Ledger’s fingers slipped into his cuff, pinching together and pulling the sleeve taut. Then, absentmindedly, he repeated the process on the other side. He rolled his shoulder blades and frowned, hands twitching slightly in a desire to scratch his shoulders. He grabbed his shirt unceremoniously and pulled it downward, only for it to spring back up again. Glancing around, Ledger tucked the loose fabric into his pants and pulled his pants up higher, revealing his socks. He sighed in frustration.
“I know someone who might be able to tailor that for you,” came a voice from the window. Ledger turned to see Rainbow Dash squirming her way past the stone frame and into the room Ledger had occupied by himself for the past, sparse moments.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Ledger responded, pulling his pant legs down to cover his socks and restraining himself from messing with his shirt anymore than he already had.
“She is VERY good with clothes, if you can believe it,” Rainbow continued, rolling her eyes with a smile a bit too wide on her face. “Don’t know why she decided to get into sewing.”
Ignoring the latter part of the conversation, Ledger continued the discussion. “Well, these were given to me by the queen. Is she good with such delicate matters?”
“Eh, I dunno. She’s right outside if you wanted to ask her yourself.” Here, Rainbow’s words took on a strange stricture, much against the actual words themselves. “Or she might come in here in a couple minutes, whichever.”
“Ah, I’ve got to meet with the queen unfortunately, so it might have to wait.” Ledger glared sidelong at Rainbow. “Unless she also has a meeting with the Queen too, of course.” Here, Ledger smiled, his words sounding almost humorous.
“Who knows, right?!” Rainbow nudged Ledger with her elbow. “Anything’s possible today.” Rainbow’s smile looked much like Ledger’s, forced.
Ledger nodded once, and Rainbow turned and left, leaving Ledger to his thoughts and his need to scratch a spot between his shoulderblades.
The door in front of him was opened and a pony waved him in, setting Ledger’s mind to more important issues. He entered, cautiously, and approached the throne, seating himself in the cramped chair that had been provided, happy to have somewhere to sit at all. From the chair, there was little choice but to face the throne, with a massive iron gateway leading to the courtyard a couple paces behind him. His eyes darted to the mechanism that could open the portcullis, a simple wheel with a chain strung through a set of pulleys. Then, with a deep breath, he looked to the Queen.
She was seated high on her throne, her gaze drifting lazily over a set of papers by her side, formalities and bills that had been piling up over the week. Eventually, she looked to Ledger, who had been making a conscious effort to not wring his hands from anxiety.
“I do not like being kept waiting, Ledger,” she began, her eyes narrowing. “This, I trust, you are aware of. I would hope, after all, that you’ve managed to put that together in the past two years you’ve worked in my employ.”
All signs of uncertainty seemed to vaporize. Ledger’s tone was calm as he leveled his gaze to the queen, his face indecipherable. “I do, Your Highness.”
“And you are aware, doubtless, that you have been keeping me waiting, aren’t you?”
“I am, ma’am.”
“Well then? What excuse do you have for me. I’m sure it’ll be something worth hearing.”
“I was drugging an old friend so that I could get away from her and come here in a—” Ledger closed his jaw, his eyes narrowing in anger for a moment.
The queen raised her eyebrow in curiosity, but seemed to decide it wasn’t worth her breath to ask. Instead, with an air of apathy, she simply said, “Continue.”
Ledger breathed, if just barely. His words slowed. “And come here in a reasonable amount of time, Ma’am.”
“I see.” She glanced away to write on a paper, making a note of some kind. In his unobserved moment, Ledger clenched his hands tight, his fingernails trying to dig through the gloves and into the skin beneath. “You’ll have to excuse the truth spell, Ledger. I have reason to suspect there are traitors among my staff.”
“Of course, ma’am.” The guards at the entrance to the room looked at Ledger with a pair of shocked expressions, having heard his outburst in full. He glared at them in return, breaking them from their disbelief and scaring them into feigned disinterest. “You can never be too careful these days, can you?”
“I suppose if you're drugging a friend simply to expedite your arrival in my court, you must have some degree of loyalty to me. However, as you are supposed to be helping these ponies trust my rule, I would ask that you refrain from continuing such acts.” Even with her writing long since done, the queen’s gaze still did not leave the papers. “Am I understood?”
“Of course, ma’am.”
“Good.” She glanced to Ledger from the corner of her eye. “Speaking of, how have your meetings with my ponies been going? The latest status report you submitted was quite a ways back, before that… unfortunate Appleloosa incident.”
“Unfortunately, I haven’t had the opportunity to meet with any ponies in an official capacity since then, due to my trip to the dragons. The last, I believe, was with Miss Rarity in Ponyville.”
“Ah, yes. You’ve changed a lot since then. I remember you used to be very soft with your subordinates. I expect that business with your previous two coach hands changed your mind on that?”
Solemnly, Ledger nodded. The queen turned her attention away again to the papers, and silence settled into the hall. After a tense moment a soft ringing, like a chime, swelled in the silence until it filled the room. The sound brought the Queen’s gaze to Ledger once again. He had turned to look behind himself, also curious to the sound. Frowning, the Queen stacked her papers together.
“Time grows short, Ledger, so I will ask you plainly. Know that should you try and lie, my spell will pull truths from your lips in untold number. So I ask you, Ledger, have you at any point in your employment, both in terms of the present moments as well as for the entire length of your career, sought to depose me from my throne?”
Ledger, heart beating like a nightclub music set, turned back to face the queen. “No, Your Highness.” Ledger was forced to bite his tongue as it moved to pronounce the entire truth of his statement.
She seemed surprised, briefly, by his answer, but quickly hid it away. “Good. Now—”
A blinding flash filled the room, taking several moments to fade before Ledger was able to discern shapes. Two, as it turned out, one white and one black. The black he could only guess was the Queen.
“Ledger,” came the Queen’s voice, “move to the back of the room please.”
Doing as he was told, Ledger made his way to the far wall behind the throne, his vision beginning to clear with each moment. Slowly, the forms grew sharper until every aspect of their presence grew crystal clear. There was, of course, the Queen, terrible and deadly as always. But now there was another, with a coat of brilliant white.
Ledger, of course, knew what to expect from the new arrival, but his breath still caught. She looked more… real than he had expected her to. But while he could barely drag his eyes away from the alicorns to make his way to the gate controls, they in contrast, seemed to not pay him any mind at all.
The white one, Celestia, Ledger knew. She breathed deeply. The air crackled with tension as Ledger began to turn the well-oiled wheel, raising the gate a couple inches in painful silence. He moved slow, not wanting the movement to catch the queen’s attention, though he suspected she saw anyway. Taking a metal pin from his coat, Ledger jammed the wheel, forcing it to remain open as he moved back to the far wall.
All this was done in silence as the two alicorns stared at each other with determination set in their features. Carefully, Celestia moved a step closer, tears rimming her eyes. “I do NOT want to fight you sister,” she began. “Please do not force me to.”
The Queen’s face gave away no sense of emotion. She took one step back, maintaining the distance between them, and planted her hooves firmly. With a flash of her horn, she summoned a blade of the darkest black, but sparkled with pinpricks of white. She leveled it at Celestia and spoke. “I will not surrender my fame to you. I will not surrender my power. I will not be forgotten in your shadow again, sister.”
Celestia blinked once, slowly, and stepped away. Her own sword was brought to bear, a blade of fire and guilt. “Then I regret that I will have to shoulder the grief of your death,” She said simply. Their blades hovered before them ready to cut the other. But before that, the sisters gave a practiced bow to their opponent.
As they rose, their blades moved in a flurry, strikes and parries and thrusts barely visible to Ledger as he watched the battle fall underway. Yet, despite the speed of the attacks, they held power as well. Each collision sounded like an explosion, and their frequency gave the illusion of a never fading echo. Ledger, holding his hands over his ears, slid slowly down to the floor.
Barely able to see the fight, it wasn’t until the Queen took another step back that Ledger was privy to how the battle might be swinging. Then she took another, and another, her hooves always on retreat. She met the first step up to her throne and stopped. Her eyes were narrow, her attention at its most. “You always were the better duelist sister,” she said in a dark tone, her phrase barely registering with Celestia before both swords were evaporated in a terrifying explosion of magic.
Celestia now backpedaled, behind her starting point, as the wave of dark magic chased her away. The Queen stared at her with a blank face as Celestia was forced, at last, to simply stop the spell with force. She did so with barely a thought and landed easily back onto the stone.
“It was a fun skirmish,” the ruling sister said, “but unfortunately, I have other business to do, so I think I will have to end this quickly.”
Celestia’s eyes narrowed, but she did not voice a disagreement. She did not have to. Six figures slipped in underneath the gate Ledger had propped ajar, each one save the foremost bearing an ancient stone.
The Queen stared to each of them, for a moment questioning her complete control of the situation. Then, with a blink, summoned an army.
It was strange, given the atmosphere, to watch so many armored stallions flop unconsciously onto the stones. Even those who were present scarcely believed the unexpected humor. The Queen began to show some emotion, all consuming rage of course, but an emotion at least.
“What?” The question hissed from her clenched teeth. “Poisoned, I suppose. You work quickly don’t you, Elements?” She spat the last word to the six, who were just as confused by the situation as she was. Ledger, meanwhile, wore a face of composure and apathy.
“That’s right, Queenie! Prepare to be deposed!” Rarity suddenly shouted, brandishing her stone over her head. The other elements followed suit, only to find that, much like the Queen’s army, it was a very anticlimactic moment. Each stone solidly did exactly what rocks would do in that situation, which is to say, nothing at all.
Each of the elements looked to their leader, Twilight, for a solution. All save one. Rainbow Dash instead looked to the solemn form of Ledger. It was a look that did not escape the Queen’s attentive gaze.
“I suspected as much of you, Ledger,” she said out of the side of her mouth, her eyes still fully on Celestia and her cohorts. “You don’t seek to depose me, do you? You did indeed tell the truth. You merely want to see me dead.”
There was a moment of unsure silence from all parties as they tried to determine their next move. A silence that, all the same, was suddenly punctured by a roaring beam of dark energy. It moved too fast for any normal person to follow as it barreled towards the elements. Only to collide with a shimmering yellow shield that stopped it dead in its tracks.
Celestia, faster than any spell, had stepped in to repel it. And as each of the elements realized they had been attacked, they were already being spoken too. “You must leave, honored bearers, or you will be destroyed!”
“But,” Twilight began, “you…”
“I will hold her off. You must find a way to activate the elements; it is the only way to defeat her!” Celestia shouted over the crashing laser against her shield. “Go!” It was this word that hurried the elements into their escape, but they were forced to leave single file through the gate as only one place was protected enough by the shield.
One by one each of the elements left. Fluttershy first, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash. But as Twilight moved slowly to exit, spending her concentration to reinforce Celestia’s shield with her own magic, Ledger had already reached his destination unnoticed. He waited until Rainbow had fully left before pulling the pin from the wheel, collapsing the gate closed and locking Twilight inside.
The resounding crash brought all eyes to him. He stood there, face unreadable, as he held the pin in his hand. The calls from the elements were a cacophony that almost beat out the volume of the battle between them. Cries of “Betrayer!” and “Spineless!” reached him, but he did not show any reaction to them.
Even as a thin tendril of black smoke curled across the floor and wrapped itself around his still unmoving form, he didn’t seem to care. Even as the same smoke hung him upside down like a bat in front of the terrifying eyes of the queen. “You think this will grant you forgiveness?” Even as the queen began to laugh madly. Even as streams of green smoke began to flicker around her eyes and a gaping maw formed beneath Ledger, he stared on in apathy. “All those who betray me will pay!”
As the darkness consumed him, he made no move to fight back. He passed into the mouth, and only the solitary metal pin he had pulled from the portcullis’s wheel made it to the floor on the other side.
It was black. Ledger was surprised it was anything. He’d been very firmly footed in no afterlife, and was surprised that it was even empty void, that his consciousness still existed at all.
Up ahead a single pinprick of dim light shone. But in that blackness, it was as brilliant a light as any. With nothing else to do, Ledger closed the distance.
It went quicker than he expected, and when he got there he found a small blue filly looking at a shining screen. “She thinks she killed you, you know? I made that spell up long before she did; she doesn’t get what it does. But she’s never been trapped in her own mind before, so I don’t think she ever will.”
“So why did you never get her to use it before.”
The filly looked to Ledger with a frown. “I can’t get her to do anything. I can only mess around with her thoughts a little, but I can’t get caught or she shoves me down. I’ve gotten pretty good at it.” She looked back to the screen. “Besides, I never wanted to trap anyone else here. The only reason I slipped the spell into her mind was because your alternative was dying.”
Ledger sat on that thought for a while.
“So you’re Luna, huh?” he eventually asked.
“We’re both Luna. She’s Luna. I’m Luna. Together, we’re Luna. Apart, we’re Luna.” She looked at him again, and Ledger wondered if it was a new frown or if she had never stopped the old one. “But you’re not even supposed to know our name.”
“Lucky guess,” he offered, falling into a crossed legs sitting position next to the filly.
“You have an awful lot of those,” Luna said simply before looking back to the screen. “Why did you close the gate?”
“Kinda hoping I would die honestly.”
“That’s never it with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s always that you want to die, but it's usually for some other reason, too.”
“I don’t always want to die, just most of the time.”
“Regardless, why did you close the gate? You’ve trapped Twilight in the castle, they can’t break the portal protection spell on the castle grounds, and they can’t lift that gate. So she’s going to die here. Without her, the other elements won’t EVER work.”
“What are the other elements doing about that?”
“Nothing. They’re yelling at her, and she’s trying to get them to leave her to die, but they won’t. You’ve killed them all with that move.”
Ledger laid down on the darkness, stretching his limbs. “That’s good.”
She looked to him again, confused. Same frown, Ledger decided. It was most definitely the same frown.
“So why’d you save me if you knew I’ve wanted to die?”
The filly gave him a passing glance before turning her attention back to the screen, watching the moments unfold from the Queen’s perspective. “Because.”
“Because why?” he responded immediately, his eyes gazing into the eternal darkness above him.
“Because you didn’t deserve that. She’s lied to you about finding a way to send you back home. She’s lied to you about eventually letting you go free from your position. You’ve been constantly seen as a villain by the very ponies you try to help. You’ve done every task you’ve been given even at great personal cost. All of that to save me. To save the Queen. To save the both of us” She looked to Ledger again, her frown finally letting up. “You didn’t deserve it.”
Ledger let the silence stay its time, gazing up into the empty black. Slowly, eventually, Luna turned her gaze back to the screen. Then, slowly, light began to fill it up. “Wait, what’s…”
“That’ll be Twilight,” Ledger said, almost a disappointed tone to his words. “Princess of friendship.”
“You— What?” She seemed to pour over all her information again as the light of the Elements began to pierce the prison. Then, her eyes widened in realization. “Of course! She’s… but, but you knew! You knew that she needed to realize they were her friends, not just her allies! How?! How did you know that?!?”
Light began to fill the black room, first from the screen, but then more so as ever-widening pinpricks of light broke through the eternal dark around them. He had barely opened his mouth to speak when Luna stole the words from his mouth. “Lucky guess, huh?”
“Lucky guess,” Ledger confirmed as the light encased them.