The Archmagus' Lament
In a tastefully designed office in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington DC, an executive assistant spoke over the intercom. “Mr. Secretary, Ambassador Sparkle is here to see you.”
“Who?”
“The horse…alien…unicorn looking thing,” the admin assistant said, looking at the delegation before her and silently mouthing an I’m sorry.
“Ah, I’ve been expecting her. Please send her in.”
The assistant stood up, went to the door and opened it. “The Secretary will see you now, Ambassador. And I apologize for any, ah, unintended insult.”
The addressee, a purple unicorn, looked at the assistant and smiled. “None taken. Thank you for all your help.” Looking at the three behind her, the unicorn and her entourage, a celeste unicorn, a white pegasus and a golden brown earth pony, walked in behind her, into the office of the Secretary of State.
The Secretary, a thin man of Indian descent, looked at the four as they walked in. I’ve dealt with the Russians when they’ve been less than helpful, the North Koreans when they’ve been idiotic, and the Iranians when they wanted to declare war on everything short of the sky. But I never thought in my long career, I’d ever have to deal with aliens. “Please, Ambassador Sparkle, come in.”
“Thank you, Secretary Patel,” she said, offering a hoof. “And please, just call me Twilight.”
“Ah, then just call me Val,” he said, taking her hoof and shaking. “You wouldn’t know how many people trip over my full name of Vallabhbhai – President Mendoza herself gets it wrong on occasion.”
In turn, Twilight introduced her staff. “This is Lyra Heartstrings. She’s the most knowledgeable pony we have on humans, and she will be taking over as Ambassador once relations are normalized.”
“It’s an honor to be working with you, sir.” Lyra offered her hoof, calmly and surely. Normally, she’d be bouncy about getting the chance to meet real live humans who didn’t inhabit the pages of horror books, but she was supposed to show the responsible side of ponies, so Twilight had lectured her more than enough – followed by an additional lecture from Bon-Bon.
“Myself as well,” he admitted.
“Apple Cobbler will be our ambassador to the United Nations. She’s also very informed, and if possible, we’d like her to work with your liaisons to get us up to speed on human geopolitical situations.”
“Ah’d muchly….” She paused for a second, covering her mouth to cough, and then started again. “I’d appreciate any assistance you could provide, if you’d please.”
Patel nodded. “Dr. Rousseau is our Ambassador there, and he will be in town later this week. I’d be more than happy to introduce you to him.”
“Lastly is Soarin’. He’s one of our senior military members, and would appreciate being introduced to any appropriate military personnel. If we are to join the human world, our military has to be vastly improved.”
“Part of your Air Force, Mr. Soarin’?”
“What’s an Air Force?”
“As a pegasus, sir, you’d be considered Air Force, part of the aviation branch of the services. In any case, I have a meeting with General Baker – he’s the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the day-to-day head of our military – tomorrow regarding the situation in Somalia. You’re welcome to join us.” Patel instead gestured to the table, and the chairs – love seats, brought in from other offices for the convenience of the ponies – so they could begin.
“So, I take it you wish to discuss the situation with what you call ‘the Lost Foal.’ My deputies have been handling most of the negotiations with you, but as of today I feel it is necessary that I take over negotiations myself. I hope this doesn’t inconvenience you.”
“Not at all,” Twilight answered. “In fact, I appreciate the candor.”
“You’re welcome. So, let me see if my deputies reported this to me correctly: in exchange for an alliance and the announcement to the world that your nation – and the others – exist, you want the return of this individual? That’s all your nation wants?”
“As relations normalize, I’m sure there will be more, but for now, yes, all we want is the return of Sandalwood.” Twilight tried to keep her voice neutral, even as her mind began swimming. Fifteen long years she and Pinkie had searched, fifteen fruitless, hopeless years, watching Rarity hang to a razor-thin hope that her oldest daughter, Sandalwood, would be alive somehow. And now, on a version of Earth where apes had evolved into the dominant species instead of their horse ancestors, Sandalwood was somewhere out there. “We feel it’s important that she be returned to us at once.”
Patel sighed; he knew this was going to come up sooner or later, and he’d just had this talk with the Brazilian ambassador yesterday. “Twilight, are you familiar with the doctrine of jus soli and jus sanguinis?”
“Well, I know enough Old High Pre-Equestriani to know that means ‘right of land’ and ‘right of blood’, but otherwise I’m not familiar with what they mean.”
“Your culture has had Latin as well? Impressive.” Patel was awed, but only for a moment. “What it means is that nationality is determined by where you are born – jus soli – or who your ancestors were – jus sanguinis. In many cases, it informs your personal identity. Most English-speaking nations on this world have a jus soli imperative, and as a result, those residents of those nations – ourselves, Canada, Australia, Britain, Belize, New Zealand, and others – are very loyal and civic towards their homelands. Jus sanguinis nations, however, is determined by your blood. My ancestors come from India, which despite the fact that is an English-speaking nation, operates on jus sanguinis – I could be considered Indian because of my heritage, but my wife, whose ancestors are from the Netherlands, would never be considered Indian no matter how much she tried.”
“I see,” Twilight said. “Under those circumstances, I’d have to say the Principality of Equestria is a jus sanguinis nation. I would have to confirm this with her majesty as it has never come up before, but I am certain that is the case.”
“With that said, bear in mind that Daisy Jo Martinez was issued a birth certificate. As far as the United States is concerned, she is an American citizen. And the reason I tell you this is because she’s spent fifteen years of her life here as an American. She knows nothing of Equestria or its culture; from what I understand, no one really knew what she was until we met you three months ago. She may not want to go back.”
Twilight tried not to let her shock show on her face. If Val was right, Sandalwood, or Daisy Jo Martinez as she was called now, wouldn’t want to come back to home, to all of them…to Rarity. But that made no sense! She was a pony. She belonged with her own kind, not with…. A flicker of anger appeared on Twilight’s face, and just as quickly she forced it away. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a chastising glance from Lyra. Lyra’s right: these aren’t the same humans that we read about in mythology.
Twilight sat there, with Val looking at her. Had he seen her sudden flash of anger? If so, how would he react? It would be vastly ironic, given their reputation in Equestriani literature, if humans were actually very peaceful and friendly, afraid of ponies that acted as aggressors.
There was a knock at the door, and the admin assistant poked her head in again. “Ms. Caldwell and Mr. Baird are here, sir.”
“Perfect timing, please send them in.” The door opened and in walked two more humans, a young woman with red hair and fair skin and an older man with dark skin and a bushy moustache. “Thank you for coming, counselors.”
As they walked in, both got a look at their hooved counterparts and stared. Caldwell was faster. “Mr. Secretary, in light of last week, with all due respect – you can’t be serious.”
“Indeed I am – and these are diplomatic officials, so I suggest you treat them as such,” he said with a velvet-covered threat. Turning towards the ponies, he gestured in turn to each. “Folks, this is Ambassador Twilight Sparkle, head of the contact delegation. Next to her, in order are Ambassador Lyra Heartstrings, who will be the incoming ambassador to Washington; Ambassador Apple Cobbler, who’ll be at the UN; and uh, I didn’t get your rank.”
“Lieutenant,” he replied.
“Just a lieutenant but one of the senior ranking military members, fascinating,” Patel said under his breath before modulating. “And Lt. Soarin’, their military attaché. Please, counselors, introduce yourselves.”
The man sat, speaking first. “I’m Albert Baird, Commonwealth Attorney for Frederick County in Virginia. I’m responsible for the jurisdiction Winchester is located in.”
The woman was next. “I’m Keisha Caldwell. Chief of Staff for Senator Tyson McAllister.” Turning to Patel, she said, “The Senator, as you know, has a keen interest in this issue, Mr. Secretary.”
“Commonwealth Attorney…would that be anything like a Regional Solicitor?” Twilight asked.
“Most likely yes, Ambassador,” Baird said.
Lyra turned to Patel. “Val, what’s going on?”
Patel looked at them all. “There have been…some complications. Mr. Baird, if you would please.”
Baird nodded. “On March 31st, on or about 10:07pm, Ms. Martinez was attacked by two unknown individuals, who were in turn assisted by four others with the possibility that there were more. Several members of Ms. Martinez’ family and friends were injured: her father, her younger brother and two young men who were friends of hers. From several reports, these individuals attempted to kidnap, and possibly rape, Ms. Martinez in front of her family. Two officers, Sgt. Wahid Muhammed of the Winchester Police Department and Senior Trooper Emily Marbury of the Virginia State Police, ordered the attackers to stand down and release the victim. When that did not happen, both officers shot and killed one of the assailants; the shots were fired when it was believed that Ms. Martinez was in imminent danger. The rest were taken into custody.”
The ponies sat there, slack jawed. Sandalwood, attacked? Nearly raped? What kind of humans would do these things to her?
Baird opened a briefcase and pulled out a manila folder. “We booked the assailants on charges of battery, assault with the intent to commit rape, attempted statutory rape, and attempted kidnapping. These are serious crimes, and given the number of eyewitnesses, I think we have a case where the assailants will be severely punished. Of course, the individuals will be tried in a court of law.”
Twilight nodded. “I think Princess Celestia would be very insistent that these individuals be given a fair trial and if found guilty, appropriately punished. And if I may be frank, I wholeheartedly agree.”
“I’m glad you agree, Ambassador, because I think you need to see who assaulted her.” With that, he handed the folder to Twilight. Twilight opened the folder, pulled out the photos, and gasped. The armor, the coat coloration…these were several members of Luna’s personal night guardsponies.
“From the look on your face,” Patel said, “you recognize them.”
Soarin’ held up a picture. “I know this stallion – Sgt. Roughwind. And you’re saying he tried to rape Sandalwood?”
Baird nodded. “Based on the reports of both officers, her family and at least two independent eyewitnesses, both pegasus assailants ripped off Ms. Martinez’ clothing and the one closest to her attempted to sodomize her.”
“I’m not familiar with that term,” Twilight said.
“To be less delicate, Ambassador, penetration from the rear,” Baird replied.
“He tried to mount her,” Caldwell said bluntly.
Twilight’s eyes widened in shock. Mounting? That was…. While she wasn’t exactly experienced in the ways of love, she at least knew that ponies made love face to face, to share that passion. Mounting was…dominating, antiquated, a genetic remainder of their equine heritage. She looked at Lyra and AC, and the look she got back from her friends confirmed her fears.
“Is something wrong, Ambassador?” Caldwell asked.
“He tried to….” Twilight’s mind shut down. Sandalwood….
Lyra quickly stepped in. “Twilight finds that completely abhorrent, as you can see. So do the rest of us. What I’d like to know is where did these ponies come from?”
“You tell us, Ambassador Heartstrings,” Baird said. “Your lieutenant there obviously recognizes one of them, and the look on your faces showed that you probably recognized all of them.”
“Twilight, let me make this clear, because I am required to say this. By Lt. Soarin’’s admission, at least one of these is a member of the Equestriani military. That means this likely was an operation performed by Equestriani military members against an American citizen on US soil. The Government of the United States considers actions such as that an act of war.”
The four ponies all went silent at once. War?
“I make no joke of this when I say the United States is what we call a superpower, the most powerful nation on this planet. We have the military capability to completely destroy this planet if we needed to. That means we also have the ability to do the same to yours. And before you specify that we wouldn’t know how to find the alternate reality to your world, I can honestly say that when backed into a corner, the US military will find new and improved ways to make our enemies’ lives hell.” Patel’s voice was sober and firm. “As I speak, the United States and its allies are engaged in various military actions and patrols around the world. While in the sake of friendship and geopolitical alliances we work with our allies for both diplomatic and military solutions to the world’s problems, when it comes to war more often than not the need for allies is merely a formality; we could fight two major wars by ourselves at once and still have the capabilities to run roughshod on your world.”
Twilight found her voice. “Princess Celestia would never have allowed this! The Lost Foal is an important issue to my fellow ponies and there would be no way we would ever allow any harm to come to her, much less send some sort of secret force to…do what they’re accused of doing!”
“Ambassador, we are not threatening you,” Caldwell said. “We’re merely underlining how serious this is. It is the duty of Congress to declare war against a foe, and Senator McAllister is a very influential member of Congress. The reason the Senator is paying attention to this case is because it is personal to him. His daughter Erica is the best friend of Ms. Martinez, and the Senator himself thinks of her as family. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say he would protect her as much as he would his own.”
Tears started welling in Twilight’s eyes. “Sandalwood…she’s my niece,” Twilight admitted. “I’ve been looking for her for fifteen years now. I’ve been doing everything I can to get her back to her family, back to us.”
The humans looked at the unicorn with nothing less than surprise. Of all the things they’d talked about before the meeting, they hadn’t expected that.
“Twilight, let me take this,” AC said. “As you mentioned your military strength, I think I must say something as well. Twilight Sparkle, though she would never admit it, is the fourth strongest magic user in Equestria, possibly our world. She could core a mountain as if it were an apple just by thinking about it – and there are three magic users stronger than her. But I’m not saying this because we’d want a war with humans. I’m saying it because if there was any way to know that her niece would be in trouble, Twilight would just remove that issue. She’s spent the past fifteen years quite literally ripping apart the timespace continuum to find her niece. Do you think she’d ever actually let her come to harm if she could prevent it?”
“Quite frankly, no, I don’t think you would,” Patel said to the purple unicorn. “I’ve got an eye for people, and I’d like to think I’m a good judge of character. In the short time you’ve worked with my deputies, they’ve reported that you’ve been nothing less than completely open and honest with them, and I daresay I agree. I intend to inform President Mendoza that this attack was not sanctioned by your government, and so as a result they will be considered common criminals and will be dealt with accordingly. Would that be sufficient?”
Lyra spoke; Twilight was too reeling right now to handle things correctly. “I will recommend to our Princess that this be settled in one of your courts of law. Would that work for you, Mr. Baird?”
“Considering the circumstances, the County would be willing to release them back to Equestriani custody in the name of better relations with our new allies,” he responded. “Would that be amenable to the Senator?”
“Probably not, but if it prevents another headache, I think I can convince him,” Caldwell replied.
“No. Let them sit – and pay.” Twilight’s voice was broken. “Mr. Baird, they have broken the laws of your nation, and speaking on behalf of the Crown, we do not sanction lawbreakers. While we would ask that they be allowed legal counsel and the opportunity for visitors from our delegation and any relatives that would wish to visit, I will recommend to Princess Celestia that they be tried under your court system.” There was a strain on her face, as though she was fighting instinct to go down to the jail and see if she could core them as easily as it was said that she could do to mountains.
“Sounds like a plan to me. Now, my apologies, but I have to get ready for a meeting in ten minutes with Vice President Millington. Twilight, I’d like to meet again in a few days regarding some other issues; I still have to arrange the meetings for your other staffers. See Mildred on the way out and set something up with her. Thanks for coming, folks.”
As they all left, Twilight approached Caldwell. “I’d like to see her.”
Caldwell’s eyes looked sympathetic. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Ambassador. And no, I’m not shooting you down, I’m being pragmatic. And to be honest…well, I talk with the Senator a lot about personal issues. DJ’s terrified right now, and from what he got from her parents, she hasn’t come out of her room in the past few days. Erica’s staying there night and day, and the only ones she’ll see otherwise are her family, her best friends and her boyfriend. I’ve known the Senator for years, but I’ve never seen him so angry.”
“Please! I need to know she’s okay!” The look in Twilight’s eyes was desperate.
Caldwell sighed. “I’d have to ask the Senator about it, and we’d have to get permission from her parents, but I’ll see what I can do. But this might not be immediate, it might take a week or two or perhaps longer – she needs to regain her bearings before any of this happens.”
“Thank you,” Twilight said.
“Don’t mention it. To be honest, I have a daughter, about ten years old, lives with her father in Seattle – we divorced years ago and I don’t get to see Jessica as much as I’d like. But if she was missing and I had magic, I think I’d be tearing apart dimensions to get her as well. If all goes well, I’ll leave word with the folks here at State as soon as it’s a go.”
Later that day, Twilight sat in one of the conference rooms in Canterlot Castle. She longed to return to her home, to just go to bed and get some sleep; in fact, she took a short nap in her office once they got back. Or maybe she’d just have dinner out at a restaurant tonight, or just spend time with her friends – spend time, that is, without the need to focus on paperwork and politics. When had she last relaxed? Read a book that didn’t have to do with her job? Gone on a date? She looked at her reflection in the highly-polished table and the face that looked back at her looked so old, so damn old. She turned 43 last month, with no dating prospects on the horizon and leading a very lonely life – she lived alone; even Spike had left for his own life and home in the northern Canterlot mountains. It felt like an eternity since she was just the happy 22-year-old mare who was Celestia’s protégé and the librarian in a small town. Now, that town was a small city; and she’d long left that position, now the Archmagus of Equestria, responsible for the operations of every government-employed mage in the principality.
“TWILIGHT!” A voice shouted, and she jerked her head up to find AC staring at her. “Sugarcube, y’ okay?” Now that she’d returned to Equestria, she’d dropped the fake accent and reverted back to the normal twang of the Apple clan.
“No, I’m not. All I can see in my mind is that beautiful little foal I held in my forelegs just after she was born, and trying to picture her now as a young mare, being….I can’t. I…just can’t.”
“Twilight, I understand how you feel,” Soarin’ said. “Rainbow and I have been trying to have a second foal for some time now, so I can’t even imagine what Rarity’s going through.”
“Soarin’,” she said, her voice growing strained, “Find them. Find out what happened. I want to know how this got past our intelligence. We’ve known for about three weeks now where Sandalwood lives, and I promised Deputy Secretary Hardigan we would do nothing without their agreement. Somepony just made me a liar – somepony tried to rape my niece. Find them before I do.”
“Roger that, Twilight. I’ve already got Blossomforth looking into who had access to that information. There’s only a few who could, and I’m sure between me, Rainbow, Scootaloo and Spitfire, the four of us will find out who authorized this.”
“Okay. Tell Rainbow what happened, but let her know I don’t want her to tell anypony else – especially Rarity. I want Rarity to hear it from me personally; she doesn’t need to hear it from gossip.”
“I think I’d better head back to Washington and contact the law firm we hired to represent us,” Lyra said. “Regardless of what happens, I think we need to find a way to make it up to those people who have her. Besides, I think I need to move around the human world more to get a better feel about things. Want to come with me, AC?”
“Yeah, I reckon that’s a good idea,” she admitted. “Let’s rustle up your mate an’ mah husband an’ we’ll go. We c’n have dinner in a restaurant there or somethin’.”
“Well, if that’s settled, I’ll see you all in the morning,” Twilight said tiredly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go brief the Princess on what’s going on.”
As she walked down the hallways towards the Solar Throne Room, she ran into a very exhausted-looking Princess Cadance. The pink alicorn stopped to lean against the nearest wall before she collapsed, and Twilight painfully rushed to her sister-in-law’s side, ignoring her own fatigue even as Cadance’s seemed to feed into her own.
“Sorry, Twilight,” the youngest princess said, yawning before nuzzling the younger mare; the alicorn hadn’t aged a day since she reached maturity, her youth seemed to have frozen in place nearly twenty years ago. “Raising and lowering the moon last night took a lot out of me. I swear I’ve been asleep the whole day.”
“You raised the moon?” If she was dealing with that, then where was Luna?
As if expecting the response, she replied, “Luna took over the day court responsibilities for the moment, and I’m acting in the night court in her stead. She gave me the supposed easier job – the moon’s just a huge rock floating out in space, whereas the sun is this huge ball of fire that has to be held together at all times. Personally, while I agree with her on raising the moon instead, I think she took day court because she got bored – night court is practically deserted.”
“So where’s Celestia?”
“Away on royal business, as far as I know; she informed Luna, but not me. I swear they treat me like I’m still a foal at times.”
Twilight watched as Cadance unsteadily rose to her feet. “Do you want me to go get Shiny for you?”
She waved it off. “No, I’ll be fine, Twilight. Worst comes to, I’ll just sleep in my office; there’s nothing scheduled tonight so it should be quiet. You get going and talk to Luna, then get some sleep yourself, okay?”
“I will,” she promised. Quickly giving her sister-in-law a quick hug, the unicorn headed on.
A few minutes later, the unicorn walked into the Solar Throne Room. Under normal circumstances, the beautiful, dazzling ivory color of the marble was blindingly brilliant before the deep reds and other colors gave the room a regal, splendid appearance, but at the moment, Twilight didn’t notice.
Luna took one look at her sister royal and that was all she needed to do what came next. “The court is done for the day. Night court will not be occurring tonight, so the rest of you will have to find a new place go to gossip. Guards, please escort everypony out and ensure no one comes in.” Letting the nobles and others filter out of the great room, Luna sat evenly and calmly on the throne. The moment the doors were shut, the midnight alicorn leapt from the dais, worry on her face. “AC already gave me a report since she said you weren’t in any shape to do so, and what she told me was very impressive. Twilight…I’m so sorry. Neither Celestia nor I would ever want to put this on your shoulders, but you shouldered it regardless. You were so very brave, and we couldn’t be more proud of you if we tried.”
“But I thought…I thought Celestia would be disappointed in me! I failed to get her back!” Her weariness at the brink, the tears came again. “I failed Rarity. I failed our family.”
“Twilight, what you did was nothing short of incredible.” The night princess nuzzled Twilight. “Your admission about Sandalwood may have defused a contentious situation, and I don’t think you understand how very dangerous that would have been for us if you hadn’t.”
“I know human weapons are powerful than our normal ones, but what about our magic?”
“Twilight, you know what an atom is,” Luna said calmly. “Eighty years ago, the United States created a weapon, a so-called ‘atomic bomb’, that caused untold amounts of destruction. It was nothing that we could ever create – we don’t have that kind of power on-hand.”
“But the sun….” Twilight began.
“Is something that neither Celestia nor I really know how we control,” Luna informed her. “Magic is not the same as science; we often treat it as the same, but it doesn’t mean it is the same; there is a difference, just as there is between alchemy and chemistry. The Earth the humans live on is completely magically dead – your reports have said so yourself. So to do something like this, it’s science on a scale that none of our ponies are familiar with.”
The look on Twilight’s face was one of utter shock. About ten years ago, in the far northern lands of Draconia, a group of dragon mages thought to see what would happen if the atom was split – but, from what the survivors reported, became something else entirely. Though the Dominion of Dragons had squelched most of the reports, what became publicly known was that the damage was intense, killing thousands of dragons and leaving a charred wasteland dozens of miles in every direction, littering the surroundings with radiation that killed anything that wandered into the now-quarantined zone. Even now, research into that direction of magic-using was completely forbidden and the exact experiments and records of the original researchers now buried in a vault in the deepest parts of Mt. Dragonsclaw.
Every nation on Earth at that point agreed to never consider doing that ever again – and yet on the human Earth, they’d done it…and gone horrifically much farther.
“From what we know, atomic weapons have only been used twice in their history, and it was to stop a war that had been raging for years prior. Fortunately, humans apparently use those weapons only as a last resort.”
“But why would they even create them? That’s…that’s completely inequine.”
“In a sense, Twilight, it’s no different than the Elements. They’re only meant to be used when there’s no other alternative. While they’re a much better option than nuclear weapons – or any of the weapons humans have – weapons are just that, and at the most basic level, there’s no difference between the guards’ swords, the Elements or an F-35.”
A sudden thought crossed Twilight’s mind. “Luna…how do you know about all this?”
There was a soft smile on the alicorn’s face. “I can’t tell you that right now. My sister trusts you to do what you’re doing – you’re the only pony she can really trust to make these decisions, and you’ve made very wise ones.”
“I don’t feel like it, sometimes.”
“Would you rather we sent Blueblood?” Luna laughed. “But seriously, there are many ways to approach a problem, and you’re doing a wonderful job – but as I said, there are many ways to do so, and some of those other ways are being explored as well.” The alicorn said nothing more, hoping the point would come across.
Unfortunately, a certain mare was too close to collapse to have really noticed, instead focusing on a different angle. “So then you know about the incident with your guards.”
“Former guards. Celestia reassigned Roughwind’s platoon after the whole Nightmare Moon incident. He was one of the ones I turned into a Shadowbolt – there were more than just the three you all saw – and she was concerned that being around me might cause them undue stress. That was years ago; however, it seems to have caused an entirely different problem instead.”
“I’ve informed the local government that they should treat them as they would human lawbreakers.”
“That’s fine by me. I don’t think Celestia would argue either.”
Twilight nodded, and for a second it wasn’t clear if she was agreeing with her friend, or falling asleep on her feet. Finally, she yawned, “Luna, unless you need me, I’m just going to go home. I’m wiped.”
“I’ll teleport you myself. Have a pleasant evening.” Luna’s horn flashed with indigo energy, and the unicorn suddenly disappeared. A second later, there was a second flash, and the alicorn appeared in her room. Without due, she walked to the nearest mirror and used her magic once more. A second later, a young human woman with long strawberry-blonde hair appeared in the mirror. She wore a blouse and jeans, and the blouse had a stylized sun pattern on it.
“Luna, I told you not to contact me!” the human said, trying to hold up an indignant look while trying not to laugh. “Otherwise I end up looking like a weirdo – I’m talking to a storefront window right now!”
“Oh, so sorry, Celestia – or whatever you’re calling yourself while you’re there.”
“Tia Einhorn,” Celestia replied. “Tia’s apparently a common enough name for female humans, and Einhorn means ‘unicorn’ in one of the languages here. In any case, I’m in Las Pegasas – or rather, the human equivalent, Los Angeles. I’m going to spend the next few weeks running around the US.”
“Why? What purpose would that serve?” When she left, Celestia had not said why, or anything of the sort. She simply said she was leaving, and would not return for three weeks. Luna trusted her sister, but still, she wanted to know why.
“Would it help if I said that I need to make sure Star Swirl’s old amniomorphic spell still works?”
“Try again.”
“Or maybe the ruling princess of a land whose come across a world she’s never seen before with a species her subjects have feared since the dawn of mythology needs to understand said world more to be able to defuse future issues? We wouldn’t have known about the nuclear weapons if I hadn’t come here.”
“That works. But when you get back, talk to Twilight. She could use some advice from someone more suited to it than I.”
“Please take care of her for me. She’s very capable, but I worry.”
“Yes, I’ll take care of your precious little daughter,” Luna grinned impishly.
“Right. Just for that, I’m not bringing you back a souvenir from Olvera Street.”
“‘Olvera’ what?” the night unicorn asked, but her sister had already ended the communication spell, and Luna gazed at her reflection once more. Celestia, I hope you know what you’re doing, she thought. Sparing no more concerns on it, she departed her room; she’d have to lower the sun and make sure Cadance was raising the moon correctly; she’d done an admirable job so far, but during moonset she brought the satellite 30,000 miles too close and Luna had to put it back in place before a few coastal cities become flooded. So much to do, so much to do….
Time for sleep. Twilight decided to skip dinner, skip reading a book, even skip Vinyl’s and Octavia’s suggestion that they go out dancing tonight. She just wanted the bed. Maybe this is why you’re single, Twilight, she chided herself, hearing it in Spike’s voice, no less. You work yourself to death, and you’re imposing the same solitude on yourself that Celestia does.
Maybe I do, she thought to herself. Celestia would have never wanted that for her protégé, but it seemed as how it worked out; of the three alicorns, only Cadance had taken the steps to find love; if the other two did, it was something well before Luna’s millennial exile. And now Twilight had followed in her mentor and maternal figure’s shoes. Her mother, Twilight Velvet, always worried about her namesake daughter’s future dating prospects, but it was an ugly truth: most of the younger Twilight’s habits and personality traits were influenced by the alicorn than either Twilight Velvet or her husband Night Light.
But there was one bit of compensation for her spinsterhood: she didn’t have to worry about a daughter ruined in the same way Rarity’s was. And a split-second later, Twilight mentally slapped herself for the nasty comment: she and the other girls were just as important to the lives of Rarity’s younger children Minty and Elusive as they would have been to Sandalwood, as they would be to any foals the others had. And with a little luck and a lot of protecting, Minty, Elusive and those future foals would never know the pain that Sandalwood probably felt now.
Rarity…. I can’t tell her. How can I tell her about this? It would be another stab wound in an already hurting heart. Fifteen years of wrong directions, dead ends, and false leads, the worst of all being that one ten years ago where they found the bones of a young filly on a world where the dominant species were these human-like things with subpar intelligence and still in the Stone Age. In that case, the bones turned out to be hundreds of years old, and the DNA didn’t match either Rarity or Silversteel – Twilight ran the test spells a dozen times, and both Luna and Celestia had done so as well, just for confirmation – but the damage had been done and Rarity had been utterly heartbroken by the end of that poor filly. They’d buried the remains underneath the apple tree and next to Tom, the boulder “appointed” as the guardian for the little filly, which Rarity had lovingly and heartwrenchingly named Toola-Roola after a nonsensical folk song she used to sing to her children.
After that episode, Rarity wasn’t quite the same again. She grew a lot more vitriolic every time Twilight and Pinkie discovered a new world, only for the trail to grow cold. The scientific and social benefits that came out of these discoveries became apparent – it seemed that out of the dozens of different dimensions the pair had found, only theirs was filled with intelligent life, but they’d also discovered that lightning bolts from magic storms were transporting their victims to various other realities – they’d recovered twelve sets of skeletons over the years, one of which was actually identified: Star Song, a pegasus guard from centuries ago; Celestia herself sadly recognized the remains of her former guardsmare. But to that, it mattered little to Rarity: her first child was nowhere to be found, not even as a tattered bundle of bones, as they had with Toola-Roola.
Worse still: their circle of friends was fraying over the years: they were still family, they’d always be, but a few years ago, after both Celestia and Luna decided they were too far removed from their people, they appointed the six to greater statuses, as full-fledged ministers of government. It unfortunately meant that they had to leave their previous occupations behind, and in Twilight’s case, due to Spike’s growth spurt, their old home in Ponyville – a hand-picked successor was now the town librarian. But now, they had become different mares than they’d been in their youths: Twilight, now the Archmagus; Fluttershy, now the Minister of Social Services and Health; Rarity, heading the Ministry of the Arts and Sciences; Applejack took the reins of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment; only Rainbow Dash, already a senior military member and Pinkie, who continued to work on the search for Sandalwood were spared. Even the former Cutie Mark Crusaders weren’t spared: Scootaloo joined Rainbow in the military, Sweetie Belle assisted Twilight in the Mage Guild, and Apple Bloom worked for Wildfire over at the Ministry of Transportation and Commerce.
The following years were nothing but more pain: Twilight’s parents retired from their duties, and then shortly after, Night Light passed away. Rarity’s mother and father passed away six months later, and shortly after was Granny Smith, who almost seemed as if she’d never pass. Sadly, this came at the same time as Cadance, who had hoped against hope to defy her heritage had found that she had not; she’d become immortal and her fate was to join the alicorns in eventual solitude. But it wasn’t all bad: during this time, Rarity and Silversteel had their third child, a unicorn colt named they named Elusive after he was found to be the spitting image of his mother, so much so he was almost like a male version of her.
And now they had finally found Sandalwood – but there were new complications. She had a family. She was raised as a human; how that was even possible, no one knew. And most bizarrely of all, was that this world was populated by humans, and they were not the monsters the legends made them out to be, which meant that Sandalwood was safe. Well, today’s news had proven that to be a lie, and worse, it had been done at the hooves of ponies themselves – not humans.
No, I can’t tell Rarity, at least not from me. I’ll have to find someone who can break the news to her gently, maybe Fluttershy or Cadance. I’ll do it first thing in the morning. In the back of her mind, part of her warned that if she didn’t do it now, she’d forget about it, or she might just sit on the information inadvertently or worst of all, stew on it until it backfired on her. But, she reminded herself, she was doing this to spare Rarity and her family extra grief, and after that disastrous incident, how much worse could things get?
Stats
Page generated in 0.049 seconds
Total duration
744 users online
747,144 hits today, 2,561,572 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
1ST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111
LOVE THE SERIES!
It's well written. I can't help getting a CB vibe. This world/setting is like Conversion Bureau but without all the associated sturm und drang. It's like a kinder and gentler Conversion Bureau (or, arguably, a namby-pamby sissy Conversion Bureau) setting.
I have a habit (good or bad, you decide) of sweating the details in stories like this, and I found a number of details that nag at me. For one, I'll never accept Cadence as an alicorn. I'm sure the Hasbro toy department phoned the producers and demanded a pink alicorn character that they could put on store shelves, but that doesn't mean I have to accept it in my fanfics. Having her control the moon, even temporarily and with difficulty, doesn't work for me.
Shadowbolts? I always thought the Shadowbolts were merely an illusion that Nightmare Moon conjured up to tempt Rainbow Dash. They weren't real ponies, and I assumed that there never was historically any such thing as Shadowbolts. (A nocturnal stunt-flying team really doesn't seem too plausible if you think about it.)
> the moon’s just a huge rock floating out in space, whereas the sun is this huge ball of fire that has to be held together at all times
Questionable cosmology... If the sun has to be held together with magic at all times, then what held it together before the mages of Unicornia began controlling it? What happened when Discord was in control?
I also find it mildly surprising that Applejack or Rarity would leave their entrepreneurial career paths to take government posts -- even high ones. But maybe the private sector just isn't valued in Equestria the way it is here. And I guess, if your Princess calls for you, then you pretty much have to drop whatever else you were doing and take the job.
595656
Truth be told, I didn't care for the change on Cadance, but she turned out to be well written. In any case, believe it or not, I have her as the weakest alicorn for a reason. As mentioned earlier, there's a huge clue in this and the 1st chapter of the main story.
For the sun, I've always concluded that it was unicorn teams that dealt with the sun before Celestia.
Regardin coomerce, it's possible. Equestria always strikes me as a Deep England ideal.
And this series, or the main one, will never be TCB. Might be some dark stuff in the sides stories, but there will certainly be light and love.
I dont doubt that the United States would declare war on a country if members of its military did that to an American citizen or citizens on US soil but overall good chapter cant wait for the next
596803
They probably wouldn't, but if you look at US policy since the 50's and some of the military readiness policies, you'll find that's an actual provocation.
596960 are there going to anymore chapters or is it a solo story?
596968
It's a supplemental series of side stories. They fill in gaps to the main story, or go in directions that people thought about. They'll pop up now and again while I'm working on the main portion of AAG.
597978 sweet I love AAG
First, eeeee, an update! Second, a bit too much fanon in here -- Lyra/Bon-Bon, Octavia/DJ-P0N3, and Shadowbolts? Three, jus soli and jus sanguinis, I knew there were Latin terms for civic-based nationhood and ethnic-based nationhood,
Four, you just keep piling on Rarity's trauma train in this story, don't you? (Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering, suffering leads me questioning Rarity's best pony status. 
. . . Hmm, is Dark Side Rarity best Rarity? 
) Five, no-one ever told Rarity about the attack in 20 years, did they? 
Six, Celestia scouting the Earth is pretty smart, but I can't help but imagine what will happen when she discovers Internet news sites, "Luna, the shit has hit the fan, and we're now the fourth most hated nation on Earth! Also, I can't stop texting." 
It's nice to see more of the backstory. I can't wait for more!
EDIT: "All-American Girl" should be italicized in the description.
598468
Lyra, given her fanon status, was logical. I also used Apple Cobbler since the hipster glasses make her look smart.
What, me pile on Rarity's trauma train? I told everyone I had an outline....
Does Rarity know what happened to DJ? Not a clue. Yet.
Now you've got me thinking human Celestia dancing in an iPod commercial.
598539
I was more complaining about romantic pairings. Honestly, JasonTheHuman's Anthropology is so ubiquitous with Lyra at this point that I don't think you could separate Lyra with humanity. Apple Cobbler came out of nowhere though.
That outline apparently covers events far outside the original story. The best kind of outline.
Wow.
That's going to be a hell of a revelation when that comes out in the main story. I just hope it doesn't end like the first chapter of the Smuggler's story in TOR: the parent on the floor, dying of disease, and cursing their child after a final reconciliation turned sour.
Well, Celestia was always the most modern sister. It frankly wouldn't surprise me if she was up to date on all the latest technology. Though perhaps I'm projecting my favorite president (Calvin Coolidge) onto her instead of analyzing her as a character, or perhaps it's a little be of both columns, she is a bit of a Silent Cel.
(Also, she would look great in an iPod commercial.)
598768
The Lyra/Bon-Bon pairing has been given pseudo-official status now, in the same way that the Apple parents are dead; it's been talked about off the record and just not outright stated in the show.
Complex outline is complex.
As usual, Murphy's ruling the roost when it comes to this whole situation.
Truthfully? It wouldn't surprise me if Celestia had already known about the existence of human Earth and had just kept it under wraps until it was discovered by someone else.
Well... crap there goes my idea for a sidestory... damn what to do now?
598851
Actually, I wrote that there to set your side story up.
598867
About Celestia going to church? Sorry I starting writing one that was the diary of the ambassador to the US and well... it won't fit anymore. When I get more time I'll reread through the chapter to get a better feel.
“Twilight, you know what an atom is,” Luna said calmly. “Eighty years ago, the United States created a weapon that split the atom and did immense amounts of destruction. Less than a decade later, they split the very nucleus of the atom itself, creating something even more destructive. It wouldn’t surprise me if by now they’ve learned how to split the quarks that make up the nucleus.”
"About ten years ago, in the far northern lands of Draconia, a group of dragon mages thought to see what would happen if the atom was split. The damage was intense, killing..."
Erm, no. Nukes don't work like that. Prepare for tl;dr, because somebody on the internet is wrong and it's up to me to fix it!
Let's start at the basics, E=MC^2. What this equation actually MEANS is Energy(in Joules) = Mass(in Kilograms) times The Speed of Light squared(in meters per second). This is a conversion; it tells you how much energy makes up a given mass, and thus how much energy you would get if you broke down that given mass completely. Nuclear Fission, otherwise known as atom splitting, is a method of doing this, and it converts 0.1% of the reactive mass into energy. Atoms were being split decades before the atom bomb was created, and here's the rib: the energy gained from the reaction was less than what you had to put in to split the atom in the first place! The big thing that made the atomic bomb, or any productive use of nuclear fission at all was a nuclear chain reaction, in which you made it so that splitting one atom caused it to eject particles that would split neighboring atoms, and so on until all the fissile material is used. Without the chain reaction, you can only split one atom at a time, which serves no purpose.
But even this isn't enough all on its own; Yes, this will produce large amounts of heat, and this is the working premise behind a nuclear power plant, but to make a catastrophic explosive you'd have to make this happen to a large payload of fissile material almost all at once. Nailing down the conditions to make that happen took years of research dedicated to the explicit purpose of making an atomic bomb, and could never have been happened upon accidentally; absolutely the opposite, perfecting this is the barrier to entry preventing any nation that decides on a given day that it wants to become a nuclear power from achieving it. So, of course, trying to say that the dragons splitting an atom, or even a bunch of atoms, or even somehow creating a nuclear chain reaction before doing any of the above would cause an nuclear explosion is absolutely ridiculous. Like the scientists of the early 20th century, they would have found that the energy released was less than the energy put in.
Your explanation of the move to the Hydrogen bomb was also wrong; we didn't move from "splitting the atom" to "splitting the nucleus of the atom", we were already splitting the nucleus in the first place. Freeing electrons from an atom(which is what I can only assume you mean by 'splitting the atom' without 'splitting the nucleus', since all you have are the nucleus and the electrons in orbit of it) is something that happens naturally, commonly, and has a mundane name: static electricity.
No, the Hydrogen bomb was a step up from fission not in that we were splitting something smaller, but that we were using an entirely different method of putting E=MC^2 into practical application: Nuclear Fusion. In a Hydrogen bomb, fission explosives are used to create an incredibly massive and uniform pressure on a payload of hydrogen, forcing the hydrogen atoms to fuse into helium, a process which converts 0.3% of the reactive mass into energy in addition to allowing much larger payloads than fission-based nukes. Interestingly, though Fission was necessarily weaponized first because it was needed to create the immense force to cause Fusion, Nuclear Fusion was actually the first known method of converting mass into energy, because of the after-effects of, and place where it occurs naturally...
The Sun. Stars are a nuclear furnace, using immense gravity to force atoms to fuse together; hydrogen into helium into Lithium into Beryllium etc. etc., right up to Iron, when the star can no longer fuse further and dies, perhaps in a supernova if you picked the right one. Humans discovered this because the atomic weight of heavier elements was less than the supposed weight of their component subatomic particles, meaning that, perhaps, in their creation some of the mass was turned into energy. And as the steward of the sun, it would be no stretch to believe that Celestia would know this on some level as well... and that any gaps in that knowledge would be filled from her trip to earth. From her perspective, the hydrogen bomb is a weapon that recreates the flames of the sun on earth; a terrifying and visceral explanation that would be passed to Luna, and from her to Twilight. If she hasn't already discovered otherwise, Celestia may even believe that such a weapon would stem from whatever power moves the sun on Human Earth, and that the humans have even greater control over it than Celestia has over her sun; which isn't true of course, but she might jump to that conclusion for at least a moment.
As for splitting quarks, forget about that silly talk. The nucleus is made up of Protons and Neutrons, held together by the strong nuclear force... quarks are something further down than that, and I'm not going to get into that here. The hypothetical next step up if you want to talk about that is a matter/antimatter reaction; 100% conversion. And much like Fission before it once was, we're at the point where creating and containing anti-matter takes more energy than we get back out from allowing it to react... not that we might not find a way around that at some point, mind you.
Sorry about ragging for so long on what for you might have been such a minor point, but it completely broke my immersion in what was otherwise an awesome set of stories, and nobody else was bringing it up. I'm gonna keep reading; I've gone through most of the main story and something like this isn't going to scare me off of a story that's so great. Keep up the good work, and if it's not too much trouble, fix up this little blemish.
...I mean, if that's okay with you.
Holy shit march 31 was when I was born.
mlatimerridley.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/so-it-begins.gif
shin why you make me get lost in your worlds you know how hard it is to keep facts strait? (when asked I just say I'm from Canada )
595842
think I mite have to start calling you Queball
It's a Mexican plot! Grab your tin foil hats!
What kind of ambassador doesn't bother learning anything about the foreign nation's laws? This statement shows she doesn't know the Bill of Rights, which for an ambassador to the US is an incredible failure.
Eye witnesses are known to be highly unreliable and so are not worth much in court. Juries often make the mistake of putting too much trust in "eye witnesses" and other witnesses, even when what the claim the saw differ between each witness. Jury members tend to just establish some scene in their minds and decide that the witnesses were describing the same thing in different ways that matches what they have already decided must have happened. Which is, of course, a stupid thing for them to do.
Don't piss us off and you have nothing (much) to fear except for your own stupidity and naivety.
7999849
A good point about the ambassador should know more about the country that they're appointed to. I'd point out
1 It's only been 3 weeks since first contact. I'm surprised that they can speak English.
2 US ambassadors often don't know even that much. People who live in glass houses.....
3 The parents never consented to the adoption. By US law and several treaties, that's not legal.
9209961
All good points, except that:
1. English and Equish, in this universe, are almost precisely the same, with the exception of some words (e.g. "-pony", etc.)
2. Some do, some are just corporate donors who get lucky. From what I can tell, it's inversely proportional to how important the posting is; i.e., Tuvalu is far more likely to get a career diplomat who knows what they're doing, while France is going to get a large presidential donor.
3. True, and but also, some circumstances apply - DJ couldn't be without a family for sixteen years and at that point, uprooting her and saying, "here, forget the family that loves you and go live with these folks in a land you really know nothing about" isn't a better option. As we have seen, it's been a mess, to say the least.