Elements of Resonance

by Daemon McRae

Exodus: Part 2

Chapter 7: Exodus Part 2: Through the Rabbit Hole, Down the Looking Glass

"Captain," Twilight paused, rather unused to being greeted with any kind of slang, nickname, or similar. "Whatever," she shook her head to free herself of distracting thoughts, returning her focus to the problem at hand. "You guys aren't going to like this, but the only place I can think to send you to give you any answers is The Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. Which is in the Everfree Forest. That's where we discovered our Elements, and even though I have absolutely no idea how Resonance works, it's your best bet."

Artimare raised an eyebrow. "How does that make sense, exactly?"

"Because that was the last place the Elements were used, right?" Twilight gave a quizzical look.

"So Nightmare Moon had access to the Elements of Resonance?" Artimare asked.

"I... well, I don't know. There's not a lot on them, they're treated even more like a myth than the Elements of Harmony and why are you still all standing in the doorway?" Twi rambled.

Golddusk tilted his head as Twilight stared at him, then a series of cogs and gears clicked into place in his head. "Oh! Well, then" he responded rather sheepishly, moving aside to allow the rest of the Night Court into the library. The various ponies sat around the room, visitors and residents, to discuss this further. "So, anyway. Elements of Resonance. Castle of the Pony Sisters. What do?"

A few ponies gave him weird looks, mostly those that didn't know him well, before Twilight went on, "Well, we were sent to the Castle because it's the last known place the Elements of Harmony were used. Still is, considering Celestia mentioned that she didn't need them once Luna had returned. But I don't know where the last place the Elements of Resonance were used."

"Probably one of two places," Golddusk chimed in. "Either The Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, or The Crater at Moonfall. But the latter is going under the assumption that Luna lost access to the Elements once she became Nightmare Moon. If that's true, then the place that Nightmare emerged, Moonfall, is the last place Resonance was last seen. Either way, I vote we go there first."

Twilight and a few of the Night Court dropped jaws at his exposition, not expecting a word of contribution from him past 'Ok, let's do that'. Applejack piped up with, "Ok, I can tell from yer' friends faces that you knowing this, well, whatever it is you just said, is kind of a big surprise. So I'm gonna ask: How'd you do that?"

"That's my job," he replied simply.

"Right," Applejack responded, as if that was it.

His friends, however, didn't think so. "Wait, what?" Octavia yelped, in a pitch usually reserved for calling dogs. "Your job? I thought you were a guard!"

Stallius and Stockpile laughed, and even Kwan Do smirked. Golddusk just raised an eyebrow at her. "Um, hahaha, no? Do you seriously not know what I do for a living?" Everypony in the room shrugged save Artemare. "Wow, thanks, guys. Feel really appreciated."

"So out with it, what do you do? And why are we having this conversation?" Rainbow Dash blurted from her perch in a window sill.

"I'm the Journeyman Apprentice to Princess Luna's current Private Historian. As of next year I'll be the Private Historian of the Lunar Archives myself," Gold explained.

There was a brief pause, a silence filled only by the sound of Octavia's hooves as she slowly made her way over to Golddusk. Then she proceeded to beat him around the head and neck. "Why! Didn't! You! Tell! Us! Sooner!"

"I-ow-thought-ow!-you-OW-knew! OwowOW." the black pegasus scurried away from his assailant and hid behind Artemare. "It's not my fault!"

Twilight felt a muscle in her face twitch. "Golddusk, how much do you know about the Elements of Resonance?"

"Jack squat," he answered simply. "Not even Star Chronicle knows anything, and he's the guy I'm apprenticed under."

"I'm surprised you didn't put in a transfer to be one of Luna's personal servants or guards the moment she came back," Stallius smiled

Artemare answered for him, shaking her head. "Apprenticeships in Canterlot are permanent. Once you commit to one, that's what you do for the rest of your life. You can't retire from it, even after you receive Grandmastery. And if the Grandmaster of the Lunar Archives doesn't know, we're really screwed."

Twilight was in disbelief. "But if you're the apprentice to the Private Historian of Luna herself, then surely you've talked to her about her history? Did she mention anything?"

"Only that Celestia was the strongest in a really long line. She outclassed her parents," Gold rolled his eyes dramatically. "Luna mentioned a few times that Celestia was the stronger of the two, pretty much at all times. I don't know much more than that. The Elements on either side are considered a Royal Family Heirloom, so nopony except the sisters is allowed access unless they deem it necessary."

Rarity posed a question: "So why do you think Moonfall is just as good an option as the Castle?"

"I don't, not really," Gold mused. "But most everypony knows the story from a half a year back. You girls all found what you were looking for on your way to the Castle, and found the stones that house the Elements of Harmony there, right? Did you see anything related to the Resonance there?"

Twilight shook her head. "If anything, it's more likely that they're at the Crater. Nopony's gone through that rubble in a millennium. It's supposed to be an obscene place, both physically and magically. Which is a problem. If the Elements of Resonance are there, then it's likely they've been corrupted by the inherent chaos that place has become."

Rainbow Dash sat up. "So you guys are marching off to a place full of really bad magic to look for something that may or may not be there, and may or may not be totally jacked up?"

Stallius and Stockpile, Kwan Do and Artemare, Octava and Golddusk, all exchanged glances, from one to the next to the next. "Looks like it," Artemare answered.

"Why?" Pinkie Pie asked, a lilt of concern in her normally cheerful voice.

"Because the alternative equates to hell on Equestria and a few other things I don't want to think about," Golddusk answered. "You guys want to come with?"

"Ok, no, hold on," Stallius interjected. "Something is bugging me. If you're apprenticed to the Lunar Archives- a position that requires multiple interviews with Princess Luna herself- then why did you freak out when Luna came to talk to you? Shouldn't you be used to her presence by now?"

"Key word there is apprenticed, Stallius. I don't get to talk to the Princesses in a professional capacity until I've graduated from Journeyman and no longer need direct instruction. Chronicle all but loses his lid when I go anywhere near them during interviews," the black pegasus told him.

"Um, why are we talking about your job? We have a world to save," Twilight pointed out. "I don't want to be rude, but we've got quite a lot to do. And if he doesn't know any more about the Elements of Resonance than we do, than we're wasting time. Why don't we make this easy? If we can't use the Elements of Harmony, and you can't find the Elements of Resonance, than wouldn't it make sense for all of us to go looking for an answer? It's not like we have very much else we can do. And two groups of six is more than enough to split up and investigate only two locations. So why don't we do that?"

A few seconds passed before Stockpile raised a hoof. "Were you actually waiting for an answer, cause I dun got one."

IOIOIOIOIOIO

"Straws. Straws. Why did it have to be straws?" ranted Stallius. He and his merry band of what-have-yous trotted through the Entrance to the Everfree Forest, with the blonde noblecolt lagging in the back.

"Oh, you are impossible," Rarity whined, casting an almost scathing glance behind her. "At least you don't complain about getting a little dirt on you," she amended, almost a compliment.

"He and I are guards, or at least, supposed to be. Being afraid of dirt is more than a little counterproductive," Kwan Do explained, peeking his head around the side of a tree. He'd taken point, being the only one in the group with any kind of wilderness skills. Fluttershy had gone with the other group to Moonfall.

"Well it's not like anyone told you to take that straw," Stockpile jeered. Stallius shot him a burning glance, knowing full well the pony's penchant for manipulating the draw, even to the point where he'd slowly raise one straw above the others to make someone unconsciously choose it. And of course he'd made the suggestion to choose their groups that way in the first place.

"Look, if y'all are going to fight the whole way there then we're gonna have problems. Last time we spent a whole journey fighting it didn't exactly go well for us," Applejack explained. She glanced skyward. "How you doin' up there, Rainbow?"

A streak of multiple colors and the blue pegasus rocketed into view. "Nothing too bad. There's some hills up ahead with some really dense trees, so I can't tell very well. And I don't exactly want to fly ahead in this place."

"So what is the danger of this place again? Twilight said you had been to this castle before, and come out fine. Wouldn't you know the path by now?" Stallius asked, trotting to catch up with the rest, and glancing over his shoulder at a rather ominous looking patch of trees. As if to accentuate the dark atmosphere of the forest, owls hooted, and a flock of birds flew far overhead, casting slight shadows over what little moon they could see.

"Well, this place ain't exactly right. The clouds move on their own, the animals do whatever they want, and we got a lot of really dangerous creatures out here. The dangers in this place change every day," AJ explained. Then she halted, seeing a signal from Kwan Do up ahead.

"Something's coming. Big. Teeth. I suggest we wait," he offered, taking a few steps back.

"Oh, that's just great," Dash rolled her eyes. "I wonder how much better the others are doing?"

IOIOIOIOIOIO

"Twilight?" Golddusk asked, deadpan.

"Yes?" the purple unicorn responded, more in shock than anything.

"Please do me a kindness and explain to me what the hell I'm looking at," he all but monotoned, in a somewhat effective attempt to keep his emotions under control.

"I'm not entirely sure," Twilight responded. The rest of the group stood behind them, their mouths slightly agape."In fact, I don't have the slightest idea. You did say that the inherent magic of the land would become more distorted and unpredictable as we got closer to the Crater."

"Yes, but there really isn't anything in any of the books I've ever read that could have prepared me for a river of moonlight."

None of the others could respond to this statement, nor, in fact, would they know what to say, were they to be in a proper place mentally to recall what that sentence would have been. Because before them lay a sight that no textbook could prepare anypony for. Seeming to start from the very rays of the moon above them, laying itself across the vast and, rather appropriately, dark blue landscape, was a river of teeming white luminescence, in an almost liquid state, appearing to flow at a consistent, if rather gradual, pace. Little reflected off the, for lack of a better term, one would call surface, save for the forms of a few distant blackbirds. Which, Twilight noted, were also flying across the light of the moon.

"It's so beautiful," Fluttershy's normally hushed voice was nearly inaudible as she spoke, quieted by her awe of such a thing. "I don't even know what to do with it."

"I don't think we should do anything with it," Golddusk speculated, casting a glance to Twilight, seeking conformation. "I mean, this isn't something you come across very often, and disturbing it might be a rather-" SPLASH.

The group at large, save Twilight, and more importantly, Pinkie Pie, the latter of whom had just jumped into the river, turned their heads rather quickly to stare at the pink Earth Pony, as she began swimming through the brilliant white substance. For about ten seconds.

"Coldcoldcold COLD coldcoldcoldcold!" Pinkie stammered, tearing out of the moonlight river and stopping just short of the group to stop and shake the liquid light out of her mane.

Twilight simply facehoofed. "Pinkie, why- no, you know what? Nevermind. We should really keep going. Let's just file the river under 'Do Not Touch' and why are you glowing?" her sentence derailed as she caught sight of Pinkie's now radiant coat, still the same pink, but casting a subtle yet beautiful glow across the field of dark blue grass beneath her. The mixture of colors was unique, and rather difficult to describe.

"Wait, I'm glowing?" exclaimed the party pony. "This is-"

"The best. River. Ever." Golddusk finished for her, staring into the luminescent substance as if he was considering throwing himself into it.

Near the back, and so far unspoken, Octavia and Artemare traded exhausted glances. And then traded exasperated sighs. "I do hope you're not thinking of just stopping here and giving up entirely, are you?" Artemare asked, walking up next to him. She cast her gaze across the scene before her. "It's entirely possible that we're going to see more impossibilities like this, the closer we get. And something tells me they'll all be right up your alley. So we might as well get moving."

The rest of the girls nodded their agreement, and set forward, a few of them casting glances back at the river. Gold looked hesitant to move, until Octavia whispered to him as she passed, "You know, if you leave and finish this adventure, then your first task as the Private Historian to the Lunar Archives could be to come back and document the wonders of Moonfall."

His ears perked at that, and he seemed to shake out of his reverie. "Right, going. I wonder how the others are doing. I mean, if we get rivers of moonlight, I can't imagine what they're doing."

IOIOIOIOIOIO

"Why did you have to talk to it?" Rainbow yelled, streaking through the forest and weaving between trees, trying to stay with her group. Unable to actually take her eyes off of the path in front of her without crashing, she simply imagined loads of daggers being stared in Stallius's general direction.

"How was I supposed to know cravens didn't like ponies?" he yelled, using a weaker form of telekinesis to keep himself light enough on his feet to not trip and fall back into the flock of enormous blackbirds raging after them.

"Maybe the fact that they were feeding on the remains of an animal was a good indication?" Rarity shrieked, keeping just behind Applejack. The Earth Pony did have a penchant for being able to cut a clear path in front of her, after all.

"Look, it's not like we can't lose them from here!" Applejack shouted over the commotion. "We can hunt down Zecora's place and try to hide there! Maybe she can be a bit more helpful in getting us through this blasted forest!"

As a general consensus was shouted through the group, Kwan Do thought to himself, I do hope they're faring better than we are.

IOIOIOIOIOIO

"Oh, you've got to be kidding," Octavia grumbled, staring at the newest expanse of terrain before them.