Bridging the Rift

by sincarnation

Chapter 7: Learning from the Past

Equestria 3:25am, 2nd of Maruk, 6 Months after the return of Artemis – Celestia’s Bedroom, Canterlot

Immortal creatures like Celestia, Luna, Artemis, Discord and some others didn’t really need sleep to function or survive, and for the most part it was a habit that developed so as not to further distance themselves from their subjects. That being said all of them had grown to enjoy it, and none of them were particularly happy to be woken up.

“Why couldn’t they come during the day?” groaned Celestia as she debated going back to sleep.

It wasn’t really much of a debate though; she could already see how it was going to play out, and it was a matter of time before she would get up and have to investigate. She was certain Artemis was going to check the first one, and he was likely to assume the worst insisting on being the first one to take the hit if necessary. Luna likely wasn’t going to listen to him since otherwise the others would just roam around where they land and potentially endanger other ponies. Then they would send the elements out to collect the others, and then it was a matter of sending them home.

As if on cue, Celestia felt Luna leave her bedroom and head towards the energy she felt in the garden maze. While those two were likely worked up about potential threats, Celestia remained largely calm. She wasn’t sure if it was a hunch, her experience, or morning apathy but she felt confident that this wasn’t an attack even as there was another surge of energy coming from the throne room.

“Fiddlesticks,” yawned Celestia as she sat up rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Censoring herself to maintain public appearance for so long had largely removed most actual swears from her vocabulary.

“I can get this one Lulu, keep watch on the one in the garden,” thought Celestia groggily.

Without waiting for a response, she dragged herself out of her bed. She made her way over to the bathroom, careful not to wake Philomena. She looked in the mirror and decided she shouldn’t meet their guests with bedmane. Luckily she had a cleaning spell for those times when she didn’t have time to enjoy a proper shower and brushing, and after taking a moment to make sure everything was in place she headed towards the door.

After a short nod to the guards she noticed that their visitor was already exploring the castle grounds, but she wasn’t unduly worried. She wasn’t far from their visitor, and the path that they had chosen was a dead end for anyone that wasn’t herself, Luna, Twilight, or Cadence. On the off chance that visitor was able to somehow replicate their signature magic, the chamber had remained empty since she had given Twilight the elements.

As she neared where their guest had stopped, Celestia couldn’t help but wonder if there was ever going to be a time of normality. The past decade had been problem after problem nonstop, and while she was glad Luna returned in the chaos she would’ve liked things to be a bit calmer. The return of Discord, changeling invasions, the return of Sombra, Tirek’s rampage and the return of Artemis, had left her wondering what piece of the past was going to be a problem for Equestria next. Artemis had a knack for seeing the next big problem coming, but whenever she asked him about it he just said “you can see the shitstorm brewing from miles away when you aren’t in the middle of it” much to her irritation.

Celestia pulled herself away from her thoughts as she turned the corner, just a few meters ahead was the guest she had been looking for. Before her was a shapely tan mare thoroughly studying the stained glass murals in the hallway, Celestia was taken aback for a brief moment. She hadn’t been expecting regular pony, she wasn’t sure what she had expected but it wasn’t a normal earth pony. If that wasn’t surprising enough the silly purple hat was almost enough to make her lower her guard, but the rifle strapped across her back was warning enough.

“Good evening, I hope you are enjoying the murals. Let me be the first to welcome you to Equestria.”

Celestia noted that the mare didn’t seem defensive in any way, but she was examining her closely enough to feel mildly uncomfortable even with the slight distance between them. There was a gleam in her eyes before she responded.

“Ah yes, good evening to you as well. I am honored to be welcomed by what I presume to be a venerated hero, if the glass is telling the truth anyway.”

“Ah yes that is my likeness in the window, what gave me away?”

“It was the white coat, horn, wings, and the tattoo of the sun. Call it a “detective’s hunch”, but I figure you aren’t just here by coincidence, you are here in case I am dangerous.”

“Smart, mare. So are you?”

“Elementary honestly, but am I dangerous?” the mare paused for a brief moment considering how to answer. “Yes I am dangerous, but I’m not someone to worry about. I mean no harm.”

“Excellent, then allow me to introduce myself. I am Princess Celestia of Equestria, and you are?”

“Caitlyn, Sheriff of Piltover, and it’s an honor to speak with you, your highness. However might I speak to the King or Queen?”

“We have no King or Queen,” chuckled Celestia. “My sister and I share power and rule Equestria together. If you were looking for the pony in charge, you found one of them.”

“My apologies, I hope I didn’t offend. If I may be so bold, why do neither of you go by Queen?”

“Not at all, we have a non-standard way of rule. I can’t fault you for not knowing a foreign political structure. As for not labelling ourselves Queens, I wouldn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea about my sister and I’s relationship. Faust knows there are enough of those rumors going around already.”

“Plus the minor difference in terminology lessens the amount of ponies that will speak out against the two immortal Princesses, rule by immortal Queens doesn’t sound nearly as benevolent.”

“Interesting, I’m guessing your sister is the other in the mural? The one helping you defeat that monster?”

“You would be correct, though it is a little dated now, that was when we defeated the last Lord of Chaos, Discord.”

“These murals tell an interesting tale, if I’m interpreting them correctly. Cooperation, conflict, new heroes and betrayal, it’s quite the story. I can’t help, but wonder when this began. You appear to be quite young, did this all happen back to back?”

“Don’t trust your eyes for everything, this has happened over the course of 5000 years or so. The one of us fighting Discord is the oldest, fighting the wolves was about 2000 years later, fighting Nightmare Night about 1000 years ago, and the rest have been in the past 2 years.”

At this the tan mare seemed genuinely surprised, she clearly hadn’t been expecting such a large amount of time to have gone by. Celestia noted the immediate shift in body language, she seemed much more defensive. Now that she knew she was dealing with an ancient ruler, and not a young princess she seem much more respectful of her experience.

“What about you? What’s some of the history of your world? You seem to recognize you aren’t from here, so I’m guessing you were sent here?”

“I can’t decide if it was foolish or wise, but I fought against my instincts to shut my eyes. I saw the journey, that’s the only reason why I know I’m far from home. Valoran is a land plagued with internal conflict, the wars got so bad that the magic threatened to tear the world apart. To prevent future wars from triggering the dormant magic, three of the most powerful magicians started the League of Legends. The League is a place where each city-state can choose champions to represent them and fight on their behalf over various political and social issues. Unfortunately that is the only way we have managed to not kill each other.”

“Really? That’s interesting, how successful has the League been in stopping wars?”

“That is up to debate, I myself say not effective enough. There have been two major wars since the League’s formation, a civil war in the Northern Freljord and the Noxus-Ionian War. However if you ask the League, they will say their only responsibility is to stop city-states from fighting amongst themselves, and that they have no business in internal power-struggles such as the civil war. Which is utter bullocks, considering the three leaders and many of the figure heads for each faction are champions.”

“I figured as much, using violence to end violence never works, but you don’t seem to have a positive attitude towards this League.”

“No, even though I fight for the interests of Piltover, I don’t like the league. Many people haven’t considered that we are at the mercy of the High Summoner’s, while they try to prevent large scale conflict there is no guarantee that will always be their objective. Having the most powerful combatants in the land under their thumbs gives them the potential to be problematic enemies. While I agree with your sentiment, I don’t think it is practical. However I don’t believe you are as peaceful as you let on. Your murals show you, among others, using violence to solve your problems.”

“This land hasn’t known war in 800 years, and while some of those mural’s depict the more violent looking scenes it wasn’t violence that stopped each of those situations. My sister and I didn’t destroy discord we trapped him in stone, but when he broke free he was back to his same game of spreading mischief. He was trapped in stone again by the Elements of Harmony, but eventually I realized that we couldn’t keep imprisoning him. So we set him free, and we befriended him. Now the Lord of Chaos is free, but the world isn’t completely disheveled by chaos.”

“800 years of peace? Impressive. While befriending your enemy might work here, I doubt it would work on Valoran.”

“It may not, I wasn’t suggesting that you befriend all your enemies. I was merely stating that violence does not end violence, at some point you have to reach an understanding. While you may not like your rivals you can’t just wipe them out.”

“If only it were easy to make everyone else see that.”

“Don’t worry, it just takes time. They will learn eventually, but tell me have we learned enough about the other to admit what game we are playing?”

“Of course ,” laughed Caitlyn. “From what I can tell you weren’t lying, and I don’t have any reason to distrust you. And myself?”

“I can say the same about you, so why did you come to Equestria?”

Though she didn’t say anything, Celestia saw the slightest twitch during her last statement. Caitlyn didn’t trust her. While it was a smart sentiment, she wasn’t sure what/if she did anything to cause it.

“From what I can tell, we are here by complete accident. I hypothesize that the teleportation spell was disrupted by a sudden surge of magic causing us to vastly overshoot, but I’m not a mage so I can’t say for sure. I can’t even be sure that all of us landed here, but I think Jem managed to hold us together though.”

“At least she appears to be telling the truth.”

“Well before I send ponies out to retrieve your friends, is there anything I should know about them?”

“Well we are all champions of the League of Legends, so we are all technically dangerous, but there are only two that I would worry about being particularly malicious. One is a master chemist named Singed, he is an amoral scientist from Zaun and most of his “work” gets sold as chemical weaponry. I would be worried about leaving him alone for any period of time.”

“She must have some history with Zaun, but at least this is good to know so I can warn the girls.”

“The other is called Kalista, and she is a collaboration of souls and living embodiment of vengeance. I can’t say for certain if she will harm innocent civilians, but she won’t hesitate to pierce anyone that she senses treachery or deception from. Between her and Singed, she is MUCH more dangerous and more likely to kill someone if allowed to roam.“

“Hmmm, that is most certainly troubling. I will make sure all of your remaining companions are retrieved as quickly as possible.”

“I feel the need to point out, we aren’t all companions, Most of them are more like coworkers honestly, just because we have the same job doesn’t mean we are all friends. In fact many of us hate each other.”

“No need to worry about me lumping you all together, is there anything else I should know?”

“No, I don’t thi-”

Celestia was surprised when a very visible cringe interrupted her sentence. Suddenly the mare’s entire demeanor changed, and now she seemed, embarassed?

“There is one more you should know about,” sighed Caitlyn. “My deputy/enforcer is probably here too, and while she isn’t malicious she is probably going to cause some damage. By some damage, I mean a LOT of property damage. Her catchphrase is ‘punch first, ask questions while punching’. As her commanding officer, I apologize in advance for any damage she causes. On my word as sheriff, I will make sure she fixes anything she breaks.”

“That’s quite alright,” laughed Celestia. “I know what it is like to work with someone who is much more reckless. Shortly after her return my sister caught wind of a hostage situation, and while it could’ve easily been resolves by the guards. She ended up brute forcing her way in and throwing off their entire plan, but the hostages were saved at least and no pony was permanently wounded. She has the best intentions, they just could be handled with a bit more precision and finesse.”

“Exactly! Then when you try to explain the amount of paperwork and hassle they just caused, they just laugh it off as not their problem. It’s just so infuriating.”

“Then while you are still angry with them, they do something that reminds you why you are glad to have them. While it may be difficult to deal with them, it’s better than going without them.”

“…”

“What? Don’t you agree?”

“Unfortunately I do,” sighed Caitlyn.

“Unfortunately? What do y-“

“TIIAAA! WE HAVE GUESTS!!

Celestia cursed mentally, as her sister’s pet nickname for her boomed throughout the castle. She wondered why she choose to announce this with Royal Canterlot Voice instead of mentally, but they would have to talk about that later.

“BE RIGHT THERE LULU!”

Celestia withheld a groan when she saw the smug smile playing at the edges of Caitlyn’s mouth, and while she wasn’t really embarrassed by the name, it certainly made her harder to take seriously.

“It would seem that my sister has returned with one of your associates, would you come with me to meet them?”

“Of course, lead the way.”

As they walked away Caitlyn couldn’t help by steal a final glance at the stained glass murals and be on guard. While the Princess claimed they were peaceful, she couldn’t shake the feeling that not everything was exactly as it seemed.

Author's Note:

Alright 2nd update I promised, hopefully updates should be a bit more regular now that some of the drama and responsibility has died down a bit. Hope you all had a great 4th,
Sin