“Are you sure they can’t get in here?”
“No.”
The hushed voices carried from the tower’s doorway. The first, female, Twilight didn’t recognize. The second she tentatively identified as Ash Scribe, Celestia’s seneschal.
“Then why—”
“Do you have any better ideas?”
Twilight reluctantly let her eyelids slide open. Her old tower in Canterlot was instantly recognizable even looking straight up at the ceiling. It was not where she’d gone to sleep, however, if she remembered correctly. In fact, she hadn’t been in here at all since her return. The place looked like it hadn’t been touched aside from dusting since she’d last used it, centuries ago. Why hadn’t they found some other purpose for it in the intervening years? It wasn’t as if there was abundant free space in Canterlot. She put that question out of her mind almost as quickly as it had occurred to her, suspecting that the answer came with more guilt than she was prepared for at the moment.
How long had she been asleep? There were no convenient indicators in view. The angle of light streaming in the single giant window suggested it was late afternoon, which should have told her something, but she realized she didn’t recall what time of day she’d fallen asleep.
“Just stay away from the window,” Ash Scribe cautioned.
That was an interesting tip. What were these ponies hiding from? Twilight remained still, waiting for more information before she announced her presence. For a few moments, she heard only the sounds of two nervous ponies fidgeting near the doorway.
“What are you doing?” asked the mare whose voice Twilight didn’t recognize.
“Writing a message for Princess Celestia.”
“And how exactly are you going to get it to her?”
Ash Scribe didn’t respond for a moment. Twilight assumed he was busy writing.
“I want to have it ready if the opportunity presents itself.”
“Whatever,” the other said, her sullen, defeatist tone grating against Twilight’s ears.
“Maybe we can wake Princess Twilight,” Ash said, sounding preoccupied.
“Do you really think that’s a good idea? I’ve been hearing things about her from my friends in the fleet.”
“You’re right. We’d better just wait here for the changelings to find us, instead,” Ash replied sarcastically.
Changelings? That was new. She probably ought to get up and find out what she’d missed. She climbed out of bed, unnoticed by either of her visitors. They both stood a few paces from the door, as if afraid to venture further into the tower’s main chamber. Ash was concentrating on a paper and quill that floated before him, while his companion, an earth pony mare in city guard armor, glared at him as if their entire situation was his fault.
“I’m just saying. We were fine with two princesses, now we have another one out of nowhere, and all this stuff is happening. Big coincidence, huh?”
“You might have your cause and effect backwards.”
“Yeah, okay. I know you palace ponies are trained from birth to worship the ground any of them walks on, but just for a moment—”
“I’ll take the message,” Twilight interrupted.
Both ponies jumped, then looked in alarm to where she stood next to the foot of her bed.
“It kind of sounds like time might be factor here,” Twilight said after another moment’s stunned silence.
“Yes, Princess,” Ash said, hurriedly walking across the room to deliver the note.
Twilight unfolded it, read it, then casually walked to the window. The note didn’t add significant detail to what Twilight had already gathered; a sudden invasion, guard forces overwhelmed, et cetera. “I assume that Celestia is not in Canterlot, then?”
“No, Your Highness. She’s in Baltimare Bay with the fleet — or she was last I knew. We also received word of a mammoth invasion to the south, so she might have gone there.”
“What’s going on in Baltimare Bay?”
“A large attack force — they think the dragons sent it.”
“Busy day,” Twilight grumbled as she looked out at the city. She lifted a hoof to point at a group of changelings harrying fleeing ponies on the streets far below. “See the yellow bands on the legs and the oversized mandibles? That’s how you can tell this is Queen Vespida’s brood. You know, we use the term ‘changeling’ because the first ones we met were Chrysalis’ brood, but most broods have only rudimentary mimicry capabilities, if that. In this brood’s case, the emotional energy they feed on…”
Twilight trailed off as she realized both ponies were staring at her with an improbable blend of boredom and anxiety. “Right, you don’t care. And neither of you are pegasi, so you can’t even see them from here anyway. Wasted lecture. Got it. How long was I out?”
Ash Scribe seemed to count back the days in his head for a moment, then answered. “Five and a half days, Your Highness.”
Twilight concealed her alarm as best she could. Granted, those tortuous dreams had seemed eternal, but they always did and had never before cost her more than a night of real time. “And have all of those days been this eventful?”
“No, Princess.”
“Well, that’s something.” Twilight looked out the window again, trying to get a sense of exactly how badly things were going. “I assume that if you’re here, they’ve taken the palace?”
“Probably,” Ash said. “It didn’t look good when I got out. We have hardly any defense in the city with the fleet and princesses gone.”
“See any invaders other than changelings?”
“I didn’t see any,” Ash said uncertainly. “I was mostly concentrating on getting out of their way though.”
“And you?” Twilight asked, addressing the guardsmare.
“Nothing but bugs,” she said, avoiding eye contact.
The mare’s discomfort with Twilight was nothing new. Many, especially in the military, hadn’t taken well to her return. When she’d been hardly more than a filly, she’d seen similar prejudice towards Luna. There was a sort, particularly common in certain circles, that revered the status quo more highly than the princesses themselves; if they grew up with only two princesses, there should always be only two princesses. Twilight suspected that she had only escaped similar treatment after her ascension by virtue of the fact that the ponies who would have resented her were the same ones that never took her seriously in the first place.
“Alright,” Twilight said. “I suppose I’d better get to work then. You two should be fine in here.”
“Aren’t you going to inform Princess Celestia?” Ash asked.
Twilight took a deep breath as she contained her irritation. Celestia was Ash’s security blanket and he didn’t know Twilight beyond an introduction and a few cursory greetings in the course of his duties over the past few weeks. Of course he’d prefer if Celestia was involved.
“Celestia is busy,” Twilight said.
“You don’t know—”
“Celestia is busy.” Twilight stepped past him and toward the door. “Just stay calm and they won’t bother you. This won’t take long.”
The part of Twilight’s lecture she hadn’t completed included details on how Vespida’s brood was actually the easiest of all known broods to fight. They fed on fear, which had two important consequences. One, they relied heavily on seeming dangerous, but rarely actually harmed anypony — that risked tainting the fear with anger, pain, or worst of all, determination. Two, once their false threat was exposed, they tended as a group to fall apart.
Twilight hadn’t expected to see this particular brood inside Equestria’s borders after the last time. Clearly someone had convinced their queen it would be a good idea, a thought which was much more disturbing than the soon-to-be-ended occupation of Canterlot. An attack in Baltimare, timed to match a so-called mammoth invasion — Twilight had her doubts about that — and leave Canterlot helpless before a brood of changelings, which had suddenly overcome its centuries-old avoidance of all things pony.
Someone was pulling far too many strings, and she needed a way to follow those strings back to their origin. She knew she’d find the elder dragon behind it all — that wasn’t the issue. The question was how the dragons were projecting such influence. Changelings, mammoths, the previously undetected resurgence of the wyverns. Even the gryphons, who days ago had begun poking at Equestria’s borders along with the dragons, should have known better.
Twilight had nearly finished descending the spiral stairs from her tower’s doorway before she was spotted. That she was unhurried and showed no sign of distress seemed to confuse the first group that approached her. The deep thrumming of their translucent wings and the clacking of their mandibles were meant to intimidate, but Twilight continued casually on her way, her eyes not even pausing as they passed over the group to survey the city beyond.
The streets were bare of ponies here. Those who hadn’t been rounded up by the invaders were doubtless hiding inside their homes. A pity; if more of her ponies could see this, she’d have an easier time depriving the changelings of their food source. If she couldn’t at least lessen the fear in the city, Vespida would be at near full strength when they met. That kind of confrontation was too dangerous — she couldn’t spend all afternoon fighting here, and the risk of collateral damage was too high besides. She needed to weaken the queen before she could act.
The most likely place to find a good concentration ponies that hadn’t yet been captured was the row of estates that backed up against the slope of Canterlot Peak itself. Its occupants, all established nobility, called that area ‘Old Canterlot’, though of course the entire city was approximately the same age. High walls and garden mazes surrounded ostentatious mansions that were hopefully packed with large families and live-in staff.
As she reached the bottom of the stairs and turned in that direction, the drones moved on her. She wondered if they recognized her, or at least recognized that she was an alicorn. It had been long enough since their brood had met equines of any kind that a pony was probably a pony in their eyes. She didn’t react visibly to their approach until they landed directly in front of her. It might have been interesting to see what they would have done if she’d just kept walking, but she didn’t really have time for that experiment.
Without even a glance of acknowledgement, Twilight plucked the changelings from the ground and held them tightly in a purple glob of energy that followed behind her as she continued on her way. From far enough away, she might look like a prancing filly with a set of novelty balloons on a string. She met another few stragglers on her way to the first residence she called upon, and they promptly joined the collection.
The gate of that first residence was, of course, unmanned; the guard had either retreated inside the house or been rounded up with most of the other ponies in the city when the changelings had first arrived. Twilight reached out with her magic to pull the lever at the empty guard station and the gate slid back into a hollowed portion of the stone wall that ran the perimeter of the estate.
In contrast to the quaint cobblestone of Canterlot’s streets, the path from the gate to the estate’s front door was composed of brick in two slightly different shades of deep red, laid in a checkerboard pattern. Meticulously groomed shrubs of exactly equal height were planted along it to either side at regular intervals. It spoke to a love of control and predictability; not a psychological makeup that would serve very well today, but about what she would expect from Canterlot’s old money.
She gave the door three sharp knocks upon reaching it, then gazed idly at her collected changelings as she waited. They buzzed in frustration from within her grip, but had long since stopped struggling. After a moment, she gave the door another knock. She didn’t actually expect the occupants to answer it, she was only giving them a bit of warning before she came in. After a third knock, she carefully unhinged the door, set it against the side of the house, and caught the pitchfork and rake that came flying out toward her. She set these against the door with neither alarm nor offense and beamed a smile at her would-be attackers.
“Hi. I’m Princess Twilight Sparkle and I’m collecting changelings. Do you have any to spare today?”
The two stallions in the doorway — servants, judging by their attire — gaped and said nothing. Confusion replaced terror in their eyes as they saw her floating collection of prisoners bobbing lazily in the air behind her. That was a start, at least.
“Is the lord or lady of the house in, by chance?” she asked.
“Uh…” answered the older looking of the two.
“I’m Lord Paddock,” said a voice from behind them. The servants stepped aside to make way for the brown-on-white spotted stallion, who hesitantly emerged into the sunlight. He offered the standard not-quite-bow of the nobility — interesting to see that it hadn’t changed over the years — then his eyes locked on the changelings behind Twilight just as the others’ had. “Collecting changelings, you say,” he murmured.
“As you can see.”
“Yes, as I can see,” he said, shaking his head as if to clear it and refocusing on Twilight. “I’m afraid we don’t have any at the moment. It’s an honor to meet you, though, Your Highness.”
He frowned then, as if suddenly realizing the absurdity of apologizing to a princess for not keeping any hated enemies under his roof.
“Well, that’s actually what I was hoping for,” Twilight said, her still-wide smile hopefully more reassuring than terrifying. “Do you think you can call your household out to go on a little walk with me?”
Paddock blinked at her, uncomprehending.
“See, there are a lot of scared ponies in the city right now, and I need that to stop. So I’m rounding up changelings — but I also need as many ponies as I can find to come with me, both so that I can protect them, and so that we can show the other ponies that there’s nothing to fear. It would really mean a lot to me, and Princess Celestia, and Princess Luna. I know nobles like yourself are always looking for ways to be helpful.”
Visions of royal commendation rose in Lord Paddock’s eyes and chased away his reservations. She probably should have just opened with that, but she was a bit rusty in dealing with this sort. Soon the family and its employees streamed out of the house, gawking alternately at Twilight and the changelings she still held with her magic.
The rest of the neighborhood went similarly, though the initial reactions became less violent as her following grew. Twilight had helped to save Canterlot many times, but this was the first time she’d felt like a door-to-door salesmare doing so. By the time she reached the last few houses, the ponies were coming out to meet her rather than waiting for her to knock on their doors. Doubtless they’d been watching her growing procession from the upper floors of their homes, and eventually decided she was a safer bet than any available alternative.
She’d also picked up a few more changelings along the way. Only small patrols and stragglers, but with the size of her collection now, there was no way they wouldn’t be missed. Vespida would also feel the lessening fear in the city by now. The hundred-and-fifty or so ponies that Twilight had coaxed into the streets weren’t a very significant portion of the city’s population, but it would be enough to be alarming.
Once the rest of Canterlot’s citizenry saw her following and her prisoners, it would be a major blow to the entire brood. She needed to make that happen before she was confronted by the queen, though, or she would still be too powerful to safely engage. It helped that the city was nearly empty save the palace complex at this point, but she still didn’t want to put more holes in it than necessary.
She plucked another few patrols out of the air as she led her bizarre parade toward the palace. They were becoming more frequent, and the drones more alert. Twilight wanted to hurry, but maintaining an image of unconcern was important to keep the ponies already following her calm. She’d just have to hope Vespida was feeling arrogant enough, after gorging on the city’s fear all afternoon, that she would ignore the warning signs until it was too late.
She was still several intersections away from the palace complex when the first coordinated response met her. Three dozen drones — roughly the same number she already held — swooped down at her from the roofs of the buildings lining the street, not hesitating when they saw either her following or her captives.
To take them as she had the others would be a stretch in the time available. Three dozen individual points of concentration, to go with the three dozen she was already maintaining. What alternative was there? She could teleport away slightly to give herself more time to prepare, but that would leave her ponies exposed, which wouldn’t do much for the problem of excess fear in the city. She could throw the drones she had at the drones she didn’t. It was almost an amusing idea, but probably not very practical. It would cause a lot of confusion, certainly, but then there would be seventy angry drones bearing down on her instead of just half that.
She could destroy them all. She didn’t want to do that. It wasn’t who she wanted to be. Escalation of violence on her part wouldn’t inspire mercy towards her ponies from other changelings in the city, either. The population would be at greater risk until such time as Twilight could rid Canterlot of every last changeling.
Time was running out. Frustrated that she couldn’t come up with anything better, Twilight projected an arcing shield before her in the path of the charging drones. They buzzed to a hovering stop before colliding with the shimmering barrier, and Twilight’s mind raced to find a palatable next move. She needed to buy time — more than just a few seconds.
She heard the gasps from behind her before she felt the crushing impact against her spine. This was exactly how she’d hoped it wouldn’t go. She blearily noted the crater of shattered cobblestone that had appeared around her, deduced that this new foe was much more than a drone or group of drones, and promptly teleported into the sky.
That was when everything fell apart. At the moment of impact, Twilight had lost her hold on the drones she’d collected, which they seemed to realize all at once. At about the same time the ponies in the street noticed that Twilight was gone, replaced by the changeling queen, and fell into panic. Vespida wore the euphoric grin that came from a full helping of true terror and the power it granted her. Twilight couldn’t fight her like this, and Vespida knew it.
It wasn’t ideal, but there might be a solution here. How reckless could the queen be at her peak power? Prior experience, starting with the famously uncautious Chrysalis, suggested that the sky was the limit.
“Vespida!” Twilight shouted, and the queen’s eyes snapped instantly to her.
The grin widened to an unsettling degree, one ponies were anatomically incapable of matching. Without a word, she shot toward Twilight, leading with her needle-like forelegs. Twilight took the hit on her own forelegs, the queen’s sharp appendages digging into her flesh until they met bone. Ignoring the pain, Twilight pulled Vespida into her grasp. Then, Canterlot was gone, replaced by snow covered mountains bathed in the dim blue light of the northern dusk.
Twilight extricated her legs from Vespida’s with a rough telekinetic push that sent the startled changeling tumbling onto the mountainside below. The changeling queen wilted almost instantly in the suddenly frigid air, robbed of both the emotional energy that fed her and the reassuring presence of her brood. The force of her fall pushed her through the thick layer of frozen snow that coated the mountain, then Twilight’s pursuing hooves drove her through several more feet of softer snow until she met rock-hard soil that hadn’t seen sunlight in generations.
Vespida laid prone for a few moments even after Twilight removed her hooves from the queen’s back and hovered above her expectantly in the newly made snow crater. Finally, Vespida rolled over with a grunt and glared balefully at Twilight.
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
Twilight wasn’t interested in arguing that point. “Whoever gave you the idea that it was a good time to hit Canterlot is not your friend.”
Vespida didn’t have any trouble understanding Twilight’s meaning. “You want to know who. It’ll cost you.”
“You and your brood will be allowed to leave Equestria.”
For a moment it seemed as if Vespida would argue for more, then she nodded her assent.
---
The cave was dark, so Twilight lit it. The sudden burst of lavender light may have been just a bit theatrical, but her host was not impressed.
“There you are,” he said, not looking up from his red scaled tail, which he appeared to be grooming. “I was beginning to wonder if you were coming at all.”
Twilight’s eyes narrowed as she reinforced the magical shield that surrounded her.
“No, it’s not a trap,” the dragon said dismissively. “I just wanted to talk to one of you, and I knew that our mutual friend would tell you exactly where to find me once you reminded her of her place. I didn’t expect it would be you, specifically, though — I thought maybe it would be your blue friend.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Twilight growled, still glancing around the cave warily. Even if it wasn’t a trap, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to be aware of her surroundings.
“Not at all. Now, on to business: I am… well, now that I think of it, I’ve never had a name that could be spoken in your tongue.”
“Carmine,” Twilight suggested, gesturing impatiently for the dragon to get to the point.
“Very well,” he said, nodding. “To you, I will be Carmine.”
“What is it you want, Carmine?”
“I was hoping to change the nature of our little conflict.”
Twilight gave him a skeptical look for a long moment. “You want to surrender?”
Carmine chuckled, the deep sound resonating rhythmically through the cave. “Not exactly. But it doesn’t take any great foresight to see how this ends. Even if we manage to destroy all of Equestria — which I doubt we would — there’s no getting rid of you three, is there? The most we can hope to accomplish is to make you angry, and remove all your reasons for restraint.” The dragon shook his head. “Not a goal for which I have any enthusiasm, personally.”
Twilight frowned. “You’re defecting?”
“I’d rather not call it that, if it’s all the same to you. My aim is to reach an agreement with you that guides this conflict to a less destructive end, for all parties.”
“Ignoring questions about either your sincerity or your ability to deliver, what does that end look like to you?” Twilight asked.
“Largely the status quo of recent centuries. Dragons living peaceably in the same places we always have, leaving the other races to their own business. No more of this agitating the angry ones against you, no more wyvern breeding projects, no more pointless antagonization.”
“You’ve just listed all the elder’s favorite hobbies,” Twilight noted dryly. “You can just convince him to give them up?”
“Yes, well… the elder is not included this particular vision of the future.”
“Ah,” Twilight said, a knowing smile growing on her face as understanding dawned. “You want us to kill the elder for you, and install you in his place.”
Carmine’s wings ruffled slightly in the draconic equivalent of a shrug. “I’m sure you find ambition distasteful, but mine you could serve you well enough.”
“And why should I believe that you’d be any better than him?”
“I’m not insane,” Carmine said flatly. “For now, that ought to be enough.”
Twilight had long agreed with Carmine’s blunt assessment of the elder’s mental state, but this was the first time she’d heard of a dragon questioning it. “Why do the dragons follow him, if he’s so obviously crazy?” she asked.
“Some are afraid, some are just as lost as he is — or so I assume. Draconic politics are not easily explained. We rarely gather and don’t talk amongst ourselves often. I have no real idea what the popular sentiments might be on the elder and his war at the moment. He’s been laying the foundations for this for centuries — since before you were born. Nothing less would bring us together to the extent required for his little project.”
“What is he hoping to accomplish?” Twilight asked. The rare view into Draconic culture, or perhaps the lack thereof, was in its way more interesting than anything else Carmine had to offer.
“I have only theories, none of which are of particular use to us at the moment.”
“Indulge me,” Twilight insisted.
The dragon gave another of his wing shrugs. “The elder has lived since before the time of alicorns. Since before the time of any ponies, to hear him tell it. In those early days, he fancied himself a god — the greatest individual of the most powerful species. When your Celestia first appeared and showed him what real godhood looked like, he didn’t take it very well. The rest of you have only added insult to injury.
“For some time, he sought to equal you — to no avail, of course. He wasn’t linked to or in control of any fundamental aspect of our world. He couldn’t build a real nation of his own people — we simply don’t work that way. He commanded great destructive power, but no other sort. So, at some point, he decided that the only way he would know the power of a god was through the gods. The alicorns, that is.
“He knows he can’t defeat you in the long run — he’s crazy, not stupid. He might be able to change you, though, and in his current state, that may be enough. What I said earlier, about making you angry and removing all reason for restraint — that may be exactly the outcome he hopes for. Who could change a god but another god? Validation of his true greatness — or so his reasoning goes.”
With a start, Twilight thought back on who she’d become in the past four centuries. Secretive, reclusive, afraid of herself. Then there were the sisters — she now understood that their relationship for the whole period had oscillated between toxicity and near nonexistence, much as it had in the decades leading up to Twilight’s departure.
“You say he’s been at this for centuries?” she asked, keeping her voice as even as possible.
The dragon gave a disinterested nod.
Twilight couldn’t realistically attribute all the alicorns’ difficulties of the past few centuries to the elder, but neither could she discount the idea that with a few well timed and well placed nudges he might have made minor events into something much more severe. Specifically, she wondered what sort of influence he might have had on Spike after his exile.
She shook her head. Trying to find excuses for what Spike had become was not a productive use of her time. It didn’t matter now how it had happened.
“How do you propose to help us defeat him, then? Or were you just going to wait for us to clear off his perch so that you can move in?”
“I can offer insight into his plans. I don’t claim complete knowledge, but I am privy to some information. Also, I can offer dragonfire communication to your forces.”
“Certainly no way you could lead us astray with either of those, is there?” Twilight asked with a roll of her eyes.
Carmine laughed. “Yes, this could all be a clever little misdirection by our beloved elder, hallowed be his swollen presence. It’s your risk to take.”
Twilight snorted and turned toward the cave’s exit.
“Princess!” Carmine called after her. “Before you go, a free sample. While we were speaking I received the most fascinating dispatch.”
Twilight stopped. “Make it quick.”
“It’s been reported that Princess Luna met her unfortunate end above what I believe you call Baltimare Bay. Now, if this were true, I would certainly have to reassess my—”
Twilight disappeared before she could hear the rest of Carmine’s nonsense.
---
Luna couldn’t be dead. It was plainly impossible. Twilight had collected extensive data on the subject, and her results were conclusive: alicorns could not die. She was being silly, letting this worry her.
Baltimare Bay was a big place to hide a pony not trying to be found. Twilight had techniques for finding ponies making active use of magic, ponies in possession of certain types of magical artifacts, or ponies she had marked with a spell of her own. None of those were of use here.
Far below, choppy waves pulsed across a sea lit only by the stars and moon where they peeked through the patchy cloud cover that appeared to be the spent remains of a significant storm. There was nothing to differentiate one patch of water from the next. In the distance she could make out the lighthouse that sat on the northern side of the bay’s entrance. Behind her, the bright lights of Baltimare were only dimly visible behind a scattering of gray clouds blowing inland.
There was supposed to have been a battle here, if Ash Scribe was to be believed. Where was all the fighting? Where were the airships and dragons and whatever had definitely not killed Luna?
Luna would have engaged an enemy force as far from the city as she could without leaving it completely open to attack. Maybe the fighting was farther out to sea. Twilight pushed forward, resisting the urge to teleport or speed up, lest she miss something important. It wasn’t as if time was a concern, since Luna was just fine.
A small table floating in the water was the first piece of wreckage to catch her eye. Even with her pegasus vision, she only saw it because it intersected the moon’s reflection on the water’s surface. After she knew what she was looking for, it was everywhere. Small pieces of furniture, clothing, spears, and shreds of the thick fabric used for airship balloons dotted the sea surface in every direction. At least one airship had gone down here. She probably wouldn’t be able to tell which just by looking through the wreckage on the surface, as the heaviest parts would have sunk by now.
Had Luna been aboard when it went down? That might explain where the dragons had gotten the idea that she was dead. Twilight’s heart sank as she spotted the first body in the wreckage. It was a gryphon’s, which gave her a moment of guilty relief. There were more as she continued, almost all gryphons and wyverns. She’d spotted two ponies by the time she reached the mouth of the bay, both pegasi with talon wounds that suggested they’d met their ends in aerial skirmish. It seemed the airship had been empty before it was destroyed.
That was good, Twilight supposed, but it didn’t help her find Luna. Another probing of local magic currents verified that Luna wasn’t using any magic at the moment, which made complete sense because Luna had never been in any danger and certainly wouldn’t need to call on any magical tricks to help her with whatever non-event she was engaged in. It was no cause for concern whatsoever, and as such Twilight was definitely not concerned.
She wasn’t about to do anything drastic.
She came to a stop and closed her eyes, hovering close above the water. Her horn began to glow, growing rapidly more intense until a even a close observer would have hardly been able to make out her shape in the overwhelming brightness. Below her, dark waves turned a brilliant white in an expanding radius around her, as her awareness spread across the sea’s surface.
In a place beyond her normal senses, she found, identified, and ignored pieces of wreckage, fish, wyvern and gryphon corpses, until finally she touched something that, ever so faintly, touched back. She opened her eyes, themselves glowing white, and was there. Below her, only visible because of the quickly dimming light in the water, was a clump of dark fur that Twilight might have mistaken for a tangle of seaweed in this light if she didn’t know better.
She pulled Luna telekinetically out of the water and towards herself, inspecting her carefully as she did so. She was clearly unconscious — a nasty cut across the back of her head with accompanying swelling suggested a cause for that. Otherwise she was waterlogged, but undamaged. Of course Luna was alright. Twilight hadn’t worried for a second.
---
It was a struggle to keep her eyes open by the time she finally found Nimbus. It was funny -- she had avoided sleep for weeks after Stonehoof. Granted, she had been relying on spells that drained her in other ways, but it had been worth it to keep the dreams away. Now, after several days of uninterrupted sleep, she could hardly make it a few hours.
The deck crew didn’t know how to greet her. They settled for an astonished silence as she set gently down, a still-sleeping Luna floating in her grip beside her. The captain was the first to speak.
“Is she alright?” His eyes were wide with a concern that made Twilight wonder how long Luna had been missing.
Twilight gave him a dull stare as she considered her response. “Fine. She got bored, decided to take a nap.”
The bravado drew a nervous half-chuckle from a few, but most remained silent. Luna murmured something largely incomprehensible, as she’d been doing occasionally for most of the flight in from the bay. Twilight was able to pick out a few words, but doubted any of the crew could from where they stood. Her hard eyes panned across the deck, daring anypony to acknowledge the indignity. None did.
“She’s bleeding.”
Twilight gave Luna a surprised glance, then suppressed a chuckle of her own. Apparently her own bandages, which she’d hastily applied after her tumble with Vespida, had come undone as she’d carried Luna back to the ship. “It’s not her blood,” she said, a dark humor in her voice suggesting that the blood was all that remained of vanquished foes.
Not a pleasant idea in normal times, but probably something this particular crew was receptive to at the moment. Another ripple of anxious laughter spread across the deck. Twilight was too tired to give them any real reassurance. They wouldn’t notice or worry themselves about the fact that Twilight was bleeding. All eyes were on Luna.
“She needs a bunk,” Twilight said after a moment’s awkward wait.
Had they thought Twilight would just hold Luna there for them to gawk at indefinitely? They probably weren’t thinking at all, Twilight reminded herself. They’d recently finished a long battle, were running only on momentum, and had been confronted with a situation for which they had no drilled-in response.
“Right away.”
---
Twilight looked longingly at the bed onto which she’d just lowered Luna. No, not the bed — maybe the not-quite-alicorn-sized patch of empty floor next to it. Maybe there was another cabin available. Probably not — it appeared that Nimbus had absorbed most of the evacuees from Cirrus. The officers had fallen all over each other to offer up their cabins for Luna, but might not be so eager to accommodate Twilight. Not that she wanted them to.
She couldn’t rest yet anyhow. There was still a long list of things to do. Checking on Celestia’s situation in the south, and offering any help needed. Returning to Canterlot to make sure the city had calmed down after the invasion. Probably a thousand other things she hadn’t thought of yet.
Luna mumbled something again. Twilight thought she recognized the words ‘purple’, ‘salad’, ‘carriage’ and ‘shovel’ and was momentarily curious about how they could be connected into any kind of coherent thought. She wondered what Luna’s slumber was like. Head trauma dreams were usually not the best kind, but Luna seemed at least to be at peace.
Twilight shook her head as if to clear it. She didn’t have time to ponder Luna’s mutterings right now. Just one little spell to keep going. The exhaustion would still be with her of course, but she’d get her alertness back and the only cost was a sort of emotional deadening — hardly a cost at all in these times.
She took a breath, gathered her concentration, and woke up in the bed with sunlight streaming in the cabin’s lone porthole.
Odd. Alarming, too, or it should have been, but Twilight was inexplicably calm. The warm bed, combined with a stillness that ought have been impossible on a warship less than a day removed from heavy combat, seemed to disarm her better instincts.
Judging by the angle of the light, she’d slept for at least ten hours. As far as she could tell, the world hadn’t fallen apart without her. There were no alarm horns blasting through the ship, no frenzied footsteps clattering across the decks overhead. Still, she probably ought to get up and at least get an update on the situation.
Luna’s presence next to her felt so natural that it took her a few moments to notice it. In a bed built for a normal pony that now somehow managed to fit two fully grown alicorns, it seemed like that ought to be harder to miss. Twilight’s left side was pressed entirely against Luna, and a blue foreleg hooked around Twilight’s upper body. The position was unmistakably intimate.
Twilight closed her eyes and slowed her breathing, trying to contain a rising panic. She wasn’t ready for this. Luna probably wasn’t either. To say that there were important unresolved matters between them understated the situation in every possible way.
There was a knock at the door. Twilight ignored it. Probably a crewer unaware that the cabin’s assigned occupant was bunking elsewhere for the time being.
How best could she extract herself from this position? Anything sudden would probably wake Luna. Twilight might be able to slide out of the bed without disturbing her too much, but their degree of entanglement made that plan dubious at best. Around the time she was considering techniques for temporarily liquefying the bed and the floor beneath it, allowing her to simply sink through it to the next deck below, the door opened. Twilight’s eyes snapped open in surprise and locked onto the figure standing in the doorway.
Celestia stood there digesting the scene for what seemed like a very long time, shock on her face gradually giving way to her standard controlled expression. “Oh,” she said. Filler words from Celestia were a once-in-a-century occurrence, if that. “I see you’re not quite ready. Very well, I’ll be on the command deck.”
The door closed, and Twilight continued to stare at it for some time longer. In spite of her general mental disarray at the moment, some corner of her mind noted that Celestia was accounted for and seemed to be in good operating condition. She could at least check that box off the list.
Eventually, seemingly of their own volition, Twilight’s eyes drifted slowly to the left, where they met with Luna’s waiting gaze. The other alicorn’s head rested sideways on the pillow, her posture and breathing still suggesting slumber. Only those alert and absurdly blue eyes gave her away. It was unclear how long she’d been staring at Twilight. She certainly didn’t look like she’d only just awoken.
“Good morning,” Luna said. The words were stiff to near the point of formality, but there was also a tinge of amusement to them. She was enjoying Twilight’s clear discomfort.
“Good morning.”
Silence fell again for several moments. Neither alicorn moved.
“Well, we’d better see what’s—” Twilight started.
“Twilight,” Luna interrupted. “You promised we would talk.”
Twilight didn’t remember promising any such thing, but didn’t know that any good could come of arguing the point. It was going to happen sooner or later. “Alright, let’s talk.”
They did not talk, at least not for a while. Twilight rolled out of the bed and moved to stand near the cabin’s porthole while Luna sat up on the bed.
“I understand why you left,” Luna said finally. “‘I don’t understand why you didn’t return until now. I very much do not—”
Her voice broke. She swallowed and began again. “I do not understand why you didn’t — how you could stand not to — give me some indication that you lived.”
Twilight pretended to take in the view through the porthole as she considered her answer. “It seemed like the best thing for Equestria.”
“Don’t,” Luna said sharpy, shaking her head. “Don’t spin me this tale about believing Celestia and I were better off without you.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow, surprised Celestia had told her about that. “That was part of it. Maybe it was misguided. Can you honestly tell me it was a complete failure though? Before I left, you were at each other’s throats almost constantly. There was no way your relationship was sustainable in the long term. It would have torn the kingdom apart — probably violently.”
Luna snorted. “Congratulations, you inflicted enough pain to deaden our passions for a time. Does that justify it to you?”
“The job isn’t about being happy,” Twilight said with a grimace.
“You would hurt us — hurt me — like that again, if you thought it would buy another few centuries of something that looked like stability to you?”
Twilight hesitated. “I doubt I could die again to similar effect.”
“Evasion,” Luna snapped.
Twilight searched for words for a time. “If that were my only option, yes I would. This world’s wellbeing can’t hinge on our relationship. I can’t foresee that kind of scenario now, though. What I did wasn’t the best course of action at the time, but I had neither the experience nor perspective to see that.”
“Is that meant to be an apology?” Luna asked.
“No. Was an apology what you were looking for?”
“Would that be so wrong?”
Twilight shook her head. “I am sorry. I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry for not finding a better way.”
They were silent again for several minutes, Luna looking down at the bed, Twilight out the porthole.
“You said that was part of why you didn’t return.” Luna said finally.
“Yes.” Twilight let the confirmation hang in the air for a minute before expounding upon it.
“I was standing in the rubble of Mareis before I let myself acknowledge the depth of our failure. Not just with Spike — he was one element of a larger problem. All the creatures that jumped on his bandwagon, the disarray that let them gather so much influence so quickly — those spoke to much deeper issues than one angry dragon. We didn’t see it, so of course we didn’t respond to it. I thought about that for a long time before I came back to civilization in any form.
“We lacked the tools to understand what was happening. And while considering that, I realized that I didn’t contribute much of anything in that respect to our triumvirate. Everything I knew about ruling — leadership, diplomacy, politics — I learned from the two of you. I’d grown up in the palace, taking the word of any convenient princess as gospel. I could only be a faint echo in any true debate, with no perspective of my own. That failure of mine went a long way towards enabling the deadlock between you and Celestia.
“Cue centuries of a stagnant Equestria, while the rest of the world grew more dangerous around us. I needed something that was truly my own to bring to the table. I needed to build my own understanding of both Equestria and the world outside our borders — without the influence of either you or Celestia.”
“You didn’t have to let us think you dead for that,” Luna said. Her eyes were boring into the floor next to Twilight’s hooves.
“I don’t know whether that’s true or not. Many things seem less absolute now than they did then. Still, I can’t imagine revealing myself and then continuing to have no contact — and contact is influence, however small.”
“And you needed four centuries of this isolation?” Luna growled the question.
“No. Not for that.” Twilight seemed to lose her voice as she replied.
Luna finally tore her gaze away from the floor, her glower softening to a questioning look as her eyes met Twilight’s.
When Twilight spoke again she was still having difficulty putting any breath behind her words. Luna strained visibly to hear. “What I did to Spike… it was beyond violent. Beyond destructive. It wasn’t something I wanted to believe I was capable of doing — and I didn’t, right up to the moment when I…”
She paused and took a deep breath. “He was my oldest friend. I never stopped caring about him. If I could do that to him, could I do it to you? Could I do it to Celestia, or Canterlot, or Ponyvile, or—”
She stopped again as the breath was nearly squeezed out of her by Luna’s sudden embrace. The elder alicorn’s wing pulled them tightly together before Twilight had processed the fact that Luna was no longer sitting on the bed.
“I may never truly understand or accept all of what you’ve said,” Luna said in a low, firm voice, almost directly into Twilight’s ear. “But the fear — you’ll never have to explain that to me.”
Not trusting herself to speak again, Twilight nodded weakly and leaned into the embrace. They stood like that for some time before Luna slowly pulled her wing back to her side.
“We should go,” Luna said, seeming conflicted about the idea as she spoke. “See what’s become of our world while we slept.”