Where Loyalties Lie: Ghosts of the Past

by LoyalLiar


XVI - Ghosts of the Past

XVI

Ghosts of the Past

- - -

With guest translations by Fillosof

(Russian text in this chapter is unrated)

- - -

Rainbow dreamt of falling.  Clouds shot past her left and right, yet with every little tickle on her wingtips, her desperate flaps failed to make even the slightest difference.  Instead, the pit in her stomach only grew and grew, putting tears in her eyes and a quivering in her throat.  She shivered with a cold that could normally never pierce a pegasus’ skin.  Her wings grew numb, and her body shook.  Out of the corner of her eyes, she could make out one blue feather drifting away.  Then another.  And another still.  She was no stranger to losing the odd feather in flight, but the sight of what lay beneath froze her tongue and twisted her throat.  In place of the flesh and bones of her precious wings, there was only a shadow.

She woke, in tandem, from the hoof on her shoulder and the surge of her own throat as her growling stomach found that it had nothing to empty.  Her eyes blinked slowly, as fuzzy shadows became a stone cell a mere half-dozen feet across, sealed by a steel door and lit by a tiny open window high on the wall.  Weighing her options on instinct, the pegasus pushed up with her hooves, only to find resistance from the hoof of another holding her down by her back.

“You are still not scarred.  Stay still, mare, or you will reopen―”

Rainbow didn’t recognize the deep yet feminine voice.  Her mind didn’t bother to parse to warning.  All her mind understood was that the speaker was not a pony.  She twisted in place, and looked up.

A boar stared down at her.

“Get away from me!” Rainbow shouted, rolling to the side with all her strength.  The creature’s grip wasn’t enough to pin the young athlete down, though the surges of pain from the stubs on her back rubbing over the stone floor were a horrifying enough feeling to stop her completely just the same.  Shrieking in pain, the pegasus wrapped her hooves around her head.  “No!  Give them back!”

“What?”

Rainbow felt her own blood pooling from her back, staining her coat and painting the floor.  Even as she twitched, she cried out again to her enemy.  “Give ‘em back!

The boar didn’t answer.  Gritting her teeth, Rainbow placed her hooves back on the floor.  Twice she slipped in her own vitality before standing.

Her eyes locked on the boar.  It was a smaller thing than Khagan or his minions, with a wiry brown coat and no tusks to speak of.  Gritting her teeth, the pegasus ran forward.

“I want my wings!”  Her first hoof caught the boar on the snout, drawing blood and leaving the sow recoiling.  A second strike caught her chin, and toppled the larger creature backward.  “What did you do with them?”

Hiding behind cloven hooves, the boar retreated from Rainbow’s assault.  “I didn’t do anything!”

Liar!”  A third strike caught her foreleg, forcing it down.  “Give them back!”  A fourth blow hit the top of the sow’s brow, leaving her wincing.

“I swear!  I’m just as much a prisoner here as you are, pony!”

“Prisoner?”  The word found some purchase in Rainbow’s mind, and her eyes swept across the room.  For a moment, they locked on the sky.  “I’ve got to get out.”

“You can’t simply escape.  The―”

“I’m going to get out,” Rainbow interrupted.  “I’ve got to get out.”  Darting across the room, she came to the foot of the enormous door.  No knob or handle was available on the inside, leaving Rainbow to rub her bloody hooves up and down the edges.  “I need to get out.  I’ve got to find Khagan.”

“Pony, I do not know what you are hoping to accomplish, and I am sorry for your loss―”

“I have to go!  I have to find him.”  Growling in irritation, the pegasus pulled her hoof back and smashed it against the door.  A dull ringing echoed in the little stone cell, but the door was unaffected.  “I have to get Khagan!”  Another blow cried out, to no result.  Ignoring the resistance, she struck, again and again, until her hoof began to crack and bleed from the force.  “No!  No!”  Over and over, the shouts escaped, but the door ignored them.  “Let me out!  Let me fly!  Let me… let me…”  The blows slowed, losing force just as quickly as Rainbow’s voice, until all that remained was a quivering wreck.  “Let me fly again…”

For what seemed like a very long time, the pegasus was left alone in her sorrow.  Tears fell, shimmering in the orange light of the little window, though Rainbow saw nothing, preferring the darkness behind her eyelids.  She cried in silence, for there was nothing to say.  All she had was the cruel realization that the marks on her flanks meant nothing.

She would never fly again.

- - -

“Что ты имеешь в виду, Полночь?”  It was the first voice Masquerade had heard in twelve hours, echoing down the spiral staircase at the far side of the room that served as its only entrance.  Her head perked up, rattling the chain connected to her collar.  “Постой, что это было?”  The voice had been speaking to somepony else, but it picked up to a louder tone as it continued.  “Там внизу кто-то есть?”

“You’ll need to speak Equiish with her, Predvidenie.”  The almost growling tone of Third Brother was unmistakable.  “I do not know how good her Stalliongradi really is, and how much of it is magic, and I do not speak Prench. ”

The voice―Predvidenie―replied with an almost audible raised eyebrow.  “That doesn’t make any sense.  Everypony knows there’s no such thing as an auditory translation spell.  And I can’t help but notice that you still haven’t given me an―”  Foresight stepped around the last inch of the column at the center of the spiral staircase leading down into the dungeon.  There, the royal blue unicorn simply stopped.  “―answer.”

Masquerade stared, smiled, and then started to chuckle.  “Foresight?”

It took only a moment for Foresight’s look of confusion to turn into one of utter hatred.  “Masquerade.”

Shaking away her little spat of amusement, the assassin acknowledged her curiosity.  “You recognize me?”

“If you thought Roscherk went about his efforts to hunt you alone,” Foresight replied as his horn went to work loosening his scarf, “you are sadly mistaken.  We have pictures of you in acting classes in Mareis.  When I take into account that Roscherk is far too thick to have picked up the finer points of a Prench accent, there aren’t a lot of holes to fill in.”

And then, almost casually, he added “Have you killed another one of my brothers?”

There was a part of Masquerade that was tempted to lie, to see how the stallion would react.  It wasn’t any fear of Foresight, but of the midnight stallion at his side, that drew out the truth.  “I couldn’t risk it.  I didn’t have any way to keep Celestia from getting his soul, and then she would have known I’d escaped.”

“Necromancy?”  Foresight’s glare deepened just a moment before he turned to face Third Brother.  “You should have had me bring Infernus.”

“I don’t intend to kill her.” Third Brother casually leapt over the smaller unicorn, landing heavily on the flat stones that made up the dungeon floor a mere few inches from Masquerade’s side.  “Perhaps the Mistress will.”

Infernus?” Masquerade shivered a little.  “A spell?  What sort of freaky magic is that?”

“Not magic,” Third Brother answered with the same utter lack of emotion that scared Masquerade in a way no amount of anger ever could.  “The sword of Tsyklon.  Too large for any other living pony to use in battle.”  Masquerade wondered if the thestral was including his own massive size and freakish strength in that assessment.  Was a thestral actually a pony?  Third Brother offered no answers to her silent questions as he continued.  “Three feet in length, and heavy enough to go straight through a spine in one blow.  Roscherk is fond of using it for executions.”

“Why do you humor her?” Foresight asked scornfully. “Get whatever information you can out of her, then execute her.  Or bring her to Princess Luna, if that’s what you intend.”

Third Brother shook his head. “I would prefer not to torture her, Predvidenie. It was Truncheon’s influence that created me, and I do not want to retread my old steps. Masquerade has an answer for me, and as long as she gives it to me, she will have my respect.”

Behind his gold-framed glasses, Foresight’s expression went slack.  “I think you’re being naive.  As ridiculous as this sounds, Roscherk’s way is probably the best avenue to a resolution here.”

“Roscherk’s way?” the thestral asked flatly.  His hooves moved slowly, one by one turning him around to face his unicorn companion.  Leathery wings extended slowly, and the cold stallion lowered himself as if preparing to pounce.  Masquerade gasped when the giant pony’s wings exploded into flame.  “You honestly want to talk to me about Roscherk’s way?”

Foresight recoiled, losing his near-perpetual calm and shielding his face with a hoof.  “I―I didn’t mean to imply that you…”  Panting in fear, the unicorn finally managed to whisper another few words.  “I’m sorry, Brother.”

“You are forgiven, Predvidenie.  I would say that I was thankful she did not kill Roscherk, but in truth, he likely deserves it.”  Snarling fangs briefly flashed in Masquerade’s direction, glinting white in light cast by his still-flaming wings.  “Regardless, I know that he lives.  The mistress makes a habit of speaking to her sister in dreams.  And so, it was in a dream that Celestia warned that Masquerade was in possession of Roscherk’s jacket.  Though it would not have mattered; the fact that she failed to recognize me told me everything I needed to know.”

His leathery wings relinquished their flames and folded against the thestral’s sides.  With casual strides, he brought his looming body to bear near his prisoner.  “Have you figured it out yet, Masquerade?”

“Now, hold on.”  Foresight raised a hoof, managing to walk forward on his remaining three.  Masquerade’s brow quirked at the little stiffness in his hind legs, though she didn’t bother a comment.  “I think I’m going to need a bit more explanation here.  I admit I suspected something was wrong with Roscherk when I spoke to him, but she got his cutie mark right.  Illusion magic can’t do that.”

“No, it cannot.”  Third Brother placed his head beneath his wing.  A moment later, when he exposed himself from beneath the leathery appendage, a familiar glimmer of steel had appeared between his fangs.  “But there is magic which can.”

“Is that Truncheon’s knife?” Foresight asked, obviously troubled.

The thestral gave no answer to the unicorn’s question, instead bringing the blade slowly toward Masquerade’s throat.  She could feel the metal through her coat, stinging her even though it hadn’t cut her flesh.  She could smell the cruel magic.  Third Brother showed no sympathy, speaking around the handle with no apparent difficulty.  “Answer his question.”

Panting tightly, and feeling a chill growing in her hind hooves, Masquerade looked to Foresight with desperation in her eyes.  He replied with an unforgiving glare over the rim of his glasses.  “I… I can’t.”

The knife made a tiny slit on the side of her neck, well clear of any veins.  To her body, it felt as though lightning was coursing through her nerves from the wound, burning and shredding.  Her eyes watered, and she screamed until her throat went numb and her lungs could not support the noise.

When Third Brother finally removed his knife, Masquerade found herself panting.  The slit on her throat was only faintly bleeding, but her body still felt like it had been on fire.  Worse still were the shadows all throughout the dark room.  In her tired, desperate mind, she thought she saw the glowing orb of her contractor watching her.  Her conscious mind told her that Foresight and Third Brother hadn’t reacted, but it was hard to convince herself of such logic through the pain.  Tears leaked down her cheeks, but when she closer her eyes, she saw Third Brother’s slitted orbs staring back as if burnt into her eyelids.  When she opened them again, the world was gray, and fuzzy around the edges, as if part of its reality had been stolen away by the cruel wound.

“Answer him,” Third Brother ordered, in the same tone he had always used in addressing her.

“I can’t.  Please, I―”  The knife moved forward again, touching her coat, and she screamed.  “Alright, alright, please, just stop!”

The cruel blade stopped, but it did not retreat.

“I’m a… a… a changeling.”

The Secretary of Stalliongrad, visibly sweating in the presence of torture, brought a shaking hoof up to his face and his glasses on his muzzle.  “I always thought changelings weren’t intelligent,” he observed, in a tone that wanted desperately to sound unfazed.

Third Brother’s slitted eyes stayed locked with Masquerade’s.  “Explain for him.”

Masquerade swallowed, feeling the knife bob up and down with her throat.  She struggled to keep a stiff lip, though she knew her eyes were watering.  “Changeling drones aren’t intelligent.  But those cocoons the changelings make have magic in them; they turn ponies into a different kind of changeling.  Fully intelligent, but intensely hungry for love.  We can use all three kinds of magic… but we can’t actually make magic on our own.  Every time I cast a spell, it makes me hungry.”

Predvidenie paced forward, watching the mare closely with his dull red eyes.  “So the Changeling Queen was behind the attempt to kill Luna?”

Masquerade held her tongue until the feeling of the knife against her throat began to draw blood.  The feeling was worse than it had been before: pure agony, coursing through her body like a long, slow bolt of lightning, burning the base of every strand of her mane and every inch of her coat.  “No!” she finally found the strength to cry.  Satisfied, Third Brother removed his magic knife.  Masquerade sucked down a breath, feeling her blood dribble against the cold metal of her collar.  “No, not her.”

Third Brother’s brow rose.  “Then how did you become a changeling?”

The assassin knew she couldn’t answer without risk of bringing down the curse her contractor had placed on her, but she wasn’t expecting Foresight to speak up.  “All you’d need is a cocoon and a bit of alicorn magic.” the stallion told the thestral.  “I can’t imagine there were any shortage of cocoons laying around Canterlot after Cadenza’s wedding.  Alicorn magic, though…”

“Then there are only six options,” Third Brother noted to himself.  “Or eight, if one is foolish enough to count the Princesses.”

Foresight shook his head. “Despite the name, Brother, it isn’t just alicorns who can use that sort of magic.  You of all ponies should know that, even if Masquerade hadn’t just explained that any changeling… whatever she is… could do it too.”

Masquerade’s captor spoke up slowly.  “Chrysalis would have no motive to kill me.  A shade could not have freed Masquerade from her cell in Canterlot.  And only the Mistress can create Thestrals.”

Foresight coughed.  “That isn’t exactly true―”

“Create?” Masquerade interrupted, struggling with her words.  “What are you?”

The thestral rolled his neck once, releasing a deep pop, and then turned his level gaze toward Masquerade.  “When we last spoke, I told you that you would be telling the story of another contract.  Do you recall the date I gave you?”

“I think so… June, six years ago?  In Saraneighvo?”  A pale blue head nodded once.  Masquerade shivered in her collar, letting her eyes drift between the two stallions in her presence.  “I… It was a pretty normal job.”  Third Brother seemed unbothered by the statement, but spite collected on Foresight’s face in contrast to his earlier discomfort.  “I have...er, I guess I had a pony who took contracts for me.  But you and the other ‘thestrals’ picked him up.”

“His sacrifice is helping to undo your harm to Commander Lining,” the thestral replied, before licking his fangs in a slow and exaggerated motion that sent shivers down Masquerade’s already chilled spine.  “But do not let my appetite disturb you.  Please, continue.”

Again, Masquerade found herself shivering in fear and cold.  “The target was a police pony… wait, I think I remember.”  Third Brother’s brow rose as Masquerade turned to look at Foresight.  “This was your brother, wasn’t it?”  The assassin allowed herself a long, slow breath.  “I think I remember now.  Is that why you brought him down here?”

Slitted eyes rolled in their sockets.  Then, like a bolt of lightning, Third Brother lunged forward and rammed his knife into Masquerade’s foreleg, in the joint where Rainbow Dash had severed the limb months before.  The changeling assassin collapsed, twitching in agony and screaming for what she knew had to be the rest of her life.

Shards of glass traveled through her veins from the wound.  Rolling in her chain, Masquerade lost all sense of sight or sound or time, feeling only pain, and hearing only her own screams echoing off the claustrophobic stone walls into her ears.  She had no fear that she would die, but she desperately wanted to.

And then, all at once, it was over.  

Looming above her, Third Brother spoke over her panting agony with an utter lack of emotion or pity.  “I was expecting something like your own tale, Masquerade.  But if Polnoch was not worth your memory, I will tell the story myself.”  The stallion’s leathery wing extended, casting out a wall of visibly sparkling fog and purple shadows.  Tongues of purple flame escaped from his eyes, and a wall of green wrapped tightly around his yellow slitted irises.  Masquerade watched in awe, momentarily forgetting her discomfort.  Even Foresight seemed confused by the thestral’s magic.

In the dark spots of the flame, Masquerade could see a vaguely familiar room, filled with blurry-outlines of tables and chairs, pots and pans.  A stallion of a more vibrant blue than Third Brother, but sharing his size and breed, sat over soup in a chipped white porcelain bowl.

“His name, as I said, was Polnoch,” Third Brother explained.  “Once a simple police officer under Baron Frostbite, then his unwilling torturer, and then a revolutionary who worked to overthrow him.”

From the side of the flames came another pony; a mare taller still than the stallion, with breadth to contrast the lankier build hidden beneath his muscles, and lacking the wings that decorated his sides.  Her off-white coat curled up into a smile on her cheeks.  In the air, Masquerade swore she could taste the slightest hint of a sugary sensation.

“Stoikaja…” Foresight whispered, as the general displeasure written across his muzzle deepened into a truly personal spite.

“In his later years, Polnoch was also a loving husband,” Third Brother told Masquerade, “and a father.”

The gasp of air from Foresight was enough to turn the assassin away from the image.  “What are you saying, Polnoch?”

Third Brother’s flaming eyes turned away from his prisoner to face the effective ruler of Stalliongrad.  “Well, Predvidenie, why don’t you let me finish my story?”

“Polnoch?” Masquerade interrupted.  “You can’t be Polnoch!  I killed him!”

The fury on the thestral’s face melted away, and he bared his fangs in a smile that turned into a deep and terrifying laugh, echoing on the cold stone walls of the dungeon.  He took a step toward Masquerade, and placed a hoof slowly on her shoulder.  Despite the chill in her own body, she shivered at his frigid touch.

“Yes, Masquerade, you did.”  In the shadows of the flame, Polnoch kissed Stoikaja, and offered her a seat at the table.  In reality, the thestral grabbed Masquerade’s neck, forcing her forward to stare at his memories.  “You had the gall to come into that home wearing her face.”  She felt his spit on her ear as he spat the words.

In the memory of flames, Polnoch drank from his soup, and then slowly moved a hoof to his chest.  “Then you watched,” Third Brother narrated, as the pegasus fell out of his chair and onto the floor.  “You walked forward and explained exactly what it was.  Galm’s Elixir, a poison made from the pollen of the black lotus and a basilisk’s venom.  How was it that you phrased it, then?  ‘Nasty stuff,’ I think.”  In the image, Polnoch clutched his chest and screamed, writhing in silent agony.  “Harmless until it comes into contact with warm tissue.  Then it acts on blood vessels, turning them into an acidic ooze that literally melts the internal organs, but mostly ignores the bones and the skin itself.  In six minutes, all that’s left is a sack of flesh, filled with a stew that used to be a living pony.”

Masquerade’s shivered as the grip around her neck tightened, not from the freakish cold of Third Brother’s body, but from the fear of what she was slowly coming to believe.

“The problem with Galm’s Elixir, Masquerade, is that it needs a warm body.  Not a walking corpse.”

The assassin shrieked.  “What are you?”

He shoved her away, letting her crumple against the chain holding her against the wall.  “My name is Polnoch, the damned soul of a stallion that never earned redemption for the evils he committed in life, in this very room.  I serve a century-long sentence before I may return to the Summer Lands and rejoin my foals.”

Foresight seemed to have found words, which he wheezed out more through his nose than his mouth.  “Stoikaja’s foals were―”

“Your nephew and niece,” Polnoch told his elder brother spitefully, not taking his burning eyes away from Masquerade.  To the assassin, his words were softer.  “I am offering you a choice, assassin.  One which has nothing to do with your ‘contractor,’ and everything to do with that day, six years ago.  In killing me, you sank this domain into a limping hell of politics and bloody rebellion.  The blood of every death in the battles between my wife and my brother is on your hooves.  Help me find who hired you to make this mess, and I will speak on your behalf to the Mistress.”

Masquerade had no words to reply.  In the ensuing silence, the undead stallion continued.

“Help me undo the damage you’ve done, assassin, and I will do my best to find you a path to redemption.  Spurn this chance, and I will send you to Tartarus myself.”  Baring his fangs and narrowing his burning eyes, the stallion leaned forward, dropping his growling voice to a harsh whisper.  “One limb at a time.”

A silence filled the dungeon, as the fires in Polnoch’s eyes and the image of his death slowly trailed off into smoke and shadows.  Turning to his elder brother, the thestral gestured with a wing toward the stairs.  “Теперь ты знаешь, Предвидение.”

Foresight replied in a slack-jawed whisper.  “Почему ты не рассказал нам?”

“Спроси Стойкую,” Polnoch answered, his tongue dancing over his fangs with ease.  “I will give you some time to think, Masquerade.”

“К чему медлить?” Foresight asked.

“Потому что ей понадобиться время на размышление, и потому что мне тоже нужно время.”  Polnoch began walking toward the stairs.  The speed of his speech and the peculiar inflection left by his fangs made interpreting his words impossible for the non-native assassin.  To her surprise, he suddenly picked up in his stiff, formal Equuish, throwing a glance back in her direction.  “She did not know what a thestral was, despite her time as the Commander.  In all her information on the palace, whoever hired her to kill the Mistress did not explain our nature.  With that knowledge, I think I have a way to find ‘the Contractor.’”

“Как?” Foresight snapped with a sudden volume, as his magic cinched up his scarf.

“Думаю, мне придется тебя удивить, Предвидение.”  Masquerade did not understand the parting words, which made the nod the stallion gave her all the more confusing.

- - -

Solo found herself shivering beneath her wings in the cab of a heavy Stalliongradian locomotive as Twilight Sparkle held a muzzle-to-muzzle argument with the spiked teeth of Marshal Serp.

“I’m not asking to fight anything!  I just want to stop and take a look!”

“Тирек побери!  This is not about looking for a fight, Twilight Sparkle.  This is about them coming to us.  You are asking us to walk into Equestria’s biggest выгребную яму, a monster-filled fortress, just so you can ‘take a look?’”  The pegasus pantomimed the quotes with his leading feathers.  “Let me ask you just one question, unicorn: is Celestia ,блядь, insane?”

At the far side of the cab, the enormous form of Molot was shoveling coal into the locomotive’s engine.  The flames stared at Solo, beckoning her closer with dancing orange tongues and tempting her with heat.  Each time she moved forward, however, she saw the red stallion, snarling his teeth and lashing out at her.

“How dare you?” Twilight shouted, grabbing Solo’s attention.  “Princess Celestia is an amazing leader, and―”

“Then what kind of dry dragon дерьма was she smoking, thinking that sending you and that sorry excuse for a guard was a ,блядь, brilliant plan?”  Serp’s wing gestured in Solo’s direction.  “Last time you tried to stick your muzzle where it didn’t belong, I nearly killed you myself.  Back there in Trotsylvania makes twice.  I’m not about to have the third time turn out different.  My head’s on the chopping block for you already.”

“Then, as far as I’m concerned, you can let me off here!  I’m going to Onyx Ridge!”

Another shovelful of coal was thrown into the furnace, only speeding the spinning of the train’s wheels.  A burst of flame licked up out of the open furnace door at the introduction of the new fuel, sending Solo skittering backwards.  Nopony seemed to notice when her hooves found the door handle, and she ducked back into one of the passenger cabins.

No sooner had she lunged into the cabin then she began digging into the peytral of her Royal Guard armor where it covered the center of her chest.  Her forelegs were shaking by the time they pulled out her little matchbox, tipping out the side to reveal her stash of whispersalt.  Her twitching tilted two of the crystals into her waiting hoof, when she had only meant for one.  Without a real thought beyond her own desperation, she tossed both yellow-green rocks into her mouth and sucked down.

The world spun just a moment after the first bit of the bitter, salty taste.  As the weight of the still-uncomfortable armor on her shoulders faded away, she reflected that it reminded her of the salt on the rim of a margarita glass.    

The first sigh that escaped her lips was glorious, quiet as a mouse, tickling its way out of her muzzle.  The shaking of her limbs stopped, and her right forehoof slid out to catch her as she tilted sideways.  It was only a moment later that her eyes settled on one of the train car’s doors to its numerous empty cabins.  A soft voice in her mind expressed its gratitude that the guardsponies had been willing to make off with an empty passenger train for their trip.  Leaning heavily against the finished wooden surface, Going Solo slid the door open and slipped inside.

The train lurched, and she fell to the carpeted floor on her back, wings spread out and forehooves beside her head.  The rush of motion was a wonderful feeling, and there hadn’t been much of an impact to speak of.  Instead, she found herself enjoying the sensation of the lush carpet against her mane.  Letting her neck roll backward, she nuzzled the simple tan patterns with a quiet tenderness.  The floor answered back, taking away her troubles and her worries.

The Honor Guard mare was probably right, wasn’t she?  Shining Armor would be okay on his own; he was Shining Armor.  He didn’t need anypony’s help.  With all his spells and his magic armor, he was practically invincible.

Another bump in the tracks slapped Solo’s face against the carpet, though her cheek felt the smack of a powerful hoof instead.  Suddenly, the orange diamonds on the carpet looked just enough like flames.  Shoving herself up, she spread her wings and took to hovering in the center of the room.  Below her, a memory opened up.

Red Ink roared as the fire flew from his wings there in Baltimare, at the Chocolate Market.  In the center of his raging inferno, Shining Armor hid behind a failing purple shield, struggling to call on mana that wasn’t really there.

“No…”  Solo whispered, unable to bring up much more of a voice―the best known effect of whispersalt.  “No, I won’t let you take him.”  Sucking in a breath, Solo folded her wings and let herself fall.  Her forehoof slammed against the ground just as the fiery stallion’s face disappeared.

“Whoa!”  The room spun with such speed that Going Solo found herself spinning in place to counter it.  When the blurring and the dizziness settled, Twilight was standing in the open doorway, wearing a look of quiet worry.  

“Is something wrong, Solo?” the unicorn asked.

“No, no―”  Solo shook her hooves, trying to force her voice up.  “I just… just not having a good day.”

Twilight smiled empathetically.  “Don’t let Serp get to you.  We’ll find Shining Armor, with or without their help.  For now, I think we should get some sleep.  We’ve been up too long as-is.”

Solo nodded, and then pulled herself over to one of the paired beds on the walls of the cabin.  Climbing onto the covers, she turned toward Twilight.  “Do you think he’ll be okay when we find him?”

“Shining?”  Twilight crawled into her covers.  “He’s a tough pony, but I don’t know.  I guess…”  Twilight swallowed heavily.  “…I don’t know, Solo.  My heart tells me he’s got to be alive, but in my head, I’m not so sure.”

Welcoming the embrace of the whispersalt, Solo nuzzled into her pillow.  “Let’s listen to your heart, then, Twilight.”

A little chuckle escaped Twilight’s lips.  “Alright, let’s do that.”  And then, with a tired sigh, she continued.  “I hope Rainbow is having better luck finding her dad.”

- - -

Rainbow did not know how long she had been laying there; she had somehow managed to stumble into sleep, and as her eyes peeled open, she had to fight the crust of tears that had built up on her coat.  More surreal than those sensations, though, was the feeling of a rough patchy coat pressed against her back, clinging tightly.

“Are you well enough to speak, pony?”  The boar’s voice was accompanied by the rise and fall of a chest against her back.  Rainbow twitched in her grip, only to find herself pulled into a tighter embrace.  It wasn’t painful, or altogether that restrictive.

The pegasus’ mind was clear enough to answer the question, though her body still felt cold and altogether hollow despite the other creature’s warmth.  “Why… why should you care, boar?”

“Because,” said the voice beside her ear, “I don’t know how else I can help you.”

Spitefully, Rainbow replied “You can start by letting go.”

It was a sad, sorry creature left on the floor of their little cell when Rainbow rose to her hooves and turned around.  A brown coat covered its body, though its back was marked by three white stripes in the places where its coat wasn’t falling out in patches.  Rainbow watched her blur for a moment, before realizing it was her own eyes out of focus, and not the creature barely standing before her.

“I’m sorry.  The Warchief ruined our reputation, so I can’t blame you… but we aren’t all like him, pony.”  In her earlier words, Rainbow had missed the gentleness to her voice.  The sow’s eyes flitted to the little window high in the stone wall of the cell.  “Some of us aren’t interested in living as brutes and barbarians, dying for something as stupid as glory.”  Her head swiveled ponderously from side to side, and her words carried on with a somber tone.  “Khagan kills most of us who speak out about that view.”  Almost as an afterthought, she turned to Rainbow.  “My name is Enkhjargal.”

“En-ka-what?”

She shook her head again, this time with a mild amusement.  It slipped away from her face altogether too quickly for Rainbow’s taste.  “Enka is fine, pony.  Boarish is a difficult tongue for outsiders to pick up, and like so many parts of our culture, Khagan has left it suffer and die because it doesn’t lend itself to war.  Most boars speak and use Equiish or Camel.  What’s your name?”

“Rainbow Dash…”  The pegasus swallowed, and then coughed at the taste of her own phlegm.  Again, the room shifted, and she stumbled on her own hooves.

Enka took a step toward the pegasus, stretching out a cloven hoof.  Rainbow batted it away with one of her own, and took two strides back.  “Look, Enka, I don’t want your hugs or whatever.”

Enka looked down at the pegasus with a piteous expression.  “I am sorry.  The other pony said that would help to calm you, or at least to keep your wounds closed as you slept.  You struggled―”

Rainbow interrupted with narrowed eyes.  “My dad was here?”

The flash of realization in Enka’s eyes would have said a great deal, had Rainbow cared to think about it.  “There was another pony, though I didn’t know he was your father.  I wonder why he didn’t say…”  Enka took a long, slow breath, and then brought her eyes up to meet Rainbow’s again.  “No,  I see now.  That’s why the Warchief brought you here alive.”

Rainbow’s eyes dropped, saying what she couldn’t bring her tongue to voice.  Enka’s voice grew quieter.  “I’m sorry.  I wish there was something more I could do.”  

Rainbow felt the boar nuzzle at her shoulder, and in response, the pegasus lashed out.  Her blow missed not by virtue of the boar dodging, but because the room chose that moment to swirl, until the pegasus toppled to her side, dizzy and nauseous.  The stumps that had once been her wings sent flames burning across her back.

“Rainbow, you need―” The familiar voice from Brayce Canyon was lost as Enka spoke up.

The sow responded with a confused and worried tone.  “I’m not trying to hurt you!  I thought ponies nuzzled each other for comfort.  I thought you might want―”

“All I want is for this all to be over!” Rainbow snapped at the indistinct form of the sow in front of her, spit flying from her teeth.  “I’ll get out of here, and I’ll go back to Luna, and I’ll finish it.”  She struggled to stand again, but the room only grew more indistinct.  Collapsing onto her forehooves, Rainbow’s words dropped to a feeble whisper.  “I’ll go fly with my mom.”

As the world turned to darkness, she heard a stallion’s voice.  “Don’t worry, Rainbow.  I’m coming.” 

- - -

Mirror Image fell forward onto his knees, panting.  “What―”  His hurried breaths turned into a brief spat of coughing on the volcanic air, thick with black flecks of cinder and char.  “What was that, Princess?”

“To what do you refer, bodyguard?” Luna asked, walking over to the troubled stallion.  “The walking corpses, or the shade?”

Image rolled his eyes, and lifted his head to reply.  For his trouble, his face was assaulted by a stinging cloud of black haze, ash, and foul vapors.  After a brief fit of coughing, he squinted and focused on his horn.  At the cost of a scowl of pain, his magic sparked into a shield.  Blue magic held back the noxious haze long enough for the stallion to spare a clean breath.  His eyes twitched as sparks erupted from the crack running down the length of his horn, and with another quick inhale, he released his spell.

To his surprise, a glimmering indigo shield had picked up where his left off.  Turning toward the Princess, he found her horn glowing.  She smiled at him.  “Better?”

Image nodded, slowly rubbing his forehead.  “Thanks, Princess.”

“It is our pleasure,” Luna answered.  “Or mine, though  I suppose it does not matter.  In answer to your question, shades are the most common type of spirit left behind when a soul is left to wander the physical world.  They are only able to exist in any physical sense through magic, yet they produce none of their own.  Instead, they must sap it from the living through their connections: the subtler magics, like belief and memory and friendship.”

“Friendship?”  Mirror Image chuckled.  “That doesn’t sound very evil to me.”

“Not all spirits are evil,” Luna replied.  “Even those that are twisted often do not deserve condemnation.  Few bring such a fate upon themselves.  That is why I keep the Night Guard.  Their first and foremost duty is that of psychopomps.”

The archaic word was answered by a raised brow.  Smiling around her fangs, Eldest Sister stepped toward the living stallion with a more comprehensible answer.  “Shades are dangerous.  You can’t actually kill them, but you can strip them of their magic.  Even Soldier On has a hard time with them, but our magic works perfectly.  We fight them until they’re too tired to resist, and then we bring them back to Princess Luna.  If they still have enough semblance of themselves to know where to go, she sends them home.  If not, there’s nothing we can do but release them to the Between.”  At Mirror Image’s continued expression of confusion, Eldest Sister cracked an ever wider smile.  “You really don’t want to know, Mirror.  Besides, we don’t need to be worrying about spirits right now, right?  We should have dragons on the mind.”

“Indeed,” Luna noted.  “We have a dragon to save.”  And then, with a powerful wave of her wing, the ash and smog outside her little bubble began to churn and pull apart.  Soon, Mirror Image was able to see properly across the length of the draconic homeland.

What he saw stole any words from his lips.  Stretching out to the murky horizon ahead was a plain of ash and obsidian, punctuated by rivers of flowing magma and spurs of raw gems, the smallest of which easily outsized his head.  Dozens of tiny spires, mere hundreds of feet tall, belched missiles, fire, and smoke into the skies, thick enough to block out the sunlight.  But in the glow of the magma and the rainbow of lights cast off the scattered gemstones, one edifice dominated the skyline by the silhouette it carved out of the orange glow on the horizon.  It reminded Mirror of the changeling queen’s horn, notched and towering, leaking glowing magma along its silhouette as if to highlight the massive crags carved out of its sides.

“Is that…”

“Krennotets,” Luna nodded.  “The Crippled Father.  In an elder tongue, Kренен Отец.”  The Princess smiled.  “We are through the great struggle of our journey, though we have no time to waste.”

“Uh, Princess?” Eldest Sister cut in.  “You’re sure the ‘hard part’ of the journey is over?  We’ve still got miles of volcanoes and fire, and―”

“Magma and ash are trivial concerns, though we―rather, I shall carry Officer Image to make better time..”

“And I’m certain the dragons will be just as trivial,” Mirror Image muttered.  “I’m still not sure this is a good idea.”

Luna took a single stride to arrive at her bodyguard’s side.  “The dragons have long been friends of ponykind, ever since Cyclone and Clover befriended Krenn to save River Rock.”  

“Oh?” Mirror asked with an unsubtle sarcasm.  “Well, then, we should have stopped by River Rock on the way here and gotten Clover and Cyclone to come with us.”

Shaking her head, Luna knelt down at the unicorn’s side.  “Your tone is not required, guardstallion.  Now, mount me, so that we may go.”

Image smiled rather uncomfortably.  “How forward of you, Princess.  But wouldn’t you rather have Rainbow Dash do that?”

“Rainbow can fly on her own, and―” Luna’s face turned a bright red as she realized exactly what had been implied.  Slowly, her jaw moved up and down, failing to actually say anything intelligible.  Meanwhile, Mirror Image wore a small smile, and Eldest Sister had collapsed onto her side, laughing uproariously in the ash-covered ground.  “…Officer, I will make this clear once and once only.  While I consider Rainbow a close friend, I have no intention of sharing my body with her, nor with any other mortal.  Besides, if my intuition is correct, she fancies Dead Reckoning.”

Eldest Sister’s laughter ended in a harsh gasp, made all the more strange by the fact that she did not normally make a habit of breathing at all.  “Uh, that doesn’t sound right to me.  He’s, like, seventy?”

“Worse,” Image added, “Dead Reckoning is a Night Guard now, isn’t he?  That’s… a little creepy.”

“Hey,” Eldest Sister snapped.  “What’s the deal with that, Mirror?  We’re eternally young, in better shape than anypony else you’re going to find around, and if what Third Brother says is true, all our parts work just―”

Luna turned in shock, cutting off the mare.  “What do you imply―

Nope!” Mirror Image shouted.  “Too much information,” the stallion continued as he finally wrapped his forehooves around Luna’s neck and laid his chest between her wings.  “I suppose that was awkward enough that, by comparison, this isn’t anymore, Princess.  Let’s get going.”

Chuckling to herself quietly, Luna spread her wings and soared off into the ashen skies of Krennotets.

- - -

The sudden lurch only barely preceded the feeling of snow on Solo’s hooves.  She rolled twice before coming to a stop, despite Twilight’s claim that her spell would eliminate their momentum.  The freezing sensation on her neck stole away the last of her drowsiness from her recent dose of whispersalt.  The train continued roaring past for a few moments, before other sounds finally returned to the ex-smuggler’s world.

“Perfect!” Twilight announced, standing up out of the snow beside the tracks.  “And now… ooh!”

“Huh?”  Dizzy, it took Solo a second to find her hoofing and pull herself upright.  Once she did, the sight that had captivated Twilight was utterly unmistakable.  Though probably a mile away, the fortress of Onxy Ridge was clearly visible through the heavily falling snow.  It sat atop a jagged hill of black and white, where its namesake stone stuck out of the snow in brittle spurs and blocks at the base of a fork in a frozen river.  The fortress itself consisted of once towering walls, now crumbling in more than a few places.  Through the openings in the walls, the pegasus could see a small city of half-ruined stone brick structures, assembled around a mostly-intact keep.  “This is the place, Twilight?”

“Onyx Ridge.”  Twilight released a little noise like a dog’s chew-toy.  “Oh, this is so exciting!  So much happened here!  I can’t wait to see the inside.”  The purple filly galloped forward with a massive smile plastered across her face.

Hold on,” Solo interrupted, wrapping a hoof around Twilight’s shoulders to restrain her.  “Listen closely, Twilight: we’re not here to be Daring Do or something stupid like that.”

“...Daring Do isn’t stupid.”

“Oh sweet Celestia, Twilight,” Solo slapped her face lightly.  “We’re not playing archeologists, or getting involved with any more ‘friends’ from Stalliongrad.  I’m sick of this domain as it is, and I’m looking forward to getting home in one piece.  We sneak in, check for your brother, and head straight for the city from there.  No getting distracted by whatever crap it was you keep talking about with Commander Hurricane and his kids.  Got it?”

With a firm nod, Twilight agreed.  “I’m not planning on actually going inside unless Shining has been there.”

That statement left Solo wondering if there were still some whispersalt in her system.  “Uh, what?  How?”

“Well, a long time ago, there was this pony named Brink, who…”  Solo’s glare cut the story short.  “Archmage, about three thousand years ago.  Good at door magic.  Wrote a spell that showed who’d been through a doorway previously.”

“You’re learning,” Solo observed.  “I thought you were honestly proposing we go inside that place and look around.”

Making a strained face, Twilight shook her head vigorously.  “It’s full of vargr.  I’m not crazy.”

“Jury’s still out on that one,” Solo muttered, to Twilight’s chagrin.  “Let’s get moving.”

The walk to the fortress’s crumbling gatehouse was utterly quiet.  Though the snow fell heavy, the wind was gentle, offering only a soft hiss through the sparse pine trees of the surrounding area.  Solo’s eyes darted between the trees, unsettled by just how perfect the quiet was, and how harshly it contrasted Serp and Countess Star’s warnings of the Vargr that were supposed to be ruling the fortress.  To her eyes, the place was completely abandoned.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” said Solo.

“We’ll be fine,” Twilight replied, as her first hoof settled onto the dry stone beneath the covering of the gatehouse.  “The foundation of the castle is solid onyx, so the vargr can’t burrow up through it.  See?”  Twice, Twilight’s hoof rapped on the exposed stone, before Solo was able to grab the limb.  The sound of the unicorn’s hoof hung in the air for a few seconds before fading into the wind.

“Look, Twilight, just… stay close beside me and don’t touch anything, okay?”

Grimacing in realization of her own mistake, Twilight offered another nod.  “I’ll need to draw some runes; it won’t take long.”

Going Solo’s hooves trod carefully to the corner of the gatehouse, where she pressed herself tightly against the stone wall and slowly tilted her head out into the open.  If anything, the courtyard was almost frighteningly barren.  Only the soft wind and the heavy snow filled the air, coating the ground in a thick even layer of white.  Sitting across the frozen ground, a massive keep of black stone jutted up from the ground itself, looming half a dozen stories overhead.

“You said there were supposed to be those war-things here?” Solo whispered.

“Vargr,” Twilight corrected, looking up from her work.  “The ‘w’ was just Countess Star’s accent.”

“It’s cause she’s a wampony,” Solo cracked back in a pathetic emulation of the Countess’ accent, before losing the little hint of a smile on her face.  “If we go any further, the snow’s going to be a problem.  I might be able to carry you across it, but otherwise, the hoofprints are gonna make us pretty obvious.”

Twilight smiled.  “I know a spell that should take care of that.  But first…”  Her horn flared to life.  “Let’s see what we can see.  Heh.”  A moment later, the same aura covering her horn began to glow from her eyes.  “Alright, we’ve got… oh.”

“That didn’t sound very good,” the ex-dealer observed.

Twilight shrugged.  “I just didn’t realize the vargr were so big.  I was expecting something closer to a normal diamond dog.  Not scraping the top of the gatehouse.”

Solo looked straight up, eyeballing about eight feet to the top of the fortress’ primary opening.  “You’re just chock full of good―”

“Ah!” Twilight interrupted, breaking into a smile.  “I think… weird.”

The guardsmare’s patience lasted three whole seconds.  “You gonna explain that?”

“Well, there’s a unicorn, in a fuzzy cloak.  I was trying to work with the spell for a better view or focus, but under the cloak they’re still all fuzzy.”

“Fuzzy?”

“Blurry.  Like something’s interfering with the magic, or draining it from the spell.  But that doesn’t make sense; if another unicorn were to go through that much trouble, they’d have to know I was going to use Brink’s Beholden Barrier.  It’s not a common spell, though…”

Solo almost brushed off the curiosity to Twilight; it was only a thought of Shining from Baltimare that let her eyes grow wide.  “Twilight, what if it isn’t a spell?”

“Huh?  What else would be interfering with the magic?”

“His armor!” Solo nearly shouted.  “The, um…”

“Gale―sorry, Platinum’s Ward?”  Twilight’s look of confusion shifted on her face into one of excitement, until she jumped up in the air.  “That makes perfect sense, Solo!  Let me check something...”  Twilight’s joy then turned again into a look of worry.  “He didn’t come out again; at least, not by this doorway.”

Solo swallowed once, almost choking on the cold air as it swept down her throat.  “I still don’t like this, but if Shining’s in there… let’s get inside.”  Wrapping her wings tightly around herself, Solo broke into a run.  Twilight followed closely on much heavier hooves.

They were nearly to the doors of the structure when Solo’s ears perked to a whistling over the sound of the breeze.  A practiced motion from the streets of Canterlot was what followed.  Her right hind leg slid back, as its opposite dug into her armor, producing her single bladed steel shoe.  With the momentum of her turn behind it, the weapon slashed through the air, only to narrowly miss a neck the color of buckwheat.

“Ебать колотить, чокнутая ты сучка, это я! Спрячь подальше эту блядскую игрушку, пока кого-нибудь не лишила хозяйства!”

“Serp?” Twilight cried out, with a volume that left Solo cringing.

“Да, так меня зовут, тупая ты пизда.  Теперь доставай свою книгу, чтобы мы cмогли разговаривать.”

“I don’t understand…” Twilight told the raging stallion, growling as he pawed at the snow.

Твое ебучее заклинание-переводчик,” Serp replied, speaking with laborious slowness.  “Ты что, слишком тупа to pull out your… oh, is it finally ,блядь, working?”

“Yes,” Solo hissed.  “Now can we all keep it down?”

The black-clad pegasus shrugged.  “No need.  The vargr don’t come up to the surface often.  I’ve known the Tirek-loving rebels to hide out in the upper levels trying to escape Blood Stroke and I.  There are дохуя of mines under the castle, but you’d have to be suicidal to go in there.  I’m just glad I caught you before you got yourselves cut apart sticking your necks where they don’t belong.  Why are you so set on getting yourselves killed?  The stubborn sheep is the wolf’s gain, after all.”

Twilight stared at Serp for a moment, and Going Solo could see the drive she was slowly beginning to respect dance behind the unicorn’s eyes.  “I’m looking for my brother, and he’s been here.  You wouldn’t understand.”  Before Serp could say another word, Twilight’s horn ignited, and the doors to the fortress swung open at the bidding of her magic.  “You can come with us, but I’ll stun you if you try to get in my way.  Come on, Solo.”

The doors led into a barren hall, coated with an odd dusting of snow and ice from the thin cracks in the walls.  Solo imagined it had been a dining room or a practice hall or something similar, given the size of the space.  Whatever wood and fabric had marked the place’s purpose had long since fallen to the ravages of time, however.  Only the mostly rusted-away shape of a once proud chandelier lying in the center of the floor remained.

The pegasus mare walked up to Twilight’s side, whispering in her ear.  “I’m impressed you had that in you, Twilight.  He might be right, though.”

“My friends and I have done more dangerous things,” Twilight replied, a tone of irritation slipping into her voice  “I’m not leaving until we’ve found Shining, or we’re sure he isn’t here.”

“Then you are a гребаная psychopath,” Serp noted through his filed teeth.  Twilight gasped, having not heard the other pony follow them.  He chuckled at her surprise, continuing where he left off.  “But a brave гребаная psychopath, I admit.  I still think you should come back with me, but since I can’t stop you without hurting you, and Celestia herself would damn me to be Tirek’s шалавой if you were hurt, I will try to keep you alive.  We will be staying on the top level; if your brother went into the mines below, he’s rotting in Tartarus already.”  His wings moved deftly onto his back, producing his namesake sickle.  “Both of you stay about a body’s length behind me, and say something if you see anything.  Don’t do anything brave like trying to kill it; I told Hammer to stay with the train, but he might decide to do something stupid and show up.  And please, please, do not vomit at the blood.  This will be like those signs from the water park in Baltimare.”

“What signs?” Solo asked.

“You will get wet.  You may get soaked.”

Twilight cringed, but the Black Cloak only seemed amused by her reaction.  Ruffling the feathers of his wings, he moved toward the large doors at the far side of the room.  There, he paused to roll his neck, eliciting a sickening series of cracks and pops.  “Time to earn my paycheck.”
 
The doors creaked open to a long hallway, lined with crumbling doors and collapsed rooms.  Rather than bothering at any pretense of stealth, Serp moved forward calmly, his head swiveling as he slowly scanned both sides of the hallway.

The hall passed without incident, ending in a stone archway and another sizeable room: clearly a throne chamber of some kind, judging by the enormous stone chair at its far end.  Solo was prepared to walk right in, but Serp’s hoof caught her gently across the chest.  She looked to the buckwheat stallion, and saw him tap an ear.  Taking his meaning, the Canterlot guardsmare closed her eyes and listened.

The shaggy hoofsteps―or did the vargr have feet?―moved around the room slowly, interspersed with the sound of rubble being pushed around, as if the creature were searching for something.  It spoke in a tongue that Solo could not even name.

A tiny onyx pebble chose that moment to collide with Twilight’s hoof, skittering into the room.  The sounds of the creature within ceased instantly.

Serp pressed himself against the doorframe as Solo dove toward Twilight, hoping to have her guard up by the time the creature reached her.  With her back turned, she didn’t see the creature step through the doorway.  All she heard was the gurgle, and then the dull thud of its severed head hitting the ground.

“Blech,” Serp said aloud, before spitting a wad of blood out from around the handle of his sickle.  “He’s only a stone caste.”  The stallion kicked the severed head with a forehoof, rolling it over onto its snout.  It stopped next to the body, easily six feet long even disregarding its enormous forearms and the frightening six-inch claws extending from the ends of its digits.  “Smells пиздец awful, too.  I wonder what he’s been eating.”

Twilight sniffed twice, and gagged.  “Scruff beets.  They increase a type of amino acid in the bloodstream… like asparagus, but for blood instead of urine.”

“I was hoping to catch the big―” Serp stopped abruptly at a sick grating of steel on stone, echoing through the castle.

“What was that?” Twilight hissed.

Serp swallowed once.  “I have no idea.  It sounds bigger than a vargr.”

“Twilight,” Solo began.  “How good are these things’ sense of smell?”

“They’re supposed to be able to smell a rabbit through the snow from a mile…”  Twilight’s eyes grew wider as it dawned on her what Solo was implying.  “You don’t think―”

The sound of grating metal echoed again, louder this time.  Closer.

“I think we need to go,” Solo cut in.  “Now.”

Three sets of hooves launched off into the fortress.  Serp led the way, picking doors, halls, and one small spiral staircase from memory.  All the while, the scraping followed them.  Solo slipped on a patch of ice, catching herself with her wings.  Twilight and Serp both stopped for just a second, turning to watch her.  In their moment’s pause, without the echoes of their own hooves, there was another sound alongside the scraping.  The padded noise sounded like heavy drums, reverberating in an even one-two pattern.  Paws, Solo realized.  They were enormous paws.

Her wings flung her forward across the black stone of the room, almost running into Serp.  He and Twilight wasted no time in picking up their pace again, as the grating continued.  To the ponies’ side, a few loose stones fell from the ceiling as they passed.  

Solo felt a sudden heat on her tail as she rounded another narrow corner.  Behind her, a massive tongue of flame splashed against the wall, before fading into smoke.

“What was that?” the pegasus shouted.

“A блядский dragon!” Serp shouted.

Twilight shook her head.  “No, it’s probably a gem caste…”  Her words broke down into panting as she continued to sprint.  “…vargr.  They… can do magi―whoa!”

The purple unicorn barely managed to catch her hooves on the edge of a crag before she careened into a massive black pit.  While there had clearly once been a bridge of some sort over the opening, all that remained were two stubs on the opposite sides of the wall.  The rest of the path was far out of reach on the other side.  “Who puts a hole in the middle of a tower?” she shouted indignantly.

Serp spread his wings, launching across the chasm to a doorway.  “Teleport, Sparkle!  Like you did running from me in Saraneighvo!”

“But the spell―” she began, gesturing to the book floating at her side.

“Won’t do you any good if you’re dead,” Solo replied, snatching the tome out of the air and hurling it down into the pit.  “Teleport!  Now!”

Twilight focused herself and disappeared in a flash.  With her ward relatively safe, Solo spread her wings and leapt out into the open air.  It was a strange whim that got her to look back down the corridor behind her.  At the edge of her vision, lurking in the shadows of the castle, was a creature from her nightmares.  While she could only make out its looming, eight-foot bipedal silhouette, she was more concerned with the glowing blue runes that seemed to cover every inch of its flesh.  It growled at her, its mouth glowing red, and another burst of flame shot down the path in her direction.  Though it stopped well short of the pegasus, its smoke blocked her sight of the creature.

“Шевелись, сука!” Serp shouted, unaware that he was not being understood.  “Впереди еще один проход, ведущий во двор.”  His urgency carried his message perfectly well, and soon the trio were once again sprinting through the ancient fortress.

The path turned only twice before the end came into sight.  Unfortunately, it was not what they had been hoping for.  A massive pile of fallen onyx and rotting wooden beams blocked the path.

“Блядь! Еб вашу мать, за что мне вся эта хуйня?! Обложили, суки, волки позорные! Все, пиздец.”  The growling of the black cloak slowly died into hopelessness.  “Росчерк, спаси нас.”

“Relax,” Twilight told the stallion, placing a hoof on his shoulder.  “I’ll get us past this.”  Then she closed her eyes and focused on her magic.  Sparks flew from her horn, and her aura danced through the air, but the rocks did not move, and neither did any of the ponies.

“Uh, Twilight… why aren’t you doing anything?” Solo asked, her eyes locked back down the hall.  Thankfully, the scraping had stopped, though her imagination painted the nearest doorways in glowing blue just the same.

The archmage answered with a visible gulp.  “You can’t teleport out of Onyx Ridge.  The crystal ponies wanted to stay safe from unicorns, so they enchanted the walls.  I might be able to break through, but it will take a while.  If the magic is still around after all this time, it’s very strong.  I wonder if Wintershimmer cast this…”

Not the time,” Solo snapped.  “That thing is behind us, with who knows how many of his friends.  We can’t go back, so start working.”

“Почему она так долго возится?” Serp inquired, missing their entire conversation.

The stress was clearly showing on Twilight’s face when she replied.  “Трудная… магия.  Нужно время.”

“О. Тогда я буду на настороже.”  Whatever Serp had said, it preceded the stallion walking around the corner toward the pit.

“What did he―?”

“He’s going to keep watch,” Twilight answered.  “In case any of the vargr try to build a bridge or something, I guess.”

“They’re giant diamond dogs, right?  What if they burrow over?”

Twilight shook her head.  “They can’t burrow through solid stone any more than they could outside.  Just dirt, snow, and ice.  We’re safe.  I just need time, and no distractions.”  Her horn sparked twice, and she closed her eyes.  “Do you think Shining might be here somewhere?”

Solo shook her head, wrapping a wing around Twilight’s shoulders.  “No, if he were here, he’d have showed up to save us by now.”

The comment brought a smile to Twilight’s lips, though it didn’t last long.  “I’m so worried, Solo.  I didn’t think the vargr would actually be expecting invaders.  I just wanted to go in quietly and look around.  I thought I could do it like Diadem and Clover…”

“Not your fault, Twilight.  But you’re the one who’s gonna save our flanks.  Just keep working on that―”

The scraping noise started up again, uncomfortably close.  It was followed suddenly by Serp rounding the corner, and standing in front of the mares with his wings flared and his weapon drawn.  “Не высовывайтесь. Это Фенрир.”

It wasn’t more than three seconds later that the blue glow appeared on the black stone.  From behind a doorway, the creature appeared.  Its looming figure wore scraggly gray fur in the places where arcane sigils had not been carved into its skin.  A pair of yellow eyes with tiny black pupils glared just above a maw of even, wolf-like fangs.  Its enormous lanky arms ended in a pair of steel gloves whose fingers consisted of gemstone rings connected by steel chain links.  Despite the precious stones, each finger ended in a sinister steel claw half a foot in length.  The sight chilled Solo.

Serp lunged at the vargr, and it responded by raising a single claw.  A yellow telekinetic aura wrapped around the pegasus’ weapon as a topaz on the beast’s right hand began to glow like a unicorn’s horn.  A moment later, the weapon burst into flames and drizzled to the ground, reduced to molten slag.

“Try again, pony.”  A sapphire on the thing’s other glove lit up, and ice swept up Serp’s hooves.  The Marshal of Saraneighvo spread his wings for some manner of trick or strike.

Then the vargr bit into his leg.  Solo leapt back at the sight, flinching away as the massive beast’s fangs crunched into Serp’s femur.  Shock overtook his body instantly, and with a twist of his neck, the giant diamond dog tossed the bleeding, unconscious form aside.
 
“I will enjoy the flesh of the Black Cloak later,” the fiend growled, “Now I can decide what to do with these other intruders.  Tell me, ponies, why have you entered Fenrir’s home?”

- - -

Rainbow awoke with the slam of the door.  Two burly boars held a bruised and starved stallion between their deep orange and pale purple auras, and they wasted not a moment before slamming him down onto his back in the center of the dimly lit cell.

Her father was a pathetic sight.  His right foreleg was twisted up onto itself, its hoof pointing outward from his body at a terrifying angle.  Huge gashes on his neck exposed not just the flesh beneath his graying blue coat, but the muscles and bones buried even further below.  The worst sight of all, though, were the wings on his back: unharmed, save jagged gashes at their bases where they met his shoulder.  In all other regards, they were unharmed, clean, and a radiant sky blue.

They were Rainbow’s wings.

Shocked into silence, Rainbow could only watch as the stallion’s shaky left foreleg moved to the floor, and he pushed himself up.

“How―”  The Commander staggered, gritting his teeth and twisting his scarred muzzle in pain as his hoof slipped on the stone floor.  It took another few moments for him to stand properly.  “How is she?”

“She’s been sleeping for hours, since she found out what had happened.” Enka gestured to the stumps on Rainbow’s back, and then turned again to face the stallion.  “You didn’t tell me she was your daughter.”

The wince on her father’s face left Rainbow with no shortage of questions, but his answer beat her to words.  “Does it matter to you?”  He took a single step toward Rainbow, at the cost of another display of controlled agony, and then spoke to Enka without turning to face her.  “If Khagan knows, he’ll hurt her more.”

“I don’t think he can,” Enka told him, casting a quick glance toward Rainbow.  “She was heartbroken when she found out what he’d done to her wings.”

The Commander shook his head.  “He won’t stop.  He isn’t even interested in her.  Khagan believes she’s close to me, and he wants her to suffer so I will feel hurt, or guilty.  Even if he’s broken her already, he won’t stop.”

“Is she?”  Enka asked.  The corner of the stallion’s brow twitched upward, and the sow continued.  “Close to you, I mean.  Is she?”

“Not really…” Rainbow muttered; her father and the sow ignored the comment, staring at one another intensely.

“No.”  It wasn’t the word, but her father’s tone that stung Rainbow a bit.  Her ears could read more into the single word.  No, and I don’t want her to be.  No, she never meant anything to me.  And, perhaps worst: No, and neither was her mother.

Rather than adding to his thought, the Commander moved to Rainbow’s side and lowered himself to the floor.  There, his hoof moved gently to her shoulder, stroking her as if it would offer some comfort.

♪ “Dormi, mi filia, dormi –
sunt qui dicunt
vitam beatam esse:
dicunt, dicant, nesciunt.  ♪

His voice was coarse, and his throat and lips both longed for water, yet the tune he carried was solid and seemed to Rainbow’s ear heartfelt.  She turned to look him square in the eye, though his gaze stayed locked at her side.

“What the heck, Dad?  Not even gonna say ‘hello’?  Just some weird song?”

“He can’t hear you, Rainbow.”

The voice in Rainbow’s mind was the same one she had heard before passing out.

“I need you to focus, alright?  You’re in a lot of danger right now, but I can’t help you until you come to me.”

“What?” Rainbow asked.  “Come to you… aren’t you, like, in my head or something?”

Though the stallion was nowhere to be seen, his voice still seemed to be coming from beside Rainbow’s ears.  She could almost feel his breath.  “Unfortunately, no.  I wish I had time to explain comfortably, but you need to trust me.”

Rainbow swallowed once, feeling a chill in her throat, and her eyes darted between the shadows of the cell, and her father’s face.

“Dad, can you hear me?  Hello?”

“Okay, did I not just make that clear?  See, he can’t hear you.  Now come on!”

Though Rainbow could not see the speaker, she felt a gust of wind tugging at her mane, and through her feathers.  The shock of the ghostly sensation nearly distracted her from the impending approach of darkness from the edges of her vision.  The last words she heard were her father’s.

♪ ”Dormi, mi filia, dormi –
veniet dies
quo tibi erit
salva, largissima quies.” ♪

The final note lingered in Rainbow’s ears in the void, as she lost all sense of her location.  Even the stones of the floor and the chill of the air disappeared against her skin, until all that remained in her mind was the curious but welcome sensation of her feathers against her back.

“What’s happening?” She cried out.  “Hey, weird voice, what did you do?”

“Weird voice?  Well, you sure know how to compliment a stallion.  I bet there’s a line outside your door in Pony...town.  Now close your eyes and flap your wings.”

“My wings?”  Though the prospect of flying filled her with hope, the slightest of the pegasus’ instincts screamed that something wasn’t right.  “Wait, what does that mean?  Where am I?”

“Stop asking questions and wake up!  I’m not getting eaten over this!”  The stallion had come to shouting in urgency.

Rainbow’s hooves suddenly found sand, and staggered at the sudden sense of gravity.  Her first instinct was to open her eyes, though that quickly failed in the blinding light of the setting sun directly before her on the horizon.  With her eyes closed, she let her other senses wander.  Salt was in the air, and a moment later, the rush of surf heralded a chilly feeling on all four of her hooves.  The wind tickled her feathers, stirring up mist and little grains of sand against her coat.  Nearby, a voice of growing familiarity called out to her.

“There you are!  Come on, Rainbow, we’ve got to get out of here.”

She squeezed her eyes open just in time to see the figure rushing toward her.  Frightened and confused, she spread her wings, kicked backward off the wet sand, and took to hovering just out of his reach.

“Who are you?  And where am I?”

He was a harsh white unicorn stallion, cast with an almost pink tint by the setting sun.  His carefully styled pale blue mane resisted the gentle ocean breeze, and only parted for an unusually long horn jutting from his brow.  Rainbow briefly suspected he was an alicorn, but the quilted green vest he wore left no space on his back for wings even if they were pressed against his sides.  The sharp ridges of his chin were drawn upwards toward the flying mare, whom his icy blue eyes glared at in a mixture of hostility and desperation.

“Mortal Coil, the Between, can we go?”

Rainbow growled, hovering higher as an icicle-colored light gathered around his horn.  “Can I get one straight answer?”

Through gritted teeth, the unicorn called out as he waded into the ocean.  “This is the Between, because it’s what sits between the physical world and the ‘afterlives’ like the Summer Lands and Tartarus.  You’re here because the spell Celestia used to bring you back to life was incomplete.  There are other things here too, and we really don’t want to be around when they show up.”

Mortal Coil’s focus broke from Rainbow, turning toward the horizon of the beach, where the sun was quickly setting.  “We’re going to have to go the long way now.  Come with me, if you want to live.  Again.”  And with that abrupt word, he turned to sprint down the beach toward a particularly tall crest of sand, watching the sunset rather than where he was going.

Rainbow looked around at the growing shadows of the rocks and grass further up the beach, before swallowing once.  Her eyes moved to the disappearing unicorn’s figure, and then inland.  For just a moment, she thought she saw a pair of yellow eyes watching her.  The chill she felt on the back of her neck was enough to set her wings in motion.

When the pegasus soared over the dune the unicorn had crossed, she saw him desperately pulling at the ropes of an enormous three-masted ship, halfway beached with its stern on the sand and its bow in the water.  Beneath the ornate glass windows that marked its cabin, written in proud letters of solid gold, it was named The Eagle, accompanied by a flag of red and white.

“Uh, you’re not gonna get that boat in the water,” Rainbow called to the stallion as she approached.

“It isn’t going in the water,” Mortal Coil replied cryptically.  “This isn’t a place where everything works the way you’d expect.  Take the wheel, Rainbow; we need to get out of here.”

Soaring down toward the wooden deck, Rainbow landed before a steering wheel easily a pony across, glistening with gold and mother of pearl across a body of rich red wood.  Her hooves briefly came into contact with the wheel, and she felt a mighty gust sweep through her wings.  Almost on instinct, she spread them wide, and it was then that she realized what Mortal Coil had meant.

A pair of massive blue wings unfurled from the sides of the ship, in time with those on Rainbow’s back.  She lifted right wing gently, and the ship’s moved in kind.  Smiling, she leaned forward.  “I’m gonna go!”

“Wait, I’m not―”  The unicorn collapsed onto his face before finishing his thought, as the ship lurched into the air.  

The feeling of flight was life to Rainbow, and her feathers felt the surge of the unconquered wind as she smiled.  There was no pain where she ought to have been missing the limbs, nor even any sort of numbness or stiffness as she had so often felt in her youth after straining a tendon in a tight race with the other foals at flight camp.  She looked down to the main deck in the interest of asking her mysterious unicorn companion a question, only to find him climbing the stairs of the quarterdeck toward her.

“Hey, Mortal Coil―”

“Morty,” he interrupted.  “Call me Morty.”  Rainbow cocked her head, and he smiled.  “Yeah, it’s a donkey name, but it’s still an awful lot better than ‘Mortal Coil’.”  He seemed to be expecting a laugh, or a comment, or something, and when he received nothing, the little curl at the corners of his cheeks fell away.  At the mare’s continued confusion, he added “You know, as in ‘shuffle off’?”  She looked no more familiar for his added explanation.  He slapped a hoof against his face.  “Its a euphemism for death, Rainbow.  My parents didn’t exactly have a high opinion of me.”

“Ouch,” Rainbow muttered, before taking one hoof off the wheel to awkwardly scratch the back of her neck.  “Well, anyway, I was gonna ask you something.  Why do I have my wings back?”

Morty took a slow breath.  “It’s easy to forget you don’t know these things when you haven’t been around before.  Let me see if I can make this brief.  This place is what we call the Between.”

“Yeah, you said that before.”

Morty gritted his teeth.  “I know, but a little bit of a reminder goes a long way.  So, the reason it’s called the Between is that it’s the place between the physical world, and the various afterlife realms, like the Summer Lands and Tartarus.  Much like those realms, the Between isn’t a physical place.”  He swept out a hoof toward the horizon, where it had turned from a pink to a bitter red in preparation of finally setting.  “All of this is made of mana, as opposed to matter.  I won’t bore you with the differences, since I tend to think the academic details are about as entertaining as drying paint.  But the important part is that the body standing here isn’t actually your body.  It’s your soul.  And because your wings are part of yourself, your soul still has them even if your body doesn’t.  Make sense?”

Rainbow nodded, staring at her hoof as she found herself unsure of her emotions.  “So… we’re dead, then?”

Morty chuckled.  “Now that’s a fun question.  In the physical world, your body is comatose, but still alive.  You left it behind because something caused you to give up on your attachment to your body.”

She swallowed once.  “I’m here because what happened to my wings…”

“Judging by your cutie mark, I’d say they mean a lot to you.”  Morty held an even expression, pacing around the deck.  “Then again, don’t be surprised if that changes.  That’s part of the magic of a cutie mark: it corresponds to the soul, not the body.  I’ve never heard of one changing while somepony was alive, but just about anytime you raise a pony from the dead, you see small changes to their mark.”

Rainbow’s eyes widened in realization at the thought of the machete that had mysteriously appeared on Dead Reckoning’s flanks.  Shaking her head, she focused again on the situation.  “So what about my body?  You said it isn’t dead; is anything going to happen?”

“Not on its own.  It’s just sitting, waiting for some nasty spirit to come by and possess it as a way to wreak havoc.  We obviously don’t want to let that happen.  And before you ask, I am… not quite so simple to explain.”

Rainbow wasn’t sure if she had actually intended to ask him, but the mention brought up a few more meaningful curiosities.  “Who are you?” Rainbow asked.  “And how do you know all of this?”

“Oh, let me introduce myself properly.”  Morty swept a hoof across his chest, and offered Rainbow a stiff stage-bow.  “Mortal Coil, student of Celestia, and archmage of Equestria.”

The pegasus couldn’t bring herself to be impressed by the titles.  “So you’re some sort of super-unicorn, then?”

“Well, I was the one who wrote the spell that brought you back to life,” Morty countered, as casually as if he had been commenting on the weather.  “Apologies for never getting the chance to finish it, by the way, but the Between isn’t the best place for magical study.  I suppose it’s a bit of my fault you’re here, so I owe it to you to get you out.”

“Oh…”  Rainbow wasn’t quite sure what to say.  “Well, thanks.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Morty observed, walking to the back of the boat.  “The horde is coming, and I don’t even know where your link back is going to take you.  Take The Eagle higher, Rainbow; if you start seeing stars, that’s fine.”

The pegasus flapped her wings heavily, creating a small storm on deck as the ship surged upward into the sky.  Morty barely caught hold of the deck’s railing, and Rainbow took note of the shield-shaped silver locket that slid out from beneath his vest, flapping in the on a chain around his neck.

“Is the ‘horde’ why you’re so freaked out?” Rainbow asked.  “What’s that?”

Morty looked to the horizon, where the sun finally slipped beneath the edge of the world.  “Do you know what a thestral is?”  Rainbow cocked her head, to which Morty took a slow breath.  “Okay, do you know what a Night Guard is?”

“Oh, a bat pony!”

The unicorn gave Rainbow the barest look of detest she had ever experienced.  “Yes,” he growled flatly.  “A bat pony?  Honestly?  Ahem.  Thestrals are a type of undead; Princess Luna makes them out of ponies who she thinks don’t deserve Tartarus, but also aren’t ready for the Summer Lands.”  Morty punctuated the sentence by spitting on the deck of the ship.  “Well, it’s a magical rule that any time you raise the dead, if they die again, they wind up here in the Between.”

“So there’s some batponies chasing us?  Won’t they be serving Princess Luna, though?”

“Not here,” Morty told her, settling his hoofing and walking toward the rear railing of the Eagle.  “Here, they’ve been left alone to go insane without any purpose to their existence.  Even those who might have managed to―Tatarus!”  Morty’s horn flared as he jumped back, and a bolt of magic struck a leather-winged, black furred body.  Rainbow gasped as it turned into a pile of ashes as the unicorn’s hooves.  In her shock, she released the wheel of the The Eagle, and the flying ship lurched from its place at the top of the sky.

When Rainbow grabbed the wheel again, the ship had fallen almost a thousand feet in the air, and the force of the sudden stop slammed Morty against the deck with a painful gasp.  Holding the hoof-grips of the wood as tightly as she could, Rainbow looked up to see a sky looming with thestrals.  Some of them were batponies, but the others she saw were more terrible, and more frightening.  Unicorns with curved glowing horns like King Sombra’s, and earth ponies whose forelegs ended in long reptilian claws instead of hooves glared down at her, looking hungry.

“Fly!” Morty shouted, as the horde dived at them.

The boat turned and sped on Rainbow’s wings.  With every twist and dive, she felt the weight of the ship lurching against her own shoulders.  Though it flew with her wings, the huge wooden vessel was far less agile than the pegasus mare, and she struggled to compensate when her turns were wider than her body was used to.

Meanwhile, Morty teleported up into the crow’s nest, where his horn began igniting the sky with blasts of magic and violent icy blue fireworks.  Thestral after hungry thestral fell from the sky as they struggled to keep up with The Eagle.  Those with wings curved and dove around his blasts, but the earth-bound creatures simply ran through the air as though on solid ground, leaping aside and rolling to avoid his magic.

“Fly north!” Morty shouted.  “I have an idea.”

“Which way is north?” Rainbow called back.

“Which way―?”  Morty disappeared from the crow’s nest in a flash, appearing at Rainbow’s side by the wheel.  “What kind of a pegasus are you?  It’s…”  His eyes looked up at the stars, and a sudden lurch stole his hooves.  “The bright one, Rainbow!  Go that way!”

“Okay, that I can―”  The sentence ended in a howl of agony as a searing sensation lashed over Rainbow’s flank.  She clung desperately to the wheel to save the ship’s wings, but her own limbs locked up to glide, matching the instinct of a wounded pegasus in flight.

“Well, well, Mortal Coil,” said a cruel voice from somewhere on deck.  “It looks like you’ve finally stuck your neck out too far.  Ready to face the executioner’s axe?”

Rainbow saw the faded blue unicorn thestral as he paced toward the downed white stallion on deck.  For his part, Morty cast a quick teleportation simply to stand up.  “Jewel.”  A smug grin overtook the unicorn’s face.  “There’s honestly nothing I can think of to say about you in pleasant company.  Rainbow, you’re going to have to fly the ship to keep the others away.  No matter what happens, don’t stop.  This one’s special.”

“Oh, how kind of you,” the ‘Jewel’ pony replied.  “I see you’re still wearing that stupid horn you grew.”  A bolt of dark blue, shadowy magic surged past Morty’s shoulder as Rainbow’s new friend rolled to the side.  “You always had to be the chosen one, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t have to be the ‘chosen one’,” Morty retorted, hurling a trio of blasts Jewel’s way.  All three bounced off the burly thestral’s magical shield with no apparent effort. “I just am.”

Rainbow saw a pair of batponies approaching from behind Morty, and lunged forward into the Buccaneer Blaze.  The force of the wind crackling over the bow of the ship had little effect on Jewel, save his mane, but it forced Morty down as his hooves struggled to stay planted on the deck.

Momentarily off balance, the unicorn was forced to call up a shield of his own to defend against Jewel’s next attack.  A very literal longsword of blue magic thrust at Morty, and its blows against his shield pushed back on the stallion until his hooves were left scraping over the wooden deck.

When Morty found his hooves backed up against the port-side railing of the deck, his brow was sweating with focus.  “A little bit steadier!” he shouted to Rainbow, as he exchanged his shield for a sword of his own, not even a mass of magic but instead a blade of physical steel.  It fenced momentarily with Jewel’s arcane blade for a few strokes before pushing back on the magical weapon.  

Jewel grinned, revealing an intimidating set of fangs.  “Oh, I’ve been waiting for this for some time, Mortal Coil.”  Green flames leaked from the stallion’s eyes, and lightning crackled around his curved horn, before his floating sword pulled back toward him.

Seeing an opening, Morty stepped forward, bringing his floating blade onto the offensive.  In a single blow, Jewel’s weapon shattered it across the deck.  The thestral’s weapon lashed forward, but Morty simply conjured another blade to block the assault.  “Is that honestly all you’ve got, Jewel?  Or are you just building suspense?”

Rainbow’s eyes saw a long-clawed thestral latch onto the rear of the ship.  Hoping to shake him off, she spun the wheel of the ship hard to the right, bringing The Eagle into a tight barrel roll.  The force of the spin threw both horned ponies to the deck, and launched the hanger-on into the sky again.  Coming out of the tight curl, her leading feathers perked up to the tingling of dry air.

“Morty…” Rainbow called out to the unicorn slowly rising to his hooves behind her. “I think we’re going into a storm.”

“You’re the stunt flier!” The unicorn called back.  “You do your job, I’ll―”  His magically wielded sword moved forward just in time to block another of Jewel’s powerful slashes.  “―do mine!”

Rainbow folded the ship’s wings in, letting it dive.  Morty managed to stay standing, harnessing the force of the wind to slide backward on the deck, coming just short of being cut in half as Jewel’s horn created a second glowing blade to slash down at his foe.

The steep dive ended with a sudden burst of forward speed as the giant wings echoed Rainbow’s in pulling upward and away from the horde.  “This is your job?  I thought you were a wizard like Twilight!”

Morty chuckled.  “Alright, you got me; swashbuckling adventurer is more of a hobby.  But you’ve got to admit, I’m pretty good at―”

“Will you shut up?” Jewel shouted, bringing a third sword to play against his opponent.  “I’m going to enjoy a few years of silence when I’m holding your skull.”

Morty’s horn created a glow around his hooves, and with no further hurry, he leapt up onto the quarterdeck railing.  “You’ll have to come get it first.”

As Jewel and Morty resumed a battle that Rainbow still wasn’t sure she understood, the pegasus focused on the bolt of lightning that launched down from the sky just off the bow of her flying ship.  Leaning forward into the wheel, she drew her lips tight and clenched her brow in focus.

It was a race, something in her mind told her.  A race through a thunderhead, just like flight camp.  The thestrals chasing her weren’t all that much different from Ace and his goons, looking to give her a pounding after she showed them up at the hoofball match.  All she had to do was get through the storm, and she could catch up with Papa.

Another bolt of lightning crashed down, striking the top of The Eagle’s main mast and lighting it up like a torch.  “Whoa!” Rainbow shouted, turning the wheel and folding her wings.  In the surge of wind as the ship spun in midair, the fire was quenched by the sheer force of the wind.  It rushed through the pegasus’ wings amplified by the magic of the ship across her feathers.  With a shiver, she righted the boat again and began to flap for her life.

The thestrals were fast approaching, but it was the tall blue one that brushed directly past her coat who grabbed her attention.  Jewel seemed unconcerned by her, focusing his attention on the unicorn who was balancing on three legs atop the uneven, polished surface of the railing ahead.  “You can’t beat me, Jewel.  And even if you could, what then?  I’ll just come back, just like you will when I get rid of you.”

“Maybe not,” Jewel retorted.  “But I’m not here for you.”

From his place beside the captain, Jewel’s horn hurled a blast of magic at Rainbow.  She barely had time to gasp before it collided with a glowing blue barrier of Morty’s creation, mere inches from her face.  The distraction brought a smile to the thestral’s fanged face, as his swords moved again.

Mortal Coil had time for one gasp before the blades thrust toward his chest.  That mere noise was all that preceded his body crumbling into ashes at the strength of Jewel’s magic.

“Morty!” Rainbow shouted, holding onto the wheel desperately as she watched Jewel approach what was left of her new companion.

The thestral turned to look behind her, toward the aft of the ship.  A predatory smile dawned across his face.  She turned back to look at what he had seen.  In her distraction, The Eagle had leveled, and six other thestrals joined the blue figure to surround her.  Some paced forward a few steps, but a raised hoof from Morty’s killer stopped their advances.  “No, my friends.  This one looks delectable.  I think I’d like to keep her.”  Rainbow felt disgusted as his yellow slitted eyes slid over her body.

“Over my dead body!”

Rainbow didn’t have time to process the words, or the stallion’s voice behind them, before a surge of force against her side hurled her toward the nearest thestral…

...and into a space of puffy clouds and brilliant clear skies.  She rolled on the puffy surface, with barely enough time to blink, before a horn flared and her last sight of The Eagle and the horde that had covered it disappeared from view.

Everything had been moving so fast… she could still see the lightning in her eyelids, and feel the inertia of flying forward into the wind.  Like stepping off a treadmill after a hard run, every motion seemed too easy, and the air too peaceful.  She spent no few minutes soaking it in, letting her heartbeat slow and her mind spin in place before finally growing tired of questions it couldn’t answer, and calming down.  She turned, and struggled to her hooves.  The shock of Mortal Coil standing there, smiling at her, stole her words away for another few seconds.

“What was that?” the pegasus finally managed to ask.

Treacherous Teleportation,” Morty explained.  “A spell I came up with in my younger days, studying under Wintershimmer.  I teleport, and move some ashes into the space I was standing, so it looks like I was disintegrated.  Then I opened a portal, and now we’re safe for the moment.  For the record, I told you not to stop flying no matter what happened.  I could have just banished Gem if you hadn’t let all those thestrals onto the ship.”

“Well, I was kinda distracted that he’d just killed you!”  Rainbow snapped, before rolling her eyes.  “Also, wasn’t his name Jewel?  Not Gem?”

“I knew him when we were both alive… well, I shouldn’t say that.”  Morty shook his head slowly.  “Shattered Gem was already a thestral when I met him, though he usually went by Jewel.”

Rainbow’s eyes widened slightly.  “I… I think I’ve heard that name.”  Her hoof moved to her chin.  “Where have I heard that―”

The pegasus’ words were cut off by a squeal of joy.  “Morty!”

Rainbow turned with the unicorn, who had just enough time to brace himself before a vibrant violet unicorn slammed into his side.  “Gale!” he managed to gasp, before wrapping a hoof around her shoulders to match her energetic embrace.  “How are you doing?”

The mare, Gale, answered by wriggling out of his grasp and smiling into his eyes.  His matching smile lasted until her hoof slammed into his cheek, wielding enough force to topple him.  “It’s been twenty years, Morty.  Where in Tartarus have you been?”

“You… kinda just answered the question,” the stallion grumbled, clutching his cheek.  “Tirek’s Palace has the best view.  I’ve been keeping an eye on things topside.  And speaking of which…”  His hoof gestured in Rainbow’s direction.

“Uh, hi.  I’m Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow got her first really good look at Gale as the other mare turned slowly to face her.  Gale was probably thirty-something, with a longer light-blue mane with long bangs that framed her face after parting around her horn.  She seemed a friendly enough sort, as her eyes widened in newfound excitement.  “Rainbow Dash?  Oh, I can’t believe I get to meet you!  I…” her excitement suddenly faded.  “Morty, what is she doing here?”

Morty coughed into a hoof.  “Well, that’s kind of a long story.  Celestia used my spell on her, and I sort of had to go bail her out of a nasty meeting with the Twilight War horde.  Your sister’s boyfriend is leading them.”

“Jewel…”  Gale growled then name, though only a moment later her face lit up.  “Ooh, I should go get the others.  Both of you, wait here.”

“No, Gale, wait!” Morty called out in futility.  Before Rainbow’s eyes, the purple mare took three steps and disappeared into thin air.

Rainbow turned to Morty with a flat expression.  “Explanation.  Now.”

Morty coughed into his hoof.  “Okay.  Well, I needed somewhere safe to take you to get away from the horde, so they couldn’t disperse your soul enough to actually get access to your body.  Since they were already all on the ship, the best choice was to run away.  I waited until I found a point with a co-realm overlap… that’s a fancy magic term, it doesn’t matter.  All it means is that I was able to use this one spell I know, and…”  The tallish stallion lowered himself uncomfortably to scratch the back of his neck.  “This is the Summer Lands, the way it looks if Celestia and Luna don’t guide you here.”

Rainbow looked around in shock.  “This is the Summer Lands?  Just a bunch of clouds like in a foal’s cartoon?”

Morty chuckled.  “The Summer Lands react to what would make you feel comfortable.  I see the Crystal Empire, for instance, because the magic also isn’t as smart as Luna likes to think it is.”

“So you can get into the Summer Lands?” Rainbow raised a brow.  “Were you already here?”

Rolling his eyes, Morty shook his head.  “This place is an illusion, Rainbow.  It takes your magic, and gives you exactly what you want to see, but none of it is real.  There’s no ambition, no achievement… no real purpose, to be honest.  It’s just Celestia and Luna’s daycare for dead ponies to keep them from turning into spirits and monsters.  Honestly, I’d prefer Magnus’ place… Valhalla or whatever he calls it.  At least there’s something to accomplish there, even if it is senseless violence.  Don’t let your grandmother hear me say that though.”

“What?”  Rainbow only looked more confused.  “Do you mean that Gale pony―”

The unicorn clutched his side in laughter.  “No…” His first attempt failed in another peal of laughter.  “No, Rainbow.  If that were true, I’d be your great-grandfather, a good few times removed.  Gale is my wife.”

The pegasus looked up and down the twenty-something year old stallion.  “Isn’t she a little old for you?”

Morty replied by changing before Rainbow’s eyes.  Streaks of shiny silver appeared in his blue mane, and his horn shrunk to a more normal size.  The green vest he wore was replaced by a short-hemmed black wizard’s robe, hemmed with a thin red trim.  “I tend to like being about twenty, but age is fairly fluid here.”

Rainbow’s jaw dropped as a strange question moved to the forefront of her mind.  “Morty… how old are you?”

The stallion smiled.  “Oh, give or take a few years, about eight-thousand.   I’ve honestly lost count at this point.”  He feigned a sniffle, pouting.  “Nopony ever comes to my birthday parties.”

Silence answered his comment, until Gale reappeared amidst the clouds with another pair of ponies in tow.

They were pegasi, a mare and a stallion, sharing mirrored scars across their faces.  The former was a fairly average pony physically, with a mane that reminded Rainbow of autumn, split between yellow, orange, and brown hairs.  A long thin scar ran down her face, barely skipping over slashing through her right eye simply by virtue of the ridge of her brow.  Though her head was exposed, she wore heavy black armor over her tan coat, and a sword hung from her side.

Unlike the mare, the most defining trait of the stallion was his size.  It simply seemed wrong to Rainbow that a pegasus, normally the smallest of the three breeds, could stand nearly four feet in height.  His coat reminded the aerial acrobat of the color of dried blood, and his wiry black mane joined with a thick and healthy beard on his chin. Under all the hair, she could only see his emotionless expression, and the strange perforated scar that mirrored the mare’s, running in a diagonal over his left eye.  

“This is the one?” he asked, his tone carrying an accent that seemed part Stalliongradi and part Bitalian.  “She’s very small.”

“Hey, watch it!” Rainbow countered, taking a step forward.

The stallion ignored her, turning to the mare with the matching scar.  “I can see the resemblance in her mane.”

The autumn mare nodded silently, before stepping forward and extending a hoof.  “It’s nice to meet you, Rainbow Dash.  I am Commander Typhoon.”

Rainbow’s jaw dropped wide open.  “Y-you’re Typhoon?  The guardspony from the big fight in Stalliongrad during Hearth’s Warming?  Like, from Commander Hurricane’s journal?”

“He was our father,” the stallion muttered in an even, accented tone.

Rainbow leapt back, wings spread.  “Cyclone.  Why is he here?”  Rainbow looked to Typhoon, who seemed entirely at peace standing beside her old enemy.  “You killed all those unicorns!  You tried to take over―”

“You sure do have a way with mares, Cy,” Gale noted, deliberately interrupting Rainbow’s rant even as she poked the stallion in the ribs with her elbow, before breaking into a foalish giggle.

Behind his bushy brows and heavy beard, Cyclone rolled his eyes.  “Even in death, my mistake follows me.  I am not interested in destroying your government, Rainbow.  I had eighty years of life to live with the mistakes I made in those days, and I have had eight thousand since.”

“Why did you bring him here?” Rainbow nearly shouted at Gale, barely hearing Cyclone’s slow, emotionless explanation.  “Why isn’t he in Tartarus?  He tried to take over Equestria, and―”  The words continued for some time, though they were rather muffled when Gale’s horn lit up in a blue similar to her husbands, clutching down on the end of Rainbow’s muzzle.

“Lay off it, Rainbow,” Gale told the subject of her magic.  “Cyclone made up for what happened with the rest of his life.  You can thank him that there’s an Equestria today; we would have lost the Shadow War without him.   He did a pretty good job fixing River Rock too.”

Cyclone winced.  “Stol’nograd, Gale.”  

Uninterested in her brother’s bickering, Typhoon put a hoof on the huge stallion’s shoulder and shoved him out of her way, walking up to Rainbow.  “What are you doing here?”

Rainbow gulped, faced with Typhoon’s brutal focus.  “Well, it’s kind of a long story.  Princess Celestia used this spell after I―”

Typhoon interrupted by casting Morty one of the most sincerely hateful looks Rainbow had ever witnessed.  Even in the warmth of the Summer Lands’ sun, the air felt suddenly cold.  “Of course it’s your fault, Coil.  After what you did to Father, I shouldn’t even be surprised.”

“Whoa, now, don’t stick your sword any further up your flank, Typhoon,” retorted Morty, placing a hoof on the mare’s armor and pushing against her chest.  The motion failed to even budge the long-dead soldier.  “It’s not my fault the spell worked out that way.  You can blame Celestia for stabbing me in the back instead of helping me through the last step of my research.”

Necromancer,” Typhoon hissed, leaning forward.  “Get out of my sight, Coil.  We’ll take care of Rainbow.”

Their muzzles were nearly touching, which made Gale’s slow rise between them all the more amusing.  “Sis, Dear, can we please take a step back, stop ignoring our guest, and work together?  There’s no need to be pointing hooves.  What matters is that Rainbow is here now, and we need to help her.  Right?”

Morty sighed, and then dipped his head once.  “Fine.  But Gale, did we really need to bring them into this?”

Cyclone took one step forward, suddenly looming over the unicorn stallion.  “Do you think we do not care about our kin, necromancer?”

“Well, I never hoofed off my sister to be tortured in exchange for power,” Morty countered.  “Oh, by the way, Typhoon, Jewel says hello.”

Rainbow didn’t see Typhoon’s hoof move.  She only heard the noise, and saw the results.  One second, Morty was standing.  The next, he was laying on the clouds at Typhoon’s hooves, holding his cheek with his face clenched in pain.

“Don’t you dare mention him to me!”  The wince that followed reminded Rainbow exactly where she had heard the name before.  A pain flashed across Typhoon’s face, and the blue mare found herself likening it to the realization that she had lost her wings.

“Are you alright?” Rainbow asked.

“I promise I don’t fall down this much, usually,” Morty answered.

“You can’t kill anypony in the Great Skies,” Typhoon noted flatly, turning back to Rainbow.

“The what?”

“This place.  The Great Skies.”

Gale rolled her eyes.  “That’s what Dad always called the Summer Lands, Rainbow.  Just like how they say ‘Celeste’ and ‘Lūn’.”

“Dad?”  Something about the word rang in Rainbow’s ears.  “Wait, do you mean Commander Hurricane?  Are you their sister?”  Rainbow looked to Typhoon and Cyclone, trying to remember the story Twilight had read her more than a year earlier in Saraneighvo.  “No, that can’t be right.”

“She is our half-sister,” Cyclone corrected.  

Morty nodded, having stood up while Rainbow wasn’t watching.  “And your great-aunt, if you don’t mind skipping a few dozen ‘greats.’  Eight thousand years makes for a lot of generations.  Typhoon there is your grandma.”

“Hm?” Typhoon asked, turning to the unicorn.  “I was certain she was descended from Celestia.  Look at her mane.”

“Princess Celestia?” Rainbow gasped before Morty had a chance to reply.  “Princess Celestia had foals?”

Gale simply raised a hoof.  “Yoohoo.”

“Wait,” Rainbow cut in.  "Commander Hurricane slept with Princess Celestia?”

Gale made a disgusted face.  “Thanks for that, Rainbow.  Did you know your parents had sex too?  Why don’t you take a moment to think about that?  I’ll wait.”

“Grow up,” Typhoon told her younger sister.  “Rainbow, I suppose I believe Mortal Coil in this case.”

“You’re my grandma?” Rainbow asked, eyes widening.  “That’s so cool!  I read your story when I went to Stalliongrad―”

Cyclone laughed without smiling, setting Rainbow off just a bit.  “Do they actually call it that?  Stalliongrad?”

Rainbow nodded.  “Yeah.  Why?”

“Celeste made that up as a joke.  I thought I was the only one who knew.”  A shake of his head dispelled the stallion’s humor.  “I am sorry for interrupting.”

Rainbow shrugged.  “Anyway, my friend Twilight and I found this journal, and―”

“Is now the best time for this?” Typhoon asked bluntly.  “I’m sure we will have plenty of time to catch up when you’re dead, Rainbow, but for now, you and your father are both in danger.  Is that correct?”

A swallow preceeded a nod.  “Sorry, I just… I guess I kinda got sidetracked between having my wings back and coming here and meeting you.  Oh, this is so cool, though!  You’re like super good at freezing things, right?  And you’re a stunt flier too?”

Typhoon sighed.  “I am a Commander of the Cirran legions.”  A cold glance flicked toward Gale.  “The last Commander.  And in that position, I again remind you all that we don’t have time to play around at a family reunion.  Rainbow has nothing in common with our lives except a bloodline.  She is here because, once again, Celeste has decided to interfere in Garuda’s domain.  We need to decide how to move forward.  Rainbow, you could go back.  Your other option is to stay here in the Great Skies with us.”

Morty shook his head.  “And leave her body for one of your father’s leftovers to possess?  Plus you’re basically proposing she commit suicide.”

Gale looked Rainbow in the eyes. “Why not ask her? Rainbow, what do you want?”

“I…”  Rainbow found herself uncomfortable under the gazes of four dead ponies.  Her mind flashed back to her father, and Dead Reckoning, and Princess Luna, and her friends.  “I’m not sure I really want to go back,” she began.  “But I think I need to.”

Gale smiled.  “Alright, Morty.  Why did you bring her here?”

Morty looked down at the clouds, avoiding the gazes of Commander Hurricane’s children.  “The Twilight War thestrals were following me when Rainbow arrived in the Between.  I couldn’t just leave her to them, but now they’re on her trail instead of mine.”  The unicorn gave Typhoon a knowing glance that Rainbow didn’t understand.  “I can take one or two of them, but not the whole horde.  I needed somepony who knows how to fight them.”

“You came for me?”  Typhoon raised a brow.  “That isn’t like you, Morty.  Looking to bury the hatchet?”

The unicorn shook his head.  “Actually, I came for Gale.”  Turning to his wife the stallion continued.  “I was hoping you could get in touch with your father.”

Typhoon and Cyclone each took a threatening step forward, and Morty backed away.

“Commander Hurricane?” Rainbow asked.  “Isn’t he here?  Why don’t we just go―”

“He isn’t,” Cyclone interrupted.  “Some time ago, he was, but Celeste needed him to fight another of her wars.  She raised him from the dead with the necromancer’s spell, just as she did you.”  The words were accompanied by a fierce and focused glare in Morty’s direction.  “She is not the shining paragon of morality that you modern ponies believe.  Though perhaps you already knew that, Rainbow.”

Morty ignored Cyclone’s cynical comment and waved a hoof.  A pool of water appeared in the clouds at his feet.  At his beckoning, Gale walked over and began to stare into it, her horn glowing.  Only once her spell had started did the unicorn stallion turn back to face Rainbow.  “She’ll have an answer for us in just a bit.”

“If it’s that easy, why didn’t you just do it yourself?” Rainbow asked.

Morty chuckled.  “Hurricane and I didn’t exactly get along.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Typhoon said.

The necromancer kept his eyes locked on Rainbow.  “Not the biggest fan of necromancy, as it turns out.  Hurricane always thought I was sticking my muzzle where it didn’t belong.”  Almost as an afterthought, Morty added, “especially inside his daughter.”

A noise like a bull choking to death rang in Rainbow’s ears, and it took her several moments to realize that the indomitable form of Commander Cyclone was struggling to suppress a laugh.  For his efforts, he earned from Typhoon the ire she had previously reserved for Mortal Coil.

“Cyclone, Typhoon, and Gale are some of the strongest warriors who’ve ever lived, but they’ve spent their time here in the Summer Lands.  Hurricane is like me; he knows his way around the Between.  He should be able to help us find your body.”

“It’s Commander Hurricane,” Typhoon corrected.

Morty rolled his eyes.  “Do I look like a Cirran legionary to you, Typhoon?  I didn’t vote for him.”

“Well, here’s your chance,” Gale told her husband, looking up from the bowl.  “Dad will be waiting for us out there.”

Morty shook his head.  “You’re not coming.  If any of you get caught out there, I won’t be able to get you back to the Summer Lands.  I’m not having you becoming Windigos or something on my conscience.”

“Do you think you can stop us?” Cyclone asked, in a tone that sounded like a bear growling.

Morty took a long time to consider his answer.  Typhoon actually drew her sword, a thin blade shimmering with visible ice and creating a cloud of mist in the surrounding air.  The action seemed to solidify the unicorn’s answer.  “I know I can, but I’d rather not start a fight.  Fine, but don’t blame me when this goes south.   We have to find Commander Hurricane,” he emphasized the title sarcastically, “fight our way through a small army of evil spirits, and figure out exactly where in the Between corresponds to wherever Rainbow’s real body is before any of the other wandering souls do.”  A smug grin appeared on Morty’s face as his horn lit up.  “You Cirrans have the best family vacations.”

- - -

From the outside, the hive looked the part of a mighty castle jutting out of the red stone; a twisted, cruel Canterlot formed in the interest of conquest and dominance, rather than luxury and culture.  Lady Reflection, however, knew that like so much of the changelings, the outside existed only for appearances.  Within its walls, her hooves moved down long curving corridors that followed the structure of square walls and ceilings, but rejected the idea that a building ought to fall evenly on a grid.  The drones sprinted in front of her longer-legged stride as she moved toward the center of the huge red cliff that held the structure, opening doors and struggling to stay out of her way.  They were expendable, and she was not.  Both parties understood the relationship perfectly.

Her delicate, hole-ridden wings settled against her back to mild discomfort.  Spending so much time as a pony always left her unsure of just how to let them rest on her back.  They twitched up and down, hopping from side to side as if in a display of nervousness―though that would be ridiculous, as Reflection had no reason to be nervous in an audience with the queen.

The doors to Chrysalis’ throne room were made of solid jade, each emblazoned with half her icon of a solid, slender horn and a pair of hole-ridden wings.  The sentient changeling had spent many hours wondering why the queen’s horn was marked with three distinct notches, when neither her children, nor her icon displayed the same marks.  Unfortunately, like so many things about the queen and her past, Reflection was certain it would remain a mystery.  She put the thoughts out of her mind, and gestured for the team of four drones to open the doors.

The queen looked up from a thick tome balanced on her foreleg, and straightened up on the cushioned back of her towering throne.  Given that outsiders were only brought into the hive as food or for conversion, and that the drones weren’t truly intelligent, the show of the seat and the room’s dark columns, green-burning braziers, and looming ceiling were all likely conceits of the queen herself.

“Reflection, my daughter, come here!”  Chrysalis’ face remained neutral throughout the greeting.  Reflection hadn’t been expecting anything different from her welcoming; smiles were a luxury reserved for victories and conquests.  The warrior paced forward on the green carpet as her mother maneuvered down the steps of her dais on stilt-like legs.  “It’s been so long since you’ve come to visit.  How is Trottingham?”

Reflection shook her head slowly in guilty amusement.  “Almost too easy, in all honesty, my queen.”  Though the queen always greeted her as a daughter, there was a part of Reflection’s mind that still remembered the late Lady Teatime enough not to call the queen ‘mother.’  “The Coltstream Guard is under my complete control, and my dear husband,” she noted with utter distaste, “is too focused on outside affairs and playing at noble politics to see the knife I’m holding against his throat.  I suspect he may suffer an unfortunate illness in a year or two; nopony will bat an eye that his poor widow succeeds him.  The Lady Reflection is, after all, almost twenty years his younger.”

“The scandal!” Chrysalis noted, laughing around her fangs.  That noise, above all others, brought Reflection closer to the queen.  Her laugh was so vibrant, so full of life and desire, that it never failed to inspire the younger changeling.  “Does he feed you enough, dear?”

“Powdered Wig?”  Reflection’s neck twisted back, and she spat a wad of bile onto the stones off the side of the carpet.  “No, he was only interested in me as a way to get his hooves on Glasgallop.  Not only does he not love me, he lacks even the stallionhood to lust after me.  Fortunately, one of our manor guards, Sentinel, has found a nubile young maid working on the grounds with whom to start another scandalous little romance with.”  Reflection licked her lips.  “I did bring a bit of that love, if you’d like a sample.  I know you’ve never had the taste for the sappier stuff, but the consistency is to die for, my queen.”

“You don’t need to be so stiff, Reflection,” Chrysalis replied, wandering back toward her seat.  “The others all call me mother, you know.”

“I know,” Reflection replied guiltily.  “I suppose it’s the Trottingham formality in me.”  She hoped the queen’s laugh meant that her lie had passed unnoticed.  “Though I enjoy talking with you, I didn’t return just to visit.  There’s an opportunity I stumbled onto just a few days ago.”

“Oh?”  Chrysalis brought a hoof to her chin.  “Please, go on, Reflection.”

The changeling warrior cleared her throat.  “I’ve found a vulnerability in Canterlot―”

The curiosity on the queen’s expression turned into fury.  “You know better than to even mention that idea, Reflection!  I won’t lose half the hive again attacking a city that’s already expecting us!”

Reflection recoiled with each word, stepping backward in time with the queen’s spiteful shouts.  “My queen, please, hear me out―!”

“What good is a vulnerability, Reflection, when Shining Armor and Princess Cadance can simply swoop in from whatever icy wasteland they’ve been ruling to crush us with a single spell?”

Reflection took a deep breath.  “My queen… Shining Armor is dead.”

“I don’t―!”  Chrysalis caught herself mid-snarl.  “What?  Why have none of my drones reported this?”

“It’s a well-kept secret at the moment,” Reflection explained, feeling the pressure of the queen’s gaze lighten.  “To the average pony who is even aware of his daily actions, he’s away on a secret mission for Princess Celestia.  But what I am telling you, I heard from Cadance’s mouth.”

Chrysalis sat back, and smiled.  “That does give us some opportunity, doesn’t it?  But with the rest of their guard in place, and those new spells which see through our shape changing, we still won’t manage to sneak past them.  And a full on invasion would fail under their military power.”

“Actually, my queen, the Royal Guard of Canterlot are fewer in number than our drones.  Armor has spent the last few years downsizing their forces, even after… the wedding.”  The flash of irritation over the queen’s face was less terrible than Reflection had expected, yet it still caused her heart to skip a beat.  “Unless Stalliongrad or Bitaly came to their rescue, we could likely topple them.  But that is not the plan I propose.”

“Oh?”

Reflection nodded.  “You see, my queen, there is another pony who passed away in recent days.  His name was Steel Lining, though you more likely know him as the leader of Celestia’s Honor Guard.”

Chrysalis’ brow furrowed, and she spoke through gritted teeth.  “I know the stallion, yes…”

“Masquerade, the assassin who poisoned Luna some six months ago, killed him.  At the moment, his position has been filled by Roscherk Krovyu of Stalliongrad.”

“Roscherk…”  The queen’s hoof danced on her chin.

Reflection shook her head.  “You wouldn’t know him, my queen.  I only bring him up to mention his incompetence in relation to his predecessor.  The point that I am getting to is this: if I were to become captain of the Royal Guard, it would be an easy enough process to create a gap in the spells over Canterlot intended to detect us.  In a way, the total failure of those defenses would serve as a far greater surprise than our original attempt.  Without Shining Armor, they won’t even have the means for such a powerful shield.”

“I see,” Chrysalis noted.  Reflection could almost see the gears turning.  “How do you propose to take Shining Armor’s position?  And once you have it, how will you beat their spells?”

Reflection smiled.  “Beating the spells is as easy as asking White Flag for her notes on the spells themselves.  As the leader of Trottingham’s guard, I have every reason to want access to that magic.  Even more so if, say, a small cell of Changeling drones was discovered trying to infiltrate Lord Powdered Wig’s manor.”

Chrysalis nodded.  “I see.  And the title?”

“That is the most important reason that I came here.  In Suida this very moment, there is a team of ponies on some foolish expedition trying to save the late Commander Lining.  Celestia believes one of those ponies, Soldier On, of having orchestrated the plot against Luna.”

Chrysalis’ head twisted in curiosity.  “Did she?”

Reflection couldn’t help but chuckle as she vigorously shook her head.  “Soldier On is guilty of having once been in the wrong place at an almost fantastically wrong time.  I doubt there’s anything more to say about her.  However, if I were to arrive with the mare in shackles, to present her before Celestia… well, it would make a very strong statement for my talents.  Even more so when I reveal that Lord Wig, Marquise Couture, Prince Sforzando, and Princess Cadance all back me for the position.”

“You’ve been busy,” Chrysalis noted.

Reflection shrugged.  “It was easier than you might think.”

The queen leaned back in her chair.  “Well, you have my permission to go forward with this plan, then.  I’ll spare you a few drones for your staged attack on Trottingham, and you can take care of this Soldier On mare before you even return.”

“Ah…” Reflection drew in a slow breath.  “That isn’t quite so easy, my queen.  Soldier On is Honor Guard.  So are her companions, as I understand it.  I can’t defeat them alone by brute force, and they will be suspicious of the aid of strangers, ponies or boars..”

Chrysalis looked down at her favored subject with a creased brow.  “I see.  How do you plan to defeat them?”

Reflection frowned.  “Perhaps trickery isn’t always the best answer.”