Lyra gagged as she felt something unbelievably bitter pressed into her mouth. She made to spit it out, but a pair of hooves clamped her mouth shut.
“No,” Cheerilee ordered in a determined voice as she held Lyra’s mouth closed. “You’re eating that. I don’t care how it tastes.”
Grimacing, the unicorn obeyed her captor. Chewing only made whatever she was eating taste worse, but after a moment she was able – barely – to swallow whatever foul thing had been she had been forced to eat. “There,” she said through clenched teeth, brushing Cheerilee’s hooves off of her mouth as she stood on shaking hooves. “That…gah, that was awful!” She ran her teeth on her tongue and spat, trying to get the taste off of it, but to no avail. There was only one option, then – she trotted away from where she had been lying, as it was largely (for some reason) blackened, burnt grass, and bent her head low, ripping up as much grass as possible from the clearing and chewing thoroughly.
“It can’t be that bad,” Trixie said, as she looked into her hat, which was empty. “They smelled like dandelions…”
“Thah thased lik fank!” Lyra noted, as best she could with a mouth full of grass. After swallowing – not that it helped much – she glared at the five ponies who were staring at her hopefully. “What?” she demanded.
“How are you feeling?” Ditzy Doo asked. “Trixie says that you overchanneled.”
Lyra blinked a few times, looking up at her horn as she willed some magic through it. It glowed gold, and the sensation of channeling magic felt normal. “Um…fine,” she said, indignation at being made to eat whatever those things were disappearing at the sound of the word ‘overchanneled.’ “H…how long was I out?”
“Only about an hour,” Cheerilee explained, eliciting a sigh of relief from Lyra – it could have been much, much longer. “Carrot Top came up with the idea of finding something called an ether flower, and Zecora helped her, Raindrops, and Trixie find some. We fed you the petals while you were asleep, you were just instinctively chewing and swallowing until a moment ago.”
“Her body knew it needed magic and knew that the petals had them.” Trixie explained, as she telekinetically hefted her cape from the ground and then shook it around a little, getting residual moisture and soot from the burned grass off of it before replacing it on her back. She looked morosely into her hat again, then sighed. “So she ate all of them.”
Lyra’s head tilted to the side. “How is that a bad thing?” she asked.
“To get the ether flowers, we had to walk through poison joke,” Carrot Top explained. “Raindrops and Trixie and me. We’ll be fine, it’s not lethal, but its effects should begin in just a few hours.”
The mint unicorn looked between Carrot Top, Raindrops, and Trixie, eyes wide. “What?” she asked. “Why? Why couldn’t Raindrops just fly over the poison…whatever?”
Carrot Top looked down at that, dejected, but for that received a playful flank-bump from Raindrops. “Because she’s an idiot,” Raindrops said, though without any malice in her voice. “We’re all idiots.”
“We’re also on a time limit,” Trixie said, turning and looking to Zecora. She was at the edge of the clearing, talking to Spike, who was looking increasingly depressed at whatever it was Zecora had to say. Trixie didn’t feel bad, therefore, when she interrupted. “We need to get moving again, to the palace,” she said.
“I think I saw it when looking for Ditzy Doo,” Raindrops said, looking around a moment before pointing. “That way, right?”
The zebra nodded. “This way to the ruined castle,” she said, turning and beginning to trot, the ponies following her and Spike once more hopping onto Zecora’s back. “Hopefully we can reach it without further hassle.”
---
To this day, nopony quite understood what had possessed Luna and Corona – or rather, Celestia, as this had been prior to her fall from grace – to build the Palace of the Royal Pony Sisters in the Everfree Forest. It had been rebuilt and remodeled many times over the millennia, but its foundations was old – older than Equestria as a nation, maybe even older than the three pony nations that had preceded Equestria; indeed, possibly even older than ponies as a race.
With the sun hanging unmoving in the sky, it was difficult to tell what time it was, but if forced to guess Trixie would have supposed that it was probably past what should have been dawn. Given that, had Corona not been so inconsiderate as to escape from the sun and take over Equestria, around sunrise was when she and everypony else had been planning on going to sleep, having stayed up to celebrate the Longest Night. She was thoroughly exhausted when the trees parted to reveal a deep ravine, and on the other side, the Palace.
The Everfree was quiet and still as the ponies (and zebra, and baby dragon) approached the edge of their side of the ravine. By now, the fog that had been rising throughout the Everfree was reaching up to the pony’s barrels, and was bright, almost painful to look at as it reflected sunlight, adding to the eerie, unearthly sight of the Palace. No sound reached their ears other than a low wind and the sound of their own breathing and their own hooves on the snow.
The Palace itself looked surprisingly small, and seemed to be divided into two sections. Further from the ponies was a tall tower, covered in melting snow and ice with dead vines running up along the gray stone of the structure. Closer was a shorter but far broader building, likely once the main palace itself, where Luna and Celestia would have held Court – for anypony brave enough to journey into the Everfree to reach them, anyway. Here and there, collapsed stone walls and edifices probably indicated that the tower and Court had once been part of a single, larger structure, but time and the encroachment of the Everfree’s twisted boughs had seen to it that this was no longer the case. There was also the remains of a wooden bridge hanging on the far side of the ravine, the ravages of time having caused it to collapse; this was probably just as well, though, as it prevented Trixie from being stupid enough to try and cross a thousand-year-old wooden bridge that nopony had been maintaining.
Trixie glanced over the edge of the ravine. The fog from the snow, being heavier than air, was drifting over the edge, preventing her from seeing any further than about twenty feet down; it was impossible to judge just how far it was to the bottom. It was also too wide to risk jumping. “Guess we need to be carried,” she remarked, glancing to Raindrops and Ditzy Doo. Something nagged at Trixie, but she couldn’t place what at the moment, probably due to how tired she was.
“Guess so,” was Raindrops response, flapping her wings a few times in preparation, before taking wing and scooping up Cheerilee after she volunteered to go first, along with Lyra in Ditzy Doo’s hooves. Trixie took a moment to turn to Zecora and Spike. “Thank-you,” she said, forcing her suspicions of the zebra aside – after all, Zecora had guided them safely to the Palace, siren and poison joke run-ins aside. “I don’t know how long we would have been wandering around the Everfree without you.”
“I assure you, it was no trouble at all,” Zecora promised her. “But I must ask – how do you intend to free Equestria from Corona’s thrall?”
Trixie made a face that was halfway between a grin and a grimace. “I have no idea,” she admitted quietly. “The Elements of Harmony are in there, so – ”
“Whoa,” Spike interrupted, eyes wide. “I thought they were in Canterlot!”
Trixie’s eyes widened a little as well, and she shook her head. She was really tired if she had let something like that slip. “No,” Trixie said. “But, um…don’t tell anypony, okay? I shouldn’t of said that.”
Zecora offered a nod, as Spike scratched the back of his head. “Where are they?” he asked.
“Can’t tell you that, either,” Trixie said, as Raindrops and Ditzy Doo returned for her and Carrot Top.
“I understand your concern,” Zecora apologized. “Forgive Spike for asking out of turn.” She looked past Trixie, to the palace. “Once that was a place of wonder, but that feeling was torn asunder. It is now a place of pain and regret, one which I would rather forget. We came here once to wait out a storm, and a repeat of that time I would not like to perform.”
“So the traps still work, huh?” Trixie asked. Zecora inclined her head, and Spike nodded fervently. Trixie, herself, sighed. “Of course they do…”
“Good luck with that,” Spike offered, as Raindrops picked up Trixie, and the baby dragon waved goodbye, Zecora doing likewise. Once Trixie was down on the other side, she returned the gesture. She waited a few moments as she watched Zecora and Spike begin walking off; they were soon out of sight due to the fog. She then turned around and looked ahead. There was a rough, worn stairway they’d have to climb to reach the Court.
“Okay, here we go…” Trixie intoned, beginning to trot up the steps, the other ponies following her. “The first trap is right at the top of the steps here, at the door.”
“What’s it do?” Cheerilee asked.
“It’s a pressure plate,” Trixie explained. “But also magical. Setting it off will cause a wall of fire to spring up. It’s basically a ‘go away’ sign, the trap probably won’t hurt anypony, but it’ll scare them away…”
She paused at the door to the Court, staring down and making a face. “Unless somepony’s set it off already…” she intoned, leaning down. The tiles in front of the door were all depressed, sunken about an inch into the ground, while in a half-circle surrounding them the floor was scorched black. Trixie tentatively put a hoof on the pressure plate, then leaned her weight onto it, but nothing happened. “That’s not right…” she remarked in a low voice.
“Zecora and Spike have been here,” Carrot Top pointed out. “They probably set it off.”
“That’s not what’s odd,” Trixie said. “The traps are self-resetting and magically self-sustaining. There shouldn’t be any sprung traps…”
Raindrops stared a moment, then shook her mane and trotted into the Court before Trixie could stop her. Nothing happened, however, and the pegasus looked back the group. “Don’t question good luck, I guess,” she decided.
The ponies all wandered into the Court, getting their first look at it – or in Trixie’s case, her second. Because it was her second, however, her eyes widened slightly, at how much was out of place. Here, there was a pit in the floor, lying open. Over there, an axe on a pendulum, embedded in a crumbling pillar. Another pillar had fallen over entirely, and would have been blocking the rear exit had its central section not been pushed out of the way by some force. There was an occasional scorch mark or acid pit on the floor, but the former were cool to the touch while in the latter the acid had calcified and was now harmless.
“What?” she demanded. “No, no, no…there’s supposed to be death traps! Really clever ones!” Trixie trotted forward to a pit, looking down. At the bottom were spikes, but no sign of any kind of body of somepony who may have set it off.
“Maybe…” Lyra ventured. “Animals? Maybe animals set them off?”
“Oh, right,” Trixie remarked, rolling her eyes. “Nine hundred ninety-five years or so passed before Luna and me came here and everything was in place. Then five years later the animals of the Everfree decide to hold a party here or something?”
Lyra’s eyes narrowed slightly, and Trixie let out an exasperated sigh. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “Sorry. I’m tired. And no, not animals. There’s an enchantment woven over the whole area that’ll keep animals out. Somepony came here and set off the traps, and then somehow kept them from resetting. But why would…” Her eyes widened as she realized. “The Elements!”
---
It was taking the combined efforts of every single unicorn in the capital city, but Celestia was nevertheless being kept out of Canterlot.
The white alicorn stood in the sky directly over the city, not even bothering to beat her wings in order to remain suspended in the air. Beneath her, the city of Canterlot – which had grown quite large since last Celestia had laid her eyes upon it – was encased in a violet sphere, and had been since her arrival. Had it been created by a single unicorn, Celestia could have smashed through it long ago – but the white-coated unicorn who was generating it, who stood in the courtyard of Canterlot Castle wearing blue-and-silver armor that Celestia could only assume was the current uniform of the Royal Guard, was being fed a constant stream of additional magic by dozens of other unicorns in the Guard. And they were being aided by other unicorns themselves, and they by others, and so on. The result was a magical sphere that could defy even Celestia’s power.
For a time, anyway.
The alicorn had set her hostages down on the ground beneath her, enclosing them within a wide circle of fire. She had previously been keeping them suspended in the air with her, but the crying of the foals – and more than a few of the adult ponies, as well – had begun to grate on her nerves, and her calls for silence had been disobeyed. She recognized, however, that their disobedience was not intentional, but rather born from the irrational fear the ponies felt towards her glorious person. Had she not already seen to Luna’s banishment, her little sister would have had much to answer for.
Celestia walked forward along the air, striding right up to the edge of the magical bubble and glaring down into it. She was absolutely certain that, if she brought her full power to bear on the bubble, she could smash through it. She was equally certain that doing so would probably ignite the atmosphere for several miles in every direction, rendering Canterlot and much of the surrounding countryside a fiery wasteland of scorched glass and burned earth. She had to be patient with the ponies, she reminded herself. They had a thousand years of Luna’s lies controlling their actions.
Celestia closed her eyes, willing herself forward. No matter how thick the mesh, some insects could always find their way through – and with magical shields, it was no different, albeit in a more metaphorical sense. She could not bring any true power down on Canterlot while it persisted, but she could project the tiniest portion of her power forward and will it to take on her shape and form inside the barrier, manifesting in front of the unicorn who projected the shield.
The reaction was just shy of instantaneous, of course – there were dozens of spears from nearby pegasus and earth pony guards trained on her, while numerous unicorns broke off their channeling energy into the shield-generating unicorn and turned their magic towards her avatar. None of them, however, were quite foolish enough to attack her. The shield’s creator, himself, opened his eyes, but his horn continued to glow and project power to Canterlot’s barrier.
“Peace, my subjects,” Celestia assured the Guard ponies, bowing her head slightly to them. “I would speak with whomsoever my sister hath appointed as her – ”
“Release Luna from the moon,” The shield creator interrupted, stamping his hoof as he did so.
Celestia blinked several times at the affront. Such disrespect! Did Luna really tolerate such an attitude from her soldiers? “Dost thou speak for all of Canterlot in my sister’s stead?”
The unicorn offered neither confirmation nor denial. Celestia’s eyes narrowed at yet another blatant act of disrespect for a being of her station. “Thy shield is of impressive quality,” she pressed on. “And thou art no doubt acting as thou believes thou must to protect thy charge. But I speak truly when I say that I intend no harm to Canterlot, nor to her inhabitants,” she looked around to the Guard ponies surrounding her avatar, “nor her defenders! You are as mayflies standing against a hurricane. Your bravery is of the sort spoken of in legends, but it is misplaced! I would be a poor Queen indeed if I intended harm to my subjects.
“Now, noble Guard. I see no reason why – ”
“Release Luna from the moon,” the unicorn repeated, “now.”
A second interruption! Celestia’s eyes narrowed further as she forced herself not to grow angry with the gnat in front of her. “Thou art only mortal. No other pony in Canterlot could create this shield, and it is only through the aid of so many other unicorns that thou create a barrier that I cannot penetrate. Thy helpers shalt grow weary. Thou shalt grow weary. But I – I am immortal. I am the Sun. I need never sleep, nor eat, nor do anything but wait for thy failure. One way or another I shall enter Canterlot. Dost thou really wish for me to do so with flames at my hooves and my eyes filled with burning wrath? Art thou so callous towards the ponies thou art sworn to protect?”
Only silence greeted Celestia’s appeal to reason. Her eyes had slimmed to become narrow slits by this point. “Thou art – ”
“Release Luna from the moon, now!” The Guard interrupted. A third time. Deliberately. He had waited to interrupt Corona in such a fashion. Even worse, even more unbelievably, he had shouted at her.
“Thou shalt not speak to me in such a manner!” Celestia exclaimed, as she felt her control on her temper slip. She did nothing to rein it in. “Dost thou not know who I am?”
“Of course I do,” the guard responded. “You’re the Tyrant Sun – Corona.”
“That is not my name!” Celestia shouted, stomping a hoof. It had significantly less force in this mere avatar’s body than it would have in person, but it certainly served to accentuate her point. “That is a lie constructed by my treacherous sister! I am Celestia, foal! I am the Sun! I am thy Queen! Thou hast no right to bar me from assuming my throne! It is mine! Equestria is mine! All of it! Mine!”
The way in which the white-coated unicorn waited for Celestia to finish shouting at him reminded her far too much of a parent nonchalantly observing a foal’s temper tantrum. The carefully neutral, almost conciliatory tone to his voice as he spoke next did not help with the impression. “Equestria doesn’t have a queen,” he said, “it has a princess. And as long as there is a breath in my body, I will never let you have Canterlot…Corona.”
Celestia snarled, an animalistic, alien expression and sound for an equine being. Her head dipped somewhat as her wings spread. “What is thy name?” she inquired in a low voice.
The unicorn drew himself up fully, to his admittedly impressive height, though he was still noticeably shorter than Celestia herself. “Shining Armor,” he declared.
The alicorn offered a bright grin that was totally out of place on her otherwise incensed features. “A hundred years from now,” she said, “when ponies walk by the still-burning crater that this city will become, when foals turn to their parents and ask what happened here, those parents shall tell their foals a story of the hubris and the arrogance of one pony who dared to try and hold back the glory of the Sun. And the pony they speak of shalt be thou, Shining Armor!”
Celestia withdrew her avatar from Canterlot, bringing her consciousness back to her own body. Her wings beat once, dragging her backwards and away from Canterlot, even as her horn glowed and her hostages, the ponies taken from Ponyville, were wrapped in several layers of protective magic. She had no intention of betraying her word to the Ponyvillians – and besides, she would need ponies to bear witness to the rightful wrath she was about to bring down upon Canterlot. All the better that so many of them were foals: they would carry this divine retribution in their memories for all their lives.
Her horn glowed brighter as she began dragging the pure power of the Sun into her being. She would destroy Canterlot utterly, reducing it to molten rock and blackened glass. She could build a capital elsewhere, after all, it mattered not where she reigned from, and this would probably be the surest way to wipe out the majority of her sister’s influence in a single stroke –
There was a flash of green in front of Celestia. The alicorn paused in her gathering of power, as the flash realized itself as a rolled-up, short scroll, which began to fall until Celestia grasped it with her telekinesis. Was it an attempted apology on Shining Armor’s part? However much she deserved it, Celestia doubted that the foal’s tiny number of brain cells could have interacted enough to realize the depths of his mistake in speaking to Celestia as he had. Curiosity drove the alicorn forward as she unfurled the scroll and began to read.
O Queen Corona, I am your faithful servant,
Towards the signs of your return I have been most observant
I journeyed to the Everfree Forest to bring aid to you,
And serving by your side is all I pursue.
“…verse?” Celestia asked nopony, blinking several times in confusion. This letter was written in verse? Who had written it? A zebra? The sheer novelty – not to mention the genuinely servile tone which was the right and proper way to address her – was even enough to make her ignore that the letter was addressed to the lie that was Corona.
This letter is not how I wished to contact your majesty,
But in the Everfree there is a problem, a travesty.
Six ponies have entered here and despite my impediments
They are near now to reaching the Harmonious Elements.
Celestia’s eyes grew wide as something – not fear! – but something stabbed at her heart. The Elements of Harmony? Surely that was what the author of this letter was referring to, Harmonious Elements being used instead simply to continue the rhyme.
I fear that I am no match for these ponies alone,
And I beg forgiveness for drawing you away from your throne,
But if these ponies reach the ruined Palace, their destination,
They could in their foolishness cause you endless frustration!
I implore you my Queen to come to the Everfree castle
Before these ponies can cause you hassle
I offer my services and skills in plethora
Your faithful servant,
– Zecora.
Zecora. Definitely a zebra name, which explained the rhyming as well as her devotion – though the territory of Equestria had never stretched to the zebra homeland in the far south, the zebras had always been sun-worshippers, offering constant praise and supplication to the sun and, therefore, to Celestia. This particular zebra also had a gift for understatement if she thought that ponies getting their mortal hooves on the Elements of Harmony would be merely frustrating. Corrupted by dark magic as they had been by Luna (for how else could her wayward sister have turned them upon her?) the Elements of Harmony could conceivably be used to banish her once more, consign her once again to a thousand years of exile on the sun!
Celestia’s magic reached down, and she grasped her hostages and levitated them into the air again, ignoring their screams of terror as she turned and began flying with all speed towards the Everfree Forest, the site of old palace. Canterlot could wait. This was a problem that had to be dealt with, now.