//------------------------------// // 3. Home was My Destination // Story: Final Mission // by Sharp Quill //------------------------------// Unsurprisingly, the guards had not taken me to the Royal Sisters’ throne room. The topic to be discussed was much too sensitive for that. Instead, they took me to a modest room high up in one of the towers. We were the first to arrive. I went around the mahogany table, surround by padded, deep red cushions, to stand in front of the expansive, panoramic windows. The view of Ponyville in the distance was incredible. The two guards stood just inside the doorway, their continuing presence sending a clear message. There was no point in speculating on why I was brought in. I could only assume Twilight had met with Celestia. At least I wasn’t under restraint. Did it even matter? The worst that could happen was that I’d be thrown in a dungeon. Then tomorrow would come, and nopony would know how I got there or why. It wouldn’t be hard to talk my way out of that. Like my earlier conversation with Discord, I had to view this as simply another opportunity to gather information; and I’d keep gathering more information, every day, until I found the solution. There didn’t seem to be any real urgency. It would be decades before my birth was erased—I assumed that’s what he’d meant by “being chased by nonexistence.” Though I did have to wonder: wouldn’t killing me have been easier? Why wasn’t that good enough for them? Why did I deserve any of this? The guards stepped aside as Princess Celestia entered the room. Princess Twilight Sparkle, wearing her regalia, entered next. I wasn’t used to seeing her that way; she rarely wore it in Ponyville. Her presence also sent a message, a quite different one. Celestia turned to address the guards. “You may leave us.” They did so, after first offering a quick bow. The door closed behind them. I didn’t doubt that powerful anti-spying spells had been cast. The princesses took their seats at the table. I did, likewise, on the opposite side, my back to the window and my home. Celestia’s face was unreadable, as usual. “May I assume we’ll skip the formalities?” I asked. This was not my first meeting with the solar diarch, and I knew she didn’t care for them in private. “You may,” she replied, as she focused her magic on a silver tea service that was on the table, ready for use. Twilight’s face, on the other hoof, was painfully readable. I couldn’t imagine what had caused her such distress. It wasn’t learning about The Agency; yesterday’s events ruled that out. “Did you find something about those runes?” I asked. She didn’t answer, instead looking towards Celestia. The elder alicorn put tea leaves into the kettle to steep before saying anything. “The Archives would not have any information on those runes,” she said as if discussing the weather. She looked at me with great sadness in her eyes. “I am truly sorry. This was not supposed to happen.” “Is that why you sent for me? To offer your condolences?” It was not, apparently, to offer me good news. “It is true I do not have a solution,” she said, “and I do not expect you to understand the hard choices I’ve had to make.” She exchanged eye contact with Twilight. “We still wish to do what we can to help.” They both looked at me with such earnestness, as if wishing to comfort a mare suffering from a terminal disease. What bugged me was that Celestia clearly knew more than she was letting on; I knew all too well that she liked to keep her cards close to her vest. This conversation would cease to exist by tomorrow, and they both knew it. What harm was there in telling me everything? Perhaps if I showed I already had a clue… “Was shutting down The Agency, destroying all evidence it had ever existed, supposed to help us, protect us somehow, me and my fellow agents?” A small smile that faded rapidly. “You always were one of my best agents.” She sighed. “Perhaps too good.” “Why did we need protection?” I said, pressing on. “At what cost? The monsters didn’t go away.” A thought occurred to me. “Then you decided to release Discord? How could you know he’d be ‘reformed?’” Celestia poured steaming tea into three cups, then levitated one to each of us. “The monsters have been dealt with well enough. Even you cannot deny that.” No, I couldn’t, but that was besides the point. I tried a different approach. “How could Discord know about The Agency and why it was terminated, when he was imprisoned in stone at the time?” That caught Twilight off guard. “You already talked to Discord?” I nodded. “He seems to be aware of what’s happening to me, who did it, and how.” Celestia lowered her cup. “But not forthcoming with the details?” “No, unfortunately,” I admitted. “Will you?” “I do not know as many as you might think,” the elder princess said as she returned the cup to the table and focused her gaze on me. “But I can assure you I had good reasons to disband The Agency.” On hearing those words, Twilight grimaced. I hated to admit it, but Discord had been more helpful. This seemed like a waste of time. I got up and walked to the window, my cup of tea untouched. Ponyville beckoned to me. Lyra was there. My life that I had made over the past few years was there. “So what do I do?” I turned around, facing the princesses once more. “No offense, but I don’t think it’s productive to repeat this meeting every day until your knowledge of my existence vanishes.” “Quite understandable,” Celestia said. “I trust you know how to avoid unnecessary royal attention.” I gave a wry smile. “I’m sure practice will make perfect.” Twilight led me through the hallway, the sound of our hooves against the stone floor echoing into the distance, only slightly muffled by the thin layer of accumulated dust. Occasional windows let in the late afternoon light, lighting up the faded tapestries on the walls. “As you can see, we didn’t get very far in our renovations.” This was actually one of the better preserved sections. We stopped in front of a closed, wood door. With a lavender glow, it opened, revealing a fully restored room, complete with a bed—and only a thin layer of dust. “Sometimes we stayed overnight.” I went inside and looked around. It was adequate. It certainly beat staying in a remote cave somewhere. “But since the Tree of Harmony provided me with a castle just outside Ponyville, it was pointless to continue working on this place.” Given the amount of work they had accomplished, they couldn’t have been enthusiastic about it in the first place. Can’t say I blamed them. How practical was a castle, deep in the Everfree Forest, that had been wasting away for a thousand years? But it suited me just fine. Close enough to Ponyville to permit frequent visits, yet for obvious reasons I didn’t have to worry about somepony being shocked at my sudden appearance in the morning. The Everfree was hardly a desirable place to be, but I knew how to survive it—and that included foraging for food. I slid off the saddlebags Twilight had provided me, packed full of useful stuff. Probably a futile gesture. There was little reason to believe it’d be there tomorrow. Twilight had insisted on it anyway. There was no harm in trying, and there was the fact that I had woken up in a bed—more to the point, that I was under the covers, which had not reverted to their un-slept-in state. I’d have to wear those saddlebags every night, but that was a small price to pay if it let me keep them. “Anything else I can do before I go?” The sadness on her face was palpable. I had to make one last attempt. Maybe without Celestia’s presence, she’d let something slip. “Please, Twilight,” I pleaded. “What’s the harm in telling me. Tomorrow, nopony will know you did, not even you.” “You will know.” “It’s not like I’ll be shouting it from the rooftops, or that anypony would remember the next day if I did.” Twilight looked down, sighing. “A part of me is glad that I won’t know, myself, come tomorrow. I suppose Celestia will have to tell me for real, some day, but hopefully not for a very, very, very long time.” “I don’t have that luxury.” After a few seconds, she looked up at me. “No, you don’t, but that makes no difference. You can’t hear it from me or any other princess.” Well, I tried. The alicorn wandered about the room, avoiding eye contact. “I’m sure you’ll be tempted to explore this castle. I urge caution, and not just because parts of it are structurally unsound. There are secret chambers with dangerous magics within. Spike once found a spell book that he gave to Rarity. You might remember the chaos that caused.” Yeah, how could I forget? Rarity had remade everything to fit her definition of elegant design. Princess Celestia herself, along with Luna and Cadance, had to help clean up the magical mess. Discord, of course, had made himself scarce, not lifting a talon to help. She continued her meandering about the room. “I honestly don’t know why Celestia left all this dangerous stuff lying around here.” She stopped in front of me. “You’d think she’d have it all put into the Archives, where access can be tightly controlled.” A shrug. “But that isn’t your problem.” No, it certainly isn’t. Anyway, knowing Celestia, she probably had a good reason. “I guess this is it.” She gave me a wry smile. “I hope I don’t freak out too much the next time I see you.” I gave her a smile in return. “I think I have a handle now on what to say—or not to say.” She gave me a hug. “Good luck, Bon Bon. You’ll need it.” She teleported back to the chariot that had brought us here. A column of smoke rose from Zecora’s hut not far in the distance. I selected a less-worn path around it. I wasn’t avoiding the zebra shaman; I simply had other priorities at the moment. There was always the possibility, however small, that her exotic potions might help me. Twilight had been right. Wearing the saddlebags overnight did result in me waking up the next day still wearing them. A simple check of the floor proved I was still cursed. The layer of dust was undisturbed, both in the room and in the hallway outside. A rock I had brought inside and left on the table had vanished. On the way out, I found it right back where it had originally been. Too bad there was no point in sharing the results of this scientific experiment with Twilight, certainly not today anyway. I would avoid the princesses today. Home was my destination. There were some possessions I wanted to retrieve. And I needed to talk to Lyra. I had no idea what I was going to say to her. No matter what I did say, she wouldn’t remember it tomorrow anyway. The hut was not far from the edge of the forest, just far enough to discourage casual visitors. Before long, I reached the grassy field separating the forest from the town. I put on the sunglasses to complete the disguise. Maybe I didn’t need a disguise anymore, but the hoodie was still useful as protection from the wild and uncontrolled rains of the forest. I quickly trotted through the streets, surprisingly empty even this early in the morning, and stopped in front of my candy store. A sign in the window, in Lyra’s horn writing, said that it was closed until further notice. It felt like I was standing on my own grave. I went inside. The shelves were mostly bare. Anything at all perishable was gone, only a few boxes of hard candies remaining. The thought of Lyra having to hold a clearance sale was like a dagger to the heart. What was I going to tell her? I forced myself upstairs. Fighting an ursa major would have been easier. I reached the top. “L-lyra?” No answer. I entered the living room, though not before checking the ceiling. “Lyra?” Silence. She should have been home, preparing for a trip to Manehattan. She was spending a week there, performing. The train would leave early that afternoon. I checked the bedroom. Her suitcase was gone, as was her lyre. It didn’t make sense. Lyra would never wait so many hours at the train station. Something clicked. The streets… I hurried back outside and trotted to the Town Hall, noticing again just how empty the streets were—as if it were the weekend. Once there, I found the board with the public announcements. On it I saw a missing pony notice with my picture on it. My heart froze. I had disappeared four days before the wedding, not the three I had expected. I checked today’s date. It was the weekend; Lyra had left for Manehattan yesterday. I’d been missing for eight days, not six. I might not have had as much time as I thought.