Comes the Sunset

by Scipio Smith

Bound By Love

Chapter 16

Bound By Love

The throne room of the Crystal Empire was a cavernous space, a ceiling high enough to have held twenty elephants stacked one on top of the other before they reached the top, shining columns wider than a pony, a main traverse down which five clydesdales could have walked abreast. And at the head of the room, seated upon a crystal throne, sat Princess Cadance.

She was far from alone. Her husband, Shining Armour, stood by her side, his purple armour polished to a shine, his face set in an expression of neutral sternness, although the occasional quivering of his forelegs belied the agitation within. Guards in glimmering crystal armour lined the crimson carpet, and behind them a great throng of ordinary ponies had gathered to hear what the envoy from Sunset Shimmer had to say.

As it turned out, what the envoy had to say was not a lot. Lightning Dust stood in the centre of the carpet, twenty paces away from the throne - Flash Sentry barred any further forward progress on her part, looking as though he might leap on her at the slightest provocation - and stood looking quietly confident, as though she was unaware of the whispering going on all around her, of the way that everypony stared at her, of the hostility that was emanating from Shining Armour.

Or perhaps, Cadance thought, she simply didn't care what anypony thought. Looking at her bearing, it did not appear that this was a pony lacking in self-confidence.

Cadance looked down again, her eyes returning to the message that Lightning Dust had placed in her hooves. It lay in her lap, slightly crumpled around the edges, a few flecks of broken wax attaching lying on the parchment where Cadance had broken the seal.

To: Princess Mi Amore Cadenza of the Crystal Empire, salutation and greetings,

Your Highness,

By now, rumour has doubtless preceded the arrival of my own messenger like lightning runs ahead of the sound of thunder. You will have heard slanders of me, gross misjudgements of my character, claims that I break my fast on fillies and dine on foals. I assure you that none of the rumours you have heard our true.

I seek only peace. I seek to usher in a new era, uniting the realms of Equestria and Grevyia under a single ruler. I seek to win for myself the well-deserved place in the sun that fear and envy have so long denied to me. I seek to guard the realms of pony kind.

I do not desire war. While it is true that I have used force to achieve some of my aims, I earnestly state that I did so only to obtain what could not have been obtained by any other method. I am not a warlike pony, nor am I cruel. I have what I want, and what I now want is peace.

I vow to respect the dominions of the Crystal Empire, and to expand them as far as Cloudsdale, so long as you respect my rule of everything to the south of there. I ask for no hostages, I ask for no levies, I ask nothing of you but that you leave me be. The method to my seeming madness will become apparent soon enough.

I do not want war, but if you attempt to dislodge me from my seat I will resist you. If you bring war down on me then I will fight and I will win. I have a better army than you do, I know more of war than you do, I know more of magic than you do. Fight and you will lose, and the blood of the innocent will be on your head not mine, because you chose this, not me.

I ask only to be left alone.

Yours,

Sunset Shimmer, Regent of the Two Thrones

"She wants only to be left alone," Cadance murmured, not quite able to believe that this was something that had been written by a pony squatting in Canterlot with an army of zebras, who nonetheless expected her protestations of innocence and good faith to be taken seriously. "She wishes only peace." It was all that Cadance could do not to laugh.

She fixed her eyes upon Lightning Dust, the pegasi who had brought the message.

"Do you have a tongue of your own, or are you merely a conduit for Sunset's words?" Cadance demanded.

Lightning shrugged. "I can talk, but I'm not sure that the boss wants me to negotiate."

"I'm not talking about negotiation," Cadance snapped. "I'm talking about me questioning you. Is it true that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna have been put in chains by this Sunset Shimmer who so earnestly desires peace with us?"

Lightning blinked. "Sort of."

"Sort of?" Shining Armour shouted. "How can anypony be a sort of prisoner?"

"You didn't say prisoner, you said in chains," Lightning replied. "They're our guests, sure, but they're not hurt or anything. They're just...not free."

The crystal ponies on either side began to murmur angrily, forcing Flash Sentry to bellow three times for silence before they quieted.

"I would like to credit your honesty," Cadance said. "I think you are telling the truth, as you comprehend it. I hope that you will give me similar honesty when I ask you this: where is my sister-in-law? Where is Twilight Sparkle?"

Lightning Dust hesitated, some of her cockiness leeching out of her like water running out of a bucket with a hole in it. "I, uh, I'm not quite sure. She might have run off when Sunset arrived. Scared, you know."

"Liar!" Rainbow Dash emerged out of the shadows behind the throne, her face a mask of red hot fury. She hovered a few inches above the ground, the better to slam her hooves together aggressively. "You know exactly what you did to Twilight! You were there when Sunset put her in that box!"

Cadance smiled. "As you can see, it is not just rumour that has preceded your arrival here, but a messenger from the true regent of Equestria, Rarity. She has asked me for help, and I am inclined to do so, being as she is a friend of mine and of Twilight, and a pony whom I trust completely. Do you have any reason why I shouldn't help her, besides the special pleading in this letter from Sunset?"

"Don't do anything that you'll regret later," Lightning said, seeming oblivious to the angry muttering going on all around her, only a brief scowl at Rainbow Dash to show her irritation at the trick that had been played on her. "It's easy enough to talk about fighting, but harder to stop once you've started."

"Something that Sunset Shimmer should have thought about, maybe," Shining Armour snarled. "She doesn't get to start a war and then call it off when she's had her fun! Her name will live in infamy for what she's done."

"Only if we lose," Lightning replied.

"Okay, that's it," Rainbow snapped. "I'm going to-"

"What?" Lightning cut her off. "Come on, Dash, I'll take you right here, right here."

"There will be no fighting in my hall," Cadance declared.

"Okay then, we'll take it outside the hall," Lightning said.

"No," Cadance said firmly. "You are going to take a message back to Sunset Shimmer, from me and from the Crystal Empire. Tell Sunset that if she truly wants to live in peace then she will release Twilight and Celestia and Luna, and all of those she has wrongfully imprisoned. If she wishes peace then she will take her zebra army back to Grevyia. If she wishes peace then she will restore Celestia to her throne. If she wishes peace she will give up everything that she has stolen. If she does all this then she will be allowed to go where she wishes, out of Equestria, and there live in the peace she claims to crave.
"If she does not do this, as I think that she will not, then all will know that her protestations are false, and that it is on her head, and not mine, that the fighting will continue. Shining Armour speaks the truth, she began this struggle, not us.
"Tell Sunset that I stand with Rarity and Rainbow Dash, with Twilight's friends. I stand with Celestia and Luna though they are now prisoners. I stand with Twilight, though what you have done to her I cannot comprehend. I will not simply make peace with those who have wronged the ponies who are dear to me. Return to Sunset Shimmer, and ask if she would simply abandon the ones she loves in the care of their enemies for the sake of peace?"

"And tell her something else, too," Shining Armour said. "Tell Sunset Shimmer that we're coming for her."

For a moment, Lightning Dust's face was a mask. "So, it will be war then." A slow, ugly smile spread across her face. "Good, sounds more fun than the alternative."

"Get out," Cadance said.

Lightning nodded. "I hope to see you all again sometimes. Especially you, Rainbow Dash." Before Rainbow could do more than growl in reply Lightning had turned away, taken to wing, and soared out of the great hall and into the sky.

"I should get going too," Rainbow said.

"Wait an hour," Shining Armour suggested. "In case Lightning Dust thinks to lie in wait for you."

"I can take her."

"If you don't get back to Rarity then she will have no way of knowing that we are on our way," Cadance said. "Shining Armour is right, caution is the safest course. Wait two hours, and then set off. In the scheme of things it will make little difference, but I doubt that Lightning Dust will have the patience to wait that long in the hope of ambushing you."

Rainbow didn't look remotely happy about it, but she bowed her head. "Okay."

"Rainbow," Cadance said softly. "We will get Twilight back, and everypony else as well. I swear it."

"I know," Rainbow said, and though her tone was affronted the expression her face suggested relief at having somepony else confirm it.

Cadance rose from her throne to address the people. "Let this proclamation go forth throughout all of the Crystal Empire: let everypony be of good heart, but let them gird up their courage for a struggle that will test us all before it is done.
"Some may say that this is not our fight. Some may ask why I should ask you to risk yourselves for my sake and that of my friends. To which I say that Twilight and her friends once risked everything to rescue us from the evil of King Sombra and to defeat his malice once and for all. That being so, how can anypony deny that it is now our turn, our duty, our sacred obligation to rescue them from the evil of Sunset Shimmer now that it is their turn to require our aid?
"If anypony has the courage to take up arms, to fight for right and goodness, to follow me and repay the great debt the Crystal Empire owes to Twilight Sparkle, then let them report to the Equestria Games stadium, where they will be armed and organised, within the next three days. On the fourth day, we march! The Crystal Empire is going to war."

The assembled ponies stamped their hooves in appreciation, even the guards, stamping and stomping until the whole palace began to shake with the thunder of their hooves.

Can you hear us, Sunset Shimmer? Cadance thought to herself. Can you hear just what you have awoken?

The ponies in the audience began to disperse, to dispense the news throughout the little empire. Once they were alone, or as near to alone as a princess ever was, Shining Armour put his hoof on Cadance's foreleg.

"I wish that you would-"

"Don't say it," Cadance advised him.

"I wish that you'd consider staying behind," Shining Armour said, ignoring her advice.

"And do what?" Cadance asked. "Stand in the highest tower in the empire and watch you leave? And then spend every day watching and waiting for your return? Listen to all the rumours of the fighting, wondering if you are dead, or wounded, or captured? Watching, seeing nothing, knowing nothing, just waiting to see if you come back to me? No. No, I could not bear it."

"The dangers-"

"I will die from heartache if I am left behind like unwanted baggage long before I die in battle," Cadance said. "I cannot stay. I cannot. I will not. I am going with you, with our ponies. We will do this together."

Shining Armour smiled. "I am the most fortunate of stallions."

"And I am the most blessed of mares," Cadance replied. "And though grave trials lie ahead of us, we can face them all, together."

"Together," Shining Armour replied.

"Now we've got work to do."

Comments

[Scientia Caballio]

I found one mistake,

"What?" Lightning cut her off. "Come on, Dash, I'll take you right here, right here."

I think the second here should be now.

And now the Crystal Empire is going to war. I wonder if Sunset really thought this would be that easy. Are any of the other kingdoms going to get involved with this war?

[Harwick]

Go kick some ass, Cadance! History suggests it's a bad thing to awaken a sleeping giant, even if they're not a military might at the time. The Crystal Ponies have access to some rather potent magic that is reflected all across Equestria, and they know what it is to be subjugated by a power-mad unicorn and find their way to freedom again. THe rest of Sunset's army might take some inspiration from that if she's not careful...