• Published 23rd Mar 2013
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Crisis on Two Equestrias - RainbowDoubleDash



Trixie appears once more in Ponyville, babbling about how she is supposed to be the Element of Magic and how Celestia is the evil Tyrant Sun. Has she gone insane? Or is something larger happening?

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11. That Old Black Magic

It was the strangest thing in the world – in two worlds, really – for Luna to watch somepony else raise the moon and the stars, and bring on the night.

Luna’s native-to-this-world counterpart seemed to be making a particular show of the night this evening – probably to re-assure herself that she still had control over the Night, after it being wrestled from her earlier today. In truth, Luna hadn’t even noticed any resistance – though she imagined that this had more to do with her acting while the native Luna had been sleeping, rather than due to any true discrepancy in power between the two of them caused by her imprisonment in the moon. After all, with beings as old as Luna and her counterpart, a thousand years either way weren’t going to make much difference.

The moon was the first to rise. It seemed to almost creep slowly and timidly over the horizon in the east, as though unsure if it would be welcome. The stars followed thereafter, organized into constellations already as they moved ahead of the moon, settling into place quickly as they prepared the night sky ahead for the path of the moon. Eventually, night settled fully over Equestria and, as there was a lack of any signs of rioting or panic in the surrounding land, Luna supposed that its impromptu, earlier arrival and then retreat was by and large being written off by the population of the land as only a hiccup in the schedule, and not as a return of Nightmare Moon.

“Beautiful as always, Luna,” Celestia complimented. Despite her foul mood, the native Luna did react just slightly to the compliment, the faint twitch of a smile appearing on her lips. The three of them remained in front of Discord’s statue, though their picnic had turned more into a full outdoor Court, at Dusty Feather’s insistence – lavish sitting-cushions, lanterns, and even several fires for warmth, had been set up. In deference to the rulers of the land, Celestia and her sister sat side-by-side, while Luna sat slightly apart, to Celestia’s left.

The native Luna settled back down onto her cushions – Celestia having, at length, convinced her that it was more important to remain before Discord’s statue should he attempt to break free, then it was to hold Court tonight. To her credit, the native Luna had not put up much resistance to that point, only making her displeasure at Princess Luna’s continued presence clear.

She was right, Luna thought as she stared at her hooves. I shouldn’t have come here. Or…or I should have disguised myself, perhaps. Pretended to be somepony else. ‘Selene’ would have had a nice ring to it…

“Princess Luna?” Celestia asked. “I wonder if I might ask a question?”

Luna blinked a few times, breaking herself from her reverie. She looked to the diarch. “Yes?”

Celestia considered, pressing her hooves together. “Our two worlds must have relatively divergent histories,” she said, “but I imagine there are certain constants. I was just wondering…around one hundred years ago, there was a hurricane in the southern reaches, a very powerful one. Was there one for you as well?”

Luna thought. “Yes,” she said at length, frowning slightly at Celestia. “Why?”

Celestia circled one hoof on the ground. “I admit to being curious if you dealt with the situation differently than I. I authorized the Sub-Ministry of South-Central Weather to send virtually every weather pegasus in its region to combat the hurricane before it reached the coast. They succeeded, but the cost was…high, higher than I would have liked, in any event. We were not prepared to manage a crisis of that magnitude, it turned out.”

Luna blinked. “Sub-Ministry of South-Central Weather?” she asked. “How many southern weather ministries do you need?”

Celestia’s sister did something unexpected: she rolled her eyes. Celestia pretended not to notice. “Four,” she responded. “But, if you please…?”

Four? Luna thought, trying to think of a good reason for the number of southern weather ministries even as she responded. “I deemed the hurricane too strong to fight,” she said. “I issued a royal mandate to evacuate the affected regions. My own weather ministry served as a picket force only to cover the refugees.” She frowned deeply, however. “The evacuation was successful, but the damage…southern Equestria is still one of the poorer regions as a result, with a lower quality of life then the rest of the country. And the damage to nearby Caballeria was great, as well, even moreso since King Espada did not take my advice to issue a similar proclamation there. I’ve often wondered if I should have combated the hurricane.”

Celestia offered a sad smile. “I have wondered the reverse,” she noted, thinking. “Perhaps a happier point of comparison…how are Griffin-Pony relations in your world?”

Luna returned the smile. “At a high point,” she noted. “The Kingdoms seem to go through cycles…right now they’re in the ‘stable confederation’ phase. The last one lasted for two centuries. I’m hoping to help this one last for three, though that is of course up to them.”

“Kingdoms?” Celestia asked. “Not Empire?”

“No, it collapsed after Yuri’s death without heir.”

“It did as well, here, but reformed later under Svyatopolk.”

Luna’s eyes grew wide. “Svyatopolk!” she hissed, shaking her head. That was a name she had gone a long time without hearing, and she would have liked to go longer. “I remember him. He did try to re-form the Griffin Empire…whether or not each of the individual kingdoms wanted to join with him. I had signed mutual defense treaties with some of them, but he thought that I wouldn’t go to war over them.” She shook her head again. “He was mistaken. He surrendered after only two years…very quickly, by the standards of the time.”

Celestia considered. “I had no such treaties,” she noted. “I try not to become involved in the affairs of other nations. And Svyatopolk’s ambitions began and ended with the Empire. Once he had it under his dominion, he proved to be a reasonably peaceable griffin.”

The native Luna whickered slightly in annoyance. “Luckily,” she noted. “You weren’t as lucky with Isidor, even though that whole mess could have been prevented…”

Celestia let out a slight sigh. “My sister feels that I do not meddle in international politics as much as I should.”

Luna had sensed as much. She did not, however, want to potentially fan the flames between the two sisters’ debates, least of all because she suspected strongly that she and her native counterpart would come down on the same side of things – and two against one simply would not be fair. Even as the other Luna opened her mouth to object, Princess Luna leapt in. “What about fashion?” she asked.

Silence greeted her for a few moments. “Fashion?” Celestia asked.

“Yes,” Luna said. She smiled a little. “Did this world also go through a phase where everypony insisted on wearing ridiculously huge wigs?”

Celestia’s lips pressed together tightly – while her sister did something completely unexpected. She burst out laughing, though she put her hooves to her mouth to try and cover it, as Celestia shifted. “Yes,” the Princess of the Day said. “Yes, there was such a phase.”

The native Luna closed her eyes, horn glowing even as she continued to laugh. With a pop, a picture appeared before Princess Luna. It was a period painting, several hundred years old, depicting Celestia sitting at her golden throne, dressed in deep red and gold fineries, thick and luxurious-looking…

The idea at the time, at least in Luna’s world, had been that the taller and more ornate the wig, the more important the pony, and further that it had to be at least as tall as the horn on the unicorn who wore it. Princess Celestia, as the most important pony in the land, obviously needed the largest, most ornate wig in all the land. It was done in a pastel rainbow of patterns, tightly braided tightly but with several locks left to hang loose, with golden thread and white diamonds and flowers woven throughout.

It was also, from the looks of things, at least four feet tall.

Maybe five.

Luna sputtered, trying to keep her laugh in. It didn’t take her long to fail, whickering with delight at the picture of Celestia, the Undimmed Daystar, done up like a foal with access to too much of her mother’s make-up. A glance at Celestia showed her to be blushing a deep scarlet, but that only made Luna laugh harder.

“It – it took – took ten hours!” the native Luna exclaimed between bursts of laughter. “Ten! It said so in a book I found! Who’d sit still for that long? Wh…what was the point?”

“It’s not as though I wore that around the castle,” Celestia defended herself as she shifted uncomfortably. “It was just for the official portrait…which should be hanging in the Royal Museum!”

“I was grateful for my exile when I found this,” Luna said, as the portrait disappeared back to where it came from. “At least I skipped the worst crimes of fashion over the past thousand years…”

Luna got her own laughs under control. With her declining mirth came an increased concern for Celestia’s embarrassment, but she had a cure for that. “I never took to the wigs, myself,” Luna said, as she set her horn glowing. “But there was…well, I’ll just show you. Fair’s fair. And I did wear this around the castle…”

About four hundred years ago, neck frills had been all the rage about the Night Court. For whatever reason, the nobility decided that making oneself look like they were choking on a dinner plate was fashionable. Luna’s own neck frill had been deep blue, rather than white as was the style, and star-studded. And, like the wigs, authority had been basically derived from the size of the frill…

Celestia burst out laughing at the sight, though the native Luna tempered her own laughter, probably due to the sheer similarity of appearance between her and the interloping Princess. “H…how did you get through doors?” Celestia asked as Luna spread her wings for comparison. The frill was about half her wingspan, nearly as wide as Celestia’s wig had been tall.

“Very carefully,” Luna said, as she stood, spinning around to show it off. “The frill was just part of the full dress, of course…there was the train…the corset…the saddle…”

Luna trailed off when she saw, from the castle, a rush of golden-armored royal guards, a mix of pegasi and unicorns, each galloping as fast as their hooves could carry them. The Royal Guard had been briefed on the basics of the situation – there were two Lunas, but it wasn’t a problem and was a situation that would hopefully resolve itself soon enough – but Luna would have expected them to at least start at the sight of there being two Princesses of the Night, especially given the frill that one of them was wearing.

They didn’t even slow down, however, instead rushing straight for Celestia and her sister, each of them remembering only at the last moment to bow. “Majesties!” The leader of the group called. “Princess – your Majesty – Everfree – huge –

Celestia blinked a few times at the panic from the guards. She held up a hoof quickly. “Calm down, please!” she insisted, as Luna dispelled the frill she had been wearing, while Celestia’s sister stepped forward. “Please, take a moment. Deep breaths.”

“N-no time!” One of the other guards said, eyes wide with panic and stepping forward, forgetting protocol. “Majesty, in the Everfree – there’s a bear – ”

“Our last ursine census suggests there are actually several thousand bears in the Everfree,” Celestia noted wryly.

“Not like this one,” the lead guard said, finally collecting himself as he pushed his over-eager underling behind him. “Majesty…we can see it from Canterlot.

Celestia blinked at that, then looked to her sister. The native Luna came forward, wings fluttering in agitation. “That is impossible,” she said. “Only a Star Beast could possibly reach that size, and while there is one in the Everfree, it is not that large, and will be hibernating with her cub for some centuries yet.”

“W-with respect, Majesty,” the guard said, bowing slightly, “she’s awake, and…she must have gone through a growth spurt.”

The interloping Luna’s mind, meanwhile, was cast backwards, to the dawn of the world – her world, at least, and likely this one as well. Star Beasts were creatures of nothing more than myth and legend in the modern world, but in ancient times they had walked the earth, had shaped much of it with claw and talon and wing. They were neither good nor evil – they were animal, cunning and insightful in their own way, but not truly intelligent. Luna had long ago subdued them and guided them into the Night sky, though some few had remained on the earth, outside of her reach. They did not eat material food, but rather stardust and solar wind and ambient magic, and so Luna allowed those remainders to reside on the world, as they were generally no threat to mortal beings.

“But to be seen from Canterlot…” Luna said, shaking her head as she trotted away several steps, then beat her wings, taking to the sky. Celestia her sister joined her, as did the pegasi of the guards that had rushed in to their impromptu Court. “No Star Beast but Draco itself ever grew so large, and that was in a time long…before…”

Luna’s voice trailed off when she saw it: a small, purple-glowing spot far in the distance, within the dark sea that was the Everfree Forest. From this distance, it looked no more than half an inch tall. Of course, they were many miles from the Everfree. Luna did some quick math in her head.

“It’s more than a quarter mile tall – ” Luna began. Then the bear stood.

---

Night came fast in the winter Everfree. Even without leaves on them, the thick tree branches overhead served as an effective barrier for the sunlight, even before the stars appeared in the sky. The darkness wasn’t the biggest problem, however – it was the cold. Within minutes of darkness closing in around them, three of the four unicorns trotting through the Everfree were shivering and teeth-chattering as the temperature plummeted. Only Lulamoon was unaffected.

Wh-why?” Twilight demanded of Lulamoon as the four trotted.

“Magic cape,” Lulamoon said, considering it. Her horn glowed, and she removed it from herself and threw it around Twilight’s neck, clasping it in place. Lulamoon herself gasped at the sudden cold, but otherwise tried to ignore it as best she could for now. “It’ll take a few minutes to kick in.”

“And wh-what about u-us-s?” Trixie demanded. Her own cape was just a cape, and not a particularly warm one, either.

Lulamoon shook her head. “I only have the one. We can share it – ”

“N-no,” Sparkle said, as she stopped, squinting as she looked around. The glows of the four unicorns’ horns were the only things allowing them to see, and not very well at that. “W-we shouldn’t be moving at n-n-night, anyway. W-we’ll make a c-camp here.”

The other three agreed without complaint, mostly because camp was inexorably linked with fire and, therefore, warmth in their minds. Wordlessly they began gathering twigs and fallen branches, as well as a few stones, and within a few minutes had managed to create a crude, but hopefully effective, ring of stones and tinder to light the fire with.

Twilight did the honors, horn glowing brightly and creating a small flame that quickly caught. Trixie was on the fire at that point, using logs she’d found to create a triangular stand of wood, rather than the simple pile that the other three had started with. She grinned as she did. “Trixie sees that she’ll be in charge of keeping us from freezing…”

“I haven’t gone camping in years,” Lulamoon and Twilight both objected at the same time.

“And in my world, it’s summer,” Sparkle added. “Plus I can just rent motel rooms…”

Lulamoon glanced at her. “How?” she asked. “Your picture’s circulating everywhere – ”

“I’m careful,” Sparkle objected, as she scooted closer to the fire, then closed her eyes and set her horn glowing. Around them, a field of violet energy manifested, gradually shaping itself into an inverted cone with a hole in the top. Twilight nodded her head once, and the four of them found themselves inside a shelter made from wood, a hole in its top to allow smoke from the fire to escape, and another small one that served as an entrance to the shelter, covered with thick curtain.

“Neat!” Twilight noted, looking around and poking the inside. “This will keep us warm…oh, hang on!” She began conjuring pillows all around the shelter, enough for each of the four unicorns to lie on, as well as blankets. She was panting by the end from the effort, but smiling. “I helped,” she noted.

Lulamoon studied her own pillow for a few moments, before nodding. “Good job,” she said. “I want my cape back now.”

Twilight gave Lulamoon a sidelong glance – apparently with their freezing in the night having been avoided, the blue doppelgänger of Trixie was back to her confrontational self. She sighed as she took off the cape and hoofed it back over. “I have a scarf that has the same enchantment,” she noted. “But…well, we were in a rush this morning.”

Lulamoon started at Twilight’s referencing the chaos of earlier today. “Was that only this morning?” she asked, rubbing her head with one hoof. “Feels…feels like much longer…”

“This would be the chaos that got Trixie unfairly arrested?” Trixie asked.

Lulamoon glared at her. “Yes. Amidst me being in the middle of a crisis thinking that all my friends had been brainwashed by Corona and all of Equestria placed under her unknowing thrall, you were detained for a few minutes.”

“Wait,” Sparkle interrupted, before Trixie could respond. “You thought that Corona had taken over? Really?”

“You didn’t?” Lulamoon demanded.

“For a few minutes I suspected,” Sparkle said, though she smiled. “But then a calm and rational – stop snickering – a calm and rational examination of the situation showed that I was wrong.”

Lulamoon shook her head. “Coming face-to-face with the Tyrant Sun wasn’t putting me in a calm and rational mood.” She shifted slightly, as her stomach audibly growled. “Zut…I’m hungry…”

“We’ll just have to go hungry tonight,” Twilight said, as she settled down on the conjured pillows and under her blanket. “We can look for food tomorrow. It might be winter, but there has to be something.”

“Not pinecones,” Trixie said quickly.

Twilight blinked. “I…wasn’t going to suggest we eat pinecones.”

“Good.” She closed her eyes as she poked at the fire magically, muttering under her breath “never again…

“Well, I’m intrigued,” Lulamoon said as she settled down herself, taking her hat off and setting it beside her, then propping her head up on her front hooves and staring at Trixie expectantly. “I’ve eaten some strange things in my time – I’ve had crawdad, even – ”

Ew!” Twilight and Sparkle both exclaimed, looking green. “Meat?”

“Neigh Orleans is a pretty diverse city,” Lulamoon defended herself, blushing. “Some ponies like it…but only every now and then.”

Carnivore,” Twilight accused. “Ugh, I can’t…I don’t even…”

“It’s not like I ate anything with a hoof!” Lulamoon objected. “And I’m sure you’ve had eggs! That’s technically meat! And besides, we’re not talking about me, we’re talking about Trixie and pinecones!” She looked at Trixie expectantly, who was looking pointedly into the fire and not answering.

Twilight and Sparkle, however, continued to stare at Lulamoon. “I hear that griffins eat pigs,” Sparkle said. “And fish. And whales! Have you ever eaten a whale?”

“Carnivore,” Twilight hissed again.

I’m not a carnivore! And no, I’ve never eaten a whale!”

“Have you ever eaten a pig?” Sparkle asked.

“No! Nothing with a hoof, remember?”

“How about chickens – ”

“Trixie was curious!” Trixie exclaimed suddenly. Twilight, Sparkle, and Lulamoon all looked to her. She was standing, glaring at Lulamoon. “Trixie was curious, so she ate a pinecone. And it was awful, but Trixie ate the whole thing because Trixie said she would, so she did. And then regretted it for the next two days.” She looked to Twilight and Sparkle. “And Trixie has had crawdad, and shrimp, and chocolate-covered ants, and once, when she performed in a town on the Equestrian-Griffin border, she even had sliced salmon! And there is nothing wrong with that because none of them had hooves!”

There was a pregnant silence.

“That’s not healthy,” Twilight said at length, as she notably scooted closer to Sparkle and away from the two carnivores. “We’re herbivores. You shouldn’t eat meat, it’s not good for you.”

“Well neither is cake!” Lulamoon exclaimed. “Which is made with eggs, by the way!”

“Have you ever eaten chickens?” Sparkle asked. She actually sounded honestly curious rather than challenging.

Lulamoon was not having any of it, however. “Goodnight!” Lulamoon exclaimed, hunkering down and pulling her blanket over her head, creating a shield from the world, though muttering could be heard from beneath it. Sparkle and Twilight both looked to Trixie.

“No, Trixie has not,” Trixie said, settling down herself. “Goodnight.”

Sparkle shifted uncomfortably. “You’re not going to eat us – ”

No!” Trixie and Lulamoon both exclaimed, Lulamoon coming out from under her blanket shield to do so. “Nothing! With! A! Hoof!

Twilight and Sparkle both blinked at the twin exclamations, said in perfect unison. Trixie and Lulamoon glared at the two other unicorns for several moments afterwards, before – without looking at each other – bumping hooves, then both pointedly settling down to go to sleep.

---

To Twilight, it seemed like she had only just shut her eyes when the loudest, deepest roar she had ever heard suddenly cut through the night. She cried out as she stood suddenly, the other three unicorns with her standing just as quickly. A glance at the fire showed it to still be burning, though low at this point – they’d managed to get maybe an hour of shut-eye.

That meant very little to them, however, as the roar was repeated a second time. Twilight and Sparkle set their horns glowing, dissipating the blankets and the shelter that had been constructed for them, as Trixie and Lulamoon stepped closer to the two purple unicorns, their own horns glowing in instinctive warning against whatever was coming.

The ground shook – not a small tremor, but an impact that was enough to rattle their legs and forced the four unicorns to brace themselves. There was a sound of crunching trees, splintering wood, and what Twilight strongly suspected was the sound of the earth itself giving way to whatever impacted it.

There was a second impact, and that was when the glow finally reached them, a bright purple light that shined like a second moon. With another earth-shuddering impact, the four unicorns saw what was approaching. Before they could even think to run, the thing was on them with but a single step, glaring down at them.

To call the Ursa Major the largest living thing that Twilight had ever seen would have been a gross understatement. Twilight had seen smaller castles.

The sheer size of the creature approaching them paralyzed the unicorns as the Ursa Major leaned down, looking at them with glowing red eyes larger than houses, mouth hanging open and displaying fangs bigger than a minotaur. A family of fully-grown dragons could have fit comfortably inside of its mouth, with room to spare.

Then Twilight looked up, and saw, sitting on top of the Ursa Major’s head, clapping her hooves together gleefully, the pony that had made it her mission to kill the four of them – the accidental spawn of the Element of Magic. Her horn was glowing bright purple, magical cords reaching out from it and around the bear that she sat upon.

“I don’t know why,” the pony said gleefully as she stood, and the Ursa Major began to rise as well, “but this feels right!

The Ursa Major finished standing, and cast back its head – the pony atop of it keeping her footing somehow – and roared, a sound that was felt more than heard, and rattled the Everfree Forest for miles in every direction.

“…and now we run,” Trixie said, turning and taking off into the forest. Twilight agreed wholeheartedly as she followed.

Author's Note:

I have no excuse for why this took so long to update. I just wasn't in the mood for the past month. Not even a bad mood, just not in the mood for writing this story.

On the bright side, it did let me write I'll See You Soon and start doing serious planning and outlining for The Return of Tambelon in the interim.

NEXT TIME: A VICIOUS BEAR ATTACK!