Where Loyalties Lie: Ghosts of the Past

by LoyalLiar

VI - The Coming Storm

VI

The Coming Storm

- - -

The balloon set down at the trailing edge of Mane Street, where the raw cumulus gave way to open air and a sheer drop. That morning, the city of the pegasi was already vibrant and flowing with life. The most select and reputable of shops had beautiful storefronts, with expensive glass framed by skysteel that would not fall through the immaterial structure they were set against. Colored cloudscapes declared brands and caught eyes.

In the middle of it all were countless ponies of every shade and color, flitting about, smiling, talking, and enjoying life.

"Haven't been to Cloudsdale in years," Dead Reckoning muttered. "It's so much bigger."

"It's easy to make changes when you can just pick up some of the ground and make whatever you want." Rainbow smirked at the answer. "Papa used to say that all the time."

"Papa?"

"My grandpa." Rainbow led the way down familiar roads that had marked the explorations of her foalhood. "I always called him that."

"Isn't 'papa' what everypony usually calls their dad?"

Rainbow's brow creased down into a glare that directed itself toward the puffy cloud streets. "My dad wasn't exactly around much, remember? After my mom died, Papa basically raised me." The younger pegasus would have been content to drop the subject at those words, but the option was stolen away when Reckoning's hoof caught her across the chest.

"Rainbow, stop. I didn't want to say anything in front of On, but I need to know. Why are you doing this?"

At first, Rainbow ignored the question. Her thoughts were on the way his feathers dragged across her coat when he pulled his limb away. There was a bit of electricity there, and the warmth was tantalizing and pure. He had all the limber strength of an agile flier and a soldier. He felt the way Rainbow imagined the Wonderbolts had to feel. She smiled.

"Rainbow Dash!"

"What?" She spat out the question on reflex, even as she shook her head to clear the thoughts she couldn't explain. "Sorry..."

"Rainbow, I want a straight answer from you."

"Sure." The mare gestured to the road, and tried to continue walking along with the conversation. Reckoning's hooves stopped her, placed onto both her shoulders.

"You still hate your dad, don't you?"

The word hate made Rainbow twitch within the comfort of his grip. "I don't really..."

His singular eye leaned forward, with a ferocious intensity in its search for truth. She felt the heat of his breath across her muzzle, and the tingles it sent across her coat left her wanting more.

"Why do you want to come with us?"

"Because I–" Rainbow's instinctual response died on her tongue. "Because he deserves a second chance."

Reckoning glared and focused his eye, but the orb was not alone in taking action. Rainbow Dash felt Empatha at the edges of her mind, snapping at her instincts. His Stare was too weak for anything more than unsettling her, but that was its only purpose. "You're lying to me, Rainbow."

Dash tugged her eyes away from his and stared down at her hooves. "I... I don't really know, okay? I just... I know what I told Scootaloo when we were talking about it last night, but when I think about letting you run off without me, it just feels wrong. Like I'd be disloyal, or..." The mare groaned. "I'm bad at this feeling stuff, okay? I just have to do this."

Reckoning released his grip on her shoulders, as he contemplated the answer. Two responses dueled fiercely in his mind. Though he knew which one was right, it was not the one that triumphed.

"Fine, Dash. Let's go."

"Good." As they continued walking, Rainbow couldn't help but sneak a peek at her partner's wing. A part of her considered brushing against him, before the back of her mind reminded her just how uncool such an action would inevitably be.

Their path continued down Mane Street, until it stopped in front of an office structure set apart from its neighbors by its gorgeously designed curves, and the spires of raw cloud that had been formed into faux icicles for the season. Beneath them, a pair of transparent doors opened into a warm waiting room with plush red cloud 'carpeting'.

"Silver Lining and Co," Reckoning read aloud. "Where every cloud has silver lining." His eye swiveled down to the doors, before turning toward Rainbow. “I take it this is the place? Fancy. Glass is expensive in Cloudsdale."

"Yeah," Rainbow answered, reaching for the doors. "It..." Her hoof stopped when it touched the flat surface. "No way."

"What?"

"Feel this. It's not glass."

When Reckoning placed a hoof against the transparent surface, he shivered slightly. "Impossible... Is that skysteel?"

"I don't know, but we can find out pretty easy. Let's go ask." Rainbow shoved open the door with rather less pleasantry and self-control than such a building deserved. Another pegasus mare sitting behind a desk glanced up at the sound of a bell over the door, recognized Rainbow, and immediately went back to her work. Rainbow in turn ignored the receptionist and walked straight down the hall behind her.

Reckoning nearly had to run to catch up, and in the process, he realized just how easy it was to really run in his new body. The fact that he'd lived alone in such inhospitable terrain for most of his later life had left him able to outrun stallions twenty years younger; the problem was that those stallions were still in their late forties. Now, there was no ache in his ribs, and the bones of his shoulders didn't click as he lent himself some speed.

The stallion who had once been aged and gray was so caught up in this long forgotten sensation that he barreled straight into Rainbow Dash as she stood in the doorframe separating the office's long hallway from the waiting room at the far end. The two pegasi tumbled over one another, although both rose quickly.

"Watch it!"

"Sorry..."

"What's all the commotion about?" Both pegasi perked up at the sound of the voice, and turned almost in perfect tandem toward the open doorway on the far side of the room. A third pegasus wandered into the room. His face was dominated by a bushy black moustache, set atop a gray coated face covered elsewhere with laughter lines. Though his expression was initially rather stern, it melted into an almost foalish glee as he took in the room. "Rainbow? You brought home a stallion?"

Immediately recognizing the implication, Reckoning jaw stiffened up. "Uh, Mr. Lining, I–"

Rainbow issued a groan. "Papa, please."

Councilor Silver Lining rolled his eyes in an exaggerated circle, all the while unable to hide his happiness. "You know somepony has to say something about it, right, Rainbow?"

"Yeah, yeah..." Rainbow's grumblings ended when her grandfather extended a foreleg. The embrace they shared was brief but comfortable. Legs slipped over leg, necks curled against one another, and the taller stallion gave an affectionate parental nuzzle to his granddaughter's ear. The motions ended without much delay. It didn't take any longer to share the thoughts they represented. Only when the embrace had ended did any sort of awkward stillness fill the air. Silver Lining waited patiently as Rainbow stared at him with a slight grin of her own.

Finally, the businesspony couldn't take it anymore. "So... are you going to introduce me to–"

"Right, sorry..." Rainbow scratched at her mane for just a second. "Uh, Papa, this is Dead Reckoning. You can call him Reckoning, or Deadeye. Just not 'Dead'. Reckoning, this is my grandpa, Silver Lining."

"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Reckoning."

Reckoning grinned. "My pleasure, Councilor."

"There's really no need for the formality. I guess I could say it's either Silver or Mr. Lining. Just not Councilor. Why don't– going somewhere, Rainbow?"

Reckoning turned in surprise to where Rainbow Dash was staring awkwardly toward the hall behind her. The mare nodded. "Just gotta, uh, use the bathroom." Without giving another opportunity for anypony to speak, she spread her wings and darted off in a rainbow blur.

"Well..." Reckoning muttered.

Silver Lining shrugged. "Happens to the best of us, I guess. Sit down, Mr. Reckoning. Or do you actually prefer Deadeye?" Along with the words, Silver gestured to a seat in the waiting room, and simultaneously tapped the underside of one of his eyes with a wingtip. "Sounds like the sort of name somepony would make up to tease you, honestly."

Reckoning collapsed onto a couch backwards, spreading his functional wing wide and tucking his forelegs behind his head. He looked entirely comfortable as he sagged into the puffy furniture. "I actually earned that nickname before I lost my eye. Back when I proved I could hit a bit somepony threw in the air with a bolt of lightning out of a pair of Nimbostratus shoes."

Silver's brow rose, but he nodded along with the short story. "I see. I take it from the sword under your wing there that you've taken that talent to its violent conclusion?"

Reckoning recoiled momentarily. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"At the moment, nothing more than conversation."

The scout glared at the architect. "Yeah, I've killed griffons. And manticores, and hydras, and a few other strange things besides. It's not like I'm just some murderer–"

"No, you're a guardspony. I knew that the moment I saw your eye and your weapon. Nimbostratus shoes, rather than pure Nimbus tell me you're a designated scout. So now I'm going to guess that you met Rainbow... a bit more than five months ago?"

Reckoning's brow rose slowly, before falling down to his eye like a guillotine. "Yeah. Zebrica. She helped..." He stopped, took a deep breath, and continued. "Honestly, it's more like I helped her save Princess Luna."

"That's my Rainbow." In spite of the tone his earlier words had carried, Silver Lining's calmly reclining form was nearly as relaxed as Reckoning's. His hind legs were curled up beneath him, and he leaned gently on his left side against the plush cushion of the couch opposite the scout's. "I always knew she was going to be great, but now it seems like I see her in the paper twice a year, up with Princess Celestia getting some medal for saving the world."

"She's an incredible mare," Reckoning agreed. For some reason, the way Silver Lining looked at him after that statement changed sharply.

"Earlier, you might have thought it was strange of an old stallion like me to joke about Rainbow bringing you to visit. Normally, that's a mother's place, I know." Silver's smile belied a certain firmness to his words. "But Rainbow is the only family I have left, and I'm the same for her. So sometimes, I have to be her mom."

For just a moment, an image of Easy Breeze returned to Reckoning's mind. He could see the young mare's dazzling eyes, and the way she gently bit down on her lower lip as she smiled at him. It only lasted for a flash, but he wished it had stayed longer.

Silver Lining nodded. "It also means that sometimes I have to be her dad."

"She told me about–"

"Stop." Silver held up a hoof along with the word, and it earned him instant silence. "I know how Rainbow feels about her father, and I imagine that's what you've heard too. If she trusts you to talk about him, then there's a few things you need to understand." The pause that followed was marred by hesitation and doubt. "Steel was my son, and I supported him. When he signed on, I was proud, even if I didn't really show it. I knew why he thought he had to leave, even if I disagreed."

"Lots of ponies joined up in the Dragon Wars. Can't really blame them."

"Oh, that wasn't his first time with the guard. Steel re-joined," Silver corrected. "He started when he was sixteen. I don't know if he ever actually quit. I didn't get to talk to him when he came back. We'd parted on... less-than-perfect terms." For just a split second, Silver Lining's eyes darted to the hallway where he had last seen his granddaughter. There was a surprising deal of pain in the tiny motion.

When Silver looked back, the hurt disappeared instantly. Reckoning couldn't help but admire how well the old stallion hid his feelings. "Easy Breeze–Rainbow's mother–came and found me after Steel left her. She did her best to provide for Rainbow, but she really couldn't afford a foal on her own, with her health failing. Encephalitis. I got her the best medical treatment there was at the time, but all I could really do was prolong the inevitable." Silver's nostrils flared as he took a deep breath. It was the only sign of his concern. "I raised Rainbow when she passed. And for the most part, I think I did well. But all the other foals had moms and dads, and it took her a long time to understand why he wasn't there." Silver sucked down another slow gulp of air, and his eyes wandered away from Reckoning, longing to look at something else.

As he scanned the area, Reckoning imagined that in his natural form, he would have been about the same age as the other stallion. Yet despite their similar lifespans, they couldn't have been more different. Even old, Reckoning had been lean, sinuous, and at least a bit twitchy. Silver Lining, in contrast, had a calm and refined form. There were no scars on his smooth and silky coat. His wings were well preened, and even the bushy moustache that dominated his face clearly saw a daily razor to keep it in line. While the stallion was by no means fat, there was the slightest bit of a bulge to him, suggesting that age and tired bones kept him from getting the exercise he used to. Reckoning took note of all these little details and more in that moment because of just how old Silver looked as his eyes focused on a towering painting set against the wall opposite the hallway back toward the front of the office.

And when Reckoning saw it, his jaw very-nearly dropped. There was a portrait of the Commander, in all his glory. Beneath his black helmet, piercing eyes betrayed the terrible focus that had dominated his every action. Yet the portrait seemed old–far too old to depict the stallion the way he had looked only six months prior when Reckoning had last seen him.

Silver Lining was too busy observing the portrait to notice the reaction on his guest's face. He continued his thoughts unhindered. "Rainbow hates the guard... or at least she used to. But I don't. What I do understand, though, is that the guard is dangerous." Without warning, the stallion's eyes snapped toward Reckoning. "I mentioned that sometimes I have to be Rainbow's mother. I also have to be her father sometimes as well. So I want you to understand me perfectly. If you hurt her, or she gets hurt because of you, I will not forgive you. I might not be young or strong, and I don't know how to fight. But I have influence and a great deal of money. I really hope I don't have to explain to you just how badly those two things can hurt if I put my mind to it. Do you understand me?"

Though there was no Empatha, the sheer dedication in Silver Lining's words belied the need for a Stare. Most anypony else would have been quite intimidated by the threat. Reckoning's throat knotted tight, not at fear for himself, as he was forced once more to contemplate just what bringing Rainbow along on his quest might mean. He nodded, slowly and firmly, and the action seemed to satisfy Silver Lining.

"Good. Now that we understand each other, we should probably get to know one another."

Reckoning found himself in awe at the stallion's social graces. It didn't take long for the tension of the previous words to fade, and yet in the back of his mind, thoughts of Rainbow's safety lingered long past when she had left the conversation.

- - -

Not far down the hall from her grandfather and her partner, Rainbow's hooves were clenched tightly against her brow in front of the small bathroom mirror. "Stop!" she hissed. "Go away!"

"If that's what you want, you probably shouldn't be coming to help me, Dashie."

"Don't call me that!" Rainbow shook her head rapidly back and forth, trying to clear her mind. The effort failed miserably in the face of the dark blue-gray stallion. "Gah! You aren't even real!" It took her more self-control than she could normally support to keep from shouting the words.

"Pretending that won't do you any more good than pretending that I died in the Dragon Wars." Steel Lining grinned at his daughter from the mirror, where her own reflection ought to have been. "But soon we'll finally be able to catch up for all those years we missed."

"We missed?" Rainbow slammed a hoof down on the pearly white cloudstone countertop. Rather than cracking, it deformed under her hoof, sparing her the attention of all within the office. "You left! And– and you aren't even here! Get out of my head!"

A knock issued from the door to the restroom. "Miss Dash, are you alright in there?"

Rainbow shuddered. "Uh, yeah, fine. Just... got some gum in my mane. That's all. Sorry."

The receptionist didn't sound convinced when she responded. "Well, I guess if you say so. If you need anything, feel free to yell."

The figment of her father was kind enough to wait until the mare was gone to speak up again.

"I know you miss me, sometimes."

"Go away."

"I know you still remember my voice, when I held you and sang you to sleep."

Rainbow clenched her eyes shut. "Please just go away."

♪ "You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. " ♪ His voice had a gruff tone, but it carried the notes well. They brought tears to her eyes, wringing her heart until the last drops of happiness had been lost to a desert of unwelcome memories.

"That's Papa's song," Rainbow protested, still not opening her eyes to look at the figment in the mirror.

♪ "You make me happy when skies are gray. " ♪

"You're lying. You don't care about me. You never did."

♪ "You'll never know, dear, how much I love you. " ♪

"You don't!"

♪ "Please don't take my sunshine away... " ♪

The singing stopped, but Rainbow remained curled up on the cloud floor for some time, struggling to curl deeper into the puffy white where Steel Lining would finally just get out of her life. Her wings shuddered as she wrapped herself in them. It took a long time for the mare to build up the courage and open her eyes. When she looked in the mirror, she saw puffy magenta eyes and wet cheeks beneath a rainbow mane staring back.

- - -

Celestia's brow rose when she found six ponies waiting for her outside the meeting room. She had only been expecting five. Three Royal Guards, whose names she did not know. Thunder Crack and White Flag. And, finally, with tears on her cheeks and fire in her eyes, Twilight Sparkle. When the young mare did not look up to greet her mentor, Celestia's heart screamed in agony. Her face showed none of it. She pulled herself up on the hallway bench beside her faithful student, making do with the vastly undersized cushion.

"Twilight Sparkle, what's wrong?"

"You don't know?" Twilight had no means to control the venom in her words. Yet despite her grief and rage, she recognized her action. "I'm sorry, Princess, I–"

Celestia didn't truly need to hear any more to understand. As she wrapped a wing around Twilight's shoulders, her eyes drifted up and away to another mare. There weren't many ponies in Equestria who could stand up under the Princess' incriminating glare, yet White Flag did not shrink or hesitate. The royal blue unicorn's only reaction was a brief nod. Yes, I told her, the action said. No explanation was given, and Celestia doubted any was truly necessary.

"Is it true?" The words were muffled by Celestia's feathers, and yet the soft rumbling of their speaker shook through her bones. "Is he really...?"

Celestia afforded herself a slow breath. It wasn't used to bolster her courage, but rather to spare her a moment to think. Did she tell the comfortable lie, or the painful truth? How would Twilight react? Would she ever earn her student's forgiveness?

"I do not know." Despite the strain in her heart, her tongue let the words travel free easily.

"What do you mean?" Even with the brief, and rather unpleasant sound of Twilight sniffling to clear her nose, Celestia could hear the tone of curiosity. "I thought you always knew when somepony died."

The question filled the princess with dread. Her eyes flicked away for a moment, coming to rest on the face of Thunder Crack. As dense as the stallion was, she still had to appreciate the little nod he offered her. "Twilight, what I learn of is when somepony's soul is ready to pass on, and requires judgement. But if..." Even Celestia could not keep herself from the harsh intake of air that marked hesitation as she set her hooves down a dark road. "There are evil forms of magic in this world, Twilight, which can stop somepony from moving on."

Celestia jerked as Twilight buried her face further into her mentor's coat. The prod of the mare's horn had a harsh force behind it. "Necromancy. You mean Shining..."

"As I said, Twilight, I do not know. However," Celestia stopped not for her own sake, but to open her wing and look down at Twilight. Though a grown mare, the unicorn was clutched to Celestia's side like a foal. Everypony deserved somepony who could hold them. Celestia wished she had somepony like that. "However, Twilight, your brother would not be the first of Masquerade's victims to suffer that fate."

"No..." Twilight whispered.

"Five months ago, Masquerade killed Lieutenant Morning Star. You remember him, Twilight?"

Twilight nodded, her coat sliding against Celestia's. "He used to sneak me cookies from the palace kitchens."

Celestia rubbed a wing along Twilight's back. "I was unable to send his soul on to the Summer Lands until we caught Masquerade. I had to set him free myself."

"So Shining's gone?" Twilight finally pulled herself away from her mentor, and looked up into vibrant purple eyes. Her tears had dried, and Celestia saw in their place something primal and potent. Something which scared her.

"Captain Ink did not find a body, Twilight. Only the helmet of Platinum's Ward."

Twilight Sparkle pulled away from Celestia. "Then I have to go."

"Absolutely not." They were the first words White Flag had uttered since her harsh revelation.

"Captain Flag, I do not recall asking for your input." Celestia had expected the blunt reprisal to be the end of the issue.

She was wrong. "As Captain of the Royal Guard, my entire purpose is to protect Equestria's citizens. I cannot condone one of the Bearers of Harmony hunting after the assassin. She doesn't know the first thing about battle."

Twilight's sorrow finally lost the ongoing battle with her rising anger. "I'm a stronger mage than you."

"Perhaps," Flag answered. "But you can't learn to fight with your nose in a book. This isn't a horn-measuring contest, and the Element of Magic won't do you any good when the assassin walks up wearing your brother's face and snaps your neck."

"Captain, you are dismissed." The words hung in the still air as both Twilight and Flag suddenly jerked their attentions toward Celestia. The alicorn had spread her wings, gathering the attention of not only the two feuding unicorns, but the other present guardsponies. "You have duties. Go. Now."

Celestia waited until the guardspony was gone before returning her attention to her student.

"Princess, I need to do this."

"Why?"

Twilight's nose wrinkled and her ears flattened. "You of all ponies should understand exactly why, Princess."

"I do," Celestia answered, maintaining her usual calm. "But I need to understand what you intend, Twilight Sparkle. There are ponies in this world who embrace the anger you're feeling right now. Ponies who do not hesitate to kill for revenge, or for what they perceive to be justice. I know you've met some of them. I don't want you to fall to that level. So tell me what you intend, Twilight Sparkle."

"I'm going to go find out what happened. I'm going to find Shiny, or I'm going to..."

"To find Masquerade? To fight her? To kill her?" Celestia proposed the simple thoughts without any incrimination, yet Twilight wilted regardless.

"I have to do something, Princess. That mare... I hate her so much." The last phrase saw Twilight's head twist toward the floor, diverting her head to the side and her eyes away from the judging gaze of her mentor.

Celestia's wing caught Twilight's chin, and brought their eyes together again. Rather than blame or disappointment, the young unicorn found understanding.

"Hate is a powerful emotion, Twilight Sparkle, but I will not do you the injustice of pretending that you have no place feeling it. I share your sentiment. What I want from you, Twilight, is a promise. You must not let that hate consume you. Though her words were harsh, and perhaps even cruel, White Flag spoke the truth. You are not a match for Masquerade. Not because of a weakness of your magic, but because she is a killer and you are a caring mare."

"I... I think I understand, Princess."

"I knew you would, Twilight. You learn so fast. But this is not merely a lesson of your mind. Do you give me your word, Twilight? Will you control yourself, and remember your safety over hatred and revenge?"

It took Twilight a moment to bring the words forth. "Yes, Princess. I promise."

"Then I will allow you to go, Twilight. Shining Armor was on his way to Stalliongrad. I had believed he was with Red Ink, but Masquerade had in fact taken on his form. I've sent the real Captain Ink on their trail. He found your brother's helmet on the ice of the East Channel, under the Dragon-Fire Bridge near Trotsylvania. Masquerade blew out the bridge and the trains have stopped, so I fear you may require another way across."

"I'm sure I can figure something out, Princess."

"Remember the Windigoes' Curse. It won't be safe to travel the tundra on hoof, though I'm sure you know that from your former trip to that Domain." Celestia paused, closing her eyes in thought. It did not take long for her to find her words. "I'll have Thunder Crack go with you, but that isn't to say you should take any risks. If you find yourself in danger from bandits or marauding dragons, or if you find a sign of Masquerade, you are to go directly to Stalliongrad. Luna may still be there, but even if she is not, Tsar Eye will keep you safe until you can return to Canterlot. I would advise you not to bring any of your friends from Ponyville, but I do forbid you from bringing Spike. Many of the ponies in the Domain of Stalliongrad still have strong feelings about dragons."

"Of course, Princess."

"With respect," a rather gruff voice cut in. Celestia's focus shot his direction, and Thunder Crack visibly tensed. "I am the last Honor Guard in Canterlot, Princess, now that Captain Flag is Royal Guard. And I'm absolutely not leaving your protection to these amateurs." The respect in his voice disappeared in record speed as his wing gestured to the other three ponies present. "Perhaps you should send a few of them with Miss Sparkle instead."

Celestia could have very easily overpowered the stallion's sentiments with another direct command, but her words were stopped by yet another interruption.

"Uh, Princess, if you'd allow it... I'd like permission to accompany Twilight. I helped Shin–" the powdered white pegasus mare in gold armor hesitated, coughing awkwardly into a hoof. "That is, Captain Armor, when we were after Masquerade. I might be able to help here. And I can keep an eye on Twilight too."

Celestia's first instinct had been to simply deny the mare outright, but the words held no small degree of logic. "You make a fair argument, guardspony. What is your name?"

"Private Going Solo, your Highness."

- - -

"You're sure you're alright, Rainbow?"

"I told you I'm fine, like, seven times already. I just hit my head, Papa. Maybe if you didn't use such dense cloudstone for the countertop, I would have just gone through it."

Silver Lining smiled. "It's marble-grade, Rainbow. I'm not going to make a countertop out of sub-talc cloud."

The discussion was one of many that Dead Reckoning had been privy to in the company of the cloud architect and his granddaughter. For all the focus Rainbow had put on her knowledge of stunt flying in the sweaty depths of Zebrica, she certainly seemed able to keep up with Silver Lining's extensive use of professional terminology. As a career soldier, this left Reckoning out of the loop. "What's cloudstone?"

Silver and Rainbow both turned to the injured pegasus with the full-sized machete at his side, staring at him as if he were insane.

"Uh, you're joking, right?"

"Rainbow, not every pegasus grows up in a cloud city." Silver's wing dipped down into the street, scooping up a hoof-sized ball of puffy raw cumulus, topped with a slight layer of snow. The old stallion batted away the ice, and then passed the lump to Reckoning. "You're probably stronger than an old stallion like me. Crush that down as tightly as you can, Reckoning."

The scout stared at the lump sitting in the curve of his wing, contemplating what to do. Without a good second wing, the pegasus adopted a three-legged gait as his left foreleg dedicated itself to attacking the puff of cloud. Slowly but surely, the white puffy mass got harder and denser under his efforts. Curved edges became more jagged and crystalline. With each roll of his hoof, there was less give. The whole process took no more than a minute, in which time nopony really spoke.

Reckoning held out his wing when he couldn't get the mass any smaller. What he held looked rather like a block of chalk, with rough edges and a jagged texture. "Is that cloudstone?"

Silver Lining offered a brief nod as the grabbed the little rock with his own wing. "Yes, that's cloudstone. Just dense cloud that doesn't dissipate with time. It's an awful lot lighter than real stone too, though of course it still isn't solid to non-pegasi. What you've made here is about talc grade. Excellent for a first try, and passable for something made by hoof. Of course, these days, we've got a factory for the stuff, just like everything else." Silver handed the stone back. "You can keep that if you want."

"When you say talc-grade...?"

"Industry term," Silver clarified. "It just means it's about as hard as a chunk of talc you might dig up from the ground. Nowadays, construction usually uses granite-grade stone. Of course, if you're doing interior decorating or making something fancy like that, you want marble-grade."

Reckoning's eye followed Silver Lining's hoof toward a slightly larger than life statue. What looked like polished obsidian took the form of a solid black pegasus with his wings flared and his head held high. The scout couldn't resist the urge to walk up and tap the statue. Sure enough, his hoof found the material as solid as the mightiest of Canterlot's marble spires.

"Is this..." Reckoning bit down on the urge to use his commanding officer's ubiquitous nickname. "...Steel Lining?"

"What?" Rainbow cocked her head with a clearly confused expression on her face.

Silver Lining, in contrast, gave a light chuckle. "Did you think the portrait in my office was of my son? No. They're both of Commander Hurricane. Wasn't the Hearth's Warming Armor a dead giveaway?"

Reckoning forced himself to release an awkward chuckle after the elder pegasus’, accompanied by a shallow shrug. "I guess I didn't really think about it. What's the statue for?"

"It's been an awful long time since I've sat in a history class, to be honest. Do you remember, Rainbow?"

To the surprise of both stallions, Rainbow nodded. "After the whole Hearth's Warming thing, he took a bunch of his pegasi and pushed all of Cloudsdale here, to get away from the storm in Stalliongrad." At the astonished expressions, Rainbow continued. "Reckoning, you remember what Twilight said in the library? I went with her to Sawra-neigh-voo, and we found his journal."

Reckoning rolled his eye, stepping forward to offer Rainbow a harsh whisper. "It's 'Saraneighvo', Dash. And we're sort of in a hurry here."

"Right," Rainbow nodded. "C'mon, Papa, let's get to the smelter. Reckoning really wants to see that."

Misinterpreting her daughter's enthusiasm, Silver nodded. "Well, we're almost there. Don't want to keep your coltfriend waiting."

Reckoning didn't wince at the little tease Silver had offered. He winced when Rainbow did nothing to oppose it.

Their journey was marked by more small talk, but passed at a faster pace. Soon, the trio had reached a rather boxy structure topped by a trio of smokestacks. There wasn't much time for the scout to take in the sight before Silver Lining opened the windowless, industrial-looking doors and gestured inside.

The dominant trait of the room was a staggering and visible heat. It rose in hazy waves from four deep troughs above the floor, which flowed with what looked like blue and white magma. At one end of each trough was a huge bucket, which was slowly in the process of filling with the thick, goopy substances. The other sides of the troughs were attached to huge furnaces. From time to time, a pony in a heavy-looking gray jumpsuit would fly up with a brick of cloudstone the size of a pony's head, and dump it into a smoking hole at the top of the furnace. From there, the flow of molten mass would begin redoubled.

"Here we have it, Reckoning," Silver began. "This is the reason pegasi aren't all thought of as just soldiers anymore."

Reckoning was in a quiet sort of awe. He'd worked skysteel before, burning cloud with his own Empatha, and forging with a stone, or his own hooves. To compare his efforts to the oozing, bubbling blue rivers of cloud was to compare the shock of fur after walking on carpet to a bolt of lightning.

"A long time ago, skysteel was made by smiths. A pony would go out and grab a chunk of natural cloud. Then crush it down into tight, high-grade cloudstone with his bare hooves and wings. After that, it had to be melted and forged." Silver Lining beckoned both Reckoning and his granddaughter to follow as he progressed up a set of stairs near the door, onto a catwalk overlooking the floor of the smelter. "It'd take a few hours or a day to work one brick like the ones the workers are flying into the furnaces into a small sword or a set of shoes. And, please, don't ask me how the furnaces work. It's some crazy magic engineering I'd rather not deal with."

The huge bucket at the end of the first line had filled. A pair of pegasi workers guided a huge gray claw hanging from the ceiling over the bucket. With a loud crack, the claw grabbed the bucket, and lifted it away. Almost immediately, with the grinding of gears, another bucket rose out of the floor to take its place.

Seeing Reckoning's focus, Silver continued. "Most days we're making household goods, or structural supports. But we take orders from the Royal Guard too sometimes. One of those buckets will cast the lining to four hundred suits of armor. The buckets fill at different rates, but that first line is made of stratus clouds. A bucket fills every twenty minutes or so."

"That's a lot of skysteel. What do you do with it all?"

"Well, a lot of it is pretty mundane stuff. Pipes, doorknobs, that sort of thing. We temper in about 10% of actual surface iron, so it grips better for non-pegasi. The skysteel doesn't just go to Pegasus cities. Manehattan's water system is pretty much all skysteel from Cloudsdale. We also did the railroad into Stalliongrad. I have a co-investor there, who's been taking enormous shipments of cumulonimbus steel for some... weather project or something."

"What difference does the kind of cloud make?" Reckoning asked. "I'd always heard skysteel was skysteel, no matter who made it."

"Oh boy," Rainbow muttered under her breath. "Here we go."

Silver Lining beamed. "Oh, you're interested. Alright, well, there are four primary types of clouds. Like I said, we run stratus in the first row. It's stronger than real steel under a continuous burden, and more importantly, even if you put a lot of force on it, it won't actually deform it. That's what we use for all the guard contracts, as well as for most structural work. Sort of 'generic' skysteel, you could say.

"The second trough is cumulus skysteel. It's actually a little heavier than real 'ground steel', and its weaker too, but it has a really useful property. It holds heat really well, and even makes a little bit of its own. It's mostly used for technical jobs, or as a component in some of our alloys. Oh, and it has a pretty bad reaction to unicorn magic, so we try to avoid it in items that ponies are going to be regularly handling."

Silver paused for a short breath, though he had clearly lost none of his enthusiasm. "That's cirrus in the third trough. It's pretty much the opposite of cumulus. It’s vastly lighter than real metal, only a little weaker, and it has a natural chill. It makes a fantastic condenser for water systems, and it's also great for projects that would just be too heavy with anything else." The old pegasus smiled at the interest on Reckoning's face, as he walked along the catwalk to observe the final trough.

"Last but not least, this is our Nimbus line. It's probably the strangest type of skysteel, and for a long time, we didn't use it for much except as an alloy. The stuff is heavier than a mountain, even if it is just about as tough. Of course, that was before we started working with electricity. Nowadays, we make wiring and light-bulb bases, and things like that out of pure nimbus. It's a great conductor, and if you let it sit, it'll hold charge forever."

"It's what old guardspony shoes are made of," Reckoning noted with a tone of discovery. "I always wondered how that worked."

Silver Lining cocked his head. "I'm not sure I follow."

Reckoning had to remind himself not to give away his age as he continued. "When my dad was in the guard, during the war with the griffons, he said they used to issue shoes that would hold a bolt of lightning. That way, you didn't have to bring live thunderheads into battle. Of course, they were only good for one shot, and even then they weren't usually strong enough to kill like real lightning; just a good shock, or a stun."

A shrug was Silver's answer. "I've never heard of it before, but it's certainly possible. Now, follow me and I'll show you the forge room."

As the ponies progressed, another question came up in Reckoning's mind. "You said you had a co-investor. Do you own this place, Mr. Lining?"

"In a manner of speaking," Silver answered. "I have controlling stock here. I leave the actual management to ponies who know what they're doing; it was just a business investment. Lets me buy skysteel for my projects for cheap."

"So you own the skysteel foundry, an architecture firm, and you have a seat on the Cloudsdale council? You certainly keep busy."

Silver chuckled. "Less than you'd think. I was fortunate enough to have my architecture projects give me a fair deal of success. I might own this place, and the cloud factory, and the hospital, but I don't play much of a hoof in any of them. They just give me the money to keep doing what I love. Well, that, and pay some rather expensive property taxes." Silver shot a teasing grin in Rainbow's direction.

"Huh?" Rainbow asked. The mare had been absorbed watching the ponies in the big room fly around with their various tools.

"I said your house in Ponyville is the most expensive building in the city."

"Well, it is a Silver Lining," Rainbow answered with a smile. "Still the most awesome birthday present ever, since we're talking about it."

Silver laughed. "At least it went over better than the last time I bought you a building for your birthday." Turning back to Dead Reckoning, the older pegasus took a moment to tease a bristle of his mustache away from his mouth. "Anyway, I guess the point is that the only reason I'm still working at all is because it's what I love to do." He twisted to the side to show off a cutie mark of a rather plain cloud with an almost painfully vibrant and reflective silver outline. "Just like you must love to... stab maps?"

Reckoning was thoroughly stumped by the comment. "What do you mean?"

"Your cutie mark." Silver's explanation was accompanied by a drop in the levity of his speech. "You've got a map back there, with a sword or a knife or something through the X. Unless I'm mistaken, you've had it since you got to Cloudsdale."

Reckoning twisted around, confused. There wasn't a dagger on his map. That was ridiculous. It was just a map, with a big...

...knife? No, not really. It was his machete; the same one hanging from his side, buried almost up to its hilt in the parchment. But that was impossible, wasn't it? Cutie marks didn't change.

"Reckoning doesn't have a knife on his mark." Rainbow trotted over toward her partner as if to prove her point. When she came into view of the mark, her eyes flared slightly with surprise.

Reckoning knew he needed to act quickly, and his mind raced for the right words. "It's... not a knife."

"Huh?"

Reckoning turned toward Rainbow, hoping that the eye patch on Silver Lining's side would conceal the painfully obvious wink he shot her. "It's a trowel, right? I know I had to explain that to you too, Rainbow. It does kinda look like a knife, I guess. That's why I was confused."

"Uh... oh, yeah. That's totally it. Right. Sorry."

The only thing that kept Reckoning from burying his face in his hoof at Rainbow's pathetic part in the charade was that it would have made things even more obvious to Silver. Said pegasus spared the two younger ponies a confused look, but ultimately seemed to discard his question. "Right, well, I guess that makes sense." His tone told an entirely different story. "Let's get going, shall we?"

The 'forge room' was really just a glorified store-room, holding shelves upon shelves of large cast-cumulus mold trays. In a workspace at the center of the room, a few workers were pouring molten cloud from one of the huge buckets into a mold for inch-wide pipe segments. On the far wall, three solid steel doors with tiny slits for windows concealed some further area.

"I guess there isn't a ton to see here, but at the same time, this is where things really get made. The molds get filled, and then set aside to cool, with some more magic that I don't really understand. Once they're done, you get skysteel."

Reckoning began to scan the walls for molds of swords, and shoes, and armor. As his attention was occupied, Rainbow spoke up. "Papa, how'd you make the see-through doors to your office?"

Silver Lining grinned. "You noticed. Good for you. Well, it was actually kind of a stupid accident, really. I was up on the catwalk with a cup of water in my wing last winter. One of the other ponies bumped me, and I spilled it in the cumulus feed. Of course, it cooled off the cloud, so we had to throw a big chunk out. The plan was to toss it out in the snow, and then re-melt the whole thing once it was a big slab. Except when the workers went out to haul the slab back in, there were all these glassy spots in it. Turns out, if you make skysteel with pure condensed steam instead of cloudstone, it comes out transparent. We don't really have a production line for anything like that up yet. I made the office doors over the stove at home."

"What's through those doors?" Reckoning interrupted. He'd found the right molds, but it was fairly obvious that asking to cast an entire set of forty custom swords would raise some questions that would be better off avoided.

Silver glanced toward where Reckoning was pointing, at the three sturdy doors on the far wall. "Huh, those? Leftovers from back when this place used to employ actual smiths to work the skysteel by hoof. Some artists rent the rooms from time to time. Otherwise, they're just for show."

Reckoning pondered on that for a moment as his eyes wandered the room. Finally, he settled once more on Mr. Lining. "Would you mind if I... played with one, for a little?"

There wasn't even a moment's pause before Silver Lining answered. "I honestly don't see why not. Help yourself." Silver turned to Rainbow. "I'm going to head back to the office for now. I can make up the guest room for your friend, if you'd like."

"Nah, it's–"

"That'd be great, actually." Reckoning put on a disarming grin, only to find himself feeling as though Silver could see straight through it. "If you don't mind, that is."

"Of course not." The architect matched Reckoning's grin, and then turned to be on his way. "I'll see you both tonight then. Be careful in there."

Rainbow watched her grandfather walk out of the room. By the time she had turned around, Reckoning was already sliding through the door of one of the little rooms. Her wings didn't leave her far behind, even given his lead. She waited until the door had shut behind her to speak up.

"What the hay was that?"

"What?

"Lying to Papa! Now he's going to have his feelings hurt when we don't stay tonight."

For what seemed the umpteenth time that day, Reckoning's sole eyeball spun in its socket. "Write him a note, Rainbow. Tell him we had something come up. Tartarus, he'll probably believe you if you tell him Princess Celestia summoned us. The point is, it got him out of our manes right now." Reckoning tore his eyes away from Rainbow and looked around the room.

A central anvil sat next to a small fire which radiated Empatha in some form. A rack on the wall held tongs, a set of various hammers, and some other miscellaneous tools. Five swirling vats occupied the opposite wall, bearing metal labels. Cumulus, Stratus, Nimbus, Cirrus, and Steel. The air was sweltering, and it smelled vile and poisonous. A faint blue glow dominated the harsh atmosphere.

Reckoning drew his machete from its sheathe and set it on top of the anvil. "On the topic of lying, Rainbow, you could use some practice. You're awful."

"Well, thanks," Rainbow grumbled. "Not like Honesty is an Element of Harmony, or anything."

The stallion grabbed the tongs from the rack, and slid the harness at one end of the handle onto his neck. "No, but it's an important skill when you're keeping your head down like we are. Just like how I pretended I didn't know about skysteel, to get your grandpa to trust me. The Commander taught me that."

"Yeah. No surprises there."

The pain in Rainbow's tone got Reckoning to stop his work. "You don't need to stick your neck out for him, if that's really how you feel. On and I can get this done."

"I'm not sticking my neck out for him." Rainbow got up, walked over, and sat down beside Reckoning. He could feel the warmth of her coat against his own. "I'm doing it for you."

As Reckoning went about forging three ponies worth of gear, it was his shame that he never built up the willpower to push her away.

- - -

Luna sat alongside Foresight, feeling a surprising warmth on her coat given the actively falling snow that surrounded the pair. Without the enchantment, the wait for Krenn's so-called 'revelation' would have been unbearable. Instead, for the princess, it was a pleasant experience to look out on the landscape that had so long ago been called her home.

"So you mean to tell us... rather, to tell me, that this spell you hath devised will end the curse that has held this Domain for the past eight millennia? I must find such a declaration hard to believe. Clover was certain her spell would succeed as well, and she was a greater mage than thou."

Foresight shook his head, adjusting his glasses slightly. "I can't claim to have devised the spell. In honesty, it would be more accurate to say that I cobbled it together from dozens of other spells by far more powerful ponies. Some of them more reputable than others."

"You imply there is dark magic in your work?"

Foresight rolled his eyes. "I've never been much of one to believe in magic being inherently good or evil on its own. Certainly there are magical spirits that can be malevolent, but if what I heard of Discord is true, even they can be redeemed. Regardless, my point is that some of the spells I cobbled together were originally made by some less-than-decent ponies, for equally indecent original purposes." The unicorn gestured off the towering castle turret the pair were sitting on and down to the city of Stalliongrad proper. Amidst a mostly level skyline of low wide buildings of brick and stone, a half-finished black spire stretched up a dozen stories into the sky, covered in scaffolding and swarming with ponies who looked the part of ants from such a distance.

"That is the 'Obelisk' you speak of?"

"I honestly couldn't come up with much of a better name for it," Foresight admitted. "It's based on King Sombra's spire in the Crystal Empire. Without access to a single pure block of crystal or the magic of that place, though, I had to improvise."

"It must be expensive."

"Up until a few years ago, it would have been unfeasible," Foresight agreed. "Stalliongrad had always been the poorest of the Domains of Equestria, even before Frostbite burnt away the treasury on his paranoia against Lord Krenn. Fortunately, with the trains and some economic management, I've been able to turn that around. The ponies have jobs again, and the Domain has money. I've invested quite a bit of it in the skysteel smelters that have given us the railroad, and now so many raw supplies for my project."

"So much work must go into such a structure. The open scaffolding must be dangerous, with the wind."

"I have tried to restrict the project to pegasi, but Father stubbornly refuses me. He insists such 'discrimination' would destroy the equality he's trying to create. It's moronic."

"Perhaps," Luna commented. "But his work seems noble nonetheless."

"In my experience, nobility has to be tempered with realism, or it does us no good. Not when earth ponies and unicorns fall off the scaffolding. In fact–"

The conversation was interrupted when the door that opened onto the turreted tower creaked open. The clop of hooves against stone marked the entrance of Tsar Eye, Mirror Image, and Marathon. While the Tsar was his usual even-faced and controlled self, the two Honor Guard ponies were both obviously fatigued from what must have been a long night. Luna could not blame Mirror Image, who had stayed at her door through the whole night. As for the diplomat, if her guilt over lying to Krenn had kept her from sleep, she deserved the feeling.

The ponies were followed shortly by Krenn's bodyguards, Fire and Ice, whose clawed feet scratched in an even but harsh rhythm. The draconic ruler himself was the last to step forward into the open air. Luna observed his limping gait, and the heavy clunk of metal that accompanied his every step. But there was another noise as well. A pained, off-beat tone that pervaded the air far more notably than its volume gave it any place to.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

Luna's ears folded back at the sound of a beating heart. Foresight watched her face develop into a shallow scowl, and he felt the mana building in her body. Concerned, he turned his attention to the source of the noise.

"I take it you found what you were seeking, Krenn?" Watchful Eye asked with the height of respect in his tone.

"Yes," Krenn responded, holding up a black bag of something that resembled leather, if not raw flesh. It twitched, beating like a living heart in time with the audible noise.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

"It has been twenty years since I–"

"Krenn, no!" Luna's shout echoed in the open air with magical potency. Stones crumbled from the tower at the sheer volume.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

"This is not what you believe it to be, Luna."

"I know exactly what that is, Krenn. Whatever slight you perceive; whatever pride or jealousy has consumed thee, I pray thou listen to reason. It isn't worth throwing yourself away over!"

Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

Krenn's foot shifted, bringing his center of balance directly beneath his towering body. The hand clutching his steel staff shifted to a lower, and far tighter grip. "Luna, you have no idea what you're speaking of. Do not get involved here." With those words, the dragon's claws moved to the thin drawstring holding the bag shut.

Luna lunged, wings spread, horn glowing and eyes focused. Blue lighting flew from her, intended for the dragon ruler.

Krenn's wing spread over his body, and it in turn was sheathed in a veil of black flame. All present recoiled at the sheer heat, as Luna's lighting spread across the magical flame and dissipated harmlessly into the air.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

The dragon took the next move, before Luna could even think. Reaching around the neck of his bag, Krenn clasped his staff in two hands as one might a club or a bat. The torsion of his upper body in bringing his wing to bear gave him a frightfully potent wind-up. The dense, lean muscles of his arms twisted beneath his scales as he brought the long metal shaft to bear. It whistled in the wind, moving faster than an arrow, and with more strength than a meteor. Its head found Luna's cheek, unprepared for the blow.

The battle ended then and there in that single blow. The side of the alicorn's jaw caved in with an audible series of cracks. Her wings crumpled and her eyes shut as she was thrown a dozen feet aside. The force sent her spiraling over the edge of the tower, into a sharp dive.

What followed was chaos.

Marathon shouted a primal call as she dove after her ruler. Tsar Eye recoiled, stunned at the sudden display of violence. While clearly unprepared as well, Foresight ignited his horn, ready to cast if necessary, and kept his eyes on the trio of dragons.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

Mirror Image focused his attention first on the red bodyguard, Fire. A pale blue aura surrounded the dragon's head. The telekinesis lasted only a second, but in that time, the dragon's head was turned around to face its own tail. The noise that issued forth was more sickening than what had happened to the princess.

"Stop!" Foresight shouted, focusing a minor illusion of pain to distract Mirror Image before he killed another dragon. The stallion's eyes went crossed as visible bolts of white mana bounced between the forked crack in his horn. He fell to the ground unconscious a moment later, his forehead literally smoking beneath his mane.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

Krenn offered a short nod to Foresight, before limping to the edge of the turret. His hand was again wreathed in black fire, and his eyes closed as he focused. It wasn't long after that Luna's shaking, bloodied body came up over the edge, followed shortly by Marathon.

"You nearly killed her!" Marathon shouted.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

"No, I merely incapacitated her," Krenn answered. "Her Endura will heal that wound in a matter of hours. A day, at most. Her consciousness will return more shortly still." Krenn twirled his metal staff, before bringing it down once more as a sort of crutch. His weight shifted to his usual, more slouched posture. "For all her years of proper speech and rule, she is still our rash, impulsive little sister it seems." Despite the reminiscence in his words, the dragon was clearly not happy. "A millennia ago, this bag held pure darkness. She gave me no opportunity to explain myself, and now Fire is dead."

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

There followed a silence, punctuated only by the bag's heartbeat, as Watchful Eye and Foresight navigated across the top of the tower to stand beside Marathon over the unconscious bodies of Luna and Mirror Image. Opposite them, Krenn opened his mouth and exposed a forked purple tongue in the direction of his dead bodyguard. The same black fire that marked magic on his hands flew from his mouth, consuming the corpse entirely. Foresight noted a swirl of sparkling white ashes that flitted off into the snowy air, as a charred black patch of nothingness took the place of the corpse.

When the silence had grown not only awkward, but also dangerous, Tsar Eye spoke up. "What is in the bag now? Why did you want to show us it?"

"The aftereffects of an ancient curse on my species. My chance to redeem my kind, and thus my most precious possession. My hoard." Krenn opened the bag. The heartbeat stopped.

It could be said that the roar that followed could wake the dead. It was accompanied by fire and rage, and words in the draconic tongue so ancient that even the surviving dragon bodyguard, Ice, did not comprehend them. And while no true corpses rose in the course of the sound, Luna's eyes flitted open.

Consumed in rage, Krenn did not notice. His head was tilted toward the sky, sending fireballs of pure darkness into the perpetual storm. As if being challenged, or perhaps feeding on his fury, the sky responded with a fierce wind and a denser fall of snow. With Foresight's enchantment down, the ponies on the roof shivered and huddled together against the wind.

"What... what have you done, Krenn?" Despite her pain, and the hesitation in her voice, Luna called out with a volume and an authority that could not be ignored. Foresight lent her both a telekinetic aid and a shoulder as she struggled to her hooves. "I tried to warn you, but darkness–"

The dragon's howl became words understood by all. "You want to speak to me of darkness, Luna? Why not ask your sister! She is the reason Discord's curse still haunts my race, and then she sends him across my borders freely to taunt me! I am not the one who has given in to hatred here!" Krenn threw the bag at Luna's feet, and she gazed into its depth. An abyss stared back at her, dark and infinite, but most of all, empty.

Krenn's anger was not spent, as he limped forward and hunched down to look the mare in the eyes. "I give the race of ponies six months. I will have what is mine, and the Draconequus as well. Give them to me, or I will burn Equestria myself, until your race is nothing but ashes and memories." His head flicked, as a snake striking at its dinner, to point in Watchful Eye's direction. "The lands we spoke of are mine as of this moment. If my kind find ponies there, they will eat well. If this bothers you, take it up with your sun princess. She is the villain of this story." The dragon limped back to his surviving bodyguard.

"Please, Lord Krenn," Marathon spoke up. "There must be something we can–"

It was not Krenn himself, but his bodyguard, Ice, who interrupted. "Pegasus wings were once a delicacy for dragons. If you would like me to have the chance to sample their flavor, I suggest you continue. Krenn has spoken, and his word is fact."

Before anything more could be said, black flames consumed both reptiles. In a dark flash, the pair were gone. Only a blackened stain remained on the stone.

Almost immediately, Marathon turned to the Tsar. "Get an infirmary room ready for–"

"We are fine," Luna interrupted, rubbing her jaw. "Though Krenn is quite strong. As for Officer Image, he requires only sleep."

"Princess, that blow would have decapitated most ponies." Foresight's observation echoed the still bloody open wounds on Luna's cheek. "I'm amazed you survived at all, whatever Krenn said."

"Clearly, we are not most ponies." Luna's words were not so much prideful as simply marked by irritation. "We have had one thousand years of practice honing our skill in battle, including refining the way our body heals. Our healing, our... regeneration is potent. Perhaps our face will not be that which inspires the hearts of artists for some few days, but our jaw functions, our eye sees, and our mind is unharmed. We could likely have fought Krenn to a standstill, were we not taken by surprise."

"Was it truly wise to fight him at all, Princess Luna?" Tsar Eye's voice was restrained, but the tone of condemnation was obvious in it nonetheless.

The princess seemed not to notice his qualm with her action as she offered what sufficed for an explanation. "Had you known what we know of that bag, you would have understood. One thousand years ago, we..." Luna closed her eyes and gave a quick shiver. "I sought out that bag. It was to be my solution to the jealousy I held for my sister. One might say that bag contained Nightmare Moon."

Nopony was exactly sure what to say in response. It was Foresight who had the cunning idea to get the group of ponies out of the rapidly worsening blizzard. His horn held open the door back into the castle, and also levitated the unconscious form of Mirror Image into the castle. To his surprise, the load became much lighter halfway down the spiral staircase. "Princess, don't–"

Tsar Eye strained with the red glow of his horn, which trailed a wisp of sparking smoke as it struggled to lift the unconscious body. "I have him, Foresight."

"Father, your magic isn't nearly strong enough to carry him."

"It isn't a... long journey. You need to... deal with more important things. Get me a stage. I will need to address... the city." Beads of sweat built on Watchful Eye's brow. "Then you must go to the train station. If Princess... Luna's message is true, your brother will be arriving soon. We can't... have an incident. Not today."

Without a word, Foresight's horn ignited. The distinct *pop* of teleportation marked his disappearance. In the absence of his son, the Tsar continued to struggle with the unconscious pony until a sparkling, night-sky aura assisted his own.

"I am well enough to aid you, Tsar Eye, whatever concerns your son might have for me." Luna's voice was firm as she walked up beside him. "May I be of assistance in some other way as well? Perhaps I could help you address your subjects."

"Unless you speak Stalliongradi, I fear showing yourself with a bruised face will only create greater struggles."

"Very well." Luna took a deep breath, as her minor regret betrayed how little she understood of dealing with the masses of ponies who were her subjects. "Tonight, when the moon rises, I shall visit my sister's dreams. Come tomorrow, we should have an explanation for Krenn's demands."

"I hope so, Princess," Watchful Eye answered. "I remember the wars. I truly hope so."

Comments

[Willsons]

Yes this is amazing

[Alondro]

>>> It was not Krenn himself, but his bodyguard, Ice, who interrupted. "Pegasus wings were once a delicacy for dragons. If you would like me to have the chance to sample their flavor, I suggest you continue.>>>

Really... *sighs* I have had quite enough of this now. Every single race seems filled with abomination. This dismal world is not the least bit entertaining any longer.

[LoyalLiar]

2077180

They are dragons; that's basically how they're supposed to work. I feel like I'm fairly close to canon on this one. That being said, to each his own.

2077162

Thank you very much.

[viofriedsevey]

Another awesome chapter! Keep em comin!

[Alondro]

2077268 *blinks* Ok... exactly what in anything at all in the show makes this close to canon? The dragons have no central leadership at all as far we know. The only episode that shows them in a group is a migration, like birds. And they all just hang out around volcanoes. We see nothing that suggests they have any kind of society at all. Indeed, when not migrating, the adults we've seen are apparently solitary. They also grow enormously huge when they're adults and don't seem to bother with ponies at all unless the ponies bother them.

[LoyalLiar]

2077298

...the part where Dragons are totally willing to kill and eat ponies? I had assumed that was what your issue was given the segment of text you chose to quote, and the text you accompanied it with.

Every single race seems filled with abomination.

My point was that it is not 'abomination' for a dragon (barring Spike) to want to eat a pony. That's what dragons do. One might go so far as to say that in the greater sphere of fiction 'eating people' is right up there with 'collecting money' and 'kidnapping damsels' as the three primary functions of dragons.

[StormyVenture]

One can *almost* feel bad for Krenn, it seems even ancient dragons are not immune to foolishness.

[DualThrone]

Hrm. That is literally all I have to say thus far. Awaiting a coherent explanation for what's going on, hope to be able to assemble one myself with this act/half/portion/whatever is done.

[djthomp]

I bet that's Discord talking to Dash out of the mirror.

"Twilight, what I learn of is when somepony's soul is ready to pass on, and requires judgement. But if..." Even Celestia could not keep herself from the harsh intake of air that marked hesitation as she set her hooves down a dark road. "There are evil forms of magic in this world, Twilight, which can stop somepony from moving on."

Ahh dammit. I guess that explains the dead ponies in Act I that Celestia didn’t know about. On the other hand, it means it really is still up in the air whether Shining is dead or not.

There we go, I was wondering if and when Going Solo would show up.

Okay, this cloud industry detail is really freaking cool. I love stuff like that. Tiny bit confused, though, I would have sworn I saw a comment on Act I indicating that the romance would be Dash X Luna, seems like we're getting Dash X Reckoning instead. Not that I'm complaining.

Ooooo, Foresight is the co-investor that Silver mentioned I bet.

Huh. That seems bad.

[Ehrlichkeit]

Fuck sleep.. this just updated.

[Alondro]

2077318 My point is, each race just seems to get darker and more twisted as time goes on. The downward spiral has become a whirlpool, new villains keep popping up with massive powers at their beck and call. Everyone is betraying everyone else. It's all becoming too overbearing. The entire story feels less like a tapestry and more like a knotted ball of yarn with every end tugging at the center mass for attention, only drawing the tangle ever tighter. There's no bright spot, no reprieve, no 'garden of Ithilien' to give the mind rest from the constant gruesomeness and escalating pshychological torments, death, backstabbing, and relentlessly mounting tension.

Each and every race is so corrupt and vile I cannot find any way to believe that the Bearers were ever so pure to begin with. Their world is more malignant than even our own, monsters with powers humans have never faced commiting acts of evil as horrible as their minds can conjour one after another. I find it impossible that all this darkness was hidden from them for so long when they were living right near a nexus of it.

And even Celestia now has multiple dark secrets.

There's no light left.

[terrycloth]

So... Krenn was lying about the darkness being gone, and just turned himself into 'nightmare Krenn' so that he could better destroy the ponies? That whole scene with the bag was hard to follow, especially the part where he finally opened the bag and was either angry or triumphant or celestia knows what.

I mean, at the end it said the bag was empty, but that was after it was opened and stuff happened, so I don't know if it was meant to be confirmation that it had always been empty, or if Krenn had just eaten what was inside.

Or was 'what is mine' referring to what was supposed to be in the bag and it was missing, instead of talking about the mysterious patch of land? I guess that's yet another possible interpretation?

[LoyalLiar]

2078067
Apologies; I assumed it was clear that the bag was empty the whole time, and that Krenn's anger was in the fact that he was expecting something to be in it which wasn't there.

[Jirodyne]

2077751 .... And... There is a problem with that? It makes the story awesome, it builds the world that Rainbow is in, and also since we will be seeing more of it, it builds her as a character too. Would it really be all that fun if after the first story the second one was all about Rainbow... I don't know... having some kinda race or competition with Dragons for something or another? Hell no! The only really bad thing I don't like of the story is the Honor Guard. They should all die and burn in hell, and am shocked Celestia, or even Luna, hasn't sentenced them all to death for Treason, Murder, and other stuff we don't know about yet. Red Ink MURDERED a family, only cause a 'traitor' was near their house. And all he got was a small slap on the hoof and a 'Don't do it again'..... ..... ..... The Honor Guard is the weakest link in the entire story for me.

[The 24th Pegasus]

2078322

Sometimes ponies do bad things to good ponies for the benefit of more. The Honor Guard is essentially the force that does the cold math of war and terror; some must die here so that more can live over there. Granted, that doesn't make them better ponies, and you kind of have to be slightly insane like Ink to be able to do what they do without qualms, but sometimes the regular Royal Guard just isn't capable of making the tough choices and doing what needs to be done.

[Alondro]

2078322 You're forgetting, the story is breaking a cardinal rule in literature: what happens in the story must not create implausibilities or impossibilities with what occurred earlier in the world's story.

We're being expected to believe that in this dark, horrible world where Nightmare Moon was a murderous psychopathic monster who slaughtered ponies without a thought, 6 untrained, unprepared young mares managed to defeat her. In this world, there is no possible way to rectify this illogical event with the history we are given in the story of Nightmare Moon. The NMM in this story would have killed one or all of the Bearers the instant she realized they were going after the Elements. They would have lost. INSTANTLY.

And we are also expected to believe that Celestia, knowing how cruel and murderous her sister's dark persona was when she was imprisoned, would just throw these 6 mares into the path of a sinister, hearless freight train of evil without giving them any word of warning.

Some may try to say that the Princess is protecting her subjects from the truth, to maintain some sort of 'innocence'.. but, no. Really, no. We see that every single pony city is filled with crime and cruelty. Her ponies are anything but the happy little horses in the show. So why was there no preparation at all, for any of this? Is the thousands-of-years-old Princess really THAT stupid? If I, a mere 36-year old can see the inherent flaws in her methods, how can she not? How has she allowed these other races to fester in their sadistic rage for so long? Has she learned nothing despite having more first-hoof experience and knowledge than any human who has ever lived could even dare to hope for? She comes across as almost ridiculously naive and short-sighted, given the blindingly obvious realities of the world she lives in.

The world building has taken the turn that it's in absolute contradiction with the events leading up to it. The plot has over-stretched itself, the world-building has become tied with world-destroying, with each new revelation clashing more and more severely with the hard-set canon.

And what is the point of the story as well? That every race reverts to its lowest and most savage form as soon as given the opportunity? The pigs all are heartless, savage, sadistic animals. The dragons, which for some reason are trusted to this point even though it is now revealed THAT THEY LOVED TO EAT PONIES in the past and the PRINCESSES KNEW THIS FACT, immediately grab a dark power and threaten to go back to their bestial carnivorous ways, to the point where one openly threatens a pony with predation. And Luna has no response? Good god, how can she even be considered a leader after remaining silent? And the ponies themselves have no retort? If there's one thing I despise, it's the presentation of 'untouchable' villains, where the protagonists seem spell-bound by the audacious wickedness of the evil-doer and can not so much as stutter.

Now, given that Celestia banished her own sister to the moon for a thousand years, and bound Discord in stone... why would she have let even one dragon who ate ponies live? This again flies in the face of common sense within the story's own internal character framework. We're being led to believe that Celestia has no problem sacrificing her own people for what she considers the 'greater good', but allows creatures that apparently have no redeeming qualities AND have brutally slaughtered and/or EATEN her ponies to live? No. As the filthy Mr. Plinkett would say in one of Redlettermedia's reviews, "IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!!"

If anything, the only 'lesson' to be learned from any of this is: if you have an enemy race that you manage to defeat, make you you exterminate every single survivor lest they rise again and take revenge upon you and your people.

That is the only thing I'm getting from this story. Kill your enemies down the very last child, then burn their corpses and feed their souls to Cthulhu just to be sure they don't rise from the dead later.

There is absolutely no path to reconcilliation here. Either the ponies kill off the entire pig and dragon races, or they face a constant looming threat. This is setting up for a situation where multiple acts of genocide are the only plausible outcomes.

And this whole analysis doesn't even address how unlikeable most of the characters are. It seems whenever we begin to learn about ANY CHARACTER in depth, we find that they're terrible in one way or another. We can't identify with any of them. Also, the central protagonist, Rainbow Dash, is less and less important to the story. I've noticed that she's showing up very little lately, and her actions are all but meaningless. This is another sign that the story has grown too far beyond its central premise. When one is spending more and more time expounding upon side characters, plot twists, and side plots than the main character(s) and his/her/its story, the message has gotten lost.

Essentially, this has entered what I call the 'supernova escalation error', where the simple story of earlier on has exploded into yet another 'THE ENTIRE WORLD IS DOOMED' fic. The first part of the story had a primary plot: Luna is poisoned by an assassin who fears and hates her, hired by others who hate the ponies. This would have worked fine had it held to that central idea and worked to a finale and then ENDED. But now the whole thing just keeps building to a frantic crescendo of torture and misery. And we're also being promised a war, a war worse than what they've experienced. So what do we have to look forward to? More pain, more death, more graphic gore... more pointless savagery that seems to now be glorying in itself and serving no purpose other than being a springboard for even more escalation. As an example: what purpose do the frequent scenes with the Commander serve anymore? We know why he's there. We know the pig bastard is a psychopathic super-sadist. These scenes no longer have anything to tell us that is important. The gore has ceased to be shocking, ceased to cause any surprise or horror. It's become irrelevant. I can skim over huge sections and miss absolutely nothing meaningful to the advancement of the plot. The increasing amounts of graphic violence in this are actually beginning to make me wonder if this is becoming something more akin to a snuff fetish story.

There's an old rule in story-telling that has held true over many years: if action doesn't advance the plot, give information about the characters, or play an integral role in the world-bulding, it has no place in the story.

[MortuusSum]

Am I the only one who found myself hoping for hilarious buddy cop hijinks when Shining Armour and Red Ink got on the train together?

[LoyalLiar]

2079024

Because in a more dangerous world, Nightmare Moon must somehow be willing to outright murder the main characters, rather than remaining as she is depicted in canon? Because there simply cannot exist a greater evil than her? Nothing I have stated obligates Luna's alter-ego toward extreme violence. She has the capacity for it, and she defends herself when outright violence is used against her (in Reckoning's flashback), but even then, we can see that she wasn't really aiming to murder those Honor Guard. She hit all 3 of them, and only 1 died. Nightmare Moon is a twisted reflection of Luna's ideals. She wants to be loved, not to murder her subjects wholesale.

I propose that you might be taking two thoughts a little bit too far. First of all, this is a fanfic intended for a much more mature 'target audience' than the show is. As such, I'm perfectly willing to depict Dead Reckoning decapitating a manticore, rather than Staring it into submission as Fluttershy would in the show. That's just a level of violence you're going to have to accept if you expect to enjoy the story. I'm not writing slice-of-life here.

Secondly, you might very well be taking the traits of some exceptional characters and applying them as a blanket over my entire world. The boars only hate the Commander, at least to the extent that has been show. Even Khagan's contract with Masquerade to gather up the rest of the Honor Guard isn't for any dislike of them; he's doing it to hurt the Commander further.

Yes, dragons eat pony meat. They're dragons. In the show canon (Dragon Quest), we know that the adolescents at least make a habit of stealing phoenix eggs, and I have a hard time imagining what they would do from there, other than smash them or eat them... I don't feel like I'm very far off base here. Rather, it's a mark of Krenn's 'training' that Ice at her young age manages the self-restraint not to just attack Luna's reception after... well, after everything went to shit. I shouldn't really need to say that Krenn himself is not indicative of his entire species, any more than Celestia or Luna's behavior is representative of all ponies. And before you say that I've never actually addressed this subject, and I'm just claiming outside the story that there are 'decent dragons' who aren't total assholes, I direct your attention back to everyone's least favorite scene from Act 1: Smog. Yes, there we had a dragon who had no intention of fighting Rainbow up until she tried to, well, kidnap his apprentice. Smog made vegetarian stew and debated philosophy. I feel like that's some strong evidence of the existence of fundamental decency in my story.

Ultimately, its like this. The Griffons are slavers. The Boars are a warrior culture. The Elk are... well, okay, the elk haven't really been covered beyond their leader and one creepy necromancer, but they're Tolkien elves. Hence "Lothlorielk Falls" from the incident report in Act 1. The Dragons are dragons. None of them are as nice as ponies. They live in less than ideal societies. But they aren't fundamentally evil, any more than the Romans or the Assyrians, or the... Tolkien Elves... were. They just aren't as nice as ponies. So then, as you've brought up numerous times, how do the ponies survive?

Well, ultimately, its because the ponies are a very harsh opponent if they are pushed to war. They're good at diplomacy most of the time, but things certainly don't always go their way. However, as 2078322 points out, then we have the Honor Guard.

They aren't nice. They aren't peaceful or idyllic or whatever other traits you might generally associate with pony society. They are 8-ish hoof-picked soldiers who sometimes have to go out and do unpleasant things so that the rest of the ponies can continue to have their wonderful, happy world. The existence of this tiny group does not invalidate the idea that ponies are nice creatures. In fact, most of the Honor Guard are at least tolerable ponies. Sure, Mirror Image is a womanizer (mare-enizer?), and Dead Reckoning's at least a little bit crazy, but Marathon is certainly a legitimately decent pony, bar nothing.

To conclude, this story is about the Honor Guard. It takes a huge world filled with semi-decent beings, and then pulls out its magnifying lens and zooms in until the only ones in focus are this particular tiny subset of not-very-nice ponies, and the mostly not-very-nice other creatures that they tend to interact with. This doesn't mean that nicer creatures don't exist. It also doesn't mean that somehow, Equestria shouldn't be surviving simply due to the existence of the less-than-perfect examples of these other creatures. That's what the Guard is for.

2078322

Apologies if you had to read through all the above, when I was just using your statement as an example there. Anyway, my response is this. Firstly, Luna was forgiven for at least one murder (Loose Cannon). She obviously served 1000 years of 'hard time', but the point is that she wasn't executed. Secondly, Red Ink's 'kills' would in all honesty be more along the lines of (involuntary) manslaughter. In the heat of passion, in the course of performing his duty as a guardspony, he lost control of his emotions, and burnt down a building. I have to imagine Celestia to be the one to take those sorts of considerations into account. I would agree that Ink deserves punishment of some sort, but execution is not the right answer. He didn't set out to just murder a family; he wasn't even aware of them until after the fact. Of course, at this point, I have no intention of opening a debate into any further legal semantics. My point is that yes, Ink is a bad pony. Killing him and letting him 'burn in Hell' is not the sort of solution that I believe Celestia would favor. In her eyes, if her project with Twilight makes him into a 'good pony', then his service as Captain of the Honor Guard for the rest of his life will serve as his way of paying for his actions.

The rest of the Honor Guard... well, I'm really not seeing it. Yes, they're by-and-large assholes, but if you think I'm being unfair there, go walk down the street and say "Hello" to some random people. You'll find one.

Thunder Crack: Was actually doing the entire 'asshole' routine deliberately to try and get Rainbow off the guard for her own protection, under Soldier On's orders. Later, 'betrayed' the Guard because he doesn't believe On was wrong. Maybe unreasonable. Definitely stupid. But not 'burn-in-hell' evil by any stretch. Also, got punished for his rudeness and treatment of Rainbow.

Marathon: A legitimately nice pony, whose only real crime thus far is playing at politics by lying to Krenn about Masquerade; even that was only for the purpose of what she perceived to be protecting Equestria. By far the most innocent of the Honor Guard, incidentally.

Dead Reckoning: Exiled to Zebrica for his 'PTSD' flashbacks. Otherwise a very nice, if sometimes distastefully humored pony. Loyal to the Commander, even to a fault, but about as far from 'evil' as you can get without having a halo. His worst crime is holding a grudge against Luna for her murder of his guard-mate right in front of his eyes. Maybe not nice, but certainly understandable.

Mirror Image: A 'mare-enizer', but that's about the worst that comes of him. Willing to set aside the 'Honor Guard grudge' and serve as Luna's bodyguard.

White Flag: I'll freely admit she has been a titanic bitch. She manipulates Shining Armor and Soldier On, and freaks out whenever her past at Treasonfang Pass is brought up. However, despite her rudeness (notably toward Going Solo and Twilight Sparkle), she still clearly wants what she believes is best for Equestria.

That leaves Soldier On and the Commander. You're welcome to say that Soldier On's treason is grounds for 'burning in hell', as you put it. I guess I really won't argue with you, at least until you have more information on her and her motives. And the Commander... well, there is a very deliberate reason that he's still almost completely in the dark.

I guess my overall point is this: the Honor Guard aren't nice, formal soldiers. They're real ponies, with (sometimes huge) flaws, who the Commander has chosen because he trusts them to get the job done. More than a few of them would be kicked out of the Royal Guard for behavior or other concerns (in fact, at least two have). But they're a necessary part of making Equestria the nice, loving land that it is. And to that end, as distasteful as he might be, Red Ink is a cog in a machine. Celestia might not like him, but he serves his purpose, and if she can get him under enough control not to unintentionally kill her subjects any more, then that means nopony else has to do the job. Plus, to borrow a James Bond-ism, "It's not as if Honor Guard have a very long life-expectancy."

-Loyal Liar

[Alondro]

2079508 Sorry, there's simply too much escalation. Too many villains. Too many plots all going on at the same time. And too much nastiness filling chapter after chapter.

What drew me to the first part no longer exists. It's ceased to be a quest and is now a gory battle of attrition against mounting foes and a master villain who uses 'fate', which is a concept I tend to dislike unless it's handled very cleverly and subtly.

[Anonymous Assassin]

If you don't like it, then don't read it. I am thoroughly enjoying the story, and I choose to read it because this type of literature appeals to me. All in all this story is not that dark anyway, I have read much worse on this website. If you think this is bad, try reading Diaries of a Madman by whatmustido... You will probably have recurring nightmares and need therapy sessions. However, it is an exceptionally well written story and probably among the longest ones on this site. I like where this story is going, the plot is starting to get more complicated and the intensity level is on the rise. I can only imagine how difficult it must be for the writer to develop such an intricate storyline, with so many original characters and even personification of entire races that we were given little information about from the show. Honestly if every story on fimfiction was just like the show, we would all get bored and look elsewhere for entertainment. So, that being said my kudos and thanks to the writer, for weaving an excellent tale and sharing it with us. For those who would choose to criticize the story, I ask that you take your negative opinion elsewhere. There are plenty of other stories out there for you to read that will better suit your tastes, please don't criticize someone because you don't like the type of story that they are writing. If it were poorly written, I would understand, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

[Zennyth]

Awesome! Solo's back in the game...well sort of. Have to wait one more chapter by the looks of things

But on a different note, I sure like the way you've been handling the budding romance between Dash and Reckoning (at least while Cadence's influence is in effect). It's coming along gradually and starting to influence their decisions, but it's not happening instantaniously which is always jarring to read when authors do that. Sure makes it interesting to see how things shake down if and when Cadence's charm/spell ends...I predict Dash's sense of loyalty will be put to the test then...

I find myself more interested in the characters themselves and how they interact with each other and react to the changing situations, than I am of the actual plot. Actually, this usually happens for me. Bring on well-written dialogue and I'm a happy camper! Hoping we get to tag along a bit with Twilight and Solo next chapter.

One last thing...why do I get this feeling that Foresight has much more of a sinister role to play in the road ahead? He is seeming to be an 'ends justify the means' type that could take things too far...

[LoyalLiar]

2085943

I know what you mean about jarring romances; on one hand, I've generally tried to avoid making it 'perpendicular tango in 60 seconds', but on the other hand, this is supposed to be at least a little bit on the 'fast' side, because it isn't natural. Magic does tend to get things done quickly, relatively speaking.

-LL

[zaponator]

"You make a fair argument, guardspony. What is your name?"
"Private Going Solo, your Highness."

Aww yes! I was just going to say that we needed more Going Solo.
A great chapter. It never ceases to amaze me how good you are at managing several separate story threads.
Keep up the good work.

[LoyalLiar]

2121477

Okay, if you wait one chapter, that's going to become more clear. At least, clear enough that you can probably guess and fill in the missing details.

Keep Calm and Flutter On is canon, but only because it fit particularly well with my already established plans for Discord, and his relationship with Krenn. To summarize what you already know:

Discord was free, but has been turned back to stone.
Luna seems to consider this at least slightly unfair.
Discord being turned back to stone was not the result of him being 'evil' again; it was a political decision.

Marathon quickly realized she was arguing a losing point. With some degree of dejection, she muttered her final defense. "I have to hope you're right, Princess. I just warn you that the way he views you is quite separate from how he views Equestria. We lost enough reputation in Krennotets when Discord flew off after Princess Celestia's reform project."

Luna glared. "It was most foolish of him to fly to Krenn, after the past the two share. Still, the draconequus meant no true harm, however spiteful his words."

"Discord's intentions aren't the issue, though, Princess. What matters is what it meant for Equestria. I don't pretend to know what he did to the dragons or the griffons or the elk. What I do know is that all three races demanded that we give up the Elements of Harmony, and threatened us with war if we didn't." She rolled her eyes, allowing them to land on her ruler. "Believe me; I was the one who got to deal with that political nightmare."

It's been mentioned a couple of times, but Krennotets is a big volcano, which serves as the draconic capital, inasmuch as they even have a government.

[derpyhooves15]

I tried to put of reading this chapter so that I could have more than one chapter to read, because whenever I read a chapter of this story, I instantly want more, despite the fact that you produce some of the longest chapters that I know of. I failed in that, but my god it was worth it. Such and awesome chapter. It's a shame about Krenn though, I had quite some respect for him.

[arancaytar]

There was a portrait of the Commander, in all his glory. Beneath his black helmet, piercing eyes betrayed the terrible focus that had dominated his every action. Yet the portrait seemed old–far too old to depict the stallion the way he had looked only six months prior when Reckoning had last seen him.

I can't remember if Rainbow Dash being Hurricane's descendant is established at this point in the story, or just really, really obvious. :D

(Also, now I can't type "Hurricane" without picturing his head on a golden scepter. Thank you Discord. :P )

[SolidFire]

Whooo! Silver Lining is fun. I noticed how Commander Hurricane and The Commander actually look incredibly similar. It's crazy how certain traits show up in some generations and not others. Dang, looks like Rainbow is losing her mind a bit. Hopefully that doesn't happen when she's in the thick of some action, because that would end up pretty bad. Oh boy... looks like another beloved character is in the cross-hairs of a madman writer. I don't know what it is about Going Solo, but I've come to love that mare. I hope she doesn't get brutally slaughtered somehow.

Hmmm, it seems that Cadence's spell is having a good affect on Rainbow. She's growing more attached and closer to Deadeye, and it's an interesting thing to read about. Now this is an interesting turn of events. Reckoning's mark... I'm guessing that change has something to do with the prophecy from earlier. Amazing chapter! Holy crap, war is coming! So I was really far off with guessing what was in the bag, but it's still amazing. I thought the Nightmare was in that... cave/prison/THING down under Canterlot where Masquerade was being held. This is just... overwhelming. Only about 80k into this INCOMPLETE story and things are going insane. I can't wait to read more tomorrow before work, and then while AT work, because screw a normal break.

~SolidFire

[son_of_heaven176]

Wait a sec. If the bag was always empty, then what was making the thump thump noise?

[LoyalLiar]

8261745

Go watch MLP Gen 1: Rescue at Midnight Castle (or something like that, I don't remember the exact title).

Short answer if you aren't a fan of hippopotamus shaped ponies: Tirek had a bag full of magic darkness that beat like a heart. The darkness would turn ponies into these fanged monsters.