Draenor has fallen, torn by the fel magics of the legion. Into the endless night, countless brave souls were cast... few ever to be counted, let alone mourned. One amongst them was pulled from the dark - though the fall would cost her dearly.
Draenor is broken and the very realm weeps. Those bravest of heroes that fell with the dying world were forever lost to their friends. But somewhere, in the vastness of space, a few of their cries were heard... and answered.
For an unfortunate few, the old gods came to collect. For fewer still, their magics returned them, though forever changed. But for one, lone Forsaken, another's voice has answered the call.
It is, perhaps, for the best though that her trip has cost her so dearly.
Lady Sylvanas had never promised them that they would return, she hadn't promised them anything really. All she had said was that it needed to be done and they had been willing, every last one of them, to ride or fly, or even just run off into that distant, horrible, land.
No one could fault the Dark Lady. She had saved them all more times than any could count. Where others had given up hope, had run screaming into the night or drawn up arms... where others had surrendered life or given in to despair... where family and friends had become the enemy, she had called upon them to rise up and break their shackles. She had fled with them, shedding her very own flesh and bone to raise them higher. She had pulled them from madness and torture and had helped them to make themselves anew. She was the Dark Lady. She was Sylvanas Windrunner, the Banshee Queen.
And when she spoke, the Forsaken listened.
She never gave orders, she made requests of her people. And when she had brought the horrible truth of the collapse of the timeways to their knowledge, even the lowliest of the rotbrains or rattlecage skeletons understood: Sylvanas needed their help.
Of course it was given. It must be given. It was only right. She had pulled them all from the wasting, timeless, death of Arthas and had returned them to their freedom. It had been a long road, one fraught with suffering and loss, but it had been also their redemption.
Of course they had gone.
Into the blazing heat. Across the red clay. Below the burning sky and further than the very edges of their world. The Forsaken had marched with The Horde, decaying banners and leather had marched beside heaving Orc and the towering Troll and Tauren. In step with Goblin and Blood Elf alike, while even a few of the elusive Pandaren would take their cause. Far to the west, the Alliance poured into the Blasted Lands, eventually to come to face the horrors as well.
Some had gone on to face the Iron Horde, while others, younger or weaker, had struggled back through the collapsing timeways to maintain the embattled history of the Outlands... the fallen remains of Draenor. Wherever they went, they did so knowing that should they fail, all of Azeroth would burn in the fickle fabric of the Titan's tapestry... for their very history was under attack... their very beings, their redemption, would be lost.
Too many had come. Too many had departed. And far, far, too much had been fought to not answer the call.
And so she had done so. She had dusted off her best robes, mended their many holes and patched that which could yet hold stitch-work, and had drawn out the pitted remains of her mace once more and answered her mistress, her Dark Lady, her... unknowing friend.
The walk had been long, aching bones and long weathered flesh working against the laws of life, but she had made it. She had called up her steed, a long dead stallion named Mercium and had set herself along the path. She had ridden along roads forgotten by the living and had suped in mausoleums, she had found a band of like minded travelers and parted ways with them only when they had succumb to the treachery of their own greed. Even then, she had tried to save them, the poor devils.
When she had found herself upon the road to the portal, she had taken one last look at her home, memorizing the cleft in the great stone barrier that rimmed the Blasted Lands, and had turned faithfully towards the baked waste before her, not knowing if she might ever return to the land she had given her life for... so many times.
The last mile had been easy, naught but the most stalwart of beasts would approach, and those that did were dealt with severely. Even there, amongst the warping scar of the land where two worlds met in three different times, yes even there there were those who would choose petty squabbles over the right of life. For those, she responded as any bringer of light would... she dismissed them as the beasts they were. Perhaps in their deaths, some good would come of their worldly beings... perhaps their flesh would enrich the meager soil or feed the ravenous beasts that stole a living from the barren land.
She had finally seen it, amidst a barricade of steel and stone, flesh and magics, all bent upon one purpose, to invade and subjugate their world... her world. She had watched as the beastly orcs streamed from the great stone gate like some form of river, its eddies iron and its mists spittle and blood. Their eyes, the glinting ferocity of the untempered Horde, their will that of the conqueror. These were not the Horde of which her brethren belonged. These were not the Horde she had fought and died against, only to later ally. These were not the noble savages whose minds and souls had been tainted and redeemed, whose very nature screamed against such madness.... these were those who had sloughed off their temptations and had never felt the sting of failure, of subjugation. These were the petulant, angry, seething, selfish bones of their forefathers... these were the ones who should have died and given the future its heroes.
These were the Iron Horde.
She had watched, for a time, debating if she could truly hate them. It was true, they would bring death on a horrific scale, but was that not what had happened already so many times? They would blight the land, poisoning its children for generations, and yet it had happened all before. They would enslave and torture and murder relentlessly, and still, these things had happened. Were they truly so different from those that already resided upon the face of Azeroth?
And then she healed a troll, his arm a bleeding stump as his brother lifted it to beat one of the invaders to death. Yes... they were cruel, but their cruelty was not lost upon the face of Azeroth. Azeroth, however, had its fill of wickedness already, there was room for no more.
Their cruelty belonged in the past, and in the past it must remain.
Taking a moment more to heal the troll, who flexed his fingers and offered up an appreciative nod, she strode towards the Dark Portal and stepped through.
As she felt the world slide away, she briefly cast her gaze upon the countless stars that swam before her empty eyes. Here, in the Dark Portal, the vastness of the cosmos was set before her as to all who would witness its inky depths. Here, she saw glittering stars and blushes of color, entire strokes of brilliant light and swaths of deepest pitch. Here, in the between, she could know peace for her unliving heart.
And all too soon it was over. She strode out upon the great gray slab of some half constructed pyramid, a sky of planets and moons, and the unrelenting clamor of battle. Casting about, her skeletal fingers plucked the ancient mace from her hip as a glowing skin of light enveloped her body. With one last cry, she leapt into the bloodshed, determined to save the world that had killed her and denied her eternal rest.
Here, she could finally purge the evil of those that had evaded destiny... for if they lived, they would poison those who had finally purged so many evils of their land.
The battles had been long. The trials had been cruel. She had gained and lost more friends than she had reason to recall, and yet here she was, staring at the dying heart of a world.
Somewhere, in the countless battles of her time on Draenor, something had broken. She was no mage, and thus her attention had been on stemming the flow of blood rather than upon the mechanics of arcane theory, but she had somehow known that the rules had changed.
The Iron Horde was gone. The Legion suddenly seemed restored. Where great machines had belched clouds of acrid smoke into plush jungles and feral beasts had torn flesh and bone, suddenly demons poured over a cracked and baked landscape. Great gouts of green fire erupted from mountains and flowed freely from fissures in the flesh of the planet itself. Gone were the Pandaren and Tauren and Trolls. Gone were the Human and Gnome and elves of both breeds. Gone were the Horde and Alliance. Gone was her most exalted Lady Sylvanas.
Gone was time proper. And in its stead, the great monoliths and alters of the Burning Legion. Upon the flesh of Draenor crawled and scuttled and seethed the tainted bodies of the original horde... the demon tainted souls of the orcish clans and the evil will of the Eredar. Standing before them all, only a handful of valiant souls, screaming in agony as the very soul of the planet bled and died.
She stood, watching in horror as the Light deserted them... as the strain of so much evil tore apart the very body of that which sustained them.
And then.... the world broke.
A great tremor rippled through the ground followed by the keening wail of the twisted wildlife of the place. Plumes of burning ash and globs of molten stone erupted from fissure and peak alike. Before her eyes, an entire swath of the horizon seemed to jolt and then disappear into the cloudy murk of a rapidly approaching crack.
With horror, she realized that she was witnessing the final moments of Draenor... the final seconds of the planet as it tore itself to pieces, casting them off like so much chaff.
She turned to run, to hide, to do anything, but even as the glow of her magics lit upon her flesh, the ground dropped from beneath her feet and tumbled into the twisting magics of a realm sundered. Momentarily weightless, she grasped at her mace, clutching it tightly as she prayed for aide, for salvation... for forgiveness of what she had had to do.
And then the cold came.
She hadn't needed to breathe for years, but the creeping chill sapped her strength and stole her will. She found her fingers refused to open and her tattered cloak would no longer flutter with the passage of the errant stone or tumbling mass. Her eyes had been missing since her first death, but even the pale yellow of the wisp of magic that resided in her vacant sockets seemed stripped of its freedoms.
She gazed out of the depths of space, the strange twisting splays of ether, and tumbled slowly through its emptiness. Every few minutes, her tumble would afford her a falling view of the remains of the ruined sphere, suspended in the reaches of space, growing smaller with each turn. She saw other victims, likewise cast off, slowly tumbling as well, though a number would be missing with each turn, victims of debris or perhaps other less obvious failings.
Eventually, even the segments of the realm that had been blown off along side of her had faded into the distance, leaving her drifting... tumbling slowly... through the darkness.
Finally, she prayed again.
"I cannot bear this nothing. I knew what had to be done, and for that I am sorry, but I cannot bear this purgatory longer. Please, Sylvanas, Light, Anyone.... h........ help me."
Celestia, Princess and immortal ruler of Equestria, lay upon a cushion of rich red satin, a gift of some remark from years gone by. Before her stood a glistening white unicorn whose overcoat displayed numerous marks of importance and whose voice spoke not only of his request, but of a sense of self importance likely bolstered by those self-same marks upon his coat.
Outwardly, Celestia smiled pleasantly, nodding as he made 'points' or raising a delicately penciled eyebrow as he denounced 'grievous' harms upon his person, tactfully showing exactly what would garner the most comfort without giving undue license with his story.
Inwardly, she was rolling her eyes at the fickle and spoiled brat of a noble who was seeking remunerations for the slight of a pet cat 'gracing' and 'befouling' his 'priceless' sculptures.... the piles of vegetation that he dried and worked into different colored piles. It did not escape her attention that his latest 'masterpiece' had been constructed of nearly 120 pounds of catnip.
Such was the cost of having an open court, one where her subjects could come to her with any concern. Quietly, she sipped a cup of tea, one of the few liberties she allowed herself while at court, and considered the issue. While certainly a trespass, it could not be said that the cat was privy to the rule of law. Likewise, the harm done, regardless of what the noble said, was of such dubious degree as to not even merit a police report... which was likely why he had sought her out. The cat's owner, if there even was one, had not been found, and even if they had, the fine would be so trivial as to necessitate a check to reimburse them for their travel.... less fine of course. She briefly wondered who was 'protecting' the 'sculpture' in question while the noble was in court and had to stifle a laugh at the thought of him returning home to likely find dozens of strays in his yard eyes glazed as they stumbled around.
Privately though, she had heard enough. Whatever this stallion's desires were, he was seeking aid from the wrong source. Politely sipping her tea again, Celestia carefully raised a gold plated hoof to silence the petitioner before speaking.
"It seems to me that you have been brought to great harm by this event, and I wish to commend you on your stoicism in the face of such hardship." The stallion smiled slightly at the half-praise. "And to that end, I will do what I can to see that this devious creature is brought to justice. You have the offender with you I am told?"
With a nod, the unicorn lit his horn and floated a wooden box, locked with a dark metal clasp, before her and set it down at the foot of her throne.
"Then we shall see to it personally." Celestia stood, her mane flowing out behind her in an ethereal wind as she flared her wings dramatically. Lighting her horn, the lock exploded as the top of the box was wrenched free. Inwardly she chuckled at the noble's reaction to the destruction of what must have been a rather expensive box... which he expertly stifled.
Glancing down into the box, she almost dropped her act. A kitten, mottled white and chocolate brown, blinked tiny green eyes up at her as it stumbled on legs that couldn't have been more than 2 weeks old. Fixing the kitten with a fiery glare she knew it couldn't understand, she lit her horn and, in a flash, the box was empty. For effect, she conjured a bit of smoke and the scent of smoldering hair.
Smiling as she looked up, she met the eyes of the stallion who now looked as if he were about to make a mess upon her throne room floor.
"It is done. That beast shall trouble you no further. I am always happy to serve my humble subjects and would offer you my company should you wish to join me for lunch, as a way of apologizing for the long wait."
The stallion, shaking slightly, swallowed before speaking. "Ah.... why thank you Princess. Your hospitality truly knows no bounds. But... I would never seek to impose upon you as such... so I must decline. Thank you again.... for helping with my troubles."
She nodded politely, dismissing him as he rose.
And the moment the doors were closed, she barked out laughter most unprincess-like as the guards gave her quiet smiles. It was not unheard of for the Diarch of the sun to have a bit of fun with her subjects, far from it... she fully enjoyed spending time with them and celebrating whatever seemed most sensible at the moment... but occasionally, her fun had led to misunderstandings.
One of which was what the guard approaching the throne had in mind.
"My Princess, was it wise to egg him on like that? To suggest you had invoked your wrath upon whatever was in the box?"
Celestia, valiantly containing her mirth, turned to address Ardent Bulwark, one of her older, and perhaps more sensible, guards. "Perhaps not, but at the same time I doubt he would have settled for a firm 'no' without feeling slighted. Besides, this is the third time this month that he has been in here for something silly - it was about time he found satisfaction."
Bulwark smirked before curbing his reaction. "Even so, your highness, it is a fair chance that you may have frightened him somewhat... and you know what kind of damage a frightened noble, however foolish, can cause."
Celestia's smile slowly stilled. There was more truth in that statement than she would like to admit. As petty and silly at he was, he was yet a noble, and his words had weight amongst the citizenry. Sighing, she turned toward one of the stewards and whispered a few words before he trotted off.
"There, now he shall be properly compensated as well as assured that the feline in question has been returned from the moon and set straight in its ways." She rolled her eyes while another smile graced her features. "Wouldn't Luna be thrilled to have gotten a word in on that one."
Bulwark, shaking his head slightly with a smile, returned to his post as the next petitioner was announced. Oddly, the Princess suddenly rose as a startled look crossed her face. Taking their cue, the stallions of the guard fell into position forming a glittering circle of gold plated enchanted steel around their Princess.
Now was not the time for petty concerns.
-~oOo~-
Drifting in the frozen space between worlds, she continued to tumble. After hearing the voice, she had worried she would be caught up by one of the olde gods or whatever Draenor's equivalent were. The voice had been clear and pure, so unlike any voice she had heard in recent memory, and far and away different from what she had encountered in dungeons and the forgotten parts of the world, but it had been so different that she could not imagine it being anything she knew. It had been warm, full of concern, and entirely alien. Hearing it had been like seeing one of the Dranei for the first time: both curious and frightening. It was both familiar and wholly strange, like a familiar face glimpsed in a dark hallway. It was comforting in its tone but terrifying in its impossibility.
Her reflections had been interrupted, however, when she noticed a small fleck that seemed to be growing between her tumbles. Curiously, even though she had lost sight of any of the other victims as she had drifted further and further away, this speck was seeming to grow. The slow realization that it was likely another piece of debris careening through space brought up the suddenly frightening notion that she might, once more, actually be able to find solid ground. The frighting part being that said ground was tumbling towards her at an entirely unhealthy speed.
The collision with the speeding lump of stone was so swift that she hadn't even time enough to recognize the impact. One moment she had been tumbling, watching as the lump of dark something continued to approach, and the next she had lost sight of it as her tumble took it out of view. A moment later and she felt a lurch as her tumble abruptly changed course and she was graced with the brief sight of the cart sized stone continuing on, apparently unconcerned with its recent collision with her lower half - which spun further and further away as she watched.
Momentarily stunned, she would have blinked had she eyelids or the capacity to move them. In that brief moment, she had lost the lower portion of her body, shattered and torn away by one of the last acts of a dying world. The irony was not lost upon her. She had, after all, gone to Draenor to insure its destruction to protect her own world... and in so doing, Draenor had obligingly perished and yet returned the favor by striking back at her before she was even gone. Time was funny like that she supposed.
It took her a few minutes for the reality of her situation to truly set in. She was frozen, careening through the vast reaches between worlds, broken and undying, witness to the great emptiness that was space, and she would remain such until the time when she either crashed, silent and frozen, into another world, plummeted into a star, or (perhaps worst of all) simply faded from creation. She was Forsaken, the undead, and most likely timeless in that respect, but her body had been reanimated by the Lich King and her soul had been scavenged by his dark magics. It was only through the slow weakening of his magics that the Forsaken had even come to be... deals struck with demons and an unending wrath of a banshee to give them purpose... but she knew deep down that she was not immortal.
On Azeroth, one did not die a true death but rarely. There were priests and shamans, paladins and even warlocks, any of which could bring one back from the grave... and failing them, the spirits themselves would grant new life were one to request it. But out here... between the stars... she could not imagine a single spirit wishing to persist.
And if they did, she had no thought as to how she might reach them.
So she was left with the frightening concept of a slow, painless, fading as the magics that bound her soul to her own tattered remains simply ran out. What would it be like? Would she simply start to lose her senses? Would she find it harder to think or remember? Would she even know?
"Thou poor creature, abide thy passage but a bit longer, for we are coming for thee. Ours has heard your plea and seek to hasten thy return, the eyes of the Herald Sun and gaze of the Fey Moon be upon thee."
Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, Element of Magic, Former Student of Princess Celestia, Former Librarian of Ponyville, Savior of Princess Luna, and multi-time protector and hero of Equestria... was eating a bagel.
It was a good bagel.
It had apple chips, raisins, cinnamon, and a smear of sweet cream butter.
Yes, it was a good bagel.
She moaned loudly as she desperately tried to combat the massive migraine that had assaulted her in the wee hours of the morning. From out of nowhere, she had been viciously yanked from slumber and subjected to this, entirely unwarranted, affront to the decency of civilized thought.
Spike had helpfully provided breakfast and a dark room, having drawn the thick drapes when he had been awoken by her groans. He was a good assistant. A good little dragon who had wisely fled the room quickly to avoid potentially upsetting her.
He would be a wise dragon someday.
"Oh Celestia, what did I do to deserve this?" Twilight moaned, bagel forgotten, as she covered her aching head with her hooves.
-~oOo~-
Several hours later, Twilight was finally able to stand the light and sound of day. She still had no idea what had given her such a migraine; she hadn't been in any world-ending battles in more than a month, and the doctors in Canterlot had assured her that the head trauma was nothing her alicorn body wouldn't heal from overnight (thank you very much Rainbow Dash), and yet she felt as if she had been beaten for hours on end by one of Sombra's cruel spells.
Whatever it had been had thankfully passed though, which meant that now she could finally get back on schedule. So much to do, so much to catch up on.
Levitating a scroll up as she trotted across one of the many empty rooms in her crystalline castle, she began to pen in adjustments to compensate for her migraine. It simply wouldn't do to let something small, like her well being, get in the way of her duties.
So focused was she in her planning that she almost missed the sound of Spike's feet as he ran up to meet her.
"Twilight! Letter from the Princess!" He shouted as he ran, the sealed scroll held before him.
Plucking the scroll from his claws, Twilight broke the seal and read as the letter floated in the soft magenta glow of her magic.
Moments later, she looked up and turned, trotting back towards her room, checklist forgotten. "Spike, something's happened and the Princesses have requested us in Canterlot. Let's get your bag ready - the train leaves in less than 20 minutes."
-~oOo~-
"Sister," Luna started before pausing to yawn, "I understand you are better versed in recent events than I, but I simply must protest this unhealthy hour. The SUN is not yet passed even two-chime."
Celestia, having closed court for the day in the wake of ... something ... had summoned her sister from slumber, something that was nearly unheard of since her return. The younger Princess was well known for her legendary capacity for slumber, having been honed over a millennium on the moon, and was notoriously difficult to rouse. So strong was her affinity for the night that it was said she had actually cat-napped through the changeling invasion... something that nopony was willing to question her about.
Privately, Celestia wondered if Luna hadn't simply watched out of a curious sense of irony. The two were, after all, known for pranking one another upon occasion.
"Sister, I know it is not a comfortable time to be up for you but I fear something terrible has happened. Just before I sent for you, I heard the most horrible thing. I would call it a scream but..." Celestia paused, considering how best to explain the cry that she had felt strongly enough to seem as a true sound. " I - I just don't know how best to describe it I'm afraid."
Luna, eyes closed as she listened, sniffed the air briefly as one of the royal caretakers approached with a steaming pot of some blessed concoction Celestia called 'coffee' before nodding slowly. "I see."
Celestia blinked. "You see?"
"Yes, sister, I see. You heard something in your bright, and might I add very shiny, day and thought that I should be informed. Thank you for your consideration. I am now returning to mine slumber."
Celestia, Diarch of Equestria, Bringer of the Sun, and All-Around-Fun-To-Have-Tea-With-Pony, watched stunned as her sister promptly drained her pot of coffee and rose... only to suddenly gag on the hot substance. She reached a hoof out to her sister, ready to offer help when Luna suddenly coughed and put a hoof to her head.
"Celestia..."
"Yes Luna? What is it? How can I help?"
"Pen a missive to your stu... to Princess Twilight. We shall be entertaining a most unusual guest of unfortunate constitution in very short order. Send for Cadence as well, though I know not if her aide shall be of any use, and prepare a set of chambers. One for boarding, the other for vale disuse once committed."
Celestia watched her sister for a moment before nodding. "Kibitz, please have such arrangements made."
And as the Royal assistant nodded and promptly trotted off to handle his Princess' request, Celestia watched as Luna sat back down upon her throne and sighed. If Luna had decided to stay awake, she must have discovered something that she, herself, had missed.
-~oOo~-
So, it was an elder god, or rather gods, that had found her. The thought brought little comfort as she continued her wretched tumble through the dark. She had faltered, had fallen to fear, and in her weakness had called out for help. Of course the Light wouldn't respond. The Light favored the bold and the helpless, and she was neither. Weakened, broken, ... frightened.... all of these things: yes.
But bold? Helpless? No.
She had done many things; things that would earn her respect and a bit of coin, but she had never done such great things on her own. She had always helped... she protected life so that when the endless fighting finally drew to a close, there would yet be those who could celebrate its passage. She was a priestess, hardly a valiant warrior or first line of defense. Hers was the task of healing from a distance, of mending wounds and harboring the sick.
Yet, neither was she helpless. She did not hide behind great walls or cower in the citadels or fortress cities like Stormwind or Orgrimmar. Her home was Lordaeron, more recently the Undercity, and while its thick stone still stood proudly, its walls crumbled and life waned in the persistent curse of undeath that afflicted all that Arthas' hand had touched. She was not helpless... before her death, she had been a seamstress, and even then she had fought when the cursed undead rose and started their march upon the living. She had fought hard, eventually barricading herself within her cottage, and had been taken not by combat, but by the plague itself. When she had risen like all the others, she had taken up arms and marched upon Silvermoon, but by then The Dark Lady had started her rebellion, and she had shaken loose her yoke. She had taken to the priesthood, determined to purge the curse and atone for her deeds, and in so doing, took up a mace and learned to heal. Her hand had slain thousands, and her magics had spared many many more.
It made sense, then, that the Light would shun her faithless plea... she had forsaken it as much as it would later forsake her. Perhaps this was justice after all. Maybe this 'Herald Sun' and 'Fey Moon' would finally break her. Maybe this would be her final penance. Maybe this would be...
"I don't think it's working Luna, I don't hear anything."
"Your Majesties, the rooms are prepared as you have requested. The Guard have been suitably stationed beyond the second bulwark. Refreshments and medical supplies have been delivered. Court has been closed for the day and existing supplicants have been supplied with temporary lodging as well as compensation for their recorded employment," Kibitz stated with an air of satisfaction before noticing a smudge upon the marble tile of the room the three princesses currently occupied.
"Thank you Kibitz, that will be all then. Please enjoy your break but remain within the courtyard should we have need of your services," Celestia offered before stifling a smile as the elderly stallion surreptitiously wiped a faint patch of grime from a tile before bowing and departing.
For a few moments Celestia, Luna and Twilight Sparkle stood quietly before Luna's rich voice cut through the calm. "it would be wise to delay no longer, the creature is injured and adrift. I see no purpose in delaying further. If Cadence is unable to teleport such a great distance, it is unlikely that she will arrive in time to assist the creature before it succumbs."
Twilight, youngest of the three by far, glanced up with interest. The first she had heard of this 'creature' had been upon entering the hall and her natural curiosity fought stalwartly against prudence... her inclination being to throw caution to the wind in an effort to discover the creature's secrets. Luna had attempted to open communications with it before Twilight had even arrived, but had discovered nothing beyond silence and a sense of persistent magic - perhaps what was keeping the creature itself alive. Indeed, Luna had still been focused intently upon the vastly overpowered spell when Twilight had walked in and been invited to 'partake of the night within the day'... something she had jumped at. Despite Luna's assurances that the creature was yet alive, Twilight's sensitive ears heard nothing over the faint tinkling of the spell itself.
An amused, though no less concerned, Celestia had nearly resorted to applying a crowbar to separate the young princess from her sister when Twilight's focus caused her to lose track of time.
"Twilight, though I'm sure Luna would like few things more than to spend hours discussing the grand tapestry of her night with you, we might have a bit more of a direct method of learning about the creature ... should we take the time to summon it here as planned."
Though momentarily startled, Twilight's bright blush and quick "Sorry Princess!" brought a smile to Celestia's face. After all, the two had been nearly inseparable for the better part of Twilight's life and seeing her excitement and hunger for knowledge was something that Celestia still took great pride in. Though Luna huffed at the interruption, she too offered her sister a small smile... evidence of how much had changed since her return.
"We're summoning it here though?" Twilight asked as she turned to join Celestia and Luna upon a softly glowing spell circle on the floor.
"Of course. It would be inequine to let the poor thing suffer when it is so clearly in pain and we have the means to help it." Celestia smiled softly as her magic began to channel that of her sister and former student. After a moment her horn dimmed and she looked to the other two, "Are you ready?"
Without hesitation, both Luna and Twilight nodded before all three princesses vanished with a golden flash and a soft pop.
-~oOo~-
There had been a third voice, she was certain of it. It had been younger, lighter, and somehow curious. It had seemed the voice of a child, full of boundless trust and endless hope. It had been like a breath of fresh air in lungs that hadn't tasted such a thing in years.
It had been a third voice. There had been three voices. She was sure of it. It couldn't be her imagination. It certainly wasn't the Light... her time in Shattrath had given her ample opportunity to be witness to the beings that brought the Light. A'dal had been seared into her mind since the very first moment she had seen it.... him.... and she instinctively thought of him whenever she heard their voices. A'dal was one of the Naaru and stood apart from any being she had seen before or since.
A'dal, and indeed any of the Naaru she had seen, was a being of crystalline light at least three times her height, that constantly floated and spun in the air. With a voice like the tinkling of tiny bells, and the gleaming clarity of the light he gave off, A'dal was nothing less than the iconic image of love and mercy. Being in his presence was like bathing oneself in the tender affections of a forgotten mother. To hear his voice was to know the hymns of angels that so many churches preached the existence of.
These voices were not like A'dal. They were not from the Light, but neither did they sound as the titans or any of the Olde Gods she had been unlucky enough to stumble across. THOSE voices never truly slept and they certainly didn't sound curious or concerned. She remembered her last foray into the Maw of Madness, the festering pit of teeth and bile that had opened up in the Twilight Highlands. She clearly recalled the tentacles that snaked along the ground, grasping and violating anything they touched while whispers invaded the minds of every creature near enough to sense the being that had slumbered below. The living flesh that oozed and throbbed, vile fluids eating the bodies of enemy and ally alike, and the putrid air that invaded their lungs and prevented simply flying away... all the horrors and violations of that thing had flooded her with a vicious hatred of any such touch. Only her faith in the Light and the undying will of the Forsaken had given her purpose enough to cast off its shackles and strike back at the seething infection with the handful of heroes who had braved it with her.
In moments like those, alliances meant nothing. Orc and Dwarf had thrown aside differences while Human and Troll had defended one another as brethren. Her own people, the Forsaken, had shouldered their own grievances and cast their lot with life... something that they were intimately at odds with. And, in the end, while even the monolithic figures of their peoples stood at sword points, they had banded together to strike down the madness of that which would consume them.
No... those voices were not the Olde Gods, but neither were they heroes or legends with which she could draw parallels. They were something else entirely.
They were something new.
They had to be, because out in the endless cold, she continued to tumble alone.
She wasn't certain when she had actually become aware of it but the merciless black was no longer spinning. A handful of stars, blurry through the frosted glaze of ice that had grown over her eye sockets, were visible just off center from what she could see. They appeared as nothing so much as a faint blush in the endless night sky, but they were real, and more importantly, they gave a point of reference.
She was no longer tumbling, and that made all the difference because if she were no longer turning, something must have happened.
-~oOo~-
The three princesses reappeared in what Twilight recognized as the antechamber to the Royal Treasury. White marble and golden accents littered the room while inlaid stonework gave counterpoint to the almost reckless use of precious metals in everything from floor tiles to the vault doors themselves. Were it any room save the Royal Canterlot Treasury, such decadence would have been hideously gaudy... here though, it was just another room with important contents.
While Twilight had visited the treasury prior, and had received a stipend for many years, she still took a moment to appreciate the careful work that had gone into the rooms construction. Where the average pony might see decoration, and socialites might see regality, Twilight Sparkle saw the combined efforts of weeks of back breaking labor fused with hundreds of hours of spellcraft that culminated in a room so secure that even Discord had trouble breaking in.
Even so, she had long ago spent days studying the spells and forms involved in its construction (a feat in and of itself), and had discovered a few methods of circumventing its safeguards. Having presented a paper detailing her findings, she had been dismayed several years later when it was discovered that the guard she had given the paper to had only paid, the then unicorn filly, lip service to her concerns and nothing had been done to correct the vaults shortcomings. Discord had been able to easily bypass the effects to obtain the Elements of Harmony... something that had quickly been addressed once he had been petrified once more.
Yet, despite the reworked spells, Celestia and Luna stepped away from the vault doors, walking purposefully down a servant doorway and towards a portion of the castle that Twilight, just now, realized she could not recall ever seeing before. Confusion bubbled up from some deep part of her as the notion sank in... she had explored the castle for years, literally walking over every inch of the structure, and mapping each hallway. She had found passages that had gone unnoticed for decades, even going so far as to rediscover the whereabouts of the original cistern used for heating the castles hot running water... something that a clever unicorn architect had hidden away in a pocket of folded space.
That she could have missed such an obvious hallway did not seem possible.
Then again, the Princesses were much older than any other living pony, and were renowned for their forethought. Perhaps Celestia had hidden some part of the castle away from even her most trusted of friends? Perhaps Celestia was only revealing this secret now because she had ascended to become a princess herself?
Were it not for the inquisitive glance from Princess Luna, Twilight might have squealed with glee at the thought of discovering something even the Princesses thought should remain secret. Probably.
Instead, the silent attention of Princess Luna brought back the memory of the reason for their current walk, and in turn, Twilight's thoughts shifted towards the more mundane task of crisis planning.
Whatever they were planning to summon was injured, crying for help with so much force that it had literally been heard across the stars. Medical supplies had been prepared, yes, but would they be enough? What kinds of injury could be so grievous that the victim would attract the attention of beings from another world? Would it even be able to be helped? Would it even be recognizable?
What if the Princesses were too late? What if she made a mistake? What if...
Twilight stopped dead in the hallway, the clattering of her hooves causing Celestia to look back and pause. "Twilight?"
"What if the reason it's in so much pain is that it was defeated?"
While Celestia seemed to consider the question, Luna's response was as quick and pointed as a rapier; "Would that such a thing be, such suffering as this would not instruct such a creature. Wouldst thou have us turn away and maintain its plight?"
Twilight grimaced at the rebuke but quickly stepped towards Luna as she worked the thought over in her head. "No... No, I don't mean we should let it suffer. We don't know what's wrong or how it happened, but I was just thinking that for something to be in such great pain, something big.... something truly powerful must have occurred.... and I just can't help but think that the thing that makes the biggest impact around here are the Elements. I doubt that being hit by them feels all too comfor-" Twilight's eyes suddenly blinked as she stammered out an apology, "I-I didn't mean... I didn't.... you... I'm sorry Princess... I just meant Discord or ...."
Princess Luna's features softened slightly. "Think naught of it. The Nightmare was a cruel and selfish being, I ... regret much of those times, but 'tis not the touch of the Elements that burns... their light so much as the.... realization of what it has cost others and oneself." Luna looked away, as if considering her words carefully, "Nay, for all Discord's dramatics, the Elements themselves are as gentle and loving as thine matron's loving embrace... 'tis the tearing and ravages of wickedness clinging to ones being that elicits such primal woe."
Luna's eyes flicked back to Twilight's, briefly glinting a faded green before she tentatively embraced the kingdom's youngest princess. "And 'tis something I bemoan not - for thine own care, we are returned."
Celestia, who had been silent during the exchange, softly cleared her throat as Luna released the smaller alicorn. "You are not incorrect Twilight, the creature may turn out to be wicked, dangerous, or suffering from a just punishment - these are things we cannot know right now, but it may also be the innocent victim of evil or even simple chance. What we do not know greatly outweighs what we do... and in such times, we must act with the weight of our conscience." Princess Celestia lifted her head a bit higher, a small smile tipping the edges of her lips. "And I would rather bring a monster here and have to resolve its actions amongst our own people than do nothing and cause a kind soul to languish in suffering and the apathy of despair."
The sound of ice fracturing brought her focus back to the present. It had been so dark and so cold that she hadn't even realized when she had stopped paying attention.
At least while tumbling the view had changed but, when she had inexplicably come to rest, things had grown so still there wasn't anything to hold her focus. Floating frozen in the endless night of space left very little to attend to.
But the ice, the sound of it cracking.... that caught her attention. It was a visceral thing, sharp and yet soft. Quiet enough that it was more felt than rightly heard, but by comparison to the the absolute silence she had been subjected to, it seemed as the breaking of the world.
Well.... of another world.
The lances of pain began to wake her frozen nerves. Tiny slivers of ice stabbing and cutting away precious bits as the glaze shattered and flaked into the dark in a slowly expanding cloud of glistening mirrors. The burning of alien magic began to wash over her frozen skin, peeling away 'not-body' from 'body' as surely as any surgeon's scalpel. Even through the numbness of dead flesh, she could feel the spread of the burning grasp of the spell.
Faintly, in the silvery cloud of tiny chips of ice and frozen flesh, her own ghostly visage reflected back on her in the golden light of the spell.
Silently, she screamed.
Her lungs hadn't functioned in years anyway.
-~oOo~-
"Sister, whatever you are doing, you are bringing more agony than aid. Relent and we shall carry your burden," Luna declared with a quick glance to Celestia.
Twilight swallowed as she felt a growing weight seem to sluice off the spellform hovering between them, great arcs of phantom light spilling from the slowly rotating shape as the three Princesses struggled to maintain the unraveling weave of arcane power.
She knew that the Princesses... the actual Princesses... had been doing most of the work. She knew that it was mostly a gesture to help her feel included, but just how much help Celestia had been giving suddenly seemed unbelievably overwhelming. Gram after gram, kilo after kilo, stone after stone the draw upon her magic increased; the weight always bearing down and slowly wearing away at her will to maintain the complex spell from shear exhaustion.
She had known that she was a princess only in name before today, but the effortless ease with which Celestia and Luna had both borne the ponderous spell only drove home just how insignificant her own contribution was.
"Twilight Sparkle! Focus!" came the whip-like command of Princess Luna. "Without our sister's volume of magic, we cannot hope to succeed if your attention waivers. We- I cannot carry this craft alone."
Alone? Why wou-... right.... Element of Magic. Of course. Celestia and Luna were both ancient before ponies even roamed the land... of course they were strong, but strength means nothing without will, talent, skill, or attention to detail. Where Celestia maintained raw power and patience, Luna was a mistress of finesse and respite. While both were absurdly powerful, their talents complimented one another, and without Celestia's half Luna would be at a significant disadvantage.
Luna was relying on her to fill in for Celestia?!?!? No no no no nononononononono!
Wait! Don't lose focus!
Celestia wouldn't have asked if she hadn't been sure I could handle this...
Twilight Sparkle, Princess of.... something.... redoubled her efforts and dug in as she felt her horn begin to heat from the effort.
-~oOo~-
The sky was burning. Darkness and silence were being torn away in an unholy inferno of suffering and senseless experience.
She could feel her skin smoldering as it flecked away - tiny charred cinders wafting off in the delicious fever dreams of some eldritch beast intent on consuming her in the slowest manner possible. Her exposed elbows and ribs shimmered with emberglow as the heat continued to splinter the necrotic bone, further chipping away at her sanity. Her mace, a constant and comforting presence for years, having endured and carried her through countless battles and saving thousands of lives, had become a seething mass of agony as it warped from the preternatural heat and deformed in the deathgrip of her burning hands.
What was left of her spine arched as the last of her icy coffin splintered off into the darkness, its frigid balm suddenly unable to dull what little of her body had been spared the horror of the living fire that even now crept across her exposed spine and sought out the ragged bits of her entrails that served as a reminder of her missing lower half.
Her scream, silent in the depths of space, suddenly exploded into the virgin air of a chamber, ravaging and ripping at the ears of those three who looked on in horror as she fell the half meter to the blissfully cold stone floor - a smoking, smoldering, shuddering mass of gore and wasted flesh, as acrid smoke clawed towards the ceiling as if a thing alive.
A moment later, a twisted lump of white hot metal lodged itself firmly into her ribcage, having twisted the crumbled remains of her fingers free. It's horrid mass crumpled the blackened bone as if it were cray paper. The handle, still aglow with what remained of the leather grip, slammed down into the gaping cavern of her abdomen, forcing the smoking twists of her intestines to unravel as they squirmed free of their fleshy prison before igniting from contact with the near-molten metal.
No. Her lungs hadn't functioned in nearly a decade, but that had never stopped the Forsaken from speaking. The magics that bound them took their orders from something other than the flesh - which was good, considering how precious little she had left.
-~oOo~-
The scream that split the air destroyed the tenuous hold Twilight Sparkle had been struggling to maintain since taking over for Princess Celestia. It was as unequine a sound as had ever been uttered in the fair lands of Equestria, a sound which would flay flesh from bone and left nightmare echos howling from parts of the mind that no pony should ever have reason to explore.
It was the sound of pure, unmitigated, suffering.
Momentarily frozen, her mind valiantly fighting back the rictus of horror, Twilight's last remaining grasp on the spellform slipped.
Celestia's mouth started the first hints of a warning shout while Luna's eyes clenched tighter in the backlash of arcane forces. A burning thing, for there was no better word, seemed to almost squirm into the room from a tiny point of golden light in a portion of the failing spell that was most certainly not supposed to maintain a corporeal body. Threads of golden spellfield slid across it leaving burning trails upon already smoldering flesh. Midnight and lavender pools spilled across the remains, sputtering and popping at the clearly missing segments as tongues of flame and smoke spit and tore at the exposed flesh.
Something had gone wrong; horribly, cataclysmicly, wrong. The spell was designed to focus upon a being, to enshroud and insulate the injured, to stabilize and secure their life before pulling them fully and wholly into the summoning matrix. It should have worked. There were safeguards and contingencies... there were protocols and protective layers.... so many layers... to ensure that something like that didn't happen..... couldn't happen.
A second peal of sound, like that of a stone falling from one of Rarity's gem carts into a rut of thick sludge, announced the arrival of a glowing lump of something which promptly crumpled what remained of their summoned victim. Twilight's stomach clenched as the body seemed to twist as if somehow still alive while the white-hot lump collapsed what she could only guess had once been its ribcage. As it lay, the body continued to sputter and sizzle as coils of blackened matter unspooled from within, a wretched stench filling the air.
To her utter horror, what remained of a shattered and immolated jaw opened and shut in obvious suffering before a second, tortured, wail tore the night apart.
And then, as if to add insult to injury, the spellform began to destabilize.
-~oOo~-
Three Princesses stood around the smoldering lump resting upon the cracked blue and white tile of what had been intended as a recovery room. The three said nothing. There was nothing to say.
What had started out as a rescue mission had, for some unknown reason, instead become an execution of the most haunting type. It had taken minutes for the thing to stop screaming, summoning the Royal Guard, who had arrived in a panic, weapons drawn. Even after they had arrived, the thing continued to twist and contort, as if trying desperately to flee from what was consuming it. Somehow, even with it's body torn and broken, burning and crushed, it had continued to scream, seemingly without need for biological mechanisms.
Two of the guard had soiled their armor. Princess Twilight had wretched until she could evacuate no more from her stomach... at which point she had heaved tirelessly in the corner of the room, clutching at her ears until the screaming had abruptly stopped.
One of the guard had watched in horror until the body stopped clawing at the tile, a process which took nearly 2 minutes after it had ceased to scream. He had watched until the broken thing had grown still before looking at his princesses and asking what it had done to deserve their wrath.
The three could only look back in silence until the guard had nodded and left. Where he had gone was a question nopony had deigned to seek answers to.
The Guard, having no reason to remain, had retreated and, nearly an hour later, had not sought out their Princesses. They had their orders: remain behind the second bulwark and wait for instruction.
It was Princess Celestia who finally broke the silence, her voice a raw whisper that spoke of forgotten scars and lost dreams, "It was the spell that kept it alive so long... the... the fail-safes.... the magic was trying to heal it as it burned... just adding more fuel..."
Princess Luna regarded the charred lump stoicly, but remained silent as wisps of smoke continued to climb from its twisted form.
"Princess..." Twilight weakly plead, "what did I do wrong?"
Celestia's pupils grew to fill almost her entire iris. She didn't think this was her fault, did she? This.... this accident, this horrible, horrible tragedy.... Twilight Sparkle couldn't possibly think this was her doing.
And then Celestia remembered having to visit her faithful student years ago when her assistant had sent a plea to save Twilight from herself. The town had forgiven her, of course, but nopony could forget the panic that had led their inquisitive librarian to enslave the minds of the populace all in an effort not to be 'tardy' with a report on friendship. Rumors still circulated about a small ragdoll with an uncharacteristic allure...
"No Twilight," the Princess of the Sun stated clearly, "this horrible thing was not your fault. You did nothing wrong."
"But I didn't complete the spell! It fell apart because I cou-"
"No. The spell failed, but it wasn't because of you. I dare say, it may have only functioned as well as it did because of your excellence in spellcasting. No... the failure..." Celestia closed her eyes and lowered her head, "... the failure was mine."
The ceremony had been simple. Nopony knew who, or even what, it had been, but the Princesses had insisted that it be treated with the utmost care and respect.
The Nightwatch had provided security and the Dayguard had awarded it honors as a war hero. While it meant nothing to the common pony, the rank afforded it a degree of respect and care that few other things could draw from the normally stoic Royal Guard. Even days later, Princess Luna caught sight of more than one off duty Nightwatch guard electing to stand watch over the small plot that had been assigned.
She tried to smile with a touch of pride when she witnessed one such guard removing her helm as she read the tiny silver placard upon its grave which read "Once lost, whose shores remain shrouded, a home given. In peace may ye rest."
The guard had stood over the grave for some time before finally snapping a sharp salute, nodding once, and turning to go.
Luna had watched, an unusual sense of loss entering her mind. Was this how her subjects had taken to death? Was this how they treated every passing or was it only those that her fellow royalty deemed? Was so much importance only given because they had somehow brought about its end?
So lost in her thoughts was she, that she failed to notice when her sister entered and approached.
"You think that we did the right thing Luna?"
The voice, startling as it had been, seemed almost lost amongst the gentle breeze that fluttered the curtains to the balcony from which Luna had been watching.
"We think we had little choice, given all we hold dear, Sister."
The two stood in companionable silence as another guard approached the small plot, only to drop something before turning away and walking into the garden.
"I've been over the spell time and time again Luna.... There's nothing wrong with it."
"So We are to believe that that was the suffering it had endured to garner our attentions?"
Again, the two watched as a pony strolled by the plot, this time pausing and scrutinizing the plaque briefly before walking on.
"I don't know Luna. I truly don't, but the spell was not what caused..... that. Something went wrong-"
"Obviously."
"- but it wasn't the summoning."
Luna remained still for a moment before turning to face her sister. "Sister... Celestia... We- I.... I wish to know: why do they stare at the placard when they know not the being, to the Earth, given?"
Celestia studied her sister's face for a moment, a sad expression clouding her comforting nature. "Because, Luna, it is precisely because they do not know the po... being, beneath."
"I do not understand."
"No.... I wouldn't think that you would." Celestia took a slow breath as she looked out over the soft lights of Canterlot - the golds and ambers of the torchlights and candles dancing across the marbles and white washed stone of the prominent businesses alike. "Things are not as they were before your absence. Back then, everypony knew when a hero fell or a new legend was born. Everypony heard or saw, or met those ponies.... or at least knew somepony who had. Everpony was intimately connected with everypony.... they could all share in the honors of glories or the grief of loss. Everypony felt, acutely, the loss of such great ponies." Celestia turned to face her sister, her voice falling to a halfhearted whisper, "Now? Now they struggle to connect with one another even as they have more than their ancestors ever did."
Luna's features remained placid. "Ah... I see." She turned to face the small plot once more, squinting into the night. "So, they stare because they feel that they should feel connected, but know not what connects them to one whom they have no knowledge of."
Celestia brushed up against her sister, lowering her head to hug the smaller alicorn. "Yes Luna." and then with a tiny hint of playfulness, "that, and they don't have your wonderful eyesight in the dark."
"Hush you, I'm trying to connect to a hero I never knew," Luna snipped back.... though, perhaps, with a very faint hint of a smile.
-~oOo~-
Princess Twilight Sparkle lay awake in bed, eyes clenched shut as she crushed a thick tome to her chest in a desperate way. Before her, a second libram lay, stories of fairies, sprites and goodly spirits littered its yellowed pages as if friends to offer solace in her time of need.
She had been awake, now, for six days, unable to sleep... unable to find silence in even the most secluded and secure room in her castle. Her friends had all come by, worried about her unexplained disappearance, but once they had seen her state, they had all made arrangements to be available.
Rarity had canceled a business trip to Manehatten... something that would never have happened a few years back. Applejack had sent a letter to Apple Cobbler to visit and cover for her on the farm. Fluttershy had brought as many of her cutest, softest, and friendliest animal friends to keep Twilight company as she could, and had taken to sleeping outside Twilight's own bedchambers in case she needed anything. Rainbow Dash had... looked uncomfortable... in the utmost... but had made sure to stop by every hour, on the hour, without regard for anything, to make sure she wasn't alone.
Pinkie's mane had deflated the moment she had seen Twilight. She had blinked back something and quickly left to the confusion of all. Nearly an hour later, she had returned with a smallish brown package wrapped in oilcloth and had said nothing as she walked through the castle into the kitchen. A few minutes later, she returned with small bowls of steaming custard, drizzled with some type of overly sweet syrup..... 'comfort food' she had called it.
It had been the only thing Twilight had been able to keep down that week.
Right now, Twilight knew, just outside her door, less than 30 feet away, Fluttershy was softly sleeping, probably covered in a soft blanket of gently breathing bunnies, chipmunks, squirrels, and other little things, patiently waiting to offer any help she could. In three minutes, Rainbow Dash would land on the balcony, look in, and whisper soft words of encouragement... awesomely no doubt... before looking around uncomfortably and promising to be back in an hour. Twilight new she really meant in 58 minutes... but it was the thought that mattered. Applejack would be arriving in 3 hours to let Fluttershy go home and tend to her animals, at which point Pinkie would start making breakfast for everyone... and day seven would begin in -
A series of white-hot hammers fell from some unknown chamber in the castle, ringing out with tortured screams as another creature was crushed through the cosmos, lit on fire, and extruded through a hole in space far, far too small for it, only to wail as magic tore it apart while still living. She could feel it, feel the drain of her own magic leaving her, pulling and ripping little parts of the creature off, then searing the wounds closed only to peel new parts away in an endless cycle.
Her body ached from the tension, her hooves tearing tiny curls from the cover of the book she clutched desperately to her hammering chest. She hadn't any tears left to shed but her eyes burned with unfulfilled need to release something... anything.
Her body trembled as the twelfth hammer landed, the screams dying with the echo of its voice.
A muffled thump on her balcony heralded the arrival of Rainbow Dash who, after a moment, softly entered.
She wasn't supposed to come in. Rainbow Dash never came in.
A moment later, the bed shifted and the mattress sank ever so slightly. Pegassi were fairly light after all. A tentative leg slipped over her side as a wind tossed coat smelling of green fields and fresh rain pressed up against her back in a hug still chilly from flight.
"I'm sorry Twilight. I don't know what happened, but we should have been there. I should have been there." The body behind her began to shudder in small not-crying-because-awesome-ponies-don't-cry motions.
"I'm so, so sorry Twilight, whatever it was, you shouldn't have had to face it alone. This... this is all my fault," was the whispered apology the pegasus offered before rolling off the bed and tearing off into the night.
For a few moments, Twilight was still. Her breathing came in soft breezes as her hooves slid from the book clutched to her chest. Sometime before the next hammer fell, Twilight Sparkle, Princess of ... friendship... finally drifted off to sleep.
A week since the summoning, for the first time, the grandfather clock tolled the hour instead of a burning hammer.
Magnus was a simple stallion in his own mind. A simple stallion with simple needs who had a simple duty and lived a simple life.
He got up before dawn, washed, ate a small meal of millet, oats, milk and honey, and prepared for his shift. The first hour of his day would be taken with such preparations as checking his gear, visiting the barracks, and making the required stop at the armory for any repairs or shift changes that might be required.
Nine days ago, he had been reassigned from parapet duty to 'The Plot.'
He hadn't understood the change at the time, and had asked the question any sensible stallion would: "What the heck is 'The Plot'?" Unsurprisingly, at least in retrospect, the officer had responded with a simple "Don't ask questions, do your job."
So, for the first three days, he had stood stoically beside a small garden bench, next to a birdbath, in a patch of carefully trimmed ivy, precisely one and one half meters from a patch of freshly turned soil littered with small flowers. He stood ready, tirelessly guarding a patch of flowers against any that might do it harm. He stood, a silent sentinel, because it was his duty.
For three days, he guarded the patch of flowers. For three days, he held his spear at exactly the right angle, facing exactly the right direction, blinking at exactly the proper interval, and turning to leave exactly when the shift change officer relieved him. He watched as ponies strolled by, ignoring him as most were wont to do. He saw a strange pattern start to form: almost nopony noticed him, but an unusual number of guards visited the patch of ground... silently at that.
On the forth day, Mistral, one of Princess Luna's personal guard, wandered by and stopped at the flowers. Her wings, tucked tightly to her sides and her pitch colored mane pulled in a braid reminiscent of the scroll work that decorated a number of palace tapestries.
She was a quiet one, he recalled, prone to long droughts of silence during the mixed shifts every guard was required to participate in on occasion, but she had a life to her that he found endearing. While she might not be chatty and rarely spoke to anyone save the Princesses, she had a disarming smile and would often smirk out a laugh so quiet it resembled a soft pant more than proper laughter. And while he found her slitted pupils a bit distracting, overall, he quite enjoyed her company.
Mistral had approached the plot with a care that confused Magnus. While most of the ponies that visited remained quiet, none had shown quite the reluctance that Mistral had. Her first steps toward the plot had halted abruptly, indecision apparent on her face. When, after a moment, she had resumed her approach, her wings tightened around her sides in an clearly unintended display of nervous protection.
It had confused him to see the normally relaxed, though quiet, mare acting so guarded. It was almost as if she had some kind of personal aversion to the subject of his protection.
It took a moment for him to realize she had spoken, and a moment more to process that she had been addressing him.
"Do you know if it was a mare or stallion, Magnus?"
Breaking his stoic facade to look at her, he weighed his response. He actually knew nothing of his assignment other than he was supposed to stand guard over a patch of flowers for a decent number of hours every day. Any questions he had thought to ask had been summed up in the officer's response already... namely, he only needed to do his job.
"I'm sorry Mistral, I'm just here to guard the flowers. They're apparently very important for some reason."
The look the mare gave him was a mix of confusion followed quickly by understanding. "Ah. So they never told you what you're guarding.... and knowing you, you didn't need to know to do your job."
It was more than she had spoken to him in the four months they had shared shifts.
Mistral apparently took his silence as permission to explain. Gesturing over towards the patch of slightly wilted flowers, she nodded, "Something happened a few days ago. Nopony's saying much about what exactly went on, but word is that all the Princesses, except Cadance, rushed off to do something. Celestia closed the Day Court and even Luna was rushing around in the middle of the day. Sparkle showed up from Ponyville and the three of them disappeared somewhere into the castle to do something. The Day Guard's being pretty tight lipped about the whole thing, even though they were stationed well into the night, but next thing you know, Gentry's quit the guard, the entire unit set to 'help' clams up, and the Princesses are ordering a funeral for a war hero."
She looked quietly towards his face, as neutral an expression as her little fanged mouth could muster. "You're guarding a grave Magnus - a grave for somepony the Princesses don't want to ever forget."
-~oOo~-
She awoke to the uncomfortable pressure of something crushing atop her. It was dark and damp, pinning her solidly to whatever it was she was resting upon, so much so that she couldn't draw a breath. Panic began to flood her mind.
Somebody! Anybody! Help me!
And then, almost as quickly as it came, the panic was gone. She knew where she was, what had happened. Some 'hero' had finally come back home, likely at the King's command, and had laid waste to her little farm. Her husband and child had both acted, striking out at the interloper, while she had fumbled with the lock to the cabin. She had heard the wet squelching and the dull thumps as her family had fallen. She had known, vaguely, what it had meant, but at the time, it hadn't mattered.
What did matter was that there was someone alive out there. There was someone living and her master had made it perfectly clear that the living were to be undone.
How else could the undead come to be?
And so, she had fumbled with the lock, rotting flesh peeling back or falling off in great ichorous gobs, until the lock had slipped from her sticky, skeletonized fingers, and alerted the living to her presence.
It hadn't even been a fight. One moment, she was scraping at the locked door, confused why the lock on her side wouldn't open, and the next, a shadow darkened her window and the world erupted in reds and yellows.
As she toppled, she heard the door being kicked in and struggled to reach the heavy boots of the invader. Before she could touch it though, a heavy axe had become inexplicably lodged in her ribcage.
The 'hero' must have been a pious one; he had taken the time to bury the dead. It hadn't mattered that they had risen once already.
Somewhere in her shattered mind, she hoped that she would have done the same.
-~oOo~-
"I suppose something like this should have been expected," the Princess remarked upon reading the royal gardener's request for even more flowers. Her little ponies, it seemed, while polite and dignified in her presence, were not above sneaking snacks while the Guard weren't looking.
It had become almost a game in the two weeks since the ceremony; she would wake, raise the sun, see her sister for breakfast/dinner, open the Hall for Day Court, break for lunch, and receive yet another request for more flowers.
Princess Celestia chuckled quietly to herself, causing Kibitz to raise an inquisitive brow.
"Kibitz, please see to it that the royal gardener is instructed to place a bowl of ...oh let's say elderberries next to the plot and to plant a few day lilies and request that he be creative in choosing another bitter flower for our disrespectful visitors."
Kibitz nodded politely before trotting off to carry the message.
-~oOo~-
Darkness again. Always the darkness. At least it wasn't cold this time, or hot for that matter.
She had woken some time ago into the dark damp press of soil. It was a sensation she had become intimately familiar with, albeit under perpetually unpleasant circumstances. It was a comfort in only one sense - she knew she was no longer in the endless abyss of the lost Draenor.
That she was buried again meant that she was on some planet, likely with some form of sapient life. That she had been buried meant that she would likely be thought dead and left forgotten once interred. That she had been dead before going off to save the timeways was immaterial. Such things were of little import where the Forsaken were involved.
What did confuse her, however, was the apparent loss of time between her screaming agony and being dumped, no doubt unceremoniously, into what was likely some horrendously overcrowded mass grave.
Normally when she had been cut down, she at least had a vague recollection of movement or the odd flashes of awareness that would lead her spirit back to her body. Yet, there had been no faded world or spirit healer to guide her back. There had been.... nothing.
Instead, she could only recall horrendous agony that finally overwhelmed her ability to remain conscious. Sometime after, she assumed, whatever had decided to kill her had apparently disposed of her in the most efficient manner possible: throwing her in some hole.
Not that she was complaining really. After all, being thought dead meant that she could escape and potentially find a way back or, failing that, at least sneak off until she could figure out where she was.
Her musings were interrupted by a strange, though not unknown, sensation. Somewhere, down near the bottom of her ribcage, there was the sense of movement - of sliding and creeping. Something was trying to make a home in the remains of her organs.... again. Probably a worm or a collection of maggots. Weevils or earwigs.... much less pleasant, but still tolerable. With a relaxed and breathless huff, she resolved to wait it out.
After all, the living didn't stay long that way around a Forsaken - even the good ones felt the touch of the grave eventually.
"Sister," the voice called, rousing the princess of the sun from her slumber, "We require your council."
Princess Luna stood patiently in the open doorway of Princess Celestia's private bedchambers, mane shifting lazily in the otherwise dark room. She had waited quietly after knocking, after calling gently, after coughing no fewer than the politically required three times, and now she was preparing to do the unthinkable: raise the sun.
Waiting just a long enough to see that the momentary shift in her sister's form had not manifested a shining example of royal wakefulness, Luna lit her horn in a huff.
Seconds later, there was a startled shriek, the clattering of a (now empty) bucket of ice water, and the rather undignified dropping of the Princess of the Sun onto her, now thoroughly soaked, bedsheets.
Sputtering in the confused outrage of one who had not been mishandled in centuries, Celestia cast about the room as her horn lit into a searing blaze of light.
Luna, for her own part, silently waited, a deep blue film slipping across her features as her sister's reflexive casting splashed across her shield with little impact other than a gaudy light show. "Are you quite done dear Sister?"
Blinking as she recognized the intruder and quietly biting back words that would be quite unbecoming of her status, Celestia finally settled upon drying herself as she considered her words.
"Luna, I'm sure there is a ve-"
"The Plot is disturbed Sister. We have a grave robber."
-~oOo~-
Getting out had been almost distressingly easy.
Getting away had been quite the opposite.
Despite having been buried, whatever evil had killed her had seen fit to litter the area with armored beasts, many of which seemed to possess some strange form of magic. They were squat little horse things, perhaps a zherva or two, or the occasional flying variety. Whatever they were, there were a lot of them, and in her current state, she hadn't felt confident enough to engage.
At the moment, she was squinting out into the night, huddled beneath some kind of leafy bush, staring out upon the patrolling creatures and looking for an opening to escape. Having been in many a tight place over the years, patience and prudence had become almost second nature to her. Waiting and watching had become nearly a habit whenever she had found herself in such situations, and she knew that there was always a time where something would go wrong... where someone would make a mistake.
She just had to capitalize upon it.
That, of course, assumed that she could capitalize upon it, which was something she found herself questioning more and more by the minute. Idly, she flexed the broken stubs of her fingers while watching a pair of passing pegasusses.... pegassi? Whatever the plural of pegasus was.... there were two of them flying low to the ground, armor glinting in the remarkably bright moonlight.
Waiting a few more moments after the pair had passed, she quickly glanced towards the nearby wall, checking on the heavily armored horse-thing that had been making rounds the last half hour. Clear skies were good, but being caught by that beast would be trouble. He was a big one, nearly a head taller than the one that had been 'guarding' her grave, and was clearly no stranger to combat. The golden crest upon his helm had no shortage of knicks and small dents, something she had noted on nearly all of her allies before the loss of Draenor. It was almost a right of passage to collect a few truly damaging hits before calling oneself a hero after all... and no self respecting Horde would be caught dead without their fair share of scars.
Suppressing a morbid chuckle, she briefly glanced back along her shoulder at the abrupt truncation of her torso... if she hadn't been a hero before, she certainly would qualify now.
Looking back out across the momentarily clear patch of garden, she steeled herself before scuttling forward with just her arms. Racing as best she could across the remarkably well maintained grasses, she angled towards what appeared to be a dense flowerbed with waxy leaves. The stubs of her fingers dug into the plush grass, dragging her small body across the lawn at what would surely be a truly alarming rate were she anything other than Forsaken, before lurching to a violent stop just short of her goal.
Glancing back, she found herself caught on what appeared to be a discarded trowel.
With a quiet snarl, she reached back to tug the offending tool free, only to freeze as she noticed a frightfully unique figure perched atop a balcony overlooking the clearing. The beast stood at least twice as tall as the creatures that patrolled the grounds below, but where they wore armor of gold or silver, the observer wore some kind of softly glimmering blue metal. Upon its sides rested two immense wings, black as pitch in the moonlight, and from its head sprouted a single saber-like horn. But what had caused her to freeze in momentary horror was the appearance of its mane and tail... both of which seemed to be made of the bottomless depths of Draenor's lost skies.
Snapping to her senses, she yanked the trowel free and wrenched herself forward under the thick foliage, pressing herself into the concealing shadows. Whatever that thing was, she somehow knew it was responsible for her tortured arrival: it's mane and tail could not be a coincidence.
With a growl of frustration, she remained hidden, determined not to be discovered by the creature who watched over the infernal zoo that was her current prison.
-~oOo~-
What should have taken a few minutes, instead had drug on throughout the night. Despite questioning the guard who had reported the offense, nothing could be discovered of either the graverobber or their means of offense.
While the crime was clearly evident (an empty grave with a clearly dug hole), nopony could figure out how they had infiltrated the castle grounds, evaded notice, dug the hole, taken the corpse, and then fled... all while under the watchful eyes of no less than two dozen guards in total.
Worse yet, even though the crime had been reported 'within moments of its commission,' neither the Lunar Guard, nor the Nightwatch, had been able to detect any escaping individuals. Vandals were not unknown, but nopony was believed to be foolish enough to attempt such a brazen act.
All of this had left Princess Celestia with a rather remarkable headache.
"And you checked the area for arcane residue, thaumic resonance and any form of artifice?" the Solar Diarch inquired while slowly sipping a cup of chamomile tea with her eyes closed.
The grizzled stallion leading the investigation remained passive as he reported. "Yes, your majesty. We've had three teams canvasing the area since we where alerted to the crime. The only spells detected were those cast by the team trying to detect more spells. Nothing's out of place. No hoofprints or clawprints to speak of... certainly nothing large enough to steal a corpse at least. No evidence of climbing gear or martial tools, so it's not looking like a rogue guard or military action. Nopony's been seen in the castle airspace who wasn't supposed to be there already." He paused to clear his throat. "Permission to speculate Ma'am?"
Still sipping her tea, Celestia nodded slightly as Luna maintained her vigil upon the balcony overlooking the garden.
The stallion coughed softly. "It's as if, and I'm just laying this out there your highness... not implying anything, but it's like there weren't no pony who broke in at all. Like somepony just up and made it disappear."
Hearing a set of hooves approach, both the stallion and Princess Celestia looked towards the hall doors as a weathered old stallion approached, leaving a small trail of dirt and plant matter as he approached.
While Celestia raised a weary eyebrow with a faint hint of amusement, the stallion leading the investigation frowned openly.
"What is the meaning of this nonsense?" he ordered.
The older stallion ignored him completely as he dropped into a bow before straining back to his hooves. "Beggin' your pardon Highness, but you said that anypony with anything that seemed odd should come and tell ya in case it were important, so, that's what I'm here ta do."
With a growl, the officer snapped back, "Just what do you think you're doing coming in here and disrupting an inve-"
Celestia's calm voice cut through and silenced him instantly. "Duty, while I admire your sense of protocol, I feel I should inform you that this is the royal gardener... one who is even more intimately familiar with the garden, and thus your crime scene, than even I. His council may be quite valuable." She smiled before quietly mentioning, in a quite offhoof manner, "Not to mention, that as a civilian, he would not be under your supervision at all, but would be considered a resident of the castle... and thus subject to my protection."
The polite reminder of hierarchy seemed to instantly geld the officer, who suddenly seemed to have nothing to add.
Noisesome morning shouting averted, Princess Celestia looked once more towards her gardener and smiled. "You were saying?"
"Thank you Princess. I was just comin' up to let you know that one'r my trowels is gone."
"A... trowel? A bloody shovel?" the officer once more started, only to flinch and snap his mouth shut as he glanced towards his princess.
"Darn right a bloody trowel. Not a shovel you brass coated id'jit!" the gardener fumed. "There's a reason I'm a gardener and you're out there playing with spears. I don't need to talk down to the folks who give me food and I don't need to turn in MY tools to somepony else at the end of my shift. I'm right fine with planting and growin' stuff, but I don't lose or damage none of my tools like you do. I knows 'em. I takes care of 'em. And I DON'T lose them."
With a glare hard enough to crack tile, the gardener looked the officer dead in the eyes. "And one more thing, this gardener wore more medals than you have on your sash right now, thirty years before he became a gardener you worthless little swabby... and he STILL outranks you."
Celestia suppressed the urge to smirk, instead choosing to hide her mirth in another sip of tea as she watched the officer pale under the glare of her gardener.
"I believe you have made your point to our young Duty. But, you were saying... about your trowel?"
After a moment, the old gardener turned back towards his princess, the stern glare dissolving into the friendly old face of a kindly stallion once more. "Pardon, Princess, my manners get a bit moth-eaten with upstarts." He chuckled before setting his face into a serious one once more. "But like I were sayin', my trowel be missin', and I know where I were using it... none too far from the Plot neither. 'Bout four patches away... near the waxferns an' mossgreens. Stuck it right inner' ground when I heard the commotion... went back 'bout 5 minutes later and it were gone."
Celestia thought for a moment before calling out for one of the court aides. "Mr.... Plume was it?" At the peach unicorn's nod, she continued. "Mr. Plume, please assist out esteemed gardener in tracking down his trowel. It may be nothing, but it could also be the tool our graverobber acquired to commit their crime. It would certainly explain why nopony found evidence of tools in any approach if they had been obtained within the castle grounds."
With a nod, the two left at a reasonable clip... leaving Celestia with her, now considerably humbled, investigator.
"I'm sorry for that interruption... you were saying?" she prompted with a very slight smile.
Minutes ticked by. Minutes she could have been using to discover her whereabouts. Minutes she could have been using to heal. Minutes she could have been using to try and contact ... someone. But instead she lay under a patch of remarkably well maintained leaves, clutching a garden shovel, and waiting for that monstrous abomination of equine nightmares to look away.
It would only take a few seconds. If that thing would go somewhere else, wander to the other side of the balcony, turn its head or even just close its blasted eyes for a few moments, she could scuttle off under the cover of the plants, and make a clean escape. Instead, it remained like some horrible monolith whose unflinching gaze lingered over the garden as some kind of predator waiting for its prey.
Worse yet, the longer she remained hidden in the brush, the more of those strange horse things showed up. It was as if they had suddenly been drawn to the area. She had seen beast people before, of course. Between Kobolds, Murlocs, Owlkin, and countless others, Azeroth was littered with sentient life. Even so, seeing what looked to be little more than small beasts, barely suitable as mounts, donning armor and baring weapons... that was a strange experience. Seeing one of them with such a notably different appearance was actually rather troubling.
Making it worse was the simple fact that she hadn't been able to properly recover yet.
While she was awake and aware, she was nowhere well enough to be slinging around spells. And while she was mobile, dragging one's ribcage around by ones hands was certainly not an ideal mode of transportation. Being armed only with a dull, though well kept, shovel did not exactly fill her with confidence either.
Despite all this though, she knew that she had to escape. Sylvannas had made such instruction absolutely clear: should one of the Forsaken be captured, it was imperative that they find a means to free themselves... Sylvannas could not spare Forsaken to free Forsaken. Her people, while physically fragile, were remarkably resilient, but since the Forsaken were a new race by comparison, there just weren't enough to go around. And while other members of the Horde and Alliance could replenish their numbers, the Forsaken had only recently started to employ some of Arthas' former underlings to make up for their losses.
In short, the Forsaken simply couldn't meet the numbers to rescue every captive... so Sylvannas had reminded them all that they had already conquered oppression, slavery, and even death. If they couldn't free themselves, she had no room for them in her Forsaken.
Licking lips as dry as oiled leather, she carefully slid her fingers over the hilt of the trowel.
If she couldn't find an opening, well, she would have to make one.
-~oOo~-
Twilight Sparkle flipped through the eighth edition of Stormshard's Compendium of Arcane Artifice as she continued to search for something to compare to the misshapen lump of stone and metal that sat before her on a lightly lacquered pedestal. The lump had clearly been something of importance prior to its destruction and subsequent implantation within the ribcage of its former owner.
Its surface looked worked, perhaps even etched, and there were clearly portions that had been repaired many times, but for all of its evident durability, the tool had been subjected to simply too much heat. It was a miracle it hadn't simply been reduced to slag and crystalline mineral matrices.
Turning another page, Twilight paused. The image within the book was some kind of heavy maul. One that had been refined to incorporate a reinforced leveraging arm, a series of structural anchor points, a mass, and a grip. More importantly, the caption clearly stated that such weapons where held in high regard amongst clan or tribal factions; they were seen as both an outward expression of power and an overt icon of respect.
Twilight tilted her head as she levitated the remains of the object closer, pulling it from the pedestal upon which it had been resting for her examination. She studied the deformations, counting out ten compression points and the clear imprinting of the hands of the creature prior to its cooling.
Blinking, she considered the order of her memories. She recalled the failing spell, the scream, and then the botched summoning that had resulted in the creature being dropped a number of feet onto the tile. It had been on fire the moment she had seen it, but it hadn't had the tool initially. It had been moments later that the tool had popped into existence and buried itself into the creature.
Picking her memories apart, careful not to focus too much upon the screams or the gasping and writhing creature, she tried to remember if she had seen it ever grasp the tool.
With a bit of pride, a nearby quill started to scratch out yet another note regarding the object: it had been a personal, if not unique, item that had been specifically fitted to conform to the creature's grip. It had most likely been a weapon, though one which was at least partly a status symbol, implying a higher social order. Further, the incorporation of multiple types of material and construction styles implied the prevalence of trade and industry, if not outright commerce. Such a weapon would likely have been carried by an individual of some renown, though what its people held in esteem could not be known from the paltry offerings the tool supplied.
Twilight smiled ruefully. At least she could reasonably assume that the creature they had tried to save had not been a villain.
-~oOo~-
Combing through the Royal Canterlot Gardens was not exactly what he had had in mind when being told that he was needed due to a 'breach of security'. Throwing his armor on, charging to the armory, retrieving his spear, and racing to attention on the parade grounds expecting an imminent conflict and/or possible invasion only to be told to get a lantern and start looking for 'somepony with no morals' in the garden... well... he was mentally making notes on how to avoid this in today's entry in the letter home.
Seriously... the castle has ponies specifically for this kind of thing! Ponies who... look for....and find... things.
Silent Sentinel sighed as he rounded a patch of particularly diabolical looking daisies ('imported!' the sign read) and proceeded to dutifully shine his lantern over the small watershed at their base.
Nothing.
Not that he had expected anything to be hiding in a patch of flowers really, but really? Searching the garden? What, exactly, did the commander really think they were going to find in a garden? Angry moles? Uppity rabbits? He paused to consider that thought; wrathful rabbits.... the idea sounded ludicrous. Who ever heard of an angry bunny?
As if to answer his unasked question, a low growl caught his attention, sending his lantern skittering across the lawn as he spun his spear into his mouth. Dropping low in anticipation of a lunge, he snapped his tail as he instinctively rooted himself to the ground and checked his balance and footing.
How had something snuck up on him? He'd looked over the entire east quarter and there'd been nothing!
Must be a pegasus then. His head flicked sideways, quickly scanning the skies for any hint of a contrail... any clouds that his assailant might have been using... anything that the blasted, lazy, Cumulus Guard had missed.
Still nothing.
How the heck? No clouds. Ok... no clouds, no contrail, no hint that the pegassi guard had been alerted.... must be a unicorn. Glancing around to check his immediate area, he straightened up and turned slowly, scanning the walls and foliage for anything that was large enough to have hidden a pony capable of teleporting. Sure, magic tended to make a distinctive sound when cast, teleporting moreso with its weird pop-sproing sound, but he hadn't heard a thing before the growl. It was almost as if -
And there it was again! He leapt into the air, flipping his spear down hoping to catch the invader by surprise, only to see empty ground at his feet. Spinning his head quickly as he landed a few feet away, he glared a challenge to the empty lawn.
And then he felt it touch his stomach right as the growling came again.
"Definitely not putting this in the letter... can't let Mom know I freaked out because I missed dinner last night playing Ogres and Oubliettes with the guys."
Clearing his throat, Silent Sentinel, brave member of the Canterlot Royal Guard, charged with protecting the citizenry from harm and carrying out the whim and will of his multiple princesses, calmly holstered his spear and, totally not acting the least bit embarrassed about his growling stomach, trotted over to fetch his lantern.
"Glad the guys didn't see that," he thought, "I'd never hear the end of it."
With a small smile and a shake of his head, he looked back over his shoulder to where Princess Luna was still visible upon her balcony.
"Thank Celestia she was looking over near Argent's group... I'd hate to have her thinking I was goofing off," he thought as the Princess of the Night's gaze swept silently across the grounds again.
Despite his embarrassment though, he was secretly relieved that the princess was watching over them. Whoever it was that had broken in was apparently skilled enough to evade the entire guardstaff, not to mention the guards actively on duty in the vicinity. Somepony with those kind of skills was a real, if uncommon, threat. That he'd been told it was a graverobber.... that just turned his stomach. What kind of pony dug up the dead?
A growl from his stomach arrested his musings as he glanced first down to his stomach, and then up at the gaze of Princess Luna, who seemed to be staring directly at him for the briefest of moments.
He swallowed.
"Horseapples," he thought, "now I really look like an idiot."
The moment the princess looked away, he swallowed and turned back towards the search.
"If the tromping of the guards didn't give us away, my stomach will," he muttered angrily as he swept the golden glow of his lantern across the flowerbeds once more.
After a moment, the pool of light slowly swept back over the flowers, coming to rest on the patch that read Daisies... the imported ones.
"Can't have the intruder alerted by my gut..." he glanced back towards the balcony, Princess Luna once more looking off to the south west as she swept the garden. "And they're only daisies after all...."
Swallowing his pride and stifling the months of training that drilled in discipline and beat out even the notion of 'snacking' on the property of the Princesses, he bent his neck and took a quick bite of the flowers... and came face to face with a pair of bright yellow glow flies.
Blinking at the unexpected brightness hidden under the flowers, Silent Sentinel swallowed and shook his head, trying to regain his night vision, only to hear the growl again.
"Great, not even eating shuts you up," he grumbled before realizing that his stomach wasn't rumbling at all and the growling hadn't stopped.
Months of guard training was the only thing that saved him as he yanked his muzzle back just as a glinting piece of metal thunked into the ground where his nose had been a split second before. Launching himself back while tossing the lantern, he swung his head to grab his spear right as the thing in the flowers scuttled towards him with inequine speed, the glint of metal flashing from one of its limbs.
Silent Sentinel planted his hooves, digging in with his hinds as he spun his neck around in a slashing arc of laminated wood and polished steel, hoping to catch the thing off guard and give him a chance to raise the alarm. Instead, the whistling spear tip met only fragrant green sod as the black thing scuttled right underneath the weapon. His eyes widened as he realized his attacker was far too close now to have the spear be effective.
He was in the process of shifting his weight backwards when he felt the thing touch his forelegs, hauling its remarkably light body up with disproportionate strength. Flicking his head backwards to toss his spear airborne, he rocked back further, using the attacker's momentum to aide the maneuver. It's grip caught upon the lip of his chest plate right as he tumbled onto his back, letting out a shout as he cocked his hindquarters and fired the pair of steel shod horseshoes into the black thing upon his chest.
There was a distressing sound, much like a bundle of sticks being broken, as the thing was launched into the air, followed a moment later with the metallic ping of his falling spear.
Silent Sentinel got to his hooves as quickly as he could, looking for any sign of his attacker. A muffled thump behind him caused a reflexive buck than sent Night Whimsy into a nearby bench with a flinch-worthy crunch.
Three more thumps alerted Silent Sentinel to the arrival of a set of pegassi guards who quickly shouted "Stand Down!"
Panting and glancing around in the sudden brightness of their hanging lanterns, Silent Sentinel looked for any sign of the thing from the flowerbed.
A groan caused him to flick his head, ready to stomp the thing into the ground, only to falter as he saw the wincing Night Whimsy struggling to her hooves with a heavily dented breastplate.
"Now!" barked one of the pegassi guards as he approached, "What the heck was that all about?"
"The invader," Sentinel panted, "it's here! It attacked me!"
The guards instantly spun their lanterns on the garden, pausing momentarily on the slashed sod and the multiple small pits from where Silent Sentinel had dug in for combat.
"And you attacked Whimsy why?" came back the no-nonsense demand.
"I-" he gasped, "I was still in combat sir.... didn't know it was her."
The guard stared at him for a moment before tilting his head and leaning in close.
Silent Sentinel swallowed hard as he felt the other guard's breath on his neck.
A firm tug nearly caused him to fall forward before a popping sound suddenly let him fall back.
Confused, Silent sentinel blinked back up at the pegasus who now held a... garden trowel in his mouth.
The pegasus paused a moment, as if considering, before carefully placing the small shovel on his back. Glancing over to the still shaking Night Whimsy, he took a deep breath before turning a stern, though no longer angry, look back upon the earth pony.
"Seems reasonable." He flicked his head, to which one of the guards quickly flitted off. "Pull yourself together son... you've got a report to make to the Princess, a trip to medical, and then a debriefing before you get that next meal."
Groaning internally, Silent Sentinel nodded and made to salute, only to pause.
"Something wrong there son?"
"Um... yes sir."
An uncomfortable pause seemed to fill the air.
"Aaaaand.... that would be?"
"The invader sir.... it's armed and... armed."
"No... I'm pretty sure your chest plate took care of that."
"Sorry sir, no. I mean, it has arms... and now my spear sir."
The Pegasus frowned deeply. "Son, look. We don't know much right now, but what you have to understand is that this pony broke in, dug up a grave, took on the guard, and got away with only one pony seeing it. I don't care about some stupid spear when the only one on top of their game enough to spot the monster might get taken out before he shares what he knows. As far as I'm concerned, you're a hero.... even if you did buck my special somepony."
Magnus was, understandably, upset with the way the night had been going. Not only had he been called back to the castle on his only day off that week, but when he found out that his post had been penetrated and his charge desecrated... well, his displeasure had only grown.
He muttered quietly as he yanked on his peytral and secured his spear. Not only did it look bad on the Guard in general, but it looked bad on him. He had been assigned to the position. He had watched over the plot diligently. He had protected the grave of whatever hero had been laid to rest.
And he had gone out for a swim on his day off while the castle was infiltrated, the Guard embarrassed, and the grave robbed.
With a soft grunt, he marched out of the barracks and turned towards the gardens. If they couldn't do their jobs, he would have to do it for them.
-~oOo~-
Slinking away after startling the creature had been easier than she had anticipated, thanks (in no small part) to it having a remarkably brutal kick that had sent her flying. Being hit by the falling spear it had thrown... well, that was an unpleasant occurrence, but such things happened, she supposed.
On the upside, despite being considerably slower now with her broken ribs, she had acquired a weapon she was fully capable of using. The spear, really little more than a glorified stick with a bladed end, had proven remarkably easy to disassemble. Whatever these creatures were, they evidently took great pride in maintaining their weapons - the spearhead had only taken a few sharp twists to unscrew.
Grinning as she scuttled along, her new 'staff' lashed to her back with a twist of her severed intestines, she slunk from one piece of cover to the next, ever wary of revealing herself.
Finally coming to rest under a leafy outcropping of some powder-white flower, she grew still to observe the creatures that continued to flood the area.
Since her impromptu diversion, a number of the winged ones had shown up, making a clean escape seem less and less likely. The 'normal' looking ones seemed straightforward enough to handle: a few quick hits, maybe a lucky slash or two with her finger bones, and they should be dispatched. The winged ones though.... those she wasn't quite sure about. For one thing, they seemed to be remarkably quick. Not only had she seen them winging around the garden, but she had seen how quickly they had wheeled on her earlier opponent. While they weren't nearly as heavily armored, they seemed to have more than made up for it in agility and speed.
She frowned as one of the newcomers swung a lantern in her direction, narrowly missing her hiding spot as it scanned the surroundings for her likely hiding place. A few quick blows with her mace would have taken out its wings... for that matter, a single smite or a brief column of holy fire would have reduced them to a mangled mess. As it was, however, she feared she would have to improvise against her much more mobile adversaries.
A series of bright flashes caused her to flinch as she squinted into the clearing. One of the horned ones had just done something, leaving her perplexed. It was no spell she recognized, and certainly not an attack she was familiar with, but it had left a set of faintly glowing wisps of smoke across the ground near itself.
Scowling at the unknown magic, she slowly edged further under the brush, trying not to make any sudden moves that might alert her stalkers. To her surprise, the foliage about her was roughly jerked aside as it lit with a bright blue glow.
Reflexively, she siphoned off a portion of her remaining mana, uttering an ancient and nearly forgotten word: shield. Instantly a faint golden film sluiced over her body, enveloping her in a bubble of protective light just as a startled yelp brought her location to the attention of the nearby creatures.
With a gasp of pain, her own startled shriek died before it even left her lips.... the feeble yellow glow in her empty eye sockets blinking out as quickly as her magic.
-~oOo~-
Magnus stared down at the charred thing at his hooves.
There could be no doubt about it - whatever it was it, most certainly, did not belong within the garden.
The creature, for lack of a better term, looked as it if had been killed, torn apart, lit on fire, drenched in oil, rolled in grime, and then left to rot in the sun for a few weeks before being buried and summarily exhumed. Parts of it were clearly missing, the most obvious being whatever had previously resided below its shattered ribcage, while other segments seemed eerily intact. It had the tattered remains of what he could only guess had once been armor of some sort weakly draped over its shoulders, and what was clearly a partially disassembled spear tangled in some rope-like material near its lower half.
He had just decided to retrieve the spear when his eyes happened to trace the damaged cordage back up into the thing's ribcage. With an almost involuntary jerk, he pulled his muzzle back from what became suddenly clear as the creature's innards.
Whatever it was, the invader had clearly been interested in it. No sooner had the unicorn yelped out an alert than a faint golden glow had covered the thing before blinking out.
That would make their invader a unicorn. Blasted scum was probably miles away by now, likely to end up getting away scot-free.
With a huff, he called over the wing commander and told him to get a guard detail to secure the remains; whatever it was, if their invader wanted it, the Guard wanted it more.
He was just about to leave when a sickly sweet smell drew his attention to a nearby patch of wilted flowers. He leaned in, looking over their faded, dead petals and brittle stems before glancing at the plaque that read 'Lilies' in the golden glow of the lanterns scattered around the area.
"What a shame," he muttered, "the General must be finally feeling his age."
-~oOo~-
A blast of dragon fire, coupled with a belch any buffalo would be startled by, announced the arrival of the scroll which was expertly plucked from the air by a pair of purple claws. Without hesitation, Spike left the bowl of pancake batter and raced up the stairs in the wee hours of the morning to deliver his precious cargo to the half-conscious wreck of a princess he knew was sitting on the upstairs balcony.
Taking a moment to catch his breath, the little dragon coughed lightly to announce himself before walking up to Twilight.
"Twilight, um, the Princess sent a letter."
When she didn't respond, he slowly crept around to face her.
"Oh Twilight...." he sighed, carefully stowing the letter as he gently lay the sleeping alicorn down.
Twilight Sparkle had awoken to find herself tucked snugly in bed, a small candle offering dim illumination and a plate of cookies on the nightstand. Nearby, a pitcher of water sat on a coaster with a half full glass within easy reach. The drapes had been pulled and what looked like a few small piles of books had been used to pin them to the walls blocking any light from outside. All in all, it was a mercifully quiet, dark, and comforting room to nap in.
With a start, she leapt from the bed, getting caught in the sheets, and fell promptly to the floor.
"SPIKE!" she hollered as she struggled for a moment against the confining fabrics, "SPIKE! What time is it?!?"
From outside, the muffled sound of her number one assistant approached, pausing just before the door opened.
"Hey Twilight.... yheah... um... you missed breakfast but lunch is almost ready."
"Spiiiiike... You know I need to be up in the mornings to -" she started, only to stop when Spike raised a small clawed hand to silence her.
"No, you don't. Number one, you're a princess now... you get to set your own timetable. Number two, you're so organized, it would take weeks of mistakes to create any kind of realistic issue. And number three, you need sleep."
With a huff, the little dragon turned his head and crossed his arms.
After a moment, he felt himself gently lifted off the ground, turned around and embraced in a hug.
"What would I do without you Spike?" the princess asked as she smiled softly in the dark room.
"Probably fall asleep while cooking and light your mane on fire again," he chuckled.
"That only happened the one time."
Spike grinned before blinking and pulling out a scroll from somewhere. "Oh... I almost forgot. You got this last night."
With a roll of her eyes, she set the little drake down and plucked the scroll from his claws before lighting the room with her horn and unrolling the scroll.
As she read, her smile faded quickly, only to be replaced with an ever darkening frown.
"Spike, go pack some of that lunch. I'm not sure if I'll be back in time for dinner."
Confused, and not a little bit worried at the rapid mood swing, Spike nodded but paused at the doorway. "Um, should I get the girls?"
As a magenta glow quickly untangled her hooves from the blankets and pulled the windows open, Twilight Sparkle squinted into the bright, early-afternoon, sun. "I'm.... I'm not sure. Just bring me some of whatever you were making and let them know I'll be heading to Canterlot to help with a problem. I'll send word if they need to come."
With a slight nod, Spike turned and raced from the room, his little footsteps echoing in the hallway as the Princess of Friendship took a moment to breathe.
Twilight turned to the window, watching as a few light puffy clouds drifted by, the pegassi pushing them taking a moment to wave. She forced a smile as she watched, noiselessly placing the scroll upon the nightstand where its ends curled slightly.
I'm sorry to trouble you Twilight, but Luna and I both agreed that you should be made aware of the situation: Somepony has disturbed the grave. We are looking into this, but your thoughts, as always, would be appreciated.
Come at your leisure,
Princess Celestia
Somewhere, in some as-of-yet-to-be-discovered room deep in the bowels of the castle, a white-hot hammer fell from a hole in the air as a burning creature screamed.
-~oOo~-
The trip had been as uneventful as could be. Train rides generally were. That she had a car all to herself, that the attendants had shied away after asking if she had needed any refreshments, and that a royal guard had been stationed at each carriage door (there was now apparently a small detachment stationed in Ponyville... who knew?) had probably all contributed to that uneventful quality.
Or, it could have been the result of the drawn, almost desperate, look that had settled upon her face the moment she had left her castle.
Whatever the cause, Twilight Sparkle was remarkably relieved to finally set hoof on properly maintained cobblestone again. Not that she didn't like the train... she had used them for most of her life after all... but more that anything else, since she had opened that scroll, she had been suffering with a minor bout of nausea.
The cool mountain air was, thankfully, helping some.
After a brief moment to settle herself, Twilight Sparkle looked to her small entourage of guards and nodded. Immediately, a light gray pegasus took wing and flitted off towards the castle. Moments later, the remaining Guard took trailing positions around her as she stepped off the landing and started a steady trot towards one of her favorite bookstores.
It wouldn't do to keep the Princesses waiting, but it would be even worse to meet them and waste their time if her mind was elsewhere... and there were very few things that were as calming to Princess Twilight Sparkle as a new, hardbound, book.
-~oOo~-
"Announcing her Royal Highness, Princess Twilight Sparkle von Twilight, of Ponyville. Princess of-"
A soft cough, barely more than a whisper, arrested the herald as Princess Celestia nodded politely towards her former student, concealed behind the throne room doors. "Thank you Herald, but I am fairly certain we are all quite familiar with my former student... and she with us."
The light gray unicorn nodded primly before opening the doors to the hall and revealing a young alicorn who, for all the books floating around her, resembled nothing more than a familiar purple unicorn known to have frequented the throne room for years.
Princess Celestia stifled a giggle... something that she wouldn't normally do around Twilight, but seeing her so focused again brought back memories she was loathe to disturb. Instead, she waited patiently as the youngest Princess of Equestria strolled slowly through the throne room without even looking away from the plethora of books around her.
Princess Luna watched with a half-amused look as Celestia humored the young mare.
After a few moments, Twilight slowed to a creep, a number of pages turning simultaneously, before inelegantly leaning back until her rear sat comfortably on the carpet leading up to the thrones. Luna raised an eyebrow quizzically, before glancing to her sister for direction and receiving only a barely contained blurt of laughter. Confused, she looked back to Twilight, only to choke back her own chuckle as she witnessed the young mare nonchalantly flop to her side and roll onto her back, the books spinning expertly around and assuming a much more.... efficient formation above her.
Silently, Celestia's magic ushered out the herald and closed the throne room doors.
It was, perhaps, four minutes before a number of the books closed as one while the remaining number simultaneously found themselves accepting identical silver and lavender bookmarks before the lot quickly sorted themselves and floated to a neat pile precisely upon a small plinth behind one of the many decorative planters in the room. Moments later, Twilight Sparkle seemed to realize that the ceiling of the throne room was an unusual thing to be looking at after finishing a book and slowly tilted her head back to look up the steps at the pair of now giggling princesses.
With a bright blush, she scrabbled at the carpet and, with a very quick twist, righted herself with a "Sorry!"
"It's quite alright Twilight," the still amused Celestia smiled. "We all get caught up in our own little worlds every now and again."
"'Tis correct. We have, upon occasion, perhaps extended the night some mere seconds for such a reason ourselves." Luna's smile grew briefly as she looked towards her sister. "And I do believe even my dear sister has, on occasion, lengthened her 'bubble bath' if I am not mistaken?"
Celestia's slight eye roll brought a smirk to Luna's face.
With a somewhat less embarrassed smile, Twilight patted down her mane before trotting up and nuzzling both Princesses. "I'm sorry Princesses, I was just so.... so..."
"Distressed?" Luna offered helpfully.
"um, well, I was really considering saying 'on edge', but distressed does sound better." Twilight finished with a somewhat forced smile.
Celestia shared a quiet look with her sister before both stepped down and began descending the steps with Twilight following.
"Shall we assume that our failed rescue is what has been 'distressing' you?" Luna's voice, while quiet, carried a firmness that spoke of shared troubles.
After the trio reached the bottom of the steps, Twilight finally drew a breath and stopped. It was a few moments before the princesses paused and turned, confusion on their faces.
"Twilight?" Celestia asked, concern clear in her voice.
"Princess -es...." Twilight amended after realizing her old habits naturally excluded Luna,"... what we did... we were trying to help right? We didn't mean for it to turn out like it did and we were trying to help, but it still happened. It, it still died. All we really managed to do was shorten its life and give it pain even though we were trying to help." She paused as she lowered her head, "That doesn't make us bad ponies does it?"
The three stood quietly for a moment, Twilight waiting with her head down, Luna looking off towards a stained glass window, and Celestia watching her faithful student-turned-princess.
"Twilight, what you must understand, what all ponies with skill or power must understand, is that the ability to help does not always mean that those efforts will succeed. No doctor can cure every ill and no guard can stop every crime. No matter the skill or power or pony, all we can do is try our very best and hope against hope that we can do good in the world." She slowly extended a wing, drawing a long ivory feather across and down Twilight's cheek. "No pony is perfect, not you, nor Luna, nor myself. We all make mistakes and have our faults, but that does not make us bad ponies."
A soft ruffling of feathers drew Celestia and Twilight's attention. Luna looked back at her companions as she resettled her wings. "It is as my sister says, Princess, for all our power, we are but simple ponies in our own arts. Were it not for my sister's glories, We would not have become as We were. Were it not for our own insecurities, We would not have been absent for so long." She looked down for a moment before turning fully to face Twilight. "And were it not for your own foolish devotion to our sister's image, We would not have been spared a second time."
Tentatively, Twilight looked up as she felt a pair of silver clad hooves pull her gently into an awkward, though not insincere, hug.
"So you see Twilight, we are not bad ponies, not a one of us, where even our flaws make us the ponies that we are."
-~oOo~-
The Earthpony stallion watched with an intensity that Arcane Barrage found unnerving. He had taken off his armor the moment he had returned to the Marshaling Office, pulling a well sealed crate behind him. No fewer than a dozen Guard, all alert and bristling at any sudden movement, had silently followed him in. Not a one had spoken or lessened their concentration even since the door had closed. Had the stallion pulling the crate not been originally armored as the Guard, Arcane would have assumed he was a high priority prisoner with an escort like that.
But after opening the crate, he simply didn't know how to respond.
He sat back, looking between the crate and the strange procession that had brought it in. Even now, not a single one of the Guard looked ready to stand at ease, preferring to spread out and check the blatantly clear office as if it were a war zone. Idly, Arcane wondered how many of them had seen any actual combat.
Finally, the unarmored stallion spoke up. "Arcane... I'm not going to mince words here and I'm not expecting any red tape either. Do I make myself clear?"
Blinking at the commanding tone from someone who, technically served under himself, Arcane Barrage nodded professionally. "Aye Magnus. Why the show?"
Magnus frowned as he stepped closer to the long desk upon which the crate currently resided. "It isn't a show, Arcane. Somepony broke in, snuck by all of you on-duty officers, robbed a bloody grave three of the four princesses declared to be guarded at all times, and I had to come back to fix things. No disrespect sir, but you all should be ashamed of yourselves." His frown deepened as he looked back towards the crate again. "I'm ashamed of myself."
The room was silent except for the soft creaking of armor straps as the escort continued its vigil.
"Magnus, I don't have to tell you that protoco-"
"If you say one word about protocol when THAT is sitting on your desk as opposed to resting in the ground after serving our great nation, Celestia help me, I will put you in the ground with it to make sure it's not disturbed next time..."
The anger dripping from the powerful Earthpony was nearly visible to the unicorn. For a few heartbeats, the two looked at each other, silently weighing their next words.
Finally, Magnus stepped back, turned his head to look slightly above his superior officer, and saluted. "...Sir!"
Arcane took a moment more before he responded. "Magnus, I'm not pleased with your lack of decorum but, all things considered, I'm not going to report you for this one. Nopony disrespects the dead, much less a hero of Equestria. You find that bastard and you bring him in, do you understand me?"
For the briefest moment, Arcane could have sworn he saw something that he knew couldn't exist.
Magnus snapped off a "Sir!" before pivoting and marching out the door, the escort following a moment later save a unicorn and one of the Nightguard.
With a sigh, Arcane released the tension he hadn't realized had been building as he carefully resealed the crate and started penning a missive to the Princesses.
After a few moments though, just before signing the letter, he placed his quill back into the inkwell and took a sip of water from a bottle he kept below desk.
"Must be getting tired... I could have sworn I saw Magnus smile."
The room seemed to dim faintly for a moment, causing Arcane to look up and stifle a startled yelp. Directly above him, the fanged muzzle of the Nightguard waited, a serious expression discernible once he looked past the unexpected sight.
"Don't mistake that smile for a dream, Barrage, I've never seen Magnus smile and I doubt it's a good thing."
Turning his chair to look up at the hovering batpony, Arcane Barrage nodded. "Aye. He's a good Guard, but that attitude will keep him from ever moving up."
For a brief moment, the Nightguard seemed to hesitate before responding. "You know what? I'm actually kind of glad I don't serve under you, Barrage. You just don't get it. This isn't just a job to us, to Magnus. This isn't just a paycheck or a pin for service. This is a way of life. This is a path of honor and respect."
"Don't lecture me about what the Guard is. I don't care who you are or where you come from, no one disrespects the Gua-" Arcane's reply was cut short by a wet glob of saliva as it splattered across the bridge of his nose, shocking him into a flinch.
"You really are one arrogant little colt. We were all chosen specifically to be the best of the best, the ponies all other ponies can look up to and call on for help. We were all given a great gift: to be trained and guided, to stand against the horrors and the evils that the world throws at us. We were all chosen by Celestia or Luna personally to defend this nation and these ponies, with our last breath if need be - and you, YOU are worried about rank when something like THIS," the Nightguard flicked a hoof towards the once-more-sealed crate, "happens under our noses? It was bad enough with the Changelings... we didn't know they were there, but THIS? We were guarding it."
The Nightguard drifted back, almost protectively over the crate, as Arcane Barrage suddenly felt the weight of every gaze in the room fall on him.
"We were guarding the grave of a hero of Equestria. When you or I die, we'll likely get a little plot out in the country or a plinth with the family name in the Guard Cemetery if we're lucky. We're the Guard, Daywatch, Nightwatch, Royal Guard or Long Patrol, it doesn't matter. We are the Guard." Once more, the batpony paused before snapping a coal-black hoof towards the crate below. "But this one? This one was a hero. A HERO of Equestria. Do you get that yet? Do you? This one was somepony who was so respected by the Princesses, not just one, but three personally, that they declared them to be somepony that should never be forgotten."
The batpony flapped, and a split second later a black muzzle planted itself upon Arcane Barrage's own. "That pony is what the Guard was meant to prevent. The NEED for other ponies to stand in the line, to be the last defense, to weather the storm or ever have to even imagine fighting the good fight."
With a flap of wings sharp enough to make a whipcrack, the Nightguard darted out the door.
Arcane Barrage blinked as he slowly wiped the spit from his face. It took a moment longer for his mind to process that the Nightguard who had just lectured him into silence had been a mare who's voice he had never heard.
"For what it's worth, sir, I'd rather suggest a careful wording in that letter to the Princesses. From what I hear, they've been pretty upset ever since that plot had to be dug."
Arcane looked over towards the unicorn stallion still dutifully guarding the room.
"I... I think I have a few things to consider. I've got things handled here. Dismissed," Arcane said as a sudden wave of weariness seemed to flow over him.
"Thank you sir, but I'm not on duty and I'm perfectly fine right here, watching that," the Guard replied, never taking his eyes off the crate and never losing his vigil.
Twilight Sparkle stood on a balcony overlooking the Royal Gardens, Princess Luna to her left and Princess Celestia to her right. Below, the Guard continued to swarm the lawns, carefully picking apart every square inch of the area, dutifully trampling every blade of grass into a meaningless pulp.
If she were in charge of the investigation, she would have levitated the whole lot of them back into Royal Guard Kindergarten.
She blinked at that thought. Was there even a Royal Guard Kindergarten? Definitely something to ask Shining the next time he visited.
Beside her, Princess Luna continued her assessment of the crime while a parchment and quill furiously took notes. Celestia was relatively quiet, choosing to supply the investigators with a glowing ball of light bright enough to simulate the sun at the reported time of the crime.
Overhead, a formation of Nightguards took turns with the Nightwatch as the batponies of both groups surveyed the area, searching for anything that might have been missed by their diurnal brethren. Beyond the sparse clouds, the moon shown with a silvery white light while the stars glistened, although perhaps a tiny bit less brilliantly for lack of Luna's full attention.
There was very little in the way of progress even with all the extra eyes, Twilight mused. It was almost as if the plot had been waiting for the perfect moment to disgorge its recipient rather than somepony getting a lucky break on a grave robbery.
It just didn't make sense though. No matter how she looked at it, the crime didn't make sense. There was no evidence of a perpetrator, no telltale tool marks save those from the brief conflict (which she had her own suspicions about), and no motive that she could see beyond humiliating the Guard or a personal attack on Celestia, Luna, or herself.
And yet, the more she thought them over, even those seemed shaky at best. For one, the Guard were ever present... it was a well established fact that if something is everywhere, exceptions and interactions would be common. The Guard had had their fair share of failures and upsets, not the least of which was the recent Changeling invasion. It didn't make sense to stage such an elaborate crime, put so much effort into the execution, and then not 'enlighten' the populace to the Guard's shortcomings. It would make much more sense to have a newspaper article anonymously slipped into the Canterlot Times or a rumor started that would eventually require a public statement. It would make sense to sabotage a garrison or even just pull a few nasty pranks on the local branches as a way to send a wake-up call. It didn't make sense to compromise a target of such importance... not without a very good reason to risk oneself in such a blatant way.
Likewise, while the crime was certainly distressing, very few ponies actually knew the particulars of the 'hero' they had lain to rest. It was true that the act could have been entirely random, or even just the result of a poorly timed prank, but it seemed far too clean for those scenarios to be likely.
If, on the other hoof, the Guard really had slipped so much as to miss a blatant intruder carrying specialized tools and exhuming a corpse within feet of one of their own... well, changes would most certainly have to be made.
Twilight's considerations were brought to an unexpected halt when the jingling pop of a scroll materializing drew her attention to where princess Celestia stood. The scroll, a tightly wound thing with a strip of dark blue ribbon sealing it, uncoiled in the Princess' golden aura and, after a few moments, rerolled itself.
Celestia looked up, casting an unreadable gaze over the gardens and horizon for a moment before turning and quietly walking back into the castle. Were it not for her longstanding relationship, Twilight would never have followed were she not invited.
As it were, Twilight's curiosity mixed with her almost familial relationship with Equestria's ruling bodies overrode any sense of decorum resulting in the young alicorn slipping into step beside the much taller Princess.
"Pri... Celestia, is everything alright?"
Silently, the balcony doors swung open in a shimmering golden aura a moment before the two reached them, the faint sound of servants tending to tasks innumerabe within causing Twilight's ears to pivot as she kept in stride beside Celestia. Almost as if sensing the moment, the elderly gray unicorn, Kibitz, stepped out from a small alcove with a slight bow as he, too, fell in step beside the two princesses.
Without preamble, Celestia flicked her horn towards a set of doors, causing the heavy wood to spring open, much to the surprise of the collection of guards within. Stepping to the doorway, watching as the stallions and mares scrambled to assemble, Celestia looked amongst their number before leaning down to whisper something to her assistant before turning and gently guiding Twilight with a downy wing away from the room.
Twilight glanced back, only briefly, before falling into step with the elder Ruler, though her ears picked up the distinctive voice of Kibitz as he said "Inspector Duty, you are hereby relieved of duty, to be held for a period of not more than 4 days as an inquiry into..." before the assistant's voice was cut off by the softly closing doors.
"Princess?" Twilight's voice echoed her confusion as she looked up to her mentor.
For some seconds, Celestia remained silent as the pair walked, face unreadable as she strode purposefully through the hall before slowing and closing her eyes.
"Twilight. Do you remember what I said to you when you told me that Cadance was an imposter?"
Blinking briefly at the unexpected topic, Twilight nodded slowly. "I do."
"And do you remember what Luna and I have been telling you every time you've asked if we have done something wrong since we attempted to save the creature?"
"I... I do Princess."
"Then let me share one other lesson with you." With a soft sigh, Celestia lowered herself slowly until she found a comfortable position laying beside her student on the marble floor of one of the numerous halls of Canterlot Castle.
"Sometimes, no matter what you do or plan for, even with the best of intentions, something will go wrong. It is a sad fact of life that such things are destined to fill every crack or gap in plans and stymie every act of good." Celestia shifted herself slightly, turning to look upon a nearby window which cast beams of muted light upon the two alicorns below. "Sometimes it is coincidence or accident. Sometimes it is destiny or fate that something fails. And then.... sometimes it is through the best of intentions that the greatest harm is done."
Twilight stood, listening to her mentor and friend as the events of the past month played out again in her head. "Sometimes...."
"But Twilight, you must remember that such things are the way of the world and that even when somepony causes such trouble, they are never doing so because they think they are wrong. They simply do not understand what you might.... or you, them."
Twilight tilted her head to look up at the window, the wild splashes of color and absurd image of a mismatched creature with what appeared to be a long sandwich, greeting her eyes. Discord... in all his bizarre glory - one of the few windows that had survived Tirek's occupation of the Castle.
"Princess... what was on the scroll?"
For a moment, Celestia remained motionless. Under the soft colors of the window, she looked almost like a statue herself, if not for her slowly shifting mane.
"The... missive... was from one of the minor offices, alerting us that the corpse has been located and that the intruder had engaged in combat with one of the Guard, an Earthpony stallion, named Silent Sentinel."
Twilight puzzled over the response for a few moments before asking what seemed like the obvious question: "And this relates to your lesson I assume?"
Celestia turned to face her student with a look that spoke of her care for her student, but disappointment with the situation. "Indeed. The reason I bring it up is that this letter has only now reached us. Inspector Duty did not feel it important enough to warrant our attention."
"So we've been wasting our time since this all happened?"
Celestia nodded her head slowly. "But there is more... as part of protocol, any Guard engaged in combat, outside of active encounters..." Celestia trailed off, prompting the young princess to deduce her own answer.
Twilight squinted in thought, running through list upon list of protocols she was only marginally familiar with. "... must...... make a report?"
"Indeed."
"Which is bad for some reason?"
Celestia nodded again before pulling herself to stand once more and resume walking through the hall towards a service hallway Twilight was almost positive would force the taller alicorn to duck to walk through.
"It is bad, Twilight, because as part of protocol, such combat must be reported to the highest authority for a proper debriefing at first chance."
"And with Duty intercepting the missive?"
"With Duty intercepting, Twilight, our Silent Sentinel is most likely still waiting at attention."
-~oOo~-
Waking up, once again, in a dark place hadn't been entirely unexpected, but waking up in a dark place feeling cramped and uncomfortably bent had been far less than ideal.
When she had opened her eyes again, it was to see the near blackness of a sealed box of some sort. She was once more thought dead, though it seemed this time they had placed her within a coffin of some sort. Worse, from the thin sliver of light she could see, she likely hadn't been buried yet, making her eventual escape much more prone to discovery.
When she carefully tried to move, she found her fingers tangled in something, and when she shifted slightly, she could feel the tug and pull of tattered bits of skin caught in the grain of the box.
She would have sighed if it would have been even remotely helpful.
Instead, she began the slow process of working her fingers free of their tangle, careful not to scrape against the wood of her enclosure.
Night Whimsy had taken the night off after her run-in with Silent Sentinel. Dive Bomb, after getting a look at the massive bruise to her chest, had decided his special somepony could use a helping hoof to get home. Silent Sentinel had disappeared to the place all the recruits who showed-up their superior officers went to and Magnus had taken over for the startled Vague Notion who had found the... remains. Arcane Barrage had requested leave to think about things and left with the crate containing the remains towards the Castle proper. Shortly thereafter, Duty had been relieved, the princesses had disappeared, and the search for the intruder had been ultimately suspended since more than a day had passed since the incident with no success.
And all of that left Mistral with quite a few questions and far too few answers. Well, questions and the need to blow off a bit of steam after Arcane Barrage's stupid little comment.
As a result, she had taken to making a few laps around the castle to cool off and get a bit of a break before her actual shift started.
She had been quietly gliding between towers, as her position often required, when she happened to glance down over the Plot. All around, the lawn had been trampled, the flowerbeds rooted through, and the decorations searched. Everything had been returned to its original positions but, after a month of visiting nearly every night, the absence of a stationed guard and the darkness of the open grave just felt wrong to her.
Dropping into a landing upon one of the small outcroppings along an overlooking wall, she turned her amber gaze across the still trees and flowers that had, until recently, been a secure and peaceful retreat within the Castle grounds.
As she looked over it now though, she almost couldn't see the peaceful little respite it had offered. She certainly couldn't see it for a final resting place anymore.
The longer she looked, the more tiny differences she found. Near the birdbath, a new batch of night lilies had been planted. Over near the wax leaves, a bench had been replaced after a clumsy guard had accidentally broken one of the legs. A few of the wall sconces had been updated to help with the search, making the whole place just a bit brighter than it had been previously. And everywhere, positively everywhere, the lawn had been torn to shreds by the countless hooves of the Guard, singlemindedly pursuing a criminal without consideration for their own presence.
Softly, she huffed out her frustration. Not only had a hero's rest been disturbed, not only had their remains been desecrated, not only had the perpetrator escaped completely unhindered, but the very peace that the garden had offered had been completely destroyed.
No doubt the Guard would point out that it was much safer now, what with the increased visibility and presence of patrols, but those very same qualities robbed it of much of its charm. She could no longer swoop down and feel alone with her thoughts, no longer able to wander slightly in her mind as she stood there. The changes that had been made to ensure the security of the garden had simultaneously robbed it of much of the very definition of what it meant to be a sacred thing... a royal garden and a hero's grave.
She frowned. Even from here, she could see the patches of dead flowers from where the gardener had been unable to replant from the careless guards.
She blinked and tilted her head as she looked again.
Looking over the garden carefully, she began to pick out the batches of new plants the royal gardener had started bringing in. She had noticed them before, seeing a great number arrive over the last month at the Plot, but she had just assumed it was a gesture to show respect for the departed. Now, after looking over the garden for so long, after flying over it and visiting and walking through it for the last month, she saw something new.
With a chill absolutely not related to the temperature, Mistral spread her wings and made for the Main Hall where she hoped her Princess resided.
-~oOo~-
"And you're saying he was just lying there? Just.... on the ground, out in the open?" the junior sergeant repeated as his quill flitted over the form he had been filling out for the last ten minutes.
"Yes. Once again: yes. Just lying there, on the ground, unconscious and looking like he got pegged in the head by some gryphon linebacker during the Bridlebowl." The pegasus mare, a slight little beige pegasus with a loop of construction tools slung across her neck, sighed for what must have been the twentieth time in as few minutes. "Look, I'm just supposed to be working on the crenelations but with the whole to-do about some invader or whatever, seeing somepony on the ground not moving seemed like something you'd all want to know about." With a deadpan look, she added "Can I GO NOW?"
While the junior sergeant internally grimaced, outwardly, his face remained blank. "I'm sorry for the delay ma'am, but with any report... any report of this nature at least, we need to make sure we haven't missed anything from the original witnesses. A Guard member did not find the victim, so we can't tell what the witness might have seen or possibly changed from 'checking' on the victim." His light blue eyes looked up and caught her own, "It's just standard procedure, really."
The mare, clearly doing her best to remain 'polite' despite her growing impatience, leaned back into her seat and rubbed a hoof across her face as she nodded irritably. "Fine. Just.... fine, whatever. It's not like I'm working on the castle of the rulers of Equestria or anything."
If pegassi could mold frustration as easily as clouds, the junior sergeant was positive this one would have already woven a noose... and perhaps the tree to use it from... by now. He cleared his throat uncomfortably and pulled out another twelve page form, earning himself a glare that could have cracked marble.
-~oOo~-
With a final tug, she pulled another crumbling rib from the loose gray leather that her side now resembled and frowned. Being dead had long ago lost its horror for her, but being dead and not rising properly... that was taking some getting used to.
Her fingertips had finally 'healed', if returning to sharp spikes of weathered bone could be considered 'healed', but the rest of her was still a nearly useless thing. Between her pulverized sternum, multiple cracked ribs, shattered spine, and huge swaths of missing skin, there was precious little left that she could use to even identify herself as Forsaken, let alone formerly human. That went, of course, without mentioning the complete absence of everything from just above her bellybutton down.
Beside her, a small pile of broken and torn bits had been growing as she worked to fix what she could. Bits of skin that had caught or torn, a number of rib fragments, a chunk of elbow that had hit the cobblestone walkway wrong when she fell, and a number of teeth were mixed in with a few fistfuls of gray-black mess that had formerly resided within her abdomen made up the majority of the pile. Where she couldn't tie parts off, she had resorted to digging free or tearing loose so she wouldn't get caught on things if she had to move quickly again.
For a moment, she paused, her skeletal fingers drifting over a shriveled thing that reminded her entirely too much of what she remembered a heart was supposed to look like. It had fallen out when she had propped herself up against the wall, hidden by decorative ivy, behind a statue some half hour prior. There was something uncomfortably strange with looking at ones own organs and idly wondering if you really needed them any more.
For a few more moments, her fingers hovered above the dried lump before gently resting upon it.
She could just leave these all here, hidden in the bushes, discarded and unknown until some little creature would drag them away to bury for the winter or have for a light snack. She really had no use for them anymore. Her lungs didn't breathe and her heart hadn't pulsed in years. The last time she had eaten, it hadn't gone through her intestines anyway. No amount of ale would ever harm her liver and she rather strongly doubted that the various other dry, hard, lumps had any remaining function anyway.
And yet...
Even dead, they were a part of her. They were a very personal collection of useless, broken, dead... things.
She stared for a few moments more. There were, of course, many Forsaken that had been patched up and cobbled together. More than a third she had served with had sported one or more parts 'salvaged' from open graves or enemies that had recently fallen. She even knew a warlock who kept a small chest of jaws for different social gatherings.... 'just trying to be fashionable' he had explained.
But these were hers.
Her, she corrected herself. These bits and pieces were actual parts of her own body.
Gently, almost lovingly, she picked up the blackened lump that had fallen out, and turned it slowly in the bit of moonlight that filtered through the ivy. She could see the dried musculature, the dead veins and a number of things she wasn't familiar enough with to identify. There were nooks and crannies, holes she was certain weren't supposed to be there, and a number of cracks. Frowning slightly, she recognized the brittle charring from where her mace had fallen through and cooked the organ through her chest.
Useless. Utterly useless now. No amount of bandaging or medicines could have saved someone with that kind of injury. Nothing short of magic could have turned the blackened lump of charcoal back into a proper heart.
Idly, she ran her thumb over the surface, watching as grains and grit fell away with the sound of sand, darkening the lawn beneath her further.
"So, this is how I end," she thought. "A bit disappointing, but at least I'll not have tripped down the stairs or some other nonsense."
With a slightly bitter flinch, she carefully placed her heart back upon the pile of broken bits and leaned back to rest.
She hadn't needed to rest in so long, it had actually been confusing when the notion had struck her. She was so used to simply waking up, grabbing her weapons, finding a smith and racing back out into the fray that the very sensation of lethargy, of weariness, had become foreign to her.
Now, propping herself up on an empty ribcage, a spine that ended well before her missing pelvis, and bracing herself on chipped bone arms seemed almost too much to manage.
She needed to move. Her instincts told her she needed to move. Her training told her she needed to move. Her common sense was screaming that she needed to move. But she was simply too tired.
With a sigh, uttered from lips without working lungs, she sunk back against the wall, hearing the soft clack of her spine against the marble.
Just a few minutes, that was all she could afford. Just a few minutes.
Finding Silent Sentinel had been remarkably easy. Despite Duty's early dismissal, the stallion had been remarkably well organized; something that Princess Twilight Sparkle had found refreshing - well, would have found refreshing if it had been under different circumstances. As it was, Sentinel had been 'resting comfortably' in one of the 'guest quarters' which the Guard occasionally found useful in detaining hostile dignitaries.
In other words - the dungeons.
Twilight and Princess Celestia had chosen not to announce themselves, to see how Duty had had the younger Guard treated, and had walked in with absolutely no resistance. The unicorn stallion who opened the dungeons up for them had bowed politely and instantly resumed his post. Three other such guards did likewise as the two princesses continued their unannounced tour of the lesser known corridors of Canterlot Castle.
Finally coming to a heavily runed door, a dark brown earthpony stallion assessed his royals before nodding with a bit of difficulty and pulling himself up and moving to open the thick door for them. To Celestia's trained eye, while the dungeon hadn't seen its intended use in centuries, the maintenance crew had apparently continued with their tasks. She smiled at the small vase with fresh flowers on the aged dungeon master's desk. It was as heartening an experience as she could have hoped for in such a detestable place.
After a moment of effort to tug the heavy door open, the dungeon master stepped back to allow his princesses entry.
Beyond was a narrow hallway lined with the well kept ribs of Blackstone steel that gave the entire passage a strangely organic feel. Where the normally white walls of the castle would have been, instead there was the polished gray of magically infused stone. Where the pillars and columns of the great halls and vaulted ceilings would be, instead there was the waxy sheen of the magically absorbent Blackstone steel. The place, despite its clean and bright appearance, exuded a sense of an almost living indifference.
It was a feeling Celestia had never enjoyed but had grown accustomed to over the centuries. A 'necessary evil' as her counselors and advisers called it.
She would rather have just been done with it and locked the entire system away, sealed up the doors and made a new garden shed in front of the 'repair work' to the wall that would inevitably cover the doorways.
As it was, there seemed to never be enough greedy or pompous individuals intent on overthrowing her 'tyrannical elitist ways'.... or whatever they called it when they showed up demanding land, money, tribute, or surrender every few decades. It was almost entertaining to watch their faces as they would come to realize that the 'religious zealots' with their 'childish superstitious beliefs' might not be wrong after all.... usually about and hour or two into dinner when the sun hadn't set.
But all the same, despite her playing along, despite her best efforts to assure her guests that she really did just want peace and harmony between all their peoples, despite all the good will and kind words she had offered over the years, there were still a few who would lash out at her little ponies... and when they did, these guest suites were occasionally used to ensure their safety before a proper escort could be obtained to return them safely to their own lands.
They hadn't been used in centuries... but that didn't mean there hadn't been uses found for them.
-~oOo~-
Duty snorted in frustration.
He'd done his job. He'd organized the Guard. He'd set the search protocol. He'd met with the officers in charge and collected all the information regarding the infiltrator, and that was what it was, no matter what that imbecilic fool in holding said.
Monsters? In the Castle? Absurd.
The only monsters that had managed to make it into the castle proper in the last hundred years had been that changeling filth and Discord.
He could understand the changelings getting in... their very nature twisted perceptions and played upon the expectations of those who relied upon habit and duty. The Guard, for all their talent, had very little in the way of real challenge to keep them on their hooftips - there just wasn't much conflict to break them from the day to day grind. Changelings... changelings would take advantage of anything that even remotely resembled predictability and run with it. As much as he hated to admit it, the Guard was not, and likely never would be, capable of truly thwarting the changelings. There was just too much repetition... too much habit and assumption that went into keeping them functional... it would only ever take one moment for a changeling to slip in and no one would ever be the wiser.
And Discord? Well, even 'reformed', Discord was a menace and a wild card at best. No legitimate defense could reasonably be erected, no trap set, that could reliably stop the spirit of chaos if he didn't feel like being caught at the moment.
Rather like that upstart Princess Twilight Sparkle. Don't mind the collateral damage... just go on in there and break things as long as you can write a happy note to the real Princess later. Disturbing that so many were perfectly fine with her just being given public status and diplomatic immunity. Freedom to do as she pleased... after seeing her in action, that was a decidedly unpleasant notion.
With another snort, Duty glanced up at the evening sky as he trotted across a small garden on the way to the parade grounds.
It wasn't much further really, not that he cared at the moment, but he wanted to get one last look at the field before departing for one of the offices in Canterlot city rather than the Castle proper. Being dismissed by Celestia tended to revoke one's position as an officer of the court and replace it with one of equines non grata.
Dismissed.
Well, Celestia was known to make mistakes from time to time... she probably had her reasons after all. Admittedly, his approach may have been a little bit forward... a bit rough around the edges... perhaps a touch abrasive even, but he had done his job well, darnit! The very fact that they hadn't produced the culprit was proof enough for him.
It was at that point that Duty stumbled over something, falling face first into a patch of carefully maintained lawn with a startled yelp.
Taking a moment to rub his aching nose, he glared back, intent on discovering the owner of whatever gardening implement he had presumably stumbled upon. When he saw a withered and drawn pony in guard uniform, twitching on the ground and struggling to draw breath, he couldn't help but break into a grin.
"Looks like I found something after all," he snarked.
-~oOo~-
The interview had gone smoothly, and quite quickly once Sentinel had been given a mug of milk and a quick snack from the royal kitchens. The dungeon master hadn't raised a fuss at all as he waved a good evening to the Guard and his royal escort.
Truth be told, Celestia was rather pleased with how well he had been taken care of, if not the expediency used to obtain his report. Granted, he had not been 'lost' or 'influenced' by outside sources but he was a member of the Guard (not to mention a citizen of the city) and there was simply no reason to have detained him in the first place.
After releasing him to attend to his own affairs, the two princesses had begun to walk back toward the Great Hall, intent on consolidating the information obtained and sorting through the various reports that had come in pertaining to 'odd characters' sighted by the citizenry. While Celestia didn't doubt their good intent, she held very little hope that any of the reports would ultimately turn up much more than a stray cat or a roaming Diamond Dog.
The pair had just turned towards the tiled pathway that led around the East Fountain Garden towards the Main Gate when Celestia noticed that Twilight had ended her commentary over Sentinel's report. Turning her head, Celestia paused as she observed the most curious of expressions upon Twilight's face: a rare hint of distraction.
Idly, Twilight levitated a small silver locket up towards her face, opened it, glanced inside, and clipped it shut again before Celestia had a chance to get a look at what was within. It was something she had noticed the younger princess do a few times over the night, always the briefest of motions and always replaced within a second or two. More than once, Twilight had briefly excused herself to 'address an issue' before returning shortly. The periods had been so brief that they hadn't caused any real interruptions, rather, providing momentary breaks for Celestia to reflect upon developments.
It had been curious, seeing Twilight's activities, but not unfamiliar. Her former student was rather well known for her adherence to schedules and planning, to say nothing of her capacity to multitask. Of course, knowing her penchant for magic, Celestia had started to wonder if she had decided to enchant the locket to act as a checklist or itinerary.
This time, however, Twilight's expression stiffened briefly as the locket closed.
So far, she hadn't decided to inquire, but, given the situation, Celestia felt she could wait no longer. If something was distressing her former student, she wanted to know. It wasn't so very long ago that she had brushed Twilight's concerns aside only to shortly discover Chrysalis in the guise of Princess Cadance. It was something she was still ashamed of... something she had vowed never to let happen again.
"Twilight, is something the matter?"
For the briefest of moments, the younger princess hesitated before turning to smile up at Celestia's concerned face.
"No Princess. Well, nothing's wrong so much as..." Twilight looked up, searching for the right word, "... well, nothing's wrong. It's just that I need to quickly check on something I've been working on and it's getting very close to when I need to take my notes again."
Twilight smiled apologetically after her response.
Celestia waited patiently, smiling softly as she had learned to do all those many years before.
After a few moments, Twilight's smile faltered as she cleared her throat softly. "I'm sorry Princess, it should only take a minute or two, but I really do need to go."
A few more moments of quiet passed as Celestia knelt down to look at Twilight from her own level.
"Twilight, if there's something you need to talk about, you know you can always tell me. I'm always willing to listen to you."
Twilight's smile became less forced, but a quick glance to the locket and she moved to leave, only to stagger as the locket remained frozen in a soft golden glow.
"Twilight... please, talk to me. Tell me what's wrong."
"Nothing's wrong, I just need to update my notes quickly. Really Princess. I just need to go and" Twilight made to step away, forgetting about the locket's chain. A soft popping sound announced the failure of the thin metal, causing the locket to tumble from both alicorns magic.
Twilight reached to catch it, only to fall just short, the small silver locket striking the marble floor hard enough to fling the cover open. Celestia's gaze flicked to the tiny watch face before recognizing the time.
"Go, Twilight. Be back soon, if you can," was all the elder princess could manage around suddenly dry lips.
There was a brief flash of magenta light before Twilight Sparkle disappeared. Celestia took a breath, holding back the urge to berate herself for not considering what might still be going through Twilight's head.
She had lived for thousands of years... Twilight only a few dozen.
If Celestia still flinched at the memory of that sound, she could hardly fault Twilight for wanting to avoid the echoes of twelve hammers falling somewhere in Canterlot... or those unholy screams.
The world filtered back into focus, dull silvery moonlight seeming to cast everything in a glistening aura of pale blue. Slowly, she blinked, lidless yellow orbs dimming before returning to their normal brightness. For some reason, everything seemed to be moving slowly.
It took a few more moments to put the jumbled mess of things in front of her into some kind of sense. The mishmash of dark and light, the pile of gray/black, and even the oddly shaped flakes and scraps around her seemed entirely alien before a bit of movement caught her eye.
With the tiniest bit of recognition, things suddenly snapped into focus.
The chaotic mess above her resolved into the tangled ivy of the wall and the bush she had been hiding in. The dark pile, the remains of her organs and tattered bits she had pulled free to reduce trouble moving. The flat things that littered the area around her were the patches of cloth and skin she had been slowly losing in the process.
But with movement came clarity. On the other side of her shelter, something was moving. And it was getting closer.
In the silvery light of the moon, she caught a brief reflection of gold and memories of the creatures swarming the garden slammed back into her mind. There was no time to delay, no time to plan... she had to act or there would be no more time to worry.
With a shuddering lurch, she reached down and found, to her surprise, more mana than she had expected. It was something she would have to figure out later... right now, she needed to be ready.
Another muffled crunch from the other side of the bush snapped her back to the present as her skeletal fingers took on a golden light which snaked across her ruined body before sinking in.
The feeling was a study of contrasts. At once, she felt strength returning to her body, tattered skin and damaged bone seeming to reinforce and repair at the same time as a heady vertigo slammed into her mind. She could feel her body healing, filling in gaps and restoring lost parts just as quickly as she found herself struggling to remain focused.
Blearily, she heard the startled yelp of something nearby, only to blink back the confusion a moment later.
For a few moments, she remained completely still, silent, as she waited for the attack. She could feel her arms and torso, the flesh of her face and the ragged drift of her hair. She noticed the rough splintering of her spine and the abrupt end of herself just below the ribcage. Her gaze drifted down to note the pile of organs and bits had disappeared.... at least some things still worked right.
But despite her returning focus, the attack never came.
A minute passed, and then two, before she slowly braced herself and pushed off from the wall. On her elbows, she drug herself forward before tentatively parting the brittle branches before her and seeing something she would never have expected.
Barely an arms reach before her, one of the armored creatures lay gasping on the ground. It's skin withered and taunt, slowly twitching as it struggled to move. Despite everything, she found herself confused.
Even in its current state, the creature didn't appear to be some wild monstrosity or an aberration. It's face was contorted in pain and confusion, and though its eyes were crushed shut in its suffering, she suspected that if they were open, they would be pleading rather than wrathful.
Even as she felt her strength returning, she knew she couldn't stay.
Tentatively, she reached over and laid a skeletal hand across the creature's side before stealing herself and forcing her will upon the beast.
A moment later, the world went dark before she found herself wracked with pain and drained of nearly every bit of strength. A tiny tweak of willpower and she forced the eyes open, struggled to her..... hooves... and walked unsteadily across the clearing feeling the body's strength waning moment by moment.
Eventually, she collapsed, forcing another breath into straining lungs, as she lay gasping. She dared not look back at the bushes... there was always a chance that the creature might see her body... so, instead, she forced her legs to sprawl out before the world went dark again.
A momentary snap of confusion assaulted her senses as she found herself back in her own tattered body. Though she had managed to move the creature, the effort had sapped more of her energy than expected, and the result was a heaviness that brought her ruined body to its figurative knees.
It took far longer than she would have liked to recover, but the moment she felt up to it, she had started to scuttle along the wall, hidden by the bushes, as she sought some manner of escape from the oddly beautiful garden.
And somewhere, behind her, laying in the moonlight, a pegasus Guard lay withered and gasping... a mind torn with confusion and horror at having been struck with magic and sapped of life before being possessed and left too weak to even cry for help.
-~oOo~-
Panacea had seen many things over the years, but what the officers had brought in had caused her to pale in horror. No fewer than seven ponies, all Guard, had been carried in in one form or another, each with the same horrible symptoms.
Each was drawn, their flesh dehydrated and emaciated to the point of appearing corpse-like; faces sunken, manes and tails ratty or falling out, and even their hooves showed signs of extreme negligence. If she didn't know better, she would have thought the lot of them had been found baking in the desert or in some unmarked crypt.
Through it all, they never stopped twitching or moaning softly.
The first had come in only a few minutes ago, the rest following rapidly as their friends and comrades rushed them to help. Whatever it was, her nurses and medics had flung themselves at the stricken ponies with the dedication and professionalism she had come to expect.
The call had gone out almost instantly, and within two minutes, others had flown or run into the ward to take up emergency positions as the arcanists had warded the area. Finally, one of the newer additions, a zebra intern named Meallin, had plucked something from her pouch of strange herbs and thrown it over one of the afflicted.
If it weren't for the fact that Meallin's 'medicine' had apparently arrested the effect, Panacea would have escorted the zebra from the ward herself.
As it was, whatever Meallin had used had been effective on every one of the victims, and when asked, the zebra had only said "De bones be eatin' der insides out. So I made der meal cause dem to pout."
Panacea had glared.
Mumbo jumbo and rhymes had their places.... in sideshows and backwoods fairs... but she couldn't argue with the results.
But why did the 'cure' have to be a mix of beeswax, dried orange peel, powdered spearmint leaves and sugar?
Princess Celestia waited patiently. In the hall, there were few ponies out and about this late at night, but those that were had seen her brief exchange and thoughtfully averted their attentions.
That is, all but the everpresent Kibitz, who politely strolled up to his princess and wordlessly offered her a saucer bearing an ornate teacup. The scent of meadow blossoms and light citrus filled the air as Celestia waited.
"Your highness, with all due respect, I am rather shocked at that display." Kibitz offered without so much as looking at his employer.
Celestia's brow peaked slightly as she turned to address the unicorn. "Oh? And why would that be Kibitz?"
With as much grace as a finely tuned machine, the unicorn's head swept over to look her in the face, his expression professional but not a little concerned.
"Well, though I can understand your concerns for your former student, I would have thought that at this point your respect for her accomplishments, not to mention her own royal title, would have prevented you from accosting the dear."
His smile appeared just a moment before she had taken him seriously.
"Kibitz..." she frowned, earning herself a shocked though determined look, "You are an insufferable goof sometimes."
Before he had a second to react, a bright flash of gold had changed his manestyle from one of diligent care to something that the royal gardener would be sorely tempted to prune.
And for the first time in the last hours, two of the castle's long time residents found themselves laughing softly as they waited for the youngest princess of Equestria to return.
-~oOo~-
Mistral stomped passed the third set of Guards as she rounded the corner and finally beheld her destination.
There, on the balcony, stood Princess Luna in all her glory. Blue armor and helm, mane drifting in an otherworldly breeze, and gaze focused enough to cut the marble the castle had been hewn from.
As she strode forward, two more Guards moved to block her path before jolting back at the glare she, herself, leveled at them.
"Boys, I am NOT in the mood to play with you right now. I need to speak with Princess Luna and I will NOT put up with your little games."
Seeing her bristle would have been enough to give the guards pause, but hearing so many words from her in so little time made them flinch back and glance around as they readied their weapons. Mistral, as any of the Guard could tell you, was not talkative at the best of times. Hearing her speak had been a rare occurrence, and only the fact that she had been personally chosen to act as one of Princess Luna's favored guards had kept the speculations at bay.
After all, the Guard were supposed to be personable as well as professional.
When no immediate threat manifested, the two guards eventually settled, though they kept glancing at her as she approached.
"Princess," she whispered as she bowed, "I have news."
Princess Luna continued to survey the gardens though one of her ears pivoted back with interest. "Speak then, my vigil is not to be compromised lightly. What have you?"
So acknowledged, Mistral stood and saluted. "Highness, I believe I have a manner of tracking the thief... and I believe I know what it is."
A quiet moment passed before Luna slowly turned her gaze upon the young bat pony. "Pray, share your findings. I am attending to you at the moment."
Though Mistral had served her princess for some time now, seeing the cold focus of Luna's eyes fall upon her was an experience she found remarkably uncomfortable. For as long as she had known the princess, she had seen her as awkward, shy, and desperately lonely. Of course, she knew of Nightmare Moon and remembered the stories of Nightmare Night from Ponyville, but seeing the change in her princess was both remarkable and frightening.
Gone were the half-measured words. Gone were the wary glances. Gone were the muttered moments of self-assurances. And in their place was a creature entirely other, whose gaze cut through defenses and laid bare her intentions.
Swallowing involuntarily and taking a moment to wet her lips, Mistral steeled herself before nodding towards the garden behind the princess, far below.
"Princess, I believe the thief has been within the Castle all along. For the last month, the gardener has been replanting various flowers and bushes within the garden all around the plot. While I thought it was just respect before, I noticed, while flying overhead, the the entire area where the conflict occured has had its plants replaced. They weren't damaged.... they just withered."
Luna's eyebrow slowly rose as she considered the thought.
"And Princess? Just a moment ago, I saw a large number of plants all die at once... and a number of Guard simply fall over." She paused as Luna quickly glanced over the balcony but saw no such fallen Guard. "It was on the west side, near the fountains... and, there were a number of bushes that continued to wilt as I came to alert you.... they were following the west wall towards the city."
-~oOo~-
Gentry sat at the bar facing the reflection of a deserter.
Well, not a deserter per se but, rather, the reflection of a once proud Royal Guard who had abandoned his post and fled the castle after having come across the smoldering, still living, remains of some hapless creature.
A hapless creature which had been horribly and cruelly tortured, maimed, and then left to suffer until it's inevitable demise... at the hooves of his princesses.
Wincing at the thought, he ran a hoof over his face, pausing at the soft clink of glass on glass, before looking past his fetlock at the barkeep who was in the process of refilling his mug.
"So," rumbled the rotund earthpony, "what's got one of you hardliners down in my little hole?" The barkeep snorted, "Hope you're not just grumpy over some mare that brushed you off."
At Gentry's glare, the barkeep chuckled and added "or some stallion."
Gentry's growl was noncommittal enough for the barkeep to walk around the bar and plop himself down beside his customer.
"Look buddy, it's not my business or nothin', but experience tells me that when a stallion comes in looking like you do, ordering drinks like you have, and grumblin' and glarin' like you are, well... there's only so many things 'at might'a done it."
Gentry rolled his eyes before letting his head fall to the bar, intent on ignoring the barkeep.
"Yep. That nailed it. You..."
Dead silence hung in the air as the barkeep trailed off. What started as a few seconds, drifted off into ten, and then twenty before Gentry, as much as he didn't want to respond, finally couldn't stand the silence. "I what?"
"have a problem," the barkeep finished with mirth in his gravely voice.
"Ug.... look Chippy, or Smokey, or whatever your name is- you don't know me, you don't know what's wrong, and you certainly can't help to fix it, so just leave me alone will ya?"
"Nope. I'm a barkeep. Barkeepering and Bartendering is what I do."
"So go tend the bar then Sparky."
"I am tendin' to it you lazy bum."
Raising his head, fully intent on the idea of glaring down the bartender, Gentry blinked back as his face was nearly muzzle to muzzle with the portly stallion beside him. He opened his mouth to speak, only to find a large lump of salty pretzel shoved into it before he could form a word.
"Now that I've got your attention, how about you tell ol'Tankard all about it, 'afore I throw you out for being rowdy?
Despite the coarseness of his voice, the barkeep's smile seemed sincere.
After a moment to chew and then swallow the lump of pretzel, Gentry took a sip from his mug.
"Look, Tankard was it?" At the slight nod, he continued, "Right, well, I'm career Guard. Have been for years and didn't have any other plans really, but not too long ago, I came across... something that made me question if I could do the job. " He felt his face scowl at the memories of walking into that room to see that creature on the ground, to hear it's screams, and to see his princesses doing nothing but stare.
"I quit."
"Ah."
Gentry blinked. "Ah?"
"Yep, Ah.... funny sound, normally means 'I understand now' or lets folks know a doctor or dentist is about to begin work.... fancy word, I know, but effective."
Gentry reached for his mug again, taking a sip before turning to look at the barkeep. "You know, if you're going to nag me until I talk to you, you could at least take me seriously."
Tankard smiled before reaching across the bar to refill a bowl of pretzels and nuts. "Sure I could, but that would require me to think your problem was a serious one. So far, all you've said is that you didn't know if you could do the job you've already been doing for years. Kind of sounds like you're whining more than really coming across a problem Bucko."
"Now wait a minute! I'm not whining about something stupid like missing a shift or having to skip dinner because I've got rounds to make. I'm talking about a real problem here!" With a huff, Gentry snapped back at the barkeep before grabbing a hoof full of salty snacks from the proffered bowl.
"Now, that sounds more like a 'problem' than whining." Tankard looked him over slowly before nodding. "So, big problem, something that'll take a career Guard off his hooves and slap him down in my little hole-inna-wall tavern. Sounds serious there buddy."
"Dang right it's serious."
"Glad we agree on that.... peanut?"
"What did you call me?!"
"Buddy... I was offering you a peanut." Tankard gestured towards the bowl again as he pulled one of the aforementioned snacks and broke the shell with a gentle hoof tap. After a moment, he looked across the bar, pointedly ignoring Gentry grabbing a few more snacks, and popped the peanut into his mouth.
"Look, Tankard, It's nothing personal, but you just wouldn't understand."
"Riiight. Because I'm a barkeep?"
"No. Because you're not a Guard.... and you're a barkeep."
"Kid, no one's born to be a barkeep."
Gentry blinked as he glanced over at the heavy stallion beside him.
"When you start out, everything's new and anything's possible," Tankard began, "but you've never really hit anything that pushes back see? Then... then you grow some. You come across stuff that makes your eyes shine and things that make your heart ache. Both in good measure."
Gentry tipped his head as Tankard reached over and filled both mugs from a pitcher before tossing a few more snacks Gentry's way.
"Way I see it, no matter where you start, problems end up stickin' with you; it's the solutions 'at run away."
Gentry blinked as the barkeep stood back up, downed his mug, and then walked back around the counter... pointedly walking past him without a glance.
"Damn" he said to himself, before leaving a small pile of bits and grabbing a few pretzels for the road.
Celestia was waiting when Twilight Sparkle teleported back into the hallway some three minutes later. Unlike when she had left, however, Celestia was no longer alone. Instead her sister, Princess Luna, was waiting along with one of her personal Guards Twilight wasn't familiar with.
Blinking back her initial thoughts, Twilight cleared her throat and ran through a mental checklist to assess the situation.
First: Celestia looked pensive at best, downright concerned at worst. That kind of look generally preceded a call to the Element Bearers or at least to a contingent of the Guard (whichever happened to be 'on shift' at the moment).
Second: Luna's presence implied a certain level of danger given Celestia's expression. While Celestia wore her emotions behind a carefully crafted facade, Luna's centuries of solitude had gifted her with highly atrophied social graces... leading to some very uncomfortable moments in relation to disagreements. That Luna was looking a mix between worried and hostile did not bode well for whatever had transpired in her absence.
Third: one of Luna's Guard being obvious meant, in no uncertain terms, that there was a hostile element within the Castle walls. When Luna chose her Guards, she was meticulous in her selection. She did not choose based upon experience, build, race, or even evidenced skill, but rather what her instincts told her would be important.
While Luna's methods were.... difficult to categorize, Twilight had yet to discover even a single Guard who had been less than devastatingly effective when pressed. While they might not all be fighters in the traditional sense, each one had possessed some particular trait that had lent itself to creating an even more effective whole.
With that thought in mind, Twilight quickly scrutinized the Guard. The mare was one of the batponies, the exceedingly uncommon breed thought to trace its lineage back to before Luna's banishment. Her mane was pulled back in some form of tight braid and kept in place by a thin strand of some sort. Her coat was the same matte charcoal as the other Night Guard, but upon her peytral was a small silvery crest denoting a mark of position. Slitted amber eyes caught her own as Twilight's gaze lifted... with recognition: one of Luna's personal Guard, selected for specific, though undeclared, talents.
"I'm sorry to have kept you all waiting," Twilight said after a moment, "What's happened while I was away?"
-~oOo~-
The yard before her was open to the sky and frustratingly devoid of cover as she assessed it from the edge of her bush.
She had been crawling along for nearly half an hour, creeping along whenever the coast was clear and bunkering herself whenever a patrol drew near. Her remaining clothing was barely even identifiable under the stains and rips, and she knew her hair probably resembled a rat's nest more than the careful sweep she preferred whenever she had the time. Wherever she was, however, simply hadn't afforded her the casual opportunity to primp and preen as she would like.
Admittedly, her version of primping normally involved dragging her dagger-like fingers through the thin mass of hair once, checking a few stitches to make sure things wouldn't fall out 'in the moment' and donning an enchanted crown or hat before careening into battle - but it was the thought that counted.
Her appearance aside, the situation was looking to be less and less viable the longer she waited. There were simply no easy places to hide out there. The bushes and decorative fountains that had offered her cover since waking simply ended before the span of several hundred feet of open, carefully manicured, lawn.
She could see, far across the expanse, more garden-like bushes and at least a few statues but, between her and them, nothing but open sky and bare grasses.
Even that she would have been willing to risk if not for two very important issues: a lack of legs for which to sprint, and the preponderance of the flying horse patrols that seemed intent on causing her no end of headaches.
She had just shuffled around to backtrack and try the other side of the place when she heard the flapping of dozens of wings and the soft thuds of hooves touching down nearby.
Bracing herself, she set to slowly turning her head so as not to draw unwanted attention, and beheld a truly terrifying sight.
Less than twenty feet away, a full cadre of those flying horses in armor had landed... but worse yet, the three abominations she had first seen upon arriving were standing amidst them.
The tallest had a coat the color of spent charcoal under the moonlight, almost white save for the gray-blue tint of reflected stained glass windows. Its features bore a curious mix of long-practiced calm and the faintest hint of concern. Though it was easily the largest creature she had seen here so far, it seemed more the type to command rather than directly engage. The armor it wore was simply too ornate: a small unadorned peytral, gold plate cuffs upon its legs, and a tall crown of the same metal. Were she not to know otherwise, she would have assumed it to be some noble's carefully bred mount... something to be taken out and shown, perhaps suffering a quick trip out amongst the common folk on a rare visit. Its mane and tail shifted and slithered through the air, a thing alive and seeking prey while hiding behind a veneer of soft pastel colors, dulled to faintly tinted grays in her sight. Overall, it appeared impressive, though not threatening... an image that was at odds with her personal knowledge. It appeared almost pretty, in a fey sense - not the arcane monstrosity that had participated in her summoning and subsequent execution in a more agonizing fashion than realizing her own flesh had been poisoned and set to drag her to the grave.
The smallest, a shadowy purple smear until its horn lit in a magenta glow, had also been there. Where the white one was massive and somewhat imposing by its size alone, this one was small and even slightly pudgy. Where the white one was impressive in its grooming, this one was prim but clearly interested in utility. It wore no armor of any kind, and its mane was cut short, ending in a straight cut above its eyes. Similar to the other horse-things that had landed, this one's mane and tail seemed mundane, if strangely colored. But where it was small and unarmored, she felt a thrill of uncertainty. For such an apparently weak creature to be allowed within the presence of the other, clearly powerful, creatures, would imply a similar degree of threat. Perhaps it was some form of minor noble or specialist... a healer or summoner of some sort. Perhaps it was a child of one of the other two.
The third, however, was the creature that filled her with the greatest concern. Where the white one was huge and the purple one small, this creature was somewhere in between. It stood taller than all but the white one, and wore a similar crown and leg-plates, however, that was where the similarities ended. Its coat was the color of blotted ink on a moonless night and its mane and tail leapt and snapped as if a thing ravenous, all while displaying the endless night of the fallen Draenor. Where its armor appeared similar to the white one, there were no smooth edges, favoring its blueish metal with almost blade-like cuts. Where the white one stepped gracefully, almost flowing across the grasses and the purple one almost trotted to keep up with its taller counterpart, the dark one stalked with the intensity of a predator.
She waited, silent in the sparse cover of her bush, and weighed her options. Fighting, simply speaking, wasn't an option. Hiding seemed equally pointless given their arrival. Fleeing would be best but, with no cover except along the wall she had crawled, it wouldn't take long for them to discover her and then it would all be over.
She waited a few moments longer as their gazes roamed the yard, clearly looking for her. The white one turned its head, leading her gaze not unlike a game master leading an act with carefully choreographed intent. The purple one searched with its eyes, darting quickly every time it looked to a new subject.... analytical. The dark one, its lurid gaze slid like the march of the inevitable: unflinching and uncompromising as it passed over the yard in a long, slow, sweep violating the secrets of every shadow or nook as it went.
As the dark one's gaze drew near, her mind was set as she sunk her fingers firmly into the soil and silently pulled a lump of sod from the ground.
Lump after lump, fistfuls of moist blackness were wrenched from the earth as she dug a hole for her much smaller frame.
She dug desperately for, in the dark one's eyes, there was only anger.
Digging, apparently, is not as easy as the creatures in Deepholme make it look. Not only is the ground remarkably sturdy in its own right, but moving that much material around (quietly or otherwise) is not easy in the close confines of a body-sized tunnel.
Regardless, the mere thought of being caught by the dark one was enough to spur her on. Fistful after fistful of moist earth was clawed free, scooped, and deposited behind her. The thin roots of the garden tangled with the sturdier roots and tendrils of the bushes she had been hiding in, all being little more than an inconvenience at the moment; an inconvenience she could hardly afford when her tormentors were so near.
Muttering quietly to herself, she wondered what particular god-like being she had offended to have been gifted with such an unpleasant experience. First, the timeways collapsed, casting all of her world's already tumultuous past into chaos. Then the Iron Horde invasion, forcing many to fight their own ancestors... she still hadn't heard of any mage explaining the continued existence of the descendents of fallen combatants. Next, Draenor's split from history, entire regions and pivotal points in both worlds pasts coming under fire. And then, as if to add insult to injury, the paradox had apparently grown to such monumental proportions that when the original Draenor had been torn asunder by the power crazed warlocks of the Burning Legion, the new Draenor's magic had become too unstable to hold itself together.
And when all was said and done, she, like countless others, had been cast off into the twisting nether when the physical shell of the planet had ruptured.
And now, after being frozen, shattered, burned, crushed, tortured, and whatever else they had done to her since her arrival, she was being pursued by the very tormentors who had plucked her from the cold dead of the empty reaches of the night sky itself.
Pulling another fistful of soil from the pitch before her, she shoved it back along her tattered side, hoping that they would take a few minutes before finding her method of escape.
-~oOo~-
Gentry stood, glaring at the gatehouse. Two other guards stood, staring back at Gentry with little more than a raised eyebrow to show any form of reaction between the two of them.
He really hadn't expected any, to be honest. It wouldn't make sense for the castle to be up in arms over his departure, and there was even less reason that the on-duty Guards would have shown anything less than perfect composure and respect for any citizen... even one who had deserted his post.
With a frown, Gentry set his jaw and snorted once before trotting up to the gatehouse with enough snarky comments running through his mind to fill a book. Perhaps that's what he should really do... go home and write books rather than go through with his plan to return to duty and beg forgiveness if the Princesses questioned him.
"Evening Sir," one of the stallions, Bulwark if the voice was anything to go by, said.
"Anything to declare," the other guard, Impasse, asked with a quick glance over Gentry's shoulder, "unless this is an inspection, of course?"
He rolled his eyes. Of course, they'd have to make a big deal about this. Check me over. Ask all the questions. Waste my time and give me grief all within the bounds of protocol without breaking any rules.
"No. Nothing to declare... I'm naked... see?" He frowned all the harder as he briskly turned around, proving himself with little more than an impatient huff as he faced them again.
Impasse, ever the polite one, nodded quickly before turning to open the small service door but stopped when Bulwark coughed softly.
"Beggin' your pardon... Sir... but, if I remember correctly, unless a Guard is discharged, one way or another, their clearance and permissions are revoked until proper notice is given."
Gentry paused. It was true, technically at least, but that particular rule was only enforced where matters of treason were being considered... something that hadn't happened in living memory. With deliberate slowness, Gentry planted his front hooves and turned to look at Bulwark with his most cutting glare.
"Bulwark, I'm not going to cite a good number of things regarding proper procedure right now. I'm not going to point out that, as the more senior of the two of you, you were required to address me by rank. I'm not going to remember that your helmet wasn't polished with regulation polish this evening. I'm not going to offhoofedly mention that the gatehouse door was, and still remains, unlocked while there is an unconfirmed visitor at the gate. I shall miss the lack of bootblack on your shoes. I might even accidentally forget to require a proper parade welcome as I could request as a member of Princess Celestia's appointed staff. Or, I could just as easily point out that since I was NOT dismissed, or recalled, that I have been, and still remain, on duty since events behind closed doors occurring some time ago... events which, I might add, were confidential and secured, meaning that anything you might have overheard, or been told, would be a chargeable breach of Equestrian Royal Security."
Bulwark stood for a moment, enduring his baleful glare, before licking his lips slowly. "Sir, to reiterate, unless a Guard is discharged, their clearance and permissions are revoked until proper notice is given... which would mean that unless the Princesses gave explicit instruction that you not report for muster, you were not properly discharged and have been AWOL since the conclusion of the closed session a while back. And, unless I miss my mark, I would also assume that you have not received proper notice of your clearance being reinstated."
Impasse watched silently, hoof half-raised to the service door, as the two continued to consider each other. Bulwark, clearly treading on thin ice while Gentry similarly overstepping his bounds.
The moment was broken however, when a shout went up from within the grounds nearby. An angry shout.
A shout, in the Royal Canterlot Voice.
-~oOo~-
"The Creature is GONE!" Bellowed Princess Luna as she uncovered what appeared to be an intact, if rapidly collapsing, tunnel behind a collection of wilting shrubberies.
"'Tis an invader and scondrel, an invisible assailant upon these, our own... OUR OWN subjects, and yet it IS GONE!"
The small cadre of Guard, a haphazard mishmash of both her and her sister's personal troops, as well as a number of the generic 'Royal' Guard, flinched under the withering assault.
"It has been but a moment since our arrival, a tare of effort, and we have located its escape, and yet NONE have sought to arrest its flight!?!? Pray Tell! From whom do you draw sustenance?"
A quick, though reserved, "Our Princesses" echoed across the band of armored ponies.
"And to whom willest thee labor, yea unto completion, such task as may be set before you?"
A similar, though no less reserved, "Our Princesses" rippled through the crowd.
"And from who has this trespasser stolen both security and privicy?"
"Our Princesses," came the reply again, though Luna noticed a few of her own Guard to be whispering "my princess" under their breath.
"Then for what reason art thy still-"
"Luna, that is enough."
The Princess of the Night's head snapped around fast enough to cause many of the Guard to shrink back as Celestia coolly watched her. Off in the distance, she could see a number of unicorn magi blinking in and out of existence as they teleported closer. A few stray hairs of Twilight's mane were curled as they had sprung free of her normally ironclad manestyle. And through it all, Luna only briefly wondered what the issue was until she noticed the coil of glowing blue cable that she had been levitating unconsciously.
"My apologies. I have forgotten myself," Luna whispered at a volume that was easily heard by all. "Time hast marched long past where such discipline might be entertained." She closed her eyes and steadied both her breathing and the lashing whips of her mane and tail, only opening them again once she had quieted her inner voice. "I have overreacted again. Please, resume your duties and pray, forgive my misjudgement."
A number of the Guard blinked at her for a moment before one of the Solars nodded and turned to the wilting brush to resume his examination. A few moments later and the bulk of the gathering had turned to resume their own labors as well.
Luna held a hoof to her head as she berated herself silently. She had been making such progress with Celestia's little ponies... and then she had to go and do something like that.
"For what it's worth Princess," a soft, though no less certain, voice said from her right, " I am rather embarrassed that it took me so long to notice it."
"The fault is not thine own, Mistral. We art as much blinded by assumption as-"
"Luna..." Celestia's voice slipped into her sister's exchange with just enough warmth to remind the Lunar Diarch of her support.
"... what we meant to say was that," Luna looked over to the other two alicorns present, watching for approval, "we understand...," a soft nod, "... your remorse, and it is," a sharp look from Celestia, "... un...founded." Another slight smile, "'Tis not something that anypony should rightly know to search for," Twilight nodded curtly, glancing up at Celestia herself. "Think no more on this matter but, know that I value your insight," an approving, if somewhat surprised look from Celestia, "and hope that you would feel inclined to provide such again, at your leisure."
If Mistral was surprised, she didn't show it, instead only nodding and flitting off to a nearby tower to scan the ground below.
The soft whisper of her sister's hoofsteps beside her brought Luna's gaze back to the garden. "That was a much better recovery than last time," Celestia whispered with a smile. "And I am surprised at you Luna! When were you going to tell me you chose a mare to keep as your consort?"
Luna's startled squawk brought a smile to Celetia's face.
Even if Mistral's conclusion was incorrect, Celestia knew that levity helped Luna more than any hunt ever would.
...
Besides, seeing Luna blush would never get old.
-~oOo~-
Her fingers clawed through the inky blackness tirelessly. One fist after another, one inch after another, she slid silently through the humid slumber of the earth. Even here, hours after starting her escape, she could still feel those eyes upon her, searching and finding her... wanting.
Intellectually she knew she had escaped. She had, after all, slipped out from under their very noses, even as they had cornered her and were closing in. She knew that if they had discovered her quickly enough, they would have just drug her back out, beating her into submission, and then resumed whatever tortures the dark one intended.
She knew all this and yet...
Shaking off another chill, she reached forth again and paused as her fingers slid against something much much harder than the soil she had been working through for the past few hours.
Whatever it was, it was smooth as glass and at least as hard.
Working her other hand forward, she set about tracing the edge nearest her, working to pack the soil away, determined to free the object or at least dig around it to continue her escape.
And yet, when she finally had crushed enough soil to move the object, she found it refused to shift, even when she braced her spine and shoved with both of her arms.
Curious, but more motivated by her desire to escape, she had just decided to dig around the thing when she ran into another surface only a few feet away.
Confused, but still wary, she shifted herself again, adjusted her course and started to dig once more, just to strike a third object.
Unlike the first two however, the third shifted with a loud cracking sound, before erupting into a bright gray/blue light.
What she saw would have stolen her breath had she still required air.
Below her, a great cavern of glittering crystal yawned aglow with a ripple of multicolored light.
And then, she felt the ground shift, heard a shuddering crack, and the world went dark once more as she fell.
Twilight Sparkle went over their plan for what felt like the hundredth time. It had been a simple plan, a plan trimmed down to its integral parts to minimize the impact of x-factors. It should have worked - that it didn't, had set her mind to hammering out the flaws in the predictive system.
But, after nearly twenty minutes of examining, reexamining, and then re-reexamining the events that had led them to the dead juniper bush, she had finally just excepted the likelihood that her high probability scalar model had, in fact, functioned properly... and that her experience had simply been one of extremely low probability.
The science was there, immutable, inflexible, and sound. The factors were present, accounted for, and real. The situation had not introduced any new conditions that she hadn't (in some way) taken into account. But, there it was, plain as her cutiemark: they had failed to apprehend the intruder.
Mistral had returned to stalking the parapets, gliding like a liquid shadow from tower to tower on occasion as she searched for other clues. Celestia remained oddly quiet, looking over her garden as the guardsponies and specialists poured over the scene for further evidence. Luna was silently glaring at the disturbed soil next to the wall, having wrenched the dead evergreen from the earth the moment protective wards had been completed... a sight which had made others in the area a touch nervous as it was clearly apparent that she was working on some obscure spellform.
For their own part, the guards were warily checking and rechecking every thing they could think of to determine how the intruder had escaped their notice for so long, as well as how it had attacked so many without apparent repercussion. They had been informed, some minutes ago, that the ailment which had afflicted their fellow Guard had been traced to an obscure and unusual form of necromancy. And with that revelation, Mistral's theory had become the working order of the night.
If it weren't for Twilight Sparkle's inherent frustration that the assailant had slipped away, she would likely have been thrilled (and slightly disgusted) by the promise of a distinctly new application of an established spellform... forbidden or not. Necromancy, while highly frowned upon, did have some respectable applications in the medical field, as well as horticulture, industry, and even agricultural planning. And, while the direct influence of necromancy's premiere talent set was strongly discouraged, the viable hedge applications proved temptingly legal.
After all, necromancy could be used to prevent cave ins around coastal towns by influencing the skeletal remains of sea life. Necromancy could be used to revive a dead strain of crops or blighted medicinal herbs. Necromancy could even be used to save the living bodies of those in critical accidents, supplementing and preserving the tissues until proper medical techniques could be applied.
That such practices were generally frowned upon meant little in the mind of Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Equestria and Physical Embodiment of the Element of Magic.
Thankfully, Twilight Sparkle, friend of countless neighbors and acquaintances across Equestria, had enough restraint to only study necromancy in its theoretical forms... rather than in practical application.
None the less, she fumed over the loss of her current source of consternation, almost as much as for the loss of a new source of research material.
All of which came to an abrupt and jarring halt when Princess Luna turned to her sister and simply stated "it is gone."
At which point, a new question lay siege to Twilight Sparkle's mind: what in Equestria could outwit the Princess of the Night?
-~o0o~-
Dark places were becoming increasingly predictable as a matter of waking.
With a shaky start, she slid an arm across the ground, carefully checking her immediate surroundings for ledges or holes which might encourage further unexpected travel, before slowly lifting her torso into a more upright position. She hurt all over. Bones and scraps of desiccated tissue scraped across unusually smooth ground as she took in her surroundings.
Wherever she was, it was deep underground, something that was both unsurprising and almost absurdly obvious. She had been digging, after all, but the cavern she had tumbled into was so much larger and cleaner than expected that she half suspected it to have been constructed as some sort of underground city.
As she looked around, the soft felglow of her eyes brought just enough illumination to the place that she began to pick out finer details. The cavern, and there was no mistaking it for anything else at that point, was enormous. Stretching dozens of yards in every direction before meeting glass-like walls or fading into the dark recesses of the unknown. The floor, hard and tile-like, lay almost as flat as a pond, interrupted only by the occasional stone column or crystalline growth. Of the ceiling, she could see no evidence, its height apparently lost to the shadowy abyss above.
For a moment, she simply lay there, propped up upon her elbows as her gaze searched the perpetual night of the underground. Memories of Northrend's frozen wastes bled into the long forgotten tunnels and underground cities of the ancient spider race that had lived for ages uncounted beneath those frosty plains.
She had been there, years ago, when the old tunnels had been opened up. She had seen the undead mockeries of that once proud people, and she had descended into those living crypts.
There had been spiders by the millions. They had wandered along in the dark, scuttling across webs thick enough to be mistaken for tree trunks, swarming in uncounted numbers as they sought endlessly elusive prey. There had been entire regions which had been so deeply hidden, that even with divine aide, she doubted she would be able to find them again... were she insane enough to try.
There had been a cavern, like this, which had been left barren, and it was only when her party had entered that they discovered why. The resulting massacre had left her party with only three members, all of which escaped the massive fangs and acidic venom of the crypt lords with little more than their skin. In her own case, a good portion of even that had been sacrificed to ensure their survival.
Of the other members of her troupe, there had been precious little left to recover. Spiders, after all, did not leave their prey unattended.
With a slowness that bordered on the glacial, she began to slowly pull herself towards the nearest wall. Steadily, and with as little sound as possible, she slid her arms across the stone, pricking skeletal fingers into imperfections in the surface to offer grip. While she saw no evidence of life, she knew from experience that a lack of obvious signs did not mean a room was unwatched.
-~o0o~-
Mistral was frustrated.
Where, just hours ago, she had figured out a crucial part to the mystery involving the abduction of the Unnamed Hero, since the near confrontation in the garden, there had been no sign of their quarry at all. Normally, there would be clues: a forgotten scrap of cloth, a window left cracked open, a hoofprint or the unusually lucky wallet, but this time there was only a swath of dead plants, a garrison's worth of recovering Guardsponies, and a patch of disturbed soil behind the hole of an uprooted evergreen bush.
Even from above, she hadn't been able to spot anything suspicious. The rest of the gardens appeared healthy and the gates were as solidly held as ever. The walls had been checked time and again and pronounced, uniformly, intact. None of Princess Luna's wards had been breached and none of the castle staff had reported any disturbances.
Not even Princess Celestia's raising the sun 3 hours early had shed any light upon their mystery outside of determining that the soil had, indeed, been disturbed as the culprit tunneled away.
The Crown had been seeking agreeable Diamond Dogs to trace the tunnel, but that would take at least an hour or two to reach an understanding between the temperamental creatures. Apparently, the ponies had a reputation of torture and abuse within the ranks of the Diamond Dogs... something that no historical accounts noted but that Princess Twilight confirmed without elaboration.
For herself, the early sun meant an early morning headache and what promised to be a longer than average day.
With a muted growl of frustration, she swooped down to inspect the patch of garden where the creature was last detected again.
-~o0o~-
Another stack of papers landed beside the already teetering column to his left, causing the entire tower to tremble and shift uncertainly before settling in a lopsided arch.
Duty held his breath, hoping against hope that if he moved slowly enough, he could steady the architecturally unsound mockery of bureaucracy upon the desk before the laws of physics could inform gravity that he was being a lazy lack-wit.
Very very slowly, he lifted his hooves from where he had been filling in appropriations forms (in triplicate) and steadied the abomination of red-tape, breathing a sigh of relief.
"YO, DUTY!" shouted the caramel colored stallion as he flew in through the second story balcony, "I GOT YOUR COFFEE BUD!"
Duty's legs stiffened, locking in place as the tower shifted and shook. Pages and notes sitting at odd angles, almost seeming to ooze out of the degrading structure from the sudden arrival as Crosswind touched down a few feet away.
"Whoa... um... not to be snarky Duty, just.... that don't look like a good thing to play with."
Duty licked his lips as another page seemed to almost squirm free before the entire stack finally became still. A tense few moments passed before Duty pressed, ever so lightly, upon the stack and began the careful process of squaring it off.
Crosswind, wisely, stayed exactly where he was, not daring to move. He'd seen far too many teachers and politicians freaked out by paper; he knew how dangerous it was to be anywhere near anything more than a few sheets of the cursed stuff at a time.
"Crosswind," Duty said after finally straightening up the pile of forms, " while I appreciate the coffee, could you please not shout randomly when simply approaching and speaking sensibly would be a feasible alternative?"
Smirking slightly, the pegasus rolled his eyes and lifted the insulated bottle of coffee from his bag before placing it on the other end of Duty's desk.
"Yheah, sure. No problem. Did you want me to run up to your desk when stuff's falling all over or just sprint and slide the last couple'a feet so you don't have to worry about being startled then?"
Duty closed his eyes as he considered exactly what being dismissed from Celestia's service actually meant in terms of employment. Just a day ago, he'd been working within the palace, leading a force of specialists and coordinating police actions while being able to utilize militarily trained service ponies to enact the will of the Crown. He'd been just one step short of a proper military leader and had garnered the respect (and associated perks) of such a rank. He'd been invited to parties (which he had politely turned down), informed of sensitive information (which he had dutifully filtered and sent along to the Princesses), and maintained a tight watch over the rank and file, ensuring no funny business or slacking ever occurred.
And then that washed up old dirt bag had gone and opened his mouth, making him look like a fool.
Duty sighed. No, that wasn't quite right. The gardener had been military and had technically outranked him. He had been following royal decree and had, technically brought up some important information... technically.
No matter how he looked at the situation, he just couldn't find where he should have been able to figure out that a garden trowel would lead to almost catching a grave robber.
Granted, he could have been more polite.... should have been more polite really, but he was supposed to have been in charge!
With a slight sniff of irritation, Duty looked back up at the clerk who had been assigned to help him through 'orientation' at the Bureau of Form Processing. "No. No, I'm sorry Crosswind. It's just the nerves. Thank you for the coffee."
Crosswind smiled brightly before nodding and turning to leave. "Alright then Duty. I'll check back up on you in an hour or so. Just give a holler if ya need to ask any questions. Just 'cuz you're older doesn't mean you know everything, so don't be embarrassed if you can't figure some of the new gizmos out!"
As Duty resisted the urge to shout out his 'trainer' about knowing more than most of the staff of the Bureau put together, Crosswind spread his wings and darted up towards the third floor sorting deck... causing Duty to grind his teeth as the stack of forms instantly exploded from the wind.
Thankfully, there had been no spiders... giant, undead, or otherwise.
That there hadn't been any was as much a surprise as it was distressing however. Where large open spaces existed, spiders always found a way to live. Spiders could live because bugs could live. Open spaces meant a place for all kinds of creepy crawlies to scuttle around and hide and, in contrast, a place without them was a place without the means to support life.
All of which was meaningless to the undead, but still... the idea of being stuck in a hole in the ground for untold years was really far from an attractive future.
So, she rested. Propped up against one of the walls, she took a few moments to tear the last scraps of her cloak apart, using it to both pack and contain the remains of her innards. It wasn't pretty, and it wasn't altogether comfortable to wedge the fabric up into her rib-cage, but she wasn't planning on having a repeat of the trowel incident from the garden.
No. If she was to be forced to scuttle around like some kind of broken, crippled, animal, then she was not going to be a broken, crippled, animal that was getting herself stuck on random gardening equipment.
A few minutes of work packing and tying the fabric between ribs, and she had managed a passable internal bag. It shifted slightly, the sensation bringing up memories of nausea and heartburn, but the overall effect was what she had been looking for: mobility. Experimentally, she lifted herself up on her arms, shifting and turning as she checked over the work.
She wouldn't be winning any beauty pageants (not even in the Undercity), but she could once more move without snagging some trailing bit of this or that.
Running her leathery tongue over her front teeth as she concentrated, she began the task of learning how to carry, rather than drag, herself around.
After all, when one is trapped in a hole, with nothing but time, one might as well make use of the time available.
-~oOo~-
The soft clicking and creaking of bone and leathery, paper thin, skin had begun to fade away as she practiced. Where originally the sound had seemed loud, nearly echoing in the cavernous expanse, she could comfortably say that she had either grown accustomed to her new form of locomotion or that she had substantially improved upon the methods she employed.
With an airless sigh, she lowered herself back down, twisting just as her ribcage contacted the floor to allow herself a moment to shift her weight, and rolled out her shoulders.
She couldn't tell how long she'd been at it, the crystal lined cavern gave no impression of the passage of time, but she imagined it had been several days worth of stoic practice.
She had begun clumsily enough, dragging herself around, getting the feel for how her fingers and hands clawed and scrabbled on the smooth floor, until she had gathered the confidence to try lifting herself. It had been a terrible idea.
Bone and crystal did not provide much traction. Thin, dry, skin provided even less, tearing through places and simply slipping at others. Slipping and toppling to her face had become common in her early exploration and had led to the slow creation of a raggedy pair of gloves salvaged from the loose scraps of fabric that had composed the remains of her shoulder guards.
They were worn, lumpy, filthy things, reminiscent of the festering sewers of some long forgotten dungeon, but they offered the moist flexibility that her body simply did not. Their creation had heralded the advantage she had needed to continue her practice, slowly building balance and familiarity with her new center of gravity.
Her explorations had become more extensive thereafter. Where she had originally stayed to the cavern she had fallen into, she began to slowly stray, clinging to walls or hobbling along with her two armed gait until she had located a number of small passages that littered the area.
Thankfully, despite finding more room, and the promise of another potential path to the surface, she had found no evidence of the depraved madness of the giant spider race she had originally feared.
She had been exploring a new cave when the soft glimmer of something caught her yellow gaze. Growing still, she slipped to the ground and waited, scanning the darkness for another hint of the thing that had caught her attention. The air was still, no breath of a breeze or echo of movement spoke of what might have drawn her gaze originally.
Waiting pensively, she squinted lidlessly... the yellow glow of tainted magic dimming from her dark sockets as she faded until she resembled little more than a desiccated corpse left in some improbably deep mine.
She waited until it happened again.
A soft glimmer of light, reflecting impossibly in the dark, from a distant crystal.
Slowly, with almost predatory joy, she rose to her hands once more, eyes locked upon the impossibly faint glow of the crystal, and began the careful process of following the infrequent light towards what she hoped was a way out.
-~oOo~-
The castle had been on high alert since the mysterious intruder had escaped.
The Princesses, all three of them, had made a public address warning the populace of the intruder's attempt.
The Guard had been cycled repeatedly, calling in troops from as far away as Hollow Shades, to maintain a presence in the city and ensure the safety of the common pony.
And not a single bit of it made Twilight Sparkle feel even the tiniest bit more comfortable while sitting in a tea room overlooking the bright alabaster walls of the capital.
"Pri-... Celestia," Twilight started as she settled the teacup carefully upon a saucer, "not that I don't think that increasing the Guard's ranks was a bad thing per-se, but if it can leech the life of ponies, apparently at will, won't doing so make it even more dangerous?"
And Princess Celestia, towering figure that she was, smiled down at her former student. "Perhaps Twilight, but I do quite hope you recall that we still do not even know if it was the assailant or the victim."
Blinking slowly, Twilight raised the teacup to her lips once more, checked the locket at her neck and vanished in a flash of lavender magic.
-~oOo~-
Princess Celestia sat, looking out over the courtyard with the light scent of her tea wafting through the air. Pegassi were crisscrossing the sky every few minutes, small flags trailing from the teams to identify the different search patrols, while others ran information to and from the team captains. The earth pony Guard were likewise busy, having taken on the task of tracking the creature who had managed to escape under all of their noses.
She did not envy their position. Earth pony or not, dragging excavating equipment into one of the royal gardens would likely bring about the untimely retirement of at least one or two of the new recruits once the gardener got a hold of them.
She smiled slightly at the mental image of a batch of new recruits quivering and flinching at the wild howls of the elderly stallion.
There was nothing for it though. Until the diamond dog burrower could be brought up to speed, the only thing they could do was prepare for the experience.
A soft cough brought Celestia's attention back to the here and now as one of the castle staff refreshed her tea while surreptitiously laying a pressed envelope next to her saucer. "Milady," she said before bowing out.
Celestia watched the mare retreat until the balcony doors clicked softly shut behind her.
With a glance to the goings on below, Celestia levitated the letter up, skimmed the flowery preamble that continued for three full pages before getting to the point, before crumpling the pressed cotton pages in her magic, and using them to make a miniature sun in the haze of her magic.
Dismissing the tiny cloud of smoke, she returned to watching the courtyard as she waited for Twilight to return. The nobles, after all, could handle their own affairs without troubling her for permission to level an orphanage to make room for some fop's swimming pool.
And after a moment, she scowled. Of course they couldn't.
-~oOo~-
The crystal wasn't terribly large or shiny. It wasn't flashy or perfectly faceted. It wasn't cleanly cut from the wall or arcing with magical forces. But, what it was was the single most beautiful thing she had seen in a very long time.
It had taken her quite a while to bash the thing free, but it had been worth it. The fist sized lump of roughly shaped blue crystal gave off a faint glow and flickered every once in a while with unknown power. If she were an enchanter, she would likely have spent hours mapping out the strange crystal, charting the magical pathways and dissecting the aether for hints as to its abilities. As it was though, she was a priest with not a little knowledge of magical garments.
So, despite her inclination to see the softly glowing rock as something incredibly powerful, at the moment, it served as a light source.
She chuckled, the dry sound echoing in the enclosed space.
She couldn't fashion armor out of it, and a proper weapon was just as far from her experience, but she recognized the gem for what it was to her: a small bit of hope in a very dark place. With light, she could see further than her magically enhanced sight would allow otherwise. With light, she could explore more freely and avoid hazards. With light she could make progress or leave marks to leave a path back to where she had come from.
And in a pinch, that rock would serve in place of her mace if she had to fight.
Flexing her jaw a moment, she lodged the gem into her mouth and turned to resume her exploration of the caves, staggering off into the slightly less dark world with her two-armed stride.
Next would come the handle. Then, and only then, would she see about escaping.
-~oOo~-
Twilight Sparkle trotted purposefully through the various hallways and courtyards of Canterlot Castle as she mulled things over in her head. On the one hoof, she knew unequivocally more about the creature than all but two others in the nation. On the other, she still didn't know anything besides the manner in which it had arrived, that it had been alone, and that it had, at one point, been killed only to rise again through some twisted form of necromancy.
To say that she was frustrated that her research hadn't turned up more than cultural cues as to its unusual weapon... would have been an understatement.
So, it was with no small bit of surprise that a letter from Spike had given her the clue that was currently sending her out towards the wartime artifacts section of the Royal Canterlot Museum of Equine History. How Rainbow Dash, of all ponies, had managed to pick out something she had missed, was still shocking, but that she had told Spike that the 'awesome mace' he was dusting looked 'just like that one in the Cloudiseum' was something on an entirely different level.
Rainbow Dash was many things: fast, 'awesome', hot-headed, loyal, and not a little bit lazy, but somepony that visited museums and recognized a twisted and half-destroyed piece of otherworldly weaponry as an example of ancient, museum quality, war-construction... that was something Twilight would never have believed.
Of course, hearing from Spike that the situation which had led to the discovery had involved a high-speed collision with the inside of her castle via four sets of windows did lend credence to the story.
As she passed the outer gates of the palace, Twilight reflected that it was a miracle of at least equal caliber that Rainbow Dash still hadn't killed herself with the frequency and degree of her 'fly-ins.'
Twilight smirked softly at the nickname the pegasus had crafted for her crashes. Rainbow Dash.... would forever be Rainbow Dash.
In retrospect, finding the mine cart had been the first sign that her luck had been turning around. Yes, the crystal was an important discovery and, yes, having discovered the disused cart rails had been proof that there must be an exit somewhere, but the mine cart itself had been the single most helpful thing she had wandered across in the expansive underground cave system.
She had been in above-ground caves before... the distinction was appropriate: it was cleaner.
She smiled bitterly as she tottered along, the dim glow of her crystal giving off just enough light to track the rails before her as she pulled the cart along by ropes she'd found near an old wooden pulley system a ways back. The cart itself was nothing particularly unique... an old, partially rotted out, wooden cart with rusty metal fixtures, but it gave her both a place to safely rest and a method of transporting anything else she had found along the way.
And find things, she had.
After the cart, she'd found the old coil of rope dangling from some kind of winch and pulley system. She'd found an old lantern, and though it was out of fuel, it was still something she could potentially use later on. A short shovel had been thrown in next - though that would likely be used for firewood before anything else given that the handle was almost completely dry rotted. A short length of chain had joined the pile followed by the crowning achievement of her trek: a rusted mining pick.
Grabbing another plank in the rail line, she pulled herself forward, dragging the cart along with the dull groaning of axles unused to the touch of oil. It wasn't an experience she would have ever thought she would be found doing in her old life but, given the turn it had taken after the destruction of Draenor, she felt it was an understandable lack of forethought on her part.
Not many actively pondered life activities following the destruction of the planet they currently resided upon.
Heaving the cart along, she began to notice a slight incline to the rail and paused to weigh her options.
On the one hand, she could leave her cart behind, lugging her collected 'treasures' like some beast of burden, to the top of said hill and to whatever lay beyond. On the other, she could struggle to the top, dragging the resisting cart and hoping that she didn't slip and get dragged back down the hill hitting every plank, tie, and rock along the way. Or, of course, she could choose the easiest route: emptying the cart and bringing her goods up individually to reduce the weight.
With a breathless sigh, she began to empty the cart.
Good luck or not, she was not going to risk being reduced to bone meal simply to save a few minutes of travel. Gaining reputation hadn't been a one day affair on Azeroth... she could survive an extra hour or two now.
-~oOo~-
Duty frowned as he bit into a cold sandwich at the end of a long day of soulless, painful, wasting paperwork. True, he was used to paperwork, but the soul-crushing wasteland that was the general importance ~of~ those particular pieces of paper... that was almost physically painful to him.
He was used to paperwork that concerned things of import! He was used to running the numbers, sifting through evidence, trying to eek out the one fact that everypony else had missed that would save the day!
And, as he mashed the day old tomato and garlic sandwich into an unidentifiable paste, he could not believe what some ponies would file paperwork on.
Mailbox polish? Water dampness certifications? Balloon buoyancy ordinances?
The level of stupid some of his fellow Canterlotians seemed capable of.... that made him shudder.
And worst of all, worse than the mindless drivel, worse than the constant bile-swelling horror that was red-tape, was that through it all he couldn't help but wonder what was happening at the castle.
Some crazy pony was out there, trotting around and casually invading the castle of the Princesses, and he was stuck filing for some uppity noble's monthly order of Mane Glow conditioner. The absurdity of it left him with a glower that he was certain he'd have to explain if Princess Luna saw his dreams tonight.
Muttering a bit as he finished his sandwich, Duty pushed back from the 'desk' in his temporary apartment... really no more than a table with a box of his possessions from the castle wedged under the one side... and leaned back in his chair.
Really though, there wasn't much he could do about it. The Princesses had kicked him out. It was their problem now. They would have to go through all the papers, filter out all the crap he would normally dismiss, and try to out think whatever depraved soul had decided to go around digging up graves. They would have to decide what was need-to-know. They would have to decide what to tell the populace. They would have to do all the fiddly little things that he used to do. They would... they... would.
Duty sat forward, his brow creasing as he played that line of reasoning back through his head.
The Princesses would have to do all the work now... well, at least until they hired someone new. Someone with connections and experience. Someone who could piece together a mystery while keeping the mundane tasks of daily management to a reasonable level.
Someone who would never question the reason for their recent employment.
And while the kingdom kept right on going, the Princesses would take care of everything that the little colts and fillies didn't need to know about.
Duty frowned.
The Princesses would take care of everything, just like they always did. And no one would be the wiser.
Duty slid his chair back, glancing down at the crate of his stuff from the castle.
No... it wouldn't be right. He shouldn't even be thinking it.
Slowly, he pulled the box from under his desk and let his hoof hover over the tin of pushpins inside.
But.... but they're the Princesses... they would never....
He pulled out the tin and swept the crumbs from his sandwich away before pulling out the pins and glancing at the empty corkboard on the wall.
"I'm going to need some coffee for this," he muttered as he set his desk with scratch paper, pushpins, yarn, and a set of quills. It was going to be a long, long, night.
Mutt stared at the disturbed ground of the courtyard. There was literally no other word for it other than "destroyed."
But, when a Princess of Equestria asks for a favor, you do that favor. His father had seen to his education. His mother had seen to his health. His Princess had seen to his well-being, and when said Princess asked for his help, he knew what his response would be even before she had told him what she needed.
Even so, staring at the gaping hole in the ground, the piles of dirt and sod, the remains of no fewer than eight bushes and shrubs, left him with precious little to track.
He was a diamond dog. His kind lived in the dirt and were well known for their talent in both tunneling and finding things lost in the depths, but this was almost beyond him.
Almost.
So, with a little nod, he turned to his Princess and gave a toothy grin. "Yheah. I can get you a tunnel that follows it. Might take an hour or so, the foundation here is pretty well solid, but I can get you a path. You wanted it shored up to allow safe passage or just to get where it's going?"
The alicorn beside the house sized pit stared down into the darkness before looking up, her eyes glimmering pools of selfless dedication, her mane, a living patch of the night sky.
"T'would be best a portal worthy of passage."
Mutt nodded and started making lists in his head.
If his Princess wanted a tunnel, he would MAKE her a tunnel worthy of a Princess, tons of marble be damned. In his mind, the floors were already being polished.
-~oOo~-
Twilight Sparkle sank back into her cushion at the small tea table. She had only been gone a few minutes, but the Princess' time was limited and her duties many. Still, a little piece of Twilight mourned the loss of her mentor's quiet reassurances, the times where the Princess would curl a wing around her as she cried into the night over some silly nightmare.
True, what plagued Twilight now was no silly nightmare, certainly not, but the reassurances were something she sorely missed.
Still, there was nothing for it but to put forth her best efforts and triumph over adversity.
Downing the last bit of her now-cold tea, Twilight rose and took a moment to gaze over the railing, down into the pit Luna had unceremoniously started ripping from the garden below.
There were Guards down there now; Guards and a diamond dog with a bright yellow hard hat. Twilight watched for a few moments before turning and walking back towards the doors that would lead further into the palace.
If Luna's contractor was there, surely things were in good hands. They wouldn't need her right now.
Which was good because her most recent little bout of anxiety had reminded her of why she had come back to Canterlot in the first place: The Mace.
The museum had indeed possessed a number of the ancient relics, both pre and post Hearthwarming. They had ranged from simple cudgels to elaborate designs of more form than function. The simplest had been little more than a rock lashed to a sturdy stick, something better used as a hammer than a weapon of war, while the most intricate was an impressive work of gold filigree and glittering gems.
She had been frustrated in that even with the care of the mares and stallions of the museum, none of the artifacts closely resembled the object the creature had possessed. Surely, there were similarities. There was a mass, various tool marks, a handle of some sort, and evidence of use, but for the life of her, it didn't explain half of the structures on the thing.
Maces were one of the simplest martial weapons in existence, and yet, it made no sense to have a weapon that had literal blade-like ridges on the non-smashing part. Not even the most stalwart Earth Pony would have been able to wield that thing without injury.
There had to be more to it.
-~oOo~-
Pulling herself along by the dim and uncertain glow of the gem was starting to wear on her. Granted, having only two limbs to work with, and both of them occupied in the task of locomotion, would leave anyone weary, but having to drag the mine cart along by rope held in ones mouth, behind said glowing gem, made the experience all the more trying.
Of course, difficult and repetitive activities were not uncommon on Azeroth. Someone always seemed to be losing their livestock or needing a book retrieved from the local serial killer... it was just the way of things, she supposed. When the world was as large and complex as it was, things just tended to fall into a kind of pattern. If A, then B. If B, then C. If C, then hire someone else to do it because you really only have time for A. And if C fails, repeat until you run out of money to get someone else to do your dirty work.
There was rarely a point in D.
Her musings on the socioeconomic structuring of the masses were brought to an abrupt halt when she noticed a faint glimmer in the distance. Stopping her cart, she shoved the mining pick into a rail plank to act as a break and scuttled up atop her small pile of things to get a better look.
Far ahead, at the top of another long but shallow rise, she could just make out the slightest blush of light - yet to her, it was like stumbling back into the Undercity after a long slog through some unnamed cesspool of drudgery.
With her free hand, she pulled the gem from her mouth, popped her jaw, and gave an appreciative smile. Things were starting to look up.
-~oOo~-
There was no doubting it now, Mutt thought as he stared down into the darkness below. Somehow, whatever his Princess had been following had found a crack in the foundation of the palace, dug through several dozen meters of packed soil, sand, gravel, and roots, avoided the structural elements that reinforced the walls and gardens, and had driven directly into a gap between bedrock shelves.
Staring into the darkness below, he pondered his next move. Certainly his Princess would want to know he'd found where it had gone. She'd likely be both excited and a bit upset that they'd lost the immediate trail. Of course, that would also mean he wouldn't be able to finish the tunnel he'd been tasked with until she could look at the cavern. And she would want to see it for herself.
He weighed his options. One the one paw, he wanted to make his Princess happy. She'd want to follow along and see it for herself. But on the other paw, the tunnel wouldn't be ready for her majesty until later.
Struggling for only a moment longer, Mutt turned around, careful of his footing, and began digging his way back up, brushing past a few of the diamond dogs as he went, impressing upon his crew the importance of making the tunnel as neat and stable as possible in the immediate time frame.
His Princess would be coming, he was sure of it, and he intended for her to be proud of at least one crew from the palace.
-~oOo~-
Twilight blinked back to wakefulness as the sound of a pony politely clearing their throat dug through the haze of half-sleep.
She was leaned over, nearly laying upon a desk, notes and a few scrolls scattered across the space, with the misshapen lump of the mace studiously resting upon its stand. A small collection of teacups ringed her seat, and though she'd never admit to it, she knew their number and position based upon the degrees between the two cups visible to her right.
She'd been called a 'mess' one too many times and had developed a system of measuring just how involved a project was based upon the orbital distances of teacups in relation to radius from her mouth.
Spike still laughed, but not even he could argue against an accurate measurement system.
At the soft cough behind her, she blinked again and remembered how she had awoken.
"Yes, sorry, please... How can I help you?" she asked as she turned around.
Standing behind her, professional as always, one of the Royal Guards nodded. "Your highness, if it would please you, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna have requested your presence at the dig site. Something about a spell focus and technical terms they would prefer not to share outside of the leadership."
Her mind spinning up as thoughts began to assemble themselves, Twilight glanced back over her desk, her notes and calculations sharing space with theories and unexplored tangents. She really didn't have much to go on yet, but at the same time, every second might very well make a world of difference.
Still, if Celestia and Luna were asking for her, she was more than happy to put aside her examination of the strange mace.
Just as she was getting to her hooves, she accidentally knocked the inkwell from the corner of her desk. Glimpsing the movement, her horn lit almost on reflex, her magic casting out like a net and snaring the crystalline bauble before it could strike the ground.
"Nice catch, Princess."
"Thank you. It's almost a reflex at this point," she explained, smiling as she seated the faceted inkwell back upon her desk.
As she turned to follow the guard, a nagging feeling caused her to pause at the door. Glancing back, she looked over her desk. Notes and scrolls, a few small books, a precisely measured ring of teacups on the floor, a mace, a three quills, and her inkwell. Something was there... something was right there and she couldn't see it.
Stopping fully, she turned back to look at her desk, the guard stopping and looking back as well. "Princess?"
It was there, right at the edge of her thoughts. There was something about the scene that was important. It was important in a way that should be obvious but just simply eluded her.
"Sargent," she asked, tilting her head as she studied the scene in the room, "what do you see when you look in this room?"
Blinking in thought for a moment, the guard nonetheless turned fully back to view the room. "I see a study, one of your dedicated studies, ma'am. A desk, arranged so as to receive the afternoon sun through the facing windows and the morning sun through the trailing windows. Two crystal luminaries for your late night sessions, whenever those may be. Fourteen books from the standard collection, seven from the historical archives, three from the restricted section regarding martial armaments, and various scrolls from sources I haven't noted. Notes and various writings pertaining to your assumed project, a highly ornamented maul, three quills, an inkwell, and thirteen teacups arranged as is your habit for late night study sessions."
Twilight blinked.
"Ma'am?"
"I... really wasn't expecting quite that much detail, honestly."
"It's our duty to be watchful, your highness."
"Yes... yes it is. Thank you."
"Was there something you were looking for, Ma'am?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe?"
Tilting his head, the guard looked over the scene again before looking back to Twilight with a professional calm. "If there is something specific you are looking for, I can assign another guard to locate it in your absence."
Looking back into the room for just a few more moments, she finally relented, turning back to the door and floating the mace, stand and all, over to her as her guard watched.
"If you're ready then, Princess."
"Thank you. Let's go."
Turning to open the door, the guard nodded back and offered up a polite smile. "It's good to have you back, Princess."
She paused. "Back?"
His smile faltering just a bit, the guard nodded. "With everything that's happened recently, Many were starting to worry. It's good to see things getting back to normal."
Twilight paused, studying the guard's face, before looking back into her study with all its familiar things. With all its comfortable nuances. She looked over the desk, the nearby shelves, even the luminaries that would flare to life when the sun dipped below the horizon. She looked over all the things that made that room just a little more comfortable, a little more like home.
Like the two or three others scattered around the castle or the little study nook she maintained back home.
She stared, looking at all the familiar things, before turning to gaze at the mace floating in her aura, its sharp edges and strange crafting seemingly all too alien to even exist within the space of her comforting little slice of normal.
It was the exception. It was the thing that stood out. It didn't belong.
And yet, as a student, as a researcher, such things would necessarily exist in such a place. Where else could they exist to be studied?
She was a princess, and she had a mace. Those two things did not belong together. But she was a researcher, a scientist, and she had a mystery. Those two things DID belong together.
So she was a princess and she had a mace.
The existence of one thing did not, automatically, infer the other.
She blinked.
The mace was a weapon, but that did not make its possessor a warrior.
"Sargent?"
"Yes, your highness?"
"Please lead on."
"Yes, your highness."
-~oOo~-
The cart had almost made it all the way out of the caves when time and decay had finally won out. An axel, rusted and ground nearly to dust, had failed, derailing the cart and dumping her finds across the rocky floor.
In other circumstances, she might have been frustrated, she might have even been infuriated at being so close to her victory and having something so simple give out.
She, however, simply couldn't find it in herself to care.
With a smile, she propped herself up on a boulder just outside of the caves, the chain wrapped around her shoulders and the excess looped through her ribs to keep it from dragging. The lantern, sadly, was a lost cause, having fallen and popping apart went the cart did. The gem was safely wrapped in a few more scraps of her robes and tucked away where one of her lungs had previously called home. The shovel had become just a shovel head when the handle struck the ground, but she hadn't had much hope for it in the first place. Instead, she'd wrapped a bit of rope around the blade of the shovel and tossed the rope across her back, to keep it out of the way. The mining pick, that she kept in her hands. Rusty or not, the pick was still in good enough condition to be used as a tool or a weapon.
Still, even with a few losses, she was out in the open again.
Idly, she picked at a ragged bit of flesh on her hand. Would have been nice to be able to trim that back cleanly... a cleaver, even a simple filleting knife would have done well to keep it from tearing but... well, it wasn't like she was planning on winning any beauty pageants.
Silvermoon had those, she'd heard, though she highly doubted the Forsaken would be allowed to attend, let alone participate. She chuckled at the thought of prissy little blood elves trying to be polite about makeup on a corpse.
Glancing down to her truncated torso, her smile fell a bit.
Not that she'd had much to lose at that point, but she had always been rather fond of her legs. Well, the legs she'd had since the plague at least... her own had been torn apart or eaten or something, but those apothecaries and craftsmen had done a fine job at finding two that weren't being used at the time and doing a remarkable job at getting them to fit.
She'd been horrified initially, of course, but after a bit, she'd gotten used to them... to her.
And now, even years after her death, she'd found herself once more missing them.
Pushing herself back up upon her hands, she wedged the handle of the pick between two loops of chain and started to make her way from the caves.
It sounded like there was some water nearby, and where there was water, there was a way down.
Besides, the Forsaken weren't some weak little race that had time to mourn the loss of something as trivial as legs. There were things to do... and who knows... maybe she could find some replacements in the future.
-~oOo~-
Twilight stepped to the balcony railing beside Celestia and Luna, taking a moment to look out over the former garden as numerous construction ponies and diamond dogs swarmed over the street-sized hole that had taken shape while she was away.
"It's really rather impressive, don't you think, Twilight?" Celestia's voice rose barely above the sounds from below.
"What's impressive, Pr-Celestia?"
Smiling softly, the solar princess looked over to Twilight as she gestured below. "The speed that they work at. The various people below, working together towards a common goal. The artistry being brought to simply make a hallway."
"The efficiency with which our perpetrator evaded all our efforts," Luna muttered darkly.
Pursing her lips, Celestia nodded slightly. "Yes... that too, I suppose."
Twilight looked down at the hole, noticing masons and carpenters working side by side with excavators and basic construction ponies. Piles of supplies covered in tarps littered the area while earth ponies and burly diamond dogs alike hauled soil, clay, and the occasional boulder from the workspace.
All in all, it looked like Ponyville after any number of events, though she did admit there was a fair bit more marble involved.
"You called for me?" Twilight prompted as the silence drug on a bit longer than expected.
"Verily Twilight Sparkle. We have need of your skill with numbers and spells." Luna did not look up from the ground below, and from the frown on her lips, Twilight could tell she was more than just a little agitated.
"Indeed. As Luna says, we will be needing your help."
"Any time, Princess," Twilight smiled despite the situation.
Celestia nodded slightly before turning away from the scene below. "You should know that they have well and truly escaped, Twilight." She paused as a pegasus guard flew by. "Evaded capture, thwarted the guards, and even bypassed the castle walls by digging, of all things, through the soil and, apparently, bedrock."
At Twilight's shocked expression, Celestia could only shrug slightly. "So Luna's contractor has informed us, at least. We've yet to see it for ourselves."
"But... but if all that's true, and you're already following their tunnel, that means even a tracking spell would be useless." Twilight tilted her head in confusion. "Not that you didn't know that, of course, but then why call for me?"
Celestia's expression turned to a brief grimace but before she could speak, Luna spoke over her. "Our prey was hasty in their cowardice." She snorted before tearing her gaze from below. "They have left that which we might use to return them to us."
Twilight blinked as she thought.
"Something intimate, personal, or imprinted would be best, though I doubt a grave robber would intentionally bring anything like that."
"Nay, Twilight Sparkle, In their haste, they have left us with something much more... personal than any such trifle."
At Twilight's look, Celestia interrupted. "Don't worry about it, Twilight. Just know that it should be more than unique enough to summon them back."
Twilight blanched. Another summoning? Another SUMMONING?
Distant screaming began to echo through the castle, hammers sizzling as dark... things.... unspooled across her memories. The smell, that horrible smell of ~cooking~ as flesh and bone charred and splintered and the hissing scrape as the howls died down but the body kept writhing.
It wasn't until she heard Celestia's voice and noticed her surroundings had changed that Twilight realized what had happened.
"Twilight.....you're alright. It's alright. Just breathe and listen to the sound of my voice."
Slowly, very slowly, Twilight began to feel the staccato rhythm of her heart begin to ease. Several minutes and the soothing voice of the princess taking the panic from her thoughts.
Luna stood near the balcony doors, watching the work continue below, though her ears were turned to listen to her sister and Twilight.
"I... I don't think I can do another summoning, Princess," Twilight weakly whispered.
Celestia simply stroked her mane, holding her softly as Twilight glacially calmed.
"I'd prefer not to either, Twilight... but we've run low on options and if they were brazen enough to desecrate a grave, they may have done much much worse that we simply do not yet know."
Burying her head into Celestia's coat, Twilight did her best to control her breathing as, even as the warm embrace continued, wails tore at her memories and hammers chimed the hour.
