Journey To Hearth's Warming

by Lighttone GryphonStar

S3 Episode 21: The Royal Bargain

Twilight's eyes traced open and over the darkness of the prison. Only a few more hours had passed. The rain had stopped, leaving only the dripping behind.

Whereas the rain before provided her with a light in this darkness. This dripping brought only disappointment. His rain was a joy, but it wasn't enough; she longed for freedom. She reached up to the window and hit the bars. She sneered, as the feelings weren't enough. She hit again, this time far harder, and no answer came. She pushed at the walls harder, shouting for help, but no answer came.

Finally, she fell back down and caved. She didn't want to admit it but there was no way out. His rain was a graceful relief as it kept her monstrous side at bay, but it wasn't a savior. Clinging to it was pointless. All she could do now was let the tears flow instead of the rain.

"Damn it, why is this happening? Why can't I change things? What is the point of being in this past if everything is doomed to fail?!" she screamed. "I want to change this war! I wanted to make things right! This is not my fate!!"

As if listening to her roar of rage, the walls shook, and a loud crackle stopped her. She looked to the window, only for her eyes to go wide and see lightning rushing toward her, somehow in slow motion. She didn't waste time questioning it and jumped out of the way.

The walls were torn open by the power of the blast. The form of lightning and its movement made her realize it wasn't lightning at all. Where most lightning was blue, this was maroon red; this was dark magic. Standing within the bolt of dark magic was a figure just about half a foot taller than her. The light, or rather darkness, around the figure, faded, unveiling a blue siren with a golden brown mane tied tightly into a long braid, stretching down to his belt. He wore a silver full body armor with magenta outlines along the edges and cut through each incline, forming a chest symbol of an 'I' over a 'W'; a bold long white fur cape with a navy blue inline flowed out from behind the armor.

Twilight was perplexed at first by this strange siren, questioning who he was until she felt his palm pick her up off the ground. The siren brought her close and held her tightly as guards rushed in; alerted by the sounds.

Twilight fell into the siren's embrace as he held out his hand to the guards. With a blast of more maroon magic, the water in the air pooled forth and shot at the guards, slicing through their armor and throwing them to the walls.

The screams of the soldiers did little to hinder the calm and kindness Twilight felt from the siren. She held on tighter and they lifted off the ground and up into the clouds. Once within safety, Twilight looked up at the face, finally seeing its features, a smooth beard, and cold eyes... cold eyes. The last detail that stayed with her for far longer than she ever expected.

As the rain swept by, she hid her face in his coat and whispered, "Thank you, Cold Blue."

******

"And that was the last thing I remember before he brought me here." Twilight lowered her head after finishing her story to Golden Williams.

"Keep still, just a little longer." The pink alicorn noted. Twilight readjusted herself on the glowing stand.

She had hoped Blood Diamond had stayed to listen, but after hearing her plan, he took his leave to make his moves, leaving the connection to Golden Williams still open.

"Interesting. My brother has told me of how Cold Blue has had his brash moments before, but he almost always stayed calm. This one has to take the cake of strangeness for the very few times he has been defiant. You must have sparked something out of him."

"I'm not sure how? This was my first meeting with him."

"But not his first meeting with you. In fact, every time he met you, it was your darkest self."

Twilight looked back at those moments, hoping to understand him, but each scene was so fuzzy in her mind. For the longest time, she could only rely on what Starlight described, and even then Cold Blue's form was just a shadow to her until today. The first time she saw Cold Blue for real, it felt very different from those fuzzy visions. They were so empty and easy to throw away, yet the sight of him this time was so clear but full of emotions that she couldn't figure out. All she could do was the question, "Does Cold Blue have a darker form?"

"Yes, all dark magic users do. It's a power they must control, or else it controls them. That is the most I can tell you. I have never used such magic, nor can I so understand it falls to you and him."

"What about Blood Diamond?"

"The closest he knows is Stygian, the shadow pony and you'll find getting ahold of that ounce of darkness is even harder than the Blood Diamond trusting you."

"Trusting me? How can you tell? I gave him such secret information?!"

"Do you have a brother in your time?"

"Yes, but--"

"Then you can understand how I can see right through my brother's crystal hard mind whereas you cannot."

"I... I understand. Twilight looked away. "In my time... I was always told the alicorns were— Are always so wise and trusting," she quickly corrected.

"And who told you this? Celestia?" Golden Williams laughed. Twilight nodded, leading to him laughing harder. "That mare's hope is often too strong for her good. Luna is a completely different picture, so depressing."

"Spoiler alert! Those two never change." Twilight smiled.

"Brilliant, just brilliant!!" Golden Williams stopped and rubbed his head. "Okay, it is complete, you can step off."

Doing as he said, Twilight was surprised to see a perfect duplicate of herself now standing in the same spot she was. "So lifelike." She placed her hand over the cheek, half expecting it to react.

"These life models are based on our mother's magic. While she may not be around to bring these to life, I can make a close facsimile." Golden Williams bowed and waved his hand through his screen and the model glowed. "Just tell it where to go and what to do and it will listen to your command, but be very specific."

"Okay." Twilight removed her hand and spoke to the model. "Me, you will leave with Blood Diamond and fight in this war against Princess Platinum. Do not kill her. Simply fight her to your best abilities as me only if she poses a threat to you or Blood Diamond."

The model came to attention and saluted her. "Good," Twilight smiled. She gave the model one last look over. Her eyes stopped at the ears and how there were holes in them. The detail looked so familiar. "Why are the ears different?"

"A design flaw left behind during the copying process, the smaller the detail, the harder it is to duplicate." Golden Williams was stopped as Blood Diamond returned. "Though, that exact flaw happens in all of them in the same spot."

The red alicorn looked over the copy before noting the same point that Twilight remarked on. "They never change even after all these years."

It was at this moment Twilight noticed a similar hole in Blood Diamond, remembering back to Golden Williams's words Twilight poked where she really shouldn't have. "Blood Diamond, who is he?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" Blood Diamond narrowed his eyes on her.

"When we first met, you spoke with a 'we'. At first, I thought it was royal fanatics, but now I see this and question your own ears. You dropped the 'we' only to act as if someone else was in control of your body. Just like another alicorn, I know in modern times."

"Twilight, asking him that isn't wise--" Golden Williams was stopped by Blood Diamond smashing the screen.

"Ask him again, I dare you." Blood Diamond's voice deepened just like it did before and he dropped the 'we' just like before.

Twilight grinned through her fear at the knife-like eyes reappearing. "Him, who are you?"

"I..." Blood Diamond's eyes went wide. "I... am nothing!! I do not exist!!" the deeper voice screamed before halting. His hand raised and a crystal shard stabbed through his foot, making the deeper voice scream in pain.

"What? You don't have control of the body?!" Twilight jumped back and readied herself in case the real Blood Diamond was returning with rage. She got just that, as the floor of the airship flew open without warning, sending her falling toward the ground.

Blood Diamond fell back in his chair and waved his hand over the screen to bring it back.

"Where is Twilight?" Golden Williams answered.

"She's finding her destination." Blood Diamond removed the crystal from his foot and healed his wound. "Damn bitch reminds me a lot of Luna."

"Similar teaching, obviously."

"Right, similar teaching?" Blood Diamond looked at the Twilight copy and frowned at the ears. "You need to get better at copying your mother's work. And enough with these lies." He waved his hand over the ears and they were fixed.

"Sorry, I just wanted to get a reaction out of all three of you. I didn't expect Twilight to 'poke the bugbear' so to speak."

******

As Twilight fell, she facepalmed at her actions. She had already pushed a big button with the revelation of Starlight's origins, so confronting him on other information was obviously off the table. "Damn it, I was hoping it would be like Nightmare Moon and Luna. Looks like I'll have to rely on Cold Blue for intel on how to control my monstrous side."

"You provoked that other side of him for that reason alone?"

It was at this moment Twilight noticed a voice was coming from the surrounding clouds. "Wait, when did you return?"

"Return?" The clouds rushed around her, catching her in a thick damp net of magic. "I never left." Cold Blue took a proper form.

"So, you can use form magic, much like..." Twilight stopped herself. Whereas with Blood Diamond, she will poke buttons. She hesitated to question Cold Blue.

"My magic is very similar to Indigo Frost. Is that going to be a problem?"

"No, it is just..."

"Are you still afraid after all this time of who he might be?"

Twilight's eyes widened. Was she that easy-to-read right now, or was he that good enough to simply able to read her with little information alone? She raised her hand to her eyepatch. "I need answers if I'm going to face him again." She dropped her hand to the city below them. "I need the information to stop this war." She pointed to him, "I need details if I am going to control this new side of me on my own."

"So..." His eyes drifted away at the words, 'my own'. "Is this the real you?"

"Well, I'm certainly no monster." She dropped her guarded hand into an offering hand.

"Yes, the truth of it all." Now Cold Blue was the one to be hesitant, reaching slowly to the hand before Twilight gripped them together and shook in agreement.

"That is settled. I will take your help."

"On that, it will take a while for my master to make his move and lure Princess Platinum away. Where should you go until then?"

"Hmm," Twilight took a moment to think of a few places. She couldn't go back to the titan airship because that would be the first they would look. As much as she didn't want to leave Starlight out of this, she needed to keep her distance and keep Blood Diamond distant until she was sure that he could be truly trusted? "How about the Gross?"

"The unicorn black market?"

"You know of it."

"Yes, we will move through the mist." Cold Blue waved his hands around them; his magic followed the movement, pulling the surrounding clouds before dropping them straight down. The clouds flew with them as they descended back to the city and the entrance to the dread and disgusting underground of Gross.

******

As they left, a single patch of red stopped in place, a single red snowflake. As they lower, it turned away and rose upward, reaching beyond the clouds and to the bright moonlit sky. There it stopped and spun in place. As it spun, more red snowflakes came into view from below and gathered tightly around it.

Once enough of them had gathered, the central one passed over the others, and whispers echoed forth. After a last moment, the whispering softened into a quiet buzz before stopping completely.

The red snowflakes separated and flew off in different paths over each of the pony lands and kingdoms, while a final grouping stayed behind to watch as his plan continued.

******

One group heading to the east sped up toward the grouping of mighty clouds as big as oceans. Inside, beyond lovely rainbows and rain, were spires of rock stabbing through the ocean like clouds. On these spires, islands were deep blue cities. However, these red snowflakes were not heading to any of those, instead, lowering themselves just before they came into sight of the pegasi that stood guard. Dropping through cold and dirty rain, canyons came into sight.

These canyons were so deep that a bottom couldn't be seen, the spires from above reached out of the darkness like forever towers of stone. Going deeper down, holes could be spotted in these spires, caverns leading to brown and dark cities.

And this was the snowflakes' destination; below the Pegasus Isles laid the Batpony Canyons.

The red snowflakes were flagged down by a hooded figure. They lowered to the figure's spot deep within the westernmost canyon cave entrance. Once there, the red snowflakes gathered together into a face in the air.

The figure smiled and held out his decaying hands in surrender. "Child of Ice and Water, how is your guidance on the light and darkness?"

"It is perfect, Thule. I assume since you are not referring to me by my father's name that the others have not arrived."

"Don't be concerned about that, Indigo Frost," Thule corrected. "Sage and Vanity are exploring this new land as we speak. They were concerned about why you asked to bring the remains of Vanity's sibling."

Using their ashes will become clear soon enough, for now, to keep them safe." Indigo Frost's eyes narrowed as another group crossed his mind. "Has the Night Brothers contacted you yet?"

Thule's hood lowered in disappointment. "Their mission's completion is unknown. But do you remember where their target lies?"

"That's why I have made contact. It seems their teacher is on the move."

"What do you mean? They need to change direction."

"No," Indigo Frost gave an evil grin. "Their chance of succeeding has increased. Tell them to attack a ship heading toward the Unicorn Providence from the Alicorn Citadel. In doing so, they'll be directly in their former teacher's path?"

******

Back in the capital, Rex and Clover arrived at the prison where Twilight had been held; Silver Pear following close behind. Appearing out of a shadow, the two entered the building and found most of it empty outside of some security tape.

"Hmm, would have thought this place would have been more guarded, especially after what happened?" Clover questioned as she flipped over the tape.

"Unlikely, the princess was shown to have quite the temper. The guards are out looking for Twilight and Cold Blue."

"How certain... are you that this is his work?!" Silver Pear dropped to the ground, out of breath as he had to walk.

"Blood Diamond never handles the minor stuff; hence, why he has so many working under him. From Cold Blue, to my former master, to me at one point."

"Speaking of which?" Clover stopped at a turn to allow Silver Pear to catch up. "Clovis said my father is in the city."

"What?" Rex paused. "Do you think he might appear too?"

"Just saying since he hasn't gotten used to our..." Her hand reached for Rex, only to be halted as Clovis finally caught up with the three of them.

"Look, I don't know... where our father is. I just know that he left for this city over twenty days ago." Clovis was far slower than all three of them, though Silver Pear attempted to lose him several times.

"Who is your father, anyway?" Silver Pear questioned.

"We're getting off track!" Rex huffed in annoyance before taking the turn and going ahead of them. "Now which floor."

"Third floor up, twenty-third room."

"He's right, we need to find Twilight." Clover was a bit misplaced upon hearing her father was somewhere in the city, but she was distracted by Rex's need to find Twilight too. Sure, she didn't want Lord Red's armies here any sooner than him, but if the reports were true, Blood Diamond had Twilight now, therefore Lord Red wasn't an obstacle.

The group moved through the building's floors until they reached the right one. Originally, they were going to search the sides for the blast point, but it was clear from a distance that the opening had been closed. They would have to find another way to the cell.

"Okay, the third floor should be beyond this door." Rex cut the last tape and opened the door, stopping in place. His eyes went wide.

"Okay, it should be the twenty-third room--" Clovis was halted in his tracks by the sight of everything, dropping to the ground and puking.

Silver Pear and Clover stepped over him but were just as shocked by the sight; hundreds of unicorns ripped apart; their blood smeared across the walls and floor. The three that could keep going moved slowly through the hallway of body parts and broken bars.

"This couldn't have been just one siren?!" Silver Pear's mouth hung agape.

"He did all of this under Blood Diamond's order?!" Clover covered her mouth as each scene got more and more gruesome.

"No," Rex dropped as the bodies flipped through the dismemberment. "Blood Diamond would only desire such gore from himself, not Cold Blue."

"Then he got involved."

"No," Rex pointed out the water everywhere under the bodies. "This was indeed Cold Blue's work. It's been a long time since I saw him this mad."

"The calming storm of Blood Diamond's wrath! Impossible!!" Clovis completely disagreed.

"Believe what you will, but truth be told, this isn't even his worst."

"His worst?" Silver Pear's eyes widened.

"Yes," Rex dropped the body and stood up. "Now where is the room?"

"Over here!" Clover called out to them.

The three made their way to her and opened the cell. Rex pushed Clovis in and demanded, "Scan!"

"What? Why me?"

"You are a master at teleportation, and frankly, Cold Blue has never been very good at it. Most of the time, he relied on form magic."

"Form? What do you mean, like Indigo Frost?"

"Yes, very similar to the wendigo, only instead of snowflakes, Cold Blue's form is liquid, a power passed down through his family for many generations. Had he just entered and left without Twilight, we wouldn't need you, Clovis?"

"Since he left with Twilight, teleportation had to be involved, huh." Clovis huffed and filled his horn with magic.

A yellow glow flowed over the room; it crept over the chunks of body parts and through the dry blood, reaching the floor and walls. The magic twisted into each crack before expanding outward, engulfing the entire room in yellow light.

Clovis closed his eyes and images flew through his mind. He studied them carefully, from Cold Blue entering, to Twilight falling unconscious in his arms, to his senseless slaughter of any unicorn that dared to stand in his way. It was just as vile as the current state of this room, but Cold Blue wasn't after torture as he originally assumed, rather Princess Platinum's soldiers were so determined to take Twilight back that they didn't care what stood in their way either even if it was the bodies of their other comrades.

"Well, what do you see?" Rex tired of waiting.

The cowardly unicorn dropped to his knee at an image of Cold Blue slicing the last guard in half. The shock of the bodies was too much, yes, but seeing this sparked something within the coward of which he dare not utter to the others.

"Clovis!" Clover rushed to her brother's fall, but he pushed her away and straightened himself.

"No, I'm fine. I don't know where they were..."

"Were? They were just here?!" Silver Pear interrupted him.

"No, he means the trail is being masked."

"Yes, they left here and disappeared completely from sight before appearing several miles above us." Clovis looked upward.

"An airship, no surprise Blood Diamond would have one nearby. How far up?" Rex questioned as he prepared his magic.

"No, after that they went back down." Clovis dropped his head. "Below us."

"Below?" Silver Pear's eyes raised. "Wait, you mean this city's black market? I know where that is, but why would they go there."

"That matters not. Tell us the way," Rex pointed Silver Pear to his shadow. "Exact measurements when going underground or we're all dead."

"Uh, okay." Silver Pear thought back to an accurate depth.

Meanwhile, Clover noticed her brother was still shaken. She padded him on the back, "Well done. You are still the best at this." When she noticed her words didn't stop his fear, she questioned, "What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure, but even the weakest teleporter wouldn't move as slow as Cold Blue did," Clovis whispered.

"Well, he was carrying Twilight."

"No, it took him a full five hours to reach Blood Diamond. During that time, his location was beyond even my strongest scans." He kept his words as quiet as possible around Rex. He knew Rex and Cold Blue were rivals and had been for a long time, so he was unsure if this information would change the umburm's next move. They needed to find Twilight before things got out of hand, the unicorn had been given a mission by his master Lord Red and despite all the horrors he saw today none of them compared to the punishments that awaited him should his master find out how things were falling apart right now.

******

Author's Note:

Remember the missing hours as Twilight doesn't even remember those, if anything is going to be taken from this chapter it is that. I'm sorry this will be the only chapter coming out this month from any of my stories. Hopefully, this head cold finally leaves by November.

Again we continue with these smaller chapters, this has less to do with the head cold and more on me wanting to slow down on the amount I am posting. Hopefully, you all enjoy this smaller format as this is much easier to pump out.