiled at Twilight. “And then we tell them you found out my predictions were inaccurate and that we can’t actually conclude anything about the symbols’ longevity. They’ll eat it raw. Knowledge is our brand of power, Twilight,” the violet unicorn told her as the tabletop reemerged through the ceiling. “And with it, we rule the ignorant.”

The table moved in between the two unicorns, now laden with a plate of two daffodil sandwiches and two empty glasses. Artemis frowned at the latter. “Ugh, the matter transition spell tends to bug around entities of water,” she complained. “Just a moment.” The glasses were enveloped in her indigo magic and swiftly flew through the air and up through the ring in the ceiling, returning a moment later full of water.

“So we’re just gonna trick the others?” Twilight asked, slightly worried at the boldness with which the unicorn sitting across from her had just told her so.

“Welcome to politics,” Artemis replied simply, smiling wryly. “Or more specifically, the art of sharing a country with eight other ponies. Everypony wants something, and you don’t always get it by playing nice. I can usually convince my colleagues of pretty much anything if I use enough technical terms, Lucre tends to bully the others into getting what he wants, Scarlet Bolt will occasionally drop one or two subtle hints about who controls the Equestrian military, and Civil Tenet is good at making friends. I used to think she was on Scarlet’s team, but the way she backed me up just now makes me think she’s more interested in you.”

Twilight sighed at the thought. “I’ve done a pretty good job of staying out of politics throughout most of my life. Guess I’m done with that, huh?”

“You’re practically part of the council by now,” Artemis told her, sounding almost apologetic. “A lot of us need your help and frankly, this community service of yours is a great opportunity for all us. Hopefully, the jobs I have for you won’t be too far off from what you’d prefer to be doing. We’ll be taking a look at Neighbury first, then I’ll give you full access to the Ancient Texts wing of The Manehattan Central Library; I want you to find out who this alicorn we’re dealing with is and whether or not history has ever mentioned him. I’ll talk to Civil at the meeting later, get some of her people to do some research of their own and narrow the field down for you. If we’re lucky, we might even find out where he’s been all this time and how we can put him back there.”

“What if I can’t find anything?” Twilight asked. “If you ask me, Equestrian history has a bad habit of not mentioning evil tyrants and villains.”

Artemis shrugged. “Then we tried, I suppose. We’ll have to put our minds to an alternate solution when we have the time. Whether you find anything or not, I’m planning on sending you to Cloudsdale next. We’ve already got a small army of unicorns up there working on melting their supplies of rainwater. I want you to use your magic to provide a temporary boost to that operation, but primarily you’re there for your spellwriting skills; we need to improve the standard Cloud Walker spell. The ones who know it are capable of helping Equestria in so many more ways and improving the duration of the spell will free up some additional horns.” Artemis leaned down to take a bite out of a levitating sandwich before continuing. “Once you’ve improved the spell to last, say, a month, I don’t have anything that needs urgent attention. I’ll be setting you to work on your solite research again. If that’s alright with you.”

Twilight nodded her approval. “Sounds better than Scarlet Bolt’s missions.”

“Good. Hold on to that when you come to Cloudsdale,” Artemis chuckled. “Even with unicorn magic to power the water heaters, the main contributions come from thunder farming. It’s cold, wet, and noisy up there. That place has become a floating Tartarus if you ask me. But you’ll notice Rain Dancer was able to tip the scales in your favor today.”

“Because you promised her my help?” Twilight inquired and Artemis nodded.

“As you said, it was a close call getting you out of Scarlet’s clutches. I had expected Penning to side with me, but at least Civil compensated. Quiescent might have vetoed the decision in your favor if Rain Dancer hadn’t helped, but I didn’t wanna risk it.”

“Well, thanks,” Twilight told the unicorn again, and the two exchanged a smile.

“If you want to thank me, you could always satisfy my curiosity. Quiescent Atonement insisted that it had no relevance to his verdict, but how exactly did you escape Canterlot? I don’t think anyone in the council but me really appreciated the amount of magic you’d need to teleport across such a great distance. Where’d you get that magic from?”

Twilight sighed and took a sip of her water. “I’m... not entirely sure.”

“Give it your best shot,” Artemis encouraged her, but Twilight shook her head.

“Some weird stuff happened, I mean really weird. I still can’t say for certain what exactly. I need some time to digest.” Twilight winced at her own choice of words, but of course Artemis noticed nothing amiss. “The information,” she clarified, for her own sake if nothing else. “Until I get this all sorted out, I’m not sure it’s a good idea I tell anypony.”

Artemis nodded her head in understanding. She apparently had no objections, for she promptly  started on her lunch again. A long moment of silence formed between the two ponies, but was broken when the violet unicorn finished her first sandwich and cleared her throat.

“I’ll let you in on a little secret, Twilight,” she said, gazing at the glass of water floating in her telekinetic grip. “It’s in my best interest if it’s deemed unnecessary for a psychologist to treat you. I get the feeling that’s something you’re interested in as well. You get to make solites, I get to… let you make solites, and Equestria gets its sun back sooner rather than later. So, unless you hold a knife against my throat during this trial period of ours, I’m gonna give you the all-clear to continue working with me. You don’t need to be afraid of me thinking you’re insane or anything like it; any... irregular behavior is no doubt the result of your recent surges in magic and encounters with this alicorn, the former of which is a problem easily solved. So I assure you; I’m not asking to find out if anything’s wrong with you, but purely out of my own selfish interests. I’m really curious as to how a lone unicorn can walk into an area infested with windigoes, ursas, rocs, and who knows what else and simply walk away again unscathed. Or,” Artemis gestured at Twilight’s bandaged foreleg, “almost unscathed.”

Twilight bit her lip, still reluctant to share the events with anypony else. While Artemis seemed to have her interests at heart, she hardly knew the pony, nor why she was being so friendly. She had said that she admired her, but how far did that admiration extend? Enough to see past what Twilight had done in Canterlot? Her musings were interrupted by a knock at the door, and after a disappointed sigh from Artemis, the door opened of its own accord. Spike stood in the doorway, giving Artemis an awkward wave.

“Oh. Come in, Spike,” Artemis told him, obviously surprised by the dragon’s visit.

Spike nodded his thanks and fell onto all fours, allowing him to walk through the doorway without problems. He gave Artemis a smile, but his expression turned into a frown when he looked at Twilight. “What happened to finding me as soon as you were done with the council?”

“Oh.” Twilight brought a hoof to her forehead, causing her to almost overbalance on the armchair, and she grimaced in pain when she jerked her left foreleg. “Sorry, Spike. I completely forgot.”

“Technically, she’s still with the council,” Artemis defended Twilight, giving the dragon a mischievous smile. “We were discussing what exactly happened in Canterlot. Would you like to join us?”

“Sure.”

“You two sound like you know each other,” Twilight observed, and both pony and dragon nodded.

“He came to Cristallum as soon as he heard about what happened to you in Neighbury,” Artemis explained. “When he decided to stay and wait for you to wake up, I helped him settle in. He ended up sleeping here in my living room for the first few days before we were able to fix him up with something more permanent.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “There weren’t any available rooms in Cristallum?”

“This place is a lot smaller than the Canterlot palace. And we have, ah, ambassadors, I suppose you could call them, coming in from cities all over Equestria.”

“From the cities? What for?”

“Coltdoba’s declaration of independence isn’t exactly a standalone case,” Artemis explained, giving the unicorn a sad smile. “Some places aren’t happy with sharing their surplus of crops with the rest of Equestria, and other places want to implement a few stricter laws in order to deal with crime and wildlife that we can’t really approve of. While we can’t always help them, we wanted to show them that we listen to each and every one of them, so we invited representatives from all over Equestria to Cristallum.”

“But it didn’t help you with Coltdoba,” Twilight observed and Artemis shook her head.

“Amity and Bramley are off to have a talk face to face with the leaders there, but as Scarlet pointed out, they aren’t likely to succeed.”

“You’re letting her change the subject,” Spike remarked idly, and Artemis chuckled.

“So I am! Hungry, Spike?”

The dragon’s face brightened. “Always!”

Artemis smirked at Twilight. “He’s expensive. How did you afford feeding him for all those years?”

“Celestia financed part of his… diet,” Twilight answered, shaking her head at Artemis. “You don’t need to feed him. He found most of his food on his own back in Ponyville.”

“Speak for yourself…”

“It’s alright,” Artemis assured Twilight, waving off her concerns. “I do a lot of experimenting with crystals, and I end up ruining a fair deal. Can’t use them for magic, and they’re not worth quite as much, but apparently, they taste just fine.” A platter full of sapphires, most of them mangled and twisted beyond any gems’ usual shape, fazed through the ceiling and came to rest upon the table between Twilight and Artemis, and the dragon parked himself by their chairs, grabbing a handful of the sapphires.

“So, Canterlot?” Spike offered before stuffing his face with the gems.

“Canterlot,” Artemis agreed, turning her attention to Twilight again.

Twilight sighed in response, her gaze shifting from Spike to Artemis and back again. “I… went to Canterlot, I mean, left the caverns and the soldiers I-I was with. And went to Canterlot. I’d been following the alicorn, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. An ursa found me, but then he showed up and killed it-”

“He?” Artemis echoed. “The alicorn?” Twilight nodded her head, her gaze dropping to the floating table. “And he killed the ursa threatening you?”

“H-he wasn’t helping me,” Twilight insisted. “He… killed the minor… and a major, its parent. Father. He blew up the father and killed those three soldiers, which made the mother angry. I had to run into Canterlot but I got attacked by windigoes and then a vampire showed up, and I blew up the hospital‒”

“You’re going a bit fast, Twilight,” Artemis broke in again. “A vampire? Like, suck your blood and hate the sun? They actually exist?”

Twilight shook her head. “No. No, of course not. Undead ponies don’t exist. Vampire is just… their name. They do suck blood and they’re nocturnal, but they aren’t harmed by the sun. I-it’s not important. I blew up the… th-the hospital. Because I was surrounded,” she clarified when she noticed Artemis’ confused look.

“By… vampires?”

“Everything!” Twilight groaned. “Ursas and windigoes and a vampire, yes!”

“I’m just trying to understand,” Artemis assured the unicorn, holding her hooves up placatingly as Twilight seemed to get more and more tense. “I know it’s hard to talk about, but if no one can follow you, it’s kinda pointless.”

“Then maybe I just shouldn’t talk about it,” Twilight grumbled, downing her glass of water. “Fine with me. We should work on solites and helping Equestria instead of… this! Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“If we find out what boosted your magical powers, we’ll be able to help Equestria that much more,” Artemis argued.

“It won’t help.”

“Well, how can you be sure?” Artemis pressed. “Why not?”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed, but she kept staring at her empty glass of water. “I’m not doing it again!”

“Doing wh-?”

“Twilight,” Spike broke in, putting a claw on her shoulder. The unicorn flinched at the touch, and the glass in her telekinetic grip imploded, forming a little ball of glass powder and shards.

“Do you know how hard it is!?” Twilight almost shrieked, though she didn’t know if she was addressing the dragon, the unicorn, or the piece of glass she now dumped onto the table. “I have to focus so hard on not crushing things when holding them, on not ionizing the air around me constantly, on not hurting ponies who want to throw me in jail!”

The claw on her shoulder didn’t leave her, and even grabbed her a little tighter in an effort to calm her down. “You’re doing just fine, Twilight,” Spike told her, but she shook her head, twisting out of the dragon’s grip and rising from her chair.

“I’m not,” she muttered, limping away from the table. “I just… I-I’m not.” The air around her crackled with power as she released her magic, and the unicorn winked away.

She flashed into existence on an unfamiliar street within Manehattan, but she couldn’t have cared less about where she was. The flash of light that had announced her arrival had hardly subsided before Twilight was walking again, hobbling down the sidewalk whilst silently cursing the city for being all around her. The magical pressure within her body was building more rapidly than she had expected, and she wanted nothing more than to simply vent, but with the buildings surrounding her, there wasn’t much she could do without drawing any sorely unwanted attention to herself.

Fortunately, her teleportation hadn’t been seen by anypony, and only now did Twilight really seem to take in her surroundings. The narrow street she stood on, clearly not meant for anymore than one lane of traffic, was completely deserted. No solite was within sight and, with the full moon hidden behind the densely packed surrounding buildings, most of the area was completely dark, lit not even by the many street lights that all seemed to have been systematically vandalized by one or more ponies.

Despite it being early in the afternoon, the eternal night seemed to have crept well and truly into this part of Manehattan, and Twilight realized that she had most likely teleported into one of the more crime-ridden neighborhoods of the capital. Twilight frowned and shook her head in disgust.

I’m out killing timberwolves and battling monsters underneath Canterlot while Scarlet lets things like this happen!?

Her eyes adjusted to the darkness as she limped on, and she became increasingly aware of ponies watching her, catching fleeting glimpses of eyes hidden in alleys to either side of her.

She came to a halt and glared down a nearby alley, her eyes narrowing when she caught sight of the silhouette of a pony. Her horn flared to life, but despite her volatile temper, she hesitated for a moment, thinking better of getting into a fight in her current state. She went on her way instead, vanishing in another flash of light.

Her second teleportation brought her to one of Manehattan’s main streets, this one brightly lit by solites and street lamps and bustling with ponies milling about during the late morning hours. Her sudden appearance drew dozens of gazes, and Twilight shuddered before teleporting again. And again. And again. By the sixth teleportation, she had made it all the way out of Manehattan, and she appeared in the middle of a barren farm. The hard, frozen soil she now stood on was a clear indication of no solite having been set up within the vicinity, meaning the farm had most likely been abandoned by its cultivators a while ago. This, of course, led to a significant drop in temperature between the farm and the city, and Twilight couldn’t help but shiver as she experimentally prodded at the ground with a back hoof, finding it hard as rock.

A sharp pain in her horn and the snap and crackle of electricity about her head reminded her of her current problem, and she cast her gaze around, looking to see if anypony was nearby. She found only an empty-looking farmhouse and a suburban neighborhood on the other side of the farm two miles away, and so decided to relieve herself of the building pressure in her horn. With some difficulty, she summoned the mental notes on solite construction to the front of her mind, and soon dozens of spells were flying from her horn and into the air a few feet ahead of her.

Twilight frowned as she shut her eyes tight in concentration, finding it much more difficult to concentrate on balancing the power of the preliminary spells than she remembered. With a frustrated sigh, she abandoned the first attempt, scattering the spells already cast. Again and again she tried, but the very first - and the most complex - stages of the solite’s construction proved too delicate for her to handle. By the sixth attempt, she was glaring daggers at the empty air mocking her, and instead of dispelling the imperfect arcane framework, she continued with the casting, bombarding the air with her usual fuelling spells.

Upon ignition, however, as she had half expected, the containment spells overcompensated, and the ball of fire twice the size of a pony collapsed to the size of an apple. The fuelling spells responsible for ventilation went into overdrive as well, drawing air into the superheated nucleus of the solite at a rate that almost swept Twilight off her hooves. Aside from taking a step back, the unicorn was unaffected by the powerful vacuum, focusing her magic instead on the dwindling flame that was now the solite, nearly extinguished by the tempestuous winds bombarding it from all sides.

Fuelling that fire directly with her magic, Twilight was able to not only maintain the flame, but increase its size as well. The ventilation spells seemed to register this, for they grew even more powerful as the fire grew larger. The battle between the unicorn’s two spells wore on for almost half a minute until the influx of magical energy finally destabilized the solite, cancelling its containment spell.

The other spells remained in function, however, resulting in the diminutive flame rapidly evolving into an enormous and sustained inferno, feeding off of the power Twilight was throwing into it in a blind rage and the air supplied by the howling winds that grew only more intense as the solite exploded. Somehow, Twilight remained undeterred, summoning a wedge-shaped force field to part the fires rushing at her and to keep her from being sucked into the deadly sea of fire. She was bent on stabilizing the solite, too much so to realize that it was a lost cause.

A disturbingly familiar whimper managed to draw her attention away from the maelstrom of flames and toward the ground to her left. A diamond dog sat there, just a few feet from her, with a spear protruding from its chest. The creature screamed in pain, and Twilight’s eyes widened in fear. “N-no! No!” She took a step back, which brought her hind leg outside her force field’s area of protection.

With a pained hiss, she drew back the hoof before it was burnt too badly, and her attention was drawn now to a second diamond dog, this one standing beside the first and laughing at her. Twilight acted faster than she could think, and a tendril of fire grew out of the inferno to her right and enveloped the laughing diamond dog, silencing him instantly. The fire kept going, sweeping over the injured diamond dog, but instead of burning away, his screaming only intensified. “Shut up!” the unicorn screamed at her tormentor, but was answered only by an excruciating stab of pain in her maimed foreleg. She looked down and found the head of an axe buried there. The image was almost surreal; she felt disconnected from the giant, gaping wound that should be causing her so much more pain than it did, disconnected from the head that slowly turned to follow the handle of the axe to its wielder, a diamond dog, the one that had threatened Fluttershy, its leering, lifeless face inches from hers.

“Don’t hurt me,” it said mechanically, and in a bright flash of white from Twilight’s horn, the creature was turned to ashes.

More of the diamond dogs appeared, as if conceived by the darkness surrounding Twilight and her globe of fire, some half dead, others alive, and still others all dead, shuffling toward her slowly but surely. In a panic, Twilight seized the inferno next to her with her magic and stretched it around herself, burning away the dogs nearest her and forming an impenetrable barrier against the encroaching darkness and its unearthly minions.

And only now, with all else replaced by fire, did Twilight notice the dark equine standing on the far side of the fiery circle, looking at Twilight wordlessly. A beam of light erupted from its horn, striking Twilight, who found herself becoming suddenly exhausted.

No, no! “No! No!” The alicorn’s tranquilizing spell was broken by a powerful pulse of magic, and Twilight focused her now blazing white eyes on Celestia and Luna’s murderer. The ring of fire reared up all around them and dove toward the alicorn, only to be shrugged off by an indigo bubble shield forming about him. The shield distorted wildly when Twilight struck it with a bolt of lightning, and shattered upon the second hit. A quickly summoned force field protected the alicorn from the brunt of the third lightning bolt, but the impact sent him hurtling out through the surrounding fires.

The flames parted for Twilight, and she pursued the alicorn as quickly as her injured leg would allow her, gathering up the fires in her magical grip and preparing another blast of lightning. Ahead of her, the alicorn got up slowly, muttering something the unicorn couldn’t hear. The inferno she was holding morphed into a giant, sharp talon, poised above the alicorn and ready to strike in unison with Twilight’s charging lightning bolt. Finally, it seemed the tables had turned. He was at her mercy.

That… That was too easy, she realized suddenly, and with a crackle of energy, her two readied spells dissipated. Her horn lit up with an illumination spell instead, revealing not Celestia’s murderer, but Artemis.

The violet unicorn was breathing heavily from defending herself against Twilight’s attacks and was holding up a hoof in front of her eyes to shield them from the sharp light currently shed by Twilight’s horn. Artemis shot her a crooked smile. “You alright?”

The question rendered her almost speechless, and Twilight fell back to sit on her haunches, shaking her head. “I… M-me? I-I almost killed you!”

“No you didn’t,” Artemis insisted, approaching her so that Twilight could get a better look at her. The violet unicorn had a few scrapes and her coat was covered in spots of soot, but other than that, Twilight had to admit that she looked just fine. “It’s kinda my fault. I suppose tranquilizing you while you were like that wasn’t the brightest idea.”

“I thought you were the alicorn,” Twilight muttered, shivering at the thought, and Artemis’ eyes widened.

“Oh. Oh. Well then it was a really bad idea. Yeah, I can see why you’d think that. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Twilight almost groaned. “I’m sorry. I guess I do need some professional help.”

“Only if you want to,” Artemis told her, and Twilight raised an eyebrow.

“S-seriously? You wouldn’t… You wouldn’t tell Quiescent about this?”

“You didn’t hold a knife against my throat.”

“I was a second away from burning you to a crisp!”

“I already told you; my goal for this trial period is walking out of it with you as my partner. It’s the only way things are going to get any better around here, right?” Artemis put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “Nopony in the council but me realizes just how powerful you are, Twilight. If the council locks you up because they’re afraid of those powers, Equestria won’t evolve. The night will last forever, and we’ll all freeze to death. Equestria needs you to succeed Celestia, and that’s not gonna happen if you let ponies like Scarlet and Lucre lock you up.”

“I can’t succeed Princess Celestia! I-I’m nothing like her. She’d be horrified to see what I’ve done lately.”

“She’d understand,” Artemis assured her. “I understand. This alicorn is messing with your mind. But, you know, maybe you should talk. About the diamond dogs, your nightmares, and Canterlot.”

Twilight wasn’t able to answer her, her recent face-off with the diamond dog apparitions too much for her to bear to recall.

Artemis sighed, and nodded instead at the badly scorched ground where Twilight had created her solite. “A little out of practice? It looked like you were having trouble.”

Twilight gave a dry chuckle. “What gave it away?”

“Well, I meant before you... lost it,” Artemis clarified gently. “It looks like you’ve gotten a bit rusty.”

“I’m not the problem.”

“Then what is?”

“The vampire. The windigoes.”

“Oh.” Artemis gave her bandaged leg a look. “It must hurt a lot.” Twilight opened her mouth to correct the unicorn, but words failed her, and she shut her mouth again. Artemis didn’t immediately respond to Twilight’s reaction, but when it seemed apparent that the lavender mare wasn’t about to continue, she spoke once more. “What d‒?”

“I did something horrible in Canterlot,” Twilight relented finally, releasing the admission as if she had been holding her breath. “I killed the vampire. I killed more than twenty windigoes. And I… I mean… I didn’t just kill them. They didn’t just die!”

“You… murdered them?” Artemis tried, attempting to understand her.

Twilight gingerly stepped down with her left foreleg to lift the right, looking at it as if she literally had the blood of her most recent victims on that hoof. “You didn’t exaggerate when you told me about how dangerous Canterlot was. I almost died. I ran out of magic, completely out, and I was surrounded. Ursas, the vampire, windigoes, and hydras. I should have died. Instead, I… I… Some kind of connection formed between myself and everyone around me. M-my magic dug into their beings.” Twilight shook her head. “Except I didn’t have any magic left. It was a… a lack of magic. Something very empty, something very hungry, very… wrong... crawled out of me and latched onto everyone. Not their flesh, not their... physical bodies, but... their souls, their life force. We connected. I began seeing what they saw, I heard what they could hear, and I could feel everything they felt. When I began pulling, it felt as though I were tearing out my own soul. It hurt more than you can imagine. The connection made me as much one of them as they were a part of me, and I was violating the core of their essence and tearing it apart. I felt it a hundred times over, saw lives that weren’t mine flash before my eyes. We merged; their hatred and fear of me became my own as I saw myself in their eyes. I was a monster... I still feel like one...”

“You’re not,” Artemis assured her. “You... were trying to survive.”

“I robbed t-twenty-seven creatures of their souls!” Twilight insisted, stomping her hoof on the frozen ground. “I devoured them to feed my own power! Nothing justifies that!”

“You survived. That justifies almost anything if you ask me. You wouldn’t have made it out of there if you hadn’t done... that, right?”

“I would have preferred…” The words caught in Twilight’s throat. “I… I don’t know.”

“Dying?”

“No!” She remembered lying there, outside the ruins of Ponyville, her body all but destroyed and her spirit extinguished. She remembered closing her eyes, welcoming the alicorn’s offer. “I can’t!” She frowned as she calmed down somewhat, looking up at the moon while recalling another encounter with the alicorn. “The choice isn’t there. I can’t perish. I can’t allow myself to give up. Like you said: Equestria needs me.” Her eyes narrowed. “But that doesn’t excuse what I did to those creatures!”

“What do you want me to say, Twilight?” Artemis asked softly, trying to calm the lavender unicorn down. “Do you want me to agree? Call you a monster?”

“I’ve already got twenty-seven voices in my head doing that,” Twilight sighed sadly. “Make that twenty-eight,” she corrected herself. “I just... want to use their sacrifice for something... worthwhile. Like creating a sun. But none of them are really keen on that.”

“So these creatures you, what do you call it, drained? They’re still... conscious?”

Twilight shook her head. “What they were, everything they were, is me now. Only common sense is keeping me from believing I grew up in Tartarus or that I serve Discord. Part of me is worried about the eggs I left behind to hatch outside Tartarus, another part is terrified of the fact that I know where those eggs are.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Artemis broke in. “What!?”

“The vampire was female,” Twilight explained. “It laid eggs almost as soon as it got out and put them inside… Cerberus’s carcass. Who’s dead. The gates of Tartarus have been damaged by the alicorn.”

Artemis sat down next to Twilight with her mouth half open in shock. She was speechless for a moment before regaining her composure. “Oh... wow. Okay...” The unicorn gave a frustrated sigh. “I was asking about Discord actually, but... Really? The gates of Tartarus are broken?” She brought a hoof to her temple and started massaging the side of her head. “We don’t need this. We really don’t need this. We’ve got windigoes in Vyatkiev, we’ve got a military presence in Coltdoba to enforce, the border between Buteos and Equestria needs reinforcement, and almost every town and farm in Equestria needs support! We can’t spare troops to hold back the gates of Tartarus itself! It’s...” Artemis sighed again, this time in defeat. “It’s Scarlet Bolt’s problem. I’ll let the council know,” she assured Twilight. “Scarlet Bolt’ll do... whatever needs doing to hold back... Tartarus...” The violet unicorn groaned. “Anyway, what..? You were saying something about Discord?”

“He’s not free,” Twilight assured Artemis. “He’s plotting to break free, but it doesn’t look like it’s happening anytime soon. Apparently, the windigoes are loyal to him. They’re all flocking around their master now, trying to find a way to help him.”

“So we should’ve thrown him in the ocean,” Artemis gathered. “I can’t help but wonder if Celestia was holding Equestria together by the seams all this time, or if every possible disaster is just hitting now.”

“Both,” Twilight sighed, then rose to her hooves. “I’m getting really cold.”

“Well, if you’ve got anymore energy to burn, you can take us back,” Artemis offered, smiling up at her.

“Not much,” she admitted. “That ‘solite’ took a fair deal out of me.”

“You can take us as far as you can. We’ll hoof it the rest of the way. Or hitch a ride, maybe. That sounds better.”

“Whoah!” Spike exclaimed in surprise at the two bright flashes of light that heralded the return of Twilight and Artemis. “Where were you? It’s been more than half an hour!”

“I see you helped yourself to the rest of the gems,” Artemis observed lightheartedly, walking past the dragon and the empty platter on the table to sit back in her chair and relax. “I tracked her down to outside of Manehattan, and we, uh, talked. She told me about Canterlot.” She looked back at Twilight, who still sat at the entrance to the living room, wincing as she rubbed her left foreleg. “And Spike should know too, right?

“Of course I should!”

“He deserves to know,” Twilight agreed, teleporting onto her chair instead of limping across the room and continued her ministrations of her sore leg.

“How’s the leg?” Artemis asked with concern, eyeing the bandages that had by now been colored a faint pink.

“Still full of bone-deep gashes,” Twilight repeated with a grimace.

Artemis nodded. “Let me know if you want someone to take a look at it. Anyway‒” she turned to Spike “‒in Canterlot, Twilight was outnumbered and generally outmatched, so she somehow, by accident, I guess, used some sort of magic none of us have heard of. She connected her… ‘soul’ to the creatures chasing her, and she… ripped out their essence, killing them.” Twilight looked as though she were about to protest, so Artemis quickly corrected herself. “Not only killed them, but tortured them horribly. And she felt everything they felt because of the connection she had formed between herself and them. And by taking their ‘soul’ or whatever you want to call it, she seems to have gained their memories too. It explains why she suddenly knows what a vampire is and why windigoes are flocking around Canterlot.”

“You do?” Spike asked of Twilight, raising an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Something about freeing Discord,” Artemis answered him dismissively, eager to get to the point, addressing Twilight now. “And you didn’t just absorb their knowledge, did you? You took their power too, added it to your own. That’s why you were able to teleport all the way to Ponyville. And it wasn’t just a temporary boost either from what I can see. All these problems with magic you’ve been having since leaving Canterlot have been the result of your magical reserves rising to well beyond what you’re used to. Your magical reserves grew, Twilight.”

“Twilight always told me that wasn’t possible,” Spike observed, and Artemis shook her head, adopting an excited grin.

“She was right. It’s not! For as long as unicorns have studied magic, they’ve tried to find ways to permanently increase their own magical reservoirs. For centuries, millennia, even, nopony has been successful. Twilight has just found the holy grail of magic.”

“At the cost of killing another living being in the most excruciating way possible!” Twilight reminded the other unicorn, growing nervous at Artemis’ brightened features. “And experiencing that pain for yourself.”

Artemis almost didn’t seem to hear her. “But, moral aspect aside, you are able to rip the soul out of any living creature and increase your power. Permanently!”

“I’m not doing it again,” Twilight warned her. “You’re free to complain to the council about how I’m not willing to devour the souls of the living, but I’m not going to put anyone through that again.”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry, but hear me out,” Artemis interjected quickly. “Hypothetically, your magical potential is only limited by the amount of life present in... the entire world. That’s a lot.”

“I’m not draining the entire world!” Twilight exclaimed, horrified at the notion. “That’s crazy!”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Artemis excused herself. “You... have no idea where the Elements are. And without them, you don’t really know what to do about this alicorn, do you? Now previously, you believed the Elements were the only thing capable of defeating this stallion, but now... now you have another option. Instead of using the Elements of Harmony, you can quite simply just rise to his level of power. You might even be able to surpass it. You could destroy him! You could... recreate the sun! One for the entire world! You could move the heavens, you could rebuild Canterlot, unify Equestria once more! The possibilities are endless! At least, hypothetically they are,” she added, doing a poor job at masking her enthusiasm.

“I’m not willing to pay the price,” Twilight repeated, on some level understanding Artemis’s slight disappointment. “Besides, I did it on instinct more than anything; I don’t know if I could do it again.”

“It’s your decision. But it’s a big one,” Artemis warned her. “You shouldn’t make it lightly.”

“She’s not,” Spike backed Twilight up. “If she lived through The Great Tragedy and she says draining someone really hurts, it’s probably pretty bad.”

“You’re both right,” Twilight sighed unhappily. “The Elements are gone, and I might never find them. As horrible as it is, this draining thing might be the only weapon that could work against the alicorn. But... it is horrible. And it’s not just the pain I’m afraid of. If I start killing, not to protect other ponies, but only to become more powerful, I’ll be exactly like that alicorn. Maybe even worse. I’m not going to go down that path.”

“You’re probably right,” Artemis agreed. “But it was a path out of this disaster, and I wanted to at least consider it. And I’ll keep doing so. I won’t tell anyone about this power,” she assured Twilight, “but I’ll be thinking this over day and night. If we can circumvent the mental trauma and the necessity to kill, this has a lot of potential. I mean, it seems so wasteful just killing the beasts threatening Equestria now. The power you could get from a fully grown berserking ursa major... And windigoes, they return if you try to destroy them using conventional means, but if you were to take away their soul...”

“Windigoes are living creatures,” Twilight interrupted her. “They’re driven almost solely by instinct, but... Ugh, I don’t know. I suppose they are bred only to destroy and serve no other purpose, but it still feels wrong to kill them.”

“We’ve been killing them all this time by living in harmony, haven’t we?” Artemis pointed out and Twilight nodded grudgingly.

“In a way. ‘Kill’ isn’t the word I would use, though. They cease to exist. It’s peaceful. They certainly don’t get their souls ripped out of their bodies.”

“Noted,” the violet unicorn sighed. “Alright then. This draining business isn’t really a feasible option at the moment. Not until we find some way of improving it.”

“And you’re not telling the council, right?” Twilight pressed.

“It’ll be our secret,” Artemis assured her.

“I don’t like all of these secrets,” Spike grumbled. “But I guess I won’t tell anyone either.”

“Well, that’s my curiosity sated,” Artemis declared, getting up from her chair again. “Did you want to see the rest of the tower? We’ll probably be working here, so you might as well get to know the place.”

“I… Well, sure,” Twilight replied, confused by the sudden change in subject but welcoming it all the same. Artemis went to where she and Twilight had appeared just a moment ago, and with a pulse of her horn, a circular tile not unlike the table but larger rose out of the floor, lifting the unicorn a foot into the air before stopping. A large indigo circle in the ceiling directly above Artemis told Twilight that another matter transition spell had been activated, and she realized that Artemis was standing on an elevator.

“I’m afraid I didn’t build this thing with adolescent dragons in mind,” Artemis told Spike as Twilight teleported from the chair and onto the floating platform. “We’ll be back in a minute.”

Spike nodded his head. “Got any more gems?”

“She gave you a platterful!” Twilight protested.

“I’m a growing dragon!” Spike shot back, rising to all fours and gesturing at the body that was several times larger than it had been three years ago.

“You’ll be growing a lot bigger if you keep being greedy,” Twilight reminded him. “Eat some vegetables or something if you’re still hungry.”

Spike rolled his eyes and left the table he had been lying by. “Fine, I’ll be in the kitchens if you need me.”

“So will we,” Artemis declared, and the platform she and Twilight stood upon set into motion again, lifting the two unicorns through the black marble ceiling and into Artemis’s kitchen, lights like the ones in the living room switching on automatically. The room held the most basic of appliances from what Twilight could see, but was almost buried in cardboard boxes that covered the floor in stacks that almost reached the ceiling, making most of the area completely inaccessible.

“Yeah,” Artemis chuckled. “Technically, I suppose it’s a kitchen, but I mostly just use it to store the stuff I don’t have room for elsewhere. I mean, the kitchen’s almost fully automated, so I hardly spend any time in here.”

“What does all of this run on?” Twilight wondered out loud, gesturing at the lamps and the refrigerator. “Except with the glasses, I haven’t seen you use any magic.”

“I charge the place up with my magic during the night while I sleep,” Artemis explained proudly. “Everything in this tower is outfitted with a pseudo-intelligence of my own making; it registers its inhabitants’ actions and reacts accordingly. It still needs to go through a whole lot more testing before technology like this can become commercially available, but I’m getting there.”

“It’s pretty impressive,” Twilight observed as the small elevator set into motion again.

“Imagine what we could do together...” Artemis sighed dreamily. “We could make machines that made solites. We could make machines that made machines that made solites. Automatons that could serve in our military, public teleportation stations, city-sized force fields for all of Equestria, there’s no end to what we could achieve.” The elevator came to a halt again, this time inside a small, dimly lit bedroom. “Not much for you here,” Artemis remarked, gesturing at an even smaller room to their far right. “Except the restroom of course.”

They ascended again, entering a room devoid of the usual glass panes but with black marble walls instead. Not a single spot on the wall seemed to be vacant, however; a plethora of tools of all shapes and sizes took up every space that wasn’t occupied by a lamp and a counter laden with even more tools and half-finished gadgets lined the walls all around the two ponies.

“My workshop,” Artemis declared. “It’s got pretty much everything I need for my tinkerings. Mostly just hobby stuff; I’ve got a bigger facility in the eastern part of Manehattan that’s for more professional use. I have to share that, though.”

Once again, the elevator set into motion, and the two ponies arrived at the top of the tower, its domed roof made out of completely transparent glass that allowed full view of the night sky. One half of the room’s walls were made of the same transparent glass while the rest of the wall was of the more common semi-transparent blue glass panes. The only furnishing in the room immediately visible was a large, tripod-mounted telescope standing near the clear glass wall.

“An observatory. Of sorts,” Artemis stated, her tone becoming almost reverent. “Completely useless in the middle of the second brightest city of Equestria, of course, but... It was one of Princess Luna’s personal chambers. It’s her telescope, actually. I could never really bring myself to take this room for myself.”

Twilight nodded her head in understanding and turned her gaze to the full moon. “I miss her... I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself for thinking she’d killed Celestia.”

“Given the circumstances, I’m sure she’d understand,” Artemis comforted her, her hoof once again coming to rest on her shoulder. “She can’t blame you for an alicorn messing up your mind like he did. In fact, I’m sure she’d be proud that you’re still willing to fight her murderer, despite everything he’s done to you. And despite everything that’s happened to you, you’re still trying to help Equestria as much as possible.”

“If only I could,” Twilight muttered. “No Elements of Harmony, and I can’t even make solites anymore.”

“Hey, now. I can’t make solites, but that doesn’t make me a burden to society. You’re out of practice, that’s all.”

“I’m losing my mind! That’s what’s wrong!”

“That’s probably just temporary. Maybe you need time to fully subsume the essences you consumed. Digest, if you will.”

“Don’t say things like that,” Twilight muttered, shuddering as she shook off Artemis’s hoof and wandered away from the elevator and into the center of the small observatory.

“Regardless,” Artemis insisted, following after her, “I’m sure you’ll be feeling better soon enough. Once you do, you’ll be a huge help to Equestria. Imagine the size of the solites you could create with the sort of power that allows you to travel instantly between Ponyville and Canterlot!”

“I hope you’re right...”

Artemis sat down next to Twilight and shook her head softly. “You’re doing better than you might think you are, Twilight. Ponies like us are under a lot of pressure after The Great Tragedy. We have tons of more responsibilities, and we have a thousand more eyes watching us. I do what I can, and you do what you can. Nopony can expect anymore of you. You aren’t Celestia; you can’t save Equestria all on your own.”

“Equestria needs a Celestia, though.”

“Maybe,” Artemis allowed. “You must admit, given the circumstances, we’re doing pretty well. Equestria is evolving as we speak, adapting to the changes this alicorn has brought. Things’ll get better eventually, and once they do, we’ll have learned how to actually rule our own country.”

“If things get better.”

“Ponies have survived many things over the course of our history. Nightmare Moon, Discord, windigoes, The Everfree Forest, and those vampires you met as well as whatever else has been locked away in Tartarus over the last many centuries. We’ll make it through this alicorn too.”

“Maybe it’s the windigoes speaking,” Twilight responded, shaking her head as she walked away from Artemis again and toward the other side of the room, “but unless we kill that alicorn somehow, ponydom is doomed.”

“You’ll find a way to beat him, then,” Artemis assured her, but Twilight gave a noncommittal shrug in response, stopping at the silver telescope at the end of the room.

“Mind if I take a look through it?” she asked of Artemis, gesturing at the instrument.

“Sure. I’ve done so myself. Not much to see, I’m afraid.”

Twilight stretched her neck to look through the telescope that had been adjusted to the taller alicorn, and saw only the night sky, stained a faint brownish yellow by the lights from Manehattan. “Sirius,” Twilight stated, identifying the only star visible through the glare of the city lights.

“No hidden messages or anything of the like,” Artemis concluded with a sigh. “Do you think they knew what was happening? Saw this alicorn coming?”

“Celestia recognized him. I think... I wish I could remember what happened. I used to gradually recall bits and pieces of The Great Tragedy, but it hasn’t happened for a long time. Last time was when I was making that solite in your conclave.”

“Well that explains a lot.”

“Celestia knew who he was,” Twilight continued. “She was afraid. Or maybe I was. I remember… fear, but I don’t know whose it was. Either way, Celestia definitely saw him as an enemy.”

“Most ponies would, I suppose,” Artemis observed. “A stranger shows up in your study in the dead of night, wielding powers that dwarf any other’s…”

“He wasn’t a stranger,” Twilight insisted, shaking her head. “Celestia... said his name.”

“What was it?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Well, we’ll figure it out. Who he is, what he’s planning, how to defeat him, how to save Equestria, all of that. Small steps first, though. Like your living arrangements. Your previous quarters were reserved for the captain of the Sword of Equestria, so you’ll have to find someplace else to sleep.”

Twilight didn’t immediately answer, her mind still dwelling on her foe as she cursorily inspected the telescope for any markings Luna might have left for somepony. Finding nothing, she returned her attention to Artemis, but kept her gaze on the telescope, as if it might reveal its secrets the moment she looked away. “Are the guest rooms still in use?”

“Every last one. But if you want, you could have this room. It would make working with each other much easier, don’t you think?”

Twilight nodded vaguely before taking her eyes off the telescope. “It would.” Her gaze went to the sky and then the skyscrapers surrounding Cristallum. “For a room of glass, it’s pretty sheltered.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Artemis agreed. “I doubt Luna would have enjoyed having half of Manehattan watching while she was… stargazing. I wonder if even the princess of the night could see anything from here... Oh well, I’ll have somepony move a bed up here for you along with whatever else you need. We could move Spike out of the boiler room and up here with you if you want, but I’m not gonna let him use my bathroom…”

Twilight followed Artemis back to the elevator wordlessly as the other went on, and she threw a last glance up at the moon, suspended in the night sky far above, before she and Artemis were swallowed up by Cristallum once more.