Lunar tunnels might not be the best place for pegasi to fly, as Rainbow had said. But she was definitely flying fast enough now, with me clinging to her belly and Flash to her back with my magic as a saddle-strap (and also my hooves). Still, we were banking, swerving, and almost spinning every few seconds. I could guess why Flash didn't want to fly on his own. Facing behind, I could hardly tell where we were going, as the ceilings of one back passage after another - with their mage-lights fixed regularly every five yards - sped past us. I tried to work out how I could turn around without falling off - there had to be some way to rearrange the magic, but whenever I tried to think of it, all the Hearths' Warming Eve cookies that'd been pressed on me rose up protesting in my gullet.
"Where -" I began.
"Away from the guards!" Rainbow snapped, before rocketing down some long straightaway. Flash pulled against the spell; I released him to fly with his own wings - just as we dove into darkness. I gasped. What had happened to the mage-lights? To Luna's magic? I quickly cancelled my disguise and put up a light-spell, and also Shiny's favorite shield-spell.
"Oh, light!" Rainbow remarked.
"Yes -"
A moment later, Rainbow landed on her four legs, right on top of me. The shield bounced; I rolled out; Rainbow was flung on top of a large mildly-sparkling rock sitting in the passage a yard away.
"What was that for?" she snapped.
"A shield," I panted, as I swallowed to try to calm my stomach. "Where are we?"
"An old mine," she snapped. "Most of the gems're gone down to Equestria. Not all of 'em, though." She tapped some of the sparkles on the rock. "I don't think anypony's been here in years 'cept me and my friends; it's a really awesome place to hide out from the Warden."
"Or to hide other things," Flash added, settling down next to the edge of my horn's light.
I sank down against the rock, wishing I'd brought a book. I didn't even know where we were; there were probably a hundred paid-out tunnels near town. More than half the ponies of Mare-Equiis were gem miners; wagonload after wagonload was shipped down the spell-ladder every week.
"Hey, Twi?"
"Twilight." It was my name; ponies should care enough to use it.
"Hey, Twi, what do they use these gems for anyway?"
"Magical energy and focusing arrays. When the thaumic energy is excited by the crystalline structure -"
"Whatever. You think Lyra got away?"
Flash flicked his tail. He was half bent over near the far tunnel wall.
I shook my head. Shiny had joined the Royal Guard for a few of their training sessions (to the shock of Mother and almost all our Aunts and Uncles) before they'd given him a categorical rejection due to his place of birth; he'd told me how good they were. "No chance."
"So..." Flash walked back into the light, holding an empty saddlebag. "Rainbow, any idea what happened to all the carrots and beets that were here last week?"
Rainbow grinned and patted her belly.
"Rainbow, we need some food here, for times like tonight!"
"Hey! I found you this old mine in the first place! It's a great place for practicing tricks!"
"And for -" he glanced at me "- other purposes."
"Hey, she's in on the Revolution; she can hear about a little smuggling."
Flash stared at me. "Are you in this with us, Twilight? Still?"
I swallowed. In fact, Luna the spell-nexus made me a captain in the Revolution. "Yes."
"Well." He sank down next to me, and gestured for Rainbow to come down too. "So, let's walk the pasture..."
Walking the pasture brought up that we probably could safely hide here; Flash's smuggling group (he was still a little cagey about talking about them) had hidden tax-free goods here for weeks undisturbed. And we probably needed to hide, too; Rainbow begrudgingly admitted that the Guard probably had gotten a good look at her. (She glared at me when I said I'd been disguised all along.) On the other hoof, we didn't have any food, and we'd probably need to hide for several days before the guard stopped looking.
On the rear hooves, the best time to do anything was now, while the Guard were still busy with everypony who hadn't been able to blink out of the Bonbonnery.
"So," I said, "how about I use the disguise spell on all of us, and we head over for dinner with my family?"
There were generally four levels to the main town of Mare-Equiis, delved into the the lunar rock by pony miners over the last two hundred years, linked by numerous ramps both in public corridors and individual shops. (The various mining tunnels and most of the farms, of course, protruded from the margins of every level. The Warden's palace and spell nexus were also outside this system.) The Bonbonnery had been on the second level; our escape had brought us to the top level; my family lived on the bottom.
My disguise spell changed our coat colors; that and tossing around our manes a bit would probably help us to elude casual glances. Still, all my magic couldn’t change our cutie marks one bit. Fortunately, as we walked through the town (or flew, in Rainbow’s case), we only saw a few guards trotting as if they had orders to be somewhere else fast. I finally dismissed our disguise spell in front of my family’s door, with a sigh of relief.
Aunt Dimity quickly opened the door for us. Somehow, in the middle of the hours of decorating, she’d found the time to immaculately style her blue mane. “Twilight! You’re back - and oh, you brought friends!”
Rainbow shot a glare at me at that description, but she didn’t say anything.
“Did you meet them at the Warden’s mansion?”
“On the way back,” I said. We’d agreed to be as vague as possible about that part. “Aunt Dimity, these’re Rainbow Dash and Flash Sentry.”
“The fastest pegasus on the moon!”
“Nothing like that, I’m afraid, ma’am,” Flash said with a smile and a half-bow. “I’m sorry we’re here so close to dinner without warning -”
Aunt Dimity interrupted with a very broad smile. “Any friends of Twilight’s are always welcome to supper. Just come on in and wash your hooves; Twinkle has the stew almost ready…”
We were a fairly normal-sized herd, maybe a little on the small end, and our side-tunnel was also rather normal for Mare-Equiis. There were a few unusual things in the entrance hall, though - Rainbow grinned at some of the still-present scars from where I’d tried to practice my magic as a filly. I pursed my lips and beckoned them on into the main cavern.
A bright yellow pony dashed down upon us, her red-striped mane waving. “Twilight! You actually brought home a stallion!”
“Hello, Cousin Sunset.” I sighed.
“Hello!” She flashed a very broad grin at Flash. “So Twilight actually thinks you’re good enough for her!”
“Actually—” Flash began nervously.
“Congratulations!” Sunset grabbed Flash’s hoof and shook it vigorously. “I’m Twilight’s herd-cousin Sunset Shimmer; what’s your name?”
“Flash Sentry, and —” His eyes went wide as he glanced between Sunset and me.
“Ooh!” Her ears stood up for a moment in surprise. “I’ve heard of you! You’re with the Flash Drivers, right? You’ll be perfect for my little book-pony cousin!”
Rainbow flopped down right there on the hallway floor with laughter as loud as a whole galloping herd.
“Sunset —” I began.
She patted my mane. “What? I mean, Mother’s only been wondering aloud for eight years —”
“You mean Aunt Dimity’s been speculating about my entirely nonexistent romantic life ever since I went down to the Princess’s School!?”
“And since your mother’s still in working on her book, and Shining Armor’s still at work - at least, I mean, even Warden Blueblood has to let him off tomorrow for the day before Hearth’s Warming Eve — it’s my duty to show Flash around —”
Mercifully, Aunt Twinkle chose this moment to call out “Dinner!”
One benefit of a herd that I probably mentioned at least five dozen times at the Divine Princess’s School (herds being almost unheard-of in Equestria [and yes, my schoolmates did point out that pun almost every time]) is that you get a range of special talents. Mother was great at writing, but if she was the only mare in the family, we’d never be eating anything more than salad. Aunt Twinkle, on the other hand — Eventide Twinkle, but hardly anypony called her by her full name — had a cutie mark in cooking. Meanwhile, Uncle Meteor had a cutie mark of rock and picked up odd jobs mining, Aunt Dimity was a manedresser with her own storefront right next to our home, Uncle Nightlight and Uncle Dusk had cutie marks (different marks) in crafting and tinkering, and Aunt Starlight loved experiments. I’d gotten along very well with Aunt Starlight when I’d been a foal — even if my cutie mark would’ve given me a talent for magic by itself, my foalhood wouldn’t have been anywhere near as fun and broadening if we hadn’t been a herd.
With a broad grin, Sunset patted a cushions right next to mine at the table. “Here, Flash — have the seat next to Twilight!”
“Sunset! That’s Shiny’s place!”
“Oh, I’m sure the Warden’s got paperwork. Remember, he insisted on keeping Shiny late last year, and the year before that…”
“And the Summer Sun Celebration, too.” Aunt Starlight smoothly sat down and only then took a clear look at Flash and Rainbow, both still standing self-consciously next to me. “Please, please, both of you, take a seat anywhere.”
Flash pointedly took the cushion on the other side of Shiny’s, but then Rainbow slid in between us. “So what’s that you were saying about Shiny and the Warden?” she asked.
“Shining Armor’s one of the Warden’s clerks,” Sunset said.
Flash raised his ears at this and shot me a glance.
“And the Warden keeps him shamefully late on the most trivial work,” Aunt Starlight added. “It’s a real shame he couldn’t get into the Guard —”
“Which is where he wanted to be all along,” I interrupted.
Rainbow was looking at Aunt Starlight appraisingly, but then Uncle Nightlight and Aunt Dimity walked in, ushering Aunt Twinkle’s two foals, Minty and Satin, between them. A moment later, Aunt Eventide brought in a pot of steaming stew, and there was no more attention to spare for political hinting.
Whatever sort of business Flash Sentry and Cousin Sunset had been hinting at, he apparently also worked on his aunts’ farm growing oats and hay. Rainbow Dash was much more eager to talk about her life, though. She was supposedly the fastest flyer and the fastest cloud-worker in Mare-Equiis; her doubtlessly-embellished tales quickly had the foals’ mouths hanging open and Sunset listening eagerly beneath a facade of disinterest.
The other topic of conversation was Mother’s new book. Daring Do was trying to save her beloved-through-ten-books Greystoke from the clutches of an evil jungle sorcerer loosely based on the legendary King Sombra, and more closely based on my own supplies of magical information. She was almost at the climax, and was glad to relate some of the ratcheting-up tension. To Rainbow’s irritation, though, she stuck to her standard policy of not giving away a single spoiler. “Wait till the second draft’s done, Rainbow,” I reassured her.
Shining Armor finally came home about halfway through dinner. He raised his ears in surprise at my bringing friends home, but he joined in the conversation without remarking on it any further.
After talking about revolution and running from the Royal Guard, a normal dinner seemed ever so relaxing and peaceful to me. I could finally walk the pasture for myself. Instantly, dozens of suppressed questions wafted up in my head: Who was Luna? What had really happened who-knows-how-long-ago when the Divine Princess bound her here? How did the binding-spells work? I had weeks and weeks of studying to do - except that my own pitiful library was horribly insufficient. Not even the library at the Divine Princess’s School would be sufficient, probably — and that was a horrible thought: how much had the Divine Princess been able to censor?
Well, there was one source she hadn’t censored: Luna herself. And there was one thing I could do now: get a telescope and plot out the stars, like Luna had asked me. As soon as everypony was finished, I excused myself to the library. It might be impolite to run off when I’d brought friends home for dinner, but I had a mission.
I might as well not have worried about the impoliteness. Rainbow and Flash both followed me.
"All right," Rainbow snapped as soon as we were in the library. "What's up with this?"
"With what?"
"With Shining Armor! And you!" She stalked toward me with her wings flared. "You trot into our revolution, you say right out that you're looking for a telescope for some mysterious reason — I'll give you all that, but now it comes out that your brother's actually working for the Warden! What's up with that?"
I backed up against three shelves of elementary spellbooks (kept for Cousin Minty, and for lack of any better books to replace them) to get away from the threatening pegasus. "He's just a junior clerk —"
"So what? Do you know what he's doing there?"
"Y-yes —"
"So you do know! You're in this with him!"
“Wait!” Flash held up a wing. “Is this room safe?”
“Safe?” I glanced from shelf to shelf. “Even dark summoning spells are safe in themselves, unless you use them —”
“I mean, will anypony burst in on us?”
I shook my head. Even the foals knew not to bother me when I was studying in there, so we could (probably) talk revolution, or whatever, in peace.
“Good.” He nodded. “Now - Thank you very much, Miss Twilight, for helping us escape the Guards’ search, and for the good dinner. Would you mind talking about where we go from here? First, are you interested in remaining part of our revolutionary movement?”
I raised my ears in surprise. “Do you still have a movement? I thought the guards had arrested everypony!”
“Yeah.” Rainbow flitted up flank-high in the air. “But I’m sure there’re a few who made awesome escapes. Like us. Not that I should tell you that, since your brother’s one of the Warden’s henchponies —”
“He’s not a henchpony!”
“Then what’s he doing? Throwing ponies in prison? Holding out his hoof for taxes? Just sucking up to the Warden for the fun of it?”
“Shiny’s a good pony!” I yelled. “It’s the only way he can -”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” my brother’s voice interjected from behind me.
“Shiny!”
I rushed over to give him a hug, but Rainbow dove in between us. “All right!” she challenged. “I hear you’re working for the Warden. Why?”
Shiny scanned our faces, confused. “That seems a strange subject to bring up so soon? Unless Cousin Sunset’s teasing is actually right and the three of you really are forming a herd together -”
Rainbow’s face fell into utter disgust.
Shiny flashed a glance at me; whatever he saw in my face apparently satisfied him. “Then what are you doing here? Twily?”
“Looking up telescope spells, or at least trying to.” I looked back yearningly at the shelves. It’d probably take three hours for me to search out the charms… then if I could somehow convince Uncle Nightlight to stay up all night, or else beg off the decorating tomorrow… And I’d need to somehow deal with Rainbow and Flash too.
“And where did you meet her?” Shiny asked.
“Around town,” Flash said quickly. “We were talking about the Warden, and, well… I’m surprised you’re actually working for him regularly.” He glanced at Shiny’s flank. “Does it have something to do with your cutie mark?”
Shiny pointed at the purple shield on his flank as he nodded. “It’s not the best job, and Blueblood’s nothing like the Divine Princess… but this’s how I can do my part.”
“Some part!” Rainbow snorted.
“Not my favorite part either. Mostly I just shovel papers.” There was an awkward silence. "Twily, were you anywhere near the Bonbonnery? There was some fighting there; I saw the reports."
Yes. I opened my mouth - I couldn't lie to Shiny - but Flash beat me to it. "No, we were up in the top level."
"Oh." Shiny looked at me; I glanced away at a shelf of old legends and scuffed my hooves against the floor. "Twi," he said, "I can't help protect you if I don't know what you're doing."
Rainbow bristled her feathers. "Then maybe you shouldn't -"
"It's my special talent." He pointed at his cutie mark again. "Twi, you really weren't there?"
I mutely shook my head.
"Good. I just want you to stay safe; Warden Blueblood's really upset. And - I love you."
My chest felt like it was about to burst as he walked out. For the first time I could remember, I'd lied to Shiny. Was there any other way?