Twilight’s smooth trot slowed as she neared the door to Princess Celestia’s chambers. The hallway was lit by the same flickering torchlight, a warm glow on the marble. It cast a golden sheen over the smooth stone floor, and spilled out of the great stone edifice through the windows lining the outer edge of the Heart. A small army of dedicated servants kept the walls, ceilings, and floors around the torches fastidiously clean, scouring the soot away day and night. Twilight had walked past an older stallion busily engaged in scrubbing the wall only a few minutes ago. The soap that they used to clean the soot away had a light, fruity scent to it, a smell that always reminded Twilight of the oranges Cadance sometimes brought back with her.
So when she came near to the door to Celestia’s suite, and could smell the sharp, oddly pleasant reek of charred wood, Twilight hesitated. A glance at the wall to her left showed that the torch had been cleaned only a short time ago, with barely a dusting of black marring the marble it was anchored to. All the torches nearby were similarly cleaned, and the pair nearest the doorway were the heavily enchanted, everburning torches that the Princess made from time to time. Those never needed cleaning, as they never burned away the wooden stakes.
Idly, Twilight wondered what they could possibly be. Any kind of fire she knew of would burn whatever it was affixed to, in varying amounts of time. Those two had been in place for centuries, according to everypony, and haven’t been replaced or cleaned since they were lit. Perhaps they weren’t really flaming torches, but merely illusory globes? And illusion would explain the flickering quality of the light, and its seemingly eternal brightness, but it wouldn’t produce the same heat that these did. Had Celestia, somehow, contained a small amount of Elemental Fire, and placed that at the ends of the stakes? It was certainly possible, but how she cajoled a Salamander to part with its blood was something Twilight wasn’t sure she wanted to know. It was technically possible to have a minor entrance to another place, and the torch was simply holding the portal so some other, greater fire? The Augury Flames in the Drakkenspine? Only a few ponies knew where the temple lay, high in the mountains, so it was possible.
While her mind whirred along, chasing the tangent, the greater majority of Twilight’s focus was on her worry. What could have happened to the Princess. If the dragon’s had sent another attack, like all those years ago, then she was sure she would have heard something. The last attack had been a bloody slaughter as the dragons tore through the lower levels of the Heart. And Twilight had a suspicion that if Celestia had truly vented her fury on an invading force, the magic would make the ground tremble.
In the absence of gore decorating the halls, or sudden earthquakes, she couldn’t think of what might make this area smell like woodsmoke. Was Celestia roasting one of those pompous asses on the Council? My imagination is so cheery, she thought. She couldn’t deny that the thought of the Princess tormenting Gold Digger, or his son for that matter, gave her a feeling of warm fuzzies.
Steeling her resolve, which was aided by her growing curiosity, Twilight strode to the door with a sure hoof. She lifted the large steel knocker with her magic, and gave a short, sharp knock on the door. She waited a long breath for an answer. When no answer came, she gently pushed the door open.
“Princess?” Twilight called, taking a hesitant steps into the room.
With the door open, the reek of woodsmoke grew stronger. Under that smell though, there was the hot tang of burnt metal, the acrid stench of hundred year old tapestries smoldering, and another smell, something newly horrific. The last scent was something indefinable, almost appetizing. A gust of hot wind washed over her face, carrying with it the odor of charred meat. For Twilight, the sudden, overwhelming tide of sensory information was stunning. She froze with a hoof inside the door, working furiously to quiet her rebellious stomach. Once her stomach was calm again, she looked around, gently closing the physical door behind her while slamming home the door in her mind where a young filly had started gibbering.
Celestia’s room was in tatters. All that Twilight could see within was scorched to slag and ash, but for a small spot of unmarked stone where Celestia’s ancient oak desk sat. Where the desk had been, she amended. Currently, she suspected that the desk was just another part of the ash and soot piled against the corners of the room. The comfortable, homey furnishings Celestia enjoyed had been demolished, with only the odd bit of metal to show where they had been.
The floor around the unmarked patch, and throughout the room, had been shattered. Twilight had never seen marble torn and warped by heat before, but the floor was webbed with deep lines, some that looked almost a foot deep and still gave off the occasional pop or crackle as the hot stone cooled. . The edges of several of these crevices gleamed where silver, steel and gold had melted into puddles, seeping into the cracks before cooling again. In a few places, small puddles of the same metals were hardening into rough disks, welded to the stone they rested upon.
The walls and ceiling had been no more spared than the floor. The ornate tapestries that had adorned her walls for centuries were gone. The delicate chandelier that provided a warm glow from the dozen or so ever-burning candles was no more, and the candles themselves had certainly been consumed by the fire. Only a pair of small flames shone in the evening light, knocked to the corner farthest from the epicenter.
Queerly, it was that last fact that comforted Twilight, and stilled the fearful murmuring in her heart. Until she had seen the candles, or rather, hadn’t seen them, she had been afraid for her Princess. She had feared that somehow a dragon had snuck through the Heart itself, and attempted to kill the Princess. A very small, dark voice in her mind had even whispered just how it had happened. How the dragon had slipped his fangs around Celestia’s throat and torn her long, white neck to shreds.
But Twilight felt sure that Princess Celestia was the only creature alive who could actually burn away those candles. Not even Salamanders, the Avatars of Fire, could douse the flames with their own. The power of the sun alone could reduce those enchanted items to ash. Celestia must be alive, at the very least. Hurt, possibly, but alive.
With that surety, Twilight felt the fear that had been flooding her body begin to fade, draining away as she began looking at the floor of the room. If she were to guess, then the Princess was probably just out of sight, ensconced in her bedroom proper. She could see a flickering light casting a hot glow on the stone near the entrance to the room, likely a candle.
Luna must have left with Celestia’s message before she did… this, Twilight thought, slowly picking her way through the wrecked floor. She could still feel the lingering heat of whatever had shattered the ground. It warmed the floor beneath her hooves, and she could feel the waves of heat rising to meet her as she moved forward.
She couldn’t imagine what ‘this’ was, though. Something must have happened, that much was clear. Had Celestia been attacked after Luna had left? Once more, Twilight felt a twinge of fear at the thought.
Be rational, Twilight Sparkle. She thought to herself, careful to keep the words behind a mental barrier. She winced as her imagination showed her a wonderfully colorful image of what a panicked Luna would do if she felt Twilight’s fear. Of course today my imagination seems to be overreacting to everything. Not enough was going on already, obviously. Light forbid I have just three crises to deal with at a time, what’s a few others?
She shook her head sharply, nearly losing her balance. The burnished copper of her shoe slid over a patch of soft gold, and Twilight had to struggle to regain her perch between several deep cuts. With a sigh, she focused her mind again as she moved forward.
I’m beginning to think that Perhaps she wasn’t attacked. Twilight mused, mincing to the side to avoid a nasty rift with several large splotches of metal near it. A small fragment of china lay amidst the pools of silver, black soot coating the ceramic. That was her tea set. Oh Light, she’s going to be angry about that. But if she wasn’t attacked, then why would she have done… this? I’m sure that if her doors hadn’t been so heavily enchanted she would have demolished those as well, and who knows how much of the hallway beyond. I hope nopony was in here with her, at least. There’s no way they could survive.
“Princess?” Twilight asked, hopping over the last crevice between her and the entrance to the smaller chamber where Celestia slept. The small chamber had its own door, just as heavily enchanted as the pair that guarded the entrance to her chambers. The small knocker Twilight remembered resting on the door had apparently not been enchanted though. It lay in a puddle on the floor with several long streaks of grey metal on the door itself showing where the steel had dripped down.
Twilight considered her problem for a moment. The steel puddle had cooled some time after the Princess must have entered the room. She could see that the pile of ash that circled the room had been moved just before the door itself, scattered across the marble floor in an arch before the wood. However, the metal had cooled in contact with the enchanted wood, effectively sealing the door closed.
Well, Twilight thought with a small sigh. Her ears fell flat as her head drooped. I suppose she won’t mind a little more damage.
Twilight began to gather her magic once more. She gave an experimental push against the door, pressing her telekinetic grip against the wood in a smooth plane, and pressing against it. The door didn’t even budge, and Twilight retracted the spell-arm. After a moment’s thought, she reshaped the spell into a spade, trying to slip the thin blade of magic under the metal somewhere. Then, with a frustrated sigh, she simply bashed at the metal with her magic, feeling her spell rebound from the door suddenly. The recoil knocked her back onto her back hooves for a moment. She growled, falling forward to stare at the door.
Once again, Twilight focused on her magic, closing her eyes this time. Her telekinesis was most certainly her most practiced magical ability, and the only one she felt comfortable manipulating and modifying on the fly. This was an emergency. She could feel her magic well up from within her. It felt cool, compared to the oppressive heat of the room. Slowly, as she drew as much of her power as she could, she could feel the pressure begin to build. Her body began to warm, heating from the inside as power sizzled in the air around her. Flickers of static began to dance across her body, now cloaked in a deep purple cocoon.
With a wordless roar, more of pain than fury, Twilight hurled her magic at the door. No, she didn’t throw it at the door. Twilight threw her power through the impregnable barrier, determined to force her way past the doorway, imposing the utter surety of her knowledge that the door would not stop her.
She wasn’t met with either the painful impact of her reflected spell, nor with the terrible crack of shattered oak. Instead, a moment after Twilight cast her power out, she felt suddenly cooler. And was met with a shocked, “Twilight?”
Her eyes snapped open, and Twilight let out another sigh, this one of relief. “Thank the Light,” she said, with a weak chuckle. “You’re okay.”
“Yes, I am. I’m sorry about your door…” She trailed off, eyebrows rocketing up as she turned to gesture at the intact door. “Um. Princess? How did I get here?”
“At a guess,” a faintly amused voice rasped from the bed. “You just teleported.”
“Cadance?” Twilight gasped, turning to face the speaker. When she saw her mother though, her second shriek of “Cadance!” was one of horror, not surprise.
“What happened?” Twilight demanded, rushing over to the bedside. The pink unicorn was lying on her side, head propped up on a pair of soft cushions. the rest of her body was covered in bruises, and here and there the soft, silky fur had been seared away, along with the flesh underneath.
Her breaths came in shallow gasps, nostrils flaring wide as she greedily sucked at the air.
“I…” Celestia said, voice shaking. Twilight whirled when the ancient alicorn paused, feeling her magic snap up in an instant. Her pain and fear, and the sudden, burning anger summoned her power against her will, but Twilight didn’t let the magic slip away as she glared at Celestia.
“What did you do to Cadance?” she asked, forcing each word through gritted teeth. She shifted her body, coming between her liege and her mother.
Twilight? a panicked voice suddenly rang in her mind.
Another sudden pulse of magic rippled through the room and Luna appeared in a flash of black magic. The air crackled with discharge as the sloppy spell vented power into the air around Luna. The magical fallout sent small bolts of black lightning slamming into everything near the dark princess, charring the bedside table and the coverlet, and chipping the marble floor at her hooves.
“Twilight?” Luna asked again, aloud. Cerulean eyes widened as she looked from Twilight to Celestia. Her eyes rested on Cadance for an instant, before narrowing as she too turned to face Celestia. “What is going on here?”
“Twilight. Princess. Calm down,” Cadance rasped from the bed. She stirred weakly, struggling to push herself up.
“Lie down!” All three mares roared at once, glaring at the pink unicorn. Startled, her leg collapsed under her, sending her back onto the soft coverlet with a whimper.
“Celestia,” Luna said, breaking the uneasy silence that sprang up. Her voice was still shaking with anger.
That, Twilight found odd. There was no reason for Luna to be outraged. Upset, certainly. Twilight was sure that when she was confronted by something she didn’t understand, then the Night Mare would waste no time in finding out exactly what she wanted to know. This was a personal anger, and Twilight could feel, mixed in with the waves of fury, a sense of confusion and dismay. The jumble of emotions echoing in her mind, all of them from the mental link that had formed between herself and Luna. But why…
Her eyes sprang wide as Luna slammed a hoof down on the stone floor. “What have you done!”
This wasn’t Luna. Her Luna was never this angry. Even during the first meeting, when the dragon invasion was announced, Luna hadn’t been furious. She had been determined, a grim determination that refused to bow to anypony or anything. She had been focused, and what anger there was, it was cold, hard, and it had been just another tool in her arsenal. This kind of fury, self righteous and blinding, wasn’t like Luna.
It was her anger.
Twilight squeezed her eyes closed, as Luna started to stalk closer to Celestia. Silently, she cursed herself for letting her barriers fall in her anger. Her horn was glowing menacingly, black magic glowing as she drew nearer to the white mare. With her eyes closed, Twilight focused on her mind, willing the mental wall back in place. Feeling the barrier snap shut on the bond seemed to quench the fire in her belly as well, calming her anger into something she could tame, could use. Something about the bond must echo emotions across itself. Anger compounding as it infected the other. Would it do the same to love, she wondered. Was that why she was warming to the mare she had, realistically, been forced to marry?
She tucked the thought away, like so many others, to examine later.
Taking a deep breath, ears flicking back, she opened her eyes. Her wife stood several paces away from Celestia. Her blue eyes blinked several times, and her head lifted. The crouched, aggressive posture straightened as the excess anger slowly bled away from her mind. After a moment of thought, her eyes widened, and she whirled to look at Twilight.
The younger mare looked down, ashamed. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I let my temper get the better of me.”
“Sounds like somepony I know.” Luna said, in a voice drier than the magma fields of Rylias. Her eyes flicked back to Celestia, and the dark mare took a deep breath. She bowed her head to the older mare. “I apologize for my actions, Princess Celestia. My emotions overcame my judgement, and I beg your pardon.”
“Luna,” Celestia said, dropping her eyes from her counterpart. “There is no need to apologize. Nor is there a need for you, Twilight. Your anger was… justified. It was my actions, my negligence, that caused Cadance such harm.”
“Horsefeathers.” A raspy voice broke in. The words were weak, but the annoyance her blue eyes was unmistakable. Cadance was less than pleased with her lady. “Tell them, Tia. No point beating around the… the…”
She broke off with a wheeze, pressing a hoof tenderly against her flank. one of the charred patches was near her throat, and Twilight had a sudden vision of the kind of damage that could have happened to her mother’s lungs.
“We need to get her to a medic.” Twilight snapped, shoving herself between Celestia and Luna. She stamped her own hoof on the stone, making the metal shoe chime loudly. “Whatever happened can wait until she is safe.”
“Twilight, she can’t be mov-”
Twilight shouted despite herself as a little of her quenched rage flaring to life. “She is my mother, and if I have to blow your light damned door off its hinges to help her then I WILL!”
Celestia blinked slowly at Twilight, lavender eyes wide. Twilight saw something flicker deep in those ancient eyes, something she had never seen in them before. Pain, loss, sorrow. Some deep, agonized feeling swept across the face of the ancient mate, before she looked down.
“I will be fine, Little Star.” Cadance said, her voice stronger than it had been a moment ago. The rasping wheeze that had accompanied every one of her breaths faded also, replaced by a steadier and deeper breathing that abruptly stopped when Twilight threw herself at the bed.
“Cadance!” Twilight yelled, throwing herself at the bed. She stopped, just before colliding with the injured mare, and gently wrapped her legs around her, giving the other unicorn a gentle hug.
“Celestia, what happened.” Luna asked, stepping closer to the other Princess as Twilight clung to Cadance.
“I,” Celestia began, ashamed. “I lost control of my temper.”
Luna’s chest rose with a calming breath, nodding her head in understanding.
For Twilight, this explanation left something to be desired. “What do you mean, lost your temper?” she gritted out, trying to stay calm.
“Our tempers are… similar, Twilight. We are both very, passionate, when roused.”
“She means,” Cadance said, gently nuzzling Twilight, “that when she’s angry, she tends to set everything on fire.”
Luna nodded absently, tilting her head. “Yes, though I have only seen her truly angered once before. Am I to assume that this too is treachery?”
As she spoke, Luna pressed against Twilight’s mental barrier, just enough to slip a stray thought into her mind. L’Etoile, please. Stay silent for now.
Twilight shifted against her adopted mother, giving Luna a slight nod.
Across from Luna, Celestia winced. Slowly, her head bobbed, but the older mare didn’t look up. “Yes. Cadance found information that is… disturbing. The dragon’s are not here to fight.”
“What!” Luna yelped. After a moment, her eyes narrowed. She and Twilight both began running through possibilities.
“Don’t.” Cadance said, with a rough chuckle. “I can tell you what’s going on. The dragon’s want to return to their breeding ground. Their ONLY breeding ground. It has been a barren field for longer than anypony would believe. They’ve been dying out ever since the magic was sealed away from them.”
“That can’t be.” Twilight objected, immediately. “We have reports of young dragons raiding the Southern Border for centuries. If they can’t breed, how can there be young dragons?”
“Because they don’t breed like we do. Dragon eggs are the next thing to indestructible. And the dragon inside will sleep for years, sometimes centuries, before being hatched. Even the dragons don’t know what makes them hatch. But ever since the breeding ground was destroyed, they’ve been slowly dying out. They finally have a way to restore their way of life. The only reason that they are bringing older and more experienced warriors is because they saw our preparations. They never intended to invade us.”
As she spoke, the roughness to her voice began to fade. Her words took on the same faint lyrical tone that always marked her speech. And though the fur her legs were gently wrapped around was still tacky with blood and other fluids, Twilight didn’t feel the hot edges of the burns when she shifted her weight to look up at her mother.
“Cadance?” Twilight asked, detaching herself from the mare. She stared hard at the smooth flank before her. Her eyes shifted back up to meet fearful blue, confusion clear. “How are you healing so quickly?”
“I…” she said, wincing. She turned to Princess Celestia, seeming to ask something without speaking. The white mare sighed, looking away from Twilight.
Slowly, she nodded her head, striding over to the wide windows. Her back to the bed, staring out at the darkness of the night.
“Twilight?” Cadance asked, voice soft. “Look into my eyes.”
Twilight turned, tearing her eyes away from the white form by the windows. To Cadance. To where her mother, her sister, her best friend, had been sitting a moment ago.
Smooth, black chitin gleamed in the light. Long, slender lines of neck and legs lay on the bed, joints oddly mounded with what looked like armored plates. A pair of dainty, wickedly sharp fangs peeked out from her lips, at the end of her sharp muzzle. The stubby horn of a unicorn lengthened, growing thinner as it curved up from her brow. Small, jagged grooves formed, the tips of the circular divots wickedly sharp.
But her eyes were the same. The deep, loving blue eyes that Twilight had known all her life. A blue as deep and warm as the sea, teeming with life. But those eyes stared out at her from a face more alien than any she had ever seen.