XIII. Dreams Like Clouds
Rarity
Rarity wandered in the land of sleep, alone except for the warmth of the sun and the sound of her hooves against the marble.
It was a strange land but not a troubling one. She walked under in the shade of a finely constructed house, built in the old styles of… oh, but she forgot. It was some race of ponies of great import. It was a square, at least it seemed to be, a walkway which led into the house’s various compartments and sundries and surrounded a lovely garden. Curious, she paused and looked through one of the doors and found that they led out not into a house, as she had thought, but on to green fields that stretched on and on, verdant expanses of life and fresh air.
Rarity took a deep breath and smiled.
This wonderful atmosphere and antique-yet-articulate tiled decor did not erase the feeling of strangeness, of oddity. Still, she did not feel threatened.
Instead, she stepped out into the sunlight and strolled in the garden.
How long had she been walking around this garden, never wandering in and experiencing it? Was it not magnificent? Rarity was convinced that she had not seen its like or equal—never its master!—in all her life, not in any of the fine parks of Canterlot, and certainly not in the little boxes and rows of Ponyville. She was careful as she bent to smell the flowers, her reverence almost as a penitent come to ask for blessing in some deserted sacred copse. She felt, for all the world, like a mare out of some antique time and place, and as she straightened herself and found a pool, she found, reflected in the water, herself. Her hair was styled in a strange, foreign way but not in a fashion she found unpleasant. She was clothed in robes wholly unfamiliar, white as pure, driven snow, trimmed in what seemed gold thread, and clasped at her shoulders with a tiny bronze brooch. She regarded it curiously and found on it a strange symbol of an alicorn. Upon it was no regalia she recognizes as Luna’s or Celestia’s. Instead, it bore an stylized hourglass that, in Rarity’s professional opinion, was beyond words. The level of detail! Oh, but she was in heaven. What stars had given such leisures?
It was then that she heard the first noise in that place.
She looked up and saw that she was not alone. Rather, she heard another walking, but their form was shadowed under the walkway and behind a tree. She smiled.
“Come, stranger! If you would not mind at least. It is a lovely day, and a lovely garden.”
To Rarity’s shock, Luna stepped out into the garden, wearing robes—no, it was really more of a dress in a cut she was just not familiar with—and smiling.
“Greetings, generous one,” Luna said. “I am pleased to find you happy here.”
Rarity began to bow, but the princess waved her off. “Oh, do no such thing. Can you not feel it in the air? It is not the way of this place.”
And it was true, Rarity found. The rules were different. This place was different.
“Pr… No. Luna, am I dreaming? It is such a lovely dream—if it is so. I must congratulate you.”
Luna hummed a strange and alien tune as she strolled through the garden, keeping to the path marked out by the little slabs of marble laid carefully upon the wild grass. Rarity waited and was shocked as the princess came alongside her and sat beside the pool, peering in.
“You are indeed dreaming, my friend. I happened to be… strolling, you could say, and I found you in the dark. You were falling, and I thought that perhaps there were better things for you to be doing.”
“Like strolling in the garden?”
“Like strolling in my garden,” Luna corrected. She sighed. “Though I must admit that it perhaps is no longer mine. I would have to ask if it were so. I have not tended to it in a very, very long time.”
“Where is this place? Is it a real place?” Rarity asked, also sitting.
“It is, and it was. When I find myself at the end of my patience or feeling as if the world is ending, if you’ll excuse a joke in poor taste, I come here. After… after our conference.” Luna seemed to struggle a bit, but continued. “I came here and recovered.”
The air whispered to her. The grass and the pool and the very fibers of the reality that was not hummed in Rarity’s ears, and she knew the truth and told it.
“You came here to cry.”
Luna looked up but made no reprimand. She smiled. “Yes, yes I did. The aether is truthful to those who are Awake.”
“Awake?”
“Yes. Dreaming is not only for those who sleep. We are not that strength which in old days could bind and loosen—though we had that authority given to us—but we can still coax ponies into true Wakefulness. We did not expect you to be able to achieve it so quickly.”
Rarity stirred. “It is very odd. Like the world just tells me these tidbits of information as I need them, almost as if I am some sort of character in a story. Some awfully intrusive story!”
“Aptly put! Yes, my heart is bare to you here, and yours to me. You… do not mind, I hope. I had not come to pry. I only wished for company and thought, perhaps, you could use it.”
Rarity hummed herself, now, though without much of a tune. The wind was whispering something, but she did not ask. She waited.
“I do not mind at all, Luna,” Rarity said. “Now, tell me of this place. I could ask the dream, but that’s not fun ‘t all, is it?”
Luna stood and shook herself gently, and before her eyes, the strange white dress was transformed into something far more ornate, some garment of state so beautiful that it left Rarity speechless. The craftsmareship, the seams! The colors—the purple was vibrant, the use of gold, oh, all of it. This was the work of masters.
“The work of ages, more like,” Rarity said to herself.
“This is Jannah, or at least, it is based upon a tiny shard of Jannah, in the West. The great promontory that we were born atop had a spring, and when the city rose up, we constructed an open shrine around that spring and to the side we created bathhouses and quarters that we might have a place of refuge from crowds and noises and our long sojourns. In one of them, there was a garden dear to my heart, that after I came out of the song and it receded… I would come and visit.”
“So this is what Jannah looked like.”
“Oh, not at all!”
The world shifted. It was not a violent change but still a total one. The garden gave way to rock that was ancient and that weighed on her mind and body with magical presence. It was like a giddy, sensuous feeling, far too intense to speak about and one that was constant.
And below her, she saw all the city spread out and knew, at last, everything.
Jannah continued. The cities of Equestria were large, some were so large that it was hard to walk from one end to the other without being exhausted and perhaps a little irritable and a lot lost. But this was not like that. She knew how high she was, and yet she could see the end only with difficulty, as a shining but distant white wall. Even that seemed almost a mirage. Between her and the shining walls was the city. Walled districts the size of Canterlot, and a dozen of them in front of her, filled to the brim with buildings of marble, great towering structures of pillars and arches and vaulted ceilings, open-air forums where tiny forms congregated in bustling, living crowds. Streets wide as four of the widest throughfares of Ponyville were the norm. The smallest houses were mansions of Ponyville, the smallest courtyards tucked away behind rows of houses were the hideouts of kings and rich lordlings. Fountains adorned the squares, larger than any she had ever seen, their large pools of clean, crystal water reflecting the sun. Even from a height, with the help of the dream, she could see and know it all, know that she gazed out upon millions and millions, that there was not enough marble in all of the world to make such a city, not enough wood or granite to shore it up and keep it sturdy. It was impossible, with its topless towers and bustling hives of industrious and cheerful market goers. It was impossible.
And then it was gone, in an instant, same as it had come, pulled through the gate of false dreams. She and Luna were alone in a great field of grass that swayed in the wind, and Luna was smiling with the sun at her back.
“You have seen my city.”
“Oh, Luna… oh, Luna whatever happened?”
“That will come in time. You must know what Twilight knows but not now,” Luna said, and she cocked her head. “Do you not have something far more important to attend to? My dreaming must end here though I have enjoyed your brief company. Have you any words for Spike? For he comes to wake me soon, I hear.”
“I… well, I suppose tell him that I send my fondest regards, that I hope he is doing well, and to be safe so that I may…” She chuckled to herself. “I am trying to be far too choice with my words. Tell him that he must keep himself in one scaly piece that is fit to be hugged by a lady.”
Luna joined her. “I can relay such a message. Do you not have your own dream?”
“Hm?”
“Behind you, will you not go to it? I believe it is lying in the grass, under the shadow of the beech tree.”
Rarity felt a pull, tightening about her chest, but it was not so strong that she was carried away. She stood and said her piece. “Luna, the dream told me something. Well, I say it told me when it really kind of hinted…”
“It is true,” Luna replied. “Yes, even I am confronted with the inside of my own heart here. Twilight Sparkle is in every lithe blade of grass, so long as I am here.”
“I… I really had no idea,” Rarity said, unsure what she could say. She would not give the feeling a name, though it was obvious now.
“Yes, I know you are uncertain. I see your own heart, Rarity, and so we know one another. Though perhaps you are more familiar with this sort of quarry than I.” And now Luna laughed, and she seemed to glow. “Go now, Daughter of House Belle, and wake rested and ready for action. There is work yet to do. Quite a bit of it.”
Luna faded away, leaving behind her only the deep blue sky. Rarity turned and found a dirt path cutting through the ocean of waving tall grass, swaying back and forth as the wind played. She walked down the path. Her friends were there, running, and she waved at them, and they waved back. Applejack and Fluttershy and Twilight and Pinkie laughing and chasing some other dawn, on some other business, but it was the beech tree that drew her. The tree had been there before, had it not? Regardless, it was there now, and it was tall and full, and underneath it was a deep and cool shade and there, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, lounged Rainbow Dash.
Rarity felt her face flush. She rallied arguments against dream logic and connections made out of slight causation, but they crumbled. No, the dream knew things. Even this, which she had not known. It was not like Luna’s beating heart, a pulsing purple light shaped in the form of her friend so boldly, but it was… well, it was there.
What to do about it? Rarity ruminated, but she did not pause her hooves on the path until she had come to the beech tree and lain down underneath its shade. Rainbow greeted her, but there was no great dream of events here for her. They lounged and spoke of flight and clouds and the way the wind rises, and she was happy.
*
Rarity woke in the semi-dark with two pegasi cuddled closely to her. She was warm, and she was smiling even as she opened her eyes.
At first, the air was stil,l and there was no sound. Their cave was untouched by the outside world, free even of the howling winds, and she was thankful for it. Her head, at last, was clear. Her legs felt solid and ready to run a hundred miles. On her coat, she felt the tiny sparkling, crackling invisible currents of magic that was readable but foreign to her, and she realized that her friends had draped their wings like offerings of careful artificers.
They kept me warm, she thought and felt even warmer. It was a brave, kind thing to do. Not because it was dangerous but because it was without reward. She snuggled back against whoever was behind her. How soft! It must be Fluttershy at her back, muzzled nuzzled into her mane. Poor dear, Rarity did hope her gift of magic-fueled insulation had not made her cold as well. Fluttershy was always there to share a bit of kindness. It was her Element, after all, though none of them had been very enthusiastic about the Elements they bore in their hearts. Had Fluttershy always been so comfortable? Not that she had much experience to go on, of course…
She opened her eyes and found herself looking at Fluttershy, fast asleep. Their noses were almost touching, and in dismay, Rarity stopped nestling back into the comfortable warmth behind her that she knew was Rainbow Dash.
Oh… fitting. Probably why I had that dream. What am I doing? What am I thinking?
But she had little time to ponder it. A bit of snow fell and plopped right on her nose, and in surprise, she scooted back hard and fast, right into Rainbow Dash, who wrapped around her and made a comically loud oof as both of them rolled in a heap.
Rarity came up first, flushed. “I am so very sorry, Rainbow! Snow fell on my nose and it was cold and it surprised me and—”
Rainbow groaned and sat up. She shook her head. “Nah, don’t worry about it, Rares. Sounds—” She yawned. “Sounds like a rude awakening. How’re you feeling?”
“Oh, me? I’m feeling wonderfully,” Rarity replied. “I noticed you kept me warm.”
“Oh that?” Rainbow looked away. “It was no big deal. I thought it might help you get back to normal.”
“Was I bad off?”
“You were doing pretty rough. I was really worried about you, Rares. I mean, like, I don’t mean that I think you’re weak or anything!”
“No,” Rarity said, smiling and shaking her head. “I understand. Thank you for caring.”
They might have continued dancing around each other, but more snow fell, and Fluttershy rose with a squeak. “What was that?” she said.
“Just snow, darling,” Rarity answered. “It’s nothing serious—”
More snow fell, and now there was a hole in the center of their ceiling. The gray light poured in, and outside, they heard some strange commotion. To Rarity, it sounded familiar, but in a distant way. She turned to Rainbow. “Dear, do you know… Rainbow?”
Rainbow’s eyes were wide. She pushed past Rarity and widened the hole so that they could look out and gestured to Rarity and Fluttershy to see.
They came. Rarity looked out from their sanctuary, and all around her, she found that they had become an island of stillness in the middle of a battle between ponies and monsters.
Rainbow Dash
Rainbow Dash’s ancestors were warriors. It was no special thing among her kind, and any pegasus picked out of a crowd could say the same with almost as much pride. But the mares of the genus Dash, all bearing some banner of Cloudsdalean insignia, had been in the forefront of the battles of their polis since before there was an Equestrian throne to serve. They were monsters, berserkers, oncoming stormclouds of hooves and blades and cries too raw to be replicated.
And so it was no surprise that Rainbow Dash began to lose her mind.
The battle above was a surreal sight. Ponies fought and swarmed and crowded around great bipedal beasts covered in filthy, matted fur that had once been white. They were ten meters tall at least, some taller, with disproportionately long arms. She saw cruel hands with ragged claws whirling and reaching. One stood beside their shelter, its back to Rainbow, and it reached for one of the soldiers on the ground.
Rainbow flew to the attack, a tornado of color and sound. Her hooves slammed into the back of the monster’s head with such force that it stumbled, overbalanced, and fell flat. As it began to rise, Rainbow hovered, chest heaving, and watched for a few precious seconds as the soldiers on the ground crowded and pinned the giant down. They made short work of it.
Behind her, Rarity cried out. “Rainbow, out of the sky! Come back!”
A battle song still sang in her ears, reinforced by the thrill of momentary victory and the rush of adrenaline. She could hear the magic crackling on her wings and hooves, feel the stored lightning trapped in the dark recesses of the cloudy, ashy sky.
But she came back.
Rainbow landed and shook herself off. Her eyes were on swivel, but she helped an already free Rarity pull Fluttershy out from the snow cave.
“Keep close, Rares,” Rainbow barked.
“I’d say the same for you! Do not go running off, please! You and I must work as a team.” Rarity huffed. “We don’t even know who these po—Rainbow, behind you!”
Before Rainbow could begin to turn, Rarity had already grabbed her and pulled her back. The space that Rainbow had occupied only a second before erupted, and her ears rang with something like cannonfire, like some god’s revolver. Rarity lost her balance and fell back into the hole, widening it and collapsing what was left of their now hidden refuge beneath the snow. They landed. In the conflict between Rainbow’s toned body and Rarity’s far softer form, the former was fine and the latter found itself with the wind knocked out of it.
Rainbow rolled off, recovering quickly. She cursed, and her breath came out as a cloud.
“Flutters! Don’t freeze up!” she shouted and then turned to Rarity. “If I can keep mobile, you can keep them hurting, right?”
“Right!”
“I didn’t see many magic ponies out there, Rares. Or fliers. We’ve got this, but let’s hurry.”
Rarity nodded, and she and Rainbow charged back up out of the newly formed hole in the ground.
There was another giant now, and Rainbow got a good look at the front of one. They had faces like primates, but also different, with horns growing on the top of the head and on the sides and dull, flat teeth for crushing. The eyes were red. They seemed to eat at her, and she felt herself tremble.
Don’t look, Rainbow told herself. Don’t look, don’t look. Don’t look at his eyes. That’s how they get you.
She did not know how she knew this, but she knew it sure as she knew anything. With a leap, she launched into the air away from the new giant. Fluttershy was right behind her, calling out, and Rainbow answered by waving with a hoof as they fell down on another giant together, hooves beating at an exposed back. She moved fast, but not as fast as she could. Fluttershy had to keep up. It had to be in unison, together, so Rarity would have a clean shot.
From the hole, Rarity apparently had a clean shot indeed, for she heard the strange roar of the unicorn’s signature arcane bolt, like fire that moved, and a cry of monstrous pain.
“Rainbow! Rainbow, that one!” Fluttershy called out.
Rainbow saw it. Past the milling soldiers who cheered beneath her in the snow, a giant raised a large, crude object that could only be a firearm. It was massive, like a ridiculous small cannon. Her eyes widened, and her legs locked. He was firing!
There was no way to move Fluttershy out of the way. She had to dodge it. There was no time—not even for Rainbow—and so she dove right into the snow as the gunner fired and tore the air above her head with shot. It hit another giant far behind, and she heard it protest.
She had landed on all four hooves, still running. Around her, stray soldiers in winter-white barding called out to her in a strange tongue. Two of them formed up on either side of her, keeping up. Up close, she recognized the visors and wrappings. She’d seen them before, long, long before, when first she had come north.
Crystal Ponies. The Empire had found them first.
Her new companions were armed. She saw now that around their shoulders, they wore strange belts of gilded metal, from which sprouted small mechanical appendages. These held onto lances she had not noticed before, but she liked them. She liked them a lot.
They barreled towards the gunner, who was loading.
Above her, Rainbow saw Fluttershy flying a bit haphazardly, but not as if she’d been shot. So she was safe. Rainbow yelled up at her. “Flutters, stay clear! Keep moving!” She looked back towards the gunner and spoke quickly to the Imperials. “Can you two charge him while I try to break off and hit him from the side?”
She didn’t wait long for an answer, and she didn’t even get the strange language from before. They roared wordlessly and increased their pace until they were outrunning her and she was slowing slightly to open her wings.
Rainbow Dash was back in the air. The gunner was loading the oversized musket, trying to ram shot down the barrel while two stalwart Crystal Legionnaires were only meters away with sharp, eager spears. She climbed and climbed, gaining altitude to better strafe. Fluttershy stayed at a distance. Rainbow Dash could hear her panicking, but there was no time to get her away from here.
The gunner stopped trying to use his gun properly and picked it up by the muzzle. He raised it up like a great club, and before Dash could cry out, he was already swinging it in a wide arc. Rainbow dove, hooves up to pummel the monster’s face, to drive him back on his ass, but she knew it was too late. She’d sent them right into his reach.
The gun swept them aside like ants before the ocean. One was thrown into the air and landed face-first several meters away. The other slid only a bit and struggled to rise. The gunner reached down with his massive paws and gripped the legionnaire tightly. The mask had been broken by the butt of the gun.
The world stood still. She could see the crystal pony’s bright blue eyes, see her blue head squirming in time with what was visible of her body, saw the silvery liquid that was flowing down her face.
Rainbow Dash’s front hooves slammed into the giant’s eyes.
It screamed and dropped the legionnaire, who immediately began digging in the snow. She limped, but up she came with something, and before Rainbow’s eyes, a lance extended from the tiny artifact.
The battered legionnaire stood now on her hind legs. She wobbled, she stumbled, but still she stood though her shining blood poured down from a wounded head, and her right eye was swollen shut. Her armor was dented and torn. Still, she cocked the lance awkwardly, and Rainbow saw what she intended.
The beast dropped the gun, and it went to grab Rainbow. She tried to escape, but he was fast and he was angry. A huge paw wrapped around her lower body, and she screamed.
It was so tight. It stank, and it was squeezing her, and now the beast was bringing her back down towards its ruined eye and its maw which gaped and smelled of rotting, devoured flesh. Thought evaporated. She needed to get out, she needed to get out. Oh god, oh gods it was going to eat her. It was going to just rip her head off with—
The monster dropped her, and Rainbow landed in a heap at its feet, beside the battered legionnaire. The lance protruded from the creature’s chest. Roaring, the crystal pony drove it in farther.The creature thrashed, and stepped back, but did not fall.
Rainbow saw that her ally could not muster the strength to finish it now, with only three legs and all of them banged up. She rose and tried to help push the lance in deeper, but her legs were like jello. They betrayed her. She stumbled in the snow.
Over her head, she heard the familiar sound of Rarity’s arcane bolt, and looked up just in time to see the giant fall and the legionnaire stumble back, panting.
Rainbow stood, heart racing, and looked around frantically.
But there were no more giants. They were done for, now. They lay in the snow, almost blending in were it not for the crimson stains and the pools of blood that marked them out clearly from the blinding white plains.
There was no general cheer. There was no attempt at celebration beyond the whimpering thanksgiving of bruised and shaking engineers kneeling in the bloodied snow. Some hugged their neighbors. Some cried. A few wandered as if lost in a dream, simply staring down at the bodies as if seeing ghosts or gods, staring at each other with eyes almost unseeing, staring at the sky.
Rainbow, for her part, wanted to sit. But she did not. She forced herself to move. Though the legionnaire who had aided her followed, Rarity was the only thing on her mind. Rarity and that beautiful horn. Rarity and the magic she commanded. Rarity.
The magic sniper was making her own steady way to Rainbow, and met her halfway, past the body of the first giant. Rainbow said nothing at first. She came in, legs a little unsteady still from the rush of combat and fear, and laid her head on Rarity’s shoulder.
“Thanks,” Rainbow said quietly.
“Are you alright? I thought you would seem more pleased by a chance at action,” Rarity said but then sighed. “I am sorry. I make light.”
“That wasn’t fighting,” Rainbow said. “His teeth… Thank you, Rarity.”
Fluttershy landed then, beside them. Rainbow heard her hooves make contact with the earth and then heard her talking softly to somepony. She wanted to know, but she also didn’t care. Rarity was warm. Rarity’s shoulder was safe. She thought about a gaping maw and shivered and then moved back.
Fluttershy
The legionnaire’s name was Amethyst. After helping her out of her now misshapen armor, Fluttershy found her injuries to be many but nonlethal. Her blood was silver—it had taken a bit of effort for Fluttershy not to show any outward sign of dismay at this—and of a different consistency than the ponies Fluttershy had treated so many times before. It bothered her. She did not let it show, but it still bothered her. The pony could not help what she was. She seemed like a good pony, who smiled and thanked Fluttershy and offered Rainbow a round of Wild Pegasus if they made it back. Her voice was soft, her eyes were a curious, faded green.
But Fluttershy had forgotten what it was like to be among the crystal ponies. She had, of course, not seen any bleeding in that time, and so she could be forgiven for forgetting some of the finer points of difference in their physiology.
The ponies who had huddled around the hole named themselves the second cohort of the First Legion. All of them wanted to talk to Rainbow Dash and Rarity, praising their abilities, thanking them for their help. The awe they showed seemed strange. Fluttershy knew there were few unicorns and pegasi this far north. The Empire and Equestria had been trading for years now. Well, no, she corrected herself. They had been trading.
Fluttershy made her rounds. The legionnaires all thanked her, and she tried to smile for them. Their legs were scuffed and bruised. Their bodies were wracked. This one’s face was twisted and obviously ruined by a claw from some past creature. His lips were not as they should be. She thought his cheeks were so hollow she could see the workings of his mouth almost through them. Fur did not grow as it should.
But she kept a smiling face on. It was not without difficulty, but it was not without an earnest heart. She did not smile because she was happy. She smiled because she was not, and her heart ached, and because smiles are for other ponies. This was, at least, what she told herself.
The cohort was part of the vanguard of a larger detachment of soldiers guarding a caravan. A caravan of what, asked her friends as she quietly bound up a bleeding leg. The cohort’s centurion still lived, and he replied that it was a long train of wounded and civilians and, most importantly, munitions. The last border fort was being abandoned. The limitanei, the support troops, who had defended the place, were being evacuated home with their families and the inhabitants of the nearby village. The Winterlands? The Centurion spat and said that the Winterlands weren’t worth losing life over, and that the mountain gods could have them.
Fluttershy finished binding the pony’s leg.
“Thank you, miss,” he said and sighed. “We were lucky you came along.”
“Oh, no, you did most of the work,” Fluttershy said, beginning her retreat.
“No… I mean, numbers-wise, but it’s been so long since I saw a pegasus really fly. It was like coming in from a storm. Be safe, will you?”
And she told him that yes, she would be safe, and then she had returned to Rainbow and Rarity.
They sat beside the hole. Rarity explained their presence, but did not, at first, mention their true mission. They sought out their neighbors, hoping that not everypony had been swallowed up by the night.
And Fluttershy began to observe. She had been thinking about this moment, and the moments after it, for some time. It was Fluttershy who had suggested traveling north, after all. Cadance and her husband loved Twilight and loved the princesses. Most importantly, one had served Equestria faithfully, and the other had called it home for more than half a decade of her short life. If anypony would be willing to help in this barren new world, it would be them. She had said it then, and she would say it again, but after Stalliongrad, she had begun to have other thoughts.
“Communication?” Centurion Copperhoof said as if chewing on the word. “That’s a long way to come for talking, miss…?”
“Rarity, good sir,” Rarity replied. “And yes, it is a rather long jaunt for talking, but you must understand that the world has quite moved along, and the old ways are no longer working. The Equestrian Mail Service no longer runs between Canterlot and, well, anywhere, you see.”
Copperhoof raised an eyebrow. “Is it true, then? That the south has fallen? We’d heard… rumors.”
“Well, I can dispel any that are too hopeless. No, much of Equestria is still quite alive and populated. Law and order are a bit in short supply, but that doesn’t mean ponies are as well.”
He hummed. “I’m honored, whichever way. I hadn’t expected to encounter Element bearers out here in the Winterlands.” He offered a big smile though it only helped Fluttershy forget his crimson eyes for a moment. “And I’m quite glad that you are uninjured as well. The Sword-Prince would no doubt have had my head if I had stumbled upon you and then lost you.”
“Sword-Prince? Ah, you mean Shining Armor?”
“That’d be right,” the centurion said. “Good old Shining Armor. He’s Equestrian, but he’s still one of us, we say. You know, the ponies here love him almost as much as the Empress. He’s been at it night and day, keeping the Mitou at bay. Rebuilt the Imperial Guard a few years ago, back when it was just a few changelings that we had to worry about here and there. Nowadays… well. I’m not sure anypony in the world could have gotten the legions up and running as fast as our Sword-Prince.”
His chest puffed out with pride. Fluttershy noted this. She also noted the way in which he said Shining Armor’s title as if it were the more correct appellation. It was a tone of possession.
“I am not surprised. He was a wonderful captain of the guard,” Rarity rejoined, and Fluttershy again thought that, perhaps, Rarity was picking up on the same things.
What she had considered as Stalliongrad had disappeared in the distance was the possibility of possessiveness. Ponies in danger are loathe to offer help if they feel too threatened, but they can be murderous if they feel that their leaders and supports are being wooed away. It had happened with Celestia, hadn’t it?
Rarity turned the conversation down new lanes, eventually discovering that they were on the right path, headed towards Imperial City. The caravan would be there in an hour, and Copperhoof intended to let his ponies rest until then. Rarity opted for the same, and Fluttershy waited to see Shining Armor. She wished to know his state of mind and body. It would be important.
*
The caravan arrived later than expected, but Fluttershy did not mind the wait. It gave her time to be quiet, to make up for the loudness of before. Noise was a necessity, but energy was a commodity. Even though the cold did not drag her down like it did Rarity, it still made its presence known. Even if it didn’t, Fluttershy was used to her own weaknesses and knew her own strengths. They were measured qualities.
The caravan was long, like an indolent and moveable hospital. Soldiers marched on either side of it, and as for all the world, it seemed to Fluttershy to be like the many legs of some great ponderous centipede. The wagons were in decent shape, she supposed. Ponies looked out from them, and they waved. The legionnaires of the battered cohort, who stood and armed themselves once more, waved back. Their centurion formed them up, and the three mares from Canterlot followed them as they reported back.
They kept to themselves, mostly. Rarity and Rainbow were talking quietly.
“Seems a bit… well, like you, Rainbow,” Rarity said, and chuckled.
“I’m not a meathead. He’s not as cool as me. Not by a long shot.”
“Yes, but he does possess your bluster. A bit sure of himself.”
Rainbow huffed. “Yeah. Yeah, he is. I don’t like it.”
“Oh, I don’t think it’s so bad,” Rarity began, but Fluttershy interjected.
“He doesn’t want to seem weaker than he is,” she said, firmly but quietly. “He doesn’t want to be shamed.”
“No stallion does, darling. Though Rainbow would know far more about that than I…” Rarity said.
Fluttershy had been behind them, but now she shuffled forward to fit between her friends. She smiled—despite the bleak landscape and despite the conversation. It was nice to have a moment for just themselves even if it was short and even if it was spent worrying.
“Hey! You make me sound like I’m some sort of… what is that word?” Rainbow scratched her head. “No idea. Words are lame.”
“Sometimes they are,” Fluttershy agreed.
“I did not mean to suggest anything untoward, dear. Do forgive me.” Rarity eyed the crystal pony legionnaires. “But you were saying, Fluttershy?”
“Well, he’s very prideful. Like you, Rainbow. I mean, not like that’s bad. I mean—”
“No, I get it.” Rainbow smiled at her encouragingly. “You’re okay.”
“And when he figured out who we were, I think he felt outdone. We went from a warrior and two ponies he helped defend to a bunch of um… heroes, I guess. He wanted to be the hero.”
“Well, he can soak his head,” Rainbow muttered. “I can’t help not sucking.”
Fluttershy laughed quietly. “You were really brave, Rainbow.”
“Splendidly so,” Rarity agreed quickly.
“And… well, when you mentioned Shining Armor…” Fluttershy continued, but Rarity raised a hoof, and Fluttershy let her friend finish the sentiment. She wanted to know how much Rarity had caught on anyhow.
“I noticed this part. He was protective. Quite insistent that the Prince was theirs now—as if I thought any different. Honestly! It was a bit insulting.”
“You being an Element bearer made him nervous,” Fluttershy said, sighing. “He’s not a bad pony. He really was grateful.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said. Fluttershy thought it a bit grudging but without any heat. Rainbow shook her mane and then grunted. “Stupid mane.”
With that, she pushed all of it back and wiped her forehead. Amused, Fluttershy watched her attempt to blow an errant lock of rainbow-hued mane from her face. Rarity’s horn lit up, and she moved it behind Rainbow’s ear.
“There you go, Rainbow.Everything in its pla—”
Fluttershy poked her gently, and all three of them stopped.
They’d come, at last, to the head of the long caravan. The legionnaires here were different. The second cohort wore barding that was simple and unadorned. These ponies wore bright colors, many and various. She wondered if their armor was customized, and saw that it was. Every one of them was a little different, unique and yet adhering to a general form and thrust of design. Rarity must love them, Fluttershy thought. She’s probably remembering as much as she can. I do hope she’s kept her mind from losing its edge. Fashion… doesn’t do much for us out here, but it’s nice to have a mind with beautiful things.
Fluttershy, for her own part, spared little attention to the guards. Their assignment drew her eyes.
For the first time in two years, she saw Shining Armor.
Had the years between then and now been harsh? Perhaps. He had aged. His eyes seemed less bright then… when had she last seen him? It was a little after the Secession, the official breaking of the Empire’s protectorate status. He’d looked so happy if a little tired. Now he looked simply tired. His face was harder, and stubble grew there where it had been smooth before. His mane was long and not a little ragged, and his coat was duller than before. Yet he did not seem bowed by time, nor by snow. As he took off his familiar eyewear to oggle at the site of his sister’s friends, she thought that he was not, at heart, so different from their first day in the Crystal Empire.
Fluttershy smiled.
“I can’t believe it,” he said simply, bluntly. “There’s just no way.”
Rarity trotted forward and bowed to him. His guards watched, and he shooed them away.
“My lord,” Rarity began. “We are very glad to see you again. It has been far, far too long.”
“It has… holy… I never thought you guys would come up this far,” he said. “I mean, after all of this is over, I figured you would, but not while it’s all still blowing up.” That boyish grin was back, risen from the dead past. “And you look great, considering.” But then, he paused. He looked about as if trying to count ponies not there. “Where… where is everypony else?”
“The other Element bearers?” Rarity asked. “And by that, you mean Twilight. It is alright, Shining. She is your sister after all. When last I saw them, Twilight was unhappy at parting but safe and sound. I’m sure she is safe even now, and probably in a much better state than she was.”
“Where is she? I can’t believe she would send you three out here without coming along.”
Fluttershy was three steps ahead. He would want to know where she was and Rainbow would want to tell him and Rarity would not know if it were wise. It wasn’t as if he could stop her. But ponies had different reactions these days to the name of Celestia. She waited for Rarity’s choice but, instead, she was given Rainbow’s.
“Twilight went West,” Rainbow said shortly.
“Right, she is, yes…” Rarity coughed. “Twilight has decided to pursue her teacher in hopes of correcting the current situation.”
Shining stared at them. He blinked.
He grinned. “You’re serious.”
“Serious as a mare in labor,” Rarity said. “Joking requires far too much energy in this cold and with all of this chaos.”
Fluttershy then noticed the almost imperceptible way that Shining’s eye twitched. She calculated. It was mare more than labor, but that was speculation. Regardless, something about the sentence had triggered a negative response. She was cautious.
“Yeah… But wow. Twiley is out there, looking for the Princess. About time! But you can tell me all about it. Oh, and about Equestria. We don’t really get much news around here,” he said and laughed slightly too loud, Fluttershy thought.
They came alongside him, and he began to ask questions. The cheerfulness she remembered as being his hallmark was there, but now it seemed different. It had been genuine a moment before, and now it seemed a little forced.
Perhaps it was her imagination. It rarely was, though.
Shining Armor was holding something back.