//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: Sparkle Day // by Potential Albatross //------------------------------// Lumen’s eyes were squeezed shut, her head thrashing wildly back and forth. Her face was contorted into an expression Twilight doubted she could duplicate while awake. The screams had faded into moans, which rose and fell in time with the throbbing glow of her horn. Luna had lifted her from the floor to the bed, a move which seemed to comfort the alicorns crowded into Luna’s stateroom much more than it did the object of their worry. “What’s wrong with her?” Twilight asked, looking to Celestia. Celestia seemed as confused as Twilight, and looked past Twilight to Luna, who stood on her other side. “She came to see you. Did she seem alright then?” “She saw your dream, Twilight,” Luna said glumly. “That might be enough on its own, but she was also not safely retrieved from it.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” Twilight demanded as she fixed Luna with a look of disbelief. “I saw my dream — I’ve seen it thousands of times. You saw it too. We aren’t comatose and crawling out of our skins.” “Very few ponies are suited to that sort of contact with the mind of another. Even if you were a normal pony, and if she hadn’t been exposed—” Luna stopped herself with a guilty shake of her head. “Even if I hadn’t exposed her to your conscious mind, the encounter might have been disastrous.” Twilight scowled. "So you knew this, but you still—" She paused and looked back to Lumen. "Nevermind. It's done. How do we fix it?" "I don't believe we can." Twilight’s expression darkened further, but she said nothing. There was another flare of magic from Lumen’s horn, and an inkwell tumbled from Luna’s desk, spilling onto the floor. Before anypony reacted, it was followed by a set of quills. Then, an unused cushion slid part of the way up the wall before falling back to the floor. “Random telekinesis,” Celestia observed with a frown. “That will make things a bit more difficult.” “When I saw this before, it was an earth pony that was afflicted,” Luna remembered. “He had to be restrained, but… it didn’t last long.” Twilight looked at the mess on the floor for a long moment, then turned back to Lumen. Wordlessly, she reached out with a hoof and touched it lightly against the unicorn’s horn. Immediately, the glow was extinguished. After another few seconds, the moaning and thrashing had largely subsided as well. Even as Luna and Celestia gaped at the pacified mare, Twilight was not particularly impressed with her work. It was a gamble; until some time had passed, she wouldn’t know whether she’d done more harm than good. “I cut her off,” Twilight said, in answer to her companions’ unspoken question. “Her magic, I mean.” “You can do that?” Celestia asked, eyes widening in surprise. Twilight shot her a quizzical look. “You did it to me once.” Celestia shook her head. “I was able to redirect some of your energy, but you were never cut off from it.” Twilight shrugged. “Well, yes, I can do it. It may not be a good idea, but I can do it.” “It seems to have calmed her, at the very least,” Luna said, a note of hope in her voice. “Perhaps this is—” “Let's wait until she wakes up — if she wakes up — to get optimistic,” Twilight interrupted sharply. “We have other matters to discuss in the meantime.” --- The captain’s office was such in name only; as the largest private workspace on the ship, it was made available for royal use when appropriate, and Cirrus almost never left Canterlot’s airspace without a tiara or two aboard. Even on those occasions, none of the ship’s various captains throughout the years had ever found the gumption to actually make use of it. It wasn’t an office where the typical naval officer would feel comfortable anyhow; in front of a double row of paneled windows that looked out the rear of the airship, an oversized semicircular desk sat, adorned on one end with a meticulously detailed globe that was almost as old as Cirrus itself, and on the other with a scale model of the ship chiseled in gleaming metal. Beyond that, there was an ostentatious amount of empty space, the shameless waste of which would be offensive to anypony trying to cram into the crew mess after a shift change. It was antithetical to the military sensibilities that dominated the rest of the ship’s design, made more for tour groups and picture spreads than anything else. “I was able to trace his wyverns back across the southern border, but I don’t think I got very close to their actual origin. It’s plausible that they came directly from the dragon lands, but I have no evidence of that.” Twilight pointed at the globe as she spoke, then glared briefly into the orb she’d set next to it. Inside, the captive dragon floated listlessly as his wyverns flapped around him, looking for all the world like a cloud of gnats in their miniaturized state. “Surely we would have heard something from the watch stations if so many wyverns crossed directly,” Luna said, looking to Celestia for confirmation. “If, as Twilight says, there were wyverns in Equestria as early as a week ago, there would have been ample time for word to reach us in Canterlot.” “One would hope,” Celestia agreed, “but with the sort of discipline this dragon was able to enforce on them, they may have been capable of a stealthier crossing than we would expect.” Twilight nodded. “He’s done something more than the standard taming with them — there’s some draconic magic I don’t recognize at play, which is probably why he wanted Spike’s remains. He has some way to call to them across great distance, and when he does it seems to override what mental capacity they have. That’s why the swarm reappeared this morning.” “There shouldn’t even be a swarm,” Luna said bitterly. “Why are the wyverns being allowed to breed in such numbers?” “One of the many questions he refused to answer,” Twilight answered sourly. “More time in the orb may change his disposition, but he seemed like the stubborn sort to me. All we can assume right now is that the dragons have lost interest in our previous agreements.” Celestia frowned. “That is how it looks at first glance, but I don’t think we can draw such a broad conclusion based on the schemes of one rogue actor.” Clearly Celestia had found her way to a more diplomatic frame of mind today — the previous evening she had seemed just as upset by the presence of the wyverns as Twilight or Luna. “If he is a rogue actor,” Twilight said, turning away from the globe to give Celestia a skeptical look. “Even if whatever passes for their government doesn’t endorse his actions, they’ve certainly not stopped him. And he got those wyverns somewhere which, as we’ve established, shouldn’t be possible.” “So we must determine whether the dragons’ leaders are malevolent, or merely negligent,” Luna summarized, stepping towards the globe and turning it with her magic so that the slight bump which represented Elder Peak pointed at her. Twilight shook her head. “I’m not sure there’s a meaningful difference between the two, at least in regard to us. If they are letting their fringe run amok, any attempt by us to enforce order — or even the suggestion that they do it — will end that relative passivity.” “Let’s at least speak to the elder before we assume the worst,” Celestia insisted. Twilight scowled. She’d only met the elder dragon once, and they hadn’t exactly taken a liking to one another. Celestia was probably right that they had to at least try talking to him, but doing so came with its own set of risks. “So that he can lie to us yet again?” Luna demanded. “There’s no dealing with him, as this ordeal proves once more.” “There’s no one else with whom to negotiate,” Celestia replied calmly. “And, degrading as they are, his games buy us peace, albeit only a few centuries at a time. We may simply be due for another payment.” “So what do you suggest?” Twilight asked. “The three of us fly to Elder Peak, ask him if he maybe lost a dragon and a brood of wyverns, and request that he please keep a closer eye on them in the future?” “More or less — though we ought to at least take Cirrus. The dragons will take it as a sign of weakness if we don’t bring something worth protecting.” “They can take it however they like,” Luna said sharply, her alarm at the idea showing clearly on her face. “There is no good reason to endanger so many of our ponies.” “Perceptions matter, Luna,” Celestia replied softly. Twilight cringed at the repetition of the oft-delivered reminder. Those words, along with Luna’s incredulous reaction, were the distillation of lifetimes of argument between the two sisters. “Going alone will tell them that we’re shaken and scared,” Celestia continued. “It will tell them that we need nothing but ourselves to destroy them, if need be!” Luna exclaimed. “That’s not how they’ll see it,” Celestia said, almost chidingly. “And we can protect Cirrus.” “What are we gaining from this?” Twilight asked before Luna could react to Celestia’s tone. “In the best case, he blames it on the unruly youth and promises to keep a better eye out — and we know exactly how much that promise is worth. More likely, he blames the whole thing on us and demands that we stop provoking his children.” “We’ll learn where he stands, and that will tell us whether progress can be made.” Twilight and Luna shared a dubious look at that. Though she couldn’t really argue with the conclusion, Twilight was still uncomfortable with the proposed course of action. The last time she’d flown off to talk some sense into a dragon, it hadn’t ended well. When, after a few moments, no pony spoke up to continue the argument, it was clear that a decision had been reached. --- Dinner was every bit as awkward as expected. None had thought that they could simply sit down to a meal and pretend the last few centuries hadn’t happened, of course, but it was still jarring for Twilight to see just how uncomfortable the three of them were together. Conversation topics that didn’t carry with them reminders of all that was wrong were few and far between. Eventually Luna had settled on art, informing her companions on the latest developments in cloud sculpture while they feigned interest and poked at salads that none of them had any particular hunger for. It wasn’t long before the conversation tapered off, replaced by awkward glances and shallow smiles. Luna was the first to excuse herself, a declaration of defeat that relieved both Twilight and Celestia greatly. After that, Twilight had retreated to her stateroom, confined there by her unwillingness to endure the stares and whispers that would follow her in any public area of the ship. Not for the first time, she pondered the wisdom of coming to Cirrus. Surely she could help the sisters without publically returning to the throne. They knew she was alive now, for better or worse; would it be so terrible if she disappeared again, if they had a way to call upon her when needed? Restlessness eventually forced her out of her room, though she didn’t go far. Midnight found her staring intently at Lumen’s sleeping form. The unicorn been moved into her own stateroom, between Luna’s and the one that had been vacated for Twilight several hours before. She rested peacefully for the most part, only the occasional jerking motion or muted groan hinting at anything other than a light nap. Her state was, as far as Twilight could tell, unchanged from when Twilight had first suppressed her magical abilities. Luna still had frustratingly little insight to offer. According to her, in the only other known instance of this sort of psychic injury, the victim had passed within only a few extremely unpleasant hours of the first apparent ill effects. A more optimistic pony might take Lumen’s relative health as a positive sign. Instead, Twilight worried that she had prolonged an already excruciating death. “No change?” Celestia asked from her side. Twilight jumped slightly and looked at the other alicorn in surprise. She hadn’t even heard the door open; she must have been even more tired than she realized. “None. Shouldn’t you be asleep?” “Perhaps,” Celestia acknowledged. “And yourself?” “Yeah,” Twilight said gruffly. “That’d be nice.” “What’s stopping you?” Twilight snorted as she considered her answer. It was a long list. “I’ve got a lot going on,” she said almost flippantly. “If that were sufficient, none of us would ever sleep,” Celestia replied archly. “Well, you’re not asleep. I’m not asleep. I doubt Luna is asleep. Consensus seems to be that, tonight at least, it is sufficient.” Celestia seemed to concede the point as she lapsed into silence. Her gaze shifted from Twilight to Lumen by way of the open porthole above the bed. “What is she to you?” she asked after a moment. Twilight’s lips twisted into a humorless smirk. “That’s the question, isn’t it? What was I, to you?” Celestia’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Are you saying it’s similar?” “No. Answer the question.” Celestia tossed her mane uncertainly. “Many things, I suppose. A daughter, or how I imagine a daughter might be. A protégé, a project, a tool. Hope for the future, worry for the same.” Twilight let out a low grunt in response, and the room fell into silence again, time marked only by the noise of Lumen’s shallow breaths and occasional hoofsteps across the deck above. When she spoke again, it was in a low voice, each word a bit hesitant. “I look at Lumen, laying on what might very well be her deathbed, and a part of me only sees the plans her death would ruin. I don’t like that part of me — or, I don’t want to, but it gets stronger all the time. The older I get, the more I play the long game; looking at the world in terms of roles to be filled, instead of ponies with their own lives and aspirations. How long until I care more about the hat than the head?” Celestia didn’t answer, which was just as well. The question wasn’t exactly rhetorical, but Twilight was certain as she asked it that there was no satisfactory answer. “I promised your parents I’d keep you safe, not long after we met,” Celestia said after a moment. “They believed me because I was the princess, but I was already planning to use you against Nightmare Moon. At the time, I didn’t believe you’d survive the conflict. Still, every time they came to see you, I’d put on my princess smile and tell them all about your progress and your bright future.” She shook her head and looked down at her hooves. “We can’t always be both good leaders and good ponies — which doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.” “I killed Spike,” Twilight said conversationally. “You probably guessed as much. I’m not sure when — whether it was four-hundred years ago when I broke his body, or whether I did something earlier that set him down that path.” Celestia regarded Twilight with an unreadable expression for a moment, as Twilight braced for the inevitable: she would be told that she’d had no choice, that she’d made the right decision, that it wasn’t her fault. “So what?” Celestia asked instead. Twilight didn’t bother to conceal her shock. Even though she’d dreaded the vague reassurance she’d been sure was coming, she found herself offended when it didn’t. “So I killed my oldest friend,” she replied sharply. “Good pony is pretty much off the table for me.” “And I let my sister fall to madness and become a monster,” Celestia countered, her tone almost flippant. “Should I have given up then? Maybe I should have hidden for a few centuries instead of working to correct my mistakes. Maybe when you freed Luna, she should have headed right back into exile to satisfy her sense of justice. Would that have helped Equestria?” Twilight only glared. She had expected Celestia to avoid the topic of her absence for a while longer — she wasn’t typically one to rock the boat when there was work to be done. “It’s entirely possible that you are responsible for Spike’s death,” Celestia said after a moment’s tense silence. “Along with all those he caused. Our positions do not allow us the luxury of wallowing in our guilt. We cannot simply quit when we feel we’ve done poorly. Flawed as we are, we’re still needed.” “It’s not that simple,” Twilight growled through gritted teeth. “No?” “I was dangerous.” Twilight looked pointedly at Lumen. “I still am.” Celestia raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Do you think you’re less dangerous when you hide yourself from the only ponies who can help you?” “You mean the ponies it would be worst to hurt?” Twilight countered, knowing as she did that the defense was nonsense. Celestia shook her head in disappointment. “You can rationalize forever, if that’s what you’re determined to do. Will you be repeating these arguments when you leave us again?” Twilight snorted at the prediction. “Is that what you want?” That Celestia seemed to consider the question gave Twilight pause. Though a day ago she had been firmly convinced that she best served Equestria by staying dead, she found that she didn’t want Celestia — or anypony else, for that matter — to actually agree with her. “No,” Celestia answered at last, her faraway tone matching her unfocused stare. “But if you feel you must, at least tell us. Don’t let us mourn you again.” Twilight didn’t know what to say to that. A number of possibilities came to mind, varying in character from defensive, to apologetic, to conciliatory, but none seemed appropriate. More importantly, none sufficiently expressed the complex tangle of emotion at the heart of the issue. “I didn’t believe it for a long time,” Celestia said when Twilight didn’t respond. “I didn’t think it was possible. Eventually I had to believe; for you to be gone for so long and not so much as give us a sign…” “I’m sorry,” Twilight blurted. “About that specifically, I mean. I wanted to let you know. I must have thought a thousand times about how I would do it. I always convinced myself that it would only reopen old wounds. I even went to Canterlot a few times. Whenever I came close it just seemed like you had both moved on. Equestria was at peace, and you were at peace with each other. I didn’t want to ruin that.” “We had not moved on. We were not at peace.” Twilight took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she repeated solemnly. Celestia seemed unmoved by the words. “There is one other pony to whom you owe that apology.” “I know,” Twilight acknowledged guiltily. With another unreadable glance, Celestia turned to leave. “Do you accept it though?” Twilight asked before she could escape. “The apology?” Celestia stopped, but did not look back. “You know it’s not that easy. I’d like to.” She sighed heavily and shook her head. “We have time. Quite a lot of it, if we do our jobs well.” --- The migration aside, dragons did not generally congregate. It was surprising, then, to find several adults gliding aimlessly around Elder Peak as Cirrus approached. The crew was not handling it well. Twilight happened to be the princess on deck for the approach — Luna’s idea, ostensibly to help build confidence in her among the crew. Twilight suspected the true motive centered on making her return ever more public, and thus making it more difficult to return to isolation once this was over. She’d agreed easily enough though, and not only because she wanted to avoid another argument. Regardless of her future plans, she had a clear duty right now — one she couldn’t perform by hiding from everypony other than Celestia and Luna. “Contact!” a nervous spotter called. “Five-thirty. Green. Big.” Twilight had noticed the dragon several seconds earlier. The crew was letting their nerves affect their performance. There was nothing to be done about it now. She couldn’t reprimand them without further damaging morale — along with her own image — and a more active approach to reassuring them would only be distracting. Instead, she did her best to project calm across the deck. “Thank you,” she replied sedately to the spotter. A brief, unworried glance in the indicated direction signalled as clearly as she was able that they were in no real danger. Doubtless things would be different were Celestia or Luna standing in her place. They weren’t though, and in truth if the princesses did their jobs, the outcome of this particular adventure wouldn’t hinge on the crew’s current sloppiness. Stepping to the fore and peering over the railing, Twilight could almost see into the volcanic crater that crowned the peak now. A faint plume of smoke wafted up from it today, though it was unclear whether it was from the mountain itself or draconic activity around what the elder liked to call his throne. “Hold here, please,” Twilight said as she turned to the captain. “Half reverse,” Captain Sails ordered in turn. A moment later, Twilight felt the changing vibration in the deck as the immense propeller that drove the ship slowed and then began to turn in the opposite direction, slowing Cirrus’ forward momentum. “Please have Princesses Luna and Celestia informed that we’ve arrived,” Twilight requested as the ship came to a halt and its main rotor fell silent. They would have felt it themselves, of course, but since both seemed enthusiastic about building Twilight’s image, neither was likely to appear on the deck before being summoned; it wouldn’t do to distract the crew when they were meant to be witnessing Twilight’s supposedly regal presence. The deck went silent for most of a minute while Twilight awaited the other princesses. The crew, freed from the immediate tasks of maneuvering the ship, stole quick glances at her when they thought they could do so unnoticed and otherwise fidgeted awkwardly while Twilight stared into the distance over the forward railing, more to avoid eye contact with anypony than because of anything worth seeing in that direction. Finally, she heard the hoofsteps of her fellow princesses ascending the bow staircase, and she turned to nod to them as they emerged onto the deck. “All is well?” Celestia asked as she returned the nod. “It’s a little bit more crowded than we were expecting. Shouldn’t be a problem.” Neither Luna nor Celestia asked for clarification. Their eyes were already flitting between the three most easily spotted dragons. With a subtle flick of her left ear, Twilight pointed out another — one the spotters had not yet found. Celestia’s slightly tilted head asked if those were all of them. Twilight’s cocked eyebrow affirmed that they were, to the best of her knowledge. Luna’s narrowed eyes declared the best of her knowledge to be insufficient. A twitch of Twilight’s wings suggested that there was one way to augment that knowledge. “Shall we?” Celestia asked, spreading her own wings. Twilight and Luna followed suit, and soon the trio was circling slowly down into the crater. They didn’t see any additional dragons on the way down until they came into view of the elder himself. He was perched on a stone spire that jutted up from the crater floor — probably one he had carved out himself, as it couldn’t have resulted from any geological process Twilight knew of. The thick white smoke Twilight had noticed earlier billowed out from around the base of the spire, intermittently obscuring the dragon in what he undoubtedly thought was a very dramatic fashion. The alicorns landed a few meters from the foot of the spire and waited expectantly. Between the dragons circling above and his little display here, it was clear that the elder had been expecting them. Though Twilight had momentarily considered clearing his smoke and demanding his attention, she knew that there was no point in trying to intimidate him. Eventually, he would tire of his games; until then, they would wait. “Ah, the pony princesses,” he rumbled at last, blowing the smoke away with a single flap of his massive wings. “It’s been too long.” With the smoke cleared, the elder was exactly as she remembered him. Though Twilight couldn’t be certain, it seemed likely that he was the largest living dragon — perhaps the largest dragon to ever live. Wings spread as they were, it was clear that their span was half again the length of Cirrus. His head, stout when compared to the narrow, angular heads of most adult dragons, was about twice the size of Twilight’s first real home, the library tree back in Ponyville. Iridescent silver backplates contrasted with the jet black scales that covered all of his body save his pearl-white underbelly. It was the unsettling green glow in his eyes that Twilight remembered best. Looking at him now, it almost seemed plausible that he hadn’t moved from that perch since the last time they’d met, almost six-hundred years ago now. Of course, it would be hard to believe that he could maintain any dominance among his kind were he truly so immobile. He looked with keen interest at Twilight as her mane blew wildly in the wind he’d created. “I was told you were dead.” “I heard that too,” Twilight replied flatly. The elder’s deep chuckle echoed across the crater, easily mistakable for some sort of seismic event if one did not know better. “The little ones and their stories, hmm?” Luna took a step forward and spoke up. “We must speak with you about the behavior of your—” “The blue one is always straight to business,” The elder interrupted. “You really should try to get her to relax.” “I’m afraid we must be direct today,” Celestia replied. “A dragon accompanied by a brood of wyverns recently attacked one of our settlements.” The elder adopted an expression of boredom and inspected a talon that he held before his face. “We need to know whether you know of this dragon, what has become of the wyverns, and how you intend to prevent any further such events,” Celestia pressed, undeterred by the dragon’s show of disinterest. “So demanding today,” the elder said with a put upon sigh that briefly heated the air around him to a temperature only suitable for dragons and their ilk. “Do you know this dragon’s name?” With a moment’s magical effort, Twilight’s orb popped into the air before her. She let it hang there long enough for the elder to notice it, then tossed it to him. “Do you?” she asked in a challenging tone. The dragon caught the orb almost clumsily in his claw and held it up to his eye. “This is a marvelous little bauble,” he remarked amusedly. “I had heard you were crafty. How do you — nevermind, that would ruin the mystery, wouldn’t it? No, I don’t recognize this dragon or his friends.” The alicorns exchanged surprised glances. They hadn’t expected him to be forthcoming immediately, but an outright denial of knowledge was out of character. The elder had never previously admitted to ignorance of any dragon or their activities. “Are you saying that you no longer rule the dragons?” Luna asked. It was an intentionally provocative question, Twilight knew — she hoped to fluster the dragon in hopes he would reveal more than he intended. It didn’t seem to work. The elder fixed her with a condescending look. “Not at all. I can’t fathom how you could come to that conclusion.” “Are you saying that you do not rule this dragon?” Twilight prodded. At last some irritation began to show on the elder’s face. “Trying to hold a conversation with your kind can be so frustrating. He is a dragon; therefore, I rule him.” Twilight frowned, exaggerating the expression so that the elder could better see it. “And yet you don’t recognize him, and he was allowed to violate the agreements you made.” “Agreements?” he repeated questioningly. “You are obligated to prevent your subjects from making any hostile incursions into Equestria,” Luna growled. “You are also obligated to control the populations of the lesser draconic races, namely the wyverns.” The elder seemed to consider that for a moment, resting a talon contemplatively on the end of his snout. “No, I don’t think so.” “Be reasonable,” Celestia said in her standard calm-but-firm diplomatic tone. “The last time we spoke, you agreed to those terms.” “Oh, certainly,” the elder agreed. “But since then, the terms you agreed to have been violated. There is no longer any accord between us.” There was a moment’s quiet as the alicorns again looked at each other questioningly. None seemed to have any idea what the dragon was talking about. “And what was this violation?” Celestia asked finally. The elder glowered at Twilight. “That one killed a dragon.” “Spike was ours,” Twilight shouted, her ears folded against her head in offense. “You never had any involvement with him.” “He was a dragon,” the elder said with an exasperated shake of his head. “Therefore, I ruled him.” “Then the violation was yours,” Twilight responded, bringing her tone under control. “He was allowed to commit atrocities against Equestria and other protected nations.” “If he was yours, you should have stopped him,” the elder mused, his grin telling Twilight all she needed to know about his interest in this debate. He was arguing like a foal and he knew it; claiming Spike’s victimhood while disclaiming his behavior. He had no intent of resolving anything, or even coming to a shared understanding of where they stood. “I did stop him,” Twilight said, glaring at the dragon and flaring her wings. “You admit it!” the dragon exclaimed gleefully. “Very well,” Celestia cut in before Twilight could respond. “The old agreement is void. Would you like to make a new one? “I don’t know why I would do that,” the elder said with a chuckle and a roll of his eyes. “You’ve already shown that you can’t be trusted.” Celestia took a moment to collect herself, then spoke in a low, almost threatening tone that few ever heard from her. “With no treaty between us, we will be forced to drive all dragons and their allies from Equestria and the nations we protect.” The elder laughed, filling the air with the rotten stench of his breath. “Did you know that all the frustrations your Spike exploited so spectacularly are still simmering? Of course you did — you spend all your time with the little ones, you wouldn’t miss something like that. So many beings, tired of equine dominion, hoping to try their own hooves — or other convenient appendages — at ruling the land. Even I hear of them occasionally, though I do take such pains to avoid the whining of the lesser races.” “That has no bearing on our relationship with you,” Celestia said. The elder’s predatory smile grew as Celestia spoke. “I’ve been gracious in accommodating you in the past, but the truth is that I have no reason other than my own good nature to do so. You make your little threats about expelling dragons from your lands, but dragons go where they wish, and always will. Even if you were capable of what you threaten, I do wonder if your land will be your land much longer.” “Nonsense,” Luna exclaimed with an emphatic stomp. “You’ve grown even more delusional since last we met.” The elder waved a chiding talon at her. “Do be civil, little pony. You wouldn’t want to risk offending your host.” Twilight shook her head. Nothing resembling diplomacy was going to be accomplished here. Whether the elder was behind the attack or not, it was clear he was pleased with the state of affairs. “I think you’ve misunderstood why we’re here.” With her magic, she snatched the orb from where it still rested in the elder’s palm and floated it back to herself. “We aren’t here to ask favors or negotiate. We are presenting you with a choice: fix this, or we will. Make your decision, right now,” she said, as she set the orb under her right forehoof. “Or our solution begins immediately.” Finally, the air of amusement disappeared from the elder’s manner. “You are poised to make a very serious mistake,” he warned, his voice even lower than usual. Without looking away from the elder’s eyes, Twilight pressed slowly down with her hoof. No move was made to stop her; after another second, her hoof met the ground. Wordlessly, she lifted it again, to show all present the glittering dust that was all that remained of the orb and its contents. The elder blinked several times, dumbfounded, then raised his head to point his snout at Cirrus, where it hovered above. A river of white-hot fire erupted from his mouth, but Celestia was already there, having teleported between the dragon and the ship the moment she’d seen what Twilight had done. Her hastily erected shield repelled the attack, which was the last thing Twilight saw before her own flying charge drove her into the elder’s neck. The dragon was lifted bodily from the ground by the impact, then Twilight, still pressed against his neck, adjusted the direction of her flight and drove him back into the ground. The impact didn’t slow him for long; before Twilight could gather herself for another attack, a claw found her and knocked her tumbling into the air. By the time she regained control of her flight, the elder had lumbered back to his feet, just in time to catch a boulder in the face. He let out a pained roar and covered his head with his claws and wings as another half-dozen hurtled toward him, each surrounded by Luna’s blue aura. Celestia had vanished. She was probably back aboard Cirrus, Twilight surmised, as she caught sight of the ship turning, its main propeller spinning up. In another minute or so it would reach full speed and be out of the elder’s range; the dragon had long ago sacrificed speed for size, and would not be able to pursue. The other dragons in attendance, however, were already converging on the escaping airship. Hoping Luna would be able to handle the elder alone, Twilight shot off to meet them. Three were approaching from Cirrus’ starboard side, another from port, which at least made prioritizing them simple enough. She needed some kind of weapon; attacking dragons with magic directly was extremely inefficient given their natural resistance. Using herself as a projectile had been effective enough when her target was distracted, but against three targets that were already airborne and alert it would not suffice. Scooping rocks out of the crater wasn’t an option — she didn’t want to take anything out of Luna’s arsenal. Somewhere aboard Cirrus would be a stash of long pikes that she could use as projectiles, but she didn’t know where and thus would not be able to teleport aboard to retrieve them quickly enough. Inefficiency would have to be acceptable today. Most of the energy of her attacks would bounce off the dragons’ scales — she needed to angle them such that Cirrus would not catch any splashback. Guessing at their approach paths, visually estimating their velocities, and mentally calculating the distance from which she could most effectively target all three of them, Twilight chose the ideal piece of sky and willed herself there. Glancing downward, she saw the dragons several hundred meters below. Their paths would converge just before they were within attack range of the airship. Timing her attack for that moment, Twilight focused as much energy as she dared and loosed it toward her targets. It spread as it travelled, bathing everything below it in a violet light. Her view of the dragons was soon blocked by the beam, so she was unable to see the impact itself, but she didn’t spot anything escaping the target zone before the beam arrived. Splashes of energy spilled out around the sides of the main beam, confirming that at least one of the dragons was hit. Beyond where she believed the dragons to be, the beam slammed into the side of the mountain, cleansing it of what little vegetation and soil had clung to it and burrowing into the rock below. Gritting her teeth, she poured more power into the attack, and watched as the splashes of reflected energy were pushed down the column. She couldn’t spend all of her reserves on this attack — she was only hoping to move the dragons far enough away from Cirrus to buy some time, and hopefully give them serious second thoughts about pursuing the ship at all. After another few seconds, she judged she could not spare any more energy and let the beam die down. As the last of the purple light faded, she scanned below for any sign of her targets. She found them quickly enough; her attack had pushed them almost all the way down to the ground, and they had fallen the rest of the way. One of them clung to the rim of the newly made depression in the mountainside, while the two others had fallen inside. All of them looked considerably shaken, but the two inside were in particularly poor shape. Twilight’s attack had drilled deep enough to expose the magma chamber, and the pressure within had apparently been sufficient to drench the falling dragons once there was no counteracting pressure from Twilight’s beam. They would probably survive — dragons were no strangers to lava, after all — but as the lava that clung to their bodies cooled into rock, they would find it difficult to fly at best. They would not be returning to the fight. The one spared the molten spray didn’t seem inclined to move either. The sound of cannonfire reminded Twilight that there was still a dragon loose on Cirrus’ opposite side. As she was still significantly higher than the airship, she was able to see from her current vantage point that the cannons were doing a respectable job of keeping the dragon at a distance. With a beat of her wings she started in that direction, only to stop herself as she noticed the dragon turning away from Cirrus and descending. Had it been scared off by Twilight’s attack on its fellows, perhaps? No — squinting, Twilight saw what had changed the dragon’s thinking. With only one nearby target remaining, Celestia had apparently decided it was appropriate to leave the command deck and take the fight to the dragon herself. She was now hovering a few hundred meters off Cirrus’ port side, looking satisfied as a pair of pikes twirled in her golden glow to either side of her. The airship was now completely clear of the crater, which meant that it was also out of the elder’s attack range. Looking over the lip of the crater, Twilight couldn’t immediately spot either Luna or the elder dragon. Concerned, she almost started back before a flash of blue in her peripheral vision alerted her to Luna’s sudden appearance. A gash along her right flank prompted a concerned look from Twilight, which was met with a weak smile from Luna. “Well?” Twilight asked apprehensively. “He lives. As do I, you can see. Perhaps I flatter myself to think that he will remember this day longer than I.” Luna said, then oriented herself towards Cirrus and began a slow glide toward the ship. Twilight didn’t think he would, but decided against saying so. It was a question for another day.