The Wardens of Order

by ScottTrek

The Message

The throne room was quite, all the noise from the outside world muffled away leaving the great hall silent and cold. Having let Twilight and Cadence inisde Luna had immediately returned to the left side of the hall. She joined a mare, presumably Moonbeam, who was sitting in a pile of papers and scientific equipment strewn about the floor and was scribbling notes furiously. Celestia stood on the other side looking up at the stained glass windows that adorned the wall. The elder Alicorns were pointedly facing away from each other.

Further into the hall a beam of light slowly pulsated a few feet from the twin thrones. The beam had no visible source and seemed to merge seamlessly with the ceiling and floor. As she silently trotted towards it Twilight noted that the beam didn’t seem to be casting any shadows despite being fairly luminous. The message Bastion had described didn’t seem to be there either, though as Twilight watched she caught glimpses of symbols flickering within the light.

As Twilight watched the beam Cadence instead looked between her two adopted aunts. Even without using her emotional magic she could feel the tension spanning between them like taunt rope. Ever so gently her horn glowed as she tried to read them; they were not mad at each other as far as she could tell, more of a disconcerting mix of guilt and something sad yet unnameable, that flavour of regret when something bad happened and you blamed yourself even if there was nothing you could have possibly done to stop it.

Cadence bit her lip. This particular feeling always worried her when she had caught tiny, momentary snatches of it emanating from Luna. Looking again between the two Luna seemed to be in deep conversation with Moonglow so Cadence indicated to Twilight that they should join Celestia.

Celestia had continued to stare up at the stained glass despite the new arrivals. In particular she had fixated upon the pane depicting her and Luna eternally circling with the sun and moon around the sky. “Thank you for coming at such short notice.” She said, eventually looking down to acknowledge their presence. “Especially since under such mysterious circumstances.”

“We understand.” Twilight nodded, “But please Princess, can you tell us what’s happening here?”

“Discord said that something called The Wardens of Order were coming.” Cadence added, “And while he’d never admit it out loud I think he was scared of them.” There was a brief moment were all present paused. All somehow anticipating Discord suddenly to pop out of nowhere, object to that statement, and then as quickly vanish with as was his usual comedic leanings.

But nothing.

Maybe he really was that scared.

“Well…that would make sense.” Celestia responded. Her eyes one again looking at the history depicted in front of her. “Apart from the Stars themselves Discord is the only being I know of who was definitely alive when The Wardens last strode upon this world. In fact, I believe it was during that event that he was born…if you can apply a concept of birth to a creature like him.”

“Woah.” Twilight said.

“Woah.” Cadence agreed.

“Woooooooooo.” Flurry Heart added.

“So what are they?” Twilight continued as Cadence checked on her awoken baby.

Luna suddenly interjected from across the room “The gods of other gods.” Celestia did a double take, startled out of her musings by Luna sudden joining in. “Sorry to interrupt you sister but we don’t have time for your normal cryptic explanations…anyway…I think I’m more the authority here than thous’t are?”

For a moment Celestia’s eyebrow flickered, but it passed. “Of course sister. I imagine the stars have kept you far better informed.”

Luna turned to Moonbeam and gently told her. “Thank you for your help, but you must leave now.”

Moonbeam nodded, quickly gathering up some key notes and trotting to the exit. Halfway she paused and looked back at Luna, her eyes wide in adoration. “Thank you and...Uhh…umm…good luck!”

Luna smiled as her new friend scampered out of the hall. “So… the Wardens. They are an organisation or army or something of that type, composed of powerful otherworldly beings. United to fight an endless war against the Greater Chaos.”

“Greater Chaos? Like Discord?” Twilight asked.

“As I understand it the Greater Chaos would tear Discord apart in an instant. Discord is a morally dubious trickster, annoying but his recent reformation shows he is not a truly evil being. The stars won’t tell me exactly what the Greater Chaos is but they whisper names such as the ‘Nightmare Children’ and ‘The Broken God’. I suspect they are not given such dramatic names lightly.” Luna said shaking her head. “There’s almost no direct reference to what happened on this world countless millennia ago, but very old Gargoyle texts make reference to an event they call “The First Ragnarok. In whence ‘the sky was ripped asunder and the lands bathed in blood’. The Wardens fought the monsters of the Greater Chaos all across our world and space beyond. They won… but the fallout was immense, most notably…the spirit that inhabited Equis’s star died in the fighting, leading to the sun and moon needing magic such as our own to be moved through the sky.”

Twilight and Cadence were staggered by the revelation. The could not envision a time when the sun could have moved of its own accord; let alone the power it must have taken to do destroy such a force. But now they thought about it, did it not feel…right? As if on some level they had always known? They could see know why such information had been, probably deliberately, forgotten by the civilisations of the world.

Before they had a chance to question this further the beam of light dominating the room began so swirl and hum. The Princesses watched as the swirls coalesced into vortex, clearly a portal to these Wardens. From within the whirling light an array of laser beams shot forth, dancing upon Luna as the structure scanned her. After a few moments the beams jumped away to visit each of the Princesses in turn, leaving a single glowing beam tethering each of them to the structure.

When the beams reached Flurry Heart however they paused, the hum of the light seeming to modulate questioningly. Flurry giggled at light-show as Cadence stepped forwards, face hard as cut glass. “I don’t know how time works for beings like you. But my child is only a baby. Leave her out of this.” Twilight held her breathe as the hum continued to waver. If looks could kill the one across her friends face could have wiped out a city. Thankfully the beams retracted leaving no connection to the baby. Cadence silently tapped a small rune inset of the floating basket and after a second the baby was teleported away. Shining Armour only just audibly yelping outside as his child was deposited onto him.

It was time.

Each felt a surge of power pass through them as the lines connecting them to the portal seemed to whisk them away from the real world like kites on a string. Behind them Equestria seemed to fold up like origami, tightening to a point and then…

…it was gone.

Comments

[Steve Ott]

My prediction: The Wardens are going to try to take Luna's power and possibly her immortality because of what she did as Nightmare Moon.

[Red Does Reviewing]

I'm getting a Huge 40k Vib here...

[The Countess of Tuscany]

She joined a mare, presumably Moonbeam,

It was Moonglow in earlier chapters.

[ScottTrek]

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