It was either breakfast or dinner, depending on whom you asked. Silverstar and Lyra had both just woken up, but the ponies across from her were near the need of their day.
One of the ponies Silverstar was meeting with was a unicorn named Shinning Armor. According to Lyra he was an important military pony, one of the most important Silverstar was going to meet. His frame was large and imposing, but his demeanor was far from intimidating.
The only other pony present was a noble named Magenta; she was involved with a number of charities including the one that was raising supplies for the northern clans. She was also fatter than any pony Silverstar had ever seen before.
Lyra was there as well, but she seemed more concerned with stabbing the things on her plate with her fork than the actual meeting.
“Oh you poor thing,” said Magenta, with more concern than could have been real. “Just look at you! Here, have a seat.”
The bandages Silverstar wore were finally paying off. Magenta practically pushed Silverstar into her seat.
“When I heard about the terrible things that happened to you, my heart just sank,” said Magenta, her hoof lifted to her forehead for dramatic effect. “It has always been my intention to spread civility to the world, and here you are even worse off then those poor, uneducated earth ponies. Isn’t it all just so horrible?”
Midnight had told Silverstar several important things to mention. Silverstar took a moment to recall them all before answering.
“Yes,” said Silverstar. “Onyx is a changeling who uses poison gas to take foals as slaves and hostages, and he is also causing starvation and the destruction of our culture and he‘s been raiding you for years and tried to burry me alive. And um, oh, I have this big cut on my leg.”
After finishing, Silverstar gave a large smile, just as Midnight had told her. The stunned look on everypony’s face made her realize smiling just then was probably a mistake.
“Yes, well. I would like to formally express Equestria‘s disgust for, uh… all that,” said Shinning. “Onyx is our enemy as well, and I appreciate the information you’ve given to us about him. You say you can tell us exactly where he‘s hiding?”
“Yes,” said Silverstar. “I can take you to him right now if you want.”
If it was seriously going to be this easy…
“I'm afraid it's not that easy,” said Shinning. “Assaulting them isn't going to work.”
That statement was complete nonsense. After everything Silverstar had seen here, she refused to believe there was anything Equestria couldn't do.
“But there are millions of you! And you have magic and trains and who knows what else! How can you not be able to defeat a few thousand dogs?”
“We could beat them in a straight up battle,” said Shinning Armor. “But we won't get that chance. They're going to resort to guerrilla tactics. Even just a few diamond dogs scattered about hundreds of miles of caves armed with poison gas would wreak havoc on any army no matter how large it was. Then there’s the matter of the hostages. We simply have no way to rescue them all simultaneously, and if we make the wrong move they could all wind up dead.”
“So even you can't do anything?”
“I didn't say that. There are other ways of dealing with this than brute force. Diamond dogs aren't renowned for their sense of loyalty. If they decide that helping the changelings isn't in their best interest. A combination of bribing the key chieftains and displaying our force should be enough to get many of them to turn tail, and once their forces start falling we'll see the effect snowball.”
“Once a significant portion of their forces have fled, we may be able to get the changelings to surrender and turn over the hostages in exchange for being tried in Equestria rather then turning them over to Chrysalis.”
“And don’t think I’ll be sitting by idly,” said Magenta. “I intend to help set up a refugee camp for all those poor thestrals
Silverstar thanked the both of them. She had been hoping that they would simply crush Onyx into the dust, but this was better than nothing.
Most of the meal was dominated by Magenta bragging about all the charity work she did for earth ponies. Some of the things she said seemed to make Shinning Armor uncomfortable. When she mentioned her desire to buy showers for all the earth ponies, Shinning Armor asked her to leave. Breakfast was over by then anyway.
“Before you go, I want to talk to you about the assassin,” said Shinning. “We haven't found her yet. We were able to trace her path from the train to the tower where you fought her, but before and after that. It seems like she appeared out of nowhere and then vanished again. The detective isn't ready to rule out the possibilities that she has some sort of magical teleportation or stealth ability. I don't want to take any chances, though, so I'm going to have to insist that you all remain in our quarters for the next 24 hours.”
“I'm assigning you both body guards. As I said, we don't know exactly what this mare is capable of. I have to ask that you stay close to them until further notice.”
So once again, Silverstar waited for an imminent attack.
The guards assigned to Silverstar and Lyra looked like female versions off all the other guards Silverstar had seen. There were two to three of them at any given time, usually one unicorn and two pegasi at any given times. The guards were very serious and completely silent, and on top of that cycled out every few hours; soon they became more like a part of the scenery than anything else.
The guards never once went out of eyeshot, and neither did Lyra for that matter. Lyra didn’t seem to be taking the threat very seriously, or maybe she was just trying to lighten the mood. She was constantly trying to keep the subject off the attack, and when Whisper did come up she stated how dumb Whisper would have to be to try and attack the castle herself, that she doubted there even would be an attack.
Silverstar wanted to believe what Lyra was saying, but it wasn't long ago that she had thought the Crescent clan was unbeatable, Luna was perfect, or that Equestria could do anything. After seeing the Crescent clan lose to Onyx, the vision of Luna’s past, and seeing Equestria unable to fight him, Silverstar just couldn’t have that level of confidence in something. She wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight.
The hours passed on like that until the sun finally rose. Whisper's two days were up. They remained on guard for several hours afterwards, until late in the afternoon.
_______________________________________________________
The next few days were much the same. Silverstar would meet with a noble or two during meals and spend the rest of the night in her room. Everypony she met was the same- sympathetic, though somewhat condescending. They all wanted to help, but none of them actually could.
Silverstar had to wonder if she was actually accomplishing anything. Shinning Armor and all the nobles she had met were already on their side. They were already going to do what they could. Was coming here a waste? Would she have been able to do more good if she had stayed underground?
Lyra didn’t think so.
“To be honest I've only really been introducing you to the more pro-thestral nobles,” said Lyra. “A lot of them aren't going to be so nice to you.”
“And why aren’t I talking to them?” asked Silverstar.
“Midnight says that it’s better for you to meet with the friendly ones first,” said Lyra. “He had a whole list of reasons for us to do it like that. He said there are a few ponies in the military who won’t want to take action, and a few nobles who will protest once we do. It’ll still be a while before we’ve won over here.”
“How long are we allowed to stay in the castle anyway?” asked Silverstar. “Is Celestia really concerned enough to let us
“Are you kidding?” Lyra asked. “This castle is so huge they’ll hardly even notice we’re here. The castle usually has dozens of guests staying here at any time, and I’m paying for all our food, so I doubt they’ll care much.”
“Hey,” Lyra said, jumping out of bed. She had that look she wore when she had a bad idea. “You haven’t really been outside this room. Why don't I show you some of the cooler places here?”
Silverstar eventually agreed to go. It would be interesting to see what Lyra thought was cool, at any rate.
By this point, they had decided that Whisper wasn't going to attack them while they were staying in the castle, so security was toned down. They were no longer constantly guarded. Silverstar actually preferred it this way, having guards had only put her more on edge. Another good plus was that she no longer had to wear any bandages.
As usual most ponies were asleep by the time they went out, meaning the castle wasn't very crowded. The number of staircases and hallways they had to move through gave Silverstar some appreciation of how large the castle was.
Lyra took Silverstar to the castle's massive Library. The Starlight clan had about twenty books, the Crescent clan had thousands, but this library had some enormous number that was far beyond that. Bookshelves that reached up to the ceiling, balconies filled with books, and entire rooms filled with books on a single subject all filled the chambers of the library.
Lyra only seemed interested in the darkest, mustiest corner of the library, and dragged Silverstar there straight away to show her ancient scrolls of unknown origins that chronicled things that probably never happened, and taught sciences and truths that had been proven wrong long ago.
They all seemed so fragile, like they would turn to dust with the slightest touch, that Silverstar felt nervous just holding them.
Silverstar asked Lyra why she bothered reading scrolls that she knew were wrong.
“Just because they’re wrong doesn’t mean you can’t learn something from them,” said Lyra. “My dad always used to say that you can find the truth from atop a mountain of lies, just not by looking down.”
Lyra showed her the halls where Equestrian history was chronicled in glass portraits that doubled as windows. Here, Lyra skipped over the “boring” parts of their history to show her only the darkest moments, and those most shrouded in mystery.
“They never actually found the necromancer, though. He could still be out there, but probably isn‘t,” said Lyra, pointing to the last stained glass window in the hall. “The only reason they made this into a glass window is that the pony who made all the ones in this hall was really old at the time and he didn't think he had enough time to wait for something more important to happen.”
Lyra took her to what had to be the most rundown part of the castle. Lyra seemed to like it, even though it was nothing but rust and rubble. Lyra tried to explain the appeal, but didn’t come up with any coherent words. She was a bit disheartened that Silverstar didn’t find this place impressive, and vowed to take her to the best part of the castle next.
They went down several flights of stairs until they got to what had to be the basement. Lyra explained to her that the chambers were where the low priority vaults were.
“If we took a right back there we'd be in the other vaults, where they store the gold, magic stuff, things of historical significance and stuff like that,” said Lyra. “Crazy security over there. This side they don't really care about. There's usually nopony here.”
The entrance to these chambers was guarded, like many of the places they had entered previously. As before, these guards stepped aside when they saw Lyra. Lyra didn't even need to say anything to them to gain entrance.
“You seem like a very respected Pony,” Silverstar commented.
“The only thing the ponies here respect is my money,” said Lyra, rolling her eyes. “They only ever talk to me because they want me to invest in their business or give to some charity or something. I do more for charity than any of them, mind you. I mean, this is charity, isn't?”
Silverstar was a bit surprised at how fast she had started sulking.
“And then they have the nerve to lecture me,” said Lyra. “They don‘t understand anything about me, and they only care about money, so what right to they have to tell me how to live? At least all the thestrals I‘ve met aren‘t like that at all.”
Silverstar didn't have the heart to point out that she and Midnight were also following Lyra around because of her money and power.
“I mean sure, those edible boots saved my life, but-” Lyra stopped herself mid-sentence and shook her head until she perked up again. “Now I’m rambling. You have it way worse then I do, so I got no right to complain to you.”
Many of vaults they passed were locked, but there a few that you were allowed to enter and look through without much of a hassle. Eventually they reached one that didn’t even have a door.
“I come to this one all the time,” Lyra explained. “I have no idea why they don't lock it up. The stuff in here is really important.”
Silverstar wasn't too surprised by what was inside the vault, given what she knew about Lyra. It was a repository of skulls, fangs, claws, and entire stuffed monsters.
“Those are actually just rubber models,” said Lyra. “This vault contains samples from the most dangerous monsters ponies have ever encountered. They keep these here to study for any future encounters with them. Sadly, most of these guys are extinct. I still like coming here anyway. You know, for science.”
There was one furry, bipedal creature that Silverstar recognized immediately.
“Isn't that one of those Yeti things you've been looking for?” Silverstar asked.
“No,” said Lyra. “That's a sasquatch. Completely different. Count the fingers.”
Silverstar counted four fingers on each hand. She had no idea what that meant.
Lyra went on to lecture Silverstar about several of the creatures. Her knowledge of the ones that were extinct was simply amazing. The ones that were merely endangered, or possessed less horrible ways of killing you, however, she seemed completely disinterested in.
While Lyra was explaining the majesty of the bone-eating spider, Silverstar found herself drawn to the largest skull in the room. It didn't have much of a snout and only one eyehole. Its size dwarfed that of a troll's considerably.
Before she could ask about it, the skull dislodged itself from the wall and fell.
A golden light, Lyra‘s magic, wrapped around Silverstar and jerked her out of the way. The skull crashed into the spot where Silverstar had stood a moment ago and shattered, taking a good portion of the floor with it.
Silverstar landed hard on the other side of the room and fragments from the skull pelted her, but the damage was small compared to what would have happened.
Lyra surveyed the destruction.
“We didn't do that, right?” Lyra asked.
“No! I didn't even touch that thing! It must have fallen by-
Lyra's magic wrapped around Silverstar a second time and threw her across the room.
Silverstar rose to find that an arrow had hit the spot where she had just stood. To her left, standing atop a fanged skull and glaring down at her, was Whisper.
Whisper wore two crossbows at her sides, one already fired. Silverstar didn’t even have time to curse her luck before Whisper used her wing to fire her second arrow at Lyra. Lyra surrounded herself with a shield of gold light, which the arrow merely bounced off.
Lyra returned fire with a blast of magic from her horn. Whisper vanished just before the shot hit, leaving it to explode against the wall.
“Wait,” said Lyra. “Did I just kill that pony?”
Whisper reappeared behind Lyra, already with momentum behind her. She bit Lyra, digging her fangs into Lyra's shoulder, just short of her neck. Lyra tried kicked and screamed as the two rolled forward, but was unable to push Whisper off.
Silverstar charged at the two of them and kicked Whisper hard. Silverstar kicked harder the second time, and even harder the third, which finally managed to knock Whisper off Lyra. Whisper only vanished again.
“We've got to get out here!” said Silverstar. She lifted Lyra to her feet and began helping her to the door.
If nopony heard the crash from the skull, then nopony would hear them screaming either. If they wanted help, they would have to get back upstairs.
Lyra managed to shrug off her wound and soon the two were charging towards the exit. Whisper appeared in the threshold, this time armed with a spear. She couched it on her shoulder, ready to charge.
“What are you doing?!” Lyra demanded. “We're trying to help you! You should be on our side!”
“If you remain in this city any longer, you'll ruin all of Nightmare Moon's plans! I can't allow that,” said Whisper. “You have no idea how important my mission is.”
“Important enough to kill one of your own?!”
“I would kill thousands if I had to, and it would be worth it,” said Whisper. “I gave you a chance, but you didn't listen to reason.”
Before Whisper could charge or monolog any longer, Lyra grabbed the spear with her magic. The two were soon struggling for control of the spear from halfway across the room, neither gaining a clear advantage.
Silverstar took the opportunity to attack. She charged headlong at Whisper, trying to ram her unarmed side. Silverstar was just about to ram Whisper, when Whisper through her spear aside and vanished again. Silverstar charged through thin air and out of the vault, but managed to slow down before hitting any walls.
Lyra floated the spear to her side and kept it there.
“Ha!” she said. “Good thing she forgot to take this with her.”
That was fortunate. Now they were armed and the path was clear. The two move into the hall, Lyra keeping the spear levitated by her side.
Silverstar reeled when Whisper suddenly reappeared, now armed with clawed boots, and slashed at the air some distance in front of them. Realizing she had missed, Whisper vanished again.
Whisper appeared a second time, her claws already in motion just an inch from Silverstar's neck. The blow would have killed her, had Lyra not acted so quickly and caught Whisper's hoof with her magic.
As Silverstar rolled out of the way, Whisper and Lyra locked into another tug of war. Before Silverstar could try attacking, Whisper pulled her hoof out of the boot and vanished.
This was the second time Whisper had gotten rid of a weapon Lyra had a hold on. There must have been some reason she wasn't vanishing with anything held by magic.
“Try using your magic to grab Whisper herself next time!” Silverstar shouted.
“Right,” said Lyra. “You take the spear!”
Lyra tossed the spear to Silverstar, who grabbed it in her mouth.
Whisper reappeared, again a short distance from the best position. Lyra's horn and Whispers entire body glowed with a golden light. It was clear the Lyra was trying to lift her into the air, Whisper as able to remain grounded by flapping her wings, but just barely.
Silverstar swung the blunt end of her spear at Whispers head.
As expected, Whisper did not disappear this time. Unexpectedly, however, Whisper changed the direction she was pushing in. Now moving with Lyra's magic, Whisper shot into the air fast enough to evade Silverstar's blow.
Lyra was thrown off by this maneuver just enough for Whisper to regain control. Whisper pushed hard off the wall, breaking free of Lyra's hold, and slammed into Silverstar's back.
Silverstar collapsed on the ground. She felt Whisper grab onto her and the next thing she knew, she was sailing through the air towards Lyra. Unable to stop herself, she knocked Lyra to the ground, and in a moment, the two were on top of each other.
Though she couldn't move, Silverstar was able to see Whisper lift the spear back up. She also saw Lyra's magic get a feeble hold over Whisper's tail just before Whisper vanished again.
This time, however, Whisper took them with her.
Silverstar felt Lyra and herself pulled forward as everything faded to black and vanished. Silverstar couldn’t feel the ground anymore, it seemed as though she were falling through the air instead.
Even though everything was gone, Silverstar still managed to land on something. She looked at the ground to see she was standing on a glowing blue light, similar in appearance to a unicorns magic. It didn’t look solid, but it was. The blue light formed a sort of path or stream that lead off into the distance.
“Help!” Silverstar heard Lyra call out. Silverstar looked down to see Lyra falling into the endless abyss, already a speck. Without hesitation, Silverstar leapt off the trail of light and dove down after Lyra.
As she dove, Silverstar noticed several more streams of blue light passing her by. There was no ground in sight for the unicorn to hit, but Silverstar didn't want to take any chances. Silverstar caught Lyra in a swoop before long, though it was hard to tell if it was a close call or not.
Silverstar flew Lyra over to one of the nearby streams of light and put her down. Lyra thanked her and stood to look at their surroundings. There were dozens of blue streams of light all around them, all seemed to lead in the same general direction.
“So are we in outer space now or something?” Lyra asked. “Gotta admit, I didn’t see that coming.”
It was then that Silverstar realized that, in addition to the blue streams and endless darkness, there were thousands of stars surrounding them. The full moon, too, was visible. It was to the left, but it was below where the horizon should have been, making it necessary to look down to see it.
Silverstar looked over the stars, recognizing each constellation as she went. They were in the right sky, at least. It was the complete night sky that surrounded them, above was the spring sky, and below was the autumn sky. It was as if the earth and sun had disappeared, leaving only the night sky and this strange paths of light behind.
Lyra looked down at the moon and its brilliant glow.
“If that's the moon, then the earth should be right over, uh...” Lyra said as she looked over the stars that surrounded them. She didn't find the ground.
There was one constellation Silverstar had never seen before. It was off in the direction that the path of blue light led, and consisted of a few tightly packed stars. They were strange stars too, large but dim.
Silverstar squinted and studied them more closely. The light from the stars reflected off something, leaving a dark outline behind them.
“Look over there,” said Silverstar. “Am I just imagining things or are those buildings over there?”
Lyra squinted hard, and then gave up.
“I don't see anything,” said Lyra.
Silverstar had forgotten just how bad Lyra’s eyesight was in the dark.
“They’re there,” Silverstar assured her. “You just can’t see them because you have terrible eyesight.”
“Say that to me during the day,” said Lyra.
It didn’t take long for the two to agree that heading in that direction was the best idea, if only because it was their only idea.
There were plenty of stars to look at, but the scenery was so repetitive that it was difficult to tell if they were even moving at all.
Lyra gasped and grabbed onto Silverstar. This was something Silverstar was used to, but there seemed to be more urgency in it then usual.
“Did you see that?” Lyra asked. She took the liberty of turning Silverstar‘s head in the right direction. “It was one of you!”
All Silverstar saw was an empty path of blue light, and those were all over the place. Still, things seemed to appear and disappear here, so maybe there had been something there a second ago.
“You saw a thestral?” asked Silverstar. “Was it Whisper?”
“No, this one had purple eyes,” said Lyra. “It came and went really fast, but I saw the glow from its eyes. They were exactly like a thestral's other than the color.”
Purple eyes? Every thestral Silverstar had ever met had had yellow eyes. Lyra couldn't see very well in the dark, so it may have been something other than thestral.
Before Silverstar could mention this to Lyra, the purple eyes returned. Silverstar was able to see clearly that they were attached to a thestral, one who, fortunately, was not Whisper.
The newly appeared mare trotted backwards a few steps and turned to Lyra and Silverstar with more confusion than anything else.
“I'm with her,” said Lyra, pulling Silverstar even closer.
The mare continued to stare at them.
“And she's a thestral like you,” said Lyra.
More silent staring.
“So we're cool, right?” asked Lyra.
The mare let out a loud groan and muttered something to herself.
“Look, you two just wait here a minute,” she called out to them. “Don't move.”
The mare ran a short distance towards the buildings and vanished once more. Lyra turned to Silverstar.
“Do you think we should move?” she asked.
“What? Don't you want to hug her when she gets back?” Silverstar asked.
“Of course I do!” said Lyra. “But I also don't want to get stabbed up. If this is where Whisper is from then these ponies might be kind of stabby.”
She did have a point. They had clearly stumbled upon some lost thestral clan, one that may be even more fanatical about Nightmare Moon than Silverstar's own.
“Our problem is that there's nowhere to go,” said Silverstar. “I doubt we can leave unless one of them helps us.”
“Perhaps you are right,” said a voice Silverstar had never heard before. “Perhaps neither of you will be leaving without our permission.”
Silverstar turned in the direction of the voice to find a male thestral sitting on a stream of blue light some distance above them. His green eyes darted between a few key spots with great purpose, before adopting a look of dignified disinterest. Everything about him was sleek and slick, his black fur with not a hair out of line, his tall, slender frame, his elegant, grayish green hair, and again his strangely colored eyes, making not a single unwanted move.
“You,” he said, gesturing towards Lyra with a flick of his hoof. “I believe it is possible that you are Lyra Heartstrings. Am I mistaken?”
Him knowing her name didn‘t unnerve Lyra even a little, in fact she seemed elated by it. Lyra very briefly looked as though she would explode with excitement, but stopped herself and adopted an imitation of the thestral's restrained look.
“I see my reputation precedes me,” said Lyra. “Yes, I am Lady Heartstrings, the world's leading expert on thestrals.”
The stallion seemed to get some amusement out of that. If he had some witty retort, he didn't bother to say it, instead turning his attention to Silverstar. “And you are Silverstar of the Crescent clan?”
“I'm actually from the Starlight clan,” Silverstar corrected him. “But I am from the east.”
“My apologies,” he said with a short bow.
“How do you know our names?” asked Silverstar.
“Hm. Perhaps I was mistaken in thinking you came here looking for us,” said the thestral. “If you recall, you spent several weeks parading about the Hadrian Mountains loudly announcing your name as you went. Perhaps that is how we know your name. We may have been keeping an eye on you since then.”
“Hadrian Mountains?” Lyra began, but froze mid sentence. Realization began to dawn on her face. “You’re-”
“Yes,” he said. “Perhaps it was rude of me not to introduce myself. My name is Mot, of the Shadow clan.”