• Published 22nd Jul 2012
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Rites of Ascension - CvBrony



Twilight makes a new spell and starts the gears of fate with her ascension to alicornhood. (Writing started before Season 3.)

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The Mountain Pact

They had to change the meeting place. The draconic representatives were too large to fit in the clearing made in the Royal Gardens.

Instead, Applejack’s farm was chosen, or at least a clearing next to a pond on its outskirts. Dozens of Royal Guard members encircled the chosen site, along with every member of the Day Guard, and a few Night Guard probably hidden in the trees. Ten gryphon warriors, two of them battlemasters, joined the group. A few zebra and Saddle Arabian house mages were even present to protect their representatives, and Twilight’s own guards were somewhere in the trees. Spike, however, was next to Twilight herself.

Bad blood between the various factions wasn't the reason for the security. None of the representatives were dumb enough to cause trouble. Ponies from outside the perimeter, however, could be that crazy, so such precautions were needed. If something did happen, it was the guards’ job to make it so the dragons didn't need to lift a claw.

As the sun was setting, the last of the representatives were arriving and finding seats around a large bonfire. The snow had been cleared and wards set up to make everyone comfortable despite the winter weather. To Twilight's immediate left was the Zebrican representative, who was a mare of a certain age, and to the right of the rep was a veteran wyvern rider.

Beyond her was a buffalo male, the newest official signatory to the Mountain Pact. Though they could be represented by Equestria, Celestia’s efforts to preserve buffalo culture and semi-independence included allowing them separate diplomatic representatives in most world affairs. Twilight kept her lips sealed as she thought about how the stone face of the buffalo couldn't hide his nervousness. It was possible he'd never seen an adult dragon before, much less an elder, and that he certainly never attended one of these meetings. The last time such an emergency call was made for such a meeting was before either Twilight or the buffalo representative was born.

The next was the most awkward for everyone involved: a dark blue mare with a white mane, draped in a black hood and cloak that hid most of her form. A unicorn's horn poked out of the hood, and when she moved, silver embossings in the fabric shimmered. She was the representative of the Lunar Republic, or at this point, the Lunarian Church.

None of the other nations recognized the Republic’s authority or existence. They had no claim on any territory. For the last few centuries, save for a brief window of time before and after Luna's return, they had been extremely secretive and quiet. Yet, there she was, for a simple reason: The Lunar Republic had signed the Pact, and while dragons had long memories and lifespans, they didn't pay much attention to the news.

Were this any other time, Obsidian Armour would have dragged the mare off to the dungeon for interrogation, but the safe-travel terms of the Pact were crystal clear. If they did such a thing…well, the dragons probably wouldn’t do anything, but it's never a good idea to risk giving the absolute pinnacle of the food chain any reason to hold a grudge.

Across from Twilight and the Sisters were two enormous dragons...or there would be in moments, anyway. The opening in the circle for them meant that it was really more of an egg shape, but it was either that or be a seat for something that weighed as much as most airships. The last dragon to serve as a representative was older than Celestia, though he had slept through more than half his lifespan. It remained to be seen if that one would be here this time, but dragons rarely died, so it was reasonable to make that guess.

Continuing clockwise from the gap was a husband-and-wife pair of Saddle Arabian horses. Both were an off-white color and wore silk outfits and jewelry. They had set up a kind of half-tent with a hill’s worth of silken cushions underneath them, and seemed more interested in each other than the goings-on around them.

The displays of wealth were expected. Saddle Arabia was rich because of their access to special silkworms that only thrived in their territory, as well as with ample supplies of gold and gems. The worms could weave silk that was supreme in terms not only of its general quality, but because of its receptivity to storing magic. None of the other nations, save Zebrica, wanted to make them especially angry, lest their own wealthy classes become upset.

Then came the “terrible two”, or perhaps “one point five.” With a civil war active in Gryphonia, two representatives were present: an older male representing the Western faction led by Ragnar, and an older female representing Morvana. They looked civil enough, but the animosity between the two should've melted the snow around them.

Wingbeats thumped overhead.

The whole group turned to watch the sky as two enormous, shadowy figures flew in the night sky. Seconds passed as the figures grew larger. The thump from the landing bumped Twilight into the air for a second.

“Whoa.”

Twilight put a hoof on Spike to remind him to be silent.

The older dragon's scales were a mixture of green, brown, and rock. Not merely rock colouration, but actual boulders serving as scales. A final flap of his massive wings blew dust and snow into Twilight's face. His exhale pulled a feather out of Celestia’s wing. The largest non-dragon there, the Buffalo representative, was maybe a third the size of the dragon's foot, if one was feeling generous.

His snout was, proportionally, quite long, and could probably eat several train cars in one gulp. He didn't have any webbing in the spines on his back, though whether that was from them being worn from age or never existing in the first place was anypony’s guess.

The other dragon was smaller than the blue one that attacked in the morning. They were dark blue, and of indeterminate gender. Certain scales on them glowed a haunting white color. The gills and webbing on them confirmed that it was an ocean type — not just elementally water-aligned, but adapted to live and thrive in the ocean. This one was at home anywhere from the beach to the bottom of the deepest underwater canyons, where some of the most dangerous feral monsters of Equestria lurked. It probably helped that they were one of those monsters.

The lead dragon didn't so much “speak” as “rumble the air in a manner that formed words”. “Which of you has invoked the Pact?”

Twilight lifted a hoof to raise it, but Celestia spoke first.

“We did, old one. I'm afraid this is a matter that required it.”

“Then speak.

Twilight swallowed in the silence that followed, only to be nudged by Celestia.

“Oh, right.” She lit her horn and conjured up a projection spell for the photos Spike had. It essentially made anything on the focal point show up in the middle of the circle as a giant image of itself. The first photo was of flames crashing into the shields of the fort. “Early this morning, a dragon of unknown name attacked Fort Ponyville with clear lethal intent. These pictures were taken by an Equestrian Army journalist stationed at the fort.

“Further investigation revealed he attacked several small towns on the way, killing five and wounding thirty-nine.”

The smaller dragon stepped forward. “If this was merely over weregild, you could have settled this via courier.”

Celestia held out a wing to separate Twilight and the dragons while she spoke. “There's more. Twilight, please continue.”

Twilight swallowed down some cold air. “Yes, Princess.”

She put some more photos of the battle in the projector, these of her fight, the killing blows, and the aftermath. “I asked him why he attacked. Once defeated, he told me that someone stole his egg…‘again’.”

The other representatives gasped. Had the big dragon done so, he might have inhaled everypony else, yet he remained, for lack of a better phrase, stone-faced.

Twilight dispelled the images. “The only lead I could get from him before his fatal conflagration was ‘tufted tail.’”

“Hmph.” The Ragnar representative grumbled. “Could be any of us, then. Dragons aren't the most observant beings of other races.”

The zebra rep chuffed. “And gryphons are?”

“I can count the pores on your nose from here. So yes, we are.”

The buffalo cleared his throat. “Um, I'm pretty confident it wasn't us. We're a fairly tight knit collection of groups. Something like a dragon's egg would be hard to hide.”

The gryphon hen chirped. “There's several hundred thousand of you. More than enough to hide nefarious deeds. The same goes for the rest of us, being far more populous.”

“Well, it's not us.” The Arabians leaned into one another. “We've always had good relations with our dragon neighbours. Plus, I can't even think of a reason any horse could have to steal such a thing. It would be suicide.”

Twilight chewed on her lip. She had narrowed down the possibilities, but one didn't just start pointing hooves at other nations without proof.

“It wasn't the horses, true.” The mare had a voice like a bell, and it rang the others into silence. The words from the Lunarian might as well have been sung, rather than spoken.

“And…” Twilight forced out the obvious question. “How do you know?”

“Isn't it obvious?” The mare giggled. “Aside from not having said kind of tails, it's their magic!

“Sand manipulation and water tricks don't really mix with what one might do with a dragon's egg. The key is that dragon eggs can absorb, redirect, and convert mana in vast quantities. The horses just don't have a use for it.”

Twilight blinked. “Uh, I suppose that's true.”

The mare tittered. “Oh, come now. You needn't lie like that. You knew all of this already.”

Twilight really hoped they couldn't see her flush face. Well, yeah, but I wasn't about to just out and say it. Who is this girl?

“So let's narrow it down further, shall we? 🎵”

Twilight's mouth dropped open. I could hear the little music note she put at the end of that. How?!

“Buffalo are out; their magic is too similar to that of earth ponies. Same with donkeys, they have the tail but not the magic type. Ultimately, there are only two groups who have both of what we're looking for: gryphons and zebras.”

The Zebrica representative cleared her throat. “Not all of us have that type of tail.”

The eye roll of the cultist could be felt through the fabric over her eyes. “I would think seventy percent of a half billion zebra are enough to include you. But, I don't think it's a zebra, unless they are living on this side of the ocean, and there are precious few of you here.”

Twilight's leg wanted her to jump in front of the mare, but she settled for interrupting. “Transporting a dragon's egg to Zebrica without detection would be possible, but the effort would be ridiculous given that dragons exist there as well.

“I am still worried about this being done either by or in service of unicorns, or maybe by those in disguises. The dragon who attacked didn't seem very attentive to us ‘tiny things.’”

The elder dragon clawed at the earth, digging trenches with his claws and probably setting off the seismic recorders in Ponyville. “One of our young has been stolen. This is worthy of attention. How do you all plead?”

Celestia raised her wings. “This is not a matter settled enough for judgement at this time, old one. You know this. What we need is an investigation. To issue a punishment before the egg is recovered would be foolish. Or are you so sleepy that you would give up on saving your young, killing one of us, and calling it a millennium?”

A giant rock must have slammed into Twilight's stomach. That was the only logical conclusion to what Twilight just felt. One of us would have to die to satisfy the Mountain Pact? And Celestia just insulted him?

The dragon lowered his head and breathed on Celestia, hot steam streaming from his nostrils. Twilight had to jump back to escape the heat; had Celestia not been who she was, her skin would have just been seared off.

The dragon gingerly picked up a nearby boulder and crushed it between his fingers. “You dare mock me?”

“Pot, meet kettle, Volcanus.” A swath of light wreathed around Celestia, beckoning a dawn not due for hours. “I am she who created a desert of glass. Who so wounded the God of Chaos that he doubled back. If you are so confident in your strength as a dragon, come and test it at your leisure.”

Twilight gulped. Oh, ponyfeathers. What is she doing?

The dragon licked one of his yellow, filthy fangs. “A bluff. If you fought, your ponies in this valley would die.”

A white glow swirled around Luna, who stood up and pulled out Selene. “She would not have to. Yet you are a fool if you think it that simple. You know Our sister. Ask yourself, why did she choose this place for a capital? What was it the Grand Mage just showed you earlier?”

Twilight blinked. Those two questions don't seem connected. I'm missing something.

Celestia took in a breath, and spewed a small stream of golden flame at the dragon. More importantly, the dragon flinched.

“I chose this spot because it is in a valley surrounded by mountains. If it burned, most of my ponies would be safe in other Duchies. And Volcanus? Whatever they think of me now, if I fell here, they would want revenge. A revenge they don't need me to deliver.”

Two gears came together in Twilight's mind and nearly tore their teeth off. She chose this place four thousand years ago to protect most of the ponies elsewhere from her in case something happened. And when we started making our own artillery, she made sure we had rounds that could punch through a dragon's defences.

I came into this thinking the dragons were an existential threat to Equestria if riled. A pseudo-nation on par with our own. But Celestia basically just told him to shove his bluster up his plot and cooperate! He doesn't have anywhere near the leverage he thought he had!

Volcanus scooped up a sizable chunk of Applejack’s farmland in his hand and crunched it like a stress doll. “We cannot trust that you would conduct any ‘investigation’ into yourself fairly. One cannot judge oneself objectively.”

A tittering bell laughed at him, and the Lunarian offered her smile. “We are not all aligned with each other, old one. Just have one faction investigate the other.”

The Zebrica representative, who was just about all white now, raised a hoof. “We… we would welcome that arrangement.”

The gryphon female grumbled. “You're asking us to open our doors at a sensitive time.”

“Oh go pull that stick out of your tail, Greta.” The male gryphon did some kind of gesture Twilight was pretty sure was meant to be rude. “We welcome the idea as well. Zebrica can send a team any time.”

“Not acceptable.” The smaller of the dragons pulled out an emerald the size of a watermelon and chewed on it. “With gryphons and Zebras being the most likely culprits, we would demand that the horses investigate the zebras, and the ponies investigate the gryphons. The horses and Zebras can investigate the ponies together.”

Celestia folded her wings, and her glow faded. “That is acceptable. Twilight will launch her rescue efforts immediately.”

Oops, that rock was back, and this time aiming for Twilight's kidneys. “If those are your orders, I can start right away, but wouldn't a… less politically charged pony be a better choice?” Hint hint take the hint I'm not supposed to go there and make the civil war worse.

Celestia gave her a smile. “I have every confidence in you, Twilight. And in our gryphon partners to give you full access and not do anything that may force you to take sides in their conflict.”

Well, that's a diplomatic shot across the bow. Twilight watched the cat-birds bristle their feathers. Or maybe right into the hull; I'm not certain.

The Zebrica representative pulled out a cloth and wiped her brow. “I will convey this arrangement to our government. And probably get an earful, but this should work.”

Twilight gave her heart a mental thump to get it back in rhythm. “I'll notify my team. We'll be airborne within the hour.”


“I don't have much time, Your Highness. What was it you needed to speak to me about?” Twilight stopped herself from sitting and kept count of the ticks from the grandfather clock. Prince Blueblood’s office was immaculate as always, with nary a speck of dust to be found amidst the frankly gaudy decorations popular with much of the nobility.

The prince himself was dressed as spotlessly as the room, but a darker pale was under his eyes. “I just finished talking with Intelligentsia. Neither of us are happy about you going to Gryphonia.”

“I'm afraid you're overruled on that.” Twilight pulled out a scroll. “I have official orders and everything.”

“I’m aware. What you should be aware of is that both of us are very concerned about some… anomalies that are rumored to exist on the outskirts of the country.”

That caught Twilight’s attention even more than the marble mini-statue of Prince Blueblood in the corner. “Why wasn’t this in my daily briefings?”

“Because they are rumors, and often aren’t congruent with each other. RGIS even had an undercover agent investigate two of them, and couldn’t find anything. But I remain unconvinced. There’s been a definite uptick in their numbers over the past three months, more than what should be explainable by clashes in the war.

“I tried to have a real survey team sent out, but was turned down by both Kings. I don’t necessarily blame them for this; I have no evidence they’re behind anything relevant, and there is a war going on which could make things dangerous. Yet I can’t help but feel echoes from seven hundred years ago, when another Grand Mage visited Gryphonia.”

“Oh.” Twilight finally sat down. “He was killed there when another ‘anomaly’ threatened to destroy the whole civilization. You found links between what’s happening now and then?”

“Nothing direct.” Blueblood pressed his forehooves together before his muzzle. “The ‘anomaly’ then was a shadowy ooze in the form of a mist. What’s been reported now are light shows, thaumaturgic contamination and miasma spikes, areas with inexplicable neutron and beta radiation, and even temporal incongruities.”

Ears back, Twilight chewed on the comparison. “Yeah, nothing springs to mind that could link the two eras, but at the same time, we don’t have a whole lot to go on for the events Stellar Horizon investigated. He didn’t live to give a report. Have you talked about this with the Princess?”

Blueblood turned a shade darker. “Briefly. She’s been very busy, as you can imagine, but I don’t think that’s the real reason she’s shrugged me off on this. I think she doesn’t want to face the idea that there could be a link. She can’t bear it, which I don’t really blame her for. Stellar and she were quite close, much like you two are. Hence I needed to give you this warning myself.

“Now, we could be wrong. This could be much ado about nothing…but it could also be much ado about something just as serious but also completely different. Either way, above all else, history must not repeat itself.”

Author's Note:

Been real busy with work lately. Even though I'm only part time, grocery work is physically demanding. It's not uncommon for me to need a full day to recover from two days of work. Be nice to retail peoples, especially grocery folks. It is genuinely hard work, doubly so in a pandemic.

My wife and I are moving to a new city to be closer to her family in the next couple weeks. However, this means moving, and moving always sucks. I may be able to transfer my work to a new store, I may not. It's unknown right now. if not, I'll have a lot of time for writing and streaming. Been spending a lot of time preparing. About half the stuff is already boxed.

As you might imagine, it's stressful as all hell. Definitely more anxiety than normal lately. Moreover, the first place we're going is likely a temporary location with a more permanent one to follow in the following months, which is double stressful. And I lose access to an ice machine and dishwasher in the meantime. :(

First world problems, amirite?

After the move is completed, I swear I'm going to go through my stuff and get rid of a lot of it so future moves are easier. I normally like having physical books for certain categories of books, but ebooks have one big advantage: they don't take up physical volume and don't have mass. :P Easy to move. Sorry Twi, but it's true.

Somehow, despite working at a grocery store, I avoided covid long enough to get fully vaccinated. I thank my lucky stars about every day for that fact.

You can find my Discord over here, if anyone wants to join. https://discord.gg/uQ22Ykdh Having folks cheer me on is always a huge help.

One more thing, since this is asked a lot. There are five books planned for Rites (god I need to get more productivity), and we're nearing the end of book 2. This mission Twi is on now is the last of book 2. Hope that helps. :)

Thanks again for sticking with me, everyone!
-Cv

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