Celestia: And Full of Terrors I
Celestia looked down at the scorched and twisted husk that was all that remained of Canceros. Incredible that something so small, could do so much evil, she thought. Yet in the end… I couldn't be enranged. I couldn’t make myself slowly bake him to death instead of just wreathing him in flames so intense that he barely had a moment to make a sound. “I think it’s been centuries since I last did something like this,” she said aloud.
“I think this would be the first enemy you’ve come across in centuries who warranted execution,” Shining Armor said. “There are times when I still find it hard to imagine how frequently hard-case criminals are bundled off to a secure asylum instead of prison.”
“Professional rehabilitation is almost miraculously effective,” Cadence--Celestia was still struggling to remember to think of her niece by her given name--said as she joined her fiance at Celestia’s side. “Some of the places are still too gloomy, though.”
“They can’t all be the Verdant Heart,” Celestia said, pulling her gaze away from the twisted mass of charcoal. “Although I’ve often wished I could somehow duplicate the directors and staff. Perhaps with a wider pool of ponies, we can open more like it.”
“I hope so,” Cadence said. “I spent a lot of time there, if you remember.”
“Hard to forget after the number of notes of appreciation I was sent by the staff,” Celestia said, giving her niece a brief fond look. “Now, to make sure the thestrals are well and then get to the Glass Waste.”
“The frozen plain that Zambet showed us?” Shining said.
“Yes, where the Crystal Empire and the Crystal Heart were carried off by the dying curse of one King Sombra,” Celestia said, turning her head to look for the stairs leading upwards. “I and Luna gave it the suitably overly dramatic name ‘the abomination of Sombra’ because of how many ponies were dragged into the curse with him. Well north of a hundred thousand, a crushing number of innocents.”
“I guess that means everyone knows what the prize is now.” Celestia spotted the stairs at the same moment that Spite appeared in them, her sleek draconic shape looking somewhat haggard. “Because I had no idea until just now either.”
“Spite,” Celestia said. “What are you doing this far south? Has something befallen my sister?”
“She is fine,” Spite said, seating herself in front of the stairs and curling her tail around her feet in a very feline gesture. “Met a changeling named Kyra, got my sorry tail free, and had a pretty tense bicker with the prime alpha bitch of the zambet race. Luna is currently trying to make a city of griffons comfortable after Kindness simultaneously freed all of them from Zambet’s grasp and blasted the bint with her Element.”
“Well, Zambet’’s obviously not dead,” Anori said. “So she’s either so strong that she can shrug off enough pure magic to disintegrate a city block, or something went wrong.”
“Pretty sure something went bad,” Spite said. “Fluttershy went comatose afterwards. Not like sleeping it off, more like can’t be woken up at all. How did you know Zambet didn’t get destroyed?”
“She was here, aiding Canceros in doing some task for a person they called ‘Sotto Voce’,” Celestia said. “Had I known that she’d come from rendering Fluttershy helpless, I would have struck her down.”
“I’m not sure you’d have been able to, with all due respect,” Spite said, inclining her head slightly. “Relatively little is known for certain about Zambet, but all manner of powers have stretched forth their hand to kill her, and failed. May I ask more specifically about this task they were undertaking?”
“Zambet enclosed the Tree in magic that dimmed its radiance,” Celestia said. “She then built a runic circle of some kind that appears to have had the purpose of building communication between this place and Sotto Voce.”
“She was very particular about it, though,” Anori said. “She needed to know which direction Ponyville lay in, down to the degree, minute, and second, and she used it to orientate her circle.”
“That seems an… odd thing to concern herself with. I take it Canceros gave her an idiotic expression when she asked him.”
“We couldn’t see either of them at first,” Krysta said. “But I’m sure his expression was idiotic because she snarled at him for not having the information.”
Spite smirked at this. “Of course he didn’t. No Canceros is particularly bright, just brutal.”
“There’s more than one?”
“Yes,” Spite said, “but it’s a title more than a name. Canceros is the name of the Emperor of All Maladies, but none of them have the wisdom to avoid tangling with someone or something that can and will kill them. The only question is how long before a Canceros runs out of blind good luck; this one had the shortest run of any.”
“I got that sense from the contempt with which Zambet and Sotto Voce treated him,” Celestia said. “They treated him like an errand colt, someone too stupid to be entrusted with anything more complicated than carrying a message.”
“You should have seen him frothing at the mouth and ranting.” Trixie had been spending her time pointedly avoiding looking at the husk of Canceros, and instead looking over the various murals with interest. Although the showpony hadn’t turned around, she was clearly smirking. “He has it in for Nightmare something fierce.”
“The various incarnations of Canceros only have two consistent traits: folly, and poisonous envy of Nachtmiri Mein,” Spite said. “In their mind, mass slaughter proves power, but without killing anyone, Nachtmiri Mein is vastly more powerful than they will ever be and is treated with caution and respect. No one fears or respects an atermor.” She paused, seemed to realize what she’d said, and inclined her head in Celestia’s direction. “Apologies, no one in the wider universe does. I understand that they are an unholy terror to anyone who encounters them without the power to simply swat them like insects.”
“That they are,” Celestia said quietly. “It will take years before my subjects have recovered from what the atermors did. We’ve never experienced a pandemic before, and it being attached to ordinary food makes it even more traumatizing. The only saving grace is that someone called ‘Vorka’ sabotaged the plague so it wasn’t nearly as lethal, or was not lethal at all; I’m not clear on which it was. Engaging his services was apparently one of the proofs of Canceros’ stupidity.”
“Oh, contracting Vorka is not stupid,” Spite said. “His brilliance in the art of crafting magic is unique. But you have to be paranoid about his ‘help’ because the only person he ever helps is himself, and his whims. I am sure Sotto Voce wanted to throttle Canceros for failing to do something so basic.”
“Actually, he seemed not to care,” Celestia said. “His concern was with something that Canceros was showing him by talking to him. I have some doubts that the prize was the Tree of Harmony, or he would have kept Canceros in place as a useful tool. Instead…”
“...he practically fed Canceros to Auntie,” Cadence said. “Granted, Canceros was equal to the task but I don’t think Sotto Voce expected him to be.”
“Everyone here looks pretty healthy for being dead by a variety of horrible sicknesses.”
“We got help.” Trixie completely turned around, looking at Spite and away from the husk. “There’s been some artifact called the Quarantine Flag that’s…”
“Oh, ho, ho.” Spite’s grin was impossible wide and toothy all of a sudden. “The walking, talking, tail-kicking avatar of overkill stepped in. The strongest bound spirit I know of, and the atermor hate for Nachtmiri Mein is not even a match flame before the holocaust that is his hatred of the atermors.”
“He was on an entirely different level of power than I am,” Celestia said. “Reality ordered itself to his will without him even needing to exercise it. He destroyed them all merely by wishing it to be so, as if he was operating in his desme instead of the abandoned basement of an old manor. I’ve been told he was a mere physician in life but that seems impossible.”
“The Physician himself was quite impressive in life, but what you saw was mainly his master,” Spite said. “In certain narrow circumstances, The Physician is given the authority to exercise his master’s power in accordance with that master’s will. Destroying his enemies by merely wishing it to be so was such an exercise of power.”
“Which has tight constraints.”
“The most stringent I know of,” Spite said. “But it could be no other way.” She paused, thinking visibly. “Did you say that Sotto Voce essentially fed Canceros to you?”
“My niece did, but that was my impression as well.”
Trixie snorted. “‘You are a fool, Canceros, but you must have realized that if I did not slay you in this place, Celestia would. Good-bye, Canceros.’ And he sounded deeply satisfied as he said it.”
“Impressive,” Spite said, before giving Celestia a sidelong glance. “Just an impression, was it?”
“He did also offer the opportunity to kill me as a reward for Canceros’ service,” Celestia said. “And Canceros got very close. I’m effectively impervious to disease normally and this certainty has made me… complacent. I haven’t had to actively concentrate my magic on fighting off illness in centuries, so an onslaught of Canceros’ arsenal drove me off my hooves before I understood his manner of attack.”
“If he had struck and survived, I would be concerned,” Spite said. “But the Physician destroyed him and any of his kind that could bear the tale of how close their emperor got to getting the respect he coveted. What does concern me is that Sotto Voce would send any potential tool of his to die.”
“I would expect that Evils are unfaithful to one another all the time,” Celestia said. “Treachery is typically evil, after all.”
“Yes, Evils generally tend to be,” Spite said. “But backstabbing becomes dangerous at the upper ends of power, where tacit alliances are routine. Vorka can get away with it because his treachery is a known price of engaging his services; if given the chance, he will meddle in your plans in some way that benefits him or amuses him. Nightmares like Sotto Voce and Nachtmiri Mein, or creatures like Zambet, gain power by building networks of favors, obligations, debts, and alliances. Sotto Voce engaging the help of the atermors and then setting up their emperor to die at a mortal’s hand destroys so many of these vital connections that he would have to gain something invaluable by it.”
“Maybe it was one of those obligations,” Trixie said.
Spite looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe he made a deal with someone and one of the things they wanted was Canceros dead,” Trixie said. “The last thing that came from his end was what sounded like a filly saying ‘Bye-bye Mister Canceros.’ I mean, I’m sure this Voce isn’t making deals with kids but I’ve known mares who sound like they’re a child.”
Spite’s brow furrowed. “A filly.”
“Someone who sounded like a filly.”
“That makes even less sense.” Spite tapped a claw on the stone. “Alright. I think I need to take this to your sister. Right now, she is in a better position to figure out what is going on. She will be relieved to hear that you are well, Princess Celestia.”
“And I’m relieved to hear that she’s well, although I’m deeply concerned for Fluttershy,” Celestia said. “I intend to look in on my subjects and then go immediately to the Glass Waste to see if I might interfere with Zambet’s plans, since she appears to attach significance to the place. But before you take word to my sister, I have a question.”
“By all means, ask.”
“Who is Nachtmiri Mein?”
“The Dread Empress of Nightmares,” Spite said. “By far the oldest, most powerful, and most…”
“Is she also Nightmare Moon?”
“Yes, that’s one of her more familiar names.”
“I see.” Celestia sat with it a moment, and the implications it raised. “Thank you, Spite. Safe travels.”
“I’m glad to help, Princess.”
After the dragon had blinked out of existence, Celestia turned her head to look at Cadence. “How much do you know?”
“Only what Mother told me,” Cadence said, meeting Celestia’s eyes unflinchingly.
“And that was?”
“That Empress Moon has been a polite, helpful, and very personable houseguest,” Cadence said. “That she has proven her worth as an ally. That Mother was willing to hear her out because she knew that she had some connection to Aun… Princess Luna. That it would be best for everyone if Luna was allowed to choose the time and place to discuss the matter with you.”
“Your mother is wise,” Celestia said. “And I think that a very frank family meeting will be needed when this is all over. But right now, Zecora spoke of the mother and her colt and my guards having survived and their illness being treatable. I wish to see them before I go, them and the thestrals.”
Two thoughts struck Celestia as she emerged from the corkscrew staircase onto the main floor of the stone manor house above the chamber of the Tree. The first was, has it really been so long? The second, however, was a somewhat confused, wasn’t there meant to be a ruin here?
The little that she’d been able to see from the bridge before following Matchstick down to the entrance had made it seem like nothing had changed since she’d greeted her sister, after the Elements had…
I suppose I no longer know what they did, she mused as she took a moment to orientate herself in the no-longer-familiar no-longer-husk of her and Luna’s home from a millenia ago. They knocked away the visage, but the way that Spite describes Nightmare Moon and nightmares in general it would make no sense for their association to be forcible. Yet the Elements clearly did something, or Lulu got bored on the moon and became a much better actress.
“This is incredible,” Anori said, slipping around her to unlatch a door and pull it open. “We were informed that they were building it up, making it more livable and defensible, but this?”
“Keen plays the fool sometimes, but she does more noticing and thinking than she appears to be,” Kryssa said. “Although I have a feeling that we’re seeing the…”
“...work of a nutty engineer?” Matchstick had somehow managed to appear as if out of thin air again, beaming in a smug showmare’s grin, making sure to roll her garish top hat over one leg and up the other. “Because that’s what you’re seeing. Coupling got birthed holding a toolbox in her hooves and a wrench in her mouth, so she can’t stop herself from doing engineering to it and making it nice, strong, and ideal for preventing entry.”
“Have you been building up the entirety of the ruins like this?” Celestia looked upwards as she asked the question, taking note of the row of engineered members paused in the middle of being covered over, the first stages of a solid roof.
Matchstick shrugged, rolling her hat again and tossing it up to land on her head. “Yup. The hoard of buckers stopped us in the middle of making a room specifically for…”
“And are there many of you here?”
Matchstick paused in mid-roll. “Um… ‘bout a hundred or so.”
“Hmm.” Celestia successfully tamped down the broad smile she could feel beginning to something more restrained. “Dear niece, am I being overly sentimental or does a hundred or so ponies that have moved onto officially uninhabited land and constructed permanent housing constitute a colony?”
Cadence didn’t make any attempt to restrain her smile. “That would fit the recognized standard.”
“I thought so.” Celestia looked down at the puzzled-looking Matchstick. “Something to discuss afterwards with this ‘Keen.’ Miss Matchstick, would you take us to where the colt and his mother that Flavius Zecora mentioned to us are resting?”
“Uh, who?”
“Zecora,” Trixie supplied.
“Yeah, got that, c’mon.” Matchstick turned and began trotting deeper into the former manor. “Pretty sure her first name ain’t Flavius.”
“Family name,” Celestia said. “In Zebrica, the correct formal way to address a zebra is family name first, given name second.”
“Cool.” Matchstick mulled this over a moment or two. “How does ‘Gaius Zahira’ grab you as…”
“No,” Celestia said. “Don’t make me tattle on you to Chrysalis.”
“Pies.” But Matchstick was still grinning when they stepped into a curtained-off section of the ruins, and the smell of a great number of ponies in a confined space mixed with the sharp floral scent of herbalist preparations washed over her, along with the sight of a few dozen ponies (overwhelmingly thestral) convalescing.
Zecora looked up from where she was gently prodding a broken wing as they entered. “Your Highness,” she said. “Are you looking for Keen or Brass?”
“You, actually,” Celestia said. “And a certain quartet of patients.”
“They’re not here,” Zecora said. “The doctor you sent to take care of them healed them completely, so they were sent somewhere to rest.”
“Do you have a moment to take us to them?”
“I do.” Zecora smiled. “Your doctor saw to their various hurts before he went. He didn’t heal them--apparently, he was not allowed to--but I’ve never met a more experienced and able physician.”
“He gave me that impression, certainly,” Celestia said. “And he’s not my doctor, but a physician brought here to fight the atermors.”
“Odd,” Zecora said, patting the thestral on the shoulder and deftly moving to the door. “He introduced himself as a servant of the princess, and said that you’d called upon him to help your little ponies.”
“A bald-faced lie.” Celestia smiled. “But one that I appreciate him telling. It was kind of him.”
Zecora stepped into the hall and let the door close behind her. “It was, although I knew he was lying.”
“How?” Trixie said. “I usually can as well but he was wearing clothes that completely concealed him and his face.”
“Because in Zebrica, the jackals do not speak or walk upright,” Zecora said. “His head and face were uncovered while he was here.”
“I suppose it comes as no great surprise,” Celestia said. “How are the colt, his mother, and my guards?”
“Entirely healed as I said,” Zecora replied. “The illness just evaporated from their bodies in moments, and the growths all over the colt melted like wax and then evaporated as well. I’ve never heard of such a thing before, not even in myth.”
“I think I’m coming to see what ‘narrow circumstances’ allow him to borrow his power,” Celestia said as they approached one of the few rooms that looked to have been fully rebuilt--her own room, as a point of fact, which felt oddly appropriate.
“Excuse me, Princess?”
“It’s nothing, Zecora,” Celestia said. “A musing on something I was told of the physician earlier.”
“Very well.” Zecora reached a hoof to push the door open, when it was pulled in from the other side and Celestia found herself subjected to a sudden full-body hug.
“Thank you, Princess!” The pony embracing her said, her face pressed against Celestia’s chest.
Celestia recognized the mother of the colt after a moment and smiled down at the mare. “No thanks are necessary, my little pony,” she said in as gentle and maternal a tone as she could. “I could never let my subjects suffer if I could do anything at all to help them.”
“The doctor you sent was very kind,” the mare said, still hugging determinedly. “I tried to thank him, but he said that all credit belonged to you.”
“He did, did he?” Celestia chuckled a little. “Well, I won’t refuse the praise of an excellent physician. May I see your son, and my guards?”
“Of course, Princess!” The mare let Celestia go and disappeared into the room. “Button, dear, the Princess is here to see you. Sergeant, the princess…”
“...is here to see us,” one of the guards said. “So we’ve heard.”
The mother appeared, flanked by two of the Royal Guards who were still somehow in uniform, with her hoof resting on the shoulder of a small-framed colt who looked a couple years older than the fillies Celestia had heard regularly about. He gave her a shy smile and took a couple half-steps forward.
“Thanks, Princess Tia,” he said. “Doctor Klepios was very nice, so thanks for sending him.”
Celestia looked the colt over. Gone was the horrific twisting of his limbs, and his hooves bleeding from clawlike protrusions. His neck and mane--a straw-colored bird’s nest that reminded her of Applejack Apple--were normal again, and the branching lines of infection following his veins were no longer here. Not only did Klepios heal him, he restored his body to its original shape, Celestia noted. And of course, it’s a pleasure to finally know the name of ‘the Physician’ or at least the name he uses.
“He is an amazing servant,” Celestia said, smiling to the colt. “So you’re feeling well now? No pains, no sickness, no tiredness?”
“Nope!” The colt grinned from ear to ear and trotted in place with a bounce to his steps. “I feel awesome! So who’re the funny pegasuses?”
“Thestrals, sport,” Matchstick said with a grin, rolling her hat along a leg then tossing it up so it landed correctly on her head. “And it’s been a pleasure to be your entertainers this evening. Please donate generously to the collection plate that will eventually be…”
“Matchstick.”
Her hooves came up in a placating gesture, although the grin didn’t budge. “Fine, fine, I’ll go without compensation this time, I can always earn a bit extra later.”
The colt watched all of this with wide eyes. “Miz Matchstick?”
“Yeah sport?”
“Un… Bright Buttons but… uh…” his eyes almost glimmered with awestruck hope. “Could you teach me how to do that?”
“What, the hat trick?”
“Yeah!”
“Hay yeah!” Matchstick said, clapping her hooves together with delight. “I’ve got myself an apprentice in the art of being the coolest pony in the room.”
“But can you fire yourself out of a cannon, into a manticore mouth, and end up in a nondesscript trunk?” Trixie said, bearing her own sparkling showpony grin.
Matchstick pointed a hoof at her. “When this is over, Mystery Mare, I want you and me in the Ponyville town square at high noon. Because that sounds like an awesomeness challenge.”
“Then you’d have to make it a three-way with Rainbow Dash,” Trixie said. “If we’re competing for awesomeness, she’ll join in whether we want her or not.”
The grin disappeared, and Matchstick’s eyes widened a little. “Rainbow Dash? Like, Element of Loyalty Rainbow Dash? Like, Best Young Flier, first in generations to do a sonic rainboom, rainbow mane and flight goggles Rainbow Dash?”
“As if there’s any other!”
“OK, yeah, we need to make it a… a… showpony contest then.” Matchstick’s grin returned. “Because I hate losing, and I’d lose that contest. Though a three-way with Rainbow Dash would be...”
The colt was looking between them. “So… can I learn the hat trick?”
“‘Course ya can, Buttons!” Matchstick took the hat off her head with a flourish and put it on the colt’s head. “We can start now, if yer mom is cool with it.”
“Awesome!” The colt turned the hopeful eyes on his mother. “Please?”
His mother patted him on the top of the hat. “Of course, dear, have fun.”
“Awesome.” Matchstick flourished the hat back onto her head. “Come right this way, kid, and I’m gonna make ya the coolest ever.”
“Trixie, would you go and keep an eye on them?” Celestia said as the pair started off down the hall, Button with a definite spring in his young step.
Trixie looked confused. “Aren’t we going to…?”
“We are,” Celestia said, using a hoof to indicate Cadence, Shining Armor, and the various guards. “But you have done everything anyone could ask of you. You did your best in Ponyville, you came with me here to confront Canceros, and now you’re going to complete your circle by watching the colt you saw struck down with illness frolic and laugh at least partly because you did your best.” She turned fully to the showmare and rested a hoof on her shoulder. “You are acting as my daughter’s proxy, but you are still my subject, and I still have to keep you safe. Canceros nearly slew me and he is meant to be a joke among his peers.”
“I…” Trixie took in a breath and the winning smile returned. “...am clearly needed here, so I couldn’t go with you anyway.”
“Yes, you are needed here,” Celestia said, then leaned in to speak more quietly to the showmare. “Ponyville has months of hard work ahead. They need someone to look to, and you have their founding family in your corner. If it becomes too hard, just lean on Big Macintosh; he’s as solid a stallion as I’ve ever seen.”
“Won’t Twilight be…?”
“My daughter has the duties of an heir to the throne, even though that throne won’t be vacant for generations yet. She cannot be a librarian, scholar, Element of Harmony, heir to the throne, troubleshooter, and a backup mayor.”
Trixie nodded. “Alright.” She looked passed Celestia to the mother. “I’ll keep the lesson from getting out of hand, Pearl.”
Pearl smiled. “Thank you, Trixie.” She looked up at Celestia. “And you, Princess. I don’t think I can thank you enough, even if I spent the rest of my life doing it. You gave me my little Button back; there are no words.”
“All of my little ponies are precious to me,” Celestia said, sincerely. “I’m glad that doing my best here let you bring your child home. I fear that much of Ponyville is badly damaged, and that it’s…”
“I don’t care,” Pearl said. “I have neighbors who’ll take me in. Things can be replaced; my son can’t.”
Celestia smiled at her and stepped forward to hug the mare. “Thank you for saying that, Pearl. I would stay with you, and maybe we could talk about each other’s children. But there are other ponies who need me right now.”
Pearl hugged her back. “I don’t know what you’re thanking me for.”
“We all need somepony to tell us that we’re doing well, even a princess.” Celestia let the mare go and nodded to the two Royal Guards. “Fare well, Pearl Button.”
“So how can we get to this Glass Waste, Your Majesty?” Anori said as they exited the ruined manor, their number expanded by two. “I doubt the Express has a stop there, and seven is a great many passengers for a teleport.”
“There are ways,” Celestia said. “We can’t very well spend days on a train to visit the edges of our kingdom. Even the carriage is poorly-suited for it, even if we knew where it was.”
“We’re sorry, Your…”
“I’m just pleased you’re alive and well, Sergeant,” Celestia said. “It’s not a dearly-beloved keepsake, another can always be made.”
“So what are these ‘ways’, Princess?”
“Quite literally that, Sieur du Closs,” Celestia said. “If a route is traveled enough, it creates something of a metaphysical tunnel. Luna can explain it better, but a way allows you to go from one place to the next with very little power invested. It takes very specific knowledge to even be aware that one side of the tunnel exits, much less how to exploit it. Fortunate, because they never lead anywhere that is safe for an unaware pony or Sola forbid, a child, to go.”
“Alright,” Shining said. “So this ‘Way’ is going to take is directly there?”
“Not this one, no,” Celestia said with a tiny smirk, stopping about where a stone garden trellis was still intact enough to be recognizable.
“So, where does it go?”
Celestia let her smirk turn into a coy look. “Take a guess, Captain of the Royal Guard, and in a moment, you’ll see if you’re right.”
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Wonderful, I was hoping we would get to see more of this side of the story soon.
Delightfully well written as always, and I will wait with bated breath for the next chapter.
10221951
Thank you for the kind words. :) I'm contemplating handing off viewpoints more rapidly as everyone arrives at the OK Corral but I think I'll play that by feel. I hope to see you and all the rest of the readership back soon for Chapter 58.