When I sat down later on and thought about it, there wasn't really any reason to be so shocked. The Divine Princess had barely done anything for us Moon-Ponies except send up Wardens with (as Mother would say) snouts so high in the air they were halfway up to the moon already. We or our ancestors had been exiled here for whatever reason (from violent crimes to offending a local magistrate to anything in-between) and then kept penned up in these tiny caves by spell-freight so high that if it hadn't been for Mother's bestselling novels, I'd never have been able to go to the Divine Princess's School.
But at the time, when Luna had first broached the word "revolution," all the years of school and festivals and dedicatory prefaces rushed back upon me. We were plotting to overthrow the Princess! The one who moved the heavens! The one who gave light and warmth and all good things! The mother of all ponies! The -
"TWILIGHT SPARKLE!"
Luna's yell pierced through my frenzy. It seemed like it would almost pierce through the stone. "L-Luna?" I stammered, prone on the ground.
"Get thee up and raise up thine horn! Of what were thy meditations?"
"We're really going to overthrow the Divine Princess? She raises the sun and moon and -"
"And I could do the same, were I free from the chains where she bound me."
"Oh." My mind was racing round just what I knew of the Divine Princess's powers, and how much of it might have been exaggerated. "You were sisters, then? Both just as powerful? Did you rule together? Did you -"
"Yea, to all save power. She was onetime more powerful, and jealous to hold to that - so that when I did venture close to equal her, she struck first unprovoked and did bind me fast in mine own Moon."
"When was this?" More than eight hundred years back, but -"
"I know not." She sounded almost wistful, for a moment. "For many years even my mind and senses were taken from me, and I was but the spell-nexus thou didst term me - my very soul's magic being sucked by my sister's bonds. Yet in time I did return unto myself..."
"It's the Year 1498 of Harmony," I offered. "Almost Hearth's Warming Eve."
"Aha! My sister stole even our old calendar, perverting its name of Harmony! Then know this, my captain: I have been in bonds for nine hundred and ninety-eight years. And in but two years, I may be free - if thou wilt see the day?"
"See? You want me to watch? And write it down for the histories?" I jumped up in glee.
"Mayhap - but more." Luna's voice was stern, but I could sense the invitation in it - almost like a teacher inviting her students to delve into a subject. I suddenly remembered we'd just been talking of a revolution, of much more than just sitting and writing.
But, then, I'd gone down to the Divine Princess's School, despite almost all my uncles and aunts' worries. And I'd stayed there through graduation. If Luna was inviting me to this... maybe I could do it. "What're you asking?"
"Thou knowest that the stars emit magical energy?"
"Of course! I was just reading Dr. Von Horser's text - you want me to collect the thaumaturgical energy -"
"Nay. For there are four stars that, when occluded by this Moon, will so bend the firmament that I can collect it even in my bonds, and so dissolve them. Rather, I would that you find these stars, and measure their true-motion to foretell the day and hour of my liberation..."
The guards seemed relieved when I came out with my hide intact. "I heard some rumbling in there?" one of them mentioned nervously.
I nodded. "It's all right." There's a pony in the nexus. A Princess. "Let's get back to the Warden and make our reports?" And she wants to overthrow the Warden.
It was maybe three minutes before the other guard cocked his head at me and said, "Is something up, Twilight?"
I almost jumped. I'm a captain in this new revolution. "It's... well, I've got another experiment to run afterwards. I was thinking about that."
"Nothing wrong with this spell-nexus, I hope?"
"Nothing." It only wants to make war on the Divine Princess herself.
Warden Blueblood wasn't in the mood for conversation, fortunately; he just gave a brief grunt of "Good; and make sure it doesn't happen again!" and had his secretary hoof me a bag of bits. I stashed it in my saddlebags and wandered down the rock passages back toward home.
Looking at the stars was harder than it sounded here on the moon. There isn't any air on the lunar surface; our settlement is dug inside the moon with maybe a hundred feet of firm rock between us and anywhere to see the stars. It's possible to get around this, of course - I hadn't even bothered to mention this obstacle to Luna lest she think my education deficient. A cross between the health bubble and the military shield can hold in air around you while you go out on the moon's surface; once there, you can leave out a telescope and use the remote viewing spell to transfer its image to a magically-linked telescope down in the caverns.
I could probably learn the spells in a day, and then I could convince Uncle Dusk to carve two linked telescopes and get the Warden’s permission for a surface excursion... maybe. Eventually. And Luna didn't seem patient.
Then I remembered that Shiny, my brother, had mentioned seeing a telescope at some party a couple months back. Where was it? Ah... at the Bonbonnery.
Making a face - that was just the sort of loud shop crowded with cheery ponies that I avoided because I couldn't read a single page in peace there - I took the turn to town and the Bonbonnery.
"Hold up, right there!"
The Bonbonnery's doors were shut, to my surprise, and the corridor outside was almost deserted. There were two pickaxes leaning up against the door, with a little gem-dust as if they’d been taken straight here from the mines. A few ponies were milling around outside, including an orange pegasus filly who was glaring up at me in challenge.
"Who are you, and what's businessing you -" She glanced at the other ponies for a moment and loudly cleared her throat. "I mean, what's your business here?"
"I thought this was a candy shop?" I asked.
"No, it's a secret meeting place!"
"Scootaloo..." An orange pegasus stallion looked over cautiously.
"But it is! Oh, but yes, it's supposed to be a secret!"
I sighed with impatience. "Can you play your games somewhere else and just let me in? I'm hungry." Really, after an afternoon of trying to study while getting dragged into the whole herd's Hearth's Warming Eve preparations, a candy shop was the last place I'd want to eat... but Shiny had said the Bonbonnery made some decent buns too.
"Nope! Bon-Bon herself said the doors stay closed until I open them!"
"Until we open them," the stallion corrected. "The shop's closed for a meeting. Come back tomorrow?"
Tomorrow would be even busier at home, and Luna wouldn't want to wait until after Hearth's Warming Eve. "Okay, can we say I join the meeting, then?"
The ponies all looked at each other. "Twilight Sparkle, right?" the stallion asked. (I nodded.) "You're the groundtrotter?"
“I’m not that!” I stomped a hoof. “I was just down there for the Divine Princess’s school -”
"Nope!" The filly buzzed her wings as if she wanted to fly up into my face but couldn't. "No groundtrotters allowed! Moon ponies only!"
"She did come back..." a brown earth pony said, tapping his hoof thoughtfully against one of the pickaxes.
"Did you like it down there?" the filly challenged.
The school had been great... but I shook my head.
"I know her herd," a green earth pony said. "Great ponies; been up here since before my herd. And that's sayin' something." There were grunts of agreement from several others. "Let 'er in, Flash."
The pegasus stallion - Flash - pursed his lips, looked around at the other ponies, and then back at me. "You're not going to tell the Warden what we're doing here, right?"
My eyes went wide. This didn’t sound like a normal secret anymore. But I’m already a captain in Luna's revolution. "Why would I do that?"
"Just say it!" The filly reared up under my face.
"No, I won't!"
"Great, then. I hope we can trust you on that." Flash opened the doors, and I strode into the place which was definitely more than a candy shop, at least tonight...
The Bonbonnery was the largest private cavern I’d been in. Its floor was polished horn-smooth, and its ceiling was a shallow but smooth dome that I was sure had to have been polished by magic. (I dimly remembered that Shiny had been at a dance party here. If there was anywhere on the moon outside the Warden's palace suitable for that, I thought, it was here.) There were two large doors opposite each other, the one I'd entered by and another that was closed tight. On the near wall was a long counter piled with candy, in front of another closed door labeled "Kitchen." Aside from a few tables, the floor (and some of the air) was taken up by a large group of ponies, who looked like they were waiting for something.
A blue pegasus swooped down just as I was looking around, and almost crashed into me. I instinctively pushed her back with magic; her wings flailed about for a moment before she settled to the ground and glared at me. "Hey! What'd you do that for!?"
"You were about to crash -"
"I'm Rainbow Dash! I don't crash! Well, at least, I don't crash into ponies when I've got a big space like this and I'm thinking about what I'm doing!"
That didn't inspire confidence.
"Hey, who brought you here? What's the password?"
"Password?" I asked blankly. "What is this?"
"You don't know?" she asked sarcastically. Then she stared into my face for a moment and repeated suspiciously, "You don't know? Who let you in?"
"The pegasus at the door; I think he was..." At the last moment, I thought better of giving his name.
"And why're you even here?"
"I'm trying to get to a telescope," I said honestly.
"Well, we're trying to have a revolution! Against the Warden!"
My eyes went wide. Somepony else was trying to raise a revolution? Without Luna being involved at all?
She glared at me in challenge again. "And your telescope doesn't have anything to do with it!"
"Actually... it does."
Rainbow narrowed her eyes at me incredulously. "So are you in? Or just making fun of us?"
Before I could answer, a cream earth pony and green unicorn trotted up on the dias at the far end of the room and pounded their hooves for quiet. The crowd quickly fell silent; Rainbow Dash fluttered up in the air above me.
"Mares and gentlestallions of Mare-Equiis! I'm Bon-Bon, and this is my herdmate Lyra. When I’m normally greeting you, it’s for a ball. But this isn't a dance. We're here today for something more than sweets or dancing - we're here to deal with the Warden."
Bon-Bon's words fell on the crowd like a large rock. There was a moment of stricken silence before Lyra stepped up. "I'm sure we all agree, things aren't good here."
Several ponies were nodding their heads around Twilight. Rainbow Dash was flexing her wings like she wanted to rush up to the podium right then and there.
"The mines are starting to lead farther and farther from town, and turn up less and less ore. Or if you’ve escaped the mines and gotten a cavern of your own to farm, the moon-rock's getting harder and harder to turn into soil. And everything you can’t grow or mine yourself, you need to ship up from Equestria, and the freight's getting higher and higher, and you've no idea what the Warden's doing with the money. And then you need to pay the taxes on everything you do bring up - and everything you grow, and everything else too - and you need to ship even more stuff down to Equestria to get the money, and pay for that, and -"
Cheers of assent interrupted her. "We get it, we get it!" one pony exclaimed. I understood too - I'd known the outline, and even looked through the Official Tax Tables one year before realizing there was no rhyme or reason to them, but I'd never heard anypony laying it out like this before.
"Down with taxes!" Scootaloo yelled from the door. A large cheer answered her.
"Yes!" Lyra cried. "Yes, down with taxes! But that's not enough! Down with the system that lays the taxes! Down with the Warden and all his office!"
Scootaloo and a few others started a cheer before realizing they were the only ones cheering. Everypony around me was still in shock, just as if Lyra had been trying to explain Plowscribe's Third Law.
Rainbow Dash rocketed over my head up to the podium. The wind in her wake almost knocked my hair over my eyes.
"Lyra's right!" Rainbow yelled. "Listen up, everypony - the taxes aren't the only problem here! Ever thought how high the corridors are? Twenty hands? Thirty? Any of you pegasi? Yes - you there in red - how was it flying in the main passage here?"
A large-looking pegasus reared up. "Actually, ma'am, I walked."
"Walked! Rainbow snorted. "Walked, when she's got two perfectly good wings! And I don't blame her - we're not made to fly in tiny tunnels here! Or even walk in them! We can hardly get up to speed before we need to bank around some sharp turn! And it’s the same when you’re running on your four hooves - maybe thirty hands wide, too! You’ve heard of Equestria’s wide grassy plains, just like I have! That’s what we were made for!"
The crowd cheered uproariously. Even I started thinking back to how, despite everything, it had still felt good to be galloping outside Canterlot... not the same as unraveling a new spell, but some more primal satisfaction...
Bon-Bon held up her hoof to try to wave Rainbow down. "That's great, but let's start with a more manageable goal -"
"Manageable? Why isn't this manageable? Let's tell the Divine Princess that her Warden isn't hoofing it, and ask her to use her magic and give us some more space!"
Cheers drowned out everything else. If Rainbow hadn't been flying, the crowd would probably have lifted her on their backs.
Lyra stepped up. "So how shall we raise this revolution? Where shall we start? Yes - you there, blue earth-pony by the counter..."
Whether Rainbow was the only pony really passionate about the revolution, or nopony cared for details, or else calling on ponies like a class really did make everypony stupid - for whatever reason it was, almost every plan offered was stupid enough that even I with my one hour's experience of revolution could see holes in it. Gallop into the Warden's office? He'd just teleport out, or send in the trained Guard, or even collapse the passageway to bar the door. Refuse to pay taxes and tolls? Nopony of us knew the spells to carry things between here and Equestria, so we'd just cut ourselves off even if we could get everypony in Mare-Equiis joining in. Send a polite letter to the Divine Princess? Go down to Canterlot and protest in person? That last one had about half the room cheering... but I remembered Luna and had my doubts.
"Yes!" Bon-Bon cheered. "If we could only get our message to the Divine Princess -"
"- but we need to make sure she understands," Lyra added, "despite all Warden Blueblood's lies. So, for the Princess's own sake, we first need to throw out the Warden!"
Five or six ponies jumped up at once, clamoring something about the Princess's wisdom or the Princess's sight or the Princess wanting us to do something I couldn't hear. Lyra had a smile on her face, but Rainbow Dash was pouting.
And then the doors burst open behind me in front of a fast-flying Flash. "The guards! The guards! They've found us!"
"All right!" Rainbow Dash cried. "Let's stand and show them we mean -"
"Run!" cried somepony near the far doors. A few seconds later (with a glimmer of what had to be four different auras near the latch) they were open and several ponies were already dashing out. Pegasi were taking to the air; two or three were gathering around the podium where Lyra was still standing tall but Bon-Bon had slipped down into the crowd.
"Halt, in Her Majesty's name!"
The Royal Guard was pouring in - I saw six stallions in a quick glance. Flash and a couple other pegasi were flying at them; the rest of the crowd was starting to stampede.
I threw up a shield around myself, along with a quick disguise spell making my coat blue. Another unicorn near me had her hoof too close; she jerked it back with a neigh - and then a Guard threw a bolt of magic in our direction; she went down; my shield survived; I saw three more Guards coming right at me with lit horns and realized too late that I'd made myself far too obvious...
And then something crashed right into my shield. It was already wavering with my realization; it collapsed right away, and I went down with the bulk of heavy pony on top of me. "Help -" I gurgled.
A sharp stallion's hiss answered me: "Quiet - play dead!"
It seemed like a good idea.
It was maybe five minutes - I counted; three hundred seconds - before my rescuer wriggled off me. But it was a minute of stampeding hooves and screaming ponies - and when he did get off, I saw the Guard was still cutting through the crowd.
And I saw he was Flash the pegasus. He glanced back at me. "Too late."
I nodded, and felt out with my horn. The anaspace felt free...
"Hey, what're you doing this time?" He grabbed at my hoof -
- and then we were both in the passage right outside the door. Four surprised Guards were staring at us.
"Hey, she can blink -"
"Run!" I screamed.
But then a blue streak came from the other direction, toward the doors: Rainbow Dash. She - wherever she'd come from - did a perfect roll in front of the guards as they scattered, before snatching both of us up in her hooves as she came back. "Let's get going faster!"
We did - the three of us, maybe all that was left of Lyra’s abortive Revolution.