The Northern Sky

by DashTillDawn

The Midnight Sky

We sat on that balcony for an hour, neither of us saying anything, for fear of ruining the moment. Eventually, Twilight came to get us, saying that it was urgent. We followed her back into the throne room, where the princesses still sat. The tears had been wiped away, but their eyes were still watering. I guess seeing North brought back some long forgotten memories.

"Now that you two are back, we can give the bad news." Celestia said.

"Bad news?" Twilight asked.

"Well, not bad per say. It has the potential to be bad." Luna corrected.

"We've felt another disturbance in the harmony. This one was more powerful, as well." Celestia informed us.

"Midnight?" North asked.

"We have no way to know what we felt, but if you were able to survive, he may have made it, too." Luna explained.

Confused, I tried to make sense of what I was hearing.

"Midnight? Isn't he your brother?"

"Yes. He's the one that wanted to overthrow Equestria. He was also more powerful than I was, and he loved to rub it in my face."

"Celestia and Luna should be able to stop him, right?" Twilight inquired.

"On the contrary. North here is about as powerful as we are, and his brother is even stronger. If he is what we felt, then he's out there."

"Then we could just connect to the elements again." Twilight offered.

"That won't work if he gets his hooves on what he's after. You don't have enough time to get your friends. It's up to you three to get there before he does. You must leave at once."

That was the end of it. We were out the doors before another word could be spoken.

"So, where do we start?" I asked North.

"Before I was frozen in the ice, I saw something in the walls of the cave. We should head back to where you first found me."

That meant another boring train ride, followed by another trek in the freezing wasteland around the Crystal Empire. Great.

---

It had taken a few hours, but we were back where we started. At least the train ride had allowed us to get some sleep. Climbing back into the mouth of the cave felt like a luxury after being in that wind again. Twilight and I had shivered the whole way, but North wasn't even fazed.

We walked the slightly-familiar cave corridors, making our way back to where we had dug up North. None of us noticed at the time, but there was a fresh set of hoofprints in the snow beneath us.

When we got to the hole, we let North take over. We followed him farther down the corridor, until he stopped about twenty yards away. He stared at the cave wall in front of him.

"It was right here." He said, pointing at a shallow indentation in the ice.

He touched the ice around the divot, and looked at his hoof.

"Strange..." He muttered.

"What's strange?" Twilight beat me to the question.

"The ice here shows recent signs of melting, but it's too cold down here for the ice to melt naturally."

"So..."

He stiffened, before snapping to us.

"He was already here." Then he looked to the snow, and saw the hoofprints. "And he may not have left yet."

That's when we heard a new voice speak.

"Very good, brother! Your detective skills are great. Almost as good as mine." Spoke this new stallion, while we tried to find the source of the voice.

"You can't do this Midnight! I can't let you." Shouted North.

"There's just one problem with that, North. Fire always beats ice."

I saw North's expression go from hate to confusion, and then I saw nothing but flying ice. From his unseen vantage point, Midnight had fired a bolt of mana, which melted the ice below our feet, and revealed that we were above a massive crevice. With nothing below our hooves, we plunged into the darkness.

---

Twilight was obviously a fairly new alicorn, as it took her a full fifteen seconds to use her wings and recover from the fall. I had taken equally as long, but that was because I had a different priority than self-preservation. As soon as we began to fall, I knew I had to grab Starlight.

I twisted to be more aerodynamic, and caught up to her. Just as Twilight's wings folded out, so did mine, but I held Starlight in my front hooves.

"I told you I'd catch you." I joked.

She flashed me a smile, but was still too stunned to come up with a clever remark. Twilight prepared to go after my brother, but I stopped her.

"Don't bother. He'll just close the entrance, and you'll wind up hitting your head. We should look for another way out."

"What should we do in the meantime?" Twilight asked, clearly unhappy with being unable to go after the pony who put us here.

"Find me a spot to set this one down." I said, nodding to Starlight.

"Am I too heavy for you?" She poked, returning to her senses.

"No, but you look like you need to sit down, and I can't really provide that from here."

"You don't want a pony sitting on your head?"

"Not if I can help it."

"I guess that's understandable."

"I would hope so."

Twilight tried to grasp what was going on between Starlight and I.

"Are you two flirting?" She poked.

"No!" We shouted simultaneously, followed by an equal blush.

"If you say so." She rolled her eyes, clearly knowing better, but went along with it.

We were above a gaping chasm, too deep to see the bottom. The walls here were stone, instead of the ice in the caves overhead, indicating that we were much farther down than the rest of the caves would reach. I slowly descended into the inky blackness, hoping to reach the floor.

When it became too dark to see normally, all three of us lit our horns. It still wasn't very bright, but it allowed me to see that the walls were opening up. We must have entered some sort of main chamber. By the time we found the bottom, the walls had faded past our light, leaving shadows in their place. I set Starlight down, before letting my own hooves touch the smooth stone. Twilight landed last. It wasn't the most graceful landing I had ever seen, but I could tell that she was working on it.

Starlight tapped my shoulder, and then lifted her hoof to her mouth, signaling to be quiet. We listened, and detected a rumbling in the distance. Wherever we were, we weren't here alone.

Comments

[DashTillDawn]

8327433
They did, but they sent Twilight to retrieve the other two first.