Knights
of the Everfree
Chapter Twelve, Part One:
The next few days passed without incident as life for the intrepid group of ponies worked itself into a sort of normalcy. Lightning and the others had developed a routine of training and normal work, Lightning never failing to go to weather patrol or do his duty for the guard. Little Gear and Dream Dasher seemed to be getting along better, the normally obtuse colt going out of his way to please the filly and abstaining from normal pranks or jokes. Snow Star had kept in close contact with Princess Celestia, sending letters daily via Mercury, who now followed along on any part of the day's events, observing training as well as the reconstruction of the base.
This day saw the ponies all gathered at the base. Lightning was finished with weather patrol, and training was done so Snow Star was giving the three gathered ponies a talking to about how to deal with a few situations. "When you encounter something and you don't know what it is, in a place like this, assume it is dangerous. I want you all to come get me as soon as possible, no matter what you might think about the situation. Creatures here are dangerous, and it wouldn't take much for something bad to happen; a moment of indecision and the next thing you know, I'm apologizing to your parents. Do you three understand me?" Snow Star was giving her best impression of a harsh drill instructor, though it was clear that the events had bothered her for different reasons.
The three younger ponies all nodded with various forms of, "Yes ma'am," as confirmation.
She nodded to herself. "Good, from now on I want a bit more effort from all of you in regards to this. We already know there are dangerous creatures here that have targeted you for whatever reasons. When one of them was in the house and you didn't get me immediately, that was a mistake." She looked at Dream Dasher and Little Gear. "And when the two of you didn't get my attention when whatever it was had you floating in the air..." She sighed as though under a great strain. "What were you thinking?"
Lighting Shaker was the first to speak up, moving forward a bit with his armor gleaming in the morning sun. "The nightmare just wanted to talk, I don't think I was in any real danger from it. I think they need my help."
Snow Star gave him a doubtful look, but held her tongue and motioned for him to continue, as she was a bit curious as to where this was going.
"I think there is something controlling the. They may actually be in more danger than I am." Though he said this with conviction, his face showed that he was as unsure of the situation as any other pony.
Dream Dasher just shrugged, a bit of an embarrassed look on his face. "I think what happened to me was just annoying, not so much dangerous. I think whatever it was that did that was too scared of me to do anything." Little Gear nodded, though she also seemed to be standing a bit close to the colt, her eyes glancing around nervously.
Once she was sure they were done, Snow Star stepped forward, standing above the three younger ponies. Her frown born of being a captain — if a bit of a young one — but in charge of ponies that were even younger. "This is what I am talking about; you have no idea what it was in the forest. It could have been anything. Maybe a unicorn that cast a spell, or some monster that uses that ability to hold its prey captive and make it easy to eat them. And as far as those nightmares go, I would always assume they are dangerous. For Celestia's sake Lightning, you should be smarter than this! They put you in the hospital for months!" She looked behind the ponies and nodded at something, though the two colts and the filly knew better than to remove their attention from her.
"Captain Hidden Script," Snow Star said, saluting.
"Captain Snow Star," the unicorn answered, returning the salute. He gestured to the filly next to him. "I was told to bring this one to you for your trip today, though I am to accompany you on your visit. Do be a good student and greet your fellow guards."
"Oh, umm... Hello Lightning, Dream Dasher, and Captain Snow Star."
The filly was still out of eyesight, but Lightning Shaker couldn't miss the voice. He turned, smiling at the sight of Rare Charmer and giving a small wave, flapping his wings excitedly.
"Lightning! Eyes forward! I'm not done telling you how displeased I am with you," Snow Star yelled, leaning in and looking as angry as she sounded.
The other guard coughed to get her attention. "Captain, I hate to interrupt a good browbeating, however we have a schedule and must be going."
She sighed and nodded. "You're right, we should get going. But Lightning, don't think this is over. I can't believe how irresponsible you've been."
The other guard — which the three learned was an advanced magic instructor specializing in defensive spells — led them to a pair of pegasus pulled chariots. Little Gear eyed the chariots suspiciously. "I've never understood how these are viable vehicles," she snorted as she inspected the pony-powered machine, "they would have to be pulled relatively fast to keep from drooping, or they'd deposit cargo in a fatal mess. And there is no back, so the speed would run the risk of flinging passengers out as well."
Snow Star chuckled, patting the earth pony on the back. "Don't worry, us pegasi have magic of our own. When we hold something during flight, we transfer some of our flight ability to it, so things remain stable."
The filly thought for a moment, the gears whirring away in her head as she rubbed her chin with her prosthetic. "So you transfer kinetic energy? That sounds a little unfair. Why do pegasi and unicorns get magic, but us earth ponies are shafted?"
"Shafted, huh? You think earth ponies lack magic of their own? I'm not going to get into a lecture about it right now, but maybe you should ask someone important who you’ll be seeing soon enough," the pegasus captain said with a mischievous wink.
Rare Charmer moved over to Lightning while all attention was on Little Gear. "I've missed you, Lightning." She whispered.
He smiled at her. "I missed you too. We should find some time to catch up," he said, blushing a bit.
"Alright, that's enough you two, on the carriages... Separate ones. And Lightning, get that blush off your face. None of that here," Snow Star ordered, ushering the two onto the waiting vehicles.
As they took to the air, Little Gear's curiosity overpowered her fear as she watched in earnest, examining the way the two pegasi pulled the chariot. Though she still held on to the side of the cart a bit harder than necessary.
The two groups flew through the air, one consisting of Hidden Script, Rare Charmer, and Little Gear, while the other was Snow Star, Lightning Shaker, and Dream Dasher. Lightning looked up at the captain, "Captain Snow, where are we going anyway?"
She answered by pointing off into the distance. Lightning followed her hoof, and his jaw dropped at where she was pointing. They were on their way to Canterlot! Snow Star smiled down at him. Then she did something she never thought she'd do; she took it easy on him. "Listen Lightning, I'm sorry I was hard on you earlier, but you have to understand... it isn't just you that you have to be concerned with. When you make a mistake like that, it can cause trouble for others too. Imagine how miss Spring would have felt if something bad had happened to you." She pulled him close with a hoof. "Not to mention your captain. I'm responsible for you.” Snow Star pointed to Canterlot again. "Now when we get there, we will have a meeting with The Princess. She will expect reports. What do you think I should tell her?"
His shoulders slumped. "The truth. I don't think we should lie to her. She may be angry with me — the way I handled things wasn't great, but I went with my gut. This may turn out poorly, but I stand by my choice."
Snow Star looked proud of Lightning at that moment, patting the young pegasus on the back. "That's good enough for me. You don't realize this yet, but that is exactly the kind of thing I like to hear."
They arrived in Canterlot a short time later and headed straight for the castle. Lightning was slightly overwhelmed at the sights; Canterlot was much larger than Ponyville. The two guards were mostly ignored by the ponies of the city, though the four younger guards got quite a bit more attention; the three of them wearing their own miniature guard’s uniforms was an odd sight. Dream Dasher was clearly enjoying the attention, as he would occasionally wave to passers by a huge grin on his face.
When they arrived at the castle, the guards gave them no trouble and they went right in. The inside of the castle was like nothing Lightning had ever seen. He marveled at the grand structure as they walked through the main hall. Lightning found it annoying that his guard’s boots made a clinking sound on the floor. He felt somehow the noise he was making was a profanity in this place.
They were stopped before they could enter the grand hall, and the guards informed them that the princess was in an important meeting. "We'll just have to wait. This could be a while, so how about this; if you four promise to stay out of trouble and within the castle grounds, you can look around. We'll get you when Princess Celestia has time for us." She looked at Lightning. "I mean it. Stay out of trouble."
Lightning saluted and the others followed suit. "We won't disappoint you, Ma'am."
Snow Star saluted the four back. "Go on then; the castle is quite a sight. We'll come get you when the princess is ready."
The four younger ponies, unsure of what to do, began to walk away from the large doors to The Princess' meeting hall. Lightning was the first to speak up. "Where do you guys think we should go?" he asked, looking around nervously. Little Gear looked highly uncomfortable as she caught quite a number of the palace staff giving them odd stares. Some of the maids even made cooing noises at them. She did notice that the guards paid them little to no attention, never moving out of their positions, almost looking like statues.
Dream Dasher ran up to a window. "Hey guys, maybe we should go check that out?" He indicated a hedge maze outside the castle, his iron shod hoof waving at it.
"I dunno, dat seems like da kinda place we could get los' in, Dream Dasha'. Cap'n Snow Star said she'd come get us, but if we're lost, wull..." Little Gear seemed more nervous than Lightning at the moment.
"I agree, we can't do that... What if we just find a library or something, you know, a good book?" Rare Charmer spoke up for the first time in a while. Lightning Shaker and Little Gear both nodded in agreement while Dream Dasher grumbled, mumbling something about foals. After getting some directions from a bored looking guard, the three ended up in one of the libraries still in the same wing as the grand hall.
Rare Charmer and Little Gear both went to browse the card catalog while Dream Dasher headed off to find a fiction section. Lightning felt this would be a good time to talk to Rare Charmer. "Hey, I'm glad to see you here, where have you been the past couple months?" he asked as he looked at some of the card catalogues, not really seeing anything, but just flipping them randomly.
"Shh. I'm trying to read, can you keep it down?" This from a young pony on the other side of the room.
Lightning looked a bit sheepish upon seeing the other pony. "Sorry about that Inspira, I'll keep it down." He did a double take. "Wait, Inspira Flash? What are you doing here!?"
"Shh! I don't know who you're talking about, but I'm not this Inspira Flash. If you can't keep it down, I'd appreciate it if you left. I'm trying to study." The unicorn had about the same coloring as Inspira, but with a lighter color and a pink stripe in her mane.
"Oh, um... Sorry miss, I didn't mean to disturb you; thought you were a friend of ours," Lightning said, backing away sheepishly.
The filly muttered something under her breath as she went back to her studies, rotating another book from her mountainous stack and happily forgetting about the noisy ponies. When Lightning turned around he noticed Little Gear and Rare Charmer had vanished Dream Dasher had as well but that was to be expected, in all likelihood he was off getting into trouble. He found Rare Charmer down an aisle, reading a book while scanning other titles, her magic holding the book as she walked. "What'cha doing?" he asked, following along behind her.
"I figured since we are here, I might as well take advantage of this library and its collection to see if there is anything I can learn about what is going on." She deposited the book she was reading back on the shelf behind her and grabbed another one from the top shelf with her magic. "Have those nightmare creatures still been giving you problems?"
Lightning fidgeted, unconsciously bringing a hoof to the necklace hidden beneath his guard’s uniform. "No, actually. There's something I need to tell you about that... They've actually asked for my help."
She stared at him in disbelief. "Those... Things have the nerve to ask you for anything after what they did to you!?"
This brought another "shhh!" from the other side of the book cases.
Rare Charmer rolled her eyes before glaring at Lightning. "You're not planning on actually helping them, are you?"
The pegasus just shrugged. "I don't see why not. Isn't that sort of my job now; helping other ponies, especially ones in the Everfree?"
"But they hurt you... I can't forgive that. How can you be so accepting of what happened? Why aren't you the one who's angry at them!?" She was practically panting.
Lightning shrugged. "If my theory is correct, the nightmares are being controlled by something, and they are afraid of it."
Rare Charmer huffed angrily, "It's like you feel sympathy for them. What do you even know about these nightmares?"
Just then a loud grunt of anger and an even louder thump as several books hit the floor resounded through the library. "Here, nightmares in various topics! Everything from Nightmares and Dreamscapes to The Legend of Nightmare Moon!" the young unicorn from earlier shouted, her eye twitching. Lightning and Rare looked back at the unicorn with bashful expressions. "Now if you two could pipe down, libraries are supposed to be QUIET!"
"Twilight Sparkle! That's not the way you should be acting. What could possibly make you behave like this?" Lightning was shocked to see an alicorn princess walk into the room, flanked by a white unicorn colt with a blue mane.
"Twily, you shouldn't be rude. What would mom and dad think?" the colt asked, looking stern. Lightning noticed he had his cutie mark; a shield with three stars above it, and one larger one in the middle. It resembled the younger unicorn's cutie mark.
The princess smiled at Lightning and Rare Charmer. "Sorry about that. Twilight gets a little absorbed in her studies, and a little cranky when she has a big test"
Lightning Shaker knelt before the princess, "It's no problem at all, Princess. Sorry for causing trouble. We did get a bit rowdy with our own research."
"Cadance!" Twilight shouted, jumping into a kneeling position, "Sunshine sunshine—" All she got was a look of disapproval from the princess. Twilight sighed. "But they were being loud, and I was trying to study for my test," she whimpered at Cadance’s glare.
Cadance shook her head. "Still not a good enough reason, Twilight. Say you are sorry."
Twilight groaned turning towards Lightning and Rare Charmer. "I'm sorry for my outburst, I just get wrapped up in my studies, especially for important tests."
"Don't worry about it, thanks for the books," Lightning responded with a reassuring smile.
"My name is Cadance by the way, and this is Shining Armor. He's Twilight's older brother. And you've met Twilight Sparkle." Princess Cadance said, motioning to the other ponies as she introduced them.
Lightning knelt again, which got a chuckle from the Princess, as well as Little Gear and Dream Dasher. "These are my friends; this is Dream Dasher, Little Gear and Rare Charmer. We're waiting to get scolded by Princess Celestia for being careless."
Cadance chuckled. "I'm fairly sure she isn't fond of scolding, but she'll probably make you feel bad for whatever you did in the nicest way."
"That may be worse than scolding, though I'm pretty sure it's deserved." Lightning fidgeted nervously.
"Well I'm sure that's the desired reaction. Celestia has had a lot of practice leading ponies to do the right thing, after all." She ruffled Lightning's mane. "I wouldn't be too nervous. So long as you learned your lesson and correct the behavior, you'll be fine. Just don't do whatever it is that made her worry again, and everything will be okay."
"Right, no more of that stuff!" Lightning shouted, laughing in a poor attempt at concealing his lie. Cadance simply raised her brow as Shining Armor looked puzzled.
"Um, Lightning, listen to this story. I think it's possibly relevant to what's going on with you," Rare Charmer said as she levitated a large book over to Lightning.
Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there were two regal sisters who ruled together and created harmony for all the land. To do this, the eldest used her unicorn powers to raise the sun at dawn; the younger brought out the moon to begin the night. Thus, the two sisters maintained balance for their kingdom and their subjects, all the different types of ponies. But as time went on, the younger sister became resentful. The ponies relished and played in the day her elder sister brought forth, but shunned and slept through her beautiful night.
One fateful day, the younger unicorn refused to lower the moon to make way for the dawn. The elder sister tried to reason with her, but the bitterness in the young one's heart had transformed her into a wicked mare of darkness; Nightmare Moon.
He frowned, looking down at the pages. "Nightmare Moon... Well it's not the right kind of nightmare, I don't think. Isn't that just an old ponies’ tale?"
Rare Charmer shrugged. "It may be, or it may not, but we need answers. Let me read some more."
She vowed that she would shroud the land in eternal night. Reluctantly, the elder sister harnessed the most powerful magic known to ponydom; the Elements of Harmony. Using the magic of the Elements of Harmony, she defeated her younger sister and banished her permanently on the moon. The elder sister took on responsibility for both sun and moon, and harmony has been maintained in Equestria for generations since.
"What are the Elements of Harmony? ... Wait, do you think this is talking about Princess Celestia? She doesn't have a sister, does she?" Rare said, hoofing through the book.
"I don't think that's right. We would know if she had a sister, right? Wait, is Princess Cadance her sister? Lightning looked up at Cadance as they were still waiting for Twilight to check out all her books. "Princess Cadance, are you related to Princess Celestia? Does she even have a sister?"
Cadance chuckled, shaking her head, "I'm not related to Celestia by blood or anything, and as far as I know, she doesn't have a sister." The princess thought to herself for a moment. "Though, she is much older than I am, and I've never really asked. So maybe she has other family that I don't know of. Not sure why she would hide something like that though."
Twilight, having checked out her books, was levitating them and already reading one as she walked towards the library exit. "We'd better get going, she's not going to wait around,” Shining Armor said, chuckling as he started following the distracted unicorn. "Oh, and welcome to The Guard. It's nice to see other ponies around my age doing this. Maybe we can hang out some time." Shining Armor saluted as Cadance smiled and waved.
Lightning saluted back. "It was nice meeting you all, thanks for the help." He turned to see that the others were now all with him. With his group back together, he decided to put the book back and find another place to go. "What do think we should go see next? Maybe we could go check out the guards’ barracks?” Dream Dasher and even Little Gear seemed to think this was a good idea as they started to head out of the library.
"I'm afraid that will have to wait, the Princess is ready for you now. I am to escort you all to the main meeting hall." Snow Star stood next to Hidden Script, motioning for the four to follow her as she started down the hall.
Lightning gulped audibly in nervousness.