//------------------------------//
// Archive Eight 
// Story: Beneath Distant Stars 
// by PeppyJoe 
//------------------------------//

"...And next week we'll be starting our discussion of the Ancient Years, before nearly everypony and everything vanished in a day.  Can anypony quickly tell me what you know about life back then?"  A sea of hooves went up.  "Yes, Stalwart?"

"Food grew all over the place and there were silly animals everywhere and nopony had video games!" the young colt proclaimed, prompting a laugh from his teacher and classmates.

"Yes, that's quite right, my dear.  And does anypony know the name of our Commander from those days, who used his magic to create food and invent wonderful things for all ponykind?"  Once more, every hoof was raised.  "Yes, Thatch Roof?"

With a tone of youthful adoration and pride, the colt declared "Discord!"





Thatch Roof hoisted Focus to his hooves; there was a moment of uncertainty as to whether the unicorn could actually stay standing, but Amethyst Pear stepped up alongside him and helped to support his weight.  "This changes things," Thatch said.

"I agree.  This planet is perhaps not the haven of civility it presents itself as."  He paused as a guard appeared outside the hole in the window and shouted something to somepony out of sight.  "This warrants further discussion, but first we'll have to handle this mess."

In the following several minutes, a veritable swarm of guards came pouring in through the windows and doors, taking no hostile action but positioning themselves to clearly prevent the instigators from fleeing.  Soon, one of the staff translators arrived, exchanged a few words with the guards, and then turned to their guests.  "If you'll please accompany these ponies back to your rooms, the princess will be here shortly."

He didn't specify which princess, and nopony felt particularly inclined to ask for clarification, so each party filed out quietly and returned to their rooms.

On their way back, Thatch saw Lime Cliff being carried away on a stretcher by a pair of palace guards.  He felt a tinge of anger at the unicorns for what they had done, but it was now tempered by a sense of kinship.  Here, so far from home and living in a palace proudly displaying the murder of their deity, their quarrel suddenly seemed insignificant.

The wait for the soon-to-arrive princess wound up lasting nearly three hours, finally concluded when a pair of guards came through the guest wing and collected each of the five ponies present.  They were then led to the same courtyard where the fight had transpired, where a collection of ponies now stood waiting.  A number of guards stood around the perimeter and flanked either side of both entryways now, and Princess Celestia and the Unicornian crew stood in the middle of the yard, talking.

The princess said something final to them as the pegasi entered before nodding and turning to look them over.  They had halted just beyond the door-frame, bunched together and hesitant to advance further.  After a moment of studying them, she began speaking in perfect Erisian.  "At last, we meet.  Let me begin by welcoming you, both to Equestria and to my palace here in Canterlot."  She paused after placing special emphasis on the possessive term, pointedly looking up at the shattered window next to them, before dryly adding, "Make yourself at home."

Turning, she paced the length of the courtyard to stand alongside the outer wall, speaking as she went.  "Few ponies can claim to surprise me anymore; after thousands of years, many things become predictable.  Routine.  Your arrival here surprised me.  I am disappointed to say that your actions this evening did not."

"I have already spoken with Focus and his ponies," she noted, gesturing towards them with a wing, "And he has taken full responsibility for what transpired here."

Before he could even think to do otherwise, Thatch Roof was blurting out, "Princess, that's not entirely true.  We are equally at fault."

A hint of surprise flickered across the faces of both Celestia and the unicorn crew, though it was far more poorly concealed with the latter group.  "An honorable thing to say, captain.  I find such conflicts are hardly ever so one-sided as to leave the other side free from blame."  The princess frowned, glancing up at the full moon overhead.  "I'm pleased that you both seem to have recognized this folly, and if the cost is but one window, I shall pay it gladly."

Thatch nodded, trying to keep a level head despite the overwhelming amount of relief he was feeling.  It was plain what the princess wanted to hear, and it was not terribly far from the truth.  "Yes, thank you.  I think we may have finally found some common ground tonight.  We came here as ambassadors and explorers, and our conflicts have no place on your world.  That much has become very clear now."  Finished speaking, he looked to his Unicornian counterpart to close the deal.

"He speaks the truth.  Our nations could learn something from yours; it is no wonder that Equestria is so idyllic when every unpleasantry can be resolved in such a peaceful manner."

The princess's proud smile faltered slightly with Focus's last words, but she recovered her serene appearance so quickly that it was difficult to be certain anything had happened.  "Then let us put this matter behind us and retire for the evening, and I'll inform the kitchen staff that tomorrow night we shall all be dining together."  She clapped a hoof down on the cobbled walkway with an air of finality before nodding to one of her guards and taking wing.  The guard issued an order in Equestrian and then left the courtyard through one of the guest wings with the rest of his soldiers in tow, leaving only the Erisians still in the courtyard.

All nine of them, sans Lime Cliff who was still presumably receiving medical treatment, stared at each other for a short while, unsure what to do.  Finally, Thatch just shook his head and sighed.  "We should all get some rest.  We can talk in the morning."





The crew of the Guiding Wing were all awake by sunrise, in accordance with the militant schedule they usually kept.  White Noise was slow to climb out of bed, as was their group ritual, but by the time he wandered into the common area a half-hour later he found all five of his crewmates having breakfast.

"Lime, you're back!"

"Yeah, they magicked my wing together real nicely.  Kept me at the hospital for observation overnight, but I'm great!  They said I'm even flight-worthy."  He frowned, taking another bite of his bagel and continuing around his mouthful, "Everyone's been catching me up on what Celestia said last night, and where we're at with the 'Corns."

"And, heads-up, Crystal's got a silence spell around the room, so speak freely."

Noise took a seat on one of the pillows around the table and grabbed a box of oats from the center.  Turning to Thatch Roof, he asked, "Right, where exactly are we at with them?"

The captain sighed.  "It's hard to say until we meet with them this morning, but just the fact that we're on speaking terms at all is definitely progress.  If we're going to figure out this Discord thing, and potentially make it home under less-than-hospitable circumstances, we may well need them."

Crystal chimed in at that, echoing Thatch's words.  "'Less than hospitable'?  How do you figure that happening?"

"These ponies clearly revel in his defeat; if they learn that we came here looking for him, it could provoke them against us."

"It just doesn't make sense to me," Patch added.  "Why would they hate Discord?  They seem, for all intents and purposes, like perfectly decent ponies."

"Decent, perhaps, but clearly backwards and clearly with something to hide.  This inane monarchical system of 'rule-by-those-with-the-most-appendages' can't possibly be sustaining the economy such a sprawling nation suggests.  I think they've been putting up a facade for us."  Scowling, Thatch pushed his empty plate away and shifted back on his pillow.  "If Discord found these ponies, and discovered what they were doing...  What if he tried to intervene, tried to free these ponies from the tyranny, and they killed him to protect their station."

"Do you even hear yourself?" Crystal Clear demanded angrily.  "We've all met the so-called tyrants you're discussing, and there's nothing tyrannical about them at all!  One's a dork and one's... whatever the buck you'd call Celestia!  Understanding and peaceful, at least!"

Thatch looked ready to retort, but before he could, Stem Bolt noted contemplatively, "I expect I could put up a pretty solid poker face if I'd had thousands of years to perfect it..."

The discussion began to devolve from that point, continuing for a short while with everypony yelling at everypony else.  Eventually, Thatch cut it off and the crew made its way to the courtyard, where the unicorns had yet to arrive.  With the debate interrupted, nopony was quite sure what to talk about, so they largely sat in unresolved silence waiting for the other party.

They wound up waiting an hour and a half, before Amethyst Pear finally pushed their door open and staggered out, blinking, into the sunlight.

"Woah, you all are already awake?"





Once Amethyst had awoken the rest of her companions and apologized for their delay—she was always the early riser, she explained—everypony assembled in the courtyard and began the long process of deciding what to do.  Eventually, the idea of a preemptive escape was proposed, and several means of doing so were put forward.

"As we've already established, there's been no sign of hostility from these ponies yet.  Why should we sneak out like thieves in the night, unprovoked?"  Crystal Clear and White Noise both nodded in agreement with Florence Flask's point.

"They have not acted directly aggressive towards us, granted, but I cannot abide staying here any longer with the knowledge of what they've done.  It is only a matter of time before they realize our connection with Discord and kill us as they did him."  Thatch answered, but he and Focus appeared to be largely in agreement on the matter, and were just letting the debate run its course given the magnitude of the decision.

"Why," Crystal asked, "don't we just tell them we need to leave, then?"

"Because the warm reception we've had so far could very easily end the moment they realize they're going to lose access to our technology.  Undoubtedly, they've been studying it while we're away."  Focus's horn lit up as he projected a diagram of their ship in the air.  "It seems abundantly clear that we need to leave, so if you are in agreement, Thatch Roof, let us turn this dialogue to more productive efforts.  I must say right now, I do not believe my crew will be able to make it home without the help of your own."

Thatch nodded to Crystal, who in turn projected an image of their own ship.  "We'll need to rely on your aid as well, I suspect.  And you're right, it is clear that this is what we must do; let's figure out how."





Eighteen hours later...

The sound of breaking glass rang out through the streets of the Canterlot Underside.  In this part of the city, in the lower-lying and subterranean parts where much of the industrial and criminal elements thrived, breaking glass was not an uncommon sound at night.  Nor, for that matter, were shouting, loud music, or screams.

At the source of the noise were five pegasi and a unicorn in a warehouse.  The unicorn had cut through the lock on the exterior door and the pegasi had been maneuvering carefully around the various towering-high shelves in search of the right item, but one of them had just clipped a box by mistake and sent it tumbling to the ground.  Upon impact, thousands of tiny glass gemstone fragments spilled out and across the floor, eliciting a wince from everyone present.

"We're probably on the clock now," a pegasus mare announced.

The search continued for several minutes more before one of them called out, "Got it!" and the unicorn stallion trotted over, wrapping the identified package in his magic and lowering it to the ground.  Once finished, he forced the lid open and peered inside.

"Yeah, looks good.  What do you think?"  He held one of the items up in his telekinesis for the others to see.

Thatch Roof came to a landing just in front of it, his face illuminated by the brightly glowing, hoof-sized, star-cut diamonds that sparked with arcane power.  "Good, that should do nicely.  You'll take it from here, Top Notch?"