5: Welcome to Canterlot
Twilight’s legs wobbled as the ship suddenly braked for the twelfth time that day. Bits of floor dissolved, making holes for pegasi to carry supply pallets into the hold. If she had to guess, Thunderchild was flying over farms to restock.
There were no windows to check, of course, but at least the routine resupply operation had lulled the security guards into a sense of… well, security. They stood a ways away from the girls, helping with the heavier loads.
Inch by inch, Rarity crept closer to Twilight, casting conspiratorial glances about the cargo hold. “I haven’t been able to get this accursed ring off my horn, but I’m ready to throw some hooficuffs if it comes to that. Rainbow and I are planning to…”
“No.” Twilight’s expression barely changed.
“What? These guards do not seem agreeable, and after what they did to poor Spike…” She waited till the guards weren’t looking, then gave him a quick nuzzle. “We’ll get you out of those nasty restraints, dear.”
“Rarity, we’ll be in Canterlot soon, and the princesses will sort everything out. Once we’re there, maybe I can… maybe I can fix what I broke. Till then, just play along.” She turned to Spike. “I’m sorry about this, Spike. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”
Another shudder, heavier than the ones before, passed through the floor. “Hey, what’s goin’ on down there?” exclaimed Applejack.
Grape Shot answered. “Final approach to Canterlot.” He stared straight at Twilight. “Time to face the music, princess.”
Engines hummed and guards hastened in the corridors as the Thunderchild neared the capital. The cloudwalls opened, giving most of the girls their first look at Canterlot in five thousand years.
It was not a good first impression.
Canterlot was… different. Which was a polite way of saying ugly. Black smokestacks sprouted like fungus from the mountain, coughing clouds of soot as they fueled strange alchemy. Everywhere, the din of industry pounded, pounded, pounded; carriages rattled as they trundled over cobblestones, their cargo of steel and pig iron jangling with each impact.
The princess’s castle had always been a fortress—that is, after all, what castles are for—but a wondrous fortress it was, all gleaming stone and golden-roofed domes. Now, it was shored up by concrete slabs, the once-grand flying buttresses reinforced with gray metal and adorned with machine gun nests.
In a ring like a crown of thorns, giant artillery pieces surrounded the city, their muzzles blackened from years of abuse. From the size of the barrels, each one could throw a shell much bigger than a pony.
Pinkie couldn’t help but stare.. “Are those industrial-sized party cannons?” Her eyes sparkled as she imagined all the streamers they could fire.
Windlass fielded the question. “Haven’t been any party cannons made since your friend brought the Wilder down on us.” She didn’t try to hide her cold stare at Twilight. “Those are just regular cannons. Battle cannons.”
Twilight felt a light breeze as Pinkie’s mane deflated. “No… party cannons?”
“All manufacturing capacity has been redirected toward military applications. We aren’t going to make anything that shoots confetti if we can make something that shoots lead instead.”
She still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off about Windlass, but the guards pushed Twilight down the airship’s ramp before she could dwell on it further.
Muzzle Flash led the party through the dingy streets, narrowly dodging a few supply carriages.
Getting off that heavily-guarded ship should have made the girls feel safer, but the crossbolters and sniper towers that cluttered the Canterlot skyline did little to make them feel at home.
“Has it really been this nasty for so long?” Rainbow’s wings were still bound, but at least the commotion of the capital let the girls speak freely.
Twilight answered with a shake of her head. “Not when I left for the Everfree. Things have changed since then.”
Things had changed, indeed. Rounding a corner, they saw foals marching in military ranks and files, all gussied up in junior uniforms with practice grenades in their pockets. Most were blank flanks, but a few sported cutie marks of weapons, factory equipment, or medical instruments. One of the foals carried a flag, a yellow-and-black thing with the block letters Celestia Youth.
Another of the young soldiers-in-training recognized Windlass and waved a hoof at her. For a moment, a brief moment, Twilight saw something like a foal greeting a friend, until her drill instructor shouted at her. The child snapped back, eyes forward, legs pounding the cobblestones in martial rhythm.
Twilight took advantage of the brief pause to talk to Windlass. “Um, skymare? What was that about? Why are those colts and fillies…”
Windlass cut her off. “Somepony has to fight your battles, princess. At least with this training, they’ll be ready when the Wilder overtakes us.”
They kept on marching, foals to another lesson in tactics, and the girls to Canterlot’s castle, Spike in tow.
“I’m sorry you have to see this,” Twilight said to the others. “I suppose it’s all my fault.” Windlass snorted at that line.
Twilight started to continue, but an artillery volley drowned her out. Once she managed to pry her hooves off her ears, she shouted. “What’s going on! Are we under attack?”
The guards didn’t even break stride when the guns went off. One of them shook his head. “They fire nearly every day. Alchemists say the blast wave from the impact repels the Wilder—it’s quite a racket, but at least it holds back the darkness.”
Slowly, she stood up again. On instinct, she had cowered from imagined shrapnel, but now she could see the guns were pointing out, smoke still rising from their barrels. Some of the shells were still in the air, targeted at black spots on the map, miles away.
Twilight staggered forward for a bit, out of sorts and baffled by the world she had created. Rarity took pity on her and tried to distract her.
“Excuse me, Twilight, I just have to ask… did your mane ever do the, you know, the thing?” She gestured with a hoof, trying to charade a moving, magical mane.
“Did I ever have a mane like Celestia’s?” She giggled. “Yes. Well, not exactly the same. I chose different colors.” Six of them, to be precise. One for each of the girls, and one for Spike.
At least Canterlot was not all bad. They were close to the castle’s entrance, and that meant they were close to the statues. Many of them Twilight recognized—politicians from bygone eras, a few magicians she’d studied in magic kindergarten. Still, she only cared about one of them.
“Is that you, Spike?” Rarity stopped in the middle of the street when she saw it. Even cloaked with moss and industrial soot, the dragon statue was impressive. Two sets of wings rose from his marble sides, thick arches built to shovel through dirt as easily as flying through air. The masons had even replicated the spiral engravings on this scales.
The jewels in his eyes had long since been plucked out to finance the war effort, but a flicker of glory remained in the monolithic dragon, claws long and sharp, fanged mouth full of violent majesty. Yet despite his terrifying natural weapons and armored frame, the sculptors had been sure to remember what made Spike truly different.
Around his feet sat happy ponies, warming themselves by the heat from his belly. Colts and fillies, all made of multicolored stone, clambered over his scales, sliding across his wings like they were sledding slopes. Though Spike showed his teeth, he was not barring them to intimidate the weak. No, he was smiling. He was laughing.
“Oh, my, Spike. You were magnificent!” Spike couldn’t answer, his mouth still gagged to block his fire, but Twilight noticed a faint blush as Rarity complimented him.
Fluttershy gave him a quick feather caress. “He still is, Rarity. Just a little easier to hug, now.” The guards didn’t stop them from touching, a small mercy that made Twilight ever so grateful.
Applejack spoke next. “Land’s sake, you really grew that big?”
Twilight stepped in front of the statue. “Bigger.” She wore the contented smile of a proud parent. “Our Spike got so big, we needed to get help from the Crystal Empire just to build a cavern that could hold him.” A frown darkened her face. “Of course, that was before the Empire seceded from Equestria.”
The statue was so accurate, Twilight could almost see the scales shifting as they ground through the earth, musclebound wings surging in rhythm to bore through rock, drills of fire breath melting away boulders. “As he grew, we learned that Spike’s a rock dragon.”
Rainbow piped in. “Like, a digger?”
Twilight and Spike nodded in unison.
“Maud would have loved that!” exclaimed Pinkie as she tried to figure out how large a cake she would need for a dragon that size.
“Hmm? Who’s Maud?” Twilight felt she should know that name, but couldn’t place it. Probably another pony who’d fallen through the cracks of her memory.
Before Pinkie could ask a question, the guards dragged them off. “Enough sightseeing.”
The castle doors had been stripped of their decoration and covered with armor plates. If that wasn’t enough, sandbags circled every entrance, and rifles poked out of crenelations. Muzzle Flash showed his papers to the palace guards and brought the girls inside.
The war had left its mark here, as well. Everything valuable that could be sold had been, leaving a few threadbare tapestries and—
Twilight felt an urgent tug at her fetlock. “What is it, Spike?” she whispered. Her eyes followed his pointing claw to Windlass. For a second, she squinted, then saw what he had seen.
She tried to cover it with her ammo pouches, but Spike had caught a glimpse of her flank, and now Twilight had, too. It was as blank as a foal’s.
That was what was off. Windlass was just a child! She was… just a child. But she was still a soldier.
Those schoolfoals, marching under Celestia’s banner… what had happened? What had she done?
The girls followed her as Twilight walked on autopilot, eyes wide and glazed over. A sharp snap brought her back to reality.
“The princess awaits!” A royal guardsmare, clad in a dull flak jacket like the Thunderchild’s crew, announced her presence. Behind her was another set of double doors, the engraving scratched and scuffed but still familiar—Celestia’s symbol.
The doors creaked open, but the guard’s outstretched hoof blocked everypony except Twilight. It seemed she’d have to do this alone, just like she’d been doing everything for the past five millennia.
The unicorn gulped and stepped over the threshold.
There was no happy reunion, not at first. Just another room with a few signs of blast damage and a window in the wall. She recognized it, or what was left; it used to be a stained-glass masterpiece, two vitreous princesses enveloping the sun and moon in their magic. Now, it was just shattered glass.
Twilight heard hoofsteps, heavier than any normal pony’s. Even with the magic restrictor on her horn, she felt power coming around the corner. It was warm, fiery, incendiary. It was Celestia.
She let out a long sigh when she saw the princess round the bend. Finally, here was something changeless. Someone she could trust.
“Princess, what’s going on? Why is everything… terrible?”
For what felt like forever Celestia simply watched her. “I thought I lost you.” Her unsmiling stare slid over the bandages on Twilight’s back. “It seems I already have.”
Her body towered over Twilight, even more now that the unicorn had lost her alicorn height.
“Princess, have you… the children… surely this isn’t what you want!”
Celestia kept staring at the student she’d thought she'd never see again. “What do you mean, Twilight?”
She waved a hoof out at the Canterlot streets, where another column of trainee soldiers marched. “Foals! They’re carrying grenades! Princess, please tell me you had nothing to do with this! Tell me you’ve been too busy fighting the Wilder yourself to notice, tell me… tell me anything!”
A ragged breath from Celestia. It was true, she was always busy fighting. Shards of lead and steel jutted from her back even now, but she had shifted her armor to hide it. Others needed help more than her.
“Princess, you’re sending blank-flanks into battle! Even the guard that brought me here is one!”
Celestia cast a quick glance at Muzzle Flash, who hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, it appears we are.” She turned her back to Twilight and looked out the broken window.
“What… how can you be okay with this! Windlass is scarcely older than a foal! She’s not a skymare, she’s barely old enough to have her first coltfriend!”
Celestia whipped around to face her. “I am not ‘okay with this.’ I am not ‘okay’ with ordering my subjects to plant toxic flowers in their orchards, so the alchemists can brew poison gas for our cannons. I am not ‘okay’ with turning dancers and artists into soldiers.”
Every light in the castle flared brighter as Celestia’s mane sparked. Her voice deepened and thundered. “I am not ‘okay’ with the fate of Windlass, my beloved citizen who I am sworn to protect, going into battle without even a mark on her flank to illuminate her destiny.”
Suddenly the lanterns dimmed and Celestia dipped her head to Twilight’s. “And were it not for the black thing you have unleashed on my little ponies, I would never have stooped so low. But you have forced me to.”
“Twenty-three years we have fought, and were it up to me, my sister and I would have faced the Wilder alone, but the monster you created is too strong for us. We are at war, now.” Her breath felt like scalding steam on Twilight’s face. “Whatever honor I had burned away along with the first village it consumed.”
Twilight tried to melt into the flagstone floor. “I’m sorry, Princess. I didn’t know. I only wanted…”
“You wanted what we cannot have. There is a reason necromancy is forbidden, my most unfaithful student.” Her eyes bored holes in Twilight’s skin, holes far deeper than the wounds where her wings used to be.
She blubbered apologies, caught between remorse and fear by that awful, awful gaze. “Princess, I…”
“Go.”
Her head almost scraping the ground, Twilight limped out of the chamber. The guards followed her, surrounding her with cold steel and regimented precision. She was a captive now.
Behind her, the tall door slammed shut. No one could hear it, but off the reinforced walls echoed a few soft sobs from Princess Celestia.
Stats
Page generated in 0.015 seconds
Total duration
862 users online
1,258,350 hits today, 2,054,621 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.®
I like to think even Rainbow would consider that garish if she knew.
7255366 Eh, purple for Spike, pink for Fluttershy, another shade of purple for Rarity, blonde for Applejack, darker pink for Pinkie, and red-orange for Rainbow (her mane has a bunch of colors, but those ones matched best). It's probably not the most fashionable choice, but since when was Twilight fashionable?
7255382
I was imagining it with their fur colors. White-yellow-pink-blue-orange-purple flatters nobody. Not even a quasi-immortal god-princess.
7255514 In the next chapter: Everypony dies in battle because Pinkie replaced all their ammo with frosting.
7255533 "I love the smell of frosting in the morning, It smells of vanilla victory!"
Pinkie 'KillGore' Pie.
Will this story be as short as the previous one?
7255848 Nope! This will be a longer-form adventure story.
Yea. Sure. Just imprison the greatest sorceress, element of magic, and princess of Friend-MuthaFuckin-ship instead of enlisting her and her now restored Rainbow beam of utter annihilation.
Smart move celly...
Twenty-three years? ...twenty-three years?
Twilight's friends weren't resurrected twenty-three years ago.
7255385
HMM...
7267300
The other purple.
7267280 They weren't, but Discord fast-forwarded time twenty-three years back in the Everfree. He'd already released the wild magic he needed to build the extractor before that, so for twenty-three years, it's been tearing up Equestria.
7267332
Well, so that's the thing. The dead friends thing is actually a complete red herring. Nothing followed her friends from beyond the grave. Something else is corrupting Equestria, and the ponies don't suspect a thing. Twilight could sacrifice her friends to the dark gods of retribution or whatever, but what caused this couldn't be her friends being resurrected. It was...
It was Discord pulling the resurrection plan out of his head. The ideas even he was afraid to think about. They were trying to follow him, to make him think about them. An undead monstrosity didn't follow the ponies from beyond the grave. It was another, different bad idea, that followed him, out of his own head! This is all just a bad idea! A really, really, really bad idea! They're gonna try to undo what Twilight did, and it's not going to have any effect on the problem, because it's actually a completely unrelated idea!