A Beginner's Guide to Heroism

by LoyalLiar

XLV - Diplomatic Relations

XLV
Diplomatic Relations

“Why?” was the question I finally managed to ask, as our borrowed skywagon approached its cruising altitude over Everfree City. “Don’t get me wrong, Celestia, it’s an honor and all, but I get the sense that Jade hates you after what happened in River Rock.”

“What happened in River Rock?” Gale asked.

Celestia sat back on the cushioned seat, shaking her head. “Cyclone captured Morty, and then attempted to barter him to Jade in exchange for food supplies for the city. Morty managed to get Luna’s attention in his dreams, mostly thanks to you talking about him so much, and I flew over as fast as I could to help him.”

Gale put her head in her hooves and groaned. “More politics! Can it please just stop?”

“I’m sorry, Ambassador, but I think it’s only going to get worse for you from here.” Celestia chuckled at Gale’s further groan. “To actually answer your question, Morty, there are a few reasons. The first is that I regret not joining you in Vow’s manor. At the time, I assumed you had the situation in hoof, and my involvement would only invite questions from Typhoon and Platinum.”

“You’re probably right, given I’m sitting here and not in a cell.”

Celestia shrugged. “Well, as far as Queen Platinum is concerned, you are. As for the other reason I decided to tag along, I’m hoping to mend some of the damage I did in River Rock. If Smart Cookie really was poisoned like Wintershimmer claimed, and it wasn’t just the coma that we all assumed, I can likely heal him.”

“Alright, that’s a pretty good reason.” I sat back. “Though the ‘likely’ bit worries me. Jade isn’t the most… stable pony. She isn’t going to react well if you can’t fix whatever’s wrong with him. What did you bring? A bezoar? Some kind of alchemical panacea?”

“No, I was just going to use my magic.”

“...so are you going to heal Smart Cookie the same way you got Wintershimmer to testify truthfully? Because I’m pretty sure that would end in a war.”

“I was being entirely literal, Morty.”

I sighed. “Healing magic like that doesn’t exist. I mean, it does for earth ponies, but he’s already one of those, and you can’t just control earth pony magic to put it into somepony else.”

“You might be surprised.” Celestia blinked, and for just a moment, black and purple flames leaked from the corners of her eyelids. At my nervous reaction, she smiled and the magical flames vanished. “Perhaps someday we can study alicorn magic together. But for now, I think we should probably set worries about Queen Jade aside. Wintershimmer is my concern.”

I nodded. “Are you actually intending to fight him with us?”

“I wouldn’t be a very responsible chaperone if I let Gale battle an undead archmage with only the help of a young stallion she met in a backwoods tavern, would I?”

“I don’t need a foalsitter,” Gale grumbled to herself.

Celestia rather quickly extended a wing, wrapping it around the princess. “Gale, I’m only teasing Morty. You’re a perfectly capable mare to serve as ambassador, and if what I hear is true, you’re even better than that in a fight. But I also know how dangerous a rutheless wizard like Wintershimmer can be. I hope I don’t come across with Morty’s ego when I say this—”

“You too?”

“—but even with me here, this won’t be easy.”

I leaned forward, steepling my hooves. “Do you mind if I ask a few potentially personal questions, Celestia?”

She shrugged. “I don’t promise I’ll answer.”

“Is your soul protected against magic, or are you just physically immortal?”

“Ah.” She followed that response with a shake of her head. “Neither. I’m not immortal in any sense of the word, Morty. I just don’t age. The same spark that lets me move the sun gives me an incredible amount of magic—not just arcana, but earth pony endura and pegasus empatha as well. But no matter what legends you might have heard, I’m only more durable than you because I have earth pony magic and I’m physically larger. There’s nothing more to it than that.” She nodded. “But I am very experienced, and that is often the deciding factor.”

“I’m really hoping so,” I told her. “My best plan was to try and take Wintershimmer by surprise. Ideally, I’d make myself a distraction, try and free any captive souls he has bound to his body, and then get Gale to stab him in the back or something.”

“That’s your best plan?” Gale rolled her eyes. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Her horn ignited and she leaned toward the alicorn beside her. “Sorry, Celestia. I’m just grabbing a drink. You want one?” As she asked, a large bottle of some strong brown liquid floated out of a small cabinet in the wall of the carriage.

I raised a brow at the beverage. “Typhoon didn’t strike me as an alcoholic.”

“I put this here,” Gale answered. “To help put up with political bullshit.”

Celestia sighed as she shook her head. “I remember when you were small enough to sit on my shoulders and you’d call me ‘Aunt Tia’. Now you’re reaching past me for wine.”

“You think this is wine?” Gale asked, lifting the bottle to Celestia’s eye level and shaking it back and forth. “And I’m still small enough to sit on your shoulders. Or, I guess it’s more like you’re huge enough.”

“Gale!” Celestia placed a hoof over her mouth. “I know I might have put on a bit of weight from your mother’s chocolates, but that’s no reason to go calling another mare fat.”

“I didn’t…” Gale let her protest collapse into an unintelligible groan. Her focus returned to the potent drink she’d retrieved; she ripped out the cork and started drinking straight from the bottle. As she did, Celestia chuckled. “Gale, where did you ever learn to drink like that? I’m certain it wasn’t your father.”

“If I told you, you’d wind up telling Dad in a ‘moment of weakness’ and I’d never be able to go there again. What does he do that you’re so fucking open with him?”

“Language, Gale,” Celestia chided.

The reprimand earned a groan and another drink before Gale recorked the bottle and returned it to it’s rack. “I’m not going to say anything like that in front of Jade. I can put on all of mom’s stupid airs when I actually need to. Just ask Morty.”

“Hmm?” I’d been so engrossed in the strange familial tone between the crown princess and the living goddess that the mention of my own name caught me flat-hoofed. “What, you mean with the grizzly bears?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s the only time I ever talked out of my ass while we were traveling, so yeah.”

“I don’t know about that. Even the very second time we ever talked, you thought I was a slaving bandit, and a member of an evil cult. And that’s all because of my jacket.”

“That’s a lot less funny now. I was right, seeing as two-thirds of the ponies who ever wore a jacket like that were evil as shit, and we’re about to go kill one of them.”

Celestia coughed. “Gale, we may need to have a talk about your diet.”

“What?”

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t believe anything I have ever put into a chamber pot constituted ‘evil’.”

Gale turned slowly as Celestia chuckled again, and pushed the end of her muzzle against the wall of the wagon. “Why do I even talk to you two?”

I grinned. “Well, obviously, it’s because you need an excuse to keep staring at me. If you just sat there in silence, it would be awkward.”

Gale lifted her face away from the wall, leaned forward until we were nearly muzzle-to-muzzle, and slapped me on the cheek hard enough that I fell off of my seat.

“How about if you put on your armor, so the helmet hides that smug-ass grin and I don’t have to look at it anymore?”

As I stood up, rubbing my cheek, Celestia winked at me.

All these years later, I still don’t know what she actually meant.

---

Some hours later, the Crystal Union stretched out beneath us in all the same vibrant, glittery brilliance that had made me avert my eyes for the seventeen previous summers of my life. The armor I’d donned suddenly seemed very open-faced and uncomfortably revealing.

I was sickeningly aware as we began to descend that we were going to be landing in a large open square at the southern foot of the crystal spire. It was the same venue that had previously played host to my gallows, and the wooden platform was still there as we drew closer and closer.

“Gale, I believe in you,” Celestia announced calmly, shifting her weight to avoid sliding off her seat.

“I’m not nervous or anything,” Gale replied.

“Good.”

I was convinced Celestia didn’t believe Gale’s claim, since even I could see her hoof twitching over the hilt of Procellarum. She stared out the window, eyes jumping from sight to sight and squinting at the omnipresent glare, but the overall effect was one of jumpiness that belied the rather rough bouncing of the carriage.

Any rumination on Gale’s mental state was stolen from me when the carriage wheels hit the street, and a suddenly audible clacking of hooves on glimmering gem streets marked us coming to a stop.

“Ready?” Celestia asked.

Neither Gale nor I answered before the door to the carriage swung open, held by a sturdy glittering hoof.

Jade was standing there. Not literally in the doorway, thankfully, but not many strides off. The path between me and her was lined with armored crystal guardsponies, all carrying halberds and staring straight ahead at the pony opposite them on the line.

“You first,” Celestia advised. When I moved to leave, her horn lit and a potent force dragged me back by my shoulders. It became obvious what she meant when Gale stepped forward with visible hesitance a moment later, and then set her hoof down onto the glistening street.

“I don’t know you, Equestrian,” Jade announced, some distance away.

“My name is Platinum, Your Majesty. Princess Platinum the Third. I’ve been sent as an envoy on behalf of the Equestrian Court…”

“I have heard of you, then.” Jade nodded. “Hurricane and Platinum’s daughter. I can see your mother in you.”

Gale stopped midstride for the slightest of moments before walking toward my former monarch. The hesitation was not missed by Jade, if the narrowing of her glimmering eyes was anything to go by, but the crippled alicorn said nothing.

In the silence, Gale felt the obvious burden to speak. “I understand relations have been somewhat tense between our two nations, and the Triumvirate has decided that the time has come to elect a new formal ambassador, rather than our informal messengers, to try and soothe the bonds between the Union and Equestria.”

Jade remained silent, at least at first. Her eyes turned toward Celestia and I, still hidden in the shadows of the carriage. “You’ve brought somepony with you, haven’t you, Princess?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. May I present the Lady Celestia?”

“Stay close, bodyguard,” Celestia whispered at me, before extending a long slender leg and setting her bare white hoof on the polished street. I followed close beside her, remaining more or less side by side with her wing and using her considerable size to shield my face from Jade’s view. “Queen Jade. Hello again.”

“Celestia.” Jade’s neutral expression fell to a simple frown. “I have not forgotten River Rock.”

“That’s why I’m here. I’ve brought a gift, of sorts, hoping I can make things up to you.”

Jade watched the taller alicorn closely. “You have the colt?”

My heart froze cold. Had she recognized me?

“I think you’ll enjoy what I have to offer much more than revenge,” Celestia replied calmly. “But I propose we avoid talking about Morty, and instead find something we agree on.”

“Hmm.” Jade took a long pause before offering a very short nod. “Very well. I’ll hear you out, at least.” She lifted a hoof, and then brought it down on the street. The ring pierced the growing crowd around us. “Guardsponies, you are dismissed.” After the proclamation, bordering on a shout, she spoke to Celestia much more quietly. “If you had sent a message ahead of your arrival, I would have prepared quarters for you.”

“I’m here under my own power, Jade. I don’t represent Equestria. You ought to speak to the ambassador if you’re unhappy with the warning you’ve been given.”

Gale flustered and shook her head. “Aunt Celestia!”

“I’m teasing, Gale.”

“Gale?” Jade asked, perking a brow. “A nickname?”

“My middle name, actually.” Gale took a breath, and then carried ahead in her pronounced formal diction. “Platinum Gale Gladioprocellarii, though I usually skip the old Cirran and say ‘Stormblade’.”

“Ah. Hence the name of your father’s weapon.” Jade glared down at the sword strapped to the side of Gale’s dress. “In the future, you will not bring that here.”

Gale drew back. “I don’t mean to make any kind of military threat…”

“I’m not afraid of you, filly,” Jade replied rather bluntly, shaking her head. “Wear another sword, if you like. But the wound from that blade is… personal.”

“Oh…” Gale nodded, slipped off the sheathed weapon, and offered it to me. “Carry this for now. Ensure it isn’t lost until we return to Equestria.”

I swallowed, keeping my voice quiet in fear Jade would recognize it. “Of course, Ambassador.”

Jade spoke up as I slid the sash for the blade over my shoulder “A quiet one, isn’t he?” The note of attention in the phrase was unnerving.

I hesitated in adjusting the sheath on my side, but Celestia’s voice covered my slip. “I chose him from Typhoon’s forces precisely for that reason. So many of the legionaries are loud, brash, and overflowing with machismo. I prefer the quiet.”

“Understandable.” The alicorns and Gale continued to talk as I followed silently on the path toward the Crystal Spire.

“This is the Crystal Spire,” Jade announced rather flatly and redundantly with my narration. “We don’t know what it was first constructed for, but it serves as our palace in these days.”

“It’s a magical focus,” Celestia explained. At Jade’s incredulous raised brow, the goddess continued. “It was built by mages from another world, as a way to stabilize the portal between that place and ours, hundreds of years ago. I was only a filly then.”

“You were a filly once?” Gale asked rather bluntly.

Celestia let one of her eyebrows climb a bit. “Did you think I was born this size? When you have a foal of your own someday, Gale, you’ll understand how terrifying that thought is.”

“Most mares aren’t that optimistic about their weight.” It took me a moment of horror to realize the words had come from my own lips. I hadn’t been thinking, really; it just slipped out. Gale laughed, but from Celestia I only got a concerned sideways glance. Jade herself gave just a hint of amusement, though her eyes lingered on me for an uncomfortable moment before returning to the road.

“Whatever it was originally meant for, this is where I make my home. Ambassador Platinum, I’m certain you will be getting to know its halls well. But for the moment, I will see you to some chambers, so that you can make yourselves comfortable. I even have a few in Equestrian style available. Please, follow me.”

The stairs in the nearest of the spire’s four legs were a spiraling set that led up to a grand foyer. Jade made passing comments about art on the walls and the locations of various utilities like the garderobes and the kitchens. For a mare very obviously on the verge of anger, she did an excellent job as a host without wasting time expositing on the history of the radiant architecture.

I tuned her out almost immediately, however, when we passed two of the palace maids in the hallway. One nodded, ducking out of the way with a curt “Your Majesty” and a long awed gaze at Celestia. The other echoed the first’s motions, though she remained utterly silent. I knew instantly why. The expression of horror I had seen on that face that last time I met the mare was etched into my memory.

I almost reached out to her; the only thing that stopped me was a subtle nudge from Celestia’s magic, missed by Jade as the monarch faced ahead. The living goddess refused to even glance in my direction, and once more I followed an all-powerful being away from a tragedy that my heart told me I should have stopped to repair.

But this time, I vowed I would come back.

Preoccupied with the sight of the maid, I didn’t realize the path we were following until the gleaming gemstone walls gave way to polished wood.

“Lady Celestia, at the risk of reviving an earlier joke, I believe these are the only available chambers I have that will currently accommodate you in any level of comfort.” Jade stepped aside, gesturing toward the door to Wintershimmer’s bedroom.

Celestia nodded. “I thank you. Though if you would prefer, I can use another chamber and just fetch a cloud.”

“The clouds here are very cold. We don’t maintain our own weather by hoof as you do in Equestria, in part for want of pegasi, but also because of the magical warmth of the barrier around Union City. Besides, this is the best bed that I can offer in my entire palace. My late traitorous archmage was quite demanding.”

“Well, in that case, thank you very much for your hospitality.”

Jade nodded. “Ambassador, I’ll offer you this room here.”

My room.

“Thank you very much, Your Majesty,” Gale gave a short grateful bow. “I imagine we will want to discuss some items over lunch?”

“My schedule today is rather full; I wasn’t given warning to reorganize my time.” Jade made no effort to hide the slip of annoyance in her voice. “I shall be free this evening, if you prefer. If not, tomorrow morning will have to do. Until then, you have reign of the city. Should you want for more escort, ask one of the servants for Commander Oolite.”

When Jade left the hallway I finally felt free to draw a breath. “We’re alive.”

“No thanks to you,” Gale snapped, rolling her shoulders. “What part of ‘I prefer the quiet’ did you not understand?”

Celestia patted Gale on the shoulders with a wing. “Things worked out fine, didn’t they? Let’s focus on dealing with Wintershimmer.”

“Right. At least I get to stab one wizard today.” Gale rolled her shoulders, and then glared at her dress. “Hold on, let me get rid of the frills.”

I closed my eyes and faintly lit my horn, feeling the old familiar locking mechanism of my bedroom respond the same way it had for years. “It would have been funny if I weren’t here,” I told her as the door swung open. “Jade would have had a hard time unlocking my room for you. Help yourself.”

Gale left the door hanging ajar and demonstrated a feat of magic that I could not replicate, somehow pulling off her fitted formal wear in a single fluid motion. The feat was followed by an act of mild barbarism as she used the beautiful fabric to wipe the hints of makeup from her face, before hurling the wrinkled stained mass that remained onto my bed.

“Nice place,” she muttered as she walked back out to us. “How far do we need to sneak?”

“It’s actually right here.” I turned my head to the door beside me, opposite my bedroom. “This leads to Wintershimmer’s workshop, and past that his vault. Please don’t touch anything; Wintershimmer does have some cursed items stored here, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of it were trapped.”

“Trapped? What, like a bucket of water over a door, or a pit, or—”

“Gemstones that explode with pure kinetic force. The shrapnel will go straight into your heart. Assuming he hasn’t changed them, he was also fond of illusions that fed on the fears of the victim, personalizing themselves to the subject.” I pushed open the laboratory door with my hoof. “So stay close to me.”

The laboratory was almost untouched since my last conscious visit. Books and elaborate glassware and hundreds of vials labeled in tiny script I couldn’t read still lined the walls. Tables with alchemical apparati and complex arrangements of crystals were set into neat grids around the floor. The only major changes were a thin layer of dust that had settled across everything from the magical books to the workbenches, and the notable absence of an unconscious stallion laying on a cushioned slab in the center of the room.

“Well, Jade moved Smart Cookie. That’s probably for the best; we wouldn’t want him getting hurt in a fight.”

Celestia turned to me. “You just had him laying here?”

“For my entire life, yes. There was a small golem Wintershimmer had made to take care of actually getting food into him and cleaning him, but otherwise we just sort of left him there.”

“Twenty years is a surprising time for an earth pony to stay in a coma,” she observed. “Is there some sort of magic on him? Perhaps affecting his rate of aging?”

“No, after what happened to Archmage Hourglass, Wintershimmer forbade us from studying time magic.” At Celestia’s raised brow, I shook my head. “Hourglass was… maybe still is, the Mother of Translocation. Three hundred years ago, she discovered how to use a teleportation spell to move through time. She nearly destroyed the world in the process. When she stopped the damage from a paradox she caused, she disappeared into one of her own spells. As far as anypony knows, she’ll just show up some day. But she never actually died. Unless you know otherwise.”

“No, I would remember a pony like that.” Celestia shook her head. “And Wintershimmer is the only pony who has ever escaped our judgement.”

“Can that wait until after we deal with Wintershimmer?” Gale asked, her eyes nervously sweeping the room.

Celestia nodded. “Forgive me. Morty, lead the way.”

I glanced briefly toward the door into the empty practice room where Wintershimmer and I had first torn open the Summer Lands. Thankfully, my destination was the last remaining egress from the laboratory: a set of sliding iron doors completely lacking in handles, engraved around their edges with silver runes set into a raised strip of pitch black metal.

“What day is it?” I asked. “Unicorn calendar.”

Gale scoffed. “What difference does it make?”

“I need to know to open the door.”

“Well, the Equestrian calendar says it’s April, so the old unicorn calendar would be… Lazulite? No, Alexandrite. The seventh of Alexandrite.”

I did some quick mental math and spoke aloud. “King Electrum the Omniscient, slain by the Scourge of Kings.” The doors began to rumble and slide open. I glanced backward over my shoulder. “Based on the day of the unicorn calendar, you have to state a monarch of the Diamond Kingdoms, and how they died. Wintershimmer’s way of making sure we considered all our possible weaknesses. Also, there’s no riddle or hint written around, so nopony would ever guess.”

“Clever…” Celestia whispered, stepping forward.

“Paranoid, more like.” Gale responded. “Makes sense for Wintershimmer, though.”

Behind the doors was a long hallway, carved in what appeared to be gray stone, taking the shape of a brilliant-cut gemstone turned upside down. It ended in another set of double doors, though these mercifully had handles. “I should mention something, Celestia. These rooms are wrapped in lodestone. I don’t know if you’re strong enough to brute-force past that kind of magical suppression, but if not, I wouldn’t try teleporting out from inside.”

“Why suppress a vault?” Gale asked.

“Magical auras can interfere with other spells,” I explained. “They can cause dangerous side effects, interfere with other enchantments, that sort of thing. Usually the effect is minor enough that nopony cares, but when you have hundreds of powerful artifacts in one place, it’s best to keep them isolated from the rest of the world.”

“Star Swirl has a vault not unlike this in Everfree City,” Celestia added.

“Really?” Gale asked. “Full of crazy shit?”

The alicorn chuckled. “There are a few items in there I know that he specifically sought to keep secret from your mother, Gale. And her father before her. I somewhat doubt he’ll show you.”

Gale’s shoulders fell just a bit. “Well, I guess there’s this one.”

Sure enough, we’d reached the end of the hallway. With a slow, deliberate, and perhaps slightly dramatic motion, I pushed the doors open and revealed the vault.

“Squaaak!” was my first greeting in the dusty room, and the shrill noise made me jump. Gale ripped Procellarum out of its sheath on my side and held it aloft with its blade pointed into the magically lit chamber.

“No need to be so nervous. It’s just a bird.” Celestia chuckled and stepped into the vault without any obvious worry. “Oh my. A phoenix? Have you been stuck in here all this time?”

The brilliant red creature squawked again in reply, hurling itself against the enchanted steel cage that held it.

“Wintershimmer had to have one on hand for fresh blood; it’s an ingredient in a potion to stave off aging.” The bird lunged at me as I stepped closer, though its beak simply couldn’t reach me. When that effort failed, it huffed and returned to its perch, impotent to take out its rage on the familiar face in the room. “Yeah, sorry; I know you haven’t been fed in a few…”

“Months?” Gale asked. “You’ve been gone from here a while, right Morty? How the fuck is it still alive?”

“Phoenixes are immortal,” Celestia noted. “We should release her.”

“I wouldn’t yet,” I warned. “I’ve lost my eyebrows to that one a couple too many times. It can stay in there at least until we’ve dealt with Wintershimmer.”

“You know they’re sapient creatures, Morty?” Celestia asked, concerned. Then she leaned forward. “Do you have a name, little friend?”

It cocked its head at the enormous and unfamiliar face, and then chirped once.

“Hmm… I wish I could speak phoenix. But it seems like you understand me well enough. I’m Celestia. That’s Gale over there. And I think you know Morty.” Mention of my name earned a short hiss in my direction. “Well, I suppose he is an acquired taste. I’ll tell you what, little friend: if you can wait just a few moments, I’ll get you out of here and you can spread those wings. We just have a little bit of business first. Does that sound good?”

The phoenix answered with a brief burst of song.

“Oh, you like her?” I asked, shaking my head. “I fed you for fifteen years you ungrateful little—”

The phoneix burst into flame. Thankfully, a magically warded cage made this a less-than-threatening show of force, but the sudden explosion caught me off guard.

“Morty, can you shut the fuck up?” Gale asked, grabbing my shoulder. “You’re the one who’s so paranoid about finding Wintershimmer in here, and then you get into an argument with a bird?”

“There’s no call to be paranoid.” Celestia gestured past me with a wing, toward a secluded corner of the vault. “He’s been laying right there this whole time.”

Sure enough, Wintershimmer lay atop a long slab of crystal that I saw following the line of Celestia’s brilliant plumage. The old stallion seemed entirely unlike himself: peaceful, even serene. Amusingly, death seemed to have left his face looking less like a skull, as muscles that seemed permanently tensed in life had finally relaxed.

“Wait, what?” Gale frowned, turning to me. “They didn’t bury him?”

“Presumably, Jade buried something,” I answered. “A corpse he’d transformed to look like him. A candlecorn. But remember: the door in here was sealed, and he and I were the only two ponies who knew how to get in. He put himself there. If I had to wager, that body is still alive, and his soul is still out in the candlecorn with Silhouette on the way back here.”

After a moment of quiet, Gale took a few steps forward. Procellarum floated in front of her, though the thin blade with the hole through its flat side seemed to make a poor shield. “So is he actually dead?”

“I don’t know.” I lit my horn, spending no mana on an actual spell but simply feeling the magic in the room. Though the sundry artifacts cluttering the walls left me feeling almost underwater, I breathed a sigh of relief. “He doesn’t seem to have any souls tied to that body. No golem spirit to bring it to life. Not even his own soul.”

“I certainly hope not,” Celestia whispered. “We seem to have beaten him back. Before we start setting a trap, I’m curious: what would happen if we restrained that body with a void crystal ring?”

“I don’t really know. I still don’t understand how he’s using this as the focus for possessing golems without actually moving his own soul. Maybe I can learn something while we have a moment to investigate.”

I walked over to the slab, with Gale and Celestia following closely. I lifted a hoof and placed it against Wintershimmer’s cheek to tilt his head, so that I could see his neck. But the moment I made contact, I pulled my hoof away.

As wax dripped from the end of my leg, the eyes of the Candlecorn opened.

“Coil.”

"How..." I gasped out.

Comments

[RoboRed]

Oh shi-

[SIGAWESOME]

I don’t know about you, but I don’t believe anything I have ever put into a chamber pot constituted ‘evil’.

Clearly you have never had char-grilled brussles sprouts, chow-chow relish, and cajun-spiced pickled eggs!

[djthomp]

Gale lifted her face away from the wall, leaned forward until we were nearly muzzle-to-muzzle, and slapped me on the cheek hard enough that I fell off of my seat.

That's fair.

I hesitated in adjusting the sheath on my side, but Celestia’s voice covered my slip. “I chose him from Typhoon’s forces precisely for that reason. So many of the legionaries are loud, brash, and overflowing with machismo. I prefer the quiet.”

Good thing she'd brought Morty, a legendarily quiet stallion.

“It’s a magical focus,” Celestia explained. At Jade’s incredulous raised brow, the goddess continued. “It was built by mages from another world, as a way to stabilize the portal between that place and ours, hundreds of years ago. I was only a filly then.”

Interesting.

“No, after what happened to Archmage Hourglass, Wintershimmer forbade us from studying time magic.” At Celestia’s raised brow, I shook my head. “Hourglass was… maybe still is , the Mother of Translocation. Three hundred years ago, she discovered how to use a teleportation spell to move through time. She nearly destroyed the world in the process. When she stopped the damage from a paradox she caused, she disappeared into one of her own spells. As far as anypony knows, she’ll just show up some day. But she never actually died. Unless you know otherwise.”

Huh.

“I certainly hope not,” Celestia whispered. “We seem to have beaten him back. Before we start setting a trap, I’m curious: what would happen if we restrained that body with a void crystal ring?”

Or maybe if you cut off its head with the magic sword? I think the rule of Double Tap applies in this situation.