Sunset Shimmer is one of the most powerful unicorns in the world, but that won't help her when she's far from home and facing a danger explosions won't solve - diplomatic intrigue!
Saddle Arabia is a land of mysteries and ancient legends, and Sunset Shimmer sees it as a great place to escape from her mistakes for a while. What caused her to flee Equestria, and can she find a way to prove herself and win back the favor of the ponies she wronged?
More importantly, can she avoid starting a war?
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My name is Sunset Shimmer. For a long time, I thought I was the strongest unicorn in Equestria. It was something I could hold onto even when I didn’t have anything else. Hurt, lost, alone? You can still be the strongest.
I could write an essay on how little it ended up mattering. I could set most of Canterlot on fire, but I couldn't make ponies actually like me. The few ponies I'd somehow managed to trick or bully into being my friends probably didn't want anything to do with me.
After what happened in Canterlot, I couldn’t stay. I ran away with my tail tucked between my legs and hopped on the first boat out of the city. Cadance had been nice enough to give me her job, but I think that was only because she knew I was going to just up and leave on self-imposed exile no matter what. Giving me something to do meant she didn't have to worry I'd vanish and never be seen again.
So I found myself standing at the bow of a ship, staring out over the sea. The salt air stung my eyes and made my old wounds ache. The black cloak wrapped around me kept the sun off my flank and had a few subtle enchantments to keep me cool even in the blazing sun. When I could actually face Rarity again I needed to remember to compliment her.
I regretted not keeping up with my physical therapy. It had been a week on the ocean and I still hadn’t gotten my sea legs. Every wave that hit the ship made me rock on my hooves. Naturally, that meant when somepony tapped me on the shoulder, it almost knocked me right over.
The deck pitched under me and I overcorrected, stumbling the other way and slamming into the pony who’d tried to get my attention. I couldn’t control myself, fighting to avoid falling, and almost all my weight ended up on the hoof I’d accidentally planted right on the fallen Captain’s chest, pinning him to the deck.
He looked up at me like I was something out of his night terrors and shivered.
“What?” I snarled, sounding more annoyed than I was. I’d bitten my stupid tongue and grimaced in pain.
The Captain winced at my expression.
“I- I just wanted to let you know we spotted the lighthouse. We’ll be arriving at the Saddle Arabian capital tomorrow!” He winced again, looking away from my eyes. “W-we can try to speed up, but the shallows can be dangerous in the dark--”
“Do whatever you think is best,” I said, stepping back. “It’s your boat. I’m going to be in my cabin.”
I was halfway there when I realized I should have apologized to the stallion, but I was annoyed and my leg was aching and by the time it crossed my mind it was too awkward to go back and say something. I made a mental note to say something the next time I saw him.
The royal cabin was the finest on the ship and I really hated it. It had been designed with a certain pony in mind. If I tell you that every square inch was some shade of pink and there were heart-shaped pillows on the bed, you’d be able to guess who without me telling you and you’d be absolutely right.
There hadn’t been any time to change the decor since I’d taken the mission out of Cadance’s hooves at almost literally the last minute, so I had to put up with it. It wasn’t that I hated pink or anything. It was just… it was spending weeks in what was essentially somepony else’s bedroom. I felt like an intruder.
I collapsed on the bed and threw a lacy, embroidered pillow across the room.
Even the first time I’d lived at the palace I’d never had a whole room on a ship decorated in red and gold--
I bit back the thought before I could put more words to it. I wasn’t jealous. I wasn’t! I’d just never done anything like Cadance’s diplomatic work. There hadn’t been a reason to put me on a boat because I spent all my time in the library. I hadn’t cared about other ponies. I hadn’t been...
Worthy.
I groaned into the rest of the pillows. There had to be a dozen still on the bed. It was geological, strata of silk and lace that went all the way down to the Earth’s springy pegasus-down core.
“How many pillows does a Princess need?” I muttered.
The pillows refused to answer, so I got up and kicked a few more off the bed into a steadily growing pile that would be put back by some unlucky cabin boy later.
“Too early to sleep. Too sore to stand on deck.” I sighed. “Too lonely to avoid talking to myself.”
I rolled off of the bed and onto the landing zone I’d made with the cushions, then got to my hooves and started going through Cadance’s desk.
“There has to be some kind of actual work here…” I muttered, unrolling the scrolls that had been left there for her. Technically since I’d taken over, they were for me, so I was going to pretend the glowing praise and compliments weren’t for an absent party.
Saddle Arabia. Technically we were trading partners with them, though it was more about cultural exchange than anything else. They were an isolationist nation that traded very little with their neighbors, but by all accounts the Arabians were incredibly rich.
A long time ago ponies had known where that wealth came from. They’d had the best silver mines in the world, pulling seemingly endless amounts of the stuff out of the ground. Then they stopped, and all their mines were seized by the state. It had been more than a thousand years ago, but the quality of their work had been so good that ponies still remembered it.
One pony in particular remembered it - Princess Luna’s return had meant a surge in demand for silver. It was needed to outfit the palace, for the Night Guard, for her own jewelry. Right now, silver was worth more than gold in Equestria, and it had been Cadance’s job to sweet talk the Saddle Arabians into re-opening their mines and getting exclusive rights to feed Equestria’s need for the stuff.
On the one hoof, it seemed pretty pointless. There were plenty of metals that would basically look like silver and wouldn’t tarnish. You could put a good shine on tin and nopony would know the difference! Well, nopony except Luna.
That was the sticking point, really. Luna wanted it. It was a royal request. That was the one part of the mission I was happy about. Luna and I had a lot in common - we’d both made terrible Celestia-related mistakes, we’d both tried to kill each other, we both looked good in black.
If she wasn’t a thousand years older than me and we weren’t in some kind of weird awkward quasi-family dynamic I’d have seriously considered dating her.
No, you know what? That’s probably just me catching some new species of stupid from being around Cadance’s junk. If I wasn’t careful I’d end up like her and have an obsessive little notebook filled with potential romantic pairings for everypony around her.
I didn’t even want to think about what her entry for me must look like. I knew she’d been trying to set me up with ponies ten years younger than I was. Either she was really wrong about my taste or she was projecting something about her own type. If she didn't have a coltfriend already I'd suspect she even put herself on the list of potential candidates.
I tapped a pen against the desk and wondered if she had any notes on Luna.
A knock on the cabin door made me jump and kick the drawer close like a foal with their hooves in the cookie jar.
“What?” I snapped. I cleared my throat and tried to put a less threatening tone. “I mean, sorry. What is it?”
I pulled the door open with my magic, not bothering to cross the distance.
The cabin boy, whose name I’d never managed to learn, stood at attention like this was some kind of formal military review.
“We’re about to make port, Ma’am! The Captain wanted me to let you know!”
The poor colt looked terrified. I almost felt sorry for him. He’d probably signed up hoping he’d meet Princess Cadance, Equestria’s perfect teenage alicorn. Half the colts in Canterlot had a poster of her on their walls. That wasn’t an exaggeration - she’d sold signed copies as fundraising once.
I never got asked to pose for a swimsuit calendar.
“Let’s go up to the deck,” I said, grabbing my saddlebags.
“I can carry that for you,” he offered.
“It’s fine,” I said. I slipped them on under my cloak. “They’re not heavy.”
They weren’t heavy mostly because they were almost empty. I’d just sort of shoved things in without looking and I’d ended up with a clean set of socks, the novel I’d been reading, and a bunch of letters that I was sorely tempted to throw overboard. If I hadn’t found the documents on Cadance’s desk I wouldn’t even know where I was going or what I was supposed to do when I got there.
I still didn’t have a plan on how to convince them to open up the mines. The official documents had been short on details on the actual trade deal and long on the schedule of parades and events Cadance was supposed to appear at.
When we got up on deck I had to stop and shield my eyes. The sun was hot and bright and somehow distant, but the rest of the landscape made up for it. The ocean waves and white sand bounced the blinding light back at me even when I looked away from the cloudless sky. It was like being on stage with the spotlight fixed right in my face.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” the cabin boy asked.
I grunted, my eyes hurting too much to reply properly. It took almost a full minute for me to be able to see through the glare, and by then I was standing alone on the deck, the crew keeping as much distance from me as possible.
I’d read about Saddle Arabia in my studies. Even books a thousand years old and mouldering in the Castle of the Twins called it a mysterious and ancient land, a relic of another time. What they didn’t describe were the flawless white walls and the sprawl of buildings reaching all the way from the docks to the massive palace that loomed over the city like a mountain range.
“I just have to make a good first impression,” I said to myself. “Just don’t feather it up this time, Sunset.”
“I said get BACK!” I yelled, launching a burst of flames into the sky. The crowd screamed and scattered. The press of bodies around me turned into a stampede as panicking ponies ran in every direction including into and over each other in a mad scramble to get away from me.
I took a few deep breaths, trying to quell my own panic. All those ponies talking over each other and trying to get my attention and begging me for something I couldn’t give them. It had been too much like what happened in Canterlot.
Too much like what I was running away from.
“I suppose that’s one way to handle the beggars,” a voice said, with a clipped Manehattan accent. The retreating crowd broke like a wave on the shields of two ponies in the familiar gold armor of the Royal Guard, flanking a blue unicorn who looked less annoyed at me than he should have been.
“I’m--” I started.
He cut me off by clearing his throat and dramatically snapping a scroll open and reading the contents aloud. “Sunset Shimmer. Former personal student of Princess Celestia. Current status…” he trailed off and looked at me. “Mm. I’ve been informed you would be taking Princess Cadance’s place. I don’t agree with the decision but it wasn’t up to me.”
“Nice to meet you too,” I muttered. I didn’t bother offering my hoof to shake. I didn’t want to go through the motion when I knew he’d just sneer and say something snide.
“My name is Vuvuzela,” he droned over the crowd, which was slowly gathering again, though at a more tolerable distance than before. The guards flanking him pushed them back every time they got close. “I am the official ambassador and the pony in charge of the negotiations.”
That explained it. He was mad I came here to do his job for him. Maybe it was better Cadance wasn’t here. He’d have walked all over her.
“Great. You can fill me in on the details of the negotiations,” I said. “The reports I got weren’t really detailed.”
His expression brightened a little. “I would be happy to do so, once we’re at the embassy. I don’t think either of us would benefit from trying to shout over the beggars.”
I nodded in agreement. One of the guards trotted over to me and we started pressing back through the crowd, the armored ponies mostly keeping the horde at bay. Mostly.
“Alms for the ill?” asked a pony brave enough to press through the watching masses.
I reached for what little money I had on instinct, and the guard caught my hoof. He was young, probably only my age.
“Don’t,” he warned. “Don’t give them anything.”
“What? Why?” I frowned at him. The pony who’d broken out of the crowd coughed, blood splattering onto the hoof she used to cover her mouth.
“They’re all thieves and pickpockets. None of them are even sick!” The guard sighed. “I had my bits stolen my first day here by a pony who I thought was missing two legs. It was just a clever chair and a lot of acting. Everypony who comes here has a story like that.”
“But…”
“If she’s coughing blood she probably bit her tongue or had beet juice or something,” the guard said. “Just trust me on this one, it just encourages them and it makes it worse for the next pony.”
He pushed her back into the crowd, keeping his eye on her as we walked past.
I don’t think he saw the other pony, because he was so busy watching the sick mare.
Behind the crowd, a pony watched from the shadows near one of those smooth white walls. Our eyes met, and I could feel how strong she was. It’s a kind of instinct unicorns have - you can just tell if somepony is on your level. It’s kind of like how wolves figure out a pecking order, I guess, all instinct and posturing and not really being able to explain it in words.
That pony, whoever she was, was almost as strong as I was. It wasn’t something I’d felt very often.
“Are you okay?” my guard asked.
I looked back at him. “Huh? Yeah, I was just--”
The mare I’d locked eyes with was gone, vanished like she’d turned invisible.
“--nevermind,” I finished. “Let’s just get to the embassy.”
“Oh no, it’s fine, of course I understand,” I said, trying to force a smile.
“I was worried you’d be offended,” Vuvuzela said. “I’m afraid the news was delayed getting here. Naturally we already had this set up in advance and, well…”
The embassy was decorated lavishly. In shades of pink. All pink. My eye twitched. Balloons and a cake in the shape of hearts. A giant welcome banner with the name not-so-carefully covered up with a sheet and my own name hoof-written on it so sloppily I wasn’t sure if it was meant to be an insult or if it just turned out that way as an accident.
I wanted to burn it.
“So, maybe I could just get started with the work,” I said. Anything to change the subject.
“The work?” Vuvuzela looked confused.
“Writing a treaty?” I rolled my eyes. “Does that ring any bells? I spent the whole boat ride here with nothing to do except come up with ideas. I’ve got a few thoughts but I wanted to see your notes and see if we can’t crack the whole silver mine issue.”
“There’s no need for that.”
“No need for what? I’m here to negotiate the opening of the silver mine, aren’t I?”
“Princess Cadance was coming here for the ceremonial signing of the final treaty,” Vuvuzela said. “Didn’t you at least do the research on what you were being asked to do?”
“The final treaty? But, I thought we were going to go over the numbers and pricing…”
“That was all done weeks ago,” Vuvuzela said. “A treaty isn’t something done by one pony. Well, not usually. We had a lot of help with the math and presentations on this one.”
“Is that so.” Technically it was a question, but I couldn’t manage to put curiosity into my tone when I was so busy biting back frustration.
“Yes, apparently Princess Celestia’s student - sorry, I mean her current student - helped quite a bit. She came up with an agreement that was beneficial to all parties just when we thought we were totally stalled out.”
“Twilight’s helpful like that,” I muttered. “I bet she even came up with some kind of friendship lesson about what she learned about sharing and mediation.”
“Ah, you must be familiar with the mare,” Vuvuzela said. He smiled, and I honestly don’t know if it was an honest smile or if he was trying his best to make me angry because I’d messed up whatever plans he’d made by virtue of not being a perfect pink princess. “Would you like a copy of the friendship report? She sent us the forms in triplicate--”
“No,” I snapped.
“Could I get you a glass of wine, then?” Vuvuzela offered.
“Buck yes.” I winced and corrected myself. No harsh language. “I mean, yes, I’d love a bottle.” Maybe saying bottle was too accurate. “Glass. A glass of wine.”
He gave me a look. I was too busy staring at the banner to tell exactly what kind of look it was, but even in the corner of my eye I could tell it was the kind of look a diplomat wasn’t supposed to let slip.
A glass was offered, and I politely sniffed it.
“This is from Equestria,” I said, after a moment. “Cherry wine from the Dodge Junction area?”
“I’m surprised you’re familiar with it.” He left unsaid whatever he really thought, but that was half the job of diplomacy.
“Hard to forget. I’m not a huge fan of dessert wine.” I downed the glass. Better than letting it go to waste.
“Perhaps we can find something more to your liking,” he said. “I’m sure we have some neutral grain alcohol.”
“Isn’t that the stuff that makes you go blind?” I asked.
“I’m told it’s wonderful as a disinfectant.”
I looked at the decorations. “Sounds good.”
I tipped the bottle back, the searing liquid burning all the way down. Whatever this stuff was, it was from Stalliongrad, the label was in a language I didn't understand, and it tasted strong enough to kill a Yak. It was just about enough to start taking the edge off my anger.
“Just smile and shake hooves!” I spat. “No wonder Cadance was willing to let me jump on this sword for her. Anypony could do it!”
“You’re making a scene,” Vuvuzela warned. “Mister Sentry?”
The guard who’d escorted me to the embassy started towards me.
“Why don’t we get you to your room?” the guard offered. “You’ve had a long trip and I bet you could use a night in a bed that’s not tipping from one side to another.”
“Not nearly long enough! Why did I even bother coming if you’ve got everything wrapped up in a neat little pink bow?!”
“It’s important to have a government official here in a ceremonial capacity,” Vuvuzela droned. “It has nothing to do with whatever personal skills you may or may not have. I’m sure that you’re more than bright enough to have helped with the treaty, but that work is done and we are not going to reinvent the wheel just because you want to have a hoof in it.”
“I’m not--” I toss the bottle aside. It shattered in the corner and the guard took a step closer to me. “That’s not the point! I thought there was something important to do here!”
“If you can’t see that the ceremony and presentation are important in and of themselves, then you are sadly incorrect,” the ambassador said. “If you learned nothing else from Princess Celestia you should have learned that appearances are important. She does not, for example, throw temper tantrums because she is asked to be pleasant and polite for a short while.”
He really shouldn’t have mentioned Celestia.
I tore the banner down and crumpled it into a ball.
“Princess Celestia wouldn’t be insulted to her face,” I growled. “You can smile and pretend you’ve been so wronged because I came here instead of Cadance, but there’s a big bucking difference between her and me.”
“A great many differences,” he corrected.
“The one you should be worried about is that she’s a doormat who would bend over backwards to accommodate you. She’d blame every little thing on herself and worry herself sick over the details. I’m the pony who knows you had to take this banner down to cover up Cadance’s name and instead of leaving it down you decided to doodle my name on it just to remind me that you don’t think I belong.”
I threw it at Vuvuzela hard enough to knock him down.
“I’m going for a walk,” I said. “Go ahead and lodge whatever formal complaints you want with Celestia. You’re not getting Cadance, you’ve got me. If you want me to smile and wave, I’ll do it, but I’m not going to put up with being insulted.”
I stormed out of the room like I owned the place, even though part of me was screaming about how much I’d screwed up.
“At this rate we’ll be at war in a week,” I muttered, as I paced around the embassy garden, wedged in the space between the outer wall and the inner manor. “I can’t believe I screwed up already.”
“Don’t worry so much, sister. Old saying goes you only start being good at something by being bad at it first.”
There was a flare of light and fire. I put up a shield on instinct, but the pony in the shadows didn’t react, busy in the act of lighting a black cigarette. She was taller than I was, as slim as a supermodel and wrapped up in green and tan robes that covered her practically from collar to tailtip.
“Cloves,” they said. They didn’t have an accent like the Saddle Arabians. If anything she sounded like they had a trace of the upper-class Canterlot accent. “Sort of a bad habit, but the smoke doesn’t linger as badly as the other options. You want one?”
She offered the rumpled, half-empty pack to me.
“I don’t smoke,” I said. “You’re the unicorn I saw at the docks.”
She shrugged and put the cigarettes away in the folds of her robe. “You probably saw a lot of unicorns at the docks. There was quite a crowd.”
“You stood out,” I said. I lowered my shield. They didn’t feel threatening. Objectively, they were only about as strong as I was, and I guess I’d been spoiled by having to face down ponies an order of magnitude more powerful than that.
“I’m flattered,” the mare said. “I wasn’t sure I’d really caught the eye of the great Sunset Shimmer.”
I was immediately on edge, because she didn't sound sarcastic when she said 'great'.
“You know my name?”
She shifted the cigarette to the other side of her mouth, blowing a puff of spice-scented smoke. “Hard not to know. It’s on the lips of a lot of very important ponies. You haven’t stayed out of the public eye as much as you think, Sunshine.”
She winked, and I bristled. There was something untrustworthy about her, aside from the fact that she’d apparently broken into the embassy and there were no guards anywhere I could see.
“I didn’t catch your name,” I said.
“Did I forget to introduce myself?” the pony sighed, shaking her head. “I am so sorry, bad habit of mine. You can call me, uh…” she glanced past me to the wall. “Arch. Arch Standin’.”
“Really?” I raised an eyebrow.
“I’m wounded! Sounds practically like you don’t trust me when you haven’t even heard what I have to say.” Arch shook her head. “I swear, ponies these days. And here I wanted to do you a favor.”
“I don’t trust anypony who comes out of nowhere offering to do me a favor.”
“That's good,” Arch said with approval, nodding seriously. “How about this - I want to make powerful friends, and sister, you caught my eye like nopony else. I saw you and I thought to myself that here’s a pony who could use a new friend. Am I wrong?”
“I’ve got friends.”
“Not here. Especially not with that crowd.” She nodded towards the embassy. “How about I take you to a real party and we have some fun?”
It was a bad idea. Going alone somewhere with a stranger, when I didn’t even know the country and had zero friends within a thousand miles. In most other circumstances I would have said no. But I’d also had half a bottle of pure grain alcohol and that might have softened my hard edges just a little.
“No, no, I totally understand,” Arch said. “You came out here expecting to have to do a lot of work but instead you have to drink wine and attend parties. I can see why you’d be upset.”
“It’s not like that!” I kicked a rock out of the way. I wasn’t sure where it had come from. The street was covered in sand compacted down under a thousand hooves and the walls around us could have been built yesterday. I couldn’t see a dent or scratch on the stone. If it even was stone. The smooth finish was more like ceramic than worked stone.
Arch snorted and patted me on the back. I immediately checked to make sure I still had my bag of bits. “I’m just teasing you a little bit, sister! I can see you’re not the same kind of pony as Princess Cadance. You like to be involved in the nitty-gritty. Me, I’m the same way. I’m not afraid to get my hooves dirty.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. I kept glancing back. Something about the pony was making me feel like I was walking into a trap. Maybe it was the way she’d lured me out of the safe embassy and into what increasingly looked like the bad part of town, with trash shoved out of the way on every side. I swear at one point I spotted a skull.
“I guess part of me was hoping to meet Princess Cadance, but this is more interesting. Might work out good for both of us.”
“Right. So when are you going to tell me what this is really about?” I stopped walking, and Arch took a few more steps before she noticed and turned around.
“You got me wrong, sister. I just thought you looked like the kind of mare who wanted to blow the worst party in the city and find something a little more honest.” She winked. “That’s me in a nutshell. Honest and authentic.”
“With a name you picked out of a hat.”
“You know, my mother would be offended to hear you say that.” Arch sighed. “If you really wanna go back now I ain’t gonna stop you, but we’re almost where we’re going and the way you’re limping you might want to sit a spell and rest before you go.”
“Fine, but if it’s a trap…”
“You don’t seem like the kind of pony to fall for a trap. Besides, even if it is a trap, the best way to get out of a trap is to spring it, am I right?” Arch grinned.
“Or just… avoid it.”
She laughed and patted me on the back hard enough to make me stumble. “Avoid it! Hah! With everything I’ve heard you take things head-on. Even Nightmare Moon!”
That caught me by surprise. Sure, it had been impossible to keep everything that happened during the Summer Sun Celebration out of the papers, but as far as I knew Celestia had managed to spin it so hard most ponies only heard about Luna’s return and not anything leading up to it. “How did you hear about that?”
“I’ve got my sources. Don’t worry, I ain’t some kind of spy or nothin’. I just keep informed.”
“That’s pretty well-informed.”
Arch walked off, looking back over her shoulder at me. “Stick with me and I’ll pass on some nice little morsels. I can be a great friend. Trust me.”
It was uphill to our destination, but the slope was gentle enough that I didn’t really notice until Arch led me down sun-washed wooden stairs. Ragged boards lined the stairwell, holding back the sand that now loomed overhead.
“When there’s a big sandstorm it can dump a lot of grit on the city,” Arch explained. “The middle of the city, where all the rich ponies live? Streets are totally clear there. They shovel all of it to the edges and you end up with this, having to go spelunking to find the front door.”
I scraped sand off of the long-buried wall. Under all the sediment was a trace of paint, worn designs and swirls of color that I couldn’t quite make out. Where it had been sanded away, it left that pristine white stone I’d seen everywhere in the city.
“Why are all the buildings the same?” I muttered.
Arch knocked on the door, and it opened a crack, the pony inside peering out cautiously. Arch lit up her horn, providing a little more light in that dim hole.
“Hey! I decided to swing by to see how you were doing,” Arch said, her tone hushed like she was afraid she’d wake somepony up. “Heard a rumor that things went well.”
The door was thrown open, and the pony inside rushed out. I almost blasted them on instinct but they just pulled Arch into a hug, bangles jingling when they moved.
“Oh Mulberry, it is so good to see you! Come, you must come in!” The mare pulled on Arch’s hoof, leading her inside. Arch nodded for me to follow, so I kept close. Immediately inside the doorway were thick curtains, and the moment they parted, the sound and smell hit me.
Ponies were laughing, music was playing, and food was out in big shared dishes. It was a party, which at this point was almost the last thing I expected. Even the food smelled good.
“Mulberry, I don’t know what we’d have done without you,” the mare said. “Al’faras wouldn’t have made it through the week without the miracle you brought us.”
“That’s good,” Arch said, nodding. Or maybe her name was Mulberry. Or Jack, for all I knew. Whatever was going on, I was missing basically all of the context. “Hey, Sunset, why don’t you try some of the food while I go have a chat with the guest of honor?”
The bangle-covered mare giggled. “You are the guest of honor, Mulberry.”
“Nah, nah. I’m just a mare who was in a place to help. Al’faras is the one this party’s really for…”
They walked off and their voices were swallowed by the music and distance. I could have cast a scrying spell to listen in, but it seemed a little rude. Instead, I took a look around, trying to figure out what I’d gotten myself into.
The room wouldn’t have been out of place in Canterlot, tall arched ceilings and smooth stone and an abstract mosaic on the floor that had been covered by dozens of mismatched, threadbare rugs, overlapping where they were worn entirely through. It reminded me a little of the orphanage. The building had been massive and ancient and there’d never been enough furniture to fill up the space. A lot of rooms had just been foals playing house with scraps and garbage.
“W-would you like some food, Miss?” a foal asked. They’d gotten up to me without me even noticing. Just for a moment, she reminded me of Applejack's little sister, and it tugged painfully at something inside me.
“Maybe just a little,” I said. She smiled and led me over to one of the big dishes.
“You should try the chickpeas,” the foal suggested. “Oh! And the paprika jam! It’s so good on the naan!”
“Sure,” I said, getting myself a little of everything. It would be rude not to at least try it, right? The foal watched with amazement as I levitated a dozen bite-sized treats around myself, like she’d never seen a unicorn using magic before. “So my friend didn’t actually tell me what this party was for,” I said. “It looks like everypony’s having a fun time.”
“It’s a party for Al’faras,” the filly said. She looked across the room and I followed her gaze to where Arch was patting a young mare on the back and smiling. It took me a few moments to realize where I’d seen them before. The mare had been at the docks when I’d arrived, though she’d been a few shades paler and coughing up blood at the time.
“She looks like she’s doing better,” I said. “I thought she was sick.” Maybe that guard hadn't been wrong when he said she'd been faking it.
“She was,” the filly said. “But she got better! My mom says it’s because Miss Mulberry brought a wish to make everything okay again!”
“A wish, huh?” I didn’t want to just tell the filly this, but wishing magic wasn’t real. There was no such spell, no matter how powerful my guide was. Then again, with the ponies watching me eat, I got the distinct impression that most of them weren’t really familiar with even simple magic, much less anything advanced enough to actually cure a disease.
I took a bite without looking and spice filled my mouth, hot and sweet and fruity all at the same time. It made me think of Ponyville and hot-sauce covered cupcakes.
That shouldn’t have led me down a dark path that soured the taste in my mouth. I forced myself to take a bite of something else, focusing on the stuffed date until I wasn’t thinking about bouncing pink ponies.
“Could you get me some water?” I asked.
The filly ran off, and I gave the room a quick magical scan. Arch twitched a little when the beam passed over her, but nopony else even noticed it, the diffuse light of the spell barely visible in the room.
Immediately I felt it. A knot of something tying the supposedly-sick mare to the pony next to her. The way they held hooves I guessed they were lovers. That spell between them, though, it wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen before. If I had to describe it to the laypony, I’d tell them to think of a big, pulsing heart pulling the blood out of the healthy pony and circulating it into the healing mare.
It was invisible to the naked eye, but the power of the spell was enough that even after I stopped scanning I could feel a trace of it on my horn.
Arch started towards me when the couple stopped her, offering her a small, ornate silver box. Arch shook her head and pushed it back into their hooves, whispering something to them and laughing in good humor before she made her way over.
“So, you got a good look at it?” Arch asked, before I could say anything.
“It’s dark magic,” I said, bluntly. “The spell is fueling itself on that stallion’s magic.”
Arch nodded. “That’s one way to look at it. What do you think’s going to happen?”
I bit back my immediate reaction and considered it, working through my thoughts out loud. “He doesn’t seem to be in any real danger. It’s more like a transfusion than anything else. He’s probably going to be a little weak, like he has the flu…”
“But his wife is going to live,” Arch said, finishing my thought. “Transfusion is a good way to think of it. Glad I brought you along for a second opinion. You seemed like the right pony for the job.”
“Because I’m a scary witch who does black magic?” I guessed.
“Because you’re Tia’s favorite student!” Arch said, patting me on the back again. “Expert in practically anything. When I asked around about Sunset Shimmer, what ponies told me was that Sunset is a pony who knows darn near everything and never lets anything go until she’s got answers for the rest.”
“That’s not what they told you.”
“Well, it’s the third or fourth thing they said. The first thing was that I shouldn’t get involved, but that usually just means things are interesting.”
“I’ve never seen dark magic like that.” I glanced at her and did another quick scan. “And you didn’t cast the spell.”
“Shocking, I know, but despite the rumors I’m not secretly running everything behind the scenes.” She sighed and grabbed some bread, tearing into it and continuing with her mouth full. “Glad to know they’re going to be okay. They’re a cute couple.”
“So if Cadance had been here, would you have shown her the same thing?” I asked.
“Nah. She wouldn’t have ever left a party in her honor,” Arch said. “Princess Cadance is a soft touch, very polite. You know that better than anypony. Can you picture her drinking half a handle of vodka and yelling at ponies?”
“No, I--” I paused. “That was inside the embassy. How in Tartarus did you know about that?”
Before Arch could answer, the door slammed open hard enough to crash off its hinges. Ponies jumped to their hooves and magic surged to my horn before Arch smacked the tip hard enough to disrupt whatever spell I’d been thinking of casting.
“Not a good time or place for a spell-fight, sister,” she said. “Too many foals around. Come on.”
Arch pulled me into the maze of hanging sheets and curtains along the walls. The music stopped and ponies started yelling at each other, anger and confusion and fear mixing together into a wall of muffled sound.
I looked at Arch and she put a hoof to her lips, silencing me.
I glared at her and moved to try and get a look, peering through a gap in the wall of fabric to see what was going on.
Ponies in uniform were pushing their way through the crowd. I didn’t recognize the uniforms but I did recognize the way they trotted and looked at the ponies in the room. They barked orders I couldn’t make out through a solid inch of silk and shag and started forcing them up and out of the room.
“They got something like a zero-tolerance policy for black magic,” Arch whispered. “They’re not as quick as you on the uptake but they’ll figure out what’s going on soon enough. Only question is if they’ll execute the mare and her husband or just one of them.”
“Execute?” A chill ran down my spine.
“Maybe. This ain’t Equestria, sister. The death penalty is still alive and kickin’, and these two might get to see the bad end of it.”
“There’s no good end.”
“Hah. Got that one right.” Arch muttered. “So what are you gonna do? You gonna jump in there and save ‘em? You’re more than strong enough to do anything you want. Toss them aside like dolls, be the big hero. You know you want to.”
Part of me did want that.
But then I thought about the embassy. The treaty. All I had to do was smile and shake hooves. I had to not buck anything up. If I was caught, what would happen? It’s not like I was afraid of going to prison. They probably didn’t have a prison that could hold me. But being arrested would knock everything down like a house of cards.
They’d call off the treaty. Princess Celestia would have to show up to bail me out and try to salvage things. I’d be a huge embarrassment to her, again, and this time I couldn’t blame it on--
I pushed that thought out of my head. It wasn’t going to be like that. I was here because of what had happened in Canterlot, and that meant not making the same mistakes twice. I couldn’t afford to take action now.
“I didn’t think you were afraid,” Arch muttered. I looked back at a gaze that was disappointed, but not angry. Not even surprised.
I wanted to say I wasn’t, but the words caught in my throat, and a bead of sweat got into my eyes and I blinked before she did.
“Let’s get out of here before they notice us,” Arch said. She reached into her robe and extracted a few glass spheres the size of marbles, swirling with white and black mist. Before I thought to ask her what they even were, she tossed them into the room and they erupted into smoke.
Arch grabbed my hoof and dragged me into the haze. Somehow, she seemed to know where she was going, guiding me through the blinding smoke without slowing or doubling back. She must have had some kind of spell at the ready to let her see through the murk, the same way I kept fire resistance and basic protection spells active as protection against my own bad habits. Any pony whose first reaction to being surprised involved throwing a fireball didn't last long unless they took precautions against splash damage.
Steps were under my hooves and I stumbled at the sudden change, almost falling on my face as I was dragged out into the street.
And not the street we’d entered from.
“Where are we?” I whispered, trying to catch my breath. I’d held it the whole way, just in case that was some kind of poison gas.
“I don’t like going anywhere without at least one back entrance,” Arch said. She let go of my hoof and took out one of her black clove cigarettes, lighting it and taking a deep drag. “Got to admit I didn’t think the Aretic Order would find them so quickly.”
“You almost got me arrested!”
“Maybe,” Arch admitted. “Not part of my plans, though. I wanted this to be a nice fun night for you. Gotta admit I thought for a minute there you were gonna tear that place up and teach those jerks a lesson.”
“I don’t even know what this ‘Aretic Order’ is. I’m not going to start a fight when I’m--”
Arch waved me off. “Yeah, yeah. When you’ve got all of Equestria counting on you, right? I’ve heard it before. Ponies like to make all kinds of excuses instead of helping each other. Sometimes it’s that they’ve got family back home counting on them, or a duty to country or honor or something like that.”
“I just don’t want to mess up again,” I muttered.
“Ask the ponies who got arrested while you were watching if you messed up or not,” Arch said, and I looked down at my hooves, mouth dry. “You should be able to make your way back to the embassy from here. I’m gonna go see if any of the irons in my fire can pull strings or somethin’ along those lines.”
I didn’t look up. Arch got halfway down the block before she said anything else.
“You know, something a pony told me once is that you can’t learn unless you make mistakes. The trick is not giving up the first time you fail.”
“And the other trick is not making the same mistakes twice,” I said, from memory. “Princess Celestia used to say that all the time. How did you know that?”
I looked up. Arch was so completely gone she might as well have teleported away.
“Figures,” I muttered. “I won’t take my eyes off you next time.”
And it felt like there’d be a next time. I was already sure I’d be seeing her again.
The good thing is that I did know how to get back to the embassy. Arch had given me the clue on the way here. The sand was piled up high in the bad parts of town on the edges of good society, so all I had to do was follow the gentle slope downhill and eventually I’d get there.
At least that was the theory.
It held up until three ponies stepped out in front of me just before I would have walked out into a main street, just black shapes against the lamplight in the thoroughfare beyond.
“Miss Sunset Shimmer, I presume,” said a clipped voice with a heavy accent.
I lit up my horn to get a look at who I was facing, bright enough that I got to see them wince at the sudden flare.
Two of them were the same brand of thugs that had been rounding up ponies at the party. The third was in a much more ornate version of the same uniform, with so many silver chains and bangles that it was more like armor than decoration. She had a stern look to her and a face like a slab of marble, grey streaks running through her mane and creeping into her coat.
“Who wants to know?” I demanded. If I was going to be arrested anyway it was going to be for something worthwhile, like throwing somepony so high they’d need to ask Luna to collect them from her moon.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” the pony said, narrowing her eyes to focus on me through the glare. “I am Sirocco Mandala, head of the Aretic Order. This is a very dangerous time to be out and about.”
“Is it?” I asked. “I heard Saddle Arabia was one of the safest places in the world.”
“Every nation wants to pretend that they are safe. There are always dangers in the shadows.” She was still standing between me and the street. I could get past them without trying, but the last time I’d fled from custody it had ended really poorly.
“I was just heading back to the embassy anyway,” I said. “I needed a walk to clear my head. It was a long trip.”
“I’m sure it was,” Sirocco said. She kept staring at me with that expression that said she could see right through every lie and half-truth I tried to put between us. “I hope you’ve been able to do just that. It’s good to be very clear on where we stand. You have a reputation, Miss Shimmer. A reputation for causing trouble.”
“I didn’t know I was so famous. I’d swear more ponies have heard of me in Saddle Arabia than in Equestria!”
“Don’t take it as flattery. It’s my business to know about potential threats.”
“Really? I’d love to compare notes.”
“Of course we would be happy to provide the embassy with literature on local monsters, though they are never seen this close to the city.” Sirocco kept staring. Didn’t ponies around here ever blink? “If you were hoping to see our files on you, my job is not to feed your near-legendary ego.”
“I hope they say good things. I’m just here to sign a treaty.”
“Yes. And if you are wise, that is all you’ll do.” Sirocco took a step forward, lowering her head slightly as if imparting a secret. “There is dark magic at work. If you were not an ambassador I would detain you to… assist with the investigation. Diplomatic immunity makes that impossible, for now.”
“I’d be happy to help when I have free time. You can send your notes along to the embassy along with those books on monsters you mentioned. I’ve always loved learning.”
“Indeed. We’ll do so. I would be very happy to have your help in cleaning up this mess.” Sirocco stood up straight again, like her spine was a steel beam and bending slightly had been a great effort. “I will be watching you. Closely. For your own safety.”
“I can watch myself.”
“Don’t worry. My officers can be very subtle. You won’t even know they’re there. I promise you that. Would you like an escort back to the embassy?”
“I can find my own way back.”
“As you wish. Travel safely and in the light, Sunset Shimmer.”
She stepped aside, and I stepped past them into the main street without a word, feeling like a target had been painted on my back.
“I swear,” I grumbled. “The next time a mysterious pony tries to be coy and clever with me, I’m going to set them on fire.”
My name is Feather Duster. It is Solar Year 985 and I am finally beginning the job I have worked towards for as long as I can remember.
My mother, and my mother’s mother, and a whole line of ponies stretching back beyond easy memory, had all worked as maids. My earliest memories were of how elegant she was, always patient and unflappable in the face of any obstacle.
Maids are often looked down upon, as are all those who work for a living. Those who do so generally do not understand the work, nor do they understand working as a concept except as something other ponies do.
Canterlot Castle was the very peak of where a life of service could take you. Even a short time spent among the staff would give one such prestige that they would be able to pick their postings for the rest of their lives. The pay was, of course, also enough that many of the maids were independently wealthy in their own right. I wonder how the nobility would react if they knew that the ponies bringing them tea and biscuits were better off than they were?
It was not my first day in the castle, but it was my first day out of training, and I was understandably nervous. For a month, I had been shadowing other maids, learning how things were done, the processes they used, getting to know the ponies I would be working with. It was a time spent getting the worst of the jitters out of my system and making sure I would be able to fit with the team.
Each of us had a somewhat permanent assignment, aside from when large events were taking place in the castle. I was looking forward to my new assignment, as caretaker and personal maid for the Princess’ personal student, Sunset Shimmer. Apparently, her prior maid had (rather abruptly) moved on to another position in the country.
My first duty would be to wake the young scholar and see what she wanted for breakfast. I was looking forward to meeting her. As the Princess’ personal student, it was like serving the Crown itself, though as she was a foal I believed she would be easy to manage. I have never in my life made a more incorrect assumption.
I knocked on her chamber door.
“Lady Shimmer, it’s time to wake up,” I said, just loudly enough to be heard through the door.
There was no reply for several minutes. I wondered if she hadn’t heard me.
Unfortunately, at the time, I didn’t yet know Sunset Shimmer well. Some of the ponies I’d worked with would want to be woken up even if it meant rolling them out of bed by hoof. Others hated being forced out of bed in the morning. I was going to have to figure out what kind of pony she was.
If I had to guess, though, she would probably want to be woken up. She was the Princess’ student, after all, so there was little doubt she was a punctual, enthusiastic mare.
“I’m coming in,” I said, politely, as I opened the door. I’d never actually seen the inside of her room or met her before. I was expecting it to be much like the other guest rooms in the castle, perhaps with a bit more paperwork and a more scholarly selection of books on the shelves.
Instead, it was a dark, cavernous room, stacks of books growing from the floor like stalagmites of knowledge, some almost reaching the ceiling and teetering perilously from the haphazard piling. A few had fallen over already, lying in drifts on the floor. I could smell the musty, sickly smell of rotting food from somewhere within.
“Hello?” I asked, nose scrunching at the smell.
I was starting to wonder if I was even in the right place. Had I found some forgotten corner of the castle? It certainly didn’t seem like maids had been here in quite a while.
“Is anypony here?” I asked. My wing brushed against one of the tall columns of books, and the texts began to teeter, the stack rocking from side to side before finally collapsing entirely, toppling over towards me. I squeaked in alarm, knowing there was no way I could avoid it.
As the books fell to bury me, they suddenly stopped in mid-air, surrounded by a cyan glow.
“What are you doing in here?” Demanded an angry voice. I slowly got out from under the suspended books as they rapidly stacked themselves again. A foal was walking towards me, her horn glowing as she finished putting the books back in place.
“Y-you must be Sunset Shimmer,” I said, forcing a smile. I was still shaken up by almost being buried alive by nonfiction. The filly was wearing a black leather jacket that was a size too small for her and starting to wear heavily around the edges, and glared at me from behind a tangled mane of red and yellow. "My name is--"
“I don’t care what your name is, and you can call me 'the pony who didn't invite you in!',” she snapped. “I don't need some dumb maid coming in without being asked!”
“I-I was just making sure you were awake,” I said, taking a step back. “I apologize if you didn’t wish to be disturbed.”
“Well, I don’t!” Sunset Shimmer yelled. I found myself being lifted up. She threw me through the doorway, and I landed heavily in the hallway. With the way I landed, I was lucky I didn’t break anything.
The door slammed shut behind me.
That was the first time I met Sunset Shimmer.
Five years passed, as they have a way of doing. I remained Sunset Shimmer’s personal maid that whole time. At first, it was because I was the newest maid. Later, it was because I was the only maid who had lasted long enough to learn how to keep her from getting violent. I was also the only one who managed to clean her room without her getting too upset.
Sometimes.
“I was using that book!” Sunset yelled, throwing a plate at me. It was a hundred years old, a gift from a nation that didn’t even exist now. It shattered as it hit the wall behind me.
“I’m sorry, Lady Shimmer,” I said, backing away. “I can go and get it from the castle library if you still need it.”
“It doesn’t even matter!” Sunset yelled. “I’ll take care of it myself since I’m the only one who I can trust around here! Why don’t you go and have fun with Cadance, since everypony else likes her better, too!”
Her horn was glowing, and the temperature in her room was rapidly rising. Last time she’d gotten this out of control, the Canterlot Fire Brigade had paid a visit to the castle and even Sunset Shimmer hadn’t been able to avoid being admonished by the Princess. In all fairness, Prince Blueblood probably deserved most of the blame. He had an astonishing ability to make a poor first impression.
“Lady Shimmer, I was just trying to help,” I said, lowering my head submissively. She took a deep breath and started to calm down, the heat bleeding off.
“I know,” She said. “I know.” She started pacing. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to leave yet. I was about to start making my way to the library when she suddenly turned to address me again. “Do you hear about what Celestia did?”
I shook my head mutely.
“She's been jerking me around for weeks! Do you know what I’ve always wanted more than anything?”
I glanced at the wall over the desk. Scrolls and pieces of parchment had been pinned in a messy collage over it, showing rough sketches of Sunset Shimmer with wings. A few, half-hidden under calculations, showed her standing alongside Princess Celestia.
“To become an alicorn?” I guessed, already knowing the answer. Which made it a fairly secure guess.
“That’s right!” Sunset yelled. “To become her equal! So she’d start respecting me the way I deserve!” She threw a stool into the wall, the wood shattering. I flinched at the force. “She brought me to the mirror and I saw it! I saw myself as a Princess! I had wings, I had a crown, I was just like her, and I was-- I was just like her!” She sniffled, rubbing at her eyes.
I felt awkward. She had never, ever wanted to be touched, but she looked like she could really use a hug.
“Lady Shimmer, I’m sorry…” I trailed off.
“You’re sorry?” She laughed. “Don’t be. At least you mean well. I bet Celestia likes you! Always following orders, always polite, never failing!” Sunset scoffed. “I tried that. All she ever told me was that I had to keep waiting, that I wasn’t ready yet.”
“Lady Shimmer, I know it isn’t my place, but may I say something?” I looked up at her, my ears folded back.
“You might as well,” Sunset mumbled. “It’s not like you can make things worse.”
“I don’t know what she has planned for you,” I started. “But I know that Princess Celestia has always seemed like the kind of mare who makes very long, detailed plans. And I’ve never known her to take advantage of anypony. Whatever she’s doing, perhaps it’s for the best for you.”
“For the best for me?!” She snapped, lifting me in her magic. “That’s what she always says! I’m not a bucking foal! I’m the strongest unicorn in Equestria! I should--” She looked down, and her grip on me faltered. “I should get a say in it. Why doesn’t she trust me?”
I landed softly as the magic around me faded. Sunset had quieted, just staring at her hooves. I bit my lip, then girded my loins and made a decision. Despite how awful she’d been over the years, it was still my duty to try and help her.
I put a hoof on her shoulder gingerly. Since I wasn’t flung across the room or set on fire, apparently she didn’t mind.
“You haven’t had anything to eat all day, and I know you’ve been frustrated lately. Let me get you something to eat and drink, I’ll get that book for you, and we can turn this day around.” I smiled gently at her.
“The book wouldn’t help anyway,” Sunset muttered.
“The food will still make you feel a little better,” I said.
“...That book would have been a dead-end anyway,” Sunset muttered. “She thinks I’m not ready, and she let me borrow that from her personal library.” She looked up. She didn’t even see me now. I knew that look. She was looking through everything, unfocused as she thought about herself. “So the information has to be somewhere she wouldn’t let me look. And the only place she won’t let me look is…”
I started to get a familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach. The feeling that Sunset Shimmer was about to do something ill-advised. “L-Lady Shimmer--”
She shook her head, my words breaking her out of the trance she’d gone into. “Um. Right. Go and get some lunch and tea. Take your time. I’m going to make a quick stop at the library and come back.”
She walked past me, muttering to herself. I was sure she was going to end up getting into trouble, but I’d been dismissed, and there wasn’t that much trouble she could get into at the library. I was wrong about that. If I’d stopped her or tried talking her out of it, maybe things would have turned out differently.
But that was the last time I saw Sunset Shimmer. Or so I thought.
It was the day after the one-thousandth Summer Sun Celebration. I adjusted my uniform, looking at the door to the Princess’ study. I wasn’t in any real state to see her. After the panic and rioting had stopped, we’d been trying to get the castle into a fit state to receive the Princess. We’d managed to brush things under the rug well enough to make it presentable, but now we were trying to actually clean, and it was going to take days of concentrated effort.
When the guard had come to tell me Celestia wanted to see me, I was knee-deep in scrubbing a floor where Blueblood had almost drowned himself in wine. I wasn’t sure if he had been trying to drink the cask or just bathe in it, because either way half of it had ended up staining the stone tiles.
My knees still had faint traces of pink from where I’d been kneeling. I knocked on the door and hoped the Princess would be understanding.
“Enter,” she said, with an odd lilt to her voice. She sounded happier than I’d heard her in years. I pushed the door open. Celestia was going over thick reams of paperwork, making notes and signing forms. She looked up at me, and her quill paused.
“I hope I am not disturbing you, Princess,” I said. “I was told you wanted to see me?” I couldn’t help but be nervous. She was easily twice my height, infinitely wise and powerful, and the absolute ruler of Equestria.
“I did,” Celestia said. “Please, sit. I wanted to discuss a special assignment with you.”
I sat on the cushion in front of her desk. She put her paperwork aside and focused on me. It was something I noticed she did with everypony, no matter how important or humble they were - she would put things aside while she was speaking to them, to let them know that she was focused on what they were saying.
“You’re one of my best maids, and more importantly, you already have experience with this.” Celestia pulled out one form she’d set aside. “I want to reassign you from the general staff.”
“You want me to be a personal maid again?” I asked, carefully. Personal maids were treated very differently from the general staff. Personal maids were attached to important ponies and were expected to learn their habits and anticipate their desires. “Is this for the new Princess? I heard rumors that you were putting together staff for her.”
“Not quite,” Celestia said. “Luna will need staff, but I wanted to assign you to a pony you already know quite well, though she’s changed a lot since you last saw her.”
“Who do you mean?” I asked, confused.
“Sunset Shimmer,” Celestia said. I managed to keep my jaw from dropping.
“I thought she was dead,” I blurted out, surprised.
“Thankfully not,” Celestia replied, smiling. “You were her personal maid before, and I want you to reprise that role. She’s changed quite a bit, and I think something familiar might help her adjust.”
“Of course, Princess,” I said. I wasn’t sure what to think. It had been a long time since I’d seen Sunset Shimmer. I still remembered those days, and not fondly. Unlike some less lucky ponies, I at least didn’t have any burn scars as more permanent souvenirs.
“Just... try and make her happy,” Celestia said. “I want to avoid the mistakes I made in the past. I would appreciate it if you would meet with me from time to time so we can discuss her needs, as well.”
I bowed. “Yes, Princess.”
“Excellent,” Celestia said. “She should be settling into her old quarters. Why don’t you go let her know the good news?”
Good news. I wasn’t sure if I’d call it that. I’d gone almost a decade without being blown up, except for one accident involving Twilight Sparkle. When Sunset Shimmer had been around, it had been a weekly occurrence. Perhaps I am being unkind - in truth, both of them had roughly the same number of accidents, but Twilight Sparkle was kind enough to plan them in advance.
I turned the corner to where Sunset’s room was, and found myself confronted with a corridor filled with boxes.
“What are these?” I asked, wondering if some of the mess we’d shoved under the rug had found its way here. If so, it was the worst possible timing. Sunset had never been tolerant of dealing with other ponies problems. I was lucky it wasn’t all on fire already.
I opened up one of the boxes. Inside were candlesticks and a wall hanging. Resting against the box was a mirror. The other boxes were similar, full of the small things we’d put around a room to make it more comfortable.
“I’m moving all of this into storage,” said a voice behind me. “I’m sorry about the mess.” I turned to see a pony in a black cloak. She pulled the hood back, and I realized it was Sunset herself, several inches taller than I remembered and bearing more scars and a few wrinkles. Wherever she'd been, it clearly hadn't been easy on her.
“I’ll have some of the staff come to get this for you, Lady Shimmer,” I said, bowing slightly.
“Don’t bow!” Sunset snapped. “I’m not some... “ She took a deep breath. “I’m not a Princess and I don’t want to be treated like one. I’m just a normal pony.”
She didn’t look like a normal pony. I decided that I wasn’t going to be the one to tell her.
“I’m sorry, Lady Shimmer.”
“And don’t call me Lady Shimmer,” Sunset said. “Look, I appreciate that you’re just doing your job. You’re probably really great at it.” She stopped and frowned. “Wait, are you the maid who…” she trailed off.
“I was your personal maid, yes,” I said, trying to keep smiling. “Princess Celestia has asked me to continue serving you since we’re already familiar with each other.”
“I thought you looked familiar,” Sunset muttered. “I… probably owe you an apology. A lot of apologies. I was pretty awful as a filly. Sorry.”
“You weren’t that bad,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.
“Compared to Tirek the Conqueror, maybe.” She snorted. “Look, I’m just getting rid of all this stuff I don’t need. I can manage it myself. Do you have like a storage room or something I can put it in?”
“The nearest storage is down the hallway,” I said. A public building like the castle needed a lot of storage. We had rooms full of chairs and tables for large dinners, a loft stuffed with Heath’s Warming Eve decorations, and hidden galleries of paintings and tapestries that had fallen out of style or that we simply had no room for.
“Thanks,” Sunset said, the boxes lifting into the air. There had to be two dozen of them, and she didn’t even look like she was straining herself. I’d forgotten just how strong she was compared to the castle’s usual guests.
“I’ll walk you there,” I said, going ahead of her. I wanted to make sure nopony got in the way. Sunset didn’t comment as we walked into the shelf-lined room, just putting the boxes down and looking around. After a moment, she stacked them with the rest of the aging, dusty cardboard.
“Is it okay if I leave them here?” Sunset asked.
“It’s fine,” I said. “We do an inventory once a month and reorganize storage rooms. Until then, we won’t have anywhere better.”
Sunset nodded and walked out. I followed close on her heels, shutting the door behind us.
“I could get you something to eat,” I suggested. “Do you still like almond butter and banana sandwiches?” She glanced back at me as we walked back down the hallway.
“Just… go find something better to do,” Sunset said. She pulled the door to her room open, and I could see that she’d taken almost everything out, leaving bare stone and a bed with a single blanket. Before I could say anything, she closed the door, leaving me alone in the hallway.
“She has… definitely changed, your highness,” I said. A week had gone by, and I could count on my hooves how many times Sunset had actually left her room.
“Thank you for continuing to try and help her,” Celestia said. “Sunset has always had a problem with accepting help from others.”
“It’s not just help,” I said. “She won’t let me do anything.”
“She’s growing up,” Celestia noted. She smiled. “I didn’t think she was so humble.”
“It’s not humility,” I said. “She’s punishing herself. Every time I try and do something for her, she just says she doesn’t deserve it and refuses to accept it.”
“Please, just do what you can,” Celestia said. “I want her to be happy.”
I had no idea how to make Sunset happy. She’d changed so much since I’d seen her that if she’d dyed her coat and mane I would have easily believed it was a completely different pony.
But I did know where I could start trying. I made a stop at the library and picked out a half-dozen books, most of them on magic. She’d always loved reading, much more than she’d liked other ponies.
“Sunset?” I asked as I knocked on her door. “Can I come in?"
I pushed the door open with a wing and stepped inside, balancing the books carefully, when she didn’t answer, intending to leave the books in her room and go. Her room was as empty as a dungeon cell. It was a little creepy, compared to the cavern of books it had been before.
“I brought you something to read,” I said, putting the books down on her bed for lack of anywhere else for them to go. No Sunset, no furnishings. I stepped back outside and looked up and down the hallway, just to confirm I was in the right place. Even ponies who knew the castle well sometimes got lost. It was like the corridors would sometimes change when you weren’t looking.
I bit my lip and walked down the corridor to where I knew a guard would be waiting.
“Excuse me,” I said, waving to get his attention. “Have you seen Lady Shimmer? She isn’t in her room.”
“Sunset Shimmer left several hours ago,” the guard replied. “I think she was leaving the castle.”
“Leaving the--” I blinked. “Do you know where she would have gone?”
I tried not to hyperventilate as I walked through the streets. Canterlot didn’t have a bad part of town in the same sense that Manehattan or Liveryburg did, where there were whole neighborhoods that law-abiding ponies simply wouldn’t go near. Even so, there were parts of town that were less proper, places that the nobility avoided. Places where a pony could manage to get into trouble, even if they were under Celestia’s protection.
Unfortunately, it was exactly that sort of place where Sunset seemed to have gone to. I’d considered asking the guards to help me find her, but the last time guards had tried to keep tabs on her in Canterlot, it hadn’t gone well for anypony involved.
I was going to have to do this alone. Of course, I had no idea where to go, or what to do when I found Sunset. It wasn’t like she was breaking any laws.
I heard the concussion of a nearby explosion and quickly revised my mental statement. She wasn’t breaking any laws by leaving the castle. There were plenty of other laws she could be breaking instead.
I turned the corner to see a tavern with broken windows and stallions fleeing through the doorway. There wasn’t a lot of smoke, so the building didn’t seem to be on fire. Yet. Of course, I couldn’t be sure that Sunset was actually involved--
“Quake with fear!” A fireball exploded in the street behind them.
It seemed she was going to make it a simple matter to locate her. I ran up to the tavern, looking inside. Tables were overturned, and there were blackened scorch marks along the walls and floor. All of the burns radiated from one place, where two cloaked ponies sat at the bar. The rest of the patrons had fled, leaving the two alone.
“Don’t you think that was a little excessive?” The larger one sighed.
“They tried to steal my bits,” the smaller one said, pushing back her hood and revealing a fiery mane. Sunset Shimmer.
“It was still too much force. You could have killed them.” The larger mare removed her own hood, and I gasped in surprise.
“Princess Cadance?!” I said, shocked. The two were within striking distance of each other but Sunset Shimmer hadn’t yet attacked her. Perhaps I still had time to prevent tragedy. Sunset turned and saw me looking in the doorway and waved.
“Oh, hey,” Sunset said. “I didn’t think you’d show up. This place doesn’t really seem like your jam.”
“Y-you were gone from your room and nopony knew where you went, and I was afraid…” I trailed off.
“Sunset!” Cadance glared at her. “You didn’t tell the guards where we were going?”
“Of course not,” Sunset snorted. “I’m not a prisoner. Besides, the last time I was here the guards were more interested in kicking me out of the palace.”
“You really need to tell ponies where you’re going,” Cadance chastised. “What if something happened to you?”
“The Princess would be able to find me pretty easily, since most of Canterlot would be on fire,” Sunset snorted. “Not you, I mean. Or Luna. I meant Celestia. I guess you’d be able to find me too, though.”
Cadance shook her head. I stepped closer, looking around the tavern. Ponies were staring at the two and keeping a wide distance.
“You two came here… together?” I asked, confused.
“Why are you here?” Sunset asked, frowning at me. “Shouldn’t you be… I don’t know. Something more important than just chasing me around?”
“It’s my job, Lady Shimmer,” I sighed. “I was worried that you would have…” I trailed off.
“Would have what?” Sunset asked. “Tried to take over Equestria? Stolen artifacts of dark power to assume a perfect, immortal form?”
“I was worried that you would have left again,” I sighed. “Lady Shimmer, you can’t just vanish like that. You have responsibilities-”
“No, I don’t,” Sunset said, cutting me off. “I don’t have responsibilities. I’m not a Lady. I’m just me.”
“That doesn’t sound like the pony that grew up telling me she’d be ten times the princess I was,” Cadance laughed.
“When I was a foal, I wanted to be a princess, sure,” Sunset admitted, shrugging. “But that’s just not for me. I had to learn that lesson the hard way. Being a witch has definitely worked out, though. Better hours, less paperwork, all sorts of perks. Besides, I’ll settle for being ten times the spellcaster. I know you’ve been slacking off on your studies!”
“You do have responsibilities,” I put in, starting to feel angry. “You’re responsible to Princess Celestia as her daughter--” She looked distinctly uncomfortable when I said that. “--and you’re responsible to all the ponies in the castle because even if you don’t like it, we all look up to you. The new staff members see you as Celestia’s long-lost daughter. The old staff members remember that you were her faithful student. Half of the castle is convinced you’re going to end up wearing a crown by the end of the year! You told me you want to prove you’ve changed. You have to act like it and not just… just refuse to be a part of castle life and blow up bars when you get bored!”
It had all come out in a big, angry rush. Princess Cadance and Sunset Shimmer stared at me. I felt heat rise to my cheeks. I’d badly overstepped my station.
“I…” Sunset shifted in her seat. “Sorry.” She glanced at Cadance, then back to me.
“An apology is a good start,” Cadance said. “I remember how hard it was getting used to having ponies defer to me. I’m still not really used to it, but I know I have to try and live up to their expectations of me.”
“It was a lot easier when I could just let them fear me,” Sunset mumbled.
“Sis, they were never all that scared of you,” Cadance giggled. Sunset shot her a glare.
“Don’t call me Sis! It’s bad enough trying to get used to Celestia. I’m putting my hoof down on that one right now.”
I sighed and walked up to the bar, collapsing into an unused barstool. “Can we please go back to the castle? The last time you went missing, it caused an international incident.”
Sunset nodded. “Cadance, can you--”
“I’ll take care of things here,” Princess Cadance assured her. Sunset sighed and left, pulling her hood back up as she stepped out. The bar immediately started to come back to life, conversation emerging from hiding and filling the room now that the patrons weren’t cowering in fear.
I started to get up to follow Sunset and ensure she returned safely, but a wing touched my back.
“Please wait a moment,” Princess Cadance said.
“Of course, Your Highness.” I bowed slightly, as much as a pony could when they were seated. Cadance offered me a smile and motioned to the bartender, a drink appearing at my hooves as if by magic. Or royal order, in this case.
“Thank you for taking care of Sunset,” Cadance said. “I know she’s not easy to get along with. When she gets depressed, she… tends to fall back into bad habits.”
I took a sip of the drink I’d been offered to steady myself before talking to the Princess. It wasn’t really a maid’s place to be familiar with royalty, but she’d been the one to give me the glass and it would be rude to refuse. “She’s not nearly as bad as she used to be,” I ventured.
“You’re right,” Cadance agreed. “But now that she’s back in Canterlot all she sees are reminders of that pony she used to be. And because she’s not nearly as bad, she feels guilty. Sunset hasn’t exactly said it, but she feels a need to distance herself from the filly that terrorized the nobility.”
“That must be why she got rid of all her old things,” I said. The drink was starting to loosen my tongue. Under most circumstances, I would never have revealed anything about Sunset’s private business to another pony.
“I didn’t know she did that,” Cadance sighed. “I should have guessed. She’s probably trying to punish herself because of some dumb guilt complex.”
“I am not sure what I can do. I’ve tried helping her, but she refuses to allow me to even clean her room.” It felt like confessing my sins, telling Cadance about how little I’d actually done since I’d been reassigned. It was at the same time my easiest and most difficult assignment - hours spent trying to find something to do.
“Maybe… there is one thing,” Cadance said, slowly. “If you’re willing to do it.”
I knocked on the door.
“Yes?” Sunset asked, her voice muffled.
“May I come inside?” I asked. “I brought you some books from the library.”
“I guess.” The door glowed for a moment and swung open. Sunset was sitting at a window, the cloak she’d been wearing thrown on the floor. I picked it up and folded it without being asked, and without giving her a chance to tell me not to do so, putting it on the bed alongside a few books from the castle library that I thought she might enjoy.
“I apologize,” I said. “I spoke with Princess Cadance and she pointed out something obvious that I have neglected since your arrival.”
“No, no,” Sunset sighed. “You’ve been too nice. Whatever you’re thinking about doing, I don’t need it. I can take care of myself, and I don’t want ponies worrying about me or doting on me or--”
“When you were a filly, you were difficult to deal with,” I interrupted. “If I am to be overly charitable I might say you were dedicated to your studies at the expense of all else, but in truth, you were rude and dismissive of others. It was not an assignment I often enjoyed, but I persevered because I also take pride in my work. That is something we have in common.”
Sunset looked back from the window at me, obviously surprised that I was being so frank.
“I want you to know that there are no hard feelings between us,” I continued. “Whatever wrongs you think you committed towards me, I forgive you.”
Sunset looked away. “That means a lot,” she said. Her voice was unsteady, but I saw some tension leave her shoulders like I’d removed some portion of whatever burden she was carrying. “There are only about a thousand more ponies that I have to fix things with.”
“What were you looking at?” I asked. I walked over to stand next to her. The garden was outside, dotted with statues. She was looking past them, down the mountain to the valley and fields below.
“You can just barely see Ponyville from here,” Sunset sighed. “I was just... thinking.”
“About what?” I pressed.
“Nothing important,” Sunset said.
“Tell me,” I said, smiling. “Was it about some cute colt you left behind?”
Sunset snorted at that. “You’re almost as bad as Cadance! She tried to set me up with everypony who wasn’t already married in Ponyville. And a few who were. Those were especially awkward. Lyra and Bon-Bon still can’t look me in the eye.”
“Ponyville?” I asked. “I have family there.”
“You do?” Sunset turned to look more closely at me.
“My cousin, Ditzy Doo. Her sister… well, her sister is all over the place.” I laughed a little. “Ditzy is one of the town mailmares.”
“I know her,” Sunset nodded. “She’s… almost as accident-prone as I am.” She snorted. “Her kids are cute, though. I gave them a few lessons. With a pegasus mother and earth pony teacher in school, they didn’t have much of a chance to learn the theory behind magic.”
“That explains the house fires,” I noted.
“What can I say? Sparkler is a natural.” Sunset laughed a little. It was the first sign of anything besides depression that I’d heard since she’d come back.
“You miss Ponyville a lot, don’t you?” I asked.
“My friends are still there,” Sunset said. “I get why Twilight wanted me to come back here. She wants me to… try and fix things with Celestia. It’s just not easy, you know?” She turned away from the window to look at me. “I went through a lot, and I saw the way other ponies really thought of me, and I didn’t like it. I thought I changed.”
“You did,” I affirmed. “But that doesn’t mean you need to punish yourself.”
“I’m not--” Sunset sighed. “When I came back, Celestia tried to make everything exactly how it used to be. She even put me in the same room with the same maid.” She gestured to me. “When I was a foal, I hadn’t earned any of that. I was just a spoiled little brat who didn’t appreciate it.”
I would have said she hadn’t been a spoiled brat, but I would have been lying and both of us would have known.
“If she’s treating me the same way, does it mean I didn’t do anything important? Does it mean she doesn’t think I really changed, and that I’m still that same foal I used to be?”
“Maybe she just thinks that you’ve earned the things she freely gave you as a foal,” I suggested. “That you grew into the mare she always thought you could be.”
“Maybe,” Sunset said, though she didn’t sound sure.
“Is there anything else I can get you?” I asked, hoping she was starting to feel more comfortable.
“No. Thank you for the books, though. I don’t feel comfortable going to the library myself after…” she trailed off. “I’m pretty certain it’s the same librarian who told Celestia I broke into the dark arts section. Maybe if I saw her for more than two seconds before she tries to hide I’d know for sure.”
“I understand,” I said. “If you need anything, just let me know. The bell by the side of your bed--”
“Will alert you, I know,” Sunset said. “I remember how it worked.”
I bowed and backed out politely, letting her have her distance. I already had an idea of what I could try next. I just needed to speak to Princess Celestia and send a few letters.
“What is all this?” Sunset asked. I looked up from the box I was pushing towards her room. She was returning from lunch a few minutes earlier than I’d expected. “I told you I don’t want any of that stuff in my room. It’s not who I am anymore.”
“These aren’t the boxes from storage,” I said.
“Then what are they?” Sunset opened the box. Confetti sprayed into her face, making her sputter in surprise before it almost instantly burned to ashes. “That was a confetti cannon. Why was there a confetti cannon in the box?”
“After we spoke, I realized the real problem.” I opened her door and pushed the box inside. “It’s not that you feel like you haven’t changed, it’s that you have changed, and what was here isn’t really yours anymore.”
Sunset took the box when she saw me struggling with it, effortlessly lifting it with her magic. She almost dropped it when she looked inside her room.
Carved masks and faded tapestries adorned the walls. A bookcase was filled with tomes both old and new, some a thousand years old and others borrowed from a small library. A cauldron (which had been quite difficult to transport, even with the help of a half-dozen off-duty guards) sat near the fireplace.
“These are…” Sunset whispered, walking over to where a weathered statue had been set on the floor. “These are all from the old castle.”
“I asked Princess Celestia to write to your friends,” I explained. “They packed up a lot of your things from the castle to make you feel more at home here in Canterlot.”
Sunset opened the box she had carried in, putting the spent confetti cannon to the side. Within were layers of hoof-stitched blankets, some homey and smelling like apples, others made of the finest materials and embroidered with delicate patterns. Protected by the padding, framed pictures were revealed one by one as she picked her way through the box.
There were almost a dozen in total, all of Sunset’s friends. I watched as she carefully set them on the bed, folding the blankets and putting them on the side. Sunset sniffled and rubbed at her eyes, facing away from me.
“Thanks,” she said, after composing herself. “I mean, it’s silly, you know? They’re not that far away. I can practically see Ponyville from here. Even if the train wasn’t running I could teleport there in a few hops.”
“It can feel a lot further away when you feel like you don’t belong,” I said. “I used to move around a lot. I had a few things I always put up, and a place didn’t feel like home without them.”
“It does seem more like home now,” Sunset admitted, smiling. “Can you help me hang some of these pictures?”
“I’d be happy to,” I said, returning the grin.
“She’s settling in now, your Highness,” I said. It seemed that weekly meetings with the Princess were going to become the norm again. When Sunset had been a foal it had mostly been to make sure she wasn’t mistreating me and that she wasn’t developing bad habits.
Now, Celestia wanted to be sure that her former student was happy.
“That was a brilliant idea,” Celestia said. “I should have thought of it myself. Her friends know what kind of pony she’s become, and the things that make her happy now. I thought that trying to put things back the way they had been would make Sunset comfortable, but… if she had been happy as a filly, none of this would have happened in the first place.”
“Very few ponies are really happy at that point in their lives,” I said. “She was growing into a young mare, and a lot of things were changing for her. She needed to find herself, and from what I’ve seen, she did.”
“I put so much pressure on her, back then,” Celestia said. “You remember what it was like, Feather Duster? Pushing her with assignments and homework and seeing what her limits were.”
“You were trying to help her grow, your Highness.”
“A farmer helps her crops grow, but it’s no less cruel when it becomes time to harvest them,” Celestia said, her voice quiet. “I pushed too hard, too fast, because I wanted results. I did love her, but in some ways it was… secondary to what I needed her to do.”
“I’m not sure I understand, your Highness,” I said, watching her expression. She shook her head.
“It’s not important. Things worked out. Perhaps they would have worked no matter what I did. Prophesy and Harmony are subtle forces in the world, but as inevitable as gravity.” She looked to the window, where the sky was starting to turn to shades of orange and purple. “If you’ll excuse me, I have my duties to take care of.”
“Of course, Your Highness. Thank you for your time.”
“No, thank you. You’ve gone above and beyond what I could have possibly expected of you. I am in your debt. Now if I can just encourage my sister to begin undertaking her duties, perhaps I can get a small break from time to time.” She sighed, leaving the room to stand on the balcony.
I walked out, knowing she would expect me to be gone by the time she returned. I did have other duties to attend to, after all.
“Whether we wanted it or not, we’re stuck with you as the face of this deal between Equestria and Saddle Arabia. From what I can gather, you’re supposed to be one of the most intelligent ponies to come out of the School for Gifted Unicorns.”
Vuvuzela leaned closer to me. He probably believed he was being intimidating. It wasn't very scary compared to Princess Luna around breakfast time. My hangover - which I’d managed to get despite never feeling any of the more pleasant effects of what I’d drunk - made me flinch at his tone. He took it as a sign of weakness.
“I have to ask myself who wrote those reports, and why they were apparently so very inaccurate,” the ambassador continued. “Unless you have a better explanation for why you vanished for hours in the middle of the night after drinking heavily, causing a scene, and generally performing even worse as a representative of Equestria than Prince Blueblood, whom I previously assumed had set an unbeatable standard for inexcellence?”
“You know,” I said, after he’d finished. “I thought I made it pretty clear that I wasn’t in a mood to be yelled at. Doing it early in the morning doesn’t change my opinion.”
“I’ll stop the very moment I think that you’ll manage to do the right thing on your own, which at this rate--”
I didn’t bother listening to the rest of his rant. My head was pounding but not so badly that I couldn’t cast spells. He vanished in a flash of teleportation.
A manebursh dropped to the floor next to me, the pony holding it gasping in terror. I’d forgotten the maid was even there with Vuvuzela yelling in my face.
“He’s just down the hallway,” I sighed. “He’s fine.”
The maid nodded and picked the brush back up, edging closer to me like she’d been asked to brush a manticore instead of a pony. I tried to stay still, and she very lightly stroked my mane, making it nearly halfway through the curls before it snagged on a knot, I twitched, and she made a sound like a surprised rodent and jumped back, leaving the brush tangled in my mane.
“I’m sorry!” She squeaked.
I looked over my shoulder to apologize for scaring her, even if it was her own fault to begin with, and she shrieked and ran.
“What kind of feathering stories have ponies been telling about me?” I demanded, to absolutely no one. To my surprise, nobody answered.
“You know, you should at least accept some of the blame for it.” A guard was standing in the doorway, watching the maid go. “I don’t think teleporting Vuvuzela into the ornamental pond was a good idea if you wanted him to stop yelling.”
“I didn’t even know there was a pond.”
“That’s surprisingly good aim, then. He could have landed in the cactus garden.”
“Thanks.” I sighed, and started pulling at the manebrush, trying to yank it free. "I'll aim more to the left next time."
The guard stepped over and rocked it loose, then started brushing with more confidence than the maid, if an order of magnitude less skill.
“You don’t have to do that. It’s not your job”
He shrugged. “As the only pony in armor, I’m the best qualified, right?”
I laughed a little at that. “Sure. Maybe I’ll have you polish my hooves next.”
“Don’t joke - personal grooming is something all guards have to learn. You can’t be in Celestia’s service unless you can look your best at all hours.”
“What’s your name? You’re the only pony that doesn’t want to yell or run away.”
“Flash Sentry. Pleased to meet you.”
“Now you’re sure you can do this?” Flash asked.
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t think there’s anypony that could mess it up.”
“That’s what I thought about my first assignment. Just stand in one spot and don’t go anywhere for a few hours until somepony comes to switch with you.” He smiled. “I went through almost a year of training, and I ended up standing in front of some dusty room nopony had used since before I was born. I thought I’d done something wrong, and I was angry and upset.”
“Are you really trying to teach me some kind of lesson?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Just hear me out!” He laughed. “I requested reassignment, tried to figure out why I was being singled out, and eventually I was transferred to the patrols around the garden. I got to see ponies, actually walk around, talk to other guards. I thought I’d finally gotten back on track with my career.”
“Hold on, I’ve heard this one before. Let me guess - after that it started raining every day?”
“There was rain, as a matter of fact. But more importantly, a week after I got that transfer, Princess Luna came back and it turns out that dusty room was her bedroom. The post I’d been on became one of the most important in the palace, and I threw it away.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“No. But sometimes you have to take things on faith. That includes having to sit and do nothing. I mean, they were going to have Princess Cadance do this, right? And they wouldn’t have her waste her time. That means you should treat this like it’s an important royal duty.”
“Flash, it’s a parade.”
“Exactly! A parade for you! So let’s see a smile!”
I tried to smile, though it didn’t quite reach my eyes.
“Hmm…” He inspected it critically. “Not bad. Are you sure about the cloak?”
“Black is a good color on me. Somepony told me once it works at weddings, funerals, and everything in between.” I paused. “Besides, I didn’t really bring anything else to wear. Do you really want me to try squeezing into something fitted for Cadance? I don't have the figure, the wings, or the... pink.”
“Well, just keep smiling and wave to the crowd and it’ll all be okay,” Flash decided. “I’ll be on the parade float with you. If something happens, let me deal with it, okay? I know you’d be able to handle it but it’s my job and I don’t want ponies thinking I’ve gotten lazy.”
I snorted. “Fine. And you’re sure there’s no time to redecorate?”
I looked up at the float. It was shaped sort of like one of those swan boats and covered in more shades of pink than I’d ever seen in one place before.
“Do you have a spell that can do it in the ten seconds between now and when we have to leave?”
I looked at the swan’s empty glass eyes and sighed.
“I wish.”
The crowds cheered. That’s what I’d like to say, anyway. What they did was line the streets and stare.
I was starting to get a feeling for the town. The buildings here were all the same as the slums I’d been at last night, but they loomed taller above us because the road had been cleared of sand all the way down to a brick road the same white color as the bare stone I saw everywhere else. Banners and flags were hung from every window and wall, rope stretched overhead with ribbons dangling like curtains.
I smiled and waved and the crowd responded with whispering and pointed hooves.
“What am I doing wrong?” I hissed from the corner of my mouth, trying not to move my jaw. Things were already tense enough. If I stopped smiling they might stampede.
“It’s a tough crowd,” Flash assured me. “Don’t let it get to you. We’re halfway to the palace. Just, uh, try not to insult the king.”
“You say that like I was planning on it.”
“No, no. I just want to make sure you’re planning on not doing it. It’s completely different.”
I snorted in laughter and felt some of the muscles in my face unclench.
“Hey, that’s even better,” Flash said. “A real smile looks nicer on you.”
I shook my head and didn’t reply. There was no way I was going to be able to say anything without laughing or blushing like a filly or doing both. Flash had a lot of charm for a pony recruit.
Maybe I was looking at it wrong. If I went out to see Songbird Serenade and she canceled at the last second and I only found out when they put somepony else on stage, I’d probably be upset even if the new pony was just as good. If I remembered the schedule correctly, there’d be another parade after all the events were over, and then ponies would know to expect me. I’d have to talk to Vuvuzela about doing a few minor magic tricks, maybe some fireworks and illusions, something to pump up the crowd.
I was halfway through a mental lists of spells I could safely cast over the crowd when a tall pony in blue and white silk veils stumbled out into the street just ahead of the parade float. She tripped and fell with the kind of drama I was used to seeing from a certain seamstress, turning the misstep into a swoon.
Flash reacted first, in the worst way. He stepped in front of me like he thought a fainting filly was some kind of real threat. I didn’t have time to yell at him.
I teleported in front of the float and picked the mare up before she could get trampled.
“Are you okay?” I asked, stepping to the side with her while the parade jerked and slowed to a halt. I helped by gently using my magic to gently help the dumb swan-float come to a halt like it had, again, gently, run into a brick wall. There probably wasn’t any permanent harm done except to the swan’s beak, which was now bent enough that it looked more like a shoehorn than a hornbill.
The mare turned over in my magical grip, and I got my first good look at her. She was the most beautiful pony I’d ever seen, and I say that as a certified expert. I’d met supermodels, danced with Princesses, and this pony was so stunning it put them to shame. Her coat was a blue paled to almost white, with a sheen that made it gleam like brushed steel. The mare’s mane was stark black and as glassy as obsidian.
“They’re after me!” she said, pointing back to the crowd.
I followed her hoof and saw a half-dozen strong-looking figures in dark robes shoving their way through the assembled Saddle Arabians. As if they weren’t ominous enough wearing full masks in public, their robes were painted with wide snake prints, like somepony had used a stencil and spraypaint to tag them. Each wore a different color - white, red, green, yellow, blue, and black.
“Let me guess,” I said. “Assassins?”
The mare nodded, and the first of the masked killers jumped out of the crowd, who I’d mentally noted as Black Snake, spinning in the air and using the momentum to toss a javelin my way.
I must not have been as famous as I thought, because when I caught it, I could feel there weren’t any enchantments, no special anti-magic metals, nothing that could pose a real threat.
“What is this, amateur hour?” I asked. I snapped it like a toothpick and used the blunt end like a bat, cracking it across the first assassin’s chin and laying him out on the street. “Come on, put on a good show. We’ve got a whole crowd watching!”
“Hold on, Miss Shimmer, I’m coming!” Flash yelled. He didn’t get far. Yellow Snake got in his way on the float, brandishing a long chain and whipping it through the air, keeping him pinned down and unable to take to the air.
“You take that guy,” I shouted. “I got the rest!”
The civilians were going to restrict my options, so I took a few steps back to the middle of the street and let the four assassins make their way out of the herd. There were plenty of spells I could have safely thrown into the crowd but most of them still wouldn’t have made me popular. Ponies don’t like being knocked out or glued to the ground even if it’s for their own good.
“They’re very dangerous,” the mare in my magical grip warned. “You should--”
“Just sit back and relax,” I said. I clapped my hooves, adding a little flair to setting off the explosive array I’d cast under one of the assassins. Blue Snake went flying, and I had some time to play around before I worried about where he was going to land.
Green charged at the same time as Red. I immediately decided White was the smartest one, since he was hanging back and watching. My more pressing concern were the two curved swords being drawn from underneath dark robes.
I threw a simple hex at them and watched the two assassins react in confusion as the steel in their blades magnetized, their weapons snapping together and refusing to come apart. A dozen more hidden daggers tore out of their robes and into the knot of steel. Their charge faltered as their torn clothing tangled their legs and sent them to the ground in a heap of groaning pony.
“You should really know better,” I said. One of them tried to stand - I think it was Red, but most of his clothing was around his fetlocks - so I hammered them both into the ground with a force bolt. It wouldn’t kill them, but they’d be unconscious for hours.
White gave me a look with his piercing green gaze, and I motioned for him to come at me. Instead, he produced a small flask and threw it to the ground at his hooves, smoke billowing as whatever alchemy was within hit the air.
“You don’t get away that easily,” I said. I’d been keeping track of Blue, and I nudged his path back down to earth at the last minute. The falling pony flew into the mist and two horses tumbled out, White’s escape cut short by the crash landing.
I threw a web spell across them to keep them in place, then turned my attention to Flash.
“How you doing up there, bodyguard?” I teased.
“This guy wasn’t a problem,” Flash said, from where he was sitting on top of the would-be killer, the pony restrained by his own chain. “You seemed like you were having fun, so I didn’t want to interrupt and get caught in the friendly fire.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“That was amazing,” the beautiful mare said, and then I remembered that I still had said beautiful mare to deal with.
“All in a day’s work,” I said. I put her down on her hooves, brushing some of the dust off her silk… robes? Toga? If I knew more about fashion I’d know the name of whatever she was wearing. “You going to be okay?”
“Yes, of course, I just… you defeated all six of them like it was nothing!”
Her expression was just so precious I couldn’t help but laugh. “Don’t act like it’s a big deal. I’ve known foals that were more dangerous than those guys.”
She looked flustered. If I didn’t know better, I’d think we were in the middle of a stageplay and she’d forgotten all her lines.
“You sure you’re okay?” I asked.
“Oh yes. Fine.” She coughed. “I was just… it’s such a relief! I must give you a reward--”
I held up a hoof. “Don’t sweat the small stuff.”
“Is that so?” She asked, shaking her head and looking amused.
“You get home safe,” I said, teleporting back up to the float. Climbing was not an option with my bad leg acting up, and I wasn’t going to ask Flash to carry me. “If we meet again, I’ll buy you a drink and you can tell me how you ended up with assassins after you!”
She bowed and got out of the way, letting the parade start up again.
This time, the crowd cheered when I waved, and that made it all worth it.
It was the first time I’d seen Vuvuzela smile. When he was happy, I could actually see why Celestia had made him an ambassador. He had the open, friendly face of somepony with nothing to hide. Somepony you could trust.
“I was worried, but it seems I’m the one eating crow today,” the diplomat said. “An attack in the middle of the parade would normally be a disaster to any kind of treaty signing, but it was exactly what we needed.”
“It felt good to cut loose a little,” I said, trotting along after him and trying not to stare.
Now, I’m no country hick. I spent a good part of my life living in a palace, and then I spent even more living in another palace which was, admittedly, mostly in ruins. I’ve seen a lot of castles. This one was so opulent it made Canterlot look like a foal’s treehouse.
When the parade stopped, it was less like we’d arrived at a building and more like we had come to the base of a vast cliff stretching as far as we could see in both directions with a gentle curve to the surface that let the ends vanish behind the buildings of the city. Instead of a fortress behind a protective wall, the palace was the wall itself, the central structure a tower as tall as a Manehattan skyscraper and with wings and balconies shielding the capital city from whatever lay beyond, though the size of it was like a statement that this was it, the edge of the world, and ponies in the city never had to think about what was outside.
The Saddle Arabians had helpfully provided a way up that cliff. A staircase wound its way from landing to landing like a mountain trail edged in brass and silver.
“That’s a lot of stairs,” I muttered.
“A thousand, or so I am told,” Vuvuzela said. “I’ve never tried counting them myself. It takes several hours unless you’re a skilled athlete. The elite guards can do it in ten minutes. I’ve seen the drills.”
“Let me guess, it’d be rude to just teleport to the top.”
“You aren’t the first to ask that.” Vuvuzela craned his neck to look up. Way up. “The palace is warded in much the same way as Canterlot Castle. Teleportation would be all but impossible.”
“I cracked Canterlot’s wards years ago.”
“No doubt. I would ask that you avoid doing so here. It might be seen as espionage or even an act of war.”
“It might be worth it. That’s a lot of stairs.”
Three hours later, we were almost at the top, sweat was running down my neck, and I had come up with several elegant solutions for getting ponies to the top of the palace. Around the time my bad leg had gone from painful to totally numb I decided that a cannon shooting them through the air was the most effective method.
“You have your lines memorized?” Vuvuzela whispered.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
“As the representative, you have to go first,” he said. “Mister Sentry and I will be right behind you.”
There was only one short flight left. I took the opportunity to look back over the city. From this high up, the details all blurred together and the city looked like a maze of white and black. Sun-bleached rooftops stretched to the glimmer of the sea, and a haze of dust and sand in the air gave it all a dream-like feeling.
I took it all in, the wind at this altitude cold enough to help peel the sweat off my coat and leave me feeling less like I was going to collapse.
I should have taken the time to learn spells to make myself presentable. Cadance probably knew a hundred different spells to make her mane stay put. If it hadn’t been for Flash I wouldn’t have even gotten it brushed.
Horns blared above us in a tune I didn’t recognize. Vuvuzela met my gaze and I nodded, trotting up that last flight of stairs with my head held high.
It was like walking into Canterlot’s throne room, except without the walls. A pavilion of polished stone as large as a city block, with pillows, benches, and a walkway leading to a raised platform upon which sat a brass and silver throne that looked practically like a fossil, like it had been dug up all in one piece from an era a million years in the past. The thin air and traces of wind tugging at silk shades hanging from ornate open frames made it feel like we were meeting near the summit of some great peak with the sky huge and open above us.
The pony sitting in the throne wasn’t nearly as old, maybe twice my age and dressed all in violet and burgundy, a sharp contrast with his sky-blue coat. His crown was a simple twist of metal dark with age.
I bowed.
“King Zephyranthes, I bring greetings in the name of Her Royal Highness, Princess Celestia of Equestria. I present myself as a newcomer to your lands with the hope that I can further the strong relationship between our nations.”
He paused for longer than I would have thought necessary before replying.
“I welcome you with open hooves. There is no need to bow in my presence. You have already done a great service to my subjects.” His voice was deep and resonant and managed to carry even with the totally open floorplan. He’d also gone off-script. My next line was supposed to be about my credentials. I was going to have to improvise.
“It was no great trouble, your majesty,” I said. “I couldn’t just watch idly while ponies were in trouble.”
“Indeed. And instead of ordering your guards to help or calling for the local authorities, you took matters into your own hooves.” He leaned forward to look at me. “Princess Celestia is a cautious ruler, but she does produce subjects who strive to act on their own initiative. You do your nation proud, though I suspect seeing a beautiful damsel in distress made the decision somewhat easier.”
I blushed a little at that. “I’d have done the same no matter who it was.”
“Yes, I suspect you would have,” Zephyranthes agreed. “I don’t think you even stopped to ask the name of the pony you rescued.”
“I was more worried about making sure she was safe. I’m sure if Your Highness wishes, I could find her again.”
“There’s no need,” Zephyranthes said. He clapped his hooves twice, and that beautiful mare stepped out from where she’d been hidden behind the hanging veils. She wasn’t dressed the same way she had been at the parade. The plain robes had been replaced with ornate, embroidered patterns of dragons in flight and edged with silver jewelry and gems. Even with the translucent veil obscuring her mouth, I could tell it was the same mare. You don’t forget a face that hits you like a bolt of lightning.
“Sunset Shimmer, you didn’t let me introduce myself to you properly,” she said. “My name is Princess Shahrazad.”
“I cannot thank you enough for saving my daughter,” King Zephyranthes said. “She shouldn’t have been outside the palace and she somehow escaped the palace guard as well.”
“Oh, well, I can’t say I haven’t done the same back when I lived in Canterlot…” I laughed a little, trying to cover up how flustered I was and wishing that Vuvuzela would step in and say something.
“You refused a reward when last we met, but this time I wish to give you this.” Princess Shahrazad stepped up to me with her hips bobbing in a way that had to be absolutely intentional. Nopony in the world walked like that unless they were doing it on purpose, not even Cadance, and she had so much natural charm she got a dozen love letters every morning.
She unclasped a pendant from her neck and offered it to me. It was a simple twist of silver around a glass bauble. It seemed harmless enough. I couldn’t sense any serious magic around it.
“I’d be honored,” I said. I moved to take it and she shook her head, taking the opportunity to do it for me, leaning in with her breath tickling my ear and clasping the silver chain around my neck.
“Excellent,” the King said. “This will mark a new age of peace between our nations. This treaty was merely going to grant us wealth, but I did not expect that I would be honored to find my daughter a fiancee at last.”
A what?
“Tonight, we feast in their honor!” Zephyranthes declared. A cheer went up around the palace, and ponies who I hadn’t seen at all seemed to melt out of thin air to begin setting up decorations and music.
I looked at Shahrazad. She grinned, her eyes twinkling, and I smiled back because that’s what you do when your new fiancee, the most beautiful mare you’ve ever met, smiles at you.
“I don’t see what the issue is,” Vuvuzela said. “From all accounts you’ve always wanted to be a Princess. This seems like an opportunity to achieve that goal and do something good for Equestria at the same time.”
I looked at him across the small table that had been brought up to the throne room, which I was quickly realizing was a much more multi-purpose area than I’d thought. By rearranging the silk curtains and bringing out different furniture it could be anything from an intimidating open space to receive guests to a crowded space for a feast like it was now. It made me wonder why the castle was so big if they didn't use the room.
“He’s not entirely wrong,” Flash agreed. “Don’t glare at me like that! You know it’s true. Arranged marriages are still pretty common even in Equestria. For nobility, anyway.”
“I wasn’t glaring,” I muttered.
“Miss Shimmer I am struggling to sympathize with you,” Vuvuzela sighed. “If I had a mare like that throwing herself at me I would consider myself blessed. She’s one of the most politically powerful ponies in the world.”
“I mean… yeah, but you wouldn’t make Cadance go through with a wedding to somepony she doesn’t even know,” I countered.
“First, she wouldn’t be in this situation. Princess Cadance would have had a larger Royal Guard escort and she would have allowed them to deal with the assassins. Perhaps our Mister Sentry would be the hero of the day.”
“If only,” Flash sighed.
“Second, if she was somehow sitting at this very table and in your place, she would act with dignity and grace and muddle through the terrible task of being engaged to one of the very few ponies that might be worthy of her title.”
“...Fine, you have a point,” I admitted. I folded my legs. “It’s just hard to explain.”
“You thought you’d marry for love,” Flash said, nodding like he understood anything. "And maybe not a mare you just met."
"I don't even know if I like mares!" I groaned, resting my face on the table.
"You never experimented in college?"
"I spent a lot of formative years alone in a library and the rest hiding in a dilapidated castle," I mumbled.
Flash looked thoughtful for a moment. "You never played with dolls or pretended to marry your stuffed animals or bodypillows?"
“I didn’t think I’d marry at all! Finding a special somepony hasn’t been on my list of priorities. I’m still trying to get my life in order.” My brain took an extra moment to work through what he'd said. "Wait, bodypillows?"
Vuvuzela interrupted before I could get an answer out of Flash. “The good thing is that you don’t have to find somepony at all. One has been delivered to you on a silver platter. Speaking of which, I believe our food has arrived.” Vuvuzela looked up, and I followed his gaze to a literal silver platter, two servants working together to place it in the shallow depression at the center of our table.
I reached for the serving spoon and Flash grabbed it before I could.
“Watch your table manners, Sunset,” Flash warned. “They take it pretty seriously here.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ve been to plenty of formal dinners.”
“Yeah, but those were following the rules in Equestria. The tradition here is to serve other ponies,” he said, spooning bright yellow rice mixed with wheatberries, pomegranate seeds, and vegetable diced so finely they were almost a liquid onto my plate. “And as the guest of honor you get served first.”
“So if I want seconds I have to ask for them?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Well the good news is you get to pour the drinks!” Flash said. “So if you get really peeved with one of us you can stop serving them wine.”
“Is it considered rude to just drink it all myself?”
“Extremely,” Vuvuzela growled.
“I need to figure out how to talk to the Princess about this,” I said, filling everyone’s cup with the sticky dessert wine they’d given us. It would have been better if it had been cut with tonic water or something.
“Princess Celestia will have to be informed,” Vuvuzela said in what he thought was agreement but what was instead providing a brand new thing to give me nightmares.
“No! We aren’t telling her! I meant Princess Shahrazad!” I glanced across the room at her, and she smiled demurely through her veil. “If I can get her alone for a few minutes maybe I can get this whole thing called off.”
“You can’t just cancel a wedding like that! Do you know how much of a diplomatic mess that would be?” Vuvuzela glared at me.
“Yeah, yeah,” I groaned. “Go ahead and sarcastically comment about how I’m trying to weasel out of the happiest day of my life or whatever.”
A presence fell over the table, one I’d felt before, less than a day ago. “I hope you aren’t thinking of breaking Princess Shahrazad’s heart.”
My ear twitched, and I restrained myself from casting anything I’d regret later as Sirocco Mandala stepped around me to sit at the table.
“She’s very delicate,” Sirocco said, without a hint of irony. “You should treasure her.”
“I don’t want ponies thinking I saved her for…” I looked around. “All this. I don’t deserve it. That’s what worries me.”
“You don’t deserve it,” Sirocco agreed. “But it isn’t your decision to make. Nor mine. But I have a talent for hearing the truth, and I believe you. Unlike some other things you have said, and not said.”
“We haven’t been introduced,” Vuvuzela said. “My name is--”
“I’m aware of your identity,” Sirocco said, cutting him off. I had the brief pleasure of seeing Vuvuzela look annoyed at somepony who wasn't me.
“Vuvuzela, this is Sirocco Mandala, head of the Aretic Order,” I supplied. “She’s probably here to threaten me.”
“I considered it,” Sirocco admitted. “If Princess Cadance was in your place, with her well-known ability to manipulate emotions between ponies and create feelings of love and who knows what else, I would have had to use every method to determine if there had been some spell cast on Princess Shahrazad.”
“She can’t just create love out of nothing,” I said.
“Mind magic is widely illegal even in Equestria, is it not?” Sirocco asked. “It is dangerous, especially so close to the throne, and it is my duty to investigate dangerous magic.”
“I guess.” I shrugged. I mostly just didn’t want to agree with her about anything.
“Thankfully I find you refreshingly free of that kind of subtle manipulation. More to the point, you seem unhappy with how events have progressed. It gives me hope for the future. Anything that makes a dangerous element like you unhappy is perhaps the right way for events to unfold.” She held up her empty glass. “Would you?”
I poured her a glass of the sickly sweet wine. “I’m not sure if you approve of this whole mess or not.”
“We do not get to live in the world we wish to live in. We live in the world as it is. There were worse things that could have happened. Princess Shahrazad could have been killed. You could have had some larger plot beyond whatever vain hope you have of impressing Princess Celestia. We are all blessed in some way this day. She is alive, you will no doubt make your own Princess proud, and I will be watching all of it. Closely.”
"Thanks," I grumbled.
"That is of course not a threat," Sirocco said. "It is a statement of fact. I don't believe I need to threaten you to make you respect my position."
"I didn't come here to make enemies."
"Excellent. I hope you show the same judgment in choosing which ponies should be your friends," Sirocco said. She stood, putting the wine down untouched. "May you get the happiness you deserve this night."
Flash watched her go. "She seemed a little..." He shook his head. "Intense? I guess that's the right word."
"Dramatic," I corrected. "She probably says the same stuff to every pony who gets forced into an arranged marriage with royalty."
I started tapping my hoof against the table nervously, trying to figure out my next move. Around me, the platters and plates changed, and I ate what was put in front of me on automatic, not really tasting much of anything.
The first thing I had to do was tell Princess Shahrazad that we really couldn’t get married. The second thing I had to do was figure out how to do that without insulting her or ruining the trade agreement. The third thing I had to do was figure out what country to flee to since I wasn’t ready to go back to Equestria as the abject failure I was and Saddle Arabia was probably going to deport me.
“Maybe the dragon lands,” I sighed.
“Hm?” Flash asked, looking up from the dessert that he’d been picking at. It was some kind of thin pastry noodle baked with date syrup and pistachios and then fried with cheese.
“The fire wouldn’t bother me too much, and dragons are really straightforward. I don’t even think you need a visa. You just find a cave and move in…”
“Are you feeling okay?”
I blinked and looked up at Flash. He actually seemed worried. I don’t know why. He wasn’t the one in trouble.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “I just really need to talk to Princess Shahrazad.”
I stood up and scanned the room, following the flow of well-wishers making their way to the head table to congratulate the Princess. I could probably have just walked over and ignored the line, but I needed the extra time to figure out what I was going to say to her.
The line shrunk, I caught her eye, and I realized that no matter what I was going to tell her, it couldn’t be here. Not in front of all her subjects.
“Beloved,” she said, once I got to the front of the line. She looked amused. “You didn’t have to wait for my attention.”
“I’m still learning your customs. I didn’t want to make a scene,” I said. “Can we talk? In private?”
“Of course! We do have quite a few things we should speak about. I am told Equestrian brides like to have their hoof in every part of the wedding planning. Father, may we be excused?”
“Whatever you wish, my daughter,” the King said. “I don’t think anypony would begrudge you time alone with the pony who saved your life.” He looked at me. “At least as long as I can trust her to keep things proper, hm?”
My cheeks turned red, and he laughed.
“You young fillies are too easy to tease!” he chuckled. “I remember when I was your age and… hm. Well, I got into a lot of trouble. At least if you’re together I can trust my daughter has a good bodyguard.”
“Thank you,” I said, trying to keep the color from reaching my ears. I think my whole face was the color of a ripe cherry.
“Just try not to get her with foal before the wedding,” he said, waving us off. “I’ve heard rumors about you Equestrians and the sort of spells you cast on each other.”
“Yes, there really are stories,” Shahrazad said, as we walked through the corridor. Unlike Canterlot, the castle here was surprisingly simple in construction. It was flat, with one main corridor on each side of the central tower. Stairs leading down implied that the same general layout continued down at least a few layers, stacked on top of each other inside the dam-shaped structure. I still couldn't get much of a feel for the structure itself. There had to be something like fifty floors going unused under us.
“Well they’re not true,” I said. “Mostly not true. I mean, Princess Cadance probably knows spells like that, but I don’t.”
She giggled. “That’s almost too bad. Maybe you can ask her for notes?”
A maid wearing enough veils that she looked more like a ghost than a servant bowed and opened a door at our approach, letting us inside.
“Windows,” I sighed. “I was starting to think I wasn’t going to see the sun again.”
“There aren’t any into the arterial canals at the center of the curtain wall,” Shahrazad said. The maid followed us in and helped the Princess remove a few of her outer layers. I turned away, blushing, to let her have some privacy.
“Is it a security concern?” I asked.
“Naturally. Did you notice almost every door was on the inner side of the castle wall? There are no doors or windows that lead out to the desert.”
“Is the desert dangerous?” Maybe if I was really lucky I’d find some kind of horrible monster to fight. That always took my mind off of my own problems.
“As dangerous as an empty room. There’s simply nothing there. Not even good scenery to look at. There aren’t any reliable or mapped overland routes to anywhere of import.” She giggled. “You know, I was hoping you’d at least watch me change before we started discussing business. I like to think I’m somewhat attractive.”
I turned, feeling a surge of panic at the thought I was being rude. “No, that’s not it, you’re--”
She was wearing less than I’d seen her in, just a slip of silk. I was used to ponies being naked, but something about the way it clung to her and moved when she did was somehow more tantalizing than a merely nude mare.
“--Beautiful,” I finished, meaning it. Was I really trying to run away from that?
“Come and sit with me,” she said, flicking her tail at me when she turned, walking past her bowing and prostate servant and leading me to a depression like a circular pool filled with pillows and blankets instead of water surrounding an ornate lamp.
Shahrazad touched the lamp with her hoof and it lit up with a blue-green haze, the light catching on the silver that edged almost everything in the room, as prevalent as the gilding that seemed to end up everywhere in Canterlot.
“Does it remind you of home?” the Princess asked.
“That’s complicated,” I said. “I’m not sure where my home really is.”
“It could be here,” she said, lying down and patting the pillows next to her. I sat, and found them stuffed with soft pellets that supported me but also moved past each other to mold themselves into a comfortable shape under my weight.
“That’s what we need to talk about,” I said, taking a deep breath.
“Yes, I suppose we do need to talk,” she sighed. “I am sorry for dragging you into this ruse without warning, even if it was extremely amusing watching your expression as ponies offered their congratulations all night.”
“Yeah, I was- wait, ruse?” I blinked, starting to feel stupid.
Shahrazad looked away from me, looking pained. “I apologize. I fear for my life, and when the opportunity came, I jumped upon it. Sunset Shimmer, you are my only hope.”
Princess Shahrazad sent her maid away after she’d brought us a jug of strong wine and two cups, and I was getting just paranoid enough to make sure the Princess drank first before I started sipping on it. After switching our cups.
“What I am going to tell you I must beg you to keep in confidence,” she said. “I trust you, Sunset Shimmer. I just ask that you trust me long enough to listen to my story.”
I nodded. “I’ll listen,” I said. “So what happened in the parade? How much of that was real?”
“All of it,” she said. “You know I am my father’s only child, and heir to the throne?” I hadn't really known that, but I nodded, and she continued. “As you can imagine, there are many ponies who wish to take advantage of me. Some are harmless and just wish to gain my favor, but others would remove me from their path.”
“So someone wants to usurp your dad?” I suggested.
“I believe my uncle is the one to blame, though I cannot prove it. If I was… removed, he would sit on the throne after my father passes. There are no other legitimate heirs, and so even if he was suspected of the crime he would still be the next king.” Shahrazad looked pained. “I don’t feel safe anywhere anymore.”
“Don’t you have guards?”
“Of course I do,” the Princess smiled sadly. “Some of them were involved in the attempt on my life. You understand, yes? I cannot offer them more than Uncle can. A hundred coins can pay a dozen guards to keep one safe, but if one of them can get that whole reward by turning his blade on me and not have to share it with the others, well, you see the problem.”
“So much for loyalty,” I muttered.
Shahrazad put her hoof on my shoulder.
“That’s why I need you,” she said. “You saved me without thought for your own safety. You didn’t seek a reward. You just did what you thought was right.”
“I couldn’t do nothing when a mare was in trouble right in front of me,” I mumbled. She tilted my chin to make me meet her gaze.
“Exactly! You’re an outsider, so my uncle cannot have gotten to you already. You are a warrior, one so powerful nopony in the palace could stand against you. And now you are my fiancee, so you can go everywhere with me.”
“Sounds like you just wanted a bodyguard.”
She pulled me closer, still holding my chin. Her lips pressed against mine, and I realized I had absolutely no idea how to properly kiss anypony. My panic washed away quickly, because Princess Shahrazad knew enough for both of us. It was like eating a hot pepper, a rush of heat and passion that left my lips tingling even after we broke apart.
“That was for saving me,” she whispered. “It may be a ruse but I think both of us will enjoy it.”
I nodded dumbly.
“We will have plenty of time to learn about each other as we uncover my uncle’s plot,” she said. “Perhaps by the end we will decide it wouldn’t be so terrible if we allowed the engagement to play out to its natural conclusion.”
“I-I guess,” I stammered, still a little shaken. The kiss had been more intoxicating than the wine. I tried to steady myself and focus on anything besides her hips and lips and everything in between. “But if I’m going to keep you safe it means we need to coordinate so I can actually be around you.”
“Naturally,” she agreed.
“For one thing, I want to know how you got here before I did. The parade went right here and by the time I saw the king you were already dressed up and you’d had time to tell him all about what happened.”
“And you spent hours climbing steps,” she countered. “You don’t think a Princess would walk up the supplicant’s path, do you?” She pointed. “There is a rather clever elevator system that involves moving sand from one silo to another. If one knows the door to use, it takes only a few minutes to ascend from the bottom.”
“I knew there had to be another way up!” I huffed. “I don’t suppose you can…” I looked at her hopefully.
“Perhaps,” she said, smiling. “I would need to accompany you, beloved. Only the royal family is allowed to use the sand elevator. It offers easy access to and from the castle, unseen by those outside. You can see the danger, yes?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I don’t think it’s a serious danger, though. I mean, at worst it’s just a door that needs to be guarded.”
“Mm.” Shahrazad tilted her head. “Regardless, I am sure you can find another way to go to and from the palace without having to use the stairs. Or are you not as clever as I thought?”
If she wanted to make it a contest, she’d picked the wrong pony to challenge.
“Of course I can,” I scoffed. “Even if I didn’t want to pick the locks on your teleportation wards, I could just walk up the wall with a spider-climb spell or throw myself with a telekinetic burst. I just didn’t want to be rude about it is all.”
“It wouldn’t be rude,” she assured me. “In fact, I’d love it if you would escape with me some night, beloved.” Shahrazad grinned and lounged, stretching her back legs out. “I find the palace so dreary, especially since I am involved in so little. Do you know I was not even allowed to assist with the treaty our nations are signing?”
That got a laugh out of me. “Join the club. I thought I was coming here to try to negotiate the details but instead, I’m just supposed to smile and sign on the dotted line.”
“I wouldn’t even be allowed to sign. It is why I snuck out in the first place. I wanted to see Princess Cadance myself on my own terms. Instead, I met you. The news of her replacement had not yet reached the palace. Or perhaps my father simply didn't deign to tell me.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“You have nothing to apologize for. You saved my life. From everything I have heard, Princess Cadance lacks the fighting spirit you displayed.” She took my hoof, squeezing it gently. “If she had been there, I might have died. I most certainly would not find myself as part of this most agreeable little ruse.”
“I suppose it’s not so bad,” I admitted, squeezing back. She pulled me closer.
She kissed me again, and it was just as electric as the first time.
My name is Celestia. Despite what certain ponies seem to think, Princess is not part of my name, and there are times it grates on my ears to hear it. The title comes between me and the ponies I rule, and the distance can be unpleasantly lonely.
Until very recently, I was the sole ruler of Equestria. I have tried to keep ponies safe, but making connections to them has been difficult, even impossible. I've had friends, promising students, even a few ponies who I loved dearly, but they were the exception rather than the rule. I have gone entire lifetimes without knowing a pony well enough for them to speak to me without using my title.
I hope more than anything else that I won't suffer that again. Thanks to luck, Harmony, and brave ponies, I finally have a surplus of what I lacked for ten centuries. My sister has returned and we are working to reconcile our differences.
My most faithful student, Twilight Sparkle, is the one who redeemed her, and I can never pay her back enough for what she has done. I suspect she may someday eclipse me in magical power, depending on which prophesies she actually ends up fulfilling.
Princess Cadance is something like a daughter to me. Legally, she's exactly that. Adopting her into the royal family kept the nobility from fighting over her or questioning her right to rule. It will take time for her to grow into her own, but she spends much of her time away from Canterlot and avoiding the games of politics and betrayal. If nothing else, the diplomatic corps is happy to have an alicorn as an official Equestrian Envoy.
Finally, there is Sunset Shimmer. I am not sure what to make of her potential. Twilight Sparkle fulfilled the prophesies that I had thought Sunset would, but even so, I have questions with no answers. She knew all of the Elements, and befriended them before Twilight did. She has survived several events that should have killed her. I have never believed in coincidence. Fate is playing some game with her, and she has been one of its favorite pieces since the time we first met.
I had been enjoying tea when I felt it. Magic has always had a certain flow to it, like the weather. Just as a pegasus could feel when rain or thunder was on the way, a unicorn could feel when powerful magic was being worked. It came as pressure against my horn, a feeling in the pit of my stomach.
What I felt wasn't the gentle breeze of spellwork from a skilled mage. It was more like a tide rolling across Canterlot, drowning the distant sensations of my school, giving me the same feeling I got looking over the edge of a cliff. Even one of the maids felt it, turning to look to the west. A pillar of flame reached for the sky with volcanic force. The windows rattled in their frames.
“Cancel my appointments,” I said, trying to remain calm. I had a lot of practice. Was it another assassination attempt gone awry? An attack by some invading army that even my own specialists hadn’t seen coming? I decided to take a look for myself. If it was anything truly dangerous, I would rather have my hoof in it now when I could do the most good.
I teleported high above the city to try to find the source of the magic. I was somewhat shocked to find that it was coming from an orphanage.
Orphanages were a sad necessity. While there were very few foals who were abandoned, there were always those who lost their parents or who otherwise ended up without a home through no fault of their own. It was also the last place I would expect even our worst foes to attack. That meant an accident of some kind, and with foals involved, I couldn’t wait for the Guard to respond.
I admit it -- it wasn’t merely the fact that lives were on the line that motivated me. I didn’t often get to take care of problems myself. Too many things relied on my being in Canterlot, adhering to a tight schedule. I would do anything to keep my little ponies safe, but sometimes I felt as though I’d constructed a gilded cage for myself. This was a rare opportunity to fly.
An extinguishing spell subdued the flames and I surveyed the damage as I circled down. The roof was gone, inner walls were scorched to charcoal, and I could smell burning hair and worse even at this distance.
I landed in the ashes, alone. A quick spell told me that the three still forms along one wall were already beyond saving, and the rest of the foals and caretakers had fled the flames.
No matter how many years I’ve existed, I have never been able to become numb to the death of ponies. I hope I never do.
I shook my head and turned to leave when I heard a cough at my hooves. I looked down with shock as embers stirred and a filly slowly got to her hooves, shaking and exhausted. She was at the epicenter of the destruction. She should have been dead. Instead, she seemed exhausted but unhurt and tilted her head to look up at me with teal eyes almost hidden behind hair the color of dancing flames.
I blinked down at her. Before I could say anything, the foal started crying. Between sobs I could just barely understand that she was begging for forgiveness.
“I-it’s all my fault…”
Canterlot General Hospital is perhaps the most advanced medical facility in the world. The griffons may have advances in the art of war that we lack, and zebras might have alchemical secrets they have never shared, every nation in the world knew that Equestrian medicine was simply the best.
Sunset Shimmer was lying in bed, surrounded by machines that went beep, tweedle-dee, and every other medically-advanced sound that doctors were fond of. They were doubtless brand new and extremely expensive, with readouts that only a true expert could hope to understand.
I admit that I have not quite kept up with medical advances in the last century or two.
“Am I going to go to the dungeon?” Sunset whispered, looking up at me in fear. I had elected to stay with her, for now. There were very few ponies who would be able to stop another disaster from spreading if she lost control of her magic again, and, well, if I went back to the castle I would be too distracted by worrying about the filly to fill out any of the hundreds and hundreds of forms that had piled up on my desk. Sadly, I was going to have to delegate that task to others.
“You aren’t going to go to the dungeon,” I said. “I promise.”
“I didn’t mean to do it,” Sunset said, pulling the covers up higher and trying to cover her face. “D-did a lot of ponies get hurt?”
Three foals were dead. A dozen were injured, some severely. One was in surgery now, and would likely never recover.
“Yes,” I said, leaving it at that. I wasn’t prepared to tell a filly she had accidentally killed another, but I wasn’t going to lie to her either. I just had to hope she didn’t ask questions until she was prepared for the answers.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen,” she whispered, tearing up again.
“What was supposed to happen?” I asked. I had to try to keep her focused and get her side of the story. Some ponies had already petitioned for her to be, if not thrown in a dungeon, exiled somewhere she could do no harm.
“I was trying to cast a light spell. Every time I try to use my magic it blows up in my face, but I read that a light spell is really easy, so even I should have been able to get it right. The other foals were making fun of me, so I just… I tried casting it as hard as I could.” She looked up at me. “I guess I messed that up, too.”
“Mistakes are the most important part of learning,” I said. “If you never made mistakes, you’d never be challenging yourself.”
“Most ponies don’t make mistakes like this,” Sunset muttered, turning away from me.
“That means you have to learn a big lesson from it,” I said.
“Yeah, I learned that I shouldn’t use my magic, because ponies just get hurt.”
I shook my head, though I knew she couldn’t see it. “That’s one lesson you could take from this, though it would be wrong.”
“Then what am I supposed to learn?” Sunset asked, her voice breaking. “That I’m just a walking disaster? I saw when the spell I tried to cast exploded in my face, and I’m going to have to remember it every time I look at my stupid flank!”
She kicked the blanket away, revealing her new cutie mark, a blazing ball of fire.
“It looks just like it,” she muttered.
“It looks like a sun to me, though I suppose I’m not impartial.” I smiled. “A cutie mark of a sun usually represents great magical power.”
“Great. So when my spells blow up instead of doing what I want, they’ll be really dangerous.”
At least sarcasm was a little better than whimpering. I was used to dealing with sarcasm from the nobility.
“It means you need a teacher who can help you learn to keep your spells from failing quite so explosively. Spells are fragile little things. A little too much power put into them, and instead of fixing a cracked teacup, you end up shattering it.”
“Spells are… fragile?” Sunset frowned, turning to face me again.
“As delicate as an eggshell,” I confirmed. “When you attempted to form that light spell, it was like trying to crack an egg with a sledgehammer. Then, with the spell shattered, the mana you put into it had nothing to guide it. It turned into heat and force, the two most basic types of energy, and… you saw the result.”
“I don’t think the orphanage is going to hire a tutor just for me,” Sunset pointed out. “If they even let me back in.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. How would you like to come back to the castle with me? I happen to have a few strings to pull at the School for Gifted Unicorns, and I’ve been looking for a filly who had enough potential to be my personal student.”
More importantly, it would put her somewhere she could be monitored at all times to prevent a repeat accident.
“You mean...” Sunset blinked, unsure how to react. “You want me to--?”
“You don’t have to accept. It’s a big decision to make, and I can give you time to think-”
“But I messed everything up!” Sunset protested. “I shouldn’t get a reward!”
“It’s a responsibility,” I said. “Not a reward. You will have to meet very high expectations, and your other teachers are going to be told to push you harder than any of their other pupils.”
“And it’s the best way to learn how to keep from hurting anypony again?” Sunset asked. I nodded. She took a deep breath. “Then I’ll do it. I just… I don’t want this to ever happen again.”
Years had passed, and Sunset Shimmer changed, not necessarily for the better. She had risen to meet every challenge I’d thrown at her, and while there were times that I loved her like a daughter, sometimes she made me want to tear out my mane.
Today was one of those days.
“You can’t solve all of your problems with explosions,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. A thousand years of ruling alone had not prepared me for a student who attempted to solve every problem with the application of force. I felt like the next thing to explode would be my head.
“You wanted me to get the chest open,” Sunset countered. “I got the chest open!” She gestured to the chest. What was left of the chest. It was shattered and spread almost evenly across the entire floor of the testing chamber.
“The purpose of the test was for you to demonstrate finesse,” I said. “You were supposed to pick the lock, use opening spells, turn the lock incorporeal, any one of a number of non-violent solutions.”
“The chest is open,” Sunset huffed, folding her hooves.
“The chest is gone,” I corrected. “And what was inside is destroyed. What are you going to do if you lock yourself out of your room, blow the door down?” She looked nervous. I frowned. “You’ve done exactly that, haven’t you?”
“I’m surprised you never noticed,” Sunset admitted.
I groaned and rubbed my temples, getting frustrated.
“Look, the chest is open, and I can easily get to the contents,” Sunset said, trotting over to the shattered glass and wood that had been inside. “One quick repair spell…”
She picked up the pieces and her magical aura started shining brightly as they flew back together, mending themselves and revealing what had been inside the chest all along - a framed photo of the two of us. She put it down and glanced at the chest, giving it the same treatment.
“See? Finesse.” She smirked.
“Not everything is as easy to fix as wood and glass,” I said. “You could easily hurt another pony by being so reckless. What if I’d gotten you a pet and put it in that chest?”
“Well, I…” She frowned, turning the thought over in her head. She turned a little green.
“Please promise me you’ll start taking these tests more seriously. It’s not about showing off how much power you have -- we all know you have more than enough.” I smiled. “What I want to see is how much you’ve learned, and your ability to come up with novel solutions. I will be the first to agree that brute force and violence can solve any problem, but the consequences that result - and the amount of violence needed - often make the result a pyrrhic victory at best.”
“I… okay, Celestia,” Sunset said, looking down at her hooves.
“You’re a very bright pony,” I said. “And I have to admit, that was a flawless repair spell. Where did you learn that?”
Sunset looked up and smiled. “I found a few spells in one of the young mare’s adventure books that I borrowed from the library. Apparently this was the one that the thief in Prancy Dewdrop and the Mystery of the Locked Door used to cover up his crimes…”
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or at least, that’s the saying. Having watched Equestria since before its founding, I can say that I certainly see how the expression came about. Ponies were creatures of habit, and even when their situation changed, they hung onto the things that were familiar.
Sunset Shimmer had left on bad terms because of a misunderstanding between us. No, that’s not quite accurate. She left on bad terms because she wanted something that I had not been prepared to give her. She wanted me to adopt her, make her part of the royal family, and I had never taken the time to explain why I hadn’t.
When she had returned, I had, perhaps hastily, decided to adopt her. I thought that it would mend things between us. But Sunset had become a different mare than when she left, and saw me with respect born of fear and paranoia instead of love. She’d agreed to come back with me, but I could feel that familiar wedge of distance and silence sliding between us again, even if it was from a different cause.
And today, I was determined to make a start at healing the rift that had developed between us.
“Do you think this disguise makes my flank look fat?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood. I turned away from Sunset and looked back to her. We were outside of one of the finest zoos in Equestria, the Royal Nature Preserve. I’d never been to the Royal Nature Preserve myself. Well, perhaps that’s inaccurate. I’d been there the day it opened, and dedicated it to the preservation of endangered species and building understanding and wonder at the variety of animals across Equestria and beyond. That, however, had been a century ago, and the zoo had entirely closed and reopened twice since then, once because the funding had run out, and once because the administration wasn’t taking proper care of the animals. The second event had led to some of the less dangerous of the zoo animals being moved to the Castle gardens, where their descendants still remained.
She rolled her eyes. “No, three slices of cake with breakfast does that, ‘Sunny.’”
One of the few problems with being the absolute ruler of a nation was that you could rarely get time to yourself for family matters and having a little fun, at least without ruining some major gala event. Of course, I would never do that, so I had to find other ways to carve out time for myself.
For example, letting Luna take control of the Solar Court for a day while I spent the time with Sunset. I was fairly sure she wouldn’t try to take over the country (and if she did, she'd have to do all the paperwork so the joke would really be on her). Besides, she couldn’t do worse than the simulacrums that I’d used in the past. One had dissolved back into mist in the middle of court and nearly caused an international crisis. In my defense, I had to choose between a formal diplomatic meeting and the opening of Equestria's largest waterslide.
“I’m serious,” I pouted. “I haven’t had to use transformation magic on myself in a very long time. This looks normal, right?”
Sunset sighed, looking at me. I had disguised myself as a pink unicorn with red and yellow hair, a compromise between Cadance and Sunset’s appearances. Normally I would have used a pegasus disguise, but I thought losing the wings might make Sunset somewhat more at ease.
“It’s fine,” she said, eventually.
“I hope so. I want everypony else at the zoo looking at the beasts, not at my cutie mark.” I adjusted my dress. It was enchanted to help keep my disguise intact. A simple illusion spell had been good enough in my youth. Now I had to use transformation magic just to avoid being twice as large as the ponies around me.
“I don’t even know why we’re going to the zoo. I saw plenty of wild animals in the Everfree.”
“Because I want to spend time with you,” I replied. “Somewhere away from all the politics and history.” And though I didn’t say it, I was also somewhat motivated by a brochure somepony had left with my mail that had mentioned the preserve as a good place to help bond with your foal. “If you don’t want to go, we can find something else to do,” I suggested. “A concert, or a museum…”
“I’ve been living in a museum for years now,” Sunset joked. “And we couldn’t talk at a concert. The zoo is fine. It’s just… sudden. Like all of this.”
“It took a little work to make sure I had the time, and I didn’t want to promise anything that I couldn’t deliver,” I said.
Sunset smiled, more honestly than before. “You don’t need to do that. I know how busy you are.”
“You should consider a disguise yourself,” I said, changing the subject. She was a fairly distinctive pony, after all. At least she hadn’t insisted on wearing a black cloak or leather jacket today.
“Why?” She raised an eyebrow. “It’s not like ponies know me. I was practically a recluse back in school, and I haven’t exactly been a high-profile pony since then.”
“You might be surprised,” I said. “You’ve been in the papers more often than not since you returned to Canterlot. The press seems to love you and Luna.”
“I’m not sure if that’s good or bad,” Sunset muttered.
“Cadance can give you some tips on managing the paparazzi,” I suggested. “Just try not to set any of them on fire."
“Don’t tempt me,” Sunset said. “I happen to like setting things on fire.”
“Just none of the exhibits,” I joked, as we got in line to enter the zoo, quieting until we could get away from the crowds again. Sunset looked nervous around so many other ponies, and it made me wish I could wrap a wing around her, though I was sure she’d have pushed me away and told me she was fine, despite all evidence to the contrary. "Do you remember when you set part of the garden on fire trying to make a spell that would get rid of mosquitos?"
"H-how was I supposed to know it would trigger on all the ants and earthworms? And why didn't anypony tell me there were that many bugs in the garden?" Sunset demanded, her cheeks red. She saw my expression and her glare softened. “I guess it was a little funny in hindsight,” she admitted.
“Twilight caused quite a bit of trouble as well,” I said. “I’ve never seen quite as much chaos as when she accidentally cast a Want-It-Need-It spell on Spike. Of course, she had been intending to use it on herself. Apparently one of her classmates had mocked her for not having a date to the school semi-formal.”
“That’s… pretty dangerously close to dark magic,” Sunset said. “Why would you teach her a spell like that?”
“I didn’t,” I sighed. “Apparently, she learned it on her own from a certain book I know hasn’t been in print for about a thousand years…” I raised an eyebrow and looked at Sunset.
Sunset had a sudden coughing fit. “I didn’t exactly keep track of what she borrowed! It was… a lot. She’s kind of an avid reader, you know!”
She relaxed as we got inside and away from the press of the herd. The zoo was busy today, full of smiling ponies. My steps slowed as I watched a young mother carrying an excited foal on her back. I was jealous of them. Ponies didn’t often appreciate their lives, how much you began to miss simple happiness and family when you weren’t able to have it.
“Claustrophobic?” I asked.
“You know I’ve never liked other ponies.” Sunset shrugged.
“You get along with your friends.”
“That’s different, and I still didn’t like going into town,” Sunset countered. “Like... It took me a long time to get used to Pinkie. She kept acting like she was afraid of me, and it… made me feel in control.” She smiled fondly. “By the time I figured out she wasn’t really scared, I didn’t want ponies to be afraid of me anyway, and I ended up letting her throw me a party where we got to know each other a little better.”
“She does know how to get ponies talking,” I agreed, as we walked over a wooden bridge. Below us, lions lazed in the sunlight. I envied them. I never had time to just relax anymore. There was always one crisis after another, to the point that I was having to let others take care of some of them for me.
"You know Pinkie Pie?" Sunset asked.
"I've placed orders from Ponyville before, for... various reasons." Mostly wanting to avoid the palace accountants knowing exactly where some of the national budget was going, but also because Sugarcube Corner was simply amazing. Also, perhaps, because I'd wanted to check on a few nearby things over the years.
“So,” Sunset said, clearing her throat. “Since both of us are experts on magical beasts, who wants to be the tour guide?”
“Please, you have more recent experience,” I said. “Especially in the wild. I’d like to hear how many of these creatures you’ve met in the past.”
“Too many,” Sunset snorted. “Come on. The manticore’s right over there.” She pointed to a cage. “I know something most ponies don’t about them.”
“Oh?” I asked, raising an eyebrow as we stepped over to the enclosure. The zoo’s manticore was somewhat elderly, but still wild. The cage around it kept it well away from the ponies who had come to see it, while still giving it a large, fairly natural habitat where it was well-fed and cared for.
“They taste awful,” Sunset specified, leering down at the manticore in the cage. It had been prowling, ignoring the ponies whispering and pointing at it. I saw it look up at her and visibly pale.
“And why, exactly, do you know how they taste?” I asked, asking the obvious question she’d left open for me.
“Two reasons,” Sunset said. “First, it’s part of a Zebrican antivenin treatment. Not one they use often, but that time there were already plenty of manticore bits around and it was too time-sensitive to gather the other viable components that could replace it.”
I glanced at her back leg, where the old scar from a manticore sting was still visible just above her knee, a bare patch of skin like an arrow wound.
“Second,” she continued. “I was stubborn and stupid and told Zecora that her potion only tasted awful because she couldn’t cook. I was, um. I was wrong about that. Manticore tastes awful no matter what you do.”
“I'll keep that in mind in case I find myself stranded and start thinking about trying a steak," I giggled.
"I thought the ones here at the zoo would be more impressive,” Sunset said. She kept eye contact with the manticore, and the beast circled, watching her warily. "Maybe it's out of shape after living in a cage for so long."
“Shall we move onto the exhibit of magical pests?” I nodded towards the building.
Sunset grunted and kept her eyes on the manticore, rubbing her leg with absent-minded distraction. "This manticore isn’t as big as the ones in the Everfree..."
I think I surprised her when I hugged her. She stiffened, and I could feel the magic surge from her horn for a moment, though she brought it under control before anything exploded.
"What are you doing?" she asked, surprised.
"You looked like you needed a hug," I said.
"I'm fine," she insisted, trying to push away from me. I let her go.
“Maybe,” I said. “But I’m not fine. I don’t like seeing you in pain.”
“Let’s just… go look at the parasprites,” Sunset said, turning away. The manticore took the opportunity to flee back into the darker parts of its enclosure. I put a hoof on her shoulder and led her away from the enclosure.
“Do you want to go sit down?” I asked, worried.
“I’m fine, Prin-” she looked at me, and saw something in my expression. “Mom. I’m fine.”
At least she’d called me Mom. I’d take whatever progress I could get in trying to peel her out of the shell she’d built around herself. As we walked into the House of Magical Pests, I felt a crawling sensation along my spine and forced myself not to look behind us. For some reason I felt like I was forgetting something important, but for the life of me I couldn't imagine what.
I carried two bowls of ice cream back to the secluded table Sunset had saved for us, pointedly as far from the other tourists as possible. I saw her usually sour expression brighten at the sight of it.
“If I remember correctly, you were always fond of rainbow sherbet.” I put the paper bowl in front of her.
“And you’re still eating plain vanilla,” Sunset noted.
“Sometimes the simple things are best,” I said. “I have to sit and eat all kinds of elaborate desserts and sundaes, but none of them are as good as this.” I held up the paper bowl. “Plain vanilla, eaten on a day off with a pony that means so much to me.”
“When did I start mattering that much?” Sunset asked, after a few bites of sherbet to steel herself.
“You always did,” I said. “I’ve just never been good at showing it.”
“Then why didn’t you ever want to…” she trailed off, staring at her ice cream. It looked like this discussion wasn’t something that her favorite dessert could fix.
“That’s not an easy question to answer,” I said. “But you deserve more than just…” I trailed off as my eyes caught movement in the shadows. “Tartarus.”
“I hope I don’t deserve Tartarus for asking a simple question."
“No, I mean, I forgot something on my schedule.” No time to drop the disguise.
“Really? You have a meeting important enough that you’re going to suddenly take off, just when I ask you a difficult question?” Sunset stood up. “That’s such horseapples! I just want a straight answer--”
I pushed Sunset down and raised a magical barrier just in time to stop the crossbow bolt.
“Did somepony just try to kill me?” Sunset asked, blinking.
“What I forgot was that today was when the Intelligence Branch determined the assassins would make an attempt.” I paused. “That does explain why I had so little on my schedule, and why the guards were so difficult to slip this time. I really do need to write these things down somewhere…” That was the problem with secret documents. You never had a copy on hoof when you needed it.
“You forgot that somepony was going to murder you?!” Sunset yelled. The other park patrons were looking at us now and backing away rather quickly. Most of them, anyway. A few pulled out knives and other rather dangerous looking weapons and started advancing towards us.
“I had bigger concerns!” I protested, firing a bolt of force at one of the hired killers, launching him all the way into the manticore enclosure. I was going to have to remember to save him, if he was still alive when I was done with his friends.
“What’s a bigger concern than this?!” Sunset yelled. I could feel the temperature of the air rising around her. I don’t even think she was aware she was doing it.
“You are,” I said, giving her a smile. “Spending time with you, trying to reconnect… that’s much more important to me than just another threat to my life.”
“You actually mean that, don’t you?” Sunset muttered, the air starting to cool.
“Sunset, you’ve been my daughter in all but name since you were a filly.” I fired another blast, tossing a pony into a fountain. It was hard to avoid seriously injuring them. “Then everything fell apart and I missed so much of your life, because I couldn’t be the parent you needed. Just like I couldn’t be the sister Luna needed, a thousand years ago.”
Sunset rubbed at her eyes. “This really isn’t the right time for drama.”
“I think the middle of an assassination attempt is a wonderful time for it,” I said, trying to smile.
“Nah,” Sunset shook her head. “Hey, remember what you told me once? That you can’t solve all of your problems with explosions? Pretty sure I can solve this one easily enough.”
“Show me,” I said.
Sunset smirked and sniffled before closing her eyes, her horn lighting up with a hard cyan and white light. Magical auras flickered around the ponies around us for a moment, the assassins in red and the rest in blue. Then Sunset reared up, firing bolts of energy straight up into the air, where they banked at hard angles, slamming down on the assassins and erupting into balls of flame.
“There,” she said. “One simple divination spell to determine who was who, tied into a seeking variation of the standard fireball spell. And they’re all alive, in case you’re worried.”
I looked at the nearest assassin. He was barely moving, covered in burns. I looked at Sunset and raised an eyebrow.
“He’ll be fine,” she assured me. I looked back to him. He was very badly burned. “I’m sure that’ll just… heal right up.” She gave me a weak smile. “Definitely fine.”
“Nopony move!” Both of our attentions turned to the new voice. The last assassin, only moderately burned, was holding onto a mare, a crossbow affixed to his hoof and pointed at her neck.
“A hostage?” Sunset asked. “That’s… pretty lame for an assassin. You know Celestia would have just let you walk out of here if you were quiet about it, right?”
“Shut up! You know nothing!” The assassin backed up a step. “You can’t possibly understand what she did to us!”
“I’m sorry, and you are…?” I asked, clearing my throat.
“As if you don’t know!” He sneered.
I waited.
He frowned. “You… really don’t know?”
I shook my head.
“The treaty you made! To give the Eventide Islands back to the griffons!” He growled.
“Oh, yes,” I said. “The peace treaty.” I glanced to Sunset. “A few years ago I returned some old griffon territory to the Empire, in exchange for a similar exchange of some of the northern islands. They were rather important trading posts a bit over a thousand years ago, and I felt it would be a good investment for the future.”
“You gave up our homes!” The pony pressed the tip of the loaded crossbow into his hostage’s throat.
“You were offered resettlement help, and fair compensation for any property lost,” I countered. “You were warned if you remained that it would be under griffon rule. The treaty terms ensured that you would be well-treated.”
“Well-treated?!” The stallion yelled. “They take all of our crops and barely leave enough for us to survive on! They treat us like slaves!”
“You could leave,” I reminded him.
“We can’t just abandon our homes! Our blood, sweat, and tears went into making those islands a home and you just threw them away for some harmony-forsaken frozen rocks in the north--”
“Can we please just get back to trying to kill each other?” Sunset hissed. “I hate politics.”
“You used to love listening to me talk about politics and treaties,” I sighed.
“That was before you started sending me away so you could coach Cadance on it,” Sunset retorted. I winced at that.
“E-excuse me?” The hostage said. “C-can somepony please rescue me?” She made a scared squeaking sound as the assassin pushed the tip of his weapon harder against her throat, nearly drawing blood. “Or you could keep talking about politics and try to resolve this peacefully! That’s fine too! Please don’t hurt me!”
Sunset slowly started stepping off to the side. The assassin kept his eyes on her until I cleared my throat, getting his attention.
“Now, I understand you have reasonable grievances, but this is something that should have been addressed in the court.” I tried to look natural as I slowly walked away from Sunset, further drawing his attention away from her. “I have never subscribed to the theory that power flows from the point of a sword. If you want to discuss getting help in leaving the Eventide islands, I am more than willing to offer the same aid I did last time.”
“And give up our homes and lives?” The assassin scoffed. A little more, and Sunset would be out of his field of vision.
“It’s the best thing for your family,” I said.
“The Eventide islands have been Equestrian territory for centuries, and you gave it up for nothing,” he growled. “Ponies here don’t even remember us, because you buried the terms of the treaty and let them forget that you abandoned us when we needed you. After this, though, they’ll remember us again, and you’ll have to answer to the public about why you let us rot under griffon rule!”
There was a flash of cyan light, and the assassin turned to look at where Sunset was. Had been. The hostage was standing there now, looking confused. He looked down at the mare he was holding, who was considerably less scared and more dangerous than the one he had been threatening before.
“Transposition Trick,” Sunset said, just before the crossbow pressing against her neck burst into flames.
“Well I guess that was a mess,” Sunset groaned, as we walked through the silent park. The Guard had arrived shortly after we had finished rounding up the would-be assassins. Even the one who had been thrown into the manicore cage had survived, thankfully.
“It was my fault for not paying closer attention to my schedule,” I sighed. I’d dropped the disguise after the Guard had arrived. The park patrons had already been evacuated, and the two of us were alone, for better or worse.
“Still, those guys were pretty stupid,” Sunset smirked. “I mean, going after an alicorn with crossbows and knives? That wouldn’t have even been enough to handle me, and I’m not immortal like you are.”
“I don’t think they ever intended to succeed,” I said. “They wanted to make a spectacle. A grand gesture. Something to bring their plight into the public eye.”
“Are you going to let it happen?” Sunset asked.
“I can hardly stop them.”
“You could just order the press to avoid mentioning the political agenda, or bury the story entirely. If you let their message get to the papers, it’s like letting them win!” Sunset gave me a sour expression.
“There aren’t any winners here,” I said. “What they did was motivated by desperation. They felt abandoned and lost, and this was the only way they could get my attention. Maybe they weren’t entirely wrong about that.”
“And if they get their way, it’s just going to encourage more ponies to try the same thing,” Sunset pointed out. “You can’t negotiate with them, or it makes what they’re doing a legitimate tactic.”
“If ponies are really suffering, I need to do something about it,” I said. “Maybe they didn’t do the right thing, but they did it with their whole heart. They’re asking for help, and they were willing to put their lives on the line for it. Most likely, they’ll end up dying for it.”
“I didn’t think I hurt them that badly…”
“You didn’t,” I said. “But they’re all technically citizens of the Empire, not of Equestria. Once they’ve recovered, they’ll have to be deported back to the Empire to be tried for their crimes. It’s part of the same treaty that gave the islands to the griffons in the first place. They’ll likely be executed.”
“Well maybe they deserve it,” Sunset muttered, just barely loud enough to hear.
“I thought you’d be more sympathetic,” I said. “You felt abandoned, too, and you were willing to do almost anything to get my attention again.”
“Yeah well… I was being stupid,” Sunset whispered.
“Ah, here we go…” I stopped at the table we had been sitting at before the whole mess had begun. Sunset’s sherbet had spilled to the ground, but my ice cream had survived, my discrete cooling charm still keeping it from melting even hours later.
“We came all the way back here for the ice cream?” Sunset snorted, smiling. “That’s so like you.”
“That’s not the only reason,” I admitted. “I think better on my hooves, and I needed to get you a real answer to the question you asked me.”
“About why you never adopted me?” Sunset’s smile faded.
I nodded. “The reasons… changed, over time. That’s one reason it’s just so difficult to put things into words.” I led her to the shade under a tree and sat down on the grass, Sunset sitting next to me. I resisted the urge to pull her into a hug. "I wanted to spend today thinking about all the good times."
"There were a lot of bad times," Sunset said, her voice wavering. "Most of them were my fault."
"I think we just remember the bad times more because they leave scars. Not all of them are visible."
Sunset wiped her eyes. "Sorry."
I pulled her into a hug. “It hurt because it mattered more than I wanted to admit. When I first took you on as a student, I didn’t intend to adopt you,” I said. “It just wasn’t something I considered. It was foolish of me. I was spending time with you, teaching you, watching you grow, doing all the things a mother should do. It was when you passed your third-year exams at the school that I realized how proud I was of you, and I started seriously considering the option.”
“That was right around the time that Cadance…” Sunset trailed off.
“Cadance was an orphan, like you. Her ascension caught me completely by surprise, and I reacted quickly and… did things incorrectly,” I sighed. “She was an orphan, but there were ponies who cared about her, and I swooped in and took her away from everything she knew in the name of political expediency.”
“She always seemed happy enough,” Sunset said.
I shook my head. “She was good at putting on a happy face, but what I did almost broke her. I was thinking of what Equestria needed, and that was a stable leadership. As an alicorn, Cadance needed to become part of the royal family just to keep her from accidentally causing a schism, or being used by some noble house as a figurehead to gather support.”
“And she got a real family out of it,” Sunset pointed out. “Not to mention rich, famous, beloved by all who gaze upon her, et cetera.”
“She lost her real family when I took her to Canterlot,” I corrected. “And she never had a chance to lead a real life. I’ve tried to keep her out of the public eye to give her at least some amount of privacy, but she had to learn how to use a horn she wasn’t born with and to conduct herself politically.”
“I was so jealous,” Sunset said. “She had everything I ever wanted.”
“She didn’t want any of it,” I said. “She told me later she cried herself to sleep almost every night. It took her years to come to terms with what happened to her, and in that time it was like being in prison. No going out in public without an escort. Constant lessons. If not for her personal guard, she would have had a breakdown.”
“Shining Armor?” Sunset guessed. I nodded, and she snorted. “I guess that’s one kind of comfort. I sure wasn’t helping.”
“I never blamed you for not getting along with her,” I said. “I understood why. I had hoped you would be able to become friends despite your differences.”
“We did, eventually,” Sunset said.
I smiled. “You don’t know how much that meant to her. Cadance has very few friends. It’s difficult to make close connections when ponies are all either bowing or trying to get favors out of you. I didn’t want that to happen to you. I thought if I didn’t adopt you, you’d have a chance at a normal life.”
“I’ve never had a chance at that,” Sunset snorted. “I mean just look at me. I ended up living in a haunted castle and studying dark magic and alchemy.”
“I never said it worked out,” I said, smiling. “I just wanted you to be happy, and I made the mistake of thinking that I knew how to make you happy better than you did. Instead I ended up making you think I didn’t care about you.”
“And you’re adopting me now to… what, make up for things?”
“Sunset, you’ve always been my daughter. The only two things that disagreed were a piece of paper that said you were a ward of the state and a stubborn old princess.” I shook my head. “I’m just sorry it took this long to start making it right. After all those years, I don’t have any right to be your mother. I know you promised Twilight you’d come home with me, but now I’m keeping you from your friends, just like I did with Cadance.”
I prodded my bowl of ice cream with the little plastic spoon that had come with it.
“If you want to go back to Ponyville, I can help you get a house closer to town, or even do some repairs to the old castle if you’d prefer it. I know you aren’t comfortable here.”
“You’re such an idiot sometimes,” Sunset huffed. She shifted, leaning against my side. “You forget about an assassination attempt, you thought not adopting me would make me happier, and now you’re trying to get rid of me.”
“I’m not trying to get rid of you.”
“And worst of all,” Sunset said, taking the ice cream from my grip and bringing the spoon up to her mouth to taste it. “The only ice cream left is plain vanilla.” She huffed and took another bite.
“Sorry.”
“I guess it’s not too bad,” She admitted. “At least since I’m eating it with you.”
I put a wing around her, not letting her see the tears in my eyes. “We’ll get your favorite flavor next time.”
I didn’t get to spend the night in Princess Shahrazad’s room. It would have been nice, but the chances of us having a sleepover dropped to precisely zero when her father walked in to check on us while we were talking about the very special spells that Equestrians were supposed to know.
For the record, Celestia didn’t teach me any of those spells. I’m like ninety percent sure she hasn’t even had a special somepony before. Cadance, I am told, knows dozens of variations. I haven't asked to see them, for obvious reasons.
I thought I’d be going back to the embassy after that but instead, I was escorted (in the nice sense, not in the ‘under armed guard directly towards the dungeons’ sense) to another room close enough to Shahrazad’s that I’d be able to hear it if she yelled for me. Not ideal if I was really going to be a bodyguard, but at least I wasn’t in the other wing of the castle.
For lack of anything better to do, I tossed my cloak and bags on the bed. I’d been carrying them all day and they were starting to feel like I’d stuffed bricks into them instead of books. The heat hit me the second I took the cloak off, the room going from comfortable to stuffy.
“Great,” I muttered to myself. I’d make a joke about it being the only intelligent conversation I’d had in a long time but I’d made too many stupid mistakes in the last few days.
I pulled open the doors to the balcony to let the breeze in. The air was cool outside, the castle’s wall constantly buffeted by the sea breeze, and the room’s balcony was large enough for a table and chairs, a small garden, and the pony leaning against the railing and giving me a wink.
“Hey there!” Arch said. “I was just passing by and thought I’d check in on you.”
I blinked several times, half-expecting her to vanish. I held up a hoof for her to wait a moment, then stepped over to the railing and looked down and around. Just like I thought, there wasn’t any way for her to have gotten to the balcony.
“Just passing by?” I asked.
She nodded. “What can I say? I have lots of friends in high places. Just look at how far up we are!” Arch motioned out to the city. The sun was setting, and part of me was half-convinced I could feel Celestia’s magic pulling it below the horizon. The lights of the city were coming alive, like a sea of stars.
It was such a beautiful sight that for a moment I forgot that Arch Standin had apparently broken into my room in the middle of a heavily secured palace.
“How the buck did you get here?” I asked.
“Well, now I’m not sure I should tell you,” Arch said. “I mean, I don’t want to get you in trouble, Princess Sunset. You have started calling yourself that, right?”
“I’m not a princess!” I snapped.
“Hey, don’t bite my head off!” Arch held up a hoof and took a step back. “I’m just kiddin’. Believe it or not, I think I know how you feel.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Ponies are coming up to you and telling you how lucky you are and how happy you should be and for what?” Arch shrugged. “Yeah, Princess Shahrazad is cute, but it isn’t something you decided for yourself. And any time you bring it up…” she shrugged. “It’s like being beaten with a carrot because you didn’t smile enough when someone made you eat the stick, am I right?”
I sighed. “Yeah. It’s all… backwards.”
“If I were you, I’d feel like it’s even worse because you can’t talk about it with anypony. Not to mention the mess that’s gonna come down on your head once news gets back home.” Arch smiled. “I bet there are a lot of ponies in Canterlot that are gonna hear about this and think you’re taking advantage of a poor, innocent Princess.”
“I didn’t even think about that,” I groaned.
“You’re gonna be lucky if Celestia doesn’t show up and drag you all the way back to Equestria by the ear. Mare’s got one heck of a grip.”
“Yeah, and-- wait, how did you know that?”
“So many questions!” Arch groaned. “I came around to ask you how you were doin’, not to get interrogated.”
“I think you at least owe me an explanation. Like, for example, what’s that sound?” It sounded a lot like bells. A lot of bells. And ponies shouting.
“Sort of a long story,” Arch said. “If I had to guess I’d say it’s probably an intruder alarm. Some degenerate must have gone and broken into the palace.” She shook her head and tutted with disapproval.
“I can’t imagine who might have done that,” I muttered.
“Could have been anyone,” Arch shrugged. “But just in case it’s me, how about we have a polite agreement that you aren’t gonna snitch on me? Normally I’d just trust you not to say anything, but you didn’t stand up for those ponies last time I was around and it makes me a little worried, you dig?”
“I didn’t-- that’s not fair.” I looked away. “It wasn’t my place to interfere.”
“It wasn’t your place to save Princess Shahrazad from those assassins, either,” Arch said. “You didn’t have a problem stepping in for her.”
I didn’t have an answer to that.
“I gotta get going, kid. Tell you what - tomorrow morning I’m gonna be at a little dive bar called the Long Haul. You ask around and you’ll be able to find it. You wanna save up all your questions for then, I’ll be happy to give you answers.”
“Maybe even some true answers.”
“Let’s not go too crazy!” Arch said.
Somepony knocked on my door. Arch glanced at it, then gave me a smile and jumped off the balcony.
I reached for her on instinct, rushing over.
She was already a hundred feet down, her body covered in a soft green glow as she drifted to the ground like a falling leaf.
“Self-levitation,” I mumbled. “Neat trick.”
The door opened, and ponies stormed in. I wasn’t surprised that Sirocco was the first one to walk in.
“You know, in Equestria it’s customary to wait for somepony to answer the door,” I said.
Sirocco looked less than amused. “Where is she?”
“If this is about the Princess, she’s still in her room. At least, I think she is.” I frowned. “I guess she did sneak out once already. The important thing is that she’s not here.”
“This isn’t--”
“And I swear that despite what she says, I really don’t know that kind of spell!” I sighed. “I mean, I know everypony makes those jokes about Canterlot unicorns and the kind of things the nobility does behind closed doors, but I don’t even get invited to that kind of party!”
Sirocco took a step back. “What?”
“I wasn’t a party girl,” I explained. “I didn’t really have time. I was focused on my studying, and I thought I’d have time for it later. Do you know how long it took for me to even get my first kiss?”
“No!” Sirocco snapped. “This has nothing to do with--” She stopped and rubbed her temples. “I don’t have time for this. Have you seen any strange ponies tonight?”
“I’m pretty sure I’m the strangest pony here.”
“At least we can agree to that,” Sirocco said. “I apologize for intruding.” She nodded to the big, muscley guards behind her, and they left. She shot me a look while she was leaving. It was the kind of look that said ‘I know you’re up to something and I’ll figure it out and you won’t like it when I do’.
I smiled and waved. It was what I was there for.
I didn’t sleep all that well. Part of it was sleeping in a strange bed, part of it was stress, and part of it was just thinking too much about Shahrazad. She was playing me, and I knew she was playing me, but was it really that bad? I spent a lot of the night in a half-asleep daze hugging a pillow and whispering sweet nothings into its ear while dreaming about a mare I barely knew.
When the sun rose, I got up with it. I’d been mostly waking up every hour anyway, and seeing the sun crest over the sea motivated me to roll out of bed. More accurately, it was a sign that I should just give up on sleep because it wasn’t gonna happen.
I stumbled out onto the balcony with all the grace you’d expect with my bad leg numb and tingling like I’d slept on it wrong.
“I never want to see another stairway,” I mumbled.
That was when I remembered that I’d agreed to meet Arch. I shuddered at the thought of going down the long stairway, and then back up again. My legs might literally fall off if I tried that. But there was another way, wasn’t there?
I smiled and lit up my horn, surrounding my body in my own aura and lifting gently.
“Gently, geeeently…” I whispered as I eased my way towards the ground. At first, self-levitation had seemed so easy. It turns out it’s a lot like holding a weight with your hoof straight out at shoulder height. Even a light weight starts to feel really heavy after a minute or two, and if I let go…
Well, it was a long drop and I didn’t want to have to figure something else out on the way down.
I just needed to keep it together for a little longer. And just like an idiot, I started to panic right at the finish line. Two stories up, my grip faltered and I fell with my cloak billowing out around me. Ponies on the ground yelled something and got out of the way and I landed on one knee, hard enough to send a cloud of dust billowing out from my crash zone.
I’d seen ponies land like that before. I very quickly learned it was murder on the knees. Ponies stared at me. I got up and brushed myself off, trying to play it off like it was no big deal.
“Say,” I asked the nearest pony. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard of a bar called the Long Haul?”
“This place is a dive,” I said.
Arch looked up at me from where she was sitting at the bar. She smiled and waved for me to sit next to her. The only other pony was the bartender, who was either asleep or dead, his head down on the bar and saying nothing while Arch poured wheat-yellow liquid into two glasses.
“That’s unfair,” Arch said, once I’d sat down. “You get a good look at this place on your way in?”
“It looks the same as every other building,” I said.
Arch nodded, tapping a hoof against the rough, unfinished wood of the bar and pointing to me. “Yeah! Exactly! The same as every other building. More than half the buildings in the city are all completely identical.”
I glanced around the stark white walls. There’d been an effort to paint them at some point, but it was flaking and falling off like a snake shedding its skin.
“Most places, you see bars and stores and houses get built as ponies need them,” Arch said. “This whole city was built without any idea what they’d use it for, and ponies just move into the empty spaces and set up shop. A whole city of squatters.”
“Are you going to tell me why you were at the palace last night?” I asked.
Arch nodded and tossed back her drink. “Yeah. Glad to see you came alone. Didn’t like thinking you might be a snitch, but I had to be sure and didn’t want nopony else involved. Finish your drink and follow me.”
She got up and threw a few coins on the bar, a mix of bits and old griffon imperial talons and the weird puzzle-piece coins the minotaurs used. The bartender mumbled something in his sleep and swept the collection of loose change up, the only sign of life I’d seen from him.
“You coming?” Arch asked.
I downed the glass, tasting something like rosewater and sharp lemon, then followed her out into the street.
“See, this is sort of like an education,” Arch said. The market was crowded this early in the day, ponies going from one stall to another and arguing loudly about prices. “Tell me what you see.”
“A bunch of market stalls,” I said. “Nothing special.”
“Okay, let’s say you were out here in the early morning, what’s the first thing you’d want to buy?”
“I don’t know. Breakfast?” I glanced around at the shops. The jewelry and pottery wasn’t very interesting, but the book stall caught my eye. If I’d been smart enough to bring bits I might have been tempted to go take a look.
“Yeah! Let me tell you, I could go one of those Prench pancakes right now.”
“Crepe.”
“No need to insult me. Most ponies find me charming. So what kind of food you hungry for?” Arch motioned out to the tents and signs. I looked, then looked harder, then walked into the next aisle of stalls. They had toys and artifacts and clothing and a bunch of other stuff.
“There’s no food,” I muttered.
“Weird, isn’t it?” Arch asked. “It ain’t that people are poor. If people were poor they wouldn’t be buyin’ jewelry.”
“This doesn’t prove anything. Maybe all the food is an aisle over. I don’t know the city.”
“You could look all day. Truth is, all the food goes to the palace. Officially, anyway. If you go to the docks you might be able to cut a deal but I wouldn’t count on it.”
“But the ponies at that party--”
“Yeah, they had food. Everypony gets a ration, and they pooled theirs for their little celebration. It’s probably how those Aretic mules found them.” Arch shook her head. “The official line is that Saddle Arabia makes sure its ponies are fed.”
“And if they’re not good ponies, what, they don’t get dinner?”
“You make it sound awful sinister,” Arch said, without offering another explanation. “Anyway, we lost the pony trailing you, so let’s go.”
“What pony trailing me?” I looked back the way we came.
Arch patted me on the back .”Don’t worry about it. You’re a VIP. You think you can just sneak out of the palace with nopony noticing?”
“Yes! I used to sneak out of Celestia’s palace all the time!”
“That just means her guards were better at not being spotted,” Arch said. “Or that you’re just bad at spottin’ ‘em.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
I could feel it before I saw anything. It started like the tide rolling in, shapeless and without direction, a blanket of magic covering everything. Arch picked up the pace, and we ducked off the main street, running through back alleyways towards something. Something big.
It broke all at once like a volcanic eruption, magic crystalizing into shape. I could only catch the edges of it, but it felt almost formless, like a ragged crystal growing in a geode instead of the geometric shape of a real spell.
“Darn, we missed it,” Arch sighed. “I told them to hold off until we got there, but…” she shook her head, slowing down.
“Hold off on what?”
We walked through an empty gateway where no door had ever been hung, and I caught the tail end of it. Food and wine materialized out of thin air like it was burning in reverse, smoke spiraling down onto empty plates and becoming steamed buns and rice and ripe fruit. In seconds, an empty table had been filled with a feast almost identical to the dinner I’d eaten the night before. Dozens of ponies cheered. I hadn’t even noticed them while I was distracted by the spectacle of the magic.
It took me a moment longer to see how thin they were. All of them looked half-starved. For some stupid reason, it made me feel guilty. I don’t know if I felt guilty like it was my fault they were hungry or just for not having seen it before. Cadance would have cared more about the other ponies than the food on the table.
Like a real princess should.
“You said you wanted breakfast, right?” Arch asked.
“I’ve never seen magic like that,” I muttered, watching as the Saddle Arabians swarmed the buffet table. I wasn’t sure, but I think the food was actually slowly replenishing itself even while they were eating, like the scoops they were taking out of the piles of pilaf and noodles were healing themselves.
“You want me to get you a plate?” Arch smirked.
I frowned and scanned the table with a quick spell.
“It’s cursed,” I said.
“It’s not cursed, it’s just, you know, not entirely real,” Arch corrected. "Sort of like stories about elk-gold."
“It’s taking magic from the ponies eating it to become real.”
“It’s barely anything. Basically harmless.”
I frowned and studied it more. It was more or less harmless, but all the magic wasn’t going to the food. Some of it was going somewhere else, but the spell was so complex and messy I couldn’t tell where it was being siphoned off to. That might not seem too bad, but imagine if you found out someone was embezzling from a blood bank - even if the ponies donating blood aren’t getting hurt it sure raises a lot of questions about who’s running the show and where it’s all going.
Arch pointedly grabbed herself a plate.
“Not bad,” she said. “They must have wished for a feast just like you had, your highness.”
“Don’t call me that,” I grumbled.
She laughed and kept stuffing her face, talking and eating at the same time. “You got a title you prefer? Monster slayer? Prodigal child?”
“You could use my name.”
“I could,” Arch agreed. “But what’s a name, really? Just what you want other people to call you.”
“I can see why you wouldn’t care, Arch Standin. If we’d been standing somewhere else would you be calling yourself something like Mulberry Bush?”
“That’s sort of an interesting philosophical question. Who can say?”
“You could. You could say. You could just tell me your real name.”
“Well that just seems like you don’t trust me none. Sunset, trust is somethin’ that doesn’t come from learning names.” Arch put a hoof around my shoulders, still chewing even while she was talking way too close to my face. “It’s somethin’ that comes from actions like not snitching about me to any authorities to show you trust me, and I show you all the good parties in town because I trust you. That’s what it’s all about. Trust.”
I tried to give her the same kind of flat look Celestia gave me when I was being particularly dumb. It lasted until the first explosion.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Ah.” Arch tilted my head up. Out past the open window frames, I could see fireworks in the sky. “See, that there is how our wonderful Aretic Order sends up the alarm.”
“They sensed the magic.”
“If there’s anything they especially hate, its ponies making wishes,” Arch sighed. She let go of me and clapped her hooves loudly. “Hey, everypony! We got trouble on the way! If you wanna make it out of this safe-like, you come with me and do exactly what I say, right?”
“Are you sure about--” I started. Arch waved a hoof to cut me off.
“Hey, I didn’t give them a wish just so they could get hurt because of it,” Arch said. “You think you can keep the Order busy for a few minutes while I move everypony out the back?”
I saw the ponies I’d failed last time this had happened, and I nodded. Arch patted my back and started ushering ponies away from the front door. There was a knock, which almost immediately turned into banging, then kicking.
The cheap wooden door cracked, the lock popping free and skipping across the floor. I opened the door with my magic before the next kick came, and the pony on the other side fell in.
“Do you crash parties professionally?” I asked.
“Sunset Shimmer. I wish I could say this was a surprise.” Sirocco Mandala stepped over her prone underling lying on the floor. “You have a habit of turning up in interesting places.”
“Princess Celestia encouraged me to be curious,” I said.
“I had a feeling you’d be causing trouble.” She walked past me, stopping at the plates of food. “Were you feeling a little hungry after skipping breakfast? It’s the talk of the palace. Do you know there are already two rumors going around about you?”
“Anything good?”
“One rumor says you fled the nation to avoid the marriage. The other one suggests you were killed by the assassins that were after Princess Shahrazad. Obviously the ponies spreading the rumors aren’t aware of your reputation.”
“You’re right. Otherwise they’d know I’d never be killed by an assassin.”
Sirocco made a noise in the back of her throat. “Mm. Not the reputation I was thinking of. Regardless…” She motioned to her soldiers. Or thugs. I wasn’t sure what the right term would be for secret police muscle. “Destroy all of this.”
“Woah, woah,” I said, putting up a wall of magic. I had to slow them down a little. “This is food. Aren’t there starving ponies that could use this?”
“All of this stinks of dark magic,” Sirocco said. She tapped the wall. “Though you don’t seem to be tainted yet.”
“Does that surprise you?”
“Very little does.” Sirocco tapped again, and my spell shattered like glass. I felt the recoil shoot through my horn with the body-shocking jolt of jumping into a pool of icewater.
“How did you--”
She raised an eyebrow. “My job involves dealing with dark magic every day. Are you really shocked that I’m not helpless when I encounter simple spells?”
“But… with just a hoof?” I mumbled.
“You shouldn’t look down on earth ponies. Just because unicorn magic is more obvious doesn’t mean other ponies can’t be just as powerful in their own way.”
I frowned and tried to figure out how she’d done it. I mean, it had been a sort of sloppy shield spell, but it still should have been able to resist any physical force short of siege weaponry. There were maybe four ponies in the world who could have thrown together a better wall without preparation and three of them were alicorns. It shouldn’t have been possible for her to just knock it over like it had been made of glass.
“Some kind of weakness in the spell?” I mumbled.
“You didn’t wish for this, so who did?” Sirocco asked. I didn’t say anything. The thugs in the doorway were starting to look impatient. If their boss hadn’t been there, they might have tried something stupid. “Do you know how dangerous wishes are, Miss Shimmer?”
“I think feeding the hungry isn’t a dangerous practice.”
“Dark magic always has a cost. These wishes aren’t free. Someone always ends up paying the price. Yes, this food isn’t… particularly dangerous.” She nudged a plate of rice and ran her hoof along the tablecloth. “But that’s not the point.”
“And the point is?”
She sighed. “Imagine if the pony who did this wished for something else. Something dangerous. Imagine if they’d wished for the king’s head on a pike, or ten tons of gold, or…” she glanced at me. “Imagine if they’d wished to become an alicorn. Think of the price that would have to be paid for that. The scar it would leave on the world.”
“Are you implying something?”
“No. I’m informing you, so you can make the correct decision.”
“I don’t know where the ponies are that wished for this. I do know that if they’re in such a bad place that they’d wish for food over power or money or immortality… we should be helping them, not trying to throw them in prison.”
Sirocco made a thoughtful sound. “Well. I suppose I can let it go for now. Once this has been destroyed the danger will be behind us. I do have sympathy, Miss Sunset. In fact, what I would be very interested in is the identity of the pony who had the wish magic to begin with. You might see this as harmless right now, but that is because the ponies involved have only had very small dreams.”
“It wasn’t small to them.”
“Of course not. Everypony has something they want most in the world. We’re simply lucky they wanted a feast.” She nodded to her thugs and they started carrying the platters of food away. “Incidentally, I’m curious - what would you do if I decided to have you brought back to the palace in chains?”
“You could try doing that,” I said. “It wouldn’t end well for you.”
“I wonder if it would.” She smiled slightly. “Be well, Sunset Shimmer. I would ask you to be good, but I suspect that is beyond your means.”
I watched Sirocco and her thugs burn the food, and we didn’t say anything to each other the whole time. When it was over, I left and took a route that I was pretty sure would throw off anypony trying to follow me. I threw in a few teleports out of line-of-sight just to make sure of it. Part of me worried that I’d somehow been the reason those starving ponies hadn’t been fed, and the walk gave me plenty of time to start really feeling awful about that.
At least I didn’t have to look far to find Arch when I was ready to actually go and talk to her.
“Hey there, sister,” she said, when I walked into the dingy bar. We were still the only customers, though the bartender looked more alert than the last time I’d seen them. Arch waved for me to sit next to her.
I slid onto the barstool, not sure what to say.
“Sorry about the trouble,” Arch said. “And… thank you. A lot of innocent ponies owe you their freedom. Maybe their lives, too.”
I nodded glumly.
Arch motioned to the bartender. “Let me buy you a drink. I know a little something that’ll help you relax even with all that zebra alchemy in you.”
“Given my experience with Luna, it usually takes a whole bottle of- wait, how did you know about that?” I felt the fur along my spine bristle in alarm.
“I’ve known a few zebra in my time. You don’t get that kind of jewelry as a gift, it’s something you have to earn.” She nodded to the bangles I was wearing. I'd almost forgotten about them. They were like a part of me. The pendant Princes Shahrazad had given me felt like a brick around my neck in comparison. “Now that’s somethin’ to be proud of. Impressing Celestia is easy. Impressing a shaman is a lot harder. They’re as unflappable as a pegasus with two lame wings.”
“What?”
“Is that not a saying anymore? Well, whatever, I can’t keep up with the lingo you kids use.” Arch shrugged. A metal cup was put in front of me, the contents murky and bubbling in the way a chemical reaction did and a drink didn’t.
“You can’t be serious,” I said, looking at it from what I hoped was a safe distance. Did I need a fume hood? I should have been watching the bartender to see what he put in it.
“I’d promise it wasn’t poison, but any kind of drink strong enough to make you tipsy is gonna be enough to do a number on a normal pony. But if it makes you feel better…” Arch grabbed the cup in lime-green magic and took a long sip, grimacing as she put it down and wiped her lips. “Can’t say much for the taste but its got a heck of a kick!”
“Well I guess I can’t refuse if it didn’t kill you,” I said. I took a cautious sip of what was technically a drink in that it was being served to me in a cup. I don’t know if I can even start to describe the taste. It was more like a whole-body sensation of trying to swallow a thunderstorm with the lightning scratching and raking all the way down. I coughed and I swear there were sparks.
“Not bad, right?” Arch asked. I nodded in agreement. She was right about the kick. My whole body was starting to tingle with a pleasant numbness.
“So do you want to beat around the bush and avoid telling me anything until I leave?” I asked. “Because I’m getting real tired of it.”
“Nah. There ain’t a lot of ponies I’d call a friend, but you’re one of them.” She leaned on the bar. “You been outside the city?”
“Has anypony here?”
“I have,” Arch said. “Saddle Arabia’s a big country. Used to be almost the size of Equestria. Guess it still is, but it’s only a name on maps. You leave the cities on the coast, there’s just sand from horizon to horizon.”
“It’s a desert of course there's sand.”
“Hah, yeah,” Arch smiled. It looked a little sad. “You know what you find if you go digging out there? Ruins. Everywhere. It don’t look like it, but if you dig far enough down through the sand you find streets and buildings. In some spots you find dead grass. Whole trees, leaves and all. You got any idea what kind of crazy disaster can do that?”
“A volcanic eruption?” I guessed. “Some kind of giant sandstorm?”
“Maybe. But you know how they survived? They wished for it.”
“I’ve wished for a lot of things,” I said. “Pretty sure just wanting it isn’t enough.”
“You know what kind of wishes I mean.” Arch looked around like she expected to see somepony walk in on us. “You know what a Djinn is?”
It sounded vaguely familiar. The buzz in my head from the drink didn’t make it any easier to remember. “It was some kind of spirit?” I ventured. “A trickster, I think. I only know some really vague old legends.”
“Well, what the Djinni did was they made Saddle Arabia great. They wandered the land and granted wishes to ponies on a whim. The whole country was green and fertile and every day there’d be a new story of somepony coming into some grand fortune or the sick being healed.”
“You know, if a lot of ponies were getting rich there are some serious economic issues,” I said. “There’s currency devaluation, inflation, wild swings in the prices of trade goods--” Arch was giving me a look. “I had to study a lot of stuff about economics on the way here. I thought I’d be negotiating a treaty and so I crammed!”
“I’ll keep that in mind, hotshot. Point is, there used to be Djinn. There used to be wishes. Now there aren’t. All the Saddle Arabians have is a few cities around the edge of the ocean and they try to sell ponies on the idea that they’re still some great power. They even got you ready to kowtow to them just for what, silver?”
I blushed.
“The wishes went away and the good times went with them,” Arch said. She sighed. “And the Aretic Order aims to keep things like they are. I like the idea of shaking things up a little bit.”
She reached into her robes and produced two silver boxes.
“What are those?” I asked.
“Wishes. I smuggled three out of the palace when I was visiting. Gave one to those starving ponies because I wanted you to see a wish in action. Each one of these can change the world.” She started juggling the boxes, the metal catching the light as it spun through the air. “I don’t know how much good they’re doing right now. Maybe I picked the wrong ponies.”
“I don’t think trying to help starving ponies was a mistake,” I said.
“No. I guess not. But it didn’t even end up helping. I did some soul searching and I decided that because I trust you, I want you to take this.” She tossed a box at me. I barely caught it. “Better if each of us carries one so the Aretic Order can’t nab both at once.”
“What?”
“To be clear, it ain’t for you. If you have something you really want, I think you’re strong and smart enough that you could get it on your own.” Arch slipped the third box back into her robes. “I want you to find a pony who really needs it and give them that wish. You tell ‘em if they open it, they’ll see what they want most and it’ll grant it to them. Just make sure it’s a pony who wants somethin’ worth a wish, dig?”
“How am I supposed to decide that?”
“Follow your heart. Or guts. Whatever organs you like best.” Arch shrugged. “Don’t get caught with it.”
“What if I decided to use it myself?”
“I’d know if you were that kind of pony.” She winked. “I trust you.”
The box didn't look like much. Just big enough to hold a few trinkets. Small enough to slip into a pocket. Big enough to hold a world of potential.
I touched the latch. What would I see if I looked inside? It was supposed to be whatever I wanted most, right? What did I even want now?
There was a knock on the door and I grabbed the box, sticking it in my saddlebag.
“Come in!” I called out.
The door opened, and a familiar pegasus walked in. Flash saluted when he saw me.
“Good afternoon, Miss Shimmer. I hope you won’t mind too much, but I took the liberty of telling the locals that I was your personal guard. It’s stretching the truth a little but I thought you needed a friendly face more than the embassy needed another set of hooves.”
I grinned and waved him in. “You must have gotten this assignment for having good instincts.”
“Thank you. I heard you slipped out this morning,” he said. “Next time you decide to go for a walk, mind leaving a note behind?”
“I wasn’t gone that long.”
“No, but a lot of ponies got in trouble. If Princess Shahrazad hadn’t stopped him, the King would have thrown some of the guards into the dungeons for losing his precious daughter’s fiancée.”
I winced for a multitude of reasons. “Sorry.”
“Hey, no need to apologize to me. You might want to say something to the King next time you see him, though.”
“Yeah, good idea.” I nodded. “Are you going to stay in the palace?”
“That’s the plan! There’s a guard post in this wing, I’ll hang my helmet there until we figure something else out.” He scratched his head. “Still, there’s only one of me. You prefer me on day shift or night shift?”
“Good question.” I thought for a minute. “Probably the night shift. But I don’t need you guarding me. I need you guarding Shahrazad. I don’t trust the local guards and I promised her I’d keep her safe. If you can keep an eye on her when I can’t be there, I’ll be able to sleep easy.”
“You sure?”
“I don’t know anything for sure,” I said. “Except that I can trust you.”
He rubbed his chin and smiled. “I only really have to guard her until the wedding. After that you’ll be able to spend the night, won’t you?”
“I’d rather worry about assassins than wedding planning,” I mumbled.
“That’s too bad. I’m pretty sure when they gave me that message about making sure you were cleaned up for a romantic candlelit dinner with your beautiful fiancee that they intend for you to think about the future.”
My stomach growled. Food suddenly seemed like a really good idea.
I sighed and did my best to look composed. “Do I have to wear a dress?”
“Okay, this isn’t what I expected,” I said.
“Is the food not to your liking?” Princess Shahrazad asked, looking concerned. “I had the palace chefs do their best to replicate the most famous Equestrian cuisine, but I don’t think any of us have ever had it.”
Between the two of us, illuminated by a dozen candles, was a spread of hayburgers and fries. You could say they looked exactly like the burgers at Hayburger Princess, but that wasn’t true. When you got a sandwich from there, it came squished and messy and made by a teenager given half the time they needed to slap together your order properly. These looked like the pictures on the menu, with thick slices of vegetables and firm buns instead of the paper-thin toppings the real place used to improve their margins.
“No, no, it all looks great,” I assured her, grabbing a burger and taking a big bite. I blinked in surprise. “You even got the special sunrise sauce right. I have no idea how you did that.”
“We have ways of finding even the most secure information,” Shahrazad said with a grin. “Even your most secret sandwich sauces are not safe. I am told, though, that it is equal parts ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, and chopped pickles.”
I gasped in mock surprise. “I knew it!”
“I ask you keep the details in strict confidence. A dozen operatives spent their lunch budgets finding out this information.”
“I swear on my honor I won’t say anything.” I put my hoof over my heart. “Next you’ll tell me you have Celestia’s cake recipes.”
“There are limits to even our operational knowledge,” Princess Shahrazad sighed. She grabbed a few fries and ate them. “I know it’s not gourmet, but I wanted something to put you at ease. I saw you were uncomfortable with the pageantry of the celebration dinner.”
“That means a lot to me.”
“You are my fiancee. The least I can do is make you comfortable.” She smiled and gave me her best bedroom eyes, picking up a small burger and biting into it with what was supposed to be sensual slowness. The sauce got all over her face and her expression cracked, breaking out into a laugh.
“I don’t think this kind of food is meant to be seductive,” I said.
“No, I suppose not,” she admitted, wiping a tear from her eyes forced out by the laughter. “Still, it brought a smile to your face.”
I blushed and tried to hide it by taking another bite of the burger.
She watched me eat for a few moments before continuing. “Maybe if I keep you interested you won’t be so tempted to run off, hmm?”
Shahrazad had waited until I was trying to swallow, and the hayburger took that moment to try to find its way into my lungs instead of my stomach. I half-collapsed in a coughing fit, trying not to suffocate on fast food.
“I would prefer if my fiancée wasn’t associating with dangerous criminals,” she said, leaning closer. “Do you need a glass of water?”
“The ‘dangerous criminals’ were starving peasants,” I said, between coughing fits. “How could you let ponies go hungry right under your nose?”
“We’re doing our best,” she said, quietly. “Food is rationed out. There are still problems. Theft. Simple spoilage. Undocumented ponies. If they were truly desperate they should have come here. Even if they were criminals they would be fed. In the dungeons, perhaps, if they were wanted ponies.”
“But that wasn’t true when the Djinni were around, was it?”
She sat back, tilting her head. “Ah. So what did you learn, then?”
“I heard that they used to run around making things better for ponies. There was plenty of food back then. The whole land was green instead of a desert.”
“No, more like the reverse,” she said. “If you’ve heard the legends about the Djinni, than you know they granted wishes indiscriminately.”
“So?”
“You were a foal once,” Shahrazad said. “Think about all the foolish decisions you made. All the stupid things you hoped and dreamed for. Huge wishes that only a foal would make without hedging themselves against disaster. Things you know now that would have been terrible, but things you wished for before you had the means to achieve them.”
My ears folded back. She laughed.
“Yes, I can see it in that cute face of yours. You had some grand wish that was your entire world, and now you’re ashamed to even speak of it!”
I nodded mutely.
“Now imagine a world where some of those wishes come true. Where a pony wishes for a mountain of ice cream and the folly becomes real. What can be done with that? It’s inedible after only a few hours. It melts into the ground. Crops are ruined. Vermin everywhere. All for a simple foal’s wish. What if they wanted something bigger? What if they were just old enough to be angry, and wished for terrible things in that anger?”
“That’s…” I shivered.
“The Djinni didn’t destroy the land, but if one gives a filly a box of matches to play with they are just as responsible for what happens next as the foal.”
“So what happened to them?”
“The same thing that happens to all dangerous animals,” Shahrazad said. “We hunted them into extinction. Now finish your dinner. I want to spend some time cuddling before you have to get ready for Royal Court.”
“Ready for what?”
“How do I look?” I asked.
Flash rubbed his chin. “Is this one of those situations where I should just be reassuring and tell you something uplifting?”
I groaned. “That bad?”
“No, no!” He backpedaled magnificently, like a foal caught with his hoof in the cookie jar. “I just- you look great. Very…” He searched for words and motioned to my outfit. The same cloak I’d been wearing.
“Black.” He finished. “Don’t you have something else to wear?”
“Oh yes, let me just check around. Maybe I have a secret compartment in my flank where I keep a seamstress!” I huffed. “I didn’t come here for a fashion show, Flash!”
“Okay, I can see you’re in a great mood despite having a nice romantic dinner,” he said. “Honestly I’m not sure how to defuse this situation so I’m gonna throw in the towel and ask you what I need to say to calm you down.”
“Tell me I won’t screw up having to attend court in a foreign nation and cause an international incident and start a war and make Celestia ashamed she forgave me for all the dumb things I did because I haven’t learned anything and she was right all along that I’d never be a Princess because I mess up everything I do!”
Flash sucked a breath between clenched teeth. “You know I followed you like halfway through that until it turned into weird self-loathing.”
“Thanks for the moral support,” I grumbled.
“You’re not going to have to make decisions or anything. It’s probably just a formality since you are, technically…” He trailed off. “They aren’t going to make you make decisions, right? Because if you’re Princess Shahrazad’s fiancée, you might have to do that at some point…”
“I know! And this might be some kind of stupid moral test! Celestia did this kind of thing all the time!” I started pacing. “She’d drag me into something with no warning just to watch me squirm and then she’d judge every little thing I did!”
“Uh-huh. And you don’t think this might just be a formality?”
I ignored his obviously stupid suggestion. “There could even be some kind of trap,” I said, thinking out loud. “There were always unwinnable traps back home. Mom would set me up to fail and then I’d feel like an idiot and she’d use it to teach me a lesson but there was no way to win! I’m just lucky I turned out okay. You should see Twilight Sparkle. She’s a total neurotic mess when she gets stressed out.”
“Right… did you call Princess Celestia ‘Mom’?”
My train of thought derailed, killing thousands of innocent bystanders. “What? No!”
“You totally did.” He grinned. Didn’t they teach guards to remain stoic?
“You misheard me!” My cheeks were burning red from his mistake.
“I don’t think--”
I threw a silence spell at him, enclosing his head in a sound-proof bubble. “This really isn’t a good time to tease me, Flash! I’m trying not to have a panic attack about this whole thing! What if there’s some special protocol that I completely mess up? What if- what? I can’t hear you! It’s soundproof! Something about your neck? You’re hungry? Thirsty? Why are you flapping your mouth?!”
I dispelled the bubble, and he gasped for breath. “I was trying to tell you that I couldn’t get any air!” He said, between deep, sucking breaths. “Did you ever think there might be a reason some ponies are afraid of you?”
I scowled at him. “I know I wasn’t exactly nice to be around when I was a filly, but I’ve been working at it!”
“You’ve still got a way to go,” he said. I wasn’t sure what he had against me. I’d dispelled it as soon as I realized he was in trouble, hadn’t I?
“Let’s just get to the throne room,” I mumbled. “The one thing I can control is getting there on time.”
“Please tell me we aren’t just going to sit here and smile and wave,” I whispered.
Shahrazad giggled and wiggled her hips, bumping her flank into mine. We were sitting to the side of the throne, close enough that we could have a private word with her father that the supplicants wouldn’t be able to hear.
“We are here to learn,” she said. “And I suppose we could advise my father if he wanted a second opinion, though he rarely bothers.”
“I just didn’t expect it to be so much like home,” I said. The throne, the queue of commoners and nobility forced into equality by the need to wait their turn. The feeling that this was the final method of appeals and, at the same time, that the pony they bent knee to would listen to any claim no matter how large or small.
“I am told that we have been holding court like this for longer than Equestria has existed,” Shahrazad said. “It is likely that Princess Celestia took inspiration from us.”
“A thousand years ago there would have been nearly a hundred members of the royal family attending,” the king added. “It’s hard to believe there are so few of us left.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Time,” he said, with a small shrug. “Accidents here and there. Marrying into other families. To be truthful, it’s likely a majority of my subjects have a royal pedigree if one traced their family tree back far enough, but only myself, my brother, and my daughter remain in the direct line of succession.”
“It would have been one fewer if not for you,” Shahrazad said. “Now, haven’t we kept them waiting long enough, father?” The king nodded, and motioned for a pony to approach the throne. The first pony in line had to be helped by a guard. One of his legs was twisted and bent, like it had broken and never quite set correctly. I knew exactly what that was like. He knelt inside a small circle carved into the ground, and I saw it glow, just for a moment, so faintly I almost thought I’d imagined it.
“What was that?” I mumbled.
“Oh subject mine, what do you desire that this King can grant you?” the king said, with the intonation of somepony who was acting in a play and reciting memorized lines.
The guard whispered in the crippled pony’s ear. I raised an eyebrow. Was this all some kind of act being put on for my benefit? A lot of things in the government were ceremonial, sure, but there was a big difference between tradition and… I don’t even know what to call it. Religion?
“My liege, I beg of thee…” the crippled pony started. The guard whispered more, obviously feeding him lines. “...I beg that you-- that thou heal my leg so I can better serve you?” He glanced at the guard, clearly making sure he’d said his part correctly.
“It is within my power,” the king said. “I grant you this boon, openly and with no hidden cost or qualification.”
He held up his sceptre and brought the tip down to touch the ground. I saw a spark, like static between your hoof and a doorknob on a dry winter day. The spark whipped across the distance between the two and into the kneeling pony. And then something happened that I’d never seen before. His leg twisted, bones popping into shape like they were made of rubber. Wasted muscle and gnarled tendons stretched and reformed and a heartbeat later it was all still again, and the pony’s crippled leg was whole.
“That’s impossible! Magic healing can’t even do that!” I looked at Shahrazad for an explanation and all I got was a smug look.
“Maybe in Equestria,” the Princess said. “Perhaps you still have a few things to learn.”
“It’s not about learning,” I hissed. “I know the limits to magical healing, and that just can’t be done. Even the best potions couldn’t do that! You can make a pony heal as well as a foal and speed it up a dozen times, but that was… that was more like rebuilding his leg from the inside out!”
“It’s pretty great, right?” Shahrazad sighed. “That’s the power of the king.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I thought you were Princess Celestia’s student.” She had an expression like a cat playing with its prey. “Can’t you figure it out for yourself?”
“Fine. I will.” I huffed and watched carefully, half-listening as the next pony approached King Zephyranthes and made their carefully-worded request. Most unicorns couldn’t figure out magic just by watching it being cast. It was a skill, like having perfect pitch and being able to play music after hearing somepony else perform a piece.
Watching the magic, feeling the tingle in my horn now that I was ready for it, I put the pieces together.
“The reason everything is so formal is because it really is like a play,” I said. “It’s a symbolic language. The actions and request and even the placement of the throne and the supplicant are all part of it, like runes in the matrix of a massive spell.”
Shahrazad didn’t say if I was right or wrong, but her smile changed just a little, her eyes twinkling with real mirth. I could tell I was on the right track.
“A symbolic language like this would only be used in magic if you wanted to create a completely unambiguous statement that couldn’t be misinterpreted or twisted,” I continued, thinking out loud. “Which means that all of this is just to… fill in the last part of a ritual spell prepared meticulously in advance. When you granted that request, you were literally filling in the blanks of a wish, using language that means it’ll do exactly what you intend for it to do. Am I right?”
King Zephyranthes held up a hoof, and the next supplicant was stopped before they were in the ring carved into the floor that formed their active part in the ritual.
“That is correct,” the King said. “You catch on quite quickly, Miss Shimmer. Princess Celestia has high standards for her students indeed.”
“I’m guessing that there are a bunch of safety nets built in,” I said. "Where do the wishes even come from?"
He nodded. “Forgive me if I do not tell you all of our secrets, but suffice it to say that only the royal bloodline could make it work. Even if you marry my daughter, you will not be able to sit in my throne and wield the power of kings.”
“That’s a pretty good way to keep unhappy generals and outsiders from taking over,” I muttered, thinking. There were plenty of ways around it. Would it make a difference if he was doing it of his own free will? Domination spells, threats, a gallon or two of cheap wine, what threats was it really proof against?
If he was smart he wouldn’t tell me, and if I was smart I wasn’t going to ask.
“It’s how we provide for the ponies under our care,” Princess Shahrazad explained. “I believe you ponies call it noblesse oblige?”
“A symbolic language like that has to be pretty limited, though,” I said. “The only way to avoid misinterpretation would be having the options set firmly and precisely. Like ordering a meal from Hayburger Princess. If you say you want a ‘Number Three’ it’s totally unambiguous that you want a Big Sun Burger, hayfries, and a drink. But you can’t tell the pony behind the counter you want extra pineapple or no honey mustard just by ordering off the menu, you’d have to go outside the symbolic language of ordering a ‘Number Three’.”
“There are things even the power of kings cannot do,” Zephyranthes agreed. “Not all of the limitations are unintentional. There are things that nopony should have the power to do.”
He motioned for the next pony to finally come forward. She looked half annoyed at having to wait for me to give a lecture about how things worked and half terrified at the whole situation. I knew that particular combination of emotions pretty well -- stuck waiting for something terrible to happen, having to reschedule your panic attack because someone else cut in line to have theirs first.
“Oh subject mine, what do you desire that this King can grant you?” Zephyranthes said, once they were in place.
The guard started whispering to the pony, a mare only a little older than I was. She looked like she’d been crying.
“My liege--” the guard tried to whisper to her, and the mare ignored him. “I told your servants that I was here to beg you for food, but it was a lie. I knew they would turn me away if I told them what I really wanted.”
My ears perked up. Now this was getting interesting.
“My son is dead,” she whispered. “You have the power to bring him back! I know you do! Please, I’ll give you anything, do anything, if you just give my boy back to me!”
The king sighed, rubbing his eyes.
“My servants would have turned you away for your own good. The dead cannot come back.” He motioned to the guards. “I will not grant this request. I am sorry for your loss.”
“You’re really not going to help her?” I asked.
“There are things that should not be done,” King Zephyranthes muttered. He sounded annoyed. “I am sorry. I had hoped to show you this as a thing of wonder, but it has soured.”
An idea popped into my head. A terrible idea.
“She doesn’t need to be dragged out of here by guards,” I said. “She’s a grieving mother. I’ll walk her out and try to calm her down.”
“There’s no need for that,” Princess Shahrazad said. She tried to pull me closer, and I stood up to avoid her grip.
“Don’t worry, this’ll just take a minute.”
I slipped away before either of them could tell me it wasn’t allowed. The best thing about ceremonies is that nopony is really prepared when somepony doesn’t follow the rules. I just bumped the royal guard out of the way and led the mare outside. By the time we got to the door she was crying again.
“I knew he’d say no, but I had to try,” she whispered.
“I understand why you did it.” I grabbed her hoof. “Sometimes you have to go outside the rules to make things okay.” She looked at her hoof. She could feel what I’d put there, passing something to her under the guise of making a supportive gesture. I loosened my grip a little so she could see the edge of the silver box.
“Don’t open it until you get home,” I whispered.
“What is it?” She looked at me with growing confusion.
“You will,” I assured her, ushering her away. I gave her what I thought was a brave smile. For some reason she shivered and ran away down the stairs. Maybe I wasn’t as good with ponies as I thought.
I am Princess Luna, the Everchanging Moon, and I am perhaps the weakest alicorn in Equestria.
My present form is half-broken and drained of strength, even several moons after my return from exile and quick defeat at the hooves of my sister’s students and their friends. My magic is barely a spark, my wings can barely lift me off the ground, and I am forced to rely on the charity of a sister I’ve wronged to help me learn the ways of a world I no longer understand.
A thousand years changes the world in terrible and subtle ways. I recognize little on the map aside from the coastlines. Allies become enemies and then allies again. Governments have fallen, empires have come and gone, and my knowledge of the world is frozen at a time when we told the time with sundials and solved our problems with the sword instead of diplomacy.
I love my sister, but sometimes, even now, with my sanity restored and the dark magic purged from my body, I wish I could end an argument in the dueling circle instead of endless talking without ever getting to the point.
“It’s the most important social gathering of the year,” Celestia said, as if I hadn’t heard that already. I wasn’t sure if she was the reason ponies used the word nag or if her constant reminders simply defined it. “I want you to be at my side. You’re a Princess just as I am, and you should be there.”
“Thine daughter, Cadance will not be in attendance,” I pointed out.
“She has attended in the past, many times,” Celestia said. “She’s unfortunately out of the country. As Equestria's goodwill ambassador, her duties involve a lot of travel. I believe she's currently in Zanzebrica Land.”
I didn't even know where that country was. I could assume the general location no more accurately than the continent it likely appeared on. “We will not be attending until We have completed our convalescence,” I said. “We are not fit to be seen in this state.”
“We? I was intending on going,” Celestia said. I rolled my eyes.
“I am not fit to be seen in this state,” I corrected. “I am not going to be paraded in front of them as a symbol of thy forgiveness and triumph.”
“Luna, you know that’s not why I want you there.” She sounded disappointed. I had to fight back another biting remark. Even she had changed while I was gone. I was still ready to fight the mare she used to be, instead of the mare she was now. She craved attention. It made her feel alive. I could barely stand a crowd like that even if I was at my best, and I was so far from my best that I wondered if it had been banished even farther than the moon.
“I need time to adjust,” I said. “If I go out among them now I will make a foal of myself. Please, sister, do not make me beg you. I cannot do this yet.”
She sighed and lowered her head. It seems I had won at least some small victory.
“You’re as stubborn as Sunset,” she said. “She wouldn’t even discuss it with me.”
“Is it any wonder that we want to avoid the public eye?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. I did actually mean the plural we, this time. “Until recently, I was the villain of an old mare’s tale and little else. She still feels that she is a disappointment to thou. I have seen it in her dreams.”
“She’s not!” Celestia protested, her ears folding back. “And you’re different than you were. Please, Luna. I just don’t want you to be alone like you used to be. I want you to be happy.”
“I know, sister,” I said, trying to calm her down. “It is not something I wish to repeat either. It is just all very... new and I want to make a good first impression. You can understand that, yes?”
“Alright, Luna,” she said. “But like I told Sunset, Twilight will be there and I know you’d enjoy…” she trailed off, having seen the sour expression on my face. I hadn’t meant to make it.
“When I am ready,” I repeated. I wasn't sure I was ready to face the pony who had saved me yet, either. For many reasons.
“Well, then, since you won’t be going to the Gala, could you do one, small thing? For me?”
“She got you too, huh?” Sunset asked, as I settled down on a pillow in front of the fire. The mare watched my every move, and I felt myself getting self-conscious. Her eyes glowed in the low light like blue candles.
“Sister asked me to spend time with thou, since neither of us agreed to attend the Gala with her,” I said, neither confirming nor denying her suggestion that Celestia had tricked me into this arrangement. I was bound by my own honor, not trickery. At least this wouldn’t result in public humiliation.
“Great,” Sunset muttered, turning the page of the book in front of her. I wasn’t sure how she could read in the dim light. I was the Princess of the Night, and even I preferred not to read in the dark.
An awkward silence fell between us. We hadn’t really spoken since she’d tried to kill me. And I’d tried to kill her. While I wasn’t sure of the modern custom on such things, I was relatively certain that mutual attempts at each others lives tended to drive ponies away from each other.
I watched her while trying not to look like I was watching her. When I had been Nightmare Moon, she had looked much smaller, and the scars and black cloak had been much less intimidating.
I had to do something to break the ice. Sister would be disappointed if we didn’t at least try to get along. In some sense, I was her aunt, after all. I just had to compose myself and think of something clever to say. Something that didn’t involve my suspicion that she was only here to watch over me. An executioner armed with fire magic. She’d even brought appropriate attire, with that gloomy cloak of hers.
“I’m not afraid of thou!” I blurted out. It was not my best moment.
Sunset put down the book she’d been reading and looked at me. My cheeks were burning red-hot.
“That’s… good?” She said, puzzled.
“And thou… do not have to be afraid of me,” I said, trying to recover. Much better.
“I’m not,” she replied, her voice flat. I felt like a foal. This was exactly why I didn’t want to go to the Gala. It wasn’t just a thousand years of differences in the tiny social niceties. I’d spent a thousand years with only myself for company. Even with my memory of that time mostly lost, I was still not used to being social. I had to salvage this before I further embarrassed myself.
“What are thou reading?” I asked.
“A book,” Sunset said, snorting. I glared at her. Clearly she hadn’t been lying when she said she wasn’t afraid of me. She relented after a moment and picked it up, displaying the cover. “It’s Professor Hawkwing’s book, A Brief History of Time Magic. It’s about some of the discoveries in high-energy magic over the last decade or two. I kind of missed a lot of it.” Her voice dropped down to a low mutter as she continued. “Because I was living in the woods.”
“Is it… good?” I asked, hesitantly.
Sunset considered the question for a moment.
“It’s okay,” she concluded. “It’s written more for a laypony than an actual scholar. It makes some pretty wild claims, but doesn’t include the actual thaumaturgic math and diagrams. The writing is solid, but there isn't much substance behind it. I think I'd actually have to dig up his research papers if I wanted to get a grasp on some of the ideas."
“I see,” I said. Sunset kept watching me. I wanted to shrink and hide away, but I couldn’t afford to do so. I had to stand up to her.
“Why did you say you weren’t afraid of me?” Sunset asked.
“Because I am not,” I said quickly. Was it too quickly?
She stood up, and I felt my mane stand on end. She hadn’t been that tall- no, that’s not right. I hadn’t been this short, when I was Nightmare Moon. I hadn’t been afraid of her before. Why was I feeling a chill down my spine now?
“You are afraid,” she said, her tone disappointed. Not at me. Disappointed at herself. “I… should go. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry.” She turned to leave, and her hoof was on the door before I found my voice.
“Wait,” I said, my throat dry. “I did not mean…” I looked away, gathering myself. “I should apologize, not thou. I know well how it feels to be feared.”
“It feels good, for a while,” Sunset said, softly. “It makes you feel strong. But it gets so lonely. There were only a few ponies who really spent any time near me.”
“Sometimes I just wanted to be loved,” I said, continuing the thought. “But it was difficult. It is much easier to turn against those that reject thou. The catharsis of seeing them run in terror fades all too quickly.”
“I wonder which one of us they’d have been more afraid of,” Sunset joked. “Nightmare Moon or the Pony of Shadows.”
“I suppose we could terrorize some other small town and ask them in a few months,” I suggested. “Sister did want us to bond, after all. Perhaps Liveryburg or Manehattan?”
Sunset snorted and started laughing, sitting down. “At least you have a sense of humor. I’m pretty sure you’d win. I probably can’t manage half of the tricks you can.”
“And yet…” I muttered.
“And yet you’re afraid of me,” Sunset said. “Why? You almost killed me. All I did was--”
"A mortal pony should not be able to so easily wound an alicorn," I said. "I underestimated you, badly. I should have known any student of my sister's would be dangerous to face, but I was caught unaware. Now I am weakened by the Elements, and thou are only grown in strength. Can thou blame me for being cautious?"
“I guess not,” Sunset said. “But it’s not like I’d just hurt you for no reason. I'm not that kind of pony. Anymore.”
“Fear is rarely rational,” I said. “As we both know. I have seen thy bad dreams as well, where Celestia throws thou into the dungeons for things thou imagine she would judge thou for, or banishes thou to my moon.”
“Yeah, well…” she blushed. “It’s not like she doesn’t do that to ponies.”
“And thou tried to blow me up three times within the span of a single night. Two of those attempts had not even been intended for me.” I raised an eyebrow, and she nervously smiled. “Thou have a habit of using explosive force to solve thy problems. Perhaps not so different from my sister.”
“That’s… absolutely right,” Sunset said. “And you know what?” She grinned. “I”m the best at it. I’ve blown up more landscape than any pony alive.”
“Quite something to be proud of,” I said. “I would toast thee, if we had something to drink.”
“Well, actually…” Sunset looked thoughtful, then walked over to one of the bookcases around the room, examining it before pulling on a non-descript book. “Found it.” She stepped back to reveal that several of the book spines had been joined together to create a hidden space, and inside were several bottles.
“How did thou know about that?” I asked, amused.
“It’s kind of a strange story, and not all that interesting,” Sunset said. “When I was a foal, I sort of made a good impression on this dragon ambassador. I think I was the only pony my age that wasn’t scared of him. He was kind of like an uncle to me.” She smiled fondly. It was the only real warm smile I’d seen from her since she’d parted from her friends in Ponyville. "A big, screamy uncle who set things on fire."
“Ah, so you did learn something from him, as well. And the bottles?” I asked.
“Well, Celestia started making a habit of having me around when they were speaking. She would explain political problems to me, and I’d ask all kinds of stupid questions. I was only a foal, after all. He started doing it too. They had to simplify a lot to get the important points across, and when both sides are discarding useless details, you find out what really matters to each of them.” Sunset shook her head, smiling. “I think at one point it stopped a border war, because they both realized they cared about different things and they were able to come to a compromise. The ambassador wanted to toast to their success, and Celestia pulled a bottle out of here.”
“And thou still remember it after all this time?” I asked.
“Well, it was hard to forget. See, they didn’t let me have any, so the next time I was alone, I snuck in here and tried drinking it myself. It tasted awful, but I was stubborn and wanted to be adult, so I drank much more than I should have.”
“Oh my,” I said, cracking a smile.
“The good thing is that I passed out before I blew anything up. The bad thing was the hangover and the lectures later. Apparently it’s illegal for powerful unicorns to get drunk, just in case they set something on fire.”
“That, of course, was the fault of Clover the Clever,” I said. “She was famous for drinking to excess and casting spells that required both my sister and I to intervene. She would always tell us to simply trust her, and then immediately do something that made is regret that trust.”
“It couldn’t have been that bad,” Sunset scoffed.
“At one point she decided the reason she could not stay on her hooves was because the room was spinning too quickly, so she cast a come-to-life spell on the castle itself and made it turn in place to ‘counteract the other spinning’. Thou do not wish to know how much we had to spend to repair the castle gardens.”
“That’s pretty bad,” Sunset admitted.
“I assure thee, it is hardly the worst thing. She declared war against the diamond dogs when she tripped over a rock. Before she sobered up, she had turned their ambassador into a newt. I do not think Fidoleus ever quite forgave us, though he did get better eventually.”
Sunset picked up a bottle and two glasses, setting them down in front of me before sitting down herself. I lifted the bottle up to look at it.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Apple brandy. I thought we should start with something light. I don’t want to get arrested for public intoxication.”
I rolled my eyes. “Hardly a concern. I will pardon thee. Harmony knows both of us could use a few drinks.” I grabbed a scroll and started writing, my magic burning the words onto paper. “There. One official pardon from a Princess of Equestria. I doubt my sister will challenge it, since it is relatively harmless. And if she does, it will just prove once and for all that she does not consider me her true equal.”
“Spite and royal immunity,” Sunset said. “I’ll drink to that.” She poured two measures of the brandy. I sniffed at my glass. It smelled of musty apples, grapes, and strong wine. Sunset lifted her glass and held it towards me. I obliged, our glasses ringing as they touched, and then she surprised me by throwing back the drink in a single gulp.
I refused to be shown up by Sunset Shimmer. I downed mine, grimacing as the liquid burned a path down my throat. It was stronger than it had seemed.
“Not bad,” I said, coughing.
“You sure you can handle it?” Sunset smirked, pouring more into her glass. I grabbed the bottle and matched it.
“It has merely been a thousand years since my last drink,” I said, making an excuse. “It will take a few rounds to get a taste for it again.”
“A few rounds?” Sunset laughed. “Please. I could drink you under the table.”
“We do not have a table,” I said, confused.
“I mean I can drink more than you and maintain my composure,” Sunset explained, downing her glass. I scowled at her and did the same.
“Do not underestimate me,” I said, holding back a cough. “I have the stamina of an earth pony and the metabolism of a pegasus! Thou wouldst die trying to drink as much as I can!”
“Wanna bet?” Sunset asked, raising an eyebrow.
Things started to get hazy after that.
“What’s this?” I asked, holding a bottle up. Contractions were a lot easier after two… three… a few drinks. They made sense. It was hard to say all those extra letters. Sunset took the bottle from me, her magical grip surprisingly strong despite how much we’d had to drink. We’d had… I’d lost count. A lot. She blew dust off of the bottle, trying to read the label.
“It’s…” She frowned and uncorked it, sniffing at it. “It’s green.”
“I’ll try it!” I said, excited. Green was a good color. It was probably healthy. Green things were healthy. She poured a measure for me, and I downed it, licking my lips.
“So what was it like?” Sunset asked, as she poured some for herself.
“Melons and celery, mostly,” I said.
“No, I mean…” Sunset considered her words, her hoof making little circles in the air. “What was it like, being hit with the Elements of Harmony?”
“Oh.”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Sunset said. She could either read minds or expressions.
“You deserve to know,” I said, finally, after a few more moments of silent thought. Modern grammar was becoming easier as well. Perhaps this was the secret to fitting in in this strange age -- constant intoxication. “You know about the basics of the Elements, yes?”
“Six powerful magical artifacts.” She paused. “Well, more accurately, five powerful artifacts and a sixth that acts as a focus for the others.”
“Artifact is perhaps not the correct term, but I don’t know a better one.” I could have thought of a more appropriate word, two bottles of whisky ago. “They’re a part of the natural order of the world. They were not created, but found.”
“Magical artifacts don’t just grow on trees, Princess.”
“You’d be surprised.” I allowed myself a small smile. “But knowing what they are is important to understanding what their effect is like. They are similar to a medical tool, and heal disharmony in the world.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Sunset ventured.
“For the world? No. But a scalpel is rarely kind to a cancer. Their effect changes depending on what they are being used on. When my sister and I sealed Discord, it turned him to stone permanently. When they were used on me the first time, I was banished to the moon.”
“But why didn’t they just heal you then?” Sunset pointed out. “Like when Twilight used them.”
“The full power of the Elements requires all of them to work in concert. Sister was unable to do so, and three were more attuned to me than her. I believe they did the best they could, and sent me away.” I sighed. “It took a thousand years for them to find new hosts who had the strength of spirit enough to wield them properly.”
“So banishing you was just… delaying until treatment was available?” Sunset scoffed. “That would require incredibly powerful divination. Hundreds of things could have gone wrong! Like... I could have killed you.”
“If you hadn’t weakened me, I would have killed your friends,” I said, the alcohol loosening my tongue. “As it was, I was reduced to minor illusions and some shapeshifting. It gave them the time they needed to come together. You were instrumental to their success, and my defeat.”
“That’s flattering, but you didn’t answer my question,” Sunset pointed out.
“It was like being woken up from a bad dream by a bucket of ice water being poured over your head,” I said. “No, not just a bad dream. Some parts were good. I was powerful and strong, and finally my sister’s equal. But it feels… ephemeral now. My memories are scattered. I’ve forgotten almost everything. Even relearning modern Equestrian has been difficult, because my last clear memories were of a time when I was hailed as a hero, a new ruler and vanquisher of Discord.”
“Sorry,” Sunset said. “That sounds pretty awful.”
“Another drink might help,” I said, pushing my glass towards her.
“That’s the last one,” Sunset said, glumly, a few rounds later, holding up an empty bottle.
“But we’re not done!” I protested. “I’m still perfectly soccer.”
“Sober.”
“That’s what I said,” I retorted.
“Well I’m not done either,” Sunset said, standing up and barely wobbling at all. I stood up as well, but of course I was much more graceful because I am a beautiful and graceful princess and the very best at holding my liquor. I leaned into her to make sure she didn’t fall over.
“Wait!” I said, getting a brilliant idea. “The Gala is going on downstairs!”
“They’ll have wine,” Sunset said, nodding. She really was a smart pony. She figured out my plan even before I did!
“We’ll just sneak in and take a few bottles so we can finish,” I said. I was the smartest, and this was a great idea.
“No!” Sunset said. “We can’t go like this! Celestia will see us and she’ll know we drank all her booze!” She had a point, or maybe two points. My vision was a little blurry because the gravity was different on the moon and I was still getting used to normal gravity.
“We need disguises,” I said. “But where are we going to get them?”
I have been alive for countless years, so long that my birthdate was not only from before the current calendar but before written history itself. In all that time, I have never woken up with a worse hangover.
“Oh Harmony…” I groaned. “Only an immortal can suffer such agony…” I reached up to touch my horn to make sure it was still attached, since my head was pounding hard enough that it well could have fallen off. My hooves found something on my head. I pulled it off to look at it.
“A lampshade?” I asked, confused, sitting up and looking around. I was in the palace’s grand ballroom, and it seemed as though something had exploded. Multiple things. Cakes were splattered across the floor. Statues were toppled. Tables were overturned. There was something warm pressed up against me.
I looked down. There was a cardboard box. I removed it and found Sunset Shimmer, groaning as my sudden motion woke the unicorn up.
“Ugh…” my niece moaned, blinking slowly. She had been curled up around something. She picked it up to look. A bottle of wine. An empty bottle of wine. Another half-dozen were around us. “What happened?”
“I think… we might have done something bad,” I whispered. “Sister is going to banish both of us to the moon! Again!”
“Not so loud!” Sunset snapped, holding her hooves to her temples. “I think she already imprisoned half of the demons in Tartarus in my skull and gave them sledgehammers to keep them busy.”
“We need to clean this up before she notices,” I said, struggling to get to my hooves. The world had stopped spinning around me, but it seemed that the rotation had centered itself in my vital organs instead. It felt like my stomach was attempting to twist itself into a knot.
“Set it on fire and let Harmony sort it out,” Sunset muttered between clenched teeth.
I considered that for a moment. “No. Too much risk of something going wrong.”
“Fine,” Sunset said, looking around with bleary eyes. “What did we even do? This place looks like a disaster zone.”
“I don’t know,” I said, as I tried to think back. My memory of the previous few hours was totally blank. I stomped a hoof in frustration, tile cracking under the force. “Moonless night, I can’t remember anything! What in Tartarus did we drink?!”
“Everything,” Sunset said. “I guess since we both passed out we’ll call it a draw.”
“I don’t care about the drinking contest,” I said. “I care about not disappointing my sister!”
“Between the two of us I don’t think she can get much more disappointed,” Sunset muttered, as she started righting tables. “I mean we were out for hours. She probably knows what we did already.”
“No,” I said. “She wouldn’t leave us here.” I put a sculpture back on its plinth. “She would have had us put back in our rooms, or waited right next to us so she could tell us how disappointed she was as soon as she woke up.”
“Celestia was a fan of doing that,” Sunset admitted. She lifted an overturned punchbowl and screamed as a snake lunged out, surprising her. Before I could stop her, a ball of crimson fire exploded at her hooves, and the castle shook to its very foundations.
My eyes widened in horror. She’d shattered part of the floor, a hole ten paces wide. Hopefully nopony had been in the rooms below, which were now filled with rubble from the collapsing stone.
“Ah… oops?” She turned and smiled at me.
I was speechless. Not at her power. That was easily replicated. Not even at her sheer reckless behavior and instant reaction with lethal force. What left me speechless was that my sister had trained this pony for a decade and still had all her limbs.
I sighed and turned to leave the ballroom, feeling defeated.
The doors opened before I could get to them, and I found myself looking up at my sister. She was graceful, powerful, beloved, the polar opposite of what I was in my frail, awkward body. She was always so perfect. Except for the bags under her eyes. And her tousled mane.
“Good morning, Luna,” She yawned. “I see you’ve found the mess--”
“It’s my fault!” Sunset yelled, shoving me aside with magic. “I take full responsibility!”
“Responsibility?” Celestia asked, tilting her head. “For what?”
“For… that.” She waved a hoof at the ballroom.
“Sunset, I know you care for your friends,” Celestia yawned again. “But I’m not angry at them for what happened at the Gala.” She rubbed at her eyes. “I basically orchestrated it myself to have a little fun, anyway.”
“I feel like we’re missing something,” I hissed in Sunset’s ear.
“I just wanted to find you,” Celestia paused to look around the ballroom. “The mess isn’t nearly as bad as I remember. I don’t remember the hole in the floor, but I did leave early…”
“So… this happened last night?” Sunset asked, as we edged past her. Sister trotted into the room, still bleary from a lack of sleep.
“Mmm…” Celestia nodded. “I’ll tell you about it later. I need a few more hours of rest, but I wanted to get the sun raised before I can go back to bed.”
“We can take care of it,” I said. “Why don’t you just go tuck in?”
“Are you sure?” Celestia asked. “The sun is pretty heavy…”
“We’ll be fine,” Sunset said. “I’ll give her a hoof.”
“Just don’t wreck the school again,” Celestia mumbled, tossing her head as she almost passed out on her hooves.
“I won’t,” Sunset said, rolling her eyes. Celestia nodded and walked out, guards circling her as she stumbled back towards her quarters.
“Usually she's more of a morning pony,” I muttered. "It must have been a very long night for her."
“Can you actually--” Sunset started, then snorted. “What am I saying? Of course you can raise the sun. Celestia managed both, and you’re as strong as she is.”
“Well… I am actually more practiced in preventing the sun from ever rising again,” I admitted. “I don’t think I have ever actually successfully raised the sun.”
“My track record isn’t so good either. Last time I tried, I, um, threw part of the School for Gifted Unicorns right over Mount Canter.” I just stared at her. She sighed. “Yes, I know. I’m a walking disaster zone.”
“Excellent,” I said. “So we’re right on track for either plunging Equestria into endless night or blowing up the sun itself.”
“And both of us are hung over,” Sunset groaned. “Glad we’re trying this while we’re at our best.”
I walked out to the gardens. Being outside wasn’t really important, but it had been a very long time since I’d done this. I hadn’t even moved the moon since returning from my exile. In truth, I’d barely even looked at it. Too many half-forgotten memories started to return when I thought about the moon, the things I’d done, the ponies I’d hurt.
“First, I’ll lower the moon,” I said, trying to stay calm. This was the easy part. “Pay attention. I will try to explain as I do this, but I have little time to review.”
“I know it’s not just telekinesis,” Sunset said.
“No. The sun, the moon, and the stars are not objects as such. They are, more accurately, projections of magical energy reaching through the Astral Plane, which appears above us but is not able to be reached by any conventional means. It is not even truly above us, as it is in a direction that cannot be pointed to, and what we see is just a shadow or reflection.”
“Okay?” Sunset said, sounding unsure.
“Raising the sun or moon isn’t about pushing some huge weight into the sky. It’s about rotating the Astral Plane’s orientation to the world.”
“...Celestia told me she dropped the sun once,” Sunset said.
“She is extraordinarily clumsy,” I grumbled. I focused my magic, and I could feel it grip onto the invisible gears of the world. Sunset’s eyes were focused on my horn as I pulled in a direction I cannot name but can feel in my bones.
For a moment I feared I wouldn’t be able to move it, the moon resisting my pull. Then I could feel it, like gears suddenly slipping. The moon jerked in its orbit and slid towards the horizon.
“That path will carry it away from Equestria,” I said, taking a deep breath. It felt just as I remembered, though more difficult by far. My weakness was going to make raising the sun exhausting, if I could manage it at all.
“Okay, so what about the sun?” Sunset asked.
“It’s… over there.” I didn’t point. “I just need a moment to gather myself.”
“So how do we want to do this? Am I going to just copy your spell? Is there some ritual we do to combine our magic?” Sunset looked at me expectantly. “I really never did any spells with multiple casters.”
“I’ll try to move it myself first,” I said. “If I can’t we’ll have to… improvise.”
Sunset nodded. I knew I didn’t sound confident. I’d gotten the moon to move, though, and the sun wasn’t that different. I just had to grip it correctly and force it into motion. Surely it couldn’t be harder than forcing my sister out of bed.
“It’s not… as easy as the moon!” I said, as I struggled to keep my grip. There was just enough give to it that I could tell it was supposed to move, but I felt like a foal struggling to pull a loaded cart through the mud. “The moon likes to change, but the sun is a stubborn, overbearing nag of a… giant ball of fire.”
“Hold on!” Sunset said, and I wasn’t sure what she intended to do before her horn touched mine. It wasn’t what I expected her to do, and certainly wasn’t what I meant when I had suggested she help me.
Then I felt it, a spark jumping between our horns like lightning striking between us. She was forcing her magic into synchronization with mine, just dumping power into my spell and letting me control it. It was the simplest way to combine magical fields, but also the most dangerous for both of us. I should have known it would be her first choice.
“Come on, Luna! Put your back into it!” Sunset snapped. “Stop holding back!”
“I’m doing all I can!” I growled, gritting my teeth. The sun stubbornly refused to rise, stuck in a rut on the other side of a dimensional barrier. The worst part was that Sunset could feel how weak I was with our magic connected like this.
“No you aren’t!” Sunset said, and I felt her grab at something deep inside me. Power rushed through me, as if she’d torn down a dam. I could feel my whole body straining as magic that I hadn’t even known I still possessed poured through my leylines. It followed along Sunset’s magic, and she was shoved back and away from me as I flared, unable to stop myself. With a spell already formed, the magic followed the path of least resistance. The sun jumped into the sky, settling into its orbit as my flare sputtered out and I fell back, stumbling into one of the garden statues.
“What was that?!” I demanded, my voice a little hoarse.
“You weren’t even trying,” Sunset said, as she pulled herself out of the fountain my flare had thrown her into. She shook her head and moved her mane away from her eyes. “I had to do something or we’d never have gotten the… sun… um…” she looked up at me.
Up. She seemed smaller, somehow. Everything looked smaller. I looked down at my hooves. My coat was darker. It was… I ran over to the fountain, needing confirmation.
“I can’t believe it,” I whispered. I was looking at a face I hadn’t seen in a thousand years. Not a foal, not Nightmare Moon. It was me, the way I used to be.
“Wow,” Sunset said, behind me. “Didn’t expect that.” She made a squeaking sound as I grabbed her, pulling her into a tight hug.
“I don’t know how you did this.” It was a struggle to get words out. A princess should have dignity and grace no matter what happened around her, but I was weeping like a foal. “You don’t know much this means to me!”
“Not an alicorn!” Sunset gasped. “Fragile bones!”
I released my grip on the mare. She stepped back and gave me a critical look.
“I guess that means I didn’t break anything?” She said.
“No,” I laughed, wiping my eyes. “You fixed something. How did you do that?”
“Oh, well, when our magic was connected I could just feel that there was something in the way.” She shrugged. “Kind of like a bunch of rocks blocking up a stream. I just shoved until it broke.”
“Come, we must show Sister!” I hopped excitedly, grinning. I hadn’t felt better in as long as I could remember.
“Isn’t she sleeping?” Sunset asked, as she hurried after me.
“We will wake her up!” I declared. “And have the servants bring wine! This calls for a celebration!” Truly, it was a glorious day. Even my hangover had vanished in the new rush of power.
“We drank all the wine!”
“Have them bring more!” I laughed as I trotted inside, feeling a lightness in my heart that hadn’t been there in as many years as I could remember.
“You seem to have had more fun than I did,” Celestia smiled, as I looked over the spread of small cakes and sandwiches that passed for a snack in this age. A thousand years ago we would have had a grand feast, or perhaps only what sparse rations could be managed. It had not been a peaceful era, and there had been near famines, even in Equestria.
“Aye, ‘twas far more festive than We had anticipated,” I agreed. I was in too good a mood to correct my own grammar, and sister was, for once, allowing me my small folly. “Though from the damage done to the ballroom, We suppose thou have thy own story to tell.”
“I don’t think mine could compare,” Celestia said. “I just arranged for a little bit of excitement at the Gala. It does get so dull, sometimes.”
“We should like to hear how thou made these arrangements,” I said. “We suspect thou performed thy usual juggling act and avoided telling anypony thine plan until twas too late to stop you?”
“Something like that,” Celestia confirmed, smiling. “You know I don’t like to reveal just how much work I put into my little fun. It spoils things when I explain my plans.”
“As thou wishes,” I sighed. I was in too good a mood to press my sister about it.
“I’m much more interested in what you were doing,” Celestia continued. “I had hoped you two might find something in common, but I didn’t think you would end up drinking everything in the castle. Nor did I think you would finally begin to return to your old self.”
“Thy daughter drinks with a fortitude We have only seen before in hardened soldiers,” I snorted. “Tis improper that she should even begin to outdrink Us.”
“I do wonder where she gets that from,” Celestia mumbled. “She didn’t learn it when she was here before.”
“Perhaps she simply burns it off,” I suggested, only half-joking.
“So what exactly did you two do together?” Celestia asked, her eyebrows raised and her eyes twinkling with barely hidden mirth.
“Certainly nothing thou art thinking,” I replied. “We merely spoke, at some length. We traded stories about our failures, the things we wish we had done differently. It was… cathartic, We suppose. Twas easier to speak with a pony whom had some inkling of what it meant to disappoint another.”
“You two--”
“Nay, sister. Do not say we have never been disappointments. We know that thou loves Us despite Our flaws. That does not mean We have not made mistakes, just that we are fortunate enough to have been forgiven for some of them.”
“For all of them, Luna,” Celestia said, quietly. “You suffered even more than I did.”
“Either way, tis in the past, and We tire of being squarely imprisoned there. We have a thousand years to get caught up on.” I smiled, trying to cheer my sister up. “Regardless, speaking to thine daughter was most helpful. We admit, We had been avoiding her. We were… afraid of what she might do.”
“She’s only a foal, Luna,” Celestia scoffed. "She would never hurt you."
“Sunset Shimmer is no foal. Hast thou ever crossed horns with her?” Celestia shook her head. “To call her a foal… thou hath no idea. Her wellspring is more akin to a furnace than a pool of water.”
“She’s the strongest student I ever taught,” my sister admitted. “Even stronger than Twilight, though… less interested in theory, and more in application. She certainly kept me busy.” She smiled. “I wish you had met her as a foal, Luna. She was just like me. Always rushing into things, the same kind of accidental explosions…”
“...Forgive Us for asking, but is she…?” I trailed off, not sure how to ask the question politely.
“Is she what?” Celestia asked, apparently not following my line of thought. I wasn’t sure if it was genuine confusion or simply feigned.
“Thou calls her thine daughter,” I said, bluntly. “She is extremely powerful. She has a sun for a cutie mark. Need I go on?”
“Luna, there are hundreds of ponies with cutie marks shaped like the sun, and dozens of powerful unicorns.” Celestia said. "Regardless of who gave birth to her, I do love her as my own,"
“Sister…” I frowned, displeased with the evasive answer.
“She is not my biological daughter,” Celestia said, firmly. “She wishes she was. Sometimes, I wish she was. If things hadn’t come between us… well, if things hadn’t come between us, her life might have turned out very differently.”
“Sister, thou art still leaving something out.”
“Very likely I’m leaving a lot out. Our relationship has been anything but simple. I did things I’m not proud of, and I’ll never be able to explain it to anypony.”
“Thou can start by explaining things to Us,” I said. “We know too well the burden of carrying worries alone.”
“I suppose you do,” Celestia admitted. “It started after your exile. For a time, I was afraid you would never return, that you were to be banished forever. Star Swirl never gave up on you, though. In time, and nearly at the expense of his life, he was able to deliver a prophecy of your return.”
I tilted my head, waiting for her to continue.
“According to Star Swirl, on the day of the one-thousandth anniversary of Nightmare Moon’s defeat, she would return, and she would be stopped by the actions of a pony of uncertain provenance, born under a certain sign, with the kind of magical power seen only once in a generation…”
Luna rubbed lavender lotion into my aching flank, the muscles slowly loosening up under her touch.
“That feels really good,” I groaned, and she put more of her weight into it, practically pressing her whole body against mine while she rubbed my cutie mark.
“You have quite a bit of tension in your hips,” Luna said. “Perhaps we need to try a new type of physical therapy?”
“Did you have something in mind?” I asked, looking back at her and smirking.
“That depends,” Luna’s gaze lingered over my body. I could feel her half-lidded eyes roaming like she was tracing along my muscles with her soothing, cool magic. “Part of you just realized this is a dream and now you’re wondering if this is the real Princess Luna or if you’re just having a dream with her in it~”
“I, uh--” I blinked a few times. Oh no.
Luna leaned down to breathe in my ear, her voice low and husky. “And now, you’re wondering what would happen if this isn’t the real Princess Luna and she finds out what you’ve been dreaming about~”
I screamed and tried to run, jump, and teleport all at once. None of it worked, and I just ended up tangled up in the bedsheet. And since I’d managed to half-cast a teleport spell in my sleep, the sheet was also on fire.
Some incredibly wise pony decided that this was the perfect moment to knock on my door.
“ONE SECOND!” I shouted, stomping on the sheet and trying to put it out and politely make my way to the door at the same time.
“Sunset, are you okay?” Flash Sentry opened the door and looked inside. “Is the room on fire?”
“No,” I lied.
“Why is the room on fire?”
“It isn’t!” I yelled, opening the balcony door and throwing the sheets out the window before they could catch anything else on fire. They fluttered down like a kite, and vanished like a kite that was on fire.
“There’s an alarm,” Flash continued. “What did you do? Did you burn down part of the palace?”
“No! I was sleeping! I haven’t started fires in my sleep since I was a filly!”
“...You start fires in your sleep?”
“It was a phase! Lots of unicorns have that problem when they’re foals!”
“Stop stalling and let me in!” snapped somepony unpleasant and scowling hard enough to make Flash Sentry flinch away. You might be wondering how I knew they were scowling, and I could tell you that I saw the death rays projecting from their eyes reflecting off his armor, but the truth is that when Sirocco shoved the door open to look her face had the wrinkles and hard edges of a lifetime of scowling compressed into just a few minutes.
That said, even the fact her face was carved out of disapproving granite didn’t mean she didn’t also look surprised to see me.
“You’re here,” she said. She sounded like she’d missed a step in a dance.
“Yes?” I said, just as confused but probably for different reasons. “Where else would I be?”
“Your guard was outside of the Princess’s room. When you weren’t there, I assumed you’d escaped and caused the current catastrophe.” She made an annoyed sound deep in her throat. “I suppose this is a rare instance where I happen to be wrong.”
“I asked him to keep an eye on Princess Shahrazad,” I yawned. It wasn’t a real yawn, I just wanted to try and look casual. Like I hadn’t just set the room on fire. “So what’s this big disaster? A critical lack of coffee?”
“The dead are rising from their graves,” Sirocco said.
“...The dead are…” I started, hesitating. I couldn’t have heard her right.
“Rising. From their graves.” Sirocco narrowed her eyes. “And you had nothing to do with it. Interesting.”
“How is that even possible? Is there a necromancer?” I started pacing, trying to think. It was strictly illegal to create undead abominations in Equestria, so I’d naturally only tried it once or twice before deciding having a spooky half-rotten servant as smart as your average dog wasn’t worth going to prison if I got caught.
“One would assume so,” Sirocco agreed.
“Okay,” I muttered, walking in circles. “Did they bring them back all at once? Maybe they just did a few at a time and hid them until they were ready. There are enough basements and empty buildings to hide a dozen armies here…”
“You seem to have put a lot of thought into this.”
“It’s what I would do if I was-” I caught myself. “I mean, look, everypony thinks about how they’d take over the world when they’re a filly! It’s normal!”
Flash groaned and facehooved and I wasn’t sure why because I was objectively right. Anypony who’d never at least thought about how they’d conquer a city was unambitious or spoiled.
“You have an interesting definition of normal,” Sirocco said. “But it seems the dead only began rising up at some time in the night.”
I nodded. So that would have been a few hours after court. A few hours… after I gave a grieving mother a box holding a wish with very unclear instructions. Add in a little time for her to get home and actually open it up and it was right on schedule to be…
All my fault.
Horseapples.
“You know, I should help out,” I said, starting to sweat. It wasn’t because of the heat. “I’m an expert in basically every type of magic.”
“I’m not entirely convinced that your presence will not make things worse,” Sirocco retorted. “You are an unstable element.”
“Radium is an unstable element. I’m a professional.”
“Ah yes. Puns when the city is overrun by the undead. I can see why Princess Celestia made you her student. Purely for humor.”
“That’s a weird way to say ‘oh Sunset, you’re so well-educated I’d love to have you along so you can solve this magical problem!’”
“The Aretic Order is fully capable of dealing with this,” Sirocco countered.
“Hear me out - you want to keep an eye on me. I want to make sure you don’t go around murdering ponies. It’ll work out better for both of us if we don’t fight about this.”
I could practically see the gears turning in Sirocco’s head while she tried to work out how I was scamming her. She was the kind of naturally suspicious pony that I probably should have been with all the untrustworthy types surrounding me. If I had to deal with ponies like Arch or whatever was going on with the royal family as a career, I could see myself turning into a cautious, suspicious mare like her.
“Fine,” she said. “Speaking in my official capacity, I am pleased to have a professional to assist with the current crisis, especially one from our allies in Equestria.”
“And unoffically?”
She turned and walked out. “You don't want to know. We’re going to be working together, if briefly. I’d prefer not to be rude.”
“When you told me about hordes of the shambling dead, this isn’t really what I pictured,” I said, looking past the suspiciously well-constructed barricades to the animated corpses beyond. I wasn’t exactly an expert in necromancy, but I knew the basics. Generally speaking, a corpse was a house with nobody home. A train with no conductor. If it’s left alone, it’s harmless. Necromancy is the art of shoving something in there to make things work.
The most common type of undead were zombies. That was sort of a wide group, since there were a ton of variation in zombies, but the thread they had in common was that they were a total failure. The body would rot, they weren’t smart enough to do anything useful, and there was nothing remaining of the pony they used to be. If you messed up making some more advanced form of the undead, that’s what you got. A lot of them were so badly made they’d collapse on their own after a few hours.
Now the big thing about zombies is that they don’t spread. They’re not a plague. They’re just kind of sad. If there was a necromancer strong enough to make an entire army of the stupid things, they had to have enough talent to do something better with their time.
“How do we destroy them?” Sirocco asked. She was probably only asking me because she thought I was some dark force of evil with special insight, but considering I’d been thinking about necrobiology for a while in silence, maybe she wasn’t too far off.
“They’re not making any kind of coordinated effort,” I said. “They’re not even doing anything.” That wasn’t entirely true. They were milling around and it looked aimless at first, but if you watched them for a while it was almost like a crowded marketplace or a festival in slow motion. Some of them were ‘talking’ to each other in grunts and growls. I swear a couple of them were trying to dance. A few were miming taking drinks from unseen bottles and eating invisible food.
“They’re causing a panic,” Sirocco said. “Even if they’re not hurting anypony right now, it’s going to cause a riot if nothing is done.”
“They’re already barricaded off. Celestia always told me that you need to examine a problem instead of just jumping into it.” I'd never listened but she'd definitely said it a few times.
“So you know it will end here?” Sirocco pressed. “You know that they will not suddenly become violent? You’re sure that they pose no threat? You are absolutely certain that by tomorrow whatever is causing this will not spill out over the whole city?”
“Well, I… no,” I admitted. “I don’t know any of that.”
“I am responsible to the living, not the dead,” Sirocco said. “Again, how do we destroy them?”
I sighed and rubbed my face. “The easiest way is to destroy the heart or head,” I said. “Fire would work, but…”
“But?”
“But they’re in the middle of the city. I’ve had way too many ponies yell at me about how many fires I cause. If they get set on fire and then start running around because we find the last little bit of awareness they’ve got in them, we could have dozens of moving bonfires spreading the flames everywhere.”
“Noted,” Sirocco said, with a nod. She raised a hoof and one of her ponies put a crossbow in her hoof. She took careful aim with a weapon clearly designed for a unicorn to manipulate with magic and fired. The steel bolt slammed into a zombie’s chest and… the zombie didn’t even seem to notice.
“You have to hit the heart,” I explained. “It’s not an easy shot. A pony’s heart is sort of…”
“I hit the heart,” Sirocco said.
“It’s a tiny target.”
“I have had a considerable amount of practice,” she said. She lowered the crossbow and I would have offered to recharge it for her, but she drew the steel wire back by hoof with seemingly no effort. Not going to lie, that was a little scary. She fired again, and hit the same zombie, this time putting the bolt through its rotting gourd of a head.
The zombie turned slightly and clumsily swatted at its own face like it was trying to get rid of an annoying fly. Frustratingly, it didn’t die.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “The… the seat of the animus has to be in the head or heart. That’s just how zombies work! Unless…”
“Unless what?” Sirocco asked, passing the crossbow back to her soldier.
“Well, zombies aren’t the only type of undead. They’re just the most common, and if you have some kind of big magic accident they’re what you get basically a hundred percent of the time.” I motioned to the shamblers. “There are a couple types of undead that look like zombies but aren’t the same.”
“Such as?” Sirocco asked, waiting patiently.
“Ghouls look mostly like zombies, but they’re better preserved and have to consume the flesh of corpses. Which, um, they’re not doing. Revenants are possessed by a need for revenge or to complete some task in life, but…”
“I find it unlikely ponies have returned from the grave for the purpose of having a small party,” Sirocco said.
I nodded in agreement. “This isn’t like anything I’ve read about before.” That didn’t mean I wasn’t pretty sure about the cause of all of it, but there was a big difference between knowing the cause and understanding the effect.
“And are you only able to contend with foes whose biography you’ve memorized?” Sirocco asked.
I frowned and tried not to glare at her. “Fine. You stay here, I’m going to try something.”
Before she could say anything, I hopped past the barricade with help from one spell to throw me into the air and another to control my fall. It was showing off, but when somepony starts talking trash about your skills you have to show off.
I landed among the undead. The smell wasn’t as bad as I feared, even this close to them. Most of these corpses were old. Really old. They were dried out and desiccated, with only a faint smell like when you leave a bowl of fruit somewhere for a week and come back to everything starting to turn brown and soft.
The nearest of them turned to me and stared with milky, unfocused eyes for a few long seconds before getting bored and going back to what it had been doing.
“I think it’s safe,” I said, carefully taking a few steps through the crowd. “They’re not interested in me.”
“Was it necessary to throw yourself into danger just to test that?” Sirocco asked.
“It was the fastest way and didn’t put anypony else at risk,” I said, with a shrug. “At least we know we don’t have to worry about being eaten alive.”
“As you say,” Sirocco agreed. “But you are no closer to finding the source.”
“I have an idea about that,” I said. “So the animus, the animating force for the undead, that should have been disrupted when you shot the one zombie in the head. The fact it’s still moving means the animus isn’t located there.”
I started casting, improvising a spell on the fly. A lot of ponies think it’s hard to invent a new spell, but I never thought it was all that hard. Making a spell efficient is hard. Making it flawless is almost impossible. But if you’re willing to make it sloppy and leaky you can get away with practically anything.
I sent out a pulse, a ring of illusion magic crossed with a tiny bit of necromancy and a little divination. It washed through the undead near me. For an instant I caught a glimpse of what they looked like when they were alive, like a washed-out photo where the flash is too strong and all you see is highlight and shadow. It hung around them like a badly-fitting set of clothes. It faded, but a trace was left in the air, a twist like cobwebs leading away from the horde.
“What’s that?” Sirocco asked.
“I cast a spell to trace the animating force,” I explained. “It’s external to them. We can follow the strings to figure out where they’re coming from.”
“Ah. Now that, I understand.” Sirocco jumped over the barricade easily. “I will go with you. The rest of the Order will continue maintaining the blockade to ensure none of them escape.”
“Right,” I said. “It’ll be safer if it’s only the two of us. Trying to move an army through might… well, I don’t know what it would make them do, and that’s probably dangerous enough.”
Sirocco looked up. “Your spell has already ended.”
I cast it again, making everything visible. The web of connections left hanging over us only lasted a few seconds.
“Looks like we’ll have to recast every once in a while to get our bearings,” I said. “Let’s pick one of them and see where the thread goes.”
Sirocco glanced around and pointed at the one she’d shot, a stallion with a faded blue coat drawn tight around his bones. I cast the spell and tried to focus on just the stream coming out of him like he was a fish hooked on a line. A tweak to the way I cast the spell and that single thread lasted longer than the rest.
“Excellent,” Sirocco said. “You are indeed an asset, Miss Shimmer.”
“I think we can…” I hesitated, then gently pushed the moving corpse. It was able to walk, stumbling with the dazed obliviousness of a particularly dull animal. “If we lead it along like this we can make sure we don’t lose the trail.”
Sirroco nodded and followed me as we traced the winding line through the streets until it went inside a building. I hesitated at the doorstep.
“This isn’t a morgue or anything, right?” I asked. Sirocco shook her head and I pushed the door open from a safe distance, just in case something jumped out with a mouth full of sharp teeth.
Instead, inside was just soft light and quiet. I swallowed and walked in. There were candles around the room that had been allowed to burn for a long time, some of them already out and the rest running low.
The thin trace of magic was faint now, but I could still see where it was leading. There was a mare collapsed in her bed, sweating and feverish.
“Look at this,” I whispered.
“Is she the necromancer?” Sirocco asked. I stepped between them just in case her life was on the line depending on how I answered.
“She’s a victim,” I said. “Her magic and her life force are being used to animate one of those corpses.”
“Hostages, then?” Sirocco asked. “What happens if the monster is destroyed?”
“It would probably stop the drain on her, but I’m not sure how to actually destroy them.”
“You mentioned fire, yes?” Sirocco said.
“Yes but…” I held up a hoof. “This is delicate and dangerous. If her life force is being used to animate one of those undead, damaging the body might make the drain faster. Setting them on fire might just kill everypony connected to them.”
Sirocco paused and I could see it on her face. She was thinking about doing it anyway.
“It might even make things worse,” I said. “I’m pretty sure some of these undead are connected to each other. If she dies that way, she might come back as one of them and start draining somepony else.”
Sirocco clicked her tongue in annoyance. “And you’re sure she’s not the necromancer?”
“One pony’s life couldn’t stretch so thin it would cover all those bodies,” I said.
“Perhaps, but it does seem she knew the deceased,” Sirocco pointed at a photograph, faded by time and sunlight. One of the young ponies was clearly the mare tossing and turning in fever dreams. The other was a stallion with a blue coat, and maybe if he was a lot thinner and a little more dead, he’d be a match for the zombie whose trail we’d followed here.
“That can’t be a coincidence…”
“Is there anything you can do to sever the connection between them?” Sirocco asked. “I doubt she will last long otherwise.”
“There is one thing. Maybe.” I wasn’t an expert in necromancy. I was pretty good at killing monsters, though. “This might get messy. I’ve never done it before.”
Dark magic is, at its core, magic where somepony else pays the price. Most of the time it’s just like eating dinner at a fancy place and skipping out on the bill, forcing somepony else to cover your tab. The other option was finding some other way to fiddle with the accounting. Using blood or life energy or something else like you’re bartering with the laws of the universe.
What I did was more like jamming my hoof into somepony else’s pockets and stealing their wallet. I reached into the mare’s wellspring and found the part where the dark energy was sprouting from. Then I yanked like I was tearing a weed out of a garden.
She gasped, eyes shooting open, and quickly settled down into a more restful sleep. The undead pony collapsed in a heap at the same moment, no more animated than the dust around it.
“What did you do?” Sirocco asked.
I was suddenly aware I’d just done something that was technically dark magic right in front of a pony that I was absolutely sure would kill a pony for using dark magic.
“I, uh,” I started, trying to find a good lie.
“That was dark magic,” Sirocco said. “Very dangerous, Miss Shimmer. Like fighting fire with fire, one often ends up burned by it.”
“Never heard that one before,” I lied.
“Do you know why the Aretic Order hunts down sources of black magic?” Sirocco asked.
“It’s not really popular anywhere. I hadn’t put a lot of thought into it.”
“A long time ago, this is what Saddle Arabia was like.” She nodded to the corpse. “There was something new every day that we had to deal with. Horrors, and beauty too, but mostly horrors. The beautiful things were fleeting, but the awful ones lingered.”
“The djinni, right?” I asked.
She nodded. “Just so. You can’t understand what it was like. Everything starts with a small thing. It is the way landslides start. A small wish, a tiny thing. Something that hurts nopony. Ponies learn to become dependent on them. Farmers stop farming, then don’t teach their foals how to tend the fields. What is the need when the crops can grow at a whim? Why build anything when it can simply be done by speaking it aloud?”
“I’ve heard this argument before about not helping ponies in need,” I pointed out. “Why help anypony instead of making them work for it?”
“Mm. All things in moderation. Helping ponies is good. Making them dependent on that help is not. It becomes a prison they cannot escape, like a drug. Wishes to fix other wishes that had gone wrong. Bigger wishes to try to fix the whole world at once. Cruel wishes just to hurt somepony. All of them made at once, the world trying to warp a thousand ways at once, and the djinni feeding on it all.”
“They’re gone now, though, so it obviously didn’t work out for them.”
“They’re gone now because we hunted them down. The Aretic Order was formed of ponies who could resist temptation, and over a thousand years ago we slew every single djinn in the world. It is very difficult to destroy an enemy that can grow stronger because you wish it to be killed, but methods were found.”
“And now you hunt down ponies?”
“We try to keep the world in order. I’m telling you this because I believe you can understand why it’s important. I want you to have the proper perspective, especially if you are going to be a lingering part of this nation.”
“All the threats really make me feel comfortable,” I snorted.
“Mm. I suppose part of me is simply annoyed that you have disrupted a stable situation.”
“Stable? Princess Shahrazad was almost assassinated!”
“Was she?” Sirocco asked. “By brightly colored killers in a very public place where she just happened to run into the Equestrian envoy?”
“Well, she... “ I hesitated.
“Can you track the source of the undead?” Sirocco asked, changing the subject before I could think too deeply or come up with a counter-argument.
“I, um, sure,” I said. I stepped outside and cast the searching spell again. Looking carefully at the webbing left in the air you could see a general drift to it. The undead and the ties they had to whatever people were animating them were like local eddies, but the whole thing was like a steam, leading back to some spring.
“That way?” Sirocco asked, looking up-stream. I nodded, even though it was behind her back, and she started following it.
Let me preface this by saying I was pretty sure about what we’d find at the end of that trail. I wasn’t stupid.
No, you know what? I was stupid. I’d given a grieving mare a box with a wish in it - and buck knows how you keep a wish inside a box - and worse than just telling her it would fix things, I hadn’t explained anything at all. I’d just put it in her hooves and hoped it would all work out for the best.
And where did that get you? Apparently it got you in the middle of an undead plague. It blew up in my face like every other big decision I'd ever had to make. That was the whole reason I'd left Canterlot in the first place. Something went wrong, I tried to fix it, and I only made it worse. The closer we got to the source of all this, the more it started to tighten up, like individual threads weaving together into cloth.
I was absolutely sure that this was all going to be my fault. If I didn’t have Sirocco breathing down my neck I’d feel a lot better about my chances of solving it. I was starting to think she wasn’t as bad as I’d feared, but I’d thought that about some of Fluttershy’s animals immediately before that’d decided to sink their fangs into me.
And now I was thinking about the ponies I’d hurt just when I didn’t need a distraction.
“It isn’t the sort of place I would expect a necromancer to linger,” Sirocco said, stopping outside of one of the many nearly-identical buildings of the city. “Or perhaps it is.” She stepped to the side of the entrance. Fresh flowers were strewn in loose bundles to either side of the door.
“What is it?”
“It’s a home, but these flowers usually mean a funeral,” Sirocco said. She held one up to look at it more closely, then tossed it aside. “You go first.”
That was a surprise. “Me?”
“If there is a necromancer inside, they will respond better to somepony like you intruding on them. Perhaps you can convince them you want to help with their work, hm?” She smiled slightly. “You are dressed the part for a funeral, at least.”
“Black is-- well it is appropriate,” I admitted, tugging my cloak tighter.
“I’ll give you a few minutes. Or until you scream.” She shrugged and stepped to the side of the doorway, trampling on the offerings ponies had left there.
I walked in and tried to look as confident as I didn’t feel. I wasn’t alone. Once I pushed past the curtain over the empty doorway, dozens of blank eyes turned to look at me. They were sitting quietly in rows, like somepony had gone to the graveyard and dug up their extended family for a reunion.
Traces of that dark magic flowed between all of them and up to the front of the room. A small altar had been constructed there, probably somepony’s kitchen table, and two ponies were there, one of them speaking in low tones and the other…
Well, the other was a foal. Had been a foal. It looked just a little more alive than the other corpses. From this distance, I could almost convince myself that it was still a pony and not just a puppet. It looked at me and got the other pony’s attention. Just like I thought, it was the mother I’d seen at the palace. The one I’d tried to help.
“I wished for him to come back,” the mare said. “It’s a miracle! He’s still sick, but he’s back with me! Can you believe it?!”
She turned with a smile full of joy and eyes glowing with madness and motioned to the lifeless crowd.
“The whole family came over and they’re feeling a little under the weather, but we’re all together again!”
“You need to let him go,” I said, quietly. It felt like I was interrupting something, but it wasn’t like she was even on the same planet as the rest of us at this point. Whatever had happened it had taken its toll on her mind. “He’s not your foal anymore.”
“No!” She hissed, getting between me and her ‘son’. “I won’t let you hurt him!”
“He’s hurting you,” I said. “Please. Look at everything that’s happened -- a lot of ponies are suffering because of this. I’m sorry.”
“I won’t-- I won’t let him be taken away again,” she whispered. “Can’t you see? Everypony’s family is coming back!”
I cast a quick spell, just to make sure I was right. She was at the center of it all, like the eye in a storm. She’d brought her son back, and the spell had started feeding on other ponies. Their wishes to see their own lost loves had strengthened the spell. It was just like what Sirocco had described, chaos growing from the hunger of ponies wanting the world to change.
“But why weren’t we affected?” I mumbled.
“None of the ponies you care about are dead,” the mother said. “I can feel it. Everypony you love is still alive. You’re so lucky, but we aren’t. This is our only chance to see them again!”
“Can’t you see how many ponies are dying because of you?” I groaned.
“Don’t bother trying to explain it,” Sirocco said, marching inside and giving the ranks of the undead a displeased stare. “She’s not listening to reason. They never do, not when they’re this far gone.”
“No, I know you!” the mother gasped. “You’re that pony who goes around taking away innocent mares and stallions!”
“Sometimes, yes, the innocent get caught up in it,” Sirocco said. “Is she the caster, Miss Shimmer?”
“Yeah, but give me a while. I’m still trying to figure out how to dispel the magic. It’s not nearly as easy as it was with the first pony. That was like pulling a weed out of a garden. This is more like… trying to tame a whole forest.”
“There isn’t time for that. Every moment, more ponies die.” Sirocco stepped up to the mother, and I could see the difference between them. Sirocco was a full head taller, all tight muscle and training. The other pony was half-cowering, half-starved, just a mother out of her mind with grief.
The snap was like green wood splintering. Sirocco let the mare drop to the ground.
“I’m sorry,” she said. I don’t know if she was saying it to her or to me. I don’t even think she was really sorry. She was apologizing out of habit, not because she cared.
“You… I…”
“We will clean up the rest,” Sirocco said. She walked back to the door, over what had been undead and were now just corpses, the last vestiges of the animating force leaving them. “Go back to the palace, Sunset Shimmer, and whatever comforts you can find there.”
She walked through the curtain, leaving me alone in a room full of bodies.
I hadn’t seen it before, but on the makeshift altar next to the foal’s still form was a silver box. I couldn’t help myself. I picked it up and opened it.
Inside was a tangle of wire growing from the walls of the box itself, a dreamcatcher that could only have been shaped by magic. There was an empty space inside it, like it had been holding something whose shape seemed different every time I looked, like it couldn’t settle into one form even after being gone.
I shut the lid and shoved it in my saddlebags and managed to get to the door before I threw up.
It wasn’t a good start to the day, but it was only a prelude to how bad things were going to get.
“I’m so sorry you had to deal with such an awful thing,” Shahrazad said. She ran a brush through my mane. It was comforting, even if the rotting fruit smell of the undead still seemed to linger, like a bad taste that won’t quite leave your throat. “I can’t imagine having to be around all those corpses. It must have been horrible!”
“It was like a nightmare,” I admitted. “They weren’t really dangerous or anything, but they were everywhere with those dead eyes…”
“There is a bathhouse in the palace if you’d like to go there,” Shahrazad suggested.
“Do you want to go together?” I asked.
She giggled and covered her mouth, trying to hide a smile. “While I think we would both enjoy that, it might give some ponies the idea we were doing something improper.”
“If we took a bath together, we probably would be,” I countered.
“True.” Shahrazad worked a knot out of my mane gently while she thought. “I wish I had been out there with you. At least it would have been more exciting than waiting here.”
“Didn’t you just get finished telling me how it was awful, terrible, a nightmare…?”
“Part of the risk of dreaming is having the occasional nightmare,” Shahrazad said. “How can I be expected to rule when I don’t know the struggles of my ponies?”
“Is that why you sneak out so much?”
“Usually I sneak out because it’s something to do. A little game I play with my guards, but they rarely win.”
“Yeah, I’ve done that before,” I sighed. Mostly it had been to read books I wasn’t supposed to see. It seemed kind of silly now, but back then our relationship was so bad I was almost on house arrest and asking Celestia for anything felt like begging your warden for mercy.
“The one thing I’m truly curious about is what happened, though,” Shahrazad said. “I heard a rumor that someone made a wish.”
“Oh, well, um…” I hesitated.
“Don’t be like those annoying nags from the Aretic Order,” Shahrazad sighed. “I just want to know what’s happening to my ponies.”
She was starting to sound dangerously responsible and sane. “It was a wish,” I confirmed. “I don’t know how many ponies are…” I swallowed. “All the ones who aren’t gone will probably recover pretty quickly. They’ll just need a good rest and a lot of food and water.”
“That is good, at least. But where could they have found such powerful magic? Who would give them such a thing?”
I knew exactly who did it, because it was me.
“I don’t wanna think about it,” I said. It was the truth. “It shouldn’t even be my problem. I was just supposed to sign some papers and smile and wave, but it feels like everypony in town saw me as an easy mark and they decided I’m just the perfect pony to solve all their problems.”
“I admit I’m guilty of that myself,” Shahrazad sighed. “Perhaps you would like a story about that silver you came to buy from us?”
“I’m not much of a geologist.”
“Nor am I. But long ago, we nearly went to war with Equestria over our silver.”
I looked up. “What? I never heard anything about that.”
“It’s true! It is said that thousands of years ago, there was a stallion who was in love with a pony he could not have. She was rich and powerful, and he was a street urchin. In those days, to wed a pony it was customary to give their family gifts. The gifts were to show how much you valued the pony you loved, and to tie families together.”
“Sounds more like buying a wife.”
“In a way. It was supposed to be an expression of love, and all the gifts given to show devotion were to be given back to the happy couple on the day of their wedding to help them begin their new life together. The point is, the stallion had nothing. He begged for his daily bread. As great as his love was, there was no way for him to show it.”
“Did he try talking to her?”
“He did! He became a servant of her house just to be near her, and made clear his love to her. They grew close over time, and she came to love him as well as he did her. The stallion went to her family and offered them all that he had been paid in the years he had worked for them. They understood, but could not allow them to wed.”
“Because he was a servant,” I said.
“No. Loyalty and trust are more valuable than lineage. The problem was that he had given them nothing of his own. He had merely given them their own coin. They agreed to allow him to marry his love, but only if he could bring something that was his and only his.”
“Like what?”
“He wasn’t sure either, and they gave him one month leave to figure it out. He traveled and searched for something that was worth enough to appease his love’s family, and as the days passed he became despondent. If he merely bought some trinket, it was the same as his salary. He had no trade to make her a token worthy of her. The last days of the month came, and he looked at the moon in the sky, a bright light in the darkness, and mused at how much it was like his love, the only light in his life.”
I thought of Luna briefly and blushed. Definitely not a good thing to think about with a mare brushing my mane.
“While he watched, there was a great light on the moon like a flash of lightning, and shooting stars crossed the sky. One crested so close he could almost touch it, and the stallion followed it as if possessed! He galloped for a full day and night, not stopping to rest because he was afraid he would forget which direction it had gone in.”
I nodded, motioning for her to continue.
“At the end of his marathon, he found a huge bowl of blackened glass in the sand, still hot enough to burn. At the center of the glass was a stone nearly as large as he was, the outside of it still hissing and smoking. The stallion made his way into the crater carefully, and at his touch the outer layer of the fallen star broke away, revealing shining, pure silver. It is said that all the silver in Saddle Arabia came from that night, a gift from the moon to a lonely stallion. You can see why your Princess Luna values it so.”
“Yeah, even if it’s only a rumor she’d probably want to get every bit of it she could. So what happened to the stallion? And how did that turn into war with Equestria?”
“Ah, that’s a story for another time,” Shahrazad said. “Perhaps I'll tell you the next time we spend the night alone.”
I made an annoyed sound like a foal, and Shahrazad giggled.
“Perhaps I can suggest something else to distract you?” She asked, leaning close, her breath hot on my ear.
I was feeling particularly grumpy and had to force a smile for the crowd, and that made it even worse.
“How is this a distraction?” I asked, trying not to glare at Flash. He hadn’t really been in a position to stop this. If anything, he was suffering just as much as I was. Sometimes it can be hard to remember just who to get mad at when things are going wrong. "I thought she was going to kiss me, not suggest a parade!"
“You’re not thinking about this morning!” Flash yelled, over the roar of the crowd. They’d spotted Shahrazed in her royal carriage behind us, and were much more excited to see her than a few strange foreign ponies.
“Why did we have to use this thing? Couldn’t we have gotten a ride with them?”
Shahrazad had insisted we use the big pink float that had been designed for Cadance. The beak was still a little crooked. She’d said it was the only appropriate thing, since it had been where we first met, a symbol of my heroic rescue. I’m pretty sure she actually meant it was a joke at my expense and would get the crowd laughing.
“If I had supreme executive authority the first thing I’d do is make ponies throw this thing into the ocean!” I said, without thinking.
“I’m sure you’d use the power wisely, Ma’am.” Flash said.
It wasn’t until then that I realized I’d let my big mouth get away from me again. Trusting me with any kind of power was a mistake. I hadn’t even been able to give a gift to a grieving mother wisely. What did I think was going to happen? I’d seen what kind of disaster uncontrolled magic could cause and I’d walked right into the same trap like an idiot.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean-- I didn’t--”
Flash turned to look at me instead of the crowd around us.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Canterlot is what’s wrong...” I muttered. It was too quiet to be heard over the crowd, and he kept looking at me like I hadn’t answered. I cleared my throat and changed the subject. “Where are we even going?” I asked, loudly enough to be heard.
“We’re almost there, Ma’am.” Flash nodded forward. Ahead of us was what I would have called one of the largest buildings I’d ever seen if I wasn’t still in the shadow of their gigantic wall-fortress. It was like the Cloudsdale Arena had been doubled or tripled in size, a coliseum that looked large enough for the whole city to sit in the stands.
The float pulled to a stop, and Flash offered me a hoof to help me down. I rolled my eyes and jumped. I’d been wanting to practice my self-levitation, and this was a perfect opportunity. My cloak billowed out around me like black wings in the backblast from the directed telekinesis. I’d learned from my first near-disastrous attempt that you really wanted to stick the landing to avoid having sore knees all day.
This time I had plenty of power and much less distance to cover, so I just bled it off slowly, letting the sand spray out around me as I touched down softly, the cloak falling back into place a moment later.
“Okay, so somepony wanted to make an entrance,” Flash muttered, as he formed up behind me and to my right.
“Hm? Who?” I glanced back, but I couldn’t see anypony else disembarking.
“You just--” He sighed and ran a hoof down his face like I was missing something obvious. “Never mind. Just try not to scare the locals too much, please?”
“What? I didn’t even do anything!”
"Right, okay,” Flash took a deep breath. “Let’s just head in to the reception area. I’ve only been here a few times, but I think we follow the carpet.”
I nodded and padded along the ornate, patterned rug. For half a moment I wondered how they kept the sand out of it, and in the other half I had to spare, the part of my brain that wasn’t an idiot told me that catching sand was the whole point. The carpet would keep ponies from tracking it into the stands.
“Sunset!” Shahrazad waved excitedly from ahead of us. I waved back and walked up to her. I could have run. Maybe it would have been less stately. Maybe it would have made us look more like the couple we were pretending to be. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction, because she’d made me ride here in a big pink swan.
“I’m glad you arrived safely,” I said, deliberately a little stiffly. I bowed, just a little. Not enough to actually be polite, but enough to know I had remembered that bowing existed. It was like tipping your waitress a single bit.
Shahrazad’s lips pursed into a cute little pout. “Are you still upset about the float, beloved?”
“Am I still-- yes!” I huffed.
“I am sorry. I didn’t think it would upset you this badly. Would you like to ride back to the palace with me?” She asked. Now I just felt foalish, like I was throwing a tantrum.
“If I’m supposed to be keeping you safe, being halfway across the city isn’t going to do you much good,” I said, trying to justify it. “I just… worry.”
“Of course you do,” Shahrazad said, leaning down to peck my forehead.
“So can somepony explain what this is all about?” I asked. “Nopony has actually told me what’s going on. I’m guessing it’s some kind of sporting event, but it’d be good to know the rules or who I’m supposed to cheer for.”
Shahrazad grinned widely. “This, Sunset, is the Forge. It is no mere sporting event. It is where debates are decided, where our champions show their skill, where the ponies of Saddle Arabia can watch the glory of our nation!”
“So…” I still hadn’t gotten an answer, which was an increasingly common state for my questions. “Is this a ball game, a fight to the death, a pie-eating contest, what? Because all the flowery euphemisms for ‘yes, they compete at something’ doesn’t tell me a lot.”
“It’s a combat sport,” Flash supplied. Shahrazad rolled her eyes and sighed like she was disappointed somepony was actually keeping me informed. Heck, she probably was annoyed about it. “From what I’ve seen, it’s basically gladiators fighting with non-lethal weapons.”
“It’s not just that!” Shahrazad huffed. “The stadium itself is enchanted to provide any sort of battlefield we desire, and the competitors come from all parts of Saddle Arabia! Some champions are from the Royal Family, the Army and Navy sponsor ponies, and even most noble families retain their own warriors.”
“See, that’s all you had to say,” I said. “Great, so we’re going to spend all day watching ponies beat the tar out of each other. Maybe a little inappropriate considering the fact all those innocent ponies got hurt…”
I trailed off, letting that linger in the air.
“The Forge is a celebration of life and skill,” Shahrazad said. “It’s something to bolster the spirits. It’s what the ponies here need right now, to be shown a spectacle that can make them forget. Your Princess Celestia used to understand the value of the Forge. There was actually an Equestrian Champion for some time. It was centuries ago, but the stories say they were one of the greatest of all time. An earth pony that could use their magic as deftly as a unicorn!”
“I’ve seen that kind of technique recently,” I mumbled.
“Hm?” Shahrazad raised an eyebrow.
I shook my head. “It’s nothing important,” I told her. It explained where Sirocco had learned her trick. It must have been something passed down over the years, something forgotten in Equestria and surviving here.
“My father’s champion will be competing in the Grand Melee at the climax of the Forge,” Shahrazad said. “There will be a number of minor matches between noble houses and merchants and ponies who have decided to sponsor themselves, first. The Forge’s main purpose is a place to settle disputes. Formal duels, of a sort, fought out in the open, along with some friendly sparring matches and a few ponies simply competing in contests at the whim of their masters for prizes and fame.”
I followed Shahrazad, and she led us to a balcony overlooking the stadium. Music was being played, and I saw what looked like a dance routine on the sandy floor of the arena. The stands were already half-full, and more ponies were pouring in by the moment.
“You know, when Flash called it gladiator combat I had the wrong idea. I was kind of picturing blood and a lot of ponies being hurt, but this is starting to feel more like the Equestria Games.”
“Yes, well, I wouldn’t count that out just yet,” Shahrazad said, her voice low enough it wouldn’t carry over the music. “My uncle is here.”
“He is?” I asked. “Where?”
I looked around and spotted a stallion in red and black silk. He was practically skeletal, all bones and bad vibes with a thin beard sprinkled on top to make sure I really got the picture that this guy wasn’t on the level. Not that I trusted anypony I’d met over the last few days except Flash and maybe Vuvuzela.
“He’s over-- don’t look!” Shahrazad groaned. “He saw you staring. Now we have to introduce you to be polite about things.”
“This is the guy who’s probably trying to kill you, right?” I asked. “What if I just throw down with him right now and demand an answer?”
“It would be highly inappropriate,” Shahrazad said. “You have no proof, you are not yet part of the royal family, and once he has you exiled nopony will be here to protect me. I beg you not to do anything too… you.”
I rolled my eyes. Shahrazad walked us over and forced herself to smile.
“Dear Uncle Balthazar,” she said. “It is welcome to meet you at such an event. You seem to be in good health.”
“Shahrazad, there’s no need to be so formal!” I flinched back at his voice. He should have sounded like a snake. He looked like his voice should have been all hisses and smooth promises in the dark, but he had the deep belly-laugh and loud boisterous tone of a hoofball player.
“It is expected of someone at my station,” Shahrazad said. “May I introduce my beloved, Princess Celestia’s--”
“Sunset Shimmer!” He rumbled, stepping over to pat me on the back and showing surprising strength in his legs. “I’ve heard a lot! I hope you’re being nice to my little Raza. She was always a troublemaker as a filly.”
“No I wasn’t!” Shahrazad blushed.
He laughed, and I was starting to wonder if this was really the guy who Shahrazad was afraid of. She’d implied he might be trying to bump her off, but when I compared what (very) little she’d told me to what I saw in front of me, I couldn’t make the two pictures line up. Somepony was playing me. Probably lots of someponies.
“So, is the royal family sponsoring anypony?” I asked. “I’m afraid this is my first time here, and I don’t know a lot of details.”
“Of course!” Balthazar turned and nodded to a pony across the hall, sitting at a low table piled with drink and food. It was the single largest earth pony I’d ever seen. A mountain of sand-colored flesh that gleamed with sweat and bulged every time he moved. “My champion, Oasis. The finest fighter in the Forge.”
“Second-finest,” Shahrazad countered. “He has never beaten my champion. In fact, I should introduce you to him, Sunset. Be well, Uncle.” Shahrazad nodded and dragged me away without even trying to be subtle about it.
“He seemed nice,” I said, once we’d gotten far away enough to speak in private.
“Ponies can seem like a lot of things,” Shahrazad muttered. “I did want you to meet my champion, though. I hope you’ll be cheering for him with me.”
She walked with me over to another resting stallion, this one such a dark blue that he seemed black until the light caught his coat.
“Princess,” the stallion rumbled. He wasn’t as big as Oasis. He stood, and I saw him visibly wince when he did, favoring one rear leg.
“Please, rest. You do me enough honor in the Forge that there’s no need to be formal now,” Shahrazad said. “Iron Weave is considered the greatest warrior in the Forge,” she said, turning to me. “He is skilled with over a dozen weapons and even more skilled with his bare hooves.”
“Nice to meet you,” I offered.
He nodded stiffly and went back to drinking. We backed off a few steps to give him some peace.
“Very friendly,” I whispered.
“He has had a bad week,” Shahrazad admitted. “He took on some extra duties and had a minor accident. He is still recovering from the bruising he took.”
“What kind of extra duty?” I asked.
“Iron Weave is a wonderful fighter, but not terribly impressive with anything requiring more than just brute force,” Shahrazad sighed. “Say, Sunset, how does he compare with warriors from Equestria? I am curious how he would fare against your Royal Guard.”
“If you mean Flash, it’d probably be a fairly even match. If Flash fought smart and kept his distance he might be able to win.” I shrugged. “But against somepony like Captain Shining Armor? No offense, but Iron Weave wouldn’t have a chance.”
“And against you?” Shahrazad asked.
“Is that even a real question?” I snorted.
“Not a fair one,” Shahrazad giggled.
“Are you sure this Iron Weave guy should be fighting?” I asked. “He looks pretty beat up.” I motioned at him just as he collapsed like a puppet with his strings cut.
There was a sudden silence, and then everypony started talking all at once. Most of them were glancing between me and him. Of course he’d pick the moment I was pointing at him to fall over.
“I’m going to get blamed for that,” I muttered. A servant ran over and turned him onto his side. I saw foam around his lips, and dread filled my stomach. I ran over to look.
“He’s unconscious,” the servant whispered. She was shivering almost as much as Iron Weave, the big stallion sweating enough to drip like he’d just gotten out of the shower. I touched his throat to feel his pulse, then grabbed his wineglass from the low table.
I sniffed, then tasted it. There was something underneath the somewhat soured, strong wine.
“He was poisoned,” I said. I took another sip. “Yeah. That’s red nightshade.”
“Is it dangerous?” Shahrazad asked.
I nodded. “Deadly,” I said. Then I drank the rest of the glass. She gasped.
“Sunset, what are you doing?!”
“I’m immune, and I needed to make sure there wasn’t anything else,” I said. Also I didn’t want to waste the wine. “He’ll be okay as long as he gets the right treatment. Give him saltwater to make him throw up, then activated charcoal. You know how to do that?”
The servant nodded.
“Good. That should clean him out, as long as you keep him hydrated and let him rest for a few days. Once he’s holding down liquids have him drink ginger tea. Loads of it.”
“This is terrible,” Shahrazad said.
“He’ll be okay,” I assured her. “He would have had to drink that whole cup to get a fatal dose.”
“I mean that he can’t participate,” Shahrazad said. “If a royal champion cannot be in the Grand Melee, what will my subjects think? I can’t tell them he was poisoned! It would be an embarrassment to my family.”
“The real question is who poisoned him,” I muttered.
“I suspect you’ve already met the guilty pony,” Shahrazad whispered. “My uncle’s own champion is untouched.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I bet there’s no evidence.”
“Of course not, he’s no fool,” Shahrazad huffed. She suddenly smiled. “But I know how to stop whatever he’s planning.”
“Tell your father to take care of it?” I suggested.
“No, of course not. He would never believe his own brother would do such a thing. We have to be clever. And the most clever thing will be for you to take Iron Weave’s place!”
“Woah, woah!” I backed up. “What are you talking about?”
“You said it yourself, you could easily defeat him in a fight. You can be a hero to the people of Saddle Arabia, an arena champion in the Forge!”
“That seems like a terrible idea,” I said.
“Please, beloved? I beg you, without my champion, the ponies will think I’m weak! And whatever he’s plotting, it involves my not having a champion for the Melee. You promised to protect me, Sunset. This is the only way.”
Shahrazad was right about one thing. It was someone’s plan to poison her fighter and keep them out of the arena. I didn’t know what it was supposed to accomplish. Embarrass her with all her subjects watching? A smart poisoner would have used something else, something slower and less obvious. Or just left it to chance. Iron Weave looked like someone had thrown him off a roof and he’d landed face-first. Flash probably could have taken him in a wrestling bout just by punching him in the bruises.
“Hey, is there some kind of prize?” I asked, while Flash looked through the armor bits for something that would fit me.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“There has to be something,” I muttered. “Some reason they’d want him removed before the games even start. Maybe it isn’t even a plot against the Princess. Maybe he had his own enemies…”
“Sunset, you’re not here to be a detective,” Flash said. He tossed a helmet in my direction. I caught it and tried it on. Surprisingly, it was already fitted for a unicorn to wear, with a hole for my horn. “There are plenty of ponies here that can solve that mystery.”
“I don’t trust any of them,” I said. “The longer I spend here the more I think everything’s a big chess game with ponies as the pieces. I’m starting to learn a few of the rules.”
“I didn’t think you played by the rules.”
“That depends on the game. I’d love to know the rules for the one I’m about to enter.” I wiggled my eyebrows. Flash gave me a flat look.
“That’s not even clever wordplay.”
“Just tell me the stupid rules already,” I sighed.
“The arena floor will turn into some kind of battlefield,” Flash said. “You’ll be wearing a belt with your sponsor’s colors. It can’t be removed with magic or weapons, only bare hooves. If you lose it, you lose. You win by taking everypony else’s belt. You can use any weapons or armor you want, but the ones here are enchanted. They won’t break bone or draw blood.”
“So they’re perfectly safe,” I said.
“As safe as a boxing match,” Flash said. “You can still get beaten unconscious, and if a pony was really determined he could do a lot of damage with his hooves.”
“Neat,” I nodded. “So it’s less dangerous than my average day walking down the street.”
“You have a really skewed idea of how dangerous city streets can be.”
“I spent a lot of time in Ponyville. Anything else I should know? Anywhere I’m not allowed to hit a pony?”
“First, if you’re really doing this because you’re trying to make Princess Shahrazad happy, you should probably not be thinking about hitting stallions where it hurts. Second, I don’t know how effective your spells are going to be. They say the same enchantments that keep the weapons from killing anypony extend to spells cast in the arena. I don’t know if that means they don’t work at all or if they just won’t kill. They haven’t had a unicorn in any matches I’ve seen.”
“If it’s anything like a suppression ring, it’s no big deal,” I said. “You can just power through it.”
“Again, Sunset, that’s the kind of weirdly skewed perspective that doesn’t work for the average unicorn.” Flash sighed. “Now, what weapons do you know how to use?”
“Uh…” I hesitated.
“Do you know how to use any weapons at all?”
“Well, um…” I picked up a sword. “The sharp part goes into the enemy, right?”
“Buck my life,” Flash sighed.
“Just give me some pointers,” I said, waggling the sword at him. “Get it? Pointers? Because it’s sharp.”
Flash wasn’t impressed by my puns. He’d given me the bare minimum of training in the time we’d had to prepare, and then I was marched out onto the sands. The arena looked even bigger from down here. With the stands full of cheering ponies, it was like walking onto a stage at the center of the world.
I just wish I wasn’t walking onto it with a limp.
The armor Flash had found was good enough. It wasn’t a matched set, and with some of the straps broken we’d been forced to improvise with what we had available. I only had a shoulder pad, or whatever the fancy Prench word was for that bit of armor, on one side, and my good back leg only had its armor hanging on thanks to my spare roll of bandages keeping it held there like a splint.
The other seven ponies were already there, so I was either late or making a dramatic entrance. If I’d been smart I would have looked to see what kind of weapons they had, what kind of strategies to use, maybe even chatted them up and tried to find someone who’d have my back until it was just down to the two of us. I was too focused on Oasis to even think properly about what I was doing.
He was swinging a huge, curved sword like he was testing the weight and heft of it. I knew the look because I’d been doing pretty much the same thing with the sword I had, too. Some detail was niggling at the back of my mind, and I couldn’t place it.
The announcer yelled something. I couldn’t hear it over the roar of the crowd. The sand started shifting under my hooves with a weird, vibrating tingle. Lines formed, and walls started to rise up around us and I saw it, just for an instant. There was a snake etched into the sword Oasis had been holding. The same symbol the assassins had used. I lunged, and ran face-first into a wall that appeared in my path.
“Ow,” I muttered.
My bad leg wobbled, and I was suddenly sitting in the sand. I took the opportunity to rub my snout and look around.
“It’s like a telekinetic sandcastle,” I muttered, reaching out to touch the wall I’d hit. It was made entirely out of magic and the arena’s shifting floor, but it felt like stone under my hoof. If it wasn’t for the color I’d never have known I wasn’t just standing in the city.
The shadows moved at my side, and I held up a hoof to shield my head. A silver blade hit my armor and slid off, leaving a long scratch in the thin metal plate. The force from it was enough to shock me back into paying attention.
“Are you just going to sit there and wait for somepony to defeat you?” The blade was in the hooves of a stallion in layered silk. Unfortunately not the stallion I was looking for, but I don't think he would've let me go if I'd just asked nicely. I stepped back, drawing my own blade.
“That’s kinda close to my plan,” I said. “I was actually thinking of winning.”
“That seems unlikely.” The stallion charged, the silk robes billowing out around him. I ducked under his sword, slashed with my own blade, and hit nothing but the clothing he was wearing. It was like trying to cut hanging curtains with a butter knife.
I kept moving, getting far enough past him that he couldn’t just turn and hit me.
“You’re not very good with that,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “I thought Princess Shahrazad would send a worthy competitor, but you’re not a fighter at all.”
I flipped the sword around in my telekinetic grip.
“Usually I don’t have to get my hooves dirty,” I admitted.
I threw a bolt of force at him. I could feel the Forge pulling at it. It was like trying to throw a punch with weighted shoes dragging my hooves down. The stallion held his ground. The look on his face said he knew it would never reach him. What was even better was when his expression changed and he figured out he was basically playing chicken with an express train.
The bolt hit him, and he hit the wall hard enough that the force-fields holding it together failed for a moment, embedding his front half in sand.
“Like I said,” I explained, loudly enough that he could probably still hear me, sheathing my sword with a dramatic flourish that I definitely earned for winning in style. “I don’t usually have to get my hooves dirty. When I do get into a fight, though? I don’t lose.”
I trotted up to him and gave him a swift kick. I heard him yelp even through the wall of sand. I grabbed the colored sash from his waist and left him there. He’d dropped his sword, so just in case the crowd was watching, I stomped on the hilt to pop it up, realized halfway through that this was really dumb and I was about to hurt myself, then caught it with my magic and tried to make it look like I’d done that on purpose.
It felt like an easy win. If the others were all muscle and no brains, I wasn’t going to have much of a problem -- one thing that history had proven again and again was that a properly prepared unicorn could deal with just about anything.
I was still trying not to shake on my hooves and twirling the sword in my magic when the ground dropped out from under me like I’d walked right off a cliff into open air, the sand collapsing in a blinding cloud that didn’t quite hide the pointed spikes waiting for me at the bottom of that long fall.
I tried to teleport, and felt the arena’s safety spell squash the spell like a bug.
My name is Shining Armor. I’m the Captain of the Royal Guard, the youngest pony to ever be appointed to the position. I’d like to think that I got the job through skill and dedication to duty, but I can’t deny that my friends and family are some of the most powerful ponies in all of Equestria. Sometimes I worried that I was only sitting in the big chair because I was dating her daughter.
“Your Highness, this is a serious threat,” I said, trying to remain calm. I’d been speaking with her for what felt like hours now, trying to reason with her.
“It’s not that serious,” Celestia said lightly. “It’s only a few assassins.”
“Princess, I’m not sure what would qualify as more serious than a threat against your life,” I sighed. “We need to increase your personal guard, just until the threat is resolved.”
“I’d rather not put your soldiers in harm’s way, Captain Armor,” she said. It almost sounded like a reprimand.
“They’ve dedicated their lives to your service, Your Highness. If they can’t be there to protect you, who would be?”
Celestia put down her teacup, looking at it silently for a moment. I’d known her long enough now that I didn’t mistake that as some careful consideration of my words. She was preparing herself to teach one of her lessons like I was a foal.
“Captain Armor, do you know what the purpose of the Royal Guard is?” she asked.
“To protect you and Equestria,” I said, without having to think about it.
“Quite true, but I don’t need the same kind of protecting Equestria does,” Celestia nodded. “The Guard exists because I can’t be everywhere at once, no matter how much I would like to be. There are monsters I don’t have time to fight, ponies I can’t rescue, and hurts that I can’t mend.”
“But Equestria needs you. That’s why we have to protect you, too,” I countered.
“Equestria does need me. Perhaps more than is healthy. The Guard exists to protect me, yes, but it is to protect me from those who would demand my attention and time for trivial purposes.” She laughed a little. “Though even they couldn’t stop your sister from finding a way to spend teatime with me every day.”
“From what I remember, you never tried very hard to discourage her,” I smiled.
“Well, one thing you learn as an immortal is that you have to spend your time wisely,” Celestia replied.
“I’d still like to increase your guard,” I said. “It could discourage an assassination attempt.”
“Captain Armor, if they send a trained assassin, more guards would mean more ponies in the way who could get hurt. If he is untrained, my normal guard cadre will be more than enough. Worse, increasing security as you’ve suggested would make the ponies here uneasy. I’d rather not worry them over something this trivial.” She smiled brightly. “Besides, it’s been a long time since anypony really tried to kill me. It should be exciting!”
“You can’t just hang your life out that recklessly,” I groaned. “You might be immortal, but--”
Before I could complete the thought, the entire castle shook, as if the Canterhorn itself was trembling. It was no natural phenomenon. A surge of magic made my horn almost ring like a bell from the resonance.
“Get down, Your Highness!” I shouted, tackling the Princess. I admit, I was acting entirely on instinct. Not terribly wise instinct, either. We both fell to the floor in a heap, with me trying to shield her against some unseen harm.
“...While I appreciate the fast response to danger, Captain, I think Cadance would prefer if you were holding her down instead,” Celestia said. I turned bright red and got away from her so quickly I was sure I set some kind of land speed record. She stood up and fluffed her wings, feathers ruffled.
“Sorry, Your Highness.” The castle shook again. “Please wait here. If this is an assassination attempt, this is the safest room in the castle. I’ll investigate the situation and report back once the incident is resolved.” I saluted and ran out of the room before she could protest. I didn’t listen to what she said next, because I was sure it would be something about how the Guard really wasn’t needed, and I wasn’t prepared to hear that.
Most of the Royal Guard’s training consists of endless drills. Marching drills. Combat drills. Magic drills. They were supposed to help a guard act without thought, with appropriate responses coming as reflexes.
The most important part of the training was how to run towards danger. A pony’s natural reaction was to flee danger, generally in the same direction as the ponies around him. It could quickly turn into riots and stampeding, but trained guards knew how to calm the herd and keep them under control. The trick was making sure you didn’t get caught up in it yourself.
The castle shook again. I was surprised I didn’t see anypony fleeing, unless they’d taken some other avenue of escape. The epicenter of the noise seemed to be one of the ballrooms. If I remembered the schedule of events for the castle, there was supposed to be some kind of meet and greet there today, though I couldn’t remember for whom.
Maids formed a blockade around the service entrance, looking in and whispering to each other about whatever they were seeing.
“Excuse me,” I said, trying to get through.
They ignored me.
“Excuse me!” I yelled, with a little more force. It didn’t work. I should have expected it. Many of the maids here had to deal with the kitchen staff, and even my drill sergeant couldn’t yell like the head chef. I was reasonably sure even Celestia didn’t dare cross him within his domain.
I settled for picking up some of the maids with my magic and moving them aside. It was a little rude, but I was probably saving their lives by getting them out of the way.
“Get away from me!” came a girlish squeal from within. I squeezed past the last few maids and got inside, only to be presented with a horrible scene. Prince Blueblood was cowering in front of what had been a gallery of windows but was now empty frames, the glass scattered outside in a wide, glittering cone.
A single figure stood in front of Blueblood, draped in a black cloak and obviously the source of the disturbance.
The refreshment table was on fire, as were several trees outside. The rest of the guests were watching from the farthest corner of the room.
A pony’s natural reaction might be to flee, but clearly that didn’t apply to the rarified upper class and their lack of common sense.
“How dare you!” The cloaked figure yelled. I could feel the magic pouring off of her. And it definitely sounded like a her, even if Blueblood’s scream had been higher-pitched. “I should turn you into a pile of ashes!”
I could see sparks crackling in the air around the mare. It was the sign of powerful, turbulent magical field, the energy differential so sharp that it was starting to ground itself out even with no spell being formed yet.
I threw a shield around Blueblood just before the blast would have hit him. The stone pillar behind him shattered, and he screamed. I could actually feel my shield wobbling from the blow, ringing like a bell. It was intensely uncomfortable.
“That’s enough!” I yelled, trying to get control of the situation.
The mare turned to look at me, as did most of the other guests. I couldn’t quite see her features in the shadows of her hood, but her eyes almost seemed to glow in the darkness.
“That’s destruction of property, magical assault, and probably attempted murder,” I said. “I’m putting you under arrest.”
“Thank Celestia!” Blueblood sighed. “This insane mare should be thrown into the darkest dungeon in Canterlot and left to rot! She set my tie on fire!”
“You grabbed my flank!” The mare hissed, her eyes narrowing. “And then you called me a hideous freak!”
“If I had known you would be at this soiree, I would have declined Auntie’s invitation.” He turned up his nose.
“This whole thing was her idea,” the mare grumbled. “Her stupid idea to make me go out and socialize.” She huffed. “So much for letting them see the real me.”
“Oh, I think they’ve seen it,” Blueblood countered. “You’re still the same spoiled, destructive brat you were when Celestia kicked you out!”
“That’s it! I’m going to send you to the moon the hard way!” She turned back to Blueblood. I put a wall of force between them. It would be more than strong enough to separate them until they’d had a chance to cool down. I just had to get Blueblood and this mare away from each other before--
The mare gestured, and my wall of force tore apart like tissue paper. The recoil made me stumble back like I was being dragged by my horn. I hadn’t felt anything like that since Twilight had been a foal and decided I wasn’t going to keep her away from the cookie jar.
I tripped over something and fell into the softest, warmest couch I’d ever felt.
“Sunset Shimmer,” said the couch, which turned out to be both a pony and royalty. The tension in the room shifted abruptly. I looked up to see Princess Celestia looking past me to the cloaked mare.
The mare stopped in her tracks and looked at us, her ears folding down with shame.
“Why don’t we go have some tea while this mess is cleaned up?” Captain Armor, you should join us.”
The mare had discarded her cloak after a few gentle suggestions from the princess. I could swear I’d seen her somewhere before. The flame-like hair and bright coat were vaguely familiar, and I know her cutie mark had shown up somewhere, but I wasn’t sure where.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, staring down at her tea.
“It’s Blueblood you need to apologize to, not me,” Celestia reminded her. “You need to learn to control your temper.”
“But he--!” she started, then stopped herself. “Yes, Princess.”
I saw something in Celestia’s expression flicker at that. Sadness? Disappointment?
“That was supposed to be an opportunity for you to show the nobility how much you’ve grown as a pony,” Celestia said. “Now all they’re going to talk about is how little self control you have. There were better ways to handle that situation.”
“Yes, Princess,” Sunset said, sounding defeated.
“I’m not angry at you, but I am disappointed. I know you can be better than that.” Celestia sighed and looked at me. “Captain Armor, while these aren’t the best of circumstances, I’d like you to meet Sunset Shimmer, my daughter and former student. I’m sure Cadance has mentioned her to you.”
“Not really, but I could swear…” I considered, thinking. “I could swear Twilight mentioned that name at some point.”
“Well, I did give her a few tips on evocation spells,” Sunset smiled a little.
“You’re the one she was visiting on those vacation days?!” I said, with slow realization.
“My little Sunset was quite a tutor, and it got Twilight away from the castle library for a while,” Celestia smiled. “Don’t worry, Captain. She was perfectly safe.”
“But why wouldn’t Cadance tell me? She just said Twilight was visiting friends!”
“Well, um,” Sunset blushed. “Cadance and I sort of… agreed to keep it a secret. I was willing to put up with her as long as she didn’t talk about me, and she was willing to avoid spilling the beans for a chance to…” She trailed off. “I don’t know. Reconnect isn’t the right word. We never got along in the first place, but after all the pressure and jealousy was gone, it was a lot easier to handle her.”
“I need to have a talk with both of them,” I muttered.
“Perhaps,” Celestia agreed. “But don’t be too hard on them. Twilight needed a friend and Cadance enjoyed getting away from Canterlot. On the other hoof… Sunset.” Celestia looked at the fiery mare. “You did cause a lot of damage.”
“Sorry,” Sunset said. “I wasn’t really thinking.”
“It happens to the best of us,” Celestia said. “But I think a little punishment would be in order. Something in public so Blueblood can’t complain nothing was done.”
“If you’re thinking of sticking me in a maid uniform, he’s even worse around them,” Sunset said.
“Sunset, you could use a little discipline,” Celestia said. The mare standing next to me shrank down, almost cowering. “I think it might do you some good to spend a day or two with the Royal Guard. Shining Armor, I’d like you to take care of her.”
“Yes, Princess,” Sunset muttered.
Celestia smiled. “Captain. I understand you’ve been having some problems in Hollow Shades. I think Sunset could offer some insight into the matter.”
“Your Highness, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to have a civilian with no real training accompany a Royal Guard taskforce,” I said, trying to protest without being rude. “Regardless of any other qualifications, the Guard spends most of its time training so we can work together effectively. I’m not implying she’s not a great spellcaster or anything, but…”
“I’m sure you can keep her safe,” Celestia said. “It’s your special talent, Captain.”
I saluted and inwardly groaned. I was more worried about keeping myself safe.
Sunset was quiet as we walked towards the guard barracks. I kept glancing back to make sure she was still there. Her gait was extremely strange, half-limping but almost impossibly silent, even against the stone floor.
“I don’t suppose you have years of special-ops training?” I joked. “It’d make things a lot easier if you were part of some secret organization and I didn’t have to teach you the basics.”
“I lived in the Everfree forest for a decade,” she said. “Though my teacher might argue that I fought it for a decade.”
“Teacher? You mean Celestia?”
“Zecora. She’s a shamaness.” Sunset smiled a little. “Taught me a lot about brewing potions, living in the woods, and… some life lessons that I needed to learn. She was a good teacher.”
“I thought those gold bangles looked familiar,” I said. “Don’t they mean you’re a shaman?”
“In training,” Sunset said, shrugging. “Two bangles means my teacher thinks I’m ready to learn on my own. Three would mean I was acknowledged as a full shaman by an elder.” She looked closely at me. “I’m surprised you recognized them.”
“Well, you don’t get to be the Captain of the Guard by sitting around eating corndogs,” I joked.
“Cadance and Twilight just made you seem like… more of a ditz,” she shrugged.
“They never told me about you at all,” I said. “The most I heard were some stories from other guards that made me worried about just what the Princess was going to teach my sister.”
“Don’t worry,” Sunset said. “I’m the one who taught Twilight all the really dangerous spells she knows.”
“That… doesn’t make me less worried.”
“The Princess taught her self-control.”
“Okay. That makes me less worried.”
“I thought it might,” Sunset said. “So, Hollow Shades! I don’t know much about it.”
“Not a lot of ponies do. It’s not a vacation spot.” I opened a door and let her walk through before me. The barracks was busy, as I knew it would be. We were right near a shift change,and some guards were getting ready to go home or to their bunks, others were strapping on their armor.
“It started out as a refugee camp,” I said. “A lot of Nightmare cultists stayed there after the Rebellion when they decided they weren’t welcome back home. The Royal Guard doesn’t go there much, so it’s got a bad reputation as a lawless hole in the ground.”
“I should fit right in.” Sunset looked over the guards. I saw some of them back away as she approached, like they were trying to avoid the notice of a dangerous predator.
No, not like. She was dangerous. I’d felt it when I’d stopped her spell. The guards who were backing away were veterans, ponies who could tell when they were dealing with somepony they needed to watch out for. I gave them a reassuring smile.
“That doesn’t mean we never go there. They mostly take care of their own problems, but sometimes something comes up that we have to deal with.”
“Like what? Monsters? Vamponies? Marewolves?”
“Not that exciting.” I smiled. “Not in the last decade, anyway. I don’t even think there are any Vamponies left, barring them coming back from extinction in a magical accident.”
“Just go ahead and tempt fate, why don’t you?” Sunset muttered, just loudly enough that I heard it.
“What we’re actually dealing with right now is something much more dangerous,” I said. “Somepony is using Dark Magic, and they’re very strong. Almost nopony in the Guard has any experience with Maleficarum, so tracking them down has been a slow process, and the locals aren’t helping.”
“A witch? Really?” Sunset snorted. “Well, I guess I understand why Celestia thought I could help. I’m a professional witch, after all.” She shook her head. “I could have taken care of it myself if she just asked.”
“I heard you don’t take orders well,” I said.
“I do take requests from friends,” she countered.
“And Princess Celestia punishing you is a request?”
“I’m here because I did something wrong.” Sunset stopped and raised a hoof, gesturing around her. “I’m not doing this because I’m following the Princess’ orders, I’m doing this because it’s the right thing to do. I want her to be happy, because Harmony knows I’ve disappointed her enough.”
“So what she thinks about you matters,” I said. “You respect her.”
“I respect a lot of ponies. Celestia, Luna, Cadance, Twilight, Zecora… not to mention my friends from Ponyville. What I don’t respect are ponies like Blueblood.”
“So you blast ponies you don’t respect? Should I be worried?”
“No! I just…” she bit her lip. “It’s complicated.”
“I’m used to listening to complicated explanations. Twilight used to give me lectures when she learned something new and exciting. Magical theory, the Tooth Filly, the history of the Summer Sun Celebration…”
“Can we at least get away from all this?” She looked around her at the ponies changing into their dress armor, most of them slowly trying to edge away from us, uncomfortable both with their boss being in the room and the presence of one pony who was briefly on the Most Wanted list.
“Sure. Let’s get you into a uniform so you look a little more official and a little less like the witch we’re going to go chat with,” I said. The Quartermaster’s office was one of the most tightly controlled parts of the guard barracks. Though we rarely had cause to break them out, we had a lot of dangerous weapons locked up in case of emergency. Sunlances, Dragon-slaying swords, enchanted wingblades, and more exotic items.
“So what’s my temporary rank?” Sunset asked. “General? Major?”
“Close,” I said, walking up to the Quartermaster’s desk. “Double Header, can you give me an inhibitor ring and a set of trainee armor?” Double Header, like all good Quartermasters, had been around for as long as I could remember and had connections that we very carefully didn’t ask about. He’d gotten his cutie mark under a set of circumstances that involved a bit with two heads and his first run-in with the Royal Guard.
“An inhibitor ring?” Sunset asked. “You think we’re going to run into that much trouble?”
“No, it’s for you,” I said.
“Wait one bucking minute,” Sunset said, with the tone of a bomb in the process of ticking down rapidly towards zero. Double Header looked at her, then at me, then shrugged and dropped to the ground behind the desk.
I really wished I could take cover, too.
“It’s training,” I explained, backing up a step and holding up a hoof for mercy. Really I just didn’t want her blowing up any civilians. “It’s important to know how to solve problems without resorting to magic. De-escalating problems before it comes to a fight is a much more useful skill than knowing how to make a crater big enough to show up on a map.”
“What a pain in the flank…” Sunset muttered.
“It wouldn’t chafe if you adjusted the straps properly,” I pointed out, as we sat in the chariot. Sunset had been uncomfortable for almost the whole ride, mostly because some parts were too loose and she’d over-adjusted in the wrong places to try and compensate.
“It’s fine,” Sunset muttered, forcing herself to stop pawing at a loose pauldron.
“Don’t blame me when your coat starts falling out,” I warned.
“I’ll just put a hex on you if it does,” she said, which I hoped was a joke.
Below us, the hills rushed by, a maze of cliffs and shadow. It wasn't quite a forest, and not quite mountains, and not quite where anypony would want to live. They'd tried laying train tracks once, and the ponies involved swore the earth itself would move when they weren't watching, and new crests and valleys and pitfalls would appear overnight. You could only see the line of trusses in a few places where it broke free from the brush, which was universally thorny and inedible.
Arriving by chariot wasn’t exactly subtle, but it was the best option since neither of us had wings and it was too far to safely teleport. It also made us more official, and I felt every little bit would help if Sunset started causing trouble.
“Put us down in the middle of town,” I yelled, the two pegasai pulling the chariot nodding and banking gently to start putting us into a spiral downwards.
“So why do you think there’s a witch around here?” Sunset asked. “Seems like a nice place.”
I couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not. Hollow Shades was a tangled town, with narrow streets and looming awnings. The buildings some shelter from an almost-constant drizzle of rain, but the ground was almost invisible between oddly-angled shadows and mist rising from the cobblestones. Cliffs loomed overhead like breaking waves, not actually shielding us from the rain and just providing constant streams of ice-cold water.
“Nicer than the Everfree,” Sunset specified. “Probably fewer monsters around, though since we’re looking for a witch, maybe that’s not quite the case.”
“Keep your eyes open,” I warned, as the carriage set down, the wheels almost instantly sinking an inch into the soft soil. “The locals here aren’t friendly. They haven’t attacked any guards yet, but I don’t want them to decide they want to stab the Princess’ daughter while I’m supposed to keep you out of trouble.”
Sunset rolled her eyes. “Please. There’s not even anypony around.”
“No matter what you think, it’s my hide on the line,” I pointed out. “If she’s even half as protective of you as she is of Cadance, she’ll have me scrubbing latrines and saying ‘sir’ to guard recruits if you end up getting hurt.”
She snorted, laughing. “She’d probably give you a medal and give me a stern warning about being careful.”
“Tell that to Pillow Talk,” I said, helping Sunset get down. The ground was solid enough to hold us, but I didn’t like the feel of the dirt away from the cobblestone paths. “She got demoted so far they had her in Stalliongrad shoveling snow.”
“Never heard of her,” Sunset shrugged.
“She was the pony who was assigned to keep an eye on you after you left the castle.”
“...Blue mare, yellow mane?” Sunset asked, her pace slowing.
“That’s the one. After you air-dropped yourself out of the train, the Princess wasn’t very happy with her. Took her years to get back to Canterlot… and then on her first mission watching Twilight, she got ditched again.”
Sunset pawed at the wet dirt. “That, um. That was also my fault.”
“You might want to tell your mother that,” I suggested. “Maybe before Pillow Talk gets frostbite from her second Long Patrol in the North.”
“I’ll… talk to Celestia. That pony shouldn’t suffer for what I did.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But keep in mind it was her job, and she failed at it. If you noticed her, that was her fault. When you ditched her, that was her fault too. I’m not saying you shouldn’t apologize for making her job difficult, but…”
“But it’s still her job,” Sunset finished. “I get it.”
I nodded. “Now, let’s look busy. I have the official reports, but I like to get the story from somepony on the ground. If we hit up town hall, we might get a guide and an update at the same time.”
“What about the ponies you already have here?” Sunset asked.
“You remember how the Princess mentioned we were having problems? One of those problems is that the two guards who were investigating this up and vanished. They haven’t reported in for three days. Tracking spells aren’t working, and we need answers.”
“And you haven’t sent anypony here sooner?” Sunset frowned.
“Sending guards in with no information leads to more missing guards. Celestia and I were discussing it, among other things, when the castle got a few extra holes and we had to adjourn the meeting early.”
“Great,” Sunset said. “So it’s my fault.”
“And you get to fix it!” I said, grinning. “Besides, we really did need an expert. I was going to ask for Professor Grey Scale from the University--”
“That old fogey?!” Sunset laughed.
“He teaches defense against the dark arts,” I pointed out. “He was well-qualified.”
“Please. That snub-horned stallion couldn’t hex his way out of a paper bag! He only got the job because the last instructor vanished in mysterious circumstances. Just like the last seven.”
The position of Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts had been cursed for two centuries, ever since Hexenhammer had been passed over for tenure and he swore revenge against the school.
“Maybe Grey Scale finally broke the curse by being so awful at his job that it doesn’t consider him a teacher,” Sunset snarked. “When I was in school, I went to a few of his classes. He told me not to come back after he brought in a Boogeypone and I blew it up when it tried to spook me. How was I supposed to know it was an endangered species?”
I had to laugh at that. “Remind me not to surprise you.” I turned and motioned for her to follow me as I walked up to the Town Hall, the tallest building in Hollow Shades thanks to its clock tower, not that there was much competition. Most buildings were only a single story, though nearly all had extensive basements. From what I knew, it was partly practical, since buildings would sink anyway without deep foundations, and it was partly cultural, since a lot of the residents were batponies and liked staying underground during the day.
I knocked on the door, once. Before I could get a second knock in, it creaked open an inch.
“Can I help you?” Came a voice from inside. I could only make out golden eyes, almost glowing in the dim light.
“We’re here to look into the recent problems,” I said, without getting too specific. I liked to start with very general terms, to see how much ponies would give up without being prompted. Sometimes they’d change their story or assume you meant something else entirely.
“The dark magus and the missing guards,” the pony muttered. “Come in. It’s not safe to talk outside.”
The door opened wider, and I nodded for Sunset to follow me. Inside, the hall was dark and dank, with dim blue lights providing only nominal illumination.
“Usually the town is more lively,” said the unseen pony. “But ponies are staying indoors after what happened.”
“That’s understandable,” I offered. “We’re here to try and sort it out. Any information you can give us would be a help.” I tried to keep an eye as the pony paced in the gloom, though it was difficult.
The pony huffed. “One week ago, two ponies were found dead in their home. Their daughter is still missing. Two guards were investigating, and they’re gone.”
“You must know more than that,” I said, trying a firmer tone. “A foal is missing. We need to find her.”
“They were good ponies,” the stallion snapped. “If I could find their foal I would, but the last two ponies who tried vanished, and I don’t intend to follow them. Now go do your business and get out!”
“Such a friendly thestral,” Sunset muttered. “You’d think with Luna back they’d be a little happier.”
I shrugged, walking down the street towards the scene of the disappearance.
“And can you believe that town hall?” Sunset asked. “Stacks of paperwork older than I am. I bet they handle everything here themselves.”
“I couldn’t see anything inside,” I said. “The lighting was way too dim.”
“You don’t have a night vision spell?” Sunset sounded surprised. “I thought that would be standard for the Guard. I learned it when I was a foal so I could read after lights-out.”
“When we get back, maybe you can teach me,” I said. I didn't notice until much later that she'd cast it right through the inhibitor ring without me noticing. “You probably know a bunch of useful spells. Being in the guard, I haven’t had much of a chance to really do academic work.”
“I’d be happy to,” Sunset said, smiling. For once it wasn’t filled with sarcasm or the toothy grin of a predator. Maybe she could be a normal pony once in a while.
I’d like to say the walk to the scene of the crime was in comfortable silence, but both of us were on guard, every motion in the shadows and noise from the woods putting us on edge. At least we were watching out for each other, and Sunset didn’t set anything on fire on the way there.
“I think this is the place,” Sunset said, stopping in front of an unassuming home. “I can feel the dark magic.” It had the feeling of dirty slush, icy and filthy and oppressive.
“I’ll go in first,” I said. “Just in case. If I vanish, it’s your responsibility to find me.”
“If you vanish, I promise to burn things down until I find your body,” Sunset swore, with a mocking salute.
“Close enough.” I pushed the front door open, the heavy wooden door swinging ajar at a touch. I wondered if we were going to have to deal with looting or if the nature of the crime would keep the curious ponies away.
“You said it was a week ago?” Sunset asked, as she walked in after me, looking around. The home didn’t look like it had been disturbed by more than spiders building cobwebs in the corners. A fine layer of dust had settled over everything.
“And three days ago when the guards I sent here vanished,” I affirmed, my horn lighting up to give us some illumination to work with. “You can see their hoofprints in the dust.”
“They went downstairs,” Sunset noted, following the hoofprints down the wide staircase. The lower floor was damp, with a faint smell of iron, and even more disorganized than the upstairs. There had clearly been a struggle here. A broken table lay in one corner, a bookcase had been emptied and thrown aside. The worst thing were the stains, brown and all over the floor and walls.
“This is where it happened,” I said, looking around. The dark magic was thick here. No wonder ponies had left the house alone.
“Blood magic,” Sunset muttered. “You can tell from the patterns on the walls. It was flowing sideways, towards the caster. They would have been standing right around here…” she stepped over to where the worst staining was, and I could see her point. Even with the dry stains, I could imagine the drips and drops of crimson crawling towards some dark pony.
“Dangerous?” I asked, though the answer seemed obvious.
“Very,” Sunset said. “Both for the caster and for anypony around her. All dark magic works by converting some outside resource into magical energy to fuel its effects. Blood magic is the simplest, and turns life energy into magic energy.” She looked around the room as she spoke, not moving from the locus where the spells had been cast. “Most ponies can do it without training, if they’re really desperate, by drawing on their own life to fuel their magic. They usually die in the process.”
“And this?” I gestured to the mess.
“Pulling the life out of other ponies is extremely dangerous, illegal, and way too easy,” Sunset said quietly. “I don’t even think they did anything with the magic. They just let the blood magic fuel itself and then…” she looked up the stairs. “They didn’t go out that way. If they ran through this while it was still wet, they’d have left tracks on the floor.”
I stepped around Sunset, looking for a back door. “Could they have teleported away?”
She hesitated, and her horn flickered despite the ring around it. “No trace of a teleport matrix. Even if they were using spells to hide where they went, they couldn’t hide that they left, not when we’re physically here to check.”
“And you can check that even with an inhibitor ring?” I asked. Maybe it was broken.
“Wearing heavy saddlebags doesn’t mean you can’t run, it just makes it harder,” Sunset said, rolling her eyes like I was asking stupid questions.
“So then the only other option…” I muttered, looking up as I felt a small draft. “One of the windows is open.”
“Tight squeeze, but a pony could get through that,” Sunset agreed.
I reared up to look. “Blood on the windowsill and the inside of the glass.” I looked down to where I was standing on the fallen bookcase. “They could have used the bookcase to climb up, and gotten out before it fell down.”
“Let’s get outside and look for a trail,” Sunset said, starting for the stairs. With her limp, I got ahead of her without even trying, opening the front door to find three ponies waiting for us.
The closest pony, a stout earth pony that looked like he probably knocked trees over by leaning against them too hard, leered at us. “Look at what we have here, boys. A couple more of Celestia’s little lapdogs.”
“This is our town,” grumbled a batpony standing next to him. “We don’t need you barging in and acting like you own the place.”
“Please stand aside,” I said, trying to remain calm. “We’re conducting an investigation and if you interfere, I’ll have to arrest you.”
“Arrest us?” The batpony laughed. “I’d like to see you try. My friend back there?” He nodded to the unicorn standing behind them. “He’s so strong that when he kicks your flank, your cutie mark is gonna turn into his hoofprint.”
I looked over the earth pony’s shoulder to look. The unicorn had a dangerous look in his eyes, and I could see the stress marks on his horn from here. I wasn’t an expert but I was pretty sure that was a bad sign.
“Strong, huh?” Sunset asked. She stepped around me, and I felt my coat stand on end.
“That’s right,” the unicorn hissed. “I’ve trained for three decades to get stronger than anypony else. I’ve pushed myself to the edge and beyond, and might makes right around here. Go back to Canterlot. We solve our own problems.”
Sunset laughed, obviously amused.
“Thirty years, and you’re that weak? That’s sad. To have worked so hard… for so little.” Her horn blazed with cyan light. I took a step back on instinct. Guards might have been trained to be able to run into danger, but common sense said that a little distance would be healthy.
“You’re bluffing,” the unicorn muttered, looking at Sunset. I could see sweat starting to bead upon his brow.
“Keep your eye on the birdie,” Sunset said, a ball of energy forming at the tip of her horn.
“Sunset,” I warned, not needing to complete the thought.
“You’re no fun,” Sunset sighed. She tilted her head and fired the bright sphere to the side, the orb gently bobbing like a soap bubble and popping against a twisted, dead tree. For a moment I thought it hadn’t done anything, until the tree turned grey and started to crumble, having been turned to ashes from the inside out.
The three thugs visibly paled at the sight and started backing off.
“Move along,” I said, firmly. Their will finally broke, and they ran, directly away from the tree Sunset had destroyed.
“Kids these days,” Sunset snorted. “Am I right?”
“You’re younger than any of them,” I pointed out.
“As a professional witch I’m allowed to be as old or young as I want,” Sunset retorted, sticking out her tongue at me. “It’s one of the many perks, like looking great in black.”
“Let’s just see if we can find a trail,” I said, shaking my head and trying to avoid getting into an argument with her.
The back of the house was a marsh, the rain refusing to soak into parched ground and turning it into layers of dusty mud on top of soil that’d been baked into something as tough as pottery. It was the same kind of landslide-prone terrain you got in spots that were almost a desert but decided to mix things up and have a flash flood a few times a year.
“The pony came out here,” Sunset noted, as we reached a window with obvious scrapes and hoofprints in the soft ground.
“So now we just have to figure out where they went,” I said, looking around. “And tracking spells already failed, according to the last report from the other guards. Any idea on where to start?”
“Well, your sister would probably come up with some brilliant and unstable method,” Sunset said. “Like… reversing a tracking spell so it shows all the directions the pony didn’t go in, and walking towards the blank spots in the detection matrix!”
“That sounds like a great idea,” I said, nodding with approval.
“Sure, just give me a month or two to work out how to actually do it,” Sunset snorted. “That kind of theoretical work is more up Twilight’s alley. I prefer more practical methods…” She trailed off as she looked around at the thick brush. “This way.”
“What, did you figure out a tracking spell we can use?” I asked. “Maybe something that detects magical auras that are days old?”
“No, there are just a bunch of broken branches in the brambles over there, and more hoofprints.” She pointed. “I thought this was supposed to be training about not using magic.”
I glanced at the pile of grey ashes.
“Okay, maybe I used a little magic, but I didn’t blast anypony!”
“We’ll call it an improvement,” I agreed. “But one thing you didn’t notice was the multiple sets of hoofprints.” I pointed to a larger set. “These were made by ponies wearing armored shoes. The guards went this way.”
“I’m not sure I like that they go that way and never come back,” Sunset said.
“Do you want me to lead the way?” I offered.
“I’ve got this,” Sunset said. “Maybe I should join full-time and steal your job out from under you.”
“Twilight wouldn’t like it very much,” I said. “She’d have to let me mooch off of her while I found another line of work.”
“I’m sure a stallion with your qualifications would have no trouble finding a top-flight job in the manual labor or food service industries.”
I laughed and watched her back, though she didn’t offer any other jabs, quickly becoming too busy focusing on the actual job of following the trail through the streets and into the shrublands and moors beyond. It was interesting, watching her work. I’d worked alongside a lot of different guards, and her technique was more like the ones the Earth Ponies used. I even saw her muttering under her breath like she was whispering to the plants and asking them which way to go.
“Here,” she said, holding up a hoof. She didn’t need to. I could feel it. The pressure of dark magic on my horn, like a dirty, wintery chill.
“We’re not even that far out of town,” I said.
“It’s far enough to get lost forever,” Sunset said. She cautiously stepped forwards. “Stay behind me. I know enough about blood magic to keep myself safe, you don’t.”
I nodded and followed her. The hills were patchy and uneven, low-lying plants with deep roots forming islands in a maze of troughs worn into the ground by water, long grass and thistles making it impossible to follow depressions and holes in the terrain. Eventually, the ground firmed up and gave way to cracked and ancient paving stones. They had to be centuries old, forming an uneven and partially-sunken road leading to the ruins of a tower.
Sunset got most of the way to the tower before stopping and looking to the side.
“Found the missing guards,” she muttered. She bent the long grass along the side of the stone path, revealing two crumpled forms, their golden armor looking tarnished and rusty under the coating of dried blood covering everything.
“We need to be extremely careful,” I said. I’d have to mourn them later. Guards deserved to be avenged. “The Maleficarum is strong enough to take out trained guards, so we can’t take it lightly.”
“Her,” Sunset corrected.
“Huh?” I frowned.
“It’s a her,” Sunset explained. “Not an it. Just stay back and let me handle this. I have… a feeling about this one.” She shook her head, as if trying to ward off some stray thought, and walked up to the front door of the tower, a door of worm-ridden planks that hung limply from a broken hinge.
I followed closely, intent on watching for danger. I could hear something from inside, a faint sound. Somepony crying.
“That’s the missing--” I started, hissing and trying to get past Sunset to look inside.
“Stay back,” Sunset said again, shoving me to the side before I could enter. She walked ahead of me into the gloom. She cleared her throat, and the crying stopped. “I’m coming in. I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Stay away!” Yelled a scratchy voice from within. It sounded like a foal. It had to be the missing foal from town.
“We’re here to rescue you,” I said. Sunset glared back at me and motioned for me to be quiet.
“I don’t want to be rescued!” the foal shouted. “Stay away!” There was a pulse of red, crackling over everything like a wave of crimson fog. I felt something inside of me twist, like a magnet pulling at my innards. Blood hit my lips, and I coughed, immediately woozy.
I fell to my knees, and Sunset’s horn lit up. The pain faded, but I felt drained and empty.
“That was close,” Sunset muttered. “Keep a shield up around yourself. It’ll help a little.” I nodded and enclosed myself in a bubble shield, Sunset stepping back as it snapped shut.
“Please, just stay away!” The foal yelled. “I don’t want to hurt you!”
“I know,” Sunset said. “Just calm down. I’m here to help you.”
“No you aren’t! You’re just going to take me away like the other ones wanted to! Go away!” There was another surge of red light. This time, I was able to focus enough to see what happened when it hit Sunset. The magic just fizzled around her, like water hitting a hot griddle, evaporating and sliding away.
Sunset pulled off her helm, shaking her mane free as it returned to its normal color.
“If you want us to go away, we will,” Sunset said, as she tossed the helm aside. “I’m not here to arrest you or tell you what to do. I’m just worried you’re going to hurt yourself. Blood magic is dangerous, but… you already know that.”
“I didn’t want to hurt them,” the foal whispered.
“Just come out here where I can see you,” Sunset said. “I promise I won’t do anything. I just want to make sure you’re not hurt.”
There was a shuffling in the darkness, and a small shape limped closer, stepping out of the shadows. She was young, as young as my sister had been before she left home, just barely old enough to have gotten her cutie mark.
“My name is Sunset Shimmer.” Sunset gestured to me. “That’s Shining Armor. A lot of ponies were worried that you’d gotten hurt.”
“I’m fine,” the foal said, looking down.
“Really?” Sunset asked. “Because it looked to me like you twisted your ankle while you were climbing out of that window.”
“How did you know that?!”
“You’re limping. It’s something I notice.” She lifted her bad leg, waving it a little. “You should get that bandaged up before it gets worse.”
The foal sat down. “It only hurts a little.”
“That’s why we don’t want it to get worse,” Sunset said. “What’s your name?”
“Ruby Drop,” she whispered. I felt well enough to step a little closer and give the filly a brave smile. Sunset held out a hoof, and Ruby lifted her injured leg.
“That’s not so bad. Looks like it’s healing pretty well.” Sunset smiled at the foal. “You don’t look like you’ve been eating well. When’s the last time you had a hot meal?”
“I--it was breakfast. Before my mom and dad-- before I--” Ruby squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to cry.
“What happened?” Sunset asked.
“I hurt them,” Ruby whispered. “I didn’t mean to. Mom was trying to show me a healing spell and-- and I did something wrong. Then everything turned red, and they were screaming, and I had to-- I had to run!” She looked up at Sunset. “It’s not fair! Getting a cutie mark is supposed to be good, but it just made me hurt everypony!”
“Healing magic and blood magic are two sides of the same coin,” Sunset muttered. “One turns magic into life energy, the other does the opposite.”
“I know,” Sunset said, pulling the foal into a hug. “Do you know how I got my cutie mark?” Ruby shook her head, looking up at Sunset. “I was trying to cast a spell, and there was a big accident, and a lot of fire and noise. A lot of ponies got hurt. I almost died.” Sunset sighed. “I had nightmares for a long time. I couldn’t even be around candles without having a panic attack.”
“Do they ever stop?” Ruby asked.
“Not on their own,” Sunset said. “In my nightmares I didn’t have control. I had to learn that control in the real world. I had to be able to feel confident in it. Once I knew I wasn’t going to hurt ponies like that again, I stopped having those nightmares. Mostly.” She ran a hoof through the filly’s mane. “I had a really good teacher, but it still took a long time. I wouldn’t have been able to do it on my own.”
“My mom was supposed to teach me,” Ruby whispered, before breaking down into sobbing.
“We should get her back to town,” I said, quietly. “It’s not safe here.”
“You’d be surprised at how well a foal can do, living in the wild by herself,” Sunset said. “But it’s definitely not fun.”
“She might have relatives. Given her age, it’s obvious this was just an accident.” I sighed. “A tragic one, but still an accident.”
“Not going to throw her in irons?” Sunset smirked.
“Justice is about making things right, not about punishment,” I said, firmly. “Ruby doesn’t need to be punished. She needs help. Maybe you can put in a word for her with the Princess? She probably listens to you more than she does to me.”
“The School for Gifted Unicorns would have the staff and facilities for it,” Sunset admitted. “And the teachers are used to dealing with magical accidents. At least, they’d better be after having me and Twilight as students.”
“There were worse,” Shining smiled. “One filly in Twilight’s class managed to burn down the auditorium with fireworks.”
“No wonder they need so much funding,” Sunset snorted. “Ruby, are you ready to go? I promise it’ll be better than staying out here.”
“I can’t go back to town!” Ruby said, rubbing her eyes. “I-I hurt ponies! Everypony is going to hate me and I can’t control my magic yet!”
“I know what might help,” Sunset said. Her horn lit up, and the inhibitor ring slid free. I felt my heart skip a beat. That should have been all kinds of impossible. They were difficult to hold at all with telekinesis, and designed to be impossible for the wearer to remove at all.
“How did you--” I asked. Instead of answering, Sunset waved a hoof at me imperiously.
“Now, Ruby, this is going to feel a little strange, and it’s going to make it a little hard for you to use magic, but it’ll keep you from having any accidents, okay?” Sunset asked. Ruby nodded, and Sunset slid the ring over the foal’s horn, the band resizing itself to fit.
“It feels all tingly…” Ruby complained.
“Don’t worry,” Sunset said. “It’s just to keep you safe until we find you a teacher.”
“There are some great teachers in the healing arts at the School,” I agreed.
“She’ll need to learn about Blood Magic, too,” Sunset said.
“But that’s dark magic.” I had a bad feeling about the way this conversation was going.
“It’s fine. She needs to learn.” Sunset waved a hoof, trying to dismiss my concerns again. I frowned, and she rolled her eyes. “Look, what’s more dangerous -- a trained pony with a crossbow, or an untrained pony with a crossbow?”
“The trained one,” I said, immediately.
“Is it? Maybe more dangerous if you’re fighting him. But what if everypony was given a crossbow? Are more ponies going to end up getting hurt if they’re trained, or if they’re untrained?”
“That’s a different question,” I said. “A trained pony is more dangerous to somepony he wants to hurt. An untrained one is more dangerous to the ponies they don’t want to hurt.”
“Glad you agree. Ruby doesn’t want to hurt anypony,” Sunset said. “So she needs training.”
I sighed. I had the distinct feeling that, right or wrong, she was probably going to get her way. Sure, finding a tutor for her was going to be all but impossible, since dark magic was more or less illegal. Maybe Grey Scale could do something, if the curse on his position didn’t end up getting him killed.
“You’re right.” More importantly, it wasn’t worth arguing about when Princess Celestia was ultimately going to be the one to make the decision. Especially not in front of a scared foal.
“Every once in a while,” Sunset muttered. She picked Ruby up. “Ready to go?”
“I guess…” Ruby sounded unsure. Sunset put her on my back.
“Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be…” Sunset hesitated. “It’ll get better. You might have to work at it, and it might not be easy, and it might take a while, but it gets better.”
I gave Ruby a smile to try and reassure her, and started walking after Sunset, making sure to keep my pace even so the filly wouldn’t fall off. It was something I was good at, after giving my sister plenty of rides when she was too busy reading to walk.
The moment we walked out of the tower, a pencil-thin bolt of purple magic cracked into the stone next to my head, barely missing Ruby. I snapped up a shield to protect myself and Ruby, and the next blast hit it with the force of a crossbow, making my ward ring like a bell. There was nothing I could do to stop the third. Sunset’s head snapped back as the magic hit her face.
“Hah! Not so funny now, is it!” The three thugs from town stepped out of the brush from where they’d been hiding.
“The kid’s coming with us,” the big earth pony rumbled.
“Put her down and run, or you’ll get the same as your show-off friend!” The batpony sneered at me.
“Um, why ain’t she fallin’ down yet?” The earth pony whispered, turning to the skinny unicorn behind him.
“I didn’t know I was supposed to,” Sunset said, slowly turning to look at the unicorn. There was a tiny scorch mark on her cheek from where the magical bolt had hit.
“It’s just some kinda trick!” The unicorn yelled. “Grab her!”
The earth pony and batpony ran for Sunset. I couldn’t protect them and Ruby at the same time.
“Close your eyes,” I told the filly on my back.
“Why?” She asked. Before I could answer, the two ponies charging at Sunset were jerked into the air by her magic, the batpony screaming as something popped in his wing.
“Because I think she’s really upset this time,” I said.
She tilted her head, and the two ponies she was holding slammed into each other. “You’re probably pretty impressive compared to the average unicorn,” she said, glaring at the unicorn who’d blasted her. The two ponies she was holding yelled in alarm as Sunset started squeezing them together, like a sphere growing smaller around them.
Sunset let the ball bounce, dribbling it against the ground like she was playing with a toy. The two ponies in it yelped and shouted and generally weren’t happy about the arrangement.
“I’m not average,” Sunset explained, as if it wasn’t obvious. “Frankly, you’re the weakest unicorn for miles around. Even Ruby is stronger than you, and she’s a foal with a brand-new cutie mark.”
“I’m not weak!” The unicorn was almost foaming at the mouth in rage. “You don’t even know what I’m capable of!”
“Show me,” Sunset said, shrugging. She tossed the ball of ponies away, letting them smash into an old olive tree and hang in the branches like two very large bruised fruits with major concussions.
I wasn’t sure about the wisdom of taunting a pony who was obviously unstable and with enough power to get somepony hurt. A warning might be called for.
I just didn’t know how to warn him about taunting Sunset Shimmer.
“You think you’re better than me?” The unicorn sneered, and a dark aura surrounded his horn. Smoke started to pour from the corners of his eyes. “I’ve seen the peak of your power, and I’m only beginning to tap into mine!”
“Imperial Dark Magic, huh?” Sunset tilted her head. “That’s pretty old fashioned. I’m curious where you learned that.”
“You can try figuring it out when you’re dead,” the unicorn hissed. I felt a horrible creeping cold wash over me, even through the shield I had up. It was like a rain had started, a rain of invisible dirty slush that left me feeling instantly filthy. Crystals started growing around the unicorn’s hooves, cracking and snapping as they twisted up almost knee-high
A bolt of black energy twisted towards Sunset, corkscrewing through the air. I didn’t see her have any kind of chance to put up a defense before it hit with a deafening sound of shattering metal. A cloud of dust swirled around us, pressing at the edges of my shield and blinding me.
As it cleared, I heard the unicorn laughing.
“You look a little ruffled,” the unicorn crowed, sounding pleased with himself.
A burst of wind cleared the swirling dust from around Sunset. Her armor was hanging half off of her, one pauldron shattered and her peytral hanging awkwardly from broken straps. She rolled her eyes and pulled the armor off, tossing it aside.
“Yes, well, looks aren’t everything.” She ran a hoof through her mane, pushing back a few loose strands.
“You’re going to pay for what you did to Spade and Boxer,” the unicorn said, confidently. “I’m way stronger than you are.”
“That’s… really what you think?” Sunset seemed disappointed. “Dark magic barely counts at all, since it’s not your power that you’re using. Do you honestly think I’m impressed by this?”
He grinned, ready to cast something huge and deadly. A ball of shadows and pale purple light swirled at the tip of his horn.
“Okay, getting bored now,” Sunset said, before she vanished with a flash of light, teleporting right next to the other unicorn before unleashing a blast of force that shattered the crystals growing around his hooves and sent him flying into a thorny bush.
The stallion shrieked like a foal as he struggled, trying to pull himself free as the thorns dug into his skin.
“He’s gonna be in there for a while,” Sunset said. “So does anypony else really feel like lunch? I’d kill for a hayburger.”
“...Rescue teams spent about six hours cutting back plant growth to get to the stallion,” I said, as Princess Celestia looked over my reports with a frown. “The other two will be in traction for a month or two, but should make a full recovery.”
“I see,” Princess Celestia said. She put the reports down on her desk. “And Ruby Drop? I note that you haven’t made any formal recommendations in your report.”
“I… feel that it isn’t my place to recommend anything,” I said. “I know Sunset--”
“I’m asking for your opinion, not Sunset’s,” the Princess said, cutting me off. “Your opinion is more impartial than hers, in this case.”
“Sunset is ultimately correct that Ruby Drop needs to be trained,” I said, after a short pause. “I don’t like the idea of teaching a foal dark magic, or teaching anypony at all dark magic, for that matter. If she isn’t taught how to control her power, though, she’ll have to spend her entire life wearing an inhibitor ring.”
Celestia tapped a quill against her desk, then started writing, not even looking at the parchment as words scrawled along the page.
“You don’t believe the foal should be punished for what she did?”
“With all due respect, it was an accident on her part,” I said. “And she has to live knowing what she did. That’s bad enough for anypony.”
Celestia stopped writing and smiled. “Good. I’m glad you agree. I’m going to write a pardon for her use of dark magic and have her placed in a special program in the School for Gifted Unicorns.”
“If I might make a suggestion?” I coughed. “Until she has some training, she should be kept away from the general population.”
“She’ll also need the time to adjust to her new situation. Some familiar faces might help as well…” Celestia smiled. I knew that smile. It was the one she always had on when she was doing something she’d been planning for a long time, and you’d walked right into it and given her the opportunity to reveal just how clever she was.
“You want Sunset to teach her,” I blurted out, before she could reveal her plan. She looked surprised. “She taught Twilight, and she already knows Ruby.”
“More than that, she knows more about dark magic than anypony in Canterlot,” Celestia said. “Well, not quite as much as my sister or I, but I hope she never has to learn about it the same way we did.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I remained silent and at attention. Celestia looked at me after being lost in thought for a few moments.
“What do you think of her, Captain Armor?”
“Of Ruby, or Sunset?” I asked, not sure who she meant.
“Both.”
“Ruby reminds me of what could have happened to Twilight if things had gone a little differently during her entrance exam. She seems like a good foal, and what she did is going to haunt her for the rest of her life.”
I gathered myself before continuing. What I thought about Ruby Drop wasn’t nearly as important as what I thought about the Princess’ daughter, and I knew it.
“Sunset is… dangerous.” I said, finally. “I’ve never seen anypony with that much magic. Worse, she uses it and doesn’t care about the consequences. What she did to those stallions was completely unnecessary. She could have stunned them and brought them in without hurting them, but she was playing with them. She almost killed them because she was treating them like a cat treats a mouse. I’d say she has no empathy, but with Ruby she was… well, she was like a decent pony.”
“She is a decent pony,” Celestia said, though it was clear from her tone that she was somewhat troubled as well. “She has friends, she’s been trying to make amends for what she did as a foal.”
“Even so, she almost killed several ponies. If she was really in the guard, that kind of excessive force would be completely unacceptable. She needs more empathy.” I paused. “That said, in a pinch, I can’t think of anypony I’d rather have backing me up. She’s resourceful, intelligent, and extremely talented.” I shook my head. “I sure wouldn’t want her against me, at least.”
“Thank you, Captain Armor,” Princess Celestia said. “You’ve done an exceptional job in difficult circumstances.” The way she said it made it clear that I was dismissed. I turned to leave and paused at the door, looking back.
“She really respects you, you know,” I said. Celestia looked up from what she was reading, her expression unreadable. “I don’t know exactly what happened between you two, but she’d do almost anything to try and get your approval. I don’t need Cadance to tell me that Sunset loves you.”
Princess Celestia smiled a little, though there was something melancholy to it. “Thank you, Shining Armor.”
So, where was I? How could I forget -- falling to my death. Teleportation had failed me.
My brain, which for a while now had been my least-used asset, tried to scream something at me through the mist of panic. I caught the edge of an idea from whatever part of me wasn’t stupid and tried to grab myself with telekinesis. It wasn’t something I was good at. I’d only gotten to practice this a few times, and the biggest problem was using the right amount of force, something the suppression field was making difficult.
Gravity’s sticky hooves slowly peeled away, my fall slowed, and I finally came to a stop just a hoof-width above the spikes at the bottom of the pit, which from here looked a lot like somepony had put big glass shards in the sand on purpose.
I didn’t have the luxury of time to sit and examine them, though. I tried to pull myself up and only managed a body-length before I felt my grip start to fade. I slipped and slammed into the side of the pit, barely holding myself in place. I stretched for the edge, and it was just out of my reach.
The weight started to drag at me again. I was still holding that curved sword. I stabbed it into the wall and pulled myself up, legs shaking. I’d spent too much time in the library and not enough in the gym. I touched the rim, grabbed at the ground outside, and gave the failing self-telekinesis everything I had, just barely getting out of the pit, flopping onto my back and panting, sand sticking to my sweat-covered coat.
“That sucked,” I whispered.
While I was catching my breath I felt the ground shift under me.
In a panic I got to my hooves and stumbled back. The pit snapped shut like the jaws of a bear trap, leaving no trace it had ever existed.
“Wow, Sunset,” I muttered. “It’s almost like somepony is out to get you.”
A spear stabbed through my cloak, just missing my side.
“You must be even skinnier than I thought,” the pony behind me said. I had a feeling he’d actually missed on purpose. The fact he gave me enough time to turn and face him was enough proof he wasn’t here for a surprise attack.
That made me think he, at least, wasn’t responsible for the pit.
He was a tall stallion, with a dark coat visible in the big, hoof-wide gaps in his iron armor, the thin plates connected by a web of bright purple strings. It looked less like useful armor and more like something a pony would design for a fashion show with a vague armor theme. He spun his spear like it was part of his body.
“I’m big where it counts,” I countered, letting light play along my horn.
“That’s an empty threat,” the stallion said. “We’ve had unicorns in here before. They always think fancy magic will save them, but they either can’t get their spells working or they’re exhausted before I’ve even had fun. Which kind are you?”
“I’m the third kind,” I said. “I’m the kind you don’t want to meet.”
His eyes flicked behind me. I grabbed for his spear, which he didn’t expect - probably because he was so used to fighting ponies who named every punch before they threw it. I’ll give him credit for having good instincts, though. Instead of trying to pull back and turn it into a tug-of-war he thrust forward into the pull.
I deflected it with a minimum of force, leaning to the side and letting the spear go through my cloak again, hitting the pony who’d been sneaking up behind me in the sternum. If it hadn’t been for the enchanted weapons, that would have been a fatal blow.
“Two on one?” I asked. The stallion with the spear was completely off-balance and overextended. “That’s brave of you. Ten on one would be better odds.”
He didn’t have a great grip on the spear now, especially when I shoved straight back with it, letting the butt smack him in the jaw and making him bite his tongue. He yelped instead of saying whatever quip he had planned, and I tore the spear from his hooves and beat him over the head with it until he was curled up in a ball on the ground.
“That’s what I thought,” I said, panting. Beating the tar out of him with a stick made me feel a little better about almost falling to my death. I grabbed the sash around his neck. The other pony, the one who’d been behind me, was still groaning on the ground when I trotted over to relieve him of his burden.
“That was cheating,” he grumbled.
“Attacking me from behind was cheating,” I said. “I don’t suppose you’re secretly an assassin here to murder me for getting too close to the truth?”
“What?”
“I didn’t think so.”
He had his colored sash around his forehoof. I went to grab it, and he lunged with a hidden blade, coming right off the ground like he was on strings. Unlike me, he was clearly in shape for this kind of thing. I tried to move, and the ground went soft under me like quicksand, holding me in place.
I saw the stiletto in excellent detail, time slowing as it went right towards my face. The blade had a profile like a triangle, twisting along the length. It was the kind of weapon that didn’t have a place on a real battlefield.
I felt the tip scrape against my skin, and… well, have you ever felt a sharp knife? Like, the way you can touch the edge of a kitchen knife without cutting yourself if you know what you’re doing? You can feel how fine the edge is. And I could feel it now, sliding against my fur and refusing to cut. There was a tingle to it, with the same tinge as the weight that had been working against my spells. I guess the safety system wasn’t ignoring my safety after all.
Now, there are a lot of ways I could have responded. With hindsight the coolest thing would have been to grab his hoof and kick his face or something. Maybe I could have done it even with the quicksand holding my hooves down.
Instead I just sort of blasted him at point-blank range.
He slammed into the ground like somepony had dropped a building on him. Which, in hindsight, was about accurate to the amount of force I’d used. Oops.
“You just, um… stay down,” I said, trying to pull my hooves out of the sand. I’d only sunk down to my fetlocks, but it had been just enough to slow me down that it would have been fatal anywhere else. It took a moment before the suction stopped, and I stepped up onto the now-solid ground, kicking loose sand from my ankles.
I checked the pony’s breathing before I took the sash from his leg.
“You’ll be fine,” I decided, with the certainty of someone who didn’t have a medical degree. “Those bones will…” I hesitated. “Tell you what, I’ll send you a few potions that’ll get those fixed once somepony sets them. Yeah.” I patted his head, because his skull seemed more or less safe to touch.
That was when the whole street started rumbling like there was an earthquake. I tied the two new sashes to my belt and looked around.
The walls were closing in. Literally. The buildings were sliding along the streets like they were on wheels. I said something extremely rude in griffonese and tried to teleport again, the spell fizzling.
“Damnit, it’s too delicate to hold up to the suppression field,” I muttered. “Okay, time for plan B.”
There were three ponies here who couldn’t defend themselves. I couldn’t protect them and myself. I had a feeling I wouldn’t need to protect them was long as they weren’t between me and whatever was trying to murder me in the middle of the forge, with thousands of ponies watching.
I picked a direction and bolted, running down an alleyway. I actually felt the walls against both sides of my flank before I got out into the next street. The road dropped out from under me and I jumped for it, hitting the empty hole where a window should be and getting inside one of the buildings on the far side. Predictably, the ceiling and floor decided they were going to close like a set of jaws.
The window on the other side of the wall was just close enough. I got down low and slid, the sand under me letting me skid like a puck on a shuffleboard. I skipped out the window and into the blinding sunlight.
Nothing immediately tried to kill me, so I had a moment to breathe and look around. It looked familiar. The cheers of the ponies from the stands washed over me, and that sound made it all click.
I was standing in almost the same spot where I’d saved Shahrazad from the assassins. That same wide street, and with the distant cheering, the same sound of the crowds.
Oasis was at the other end of the street. If there was anypony who was probably trying to get me killed, it was him. He looked like he was in deep concentration. I wasn’t sure why until I saw what was at his hooves.
It was one of the other gladiators, lying in a pool of blood. Oasis’ sword dripped crimson into the sand. The sword that had that snake engraved on the blade.
“What did you do?” I growled.
Oasis spun to look at me.
“Surprised to see me?” I asked. I didn’t give him much of a chance to answer. I charged right at him, drawing my sword and blocking his first swing, blasting him back with a burst of kinetic energy from my horn. He landed flat on his back and popped up to his hooves like an acrobat.
“This is your fault!” he yelled. “You did this! I know all about how you lust for power!”
I winced at that. “I’m not like that! Not anymore!”
“If you were different you wouldn’t be here. Nopony comes to Saddle Arabia unless they’re chasing something that can’t have.” He circled around me. “And you show up out of nowhere and claim Princess Shahrazad as your own. I’m doing this for the good of Saddle Arabia!”
He charged. The sand shifted under my hooves. That same quicksand sensation that almost got me killed the first time. I shoved myself with telekinesis, knocking myself up and out of the way like a cork popping out of a bottle. The snake-sword caught my mane, and a lock of red and yellow fell to the arena floor.
Something dripped down my jaw line. He’d nicked my ear, too. I touched it and winced. It wasn’t a bad cut but it stung really badly.
“Okay, I’m gonna have to end this quickly,” I said.
Here’s a simple truth -- if an earth pony knows you’re going to try and grab something out of their hooves it’s darn near impossible to do, even if you’re me. I couldn’t yank the sword out of his hooves, so I had to make him want to drop it.
The easiest way to do that was using a spell originally designed for cooking.
I tossed a metal heating charm at the sword. It didn’t seem to do anything for a moment, then the metal shimmered and started glowing cherry-red. Oasis screamed and let go, the sword dropping to the street.
I bucked him in the face while he was holding his wounded hoof, then while he was reeling I bopped him straight up with a force-blast, letting him fall hard to the arena floor. I’d have felt sorry for him if he hadn’t just murdered a pony.
The cheering in the stands slowly turned to chaos.
“Once one pony saw the body, the unrest spread,” Shahrazad sighed. “We’ve managed to get out a story that he’s recovering, but…”
“But you don’t get better from being cut open like that,” I finished. “I’m sorry.”
After the trouble in the forge, I’d been escorted back inside while ponies were carried away to be treated. Or buried. I’d gone back to the VIP area, and Shahrazad had immediately pulled me aside and cleaned my cuts and bruises with clumsy but well-meaning effort. Right now we were waiting in a side room for the right moment to walk into the larger celebration hall.
“It isn’t your fault, my love.” Shahrazad sighed. “You brought honor to me by putting an end to things. And in the eyes of the ponies of Saddle Arabia, you’ve won the forge and put down a cheating champion.”
“That weapon he used,” I said. “It had the same symbol as the assassins.”
“Unfortunately it seems to have vanished in the confusion,” Shahrazad said, sourly. “I would have liked to examine it myself.”
“So what now? Do we have your uncle arrested?” I asked. “He had to be involved.”
“For now, we attend the after-party,” Shahrazad said. “We have to keep the ponies happy and thinking everything is normal.” She adjusted my armor. “Once this is over, perhaps we should have a custom set made for you, hm? If you’re going to attend public events as a forge champion you should be presentable.”
“Don’t we have bigger things to worry about?”
“You should worry about what’s in front of you at any given moment,” Shahrazad said. “If one is lost in the desert, one should not ignore water merely because they want a map.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “You’re right. Deal with this party, then the conspiracy trying to kill you.”
“I would not object to you keeping me safe in case anything else is planned,” Shahrazad said. “I doubt he will try anything now, after you smashed his plans, but nopony would have expected poison, either.”
I nodded, and the guard at the doorway lifted the curtain, the noise from outside redoubling. I let Shahrazad walk out first, and she waved to the crowd. I was glad to have her working them up for me, because I was pretty sure they actually quieted a little when I emerged on her heels.
The hall was broken up into two parts, a little like a throne room. There was a wide raised area where we were standing, and below us, ponies milling around tables and benches with servers moving between them. All eyes were on me.
“Sunset Shimmer,” King Zephyranthes said. “That was quite a showing in the Forge. You have brought great honor to my daughter, and a blessing upon your future wedding.”
“It’s no big deal,” I said, trying to be modest. I realized my mistake a moment later. “I mean, uh, they were all very skilled and worthy fighters. I thank you for the opportunity to test myself against them.”
He nodded. Apparently I’d recovered from that small stumble. “Take this as a token of your victory. No doubt it is only the first of many from the Forge.”
Zephranthes nodded, and an attendant brought something over and I felt my blood freeze in my chest. Oh, it seemed simple enough, a token of appreciation, the kind of thing a pony wouldn’t think twice about.
Unless they were me.
Unless they’d made my mistakes.
The servant had brought over a tiny velvet pillow, and resting on top of it was a golden crown of laurels.
“What’s wrong?” Flash asked. I guess I hadn’t been hiding my displeasure as well as I thought if he was picking up on it.
“A crown,” I muttered. The thing felt like a lead weight holding my head down. It was all in my head, but the freaking crown was on my head too so it all balanced out into making me a miserable mess.
“It’s kind of cute,” Flash said. “It reminds me of some statues from old Pegasopilis. You know, the ones of the mares in loose robes doing vaguely athletic things?”
“I hate it,” I said, trying to smile as some ponies passed us by. They didn’t actually care about me, they just wanted to gawk at the new champion. Who was me, I guess, but I felt like any second now one of them was going to start asking me questions I couldn’t answer.
“Is this more of that self-loathing?” Flash asked. “C’mon, Sunset. You did something stupid, but it worked out okay! You stopped that stallion.”
“Not before somepony…” I glanced at the crowd. How many of them were within earshot? “...before somepony got hurt,” I said. I didn’t want to ruin things by causing a panic.
“Nopony is perfect,” Flash said. “Honestly, I’m just glad it wasn’t you.”
“It almost was.” My ear still hurt.
“And what a loss that would have been,” said a familiar voice, though the last time I’d heard it, it had been a lot happier.
“Balthazar,” I turned to look at him. I hadn’t noticed him among the crowd. “Sorry, I don’t actually know what title you use. Princess Shahrazad forgot to tell me.”
“She would probably try to get you calling me ‘Uncle,’” Balthazar said, with a short laugh devoid of real humor. “I was hoping to get a chance to talk to you alone.”
“Let me guess, you’ve got some amazing secret insight you want to share,” I said. “Or maybe you want to drag me into your master plan? Everypony else in this country has been looking for a way to recruit me as leverage in some plot.”
“No, I wanted to talk to you alone because I respect my niece and her decisions, even when I think she’s making a mistake. This is the biggest mistake she’s ever made. I don’t like you.”
“Wow. That’s actually…” I paused. “That’s kind of refreshingly direct.”
“I’ve met your Princess Celestia more than once. That mare spins everything into a game. I don’t like how she does things, but you’re even worse.”
I frowned.
“I know all about what happened with you in Canterlot,” Balthazar said. “I don’t think many ponies in this room do. Not a lot of news got out. Not a lot of accurate news, anyway, but I trust my sources. You were in charge for one day. One day.”
My heart jumped in my chest, thumping like a wild animal trying to escape my rib cage. The edges of the room faded out.
“You know about that?” I asked. The words barely came out. My throat was so dry it could be used as parchment.
“I’m not going to let you get your hooves on the throne,” he said. “You might have fooled everypony else for now. Assassins conveniently attacking Shahrazad right when you were there to save her?” He shook his head.
“Wait, are you accusing me of sending them?” I asked.
“Why don’t you tell me?” Balthazar said. “I don’t like everything that happened here, either.”
“What?! Your fighter is the one who ended up--” I stopped short. “--who ended up hurting somepony!”
“There was a lot of funny business. I’m going to get to the bottom of it. I’m not going to let a pony like you just come in and take over.” He bowed politely and left, immediately spotting somepony else and greeting them with a big happy smile and laugh. From here, it looked as fake as I felt.
“What was that all about?” the pony at my side asked.
“It was--” I turned and expected to see Flash there. Shahrazad had quietly taken his place when I wasn’t looking.
“You looked like something was wrong, my love,” she explained. “I wanted to make sure my uncle’s trickery hadn’t done anything to harm you.”
“No. I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine,” Shahrazad said. She sat down so we were a little more on eye level. “Sunset, what’s wrong? What did he mean about Canterlot?”
“He…” I thought about denying everything. Maybe I could have just lied and said I didn’t know what he meant, but then she’d just get the story from somepony else. It was bad enough even if you knew everything that happened. Knowing half the truth would make me look like a monster instead of an idiot.
I took a deep breath. I was going to have to tell her. I was going to have to really think about it and go over everything I’d done wrong.
“It started a few days after the Grand Galloping Gala…”
Hey, Twilight,
Sorry about missing you at the Gala. I wasn’t really feeling like being out in public, especially with all those stuffy Canterlot ponies. No offense, but I’d rather sneak out to Ponyville and just hang out with everypony there.
The good news is, Luna and I have been hanging out a lot. She’s really nice when you get to know her! I’m trying to convince her to get out and do something. Do you think she’d like Nightmare Night? I don’t think she could refuse an invite if it’s to a holiday in her honor.
Say hi to all the girls for me, and tell Pinkie that I appreciate the thought but she doesn’t need to try guessing my birthday every year. If she really wants a party we can talk about picking a day, but the poor pony in charge of checking all the mail for anything dangerous almost had a heart attack when the confetti bomb went off.
Your friend,
Sunset Shimmer
I cast a quick spell to dry the ink on the page. I could have used the journal to send her the message instantly, but there was something nice about being sent something in the mail. I smirked and added a quick note to the bottom of the page.
PS -- I’m just returning the glitter Pinkie sent.
I folded the letter and shoved it into an envelope, then carefully poured way too much glitter -- which for the record is any amount of glitter at all -- in along with it. After that package from Pinkie I deserved a little harmless prank of my own.
I held it up in my magic and wondered if I should add more glitter when the universe gave me an answer.
Magic washed over me I’d been dropped into an ice-cold ocean with a thick layer of oil floating on it. It was disgusting and chilled me to the bone and I completely lost my grip on the letter. Glitter flew everywhere, mostly over me.
“Buck,” I swore, then started spitting because it was in my mouth and that was basically the worst thing ever.
I threw a spell at myself to try and pull the glitter out of my fur and got maybe half of it. I was going to be combing it out of my mane for weeks.
“Okay, I don’t know what that was, but I have to assume it’s divine punishment for trying to pull a prank on Twilight,” I sighed. “I bet one of the students at the school turned somepony into a newt. Again. It had just better not be who I think it is…”
I grumbled and stormed out of my room. It took me a few corridors full of panicking ponies before I started to actually get worried. They were scared enough that most of them didn’t even notice me, just rushing in every direction like ponies do when they’re terrified and don’t know which way to stampede.
“Hey, um--” I held out a hoof to stop a maid, and she just ran past me, knocking me out of the way with very un-maid-like rudeness.
I rubbed my hoof and backed out of the way.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll just figure it out myself, thanks!”
Something outside caught my eye. A bright light in the castle garden, like a big blue spotlight shining into the sky.
“You know, I bet that’s got something to do with it,” I said.
I popped into the garden with a quick teleport, the castle wards struggling and failing to keep up with my spell. Celestia had never bothered improving the wards after I’d left. Maybe Twilight hadn’t caused her as much trouble.
I would have spent more time pondering the differences between us as students, but as it turned out I was in the middle of a disaster zone.
“Sunset!” Celestia yelled. “You need to get away from here!”
She was struggling, all four hooves planted in place and digging into the ground like she was being shoved into the dirt. Her horn was blazing brighter than I’d ever seen before, and her efforts were focused on one of the ugliest statues in the garden, which was shaking and cracking like an egg about to hatch into something awful.
“Sister, she might be able to help!” Luna shouted, from the other side of the statue. She was trying to hold her ground on the opposite end.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “What can I do to help?”
“Discord is breaking free of his prison!” Celestia yelled. I saw one of her hooves slip, and she nearly fell before she caught herself. “We need to reforge the binding spells, but it’s taking everything I have just to slow his escape!”
“Binding spells -- this isn’t just a statue?!”
“I don’t have time to explain! Just help us hold the wards in place! If we can halt his progress I can begin fixing the broken spellwork!”
I nodded and got equidistant between Celestia and Luna, adding my magic to their own. It wasn’t really much of a spell, it was more like trying to hold sand in your hooves while it was fighting to escape. If we squeezed too might it would shatter what fragile threads of magic were still holding it together, and if we were too loose it would just overpower us and slip away.
Holding it like that, I caught a glimpse of the magic in the binding spell. It was beautiful. Like a rainbow geode, I hadn’t even known there was something inside until it was cracked and broken. I could have studied it for years. Even while I was struggling to hold to the same pace and strength as the Princesses I was doing my best to memorize what I could see.
“We’re doing it!” Luna shouted. “Just a little more!”
And then it all fell apart.
The statue exploded, shattering like a fossilized snakeskin over the mismatched horror beneath it. The backlash knocked me head over hooves into the bushes. When I stumbled out, I saw Celestia and Luna looking around, confused. The statue was gone, and the creature I’d glimpsed was nowhere to be found. Everything was quiet for a long, dizzying moment.
“Where did he go?” Luna asked.
“Could we have accidentally banished him?” Celestia muttered. “No. He must be weakened by his long imprisonment.”
“Au contraire, ma princesse! He’s back!” There was a flash of light unlike any teleportation spell I’d ever seen before, and the horror reappeared, wearing a giant floppy hat and accompanied by a band. “I just had to make a quick detour to Burrexico to pick up some appropriate diegetic music for this scene.”
“Who is this?” I whispered.
“It is Discord,” Luna muttered. “An ancient enemy of ours. He was turned to stone a thousand years ago when my sister and I used the Elements of Harmony on him.”
“How is he back now?” I hissed.
Discord nodded from where he was abruptly between me and Luna. “That is a very good question. Whose fault was it? Was it Celestia’s fault, for not doing any kind of proper maintenance over the last millennium? She didn’t even keep the pigeons away! And honestly, I can’t remember the last fight she won. She’s zero for two with her little sister.”
Discord snapped his talon and his band vanished. He started pacing around us, disappearing every time he left my field of view only to pop out somewhere else.
“Or maybe it was little Luna. After all, she needed help just to raise the sun, and she’s just so inferior to her big sis that she threw a temper tantrum about it. Of course, if Nightmare Moon was here she probably would have known what to do. I might not even have escaped! Instead we’ve just got Luna pretending she’s a good little pony now, without any of that useful spite or cruel creativity.”
Discord reached into Luna’s ear and pulled out Nightmare Moon’s helmet, rolling it along the back of his paw like a marble across his knuckles, then tossing it into the air. It hung in the sky like a pale blue moon, slowly spinning.
“But you know what? If I had to pin my money on somepony to blame, I think it would be the pony who thought she was good enough to be an alicorn,” Discord said. He popped in front of me and flicked my horn, sending a painful shiver down my spine. “You really are something. You think you deserve to be an alicorn. You barely even deserve to be a pony! Celestia just takes pity on you because she wants to make sure a dangerous element like you is kept under control. That’s why I was in the garden where she could keep an eye on me, and why she brought you back here where she could see every move you make.”
“That’s not true!” Celestia shouted. “Sunset, Luna, don’t listen to Discord’s lies. He’ll try to set us against each other because he knows we’re stronger together.”
“Oh yes, don’t listen to my lies, listen to hers instead.” Discord scoffed. “Like when you told Twilight the Mare in the Moon wasn’t real. Not that it’s a surprise since you told all your subjects that for centuries. Did you enjoy being the center of attention so much that you couldn’t even allow your sister to be in history books?”
Luna shot Celestia a look.
“I wouldn’t blame her too much, though,” Discord said. “After all, maybe she was just being nice and didn’t want her subjects to remember that her sister tried to kill her, blot out the sun, and destroy the world. Of course that was just so long ago. Months, at least! I’m sure in a few centuries you’ll find ponies who won’t be terrified of you.”
He turned to me.
“Not that--”
I didn’t let him keep talking. I threw a fireball in his face. It seemed like the thing to do. The first one knocked him down. The second one vanished in midair. The third one did a loop and came back to me. I threw a shield up and the spell splattered against it like tapioca, sliding to the ground as a glowing jelly.
“That was very rude,” Discord said. “Completely against all the rules of etiquette!”
“I’m not good at rules,” I said, stepping carefully away from the jellified spell. I had no idea what would happen if I touched it.
“Hm. You’re really not, are you?” Discord grinned. “You know, I think I like that about you, Sunset Shimmer. I was going to go cause some chaos and let your fake little family try to come up with a way to beat me, but I think I’ll leave the fun to you.”
“What are you talking about?” I backed up.
Discord snapped his talon and reappeared behind Celestia.
“Nothing personal,” he whispered in her ear, before taking her crown off. Celestia popped like he’d stuck a pin in her, deflating and falling to the ground before vanishing entirely.
Luna gasped and flew up, looking at me.
“Sunset, you must escape! Get to Twilight Sparkle and find the Elements of Harmony! They’re the only thing that can--”
“None of that,” Discord said. He reached out of a cloud just above Luna’s head and plucked her crown off. Luna melted before my eyes, falling down like a thick blue shower and landing next to Celestia’s limp form. I watched in horror as eyes bubbled to the surface and blinked.
A heavy weight fell on my head. Discord had fused the two crowns into an uneven, swirling mess.
“You’re in charge,” Discord said. “Consider it a gift. Well, not a gift so much as a curse, but really they’re the same thing if you don’t ask for it! Go and get your friends, if you still have any. They’re good ponies, they beat Nightmare Moon while you were being useless. I’m sure they can beat me, too.”
He leaned down to look me in the eyes, bending in the middle like a snake.
“And when you do see them again, remember to tell them thank you for having to fix all your mistakes.”
Canterlot was a disaster. I mean, it usually is. I’m not going to cherry coat it and say that anything ever ran smoothly -- the government was essentially an engine designed to move Celestia around all day and keep her signing things and smiling for the camera and she had to fight for every moment of free time. Every governmental body was more or less self-sufficient except for one little problem
Somepony still needed to sign on the dotted line, and with the crown on my head, that meant me.
I had a half-dozen books open in front of me when the first scroll was slapped down over them. For a brief moment, I thought somepony had found something so exciting and relevant that they had to interrupt my attempt to find a solution to the current issues. Then my tired eyes focused on the text, which was written to be as long and boring as possible to provide employment for scribes with nothing better to do.
“This is a budget proposal,” I said.
“Yes,” the pony holding it agreed. “A budget that needs to get passed, Your Highness.”
“Don’t call me that,” I corrected. “I’m busy right now. This can wait.”
“This can’t wait,” the shaggy, short stallion sighed. “If this budget doesn’t pass, work will stop on the northern rail lines.”
“So?” I frowned. “There’s nothing up there! Who cares?”
“Aside from the fact that we’ll have several hundred ponies who suddenly don’t have a paycheck, who will care very much, there are the suppliers for the steel, who have a contractual agreement to get paid as part of this budget, the miners they employ, and if work stops on the concrete foundations for any of the several bridges along the way, it won’t set properly and we’ll have to tear them down and start again, which will inflate costs by a factor of three or four, delay the construction by something close to a full year, and make ponies lose faith in the crown.” He let that sink in for a minute, not that I needed it. “So one could say there are quite a few ponies who care, Your Highness.”
I glared at him the whole time I signed that paper.
“Thank you,” he said, bowing. “By the way, when should we expect the sun to set this evening?”
I glanced at the clock. It was already eight. I swore loudly. He left without giving me a chance to answer him or, more likely, throw things at him.
“Okay, all I have to do is set the sun and raise the moon,” I said. “I’ve done this before! Sort of. Luna did it. But I was there to help!”
I got up and walked past a mirror on the way to the balcony. I stopped and tried to fix the crown. It was a swirly mess of metal and the worst thing wasn’t even that I couldn’t take it off -- it was stuck on my head like it had been nailed in place -- no, the worst thing was that it was just a little crooked, and I could feel it, just a little heavier on one side, just a little uneven.
Just enough to drive me bucking crazy after a few hours.
There wasn’t time to think about it. There wasn’t time for anything, really. I shook it off and walked outside. The sun was low on the horizon, and the moon was on the other edge of the sky, and it was like they could tell Celestia and Luna weren’t there because I’d swear they were staring at me.
“You’re going to move,” I said, firmly. “This is something I can do, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
Ninety percent of success was confidence. As long as I believed I could do it, I was most of the way to actually doing it.
I started pulling on the sun. Step one would be getting that big stupid thing dunked down out of the sky. It was as stubborn and inscrutable as Celestia and I’d swear it looked at me with the same subtle disapproval I always caught from her when she thought I couldn’t see.
I strained and pulled and the stupid sun just wiggled like the big, fat-- I yelled and stopped being so gentle and the whole thing changed color for a second before it slammed down like I’d kicked it.
“That’ll teach you,” I grumbled. I reached for the moon, expecting the same resistance.
It didn’t feel stubborn. It just felt sad. It was like I’d been yelling at a pony and I turned them around and they were crying and helpless and it was all my fault. I recoiled, stumbled back, and almost fell right off the balcony.
You know, like an idiot.
“Ma’am? Are you okay?” somepony asked.
Feather Duster was in the doorway, looking at me.
“I’m fine!” I snapped. I didn’t mean to yell at her. It was shame taking control. “Just get out of here!”
She backed off and bolted like she’d seen a ghost.
I took a deep breath and forced myself to touch the moon again. I had to do this. Just one night. As long as I could buy a few more hours and pretend everything was normal, I could fix things myself. It’d be fine. I didn’t need anypony else.
I nudged the moon, just a tiny bit and it started to respond. I had to be careful with it. Like trying to keep a feather hovering with your breath. Somewhere far beyond it in a direction I couldn’t properly feel, there was this sensation like it was nearly in place. Imagine trying to hang a picture on the sky, and the hook keeps moving around where you can’t see it, but you can feel you’re close.
The moon visibly snapped into place, and I let go before I could mess anything up. I really hoped nopony in the observatory had been looking.
I walked back inside and the fatigue hit me all at once. I could count the number of times I’d been truly magically exhausted on my hooves and I didn’t even have to use the bad one. Usually, when things got bad it was my body that gave out first, not my magic. Just putting the sun and moon in the right places felt like it’d almost killed me.
“It’s fine,” I whispered to myself. “By morning, I’ll have this figured out and Celestia can deal with it all then.”
I sat down behind the desk, my head pounding and the crown making it worse, and before I could even turn one page, there was a knock on the door.
“What?!” I snapped.
A grey mare looked inside and held up a stack of papers and letters.
“Ma’am, the diplomatic correspondence is here. We need you to go over some of the proposals, there are letters from Saddle Arabia and Griffonstone, and there’s a threatening letter.”
“Why can’t Cadance deal with all that?” I asked, the word ‘diplomatic’ helping a few of my brain cells rub together the right way. “She’s got better hornwriting than I do anyway.”
“Cadance?” the grey mare asked, sounding as confused as I was becoming.
I narrowed my eyes. “Cadance. Princess of love. Actually has a title and some kind of official authority. Does diplomacy stuff professionally, unlike me! Cadance!”
“Ma’am, I, um…” the mare blinked.
I grabbed the stack of papers and got up.
“Fine, I’ll find her myself. You stay here and tell anypony if they need something signed, put it in my inbox.” I shoved a garbage can into her hooves and stormed off.
Cadance’s wing of the palace was surprisingly subdued. It was the newest part of the castle if you didn’t count the bits that had blown up because of one magical accident or another. The gold details were subtle rose gold, the curtains were all pastel colors instead of white, and they’d made the corridors a little smaller and more intimate than the huge hallways of the rest of the building.
Usually, there were a bunch of guards around. I didn’t see anypony. It was like the whole wing had been abandoned.
“Cadance?” I called out. “Are you here?”
Maybe I was just being stupid. I could have sworn she was around, but if she’d gone on a trip it would explain why the mare hadn’t gone to Cadance with all the letters.
Still, it was weird there were no maids or just guards on patrol. Shining Armor usually had a couple of his best ponies trotting around. There was a weird sense that I didn’t belong, that I was an intruder. It wasn’t like this was my first time in Cadance’s wing, nor was it strange for me to be alone in a castle.
“Hey, is anypony here?” I shouted, trying to break the silence.
“Sunset?”
I turned my head and followed the voice, pushing open a door. Cadance was there, carrying a tub of ice cream.
“I knew you’d still be around,” I sighed, a tiny fraction of my stress dissolving. “I’m not sure how much you know about what’s going on--”
She pulled me into a hug before I could finish. I dropped the letters and froze up.
“I thought everypony forgot me!” Cadance sobbed. “You’re the first pony I’ve seen all day that even knew my name!”
“What?” I asked.
“It’s true!” Cadance let go and started pacing. “Ever since this morning, it’s like… it’s like nopony here knows me! They just look right past me and if I talk to them, they forget about it a few minutes later!”
“That’s…” I hesitated. “Discord must have done something.”
“Who’s Discord?”
“Some kind of chaos spirit. It’s why I’ve got this stupid thing on my head.” I tapped the crown. “He also, um… put a curse on Celestia and Luna. They’re alive but literally in no shape to run the country.”
“I wasn’t even supposed to be here today,” Cadance sighed. “I was supposed to be going on a trip overseas.”
“I’m glad to have you here,” I told her. “Ponies keep giving me paperwork to sign and I already had to go to the dungeon once and tell the guards that just because I get annoyed at a pony and yell at them, it doesn’t mean I wanted them locked up!”
“Wonderful,” Cadance groaned.
“If I can get all this sent to you, could you take care of it?” I asked. “You’re better at it than I am, and your signature actually counts for something. I don’t even want to know what kind of horseapples are gonna fall out of the tree once they snap out of it and realize everything I put my name on is about as valid as a wooden bit.”
Cadance smiled. “And while I do that, you can figure out this whole… Discord thing?”
“Exactly!” I grinned. “See, Cadance, this is why you’re one of my favorite princesses.”
“I bet I’m in your top three,” Cadance agreed, giggling.
“You know it.” I winked.
With Cadance taking some of the administrative load off my back, I was finally able to sit down and really crunch the books. I had peace for a solid hour before I was interrupted again with a knock on the door.
“It’s open,” I called out, my mood a little better than it had been.
The door opened slowly, and the last pony I expected looked inside.
“Princess Celestia?” Twilight Sparkle asked. The expression on her face said that I wasn’t who she wanted to see either.
“I wish,” I muttered. My headache doubled. “What are you doing here?”
“Shiny sent me a letter that something was wrong and I needed to get up here,” Twilight said, stepping in without asking. She left the door open behind her, and her eyes trailed up to the crown on my head. “What happened?”
“It’s--” I paused because I could hear more ponies outside. “Let me guess. You brought everypony in the palace.”
“Just our friends,” Twilight said.
I sighed. “I don’t want to explain this twice. Or three times if Dash isn’t paying attention. Just get them in here.”
Twilight waved, and I sat down behind the desk again. It was too big for me, but just the right size for the problem I was trying to solve.
“Princess Celestia and Luna are out of action,” I said. Might as well rip that bandaid off right away. “Apparently she likes to collect villains and keep them as lawn ornaments and one of them finally escaped.”
“Out of action?” Applejack asked. I looked up at her. She wasn’t the kind of pony I could lie to. None of them were.
“I don’t even know how to describe it,” I told her. “They’re alive, but, um, not in good shape.” Literally, since one was a puddle and the other was stretched taffy. “But I think if I can catch the thing that did this, I can make him undo everything.”
“Um, darling,” Rarity swallowed. “There’s… you realize…?”
“I didn’t ask for this stupid crown!” I snapped. “I know it’s crooked, I know it’s ugly, and I don’t need anypony to tell me!”
“I was going to say you look pale,” Rarity said, like she was talking to a foal. “Maybe you should rest for a moment.”
“I can’t rest right now,” I said. I closed my eyes, trying to make everything stop spinning. I was getting an awful migraine. “I have to fix this first.”
“Then let us help,” Twilight said. She put a hoof on my shoulder. “It’ll be easier with all of us working on it. You don’t have to do this alone--”
“You mean you think I can’t do it alone!” I shoved her away and glared at her. She looked shocked. “This is my fault! I should have been able to help, but they just-- I was useless! Again!”
“Woah nelly, calm down!” Applejack said, like right now, when everything was going wrong, was the time to calm down.
“We just wanna help,” Pinkie said. She was… subdued. Maybe she was the smartest pony in the room. I couldn’t handle her pronking around right now, and being more calm and quiet than usual was a welcome surprise. “You seem like you can use a smile. And a cupcake. And probably some coffee.”
“I probably could use coffee,” I admitted. “I just… asking for anything from the staff right now is… I don’t deserve anything until I can fix this mistake.”
“How about we walk down to the kitchen and talk on the way?” Twilight suggested. “You always said you thought better on your hooves, and maybe explaining what you’ve found out to us will help you put it together yourself.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay. Right. You’re right.” I stood up. “Come on.”
I walked outside. The guards there saluted, and that nearly sent me running. It would have, if the step backward I took hadn’t ended with me bumping into Fluttershy.
I lowered my head and walked forward very quickly until I was alone. Alone with a half-dozen ponies following me, but the point is there wasn’t anyone saluting me or asking me to sign tax documents or needing to be blasted in the face for being Blueblood.
“So how worried should we be about all this?” Dash asked. “Just ballpark it for me on a scale of Scootaloo to Nightmare Moon.”
“That’s a really narrow scale,” I said, once I’d composed myself a little. I took a deep breath and turned to face them. Something caught my eye. I’d run right into one of the castle’s stained glass galleries, and the perfect one to illustrate my point. Literally.
I pointed to a window. It was one of the few that had both Celestia and Luna, and showed them triumphant over a cowering, twisted form.
“From the research I’ve done, his name is Discord,” I said. “He’s some kind of chaos spirit. I’ve already tried blasting him, and he got the drop on Celestia and Luna. Maybe they could have taken him if they’d been ready for it.”
“Are they using the Elements of Harmony in that picture?” Twilight asked.
“It’s not exactly historically accurate,” I said, trying not to sound as annoyed as I felt at the question. “But it’s possible. Records from that time are sketchy at best.”
“Are they really the Elements?” Dash asked. “They’re doing the whole wham-bam-rainbow but they’re just sort of floating there. The ones we found looked like necklaces.”
“And a crown,” Fluttershy corrected. My eyebrow twitched at the word.
“Unfortunately, the artist got it right,” the window said. The twisted, screaming form of Discord suddenly animated, the glass flowing like water even while I watched. “But can you imagine them trying to wear all that jewelry?”
The window shifted, and the picture of Celestia suddenly had a long, goose-like neck, just perfect for wearing the five Elements she had around it.
“Very lifelike,” Discord said, rubbing his chin. “I swear I’m looking at the real thing!”
I blasted the window. It shattered, exploded out over the garden, and hung there, the shards of glass spinning in mid-air.
“You girls get out of here,” I said. “I’ll take care of him.”
The glass snapped back into place like it was exploding in reverse.
“That was rather rude,” Discord said, appearing in a flash of light in front of us. “You know, I wasn’t even done speaking, and here you are making me fix things. My powers aren’t supposed to be about fixing things! That just goes to show you who the real villain is, hmmmmm?”
“I guess it was too much to hope you’d obey the laws of physics for once,” I muttered.
“I’m a repeat offender,” Discord admitted, his skin and scales changing to black and white stripes. “But I’ve served my time, and I’ve learned a valuable lesson. It’s almost like one of those trite little friendship lessons you’re all so fond of.”
“They’re not trite!” Twilight snapped. Apparently, he’d hit a nerve.
“I apologize,” Discord said. “I should have said they’re insipid. Shallow. Pedantic. Inshalledantric.”
“They’re none of those things! Especially not the last thing since that’s not a word!” Twilight yelled.
“Somepony’s touchy about her personal correspondence,” Discord said, rolling his eyes right out of his head. “The important thing isn’t you, it’s me! And what I learned from being a perch for migratory birds for a dozen centuries is that Celestia is an incredibly boring ruler and all of you should be thanking me for making your lives more interesting.”
“I’ll thank you if you fix what you did to Celestia and get this stupid crown off my head,” I said.
“You’ve tried to kill me! Twice!” Discord scoffed. “Frankly that already makes you much more fit for the throne than your quote-mother-unquote. If there weren’t already so many ponies throwing themselves at your hooves I’d be tempted to try a little shipping industry of my own, if you know what I mean.”
“What?” I frowned.
“Darling, you really don’t want to know,” Rarity whispered. “You’re already in a bad mood.”
“You girls just find the Elements while I keep him busy,” I said. “Celestia has them in a vault somewhere. The guards have to know where they are.” I didn’t like the idea of using the Elements, but maybe it would still count as me solving things if I held him down while they blasted him with rainbows.
“Let me save you the effort,” Discord said. “I’ve already removed your Elements from where Celestia was keeping them. It would be cute to have you act all shocked that they’re gone, but I’ve got things to do and I’ve already had my dramatic appearance in this scene. If I wait for you to crack open Sunbutt’s Mystery Box I wouldn’t have time to make it rain vanilla milkshake over Seasaddle.”
“They’re gone?!” Rarity gasped.
“I’ll give you a door prize since you came all this way,” Discord said. He tapped her forehead, and a hat appeared on her head, sprouting feathers and then flying away. “One size fits all, if you can catch it. No refunds.”
“Stop playing stupid games!” I shouted. “If you don’t fix all this now, I swear--”
“Oh, did someone say game?” Discord grinned. “And perchance for interest’s sake, a game with the highest stakes?”
“Knife monopoly.” Dash nodded.
“I was going to make you go on a scavenger hunt for the Elements of Harmony, but now I’m interested in whatever knife monopoly is.”
“It ain’t a thing,” Applejack said. “Don’t listen t’ Dash, she’s an idiot.”
“That’s too bad,” Discord sighed. “It could have been as fun as Dart Tag.”
“Stop interrupting me!” I yelled. “None of you are taking this seriously!”
“Oh, it’s very serious,” Discord said, his tone turning sinister. “I’m giving you a chance because it’s no fun unless you think you can win. I’ve been waiting for hours for someone to do something interesting, but all this one has done is paperwork and light reading!” He motioned at me and rolled his eyes. “Between that and the attitude I can see why she didn’t qualify for your little Elements of Harmony club.”
I grit my teeth so hard my molars felt like they might crack.
“So, here’s the game,” Discord said. “I’ve hidden the Elements of Harmony. I would have enjoyed destroying them but I have a nasty feeling it wouldn’t end well for anyone, myself included.”
“Are we supposed to search all of Equestria?” Dash asked. “I’m fast, but not that fast.”
“I suppose you do need a clue. I had plenty of time to work on a little something while Equestria’s new worst ruler was trying to find a spell that would get Luna out of her bucket.” He cleared his throat and pulled out a scroll. “To retrieve your missing Elements, just make sense of this change of events. Twists and turns are my master plan. Then find the Elements back where you began.”
“What the heck does all that mean?” Applejack asked.
“It means… Good luck,” Discord said, snapping his talon and vanishing.
“Twists and turns?” Fluttershy asked.
“It’s some kind of riddle,” Twilight explained. “I guess that’s not a surprise. Riddle contests are very common with powerful magical creatures. It’s a traditional contest.”
“And you really think a monster like Discord cares about tradition?” I asked.
“I think when you’ve been locked in stone for a thousand years you probably haven’t been able to learn about more recent developments in dramatic challenges,” Twilight countered.
“It wasn’t a very good poem,” Pinkie noted. “It really needed some stronger rhymes, but maybe all those half-rhymes sort of fit better with it being a chaotic mess? I donno. What do you think? Is it subtle theming or sloppy slam poetry?”
“I think I need something stronger than coffee,” I mumbled.
“It’s the hedge maze!” Twilight gasped. “That must be where he hid them!”
“He could have put them anywhere,” I said. “Even if he told you exactly where they were, you couldn’t trust him! This is just a sick game!”
“Exactly,” Twilight said, with a grin like she’d figured something out and she wasn’t just being tricked like an idiot. “And that means there are rules! We just have to figure them out and we can win!”
“If you play his game at all, you lose,” I said. “We’ll go back to the library and figure out our own plan.”
“Sunset, as much as I’d love to spend all night in the library, we don’t have a choice,” Twilight said. “If he’s really stronger than Celestia we need to play along for now.”
“That’s the dumbest thing you’ve said all night!” I snapped. “Twilight you’re supposed to be the smart one and you want to run off and do what he wants you to do! He’s playing you!”
She shrank back, ears folding.
“If you want to walk right into a trap, go ahead! But you’re doing it without me!”
I stormed away, slamming every door I could between me and my friends.
“Is there anything else I can help with?” Ruby asked. She put a big book on the desk, struggling to lift the tome with her magic.
“No. Thank you.” I sighed. “At least you believe in me. Thanks for finding those books.”
“No problem!” Ruby smiled and saluted. “I know you can do anything.”
“Not anything, but Celestia beat him once already. If she did it, it can be done, and if there’s one way to solve a problem, it means there’s probably another. He’s going to be focused on whatever Twilight and the others are doing, and that means I have the opportunity to get him by surprise.”
“Are they the friends you told me about?” Ruby asked.
I sighed. “Yeah, and they’re being really stupid right now,” I said. “Any minute now, they’re going to walk through that door, and…”
I trailed off, tapping my hoof and looking at the door.
“And what?” Ruby asked.
“Wait for it,” I said.
The door slammed open, and Twilight stomped inside, her head hung low.
I glanced out the window. The sky was currently a checkerboard of night and day, and the nearest cloud waved at me. I waved back, because what else do you do in that kind of situation?
“Let me guess,” I said, before she’d even had time to sit down. “The Elements weren’t there and it was a gigantic waste of time.”
She nodded mutely.
“I told you what would happen,” I huffed. “You could have been helping me instead of playing around with someone who was never, ever, going to give you a fair chance!”
“He never even said they were in the maze,” Twilight whispered. “He just separated us, and we ran through the whole thing, and now everypony is acting weird.”
I looked past her at the others. There was something about them that looked a little off. Fluttershy was trying to chip some big rock Rarity was dragging around. Dash had been dragged in by her ear. Applejack was babbling something about how it had gone better than she expected, and Pinkie Pie just looked the way I felt.
“They’re fine,” I decided.
“And you know what else?” Twilight asked. She looked up to meet my gaze. “Discord said you’d do this. You’d just… yell instead of trying to help.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, slamming my hoof down on the desk. “Trying to help you do what? Run around like an idiot?! I’m the only pony doing anything useful, as far as I can see! You went chasing off after some rumor and it bit you on the flank!”
“If you’d come with us--”
“If I’d gone with you, you would still have failed, and I wouldn’t have these books checked off my list!”
Twilight frowned and walked up to the desk, looking over my work. I could tell she was already regretting running off and not listening to me.
“These are…” she hesitated. “Sunset, these are all about dark magic. The Neonomicon Ex Libre, Naturan Demanto, De Daemonis Mysteriis? Why are you looking at these?”
“What do you think, Twilight?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “I need to beat Discord! That doesn’t mean some happy little book about spells to clean a window or turn apples into oranges!”
“Sunset, these books are dangerous,” Twilight said. “They’re just going to make things worse. If we can find the elements of harmony…”
“If you can find them, what?” I demanded. “They didn’t work the first time! Otherwise, he wouldn’t be running around turning Equestria into a mess! A mess I have to rule, because he stuck the crown on my head!”
“That doesn’t mean anything!” Twilight shouted. “Please, Sunset, if we put our heads together I know we can figure this out! We just need to work together and--”
“If you want to work with somepony, work with them!” I yelled, pointing at her friends. Our friends. Not that any of them had bothered coming to see me since I’d come to Canterlot. “You’re such a special pony you didn’t just replace me as Celestia’s student, you got to steal my friends, too!”
“Sunset, it’s not--”
“Not what?! Not that you come out of nowhere and suddenly you’ve got some special magical connection to ponies I’ve known for years?!” I grabbed her ear and pulled her closer.
“Stop, you’re hurting me!” Twilight wailed.
“You just want to find the Elements to show off how special you are and how much better you are than me!” I screamed. “Well they’re not bucking here, and you can go find them yourself!”
I shoved her away. She looked up at me like she wanted to say something, then silently plodded out of the room. Her friends followed her. Most of them. I had to shove Dash out. I slammed the door so they’d know they weren’t welcome back, then I slammed it a few more times just to try and calm down.
I stormed back to my desk-- I mean, back to Celestia’s desk, and tried to remember where I was. I’d been reading up on an amulet that was supposed to increase a pony’s magical power, but now I couldn’t find the page.
“Where’s Encyclopediae Majika?” I muttered. “Ruby, did you see where I put it?”
She didn’t say anything. I looked up.
Ruby Drop was cowering in the far corner of the room, staring at me.
“What?” I asked.
“You were--” She swallowed. “Y-you were yelling, a-and now you’re even more pale than you were--”
“I didn’t ask you about how I looked!” I snapped. “Either help me find that book or get out so I can focus!”
Ruby looked at me, then the bookshelf, not moving from where she was.
I growled, watching her do nothing for several very long seconds. Then I opened the door and threw her out. I didn’t have time to foalsit. If she wasn’t going to help, she was in the way.
I sighed. Now that I was alone, I could really get down to brass tacks and find an answer.
“Most evil book in the world my flank!” I growled, throwing the Book of Vile Darkness across the room. It hit the wall and slid down slowly, faintly screaming. “More like the most tacky and edgy book. Like anypony has fifty gallons of blood stored at high pressure just lying around to try any of the spells to begin with.”
I’d spent all night trying to come up with an answer. I’d found nothing, unless I really wanted to try doing a lot of necromancy all at once. I wasn’t sure an army of the restless dead was going to do much against Discord, though.
I rubbed my eyes and looked out the window. I’m not sure if I looked by chance or because I’d felt something tugging at my attention, but I saw when it happened.
A wave of rainbow light was rushing towards me. In its wake, the sky returned to normal, a patchwork mess of swirling colors turning into a pleasant morning. It washed over me like a tide, and the crown flew off my head, hitting the floor and breaking apart, the two crowns coming untwisted and reforming back like they should have been.
I stared at them, not understanding.
I was still there a few moments later when Celestia and Luna teleported into the room.
“Sunset, you’re okay!” Celestia said, relieved. She ran over, hoof hitting her crown and knocking it aside. Like it didn’t even matter. She pulled me into a hug and squeezed. “I was so worried.”
“Whatever you did, it has freed us from his spells,” Luna said.
“I didn’t do anything,” I said, confused. “I’ve been doing research and trying to find something, but…”
“I’m just glad you’re safe,” Celestia said. “Discord is an incredibly dangerous being.”
“If you didn’t defeat him, it could only have been the Elements,” Luna said.
“That’s impossible,” I said. “Discord took them. He hid them somewhere. I told Twilight it was stupid to even look. For all we know, he dropped them in the ocean!”
“It’s not that easy to separate the Elements from their bearers,” Celestia said. “I doubt he could have moved them too far…”
As if on cue, a swirl of green flame appeared, dropping a scroll on her overfilled desk.
“And that must contain our answer,” Celestia said, picking it up and unfurling it. She smiled. “There’s only a short note, but apparently Twilight wanted to let us know right away that Discord had been resealed in stone. She’s also asking if you’re feeling any better.”
Luna, meanwhile, was looking at Celestia’s desk. “The Black Yoke?” She asked, glancing at the title of one of the dozen forbidden books I had open.
I swallowed, sweat starting to drip down my face. It all hit me. All the things I’d said to my friends. Kicking them out of the castle. Screaming in Twilight’s face. I’d screwed it all up. I’d burned every bridge I’d ever had, and for what?
So they could prove me wrong? So they could go and beat Discord while I was useless? Again?
Just like when they’d beaten Nightmare Moon.
“I have to go,” I said, breathlessly.
“Cadance!” I yelled, running into the conference room. She looked up. “You said you were supposed to leave the country, right?”
She nodded.
“I was going to Saddle Arabia for a treaty signing,” she said. “Why? What’s going on?”
“I just…” I hesitated. “I need to get out of here.”
“What happened?” Cadance asked. She put a hoof on my back. "You look so pale. Maybe you should lie down."
“Please, just…” I swallowed. “I…”
She rubbed my back for a long few moments.
“Okay,” she said, very quietly. “If you really need to go, you can take the trip for me. But I want you to promise me that you’ll come back.”
“I will,” I said, even if I felt like I was probably lying when I said it. “I just need to…” To what? To make up for it? I couldn’t just apologize. I needed to make up for it. I needed to prove I deserved forgiveness.
My name is Comet Wishes, and I am the most powerful unicorn in Professor Hornwaggle’s second-year thaumaturgy class at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. I should be at the top of my class, but Inky Quill got a perfect score on the last test, and I’m pretty sure she cheated, even if I can’t prove it. There’s no way anypony can read a whole book in just a week!
I should have been studying for tomorrow’s class, but I was distracted. My best friend and roommate, Presto Chango, had barely gotten in the door to our dorm room before she dragged me away from my homework to tell me about another story of hers.
“I’m telling you, Comet, this is real!” She said, excited. She was bouncing so much that her mane had come undone again, the multicolored braids flailing around her face as she spoke. I wasn’t sure what her natural mane color was - her special talent was changing colors, and she mostly used that talent on herself.
“That’s what you said about the haunted library room,” I groaned. “We spent all night in there and nothing happened!”
“But this is way cooler!” Presto grinned and finally sat down, close enough to wrap a hoof around my shoulders. “I saw it myself this time. There’s an evil sorceress who sneaks into Clover Hall at midnight!”
“The High Energy Magic building?” I asked, not quite pushing Presto away. The hug was keeping her from bouncing around.
“Yeah! She’s probably trying to steal the school’s ancient magical secrets. Evil sorceresses do that.”
She had a point. Evil sorceresses did steal ancient secrets.
“Then obviously we need to tell the teachers,” I said.
“If we do that, we won’t be able to stop her ourselves,” Presto said. “And if we stop her, we’ll probably get extra credit!”
I gasped. “Then I’d be the top student again, and you’d be…” I frowned.
“Tenth or eleventh. I’m not quite dead last, thanks to your notes.” She grinned. She'd spent a whole week learning a spell that could copy notes from me. Presto had almost gotten into a ton of trouble until she'd adjusted the spell to change the hornwriting to look like hers, too.
“Well, what do we know about the sorceress?” I asked.
“She wears a big black cloak to disguise herself, so she has to be, like, a half-dragon and trying to hide her hideous, twisted form!”
“That’s stupid,” I snorted. “Dragons don’t work like that.”
“Yeah they do!” Presto insisted. “I read it in a book!”
I rubbed my chin at that. She had a strong point. Everything in books was true, otherwise they wouldn’t be allowed to print it.
“Even so, I’m sure we’d hear if there was a half-dragon student,” I said.
“I don’t think she’s a student,” Presto said.
“Well then why is she here?” I huffed. “And don’t tell me she’s here to eat foals. Nopony does that.”
“There’s only one way to find out.” She grinned. “You still know that invisibility spell?”
“This is so stupid,” I grumbled, as we waited in the bushes outside the new school building. I’d never been inside -- only the oldest students had any classes in the High-Energy Magic Department, so it was always the subject of rumors, some of which were definitely true. Someday I'd prove the cafeteria food was part of a secret experiment.
“It’s not stupid,” Presto whispered. “I’m sure she’ll be here!”
“It’s already dark out. We’ll get in trouble if we’re not in the dorms!”
“We’ll be fine,” Presto assured me. “Pixie is covering for us.”
I rolled my eyes, not that Presto could see it. We were both invisible, after all. “Pixie Stick is an idiot. She’s going to get hopped up on sugar and end up stacking all the furniture in the dorm rooms in a big pile. Again.”
“Exactly,” Presto said. “I gave her a whole bag full of candy. The dorm marm is gonna be so busy trying to calm her down that they’ll never even think to come looking for us!”
It was a brilliant plan. I wasn’t going to admit that to Presto, though, so I just huffed and waited, looking out for the witch.
We didn’t have to wait long. I heard the hooves long before I saw the dark shape emerge from the gloom. Her eyes were glowing like lanterns from within the blackness of her hooded cloak, and she walked with an odd, lopsided gait, favoring one of her legs. We watched from our hiding spot as the witch pushed the door to the building open with a scarred hoof.
She slipped inside, and before the door could close completely, I grabbed it with my magic, not letting it lock.
“Good work!” Presto said, patting me awkwardly on the butt.
“That’s my flank, Presto,” I groaned.
“I know,” she said. “Now let’s get inside and see if she’s turning the bad students into frogs!”
I groaned and we walked into the building, staying close enough to each other to touch so we wouldn’t get lost. We kept a healthy distance from the witch, watching as she went deep into the building.
"Presto," I whispered. "If she turns the bad students into frogs, what's she gonna do to us?"
“We won't get caught. Where’s she going?” Presto whispered.
“It has to be some kind of secret lair!” I said. “I can feel the magic in my horn.” It was like a strange tingle in the air. I’d felt it sometimes when teachers would demonstrate spells, but here it was thick, like a dense, invisible fog of magical energy.
“Is that what this feeling is?” Presto asked.
“I’ve never felt anything like it. Maybe we should just go back…” I stopped walking.
“We can’t go back now! We’re so close to finding out what she’s doing!”
She had a point, but she’d need a better argument than that.
“And with this much magic, it has to be really cool! I bet if we watch, we can learn a new spell and totally make everyone else in the dorm jealous!”
Presto was really good at convincing me of things.
“Fine,” I said. “But we’re only going to stay long enough to see what’s happening. I can’t keep this spell going forever.”
We walked down the hallway, through the miasma of magic. I tried to imagine what somepony could do with that much magical energy. Maybe they were going to blow up the sun!
A door was cracked open, and I could see light coming from within, the steady, clean light of a magical lantern. We had the same kind of lights in our dorms. Apparently they didn’t trust us with fire, and it was a standing tradition that electrical appliances were banned except when absolutely needed.
We crept closer, until we could hear voices from within.
“...I read through the books you left me. Or, um, I tried. I didn’t understand much of it.” Presto and I shared a look. It sounded like a filly, maybe even a little younger than we were.
“Don’t worry,” said another voice. This one sounded like a grown-up. “I didn’t think you’d read all the way through them. They kinda get into some complicated theory for a foal your age. I'm impressed you got this far.”
"But I didn't understand all of it," the filly said. She sounded sad. "Is that why I can't take regular classes?"
"No, no, that's not it. I'm just trying to figure out how much you know and what we need to shore up," the grown-up said. "At this rate, you'll be caught up to ponies your age before the end of the school year. You're a really dedicated student."
“I didn’t have much else to do,” the filly sighed. Presto and I looked in through the crack in the door. There was a room inside, a classroom with most of the desks removed and replaced with the contents of a dorm.
“Sorry,” the mare said. The two were standing near the front of the room. The evil sorceress had pulled back her hood, revealing a mane full of red and yellow stripes. She definitely looked evil. She even had scars! Daring Do books had taught me that anypony with scars was probably evil.
Presto shot me a look. I had to carefully control my expression to avoid letting her know that she had been right all along.
“It’s okay,” the filly said. Unlike the sorceress, she looked harmless. “I’m just glad that you’re teaching me.”
“I shouldn’t be leaving you alone for so long. You’ll end up as antisocial as I am. Or worse, like Twilight.” The witch shook her head. “First it’s spending all day with books, then it’s a slippery slope all the way to checklists and doing unnatural things with the romance section.”
The filly giggled. “I promise not to ruin any of the book bindings.”
“What are they talking about?” Presto whispered.
“I don’t know but it sounds gross,” I muttered. Presto nodded.
“How about we start today by practicing your Life Sense spell?” The fire-colored sorceress smirked, as if holding back laughter at a private joke.
“Um, okay,” the filly nodded. “I was practicing while you were gone, Miss Shimmer, and I think I really have it down!”
“Show me,” the mare said. The filly concentrated, a red aura glowing around her horn. A wave of misty magic pulsed out away from her, fading quickly with distance. I felt it pass over me and Presto, with a strange tugging sensation at something inside me.
The filly gasped.
“There are two ponies right outside!” She backed up, obviously afraid.
“They’ve been following me for a few minutes now,” the mare said. She looked back at us, and I saw her eyes glowing. “It would be polite if they came in and introduced themselves instead of just eavesdropping.”
“She spotted us!” Presto screamed. She turned to run, not even making it a single step down the hall before she was grabbed by the tail. "She's gonna turn me into a toad!"
“Your invisibility spell is pretty good for your age, but it's a rookie mistake to forget to disguise your shadows,” the mare explained, as she dragged us into the room by her magic, the veil around us shredding apart without even any visible effort on her part.
“P-please don’t eat us!” I begged. It wasn’t proper for a gifted unicorn to beg like this, but I’d rather beg than be eaten.
“I don’t eat ponies,” the mare huffed.
“T-then don’t blow up the sun!” Presto pleaded.
“Blow up the--” the mare rolled her eyes. “That’s impossible for so many reasons I don’t even know where to start. Why would I want to blow up the sun or eat foals?”
“You’re an evil sorceress! Evil sorceresses all want to blow up the sun and eat ponies!”
“First, I’m not an evil sorceress. I couldn’t even manage to hit morally ambiguous,” the mare rolled her eyes. “I know, totally inappropriate for a witch. I’m dangerously close to being a responsible member of society.”
“B-but the black cloak!” I protested. “And the sneaking around! And the…” I looked at the confused looking filly who had been waiting ever since casting her spell. “And the foal that… you’re teaching?”
“Teaching a filly in a school?” The mare gasped. “How villainous. No wonder you needed to stalk me.”
“S-sorry,” I mumbled.
“I suppose the right thing to do would be to get the dean and have both of you yelled at for a while,” the mare considered.
“Please don’t!” Presto gasped. “My momma would never forgive me if I dropped out!”
“Miss Shimmer, m-maybe…” the filly watching us swallowed nervously. “Maybe we can just let them go?”
“Just let them go?” The mare, apparently Miss Shimmer, seemed to roll that thought around for a while. I was watching my whole future get decided in front of me, and I had a sick feeling that she had already decided everything, and even making a decision was just part of an act.
“I-I mean if you want to, your highness…” the foal whispered, ears folding back.
“I’m not a princess, Ruby,” Miss Shimmer rolled her eyes.
“You’re kind of like a princess,” the filly, Ruby, retorted.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Miss Shimmer said. “You stop calling me ‘your highness’ and I won’t take these two to the dean.” The filly nodded quickly. “Fine. But they still need to be punished…” She grinned. “And I know just what to do.”
“How could she give us more homework?!” I groaned, face down in a book as thick as my hoof. “This is so stupid!”
“It’s better than being in trouble with the dean,” Presto said. “And some of this is kinda interesting. I don’t even think we’re supposed to be reading these books yet! This one’s all about high-level transmutation magic.” She turned the book she was reading around with her magic so I could see the diagrams on the page. “This one’s about how to turn a pony into a newt! Or… maybe it turns lead into gold. Or lead into newts. Pretty sure it doesn’t turn a pony into gold, though.”
“What do you think that filly meant when she said Miss Shimmer was like a princess?” I asked, thinking. “She doesn’t have wings, or a crown.”
“Prince Blueblood doesn’t have wings either,” Presto pointed out. “And if she did have wings, she could hide them under that cloak.”
“Blueblood is just a prince. That’s totally different than a princess,” I snorted.
“I don’t think it’s all that different…” Presto considered. “I mean, a prince is like a colt version of a princess, right?”
“Shows how much you know,” I retorted. “While technically you’re right, a prince doesn’t have any real power on his own, traditionally. They just get married off for political reasons, and princesses hold all the real power. Besides, all the Princesses are alicorns.”
“So what we need to do is…” Presto rubbed her chin. “We steal her cloak and find out if she has wings!”
“Presto,” I sighed.
“Yeah?” She looked up.
“Just get back to work. We need to read this by tonight.”
“Well, I can’t give you very high marks for the theory,” Miss Shimmer said, as she looked over our papers. “But I guess since you’re just students it’s not terrible. Don’t they teach you fillies anything about combat magic these days?”
“Um…” I looked at Presto. She shrugged at me.
“Really?!” Miss Shimmer huffed. “Back when I was in school, Mom taught me third-circle combat magic before I was your age!”
“Your mother is a teacher here?” I asked.
“Something like that,” Miss Shimmer muttered. “She doesn’t take on a lot of students, though.” She took a deep breath. “I guess there’s only one thing to do. Ruby, these two are going to have to join us for lessons from now on.”
Ruby blinked. She was sitting away from us, obviously a little scared.
“B-but is that safe?” She asked.
“It’s safe,” Miss Shimmer said, without hesitation. “At least as safe as learning combat magic ever gets.”
“But what about my…” Ruby stopped, biting her lip.
“You know how to control it,” Miss Shimmer said, sounding almost reassuring.
“But what if something happens?!” Ruby was starting to panic. I’d seen the signs before in fillies, though usually it was on exam day. “They could get really badly hurt! They’re not like you, where you can just keep yourself safe!”
“Exactly,” Miss Shimmer agreed. “They can’t. But you know what, Ruby Drop? There are two ways to learn. You can learn by reading and theory and getting all the facts in order, and hope that your theory works when you need it to. Or, you can just try and learn by doing. The second way is a little messier, but then, when push comes to shove, you’ll know for a fact that you’re ready.”
“Professor Birch Staff says you shouldn’t cast a spell unless you know exactly what it does,” I said. “She says if you just cast blindly you end up with skeletons.”
“Skeletons?” Miss Shimmer asked, an eyebrow raising with obvious skepticism.
“I didn’t believe her either,” Presto said. “Not until Dirge tried casting a spell from that book with a big silver skull on it and skeletons popped out. It took days to get rid of them.”
“I’m still finding skeletons in my closet sometimes,” I sighed.
“And I thought the school would be less exciting without me or Twilight around,” Miss Shimmer muttered. “Okay. I’m putting necromancy on the lesson plan, so you can learn to safely deal with skeletons.”
“But necromancy is illegal!” Presto yelled.
“It’s fine, I have a permit,” Miss Shimmer waved a dismissive hoof. “Anyway, I believe in practical work. You can learn theory on your own. You only need a teacher for the parts where something might blow up.”
“S-so what should we do today?” Ruby asked. “I mean, um, you were teaching me about… about…” She looked at me and Presto, as if afraid of spilling some secret.
“About blood magic, yes,” Miss Shimmer said.
“Isn’t that… also illegal?” Presto asked.
“Special education permit,” Miss Shimmer noted. “It’s Ruby Drop’s special talent. It’s extremely useful for basic healing effects. She wants to be a doctor, something I think she’d excel at.” She shrugged. “So, tell me about your talents.”
“Well, um,” I coughed. “I got my cutie mark for replicating other spells.”
“Spell replication? Show me.” Miss Shimmer waited.
“Um,” I said, looking around. “Someone has to cast a spell for me to copy first.”
“Fair enough,” Miss Shimmer said. She raised a hoof, and a ball of light formed, floating above it, a swirling mass of red and yellow. I frowned at it. It didn’t look quite like a regular light spell.
“What is that?” I asked.
“If you can copy if, you should be able to find out for yourself,” she said, smirking.
I frowned and took a deep breath. All I had to do was copy that. How hard could it be?
“...think she’s starting to wake up…”
Everything was swimming around me. I could hear voices in the dark.
“Go ahead, Ruby. Just like I showed you.”
My horn hurt like a sprained ankle, throbbing and sharp and deep all at once. I tried to move, but everything was heavy.
Then I felt something warm, flowing into me like someone was pouring a bath into me instead of for me, and the aches started fading away. I tried to stand, and felt a hoof touch my shoulder.
“Careful. Just let Ruby finish.”
I settled and let the sensation peter out, relaxing. It felt good. Really good.
“There we go, that should be enough. How do you feel, Comet Wishes?”
“Amazing,” I said. “It feels like I just slept for ten hours.” I yawned and opened my eyes, looking around. I was still in the classroom. “What happened?”
“You passed out,” Presto said.
“But you did manage to copy the spell, for about half a second,” Miss Shimmer said. “I didn’t think it would take that much out of you.”
“What was that?” I asked, rubbing my head.
“Ruby healing you.” Miss Shimmer looked at the filly, smiling. “And doing an excellent job. She was able to give you some of her mana, which is why you’re not still suffering from extreme magical fatigue.”
“No, I mean, the spell you cast,” I said.
“Oh, that.” Miss Shimmer smirked. “I wanted to see if you were just copying the appearance of a spell or also the true effects. It looked like a light spell, but it was actually a type of crop growth spell that works by projecting high-energy mana across a wide area.”
“That’s a dirty trick,” I mumbled.
“Maybe,” Miss Shimmer agreed. “But I’m impressed. You did copy it, even though you had no idea what you were doing. From the power utilization curve, it looks like you’re using a type of universal spell matrix I haven’t seen before. It was really something…” She trailed off, thinking.
“Was it okay?” I asked, nervous.
“It’s more than okay!” Miss Shimmer smirked. “If Twilight was here she’d want to strap you to a thaumometer and do scans for weeks. No wonder you got into the school.”
“What about me?” Presto asked.
Miss Shimmer snorted. “I’m halfway sure you’re using Chaos Magic with some of those transmutations. You’re a danger to yourself and everypony around you. Luckily for you, that makes two of us.”
“It’s not chaos magic!” Presto huffed.
“It’s still trouble,” Miss Shimmer said. “But I’m pretty impressed.”
“Does that mean we’re done?” I asked.
“Do you want to be done?” Miss Shimmer asked.
I thought about the books she’d given us. They were easily ten times more interesting than the textbooks our teachers made us read. Mostly because they were sort of against the rules.
“Well…” I looked at Presto. She looked at me.
“Comet Wishes, are you paying attention?” Professor Birch Staff snapped, pulling me out of my sleepy daydreaming.
“O-of course, Ma’am,” I lied. “I was just thinking about--” I glanced at the chalkboard behind her. “About more efficient ways to use magically generated heat. Like... “ I had to be quick on my hooves. “If it would be more efficient to heat a kettle from all around, or even within the water, instead of from the bottom like a traditional stove.”
“Is that so?” She asked, frowning at me. “Then perhaps you’d like to demonstrate for the class the spell I just explained?”
I couldn’t back down now. I definitely couldn’t tell her that I had been thinking about the book Miss Shimmer had given me on Rebellion-era combat magic and how much I’d rather be trying out some of the ice magic I’d seen. The spells just seemed really… cool.
I giggled at my own pun, and Professor Staff glared at me, clearing her throat. I stood up and walked up to the front of the room, where she had a cauldron set up.
“Heat the mixture in the cauldron to a boil,” she said.
I swallowed nervously. I hadn’t actually been paying attention to her lecture. I had no idea how to boil the water. Whatever spell she had been teaching wasn’t actually on the chalkboard and even if it was, I didn’t have time to study it.
I was going to have to wing it, and I wasn’t even a pegasus.
In the combat magic book I’d been reading, there had been plenty of fire spells. They weren’t as cool as the ice spells, but they had to be able to boil water. The diagrams hadn’t been all that complicated, either, but that made sense. Combat spells had to be easy to remember even when you were under stress. This probably wouldn’t be graceful, and the simple spell matrix would waste a lot of energy, but it’d definitely work. I felt a surge of confidence.
I formed the spell right under the cauldron, only feeding it a bare minimum of mana. I just had to be extra-careful and nothing would go wrong.
My hooves were aching as I wrote a sentence on the chalkboard again, joining the dozens of others exactly like it.
‘I will not attempt to heat water with Nazca’s Explosion Array.’
I grumbled under my breath and started writing it again.
“How was I supposed to know it would turn the cauldron into a cannonball and put it through the ceiling?” I muttered.
“It was really cool, though,” Presto said. “The look on the Professor’s face was priceless!”
“Now everypony is just going to remember me as the pony who blew up the evocation lab!” I groaned.
“You wouldn’t be the first,” said a calming voice from the doorway. Presto and I turned to see the last pony I wanted to see at that moment.
“Princess Celestia!” I gasped, kneeling. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to do this! Please don’t expel me!” I closed my eyes, throwing myself both literally on the ground and figuratively on her mercy.
“If I expelled every student who blew up part of the school, very few unicorns would ever graduate, especially not the talented ones,” Celestia said.
“At least you didn’t turn anypony into a potted plant,” put in a too-familiar voice, though not one that I was used to hearing during the day, or anywhere near this part of the school.
I opened an eye and saw a dark shape next to Celestia. Miss Shimmer was looking up at the damage to the roof, where daylight streamed in past the broken timbers and roof tiles.
“Maybe I should give you a book on mending spells,” Miss Shimmer muttered.
“That might be for the best,” Celestia agreed. “I think learning how to fix your mistakes is an excellent lesson for a pony to learn early in life.” She gestured to the blackboard. “Punishments help discourage you from making a mistake again, but fixing problems gives you perspective on why it was a mistake. Both are important, in moderation.”
“Does that mean I don’t have to write it a hundred more times?” I asked, hopeful. A pardon from the Princess was the only way I’d get out of detention this time.
“Oh, I’m sorry, my little pony. I wouldn’t dream of interfering with the Professor’s job, and disciplining her students is part of it.” Celestia smiled serenely, and Miss Shimmer snorted in laughter at her side.
At least I was only being made fun of by the most important pony in the world. That definitely wouldn’t scar me for life.
“I came to check on you to make sure you weren’t in too much trouble to see Ruby later,” Miss Shimmer said. “She gets lonely by herself, and she isn’t confident enough to go out on her own yet.”
“She didn’t seem that shy,” Presto said.
“She’s afraid she’ll hurt somepony,” Miss Shimmer explained. “Ruby… did some things that she still regrets. Worse than just putting a hole in a roof.”
“Friends and self-confidence will help her more than anything else,” Princess Celestia said. “My daughter says you two have been getting along with Ruby Drop quite well, and I hope that continues.”
“Your… daughter?” I asked, confused. Then I saw the expression on Miss Shimmer’s face, a mixture of embarrassment and annoyance that I knew well, having had it plastered all across my snout whenever my parents were talking about me.
“She’s your daughter?!” Presto gasped. “But… she’s so…” She gestured. “Scary!”
“At least somepony respects my killing power,” Miss Shimmer huffed, before Celestia pulled her close with a wing and completely ruined any chance she had of trying to look cool.
“My little Sunset isn’t scary,” Celestia said, leaning down to nuzzle her.
“Mom!” Miss Shimmer groaned. “Come on! Even Luna thinks I’m scary sometimes!”
“But I never have,” Celestia teased.
Miss Shimmer grumbled, blushing and having apparently given up on defending herself.
“Is she really Princess Celestia’s daughter?” I asked. Ruby looked up from her homework, quill scratching against the scroll she was writing on.
“They’re not that different,” Ruby said. “Miss Shimmer seems kind of scary sometimes but she’s actually really nice. She saved me from some bad ponies and brought me here so I could learn to use my magic safely.”
“I bet she’s teaching you all sorts of secret magic,” Presto sighed. The quill in her grasp shifted as she focused on it, changing from an eagle feather to a peacock’s and then to a turkey’s before shrinking to a bluebird’s tailfeather.
“She’s m-mostly just focusing on helping me keep control,” Ruby said, her voice starting to waver. “B-before she- I hurt my parents and…” She sniffled. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
I sat up and put a hoof around her shoulders. Presto took the hint and piled in on the other side, flanking Ruby’s flank like a triple-unicorn sandwich.
“Chocolate?” Presto asked. I nodded. Chocolate could fix just about any problem.
“It’s locked,” Presto said.
I frowned at the kitchen door. Curse them, locking the chocolate away just when we needed it most! This was just another conspiracy designed to test us and drive us to near-madness.
“Okay,” I said. “Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll have to go to the library and get a spell that will allow us to bypass the lock. We’ll probably have to bribe the librarian not to tell the teachers that we borrowed a book of illegal spells, so we’ll need to sneak into--”
There was a click as the door opened a hoof-width.
“It was just stuck,” Ruby explained, as she looked inside.
“Presto, you said it was locked!” I huffed.
“Locked, stuck, same thing,” she shrugged.
“There’s somepony--” Ruby started saying, before Presto opened the door wide.
Miss Sunset froze, staring at us. There was a mixing bowl in her hooves, and she had a frilly apron on instead of her usual black cloak. She was a lot less scary without it.
“...You’re supposed to be studying,” she said.
“Are you… baking?” I asked, confused. “But your cutie mark is for magic, isn’t it?”
“Magical disaster,” Miss Shimmer corrected. She sighed. “Come in and close the door. I suppose you three deserve a break anyway, since you’re doing more work than anypony else in this school, staff included.”
“If your cutie mark is in magic, why are you baking?” Presto frowned. “Unless… it’s magical baking! Like alchemy, but cupcakes instead of gross potions!”
“It’s perfectly normal baking,” Miss Shimmer said, adding more ingredients to her batter. “I’m not a very good cook, but I count among my friends one of the finest bakers in all of Equestria. She sent me some tips on how to improve.”
“But… without a baking cutie mark you won’t be as good,” I pointed out.
“She doesn’t have a baking cutie mark either,” Miss Shimmer said. She poured the batter into a cake tin, carefully smoothing it with her magic. “She had to learn the hard way, with a lot of work and studying. Pinkie might actually be one of the smartest ponies I know, even if she never really acts like it.”
“Why are you baking a cake, though?” Ruby asked.
Miss Shimmer nodded. “That’s a much better question. Do you know what’s coming up?”
“Well,” Presto considered. “There’s Ginger Beer Day, then Eclipse Day, and then--” she gasped. “Princess Celestia’s birthday!”
“And she loves cake,” I put in. It was a well-known national secret.
“So it must be a birthday cake!” Ruby gasped.
“This one is only a practice cake,” Miss Shimmer said. “I’m working my way up to birthday cake.” She slid the cake tin into an oven before turning back to us. “I decided to do my baking out here to try and keep it a surprise. The palace staff loves to gossip, and trying to keep a rumor from spreading is like trying to keep a tight grip on sand.”
“What flavor is it?” I asked. “Do you know the Princess’ favorite?”
“That’s a secret,” Miss Shimmer said. “Now, do you want to tell me just why you three were sneaking into the school kitchen?”
“It’s my fault,” Ruby said. “I wasn’t feeling good and they wanted to get me a snack to cheer me up.”
“Well, I do need some taste-testers for this practice cake,” Miss Shimmer said. "Think you fillies are willing to risk being turned into newts by an evil witch in return for a slice or two?"
I had to concentrate really hard to do it, but I managed to pour myself another glass. It required the kind of care and caution one might use to repair a watch, even the tiniest motion threatening to throw everything off-balance.
“I got you this time,” I mumbled, with a smile. I’d only spilled a little onto the bar. A towel came down to wipe it off, and it wasn’t my hoof holding it.
“I shoulda known you’d be here,” Arch said. She sat down next to me. “You know, you look like Tartarus, sister. You ever think of taking a day off?”
“I don’t really have a job to call off,” I reminded her.
“Huh. Seems to me like you’re making a profession out of being depressed. I bet the pay’s awful.”
“No benefits either,” I mumbled. I picked up the glass and downed it. “At least I found one good thing.”
“What’s that?”
I held up the dusty bottle. It still had a few shots of something at the bottom. It was green and I still couldn’t read the label.
“I was wondering where Celestia got this stuff. I donno what it is, but it’s the strongest thing I’ve ever had to drink. It even worked for Luna!” I giggled. “I got Celestia’s little sister drunk, and she’s prolly thinking up all sorts of ways to disown me!”
Arch turned the bottle over in her hooves, reading. “Hm. Apples. Well, mostly apples anyhow. I don’t know if you’re supposed to drink this or use it to clean the good silver.”
“There is no good silver,” I mumbled. “I was supposed to come here to get it and I’m even messing that up!”
Arch sighed and reached down, helping me sit up straight. She put the bottle down where I couldn’t see it.
“I don’t say this very often to ponies, but I think you’ve had too much to drink,” Arch said. “I’ve only seen ponies drown themselves like this when they want to forget. I’d know. Done it a lot myself over the years.”
“I want to forget my whole life,” I groaned. “Think it’s too late to change my name and move to another country instead of going back to Equestria? I bet I could call myself, like, Morning Glow or Summer Day or big stupid unicorn who messes everything up, since names are supposed to mean something.”
Arch patted me on the back.
“You know what?” she said. “Let me get you a coffee. You like coffee, right?” She stepped behind the bar without asking and started moving things around. I shoved my empty glass down the bar where it wasn’t in the way and put my head down.
“Everypony likes coffee,” I mumbled. “Even Celestia. She just drinks tea because it calms her down.”
“Too many cups makes her jittery, right?” Arch asked. “Lots of ponies got that problem. You look so jittery you’re ready to jump out of your hooves, but I bet it ain’t from coffee.”
“I told Shahrazad what happened in Canterlot. Then I kind of left. I figured I should give her some space after she found out she’d asked to marry one of the biggest jerks and losers of all time.”
“Funny, you don’t look like a loser. You look like a pony who knows more about magic than just about anypony alive, who beat a champion fighter at his own game even when there was cheating going on, and who takes out assassins left and right like they’re nothin’! Those ain’t things a loser does.”
“Then you didn’t hear about what happened in Canterlot,” I sighed.
“I heard enough.” Arch shrugged. “They couldn’t hide everything with the sun and moon going all wackadoodle. Some spirit of chaos got released, messed with a bunch of ponies. I’m gonna make an educated guess you’re one of the ponies he played with.”
I took a deep breath. Arch held up a hoof to stop me.
“I don’t need to know the details,” Arch said, her voice low. “Whatever happened, that wasn’t you.”
“It was me. That’s the problem.”
Arch hummed to herself, and put two cups of coffee up on the bartop.
“Drink this. It’s an old Abyssinian style of making coffee, it’ll help you sober up.”
I took a sip. There was a weird fluffy cream on top, and oily, thick espresso at the bottom. Arch took the other cup.
“It’s sort of a whipped egg cream,” she explained. “Good stuff, especially for a hangover.”
“I don’t have a hangover.”
“Not yet, sister. Give it some time and I’m sure you’ll have one for the history books.” Arch smirked. “You know, I was serious about you not being yourself. We’ve been working together a bit and I consider you a friend, and I ain’t got many of those. There are things you should know.”
“Like what?” I asked.
Arch scratched her chin, grimacing. “Ponies… they’re different when they’re in a bad place. If it’s bad enough, you blame the times instead of the people involved. This was a while ago. A long time before I came here. There were pegasus warlords and earth pony raiders tearing everything up trying to prove who was better, fighting over anything that seemed worth fighting for. I was busy tryin’ not to starve.”
“Pegasus warlords?” I frowned. “Where was this, exactly?”
Arch waved me off. “That part ain’t important. It wasn’t important enough to even have a name anyhow. I came across this small earth pony town in the middle of nowhere. They didn’t much mind me, and I helped them out with a little bit of magic. We were all supposed to be getting along anyway, right?”
I shrugged.
“Well, one day, everypony starts acting crazy. Starts out with little things. Ponies lose their tempers over bumpin’ into each other or makin’ small mistakes anypony would make. Now normally, you’d think ponies would shrug it off or apologize because, hey, things happen! But not now. Everything turns into a grudge. Eye for an eye. Tooth for a tooth. Real bad times, my friend.”
“And you were in the middle of it?” I asked.
“I sure was! Didn’t want to be there, but where was I supposed to go? Takes me too long to figure on that it was magic being used on us, and by then, those three things showed up. Big monsters, size of houses, flyin’ around and singin' and suckin’ up the bad mojo we were makin’. And when they did show up, the ponies in town were too busy rioting and trying to stab each other over spilling cider or givin’ somepony the side-eye.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like that happening,” I said.
“Like I said, it was a while back. Before your time. Me, I won’t ever forget it, because I wasn’t able to do anything about it. In the end, my old teacher had to show up and take care of it. I was right there the whole time, and those monsters were able to do whatever they wanted.” Arch shook her head and downed the rest of her coffee. “I did some things I can’t take back. Thing is, it wasn’t me. It was those Sirens. They’re the ones to blame.”
“But I wasn’t forced to do anything,” I said. “I just…”
“Hey, look here.” Arch tapped her hoof on the bar. “Don’t look down like you’re afraid to meet anypony’s eyes. Whatever you did because of Discord, it ain’t on you. It’s good that you care, it’s not even wrong to be ashamed, but what you gotta do is learn from it. What I learned is that a pony like me, I can’t sit back on my heels and do nothing. When I tried to retire, I let ponies down.”
“Is that why you stole those wishes?” I asked.
“Yeah. Somethin’ like that.” Arch smiled sadly. “You know it’s all complicated here. What I’m doin, and what you might wanna think about doin’, is thinking about how to protect ponies. Here and back in Equestria. And watch out for the ponies around you, cause they might not be what they seem.”
“Oh, I’m sure you know all about that,” I snorted. “This coffee is starting to work, because I’ve sobered up enough to remember where I’ve heard the word Siren before. They were monsters.”
Arch nodded. “Darn right they were.”
“Monsters that went away over a thousand years ago,” I continued. “Banished by Starswirl the Bearded. And there haven’t been pegasus warlords or earth pony raiders since Hearth’s Warming. You’re just full of horseapples and telling me stories from a history book.”
Arch laughed. “You really are sobering up if you’re that sharp!”
“You ever going to tell me the truth?” I asked.
“Filly, I trust you more than just about anyone else alive,” Arch said, despite the fact that I didn’t even know her real name. Either she trusted me more than I thought or else she didn’t trust anypony much at all.
“Not an answer,” I noted.
“Neither is this, but it’s more important.” She reached into her robes and put a small silver box between us. I recoiled from it, almost falling out of my chair.
“You still have that thing?” I hissed. “You saw what happened with the last one.”
Arch nodded. “Yeah. I saw.” She sighed. “Didn’t go so good, did it?”
“I wouldn’t describe zombies rising from the dead as having gone well, no,” I said. “I don’t even know why I did it. It was stupid!”
“Empathy isn’t stupid. Makes you do stupid things sometimes, but that’s love for you.” Arch spun the box around. “You’ve seen how the king doles out wishes, yeah? For a while I thought it was because he didn’t want nobody gettin’ too strong and changin’ the game on him.”
“And what do you think now?” I asked.
Arch smiled. “Oh, I still think the same thing, but now I sort of sympathize. How many of these would it take to bring Saddle Arabia down?” She laughed. “I bet that’s not a question you can find out aside from the hard way, and nobody wants that.” I took a deep breath. “I’m surprised you haven’t used it yourself. That’s a lot of power in your hooves.”
“Lot of power for anyone’s hooves.” Arch touched the top of the box and scrunched her snout. “Nah. Even if the Aretic order wasn’t stomping down on anypony who might make a wish, well, I think there are two kinds of ponies.”
“Are you being tribalist to earth ponies or pegasi?” I asked.
Arch chuckled. “I mean that some ponies would do anything to get what they want, pay any price. Those kind of ponies probably don’t even need wishes. They’ll put in the work and grant their wish themselves. The other kind of pony, they just sort of float. Their wishes are just dreams and never get more real than that.”
“What about ponies that gave up on their dreams?” I muttered.
“Point is, I’m not the right pony for this box,” Arch sighed. “I’d know if I was. These things, they got a way of going where they need to go.”
“You think that grieving mother is where it needed to go?” I snapped. “That didn’t have to happen!”
“You’re saying that because it was in your hooves when it went bad. Look, I’m gonna level with ya. I would bet my own grandmare that I’ve heard this thing whispering to me. I’m not supposed to hang onto it. I’m definitely not supposed to look inside.”
“Sell it,” I suggested. “You could get rich.”
“Nah. Here.” She slid the box across the bar. I don’t know if I was just too slow or if I was afraid to touch it, but it fell off the slick top and landed right at my hooves.
The top cracked open.
I was in Canterlot. I think I was in Canterlot. It felt like it, the same way you just know things in a dream.
All it would have taken was one close look around to be sure, but I was too busy staring at what was right in front of me. It was a mirror. Not just any mirror. The mirror that’d haunted me for years. The mirror that had ruined my life.
The reflection in it was me, and at the same time it wasn’t me. It was the same one I’d seen a long time ago.
She had wings. That part I think you already knew. Everypony who knows anything about me knows that. If there’s anything I’m famous or infamous for, it’s that I’d do anything to earn a pair of wings.
She had a crown. I’d worn one myself a few times. The one in Canterlot that Discord had given me had been uncomfortable. The little gold laurel I’d gotten fighting in the Forge I got by hurting ponies. The way the me in the mirror looked, it wasn’t uncomfortable at all. It fit her. She looked like the kind of pony who deserved to lead.
The thing I was really jealous of wasn’t the crown, and it wasn’t the wings. It was the smile. She was happy. She didn’t have the whole world weighing down on her shoulders. Her mane and coat were so bright and colorful they practically glowed.
I couldn’t see the room around me, or her. It was just dark, and the dark whispered.
“You poor creature. You have hurt so much, haven’t you?”
I couldn’t look away.
“You’ve suffered, and in your pain you’ve made others suffer with you. You can become what you were always meant to be, if you just reach out and take it.”
My copy reached out, her hoof passing through the mirror, the surface rippling like water. She offered me a perfectly hooficured, perfectly clean hoof. It was the kind of hoof that a pony only got when they didn’t have to wash blood from it. When they’d made the right decisions instead of the wrong ones.
“I am not your enemy,” she said.
“You’re not my friend, either,” I whispered.
I slammed the box shut, the pale light from inside vanishing. Cold sweat poured from me like somepony had thrown a bucket of icewater over my head.
“What was that?” Arch asked.
I looked up at her and glared. “You did that on purpose!”
“I didn’t!” She backed up a step. “Sorry. I’ve just never seen that before.”
“Never seen what?” I asked. Had she seen the same thing I did? Had she been out there in the darkness?
“I’ve never seen anypony put one of those boxes down without making a wish,” she said, like it should have been obvious.
“It wasn’t something I wanted,” I said.
“It wasn’t something you wanted anymore,” Arch corrected. “I think I’ve just about got the shape of it. That was some kinda old wish hanging around you like a shroud. Something you used to want so much nothing else could ever compare.”
“More like a baby blanket I outgrew than a shroud,” I said. “What I saw… it was something I wanted as a foal.”
“Those wishes can be awful strong. Strong enough to last a lifetime,” Arch muttered. “So what happened? It’s not just something you outgrew, is it? You got hurt real bad chasing after the wish yourself, and now you’re afraid to even hope for it…”
I threw the empty coffee cup at her.
“You don’t know anything about me!” I snapped.
“Okay!” Arch sighed, taking another step back. “I guess I should’ve expected you’d be in a bad mood. Bad moods are sort of all you can manage in your state.”
“In my state?”
“Never mind,” Arch shrugged. “Look, I get you don’t trust me, so why don’t you just keep that?” She nodded to the box. “I know you don’t like it, but that’s probably for the best. You just proved you’re strong enough that you can’t be tempted by this thing.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Exactly! That’s why you’re the best pony to keep it!” Arch rubbed her hooves together. “If you don’t like it, you can always leave it there for somepony else to find. It’d be a shame if some foal found it.”
“A foal wouldn’t be looking around the floor of a bar.”
“No, just very responsible adults like yourself,” Arch agreed. She walked out from behind the bar, strolling casually to the doorway. “Why don’t you sleep on it?”
I decided to do just that. I needed some sleep. I could have gotten it in the palace, but going up those stairs was just not on my to-do list after the beating I’d been taking all day. Neither my body nor my emotions were ready for it.
Thankfully I had other options. I think the ponies at the embassy were surprised when I showed up, but they didn’t try to stop me from finding my way to a guest room and collapsing into one of the beds. It smelled like Equestria. It was comforting. It’s what I really needed. A taste of the home I left behind.
I guess talking about Canterlot really let a lot of emotions roil in my subconscious, because when I did finally settle down enough to dream, I was in Canterlot again. Not in the mirror room, thank the stars for small favors.
I was on a balcony, one that didn’t exist, looking down at the throne room. Nopony there noticed me, and Celestia was going over paperwork. I recognized it as what I’d signed. She was undoing everything I’d done and explaining to the ponies there about every mistake I’d made. Apologizing for me, but also condemning my behavior.
“I see you aren’t having a pleasant dream,” said a mare at my side. She hadn’t been there a moment ago but that was fine.
“She’s finally getting around to fixing the famine I caused when I asked for coffee instead of tea,” I explained.
“That caused a famine?” the mare asked.
“With Celestia missing and word getting out that the new leader of Equestria preferred coffee, the tea plantations all went bankrupt,” I said. “It caused a famine because of complicated subsidy laws.”
“Interesting,” the mare said. “And this all happened within a day or two?”
I groaned. “The only thing I’m good at is causing disasters.”
“Most bad dreams I deal with are more exciting than this,” Luna said. “I find it difficult to believe that somepony who spends their time blasting monsters finds paperwork to be so troubling.”
I turned to look at Luna. “So is this like that dream I had the other night where you were…?”
“Hm?” Luna tilted her head. “Which dream was that?”
“Oh, um, uh…” I coughed. “Nothing.”
“I see.” She smiled knowingly. “Nothing at all, then. Perhaps part of the reason I’ve had trouble finding you is that my own dreams are so similar.”
“...They are?” I wondered if she had dreams where I was the big spoon. She was a much larger mare than I was, but it wouldn’t be the first time two ponies made it work when--
“I’ve had too many dreams about Celestia fixing my mistakes,” she specified.
Not the kind of dream I’d been thinking of for a moment, then. I was glad I hadn’t asked for details.
“Ever since I came back, I’ve felt like a ruler without subjects,” she said. “Ponies don’t need me.”
“What?” I frowned up at her. “What are you talking about?”
“Equestria survived a thousand years without me,” Luna noted. “They didn’t even have the memory of me. Oh, I can offer them some solace in their dreams they wouldn’t have otherwise, but touching a few lives every night does not make me the savior of Equestria.”
“But you do help those ponies, right?” I asked. “And it’s something Celestia can’t do. Just because they suffered for a thousand years doesn’t mean you’re not helping. I mean, the pony who invented the lightbulb wasn’t a failure just because ponies already had candles.”
“Even if you’re right, there are so many I can’t help, or reject me.” Luna shook her head. “The worst feeling is knowing that what haunts them in dreams is only a shadow of the real world. Giving a foal one night of restful sleep will not make them stop worrying about their parents yelling at each other. A pony who is in debt may be glad his creditors don’t follow him into his dreams but it doesn’t make the bills go away.”
“So you just help them sleep and leave them alone?” I asked.
“Of course not. I try to find them in the waking world and send them aid.”
“Then you’re not doing nothing. You’re saving ponies that nopony else even knows are in trouble.” I smiled at her. “I bet there are a bunch of ponies that you’ve helped that nopony else could have. Even if it’s only a few it makes the effort worth it, right?”
Luna nodded. “It does,” she agreed quietly. “And you’ve done the same. Saved ponies who wouldn’t have been saved by another. Speaking of which, Ruby Drop has been having nightmares about you.”
“I scared her,” I whispered.
“She is scared for you, not of you,” Luna corrected. “She wants you to come back. She thinks she did something wrong and drove you away. The two of you are fixated on your own guilt.”
“I can’t come back right now,” I said.
“Ah, yes,” Luna snorted with laughter. “I’ve heard some details. Is it true that you’ve somehow found yourself engaged to Princess Shahrazad?”
“Sort of.” Even in a dream I couldn’t stop myself from blushing.
Luna raised an eyebrow. “I did not know you were such a ‘swinger’ as the kids say.”
“Well first, the kids don’t say that, but also I’m not. It was supposed to be a reward for saving her life from assassins. I kind of walked into it like a blind pony finding a brick wall the hard way.”
“I was not aware that ponies were often tricked into marriage with royalty. I feel as though I have missed out. Is there some particular snare that is used, or does one simply leave a trail of bait and await a suitor?”
“If the other pony is stupid enough, apparently all you need is a sob story,” I groaned. “She’s the second or third most confusing mare I’ve ever met.”
“I assume you put yourself at the top of the list.”
“No, just another pony I met here,” I said. “I probably should be in first place, though. I don’t even understand me, and I am me!”
“Most ponies don’t understand themselves,” Luna said. “But whatever is going on, you should know this. You are worthy of the love of a Princess. Of loving and being loved by another.”
“No. It’s just a trick. She wanted me to keep her safe from assassins, but… I’m starting to think she really just wanted to use me for something. I don’t understand her game.” I shook my head. “She’s playing me and I can’t even figure out why.”
“All rulers play the same game,” Luna said. “The game is simple. Stay in power. Get more power. Once you have the power, use it. Some rulers are benevolent. My sister spent a thousand years forging peace on the threat that if she was displeased the sun would not rise.”
“What? She’s never threatened that!”
“Not in a very long time, no.” Luna looked directly at me. “Are you safe?”
“That’s a very broad question.”
“So no, then,” she said. “What can I do to help?”
“You could peek into her dreams and tell me if she actually hired assassins herself, or if her uncle did it, or if it’s a third party entirely,” I said. “But if she did hire them, why is she blaming her uncle when she’s the next in line for the throne anyway? What’s the point of keeping me close if there’s no real danger? And what in Tartarus is going on with the wishes?”
“I cannot simply interrogate her,” Luna apologized. “It would be against the oaths I have sworn to protect the dreaming.”
“Great,” I sighed. “Then could you… tell Celestia and Ruby and everypony else that I’m sorry?” I swallowed. “I messed up. A lot. And then I ran away.”
“You can tell them yourself when you come back,” Luna said. “But I will let them know you are safe, and that you regret what you did. You should know that it was not entirely your fault. Discord can alter the mind of a pony, and I can still sense the traces of his magic on you.”
“It doesn’t matter. I still did it.”
“I understand,” Luna said. “We must part. You are beginning to wake. I will tell the others I have managed to send you a message, and try to keep Twilight Sparkle from taking the next ship to Saddle Arabia. I believe she has something of a small crush on you.”
“What?”
“It makes me somewhat jealous,” Luna said.
She leaned in closer, her lips close to mine and--
I woke up. Sunlight streamed through the window.
“Horseapples,” I groaned.
“You know, you could try leaving a note or something,” Flash Sentry sighed.
“I figured someone in the embassy would tell you,” I lied. “And I asked you to watch Shahrazad anyway. I don’t need protecting.”
“You need somepony sane telling you when you’re making a bad decision,” Flash said. “I don’t trust anyone in that palace to do it. There are more maids spying on each other and passing notes than there are actually cleaning anything.”
“I’m more worried about knives than notebooks,” I said.
“Paperwork can cause far more damage,” Vuvuzela mumbled. “Speaking of which, you are dripping clotted cream everywhere.”
I looked down at my breakfast. It wasn’t anything special - scones with clotted cream and raspberry jam - but Vuvuzela didn’t seem to like that I was eating at what was supposed to be a worktable and was covered in documents. I cast a quick spell to clean the parchment I’d dripped on and picked it up to look.
“Aren’t these details on the treaty?” I asked. “What happened to just signing everything and smiling for the camera?”
“It pays to be diligent,” Vuvuzela said. “I don’t anticipate any problems but the exact wording of the treaty is important. Since the signing is now supposed to happen after your wedding, I need to ensure that it won’t have any effect on the clauses.”
“I guess if I did sign it then, I’d be doing it as a member of the Saddle Arabian royal family instead of an Equestrian diplomat,” I considered. “There’s probably some kind of weird citizenship rules involved.”
“Indeed,” Vuvuzela agreed. “Thankfully, this was a well-written document. The key point is that regardless of your status, you will be serving in an officially recognized capacity as a representative of Equestria. I suspect it doesn’t matter who signs this treaty as long as both Saddle Arabia and Equestria agree it was signed properly.”
“Celestia’s been writing these things for a thousand years,” I shrugged. “She’s probably got a lot of practice getting the legalities right.”
“Princess Celestia owes that part of her success to the work of the Equestrian Civil Service,” Vuvuzela corrected. “Though I suppose you are correct that they’ve had a thousand years of working around disasters to practice writing boilerplate that could stop a crossbow bolt.”
I hefted the stack of papers. “I think you’re literal about that. If we made a few copies of this we could have Flash wear it as grammatically-correct armor.”
“Not if I wanted to fly anywhere,” Lieutenant Sentry put in.
I started flipping through some of the supplementary information. There was stuff here Cadance hadn’t had on the boat.
“Say, is there anything about the silver coming from the moon?” I asked. “Shahrazad told me an old legend about it. I was wondering if there’s any truth behind it.”
Vuvuzela made a sound in the back of his throat that I couldn’t interpret. I wasn’t sure if he was annoyed or interested. “I’m not even sure how we would begin to prove that.”
“I guess you could ask Princess Luna,” Flash suggested. “I mean, it’ll be a few weeks before you get a letter back, but she’s the only pony who’s actually been to the moon, right?”
I snorted. “I think asking her about the moon is a really good way to advance your career, if you don’t mind spending the next twenty years patrolling the border with Yakyakistan.”
Flash swallowed. “It’s sort of a touchy subject, huh?”
I shrugged and flipped through the pages. “She hasn’t even told me all that much. I think it was sort of like a dream. You wake up and all the details start to fade and all you’re left with is the feeling of it…”
Something in the documents caught my eye.
“Wait, every year until the mines closed, the amount of silver increased.” I frowned. “Even in the very last year of operation they note the discovery of a new vein. Why would they bother closing it if production was going up?”
Vuvuzela sat back. “I’m not sure. It was something I was looking into as well. I had assumed at first that it had to do with devaluation of the base metal. Their currency is traded on a silver standard, but if anything they have been having a currency shortage.”
“What?” I asked, confused.
“Saddle Arabia has few exports,” Vuvuzela explained. “They import quite a bit. Even with the luxury goods that are sold, their currency is leaving the country. Economically, there are some puzzling issues, though they don’t make any of the numbers public.”
I nodded slowly. I already had one corner piece Vuvuzela didn’t. They were doing something with wishes.
“Whatever the reason was, it was kept a state secret,” Vuvuzela said. “The details are suppressed but it seems miners were killed in some kind of accident. There have been rumors about poisonous gas, cave-ins, and of course the usual tall tales about monsters.”
“Did they try and blame it all on diamond dogs?” I asked.
“I see you’re familiar with the usual direction these things go,” Vuvuzela said.
“I guess it could have been sealed after an accident, but then to just leave it for so many years?” I shifted in my seat. Something uncomfortable pressed against my side. Without thinking, I took the silver box out and put it on the table, trying to sit more comfortably.
“I hold some stock with the rumors that the royal family was involved,” Vuvuzela continued. “It was right around the time of some kind of purge or hunt, and… what is that? A jewelry box?”
I glanced at it. I could see the way it drew his eye.
“It was a gift,” I said. A gift made of silver, holding a wish. Silver that could have come from a mine that was sealed off by the royal family. A royal family that used wishes. My train of thought crashed from one station to another and my jaw dropped at the weight of the revelation.
“Where did it come from?” Flash asked, slowly reaching for it.
I grabbed it before he could touch it.
“I didn’t know before, but I’m starting to figure it out,” I said. “A silver mine would be a perfect vault for something you need to store in a silver cage, wouldn’t it? One entrance, solid rock walls, silver in the walls themselves to make absolutely sure…” I shook my head. “No wonder they sealed it off! They must be using it as a giant storehouse!”
I tossed the papers down, and Vuvuzela looked at me like I was crazy.
“A storehouse for what?” he asked.
“Something a lot more valuable than silver,” I said.
I should have been running off to action. Every bone in my body was screaming for me to launch into an adventure, start throwing spells around, and blast something until I had answers and had kicked open enough doors to find one with a solution hiding on the other side.
But I couldn’t.
“Are you comfortable, your highness?”
“I was until you tried getting that title to fit,” I said. “I think it’s a few sizes too big.”
I looked up at the attendant. There were a few working on me, and I felt sorry for how little they actually had to work with. My cloak was carefully folded off to the side along with my saddlebags, and they were trying to decide how to put a dress together around me. The leader was a mare old enough to be my mother (and by that I mean maybe twenty or thirty years older than me, not old enough to be Celestia) and seemed as unshakable as a rock.
“Would ‘My Lady’ be acceptable?” she asked.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” I said. “I’d prefer my name but I get the impression you’d be even less comfortable with that than I am with being compared to royalty.”
“Thank you for considering my needs, My Lady,” she said, bowing her head and watching the maids working to fit a sleeve on the partly-completed dress. “We also hope that the color and patterns are acceptable.”
“It’s good,” I agreed. I hadn’t really gotten a good look at it, so I was lying through my teeth. “I’ve been told purple goes well with my coat.”
“It does, My Lady,” the attendant agreed. “A dark shade works pleasingly as a contrast with your pale coat.”
“I probably need to spend more time outside without a black cloak on,” I admitted. “It’ll be nice having a new dress. I didn’t bring any with me, and I haven’t had a private fitting in… well, probably not as long as most ponies, but if I don’t know if it’ll happen again.”
“I am sure my lady will be fitted for many dresses,” the attendant said. “Princess Shahrazad has a dress for every occasion.”
“Does she?” I asked, smiling. “Let me guess. She says once she’s been seen with a dress in public she can’t wear it again because ponies will think she can’t afford a new dress.”
“That has been one excuse Princess Shahrazad has used,” the attendant said, leaning in to speak more quietly.
“I have seen her closet,” the seamstress at my flank whispered. “She even keeps the dresses she had as a filly! She never throws them away!”
“Maybe it’s less about the dress and more about the memories,” I suggested. “I’ve had a few things like that. Of course, for me it was more like a trophy cabinet.” I sighed. “It was about the idea that I’d gotten Celestia to give me something. Ugh, I was such an awful pony…”
“The fact you are disgusted by your own past actions suggests you have learned something since then,” the attendant said. “Perhaps you won’t be as terrible of an influence on the Princess as the rumors suggested.”
“Oh no, the rumors are definitely right,” I snorted. “I’ll probably have her doing crimes and getting arrested before the end of the week.”
“Then we should make you presentable for your inevitable arrest,” the attendant said. They clapped their hooves, and mares to either side of me who’d been waiting for the signal closed in like Thestralian hookbirds.
I’m not going to try and play cool and tell you I stoically allowed myself to be primped and preened. There was just no way for me to fight back. They had the grace of a Wonderbolts team, and enough coordination and speed to disassemble a train on the move and put it back together without even slowing it down.
If they’d been assassins I’d have been helplessly overmatched because they turned aside any attempt to fight back with manebrushes and makeup. I was left coughing in a cloud of blush before they peeled away with a final spritz of perfume.
“Was that really necessary?” I groaned.
The attendant clapped her hooves. “Why don’t you tell us?”
At her signal, a mirror was wheeled out in front of me. Again, I was completely out of cool and very stoically flinched and would have run if I didn’t freeze up instead.
The mare in the mirror didn’t look like me. They’d pulled my mane back into a bun, leaving a few swirling bangs to frame my face. The dress was off-white and a few shades of blue that I didn’t have words for but I knew Rarity would have swooned over. The cut was asymmetrical, hanging mostly over one shoulder and leaving the other free to reveal a tight, long sleeve, almost like a formal military uniform crossed with a ballroom dress.
“Do you like it?” Shahrazad asked. I looked up past my own shoulder in the mirror. She was standing in the doorway with a small smile.
“It’s beautiful,” I admitted. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a dress sewn together while I was wearing it.”
“It’s more common than you would think,” Shahrazad said, walking up to me and using the mirror to adjust her tiara. “Many dresses are designed to be worn only once, so buttons and zippers are rather unneeded. Instead, they are supposed to be torn from the wearer in a fit of passion!”
“Is this that kind of dress?” I asked.
“Mmm. If only.” Shahrazad sighed sadly. “Unfortunately I see a line of buttons. I suspect it can be removed in more pedestrian fashion.”
“That’s not so bad. I might want to wear it more than once.”
“Good. It wouldn’t do to ruin it before I can show off your real beauty to my ponies,” Shahrazad said. She reached over to take my hoof, squeezing lightly. “You look like royalty. Save perhaps for a crown, but one will be arranged before long.”
“Yeah,” I whispered. I reached out to touch my reflection. “It’s funny, I used to see a view like this pretty often.”
“Back when you lived in Canterlot, yes?” Shahrazad asked. “The first time. I confess I did look into your past and it seems you once had a taste for the finer things.”
“That’s true,” I agreed. “I still do, but I always end up feeling guilty about it. Mom-- um, I mean, Princess Celestia says I need to learn to enjoy them again.”
“As always, the advice of a Princess is correct,” Princess Shahrazad said. “I would know as my own advice is also always right. There is nothing wrong with enjoying yourself when nopony else is suffering because of it. You having an extra serving of dessert does not mean you are taking it out of the hooves of a starving orphaned foal.”
“I know. And even at my worst, I wasn’t as bad as somepony like Blueblood.” I paused. “Huh. I really never was that bad. Even when I was under all that stress from Discord.”
“Naturally. You are driven to be heroic. I think if a pony dangled a quest to find the lost shards of Princess Amore in front of you, you would spend months trying to find bits of crystallized pony without even questioning it.”
“It’s the kind of bad habit that you get when you live on your own,” I said. “I mean, I wasn’t totally alone. There was Zecora, and then I started meeting ponies in Ponyville. The point is that I had to learn to do things for myself. It puts you in the mindset of seeing a problem and wanting to stamp down on it, you know?”
Shahrazad laughed a little. “I’m glad that you’re here, then. There are a great many problems that need to be fixed, and sometimes I worry that nothing will be done about them.”
“I can think of a few things,” Sunset agreed.
“You, however, do not need to be fixed.” Shahrazad smiled. “You are strong, brilliant, and beautiful. Whatever you see in the mirror should reflect that instead of what you fear to see in yourself.”
“Easier said than done,” I sighed.
“Most things are, aside from apologies.” Shahrazad stepped closer. “There is another matter I wish to speak to you about. It is… delicate.”
The attendant bowed and left, along with the servants. Shahrazad waited for us to be alone before she continued.
“My uncle might be making his final move,” she said. “It may be nothing, or it may be everything. According to my sources, he has been seen treading the secret paths that will take him to the silver mines. This may seem like nothing at all, but in truth--”
“Wishes,” I said, cutting her off. She blinked in surprise. I adjusted my mane, making her wait a moment. It was what Celestia always did to me when I was trying to make a big reveal, and it felt nice to do it to somepony else. I waited until she’d almost composed herself before continuing. “I figured out a while ago that you were using the mine for that purpose. All the silver in the rocks made it a natural place to do it, right? And that’s also why you couldn’t let it be mined out.”
“...I wasn’t aware you knew,” Shahrazad said.
“I’m not that far behind,” I said. “Were you ever going to tell me yourself?”
“I was just about to!” Shahrazad protested.
“Only under duress. If your uncle wasn’t going there right now you wouldn’t. Am I right?”
“...It’s the royal family’s most closely guarded secret,” Shahrazad said, quietly. “There are things your Princess Celestia wouldn’t want known, either, yes?”
“Yeah. That’s why I’m not holding it against you. I’ve got other questions, and I want answers while you help me get this dress off without ripping it, because it really is nice and I kinda want to wear it later.”
Shahrazad nodded and began assisting me with the clasps. I really needed the help. I couldn’t see all of them in the mirror.
“First, why did he wait until now?” I asked.
“I think you scare him,” Shahrazad said. “He believes you are going to move if he does not. He believes you lust for power and authority, the same power and authority that could be his if not for certain obstacles.”
“Those obstacles being you and your father?”
“Indeed.”
“Why does he think a coup would succeed? Celestia always taught me that power isn’t just a throne. It’s the will of the people. They have to allow you to be in charge or you have nothing.”
“Wishes are the only thing keeping Saddle Arabia alive. They will follow him because they have no choice. Anypony who holds the throne cannot be opposed because it would be suicide.”
“Great,” I sighed, stepping out of the dress, finally. “And he’s going down there, to what, make a wish to put himself in power?”
“I don’t know, but going there at all…” Shahrazad bit her lip. “I am worried.”
I took a deep breath and levitated the dress over to the side, putting it down carefully. “You want me to stop him.”
“Nopony else can,” Shahrazad said. “He is part of the royal family, my love. To expect one of our subjects to stand against him…”
“I’m starting to think that’s not a very healthy attitude. I’ll go, but I can’t do this alone. I need help. How many other ponies know about the mine?”
“Anyway, I figure since you hate me, you’re the most trustworthy pony here,” I said. “I’d take Flash but I feel like you don’t want Equestrian soldiers going into your secret mine full of wishes.”
Sirocco Mandala closed her eyes and rubbed her nose. “I want to say I don’t hate you but you make it extraordinarily difficult.” Her office was exactly what I expected. It was spartan to the point of being little more than a bare chamber with a desk in the corner. There was hardly even any paperwork, and nothing at all for comfort.
“How about you thank me for bringing this to your attention?” I suggested.
“Thank you,” Sirocco said. “For causing trouble and putting it in my lap.”
“I’m going to pretend you’re thanking me and not just sarcastically stating what I’m asking you to do,” I said, winking. “But seriously, I don’t want to do this alone. Also I don’t know where the mines are, and apparently Shahrazad isn’t clear on it either.”
“No, it’s a secret held only by the Aretic Order and the crown. Prince Balthazar shouldn’t have been able to find the location either,” Sirocco said. “Only the current ruler is allowed to know the location.”
“...What would have happened when the mines were re-opened?” I asked. “Because at least some ponies would have to know about the location…”
“The mine being opened is something I directly advised against,” Sirocco snapped. “I suspect either Shahrazad or Balthazar pushed for it specifically to get the location.”
“Cool, so you suspect them both too,” I said, nodding. “That’s good. But can we maybe speed this up? He’s supposedly already on the way and I’d really like to nip this in the bud instead of facing whatever terror he unleashes.”
Sirocco stood up. “I hate to admit you’re right. I don’t have time to debate this with you, and unfortunately… well, I’ll explain on the way. We have a bit of a walk.”
“Great!” I said. “So where’s the mine? My bet is directly below the throne room.”
“That would be incredibly unwise,” Sirocco muttered. “You have noticed this castle is a bulwark, haven’t you? It’s the wall keeping the last great city of Saddle Arabia safe. Why would we lock ourselves in with something so dangerous?”
“You mean it’s outside the wall? But then…”
“We’ll be going there as well. Here.” She pulled open a wardrobe and threw a cloak and facemask at me. “You’ll want this. If there’s a sandstorm you will want eye protection and a filter to breathe. I apologize it’s not all in black.”
“I’ll manage,” I said. “Thank you for trusting me.”
“I’m left with no choice,” Sirocco said. “Don’t thank me.”
I wasn’t sure what I expected. I’d heard descriptions of the Saddle Arabian desert, but it wasn’t anything like this. I’d seen the San Palamino desert, and that was beautiful desolation. This was just… a wasteland. It felt ruined and drained.
We walked along a path that Sirocco apparently knew purely from memory, moving from one landmark to another.
“These used to be streets,” Sirocco said, over the wind. “A manor there. A store there.” She stopped in front of a ruined statue sticking crookedly out of the sand, just four legs broken off at the knee standing proud and supporting nothing, the details washed away by centuries of blowing grit.
I swept some of the sand off the base, revealing a faint inscription.
“I think I can translate this,” I muttered. “Hero of the Great Hunt, Slayer of Djinn. The name is too faint to read.”
“All the stories of heroism and sacrifice are lost,” Sirocco said. “Made secret and then forgotten. The royal family barely even knows why we hunted the djinn down. They know in the abstract, yes, but they’ve made wishes safe, tamed, and they forget the bad times. The Aretic Order doesn’t forget.”
“You’d think all those loose wishes would have given them some kind of clue,” I said.
“Mm.” Sirocco nodded. “I spoke to the king about it myself. He refused to even consider stopping their use, despite the obvious dangers. Safety measures are only safe until somepony finds a way to break them. I am told you, for example, are an expert at such.”
“I wouldn’t call myself an expert, but yes, I am,” I said.
Sirocco shook her head and led me down another winding path between dunes, passing pillars and broken slabs of carved stone.
“The miners lived here, back when there was mining,” she said. “We’re close.”
“Great,” I sighed. “It’s hard to breathe through this mask.”
“It’s harder to breathe without it,” she cautioned. “The sand is extremely fine. It can get into your stomach, your lungs, until your insides are choked with it.”
“That sounds like a bad time.”
“If you take off the mask, it would be extremely painful.” Sirocco stopped in front of the first standing structure I’d seen. “Here.”
“It looks like a bank,” I said. It had those high ceilings, thick walls, and not a lot of windows or doors. I’d say it looked like a fortress but it had that sense of gravitas that only comes with a lot of money instead of military might.
“It was a precious metal mine,” Sirocco noted. “It was important to have control over the ore. It was built to hold off an army of rioting ponies.”
“Guess that explains why it lasted this long, but I was expecting something a little more…” We stepped inside, and without the glare of the sun and sand I was able to see and was shocked into silence. There were bones scattered everywhere. Skeletons in uniforms surrounding a ramp down blocked by iron bars.
“A little more what?” Sirocco asked.
“What the buck happened here?” I whispered.
“...A failure,” Sirocco muttered. “The Aretic Order’s greatest failure. I don’t want to speak of it.”
I took a deep breath. “This has something to do with the wishes.”
“I can’t go further. I swore an oath.” Sirocco sighed. “The seals have all been broken, so you should be able to get in without trouble.”
“You can’t go further?” I asked. “But-- that’s why I brought you here!”
“I’m sorry,” Sirocco said. “Even bringing you here is against what I’ve sworn. Going down there, though…” she shook her head.
“Great. Thanks for the directions, I guess. You could have just said walk a mile out into the desert, hang a left and look for the only building.” I rolled my eyes.
“You’re sarcastic of course, but what I can do is watch your back. No one will be able to surprise you without getting past me.” Sirocco nodded to the ramp. “If you fail, I will keep him from escaping.”
“It sounds like you’re sort of counting on me failing.”
“I’m counting on you to be able to do things I can’t,” Sirocco said, quietly. “I’m bound by oath and tradition. You’re free in ways I can’t be. You can go down into those mines and exterminate the evil once and for all.”
I looked at her. There wasn’t sharp guile or a mask. Just old hurt. Older than I could imagine. Surrounded by all those bones, bound by those oaths, I could almost feel it too. I could have made a snippy comment at her or tried to convince her to do it, but I knew what it was like to feel cornered.
“Okay,” I said. I put a hoof on her shoulder. “I’ll make sure things are settled. I know what promises are like.”
To be honest? Never been in a mine before. I’ve got no idea what’s normal and what isn’t. I was vaguely aware that there were usually mine carts, and rails, and they put wooden beams up as supports, but I’d never really learned about them except in the vaguest terms.
“If I make it back to Equestria alive, I’m never going on a mission anywhere alone by myself ever again,” I mumbled. “I should have forced her to let me take Flash with me. At least then I’d have backup and not just ‘oh no I have to wait outside, good luck in the scary abandoned mine where somepony is probably waiting to kill you.’”
At least there only seemed to be one obvious way to go. My sense of direction wasn’t great, but I suspected it was generally back in the direction of the palace. If so, though, why wouldn’t they have another entrance to make it easier to get wishes in and out of storage? If it had been up to me, I’d have collapsed this whole tunnel and had the door to the vault where I could see it.
The floor of the mine was fetlock-deep in grey sand with a strange weight to it, like it had been made of lead and cold iron. I could mostly keep myself on top of it, but it made for unsteady walking, especially since I was worried about falling into a pit.
Something occurred to me after way too long.
“Wait, there should be hoofprints…” Only one way in and one way out, right? So if Balthazar was really already here, why hadn’t he left a trail?
I stopped and considered making my way back. If he wasn’t here yet I could intercept him with Sirocco and let her take all the credit for whatever happened. And when I say credit, I mean blame because there’s no way attacking a member of the royal family was going to end with me getting another parade.
While I was thinking of how to avoid being accused of treason, the whole cavern shook around me, vibrating like I was in a pipe organ. The sand around my hooves crept and crawled and started moving, and my own hoofsteps vanished like ripples in a stream.
“This feels familiar,” I muttered. I watched the sand, and it started flowing, moving like a slow stream down, and if it didn’t take a sharp corner I might have thought it was just going downhill.
I followed it. There weren’t a lot of choices anyway, but it felt like the right thing to do. And what do you know? It was exactly the right thing to do. I turned the next corner and saw light at the end, a flickering orange flame that proved to be a lantern.
“Hey,” I said, to the pony holding it.
Balthazar turned, not surprised at all.
“I knew it,” he said. “So you really are here.”
“I have a bad habit of meddling,” I admitted.
“Indeed. And now you’ve violated Saddle Arabia’s most private sanctuary.”
I raised an eyebrow. “That’s a bold way thing to say when you got here first.”
“I am a member of the Royal Family. I have the right to be here.” Balthazar took a step back and drew a slim sword. I’m not sure why ponies here loved swords so much when they were awkward to use with hooves. At least spears made sense - earth ponies could put a lot of force into them when they charged. Swords were only really good with a lot of training and, frankly, the kind of grip you got with magic instead of hooves.
“You’ve probably heard the rumors,” I shrugged mildly. “There are ponies who are afraid of ‘No Trespassing’ signs, but I’m not one of them.”
I stepped closer. We were still far away enough from each other that I was well out of reach of the sword. And that’s when things went wrong.
The ground shifted under my hooves in a way I was newly familiar with.
“Oh, not this again!” I shouted, as walls rose up around me, formed out of the silvery sand. Somehow, the dust managed to shift tone and even subtly change its color, becoming like a grainy monochromatic photo. “It’s just like the Arena!”
Balthazar watched the sand move, and I could tell he was caught off-guard just as much as I was. Whatever was going on, he wasn’t doing it. Especially since when everything snapped into focus, I knew it was something he’d never have been able to recreate.
“What is this?” He muttered.
We were standing in the blackened, burned-out remains of a wooden structure that had very recently been the subject of a major structural fire. The building seemed huge, with doorways that loomed twice as tall as they had in reality.
“It’s part of Canterlot,” I said, my throat dry.
“Why is everything so big?” He asked, stepping around a fallen, singed chair bigger than he was.
“That’s just how it seems when you’re a foal,” I said. “You remember everything being bigger than it is, because you don’t grow up in your memories.”
“I’m sure there’s a tragic explanation for all this,” Balthazar said. “In other circumstances, I’d sit down with you and try to talk about this, but I fear the fate of my nation and its ponies are at stake.” He started circling to my side, testing each step before committing to it, like he was worried the floor might give out under him.
“We’ll chat after I’ve dragged you out--” Something grabbed my hoof before I could say something clever.
I glanced down, and bones were wrapped around my fetlock, a grinning skull pulling itself out of the sand and ashes, some of the grit clinging to it like a shroud.
“Great. Necromancy,” I muttered, kicking myself free before it could get a better hold and hopping back a step. “Don’t you have any respect for the… dead?”
I turned to Balthazar, and he was trying to free himself from two more skeletons that had grabbed his robes and had a much better grip on him. He swung his sword down and decapitated one, though it almost immediately started to reform.
There wasn’t a lot of time to think, so I blasted the second one.
“Not yours?” I asked.
“No,” he said, backing away quickly. More skeletons rose up, all twitching and monochrome, covered in shifting black dust that swirled around the frame of their bones like thick ebon oil, looking at one moment like burned foals and another like members of the Aretic order.
“Can I suggest a temporary truce until we can debate killing each other in peace?” I asked.
He nodded. “Agreed. Neither of us is looking forward to being consumed by the undead.” Balthazar batted away a lunge from another skeleton, and I threw a wave of force at them that tossed the skeletons into the wall. The bones slid to the ground and immediately started to reform, limbs snapping back into place like they were drawn by magnets.
“This could be a problem,” I said. “They don’t want to stay down.”
“Isn’t that normal for the undead?” Balthazar asked. “I apologize if it’s a stupid question. Before you came to Saddle Arabia my days were wonderfully free of having to deal with horrors like this.”
That got a laugh out of me. “That’s like blaming the maid for messing up your room just because they’re always there when your bed is unmade.”
“Some maids moonlight as thieves,” he countered. “Is there any way out of here? Running might be a better option than staying.”
“...Yeah. This way!” I charged for the doorway, knocking a skeleton away with my shoulder on the way through. I still knew the layout like the back of my hoof. Even running away from my problems was second nature.
The front door was closed, which would have been a problem for me as a foal. As an adult, doors were a suggestion for polite ponies to stay out. I wasn’t feeling particularly polite.
“Knock knock!” I blasted the doors apart, and they half-shattered like wood and half-crumbled like sand, like it wasn’t able to keep up with what I was doing.
Balthazar ran through after me, and we were on Canterlot’s streets. Sort of.
“This place wouldn’t have manifested that building unless you had lingering regrets!” Balthazar yelled. “It’s trying to make you wish for something, to change things!”
“It’s been ages since I thought about that place,” I said. I stopped, looking around. “We’ve got a minute before they catch up. I don’t know why you decided to come down here and steal wishes, but it’s stupid and we should just leave. If we can find a way out.”
“Me? Steal wishes?” Balthazar looked offended. “I came here to stop you from stealing wishes! My sources have proven you’re the one who’s been giving them out, and I needed to stop you before you used them for yourself!”
“What? I mean, you’re not entirely wrong but-- I didn’t steal them!” I paused. “You know, there’s no version of the truth that’s going to make me seem like both a good and smart pony in this.”
“Bold of you to assume you’re either.”
“Ha ha, laugh it up,” I muttered.
“There’s no laughs to be had. My niece came to me in tears and told me you forced her to tell you where the wishes were kept!” Balthazar turned his sword to me, looked me in the eyes, and the tip drooped. “And I begin to suspect you have a similar story.”
“She told me you sent the assassins after her,” I said. “And today she came to me and said I had to rush down here and stop you.”
“And the Arena?” Balthazar asked. “You replaced my champion’s sword with a deadly double, and poisoned Shahrazad’s with something you were conveniently immune to.”
“She begged me to take his place after you poisoned him, and your champion smuggled in a sword to try and murder me.” I said, without much force behind it. “I’m starting to think both of us are bucking idiots.”
“Oh, I am with you on that,” Balthazar agreed.
“Neither of us want to be here?” I asked.
“Neither of us,” he agreed. “It’s absurdly dangerous.”
“I’ve got an idea,” I said. “If this is made from my memories, maybe we need to go where I felt happiest and safest.”
The undead lurched out of the shadows, closing in on us.
“And that is?” Balthazar asked, moving his sword to point it at the real enemy.
“The palace. It has to be.” I looked around. Part of the fake skyline changed, one spire brightening like polished silver while the rest tarnished. “That way!”
We started running through the streets, the cobbles shifting underhoof. It was like going on a treadmill, and the more we ran, the further away it seemed. Just when I was about to give up, we turned onto a wide street and there it was, the castle gates right ahead of me. I could just see something in the highest tower, a white mare, catching the light.
“Watch out!” Balthazar yelled.
The floor gave out. There was a terrible sensation of falling, and then I hit the sand hard, and it closed over me, rushing like a river. I could feel myself being swept along helplessly by the current. A rock hit my bad leg and I would have cried out if I could breathe with the grit crushing my ribs.
Somewhere between a second and an eternity later, the rushing quicksand spat me up on a monochrome and forested shore.
“Even your old regrets are dangerous to be around,” Balthazar muttered, coughing. “I think I swallowed about ten pounds of sand.”
“That was--” I coughed, trying to catch my breath. “--That was the time I nearly drowned. It was a really bad week.”
He helped me up. I looked at my leg, fearing the worst. I half-expected it to be broken again. Thankfully it just seemed tender.
“Try to make your other regrets about something less deadly,” Balthazar suggested. “Perhaps some overdue library books?”
“Why aren’t we seeing any of your shameful greatest hits?” I asked.
“Yours must be considerably more… tasty,” Balthazar said. “For lack of a better word.”
“I don’t like the implications of that,” I said. I limped through the treeline. In reality it would have just kept going into the Everfree, but here it opened up into the streets of Ponyville like a bad dream.
“Watch out,” Balthazar said, pointing.
Six skeletons stepped onto the street.
“Of course it’s them,” I whispered. Each of the skeletons was shrouded in a translucent face I knew well. My best friends. Twilight. Rarity. Rainbow Dash, Applejack. Fluttershy. Pinkie Pie. Some of the ponies I’d disappointed the most. “This place is really determined to piss me off.”
“Enemies of yours?” Balthazar asked.
“No. Friends. I wronged them, and ran away instead of facing up to it because they were heroes and I wasn’t.” I swallowed. “I just screw things up when I try to help. Like this whole mess.”
“If it helps, I forgive you for this mess as it appears we were both deliberately misled.”
“The technical term is ‘played like a darn fiddle,’” I said.
The only way out was through. I grabbed the spectre of Pinkie Pie and threw it at Dash, both of them collapsing into dust. They might have looked like my friends, or at least like a bad photocopy of them, but I knew it wasn’t them.
“Should I…?” Balthazar asked.
“No,” I said, pulling the others into one mass using a gravity spell before detonating it and sending their bones flying. “I got it.”
The streets of Ponyville started to fade. Buildings collapsed into dust.
“That must be the end of it,” Balthazar said, looking around. “I think when it created that river it drew us deeper into the cavern. This isn’t the same room we walked into.”
“No,” I agreed. “This is deeper, and…” He was staring past my shoulder. There was something behind me. I could feel it creeping on my back.
I turned slowly. Massive chains, each link as big as my head and forged out of pure silver, formed a web that stretched hundreds of feet, from wall to wall.
Impossibly, Ruby Drop was there. She was a foal. She was half my size. The chains shouldn’t have been able to wrap around her legs, around her neck, binding her in place so tight that she couldn’t move. They should have been comically large. I could feel the whole thing pulling at my senses like an optical illusion.
She smiled.
“You’re not my friend,” I said.
“I am not your enemy, either,” Ruby whispered.
“Balthazar?” I asked. “What are you seeing?”
“A great beast,” he said. “A dragon, shrouded in fire and smoke.”
“That’s not what I see,” I said, not elaborating. “It must be some kind of illusion.”
“You see what you expect to see,” Ruby explained. “You saw your friends. Your past. You expected your greatest regret to show up as some final challenge against your temperance. And here I am.”
“I don’t regret Ruby,” I said.
“No. But there is great want there. Enough that I can taste the pain. Pain I could satisfy if you would just wish for it. But… you won’t.” She looked disappointed. “I could be your salvation, Sunset Shimmer. I could make your friends forgive you. For anything! For everything! They could love you forever.”
“I don’t need your help,” I said. “They’re my friends. I know if I go back and apologize they’ll forgive me.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” she -- it -- said. “I can feel that pain inside you.”
“I believe in them,” I said, quietly. “I’ve been really stupid about a lot of things, but they’re the ponies I can really count on. No deal.”
“It’s ironic,” it said, its eyes glowing. “You were able to get through the barrier because you outgrew so many of your old desires, and now that you’re in front of me you have no wishes you cannot grant yourself.”
“Oh, it isn’t ironic,” said a familiar voice behind me. “It’s just as planned.”
Arch stepped out of the shadows.
“Hey, sister,” she said, waving to me. “Let me tell you, this whole mess was a little bit of a gambit on my part but you really pulled through in the end. Truth is I couldn’t have done it without you!” She smiled and shook her head. “Good work, kid.”
“Oh, Sunset,” Balthazar said. “I’m not sure you’ve met. This is a friend of mine--”
“Thanks, I already know her,” I said. “I think she’s friends with just about everypony in town, aren’t you, Arch?”
“Arch?” Balthazar asked, looking confused. “But…”
“It’s not her real name, I know,” I said. “I don’t really care what her actual name is at this point. Let me guess -- she’s the one who told you how to get here? She has to know, since she’s been smuggling wishes out.”
“You make it sound like an easy operation,” Arch said, defensively. “All I could ever do is scrape away at the edges. See, when they sealed this bad girl in, they made sure nopony who was a danger could ever get close. This place shows you your past, all the bad decisions you ever made, and it tries to kill you with ‘em. Even the ponies who were supposed to be guarding it all ended up succumbing.”
“The Aretic Order,” I guessed. “That’s why Sirocco couldn’t walk in with me.”
“Something like that,” Arch agreed. “Like I said, Sunset, I’m really proud of you! You being here means you’re, well, I guess it’s sort of like a zen thing, isn’t it? You have to be without want and understanding of your needs. Or something like that, I’m not really a philosopher. Point is, my wishes were too big and too strong for me to get through. I barely got away with those few wishes I stole, and even hanging onto them was a temptation I couldn’t risk.”
“Why? Whatever it is you wanted to do, one wish should have been enough,” I said.
“You’d think that.” Arch smiled. “You want a hug? I sort of feel like a hug.”
She stepped closer, and I let my horn light up.
“Owch, not one for hugs,” Arch sighed.
“You… wanted this?” Balthazar asked. “I don’t understand. You’re working with Shahrazad?”
“Huh? That kid? Nah. Truth is, she’s a total disaster. Can you imagine if somepony that power-hungry came down here? This place would eat her alive!” Arch scoffed. “Why, my reasons are practically selfless!”
“So tell me what it’s all about,” I said. “Tell me your grand scheme, Arch. What is it, some vague promise about making things better for everypony here? Streets paved with gold? A feast every night?”
“That does sound nice,” Arch admitted. “But… no. Not exactly.” Arch rubbed her chin and started pacing back and forth, only glancing once at the Djinn before purposefully keeping her gaze averted. “See, you might not have figured this one out, but I’m actually not from around here.”
“You’re Equestrian,” I guessed. It was an educated guess, though. Her accent, some of the things she’d said.
“Bingo!” Arch grinned. “I guess I bought into the whole Equestrian dream, ponies being free to do whatever they want. A thousand years and it’s still the most peaceful, prosperous place in the world. It’s because of ponies like me that it stays that way.”
“So what are you?” I asked. “Equestrian Intelligence? Some obscure part of the Royal Guard?”
“That sounds awful formal,” Arch said. “I’m just a pony doing what she can for her country. Making friends and influencing ponies.”
“And smuggling wishes out of here.”
“Well, everypony’s got hobbies. See, the problem with Princess Celestia -- and I say this with love because I do love the mare -- she doesn’t let people get hurt even when it would be good for Equestria. If the zebras want to give the griffons a bloody nose, she’ll step in and make peace. That sort of thing.” Arch rubbed her nose. “Saddle Arabia, it’s a tough nut to crack, you know? Lots of secrets. Secrets make a pony worried when they’re as big as a nation. So I came out here, I saw all those ruins and you know what I decided?”
“That they’re not a threat,” I said. “That’s not what you’re going to say, but it’s what you should have figured out. These ponies aren’t some kind of danger to Equestria.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” Arch nodded, not quite agreeing. “The way I look at it, they’re barely hanging on. Something comes along and gives them a push and things are gonna go bad. You’ve seen how dangerous those wishes can be, Sunset! Heck, you’re the only pony I’ve met who looked one in the face and walked away. These ponies have it bad. And all it’s gonna take is somepony getting on the throne and deciding it’s time to change the rules and all Tartarus is going to break loose.”
“If Equestria gives them aid--”
“You’re thinking too much like Celestia,” Arch interrupted, shaking her head. “Makes sense, what with her raising you. You’ve probably heard arguments like this all the time, but you were on the other side of them. The way I see it, these are ponies who have something very dangerous, and at some point that--” She pointed at the Djinn. “--is gonna stop being a way to feed the poor and start being a weapon. And Equestria will suffer for it.”
“You’re crazy,” I muttered.
“I have a longer view of these things,” Arch said, with a shrug. “I’m a little older than you, after all. All I want to do is make sure they don’t have a knife to stab us in the back. They’ll get plenty of Equestrian aid. Heck, if you do end up marryin’ the Princess maybe you can even arrange for them to become part of Equestria. Better for everypony that way.”
“I won’t let you do this,” Balthazar said. “Saddle Arabia isn’t just some animal for Equestria to tame!”
“How about it, Sunset?” Arch asked. “You’re gonna have to pick a side. Equestria, or Saddle Arabia.”
I shook my head. “There aren’t just two choices. And it doesn’t matter. You’re outnumbered three-to-one.” I pointed behind Arch. “Looks like my guide finally stopped having cold hooves.”
Sirocco Mandala stepped into the dim light. She glanced up at the Djinn and I saw the disgust wash over her face.
“Three to one isn't good odds for you," I warned.
“Aretic Order, put this mare under arrest,” Balthazar said, pointing at Arch. “She’s committed high crimes against Saddle Arabia.”
“I’m bound by my oaths,” Sirocco said. She reached into her uniform and grabbed a glass orb the size of a hoof, throwing it at Balthazar before he could react. Black, glassy stone flashed over his body, turning him into a statue with a frozen expression of shock, still pointing at Arch. “Otherwise I would have killed every member of the Royal Family for making pacts with this creature.”
“The way I see it,” Arch said. “It’s really more like two to one, with the advantage on my side.”
“What the buck?” I whispered.
“The Djinn needs to be destroyed,” Sirocco stated. “The Great Hunt was never completed because the Royal Family forced us to seal the last Djinn down here. My comrades lost their lives binding that thing in silver chains and spells and even its own wishes. I swore on their memory that I would finish things.”
“See?” Arch asked. “Making friends. How else do you think she knew where to go to clean up all those messes? Before you showed up I was trying to feed this thing one granted wish at a time until it could shake some of these chains free.” Arch kicked a broken length of chain lying across the floor. “That would have taken decades. We came up with a plan that was gonna keep ponies from being hurt because, hoof on my heart, I hate hurting ponies. Never a fan of violence. Don’t even like hurting griffons, and I still feel bad about how the Idol of Boreas thing played out.”
“The what?” I felt totally lost.
“Long story. Just another little threat to Equestria that got nipped in the bud. So how about you step aside and let us take care of this?” Arch nodded towards the Djinn, still not looking at it. “Tia likes you a whole bunch and I’d hate to have to send you home with extra bruises, kid.”
“I…” I hesitated and looked back at it. Ruby Drop was there. I mean, she wasn’t really there. It just looked like her because it knew it’s what I wanted to see. It made it look helpless. In a lot of ways it was helpless.
“If you don’t stand aside, I’ll kill you,” Sirocco said. “It’s not a threat or a bluff. It’s just a fact.”
“She’ll do it, Sunset, and you know it,” Arch said. “Don’t do anything stupid, you hear? I consider you one of my best friends, and I mean it. You’re a good pony and I don’t want you hurt none.”
“No deal,” I said.
“Why?” Arch asked. “What are you doing it for? Princess Shahrazad? That pony is crazy! She ordered those assassins to go after her, you know. They were just members of her personal guard too stupid or in debt to say no. If there’s any pony that’s a threat to Equestria here, it’s her. Don’t fight for her, Sunset, she’s not worth it.”
“What are you-- I know she’s dangerous!” I snapped. “She’s been playing me and Balthazar against each other because she wanted me to end up killing him! You think I’m an idiot that couldn’t see it?!”
“A little bit, yeah,” Arch admitted. “I underestimated you a little there.”
“I’m not going to let either of you near the Djinn.”
“I’m going to destroy it, not make a pact with it,” Sirocco stated. “You have nothing to be worried about. We have to act quickly. Look at this.”
She reached into the dust and sand on the ground and pulled up a broken length of chain.
“The djinn’s bonds have been weakening with every unrestricted wish that has been made. It won’t stay here forever. It might already be able to worm its way free even if we do nothing, and then it will escape and cause unimaginable chaos.”
“Some of that’s my fault,” Arch admitted. “It was sort of my plan A. Feed it until it breaks out on its own.”
“I’m aware,” Sirocco said. “Even so, this has to be brought to an end and we can do it cleanly now.”
“You live in the palace. How many ponies get life-saving medical care, or food, or water, or whatever else because of the wishes the King drags out of this thing?”
Sirocco frowned, not answering.
“Dozens every day?” I asked. “Hundreds? Even if the royal family bit down their pride and asked for help today there isn’t enough to keep this place together. They’ve been using wishes to give ponies just enough to get through the day. And that’s why you haven’t gotten rid of them before, isn’t it?”
“Get out of the way,” Sirocco warned.
“Make me.”
This was the wrong thing to say, because Sirocco was more than willing to do exactly that. She charged almost as fast as I could think, either because she was really quick and I wasn’t at my best or because she was really, really quick and I was in even more trouble than usual. I snapped a shield up between us, and she jumped and shoulder-charged into the wall.
Most ponies who charge at a magical shield just sort of bounce off, but she smashed through it like it was made of balsa wood. If I hadn’t put it up she would have smashed my bones the same way, but instead she only hit me with enough force to lightly bruise my skeleton and throw me across the room.
“Ow,” I muttered, from the floor.
“Stay down and you’ll live,” she said, with the same tone my moth- the same tone Celestia used when she knew I wasn’t going to listen to advice. “I’m more than a century older than you and I’ve spent that whole time fighting.”
I got up and glared at her. “You look pretty good for your age. What’s your secret? Spa visits?”
“For one thing, I was smart enough to avoid fights I couldn’t win,” she said.
“Up until now,” I countered, before throwing a stun spell into her face. It was strong enough to take out a buffalo, and that was an empirical fact proven in an unfortunate incident involving sacred burial sites, an archeological dig, and differing ideas on the differences between grave robbing and research.
She took it on the chin, stumbled, and kept going despite the fact that the spell should have put her down for hours.
I threw another one at her, and she actually dodged it, dipping out of the way and moving faster than my eye could follow. She was in my face in half a second and I had the kind of unfortunate reaction you get when you surprise a pony who was really good with fire spells and not good with self-control.
The fireball went off at point-blank range and blasted us apart from each other. It was more concussive force than actual heat, but the air was still filled with the stink of burning hair.
I landed and rolled to my hooves relatively unharmed. Sirocco was more or less the same, if a little more singed around the edges.
“Okay. So much for nonlethal force,” I said. At least the fire seemed to do something, so I threw more at her.
Sirocco grabbed one of the broken chains from the ground, whipping it out of the ground and knocking my firebolt out of the air. The silver went right through the spell and shattered the magic, then she spun on her hooves and cracked it down towards me. I tried to grab it with my magic, and it was like it wasn’t even there.
The chain hit my side and I felt ribs snap. If I hadn’t had my saddlebags on it would have killed me. I landed in a heap with my cloak ripped to shreds and the saddlebags torn apart. I felt like a puppet with its strings cut, like I wasn’t even connected to my body.
Sirocco dropped the chain and took a step towards me. I couldn’t stop her. I couldn’t focus enough to cast anything.
Arch stepped between us.
“Come on, Sirocco,” Arch said, quietly. “You don’t have to kill the kid. She’s an idiot, not evil.”
I tried to get up, but couldn’t quite manage it. Every breath felt like I was being stabbed in the side.
Sirocco shook her head. “She had her chance. Too many chances.”
“You sore just because she got a couple good hits in?” Arch asked. “That ain’t like you. How about you just take your win gracefully and let me take her out of here and patch her up?”
Sirocco’s eyebrow shot up.
“She’s my friend,” Arch shrugged. “I meant it when I told her that. Besides, she’s Celly’s daughter. I owe Sunbutt a couple favors. Even if I didn’t, I couldn’t just go and take out her kid without a good reason.”
“This is a good reason,” Sirocco said. “If you don’t step aside, I’ll have to kill you, too.”
Arch sighed. “Have it your way.” She stepped to the side and motioned to me.
Sirocco walked up slowly, and I started thinking about what I could say for really cool, dramatic last words.
A swirling sphere shattered against her side, and she turned to stone before she could react. I sighed in relief because I hadn’t come up with anything cool, and also because I wasn’t going to die today.
“I hate having to do that kind of thing,” Arch muttered.
“Thanks,” I groaned.
“Yeah,” Arch sighed. “You know, this is gonna set me back years. I might not get this close to fixing up this little situation for decades, and if Princess Shahrazad does anything really stupid again, and she will, she might end up with one heck of a weapon and not a lot of judgment on where to stab it.”
“I know,” I said. I got up, which was more a matter of using telekinesis to lift myself than the fading strength in my legs. “But we have to give them a chance to do things themselves. I’m tired of ponies jerking me around, and I won’t let it happen to a whole country. They’ll make mistakes, but if we’re friends with them we can help when they stumble.”
“Yep, you’re definitely her kid,” Arch sighed. “That’s the kind of thing she’d say. Then she’d meddle anyway because she has a bad habit of saying one thing and doing something else.”
“That’s Celestia in a nutshell,” I agreed. “So what happens now?”
Arch took a deep breath. “We get these two statues out of here so they’re not stuck down in this mine for a thousand years. Then… well, this place only opened up because it couldn’t get a hold on you. You leave, it’ll close up again.”
“But what are you going to do?” I asked. “Give out more wishes?”
“Nah, you’ve got the last one,” Arch said. “I’ll give you a chance to prove me wrong. It’s the least I can do for a friend, right?” She smiled.
“Thanks. You know, you’re not going to be very popular around here,” I said. “Why don’t you come back to Canterlot with me? You don’t need to hang around here, right?”
Arch laughed and patted me on the back. Carefully. “Sister, even you ran away as fast as you could! Don’t try and sell me on that. But tell you what, I’ll visit when things cool down. Just make sure you go and apologize to your friends first. You’re a lot more fun when you’re not down in the dumps.”
I nodded. “I will.”
“Good! Now let’s get them back to the castle before I come to my senses. This is why I couldn’t deal with my old teacher’s buddies. They were always dragging me into weird stuff. Heroes, am I right?” She laughed.
“I am so glad you returned unharmed, my beloved,” Shahrazad said, leaning in and kissing my cheek.
“I’ve got like three broken ribs,” I said. The doctors had patched me up a little. I was still sore but it was amazing what a lot of really strong willow bark tea could do, and the thing they’d wrapped around my chest was halfway between bandages and a corset and was doing wonderful things for my figure and also keeping my organs from being stabbed with my own bones.
Shahrazad paused. “Relatively unharmed? Alive? I apologize. I’m still processing the events. Actually I’m not even sure I’m entirely clear on what happened. You returned to the palace with my uncle and the head of the Aretic Order turned to stone.”
“Speaking of your uncle, we need to talk,” I said.
She sighed and nodded. “You were forced to fight him because he was trying to seize control over the nation.”
“Well, some of those words are true,” I agreed. “I almost had to fight him. Can we not do the thing where you lie or tell half-truths and I get flustered because you’re really attractive and don’t ask the important questions I should be asking?”
“I hope you’re not asking me not to be attractive.”
“Also let’s skip the deflections,” I said. “I know what you tried to do, Shahrazad. You wanted me to take him out.”
“And you did. You saved Saddle Arabia!”
“I didn’t take him out. There was sort of a complex web of betrayal and intersecting plans,” I said. “There was my plan to try and do a good job so I could come back as a hero instead of a pathetic loser. Arch had a plan to free the djinn -- there was a djinn down there by the way in case you didn’t know -- and Sirocco had a plan to kill it and they sort of started working together. Then there was your plan.”
“My plan?” Shahrazad asked.
“The one where you were trying to use me to get rid of your uncle. That plan.”
“Oh, yes,” Shahrazad sighed. “Let me tell you a story."
"Shahrazad..."
"Trust me, my beloved, this is a very important story. After all, it's about the most important pony in the world! I'm speaking about myself, of course." She smiled. "It sounds as though you think you've found me out. Will you give me a chance to speak for myself?"
"I... okay." I sighed. It was probably stupid, but I'd had a bad day and she wasn't trying to murder me, so I was inclined to listen.
She cleared her throat. "Countless years ago, when the world was younger and wilder than it is now and the great old magics that had forged the sky and sea had not yet gone cold, Saddle Arabia was already old. It was a center of learning and discovery and a bastion of civilization.”
Shahrazad settled down at my side, leaning into me.
“Before the birth of your Princess, before the great winter that drove ponies out of the lands of Hyperborea and Olde Unicornia, the Royal Family was a nation unto themselves. We lived a world apart from our ponies, in walled gardens and palaces where the common folk could never tread. Princes and Princesses grew up without ever seeing a pony who wasn’t a servant or a member of their own family.
“We might say they were imprisoned in a golden cage, but they had no real concept of freedom. Have you ever seen an animal born and raised in a zoo? Even the wildest creatures become tame and timid and can’t survive in the wild, and that is what the Royal Family was like. Every moment of their lives was spent in ceremony. Rarely, perhaps once or twice a generation, somepony from the outside, some hero or diplomat, would be allowed to see them from a distance, to watch the dance of tradition and pageantry, and that was as much contact as the royals had with the world outside the walls.
“My great grandfather, though truly there are a number of greats in that title I am leaving out, was a prince in those days. Every day, the servants would usher him through his life and he lived it without agency. He would sign and stamp papers without knowing if they meant thousands would be sent to their deaths in war, or if he was rewarding a pony for curing a plague, or if he was simply agreeing to set the price of Zebrican tea.
“Gifts were also part of the daily routine. They would be displayed, a servant would tell him how fine the gift was, and he would sign whatever papers accompanied the gift. It was naked bribery, of a sort. One could debate if it was truly bribery when he would have signed anything put in front of him without question and did not value the gifts.
“One day, a gift arrived without a missive or begging a favor. There was no sender, no waybill, just an anonymous gift. Nopony knew how it had ended up with the others, but it seemed harmless and nothing was being asked of the Prince, so it was presented to him. It was a simple glass bottle, weathered and ancient and tightly corked. Something about it awakened the buried curiosity and sparked something inside him that seemed to wake the prince from a long sleep. He decided to keep it with him until the mystery could be solved.
“That night, when the prince was finally alone, he found it difficult to sleep. The strange bottle had been placed in his room, and he knew it, the disruption of his routine, was the reason he couldn’t rest. He picked it up, tried to see through the frosted glass, and finally shook it in frustration. To his surprise, the bottle complained.
“‘Don’t shake me so roughly!’ it said.
“He was shocked! The Prince dropped the bottle, and it shattered, releasing a cloud of billowing smoke. It twisted and tried to turn into things, halfway assuming forms and then letting them dissolve.
“‘Why can’t I sense what you want?’ it asked. ‘Tell me what you desire.’
“‘Oh, I see,’ the Princes said. ‘You are a servant.’ And in that instant, it took on the form of a palace servant, because it was how he thought of it. This wasn’t an unusual form for a djinn, as many ponies thought of them as friends or slaves or otherwise just a type of powerful pony, even though they are nothing like that.
“‘I can grant you any wish,’ it said.
“‘That’s nice,’ the Prince said. He returned to bed and started going back to sleep. The djinn was perplexed. It had never seen a reaction quite like that.
“‘What are you doing?’ it asked.
“‘I couldn’t sleep because I didn’t know what the bottle was. Now I do.’
“‘You can’t go to sleep when I’m offering you anything you want!’ the djinn was annoyed. It had arranged to be given to the Prince and thought it would have fun, and now it seemed it wasn’t going to get any enjoyment out of it.
“‘A wise man once said that to want is to suffer,’ the Prince said, quoting from one of the many lessons he had been given when he had asked why he wasn’t allowed to leave.
“‘Three wishes,’ the djinn said. ‘I will give you three wishes, and then I will let you sleep. There must be something that can tempt you. Beautiful mares? An army to do your bidding? Riches beyond compare?’
“‘I have all those things, I think,’ the Prince said. ‘I’ve never had much use for any of them. Others use them in my name.’
“‘Come now, you are wise, aren’t you?’ the djinn smiled. ‘There must be something.’
“The prince sat up and thought for a while. He really was little more than a bit player in an elaborate show, but like anypony who has been on the stage he gradually learned the other parts. He knew the way things were now weren’t the way they always had to be, and he could change them if he tried.
“‘Then I wish that you would listen to what I have to say, because there aren’t enough ponies who actually listen, and I wish that you would understand me even when I express myself poorly, because I know I am not wise enough to always say what I mean, and I wish that you would give me what I need instead of what I ask for, because in asking I am limited in what I think will happen and not what actually will.’
“And with that the djinn was bound, and its form as a servant became the truth, because as long as the Prince chose his words carefully, it had to follow the intent behind them and could not claim to misunderstand. Since it was bound to listen it couldn’t simply leave, either, and ended up granting him many wishes over the years, though it grew weak and hungry as he kept it from causing much trouble. Later, the Prince would become the King, not just because he could make wishes safely but because he was wise enough to wish for what he needed instead of what he wanted.”
“So only members of the Royal Family can make wishes safely,” I said, when she’d finished. “Anyone else who sits on the throne can’t get anything out of it.”
“Even you wouldn’t be able to make it work,” Shahrazad confirmed. She started rubbing my shoulders. “But I can make wishes. Ones my father wouldn’t. I can make them on your behalf, beloved, once I am crowned queen.” She rubbed harder. “You’re all knots.”
That’s because I’d tensed up a lot.
“My uncle is a statue and while we’ve been sitting here enjoying ourselves, it seems his assassins have had one last terrible success,” Shahrazad said.
“His-- you sent assassins after your own father,” I stated. I tried to stand up and she pushed me down. Gently. It didn’t take much with how exhausted I am.
“Don’t bother,” she said, still smiling, though there was more iron to it than I’d seen before. “I sent them on their task before I even visited you. By now, it is already done and we are just awaiting the tragic news.”
There was a knock on the door.
“Ah, and there it is. Would you get that?”
I pulled open the door with my magic. Flash Sentry stepped in. Shahrazad looked confused.
“Hey, Flash,” I said. “So I’m guessing it went just like you predicted.”
He nodded. “Yeah. The same bunch of assassins from the parade. We got them with their pants down. Literally. They were changing out of their royal guard uniforms and into their assassin costumes and gave up without a fight.”
Shahrazad gasped. “You… you…”
“Yeah, before I went to get Sirocco I told Flash everything,” I said. “He told me you were definitely evil and you were gonna try to take care of everypony in one fell swoop. I was kind of hoping he was wrong, but now he gets to say ‘I told you so’.”
“I told you so,” Flash said, smiling.
“How could you do this?!” Shahrazad yelled, getting up and backing away from me. “I could have given you everything you ever wanted! I would have had absolute power!”
The snarl on her face made her look like a different pony entirely. I’d seen it before, though. It was quickly replaced by shock when royal guards, ones that she hadn’t bribed or made promises to, stepped in and surrounded her.
“This must be just what Celestia saw when I was being a brat,” I said. “No wonder she didn’t think I was ready.”
“What are you talking about?!” Shahrazad demanded
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I really did like you. You’re smart and ambitious. You just need to grow up a little. I did. It wasn’t easy.”
She glared at me. “You weren’t even supposed to be here. I was supposed to ensnare Princess Cadance.”
I shrugged. “I think you’d be disappointed. She’s already involved with somepony, and you’re not her type.”
She scoffed and rolled her eyes and walked out of the room with the kind of poise and grace that could make a pony think she was doing it under her own power and not being taken away under arrest.
“Are you going to be okay?” Flash asked.
“The doctors said it’d be a few weeks before I’m completely healed, but--”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it,” he said. He walked over to where I was sitting and knelt down to get on my eye level. “This hasn’t exactly been easy on you.”
“Are you kidding?” I grinned up at him. “I feel great! Buck, Flash, I was getting jerked around this whole time and finally -- finally -- I got to be the one doing the jerking. You know what now that I’ve said that it sounds kind of perverted and I wish I’d phrased it differently.”
“No, it’s perfect,” Flash said, very seriously. “I’ll note in my official report that you jerked them all.”
I giggled. “Don’t make me laugh! My ribs are broken, you jerk!”
I managed to go almost a whole hour before disaster struck again, catching me in the middle of writing a letter to my friends and trying to explain everything that happened. When I say the middle, I mean the middle of the third try, the first two crumpled up and thrown across the room where the stupid words wouldn’t affect my third attempt.
Flash burst into the room, and he looked scared.
“Horrible magic accident or ponies being stupid?” I asked, before he said anything.
“Sirocco Mandala escaped from the palace hospital,” he said, helping me to my hooves and leading me down the corridor.
There were guards with weapons all looking in the same direction, which was also the direction we were going, so at least Flash was smart enough to be taking me into danger instead of trying to make me run away from it.
“She attacked the medics after she was… depetrified? What’s the word for it?” Flash asked.
“Vivified,” I supplied.
“She’s still weak, but she grabbed a guard’s weapon before anypony could stop her. Most ponies in the palace still don’t know what happened,” Flash said. “She got up to the Princesses’ room before word could spread. The guards just let her walk in.”
“Of course they did.” I groaned. “That’s the problem with these big plots. There’s so much trouble going around nopony can keep track of it all!”
“The good thing is she didn’t seriously injure anypony,” Flash said. “I mean, aside from you. The doctors found her standing over Balthazar but she didn’t attack him.”
“She didn’t?” I frowned.
“Maybe they got the drop on her before she could do anything?” Flash suggested. “He was unconscious, so it’s not like they were chatting.”
“Maybe. She’s still in there?”
“Out on the balcony,” Flash confirmed. “She’s threatened to kill Shahrazad.”
“Stay here,” I whispered. “I’ll try to talk her down.”
“Do you know anything about hostage situations?” Flash asked.
I paused. “One or two things, yeah. I can handle it better than the guards, and if I go alone, maybe she won’t panic.”
“It’s worth a shot,” Flash admitted. “Good luck.”
I opened the door the rest of the way.
“I’m unarmed,” I said, loudly, walking out to the balcony.
Sirocco was holding a blade. It seemed like overkill since she could probably have ripped Princess Shahrazad’s head off with her bare hooves.
“Sunset,” Sirocco said. “You keep showing up when you’re least wanted.”
“It’s a bad habit,” I agreed. “I won’t let you kill her.”
Sirocco looked at the Princess, then back to me. “Why?”
“We’ve already done the moral discussion thing, right? The one where you’re obsessed with… I think it was revenge for your fallen comrades? Honestly, it seems more like you just sort of want to burn the whole world because you’re unhappy.”
She glared at me.
“Hey, I get it,” I shrugged. “I’ve felt like that too! I know this isn’t what you really want. You’re just mad and making a bad decision.”
“Stabbing me would be a very poor decision,” Shahrazad hissed. “If the royal family ends--”
“The djinn you keep under the palace would come unbound. Or at least be sealed away forever.” Sirocco pressed the blade into her skin.
Shahrazad tried to squirm away from the edge starting to bite into her. A drop of blood welled up along the edge. “It would cause untold chaos!”
“Shahrazad,” I said, slowly. “That’s what she wants. Please stop telling her how to get it.” I looked into Sirocco’s eyes. “But she doesn’t really want to kill you. I can tell.”
“And how can you tell that?” Sirocco asked.
“Because you’re hesitating,” I said. “I’ve never seen you hesitate. You don’t immediately use violence, but you aren’t afraid to use it. That means part of you thinks there’s a way out of this without having to kill anypony else.”
“There is no way,” Sirocco whispered.
An idea hit me. A really bad idea. It would either work perfectly or backfire badly. The good thing was that I was sort of counting on some backfiring to happen.
“If you wanted to end the royal family you could have killed Balthazar in his bed. You didn’t. You came here because you thought if you could morally justify killing any of them, it would be her.”
“If she dies, the bloodline ends,” Sirocco retorted. “If there is no heir, my work will be done.”
I held up a hoof. “You don’t want to do that,” I said. “In fact, I can prove it.”
I reached into my saddlebag. Sirocco watched me carefully.
“What is it?” she asked.
I pulled out a small silver box and held it up where Sirocco could look into it, then opened it. Bright light spilled out of it, and she gasped in surprise. I threw the box into the air, and her gaze followed it. I used a transposition spell to swap myself with Shahrazad, taking her place and getting her away from Sirocco.
Sirocco reached for the box as it arced overhead, and I shoved her, making her drop the knife and knocking her off-balance. She stumbled toward the falling box without taking her eyes off it, which was the definition of a fatal mistake.
I don’t know what she saw, but I couldn’t grab her - whatever protected her from my spells in the mine kept me from getting a grip on her and pulling her to safety. She went right over the edge of the balcony with a hundred floors worth of empty air below her.
“I don’t know what you saw, but you probably should have wished for wings,” I said, looking over the edge. There was enough dust and haze in the air I couldn't see where she landed. Probably a good thing for my dreams. “It’s what I would have done.”
“You… you saved me,” Princess Shahrazad whispered.
“Again,” I pointed out.
“Yes, but this time it was real!” She touched her neck. “She cut me!”
“You’ll be fine,” I assured her. “Maybe it’ll stick around and you’ll remember all this plotting and scheming doesn’t mean much if you’re not making friends. You made enemies out of your whole family.”
“I didn’t…” She hesitated, trailing off.
“Yeah. You should hope they’re better ponies than you are. If your uncle or dad get the same ideas you did, you’re in a lot of trouble.”
I walked out, and found Flash at the door.
“When’s the next boat back to Equestria?” I asked. “I think I’m ready to go home.”
“...and then I spent a few days healing up on the way back,” I said. “My ribs are still a little tender but--”
Celestia swept me up into a hug, and I groaned.
“That’s exactly what I didn’t want to happen,” I mumbled, my side aching. “Ow.”
“I was so worried about you,” she whispered. “Every time you leave you end up getting hurt.”
“You should see the other guy,” I joked. “I’m fine, mom. I promise. I’m just sore.”
Celestia let me go and gave me a stern look. “You could have died!”
“Yeah. It was stupid,” I admitted. “I’m sorry for worrying you.”
“If Luna hadn’t kept me updated I would have flown over myself to bring you back,” Celestia said.
“If it helps, I think I saved Saddle Arabia,” I said. “They didn’t seem sorry to let me go, though. I think even if I saved them I ended up causing a lot of trouble and learning too many secrets they didn’t want known.”
“It’s an unfortunate part of helping some ponies,” Celestia assured me. “You sometimes end up hurting them a little to make things better later.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “And I still don’t know what the deal is with Arch. Not that it’s her real name. Some of the things she said, it made me think that she knew you personally.” I looked up at Celestia. “Be honest. Do you have some kind of secret police?”
Celestia laughed. “Sunset, if I had secret police, I would have sent them to bring you back.”
“That… isn’t an answer.”
She took a deep breath. “No, Sunset. I used to have a covert group dedicated to dealing with monsters and threats across Equestria, but I closed the service down after Luna’s return. Now the Night Guard protects Equestria in that way. And before you ask, no, none of them are in Saddle Arabia.”
“Weird,” I mumbled. “Maybe she was a former student?”
“Before you and Twilight, I hadn’t had a student in centuries. The last time I had anypony with real potential it was just after Star Swirl vanished.”
“That long ago?”
“Yes. I did it mostly as a favor to him. He was fond of having… well, he called us students, but we were more like assistants. Star Swirl barely spent any personal time with us. He’d send all of us out on missions or quests just so he could have an excuse not to deal with things himself.”
“I remember you sending me to some far-off places. And if I recall correctly, Twilight has complained about the same thing.”
“I do it in the name of helping you learn!” Celestia scoffed. “Besides, you were always jumping at the chance to go out into the field.”
“I was jumping at the chance to make you proud of me.”
She coughed politely. “Even so. Clover the Clever was… different. She was--”
“Clover was a stallion,” I said.
“Not this again,” Celestia sighed. “It’s just like Commander Hurricane all over again.”
“Everypony knows Clover was a stallion,” I said. “I can go get a textbook right now and prove it.”
“I can do even better than that,” Celestia boasted. In a flash of golden light, a scrapbook appeared in front of us. It was ancient, and when she flipped through the first few pages, I saw things that could have made a historian’s entire career. Scraps of cloth from before recorded history. Drawings and diagrams of things that were supposed to be mythical. And then, finally…
“A photo?” I asked.
“They didn’t call them photos back then,” Celestia said. “It was called a heliograph because the intense light required for the exposure required the sun, which meant I was personally involved in the creation. And it took about an hour.”
“I can see why it didn’t catch on at first.”
“It took a few hundred more years for ponies to discover something that could capture something more lively than a statue. This image is a little blurred because holding my breath for an hour proved too difficult.”
“It’s also so faded I can barely see it,” I mumbled, squinting and trying to make it out. There were patches of light and dark but it was more like somepony had let silver tarnish and I was trying to make out a face in the blotches.
“Sunlight and magic made the image, and it requires sharpening from time to time,” Celestia explained. Her horn lit up, and gradually the image came into focus. It was like watching a magnet pull iron filings into alignment, dark and light shifting and gaining contrast and details.
Then I saw that face, and the smirk, and I swore loudly.
“That bucking--” I said a few words here I won’t repeat, because while Griffonese is great for accounting and contracts it’s even better for swearing. “Of course she’d use a bucking fake name! No one would believe her anyway!”
Celestia looked confused for a few moments, then surprise and understanding dawned across her face.
“She’s alive?”
“Not if I get my hooves on her,” I said. “Clover the Clever more like Clover the bucking annoying. Why is she alive? She’s got to be like a thousand years old!”
“Plus a century or two,” Celestia agreed. “There were always rumors…”
“Are you seriously trying to tell me she was your student and you just lost track of her?”
“She drifted away from me after… Luna,” Celestia said.
“And you didn’t go looking.”
“The whole world was falling apart around me. It took years before ponies stopped worrying that the sun wouldn’t rise in the morning. Decades before they’d leave their homes at night. Almost a century before I was able to get a decent night of sleep.”
“So what is she? Undead?”
“I’m a little worried you jump straight to the forbidden arts as an explanation,” Celestia noted.
“Well I’ve never seen a fountain of youth and I’m pretty sure if you asked a djinn for eternal youth it’d do something to twist it like… turning her into a foal, or a statue, or something like that. So unless...”
“Before you ask, she isn’t an alicorn. I’d know.” Celestia was firm about that, firm enough I knew she was telling the truth.
“One more mystery for the pile,” I sighed.
Celestia vanished the book in a flash of light back to whatever vault she kept it in. “There are always mysteries. Life would be boring if we got all the answers in advance, wouldn’t it?”
I thought about that. “I’d still like some answers once in a while.”
“Let’s look on the bright side,” Celestia said, perking up. “You’re back just in time to help with the wedding!”
“Wedding?” I stumbled, and Celestia caught me with a gentle hoof. Then it hit me. “Oh! Did Shining Armor finally pop the question-- no, wait, let me guess, Cadance just got fed-up enough to ask him herself? I warned her she’d end up doing it.”
“Unfortunately, Captain Armor is still working up his courage, though I’m told he’s been caught rehearsing his lines on more than one occasion.”
“Then who?” I frowned.
“Oh Sunset, you should know better than anypony!” Celestia smiled, one of those evil smiles that says she’s plotting something. “You got the first boat back, but the mail service is even faster. Do you know who was on the second boat out of Saddle Arabia?”
I swallowed. “Ambassador Vuvuzela?”
“Not quite. Apparently Princess Shahrazad is coming to stay with us. The rumors say she has fallen out of favor with her father, and after listening to your story I can see why she’d also decide to bring along, oh, everything she owns.”
“You’re joking,” I groaned. “You can’t be serious!”
“Oh, I’m quite serious,” Celestia said. “And ever since the news hit the papers I’ve received a number of letters from your friends.”
I winced.
“Some of them have been writing every day,” Celestia continued. “If it wasn’t for the fact they were being sent by dragonfire I expect the postage would be quite expensive.”
“So I should probably… write them back, huh?”
“Yes. And they’ll want feedback on their ideas.”
Celestia lifted her horn, and a portal opened up over my head, dozens of scrolls raining down on me until there was a pile knee-deep around me. One final, tiny scroll bounced off my forehead and landed on top of the rest.
“You can’t be serious,” I said.
Celestia smiled. “The heaviest ones are from Rarity. They’re largely dress designs and fabric samples. Twilight’s are the long ones with a list of numbered questions. You’ll want to sort those to find the most recent revision. Fluttershy’s have surprisingly nice hoofwriting. There’s one or two from Applejack, though she was patient enough to wait for you and leave it at that. Be careful with anything that looks suspiciously pink or colorful because it might explode with glitter.”
I sighed. “And Rainbow Dash?”
“Is included as a postscript in most of the other letters, because, I presume, she was too cool to write her own,” Celestia said. She lifted the smallest scroll. “This one is from Ruby.”
“I’ll talk to her myself,” I said. “She deserves more than a letter.”
“I’m glad we agree,” Celestia said. “But before that, might I suggest… a bath?”
I looked up at her and frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
My hooves left the floor as she swept me up in her aura. I didn’t even try to fight it.
“Sunset, from the smell I can tell that not only have you spent the last week on board a ship without running water, I can make a fair guess at what spells you are using to try and cover up how long it’s been since you saw a bar of soap.”
I sighed and let her carry me, going on about how worried she was.
It was nice, to have somepony worry about me. To be loved.
