//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Invasions and a Happy Return // Story: Dancing Alone // by Jordan179 //------------------------------// 4. Some Invasions The world had gotten strange since Twilight Sparkle had departed. Moon Dancer, exhausted and saddened by that disastrous party, had slept through that long, strange morning five years ago, and awoken to learn that the Moon Princess had returned, and that Twilight had led the effort to bring her out of her Nightmare. Moon Dancer might have forgiven Twilight for missing her party, had Twilight not then avoided her for the next five years. September of the next year, she had been visited by a creature that looked like the strangest of the statues in Celestia's garden, which she later learned was in fact the real Discord, and Moon Dancer had found her nose literally stuck in a book for hours and hours. At least that book had been On Investment-Heading, which she'd always meant to read. She'd been able to switch books, as long as her nose remained in at least one of them at all times. Come to think of it, that had been how she had become truly enlightened regarding the causes of all social injustice, so Discord had brought more than madness on that very unusual day. She'd heard he'd been crueller to other Ponies, and sometimes wondered why he had gone easy on her. Without his help, she never would have learned the real truths of economics. Things had quieted for a while until the summer of 1503. That June, Moon Dancer had discovered her own capacity for violence. She'd been shopping in an antique store, and had discovered some really rare books. She'd been bringing them home when two black buzzing monstrosities swept down on her from the sky. And made her drop one of the books into a puddle of water. Everything had gone red for a while, and when she came out of it, she was in an alley, and standing in a puddle, only it wasn't a puddle of water. It was a puddle of mingled red blood and strange greenish ichor. The books were carefully set on a stoop, she discovered to her relief. They hadn't gotten damaged, save one of them was a bit wetted -- thankfully only by the water, rather than the other fluids. The same could not be said for the two black creatures, which she later discovered had been Changeling Warriors of Hive Chrysalis. She remembered them in the past tense, because there had been rather a lot of blood and ichor, and neither had been her own. The two Warriors were crumpled and no longer buzzing; indeed, they lay there with a certain finality that made her think they were more than merely stunned. Both of them bore what looked like her hoofmarks on their bodies, and still-smoking holes in their barrels. Her horn hurt, as if she'd over-channeled her magic. In addition to the holes in the Warriors, there were small hot craters in the bricks of the alley. She'd learned to do photon blasts back in Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, like most of the students, but she'd never realized before that she could do more than one or two, nor to such fatal results. She'd never used her magic to harm another living being before. She had never realized that she was actually quite good at doing so. She felt sickened, but less so than she might have expected; she didn't even throw up as novels told her often did mares in her situation. Her throat felt raw, but not from retching. She remembered that as everything went red somepony had been screaming, not so much in fear but in fury, and realized that it must have been herself. Certain tales of her family history abruptly became more comprehensible to her, especially those of Moon Rage and Moon Axe. She supposed she'd inherited the tendency, and it had saved her life. And even better, her books. She picked up her books and stole away from that alley, and a minute later a colossal psychokinetic pulse had sprayed Changelings away from the city. That had been Princess Cadance and Shining Armor -- Twilight Sparkle's own brother -- defeating the invasion. All of Canterlot had celebrated afterward. Even Moon Dancer had curled up with her dear-saved treasures, some red wine and some fine cheese and crackers, and enjoyed her own solitary festival. (She'd woken up the next morning with a headache). 5. The Crystal Empire Later that month, something wonderful had happened. The Crystal Empire had come back. Moon Dancer had heard of the Crystal Empire, but only as a legend, as the Lost North-Realm which had first fought and then welcomed in the Three Tribes as allies in the earliest days of the Equestrian world, which had held out against Discord during the millennium of his misrule, which had inspired Celestia and Luna to create the Realm, and which had then fallen into darkness and disappeared from the world, over a thousand years ago. Serious historians thought it a legend, an amalgamation of several minor kingdoms which had really controlled the north of Equestria before the Unification was completed. Surely there had never been an empire of magic and mystery, with lore dating back to the even more mythical Age of Wonders, impossible giant towers of living crystal, a Good King who had become the most terrible of all Night Stallions, the dreaded King Sombra? Only there had been. And Princess Cadance, Shining Armor and Twilight Sparkle had defeated the Nightmare King. Even Twilight's little Dragon had somehow distinguished himself in the battle. And now Cadance was Princess -- Imperatrix, to use the precise language -- of that forgotten realm; she was somehow descended from the royal dynasty which had ruled before Sombra's. Once more, a wonder from the night of antiquity had emerged from misty myth, to stand revealed as sober truth in the clear light of day. The world felt adrift to many Ponies, and even Moon Dancer, alone with her ever-growing book collection, was not unaffected by it. Across the Stormy Sea, in far-off Neighropa, the normal world was tearing itself apart in the climactic battles of the Great Tauran War; here in Equestria legends were proving real. And one of those legends was the Great Imperial Library. A great building of the same living crystal as the Crystal Palace, that wonder of the ancient world of which the towers of the Palace of Canterlot were but the best that Princess Celestia had been able to do with more common structural stone and steel, crammed to the rafters with books many of which had not been seen since the Crystal Empire had fallen into darkness. Lost forever, all had assumed -- now, found once more! At the realization of this, Moon Dancer had trembled, feeling a warmth spreading from her heart up to her brain and down to her loins, from the tip of her horn to her tail and hooves, an all-consuming excitement at the sheer magnitude of the lore which there must await discovery, unseen by any mortal eyes for over a thousand years. It was all that she could do to restrain herself from immediately buying a ticket to the Crystal City (there had already been a depot near the place where the city had appeared, now being expanded into a full station) and flinging herself through the library doors! Reason prevailed. She knew that she would be spending weeks, maybe months, in the North-Realm; she might as well spend the summer there, really. This meant that she must make arrangements for the security and maintenance of her home, and most importantly the library she kept there. (She did not yet have to worry about the security of her special projects, since she had not yet begun them). And, of course, she had to prepare for her trip, including the purchase of numerous new notebooks and writing supplies, an updated Crystal-Imperial to Modern Equestrian translating dictionary, and lots of luggage to bring home the books she hoped to purchase in the North. It was not until early July that she left, boarding the express for the north, reading a history and geography of the Empire (which until recently had been catalogued under "mythology"), and watching the long miles roll past as the train chugged upriver, far past the Neighagra Hills which had previously been the most northerly destination to which any fashionable Ponies ever traveled on this route. She as a matter of course had a private compartment in a sleeper, and took full advantage of the dining car, so her trip could was about as comfortable as anything might be outside her own home. Moon Dancer did not mind travel, provided that she had a destination in mind. In Canterlot, she was known and recognized as an eccentric; she could feel the disapproving eyes watching her when she went out on the street, which is why she tried to keep such journeys to the minimum necessities (in which category she of course included book-buying and book-borrowing and book-reading expeditions). But when traveling to another city -- to Manehattan or Fillydelphia or Morgan or even Baltimore, to take advantage of their libraries and book-shops, she was just one shabby transient among many. She was anonymous. She liked that -- it meant that she was under no particular social expectations. She imagined that the Crystal City would be no different. That was before the high sparkling spire of the Crystal Palace hove into view, before she saw the great pylons of the main Imperial Gate, set in a circle of crystal that had always been meant for no material wall, but rather a magical force field, empowered by the Crystal Heart, and she stepped from the mundane Equestrian train into a world of marvelous antiquity. Moon Dancer walked the Crystal City's storied streets, where so much history had been made, and gazed up in awe at the vast glistening tower, colossal but fairy-like in its beautiful delicate simplicity, of the Crystal Palace from which so much of North Amareica had once been ruled. Even the ordinary houses and shops that lined those streets were fashioned of the same sort of living crystal. She realized with astonishment that much of what she saw around her had looked the same over fifteen hundred years ago, when Celestia had founded the Realm; that some of it was unchanged from more than twenty-five hundred years ago, before Discord had marred the world. She was aware of the incredible age of this place, yet it was not oppressive; rather, it was oddly comforting, to know Ponies could make something like this and that it might survive the passage of such an inconceivable gulf of time. She walked among the crowds who - like herself -- had come to see or study or trade or just enjoy the wonders of this, the most ancient city now surviving in North Amareica. This too was timeless -- in the old stories Ponies had once come here from lands that were now legends -- Unicornia and the Heartspire, the Hegemony of Lith and the Terrestrial Commonwealth; Pegasopolis and the Cloud-Castle of Derecho. Now they came from Morgan and Baltimare, Filldelphia and Whinnyapolis, Applewood and San Franciscolt. And, of course, from Canterlot. Once again, all roads led to the Crystal City, and the Ponies of all the world herded there. She saw some strange creatures of the North. There were a couple of Griffons from Hyperborea, quick and cool and disdainful of all around them. A family of Musk Oxen. Three even larger horned bovids which she realized must be Yaks from the fabled land of Yakyakistan, far even to the Crystal Empire's north -- they had been ancient allies of the Crystal Empire, but none had been seen in Equestria for over a thousand years, as all contact with their strange realm had been broken when the Crystal City had vanished. Some came from further lands. Here were the sinsister, serpentine and feather-winged forms of two Coatls, reclining in a litter borne by four stolid Pony peons from Mexicolt to the south. It was said that their venom could make not only a Pony but also her magic go mad, though self-interest and the ease by which such an attack could be identified of course restrained them from any such poisonous contaminations. Coatls rarely trusted one another, the books said -- Moon Dancer wondered if they were family, or a mated pair. There were Pony scholars and tourists from Albion and Prance, nations devastated by the Great Tauran War but controlling the sea lanes, coming perhaps in hope of enlightenment, perhaps in hope of finding forgotten superweapons to turn the tide of war, which was going very much against the Entente from the latest reports. They mingled warily with distinguished-looking Griffons and Ponies from the Griffon Empire, the Entente's mortal foe. There were even some Red-Speakers, the Griffon Empire's Griffon and Pony enemies to the east. The Empire of the Red-Speakers was a grinding tyranny, the Ponies oppressed by their Griffon Princes, though there were hopeful stirrings of revolution. There were silk-garbed Ponies and Ki-Rin from Chi-Neigh and Neigh-Pon, lands across the Cruel Sea to the West. Those countries claimed far greater antiquity than Equestria, than the Crystal Empire, than even the Age of Wonders. Their rulers were the Celestial Dragons, of whom it was rumored that some were ten thousand years old. Perhaps they wished to resume their old commerce with the Crystal Empire, though the Celestial Dragons themselves never left the precincts of their Forbidden Cities, save to wage war, and rarely even for that purpose. The natives of the Crystal City, of course, were easy to recognize. The Crystal Ponies were basically Earth Ponies, but they glistened almost as brightly as did the Crystal Palace, their coats and bodies rendered almost translucent by protracted exposure to the Crystal Heart. It was not true translucence -- it looked as if light passed completely through them, but one could not see their internal organs or skeletons, so the light was obviously sliding around their coats. Moon Dancer wondered at the physics involved. According to legend there had once been many Crystal Unicorns, as well, but King Sombra -- who had been one of them -- had slain or driven them out. Many of the older Unicorn Families of Equestria, including the Moons themselves, derived some of their heritage from these ancient exiles. One of them had been Sombra's lifelong mistress, the noble scholar remembered as the Faithful Lady Tourmaline, whose identity Moon Dancer knew because she had helped found the Royal Library of Canterlot. It was thanks to her that so much was known about the Crystal Empire, even though arrogant fools had later decided that it must have been mythical. Moon Dancer thought she might have recognized the Crystal Ponies anyway, even had they not been translucent. They wore silken cloaks and tunics and dresses and robes which were translucent like themselves, so that one's eye was drawn to the interplay between shimmering clothes and the scarcely-less shimmering flesh beneath, flesh no less soft and equine for its crystalline appearance, as she found out as she moved through the throngs. The effect was very sensual, and she felt unfamiliar emotions as she regarded these survivors of a bygone age, emotions normally relegated to the privacy of her room safe at home. They stood and moved languidly, lazily, almost insolently, though they neither gave nor took any offense in their dealings with the swarms of outlanders who had descended on their ancient city. The Crystal City was used to foreigners, and its citizens were quite glad to be free of Sombra's tyranny, welcoming in the Equestrians and others -- and the wealth they brought in the form of foreign currency. Still, Moon Dancer felt very aware of the fact that -- to them -- she was but a tame savage; the proud tradition of the Moons little more than the boasting of barbaric parvenus compared to the immemorial antiquity of the Crystal Empire. She had read this in the old books; it was yet another thing to experience in reality. The arrogance of the Crystal-Imperials was not unfriendly, but it was nevertheless very real. Their eyes were subtly-slanted, and very bold. Their stallions -- and sometimes, mares -- appraised Moon Dancer, in a manner which she found at times disturbing. Yes, even had they not been Crystal Ponies, she thought she would have known them for no Equestrians. Seeing and feeling those gazes, Moon Dancer knew in a moment that, if she wished, she might leave her maidenhood behind in the Crystal Empire. She was tempted. Moon Dancer knew that the Crystal Ponies did not love her. But she also knew that she was dismal and ugly, that she would never find a stallion to be her special somepony, to give her friendship and adoration, on whom she might happily bestow her most precious treasure in bright consummation of their love. (To Moon Dancer, the high-flown language of the most idealistic romance novels came quite naturally in her private thoughts, though she felt she would have died of embarrassment rather than say such things aloud). So she really had nothing to lose. Both lust and curiosity should have logically-compelled her to take one of those all-too-willing stallions to her hotel room for a night, even if she knew that their tryst would last no longer. For what, after all, was she saving herself? Yet she did not. Neither on the first night, nor any of the nights of that glorious month she spent in the Crystal Empire. She was not sure why, afterward. Was it some remnant of her fillyish dreams, her hope against all reason that she might someday a stallion to love, if only she had the patience to wait for him? Or was it her fundamental shyness, recoiling at the notion of any such intimate contact with a stranger? Surely it could not have been the morality she had learned when she was young? That was a lie -- the books she had read told her that the union between mare and stallion was but a vestige of investmentism, an attempt by Ponies to establish ownership of one another, something that would be swept aside by the New Ponies who would emerge when all were truly equal. She would have known it to be a lie anyway, as her parents had demonstrated by their disloyalty to one another -- and to herself as their daughter. The purpose of that morality had simply been to keep her sexuality under control, so that any foals she bore would be the product of unions with other respectable Families, rather than of chance meetings with random stallions. In the Time of Thrones, over a thousand years ago, the Families had arranged such alliances for purely political purposes, often without reference to the wills of the young Ponies involved. That had changed, over the long centuries, until today even the titled aristocracy merely encouraged their children to make suitable matches, but the fundamentally economic and political purposes of marriage remained, among Families like the Moons. Moon Dancer, by her utter social isolation, had entirely avoided even subtle pressures to marry. She wasn't going to marry to please her family. She knew that, cherished vague hopes of attracting some romantic revolutionary stallion who would mate with her in nights of incredible passion, then die in the Propaganda of the Deed with her name on his lips, but didn't really imagine that was likely to happen either. She was unlovable, ugly, attractive only for her wealth and name, and she did not want to be wed for such inducements. She had determined this soon after her graduation, when she saw how others regarded her. So why did her theoretical chastity matter to her, even one little bit? Nevertheless, it did. So she did not give herself to a stranger in some mad Crystal City holiday fling. What she did do involved books.