Chapter 12 - The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Ponies
**Celestia**
Princess Celestia's chambers within the castle at Canterlot were often a surprise to the uninitiated.
As any historian from the preceding centuries of recorded pony history with an interest in the Royal Court would attest, they were as bright and radiant as the solar alicorn herself. Rooms, decorations and furnishings of white stone, gold, pale woods and brightly-coloured fabric seemed only fitting for the pony who controlled the cycle of the day. Small stained glass inserts in the wide windows cast bright swaths of rippling colour across the room, pastel hues of pink, blue and green shifting with the progress of the sun through the sky.
Unfortunately for the self-esteem of those same historians, they were all dead wrong. While those chambers did indeed exist, and the monarch had used them for a great many years, there were two things that had only very recently become apparent.
The first thing was a mere matter of positioning - although she had used them in the past, Celestia no longer occupied those particular chambers. The second thing was the far more significant reason why.
Luna had wanted her rooms back.
Celestia had been more than happy to surrender the brightly-ornamented chambers to their original occupant on their joyful reunion. With her sister returned to her, Celestia could finally face sleeping in her own rooms again for the first time in a millennium. Sleeping in Luna's bed had been a way to stay close to her during her long absence, and Celestia had found herself unable to stomach staying in her own shadowed rooms for more than a few minutes at a time.
At her lowest periods during the long years Celestia had found a bitter irony in her moving into Luna's brightly-lit chambers - the rooms and the pony within them had been as uniform and monolithic as she had felt. Light with no dark, day with no night. Hers, not theirs.
Not the glorious harmony there should have been, but a single pure note ringing out into infinity.
Now things were back to the way they were meant to be. Each of them complementing the other. Luna would rest surrounded by the bright glow of the sun, and Celestia would retreat each sunset to the darkness of the night she had been denied for so long.
Her gilded peytral and boots stood out starkly against the dark mahogany table as Celestia laid them beside her crown. The thick pile carpet and heavy fabric wall hangings muted and muffled every sound within the shadowed room, creating a comforting stillness. Her own body was the only brightly-coloured thing in sight. Black and deep purples, with occasional highlights of silver or blue, were the dominant colours here. A low but constant light was provided by dozens of tiny pale glowing gems scattered across the high vaulted ceiling, arranged in the shapes of constellations from both Equestria and worlds beyond.
It had been a trying day for the elder of Equestria's two rulers. There had been many such days in her long life, but as always Celestia found that did little to ease the stress of such times as they were happening. One got used to it in a more general sense, of course, but in the heat of the moment it was still quite an unpleasant experience.
Investigating the latest dark magic leakage in a rash of such events on the Badlands frontier had seemed like an ideal task for Twilight. Controlled exposure to that form of magic was going to become more important in her continuing development, and Celestia had no desire to repeat the mistakes of the past. The last time a unicorn had been born with similar talents, he had not been found until it was far too late - and the crystal ponies, and almost the entire world, had suffered for it.
Such transitory events were actually quite common, but passed unnoticed by most ponies. Generally they were small in size, and only rarely produced enough dark magic to have a noticeable effect on the environment. There were a multitude of relatively benign natural phenomena that could cause such things. But, of course, the one time she had sent Twilight out had been the time the cause was anything but an accident of nature.
The knowledge that Twilight was unknowingly walking into the maw of a monster which she had no hope of fighting at Celestia's own request had been almost more than she could bear. Then the elder alicorn had made one of her more difficult decisions of the last few decades - finding herself emotionally compromised, always a significant danger where dark magic was concerned, she had sent Luna in her place as Twilight's best hope for a rescue. Her sister's triumphant return had eased Celestia's worry somewhat, but it had done little for her guilt.
She had grown complacent. Her arrogant assumption that after all this time she understood the way the universe worked had almost gotten Twilight killed - or worse. But thankfully her beloved former student, the bearers of the other Elements of Harmony, and the unexpected visitor delivered by the whole affair were safe.
Her sister had been irritatingly secretive about their visitor from beyond the veil, but Celestia could wait a few hours to find out what she was hiding. She could hardly blame Luna for a little mischief, jealously guarding a piece of information she had that Celestia didn't - and not only because it would be more than a little hypocritical. Luna learned many secrets during her wandering through the Dreamrealm that were not hers to reveal, and if their last conversation an hour ago was anything to go by Luna had certainly seen something that agitated her. Celestia was still re-learning the ability to read her sister's emotional state, but she could tell Luna was using this little bit of teasing to distract herself from something else about their visitor that was bothering her. Her sister had a confession to make, but as usual she was putting it off with games.
At least that means it isn't too urgent, whatever it is. A little reluctance to confess a wrong is more than understandable after what she has already endured.
As she prepared to meet with Luna to lower the sun, Celestia began to calm herself - adding the closing day to the long list of troublesome things she had overcome. Perhaps she could relax for a while, and watch the night sky before turning in for the night. It still made her almost unbearably happy to be able to do that again, and Luna could have her fun explaining everything. Then they could have the talk about whatever it was that was actually bothering her, before making a proper examination of their mystery guest.
I suppose Luna's guards will be picking them up right about-
The distinctive opposed yet complimentary sensation of Luna's magic impinged on Celestia's thoughts. A moment later a shadowy gateway tore itself open, spilling a visibly agitated Luna onto the thick carpet. Celestia had hoped to see Luna arrive to raise the moon in a more genuinely positive mood, or at least in the mood to talk about what was bothering her, but if anything she seemed to be far more anxious - even actually afraid.
"Luna? What-"
"Somepony ambushed the guards We sent to retrieve the Elements," Luna said hurriedly, still a little breathless after her teleport. "Three of them are unconscious. Their dreams are scattered and chaotic, but We believe it has only been moments since the attack. One of them recalls buying time for the fourth to escape, but We cannot locate her."
Luna took a breath to continue, but Celestia had heard enough.
No. Nothing else goes wrong today. For Twilight, or any of my little ponies.
"Tia, the time for games is past. Before we respond I should-"
A blinding flash threw sharp shadows across her chambers as Celestia teleported directly into the Solar Guard barracks.
**Applejack**
Applejack wasn't sure that the situation was completely under control, but things had at least calmed down a little. The Night Guard had, thankfully, taken the time while her sight recovered to calm herself down; and the hog-tied mystery pegasus was alive, if unconscious. Nopony had a clue what the alien visitor's weapon had done, or why he'd decided to use it when he did, but they didn't want to antagonise him into possibly using it again so they'd largely left him alone.
Relations with the large stallion had cooled somewhat after the attack, especially with regards to Fluttershy. The anxious pegasus was significantly less comfortable around him now, and even if she hadn't actually voiced it Applejack was pretty sure his apparent readiness to resort to violence was the cause. For now, however, he seemed to be content to just guard his prisoner; as long as that didn't change there wasn't any reason to force the issue. Somepony would notice when the carriage didn't come back, and more guards would be sent.
We gotta convince Fluttershy to talk to 'im again eventually... 'less the Princesses can do somethin' about the language thing.
The single, family-sized uncontrolled part of their situation right now was the storm, which was slowly collapsing outward and drenching everything with rain - including the camp. The heavy drops noisily pattering off Applejack's hat were falling relentlessly across the landscape, turning the rocky sand into a disgusting sticky mush. The sweeping curtains of rain also reduced what little visibility they might otherwise have had to almost zero - and with the cloud cover on top of that it was pitch black outside of the odd purplish light of their spell-born campfire. Applejack wasn't an expert on the ins and outs of weather, at least beyond what she needed to know to work with the weather team on keeping the Acres watered, but it looked like the huge collection of clouds would take a lot of work to break up.
In spite of the weather - and once she had given up on her desire to beat down on a defenceless prisoner - Nightshade had, of course, wanted to go looking for the rest of her squad. Currently she was responding less than favourably to offers of assistance, and Applejack was taking the opportunity to put her stubborn streak to a positive use.
"I'll come along with ya," Applejack offered. "Can't exactly carry all three of 'em by yourself if they're hurt."
The guard's expression darkened briefly, before she relented and let out a small resigned breath. "Fine. But the rest of you are staying behind to watch him," she said, pointing a hoof at the tied pegasus. "It's not safe out there, and I don't trust that... thing"- she waved her outstretched hoof in the direction of their giant visitor -"any further than I could throw it. I am not leaving it alone with my prisoner."
"He's a he, not an..." Fluttershy trailed off, wilting as the guard turned an angry glare on her. Ducking behind her mane, she whimpered something that might have been an apology.
Rainbow Dash was immediately hovering in Nightshade's face, poking her in the chest. "Hey! Leave Fluttershy alone."
The guard looked slowly down at the hoof that had bumped against her dark purple peytral, then back up at Rainbow Dash. "If that hoof touches me again, Sunny, I'll break it off," she stated calmly.
Uh-oh. This ain't gonna end well.
Dash bristled. "Oh yeah? I'd like to see you-"
"Rainbow!" Twilight interrupted sternly. "Hitting somepony is not going to help."
Applejack flinched at her choice of words. Ah, nuts. That's not gonna make RD feel any better.
Rainbow Dash jerked back from the guard as if she'd been struck, before dropping back to the ground and hanging her head. She started to stammer out an apology immediately, which surprised Applejack almost as much as Twilight ignoring her and turning on the guard instead.
Dangit Twi, you're tryin' to play peacemaker without thinkin' about what you're sayin' an' who you're sayin' it to!
"And you," Twilight said, stamping a hoof angrily, "you do not speak to my friends like that. Or anypony else, for that matter. My friends might not understand the cultural connotations of what you just said, but I do. I thought we had sorted all that out." Nightshade stood stunned for a moment, before she realised who was talking to her. Quickly turning to face Twilight, the guard stood to attention - eyes focused out into the middle distance, posture ramrod straight in the manner of any soldier aiming to survive a dressing-down from a superior.
Cultural what now?
"Understood your highness, won't happen again ma'am."
"It's been a horrible, confusing day, and we're all stressed out, but there are three ponies out there that might need our help," Twilight continued in a more understanding tone. "Go find them, and take Applejack and Fluttershy with you in case they need medical attention."
"Yes ma'am." Nightshade saluted, then turned to head towards the campfire. She took a sizeable stick in her mouth, purple-tinged magical flame still dancing at the end, and offered it to Applejack.
"You won't be able to see out there," she said, voice featureless and professional, "take this. Come get me when the two of you are ready to go."
Taking the offered torch, Applejack glanced around to locate Rarity as the guard paced out to the edge of the light. Twilight and Rainbow needed some damage control, but she couldn't do that and help find the guards at the same time. As it turned out, Rarity was helping Fluttershy get her medical supplies back out of their almost-packed stack of gear.
After she'd got herself an umbrella out first, o'course. Where does she even keep all that stuff?
Approaching the pair and speaking carefully around the torch, Applejack said "Hey, Rares - I gotta go help with lookin' for the guards, but RD and Twi are gonna need a talkin' to."
Rarity glanced over at her briefly before returning to tugging on the pile of supplies with her magic. "Yes, I know," she replied. "Twilight probably could have handled that a little better. I'll see what I can do."
"Thanks," Applejack said with a nod, as a pair of butterfly-clasped saddlebags finally popped out of the pile encased in a blue glow. "You got everything you need, 'Shy?"
"Um, I think so," Fluttershy replied, as Rarity deposited the bags onto her back. "Probably. Maybe. Um..." she twisted her head round to peek into each of the bags in turn. "Yes."
"Alrighty then, let's git goin'. No time to waste, 'specially in this rain."
**Rainbow Dash**
High above the camp, small pieces of angry black cloud were being pulverised by rapid-fire strikes of cyan hooves.
Stupid... bucking... idiot! Rainbow Dash berated herself, punctuating each word with another smashed cloud before pausing to catch her breath.
At least I can't screw this up. I hope.
Every time she tried to help lately she just messed it up. At least the clouds wouldn't get mad at her.
The storm was big, but now she was up here Rainbow Dash had quickly determined it was very poorly constructed. Her sharp eyes roved across the huge structure in the starlight, trying to make sense of it. It was already breaking apart, and would soon spread into a more generalised heavy rainstorm. It almost made a perverse kind of sense that the lone pegasus tied up in camp had built it himself, assuming he didn't know the first thing about weather. If you ignored the sheer size of the thing it was like something a flight camp freshmare would build - but there was no way that just one pony had enough magical muscle to do it that fast on this kind of scale.
The shoddy cloud structure would make the formation as a whole a massive headache to disassemble, but Rainbow decided she could at least make a dent in the bits and pieces that were flaking off. It would keep her mind off all the stuff she didn't want to think about if nothing else.
She fell into a steady rhythm, breaking up stray puffs of cloud one by one. A well placed hoof strike to crack them open, then the backdraft from a single beat of her wings would scatter the vapour behind her as she glided to the next.
A few dozen clouds later, Dash's attention was drawn back to the ground below. A daylight-bright flash briefly lit up a patch of desert a short way from the camp, and the pegasus came to a halt on top of the cloud that had been her next target.
Was that what I think it was? she mused as she squinted down into the dark.
Crouched down peering over the edge of her perch as she was, Rainbow Dash was taken completely by surprise when something slammed into her side. Reeling in pain and confusion, she caught a glimpse of a horn surrounded by a bright scarlet glow. Then the red glow rushed towards her head, and everything went black.
**Fluttershy**
Fluttershy was, perhaps a little unusually, feeling very appreciative about being born a pegasus. She didn't dislike being a pegasus of course, but she wasn't exactly Rainbow Dash when it came to things like flying and weather. At the moment, however, the unceasing rain and high winds were likely very unpleasant for anypony without pegasus magic to ward off the worst of the storm.
Not that it seems to be bothering Applejack at all, she noted, glancing at the earth pony walking beside her. Applejack still carried a flickering torch in her mouth, topped by a purple flame born of Twilight's magic. The rain and wind didn't seem to be affecting the flame, and it wasn't giving off any heat, but something was still making it flicker and gutter. It was as if there was another kind of wind in the air that she couldn't feel, pushing and pulling on the magical fire.
They had been retracing Nightshade's steps back through the dark and the rain for a few minutes when the bat-pony spotted something. She was walking ahead of Fluttershy and Applejack, on the leading edge of their flickering magical torchlight, catlike eyes peering into the darkness beyond.
"Over here!" the guard called over her shoulder as she bounded forward out of the light. As the two friends followed, they could hear Nightshade talking to the pony she had apparently found. Although she sounded angry, there was a hint of brittle fragility in her voice.
"Echo? Echo, you'd better still be alive you bastard!"
After a few moments, the light revealed her standing over the body of another Night Guard, the stallion's armour in even worse condition than Nightshade's own. Several plates lay scattered on the ground nearby, seemingly torn off the padding and straps beneath by whatever had attacked the unfortunate guard. Nightshade had her head laid against the stallion's barrel, one tufted ear searching for a pulse. Fluttershy saw the tension in the guardsmare's shoulders loosen as relief washed over her face briefly. Then Nightshade stood back and shouted angrily at the fallen pony.
"Where in Luna's name do you get off scaring me like that? You just wait until we get you back on your hooves, mister. As soon as you're better, I'm gonna kill you for this!"
The stallion stirred, opening one bleary amber eye. "'Shade?" he croaked weakly.
Oh my goodness!
Fluttershy cantered over to the fallen guard, dropping her bags onto the floor as Applejack followed with the torch. The stallion screwed his eye shut against the light and tried to raise a foreleg to cover his head before halting with a pained groan. Fluttershy flinched inwardly as she saw why - a jagged piece of red-stained white bone was visible jutting out from beneath the broken armour covering his upper leg. Then she heard Applejack draw in a sharp breath around the torch behind her as the light revealed the full extent of his injuries.
Small patches of his deep purple armour glimmered in the magical firelight, dark coating scraped away to reveal the bright metal beneath, but most of the remaining plates were scorched black or stained by rain-smeared blood. Most of the hair of his tail was missing; judging by the scorched state of what remained Fluttershy guessed it had been burned off. The unarmoured parts of his body were almost as battered as the armour itself, with growing bruises and small cuts just visible through his coat.
Together with the broken leg all that would have been bad enough, but...
The guard's right wing was concealed beneath him as he lay on his side on the rocky sand, but the other batlike appendage stuck straight up into the air for a short way - before taking a sickening bend downward behind his back. The leathery membrane of the wing had torn completely through at the break, the two ragged halves fluttering limply in the breeze like sails attached to a broken mast.
Nightshade checked something on the insides of the fallen guard's forelegs, before cursing and leaning in to whisper something to the stallion. He nodded weakly, and Fluttershy saw Nightshade's eyes flick to her own foreleg before her face set into a determined mask. Apparently dismissing whatever she had been considering, the guard lay down near her squadmade's head and stared up at Fluttershy with steel in her eyes. "Fix him. Now," she said, flatly.
For a moment Fluttershy just stared at the ruined pony in shock. She couldn't imagine what the poor stallion had gone through, and she realised the meagre first aid supplies she carried were completely inadequate - not to mention she had no idea how to deal with a pony this badly hurt. Or if the bat-pony's wing would need to be treated differently from a pegasus wing, which was almost certainly the case.
Then she steadied herself, trying to ignore the bit of her that wanted to curl up and cry just from knowing something like this could happen to a pony.
Okay Fluttershy, don't panic. The last thing he needs to hear is you bawling about how badly he's hurt.
"I-" she stammered weakly, before swallowing and trying again. "Just... don't move, okay?" she said to the stallion, trying to sound more confident than she felt. "Everything's going to be fine. You're safe now." She began rummaging through her saddlebags for a splint.
The guard let out a long moan of pain, before clenching his jaw and cutting it off. "Oh Luna," he said in a pained whisper, "I'm messed up." Tears began to flow from his tightly-closed eyes. "I can't... my wing," he said, voice changing from a whisper to a thready, despairing moan before dissolving into agonised gasps. "What's wrong with my wing? It- it hurts, I can't..."
Fluttershy passed a short, thick piece of plaited rope to Nightshade. "W-we need to set his wing," she said tentatively, "before he moves it and does more damage."
"He needs a hospital, yesterday," said Applejack.
The guardsmare took the rope from Fluttershy, but didn't acknowledge Applejack. Her tone stayed flat. "He'll be fine."
"But-"
"HE'LL BE FINE!" Nighshade suddenly screamed at Applejack, pausing to collect herself before turning back to her squadmate. "Echo, your wing's broken," she said gently, touching a hoof to the stallion's head. "We're gonna have to straighten it out. It's going to hurt, but you'll be okay." She gently pushed the rope piece between his teeth. "Bite down on that, it'll be over before you know it."
Echo grunted out a quavering affirmative sound around the rope and nodded. His breaths started coming in short, staccato gasps in anticipation of the pain to come.
As the three ponies moved to set the guard's wing, a flash of pure, bright daylight lit the rocky desert. Thankfully for Nightshade's eyesight, the bat-pony had her back to the burst of illumination. The guard immediately span to face the source of the flash, wings spread as she hunted for signs of a threat. Fluttershy briefly wondered why she had one eye closed, before she realised it would serve as a countermeasure to being blinded by a second flash. Then to Fluttershy's surprise Nightshade suddenly began to paw at her armour, obviously searching for something.
With a frustrated curse, Nightshade turned back to the others and started tentatively looking over Echo's armour. After a moment she bit down on a small object and flicked her head, tossing a hoof-sized crystal rod onto the ground before stepping on it. With a glassy crunch the broken rod released a spark of emerald fire into the air, shooting straight upward trailing similarly-coloured smoke behind it.
As the flare rose, the light of several unicorn horns sprang up from the direction of the flash. Beams of light began searching towards the group, their sources bobbing up and down as they moved. The pounding sound of armoured hooves arose in the dark, drawing steadily closer as Applejack and Fluttershy looked to Nightshade for an explanation.
"What's that?" Applejack asked, a hint of nervousness in her voice.
"I don't know how or why, but Princess Celestia just teleported in over there - and she brought Princess Luna and half the damn Solar Guard with her." Nightshade replied hurriedly, before leaning down to speak to Echo. "I'll be right back, don't you bucking dare die on me now."
Then she turned and, wings spread, bounded and flew out towards the sound of approaching hooves.
"MEDIC!"
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On the one hand, yay, the cavalry's arrived! It's good to see Celestia being proactive about things. Though it would probably have been better to hear what Luna wanted to say, Luna should have time to say whatever-it-is now that they're here...
On the other hand, the "True Harmony" group have got hold of Rainbow Dash. That can't be good. With one of the Elements of Harmony out of the way, at least temporarily, they seem to have what they came for... and they may just be putting a corrupting Dark Magic pegasus artifact on her...
I liked the contrast between Luna's bright rooms and Celestia's dark rooms. One doesn't see that arrangement often in fanfic.
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Guess what the extremely imaginative name of the next chapter is
I wasn't feeling very meta or full of references when I came up with that one, although there's still the lame pun double meaning to it - and Equestria is pretty much founded on cringeworthy horse puns. There's been at least a couple of separate references, both to in-chapter/story events or other stuff, in most of the other chapter titles though.
The light/dark dichotomy thing for Celestia and Luna is one of about fifteen different contradictory headcanons I've got rolling round my brain for the two of them. I need to get better at writing and/or come up with more story ideas so I can get some of the others out there - there's so little information about them that's actually canon that you can go in all sorts of fun directions.
Speaking of stuff with very little fixed canon... this is about where I start having to make up stuff for Thirty-Thirty as well. Despite being the secondary protagonist of a 64-episode cartoon and feature-length movie, and getting some significant screen time, there's a grand total of about 3 sentences regarding his nature or origins in the entire show canon. Even some of that is nonsensical or contradictory too. Hell, they never even confirm what proportion of him is biological, if any of him even is - in the toy line he's explicitly 100% robot, but the toy version looks almost nothing like his cartoon/movie persona and the show implies pretty heavily that he's almost entirely biological with a few augmentations.
Luna is pretty manic right now, for good reason. This story's version of her likes to try and divert attention from things she's uncomfortable about with humour... with varying degrees of both appropriateness and success. As much as I love mysterious, endearing, insecure and/or fun-loving versions of Luna, and her more recent canon appearances in season 5, I'm a fan of the slightly "moon-touched" (in the archaic 'origin-of-the-word-lunatic' sense) version too.
As for Rainbow... well, let's just say wandering off by herself and getting grabbed like that is going to cause some pretty big problems. Not just for her, but for everyone.
Why do my stories always end up making terrible things happen to my favourite ponies? There's probably a message in there somewhere.
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I've read a couple of stories that suggest that the word "lunatic" was inspired by Luna, in the distant past...
Well, it makes for better stories than coddling them.