“This has gotta be a dream.”
I looked up from Vinyl’s record collection. “Does your tongue still feel numb, Vinyl?”
“Yeah, but look at all this gear.” Vinyl swept a foreleg around to help take in all the sound equipment filling the palace ballroom. “There’s gotta be a dozen pre-amps just to get the turntable signals to all the main amps, and then there’s all the speakers. I mean, buck, the guards must have raided half the nightclubs in Canterlot to get all this.”
“It does seem a bit extreme,” I said mildly.
“Tavi,” Vinyl said flatly. “I got enough soundpower here to shake the place off the side of the mountain, or cause avalanches across the Crystal Mountains.”
“That’s not going to do you much good unless you play what Dinky wants,” I said realistically as I flipped through Vinyl’s extensive record collection for the fifth time. “You don’t have most of her requests here.”
“I don’t?!” Vinyl sounded outraged. “I’ve got the best music ever made.” She stormed over and snatched Dinky’s list of requests off the table. “I… what…” Vinyl lifted her glasses up and her eyes flicked back and forth down the list. “She can’t be serious.”
“What, Vinyl?”
“This is all pop music,” Vinyl said with disgust. “Like Sapphire Shores and the horse apples that they market toward kids. There’s not a shred of artistic cred here.” She let the list drop to the table. “I can’t play that stuff, it’ll ruin my groove.”
“I don’t think you have much choice,” I admitted. “Celestia will just drag you back to the stage by your tongue if you try to bolt.”
Vinyl winced and shut her mouth. “What gives with that anyway?” Vinyl asked, while keeping her tongue firmly within her mouth.
I sighed. “I have no idea. It’s like Dinky’s got some kind of spell over her.”
“How?” Vinyl held a hoof out. “She’s the princess, shouldn’t she be invincible or something?”
“Maybe she let her guard down?” I offered. “She’s probably the only pony who could stop all this, but it has her already.”
Vinyl sat down. “We are so hosed.”
I laid myself down on my back and looked up at the ceiling. “So it would seem.”
“We could let Discord out,” Vinyl mused. “I’d almost prefer that to playing Sellout Shores’ music.”
I opened my mouth to disagree but found I was almost in favour of such an extreme measure myself. “Well… I’m not sure we could do that, but he did give us a hint.”
Vinyl snorted and said, “Yeah, something cute, tall, and old. Doesn’t help, the princess is totally on their side.”
“Yeah,” I echoed as my eyes wandered around the ceiling. I’d never noticed during the Gala, but the ceiling of the ballroom was covered in a painted fresco. It was very traditional, probably painted with pegasus feathers by hovering pegasus artists centuries ago. It was a very worldly image, sort of representative of Equestria as a whole.
On the western side of the hall you could see the sun shining down on the unicorn settlement of Tall Tale, and the earth pony towns of Vanhoover and Trottingham among others. Following the fresco east you could see Cloudsdale and then Canterlot in the centre where day became dusk. Further onward night fell, casting a shadow near where Hollow Shades should be and on the east coast sat the lights of Manehatten. Over the eastern sea was the moon, its surface still painted with an eerie image of the Mare in the Moon.
I cursed myself for not having remembered sooner.
“Vinyl,” I said as I flipped forward to sit up. “Equestria has more than one princess.”
“Yeah, I know, I’ve met Dinky. Good thing I’m immune to her thing too.”
“Not her,” I said.
“Whatcha talkin bout?”
“Princess Luna,” I almost shouted.
Vinyl blinked, or I think she did, and finally said, “Oh, her.” She laughed awkwardly. “I forgot her. Celestia’s always been the only real princess who’s done anything.”
I stood up. “I’m going to go find her, if anypony can fix this, it’s her.”
“Great, I’ll come too,” Vinyl said as she got up as well.
“No, Vinyl, you should stay.”
“What?”
“You’ve got to do this performance,” I said as I pointed out all the equipment. “You’re going to have enough trouble getting set even without trying to make good music out of Dinky’s song requests.”
Vinyl tensed. “You can’t make good music out of something that isn’t music.”
My mouth twitched. “Then your usual stuff can’t be considered good music then.”
“Hey!”
“My point is that you have work to do,” I said. “Call me sentimental, but I’d hate for something bad to happen to you. Who else would I tease?”
Vinyl sighed. “Okay then, I’ll save my flank. Just don’t lose yours. I won’t be there to save ya if something happens.”
We hugged. “I’ll see you later Vinyl, good luck.”
“Luck’s got nothin to do with it.”
“Clearly.”
“Just do what I’d do,” Vinyl encouraged, patting me in the back.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said as we split. “I’ll see if I can find some sunglasses while I’m gone.”
Vinyl took her glasses off and spun them around. “You know you love em’.”
“I’ll be back soon,” and with that said, I left.
I walked toward the throne room at first, looking for signs or anything similar that might help guide me. Eventually I asked a guard for directions to Princess Luna’s chambers. The guard was happy to help as soon as I mentioned that I was on an errand for Princess Dinky. Invoking the filly’s name seemed to be a sure fire way to get help from anypony under her spell.
The guard’s directions lead me up a ramp running up around the outside of one of the castle’s towers. After the first ten stories I started to wish for a set of wings. Living at the top of a tower was reasonable for somepony like the princess who simply used her wings, but I did not envy her servants.
Once I reached the top of the tower, I knocked on the dark wooden door. It was carved with the image of a crescent moon on a field of shadows. When nopony answered I knocked a few more times.
Without any response, I gathered my courage and tried the door handle. The door opened at my touch and glided open effortlessly despite being made out of what must have been a heavy solid wood.
The room inside was almost pitch black, the only light inside was cast by the open door and faint outlines from where the windows had been blacked out. I thought I could see a shape on the bed and gingerly approached it. Rather than waking royalty, I decided to see if she was asleep first and then I’d wait for her to wake herself up.
Standing over the bed, I reached down to check the shape when the light disappeared. The door had slammed shut, leaving me in total darkness.
Then a gust of wind hit my face, followed by something more substantial. I was pushed away from the bed, and as I cried out my legs were knocked out from beneath me. I fell to the floor as something grabbed at my legs, I scrambled to try and get away but something grabbed hold, held me still, and wrapped something around my legs.
I was thrown onto my back and something pressed down on my chest. Then a light came on. I winced in the bright change, and as my vision returned I was greeted by the sight of yellow slit eyes right up against my face.
I screamed. You would too.
The face pulled back, with its ears flattened and it spread its bat like wings. “Who are you to dare enter these quarters.” Its voice was deep and gravelly. “Are you a thief or an assassin seeking to catch my princess abed?”
“I-I just wanted to speak with the p-princess,” I stammered.
“Then why didst thou not announce yourself!” The pressure on my chest increased.
“I didn’t want to wake the princess up,” I said a little louder. Thinking quickly I tried a trick that had worked before. “Uh, and Princess Dinky sent me here, so you should let me go.”
“Dinky has no hold on me,” it replied. “I am sworn to mine own princess and Equestria, not some upstart.”
“Dinky doesn’t have anything on me either,” I said quickly. “I just want Princess Luna’s help so things will go back to normal.”
“Prove it.” The pressure on my chest remained.
“Princess Dinky is a child being spoiled because she’s cute. She’s got bad taste in music, she wants to hug everything whether or not it wants to be hugged, and she ruined my audition yesterday.”
The pressure on my chest was removed. The bat thing grunted. “Nopony under the filly’s influence could say that. That much is true at least, and you seek my princess’s help?”
I nodded emphatically and said, “Yes.”
“Hmph, you seem honest.” The bat reached down and pulled away the bindings around my legs. I rolled away and stood back up. The bat appeared in front of me and held up a hoof. “Sergeant Grill, Night Guard.”
I met the hoof awkwardly. “Octavia Melody. Uh. Musician.”
Grill nodded. “Princess Luna is currently sequestered within the archives. I will escort you down to see her.”
“Uh, thank you.”
Grill led the way over to the door and pulled it open. Light flooded in and Grill grunted in pain before tapping something on his helmet. Standing on the edge of the ramp Grill turned to face me and I saw that his eyes that had been yellow slitted, had now become a normal brown.
He pointed down to an isolated building in the palace grounds. “That’s the archive down there, to save time I can fly you down there if you wish.”
I hadn’t been looking forward to walking down the tower ramp, so I said, “If that’s no trouble.”
“As you wish, madam,” I nodded. “You may want to brace yourself.” The guard spread his bat-like wings and took off, wheeling around behind me before dropping down to pick me up with his legs. A moment later I felt the uncomfortable situation of hanging in the air. Then without warning we were away from the tower and high over the palace.
I felt like a lead weight had landed in my stomach. Suddenly I was very aware that the ground was a long way away, and nothing was between me and the earth that supported me since I was a foal. Then it got worse as the lead weight in my stomach went into freefall as Grill started to dive down toward the archive building.
I might have screamed, again.
Just as the ground looked as though we were about to hit it, the weight in my stomach landed again with a vengeance. I felt like I’d been stretched taller as we came to a sudden stop before a soft touch down. As soon as the hold around my barrel was released I threw myself down on the ground, just happy to be in touch again.
While I was distracted, Grill greeted another member of the Night Guard, which had taken a position by the archive door. The other guard commented, “You probably should have been a little gentler on her, Sarge. I don’t think she’s flown before.”
“But now she knows what it’s really like, Corporal,” Grill replied. “Miss Melody, you may go inside when ready. We shall wait out here to see that you are undisturbed.”
“Thank you,” I said as I shakily stood up again. If today’s excitement continued like this I might find myself a nervous wreck come morning. Being ambushed and carried around had certainly been far from my mind when I got out of bed.
The guards assumed ramrod straight poses as I opened the door and closed it behind me. Before me stood an open gate to a library that surrounded a giant hourglass. I quietly crept inside to look around; the princess was in here somewhere.
I didn’t actually notice her on my first pass, Luna sat on a cushion in a shadow and her eyes were quickly crossing the scroll in her magical hold. As I started down the aisle toward her, Luna scowled and used her magic to wrap her scroll up again. “Fie, another dead end,” She growled and threw the scroll back onto a shelf. “Tis been a millennia, yet still the archives know less on this subject than an incompetent hedge mage.”
“Excuse me, Princess Luna?” I asked.
The princess rounded on me, “What is it?!” I flinched under her glare. Then Luna softened as she caught herself. “Pardon our lapse. We—I, have been frustrated of late.” The princess nodded slightly. “Pray tell, why you have sought me out?”
“Princess Luna,” I said with a curtsy. “I was looking for your help to find a solution to the problem with Princess Dinky.”
A broad smile crossed the princess’s face. “Seems we have common cause, and I have not been idle. I have spent this day searching every scrap of knowledge in the archives for a solution to whatever is responsible for this disruption.” Her smile turned to a frown. “I had hoped by sequestering myself here that I might avoid my sister’s fate and find a solution to our quarry. However, detail is light and I have little to narrow my search by.” Luna looked up at the shelves with a scowl. “Worse still is that by preventing research into coercive magics, we have left ourselves open to their use on the assumption that ultimately either Celestia or myself could fix it. Hubris it seems still affects us.”
Looking back at me, Luna asked, “Mayhap you could help narrow our field of search.” The princess used her magic to conjure a cushion and placed it beside her, asking, “Tell me what you have seen.”
I explained most of what I knew so far, including the process I suspected made Vinyl and I immune to Dinky’s charm. Luna listened intently, only occasionally asking for details or clarification, and kept her thoughts to herself until I finished.
Luna used a wing to scratch around her chest. “So pre-exposure to Dinky or an explanation on how she works is sufficient to confer immunity.” An encouraging smile crossed her face. “So I would have this immunity as well, ‘tis good news. Better still, thy story would suggest the effect is glamour based and so breaking the hold would grant immunity to the afflicted.”
“Can you break that hold?” I asked as I sat up on my cushion.
“Twould be difficult,” Luna admitted. “But I must attend to another priority. Doubtless a tour of Equestria is planned, if so then Dinky would expose everypony to her siren song.”
A memory scratched at the back of her mind. “Celestia said this morning that they planned to leave tonight—”
“Damnation!”
“—But they’re being delayed so Dinky can watch my friend Vinyl perform tonight instead.”
A hard look crossed Luna’s face. “Then we have little time. We must spread the immunity as widely as possible.” Luna stood and shouted in ear-splitting volume, “CORPORAL, ATTEND AT ONCE!”
The pair of Night Guards flew in, slid to a halting bow in front of Luna and simultaneously asked, “Your command, Princess?”
I blinked a couple of times. “Wow.”
“Sergeant, Corporal,” Luna greeted. “I have information that must be disseminated to as many ponies, in Equestria and beyond, as possible, tonight.” The princess summoned official looking parchment, and a quill with ink, and then began writing. After a few moments dominated by the sound of furious cursive, Luna signed the document.
“Fly to Manehatten as fast as possible, discard your armour if you must.” Luna held the signed document up for them to see. “This missive grants the pair of you authorization to commandeer the presses and staff of the Manehatten Times. You are directed to have them print a front page story to the specifications within, and then have it distributed to everypony they can reach. And I mean everypony. If they wish to discuss payment, assure them it will be met by the Royal Treasury’s carte blanche.” Luna presented the document to Sargent Grill. “Take this up to my quarters and emboss my royal seal to it.” Luna gave them a nod and they turned to leave.
“One final thing,” Luna called and the pair stopped. “You two must ensure this is done, do so by any means.”
Grill nodded solemnly and intoned, “As you wish, Princess Luna.”
“By any means?” I asked once the pair had left.
Luna stared off in the direction the guards had left. “They have a mandate, and they must achieve it no matter the cost or what they have to do, necessary or not.” She looked down at the ground. “The consequences will be mine to deal with.” She shook her head. “Worry not, tis done, and I have faith that my Guard will ensure the safety of the rest of Equestria. We must face the task of freeing those already under Dinky’s spell.”
“Do you have a counterspell?” I asked.
“I suspect not,” Luna replied with regret. She lay herself down on her cushion again. “We need to find out how this affected Celestia, after that Dinky’s glamour can be explained by her alicorn status.”
“I think I can answer that as well,” I said. “Princess Celestia was acting maternal to cheer Dinky up. So when Dinky said her horn hurt, the princess offered to kiss it better. When they met, Dinky’s horn sparked.”
Luna sighed. “So Celestia let her guard down and got hit by the uncontrolled, instinctual magic of a filly. Without structure to pull apart, there’s no counter for it after the fact.”
“There’s one more thing I should mention,” I said sheepishly. “But I don’t think you’re going to like this.”
Luna regarded me warily. “Pray tell.”
“Vinyl and I spoke to Discord,” I said nervously. Consorting with the incarnation of disharmony and chaos was unlikely to go down well with the princesses. “Vinyl touched his statue on a dare, and after some goading he gave us the hint that brought me to you.”
“You did no wrong,” Luna reassured me. “We know of Discord’s activities and suspect he regained his awareness during the final days of his first imprisonment.” Luna reclined over on her cushion. “Strangely enough, this time the Elements didn’t remove his capacity to talk to ponies that willingly touch his statue. We suspect the Elements of Harmony didn’t intend to imprison the draconequus for long, though for what reason I have little clue.”
I nodded. “He said this to us, ‘If your horn you wish to toot, find something that is cute. Everything now tall, was once small, while completing your task will require nostalgia of the past.’ We assumed it meant you because you’re tall and of the past. Do you have any idea what it might mean?”
“Hmm.” The princess scratched her chest with a wing again as she thought. “Discord enjoys riddles, especially if they mislead or have double meanings. They always possess the truth, even if only from his own twisted point of view. A game must have a prize.”
“So we need something cute?” I asked.
“I think so,” Luna agreed. “And nostalgic…” Luna sat in thought for a few minutes. I didn’t disturb her. Eventually Luna announced, “I think I understand. Dinky’s power lies in her cute innocence, we merely have to present something cuter to Celestia.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “Where do we find it?”
“Celestia’s memories,” Luna replied cryptically. “We shall trigger it.” She summoned her quill and paper again. “Tis an old memory, especially for her, but this shall bring it to the fore again.” With her quill Luna drew several lines and then added notes in slightly archaic musical notation.
Reading the notes I gave it a try, “Re… fa… do… te-do, re… fa… do…”
Luna nodded approvingly. “A musician I see. ‘Tis old music and such music speaks to the soul.” She finished the sheet and passed it to me. “You said before that your friend is performing for Dinky?” I nodded. “If Celestia is there, play this to her and I shall take care of the rest.”
“Thank you, Princess,” I held the music sheet like a priceless artefact. To a musician like me, it might as well have been.
Luna nodded regally toward me. “I look forward to hearing you play it. ‘Tis been a long time and I have heard it in naught but my memory since.”
“I look forward to it as well.” I stood and curtsied again. “I beg my leave, your highness.”
Luna returned it from her cushion. “Granted, go with good fortune.”
I calmly walked around the corner and closed the archive door behind me. Then as soon as nopony was looking I bolted toward the ball room. I had so much to tell Vinyl, and so little time to practice this song in.