//------------------------------//
// Chapter 16: Keeping Chivalry Alive (Part I) 
// Story: Sunshine and Fire 
// by BornIn1142 
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It struck Twilight that in the course of their planning on how to save Equestria, she had never asked Celestia one obvious question, namely what she was to do if she failed and was not able to secure an alliance with the griffons. She had taken the rather simplistic view that failure would not be an option, and that spending too much time thinking about it would be pessimism. Of course the question occurred to her now, once she was already sinking in the great currents of that failure. What was she to do?

From a strictly rational point of view, she couldn't really fault herself. It seemed quite clear that circumstances had been against her from the start, and that a few hours here or there in the time allotted to her would not have been enough to turn things around. There was no cause for guilt or shame in the fact that her usual luck hadn't held out. The Princess was sure to be understanding.

Assuming Luna succeeded in enlisting some dragons to their cause, they would still be able to match the firepower of the Secret Police. The plan could still work. It could work, but there would still be hundreds of city guards and reservists to try to interfere with the Princesses once they went after the Queen. Leaving them unaccounted for would be a risk.

Of course, there was more at stake than the plan. Preventing the destruction of the Griffon Kingdom was an end in itself. Lining up Celestia's dominoes could take time, but defeating Defeating Daymare Sun would do the griffons no good if it happened too late. Millions of lives could be lost.

King Humphrey had slumped against the back of his throne. Rather than appearing defeated, he looked more like a vast amount of pent-up tension had drained out of him. There was a faraway look in his eyes, but Twilight was sure his imagination was turned towards the oncoming storm, not away from it in escapist fantasy. His knights were looking at him expectantly, without outward fear or worry. Lord Fairweather had withdrawn slightly from the throne, but he too was waiting for the King to speak.

"Hmmmhm," said the King, "It's nothing we didn't expect. You say they're moving through the Valley of the Wind, Sir Darlton? "

The new arrival in the throne room nodded. "Five great columns. Only minimal reserves remain at their base camp. However, they are marching slower than expected. Their commanders must know they cannot bring their full numbers to bear in the valley, so the initial approach seems to be watchful and guarded."

"I would hazard a guess," said Sir Reynald, "that the pegasus air force will act particularly aggressive in comparison, to pin down as many of our forces along the border as possible and prevent them from joining the main host."

King Humphrey shrugged with one shoulder. "One way or another, we will have to meet them in the valley before they can spread out in the mountain passes. Sir Darlton, retain command of the scouts for now. Feel free to attacks of opportunity, but make it clear that they are to hold the line and be ready to converge in the valley if necessary."

"I will send back anyone who can be spared, Your Altitude," answered Sir Darlton with a bow.

"I suppose there's a few benefits to being boxed in," said the King sourly, "We hold the interior lines and can shift our forced quicker than them."

What could salvage the situation at this point?

What would Princess Celestia do?

It was silly even to wonder. Princess Celestia could get the enemy forces to stand down somehow – with some trick or threat or appeal – or she would use the magic of the sun against them. If despair dictated it, she could burn the whole enemy army, or more likely, position the sun so they would be forced to turn around from the heat. It would be easy. Why oh why had Celestia not simply come with them? Twilight was not prepared for such a challenge. She wasn't an alicorn princess; she was just a pony.

But then again...

The thought, so sudden in Twilight's mind, reached back along her spine like a slow, cold touch and made her shudder.

Touching the sun was not beyond the grasp of a unicorn, was it?

"As for you, Sir Reynald..." the King was saying now. Although he addressed his knight, he was looking at Twilight, Fluttershy and Spike. "I would have you with the main host, but I have one more task for you first. Perhaps you can gather an escort for Lady Sparkle and her friends and make sure they get through the siege lines to safety?"

"Is that a proper job for a knight?" asked Lord Fairweather, "I don't think it would be much use to try to fight a way out. Leave them in my care and I can help them sneak out safely."

None of the knights in the chamber responded or acknowledged the Chancellor's idea. One of them did, however, snort.

"Huh?" said Twilight. It took her several long seconds to redirect her thoughts. "No, no, I don't think so. We're not ready to leave quite yet. If there's something we can do to help..."

There was something she could do to help.

"I doubt that," said the King, "though the gesture is appreciated."

"Yes, well," replied Twilight, half-mumbling, "If we have to leave, we can do so on our own power anyway, without you having to risk your lives for us. Actually..."

She could imagine a solution to their dilemma. What was taking shape in her mind was a confluence of possibilities so outrageous she wasn't sure she could call it a plan or a daydream.

"Actually... Sir Reynald, you'll be heading to the front, right? I'd like to come along if you don't mind."

She had to know what she was up against, she had to understand the tactical situation, she had to... get out in the open and look up in the sky.

"Oh yes," said Lord Fairweather, "You're very welcome to join us."



Once upon a time, it had been unicorns that performed the task of moving the sun and the moon.

Every pony knew this factoid of Equestrian history from school, but nopony really paid much heed to it. It was a bit of half-mythical trivia, a point of fact irrelevant in the modern era. Whatever ancient spells had been used to accomplish this were long forgotten, and any new research into the subject was banned by royal decree. A variant of telekinesis was obviously at the core of it, but the exact mechanics of nativity transference and intrinsic fields were a mystery to spellcasting theorists. There was more to it than simply raw power, though an unthinkable amount of raw power was nonetheless required. Common wisdom held that a large group – dozens of unicorns – was required to move the sun and the moon before the era of the Royal Pony Sisters.

If Twilight could somehow figure out the magic of celestial transposition in the next few hours, and if she could put it into practice by her lonesome, then perhaps the Griffon Kingdom could still be saved.

It was a dubious proposition to say the least. As other unicorns willing to lend a hoof were in short supply, Twilight had no one to rely on but herself.

Of course, whether it was possible was one thing – whether Twilight dared to try was another matter entirely. She'd be courting disaster and taking it out for a dance, and missing a step would be oh so easy. The Griffon Kingdom of her world had been destroyed by a unicorn's bungling attempt to move the sun. Some things were better off outside the reach of mere mortals; some ambitions were not just dangerous but blasphemous.

Still, it was better than nothing, and she was willing to give it a try. Princess Celestia had given her this mission for a reason, and Twilight was not going to fail merely because of a lack of resolve.

Sir Reynald's flight from the capital back to the frontier was much faster than than the reverse earlier on. He clearly couldn't bring himself to hold back for Twilight's sake anymore, but she never felt anything but safe being held in his gauntleted claws. The convalescent Gilda had a hard time keeping up, and Lord Fairweather, who had invited himself along but was clearly not on the same physical level, lagged far behind them. Fluttershy and Spike had stayed back at the palace.

Twilight fastidiously scanned the countryside underneath, observed the weather conditions, and kept a rough count of the kilometers they traversed. It would be useful to know how far away the sun was from the front lines. Though she had to keep her eyes peeled in the rush of air, there was still much to see. Had the magic storm cloud not obscured the sun, it would probably have been disastrously blinding. It was hard to imagine setting up a proper defense with that kind of glare.

Their destination was one of a series of watchtowers standing atop and among the mountains at the mouth of the Valley of the Wind. In truth, it was more of a giant stone pillar than a tower, wide enough perhaps that ten ponies could stand side by side on its flat hexagonal top. There were no guardrails, of course. This particular tower was unmanned, but adjacent ones had griffons stationed on them. They had passed by quite a lot of griffons soldiers on the way.

Sir Reynald touched down on the tower and allowed Twilight to disentangle herself from him, standing still long enough to let her find her hooves and then stepping away. Twilight had a lot of trust in the stability of griffon architecture, and so attributed the sensation that the tower was somehow swaying to the half an hour she'd spent rustling in the wind. Without consciously thinking about it, she gravitated toward the center of the platform. Working in combination, the height, the thin air and the clutching humid heat were daunting the sense of empowerment she felt she needed right now. Looking down over the edge of the tower seemed too foolhardy to consider, but nevertheless she forced herself to follow Sir Reynald forward and focused her attention to the horizon up ahead.

The enormous vista that opened up from the elevated position was hard to take in all at once. Twilight didn't react when Gilda reached them to take up position on the other side of Sir Reynald, but continued studying the terrain, trying to read it like she would read a book, making an effort to distinguish the relevant from the irrelevant.

The valley, with dense mountain formations making up its sides, looked very much like an open passage to the Griffon Kingdom, but it was hardly a flat plain either. In the middle of it, scaling small hills and navigating slopes, was the Equestrian army.

Twilight had never seen an army before. She had witnessed the movements of pony troops on parade fields and in action, she had faced groups of enemies in violent altercations, and she had academic knowledge of most of the major conflicts in Equestrian history, but none of her experiences had prepared her for an actual war.

The long lines of ponies were streaming into the country like an enormous winding snake, which was just about ready to draw back its head and strike. There were more ponies in her sights now than she had ever seen before at once, the distance blurring a number she could comprehend in mathematical theory, but not in flesh and blood. One hundred thousand soldiers were on the move – and more were waiting in the wings.

Yet the difference an army made was as much of essence as of scale. A majority of the ponies there were not anything resembling evil, yet their totality amounted to something monstrous, something that could only create destruction and give birth to death. For the time being, this entity before her was nothing more than a giant grasping limb of Queen Celestia with the grand ambition of snuffing out a way of life.

Although Twilight's knowledge of warfare was restricted to what she'd gleamed from histories, she knew the terrain would give the griffon army at least some advantages. She scanned around, tried to guess at what point the enemy would split up into the mountain passes and, conversely, where the griffons would have to meet them to prevent that from happening. She tried to guess how long it would take the pony army to reach that point. An hour, she figured, maybe two.

She was vaguely aware of Lord Fairweather landing on the tower as well. He was making panting noises behind them.

"The right flank is weak," commented Gilda. Sir Reynald made an assenting sound, not taking his gaze off the enemy.

"How can you tell?" asked Twilight.

Gilda made an indistinct gesture towards one side of the army that encompassed thousands. "They're lagging behind the rest. Very sluggish hoofsteps."

"The divisions from Stalliongrad would have approached from the west," said Sir Reynald, "They were probably put into formation for the attack as soon as they arrived, without any time to rest. They're exhausted."

"There's a lot of exhausted guys there though," said Gilda.

"Hmm, no. The ones next in line are walking out of step with the majority, but they aren't falling behind. I would guess that they're raw recruits."

Twilight couldn't even distinguish individual ponies in the mass of bodies ahead, let alone gauge their walking pace. Then again, she didn't have the eyes of an eagle.

"They really screwed up putting all their weakest troops together." Gilda's voice sounded like she was tempering a hopefulness she knew she shouldn't have been feeling.

"Or they want us to think they did," said Sir Reynald quietly.

"I would humbly suggest we take opportunity at face value," said Lord Fairweather, padding closer with heavy steps. His dark gray plumage had been left rather ruffled by his flight, but he was clawing down loose feathers on his head to restore a more respectable look. "Lady Sparkle, don't your people have a saying about doubting one's good fortune?"

It took Twilight a moment to think of the answer before blurting it out. "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth?"

Sir Reynald turned to look at Lord Fairweather, but only half-way, perhaps as a deliberate slight. A moment later, he seemed to reconsider and faced Fairweather. It could have been that he didn't want to be rude, or it could have been that he preferred putting his back to the front lines rather than leave it exposed to the Royal Spymaster.

"You're suggesting this isn't a trap?" he asked.

"I happen to know that one Duke Blueblood has been put in command of the invasion force. From what I know about the Equestria's commanders, he is not capable of this manner of deception. In fact, he's exactly the kind of pony to make a mistake like we're seeing."

Although Twilight's eyes widened at the mention of a familiar name, Sir Reynald's expression did not change one bit compared to when he was assessing the enemy.

"How did you come by this information?" he demanded.

Lord Fairweather answered by way of a joyless smile and a shrug. As he smiled, he also stole a very obvious glance at Twilight.

"I have my ways," he said.

"No," said Sir Reynald, shaking his head, "No. If you think I have the time or patience to play games with you, you're sorely mistaken. I can't order men to their deaths based on your rumor-mongering."

"Do you have a better plan then?" Twilight thought Fairweather may have been trying not to sound mocking.

"Hmh... You say this Duke Blueblood is known to be less than competent. Isn't it just a bit too convenient that things would fall into place like this?"

"Nothing about this situation is convenient," snapped back Lord Fairweather, "I made it happen, remember? I'm the one who engineered the delay of the Stalliongrad army group. You're welcome, by the way."

"You'd engineer a lot more than that if given the chance, I'm sure." Sir Reynald's voice was shifting from cold to outright acidic. "Perhaps the trap here is yours, not Equestria's."

Though Twilight tried to grind her teeth and keep out of it, she could not. "Gentlemen, excuse me for saying this, but... are you fricking nuts?" She'd perhaps raised her voice a bit more than she had intended. "Ahem. We're all on the same side here, aren't we? Aren't we? All this bickering does is help the enemy. It's rather unbecoming of griffons of your stature."

Sir Reynald seemed abashed. His perfect posture wavered a bit, as if he was looking for a way to disengage from this conversation, but the tower was too small to go anywhere.

"You are right, of course, Lady Sparkle," he said.

Although he hung his head and probably felt bad about acting unprofessionally, Twilight doubted that Sir Reynald actually thought he was wrong to accuse Lord Fairweather of working against them. Fairweather himself seemed almost indifferent, or at least past caring. He had his piercing yellow eyes locked on Twilight again, his beak twisted sardonically.

"Well, I had better return to report to the King." He said this after being there for all of five minutes. He turned to leave, but held off. Almost as an afterthought, he continued speaking. "Would you like me to accompany you back to the city, Lady Sparkle? I'm sure Sir Reynald will be busy here."

Twilight almost cringed. She would have given a lot to have somehow prevented this situation from occurring, to force the words back in Lord Fairweather's mouth and give him a kick in the behind to get him off the watchtower.

"Um," she said, to win herself some time.

Almost with a sense of resignation, she had a look at Sir Reynald, and found him staring at her expectantly. The optimist in her told her there was concern in his eyes, but the pessimist thought it looked more like suspicion. One way or another, he refrained from voicing his opinion to see what Twilight would do. Gilda, standing slightly behind his line of sight, was trying to signal her thoughts to Twilight with a lot of minimalist head-shaking.

Lord Fairweather was not well liked, certainly not trusted, and his overtures towards Twilight threatened the precarious alliance she had struck with King Humphrey's knights. Going off alone with someone so shady may or may not have been a bad idea, but letting his reputation rub off on her definitely was. They might have all been on the same side, but leaving the wrong impression by playing into the griffons' suspicions could well put an end to that.

"No, thank you," said Twilight, "I appreciate the offer, but I can get back just fine on my own."

Fairweather did not seem surprised.

"Very well. I hope we'll see each other again, and sooner rather than later."

He dropped off the tower's edge and arced up into a glide

Twilight frowned. Perhaps, if she found the time, she would seek out Lord Fairweather in the citadel later on. While she didn't like the idea of working behind the griffons' backs, it would be worth it to finally find out what he wanted from her.

"Gilda," said Sir Reynald, "Follow him. Keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn't get up to anything suspicious."

"Are you asking me to spy on the Lord Chancellor?" asked Gilda, somehow looking very small.

"Not at all!" said Sir Reynald, though his expression, not unlike that of someone smelling curdled milk, indicated he was aware of the implication, "I would ask you to stay in plain sight. Keep his company. Guard him, if you will. There is no need for anything underhanded."

"I'd prefer to fight," grumbled Gilda back.

"A point will come where you will have to fight one way or another. But for now, rest and heal up, and do your duty by keeping a lookout for enemies of the Griffon Kindom."

Muttering something under her breath – something that probably would have gotten her in trouble if properly voiced – Gilda lurched into movement and flew off after Lord Fairweather. It seemed trying to find and privately talk to him later on was already out.

Sir Reynald sighed. He did not display the same stalwart bravery as he did staring down the doom of his homeland when faced with his own capacity for a bit of hypocrisy. Twilight even felt somewhat voyeuristic intruding on his unhappiness at the moment. She felt like she should say something, but wasn't entirely sure what.

She respected the griffons for their philosophy, and thought they had good hearts, but it seemed beyond ridiculous to be so broken up by this tiny concession to ethical uncertainty. Whatever chivalry had done for them, and she did believe it had kept the spirit of the nation alive, it was also such a tricky balancing act that they were fighting against their own better natures as much as any external enemies.

Twilight had never regarded herself as anything but an idealist and didn't want to be anything but. Part of her was still frightened by what this world had made of Rainbow Dash. She wasn't any sort of trickster, and had no interest in teaching the griffons a lesson. But... if it took a bit of pragmatism to see things through, then she was willing. It's what Princess Celestia would have done. There were lines she would not cross, but Twilight would take on the burden of protecting the griffons her way, and not their way.



When Twilight teleported back into the guestroom of the palace, she found it empty. That was okay. Not having Fluttershy and Spike there was a good thing. It gave Twilight the peace and quiet she needed to fashion something actionable from a bunch of half-baked hopes and imaginings.

At first, not knowing what to do, she stood in place, and thought. She brought to mind the bits of information she'd gathered outside, made a start with the more obvious equations for calculating energy requirements and trajectories, and tried to review everything she knew about telekinesis.

She had become aware as she grew up that she did not think as most other ponies did: her thoughts were more voluminous and compartmentalized, and she could easily understand concepts that baffled others. Yet despite years of being told by her parents and teachers that she was a clever pony, she knew that this did not make her better than others. She was as prone to distractions, idling, forgetfulness and plain lapses of reason as anypony. Great conclusions and inventions rarely happened without effort being put into them, so she too had to focus to achieve anything.

At some point along the way, she started pacing. She walked back and forth by instinct at first, but eventually settled into a more comfortable circular pattern.

Why had she never asked Celestia more about how she did what she did? Why had the never poked and prodded? It was one of many things Twilight found fascinating about the Princess. If she had asked nicely, if she had explained that she would never have considered putting such knowledge into practice, surely Celestia would have indulged her favorite student...

What was the point of wondering what could have been?

The familiar feeling of not having enough time had never been so acute. Even in her worst, most neurotic moments, the pressure for minutes and seconds had not been as intense. There was something else as well, the niggling feeling that one part of her mind was ahead of the rest.

She must have been mad in a very literal sense. Having no desire to kill anypony, she was trying to pull a weapon of mass destruction out of her back pocket. What if it didn't work as a deterrent? The only thing Twilight could do then was to stand down.

But it was the only way. Wasn't it?

How much did the sun weigh? There was a figure in her mind, but Twilight had no idea if she knew it for a fact, had come up with an estimate, or invented it by accident.

She had to take notes. She had to start writing her thoughts down or they would fade away.

Without breaking stride, she changed course and stepped over to the nearest desk to look for some paper. The note from before, the note slipped into the guest room in secret, was lying there. All at once, Twilight lost her momentum, both mental and physical. She stopped moving and her thoughts stopped flowing. She had forgotten about the note, and even knowing she should not have concerned herself with it right now, it had invaded and occupied her attention.

Twilight grabbed the note with a touch of telekinesis, brought it up to her nose, turned it around and studied it once more. The miniaturized picture and vague call to action scribbled on its back were as she remembered them and offered no new insights. She lowered the glossy piece of paper back on the desk. Without hurrying, she walked over to a coach and took a seat. A moment later, she plopped to her side, absent-mindedly pulled her tail in front of her and started brushing her hooves over the dusty and frayed hair.

In a situation where everything seemed to hang in the balance and every moment was filled to bursting with some sort of significance, it might not have meant much to say that something felt important... but Twilight did have the feeling that this note was important. Even if it wasn't, she wanted to know what what was behind it.

She tried to think about it logically. As quandaries went, this one seemed much more manageable.

Anyone could have delivered that note, but based the on the information available to Twilight, she had to assume it was Lord Fairweather, or someone acting on his behalf. He'd been trying to meet Twilight in private; this seemed like a way to bring that about. That answered the who and the why, probably. The pertinent question was how. How did guiding Twilight into an empty art gallery accomplish anything? Had something that was intended to happen not happened? It may have been Gilda's presence that changed the game plan, but how were they even supposed to find the location without her assistance? And what was the significance of that darn date and time?

"Movement through space is nothing for pony magic," muttered Twilight, "Why, we can even..."

While the enmity between the Lord Chancellor and the knights was of a more fundamental nature, their most recent point of contention seemed to be that he had failed to explain how he'd known enough about the coming pony invasion to enact his own plans to hinder it. What if he could not? Because the truth was too outrageous to believe?

What would the griffons have done if Fairweather had told them he'd been warned by a unicorn wizard from the future?

In a very literally twisted sort of way, it made sense. Taken separately, Twilight was a fairly sympathetic representative of the Griffon Kingdom's worst enemy, and Lord Fairweather was a shady guy that gave the King advice that no one agreed with. When put together, they were a lot closer to a spy and a double agent making contact. They compromised each other. A proper face to face was not feasible under current circumstances, but it might just have been possible on a quiet moment three months ago.

Whether Lord Fairweather was really trustworthy or not didn't even really matter. It was still conceivable that he really was a double agent trying to make contact with someone he held to be an ally. He may have known Daylight Sparkle and thought Twilight was her. He could have been misleading the griffons at every turn, could have taken credit for someone else's actions in delaying the invasion, or even spun a tale around some sort of accident. If Twilight saw this through to the end, then the truth would become clear.

Twilight was surprised how dispassionately she was coming to these realizations. There was no shock of dramatic revelation, only the feeling of wheels turning, and a subtle sense of... relief, perhaps? Instead of the uncertainty of an impossible challenge, she was faced with the predictable notion of closing a time loop. She knew what she had to do, because she had presumably already done it.

Time travel was and was not dangerous. Twilight had learned her lesson about trying to use it for personal reasons and sworn off further attempts, but she had also known that she may have have a choice about it. The past could not be altered, only recreated. It was inevitable. Conversely, if it wasn't meant to be, then something would interrupt Twilight before she could go through with it, right?

Twilight forced herself to cease the compulsive movements of her hooves and clutched into her tail. The couch under her side was getting uncomfortably warm. She almost wondered if something would stop her, because she was about to do it. Glancing at the door, when she expected Spike or Fluttershy or anyone to burst in, no one did.

She had wondered from time to time about destiny, and didn't necessarily like how it intertwined with the notion of predestination.

Part of her wished something did stop her. Knowing what to do was comforting, but knowing that there was only one thing she could do less so. If she was right about all this though, then the invasion only came this late due to her actions in the past. If she had a choice, she wouldn't really have had a choice anyway.

If it meant helping the Griffon Kingdom, if it meant getting a chance to save so many lives, if it meant coming through for Celestia, she was willing to give up her freedom to causality.

"Thirty to ninety minutes until battle is joined," she reminded herself.

Thinking about this was... a waste of time.

With a deep breath, Twilight swung herself up on her hooves. Instead of landing on the guest room carpet, she materialized twenty-six floors up in the art gallery of the palace tower, right in front of the "Dualities" relief that the note had pointed to. The sudden rise in temperature caressed her cheeks like a flush.

"Three months... That's way longer than what you've previously done. Are you sure you're up for it, Twilight?"

Star Swirl's spell was adaptable, and could take her farther if she pushed herself harder. The real problem was trickier.

"Ohh, how am I going to have any time for a proper conversation? I'll only get a minute or two in the past before I'm dragged back."

She could expend extra energy on the length of time she traveled or the duration of her stay, but she didn't have enough for both.

"Come on, Twilight, think! Hmmm, maybe if I..."

There was a solution to this as well. Magics of the mind was one of Twilight's many cursory interests, one which she wouldn't have minded doing further research on if there hadn't been so many other things in her life that demanded her attention. While she longed to determine if visiting and observing thoughts and dreams was possible, she already had practical experience with something as simple as beaming her memories into the minds of others. She and her friends may never have defeated Discord without that possibility.

"All right then. Let's do this."

Already she had begun to remind herself of the details of the spell. She ran through it once for practice and then cast it for real, reading the words in her mind and pouring magic out of her horn. A few white sparks quickly turned into a bright light that engulfed her entirely. For a brief time, she could see nothing, yet was somehow aware of her environment twisting and resettling in the anomalous flickering of higher dimensions. Three inverse months passed by in as many seconds.

The art gallery still looked to be a few shades brighter once the light receded. There were no windows in the vicinity, but sunlight seemed to reach farther into the inside of the building, even through distant corridors. The solid stone walls didn't do much against the heat either. At this point in time, no magic storm cloud protected the city from the solar hellfire outside. A heat stroke did not seem out of the question.

Lord Fairweather was there, of course. He seemed to have been looking right at "Dualities," but now had his head turned towards Twilight. His neck was bent several degrees further than it would have been possible for a pony, much like an owl's. Had he come up there to brave these temperatures just for the sake of appreciating art?

"Uh, hello," said Twilight, taking a hesitant step forward.

Fairweather's cool, calculating expression broke down into rather graceless shock. He burst into action hopping down the hall.

"Guards! Guards! There's a pony assassin on the premises!"

"Wait, no! Drat..."

Cursing herself for losing the initiative, she bound after the griffon. All she had to do was get close for a few seconds. Hopefully, no guards were actually in the vicinity to mess things up.

Fairweather's movements were perfect in their hectic aimlessness. Twilight's almost got close enough to try for a grab, but he twisted out of the way and performed a wild series of strikes that were neither punches nor slaps nor waves but involved elements of all three. He was not a warrior, but then again, neither was Twilight. One of his flailing talons connected to her face. It was enough to knock her back and send her sprawling head-first to the gallery floor.

"Nguh..."

Twilight dragged her jaw off the ground just in time to see Fairweather flapping away again. Her vision was red. Blood was trickling from a shallow cut on her forehead.

"Clock is ticking, Twilight," she murmured through gritted teeth and clambered from a standstill to a crawl and then a gallop.

Fairweather was making for the spiral staircase leading to the lowers floors of the gallery. Instead of taking the steps, he dove straight down and smoothly glided out of sight.

Twilight slid to a halt against the railing, almost going over.

"This isn't what it looks like!" she shouted after him, but doubted he could even hear her.

Twilight's next moves were almost automated. If she did any thinking at all, she did it so fast she barely noticed.

She teleported. A split-second's estimate of Fairweather's position down below got her close enough to grasp at him.

Both of them went down in a spin. It was Twilight who got up first, only to lunge down at Fairweather right away.

"Assassin!" screeched the Chancellor again, somewhat muffled by having Twilight's head pushing against the side of his beak, "Someone warn the King!"

Instead of trying to pin him down, Twilight merely clutched and hoped he wouldn't be able to throw her off. He was bigger and stronger, but this was purely a battle of determination, and Twilight was damned if she wouldn't be able to win it.

Fairweather buckled into a more or less upright position, but Twilight held on. With strange, strained bird noises in her ears, she edged forward her neck until she was able to poke Fairweather's forehead with her horn and let loose a stream of consciousness.

The spell she went for – had no choice but to go for – was an awkward and rudimentary thing. She played Lord Fairweather a selection of her memories: basics of who she was and where she came from, everything she knew about the invasion and what Lord Fairweather could do to delay it, and most importantly, knowledge about how to leave the clues that would bring Twilight to this meeting. Some irrelevant things probably slipped in as well. It was over soon.

Twilight expected the memory transference spell to be a kind of finish line, that she would be carried back to the present as soon as she was done. Instead, she was left several seconds with which to disentangle herself from the griffon she had tackled. The awkward silence went on long enough to become almost boring. Twilight had to lift her hoof and hold it to her head to quell the gushing blood. The wound wasn't serious, but the blood was plentiful. Her head was spinning, probably more so from exerting herself in such heat than anything else.

Lord Fairweather straightened up as well and tried to look composed, but he'd lost some of his sinister mystique, even when he peeled his eyes and glowered at Twilight with all the suspicion he could muster. There was an absurdly dazed look about him.

"How do I know that what you showed me was the truth?" he asked, "This could all be a..." He trailed off before stating the obvious.

"Because it's what you would do?" said Twilight, "But it's not what I would I do."

A taste of copper got in her mouth as she spoke. She could feel the energy building that would transport her back to her own time.

"Look, I don't have anything else to give you, okay? There's no time to argue any points. You just have to decide if you have it in you to trust me or not."

On a spur of the moment, she let her hoof drop and lifted the other in front of Fairweather for him to... shake it, bump it, hold it, whatever. He startled at the motion and hesitated. Twilight would have liked to see him respond before she disappeared, but his face grimaced with conflict. In the end though, he did snatch her hoof between his talons and pulled her up close. He did it suddenly, held her so hard it almost hurt, and stared into her with such intensity that Twilight realized he might be worth fearing after all.

"Do you really want to know what I would do that you might not?"

"What?" said Twilight, already aglow.

"I would do exactly what I accused you of doing. If I was planning this invasion, I would send assassins here to cut off the Kingdom's head." Even with light bursting from Twilight and swallowing her, he held on to her hoof. "Do you understand? Humphrey will have his guards, and he'll have me, but he might need you as well! Protect him! Protect him!"

Twilight was deposited back on the upper floor, in front of the "Dualities" relief, like she'd never been gone. She chewed her lip and considered what to do. Lying down for a rest, having a good cry or repeatedly bashing her head into the artwork all seemed like good options.

Technically, she knew she'd just done a hell of a thing. Though there was still the encore performance to worry about, she had just saved the Griffon Kindom. If only there was more satisfaction to be had, more of a chance to enjoy the warm and fuzzy feeling of accomplishment. Closing a time loop may have meant a lot, but it did not feel like much. It felt like she had merely kept something from breaking than that she'd truly fixed something. Her only reward was reaching another link in a ridiculous chain of challenges.

She knew it was true, of course. It made too much sense not to be true. The King was obviously an important symbol to the griffons, and killing him would be a perfect opening blow to start the hostilities. Assassins would come to strike from the shadow of the great army out in the valley. They may have been there already. Even as she considered and accepted this, she was shaking her head and spilling more of her blood.

She was nowhere near doing what she'd set out to do. Intuition was not enough to move the sun; if it could be done at all it needed work. If she didn't get the time she needed, she would fail.

An idea formed in her mind, which did not so much occur to her as slither slimily forth from recesses of her mind that should not have existed.

She could stay up here, in the peace and quiet of an empty art gallery, do her best to think up a spell to move the sun, and nothing more. If she did not go down, then anything happening there were just abstract possibilities that did not have to mean anything to her. King Humphrey may come under attack and he may not, and he may be killed or he may not. If Twilight succeeded and saved his nation, then wouldn't it be worth it either way? It was he oldest moral dilemma in the book – the good of the many versus the good of the few.

Twilight had taken on an enormous responsibility, which entailed much more than charging forth in good faith. She was supposed to be pragmatic about it.

So many justifications were lining up for her. King Humphrey had an entourage of skilled protectors to help him, did he not? Twilight could just end up being a distraction, right? The griffons would have wanted her to stay out of harm's way, wouldn't they?

And yet... it was something she would never have done.

Spike was somewhere down there, and Fluttershy as well. Her friends were in danger, and neither the King nor the countless anonymous griffons around him were hers to sacrifice.

She could not lose sight of the parts for the whole.

With a quiet whinny, she blinked back into the guest room, where she only stayed long enough to march for the door and burst into the corridor.

It was empty there, and nothing seemed amiss looking one way or another.

The griffons would still be antsy around her, so displaying too much magic out in the open could provoke them, but Twilight could not bring herself to care. She teleported again, to the stairwell at the end of the hall that Gilda had earlier led them through. She peered up and she peered down, but saw nothing and no one. It was quiet.

As abruptly as she had moved on from it, she did not leave the choice she had made behind entirely. She worried for herself, just for considering it. There were lines she would not cross, but lines could be redrawn. If she wouldn't do it now, what would it take to make her reconsider?

She teleported down one, two, three floors, still not coming across anyone, and moving so fast she almost missed the first inkling of an emergency: the smell of smoke. Some of it was wafting up from the next landing.

Twilight had to be more careful now, slinking down the flight rather than blindly teleport into potential danger. On the next floor, she could see the smoke as well – thick gray tendrils of it crawling along the walls, floor and ceiling in a manner that wasn't quite natural.

There could be natural fires in stone structures, of course, but it did not seem terribly likely just now...

Twilight shuddered. Where were Spike and Fluttershy? Why hadn't she wondered earlier where they might have been?

She had to consider where to go next. It was hard to keep track in the windowless and blandly grand stone corridors, but she must have been close to the ground floor, and close to the throne room as well. The King must have had private chambers as well though, perhaps quite near here. It might have been best to follow signs of trouble and see where they led.

Somewhere, not far off, a griffon screeched and fell silent. Even without knowing much about bird calls, it sounded like a warning cry. Something had cut it short.

Rather than slowly spreading outward, the smoke was curling back, flowing out of sight. A wall of it was receding at the far end of a corridor.

Forcing herself every step of the way, Twilight cantered off after it. Something strange was going on with the smoke, but the fear of ending up in the middle of a fire was still too strong to let her teleport into the unknown.

She kept her ears forward, listening for anything useful. As she progressed down the hall, she heard the clanging of metal, long scratching sounds and faint screams...

It didn't take long until she came across the first skewered corpse.



To be continued in Part II.