After fives years abroad, Princess Cadance returns to Equestria where she is immediately placed under the protection of prodigy Battle Mage, Twilight Sparkle.
Five years ago, at the behest of Princess Celestia, Princess Cadance was sent to travel the world beyond Equestria's borders as a diplomatic envoy. During that time, she learned to move through political circles, wining and dining with the world's elite. Back home, her former classmate, Twilight Sparkle, has since proven her mastery of magic and been elevated to the ranks of Celestia's revered guard: the Battle Mages.
The two foalhood friends suddenly find themselves together again when Cadance is recalled to Equestria without warning and Twilight is given her first official tour of duty: protect Princess Cadance at all cost from both new and ancient threats. Now they are forced to navigate a world of assassins and diabolical plots that stretch back before the very founding of Equestria itself.
Big editing thanks goes to Bubble Boom for the first 8 or so chapters. Any and all mistakes are otherwise mine. Also big pre-reading thanks to Misago.
Spike held the note they received earlier and re-read it before craning his head to look at the sign above the arch leading back to the Greater Canterlot Airship Station. “Um...looks like it. The note says we’re to meet the Princess here on platform seven when she arrives on the 4:15. According to the hourglass on the wall there, her ship should be pulling up in just a few minutes.”
Spike folded the tiny note and tucked it gingerly into one of the bags at his side and grinned at his boss. “Relax, Twilight! We’re just going to be looking after an Equestrian Princess. It’s not like we don’t have relevant experience with this sorta thing.”
Twilight scoffed. “Of course not. But Princess Mi Amore Cadenza is an old friend of mine, and I haven’t seen her in years.” Twilight’s eye twitched, her voice breaking and getting faster, as she continued. “She’s been abroad, touring the nations of our allies and doing Celestia knows what! What if she doesn’t recognize us? We’re both a lot taller now, Spike!”
Spike rolled his eyes, drumming his claws on the elevated platform’s floor. “Oh, I’m sure it couldn’t be that bad, Twilight. It’s not like we’ll be easy to miss.”
“No, Spike, I’m being serious. Celestia knows what Cadance has been up to, but it’s a state secret. I may be Princess Celestia’s top marked Battlemage, but she doesn’t share everything with me.” Twilight frowned, calming slightly. “Besides, I’ve been assigned as Princess Cadance’s personal guard and escort for the foreseeable future by royal decree. You don’t assign a Battlemage to that sort of detail unless you expect magical trouble—and a lot of it.”
Spike opened his mouth to retort when the sensitive frills along his spine and jaw flexed in response to the ambient level of magic in the area suddenly shot up. He raised his head, looking out into the blue sky, and a moment later a rift opened and the huge State Class airship, Excelsior, slipped into Canterlot air space. The vessel slowed to a crawl, retracting its antennae-like aether rods into the hull and began its short approach to the tower platform.
The zeppelin's enormous envelope blocked the sun as it pulled close, Twilight and Spike could hear the shouts of airponies as lines were secured and ballast adjusted. The ship, slung low under the envelope, creaked and groaned as the wood and steel that formed the hull adjusted to the warmer southern air of Canterlot. Ponies and dogs ready to disembark filled the deck of the gondola, their throats adding to the song of the airways.
Twilight fidgeted as the airship closed the gap with the station, shifting the position of the strap on her shoulder, her heavy spellbook and staff hanging from it. She tugged her long cloak tighter about herself to conceal her insignia from the approaching passengers. She couldn’t hide the fact that she was a noble-born spellcaster, but she could downplay her royal commission. Battlemages, though an elite force of specialized combat casters lead by Celestia herself, tended to be treated like an unstable bomb about to go off by the general public. This, all things considered, wasn’t an entirely undeserved reputation.
“Do you see her?” Twilight lifted herself up on her tiphooves and scanned the faces of the amassed ponies as the Excelsior made its final maneuver before docking. “I don’t see her. You don’t think she dyed her mane, do you?”
Spike chuckled quietly, but remained seated. The public reacted poorly enough to Battlemages without adding a living wall of scales and wings and green fire to the mix. “If she did, I’d still be able to smell her, Twilight. Princess Celestia made sure to give me a few of Princess Cadance’s old things to huff before we left.”
His nostrils flared and he took a deep breath when the wind changed and the zeppelin rocked slightly. Its gangplank was extended over the gap and connected to the tower platform moments later. “She’s in there. Just hold tight.”
Twilight continued to fidget under her heavy cloak. Princess Cadance - Cady - had been abroad for five years doing who knew what and all of a sudden she was returning. They had been thick as thieves back in school as fillies until she’d been sent away. Twilight wondered if she’d even recognize her old friend. Or if Cadance would recognize her and Spike.
Ponies and diamond dogs of all colors and stations passed before them as the Excelsior unloaded. Folks from the farthest flung corners of the Equestrian Alliance followed in a cacophonous parade of every language and smell imaginable. They gave Twilight Sparkle Spike a wide berth as they passed, entered the tower, and descended towards the customs and commons area. The passengers would find food and a place to rest from their travel there while waiting on the next departure or before moving into Canterlot proper.
As the throng started to thin, Spike turned his head, his strong senses picked up on a familiar scent. A tall pony in a hooded heavy cloak of its own approached them slowly, a small battered suitcase floating besides it. The pony stopped a few yards away from the two and paused dramatically to throw the hood of the cloak back.
“Twily!” Princess Mi Amore Cadenza smiled, her eyes lit with happiness. “I was told to expect a guard, but you and Spike? This is awesome!”
Cadance laughed rushing forward, and scooped up a startled Twilight in her wings and magic grip and pulled her into a tight hug. “I haven’t seen you in forever, Twily!”
“I-I’m um...happy to see you too, Princess.” Twilight gasped as she was lifted and spun around by her charge. “I am on duty, Princess Cadance! Please, I’m here to protect you.”
Cadance giggled setting Twilight down to stand on her own hooves but kept her wings draped over the smaller unicorn’s back. “I feel safer already, my hero.”
She smiled when Twilight blushed and then turned, looking up at Spike as the drake rose on all fours to tower above them both. “I am, of course, happy to see you too, Spike. My, but you’ve grown a lot since I last saw you!”
“It has been a while, Princess. Whenever you and the Battlemage here are ready, we do have clearance to fly back to the castle. The Royal Sisters are expecting us.”
“Battlemage?” Cadance looked back at Twilight, who was somehow blushing harder than before. “I can’t believe it! You actually kept your promise to me!”
The Princess grinned and then leaned in closer to Twilight. “I suppose that means I have to keep my end, huh?”Twilight started to shake her head when Cadance closed the remaining distance and placed the softest kiss she could ever remember experiencing on her lips. “I’m happy to be home and in good hooves, my little dynamite.”
Twilight briefly considered melting right there on the zeppelin platform. No, that would be a silly idea. The sheer amount of heat required would actually char me to a crisp rather than melt my body into a puddle. So, then why does Cadance’s kiss make me feel like I already melted?
The pink alicorn continued to smile at Twilight, her muzzle only a few inches away. Cadance’s lavender eyes sparkled, giggling at her guardian’s embarrassed expense. “Heh...Twily? Equus to Twily?”
Spike snorted and lowered his head down to the level of the two mares. “Don’t worry about her, Princess, this happens every now and then. Let me load up your bag while we wait for Twilight to zone back in.”
Spike plucked Cadance’s travel case with a graceful claw and slipped it into the same bag at his side. “You didn’t pack much, Princess. I brought my big pack saddle just in case but now I hardly need it, and I feel dumb.”
“Don’t feel that way, Spike,” Cadance blushed and shrugged, “I was called back suddenly, so I only brought the essentials. Maybe I’ll eventually get my things from the Minotauran Collective sent here, but I’m not going to hold my breath.”
At the mention of the Collective, Twilight snapped out of her fugue, her brows narrowing. “Minotauran? You were there? I heard they closed their borders? How did you get out?”
Cadance grinned and bounced a few steps back from Twilight. She stuck out her tongue briefly and shook her head. “I’ll tell you that one later, Twily. Right now, don’t we have other things to do? Auntie Celestia is waiting for me, remember?”
“Oh.” Twilight frowned in disappointment. “Oh! Sorry, Princess! We can take Spike back to the castle. I mean we can use Spike. I mean, uh, we can ride Spike! He can fly! Yes, that!”
Cadance giggled and put a hoof on Twilight’s muzzle to silence the stammering Battlemage. “Still the same old Twily, even after all these years. How did you ever make it as a Battlemage?” Cadance pressed in harder when Twilight tried to open her mouth again. “Tell me later. Let’s just get moving, okay?”
Twilight nodded, and Spike chuckled as he lowered himself down onto the platform, his saddle barely big enough for the two ponies. Cadance smiled, taking her hoof off Twilight, and slipped it into the stirrup. “I call front!”
The Battlemage blinked, her own hoof coming up to feel at where the Princess had touched her twice now. She nodded mutely again, watching Cadance mount up, and followed the pink alicorn. Twilight’s body moved on auto-pilot while her mind spun in circles. Everything was moving so fast, and it almost felt like she was lost in the chaos of the outside world again without guidence. Why could nothing be simple like her time training under Princess Celestia to harness the elements?
Twilight let herself drop onto the saddle behind the Princess and nudged Spike gently with a hoof. The huge purple drake, easily twice the height of any mortal pony and several times the length, spread his wings. The shadow he cast covered the whole of the platform from the station arches all the way to the moored Excelsior. The few remaining stragglers and airponies called out in surprise as Spike took two quick steps off the edge, falling from the tower, and hurled himself and his passengers at the ground below.
Twilight rocked with the motion, plenty of practice with Spike’s flight capabilities tempering her surprised gasp to a simple tightening of her grip on the saddle and Cadance. His form was built for speed, not power, and he needed momentum to take flight. In Canterlot city limits there was precious little open ground for the task, but there were more than enough tall buildings and cliffs available to perform a drop from. It was so common place to her now that she didn’t even chuckle at the yelps and startled screams it caused the ponies and dogs on the street below to make.
Twilight, herself was ready for the drop. Making the drop with Cadance, however, was a different story. The Princess whooped loudly as they went over the edge, her hooves in the air instead of holding onto the saddle. Twilight knew she couldn’t lose the Princess within the first ten minutes of starting her official detail, so she wrapped one arm tightly around Cadance’s waist and her other hooked under the saddle horn. She held them both tight, Spike flapping his wings once, and turned the dive into a shallow climb. The street and stunned street goers shrank below them as they climbed back above roof level of most of the buildings. With Cadance’s warm body pressed against her, Twilight was sure she could feel her heart in her throat.
When the sky opened up above the rooftops, Cadance turned back to look at Twilight. “It’s very auspicious, isn’t it? Us—meeting again on today of all days.”
Twilight shook the strands of Cadance’s mane out of her face and leaned closer so she wouldn’t have to shout over the wind. “What do you mean, Princess?”
“It’s our anniversary.” Cadance arched an eyebrow. “Or did you forget? Five years ago, we made a promise to each other, Twily. We promised to take care of each other and never let the other come to harm.”
“That’s why I became a Battlemage. I had to become strong and skilled.” Twilight knew she didn’t have to hold Cadance now that they were leveling off, but she just couldn’t seem to get her hooves to obey her. “I remember that day like it was yesterday, but you disappeared without so much as a ‘goodbye!’ Princess Celestia has barely kept me up to date on whether you were alive at times! I’ve had no idea what situations you were thrown into, only a few educated guesses,so I was surprised to get this assignment, to say the least.”
“Fate just seems to have a way to make things work out, doesn’t it?” Cadance made no move to get out of Twilight’s grip and leaned back into the mare. “It’s almost nostalgic, isn’t it? Though, on that day, if I recall right, it was Spike that was riding on your back, not the other way around.”
“A lot has changed since then, Princess.”
Cadance nodded, more to herself than anything else, letting Twilight continue to hold her tightly, as Spike banked wide around the taller buildings nearer to the city’s center. Pegasi and other winged dragons flew to and from these skyscraping behemoths like bees from enormous beehives. Several zeppelins circled the buildings closely, in holding formations, as goods were either loaded or unloaded. Below them, the Canterlot streets were just as busy, if not more so, with all the powered carriages that popped and whistled along. Vendors of all varieties hawked their wares to the passersby that trotted or drove through the major thoroughfares.
The castle, on the far end of the city, sat above it all on the pastoral mountainside that was kept clear of Canterlot’s advancing waves of steel and stone. Its dome golden and almost blindingly bright under the sun and Princess Celestia’s long rule. Cream-white and midnight-blue colored pennant flags flew from every spire and parapet, displaying the combined symbols of the Royal Sisters. The main gate was shut with mounds of flowers piled against it like a snow drift.
Cadance sighed and closed her eyes, letting the sounds and smells of the greatest pony city on Equus wash over her. “And yet the more things stay the same, hmm?”
Spike swooped up and over the walls of Canterlot castle with a powerful flap of his huge wings. The guards on the wall saluted as they passed and those in the courtyard moved to quickly clear a landing zone for the dragon. Spike did a tight turn to bleed off his speed before flapping hard and settling down amid a storm of loose leaves and flowers from the nearby gates and gardens.
Twilight waited for Spike to get his footing before letting go of Princess Cadance. It didn’t seem like a good idea to let the other guards see anything they could bray on about later. Rumors ran like wildfire through the ranks, and it wouldn’t be long before some exaggerated claim reached her little brother’s ears.
Spike looked back over his shoulder and grinned. “Thank you for flying the friendly Canterlot skies with yours truly, Spike the Awesome. You may now disembark, but please watch your step. Your baggage will be available shortly.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Oh stop hamming it up. I want you to meet us at the tower after Princess Cadance has her meeting with Princess Celestia. I have a feeling that we’re going to need to plan and research the threat to Princess Cadance.”
Spike nodded. “Okay, Twi. I’ll take the Princess’ things to the guest rooms then.”
Cadance wasted no time climbing off Spike’s back and setting herself back on the cobblestone covered ground. She raised an eyebrow as Twilight followed her and looked up at Spike. “Unless the castle has had some very impressive remodeling done in my absence, how are you going to do that? Don’t tell me that your fire breath can transport more than letters now?”
“Hehe...nope, it’s still just for letters or starting campfires now and then.” Spike reached down and worked the straps on his saddle before sliding it off his back. “I have a better trick now, just watch!”
“Show off.” Twilight muttered with a half-smile. She took her place at Cadance’s side, pulling her staff from its holster at her side. She tapped the end of the staff to the earth, and she could feel it connect her the juncture of ley lines that crisscrossed underneath Canterlot.
Spike smirked and the green frills along his crest and jawline started to glow as he tapped into a similar well of power that all dragons possessed. The magic washed over him in a flash, and there was a muffled ‘whumph’ noise as he shrank to a size more convenient to move around in the castle.
Cadance gasped as the light of the transformation magic faded. Spike stood before them on his hind legs, his wings gone, now at eye level with the Princess. He looked much like she remembered from when he was a mere hatchling, but draconic puberty had hit him hard and done a good job of it too. It gave him broad, muscled shoulders with a narrow waist and long tail.
“Wow...I mean, wow!” Cadance rushed forward, trotting around the dragon. “That’s amazing, Spike! Here I was thinking that you grew into that larger form and had just sprouted those wings while I was away. Is this a new form, or your natural one now?”
“His natural form.” Twilight chuckled and lapsed into a familiar lecturing tone. “In fact, both this and his flight form are natural. Spike’s ‘dragon type’ has the ability to change shape from a biped to a winged quadruped. Neat, huh?”
Cadance giggled and reached up to give Spike a noogie, rubbing the flexible spines on his head with her hoof. “I bet he’s already breaking the mares’ hearts.” She laughed harder as the dragon blushed. “And you really must tell me what all the flowers at the gate are for too.”
“Uh...yeah, about that…” Twilight laughed nervously. “I’ll tell you about it later. Um…don’t you need to get to that meeting?”
“Oh.” Cadance frowned in mild disappointment for a moment and then smiled at Twilight. “At this rate it’s going to take us a week alone with each other to tell the stories we’ve accumulated these past few years, hmmm?”
“Uh...um, yes?” Twilight flinched as the last word came out with like a squeak. Some badass Battlemage you are, huh? How am I going to protect her when the mare keeps having such an effect on me?
“Good!” Cadance laughed again, trotting back over to Twilight. “After you…”
Twilight paused outside the door to Princess Celestia’s command room to slick back any wild hairs in her mane after the flight. The door was flanked by two senior Battlemages; both saluted Cadance when the Princess and Twilight closed the distance down the hallway from the courtyards. The guards parted to allow them access to the chamber. Twilight followed at Cadance’s heels, puffing out her chest to look as impressive as possible for her boss.
Inside they found the room empty save for an enormous round table with many cushions. One particularly large, golden cushion had several maps and documents spread out in front of it on a low table with many of the papers stained with the imprint of the royal coffee mug. Cadance wrinkled her nose at the strong smell of roasted coffee, which seemed to permeate the room.
“Uhg...I can smell that Auntie Celestia is still in a Coltlombian mood.” Cadance blew air through her nose to clear it as she approached the table to look over the maps.
Twilight shrugged and smiled weakly. “I’ve been trying to ease her into drinking Istallion lattes, but it hasn’t really stuck.”
“That’s because I like my coffee like I like my mares: dark, bold, and with one heck of a kick.”
Both Twilight and Cadance gasped, whirling around to quickly bow to the diarch, Princess Celestia. The tall alicorn strolled into her command room with her signature titanium-plated warmug steaming at her side. The Princess nodded to them both and took her seat before gesturing for them to rise.
“Ah, Cadance, it’s good to see you again! I’m so glad you are safe.” Celestia smiled warmly, reaching across the low table to capture her niece in a hug. “I trust our Twilight has been keeping you safe since your return to Equestria?”
“Oh yes, she has.” Cadance struggled to free herself from the bone crushing grip of the elder diarch, pushing back against Celestia’s chest fluff to breathe. “Th-thank you for assigning her to watch over me, Auntie.”
“You are quite welcome. I remember well just how close you two are.” Celestia’s grin became serious. “Sadly, we don’t have time for pleasantries. I have several meetings after this, and I fear none of them will be with such stimulating company. So let’s get to business.”
Celestia looked to Twilight, “My faithful student, would you keep an eye on things while I speak privately with Princess Cadance? I need to discuss some things with her that are of a sensitive nature.”
Twilight gave a curt nod and took a step back. “Of course, Princess. Shall I return in a few minutes?”
Celestia shook her head. “No need. I will shield us. This shouldn’t take long.”
Twilight nodded again. “Yes, Princess.”
Celestia turned back to Cadance, her horn flashing for an instant before a translucent sphere formed around them and cut off all sound coming from the two mares. Twilight watched them speak in complete silence and frowned to herself. There was little to do but wait.
The Princesses chatted back and forth in front of her, and Twilight found her eyes drawn to Cadance’s muzzle, watching her lips work. Part of her still hadn’t quite come to grips with the fact that she now knew just of soft and sweet those lips were. Or the fact that another part of her wanted to feel that softness again. It also occurred to her that she really ought to have taken up lip reading a long time ago.
Twilight struggled to stifle a yawn when the topic of the Princesses’ conversation suddenly changed, the both of them casting glances her way. She stood up straighter and watched them continue to talk. They must have been speaking about whatever it was that she was supposed to protect Princess Cadance against. The pink alicorn gestured at Twilight from inside the bubble, getting worked up, and starting to blush quite noticeably.
Princess Celestia nodded several times, looking quite serious, before she started to smile and point Twilight’s way as well. For some reason, this made Cadance flush even deeper, turning her pink cheeks red. What are they talking about? Twilight tilted her head to the side, frowning thoughtfully. And why haven’t I been informed yet of just why I’m supposed to be guarding Cadance?
Eventually, the talks reached a lull point and the shield vanished with a quiet ‘pop.’ Twilight stood at attention and stepped up beside her charge again.
“Twilight,” Celestia gave her a small smile, “Go see my sister next. She has instructions for you about keeping Princess Cadance safe.”
“Y-yes, Princess!” Twilight saluted, glancing sidelong at an uncharacteristically bashful Princess Cadance. “On my honor as a Battlemage, I will keep her safe.”
“And you, Mi Amore Cadenza, don’t forget what we spoke of here. I will not be able to help you after this.”
“I...I understand, Princess Celestia.” Cadance swallowed nervously. “But...are you sure it’s the only way?”
Celestia nodded, taking a sip of coffee. “Now go, you only have a small window of opportunity to get away clean.”
“Princess Luna should be in the throne room.” Twilight bowed formally to the younger Princess. “If you’ll follow me?”
“Twily…” Cadance rolled her eyes and smirked, her former carefree attitude resurfacing. “I remember how to get to the throne room. I grew up in this castle longer than you did!”
“And I’m your guard, Princess. This is how it’s done!” Twilight took the lead, looking back at Cadance. They exited the command room via a private hall that staff used, walking up a short set of spiral stairs to the lowest of the royal levels of the castle. Beyond this point, only staff with high enough clearance were allowed without a constant escort. “This is my first official tour of duty, and I don’t want to mess it up.”
Cadance blew a raspberry back at Twilight. “You’ve been listening to your brother too much. How is Shining, by the way?”
“Exasperating, as always.” Twilight sighed and stopped at the landing to let Cadance draw even with her. “The little squirt has rose in rank since last you saw him. He’s really grown into an imposing stallion. Handsome too...as far as a big sister can tell anyway.”
Cadance grinned and fell into a relaxed pace next to Twilight. “Well, I hope I get to see him at least once before we leave.”
“Well, you’re going to get your chance. He’s been transferred to Luna’s elite guard unit. You should see his face every time they call him Shieldmaiden Shining Armor!” Twilight giggled for a moment and then blinked. “Wait, we’re leaving? Where are we going?”
Cadance chuckled nervously. “Sorry, Twily. Auntie Celestia said I couldn’t tell you until after we’ve talked to Luna.”
“Really?”
Cadnace nodded. “Yeah, national security and all that.”
“B-but! I’m your security!” Twilight eye twitched. “Shouldn’t I know about this stuff too?”
The Princess shrugged helplessly. “Sorry! But what’s this about Shining becoming a Shieldmaiden of Luna?”
“I’ve petitioned Her Royal Highness Luna to change the name to something more gender neutral.” Shining sighed as he escorted Cadance and his sister into the main Canterlot throne room. “She keeps putting it off, of course.”
Twilight snickered. “Of course.”
Cadance bit her lips to try and keep the smile off her face, but she wasn’t being very successful. She hadn’t stopped giggling to herself since Shining Armor met them in full Shieldmaiden field dress. The cobalt and silver colored armor covered him from hoof to horn, complete with a buckler fastened to his side and an armored skirt spread widely from his hips. Adjustments had been made to allow for his large, muscular form, but the armor was still clearly designed with a mare in mind.
Shining mostly ignored the mare’s reaction, attempting to be his usual all business self. “It’s still a prestigious position. Guarding one of the Princesses is a career defining duty. It’s only natural, after all, that I was promoted to Shieldmaiden; my shielding magic is second to none! I’m here today to help Princess Luna during your meeting, so please try not to agitate her too much. The doctors say she needs to keep her cool, if she is to heal fully.”
Twilight steeled her face, crossing the room at a sedate pace to where the other diarch of Equestria sat at her work desk. Luna shuffled papers, reading and stamping her seal into each before placing them aside into a separate stack. When Luna glanced Cadance’s way, Twilight was relieved to see the pink alicorn was treating the meeting with the same level of seriousness. She was still curious what Cadance knew about all this because she was still in the dark. She knew how the Royal Sisters liked to play their cards close to the chest, so it seemed likely that Cadance only knew slightly more.
Princess Luna looked up as they drew near, and Twilight could feel the tingle of a spell wash over her.
Luna nodded to Shining and he led them the last few meters to stand before her desk. “Ah, pleasant greetings, niece. You as well, Battlemage Twilight. Excuse me if I do not rise, but I find I have trouble doing so these days and avoid it if not strictly required.”
Luna nodded toward a waiting wheelchair harness by her desk. “Doctor’s orders, you understand.”
Cadance gasped, one wing coming up to cover her mouth. “What happened?”
Luna grinned mirthlessly and gestured a hoof toward Twilight. “Ask her when you have the time. This meeting must go quickly as your getaway is timed to the change of guard.”
“Princess,” Twilight moved a half-step forward, “What is going on? Please, Princess Celestia didn’t tell me anything either, and I need to know what’s going on to protect Cadance!”
“Be calm, Battlemage, I will tell you what we know, but you must promise me that it will not leave your confidence.” Luna’s voice lowered, her tone ominous. “Lives are at stake. Perhaps even your own.”
“I promise.”
“Good.” Luna smiled tightly, gesturing at Shining Armor. The stallion lit his horn and a moment later, they were all encased in an opaque spherical shield. “There is an assassin in the castle, and we cannot be too careful. Whoever they are, they have been careful enough to evade capture so far. We have reason to believe they are a fairly powerful magic-user in their own right, if for no other reason than having avoided my magical scans. Cadance must be moved to a safer location, but the best way to do that is to run a distraction. My sister did not tell you, Twilight, because we both know your tendency to be protective around us. Celestia is to be the distraction, and if we are in luck the assassin will go after her while you two slip out the proverbial back.”
“And if we aren’t in luck?” Twilight raised an eyebrow. “What then?”
“Then you are to go to ground. You hide. Do not engage the assassin unless you absolutely have to. I’m sorry that you are only just now being brought up to speed, but we had to be certain in our plans and had to limit those in the know.” Luna sighed, glancing at the clock on her desk. “It’s almost time.”
“What about Spike, Aunt Luna?” Cadance took a step forward and gently lay her wing across Twilight’s back. “He was going to meet us later.”
“Spike has already been redirected to meet you elsewhere by my agents. Don’t worry, Mi Amore Cadenza, he will be safe until you are all rejoined. Let me instruct you on the steps you’ll need to take for our little bait and switch to work.”
“Twily?”
“Yes, Princess?”
“I have been back in Canterlot for less than two hours after spending the better part of five years traveling around the world. I have been to and seen some breath taking locations. But nothing—absolutely nothing—compares to this.”
Twilight chuckled sadly. “Sorry Cadance, if I had known…”
“Yeah, yeah… I know.” Cadance stopped in her tracks and pressed herself even closer to Twilight than the tight quarters of the sewage tunnel required. “Just know that if it were anypony else, I wouldn’t do this.”
Twilight blushed and allowed herself to push gently back into Cadance. “Me either. You still manage to get me into all the best messes, you know that?”
Cadance snorted. “Just like old times, huh? So, since we’ve got the time, and we’re alone, care to tell me about all the things I’ve missed in the last five years?”
Twilight gulped and nodded as the first sounds of fireworks boomed from far overhead. The entire city seemed to have turned out for the announcement of the return of Equestria’s wayward daughter.
“Well?” Cadance prodded Twilight with her wing. The unicorn looked distant, her mind off in some other place.
“Well, what?” Twilight jolted at the touch. Above them, the wave of firework explosions announcing Princess Cadance’s return started to settle down. She grimaced at the thought of the Royal Sisters topside, running a distraction tactic of some sort to draw out the assassin they were convinced was inside Canterlot and after Cadance.
Twilight started moving, stepping lightly to avoid splashing the ankle deep water that drained sluggishly through the sewage runoff pipe. Only a few more pony-hole covers and they would reach the location of the safe house Luna secured for them. If the plan was still proceeding correctly, Spike would be there waiting on them. She hoped the young dragon was doing better than they were at the moment.
“Well,” Cadance rolled her eyes at Twilight, “C’mon and tell me, Twily! About everything I’ve missed while I was away!”
“Um...everything?” Twilight looked back at Cadance. “It is five years or so of history to cover…”
“Then just give me the highlight reel, Twily!” Cadance sighed. She followed after Twilight, lifting her hooves high in disgust. “I hope this is mostly rainwater. If this safe house has a shower, I call dibs. And speaking of highlight reels, do you think the safe house has a projector? I’m five years behind on Equestrian entertainment. Outside the country, you almost never see movies at all. It’s like the rest of the world is still in the stone age.”
Twilight chuckled and shook her head, thinking back over hundreds of weeks since they had last parted ways, looking for the ‘highlight reel’ Cadance wanted. “Let’s see...uh, you missed my birthday five times. I joined Celestia’s Battlemage Corps after I harnessed the six elements, and—” Twilight coughed nervously, “defeated Princess Luna in battle when she went a little crazy.”
“What?” Cadance gawked at Twilight. “You beat Luna? How is that even possible? And what do you mean she went ‘a little crazy?’”
“Princess Luna kinda…” Twilight blushed, cringing under Cadance’s stare, “...had a breakdown and a fight with Princess Celestia about two years ago. Most people don’t even know it happened. I just happened to be in the right place to see Luna take off with Celestia. I chased after them into the Everfree Preserve. I tried to rescue Princess Celestia, but Princess Luna’s shields were too strong. I had an idea that they might be based off elemental energy nullification so I sort of lucked my way into binding all six elements into a single blast effect.”
Twilight lowered her voice, her head lowered shamefully. “I broke her shields and...er, her legs and um...her back. That’s why she had the wheelchair back at the castle.”
“Oh goddess, that’s what happened to her?”
Twilight nodded quickly. “Yeah. The doctors say she should be walking like normal… eventually… with physical therapy. Princess Luna still uses the chair at court because of how long she has to sit, you see.” Twilight looked away again, unable to meet Cadance’s gaze. “The blast I hit her with caused pretty severe nerve and muscular damage. That’s why she’s still recovering all these years later.”
“Wow...Twily, I don’t know what to say.” Cadance shook her head and then fixed Twilight in place with another stare. “There was no other way, right? You did what you had to do to save Celestia and bring Luna back to her right mind...right?”
Twilight nodded slowly, barely moving her head. They walked on in silence together for a while, the splashing of their steps and the gurgling of the slow moving water the only noise filling the air between them. Twilight stopped when they reached the next ladder and gestured up it. “We’re here, Princess. Let me go check it first; then you come up.”
Cadance nodded and put a wing on Twilight’s shoulder, stopping the unicorn at the bottom of the ladder. “Twily, thank you. Thank you for saving Celestia and Luna. They are my aunts and the only family I still have. I would hate to lose them.”
“You won’t ever lose them, if I have any say in it.” Twilight smiled, grabbed a rung of the ladder with her forehooves. “Another thing you’ve missed is how protective I’ve become of them both. My name has pretty much become slang for the asswhooping you get if you mess with a Princess of Equestria. You included.”
Cadance giggled, watching Twilight pull herself up to the pony-hole cover and lift it up slightly to look around. The cobblestone alleyway beyond was empty, shaded by tall brick buildings on either side. The sounds of a busy street could be heard distantly, and the strong scent of a nearby bakery mingled grossly with the stale air in the drainage pipe.
Twilight lowered the cover and looked back down at Cadance. “It’s clear, come up and stick close. We’re going to be more or less in the open for the last 50 or so yards to the safe house door. Spike should be inside waiting on us. We then hold tight until the all clear is given.”
“Yes ma’am!” Cadance snapped a quick salute and started up the ladder. “So, if anything does happen, I trust you’ll go ‘Twilight Sparkle’ on whoever tries any funny business?”
Twilight shoved the cover off and quickly pulled herself out of the sewer before turning around and offering her hoof to Cadance. “You have my word, Princess.”
“Twily, just call me Cadance.” Cadance grinned and reached to the outstretched hoof. When she grabbed Twilight, she pulled her protector in close and softly brushed their lips together. “Now get me into the safe house. I would kill for a hot shower right about now.”
Twilight froze again for what seemed the hundredth time since Princess Cadance waltzed back into her life. The pink alicorn was going to get them both killed if she kept causing her protector to lock up at crucial moments. Twilight’s mind buzzed. It isn’t even with anything so much as a Hold Pony enchantment. It’s just a kiss. A kiss! A kiss from the prettiest filly in the world - sweet alicorns above, does she have the softest lips!
Twilight could feel a blush flaring up her neck as Cadance hauled herself out onto the cobblestone alleyway. Twilight reminded herself that her Princess was exposed in this narrow alley; anyone that so much as glanced down it would see them. This was no time to get lost in Cadance’s scent or silky mane. Twilight lit her horn, throwing back her cloak so she could draw her short gnarled staff from its holster at her side.
“Stay by me, Princess...er...Cadance. We only need to make it to the end of the alley.” Twilight tipped the staff toward the far end. “There is a recessed door there enchanted to open only for an alicorn. I want you in front while I cover the rear. Walk briskly. Running will draw attention from the side streets.”
Cadance nodded curtly. “I understand. What do you suggest I do if we are attacked?”
Twilight raised a surprised eyebrow. “You’re taking this seriously?”
“This isn’t my first time to the rodeo, Twily. You aren’t the only one that has learned some new tricks these last five years. Now that we’re out in the open, this is your show.” Cadance smiled and did a small curtsey. “I shall follow your lead, my little dynamite.”
“Um...thanks. Really, Prin...er...Cadance. That means a lot.” Twilight grinned for a moment before she steeled her expression into something resembling professional. “Okay, if something happens, I want you to hit the deck and shut your eyes. A lot of my spells are flashy and if you can’t see afterwards I’ll have to carry you to safety.”
“What if I wanted you to carry me?” Cadance batted her eyes, starting to trot toward the safe house door.
“Do you ever plan to stop teasing me?”
Candance bounced as she moved, but remained silent. Twilight sighed and threw a quick look back down the alleyway toward the busy crowds. Ponies of all colors and diamond dog merchants passed along the cross street into what sounded like an open air market on the next block. No one seemed to have noticed them yet, so she scanned the rooftops before moving to catch up with Cadance.
Twilight kept her channeling staff leveled with the street as they cantered toward the recessed safe house door. The close brick walls made the clopping of their hooves echo and seem unnaturally loud to her ears. She ground her teeth together harder with every yard they covered, her nerves on edge.
A few choice evocations were ready in her mind should anything happen. With her staff out, she could easily unleash any of them at a moment’s notice and limit possible damage to the public or the nearby buildings. Any Battlemage of sufficient talent could fling a massive fireball into her enemies, but add a warstaff to the mix and she could focus all that destructive power into a single point only a hoof wide. Then—if the Battlemage also happened to be the personal protégé of Princess Celestia—she could take the resulting drop in ambient temperature and create slabs of ice to block or slow any pursuers. Attack and defense, fire and ice, all with one spell in elemental perfect harmony.
When they reached the door a moment later, Twilight was almost disappointed nothing had gone wrong. The door opened with a quiet creak as soon as Cadance put her hoof on it, allowing them into a small enclosed patio garden lined with berry bushes and dwarf fruit trees. The safe house itself rose above them like a small, wide fortress with narrow windows and iron bar lattice. Twilight closed the door the moment her hooves touched the short grass in the patio and dropped the crossbar to lock it. She could feel the air near it ionize as the security enchantments inscribed on the door and bar activated.
“You made it!”
Twilight whipped around, staff pointing at the sudden noise. She yanked the tip of the staff up at the last moment when she recognized Spike’s smaller bipedal form in the safe house’s door. She let out a relieved sigh and smiled happily at her assistant. “Glad to see you made it too, Spike.”
“I’ve been here for almost an hour already. Princess Celestia told me something was up and had some plainclothes guards escort me here. She didn’t give me much info to go on, except that I was to expect you two.” Spike set his clawed fists on his hips. “Mind telling me what’s going on?”
Candance smiled sheepishly. “I seem to have an assassin after me. The Royal Sisters worked out a plan to set up a decoy while we got away. You, Twilight, and myself are supposed to lay low here until they know the assassin has been dealt with. Sorry.”
“Hey, don’t worry, Princess! My day just got a whole lot more interesting.” Spike grinned like the shark that ate the albatross. “Besides, you should check this place out! The Royal Sisters didn’t spare a bit when they had this place built and stocked. There are even gems in the basement!”
“Probably provisions so no one would need to leave for a while.” Twilight lifted her cloak and tucked her staff away into its holster at her side. “I believe you were saying something about a shower, Cadance?”
Cadance hummed to herself as she stood on her rear hooves, the hot water spray of the shower soaking her coat and mane. She watched the runoff take the dirt and sweat back into the drainage pipes she and Twily had slogged through earlier. It felt like heaven to be clean again after so long. Hardly anyone would understand what a wonder it was to simply be in an Equestrian shower again. Hot water and indoor plumbing was not as common outside Equestrian borders as some thought.
She murmured pleasantly as her shoulders and back started to unclench under the heat and steady beating of the water. Cadance might have yet another assassin after her, but she wasn’t about to let that get her down. She had dodged them in Staliongrad, behind the Iron Barding. She had a close call in the Republic of the Camule when someone had bombed the building she was staying in. Even in the walled and relatively safe Minotauran Collective she’d had a few mysterious run-ins.
“It doesn’t matter,” Cadance whispered to herself, “I’m in good hooves now.”
“Huh?”
Cadance wiped her mane from her eyes and looked at Twilight. Without her hooded cloak and harness or her staff and Battlemage gear, Twilight looked surprisingly like a normal unicorn. In the dim lighting of the setting sun coming in through the window, Cadance could see Twilight had become quite the grown mare since she’d left. The unicorn was a little taller and her body looked strong with sleek lines that hinted at more than a little muscle under her purple coat.
“What did you say?” Twilight blinked at Cadance, flicking her own wet mane out of her eyes.
“Um...I was just mentioning our water reserves, and it’s lucky that the shower is just big enough for the both of us to stand in.” Cadance smirked lopsidedly. Now that they could sort of relax and they were both standing close in the shower, she felt her earlier bravado waver. Twilight was no longer the adorkable bookworm she had spent time growing up with. “Otherwise, you’d have to wait ‘til tomorrow to have a hot shower. I’m sure neither of us wants you to smell for that long.”
Twilight shuffled in place awkwardly, her eyes darting around the bathroom, desperate to look at anything other than the wet alicorn that shared the shower with her. “I-I’ll just be here for a minute, really. In and out quick so you can enjoy the shower by yourself.”
Cadance chuckled, leaning into Twilight when her hooves slipped on the wet tile. She flailed wildly for a second until Twilight moved to brace her. They ended up facing each other, nose to nose, Twilight’s back pinned to the tile wall under the single showerhead. Twilight blinked in surprise, starting to turn away when Cadance gripped her shoulders. “No, don’t. I want to enjoy the shower with you. I’ve waited five years to be with you, Twily. Can’t you let the whole ‘professional bodyguard’ thing drop for a moment and just be cute, dorky Twilight?”
“I-I…” Twilight swallowed nervously, twitching under Cadance’s hooves. The Battlemage blushed and looked down. Her voice was soft when she continued. “I’m not cute, Cadance. I want to be friends with you like we promised, but right now I’m your protector, your guardian. And...you keep throwing me off balance. I feel...like I wish there was a spell that would allow me to melt and escape down the drain. That’s what you do to me, Princess.”
Cadance could feel the short, quick breaths Twilight was taking. “Twily, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—” Her eyes widened, focusing on the purple hoof that was suddenly pressed against her muzzle.
Twilight held her hoof there for a moment, and then the tenseness left her and she slumped limply. Twilight looked into Cadance’s eyes. “Ok…we can be just Twilight and Cadance. Is that alright? If just for tonight?”
“I would like that.” Cadance sighed happily and pulled Twilight into a hug, which the unicorn returned a moment later. “I would like that very much.”
The sunset painted Canterlot in hues of orange, red, and gold though the haze of dust and smoke of powered carriages and airship exhaust. Across the city, ponies were calling in their foals for dinner, diamond dog merchants were closing shop, or calling in the markets for one last sale. Overhead, airships docked, while pegasi and drakes jostled for perches along the walls and towers as they came to roost for the evening.
When the sun fully sank below the horizon, Canterlot became a miniature copy of the sky above, thousands of tiny lights peeking out through the darkness. Above the city, the brightest point was the castle with its glowing dome of pure arcane force sealed like the closed petals of a flower. In the dark places, between the points of light, people slept and a monster moved.
Pale green glowing eyes searched the night, hunting its prey.
The Royal Sisters thought their distraction tactics had worked. They thought they could capture her. Her free, silently prowling hooves proved how wrong they were. That little pink trollop is still in the city, I can smell it. I’ll find her and then, when I do, I will claim her head.
Glowing pale green pinpoints of light flitted across the skyline in the early darkness of the night over Canterlot City. Rooftops flashed past as it moved with silent grace through the shadows of wooden water tanks and metallic ventilation ducts. The lights paused for a moment on the ledge of an old apartment building, far above an open air market. Below, the last stubborn merchant closed up shop for the evening, the large store window going dark.
The green lights winked out, the creature they belonged to blinking its pupil-less eyes, and rotating its head to scan the warren of streets and alleyways. It searched for its prey for a moment and then moved on. Its target, the one called Princess Cadance, was hidden somewhere in the city. It leapt to the next building with tireless ease, its pony-like mouth opening to taste the air and the ambient magic around it. It was only a matter of time before the trail to Cadance became clear.
“I’m going to die tonight.”
Twilight swallowed hard as she idly rubbed her coat down with a towel. “I just know it. I can feel it, Spike.”
“Oh stop being so dramatic.” Spike crunched down on a small blue sapphire, grinding the stone down to a rough powder in his jaws. “She’s a girl, just like you.”
“No, you don’t understand Spike, she’s a Princess, she’s an alicorn, she’s...she’s Cadance!” Twilight shuddered and covered her head with the towel, flopping bonelessly down at the small kitchenette table in the safe house dining room. “I grew up with her! We went to the same school and everything. I know we made that foalhood promise to always be BFFs and stay together, but really, she’s taking it seriously!”
Spike continued to munch the gemstone to dust, before lifting the edge of the towel to look Twilight in the eye. “Are you saying it wasn’t serious? I have never known you to make a promise you don’t keep, Twilight.”
“Yes,” Twilight grumbled from under the towel, “it was serious. But she’s made it plainly obvious that she not only wants to keep that promise intact, but that she is ready to move our relationship past childhood friend and right into romantic cohabitation!”
Spike raised his eyebrow ridges at that. “Wow. Really? Cadance must have missed you these last few years, huh?”
“I guess…” Twilight sighed and tossed the towel aside, since Spike wasn’t letting her sulk under it in peace. “How am I supposed to react to that? She’s been back in town for a few hours and she’s kissed me a half dozen times already—the last one was almost all tongue!”
Spike grinned, holding up a claw. “Wow! High four, Twi!”
Twilight glared at him and frowned.
“Oh come on, you’re gonna leave me hangin’?” Spike shook his head and fished out a second sapphire from the basket in the middle of the table. “Fine, be that way. See how I treat you when I finally get that seamstress to notice me. I’m just gonna slip out the back without a word. At least I’m supportive of your relationships.”
“We do not have a relationship, Spike! We can’t! I’m a Battlemage guard, and she’s a Princess. There’s got to be a conflict of interest there. Especially when I work for—and am the star pupil of—another Princess.” Twilight huffed and crossed her hooves. “I’m supportive of your...relationships. I keep encouraging you to just talk to that mare. Don’t act like I’m the bad guy here.”
“Ok, maybe that was unfair of me.” Spike popped the sapphire into his mouth, crunching it loudly. “It’s just...if I had my lady friend upstairs, fresh from a shower and a long makeout session, I would give you a high four, dish a couple of details, and then get my scaly tail back up there!”
Twilight grumbled under her breath and sighed. “And I’d totally be happy for you…”
“Thank you.”
“This still doesn’t help me with my problem though.” Twilight lit her horn, opening the icebox in the corner of the kitchen, and pulled out a bottle of dark liquid. She popped the cap and took a long pull of the sweet beverage.
“Do you like her?”
“What?” Twilight looked up sharply. Spike fixed her with a steady stare, his reptilian eyes unblinking.
“Do you like her? It’s a simple question, Twi.” Spike leaned forward slightly. “You’re my sister, so you don’t have to answer to me. But if the answer is even remotely ‘yes’, then I suggest you get your plot back upstairs and figure this out before some assassin or other political nonsense makes a decision for you.”
Twilight blinked as Spike stood and stretched. “Also, because I’m your brother, I’m going to go check the gem stores in the basement again. Maybe I’ll sleep down there. It’s really quiet. Hard to hear anything that might be going on upstairs...” Spike smirked, winking at her and pushed his chair back in under the table.
She watched him turn and shuffle deeper into the house with a smug look on his face. The wheels in her mind turned over their conversation until she jolted in her seat and leaned to the side to call after Spike. “The hammy wink you gave me after saying that really oversold it.”
Spike chuckled from down the hallway, his tone playfully mocking. “Praise the Sisters! Twilight Sparkle can be taught!”
Her target was close. The magic was in the air, much like a scent on the breeze, drawing her green eyes to a rundown section of Canterlot near the southern gate. The building here were older, closer together, their facades faded and chipping around the edges. Many had their own outer walls and enclosed courtyards, relics from the past times of strife the city had been through. The cobblestones here still held a trace of the daytimes’ heat and the smell of many creatures living in a small space prevailed everywhere. Traditional tracking would be difficult at best here.
She tasted the air, unhinging her jaw plates to expose as much of her sensitive tongue. The organ could feel magic like a second pulse. Her barbed hooves gripped the crumbling brick façade, her head swiveling slowly until the feeling got stronger. Wherever Cadance was hiding, it was further south, deeper into the overpopulated slums. She let go of the bricks, pushing off into the early night air to leap to the next building and continue her hunt.
An hour later, she paused again atop a squat tower besides a sleeping drake that dwarfed her with its bulk and opened her mouth to breathe deep. Scents and magic collided with each other in the back of her throat and painted a picture in her mind of all the active sources of magics around her. Every powered carriage and the path it’d woven through the streets below became clear to her as did the paths of every pegasi and airship that had passed recently overhead. The apartments were awash with the movements and lingering taste of unicorns and diamond dog mages.
Amid it all, one flavor sung out above the rest. It tasted like a unique blend of all pony magics at once. She smiled, looking down from her perch at the alleyways below. At first, she’d been confused, the flavor of Cadance’s magic faded in and out as it wafted down one street and then the next. But it soon became apparent that it was coming up at every ponyhole cover.
“Clever girl.” She smirked and breathed in the magic again. “Tastes like a single unicorn guard is with you too. This will be too easy.”
The great drake shifted at the sound of someone speaking and blinked sleepy eyes. He looked around and noticed a small black cat with green eyes looking at him from the ledge. “Oh, so it was you making noise? Go home, cat. I have no cream for you.”
The cat meowed at him and then jumped to a lower ledge, scampering off into the night.
“Cadance?” Twilight pushed the door open to the master bedroom slowly. “I brought you a drink.” She held up two chilled bottles of sweet carbonated syrup. She paused in the doorway, glancing around the room until she spotted Cadance on the king sized bed. The Princess was on her side, turned away from the door, idly flipping through Twilight’s spellbook.
“Hey!” Twilight gasped and trotted around the bedside. “A mage’s spellbook is private, it’s like a diary!”
Cadance turned and looked over her shoulder with a playful grin. “Too bad. I got bored waiting on you. What took so long?”
Twilight felt herself blush again and looked away. “Quick patrol. I wanted to make sure we weren’t followed.”
“I’m glad to see you’re still a terrible liar.” Cadance smirked and turned another page in the spellbook.
Twilight bristled and glared at Cadance for a moment before sighing and setting the bottle down on the bedside table. “Ok, I was talking to Spike.”
“I’m glad he’s here.”
Twilight blinked and looked at Cadance. “Really?”
Cadance nodded. “Yes. Spike has been a good friend since he was old enough to start following us to class. He’s growing so much and...it’s nice to have someone with teeth and claws here to help you protect me.” Her voice got quiet. “Sorry for being such a nuisance. Political assassinations come with the cute little crown.”
“You’re really going to have to tell me what you’ve been up to, Cadance.” Twilight shifted uncomfortably on her hooves. “You’ve been so blasé about this whole situation and...I’m curious.”
“I will, soon, I promise.” Candance sighed, rolling over to face Twilight, with the spellbook still in her grasp. Twilight’s horn started to glow, her aura tugging the book away from the Princess. “Oh c’mon Twily, I was reading that! I want to know what spells and meta-magics my guardian is packing. For...you know...security reasons.”
“Yeah, right.” Twilight sighed again and climbed up to sit on the bed next to Cadance. “It’s just a bunch of evocations and a few abjuration spells for safety.”
“I saw the admixture equations.” Cadance let out an impressed whistle. “That’s what you used to beat Aunt Luna, isn’t it?” She put her hoof gently on Twilight’s. “I can’t claim to understand it. Evocation has never been a strong suit of mine.”
Twilight looked down at the hoof resting against her own and recalled Spike’s words. She rested back against the pile of pillows on the bed and smiled gently at her princess. “The equations aren’t complete, yet. But if you want, I can explain it to you?”
Cadance grinned, rolling over onto her belly to get comfortable. Twilight’s study lectures had a tendency to run long. “Only if you promise to go slow.”
Cadance groaned softly, her eyes fluttering open in the dark, and her breath stopped. For a moment she had no idea where she was, until it all came flooding back. She was in Equestria. In a safe house. In the hooves of Twilight Sparkle. Her breath unhitched and her heart started to beat steadily again as a feeling of warm safety filled her.
Her guardian breathed rhythmically next to her in the huge bed of the master bedroom. Twilight’s spellbook still lay open, face down on Twily’s chest. Cadance smiled as she recalled closing her eyes while Twily rattled off a complex formula for casting battle spells that would let her mix elements and control the shape and power of her combat magics. It might as well have been in draconic haiku for all it made sense to Cadance. She’d never had a head for combat magic. She tended to excel in more subtle areas, like personal enhancements spells that aided her in diplomatic relations or changed her speed and strength for a short time, among other things.
Cadance snuggled deeper into Twily’s grip, resting her head against the unicorn’s chest and listened to Twilight’s heartbeat. She was safe here, even if the Royal Sisters believed assassins were in Canterlot and after her. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t in the walled-off Minotauran Collective, sweet talking traitorous merchants into revealing state secrets. She wasn’t in the southern waste, spelunking the ancient cairns of long dead sorcerer-kings. She wasn’t in that hot, fetid Zebrican jungle, running for her life from the sounds of drums and serpentine hisses.
Cadance was home at last, with her Twily, and everything was right in the world. She yawned, her jaw popping pleasantly. Sleep took her again moments later as she squeezed Twilight in her hooves.
“Something’s wrong.”
Cadance jolted awake, groaning, and lifted her head slowly. “What?”
“Something is wrong, Cadance.” Twilight was awake and alert, her eyes darting about the dark room. She eased out of the tangle of their legs, slipping out of bed. Her spellbook snapped closed and flew to join the rest of her equipment on the bedroom dresser. “Stay here, I’m going to get Spike.”
“What’s going on?” Cadance rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She felt groggy and weak from far too little rest.
“I just felt the defensive spell batteries start charging. Something, or someone, tripped the early detectors. Hopefully I’m just being paranoid.” Twilight flashed a smile at Cadance that told her everything was going to be ok. Twilight certainly hoped that was the case. “I’ll be right back.”
Cadance nodded numbly as Twily slipped out of the room, with only her staff at her side. She heard the door lock as it closed. She shook her head to clear the fog of sleep, stretching out her wings to banish the stiffness. She wasn’t going to sit around and just wait, she hadn’t lived this long by being passive. Cadance rolled out of bed and trotted into the bathroom. She splashed water from the basin sink into her face to wake herself up faster, grabbing a towel at the same time. With a simple thought she activated her horn, opening a small tear in the fabric of reality and retrieved a sturdy oaken chest from the æther.
She popped the heavy brass latches on the lid, reaching inside to pull out her peytral and flipped it around to check the charge levels on the embedded crystals. Each small gem glowed with a full charge, so she slipped it on and felt its defensive enchantments activate. An invisible skintight personal force field that would block most basic physical attacks surrounded her. Another embedded enchantment helped silence her movements and allowed her to fade into the background easier when she tried to hide.
“If I’m lucky this is just a false alarm, and this is all I’m going to need.” Cadance reached for the chest’s lid, when there was a series of loud bangs as the reinforced shutters on every window in the safe house slammed shut. “Ok...not a false alarm. Better grab it all.”
The twisted warren of Canterlot’s southern residential district stretched out below her as she perched on the parapet of an old tenant building, looking down on a smaller stone structure. The trail she had been following throughout the night led up to it and then just vanished. She’d circled around it twice now, making sure it wasn’t some sort of bait and switch, but the more she examined it, the more the building looked suspiciously nondescript. Nothing about it seemed to stick out, no details were particularly unique or noteworthy.
It was almost cute that these ponies thought they could hide from a master of disguise and ambush tactics. The openings in her chitinous exoskeleton registered swelling magic emanating from the building, and she could almost taste the enchantments that must be laced through the entire structure. Sneaking into it would be difficult.
She thanked her creator that her orders had changed and she no longer had to worry about sneaking.. No longer did she have to worry about setting up situations so that they looked like accidents to any outside observers. No longer was her existence so secret that no one could be allowed to see her in her new form. Coming back to Canterlot was Princess Cadance’s biggest mistake. The reins were off now, and one way or another, she was going to be leaving town before dawn with Cadance’s head in tow.
As she moved closer, arcane power continued to flood the area around the building, washing out all other traces of the target’s trail. It left a sour ozone-like taste in her mouth. It didn’t matter though, she knew this was the place where the princess hid with her sole bodyguard. The walls’ enchantments were anchored to rods of crystal set into the stone that peeked out just above the mortar. It was a simple, but brutally effective system. It drew power from the ambient heat and weather, storing that energy in the rods. When the enchantment was triggered, it would release that stored power as directed electricity and hurl lightning bolts at any intruders.
When it worked.
She worked her mandibles into a wicked smile, running her antenna over the exposed crystal at the top of the wall. The weakness of such systems was their automated nature. She didn’t have to break the crystal or drain its power when she could simply disrupt the chain of faint runic symbols and prevent the power buildup from activating the discharge enchantment. Breaking that chain of enchantments would lead to a catastrophic and explosive failure later on, but she planned to be long gone by then.
She chuckled quietly and set about her sabotage with dedication.
Cadance slipped on her bracers, grinning when the enchantment on them caused them to fade to the same color and texture as her coat. It would take a very discerning eye to even see them should she be searched. The bracers held several tiny pockets and compartments each, filled with lock picks and tools she had found useful in her travels. Under her wings, she loaded her holsters with the usual assortment of short blades she carried and the brand new “hull breacher” black powder weapon she’d been ‘gifted’ by the more mercurial members of the Minotauran High Council.
Cadance hoped she was sufficiently well equipped to deal with whatever was hunting her this time. Her gear had served her well so far. It had saved her life more than once in the more ‘accident’ prone countries far from Equestrian borders.
There was a muffled noise from below as Cadance slammed the chest shut, banishing it back to the void between worlds. If they were truly under attack they weren’t going to find this Princess cowering in a tower. She rushed back toward the bedroom door, looking it over when it didn’t open to her simple push. The door itself was reinforced metal, set in a steel frame, the key-only operated lock internal so that it could be secured from either side. She sank to her belly to level the lock with her eye. It was a simple deadbolt and she didn’t sense any enchantments from her side, so Cadance lifted a slender strip of metal from a hidden spot in her bracer, gripping it in her mouth.
Cadance slipped it into the keyhole and felt it bump against the tumblers. The lock offered up only minimal resistance, so she slipped out her lifter and started to work with small, quick movements. She wasn’t even going to need magic for this.
Her carapace made a faint, wet, snapping sound, splitting along the ridge of her back, and slick ebony feathers erupted from within. They spread out a moment to catch the air, lifting her over the wall. By the time she had a line of sight on the building within, her form had resettled into a blackbird against a black sky. A few wing beats later and she landed, unharmed and unopposed, on the rooftop.
She looked around the compound, fluttering her wings against her sides, and made mental note of all the obvious exits and defensive points. The target was most likely in the main building, sleeping somewhere below her while the guard watched the door. The inner building was no less defended than the walls had been, but the magics swirling off of it were purely defensive abjurations. She could sense the magic sweep over her, searching for a trigger to unleash its fury on. Whoever had placed them never anticipated a shapeshifter, or didn’t consider birds a threat, and the arcane patterns flowed over her feathers harmlessly.
Confident that she had disabled the primary defenses, she flew to another perch, looking for a way into the building. The roof had no access she could spot, however. The only doors and windows seemed to be on the ground floor and were already sealed. If she wanted in, she was going to have to ask nicely.
She hit the ground a moment later on all four paws and arranged herself in a bedraggled state before letting out a plaintive meow.
Cadance pushed against the wall at the top of the stairs, angling herself to peek down into the main room. The noise she had heard earlier seemed to have been Twilight and Spike turning the furniture into makeshift blockades and cover. She stifled a giggle, watching them hunker down behind the couch pressed against the door. The situation was serious, but she just couldn’t shake how adorable Twily looked with her ‘no-nonsense’ face on.
“Seriously?” Twilight deadpanned, looking up at Spike.
“I’m serious, Twilight, it’s just a cat. It looks like it had its tail handed to it in a fight too.” Spike shrugged, craning his neck to look over the couch and out the peephole.
Cadance remained silent and unnoticed on the stairs. The cover those two had set up might suit them fine, but it had always been her experience that the best defense was staying mobile and unseen. She lit her horn for a moment and nodded toward Twilight and Spike, casting a basic communications spell. If they became separated she could whisper to them and they would hear it, so long as they were in the magic’s range.
Assuming the assassin didn’t blanket them with anti-magics, of course. Or just try to blast the house. At least this building was mostly stone and steel. The last time an assassin tried something, they burnt down an entire block of buildings. Cadance swallowed and nervously checked her peytral’s emergency air supply.
“I think we’re getting worked up over nothing, Twilight.” Spike raised an eyebrow. “What if Cadance sees this, and it’s just a cat? Do you think being paranoid might spoil your chances with her?”
“Chances? Now’s not the time to joke about that. We have to be careful, Spike, this could be a trap or an illusion.” Twilight tapped the end of her staff against the floor in annoyance. “Princess Luna said the assassin was a powerful magic user. We need to be ready for anything.”
Spike leveled a stare at Twilight. “It’s a cat. If it is a trap, I’ll just eat it.”
“If this blows up in our face, you are the one who has to apologize to Cadance.”
Cadance grinned and shook her head slowly. If they were lucky, it was just a cat. But then again, she never believed in luck she didn’t make for herself. She tapped her peytral and activated its Chameleon and Spider Walk enchantments, pulling herself into the high corner of the ceiling where she could see the the whole room.
She meowed again when she heard the door unlock, slumping dramatically on her side as it inched slowly open. Ponies never seem to learn, do they? It was all she could do to not smile and chuckle as one of the literally oldest tricks in the book worked yet again.
She opened her mouth to meow again when a clawed hand, easily bigger than her current form, slipped out of the door and around her body. She froze, holding her breath. There is a drake in there‽ Where was my intel on that?
She readied herself to expand, but relaxed after a moment when the hand didn’t crush her and instead pulled her inside and past the building’s defenses. All was not lost, she should still be able to accomplish her mission and kill Princess Cadance, dragon or no dragon.
Twilight scrunched her nose as she scowled at the pathetic looking creature mewling at her from Spike’s claws. The cat certainly looked like it had seen better days. Its fur was matted, messy, and dirty and there was a fresh nick in one ear. It even looked a little green around the gills.
“Ok...so, it’s...just a cat?” Twilight groaned and rubbed the back of her head with one hoof. “How did it trip the sensors?”
“It probably was running from other cats or dogs or something and just came up and over the wall. That would certainly explain it.” Spike shrugged, petting the cat gently which caused the feline to shiver and curl in on itself more. “I say we let it stay the night, and I can put it out in the morning, okay, Twi?”
Twilight sighed. “I guess that’s okay. But you’ve got to keep an eye on it. It might not have blown up, but if it vomits on anything, you are cleaning it up and apologizing! Do we even have anything to feed it?”
“I can give it some milk. I know we have some of that in the ice chest.” Spike smirked and turned to go through the door to the small kitchen and dining area. “Grab a saucer, okay, Twi?”
Twilight shook her head again and followed her brother into the small subsection of the main room, her horn flaring to life and opening a cabinet. “We give it milk, and then we check the property, just in case.”
The cat mewed as Spike set it gently on the counter and turned to the ice chest. He opened it with a grumble and started searching for the jar with the milk in it. “Whatever you say boss, but we aren’t…” Spike faded out as he sniffed, his nostrils flaring.
Spike stood up straight and held his claw to his nose. “Why does my claw smell like smoke and blood?”
“What?” Twilight whirled around, a small saucer in her grip. Spike looked at her and shrugged. “Isn’t that the claw you grabbed the cat with?”
“Yeah.” Spike inhaled sharply and ran his tongue over his chin as he pulled in more air. “Come to think of it, I don’t smell a cat.”
The Battlemage set the saucer down gently on the table and lifted her staff, her shoulders and neck tensing. “Spike...where is the cat?”
Spike blinked at her and they slowly turned and looked at the empty counter top.
She hadn’t planned on this.
The dragon complicated things. They were notoriously resilient to both magic and poison. They had the senses of a guard animal and built-in armor and weapons. At least this one wasn’t very big. It was barely taller than the unicorn.
She was going to have to use what little element of surprise that remained to her. She dived under the large couch in the main living area and worked her jaw as her body shifted. Her poison sacks filling with something she was hopeful would be toxic enough to get past a dragon’s fortitude. The fur her body had fell back as chitinous plates appeared and locked in place around her new limbs. Her new pincer scythes sharpened to a razor edge as she licked them, coating them with the venom she’d made.
They would come looking for her any second. She would take out the pony first, then deal with the drake. Once they were both down, the pretty princess would be next. When they walked near she would strike from cover at the pony’s legs. A small nick was all it would take to deliver the poison and then about a minute before it sent her into shock. As soon as she struck, she would move to new cover to flank the dragon, if she could get behind it she had a much better chance.
She raised her thorax and bunched her legs under herself to spring as she heard hoof-falls coming her way.
“Where did it go?” Spike scratched his head as he and Twilight looked out into the main room. “Think it’s hiding under the furniture?”
“I think that wasn’t a normal cat.” Twilight hefted the nearest chair into the air with her telekinesis and leveled her staff by her side.
‘Well, no duh!” Spike shook his head and dropped to all fours and lowered his head to scan under the overturned furniture turned barricades. “Let’s just find it before anything happens, and I have to apologize to more than one Princess.”
Twilight chuckled mirthlessly as she lifted another chair and swept her staff back around. As she moved to look around the chair and into the corner of the room she caught a flash of black near the floor by her hooves. Before Twilight could react, there was a loud, bellowing roar from behind her as she was violently yanked into the air by Spike’s claws.
The dragon threw her into the far wall, and the impact knocked the wind from her. Twilight groaned and rolled to her hooves, but when she tried to stand there was a sudden pain in her right rear ankle. She blinked to get the stars out of her vision and looked down to see a small but growing puddle of red around her hoof.
Spike roared again, loud enough this time to rattle the window shutters and shake dust from the ceiling. He dove into the furniture, batting couches and end tables away with draconic strength and reducing them to kindling and scattered fluff as his claws tore through them. He spun and brought down his tail down on top of what was previously an ottoman, smashing it to the floor and holding it there.
“Twi! You alright?” Spike turned and stood up. “I saw some giant friggin’ bug or spider, I dunno. It jumped at you, and I tried to get you away!”
Twilight hissed at the pain her leg was giving her and forced herself to her hooves. She grit her teeth and sucked in a breath. “A spider? I saw...something too. Just before you grabbed me, it got my ankle.”
“Are you ok?”
“I’ll live.” Twilight set her jaw and stood tall for a moment while she brought her staff’s tapered end down on the floor. The tip flashed as she formed a connection to the junction of ley lines that crisscrossed under Canterlot and pulled. Energy, raw native arcane potential, flooded her and everything seemed to slow to a crawl. The non-magical material around her became slightly transparent, like ghostly figments, while magical sources shined brightly. Spike, glowed in front of her like a forge at full burn, while under the ottoman he was holding down there appeared to be an amorphous blob that glowed like a hot coal.
Twilight raised her staff again with glacial slowness and tipped it toward the glowing and growing blob. Even at her enhanced speed she could see it changing and enlarging. She had to do something and do it fast before it broke free from the hold Spike had on it. Twilight called up a spell in her mind that would generate a large blast of fire. She wanted to burn it on the spot though, not cause structural damage to the house. So she wrapped the arcane formula in a meta-magic adjustment case and narrowed the blast of heat into a tight beam, focusing its energy at the point where she wanted it to hit.
Spike was just starting to notice what was going on with the thing under the ottoman when Twilight completed her calculations and realized her spell as reality. The energy she pulled from the ley lines coursed through her horn and used her natural telekinesis as a bridge to the staff and the staff as a focusing agent. In less time than a foal’s blink, the air immediately behind the ottoman went from room temperature to about 500 degrees and burst into flames, engulfing the footrest and the creature underneath it.
Time jerked back to full speed and an unearthly scream threatened to blow out Twilight’s eardrums as her spell went off. The spell lasted but an instant, the room feeling like oven as the now flaming furniture was thrown aside. A smoking black, green, and blue shape exploded out from under the remains of the ottoman, knocking Spike back. Twilight blinked as she got a hint of something vaguely pony shaped with bright green eyes before the creature was on top of her and shoving her face into the carpet.
“Neat trick. Now, please scream for me.” The voice Twilight heard speaking sounded just as normal as any pony’s she might hear on the street, there wasn’t a hint of the otherworldly creature it was coming out of. “I want that little trollop to come running. I like my prey winded and emotionally compromised.”
“Get off her!” Spike yelled as he scrambled to get back up amid the pile of broken furnishings he’d landed in.
“In due time, drake.” The thing on top of her did something and Twilight felt something sharp and pointed press into her hip above her wounded ankle. “After this pony is down, I will put you down like the mongrel you are. Then I will go and gut your Princess.”
Twilight growled, trying to turn away, but she couldn’t hold back the yelp as the creature once again drew her blood. The pain wasn’t as sharp as the first wound, which now burned intensely, but it made her all the more weaker. She gasped and turned her head to look up at the bug-like creature to see one of its ‘hooves’ now sporting an enormous claw spike that looked like it could eviscerate her.
Twilight didn’t intend to test that.
She was still connected to the ley line but she had no way of judging a spell safely enough to avoid endangering herself, Cadance, and Spike. Empowering her magic wasn’t the only way she could utilize that power however. Not for the first time, Twilight was glad Princess Celestia gave lessons in melee combat to her Battlemage corps. She grit her teeth, channeling a tiny portion of that energy into her limbs. Twilight bucked and shoved the creature off of her, whirling to face it, but the room didn’t stop spinning when she did. Twilight wobbled awkwardly before collapsing again with a breathy grunt.
Spike rolled back onto his feet and bunched up to pounce, but froze when a section of the ceiling dropped silently behind the bug thing. Twilight sucked in air as the fallen piece resolved itself into Cadance, her disguise spell ending, a moment before the princess slipped up to the creature’s back and stabbed it between two overlapping plates of chitin with a shard of steel.
The thing hissed and rotated its head around to look Cadance in the eye. “Ah, there you are.”
Cadance smirked and whipped out with her other hoof and drove a second shard-like blade under another plate of exoskeleton, yanking a true scream out of it this time. “Sorry for not making my death easy for you.”
“You’ll need more than a couple knives to stop me.” The creature twisted its arm around bonelessly and swiped at Cadance as the pony ducked and dodged.
“Good thing I packed this!”
Cadance let go and left the blades embedded in the bug pony and skipped back a step. She raised a wing and pulled out an oversized Minotauran ‘hull-breacher’ black powder cannon, pointing it right at monster’s back. “Say hello to my little friend!”
The hull-breacher said ‘hello’ in a voice like thunder.
The force of the impact sent the bug creature flying off its hooves and half way across the room where it landed in a broken pile, smoking and leaking a considerable amount of ichor.
Spike shook his head to get his eyes to focus again as the gunfire echoed off the outer walls of the safe house and the adjacent buildings. His snout was filled with the sharp, acrid scent of burnt black powder and whatever passed as blood for the bug monster. He didn’t know where Princess Cadance had been hiding the gun, but he was suddenly glad she had it. Spike worked his jaw and frills, trying to get his hearing back, and lifted himself to a standing position.
Princess Cadance didn’t waste time, reloading that huge cannon by breaching the barrel and pouring in more powder from a horn and another shot that looked as big as a plump grape. Her mouth was moving, but no sound was coming out. All he was getting was a lot of loud ringing.
“Uugh...where did you come from? That thing got the drop on us and it hit Twi—oh Tartarus! Twilight‽” Spike swung around, looking for his sister and spotted her slumped against the wall near the bottom of the stairs with blood dripping from her ankle and hip.
Spike started toward Twilight when Princess Cadance waved at him and pointed at the fallen assassin. He glanced at the creature and against everything he would have thought possible, it was moving. Spike stared as it rotated its legs and head in a way that made him feel nauseous, and lifted itself off the floor. When it straightened up, he could see the wound the gun had left in its torso. And the wall behind it.
He took a step back, his lips curled into a snarl as the creature fixed its creepy pony-like eyes on him. It said something but his hearing was still too shot to make anything out. Whatever this thing was, he wasn’t going to let it hurt Twilight and Cadance. The wound in its chest started to close as he watched and it smiled at him before it leaped to the side.
“No you don’t!” Spike roared and sprang after it, his tail doing most of the pushing as he tackled the monster into and then through the shuttered and barred window. The chitin in his claws shifted unsettlingly as they rolled in the grass and Spike gasped when he felt fangs rake across his scales. He didn’t know if they’d gotten through, but he knew he’d have some new scars after this fight.
Spike kept his claws clamped tight on the bug that was doing its best to writhe out of his grip. When they came to a stop with him on top, Spike slammed the creature into the ground as hard as he could. Its weird pony-like face didn’t look bothered by that, but he heard it grunt.
“Oh good, my hearing is coming back!”
“Isn’t that nice? Now won’t you be a good dragon and just die!”
“How about no!” Spike opened his mouth wide and let out a blast of fire into the face of the bug-pony. The fire spread around them and set the yard and flower bed ablaze. The thing charred somewhat, but now it only looked annoyed.
“Spike! Get back!”
The dragon let go and hopped off the monster and rolled away as soon as he heard Twilight; he’d been in enough tight situations with the Battlemage to know what was about to happen. He looked up in time to see Twilight at the broken window, supported by Princess Cadance, unleash hell from her horn. Twilight hit it with pure mystical force hard enough to crater it into the earth by more than a hoofspan deep. She then gouged a trench by pushing it through the loamy soil from there to the outer wall which spiderwebbed with cracks under the pressure.
“And...stay down…” Twilight gasped once the spell ended, sagging limply in Princess Cadance’s grip.
“Spike! Help me, Twilight’s been poisoned!” Cadance adjusted her hold and eased Twilight down to the floor. Spike could see the Princess’ horn glowing, her pale blue colored aura pressing over Twilight’s wounds. “I’m doing what I can, but I’m not trained for more than the basics! We need to keep her injuries closed and slowing the spread of the poison, but I can’t clear it out of her system. We’re going to need a doctor!”
“There’s a clinic nearby.” Spike huffed, catching his breath and climbing to his feet. “We can take her there!”
“No.” Cadance licked her lips and looked at the now still body of the monster. “Canterlot isn’t safe. Those things can mimic anything, especially ponies. We need to get out of here, but I can’t move Twily by myself.”
Spike jogged over to where Cadance was hovering protectively over Twilight. He leaned down and plucked a small pouch on Twilight’s harness open and pulled out a slip of paper. “If Canterlot is out, then we’ll have to use another option. I know a place we can go, Princess, and somepony we can trust to help out Twilight.”
Spike flicked his wrist and the paper released a transmutation enchantment, growing into the saddle he had worn earlier when picking Cadance up at the airship terminal. Spike then released a similar enchantment on himself and grew into his huge winged form.
“Grab Twi’s staff and get on. I can get us there in an hour if the winds cooperates.”
“Shieldmaidens! Secure the perimeter!” Shining Armor nodded to himself as he oversaw the rest of the Shieldmaidens of Luna erect a massive shield around the former safe house. Once the glowing shield was in place and opaque against the gathering crowds of onlookers, he gestured for the Princesses.
Princess Celestia lead the way down the ramp from their immense private airship, the HMS Eclipse, followed closely at hoof by Princess Luna. The Royal Sisters disembarked and Celestia herself broke the enchantment holding the door to the inner courtyard closed with a tap of her horn. Princess Luna motioned for Shining Armor to join them a moment later.
“Talk to me, ‘Maiden. Have you discovered any new information from the public?”
“No, ma’am. No one has reported anything credible yet. Most people were already inside for the night. So far we’ve been told that there was some sort of loud bang, followed by the sound of breaking glass and then another loud boom.” Shining Armor saluted and then lowered his voice. “Please don’t call me that, Princess.”
Celestia smirked as she raised her reinforced war tankard of coffee and took a long sip of the hot brew. “We’ll know more in a moment. Some canvassing of the local fliers report a dragon resembling Spike left here two hours ago with what could have been two ponies on his back.”
Princess Celestia pushed the door open and scanned the yard and patio without stepping in. “I can plainly see signs of a struggle. I can still smell a hint of dragonfire too.”
“Then step aside, sister. My night grows late and we need to know what is going on and why our niece did not contact us.” Luna moved forward and pass Celestia, her wheeled harness rolling over the threshold. “Time is of the essence…”
Luna faded out as she looked into the far corner of the yard. “Celestia, come. Shining, close the door and leave us.”
“But Princess, I’m to remain at your side!”
“Close the door and leave us, ‘Maiden, or ‘Maiden no longer shall you be.” Luna kept her gaze focused on the far wall and her voice soft, but even Celestia raised her eyebrows at her tone. “Is that clear?”
“...as crystal, Princess.” Shining frowned and nodded to Celestia. After she was through, he closed and resealed the door behind her.
“Luna...what is it?” Celestia sipped from her oversized tankard, following Luna’s gaze with a slight tilt of her head. She took in the destruction, her mind piecing together a timeline for what she saw. The broken window came first, blown out from the inside. The burnt yard likely came afterward, parts of it were still smoking. The trench was obviously fresh, the exposed soil untouched by the fire. And then there was the shattered wall the trench led to. Her breath caught when she saw the crumpled pile of black and green in the foot of the wall.
Celestia let out her breath in a hiss and trotted over to the still body.
Luna followed her sister slowly, her eyes sweeping over the remains of the battle. When she reached the final crater, Celestia was kneeling by the body, gently brushing the odd webbing that formed its ‘mane’ out of the creature’s face. Luna raised an eyebrow at the tender gesture. “Knowing your protégé, dear sister, it was likely quick. If that’s any consolation.”
“No.”
Both of Luna’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “What does that mean? I’ve been on the receiving end of Twilight Sparkle, remember?” Luna gestured at her harness. “There is no way it wasn’t quick once Twilight had her in her sights.”
“No. I mean it isn’t dead.” Celestia’s horn flared and the layered plates of chitin that made up the creature’s face bulged and then slid sickenly back into place with a wet snapping sound. Green iridescent eyes opened slowly, one of them covered in a thin layer of milky mucus, and focused on the two alicorns.
“I...live...for now.”
“It’s still alive?” Luna blinked as the creature twitched spasmodically and then went still after a long second. “What did you do to our niece and her protectors?”
“What happened here?” Celestia stayed close, her mug steaming where it sat on the charred lawn next to the Sun Princess. “Why are you trying the kill Princess Cadance?”
“I...failed my...Lord. He doesn’t...tolerate failure. He would have...the Queen eat...me.” She made a sticky wet noise when she gasped for breath. “She is his will...made manifest.”
Luna shook her head. “This thing has had its brains, or whatever it has that passes for a brain, dislodged. It makes no sense, and this isn’t getting us any closer to answers.”
Celestia paid her sister no heed and lifted the creature into a sitting position. It continued to leak ichor on to the soil, visibly growing weaker. “Is the Queen you speak of, Chrysalis? What does she have to do with all of this? Are there more of your kind? More changelings?”
The changeling coughed and blinked very slowly as a grin spread over its face. “The prophecy will...come to pass and...a new princess will rise. But this time, it will be...a Queen.”
“Celestia, what is this thing talking about?” Luna stepped closer and her horn flashed as it did a quick scan of the creature. Its vital signs were fading quickly. “What prophecy is it babbling about? What is this nonsense about more changelings? You’ve always assured me there was only one!”
Celestia was silent and climbed back to her hooves. She lifted her war tankard of coffee and mumbled quietly under her breath before turning back toward the house. “I need to find Chrysalis.”
“What are you talking about? You cannot leave me in the dark on this, Tia. I have a right to…”
Luna paused as the changeling on the ground started to spasm and make a choking noise. It took her a moment, but she realized that the rapidly dying monster was laughing. The question was just forming on her lips when Luna felt a sudden spike in the local magical field.
She tried to yell out a warning, but it was too late when the crystal defenses embedded in the walls around them went critical.
The flight was blessedly quick.
Cadance wasn’t sure how much longer she could’ve held the poison in Twilight’s veins from reaching her heart. It took all of her concentration to keep the tiny blood vessels in Twily’s leg closed off. If she maintained it for too long, Twily could lose the leg even if she survived whatever the shapeshifter had put into her.
Twilight was out cold before they had even made it into the air, but as Spike lined up for a landing in what she suspected was the Everfree Preserve, the unicorn was still breathing, if shallowly. “Spike! Are we there yet?”
“Yeah, this is the place. There is a clearing just ahead. After we land I’ll help you carry Twilight inside.”
“Inside what?” Cadance squinted but she couldn’t make out anything amid the black mass of forest sweeping past below them. “Where are we going?”
“To see Zecora, the sage. If we can trust anypony to fix up Twi, it’s her.”
She would very much have liked to scratch it, but at the moment she found herself unable to move in the grips of her sister’s magic.
Luna swam past her, through the corner of her peripheral vision, and pushed a large suspended piece of stone wall to the ground. The piece was as big as Celestia’s entire body and had been on a trajectory that would bring it to meet its end against her right shoulder. It would have probably dislocated the joint, braking a few ribs and her foreleg, had not Luna frozen time within the bubble of their shield.
Luna glided through the super dense magic field like a seapony in water, her wheeled harness left in midair where the shock wave had just started to lift it. She drifted closer, pushing debris away from them as she went. When Luna reached Celestia’s side she reached up and gently scratched her sister’s nose and lit her horn to start a mental sharing between them.
Oh thank Faust! That was bothering me. Celestia tried in vain to smile. How long am I going to be stuck like this?
About five—relative—minutes, give or take. Luna shrugged, looking back at where the wall had once stood. I managed to contain everything, I think. But it will take a few minutes to convert all the energy of the explosion and redirect it. I suspect that the changeling caused the crystal rods to continue building a charge for their defensive spells but denied them a discharge conduit. Now I have to keep this up or we let ten blocks of the south ward get vaporized.
I’ll wait. I’m sure our subjects will appreciate your quick spellcrafting to save their lives and livelihoods.
Luna nodded and shared a smirk with her sister. I expect there will be a great deal more moon lilies at the gates in coming weeks. But while I have your captive attention, fill me in on what that thing meant about a ‘prophecy.’ I thought we’d left such things in the past where they belong?
Celestia mulled over that, but kept her thoughts out of the telepathic sharing with Luna. She wasn’t sure how much she needed to share, or if the changeling spoke of what she highly suspected it had. It is from a very long time ago. Do you recall your self-banishment from the Everfree?
As if I could forget that. Luna scoffed and folded her hooves over her chest. I assume this prophecy came about then, when you told me the shapeshifter, Chrysalis, first appeared? That’s more than a thousand years ago at this point.
Yes. Celestia paused as she considered her phrasing. I must admit, Luna, during that time I was a different mare. I did things I am not proud of and I’m glad history has seen fit to mostly forget my transgressions.
I remember. Luna looked away, up into the night sky where the redirected, destructive magic was being channeled harmlessly toward the stars. I don’t feel nostalgic for those dark days, Tia. I went into self-exile for a reason.
I know. However, during the time you were gone, I thought I might have to replace you. The nobles were very antsy about me absorbing your former duties and the power that went along with it. So, I had my guards search for potential new Princesses. Celestia wished she could kick herself physically as hard as she was mentally at the moment. Admitting this particular folly to her sister was not something she had ever planned on actually doing.
I made up this prophecy about the rising of a new Princess. Had my servants spread it around for months while I gathered the possible potentials. Through force of will alone, Celestia narrowed her brows in the time stop. And out of their ranks rose Chrysalis, though she had a different name back then. She was a true prodigy, Luna. One in a million, for sure. If that changeling was telling the truth, it would seem she is still chasing after that promise I broke to her.
Luna shook her head slowly. You and your apprentices, Celestia. I’m glad Twilight Sparkle has managed to evade your lecherous reach and escaped into Cadance’s arms! You chased poor Sunset Shimmer away to the south too! She chuckled. It doesn’t surprise me that you tried to replace me and it ended up blowing up in your smug face.
I will remind you that Sunset is on an official mission to Seavannah. As far as I know, she is still busy with that. However, you sound less...angry than I was expecting.
Luna rolled her eyes. It was a millenia ago, Tia. You were a different mare then, as was I. Besides, now that I know all the various assassination attempts and failed coup d’etat we’ve dealt with over the centuries are all your fault. All for creating a monster and promising it too could be a princess one day...I can’t help but feel a smidgen of sorrow for you. And this Chrysalis creature.
Thank you.
Luna nodded and the sharing was silent for a time.
So...in all these years, have you and Chrysalis gotten frisky? Knowing each other for so long...it’s bound to have at least crossed your mind. It’s not like there are that many other immortals out there. Luna snickered and leered at her sister. That might explain her unhealthy obsession with you, Tia.
Celestia was glad the frozen time within the dense field of magic kept her from blushing.
Six years ago
“Twilight! Wait up!” Spike huffed and rasped as he pumped his stubby legs to catch up with the teenage unicorn. His sister seemed to ignore him, trotting around the corner of yet another tall shelf of moldering old tomes.
Spike rounded the bend a second later only to see Twilight clamber over a pile of dusty stones and loose rubble that littered the middle of the aisle. This deep into the subterranean archive, in the Canterlot catacombs, the walls and ceiling still showed signs of the damage the city had taken in the last war. The tile and plaster was cracked and missing in places where the natural stone peeked through. High above the row of shelves here, a section of the ceiling was missing. The ancient mosaic painted there depicted the legendary Everfree City, the missing section most likely displaying the many sprawling gardens it was rumored to have possessed.
Spike gasped as he pulled his chubby form over the now faded skree that had fallen long before he had been hatched. “Twilight...don’t leave me behind…” Twilight flicked an ear in his direction and looked back at him. She grinned, hopping in place as she waited for him to catch up.
“I’d never leave you behind, Spike.” Twilight chuckled. “If you want, you can climb up and I’ll carry you.”
“No!” Spike blushed. “I mean, no, thank you. I’m a big dragon now, Twi. I don’t want anypony to see me getting hauled around like a baby.”
“Oh who is going to see you down here?”
Spike opened his mouth to give a well-reasoned response when his thunder was suddenly stolen by the only other pony in the archives with them.
“I’d see, and I would tell, like...everybody in Canterlot.” A pink pony with a tri-colored mane tied up in a bun stuck her head out from behind a shelf three rows down. “Auntie says I’m a gossip.”
“Cady!” Twilight jumped in surprise, giggling as she turned on her friend and classmate. “Wow, you suck at Dewey Decimal Hide and Seek. The rules explicitly state that you, as the Hidee, are to evade the detection of the Seeker, which is me, while staying within the area of the library as designated by a range of randomly generated Dewey Decimal organizational numbers.”
“Maybe.” Cadance grinned. “Or maybe this aisle over here is where Auntie Luna hides her romance novels.”
“In the military expenditures section?”
“Who would ever think to look there?” Cadance pulled a slim book from the shelf and flipped it open with her magic. The pages held the ledger for navel costs from three hundred years in the past, but as she scanned down, the neat hoofwriting of numbers gave way to the skilled cursive tale of forbidden lusts on the high seas. “Jackpot!”
“Why are you always reading that stuff?” Spike scratched his head with a claw as he blinked at Cadance.
“Oh Spike, you’ll understand one day.” Cadance mock swooned and fanned herself with the book. “Romance. Is. The. Best.”
“Personally, I like the books Princess Celestia wrote on energy inversion and thermo-theoretical principles.” Twilight grinned at Spike before she looked at Cadance with a sneer. “Bet that’s why I get better marks in class than you.”
“You’re just Auntie Celestia’s pet student, that’s all. But at least you’re cute, Sparkle, so there’s hope for you yet.” Cadance snapped her new treasure trove of navel and naughty lore shut, turning around toward the entrance to the catacomb library. “I believe you found me, so now it’s your turn to hide and I better not find you in the spellbook section again.”
Twilight stuck out her tongue and—
She felt warm and cold. Twilight could hear the wind whistling through her mane and feel cold rain hitting her ears but the rest of her body was warm, sheltering her from the elements. Something soft cushioned her as the outside world shifted and shook.
She thought she heard a deep voice a lot like Spike’s, but it was muffled. She couldn’t understand the words before the wind stole them away. Twilight wanted to lift her head and find Spike. They had to make sure Cadance was alright before the monster got her.
She was just so tired. Twilight didn’t let go of the soft, warm thing that cradled her, and sleep took her again.
Six years ago
Cadance sighed quietly and quietly repeated the numbers to herself again. The shelves in the archive were all labeled and organized by a numerical system that she barely understood. Or at least, they were labeled when the wooden shelves weren’t collapsed and rotten. The end cap next to her was fortunately still standing under the weight of its wealth of dusty old tomes and had a badly faded number still painted on it. She smirked, narrowing her eyes to scan for her prey now that she was in the right section of the archive.
Twilight was in here somewhere. This section housed the oldest books on history during the times just after the founding of Equestria. If she knew the egghead well enough, Twilight would lose herself in a book quickly enough. Then she’d just have to get the drop on Spike to capture them.
But first, she had to find them.
Cadance spotted Twilight soon enough as she tiphoofed down the main walkway. The unicorn was sitting at the far end of one aisle near the wall with a huge book open in front of her. Spike was sitting on her back and keeping watch. Cadance took cover in an adjacent row where she could sit and still keep an eye on them. Spike looked sleepy so all she had to do was wait until her target was completely comfortable and distracted.
From her vantage point, Cadance studied Twilight Sparkle. She’d known Twilight for years and the filly was her secret weapon in her Auntie’s grueling classes. Twilight absorbed knowledge like a sponge and loved to help her “struggling” classmate. It wasn’t really cheating, Twilight helped her with studying and staying on topic. Auntie Tia was right about one thing though, she was a gossip and couldn’t stay focused to save her life in spell class.
Auntie Luna just thought she needed the right thing to focus on. She had given Cadance her new hobby of studying ponies, drakes, and diamond dogs. She learned about them from mannerisms and speech patterns. Take Twilight for instance, it took no great deduction to see she liked books, but it wasn’t the reading that drew her, it was an unquenchable thirst for information. Cadance could tell by how her eyes twinkled when she learned something new, the way she would inhale sharply and how her face would light up.
Cadance felt she could watch Twilight all day.
The rain was worse. At least, Twilight thought it was. She couldn’t accurately tell. Her eyes refused to open and her ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton. Twilight groaned as she was rolled over and two strong arms closed around her middle.
Something warm gripped her hoof gently and Twilight tried to squeeze it in return but her body wasn’t responding. She felt that really should bother her more but it was getting harder to think, harder to find the energy for thought. The cotton in her ears was invading her mind and the rain was worse than ever.
Twilight felt herself fading fast into unconsciousness. Was Cadance safe?
Six years ago
Twilight looked up from the tales of a younger Canterlot and the early political wheeling and dealing the Royal Sisters engaged in when Spike started to snore from her back. She glanced back at the book in front of her before scanning the row she’d taken refuge on for any evidence of her hunter. Cadance wasn’t anywhere in sight.
“Wow, she does suck at this game.” Twilight smirked and put the book away before standing up slowly to not wake Spike, and let blood return to her tingling hooves.
She walked slowly back to the main passage and looked up and down again for Cadance. The young princess was nowhere in sight again and Twilight started to worry. The archive was huge, comprised of several large catacomb chambers and even some natural caves with shelves carved directly into the walls. Could Cadance have gotten lost? Did she give her the right numbers for the area she would hide in?
If she somehow lost the Princess, she’d never hear the end of it from the Royal Sisters. She’d probably be banished!
Twilight was about to start a systematic search pattern when she heard the dainty snort of a sleeping Princess. It was a sound she had become very familiar with from their classes. She shook her head, following the noise a short distance until she spotted an unconscious alicorn mare half way down a row of shelves.
She shook her head and trotted over to Cadance and nudged her with a hoof until she woke. “You were supposed to find me, not the other way around.”
Cadance yawned and smiled sleepily up at her. “Well, you are my Prince Charming, come to wake a sleeping Princess.”
Twilight looked at Cadance in silence for a moment. “Weirdo.”
The rain had stopped. The wind was still, or gone, and it was silent. Twilight felt mild curiosity at her lack of concern for herself and her disconnected state. She was just so tired and her leg ached in an off-hoof way. She was getting colder, the cotton in her ears was more like ice now. Twilight really wished the warm, soft thing would hold her again.
Six years ago
Twilight blinked at Cadance. Her lips felt funny. Her heart felt funnier.
“What was that for?”
Cadance giggled and pranced away, heading back toward the entrance again now that it was late. They would be expected at the dinner table by the Royal Sisters within the hour. As she reached the stairs, Cadance looked back over her shoulder. “Prince Charmings always get a kiss when they wake Princesses.”
Twilight watched her go and felt even funnier in her heart. “But...but Cady, I’m not a stallion! Hey! Wait up!”
The first thing that went through Twilight’s mind was just how quiet it was, the wind and rain from before gone. That though was followed shortly afterwards with the realization that she was awake. Her body was numb from horn to tail and wouldn’t respond to any of her commands. Twilight felt her heartbeat speed up as she strained to move even her eyelids and see what was going on. She managed a small slit but her lashes blocked any detail other than the soft light coming in on her from somewhere above.
Twilight groaned and felt more than saw, movement at her side. A shadow passed in front of her limited vision, a hoof gently smoothed her mane the way her mother used to on sick days.
“Stay still, Twilight. Go back to sleep, we’re safe here.”
Six years ago
Not for the first time, Twilight wondered why Princess Cadance hung out with her. Sure, they were classmates in Princess Celestia’s class at the School of Magi, but they weren’t the only students. Maybe it really was their similar ages? Cadance had the distinction of being the youngest student to ever be personally tutored by the Princess. That honor used to be Twilight’s claim to fame until the pink alicorn had arrived.
Of course, it was a special circumstance since Cadance was the first new alicorn in centuries.
They had gravitated toward each other almost immediately. Neither of them had many friends at the School or out of it, just family they saw during the holidays. Cadance, ever the more outgoing, broke the ice first by opening the class door right into Twilight’s face in front of Princess Celestia. That led to their first fight, which led to their first stuttering apology session - after their first stent in detention.
After that they had become fast friends, study buddies, confidants, and lab partners.
If anyone had asked her, Twilight would have said that Cadance was her best friend. But after their latest match of Dewey Decimal Hide and Seek in the Canterlot archives...she wasn’t sure. She needed to talk to someone about it. Obviously, Cadance was out. The Royal Sisters were busy and she wasn’t going to visit her family for another few weeks. That left Spike, and as much as she loved the little guy and respected his advice, this wasn’t something she felt he would be good at.
As with so many other things that initially confused her, it fell to books to pick up the slack in her knowledge. But which subject should she check? Biology? Physcology? Sociology? Twilight bit her lip. Perhaps that section in the archive on naval expenditures that hid Princess Luna’s romantic fiction?
She woke up in darkness this time, her mouth dry and throat sore. More feeling was returning her body and she could tell she was in a bed and covered with a blanket of some sort. It was soft and warm but the blanket felt as if it weighed a ton and smelled faintly herby. The air in...wherever...she was had similar hints of herbs and fragrant plants with an undercurrent of chemicals. Like an apothecary's.
Twilight grunted and got her eyes open for all it helped her. It was the middle of the night and everything was still. Twilight breathed deeply and licked at her mouth to wetten it again, letting her ears adjust to her surroundings. She could make out the faint hum and chirp of crickets, the call of an owl and the distant breathing of a large creature that was unmistakably Spike.
Twilight groaned as she shifted microscopically and let her eyes close as that drained her of energy again.
Six years ago
Deductive logic led her to the answers she was seeking. Cadance had called her a ‘Prince Charming,’ ergo, Twilight found herself in the foals’ section of the main library, sitting at a too low table surrounded by several stacks of books. Children’s Tales had never held her interest before but the more she read, the more she began to piece together the ‘rules of fairy tale chivalry and courtly love.’
Twilight was of noble birth herself and she knew these so called rules to be mostly hogwash and wishful thinking, but she could certainly see the draw. The Knight, the Lady, the Princess, and the Commoner were all roles she saw repeated over and over with similar traits that portrayed them as either villainous or virtuous. She could see that Cadance very much favored the Princess and Lady stereotypes with a bit of the rebellious Commoner thrown in for good measure.
Which made sense, given her low birth and then promotion to Princess by way of alicornination. Cadance also seemed the see the Knight stereotype within Twilight. A helper, a trusted advisor and stalwart defender. Obvious love interest.
Twilight blushed and set down the book she’d been reading. Was that what that kiss had been about? Cadance simply following through with the expectation that the Princess kisses the Knight that saves her? Was it all an act?
If it was, then why did it make her heart skip a beat when she thought about it?
Twilight pushed the book away and leaned back to look up at the vaulted ceiling above her. She sat there in silence for a moment before she gave a quiet voice to the question that was weighing heavily on her mind. “Do I like mares?”
“And so what if you do, my dear? I think this world could use more of us.”
Twilight startled and fell back with a yelp. She rolled over onto her belly and looked up at an older, molted yellow colored, mare wearing thick rimmed glasses and her mane tied up in a loose bun with chopsticks. “Wha? Miss Monarca? You mean you…?”
The librarian smiled, nodding with a conspiratorial wink. “Oh yes, young Miss Sparkle, I do. I even know what it’s like to have a mare confuse and excite you at the same time. I couldn’t help but notice what you’ve collected over here and came to see if I could offer you any advice. Given your whispered question, I’d say you could use it. I understand if you don’t want to talk about it, but I’ve found it’s always nice to know you aren’t alone when it comes to the plights of love and affection.”
Monarca smiled and picked up a few discarded books left unshelved by the children that had last spent time in the section, and stacked them in her green colored aura. “Don’t let me bother you, I just need to get these organized and back in their places. Just pretend I’m not even here.”
“Um, wait!” Twilight blushed and chuckled nervously as the librarian turned her way again. “Um… can I ask you something?”
“Of course, youngling. Haven’t I been helping you find answers in this place for years now?”
Twilight nodded and got to her hooves. “Well, it’s about Cad—Princess—Cadance. She called me a Prince Charming and kissed me yesterday because I woke her up in the archive. And I feel...I don’t know, funny about that. How am I supposed to feel?”
Miss Monarca held Twilight’s gaze silently for a moment, her face carefully neutral, then she leaned in close and whispered. “You got a kiss from a Princess. That is a treasure, Twilight Sparkle. Wars have been fought for as much in the past and will be fought again in the future for just a single kiss. Feel honored. Feel loved. Feel proud, and powerful, and complete for the Goddesses above have smiled upon you.”
Monarca leaned back and smirked. “At least, that’s how I feel when my Princess gives me a kiss.”
“Ok, I guess.” Twilight looked down at the soft carpet floor as she thought about the implications of what Cadance’s actions could mean.
Monarca hefted the books she’d picked up a moment before and patted Twilight gently on the head. “And a bit of advice from an old mare who’s loved and lost. Go talk to her. Don’t bottle it up or you just might become someone you don’t recognize in the mirror someday.”
Twilight nodded as the librarian’s green glow faded away with her hoofsteps. She knew what she had to do. Knights didn’t back down from challenges in the fairy tales Cadance liked and neither was she.
Twilight blinked her eyes to clear the sleep from them. It was light out again and someone was holding her head up.
“‘ere, drink t’is. It will ease your ac’es an’ give you energy.”
“Whe...where is Cady?” Twilight grimaced at the roughness of her own voice. How long had she been out?
“S’e is not ‘ere. S’e an’ a dragon are gat’ering supplies for te potions I make for you.”
Twilight forced her eyes to focus as a cold, sweet liquid was poured into her mouth. It proved hard to swallow and her tortured throat screamed in pain as it worked. She coughed as her head was laid back onto the pillow. Twilight’s stomach clenched and then eased as the drink settled and she could feel its coolness spreading out to her limbs a moment later.
“I know...you.”
“Yes. We meet again, Battlemage. Now sleep. You Princess return soon enoug’.”
Twilight kicked a pebble as she stood in indecision outside the door that would take her into the wing of the castle that held Cadance’s room. She’d stood there for almost ten minutes as the librarian’s words of advice echoed in her mind. The great clock bonged the hour and Twilight sighed, dinner would be soon. If she wanted to talk to Cadance, she had little time to do so before the Royal Sisters would be expecting them.
She pushed the door open and started up the stairs until she was on the third floor landing. Cadance’s room was at the end of the hall where the wing met the main body of the castle. Twilight walked slowly, thinking to herself about the coming conversation and how she could get through it without sticking her hoof in her mouth. She kept getting hung up at the part where Cadance started talking and Twilight wasn’t sure what she’d say back.
When Twilight rounded the final corner, she paused as Princess Celestia exited Cadance’s room, her face severe and serious. Celestia closed the door behind her softly and turned to trot briskly toward the deeper interior of the castle without pausing or looking her way. Twilight raised her hoof to call after the Princess when she heard a sniffle that came from within. She wondered for a moment if she should knock but then she pushed the door open and stepped inside.
“Cady?”
Cadance sat on her bed, her head hung and tears running down her cheeks when Twilight entered. She looked up and sniffed. “Oh Twily, it’s not fair.”
“What’s the matter? I just saw Princess Celestia come out.” Twilight walked up to Cadance’s bedside and took a seat. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh Twily, I’m leaving Canterlot!”
It was darker when she woke up again, but her body felt nominally better than it had. Twilight sighed and blinked with considerably less effort than last time. She smiled when she saw Cadance, looking tired and a bit ragged herself, standing next to her bed. When she spoke, her voice was gravelly but her throat felt close to normal. “I thought it was the Prince Charming that woke the Princess, not the other way around.”
Cadance blinked at Twilight for a moment, her eyes tearing up as she smiled with relief. “Weirdo.” Cadance shook her head and pulled the blanket back as she slipped into the bed and her Twily’s arms.
Six years ago, she’d gotten the news. The order. She was to do her duty as an Equestrian Princess and alicorn. The job was something no one else could reasonably be expected to accomplish.
Cadance was the perfect tool for an impossible job. She could do things no one else could do and would benefit from the protection of her royalty. But it meant leaving her life behind. Leaving Canterlot. Leaving school and everything she’d grown accustomed to. It meant leaving Twily.
She’d cried until she’d passed out, that night Princess Celestia passed sentence on her fate and Twilight had shown up out of the blue. Twily had sat with the crybaby she once was, holding her hoof and then holding her as she wept.
It took a year for the first stages of the grand plan to complete, for the stars to align and signal her departure. She only had a few hours warning, so Cadance spent the time saying her goodbyes. If things worked out, she wouldn’t see her home again for years. She’d miss the soft bed and the warm meals. She’d miss her friends more.
Cadance didn’t want them to worry. She knew Twily and Spike would be safe in Canterlot while she was away. Twilight hadn’t spoken of that night when Cadance had learned about her mission. Cadance appreciated that.
They met, like they usually did after classes, in the royal gardens. They’d both had botany lessons that day and Cadance had made a game of seeing how many flowers she could weave into Twily’s mane before the unicorn started tearing them out. Her current count was twenty seven bellis perennis, woven into a lopsided crown that trailed down the right side of Twily’s neck.
“Cadance...Cady, stop, my head is starting to itch.”
“Hush.” Cadance smiled warmly and slipped in a 28th daisy. “I’m almost to a new record.”
“But my head itches and it looks like a salad!” Twily made that noise in her throat that always made Cadance think of baby goats. She giggled at the private joke and reached for the next flower.
She spun the daisy in front of her in her magic for a moment and the blur of the petals suddenly reminded her of the blur the world around this peaceful island was moving in. Soon she would be thrown out into the blur to sink or swim.
“Twily...can you promise me something?”
“If it’s to let you try and beat your old record, I’m not going to.” Twiliy raised an eyebrow from under the waterfall of her own purple and pink hair. “It’s almost dinner time and I have homework tonight.”
“Twily, will you promise to always be my friend, no matter what?” Cadance wove in the next flower into Twilight’s mane. “Will you always be my Knight, even if I’m not a Princess?”
Twilight looked at her for a moment in silence and then nodded slowly. “You’ll always be a Princess to me, Cady. I promise to always be your Knight and keep you safe.”
She’d smiled at that. She could hear the truth in Twilight’s voice, see it in the set of her withers and the tenseness in her neck. Her heart beat just a little faster.
“You don’t mind if I don’t wear the armor, do you? I think it makes my dock look fat.”
Cadance laughed, genuinely amused. She could just imagine Twilight in the midnight blue and polished chrome of Luna’s Shieldmaidens and the battle skirt did indeed look like it would make her plot look fat. The robes and sleek leathers of Celestia’s Battle Mages seemed far more appropriate for Twily.
“Yeah, I don’t mind.”
When she woke up, Twilight was looking halfway normal. Her color had returned and she looked merely drawn and not like death warmed over. Spike had carefully given Twilight a bath the night previous and with her night sweats finally over with, she didn’t smell like a dead body either.
Cadance stretched and looked out the window at the moon as it peeked in between the tree canopy. Dawn was still a few hours away, it seemed. She rose and gently smoothed Twilight’s mane for a moment before she stepped out of the room into the cottage’s main chamber. Spike, in his smaller biped form, lay in a hammock and snored gently. In the center of the room a long legged zebra tended hot coals in a fire pit under a huge iron cauldron.
“Princess Cadance, a word wit’ you, I ask.” The zebra mare turned and spoke quietly, her gaze piercing.
Cadance shook herself and nodded. “Yes? I was just about to head to the little fillies’ room.”
“Won’t take long. I t’ink you friend wake up soon. The dawn, not even up, mebbe.” She turned back to her cauldron and stirred the thick slurry of herbs and minerals. “S’e need you, t’en more t’an ever, ‘ere me? Potion done it work. Now time for you closeness. T’en, after t’at, you and ‘er listen to ol’ Zecora. I ‘ave t’ings to impart. T’h loa speak important t’ings.”
“Asante kwa kila kitu.” Cadance smiled and sighed happily.
“Wewe ni mwanamke a ajabu.”
Cadance chuckled and found her way to the toilet before she returned with her face freshly splashed with water to banish the drowsies. She pushed the door open to the small bedroom and her breath caught as Twilight groaned and shifted under her blankets.
“Twily?” Candace held her breath as the unicorn moaned again and rolled over to face her. She stepped closer and lit her horn to illuminate the room. “Twilight?”
“Hurrgh...Cady?” Twilight’s eyes fluttered open and she looked up at Cadance weakly.
“Oh Twily!” Cadance laughed, blinking sudden tears out of her eyes. “Are you awake this time? Like for real?”
“I...guess?” Twilight coughed and licked her lips. “I was having a dream. You were there.”
“I was?” Cadance smiled, the tears falling from her cheeks as she leaned in and kissed Twilight on the forehead. “You don’t feel feverish anymore. I think we are past the worst of it.”
“Where are we?” Twilight raised her head slightly. “Where is my staff? I need to be ready, if that thing comes back.”
“Rest, Twily. We’re safe. The changeling was defeated and Spike brought us here to see to your wounds. You were poisoned.” Cadance pulled the cover back and once again slipped into the bed with Twilight, her hooves wrapping gently around the frail feeling pony. “I thought I was going to lose you.”
Twilight shook her head and relaxed slowly into Cadance’s embrace. “No...too tough. ‘Sides, I’m your Knight. Can’t leave the Princess undefended.” She sighed tiredly and let her head rest on the pillow again. Twilight licked her lips again and focused on Cadance.
“How long was I out?”
“Three days.” Cadance hugged her tight. “It’ll be the dawn of the fourth day pretty soon. Faust, I’m glad you’re awake! I was getting really worried about you.”
Cadance crushed Twilight in her grip until she heard Twilight groan. She let go and looked into Twilight’s eyes. She could see concern there, concern for their safety, concern for Twilight’s own health, and concern for the pony in her arms. She wanted to reciprocate, to give back all Twilight had given her, given for her. Cadance wanted to show Twilight the love in her heart so she leaned in and brought their muzzles together and captured Twilight’s lips in a kiss.
She’d kissed Twilight before, even slipped her a little tongue. The night before the changeling attack, Twilight had awkwardly returned one of the kisses and given them their first sorta make-out. This kiss...this kiss was different. Cadance put her love into it, her whole heart. The hooves held Twilight firm, their chests rested comfortably together as the kiss stopped both their breaths. The wing that wasn’t pinned under her flared out and over Twilight like another downy sheet and her tail wrapped around the unicorn’s.
Twilight responded with a gasp just before her lips her sealed, the tension released in her body and relaxed completely, her own hooves gently holding Cadance as well as she gave herself over to the kiss. Candance growled slightly as they came up for air and Twilight’s hooves moved to cup and hold her head. Cadance parted her lips and leaned forward for more and Twilight did not disappoint. Zecora had not been wrong about her potions giving Twilight her strength back.
Cadance’s tongue dived and danced, it took territory and gave it, willingly. She wrestled control over to Twily, she fought only so that she was worth conquering. Her legs parted as their bodies shifted closer together and Cadance shuddered as she felt a whisper of coat other than her own slide across her inner thighs close enough she could feel the heat coming off whatever body part drifted near.
Cadance was in heaven until it all stopped.
“Cadance...Princess, no.” Twilight pushed her back gently, her eyes suddenly bright with tears and confusion.
“What?” Cadance blinked and pushed herself up onto one elbow. “What’s wrong, Twily?”
Twilight frowned and looked down, her voice a bare whisper. “This is wrong.”
“Twily...I want this. I want you.” Cadance leaned forward again, her eyes searching for Twilight’s. “What’s wrong?”
“Princess, this isn’t right. I...I want you too, Cady. But not like this. I want it to be genuine, not some hormone and euphoria-fueled grope session just because I didn’t die.” Twilight sighed and scooted back before she rolled over to face the wall. “I want to have a say in it, if that’s alright?”
“Of course that’s alright.” Cadance sighed and bit her lip to draw her attention away from her heated mare parts. “I’m sorry for being forward...that was wrong of me. But you don’t have to turn away from me.”
Twilight sighed. “I don’t think I can trust my hooves right now, Cady.”
“I understand.” Cadance shifted her position until she pressed against Twilight’s back and forced her own hooves under her body. “I admit I’m disappointed, but I understand.”
They said nothing and let their hearts return to something like a normal speed as the light outside started to get brighter.
Cadance felt her eyes closing and sleep nipping at her heels as they sat comfortably. She smiled and rested her forehead against Twilight’s back. “Thank you for calling me Cady again. I like that.”
Celestia grinned as she turned back from her balcony and the rising sun. Her new warmug sat on her desk, full of the hottest, blackest coffee. Her old one lost in the averted explosion of the southern safehouse a few nights earlier. Next to the mug, where only her customary breakfast bagel had sat when she went to raise the sun, there now sat a small piece of folded parchment.
Celestia lifted her coffee to her lips and sipped it slowly as she regarded the paper. Her horn glowed as she scanned it for traps and enchantments, her every test returning a negative result. Eventually, she lifted the note with her hoof and opened it.
Inside was a short missive penned in green ink, written in an ancient form of Equish that few scholars would even recognize at this point. It was as clear to her as the memory of the face of the creature that had sent it.
I didn’t send the assassin, this time. The Midnight Lord rises again.
It was in the pre-dawn half-light that Cadance and Twilight emerged from the small room where the battle mage had been recovering. The latter held and supported by the Princess as she limped weakly into the main room. Spike looked up and his face lit up into a toothy draconic smile before he leaped up from his spot next to the fire pit. He crossed the short distance in a blink of the eye and scooped up both ponies into a bear hug.
“Oh thank the Sisters! Twi, I thought you were never going to wake up!” Spike squeezed them until Cadance and Twilight groaned. Spike set them down gently and stepped back, his frills drooping bashfully. “Uh...sorry. I’m just happy to see you up and about, sis.”
Twilight smiled wanly and put a hoof on Spike’s shoulder. “I’m happy to see you too, but can you let me get to the potty? Cady says I’ve been out for almost four days now.”
“Oh. Oh! Sure, Twilight...need any help?” Spike brightened and flexed an arm. “Zecora has been keeping me busy with getting supplies and I feel like I could lift a house. I’d like to see that bug monster try again! I’ll smash ‘em like the insect it is!”
Twilight smirked but her face turned serious as she noticed the rapidly healing scratches and gouges in Spike’s scales. The zebra that had been silently mixing the cauldron’s contents over the fire pit cleared her throat. “Go, Twilig’t, clean yourself. We’ve important t’ings to talk ‘bout. You princess and dragon tell me ‘bout ‘ow you get poisoned. Now I tell you w’at did it and mebbe w’y too.”
Twilight nodded and started toward the bathroom as fast as her weak legs would take her. She paused at the door and looked back at Zecora. “Thank you, Zecora, for everything. I’ll repay you somehow.”
The old zebra mare smiled. “Aye, you will.”
By the time Twilight returned, Zecora had finished with her cooking and had set out bowls for each of them. It looked like some sort of thick brown gravy spread over small pieces of bread but smelled faintly sweet. She said it was a traditional breakfast in her homeland and directed her three guests to sit and eat as they listened.
Long ago, before the first stones of Canterlot had been mined from the mountain granite and the Royal Sisters ruled from their silvery and golden thrones high above Equestria, there was the Everfree.
Today, even the name - Everfree - is a curse, a cautionary tale told to foals, so great was its fall. All that remains are myths, old tales of old goddesses and demons, and the forest. The forest is not a legacy left for future generations to know where Everfree stood, nor is it a place of the past jealously guarded from the touch of progress by ghosts. It is a blight. A scar on the surface and spirit of the world, infected and scabbed over.
No one lives there. No one goes there. To do so was to invite madness and death and worse still. Or so say the bards when someone is paying bits or the beer flows.
What the bards don’t know is the truth of the Everfree. Cut away the overgrowth and the ruins were everywhere. The enchantments and magical enhancements placed into the land and the stones still carry a charge and a purpose from before pegasi controlled the weather or earth ponies master the land. The Everfree is not wild. It moves with purpose and without its masters it rejects the paltry attempts of others to direct the flow of nature within its demesnes.
Once it was a great nation, home to ponies, diamond dogs and dragons alike. They worshipped the Sun and Moon and were ruled by the Priesthood, who were in turn, ruled by the High Priestesses of Sun and Moon and their personal army of fanatical eunuchs. The priestesses were queens in all but name and all bowed before them lest they face the wrath of the Sun and Moon.
Everfree was powerful because the priestesses were powerful and wielded the combined might of all ponies with strength, flight and magic. Everfree lasted centuries because the priestesses did not age. Everfree fell because the priestesses fancied themselves goddesses above all others and they fell to earth.
The first to fall was the Moon and Her eunuchs followed her into the wilderness of the far frozen north. For a time, the Sun reigned over the Everfree unchallenged until the mortals began to demand more and more of Her and the high priestess was drawn into the running of a mortal kingdom. The trumpet call that signaled the end was blown by the priestess when She bowed to demand and agreed to find a replacement for the Moon’s priestess.
They came then, the hopefuls, the talented and fated. The ones that were promised the Moon. They trained, they fought each other in contests designed by the Sun to fail all applicants. She sat atop Her throne and guarded Her power jealously, dangling it like an unattainable carrot. She promised them a place at Her side and trampled them under Her hoof.
After a time, the Sun priestess realized what She had become and in a moment of humility, removed Her crown and became as a pony. The last Goddess fell and with her, so to fell the Everfree.
In the ruins left behind, a shadow stirred in the abandoned temples to the Sun’s glory. Before the vines claimed the buildings and the weeds claimed the streets, the shadow became as pony. Then as a dog, then a dragon and back again. The shadow became what it wanted to be and it wanted the light that had fled this sacred place. It wanted what was promised to it so many years ago by a Goddess that now walked as a mortal.
If Celestia could change, so could she, this shadow, once known as Crystal, now Chrysalis the Changeling. She would have her godhead no matter the cost.
The potion maker’s home sat in silence when Zecora finished reciting her tale. Spike sat with the spoon in his claw, topped off with a cold spoonful of gravy, frozen halfway to his open mouth. Cadance and Twilight sat side by side, their own meals finished and forgotten at their hooves.
Twilight recovered first and spoke quietly. “I’ve read every book in the archives about the Everfree. I’ve never heard of anyone named Chrysalis the Changeling. I’ve never read anything that says the Royal Sisters were there, let alone as political and religious leaders. But…” Twilight looked into the old zebra’s icy blue eyes. “I’ve heard rumors that parts of history have been forgotten and changed.”
“Everyt’ing is true, Twilig’t. We in Everfree now. Go look in the sunlig’t, you see.”
“I believe you, Zecora.” Twilight sighed. “I don’t want to. Why would the Royal Sisters hide all this?”
“Because it reminds them of the failures they’ve spent a thousand years repenting for.” Cadance put a wing around Twilight. “Don’t think less of them, Twilight. Auntie Celestia and Auntie Luna do everything with a reason and that reason is always good in the long run. Sometimes it’s just hard to see that.”
Twilight nodded slowly and leaned into Cadance’s embrace. “I’ve always had faith in them. But...why were we attacked by this ‘Chrysalis?’ Why would she do that?”
“Changelings have hounded me for the last two years now. I don’t know if it was Chrysalis herself though. Auntie Celestia always seemed to imply that there was only one changeling, but I’m not so sure.” Cadance ducked her head and sighed before she looked up and gave Twilight a quick peck on the cheek. “Chrysalis is supposed to be as powerful as an alicorn. That’s why you were assigned to guard me. You’re the only one who’s ever defeated one in combat before.”
“Everything is to your liking, Princess?”
Celestia looked up as she pressed her seal into the cooling wax that was holding the parchment closed she had been writing in. Her chambers looked spotless, the bed in particular looked deliciously clean with smooth, fresh linens, and every surface sparkled. She nodded and smiled at her mare-in-waiting. “It does indeed, thank you Sunchaser.”
The pegasus saluted and bowed with a perky smile. “You are most welcome, Princess! Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Yes, actually. Could you take this letter by the post on your way out?” Celestia held up the sealed missive in her magic. ‘I would take it myself, but I fear I have to grab a quick shower before court.”
“Certainly, Your Highness.” Sunchaser grabbed the letter in her mouth and tucked it into a pocket on her maid’s outfit. “Anything else?”
“No, that’s all. Thank you again, Sunchaser.”
“I live to serve you, Princess.”
Celestia smiled again and nodded as Sunchaser let herself out. She rose to her hooves and stretched for a moment before reaching for her war-mug. She frowned when she found it empty of coffee but a quick thought activated its enchantment and the mug refilled itself with near boiling hot Neightucket Blend. Celestia took a sip and walked out on her balcony to nudge the Sun further along its daily trajectory.
“Faust Above, I hope this works.”
Sunchaser returned a flirty smile with one of the guards at the end of the skybridge that lead to Celestia’s chambers before turning the corner and heading for the stairwell that would take her to the kitchens below. She paused to kick open the door at the landing meant for staff and she glanced around to make sure no one was observing her. She took the letter Celestia had entrusted her with and stepped into the stairwell.
“Mmmm...I can smell her perfume on this one.” Sunchaser grinned as her eyes flashed from blue to green. “I approve of the new paper, Tia.”
The mare chuckled as she broke the seal and read over the message as she walked. Her wings fused with her body as her maid outfit pulled itself into her body only to re-emerge as a chef’s smock. Her mane shortened and became a spiky mess of green locks while her coat became a softer shade of grass with a glass of milk on her hip while a horn burst from her forehead.
Creamy Goodness paused at the bottom of the stairs where she could hear the sounds of a busy kitchen coming through the doors. She re-read the letter to ensure it was memorized before she destroyed it with a quick bit of fire magic. “Time to go looking for that little wayward princess. I do hope the kitchens will be able to get along without me for a while. Tia hates it when they burn her favorites.”
Celestia sipped from her tankard-sized warmug as she took her seat on the throne of Canterlot. The throne room was empty at the moment save for herself and a smattering of her Battle Mage guards and some castle staff that were busy cleaning the great frosted glass windows. She settled herself comfortably into the giant chair and let her thoughts calmly flow around the niggling issues that she was dealing with.
On one hoof, there was the issue of her niece, Cadance, being missing along with her top Battle Mage, Twilight. Spike had sent her a cryptic note days ago about going to a trusted place. She felt that they were still together though and she held on to that hope. Twilight would keep Cadance safe no matter what.
Celestia exhaled slowly through her nose. Twilight, I wish you well and pray for your victory. I shall endeavor to apologize to you properly once this is all done. You are the only one I can trust for this. After you beat Luna...I knew you were the one. Celestia huffed and took another long sip of her Neightucket Blend.
Cadance’s safety went shoe-on-hoof with the second issue: Chrysalis. The changeling was becoming more erratic again. She had been doing so well too. I just hope she gets my note and is too distracted to get into real trouble. But the appearance of new changelings...this bothers me. And what did Chryssy mean by ‘the Midnight Lord’ sent the assassin? The name seems vaguely familiar. Maybe I should ask Luna?
Celestia turned and nodded her head to signal her majordomo. The light grey colored mare stepped forward and straightened her glasses. “Yes, your Highness?”
“Raven, is there anything important on this morning’s agenda?”
Raven lifted her clipboard and scanned the itinerary briefly. “No ma’am. Nothing more important than deciding on today’s lunch.”
“Excellent.” Celestia stood and stretched. “Tell Creamy Goodness I want a full platter of protein-rich sushi and miso on the side. Her choice on ingredients. Otherwise, I am going to check on my sister, call me if I am needed.”
“Yes, your Highness.”
Celestia nodded and trotted off toward the tower where her sister’s chambers were. It was early yet, but she knew Luna would be up for her physical rehabilitation session. If the doctors were to be believed, she’d soon be back to the point of walking around without needing the aid of her wheel harness. Luna was proud of her achievement of just being able to stand and walk slowly. But regaining her full range of motion and stamina for simple movement without pain was still months of training away.
When she reached the doors to her sister’s room, Celestia nodded to the two Shieldmaidens posted there. She opened the door and stepped into the dimly lit antechamber before proceeding on to the main room where Luna took her sessions. The room held exercise equipment, weights and balance bars where she had seen Luna ease her way along, wings spread for purchase as she wobbled forward on weak legs.
Twilight really did a number on her. I’m still surprised Luna doesn’t hold something of a grudge about - wait a tick. Where is Luna? Celestia blinked. The space was empty.
“Luna?” Celestia’s ears perked up when she caught a muffled sound. Was it a voice? She turned and regarded the side door that lead to Luna’s bedroom. Had her sister decided to sleep in? She drew a deep breath and pushed the door open, a mantra of ‘please be alone’ repeating in her mind. She was met on the other side by a yellow colored pegasus that was hastily placing her nurse’s cap on her head.
Celestia blinked and smiled awkwardly. “Um...hello again, Miss Fluttershy.” She looked over Fluttershy’s tousled mane and mussed coat. “Is my sister in?”
“Oh, uh, hello, your Highness.” Fluttershy adjusted her cap slightly and blushed deeply, going silent for a long moment before answering. “Um...yes, she’s resting. In bed. Alone.”
Celestia chuckled and rubbed the back of her hoof against her shin, her eyes shifting around uncomfortably. “Yes, of course she is.”
They both stood there, their cheeks flushed and neither one able to look at the other until Luna cleared her throat loudly. Fluttershy jumped at the sound and slipped around Celestia in a gallop. The door to Luna’s chamber closed with a bang a second later, leaving the sister’s alone.
“What is it, Celestia?”
“Sorry. I came to speak with you, Luna.”
“Then make it quick.” The darker colored princess struggled into a sitting position on the bed and glared at Celestia from behind sweaty bangs. “I was technically in the middle of a physical therapy session and I’d like to continue it before she tries to fly away.”
“I’m sorry for interrupting.” Celestia shifted nervously. “I wanted to ask you if you recall hearing of anyone called the Midnight Lord?”
Luna stared at her blankly. “No. Was that all, Celes...wait - Midnight Lord? That rings a very old bell, I think.” Luna rubbed her chin. “I’ll need to think about it though. Can it wait?”
“For now.”
“Then go fetch my physical therapist, Tia, and return her here. I wish to continue my session with her.” Luna crossed her hooves over her chest. “I will speak to you again at breakfast.”
Celestia nodded sheepishly and backed up. “Sorry. Again.”
Luna huffed. “At least I’ve never walked in on you and your shapeshifter.”
Twilight stretched her legs and rolled her shoulders. She grimaced at the snaps and pops she heard. After breakfast she was feeling much improved but her long downtime had played hell with her muscles. She needed to walk and work up a sweat.
“Hey, Spike, you said Zecora has been sending you out for supplies?”
“Yeah.” Spike looked up from where he was sitting, listening to Cadance and Zecora speak with each other in the zebra’s native Swahay-li. “Like specific herbs and things for Ms. Zecora’s potions that she was giving you.”
“Have you gone out for any today?” Twilight looked over her shoulder and out the window at the rising dawn.
“Nope.”
“Then let’s go get some.”
“But I don’t think Zecora-”
Twilight cut him off with a hard look. “Let’s go get some, Spike. I could use the exercise.”
“Um…” Spike looked back at Cadance and Zecora for a moment and then stood. “Yeah, exercise would be good for us both.”
Spike lumbered over to the cottage’s door and pushed it open for Twilight. The canopy of the forest kept the small clearing in the front shady in the early morning and there was a slight chill to the air. The underbrush swayed in a light breeze that felt heavenly as Twilight stepped outside.
“Watch for the choking vines there. And that over there is some sort of giant fly eating plant. Eats more than flies, so watch out from the bones underfoot.” Spike pointed as they walked. “I don’t know what that is, but best to not touch it. Almost lost my arm last trip out.”
Twilight stopped a short distance from the clearing and the cottage. She turned and faced Spike who already had his arms crossed and was regarding her with an expectant expression.
“So…” Twilight started and sighed, her gaze falling to faint trail that they had been following. “I need to ask you something and I want your oath, Spike, that you will never speak of this to anyone else, ever.”
“You know you have that, Twi. What’s eating at you, sis?”
“Well...it’s just...last night, when I woke up, Cadance got in the bed with me.”
Spiked snorted. “She’s been doing that since we got here. So what?”
Twilight blushed and looked back in the direction of Zecora’s cottage. “Well...she sorta...offered herself. To me. And I’m not sure how I’m supposed to respond to that. I mean, I like Cadance. I really like Cadance, but I don’t have any experience with mares! Or...anyone, actually.”
“Wait. Wait wait wait! Cadance…Princess Cadance...like, one of the top five prettiest mares in the world… has offered herself to you? Are you serious?” Spike gaped at Twilight’s nod. “And you turned her down‽ Did the poison make you crazy or something?”
Twilight startled. “What? No! I just...I just wanted it to be something we both decided on, ok?”
“Twi. Sis. You have been given explicit permission to touch the booty of an Equestrian Princess. The goddess has smiled upon you, so stop looking all scared and depressed!”
“I don’t think she said anything about touching her butt…” Twilight blushed harder and looked at her hoof. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind touching her…”
Twilight faded off, her eyes locked on her hoof as her blush intensified to the point she should have been giving off steam and whistling like a teapot. I could touch Cady’s plot. Like, whenever I wanted.
Spike snapped his claws in front of her eyes to get her attention. “Twilight, focus. This is awesome news!” He grinned and put an arm across her shoulders. “Now, we aren’t just siblings. We’re bros! We can talk about all the hot mares together!”
Twilight raised an eyebrow and looked at Spike skeptically. “As a mare myself, I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
Spike smirked. “Don’t be weird, Twi. Just bask in my full support of you and Cadance being special someponies.”
Twilight continued to look at him in silence until her face softened slightly and leaned into him. “Thanks, bro.”
“Now...my advice on how you should proceed…”
Celestia looked up from the newspaper in front of her when the door to the private dining room opened and Luna, once again in her wheeled harness, entered with Shining Armor in full parade dress. She blinked at the polished cobalt-colored plates and chromed rivets that framed black lace around the neck and at the vambraces. The battle skirt flared much wider than the usual battle dress version and had more black lace and white satin ribbons that floated gracefully behind the stallion as he marched with military precision.
Shining helped Luna into her position opposite of Celestia and then turned smartly on his hooves so that he could begin fixing a plate of breads and cheeses for her.
Celestia raised an eyebrow and took a sip of coffee while her horn flashed and established a psychic link with her sister. What’s that all about?
I was feeling grumpy after having my physical therapy session cut early this morning. This makes me feel better.
Isn’t that a bit foalish, Lulu? Celestia put down her warmug and levitated her own plate of breakfast over to herself.
Hush. I don’t tell you how to conduct your battle mage underlings, now do I?
Celestia shrugged and rolled her eyes before picking up the Canterlot Times from the table and folding it back. “The ‘light show’ down in the Southern Ward has finally fallen off the front page.”
“Oh? It hasn’t even been a week. The citizens move quickly these days, don’t they?” Luna nodded to Shining as he set her plate in front of her and then look a step back to assume a rigid ‘at-attention’ posture. She smirked when she was certain only Celestia would see it and continued silently. At least the press is unaware of Cadance going missing.
There is that at least. Celestia turned the page of the paper. Speaking of that, about this ‘Midnight Lord;’ you said it rang a bell?
Luna nodded. Celestia could feel the sharing between them cloud as Luna kept her thoughts to herself for a moment.
It was from a long time ago. During my self-banishment. I met a unicorn that was called the Midnight Lord by his slaves. I don’t recall if I told you about it, but he was the reason that I returned when I did. He killed all of my guards. Luna paused, gathering her thoughts as her body went through the mechanical motions of eating. My army, back then, numbered in the thousands and one pony killed them all. I sealed him away, before he could get to me. That’s why when I returned, I was weakened so much.
Celestia put the paper down and looked at Luna, her eyes searching. Her sister appeared calm and collected, at peace - at least on the surface. She could see the small tells, the angle of her ears, the near invisible frown at the corners of her mouth when she wasn’t chewing. Luna had always been the more reserved one of them, when it came to showing strong emotions, but Celestia could tell she was reliving a memory that hurt her deeply.
No, you never told that. How could a single unicorn do that? And what do you mean by ‘seal him?’ I have heard from my contacts that the changelings sent to kill our niece were sent by him.
Luna reached out with her hoof and pulled a glass of water closer. She took a long sip and sighed gratefully. He never ran out of magic. He had enslaved his entire empire. They were mostly earth ponies, I think, but he did something to them, made them look like living crystals. He used them as arcane batteries, Tia. He killed all my forces by draining the life and magic out of them the same way a mage recharges with a mana gem. When I ran out of eunuchs, he came for me. I had to stop him. So I crafted a shield that would seal him and all his vile magic away. Like what I used on that explosion at the safe house, though larger and permanent.
Luna looked back at Celestia and smiled in a way that she hadn’t since the Everfree fell. I sealed Sombra and his whole crystal empire outside time and space. I spent the last of my godhead on erasing that evil from the world. I paid for my past transgressions that day when I cast my Gibbous Shield. There is no way he sent any assassins. Your pet bug is lying to you.
Celestia shot her sister a look over the rim of her warmug. Perhaps, but that is a highly specific name, you must agree. Why try and pin this on the ghost of a pony long gone?
Celestia cleared her throat and picked up her toast. She isn’t my pet, Luna.
She’s a lot more than merely your enemy. I did some digging and now that I know what to look for, finding her prints in our history is not so difficult. I noticed that on more than one occasion she went by false names that match up with ponies you’ve been known to have a...close relationship with. Luna’s eyes sparkled playfully. Several times. If it were just once, that might be a coincidence…
Celestia blushed and looked away, shutting down her end of the sharing as memories flashed in her mind. She was fairly positive which of her few dalliances over the years Luna suspected were actually the changeling in disguise. She knew of two for certain, both one night stands separated by more than a century. She regretted neither one. They were part of the reason she knew in her heart that Chrysalis was redeemable.
That might be, but back to the point, why indicate Sombra? Is he still as sealed away as you claim?
“It’s about time you two got back.” Cadance leaned against the door frame of the sage’s hut and smiled lightly. “Zecora wants us to accompany her on a little trip into the Everfree ruins. She needs to gather some plants and she thinks we might find some more info on Chrysalis and maybe the changelings.”
Twilight smiled and nodded. “Ok, I think we can do that. I feel pretty much back to normal now.”
Cadance grinned and stepped out into the little bit of sunlight that made it past the canopy at this early hour. “You’re welcome.” She looked at Spike and tilted her head. “Ready to fly big guy?”
Spike laughed and thumped his chest. “Am I! I haven’t felt the wind in my face in days now.”
The door to the hut closed with a solid sounding bang and the old zebra, Zecora joined them in the small clearing. She was wearing a harness that had dozens of loops and pouches on it with small bottles filling most of the loops and rope was looped loosely through her belt. “I am ready. We ‘ave far to go, but you dragon make it quick. It will be dangerous, but you make it safe.”
“Alright. If this gets us closer to some answers, all the better.” Twilight’s horn flashed and her cloak and staff appeared on her. “Ok, Spike, let’s get some air.”
The early morning air above the Everfree forest canopy was warm in the full light of day. The sky was clear for the moment as they hugged close to the tree tops. Small clearings, here and there, offered them a quick glance at the forest floor and a sluggish moving river peeked out as it wove its way under them. Bird sailed alongside them as they flew, and it was peaceful enough that it could be mistaken for any regular forest on the face of the planet.
Cadance grinned and flapped her wings to rise along with the land below her. White and grey birds chirped at her sides as they followed her in temporary flock formation. The greenery zipped passed under her hooves, swishing in the light breeze that was propelling them forward. She had never seen the forest before, but her time at the castle in Canterlot had been filled with stories of the Everfree, often times told to her by Twily as the unicorn read yet another book on the fabled fallen civilization. It certainly didn’t look wild and dangerous for a distance.
Four days at Zecora’s hut had shown the truth of those tales, however. The weather was unpredictable and changed without warning or reason. The animals took care of themselves, but they were odd. They stared too long and had more than a little malice in their eyes. When she had gone out the first time with Spike to collect some lichen Zecora needed, she had seen a rabbit. She had been about to call out to it when she noticed its teeth looked considerably larger and sharper than they should. It might have been her imagination, but it looked like the rabbit had red staining around its mouth too.
The plants were no better. Creeper vines had grabbed at her hooves, flowers had snapped at her, even the trees seemed to be wild and almost violent. On top of that, there were the ruins. None that they had encountered so far had come alive to harm her, but when she noticed them, it was like being watched. They were easy to miss in the overgrowth. Plinths and spars of stone with lines a bit too straight for nature. They sat and brooded, as if they were waiting on something and had long ago grown weary of the world.
Cadance flared her wings to catch a thermal and lifted herself while slowing her forward momentum. She started flapping as she slowed to a stationary hover and whistled softly. The sea of green broke up ahead of her into the largest clearing she’d seen yet. Down among the now intermittent copse of trees, a city lay choked with roots and leaves and detritus. Paved roads still ran between the walls of buildings that had long since collapsed. From the air it looked quiet and untouched, but she knew anything involved with the Everfree was more than it seemed.
“Wow...Twily is going to love this!”
“Like w’at you see?”
Twilight blinked as the voice called her back to reality. She turned in the saddle and looked back at Zecora. “Huh?”
The zebra smirked and nodded toward Cadance as she flew ahead of Spike. “You watc’ ‘er fly and move, lost in you own world. S’e you Princess to t’e bones.”
“Uh…” Twilight flushed and brushed her mane from her eyes, “I guess? Is there something wrong with that?”
“No, but you protect. Keep you eyes open, Twilig’t Sparkle. T’e Everfree be dangerous and C’rysalis is a powerful t’ing.” Zecora reached forward and patted Twilight on the back. “Love also powerful. Make sure you don’t ever lose it.”
Twilight smiled. “Thanks. I’ll try, Zecora. Cadance is the most important thing in the world to me.”
“Hey!”
Twilight and Zecora squealed as their ride bucked under them. Spike turned his head slightly to look back at the ponies on him. “What am I, chopped liver?”
Twilight shot her brother a look. “You know what I mean!”
They made landfall a few minutes later in a large area where Spike could make a safe landing. Cadance did a few circles above them before landing next to Zecora and Twilight. The three ponies and one dragon took in the ruins around them before looking at Zecora.
“Ok, so what are we looking for?” Twilight unclipped her staff from its holster at her side and looked around the ruins. A few animals had moved away when they set down, but the place was otherwise deserted as best she could tell. “Last time I was here, I just went into the castle at the top of the hill.”
“We look for a way in first.” Zecora pointed a hoof at a large building that was mostly still standing. Pillared walls held the roof up and weathered reliefs lined them near the top, showing the sun and ponies, dragons, diamond dogs and other races bowing in reverence to it. “Inside I t’ink we find more about the C’angeling and a type a fungus I need for me potions. We pair up and look. Call if we find way in.”
Zecora looked up at Spike and smiled. “You come wit me. We look on t’e back side for t’e door.”
“Twilight and I will look around the far side then.” Cadance grinned and stepped up next to Twilight and draped a wing across her back as she gestured at the ruins with the other. “Isn’t this amazing? You told me stories of this place, but I never thought I’d see it! Maybe we can find some souvenirs?”
Twilight rocked as Cadance leaned into her and chuckled. “Yeah, I guess. It is amazing. I’m still shocked that there was religion based on sun worship. It makes a weird sort of sense, considering Princess Celestia potentially being there, but she doesn’t seem like someone that would lead one…”
Twilight whistled and smirked playfully. “Wanna go look at it up close?”
“You bet!”
Spike groaned and yelled as the two mares galloped off. “Remember this is a crazy magical place! Be careful and look out for a way inside!”
Zecora laughed quietly and patted the drake on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, t’e surface is safe. Well, safe for t’ose two. Follow me.”
Spike groaned and flexed. The magic inside him that connected his body to the world and powered the huge furnace that was his body, changed flow and he collapsed in on himself. His wings pulled into her back, his spines along his head and tail shrank, he got smaller and more compact. The shift in his mass burned off as excessive light and once it had faded, he stood before the old Zebra on just two legs.
“Ok, let’s find a way in. If it won’t bring the ceiling down on us, I could just bust the wall down.”
“No need for t’at.” Zecora waved him over as she carefully picked her steps over the uneven and piled stones that used to be an alleyway. “T’e door rig’t over ‘ere”
“What? Then why did you have us spli...oh.” Spike raised an eye ridge at Zecora. “Sage, Potion Maker and now Matchmaker too?”
“In me land, elder wear many ‘ats. Do a little bit of all.”
Spike shook his head and hurried to catch up. “You crafty ol’ bird…”
Twilight craned her head back to look up at the carvings and bas relief artwork that lined the upper reaches of the tall stone walls that made up the temple. “Wow...those are a lot bigger than I thought they were. Up close, even from down here, you can see they’re really detailed.”
Cadance nodded and shielded her eyes with a wing against the sun. “What do you suppose their religion was like? It looks like they had all types of people bowing to the sun. Was it the literal sun, or was it someone that represented it? Zecora says Aunt Celestia used to be some sort of priestess.”
“Yeah...not sure what I make of that.” Twilight stepped closer to the wall and kneeled down to peer at the section near the ground. It was far more weathered there, and faint traces of carved runes or lettering remained. “I never read anything about a sun worshipping cult or anything in the Everfree legends, but here we are...hmmm, Cady do you feel that low level hum coming from these carvings here? This enchantment is still active.”
Cadance shook her head. “No, but it might explain the feeling I keep having of being watched. I feel it whenever we get close to any of the ruins.”
Twilight hummed tunelessly to herself as she brushed away the weeds and overgrowth against the side of the building. “They go all the way down. Probably all the way into the foundation. Oh hey,” Twilight’s horn flashed as she pulled away a thick vine and then lifted a corroded bit-sized piece of metal. “Cady, just think of all the relics we could find here. Enough to fill a whole museum, I bet! I wonder if this was a coin?”
Cadance shrugged. “Maybe.” She turned slowly and walked a few paces away.
“Stay close!” Twilight slipped the rusted piece of metal into her holster pouches and followed Cadance. “I am still supposed to be guarding you, remember, Princess?”
The pink mare stuck out her tongue. “Yes, I recall that, Battle Mage. Whatcha gonna do, slap a shield around me all the time like your little brother, Shining, would? I’m a big mare, I can take care of myself.”
To prove her point, Cadance pranced gracefully away from Twilight. “We’re all alone out here, what’s going to happen?”
“Stop tempting fate!” Twilight groaned. She sped up and jumped over a tangle of roots and rubble to land on the other side of Cadance. The alicorn gasped and Twilight took her chance to catch her and press Cadance up against the building wall.
She planted both of her hooves on either side of Cadance’s head and leaned in close. “Battle mages don’t do shields. I do fire. Ice and lightning and force are my tools. Anything tries to lay its hooves, claws or pincers on you and I’ll blow it to kingdom come.” Twilight grinned. “Besides, Shining’s way too uptight to do this…”
Twilight leaned in and kissed Cadance lightly on the lips. She held her Princess there for a moment before breaking the contact and she looked into Cadance’s eyes. “When we’re done with this...about what you said last night…I want to try that.”
Cadance nodded slowly, her eyes locked on Twilight’s. She reached out and put her arms around Twily, and pulled the unicorn closer. “I would like that.”
Twilight chuckled quietly and let her chest rest against Cadance’s. The Princess opened her mouth to say something else, but Twilight silenced her with her lips and then tongue.
Creamy Goodness wiped her brow with a hoof and smiled to herself as she looked over her creation. It was just what the Princess had ordered, a full platter of protein-rich sushi with a side of miso soup. She’d used traditional ingredients and hoof rolled each piece. Then she had arranged the pieces by color until the platter looked like a wavy rainbow that matched Celestia’s mane. She had finished just in time too, as the door that lead out into the main kitchens opened and a tan colored stallion in server’s clothes and a push cart rolled up to the table where she was working.
“Hey, Creamy, I’m here for the Princess’ lunch.” The earth stallion whistled as she gently lifted the sushi and miso onto the cart. “Wow, you really outdid yourself this time.”
“It’s all the practice.” Creamy smirked. “Plus, the Princess deserves our best, right?”
“I suppose so.” The stallion grabbed a clamshell lid from the cart’s lower shelf and covered the food. “Hey, Creamy...you doing anything tonight?”
She looked up in honest surprise and gave the server her attention. He was young, new and not yet familiar with the kitchen staff. His name was Batter Dip, if she remembered correctly. “Um...actually, I am. My special somepony wants me to take care of a few things.”
“Oh.” Batter Dip scratched his head awkwardly.
Now that she was looking at him, Creamy could concede that he was a handsome colt. When did Tia start hiring so young? He looks like he just got out of school.
“You know...Batter, if you’re looking for somepony to hang with, have you asked Meringue Slice? Green mare like me, with curly hair. Kinda short, works in the desserts department?”
Batter Dip blushed and backed up his server cart. “Um, thanks. I’ll ask. What are you taking care of for your special somepony? If you don’t mind me asking?”
“Oh, not much.” Creamy Goodness grinned wider than a pony had a right too. “Just gotta go out and get a couple of things that were lost in the woods. It wouldn’t do if something else found them first, now would it?”
Celestia’s chamber was just as she had left it. Paper piled up on her desk in a mess, huge brown rings marking where Celestia’s warmug had sat. The furniture was all just slightly out of alignment, the couch cushions could use a fluffing, and the shelves needed a decent dusting. Philomena’s enclosure was, paradoxically, the cleanest thing in the room. Celestia was very dutiful in caring for her pet.
Even the bed was messy and unmade. Chrysalis, currently Monarca, unicorn head librarian and secret paramor of Princess Celestia, smirked at that. The condition of the bed was partially her fault. She’d had to sneak out suddenly in the pre-dawn hours when Princess Luna had visited her sister’s room unexpectedly. Otherwise, she would have made it while Celestia showered.
Perhaps, I should talk Tia into hiring a personal maid again. Monarca chuckled and her green colored aura grabbed the sheets and pillows and started to arrange them. How the immortal Princess of the Sun has a forever untidy bedroom is beyond me. If the room is going to be as clean as possible, she’ll have to have a maid take care of it.
With the bed soon made, Monarca stretched herself out in and pulled out the chopsticks that held her mane up in a bun. Celestia would be back in the room any minute and she didn’t want to leave any uncertainty in the air about the nature of her visit. Luna shouldn’t be a bother tonight and give them another case of cuddlous interruptus. She’d barely had time to toss the chopsticks onto the bed stand when Celestia burst into the room and all but slammed the door closed behind her.
“Tia? What’s wrong?” Monarca sat up on the bed and shook out her hair. “You look upset.”
“What?” Celestia sniffed and wiped her face with a wing before she looked at the bed. “Monarca? I’m sorry...I just had to deal with something. I...I don’t…”
“Come sit with me, Tia. Tell me all about it.” Celestia sniffled again and plodded over to the bed before falling into it like a particularly weepy stack of bricks. Monarca smiled at her warmly and slipped her hooves around Celestia’s neck and nuzzled the mare softly.
“Momo, I think I may have broken Cadance’s heart.” Celestia sighed as a fresh set of tears rolled down her cheeks. “I told her tonight, before dinner, that she was going to have to go on a mission for me. She’s leaving Equestria tomorrow and...and I think it hurt her a lot to have to leave all this. To leave her friend, Twilight Sparkle.”
Monarca nodded slowly. “Yes, I know the mare. Always asking questions or lost in thought.”
“I told her it was for the good of all Equestria. That she is the only one that can do this. Her life is going to be in danger for however long this takes.”
“How did she take the news?” Monarca brushed Celestia’s wild rainbow mane out of her eyes as she looked down at the alicorn.
“She cried, but she...she agreed with me, in the end.” Celestia seemed to deflate and her eternally flowing mane grew still and cold. “That was the worst part, Momo. She agreed with me and it’s going to kill her one true friendship here because she might never return.”
Monarca smiled and booped Celestia on the nose. “Oh hush. I know that Twilight filly. Theirs is a friendship that will survive this, Tia. Trust me, and stop crying, ok, my pretty princess?”
Celestia sniffled again and looked into Monarca’s eyes. “Do you think so?”
The librarian nodded and leaned in to kiss Celestia softly on the lips. The princess groaned quietly into the kiss and her mane burst back to life. Monarca pulled back after a moment and stoked Celestia’s cheek. “I know so. They have a friendship similar to ours, my little sunbeam. They are young and smart and have strong hearts. I can tell. They will weather this and come out the other side even stronger.”
Creamy Goodness hummed and skipped as she trotted through the castle’s staff area toward the kitchen loading area. Her shift had come to an end now that lunch had been served and she had work to get to. She slowed as she came up the section of the kitchens where the deserts were prepped and she stuck her head in the door. A few ponies were busy working away at some pies and she spotted a young mare with a green coat similar to her own.
“Hey, Meringue Slice!” Creamy waved and grinned. “I hear there is a handsome colt looking for you.”
“What?” Meringue Slice paused as she decorated one of the pies and flushed. “Who?”
“Cute stallion on the serving team. Batter something…” Creamy tapped her chin as she pretended to think hard for dramatic sakes. “Oh yeah, Batter Dip, that was the name.”
Meringue giggled nervously. “Why is he looking for me?”
“‘Cuz I might have told him you were single and about his age.”
“Ms. Goodness, do you have a point in interrupting my workers?” A large mare in a chef’s hat cleared her throat as she walked up to the door where Creamy was leaning in. Creamy Goodness shrank back and smiled sheepishly.
“Just sowing the seeds of love.”
The lead chef harrumphed at her and rolled her eyes. “Well, isn’t that lovely? Go do it elsewhere. These girls have a big order to fill for tonight.”
Creamy chuckled and waved at Meringue Slice before she started trotting away towards the rear of the castle. She rounded the corner and smirked as she started down the stairs into the darkened larder. By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, her green coat had become hard, shiny black plates with emerald bands over her abdomen. Membranous wings spread from her back and her teeth narrowed to needle-like points.
“Those two should prove to be a yummy snack later on.”
Chrysalis stretched and buzzed her wings in the cool darkness of the larder for a moment before her horn lit up with a dull green glow that cast stark shadows around her. She paced up to a spot where the earthen walls of the larder were bare of shelves and food stores and focused her gaze there. The glow from her horn grew brighter until her eyes started to glow green and streaks of purple and black miasma started to leak from the edges and drifted into the air around her like dust.
The wall lost itself in the shadows and until it was no longer a wall, but a hallway made of shadows. Chrysalis blinked away the dark magic from her eyes and stepped into the portal she had opened to the shadow realm. Unlike traditional teleportation, this would allow her to reach far further afield locations, though it wasn’t instantaneous. She merely had to move from a ‘like to like places’ though the shadowrealm and the darkened root cellar that doubled as the castle’s food larder was the perfect place to use as an anchor whenever she felt like returning to her old home in the sunken ruins of the Everfree.
Chrysalis…
The Changeling shook her head. The shadowrealm was a dangerous place to get distracted and she sped up her walk as she left the castle behind and the portal closed with a barely audible ‘pop.’ Vague shapes stretched and twisted about her, dark mockeries of things and creatures of the mortal realm moved around her at almost a sickening pace as each step took her leagues toward her destination.
Chrysalis...my daughter…
“Shut up.” Her voice sounded echoey and hollow as she kept walking, eyes forward. “Shut up. You aren’t real.”
Crystal...my sweetness...listen to daddy…
“You’re dead. I can’t...hear you anymore. You died a long time ago, father.” She faltered as a particularly large shape in the darkness shifted across her path. “Don’t...do this. Please, not now...I’ve been so good!”
Crystal...I have another job for you...you are almost done...and we can be a family again…
Chrysalis stopped where she was and grabbed her head with her hooves and pressed in tight. Sometimes, when the voices in her mind grew loud, she could force them to be silent, if she held tightly enough. Her head started to ache and she gritted her teeth against the pain. If she just held on, it would go away. If she held on, her mind would clear. She had honestly thought that she had silenced the voices for good, last time.
Fifteen years ago
Chrysalis wore her coat in aqua blue and had her blond mane swept back out of her bright violet eyes. She stalked on long legs toward the end of the runway, the bustle of the dress she was modeling swishing gracefully behind her. She stopped at the end of the long and narrow stage and and threw her sleek hip to the side as she vogued with a disinterested look on her face and the cameras around her flashed.
The pony managing the photographers barked commands at her and Chrysalis sighed tiredly as she turned for another pose. Soon the enormous ballroom would fill with the who’s who of Canterlot nobility and the most affluent merchants as they came to admire the latest in fashion in the luxuriousness of Canterlot Castle proper. Rumor had it that even the Royal Sisters would be in attendance, but neither mare had showed up during any of the set up or any of the rehearsals.
Chrysalis ran a silk-covered forehoof along her side, over the split in her skirt that allowed her spiderweb cutie mark to show through, and sighed. She had so hoped Celestia would come see the show, and her, specifically. It had been a few years since she had been in Equestria and stolen her Princess’ heart and attention. She was just turning to strut back down the runway when the main doors opened and the Princess of the Sun herself slipped in.
Chrysalis paused, along with every other person in the room as pony, dog and drake alike took notice of the alicorn suddenly in their midst. She flushed as she realized what pose she was inadvertently holding and what angle Celestia could clearly see her from. She forced herself into a more relaxed position and took a deep breath before looking back at Celestia and meeting those eyes. Celestia was smiling and looking straight at her while other models and photographers converged on the princess. It was the same look she had seen all those years ago, in another city, now lifeless and choked with vines. The same look that told her the princess liked what she saw.
Oh Goddess how she had missed that look.
The next few minutes passed in a blur. Talk buzzed through the crew and talent alike that Celestia was indeed going to watch the show and had arrived early to speak with the director and designer. Chrysalis felt herself tingling with excitement as she slipped out of the dress in her small dressing room with help of her assistant and temporary student in the ways of modeling. The lanky young unicorn hung up the satiny affair before they stepped out into the private area backstage for a quick bite to eat from the buffet tables. At the far end of the tables, Celestia and the lead designer, Photo Finish stood near each other, speaking quietly.
Chrysalis lifted a plate with one elegant wing and did her best to appear focused on the orderves as she nonchalantly wandered closer to the pair. She hushed Fleur as the excited teen all but danced in place with excitement at being in the presence of royalty.
“Ja, Prinzessin, I dizcovered her at a cafe in Germaney lazt zummer. Zhe iz da natural beauty!”
“Silk Spinner certainly is, Ms. Finish. Thank you again for putting together such a wonderful show.”
Chrysalis’ ears perked up and she fought herself to keep from squeeing in happiness. She knew that Celestia would like the body and identity she had built just for this purpose. She looked up and again met those wonderful eyes.
“Hallo, du warst wunderschön auf der Bühne.”
Chrysalis, aka Silk Spinner, froze and for a moment her body forgot how her lungs and heart were supposed to operate. She recovered a long moment later and bowed to the regent, her voice soft and breathy. “Vielen Dank, Prinzessin.”
Celestia smiled at her again with a twinkle in her eye before turning back to Photo Finish. “Ms. Finish, I would like to ask you for a special favor, if that is alright?”
“Oh?” Photo Finish adjusted her rose colored shades and looked up at the taller mare.
“Yes, I’d like you to set up a private photoshoot. There is a very special somepony I would like you to capture some images of for me. It was recently brought to my attention that a new alicorn has appeared in Cloudsdale. She is being brought here to Canterlot to be brought up as a future princess of all Equestria and we’ll need proper pictures for the press and official proclamations and such.”
“Oh my Goddess!” Fleur gasped at Silk Spinner’s side, her eyes huge as she stared at Photo Finish and Princess Celestia. “That’s so amazing! A new princess alicorn! Can you believe it, Miss Spinner? Wouldn’t it be just a dream come true to become a princess like that?”
Silk Spinner nodded, her expression carefully neutral as her plate of tasty hors d’oeuvres started to crack under the pressure of her grip.
Chrysalis groaned as she picked herself up off the cold stone floor and brushed the grit off her cheek as she eyes adjusted to the darkness. At some point she had left the shadow realm behind and had stumbled out into the buried chambers under the temple in the Everfree. There was a fine coating of dust on everything and the air smelled stale and musty.
“What was I doing?” She blinked and looked over at the stone slab table she had set up centuries ago for her experiments. Her supplies, all sealed within bottles and beakers sealed with wax and wooden boxes treated to withstand the years, sat just where she had last left them. “Oh yes, now I remember. I have a princess to kill.”
Chrysalis chuckled to herself as she stepped forward and a row of candles started to light with low, green flames in time with her hoof falls. By the time she reached the table, the chamber was filled with soft light and her work space was well illuminated. She buzzed her diaphanous wings and the gale from them cleared the dust. She grinned and reached out to tilt a small framed picture of Celestia towards herself. “Soon, it’ll just be us, my love. I’ll be by your side just as I was always meant to be. I’ll be your Princess, for a change. Not that little filly with the pink flank.”
Her grin slipped slightly. “You like pink flanks, huh? I can have pink flanks. Or blue, or purple, or whatever! I can be any mare you want! You hear me, Celestia? Any mare you want...I can be! I’ve always been the one for you! You were supposed to pick me!”
She growled and lifted the picture frame in her aura to look the picture in the eye. “I came from a royal line. I was the most powerful candidate. The contests were mere formalities, I know, but you must understand that I couldn’t have competition. It just wouldn’t do. You are supposed to be mine, Tia! That’s why...that’s why I had to get rid of the others. They couldn’t be princesses. Only me.”
She growled again, her wings buzzing as her eyes started to glow and the picture frame started to groan in protest. “Everything I ever did was all for you. Everything. I won’t be passed over again! You thought I’d leave just like everyone else when you gave up the Everfree, but you were wrong, Tia.”
Chrysalis’ eyes glowed brighter and the metal part of the frame started to smoke as she stared at the picture it held. “I stayed. I still believed in you. I perfected the magics you forbade everyone else. I mastered it and I got these wings.” Her wings buzzed faster and started to fill the dark place with high pitched shrill. “I became an alicorn for you. I became so much more for you. I gave up my home and my name and my soul for you.”
She snarled and gnashed her fangs. “I will have what you promised me, Tia. I will rule at your side, no matter how many pretenders to the throne I have to kill to do it.” She hissed and the picture frame finally snapped under her focus, the glass protecting the old photograph shattered and sprayed her with glass.
That made her pause and blink away the power that had been building inside her.
“Oops!” Chrysalis giggled nervously and her magic pulled the frame back into shape and reformed the glass into a clear pane once again.
Chrysalis! Stop dawdling!
“Huh?”
It is almost done, daughter. Free me, and you can have the Sun Priestess all to yourself.
“She isn’t a priestess anymore, dad. She’s a princess.”
It matters not! Free me and return our kingdom to the world! Then you can have anything you want. Anyone you want. The promises made to you will all be fulfilled. Believe your father, and you will rule Equestria however you please.
Chrysalis nodded slowly and put the picture frame down on the table and pulled several of the sealed boxes and vials to herself. There was only one more seal to break. Then her father would be back. My father is dead. He has been dead for a thousand years.
No trace of her father, or his empire had ever been found. Legends didn’t even exists about it, but she could still remember the way the snows had sparkled on the mountainsides. She still remembered her father’s magic lessons, the ways to force the world to bend to her will and by extension, his will. But sometimes, she wondered if that was all just a dream invented by a lonely mind. Maybe breaking the final seal wouldn’t do anything at all. Then she could go back to the way things were long ago.
Hurry up.
“Yes, daddy.”
Spike stopped after he dropped the large fallen piece of the wall that was blocking their way into the lower levels of the temple building. He cocked his head to the side and concentrated on his hearing. He could hear three sets of breathing behind him from the ponies, but in the dark hole he had uncovered there seemed to be something else. Something faint and high pitched.
“Hey, Twi, I think I hear something down there.”
“What is it?” Twilight Sparkle adjusted her cloak and stepped up to the crumbling edge of the hole with Spike. She strained her ears but she couldn’t detect anything and the ancient enchantments in the stones around her was throwing off that sense as well.
“Dunno. Some sort of buzzing, maybe?” Spike scratched his frills and tilted his head again. “It keeps fading out and then coming back for a second.”
Twilight nodded and turned to the two other mares. “Ok, there might be some dangerous stuff down there, more than just a slowly collapsing ruin. Princess, you are to stay by me, Zecora, keep close to Spike. We’ll take point and hopefully nothing will be stupid enough to try and take on a dragon and a battle mage in close quarters.”
Artificial mage-light cast deep, stark shadows whenever Twilight stuck her head into one of the many alcoves and cubbies that branched off from the main room inside the Everfree Temple of the Sun. Most were like small rooms, either completely empty or filled with rubble and dead leaves, their purpose unclear. In the sixth or seventh—she had stopped counting already—there was a dark splash of color staining the floor.
Twilight paused, kneeling down to examine it closely. It was old, obviously, but it was impossible to tell how old without a more in-depth examination than she had time for at the moment. Was something spilled? Was it the final remains of some ancient carpeting, its color staining the stone long after it had faded to dust? Or had something roughly pony-sized met its end in this tiny space, prey to some Everfree monster? The ruins of the temple were not forthcoming with an immediate answer, so Twilight stood again and moved on.
Across the large, central space, more light flashed for a jar hung from Zecora’s belt, in time with her steps. The older zebra scanned the stones and carvings with a keen, practiced eye. She stopped by a larger alcove, her lantern jar illuminating a huge relief carving of bowing and prostrated figures facing a central sphere and flanked by flames. Directly below the sphere was a single pony...or at least that was what the carving seemed to suggest. The figure was now smashed and disfigured, with only a hoof and what might be a bit of flowing mane still attached to the rest of the display.
Twilight picked her way carefully across the rubble-strewn floor, reaching Zecora before the mare had moved on in her search. “Zecora...do you...do you think this just fell apart over the years? Or...was this defaced intentionally?”
Zecora stopped and considered the carving. “I say it on purpose.” She gestured at the central, broken figure. “W’en Everfree fall, t’ey say it fall hard. Da goddess left t’em and wit’out ‘er, everyt’ing come cras’ing down.”
“Why did she leave?” Twilight frowned, lowering her voice to keep it from carrying to where Spike and Cadance were searching. “If Princess Celestia was really this same Sun Priestess, then why did she suddenly abandon her people? That’s not the pony I know. The Princess I know would fight to her last breath and beyond if Canterlot or Equestria was threatened.”
“S’e not da same pony.” Zecora shrugged and put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “Princess Celestia is a different pony t’en da legend. If t’at because s’e is not da same one, or...s’e c’ange over da years...I cannot say. I study Everfree. I learn many t’ings about da past, Twilight. Da Priestess could’a been Celestia, t’ey bot’ good ponies, t’ey bot’ strong, t’ey bot’ care about t’ey people. Da Priestess fell because s’e see w’at power do to ‘er. S’e see t’at s’e going bad. Da Priestess took off da mantle of power and leaders’ip willingly. T’at is da important part, Twilight.”
Twilight turned that over in her mind, breathing deeply through her nose as she had been taught years ago to clear her mind and focus. “The Priestess stepped down to prevent herself from becoming something bad?” Thoughts and memories from her last excursion into the Everfree played through her mind. The desperate chase through the forest. Finding the old royal palace and slogging through those ruins until she reached the tower. The flashing lights, arcane power washing over every surface and warping reality to the breaking point. In the middle of the storm, Princess Celestia, bound and gagged, while a dark mockery of Princess Luna stood over her.
The fight was a blur of spells and explosions, blasts of fire and lightning charged with plasma. Luna’s mane was the one point of stillness, but it was the black, cold stillness of the grave. Her entire body was twisted by whatever was affecting her, enlarging her and giving the Princess reptilian eyes and teeth. Twilight could remember her eyes the clearest. That and Luna’s laugh. Both were flat, filled with malice and murderous intent. Luna surrounded herself with shields. Magic bounced off her like rain off a roof with all the same damage. Twilight had flung spells until her horn was smoking and her throat was raw, but nothing made it through.
All that changed when Luna had put her hoof on Princess Celestia’s neck. Twilight could remember the desperation she had felt and all the rage that boiled up under it. She could remember the precise moment—with a clarity that sometimes kept her up at nights—when Princess Luna shifted her weight and pressed down, Princess Celestia’s eyes widened in fear and her own mind exploded. Spell matrices she had never envisioned before or since welled up in her mind faster than she could have cast them. They layered and intertwined themselves along impossible geometries. In one blinding flash, she unleashed hell. Fire, electricity, ice, acid, ear-shattering sound, and pure arcane force combined into one rainbow binding of elements.
The attack broke Luna’s shield, and her spine.
Twilight blew air through her nose until her lungs ached to be refilled, driving the memories of that night out of her mind. She couldn’t help but wonder though, if that evil that had festered in Luna’s mind and soul was the same evil the Priestess of the Sun felt would consume her as well? Was that fear what brought her and the City of Everfree down?
She shook her head, turning to look to where Spike and Cady had wandered to. They were not far off, but the disfigured and defaced carving left a sour taste in her mouth and she suddenly didn’t want either of them out of her sight. “Just what are we looking for down here, Zecora? Potion ingredients or more information of this Chyrsalis creature? If you had told me about something like a changeling last week, I would have told you to stop drinking your own concoctions.”
Zecora stepped up next to the Twilight and put a hoof on the younger mare’s shoulder. “I would ‘ave slapped you, too. I make da best brew for a league in all directions.” The zebra sighed. “But I understand. It hard to swallow. Mebbe we find somet’ing ‘ere I missed. Me eyes not so good now.”
“Hey, Twi!” Spike waved at them from across the room. “I found a way down into a lower section!”
From where they stood, Twilight could see Cadance carefully picking her way around what looked like any other pile of broken stone and tangled roots. Spike turned back to her and they spoke, too quietly to hear, when Spike grabbed one of the larger stones and started working it loose from the rest of the rubble.
A black hoof, its chitinous surface hard and rigid, paused in mid-air above a complex matrix of dark arcane runes and symbols. Grains of obsidian sand ceased to flow from the small satchel it held, the line on the ground that those fine particles were forming halted in place. The line nearly reached another, only a small bit of space remained free of the dark material. That tiny blank area was all that kept the complex circle pattern from being complete.
Chrysalis stared at that spot, that small piece of a greater whole that was left to be done. She could complete it in less time than it took to blink. She could be done with the spell. All the seals would be broken. She only need complete the arcane circle and the energy would flow by itself into the nether realm where her father and country was held.
I’ll be free then, right? She worked her jaw, listing to the plates that made up her face click together faintly. I can go home then, right? I can be with her, right? All I have to do is open the way. Then...I get what I want...what I deserve. How long has it been? How long have I been down here?
Chrysalis blinked slowly, her mind turning to wipe the years away, and she saw the temple as it once was. The walls were white cream, just like her coat. The ceiling had many opening to let in the sunlight, to feed the plethora of flowering plants that hung above. The rainbow of flowers was just like her mane. Enormous amethyst gems, the same shade as her eyes, were set into the walls at either end of the temple to reflect the light that made it past the flowers. The furnishing dripped with gold, in the stitching, on the corners, worked into the sides. Gold was everywhere and the temple wore it well, but not as well as her.
The temple had been the first place she had ever laid eyes on the Sun.
She, Crystal of the North, daughter of King Sombra, had answered the call to be a Princess, to be the new Priestess of the Night. She would rule side by side with the Priestess of the Day. She would have power and control. She would prove herself more than merely her father’s daughter and step out of his shadow.
The temple was the first place she had fallen in love.
The lesser priests, eunuchs in service to the Priestess of the Sun, gathered in the temple first. After a long time, they opened the doors and beckoned her to enter. The city they called Everfree vanished, its sounds and smells became something of another world when she entered that sacred place. The temple vanished along with it when she saw the Priestess, resplendent upon her throne. Nothing else was worthy to exist in that moment. Only the Sun.
Her Sun. Her love. Her destiny.
In that perfect moment, everything was as it should be. Later the shadows would come. The tests. The other false-priestesses. They tried to take away her Sun, but they failed. She made sure of that. She cleared the field. She proved herself and for the briefest of times, she alone was kissed by the Sun.
Then the Sun had set.
Chrysalis hissed and blinked tears from her eyes. She could remember how soft the Priestess’ touch had been. She could recall the smell of the jasmine perfume the Priestess favored in those days. Even after years and decades—centuries?—she could recall so many small details with the clarity of a recent event. It felt like just yesterday when she had stood before the dais, looking up at the center of her world.
Chrysalis lowered her outstretched hoof. The satchel she held shifted in her grip, sighing as the obsidian inside it settled. She breathed deeply, pushing the memory of the past away, lest she be consumed by it. “I will have what I want. I will have my Sun. My Light. My…Celestia.”
She tipped the bag, pouring the sand out into the remaining clear space. The circle completed, the magical power that thrummed through the ground in the central Ley Line of the Everfree, was redirected into it. The obsidian grew darker and colder until a light mist started to rise off the arcane circle.
Chrysalis took a step back, her eyes locked on the circle and the lights that started to flash inside it until a feeling ran up her back, like the sound of a snapping twig in a silent forest. There was no sound except her own breathing and the crackling of the stone floor as the magic continued to suck heat out of it. She looked up, confusion washing over her face. The chamber seemed no different. Her green candles still burned bright and steady. Her shrine of collected artifacts dedicated to Celestia sat undisturbed, its loose rainbow-colored strands of mane still arranged as she had left them.
The sensation came again, stronger this time. “What in the blue Tartarus is...wait.” Chrysalis perked her ears and lit her horn as she scanned the chamber around her. “That was one of my sentry alarms!”
She’d set alarms in the early days, laid the spells into the stone tiles of the temple to alert her to any looters or other intruders. They haven’t gone off in hundreds of years! Now two in a row? The alarm sentation sounded again, harder than before. Whatever was coming was getting closer.
The changeling smiled viciously. “Good...I needed a distraction.”
Sometimes, when she was alone and the moon sailed overhead, the memories would come to her. Visions of her past. Millennia of time would scroll past the back of her eyelids like a projection film played too fast. The oddest points stood out of the wide field of endless days and nights. Bad or good, the memories called to her, pulling her back in time.
Princess Luna sighed and flipped the pages of the ledger she was working in, to the empty section for notes at the back. She dipped her quill into the the inkwell. The bills can wait. I need a distraction. Where was I? She caught the frayed end of the pen between her lips. Oh yes, the Captain had just ordered the stowaway brought before her in irons.
Luna released the quill and it flew across the blank page, setting the scene of a privateer airship gone rogue in the High Skys, its Captain a stern but fair mistress with a coat the same blue-black of a raven. The crew, a rag-tag band of misfits, but all fine sailors, dragged a buttercream colored pegasus up from below decks. The stowaway, a timid waif of a mare, cowered before the strong Captain, ready to receive her punishment for daring to sneak aboard the Moondarter.
She paused her writing to sip from her cup of tea. “I wish Fluttershy was he…” She locked up, the sentence incomplete and frozen on her lips. A sensation, like she had never experienced before, crawled up her spine and down her horn at the same time until the twin lightning bolts met within her mind. She jerked her head back as if struck, her mouth falling open.
Arcane power, once her own but long since spent on a spell, returned to her from somewhere, but she couldn’t think where she could have left it. There was no active spell that held such reserves. It was overwhelmingly alien and at the same time, undeniably her own power. It was ragged, the magic’s metaphorical edges torn and shredded. Whatever spell or enchantment it had been powering had been broken, forcibly dispelled. The flow of the returning energy continued for a full two breaths and when it finally subsided, she lurched forward in her chair, starting to pant and sweat.
Luna’s heart jackhammered in her chest and unbidden, memories broke the surface of her mind. A thousand years of time and nearly as many miles separated her from this magic. She had cast it in her last action as a goddess and priestess, sealing away an evil. The sounds of her guards deaths, the taste of fear as he got closer, the mixed elation and sorrow as the last of her godhead left her to form the Gibbous Shield.
The conversation from a few days earlier with her sister sprang to mind.
Something had broken her Gibbous Shield. The Crystal Empire and its dark, Midnight Lord Sombra would once again walk Equus soil. Luna dropped her quill and wiped her forehead with the shaky back of her hoof. She took a deep breath, pushing herself back from her writing desk, and heading for the door of her chambers.
Luna threw open the doors and rushed out as fast as her stiff legs and aching back would allow her. She had to speak with Celestia, now. Outside her room, standing at rigid attention, her faithful shieldmaiden, Shining Armor waited with his eyes fixed on the opposite wall while a blonde stallion spoke to him. Luna blinked and stumbled, recognizing her nephew, Prince Blueblood.
“Now now, my sweet Maiden,” Blueblood smiled and leaned in as he looked over Shining’s armor, “wouldn’t you be more comfortable out of that? Not that I want you to think it looks heavy or bad. But...it would look so much better on my bedroom floor.”
Shining Armor held his place, his face a mask of neutrality even as his neck muscles started to cord and clinch. The black lace that came off his flared battle skirt quivered slightly as he forced himself to maintain composure.
Funny as the scene was, Luna couldn’t waste time to savor it. She ignored Shining’s pained glances and turned toward the hall that lead to the castle proper and made it another dozen paces before her back spasmed. Her wings shot out, pushing against the floor to keep herself upright. She knew she wasn’t going to make it far in this condition. When the spasms stopped, she turned back toward her room.
Sweat rolled down Shining’s cheek and he grit his teeth audibly. The Prince, either inspite of, or because of this, leaned in closer, his voice dropping an octave as he purred. “Come now, my pretty little Maiden...the Princess has left you all alone.” Blueblood chuckled warmly, his smile turned into a grade-A leer. “Thankfully, there’s a Prince here to tell you what to do. Say...why don’t you put in a transfer to my security detail? I’m sure I can find a slot for you to fill in my harem—er, my staff.”
“Shining Armor!”
Both stallions jumped at the shout and turned as one to look where Princess Luna was leaning hard against the wall at the entrance to the hall.
“Either kiss your boyfriend or slug him, I don’t care. But get my wheels and catch up with me ASAP. I need to speak with Celestia!” She didn’t stick around to see what happened and turned around again, limping down the hall once more. Damn this pain! I should have gotten into my wheels first. I really wish Fluttershy was here tonight. I’m going to be paying for this for a few nights to come.
She grunted when she reached the next door, her magic opening it well ahead of her actual arrival. A few of the castle staff were in the hallway intersection, maids and cleaners that all stopped when they saw her and bowed, their eyes full of worry when they saw their Princess all but crawling on the floor. Luna was just about to ask for their assistance when she heard the thunder of heavy hoof-falls coming from behind her. She stopped at the end of the hall and took a calming breath.
Shining Armor skidded to a stop next to Luna, his horn glowing as he unfolded the wheel harness. It rattled when he set it down and opened the belts and straps needed to attach it to Princess Luna. She frowned, her face darker than normal with the strain she had placed on herself. The harness took her weight, the familiar device easing the stress on her tired muscles. Once she was seated and could spare thought for more than her discomfort, Luna raised an eyebrow at her shieldmaiden. “There is blood on your vambraces.”
“Sorry ma’am. I’ll clean it as soon as I see you to your sister.”
“See that you do, Shining Armor. Cobalt stains easily.” Luna sighed gratefully and started off again. Shining kept pace at her side, the two reaching a near gallop as they moved deeper into the castle. “Oh...and Shining?” She smirked, taking a corner at speed as they neared the throne room. “You should wash your face too. I can see some blood around your mouth.”
The lower floors of the Sun Temple once held the amassed wealth of the clergy that was not on display above where the Priestess performed services. Gold, gems, objet d’art, and magic inscribed on papyrus scrolls or enchanted into all assortment of items were stacked to the ceiling in vault after vault. Alongside these treasures, the Sacred Brotherhood of Light trained their bodies and souls to perfection for the High Priestess of the Sun. They lived, worked, sweat, and died for Her. She was the Sun and the Sun was Her. She brought life and light and order and they were Her favored children.
The treasures, and the eunuchs that guarded them, no longer called these vaults home. Time, lost, famine, and looters had seen to that. Now all that remained was dust and the ghosts of the past, too weak to speak, but forever destined to walk these earthen halls. Not even rats scurried through the darkness now.
Nothing in those deserted halls had moved for centuries, until a purple and green, draconic head worked its way inside through a root-choked hole in the ceiling. “Yes! I got through, but there is a drop...maybe twenty something feet. The floor looks solid though.” There was a muffled response from above and then Spike retreated back the way he’d come.
There followed a long moment of silence, until it was shattered by a small explosion of stone, dirt, and roots that rained to the tilework below. The detritus was trailed a second later by a flash of pink fur and feathers.
Cadance braked hard in mid-dive, the down beats from her wings kicking up even more dust than the cave-in, hovering just a few inches off the floor. She gave herself a half-dozen beats to scan what little she could see in the murky blackness and then gently set hoof on the old temple floor. The tiles she touched down on immediately illuminated in a pale, golden light for just a blink of an eye and then faded back into the darkness. Great...some of the enchantments in these old ruins is still working.
Cadance covered her muzzle with her wing and breathed slowly to filter out as much of the dust as she could. She narrowed her eyes and scanned the halls with a critical gaze. After a moment, she looked up. “Ok, Spike, you next. Floor feels safe enough.” She turned back to the dark vaults and frowned. That did something. I need to find out what before we get ourselves in trouble.
Cadance slunk into the shadows, her hooves silent against the tiles as she crept carefully over the loose rubble their entry had spread over the area. Behind her, Spike had anchored his tail on the floor above and was carefully transferring Zecora and Twilight down to the lower level. Cadance let the darkness cloak her movements as she prowled into the back of the nearest alcove chamber. It was mostly empty, but she could see the remains of some sort of furniture in the gloom.
She spared a quick glance back to make sure no one was looking her way and cast a simple spell that settled into her eyes and let her see as if it were as bright as noon outside. It left little after images in her eyes for a moment right after the casting which she blinked away, slipping deeper into the room. Now, she could see that this area still had a large amount of artifacts left, compared to the surface level. The dark shapes resolved into broken chairs and low tables that were scattered over the floor. Even to her untrained eye for archeology, she could see this was more than simple wear and tear of time.
“Something tore through here in a rage.” Cadance whispered to herself, ducking under a fallen pillar. The destruction continued as she went further, becoming thicker. Everything was covered with a layer of dust and grime, so she was reasonably certain that whatever had smashed the furniture, did it years ago.
“Cadance?”
The princess froze when she heard Twilight call her name from where they had entered. She could hear them spreading out. I should go back and tell Twi about the glow I saw. She might have some insight on what spells might still be in effect down here. She turned to head back when a glint near the floor caught her attention. Cadance lowered herself down to take a closer look, her breath catching when she realized it was a hair-thin trip wire.
A quick look around confirmed her suspicion that the wire wasn’t part of the old ruins. The simple trap mechanism was designed to bury whoever tripped the wire under a couple of tons of precariously held collapsed ceiling. There was more than ancient spells down here that they had to be concerned about.
“Hey, Twi?” She could hear Spike’s voice coming from the main hall near the entrance of the vault. Spike must have come closer to speak with Twilight, his voice sounded concerned. “Remember that buzzing noise I told you about earlier? It’s getting louder...or closer. I can’t quite tell.”
She needed to get back to the other before someone set off a trap. Cadance turned, dropping stealth for speed as she started to trot back the way she’d come.
“Huh...the sound just stopped.”
Cadance ducked as she ran, skidding under the fallen pillar. She could spy Twilight at the end of the vault, pearing into the darkness. Spike stood next to her, looking back over his shoulder, the frills that functioned as his ears where fully extended as if his was listening to something faint.
“I still don’t hear it, Spike.” Twilight’s horn started to glow, the extra light painful to Cadance’s enhanced vision. “But I hear Cadance’s hoofsteps coming this way. When she gets here, we’ll investigate…”
She was a couple dozen paces away when the buzzing noise returned, closer and louder than ever. Cadance squinted against the light coming from Twilight’s horn, speeding up to a full on gallup. The buzzing noise, low and rumbling, thrummed through the stones around them until it suddenly changed pitch and became shrill and earsplitting.
Twilight’s face brightened as Cadance emerged from the shadows, her arms reaching out to catch the oncoming princess. “Cady! Where did you slip off to?” Cadance slammed into her, knocking them both back a few steps. “Don’t do that again, ok? I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Twilight! Listen, we have to be careful down here,” Cadance panted, “I found some traps back there! A wrong step and this whole place could come crashing down on us.” She turned to point back the way she’d come. “I found a magical one when I came down and a tripwire over…”
The buzzing noise stopped suddenly.
“Did I leave traps in here?”
Cadance felt Twilight go tense. The voice echoed off the walls and ceiling, seeming to come from all directions at once.
The voice made a ‘hmmph’ noise. “I wonder if they still work? It’s been a while.” The echos bounced around the room for a second before it spoke again. “I want to thank you, actually, for setting off my old sentry spells. Alerting me to your presence was very...useful...of you.”
“Where is it coming from?” Spike growled, low in his throat, his eyes flicking about rapidly. “I can’t pinpoint it.”
“Stay close. If something comes at us, first priority is keeping the princess and Zecora safe.” Twilight eased back onto all fours, letting Cadance go, and pulled her staff from under her cloak.
“Oh, isn’t that cute?” The voice laughed loudly. “You think you can stop me from doing whatever I want? That you can save anyone from me? You don’t even know what you’re up against.”
Twilight’s horn flashed as she charged it with power, grinning fiercely. “Why don’t you step into the light and introduce yourself?”
The voice was quiet for a moment. When it did respond, the tone was softer. “You are her student, aren’t you? I can see it in your stance...the look in your eye. I can see the way you shape your magic...just like she used to. You studied under her for years, the little prodigy that she spoke so highly of. Tell me, Twilight Sparkle, what is that like?”
“How do you know my name?”
The voice continued as if Twilight hadn’t spoken. “Did you have much competition for her attention, hmm? Did you have to fight for it? Did you have to prove yourself as I once did?” There was a long pause, no one moved or breathed. “No...I suppose not. Or else it might have been you I would need to kill, wouldn’t it? It’s nothing personal, you understand? I have to do this. I always liked you, really.”
Chrysalis rotated her head around to watch the ponies and dragon group together tightly as she clung to the ceiling. She smirked, watching them look around, trying to zero in on her location. A simple trick of throwing her voice and the natural acoustics of the vaults kept them guessing, on the tips of their hooves.
The pink one needs to die, but she’s evaded those cheap knock-offs for this long...she must be more skilled than she appears. Twilight and Spike will be mildly annoying at best. Chrysalis glanced at the zebra and rolled her eyes. The old sage is harmless. Possibly a good target to force the others into defending.
She reached out with a hoof, her chitinous plates flexing to grip the stone as she swung soundlessly into position directly above the four. I could just bring the roof down on them. It would be easy. She frowned, shaking her head. No. That would destroy Tia’s temple. She wouldn’t like that. And besides, I’d have to dig that pink thorn in my hoof out of the rubble afterwards.
Chrysalis let scenarios play through her mind, methods of attack and defense against what she assumed each of them were capable of. Worse case, they escaped her ambush and a chase ensued, but all that did was delay the inevitable. She breathed in deeply through her nose and let it out slowly. There really was only one way this could go.
Chrysalis let go of the ceiling and buzzed her wings, adding boost to what gravity was already doing for her. Her limbs reoriented themselves and she landed with a thunderous crash in the middle of the quartet. “You know,” She couldn’t help but smile as she casually swiped one hoof at Spike, hitting him in the chest and sending the young dragon flying into the nearest wall, “upon consideration, I think formal introductions are in order.”
She spun with the push off of Spike and gently caught Twilight under the chin with her other arm, tipping her head back in a smooth motion, redirecting the blast of fire that erupted from the unicorn’s horn harmlessly toward the back of the chamber. “I’m called Chrysalis these days. It’s one of many names, but if you prefer a title, you can just call me ‘Queen.’” In the flash of Twilight’s spell, the false princess flinched, her eyes closing tight. Chrysalis took the opportunity to hook her rear leg around the filly’s throat, and drive her to the ground.
Zecora seemed to move in slow motion, pulling some vial from her harness. Chrysalis didn’t think much of it, but why not send a message? It was what the Sun Priestess would have done. Make an example so that the others don’t act stupidly. She shifted her grip on Twilight’s jaw and lifted the battlemage up and over the pinned, pink floozy, flinging the unicorn into the zebra and sending both ponies sprawling.
Now that she had some breathing room, Chrysalis stood on just her rear hooves and gazed down at the alicorn under her hoof. “I suppose I really should have done this years ago. But Celestia liked you...she was so happy when you showed up. I liked seeing her like that again. Liked it so much, I let you live.” She smiled sadly. “I’m sorry for that, little imposter. I was selfish...I let my emotions sway me. Let her happiness infect me. If I had just done this sooner, it could have been an easily explainable accident. A carriage crash or something. It would have been quick. Mostly painless.” Chrysalis tilted her head, considering. “Mostly.”
Twilight rolled off Zecora, the elder zebra looked dazed from the impact, but none the worse for wear. She spun to face the changeling, the magic in her horn shaping itself into an aimed bolt of electricity. She could see Spike climbing to his claws on the other side of the thing on Cadance, the dragon’s muscles bunched to pounce. Spike winked at her and Twilight unleashed a flash of energy.
Chrysalis turned her head and fired up her own horn with a sickly green-black aura, intercepting the lightning with her own blast of arcane energy. She smirked, kicking out the hoof she was pinning the imposter with to counter the dragon coming from behind. “Nice try! But I know she taught you better than…” Chrysalis paused as her hoof connected with empty air. She looked back and down where Spike was crouched low, his claws on Cadance’s harness, pulling her away across the floor.
Cadance grinned wolfishly, pulling her Minotauran Hull-Breacher out and leveling up it at the surprised changeling’s face. “She taught us luck favors the bold!” A crack of thunder to match Twilight’s lightning strike sounded in the enclosed space, followed by a dull, wet-sounding squelch, as smoke from the black power obscured everyone’s vision. It cleared a second later to reveal the creature, still standing, one side of her head deformed with a deep indentation around a walnut-sized sphere of lead.
“I...actually felt that.” Chrysalis rolled her head, as if working out a kink in her neck, causing the lead shot to fall to the floor with a muffled thump. The plates of chitin creaked, groaning under pressure as her face reshaped itself. She stared at Cadance, her one aligned eye flat with malice. “That just cost you the quick and painless option. Slow and exceedingly painful, it is!”
Crystal! Chrysalis. Whichever, it matters not. Stop bothering with the mortal insects and come here. There is much to do and little time to do it in!
“Shut up!” Chrysalis snapped at the air, jerking back to dodge around a claw swipe aimed at her chest from Spike. “I will do as I please! I did your bidding already.” She turned and pirouetted in flawless ballerina form, to slip between the trajectories of a thrown vial and a shot of pure arcane force. Her horn glowed, her magic reaching out, and grabbed the battlemage’s tail to send the mare flying.
You will do as you are commanded, daughter. The voice in her mind rumbled with a barely contained growl. You are mine to do with as I will. It would be best for you to not forget that.
“You...are...dead. You can’t order me around anymore!” Chrysalis snarled and ducked a gleaming blue-silver blade strike. She frowned and rounded on the false princess, the alicorn back on her hooves and now wielding dual, long hiltless daggers. The changeling sucked in a breath when Cadance flashed forward, propelled by a powerful beat of her wings, her blades aimed at the junctures where her natural armor was weakest.
She brought up a hoof at the last second and deflected the first strike. Chrysalis stepped back as the pink pony kept up the assault, hitting faster and faster, Chrysalis forced to go on the defensive to keep from taking the steel in an unarmored joint. “You’ve fought my poor knock-offs before. After I kill you, I’ll need to see to it that the next clutch is stronger.”
“You won’t get the chance!” Cadance snapped, her hooves blurring in another set of quick blows against Chrysalis’ carapace. “I’m sick and tired of running from your kind! Always hounding me from one place to the next...how many times have you sent your lackeys to end me now? None of them were successful, and neither will you be!”
Chrysalis! Come now, or I will come get you myself. This is not a request, child.
“I’m busy!” Chrysalis ducked again when one of the blades came close to her eyes.
Cadance slowed her jabs, raising an eyebrow at the changeling. “That’s not...the response I was expecting.”
“You don’t deserve any response other than a painful mauling, you usurper! No one is allowed to take my place!” Chrysalis growled and switched her stance, rolling to the side. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the dragon frantically building a tall pile of stone and rubble. Some kind of trap? Or a...barricade? Wait...what has the mage been doing this whole time?
She took her eyes off Cadance for a moment and spotted Twilight standing, her eyes closed and her battlemage staff touching the ground. She recognized the unicorn’s stance and the taste of the magic that was swirling around her. It was Celestia’s favorite move for quickly pulling on local ley lines to power everything from spells to speed. Tia really does favor this little annoyance to have taught her that. I really don’t want to kill the filly. She’s just doing what Tia told her to do.
Chrysalis moved her guard, giving Cadance a clear shot at a spot near where her lungs used to be located. The mare, skilled as she was, took the bait and dived in. She raised her leg, letting the incoming blades slip through the holes in her foreleg. She twisted her leg and yanked the daggers to the side, throwing the alicorn off her center of gravity and disarming her in one fell swoop. She followed up the movement with a roundhouse kick, knocking Cadance back and giving herself a clear shot.
I grow tired of waiting. You come to me, now
Twilight took a deep breath and pulled hard at the old, stubborn ley lines that ran deep underneath the Sun Temple. These lines ran deeper, slower than Canterlot’s, and something was already drawing on them. She could feel time start to slow and dilate as the thick, sluggish energy started to work its way out of the ground and into her limbs through her hooves. Magic swirled inside her horn as the energy mixed with her own reserves, active mana sources flaring brightly in her vision.
The chamber around her was no longer dark, glowing geometric, rune-like lines ran across every surface. Zecora, the zebra crouched behind the hastily-made blockade, was covered in a multitude of pinpricks of light from her many potions. Spike blazed with a bright inner light in the center of his chest. The middle of the room, Cadance flashed like a strobe light with every beat of her wings as she clashed with the changeling, and Chrysalis—Twilight’s breath caught in her throat. Chrysalis shined like the noon day sun. The creature looked like she was made of pure mana forced into a vague pony-like shape.
Holy...I am going to need every shred of power I can get from the lines. Twilight sucked in a quick lungful of air. I’m only going to get one shot at this.
Twilight pulled harder at the ley lines, glancing down at where she sensed the rest of the power was being diverted to. It was like looking into some sort of hole. Magic from the lines poured in and just vanished. Oh sweet Sisters, tell me this monster isn’t this powerful and it can do dark magic too! As she watched, the edges of the void in the magic field expanded, drawing more power from the lines and forcing her to pull harder just to keep what she had gathered so far.
Twilight looked back at fight in the middle of the room and formed the matrices in her mind for fire. She wanted it hot, the matrix adjusting itself to add more thermic conversion in a shorter amount of time, to meet her desire. She didn’t want Cadance it get caught in it, the looping strings of probability tightened around the kernel of the spell, sacrificing the overall area of effect for a tiny spot of hellfire. She was going to have to aim the release to ensure the spell transferred all of it’s power directly into Chrysalis’ core. Please...don’t let me miss.
Three things happened at once.
Chrysalis swung her arm, launching the daggers at Twilight’s focusing staff.
Twilight released her spell, the tiny ball of flame passing the daggers in mid-air.
The floor collapsed, the tiles cracking and giving away as the underpinning material, much like the magic in the area, was sucked into a yawning pit of darkness.
Twilight leaped, her spell veering off course slightly in the dilated time, she focused herself on the most important thing: Cadance. The princess was teetering on the uneven stone, falling in slow-motion toward the gaping maw that had opened beneath her. The battlemage pushed all of the remaining dregs of the ley lines’ power into her legs, rocketing herself out across the gulf, her arms outstretched to catch the alicorn.
There was a flash as her spell contacted something, followed by a vibration that would resolve into a crashing roar when sound caught up to her ears. She was almost there. Cadance was almost completely over the void, her wings flaring for purchase, Cadance’s surprised eyes locking with her own. She could almost feel her princess’ coat safely against her own.
Then the room went dark.
Celestia sipped from her warmug. The coffee in it starting to grow cold by her standards. She tapped her horn against the rim and the faithful mug warmed it back to a steamier temperature. She set it down on the desk next to her throne, lifting a short stack of papers in her aura and shuffling them about. She had no real reason to do so, other than to silently tease her majordomo, Raven, with the possibility of getting them mixed up.
She smiled slightly when she saw the unicorn’s eye twitch.
Heheh...I really shouldn’t tease her too much. I’m sure Lulu would scold me for such behavior, but it’s just too funny to watch Raven’s minor coronaries when I so much as restack the paperwork. Celestia let her smirk widen. It’s not like I haven’t been doing this for centuries now. It’s not like I didn’t build this city, this country...the very culture around us. No, I have to get the assistant that thinks I must be going senile.
She pondered that for a moment. Could she actually go senile? Could she one day wake up and find she had lost her mind somewhere along the line? Is that what it’s like for Chryssi? The thought, though not a new one, made her frown. The changeling was a curious example of an immortal. She was a crafted being, which meant all bets were off when came to assumptions. Often, Celestia found herself wondering how Chrysalis’ mind had survived so long beyond what it was designed for.
It had taken her the better part of a century to figure out how the changeling had escaped the ravages of time. Somehow, Chrysalis had found a way to convert emotions into raw mana. She ran on it, feasted on the emotions of those around her without conscious thought. Her body then converted that mana much in the same way a regular mortal converted food and water into energy. Whatever the filly had done to herself, it added up to perpetual life, so long as there were strong enough emotions to feed her. Even though Chrysalis could feed herself, heal from any wound, change her shape and had magic power that at times seemed to rival an alicorn, her mind fared less well.
Sometimes the mare would drift off into her own world. Voices that only she could hear would speak to her, she would become non-communicative for days on end. Sometimes, when she was mimicking a new personality, Chrysalis would slip into a previous one for a moment, picking up a conversation that had been left off decades earlier. Celestia could remember one occasion when Chrysalis’ ‘Monarca’ personality slipped and suddenly she was talking to ‘Silk Spinner’ for a few minutes. It happened infrequently, but when it did, it usually heralded a violent episode of some sort.
She didn’t know if that was Chrysalis’ way of resetting herself, or if it was a function of the dark, twisted magics that made her what she was.
Celestia could remember the first time she had met the changeling and known that is was Chrysalis. She remembered their first meeting, in the temple so long ago, but meeting Crystal again as the creature she became stuck out in her mind. It was late one night, the middle of summer, when the tall changeling revealed herself in her ‘natural’ form. She had been up finishing some paperwork of some sort with Luna in the throne room, walking alone back to her room afterwards. The shadows moved in one of the halls she passed. Celestia stopped, standing there in a shaft of moonlight coming in from the windows.
From the inky darkness, her negative, her opposite, stepped forward. Luna was often compared to her, the sisters ostensibly opposed to each other, but it was Chrysalis that was her mirror. Long legs, trim and strong body, large expressive eyes. All the physical parts matched, but their colors and qualities were flipped. Where Celestia was hale and whole, Chrysalis had holes. Where she had a soft coat and a flowing mane, Chrysalis had a strong exoskeleton and a mane that hung like fine silk. Where she had a dazzling array of colors in her mane and plain feathers in her wings, Chrysalis has a single alluring green-blue color mane and her gossamer wings sparkled with every color under the sun.
For a moment, she had stood there, struck mute by the vision in front of her.
The moment passed when Chrysalis took another step forward, smiling faintly. She had flinched a little then, seeing the fangs the changeling possessed. Celestia could still remember how she had asked Chrysalis who she was in an honestly fearful whisper. Chrysalis hadn’t answered then. She wouldn’t figure out the mysterious creature’s name for several more years as the changeling left clues here and there. What Chrysalis did do was step up to her, her nose inches away from Celestia’s and asked her if she preferred Coltlumbian or Neightucket coffee.
The question was so out of left field that she didn’t react, just standing there and staring into those iridescent jade eyes, and listened to the pounding of her own heart. Chrysalis laughed musically and vanished. Just like that, gone that same way she had come. It had taken Celestia several minutes to unfreeze herself and when she had finally managed to find her way to her bedroom, her very first Warmug sat on her nightstand, topped with a black and green bow and a note that simple stated it was a gift from an admirer.
Celestia shook off the memory and looked at the mug that sat next to her filled with hot coffee. It wasn’t her first, but she treated it the same way. She had broken and lost a few of them over the centuries since that meeting, but each time she did, another would appear at her bedside to take its place a day later.
She was just about to reach for it when the side door to the throne room opened with a bang. Luna, followed closely by Shining Armor, rushed into the room and made a beeline straight for her. Celestia tossed the papers aside for Raven to reorganize and stood up, stepping down from the dias to meet her sister. “Luna? What has you so worked up this early in the afternoon?”
“The Gibbous Shield!” Luna dug her front hooves into the carpet runner and skidded to a halt, well ahead of her attendant. She panted, gasping for breath. “Sis-sister! The shield is down...the one I sealed Sombra in! I felt the remnants of it return to me. Something broke it!”
“Is that...is that even possible, Luna?” Celestia’s eyes widened. Her sister nodded dejectedly. “Okay, then we need to move. If this Sombra is as powerful as you say he once was, then we could have a real problem on our hooves.”
“What would you propose we do?” Luna took a deep lungful of air, willing her heart to slow. “His kingdom was far to the north, beyond what our airspace currently covers and farther still than the shipway network reaches.”
“Then we go there the old fashion way.” Celestia turned. “Raven, court is closed for the foreseeable future. Cancel all of our appointments and issue a statement to the press that a matter of national security has taken our attention.”
The unicorn nodded curtly. “Yes, your Majesty! Should I...should I say when you are to return?”
“As soon as we can.” Celestia’s horn flared with the warm glow of sunlight and her mug lifted from the table to float obediently at her side. She looked back at Luna. “Come sister, looks like both the Sword and Shield are going to be needed for this. We’ll take the Corona. It has a standalone Line Tracer on it, that should be able to take us close enough.”
“We’ll need more than a single airship, Tia.” Luna frowned and bit her lip in thought. “There is no time to launch all of our forces. If the Corona is as fast as the specs say it is, it can get us there in a few days after we leave the network, but that will take over the northern Minotauran Collective boarder. A warship flying over even such a sparsely populated area could spark their aggression.”
“Hopefully the work I’ve had our niece do there will stay their hands for now. We have no other choice, you know that, Luna.”
“I know.” The dark alicorn sighed and turned back toward the door she’d entered from. “I just don’t like it.”
Shining Armor shifted uncomfortably, his eyes following Luna. He cleared his throat. “Um...excuse me, ma’am, but what is going on? It sounds like we’re about to go to war.”
“In a way, we are.” Luna smiled fiercely. “Go to my chambers, fetch my armor. Then go to the barracks and bring any top tier Maidens you can find. This is going to be a small, fast operation. I want hooves and steel assembled at the castle launch pad in twenty minutes.”
Shining saluted smartly. “Yes, ma’am!”
Luna watched him gallop off, turning back to her sister when they were otherwise alone. Celestia looked thoughtful, but made no move to summon her own forces. “What about your Battlemages?”
Celestia shrugged. “I don’t have any of my seniors in Canterlot at the moment.” She smirked at Luna’s surprised stare. “I’ve been stretched thin chasing down info on these new changelings that showed up as well as hunting for signs of a different ‘Midnight Lord.’ My two top Battlemages are in the field and completely out of touch.”
“Twilight Sparkle, I know, but what about Sunset Shimmer? I thought she was sent out on a mission weeks ago to Seavannah.” Luna raised an eyebrow. “What happened with that?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t received a mission report of any sort in this whole time.” Celestia shook her head. “I fear the worst, but I hope she has simply been busy dealing with the siren problem they were having. I haven’t had any new complaints about it come in, just some expense sheets to cover damages in the harbour. I wish Sunset was here, but we’ll just have to handle this with your Shieldmaidens and the two of us.”
Celestia didn’t say anything for a few moments as the two cantered through the halls toward the military ward. “I mean, that should be enough, right?”
Luna swallowed hard, the wheels of her support harness whispering against the marble tiles. “Goddess Above, I hope so.”
