Lingering Lunacy

by Jadu

III: Crystal Traps & Statue Confidants

Wedding plans were forgotten for the day. Guards ran helter-skelter through the castle, and the clopping of hooves against tiled floors was incessant for the next several hours. The Equestrian Games ambassadors had been quickly dispatched from Canterlot on the earliest express train, with reassurances from Celestia that things would be taken care of as soon as the threat was identified and expunged. Cadence had found her fiancé, Shining Armor, and she practically stayed glued to his side amidst all the swirling chaos. With guards posted on every balcony and bridge on the castle, Celestia commanded that Shining Armor cast a spell over the entire city of Canterlot; entrance would be permitted on the princesses’ approval only.

“Will we have to cancel the wedding?” Cadence asked fearfully of her aunt as Shining Armor concentrated his magenta magical force through the ceiling of the castle. Luna stood by Celestia’s side, the white alicorn’s attention focused on writing a letter with a magically levitated quill.

“I highly doubt that, Cadence,” Luna began with some hesitation. “We should have whoever made this threat against Canterlot weeded out by next Thursday.” I can only hope so, for everypony’s safety.

“I’ll bet it’s that duke from Aviaria that stormed by me so rudely,” Shining Armor interjected, his eyes staring up at the ceiling where his horn was pointed.

“That’s nonsense, Shining Armor! Equestria has had a long-standing truce with Aviaria, although admittedly not without some fraying at the edges.”

“Cadence, who gave you that letter?” Celestia asked, rolling up the parchment she’d been writing on and vanishing her quill.

“Nopony did. I found it lying on my bed after visiting the Royal Guard Academy this morning,” Cadence replied, and Luna’s throat seized up. Chrysalis meant business, and she was striking close to home with whatever her nefarious plot entailed.

“We will find the culprit soon enough, my niece. Threats are not taken lightly in Canterlot, not in this day and age. Your wedding will go on as planned.” Celestia smiled and placed a hoof consolingly on Cadence’s shoulder. “In fact, I’ve invited my most faithful student and her five friends to come and help you personally with your dress and catering details.”

“Twily—I mean—Twilight’s coming?” Shining Armor excitedly asked, his attention snapped away from reinforcing the city shield with a fifth extra layer.

“Yes, she is. I’m afraid we’ll have to break the news of the wedding to her at just the same time as everypony else due to the increased security.”

“I’m sure she’ll take it just fine. She’s pretty levelheaded,” Shining Armor shrugged, and Cadence nodded in agreement.

“It’ll certainly be nice to see her again; I haven’t seen her since she was a little unicorn filly with a blank flank!” Cadence smiled, reminiscing about her foal-sitting days when she was a young princess and new alicorn.

Luna stood by, stunned into silence by all of this and shaking her head imperceptibly. By the seven seas of Rhye, how do they all know each other? What else have I been left out on since I was up on the moon? Next I’ll hear that my sister has been carrying on some sordid love affair with that draconequus statue in the gardens!

“Luna, will you take this letter down to the postmaster for me? I still have schedules to work out for the guards’ night shifts, and I’ll need to talk to Headmaster Ironclad to see if he’ll consider letting some of the Academy upperclassmen into the ranks temporarily.” Celestia hovered the scroll in front of her absentminded sister’s muzzle, and Luna took it wordlessly, biting back the typically immature response of “why not let one of the servants deliver it.” She supposed Celestia was just trying to keep her busy in the midst of everything that was going on, and in a way she was thankful. It would have been near impossible to sleep through all the racket.

Luna padded softly down a flight of side stairs past what seemed to be a battalion of earth pony guards, their golden armor clanking as they climbed. Suddenly it occurred to her that perhaps she ought to organize her Night Guards in some sort of defense schematic around the castle for the evening hours, but they were all home with their families since it was still early afternoon. She yawned as she pushed open the sturdy oak door of the castle postmaster’s office. The elderly Pegasus who was ordinarily here running things was evidently on a late lunch break, but Luna had been in here enough times as a filly to know what to do.

The furnaces for express delivery were in a room no larger than a janitor’s closet, all crammed next to each other like metallic sparrows in a crowded birdhouse. Luna located the one marked “Ponyville” and opened the creaky grate to expose the swirling pink flames to outside air. She saw that the scroll hadn’t been sealed, and she unrolled it to read, just to sate her curiosity.

Dear Twilight,

I’m sure you are as excited as I am about the upcoming wedding in Canterlot. I will presiding over the ceremony, but would very much like you and your friends to help with the preparations for this wonderful occasion. Fluttershy, I would like you and your songbird choir to provide the music. Pinkie Pie, I can think of no one more qualified than you to host the reception. Applejack, you will be in charge of the catering for the reception. Rainbow Dash, I would very much appreciate it if you could perform a Sonic Rainboom when the bride and groom complete their “I do”s. Rarity, you will be responsible for designing the dress for the bride and her bridesmaids.

And as for you, Twilight, you will be playing the most important role of all: making sure everything goes as planned. See you all very soon!

Yours,

Princess Celestia

Luna frowned at the letter, rereading it several times to fully absorb the words. “I can’t believe it! My sister completely forgot to mention who was getting married!” She rolled her eyes and trotted out to the postmaster’s desk, pulling out parchment and dipping a ragged quill in the inkwell. It was moments like these when she was thankful she and Celestia had taken the same penmanship class as fillies; consequently, Luna could copy the same flowing, loopy cursive her sister had with ease.

Princess Celestia cordially invites you to the
Wedding
Of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza
And
Captain Shining Armor of the Royal Canterlot Guard
Friday, June 7th at twelve o’clock noon
Chapel of Canterlot Castle

She tickled her chin thoughtfully with the quill, wondering if she ought to add a note at the bottom about RSVP or the couple’s gift registries. Ultimately Luna decided against it, placing a pad of soft gold wax on the rolled-up invitation and pressing it with Celestia’s sunburst seal. In a way, she sympathized with Twilight: finding out one’s brother was getting married by invitation didn’t exactly compare to the millennium of culture shock she experienced upon her return, but the feeling was similar.

“I just hope her assistant figures out which scroll to give her first,” she sighed as she tossed both invitation and letter into the swirling pink fire for Ponyville.

~~~

As it turned out, the Ponyville Express had its name for a reason. Spike had apparently received the scrolls immediately and brought them to Twilight Sparkle, who by sheer luck had been having a picnic with all five of her friends at the time. They’d quickly packed what they needed—Rarity had evidently spent a good deal of time deciding just what materials and tools she’d need to make Cadence’s dress and had nearly packed up her entire boutique, while Pinkie Pie had insisted on bringing something she called a party cannon—and got on the next train to Canterlot. Consequently, the six young mares had made it by mid-afternoon, giving Twilight plenty of time to berate her older brother for not telling her about the wedding in person as well as time for Shining Armor to provide exposition.

Shortly before their arrival, Luna had been sitting up in one of the turrets, surveying the castle grounds and all the guards swarming like diligent ants. There was a tiny tap on the wooden door.

“Come in,” she sighed. Only Celestia knocked that quietly.

“Do you know where I might find Star Swirl’s telescope?” the white alicorn asked as she padded into the tiny circular room.

“It’s up in the Artifacts Chamber above the library,” Luna replied, quirking an eyebrow. “Why on earth do you need that?”

“Shining Armor’s shield is so thick that it’s hard to see the sky outside of it. I’ll need to know when the appropriate time will be to lower the sun.” Celestia tilted her horn at an angle toward the room’s wall, summoning the telescope to her with her golden magical aura.

“You’ve been raising and lowering the sun now for millennia, dear sister. Don’t you have the solar patterns for all the seasons practically written in your bones?”

“Yes, but it’s nice to be precise.”

Luna rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t need a telescope to see through his shield if it wasn’t that ridiculous shade of magenta.”

“I happen to like the color, Luna,” Celestia shrugged as she inspected the scope’s lens.

“Thou wouldst,” Luna remarked with sarcasm, slipping into her old pattern of speech. She pushed aside the small throw rug that covered a round wooden trapdoor in the floor. “I’m going down to the Caves.”

“Be sure to be back upstairs for dinner. I think I’ll have Twilight and her friends join us if they so desire.”

Luna clambered down the trapdoor hole and pulled it shut with her tail, descending into darkness. The Caves were her pet project when she was a filly: whenever she and Celestia had a fight, she would go underneath the castle to its foundation and throw angry blasts of magic at the walls to blow off steam. After a few of those underground tantrums, young Luna had discovered that her magical blasts were crystalizing on the rocky walls, growing into elegant prisms of all shapes and sizes. After that discovery, Luna found herself going down there and intentionally growing crystals, creating smaller caves and partitions in the castle’s foundation. She had even once attempted to construct a smaller-scale version of the Crystal Empire she’d read about in one of the dusty history tomes, although it eventually crumbled to pieces because of the fragility of the structures she’d built.

Luna paused, a sound of heartache reaching her ears. Nopony but her and Celestia knew anything about the Caves, so who in Equestria could possibly be down here? She magically silenced her hooves and galloped toward the end of one of the larger caves, the sound growing louder and louder.

A crystalline partition separated this larger cave from a much smaller one, and Luna had to squint to make out a vague pony shape in the darkness. Ducking behind a huge purple stalagmite, she spread a faint luminous aura over her horn to see who had discovered her Caves.

What she saw almost made her jaw drop to the floor.

“Cadence?” Luna mouthed in disbelief, her blue-green eyes wide. Her purple, pink and yellow mane and tail were rumpled and ragged, and her rosy pelt was covered in dirt and scratches, but the alicorn trapped in the cave was definitely Cadence. She could hear her niece sobbing quietly, moaning in sorrow. Was Cadence having extreme pre-wedding jitters and having second thoughts about her fiancé? Was she upset by the threat made against Canterlot and having all the extra security as well as half-finished wedding plans?

And then she heard it. That sickening laughter that had plagued her psyche for what felt like eons.

“I hope you’re comfortable down here, my little princess,” the disembodied voice of Chrysalis simpered.

“Like hay I am.” Cadence glared through her tears at the chamber around her. “Where are you? Who are you and what do you want with me?!”

“You know, I’ve always wanted to be princess for a day. I’m the Queen of my subjects, but princesses just seem to have a lot more fun. Eating cakes, having tea parties, foal-sitting highly ranked ponies’ posterity. Ooh, and weddings! I’ve always wanted a wedding.”

Cadence raised an eyebrow, confusion now mixing in with the anger and hurt on her face. “If you’re a queen, don’t you have a king?”

“Oh no, my dear. I don’t have just one mate; I lay an enormous clutch of eggs and let a select few of the best males do a little…crop-dusting, as it were.”

Luna had to shove a hoof in her mouth to keep from either crying out in disgust or projectile vomiting. So Chrysalis was more insect than alicorn in her breeding habits, and she just…oh, by Tartarus, that was just gross!

“What in Equestria are you?!” Cadence cried.

“I’m Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings, and let’s just say my subjects and I are a little hungry.” That horrible laughter rang out throughout the Caves and ceased after several long moments. Cadence sat there, looking for the source of Chrysalis’ voice, and she screamed after her.

“Get back here, you vile beast!” Cadence looked positively maniacal at this point. “Set me free NOW! Don’t you DARE lay a hoof on Shiny or I’ll…I’ll…”

She broke down in a fresh bout of tears, flopping down on the cold and unforgiving cave floor. Luna, unable to watch anymore and with a tear in her eye as well, surreptitiously teleported out of the Caves.

~~~

“I just don’t know what to do about this.”

Day had given way to night as usual, with Celestia lowering her sun from her Solar Balcony and Luna rising it from her Lunar Balcony. Dinner had gone as usual; Twilight and her friends had opted to have a private dinner from one of Canterlot’s best cafés, while Shining Armor had told them he’d eat in his captain’s quarters with Cadence. This left Celestia and Luna to have a quiet supper together of vegetable soup, with Luna not so much eating as seeing how many times she could stir a chunk of potato around her bowl until it disintegrated into the broth. When the gigantic clock on the castle struck nine, Celestia retired to her bedchamber as usual—whether her sister actually went right to sleep at such an early hour, Luna never did know.

Yes, everything went exactly as usual.

Except for, of course, that the authentic Cadence was trapped down in the Caves while Chrysalis was off doing who knows what, and that Luna was the only pony in Equestria who knew it and didn’t do a thing or raise a hoof to help her niece escape.

“Why didn’t I help her escape?”

After she paced back and forth on her sister’s balcony and peeked into the telescope to inspect the night sky outside Shining Armor’s shield, Luna had spread her wings and gently floated down to the castle gardens. These were what she’d missed most of all in her banishment to the moon. Walking through the shrubbery and labyrinths, past the cool fountains and benches, all while bathed in warm moonlight was one of Luna’s favorite activities. Her absolute favorite place to visit was the statue garden, where heroes of antiquity and artistic explorations of sculpture were immortalized in stone.

Of course, not everyone here was a hero.

Luna had chosen to speak to a very particular statue in the garden tonight, sitting in front of his towering serpentine form like a child in front of a minstrel. For all intents and purposes, he could very well have been a minstrel with all the magic tricks he could perform. But right now he was just meant to be a wall for Luna to bounce her thoughts off of.

Besides, it wasn’t as if Discord was completely deaf. Luna was absolutely confident that only his body was frozen; his mind was still whirling about, fast and chaotic as ever within the confines of his stone prison.

“I keep walking into dreams involving loads of pink cotton candy,” Luna began, her eyes tracing the strange shadow his statue threw over the neatly manicured grass. “I’m pretty confident they’re your dreams, and that cotton candy is all a representation of her, isn’t it?

“Ha! As if she’d ever love you! Celestia and Discord sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I…ha! She wouldn’t even consider marrying you, you’re evil!”

Luna’s smile of wild glee slipped off her face like soap from a clean dish.

“No. No, you’re not evil, I take that back. Not that kind of evil. Your evil is more games and chaos than hurting anypony. But right now, there’s real evil run amok in Canterlot,” she explained to the draconequus’ statue. “Am I evil for not stopping her? She imprisoned my niece and I haven’t told a soul about it—”

The indigo princess froze. Shining Armor had mentioned that he was going to his captain’s quarter to eat with Cadence. Twilight had met the mysterious mare her brother was due to marry in the flesh, and that was Cadence. No doubt the other five young mares who were Twilight’s friends had received their marching orders about catering and dressmaking and planning the reception from Cadence.

Every piece clicked into place in Luna’s mind. Chrysalis had imprisoned the real Cadence in the Caves, and she was posing as Cadence in the wedding! But why?

Alicorns don’t require food from the earth like the lower classes of equines do. Magic sustains us, and because my appetite is more powerful, I sustain myself on emotions…

Weddings are an absolute smorgasbord of emotions! There is tremulous excitement, and seeing how this is going to be a royal wedding, that will be multiplied tenfold...

But there was one thing more powerful than all the emotions Chrysalis had listed at a wedding: the love between the bride and groom. And if she knew Chrysalis—and unfortunately Luna did—she was going to go for the biggest prize to feast on, and that meant Shining Armor’s love for Cadence!

“Discord! I know what she’s doing!” Luna jumped up, her wings flaring up in excitement. “It doesn’t make sense to me yet why she wouldn’t use an alicorn whose power is generating love instead, because she’d be an endless food supply, but I know what she’s doing!”

Another thought crossed her mind and Luna sank to her knees again, folding her wings on her back.

“But I can’t do anything about it. If I up and out called her an evil villainess in front of everypony, they’d think I was crazy! They might even forbid me from coming to the ceremony!” She looked up at Discord’s stony eyes, which would normally be yellow and red were he not stuck as a statue. “What would you do?”

A gentle early summer wind tickled Luna’s ears and rustled the leaves on the shrubbery. She closed her eyes to think for a moment, then opened them halfway.

“Of course,” she whispered, craning her neck to look up at Discord. “You’d wait for just the right moment to surprise everypony. There is a method to your madness, Discord, as much as you’d like to deny logic and claim to operate solely on chaos. You’d play underhandedly, and play on ponies’ weaknesses and your strengths to defeat them. So that’s just what I will do!”

At this, Luna stood up with her chest puffed out in determination. The wind blew her mane and tail out behind her like a hero’s cape, and she smiled proudly. She could do this! She could get rid of Chrysalis all by herself, and nopony would have to be any the wiser.

But now was not the time for heroism. From the position of the moon in the inky night sky, Luna figured it was somewhere around one o’clock in the morning, and that meant it was time to return to the castle and her creature comforts.

“The castle looks a little far,” she yawned, pawing at the grass. “I suppose it could hurt to close my eyes for a little while and head back later.” Finding a good place to settle in next to Discord’s pedestal, she tucked her front hooves underneath her chest and rested her head on the ground. “You know, you really wouldn’t be so bad for my sister. After all, there is chaos in harmony.”

Chuckling at the mild double entendre, the Princess of the Night fell asleep.

Author's Note:

Holy crow, lots of things happened in the chapter! As usual, I'd like to keep the A/N short, so here goes.

--I do imagine that Celestia would be so absent-minded during all the hubbub that she writes a letter to Twilight but forgets to mention who is getting married. She might be like one of those people who automatically assumes you know about everything they're talking about.
--I'm sorry if you like Shining Armor, but I feel like the only time he's worth anything is when there's exposition to be told. That and throwing his wife off a castle balcony like a javelin.
--The pink cotton candy reference should make sense to anyone who's a fan of Dislestia.

I think that'll about do it for this go-round. Please sound off in the comments section about this story; comments and favorites make Jadu a happy pony!

Comments

[Thi Fernandes]

From what I've read, this could be directly accurate to the present theory. Nicely done! Will definitely subscribe for the next chapter, hoping it's not the last.