Chapter 2
Lumen wasn’t sure why she’d returned to Autumn Wind’s house, exactly. After giving Celestia’s servants their orders, there had been no thought of returning to her own home. Maybe she’d been hoping that her friend had miraculously returned. Maybe she felt safer here.
She’d barely stepped inside when the noises started. Screeches and blasts, then eventually a loud crash that suggested the battle was no longer completely aerial. She huddled behind Autumn’s overturned bed long after the noises stopped, unsure when it might be safe to venture out again.
She nearly jumped when the door flew open, but managed to contain herself. Fear overrode the temptation to stand and look. Even though she doubted that wyverns would bother with doors, she felt the need for some sign that the newcomer was friendly. Two sets of hooves clacked across the house’s wooden floor. Still Lumen waited.
“What else do you know?”
Lumen recognized Celestia’s voice and was about to greet her when the other pony answered.
“Not very much,” said the voice she recognized as Autumn Wind’s. “It seems they’ve let them go almost completely feral, and you can see that they aren’t controlling the population either.”
Lumen was overcome first by relief to know that Autumn was back and unharmed, then by curiosity about their conversation. Rather than reveal herself, she continued to listen.
“That wasn’t the agreement,” Celestia fumed.
“I’m sure the Elder has a completely unrecognizable interpretation of that deal by now,” Autumn said dryly. “You know how dragons are with that sort of thing; you taught me yourself.”
Lumen frowned. The two were talking as if they’d known each other for some time, but Celestia’s earlier behavior had led her to believe that she’d never even heard of Autumn Wind before today. When would they have been able to meet, let alone develop a relationship? Autumn had been in Stonehoof since before Lumen was born, and if there had been any royal visits in that period, the townsponies would be finding reasons to complain about it to this day.
“We were unmistakably clear on the terms,” Celestia insisted.
“And I’m sure they took that as some sort of challenge.”
There was a long pause, then Autumn spoke again.
“You really tore this place apart.”
“What did you expect me to do?” Celestia asked. “I had to find out as much about you — rather, your little costume — as I could, as quickly as possible.”
“I expected you to respond to a credible threat appropriately, when presented with one.”
“You were the credible threat,” Celestia said, anger rising in her voice. “I had no reason to believe the wyverns were anything but a story.”
“Fine, but you did recognize a threat,” Autumn countered. “Still, you came alone, and certainly took your time. If you had treated this with some seriousness, I wouldn’t have had to involve myself the way I did.”
A hoof stomped angrily against the floor. “So that’s what you’re upset about! You wanted to keep hiding.”
A tense silence took the house for a moment. “Yes, that’s what I wanted,” Autumn said finally, her voice so low Lumen could barely hear. “It was working. There was peace.”
Another long silence was punctuated by rustling and scraping of hooves against the floor as both ponies seemed to fidget outside of Lumen’s view.
“We need to talk about this. All of this,” Celestia said at length. “But not right now, and not just with the two of us.”
“Agreed,” Autumn said, sounding almost hesitant.
Lumen could hear Celestia’s hoofsteps as she made for the door, then a pause.
“Twilight,” she said. “Luna will be here before dawn, probably with half of Equestria’s forces.”
“I see,” Autumn replied, sounding distant.
“It would be better if you weren’t here when she arrived. I need time to prepare her.”
“Understood. I’ll… find somewhere else to be.”
Lumen heard the door close, and then nothing but a slight rustling noise. Finally, she rose from her hiding place. What lamps were left in the house had been scattered across the floor by Celestia’s earlier effort, and nopony had bothered to light them in any case. The moonlight streaming through the house’s lone window was all the light she needed to see that she was now alone.
She stood motionless, staring across the empty room at nothing in particular, for what was probably a very long time. The short conversation had been densely packed with world-breaking implications she wasn’t prepared to unravel. She didn’t remember laying down; it was possible that at some point her legs had just given out. The cognitive deadlock followed her into a fitful sleep.
---
“Rise,” an unfamiliar voice commanded.
Lumen found it very compelling, and did as ordered. Opening her eyes, she found a featureless gloom inhabited by a single irate-looking alicorn. Her dark blue coat matched paintings of Princess Luna that Lumen had seen in the capital, although even that familiarity wouldn’t be necessary to identify her; she wasn’t Princess Celestia, and that left only one option.
“You are Lumen?” Luna demanded.
“Um, yes,” Lumen confirmed uncertainly. “What is—”
“You are an associate of the pony responsible for this event, and you are going to help me find her,” Luna said, speaking over Lumen’s question.
“But Princess Celestia—”
“My sister’s judgement on such matters is dubious at best,” Luna interrupted again. “I will find this instigator and reach my own conclusions, regardless of Celestia’s desire to keep her from me.”
“I don’t know—”
“You don’t need to know,” Luna said, her strained patience clear in her tone. “You only need to form a link for me to follow.”
“A link?” Lumen asked, almost surprised that she had been allowed to finish the question.
“I don’t have time to explain the theory of dream magic to you. Think of this Autumn Wind of yours. Build an image in your mind.”
Lumen thought of a dozen questions, all of which were banished by the look on Luna’s face. She had realized somewhat belatedly that she couldn’t possibly be awake. There was no world here, only a demanding princess who made no sense. With a mental shrug, she did as instructed.
It didn’t take much, apparently; just imagining her longtime friend and mentor had an immediate effect. A scattering of memories flashed through her mind, all of various interactions with Autumn Wind. There was no pattern to them that she could discern; some were important, others trivial. Whether this was the normal behavior of her unconscious mind, or some effect of Luna’s presence, Lumen couldn’t say.
Soon, the indistinct background of the dream had melted into an intricately detailed world of which she had no memory. Luna was still standing before her, scowling slightly.
“Not what I had in mind.” The princess sounded slightly confused. “But it will serve.” She fixed Lumen with a sharp look. “Stay close to me. Getting lost in a stranger’s dream world would be… damaging.”
Lumen didn’t answer. Though this newly created world felt unsettlingly foreign to her, she had a hard time believing it was anything other than the invention of her own exhausted mind.
It was a moonless night in a seaside city that Lumen, unsurprisingly, did not recognize. The city also happened to be on fire. She and Luna stood in a cobblestone plaza littered with debris. Ruined street carts, broken windows and piles of assorted flaming detritus framed another alicorn standing in the plaza’s center, her forehoof planted solidly upon something Lumen couldn’t quite make out.
The alicorn gazed dispassionately down at it for an undefinable period of time, then looked up at Luna and Lumen, as if suddenly sensing them.
“One of those nights, I see,” she said, resignation coloring an otherwise flat voice. “You might want to skip ahead — this goes on for quite a while.” She squinted briefly at Lumen. “This is new,” she remarked, eyebrows raising slightly in surprise. “My subconscious is getting inventive, it seems.”
As Twilight looked at them, the object under her hoof swam into focus in a suitably dreamlike fashion. It was an juvenile dragon, a slightly lighter shade of purple than Twilight herself, with green backplates and underbelly.
The air seemed to shimmer around it, warping it continuously while its surroundings were untouched. One moment it was an infant, its head hardly visible under Twilight’s hoof, the next it was gargantuan, larger than any of the buildings that formed the flaming backdrop of the scene. It shifted disconcertingly through various intermediate stages, never holding a single form for longer than a heartbeat. The constant was Twilight’s hoof, pressed firmly against the dragons face, covering its mouth and nostrils. All the while, the dragon convulsed sporadically, as if struggling for air.
It was impossible, of course; reality would never tolerate such transformations, or the bizarre spatial dissonance that let Twilight, still motionless, continue to smother the dragon even as its head grew to several times her height. The dream accommodated it readily enough, though. As Twilight looked back to her captive, he reverted immediately to his infant form. Her lips pressed together into a thin line as she watched his continued struggles.
Just as Twilight had promised, it went on for quite a while. Time being an almost useless concept in dreams, it was also over almost immediately. As the convulsions slowed, Twilight watched, her expression passive, an unlikely blend of boredom and despair filling her eyes. Lumen got the impression that she had lived this scene many times before. Finally, the dragon was still. Twilight removed her hoof from the lifeless body, straightened, and, after a brief glance at Luna and Lumen, erupted into a terrifying rage.
Her horn glowed with an intensity that hurt Lumen’s eyes, even though she wasn’t actually using them. What started as a low growl became an anguished scream, and she kicked furiously at the ground with a rear hoof. With a loud crack the entire plaza splintered apart, pieces separating and floating in different directions as if suspended in a sea of viscous syrup.
“This wouldn’t actually float,” Twilight said from beside her, her voice oddly calm. Lumen was, for some reason, not surprised to find Twilight standing immediately to her left, even as another Twilight rampaged through what was left of the city; perhaps her mind had finally given up on the rules of the waking world.
An increasingly distant purple blur seemed to burn through everything it touched. The little cobblestone island upon which Luna, Lumen and the less apocalyptic Twilight stood bobbed slowly away from the scene of destruction, like a dinghy adrift on invisible waves.
“That pony,” Twilight said, nodding toward herself, “is a danger to herself and others.” She tsked and shook her head judgmentally.
It occurred to Lumen that Luna had been silent since their arrival. She looked up at the darker alicorn curiously, expecting an expression of disdain or annoyance — the only ones she’d seen on her thus far. Instead, she was greeted by slack features and empty eyes. A slight twitch at the corner of Luna’s mouth was the only sign that she was still capable of any sort of movement.
“This is called dissociation, Lumen,” Twilight noted. Her voice had fallen into a familiar lecturing cadence. It wasn’t clear whether she was referring to Luna or herself.
Lumen looked back to Twilight to find that she was now Autumn Wind. She still gazed in the direction of the glowing purple destruction.
“A very sick pony. Best not to have anything to do with her.” Autumn shook her head one last time, then faded out of existence, along with the purple glow in the distance.
Soon, the other pieces of shattered plaza that had floated nearby started to vanish as well. With an inexplicable dread, Lumen knew that this world was collapsing.
“Princess,” she nearly shouted, turning back to Luna.
Luna looked down at her with disinterested, glassy eyes.
“We have to leave!”
Luna seemed to consider that for a moment, then with an almost imperceptible sigh, sat down and looked at what remained of the ground.
“Princess!” Lumen tried again. Luna did not respond.
As the last of the dream world crumbled, Luna was still staring downward, wearing an expression Lumen could only describe as ‘complex.’
Then, the dream was gone, replaced by something equally alien but far less surreal.
She was gliding between pillars of smoke, looking down at a ruined cityscape, her stomach churning with a terrible dread.
She was scanning crater-pocked streets, desperate for some sign that she wasn’t too late. She knew she wouldn’t find one.
She was dispatching renegades by the dozen. There wasn’t time for a more forgiving response. Many species were represented — even some equines. How he had rallied them to his cause was still a mystery.
She was hovering in front of him, looking him in the eyes while his deranged rant confirmed her greatest fear. Her wings were still; it was her magic that held her aloft, higher than any of Mareis’ remaining structures. She knew what she had to do. There were no other options.
She was standing on his chest as it heaved erratically under her. His laughs turned to pained coughs while he regarded her with his remaining eye. These would be his last breaths, but still he was smiling. He tried to speak, but managed only incoherent mumbles. She said nothing.
All of these moments passed instantly over Lumen, each a self-contained kernel of perception, thought, and feeling.
It was suffocating. She awoke gasping for air.
“Lumen?” Celestia’s worried voice greeted. “Are you alright?”
It was a complicated question. As she forced her eyes open, Lumen evaluated it. She seemed to be intact physically. She didn’t know why she wouldn’t be, but given her now-fading panic, it felt reasonable to check. Mentally, she felt disjointed, to say the least.
Something she couldn’t remember was extremely important, for reasons she couldn’t remember. That would have been frustrating, were it not for the overriding sorrow that crowded out any other emotion. That too was fading, though. It wasn’t unlike past experiences with powerful dreams which faded away in the daylight, leaving only inexplicable feelings behind. The sheer intensity was unprecedented, however — at least, for Lumen it was.
“Lumen?”
“I’m fine,” Lumen answered unconvincingly. “Just had a strange dream, I think.”
She blinked the sleep from her eyes and assessed her surroundings. She was still in Autumn Wind’s house, but it had been cleaned up and reorganized since the previous night. She was lying on Autumn’s bed, which last she’d known had been overturned and left in the middle of the room. Autumn’s few personal effects, yesterday scattered across the floor by Celestia, were nowhere to be seen. A pair of boxes stacked in the corner of the room farthest from the door seemed their most likely location now.
Princess Celestia sat near the only window, a variety of scrolls and maps laid out before her on a low table that Lumen didn’t recognize as belonging to Autumn. At the door, a pair of guards stood, eyes forward and bodies stiff. Four ponies might be as many as had ever occupied the tiny dwelling, but somehow it didn’t feel crowded.
“A dream?” Celestia asked with a flick of her ear. “How was it strange?”
Lumen rolled out of bed and glanced at the princess. Celestia’s curious gaze was locked upon her, her work forgotten. It was a uniquely uncomfortable feeling to awaken under the watch of the princess herself; it would have been even if it weren’t followed by questions about dreams that she couldn’t answer.
“I can’t remember,” Lumen said, shaking her head.
Celestia shrugged and turned back to her work. Scrolls shuffled and maps folded while a quill hung uselessly in the air. The princess seemed distracted.
“Why did you come back here?” She asked after a moment. “I looked for you at the carriage, among other places.”
“It was the closest building when the fighting started,” Lumen replied. “I assume that was fighting anyway.”
“Yes,” Celestia confirmed with a sad nod.
“And?” Lumen prompted.
“Nopony was hurt. The wyverns weren’t so lucky. Your town hall will have to be rebuilt.”
Lumen digested the information in silence for a moment. “You cleaned Autumn’s house,” she noted at length.
“Yes, well… it would have been rude to leave it the way it was,” Celestia explained weakly. “And I needed a place to work, away from Lu—” she caught herself. “Away from the commotion.”
“Commotion?”
“My sister arrived a few hours ago. As requested, she brought considerable forces with her.” She glanced pointedly at the door guards. “Large military deployments bring with them a certain amount of chaos.”
“Were you expecting Autumn back, then?” Lumen asked pointedly. “Or why the worry about being impolite?” Based on what she’d overheard before falling asleep, Lumen was fairly certain she knew the answer to that question. Still, she wanted her suspicions confirmed, and, more importantly, wanted to know whether Celestia would answer her honestly.
The princess clearly struggled with the question. Autumn had once described her as the world’s most accomplished not-quite-liar — she must have been feeling truly out of sorts if a relatively simple query like Lumen’s gave her pause.
“About Autumn…” she started, then shook her head, apparently deciding against whatever she’d planned to say. “You were right, for what it’s worth. About all of it.”
It wasn’t worth much. Lumen hadn’t set out for Canterlot to be right — her objective was to save her town and, if possible, her friend. “Great. So, about Autumn…”
Before Celestia could answer or deflect, the door glowed with blinding light and burned almost instantly into a neat pile of ash on the threshold. It was too fast to be frightening. Lumen watched in confusion as a dark blue alicorn stormed into the house, plucking the door guards from the ground and holding them helplessly aloft in her magic until they realized what was happening and stopped struggling.
She recognized Luna immediately from her dreams. The sight of her summoned in Lumen’s mind a series of half-familiar images. Nothing so sensical as to help her remember, but enough to trigger a resurgence of the residual emotions that had only just faded. She stared blankly through the princess as she struggled to understand both her own inexplicable feelings and the situation unfolding before her.
“You thought to hide this — to hide her — from me?” Luna demanded, her glowing eyes beaming menacingly at her sister.
“Luna, I need you to calm down,” Celestia urged, her voice carrying a practiced tranquility that seemed to have no effect on the raging alicorn.
“How long have you known? How long have you conspired—”
“I found her last night,” Celestia interrupted. “I only wanted to prepare you before you met her.”
“I am not a foal to be coddled!” Luna stomped at the floor, drawing a flinch from Lumen. “Your manipulation will not be tolerated!”
Wings spread wide, Luna took a long stride towards her sister and kicked away her work table, scattering her papers across the floor. Celestia remained passive, meeting the aggression with only a disappointed stare.
Lumen wasn’t sure if this was the beginning of the battle that would end Equestria as she knew it, or a standard Tuesday morning. She’d learned enough history to know that arguments between these particular sisters didn’t always end peaceably.
Increasing pressure in her horn told her of a surge of energy nearby. She could almost hear it crackling and hissing as the effect intensified. At first, she thought it was coming from the princesses, but then they too seemed to forget about their conflict and glance around the room questioningly. With an anticlimactic pop, a third alicorn appeared within hoof’s reach of Lumen. She recognized this one from her dream as well.
Twilight Sparkle opened her eyes and scanned the room, taking a quick step back from Lumen when she realized how close she stood. She held her silence for a long moment as her gaze passed over everypony a second time.
“So,” she said finally, with clear reluctance. “You’re all here. Unexpected. In fact, this is exactly what I’d hoped to avoid.” She laughed nervously, then the room fell back into a dead silence.
Based on what she’d heard the previous night and the dream she didn’t really remember, Lumen already knew, but her mind hadn’t yet formally assembled the idea from its component parts. Now it was unavoidable. The revelation came in two waves. One, Twilight Sparkle was not dead. Shocking, but not of great emotional impact to a pony who, like Lumen, was fewer than four hundred years old. Two, Autumn Wind was dead. Rather, she had never lived.
Under the weight of three intense stares and two curious ones, Twilight shuffled involuntarily backwards into the rear corner of her very small home. It was a single room, meant for one average-sized mare. Now it held three grown alicorns and two armored guards, in addition to Lumen. There wasn’t much space to escape scrutiny.
“So,” Twilight said eventually, her expression speaking to her resignation. “Who wants to go first?”
Luna wanted to go first. She pointed an accusatory hoof, opened her mouth, closed it, returned the hoof to the floor, looked at it briefly, then looked back to Twilight. “You just let me find you.” Her voice was low, each syllable carefully enunciated. “Like that. After all this time.”
“Find her?” Celestia asked. Her gaze had shifted from Twilight to Luna. “Like what?”
“That was you?” Twilight demanded, her expression darkening. “I mean, actual you? And you brought her?” She gestured towards Lumen.
Lumen wasn’t comforted, either by Twilight’s furious incredulity or Celestia’s sharp inhalation. What about that was so significant that it would draw such a reaction? The guilty expression that crossed Luna’s face for the slightest of moments wasn’t reassuring either.
“Do not change the subject!” Luna exclaimed. “This is not about me — this is about your abandonment. Your dereliction.”
“I told you to wait until the morning,” Celestia said, focusing cold eyes on her sister as she rose to a standing position. “Why couldn’t you just once listen? Now you’ve hurt yourself, and endangered an innocent in the process.”
Luna whirled to face her sister. “I did what I deemed necessary after centuries — nay, millennia — of watching you incur disaster by delaying necessary action. I didn’t intend to enter her dream, only to find her. If somepony had told me my target was so familiar—”
“You had the feather,” Celestia interrupted. “You knew this would be out of the ordinary, at the very least.”
Luna’s anger gave way to confusion. “Feather?”
“Twilight’s feather. I told Ash Scribe to deliver it to you as soon as you woke. Are you saying you never received it?”
Luna shook her head. “I mobilized our forces as soon as I was awakened. He would have had no opportunity to deliver it. You should have brought it to me immediately.”
Celestia let out a single mirthless laugh. “After last time, I wouldn’t speak to you on Sparkle Day if the moon itself fell out of the sky.”
“That was—”
“Please go.” Twilight said firmly, interrupting Luna’s retort. “This isn’t solving anything.”
Both sisters looked back to Twilight, arguments already forming on their lips.
“Please go.” Twilight repeated. There was no mistaking the steel in her voice. The posture of sheepish retreat she’d adopted as she’d backed into the corner was gone, replaced by a commanding stance to match her tone.
Luna’s forced scowl did nothing to hide the tears forming in her eyes. She turned stiffly and marched through the open doorway, beginning to spread her wings as she left Lumen’s sight.
“You too,” Twilight ordered, looking at Celestia.
“Twilight—” Celestia started, a cautioning hoof raised towards the younger alicorn.
“Go.”
The eldest princess seemed to consider defying the order for a moment, before letting out a disappointed sigh and making for the doorway. She stopped at the threshold and turned back. “I trust you haven’t forgotten about the invasion. Or are Equestria’s concerns no longer of interest to you?”
Without waiting for an answer, Celestia disappeared. Her guards stared awkwardly at the place where she’d stood when she vanished, clearly unsure of what to do, but just as clearly aware that they shouldn’t stay here. With a passable attempt at the quiet dignity for which their order was known, they marched through the door.
Once they were gone, Twilight collapsed. “It’s happening again,” she moaned, face buried under her forehooves. “It’s only been ten hours, and it’s happening again.”
“What’s happening again?” Lumen asked apprehensively.
Twilight’s hooves slid off her face, and she looked at Lumen as if just now realizing the unicorn was there. “They’re fighting. You saw! They can’t get along at all.”
Looking at the alicorn splayed across the floor, Lumen wondered if this could really be the same wise, unshakeable, utterly dependable pony she’d known since her childhood. The rational part of her mind noted that she didn’t and couldn’t grasp the full context of what she’d just witnessed. What she did know still pointed to an emotional weight unequaled by any experienced by Lumen thus far in her comparatively short life.
The impulsive part of her mind didn’t care. Twilight Sparkle was nothing more than a squabbling foal, just like the others.
“I liked you better as Autumn Wind,” Lumen said bluntly, and left.
“Me too,” Twilight mumbled to the empty house.
---
Outside, Lumen was immediately reminded of the broader situation. Stonehoof was crowded in a way it had never been before. The path towards the town hall, usually empty, was littered with guardsponies. A few seemed to be patrolling, eyes scanning the surrounding forest carefully for any sign of threat, while the majority stood in small groups, talking amongst themselves.
Immense shadows drifting across the ground led Lumen’s gaze upward. Overhead, three gargantuan airships floated lazily, while hundreds of indistinguishable specks circled around and between them.
Lumen had been impressed by Canterlot. The city was dense in every way a city could be. It was overflowing with buildings that were in turn overflowing with ponies. Every structure and street had history beyond anything Stonehoof could offer. Still, she’d been prepared for it. She’d read about it, seen pictures, and heard of it from ponies who had known ponies who had hated it because everypony in Stonehoof knew that Canterlot was awful.
In contrast, nothing had prepared her for this. She’d never read about or seen pictures of the airships used by the Equestrian military, and she’d never been told about the constant buzz of activity that surrounded them.
Beyond the glimpse of them she’d caught the previous night, Lumen hadn’t seen anything of the wyvern threat. She had thought of them as a particularly dangerous wild menace; like timberwolves, but worse. The princesses clearly felt otherwise. Celestia had used the word ‘invasion.’ She had ordered these forces and, even after defeating the swarm that had attacked the previous night, had not sent them home.
Did that mean there were more? So many that a force of this magnitude was justified? The alicorns’ spat seemed even more ridiculous in that case. Lumen shook her head and made her way down the path, instinctively avoiding eye contact with the many guardsponies who glanced at her curiously as she passed.
As she emerged into the town’s central clearing, she remembered what Celestia had said: the town hall would have to be rebuilt. She hadn’t thought much about it at the time. In fact, she hadn’t thought deeply about anything that had been said in Autumn’s house this morning. She’d been distracted, and it had all happened so quickly.
Now the reality was staring her in the face. The town hall was rubble. About half of Stonehoof’s residents were milling around the ruin, casting angry glances at the nearest guardsponies and the airships above. Of course they would find a way to make it Canterlot’s fault. By now, even the initial attack on Old Sawdust had probably been Canterlot’s doing as far as her neighbors were concerned.
As she drew closer and ponies noticed her, the glares centered on her instead. Of course — she’d made the grueling, possibly dangerous, trek to Canterlot. She’d done all that was necessary to get the attention of Princess Celestia herself, bringing her back just in time to rescue the town from certain destruction. Why wouldn’t they be angry with her?
She stopped and looked back at them with an equally disdainful expression. The townsponies didn’t know the whole story, and they likely never would. They’d gone to sleep last night, their town quiet, their town hall standing undisturbed, and woken up surrounded by the Equestrian Guard, a pile of rubble the town’s new centerpiece.
Looking at the wall of angry faces before her, Lumen surmised that it would be some time before she was welcome here. Autumn wouldn’t be around to defend her; Autumn was dead as far as everypony — herself included — was concerned.
She mulled her options for several moments. Home wasn’t home anymore, despite her efforts to save it. The ponies she was supposed to trust to keep her and the rest of Equestria safe were acting like foals. Nothing seemed to make very much sense.
She found herself wondering instinctively what Autumn Wind would do. It was a common enough line of thought for her when presented with intractable situations, but this time she recoiled from it. Autumn Wind wasn’t even real. She was one of the very ponies that had shaped this mess.
Still, Autumn’s wisdom had served her well enough throughout her life. Perhaps the pony Twilight Sparkle had pretended to be was a better role model than Twilight herself. Unlike Twilight, who was probably still laying in a heap on her floor, Autumn would have found a way to fix this. She would have figured out how to make the princesses act like the ponies they were supposed to be. She’d certainly always known a lot about them — now Lumen knew how she’d come by that knowledge.
Knowing Autumn’s true identity also gave her new perspective on everything she’d ever been told about the royalty, Lumen realized. She thought back through all she could remember her sharing on the subject. One lesson in particular stuck out immediately.
“Celestia and Luna are opposite in so many ways,” Autumn had said. “Given enough time, their relationship will always become adversarial. They care for each other, certainly, but over centuries, everything starts to add up. They need help to find common ground. That was what Twilight Sparkle was meant to do, but she never filled the role very well. Only in death did she succeed in uniting them.”
Lumen wondered what Celestia or Luna would make of that perspective. It might resolve some things, if they knew — or might make them much, much worse. Either way, it was a step.
“Excuse me,” Lumen called, singling out a nearby guard stallion who seemed more decorated than his closest peers. “I need to talk to Princess Celestia.”
The stallion snorted in disbelief, and Lumen steeled herself for a repeat of the ordeal she’d endured to meet with Celestia back in Canterlot.
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At the end you started using italics and then forgot to remove them. Very engaging read so far, and I'm eager for the next chapter.
5652605 Fixed, thanks!
Oh, ouch.
The plot, as they say, thickens. To steal from a modern philosopher, the Sisters got 99 problems but a wyvern invasion ain't one. Except that it is. So really, they've got a hundred problems, and only one pony interested in solving the first 99.
5653436
It's a good formula, one which I most associate with a use from another ponyfic:
I'm having some trouble right now because although there are some elements that are catching me, there's no character I'm particularly interested in becoming emotionally attached to: everyone (but Lumen, who I'm mostly taking as an audience stand-in and plot device so far) is coming off as nasty in some respect or another, and part of the reason this is showing through is because all the characters are making predictably bad decisions. The problem is that it seems like most of the details that would justify those decisions are buried in the past, far from the reader. I guess that goes with the story that's being told, though.
The dynamic in this is fantastic - I especially like how all three princess are viewed from an outsiders perspective through Lumen. Not much else to say her - this seems more of a setup chapter than anything else. Very good setup though.
Also, since whenever I read this story I hear this song in my head, I figured I'd share it with the masses - especially since the lyrics actually seem somewhat appropriate:
Dang, things seem to go poorly for future Spike. I think we knew that he was dead (or at least that he probably was) from the first chapter, but now we have a how and it isn't a happy story at all.
Lumen needs to start slapping princesses til they stop being jackasses.
5668111 Lumen isn't just a flashlight, she's a pony who sheds light on the situation. Or at least that's my prediction.