Celestia’s nose itched.
She would very much have liked to scratch it, but at the moment found herself unable to move in the grips of her sister’s magic.
Luna swam past her, through the corner of her peripheral vision, and pushed a large piece of stone wall away. The piece was as big as Celestia’s entire body and on a trajectory that would bring it to meets its end against her right shoulder. It would have probably dislocated the joint and broken a few ribs and her foreleg had not Luna frozen time within the bubble of their shield.
Luna swam through the super dense magic field like a seapony in water, her wheeled harness left in midair where the shock wave had just started to lift it. She drifted closer, pushing debris away from them as she went. When Luna reached Celestia’s side she reached up and gently scratched her sister’s nose.
Oh thank Faust! That was bothering me. Celestia tried in vain to smile. How long am I stuck like this?
About five minutes, give or take. Luna shrugged and looked back at where the wall had once stood. I managed to contain everything, I think. But it will take a few minutes to convert all the energy of the explosion and redirect it. I suspect that your changeling caused the crystal rods to continue building a charge for their defensive spells but denied them a discharge and now I have to keep this up or we let ten blocks of the south ward get vaporized.
I’ll wait. I’m sure our subjects will appreciate your quick spellcrafting to save their lives and livelihoods.
Luna nodded and spared her sister a smirk. I expect there will be a great deal more moon lilies at the gates in coming weeks. But while I have your captive attention, fill me in on what that thing meant about a prophecy.
Celestia mulled over that but kept her thoughts out of the telepathic sharing she was using with Luna. She wasn’t sure how much she needed to share with Luna, if the changeling spoke of what she suspected it did. It is from a very long time ago. Do you recall your self-banishment from the Everfree?
As if I could forget that. Luna scoffed and folded her hooves over her chest. I assume this happened when Chrysalis first appeared a thousand years ago?
Yes. Celestia paused as she considered her phrasing. I must admit, Luna, during that time I was a different mare. I did things I am not proud of and I’m glad history has seen fit to mostly forget.
I remember. I do not feel nostalgic for those dark days, Tia. I left for a reason.
I know. However, during the time you were gone, I thought I might have to replace you. I had my guards search for potential new Princesses. Celestia wished she could kick herself physically as hard as she was mentally at the moment. I made this prophecy about the rising of a new Princess. I gathered the potentials and out of their ranks rose Chrysalis, though she had a different name back then. Obviously, she is still chasing after that promise I broke to her.
Luna shook her head slowly. You and your apprentices, Celestia. I’m glad Twilight Sparkle has managed to evade your lecherous reach and escaped into Cadance’s arms! It doesn’t surprise me that you tried to replace me and it ended up blowing up in your smug face.
You sound less angry than I was expecting.
Luna rolled her eyes. It was a millenia ago, Tia. You were a different mare then, as was I. Besides, now that I know all the various assassination attempts and attempts at a coup d’etat we’ve dealt with over the centuries are all your fault for creating a monster and promising it princesshood...I can’t help but feel a smidgen of sorrow for you both.
Thank you.
Luna nodded and the sharing was silent for a time.
So...did you and Chrysalis get it on? That might explain her unhealthy obsession with you, Tia.
Celestia was glad the frozen time within the dense field of magic kept her from blushing.
Six years ago.
“Twilight! Wait up!” Spike huffed and rasped as he pumped his stubby legs to catch up with the teenage unicorn. His sister seemed to ignore him and trotted around the corner of yet another tall shelf of arcane tomes.
Spike rounded the same bend a second later only to see Twilight clamber over a pile of dusty stones and loose rubble. This deep into the archive in the Canterlot catacombs, the walls and ceiling still showed signs of the damage the city had taken in the last war. The tile and plaster was cracked and missing in places where the natural stone peeked through. High above the row of shelves here a section of the ceiling was missing, the ancient mosaic depicting the legendary Everfree City was without most of the sprawling warren of buildings it was rumored to have possessed.
Spike gasped as he pulled his chubby form over the now faded skree that had fallen before he had been hatched. “Twilight...don’t leave me behind…” Twilight flicked an ear in his direction and looked back at him. She grinned and hopped in place as she waited for him to catch up.
“I’d never leave you behind, Spike.” Twilight chuckled. “If you want, you can climb up and I’ll carry you.”
“No!” Spike blushed. “I mean, no, thank you. I’m a big dragon now, Twi. I don’t anypony to see me getting hauled around like a baby.”
“Oh whos going to see you down here?”
Spike opened his mouth to give a well reasoned response when his thunder was suddenly stolen by another.
“I’d see, and I would tell, like...everybody in Canterlot.” A pink pony with a tri-colored mane tied up in a bun stuck her head out from behind a shelf three rows down. “Auntie says I’m a gossip.”
“Cady!” Twilight giggled. “Wow, you suck at Dewey Decimal Hide and Seek. The rules explicitly state that you, as the Hidee, are to evade the detection of the Seeker, which is me, while staying within the area of the library as designated by a range of randomly generated Dewey Decimal organizational numbers.”
“Maybe.” Cadance grinned. “Or maybe this aisle over here is where Auntie Luna hides her romance novels.”
“In the military expenditures section?”
“Who would ever think to look there?” Cadance pulled a slim book from the shelf and flipped it open in her magic. The pages held the ledger for naval costs from three hundred years in the past, but as she scanned down, the neat hoofwriting of numbers gave way to the skilled cursive tale of forbidden lusts on the high seas. “Jackpot!”
“Why are you always reading that stuff?” Spike scratched his head with a claw as he blinked at Cadance.
“Oh Spike, you’ll understand one day.” Cadance mock swooned and fanned herself with the book. “Romance is. The. Best.”
“Personally, I like the books Princess Celestia wrote on energy inversion and thremotheroretical principles.” Twilight grinned at Spike before she looked at Cadance with a sneer. “Bet that why I get better marks in class than you.”
“You’re just Auntie Celestia’s pet student, that’s all. But at least you’re cute, Sparkle, so there’s hope for you yet.” Cadance snapped her new treasure trove of naval and naughty lore shut and turned around back toward the entrance to the catacomb library. “I believe you found me, so now it’s your turn to hide and I better not find you in the spellbook section again.”
Twilight stuck out her tongue and
She felt warm. Twilight could hear the wind whistling through her mane and feel cold rain hitting her ears but the rest of her body was warm. Something soft cushioned her as the outside world shifted and shook.
She thought she heard a deep voice like Spike’s, but it was muffled and she couldn’t understand the words. Twilight wanted to lift her head and find Spike. They had to make sure Cadance was alright before the monster got her.
She was just so tired and Twilight didn’t want to let go of the soft, warm thing that cradled her.
Six years ago.
Cadance sighed quietly and repeated the numbers to herself again. The shelves in the archive were all labeled and organized, when they weren’t collapsed and rotten. The one next to her had a badly faded number painted on it. She was in the right section.
Twilight was in here somewhere. It was the section on history during the times just after the founding of Equestria. If she knew the egghead well enough, she’d lose herself in a book quickly enough. Then she’d just have to get the drop on Spike to capture them.
But first, she had to find them.
Cadance spotted Twilight easily enough as she was sitting at the end of one aisle with a huge book open in front of her. Spike was sitting on her back and keeping watch. Cadance took cover in an adjacent row where she could sit and still keep an eye on them. Spike looked sleepy so all she had to do was wait until her target was completely comfortable and distracted.
From her vantage point, Cadance studied Twilight Sparkle. She’d known Twilight for years and the unicorn was her secret weapon in her Auntie’s classes. Twilight absorbed knowledge like a sponge and loved to help her “struggling” classmate. It wasn’t cheating, Twilight helped her with studying and staying on topic. Auntie Tia was right, she was a gossip and couldn’t stay focused to save her life in spell class.
Auntie Luna just thought she needed the right thing to focus on. She had given Cadance her new hobby of studying ponies and drakes and diamond dogs, learning about them from mannerisms and speech patterns. Take Twilight for instance, it took no great deduction to see she liked books, but it wasn’t the reading that drew her, it was an unquenchable thirst for information. Cadance could tell by how her eyes twinkled when she learned something new, the way she would inhale sharply and how her face would light up.
Cadance felt she could watch Twilight all day.
The rain was worse. At least, Twilight thought it was. She couldn’t tell. Her eyes wouldn’t open and her ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton. Twilight groaned as she was rolled over and two strong arms closed around her middle.
Something warm gripped her hoof gently and Twilight tried to squeeze it in return but her body wasn’t responding. She felt that really should bother her more but it was getting harder to think. The cotton in her ears was invading her mind.
Was Cadance safe?
Six years ago.
Twilight looked up as Spike started to snore from her back. She looked back at the book in front of her and then she scanned the row she’d taken refuge on. Cadance wasn’t in sight.
“Wow, she does suck at this.” Twilight smirked and put the book away before standing up slowly to not wake Spike and let blood return to her hooves.
She walked slowly back to the main passage and looked up and down again for Cadance. The young princess was nowhere in sight again and Twilight started to worry. The archive was huge. Could Cadance have gotten lost?
Twilight was about to start a systematic search pattern when she heard the dainty snort of a sleeping Princess. It was a sound she had become very familiar with from class. She followed the noise a short way until she spotted an unconscious alicorn mare half way down a row of shelves.
She shook her head and trotted over to Cadance and nudged her with a hoof until she woke. “You were supposed to find me, not the other way around.”
Cadance yawned and smiled up at her. “Well are you my Prince Charming, come to wake a sleeping Princess?”
Twilight looked at Cadance in silence for a moment. “Weirdo.”
The rain had stopped. It was silent and Twilight was concerned at her lack of concern. She was just so tired and her leg ached in an off-hoof way. She was getting cold. Twilight really wished the warm, soft thing would hold her some more.
Six years ago.
Twilight blinked at Cadance. Her lips felt funny. Her heart felt funnier.
“What was that for?”
Cadance giggled and pranced away, heading back toward the entrance again now that it was late. They would be expected at the dinner table by the Royal Sisters within the hour. As she reached the stairs, Cadance looked back over her shoulder. “Prince Charmings always get a kiss when they wake Princesses.”
Twilight watched her go and felt even funnier in her heart. “But...but Cady, I’m not a stallion! Hey! Wait up!”