Seven years after the windigo war Twilight and her assistant Valiant Heart go out in search for the Seeker's Archive. Twilight wants answers to save Equestria's future, and Valiant wants to finally know who, and what she really is.
Seven years after the windigo war Twilight is met by a magical being who reveals to her that darkness lies in Equestria's future. So Twilight enlists the help of Valiant Heart to go and find the Seekers Archive in search for more answers. Valiant Heart agrees to help in the hope she can find the answer to who and what she is, but will the archive really hold the answers they both seek?
Twilight’s Crystal Tree Castle stood quiet, and alone. Crystal Tree Castle wasn’t exactly the right name for it anymore, after Princess Celestia had stayed here for a duration of time she had made a few changes to the place. The most notable was that of the entire castle being turned into white stone, much like the Canterlot castle.
Still Twilight was only spending her time in the castle to make sure that it was clean, and up to snuff for when the other princesses came by. For the most part she spent her time in her new home, and considering it took her nearly three years to grow, she felt she had very much deserved it. Without an apprentice, a knight, or a baby dragon, the castle was more quiet then ever.
However she was here for only one purpose, her primary lab was located in the castle. Tonight was a special occasion. Tonight she was going to finally get to see the Starfall Ceremony over Ponyville. She was going to study the crap out of the stars. That was of course after she finished her study on the rules of royalty. Trixie had asked for a lesson plan for her students in Ponyville’s magic school.
The book she was currently reading had the last piece of information she needed to read about for the night. The rules of royal magic duels; it was almost ironic that Trixie would have requested information pertaining to this subject as well.
“Royal magic duels,” Twilight read aloud. “These come up when royalty is challenged. The terms of battle are simple, the first party will attack the second party with a spell, meanwhile the second party will attempt to defend themselves. The order is then reversed with the second party attacking the first party. This continues until one of the party’s either forfeits or is unable to otherwise continue.”
Sitting at her desk, with journals, beakers, a wall mounted computer, and various bits and pieces of things lying about, she couldn’t wait. It had been ten years since she had last seen this event, only back then she was more worried about the fabled return of Nightmare Moon than she could ever be about the stars themselves. It was Luna who really taught her the importance of this event.
Outside her balcony she could see the stars shining brightly in the midnight sky. The moon hung over Ponyville casting its pale brilliance over the small township. Through much legal action Twilight had managed to stem the tide of growth that Ponyville should have seen after she became an alicorn. It took money, lawyers, and the occasional physical threat but Twilight had managed to, just barely, keep this town the way it was when she had first moved here. Her friends would never fully appreciate what she’d done for them, but that was never the point. She just couldn’t bare to ruin this town, the wonderful ponies living here, and the local environment with her mere existence.
Staring outside the window Twilight watched as Four stars grew intensely bright in the night sky. Twilight quickly rushed to the balcony, nearly tripping over her own hooves in the process. The four stars began to move, slowly circling the moon. The quiet tingle of magic filled the air, and she felt energy pouring into her. She was becoming stronger as the stars moved closer to the moon. This was certainly an important event. The stars disappeared behind the moon and for one brief moment it felt like time itself stopped.
Twilight glanced over at the clock, and was quite shocked to see that the clock hands had stopped moving. Was it broken? She looked toward her candle lit desk, and noticed an odd stillness to the orange light. The flame on the candles weren’t moving.
Time had literally stopped.
“What?” Twilight asked as she approached the desk.
“What!” Twilight exclaimed as she stared deeply into the candle flame.
“WHAT!” Twilight screamed as the flames jumped out at her.
The flames grew larger than physically possible for candles. They leapt up into the air and formed themselves into an imposingly large unicorn shape. Twin eyes of bright blue fire looked down at Twilight.
“You are the one who will teach her,” it spoke with finality as though every word was a hard cold fact that had already happened.
“Teach who?” Twilight asked, still reeling mentally from the sudden appearance of this thing she was simply reacting on instinctual curiosity.
“Our successor. The Bringer of Battle. The Furious Flame. The First to Fight but the Last to Fall.”
“I… I don’t understand.”
The flaming creature leaned downward. “Teach her well. Prepare her for war. For that is what’s coming. The Guardian of Sorcery's Successor, our successor. The Fire Heart, .”
Before Twilight could respond the flames vanished. The tension in the air snapped. Whatever magic had been collecting in the area dissipated. The clock hand was moving again. Twilight sat there for several long minutes before realizing that she had to figure out what had just happened. Luckily for her, she had succeeded in one of her many goals in this life. She had managed to build a library in this castle which was impressive enough to rival the Canterlot Royal Archives.
With quick hooves she made her way down the stairs and into her library. There were thousands, upon thousands of books in here. Last time she’d checked she had a collection of just over sixteen million books books, though that was last year. Rummaging through the books took several hours and produced no results. So Twilight went to her secure archive.
A metal door lined with glowing runes stood steadfast and strong against all entry. A small panel on the side of the door had a flat glass screen on it. Twilight lifted up her eye patch and leaned over. The golden light coming from her eye touched the glass screen and the door shook. An indication that it was now unlocked and safe for entry. After replacing the eye patch she went on inside.
Several hundred books, all deemed to be a physical threat to most ponies who dared to read them stood here. She went inside and began the long, and delicate operation of looking through these arcane texts for any information. When she finally found something she was surprised to say the least that it was less than informative. The passage read.
“The Guardians: These are the six spirits in this world, each one governing a different aspect of power. These elements work together to stop evil and bring about good in the world, and it is said that their powers flow into their reincarnations once every cycle. These aspects were named as Sorcery, strength, beauty, hope, healing, and bravery.
Each one of these aspects have a form associated with them, sorcery tends to appear as a unicorn made from the fires of creation itself. Hope is likely to be the most common one to appear and it comes in the form of a pegasus made completely of light. The others have had many different tales and rumors associated with them leaving it unclear as to what can be part of the original folklore and what is a misconception.”
The passage ended there with a small symbol at the bottom of the page. It was that of an eye with an book instead of a pupil. Twilight had seen this symbol before, long ago when reading books from the dark magic section of the Canterlot Archive, which Celestia hopefully never knew and never would know about. It was the symbol of the Seekers of Truth. A group of ponies that had once believed all knowledge should be discovered and shared equally with all peoples. Of course they disbanded and locked away all their information into a vault long, long ago. Leaving only a few measly clues behind as to how to find it again. This vault was aptly named The Seekers Archive.
Twilight shut the book and put it away. There was only one course to take now, and she did not like the prospect of doing this alone. Luckily for her, she already knew of one pony who would be more than glad to help her.
Twilight let out a quiet sigh, “I guess it’s time to go visit Trixie and Maud, I’m going to need Val’s help.”
***
It was just another day in Ponyville. The sun was beating down with its overly bright glare, and a brisk wind in the air kept everypony moving. A group of teenaged ponies were playing in the field being loud and annoying. This was just another day in Ponyville for Valiant Heart.
Valiant Heart sat on her haunches, her mahogany hooves flipping through the pages of an old book. Her friendship with Twilight had granted her some unique benefits such as unlimited access to the princess’s private library. As well as a great study partner. Although the difference in age between them was grand, their bond was deep, like that of siblings.
Currently Valiant was busy studying up on pony biology, it was one of the classes that she actually enjoyed since getting into high school. Learning about what made ponies tick, and more importantly how to fix them was incredibly useful to her. After all that was one of the dreams she had, to be a doctor, traveling from village to village healing ponies in need. It sounded like she could do a lot of good that way. Of course it also meant talking to other ponies… that part was not as much fun.
She stayed there, attempting to ignore the noise around her while reading the chapter quietly to herself. When she got to the next chapter she closed the book, confident that she could pass the test. That was when a red ball flew through the air, bounced off the top of her head, and landed in the grass next to her.
Scootaloo, predictably ran up next to her right afterwards with a worried expression on her face. “Uh hey, sorry about that kid. It slipped away from us.”
Sweetie Belle followed them. “Scootaloo! You can’t go around hitting ponies in the head like that.”
Their leader, Applebloom joined them last. “You okay, cus?”
Valiant looked up at her cousin, who looked a lot more like Applejack than she was comfortable with. Valiant shrugged and tried to go back to reading. When the three older ponies didn’t go away, she knew she was in store for another social encounter.
“You, uh… wanna play?” Scootaloo asked. She didn’t sound too keen on the idea herself.
Applebloom smiled down at her. “Come on, we won’t pick on ya ‘cus yer short or nothin’. It’ll be fun.”
Valiant firmly shut the book, glared up at Applebloom and then grabbed the whiteboard and marker that was nearby. In just a few seconds Valiant had written down a response that was most suitable to the inquire. “I can’t do sports. Bad leg.”
Sweetie Belle’s tail swatted the back of Scootaloo’s head. “That was mean of you. Don’t you remember what happened when she was a filly?”
Valiant couldn’t help but cringe at the old emotional scars. Seven years of therapy and a good home didn’t make those memories go away. It only made her capable of coping with them.
Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “No I don’t. None of the adults would tell us what was going on, they all just got really weird about it. Seriously what happened? She broke her leg or something right?”
Sweetie Belle looked away and bit her lip. “I’m sure that’s it.” There was no hiding the guilty look in her eyes. It was obvious that Sweetie knew more than she let on, more than Valiant was comfortable with her friend knowing.
Applebloom stepped in. “Come on you two. Why don’t we just go get some grub at Sugarcube Corner?”
Scootaloo beamed. “Should we? Things get awkward when Pinkie starts talking to us about collage. I mean me and Sweetie aren’t going anytime soon anyway.”
Applebloom looked down at Valiant. “You wanna join us? It’ll be my treat.”
Valiant looked down at her book, up at her cousin, and then down at her book again. Nopony told her that choosing between studying and free food would be so hard. For several long seconds she debated the choice internally. Could she really deal with the awkward social gesture long enough to get some chocolate cake?
Scootaloo leaned over and whispered into Applebloom’s ear at a volume normal ponies wouldn’t have been able to hear, but Valiant was no normal pony. “Really? I mean I’m trying to be friendly to her, but she’s super weird.”
That settled it. Valiant picked up her book, slid it into her saddlebags along with her other supplies and rose to her full, albeit rather small height. For a brief second Applebloom smiled, but when Valiant turned and walked away with nothing more than a flick of her lion like tail.
Sweetie Belle’s voice turned hot against Scootaloo. “She was about to join us! Why did you have to go and say something like that about her?”
Scootaloo defended herself. “I was trying to be quiet, I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings or anything.”
Applebloom watched her walk away. “Maybe we can make it up to her later? Come on guys. It’s just the Crusaders again.”
Part of Valiant really wanted to join them, to be like them. If only she was normal she could enjoy being so close to other ponies, and yet Valiant knew she’d never be normal. It was an impossible dream. So the other, much larger part of her wished dearly that they would just leave her alone and let her be.
Valiant had a few ideas of where she could go hide at right then. All of them seemed a colossal waste of time save one. She was going to visit her best friend and hide in the library for a few hours. Maybe that would help ease the pain of her heart.
***
Even though the tree house was absent of it’s one and only resident at the moment, Valiant had a key to let herself in whenever she needed. She did so and with a slight limp made her way into the first floor library. It always left her with such a powerful feeling going through this tree house. After all she had been there when Twilight had planted it after everypony had returned home from the windigo war. It took a couple of years, but soon Ponyville was back to its normal self, and with a brand new tree house to boot.
Twilight had made this tree house her permanent residence, only keeping a very small hoofull of service staff in the castle, mostly to clean it. Since then Valiant had earned her keep by taking care of the princess as best she could. It wasn’t a long term solution for her personally, but being the assistant to her best friend wasn’t such a bad position to be in. Especially for a fifteen year old earth pony.
Valiant found the first floor library to be a complete wreck. Books were piled up on the floor, notes lay scattered about either crumbled up into balls or recklessly piled up. Red orbs of light still hung in the air over one half of the wall holding up various notes with interconnected lines of energy between them. A half eaten sandwich sat on the table next to an empty glass and an empty bottle of whiskey.
With a dismissive shake of her head, Valiant got to work on cleaning the place up. She made sure not to touch the floating notes, but all the stuff on the floor and the table she could do something about. Having worked with Twilight for so many years now she had become practiced at figuring out which of the books and notes were part of the haphazard mess of a sudden research storm, and which were not. Valiant would never say so, but she prided herself on being just as good at assisting Twilight as Spike had been, if not better.
About a half hour later the place was looking livable again and the front door opened. Valiant eagerly faced the door. When Twilight walked in with her golden eye patch, and blue robes, Valiant’s tiny heart soared. Twilight had grown a lot over the years and was now as tall as Big Mac, of course with both a missing eye and wingless she looked more like a freakishly large unicorn then an alicorn.
“Val?” Twilight asked as she looked around the room. “I just got back from Rarity’s, she and Spike were just planning her thir- er Twenty Ninth birthday.”
Val beamed up at Twilight. “I cleaned.”
“I can see that. Good job,” Twilight practically glided through the room. “Actually I was just about to go out and retrieve you.”
That made Valiant raise her eyebrow.
Twilight paused in front of her network of floating notes. “Hmm, yes… so I am going to need my assistant on this one. I am not positive of what I will be doing exactly, not yet anyway. First we will need to speak with Sunset, but after that we may be going on quite the adventure.”
Valiant shook her head. “Mom won’t let me.”
Twilight made a sour face. “I… had forgotten about that. After everything they’d done for me… after everything you’ve done for me. I couldn’t possibly ask for this favor. Even if I can assure your safety Maud would still be very much inclined to keep you home and safe… Trixie on the other hoof.”
This plan was destined to explode in her face, it always did. “Trixie can’t keep secrets from her.”
Twilight smiled. “She won’t have too. After all it’s just a research trip. Nothing too severe.”
Valiant looked around the room and glared with her one pink eye, if not for her own eye patch she’d be using both of her eyes for the task. “This is not about research.”
“Does Trixie have to know that?”
Valiant stomped a hoof. “What’s going on?”
Twilight shook her head slowly. “If I tell you that now you will be forced to lie to you mothers. I won’t have you do that to them. So it’s just a research trip. But it is one that you would very much like to be on. It’s about the Seekers Archive if that helps any.”
Valiant’s heart jumped up into her lungs and got stuck there. She mouthed the words, ‘Seekers Archive’ very slowly. For nearly a minute the words hung in the air with tantalizing promises of hidden knowledge, forbidden secrets, and an adventure unlike any other. To find the Seekers Archive, the greatest resource of information, the largest and most elusive library in the world. It took every ounce of strength that Valiant could muster not to jump into the air screaming for joy.
“R-really?” Valiant asked.
Twilight turned to her with a warm smile. “Are you interested?”
Valiant bit her lip. This was her chance to get to do something she’d wanted to do since she was but a filly visiting Hollow Shades. Now the offer was right in front of her and she couldn’t turn it down. Not if she wanted to be able to look at herself in the mirror with any pride. It was going to take some effort to get this pass her parents, but she already had her answer.
“I’m in,” Valiant said in a near whisper.
Twilight beamed at her. “Then that’s settled. We will be talking to Sunset first, and she’s already scheduled to come here sometime tomorrow. So I’ll be expecting you at the castle tomorrow after school, okay?”
Valiant nodded curtly.
“Good,” Twilight’s attention returned to her network of notes. “Now you can tell me why you’re so upset. I noticed your limp was back, and that means that somepony hurt you.”
Valiant shook her head. “Just the Crusaders… being… weird again.”
“They just want to be friends. Just having me and Sweetie Belle is not enough. I would like it if you reached out to them.”
Valiant thought back to the offer to join them at the Sugarcube Corner. She didn’t want to go. Even Twilight’s prompting wouldn’t change her opinion on that. Still, there was some truth in the idea of getting more friends, and Valiant couldn’t easily ignore that advice. It was just a shame that she had such a hard time relating to anypony.
“You still don’t trust them do you?” Twilight asked.
“No…”
“But Sweetie Belle does.”
“I don’t exactly trust her either, I just… I guess I like her better.”
“Why don’t you at least try? What’s the worst that could happen?”
Valiant shuddered to think of what the worst could be. Her mind had no trouble at all in figuring out something dark and frightful. Still she should give Sweetie Belle the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps friendship with the other two could be possible, if she tried really hard to pretend to be normal for a few minutes.
A gentle hoof squeezed Valiant’s shoulder. When she looked up into Twilight’s big comforting eye it set her heart at ease. Valiant couldn’t help but to wrap her tiny legs around Twilight. A few soft strokes through her mane were accompanied by a few softly spoken words. “Give them a chance, Val. For me?”
The Sugarcube Corner, a generally nice and cozy little bakery shop complete with smoothies. Of course it’s almost always busy as well. That last bit was what kept Valiant from spending a lot of time here, even if her favorite aunt worked here. She could just go to her aunt’s home and get free cookies so she didn’t need to force herself through the crowd to get in here.
Today Valiant was here for somepony other than herself, so she was out of options. There was half a dozen customers inside the shop. Not as busy as it could have been, but busier than she’d like. Still in the corner near the window Valiant spotted one such mare that peeked her interest. Sweetie Belle was sitting by herself sipping at a pink smoothie. There was a half eaten cake and a few dirty plates sitting next to it on the table.
Valiant sucked in a quick breath and made her way to the table. “Sweetie Belle?”
Sweetie’s head jerked to the side as she looked down at her friend. “Val? What are you doing here? You hate being around other ponies.”
Valiant shrugged. “Twilight made me.”
“Oh, I get it. Friendship lesson right?”
Valiant nodded.
Sweetie Belle lifted her hoof, “Here, let me get you a slice of cake.” Her hoof bumped into one of the plates. The plate slid off the edge of the table. Sweetie’s hoof went instinctively towards the falling dinnerware, and smashed into the floor sending shards flying out in every direction. One particular shard flew up past Sweetie’s hoof, cutting a fine red line across her leg.
“Ow, darn it!” Sweetie cried as she reeled back. “Ow, the others are going to pick on me for this.”
Valiant hardly comprehended Sweetie’s words as she saw the blood pooling over, staining the pristine white fur. Something turned on in the back of Valiant’s mind and her hooves went straight for the wound. Sweetie Belle tried to smile but couldn’t do much more than wince in pain.
“It’s okay, Val. It was my fault.”
With her brown hooves gripping Sweetie’s leg, Valiant could feel the pain of the injury. It hurt but was far from the worse thing Valiant had ever felt. Valiant had just the remedy for the injury that nopony else could match, even if it was breaking the rules. Valiant summoned forth the magic string inside of Sweetie Belle and channeled it toward the wound.
“Shh,” Valiant cooed as she worked her own personal magic into the energy. Soft white light appeared at the edge of Valiant’s hooves, covering the wound.
“W-what are you-“
“Shh,” Valiant said once more as she pulled away. The wound was gone, only leaving behind a streak of red stained fur. A smile grew over Valiant’s lips as she stared at her finished work. When she looked up and saw the wide eyed, gaping mouth expression that Sweetie was giving her it occurred to her that she probably shouldn’t have done that.
“You’re an earth pony,” Sweetie said quietly. “How did you do that?”
Valiant looked away, choosing to focus on the shattered plate instead of meeting those troubled eyes. “I’m not normal. Sorry.”
Sweetie Belle shook herself thoroughly. “You’re awesome! Don’t apologize, that looked like I was going to need stitches. I hate needles and you saved me from that.” There was a moment of silence, and Sweetie’s eyes met Valiant’s eye. Sweetie’s cheeks turned ever so pink as she nearly whispered, “I really like your mane.”
Valiant blinked.
“Um, what I mean is that you’re my friend and that was really nice… but how come you never told me?”
“Against the rules.”
Sweetie frowned at that. “To use that… uh, power?”
Valiant nodded.
“Well that’s hardly fair, you should use it all the time. It was fantastic!”
“Mmnmm,” Valiant shook her head. “Too much attention.”
“But… everypony would want to be your friend if they knew. Why is that bad?”
Valiant looked back to the door like her life depended on it. She looked around, not a soul was staring at her so luckily nopony noticed her use that power. For a moment she thought she was free to just leave, but then Pinkie Pie appeared around the corner along with Scootaloo and Applebloom.
Pinkie Pie took one look at the cake, the plate on the floor, Valiant trying to desperately hide behind her shaggy mane, and Sweetie Belle who was smiling a little too much. Pinkie practically bounced into the room her smile brightening the area. She stopped just at the table and beamed down at Valiant.
“You’re a good kid,” Pinkie said warmly. “That’s why you’re my favorite adopted niece.”
Valiant frowned up at her.
“Oops, sorry, didn’t mean to drop the A bomb on you,” Pinkie said. “Heehee, but you’re still a good kid.”
Applebloom looked at the plate on the ground. “Oh man, did you break another plate? Sweetie Belle?”
Sweetie’s smile vanished immediately. “N-no of course not.”
Valiant recalled how Sweetie was afraid of being teased. As her one of her only friends, Valiant couldn’t just let her fears come true. Valiant rose her hoof timidly.
Applebloom gave her a curious look. “What did you break it?”
Valiant nodded.
Sweetie Belle looked down at Valiant with a slight frown. “It was just an accident, so it doesn’t matter.”
Pinkie Pie nodded. “Yeppers, and it’s not like you ruined any cake. If you had…”
Everypony stared at Pinkie Pie in disbelief.
Pinkie’s grin grew impossibly wide. “…then I’d have to make more!”
The three noisy ponies giggled at Pinkie’s silly behavior. Valiant allowed herself a goofy grin, but stayed as silent as a mouse. Sure she didn’t like being in crowded areas none too much, thus why she hated school, yet she was still here, here and despite herself having fun. Sweetie Belle now knew her secret, though part of her had wanted to tell somepony for a while now. Sweetie Belle would be a good pony to start with, she was after all half of Valiant’s friends.
***
Twilight strode through the doors of the Carousal Boutique. Although fancy dresses still lined the walls, and there were patches of the store clearly still meant for business, the fact that various toys littered the floor as well as claw marks on the carpet, teeth marks on the manikin legs, and the distinct smell of sulfur all told a different story.
“Hello!” Twilight called out after seeing nopony around.
A purple dragon head large as her own poked in from around the corner. This was followed by a roughly pony sized dragon carrying a tiny white filly with bright green reptilian eyes and a short green mane. The filly gave a sharp toothed grin at Twilight upon seeing her.
“Spike, Jade,” Twilight said as she made her way over to them. She nuzzled the filly and was rewarded with a giggle. “Oh, you’re just too cute. Grandma Twilight loves you. Yes she does, yes she does.”
Now it was Spike’s turn to giggle. “You turn into mush every single time your around her.”
Twilight smiled up at him. “You and Rarity made a great child.”
Spike looked around the boutique. “And a destructive one. She can’t even help the claw marks.”
Twilight frowned at that. “She doesn’t have any claws… she has hooves. Cloven hooves, but still-“ Twilight stopped as she looked down and saw just how sharp the little cloven hooves really were. They were just as sharp as Spike’s claws.
“That was Rarity’s reaction.” Spike walked over to a chair and sat down. “The sharp hooves are new. As is the sulfur burps. She actually burnt Rarity’s mane last night.”
The filly jumped out of Spike’s grasp, ran up hugged Twilight’s leg, and then ran away. Twilight watched the filly run into the other room with a big smile. “She’s adorable.”
“Yeah. So what brings you here?”
“I was just visiting my family? Also Rarity’s birthday is coming up and I wanted to ask you if you had any ideas for good gifts?”
Spike arched an eyebrow. “You got her a book, didn’t you?”
“Um… no,” Twilight lied.
“Uh-huh. Okay, well if you aren’t looking for books, try chocolate. Rarity loves chocolate. Even though she’s turning thirty she still-“
“Twenty Nine!” Twilight snapped. The fear of Rarity hearing such blasphemy was just too much.
Spike laughed. “Sure, whatever she says. Twenty Nine. It’s not like she’s going to die anytime soon. She’s a dragon’s wife. Kinda immortal.”
“Long lived. Your genetics changed her and she is now long lived, not immortal. I can’t fathom how long she will live either, a few hundred years, a few thousand, I mean there aren’t very many ponies out there who have been brave enough to breed with a dragon. So that’s why Jade’s such an interesting little treat. Watching her grow up has been really fun, and educational.”
Spike coughed nervously. “She’s not a test subject.”
“No, but a healthy dose of research can’t hurt, especially if it helps us understand what she is better. Unless somepony does research she could get sick, and nopony would know how to fix her.”
Spike rolled his eyes. “Just promise to love her for who she is, more than for what she is.”
“I promise to do both.”
“That’s about as good as I’m going to get from you isn’t it?” Spike asked.
Twilight only smiled.
“Okay, so what are you really here for?”
“I… might need to have Rarity make me a new cloak, and another one, much smaller.”
Spike pushed himself up. “Another dangerous mission?”
“No, this one is safe, just… secret.”
“Mom,” Spike began but stopped himself. They’d both done this song and dance enough times to know how it all played out. So deciding to skip an hour’s worth of fighting and the inventible apology he simply closed his eyes. “Stay safe.”
“I will.”
***
Valiant walked the old dirt roads of Ponyville with Sweetie Belle at her side. The other two had scampered off to chase colts or something. Honestly Valiant was just happy to be away from them and even more so to have Sweetie to herself again. Being friends with only one of the Crusaders had proven to be nothing more than a great big hassle over the years.
“So that thing you did… that was magic wasn’t it?” Sweetie Belle asked.
Valiant shrugged.
“But you’re an earth pony.”
“Quarter griffon,” Valiant added.
“How is that supposed to… never mind I don’t want to know. You still used magic, that should be impossible.”
Valiant gave her a blank one eyed stare. “Mom has super strength, Fluttershy can freeze ponies by looking at them, and Rainbow Dash can explode.”
Sweetie Belle bit her lower lip. “Oh… well when you put it that way it does sound less weird.”
“Rainbow Dash, can, explode, into rainbows,” Valiant re-stated.
“Ok, I get it. Not that weird at all. But still, I wanna know how, and why?”
Sweetie wasn’t the only one who wanted those answers. Over the years Valiant only had one answer to any questions involving what she really was; that she was a weird pony. Other than that she was left clueless. She wasn’t likely to get anymore answers anytime soon. It always left her feeling lost to think too hard on the subject, even when she questioned Boulder she didn’t get any real answers. Yet there was a small hope for the future, the Seekers Archive. If anyone, anywhere had the information she sought it would be there.
“I’m sorry,” Sweetie Belle said lamely. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”
Valiant merely shook her head.
Sweetie shook her head. “No, it was rude of me. You’re my friend, and that’s all that’s important. Besides… I…” They reached the little cottage that Valiant lived in at the edge of town. Valiant turned to face Sweetie Belle but found the filly looking down at the ground. Sweetie Belle swallowed and her cheeks grew pink. “I… I really like your mane.”
Valiant raised an eyebrow. “Thanks?”
Sweetie Belle shook her head. “N-no problem.”
Valiant looked back at her door. “Wanna come in?”
Sweetie Belle took a few steps away. “N-no I got, um, homework. You know, we’re working on biology class tomorrow, should be… something.”
Valiant shrugged, turned and walked inside. “See you later.”
“Bye!” Sweetie Belle called out as she practically galloped away.
Valiant entered the house recalling the fact that although she might be weird, she was not the only one. Sweetie Belle got down right awkward sometimes, and for the life of her she couldn’t figure out why. If only Valiant understood ponies better, she could figure out what made Sweetie Belle grow increasingly awkward, and help her fix it. There was no need for two socially awkward ponies in Ponyville.
Just inside Valiant saw the kitchen/dining room to her immediate left. It was empty. To her right she saw the living room/den. The walls had been knocked down a few years ago to make the area larger. On one of the couches sat Trixie, right next to a little pink unicorn with a lavender and red striped mane. There was a book between the two of them, Trixie’s personal copy of “The Great and Powerful Friendship Books; Captain Trixie’s adventure.”
“The Great and Powerful Trixie knew that there was something wrong,” Trixie read. “The sky had turned black, rain was pouring from the heavens and thunder roared above her. Still she took the helm from Twilight and thus control of the ship.”
“Then what happened?” The filly asked.
Valiant rolled her eyes. How many times has she been read this story? Yet she always loves it. I got bored just helping Trixie edit it.
“The Great and Powerful Trixie scolded Twilight, not for stealing control of the ship from her, but for getting the entire crew in trouble. Trixie was a forgiving pony and as Twilight cried for forgiveness Trixie embraced her. ‘There, there,’ Trixie said with a gentle voice. ‘We all make mistakes, it’s how we make up for them that matters. Will you help me sail out of this storm, First Mate?’
“Twilight’s eyes widened and a smile grew over her lips. ‘Anything for you, Captain Trixie!’ Twilight cried in joy.
“Together the two of them had to work hard, but through terrible weather and dangerous waves they managed to sail back to port. It was only due to the power of friendship that they were able to succeed. And to this day Twilight and Trixie remain great and powerful friends. The End.”
The filly smiled and jumped with joy. “Twilight used to be a real meanie pants didn’t she?”
Trixie giggled. “Only sometimes.”
“Yeah, well… it was still not nice of her to steal your ship.”
“No, but we made up afterwards. That’s what friends do, they forgive one another.”
The filly beamed up at Trixie. “Can you read it to me again?”
Trixie’s smile only grew. “Oh, okay, but only because you’re the Light of my life.”
Before Valiant had to sit through another reading of that terrible book she stepped into the living room and coughed. Trixie looked back at her and beamed. “You’re finally home! How was school? Did you enjoy it? Nopony was mean to you were they? Did anypony pick on you for your eye patch?”
Valiant rolled her eye. “It was ok.”
“Then why didn’t you come home for so long? It’s nearly five’o’clock, Maudie is so worried about you.”
Valiant cringed. The last thing she had intended was to hurt Maud. “Sorry.”
“You want to help me read books to Amber Light?”
Valiant looked down at the filly, at her little sister and thought about all the books that Amber was even interested in. All of them were those stupid books that Trixie had tricked Twilight into publishing years ago as part of a joke. The real joke was how popular they got with both kids and adults. Seeing the Elements of Harmony, along with the princesses in different roles and not always a good one made ponies go crazy with fanatical spending. Especially the tale of Princess Luna being a liar and only learning that one should never cry wolf after Trixie rescues her from a shadow beast… actually pretty much every story ended with Trixie saving somepony from the moral mistake they made and teaching them a lesson in friendship.
“No,” Valiant said as she walked over to the bookshelf, grabbed a history book in her teeth and went back to her room.
“Maud’s going to want to talk to you,” Trixie called out.
Valiant would just have to accept that Maud was upset with her and that she might be grounded. Though what counted as being grounded in this house was nothing to really cry over. If Valiant did something bad she’d take her punishment, because she knew that Maud and Trixie loved her more than the world.
It wasn’t until much later just before dinner time when Maud finally entered Valiant’s room. The place was unremarkable save for the bookshelves, and the cat plushies lining the window. Valiant was lying on her bed, still engrossed with her book when Maud took a seat next to her.
“You didn’t get home until five,” Maud said, her monotone voice hiding her real emotions.
“I know.”
“I was worried.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“Friendship lesson.”
“With Twilight?”
Valiant closed her book and sat up. “I’m sorry.”
A loving leg wrapped around Valiant and pulled her in close. Valiant was so tiny compared to Maud, but it left a warm safe feeling in her heart. She couldn’t help but to snuggle into that muscular chest and attempt to hide her good eye. She could feel the tears coming on already.
“Shh,” Maud cooed. “Don’t be sorry. It’s ok.”
“I hurt you.”
“It was an accident.”
“You and Trixie took me in, gave me a home, food, and love. And this is how I repay you? By forgetting to check in and making you feel bad?” Valiant was crying now. “I’m a terrible pony.”
“No, you’re perfect.” Maud’s hoof stroked the back of Valiant’s head gently.
“How can you say that? I even broke the rules today and used my power on Sweetie Belle when she got hurt. She knows now.”
Maud’s entire body went ridged. “What did… she think?”
“She’s curious, so am I. But she’s still my friend. Mommy, she didn’t hate me at all.”
“I’m glad. Someponies wouldn’t be so nice though. Twilight asked us to keep it a secret, until you’re an adult at least. I just want you to have a normal childhood.”
“I’m not normal, and I never could be. Not with all the stuff that’s happened to me on top of me having weird magical powers.” Valiant rubbed her face into Maud’s fur and Maud relaxed. When Maud’s hoof began brushing her mane again Valiant decided it was time to ask the important question. “Twilight’s going to start doing some research soon, and she’ll need my help.”
“Research on what?” There was an underlying tone of threat to Maud’s voice. She hadn’t trusted Twilight in years, but then again she didn’t trust many ponies outside of her family.
“On… stuff to help me figure out what I am. She has some information as to how to find out.” Valiant pulled away and met Maud’s eyes. “I want to know.”
Maud blinked, her eyes were wet. “I will talk to Twilight.”
“But can I help?”
“Don’t you help enough already?”
“Mommy! This is about what I am. I need to know.”
Maud blinked. “I will talk to Twilight-“
“But I want to-“ Valiant stopped when a hoof gently pressed against her lips shushing her. Maud’s hoof smelled like dirt.
The next day School was in session and Valiant couldn’t be more pleased with herself. Turned out there was a test scheduled for her health class that day and she had been prepared. Several other students were in dismay, including Scootaloo who had made several popular, although crude comments about the test. The teacher didn’t hear her, as usual. It sucked being next to Scootaloo, but what was Valiant supposed to do?
Scootaloo leaned over to Valiant’s desk. “Hey, I need help. How does magic work again? It’s a unicorn’s horn right?”
Valiant rolled her eyes. “Mana Lobe.” The mana lobe was connected directly to the horn, everypony had a mana lobe, though most couldn’t use it to create something out of raw energy like a unicorn. The horn directs and channels it. Yet that didn’t explain how Valiant could do magic, nor how ponies could do alchemy, but that was a question for another day.
“The… oh, okay I see that on the answers. Weird name for a horn,” Scootaloo said. “Not as sexy either.”
Valiant let loose a low growl, just audible to those around her while shooting a one eyed death glare at Scootaloo. Scootaloo hardly noticed as she rambled on, “Anyway, I only liked this class because I thought we were gonna get to the sexy stuff eventually, but the way this is going, nothing fun is gonna happen.”
The teacher, a unicorn mare with dark gray fur and a graying brown mane walked over. “What’s this? Two students gabbing on like some griffon?”
“Hey!” Scootaloo snapped. “Gabi’s a great griffon. Just because she’s loud doesn’t make her bad in anyway.”
“And you,” the teacher said without seeming to notice Scootaloo's rebuttal. “I thought better from you, maybe that’s why your so quiet all the time? Secretly conversing with your friends behind my back.”
Valiant wanted to argue but with everypony's eyes on her she felt smaller than usual. She shrunk back in her chair and attempted very hard to use an illusion spell to go invisible despite being an earth pony. It didn’t work.
“You won’t even speak up for yourself when your in trouble eh? Well maybe detention will loosen those lips?”
Painful flashes of old memories from the first time she could recall somepony saying that too her came in like arrows striking vital organs. Valiant closed her eye shut hard and forced them back down. For a brief moment if felt like her little world was going to collapse right there in the middle of the classroom.
“Teacher she wasn’t talking,” Scootaloo said almost quietly. “I was bothering her, trying to get her to give me the answers. She’s like, smarter than me so I thought she’d have them. She was actually getting mad at me for bugging her.”
The teacher spun around on Scootaloo. “What? What? What? You admit to cheating! Well that changes everything, I’m sorry Valiant Heart, I can see now that Scootaloo is the one in trouble. Scootaloo it’s detention for you, and I’ll be telling your foster parents.”
Scootaloo leaned back in her chair and kicked her legs up. “Cool, sounds fun, teach.”
The teacher moved back to the front of the classroom smugly satisfied with getting somepony in trouble. For a few minutes things were quiet, save for the occasional giggle or stray comment. Boy did Valiant ever miss having Miss Cheerlee as a teacher.
“T-thank you,” Valiant whispered at Scootaloo.
“No problem… wait, you can talk? I thought you were mute,” Scootaloo seamed genuinely shocked even having heard her speak just moments ago. Seemed like Rainbow Dash's influence was rubbing off.
Valiant shook her head but didn’t speak another word. After five minutes the teacher rose from her seat and addressed the class once more. This time her horn lit up with a pale blue aura and an image appeared on the chalk bored behind her.
“I’ll be collecting your tests in a minute,” the teacher said as the image of a mare and a stallion appeared behind her. “But now I would like to take a moment to discuss the next chapter we will be discussing. Sex.”
Valiant’s eye widened as she stared at her teacher. What in the actual Tartarus is she talking about?
“You will need to get permission from your parents to take the next several classes of course, if you don’t you can always do extra work in the library,” the teacher sounded less than enthralled about this.
Scootaloo grinned. “Hoo Haa, hear that baby? It’s finally time for the sex class, with Scootaloo.”
Valiant screamed internally. This was not something she wanted to have happen, nor did she know how to bring this up with her parents. It wasn’t like she didn’t understand how sex worked, or why it happened. She just didn’t approve of it, or like it, or think it was valuable at all. Despite Trixie’s obsession with it, when it came to Maud of course. It was gross, disgusting, and mean.
Valiant readied herself for what was likely to be the most maddening conversation ever when she got home. Most students would be going home to ask for permission to go to the classes. Valiant would be begging to be left out.
***
The treehouse was quiet as ever while Twilight reorganized one of her personal libraries. At this stage in her life she had multiple libraries. Of course she shared her wealth with those she trusted, and even donated more than enough books to the Golden Gale Library just outside of town. So she felt she had earned her collection.
There was a quiet rapping at her front door, but before Twilight could go to get it the door swung open and an old friend walked through. The peach colored mare wore a dark gray cloak with it’s hood drawn over her face, yet her exposed muzzle offered a warm smile. The mare shut the door behind her and threw back her hood to reveal her fiery mane.
“Sunset, how are you doing?” Twilight asked as she walked over to embrace one of her oldest friends.
“I’m doing great, more enemies defeated, too many kids in the family, the usual,” Sunset replied. “And you?”
“I’m preparing for the disaster that’s going to be Rarity’s thirtieth birthday.” Twilight groaned. “I love her, I really do, but even she knows that at some point she’s going to freak out and start crying. We just have to accept it and help her through this time I guess.”
“Sounds rough, too bad that I’m not that close to this version of Rarity.” Sunset’s eyes took on an sad look as if she was looking at an old memory. “I’m not really that close to any of your friends here. Trixie aside of course.”
“Speaking of that, me and Valiant wanted to speak to you about something. Though she should have been here by now,” Twilight frowned. “I wonder what’s keeping her?”
“Probably friends, she’s a teenager after all.”
Twilight bit her lower lip. “I hope so.”
“What did you need to speak to me about?”
Twilight moved over to a desk and pulled out some of the work she had been doing. “Take a look at this.” She passed over a folder concerning all the information she could gather on the six guardians, the guardian hearts, and the Seekers.”
Sunset took a few minutes to read through it. Luckily that’s about the same time as a second knock appeared at her door. Twilight went over to the door, it was left ajar, yet nopony was in sight. She couldn’t see anypony outside. She opened the door slowly, her chest tightening with a familiar sense of dread. There was a splash as Twilight's world was temporarily swallowed by a bucket of water. Twilight shook her head, mane soaking wet from the prank.
Off in the distance Twilight spotted a pink filly galloping away, lavender and red stripped mane flowing in the breeze. “I have got to talk to her mother about this at some point.”
“Won’t matter,” Valiant’s tiny voice stated from Twilight’s side.
Twilight nearly jumped at the sudden appearance of the little teenager. “What? How? When?”
Valiant poked her head inside and upon seeing Sunset her body grew tense. She pulled out her whiteboard and wrote a quick message on it for Twilight. “She’s here already?”
“Yes,” Twilight said with a slight nod. She walked back inside, leading the way for Valiant. “Sunset, our guest has arrived. Have you finished looking over my report?”
Sunset set the folder down and let out a sigh. “You’re going to need to find the Seekers Archive aren’t you?”
Twilight nodded. “I’m afraid it might be our only choice at this point.”
Sunset sat down and leaned her back against the bookshelf. “Okay, I can tell you what my mentor told me when he first introduced me into the Seekers. There were three major clues left behind with specific members of the guild. Don’t get me wrong there were many, many other clues, but most of them are lies or red harings. Only three of us had any real information.”
“Do you?”
“I have a clue; Past the tall shadow’s tail you will find knowledge.”
Twilight blinked. “That’s… useless.”
“it is by itself. There are two other clues you need to figure out the location of the Archive.”
Valiant showed her whiteboard. “Where do we find the other clues?”
Sunset grinned. “You’re growing into quite the curious kitty.”
Valiant smiled in reply.
“As for the other two clues,” Sunset rubbed at her forehead. “There’s this issue where one of them is being held by a kind, old, and insane mare. You might recognize her yourself, Twilight. Inkpots was once one of us and one of the highest ranking members of the guild. As for the last one, it can only be found with the last of the True Seekers. As in one of the founding members.”
“What do you mean?” Twilight asked.
“I mean you’ll have to get into Bookmark’s tomb and find the clue yourself.” Sunset shivered at the thought. “I don’t envy your quest, Twilight. As one of the Guardian Hearts myself, I should be more interested in what you’ll find. Sadly I am not. I just want to get on with my life and make things as good as I can for me and the sirens, and our nine kids.”
“I don't envy your life either,” Twilight laughed thinking about the amount of kids. A small pain shot through her heart at the same time, but she pushed it away. “Well this is all I could really ask of you anyway, thanks for the information.”
Valiant flashed her whiteboard again. “Thank you.”
Sunset smiled widely at them. “Don’t mention it. I’ll make you a map of where you can find either of these two ponies. Just be careful, lots of ponies have undertaken this quest, and failed. There are even some ponies that have dedicated their lives to making sure that these ponies failed. They may not care about your noble intentions.”
Twilight shook her head, she couldn’t allow this to deter her. Not now. “I’ll be fine. Besides I got Valiant heart with me.”
Valiant offered another grin.
Sunset gave them a nervous smile. “I’ll trust you two.”
***
When Valiant finally returned home she was excited about the prospect of finding the Seekers Archive. So excited in fact that she very nearly missed the fact that Sweetie Belle was sitting in her room, waiting for her. For a moment Valiant simply stood there, staring blankly at her friend.
Sweetie Belle was examining the collection of cat plushies. “These are… nice.”
Valiant walked in and shut the door with a rear hoof. “Hi.”
Sweetie Belle offered her a small smile. “I heard from Scootaloo that you’re going to be having a fun time in health class.”
“No,” Valiant said with a stern stance. Her earlier joy was quickly dissipating. “It won’t be fun.”
“I know… I used to listen in on the adults conversations, well more or less I was really good at listening in on Rarity’s. I didn’t used to understand what had happened to you, or why you’re living with Maud and Trixie. I do now.” There was nervousness in Sweetie's voice as if she was walking on broken glass and trying not to get cut.
“I won’t take it.”
“The class? I guess I can’t blame you, and I mean you already know about all that stuff anyway. How babies are made and everything.” Sweetie Belle shuffled her hooves. “I used to think it was really cool that you were willing to listen in on Rarity’s conversations about sex with me. It was like a secret we could share, like we were two secret agents gathering intel on the enemy. Our enemy being adulthood.”
“Yeah,” Valiant shrugged. It had been boring to listen to all of Rarity’s private stories, yet that wasn’t the part she liked about hanging out with Sweetie Belle. “I liked sneaking around with you.”
“Applebloom graduated early, so she already took the class ages ago.” Sweetie looked down at her hooves. “I think she knows about your foalhood as well, after all Applejack is her older sister and your family. She might come by to visit you.”
Valiant walked over to her bed and laid down. “Whatever.”
Sweetie Belle simply stood there, silent as could be for a few minutes. The silence was deafening, though Valiant wasn’t going to be the first one to break it. Luckily she didn’t have too. There were other ponies kind enough to do so.
There was a knocking at the bedroom door, and only a moment after did the door open up. Maud was standing there. “Are you okay?”
Sweetie Belle began walking to the door’s exit. “You two have plenty to talk about, I’m just, uh, going to let you do that. See you later.”
Once she was gone Maud entered the room and shut the door again. “You didn’t say hello when you came in. Are you okay?”
“No.”
“What’s wrong?”
Valiant rolled over and looked up into her mother’s eyes. This was going to be a painfully awkward conversation, at best. “I have to talk to you about a class at school.”
Valiant sat in the living room, her heart aching from the conversation she was about to have with her mom. Meanwhile Maud was sitting on the couch opposite of hers and gave her a blank stare that even Valiant couldn’t interpret. Several minutes went by without the two talking to one another, and Valiant was losing her courage.
“Val, what’s the matter?” Maud asked gently.
Valiant closed her eye and lowered her head. “There’s a class that I don’t want to go to.”
“What class?”
“Sex ed…”
Maud’s eyes raised ever so slightly, an indication that she was surprised. “Already?”
“I don’t want to go.”
Maud nodded. “I won’t make you.”
“I already know all the stuff they would even teach… plus some.”
“I... know.”
“I don’t even want to think about it, but now I can’t stop.”
Maud moved off her couch and walked around the table until she was next to Valiant. Her muscular legs wrapped around her, gently bringing Valiant into a tender embrace. “I’m sorry.”
“I hate my life,” Valiant said as she buried her face into Maud’s chest.
“Shhh, you have all three of us. We’re here for you.”
“Why does this have to be a freaking class in school?” Valiant’s heart sped up as the emotional pain cut deeply into her soul. Mental stitches were coming loose and she felt like she was bleeding out. “I didn’t think it would still hurt this bad. Doctor Timequill told me that it would get easier overtime, well it’s not easier!”
Maud’s embrace tightened. “Hush.”
“No! I won’t hush! I don’t want to talk to ponies, I don’t want to see ponies, I don’t want to be a pony! Why did bad things have to happen to me? What did I do to deserve it? I was just a filly, a Celestia damned foal!”
One of Maud’s hooves began stroking the back of Valiant’s hair. “I know. It wasn’t fair.”
“The worst part is that you two were late!” Valiant pushed away, for a moment she couldn’t move anywhere because Maud was much stronger than her. So Valiant pushed harder. When Maud let go Valiant fell back and rolled off the couch. “You two were supposed to save me! Trixie was supposed to save me! But you came too late!” Valiant rubbed at her eye, tears were blurring her vision. She felt her other eye watering up as well and so she removed the eye patch and threw it to the ground. The damaged milky pink eye burned as it joined the other one in glaring at Maud.
It was in that moment, when her broken eye laid upon Maud that Valiant’s heart nearly stopped. Maud’s face was pale, her lips trembling, and with the power of Valiant’s other eye she could see the gaping wound left in Maud’s heart growing wider. Cracks grew over Maud’s body as though she was made of stone. The sight was too hard to stare at and Valiant was forced to close her broken eye. Maud was still in noticeable pain but the cracks and wounds vanished.
“I’m sorry,” Maud apologized, her tone was more than hurt, it was broken.
Valiant looked away, choosing instead to focus on a portrait of her when she first came to this house standing next to Trixie and Maud. There were still bandages over her leg and face from where she was nearly beaten to death. The look that Valiant gave the camera was that of death, then again, she had died inside. If it wasn’t for Trixie and Maud, even if she had somehow escaped her attackers, she never would have recovered. Valiant owed her entire world to these two.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Valiant apologized. The pain in her chest was quickly numbing over. “I’ll understand if you want to ground me. I’ll… go to my room now.”
Maud moved her lips but nothing came out. A gray hoof rubbed across her eyes. The usual stillness that Maud embodied was shattered by a slight shaking that Valiant had never seen before. It was like watching a stone monument collapsing before one’s very eyes. And it was all Valiant’s fault.
“Please don’t be sad,” Valiant begged. She reached out with a hoof but withdrew before touching Maud. She was scared to do so. Scared that she might break her mom more than she already had.
“It’s true,” Maud said in a voice so quiet that Valiant nearly missed it.
“W-what’s true?”
“We should have been there sooner. We were too late and you suffered. We’re just as responsible for what happened to you as those damned monsters that had you.”
Valiant was shaking now. She shook her head trying to lose the fear that now afflicted her as much as the pain or the numbness. “No, it wasn’t. I’d be dead without you two. It’s not your fault.”
“Yes it is. I’ve known it for years, and I’ve tried to help you. I really have, but all I do is mess up. I’m not fit to be a mother.”
A quiet voice whispered in the back of Valiant’s mind, an old voice that she generally pretended not to hear. “Give her a hug, and ask to cuddle her.”
Valiant was scared of touching Maud, but she recognized the fact that the voice had never once steered her wrong. She swallowed her pain and self doubt just long enough to reach out and wrap her tiny legs around Maud’s waist. Her voice came out as tiny as Maud’s and just as broken when she asked, “C-can I sleep with you tonight?”
Maud sucked in a sharp, painful breath as she wrapped her legs around Valiant Heart. “Really?”
“Yes.”
Maud kissed the top of Valiant’s head. “I’d like that. Could you ever forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive, but… I will anyway.”
Maud’s embrace tightened. “You can sleep with me and Trixie all you’d like. You’re our first child and we’ll always love you.”
The painful wounds of Valiant’s soul were soothed by Maud’s loving words. It might not be enough to fix her, but it was more than enough to help steady her. Valiant sunk into Maud’s fur, ignored the scent of dirt and found herself at peace. Her mother was always there for her, and that security was a blessing that Valiant was going to make sure never to forget again.
***
The sun had set and the moon had risen over the sleepy town of Ponyville. Rarity’s boutique was less than quiet though as six ponies had gathered about for a birthday party in celebration of the unicorn. Twilight was enjoying her time there, more so because the children had all been stuck with various babysitters, most of them at Sweet Apple Acers.
Pinkie Pie was guzzling alcohol like nopony’s business and Rainbow Dash wasn’t far behind her. Applejack was speaking with Fluttershy and Rarity about their kids and the various difficulties that went into raising them. Twilight politely excused herself from that dreaded conversation, not due to lack of interest, but due to a deeper much more personal reason. One that she choose not to think about as much as she could.
Instead she found a quiet corner to sit in and watch her friends enjoying the party. Rarity’s thirty- twenty ninth birthday party was going pretty well. They managed to get everypony together again, get the kids taken care of with babysitters, and had plenty of time and space to simply enjoy themselves. It was a night that Twilight would remember for a long time.
It was some time before everypony got together at the kitchen table, and Pinkie Pie walked off with a bounce in her step. Twilight sat next to Rarity hoping to find a buffer from thinking about any of her own personal problems. Of course Rarity did very well in this regard as she began talking to Twilight almost right away.
“My goodness, this party has been quite the bash so far,” Rarity said joyfully. “When Pinkie and Rainbow began dancing I thought my sides would surely split from all the laughter.”
Twilight nodded. “Yeah, it was pretty funny.”
“Darling, may I ask you something?” Rarity asked.
A heavy feeling pressed against Twilight’s heart. “Sure, go ahead.”
“I noticed that you haven’t been joining in the festivities this evening. I was hoping you’d get up and dance alongside Pinkie like you always do… is something the matter?”
Twilight shook her head. “I’m just tired. Please don’t be troubled by me.”
Rarity stared at her for a long time in near complete silence. The buffer wasn’t working as her thoughts continued to pain her. It was clear that Rarity wasn’t buying what Twilight was selling, but with the sound of Pinkie singing to herself coming in from the hall behind them Twilight hoped that the birthday filly would soon forget it.
Pinkie Pie walked in, a giant triple layered cake covered in white and purple frosting laid on her back. Pinkie Pie bounced in the air, sending the cake up past her and landing perfectly on the table. Upon closer inspection there were little sprinkles throughout the cake that looked like little diamonds, and a few actual gems on the top layer made it clear who that was being saved for. The last thing that Twilight noticed was the candles on top of the cake, there were a lot of them.
Rarity’s eyes squinted at the candle, and her mouth slowly worked soundlessly. It took a second but Twilight saw Rarity’s lips forming numbers. She was counting the candles on the cake. Twilight did the same, only much faster, and her eyes widened as she realized how many candles were on the cake.
Rarity’s eyes narrowed as she glared daggers at Pinkie. “Thirty one. There are thirty one candles on this cake.”
Pinkie Pie grinned. “No there are twenty nine, and two. The two blue candles represent that it’s the second twenty ninth birthday you’ve had.”
“I am not thirty!” Rarity snapped. She rose from her seat and slammed her hooves on the table. “Why in Equestria would you even think that this was acceptable?”
“Uh because we all know that you’re only pretending to be twenty nine. We celebrated you turning twenty nine last year,” Pinkie Pie said flatly. “Come on, you’re thirty years old, embrace the old age, give your aging self a hug, soon you’ll look like Granny Smith and you-“
“PINKIMENA DIAN PIE!” Rarity shouted, her eyes took on a sinister glow, smoke snorted from her nostrils. “I don’t want to be thirty. Even with my draconic… gifts, I won’t live forever. Unlike Twilight here I will actually die at some point. She’ll live when all of us are gone, me, you, even when her family all dies she will be alive. I don’t get that luxury.”
Silence filled the room. A lump formed in the back of Twilight’s throat, and she tried to push it down. It took every ounce of power she had to keep that lump there, to keep the small sound that was steadily rising in the back of her throat from boiling over, and to stave the tears back. She couldn’t make eye contact with anypony, and none could make it with her. This was a topic she rarely thought about, and even worse one that she didn’t ever talk about. Not even with Luna.
Applejack cleared her throat. “Now, we don’t know that fer certain. Just ‘cus Twilight’s an alicorn doesn’t make her immortal.”
Nervous smiles grew on everyponies lips as they all looked toward Twilight. Rarity however didn’t share the smile, she looked sad. Carefully Rarity bit her lower lip before saying, “I’m sorry, Twilight. I… I didn’t mean it. I suppose I might be jealous of your… alicornhood.”
“We all are a little jealous,” Pinkie Pie said. “Even Rainbow Dash, though she’d never admit it.”
“Actually,” Rainbow Dash said. “I’m super jealous. Could have avoided having so many kids if I was an alicorn.”
Twilight choked. No, please no, don’t say it out loud. Don’t make it real.
“W-whatever do you mean?” Rarity asked.
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “I found out from Luna that alicorns pretty much can’t have kids. After a thousand years of trying Celestia managed to have, what, three, four kids? Most of them normal unicorns that ended up dying of old age on her. I could have had like infinite sex if I was an alicorn.”
With very slow movements Twilight pushed away from the table and rose to all fours. Her voice cracked as she spoke. “I, I need to use the restroom.” Twilight turned away, intent on going into the restroom and teleporting home. Her heart was shattering, her very soul was coming undone. Years of lying, of hiding truths from herself were all coming back to haunt her. She got five steps into walking away before the pain became too much and she did what she so rarely ever did. Her legs collapsed underneath her as uncontrollable sobs escaped her.
Rarity was the first one to her side. A warm leg wrapped over Twilight’s back. “Shh, let it all out. I am so sorry. Here I was being selfish about my twenty… my thirtieth birthday, and you have been suffering all this time. I am so sorry.”
Pinkie Pie was next. “Hey, it’ll be alright. It’s not like it’s impossible to have kids. I mean Celestia’s done it.”
Fluttershy followed after that. “We’re all here for you, Twilight.”
Applejack came around to Rarity’s side. “Come on sugarcube, we’re all family here. You can talk t’ us.”
Finally Rainbow Dash appeared in front of Twilight. Her blue hooves resting gently on top of Twilight’s. “Hey, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I was just trying to be… I don’t know, silly I guess. I opened my big mouth and said something stupid again, I’m sorry.”
The love of her friends should have made Twilight feel better, yet all it did was remind her of how lonely she was going to be one day. Her voice was broken as she decided it was finally time to tell her friends something she should have said years ago. “I-I’ve been trying so hard.”
Rarity offered a friendly smile. “We know and we think you’re doing a wonderful job.”
Twilight shook her head. “It’s been five years. Five years I have tried, tried and failed.”
“Five?” Pinkie questioned. “What have you been trying for five years?”
Twilight’s lip trembled as the words made their way up from the bottom of her broken heart. “To have a foal.”
The next day Valiant was allowed to skip school thanks to Twilight who had come in the morning with the request to take Valiant out on a research trip. Of course there was a small conflict with Maud, but Trixie supported the little adventure. So with that permission granted Valiant sat on the train next to Twilight as they made their way to their first destination.
In their private booth Twilight sat across from Valiant reading a book. Meanwhile Valiant was studying for the classes she was missing today. For awhile this worked out for the best as they enjoyed the sound of the train and the occasional glimpse out the window into the rolling hills.
“How are you liking the trip so far?” Twilight asked.
Valiant shrugged. She didn’t have an answer yet because the adventure hadn’t even begun. So far all she had was a train ride to compare this too, and it wasn’t anything special.
“It’ll be fun once we get there, I promise. When I was filly Ink Pots helped me out a lot in my schoolwork. She also helped your mom, Trixie. Of course she actually helped pretty much everypony, she’s a good mare, you’ll like her.” A small smile grew over Twilight’s lips. “Actually the three of us do have one thing in common.”
Valiant gave her that one eyed stare which meant she was not impressed.
“Oh don’t do that,” Twilight let out a quiet sigh. “Our little adventure is just beginning. And I really need to get out of the village for awhile. Do something… useful for a change. Leave a legacy behind. Think about it, Twilight Sparkle and Valiant Heart, the two ponies to discover the Seeker’s Archive. We’ll be remembered forever.”
Valiant’s stare grew concerned. This was a little odd coming from Twilight. She never cared about being famous, she was already famous as being the princess of friendship. Carefully Valiant shut her text book and sat up straight. “Twilight, why are you really looking for the archive?”
Twilight’s lip trembled for a moment before she could regain her composer. “I uh, I wanted to… It’s complicated. There’s a really good reason, an important reason.”
“What reason?”
“I was visited by a… spirit of sorts. A being of flames and prophecy told me to find a certain pony. One that I am to train into the warrior, protector, and savior that she needs to be. I still don’t know who that is, but the Seekers Archive should have that information.”
Valiant looked out the window and saw the city of Canterlot swiftly approaching, they were just about to enter the old mining tunnel in fact. “Why am I coming along?”
“Because I need an assistant… and I promised you that we would look for the archive together.”
A shadow passed over the window. Valiant looked over to see what it was but couldn’t. Then something heavy landed on the roof. Twilight stood up and looked toward the noise. The train entered the tunnel then and darkness consumed all vision.Little lights on the top of the room flickered to life as Twilight’s magic flipped the light switch.
“What was that?” Twilight asked.
Valiant looked out the window, but upon seeing nothing went to open it. A light thump sounded on top of the train car, quickly followed by another, and yet more. Valiant rolled the window down and stuck her head out. The cavern wall was speeding by only a few feet away. Above her she could see the top of a unicorn’s head, the white pony had a stylish purple mane. A necklace of gold with an alicorn shaped symbol on the front was worn proudly by the unicorn. Than two white wings spread out from the pony’s back and Valiant sucked her head back in.
“What is it?” Twilight whispered.
“An alicorn,” Valiant said quietly.
Twilight’s eyes grew wide. “That’s… it might be one of the alicorn royalty?”
Valiant shook her head. “The necklace. It’s the Alicorn Empire.”
Twilight flipped the light off and darkness covered them again. Slowly Valiant’s eyes adjusted. It took a moment but Twilight moved over to Valiant’s side and whispered, “Stay in here, I will take care of this. It’s my duty after all.”
“B-but-“
“No, I won’t risk your safety. Stay as quiet as a mouse.” Twilight’s horn lit up softly and her bag opened up. A long sword with lavender and gold stripes on the sheath was pulled out. Twilight’s crown appeared next. She dawned her crown, strapped her sword on and opened the door leading to the hallway. Twilight gave one last longing look at Valiant Heart, “It’ll be okay. I promise.”
With that said Twilight left. The door shut behind her and Valiant was left all alone in this dark room. Her heart was speeding a million miles a minute and new fear rose in her chest. Twilight was going out there to potentially fight another alicorn, and with only one eye Twilight didn’t stand much of a chance. Valiant prayed to all the gods that Twilight would be alright.
***
Twilight stepped out into the dark hallway and shut the cabin door shut. For extra measure she put a locking spell on the door, there was no way that door was going to be opening any time soon. For a moment she waited for the lights above to turn on, or for a servant to walk down the hall. There was nothing. Silence, followed only by darkness in the hallway. Something was wrong here, and Twilight was determined to figure out what it was.
The first thing she did was walk to the next cabin over and open the door. She muttered a quiet apology after seeing the sleeping residents in the cabin. She shut the door and made her way to the next cabin over. The next cabin was home to a mother and her two fillies. They were all sleeping soundly together. Twilight tried the next cabin, a lone stallion with was lying down using a rolled up newspaper as a pillow. She shut the door and made her way further down the hall.
It was weird that everypony in this car would be asleep. However it could still be coincidence. At least that’s what Twilight told herself until she stumbled upon a servant sleeping in the middle of the hall. This was more than just a few ponies napping, somepony had used a sleeping spell on the train. Twilight looked down at her Star Blade. It’s cool and collected presence had warded off a few spells in the past, and she now believed it had saved her once again.
A sudden fear hit Twilight like a freight train. If everypony is asleep on the train, than whose driving it?
Twilight threw open the door leading to the next car and galloped ahead. She was determined to set this straight before anything worse happened. The next car was a public car with benches instead of booths, and yet again everypony here was sleeping. She moved onto the next one, it was empty save for a few wooden crates. Twilight galloped ahead but froze at the appearance of an orange light from under the door leading to the next cart. Twilight dove behind a crate and lowered herself into a pouncing stance.
The car door opened. A stallion’s voice spoke proudly filling the quiet car. “So what’s the plan here?”
A female voice answered back, “We’re doing exactly what we need too. We are bringing the light of the Empire back to these lower life forms.”
A raspy voice followed. “Sounds good, I’ve been sick of this dumb waiting shtick anyway.”
Twilight dared a peak out from behind the crate and saw two alicorns standing at the edge of the train car. One of them was a stallion with such fabulous purple hair that even Rarity would be jealous. The other was a white mare with long red mane. On the mare’s back sat a blue cat with a gold mark on its forehead.
“And how are we going to do that?” The stallion asked.
“We’re ramming the train into their beloved city,” the mare answered. “Watch as those loser ponies cry as we destroy their precious beautiful capital.”
The cat’s nose twitched before speaking in a raspy voice. “Oh come on, Rosie Red, Lavender Sin, we need to hurry and find out if they have any good loot aboard the train, before it crashes and burns with us in it.”
The mare turned toward the back of the cabin and wore a sickening grin. “That’s the plan, hairball.”
The cat looked down the train car, directly at Twilight and loosed a meowed. “We have company.”
The mare laughed. “Come on out little pony, it’s rude to spy on your betters after all.”
Twilight sucked in a quick breath and stepped out from her hiding place. She gave a one eyed glare at the group. “So you’re going to kill us all then?”
The stallion gave an odd look to the mare. “Uh, Rose, we aren’t really killing them all right? We’re just destroying property.”
Rose gave her partner, Lavender a dirty look. “Of course we are killing them. They aren’t proper life forms anyway, so what does it matter. Besides, it’s not like everypony is going to die, some will live, I’m sure of it.”
Twilight snarled. “Not going to happen today.”
“So you want to fight us, do you little unicorn?” The mare asked. She looked back at her partner. “I guess it’s time for our introductions then.”
Lavender smiled proudly, and his horn lit up. A rose appeared before him and he sniffed it. “Prepare for trouble.”
Rosie joined in. “And make it double.”
“To protect the world from chaos and ruin.”
Rosie’s horn lit up and a banner of the alicorn empire, a red alicorn silhouette appeared behind them waving in imaginary wind. “To unite all races under one nation.”
“To denounce the evils of freedom or choice,” Lavender added.
“To spread our Empire to the stars above,” Rosie said.
“Lavender Sin,” lavender said.
“Rosie Red,” Rosie added.
Together the pair announced, “The Alicorn Empire is here to spread it’s light, surrender now or prepare to fight!”
The cat meowed. “That’s right.”
Twilight blinked at them. These two were not only evil they were friends with each other and had a motto. If those three things meant anything to her, it meant they were either really stupid, or worked together really well. Twilight prayed it was the former, because otherwise she did not see this as an easy battle.
Twilight’s magical aura surrounded the Star Sword’s hilt with a deep red aura. A little bit of Rainbow Dash had rubbed off on her over the years as evident by the grin she was now wearing. Usually she hated to fight, but then again she had never had the opportunity to actually fight an alicorn before, at least not in earnest. This was going to be her chance to fully test out her magical abilities.“Come and get some.”
Rosie’s horn lit up and bright streaks of pink energy flew towards Twilight weaving around like ribbons. Twilight jumped back, and pulled her sword free as the ribbons danced around her hooves. One of them wrapped around her leg and pulled tight.
“Now this is going to be shocking,” Rosie said as her horn grew brighter still.
Electricity flew down the length of the ribbon toward Twilight’s leg. Twilight’s sword flashed, the deep purple metal shone brilliantly as it moved, pink stars appeared all up and down the blade. It cut through the magical ribbon like butter and severed the magic before the electricity could contact her.
While Twilight was busy working on this she failed to notice when Lavender had began charging from across the room. He was already upon her before she could react. His horn lit up with orange light and there was a blinding flash of light. Twilight moved back, unable to see she couldn’t attack, much less defend herself. A blow landed across her left cheek followed by one to her forehead, pain splashed across Twilight’s senses and she swung her sword blindly in front of her.
She heard hoofsteps retreat as she swung her blade. Slowly her vision returned to her and as the orange cleared from her sight it was replaced by two glowing lights at the end of the car. An orange light and a pink light side by side. As the shapes of things appeared in her vision once more she realized that the lights were coming from the alicorn’s horns. Twilight turned and found the doorway she had entered. She ran through it and slammed it shut behind her. Pink ribbons crackling with electricity slipped just underneath the door frame. This was followed by a flash of heat coming from the other side of the metal door. It was so hot in fact that a circular area on the door was turning red.
“Oh horse crap!” Twilight cried as she backed away from the door. Her face still hurt and she was unsure of what she was supposed to do now. A one on one fight against these two was impossible, at least with her level of power. Rainbow Dash she was not.
“Come on out little unicorn,” Rosie Red called form the other side of the door.
“Or are we playing hide and seek?” Lavender asked.
Twilight rubbed at her jaw. There are dozens of sleeping ponies behind me, and I can’t drag this fight back to them. Think Twilight, think. You’re the second smartest of the Elements of Harmony, and you can use your brain to get out of this.
A small hole began melting in the door. Lavender shouted, “Looks like we’re about to get through. What do you say? Give up now while you still have a chance and we’ll let you jump off the train before it crashes.”
“Yeah, right off the side of a cliff!” Rosie added.
Twilight frowned, this was going to suck either way. The place where her right eye used to be was burning. “Okay, you want to play, let’s play.”
Twilight looked behind her, and her horn lit up and a square box of red energy stretched out before her. The box of energy swiftly grew, easily cutting through the metal as it pressed against the walls, floor and ceiling. The cart gave a little shake as the red energy cut the cart in half. Even if she failed in stopping the train, she could at least save the ponies left behind. Including Valiant Heart.
Twilight made sure she was on the side with the alicorns and opened the door with her magic. Orange flames leapt out of the doorway, she pressed herself against the side of the wall as hard as she could. After a moment the flames died down and Twilight heard galloping toward the door.
“What the Tartarus?” Rosie said as she stuck her head out the doorway. Her eyes widened in horror as the passenger cars all drifted away. Her horn lit up and a spray of pink ribbons lashed out to tie around the passenger car. For a moment the car started coming back, her face grew pained as the strain of holding the passenger cars quickly overtaxed her horn. A second layer of magic appeared around her horn, followed by a third. Rosie cried out in pain as the ribbons snapped. “NO!”
Twilight grinned. “Yes.”
Rosie looked over and saw Twilight standing there, for a brief moment her eyes grew wider still. Twilight’s hooves came crashing down on Rosie’s head. The alicorn was knocked to the ground, and Twilight used that moment to look out over the cliff face. It was a long way down to the bottom, and without a flying machine the fall was deadly enough to kill even an ursa major. A brief image of throwing Rosie out to her doom crossed Twilight’s mind, but she fought it. Killing the mare wouldn’t due anypony justice, it would only go on to inspire other alicorns to follow in her wake.
Instead Twilight’s horn lit up and her hooves crackled with red electricity. Twilight brought her hooves down once more and Rosie’s body jerked and spasmed as the lightning traveled through her. Twilight stepped over Rosie’s unconscious body and into the car where Lavender stood with terrified eyes made only for Twilight. The cat was gone however.
“Please don’t hurt me,” He begged.
Twilight looked down at the fallen Rosie. “You were helping her kill ponies.”
“We haven’t killed anypony yet,” he defended. “I didn’t even know we were going to kill anypony, promise.”
Twilight scoffed and stepped to the side. “Fine, take her and leave. You can carry her and fly can’t you?”
The stallion nodded. “Y-y-yes.”
The stallion galloped past Twilight and grabbed Rosie in his telekinetic aura. Rosie stirred, and sluggishly asked, “Why did you give up, you pansy?”
“Better to live to fight another day,” Lavender said as he flew out the back of the train car and off into the clouds.
For a long moment Twilight simply watched him fly away until the duo were nothing more than specs in the sky. She turned around and made her way to the drivers car. When she got to it her mind could hardly believe what she saw. The driver was asleep and tied up, laid against the side of the wall. Twilight tried to wake him, but the spell on him was still strong. After giving up on that Twilight looked around.
The train station to Canterlot was ahead of her. The train was moving far too fast, if it continued at this speed it would derail once it hit the train station. The devastation would be catastrophic even if she saved the driver. She looked around for the emergency break and found it, snapped off the mechanism and lying on the ground. Twilight cursed her luck, there was no way she could stop this thing without the break.
Twilight sheathed her sword, and closed her eye. “This was not supposed to happen.”
There was one thing left that she could try, but it was going to be costly. Sure she’d lost her wing in the windigo war, and the other she had surgically removed so that she could feel better about being a full unicorn rather than a half alicorn. It didn’t change what she was, she was still in fact an alicorn, she just resembled a really tall and elegant unicorn.
That alicorn magic however was still there, always building up, and she just happened to keep it bottled up in one place. Her empty eye socket. Twilight removed the eye patch carefully, and gold light spread out brightly over the train car. It didn’t take much to get that magic into her horn and to channel it into a spell. Twilight summoned forth her will, her magic, and her very soul to create this spell from the aether.
The magic built up in her horn until it hurt, her aura wasn’t red anymore, it was glowing like rainbow flames. She lovingly called this effect the Fires of Friendship. The train was drawing closer still to the station, several ponies in the distance were waving their legs, not in greeting but in warning. They were trying to tell her to slow down.
“Heh,” Twilight smirked. “Would if I could.”
The entire train was wrapped up in her aura, and the memory of a nearby lake popped into mind. Twilight used all that magical build up and grabbed every part of the train, including the driver. The world shook around her as the train was being worked upon by massive amounts of magic. She’d only used magic like this when she fought Tirek. And that was with the power of four alicorns all shoved into her body at once.
Twilight screamed as the fabric of reality was torn around the train. Pain flashed through her horn into her skull and wrecked her mind. The train popped off the tracks, vanished from the train station, and unless you were on the train, like Twilight was you’d think that the train simply disappeared. But Twilight saw the train go through the aether itself, the realm of pure magic, and even if it only lasted a moment, her mind was blessed by the unrivaled beauty that she could not describe. Colors she never even dreamed of assaulted her immortal mind, and magic so pure was formed like solid objects floating in the void. Something huge swam through the aether outside the train window, huge and pitch black.
The world reasserted itself and a lake appeared beneath the train.
Twilight grabbed the driver, jumped out of the back of the train, and as the metal behemoth slammed into the lake beneath them she teleported once more back to the train station. Off in the distance she heard the splash as she stood on the wooden planks of the train station. Everypony there stared at her in surprise, and Twilight quickly realized that her eye patch was gone, thankfully her eyelid was closed otherwise they might be a little more disturbed.
A guard ran up to her. “Princess Twilight, what happened?”
“Train wouldn’t stop, so I fixed it. The passenger car was separated and the passengers need help,” She said, she rubbed a hoof at her leaky nose, it came back red. “I’ll need assistance getting back to them.”
The guard bowed. “Of course. I’ll go gather some guards together right away.”
“Oh and send a messenger to Celestia. Tell her that there was an emergency and that I need to speak with her right away.”
The guard nodded. “The message will be delivered.”
“Now go, we have work to do,” Twilight said.
The guard couldn’t run off fast enough. They knew when trouble was ahoof, and right then, trouble was most certainly ahoof.
Valiant Heart looked out the window. The train was slowing down. Once she opened up the window and stuck her head out she could see down the tracks the first couple of traincars including the engine were chugging along down the winding path around the mountain, they were however disconnected from all the passenger cars.
Once she pulled her head back inside the first thing she did was try for the door. It was stuck in place, it wasn’t even locked yet she couldn’t open the door for the life of her. So she sat there, in the quiet room all alone for what felt like an eternity.
Fear joined forces alongside regret on the battle for her soul while she sat there contemplating how she had just allowed Twilight to run off alone. There wasn’t much she could do to help, but that didn’t make her feel any better. It only made her feel worse. There was an alicorn, maybe more out there, and Twilight was facing them all alone. Even when the half of the train she was on stopped moving completely she still didn’t feel any better.
There was a scratching sound at the bottom of her door, and Valiant’s heart stopped. She froze, her mind racing for information. After a moment the scratching stopped, but that didn’t make her feel better. In the quiet room she could hear the scratching sound moving away from her, it almost sounded like a cat, only larger.
A quiet colt’s voice spoke in the back of her mind, for a brief instant her mind rebelled against it. Telling her that it was just imaginary, that it couldn’t be real. Yet here, stuck in this room alone, scared, and worried, she just wanted somepony to comfort her, even if they weren’t real. Valiant removed her eye patch and looked around.
“Boulder?” she asked quietly.
From the corner of the room a blue colt with purple mane walked into the room. He smiled brightly at her, a warm feeling grew throughout her chest. He walked through the seat, phasing through it as though neither he nor the furniture really existed. He took a seat next to Valiant, and looked up at her.
“It’s been awhile,” he said gently.
Valiant shook her head. “You’re my imaginary friend, and I’m fifteen years old. I’m too old to have one of those.”
“If that’s what you want to think.” he replied in an understanding tone.
This was Boulder Dash, her imaginary friend from when she was first picked up by Maud Pie and held tightly. It was a dark night, Valiant was in more pain than she knew possible, her heart and soul were both torn to shreds, her mind merely hanging on by strings of willpower that were snapping one by one. If Maud hadn’t picked her up, hadn’t sung that lullaby to her, Valiant would have just given up. Instead she was able to fall asleep, but not before she heard Boulder Dash speak to her. His only words came out true and powerful, they struck her soul like an hammer of hope against an anvil of light. He told her, “Everything will be okay, your safe now.”
Valiant shook the memory loose from her mind before she could start crying again. She hated crying. “You always seem to know what to do in situations like this. Help me.”
Boulder Dash scratched at his chin. “Well, are you sure? There’s a large hyper intelligent feline with a habit of thieving from unsuspecting ponies out there.”
“Yeah, and my little sister is going to become Twilight’s strongest pupil ever, give me some real advice please.”
Boulder smiled and shook his head slowly. “You really don’t believe that I exist? What about the time I helped you revive a pony?”
“That… look there are plenty of weird things out there, right now I’m alone in a dark room and talking to myself. I need to go help Twilight.”
“Twilight doesn’t need help, she’s doing just fine. Maybe you could heal her when she gets back, but it’s only mild damage.”
Valiant thrust a hoof at the door. “Door’s locked, help now.”
“You’re quite impatient sometimes, I bet you get that from Trixie.”
Valiant frowned.
“Okay, you can unlock the door yourself. You have more than the ability to feel other ponies emotions, to see their inner selves, and to heal them from physical injury. You are special, Valiant Heart. More than you could ever know. Go to the door, place your hooves on it, and use that inner light of yours to will it open.”
Valiant Heart rolled her eyes before going to the door and putting her hooves on it. For a moment she wasn’t sure what to do, she just hoped the door would open, of course it didn’t. So she dug deep into herself, looking for that light. She found it, it was not only inside her but all around her as well. She grabbed the light, and focused on the door. The energy moved through her, collecting on the door, and she saw it, not with her good eye but instead with her broken eye, there was a red aura on the door, it felt like Twilight. Valiant’s white aura interacted with the spell, and gently pushed it aside. For a moment the spell stayed, it refused to move. So Valiant pushed harder. The spell fought back to hold the door shut. Valiant pushed against that spell with all her might, until she was grunting with the effort of moving so much energy. The spell shifted and slid away. Valiant almost fell from the exhaustion of removing that spell, but once she tried the door handle it moved and the door cracked open successfully.
“Good work,” Boulder Dash said. “There’s a lot more you can do, you have only barely tapped into your full potential.”
Valiant slid her eye patch back on and walked out the door. “Thanks, but I don’t need to deal with my crazy at the moment. I have to find Twilight.” She looked back with her good eye and Boulder was gone.
The hall was dark, and quiet save for the sound of sleeping ponies. Every door in this car was opened, and everypony inside the booths were asleep. The only door that hadn’t opened was her own. Valiant could only assume it was because Twilight had put some protective barrier on it. And she had just removed the only thing keeping her safe…
Valiant pushed the fear aside, she’d dealt with much worse. This was foal’s play. All she had to do was investigate the cars until she found out where Twilight was, than she could hang by the princess’s side until things were better. Valiant turned around and began going through the back of the car. There were passenger cars leading all the way to the kitchen. Everyone of them was filled with open doors and sleeping ponies. Until she got to the last car which was all luggage.
She stopped at the doorway when she heard the scratching sound again, along with a raspy voice complaining. “Darn it, there was hardly any good loot on the ponies. I can’t be re-summoned without some good stuff. Gold, rubies, sapphires, these ponies should be rich in the stuff.”
Valiant was usually a quiet pony, easily sneaking up on anyone she wanted too, sometimes without meaning too. So right then she put her skills to the test and moved quiet as a mouse into the room. She’d earned the nickname of Mouse after all.
She followed the scratching noises to a pile of opened suitcases. There were desperate claw marks on the locks of the luggage. Clothes, toys, papers, and an assortment of junk was thrown carelessly on the floor. A blue furry cat was hunched over a suitcase digging through it with reckless regard. He picked up a gold ring, smiled a crooked tooth grin at it before opening his mouth wide and tossing the ring inside it.
“Ew,” Valiant said as she took a step back.
The cat’s ears twitched and it swung its head around to look directly at Valiant. The cat grinned maliciously. “Oh what is this, a foal come out to play? Didn’t your parents ever tell you not to run off alone?”
“No, they threw me out when I was six,” Valiant Heart replied coldly. Ponies were scary, but a talking cat that eats gold is far less so. Talking to it didn’t feel like she was going to have a panic attack, which probably explained why Fluttershy loved animals so much.
“Boohoo, go feed your life story to somepony else, or give me some gold. I don’t care which.”
“What’s your name?” Valiant asked.
“Busy Kitty, now leave.” The cat went back to its search for gold. It was indeed quite larger than normal rodents, not as big as giant cats though, and far from being a dire cat, but it was just larger than a cat.
Valiant found an unopened suitcase and shrugged. Twilight had always told her to make new friends right? She opened it up and was rewarded with someponies bottlecap collection. This was neither a recycling plant nor a post apocalypse, bottlecaps were worthless.
“What are you doing, filly?” The cat asked.
“Helping,” Valiant replied.
“Oh… but why?”
“Because I want to be friends.”
The cat’s laugh was cold and harsh. “Well be my guest little filly. I won’t argue with ponies and their admittedly backwards ways.”
Valiant opened up another suitcase, it looked mostly like somepony had just gotten back from a shopping spree at Rarity’s Boutique. “So why are you here?”
“We were going to crash the train into the city, of course I don’t really care so long as I get my fill of gold.” The cat scratched at its chin. “After all, what good is a familiar if he doesn’t get paid?”
“You’re a familiar? I thought that familiars could only speak to their masters.”
“We can learn your pathetic language if we choose too, but most are far too proud.”
“And your not?”
“What can I say, I’m a cat with a heart of-” he paused to swallow a golden belt buckle. “-gold.”
“That’s funny,” Valiant said without laughing.
“Heh, yeah it is. Most ponies don’t get my sense of humor, and those alicorns are beyond stuck up to anything less than immortal such as myself.”
Valiant gave him an odd look. “So you’re working with the alicorns?”
“Only Lavender and Rose. Their good, if not poor kids. Wanting to spread their empire’s light to the land, by scaring you lesser creatures. I can respect that. Fear’s a good motivator.”
Valiant shook her head. “Friendship is supposed to be better.”
“But you know it’s not as effective?”
Valiant closed her eye tightly for a moment. “I… I’ve seen both. Fear will make a pony move, to run, to survive, to throw even their friends under the bus. Friendship will make a pony move, to run, to survive, and to throw themselves under the bus for friends. I can’t say that either of them are wrong… I think both might be needed.”
The cat paused to give her an odd look.
“What?”
“It’s nothing, you’re just surprisingly intelligent for an earth pony. Are you sure you’re not a familiar in disguise?”
Valiant shook her head. “Nope, just a weird earth pony.”
The cat smiled, only this time it was almost warm. “That’s interesting. I like you. Should we meet again, I’d hope we do so under the banner of, how do you ponies say it, friendship.”
“You think that will happen?”
“No, but I’d like it.” The cat stood up. “I need to get back to Lavender and Rose now, their probably still licking their wounds. It’ll be a long time until they recover from the beating that purple unicorn gave them.”
She watched as the cat waved goodbye before disappearing in a cloud of smoke. For a moment it reminded her of Trixie, but of course when the smoke cleared and the cat was gone, she realized that the cat was much better at the trick than Trixie was. After that she made her way back through the cars, a few ponies were beginning to stir, so she retired to her room and took a seat. If Twilight had really won her battle and chased off the alicorns, than she would be fine, all she could do now was wait.
***
Twilight’s lack of wings meant she was hoofing all the way back to the train station. Around her were a dozen guards. She very much doubted that there would be anymore fighting today, but the passengers might need assistance, hence all the horsepower. Still she couldn’t help but to worry about Valiant. Twilight had done the only thing she felt capable of, she’d saved the train and all its passengers, but when this got back to Maud and Trixie, Twilight was sure that leaving their daughter unsupervised would count as the most grievous of sins.
It took a little while, especially since Twilight refused to allow any reckless galloping as she didn’t know what lay ahead. Still they reached the train and once they did they found that some of the passengers were already awake, though dazed and confused. The guards went about helping the passengers get back up on their hooves, meanwhile Twilight made her way back to the booth she shared with Valiant. The locking spell had been removed from the door.
Twilight threw the door open, ready to kill anypony brazen enough to not only break her lock, but to bother Valiant Heart. Inside she found Valiant sitting on the seat studying in silence. The filly glanced up at her with one eye before looking back into her book. Somehow Twilight felt like she was being scolded for tardiness.
“Are you okay?” Twilight asked.
Valiant beckoned Twilight over with a hoof. Upon following this instruction Twilight received a surprise hug. Twilight embraced Valiant back, her heart sinking from the thought of having left her alone. Of course the white light emitting from Valiant’s body warmed Twilight’s heart and soul. The pain in her head cleared quickly enough. Soon Valiant let go and went back to studying.
“I’m fine,” Valiant replied. “You got hurt.”
Twilight lowered her head. “It was nothing.”
Valiant didn’t reply.
“Oh come on, don’t give me the silent treatment, that’s supposed to be reserved for ponies you aren’t friends with.”
Valiant flipped a page in her book without even a glance.
“I’m sorry that I left you alone. I shouldn’t have done that. But those alicorns were going to crash the train into the city, the only reason any of us are still alive is because I stopped them.”
This time Valiant did look up. “I’m not mad.”
“You promise?”
Valiant gave a tiny nod, though she didn’t smile. This was probably the closest Twilight was getting to forgiveness at the moment, and she would be forced to wait until later before she could make it up to her. As of right then however she had another goal to work on.
“Hey, Val. It’s time to get out of here. I guess we’re hoofing it back to town, you can ride on my back if your leg’s troubling you,” Twilight offered.
Valiant shook her head and quickly got to packing things. It wasn’t fair that Twilight couldn’t be a mind reader or an empath, it would make communication with ponies so much easier. No it was ponies like Cadence or Trixie that got those abilities. Instead Twilight had to rely on good old fashioned learning to read ponies. Of course that only carried her so far.
The two of them walked out of the train side by side. By the time they got out the train tracks were filled with the passenger ponies and the guards who were waiting on Twilight’s word to lead them back to town. Once Twilight gave the word the guards began leading the herd back to Canterlot, and Twilight followed behind them with Valiant by her side.
Maybe about halfway to their destination did the sun become brighter, the air warmed up, and a huge shadow passed overhead. It circled overhead before lowering itself and coming into a landing right behind Twilight. Princess Celestia stood there with a worried expression on her face.
“Twilight, Valiant Heart, whatever happened? Why is there a train engine sitting in the middle of Moonscape Lake?” Celestia asked.
Valiant gave a dirty look to Twilight who could only shrug in turn. Twilight scratched the back of her head with a wing tip. “Okay, so you might not believe this, but there were two alicorns on the train who were planning to crash the train into the city. I had to do something…”
“Alicorns?” Celestia asked.
“Yeah, you see they were from the Alicorn Empire.”
Celestia frowned. “They’ve been gone for over seven years and this is how they return. By attempting to destroy my city. Why would they do this, and why now?”
Twilight shrugged. “We know next to nothing about the Alicorn Empire outside of the fact that they had once enslaved all of pony kind and waged war on the draconequus race.”
“Not just the draconequus, they stood against all demon kind.”
“Should we gather all the princesses for this?” Twilight asked.
“I will send word to the active princesses, but until we have more information it is best to keep our eyes open.” A guilt ridden look crossed Celestia’s face as she glanced at Twilight’s closed eye. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-“
“It’s okay, it was my fault, I shouldn’t have tried to run head first into a ball of balefire. Tends to be bad for the eyes.” Twilight shrugged. “Though I miss my eye patch. It was hard to make that thing. All the enchantments, the gold inlays, the built in lay line pathways… it’s going to be a long time before I can make another o-“
Celestia’s horn was glowing with the light of the sun as Twilight’s eye patch seemingly appeared from nowhere. It floated over to Twilight who grabbed it quickly and put it on. It was a little damp and smelled like pond water, but it made her feel at ease. The energy began collecting in her eye again instead of floating out uselessly. A grin spread over Twilight’s lips.
“I take it your pleased,” Celestia said with a warm smile.
“Incredibly! Thank you. Now we just have to get to Ink Pots and I can get our first clue about the Archive,” Twilight said excitedly.
That warm smile faded as Celestia looked right at Twilight. A growing sense of dread told Twilight she was about to receive more bad news. Celestia’s tone came out gently, but it held a stern coldness to it that Twilight rarely ever heard from her mentor. “Ink Pots is in the hospital. She’s… her time is almost up.”
Twilight looked back to the road. Her horn lit up as she picked up Valiant Heart and tossed the small teenager on her back. “Flowing Water’s Hospital, right?” Upon receiving a nod from Celestia, Twilight took off in a full gallop. There was no time to waste.
Twilight and Valiant arrived at the hospital in less than an hour. Flowing Water’s Hospital was a place that was run by an old student of Ink Pots and a one time resident of Ponyville by the name of Moon Flow. Both Twilight and Valiant had met this wonderful unicorn mare in the past, both under different circumstances. Still it was not her whom Twilight had come to see, it was in fact Ink Pots herself.
After speaking to the receptionist Twilight located the room. Ink Pots was being held on room 313 so up to the third floor it was. This wasn’t a new hospital, and that was evident as some parts of the hospital were clean, white, sterile, other parts were older, stained from age, and a few were being renovated. Twilight had remembered when she was asked to help fund Moon Flow’s project, rebuilding this older hospital into something grand; a place where the newest magical medical practices could be developed and implemented.
The pair made their way up via the elevator, and found themselves on the floor dedicated to unicorn treatment and magical aliments. Twilight walked by a few rooms with open doors, although mostly unoccupied a few had unicorns with black splotches on their fur. Twilight shivered at the thought of catching some terrible magical sickness and moved on. Valiant lingered a little.
“It’s this room up here,” Twilight said as she approached the door.
Valiant made a sour face as she tore her eye away from the sight of one of the sick ponies.
With her magic, Twilight opened the door a crack and peeked inside. Ink Pots lay on the bed, her old gray body was calmly resting, her black hair was still tied into that familiar bun. Finally her one open eye was staring up at a television with a fabulous thirteen inch screen and a black and white picture on it. Some film about a young couple falling in love in Manehattan was on.
“Miss Ink Pots?” Twilight asked quietly.
Ink Pots eye came to rest over on Twilight and her smile widened. “Ah, Princess Twilight Sparkle.” There was a hint of pride in her voice. “Did you come all the way out here to wish me farewell?”
Twilight walked in with Valiant Heart by her side. “I actually wasn’t made aware of your illness until after I came here, though I did come to visit you. I… I just wish it wasn’t under such circumstances.” The closer Twilight got the more she saw how aged Ink Pots was. Ink Pots was old, far older than Twilight had known, yet still she held a youthful look in that eye of hers.
“I had a feeling that I was holding on for somepony, I guess it was you,” Ink Pots said quietly.
Pain shot through Twilight’s chest as she stared down at her one time teacher. This was the mare that had first taught her when she joined Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns. This was the mare who had first taught her the value of friends, and despite Celestia’s irresponsibly dropping a baby off on a filly Twilight, Ink Pots helped her. “Yeah, maybe so.”
“What do you need?” Ink Pots asked.
“Valiant and I are looking for the Seekers Archive. There is a long lost prophecy being fulfilled, and only the archive has answers to the trouble that will unfold soon. We would like to know your clue.”
A frown crept over the old mare’s lips. “The danger this secret will put you two in, are you sure you can handle it?” She paused to take in a shallow breath. “There are those who will do everything in their power to stop you from finding it.”
“There are many more who will be hurt if I don’t find it.”
For a moment Ink Pots was silent. “I will tell you, on one condition. Keep the Archive safe. The world still has need of the knowledge inside it, please don’t horde the knowledge, share it.”
Twilight smiled. “I was already planning to.”
Ink Pots closed her eye. “Only when surrounded by darkness does the mind’s light shine.”
Twilight frowned. “That… will probably make sense when I get the last clue. Thank you.”
Ink Pots didn’t open her eye, her body relaxed deeply. “Twilight, Valiant, you two now know a closely guarded secret. Your quest will become more dangerous than it was before. I know several ponies must have been watching over my room during my stay here, hoping for me to die without telling anypony my secret. They will suspect you of knowing, even if they didn’t hear anything I said.”
Twilight looked around nervously. “I can take care of the two of us. Don’t worry about us.”
When Ink Pots didn’t respond Twilight took a step back. The heart monitor flat lined. Yet Ink Pots body wasn’t done moving just yet. Her body grew bright, too bright to look at. Rainbow colored lights filled the small room and Twilight looked away. Out of the corner of her eye Twilight saw Ink Pots body change shape, turning into hundreds of motes of rainbow colored light. The lights all floated up and through the walls. Once they were gone, the room returned to normal lighting, leaving both Twilight and Valiant stunned.
From behind them a nurse appeared. “Did… it happen?”
Twilight nodded. “The cost of using the longevity spell, your body slowly becomes pure magic until finally it can no longer sustain a physical form. Ink Pots is gone, though I can’t say whether she is dead.”
Valiant looked up at her with a wide eye that spoke volumes of how she clearly didn’t understand. Twilight only offered a tired smile. “Come on, let’s go to the castle, I need to rest a few hours, and then I’ll have some pegasi take us home.”
Valiant stared back at the now empty bed for a moment, before leaving the room first. Twilight followed after her. As for the nurse she simply stared at the room in wonder, at least until she seemed to realize the heart monitor was still going off and went to take care of it. Twilight was done here, and didn’t want to spend anymore time around the company of death.
***
The dark alley was full of garbage, dumpsters, and rats. It was a disgusting filthy place, the kind of which she loathed to ever need walking into. The night sky was cast overhead as the brilliant sun had gone to bed only to be replaced by the uncaring moon. Still she pushed through the alley, keeping her senses all on guard for any surprises.
Just ahead of her walked out of an alley was a stallion wearing a cloak darker than the one she herself was wearing. The stallion looked up at her, his gray muzzle barely visible. “Sup?”
She blinked in response. “Hello, you are the one I’m looking for correct? The Last One?”
“Yeah that’s me, you’re the Betrayer right?” he asked. He always sounded too young for this kind of job.
“Yes, I am.”
“Good, what do you want? And how much are you paying?”
The Betrayer nodded. “I need you to track, follow, and keep tabs on two ponies. One of them is the Princess of Friendship; Twilight Sparkle. The other is her assistant, a filly by the name of Valiant Heart. There is to be no harm done to either of them, I only need you to keep track of them and report back to me.”
“Good, I don’t like muscling ponies about anyway, too much work. Now about the payment.”
“Twenty thousand bits.”
“For spying on a princess? No freaking deal. If I get caught, twenty thousand is not en-“
“Up front. Another twenty once the job is complete.”
The Last One smiled at that. “That’s a bit better. You can expect me to watch them for awhile, but if this goes on too long I will be demanding more pay.”
She nodded, this wasn’t her first game of politics. “I am willing to accept that, after all you do good work.”
“Yeah, whatever you say. I’ll get started as soon as I receive the payment.”
It was late at night and Valiant watched as both Trixie and Maud were standing in the doorway glaring at Twilight. Valiant was hiding behind the couch watching the situation unfold. In all honesty she felt like they were overreacting, but of course she was still considered a filly and often times was overlooked as the adults argued.
“You nearly got our daughter killed in some freakish train accident!” Trixie snapped.
Maud added, “I’m disappointed in you.”
Twilight’s head sunk low. “I did the best I could. There was no way I could know that there was going to be trouble, I’ve been on that train ride hundreds of times since moving to Ponyville. You’ve both been on that train hundreds of time. There was no way of knowing there would be danger.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Maud said, her monotone voice almost came out cold. “It’s because she was helping you that she was in danger.”
“After everything we’ve done to keep her alive and well,” Trixie shook her head. “And you just…”
Twilight shuffled her hooves. “Valiant’s my friend, one of my best friends. I… we’re like family. All of us, aren’t we?”
Maud gave Twilight a glare. “Are we?”
Twilight looked wounded, and Trixie was quick to step in. “Twilight, we’re not mad at you.”
“I am,” Maud stated.
“Maud, honey, please,” Trixie gave a disapproving look at Maud. “Valiant’s okay, and we’re grateful that you saved her, along with everypony else on that train.” Trixie’s eyes went back to Twilight. “We’re still family, I promise, but we will be much more restrictive of where Valiant goes from now on. I don’t think we’ll trust her going on any long trips for awhile. Especially not if the world is getting that dangerous once again. Remember the windigo war? I would not have sent any of us out to go adventuring during that crisis.”
Twilight’s head suck lower still. Her mane was practically touching the ground. “I… I guess you’re right.”
A quick pain shot through Valiant’s chest. No, she can’t give up just like that. We’re so close to finding the archive, there’s only one more clue left! I need to find the Seekers Archive.
“There,” Trixie said. “Twilight understands, now can’t you two make up?”
A small crease appeared over Maud’s eyes, an indication that she was repressing a lot of anger. “Are you sorry?”
“I’m sorry,” Twilight replied.
“I accept your apology. Now I’m going to work on cleaning the kitchen,” Maud stated as she walked away from the door.
Trixie gave a shrug. “She’ll calm down by tomorrow.”
Twilight looked up at Trixie, her eyes were glistening. “D-did you see the way she looked at me? There was fire in her eyes.”
Trixie tried to offer a friendly smile that came off more forced than genuine. “One of our babies was in danger. You know that after what happened to Boulder-“ the loud stomp of a hoof coming from the kitchen caught Trixie off guard. Valiant saw Maud staring at Trixie, a warning that she should refrain from saying anything further. Yet this bothered Valiant, she knew that Maud had a pet rock named Boulder, it was currently at the rock farm being taken care of by Marble Pie, but why would that cause reason for unrest in Maud?
Trixie cleared her throat. “Anyway, she is very protective over her babies. Little mama bear, Maud.”
Twilight smiled weakly. “I understand. I… I’ll leave now. Um, would you mind if I come by tomorrow? Just to say hi?”
The way Trixie rolled her eyes brought a small smile to Valiant’s lips. “What are you, Fluttershy? Of course you can come over tomorrow. We’ll have coffee, and I’ll pick your brain for help with my more problematic students.”
Twilight beamed at that. “It’s a date.”
They said their farewells and Trixie shut the door. Maud was busy washing dishes, and Trixie walked over to her and gave her a one legged hug. “Should I go retrieve Amber from our sister’s?”
Maud shook her head. “Pinkie and Fluttershy can take care of her tonight.”
Trixie smiled. “Yeah I trust both of them more than I trust myself sometimes. Hong Kong Fluttershy, and psychic Pinkie make a powerful combination.”
When Trixie looked back at Valiant Heart it set panic into Valiant’s heart, she quickly looked around for anywhere to escape too. Once upon a time she had a cardboard box fort here, it was guarded by an army of cat plushies, and no other pony was allowed in. Well save for the venerable Princess Sweetie Belle, but that was with permission. Now however that box fort was replaced by a messy toy box, and small book shelf lined with children books, including the ones that Trixie had written.
Trixie began her walk over to the couch, and Valiant panicked. She wasn’t entirely sure where the fear actually came from, it wasn’t like she’d ever gotten in trouble before, but then again she was a good kid. At least that’s what everypony told her. Maybe she was just trying to escape the awkwardness of whatever conversation Trixie was about to unleash upon her. So Valiant gave a small yelp as her little legs kicked into gear and she began to make a run for it towards her room. She got about five steps into it before she was lifted off the air by a purple aura and brought back to the couch where she was plopped down onto the soft cushions.
“Val, I would like to talk with you about what happened today,” Trixie said quietly.
Valiant Heart closed her eye and waited for the questions to start.
“It’s just that, well you’ve been through a pretty traumatic experience today. Between surviving some kind of alicorn terrorist attack, and watching a mare die of old age. Well, I just want to know if you’re doing okay?”
Valiant bit her lip. She didn’t want to answer these questions, because she knew what her first response would be and it wouldn’t be pretty.
“It’s okay to talk to us you know, about anything. Or if you need to, we can schedule another appointment with Doctor Timequill. Would that help?”
Valiant shook her head but retained her silence. The thoughts of having her dream snatched away from her, only just after having begun the journey were building the fire in her chest. Now she would never find the archive. This wasn’t okay, nothing about it was okay. She felt like she was dying inside.
“Val, shh,” Trixie said as a hoof reached out and gently brushed away the tears on her cheek. Valiant hadn’t realized she was crying, and she cursed herself for being too weak to do anything yet again. She had a magical power to heal ponies, but she squandered it.
Within a moment a second voice joined alongside Trixie’s. “We’ll keep you safe,” Maud promised.
Valiant shook her head.
“Than what’s wrong?” Trixie asked. “You were limping by the time you got in here.”
That was it, Valiant couldn’t keep shut anymore. She had to release her emotions or it was going to kill her. She took in a deep breath before saying, “I’m so useless.” The words surprised everypony, including herself. That was not what she thought would escape her lips, she expected to swear at her parents, not to… to… tell them the ugly truth.
“You are not useless,” Trixie said determinedly.
Valiant shook her head. “I couldn’t help Twilight. I couldn’t help the old pony. I couldn’t help the sick ponies. I… I can’t do anything, because I’m so scared to try.”
“You don’t have to be afraid,” Trixie said.
“You don’t understand,” Valiant snapped. She looked up at her with one big wet eye and met Trixie’s eyes with everything she had in her. “You were a great magician, you fought and killed demons, you became a princess, and you even killed an ursa minor. How could you ever understand what it’s like to be useless, and scared, and weak!”
Trixie sat down, her hoof gently rested on one of Valiant’s legs. “Oh, Val. You have no idea.”
“No idea about what?”
Maud looked down at her own hooves. “I’ll get dinner started.” With that said she took off to the kitchen, Valiant could still see her so it wasn’t like she was gone, or even out of earshot, but in this tiny cottage, it was the best she could offer in terms of privacy without leaving the room completely.
“I was a failure of a magician,” Trixie said. “My first few gigs went great, but after I came here to Ponyville everything I had was destroyed, my wagon, my stuff, my reputation. I drifted for awhile after that looking for work, but found… very little.”
Valiant looked up at her. “Is, is that how you got to Manehattan?”
Trixie shook her head. “No, I was lucky enough to find a family to take me in and give me a place in the world. I was also foolish enough to throw that away for a shot at revenge against Twilight Sparkle. It was that mistake which ruined what little bit I had left and led me to the mean streets of Manehattan where I first met you.”
Valiant blinked. “And… when you… where the Black Hoof gang…”
“Yes, where I, the Great and Powerful Trixie, sacrificed myself to save you from their clutches. After that I gave up on the world and tried to kill myself,” Trixie said. To Valiant’s obvious shock Trixie quickly added, “Well of course I failed. But the event led me to being treated in a hospital thanks to the kindness of Twilight Sparkle who realized that she had missed the biggest friendship problem of her young career, me. I ended up going to live with Maud after that, and after a while we fell in love.”
“You’ve never told me this before. W-why are you telling me this now?”
Trixie offered a small smile. “Because it was all my failures, all of my falls, which led me to the one thing that remained constantly good in my life. My better half, my puzzle piece, my half orange, my rock, and my very heart of stone; Maud Pie. If I hadn’t fallen so far, I never would have met her. At least not in the way that I needed too.”
Valiant sniffled. “But… I’m so scared.”
“I know me and Maud haven’t helped much by asking you to keep your powers secret. We just wanted you to have a normal childhood, I know that we could never really give you that, but we’re doing our very best.”
“Did… did I only meet you two because bad stuff happened to me?”
Trixie reeled back. “I… I don’t think so. I mean, you did meet me the first time only because you were homeless alongside me. The second time… the second time was my fault. I should have been faster, or maybe I should have told Twilight what the Black Hoof would do to you. She would have killed herself to stop that. Sadly time travel doesn’t work.”
Valiant raised an eyebrow at Trixie. I remember both Twilight and Starlight telling me that Time Travel did too work, just that it was highly illegal and dangerous.
Trixie shook her head. “What I’m attempting to say is that no matter how bad it gets, or how bad it was, you can always keep moving forward and make things better for yourself. It’s in your hooves to do whatever you want in life. I’ve always said that I wanted to inspire ponies to follow their dreams, and I want to do the same thing with you.”
Valiant looked over at Maud making sure she was busy before whispering, “What if my dreams involve going on trips with Twilight?”
Trixie grinned. She whispered right back, “Well than I guess we’ll just have to keep it a little secret from Maud. It’s not like Twilight was trying to endanger you, this was just an accident and I understand that. Maud will come around, but for now we won’t tell her that your dream is to be the very best assistant that Twilight ever had. There’s not a dragon or traitorous owl alive that has your skills.”
Valiant smiled. “Y-you really mean it?”
Trixie beamed right back. “I do.”
Valiant lunged forward wrapping both of her legs securely around Trixie’s neck. Trixie returned the embrace. Valiant often forgot that Trixie too was great at being a mom, and big sister. That night she was reminded of why Trixie was both great and powerful.
It was an early morning, the sun shone through the blinds and right into Twilight’s sleeping eye. A curse flew from her lips as she attempted to rise. The hard surface underneath her head smelled of alcohol. Every muscle in her body screamed in protest, but none more so than the exploding headache that was forming. She did eventually manage to pick herself up. The desk she had been lying on was covered in crumbled up pieces of paper, notes filled with gibberish, and seven empty bottles of whisky; no shot glasses required.
For a moment Twilight thought about how she could manage to drink that much whisky without at the very least throwing up. Her answer came in the form of last night’s dinner coming back up on the floor. She scowled bitterly at everything in the room. I can’t believe this happened again.
It took a few pain killers, a cup of extra strong coffee, followed by several healing spells and a mop to make her feel better again. She’d clean the rest of her room later. For now she had more important tasks. Such as finding out who was assaulting her front door this early in the morning.
She went downstairs, and straight to the door without breakfast Twilight cursed her luck. It was only seven in the morning, just barely. It took a moment to figure out how door handles were supposed to work, and it was very tempting to simply remove the door completely but that never worked out for her. Once she did she opened it up only to find nopony there.
“I could have sworn that I heard somepony knock,” Twilight said to herself. The morning sun glared down at her. And Twilight scowled at its decision to come out today. Still she went back inside to prepare breakfast. Even after seven years of practice cooking for herself she still wasn’t very good at it, so she resorted to one of her all time favorite morning treats. Scrambled eggs and ketchup.
After sitting down, with her breakfast and a second cup of morning caffeine elixir, she covered her eggs in ketchup. The eggs would be good for keeping her coat shiny, and the ketchup would be good for her taste buds. Still something felt a little off, like she was being watched. She looked around, yet could spy no reason to worry. So she dug in.
The eggs tasted nothing like they should have, and for a brief moment her mind flashed back to her first party in Ponyville. The one where Pinkie Pie had invaded her tree house and in retaliation Twilight attempted to get drunk, but instead of grabbing the bottle of alcohol, she grabbed the bottle of hot sauce.
Fire raced across her tongue as she decidedly read the label of the ketchup too late. It read, “Nope Ketchup, the best ketchup in all Equestria.” On the back it read, “Not actually ketchup, warning, extremely hot, hot sauce.”
It was one of those darned prank bottles of ketchup. Twilight screamed flaming agony as her horn lit up and yet another healing spell was draped upon her poor burning tongue and throat. From the corner of her eye, near the back door she spotted the pink unicorn filly responsible, Amber Light. Amber was busy attempting to suppress a giggle. Twilight’s eyes flared up as she stared at the filly.
“You,” Twilight called.
The filly ceased her laughter, her eyes shot wide, and before Twilight could even make a move the filly was out the back door and gone. Twilight made a mental note to at some point speak with Trixie on the subject of her daughter’s pranks. Even Rainbow Dash’s kids didn’t prank her as much as Amber Light did.
With her breakfast now completely ruined Twilight settled on eating a bagel. It was bland, it was boring, but it was food. Today she was going to need to make a trip to the local library to seek out information on Book Mark’s tomb. Hopefully she could find it there, as it was nowhere in any of her personal books. Then again, it helped that the owner of the library was one of the Seekers of Truth.
Twilight sniffed herself first and the sour scent almost made her vomit a second time. “Okay, shower first then I’ll go speak with Moon Dancer and Candle Light.”
***
The morning had Valiant getting up and going to school like normal. It wasn’t until after school, when she was walking home with Sweetie Belle each of them holding saddlebags full of heavy school books that things stopped being quiet and became more interesting.
“Scootaloo can’t stop talking about that health class,” Sweetie Belle said with a roll of her eyes. “It won’t be nearly as much fun as Rarity’s stories are.”
Valiant tried not to make any rude remarks about either Scootaloo’s weird obsession with sex, or Rarity’s only occasionally interesting stories. Instead she chose the better part of valor, silence.
“Have you seen Snips and Snails lately?” Sweetie asked.
Valiant remembered them, they were awkwardly cute when they were foals, and that didn’t really change as they grew up. They just sort of looked awkwardly handsome now. Of course their personalities completely soured that for Valiant, but she admitted, from a purely artistic approach that they could be considered good looking.
“Anyway, Applebloom and Scootaloo have been arguing over which one of them they were going to get to date. They wanted my opinion, but I… well… I’m not very helpful there,” Sweetie shook her head slowly.
Valiant gave her an odd look. “They’re both rude, self absorbed, and obsessed with Trixie.”
Sweetie took a moment to reply to that as if processing it first. “Oh, so I take it you don’t like them either.”
“I don’t like ponies that way,” Valiant said coldly.
“Oh, right… sorry. Is this a bad conversation topic for you than?”
Valiant shrugged. “I don’t really care.”
“I was just trying to blow off some steam, sorry…”
Valiant was already half way down this particular rabbit hole. She figured she might as well go all the way in. “Finish the story.”
For a moment Sweetie didn’t say anything and when she did she sounded unsure of herself. “Well, after they asked me to be the tie breaker I told them that I didn’t like either of the pair. They um, were interested in who I did like. I might have freaked out and told them that I liked smaller ponies… than Pip walked right past us and they began laughing at me. Now they think I have the hots for the local pirate.”
That brought a small giggle out of Valiant. “Pip, he’s almost as short as me.”
Sweetie looked off to the side, apparently becoming very interested in the passing houses. “Yeah… almost.”
They reached the cross roads where they usually split up and Valiant smiled up at Sweetie. “See you later.”
Sweetie offered a warm smile back, her cheeks were slightly pink. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” They both laughed a little before Sweetie added, “You should really think about joining me and the crusaders for lunch sometime. It uh, could be really fun.”
Valiant shook her head. “I only hang out with Applebloom because we’re cousins. And I don’t like Scootaloo.”
The pink on Sweetie’s cheeks deepened a shade. “Uh, what about… just lunch… with me?”
Valiant didn’t really see a reason why not, but still it was an awkward enough question. Of course she’d agree to having lunch with Sweetie, why was that even a question anymore? Valiant only smiled and nodded.
“Really! That’s great. I’ll, um, see you later than.”
Valiant turned away to go on her own way, Sweetie Belle stood in the road for a moment only watching her go before leaving herself. It took another couple of minutes before Valiant was halfway home. Her walk home was the longest between her and Sweetie Belle, in fact she usually just went to Rarity’s place first because it was closer, but after last night she decided it was best to go straight home so as to appease Maud. No sense in worrying her further, she only just barely got out of having to have Maud walk her to school in the morning.
The closer she got to home, the more Valiant became aware of something watching her. Old instincts kicked in and Valiant took a roundabout way through town keeping her eye open for anything behind or around her. Boulder’s voice played in the back of her mind, “Wait until you lose him before you go home.”
It took an extra ten minutes before she was sure she knew exactly who was following her. Some colt with gray fur and a wild black mane. She couldn’t make out his cutie mark. She turned around a sharp corner and hid her tiny self behind a box. The colt came passing by a couple seconds later, though he stopped at the corner and didn’t go any further. Behind Valiant she heard a door close with a bell jingling. She was in front of the Quills and Sofas store.
“Hmm,” the colt said. He looked only maybe a year or two older than her, but not quite adult yet. He also wasn’t smiling.
Valiant laid there, her heart racing as she waited for the colt to move, or leave, or something. He did none of these things. He simply leaned against a wall, and made himself look comfortable like he was taking a break in the shade of the building. A couple of minutes passed by and the colt still didn’t move. The door to the store finally opened again and Miss Cheerlee walked out. She looked over and down at Valiant.
“Valiant Heart? Whatever are you doing hiding behind those boxes? Aren’t you a little old to be playing hide and seek?” Miss Cheerlee asked.
The colt looked down at Valiant’s hiding spot, his eyes widened only ever so slightly giving away his surprise. Valiant quickly rose up and got out from behind the box. She glared at the stallion with her best death stare, and he glared down at her. Miss Cheerlee stood there for a moment before frowning.
She cleared her throat as she joined by Valiant’s side. “Is he bullying you?”
Valiant shook her head.
“Well I’m just going to stay here for a moment, I need to make sure that I have my receipt anyway,” Miss Cheerlee said as she pretended to dig through her saddlebags.
The colt retreated around the corner and just as he disappeared from sight said, “You’re quite perceptive, that makes it more fun.”
That did it, Valiant ran around the corner after him in order to… well she wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but stop him from leaving was one thing that came to mind. She rounded the corner, but was rewarded with nothing. Just a busy street and shadows of the buildings creating little pockets of cool air. The colt was however nowhere in sight.
“What is that about?” Miss Cheerlee asked.
Valiant shook her head.
“You should tell your parents, in fact, I think I’ll just walk you home if you don’t mind,” Miss Cheerlee said, it was more of a statement and less of an offer.
However Valiant had a different plan. She turned and fled, not straight home, but rather to the only other pony she could think of who might be in trouble at the moment as well as the most likely to keep her safe until Trixie and Maud were both safely home. Valiant went straight to Twilight’s Tree Castle.
It was only when she was at the castle doors themselves that she noticed a black shadow climbing up the side of the castle. It flew up the side of the castle ignoring both gravity and physics alike. The shadow slipped in through one of the windows. Valiant’s heart nearly stopped as she came to a halt just outside of the castle. There were very few staff in the castle, and no guards. Twilight had more than enough firepower to deal with any threat that came to Ponyville, but that only worked if she knew about it.
She wanted to go home, her leg was hurting again and her heart was beating fast enough to pop right out of her chest. She recalled seeing the alicorn on the train, and how Twilight left to go deal with it. There was nothing that Valiant could do to stop the bad guys. Even when she did finally break free to find Twilight, all she did was end up helping a cat look for gold. She didn’t find any, but she could have tried to stop the cat from stealing, she didn’t. She just couldn’t force herself to fight it.
This time however, Valiant wasn’t going to let her fear keep her from helping. There was a shadowy thing inside the castle, and a spy in the town. it was very unlikely that these were merely coincidences. Valiant knew that she and Twilight were both targets because of their quest, and so they needed to work together to stop this. It was time that Valiant Heart bucked up and rose to the challenge. It was time Valiant lived up to her name and showed a little heart.
Valiant pushed the castle door open and walked inside.
***
Twilight was busy focusing on her primary research. Locating the tomb of Book Mark. At first this seemed an easy solution, just look up his name, and find his tomb or place of burial. Unfortunately there was a single flaw in her plan, the name Book Mark was so utterly common that she didn’t find just one tomb, but so far over fifty from the last hundred years. If only she knew more about the pony in question, but all she had to go on was his name and his connection to the seekers.
To top it all off like some kind of final insult she kept finding quotes related to these deceased ponies. Anything from, “Loved his family more than anypony else.” To, “Greatest abs in Equestria.” And even her favorite so far, “I’m not dead, I’m just sleeping.”
If she was ever allowed to die, she might have to put the last on one her tomb. It seemed fitting enough considering that Alicorns didn’t die. Of course during the restless night she had spent researching each ponies, their lives, family, friends, and deaths she had come across nothing of use. To top it all off, one of her servants, a cute little Pegasus with reverse colors to Fluttershy’s and a flower cutie mark, continued to bringing in new files on all the ponies named Book Mark. Sure she was doing it under Twilight’s orders, but as the stack grew ever larger, and Twilight’s task ever more insurmountable, she could only offer glares to the servant who looked meekly away and retreated, always to come back with more files.
“I hate this job,” Twilight said bitterly. For a moment she paused, this wasn’t too much unlike researching books or studying. How come she hated this so much now? Shouldn’t she like this? Her and Valiant would spend countless hours simply reorganizing the library at h- Twilight forced a cold stabbing feeling away from her chest. She now knew the primary reason she hated doing this research. With a sigh she lowered her head and continued her work anew, all alone.
***
Valiant Heart ran through the castle halls looking for Twilight. It couldn’t be that hard to find her, after all she really only did a couple of things in the castle anymore so most of it was left to be dusted by the hoofull of servants scattered about. It should have been impossible not to find Twilight in fact, yet when she checked the library she wasn’t there. Neither was Twilight in the den, her old bedroom, her office, the map room, the throne room, the torture dungeon, or even in Twilight’s favorite bathroom. Twilight was simply missing from all the usually places.
“Darn it!” Valiant cursed as she rounded the corner and nearly tripped over her own hooves. Her chest was burning, along with her legs. It was getting hard to breathe, and she was feeling a migraine approaching.
Boulder’s quiet voice whispered in the back of her head. “You should rest.”
Valiant growled. “Well if I’m hearing voices in my head from my imaginary friend, than yes, I think I should.” She quickly checked around to make sure nopony heard her speaking and quickly berated herself for letting her crazy get the best of her.
“I think you may have misunderstood exactly what I am,” Boulder replied.
Valiant rolled her eye. Somehow the hallway had gotten darker ahead of her. Sure it wasn’t usually that bright in the castle to begin with, not nearly enough windows, or sconces, yet the ivory tower had a sort of magical luminescent quality to it that kept it from ever becoming too dark.
A cold chill ran down the length of Valiant’s spine. Boulder’s voice came in loud and clear, “Remove your eye patch now.”
Normally she might hesitate, or ignore him altogether completely, but she knew that her broken eye had the ability to see the unseen. The hallway ahead was dark, almost pitch black, but when she removed her eye patch that darkness lifted only to be replaced by the gray colt that she had seen outside. Held in his telekinetic aura, which was most suitably black and rotten, he held a folder with several papers inside of it. It looked like one of Twilight’s secret files.
Of course when she closed her broken eye he vanished and the darkness returned, so she decided to keep that eye open above all else. For a moment the stallion was staring at the folder with obvious delight, but when he looked out at Valiant Heart his eyes narrowed and he stuck his tongue out. Valiant returned the childish offense with one of her own, she blew a raspberry.
His eyes widened as he looked around and behind him, as if trying to figure out what Valiant was staring at. When he found nothing he returned to looking at her. “So you can see me can you?”
Valiant felt her legs begin to shake and an old fear crawl up her spine. “Put, that, down.”
“What was that? I stole this fair and square, besides my contractor would be remiss if you two found this first.” He offered a playful, yet dangerous smile.
“I don’t care,” Valiant said, although she was far too small to win in a straight up hoof fight, she still had the determination not the let this sleezeball ruin her and Twilight’s chance at finding the Seeker’s Archive.
“Look, I don’t like to muscle ponies around, especially not foals like you,” he said. “But I need to get out of here, so I’ll just go this way, and you can give me that death stare all the way out of the castle.”
Valiant’s entire body shook as she took a step forward. She had no idea what she was going to do, but she had to do something, anything to get him to back off the folder. It was Twilight’s and it was important. Yet the colt didn’t seem to care.
“I guess if you’re that interested in me, maybe I should tell you my name?” he smiled slyly and winked. “Or not.”
Valiant glared.
“Oh fine, if you really want something to sink your teeth into, call me Shade. Though let it be warned that you’ll never see another stallion quite like me,” His eyes flashed black, no white, no color to the iris just a pitch dark inkiness that seemed to go forever like staring into a bottomless pit. For a brief moment Valiant felt like she might fall into the darkness of those eyes only to be devoured by a horrible unseen monster. When his eyes returned to normal, the fear dissipated.
He turned and began walking away. “We won’t be meeting again, I can’t afford it. So you’ll just have to see me in your dreams.”
If Valiant let him go with that file she could very well kiss her chance at getting into the archive goodbye. Though she wasn’t sure what was in there, she knew that he was here to steal it, and here to stop them from finding the archive, or at least that was her best guess. Without a real plan to go on, all she had left was instinct.
And instinct after seeing both Maud and Trixie in action told her to go running in head first.
She charged in head first while loosing a high pitched battle cry which sounded much more like a scream. With more force than she had expected she tackled into Shade’s back knocking him to the floor. The mere contact with his body caused her skin to light up with a burning sensation. He didn’t seem much better as he screamed and rolled over onto his back. The folder fell to the floor, luckily still closed by a paper clip. Maybe it was because Valiant was more used to physical pain, but she wasn’t fazed by the burning sensation as much as him. Valiant scooped up the folder in her mouth, shoved it in her saddlebags, and took off down the hall.
Behind her she caught glimpse of Shade rolling over onto his forelegs. His back was scorched black where she had made contact. For a brief moment Valiant almost stopped dead in her tracks wondering what happened to him, but upon seeing the ice water glare in his eyes she picked up speed. By now her rear leg was hurting again, and a slight gimp was impeding her progress. Still she pushed on ahead. Behind her the darkness spread out like an all devouring void, as the shadows grew over the sconces the flames went out, and as they covered the windows the sunlight was eclipsed by the darkness.
“Give that back you little brat!” He shouted as he chased after her.
He was taller, stronger, and faster than her, all of this without the extra help of Valiant having a bad leg. So her chances of escaping this way were swiftly dwindling. Beside her she saw Boulder Dash running, though his hooves never made a sound as they hit the floor. He had a serious expression on his face.
“What?” she cried as she stared at him.
“I want that folder!” Shade screamed in return.
“Excuse me!” Valiant said shooting a dark look over her shoulder. “I was not talking to you.” She looked back to Boulder as Shade gave her one of the oddest looks she’d ever received, it also helped that he slowed down a bit.
Boulder shook his head slowly. “This was a mistake, you can’t face his kind yet.”
“What are you blabbering on about?” she demanded.
Shade shouted again, “I didn’t say a damn thing!”
“Shut up and let me talk to him!” she screamed back.
Boulder actually gave her a weak smile. “You know he thinks you’re completely insane.”
“Does it surprise you that I agree?” she said. Her legs, chest, and lungs were on fire from all this exercise.
Boulder looked back at him. “He is a creature of shadow, of darkness. If you can build up enough of your inner light, until it explodes, it should be enough to dissuade him from chasing us any further.”
Valiant rolled her eyes. “How do I do that?”
“Like in the train, only this time don’t stop gathering, and don’t let it go.”
Valiant rounded a corner, but she was already slowing down. She double checked to make sure the folder was still in her bags, it was. Yet Shade was nearly upon her now. Decidedly Valiant looked ahead and focused on the warm light inside her body. It was bright, as usual, but it could be brighter still. It was hard to focus on both moving her legs and gathering energy from the outside at the same time, but she somehow managed it. There was something wrong though, it was hard to gather light, for all around her existed a hungry darkness that was eating all the energy she could easily grab. Focusing on the bits of light which were ahead of her, and not behind, she managed to gather the light into invisible balls before running straight through them. They filled up her body, easing some of the stress on her leg as she continued moving forward, but more importantly they were increasing the brightness of her inner light.
The more she gathered, the harder it became to hold it all in. it felt like she was a water balloon being filled with too much water. She felt the light slipping through cracks and trying to escape but she put mental blocks on those cracks and kept it in. The more light she gathered, the more it seemed to fill her up inside. It didn’t hurt but it was like eating too much, she felt like she was going to vomit.
Behind her the clip clop of his hooves were drawing so close they were practically booming. Just a little more she promised herself, just a little more.
“Now I got you,” he said as his black magic aura tried to surround the folder in her saddlebags. The aura slipped off of the folder. “What the? That can’t happen? What did you have magic grease on your hooves or some crap?” he tried again, it failed. “Screw this.” He reached out with a hoof, he almost had the folder in his grasp as Valiant Heart felt all the energy she’d built up come back out, starting from her mouth.
The world exploded into a bright flash of pure white light, first from her mouth, then from her entire body. The light was so bright in fact that it was as if a miniature sun had come into the hallway and exploded. Shade screamed in agony as he was forcefully flung back away from the light. His body was covered in white flames as he slammed into the wall with enough force to crack it. Nothing else was affected like this, the paintings didn’t budge an inch, nor did the furniture. Only he was moved by the light.
Valiant Heart continued running until she was out of the miniature sun. Her mouth tasted like sunshine and regurgitated oats. The magical light lasted a few seconds after she was away from it, and she watched it collapse behind her fading into naughtiness. Still she ran, ran, and ran some more.
After a few more minutes of running she realized she was no longer being followed. So she slowed down to a trot until she came across Spike’s old bedroom. The door was cracked open and the light inside was on. Valiant burst through the door and was overjoyed to see both Twilight and Meadow Flower in the room. Though it was odd to see Twilight anywhere near this bedroom, it was nice to see her, and with piles upon piles of folders it was made even better.
The pair stared at her in silence for a moment before Twilight pointed a hoof at Valiant’s chest. “Are you okay?”
Valiant Heart smiled as she sat down and rubbed a hoof over her chest fur. Of course she was just fine, but why did her fur feel singed. She looked down and saw for the first time that where she had felt that burning sensation after crashing into Shade, there were black scorch marks. But that wasn’t the worst part.
There was no way she was going to be able to explain this to Maud or Trixie.
A quick explanation, as well as giving the folder back to Twilight was followed by Valiant doing the one thing she most desired at that moment, she took a nap. Of course Valiant’s mind was not at rest, for in her dreams even worse demons were after her. A teal colored pony with a brown mane and eyes full of evil was there waiting for her. The comfort of Spike’s old room was stolen by a suddenly cold cement floor. Valiant was about to scream until a loud bang jolted her upright.
As the dream was again replaced by reality she found herself returned to the safety of Twilight’s castle. The door however was closed, and by the red aura surrounding it Valiant was sure that she knew who was responsible. She shook her head trying to clear the nightmare from her mind, and focused on the door. With a slow start she pushed herself off the floor, put her eye patch back on and made her way over to find out what was going on. The red glow vanished from the doorway before she got there, and all she could hear were two muffled voices hissing at one another.
Valiant pushed her head against the side of the door and listened. It wasn’t exactly a magic trick, learning to listen properly was one of the first things she had to pick up on the streets at an early age. Being able to tell what was being said from a distance and where from were very important skills, of course she was sometimes preoccupied as a filly and couldn’t keep the concentration needed to actually use the skill. Now that she was fifteen years old the skill was much easier to perform, though if she had to be honest, she didn’t feel fifteen, she felt old. Older than any of her classmates. She pushed that somewhat depressing thought aside to continue focusing on her task.
“Of course you would think so,” Twilight verbally jabbed.
“Oh so it’s my fault than is it?” A familiar voice replied, there was a certain music to her voice.
The door felt warm to the touch, odd considering it was made from stone. Then again it did just have Twilight’s aura leave it, and judging by the redness in it, Valiant assumed that Twilight was less than pleased.
“You, you… you could have warned me,” Twilight replied, though her anger was wilting.
“I am sorry that your friend was hurt, but she decided to fight an umbrum pony, what in Equestria was she thinking?”
“Maybe that the umbrum were all dead or locked away in an alternate universe? I don’t know, that’s what I thought.” Twilight’s anger was regaining some of its power.
“I am sorry, I just wanted him to grow up and have a chance at Equestrian life, he is not just the only child of the old king, but the last of his species. There are no other umbrum left, even his father has all but vanished from this world.”
For a moment there was not but silence at the other side of the door, and Valiant felt almost like sinking down to the floor. This conversation was nowhere near as fun as she thought it might be, it was actually kind of depressing. In fact Valiant had to wonder if they were talking about Shade, it only made sense. Though it also left Valiant wondering how long she’d been out for. She mentally kicked herself for going to sleep like that, even if she did require it. The muffled voices began speaking again and Valiant had to make a decent effort to focus again.
“…leive that you let him go the first time. Why not just adopt him yourself? Of course he was going to do something like this, he’s looking for revenge against me.” Twilight’s voice came out strong and sure of itself.
“I wanted to help him.” the other voice sounded profoundly sad.
“He attacked a filly,” Twilight snapped.
“I’m… not sure what to make of that. If I find him, I will ask him what he was thinking.”
“Oh and is that all? Just talk to him, it’ll be alright, we’ll make friends with the universe, including thieves and foal abusers.”
“Valiant is no foal,” the other voice came to Valiant’s defense. Which was odd. “She is older than you give her credit for.”
“I am supposed to be keeping her safe, if this got back to her parents I’d be a dead princess.”
There was silence again. “I will find him, and reprimand him for his crimes. Is that what wanted to hear?”
“No, but it’s the best I’m going to get from you, isn’t it?” Twilight asked bitterly.
“I’m afraid so,” the other voice said.
The sound of hooves hitting the concrete as somepony walked away from the door made Valiant realize this conversation was over. She slumped against the door. Who could have talked to Twilight like that? Valiant had watched as Twilight nearly disintegrated a librarian once for a late fee that was due only to the fact that Twilight got injured while saving said library. Over the past years Twilight had become less and less friendly to accusations and intimation by other ponies. Her reputation as the princess of friendship was waning.
The door swung open and Valiant fell through landing at Twilight’s hooves. She looked up sheepishly before offering the princess a silly smile. Twilight only stared down at her before blinking and narrowing her eye. “Were you listening to my conversation with Celestia?”
Celestia! Of course it was her, the only pony that can talk down to Twilight and not get zapped for the insult.
“I’m sorry, but I feel that I must ask that you not speak a word of what you heard about this to anypony else.”
Valiant smiled and nodded. Not speak a word eh? I think I can do that.
To her credit Twilight actually offered a genuine smile. “Great, now let’s get something to eat and clean you up. I can’t send you home both hungry and dirty now can I?”
That sounded like the best plan ever.
***
It was only after a spell use to clean Valiant’s fur and some food that Twilight decided to escort her home. Of course while they walked home Twilight noticed the fact that one of her folders was sticking out of Valiant’s bags and asked about it.
“It’s the thing that Shade was trying to steal,” Valiant answered. If only she had telekinesis she’d give it back while they walked. Thankfully Twilight was two steps ahead of her.
While Twilight pulled the folder free with her magic and opened it she frowned. “Oh, its just another file on yet another dead pony named Book Mark. I swear, I don’t know how many more of these I can dig through. Why do you still have this?”
“Because… I… I like doing research with you.”
“I like that too.”
Valiant smiled. “If you apologize to Maud again, maybe she’ll let you come in to do research with me at the castle?”
Twilight laughed. “I hope so. I could spend some time helping you with homework too. After all I did put several of my strongest wards over Spike’s room. I’d like to see that Shade pony even try to get near it.”
Valiant joined in the laugher. “That would be hilarious.”
“I had to lock Trixie out of my castle for two weeks once,” Twilight said.
“Yeah, that was funny,” Valiant noted as she remembered how hard Trixie had tried to get inside. At first to try and talk her way out of being in trouble, than to try and fight Twilight, finally she was simply trying to apologize. All of it over those dumb books Trixie had tricked Twilight into publishing.
“I’m surprised she doesn’t hold a grudge against me, I should have just talked to her,” Twilight said.
“She tricked you.”
“Yeah, but she didn’t mean to hurt my feelings. At least I don’t think she did.”
The little cottage appeared at the edge of town. Valiant smiled at the familiar sight. Maud’s flower bed was blooming just outside, along with the rock bed. Valiant still wasn’t sure what prodded Maud to grow a flowerbed, but it was probably something Trixie came up with. It sounded like something she’d do.
When they got close music began floating easily though the air. Enchanting acoustic guitar work that Valiant hadn’t heard in a good while. There was a bounce in her step as she quickened her pace. Once Valiant got to the door she paused and put her ear to the door. Once again putting her skills in listening in practice.
There was more than just guitar music. There was a soft voice, full of love and warmth that could only belong to Trixie. She was singing.
“Life might be hard, it might kick you around.
But even if you find yourself full of gruff you can keep going.
My little light, my little child, you always have me.
We will keep you safe, we will give you love. We will always be here.
So don’t you ever worry, never should you fear.
You always have Trixie’s ear.
If ever you should be worried, if ever there’s a doubt.
Come running and don’t be afraid to shout.
If you are scared my little dove.
Just remember you’re always surrounded by love”
The music stopped as soon as it came. It was a little rough around the edges but it was good song. A smile found its way stuck to Valiant’s face, and judging by Twilight’s smile she was in the same boat. Still it was a little sad to see the music fade. Though Valiant pushed open the door and was greeted by the sight of Trixie sitting at the kitchen table with Amber Light sitting on Trixie’s lap.
Fluttershy sat across from her with her two foals taking over her lap. The tiny pink filly with a butter yellow mane stared on with large wide eyes at Trixie and the warmest smile this side of Equestria. The other one was a yellow colt with a mane with varying shades of green in it. Valiant walked in and nodded at her other aunt as well as her cousins.
“Oh, Val!” Trixie said joyfully. “Did you decide to take a study break at Twilight’s again? If Maud was here she’d be so upset, she’d… well, probably just stare at you and give you a hug.”
Val rolled her eye.
Trixie than noticed Twilight at the door. “Oh, Twilight, do come in. Don’t let it be said that I, the Great and Welcoming Trixie didn’t treat her house guests politely.”
Twilight walked in and smiled at Trixie. “Actually me and Valiant were wondering if we could do some of our research. It was getting a little late and I wanted to walk Valiant home before it got dark, but we weren’t exactly finished..”
Trixie nodded. “Okay, you two can use the living room, nopony is in there.”
It was about than that Valiant noticed that Amber Light was glaring at Twilight. Of course her little sister would glare at Twilight. There was no reason that Amber wouldn’t do so. Not after all those stories about how Twilight was the bane of Trixie’s existence, even if in reality the two of them were actually pretty good friends. Though, not without some hiccups.
Val walked toward the living room where she could find some space away from the others. Fluttershy’s quiet, soft voice halted her. “Valiant, don’t you want to spend some time with your family?”
Oh that manipulative mare, I just want to finish my research with Twilight, after all I didn’t get to help out at all.
Twilight came to her rescue like the hero she was. “I’m sure that Val is just looking forward to spending some time studying.”
Fluttershy gave her a look that could only be described as polite disbelief. “Oh, well, that’s okay. I wouldn’t want to get in your way.”
Twilight smiled. “Thanks.”
Then she followed Valiant into the living room where the two took a seat on the couch side by side and looked down at the folder. Twilight made sure that it was floating just low enough for Valiant too see as well. The file was all about a stallion that was named Book Mark, and according to Twilight that turned out to be one of the most common names for unicorns that she’d ever seen. This stallion point in fact was an earth pony, and had lived his life going on expiations looking for and recovering ancient knowledge, most of which could be found in Canterlot’s Library. He had no children, but seemed to have a lot of friends. Before he died he had hired out a lot of ponies to work on some construction down near southern Equestria. It turned out to be his tomb, an odd notion for ponies anymore, but he was probably eccentric. That being said he also had a burial plot built in Canterlot Castle’s graveyard. An astounding feat for anypony, a picture of his grave was actually shown. It was surprisingly modest with only the inscription of his name followed by the words, ‘Ever seeking, even in death.’
Valiant saw the all too familiar look of discovery in the way Twilight’s eye sparkled. Valiant took a moment to reread the section herself. Of course they moved on to the next bit soon, a picture of him when he was still alive, including but not limited to his cutie mark. If the inscription was a good clue about this stallion, his cutie mark was a bull’s eye target. For his cutie mark was a brown leather book with an eyeball on the cover, the pupil of the eye was that of the letter A. the very symbol of the Seekers Archive itself.
“Sweet Celestia,” Twilight cursed. “He wasn’t just a member of the Seekers, or one of the leaders, he was the founder and creator of the Archive itself.”
Valiant looked down at the book her eye widened in wonder. This was the stallion that had created the very place that she had longed to see all her life. This implied that the archive was not nearly as old as she’d thought, and created within his life time. Though how old he was when he died was unknown as for some reason the date of his birth was wiped out from the file. Even if he was an earth pony, he could be as old as Ink Pots was, if not older still.
“Trixie,” Twilight said quietly.
Trixie responded from the kitchen. “What was that? Did you need something? I’m all the way in the kitchen, at least speak louder. You might be a princess but I am not going to-“
“Can me and Valiant go on a little research trip?” Twilight asked louder.
Valiant’s eye was still plastered onto the picture of the stallion. His dirt colored fur coat, and his dark brown nearly black mane. He had glasses, thick and round like the perfect nerd and was offering a generous smile to the camera.
“Well,” Trixie replied. “I don’t know if-“
Maud’s voice came in clear, and snapped Valiant’s attention back up. “No, you cannot.”
Twilight frowned and stood up straight. “Maud, I promise I will-“
“I said no,” Maud stated firmly. Her eyes locked onto Twilight’s and her expression became as hard as a rock.
Twilight flinched. “I, but, we… okay. I promise I won’t go on any more long trips with Valiant. If it takes longer to get to the Everfree Forest from here, than I won’t do it.”
Maud’s hard stance somehow became more ridged. “Everfree Forest?”
“Yes, because from here it’s about a forty minute walk and…” Twilight blinked. “I wasn’t going to take her inside. Not unless we were visiting Zecora or-“
“Leave,” Maud stated.
Twilight blinked in surprise. “I’m sorry, did I-“
Maud took one step forward and Twilight’s ears folded back.
Twilight lowered her head as she walked to the door. “I’m sorry. I’ll go now. We can talk later, Valiant, but Maud doesn’t want us to go out adventuring again. I have to respect that.” She opened the front door and stepped out. “Thanks for having me over.”
The door didn’t just shut behind Twilight, it also shut Valiant’s heart. Maud wasn’t going to let her live out her dream. She was determined in fact to ruin Valiant’s chance at seeing the Archive in person, and finding out what she really was. All the knowledge, the secrets, the everything was going to just be gone. Valiant jumped off the couch and ran past Maud.
“Val, we need to talk-“ Maud tried to say as Valiant brushed past her.
Valiant got to her door, threw it open and jumped inside. “Why would I want to talk to the pony who’s ruining my life!” she slammed the door with all her might and locked it.
Valiant went to bed that night still angry and bitter over how unfair Maud was being over this whole situation. In fact Valiant was sure that she was being picked on specifically by the universe itself. Teasing her with the possibility of getting to see the Seekers Archive and it’s wealth of knowledge. Just before having Maud take it away from her.
So that’s why as she laid in her bed staring up at the dark ceiling her mind could only think back to all the things she had hoped to achieve. All of the things she’d never be able to do now. It was a cruelness that she could have done without. Slowly she closed her eye and began drifting off.
A series of taps at her window snapped her back to attention. Valiant rose out of bed and glared at the window. Why does Sweetie have to bug me on a night like this of all nights? She shook her head and got out of bed. Maybe I can complain to her about Maud’s stupid over protective crap.
Once Valiant reached the window and opened it she was surprised that it wasn’t Sweetie Bell hiding outside her window this time, but rather it was Twilight Sparkle. Valiant opened her mouth to speak but Twilight’s hoof shushed her. “Listen, Val. I told Maud that I wouldn’t take you on any trips that took longer to get to than the Everfree Forest. But I can get you to the tomb in but a few seconds with a teleport spell. It’ll take a lot of energy but I can do it.”
Valiant nodded, and then glanced at her bedroom door. It was locked. “How long will we be gone?”
Twilight flashed a grin. “Just a few hours. But I fear we need to hurry. That Shade pony took the correct folder because he already knew who the right Book Mark was. This means he will probably be going to the tomb to get rid of any information.”
“We need to beat him to the last clue.”
Twilight nodded. “So come with me and we’ll go on the greatest adventure yet.”
If this had been Valiant’s first time leaving the house in the middle of the night she might have been more hesitant. This was not her first time running away, between fight’s with Maud and Sweetie’s secret night time meetings Valiant was quite used to getting out and coming back in before anypony could miss her. So Valiant jumped out the window and followed Twilight as they snuck away from the house. Tonight they were going to explore an old tomb just like Daring Doo.
They walked a little ways until they entered a small forest. It was dark, yet that was sort of comforting in a way. Sure Valiant felt more in tuned with the sunlight, but moonlight was really just a poor reflection of the sun so it wasn’t too far off. The full moon was out which felt great and let her see at least enough to avoid tripping over any logs.
When they stopped they stood facing one of the most elusive princesses in Equestria. Princess Starlight Glimmer. Rumor had it that Starlight got bored and turned herself into an alicorn one night with a spell. That caused endless amounts of grief between Celestia and Twilight. Starlight was busy preening one of her pink wings as they approached. She looked over and offered a warm smile.
“Starlight,” Twilight greeted.
Starlight nodded. “Twilight, Valiant Heart. I’ve been waiting here forever.”
“You ready to teleport us?”
“Yeah, if you have a way back home planned.”
Twilight pointed to her missing eye. “I always have a plan.”
For a moment shame covered Starlight’s face. “Yeah… you do. Okay let’s get this over with before Trixie finds out and murders me.”
Twilight laughed. “She doesn’t have the power, I highly doubt anypony in Equestria does.”
“You are talking about the mare that single hoofedly slayed an ursa minor… and survived Fluttershy’s assault as a result.”
Twilight’s expression grew stiff. “She doesn’t have that kind of power anymore.”
“I won’t take my chances.” Starlight’s horn lit up with a green aura. “Remember; I had nothing to do with this.”
The world grew bright green and the air tense. Twilight only offered a coy smile. “Had nothing to do with what?”
The world vanished all around Valiant. For a brief instant it felt like she was standing on nothing and all she could see was green. When her vision returned she was still surrounded by trees, only these ones were completely different species. The vines hanging down from them were low enough to touch the earth. The air felt almost thick here, and wet. Valiant looked around and saw what looked like a small castle nearby, it was covered in dirt, grass, and vines. Though it was still in much better shape than the castle of the two sisters, the jungle was quick to absorb as much of the castle as it could.
Starlight whistled. “Have fun you two, that place looks like a mess to navigate. I got to keep my village from destroying itself though so I gotta leave. More unicorns showed up trying to get me to teach them magic.”
Twilight laughed. “I know the feelings, why do you think I haven’t taken on an apprentice after you?”
“Because you’re a lazy snob?” Starlight guessed.
That brought out a deeper laugh from Twilight. “That’s probably true. But even without another apprentice, I still have my wonderful student-friend-assistant.”
Valiant was only half paying attention as Starlight and Twilight spoke. She didn’t even notice when Starlight teleported away. All she could see ahead of her was the castle, the resting place of Book Mark, the possibility of finding the last clue, and then the Seekers Archive itself. Her heart was racing with excitement. This was going to be the second greatest adventure of all time, right next to the one she imagined going on for the Seekers Archive itself.
Twilight looked down at her, she too had a light in her eye. “Let’s go find us a clue.”
The walk into the old ruined castle would have been nerve wracking for a lesser pony, an old castle, built to hide a powerful secret as well as pay homage to a fallen pony. There could be monsters, traps, and maybe even ghosts inside. Yet none of that bothered Valiant, no she was too fixated on what she knew was there for certain.
The old stone brick had been carefully placed, and where the vines were broken up murals stood out. Each one depicting a different scene with most of them showing ponies inside some sort of library with glowing crystals, books, and surprisingly cake. Her mind had to wonder if this was not actually showing the Archive itself back in its prime.
The front gates were shut firmly but a little bit of magic from Twilight had them coaxed into opening. Inside there were almost no plant life, instead the dark entryway was covered in a layer of dust. Old banners hung from the wall, each one showing the sign of the Seekers. A large banquette table was set up along with six chairs all close by one another. Candle sticks stood mostly melted, and dirty plates lay on the table.
“Why was there a feast here if Book Mark built this place to be his tomb?” Twilight asked.
Valiant looked around. It was indeed weird. It almost looked like this castle was meant to be lived in, yet if that was true, than how could he have been buried here? This was all a bit odd. Still Valiant and Twilight made their way through the main chamber and into a long hallway. Their hooves echoed as they hit the hard stone floor.
“This is actually less engaging than I thought it would be,” Twilight admitted. “I must say I expected a fairly simple tomb. One filled with maze like passage ways, a terrible beast, and lots of traps. Perhaps even a moat of snakes or some fire breathing traps. This however is just… dull.”
Valiant Heart gave her a sideways glance. If that what she thinks is normal and safe, what does she think is dangerous?
A soft voice sounded from down the hallway in front of them. “I believe I might be able to liven things up for you.”
The doors at the end of the hall opened up and a cloaked pony standing taller than either of them walked out of it. Her face might have been obscured by the shadows but her long orange hair flowed down. Her muzzle was white and her wings stretched out to impressive an impressive length. The mare’s horn lit up as she continued speaking, “Or you could simply leave.”
Twilight bared her teeth. “Just great, more freaking alicorns. Let me guess you want to fight us as well?”
Valiant took a few steps back.
The cloaked alicorn smiled. “I do not need to fight you.”
There was a clicking sound, followed quickly by the turning of gears from somewhere out of sight. A large square section of floor just in front of Twilight fell into a black pit below. Valiant Heart back peddled, but just as Twilight got her hooves in motion the floor underneath her opened up and she vanished into the darkness. The floor was disappearing bit by bit, and if it hadn’t been for her half second advantage Valiant would have fallen as well. As it stood she was now galloping for all she was worth to beat the floor trap.
Every muscle burned and her mind was blank with fear as she galloped out of the hallway and back into the dining hall. The floor stopped disappearing just behind her and so Valiant took it as a sign that it was her time to relax and catch her breath. Of course she had forgotten just what her opponent was. The alicorn had already taken flight down the hallway, her wings nearly too large for the hall itself.
Valiant needed no more encouragement than that to get her flank into gear and gallop down a side passage.
***
The dark tunnel that Twilight found herself in was about as long as the hallway above. The cold stone beneath her hooves was covered in dust, and cobwebs littered the walls. The floor under her hooves was cracked from the impact. When she had first dropped down her mind went back to all those Daring Doo books and how each and every pitfall had spike traps or worse in them. So of course Twilight would raise a bubble shield around herself. When she landed in a bare open hallway and damaged the floor beneath her with the shield spell she realized that maybe she had read one too many books… oh who was she kidding, there was no such thing as too many books.
Twilight would have loved to fly up and back into the dining room after realizing that Valiant was not with her. A glowing golden energy shield was preventing her from leaving that way.
Keeping an eye out for any potential dangers ahead Twilight moved forward. It took awhile, just walking down this lonesome corridor but she eventually found a staircase leading up. The smell of charred wood was drifting down them. Twilight took extra precaution to keep several spells at the ready, from a flood spell to a teleportation and even another shield spell, Twilight was prepared for everything.
She reached a door at the top and pushed it open. The handle wasn’t hot, so she assumed this meant it would be at least mildly safe on the other side. Of course Twilight was, as usual, wrong. There was a library on the other side of the door, was being the key word. Most of the bookshelves were burned, along with most of the books. It was pure horror, a slaughter of literary works, a massacre of the written word. Twilight felt her heart breaking at the sight of all these murdered books.
On a bare space on the wall there was a message burned into the stone.
“Stop your foolish quest now or else the Archive will be destroyed.”
Twilight was not prepared for this.
***
Valiant couldn’t tell for sure because she was too focused on getting away to turn and look, but she swore she heard a set of hooves slam into the floor with tremendous force. Valiant turned about a bend and kept going. Her little legs were putting in a valiant effort but the sound of the alicorn galloping after her was just behind her. There was no way that Valiant could outrun such a tall creature, yet what choice did she have?
Valiant felt more than saw a golden aura wrap around her, but somehow it slid right off as though Valiant was covered in some sort of magical grease. Considering the slew of curses that were being uttered behind her, she assumed that this was not going according to her pursuers plan. Daring a glance behind her, Valiant saw that the alicorn was nearly upon her.
The side passage turned into another dining room with some tables that were just tall enough to allow Valiant to run under. So Valiant ducked as she galloped nonstop. The tables hid her from her attacker for a brief second until a golden aura surrounded them too and threw the tables aside. Each one that was thrown behind Valiant kicked up its wooden legs in threatening positions. She’d gone from just trying to outrun an alicorn, to outrunning an alicorn a slew of tables.
The moment Valiant got the chance she slipped out from under the tables. It wasn’t until she remembered the way she’d escaped Shade that she saw her opportunity. Valiant continued her blind charge down the hallway while building up energy. It was harder, much, much harder than last time. Maybe it was because it was night time, but there was almost no light around her to grab. This was looking like a lost proposition as well.
Valiant turned around yet another corner and came to a dead end. She slid to a stop and turned around. The alicorn followed her and slowed down at the end of the hallway. Valiant backed up.
“You’ve given me quite the little chase,” the alicorn said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to chase down a disobedient filly.”
Valiant’s rear hit the wall. There was nowhere to go, and nowhere to hide. She was screwed. This alicorn was going to kill her and there was not a darn thing she could do about it.
If only Trixie was here, she could save me.
“Give up little pony it’s the only option you have left.”
Valiant shook her head, she didn’t want to die. A tiny voice in the back of her head spoke, “The torch next to you isn’t a torch at all. This isn’t a dead end.”
If it had been anything less than dire circumstances Valiant would have argued with her imaginary friend. Right at that moment she had no option but to try. She saw the torch, it was the only one on this wall. The alicorn wasn’t approaching her, but rather keeping her position at the end of the hall keeping Valiant trapped her. Or so she thought.
Valiant jumped up, reaching out with her hooves as high as she could. She barely managed to hook a foreleg around the torch and much to her surprise it was jerked downward dumping her onto the floor. It stopped after a foot and Valiant saw that it was actually some kind of secret lever. Of course she wasn’t sure what it went too. All she could hear was the sound of gears turning.
That’s when the floor vanished underneath Valiant Heart and she fell into the darkness below.
The air cooled around Valiant’s fur. The room she was in held a soft blue glow from the luminescent crystals which hung on the walls. A wardrobe, vanity mirror, bed, several chests, and wonderful pristine tapestries hung from the walls. It was a wonderful room. Valiant wasn’t sure how she got here but her first instinct was to go and rummage through the chests, perhaps to find some cool loot like Rainbow Dash always talked about on her adventures.
There was a bigger concern however, as Valiant was currently floating two feet off the ground. White runes covered her body, and when she looked into the vanity mirror all the color had faded from her eye, only a pale white color remained, softly glowing. The only thing that she could think of was the fact that her entire body was glowing, and that she looked a little bit like a ghost.
She could hear Boulder’s voice speaking in the back of her mind, “I wasn’t sure if this would work yet. So glad it did, that was a pretty far way to fall. I, can’t, keep, this, up, for, much-“
Valiant fell to the floor, the light vanished from her body along with the runes and her eye returned to normal. She turned around and looked desperately for any sign of Boulder, she couldn’t see him. The hole in the ceiling however caught her attention as it was a pretty long ways up there. Of course the way she’d fallen was blocked up already.
“What was that?” Valiant asked. “I might be part griffon but I don’t have any wings.”
“You can cloud walk though,” Boulder replied.
“Explain, now.”
Boulder let out a sigh. “It’s part of who and what you are. The healing powers, the ability to glow as bright as the sun, and even the ability to eventually fly. I’m here to help you learn to use those abilities, and aid you along your journey.”
“But, but, but you’re my imaginary friend. I invented you to make myself sane after what happened in Manehattan. Even Doctor Timequill said that you weren’t real.”
“Maybe you did make me? Maybe I was already here waiting for you? Either way I am still here to help you.”
Valiant shook herself and stood up. “Okay, so where the Tartarus am I?”
“Language.”
“Sorry, where the hay am I?”
There was silence for a brief moment. Valiant halfway expected Boulder to tell her he wasn’t sure but instead a new voice spoke. An older stallion’s voice by the sound of it, kind, gentle, and warm. “You’re in my panic room, child.”
Valiant looked around. There was nopony else here. Just her and her, not quite so imaginary friend. In fact there wasn’t even a doorway out of here. This chamber looked more like a trap than a bedroom. Of course if she was losing her mind, she might as well go all the way and embrace it.
“Okay, how do I get out?” Valiant asked. “And more importantly how do I find where Book Mark is buried?”
The kind stallion laughed. “There’s a button in one of the drawers to the vanity mirror. Push it and the escape door will open. As for where I am buried. Well I didn’t have a burial. There was no body left to burry.”
Valiant froze. If this was Book Mark, and he was dead. Than she was speaking to a ghost. A chill ran down the length of her spine. Carefully she removed her eye patch and looked around. There on a chair by the vanity mirror she saw him. He was indeed an earth pony, and had a pale orange color to his fur that his hazelnut mane seemed to complement. As for his cutie mark it was the same leather bound book with the symbol of an eye on its cover. This was the Book Mark.
“So you can see me as well as hear me?” He asked, his eyes sparkled, actually sparkled like Princess Celestia’s mane in the sunlight.
“A-are you dead?” Valiant asked.
Boulder took up a spot next to Valiant. “What do you think?”
Book Mark laughed, it was warm and inviting, like a grandfather’s laugh should be. “Not quite. I’m what you might call a spirit. Different from a ghost as I am not bound to this world, I am here by choice. I have gone on to other planes, different worlds, and seen many different sights over the years but this castle I had built to celebrate me and my friends before my passing. It is my home after death as it were.”
Valiant shook her head. “A spirit, like the spirit of chaos?”
“I would prefer to be a spirit of knowledge, but Discord is indeed a spirit as well. Though he is far more powerful than I am, and still holds a semi physical body.”
Valiant had to sit down as she processed this. She turned to Boulder and the gears began turning in her mind. It was not unthinkable that other ponies couldn’t hear Book Mark, it was also true that she couldn’t see him unless she used her broken eye to do so. Boulder was much the same way. Nopony else could see or hear him. But if she was able to see and speak to the dead…
“Boulder,” Valiant said quietly. “Are you dead?”
Much to her surprise Boulder smiled brightly at her. “Beginning to put the pieces together are you? Yes I am, and I have been since about the time you were born.”
Valiant shook her head. “But, why me? Why did you decide to hang out with me? And what is your real name?”
“I chose you because you are very special. I can’t say too much on that right now, but I can tell you that my real name is indeed Boulder Dash.”
Book Mark laughed again. “I see, I think I know what you are. I’ve heard tells of the kinds of ponies that could speak to the dead and even go so far as to borrow their power. I saw you floating there, and glowing as bright as a miniature sun to boot.”
“What am I?” Valiant asked without missing a beat.
“I believe you are called a wisp. Though I have not seen one in all of my days, it was rumored that your race went extinct after the war for Light and Shadow. I know that I had a few books on the war and the wisp back in the archive, sadly I didn’t have much time to read them, there are more books there than there are ponies in the world, and a single lifetime can only allow one to read so much.”
Valiant smiled at that knowledge. “Then I know where I must go. Please, I need to get to the archive, we already have two of your clues, but we need the last one. The one you guarded.”
Book Mark smiled. “A seeker of knowledge are you?”
“Not a real Seeker I’m afraid. Though when I grow up I’d love to be one.”
“Alright little pony, I will grant you my knowledge. The final clue you seek; just east of the mountain of smoke will you find truth.”
Valiant stared at him. “That… doesn’t make sense.”
“Perhaps because you are not looking at the clues correctly?”
Valiant blinked. “Okay, what else can you t-“
An explosion up above shook the room and rattled Valiant’s teeth. A few bits of stone came falling from the ceiling. The one thing that was truly important here other than the clue itself was also something Valiant had completely forgotten about. There was still an evil alicorn chasing after her. It was a shame to have to leave the company of Book Mark so soon but if she was going to survive long enough to help Twilight, she’d have to leave now.
Valiant rushed over to the vanity mirror and pulled open the drawers. Another explosion rocked the room and she nearly lost her balance. Still she found the button and pressed it. On the opposite wall behind her a section of the wall slid up, it was as large as any door and led into another tunnel.
Valiant gave a sad look to Book Mark. “I wish we had more time to talk, Grand Seeker Book Mark.”
He smiled. “Maybe we will speak again, little wisp. Now off you go, take flight and flee this place. Oh and good luck on your journey. Remember, the truth is ever fleeting, and to be a seeker you must be ever seeking.”
Valiant nodded, spun around and galloped for the door. A third explosion, even larger than the last one threw Valiant off her hooves and she went rolling out the doorway. Behind her flaming bricks fell into a pile on the floor. A large dark form dropped in after them and landed with a thud. The alicorn looked back at Valiant and frowned.
Never before had Valiant got up and ran so fast in her life. Even in the first chase with the alicorn Valiant didn’t feel this fast. The tunnel quickly turned into a stone cavern. Puddles of stagnant water made splashes as her hooves galloped through them. The alicorn was still behind her.
Heat washed over Valiant’s back. She ducked her head just in time as a blast of flame flew over her. Adrenaline spiked in Valiant’s heart and she pushed herself harder than before. She could already feel her rear leg beginning to hurt from the exertion. The alicorn shouted something at her, but she was too focused on making her escape to focus on it.
Pale moonlight poured through the opening of the cave and Valiant saw her chance for escape. The alicorn was further behind her now, somehow Valiant was outrunning the giant flame baring monster. If only she could keep going. The exit was only a few yards away.
Something dark moved out of the corner of her eye and before Valiant could react a shadow leapt up at her. Her side exploded in pain as the shadow kicked her. Flames erupted along Valiant’s side where the shadow touched her, and the shadow too was burning on his hooves where he’d made contact.
Valiant hit the ground rolling. When she came to a stop she looked up and saw that the shadow was actually Shade. The alicorn slowed on approach and wore a victorious smile. It hurt to move but Valiant pushed herself up and began backing away toward the exit. Neither pony moved to intercept her.
Of course that’s when Valiant realized that the cave exited to a sheer drop over the jungle below. At least a couple hundred feet stretched between her and the ground. It was no wonder why the alicorn had slowed down, and why Shade didn’t follow up his sneak attack. She had already lost.
“Dumb kid,” Shade spat. “You should look before you leap.”
The alicorn stood next to him. “I should be angrier with you for attacking a filly, not once, but twice now.”
Shade smirked. “Not my fault, she’s the one always getting in my way, and besides that first time was an accident. This time I’m just saving a Dumbflank from going head first off a cliff.”
Valiant switched her gaze between the two of them. There was no way she could win in a straight up fight against either one of them by herself. She was no hero, she might have had weird powers but at most they allowed her to scrape by long enough to survive. Now there were two opponents, and no way to escape. Even if she somehow got past them and back into the panic room, there was nowhere else to go from there.
“So,” the alicorn said, turning her full attention to Valiant. “I’m going to have to end your little quest here.”
Boulder’s voice came in loud in clear in Valiant’s mind. “Remember what we did when we first landed in the panic room?”
The little colt was now standing right next to Valiant. He looked up at her expectantly. He was right, there was one option left to her, though with an alicorn capable of flight, it was a decidedly dicey option. It was still preferable than being roasted alive.
“Okay, now let’s get this over with shall we,” The alicorn said as she approached Valiant.
Valiant turned around, gave one last look to Boulder, and upon receiving a nod of approval jumped off the cliff. There was a split second where she ascended from her jump, the ground was left behind as she put her life on the line. When she plummeted like a rock her heart got caught in her throat. The air rushed past her as she raced down the cliff face.
Boulder was right next to her. “Do not worry, it will be okay.”
She’d reply with sarcasm if she wasn’t already screaming from the completely idiotic maneuver she just pulled.
Boulder reached out with his hooves. They sunk into Valiant’s flesh, though it didn’t hurt, it actually felt good. Like a massive surge of energy was going through her. Next Boulder put his legs in, followed by his torso and finally his head. It was more energy than Valiant had ever felt before. Her fur was positively glowing, light cast upon the cliff face as she fell. The jungle trees were only a moment away from colliding with her when she felt gravity turn about face and stop.
For a long moment she simply hung there, floating a few feet above the jungle canopy. She looked up and saw the form of a powerful winged alicorn hovering above her. If Valiant could see that far, she would have guessed that the alicorn would be wearing an expression of utter and complete disbelief.
It was like knowledge had been instantly planted into her body as she began moving forward. Floating slowly at first, but picking up speed quite quickly. Remembering some of the comic books her little sister had, Valiant couldn’t help but to strike a Supermare pose as she flew above the trees. Like riding a bike for the first time in years, Valiant seemed to remember how to fly properly as if she had done this many times before. She aimed herself up and flew back up over the cliff, past the alicorn who was still floating there. She caught a glimpse of Shade staring slack jawed at her and gave him a taunting wink on her way up.
Once she reached the top of the cliff she saw the castle, only from the backside. It would seem that the castle, much like Canterlot’s was built on the edge of a cliff. Valiant flew toward the entrance where she was sure she could find Twilight again. Just as she thought, Twilight was actually just outside the castle, her eye patch was removed and her face contorted in an expression of rage.
Valiant aimed for Twilight and shouted, “Twilight!”
Once Twilight looked up, she squinted at Valiant. Her anger was replaced by confusion, and finally settling on awe. Than Boulder popped out of Valiant’s body, and all that energy vanished. For a split second she saw Boulder, he looked ragged, exhausted, and beaten.
“S-sorry,” he said. “I don’t have that much energy.”
Gravity was a cruel mistress as it grabbed hold of Valiant right away and dragged her back down to earth. So it looked like there was a time limit on Valiant’s ability to be a glowing floaty ghost pony. Which meant that she was going to really hate this crash landing.
Twilight was faster on the draw and caught Valiant inside a telekinetic cocoon bringing the filly over to her. “Valiant, how, why, what, when, and where?”
Valiant couldn’t possibly answer all those questions, but she’d try. “I’m a wisp, I don’t know, I can fly, since like ten minutes ago, and from the secret tunnel where the alicorn and the shadow pony are probably regaining their senses right now.”
Twilight bit her lower lip. “When I find that alicorn I am going to kill her. But I made a promise and I intend to keep it.”
Twilight’s horn lit up, and grew incredibly bright. A deep red aura surrounded the two of them. Valiant didn’t argue, she was done with this trip anyway. She did however have something to say. “Twilight, I got the last clue, and I found out that the Archive does have information on what I am.”
Twilight smiled as a second layer of magic covered her horn. “Good.”
Off in the distance Valiant could see the cloaked alicorn hovering above the tree line. For some reason she didn’t approach, but simply watched. It was unnerving to say the least. A third layer of magic formed over Twilight’s horn and her face scrunched up in noticeable pain. The world grew tense, a bright crimson light surrounded them, and the world vanished.
When Valiant blinked next she was in her backyard, and Twilight was panting heavily. Her missing eye socket was only faintly glowing with gold light. Twilight covered her eye back up and nodded. “Okay, I need to get home before we both get in trouble.”
Valiant agreed. “Okay, oh and the clue is; Just east of the mountain of smoke will you find truth. I don’t know what it means but it should be useful.”
Twilight smiled and quickly trotted off. “See you tomorrow, Val.”
That promise made Valiant Heart happy. So she climbed back into her bedroom window. It was dark in her room, too dark too see. When she closed her window she crawled back into bed and closed her eyes. It was exhausting to go out on adventures in the middle of the night.
Of course just as she got snug under her covers she heard hoofsteps draw close to her bed. She opened her eyes and saw Maud standing over her bed, her expression might have been blank to most ponies but Valiant saw the slight curve of her lips ready to be turned into a frown.
“So,” Maud said in a dry tone that felt like death itself had run into Valiant’s room. “Where have you been?”
That was the one thing that Valiant never thought would happen to her, after all she was a good pony… most of the time. She didn’t use her powers, she didn’t fight with others, and she was the assistant to a freaking princess. When Spike was her age he was going out there and helping Twilight fight off hordes of monsters and even before that he was going out and helping Twilight face off against the likes of Discord. So why was she the one in trouble?
It just wasn’t fair. If it wasn’t for the deep respect that Valiant had for Maud and Trixie, she might have chosen to runaway after that fight, as it was she just stayed quiet and decided to deal with it. Twilight would need time to put the clues together anyway. It wasn’t like Twilight would leave her out of the final adventure.
Morning came and went, school passed on by, and afterwards Valiant went home. She studied, she ate, she slept. This was the extent of her fun for the next two days. When her grounding started to become more lenient, she was then allowed to go and hang out with Sweetie Belle but not to go anywhere near Twilight Sparkle, for fear that Twilight would drag her into a dangerous situation or corrupt her. Honestly Valiant thought that Maud was completely overacting, but what was she to do? Fighting it would only make her grounding worse.
So there she was, sitting at Sweetie’s house and finding herself with nothing left to do once again. Sweetie Belle was busy doing her make up in the mirror, and Rarity was somewhere downstairs. Valiant rolled onto her back and sighed.
“I’ll be done in a moment,” Sweetie said.
Valiant kicked her legs a little and sighed again.
“Oh come on. You could help you know.”
Valiant rolled her eye, and yet once more sighed.
Sweetie gave Valiant a dirty look which lost all emotional context as Valiant saw how good the makeup looked on her. For a moment Valiant was sure she was looking at a smaller, younger version of Rarity. The only difference came from their manes.
“W-what?” Sweetie asked. “I need the practice if I’m going to start dating.” She looked away and her cheeks grew a little pink. “I… I sort of want to.”
Valiant blinked. “You want to date? I thought you said stallions were gross.”
“They are…”
Valiant picked up on the hint right away. “Oh, well… okay. Anypony in particular? It’s not Scootaloo is it?”
Sweetie almost dropped the makeup brush. “What? NO! She’s so, weird, and obsessed with sex. I don’t like her, like her. But… there is another pony.”
Valiant sat up, she found herself interested in who it could be even though she had no interest in dating herself it was exciting to think that Sweetie might date somepony. Even if it was another mare. It wasn’t that Valiant had problems with gays, she just couldn’t understand anypony holding sexual interest in mares, or well anypony for that matter. It than occurred to her that perhaps Sweetie was going after a fellow mare because they were easier to relate too, that made some amount of sense.
“Who is it?” Valiant asked.
“I… I… um, well, it’s uh…” Sweetie’s face was growing redder still. “What about you? Are you interested in anypony?”
Valiant shrugged. “Not really. I don’t get why ponies do that stuff. It just isn’t fun.”
Sweetie’s face sunk a little. “Oh… no not… what about love?”
“I’ve seen love, my parents love each other, but they also enjoy sex way too much.” Valiant tried to keep the disgust out of her voice. “Really, I think I might be happier just being really good friends with somepony and maybe getting a place together. Didn’t Octavia do that?”
“I’m pretty sure that Octavia and Vinyl were dating.”
“Oh, well that’s not very… I mean, ugh,” Valiant buried her face into her hooves. “I’m weird, I just don’t like anypony enough to want to… do anything with them.”
“Not even kiss?”
“Why would I kiss somepony that I don’t love?”
Sweetie’s face sunk a little more, she turned back to the mirror and continued putting her makeup on. Sweetie’s movements became stiff, almost robotic in nature. “I’m sorry that you don’t feel that way.”
Valiant rolled over. “You don’t have to worry, I’m not judging you or anything. I just… I think I’m asexual.”
Sweetie’s movements stopped. “Wait, what? That’s… are you sure?”
“I think so.”
“But, does that mean you’ll never date anypony?”
Valiant shrugged. “I think I might try it eventually, but only with a good friend.”
“When’s eventually?”
“I don’t know.”
“Like a few days, months… years?”
“I don’t know.”
Sweetie Belle looked over at her. “So you’ll only try dating a really close friend. You don’t know when, but that’s the only option for you?”
“Well, it won’t be as… weird I guess.” What Valiant didn’t add was that it wouldn’t be as scary either.
Sweetie smiled and returned to the mirror. “I can wait for that.”
Valiant raised an eyebrow at that. Wait, wait for what? I only said I’d try dating one of my friends. I mean sure I only have two friends right now, Twilight and swee-
Valiant stood up and looked at the door. “I… I think I need to use the bathroom.”
“You know where it is.”
Valiant left the room, shut the door behind her and walked down the hall right past the bathroom and down the stairs. It was true, Rarity was in the boutique sales floor working on some dress. She asked some kind of question as Valiant made her way to the door.
Valiant merely waved a hoof and said, “Tell Sweetie I had to go home.”
Rarity looked shocked, though whether it was from the fact that Valiant was leaving so abruptly or because Valiant had actually spoken to her, Valiant couldn’t tell. Still she had one goal right now, to go home, find Trixie or Maud, and then ask them what she was supposed to do about this.
About her best friend having a crush on her.
***
Twilight paced back and forth in the study of her library. Behind her stood a tact board with various notes, images, and a web of multicolored strings covering everything. She’d been at this for two days straight. Even with all three clues she just couldn’t figure out where she needed to go. It didn’t make sense. There was something she was missing, but what could it be?
If only Valiant was here she was sure she could get the help she needed. That or Pinkie Pie, but for whatever reason Pinkie was decidedly against helping her at the moment. Then again Pinkie was married with two kids, of course she might have more pressing concerns than Twilight’s obsession with finding the archive and by extension this prophesized pony that she was to train.
Twilight slammed her head into the wall out of frustration. “Darn it! Why can’t I figure this out? Where are you hiding Archive?”
There was one pony she could ask for help, but she’d been avoiding this. Getting help from Sunset was easy but she’d already pulled that card, same as with Starlight, but there was one pony who could possibly help, but Twilight wasn’t sure she wanted to confront her yet. After all, how was she going to explain the fact that she couldn’t bare foals to the mare of her dreams?
A shiver ran down Twilight’s back at the mere thought of having that conversation. Deciding that the wall made a poor pillow Twilight pulled away, or at least she tried too. Her horn was stuck in the wall.
“DARN IT!” Twilight cursed as she pulled back as hard as she could. “By Celestia’s blinding light, why does this have to happen to me again?”
Her horn was freed with a pop and Twilight went rolling backwards. When she stopped she let out a sigh. She wasn’t really looking for extra help for her research, although that was always appreciated, she was really just looking for some loving, kind company. It had been far too long since she was last with her moonlight after all. There was going to be one Tartarus of a conversation to be had, but Twilight accepted that.
Okay, it’s time to get Luna.
***
Valiant arrived home just in time to ask about Trixie about what she was supposed to do about Sweetie’s crush. It was unexpected when Trixie laughed over it, and a little mean when she almost blew it off as being something foals her age just did. Valiant was tempted to kick Trixie for not taking her problems seriously.
“Okay, okay, I get it.” Trixie said. “You’re worried that this will hurt your friendship aren’t you?”
Valiant nodded.
“Don’t worry, she should still be your friend even if you don’t return her feelings. Still, I’m a little curious, are you really not interested in dating at all?”
Valiant had her whiteboard in her hooves, she was too upset to speak to anypony, even Trixie. She flashed the whiteboard at Trixie.
“No, I’m not. I know it’s weird, but I’m a weird pony anyway.”
Trixie shook her head. “Well that’s fine. I… I guess I can’t blame you. At least you know that Sweetie wouldn’t hurt you, right?”
Valiant nodded.
“Good, than that much is settled. Maybe you could talk to her? Maybe tell her that you aren’t ready for something like that?”
Valiant wiped the board clean with a hoof and scribbled some more.
“She said she could wait.”
“Well… hmm… and your positive you’d never be interested in trying a relationship with her?”
Valiant bit her lower lip. That was a hard question to answer. It wasn’t like she could see the future, maybe she would be interested eventually, but as of right then she just couldn’t see the benefit of a romance. Especially not when things that were actually important were on the line, such as discovering more about the wisp.
“It’s never an easy question I’ve found.” Trixie shook her head slowly. “You know even if you end up together, and get married, you might still have troubles. I remember during me and Maud’s second anniversary, I was terrified that she had forgotten about it. I tried to hint at her, and I was getting desperate. Then she dragged me along for one of her silly geological survey’s over to Unicorn Range.”
Trixie shook her head. “We left you and Amber with Fluttershy for a few days. When we arrived at Unicorn Range it was daytime. Sure it was nice to look at, but Maud was so focused on finding one particular spot for research that I was losing my mind. She spent all day dragging me around until we found this nice little hill and decided to camp there. I was understandably angry, our anniversary was the next day and she was more interested in rocks than me.
“Then the night came and I looked out over the rolling hills. What Maud didn’t tell me is that there was a special kind of rock out there that would glow when exposed to the magical energies of the moonlight. Maud had spent the entire day looking at and playing with rocks so I didn’t pay attention to what she was actually doing. As the moonlight shone over the plains, and the stars shined bright overhead, those rocks began glowing. Out in the plains the rocks had been rearranged so that they spelled four words, ‘I love you, Lulu.”
Trixie sniffled and wiped a hoof at her eyes. “I… I didn’t know what to do. I was angry with her for forgetting our anniversary, but it turned out that she was more cunning than even me! I didn’t think anypony could be.”
Valiant listened in on the story, it wasn’t the first time she’d heard something like it, but for some reason she didn’t remember ever hearing this particular story before. Glowing rocks and Maud’s secret anniversary gift. It sounded almost farfetched.
“You see, even if you do fall in love you might have troubles, but what’s important is that even when you’re angry you still love your other half,” Trixie looked down at Valiant. “Now tell me that this doesn’t sound like fun.”
Valiant rolled her eye. It sounds like a lot of work.
“Really? That didn’t sell you on the concept? Wouldn’t you like it if Sweetie did something like that for you?”
Valiant considered it for a moment. Sure it could have been nice but that didn’t mean it would make it worth it. Valiant wasn’t sure if she could ever even trust anypony enough to kiss them. Let alone let them into her heart like that. Love just made somepony vulnerable, but then again, Sweetie was a friend first. It wasn’t like Sweetie was planning to hurt her, in fact it seemed quite the opposite, instead it sounded like Sweetie was trying to be very patient and understanding of Valiant’s particular situation. Sure that didn’t mean that Valiant had any romantic feelings fostered for her, but perhaps one day that would change.
Valiant laid her head down on the leg rest and closed her eye. “Thank you.”
There was a smile in Trixie’s voice as she replied, “Your welcome.”
The front door opened and shut. The hooves walked into the living room where Valiant heard Maud speaking. “Trixie, can I talk to you in the kitchen?”
Trixie got up and followed her. “Of course.”
Valiant was tired, emotionally, and physically after her run here. It was time to take a nap, yet she couldn’t help but to listen in. Snooping was a skill she’d learned from the best unicorn in Equestria, and one she was quite good at by this point.
“It’s about…. Boulder,” Maud said quietly.
Trixie sounded worried. “Are you ready to talk?”
“It’s just… I’m having trouble. I see Valiant and the danger she’s in and I’m scared. I can’t lose another foal,” Maud said, her voice was tinted with fear.
“Shh, come here. It’s okay, Valiant’s in good hooves. I mean it’s only natural that she’d be interested in doing heroic stuff, after all she hangs out with the CMC and Twilight all day. When Spike was nine he was facing off with threats like the Timber Wolf King and still coming out on top. Of course Valiant would want to emulate that kind of behavior.”
“But she’s my baby.”
“She’s our baby, and she is growing up. I think she needs to be able to stretch her wings and fly as they say.”
“She doesn’t have wings.”
Valiant smirked. Doesn’t mean I can’t fly.
Maud’s voice was even quieter. “I lost my first baby, I can’t have anymore.”
“I know, but we can’t keep her safe all her life. If we did that she’d end up like Marble.”
“And the problem?”
“You know what I mean. She already has so much difficulty growing up and talking to other ponies, we can’t keep her like a pinned up slave.”
Maud let out a quiet whimper. “But I lost my baby, I lost Boulder Dash.”
Valiant’s ears perked up. Boulder Dash?
“That was due to a miscarriage, it’s not the same thing. I bet he would have been quite the adventurer too, and probably would have loved rocks just as much as you do. But that was fifteen years ago, you can’t let that hurt your relationship with Valiant now. Yes Valiant messed up when she ran away in the middle of the night to go hangout with Twilight, but it’s not like it’s the first time she’d done that. You never grounded her for it before, just made her do extra chores.”
“I love her though, I don’t want to lose her.”
“If you keep holding on this tightly you will. We both know that we are lucky for any time we get to spend with Valiant; she chose to live with us. You have to keep that in mind. She could survive better than the two of us combined if she was on her own.”
“I won’t let Twilight take my baby.”
“She won’t. I promise. This thing with Twilight means the world to Val. We need to let her have this. After it’s over we can talk to her about how much this scares us.”
“…”
“Maud…”
“Okay. I… I’ll let her help Twilight.”
“Thank you, and when she discovers the Seeker’s Archive she can be famous, almost as famous as me,” Trixie joked.
There was silence for a moment. Then there was a wet sloppy kiss sound. Followed by another. The table screeched as it was pushed along the floor. Valiant stood up and looked into the kitchen.
Oh Celestia no! I told them not to do that in the freaking kitchen!
***
Twilight stood on the balcony overlooking the sky. The horizon was lined with orange light as the sun slowly sunk in the sky. Behind her somewhere the moon was just starting to rouse from its daily slumber. Even if she was alone in her little old tree house, she didn’t mind too much.
There was a sound behind her, and for a half second Twilight was ready to jump. A warm, soft dark blue wing fell over her back. That warmth spread from her back into her chest. Twilight didn’t have to look over to see who it was, she recognized the wonderful mare by her side by feeling alone, it also didn’t hurt that she smelled like violets.
“Princess Luna,” Twilight greeted. She couldn’t hide the smile on her face even if she tried.
“Princess Twilight, how doth thou feel?” Luna asked.
For a moment Twilight blinked. “I, uh, what?”
The snicker from Luna was only barely audible. “How are you feeling my sunset?”
Twilight rolled her eye but snuggled into that deep blue fur. “You know that would have been a good nickname at some point, but with Sunset Shimmer here it just gets confusing.”
“For whom? You know very well that I would only use pet names in private. Not even my sister suspects us.”
Twilight laughed. “I highly doubt that, I just think she doesn’t want to know.”
“That would be awfully cruel of her, but accurate.”
Just a little more time, that was all Twilight asked to have in Luna’s warm embrace before she had to tell her about the two most pressing matters in her life thus far. It was too cruel that she couldn’t be a normal unicorn, that she had been turned into an alicorn by the will of the elements of harmony, even if that was an unprecedented feat for the relics. Sometimes she considered what it would have been like if the elements had chosen somepony else to make immortal, but they choose her. Not Celestia, nor Luna, nor any of her friends, or anypony before her. Even Sunset wasn’t turned into alicorn thanks to the elements, as far as Twilight could tell Sunset just had her mother’s blood in her.
“What is wrong?” Luna asked.
“N-nothing,” Twilight said.
“No, you’re worried about something. I can feel it in your muscles.” Luna nuzzled Twilight’s hair. “You can tell me anything.”
Twilight sucked in a hot breath. This was going to suck, and she was going to cry. How could she admit that she was useless as a mare? That she’d never be able to be a real mare. A quiet sigh escaped her lips. “I can’t find the Seeker’s Archive.”
For a moment Twilight paused, she hadn’t meant to say that, but it was a useful distraction from the truth. She dearly hoped that Luna would buy it. It took a moment but Luna finally replied, “Twilight, I am not very good at finding lost ruins. I have spent my time studying this land since I’ve returned and it is so very different from the world I grew up in.”
Twilight tried to smile. “I know, I didn’t think you’d be able to offer that much assistance after all.”
“Now if your done with your excuses, why not tell me what is truly bothering you?”
It failed and Twilight felt ashamed for even trying to distract her. Of course Luna would want to know what was wrong, she’d probably seen Twilight’s nightmares already. Or maybe she was curious as to why Twilight had been avoiding sleep… avoiding her.
Twilight pulled away and looked down over the balcony and at the flowerbed. “I… I can’t have foals.”
Luna didn’t move, nor press for any details. “I see.”
“Why did the elements of Harmony make me into a freaking alicorn. Why couldn’t they have hit somepony else. Like Rainbow Dash?”
“Rainbow Dash, the alicorn Princess?” Luna asked. “I think not.”
“I have tried to have babies, tried several times in fact. Yet each time I do I just… I can’t take it. It hurts,” Twilight shook her head. “And to top it all off I will have to watch all my friends fade away one by one. Why?”
“That is our curse as immortals, to watch our loved ones die off one by one. I have not had to deal with this myself yet, but my sister has watched so many ponies she loved die. If not for your presence, I fear I would not have the courage to keep going through with this.” Luna lowered her head. “Well… I did wake up to find out that my entire world was gone, everypony I knew, every township, every landmark, all of it just gone. Even my sister has become a stranger to me.”
“Luna, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-“
A wing tip was pressed against Twilight’s lips to shush her. Luna offered a small smile. “But I have discovered that I now have much more than I ever did before. My sister was not the kindest sibling in Equestria one thousand years ago. The fact that she is nice, understanding, and full of love now is strange indeed, but I enjoy it. Not to mention that now I have you.”
Twilight moved that wingtip out of the way and lunged forward. Her lips met with Luna’s. She only pulled back just far enough to look into those beautiful eyes. “I love you, Luna.”
“I love you as well, Twilight.”
Before either of them could continue there was a crashing sound from inside. Twilight raced inside and found a small mahogany filly lying over a pile of books, with a map over her head. Luna appeared at her side. “It looks like we have company.”
Twilight could have been angrier with Valiant for intruding on her private moment, but chose better the path of understanding. If Valiant was here it meant that either her grounding was over, or that she was in some sort of trouble, enough to warrant running away.
“Val, are you okay?” Twilight asked.
Valiant rose and shook her head. “I’m not grounded and my parents are having sex on the kitchen table.”
“I… uh… okay… um, well I’d never, do, that,” Twilight’s cheeks were running hot as she thought of taking her moonlight, bending her over the table and-
“Twilight,” Valiant said. “What are the clues again?”
Twilight frowned. “I’ve been working on them for three days straight now. I still don’t know what they mean. Let’s see, I believe they are; Past the tall tail’s shadow you will find knowledge, Just east of the mountain of smoke will you find truth. And only when surrounded by darkness does the mind’s light shine.”
Valiant looked up, the map was still covering her head. “Did you say Tall Tell? As in the city?”
Twilight rolled her eye. “No, I said tall tail, as in a pony’s tail.”
Valiant threw the map off of her head and looked more closely at the map. “Are you sure about that? I mean, the Smokey Mountains are right freaking next to the city.”
Twilight’s pupils shrunk. Her horn grabbed both Valiant and the map and dragged both of them up into the air before her. She took one look at the map and then at Valiant. She discarded Valiant on the floor next to her so she could better look at the map. “That… okay, but where? There’s a lot of places east of the mountains. This might be a break through, but how are we going to find it?”
Valiant shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Do you have any ideas?”
“No,” Valiant closed her eye and laid down on the floor. “Ugh, I just can’t stop thinking about what Trixie was talking about, before you know…”
“Uh-huh,” Twilight said absently as she stared at the map, her mind going into overdrive to find anything that could link the third clue to the location of the Archive. It couldn’t be Cloudsdale, mostly because the city moved sometimes, but also because the clouds didn’t glow at night, nor could an earth pony easily access the place.
“Trixie was talking about Unicorn Range,” Valiant said.
“Never been there,” Twilight stated.
Valiant was still lying there looking a little more relaxed. “You should, it’s got these glowing rocks that you can only see at night.”
Twilight stopped looking at the map. “Wait, what?”
“Yeah, it sounds kinda pretty.”
“Glowing rocks that can only be seen at night… as in when surrounded by darkness?” A wild grin spread over Twilight’s lips. “Then I know exactly where we are going next.”
Valiant opened her eye, she looked tired. “Where?”
“To Unicorn Range.” Twilight looked over at Luna. “Could you tell Princess Celestia that I have found the likely location of the Seekers Archive?”
Luna nodded. “Of course I will. Even if I had had other plans for tonight.”
Twilight gave her a sad look. “We need to hurry, those stupid bad guys are going to find it eventually, and probably burn every book in there because their ignorant and evil.”
That brought a smile to Luna’s lips. “Ignorant and evil you say, that does sound awful.”
“It is.”
Luna left out the balcony door and flew into the ever darkening night. “I will see you later, my sunshine.”
Twilight beamed. “You as well my moonlight.”
With that Luna was gone, and even if it left an empty spot in her heart, Twilight vowed to keep on. She was going to get to that Archive and save the knowledge from the forces of evil. It also helped that she knew she could get more information on that prophesized mare as well.
Valiant stared blankly at the balcony door for the longest time. It was beginning to worry Twilight that her assistant had become so silent. Of course Valiant did speak eventually. “When did Luna get here?”
Twilight laughed. “She was here before you.”
Valiant shook her head. “That’s… I was talking… in front of her… crap.”
“This will be the last trip you go on?” Maud asked.
Valiant stood outside next to Twilight who was trying to offer as kind a smile as she could to help improve Maud’s opinion of the adventure. Twilight of course was the one to answer. “Yes, at least this is the last one for the Seeker’s Archive. I promise that I won’t let anything happen to your daughter.”
Maud gave her a flat look that could be interpreted as skeptical. “If she’s hurt, I will hunt you down and break all of your legs.”
The light vanished from Twilight’s face. “O-of course, and you’d be right to do so. I swear that she will be just fine.”
Maud than looked down at Valiant. “You stay safe, and don’t let Twilight drag you into any trouble.”
Valiant nodded. Of course if Twilight needs me I will do whatever I can to assist, even if that’s not much.
It wasn’t much, but Valiant did hug her mom before going back to Twilight’s side. The trip to Unicorn Range would not be a long one, even though the search for the archive could take all night. The spell to teleport the pair over to the archive was already being charged up before Valiant was even halfway done waving at Maud. She wished she could have seen Trixie off too, but Trixie was off somewhere with Amber, likely helping the little filly learn magic. The world vanished in pink blinding light and Valiant felt the ground beneath her slip away.
An instant later she blinked, hard earth was under her hooves. Wheat grass tickled her legs, and before her stretched an endless plain of various types of grass. Where she stood the grass was all yellow, but a little ways away the grass changed to green then blue and finally purple, behind her the grass was red. She was standing in a plain of rainbow colored grass.
“It really is nice here,” Twilight said. She inhaled deeply. “It smells like home.”
Valiant inhaled too, but found that it smelled fairly normal except for a small odd scent that smelled like a tingling sensation. Valiant thought it better not to question that line of logic. She’d smelled this before when she visited the most magical place in Equestria, Canterlot. It was due to all the magical energy the unicorns were always emitting, and considering that the popularity of Canterlot was mostly unicorns, it always smelled tingly.
“Shall we make camp than, wait for nightfall when we can do some exploring?” Twilight asked.
Valiant smiled and nodded. This is going to be fun.
***
This is most certainly not fun.
Valiant clung to the back of Twilight Sparkle as the princess galloped for all she was worth. Behind them the shrieks were growing louder. She had hardly anytime at all to see what was actually happening before Twilight threw her onto her back and galloped like mad as their camp had been destroyed.
When Valiant looked back she could see a giant flower rising out of the ground, its stem was as large as Valiant was and the flower head larger still. It limped to the side, facing the two and then the flower separated to reveal a gaping maw filled with razor sharp thorns. Valiant swallowed hard as it began writhing toward them like a snake.
“What the hay is that?” Valiant cried.
“I call it Floral Graboid, and it is one of the most dangerous creatures I’ve ever encountered. Even two alicorn princesses were not enough to kill a fully grown version of one. Though this seems to be a baby, it is still very dangerous.” Twilight looked up at the moon and stars. “It shouldn’t even be active during the day time. Or even be here. What is going on?”
That was a question best saved for after Twilight and Valiant Heart got away. Three vine like tongues whipped out at the pair, and Valiant ducked her head as one swung right over her. It missed Twilight by an inch. Twilight continued galloping but the thing wasn’t losing any traction any time soon.
“Darn it!” Twilight cursed. “I can’t afford to use any of my alicorn magic on this thing, I’ve been trying to build it up for the past two days.”
Valiant looked back at the monster. “What do we do?”
“I’d be flying away right now but considering my distinct lack of wings I can’t very well do that.”
That gave Valiant an idea to work with. She pulled her eye patch up and looked around. “Boulder Dash, you there?”
“Whose where now?” Twilight asked.
Valiant ignored Twilight and focused on the colt’s voice that came popping into her head. “Thought you might not want to see me again.”
“Why?”
“Because now you know why I’m the one following you.”
Valiant frowned. “Yeah… I do. Still, that makes me your adopted sister right?”
“in a way, yes.”
“Good, now make me fly.”
The light began filling Valiant’s chest all over again, her body took on a soft white glow and the runes appeared all over her body. She looked back at the monster that was following them and even though it had no eyes to see it had to be chasing after them somehow. Valiant jumped off of Twilight’s back, for a split second she wasn’t sure if she would manage to pull it off a second time, but when her body flew up into the air, she was sure of it. She knew how to fly.
It was easier this time to fly besides Twilight, and since Twilight had already seen her in flight it wasn’t as surprising. Still Twilight looked more or less astounded to see Valiant flying beside her. Now it was time to do something to get past this giant beastie.
“Okay, I’m flying, now what?” Valiant asked.
“Keep flying, that’s what.” Twilight said. The Star blade was drawn from its sheath and Twilight spun around. The three tongues came flying at her with wicked fast speed, but Twilight deftly cut through them as she galloped toward the floral graboid.
For a moment Valiant watched in horror as the thing opened its maw impossibly wide. Wide enough to swallow even Twilight in one bite. There was a flash of light and the thing slammed into the earth with enough force to dig a trench as it continued moving forward. Another flash of light appeared on top of its back. Twilight had teleported and her sword was fast at work cutting at the base of the floral graboid’s neck. One, two, and three whacks to the floral graboid’s neck and its body jerked to a stop, yet its head went rolling forward without stopping for a good thirty feet.
Twilight jumped off its back and landed on the ground. Her blade was stained in thick green goop. One cleaning spell later and the it reflected the beauty of the night sky above them once again. Valiant landed next to Twilight, the flying magic in her was turned off though she could still feel Boulder’s energy inside of her.
“You could have killed it just like that?” Valiant asked.
“Not with you on my back,” Twilight said. “One false step and you’d be taking the brunt of the damage.”
Valiant scowled. “Why didn’t you just throw me off of you then?”
“Because it would have gone after you first, easier pray.”
“I am not easy pray.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, but I just killed the monster. I saved us. What’s the problem?”
“The problem is that you keep saving us,” Valiant said.
“So I should have just let the thing eat you? Is that what you’re saying? What about those alicorns? Should I have just let them have destroy the train too?”
“No! You shouldn’t have!” Valiant felt the anger bubbling up inside of her. “But I want to help. I can help too.”
“I don’t doubt that, but you’re not a fighter.”
“And neither are you.”
Twilight frowned and looked at the ground beneath her hooves. The blue rocks shone with some sort of inner light which cast strange shadows around them. “I… I shouldn’t be a fighter. But I am. When you are trained by a princess who drops an infant on you at the age of nine, than forces you to do special training missions against diamond dog raiders at fifteen, and then sends you out after a dragon at age eighteen. Not to mention the likes of Nightmare Moon, Discord, and Lord freaking Tirek, you… you change. I tried so hard to stay kind, young, and soft, but I couldn’t do that and keep the ponies I love safe.”
Valiant lowered her head. “I… I want to be like you. I don’t want to be useless, waiting for ponies to come and rescue me. That only… gets me hurt.”
“Trust me, Val. You are far from useless, and you don’t need rescuing anymore. But don’t mistake the gift of having strong friends by your side for the inability to defend yourself.” Twilight gave a tender look to Valiant.
“I… I guess you’re right, I’m sorry. I just got upset because I thought I was going to be able to help you, and you took that away from me again. I’m being selfish.”
Twilight smiled. “And I’m sorry that I haven’t given you the opportunity to help me yet. How about I fix that in the future?”
A new voice appeared from off to their side. It was a mare’s voice. “How about I fix that for you right now?”
Valiant and Twilight both jerked their heads to the side. An old ruined house stood without its roof. Two alicorns stood on top of the roof. Both of them had white coats, but one had stylish short cut purple hair, and the other’s was long and red. Between them stood a cat licking its paw and brushing its fur back.
“We meet again,” Lavender said in his playful voice.
Twilight blinked at them. “I’m… sorry.”
Rose frowned. “Oh so you’re so scared of us you’re apologizing early. Too bad, but if our worm friend can’t destroy you princess, than we simply will have to put the work in ourselves.”
Twilight shook her head. “No, what I mean is that I don’t recall meeting you two before.”
Lavender’s eyes widened. “What?”
Rose scowled. “Of course she does, she is only trying to rile us.”
“Um,” Twilight interrupted, “I think I’d know if I was lying or not. Now tell me who you are, and why you sent a floral graboid after me.”
Lavender’s eyes became glossy. “She really doesn’t remember us.”
Rose shook her head. “Fine, if you’re so forgetful than this will be easier than last time. Though this does allow us to reintroduce ourselves.”
“She doesn’t remember me,” Lavender all but cried.
“Prepare for trouble,” Rose said.
“And, sniff, make it double,” Lavender added.
“To protect the world from devastation.”
“To unite, sniffle, all races within one nation.”
“To denounce the evils of truth and love.”
“To expand our reach to the stars above, hic.”
“Rose.”
“L-Lavender.”
“Surrender now.”
“Or prepare to fi- oh just remember me already!”
Rose facehoofed. “You had one job to do.”
Lavender leaned over the edge of the roof. “Remember me!”
Twilight cocked her head to the side. “I’m… sorry. Wait, were you part of Maggy’s Amazing Circus? The magicians right?”
Lavender leaned over even more. “No! On the darn train, with the sleeping ponies, and the city, and, and-“ He leaned over further still.
Rose’s eyes went wide. “Lavender, stop!”
Lavender leaned too far and fell off the edge of the roof. He landed on the ground with a cry of pain. It was only a moment later that Rose was ready to jump down when the entire building collapsed underneath her. She screamed in fear as she was pinned underneath the ruins. The cat on the other hoof had managed to jump off in time and landed next to the unconscious Lavender.
Twilight walked up to Rose and grinned. “I’m sorry, I still can’t remember who you are. But I’m sorry you have the worst luck around here.”
Rose growled. “You did this on purpose. You evil, manipulating, cunning, sly, evil, witch.”
Twilight turned around and flicked her tail. “I’m sorry, I don’t waste my time talking to red headed step foals. Valiant, let’s go.”
Valiant followed Twilight. They left the scene with Rose screaming some of the worst obscenities that Valiant had ever heard, some of them she didn’t even know, but she dared not repeat them. The cat just sat around licking itself leisurely. It would seem that this battle at least was over.
At least until they saw a third alicorn. This yellow mare with the blood red mane so long that it almost touched the ground gave a level orange eyed stare at Twilight. She wore dark crimson armor which could have been painted from the blood of her enemies, and her blasphemous cutie mark was that of a single drop of blood. Neither one of them moved as the mare seemingly appeared out of thin air, only to watch Twilight with great interest.
For a long moment nopony spoke, and only the wind rustling the tall grass broke the silence. The tension grew so thick that Valiant could cut it with a knife. It felt like she was staring death itself right in the face. She was wrong, going on adventures with Twilight was a bad idea, she shouldn’t have done this.
“Red Velvet,” Twilight said the name as though it was a poisonous thing that she had to spit out of her mouth.
That made the alicorn smile. “Oh, I see you do remember me.”
“You shot my princess, and ripped my friend’s wings out,” Twilight spat.
Red’s smile only grew. “I did not rip her wings out. They dissolved when I took my alicorn magic back from her. It was no different than what happened when Celestia shoved three alicorns worth of magic into you.”
“I had a choice!”
“Did you?”
Twilight bit her lip. “What do you want?”
“Well I’m already queen of the Alicorn Empire, so I have already gotten that which I wanted. Still that means certain things fall under my responsibility. Such as punishing disobedient youths. Those two behind you have single hoofedly tried to start a war between our two kingdoms. That, I cannot allow.”
“What will you do to them?”
Red smiled as she walked past them. “That is none of your business. Now head off to your archive, before another one of my old friends finds and destroys it.”
“Why don’t you stop her,” Twilight said, turning to keep an eye on Red the entire time. Twilight had moved between Valiant and Red to keep the filly safely behind her, though it did nothing to ease Valiant’s fearful heart.
“Because she is not my problem. The Archive is just ahead, marked by glowing stones, even you can’t miss them, Twilight.”
The pair did nothing but watch as Red went to her alicorn subjects, wrapped them up in a scarlet aura, cat included, and then vanished in a flash of light. For several minutes neither Twilight nor Valiant spoke or moved. And when Twilight did she turned back toward the way Red had came and marched with heavy steps.
“Val,” Twilight said in a serious tone.
Valiant still couldn’t speak after the encounter with Red Velvet.
“You are forbidden from ever telling anypony about this encounter. Not even Maud or Trixie are allowed to know that we met with Red Velvet tonight.”
Valiant didn’t speak but she nodded grimly. After all the best that could be hoped for if this ever got to light was that she would be grounded from ever seeing Twilight again, though much more likely, Trixie and Maud would move as far away from Twilight as possible.
It was better to move on and pretend this never happened.
It took a few minutes, but Twilight’s anger subsided into cold fear. She’d just met with and survived an encounter with one of the most dangerous threats to Equestria. Even Valiant was shaken up by it, and she was usually quick to recover from anything. Then again, Valiant was just as close to this problem as Twilight was.
Twilight was felt like she needed to say something, anything really to lift the dark mood. Of course nothing came to mind. So she looked ahead. Queen Red could have been wrong, but if she wasn’t than the Seekers Archive would be just ahead of them. Though exactly where was a question in and of itself.
There were several boulder sized versions of the glow rocks. Their soft blue illuminating light combined into something bright enough to be a campsite. It was impressive to witness, and Twilight was sure that Maud would have loved this place. The boulders were larger than Twilight was tall. Twilight moved through them, Valiant by her side.
Each one of these glow rocks had markings on them. Carvings, some of them were from unicorn couples writing their names inside hearts, others were less dignified. There was one boulder in particular that had a carving of book with an eye on its cover. The sign of the Seekers. Twilight began pacing around the boulder, Valiant followed her as well.
On one side of the boulder there was a section of rock, roughly the size of a pony that wasn’t glowing. It was rectangular in nature, but the fact that it wasn’t glowing was odd. Twilight stared at this and even if the rock formations seemed familiar to one another she couldn’t figure out why this part wasn’t glowing. A message was written above the stone door.
“How goes the search for truth?”
Twilight blinked. “What is this? Some kind of code? How am I supposed to know the answer to that?”
Valiant stepped up beside her. “You aren’t, this place is for seekers, not for us.”
“Then how do we get in?”
Valiant smiled, she spoke loudly as she faced the door, “Ever seeking.”
“What does that-“
The non glowing section of the boulder slid down into the earth with a grinding noise. Behind it Twilight found a staircase leading down, glowing rocks in all the colors of the rainbow lit the way down. Valiant beamed as she took the first step into the staircase. Twilight couldn’t believe it, they had not only hidden the archive inside a giant glowing rock, but they had a rainbow staircase leading down into it. Her heart couldn’t take the excitement but Twilight followed Valiant’s example and went down the stairs.
They walked among the chromatic lighting for several minutes. Further and further down they went, yet Twilight was beginning to suspect that something was actually wrong. It didn’t seem like there was any end to these stairs no matter how far down she looked. Still they pressed on. It was only after about twenty minutes in that she finally spotted the exit. An old wooden door painted blue.
Twilight and Valiant couldn’t help but to throw open the door and gallop through it. The door opened up to reveal a valley with luscious blue grass glowing softly. The mountains rising all around them stood like protective barriers against the outside. The old temple standing in front of them was casting friendly orange light as it stood there. Pillars lined an old gray earthen path toward the temple.
“W-what?” Valiant said as she nearly galloped into the field. “We went down, not up? Why are we outside again?”
Twilight looked up at the sparkling stars ahead, they looked different somehow and she had a hard time recognizing any of the patterns. All save for one particular orb that was floating above them. Its darkness was outlined with a ring of burning light, though Twilight could make out the green continents, and the deep blue oceans on the orb. Her heart lodged in her throat as she stared in wide eyed wonder.
“That’s… Equestria,” Twilight all but whispered.
Valiant looked up and her eyes widened. “No, it can’t be! W-where are we then?”
Twilight pawed at the gray earth, examined the gray mountains surrounding the valley, and tried to place where she’d seen the blue grass before. She’d seen that grass once before, in a small village hidden deep within a cursed forest. The town itself was known as Hollow Shades, otherwise known as Luna’s town.
“We’re on the moon,” Twilight said in disbelief.
“You… you’re kidding,” Valiant said. “That’s the exact opposite direction than down.
A laugh escaped Twilight’s lips. “We didn’t go down, or up, we went through a portal! That staircase was just a slow moving portal, a bridge between two places in space and time. I-I’ve heard of such things, the Rainbow Bridge of Nhorse mythology for example was said to bring ponies between the worlds. This… this is amazing!”
Twilight galloped toward the temple, Valiant followed her. Now Twilight’s heart was racing for entirely different reasons. “We discovered a Rainbow Bridge, it’s magical architecture once lost to our kind. If the Seekers could build something like that, than perhaps we can glean the secrets ourselves. Think of all the magical potential; pocket dimensions, teleports, even lost historical texts. This is a dream come true!”
Twilight reached the large double doors of the stone structure. The doors were made of a dark oak. They were easily thrown open as Twilight took her first step her breath was stolen away by the sight. Books, hundreds of thousands of books lined just this massive entrance way alone. Doors led in three different directions, multiple stories all stacked with books, and staircases leading up all went to make Twilight dizzy.
A pedestal stood in the center of the entrance hall and blinked to life. A transparent pony appeared next to the pedestal, he wore glasses and had a green coat with brown hair. He smiled at the two.
“Welcome,” he said kindly. “This is the Seekers Archive, and it has been so long since we’ve had any guests. I was beginning to think we’d been lost in time and space, though my last guest had assured me that this was not the case. He and his assistant were quite interested in learning all they could here, and it was nice to aid them. Though that was years ago. Now I can help you, what would you like to learn?”
There was a sweeping energy behind Twilight, and she spun around just in time to watch a shadow fly past her and into the entrance hall. It was easily lost behind one of the doors. Valiant was watching the shadow with great interest.
Meanwhile Twilight saw the one pony she did not want to see ever again. The cloaked alicorn was standing in the dirt road, between the pillars. Twilight drew her Star Blade without hesitation before glancing down at Valiant.
“I will take this mare, you go inside and find any books on the Guardian Hearts,” Twilight ordered Valiant.
Valiant nodded and then looked back at the door with the shadow. “I’ll do my part this time.”
Twilight smiled. “Good luck.”
Valiant ran off to the door and quickly disappeared. This left Twilight to go and meet her opponent in the middle of the road. White stone pillars lined either side of them. Twilight faced her opponent and her alicorn opponent faced her.
“So, you managed to find this place,” the cloaked mare said sadly.
“It is mine, and I won’t let any harm come to it,” Twilight defended.
“The knowledge here would destroy you,” The mare’s horn began glowing with a faint golden light. “So it must be destroyed before it can do more harm than good.”
Twilight pointed her blade at the mare. “Not this time, book murderer.”
***
Valiant galloped through the door and into a long wide room that was at least four stories high. Platforms above her lined the bookshelves which created massive walls. Hallways were created by these shelves and Valiant realized with sudden horror that she was looking at a labyrinth of a library. The crystals set into the wood work of the books gave various shades of light, along with the blue light on the floor allowing her to see.
Valiant took the first few nervous steps forward. This place was amazing, wonderful, and terrible at the same time. If not for the threat of that shadow, which she recognized as being Shade, she would have found the temptation to read these ancient texts to be impossible to ignore. Still she pushed past all the knowledge and looked for any signs of where Shade could have gone.
In her very being she could still feel Boulder’s presence. The light he brought into her was strong, and full. They were just waiting for an opportunity to use their powers, and this seemed like opportunity enough. Of course this time she wasn’t sure how to stop Shade, other than by fighting him.
“Our mission isn’t to fight, it’s to get those books for Twilight,” Boulder explained.
Valiant got to an intersection and looked left and right. “I know that, but if we do find Shade we can’t let him just do whatever. That alicorn he came with is planning to destroy the library, so he must be up to something just as evil.”
“It is true that we may very well be the only ones that can stop him, but you must ask if it is worth it.”
“To help Twilight, yes it is.”
The light crystals to her right were dim compared to the rest of the library’s fantastic lights. Remembering how Shade had darkened the halls in Twilight’s castle before was pretty much all she needed to go on. She went right and walked toward the darkened crystals. Following the darkness like a trail of breadcrumbs proved to be quite easy in fact, perhaps too easy.
She eventually turned down a section of books that looked different. Most of these books were either in black leather, or white leather, creating a checkerboard pattern along the shelves. When Valiant took a peek at some of the titles she nearly stopped. The history of Celestia’s ponies, Umbrum’s Revenge, The Will of The Wisp.
These were just some of the titles here to be had. Valiant grabbed at the last title she read, it had wisp in the title so it must have been important. Skimming through it for a moment it looked to be a fragmented journal all about the wisp ponies. Of course that wasn’t all there was. She also found a book called, ‘History of the war between light and shadow volume three.’
Valiant pulled that one off the shelf as well and opened it up to a random passage.
“The war was looking grim, the alicorns fought the demon hordes to a standstill but yet they could not beat them. The demons were merely too powerful, and too dangerous to be stopped. The demons were as cunning as they were cruel. They made a pact with the Umbrum to join forces against the hard lined order of the Alicorn Empire. Which in tow prompted the Wisp to join forces with the Alicorns. The Wisp did not approve of the Alicorn way of slavery, but they could not allow their eternal enemy to gain an upperhoof. Like cats and dogs, the Umbrum and the Wisp fought on the already blood soaked battlefields. The war had gone from angles and demons to being about light and darkness itself. In the end it was looking like all of the world would be destroyed at this point.”
Valiant stopped reading for a moment. It sounded like the Umbrum and the Wisp were long time enemies, but that didn’t make her feel any better about the idea of fighting Shade. In fact it raised a question she had yet to ask. If he was the last of the Umbrum, and she was the last of the Wisp, where were all the rest of them.
The crystals all around her went out completely leaving this section dark. Shade’s voice came out cold, and harsh. “So you’re curious about the Umbrum as well?”
Valiant stood up and looked around. Even with her body casting white light around her, she couldn’t see Shade anywhere. “I was more curious about the Wisp.”
“…”
“That’s what I am after all,” Valiant admitted. “You’re umbrum, and I’m wisp right? I have never even heard of my race before a couple days ago, and I’ve never met the umbrum.”
“That’s because their dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
His voice was a little softer. “Not just the umbrum. Everypony is dead. Umbrum, wisp, whatever you wanna call them, they died fighting each other. For years their descendents would hunt one another like game. Sometimes the Wisp would have the upperhoof, other times the Umbrum. Finally they just all died. I only live because my father trapped me in a time vortex and put me into the future. As for you… I don’t know why you’re here.”
Valiant shook her head. “I don’t either. Maybe it’s because you are.”
“So you only exist because I do, and vice versa?” He asked, his voice was close. She could almost feel his cold breath on the back of her neck.
“I suppose so, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing, does it? If we’re the last, shouldn’t we fight to live, not to kill each other?” Valiant said.
“I never wanted to kill you, I still don’t.”
“Than what are you doing here?”
“Stopping your teacher from making a huge mistake, though I’m probably far too late for that now. I can only do my best to destroy this library. So get out of here and I won’t have to fight you.”
Valiant’s muscles tightened. “I won’t let you bring harm to this place.”
“So be it.”
Valiant looked up and saw a dark shape heading straight for her. With just a few inches of breadth she rolled out of the way as Shade landed on the ground beside her. His eyes were almost glowing red as he reared up on his hind legs, his horn shone black, and shadows reached out for Valiant’s body.
She jumped back and her rear hit a shelf. There was not enough room in here to dodge properly, but she could do something to help fix that handicap. Valiant filled her heart with light. Building it up into a painful ball inside her chest. The shadows circled her, growing closer by the moment. Just when Valiant felt like she was about to burst she loosed the light all in one blast.
Shade screamed as he was physically thrown against the bookshelves. Books tumbled down around him, some pelting him on their way down. His foreleg was burning with white fire, but the darkness had been pushed back and the crystals were vaguely glowing with light again.
Valiant moved carefully around him, positioning herself so that she could have room to jump back if she needed. She felt like a good chunk of her inner store of light was now gone, but she had hurt him and that was good enough for her. “Give up.”
He stood and cursed. “Like Tartarus! I spent my life being bullied, picked on, and beaten since I got to this despicable future. I am umbrum, I am the prince of the Crystal Kingdom, my future was stolen from me by a pretty pink mare and her generic husband!”
Valiant laughed. “And I lived on the streets. Eating out of the garbage when I got too hungry, and avoiding gangs of rapist. You have nothing on me, prince.”
He took a step forward. “At least I can fight.”
Tendrils of shadow jumped up from the ground at his hooves. Valiant ducked under the first one, but the second and third one wrapped around her forelegs. They burned black fire into her legs where they touched. She was picked up into the air and swung over Shade’s head. The tendrils released her mid throw so she went sailing down the aisle until she hit the stone floor and bounced. Her shoulder was in pain, but it was nothing compared to the burns on her legs. There wasn’t much physical damage, but she felt like it had burned at her very soul.
Shade laughed as he charged her. The tendrils whipping around him as though they had a will of their own. Valiant pushed herself up and stared down her attacker. She’d been hurt before, much, much worse than this. It was just a little burn.
Valiant built up the inner light again. Last time she was too far away from her target, this time he wouldn’t get that chance. As he approached she felt the light build up to its limit. She pushed past that limit. Her chest ached and she had to clench her teeth down hard to keep from yelling in pain. Shade reached her, the tendrils whipped down at her. Valiant jumped and tackled Shade, and although she couldn’t do more than budge him with her body, she loosed the light the moment she touched him.
She exploded.
***
Twilight faced the alicorn, sword drawn, eye glaring at the book killer. The alicorn stood her ground, bright orange mane nearly touching the ground. Even with her face mostly obscured by the hood of her cloak, Twilight could tell that the mare was staring at Twilight with a resolved look. Twilight had only faced off against alicorns of this size a few times in her life, there was Nightmare Moon who had more power than she had been able to handle at the time, then Chrysalis whom Twilight still couldn’t imagine fighting in a one on one match. If her previous experience had taught her anything it was that that she was going to have a hard time fighting this mare.
The alicorn took a step forward, and Twilight mirrored the action. They closed the distance to less than ten feet apart and faced one another. Twilight was careful to watch every movement, to feel for any building magical energies, and to keep her sword at the ready. The mare’s frown deepened.
“Twilight Sparkle,” the mare said in an authoritative voice. “Back down, now.”
Twilight stood her ground, but the tone of voice had hit her harder than she’d expected. It was like an old instinct to freeze and be fearful rose up in her. She pushed past that fear. “And let you kill all these books? Never.”
The mare’s horn flashed bright and orange flames erupted from the tip. Twilight brought up a bubble shield just in time. The flames danced around her, though they didn’t impact her shield with anything near the amount of power that she’d been expecting. Hooves galloped past Twilight as the flames eased around her. Twilight spun to see the alicorn making a run for the Archive.
“Not on my watch!” Twilight cried as she teleported. She landed in front of the mare and took a swing at the alicorn. The sword flashed brilliantly through the air, the alicorn reared up. The sword cut through the cloth and the tip came back red. The alicorn growled as her legs came crashing down upon Twilight’s head.
The blow caused pain to flash across her face and knocked her to the ground. Instinct kicked in, and before the alicorn could land a second blow Twilight teleported away, closer to the Archive. There was a small cut on the alicorn’s chest, the crimson stained the bone white fur. Twilight’s face didn’t feel much better, she was sure there was going to be a bruise at least on her cheek.
“I do not wish to fight you,” the mare said.
“And I refuse to allow you to burn anymore books.”
“Now that it’s been found it must be destroyed.”
Rage filled Twilight at the thought of more precious books being killed by this evil mare. Magic filled her horn and Twilight screamed. “Destroy this!” A blast of red energy flew from Twilight’s horn and washed over the alicorn.
For a moment Twilight was sure she had landed a direct blow. Then she saw the flaming sphere that had formed around the alicorn. The attack had managed to blow back the mare’s cloak and knock her hood back. As Twilight’s spell left she was able to clearly see who was standing before her. Twilight’s eye widened in horror at the revelation, but quickly burned as tears fought their way to the surface.
“Why? Why would you try to ruin this for me?” Twilight shouted.
Celestia gave Twilight an apologetic look as her hair returned to its normal sherbet colors. “I’m sorry.”
The cold room smelt like blood and worse. Valiant’s entire body was in wretched agony. There was so much pain. It was more than anypony should have been able to live through. Half her face was swollen, she couldn’t even open her eye anymore. Then there was her broken leg.
Those evil mares had taken her, and, and… Valiant wasn’t even fully capable of understanding what they did to her. She just knew it hurt and that they laughed about it. Especially at the blood. Valiant knew she shouldn’t be bleeding from there.
Still none of this compared to the pain in her heart as she watched those evil monsters of ponies take her cat, and her kittens. Put them into a potato sack. The poor little creatures mewed as they tried to find the way out. The leader, the mare known as Frailty took a baseball bat to the sack. There was horrible shrieks for a second, and then there was just the wet sound of the bat hitting a sack of meat.
They made Valiant watch everything.
Was this what they did to Trixie when the brave mare sacrificed herself to save Valiant? Maybe Trixie didn’t have the cats, but she did have the other parts. This was where she died. In a little room, with both her body and spirit broken. Yet she didn’t fear the prospect of dying here, she actually found solace in it. Death would free her from this terrible life. At least than she might be with her kittens again.
There was a gasp from the doorway. Valiant’s good eye opened a crack and she saw a new mare, one with gray fur and a dull gray purple mane. The mare’s eyes were impossibly wide, her mouth agape. It took a moment but the mare collected herself and marched up to Valiant. She couldn’t move away, all Valiant could do was twitch as the mare got to her. She expected to be hurt again, but instead she felt gentle hooves pick her up. The new mare was cradling her in her forelegs. Outside Valiant heard a familiar voice, one she thought she’d never hear again, she heard Trixie.
“Am I dead?” Valiant mused.
The mare replied in a voice so gentle it was like porcelain. “No, me and Trixie came here to rescue you.”
Valiant closed her eye and as a song began to fill the room she felt herself falling back into unconsciousness. If Trixie was really here, then she was safe, she was finally safe.
***
Valiant opened her eyes and looked around. The library was quiet, her body was burning with pain but her insides and her leg felt fine. She could also see out of both of her eyes. Still she felt wet tears running down her face. That dream, that memory was the one thing that had haunted her for the last eight years. She now understood what those mares did to her. She had been beaten, broken, and raped. Nopony beside Trixie had understood how this made her feel, yet Trixie still seemed to handle it better than she did.
However, that last bit, the part involving Maud and Trixie. From even the first moment she met Maud, the mare was trying to take care of her, to keep her safe, to help her. Valiant had forgotten how hard it must have been for Maud to find her in that condition, and how much Maud would never want to see her hurt again.
Valiant made a promise to apologize to her mom the moment she got home.
“Are you okay?” Boulder asked quietly.
Valiant pushed herself up and looked around. The aisle was littered with books now. “Oh, yeah… I exploded.”
“That was more power than I thought we were capable of, though it’s left me feeling pretty drained.”
Off in the distance Valiant spotted the limp form of Shade lying amongst a pile of books. “Did I win?”
“I don’t think he will be moving again.”
Cautiously Valiant approached the downed stallion. Her heart was almost cold as she examined the wounds on him. Half of his face was burned, even over his eye. His foreleg was bent in the wrong direction, and burn marks covered his entire body. He might live, but he’d never be able to walk right again, and he might have lost the ability to see as well.
Valiant looked down at herself, most of her wounds were already healing from the attack. “I didn’t know I could heal myself.”
“It takes more energy to heal yourself than others.”
Shade’s wounds were not healing. Valiant didn’t look away from him as she asked, “Can he heal?”
“Not like you. He’s an umbrum, a creature of shadow and night. Healing is the opposite of what he does.”
Valiant reached over and gingerly touched him. The mere contact burned her. She pulled back just an inch and closed her eyes. “I don’t want to leave him here like this.”
“Healing him will take what little energy we have left? He might just get up and attack us.”
Valiant smiled. “True, but if I left him like this… I can’t.”
She found the light inside of her and forced it through her hooves. For a split second she worried that maybe her healing arts would hurt him, but as her inner light was cast over Shade’s body she watched his wounds reverse. She couldn’t take care of everything, so she focused on the two problem areas first. His eye and his leg. It took nearly a full minute but when she was done the leg was back to a normal position with the bones fused back together, and his face was merely bruised with a few very minor burns.
After that she turned and walked away. Her movements were sluggish and her legs weak yet she was confident that she’d done some good here. Now she just needed to find that book for Twilight and her mission would be complete.
“You,” Shade’s voice called out.
She glanced back at him as he pushed himself up off the ground. It was clear that he was in pain, but he looked at her with determined eyes. “You healed me.”
“Yes,” She replied flatly.
“Why?”
Valiant looked away and continued walking. “I don’t have to answer that.”
Shade simply stood there for a moment longer looking angry. He then laid back down and laid his head flat on the ground. “Whatever, I’m done here anyway.”
Now Valiant was off to find any books on the Guardian Hearts.
***
It was unthinkable. Twilight stood there mouth agape as Celestia only offered her a regretful stare. To think that Celestia was the one who had destroyed those books, set up a trap for both herself and Valiant and even sent the thief after them. There were so many questions that Twilight had, but she settled on the most important one.
“Why?” Twilight asked, unable to hide the pain in her voice.
“The knowledge in the Seekers Archive is dangerous, Twilight. They know secrets that had been lost for a millennia, things that should never be allowed to escape here. It is the very same knowledge that if the likes of Queen Red were to obtain we’d lose the war before it even begins.”
“We are not at war though! The Alicorn Empire took off somewhere and left us.”
Celestia smiled, that condescending smile that always managed to make Twilight feel both stupid and guilty at the same time. “Red will not stop until I am dethroned or dead. I’d offer up my throne freely if I believed she would respect that decision. Instead now I fear that she has dug herself into a hole, one that she cannot get out of. Soon we will be at war, and it will be unlike any we’ve faced before. We can’t allow this knowledge to get to her empire.”
“Well she already knew where the archive was,” Twilight argued. “I suspect she already has whatever she needed from here.”
Celestia walked forward. “So you’ve spoken to her.”
“She was taking some of her youth back to be punished after they attacked us,” Twilight said. The memory of that encounter still left a stain of fear on her.
Celestia walked past Twilight. “That’s not what I’d expect of her… Still, this place must be burned. These secrets would destroy us, our very existence.”
Celestia’s horn took on a golden glow. “I’m sorry that you have to bear witness to this. I know how much you love your books.”
A fireball launched from Celestia’s horn slamming into the doorway. The doors were thrown back and off their hinges. Celestia began walking once more, a look of determination across her face. “Do not worry though, I will make sure your filly gets out safely before setting things right.”
Twilight blinked. She looked at the doors, the flames burning over the steps, and at Celestia’s horn. There were so many things for Twilight to consider. She needed the knowledge that was located inside here to find that prophesized pony, the mare who was to be her next apprentice, and to stop whatever dreadful event was coming. Valiant had been wanting to find this place for so long now, it was her dream to follow in the Seekers hoofsteps. Not to mention that there were records here that could never be replaced, bits of history that had been lost for so long now. Twilight had made a vow to protect and serve Celestia, but she’d also sworn her own allegiance to history itself. She had to ask herself, what would Starswirl have done in her situation.
He would have done some awful things. Of that Twilight was positive, but could she do the same? Could she even raise her sword against Celestia? Twilight knew that she couldn’t’ kill her old mentor, but neither could she allow Celestia to destroy this most holy of places. There was only one thing Twilight could do then.
“Stop, right, there!” Twilight demanded as she threw her sword aside.
Celestia stopped and looked back at her. “Twilight, words will not stop me.”
“No, but I know what will.”
“You wouldn’t hurt me.”
Twilight screamed in frustration as she realized that Celestia was probably right. Every muscle in her body was burning from the need to keep these books safe and to serve Celestia. Celestia was the ruler of Equestria, and Twilight swore and oath to serve Equestria when she became a Princess. Now she was about to buck that promise in the face… or was she? Surely saving the Seekers Archive would only go to help Equestria in the long run. Celestia was simply wrong and too stuck in her old ways to realize this. Twilight had sworn to serve Equestria, and perhaps right then the best way to do it was to force Celestia’s hoof in this matter.
Twilight cleared her throat as she stared down Celestia. “I challenge you to a magic duel. If I win the Archive stays safe under my protection and guidance. If you win, you may destroy it.”
Celestia blinked and turned around. “Twilight, you cannot be serious.”
“I am dead serious, this place could help us win the war with the alicorns. It could save us. You can’t destroy it.”
Hearing the truth of Twilight’s words made Celestia narrow her eyes. “Do you honestly believe you could win in a magic duel against me? In a real duel, not some fillies game?”
Twilight knew very well the rules of challenging royalty. It would be a fight, a deadly and dangerous one. Nopony would be killed, but that hardly mattered when Twilight was already a crippled alicorn.
“You’re serious,” Celestia said. Her body hardened as she walked back towards Twilight. “You would betray me, betray us, for some dusty old books?”
“If they were merely dusty old books you’d not wish to destroy them,” Twilight said, her heart was beating faster than ever before.
“So be it.” Celestia said as she took her position facing Twilight. “It is customary for the changed party to get the first move.”
Twilight swallowed. There were strict rules to duels between royalty. Basically it was a game of catch. One party would fire a spell, the other would defend. Then the opposite party would fire a spell and the original party would defend. Twilight had gotten a lot of practice in with Starlight in the past, yet it was never for keeps it was always just practice. Nopony was hurt, but in battles like this it would go on until one pony gave up, or was unable to continue fighting.
“Yes, it is,” Twilight agreed.
Twilight took on her battle stance as she faced Celestia. It felt like her hart was going to break right out of her chest. The skin on the back of Twilight’s neck was crawling. The battle hadn’t even started yet and she could feel sweat beading up on her brow.
Celestia’s horn began glowing, and never before had that golden glare looked more threatening than in that moment. “Very well, prepare thy self.”
The fireball launched faster than Twilight could see, in fact she only had a moment’s notice to bring her shield back up to full strength. The flaming missile exploded against her shield, though it was weaker than most of Starlight’s attacks, and Twilight was easily able to defend against it. That didn’t make her feel better though, because Celestia wasn’t serious yet, she was simply testing Twilight’s defenses.
Twilight swallowed hard. It was now her turn to strike her teacher. A lump of led formed in her stomach as she prepared the laser spell. An attack against Celestia, any attack, big or small was a grievous sin in Twilight’s opinion. But then again so was the destruction of books. It hurt, it felt like she was violating everything she held sacred as her horn took on a pale red aura.
“Celestia,” Twilight whispered.
“Do not give up now, Twilight. You’ve already made your challenge, now stand for what you believe in,” Celestia said.
Twilight fired the laser. It flew true and hit an invisible wall that shimmered with golden light as the laser broke apart across it.
Much to Twilight’s surprise Celestia was actually smiling. “Very good, so you can attack me after all.”
Now it was Celestia’s turn again, and she fired another fireball at Twilight. This one was stronger, but only by a bit. It was still well within Twilight’s capabilities to stop. “I was always afraid you would never be brave enough to challenge me, Twilight.”
Twilight frowned as she began charging her next laser, making it twice as strong as the last one. “Why does that matter?”
The beam flew out and slammed against Celestia’s invisible wall. It still did nothing to Celestia. “Because if you were merely a sheep to me, than how could I ever trust you to take command of the kingdom one day. You need to be able to make your own decisions and to stand up for what you believe is right and just, even if your loved ones don’t agree. You need to be strong enough to stand up against even those you love should the need ever arise.”
This time Celestia sent two fireballs streaming toward Twilight. Each impact was in different parts of Twilight’s shield causing her to split her focus. This was surprisingly more challenging than blocking one fireball, but neither one of the spells were very powerful. At least not considering what Celestia was truly capable of.
Celestia smiled. “You’ve gotten better since you were little. It is a shame that I never had any practice bouts with you. I’m glad you were strong enough to take on the challenges that were set before you.”
A flash of anger bit into Twilight’s voice as she replied, “Oh yeah, like sending me and my school friends on those missions?”
Twilight hit Celestia’s shield thrice as hard, yet it still didn’t affect Celestia in the slightest.
“Twilight, those were meant to test you and strengthen you so that you could become a princess. If you were to become an alicorn you needed to be strong.”
Celestia sent three fireballs this time. Twilight changed tactics and created a wall shield to block all of them at once. It worked better than the bubble shield. Still it taxed her to focus on that many targets at once.
“How could you even know that I’d become an alicorn? If the elements hadn’t turned me into one than I’d still be a unicorn, I’d grow old, I’d have kids, I’d… have the life I wanted.”
Celestia’s eyes widened and her mouth parted open as if to speak. That was when Twilight shot a laser at four times the strength. Maybe it was because Celestia was distracted, or maybe it was because she hadn’t been expecting Twilight to strike that hard, but Twilight was rewarded with seeing a few cracks spread in Celestia’s shield.
“Twilight, I thought you said you didn’t want kids,” Celestia said.
“That was true when I was filly, I had to raise Spike all on my own, I didn’t know how much it would hurt when all of my friends started having kids and I was left with a barren womb,” Twilight spat.
Celestia’s eyes hardened and she sent a torrent of flame down upon Twilight. This time Twilight brought up the bubble shield once more. The flames wrapped around her shield, beating at it, draining Twilight’s internal energy. The torrent was done after a moment.
“Twilight, I’m sorry. I should have asked you if you were okay. I would have offered you the chance to live as a normal unicorn if I could. You can still adopt,” Celestia said.
Twilight charged up her horn. “You’ve ruined my life. You wouldn’t even let me become a proper wizard. I spent so many years trying to make you proud that I didn’t realize that I wasn’t living for myself. By the time I did realize it, it was too late. My Tartarus damned sister can have kids because she’s the alicorn princess of sex, but I’m just as barren as you are because all I get is friendship!”
Twilight’s horn took on a second layer of energy. This time she wasn’t testing Celestia’s shield. She was determined to hurt her old mentor. When she fired the laser this time she watched as the beam split into three and hammered down upon Celestia’s shield. The first two caused massive cracks to split through it, the last one shattered Celestia’s golden wall.
Celestia blinked at Twilight and for a moment her mouth worked silently. She recovered quickly though and her face was set into a hard expression her eyes burned holes into Twilight’s soul. “So now you’re serious about this.”
Six fire balls flew from Celestia’s horn, and Twilight prepared her wall. The first one struck against the red energy wall with over twice the amount of force as the last one. Then two more hit the wall. Twilight shield was cracking and she realized quickly that she could not block all of them. The other two hit home hard and Twilight’s shield shattered on the impact. The last one flew at Twilight, and she had barely any time to roll out of the way. The explosion cast burning flames over Twilight’s side but she picked herself up quickly enough. The burning sensation brought dreadful memories of balefire, but Twilight wasn’t made fearful of fire for that, no she only grew angrier.
This time she poured every ounce of magic that her body had collected in it into her horn. Four layers of over glow covered her horn and she faced down Celestia. This was going to be the end of the challenge; she wouldn’t allow Celestia to get away with burning books this time. Twilight screamed as she unleashed her magic into a beam of crimson fury. It flew true and drilled into Celestia’s shield. The shield cracked, shattered, and Celestia ducked only moments too late. The beam lanced across Celestia’s cheek. It left a deep gash that bleed profusely instead of burning.
Celestia picked herself up and Twilight nearly collapsed. This was bad, Celestia was still fully capable of fighting and Twilight didn’t have enough energy left to even bring up a decent shield. While Celestia’s horn glowed, even taking on a second layer of magic as she poured more power into it than before, Twilight realized her only way of getting out of this in one piece would be to give in now. Yet if she did that, Celestia would simply go on to wreck the library while Twilight watched. That was a fate perhaps even worse than death itself.
Twelve missiles of fire were launched into the sky. Twilight stared at her incoming death knowing that she couldn’t defend against it. The energy hidden under her eye patch itched to break free. That was it, Twilight still had two days worth of alicorn energy stored up. Not enough to do anything too impressive, but more than enough to defend against something like this. Twilight threw off her eye patch and brought up another bubble shield just in time. This one was red lined with golden stripes. The fire rained down around her, explosions knocking blows into her shield. Her head throbbed as she continued holding up the shield. Each one only got worse.
When the explosions were over, and the ground and surrounding grass were on fire Twilight stood there staring at Celestia. She felt her legs shaking and her head was in agony. Celestia’s mane was tipped with orange flame as she stared down at Twilight with an unsympathetic gaze. It was clear that Celestia was still far from beaten, yet Twilight was already past her limit.
“Give up, Twilight,” Celestia said coldly.
“Never,” Twilight spat. She poured more alicorn magic into her horn. “I will not let you destroy these books so long as I still stand. You’re not taking this from me too.”
Celestia took a step forward. “You can’t continue. Face it, you’re beaten. All of your magic comes from the elements, as well as your friends. You can’t fight me with your own strength. Not when I’ve been soaking in sunlight for two whole days.”
Twilight’s face went white. “You… two… two whole days?”
“I knew that I might encounter some resistance. I just didn’t expect that you would still fight me knowing who I am.”
Twilight lowered her head and closed her eye tight. “I… no… no! I can’t let you do this. I have to win.”
“Then make your move,” Celestia demanded.
Twilight blinked the tears out of her eye. How could she have been so foolish? Of course Celestia would have been preparing for a huge fight. She knew the extent of Twilight’s power better than most ponies. She was able to even take on and defeat the likes of Chrysalis as well as the entire Changeling empire when she prepared for it.
More fire covered Celestia’s mane and Twilight knew that Celestia’s next move would destroy her. Twilight had only once chance, but even her alicorn energy was drained. There wasn’t much she could do to stop Celestia. Not like this, not now.
Twilight fired another laser at Celestia, and watched it fizzle out against that golden wall of Celestia’s. This was a hopeless battle.
Celestia’s mane was covered from head to hoof in fire now along with her tale. “Now it ends, Twilight.”
A wave of flames flew from Celestia’s horn washing over the ground and devouring the grass along its way. Twilight ran over to a pillar and hid behind it as the fire raced past her. The heat was too intense and burned at her flesh. The pain was enough to make her scream out.
“Come on, Twilight.” Celestia said as the flames died down. “Give up. You’re already out of magic, now you can’t even attack me.”
Twilight licked at the burns on her legs, but it didn’t help. Then she saw her sword right next to her. It wouldn’t do much for her to fight with, but it did have one ability that if she could survive long enough would help. It would all but ruin Celestia’s magic.
The alicorn magic was all but gone in her eye from using it to shield herself from that barrage. Her normal magic had been drained on that one attack that Celestia had luckily dodged. The only thing Twilight could use to hurt Celestia without breaking the rules would be a magical attack, but using her sword to disrupt Celestia’s shield wasn’t against the rules.
Twilight stepped out from behind her place behind the pillar. The sword was barely held aloft by a fading telekinetic aura. Celestia smirked at Twilight. “You know you can’t use that to stop me.”
“I can’t attack you with it, no,” Twilight said. “But magical accessories are allowed to improve one’s chances of winning.”
“But if you don’t have any magic left to fight with, how could you win against me?”
Valiant appeared from the busted doorway. Her saddlebags were full of books. So at least her mission was complete, still it didn’t help Twilight any unless…
“Val,” Twilight said. “Do you have any magical energy left?”
Celestia looked behind herself and glared at the filly. “Oh, it’s you.”
Valiant looked between Celestia and twilight with growing worry. She quickly galloped across the field to Twilight’s side. She looked up with wide eyes that didn’t match in color. “W-what?”
“Do you have any energy left?” Twilight asked.
Valiant shook her head. “N-not enough to fight. I c-cant even heal anypony now.”
Twilight frowned. “That’s-“
A shadow from behind one of the pillars stepped out and formed itself into a stallion. Shade stared at Twilight and Valiant. “You need more energy? Heh, I got some to spare.”
Celestia glared at him. “What are you doing?”
Shade walked over to Twilight, his black aura covered Twilight’s horn. “It’s the least I can do to repay that filly.”
Twilight felt the magical energy transfer into her filling her up. It wasn’t much, in fact it was pretty low compared to what she was used too, but it gave her a shot. Shade walked past the two and toward the blue door leading out of here and back to Equestria. “I’ve had enough with this mission. You can keep the rest of your money, Celestia.”
Twilight faced Celestia once more. “It’s not against the rules to have proxies for refueling.”
“It is not, but it is looked down upon,” Celestia said.
“Don’t care,” Twilight said. “Because it’s my turn.”
Twilight poured all the magic she had received into a new spell. Her aura was darkened severally by his magic. Twilight smiled, held her sword aloft, and charged. Celestia stood her ground, and built her shield up. It became a transparent wall of gold bricks, and the power emanating off of it was impressive. Still Twilight charged.
Twilight’s blade swung down upon the wall, and found resistance as the blade jaggedly cut through the shield. The shield faltered and then failed altogether, Celestia jumped back out of sword’s reach but it wasn’t Twilight’s sword she had to be worried about. Twilight shot a beam of black red energy at Celestia. It struck her horn and Celestia shrieked as her horn was burned.
Celestia thrashed her head left and right. “What did you do?”
Twilight took a few cautious steps back. “I followed in Chrysalis’s hoofsteps.”
Celestia glared at her. “MY TURN!”
Celestia’s horn sparked. She scowled and it sparked again. A scream of rage escaped Celestia and yet again her horn merely sparked. “You injured my horn!”
Twilight made sure there was a good distance between them as she grinned. “Does that mean you’re unable to continue fighting?”
Celestia frowned. “You…” She stomped a hoof on the ground but her hair was already loosing it’s flaming temperance. Soon she lowered her head and closed her eyes. “You win.”
Twilight sheathed her blade. “Your horn will recover.”
“Yes, but now I must stay true to my word. You… can take responsibility for the Seekers Archive now.”
Twilight looked up at her new library, and smiled. It was indeed impressive. More impressive than both the Canterlot Library and the Crystal Kingdom’s Library combined. Of course it wasn’t just hers and hers alone. She was going to share it with Valiant.
“Okay, Val.” Twilight said. “Shall we explore our new building?”
Valiant looked at Celestia and frowned. “I…” She shook her head and galloped over to Celestia’s side. Celestia gave Valiant a sad stare. After beckoning for Celestia to lower her head, Valiant hugged Celestia around the neck. Soft white light spread over Celestia’s horn, and although it didn’t do much Twilight did think the horn looked slightly less burned than before.
When Celestia pulled away she looked toward the blue door. “You’ll need to change the location of this place’s entrance.”
Twilight nodded and walked past her. “Yeah, I will.”
“Let me guess, you won’t be telling anypony where it is, even me,” Celestia said.
“Especially not you.”
“Twilight,” Celestia asked, her voice was full of pain, but not from her horn.
For a moment Twilight wanted to ignore her, but she didn’t she stopped and looked back to meet Celestia’s eyes. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry, I never meant to harm you. I still think you should destroy this place the moment you are done with it, or perhaps even before then, but I won’t make that decision for you. I can however apologize for all the pain I have put you through, all of it. I’m sorry.”
Twilight looked back to the Seekers Archive entrance. “I know you are. I’ll be able to forgive you one day, but not now.”
Celestia laughed, but it sounded more like a cry. “I guess I’ll have an eternity to make it up to you.”
Twilight and Valiant walked inside the Library. I guess you will.
A few days had passed since the discovery and saving of the Seekers Archive, and now that Valiant was completely rested and healed she was free to move around again. Of course when she came back home with a few burns and bruises Maud had been furious, at least until she saw what shape Twilight was in. Twilight had told Maud that she didn’t plan on going on any big adventures again, she forgot to mention that it was only until she was fully healed and done with the Archive.
Things with Celestia hadn’t really improved, she was hiding out at Canterlot Castle, and hadn’t even sent a letter to Twilight. Though, Valiant doubted that Twilight would want to see it anyway, given the circumstances. In fact Twilight seemed more obsessed with finding a series of spells that could completely change the entire make up of Ponyville Castle.
Valiant was just fine reading her own books, the ones about her own people. The Wisps had been a fair race using their medium abilities as well as healing arts to help ponies in need. Though they stood opposed to the goals of the Alicorn Empire back when it had ruled over the three primary pony races with an iron hoof, they never fought them. Apparently the Alicorn Empire didn’t even see the wisps as being equine, but rather saw them as being something above the normal races, perhaps their close relationship to death made the wisps somehow safe against the immortal gods perfect order.
As for the Umbrum she hadn’t found out much about them. Then again she didn’t care too much either. There was one umbrum still out there, and she could only hope that he might view her more as a friend than an enemy now.
The last thing that Valiant had to do now was talk to her mom. Seeing Maud stand in the kitchen as she washed dishes caused a lump to form in the back of Valiant’s throat. She finally came to terms with how much her mom cared, but she still hadn’t really made up for it.
Valiant cleared her throat before speaking softly, “Mom?”
Maud stopped washing dishes and looked back at her. “What do you need?”
“I…” Valiant walked over and wrapped her forelegs around her mom’s waist. “I’m sorry.”
Maud returned the embrace. “I forgave you the moment you messed up.”
Valiant rubbed her muzzle into Maud’s fur. “You guys came to rescue me. You held me and sang to me when I was hurt. You… you saved me. Of course you don’t want to see me get hurt, or for me to do dangerous things and I didn’t think about how you must have felt. I’m so sorry.”
Maud brushed a hoof through Valiant’s mane. “And I didn’t consider how much of a grownup you already are. Or how important learning about the wisps was to you. I’m sorry.”
For a moment the pair were silent before Maud asked in a near whisper, “Do you still need me?”
Valiant sniffled. “I’ll always need my moms, both of them.”
Maud tightened the embrace a little. “And I’ll always be there for when you need me.”
A knock at the door signaled Valiant’s appointment. She pulled away from Maud and trotted to the door. “Thanks, I’m going out with Sweetie to the diner. I’ll be home later.”
Maud smiled and wiped a hoof at her eye. “Be careful.”
Valiant opened to door to see Sweetie Belle standing there. Sweetie smiled brightly. “You ready?”
Valiant nodded. “Yeah, let’s go.”
***
Twilight had finally finished reading the book about the guardian hearts. But all she got from it was that there were at least four guardian hearts, each of which were responsible for raising a child that would one day alter the very fate of Equestria. Either for good or for bad. They tend to appear a generation before an extinction event. The last time they were reported was with the cat races of Saddle Arabia. Apparently Baast was one of them, she represented love and war from what Twilight could tell, though for some unknown and quite eerie reason she felt a deep connection to that cat.
Still even if the book didn’t help any, she did find a nifty magic spell that she had plans to put into work soon enough. She was going to transform her castle into something that was a little more… nostalgic. It was going to take a lot of energy though.
So while Twilight sat at her coffee table, taking the last sip of her morning cup of coffee and putting her book down she felt almost content. She was pretty sure what she was going to do with her immortality now. There was one thing she could offer this world that would be of value; her knowledge. Before she had taken on an apprentice because she saw no other way to help Starlight and it worked out for the best too. But now she realized that there was more she could do, she could teach others, become a teacher, or just take on a series of apprentices. And after that she could become a caretaker for the elements of harmony, keeping an eye out for the next group of heroes. Almost like Celestia had done, only Twilight had plans to not be a totally irresponsible jerk about it.
Of course that would all be for future Twilight. For now Twilight would just try to enjoy the friends she did have around her while they were still here to enjoy.
The knocking at the front door jolted her out of her thoughts. Twilight quickly went to the door, it was opened a crack and a book was wedged through the doorway. Gah, another late return. Can’t the ponies that borrow my books just face me? I’m not that scary.
She opened the door and-
Splash.
It was cold, wet, and smelled faintly of mildew. Twilight shook the bucket off of her head, looked down to see that the book was not actually one of hers, as well as being wrapped up in plastic to keep it protected from the water now dripping from Twilight’s soaking wet mane. Anger flashed through her as she looked around and spotted the little pink filly laughing her tail off next to one of Twilight’s bushes.
“YOU!” Twilight shouted.
The filly sat upright and blinked. It wasn’t a moment later before she dived around the side of the tree house in a gallop. This time Twilight was not letting the filly get away. She gave chase. Luckily being taller than most stallions allowed Twilight to easily out run the filly as she chased her to the backyard flower garden.
Twilight had just barely watered these flowers, so the earth was still wet when the filly went running through them. Little pink hooves trampled the daisies which were being reserved a special meal. Twilight was just about to reach out with her magic to grab the filly and stop her from destroying the rest of the garden when the filly tripped over one of the decorative rocks.
The air tightened as the filly fell. Magic was drawn in from everywhere around her, and Twilight even felt the pull at her own magic. The filly hit the earth and her entire body for just a moment burned white. Those lavender eyes burned with bright white light that was almost blinding and then fire erupted from her body in a circular wave that caught and utterly wrecked the entire garden.
Twilight simply stood there, frozen in a state somewhere between horror and amazement. The filly looked up, tried to move but collapsed back into the dirt. A trickle of blood ran down her nose.
“No,” Twilight said. “It… it can’t be.”
“I-I’m sorry,” the filly protested. “D-didn’t mean to. I can’t control my magic yet.”
Twilight shook her head. “You just exploded! With fire!”
The tree in the backyard creaked as it fell over, on fire.
The filly closed her eyes as if she was in physical agony. “I’m in trouble, so much trouble. Mom’s gonna kill me.”
Twilight approached the filly carefully. “You’re Trixie’s daughter right?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Thought so, Amber was your name?”
“Y-yes misses Twilight.”
“Actually it’s Miss Twilight, or because I’m a noble Lady Twilight. Misses would mean that I’m married and-“ Twilight stopped herself. “I’m getting off track. How often do you do… that?”
“It’s getting worse. Mom says that I need to learn control, but I don’t think she knows how to help me…”
Twilight looked up at the sky. Sure it was early morning and the stars were gone from the sky. Yet she had the funniest of feelings that there was one particular star looking down at her right now with a smug look on its dumb flaming face. Twilight did the most mature thing she could and stuck her tongue out at the star.
When Twilight looked back at the filly she received an awkward look. “What?”
“You’re weird.”
Twilight laughed. “And you’ve got mud on you’re cutiemark.”
Amber scoffed, “But I don’t have a cutiemark yet.” Amber looked down at her flank where a softly glowing mark of a lavender colored rose coiled by a ring of fire sat. Her eyes widened.
Amber swallowed. “I didn’t have one at least.”
Twilight smirked. “And I didn’t have a new apprentice either.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Twilight only grinned. “It means that I’m going to help you learn to control that power of yours, Amber.” And help stop Armageddon in the process.
