CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
HEY THERE, EVERYPONY!
SUNSET SHIMMER
When I woke up, Violet was gone.
It wasn't exactly an uncommon occurrence. Violet came from a time where waking up very early was the cultural norm (as was going to bed just so), and so there were quite a few days over the past few weeks where she would instinctively beat me to breakfast by a considerable margin. I had told, her, however, that it was okay to sleep in a bit nowadays, and there were a few times where she took that advice to heart. I had expected this morning to be one of those times, what with the wine and mead involved in last night's festivities (I had fallen asleep the night before excited to see how Twilight would suffer the next morning), but it appears I had been wrong.
I made sure to quickly make my bed after I hopped out of it, the process only taking a few precious seconds with magic. Once I was satisfied, I quickly waltzed over to the bathroom and hit the lever to start the shower, letting it warm up as I looked in the mirror.
I moved my head back and forth, scanning over every little bit of my face as I did so. I had expected to relax for a bit when I came back home, to feel out the place I'd been away from for so long and to get ready to live the rest of my life here, but I'd gotten something entirely different instead. I could see only the faintest hints of stress seeping into my complexion, but they were certainly there, and I gave a loud sigh as I inched closer to the mirror.
"We're gonna win," I told my reflection. "We always do."
I didn't want to shower for too long -- I could feel my stomach rumbling as I got in -- so I hopped out after a short while and quickly dried myself off before beginning to head down the stairs towards the dining hall.
We'd been having community breakfast for a few weeks now, and I was elated that we were able to talk about nothing and eat some delicious food (courtesy of Spike) before going off to discover some ancient rituals or battle enemies returned from the dead. This would be the first one that Silver got to experience, and I was really hoping she would actually show up.
As I hopped off the stairs and began my walk down the long hallway, remembered that we would be missing Starlight. She had made arrangements to pick up Trixie Lulamoon from the train station and bring her back here, and she would likely be gone for a bit. I was glad to have Trixie back to help (she had already contributed to greatly to the search for Celestia's apprentices before she left), and I was also hoping that she could ease Starlight's mind and help her relax with all the chaos going on.
Starlight has always been a bit timid and neurotic in high-pressure situations. From darting out of Our Town almost immediately to apparently "bottling up" all of her anger (Twilight had sent me that letter a long time ago and I still wasn't entirely sure what that entailed), she had a bit of a reputation for losing the levelheadedness that made her such a natural leader of ponies when she was faced with a lot of stress. As such, it made sense that she would be acting a bit strange, but I was never able to ask her how she was doing whenever these things would happen: she'd just disappear for practically the entire night.
I'm gonna talk to her right when she gets back, I reasoned as I walked into the dining hall. I'm sure she'll be just fine.
The dining hall was certainly populated, and it looked as if I'd gotten there just as breakfast was being served. Spike had placed all the food he'd made at the center of the table, and everypony was grabbing all the food their plates could hold.
There were a few notable absences, however. Strangely, Violet and Cobalt were nowhere to be seen, and it was very unlike them to skip out on breakfast here. Silver Jubilee was absent, as was Twilight Sparkle (Twilight had gone a little... excessive on the wine and mead the night prior, so I wasn't too surprised about that one). Finally, Shining had left early in the morning to visit his parents before leaving the city and had taken Flurry with him, of course. With the missing ponies came an extra addition, however, as Rainbow Dash was sitting at the end of the table with another Wonderbolt with a fiery mane and tail and a yellow coat that I didn't recognize. They were both wearing their flight jackets, and I quickly recalled that Rainbow was supposed to fly with the Wonderbolts tonight. She'd given all of us tickets well in advance, and I could feel my eyes light up at the thought of going to the show soon.
I plopped down towards the edge of the table next to Pinkie Pie and grabbed a plate as fast as I could, taking a combination of hay bacon and sunflowers with a glass of orange juice as Pinkie turned to me.
"Hiya, Sunset!" she sang, taking a bite of hay bacon and gulping it down almost comically quick before she spoke again. "Where's Violet and Cobalt? We figured they'd definitely be awake by now!" I swallowed the piece of hay bacon I'd been eating before I turned to the group at the table with a puzzled look.
"You all haven't seen them? I thought she'd just woken up before me like always." The rest of the elements shook their heads, but it was Rainbow Dash who spoke.
"Nope. Wonder where they ran off to?" I shrugged, but I quickly nodded my head to unbelievably cool flight jacket she was wearing.
"You flying tonight?" I asked her. Rainbow raised her eyebrows with an unknowing smile before she answered, and I saw her sneak a tiny glance towards her heavily bruised sides as she did so.
"I'm gonna try," she started. "I met with a team doctor last night as she said I was good to go if I was up to it. I'm technically still on indefinite leave, but we're gonna do some flying in the gardens after breakfast and see how it feels. I miss the lights." She smirked as she said the last line, and she pointed to the mare next to her with a hoof as she continued.
"This is Spitfire, the Captain of the Wonderbolts. She's just stopping by for breakfast and to see how I'm feeling." Spitfire gave me a wave before glancing down to my coat.
"How many red, yellow, and orange friends you got, Crash?" she asked loudly. That drew a laugh from Rainbow, and I was momentarily confused about the name until I spied "Rainbow Crash" written across her flight jacket. I chalked it off as a Wonderbolt thing before turning to the captain.
"It's nice to meet you, Spitfire," I told her, taking a sip of the orange juice. "I'm very excited to see you guys perform. How many shows have you done on your tour so far?" Spitfire leaned back in her chair and looked to the ceiling, presumably counting in her head until she answered.
"Six," she finally replied. "Ponyville, Manehatten, Los Pegasus, San Palomino, Baltimare and Fillydelphia. We hit Canterlot tonight and finish in Cloudsdale." I nodded thoughtfully, opting to take another bite of hay bacon before responding. I knew that Cloudsdale was gonna be the big show, and it was disappointing that Rainbow was likely going to miss it. It was nice that she was able to kick the tour off in Ponyville, though, and I was certainly hoping I would get to see her in action tonight.
Just as I was about to reply, however, I heard some footsteps coming from the doorway, and I looked up to see Violet and Cobalt waltz in. They were just finishing up a conversation, and the two of them took some empty seats to the left of me. Violet sat closest to where I was, and while she gathered her plates and utensils, I made sure to be the first pony to greet her.
"Hey, you," I said, giving her a warm smile. "I didn't see you when I woke up this morning. Where did you two go?" Strangely, I saw a flood of red slowly overtake her, and she refused to look at me with a flush in her face as she answered.
"Ah, yes. Regarding that," she said, entirely unable to hide a sheepish smile. "Cobalt and I have not traveled anywhere. We have just awoken." Cobalt was uncharacteristically silent, but before I could piece together what she was saying, I heard a stern voice call out from where the two had just come in.
"Sunset Shimmer," it called sternly. I looked up to see a member of the Royal Guard standing by the table: I hadn't even heard him approach. Once he had my attention, he continued to speak before I could reply.
"Princess Twilight is up in her tower," he said. "She's sent me to fetch you."
When Twilight Sparkle was on a roll, Tartarus itself could not stop her. We made her pause last night, but she would not be contained for long.
When I trotted up the stairs and pushed the door open, I found yet another missing pony: Silver Jubilee was seated across the table from Twilight, her eyes scanning what appeared to be a very hefty book. Twilight herself was engaged in the same activity, but she looked much worse for wear, and my suspicion that she would suffer the consequences of last night's indulgence was proven to be true. She held her booted hoof up to her head as she scanned the book she was reading, and she read it on the table in front of her with a slight squint of her eyes.
On any other day, she might have shirked her duties to stay in bed just a little bit longer, but not today. Twilight Sparkle was on to something, and she would not be denied.
I admired her resilience and passion for the truth immensely, but that didn't mean I was going to pass up the opportunity to mess with her. She hadn't noticed me walking up, and so I took the deepest breath I could before sitting down next to Silver.
"HEY, TWILIGHT!" I yelled, making sure to even plop down on the seat below me as hard as I possibly could. Silver jumped in surprise, but I wasn't looking at her: Twilight merely stopped reading her book and looked to the ceiling with closed eyes, scrunching her face up as she did so. She took a series of deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling as she let the pain reverberate through her head until it finally subsided to a tolerable level. I was entirely unable to hide an excited Cheshire grin from my face, and after a long, long pause, she finally spoke to me in a rasped voice.
"We should have hit you with the elements one more time," she scathed, her eyes still not ready to open. That drew a fit of laughter from both Silver and I, and after a few seconds, Twilight let the faintest hint of a smile creep on to her face as it finally died down.
"Yeah, but then you couldn't have called me up here," I teased. She raised her eyebrows for a split second, indicating that was precisely the point, and when she finally opened her eyes again I motioned to the books they were reading. There was yet another massive stack of tomes at the very edge of the table, and it appeared as if they had already gone through quite a few of them before I even got here.
"Why did you call me up here?" I asked. I knew the answer, but I let Twilight say it herself while she continued to read whatever page she was opened to.
"Because you're smarter than me," she started. "These are the most forbidden dark magic tomes I could pull from the Starswirl the Bearded wing of the Canterlot Archives, a lot of which Zephyr took quite the inspiration from. I think it's clear that he's the reason all the apprentices are here, but I want to know what that ritual was that Silver stumbled across. We haven't found anything that she recognizes." While I could certainly argue against her first point, I sat back and nodded thoughtfully at the description of her process. It made sense to go where Zephyr started to find out just what he had done, but from the looks of it, they weren't having too much success.
Twilight flipped to a page in the book and held it up to Silver. There was a giant rune sprawled across the pages, and the pattern looked to be made up of colliding circles.
"Did it look like this?" she asked. Silver shook her head in the negative, and with a quick sigh, Twilight put the book down and began searching through the pages once more.
"No, it didn't have any other circles," she began. "It was all inside of one, but the pattern was made up entirely of lines." Twilight nodded in understanding as she continued, fervently flipping pages and scanning over their words.
I didn't pick up a book or read along with the two of them. I just started thinking.
Zephyr had descended into madness during his plunge into dark magic, but his instability didn't take away from his intelligence. From what I understood, everything he did was particular: he held a diary and recorded all of his dabblings in dark magic, as well as his thoughts on the religion he had created from it and devoted himself to. Even still, Twilight had harrowingly told me when she got back from the Crystal Empire that he had a list of every pony employed there just to be sure he had turned each and every one to a thrall.
He had to have gone to the Crystal Empire for some reason, but that was speculation for later. The rune Silver Jubilee saw was definitely his work, and I was certainly willing to bet that it had something to do with why everypony had been rising from the dead lately.
But whatever it was, it was going to be very, very particular.
I tapped my hoof on the table we were sitting at and opened my eyes, looking towards Twilight. She looked up to me with her eyes narrowed and her head tilted slightly to the side, and I knew then that she figured I was on to something.
"Twilight, what exactly is a magic ritual?" I asked. She reeled her head back a bit, as she knew I knew the answer, but she gave it to me regardless as Silver listened intently.
"It's an algorithm of sorts," she started slowly. "A ritual is crafted to do something specific, whether it's to summon something or to trigger an event. You give it instructions in the form of charms and items to fuel it, and it gives you what you want in return." I nodded in the affirmative, but before I could follow up, Silver did it for me.
"So then we have a question to answer," she replied for me. "What did Zephyr want?" Fortunately, it was a very easy one to answer, and Twilight chimed in immediately.
"Chrysanthemum," she stated. "He wanted to cure her. Perhaps he wants to revive her again?" I nodded sagely, but I shook my head almost immediately afterward. I felt like I had some sort of spotlight on me with the way the two of them were looking at me.
"That isn't the whole story. He likely wants Chrysanthemum back now, but not at the cost of his own life. He wants to be there with her, not to sacrifice himself so that she can live. We also can't forget that this is his religion, too, and he wants as many converts as he can get. He believes that dark magic and those who used it are the keys to some sort of higher understanding." Twilight's eyes widened the farthest they could go in her state, and she quickly closed the book in front of her with her magic and placed it neatly on top of the pile.
"So the ritual that Silver saw had something to do with one of those things," she said. "It was either Chrysanthemum or to spread his dark magic. Whatever it was, I'm absolutely certain it's the reason we're all here. It can't be a coincidence." She narrowed her eyes and gritted her teeth, the frustration clearly evident as the gears in her head fired further.
"If only we had something definitive that could tell us. We can't afford to keep guessing." That was the trigger: as soon as she finished her sentence, I could feel my own eyes light up as I pointed my hoof towards her frantically once more.
"Didn't Celestia say he kept a journal?"
There was a renewed spring in Twilight's step as we walked down the stairs and back into the castle.
Thankfully, Celestia was still in the castle at the moment. Celestia wasn't scheduled to be out and about today, but she was still running the country, so we wanted to make sure we could talk to her early in the morning in hopes that her workflow wouldn't have picked up yet. Luna was away, however, as she had already committed to a week-long diplomatic trip to Saddle Arabia and had left at the end of the night last night. Thankfully, we only needed our former mentor, and so we were currently making our way up to her study as we traversed once again through the halls of the castle.
"Where do you think she keeps it?" Silver asked, though she quickly tacked on to the question. "Assuming she still has it."
"She said she's read it," Twilight answered, shrugging her shoulders as we turned a corner. "I honestly have no idea whether she's kept it or not, but it's worth a shot to ask. That information would be game-changing." I nodded in agreement, and the three of us continued down the hall in silence for quite some time.
We were interrupted, however, when we passed by the large double doors that marked the entrance to the castle. They slowly began to creak open as we passed, and it only took a second to remember the group of ponies we had been expecting this morning.
Sure enough, Starlight and Trixie ducked through the doors, and we stopped dead in our tracks and they entered the castle. Trixie's face lit up upon seeing us, and she broke into a brisk trot with Starlight as she ran to meet us.
"Hey there, everypony!" she called, running to Twilight first. She wrapped her in an embrace, but she made sure to do it carefully with regard to the boot on her right hoof. Strangely enough, Trixie had a small brown satchel hanging at her side, and she had to adjust her hug to make sure it didn't press into Twilight uncomfortably. When she looked up to meet her, though, her face dropped, and she held a hoof up to her mouth before addressing her.
"Are you okay, Twilight? You look very sick!" Starlight's gaze seemed to echo the concern, but both of their faces quickly twisted in befuddlement as the three of us broke out into laughter. Twilight answered her when the laughter eventually died down, and the quiet raspiness in her tone gave her away almost immediately.
"You could say that, I suppose," she replied. Trixie and Starlight's eyes widened as an understanding quickly came to them, and they shared their own quick chuckle amidst all of our grins. Suddenly, however, Trixie pointed her hoof in the air, and she used her magic to open the satchel at her side whilst rummaging through it.
"Oh, I almost forgot! Sunset, do you remember that mailbox you bought down at the post office when you first got here?" I tilted my head forward, but before I could even react with confusion -- I certainly had not done anything of the sort -- Trixie looked up to me with a glare that sent a chill through my veins.
She was smiling ear to ear, but it acted as a thin veil. There was an extremely unsettling pleading from her eyes, and I could almost feel the nervous twitches of her skin and the fear from inside her as she pulled out a letter and hung it in the air. She didn't dare say a word, but her message was very clear. I tried my absolute hardest to make a neutral expression, and thankfully, Silver and Twilight didn't seem to notice that anything was wrong.
"Yes, of course!" I answered, perhaps a little too jubilantly. Again, nopony seemed to notice I was lying, and Starlight stood behind Trixie with an unassuming grin as she looked toward the letter.
"I went ahead and picked up a letter for you! It's from some sort of moving company." She passed it over to me, and when I grabbed it, I looked carefully at the address my "letter" had come from. It was from "Canterlot Moving Co.", and aside from the incredibly generic name, every bit of it seemed legit: it was even stamped properly.
"Aww, thanks, Trix! Let me go see if there's a letter opener somewhere. If it's a bill, I don't want to rip it."
I walked away as casually as I could, and although I saw a weird face from Twilight and Silver, I paid it no mind. Of course, I didn't need a letter opener, and so I ducked around the corner of the hallway I'd escaped down with haste and shuffled into a guest room as far down the hall as I could find one. Very gently closing the door, I quickly ripped the top off the envelope and let it drop to the floor as I opened up the piece of paper inside.
When I did, I had to stifle a gasp.
Inside was a note that was scribbed down frantically, the tremors from fear entirely evident in the stroke. It was three simple words written in large capital letters, but they were enough to put a sickness in my stomach and a chill down my spine.
THATS NOT STARLIGHT
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The text in the image can't be read when you've got the black background on. I only noticed there was something there because there was too much empty space left at the end of the chapter.
9628172
Thanks for letting me know! It's still readable on my end, but it's definitely difficult with the darker background. I might just change it to text.
Yeah, Zephyr isn't the crux, is he?
But the real question is: what are they going to do about the interloper?
He worships darkmagic and thinks that those who use it are the keys to a higher understanding... he is after Sombra, isn't he?
Most powerful dark magic user who just happened to be tied to the Crystal Empire and seems to have given himself some form of immortality. All the Crystal Ponies have been touched by his dark magic via brainwashing as well. If that was my crazed religion, Sombra would be a rather important part of it.
Good girl Trixie, that was the best thing to do. Not sure what Sunset is going to be able to do against Chrysalis bet better to be forewarned.
9628187
Go into your image editor of choice, and place a copy of the text a few pixels to the side but coloured white.
Perhaps then recolour the original text to match the night mode background colour. That way, no matter what setting a reader is on, they will see only one copy of the text.
On the other hand, pictures aren't visible if a viewer downloads the chapter as a text file. Yeah, maybe text would be best.
9628420
Changed to just text! Didn't even think about people who might wanna download the chapter
Yep, there goes my long shot in the dark
as we get the obvious.
Still, I think the students of Celestia are overlooking an obvious problem...namely, that even if Chrysanthemum isn't around, they are. Zephyr, if he is the one in question (I don't recall his coat and mane colours being mentioned so can't line that up with the ritual), somehow managed to revive ponies who were long-dead into the prime in the modern day, complete with their memories and personality. There's obviously a cost because, y'know, dark magic, but I can imagine a lot of ponies will be very tempted to follow Zephyr's religion if it ever gets out what he is capable of doing.
9640844
Zephyr's coat and mane color are both mentioned in Chapter Four, "Clang"
Finally, I know who's perspective I'm reading about!
Twilight! Don't put yourself down! It makes my heart go all sad and unfluffy when my favorite pony says such a thing!
I agree Sunset, I could and would certainly argue against her first point. Not to say that you're not smart yourself, though: you two are probably around the same but with differences depending on the field.
Did they get Trixie too?!
Oh, of course! If any pony would notice, it's her
marefriendbest friend who just spent an entire outing with her! Sorry for doubting you, Trixie, and way to go!Now, just what can they do about this?
9642580
It's words like those that attract Murphy.
NB4 Starlight x Trixie x Changeling apprentice I forgot the name of ménage a Trois
Meandered back to do my (fourth) re-read of this story, and this bit still gives me little shivers.
11480605
Thank you! Changelings as a concept are very, very creepy and I knew from the jump I wanted to play around with that.
You've written some of my favorite stories on the site, so I'm honored you like this one enough to reread it that many times.