Chapter The Funny Name For Tenth: Nocturne in D Sharp Minor [Cold in Gardez]
The girls were barely halfway down the hall when the music began.
Rarity heard it first. Although she was not a musical pony by any stretch of the imagination, she did consider herself a bit more cultured than her friends, and part of being a high-society mare meant caring about classical music. Or, at least, pretending to care. Pretending to care about things occupied quite a bit of high-society mares’ time, as she had discovered during her visits to Canterlot.
She slowed and came to a stop, a tiny frown on her face as the noise began to intrude upon her conscience. The others powered ahead and were nearly around the bend when they realized she was no longer with them, provoking a round of squawking that ended when Rainbow Dash zoomed back to her.
“Hey Rares, come on! We haven’t got time for—”
“Shh.” Rarity cut her off with a raised hoof. For once, thankfully, Dash listened to her. Behind her, Pinkie Pie, Applejack and Fluttershy made their way back down the corridor. All three halted beside Dash, and stared at her with looks that ranged from befuddlement to impatience.
“Is, uh, somethin’ wrong, Rarity?” Applejack finally asked, breaking the silence.
Except it wasn’t quite silence. Rarity closed her eyes and listened, her ears straining so hard they shivered. She heard her friends breathing, the rustle of pegasus feathers, even the quiet thrum of blood flowing through her veins. And something else, something else besides.
There, again. A low note, so deep she had thought it was the wind breaking against Canterlot’s spires, but this was far too regular a sound, bouncing up and down like a cellist’s vibrato setting the foundation for some grand fugue.
“I hear it,” Pinkie suddenly whispered. “It’s... music? It’s not very happy...”
Indeed it wasn’t, and it grew louder with each passing moment. Rarity no longer had to strain to hear it. The others turned this way and that, their ears flicking about in a futile attempt to locate the sound.
Louder it grew, until the tremulous strains began to shake her chest. The long bones in her legs itched as they caught the note like a living tuning fork. A faint buzzing sound began to cover the tone, and she realized her teeth were vibrating. Still it grew louder.
“She’s here,” she shouted. The unending, single-note drone twisted her voice into something almost like a song. “She’s in the castle somewhere!”
“What do we do?” The rough tones Rainbow Dash normally spoke with were gone, obliterated by the music. “I thought she was at that Spire-thing!”
The marble flagstones beneath their hooves began to hum, and Rarity saw puffs of dust rising from the seams between them. A sudden sharp crack interrupted her thoughts, and she turned to see a huge stained-glass window suddenly fracture. The sound was echoed down the hall as dozens of windows began to fail.
And then the sound was gone, replaced by an equally deafening silence. Rarity’s ears popped at the sudden drop in pressure, and she shook her head to clear it.
“Well, apparently she ain’t,” Applejack said. Not surprisingly, she was the first to recover. “Do you think she’s done?”
No, Octavia wouldn’t be done until the star bargain consumed her, or she fulfilled her end of the deal. Rarity grimaced at the thought and began trotting down the hallway, carefully stepping around piles of broken glass.
“I think she’s just warming up, girls. Come on, we need to find the princess.”
* * *
Twilight Sparkle awoke and opened her eyes to darkness.
She tried blinking a few times, wondering if perhaps her eyes had simply failed to open. No, no, they were open. The room she was in, wherever it was, was simply cloaked in a darkness far more profound than anything she had ever experienced. Not the slightest hint of light or shadow broke the endless expanse around her.
But then, she was a unicorn. She was never truly without light. With a thought her horn flared to life, bathing the room around her in a faint lavender glow.
Calling it a room was, perhaps, an understatement. Her horn lit the grey stone floor beneath her, which stretched away into the distance, but there were no walls or ceiling that she could see. Only the stone floor, and the darkness, and her own bruised body lying prone on this odd rocky monolith.
It’s an altar. You’re lying on an altar.
That wasn’t quite true, she realized after a moment. She was bound to the altar, which was a significantly more worrisome development.
What is this how did I get here where is here oh Celestia what’s going on—
A sudden tug around her ankles broke her train of thought, which was threatening to derail of its own accord anyway. She sucked in a quick breath and tried to roll onto her side. Something dry and warm rubbed her legs, something scaley that smelled faintly of musk and Spike and filled the air with a quiet hiss. She thrashed in growing panic and finally managed to tip onto her side, and looked down the length of her body.
A dozen snakes coiled around her legs. Beady eyes stared up at hers. Their mouths opened, and needle-sharp fangs glistened almost beautifully in the gentle light of her horn.
She started to scream.
Twilight Sparkle awoke and opened her eyes to darkness. She tried blinking a few times, wondering if perhaps her eyes had simply failed to open...
* * *
“Princess!”
Celestia looked up from the table at the sound of Rarity’s voice. Before her, a dozen guards and officers in hastily thrown on armor crowded around a series of maps marked with tiny red flags. Some of them glanced up as Rarity and her friends arrived, but they quickly turned back to the table. Celestia said something to them, then walked quickly over to the girls.
“Friends, I fear we may be too late,” she said. “Did you find Twilight?”
“Sorta,” Applejack said. “We used the elements like you said, and they led us to a book Twilight must’ve been readin’.” She turned to pull Written in the Stars – Popular Myths and Legends of the Cosmos from her saddlebags and passed it over to Rarity, who flipped it open to the first of the pages Twilight had marked for them.
“There was a curse on it,” Rarity said. “It sucked us into... well, a dream, I suppose. We managed to get out, but Twilight marked several pages. The Curse of the Star Bargain, as you can see, and later... oh, where is it... Aha! The Heavenspire!”
Celestia frowned at the book. “Perhaps Luna was correct after all.”
“It’s just like Nightmare Moon!” Dash blurted. She pushed Rarity to the side and grabbed the book. “Octavia must’ve made some bargain with the stars, and Twilight found out about it.”
“But what could a musician have ta offer the stars?” Applejack asked. “What do they even want?”
The book glowed again and lifted out of Rainbow Dash’s hooves. It spun in place and floated toward Celestia, who flipped through its pages absently. “There’s no way to tell, Applejack. The stars are fickle and unpredictable. They helped Nightmare Moon escape because, apparently, they felt her reign of darkness would benefit them. We were fortunate that you six were able to stop her.”
“So, that’s great and all, but what about Octavia? And Twilight?” Dash asked.
“And, for that matter, where’s Luna?” Rarity looked around the crowded room for Equestria’s second princess, to no avail. “I thought she’d be here?”
“She’s looking for the source of that sound,” Celestia said. Her eyes never left the book as she flipped through its pages. “If Octavia’s here in Canterlot, we might be too late to stop her, especially with Twilight missing.”
“Can’t you and Princess Luna just magic her back to normal?” Pinkie asked. “So nopony gets hurt?”
“Nopony’s going to get hurt, Pinkie,” Rarity said. “We’ll find Twilight and use the Elements, and then we can put this whole thing behind us.”
There was a commotion near the door, and they turned to see Luna step into the room. She was taller than before, her form soaking up the moonlight like a flower drinking the sun, and she strode imperiously toward them. She’d found her old armor from somewhere, the same as Nightmare Moon wore, and simply looking at it sent chills up Rarity’s spine. She stopped just paces away and stared down at Rarity.
“Did you find her?”
“Ah...” Rarity glanced over her shoulder to see the other girls behind her. Applejack placed a hoof on her shoulder and gave her a tiny nod. She let out a breath and turned back to Luna to speak, her voice no longer shaking. “No, but we found a clue. She marked a book in the library that describes the bargain you mentioned, and another page about a place called the Heavenspire.”
Luna visibly flinched at the last word. “The spire... Stars, we haven’t thought about that place in thousands of years. We thought we were done with it.” She looked over Rarity’s head at her sister, a pained expression on her face.
“We should’ve razed it,” Celestia said. She closed the book and passed it back to Applejack. “I’m sure there are battlefields that have seen more blood than that castle, but none that have seen so much evil. It is a cursed place.”
Rarity felt herself grow pale. The book had described the Heavenspire’s past, but nothing so dark as Celestia’s pronouncement. Stars, Twilight is there? We have to help her!
“We have to help Twilight!” Rainbow Dash said, echoing Rarity’s thoughts. “We can’t let her stay there!”
“Not ta burst yer bubble, Dash, but this castle-thingie’s thousands of miles away, according to the book,” Applejack said. “Even you couldn’t fly there in less than a week.”
“I could too!” Dash spun to shout in Applejack’s face. “Watch me! I’ll flight there right now!”
“Dash, there’s no need to get angry,” Rarity said. “Why don’t you just—”
“Yer not thinkin’ straight, Dash,” Applejack said right back. “We need ta stay here and try to stop Octavia.”
“And let Twilight rot in some dungeon? There’s no way I’m letting that—”
“Girls,” Celestia’s voice, as calm as ever, broke through their bickering. “There may be a way to do both. Luna, do you still have your portal stone?”
“We...” Luna paused for a moment, her eyes closed. “Yes, it was in the collection you saved for us. It hasn’t been used in over a thousand years, though. There’s no way of knowing what’s on the other side. There could be anything living there now.”
“Anything, as in...” Rarity tried not to let her imagination run away with her.
“Manticores?”
“Sea Serpents?”
“Evil Enchantresses?”
“A dragon would find it a comfortable roost,” Celestia said. “But there are worse things than that. The magics used at the Heavenspire may have attracted some... unpleasant things. Indeed, I think a dragon might be the least of your worries.”
“But this portal thing can get us there?” Dash asked. She shot Applejack a look that dared her to interrupt.
“Yes, if it still works,” Luna said. “It will transport three ponies, or one alicorn, anywhere we have it set. The Heavenspire was one of the first destinations we imbedded into it.”
Rarity let out a long breath. They had a path forward, even if it was uncertain, potentially filled with things worse than dragons, and would only take three of them. “Very well. If it gets Twilight back, it’s worth it. I’ll go.”
“I’ll go!” Um, I’ll go.” “Ah’m in.” “Ooh, ooh, I want to go!” The other four spoke nearly as one. For a moment, despite the chaos and darkness all around them that night, Rarity couldn’t help but smile.
“Your bravery is commendable,” Celestia said. “But It can only take three. I suggest you, Pinkie Pie, and you, Fluttershy, remain behind. It may be that having two of the elements here will help us against Octavia.”
“Sister, I believe you’re forgetting something,” Luna said. “The portal stone will transport three ponies. If we send three, there’s no way to bring Twilight back.”
Oh, right. Basic math. Rarity wanted to kick herself. “Very well. I think it’s obvious I’m the least qualified of the three to go. Rainbow Dash, Applejack, we’re counting on you.”
The two ponies nodded, their argument forgotten. For a moment, Rarity thought things might work out after all.
“Actually,” Luna said, breaking her happy thoughts. “It requires a unicorn to operate...”
* * *
Octavia held the note, a low C, for nearly a full minute before giving her bow a rest.
When she opened her eyes, the room was filled with dust. The flagstones beneath her hooves had disintegrated, leaving a shallow pit of sand that swallowed her up to her fetlocks. The stone walls echoed back her song for minutes afterward, groaning as the deep mountain rocks bent and broke at her command.
Not a bad warm-up, all things considered.
She rolled her hooves absently, letting the blood flow back into her legs. Of course, whether or not blood even flowed through her legs anymore was an open question; her skin had long since faded to an ethereal black speckled with countless points of light, all shimmering and shining in tune with some unheard song. They called to her, a constant reminder of the bargain she had made, and the fate that awaited her if she failed. She stared at them, losing herself in the dark spaces, until the sound of hooves on stone brought her back to the present.
Her little room was in an out-of-the-way part of the castle’s bowels, specifically chosen for her privacy. After that warm-up, though, it was safe to say that most of the castle’s guards, not to mention at least two alicorns, would be looking for her.
She listened patiently as the hoofsteps grew louder, accompanied by the urgent tones of a group of ponies in some hurry. From the hallway outside came the sound of doors being kicked open, one after another, louder and louder, as the ponies outside searched through each of the storerooms along their path. She gave her bow a quick look and reset the cello’s neck on her shoulder.
In a way of thinking, the corridor outside was simply the bore of a large flute, and she could hear the echoes of the guard’s hoofsteps changing in pitch with every foot closer they drew. There were at least four, she guessed, based on the four separate staccato rhythms vibrating through the floor. She set the bow on the strings to wait for them.
The guards kicked down the door, almost to the second of her expectation. Four of them – she smiled to see her guess confirmed – wearing the white and gold of Celestia’s personal guard. They jumped through the door and surrounded her with smooth, practiced movements that spoke of years of training.
Such a waste.
Before they could step any closer, she began to play. A simple aria this time, but no tune that would ever be heard in a concert hall. Discordant, syncopated, irrhythmic. If a cello could scream, this would be its song.
The pony on her left, the one trying to walk around behind her, fell onto his haunches and then tipped over. His foreleg bent at an unnatural angle as he stumbled to the ground, and his helmet made quite the loud clang as it impacted the stones with far more force than a simple fall could have accounted for. He didn’t attempt to get back up.
The next pony stepped into the pool of sand around her and fell through it like it was water. The blue flash of his tail was the last of him to vanish beneath the grains, which swallowed him without a sound.
The furthest pony to the right, a mare who was also attempting to circle behind her, let out a scream that was loud enough, just for a moment, to drown out the sound of Octavia’s playing. Her mouth opened hugely wide, wider than a pony’s ever could, and she turned on the last remaining pony in a flash. Her teeth sank into the meat of his neck, and then they both fell to the floor in a single writhing mass.
Octavia let the final note of her impromptu song draw out for as long as it felt necessary. Sometimes the music had a mind of its own, and her hooves were its slave. She let them work until the note decided it was done, and when complete she set the cello on her back and walked out into the corridor beyond her little room.
It was time to find a larger audience.
* * *
The flash of magic left Rarity momentarily blind. A dazzle of shifting colors filled her vision, driving away all other shapes and forms, a kaleidoscope of blobs and balloons and sparkles that slowly drifted away to reveal simple darkness.
The muffled rustle of feathers and quick, panicky breathing sounded beside her. She wet her lips, which had somehow become as dry as stones, and tried to speak.
“Dash? Are you there?”
“Y-yeah. I can’t see anything. Did it work?”
That was an excellent question. At the very least, the portal stone hadn’t dropped them underwater or left them thousands of feet above ground (though with Dash as a companion, that might not have been fatal). Whether or not it had taken them to the Heavenspire, though, was still an open question.
“I don’t know. Let me see...” Rarity tried to focus her thoughts past the pounding headache at the base of her skull, and after a moment her horn began to glow with a faint blue light. The darkness receded from them, leaving behind grey stones overrun with black mold and dry leaves that skittered like dead insects as some unfelt wind pushed them across the ground.
The walls came into focus next. They might have been marble, once, if marble could rot into the black and pocked ruins all around them. Dessicated vines still grew up the columns that supported the invisible roof far above. Bones littered the floor all around them.
High above, slowly coming into focus as Rarity’s magic returned, was a high dais, set upon a row of stairs not unlike the castle they had just left. And on the dais, just as in Canterlot, sat a throne whose gold limbs still glimmered after a dozen thousand years of darkness.
“Oh Celestia,” she heard Dash whisper. “What is this place?”
Twilight’s faint scream, echoing down the dark halls, answered for her.
* * *
Nopony interrupted Octavia on her way to the throne room.
There was something, she reflected, about simply behaving like you were allowed to be somewhere that convinced ponies to leave you alone. She didn’t try to sneak or run or dodge her way into the throne room – she simply walked, and nopony stopped her.
Or it could’ve been the starscape that had now invaded her barrel and flanks. Her cutie mark, a purple treble clef, seemed to float in space as she stepped down the corridor unhindered by ponies who had not, bless their hearts, struck a bargain with the stars.
The guards outside the throne room did try to stop her. She didn’t bother with a full song this time; a quick pluck of the strings on the cello strapped to her back was enough to clear her path.
The vast throne room was filled with ponies who quickly found they had somewhere else to be. By the time she reached the center and stopped atop the large golden sunburst inlaid on the floor, the room was virtually deserted.
That was fine. They would come. She gave the strings a few plucks from her hooves and adjusted the tuning pegs.
“Octavia.”
Octavia looked up at the sound of her name. The throne above her, previously empty, now held the princess of the sun, who looked down at her with a troubled gaze, equal parts concern, pity and revulsion. Octavia dipped her head, a slight and final obeisance to Celestia’s shortly ending reign.
“Princess, I’m glad you decided to come. Is Luna around? I’m afraid I need both of you here.”
A flicker in the corner of her eye was the only answer. She turned to see the shadows congeal and rise into the form of an alicorn, tall and terrible and drunk on the power of the night. Luna held more power now, Octavia guessed, than Nightmare Moon had even at the height of her rebellion. A layer of frost slowly grew on the marble flagstones around her hooves.
“Excellent, then,” Octavia said. “The ensemble has met, and the song is ready to begin.” She set the bow upon the strings and readied her shoulder for the draw that would begin the end of an age.
“Wait.”
Octavia looked up. She had expected Celestia to try talking to her, reasoning with her, but not Luna. This was unexpected enough to actually listen to. She raised an eyebrow in Luna’s direction.
“Octavia, I know what you’ve done,” Luna said. Octavia would have called her tone pleading, if that weren’t impossible for a star-touched princess. “I know what it’s like to strike a bargain with the stars. I know how afraid you must be right now. I’ve been where you are. I’ve even killed, just as you have, but still I was forgiven. You can be too, if you stop this madness.”
Stop the madness. If only it were that simple. She shook her head and leaned back into the cello.
“What do you hope to do?” There it was. Celestia finally trying to reason with her. “What did they offer you? What did you promise them?”
Octavia pressed the bow against the strings. The bow’s hairs, plucked from her own tail as a filly, bent under the pressure of her hoof. She could feel the note’s anticipation, its vibration, begging to be born.
What did they offer you? What did you promise them? She snorted.
“You know, I don’t remember. How funny is that?”
And then she played.
* * *
Rarity and Rainbow Dash ran down the empty corridors of the Heavenspire, chasing after the faint echoes of Twilight’s fading scream. Each time it sounded again from a different direction, and they stumbled along after it, two blind goslings following the ghost of their mother.
The Heavenspire slowly took shape as they raced through it. Corridors as wide as the streets in Canterlot spiraled around the central throne room they had awoken in. Rooms beyond counting, filled with dust and bones and shadows, branched off in all directions. Ramps led up and down to new levels, and as they chased Twilight’s voice they found themselves drawn ever upward, higher and higher, until the throne was a gold speck over the edge of the abyss far below them.
Eventually, hours later, the corridors came to an end. The ruins of a door spilled across the floor before them, and beyond it a wide black hole yawned open to meet them. Rarity picked her way over the rubble, while Dash hopped over it with an easy flap of her wings.
“Twilight?” Rarity called.
“Twi, you here? C’mon, it’s us!” Dash yelled. She pressed against Rarity’s side as they stepped forward. “Say something!”
Only silence answered. With nowhere else to go, they moved forward, until the faint light of Rarity’s horn broke upon a low altar in the center of the vast room. Acres of stone surrounded them, surrounded in turn by a vast and infinite night.
“Oh stars, Twilight,” Rarity breathed.
On the altar lay their friend, apparently asleep. A pair of simple cords bound her hooves, holding them together as she twitched in place. A smear of blood marred the stone beneath her mouth.
Dash was on the altar in an instant. “Twi! C’mon, Twilight! Wake up!” She rocked Twilight’s shoulder with her hoof, then reached down to tug at the ropes binding her hooves. Rarity was about to move to help her when a third voice broke the silence.
“She won’t wake that easily, I’m afraid.”
Rarity’s heart leapt into her throat. The light from her horn flickered and died for a moment, plunging their spirits back into darkness. She stumbled away from the third voice as Dash shrieked in fear, and in a panic she managed to reignite her horn.
Before them stood what could only be described as a shadow. It twisted and bent in the weak light of her horn, and Rarity could faintly see the stone floor through it. Only its eyes had any color – a faded mulberry that seemed to float in the void above her.
“Oct-tavia!” Rarity scrambled back to her hooves. “But, you’re in...”
The phantom tilted its head. “I can see why she dreams about you, Rarity. You and your friends. So loyal and generous, to come all this way for her.”
The was a blue blur, and suddenly Rainbow Dash was between them, her wings flared out in warning. “You stay back! We’re taking Twilight with us!”
The shade laughed, and for a moment Rarity could have really believed Octavia was with them, so truly did its laugh match hers. But then the sound faded, replaced with an echo that sounded of glaciers and and blizzards and graves, and nothing like Octavia remained.
“Commendable, Rainbow Dash, but no,” it said. “I am only a shadow, but I have enough of her power to stop you both. The bargain will be fulfilled, and we four will stay here forever.”
“We’ll see about that!” Dash stomped the stones with her hoof. “If you want a fight, we’ll fight!”
Lovely. Rarity pushed herself back up onto her hooves and stood beside her friend. They had done enough running and chasing and talking and hiding.
It was time to fight.
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Yeah, so do I. Blueshift's a-
BUY SOME APPLES!
Blueshift seems like a good one to blame.
Or maybe the one who started the whole thing.
I dunno, but I trudge onward...
~Skeeter The Lurker
Oooooof course you don't. Neither does the author.
Remind me again how we went from Twilight with a Chainsaw murdering Vinyl to this?
2852943
I like to think that the first few chapters were part of rhe dream layers that we have had going on the few previous chapters (he dream of killing Vinyl being the better part of her mind resisting - which makes it hella creepier and darker when you think about it IMO)
ALL BLAME-CANNONS SET TO BLUESHIFT AND FIRE!
The part i loved the most was when she asked what the was about tavis answer was that she doesn't remember. OF CHOOSE SHE WOULDN'T ROFL
You guys are doing a really good job of covering up the inconsistencies. Heck, you're even twisting them around so they become strong plot elements.
I do believe that Blueshift was cackling somewhere when he first wrote his chapter, just waiting to see what'd happen.
I'm kinda hoping, on clearly unfounded hope, that Octavia isn't actually evil it's the Star Bargain corrupting her and that everything will turn out fine. Damn useless hope you're gonna let me down here, I know it!
I decided to only read the description, but then, I was drawn to click the first chapter, then the next, AND NOW IT'S REALLY GOOD AND I CAN'T STOP!
2857525
That could accidentally become true by the end
HOLY BLANK FLANKS BAT-MARE!
Not only has this story become coherent, but it has become awesome as well!
Unbelievable.
Also, while Blueshift didn't start the story very well, it started falling apart at the Vinyl vs Twilight chainsaw-magic-ninja fight.
I think that chapter is too blame. No offence Alexstrasa, but you knew that anyone writing after you would have to rely on your chapter for the plotpoints and story, so you made the entire chapter a fight scene that was completely irrelevant to the story.
Still, no offence as it was the coolest fight-chapter I have ever read. Well done!
Finally we get two good chapters in a row that cover multiple points of view. Last chapter saved it, this chapter made it go forward, next chapter...
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Authors
But It can only take three
1. Extra capitalisation.
This... This is beautiful. You guys should do a proper collaboration when this is all over. Definitely a lot of major plot twists in this chapter. I rather like the weaponized music. Let's see if the next author can make it any more epic.
Octavia using her cello as a weapon....huh, that's funny, could have sworn VISIDEN VISIDANE was writing this chapter.
Well, we've lost the romance between Celestia and Twilight, we have no idea why Twilight and her chainsaw(s) aren't a thing anymore, and the word "Ponemurdered" no longer has any significance. And, wasn't Twilight supposed to kill her friends? Kinda hard to write that off as a nightmare. IDEK