//------------------------------// // 11 // Story: Seven Lights // by Fresnor //------------------------------// Aegis Flare groaned as she crawled her way out of bed and reached for the pitcher of tea that she placed nearby the night before. As she downed the first glass she sighed as her headache started to dull and after the second it was easy to ignore. Looking out her bedroom window she sighed before preparing for her little chat with her friend Twilight. Expecting a larger headache later on, she filled up a larger thermos with the restorative tea so that it would stay cool. Knowing that Twilight often was up late and slept well into the morning she took her time getting her sister ready for school and worked at cleaning up the house a little. As she was prepared to leave for the library a sound from the attic drew her attention. She looked up in confusion for a moment before her eyes widened and she let out a rare smile as she realized what the sound meant. Passing through the kitchen to snag a couple bananas she made her way up to the attic and smiled at what she found. “Well look who finally returned after being gone for the last few months. I was starting to worry that something had happened to you. Here, I brought you a treat.” The creature hidden in the shadows squeaked in thanks before letting out a yawning noise. Smiling once more the unicorn ran a hoof through its fur before leaving it to sleep. With the situation boosting her mood she made her way out of the house and trotted in the direction of the library. Once there she found Spike awake and in the kitchen cooking something up, but no sign of Twilight so she moved over to talk with him. “Hey Spike, have you seen Twilight?” The young dragon glanced over from his work and rolled his eyes. “Hey Flare. She’s still asleep right now since she was up all night researching something. I give her an hour at the most before she wakes up though if you want to wait.” Nodding to the dragon the orange unicorn makes her way out into the main part of the library and browses through the books for something to read. One catches her eye and she brings it over to a nearby table and pours a cup of tea from the thermos she brought before settling down. She snorted at the first page which drew Spike’s attention when he came out of the kitchen with a plate of food. “What? Is something wrong over there?” The orange unicorn looks up to at him before shaking her head and looking back to the book. “Oh, nothing much. It’s just amusing how inaccurate this book is and it claims to be the best resource on the Everfree Forest. Yet I can already say much of this is wrong just based on my first week in the forest. This thing belongs in the fiction section and not where I found it.” Spike came over to look over her shoulder for a moment before moving on to set the food he was carrying on a nearby table before heading back to the kitchen. Moments later the door at the top of the stairs opened and Twilight came marching down the stairs wearing a robe. Aegis Flare watched as the other unicorn made her way to the table and planted her face into it as she sat down. “Good Morning, Twilight.” The only answer she earned from her greeting was a bunch of nonsensical syllables. Soon Spike came out of the kitchen with a pot of coffee and a mug which he filled and set in front of the half-awake unicorn. On seeing the orange unicorn looking at the two with a raised eyebrow he explained. “She doesn’t do well in the morning until she gets her coffee. The last time she tried to do anything without it she nearly ended up burning down the kitchen.” Twilight let out a small moan of pleasure when she smelled the coffee and took her first sip of it. The fluid did much to wake her up and she leveled a light glare at her assistant. “Do you have to mention that every time somepony seems interested?” As she continued with her breakfast Aegis Flare flipped through the book looking for anything to redeem it before she set it aside as useless. “I really hope there is something better in here about the Everfree and creatures of the Everfree. This one is worse than worthless since much of it is just rumor and the rest is inaccurate.” At the confused look of the two she reopened the book to a random page and started reading from it. “’Once you go deep enough it becomes impossible to escape from the Everfree Forest as even more dangerous creatures are guaranteed to find you.’ That is wrong and in fact it is sometimes safer as you go deeper since something keeps the worst monsters out of parts of it. If you don’t know about what is going on you can get caught in one of the areas as it changes sending you who knows where across the world.” Not seeing any understanding she sighed and explained further. “Something is wrong with the Everfree and circular areas of different sizes appear and reappear over time. I’ve seen the common creatures of the forest stop at the edge of those places even if they are chasing after something else. That gazelle really was rather lucky, but it took a month for its town to be sent back to where they belong. It explains pretty well why there is such a variety of plant-life in there since multiple places end up there.” Twilight looked rather conflicted as she pondered over this before she shook her head. “As interesting as that is, and I will be asking about it again later, we have something else planned for today don’t we? We have a lot of things to go over today since you agreed to answer all my questions.” Spike looked at the orange unicorn in pity as she was ushered down towards the basement by Twilight. She soon found herself hooked up to a machine that she knew nothing about while Twilight looked at the readouts with ink and parchment floating in front of her. Aegis Flare wasn’t sure how long she was down there but she eventually decided to speak up. “So what does all this have to do with those question you wanted to ask me anyways?” Twilight let out a little noise as she looked up from her machine before blushing a bit and looking down again. “Oh, um, well...” She sighs before turning towards the other unicorn fully. “I guess I went a little overboard again but after seeing what you did I was curious just how strong you were in magic. But for some reason my machines are barely registering anything so I tried another and another but the results don’t look right, they are too low.” She stops for a moment and takes a closer look at Aegis Flare as her gaze slowly climbs to settle on the slightly blackened horn. A hoof slowly rises to her face as she realizes something. “Of course you still haven’t recovered yet from what you did that day so you would register low for now. Right, enough of this then and on to the questions.” As Twilight started digging through the stacks of scrolls on one of her desks, Aegis Flare rolled her eyes as she divested herself of the wires strapped to her and taking another sip of her tea. Soon Twilight found what she was looking for and she sat across from her friend. “Well the first thing I have to ask is when you first showed that you could use large amounts of fire-based magic. That should have been when you were to be registered on the list in Canterlot.” Aegis Flare closed her eyes a moment as her thoughts turned back to that moment and she held back a shudder of fear. “That’s rather easy since it was one of my earliest memories though it was a bit hazy. My parents found me out in the Everfree being attacked by timberwolves and I was holding them back with a shield made of fire. I still don’t remember much from before that but the next thing I remembered after that was waking up in a hospital covered with bandages.” Twilight glanced at the scars on her friend’s throat and legs as she absently rubbed at them and winced when she remembered what she was told before continuing on to the next question. “That’s… something… What are your parent’s names anyways? Normally that would have been listed with everything else but since you weren’t on the list then they aren’t there either.” “Well I can’t say about my birth parents since they were never found, but I was adopted soon after that event by Vanator and Bella Donna. They vanished a few years back and not even the princess knows what happened to them.” Twilight looks at her with an odd look for a moment. ”Now why would the princess know anything about…” She was cut off when the door separating the library and basement slammed open revealing Spike. Twilight jumped a bit at the interruption which caused her to jostle one of her desks she used for her various experiments. “Spike! What did I say about just barging in here like that? You could have interrupted something important and…” Her attention was pulled away by a rattling sound and the scent of smoke forcing her to look at the desk she hit to see one of the beakers shaking erratically with an empty one on its side above it. Seeing this, her eyes widened as she grabbed Aegis Flare in her magic and started running for the stairs. “SPIKE! CODE E! CODE E!” Spike’s eyes widened when he heard this and he dove back through the door as the other two charged up the stairs. Before they could get through an explosion wracked the basement sending the two flying into the library and into the bookshelves opposite the room. Aegis Flare dug her way out from under the books and glared at Twilight as she glared at Spike. The dragon looked back at the two sheepishly as he held up a scroll in his claws. “Uh, letter from the princess?” Twilight vanished from where she was and appeared next to Spike where she grabbed the scroll up in her magic. She quickly ripped it open and read through it before she squinted and shook her head. “I’ll talk to you later about this Spike. Come on Flare, we have a dragon to get rid of?” As the purple unicorn ran out of the library, the orange one just looked after her in shock for a moment before she shook it off. “Wait, a dragon? What are you talking about? Twilight?!” Seeing as she wasn’t paying attention, Aegis Flare took off after her in hope to get more information. <><><><><><><> Seven friends trudged their way back into town after their little trip up and down a mountain. They were all rather weary and wanted to find somewhere to rest, but it still didn’t stop them from keeping up a conversation as shown by Aegis Flare’s complaints. “I still can’t believe that the princess would send us against a dragon that old without any sort of real backup.” The others rolled their eyes at her while Rarity tried to calm her down. “Come on darling, we managed to take care of the problem so she obviously knew what she was doing. Now why don’t we stop by the spa so that we can all get cleaned up and relax?” The orange unicorn sighed but she still nodded though not all the ponies seemed enthusiastic about going. It took a little convincing but Rainbow Dash grudgingly agreed to go as well but would only do the bare minimum of things there. Soon after a bit of pampering and cleaning the seven were all seated in one of the larger tubs in the spa to relax for the rest of their stay. Six of them were calmly chatting away while the orange unicorn of the group was still deep in thought before she finally spoke. “I still want to know why the princess sent us instead of sending in the Black Guard or another group that is trained to deal with dragons.” Her words caused varied reaction from her friends, but the most prevalent involved them rolling their eyes. “Darling, you do know that the Black Guard isn’t real right? It’s just something some silly ponies came up with to try and make the princess look bad by blaming problems on a secret organization.” Aegis Flare brought a hoof up to her face while Twilight stared at her thoughtfully as something was bothering her about the situation. Most of the others just shook their heads in amusement, but Fluttershy looked over at the orange unicorn in shock at her next words. “~Oh, right. My parents did say that their job was a bit secretive and its existence wasn’t common knowledge.~” As she didn’t speak in Equestrian Common the other five stared at her in confusion for a moment. “What was that again? It sounded strangely familiar but I can’t quite place why.” Aegis Flare was about to respond to Rarity but was beaten to it by Fluttershy which surprised her. “Um, that was in Thestrali, Rarity. And she said something about her parents and their job being very secretive.” When she noticed her friends staring at her she hid behind her mane again and was relieved when Twilight spoke up and drew the attention away from her. “That’s it! That’s why Flare wasn’t listed anywhere like she should have been! Her parents were part of the Black Guard! All written records of them are removed and only the princess’ personal library has any records of them. That’s why their names were so familiar to me earlier; they are the Joint Commanders of the Black Guard!” The others were a bit shocked at her words, even Aegis Flare who didn’t expect any of them to know much of anything of the group though she didn’t know her parent’s rank. “What? Princess Celestia had me sit on a few meetings with various branches of the guard and I have a few connections that knew about them.” The others didn’t know quite what to say at first but Rainbow Dash was the first to recover. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! You mean that the princess really does have a group of secret agents and Flare’s parents were the leaders of it?” At Twilight’s nod the cyan pegasus stares at Aegis Flare for a moment before breaking out into a grin. “That. Is so. AWESOME!” This broke the tension in the room as her reaction earned a few chuckles. As one of the spa ponies walked by, Applejack thought of something that she had to voice. “If that group is supposed ta be so secretive then should we really be talking about them in a place like this?” The others looked around with a worried look until they turned to look at the unfamiliar sound of Aegis Flare’s light laughter. It took her a moment to contain herself but she eventually was able to explain. “Remember how Twilight said before that there are those keeping an eye on those on that list? Well there are also a couple groups that the princess employs to keep an eye out for those same ponies while they work their normal jobs. Aloe and Lotus happen to be part of one of those groups that work out of Ponyville.” All the ponies except her and Twilight look in shock at the two who just smile and bow as they continue with their work around the spa. When they all could recover from their shock and settled down again they started to speak again. “Well that certainly was a surprise. I never would have guess that your parents were part of that group. I always thought that if they were real it would be full of brutes and criminals.” Aegis Flare gave her a look as she considered her words before surprising her with a nod. “That’s actually pretty accurate now that I think about it. It kind of makes sense that my parents were leaders of it as they told me they were often sent out as diplomats before anything else. Much of the Black Guard originally started out as criminals or violent ponies of some sort. Instead of being sent to a prison or something they were given a chance to use their talents to serve Equestria and most often they are happy being a part of it and never break the law again.” At the looks the others were giving her she rolled her eyes. “What? I learned a lot from my father about it, though mom always gave him these looks when he caught him. Why else would I know more about dragons than Twilight did, even if it wasn’t that much?” They all think back to earlier that day. vvvvvvv “That is a big dragon, why are we being sent after an adult dragon unprepared? We can’t really impress it with a show of strength with what we have and I’m not sure what this one specifically respects.” Her friends look at her in confusion before they turn back to Twilight who just shrugs and goes back to laying out her plan. She has Aegis Flare come in with her for an attempt at negotiations as it is the safer option and she was still lacking her magic. ^^^^^^^ “Anyways the Black Guard would normally be sent in to deal with something like this. So why were we sent there instead of one of them?” She climbed out of the pool to dry off and took her place on a nearby bench so that the twins could have another go at clearing off the scorching from her horn. Her friends watched her as they assimilated her words and started to wonder the same thing as well.