Wings of Tomorrow ~ Lament of the World

by Keeper of Jericho

18. Nightmares and messages

Wings of Tomorrow
Lament of the World

18. Nightmares and messages

Twilight woke up because she heard somepony insistently call her name. Groaning, she reluctantly forced her eyes open, not at all pleased that she had been roused from what had been a very nice nap. At first her vision was still blurred by sleep, but after blinking a couple of times everything became clear to her again. A feeling of calm and peace washed over her as she recognised the familiar surroundings of her bedroom in her tower in Canterlot. Taking in a deep, relaxing breath, Twilight turned over in her bed and got ready to dose off again.

Then her brain finally registered where she was, and she sat up with a start. She looked around frantically, utterly confused. It really was her bedroom in her old tower in Canterlot, where she had lived in her previous life until she had been sent to Ponyville by the Princess. But why was she here? She had never been here in her current life, and yet everything looked to be in place. That didn’t make sense. Furthermore, what had happened to Fluttershy and Rarity?

She shook her head, hoping in vain that doing so would make everything go back to normal. When that didn’t produce any result, the thought hit her that perhaps she was hallucinating due to her serious injuries. However, when Twilight glanced down at her chest, she saw that it was completely fine. Her shoulder and leg, too, were completely healthy and uninjured. She bit herself, but cried out in pain when she did so. This was all real, then.

Confusion and doubt began to take hold of her. She was back in her old home, where she had lived while being under the Princess’ tutelage. She wasn’t injured. Had everything that had happened in Canterlot last night been just a dream, then? For that matter, had the whole shift in time due to Steel Gear been nothing but a dream as well? It seemed unreal, and yet… Twilight shook her head again, then turned her head towards the window of her room and looked outside. It was still dark, and the stars and moon were shining brilliantly. Everything appeared to be normal, seemed to be like how it was supposed to be.

A part of her was still very doubtful, screaming at her that she was just dreaming. And yet, she had to admit to herself that she wished it wasn’t. She wanted the whole ordeal due to Steel Gear’s interference in time to be nothing but a dream, a figment of her imagination. Scary, but in the end completely harmless.

“Twilight, sleepyhead, are you awake yet?”

The voice called to her from outside her room, reminding the unicorn suddenly that it had been the same voice that had woken her up in the first place. It sounded eerily familiar, and Twilight felt nervous for some reason. Before she could do anything else, however, the door of her bedroom opened and somepony came in. Slowly, Twilight turned her head to look at the pony who had entered, and when she did, her mouth fell open in shock.

“Oh, you are up, very good, my faithful student,” said the new pony, speaking with a voice that was all too familiar to the lavender unicorn. The voice was warm and motherly, calm and soothing, regal and yet so friendly. It was a voice she loved and knew very well, a voice she had longed to hear for her entire life in the time-altered Equestria. It belonged to a beautiful and majestic alicorn, whose coat and horn were a brilliant white. Her mane and tail had many colours, and billowed in a non-existent wind. Each of her four hooves wore a golden shoe, and on her head and chest rested a golden crown and necklace, respectively. The alicorn stared at Twilight with nothing but love and warmth in her magenta-coloured eyes.

There, standing in the door opening of Twilight’s bedroom, was Princess Celestia.

Twilight wanted to shake her head in disbelief, but her body no longer seemed to obey her. She could only stare and gape at the magnificent pony who was walking calmly towards her. It wasn’t possible. Twilight knew now that she had to be dreaming. No matter how much she wanted it to be true, she knew that Princess Celestia could not be here. Despite the fact that it pained her terribly and that she wanted it to be a dream, she knew that the Princess was, at the moment, back in the dungeons of the Royal Palace. She couldn’t be here, in Twilight’s old home, looking so kindly and warmly at her faithful student.

Twilight finally felt that she had regained control over her body, and she immediately leapt out of her bed and backed away from the approaching Princess. “No. No, no, no. This isn’t real. You aren’t here. You aren’t real. None of this is real! This is all a dream!” she stammered, with a panicky tone in her voice, while her wide eyes never once ceased looking at the magnificent alicorn.

Princess Celestia halted and gave Twilight a puzzled look, before understanding dawned on her beautiful face. The monarch of the sun chuckled softly. “Oh, Twilight, my dear, faithful student, that must have been quite the nightmare, to have left you this worked up!” she said, with that wonderful, kind voice of hers.

Twilight’s right eye twitched, and she wildly shook her head again. “No! No! This is the nightmare! You’re not real!” she said again, almost screaming now. She pointed one of her hooves accusingly at Celestia. “You’re in the dungeons of the Royal Palace, as you’ve been for three and half centuries! You were chained and broken and filthy and humiliated and… and… and you were not here!”

The alicorn’s eyes widened in shock for a moment, but quickly returned to their normal size. Celestia pressed one of her hooves before her muzzle in a futile attempt to stifle her giggles. “Oh, Twilight, you have quite the imagination!” she said, good-naturedly. “Why in the world would I be in the dungeons of my own palace? And as a prisoner, no less?” She shook her head and chuckled again.

Twilight looked at her wearily, unsure of what to do or say. She knew that none of this could be real, though she badly wanted it to be. Oh, how she longed to run up to the princess and hug her! But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. This wasn’t real. It was a dream, a nightmare, all of it.

Suddenly, a great, white and soft wing was gently wrapped around her, and she looked up, startled. Celestia had appeared at her side out of nowhere, and was now holding the smaller unicorn in a comforting embrace. The alicorn smiled down at Twilight, then nuzzled the lavender unicorn lovingly in the neck. “My faithful student,” Celestia said soothingly. “You’ve had a bad dream, nothing more.”

“B… but… Princess…” Twilight sputtered, but Celestia silenced her protests by pressing one of her hooves against the unicorn’s muzzle.

“Hush, calm down. Everything is fine,” the princess assured her student. “Now come along, you wouldn’t want to miss the Summer Sun Celebration, would you?”

Twilight blinked, then looked up at her mentor in confusion. “The Summer Sun… What… I mean… It’s today?”

Suddenly Twilight noticed that she and the Princess were no longer in her bedroom, but standing on a stage somewhere in Canterlot. With a gasp, she recognised it as the same place where she had witnessed Princess Celestia raise the sun when she had been a filly. Only now she was here as an adult, and there were no ponies watching the celebration. Instead, the stage had been surrounded by tall wooden poles. Twilight was puzzled by this, until she trailed one of the poles to its top with her eyes, and saw that a pony had been chained to it. With horror she realised that all of the poles had a pony chained to it, with each and every one of the captives in vain trying to free themselves.

Twilight turned her head to the Princess, to see what her reaction was to this, but Celestia appeared to be unaffected by the sight before her. She looked as calm and composed as ever, and she still bore that same kind and warm smile on her face as she had before, in Twilight’s bedroom.

“Princess… what…?” Twilight began, but she was again silenced by her mentor.

“Please, my faithful student, not now,” Celestia said kindly, looking down at Twilight and giving the unicorn a gentle and pleasant smile. Then the alicorn turned away from her student, and raised her head to the sky. “I must raise the Sun for my subjects.”

Before Twilight could say anything else, the Princess had closed her eyes and her horn had begun to glow with a golden light. Celestia reared up on her hind legs and then rose in the air, carried to the heavens by her great and powerful wings. The Sun rose to the sky with her, the golden glow on the horizon heralding its arrival. It climbed higher, breaking free from its resting place behind the horizon at Celestia’s call. Higher it went, until Canterlot, and all of Equestria, was illuminated and warmed by its glorious light.

A scream of fear tore Twilight’s attention away from the spectacle and towards the plaza, from where the cry had come. What she saw then made her blood run cold and filled her with pure horror and incomprehension.

The wooden poles, with the ponies still chained to them, had been set ablaze by the sunlight.

Twilight wanted to do something, wanted to rush forth and begin freeing the ponies who were crying out in mortal fear as the flames climbed higher and higher. However, once more her body would not obey her, and she could only watch helplessly as the flames began to lick at the captured ponies’ lower legs. The screams of pain that reached her ears felt like daggers in her heart, but still Twilight could do nothing.

There was the soft rustling of feathers, followed by Princess Celestia landing next to her faithful student. The alicorn folded her magnificent wings and sat down on her rump. Calmly she watched as all around her ponies were being burned alive. Even their screams of agony and the smell of their charred flesh did not wipe the calm, gentle smile from her face. Twilight stared at her mentor with wide eyes, her pupils as small as pinheads.

“Princess… What are you waiting for?!” she called out, desperately, even though a feeling of dreadful realisation began to settle in her head. “Please help them! You have to save them!”

Celestia turned her head so she could look down at the lavender unicorn at her side. The alicorn had a puzzled frown on her face, and a confused look in her eyes. “Save them, my faithful student?” she echoed, her voice still kind and motherly. “Whatever for? They are traitors, after all. They must burn. They deserve to burn.”

Twilight felt as if somepony had grabbed her heart and squeezed it. She gaped at Princess Celestia, her beloved monarch, her wise mentor, with horror, no, with fear. She couldn’t believe what she had just heard, she couldn’t believe what the Princess had just said, with such a calm, kind and even face, no less.

“P… Princess…”

The alicorn’s smile widened a bit, and she embraced Twilight with her great, white wings. One of the Princess’ golden-clad hooves gently and lovingly caressed through the unicorn’s purple mane. “You are a traitor too, Twilight Sparkle, my faithful student,” Celestia announced warmly, causing Twilight to gasp and look up at her mentor in fear. But Celestia only smiled, ever gentle.

“But I care for you deeply, I won’t let you be burned at the stake like your fellow, common traitors,” the alicorn continued, still sounding as if she was merely talking with Twilight about the wonders of friendship. The wings tightened their embrace around the lavender mare. “No, you deserve to be burned by me personally, my faithful student.”

Before Twilight could say anything, before she could even scream, Celestia’s kind magenta eyes had turned into two white orbs that burned brighter than a thousand suns. Flames welled up and covered the alicorn’s body, their heat all-consuming and excruciating. Twilight opened her mouth, but no sound would leave it. The princess now was a being of flame and heat, only her head remaining normal, though her mane was pure flame. She was still smiling at the terrified unicorn beneath her, but the Princess’ frown, coupled with her narrowed, blazing eyes, robbed that smile of all the kindness and love it had once possessed. It was a mocking smile, one that expressed only pure hatred.

The entity of wrath and flame then lunged, throwing her forelegs around Twilight and embracing her, pressing the unicorn against her flaming body. The searing heat and flames consumed Twilight, and the lavender mare screamed in terror and excruciating pain as she was burned alive by her beloved Princess.

---

Twilight screamed and sat up with a start, her heart beating so rapidly that it hurt. She was panting and breathing hard, while her eyes were wide and wild. Cold sweat covered her entire body, a result of the terror she had been filled with. Frantically, the unicorn looked around, and was at first confused to see that she wasn’t surrounded by flames, but by the sheets of a warm and cosy bed. Sunlight fell through a slit between the two thick, red curtains that hung before the room’s window. She could faintly hear the singing of birds coming from the outside. Twilight closed her eyes and let herself fall on her back on the bed again, and she exhaled slowly.

“A dream. It was just a dream…” she said aloud to herself, to convince herself of what she was saying. She wasn’t in the plaza in Canterlot, she wasn’t watching Princess Celestia burn ponies at the stake and she definitely wasn’t in the agonizing embrace of a fiery entity of pure wrath and hatred. She was here, in a room she recognised as one of Rarity’s guestrooms, and she was safe.

Just as she was taking a few more deep breaths to calm herself, the door swung open and she heard the sound of ponies rushing in. Twilight reluctantly forced her eyes open and was greeted by the sight of Rarity and Fluttershy standing at her bedside with worried expressions on their faces.

“Twilight, darling, are you alright?” Rarity exclaimed, sounding slightly panicked. Her eyes looked around the room, as if she was searching for some kind of intruder or danger. “We heard you scream all the way in the lounge downstairs!”

“I’m fine, really. I… I just had a bad dream,” Twilight answered, and she offered her friends an apologetic smile. Then she remembered everything that had happened before she had passed out, with the royalist and the guards in the Prancent Van Hoof square. She sat up with a start again, overcome by a sudden wave of panic and worry. “Wait… What happened at the square after I passed out? What happened to you both? You were injured when I last saw you! How did we escape? How did we survive?! How…?!”

Her onslaught of questions was brought to an end when Rarity pushed her down on her back again. “Calm down, darling, everything is fine,” the white unicorn said calmly. She ran one of her hooves affectionately over Twilight’s head. “We’re all fine, and everything is taken care of. Just be a dear and take it easy, the healers said you need to rest.”

Reluctantly, Twilight obeyed. She breathed in and out deeply with closed eyes a couple of times to calm herself, then she opened her eyes again. “Okay, I’m calm…” she said slowly. Twilight sighed and lifted one of her hooves to rub over her eyes with. As she did so, she felt a certain resistance and ache in her chest. Glancing down, she saw said part of her body was covered in bandages, which only served to raise even more questions in her head. The lavender mare gave her friends an imploring look. “So, please, tell me… What happened?”

“Well, to be honest, I cannot tell you much, since I spent most of last night unconscious as well,” Rarity replied with an apologetic smile, while she pulled the blanket of the bed over Twilight again. “I remember seeing Rainbow Dash, and I’m certain she said something to me. Unfortunately I was too delirious to understand her, so I don’t recall anything of it.”

Once Twilight was nicely under the blanket again, Rarity stood back a bit and looked at the quiet pegasus in the room. “Fluttershy, darling, I’m afraid you’ll have to be the one to indulge Twilight’s curiosity, seeing as you were the only one of us who was conscious during the entire ordeal.”

Twilight glanced worriedly at Fluttershy. Her timid friend looked physically fine, except for the bandage wrapped around her forehead that covered the spot where the guard had hit her with the blunt end of his lance. That wasn’t what Twilight was concerned about, instead she worried about how things were inside Fluttershy’s head.

The timid pegasus was literally afraid of her own shadow on a good day, which made Twilight fear for her now that she had witnessed and experienced such a brutal, terrifying evening. Fluttershy had first seen the parade, followed by a pony dying in front of her eyes, and then her friends had been terribly and almost fatally injured themselves as well. Not to mention the pegasus had been treated roughly and had gotten injured herself, albeit not as badly as her friends.

Twilight didn’t want to think about what such terrible events had done to her poor friend’s mental state. In her previous life she had read about braver ponies being traumatized after going through something as bad as what Rarity, Fluttershy and she had experienced last night. Sometimes ponies had been impressed by what they had witnessed so badly that nopony was able to help them with getting their lives back on track.

Her worries were put to rest somewhat, however, when she saw the expression on Fluttershy’s face. The timid pegasus looked very tired, which came as no surprise to Twilight as she doubted that Fluttershy had gotten a lot of sleep last night, but there was no look of panic in her eyes. Neither did she stare off in the distance, looking at something only she could see, as Twilight had read traumatized ponies sometimes did. Fluttershy simply looked nervous and uneasy, her usual reaction to dealing with stressful and unpleasant happenings. She was fine, Twilight dared to think, and it put her mind at ease.

“Fluttershy? Can you tell me what happened after I passed out?” Twilight asked quietly, doing everything she could to not make Fluttershy feel obliged to respond.

The pegasus didn’t immediately reply and rubbed her hooves together nervously. “Oh, Twilight, it was horrible,” Fluttershy then said, and she took one of Twilight’s hooves between her own, as if she was afraid that the unicorn would vanish if she let go. “I was so worried after you passed out, you were bleeding so much. Even Rainbow Dash looked very grim. She took a strange stone out of her pockets and talked to it before putting it away again. I didn’t understand what she was doing, but I think at that moment I wasn’t really in the condition to understand anything…” She hid behind her mane while saying this, as if her actions shamed her.

Both Rarity and Twilight patted Fluttershy’s hooves comfortingly. “You have nothing to be ashamed of, Fluttershy,” Twilight said, calmly but firmly, and she smiled at her friend. “Anypony would be scared in that situation, and you were very brave. If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t even be here, but in the dungeons of the Royal Palace, at best.” The lavender unicorn’s smile became more solemn. “We owe you our lives, Fluttershy.”

Twilight’s words made Fluttershy gasp and quickly shake her head. “Oh, Twilight, that’s not true! If it weren’t for me wanting to see that stupid parade so badly, neither of you would have gotten hurt in the first place!” The yellow mare bowed her head. “I couldn’t do anything to help you and Rarity, and if it wasn’t for Rainbow Dash and her ponies neither of you would have survived! All I did was stand there, frozen with fear while they saved you, doing nothing useful.” She turned her eyes towards Rarity and gave the white unicorn an apologetic look. “And I ruined your beautiful dresses, as well, Rarity.”

The white unicorn shook her head and moved over towards her pegasus friend. Rarity tenderly wrapped her slender forelegs around Fluttershy’s shoulders. “Don’t be ridiculous, Fluttershy, my dear,” she chided gently. “Do not think for even a moment that Twilight and I hold you responsible for what happened. It is nopony’s fault but those guards who attacked us.”

Rarity ran one of her hooves sweetly over Fluttershy’s head. “And please, those dresses should be the least of your worries. You may have saved my life by ripping them to stem the bleeding of my wound.” Almost as an afterthought, rarity added: “And they weren’t very comfortable to begin with.” They all shared a soft chuckle at that.

“Rarity’s right, Fluttershy,” Twilight agreed, and she smiled warmly at her friend. “Also, it was you who took out those guards.” A puzzled frown appeared on the lavender mare’s face. “Speaking of which, how did you do that?”

“I… ehm… I didn’t do anything! I couldn’t!” Fluttershy replied uncomfortably, as she thought back to that moment. She herself had wondered about what had happened as well, but no explanation came to mind. She barely even remembered what she had done or how she had felt in that exact moment. It was all a bit of a blur, the only thing that she remembered clearly was a feeling of pure, unwavering strength.

“I… I just shouted that they had to leave you and Rarity alone, and then they all started fainting…” she continued hesitatingly. “Except for that big meanie who hurt you, Rarity,” she said, looking at Rarity as she did so. Suddenly Fluttershy remembered a few more things about the state that single guardspony had been in after the others had fainted. “I, ehm… I remember that he was shivering a lot, as if he was very cold… And for some reason, he seemed more afraid of me than I was of him. And I was terrified.”

Twilight’s frown deepened in thought, and she tapped her chin with a hoof. “Hmm… It almost sounds as if they were intimidated by you to the point that they couldn’t hold up their consciousness in your presence…” she muttered, thinking out loud. “That still doesn’t sound like anything I ever heard of before, though.”

“Intimidated, you say?” Rarity echoed, holding one of her hooves under her chin, and she gave Fluttershy a long and calculating look. “Darling, do you think it may have been… the Stare?”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened slightly. “Oh no! It couldn’t have been. I only use it to keep my animal friends in line if they misbehave,” she said quietly. “It never made anypony faint.”

“Well, whatever it was, Twilight is correct when saying that it probably saved our lives,” Rarity decided, giving Fluttershy an encouraging smile. “So no more blaming yourself for last night’s little mishap, yes? We are all safe now, Twilight is recovering and aside from a bit of aching in my side, I am fine as well.” She looked at the timid pegasus, the expression in her eyes imploring Fluttershy to not feel guilty.

“O… okay…” Fluttershy stammered, and she let out a deep sigh. Truth to be told she felt somewhat relieved now that she knew her friends did not blame her, and did not want her to feel guilty.

There was a short moment of comfortable silence, until the unicorn in the bed could no longer contain her curiosity. “So, Fluttershy, what happened after Rainbow Dash talked to that stone?” Twilight asked, wanting to hear the rest of the story.

The sudden switch of subject caught Fluttershy off guard at first, but she recovered quickly. “Oh, well, she put the stone away again and then she picked up Rarity and lay her down next to you,” the pegasus said. “She talked to me then, but I don’t remember much of what she said, I was still so scared…” Still feeling a bit guilty about this, Fluttershy hid behind her mane when she confessed that last fact. “She then… ehm… she…” The pegasus rubbed her left cheek nervously.

Rarity and Twilight frowned. “She what, darling? Whatever happened?” Rarity wanted to know.

“W… well, nothing she said got through to me, and she needed my help to stem the bleeding of you both, so she… ehm…” The volume of Fluttershy’s voice lowered so much as to become almost inaudible when she spoke the following three words: “She slapped me.” When she heard the dramatic intakes of breath and the looks of shock on her friends’ faces, she hurriedly added: “Ehm, not very hard, just enough to sting and snap me out of it. She kind of had to, so, ehm, I’m not mad at her…”

Reluctantly, the two unicorns nodded. “We understand,” Twilight said. “Continue, please.”

“I was still scared, but at least I know could be of some help… Rainbow Dash apologised for having to hit me, but quickly explained that she needed me to help her with you both. So I ripped more pieces from my dress and gave her some of them,” Fluttershy continued quietly. “She used them to stem the bleeding as much as she could of your wounds, Twilight, while I did the same for you, Rarity.” She paused for a moment to take another deep breath to calm herself. She remembered how much blood there had been, and even if Rarity was fine now, it still wasn’t a pleasant memory. “Then four more ponies arrived.”

“Not more guards, I hope?” Rarity asked worriedly, unable to stop herself from speaking and thus interrupting Fluttershy’s story.

The pegasus quickly shook her head. “Oh no, they were her friends. Don’t you remember them, Rarity? You were awake for a while when Lemon Thyme treated you…”

The white unicorn shook her head. “I fear I still must have been a bit delirious when that happened,” she replied. “Because I can’t seem to remember that.” She smiled apologetically at her pegasus friend. “But don’t mind me. Do carry on, darling.”

“W… well, so, ehm, there were two unicorns, a pegasus and an earth pony, and they were Rainbow Dash’s friends I think. She said she had called them by talking to that stone earlier, though I don’t understand how that is possible,” Fluttershy said. “Rainbow Dash also told me that they were royal guards, but didn’t wear a uniform to blend in with the crowd during the parade… She told the unicorns and the pegasus to help us, while the earth pony had to take care of that poor Night Guard.”

“What about Rainbow Dash herself? What did she do?” Twilight wanted to know.

“Oh, ehm, she took those saddlebags from you, Twilight, and told me to thank you for wanting to help her, since the documents inside that bag are apparently very important for her,” Fluttershy replied. “She said she was going to create a distraction then so her friends could do what she had told them to do. Apparently there were still more guards on the streets searching for that Night Guard.”

She paused for a moment and rubbed her hooves together nervously. Things had moved so fast once the four royal guards had arrived, it had all been a bit of a blur to her, and she said as much to her friends. “I couldn’t really ask or tell her anything,” Fluttershy muttered quietly. “Then those two unicorns and the pegasus took me with them, and I couldn’t really object, I was just so confused.” She glanced briefly at her friends. “I don’t remember much of what happened when we were walking back to your house, Rarity. It felt as if my head was spinning and I could barely put one hoof before the other.”

Fluttershy felt Rarity place a comforting hoof on her shoulder. “Completely understandable, my dear,” the white unicorn said. “What happened when we came home?”

“Ehm, well, those unicorns, Lemon Thyme and Quartz Horn, they put you and Twilight on the couches in the lounge and began treating your injuries then,” Fluttershy answered. “I don’t know how they did that, since the pegasus, Moonlit Pinion, asked me where the kitchen was and took me there. She made a nice cup of tea for me to help me calm down…” A timid smile formed on her muzzle as she thought back to that moment.

“She was very kind and understanding,” she explained when seeing her friends’ questioning looks. “At first we just sat there drinking tea, or rather, she drank tea while I just stared in my cup… Then she started to talk, slowly and very soothingly. She told me the story of the first time she had been in a fight, of how she had seen ponies get injured and hurt… And, ehm… I couldn’t help but listen.”

Twilight felt herself smile. “Rainbow Dash must have known how hard the events had been on you, and have sent a pony with you who could help you come to terms with it.” She reached out with one of her hooves and placed in on top of one of Fluttershy’s. “Even here, in this time, she wanted you to be safe.”

“That does sound like the Rainbow Dash we knew,” Rarity agreed, smiling as well.

Her friends’ smiles were infectious, for Fluttershy could feel the corners of her own mouth lift up as well, and she nodded. “Listening to her story helped me to calm down and be not so very scared. Then she just made a bit of small talk with me, until Lemon Thyme and Quartz Horn joined us,” Fluttershy continued. “They told me that you were both going to be fine and just needed to be put to bed and sleep. I showed them to your rooms, and they carried you there.”

“I was wondering why it was that I woke up in my own bed instead of a prison cell,” Rarity muttered quietly.

“After that they, ehm, they left. They wanted to leave before your household ponies came back, Rarity, to avoid being seen. Apparently, Rainbow Dash had contacted Lemon Thyme somehow and had told them to do so,” Fluttershy explained. “But before they left, ehm, they also gave a message to me from Rainbow Dash that was intended for ‘the Elements of Harmony’.”

Both unicorns looked up in surprise and glanced at their timid friend expectantly. It didn’t really surprise them that Rainbow Dash would have left a message for her friends, but that she had specifically used the term ‘the Elements of Harmony’ indicated that the royal admiral had something to say that concerned all six of them in particular.

“And… what was that message?” Twilight asked, a bit impatiently, when Fluttershy didn’t immediately reply.

“Oh, ehm, yes, the message,” Fluttershy stammered, a bit embarrassed by having been so distracted as to keep her friends waiting. That wasn’t a very nice thing to do. “Lemon Thyme said that Rainbow Dash has asked all five of us to wait in my cottage, and that she’s going to meet us there tonight at midnight.”

End of chapter 18.

Comments

[Lord_Of_Lagaard]

I liked the moment with Twilight's nightmare. In a way, it gives one of the reasons why Twilight never stood against the Republic. She was afraid of what Celestia had become, and was afraid that she would be punished. It kind've goes into how screwed up their relationship is because of how fearful she is that Celestia will punish her for every living thing.

[Reader Wolf]

The nightmare was chilling, but we have more important things to take care of.
Those things being the return of the Elements!

[Keeper of Jericho]

Hmm, was there something wrong with this chapter? There are less comments than usual...

[Chill Mists(Chilly)]

I'm sorry for not commenting, I've been on holiday with no internet . I really liked this chapter, it had Fluttershy talking :3 and I really want to read on.

[Dead Turtle]

Oh my God, no Celestia no! I'm afraid that this story will truly end in tragedy. Even with the republic overthrown, Celestia is no longer her kind old self. She can no longer lead her subjects.

I'm afraid this will end with the Mane Six banishing her to the Sun or something using the Elements.

[Fury of the Tempest]

Yes... that Nightmare.... is frightening.... so frightening...