My Brave Pony: The Knight Who Fell From Space

by Scipio Smith

Lightning Dawn

Lightning Dawn

“Promised land?” Twilight repeated incredulously. “Equestria is your promised land?”

“It’s been lost for so long and I found it!”

“Ahem!” Krysta coughed into her hand.

“Yes, of course, sorry Krysta, we found it. We found it!”

“Can you just-“ Twilight began.

“So when can we meet Princess Celestia? Is she as beautiful as the tales tell? Does she shine like starlight when the candles are extinguished? Is her coat fairer than the rarest pearl that can be bought with all the treasures of the world?”

“Uh,” Twilight hesitated; she’d never really had occasion to think of Princess Celestia in such a vein before now. The princess was radiant, to be sure, but when Twilight thought of her teacher she thought more of her wisdom, her power, her limitless patience and eternal benevolence of nature; she thought of the warmth of her feathers when she sheltered Twilight beneath her wings, the softness of her coat when she bent down to nuzzle Twilight’s cheek; the way that they would sit before the fire, sipping hot cocoa as they discussed this spell or that theory. To think of her in such terms as Lightning was using – she strongly suspected that he was quoting someone, or something; perhaps a book that he had read or a poem that he heard recited – was so alien to her that it temporarily robbed her of the ability to formulate a coherent response.

“So when can we meet her?” Lightning repeated. “I suppose you have to get in touch with her first. I’m sure she will be thrilled to know that His Majesty has kept faith with her for all this time.”

“Excuse me?”

“But before you do that can you show us around?” Lightning went on. “I want to see all that there is to be seen and know all who there are to be known. Actually, no I want to see everything, and I’m sure that as the student of Princess Celestia – what an honour that must be – you know all the notables that we should know.”

“Yes, I am honoured by the princess’ interest in me, more than I can say,” Twilight murmured. “Um, could you just calm down for maybe one-“

Lightning, who almost appeared to have lost ten years of his age in the last few moments, started bouncing up and down on his hooves like a young colt on Hearth’s Warming. “Krysta, check this out, I’m bouncing on the same patch of grass where the King my father once walked in the days of his glory, isn’t this amazing!”

Krysta grinned. “Are you sure that he stepped on that particular patch of grass?”

“He walked upon this grass in general, whether he actually put his hoof right here doesn’t really matter and I won’t let you ruin this for me.”

“I’m not trying to ruin anything,” Krysta said. “I think this is great, I haven’t seen you get this excited since… have I ever seen you this excited about anything?”

“I can’t help it,” Lightning said. “It’s Equestria, Krysta, Equestria!”

Twilight looked at her friends. “Is this what it’s like knowing me?”

Rainbow, Applejack and Rarity exchanged glances with one another. “There is a sometime similarity, darling, one must admit,” Rarity murmured.

Twilight winced. “I’m sorry.”

“Aw, you got nothing to apologise for, Sugarcube,” Applejack said, rubbing Twilight’s head affectionately with one hoof. “If you were any different you wouldn’t be the Twilight Sparkle we all love so much.”

“Although who would have thought that the alien space prince would turn out to be as much of a dork as you,” Rainbow said.

“Rainbow Dash!” Rarity said.

“In a nice way, obviously,” Rainbow said. “You knew that, right Twi?”

“Yeah,” Twilight said, with a sheepish smile. “I knew that.”

Prince Lightning Dawn, having again temporarily appeared to forget that he had an audience, seemed to have been once more reminded that the eyes of strangers were upon him. His mottled, marbled face reddened, or at least those parts of it that were white did, leaving the grey streaks and veins that seemed far less attractive against a backdrop of embarrassed crimson than they had against the white that was his normal colouring. “Once again I, um, once again I must beg your forgiveness my, um, Lady, uh, do you have a title?”

“No,” Twilight said quietly. “I’m just plain old Twilight Sparkle.”

“Not that plain,” Rarity said. “You are the princess’ student, after all.”

“I… I guess,” Twilight said. “That still doesn’t mean… Twilight Sparkle will be fine.”

“Miss Twilight Sparkle,” Lightning said. “Once again I beg your forgiveness for my loss of control. This place… this is what so many of our people have sought for so long and to be here… I fear it is quite intoxicating.”

“There’s nothing forgive as far as I’m concerned,” Twilight said. “I know exactly what it’s like to get so excited about a new discovery that little things like, well, the fact that you look ridiculous can go flying out of your mind. Um, Prince Lightning, would you mind explaining a little more about what you mean when you say that Equestria is your promised land? All of this is completely new to me.”

“You are Princess Celestia’s student and she has told you none of this?” Lightning asked.

“Apparently not,” Twilight replied evenly. “For which I’m sure that she had a good reason.” I hope so, anyway. She would hate to think that it was a sign that there was not quite so much trust between Twilight and Celestia as Twilight had hoped and believed.

“I will explain everything to you, and answer any question that you put to me,” Lightning assured her. “But later, if I may. Can we please have that tour first? I fear that I couldn’t concentrate with the chance to explore Equestria so close at hand, almost at my hoof-tips.”

Twilight smiled. Even though Lightning’s earlier mannerisms and his transient concern for his dignity had been and were foreign to her, his enthusiasm for what was to him a new and wondrous discovery was something that she could get understand perfectly well. It was even a little infectious. “I suppose that there’s no harm in showing you both around Ponyville. Applejack, what do you say we start by heading over to Sweet Apple Acres; Ponvyille was founded by-“

“Sweet Apple Acres,” Lightning repeated. “It sounds like a farm.”

“That’s cause it is a farm,” Applejack said. “Best apple farm in all of Equestria, matter of fact.”

Krysta said nothing; but she silently stepped closer to Lightning, seeming to almost press herself against his armoured flank. Applejack, on the other side of Lightning, didn’t see that, but Twilight could see it well enough from where she stood.

Lightning cleared his throat. “Yes, well, when I said that I wanted to see everything… Miss Twilight Sparkle, even if it is an Equestrian farm I nevertheless think we can do without that particular part of the tour. I’ve no particular interest in farming.”

“Y’all eat where you come from, don’t you? Are you interested in that?” Applejack demanded.

“I know where the food on my father’s table comes from,” Lightning replied. “I just have no desire to see it at the source, or mingle with the sorts of creatures who produce it.”

“The sorts of creatures,” Applejack repeated. “You know maybe we here in Equestria are a little spoiled in Princess Celestia or maybe I’ve just been spoiled knowing Twilight like I do but I almost expected a prince to have a little more manners. I guess I was mistaken.” She looked at Twilight. “I’ll see you around, Twilight; if you need me I’ll be at the farm, if you’re interested.” She turned her gaze once more on Lightning Dawn. “Goodbye, your highness, I’ll leave you to the company of creatures that you can mingle with.”

She stalked off, making no effort to disguise the high dudgeon of her stride as she strode away in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres.

Rainbow glanced at Twilight. “You don’t need me for anything right now, do you Twilight? You seem to have this covered?”

“Uh,” Twilight hesitated. She didn’t really want to be left alone with these two right now, but at the same time she didn’t want to make any of her friends stay where they clearly weren’t comfortable. “Sure,” she said, albeit with some reluctance in her tone. “I can manage here.”

Rainbow practically sighed with relief. “Thanks, Twilight. I’ll see you around. Hey, Applejack! Wait up a second!” she flew off after Applejack, swiftly catching up to her and proceeding to hover alongside her as the two headed off together.

“Well,” Rarity said sharply. “I must say, Prince Lightning Dawn, that I am inclined to agree with Applejack upon one thing: a prince should have better manners than to be so frightfully rude.”

“I agree,” Twilight said. “That was completely uncalled for.”

Lightning’s face was stony, and gave no sign that their words troubled him at all. “Nevertheless,” he said. “They are the words that I have spoken. May we continue?”

“I’m not sure,” Twilight said sharply. “Are you going to insult all the rest of my friends? Are there any more places that you’re going to decide that you don’t want to go because the kind of ponies there aren’t the kind you wish to mingle with?”

Lightning’s face showed no reaction. “I doubt it, Miss Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight stared unblinking into his golden eyes. “You owe Applejack an apology, prince or no,” she said.

“And I will give it,” Lightning said. “But not right now.” Gone was his earlier enthusiasm, the juvenile excitement that had animated him; now there was a kind of rocky immobility to him, a quality that would not be moved off this ground on which he had chosen to plant himself for whatever reason. He would, Twilight felt, do as she had bid, but she could demand that he do it now until her face turned blue and it wouldn’t happen.

“You give me your word?”

“Upon my honour as a knight, I guarantee it,” Lightning said, bowing his head.

Twilight pursed her lips together. “Very well,” she murmured. “Excuse me, just a moment.” With a gesture of her head she motion for Rarity and Pinkie to come closer, and the three of them put their heads together as Twilight turned her back upon Lightning and Krysta.

“Do you think that we ought to take him to visit Fluttershy?” Twilight asked. “If he reacts to her like he did to Applejack then she might take it very hard.”

“Fluttershy is pretty sensitive,” Pinkie said. “Perhaps we ought to leave her for now.”

“I think you’re both underestimating how strong Fluttershy can be, and how stubborn when the mood takes her,” Rarity said. “I think she’ll be rather upset to know that she was left out of everything, and she must have heard that dreadful noise by now and be wondering what in Equestria is going on.”

Twilight hesitated for a moment. The absent Rainbow was Fluttershy’s oldest friend in Ponyville – or anywhere, for that matter – but in spite of that Rarity was probably Fluttershy’s best friend, and the one who understood her the best of all of them. If that was her judgement then who was Twilight to question it? It wasn’t as if Fluttershy hadn’t already proved that she could be stronger than anyone expected her to be, even if only in extremis.

She nodded, and turned once more to face their visitors. “We’ll take you to our friend Fluttershy’s cottage, and the come back around into town to show you the rest of Ponyville,” she declared. “Why don’t you both follow me?”

Krysta scrambled up onto Lightning’s back, straddling him with her legs and holding on to his mane with one hand. “Lead the way,” she said.

Twilight did lead the way, and she could confess to herself that she was a little surprised that Lightning, being much taller than she was, didn’t match pace with her. Rather he lagged behind, with Rarity and Pinkie trailing him at a pace that was slow for them – especially for Pinkie Pie – as though they were afraid he would get left behind otherwise, or perhaps because they wanted to keep an eye on him.

The reason for Lightning’s sloth was not that he had short legs, far from it, nor was it that his armour or Krysta riding on his back like a sack of potatoes on a pack mule was weighing him down because as far as Twilight was able to work out he didn’t feel the weight of her or his garb of war on him at all. No, the reason why Lightning wasn’t able to keep up with Twilight was because every time she looked around behind her she found him dawdling, stopping to sniff the air or watch a bird fly overhead or stop the stare at the grass beneath his hooves with such intensity it was as if he thought that all the mysteries of life could be found written there. Once Twilight looked behind her to see that a vibrant blue butterfly had landed on Lightning’s nose and both he and Krysta were staring at it with wide-eyed awe, the latter leaning forward with her chin resting upon Lightning’s head, slowly reaching out with her small and slender fingers to touch it.

She frightened it off, and Krysta pouted as the butterfly fluttered away. Twilight was the one left staring. It was charming, the way that they were both as wide-eyed as any ingénue in the face of things that Twilight and her friends took for granted, but at the same time it was faintly bizarre to her the way that Lightning could go from being thus to being so brusque and rude as he had been to Applejack. It was almost as though there were two Lightning Dawns, the white marble and the grey veins that mottled his coat; Twilight wondered which Lightning would be arriving at Fluttershy’s cottage.

They were still a little way off from there when Lightning stopped again before a set of yellow rosebushes; he bent down to sniff at them.

“Do they not have flowers where you come from, your highness?” Rarity asked. “Or is it simply roses that you lack?”

Lightning glanced at her. “Flowers and roses both we have, some larger than these, some sweeter of smell, some lovelier to look upon; but these are large enough, smell sweet enough, are fair enough to look at that their provenance gives them an especial something.” He began to… well, at first Twilight thought that he was trying to eat all the roses off the bush, and eating very messily from the way that so many of the petals were falling on the ground at his hooves. She realised after a moment that he was actually trying to pluck one of them, but thanks to the size of his jaws and what seemed to be an unfamiliarity with doing such a thing he wasn’t quite able to manage it; he was simply worrying the shrub with his teeth and scratching his face on the thorns into the bargain.

“Here, let me,” Twilight said, and her horn flared with a lavender light as a light of that same colour of magic enveloped the rose which she plucked telekinetically from off its bush and levitated through the air towards Lightning.

Lightning stared at it. “I thank you, Miss Twilight Sparkle, but the rose was meant for Krysta not for me.”

“Oh, okay,” Twilight said. She levitated the rose up a little higher towards Krysta. “Here you go.”

“Let me, darling, I think I have some idea of the prince’s intentions,” Rarity said, and her horn flared in turn as she took the rose out of Twilight’s magical grasp and deftly wove it into Krysta’s hair, just behind her ear. “It clashes more than a little with your, um, rather more moody attire, but taken in isolation of the face it looks quite lovely, and you never go too far wrong with a rose and a pretty girl.”

Lightning smiled as he looked up at Krysta. “Yellow for good cheer,” he said. He frowned abruptly, the smile fading from his thorn-scratched face. “How do I know that?”

“Perhaps because you brought a bouquet for your best mare once upon a time, and took some pains,” Rarity suggested. “I’ve often thought that if one is going to give roses as a gift one should take some effort to understand the meaning of those you give. Why, I once received twelve roses from a secret admirer! Twelve, if you please!”

Twilight wasn’t sure what was so outrageous about that, but she made a note to mention it to Spike in case he had any ideas.

Lightning shook his head. “No, Miss Rarity, it is not that. There is no… well, that is to say… she wouldn’t appreciate-“

“Lightning doesn’t actually have a marefriend,” Krysta said cheerily. “So, you know, if anyone’s interested-“

“Krysta!” Lightning squawked indignantly.

“What?” Krysta asked.

“You can’t just say something like that!” Lightning said. “And besides, what about Stellar?”

“What about Stellar?” Krysta replied. “It’s been six months and you haven’t done anything, you obviously don’t want to. And besides she’s a-“

“That’s enough,” Lightning said firmly. “We’re not doing this in front of the Equestrians.” He coughed into one hoof. “Ahem. Please… thank you, both, for your assistance. I wasn’t getting very far on my own.”

“Happy to help,” Twilight said. “Although why were you trying to pluck the rose with your teeth? Why didn’t you just use your own magic to grab the flower you wanted?”

Lightning bowed his head a little. “My telekinesis suffices to deal with larger, cruder objects, but it lacks the subtlety required to take hold of anything so delicate as a flower. It’s very impressive that you were both able to handle it so deftly.”

Twilight exchanged a glance with Rarity. He thought that was impressive? As far as dexterity with magic went that little gesture was the least of what Rarity, whose ability to finely control her telekinesis outstripped Twilight and indeed anybody Twilight knew, was capable of, and for Twilight herself had been mere filly’s play. Twilight wondered how she could say that without seeming proud, or whether she ought to just take the compliment and move on.

Pinkie, on the other hoof, had no compunction about dragging Twilight’s light out from under the bushel. “That’s nothing! Wait until you see Rarity making a dress and she’s got all these needles zooming in and out like whoosh! And Twilight can do so many amazing things with magic that you wouldn’t believe it. Why after Princess Celestia she might just be the most magically gifted unicorn in all of Equestria!”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Twilight said as she felt her cheeks start to heat up a little bit.

“But you do have a talent,” Lightning said.

“It is my talent, yes,” Twilight said. “Although I admit that you wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell just from looking at my cutie mark.”

“Yes, your…” Lightning trailed off. “Could we proceed? I am curious to meet this Miss Fluttershy with whom you are acquainted.”

“Of course,” Twilight said softly. “I’m sorry for the delay.”

“No need to apologise,” Lightning said. “If you will show the way once more?”

Twilight resumed leading, and swiftly enough – it wasn’t that there were no more delays, but there were no more delays on which they dwelt – they came to the large, shrub-like cottage that Fluttershy called home. As they approached Twilight noticed that the stream that ran by the cottage had burst its banks, rising almost to the level of the hoof-bridge that crossed over the water which now lapped up and down against it; said water was also very close to the door of the cottage itself.

A host of little creatures – and some not so little ones, including a goat and a towering bear – had gathered at the water’s edge, gathered around Fluttershy who sat with her tail dipped slightly into the risen river, nursing a beaver.

“Fluttershy,” Twilight said, picking up her pace a little on the final approach. “Is everything… what am I saying, everything is obviously not okay, but what happened?”

“Oh, Twilight!” Fluttershy said, gently putting the beaver down on the ground as she rose to her hooves. “Actually, I was hoping that you could explain to me what’s been going on. It’s been one thing after another this morning, first the beaver dam upstream broke and released all the water that was pent up behind it, but not only that but poor Mister Beaverton Beaverteeth was injured in the collapse and now he can’t possibly repair the damage! Poor little thing. But then, as if all of this water driving everybody out of their homes wasn’t enough, there was that awful crack in the sky that scared all of my friends half to death.

“I was a little terrified of it myself, and if I hadn’t had to pull myself together to calm everyone else down I’d probably still be curled up in the living room right now. Do you know what that was? It didn’t look like a sonic rainboom, but I’ve never heard of anything else that could do such a thing before.”

“You have my most sincere apologies for all the trouble that I have caused you,” Lightning said, and as Krysta slid off his back – on the side of him that was further from the water – he walked forward, splashing around Twilight until he stood level with her facing Fluttershy. “It was the only way to reach this place but I should have considered the effect it might have on all those who live in this wondrous place.”

Fluttershy took a step backwards away from this stranger to her sight and to her home, turning her head away so that her lilac mane fell down across her face like a curtain hiding the stage from view. “Oh. Um, hello there. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.”

“He fell out of the sky,” Pinkie chirruped enthusiastically. “And he’s from a really long way away and he didn’t even know that this was Equestria until we told him and then he said that Equestria was some really special place and he’s heard of Celestia and I don’t know what it all means yet but I bet it’s going to add up to something pretty cool.”

“I… see?” Fluttershy murmured. She hesitated. “I’m sorry, I really don’t understand at all.”

“None of us understands,” Twilight said. “Mostly because someone won’t explain.”

“With respect, Miss Twilight Sparkle, I have promised an explanation in my own time,” Lightning replied with a degree of asperity in his voice. “In the meantime if you understood then you would not begrudge me my will to sample the delights of this wondrous, fair and happy world.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Twilight said, and she refrained from mentioning to him that because of his silence she had to take it on trust that he was right. “Fluttershy this is Lightni- Prince Lightning Dawn, and his sister Krysta. Prince Lightning Dawn, this is my friend Fluttershy.”

Lightning bowed her head, and as he had done with Twilight – but as he had not done with any of her other friends – he took her hoof in his and raised it to his lips. “A great pleasure.”

“Oh, well, I’m pleased to meet you, too,” Fluttershy said. “And I suppose that you couldn’t really help causing all that commotion earlier, you couldn’t have know that my friends would be frightened by it.”

Lightning looked around at all the creatures gathered nearby. “You care for all of these creatures? You are their mother?”

Fluttershy chuckled. “I wouldn’t call myself their mother, but I do try and take good care of all of them.”

“As a mother cares for her children,” Lightning said. “To devote oneself to the nurturing and care of others is amongst the highest callings to which one can devote oneself. You have no call to hide your face away, Miss Fluttershy. Hold your head up high, and be proud that you are mother to this little world.”

Fluttershy looked uncertain of how exactly she ought to respond to that. “Um, thank you?” She hesitated, until she caught a better sight of Krysta than she had been afforded before. “Oh my goodness, is that your sister? I mean, I’m sorry, but I’ve never seen anybody who looked quite like you before.”

“Nobody has,” Krysta said. “Well… not a lot of people anyway. I’m a Fae, and I’m really rare.” She brightened up a little bit at that, or seemed to at least, preening herself with one hand and striking a pose. “I guess that makes me pretty special, huh?”

Twilight frowned ever so slightly. She was almost as curious about that as she was regarding all the other mysteries surrounding these two strangers to Equestria.

“Oh, yes,” Fluttershy said. “Why, I’ve never even heard of a fae before. Where do you come from?”

“I… don’t really know,” Krysta admitted. “Ooh, but I know that whoever they are we’re a pretty cool bunch. Check out all of my awesome powers.” She snapped her fingers and her hitherto pale skin turned the same shade of butter yellow as Fluttershy’s coat. Another snap of her fingers and her skin turned to lavender, and with another snap to pink. Krysta was grinning now as she snapped her fingers once more to turn her hair the same purple as Rarity’s mane, and then a pale flaxen colour. Krysta was positively beaming as she snapped both her fingers and her skin immediately altered to resembling Lightning Dawn’s marbled coat, while her hair shifted to mimic Twilight’s pink-streaked mane. Only Krysta’s eyes remained consistent, the same large orbs in the same shade of blue.

“That’s incredible,” Twilight said. “Can you just do that naturally?”

“That almost reminds me a little of chameleons,” Fluttershy said. “But they can only change colour to match their environment.”

“Perhaps it started off that way as a defensive ability and then become something more,” Twilight suggested.

Krysta looked rather pleased with herself, judging by the smug look on her face. “I’m incredible. Ooh, and that’s not all I can do either, check this out.” She held out her hands before, pointing the palms slightly downwards in the direction of Lightning Dawn’s hooves.

“Krysta,” Lightning said. “What are you-“

Krysta closed her eyes and her hands, and began to pull them apart as though she was drawing a pair of particularly stubborn curtains. A portal, a hole in the world rimmed with fluctuating azure energy, opened up directly under Lightning Dawn’s hooves.

He dropped through it with a startled squawk, falling through an identical portal that just opened up a few feet away to fall into the swollen river with a splash that covered all four ponies.

“Warp portals,” Krysta explained. “Awesome, huh?”

“It’s impressive magic,” Twilight murmured, her eyes fixed on the stream by Fluttershy’s cottage. “Is he-“

“He’ll be fine,” Krysta said. “Any second now-“

“KRYSTA!” Lightning roared as he breached the water like a whale.

“He’ll come right out huffing and puffing,” Krysta said.

Lightning clambered out of the water, shaking himself like a dog and incidentally splashing even more water all over the ponies. He glowered at Krysta for a moment, but she faced him without a trace of uncertainty or contrition. In fact she was smiling as though this was the funniest thing she’d seen all day.

Lightning shook his head, and turned away from her.

“So,” Twilight said, hoping that she wasn’t intruding into an awkward moment. “If you can create portals, did you create the crack in the sky that you both plunged through?”

Krysta laughed. “No. No, I couldn’t make anything that big, or to a place I’d never seen before. My range is… okay, I guess, I don’t really know how it stacks up, but if I try to open a portal to anywhere I haven’t actually seen with my own eyes it could… it could get pretty bad.”

Lightning was still dripping a little bit of water down onto the ground as he said, “Since this is a shield world, we were forced to use a warp gate to brute force our way past the barriers and into this place. That was the reason for our entry which apparently caused both disturbance and distress. Miss Fluttershy, as I have been the cause of some of your difficulties, with your permission I will return tomorrow and see if I can repair your damaged dam that is the cause of your other troubles.”

“Really?” Fluttershy said. “That would be very kind of you.”

“Are you sure about that?” Twilight said, remembering Lightning’s difficulty with the rose bush and his admission that his telekinesis was neither deft nor delicate.

“I am no stranger to carpentry and the like,” Lightning explained. “I used to pay our way with hoof-work when Krysta and I were young, didn’t I Krysta?”

“Sure you did,” Krysta said. “When anybody would give you work.”

Lightning bowed his head to Fluttershy. “Miss Fluttershy, it has been a great pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Um, likewise, to both of you,” Fluttershy said. As Lightning turned away she approached Twilight and whispered into her ear. “Um, Twilight, who is that exactly?”

“At this point,” Twilight said, as she watched Krysta mount Lightning’s back once more. “I’m not sure that I could say.”

They headed back into Ponyville from Fluttershy’s cottage, as Lightning and Krysta continued to look rather awed by just about everything about Ponyville.

“I must confess,” Lightning said, as they wandered down Mane Street, attracting curious glances and friendly waves in equal measure from the ponies passing by. “I wasn’t expecting Equestria to seem quite so… rustic.”

Twilight slowed her pace a little so that she was level with the two of them. “Is that a problem?”

“No,” Lightning said quickly. “It’s just that… it isn’t how I imagined it and frankly it wasn’t how it was described to me.”

“This kinda reminds me of the places that we used to get run out of back in the day,” Krysta said. “You know, except friendlier,” she added, waving to Derpy as the mailmare flew by.

Twilight smiled. “Everypony here is very friendly. I don’t think I’ve met a single sour soul since I came to live here. But I’m curious, what were you expecting?”

Lightning was silent for a moment. “This puts the tale a little out of order but I have actually met someone from Equestria before. My elder sister, Sunset Shimmer, hails from Equestria, or claims to do so; claims with sufficiently credibility that my father believes it, and the king is no one’s fool.”

Twilight’s eyebrows rose. She had never heard the name Sunset Shimmer before, but perhaps Princess Celestia would recall it; she couldn’t help but feel that she must have been at least somewhat notable if she had found a way to leave Equestria behind and venture to… wherever it was that Lightning and Krysta had come to Equestria from. “You have a sister from here but you couldn’t find your way back?”

“Sunset couldn’t recreate the means by which she had come to us,” Lightning explained. “Nor could she plot the location of this world on any star chart, having only dwelt here from the inside, if that makes sense to you.”

“I… think so,” Twilight ventured. “Hopefully it will make more sense when you give me all the details.”

Lightning didn’t react to that jab. Twilight thought that it was not so much that he was enjoying keeping her in suspense so much as he had simply put his desire to see the sights above her desire to understand what was going on. She supposed that there wasn’t actually anything wrong with that, even if it did seem just a little selfish to her eyes.

“The point is,” Lightning said. “That when Sunset has spoken of Equestria – when it can be dragged out of her what paradise was like – she speaks of things more… cultivated than this. Gleaming spires tipped with gold-“

“Growing out of the side of the mountain like coral,” Twilight said. “The levels of the city climbing towards the peaks, the fountains and the gardens, the beauty and the elegance of a princess amongst princesses.”

Lightning’s eyebrows rose. “You know of what she spoke?”

“Prince Lightning,” Twilight said delicately. “You might want to look up just a little bit.”

Lightning raised his head, and in so doing his eyes caught sight of Canterlot in the distance, half-obscured by clouds but nevertheless still just about visible upon the mountainside.

His mouth hung open, just a little. “That… yes, that looks a little more like it. I take it then that that is the seat of the princess?”

“That’s Canterlot,” Twilight agreed. “The beating heart of Equestria.”

“And yet you live here, for all that you are the princess’ student?”

“There are more ways to learn than reading books,” Twilight said. “I’m here because this is the best place for me to study the magic of friendship.”

Lightning stared at her for a moment. “The magic,” he repeated, in the tone of someone struggling to contain his scepticism, “of friendship?”

“Yes,” Twilight replied, and she was too confident in herself to sound defensive upon the subject. “The most powerful magic in Equestria, the force that enriches each of our lives if only we have the courage to open up our hearts to it.”

“How do you study that?” Krysta asked.

“By living,” Twilight said. “I… I didn’t really have any friends before I came here.” She briefly thought of Moondancer, and felt a pang of guilt for having missed her party, but the fact that she could so easily walk away from Moondancer without a backwards glance was proof, if proof were needed, that whatever connection had existed between them was nothing compared to that which existed with her Ponyville friends. She could never have treated them that way, as unfair as that might be to Moondancer herself.

I should probably try and make it up to her somehow, though.

“And so,” Twilight continued, putting a bookmark in that thought for later reference. “Just by being here, just by sharing my life with my friends, every day I learn something new and wonderful from each of them.”

Lightning looked into her eyes. “You will forgive me, but that seems rather an airy concept, verging upon a frivolous waste of time and talent.”

Twilight took a step back. “Prince Lightning Dawn, has anypony ever told you that you can seem a rather judgemental person?”

“I have!” Krysta declared, raising her hand into the air.

“I meant no offence.”

“No, you just said something that you knew could offend me,” Twilight said. “When you could have said nothing at all.”

“I… I am just surprised,” Lightning said. “I look around at this place and I am amazed and astonished by how… how peaceful it is. I know that this is a shield world but there is no wall here, no watchtower, not even a ditch and palisade to keep out intruders and no guard post anywhere.”

“Why would we need them?” Twilight asked.

“Miss Fluttershy lives upon the outskirts far from any aid.”

“Why would she need to worry?” inquired Twilight, with genuine curiosity.

“Why would she not worry?” Lightning replied. “Why would you all not worry? Why are you allowed to waste your talents in magic dwelling in this little place instead of honing your skills in the capital for the benefit of your people? Why does Princess Celestia tolerate such wastefulness, from you and from Miss Rarity? Why… how can it be afforded? How can the nation tolerate such excess and misuse of the precious gifts that have been bestowed upon it?”

Twilight stared at him, her eyes almost as wide as Krysta. Guard tower? Wall? Misuse? She could not longer contain her curiosity, a curiosity now added to and animated by a degree of concern. “Rarity, Pinkie,” she said softly. “Would you excuse us please?”

Rarity hesitated for a moment before she said, “Of course, darling. Come along, Pinkie dear.”

“Goodbye!” Krysta called, waving to them as they took their leave. She looked down at Twilight. “Is everything okay?”

“Prince Lightning,” Twilight said. “I know that it isn’t what you want but I need you to explain everything to me. Now. Because frankly… what you’re suggesting about the place you come from is a little concerning to me.”

Lightning was still and silent for a moment. “Yes,” he admitted. “Yes, I can see how you might form such an impression. Very well. Lead the way to some private place and I will tell you everything that you wish to know about… all of this.”

Twilight nodded. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, Miss Twilight Sparkle,” Lightning said. “In truth… I should not have allowed my enthusiasm to get the better of me thus. I should have told you all when I first arrived; I had no right to both be reticent and to seek your aid.”

“Perhaps,” Twilight said. She paused a moment before she added, “You know you don’t need to call me Miss Twilight Sparkle all the time, right? Twilight will be fine.”

“Rather familiar, I fear,” Lightning said. “Will Miss Twilight suffice?”

Twilight smiled. “It will do very well. Please, follow me.”

She brought him to the library, opening the doors with her magic and leading him inside the circular space, where books climbed up the walls towards the high windows. As Lightning and Krysta, the latter having dismounted, followed Twilight inside (Twilight closed the door behind them), Twilight heard the patter of Spike’s feet before she saw him descending the stairs from the bedroom.

“There you are!” Spike declared in a somewhat irate tone. “I woke up from that huge explosion and you were nowhere to be seen! I didn’t know where you’d gone or what was happening, you didn’t even leave a note! And then when I went to see if Rarity knew what was up she wasn’t at Carousel Boutique either! I couldn’t find anypony. So I came back here and I didn’t know whether to write to Princess Celestia and say that you were in trouble or what I was supposed to do.”

“Ah,” Lightning said. “This must be your little brother.”

“Oh, gee, thanks,” Krysta said. “I bet he’s the cool, quirky, funny one that everyone likes too, aren’t ya little buddy?”

Twilight cleared her throat. “As you can see, Spike, we have guests.”

“Yeah,” Spike said. “I can see that. Uh, Twilight, who’s the big guy wearing all the armour who looks like he could squash me under his hoof?”

Lightning looked ever so slightly affronted. “The fact that I probably could doesn’t mean that I will, young fellow,” he said. “I am your sister’s guest and she has promised to aid me in my quest. To harm her brother without cause would be most discourteous.”

Twilight couldn’t help that the fact he’d just described it as discourteous – as opposed to morally wrong – was an attempt at humour on his part. It wasn’t very funny, but still. “Spike,” she said. “This is Prince Lightning Dawn and Princess Krysta-“

“I, um, I’m not actually a princess,” Krysta said. “That stuff was just me kidding around.”

“I knew that,” Twilight assured her. “But Lightning is a prince and you’re his sister, so-“

“It’s complicated,” Krysta said. “And Lightning probably needs to explain all of the other stuff before you can understand it properly. It’s Prince Lightning Dawn and plain old Krysta.”

“Prince Lightning Dawn and Krysta from where?” Spike said.

“That is something that his highness will explain shortly, I hope,” Twilight said. “Prince Lightning, Krysta, this is my-“ she stopped short of calling Spike her assistant; it would have seemed cold after Lightning had identified him as Twilight’s brother. And they had grown up together, after all, and in many ways they were closer than Twilight was with her actual brother now, although the distance between her and Shining Armour was another sad thought to go along with the thoughts about Moondancer she’d had earlier. Twilight put a bookmark in that, too, but put a smile upon her face as she placed a hoof around Spike’s shoulders. “This is my little brother, Spike.”

“A pleasure,” Lightning said. “Now, I should have-“ he stopped as his golden eyes caught the golem sitting at the back of the library. “What is that?”

"Oh, that?" Twilight asked, following his gaze to the unfinished statue standing against the wall. "That's just something I've been working on."

"You are an artist as well as a student of... the magic of friendship?" Lightning asked.

"You know, you don't have to say it with an incessant sneer in your tone," Twilight said, somewhat pointedly.

"This is not a sneer, Miss Twilight, this is merely enduring scepticism."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Believe me, I know how it sounds. I was pretty sceptical about the whole idea at first myself, wasn't I, Spike?"

"Totally," Spike agreed.

"But that… I think that's why I needed to come here and do this," Twilight said. "When I think back to how insular I was, how... kind of stuck up I was, too, I just… I thought I knew best for everyone, I didn't think I needed anyone else, I didn't think I should need anyone. I have to study the magic of friendship because I need the help to become a better pony. A decent pony. And with the help of my friends, I think I'm getting there."

Krysta smiled. "Don't worry, Twilight. It makes perfect sense to me."

"It does?"

"Sure," Krysta said. "And Lightning isn't going to make fun of it any more, are you?" Although phrased as question, her tone in the inflection of those last two words made its nature as an instruction plain.

"I have never made fun, as you put it," Lightning said. "I merely wonder whether it is the best use the princess's student, to better herself without benefiting the realm." He sighed. "But I have no desire to quarrel with you, and I apologise if you are offended by any of my opinions. Please, the statue. I find my curiosity aroused."

"Oh, right," Twilight said, having almost forgotten how they had come to this point in the conversation. "Although it has taught me a fair amount about moulding clay that isn't actually an art piece. It's a golem I've been working on."

Lightning walked towards it. He studied it intently. "But you did fashion it? With magic?"

"That's right."

"Once again, Miss Twilight, I am in awe of your dexterity with the arcane powers," Lightning murmured. "Golem," he said, rolling the word up and down on his tongue. "I fear I do not know the word."

"It's a zebra word, in the tongue of the Most High of Imperial Grevyia, the ancient zebra realm," Twilight said. "The first golems were... it's a little creepy, really, the ancient zebra sorcerers used their arts to bind the souls of the dead to vessels of clay or stone."

"That sounds like an excellent idea," Lightning said. "Is that what you mean to do with this?"

"No!" Twilight said loudly, and in a tone of some surprise. "Why would you… you really think it's a good idea?"

"I can think of those whose wisdom, courage, strength, power it would be beneficial to retain," Lightning said. "And if we are to add more... sentimental considerations is there no one that you have lost that you would dearly love to have returned to you?"

"What about letting the dead rest?" Twilight asked.

"That is a no, then," Lightning said. He paused. "I... I don't remember my mother very well. I barely remember her at all... she's like a shadow in my mind, devoid of detail. I... for all my good fortune and my contentment in my place I would like very much to know her, by whatever means, even those which may seem to you… abhorrent."

Twilight nodded. "I... I suppose that I can understand that," she murmured. The books she had consulted had all been very scathing about the early Grevyian golems, seeing them as part of an unhealthy denial of death amongst the empire's highest, a culture that had wasted away in the pursuit of immortality, counting the ancestors of their lineages dearer than the names of their sons. But she would be lying if she said that she couldn't see Lightning's point now that he had brought it up. If anything should happen to one of her friends she might well feel the same way.

"In any case," she said. "That's not the exact kind of golem I'm working on. Unicorns modified the spell so that the golem could come to life independently, without the need for a bound spirit. The intention was to replace servants, but people didn't really like them and with magic you don't really need that kind of assistance anyway, so... they just went out of fashion and were forgotten."

"Then why are you creating them, if I may ask?"

"To see if I could get most of the way," Twilight admitted. "To see if I could get to grips with the theory. To test myself. Your opinions on the magic of friendship aside I didn't stop studying other forms of magic when I came to live in Ponyville."

"But if you do not intend to use it, as I think you mean if I take your meaning correctly, then what use is it?"

"Not everything has to be of use," Twilight said. "Not everything has to serve a higher purpose, for the realm or even for ourselves. Rarity's dresses don't serve a higher purpose except to be beautiful but that doesn't mean that the effort and creativity that she puts into making them is effort wasted. I... you confuse me a little because, well, by the metric of utility Applejack is the most productive and useful of my friends but you turned up your nose at her, while Fluttershy you fawned on and what kind of what kind of use does the care of her animals serve?"

"None," Lightning admitted. "But that she can care for them shows a maternal nature most fitting."

"And Rarity's art shows the beauty in her soul; by such a metric you can justify almost anything," Twilight replied. "Isn't it enough to just do something for the sake of what is required to achieve it, for the challenge, for the knowledge gained?"

Lightning looked at her, and his face seemed touched with melancholy, as though the rose he had plucked for Krysta had been touched by a sudden frost, its beauty obscured but not entirely hidden. "This truly must be a wonderful world, where such thoughts run free, and can be borne without consequence."

"Ah," Twilight said. "Do we come to it at last?"

"I think we do," Lightning said. "At last."

"Then I'll make some tea," Twilight said. "Unless you'd like something else?"

"Tea will be perfect, thank you," Lightning said. "Milk, please, but no sugar."

"I'll have four sugars, please," Krysta said.

"Okay," Twilight said, as she wandered into the kitchen to make the drinks. She returned just a little while later to find Lightning sitting, looking only slightly awkward in his armour, on the floor of the library, while Krysta held open a portal between the top of the stairs and the floor, a portal though which Spike was leaping back and forth.

"Check this out, Twilight," Spike cried. "Krysta's amazing."

"That's right," Krysta said. "As amazing as it gets."

"It is incredible magic," Twilight said, as she set all four teacups down on the table. "I don't suppose that there's any way you could teach me how you do it?"

"I could try," Krysta said. "But I don't know if I actually could. I don't tend to think about it too hard, it just... kind of happens when I want it to."

"I see," Twilight said, containing her disappointment and keeping it from view. It would have been an interesting spell to learn, sure, but she couldn't learn every single spell in the world.

And besides, just because Krysta couldn't teach her didn't mean that she couldn't find the answer in a book or something now that she knew to look for it.

But there were not pressing matters before her now. Twilight sat down opposite Lightning. "Prince Lightning, please begin."

Lightning Dawn looked away from Twilight for a moment. "I... I am not quite sure where to begin. This world, this Equestria of far fame, is one of many worlds scattered throughout space, points of light in an otherwise lifeless void, worlds teeming with life: ponies, griffons, hippogriffs, minotaurs, elves, lizard folk, every kind of creature that you could possibly imagine. Our history and archaeology tells us that all life spread outwards from a world called Terra, home to a race of god-like beings who fashioned all other life in their own image before... disappearing."

"What happened to them?" Twilight said. "How can a race of god-like beings simply disappear?"

"I do not know," Lightning said. "No one does, all we know is that they existed and that relics of their civilisation are uncovered across the stars almost every day."

"Relics?" Twilight said. "You mean pottery fragments, epigraphy?"

"Some of that." Lightning said. "Also their art, their culture, their technology, such as the warp gate that Krysta and I used to breach the defences of this world."

"You've used the term shield world more than once," Twilight reminded him.

"So I have," Lightning said. "The ancient Terrans die not simply colonise worlds, they made them, and the shield worlds are their crowning glory. Equestria, like a jewel in the box of some great lady, is surrounded by an armoured shell like an egg, protecting it from all harm. Vast, powerful defence systems ward you, ready to obliterate any hostile ship that draws near, and a passage into the firmament for vessels without can only be granted from the control room which, I presume is lost to you?"

"It's all lost." Twilight said. "I've never heard any of this before."

"Then learn from it, I beg you," Lightning said. "The only reason you have the liberty here to behave as you do is due to the protection afforded to you by the good fortune of your dwelling here."

"I disagree," Twilight said. "We may live what seem to be happy and peaceful lives to you but that doesn't mean that those lives are without perils or obstacles. We simply choose not to let them define us or keep us from doing the things that make us happy."

Lightning did not agree or disagree with that. He was quiet a moment, before he said, "Having explained that to you I am afraid it is all... somewhat irrelevant to what comes next for our story begins here in Equestria, in the city of Olympia."

"The Lost City of Olympia?" Spike said. "Isn't that an old pony's tail?"

"So was Nightmare Moon," Twilight reminded him.

Lightning looked a little surprised. "You remember Nightmare Moon?"

"Twilight stopped her," Spike said, in a tone too smug for achievements that were not his own.

"With my friends," Twilight said quickly.

"Woah," Krysta murmured.

"I fear that I have underestimated you, all of you," Lightning said. "You must possess uncommon skill and power to have brought down such a demon."

"Brought down?" Twilight said nervously. "We didn't kill her, if that's what you think; we saved her, the six of us, using the magic of friendship. Now Princess Luna has returned, and sits by Celestia's side once more as it should be."

"And she is trusted after her treachery?"

"She is forgiven," Twilight said. "That's how we do things here; we forgive those who regret the things that they have done. I... I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to forgive me, Prince Lightning, but considering your reverence for Equestria you don't seem to know much about the way we live our lives."

"I am not offended, Miss Twilight, your words are fair enough," Lightning said regretfully. "It is true that much has been lost, and the way in which we live owes less to Equestria of old than it does to the more hostile world in which we make our way. But leave that for the moment: contrary to what you might think, Master Spike, Olympia was once as real a place as this library in which we sit, albeit considerably larger. It sat far away from here, far from the lands ruled by Princess Celestia."

"In the stories, Olympia lay on the ruins of the northern marches of the Zebra Empire," Twilight said. "And arose after dragons and griffons laid waste to Ancient Grevyia."

Lightning nodded. "Indeed. Olympia was... to hear my father speak of it is to hear an echo of paradise long passed and vanished into the mists, to hear a lament for wondrous beauty gone beyond recall. It was the home to a splendid people, proud and strong and warlike, and under the protection of that warlike breed flourished too art and learning. The city was ruled by a pair of brother kings, who shared the throne and rule: King Jupiter, as white as samite, the King of Gold; and his brother King Saturn, whose coat and heart alike were black as the night, the King of Ebony. Jupiter was the wisest of kings, but such was his live for his brother that he could not see the darkness festering within him, and was deaf to the counsel of those who warned him that Saturn's discontent grew more each day.

"It was around this time that Princess Celestia took up her rule in Equestria, and word soon reached Olympia of the beauty of this princess, fairest amongst all the princesses of the world and fairer than the word in wondrous virtues. Such was the only worthy consort for the greatest of kings, and so Jupiter set out to Equestria accompanied by a rich train to woo and win the princess for his bride."

"His bride?" Twilight repeated, with a degree of incredulity on her voice born partly out of her continuing difficulty in imagining Princess Celestia as the object of anyone's desires, and partly because she found it equally to imagine the immortal Celestia marrying anyone.

"So, wait up a second," Spike said. "Was he immortal too?"

"Not was, but is, Master Spike," Lightning said. "Lord Jupiter, King of Olympia and Protector of the Light, is my father and my king. So you see it was a perfect match: who better to be the bride of an immortal king of power and majesty than an immortal princess radiant fair?"

"Someone who wanted to be his bride?" Twilight suggested. She could not help but feel that there was something cold about the phrasing that Lightning had used, although he had not spoken coldly so much as without great passion; regardless, it irked her in ways she could not quite put into words to hear Celestia, her teacher and the possessor of such knowledge and experience, reduced thus to her beauty and her worth in the marriage market.

"As I said, he set out to woo her," Lightning said, slightly reprovingly. "However, his brother Saturn was filled with envy at the prospect of Jupiter gaining the hoof of Celestia in marriage, and so he set out with his own train to win the princess for himself.

"My father speaks little of what came next, it seems the grief of it is still too near for him, but I know that after many labours done in her service, tourneys won, banquets thrown, dances and balls and all the panoply of courtly love he won the lady, heart and hoof, and triumphed over Saturn as Celestia pledged her heart to him. Has she really never spoken of this to you?"

Twilight shook her head. "Not a word."

Lightning frowned. "Sunset knew nought of it either. Perhaps... her grief must run even rawer than that of my father the King, for she had, it is said, a most feminine and gentle heart."

"Yes, that must be it," Twilight said, in a voice that was not quite sarcastic while at the same time not being devoid of sarcasm.

Lightning seemed deaf to it as he continued, "This was a humiliation that Saturn, who after a lifetime of storing up imaginary slights and injustices that only he could perceive had finally been truly bested by his brother, could not brook. His villainous heart could not endure it, and - his ire aroused to vengeance - he set his malign intent to work to spread malignance. He found a willing ally in Princess Luna, another victim of imagined slights hiding wickedness behind a lovely face."

"You, or whoever told you this story, are too harsh there," Twilight said. "Princess Luna isn't evil and she never was, she was just troubled and lonely and she made a bad choice. She's better now."

"So it appears," Lightning said.

"So it is," Twilight insisted. "Of the two of us, I've actually met her."

"And yet this lonely, troubled princess transformed herself into a monster bent on the destruction of all things."

"As I said," Twilight said frostily, "She made a mistake."

"She did villainy, and knew full well what she did," Lightning said. "In a land less innocent it would be better comprehended what that meant."

"Is that so?" Twilight demanded. "In which case I think that I'm quite pleased to live in an innocent land, where we have more compassion."

"Compassion," Lightning murmured. "Yes, well... In any case, before her fall - or at least before her fall was known - Luna and Saturn intrigued together and plotted to rule side by side after the ruin of their siblings. When Nightmare Moon struck Saturn returned to Olympia and proclaimed himself sole king over the city, inspiring many of the ponies there to follow him. But his plans went awry when Nightmare Moon was defeated and sealed away, and shortly after Jupiter and Celestia descended upon Olympia with all their power and hearts full of wrath. The Equestrian strength, such as it was, was no match for the vaunted prowess of the Olympian warriors, but at the return of Jupiter many of his subjects rallied to their king and a great struggle raged within and without the seven-gated city. Lord Jupiter dispatched his champions, one by one, to lead the assaults upon the gates, while Saturn sent his champion one by one to defend them. Until only one gate remained and neither had any champions left to send.

"And so the two brothers faced one another while the battle raged around them. Light and darkness were evenly matched, neither able to gain an advantage over the other, yet as they fought Jupiter feared he could perceive the greater struggle turning in Saturn's favour. And so, to protect Celestia, he made the ultimate sacrifice: he cast a spell of unmatched scale and power, a spell so great it banished him and Saturn and all Olympia out of this world completely, scattering them into the void like charts of wheat thrown up into the air to fall whither they will.

"When he awoke from the darkness my father had no idea where he was, but with the few faithful followers that yet remained to him they set out to build a new civilisation in this new home, establishing New Olympia. They grew in number, and their knowledge of science and magic advanced by such leaps and bounds that they were able to leave the boundaries of their new world and venture forth amongst the stars. And that is when they found that Saturn and his lawless resolute had also found a new home, which they called Titan, and were spreading their darkness forth once more, with the ultimate ambition of finding Equestria and taking it, its wonder and its fair princess for their own and for their dark lord's glory. And so my father and his people made two vows upon their eternal honour: that they would protect and defend the light of virtue and goodness wherever it burned, bear any burden, meet ant foe, pay any price to keep the dark at bay; and that we would seek Equestria, the promised land, the garden from which we were unjustly exiled, and ensure that it never fell into the hooves of the Titan Dominion or their Emperor. And so we have built a mighty fleet and raised a great army, forged many alliances with those who seek our aid and our protection, and the greatest of our warriors – amongst which number I count myself with all due modesty - have been granted the wings or horns or both to lift us, by the grace of our king, up to alicorns, to serve as knights, the elite of our people.

"The second oath I have fulfilled, our ancient quest completed, but not, I must confess, on purpose. I did not come to Equestria seeking Equestria, rather I came here in search of a magical treasure called a Prism Stone, one of a set of seven objects of great magical power when used individually and nearly unmatched when taken altogether. Two stones we have, more we need for the danger ever presses hard upon us and we have need of strength and power alike, and thus, as overjoyed as I an to be here in Equestria, I must still ask your assistance on finding the yellow Prism Stone which we believe to be somewhere in this world.

"If you will help me do so, Miss Twilight, and help me to work out if at a possible how to find this world again once I return home, then I think that soon enough Celestia and Jupiter may be reunited once again, and all will be as it was meant to be."

Twilight stared into the middle distance, staring but not really seeing, at least not seeing anything before her; rather her mind was a rush of images conjured by the tale that Lightning Dawn had spun before her eyes, images of Nightmare Moon and lost cities sprung from the dusty earth and the equally dusty past.

He had certainly given her an awful lot to think about in a rather short span of time. Some of what he had said would have thrilled and excited her - lost cities, life beyond the stars, the very idea that the night sky she knew, the sun and moon that the princesses controlled, were all part of some sort of closed system nested within a protective eggshell left by a long vanished civilisation that had placed it there for their protection, this was nigh inconceivable but once it was considered, it was at the same time rather wonderful to imagine.

And yet these awe-inducing notions were paired with things more worrying, more concerning, and at the same time much harder to believe. It might not make a lot of sense to an outsider that she could conceive of life on another world more easily than she could imagine Princess Celestia being engaged, but Twilight felt - Twilight told herself - that there was more to her reaction than instinctive inability to think of the princess in that light. There was a sense in which it didn't seem to fit, this notion of Celestia in love.

It was not that Princess Celestia was cold or heartless, far from it, she had been a second mother to Twilight and to Spike, and honestly Twilight felt as though she was not unique in that regard. She doubted she was the only pony who looked upon Celestia as a motherly figure, as a better mother even than the one that fate and nature had given them. She was a mother to the whole of Equestria, and when she spoke of her little ponies it was not merely a reference to the way that she physically towered over them but to the way that they were and would always be children in her eyes. At least, that was how Twilight saw it. Could someone who spread her love so widely across the land have enough left to give her love to someone else so completely as romantic love demanded? Could the princess who always seemed to be holding a part of herself back behind a mask of royal reserve take off the mask for a husband or fiancée. It was hard, very hard, for Twilight to picture it.

And yet that did not make Lightning Dawn a liar. It did not even make whoever had told him this story that he had faithfully regurgitated a liar. It could mean nothing more than that Twilight did not know Princess Celestia as well as she thought or would have liked to think.

More overtly concerning to Twilight's mind was the impression that Prince Lightning had given her - overtly and by inference - of the world in which he came from and the society in which he lived. He had given her some impressions already, with the scorn in which held the idea of anything that be considered frivolous and lacking in use, and he had nearly confirmed it at the brief tail-end if his account.

"So," Twilight said softly. "All that you do is bent towards the fulfilment of these vows you made? To the defeat of the darkness and the protection of the light?"

"Not quite all," Lightning said, sounding slightly embarrassed to admit the fact. "Certainly not as much as I, to say nothing of those even more committed to the fight than I am, might like. We have our gilded butterflies who gad about the court in glittering attire, seeking after favour or preferment, their fortunes ebbing and flowing like the moon. My own brother is one of them," he added in a tone of stern disapproval as though his distaste would somehow reach said brother so far away, wherever he was. "We have our balls and revels, our entertainments; we eat, we drink, we can be merry-"

"Some of us can," Krysta muttered. "Some people could do with remembering how."

Lightning ignore her. "And of course there are many mares who embrace their calling to be mothers first and foremost and for that choice to devote themselves to the nurture of the generation they are honoured and respected but, yes, for the most part we are a society bent on our just and noble cause, a society where all serve a higher purpose, whether it is the knight who strives upon the battlefield or the farmer who grows the wheat to make the bread the baker bakes to feed that knight; whether it is the sailor on his warship or the dockyard worker who built and who maintains that ship. All have their part to play and all give according to the best of their abilities. In the Alliance you would not study the magic of friendship, rather you would... I am not sure whether you would be put to research or fighting on the battlefield, I do not know your talents well enough, but you would be looked upon askance if, like a parasite, you did not put your gifts to their best use."

"With respect, Prince Lightning, you are not making me long for the reunion of our sundered kin," Twilight said quietly. "It seems a pretty joyless way of life."

"It is a necessary one," Lightning said. "And not without the spiritual fulfilment that come from duty done, from knowing oneself to be a part of something bigger than oneself and ones own selfish desires."

"We already find spiritual fulfilment from our lives as they are," Twilight said. "From doing the things that we love while surrounded by the ponies that we love. You call it selfish but I call a world where ponies are free to do as they wish within the bounds of common decency to be... a happy one. I would not give it up for the kind of world that you describe."

"Nor would I nor my father nor anyone else ask you to," Lightning said. "Our aim is not dominate nor to recession in our own image, we are not the Titan Dominion. Our aim is only to protect, to seek out what is good and pure and precious and protect it from all harm. Yet at the same time... you censure us, Miss Twilight, yet your peace and prosperity are only possible because you are fortunate enough to dwell within defences left to you by ancients long ago, and because, out beyond your knowledge or your comprehension you are protected by the blood and sacrifice of my people in our ceaseless struggle."

"We have perils of our own," Twilight said. "Perils from which your great ships and shining spears do not protect us. And we face those perils bravely and together when we must; but we take no joy in it, nor do we see it as the sum or pinnacle of our lives or achievements."

"You think that I take joy in war?" Lightning asked. He shook his head. "I do not love the bright blade for its sharpness, nor my armour for its sturdiness, nor my warlike skills for the glory. I love only that which they protect." He glanced at Krysta with a tenderness that flitted briefly into his eyes and then was gone. "My family which I have found, my people and my home who have been given to me; New Olympia of the floating cities and all the many worlds which nestle beneath our wing; worlds fair and foul, familiar and alien, fruitful and barren yet all home to some people or other and thus all worthy of protection. If it were not so should I not disdain Miss Fluttershy instead of honouring her? It is true I find some of your pastimes wasteful, pointless even... and yet to be wasteful is, in many ways, what we shed our blood to defend."

Twilight wished that she could be as reassured by that as he seemed to wish her to reassured by it. She glanced at Spike, and then looked down at the empty teacup in front of her; she had trained it while listening to Lightning's account. "Look at that," she said. "I'm out of tea, I'll have to go and make some more. Spike, why don't you-"

"I understand your desire to discuss what I have told you in private, you have no need to pretend otherwise," Lightning said affably. "It would verge upon bizarre if you did not."

Twilight felt her cheeks go slightly red. "Thank you for understanding," she murmured. "This is an awful lot to take in, I'm sure you'll agree."

"I can see how it might be," Lightning said.

Twilight got up. "Come on, Spike," she said, and led him back up the stairs and into the bedroom. She glanced down, momentarily, to see Lightning and Krysta engaged in some conversation of their own, before she turned her attention fully to Spike.

"So what do you think?"

"You're asking me?" Spike asked.

"You heard the same as I did," Twilight said.

"Yeah, but..." Spike trailed off momentarily. "It seems... kinda weird, don't you think? Why have we never heard about any of this?"

"Perhaps..." Twilight trailed off almost as soon as she had begun. "I don't know, Spike. Maybe Princess Celestia’s grief is still too great but that doesn't explain why none of it was ever written down. Maybe..."

"Do you think that he's telling the truth?" asked Spike, speaking the unspoken question hanging over their heads.

"I think... I think he believes it," Twilight said. "Although that's not the same thing. But we could spend forever speculating on why Celestia has kept this a secret, or if Lightning Dawn has given us an accurate account and it would still get us no closer to the truth. The only way to know for sure is to also do the right thing. Spike, take a letter to the princess."

Spike produced quill and parchment from... somewhere; he was very reliable that way.

Twilight cleared her throat. "Dear Princess Celestia," she dictated. "Unfortunately I'm not writing to you with my usual report, because this has turned into a very unusual day. You may have heard or witnessed from Canterlot some kind of spatial distortion that briefly opened up not far from Ponyville; alternately it may have escaped notice with you there, but from it emerged a pony, an alicorn stallion named Prince Lightning Dawn, and a creature calling herself a fae named Krysta.

"Lightning Dawn has quite a story to tell. He claims to be the son of a King Jupiter, originally from the Lost City of Olympia. According to his account, which may be familiar to you, this King Jupiter was once your fiancée, before disappearing during a struggle with his brother Saturn at around the time of Nightmare Moon's banishment. Again, according to Prince Lightning both Jupiter and Saturn yet live, in worlds far beyond our own.

"I apologise, Princess, if this brings up bad memories for you, but I felt it my duty as your student, as your subject, and as someone who cares both for you and for Equestria to inform you of this, and to ask for your urgent guidance.

"I'm not sure what I ought to do next. Some of what Lightning has told me about his world concerns me: namely the way in which they appear engaged in an unceasing struggle for supremacy against Saturn and his followers, with all their resources bent towards the end of war. Prince Lightning assures me that they seek only to protect others, to be a queen amongst other queens rather than a mistress of slaves, and I believe that he believes this; nevertheless it is a way of life so alien to our own I struggle to see how we could relate to one another.

"Princess Celestia, what should I do? What is your command?

"Prince Lightning tells me that, although Equestria is a world his people have sought ever since they were banished from it, he did not come here knowing that he would find it but rather seeking something called a Prism Stone, apparently a magical object of great power. I've promised to help him look for it, although I really don't know where to start.

"I await your instructions and your guidance. I feel in great need of both of them. I'm sorry, once again, if reading any of this upsets you, but I thought you needed to know and I... I need to hear from you.

"Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle."

Spike breathed his green and fiery breath upon the parchment, dissolving it and dispatching it straight to Canterlot in a swirl of green fire. "What do we do now?" he asked.

"We wait," Twilight said. She descended the stairs, leaving Spike to follow behind her. "I've informed Princess Celestia about everything," she said. "I'm sure that she'll reply immediately.”

But Princess Celestia didn't reply right away. She didn't even reply in the first half an hour after Twilight sent her letter. Twilight, attempting to control her mounting sense of impatience, told herself that this was a weighty issue that she had suddenly dropped upon her teacher's head, it was only natural that the princess should want to take a little time and consider her reply.

But when an hour passed with still nothing from Princess, not even a reply to tell her that she was still thinking it over, Twilight could feel her impatience mounting inside her once again. What was Princess Celestia doing?

She would have expected that Lightning Dawn would also have started growing impatient by this time, but it did not appear to be the case. Rather he had retired to a corner of the library beneath the stairs, sitting there with his eyes closed and his hind legs crossed beneath him.

"Is he meditating?" Twilight said.

"Yup," Krysta said. "He does this whenever he can't do anything else. I don't really get what he's trying to do, but it seems to beat pacing up and down the room for him."

Twilight, who had been doing exactly that, winced. "Sorry."

"Oh, no, I didn't mean..." Krysta said. "Really, I wasn't trying to... it came out wrong." She frowned. "Listen, Twilight... I can call you Twilight, right?"

"Of course," Twilight said.

"Twilight, I know that you're worried about, well, about us. And I get why, because what Lightning talks about... it's like nothing that you've got here... But the thing that you need to understand is that... how do I explain this...when Lighting talks about New Olympia and the Alliance and all that stuff... it's like he's talking more about the thing that exists in his head rather than the place he actually lives in. Not that he's delusional or anything!" She added hastily as the implications of her words seemed to dawn on her. "It's just that... it's not as grim a place as he makes it sound."

"Would he like it to be?" Twilight asked softly.

Krysta hesitated. "He didn't used to be this way," she said. "I remember..." She frowned. "There are parts of New Olympia that are kind of... stiff, like him or worse if you can imagine that, and those are the parts that he hangs out with, but it's not the whole thing. So don't worry, okay? The world's not going to end just because we showed up."

Twilight smiled. "I'm glad to hear it, Krysta. Can I ask: how are you two planning to get home again?"

"The portal we came in by," Krysta said. "In seven days it's going to open up again, but in reverse, and suck us up through it back to New Olympia."

"A lot can happen seven days," Twilight said. "What if you couldn't get back there, or if you'd landed on a world more dangerous than Equestria?"

"Then we would... if Lightning were explaining this then the word honour would probably come up but the short answer is we'll be written off as dead."

Twilight's eyebrows rose.

"It's not entirely not like Lightning described," Krysta said.

"You're both very brave to take a risk like that."

Krysta shook her head. "He's brave. He's the bravest guy I know. We fight a lot, but I know he'll always be there when I need him. I'm just... I just tag along, because I've got nowhere else to go." She grinned. "You know, I'm glad we ended up in a place like this. Not Equestria, just a place like this."

"Really?"

"Sure," Krysta said. "Seven days in a place where folks do as they please without worrying about duty or the greater good? This will be good for him."

"You realise that he can probably hear us, right?"

"Nah, when he's meditating he goes deep, like he's on standby mode. I have to do something specific to bring him round. Do you want me to wake him up?"

"No," Twilight said. "There's no need to disturb him. I'll... I'll get started on helping you out, see if I can find out anything about these Prism Stones."

In the absence of any word from Princess Celestia, Twilight did the best thing she knew how in the circumstances: she hit the books. She pulled out all the texts on lore and mythology that they had in the library and, while Krysta looked on, she and Spike began to devour them, looking for any references to the Prism Stones that they could find.

They didn't have a lot of luck. There was no entry for Prism Stones in the Encyclopaedia of Equestrian Myths and Legends, nor in the Compendium of Compiled Mythologies; there was no entry for them in any glossary that Twilight consulted in her search.

"Is there anything else you can tell us about them?" Twilight said. "Any story they might be associated with that we could check?"

"Sorry, that stuff isn't my area," Krysta said. "Do you want me to bring Lightning out of it now?"

"You might have to," Twilight said, before her stomach growled.

Krysta's stomach growled too, in aroused mutual sympathy.

Twilight chuckled nervously. "Say, would you like to get something to eat?"

"Yeah, sure," Krysta said brightly. "Hang on just a sec. I hope I get the words right or this is going to be tough." She cleared her throat. "Arise, arise, the needful time is on us."

Lightning's eyes snapped open. "Well, that was refreshing," he observed. "Has Princess Celestia sent some response?"

"Nope," Krysta said, before Twilight could speak. "But it doesn't matter; we're going for something to eat."

"I see," Lightning murmured, rising to his feet. He looked at the pile of books on the floor. "What have I missed?"

"Nothing important, I'm afraid," Twilight said. "I tried to find out something about your stone, but no luck yet."

"Nevertheless, I thank you for the attempt, Miss Twilight."

"Just call her Twilight already," Krysta muttered.

Twilight, this time with Spike in tow, led the pair of them to Sugarcube Corner. She noticed that Lightning looked rather surprised by the look of the place from the outside, but he said nothing about it as the four of them walked through the door - the little bell rang as the door opened - and into the cosy and inviting interior of the shop.

"Welcome to Sugarcube- oh hey Twilight," Pinkie said as she bounced out of the back room. "Hey Spike, Krysta, Lightning. How are you all doing?"

"Hey, Pinkie," Twilight said. "We're getting a little hungry, do you think-"

"Well you came to the right place!" Pinkie declared. "Who likes cupcakes?"

"Ooh, me," Krysta said, raising both her hands into the air.

Pinkie beamed. "Then I'll be right back," she said, before disappearing once more into the back.

"Don't eat too many," Lightning said.

Krysta snorted. "Whatever, Mom."

"Do you not like this kind of thing?" Twilight asked, worried that only one of her two guests was going to enjoy this."

"He totally does, he just doesn't want to admit it," Krysta said.

Pinkie returned, her voluminous hair temporarily squashed beneath the platter of cup cakes she was balancing on top of her head.

"Here you go," she chirruped cheerily, as she trotted out and bent down to let Krysta pluck the laden platter from off her head.

Krysta's already large eyes were already wide still as she merely beheld the cakes, appearing mesmerized by the many bright colours of the frosting, the vivid pink and blue and green and yellow, the rainbow of sprinkles lightly dusting said frosting, the candy and chocolate pieces resting on the very top of the cakes.

"Some of them have fillings and some of them don't," Pinkie explained. "But if I told you which was which it would spoil the surprise."

Krysta gingerly linked up a cake with pink frosting. She held it gently, but seemed to squeeze it for a moment to feel its texture. Then her mouth opened wider than Twilight would have expected that it could as she popped the entire cake into her mouth, making her cheeks bulge outwards just a little.

As Krysta chewed, Pinkie bounced up and down upon the tips if her hooves, a look of eager anticipation on her face.

An inner light appeared to illuminate Krysta's face as she began to mumble something completely unintelligible, save that whatever it was appeared to be both fast and excited, as crumbs fell from her mouth or were spat across the room.

"Krysta, swallow," Lightning admonished, as Twilight picked up he crumbs with her telekinesis and put them in the nearest bin.

Krysta swallowed. "These are the best thing ever! How do you... are all Equestrian cakes this good."

"Just the ones made by Pinkie," Twilight said.

Pinkie blushed with pride. "I do my best, so long as everyone likes them-"

"Like them?" Krysta said. "These are the best cakes I've ever tasted. These are the best anything I've ever tasted. Lightning, you have to try one of these."

"I don't think they can-" Lightning was cut off when Krysta stuffed a bow frosted cupcake into his mouth, her small hand covering his mouth so that be had no choice but to begin to gingerly chew on the cake.

Krysta nodded eagerly as he swallowed.

Lightning said, "That... that was very nice, Miss Pinkie. May I... may I have another?"

"Not if I get there first," Krysta cried, stuffing two at once into her mouth so that she looked like a squirrel gathering nuts, her cheeks bulging out on both sides.

Once they had eaten their fill - Pinkie gave Krysta a box of more cakes, including pegasus cakes with bits of the cake cut out to make wings, the resulting gap being filled with butter cream to take back to the library - they resumed their earlier aborted tour of Ponyville.

"I feel as though I have taken advantage of your generosity, Miss Twilight," Lightning said as they walked through the town. "I am in your debt and yet I know of no way that I can repay you, having no gold still less any currency of this realm."

"A little extra on my tab at Sugarcube Corner is hardly a great debt," Twilight said lightly. "Apologise to Applejack and we'll call it even."

"Of course," Lightning said. "You are a generous mare, to ask in repayment only what I had intended to do regardless."

"I've been taught by a generous friend," Twilight said. "And besides, the happiness of my friends means more to me than a few bits."

"Does my opinion count for so much that the lack of it has Applejack plunged into despair?"

"I'd rather that you didn't do that," Twilight said.

"Do what, Miss Twilight?"

"If I am Miss Twilight then it should be Miss Applejack, too," Twilight said. "She is no less than the rest of us because she works a farm."

"You have studied at a princess's feet and yet you say you are no more than a common farmer?"

"There's nothing common about Applejack," Twilight said. "She's brave and honest and always dependable. I count myself no better than any of my friends just because happened to be born in Canterlot, or was so blessed as to be looked on by Celestia herself."

"You do not look on such a blessing as a blessing as a proof that you are set apart from other people?"

"My friendships are a blessing of a different kind," Twilight said. "One that I would lose, and deserve to lose, if I ever thought like that."

The tour continued, still with no reply from Princess Celestia, and as she led Lightning through the town, explaining to both himself and Krysta all the things requiring explanation, she also found herself telling him other things, like explaining the imminent Grand Galloping Gala to him, and all the hopes and dreams her friends had reposed in this one night, a night that now bore down upon them like an oncoming train.

"I find it rather ironic," Lightning said. "Miss Fluttershy is the one marked with a butterfly and yet it is Miss Rarity, marked by diamonds, who would be the gilded butterfly and flutter briefly in some lofty sphere before being cast down from it. Almost as the ironic as the way in which you, who have as much claim as any in this company to call yourself a member of the court, disclaim all part in it and all preferment while it is, again, Miss Rarity who seeks advancement of her prospects there."

"There's that judgemental side again," said Krysta from atop his back.

"I mean no offence," Lightning insisted. "I merely... does Miss Rarity comprehend what it is she truly seeks?"

"Honestly? I'm not sure," Twilight said. "But it's what she wants, and I'm not going to tell her that it's wrong or silly or anything like that. If she wants to try then who am I to stand in her way?"

"As her friend should you not give her truth?" Lightning said. "The fortunes of great ones ebb and flow like tide, and those who are in with the morning light are often out by sunset's shimmer."

"Where you come from maybe that is true," Twilight said. "But here... okay, I was too obsessed with books to really pay attention long enough to say for sure what it's like here, but I hope that it is gentler, fitting with our gentle world."

"A gentle world," Lightning murmured softly. "Aye, a gentle world indeed. As gentle a world as any I have seen and gentler still. As gentle as any I could imagine." He seemed sad, and said nothing further for quite some time, though he listened intently enough to all that Twilight said.

Showing him around Ponyville took a lot longer than Twilight had thought it would, mostly because her guest were more thorough than Twilight had thought they would be. By the time they were done it was close to sunset, and still no answer to Twilight's letter from the princess, and Twilight - when her distractions ceased and she was left with no choice but to confront the fact of royal silence - found it maddeningly inexplicable that Princess Celestia should ignore her, her great event, and all that she had learned without so much as acknowledging it, which she could have done even if she needed time to deliberate upon her course.

When she thought about it Twilight found it irksome, which was why she wa glad by the distractions afforded by catering to the whims and desires of Lightning and Krysta.

Or rather, just Lightning now, for as the hour grew late he had sent Krysta back to the library - Spike had gone with her - while he yet wished to remain abroad.

"I wonder, Miss Twilight, if you know of any place where one could look down upon the whole town, and watch the setting of the sun?"

Twilight smiled. "Come with me, I think I know just the place."

She brought him to her favourite star gazing spot, a hill overlooking Ponyville where one could watch the skies without any of the buildings getting in the way. As a matter of fact, all city lights being absent, Twilight was inclined to think that it was a better place for sky watching than any in Canterlot save only, perhaps, Celestia's royal observatory.

But of course, star gazing with Celestia had possessed its own charms.

Twilight led Lightning up to the top of the hill, where he sat down upon his launches as the sky turned golden and looked out across the town spread out below.

"So," Twilight said, as she sat down beside. "What do you think of Equestria? Is it everything that you expected?"

"No," Lightning said. "But it is a fair world, nonetheless." He glanced at Twilight, his golden eyes lingering upon her. "And those who dwell within it..." He trailed off and seemed embarrassed as he looked away.

Had he been trying to offer her a compliment? Upon her looks? Twilight felt... it certainly didn't feel bad, in fact it felt rather nice, but at the same times that didn't help her to work out how to respond to it. Nobody has ever offered her such before, even awkwardly and unfinished as it was.

Considering that Lightning seemed more embarrassed than anything else she thought it might be best for both of them if she ignored it. "I'm glad you like it."

Lightning nodded. An air of melancholy clung to him like perfume. "I wonder...I wonder if my home was like this."

Twilight blinked. "You wonder? Don't you know?"

"I have no memories of the place where I was born," Lightning said.

Twilight felt her eyes widen. "You weren't born in New Olympia?"

"No," Lightning said. "I am only my King's adopted son, adopted as all his children are. I was born on the world of... Hippolytus; the name is all that I remember. I know that I had a mother, a father; I suppose that I must have had friends, but... I have no memories of any of them. Of anything. I don't remember the sunrise or the sunset, I don't remember my mother's neck around me. There are times when I almost feel something tugging at my mind, like the memory of a dream... but it never lasts. They... they tell me that grief has caused me block out all my memories beyond recall. Grief or not... I would I could remember."

Twilight did not disagree with him. She couldn't say what he had witnessed to cause his memory to rebel against him in its efforts to protect his mind but for herself, if anything should happen, if even the worst should happen, then she wouldn't want to forget. She wouldn't want to forget what it was like to sit in front of the fire with Princess Celestia talking about magic; she wouldn't want to forget Spike, or Shining Armour, or her friends. Though horrors awaited them she would rather remember the bad, though it be truly terrible, rather than cast aside the good.

"I'm sorry," she said inadequately. "What happened?"

"My home... it was not so fortunate to be a shield world," Lightning said. "And the darkness descended on it. So I have been told, as I say I do not remember, and few can tell me because I am..." he sighed. "I am the last of that world."

"Oh, my goodness," Twilight murmured. "I... I wish that there was something adequate that I could say."

"It is alright, Miss Twilight," Lightning said. "I have Krysta, a new home, new family, new comrades. I am not alone."

"Even so," Twilight said. "I'm so sorry."

"I wish I could remember," Lightning said. "But since I cannot I look at this gentle place and I think to myself that my peaceful home of my birth might have looked somewhat like this."

The sun began to descend towards the horizon. A smile threatened to cross Lightning's face. "Lovely," he said.

Twilight could not help but let her surprise infect her tone. "I wouldn't have thought that you were the kind of pony who enjoyed watching a setting sun."

"I love not the bright blade for its sharpness," Lightning reminded. "Amongst the things I don't for the simple pleasures of watching a sunset, smelling a flower or eating a home cooked meal are not excluded. Not all my comrades would agree with me, but... thank you, Miss Twilight."

"For this?"

"For your kindness to a stranger from far off," Lightning said. "Being such a stranger is a position I am not without experience of being in and few have been so considerate to me and mine as you. For that you have my thanks."

Twilight smiled. "You're welcome."

They sat together in companionable silence as the sun descended beneath the horizon and the moon rose, illumining the sky with her silver light and causing all the stars to sparkle bright around her.

"So," Lightning whispered in a tone of reverent awe. "This is your sky. This is the sky of Equestria. This is the sky that my king and father looked on."

Twilight nodded.

Lightning stared up at it. "A comrade of mine claims that she can foretell the future by reading the patterns and courses of the stars."

"I don't know about that," Twilight said. "But they are beautiful."

"Yes," Lightning said. "Yes, they certainly are."

Comments

[Mornings Dew]

Oh my God! This is so good! Can't wait for more

[SUPERETHAN2]

“Well,” Rarity said sharply. “I must say, Prince Lightning Dawn, that I am inclined to agree with Applejack upon one thing: a prince should have better manners than to be so frightfully rude.”

Nope he really wasn't that rude about it and the reason for it makes worse. Typical over reacting ponies. You really could have executed this better. Have him be more insulting instead of simply saying he simply rather not see it.

[CalvinZilla]

Yeah, this is a good chapter. I like the characterization of Lightning Dawn, and I'm guessing that Saturn is a renamed Titan. This looks promising.