Game of Worlds

by DualThrone

Convergence of the Paths

By the time Twilight, trailed by the girls, managed to get out of the press of the pullers exiting the Dawnbreaker, the “good old-fashioned whupping” was well into its second round. Without waiting, Twilight opened her wings and flew the several dozen lengths over the waters of the harbor to get close to the fight.

Penumbra hadn’t struck her as being anything like Princess Thalia with her lithe, well-muscled form and unconscious stalking-cat gait. As a point of fact, the zebricorn had seemed to be in peak health but definitely on the slim side, like a scholar who took care of themselves and exercised recreationally. But Penumbra--now cloaked in an illusion that gave her the appearance of an attractive mare in a charcoal coat and white mane--had clearly taken her medicine from Rainbow without being particularly affected. Sprays of blood from blows to her face colored the snow under her hooves, but she kept moving as if nothing had happened, brushing aside some blows, rolling with others, and outright sidestepping at those times that Rainbow used her athleticism to build up momentum.

Rainbow also seemed unaffected by the exertion of delivering a heavy beating and then continuing to lash out against the slippery Penumbra, darting, moving, throwing out hits with her hooves and brushing, distracting attacks with her wings without even breathing hard. But Twilight knew her friend well enough to see that she was getting frustrated that her opponent wasn’t going down and seemed no more bothered by the extended bout than Rainbow herself.

“Been a while since I’ve seen a snake in a fight.” Twilight blinked at the familiar voice and looked over her shoulder to see Princess Thalia standing there, watching. Just passed the well-muscled changeling, Twilight saw Luna and Nightmare standing together, fixated enough on the fight that neither seemed to have seen her yet.

“A snake?” she repeated.

“Yeah,” Thalia said. “Pro fighter jargon. Means a fighter that’s really fast and light, striking hard but never from exactly the same direction or angle. Can sort of take a hit but it’s not really what they’re good at.”

“Rainbow?”

“Yup.”

“And Penumbra?”

Thalia furrowed her brow. “I don’t know. She let Rainbow beat on her for a bit, then came to her hooves like nothing happened, and now she’s just avoiding getting hit. Hard to call a fighter who doesn’t fight.”

“If you were to guess?” Twilight said.

Thalia looked at her for a long few moments and then went back to watching the fight. “She said that if Rainbow goes for her horn, she’ll put her in a coma. It wasn’t a threat.”

Twilight suppressed a shudder. “It seems like one.”

“If you put your hoof in a fire, you’ll get burned.” Thalia said. “That’s not a threat either.” She paused for a moment, her eyebrow moving upwards in appreciation as Penumbra slipped around two blows in quick succession. “Who is she?”

“She calls herself ‘Penumbra’,” Twilight said. “Claims to be old enough to precede ponies moving to Equestria.”

“She also goes by the name ‘Light Shadow’,” Luna said, resting an affectionate wing on Twilight’s barrel before she was aware that her aunt had joined them. “Tia and I knew her as the field marshal and trusted right hoof of virtually every emperor or empress that sat on the Crystal Throne.”

“Also the vessel of the nightmare Sotto Voce,” Nightmare said, joining them. “Although I am not clear how this is. It has been millennia since I last encountered Voce, and she has no trace of him on her. On an unrelated note, she seems to be a skilled pugilist.”

“She’s certainly good at not being hit,” Thalia said. “And tweaking her opponent, cuz Rainbow is starting to look really, really pissed.”

“You… are supposed… to be losing!” Twilight’s attention turned back to the fight at the slightly breathless snarl from Rainbow.

“This is losing,” Penumbra said calmly, not even sounding out of breath. “You beat me until you got tired of it, and now I am only dodging blows without even hitting back. If you’d like to start hitting me again, I could stand still.”

“That is so not the point!”

“You wanted me to lose. I did. You wanted me to get hurt. I am.” Penumbra brushed aside a poorly-aimed haymaker. “Am I missing something?”

“Your thug desecrated my friend’s remains!” Rainbow rolled in midair to bring two hooves down on Penumbra’s head, missing as Penumbra took just enough of a step back for the blow to just barely miss. “The other one put my other friend into a coma! And you’re just standing there as if it doesn't even hurt.” Rainbow thrust her face forward until she was nose-to-nose with the calm zebricorn. “Stop bucking with me and lose.”

Penumbra looked steadily and unflinchingly back into Rainbow’s eyes. “Applejack Apple couldn’t kick my plot, Rainbow Dash, and I even let her connect with a full-blown haymaker. I cannot lose this fight the way you want me to, so I choose to allow you to hurt me so you can feel that you have punished the bucker who wronged you.”

Rainbow backed off slightly and alighted. “Hey Twi?”

Twilight jumped a little at her friend suddenly addressing her. She didn’t even look in my direction, how did she know I was here? “Yes, Rainbow?”

“Is this bucker being legit? Did she really let AJ hit her good?”

“Right in the face, yes,” Twilight said.”It didn’t seem to bother her.”

“No magic shenanigans?”

“I didn’t see any,” Twilight said. “Which could just mean that she used magic I…”

Rainbow looked steadily at Penumbra for almost a full minute before she seemed to reach some sort of decision and folded in her wings. “Naw, if she used it you woulda seen it. So what next, invincible bitch?”

“I’m not invincible,” Penumbra said, “Does this mean you’re giving up on thrashing me?”

“Don’t know how to really hurt ya,” Rainbow said. “Yet.”

“Cold is especially lethal to me,” Penumbra said. “Although only if it’s unexpected.” She glanced over at Twilight and smirked slightly. “Yes, I’m aware of the irony.”

“So what now?” Rainbow said. “Planning to swat us all down or somethin’ before we can get too powerful?”

Penumbra quirked an eyebrow. “Goodness no, your well-being is a critical part of my plan. As to what’s next, I have a small army to organize and lead on a short campaign. I have some very smart ponies helping so if you really wanted to try again, I can spare more time for a good old-fashioned whuppin’.”

“Naw, I know when I need to put in the extra work.” Rainbow grinned. “Bleeding and bruised looks good on you.”

“I know.” Penumbra grinned back. “I’ve worn it for years, collectively. First rule of learning fighting is, you’re going to get beat. You’re going to get beat a lot. Pain is a good motivator.”

“So’s love,” Luna said.

“You would know better than anyone.” She visibly considered this. “Well, better than any other non-changeling.” Penumbra dipped her head slightly to both Luna and Nightmare before turning and trotting along the edge of the docks, to where one of the VLCCs--Twilight thought it might be Constance based on how the other VLCC was in front of it--was being carefully guided in close.

“She’s really, really not afraid of us,” Rainbow said. “Just turns her back on bunch o’ ponies that wanna kick her plot like it’s nothing. Didn’t even take her fighting shoes.”

“She laid Lord Scorch out like a sack of apples without even trying,” Luna said.

“And Applejack tried, in earnest, to splatter her against a wall,” Twilight said. “She couldn’t even touch her.”

“Yeah,” Pinkie said from where she was standing right next to Twilight without any warning. “Put a bubble of magic around herself and let AJ kick it. It only stopped because Penny warned her. Hi Dashie.”

“Pinkie!” Dash grinned widely as she turned and grabbed Pinkie for a hug. “The hay are you all doing up here anyway?”

“The ‘invincible bitch’ twisted our forelegs to go on a trip with her,” Twilight said. “Not sure why she wanted us all in one place--this was before she was aware of what happened to Fluttershy, I think--but she seems to sincerely want it.”

“She is sincere.” Applejack trotted up with the rest of the girls following in her wake. “Lots she ain’t quite honest about, but wanting us alive an’ well she’s damn earnest about.”

“Maybe she shoulda picked thugs that listen better then,” Rainbow said. “One of ‘em got Flutters, AJ.”

Applejack gave her a flat look. “Beg pardon?”

“One of ‘em got Flutters,” Rainbow said. “Didn’t do a lot of damage, didn’t kill her, but bucked her up so bad she’s in a coma.”

Applejack frowned, but nodded. “An’ that’s why she let me floor her, cuz she knew she done mah friend wrong.”

“I don’t think she could have stopped Zambet from disabling one of you to prove a point,” Luna said. “I saw the sheer scale of the power of Kindness unleashed with the intent to kill. Fluttershy purged an entire griffon city of Zambet’s parasitic constructs in blast strong enough to throw me hundreds of meters away from well outside the city walls, and all Zambet needed to defeat it was Fluttershy identifying herself by name in Zambet’s presence. The power she has to control minds…”

“...is unique, and poorly-understood even by her peers,” Nightmare said. “Fortunately, there is a law of sorts with any form of power: it can be strong, long, and broad to different degrees. The strongest power is short and narrow, the longest power is weak and narrow, and the broadest power is weak and short.”

“So she can only use the power face-to-face and it has extremely stringent limitations?” Twilight said.

“Exactly that,” Nightmare said with a smile and a nod. “I believe that she has also devised a way to set even more limitations on particular uses so that those uses are far more powerful, but she goes out of her way to avoid using the power in the presence of someone who might be able to gain insight into it.”

“So ya think she knows?” Rainbow said, gesturing in the direction that Penumbra had walked.

“She knows,” Twilight said. “When she was speaking to Zambet right after bidding Canceros goodbye, she asked about ‘contingencies’ and was informed that one had been used.”

“Yes, that’s the term that Zambet uses for her ability to leverage her power,” Nightmare said. “That Penumbra knew the term suggests that Zambet revealed her power to her, or that Penumbra deduced enough that Zambet surrendered the rest of the secret.”

“Zambet also lied to her,” Dawn said. “She told her that she thought Auntie Luna would bring Fluttershy to this little shindig when she had to know that Flutters was out for the duration.”

“Well, clearly she made her ‘fess up somehow,” Twilight said. “Because before we landed, Penumbra told us what happened to Fluttershy.”

“At least Flutters is gonna be OK,” Dawn said. “I don’t have AJ’s psychic power to figure out when someone’s shining me on but I’m pretty sure she was being straight about that.”

“She was,” Nightmare said. “I and Selune came to the same conclusion, myself from experience, Selune from entering her dreams and speaking to the psychic manifestation of the Element of Kindness, who calls herself ‘Apoptosis.’”

“Who doesn’t care for me very much,” Luna added. “Mostly out of a distrust for Nacht.”

“Our Elements have their own personalities?” Twilight gaped.

“And sense of self,” Luna said. “And regard one another as sisters. It surprised me too.”

“Yeah, Tee’s a pal,” Rainbow said. “Looks sorta like Daring Do ‘cept she has this weird mane that’s sorta a light green-blue that she puts into, like, fifty braids.”

Luna blinked. “So when you said you talked to her, it was face-to-face?”

Rainbow shrugged. “Yeah, sometimes.”

Twilight furrowed her brow. “What did Apoptosis look like?”

“She chose to look like Fluttershy when I met her,” Luna said. “As Rainbow indicated, though, I’m sure they can choose how they appear.”

Twilight frowned. This is sounding familiar. “Nightmare, I know this is really sudden but would you mind if I had a private word with you?”

Nightmare frowned, but then her expression cleared and she nodded. “Yes, I think that would be best.” She looked over to Luna. “I believe I know what Twilight wants to ask me. If you’ll give me a moment?”

Luna nodded. “Yes.” She nodded to the rest of the girls. “I suspect that with her having come home, we should keep a close eye on Penumbra, if the rest of you don’t mind accompanying me?”

As she turned to Nightmare, watching her friends out of the corner of her eye as they mutely followed Luna, Twilight caught her sister looking concerned, and Pinkie curious, but the rest seemed to accept that it was her business. When they were out of earshot, she looked up at Nightmare. “You said you believe you know what I want to ask.”

“Yes,” Nightmare said. “When you saw an illusion of yourself that could actually talk to you, I’m surprised you didn’t teleport back to Scarabi that moment and demand to know what I did to your head.”

“I’d thought about it,” Twilight said. “But she isn’t some cognitive construct representing the knowledge you gave me, is she?”

“No,” Nightmare sighed. “Apparently Munin--as you’ve probably worked out, it’s the name that Magic has given herself--thought that a stressful time was the perfect opportunity to say hello.”

“I was under the impression that we are supposed to be the Elements, and the jewels are just foci.”

“It’s… complicated,” Nightmare said, “but it comes down to both Equestria and the changelings having two halves of the complete truth and not knowing that there even is another half. You are the Elements, the vessels for the power, and the power you’re the vessels for has a distinct consciousness. A weapon forged to stop a being of effectively infinite power.”

“Except not a weapon.” Munin was abruptly standing there, glaring at Nightmare. “I am not a cudgel, I am a highly sophisticated tool.”

“Um… Munin doesn’t like being called a weapon,” Twilight said, forcing her eyes away from the expression of frankly unsettling anger on the manifestation’s face.

“No sapient does,” Nightmare said. “Yet, it’s accurate. They were made to end a war by striking down the other side. Call them a tool, call them a weapon, call them magical intelligences, their purpose was to pull the monster down. They did.”

“What ‘monster’ are you talking about?”

“The Guardian’s opposite,” Nightmare said, “but more dangerous. You were eventually able to pin the Guardian down and kill him by main strength; pinning Discord down was only possible when the magic being used against him was as flexible and adaptable as he was.”

“And we will have to confront him again,” Munin said. “He is chaos; chains are order. Chaos will inevitably destroy order no matter how powerful that order is. Besides that, the world can exist safely without a god-like entity enforcing order on it; mortals do that easily enough on their own. But chaos creates as well as destroys, and the world would crumble without it.”

“Great.” Twilight looked to Nightmare. “Why didn’t you tell me about Munin before?”

“When the magical intelligence threatens to obliterate you if you tell someone about her, and she can do it, and she will do it, you stay quiet.” Nightmare frowned. “Not that I believe she actually would harm me if it came to that, but the threat was more than enough to prove her earnestness.”

Twilight shifted her eyes to Munin, slightly aghast. “You threatened her?”

Munin had the grace to look sheepish. “Gently,” she said. “I wanted to approach you on my own timetable, make friends, become seen as a reliable adviser, and then explain matters. I would never harm Nachtmiri, she’s been too diligent about serving Luna faithfully.”

Twilight sighed. “As if I didn’t have enough to worry about with a friendly fanatic playing hoofsies with a sadistic eldritch horror.”

“Who, incidentally, seems to have pulled the wool over your eyes about what was in that first big boat,” Munin said. “She, uh… was storing an entire train in there.”

Twilight blinked. “...she was storing what now?”

Nightmare looked down the shore in the direction that Penumbra had trotted after the fight with Rainbow, and gaped. “A locomotive. A bucking locomotive in a cargo hold and they’re unloading a second car.”

Twilight looked and there was indeed a locomotive resting on the ground, steam wafting out of its multiple smoke stacks as its boilers were stoked up. Other than the familiarity of the stacks and the wheels, it was a very different kind of train than the Friendship Express. It was painted in a pattern of white and other colors, breaking up its mechanical profile to make it harder to see. Large windows were replaced with metal plates and viewing points, and even from the other side of the dock, it was clear that heavy metal plates had been bolted onto it; exactly what that kind of armoring was meant to protect against, Twilight was sure she didn’t want to know.

As Twilight watched, another car was being hoisted out of the hold of the Constance and swung carefully over to where the locomotive was warming up. The car was similarly covered in metal plates with the windows reduced to narrow slits.

“I don’t think Penumbra is as clever as she thinks she is,” Nightmare said. “Just openly and casually unloading an armored train in front of Selune is a guarantee of making her pretty upset.”

“Wasn’t the Empire friendly towards…?”

“So much so that the border was a legal technicality,” Nightmare said. “Still, the only nation bordering the Empire with a rail network is Equestria, which makes a train designed specifically for traveling through hostile lands an implicit threat.”

“Nacht is overestimating how paranoid Luna is,” Munin said. “Still, it’s best that we get down there and forestall any misunderstandings. Lu-lu getting…”

“Did you just call her ‘Lu-lu’?”

“Um… old habits die hard?”

“How did it become a habit in the first place?” Twilight said, starting to trot down the docks towards the train being unloaded from Constance.

“I spent some time communing with Celestia,” Munin said. “In her own mind, she never calls her ‘Luna’ she only calls her ‘‘Lu-lu,’ although she never calls her that unless they’re in a private setting. I sort of picked up the habit.”

“So you were around at the time that Mother expelled the changelings?”

Munin turned away from her as they walked. “I was. Honesty was terrified; the truth is never an easy burden but it’s a crippling one when the truth is harsh. Split between two Bearers--your mother and Luna--instead of six made it impossible for us to communicate with either of them the way you and I are communicating now. Not that it would have mattered.”

“Because Mother understood the danger.”

“Celestia is not the Princess of the Sun and the grand strategist of the diarchy because of her looks,” Munin said. “She did not know for certain, but she believed that her decision was reckless, yet it was the only path she could see.”

Twilight walked with this for some moments. “It’s hard to imagine the changelings being dangerous to Equestria, or frightening to other ponies. Cadence--Princess Chidinida--was like a big sister and she was exactly the same pony when she took off her guise in the palace. Unless the royal family is an anomaly…?”

“They’re not.”

“Then it’s even harder to understand.”

“Because you’re not thinking about it,” Munin said. “Which is understandable, you have very important things on your mind. But I know that it’s been pointed out to you that you six are some of the most experienced, well-traveled ponies in Equestria. You’ve personally met the races that constitute the powers of the world: gryphons, dragons, and zebras. I would be shocked if you met a hippogriff, a yak, an abyssian, or any of the other races of the world and were unable to cope with them being different.”

Any reply that Twilight might have made to Munin was stopped as she noticed that the crowd of pullers had stopped work and had started to congregate near Penumbra--who was presently looking Luna in the eye (which was not an easy feat, even though Luna didn’t have her elder sister’s stature) and saying something to her which Luna’s expression said that she did not like at all.

“Munin, would…”

Even as her mind asked the question, she knew precisely what spell to use and how it could be formulated. She eyed the mental construct.

“Twilight, I am Magic. It’s kind of in the name.” Munin grinned at her. “And we can talk at the speed of thinking. Just ask me and I’ll whip something up for you.”

“That sounds like something I imagine Laughter saying to Pinkie.” Twilight quickly assembled the matrix of the spell and then cast it. Immediately, Penumbra and Luna’s voices sounded as if they were right next to her, speaking at a normal conversational volume.

“...was never a threat,” Penumbra was saying in a tone of exasperation. “We had no idea how all of this would go, so we devised many contingency plans. The train is one.”

“I am afraid your assurances are not enough,” Luna said. “You are at odds with Equestria. You intend to shatter the yoke, whatever that means, and are working with a thing like Zambet to do it.”

“The train is not going to be used for invasion, Princess Luna!”

“You should know that I cannot afford to take your word on that!”

“Well, you don’t exactly have much choice, now do you?” Penumbra turned to her soldiers. “Keep unloading the train and make sure the works don’t have any ice blockage.”

Luna stared at the back of the zebricorn’s head and her brow furrowed. “Have you forgotten who you are speaking to?”

“Do you really believe that I’m going to take any threat of you smiting me seriously?” Penumbra took a few steps towards the locomotive and lit her horn, starting to work on something around the lower rear. “You would have to overwhelm my defenses with pure brute force. You would annihilate this entire waterfront and everyone standing here, with the exception of the Elements and Empress Nacht.” She looked over her shoulder at Luna. “You don’t have it in you to be a monster, and thank Sola for that.”

Luna’s eyes narrowed in response. “Were I you, I wouldn’t depend on that.”

“I disagree.” Penumbra finished whatever she was doing and turned, trotting passed Luna and unconsciously shouldering Dawn aside as she moved over to the boxcar that had already been unloaded before Twilight had noticed. “You know what my hired beast did to Fluttershy; if that was not enough of a provocation to strike me down instantly, I can’t imagine what would be.”

“If you strike at a queen you must kill her,” Luna said. “I’m not confident that I can kill you.”

Penumbra turned around at that. “I am not a queen,” she said with more coldness than Twilight had heard from her before. “Or a princess, sultaness, lord, empress, or any other kind of monarch.”

“How else do you intend to make everything right if not seize power yourself?”

“I will be guide, and guardian, and circumstances will compel others to heed my advice,” Penumbra said. “But I have all the power I desire here, with my soldiers, as the servant of the Crystal Empire.” She paused for a moment, contemplative. “I admit it will be a very… complicated relationship, but I have all the time in the world to find a way to make it work.”

“Your altruism is unbelievable,” Nightmare said. “Really and truly, unbelievable.”

“If you need to believe just ask Applejack,” Penumbra said with a shrug. “I cannot lie to Honesty, and you know that.”

“You could suppress Laughter in the Dragon Lands,” Twilight said. “Why not Honesty here, in your homeland?”

Penumbra smiled at that. “I made the Lands my temporary desme, but you’ve met the pony whose desme the Empire is, and you know it’s not me.”

Luna looked between them. “She can suppress the Elements?”

“Temporarily, and only in certain ways,” Penumbra said. “Laughter is infinitely creative but to a degree, she’s shackled to…” She paused and looked toward the Constance. “Just a moment, have to… um, be right back.”

Twilight walked up to Luna as Penumbra slipped around her and trotted towards the waterfront. “How did you know to come here?”

“I didn’t,” Luna said. “At least not specifically here. We followed the trail through the Dragon Lands, met Penumbra speaking through a projective illusion, and found a low-risk way to make her Archive tell us her goal and where to intercept her. I thought we were arriving at the ancient wind-barrier near Glacierfast but found the city as I remembered it instead. I was going to move on to the capitol but…”

“...Selune wanted to indulge nostalgia,” Nightmare said. “The memory of speaking to Empress Lamplight about the grand legacy she was going to leave her people, I think.”

“That remains a treasured memory,” Luna said, “but it wasn’t why I wanted to stay. Penumbra spoke so confidently of being able to return the Empire that I wanted to see if there was something about the Abomination that we didn’t know.”

“The ‘Abomination’?”

“What we call the great magic wrought by Emperor Night White that removed the Empire from existence,” Luna said. “We’re still not sure how even an emperor of the Crystal Empire could have…”

“He didn’t.” Both Luna and Twilight turned to look at Dawn.

“What do you mean, he didn’t?” Luna said.

“She means that whomever this Night White is, he wasn’t the one suspending the Empire in time,” Twilight said. “The Empire’s guardian spirit was. Matchlight.”

Luna and Nightmare blinked. “Matchlight,” Luna said. “The Begger Empress. That Matchlight.”

“Penumbra didn’t refer to her as such but every indication I have is that they are one and the same,” Twilight said.

“She seemed nice, for the like full minute we spent in her presence,” Dawn said. “Cute little thing, dressed in rags, pure black coat, called Penny ‘Light Shadow,’ talked weird.”

“Using archaic language,” Twilight clarified. “Referring to Equestria as ‘the verdant south’, calling it ‘lit by the silver and gold of the Sisters’, and instead of saying ‘none of you’ said ‘not a one of you’.”

“Did she have the Imperial accent?” Luna said.

“You mean that thing where they only use one vowel?” Dawn said.

“Yes.”

“Nope, she talked normal,” Applejack said. “Real formal, but sounded Equestrian.”

Nightmare and Luna traded a long look. “If Penumbra was deceiving you, she made an extraordinary effort,” Nightmare said. “Matchlight never picked up the Imperial manner of speech. In fact, she had the habits of speech of an Equestrian noble. It was one of the more curious aspects of her, outside of her small stature due to sustained malnutrition as a filly.”

“We eventually determined that her ancestry tied into the De Lis family,” Penumbra said, causing Twilight to jump a little as the zebricorn was suddenly there without any sign of having approached. “The main trunk, as a point of fact, but Matchlight preferred to let that sleeping dog lie. In her mind casting shame on a noble family who had done her no provable wrong, to settle an account with a total stranger, whose cruelty had led to her being enthroned and able to succor the poor and free serfs, would be petty and unworthy of a great leader.”

“And she liked Menage De Lis,” Luna said.

Penumbra smiled. “She adored ‘Menny’ like she was her own child. Lamplight practically grew up with her, which opened many doors when it came time to assemble the Dawnbreaker. Friendship is magical in what you can achieve with it. Build an empire, create a revolutionary vessel for trade, empower a magical tool of awesome potential….”

“Exploit it to carry out some malign plan?”

Penumbra gave Nightmare a very level look. “I’m extraordinarily powerful, Empress Mien, but the Empire is the desme of Matchlight, and it is in the Empire that I must bring my plans to fruition.” She turned and looked as one of the various pullers walked up and raised a hoof in a salute. “Yes?”

“Boiler’s stoked Field Marshal Shadow,” he said. “Will your guests be joining us?”

“They will,” she said. “Is the map car ready for our use?”

“It is, ma’am.”

“Then start your count. We leave in five minutes.” Penumbra looked at them. “Naturally, you may do as you like. The citizenry will certainly welcome you and make you comfortable if you wish to stay, and the gate staff will certainly give you directions if you wish to travel on your own. Keep in mind, the train will start moving in precisely four minutes and thirty seconds from now. Decide quickly.”

“Why do you want us as company?” Twilight said. “Not to sound conceited but if there’s any group of ponies anywhere better suited to frustrate your plans, it would be us.”

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Penumbra said. “Even though I don’t regard you as my enemies–merely obstacles–I know where you are and what you’re doing as long as you stay in my company. Three minutes forty-five.”

“Where’s the train going?”

“To the capital,” Penumbra said. “And I believe your sister will be approaching around the same time that I do. She will no doubt be even more surprised than you were, Luna, because she has no idea who I am beyond a loyal field marshal of the Empire.”

Luna frowned at her. “That was unnecessary.”

“It was entirely necessary,” Penumbra said as she turned. “I want to keep an eye on you and the Empress as well. If you intend to board, the train rolls in about a minute.”

Author's Note:

Yeah, it's uh... been a while. I hope people are still reading this, and I hope people are enjoying this. As usual, I crave comments and especially criticisms and am now off to bring all the rest of the pieces of the board. Ciao.

Comments

[Snowy]

I don't have the bandwidth to offer proper criticism, unfortunately. I can say this much, though: I've been drifting away from the fandom for years, but I always come back here from time to time to check on a few stories. It's a pretty short list these days. This story is on it.

[DualThrone]

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I am honored by that. :)