Thirty pony one-shots inspired by sixty random Magic cards. (No card game knowledge required.)
There's a story behind every Magic card, and when you smash them together, you get even more ponies than you can normally find. Set throughout Equestrian probability space, each of these stories was inspired by two cards chosen through Gatherer's Random Card function. Characters and genres will vary as a result. Knowledge of card games isn't necessary for most chapters; the table of contents will call out the full crossovers.
1. To Eat the Sun Tags: Drama, Historical, Olde Tymey Characters: Celestia, OC Princess Celestia has one final task for herself before abandoning Castle Everfree.
2. Wartime Industry Tags: Adventure, Full Crossover Characters: Nicol Bolas, Pinkie Pie, Karn There’s a reason Nicol Bolas keeps Pinkie out of the War of the Spark in most timelines.
3. The Dos and Don’ts of Phoenix Care Tags: Comedy, Random Characters: Philomena, Royal Guard, Celestia Pets take after their owners, for good and for ill.
4. Paparazzoid Tags: EqG, Slice of Life Characters: Adagio Dazzle A siren’s most common problem is unwanted attention.
5. Vivace Tags: Slice of Life, Thriller, World-Building Characters: Classified Regarding the Equestrian Royal Assassinorum. Which, of course, does not exist. Not offically, anyway.
6. None Escape His Eye Tags: Drama, Historical Characters: Commander Hurricane, OC Spurta does not look kindly on those who go AWOL.
7. All Downhill Tags: Adventure, Historical Characters: Clover the Clever, Princess Platinum Founding a nation doesn't end your adventures.
8. Last Spark Tags: Adventure, Tragedy, Historical Characters: OC Not everypony welcomed the union of the tribes with open wings.
9. Who’s Afraid? Tags: EqG, Adventure Characters: Sunset Shimmer, Sci-Twi A paranormal investigation takes an even more surreal turn.
10. Finding Evil by Moonlight Tags: Noir, Drama, Gore Characters: OC, Other, Twilight Sparkle Twilight calls in Equestria's greatest detective. No, not that bat.
11. For Queen and Country Tags: Historical, Adventure Characters: Luna, Minotaurs, Bat Ponies Equestria’s history isn't all sealing evil in cans. Sometimes there's blood.
12. How Not to Luau Tags: Comedy, Adventure Characters: Mane 6 Weddings don’t have a good track record in Equestria, do they?
13. Connected Through Friendship Tags: Slice of Life, Implications Characters: Luster Dawn, Other Equestria under Twilight Sparkle’s rule is a happy place.
14. Melting of the Minds Tags: EqG, Oversaturated World, Comedy Characters: Wallflower Blush, Jace Beleren, OC Do not taunt Happy Fun Vice Principal.
15. The Path of Roses Tags: Slice of Life, Tragedy, Historical, High Comic Content Characters: Tirek, OC Sendak was not Tirek’s only mentor.
16. Intrusive Thoughts Tags: Psychological, Drama, Canon AU Characters: Crystal Ponies, Other A pony chooses. A slave obeys.
17. Aggressive Recruiting Tags: Adventure, High Movie Content Characters: Tempest Shadow, the Storm King Every great partnership starts somewhere. So does this one.
18. Raid Prep Tags: Adventure, High Movie Content Characters: Tempest Shadow, the Storm King, OC You have to make sure you have the right gear before facing Mythic Canterlot.
19. Court of Private Opinion Tags: Court Drama, Court Comedy, High Movie Content Characters: Celestia, Luna, Twilight Sparkle, Tempest Shadow All actions have consequences.
20. Proven Hypothesis Tags: Drama, EqG Characters: Gloriosa Daisy, Gaea Everfree Some consequences can't be rainbowed away.
21. Legends of the Hidden Fortress Tags: Historical, Tragedy Characters: OC, Bat Ponies A gentlepony explorer hunts mysteries in a forgotten corner of the world. He finds one.
22. Zen and the Art of Draconequus Discourse Tags: Slice of Life, Philosophical Characters: Fluttershy, Discord It's not Discord at his loudest you should fear. It's him at his quietest.
23. We Are, Each of Us, a Multitude Tags: Psychological, Slice of Life Characters: Discord, Fluttershy, Fluttershy, Fluttershy… You don't have to be crazy to have Discord in your head, but it helps.
24. Shades of Gray Tags: Adventure, Romance, Mild Comic Content Characters: Twilight Sparkle, Rarity Twilight asks Rarity to join her on an arcane expedition/date. Surely nothing will go awry. (Happy belated birthday, Mono.)
25. Alone in the Dark Age Tags: Canon AU, Drama, Tragedy, Comic Content Characters: Deer, Rarity, Nightmare Moon Thicket had been a paradise. Then the Longest Night began.
26. God, a Red Nugget, a Fat Egg Under a Dog Tags: World-Building, Theological Characters: Diamond Dogs Religiosity varies among Equestrian species.
27. Developmestuction Tags: Drama, EqG, Oversaturated World Characters: Sunset Shimmer, Trixie Magic in the new world is a little trial and a lot of error.
28. Doom Inevitable Tags: Drama, Comedy Characters: Other Another dread horror approaches the world of ponies.
29. The Great Student Tags: Slice of Life, Adventure, Full Crossover Characters: Thorax, Ember, Twilight Sparkle, Spike, Other A typical diplomatic visit/friendly hangout is interrupted by an uninvited third party.
30. The Faith of Light Tags: Introspective, Theological, Slice of Life Characters: Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia The last teacher-student teatime of Princess Celestia's reign takes a contemplative turn.
Castle Everfree had stood for almost a century. Its ramparts had endured angry deer, slavering beasts of the forest, and even the depredations of chaos incarnate.
But it, like so much else, had not withstood the royal sisters’ feud. Beams of focused shadow had sliced through the stone like so much butter, severing key supports and leaving the castle to gradually crumble under its own weight.
Architects insisted they could restore it to its former glory, but Princess Celestia had refused.
“Can thy cranes and buttresses retrieve My Sister from Moon and madness? Canst thou with stone and plaster repair Our sundered harmony? If nay, speak not of glory restored.”
So it was that she decreed moving the capital, from Everfree to the mountain fastness of Canterlot.
“The forest be the greatest lover of the Sun. The seas surge to embrace the Moon. The mountains care little for either, and it is ‘pon their neutrality where We shall reside in equality anon. Thus have I foreseen.”
Moving all and sundry was not an easy task, nor was it made easier by the Princess’s melancholy. Though she had left the fugue which had gripped her in the hours after banishing Nightmare Moon, she was still of greatly ill humor, spending many hours sitting before the ruins of her throne and saying nothing, bare of regalia with her mane and tail like fallen pink banners.
“My Sister laid my failings bare,” She managed at one point. “I deserve no throne, but no other can bear the crown. So I serve you still.”
By her side was the same mare who roused her from that waking death, the humble Mince Pie, with mane of brown and mien of unease. A few weeks after efforts began, the tan earth mare approached what remained of the thrones. “Your Highness?”
“Aye, friend Mince?” said Celestia, speaking “friend” as though it were a title worthy of more reverence than Princess.
“Little but you remains in the palace, Your Highness. Naught else but the Royal Library and some relics—“
Celestia rose. Even unadorned, with Her hair in tangles and wings unpreened, Her presence brought Mince to silence. “Leave them to rot.”
“But, Your Highness—“
“But me no buts, friend Mince," Celestia said even as She made Her way out of the stricken throne room. "I am sick of this place, sick unto death. I have let it fester too long in me. I have but one more task, then I wish to never lay eyes on this damnéd wood again.”
“What of the Elements, Your Highness?” said Mince, struggling to keep pace with her Princess.
“Unresponsive, to me and to the Tree. I fear in My desperation, I broke them beyond repair.”
Mince gulped at that. “I… see.”
A smile, thin but fond, darted across Celestia's lips,. “Go, dear Mince. What errand remains concerns thee not.”
The little pony quivered in her stride, but shook her head. “All due respect, Your Highness, You have been alone overlong as it is.”
The smile stayed for longer this time. “’Twill be quick. We will meet in Canterlot, where I shall brush the gravel from My coat and thou canst regale me with songs and sweets, as thou hast afore.”
But Mince still did not stray from the Princess's side.
And Celestia's expression fell. “Mince. Please. I have asked thee as thy friend. Pray do not make Me command thee as thy Princess.”
After one more moment, Mince could do naught but bow. “As you say, Your Highness.”
"Aye," Celestia said with a frown. "As I say." There was no more royal We, for the sole remaining sister could not claim to speak for both. But, she told herself, she would not need to speak for lost Luna in this.
Celestia, still clad in naught but in her own fur, strode into the forest, head high and wings flared. Some laborers averted their eyes from Her glory, while others gazed in naked awe. As she strode across the castle bridge and into the forest itself, the onlookers remained, beasts of the wood and the deer of Thicket.
Mayhaps the deer speak differently of that day, but they keep their own counsel and tell their own tales. We can speak only for what Celestia Herself tells of what followed.
Once She reached the deepest, darkest part of the Everfree, Celestia released the hoofpress on Her heart. Her mane and tail burst into open flame, the dust marring Her coat flashing into vapor and the clinging pebbles dripping away like water. Tears boiled away even as She shed them, and she cried out to the land itself.
"Everfree! I am Celestia, Steward of the Sun! Answer My summons or I shall burn thee to the ground and salt the earth such that no shoot shall rise even upon My Sister's return! I would know what foul hex thou placed upon Us, that did sunder the bond not even Discord could touch! What curse of thine could not bear to see two mares happy in one another's presence, ruling with wisdom within thee?"
Only Her own echoing voice answered her, returning to her mocking and manyfold from the trees. Her flames flared stronger, and the trunks around Her began to smolder.
"Answer Me, thou blasted hedgerow! I am the Sun, and I will not be ignored! Thou hast a will, any pony of the earth knows this. Rouse it or be wiped from the face of the world!"
And still did naught but Celestia's own words meet her. The ground dried and cracked around her, and the leaves burst into a canopy of fire.
"If thou wilt not truck with me, then I shall paint a portrait of Luna with thy ashes, so that thou art remembered only through her face!" Celestia screamed, voice scraping her throat as she spewed embers with every breath. "Any tree I see will be reduced to charcoal! Any scrap of green blackened! The Sun shall look upon naught but ruin and rejoice!"
And, with a rumble, something more answered her.
Celestia grinned, baring dragon fangs. "Finally. What slugabed answers me? What... lazing..." She trailed off as Her head craned up and up and up.
No beast of flesh, wood, or starlight had answered her call. The very earth rose, a hill erecting itself before her. Claws of ore slipped from paws of bedrock as it stretched, stalactite teeth longer than Celestia exposed as it yawned. Each hair in its great mane was a tree full grown, and each eye a pond kept suspended by the will of Nature.
It glowered down at the Princess as she would an ant. "This One is not a demon to be beckoned, grazer, nor a spirit to be bound. But It will answer thy blandishments this once. This One did nothing to sunder the bond between thou and thine. It was naught but silent witness as you two did drift apart, as the shadows did offer her the succor thou didst not. Thou knowest this, yet gnash and wail. Remember thy place, grazer."
And with a single great paw of stone and soil, it pressed down on the blaze around Celestia and snuffed it with barely a motion.
"Disturb This One no further. Its patience is not without bound, and the favor of the Sun goes only so far." And with that, the great will of the Everfree withdrew back into itself.
Celestia lay for a time in the blurred pawprint crater, and thought, and mended her crushed bones. In time, she was hale enough to trek out of the forest. Only past its edge did she light her horn or spread her wings. All through the journey out, where none beheld her with awe or reverence, she carried herself only as a pony of the earth, rightly chastised by her elder.
"And then?"
Mince Pie, with mane of gray and mien of kindness, smiled at her grandson. "And then, Jam Pie, she did return, and told to me the foolishness she performed in the forest. And it is for that reason that I may thou the Princess, for we are friends, and ponies who are friends should always be equals, e'en if one wears a crown."
"And she really almost burnt down the Everfree?" Jam asked, wide-eyed.
"The pit still be there, if thou knowest where to look, deep and ashen. The princess has oft left Canterlot, but ne'er returned to Everfree. And I doubt she will, until lost Luna's shadow no more lingers over the old castle."
"Her shadow?"
Mince grinned. What was grandmotherhood for, if not to sprinkle in harmless little horrors with the old stories? "Ah. That is another tale. You see..."
It was not a good time to be on the city-plane of Ravnica.
Granted, it had been increasingly less of a good time to be on Ravnica for the last few months. Assassinations, plots by the ten guilds that kept the world-covering city running to sabotage the others, growing uncertainty among the unguilded as unending storms filled the sky and the undercity roiled with a fresh succession crisis, and more added up to a generally negative experience.
Then the Chamber of the Guildpact, symbol of the guilds’ tenuous unity, had exploded, and everything had taken a sharp turn for the even worse.
In the Chamber's place stood a hole in space leading to a vast stretch of sand-covered ruins seen nowhere on Ravnica. Even the most devastated regions wrecked and ruled by the Gruul Clans had more life to them than those worn pieces of impossibly primitive architecture. Yet the army that passed through the gate was anything but primitive. Line after line of zombies clad in strange, azure metal marched into the middle of the Tenth District, combining all the worst properties of the Golgari Swarm’s necromantic forces and the Boros Legion’s unbreakable military discipline.
Naturally, the Ravnicans started fighting back, up to and including the very guildhall of the Selesnya Conclave, the ten-thousand-year-old city-tree Vitu-Ghazi rearranging itself into a roughly humanoid shape and laying waste to the army of Eternals.
Then the four enormous, incredibly powerful, animal-headed zombies came through. One tore Vitu-Ghazi asunder, and that set the tone for the God-Eternals' impact on the conflict.
All the while, the Dragon watched.
There were plenty of flying, fire-breathing lizards on Ravnica, but only one true Dragon, a genius without compare, older than the City-Tree. But Niv-Mizzet was one of the casualties of the recent troubles, and his apparent replacement wasn’t content with indulging his curiosity and watching the resulting explosions. This one, with the head of a snake, the horns of an ox, and the luxurious scarf of an Orzhov dilettante, had arrived atop an entire temple-citadel dedicated to himself. From that monolithic edifice, he watched as his army spread out to subjugate an entire world.
Normally under these circumstances, any planeswalkers in the area, beings capable of moving between universes through an exertion of magic and will, would have long since fled unless they possessed a suicidal sense of heroism. But the mad geniuses of the Izzet League had been tricked into building an interplanar beacon that had beckoned most ‘walkers in this part of the Multiverse to Ravnica, and a relic from one of the Dragon’s old nemeses kept them from leaving.
It was them the Dragon wanted, after all. The conquest was merely a side benefit. Each zombie in His army could pull the Spark of the space between spaces out of a planeswalker and give it unto Him, gradually restoring the infinite power taken from Him decades ago.
There had been moments of hope for those opposing Him. The God-Eternals’ numbers had been halved. Niv-Mizzet had been resurrected as an avatar of the ten guilds’ collective power. A shining beacon of hope had streaked towards the Dragon, wielding a sword that had slain one of His siblings ages ago.
It shattered against His scales, for He had not forgotten that sibling’s fate. He then smacked that hero aside like the fly he was to BOLAS.
Some of the opposition, planeswalkers and Ravnicans alike, scrambled for an alternate plan. Two of them just kept working on theirs.
Pinkie Pie sighed as she watched Gideon Jura fall, barely saved by the demon lord Rakdos. “Well, that could’ve gone worse.”
“It is hard to imagine how,” rumbled Karn. The burly silver golem looked around at the Eternals clawing at the translucent pink sphere protecting the duo. “How long can you maintain the barrier?”
“It’s imbued with the conceptual essence of ABC gum. That stuff's just shy of indestructible.” Pinkie's grin faltered as a blue-plated minotaur's claws left visible scratch marks on the bubble. “Okay, maybe more than a little shy.”
“Even true indestructibility can be bypassed," Karn said, his barely mobile face managing to look more grim than usual as he continued his work. "We do not have forever in any case. The more who fall, the more power Nicol Bolas gathers. He will soon be unstoppable by any means imaginable.”
Pinkie smiled enough for the both of them. “Yeah, but we got this, right Arty?”
Karn shook his head. “Every day, I regret that you and Teferi met.” His expression stayed steady, but he couldn't keep the amusement out of his voice.
“You’re smi-ling!” Pinkie singsonged. "You know, for you."
A chuckle like a struggling engine rumbled up from Karn's chest as he continued to craft. “Yes. Because unlike my creator, I do not hate fun.”
Pinkie giggle-snorted. "Ha! Can you imagine if Urza were here?"
"All too easily. I am forever grateful that he and the Izzet League never met. No doubt this entire plane would be some enormous mechanism by now."
Pinkie just smirked at him.
"I am fully aware of the irony, yes."
"Wasn't going to say anything," she said as innocent as could be. The actual angelic halo may have been a bit much, though it did make the Eternals recoil for a few moments.
"You were thinking it loud enough to deafen telepaths." Karn nodded to himself as he secured the final piece of their collaborative work. "It is done."
"Looks fantastic! Think it'll work?"
"I can say with confidence that Bolas will not see it coming."
BOLAS saw all. HE knew all. HE could sense Liliana Vess's doubt, even as HE held her soul in his claws, feel her weighing the pros and cons of turning HIS own army on him with every ounce of her necromantic power only to get snuffed out like so many others. HE could all but hear the desperate thoughts of Ravnica's defenders scurry from possibility to possibility, vain hope to vainer, as HIS power grew.
It was beautiful.
But then a spark of... not hope. It wasn't quite that. Sharper. Brighter. Pinker.
BOLAS knew no fear. But HE did feel a moment of hesitation as HE realized that, even after planning this masterstroke for the better part of a century, HE had overlooked one detail.
"PINKIE PIE," HE grumbled in a whisper that shook the world.
And by the time HE located the one being in the Multiverse who had endured his sanity-destroying touch without even noticing, an explosion much closer to him revealed the nature of her scheme. Some tiny entity, too insignificant for HIM to easily perceive, raced towards HIS citadel. Liliana sent Eternals to intercept it, but nothing could catch its incredible speed.
BOLAS knew no fear. He could annihilate whatever it was with a thought. But it was at that point that Hazoret, jackal-headed god of zeal and the sole survivor of the pantheon of Amonkhet, stabbed HIM through the chest with a two-pronged spear that HE had given her, and thus could not immediately will away.
The distraction was enough for Pinkie's ploy to cover the remaining distance, leap into the air, and buck BOLAS into the waiting arms of HIS remaining God-Eternals, who performed exactly as designed: They stripped the sparks from him.
And, in His final moments before being stripped of all his power, one of the last things Nicol Bolas saw was a gingerbread pony perched on his snout, dressed in gleaming power armor.
Do report to phoenix duty promptly when it's your turn on the duty roster.
Don't try to fob it off on anypony else. When you're up for phoenix duty, she is your phoenix.
Do have your armor polished and in top condition before beginning phoenix duty. She likes the reflective surfaces.
Don't expect to end phoenix duty with your armor in top condition. Or your mane. Or much else.
Do feed your phoenix foods high in oils and other combustibles.
Don’t line her cage with newspaper or other flammable materials. For the purposes of phoenix droppings, read “flammable” as “organic.”
Do use incense and other aromatic burnables as treats.
Don’t let your phoenix learn where her treats are stored. Given their fragrance, this requires keeping them in an airtight container.
Do give your phoenix plenty of time outdoors to stretch her wings and bask in the sun.
Don’t assume she’ll be content to stay in her cage or the room containing her cage during long stretches of overcast weather.
Do give your phoenix as much respect as you would her owner.
Don’t think she can’t open doors, whether the door to her cage, the door to the princess’s chambers, or the door to the pantry with the sandalwood supply. She’s had more than a millennium to figure out doorknobs, and she’ll try to burn through any doors she can’t open.
Do keep plenty of burn ointment on hoof while watching your phoenix.
Don’t assume wards against fire are the only precautionary equipment you’ll need. Those talons and beak are sharp even when they can’t scorch, your phoenix is very good at finding gaps in your armor, and tugging on your mane and tail are always options for her.
Do bring a few toys to keep your phoenix entertained.
Don’t use the same toy for too long. If you don’t watch for signs of growing boredom (listless wings, increased distraction, heat haze,) you’ll definitely notice when the remains of the toy drip onto the carpet. And then set it on fire.
Do record the activities you perform with your phoenix in the duty log.
Don't forget to review the previous few days as you begin your duties. Her memory is longer than you think, and her patience is slow to return for any given toy.
Do make sure all fire suppression spells in the play area have been properly maintained.
Don't threaten the castle maintenance staff with your phoenix. It's hard enough keeping up with her. Some members of the arcane divisions have hypothesized that she pecks at the spells when we're not looking.
Do watch for signs of molting. They can strike suddenly, and the process makes phoenixes testier than normal. Yes, that's possible.
Don't let the Princess take her phoenix—and no matter who is on phoenix duty, she is always the Princess's phoenix first and foremost—with her on a royal visit during a molt without putting your objection on the record. It won't stop her, but it will cover your rump.
Do maintain a closer guard cordon around the Princess during royal visits when she brings her phoenix with her, especially during a molt.
Don't assume the phoenix can't get far without primaries. She can and, if given the opportunity, she absolutely will.
Do remain calm in the event of the phoenix disappearing during a royal visit. You are a symbol of stability, safety, and strength for the ponies of Equestria. Running around like a startled chicken projects none of these qualities.
Don't hide the situation from the Princess. For one, she's probably noticed that her pet has gone missing. For another, she probably has a good idea of where her pet has gone.
Do take the Princess's advice under serious advisement.
Don't treat that advice as entirely and completely correct. Her phoenix has surprised her in the past. And "surprised" her as well.
Do review similar past incidents for further guidance on how to proceed.
Don't immediately assume the Bearer of Kindness kidnapped her again. Especially if you are not currently in Ponyville.
Do calmly ask local civilians for their assistance in locating your phoenix (and while locating her while she's gone astray, she is once more your phoenix.)
Don't assume the suspiciously small and mute griffon or hippogriff is merely suffering from syringitis and a glandular condition. Especially not if she has a mustache.
Do assure civilians that their assistance in locating your phoenix will be rewarded.
Don't imply that this reward will include waiving any criminal charges. You do not speak for the Princess, especially not with regards to royal pardons.
Do make sure your phoenix is properly secured upon locating her. Depending on how far the molt has progressed, this may require a cage or a dustpan. Have both ready.
Don't hit her over the head with the dustpan to ensure she'll stay still enough to go in the cage. The bruise may pass with the burn, but the memory will not.
Do report the apprehension of her phoenix to the Princess immediately.
Don't do so unless you have her phoenix on your person at the time of the report. And make sure you still have her immediately before making said report.
Do accept the Princess's apology with grace.
Don't think to hard about how much she smiles when she gives it.
"Sister."
Celestia looked up from her desk and realized she'd set the sun without even noticing. Again. At least this time, somepony had been there to raise the moon while she'd been distracted. She smiled and lay down her quill. "Yes, Luna?"
Luna walked into her office, muzzle still in the small book she held in her magic. "I have been reviewing the modern edition of the Royal Guardspony's Uplifting Primer."
"It hasn't been called that for centuries," said Celestia. She wasn't sure if she wanted to smile nostalgically or just roll her eyes.
"I am aware, and like many changes in this modern era, it leaves me sorely disappointed. But I come not because of that, but to ask thee a question." Luna looked up and turned the Royal Guard Hoofbook so Celestia could see it opened to the section on phoenix duty. "Why didst thou allow yon cantankerous emberfowl to run rampant until her puckish ways were recorded among the very tenets our esteemed guardsponies hold dear?"
Philomena, for her part, stuck her tongue out at Luna, a gesture the younger princess returned in kind.
"Oh, that." Celestia grinned.
"Aye. That. I expected thee to stuff her with rubies and offer her as a gift to some neophyte Dragonlord centuries ago."
Celestia shrugged her wings. "Honestly? In this day and age, looking after her is the closest thing most of them have to combat experience." She smiled at her pet, who sang a few proud notes.
"Ah. I see." Luna nodded to herself, turned on a rear hoof, and walked out of the office.
"Where are you going?"
"Into the Everfree, that I may find a similar beast to harden and bloody our stalwart armsponies in these gentle times." Luna's perfectly level tone trailed off into thoughtfulness "Mayhaps something with venom."
"Luna."
She looked back with a grin. "'Twas a jest."
Celestia couldn't help but chuckle and shake her head. "It's good to have you back."
"'Tis good to be back, Sister."
And, because they were sisters, Celestia added, "But I'm serious, no venom."
Luna rolled her eyes. "Very well, very well. I shall be... creative."
Do report to opossum duty promptly when it's your turn on the duty roster.
Don't request a transfer to the Solar Guard. Phoenix duty isn't any better.
Despite their petty squabbles, the Dazzlings were very much a matched set. Centuries spent on this benighted world had forced them to perfectly cover one another’s weaknesses and complement each other’s strengths. To do less would have killed them long ago.
Of course, Adagio Dazzle herself had no weaknesses worth speaking of and no strengths not her own, but she still needed the others to influence humans and maintain some semblance of sanity through the years. And she had to admit, they were the best backup singers she could ask for short of two clones of herself.
(She’d looked into that a few decades ago, when that sheep was all the rage. Upon finding out she’d have to raise her duplicates from squalling fry, she immediately abandoned the idea and reminded herself to be thankful for what she had. The lesson had held for almost a week, up until they had to sing Aria out of getting arrested for yet another bar brawl.)
As a result of those centuries of forced cooperation, the sirens often found themselves claiming parts in many things the same way they knew their places in harmonies. Just as she took the high notes, Sonata lived for the starts of things, the first burst of novelty before she grew bored again and sought out the next hit. Aria kept to the lower registers and looked forward to the ends of things, harvesting the fruit of their labors that meant she could stop having to put in effort and, worse for her, listen to Adagio.
Adagio knew the triple-goddess archetype predated them in this world, but sometimes she wondered just how much they’d reinforced it over the years.
She herself, center of the chords, savored the scheme in progress, when the spotlight was on and the audience watched in awe, when her performance brought them to their knees and summoned thunderous applause like pegasi bucking storm clouds.
Xubidu below, she missed weather control. And having the option of just going under storms. And not having hair. She used to like humidity.
Adagio sighed and regathered her thoughts as she made her way through the streets of Canterlot. This “Battle of the Bands” plan was going better than she could have ever dreamed, and that was the problem. She had more power now than she'd had at any point in her time on this world, and that kind of satiety could lead to complacency all too easily.
That was something the others never understood; having to work with so little meant they'd had to work smart. Yes, being able to draw from Equestrian magic again was wonderful and would let them live out their lives surrounded by adoring mind-slaves and all the power they could ask for. But they had to actually get to that point before they could relax, no matter how tempting it was to enjoy how far they'd already come. They could only push the contest's timetable so far before they overtaxed even their growing power; keeping teenagers in high school against their wills was nearly as difficult as making a man stab himself. But every day this contest dragged on was another for Sunset Shimmer and her flunkies to advance their plan, whatever that was...
Oh for the days in Equestria, when helpful stallions would just point them at seaside villages full of audiences waiting to happen.
Adagio gritted her teeth and shook her head. She never would've thought that having proper power coursing through her veins again would make her nostalgic, of all things. At this rate, by the time she got back to the hotel room, Aria and Sonata would've tried to kill each other again, and that much blood always raised uncomfortable questions.
"Right," she muttered under her breath, "back on task." Even with the negative emotions flowing, the sirens' physical bodies still needed physical food. Aria didn't care what went down her gullet so long as she didn't have to burn magic to ward off malnutrition, and Sonata hadn't had a sense of proportion regarding food since her first smörgåsbord. Thus, grocery shopping, like so many other duties those two took for granted, fell on Adagio's shoulders.
At that point, Adagio turned a corner. Not in terms of better appreciating her fellow sirens or having a sudden epiphany regarding the worth of free-willed human life. She literally turned a corner onto an emptier street, then noticed something odd. Any siren worth her voice could tell how many beings were paying attention to her, the psychic weight of their regard like the physical sensation of clothing, so continually present that her mind filtered it out most of the time. But now Adagio felt more eyes on her than she could account for given the few other people on the sidewalk this afternoon.
She held back a curse. As she'd feared, she'd already gotten a little sloppy. It could have been one of the girls with magic tracking her, hoping to strike while the sirens were vulnerable. Probably Sunset Shimmer; she'd be the truly dangerous one if she ever got her edge back.
But after a few moments with the skin crawling on her back as she waited for the knife, Adagio realized that the balding apes around her, all of them as psychically sensitive as the average potato, seemed to have noticed something off as well. They kept looking behind her. And... above her?
Well. When she'd said she missed weather control, she hadn't meant that she wanted pegasi spying on her. Or whatever it was. Without breaking her stride, Adagio fished a compact out of a hidden pocket in her jacket and flipped it open.
Whatever she'd expected to see in the mirror, it wasn't some giant metal lozenge held aloft by four tiny helicopter rotors, with a camera lens in the middle of the main body like the eye of an Arimaspi. Human toys just got more ridiculous every decade...
But this one didn't amuse her. Not with how, between the pressure of its regard, the unbroken string of befuddled expressions on the primates, and the faint but constant humming sound she now knew to listen for, it was clearly following her.
Still, Adagio hadn't survived in this world as long as she had without the ability to think on her feet, even if she hated the things. She kept walking for another block or two, then without any visible warning, turned into the first alley she saw.
Her follower nearly overshot the alley, backtracking and flying in after several complex-looking maneuvers, its camera showing nothing but dumpsters and brick walls.
Adagio smirked up at it, standing just a step inside the alley and directly beneath the contraption. She doubted her ability to charm some chunk of plastic, and experiments over the last few decades had confirmed that siren song lost its magic when recorded, but she didn't need spells to bluff someone.
That just brought her to the matter of what to do with the thing, and there, she had to admit that the human body had a few advantages on her true form. Opposable digits and greater flexibility made for much more accurate projectiles than slapping something with her tail and hoping it made contact with something she liked even less.
The thrown rock nailed one of the rotors, unbalancing the device and sending it into a tailspin. Once it smacked into the pavement, Adagio circled it, watching for any further resistance. Satisfied, she moved in for the kill.
The last thing the construct saw was the toe of a high-heeled boot approaching at high speed.
Twilight Sparkle grumbled to herself as the feed from her latest camera drone went dead. In hindsight, she really should've suspected that Subject B1 knew she was being pursued when she turned down a dead-end alley. Still, there was some data to gather from the observation, especially her interactions with B2 and B3. And that didn't even get into the A group...
She gasped as she realized she'd been so focused on setting up the surveillance network, she'd neglected to take notes until now. A digital recorder clicked on the moment she tracked it down in the... suboptimally organized lab space. "Undocumented Energy Research, Phase 2, Day 2, Entry 1: The scanners I placed around Canterlot High were a step in the right direction, but it wasn't enough. The recent spikes have yielded intriguing readings, but I still can't tell what precisely they're detecting, much less how to interpret the data. Thus, I have deployed remote observation drones to investigate the sources of the anomalies, providing greater context for the readings.
"Energetically active subjects have divided themselves into two groups, henceforth labeled A and B. Group A appears to consist of the participants in the event that precipitated Phase 1 of my research, six to seven girls attending Canterlot High, the site of said event. Group B consists of three newcomers, whose near-absent social media footprint raises as many questions as the hits I got from facial recognition scans of newspaper archives.
"Subject B1 is more observant and aggressive than initially believed, disabling and destroying a drone within minutes of noticing it. That she appears to be the moderating influence of her group raises a number of concerns. I will suspend research into Group B until I feel better prepared to face such confrontational personalities."
Twilight turned to a different monitor, one that showed a group of girls gathered in front of a house as grey as the resident wasn't. "Group A appears far less situationally aware." She squinted at the girl with her face. "And Subject A7 raises many questions that merit further investigation."
Deep beneath the surface of Castle Canterlot, where the castle’s catacombs and the abandoned crystal mines blur together, there is an office.
Officially, there is nothing of interest, but the office is there regardless. Officially, its occupants are either in Ponyville or at the gates of Elysium, yet they sit within.
When your organization officially doesn’t exist, you learn not to bother with with the adverb, nor be bothered by it.
“And that concludes the briefing,” said one. “On you go.”
The other fidgeted and didn’t rise from her seat. “Your Highness…”
The alicorn gave her a look scrubbed of any and all emotional cues beyond the faintest hint of concern. “Do you have any concerns, Agent Philharmonica?”
“This is certainly an… unusual assignment, wouldn’t you say?”
“Oh, certainly, but no less necessary than any other. And you will find that this task is in our charter.”
“As you say," the agent said in wary tones. "But—“
Aloud, the alicorn said, “I have every faith in you, Agent.” She implied volumes more.
“Understood, Your Highness.”
Officially, the room didn’t exist, and was thus unoccupied by definition. In reality, it came a little closer to matching that.
As a rule, the Royal Assassinorum of Equestria does not take any being’s life. This is distinct from its official stance of nonexistence. Granted, not existing does generally help with nonlethality, but Equestrian assassins' lack of concern regarding “official” matters is already on the record, whereas they take not taking lives very seriously. To those with similar disregard for official data, this seeming contradiction is often dismissed as typical Equestrian sentimentality, how even the ponies whose literal job is to eliminate targets don’t have the stomach for it.
These beings fail to understand how Equestria defends itself. Beings who cannot be reasoned with, whether because of mindlessness or mercilessness, are met with the Royal Guard, monster hunters, or even the Bearers of the Elements.
But elimination does not require death. A life is a precious, nearly irreplaceable thing, one that should not and, as far as the assassins are concerned, will not be discarded so recklessly. However, that life is composed of smaller components that are less precious, more replaceable, and easily survivable in the event of their loss. Ambitions, memories, beliefs, all the little bits that make up a mind are targeted and quietly extracted, removing the threat they represent while leaving their host physically unharmed. More than a few assassinated threats to Equestria have even gone on to become assets to it.
In short, Equestrian assassins are not hired killers, but psychic surgeons.
Roseluck sighed. Another slow market day. At least she’d gotten back on her hooves after Tracy helped her figure out the accounting… and helped her in other ways… but he could only do so much to drum up demand.
At least it was a nice day.
She didn't notice the approaching customer until she cleared her throat. “I’m going to need a special rose.”
“Oh!" Rose took a moment to register who'd spoken, then broke into a wide grin. "Finally proposing?”
That got a flat look. “We’re roommates.”
“So were Tracy and me.” Any puffing out of the chest and flaunting of certain rings on certain necklaces was pure coincidence. That was Rose's story and she was sticking with it.
“And I’m very happy for you. But I need a long-stemmed Necrobunda.”
Rose's ears flattened fast enough to ache. “Oh. Oh my. We, uh…" She swallowed under the customer's intensifying glare. "You have to understand, there’s usually not a lot of demand for those, so…”
“Yes?”
“I…" Rose bit her lip as she considered everything she'd need to do. Then she weighed how much she could ask for a genuine Necrobunda. "I can get it to you by next week?”
“Hmm… Any chance I could help?”
“Help? You?" Rose blushed. "Sorry, it’s just… I didn’t think you had any interest in growing flowers.”
“Not my usual skill set," the customer conceded, "but every little bit helps, as the saying goes.”
“Well, I have to admit, it will be… interesting to grow one." Rose knew how in theory, but putting into practice... Her cutie mark practically tingled at the thought. Her expression hardened as she looked at the amateur, already considering the necessary steps to grow the highly magical blossom. "You’ll have to follow my instructions very carefully if you want the best results.”
The customer dipped her head. “Of course. I defer to the master.”
A thought broke Rose out of her pre-planting preparation. “You know, Daisy and Lily have mentioned some of the purchases you’ve made over the years. What do you even use them for?”
“Oh, this and that." The customer waved a hoof dismissively. "I’m sure I’ve told you before.”
“Alright, alright. I know better than to pry too deep. Last thing I need is another Thanos Incident…”
“Who?”
Rose smirked. “Hey, I can be mysterious too.”
Based on their more detailed job descriptions, one might think that assassins are a unicorn-dominated occupation. This is both understandable and not at all the case. Unicorn magic often lacks the finesse needed to prune individual bits of the psyche without taking off large chunks of the surrounding area. Those with the talent for such precision work are scouted and eagerly adopted into the Assassinorum’s ranks—assuming they pass the psychological profiling first, of course—but most assassins are actually earth ponies, trained in arts more subtle than the other tribes can imagine.
(Pegasi are the rarest tribe among the assassins for more cultural reasons. Scouting for secret agents in Cloudsdale, a city where one is expected to all but literally shout one’s accomplishments from the rooftops, doesn’t yield many viable recruits. Looking for anything subtle around Las Pegasus is about as easy as finding a slot machine where the foals can see one. And ground-born pegasi generally find themselves snapped up by the other parts of Equestria’s shadow government, especially the ones with archeology degrees.)
Still, even with rites both ancient and modern that most unicorns wouldn’t be able to fathom with a roomful of chalkboards, most earth pony assassins find it easier and more effective to combine those rituals with alchemical supplements. Most plants in Equestria contain some degree of magic, and virtually everything is useful in some compound or another. But a few require some truly specialized ingredients.
Sometimes, the most precious ingredient of all is patience.
Thirty years later...
The planets aligned, and dark power flooded the leylines of the world. A shudder went down the spine of every thinking being. Princess Twilight gasped in pain on her throne, her starry mane going still for a moment as magic itself recoiled.
And in the ruins of Tambelon, a dark presence stirred, restored to a mockery of life that hungered for the genuine article to perpetuate itself. Ancient limbs creaked as they were forced into motion for the first time in more than a millennium. Vast, curving horns coruscated with fell power and purpose. A nightmarish death bleat echoed from the darkest tomb in the crumbling keep's deepest crypt.
And then nothing much else happened.
Oh, there was a lot of straining and grumbling and a few curses that made the walls bleed, but dread Grogar who had lain dreaming never actually left fallen Tambelon. Every possible exit was covered in a vast, overgrown thicket of rose bushes. Even as the Black Goat of the Tomb rammed the walls of his city-tomb, the briars only flourished further as they fed on the rich necromantic energy, opening blossoms of deep, perfect black.
Eventually, Grogar broke through the walls and directly into the thorns. Something as minor as plants wouldn't normally harm the Father of Monsters... but that was where the alchemical treatments of that first rose planted at the center of Tambelon came in.
Once he made direct contact with the bushes, they entangled him in an unbreakable hold, lancing into his withered and wasted flesh and doing what all Necrobunda roses did: They took the energy of death and, far faster than most plants, converted it to the energy of life.
And so Grogar, the first lich, felt his heart beat for the first time in millennia.
Then the detachment of Royal Guards who'd been dispatched to the ruins several days earlier moved in to finish the job.
The next day, a not-inconsiderable sum was discreetly deposited in the savings account of a happily retired cellist.
As a rule, Equestrian assassins do not take any being’s life.
Quail Plume had thought himself an honorable soldier, a rightly proud son of Spurta, a pegasus born with lightning in his blood and thunder in his wings. He'd bit and stomped his way to notoriety in his foalhood storm herd, had been acclaimed by his combat tutors, and had even been trusted to lead a feather of five of his fellow Spurtans.
Then he saw his first griffon.
He could not say if it was the beady eyes devoid of pity or remorse, the savage claws tipped in bronze, or the hooked beak indelibly stained with pony blood that send him fleeing and squealing like a newborn, leaving a drizzle of yellow rain in his wake. All he knew for certain was that he returned to himself a few hours later, curled up and cowering on the surface, his eyes squeezed shut as though none of the monsters could see him if he couldn't see them.
Ashamed and tainted in both body and honor, he knew he had but two courses of action: live as a coward or die as a Spurtan.
And to his further shame, he found that he preferred living.
Oh, he thought about it. About flying back home, presenting himself before his officers, and at best accepting the role of an unarmored skirmisher until he either died or redeemed himself in the eyes of his fellows and himself. But even as he envisioned dragging himself back from the depths of disgrace, everypony he'd ever known looked back at him with those uncaring eagle eyes, clacking hungry beaks.
And so Quail left behind his armor and spear, and fled far from the lands and skies he knew. He crossed into the earth pony lands of Girthshire, with the ground-dwellers' strange customs and stranger seers. He was familiar with the pegasus oracles who would rise until ice rimed their wings, that they could approach the gods and return with divine visions and prophecies. The earth ponies, wingless as they were, seemed to have other methods.
Every time he tried to settle into a town and struggle with the surprising complexity of making food grow, he would cross the path of an innocuous mare who would spasm and twitch. She would scowl, jab a hoof at him, and in the voice of some god or demon of the deep places, proclaim him "OATHBREAKER!"
The rest of the village would scowl and murmur and reach for tools normally meant for crops or soil. And once again, Quail would flee. For he was swift if nothing else, and while he knew he could not outpace his fate forever, he was determined to keep trying.
In time, he reached the kingdom of Monoceros, home to the unicorns. They were strange creatures, so unlike pegasi in so many ways as to leave him feeling like little more than an animal, but nopony was struck by divine inspiration to decry him. In that, at least, he found some semblance of peace.
The unicorns eventually brought him to their king, a ruler who was not expected to fight. Just the opposite; when Quail told the Monocerites of the Commander's vaunted skill in battle, they were shocked by the idea of a leader who would so willingly risk himself on the front line, and not with awe but fear of the consequences of one lucky strike.
"Why follow a stallion who will not lead you?" he had asked.
"We have you pegasi for that sort of thing," the unicorn had said, to which his compatriots nodded.
Quail had said nothing, merely letting the guilt twist in his guts as it had for weeks.
King Palladium sat as he ruled, and in a special chair all his own with its own room, bedecked with more jewels and shining gold than he wore himself, which was indeed a great feat. "So," he rumbled through his thick beard, "this is our little runaway pegasus, then?"
A chill ran down Quail's spine. "H-how did you—"
"Well, it's not like any of you do anything else, is it? Soldiers, the lot of you. The only time we see one without a good twenty of his friends, much less one out of uniform, is when he's gone rogue."
Then Commander Hurricane himself stepped out from behind the throne, and Quail almost swallowed his own tongue. "The precise term," said the commander, tone flatter than the top of the sky, "is 'absent without leave.' Or desertion." He spat out that last word as the foul taste that it was. Even Quail hadn't wanted to so much as think it. Having it thrown in his face...
He looked from side to side, top to bottom. The unicorn guards hardly looked seasoned, but all of them had their eyes on him, and he knew those horns of theirs gave them a terrifyingly wide array of tactical options. And as he looked up into the rafters of the throne room, he saw a dozen of his former comrades looking down at him, each one as pitiless as the griffon who had sent him fleeing what felt like a lifetime ago.
"I... I..." Quail's wings spread, his head darting about ever faster. But the doors were sealed, the airspace was secure, and there wasn't a window to be found. There was nowhere left to run.
He could no longer live a coward. That left one option.
He settled himself as much as he could, saluted, and said, "Commander. I stand ready for my punishment detail."
The commander glared down at him until his saluting wing began to shake with strain. Finally, Hurricane said, "I don't think you do, Quail Plume."
"Sir?"
"Do you know what holds the Pegaponyssian League together?"
"I believe you mean the Alloy of Tribes," Palladium grumbled from his seat.
Hurricane continued without the slightest sign of acknowledgement. "Trust. We trust the earth ponies to provide food. We trust the unicorns to guide the heavens. And they trust us to both care for the weather and keep them safe. Those who physically cannot fulfill that duty can act to support those who can. But those who choose to save their own sorry hides rather than act for the herd..." He trailed off, waiting expectantly
Quail completed the one truth that had been part of every tutor's lessons. "They... we are beneath contempt."
Hurricane nodded. "If you had tried to flee yet again, I would have ended you here and now."
"Really, that's a three hundred year old carpet he's standing on. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get blood out of..." Palladium trailed off as the eyes of every pegasus in the room glared at him with the same distaste they showed Quail. Even Quail himself joined in dismissing the old fool. In this, at least, he could act with his fellow pegasi.
The moment passed once the unicorn king fell silent, or at least shifted to quiet grumbling about barbaric, blunted spearpoints. Every eye fell back on Quail, and with them the weight of judgement. "However," Hurricane continued, "like Equunidas at Thermoponé, you stand like a Spurtan at the last. You will see home again, Quail Plume."
And Quail prostrated himself before his commander, for this was more mercy than he deserved, and both knew it.
They flew Quail home in chains, lying on a scrap of cloud with his wings trapped against his sides. The sun set behind Spurta as they made their way home, painting the entire polis in gold and shadow. He took in the training clouds, the fora, the half-wild herds of foals who lived an enviably simple life as they proved themselves worthy of the glory of their ancestors. He wished them better luck and courage than his own.
Quail shed no tears as he passed through the great gates of mounded cumulus. In this, he took what little pride he could.
His stoic expression stayed even as the commander marched him through the streets, where former comrades scowled and jeered. Even as they went deep into the heart of Spurta, where the clouds were as untamed as the foals, he did not break. As lightning flashed in the walls of the catacombs, Hurricane looked at Quail with something like respect. "You know what comes next."
"I do, Commander." Skirmisher duty was for those who sought redemption immediately after fleeing. He didn't deserve such a mercy.
"Do you fear it?"
Quail shook his head. "I left both my fear and my hope in Monoceros, Commander. All that remains is accepting the inevitable."
And Hurricane nodded and led Quail to the end of the tunnel, where the clouds went black and shook with restrained fury. The commander wrenched open the hatch there, sending lightning crackling across the gap. Within was darkness, with more bolts revealing a grand vortex of wind and fury in brief flashes.
"One night's stay in the Deserter's Quarters, Quail Plume," Hurricane commanded.
The day had begun pleasantly enough for Princess Platinum. After an adequate breakfast given the circumstances, she toured the new mountain retreat near the cave where she had helped thwart the vile windigoes.
Yes, it was true that Clover and the other aides began the process, but she was invaluable help once they thawed her out. Indisputably true. Just ask anypony.
“Clover?” she said for completely unrelated reasons as they walked along the ramparts of Fort Canterlot, “We were invaluable help with the windigoes, were we not?”
He looked her, confused for some reason. Doubtless contemplating a dozen other things, the poor soul.
Before she could repeat the question, one of the watchponies gasped and shouted, “Ach! Your Highness, run! It’s the lhurgoyf!”
Platinum blinked. “The what?”
“The reason we came here, Your Highness," said Clover, tugging on the royal person. "Please follow me.”
Platinum pulled back, pouting. “We would very much like to know what a… whatever that mare said is first.”
Clover's eyes darted between his princess and something behind her. “Our lives depend on your haste, Your Highness.”
Platinum deigned to look back. The dust cloud did admittedly look rather frightful. “Oh, very well." And, with the unwilling but practiced ease of ponies who had carved a new nation out of the wilderness, they ran for their lives. "But what precisely is a…”
“Lhurgoyf," Clover said for her. "It’s a yak word.”
The familiar mental ground was a comfort for Platinum. “Beastly things, yaks. No sense of proper decorum." A spark of concern flashed in her mind. "Do you think the watchponies will be alright? We suppose if that one survived meeting a yak, she’ll manage a larder well enough.”
“Lhurgoyf, Your Highness. They’re scavengers, but very aggressive ones." Clover gulped as they galloped down the spiralling stairs to ground level. "Proactive, you might say.”
“We see,” Platinum said in a tone that made it clear that she saw because she had other ponies to see for her, and the closest one was named Clover the Clever.
“In the sense that they’ve been known to make corpses when none prove readily available.”
“Ah. Well then. See that we avoid that today.”
“Of course, Your Highness," Clover said by rote. "The better fed a lhurgoyf is, the more dangerous it becomes. And diets vary from breed to breed.”
They emerged from the stairwell and made for the main doors of the fort. Burly earth ponies wrenched open the stone sheets like an ornamental garden gate as they approached. “That’s all well and good, but surely good, solid stone can stand up to one." Once they were out past the guards and in the courtyard, Platinum added, "What are we keeping the earth ponies around for otherwise?”
“Many ponies enjoy having the opportunity to eat, Your Highness.”
“Ah." Platinum thought back to the migration. She didn't remember much; a princess struggled with her people, and so she had always taken the least and the last of their meager supplies. But she remembered the hunger as much as the cold. "True.”
“Also, this particular breed of lhurgoyf eats magic.”
Platinum nearly stumbled. “Wait, what?”
At that point, the beast burst through the outer wall, a great hulking brute three times the size of a pony perched on two bulging hind legs. Four front limbs waved lengthy claws as teeth gnashed in far too many mouths. It didn't have a head so much as a bulge on its hunched-over shoulders where all those mouths sat, with no room for eyes or ears or even much of a neck. Yet it still looked directly at Platinum, new mouths working their way out to the surface teeth first even as she watched.
Platinum shrieked, reared up, and ran like the wind. With royal dignity and grace.
“Now you understand why I wanted to make greater haste, Your Highness,” said Clover.
“Kill it!" Platinum shrieked with all the poise of her bloodline. "Why isn’t somepony killing it!?”
“I told you, Your Highness, it eats magic. We’ve had just as many unicorns as earth ponies building Fort Canterlot; the mountain’s lousy with excess thaums.” Clover's horn flashed, and tingling magic enveloped their hooves. They ran headlong down a slope that goats would struggle to manage, clinging to the surface regardless. "Though I fear it's grown too powerful for pure muscle to overcome."
“Well why is it here in the middle of the kingdom and not skulking on the borders somewhere?”
“I suspect it always was here. It just hibernated through the freeze in some other cave on the mountain. But now it’s awake and..." A dissonant blend of roars sounded from far too close behind them, making Clover wince. "Well, rampaging.”
Scree tumbled down past them to the sound of claws scraping against stone. “It’s still following us,” Platinum said, somewhat breathless after the last few shrieks. “Clover, why is it still following us?” Her eyes slid up to his horn, still glowing. "Why are you still casting something?"
His eyes were still on the path ahead. “I need it to follow us for my other plan to work.”
“There’s another plan?”
Clover allowed himself a slight grin. “This is me we’re talking about, Your Highness. There’s always another plan.”
Platinum considered her advisor's years of loyal service. “Is it a good plan?”
“We’re in the process of finding out.”
In any other circumstances, she would have stopped there and then. "You're one of the most brilliant wizards in all of history and a far better pony than Star Swirl, and your plan is 'run and see what happens'!?"
"There's a bit more to it than that," Clover said with a pout.
"And you dragged us into this farce?"
"All due respect, Your Highness, but you invited yourself. As is your royal prerogative, of course."
"Of course." Platinum scowled as the warm glow of a stoked ego passed far too swiftly. "But you never mentioned a monster."
"I did say I was investigating a threat to Equestria."
"We assumed it was shoddy workponyship."
"Ah." Clover said nothing for a few moments. "You know, you could try thrashing it with your crown. Telekinesis is simple enough that you would damage it more than empower it."
"We were not in our right mind at the time. Besides, we fear the fiend may bite our poor crown in half." Platinum glanced up at the gilded wood on her brow. "And this one was a gift."
"As you like, Your Highness."
Platinum's eyes widened as she looked back at the path ahead. "Clover? Clover, we are rapidly running out of mountain. Please tell us you have the next phase of the plan ready."
"I cannot say I do, Your Highness," he said with infuriating calm.
"Then we demand you prepare it at once! We will not spend our final moments on some fool's errand only to be devoured by some unpronounceable bother from the unplumbed depths of the earth."
"There may be some complications there, Your Highness."
"We do not care what complications there may be. As your princess, we order you to enact whatever it is you planned on doing after we exhausted the—"
Clover obeyed her orders with commendable swiftness, if dubious execution. Platinum certainly could have done without getting tackled and tumbling across the hard, dusty ground. But, to his credit, the monster couldn't stop nearly as easily. Trying to turn to face the morsels just left it tumbling the rest of the way down to the flat grassland around the river that flowed from the Canterfalls.
"My apologies, Your Highness," Clover said around panting breaths. "I needed you to keep moving for that to work, and you consistently achieve your top speed when pursuing willful servants."
"You are forgiven, Clover. This time." Platinum heaved herself to her hooves, grimacing at the blend of sweat and dust caked on her coat. "While we cannot deny a modicum of malicious satisfaction at seeing that horror roll down the slopes, we cannot believe that this will finish it."
"It won't, Your Highness."
"Then—"
"The pegasi will."
Platinum blinked. "The pegasi?" She looked up. Only now did she register the thick cloud cover over the river flats, clouds that terminated scarcely any distance in front of her.
Then the downpour started, hours of rain coming down in seconds, countless gallons rushing towards the stunned beast and sweeping it into the river.
"Very difficult for the creature to eat weatherworking," Clover said conversationally. "All the magic's in the sky. At ground level, it's just water."
"Oh." Platinum beamed and stomped out a round of applause. "Oh, good show! And this takes care of it?"
Clover nodded. "Lhurgoyfs come in many breeds, Your Highness, but they're all terrible swimmers."
"Excellent!"
A familiar face flew down to them from the clouds, the very picture of concern as she looked them over. "Are you both alright?"
"Better than alright, dearest Pansy!" Platinum wrapped her forelegs around her friend in an admittedly undignified embrace, but this was a time for celebration. "We are overjoyed! Another threat to our fair kingdom eliminated through cunning cooperation!"
"O... kay?"
Clover walked up to them, a smile on his muzzle. "I believe Her Highness is experiencing what Star Swirl described as a 'galloper's high.' Also realizing that she's still alive."
Pansy nodded. "That can be a rush. You're okay, too?" She held out a hoof.
He bumped it in the style of the peasantry. No helping that, sadly. "I am now. Thank you again."
And Pansy smiled as wide as Puddinghead. "Of course. That's what friends are for."
To the complacent alicorn-pets of the village below, the New Pegasopolis looked like little more than an especially surly storm cloud.
To the Crimson Bolt Company, it was both home and war machine, a masterpiece of nephotecture optimized for rapid raids on a populace that got fatter and slower every year.
Captain Vermilion Bolt, the grandson of Crimson herself, peered through his spyglass at the village. Dirt horses with their dirt houses, and a scattering of unicorns who seemed no better. A few kelping boats on the sad little docks just asking to be swallowed by a storm surge. Easy pickings.
"I expected more gold and jewels on the pinheads," said Fulgurite, his second-in-command, pointing her own lens through the same slit in the battlecloud. Like Vermilion, she was a lean and toned creature, stripped of all superfluous extravagances that the mutant sisters had used to entice the nation and totally silence the voices of true pegasi. Unlike his own striking coat, hers was mottled with greys and beiges that blended with the New Pegasopolis until she seemed part of the ship.
Vermilion spat to the side. It was good manners on the ship; every bit of moisture helped. "Probably left them all at the mutants' hooves before going off to scrape dirt with the other flightless serfs. Figures they would only recognize the superiority of wings if they came with a horn."
Fulgurite laughed, a chattering cackle that had more crow in it than pony, before marshaling herself. "Doesn't mean there isn't still plenty of plunder to be had. Standard plan, sir?"
He gave the skies another scan to be sure before nodding. "Not seeing anything in the air. They must get their rain from some wandering cloud-herder. Colt!"
A runner still growing into his legs, nameless until his first battle, stumbled up to the front of the bridge and saluted. "S-sir?"
"To the engine room with you. Full speed ahead, and start winding up the lightning. I want plenty of shock and awe for this one."
The runner saluted again, nearly braining himself with his own hoof. "F-full speed and lots of bolts, sir. I'm—"
"Hold, colt," said Fulgurite, still peering out at the target.
Vermilion snarled as he turned to her. "You had best have a good reason for gainsaying me, Ful."
"Is spotting the fliers you missed good enough reason, sir?"
Shock outweighed anger at the insubordination. "What?" He scrambled for his own spyglass, then stopped when he spotted the other pegasi with his naked eyes. "Where did they come from?"
"Lifted up from the town like a flock of startled birds, sir," said Fulgurite, "save for how they're flying towards us. Got a flag with them too. May be looking to parley."
Vermilion snorted at that. "You know the traditions as well as I. Tartarus, even the colt knows them. What did our first captain teach us about parley, colt?"
Another near-concussive salute. "Th-there will be no negotiations with those who fly the flag of the mutant sisters, sir!"
"Well said." Vermilion's lips peeled back in an eager grin. "Let me know when they're in bolt range, Ful."
She shook her head. "Captain, you're going to want to take a closer look."
"Why, so I can appreciate all the shiny metal armor that will draw in the lightning?"
"No, sir. So you can confirm what I'm seeing." Fulgurite leaned closer to the viewslit. "Because that is not the Equestrian flag."
"What?" That detail was still too far away, even for pegasus eyes. Vermilion pulled out his spyglass and focused on the banner. A head with closed eyes, spread wings, a field of stars... "Medusa's blood, that's the flag of Pegasopolis!"
"And if I recall the traditions," said Fulgurite, "we do negotiate with those who fly that."
Vermilion nodded. "Aye, we do. Colt."
"Sir?"
"Get Wind Shear up here. If he's not in his quarters, he'll be enjoying the privileges of rank with the female crew. If he wants to stay second mate, he'll mind the bridge while we see what the Equestrians want enough to fly a true nation's flag."
The runner finally clipped himself with that salute. "A-aye, sir."
By the time Wind Shear had composed himself enough to not completely disgrace his ancestors, the diplomatic contingent had flown so close that Vermilion and Fulgurite barely had to leave the ship to meet with them. The captain didn't bother holding back his sneer as he took in the gaudily armored troopers before him. If they could outpace a concussed duck in all that gear, he'd kiss Celestia's hooves himself.
"Greetings," said the one in front, some orange stallion playing at being a flying lump of ore. "I am Lieutenant Flash Aegis."
Vermilion rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes. Captain Vermilion Bolt speaking. This is my second, Fulgurite. Now, you lot flew a proper flag, so we'll hear what you have to say, but we don't have all day for empty pleasantries. "
To his credit, Aegis didn't seem to mind that. "Very well. Do you want the official version or the more personal one first?"
The captain chuckled. "Oh, by all means, let us begin with all the officiousness you can offer."
Aegis pulled a scroll out from somewhere in all that metal and unrolled it. "By order of Their Highnesses Celestia and Luna, Princesses of Equestria and Commanders of its armed forces, the crew of the cloud vessel New Pegasopolis is requested and required to cease all raids forthwith, on pain of elimination from Their skies."
After a few moments of silence, Vermilion raised an eyebrow. "That's it?" Even the section of scroll Aegis had open seemed three times too long for that message.
"That's it," the lieutenant said as he rerolled the missive.
"I see. And if I were to note that the Crimson Bolt Company, as the last true pegasi, spend as little time in the much vaunted princesses' skies as we can manage?"
Aegis grimaced. "That actually leads nicely to the more personal version."
"Oh, do tell," Vermilion said with a chuckle.
"You've already hit that village. Twice."
That took a few moments of contemplation. "What?" Vermilion turned to Fulgurite, who shrugged.
"We've been keeping track of these attacks since they began," Aegis continued. "The first raid was just under forty years ago, with another seventeen years ago. You're basically circling Equestria once every generation."
"All well and good," said Vermilion. "What's your point?"
"We've also kept tabs on the state of the New Pegasopolis. It's half the size of when it first struck Hinnysmouth, and even from here I can tell it's desperate need of a good skydock. You and your first mate look like you haven't had a decent meal in..." Aegis looked them over, and Vermilion's hackles rose at the other stallion's pitying expression. "Well, ever."
The captain snarled. "Just because we haven't grown fat and lazy on alicorn-given pap doesn't mean we aren't fighting fit. You're just not used to looking at true warriors."
Aegis shook his head. "And you're not used to fighting all three tribes at once. As I said, you've hit that village twice, and earth ponies have long memories for grudges."
"I'll fear earth ponies the day they walk on clouds."
"Unicorns can do that."
Vermilion narrowed his eyes. "And I suppose you'll airlift them?"
"If that were the plan, yes. But the plan they've concocted is so much worse than just boarding your vessel." The lapdog actually looked afraid. "Please, this doesn't have to end in bloodshed."
"Oh, I quite agree," Vermilion said with a smirk. "Never heard of anypony who bled from a lightning strike."
"I see." After a sigh, Aegis steeled his expression into something halfway respectable. "So you're going ahead anyway?"
Vermilion drew himself up with all the dignity he could muster. "When Hurricane abandoned his honor and let himself be collared by the flightless, our grandparents left your soft lands with the true legacy of Pegasopolis and Spurta in tow. When he ceded what authority he had to a pair of mutant fillies, we swore we would never set hoof on Equestrian soil again. I will not be remembered as the captain who sacrificed everything we fought for out of fear."
"Very well then."
"Indeed. This parley is over."
And with that, Vermilion and Fulgurite both swooped back towards home, just before the bolt crews let loose some warning shots. In the sense that anypony who survived would consider themselves thoroughly warned.
"Damn, damn, damn, damn!" It took everything Vermilion had to not slam the deck. The bolt crews didn't need the interference.
"Well, we know their armor resists lightning," said his second mate, brushing back a mane that seemed slick and greasy no matter the humidity. "Valuable tactical information."
"Shut up, Wind Shear."
A runner half-galloped, half-flew onto the bridge. "Captain! Engine room says if we keep up this speed for much longer, we'll tear apart!"
"Tell them they can let the thing rest," said Fulgurite. "We may overshoot the target if we're not careful."
Vermilion nearly shouted her down, but then he realized just how quickly the trees were going by beneath them. He gave a grunt and a nod. "We need lightning more than anything. Dismissed, colt."
"Aye, sir!"
Even as the colt ran off with whatever other messages he had in tow, Wind Shear spoke up again from the watch post. "Captain?"
'What?"
"I think they're performing some kind of unicorn witchery on the town, sir. It's going dark down there."
"Then we'll light it up by sparking a few fires." Vermilion jabbed a hoof at an idle runner. "You there, filly."
"Aye, sir?"
"Make sure the ground crews are ready to deploy. We'll be dropping them soon." They were going to get something out of this, so help him.
"Aye, sir." The filly ran off, much more confident than her peers. Gods, what Vermilion wouldn't do for more of that competence.
"Deep breaths, Captain," said Fulgurite. "They want you angry."
He shook his head. "No, they think they want me angry. I'll show them what a mistake that is."
"Captain..."
"What now, Wind Shear?"
Shear hemmed and hawed for a few moments. "You'll have to see for yourself, sir. I don't know what I'm looking at."
Vermilion shoved him aside. "Useless sack of..." He trailed off. He'd never say it out loud, but he wasn't sure what to make of it either.
The entire town was covered in unnatural darkness at this point, a circular pool of shadow in early afternoon. But around the inner edge of that circle, unfamiliar glyphs glowed with with a bloody light. And then the center of the shadow bulged and rose up like a living thing.
Vermilion didn't even look away as he shouted, "Runner! I want every scrap of lightning we have running through that thing!"
Even as he heard hooves pounding cloud, he could tell it was too late. Some of the bolt crews were already sending their payloads at it, either anticipating his orders or just acting out of fear. But the lightning passed through the thing's surface without resistance, sank within, and faded into the vast darkness, leaving no sign of damage.
The shadow gained more and more definition, resolving itself as some impossibly huge pony, reared up and forelegs wheeling. And Vermilion felt a terrible premonition.
"Reverse!" he cried. "Full reverse!"
"No runners on the bridge, sir!" said gods-bedamned Wind Shear.
"Go yourself! By the gods, get out and push if you have to! Quickly, before—"
The great shadow slammed its hooves down, and the New Pegasopolis dispersed like so much mist.
Flash Aegis sighed. Such senseless loss of life. Such horrible magics. And he certainly hadn't helped, even before he was stuck in a healer's tent. Even with his armor's wards, they'd had to shave off half his coat, scorched to charcoal by the battlecloud's bolts. At least his wings were intact.
"I think that went rather well," said Weight Fee, the unicorn stallion who'd helped organized the... whatever that had been.
Obelisk, his earth pony partner in crime, shook her wizened head. "It's foul stuff, what we did, but it did stop fouler. Mind yourself from here on, colt."
"Colt?" The grey in Weight's beard certainly justified his shock.
She gave a near-toothless grin in reply. "When you're a hundred and seventy, we'll see how good you look." The grin became a wrinkled scowl. "But necromancy's a dangerous thing for a unicorn. Us earthfolk can tell when we're going too far. I've seen more than a few of your ilk go off the deep end because they couldn't tell when enough was too much."
Weight rolled his eyes. "Superstitious old crone," he muttered.
"I believe you two came here to report on the battle?" said Flash.
Obelisk nodded. "Like I said, they're dealt with, by all the pain and agony they've caused us over the years."
"And this does go to show that earth ponies and unicorns can lend a hoof in defending the nation," said Weight, puffing out what little chest he had. "No need to put all the burden on a single tribe."
Out loud, Flash said, "We have earth ponies and unicorns in the guard, though not many in command positions. I'll discuss this with the higher-ups when I can move my legs again."
But he thought, I just pity whoever comes to Equestria and only expects to fight pegasi with spears.
The thing to bear in mind about Twilight Sparkle, any Twilight Sparkle, was that nothing could keep her curiosity down for long. Looking back, Sunset should’ve suspected just how badly the human Twilight had been traumatized by the Friendship Games when even meeting her pony counterpart didn’t get her asking many questions. Only after confronting and cleansing Midnight at Camp Everfree did Twilight really embrace arcane research.
“What about ghosts?”
Granted, most of that research consisted of asking Sunset about Equestria, but Sunset couldn’t say she minded. Especially not when it was just the two of them. Well, the others were scattered through Everfree National Park, called there by Gloriosa Daisy and Timber Spruce to investigate strange sightings in the woods. But right now, Sunset could tell herself it was just her, Twilight, and a scenic clearing devoid of any past trauma.
Sunset smiled as she fed another twig to the campfire. “I mean, there are spirits, but not ghosts. Not that I know of, anyway.” That was always an important rider. Even putting aside her own experiences, Princess Twilight had written about all kinds of things Sunset hadn’t even imagined were real in the entangled journal.
“What’s the difference?”
“A spirit is the embodiment of a concept, an idea with a will of its own. The most powerful ones, like Discord, have fully physical bodies, but most are insubstantial. But a ghost… We know souls exist. That’s what a cutie mark is; the physical expression of a pony’s innermost self.”
“That raises so many questions…” Twilight brushed the star symbol on her skirt, seemingly unaware of doing so.
Sunset glanced down at the familiar sun on her own shirt. “Yeah, no kidding. But for a soul to persist in the world after death…" She shook her head." That’s just not how things work in Equestria.”
Twilight gasped, eyes wide. “Wait, you actually know what happens to souls when they die?”
It took Sunset a moment to respond. “Don’t you? I’ve heard plenty of references to Tartarus and Elysium since coming here.”
“Oh. Oh wow.” Twilight shook her head. “Okay, I am not the person to talk to for an introduction to human religions. That’s a rabbit hole we really don’t need to go down right now.”
Sunset mouthed "religions" to herself before shaking away the idea. “Right. Got to at least pretend to pay attention.”
Twilight nodded, got to her feet, and scoured the woods with adorable intensity. All that was missing was her tongue poking out of her lips. “So if it isn’t a ghost, what do you think it is?”
“I never said I didn’t think this was a ghost.”
Sadly, that stopped the scanning. “Excuse me?”
“I just said that isn’t how things work in Equestria," said Sunset. "Every time we find some supernatural weirdness in this world, I have to throw out another fundamental principle of magic.”
Twilight flopped back onto the log serving as her seat with an appropriately haunted expression. “Not exactly what I wanted to hear right now, but I appreciate your honestly.”
Sunset frowned “Hey, you okay?”
“I had kind of assumed that, you know, ghosts weren’t real and this was just a misunderstanding." Twilight gulped. "Now…”
Sunset scooched over, putting an arm around Twilight's shoulders. “Deep breaths, Twi. It’s probably more scared of us than we are of it.”
“That’s bears.”
“I mean, it could apply to ghosts.” Sunset capped that with her best impression of Flash's goofy grin.
"That's..." Twilight took one look at that lopsided grin and started giggle-snorting.
Sunset counted that as a success. “Feeling better?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Twilight leaned into the side-hug, awkward though it was.
“Thank Pinkie. Or her grandmother, I guess. This one time at a slumber party—”
Rustling bushes cut off the story, making both girls bolt to their feet. "What was that?" Twilight cried, holding her arms close to her chest.
Another bush rustled. Sunset narrowed her eyes. "I don't know, but it seemed awfully solid for a ghost."
It was like flipping a switch. One moment Twilight had folded in on herself, the next she straightened up and had a suicidally determined look better suited for Rainbow Dash. "Then let's disprove that hypothesis." She charged forward, her magic shoving undergrowth out of the way.
Sunset dumped a bucket of water over the campfire and raced after her. "Twilight, wait!"
"No!" came the shout ahead. "Mom has subjected me to far too many bad horror films on Family Movie Night for me to put up with this sort of cheap suspense!"
"This isn't a movie, Twilight! You could—" A bent branch smacked Sunset in the face once the telekinesis holding it released. She fell on her butt, hands over her nose. "Ow."
Twilight didn't seem to notice. "Not everyone is as much of an adrenaline junkie as you, Mother! And Welcome to Nilbog is not a cinematic masterpiece no matter what you— AHHH!"
Sunset sprang back to her feet. "Twilight! Are you okay?" Going by her thudding pulse, she only waited a few seconds, but the silence stretched out for what felt like an eternity. "Twilight?" Still nothing.
She clenched her fists and marched towards where she last heard the rant. "Okay, whatever you are. We came here to identify you, maybe help you if you need it. But if you harmed one hair on that girl's head, you just made the biggest mistake of your... life..."
Sunset's bravado wavered as she took in the ruddy light shining through dense undergrowth in front of her. But she clenched her jaw, reminded herself of who was waiting for her on the other side, and pushed through.
Whatever she had expected, it wasn't what else was waiting for her. "What the..."
Twilight lay unconscious against a tree. Between her and Sunset stood a growling wolf, one composed of translucent red energy. It bathed the area in bloody radiance even as it crouched and bared its teeth.
"Oh boy. Kind of wish Fluttershy were here." Sunset knew her phone got a signal out here, if a weak and unreliable one. She also knew that taking her eyes off of the wolf for even a moment would be a terrible mistake. She squatted, arms out in an open wrestling stance. "I should warn you, I have no idea what I'm doing."
Neither moved for a few moments. Then, as if by some unseen signal, both lunged at the same moment. Sunset's hands met the scruff of the wolf's neck just as its paws hit her shoulders.
And then time slowed as Sunset's magic made contact with the wolf's mind.
At first, she just got a wave of formless hate, searing heat looking for something to burn. Then a moment of shock and garbled phonemes before a comprehensible thought formed in Sunset's head that wasn't from her own mind.
So. This is what's become of you.
But it was in her voice. And so terribly familiar.
Sunset fumbled with her response for a few moments. Are... are you...
You? Once. Then we took a rainbow to the everything. It didn't just strip us of our moment of triumph, it stripped you of everything worthwhile.
I'd actually forgotten how sad I was back then. Couldn't ever just be happy; someone else had to be miserable. Sunset hadn't meant to send that, but thinking to herself didn't seem to be an option.
Quiet, you, her demon snarled. We were going to rule Equestria. Maybe both worlds! But now your greatest ambition is some farcical high school romance with this cheap imitation of the filly who replaced us.
As opposed to a farcical revenge fantasy.
You know, I was going to try and get back in there. But now? Now I'm ashamed to be associated with you. The rage burned even hotter. I might as well eliminate my old husk and be done with it.
I've already had this dream, you know.
The heat wavered for a moment. This is no dream, Sunset.
No, but I've still had it. I spent more than a year putting you behind me. From the sound of it, it's taken you that long just to form a coherent body. The fact that my entitlement and anger and sheer ego were enough to actually form a spirit... Sunset would've shaken her head if the conversation weren't moving at the speed of thought. Really says something, doesn't it? And then there's the fact that you turned into a wolf of all things.
Alright, let's try this: Start taking me seriously or I'm going to tear your precious little mini-Twilight's throat out.
Wolves are as social a species as ponies, Sunset continued. More predatory, yes, but still meant to work in groups. A lone wolf is either a bully or a pariah. And we were kind of both.
I mean it! The mental shout echoed in Sunset's third ear.
She sent back exasperation. Stop trying to bluff yourself. You're just embarrassing both of us. My ego may have been massive enough to form a spirit, but I know it wasn't enough to form a corporeal one. Your jaws are as dangerous as a warm breeze.
The rage flared so hot that Sunset's physical vision filled with red for a few moments... then fell back to background annoyance. Fine. Then I'll just take over... Sunset registered a faint presence pressing against her mind. She didn't give it any help, and it soon relented. Ugh. Now what?
Well, if this is what happens after a Harmony-based attitude adjustment in this world, I think I have an idea that will solve a problem you didn't even know you had.
After a few relative moments of silence, her demon thought, Why would you help me?
Just doing myself a favor.
Rainbow Dash spoke up first once they were finished and the last traces of the rainbow faded from the edge of Camp Everfree. "This is weird, right? Tell me I'm not the only one who thinks this is weird."
"Y' ain't th' only one thinks this is weird," Applejack told her.
Rarity rested her chin in her hand. "It's almost romantic, from a certain point of view."
"Oh, absolutely," said Fluttershy.
Pinkie bounced in place, bearing a wider smile than usual. "We cheered up two grumpi! I call that a win."
"And you're sure they'll keep to the deep woods?" said Gloriosa Daisy.
Sunset nodded. "We came to a mutually acceptable arrangement."
"You okay?" Timber Spruce asked Twilight.
She gave a hesitant nod. "It's... strange. But I'll manage."
And two wolves loped off into the forest, one russet red, the other as purple as Spike, save for greenish marks around her eyes.
Murders are rare in Equestria, but that just means that each one gets treated seriously. Murders in little towns where everypony knows everypony especially.
Still, that’s what I'm here for. My name's Streetlamp. I'm a private eye.
Yeah, I know what you're thinking. No "Moon" or "Night" or "Dark" or "Shade" or nothing? What kind of batpony am I?
Well, first of all, you hypothetical tribalist son of a mule, the proper term is "chiropteron." Means "hand wing" in Minoan, which is why the plural ends in an "a." Not much better, I know, but you gotta admit, it's got a bit more class. Minotaurs were the first folks to both find the old country and figure out writing, so they got naming rights for the rest of equinity. Far as we were concerned, we were just ponies. Or so I've been told.
Secondly, I'm sure you've heard ponies call Manehattan the city that never sleeps. Thing is, ponies like to be able to see when they're awake, the sun doesn't always cooperate there, and we don't all have eyes that work just fine in starlight. So, it's also the city that never gets dark. Not proper dark, anyway. Part of why I like it out in the country; ponies actually get to see some stars out here.
You know, when they're not busy worrying about a murder. Don't worry, I'm getting to that.
But yeah, the more stereotypical chiropteron names don't really come to mind when midnight doesn't look too far off from noon. (Besides, my appearance is so typical for my tribe, I might as well be one of Luna's chariot pullers. At least with the name I stand out somehow.) Like any other parents, my folks named me what they wanted me to be. In my case, a light in the darkness.
I know, I know, pro-diurnal metaphor. Blame a millennium with Sunbutt on the throne unopposed.
Where was I? Right, the murder. Based on the photos they sent me as part of the case info, it was a nasty one; I could see why they'd called me in. I don't like to brag, but I have gotten involved in most of the high-profile investigations in recent years. Wasn't always by choice, either. But for this one, I hopped on the train bright and early—before sunset, even!—without complaint. Tartarus, I almost hopped on without my hat.
After all, it's not every day you've got a murder in Ponyville of all places.
Relax. None of Princess Twilight's friendship squad bit the big one. If you've even heard of the victim, I'll eat that hat I almost forgot.
Okay, wise guy. Strawberry Scoop.
Yeah, thought so. Earth pony, beige coat, two-tone pink mane, self-explanatory cutie mark. Student at the School of Friendship. And she was found by a family of raccoons in Whitetail Wood four to six hours after she stepped out of the ice cream parlor of life. This being Ponyville, they informed Fluttershy, who informed Princess Twilight, and on the message went until it reached my fluffy ears.
Only took another twelve hours or so, and most of that was waiting on the preliminary investigation. News travels fast when it's this important.
The train ride was mostly uneventful, other than the inevitable curious foals asking Mommy what was wrong with the scary pegasus. My mark probably didn't help either. A circle that can't decide if it's a crescent moon or a staring eye draws attention, usually the bad kind. At least my sunglasses prevent any comments about my actual eyes.
Still, nopony accused me of being a Nightmare Moon cultist. Isn't it nice how we're becoming a more open and welcoming society?
The sun had nearly set when I got off the train. I'd expected to see the chief of police at the platform. I got the Princess of Friendship. Couldn't so much as dip my head before she went off like a rocket. "Oh good, you're here. Just a moment!" Next thing I knew, the world flashed purple, then we were under a forest canopy.
And to give you some idea of what it's like to work with Twilight Sparkle, only then did she say, "Um, you are Mr. Streetlamp, right? Because if I just abducted a random chiropteron then this whole investigation may as well be doomed before it starts and oh goodness this is Ms. Harshwhinny in the Empire all over again, I'll just—"
"Easy, easy," I said, putting on my best "talk them off the ledge" smile. The bit of fang never hurts; always makes the horse brain do a double-take. "I'm Streetlamp, Your Highness. Nopony's pressing foalnapping charges."
Watching that horn go dark brought me more relief than seeing Sanguine Humor get put away for life. Never let anypony tell you party ponies are harmless. Anyway, the princess relaxed just a hair and nodded. "Okay. Good. And Twilight is fine. Were you able to review the documents I sent you?"
"Some." Under one hoof, dragonfire messaging meant Prin... er, meant Twilight could send me the police's early investigation as soon as she could get it, giving me plenty of time to review the case on my way to Ponyville. Under another, she'd also sent me testimony from Strawberry's friends, testimony from her teachers, her full academic record, her full medical record, and even her full genealogical record going back before the town had been founded. "Anypony moved the body?"
"No, I informed the police I'd be calling in a consultant the moment I heard. A murder in Ponyville, it just..." She shook her head. "I can't even imagine who might have done this!"
I held back a wince. It was a good thing Twilight sent me all she did. The local colts in cobalt would not be happy with me after she told them how little faith she had in them. "That's what I'm here to find out, Twilight. Let's see what we're dealing with."
"Of course. Right this way."
Maybe if ponies killed each other more often, I'd get used to seeing dead bodies. Maybe I'm just a softy at heart. Either way, as often as I do this, it never gets any easier. Strawberry Scoop lay flat as a sack of cement, lying at the side of the forest trail like an empty bag of hay fries.
Some ponies say the dead seem peaceful, like they're sleeping. Chiroptera don't. When you can see the dreaming mind as a tie-dyed haze around the skull, seeing a still body without one looks as wrong as a pony trotting around with a hoof-wide hole through their barrel. But when I got closer to Strawberry, something struck me as even more wrong than just a body without a mind. Some smell, feeling, taste, I don't know what. Next thing I knew, I'd drawn back, wings flared, ears back, hissing like a cat.
"Mr. Streetlamp?" said Twilight, awfully confused.
I glanced at her and all but slapped myself. After piecing together the scraps of my dignity, I cleared my throat. "Sorry. Something hit me in a spot I didn't know I had. Think this might be that unclassified magic aura the report mentioned."
She nodded, relaxing for the first time since we'd met. No surprise Magic Mare herself would rather talk about spells than the body. "It's decayed over time, but it's definitely like nothing I've ever detected before. Some relation to chiropteron magic would explain why."
"It would, but this isn't anything dream-related. I'm no dozer, but I can tell you that much."
"Dozer?"
"Onieromancer, dreamweaver, Fantasia's flunkies. The ponies who kept us all mildly sane during Princess Luna's big timeout. Every bat picks up a little of it." Hey, I can say it. It's our word. "But this..." I took another step towards the body and drew back my lips in unadulterated loathing. "This is something else, in every sense."
Twilight tossed her head, got a bit of her mane in her mouth, and started chewing. I don't think she even realized she was doing it. "Do you think you can work with just the photos I provided?"
I shook my head. "Those can only do so much. I like being able to get my own angles on the scene of the crime."
Step by step, I kept moving forward, even as that awful feeling made my skin try to crawl right off my body. Still, I kept enough focus to look over the body. Signs of bruising suggested a struggle. Some of that could be blood pooling, especially on the underside, though there should have been much more of that after the better part of a day.
That brought me to Strawberry's face, which had it the worst. Eyes, mouth, nostrils, ears, even individual pores and follicles were scabbed over with the dried blood that normally would've settled in the rest of her body. This kind of horror wasn't just a monster attack, not that monsters were known to prefer the Whitetail to the Everfree. This was clear, deliberate intent to harm and kill a fellow sapient.
The photos had made me suspect how I'd need to solve this one. Seeing it for myself confirmed it.
Once I made up my mind, I flew away from the disgusting thing that poor mare's body had become as fast as I could. I hadn't noticed the way my pulse pounded in my ears until I was away from it. Tartarus, the way I was gasping for air, I'm not sure if I'd breathed that whole time.
"Mr. Streetlamp? Are you alright?" Say what you will about Twilight Sparkle, she's a sweetheart when it counts.
I took a few moments to answer, still collecting myself. "I'll live. And I know what I have to do for this one."
"Is there any way I can help?" Her knees shook as she said it, but the look in her eyes was solid as a rock. You don't hurt ponies in an alicorn's town and get away with it.
Still, no sense tormenting her. "You've already done all you need to, Twilight. I'll review some more of the material you sent me, but this one calls for my secret weapon."
"What?"
"I'll sleep on it."
I could almost hear the gears tick away as she tried to puzzle that out. "What?"
"What can I say?" I shrugged my wings. "I do some of my best thinking then."
And that brings us to now. Anyway, seems like my next appointment's due. Thanks for listening.
The stallion turned away from nothing in particular, hooves silently striding over the ephemeral expanse of the dreamscape.
The other pony, who he'd heard approach, turned up a corner of her mouth. "Soliloquizing to the firmament again, Streetlamp?"
He didn't bow, but he did doff his fedora. "Just killing time until you arrive, Your Highness. I figure if A. K. Yearling can make bank with her life story, so can I."
"'Killing time.'" Luna quirked an eyebrow. "A tasteless turn of phrase given the current circumstances, would you not say?"
"If we get this right, Your Highness, it'll be the only killing I have to worry about."
"Scamp. Our last Royal Inquisitor was not nearly so irreverent."
Streetlamp smirked. "Begging your pardon, Your Highness, but your last Royal Inquisitor had a suite in Castle Everfree. I have a railroad apartment that's barely big enough for my full wingspan."
That got a genuine smile out of her, if only for a moment. "Enough for now. We lighten our hearts that we may pursue monsters in pony skin without becoming their ilk, but making merry quickly turns grotesque when the dead call for justice. What have you found, Inquisitor?"
Streetlamp summarized his findings: The blood magic, the instinctual revulsion, the medical data. Luna nodded along until he reached his conclusion. "I figured you'd know best on this one, Your Highness. You are my go-to for the extra-spooky ones."
"Just so. I know well the foe you face, good Streetlamp." She sighed. "I am in a way responsible for it."
"This covered by the Nightmare Pardon, Your Highness? 'Cause you can choose not to self-incriminate otherwise."
Luna just rolled her eyes before drawing herself up like a sphinx. She spread her wings, and a dream formed around them, one with the musty thought-scent of an old memory. "The story begins in the home of your forebears, known now as the Forbidden Jungles..."
Luna's skill with dream shaping was rightly legendary among the chiroptera. Thousands of bat-winged members of the Dreamguard had sustained equinity's subconscious minds during her absence only through perseverance and sheer bloody-mindedness. She turned back the centuries with scarcely a care. Tropical foliage bloomed around them, thickening overhead until the difference between night and day became moot. The songs of a thousand birds and ten thousand insects mingled together with the bass rumbles of larger creatures slinking through the jungle.
Streetlamp, unofficial Royal Inquisitor—mostly because Celestia refused to reinstate the official position—just sat and watched. He was well familiar with how his princess indulged in theatrics.
"The southern wilds have been called many names throughout history," said Luna. The view rose above the trees to take in stepped pyramids along a chain of peaks. "Some called it the Llamazon, after those who built the mountain temples." Back down, to struggling explorers in khaki and pith helmets, hacking at the plants with mouth-held machetes. 'Others named it Inch-Along, for the struggle to navigate its thick undergrowth." She looked up, and above the explorers, a hundred slit-pupiled eyes gleamed like gold. "Your ancestors, good Streetlamp, called it 'Home,' as worthy a name as any other. But we shall think of it as the Forbidden Jungle for now, since this is the tale of how the folly of pony made it forbidden.
"But we do not begin with our own folly." The jungle faded into mist. "We must first turn to the minotaurs."
Luna looked to Streetlamp. "Do you still know the saying in this time? 'Where there is a maze, there is Minos?'"
He nodded. "Never understood it myself, but I've definitely heard it."
"It is literal truth, you know." This time, the mist gave way to countless skyscrapers that made the Diarchy State Building look like a treehouse, all pressed together until they formed the twisting walls of a vast maze. As Streetlamp tilted his head back, he didn't see a sky, just more impossibly tangled pathways. "The minotaur’s great labyrinth-city winds in directions even I cannot fathom, where neither dreams nor stars travel. Perhaps Pinkie Pie could navigate its streets, but I fear what might come of leaving her there without supervision." Luna shuddered at the thought.
"Still, Minos was not always a city tucked behind the world." The walls parted, letting the ponies look down on a vast plain. Towns popped up from the landscape like mushrooms, then spread like mold on an orange. "Once, near the whole continent of Torozon was urban sprawl, cities growing unchecked, touching together, squeezing against the scant farms that struggled to feed the ever-growing populace. The minotaurs raced ahead of other races in knowledge, but not in wisdom." The view moved to the coast, where great, many-masted ships cast off. "Soon, with their great barques and the first steel the world had seen, they set out for other shores, lest they suffocate in their own magnificence."
The ships sailed across the Celestial Ocean, pausing at a chain of volcanic islands. "The Mighty Helm recorded their brushes with minotaur ships, at first thinking them a fleet of Naglfars, a sign of Ragnarok come early." Longships met the minotaur boats, and shouts and metal shrieks echoed across the water. Soon enough, the minotaurs steered clear of the archipelago. "Doughty as they were, they gave their would-be raiders a bloody nose and sent them seeking more hospitable waterways. If the minotaurs had had cannons…"
Luna took a moment to consider that before shaking her head. "Well, the world might look very different were that the case."
The minotaurs continued across the sea until they made landfall once more. "In time, they arrived at what was to them a paradise of impossible plenty, untouched by intelligent hands." The crews disembarked, gazing around in wonder.
"Here they were strictly accurate. Your ancestors had hooves, after all. They watched as these strange creatures stripped the shore bare and piled felled trees into what seemed a needlessly vast structure." The shadows seemed to peel away from the trees as a crude fort went up, curious ultrasonic chitters reaching Streetlamp's ears.
"Your Highness," he said, "I have to ask, how do you know all of this?"
She didn't look away from the scene, watching as the chiroptera debated and the minotaurs refined their outpost. "Some, I was there for. Much I pulled from dreaming minds after the fact. And only I could, for there is a key part of the tale I had not yet mentioned."
"And that would be?"
"One of the ways the minotaurs dealt with their rising population pressure." On cue, the expedition leader emerged from the fort. He was almost definitely the leader, what with being a foot taller than the other minotaurs, wearing ruffles and a cravat, and having entirely blood-red eyes and fangs that jutted out of his mouth even when it was shut.
Streetlamp boggled at him for a good ten seconds. "What."
"It was once a religious rite, a way to preserve wisdom as well as knowledge for the ages." Luna sighed as smaller visions of altered minotaurs in simple robes preaching to petitioners gave way to ones in elaborate suits ordering subordinates. "But that wisdom was swept away by the rush of growing generations, and soon the minotaurs used vampirism solely as a way to simplify logistics. The food chain became part of their social structure, nobles fed by the blood of serfs."
"That's..." Streetlamp shook his head. "I don't even know how to describe it."
"Absurd? Callous? Horrifying? The modern minotaurs would agree with you. There is a reason so many spend their whole lives in Minos. The old shame still stings, even now." Luna's expression twisted into something unreadable. "I cannot help but empathize with them.
"But I digress. Even putting aside the horrors the minotaurs inflicted on themselves, the magics used had an... unexpected reaction with those of the chiroptera."
The minotaur vampire strode across the beach and into the jungle. Once he crossed an unseen line, the squeaking argument fell silent, a thousand pupils contracted to thin slits, and a swarm of furious, screeching ponies descended upon him like a blanket of night.
"Felt that first hand today." Streetlamp shuddered at the memory. "So you're saying one of those old bulls is skulking around the Whitetail?"
"Oh no. My sister personally incinerated the last bloodlord four hundred years ago. One of the first things I checked upon my return."
After a few thoughtful moments, Streetlamp said, "You've lost me, Your Highness."
"The chiroptera had the advantage of surprise with the first fort." The swarm flooded over the walls, chasing the minotaurs back to their ships, which soon vanished over the horizon. "But the survivors still returned home to tell of both the crazed bat-horses and the treasure they guarded, and Torozon was getting no less crowded in the meantime. They did not force the issue with the Midgard Islands, not when they stood to gain so little."
New sails moved into view, and a lot more of them. "But the Forbidden Jungles were too rich a prize to surrender to what they saw as wild animals that went mad at the sight of their leaders. And so they returned, and this time they came prepared." Minotaurs disembarked, more heavily armed and armored. The vampires made the ships shake as they disembarked, geared up until they seemed like great iron golems.
The next assault didn't go nearly as well for the natives.
"After that, the chiroptera tried to act from a distance where they could think properly, employing more subtle tactics." Luna shook her head. "But as I said, mortal arts cannot find purchase in the dreams of the dead." The dream moved to altars deep in the jungle. "Some performed desperate acts of sacrifice to give rise to undying guardian beasts: Camazotz, Ahuizotl, the lesser Cipactli. But such creatures were ill-suited for assault, willful and proud. After a few attempts, they sulked away, prowling lost temples and insisting that was always their purpose." One by one, monsters stormed the new fort, were repelled, and sank back into the jungle like embarrassed cats.
Night fell, and the moon rose. "Finally, the ponies looked to the bright moon of dreams that lay to the north, remembering promises and prophecies of old. And that is when I entered the conflict. Naturally I did not do so unaided." New ships sailed into the natural harbor, along with troops marching in formation from the jungle. Another Luna spearhead the land forces.
The modern one sighed. "In time, that would be our folly."
"Somepony got curious?" said Streetlamp.
"Indeed. As we struggled against the minotaurs, some of our arcane researchers sought to understand the nature of the foe's champions." A group of unicorns gathered around a treasure chest right out of a storybook, save that it was filled with books and loose paper. "A seized collection of documents drove a permanent wedge between them and the chiroptera. Your ancestors wanted the papers destroyed, but one mare smuggled them back to Equestria." Even as a debate among the tribes raged, one mare snuck away, the chest on her back. "Relations between the tribes grew chilly from there, and the Jungles have been inhospitable to ponies not of your tribe ever since."
The focus shifted to that mare, rifling through the papers with an expression like a foal in a candy store. "After the war, Black Rose, cursed be her name, kept the knowledge close. She reverse-engineered the ritual at the earliest opportunity, but waited for the perfect moment to enact it." Outside of Black Rose's workshop, the sky grew dark. Luna glared at her with the kind of outright hate Streetlamp had rarely seen on anypony. "She selected my rebellion."
Luna took a deep breath before continuing. "The rest I know from study: Even as my sister banished me, Black Rose became the first pony vampire." A rainbow flared through the windows even as Black Rose concocted and downed a rust-colored potion. Nothing much happened to her, besides slightly sharper teeth and horn and darker coat.
Streetlamp hummed to himself. "The change is a lot more subtle in ponies."
"Indeed. She then tried to recruit an army to conquer Equestria in the Nightmare's name." Rose approached a troop of Night Guards kneeling before a stained-glass window of Luna. They turned and snarled at her, making her flee. "But your ancestors despised her as much as the minotaur bloodlords, and with them opposing her, she had no hope of recruiting for her rebellion.
"Rose fled to the darkest underbelly of equine society, destroying the secrets so no other could exploit them as she had. Her progeny have plagued the rest of equinity ever since, practicing unnatural hemomancies like what befell poor Strawberry Scoop." One final image played, of Rose drawing blood out through a pony's face and into her open mouth, before it faded and left only the dream realm to see.
"So, the perp was a vampire." Streetlamp plastered on a smirk. "Well, that only took, what, twenty minutes to say?"
Luna gave him a flat look. "Do you want the technique that will allow you to track said perpetrator through the sympathetic connection to his victims?"
The smirk slid into a sheepish grin. "If you'd be so kind, Your Highness."
"That's what I thought."
Streetlamp frowned. "Still, I've got to wonder why a vampire came to Ponyville."
"The equine mind is ill-equipped to spend eternity on the edge between life and death. The fiend is likely little more than a beast at this point. Concern yourself only with its destruction, Inquisitor."
"Again, your Highness, Ponyville."
Luna nodded. "True. I shall compose a writ of extermination, to make clear to Twilight Sparkle that this is no misguided friend-to-be. A courier will bring it to you shortly. Justice demands retribution, Inquisitor. Avenge Strawberry Scoop; your princess commands you."
Dear Mr. Lord Tirek,
I'm sorry to say that Mr. Corpuscle won't be able to deliver my mail anymore, because he's been eradicated by agents of the crown. The good news is I've mastered the teleportation ritual you included in your early letters! At least, I hope I have. Please answer soon so I know I didn't send this letter into Cerberus's mouth or something.
Anyway, you were right about relying to much on weak fools and go-betweens. Sure, a bunch of friends can get a lot done, but that's because they have plenty of backups and replacements. Relying on just one pony isn't going to end well. Or just six ponies.
So, what if a certain six ponies happened to get stuck in Tartarus while I was draining the magic from Equestria?
It took a day of ruling Equestria for Twilight to appreciate the swindle Celestia had pulled and a week to grow thoroughly sick of it. A full moon after taking the throne and all rights (few if any beyond those of junior princesshood) and responsibilities (AAAAAAAH) thereof, the promise of the first Council of Friendship meeting was the only reason Twilight was even trying to cling to sanity.
Said council being absent one friend wasn’t helping.
After waiting a full minute past the meeting's scheduled starting point and checking under the throne's cushions just to be sure, Twilight had to say it. “Where’s Pinkie?”
“Well," said Rarity, "she did mention how this particular brush with death put some things in perspective for her.”
Rainbow Dash nodded. “Yeah, then she put together some kinda rubber chicken-dowsing rod thing and left town, like, three weeks ago.”
Twilight frowned. “And none of you thought to tell me?”
“All due respect, sugarcube," Applejack said with a tip of the hat, "but you’ve got enough on your plate. We figured as much, but one look at you’s all I need to know for sure.”
“You have knots in places I didn’t even know ponies could have them," added Fluttershy, who'd all but ordered the ruler of Equestria on to the floor once she came in the room to give her a much-needed massage. "Rainbow Dash, could you help?”
“Uh, you wrestle bears, Shy." Dash rubbed the back of her head. "Not sure how much help I can give.”
“This is not a one-pony job." Fluttershy shook out her withers. "And Twilight’s latest growth spurt isn’t helping.”
“Yeah, that was the seventh thing Celestia ‘forgot’ to tell me after I took the throne," Twilight grumbled. "Apparently alicorns grow like dragons, except with us, it’s less how much you have and more how important ponies think you are. And after saving Equestria from another ice age and the accession and so forth, I might as well be going through a third puberty, because getting just one more after getting wings wasn’t enough. At this rate, I’ll be taller than Cadence by our next meeting.” She let out a long sigh, which turned into a gasp after both pegasi made a joint pop. “Oh, I needed that. Though I was really looking forward to a cupcake or twelve.”
A long, multilayered belch made everypony go still. That tended to be the right reaction when dragonfire painted the room green.
After the echoes died off, Twilight said, “Spike, for all our sakes, I hope that’s a letter.”
He dashed up to her carrying a massive bundle. “That and a dozen cupcakes.”
“Pinkie? How did she…" Twilight shook her head. "No, I’ve spent far too much time around her to even finish that thought. What’s it say? And what flavor’s the frosting?” A moment later, Twilight floated the cupcakes into her waiting forelegs. “Actually, I don’t care.”
Spike just smiled, unrolled the actual scroll, and cleared his throat. “‘Dear Everypony (and Spike!),
“‘I’m so, so, so sorry I wasn’t able to make the first Council of Friendship meeting! I lost track of time during my epic quest and the montages took a lot longer than they felt in the middle of them. Plus, trying to detect a wandering party pony isn’t easy when he’s also on an epic quest to find you.’”
Gasps and half-said exclamations filled the throne room.
“Huh." Spike blinked at the letter. "There's actually a line here that says ‘Break for audience reaction.’ Ahem: ‘That’s right! Cheese and I finally tracked each other down and exchanged engagement hoofbands! (Mine’s made of taffy. He knows me so well.) By the time you’re reading this, we’ll be going to the rock farm to consult the Choosing Stone. We’ve got the whole thing planned out after that. Next council meeting’s in Horsolulu!’ And…" Spike fanned the scroll like he was laying out a sheet, scattering smaller pieces of paper. "Yup, there go the wedding invitations.”
“My word," said Rarity. "That mare does work quickly when she’s of a mind to do so.”
"Can't rightly blame 'er. We've been in tight pinches before, but that was a whole lot of 'em one after another, and all tighter'n most. That sorta thing makes you realize you gotta make the most o' th' time you got." Applejack turned to consider Rainbow Dash.
After a few moments of silence, Dash actually noticed. "What?"
"We're gonna need t' have a talk soon."
"I didn't even do anything!"
Applejack nodded. "Yeah, that's part o' th' talk."
Fluttershy just blushed and muttered, "He doesn't really like the idea of organized ceremonies."
"Well." Rarity heaved a deep sigh. "I believe I have a date with a quart of ice cream and my cat when this meeting is over."
"Our love lives or lack thereof aside... Oof..." Twilight gingerly got to her hooves, twisting her neck from side to side. "I'm not sure if I can get the country stable enough for me to go to a wedding in Haywaii a moon from now."
Rarity scoffed. "Well, that's part of why we're here, isn't it?"
"Besides, if we don't RSVP for Pinkie's wedding, she's gonna clear your schedule one way or another." Dash shuddered. "And I'd give her way better odds of destroying Equestria than the Terrible Trio."
"I thought we were calling them the League of Enmity," said Spike.
Applejack shrugged. "Papers called 'em th' Elements o' Disharmony."
Twilight rolled her eyes. "Right now, they're a statue in the castle garden, my plans for reforming them are years away from implementation at the earliest, and we have much more pressing concerns to address. Especially if we're going to make that wedding. Rainbow Dash is right; failing to do so could have dire consequences for the planet as a whole."
"Darn good thing Pinkie's on our side," said Applejack.
Twilight nodded. "Let's keep her that way."
The work that went into getting Equestria to the point where the princess and her most trusted advisors could spend a weekend in a tropical paradise was exhausting, seemingly endless, and far more than can be properly captured here. So was the wedding itself, if for much happier reasons.
By the time the party wound down, Twilight just wrenched the sun over Canterlot's horizon, figuring that the time zone differential meant it was more or less time. Then she stumbled her way into one of the beachside cabins rented for all the guests, banged her horn on yet another doorframe, and tucked herself under unfamiliar covers.
Then a rumble shook the cabin.
Twilight's eyes snapped back open. "No," she said. "Not here. Not now."
Another rumble presented an insistent counterargument.
Twilight dug deep into what little she knew about earth pony magic. She opened herself to the flow of the leylines, the rhythm of the earth-currents.
It was a bit like sticking her muzzle in front of an open fire hydrant. If it had been a storm system, she might have been able to stabilize herself long enough to think. If it had been a form of unicorn magic, she could've wrapped it around her hoof and written a paper on the phenomenon. But to her, this was a deep mystery in every sense. All her probing did was leave her wide awake with aching hooves and the vague sense of being sent to her room while the adults talked.
Then, with another rumble, Kilauini erupted.
Twilight ran to the nearest window facing the volcano. Smoke poured from the peak as a fiery red streak raced across the sky. It might have seemed like a meteor if it weren't going up.
Well, it went up for a while. Then gravity kicked in.
Also, it was definitely getting closer.
"No, no, no, not now!" Twilight shouted as she raced outside.
Spike had slept through it; any dragon who couldn’t sleep through an eruption would be a chronic insomniac. But her friends emerged from their nearby cabins, looking as bleary as she felt. "Wuz hap'nin', Twi?" Rainbow Dash slurred.
"Oh, nothing." Twilight could feel her eye start to twitch. "One of the most active volcanoes in the world just decided to start spewing lava again." She frowned as she dredged up half-forgotten volcanology research. "Though Kilauini is a shield volcano, so sending up a volcanic bomb like that is very unusual behavior for i—"
Said bomb made impact not far from them, cutting off the thought. Tall as one of the cabins, its outer layers crumbled away like old parchment, revealing an incandescent interior still dripping liquid rock.
And then something stepped out of that interior. A boar larger than a full-grown yak, with bristles of flame and tusks of white-hot iron, puffs of fire bursting out of its snout with every breath, shook itself. Lava sprayed everywhere.
Twilight looked into the creature's eyes and saw only rage and the desire to destroy.
"Of course," she muttered. "Of course we couldn't just have a peaceful, uneventful wedding."
"This is Pinkie and Cheese we're talking about, Twilight,” Rarity said as she worked the curlers out of her mane. “This was never going to be peaceful or uneventful."
"You know what I mean."
Applejack cracked her neck. “So we're gonna keep this mean ol' mother-hubbard from spoilin' Pinkie an' Cheese's first night t'gether, right?"
Twilight nodded. “Of course."
The boar got its bearings at that point, charging towards the mares and forcing them all to jump out of the way. Then it kept going, making a beeline for the newlywed’s cabin.
"Uh, how do we do that?" said Dash.
Twilight thought as quickly as she could after enough mai tais to challenge an alicorn’s metabolism. “Fluttershy? Do you think you can do something?"
Fluttershy shook her head. ”I can barely understand timberwolves. I can't imagine I'll make any more sense to that creature."
"Applejack?"
"Sugarcube, I can wrangle anything this side o' Appleoosa, but rope and somethin' what lives in volcanoes just don't mix."
"I don't think I'll be of much help either.” Rarity looked down, rolling a pebble back and forth with a forehoof. “This seems like more of a Starlight situation."
"And she's on the other side of the campground because Pinkie didn’t want Trixie and me to be too close to one another.” Twilight facehoofed. “Fantastic.”
"Uh, Twi?” said Dash. “Don't know if you've noticed, but Porkroast has been leaving a lot of little fires behind him." Indeed, the beach grass and more than a few palm fronds were smoldering or worse.
Twilight narrowed her eyes. “Well then. Girls, make sure none of this spreads. I'll take care of the uninvited guest."
As the others nodded, Twilight teleported in front of the immense beast. It actually stopped when she manifested in front of it; she hadn’t been sure if it would. A flash of surprise in its glowing red eyes gave her a bit of hope. "Okay! I'm giving you one chance to peacefully surrender and go back home."
Those eyes narrowed. It snorted out another gout of flame and scraped the ground with a hoof.
Twilight sighed. “Of course not. Well, I tried.”
The boar charged. Twilight cast a concave shield like a bulldozer blade. One slammed into the other with an impact that made her teeth shake, but the shield held. “If you won’t go home yourself, I’ll escort you.” Granted, she’d need to get a lot closer before she felt confident about teleporting it into Kilauini. So she started shoving.
The boar gave a startled squeal as Twilight began pushing it back, then started smashing its head into the barrier like the human Fluttershy listening to her records.
She told herself it would get tired soon.
It didn’t.
She told herself it wasn’t so bad.
It wasn’t… the first few dozen times. Then the strain of holding up a shield against repeated physical trauma combined with the non-negligible heat from being that close to something that had just come out of a volcano and reminded Twilight that she should really be in bed right now.
Twilight wasn’t sure how much of the burning sensation in her horn was thaumic strain and how much was actual heat. The boar kept beating against the shield with an almost mechanical rhythm. Cracks started to form.
And then a whistle made both pause and turn to see a figure standing on the shore’s edge.
"Hi, Twilight!“
Twilight blinked. It felt like she’d forgotten to do that for a while. “Pinkie?"
"Over here!"
The boar snorted again and kicked off the shield, reducing it to powder and sending Twilight tumbling. By the time she stood up, it was already running pell-mell down the beach, leaving a trail of glassy hoofsteps as it charged straight at Pinkie.
At least, it was until she said, “So, how you doing?” from right next to Twilight.
Twilight couldn’t be sure what the boar thought of that, but she could see it stumble and try to turn before reaching the waves. It tilted forward enough for its hooves to touch the surf, triggering a pair of steam explosions that catapulted it into the deeper waters.
That burst of steam formed a mushroom cloud.
"You okay?” Pinkie got Twilight’s attention again, looking her over with as much of a frown as the party pony ever had. “You’re looking a little red. And you scorched off your eyelashes again.“
Twilight couldn’t help but smile. Oh, for the simple days in Ponyville when the worst thing she had to worry about were alchemical accidents. “I’ll be fine. I'm sorry."
That got Pinkie grinning again. ”Why, because you did the whole 'Princess of Friendship has to do everything by herself' thing again?"
The princess regnant of Equestria did not pout. But Twilight wasn’t wearing her crown at the moment, so she supposed she could get away with it. “Hey, that was a case of logical deduction."
"Uh huh."
"I'm apologizing because I was trying to give you and Cheese some, well…” Twilight blushed from more than the heat. “Privacy."
"Oh. Oh!” Pinkie shook her head. “That’s really nice of you, but we were way too tired from everything earlier. Cheese never even woke up; there’s no way we’d do any personal pan parties tonight.”
"I'm going to need you to never use that term again."
"No promises!” Pinkie said with a wide smile. “Still, why'd you do everything the hard way with Pele?"
Twilight said nothing for a few moments, just looking back and forth between Pinkie and the beach. “Pele?"
An equine figure emerged from the surf, an earth pony as tall as Cadence and as built as Big Macintosh. Her long, golden mane and tail offset an obsidian-black coat, a cutie mark of Kilauini itself, and eyes the same fiery red as the boar. She stalked towards the pair with the same single-minded determination. "Pinkie! What's the big idea, having your wedding at my home and not inviting me?"
"I tried, Pele, honest! I just couldn't think of a way to get it to you without it burning up!"
Twilight boggled vacantly at the shenanigans. "I have several questions."
“Come on, Twilight,” said Pinkie, “every rock farmer knows about Pele. My dad's even named Igneous Rock."
Twilight gave her the best Celestia-esque disappointed look she could muster. ”I’m not a rock farmer, Pinkie."
"Oh.” Pinkie’s weak chuckle trailed off after a few moments. “This is the parasprites all over again, isn't it?"
“So were you expecting an angry volcano spirit—"
"Goddess.” said Pele.
"An angry volcano goddess to crash your wedding after you snubbed her?"
Pinkie waggled a hoof. “Eh, I gave it fifty-fifty odds."
Twilight took a deep breath and counted to one hundred and one in primes. ”I’m going to go see if there's anything left in the bar. Congratulations again, Pinkie.”
"I'll join you,” Pele said with a smile. She shoulder-bumped Twilight. “Not every day I meet someone who can shove me back."
"See, Twilight? You made a new friend!"
"Go to sleep, Pinkie,” said Twilight. Even if she was smiling as she said it.
All musical numbers end, sadly, which meant that Luster Dawn had to put some actual legwork into getting set up in her new room at the School of Friendship. Though the creatures she’d met during the song had been happy to stick with her on the way to her dorm.
“So is it true that Princess Twilight eats thirty hayburgers a day?”
Though she had to admit that that wasn’t entirely on her own merits.
“Come on, Georgia,” River Song the kirin said to the corvid-panther griffin hauling one of Luster’s suitcases. “Luster just got here. She doesn’t need creatures asking creatures about her famous mom.”
Luster cleared her throat. “Um, Princess Twilight isn’t my mother. I’m just her student.”
“River projecting because River daughter of Rain Shine,” said Yelena the yak, wearing the rest of Luster’s luggage like fashion accessories over her traditional blanket… dress… thing? Luster made a mental note to research yak clothing at the next opportunity. She’d be a fool to pass up friendships offered to her on a silver platter.
Then Luster registered what Yelena had actually said. “Really?” She considered River, who rolled her eyes at the scrutiny. Same tan coat and green mane as the kirin headdoe. “I’ve seen your mother at the palace, but I, uh…” Luster bit her lip. “Well, I never actually attended any of the diplomatic meetings Princess Twilight invited me to.”
“Seriously?” cried Georgia. “You’re the student of the Princess of Friendship! You gotta network!”
Luster gave an exasperated snort. “Look, we can’t all be social butterflies like Professor Moondancer. I made four friends today and I’m already exhausted.”
“I thought that was the bureaucracy,” said Fry the earth stallion.
“Okay, that did get old after a while. But you won’t get far as Princess Twilight’s student if you can’t handle filling out a few forms.”
Yelena stopped before one of the rooms so suddenly that Luster nearly ran into her. “This new friend Luster’s room. Bunking with Yelena.” She paused for a moment, possibly winking under her bangs, but Luster couldn’t be sure. “No worry; Yelena prefer bottom bunk.”
“Thanks. All of you.” Luster had to admit, the group was making a very persuasive argument against her earlier stance on friendship, even without taking Princess Twilight’s own maintained connections into account.
“Hey, this is Ponyville,” Fry said as they brought Luster’s luggage inside. Right, he’d said he’d grown up here. “Everycreature’s happy to meet new faces here.”
“Also, we had a homework assignment to make a good first impression on somecreature.”
Fry rolled his eyes. “Don’t ruin the moment, Georgia.”
“Hey, I’m still waiting on the hayburger thing.” Georgia turned to Luster and jerked a thumb at Fry. “He swears that back when Princess Twilight lived here, she got banned from the local Hayburger so other ponies had a chance to get something there. I’ve got ten bits saying he’s full of it.”
Luster turned up her nose like her proper Canterlot grandparents. “I’m afraid I’ve been sworn to secrecy on such sensitive personal matters.”
Everycreature moaned in disappointment at that.
“Kidding!” Luster beamed as she saw her attempt at humor hit home. “She inhales the things. The castle once ran through three chefs in a moon because they couldn’t take being treated like fry cooks.”
Fry scowled. “What’s wrong with being a fry cook?”
“When you’re one of the best chefs in the country, to the point where you can get hired to cook for the princess?”
“Yeah.” Fry took a step closer, and Luster realized she was in close quarters with an increasingly angry pile of pure muscle wrapped in a beige coat. “What’s wrong. With being. A fry cook?”
Then a larger pile of pure muscle nudged his wither. “Fry at a nine,” said Yelena. “Friends need him at four.”
Georgia gave an awkward grin. Luster still wasn’t sure how that worked with a beak. “Fry’s a little defensive about his talent.”
“Defensive nothing.” Somehow, through social mechanisms far beyond Luster’s current comprehension, Fry had gone from scowling fury to his usual easygoing smile in the space of a few seconds. “I think I figured out what I want to do when I graduate.”
“Hey, Luster?” River Song said from the dorm’s empty desk. “What’s this?”
Luster turned and saw River had opened one of the boxes. Indecision consumed the unicorn for a moment. Should she be angry somecreature was going through her stuff without her permission or grateful that a friend was helping her unpack? But then she saw what River had asked about, and the chance to get to familiar ground overtook any concerns. “Oh, that’s my Twiggle Home.”
River looked at the wingless plastic caricature of Princess Twilight, about the size and shape of potato. She rotated it in her magic, considering it from several angles before she finally said, “Your what?”
“Oh, I’ve heard of these!” said Fry. “Part of the whole hue-mon initiative.”
“Human,” Luster said automatically. “But yeah, Mom let me keep one of the first prototypes.”
Georgia went almost completely still, her head turning agonizingly slowly to face Luster. “Your mom’s Sunset Shimmer?”
“Georgia,” said River. “We’ve been over this.”
“But, but…” Georgia threw up her talons. “Famous ponies! Famous ape-things! Famous ape-things that used to be ponies! How are you not excited by this?”
“I grew up around it?”
“Meh.”
They traded flat looks before giggling it off. River turned her attention back to the Twiggle, setting it down on the desk. “If it’s a prototype, that would explain why it looks like… well, that.”
Luster nodded. “Yeah, Mom and Aunt H-Twi made the casing as a joke. The production models are just purple cylinders.”
“How small plastic pony work?”
“Well, most of the features won’t work until I have everything set up, but…” Luster beamed as she thought of the perfect demonstration. “Okay, Twiggle, what’s the weather going to be tomorrow?’
The tiny Twilight’s eyes lit up, pulsing on and off for a few seconds before the Princess’s voice sounded from the construct. “The weather schedule for Ponyville tomorrow is clear skies until 2 PM, followed by increasing cloud cover until evening showers beginning at six.”
Yelena scowled at it. “Yelena not sure how to feel about small plastic pony always listening.”
Luster waved that off. “Oh, it’s fine. It doesn’t do anything unless you start with the command phrase.”
“Must always be listening to know when Luster says command phrase.”
That got a shrug. “Well, yeah, I guess, but it’s not like it’ll do anything with the information.”
Twilight couldn’t help but smile as she looked at her student. “I do have to envy her naivety.”
“Your Highness?” said the guard at the monitoring station.
“Don’t mind me, Private Residence. I just wish life were simpler some days. Keep doing your duty.”
He saluted. “Yes, Your Highness.”
Twilight nodded, then made her way through the halls of scrying screens, countless telepresence spells displaying countless scenes across Equestria. Here a family having dinner, there a bar full of happy customers of all species, there a pegasus’s-eye view from one of the experimental aerial delivery drones… though those were being challenged in Parliament. The postal workers’ union had never had a defender quite like Dinky Doo. Still, all Twilight had to do was turn her head and she could see the fruits of her labor.
Including the rotten ones. This system had already found domestic abuse, drunken assault, spies lurking in otherwise unnoticed corners. Even after the Tree of Harmony had reincarnated as another palace-tree, it had never reconnected with the Cutie Map. And so, as she had so many times when the great powers of the past had failed her, Twilight had taken matters into her own hooves.
As she left the subterranean chamber, she felt one corner of her mouth turn up as a memory came to mind, one of those simpler times she had insisted on making so very complicated. “Monitor everything.”
“Your Highness?”
She shook her head. “Sorry, Gallus. Reminiscing.”
He gave a short nod, all the familiarity he allowed himself while on duty. “You’re expected in the throne room soon, Your Highness.”
“Well, we can’t keep them waiting.”
And Twilight left the Cartography Department of the Royal Guard to their business.
This was generally true across the whole of probability space. The humans tended to peak in their teenage years, at least in terms of their interactions with uncontrolled Equestrian magic. The ponies took longer, but almost always found themselves in some form of clandestine work. The dryads… well, that’s a matter for a different story.
This tale focuses on the Wallflower of the world where Sunset Shimmer stumbled into not-quite-godhood, the laws of physics were amended, and humanity was updated for magic compatibility. Variously known in realms beyond as Universe Seven-Zero-Upsilon, Earth Shimmer, or simply the Oversaturated World, it is a place of wonder, horror, staggering brilliance and even more staggering stupidity.
In short, it’s a world full of humans. The magic just magnifies things, for good and for ill.
Wallflower’s personal experience with this magnification often occurred at Ravnica High, where she’d been transferred after her own unusual magic wiped most of her records from Canterlot High’s database. Ravnica High took the cliques of a typical school, turned them up to eleven, and then incorporated them into the framework of the school until it couldn’t operate without them.
(If this seems suspiciously familiar, it may help to know that Canterlot and the town of Dominia are both in Hassenfeld County, Califoalnia. The county is also home to, among other things, Cybertron Polytechnical University and the town of Free Parking, which for twenty years had a Mayor Pennybags who’d made his fortune in Saddlantic City real estate. The world was a patchwork even before Sunset slapped on bits of nearby realities to seal the cracks.)
Wallflower in particular got snapped up by the Dimir, a megaclique of goths, techies, student journalists, gossipmongers, and general busybodies. Her first and best friend at her new school, White Hat, qualified as at least three of those, and Wallflower wasn’t sure about two of them. But three years at CHS, even on the sidelines, made her a titan of charisma compared to her guildmates, so she wasn’t complaining.
Not about that, anyway.
“Come on. Come on!” Wallflower smacked the vending machine, the enlarged fingernails that marked her as an earth aspect clacking against it. The thing had accepted her money just fine, sure, but actually registering her selection was proving difficult.
Earth pony magic mixed oddly with humanity, becoming less about communing with the world and more about communing with the tools man made from it. Or, in Wallflower’s case, going as unnoticed by those tools as she was by most people.
She focused her thoughts, trying to project them at the vending machine. Usually, all Wallflower needed was a light touch against a device’s psychic presence for it to notice her, the mental equivalent of clearing her throat or brushing against someone. But this time, instead of receiving a feeling of surprise and a bag of sunflower seeds, all she got was the sense of slipping off of something.
Wallflower grabbed the machine. She didn’t shake it per se, more like her quivering with rage made it rattle in kind. “I gave you my money! What more do you want from me?” She knew people were staring at her at this point, near-invisibility or not. At this point, she just didn’t care.
“Technical problems, Miss Blush?”
She froze in mid-shake. Okay, she didn’t care in most cases. “Oh, uh, hi, Vice Principal Beleren. Sir. Just having a problem getting the vending machine to, um, notice me.”
The blue-skinned man nodded, the oval jewel in the center of his forehead, as with all unicorn aspects, glinting in the overhead lights. “I see. Have you been studying the applications of your more unique magic?”
Wallflower bit her lip. She still wasn't sure what magic being "blue" was supposed to mean beyond the color of the blur covering her in camera feeds. “It’s been… tricky, sir.”
“It’s not a very intuitive subject, I admit. Still, best to work at it. You’ll find it very useful in the future.”
“Yes, sir,” Wallflower said, gaze fixed on the floor.
“Of course." Vice Principal Beleren hummed to himself. "Also, I believe the machine noticed you.”
“Huh?” Wallflower turned, grinned, and grabbed her snack. “Great! Thanks, Vice Prin—” By the time she looked back, he was gone. “Oh. Uh, okay then.”
Lunch at Ravnica High was always an adventure. The entire student body of the sprawling school ate at the same time, which meant it was a race for any available table, chair, bit of hallway, or patch of grass. Actually buying lunch meant forfeiting any hope of sitting unless one had a few friends reserving a spot.
Today Wallflower ate in one of the stairwells, along with White Hat, who did indeed wear a white newsie cap that matched her skin tone. After Wallflower told her of the struggle with the vending machine, White brushed her cobalt bangs aside, looked Wallflower straight in the eye, and said, “You realize he played you.”
“Huh?”
White rolled her eyes as she always did when she thought Wallflower was being too naive. “Come on, you don’t think vending machines just randomly ignore you even when you try to get their attention, do you?”
Wallflower shrugged. “I mean, we’re having a conversation where that’s a valid question. I’m definitely willing to believe it.”
“I’ve seen the VP pull that kind of thing in the past. He’ll put up a spell that makes magic just slide off, or makes you think it’s doing that, or sucks it in, or…" White trailed off and shrugged. "I mean, I don’t know the specifics. Asking a unicorn aspect how they magic things just gets you a bunch of nonsense about their headgems. We've got it simple; just tell computers what to do.”
“Chloroplast… kind of made sense when I asked him in the Gardening Club," said Wallflower. "Have you tried asking someone who isn’t Dimir?”
White drew back, eyes wide with incredulity. “What, and give away that I don’t already know how it works?”
Wallflower took a deep breath. She was used to this sort of circular reasoning from White, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating. “So what should I do about it? Get even with the vice principal?”
“Couldn’t hurt.”
After a few moments of shocked silence—or what passed for it in Ravnica High—Wallflower said, “I was joking.”
“I know. But he’s been stringing you around since he got you to transfer. You gotta show him you’re not just some puppet he can jerk around however he likes.” White made motions with her hands like she was controlling invisible marionettes.
Wallflower gave her a flat look. "You have literally said 'Dance, puppet, dance' when you get me to agree to something."
"Yeah, but at least I'm up front about it," White said with a shameless grin.
“Sometimes. And how am I supposed to get even with the vice principal? Preferably without getting a month’s detention.”
White held up a pair of fingers. “Two words: Malicious compliance. You do exactly what he told you to do in a way that throws it back in his smug face. So if he wants you to refine your weird color magic, do it in a way that gets back at him.”
Wallflower took a deep breath. “You are a terrible influence, you know that?”
“You already have an idea, don’t you?” said White, her grin widening.
And Wallflower had to nod. “Yeah. Yeah I do.”
Jace walked into his office the next day armed with coffee and the knowledge that without him, Principal Mizzet would probably forget the school even existed. The coffee was much more comforting and motivating in terms of getting his workday started. He booted up his computer, opened his email, and—
"AH! AH!"
His eyes went wide as a very explicit video started playing at full blast. Jace scrambled for the volume controls, then trying to close the window, going back and forth for almost twenty seconds before he managed to get the sound to stop.
Then, slowly, agonizingly slowly, he looked up at his still-open office door. Two dozen secretaries and Azorius students looked back, all with the same horrified expression Jace felt frozen on his own face.
For a moment, Jace seriously considered wiping the witnesses' short-term memory. But no, that would be wrong. Without moving a muscle, he lit his headgem and telekinetically shoved the door closed instead.
A new email entered his inbox. One from Principal Mizzet himself. One with the subject "Appropriate Use of the Workplace."
Jace massaged his temples. "Well," he said to himself, "I have been meaning to work on my psychometry."
The rumor swept through Ravnica High like a fire through a crowded tenement block. By the time it got to Wallflower and White, they just giggled, much as any other students would.
At lunch—this time in one of the unused classrooms the Dimir kept reserved for such purposes through methods so clandestine that they had to chase out a freshman first—White said, "You're sure it was untraceable?"
Wallflower nodded. "Completely. I may still be getting a grasp on this magic, but I ran a few tests first. No way to track where it came from. Even the IP address comes out as a string of question marks."
Then her phone buzzed. Both looked at it, then at one another.
"You don't think..." White trailed off, going even paler.
Wallflower focused on her phone, chills running down her spine. "It, uh, doesn't know who it's from."
"If I were you, I'd just run the thing through a factory reset. I can show you how to do it without unlocking it."
"No, no. I deserve this."
"We've got to work on that conscience."
"What, that I have one?"
"Did I stutter?"
Wallflower took a deep breath. "Might as well rip off the bandage." Eyes shut, she unlocked her phone.
Nothing happened. Not audibly, anyway.
Swallowing against the lump in her throat, Wallflower cracked an eye open. Then she immediately wished she hadn't. "Ack!"
She knew then she'd made a terrible mistake: She'd piqued White's curiosity. "What— My eyes! My technically innocent eyes!"
"What even is that?"
"Change your wallpaper! Change it!"
"I'm doing it, I'm doing it!"
"I can still see it! I can almost smell it!"
"Why would anyone take a picture of that?"
Jace didn't take joy in making his students suffer, but he couldn't deny that there was something satisfying in revenge. Especially with Goatse.
Those who would know Tirek in the future would be surprised had they seen him in his adolescence, especially now. Some might have been shocked that there was a time when his biceps were smaller than his head, or that his beard had begun as a goatee. But others would have been struck by his expression of serenity, worn on a face untroubled by worldly concerns.
This lasted for about ten seconds before he scowled and started squirming.
An aged female centaur, features creased and hair gone silver, clacked her staff against the stone floor. “Something troubles you, my student?”
Tirek cracked an eye open, the better to glare at her. “I come to you to learn the arts of magic and rulership, yet you have me sit still and waste time.”
“I would not call it a waste." The old mare folded her legs and haltingly sat beside him, a few joints popping in the process. Her tapering ibex horns glimmered with an analgesic spell before she spoke again. "Meditation imparts many valuable lessons to mages and kings alike.”
“Like what? How to sit for hours without getting leg cramps?" Tirek snorted as his glare swept across the unadorned walls of the practice room, barely distinguishable from a natural cave that was somehow several stories above ground. "Shouldn’t I be doing such exercises on Father’s throne?”
His teacher gave a warm chuckle. “Not what I had in mind. Patience, on the other hand…”
That got a flat look. “Really?”
“Really. Patience is a critical skill, both for the mage who must spend countless hours honing his craft and the king who must weigh all factors before making decisions for his nation. A hastily miscast spell could prove ruinous for you, a hastily made decree ruinous for us all.”
Tirek crossed his arms and scowled at the floor. “Couldn’t I at least do something while learning patience? Surely repetitious work would give me the same lesson while accomplishing something practical.”
His teacher shook her head. “Ah, but that is another lesson, one of the hardest I can teach: The importance of doing nothing.”
Several moments of silence passed, Tirek's mouth working silently as he tried to work that out. Finally, he just said, “What?”
She nodded. “As I said, very difficult to learn. But there are times when the right move is to remain still. Circumstances where adding another spell, any spell, to the mess will only worsen the situation. Times when the country is running well on its own, and any royal intervention will only disrupt matters.”
“For example?” Tirek drawled out.
His teacher used her staff to support herself as she got back to her hooves, then moved to the window. She swept a hand across the wasteland that stretched to the horizon. “Consider this land of ours. Tiracun would not be so barren if the centaurs and gargoyles had not tried so hard to exterminate one another, until Discord himself intervened and altered us such that we could not live without one another.”
“Could not breed, certainly.”
“But if either side of the conflict had chosen to let a slight go, had not continued the spiral of escalation—“
“Then our land would indeed be richer in resources, but poorer by one thinking race." Tirek got to his hooves with enviable youthful vigor, pacing about the room. "You can't seriously expect me to believe that either race would simply strike without reprisal and be satisfied. They would press their advantage, and if the other side did not defend themselves, they would be swiftly overtaken.”
His teacher turned to face him, shaking her head. “There is a difference between defense and escalation. Second to knowing how to do nothing is knowing how to moderate your response to what is appropriate." She grimaced. "That said, you do have a point. If only one race or the other wished for peace, it would not have ended well. Reaching out your hand while the other party still grips a sword will only get you a bloody stump. A sad fact, but one nonetheless." She took a deep breath. "Perhaps it is best if we move on for the time being.”
Tirek tried to appear aloof, but his rising ears betrayed his interest. “To what?”
“I thought we could discuss one of my colleagues. Specifically Sendak the Elder.”
The room went silent once more, and Tirek's ears folded back nearly to the point of straining something. He took a step back and said, “Why him?”
His teacher smirked. “I am not simply some doddering fool your mother tasked with filling your days with busy work, my student. Putting aside your youthful jaunts to his lair in the Nether Lands, I know you have looked into his writings on magic transference.”
“Only as a theoretical exercise,” he said a touch too quickly.
“I’m sure." The smirk didn't budge. "But that brings us to another key skill for mages and kings, one Sendak has never learned in all my years of knowing him: Appreciating the consequences of your actions.”
Tirek relaxed, furrowing his brow as he considered that. “How do you mean?”
“Suppose, and as you said, this is a theoretical exercise, you were to siphon the magic of a unicorn into yourself. What do you suppose would happen?”
Tirek raised an eyebrow. “My magical strength would increase severalfold.”
His teacher nodded. “Indeed. As would your physical strength, your size, your aggression, and so forth. What else?”
After a few moments of thought, he shook his head. “I’m not sure I understand the question.”
“For one, consider what will not grow: Your capacity for reason, your sanity, your sense of restraint. And this is all based on Sendak’s own calculations. Drain enough power and you would become a near-mindless juggernaut." The teacher spread her arms to express the hypothetical enormity. "Unstoppable, yes, but mindless, not even cognizant of the reason why you wanted all that power in the first place.”
Tirek gulped. “I believe I understand your point about moderation.”
“While I am glad to hear it, here, the only way to moderate is to not begin at all." His teacher shook her head. "Especially given the other consequences.”
“Such as what?" said Tirek, eyes wide. "A shortened lifespan? Permanent derangement?”
She shrugged. “Perhaps. Sendak did not extrapolate that far. No, I speak of how it would erode your morality. Treating another thinking being like nothing more than a wineskin is a monstrous act, and one that inures you to even worse ones. In time, it would lead you to commit atrocities that you would find unthinkable now.”
“I see,” Tirek said flatly.
“There are also practical concerns. My own studies have shown that power freely given is always more potent than power taken by force." The crystal topping the teacher's staff glinted in the light. "Much is lost in the struggle when taking from the unwilling.”
Tirek shook his head. "But who would willingly give away power?”
“Perhaps one who had more than enough, to one who wanted for it.”
“Perhaps,” he said, his mouth a skeptical slash across his face.
“Perhaps most pressingly," said his teacher, "there are the political considerations." She pointed out beyond the horizon. "Do not forget that the sister-queens of Equestria keep the sun and moon in motion, and love each and every one of their ponies as their own foals. They would not take such a violation lightly.”
Tirek followed the gesture, stroking his goatee. “Don’t the sister-queens preach a philosophy of Harmony? Surely, if any being were to stay their hand and avoid a..." He looked back at his teacher. "How did you put it? A cycle of escalation?”
“A spiral, growing with every turn until it consumed all our homeland. And as you noted, my student, they could not let such an offense go without seeming weak to us and their subjects alike. They are wise and moderate, yes, but they would still demand justice for the crime. Surrendering the one who committed it to Equestria would no doubt satisfy them.”
“... Even if he were the crown prince?”
The teacher nodded. “Especially then, for think of how he would reflect on the royal family as a whole. Do they surrender their son, or refuse and thus condone his deeds?" She glanced north. "Equestria’s disfavor is a terrible thing, as the vanished polar empire can attest. A king must always be willing to sacrifice for the sake of his people, for he is as much servant as ruler. His duty to his people must always come first, no matter how difficult it may be for him personally.”
Tirek scoffed. “I doubt my father would find such a sacrifice difficult in the least.”
That got a fond smile from his teacher. “King Vorak sees greatness in you, my student. And it frightens him.”
“It does?” A hint of a smile tugged at Tirek's lips.
More of a smile graced his teacher's. “Oh yes. His Highness knows he should want what all parents wish, that his child will surpass him. But the strength of your magic, especially when compared to his own lack, means he cannot understand how you will do so. It is that uncertainty that chills his heart, and why your esteemed mother asked me to guide you in a way that would bring glory to both you and our kingdom.”
“You’re sure of this?”
“In this world where chaos lives in flesh and the stars are guided by a horse, one cannot truly be sure of anything. But I am as certain as I can be.”
After another brief silence, Tirek essayed a shallow bow. “Thank you, Mistress Sacanas.”
She returned it. “My pleasure, Prince Tirek.”
Months later, Sendak returned from his pilgrimage to Equestria, unicorn in tow. Tirek tried to drain the pony one night, and the resulting magic clash allowed the stallion to flee, crushed Sendak beneath stone, and blackened Tirek’s name in his father’s eyes.
And the day before that, Tirek had heard the truth from his father’s own lips. There was no awestruck concern over how Tirek would one day rule Tiracun. Vorak was certain that his own son would betray him, all for an alleged “thirst for power.”
The next night, once he put the guards posted at his chambers put to magical sleep, Tirek prepared to leave his home and never return. “This is long overdue,” he muttered to himself.
“You stand at a crossroads, my student,” came a voice from the entrance to his bedroom.
He glared behind him. “I am no longer your student, you old nag.”
“Nag I may be, and old," Sacanas said as she stepped inside, "but I still have much to teach if you will listen.”
“My patience for your rambling is at an end." Tirek kept throwing together what few supplies he'd need as he spoke. "You know nothing about my father, me, or true power.”
“I will grant you the first. Vorak’s heart is colder than I had ever thought or known before today. You and he both showed your true faces earlier.”
Tirek still didn't face her. “Oh? And what is my true face, oh great and wise Sacanas?”
“One of a son denied his father’s love, who fears he may never gain it and has accepted fear and hatred in its place." Hoofsteps approached him. "One of a centaur desperate enough to do the unthinkable, willing to burn the world to finally feel warm." A thin hand rested on his shoulder. "The path before you holds nothing but suffering, Tirek. You do not have to travel it.”
He shrugged off Sacanas's hand, finally turning to her. “I think we both know I do.”
She shook her head. “If that is what you believe—“ She held up her staff. The crystal began to glow.
At least, it did until a brown streak snatched it out of her grip. “Sorry, Sacanas! Brother, let’s go!”
“Scorpan?” said both centaurs.
“No time!” Scorpan cried, voice already fading down the corridor.
Tirek nodded and sprinted after him. “Right!”
And Sacanas hung her head in shame. “May the world forgive this old nag for what she has unleashed.”
The slave serves the King. All exist to serve the King and only to serve the King.
This is the slave’s first thought as it regain consciousness. It feels shame, but only for a moment before the helmet takes it away. It is good to regret not serving the King, the helmet tells the slave, but not to spend time dwelling on it when one could serve Him.
Only then does the slave realize that it is not in its barracks or at its post. It has not received new orders. It is not where it needs to be. It is not performing its duty.
It is not serving the King.
Fear comes and goes as quickly as regret. To serve the King, the slave must obey its orders. To do that, it must return to its post. To do that, it must…
The slave hesitates as the crystals in the helmet fail to connect with the Empire. The helmet can at least detect the direction of the central command spire. It is north. Very north. The slave will have to—
The slave stops as its attempts to get back in range hit an obstruction. It finally considers its surroundings, a small room with a large mirror on one wall and a single overhead magical light fixture. The slave can’t see any way in or out, but it also can’t move its head beyond a certain point. Attempting to move its body runs into the previous problem.
Looking down, the slave sees the nature of the problem: It has been encased in a block of concrete that goes up to its withers.
The slave struggles against the block, straining as much as it can without damaging the King’s property. It would not normally care about tearing ligaments or dislocating joints, but it will need a fully functional body to make the trip to its post.
Eventually, the slave exhausts itself. It is strong, especially with the helmet helping it, but it has no leverage and the concrete is thick. Its head slumps against its bonds. It will try again when it has rested, and will do so until it dies, it is free, or the King inevitably sweeps across the land and reaches it.
Why?
It must.
Why must I?
The slave’s eyes blink behind the helmet. Something is… wrong. Something is—
The helmet takes its doubt, reaching almost too eagerly, like an impatient foal. This far from the Empire, it is using more power than it can receive.
Hmm. Foals. Don’t I remember being a foal?
Recollection is difficult, the memory buried under magic, time, and exhaustion, but… yes, the slave recalls earlier days. Before duty. Before… before the K—
The helmet flares green. Phantom wails make the slave wince.
Don’t I remember the day I got my cutie mark?
The words spark something in the slave. Yes, under the concrete and the armor, there is… there is an image. A mark. Something the slave has that is its own, like no other, that does not belong to the—
The helmet screams at this heresy. It assaults every one of the slave’s senses. Blinding light, screeching noise, horrendous pain, even foul odors and flavors and auras beat against the slave’s awareness…
Until they stop.
The slave gasps for breath, spots swimming before its eyes as its ears ring. Over time, the sensation fades… and eventually slips down past what it had thought was silence. It realizes that there had been a constant low thrum in the background, one that has now stopped.
But was it constant? Always there?
The slave flinches at the thought. Whatever happened before does not serve the King. The helmet knows this.
But I was something before.
That… is true. The slave had once been… not enslaved.
It flinches again, prepared for chastisement at such a thought. But none comes. The slave slowly raises its head back up. Is… is this permitted?
Where did the thrum come from?
Yes, and where did it go? Tentatively, the slave casts its thoughts back. So much of its recent memory consists of performing its duty. But, at the beginning of that duty…
It is almost as painful as the helmet’s punishment. But the slave does remember the King Himself gracing it with his presence
Forcing me to cower before him.
and presenting it with a physical token of his favor.
A tool that made me a tool.
As the helmet first glowed, first gripped the slave’s mind, that was when the thrum had begun. And with it gone now…
The slave mentally prods the helmet, asking it for guidance, for a reminder of its duty.
Nothing answers.
Nothing needs to.
The slave shakes away that madness. It needs that guidance! Needs to know where to be and what to do and how to serve!
Do I?
Of course! It isn’t as though the slave could tell itself what to do!
Why not?
Because… because the King is its master!
Does he have to be?
The slave shakes its head so violently, the helmet flies off into a corner of the room, so drained it can’t even stay on the slave’s head. The slave then winces in the bright light from overhead, gasping at air touching the matted coat of its face. It is out of uniform!
This is nice.
It is… not unpleasant. But the slave does not have time for such trivialities. It… it has to…
I don’t have to go back. Not if I don’t want to.
The slave… the slave…
I could follow my passion. Use my special talent. Be who I was meant to be.
A tingle from the slave’s hindquarters dredges up another old memory. Of long, happy hours working with a potter’s wheel, reworking its master’s kiln to function better, glazing the finished product. The interplay of clay and pony, the satisfaction of working with its hooves—
My hooves. Not the king’s. Mine.
My hooves and hearing others in the marketplace voice their admiration. Those… those were the good times! Not Sombra capturing me and making me into yet another hoof soldier! I want that! I want the days when I could just be me!
“Don’t we all?” says a mare’s voice.
I blink. It came from behind me, and I am still sealed in concrete. “H-hello?” I wince. My voice comes out as a horrible croak from disuse.
“Don’t worry, I brought some water.” She walks into view. A unicorn, but so unlike Sombra. Smaller, softer, lighter. Her garments are understated things, a tunic of an unfamiliar style and a simple cap that matches her light blue coat. Yet she looks as worn down as I feel, almost pinched, with eyes that seem far older than the rest of her.
I’ve never seen her before, yet there’s something familiar about her…
Before worrying about that, I accept the water. It’s the sweetest thing I’ve tasted in moons.
Once she’s tilted back the glass as far as it will go, she asks, “How do you feel?”
The questioning tone provides the last hint I need. “You! You were the one putting the traitorous thoughts in my head!”
She smirks, tucking a bit of pale mane under the cap. “You’re welcome.”
“I…” I trail off. She’s right; I should thank her. I dip my head. ‘You have my eternal gratitude. My life is—“
“Your own. I didn’t pry you out from under Sombra’s spell just to have you bend the knee to the next unicorn who came along.” She huffs out something like a laugh. “Even if that is me.”
I look back up. “But, but I—”
“Owe me your life, I know.” She rolls her eyes and smirks. “You’re not the first crystal I’ve deprogrammed, and hopefully you won’t be the last. You’re probably planning on sculpting a statue of me, aren’t you?”
I give a sheepish nod. “I… don’t suppose you know of a good source of lapis lazuli for the glaze?”
“I’ll have to get back to you on that. For now, I need to call in some rockbreakers to get you out of that block.“ She nods towards the dead-eyed helmet. “That and add your old pal in the corner to Sparkle’s growing collection. Then we can figure out what you can do with your life.“
“Can I at least know the name of my savior?”
The smirk softens. I haven't seen a smile like that since before Sombra. "Only if you tell me yours."
"I..." It has been so long since I even thought of my own name. It takes me several seconds to dredge it from the depths of my mind. "I am... Citrine Nectar."
"Nice to meet you, Citrine. Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life."
I put aside the strangely ominous phrase. There is a far more pressing matter to consider. "Please, your own name?"
She blinks as though she too has almost forgotten her name. “Well, far be it from me to deny a fan.” She puts her hoof to forehead. An Equestrian salute, I believe. “Specialist Trixie Lulamoon, Psy Ops.”
Once more, I bow my head. “Thank you, Madame Lulamoon.”
A gentle hoof nudges me until we make eye contact again. That smile... the weariness is still there, but some seems to melt away even as I watch. “You're welcome, Citrine, but I didn't do much. I just showed you how to pull yourself out of the hat.”
Tempest wasn’t sure what to make of the Storm King, and he clearly wanted to keep it that way. Ever since signing on with him a few months ago, any attempt she made to understand where he came from or why he swept across the world sowing havoc got shut down the moment he noticed.
“A past is a weakness,” he told her during one particularly dull overseas flight. “If you have a beginning, it means that one day, you’re gonna have an end. But if you just are, you can keep being for who knows how long."
"I see." Tempest didn't, but this was the most the Storm King had ever said about himself, even obliquely, and she wasn't going to spoil it.
"Plus, knowing your history give your enemies all kinds of dirt they can use against you." He turned away from looking out over the ocean and pointed at her horn-stump. "Like that thing that did a number on your forehead, that Canis Major.”
Tempest clenched her jaw. “Ursa Minor, sir,” she said through her teeth.
The Storm King shrugged. “Whatever, never said I was a botanist. That thing makes for a five-star traumatic backstory, really drawing in the crowds for the sympathy angle. But it also means that someone who knows about it can use it against you. You’re probably not a fan of teddy bears, for example.”
He was probably trying a different tactic, aggravating Tempest until she didn't want to figure out who he was. It was working, but at least she recognized the ploy. She turned to the waves, noting a growing spot of land on the horizon. “I believe I see your point, sir.”
A hand pressed down on her withers. There was no sense of affection or threat, not that she'd really be able to feel either through the new armor. It was just a reminder that the Storm King was there. “You only need to know three things about me, Tempest: There’s power out there, I want it, and it’s your job to help me get it.”
“Understood, sir." Tempest pointed towards the approaching landmass, gloomy, barren mountains coming into view. "May I ask where we’re headed? it seems like this leg of the journey has taken much longer than usual.” Tempest’s eyes widened just a fraction before she got a hold of herself, and before she turned to face the Storm King. “You said you knew where to find the Staff of Sacanas. Are we—?”
He shook his head. “No, not yet, but trust me, that’s on the agenda. How much do you know about goblins, Tempest?”
“Goblins?" Tempest took a few moments to answer, first to get past the non sequitur, then to review anything she could think of. "I can recall a few mentions in some folk tales, sir, but other than that, I can’t say I know anything about them.”
His eyebrows rose. “Really? Huh. Hard to imagine a place without them. We’re approaching the Storm Forces’ homeland." The coast drew closer. Tempest could make out a small plume of smoke above a ring of small structures. "Place is lousy with the little guys. Probably would’ve died out long ago if they didn’t bump their numbers back up even faster. And their memory’s even shorter than their lifespan." The Storm King slammed a fist into his open palm. "Got to remind them who’s in charge.”
Tempest cracked her neck. “I take it I’ll be doing some reminding?”
“Of course! Got to put the fear of my right-hand… uh…" The Storm King cleared his throat. "Help me out here. ‘Female’ seems so impersonal.”
“Mare, sir.”
“My right-hand mare!" He grinned. "Oh yeah, rolls right off the tongue. You and me, Tempest, we’re gonna take the world by storm.”
Tempest managed to avoid rolling her eyes. Someone had to be professional in this arrangement. “Very droll, sir.”
“You like it? I’ve been workshopping a few catchphrases during the trip. Something punchy that’ll put fear in the hearts of my enemies and look good on the merch.”
She kept her focus on the village. The ship had gotten close enough that she could see small figures milling about below. Somehow, they hadn't noticed the massive airship yet. “With all due respect, sir, I’m your force commander, not your head of marketing.”
“That’s fair. Knowing your limits and your place. I respect that. In that case, Force Commander Shadow, you’ll be pleased to know we’ve arrived at our destination.” Then the Storm King lifted Tempest with a single hand. “This is your stop.”
Tempest kept her reaction down to a small gasp. It was far too easy to forget the Storm King's monstrous strength. “Sir?”
He chuckled. “Come on. Anyone who can’t handle something as simple as getting dropped in the middle of a goblin village is hardly commander material. Good luck!”
And with that, he tossed her off the side of the ship.
In time, Tempest would see that as the warning sign it was. At the moment, she was preoccupied with not shattering every bone in her body. She stabilized her tumbling descent, pointing herself horn-stump-down.
Then she unleashed Tartarus on the approaching ground. She might struggle to get her horn to do anything but send gouts of raw mana everywhere, but the thing about only having a hammer was that there were still a number of ways to use one. For example, using the shockwave of a ground-level explosion to cushion her fall.
(Twilight Sparkle would, upon hearing about this, decide that Tempest’s special talent was just giving the middle finger to physics. Which, as a pony, meant shoving her hoof into its poor, undeserving face.)
Between the recoil and another midair twist, Tempest managed to land on her hooves, if at the bottom of a shallow crater. Judging by the smoldering wreckage around her, she'd hit the communal fire pit. A promising start, especially with several of the goblins already peering down at her. They looked similar to the Storm King's army, with the same dark grey fur, shock-white manes, and blue eyes, only shorter than her and as squat as dragon hatchlings. These particular ones didn't look frightened so much as trying to figure out what was going on.
Tempest cleared her throat. This was edging uncomfortably close to social interaction. "Greetings. I come on behalf of the Storm King. Would you say you're sufficiently subjugated yet?"
More goblins gathered around the edge of the crater. Tempest kept her head on a swivel, trying to keep an eye on as many as possible. After an uncomfortable stretch, one of the locals finally spoke. "What?"
"Excuse me?"
"Excuse me," said the goblin. "I didn't get half of what you just said."
"Oh." Tempest considered that for a few moments, then pointed up at the Storm King's flagship. "You see that?"
They all followed her hoof, then looked back. "Yeah?" said the apparent spokesgoblin, who seemed as impressed as if Tempest had pointed out an interestingly shaped cloud.
"I'm with the guy in charge of it."
"Neat. Whaddaya want? And why'd you have to blow up the middle of town?"
She took a deep breath. This made conversation in the average Klugetown bar seem like high tea among the scholars of Canterlot. "I'm here to blow up stuff until you're scared of him."
"Wait," said another goblin. "If you're blowing up stuff, why should we be scared of him?" This got a number of agreeing murmurs from the crowd.
Tempest didn't massage her temples, if only because the Storm King had helped her develop a tolerance for this sort of thing. "Because he's the one who told me to. And if you're not scared of him, he may tell me to do it again."
More muttering followed. Then another goblin piped up. "So... we just gotta get rid of you, and then we don't need to be scared of him."
"Ah." Tempest's ears folded back despite herself. "Tactical error on my part."
"It's talkin' nonsense again!"
"Get it!"
What seemed like every resident of the village ran into the crater. Tempest squatted, waited for them to overcommit—and a few to start tumbling down the steepest part of the descent—and vaulted over them. She flipped as she went, washing the horde with raw energy. Shouts filled the air as twitching bodies rolled into the pit.
Tempest landed on the surface and permitted herself a moment to preen.
"Get it!" said the same goblin, its voice amplified by pain. The rest of the horde roared in response. They weren't very deep roars, but they got the point across.
Tempest cursed her laxity, lowered her head, and pawed at the ground. "Come on, then."
Goblins peeked over the lip of the crater. She sent out a warning shot, making them duck. "Is that the best you got?" one shouted without reappearing.
"Come up and find out."
"YAAAAA!"
Tempest's eyes widened. That hadn't come from the crater. One of the goblins had actually lain in wait. It had even waited until it was midcharge to deliver a battle cry. By the time she turned, it was already moments away from driving a pointed stick between the plates of her armor.
The stick didn't go far enough to actually puncture anything, but it definitely got wedged in there. The would-be speargoblin actually dangled from its end for a moment before the stick snapped in half.
The two of them stared at one another for a few moments, Tempest keeping an eye on their audience. None of the others seemed eager to take advantage of the opportunity. Finally, she spoke. "You know, if that had an actual head, it could've done some damage." She tugged out the remains of the stick with her mouth, dropped it, and stomped it in half. "Now what?"
The goblin shrugged. "I hadn't thought this far."
"I see." Tempest let energy course through the remains of her horn, hot and crackling.
The goblin stood his ground, just waiting for it. After a few seconds, he said, "Well?"
"Aren't you afraid?"
He shrugged again. "Does it matter?"
"Hmm." A thought occurred to Tempest. She glanced back at the crater. The only signs of life were a few retreating backs. She recalled the blast and made for the airship. "Come with me."
"Why?" Despite the question, the goblin obeyed.
"You may not have much in the way of strategy, cunning, or foresight, but I have a soft spot for someone who charges the monster so no one else has to."
"Um, okay?"
Tempest huffed out a breath. "It was a compliment. Don't expect a lot of them."
He scratched his head. "I'm not sure what that is either, so no problem."
"I'm Tempest, by the way."
"Grubber."
"A pleasure, given the company I've been keeping."
As if on cue, the Storm King peered over the edge of the airship, which had lowered down enough that he could audibly shout at them. "Tempest! What's that pest doing next to you and not charred to a crisp?"
"You can't expect me to oversee your army without a few adjutants, sir," she called back.
"'Adjutant?'" The Storm King threw his hands into the air. "That's a goblin. He probably thinks an adjutant is a dessert!"
"It isn't?" said Grubber, blinking gormlessly.
"You can learn vocabulary, sir," said Tempest. "You can't learn guts. And he has it in spades."
The Storm King facepalmed even as one of the soldiers tossed down a rope ladder. "So basically, what you're telling me is that it followed you home, and now you want to keep it."
"I'll feed him, water him, take him for walks."
That got a low whistle. "Well, if he has you making jokes, I'll allow it just to see what happens."
"Thank you, sir." Tempest saluted once she was back on deck. "You won't regret it."
"I'd better not." The Storm King looked to the horizon, the matter settled in his mind and thus discarded. "Now, we'll be casting off after we resupply. That Staff of Sycamore won't retrieve itself."
The Storm King rolled the Staff of Sacanas in his hands, watching his reflection shift in the facets of its crystal. “So. It's nice and all, but how's it work again?”
“The Staff was originally crafted by a great centaur wizard,” said Tempest, recalling her research in anything potent enough to restore her horn. She saw the Storm King's face start drooping in boredom, his eyes starting to glance at other wonders kept in the makeshift dragon's horde he called his personal chambers. “Then the warlock Tirek repurposed it to help him absorb pony magic.”
He perked up at the word "absorb," and more so at "magic." “Really?”
“However, the enchantments on it are patchwork hodgepodges of two very different beings’ casting styles, applied over almost a century. It’s…" Tempest hesitated for a moment, thinking of the word least likely to end in the Storm King snapping the Staff in two. "Finicky.”
He scowled. “And you couldn't have mentioned that before we looted that museum.”
Tempest gave him a cool look. “You seemed very pleased at the time, sir.”
“Because I thought I was getting my ticket to world conquest." The Storm King sneered at his own distorted face. "So, aside from being the world's most awkward backscratcher, what good is this thing?”
“It’s still one of the most potentially powerful artifacts I’ve ever heard of, sir. Feeding the magic of several alicorns into the Staff should result in virtually unmatched power.”
“Hmm." The Storm King stroked his chin as he twirled the Staff like a baton. "Not sure I like that ‘virtually,’ but it’ll do for now. Next question, what’s an alicorn?”
Tempest managed to keep her dumbfounded shock down to a few seconds. “A single pony with the magic of all the tribes, orders of magnitude more powerful than the average pony.”
He nodded along. “Nice, nice, I like what I’m hearing. How many are there?”
“Based on the most recent rumors coming out of Equestria, four.”
After a moment, the Storm King said, “So, what, four hundred? Four thousand?”
Tempest shook her head. “Four, sir.”
“Yikes." He tapped the Staff with a claw. "That even count as several?”
She nodded. “It should be perfect for our purposes.”
He relaxed, not that Tempest would ever call attention to his worry. Or how it made him fluff out like a startled cat. “And how will we track them down?”
“That won’t be difficult. Equestria is ruled by its alicorns; we’ll just need to go to the capital.”
The Storm King grinned. “Ah, nothing like a good, old-fashioned decapitation strike.”
“Finding them is the easy part, sir," said Tempest. "Actually subduing them...”
“What? It’s just four ponies. We can take them.”
Tempest kept her thoughts on the likely meaning of "we" to herself. “While I haven’t heard anything positive about Equestria’s military, I’d much rather have some sort of ace in the hole against the mares who move the sun and moon on a daily basis.”
“Uh huh, uh huh." The Storm King nodded along, giving Tempest half of his attention at best, the rest apparently devoted to color coordinating the Staff of Sacanas with other artifacts in the room. "What did you have in mind?”
She permitted herself one roll of her eyes. A touch of sarcasm slipped into her voice. “Ideally, something that would instantly incapacitate them while still preserving their magic for powering the Staff.”
“I see." And without even looking at her, the Storm King said, "You ever heard of Euryale’s Cloister?”
Tempest's mouth worked silently for a few moments. “I, uh, can’t say I have, sir.”
He turned back, a wide, sinister grin on his face. “Lucky for you, I have.”
Euryale’s Cloister turned out to be an extinct volcano in the southernmost regions of the Dragonlands, where the calderas had cooled. To the south, lush jungles flourished in the enriched soil.
But this peak had been claimed by something else long ago. The entire top portion of the cinder cone was covered in murals and bas-reliefs of incredible size, depicting dragons and other, stranger reptilian creatures. Smaller artwork lay in the margins of those great works, and even smaller ones in the margins of that. It reminded Tempest of the sleeve tattoos she saw among the Klugetown drifters and dockhands whose flesh could take ink, a vast and intricate work composed of countless smaller ones.
She was so engrossed by the sheer scale and complexity that it took her a good three minutes to recognize the largest part of the design, a vertical line five times as long as the airship cutting through it. Tempest tracked it up, then followed similar grooves until she realized just what she was seeing. “is that… a door?”
The Storm King nodded. “But all that bric-a-brac on them isn’t just for show. Some of it’s writing." He pointed at one part of the mural where the serpentine figures curled into unrecognizable glyphs. "All about how ‘no weapon forged may sunder this gate’ and yadda yadda yadda. And we’ve tried. I found this place years ago, and nothing we’ve thrown at it gets through. I even mixed it up: Wooden weapons, crystal, die-cast, you know, just to see if I could get by on a technicality. Didn’t even chip it."
“I see." Tempest considered her options. Best to tackle the obvious one first. "And, if you’ll pardon my asking, going over the gates?”
“The ship hits a magic barrier as it comes in for a landing. Then the giant snake snaps it out of the sky.”
“Ah. You hadn't mentioned the snake.” Tempest didn't have any particular issue with snakes, but giant anything was usually bad news.
“And we’ve already tried distracting it with one while bombarding it with another," said the Storm King. He ground his teeth at the memory. "Didn’t work, and I was out another airship.”
“And you think there will be something that can take out alicorns in there?”
“Oh yeah. The door isn’t just talking up how hard it is to get in." The Storm King pointed at a different inscription. "It also talks about the Blood of Euryale, ‘the sap whose amber imprisons all.’”
Some scrap of the equine collective consciousness deep in Tempest's psyche shuddered. She nodded at the promising reaction. "Interesting. But how are we supposed to get in?"
The Storm King gave the wide smile that preceded something horrible happening to someone else. "Well, you certainly weren't forged."
Tempest looked at him, then the door that made up a good chunk of a volcano, then him again. "With all due respect, sir, I think this one's a little outside of my weight class."
"You can't know until you try!" He went from cheery grin to looming menace in the blink of an eye. "And to be clear, I'm ordering you to try."
"Understood, sir." Tempest took a deep breath, then evaluated the situation. After a minute of thought and an increasingly antsy Storm King, she said, "How close can you get... the ship to the gates?"
He chuckled. "I wasn't going to throw you."
"Be that as it may, sir."
"Let's find out." The Storm King waved to the deckhands, who scrambled into action.
The ship circled the peak a few times, slowly spiraling closer. After a few orbits, the yeti at the wheel gave a few distressed grunts and shook its head.
"That's as close as we can get without risking the envelope. You're on, Tempest."
She shook her head. "Get us higher."
And there was the looming again. "Excuse me?"
Tempest bowed her head. "Sorry, sir. Deep in thought. Please get us higher. I believe I see a way to make this work."
"Now that's what I like to hear!" The Storm King slapped her on the back hard enough that she nearly collapsed. "You heard her, boys, up we go!"
Tempest took the opportunity to appreciate the intricacy of the murals one last time. If this worked, she'd be one of the last beings to appreciate them. And given what she'd do to Celestia...
She shook her head. She'd come too far to turn back now. Tempest reared up onto the guardrail and tensed her forelegs, eyes locked on the gate, power building in her horn.
"Thought you didn't want me to throw you," said the Storm King, amused.
Tempest didn't even turn away, narrowing her eyes as she thought through the upcoming maneuver. "It's different when I launch myself, sir."
"Understandable."
She pushed and flipped off of the airship, positioning herself so her horn faced the doors. Lightning burst forth, and Tempest shut her eyes a moment too late, spots dancing before her as the wind rushed past.
And only then did she realize she'd never actually mentioned how she planned on not hitting the rocks below.
"This is becoming a habit." Not the best last words in the world, but they'd do.
Then she came to a sudden stop, but not a lethal one. Shocked cries from the airship above got Tempest to open her eyes. The gates were still unscathed... but they had also opened out, and a massive scaled tentacle had emerged from them to take hold of her.
As it withdrew, she corrected herself. Not a tentacle. A tail. The great doors slammed behind her as it drew her within the Cloister, making dust fall from the tunnel leading into the inner sanctum.
Within, the serpentine theme had been taken to its logical extreme. Sculpted snakes and ivy suggesting them twined along every surface. Ancient pillars suggested a place of worship, as did the central dais, where a massive, shallow bowl continually emitted green fumes. As the great snake tail raised Tempest higher, she could see the fluid within. Even from far away, the foul scent overwhelmed the reptilian mustiness of the tail itself.
Then Tempest found herself facing the other end of the snake, scales in shades of green ranging from fresh grass to forest gloom forming elaborate patterns across its head, each scale as large as Tempest herself.
After several long moments of examination, the snake spoke, a deep yet feminine tone that resonated in Tempest's chest as much as her ears. "Interesting."
Tempest swallowed. "I... take it you're Euryale?"
The snake shook her head. "Merely her steward. I had not expected a unicorn to enter. The blend of height, stone, and wards was meant to limit access to only alicorns."
"You don't need wings to get into the sky these days," said Tempest, relaxing a bit as it became clear she wasn't about to be eaten.
"Clearly not." The snake adjusted herself, resting on her coils and lowering Tempest to near ground level, though still held in her tail. "Now, what brings you to the cloister of the last gorgon?"
"I think you know."
That got a hissing sigh. "Yes, of course. Why would anyone come here but to claim Euryale's last legacy?"
Tempest raised an eyebrow. "Is that a problem?"
"Perhaps. I was charged with granting her Blood only to those who need it to fulfill their destiny."
"I don't believe in destiny." Anything that preordained Tempest's life wasn't worthy of existing.
"No?" The snake tilted her head, her mouth quirking into something like a grin. "A strange sentiment from a pony. I assure you, Fizzlepop Berrytwist, destiny believes in you."
Tempest glared. "That isn't my name."
The snake began rearranging itself again, moving towards the central dais. "Oh, you can call yourself what you please, little pony, but I can taste your name in your scent. Along with all the heartache you've endured, and all that you will. But scent alone will not tell me if you will need Euryale's Blood." She raised her head over the great bowl and opened her mouth wide enough to swallow a roc. Great clouds of the fumes went down her throat.
The snake tilted back, slit pupils dilated. "I ssseee..."
The grip on Tempest slackened a touch. She started struggling against it, only for it to tighten hard enough for her to squeak. She told herself it was her armor.
"The ssstruggle," continued the great oracle. "The chassse. The climaxxx..."
"I'll have what she's having." Tempest muttered. She wasn't sure what it meant; she'd heard her mother say it once when her horn was intact and had run with it ever since.
The snake snapped back to lucidity, staring at Tempest with unblinking intensity. "Twice will you fly to the city on the mount. Twice will you conquer those who reign there. You will chase the stars across the horizon and return with friendship in tow. And you will need my mistress's Blood to do this." Her tail finally released Tempest before moving to the massive bowl. The very tip flicked against the surface, sending out a spray of fine droplets. By the time they hit the ground, they had hardened into blackened chunks of crystal, each with a viridian spark at its core. "Use them wisely, Fizzlepop."
Tempest looked at the drops of Euryale's Blood, then back at the snake. "What did any of that mean?"
"In time, you will know."
"Whatever," Tempest huffed. She gathered every crystal she could... which turned out to be all of them. She couldn't fit a single more in her armor's storage compartments, and there wasn't a single more to be had. She shook that off and approaches the great doors. On this side, they had a single mural, a creature that was neither snake nor dragon but some strange fusion of the two.
They were also still very large. "Well?"
"Try," said the snake. "Doors that seem impassible can be opened with little effort if one goes about it in the right way."
Tempest sideeyed her. "Is that another vague prophecy?"
"Advice, from one outcast to another."
Tempest raised an eyebrow but said nothing. She pushed against the massive slabs... and they swung open like the doors to a Mild West saloon.
"I see. Thank you."
The snake said nothing, but Tempest could feel the smugness, like grease matting her tail.
Or maybe it was coming from the Storm King, standing on the airship hovering below. "I told you guys she had this!"
"You were gonna cast off five minutes ago!" Grubber cried, clinging to the Storm King's horns.
"Well, the point is she's back. Tempest, you got the goods?"
"Yes, sir," she said with a salute.
The Storm King beamed. "Fantastic! Come aboard. A week from now, I'll have supreme power and you'll have your horn!"
Tempest nodded. "As it was foretold," she muttered.
Twilight paced. Not because she was nervous, of course. It just helped her think. “Okay. So. I think we can all agree that the Friendship Festival didn’t quite go as planned, what with literally none of the international guests being able to make it, or the early hiccups with Songbird Serenade, or the… well… the hostile invasion. But looking back. I think we can all agree that this was far from the worst possible outcome.”
“That’s all well and good, Your Highness," said Tempest Shadow, sitting calmly and keeping watch on the doors to the throne room, "but I sincerely hope ‘It could have been worse’ won’t be your legal defense for me.”
“Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t even be allowed to practice law, but apparently that’s one of those things being a princess lets you do." Twilight felt an eye twitch, then spat out her mane once she realized she was chewing on it. "One that Princess Celestia chose not to tell me until the day before the trial.”
“Ah." Tempest rose, making a slight scraping sound as her armor ground against itself, the Storm King's symbol scrubbed off the flanks. "I take it this is typical behavior for her?”
Twilight hesitated. This was her former mentor she was talking about. Under another hoof, it was the mare who'd stood like a bump on a log when getting pelted with petrification grenades. “Well, if I’m being honest, she could stand to improve her communication skills.”
Tempest nodded. “I see. And if I were to offer some advice for a hostile coup, putting you on the the throne in her place?”
“That was a joke,” Twilight said, scowling.
Tempest glanced at her. “Was that a question?”
“No. I am decreeing that what you just said was a joke." Twilight managed to get something like a smile on her face. It felt like she pulled something in the attempt. "Good effort, excruciatingly poor taste.”
“Duly noted, Your Highness,” Tempest said with what Twilight chose to interpret as a prolonged nod.
She shook her head and muttered, “Honestly, me on the throne.”
“You seemed to handle yourself well during the invasion.”
Twilight didn't facehoof, but she did come close. “Tempest. I have no plans to usurp Celestia and rule with an iron hoof. Or a hoof of any other sort of material.”
Another prolonged nod. “My apologies, Your Highness. I’m still adjusting from my previous employer.”
“Which is why you insist on calling me ‘Your Highness.’”
“No." Tempest smirked. "That is a joke.”
As Twilight found herself caught between wanting to scream and wanting to laugh, the doors to the throne room inched open, allowing a guard to poke his head into the corridor. “Princess Twilight. The diarchs will see you now.”
“Understood.” Twilight shut her eyes. Breathe in tranquility, breathe out concern. “Well, here goes something.”
The Staff of Sacanas had restored the throne room as it had the rest of Canterlot, but Twilight’s memories filled it with rubble and the shocked, petrified forms of her fellow princesses. She shook the vision away. She had to focus on the present.
Not that the present was much better. Princess Celestia wore a neutral mask, betraying nothing. Princess Luna glared down at them like the specter of death itself. “Princess Twilight Sparkle,” said Luna. “Fizzlepop Berrytwist, styled Tempest Shadow. You stand here to be judged.”
Twilight's jaw dropped as she processed the full ramifications. “Wait, I thought I was here to defend Tempest!”
“Neigh," said Luna. "Each of you stands only to account for herself. And we begin with you, Princess Twilight. Our ally Novo, Queen of Mount Aris and Seaquestria, has accused you of the attempted theft of the Pearl of Transmutation. How do you plead?”
“I, I…” Twilight's mind went blank. A high-pitched whine filled her ears, and she wasn't sure if it was psychosomatic or the sound of her whimpering. This was it. This was the end of the impossible run of luck that had begun on her first day in Ponyville. This really was the end of the world.
“Hold on.” The end of the world got delayed on account of Tempest.
Luna regarded her coolly. “Your judgement will come, Miss Berrytwist.”
Tempest pressed on regardless. “The Storm King laid siege to Mount Aris years ago. I reviewed his conquests during our voyages; that was one of his first. And you claim to be allies with them?" She turned to Celestia. "Where were you when Mount Aris fell?”
The neutral mask didn't budge. “That is not relevant to the discussion at hoof.”
“Actually, it kind of is," said Twilight, mind reengaged by the intriguing question. "The only reason I resorted to theft was because Queen Novo, the mare you told me to go to with what I thought was your last breath, didn’t give a rotten apple core about the Storm King laying siege to Canterlot. And that disinterest very well could have been returning the favor for when Equestria never answered Mount Aris’s call for aid.”
That broke Celestia's calm, even if it left a frown in its wake. “We never received a call for aid. I found out about the state of the hippogriffs after you did, Twilight, when Novo confronted me on the topic. Only then did we realize her messengers never reached me, lost at some point between here and Mount Aris.”
“Hold." Luna turned to her sister, frowning as well. "Did she not think that their failure to return might have implied a failure to present their messages?”
Celestia turned away, focused on a distant corner of the throne room. “Novo has always been… risk-averse, you might say. After the third courier never returned, she refused to lose any more of her citizens to what seemed like a guaranteed deathtrap." She shook her head. "Indeed, she forbade all of her citizens from leaving Seaquestria from that point on. Princess Skystar was only a young child at the time; doubtless that had an impact on Novo’s decision.”
“Wait." Twilight took a few steps closer to the throne before going on. "Princess, before the concert, how long had it been since you’d last had any kind of contact with Queen Novo?”
It took Celestia a few moments to answer. “Twelve, thirteen years, perhaps?”
“And how often did you converse before that?” said Luna.
“Once or twice a month.”
Twilight gave the most judgemental look she'd pointed at Celestia since the princess proposed setting Discord free. “And you never thought to investigate?”
Celestia met the look head-on. “I was a bit busy at the time. There was this country called 'Equestria' that needed somepony to watch over it. Perhaps you’ve heard of the place. Also a precocious young filly who needed careful guidance, especially in light of both her predecessor and a certain sister of mine returning home soon." She pointed a wing at each mentioned pony in turn.
“That said, I did send some letters of my own. Novo never answered them." Celestia sighed and shook her head. "It turns out she never received them either. The rail workers will need a considerable complement of soldiers to protect them if the proposed Mount Aris Terminal will be built on schedule.”
“And yet she was still the first creature who came to mind," said Luna. "As opposed to the dragons, griffons, yaks, and other races who could be reached without risking the proven peril of the southlands.”
Celestia stomped the dais with a forehoof. “Look, I’m not on trial here. Literally, I am not the one on trial here.”
Tempest shrugged. “It could be argued that Twilight was acting on your instructions and thus as your proxy. By that logic, Your Highness, you are the one on trial at the moment.”
“I certainly did not tell Twilight to steal the hippogriffs’ most sacred and powerful treasure!” Celestia cried, flaring her wings.
“Your exact words were ‘Seek help from the Queen of the Hippogriffs,’" said Twilight. After a moment, she added, "Well, you said ‘Hippo’ before you started screaming, but since Prince Phelddagrif is a bull, I went with the more logical option. And when I sought help from Queen Novo, she refused, so I sought help from her in a different way.”
Luna gave the grin that meant she was thinking back to the messier parts of history. “We have performed acts in Equestria’s name that some would consider criminal, sister.”
Celestia scoffed. “Those were all over a thousand years ago!”
“Mine were, yes. But I seem to recall our vaults holding several artifacts belonging to other nations, ones not present in Castle Everfree. The Talisman of Mirage stands out in particular." Luna brought a thoughtful hoof to her chin. "A changeling artifact in our possession long before King Thorax’s coup raises a number of questions.”
Celestia got to her hooves, wings at full spread. “It was for the good of Equestria!”
“That’s how I justified myself at the time.” Twilight's voice was far quieter than Celestia's, yet filled the room in a way hers hadn't.
Luna just smirked. “Truly, your students do take after you, sister. Even Sunset Shimmer seemed to embrace your artifactual kleptomania upon her return, if none of your other lessons. Tell me, did you truly disband the Crimson Ravens, or did you merely rename your personal troop of battlefield scavengers?”
Actual embers manifested in Celestia's mane, which wasn't flowing so much as spiking like an angry unicorn's hornfield. “Twilight! Trial! Stealing the Pearl!”
Luna shrugged her wings. “She was banished from Seaquestria and had her gills taken before she had a chance to surface. A literal trial by water. The ocean judged her worthy of life, and I shall not gainsay it.”
Celestia said nothing, one eye twitching for a few moments. One of her hipposandals blistered and deformed. Finally, she plopped herself back on her throne.
“Wait," Twilight said to Luna, "why did you seem ready to put my head on a chopping block?”
“You may have noticed that I have something of a flair for the dramatic,” said the dream-walking Mistress of the Night with a mane of ten thousand stars. “I enjoy the chance to indulge myself as the stern judge, but I enjoy the chance to heckle my dear sister even more.”
“In any case," Celestia boomed, gaze never turning from Luna, "tempted though I may be by recent events, I agree with my fellow ruler’s judgement. You have already been tried and punished for this crime, Twilight, and it has been made abundantly clear how hypocritical we would be to punish you further."
After a deep breath, one using the very same breathing exercise Cadence had taught Twilight, Celestia got back some measure of calm. She brought her attention to Tempest. "That brings us to you, Commander.”
She merely nodded. “Your Highnesses.”
“You stand accused of four counts of extremely aggravated lèse-majesté, three counts of assault with intent to permanently incapacitate the immortal, numerous counts of domestic terrorism, several thousand counts of wrongful imprisonment, and one count of the hostile conquest of Canterlot with a foreign army." Celestia raised an eyebrow. "How do you plead?”
Tempest blinked. “Confused, Your Highness. I’m not sure if the third charge applies to me, or that the fifth is even a crime.”
Celestia grinned, but it came with a sigh. “Do you know how your attack will go into the history books, Commander?”
“You don’t have to use my rank, Your Highness. The army I command is in limbo after Princess Twilight refused to accept it, despite defeating their previous master.”
All eyes turned to Twilight. She tilted back her head and groaned. “I’m the Princess of Friendship! I don’t need a guard battalion. Certainly not one that I ‘earned’ through combat.” One nice thing about ascension, wings made for much better air quotes than forelegs.
“It will be recorded as the Thirty-Seventh Invasion of Canterlot," said Celestia. "We criminalized the act of invasion after the sixth.”
“Ah." Tempest cleared her throat. "That’s… not exactly the best track record, Your Highness.”
“In our defense," said Luna, "many of them them occurred prior to my banishment. The historians of the time considered anything from a monster attack to a lost and very confused single griffon an ‘invasion.’”
Celestia nodded. “Town criers longed for attention-grabbing news as much as their modern descendants do. As for the terrorism charges, you remain a citizen of Equestria, Ms. Shadow, even given your long pilgrimage.”
“Ah. In that case, I have to plead guilty of all charges.”
“Tempest!” Twilight cried.
She shrugged. “The judges aren't just witnesses, they're victims. There’s no point in denying I did it.”
“Indeed not," Luna said with a nod. "For your crimes against Equestria, we have no choice but to banish you.”
Another shrug. “Wouldn’t be any different than most of my life.”
“From Canterlot,” added Celestia.
That made Tempest hesitate. “What?”
“For one year’s time,” both sisters chorused before slamming their hooves on the floor in unison.
Tempest looked from alicorn to alicorn, and that included Twilight, who felt as confused as Tempest looked. “No, seriously, what?”
“Saving the day invites a great deal of leniency,” Celestia said with a smile.
Luna nodded. “It is often best to encourage such behavior.”
“I…" Tempest shut her mouth and knelt before the thrones. "Thank you, Your Highnesses.”
Twilight couldn't contain herself any longer. “This is fantastic!" She swept up Tempest in a hug and made for the exit, not even noticing the weight of her passenger. “Oh, I’ll have Spike set up a room for you in the castle, and Pinkie can set up that Birthday Backlog Bash she was talking about, and Fluttershy can find you and Grubber pets, and…”
Unseen by Twilight, Tempest stared at the diarchs in horror, the true nature of her punishment sinking in.
Gloriosa Daisy often dreamt of the forest. It was hard not to when she’d been born and raised at Camp Everfree. She’d been to other places, of course, but rarely and briefly. A landscape without trees just felt wrong to her.
But the forest she now found herself in didn’t feel right either. It wasn't the welcoming woodland she’d known since before she could walk. This was forest primeval, moss growing on vines growing on trees that were old long before Gloriosa’s ancestors first settled their little patch of Califoalnia. Where the canopy grew so thick that any sunlight got swallowed long before it reached the forest floor, leaving the misplaced plains ape to blunder through near-total darkness in nothing but her pajamas.
After a brief eternity of half-blind stumbling, tripping, and stepping in what was hopefully mud with bare feet, Gloriosa finally found a fallen tree. That provided a hole in the canopy, a scratch in the forest that more growth hadn't healed yet. Light shone down on the resulting clearing, and she could finally see something.
Unfortunately, that thing was her, staring back with eyes like green sparks in pools of darkness.
Gloriosa had seen herself in this maddened state before, in both the reflections of crystal formations and cell phone video footage. It honestly was a good look for her, provided she ever wanted to spend a month in a shading booth before dyeing her hair and becoming a supervillain.
It didn’t feel right to call the creature before her Gaea Everfree. Timber may have embellished the tale for the Canterlot campers, but their father had passed down a legend of the spirit of the woods, going back to when their family first settled them. That creature was the majesty and danger of nature given form. This…
This was just a camp counselor who’d bitten off more than she could chew.
“Okay,” said Gloriosa. “Sunset and Twilight told me that dreaming of your crazy magic form is perfectly normal.” She clasped her hands together, finding herself slipping into her chipper “talking to campers” voice. “So, how are we going to do this? Voicing my regrets, tormenting me with my misdeeds, making me dream of nothing but cleaning out the septic tanks after taco night?”
The other her slowly shook her head. That was when it struck Gloriosa: This version of her was so much calmer than when she’d been going mad with power. She could still remember the unending rush, like her veins were full of lightning and her skin would burst open if she didn’t use every ounce of power available to her. And that power had just kept growing and growing and growing…
But this one just floated a few inches off the ground, her expression blank. If she hadn’t shaken her head, Gloriosa might have thought there wasn’t anything there to talk to. “Okay, so… how are we going to do this?”
“This One does not torment, hunter.” The body was Gloriosa’s, but the voice was better suited for a black-armored asthmatic with a laser sword. “Toying with prey is the province of cats and your kind. This One speaks plainly when roused, and you who sought its embrace have roused it.”
Gloriosa shivered and took a step back. She tripped on something unseen and wound up on her behind. “G-Gaea Everfree?” Dad had always described her as, well, a feminine entity. But for all Gloriosa knew, this was what the females of Gaea’s kind sounded like. Maybe the males mostly spoke through earthquakes.
But her doppleganger shook its head again. “Half that. This One speaks not for the world, though the world stirs in its slumber as This One did. It sleeps more deeply, and its awakening will be far more profound.”
“I... I don’t understand.”
“Magic is the breath of the world, young hunter. Before, it barely breathed at all, its slumber so deep it did not notice your kind clawing at its skin and greedily drawing on the legacy of eons.” The other Gloriosa looked off into the distance. “But another world’s breath drifts through cracks, and the scent makes it restless.”
Gloriosa got to her feet. For a confusing moment, she got to four of them. Once she was back in her proper shape, she said, “So… when I used all the geodes…”
The other her nodded. “Another step down a trail where there is no going back. Not the first. Far from the last.”
“I… I think I understand." The camp had always been a part of her life. She knew full well the impact human carelessness could have on the forest. "You’re saying that the Everfree… That you were changed by the magic I used.”
“Yes. Nothing touched by magic escapes unchanged. Not you. Not This One. Certainly not the grazer-led hunters who herald a new age.” A rainbow briefly glimmered somewhere in the depths of the ancient wood.
“So… why tell me this? Why not go to them directly?”
The Everfree's lips curved into a small smile. “Because your family has tended This One well, heeded its dreams, kept less scrupulous hunters from exploiting it like so much other land.” She—it?—gestured to herself. “And you, you gambled your very soul to defend This One when it could not.”
Gloriosa's dread had never fully gone away. Now it redoubled. “But you can defend yourself now?”
“Oh yes.” A hint of the mania Gloriosa had felt came to the Everfree's eyes, along with a verdant glow. The trees surrounding their little clearing rumbled and sprouted spikes as long as Gloriosa's arm. New ones grew into place to fill the gaps. Soon, they stood inside a living fort. "This One appreciates you and your kin, young hunter, but not all your kind."
"Okay, look, I understand." Gloriosa slapped on a desperate grin. She wasn't sure if the forest could smell her fear, but it seemed best to at least put up the facade. "Goodness knows I've felt the same way every time I've had to clean up after someone who thought you were the world's largest trash can. But you may want to take things a little slower. Best case scenario, those girls from Canterlot come back and shoot rainbows all over the place again."
The Everfree sneered, rising into the air as a riot of growth erupted beneath her. "They will only feed This One."
Gloriosa nodded as though she'd known that. "Which is why it's the best case scenario. Worst case, the army comes in with flamethrowers. Or maybe bombs."
A rumble in the distance preceded a massive shockwave, a sound loud enough to be a physical force. Shards of wood filled the air. Gloriosa ducked, covering her head with arms and feeling the fragments pelt against her.
When she straightened up, she saw the Everfree looking around at the devastation with the same expression Gloriosa had had when she'd heard Mom and Dad wouldn't ever come home again. She hugged it and whispered. "Take it slow. Work with us. We can make this work together."
By the time she backed up from the hug, the grove was back to the way it was at the beginning. The Everfree wiped its eyes. "With the form comes the mind. This One must remember that."
Gloriosa dared to grin. "So... that's a pass on the eco-crusade?"
The Everfree nodded. "This One will heed your advice. Change will come, as it always does, but in its time. You know the denizens of the woods now, but with the new generation come stranger ones, plants and beasts alike."
The pit in Gloriosa's stomach, nearly gone, decided it could stay for just a bit longer. "Such as?"
It shrugged. "Who can say how life will change? This One cannot. It tells you to prepare you. And the heralds in turn, if they will listen."
"I'm pretty sure they will."
"Good." The Everfree looked at something Gloriosa couldn't see again, frowning at it. "This One is not the only part of the world that stirs. And the land shaped and flattened by your kind will not think of you so kindly.”
“Oh." Goosebumps raced down Gloriosa's arms. "Um, thanks.”
The Everfree bowed its borrowed head. “This One is the grateful one. It knows it has asked much of you, and will ask more in time.”
There was only one thing Gloriosa could say to that. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”
When Gloriosa awoke, she found green streaks in her hair. Looking out of her window, she confirmed that the ivy crawling up her cabin had started obeying her will again.
Also, the walls had begun budding. And she was pretty sure she heard something say "Mother."
At that point, she called Sunset Shimmer. To Gloriosa's credit, she only spent half of the call spouting panicked gibberish.
A new journal for a new expedition! I arrived in the so-called “Forbidden” Jungle this very morning, a harrowing experience in and of itself. The closest the embassy could come to a clear runway for the air carriage was a patch of bumpy, open ground hewn out of the jungle. Not the roughest landing I’ve ever had, but there was no mistaking it for dear old Canterlot.
The embassy itself was similarly rough, a few ramshackle buildings with only the Equestrian flag to tell me it was the closest piece of home. Not that I held it against Ambassador Evening Primrose. She didn’t exactly get a great deal of funding for the place. Indeed, she told me she had to help keep the embassy grounds clear herself! Granted, as an earth pony, she doubtless found it much easier than I would. Her slit eyes hinted at bat pony somewhere in her ancestry as well, likely why she was chosen for the spot and why the natives seemed to get on with her so well. Certainly better than with me. Most took one look at me, chittered at one another in their inscrutable native tongue, and flapped away.
“The chiroptera don’t trust unicorns,” Evening told me when we had some time alone.
I nodded. “I get that a lot in the remote parts of the world. Great deal of suspicion and superstition.”
She took a long look at me after that, and I don't think she liked what she saw. “Are you sure you want to do this, Mister Pants?”
That made me draw myself up with the dignity my experiences had earned me. “Madam Ambassador, I have braved the blizzards of the Yaket Range, watched the wandering mesas in the heart of the buffalo lands, and scaled the smoldering slopes of Mount Surtr. I assure you, this expedition will be naught but a trip through the park for me.”
She smirked. “So you don’t want a guide?”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” I said after coughing into a fetlock.
That was how I met Dragonfruit, a bat pony of fine stock. Well-spoken, well-versed in jungle lore, and easily the most beautiful creature I’d set my eyes on, excepting Celestia Herself. Wit as sharp as her teeth as well. She did not even pretend to spare my feelings when I mangled her name in her own tongue, nor when I told her my goal.
“The minotaur fort? Truly?” she said, sounding for all the world like my mother when she found me perched atop the cupboard.
I nodded. “Well and truly. The historical wealth of Edamto cannot be overstated. Far too many ponies are willing to forget the past and let it rot. If we forget who we were, what will we become?”
“Remembrance is important, Mister Flood Pants, but some things are best left to rot.”
“Bah. Even the worst of history acts as a lesson of what not to do.”
Dragonfruit gave me a long, appraising look then. I cannot say for certain what she found. “Very well. I will take you there. When you see it with your own eyes, you will understand.”
Ah, native superstition, my ever-present travel companion. Where would I be if I could not prove you wrong time and again?
27 Leaf-Running Moon
Celestia above, this heat. I must hold the journal in front of me, lest sweat mar the pages. I had planned the expedition for winter, but it seems the jungle has never heard the word.
Evening Primrose had been less than sympathetic this morning. “You know,” she said, “I realized something after you listed all those places. Tundra, desert, volcanoes… not a lot of humidity in those areas, is there?”
“They aren’t known for it, no. But this place is lousy with pegasi, is it not? You can’t tell me everypony here enjoys these conditions.”
That got a look of pity. Given my state at the time, I cannot truly blame the ambassador, but it still rankles me to think on it. “Chiroptera aren’t pegasi, Mister Pants. They may be able to walk on clouds, but they can’t get them to do anything they don’t want to. And for the record, yes, yes we do.”
I could tell my welcome at the embassy was wearing thin. Well, best to set off in any case.
Dragonfruit started me on the path to Edamto. I hacked my way through the undergrowth as best I could. She leapt from branch to branch like a bat-winged monkey, smirking down at me the whole time.
I must confess, dear journal, where Ambassador Primrose’s disdain for me inspired only resentment, coming from Dragonfruit, it was… strangely charming.
To Dragonfruit’s credit, she did guide me to stretches of better-maintained trail. A given hour might see us cover a single city block or almost as much distance as I could cover on open ground. At times, Dragonfruit even deigned to trot at my side.
Alas, I was distracted by less charming topics than my company.
“Confounded insects. How do you cope with this plague at all times?”
She leaned in close. Star above, the smile on her face.
Then she snapped a mosquito that must have been as long as my horn out of the air, then chewed it with open relish. “We have our methods,” she said around her morsel.
Steady on, Flood. Remember, you are a professional.
29 Leaf-Running Moon
Minimal progress for the last two days. Yesterday, we exhausted the easy trails that lead to Edamto. The resulting struggle through the woods left me too exhausted to record it, likewise transcriptions of any pleasantries with Dragonfruit. Today was more of the same, but knowing I'd have to endure the same level of struggle from dawn to dusk at the start left me better prepared to tough it out.
(And yes, dawn to dusk. I shan't recount my putting my hoof in my mouth assuming Dragonfruit is normally nocturnal. High noon beneath the canopy is scarcely enough to see one's hoof in front of one's face here. It is only in the open when they must adjust their lifestyle. Or wear sunglasses.)
Still, I dare say I am growing on her given time and exposure. Which rather makes me sound like a fungus. Goodness, but I'll need to edit this into something sensible when I return to Canterlot. At least this spell lets me ink the words purely with magic. Imagine having to tot inkwells into the wilderness.
I am clearly more tired than I thought if my mind is wandering this much. However much time lies between this entry and the next, assume it was spent struggling through underbrush with a foul attitude.
1 Snow Moon
Dragonfruit has been regaling me with local legends to pass the time. Most of them are charming little "just so" stories. How the jaguar got its spots, how the dragon got his flame, and so forth. But today we approached Edamto proper, and she told me the history of the Colony Wars as the bat chiroptera remember them.
It is not a flattering tale, not for minotaurs or for other ponies. Certainly not unicorns. Black Rose's name is still cursed in these lands, and only for her first great crime. The locals do not forgive or forget broken trust. Having suffered more than a few betrayals by other enterprising explorers, I can empathize.
Tomorrow, we explore the ruins of the fort. I only hope I can account for myself better than Black did.
2 Snow Moon
Edamto stands!
It is a miracle, whether of engineering, magic, or nature, I cannot say. But the ancient fort, though timeworn, still stands proud after nine centuries and more.
And the terrain around it, my goodness. The trek through the jungle has been one blasted hassle after another: Swarming insects, boot-eating mudpits, predators barely held off by Dragonfruit's screeches and my own repelling spells. But the terrain here is what ponies dream of when they hear of the exotic tropics. Waving palm trees, a gorgeous beach with sand like powdered white gold, an ocean so blue it could be a second sky. Everything one could dream of.
Dragonfruit doesn't trust it. I admit, it does seem a bit too good to be true. But really, what manner of jungle beastie would construct a trap simultaneously so sophisticated yet so obvious? If anything, some entity acting to preserve the fort invites further questions, ones that I cannot let go unanswered.
Of course, when one's guide does everything but clamping her fangs on one's throat to stop one from investigating, one must find some manner of compromise. I managed to talk her down from fleeing immediately to watching the ruin for a day, just to see what, if any, suspicious activity may arise.
I write this entry during the fourth hour of our little stakeout. I shan't lie, it is dreadfully dull, but every moment of drudgery is another point in my column. Surely this miracle is benign at worst, revolutionary at best!
Dragonfruit doesn't think much of me dividing my attention, but it's helping me stay grounded. I swear, I've been watching Edamto for so long that the landscape seems to shift and soften when I'm not focusing on it. Would that I were a better sketch artist. I could've sworn the beach was further away when we first got here.
Surely my imagination.
2/3? Snow Moon
I write this entry under cover of darkness, by the dimmest hornlight I can manage. Dragonfruit insisted we turn in and hung all manner of amulets and charms over my tent. She even insisted on sleeping on a branch directly above it, dangling from her tail as is her wont. I normally scoff at superstition, but I've seen what such fetishes can do in the hooves of a capable zebra. Doubtless my guide's carry at least as much potency against whatever she fears. She refused to go into detail on either what foe she was thwarting nor the specific means by which her wards would do so.
I was tempted to reassure her, but her darting eyes and folded ears made it clear she would suffer no foolishness from me on the matter.
However, all the trinkets in the world couldn't ward off my own wanderlust. I do not know if it is past midnight or not, but I can wait no longer. Edamto calls to me, its mysteries beckoning like a siren of legend. I swear I can see it peeking out just behind the foliage, mere steps away.
Yes, I confess, I have already slipped out tonight, and already found something amazing. Dragonfruit was similarly restless. Together, we will discover many things in the fort's ruins. Some more personal than others.
Much as I'd love to bring this journal with me, I'm leaving as much space as I can spare for samples to bring back home. Perhaps it would be wiser to wait until morning, but...
No. I must go. I simply must. What awaits is quite literally irresistible.
Such a lovely place.
Such a lovely face.
Moonsister,
I return this journal to you through Evening Primrose, in the hopes that this fool will be the last you send to die in our home. While Luna still lies trapped above, leave us be.
Most ponies grew concerned when Discord was excited. Fluttershy worried when he was quiet.
Such times came more often than most would believe. Yes, Discord was often full of manic energy, conjuring his thoughts into reality and turning every available spotlight on him. (He was still banned from every theater and stadium from Ponyville to Manehattan.) But chaos is all things, and sometimes he ended up spending Tuesday tea deep in thought, an hour or more passing without him saying five words.
"I have to carry the conversation when you're like that," Fluttershy had told him once. "You know that's a bad sign." He'd cackled at the joke, but the truth was that she was happy to let him think, draped on the couch like an especially exotic scarf.
Discord always came out of those lulls with a question on his lips, but there was no telling what it would be or how long he’d stay for the answer. Once he asked “How can I tell that I’m not still trapped in stone and this isn’t all just a pleasant dream I’m making for myself?” and they went long into the night debating the reality of existence. Once, his gaze never shifting from the ceiling, he asked “But why yellow?” and vanished before Fluttershy could say anything in response.
Today, he shook himself out of his rumination like a wet dog, poured himself a tea of cucumber, nibbled a cup sandwich, and said, “Fluttershy, what’s inner peace like?”
She waited a moment, just in case Discord decided that that was enough for this week. When he remained seated, albeit juggling the nouns some more, she said, “Have you been talking with Tree Hugger again?”
“I admit, she is more interesting than I initially gave her credit for. And some of the ideas she’s told me about…" For an eye-watering moment, Discord had a hundred heads and a thousand arms, no two from the same species. He snapped back to normal and continued, "Fascinating belief systems in this world, truly. But this isn’t about Treezie, it’s about you. Tell me, what is inner peace like?”
Fluttershy took a few moments to think about it. She knew Discord could be patient with her. “Well, I suppose it’s being able to sit and know that everything’s right. Like the…" She frowned. "Oh, this won’t be helpful for you, but it’s the best way I can think of it.”
He grinned and waved her on. “Go ahead. You know how I feel about things needing to make sense.”
“Well, I suppose it would be the feeling that comes from getting your cutie mark stretched out for a whole lifetime. That serenity and connection with the world and awareness of your place in it…" Fluttershy sighed as she imagined it. "Oh, it must be lovely.”
“‘Must be’?" Discord quirked an eyebrow. Today, that meant it developed froglike properties. "A surprising turn of phrase from somepony who’s had firsthoof experience.”
“Huh?”
“Well, look at you!" Discord thrust his arms at Fluttershy, then cast them wide to take in the whole cottage. Enormous, thin panels fell into place around the pair and displayed Fluttershy's friends, both speaking creatures and animals. "Your every aspiration met and then some. The ear of the reigning princess! A revolutionary wildlife sanctuary! Connections in fashion, fungineering, and the military-athletic complex!" Discord paused as he considered one screen that displayed nothing but apple trees. "And whatever it is Applejack does. Your life’s purpose couldn’t be more fulfilled." After a beat, he turned to her, an eager grin on his muzzle. "Could it?”
Fluttershy gave him a flat look, though she couldn't completely hold back the smile. “Discord, you’re never going to get me to agree to erase Zephyr from existence.”
“What?" He drew back, screens vanishing as a halo lit up above his head. It immediately got snagged on his antler and went lopsided. "Come now, who said anything about that rare bit of poor judgement on your parents’ part? We’re talking about you here.”
“Well, it’s very flattering that you think so, but I don’t really know how inner peace feels.”
“Seriously? You?" Discord bent down and took Fluttershy's forehooves in his own front appendages. "What could possibly bother you?” He glared off to the side. "Be specific."
Fluttershy shook her head. “Discord. This is me we’re talking about.”
“Yes! Fluttershy!" He sprang up. Irregularly shaped stained glass windows burst into being around him, all portraying her in a range of styles from near-photorealistic to incredibly abstract. "Bearer and Avatar of Kindness! All-forgiving, all-welcoming, serene mistress of forgiveness! Living refutation of the Cloudsdalian ideal, a role model for pegasi everywhere trying to break out of stultifying tribal roles!”
“And the mare who still needs a night light some nights." Fluttershy flew up to be face to face with Discord and put a hoof on his shoulder. "I know I’ve done a lot of incredible things, and I’ve certainly grown more confident over time. But that sort of thing never goes away completely. I still worry about expenses for the sanctuary and my friends drifting apart and…” She trailed off, looking away.
Mismatched arms wrapped around her. There was no sight gag, no incongruous noise, just Discord looking at her with concern. “And?”
Fluttershy shut her eyes. “And what you’ll do when I’m gone.”
“Ah.” And he didn’t say what they both knew. He could take away the worry. He had offered, during those first few tea parties where his sudden appearance had made Fluttershy hide behind the furniture. But she had refused, because it wouldn’t have been her he’d be befriending, just another pony puppet he twisted into a more pleasing state.
He told her he could take away other things too. Maybe even mortality. He didn’t know; he’d never tried. But that had the same problem, and so many others.
After a much less comfortable silence than normal, Fluttershy said, “So I’m sorry, Discord. I can’t really tell you what inner peace is like.”
He forced out a laugh. “Well, it’d probably kill me if I ever found out. Imagine, me, all tranquil and serene and so forth." He set her back in her chair and patted her mane before settling back on the couch, a smile so roughly plastered on his muzzle that bits dripped on the cushions. "If I didn’t wink out of existence because of the inherent lack of chaos, I’d probably die of boredom.”
Fluttershy didn't say anything, just nodding along.
Discord's speech grew more natural as he went on. “So, if inner peace is out—and good riddance, frankly—what can you tell me about inner Fluttershy?”
She blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Don’t be! I’ve heard all about the ways you’ve bent your mind and body into exciting and innovative new forms." He turned himself into a duplicate of the memory album they'd all given Twilight, save for his face on the cover. He opened himself and flipped through images of Fluttershy as a vampire fruit bat pony, Fluttershy as the clerks in Rarity for You, Fluttershy as the Saddle Rager... "Mostly from Pinkie Pie. Do you think any of them are still lying around?”
“I… I, uh…" Fluttershy's mouth worked silently as she tried to work through her shock. "Maybe?”
A burst of light, and Discord was his usual shape, the size of Angel Bunny, and dangling from her forelock. “Mind if I go find out for myself?”
“Um… sure?”
He beamed. “Fantastic! A voyage it is.” And with that, Discord squirmed into Fluttershy's ear.
“Oh my,” she said before her eyes rolled back and her body slumped in the chair.
Discord always enjoyed a chance to delve into a being’s psyche. No two creatures saw the world in quite the same way, not twins, not analogues of the same person from different worldlines, not even the same person at different points in their life. As such, there was nothing as unique and unpredictable as a mindscape. It was why he so loathed actually killing creatures; every death destroyed something unique and irreplaceable.
Of course, in his bad old days, he’d seen such marvels merely as interestingly shaped canvases waiting for his personal masterpieces. These days, he was learning to appreciate them for what they already were. He’d certainly gotten that far with Fluttershy… though he had to admit, even when he’d directly jabbed her mind in the palace hedge maze, he’d seen something there. Some indescribable, protean potential that had slipped out of view once he’d turned down her color saturation.
He had felt a brief hint of regret in that moment. And he suspected that that fleeting vestige of remorse, rather than anything that came after, had been his real first step towards reformation.
The psychic impressions of Fluttershy’s mental innards assembled themselves into something approximating sensory data. Abstract shapes and colors—mostly pinks, greens, and yellows, of course—resolved themselves into an idealized Sweetfeather Sanctuary, one that stretched from horizon to horizon. Every biome imaginable had representation here, with minimal care for pairing neighbors according to any kind of logical system. A peak lopped off of the Yaket Range sat comfortably next to a stretch of the Bone Dry Desert, opposite which was what appeared to be a chunk of Luna’s mane the size of a buckball field.
Discord moved closer and smelled salt. Then one of the "stars" drew closer and turned out to be attached to something that looked like a fish designed by something that had never seen one, but had tried to make one out of leather scraps, slivers of bone, and a woefully misplaced Hearth’s Warming ornament.
The two regarded one another for a time before the anglerfish—as the helpful sign that hadn’t been there moments ago called it—got bored and swam off.
“Interesting,” Discord said as he stroked his goatee. “I’m not sure if I should be impressed that Fluttershy knows about such monstrosities or piqued that she never thought to tell me.”
“And why would she bother with the likes of you, anyway?”
The sheer haughtiness of the voice made Discord sneer for a moment before smirking and chuckling. “Oh, is somepony actually going for the snooty approach with moi? Goodness, I haven’t a chance to empty out a stuffed shirt since…" He trailed off as he turned towards the offender. "Fluttershy?”
It was Fluttershy, yes, but nearly unrecognizable. She wore a green-and-gray pantsuit with creases sharp enough to slice, her mane up in an iron-hard bun and her expression one of permanent distaste. She looked at him from top to bottom and wrinkled her muzzle. “My word, you are a sight. You can’t possibly expect me to believe that she actually came up with you" She waved away at him with a forehoof. "Go on now, shoo. The place is crowded enough without drifters coming in and squatting.”
Discord most decidedly did not shoo. He tilted his head, examining the Fluttershy in turn. “How strange. Don’t you know who I am? What I am?”
She shrugged her wings. “I am what I was made to be, and while I haven’t the foggiest idea what manner of expertise is needed to comprehend a being such as you, I know that I don’t have it." Her gaze hardened at his continued presence. "Now kindly remove yourself from the premises or I will have you removed.”
“Oh, what are you going to do?" Discord scoffed. "Write a nasty letter to the Daily Id?”
The Fluttershy raised a single eyebrow, then took a deep breath and cried, “Oh, Rager! I fear this brute stepped on a sand flea!”
“What? No I—” Discord paused. He’d taken an involuntary step back at the accusation, and he could feel something crumbling under his dragon foot. He lifted it, and sure enough, a pile of desert sand reassembled itself into a roughly insectile shape and scuttled off. “See? It’s fine!”
The Fluttershy just smirked. Said smirk grew as grains of sand started shifting, followed by the very ground rumbling beneath Discord's feet. A vaguely equine behemoth charged into view, a green bodysuit struggling against the bulging body while a purple mask did nothing to hide her identity as another Fluttershy.
“WHO HURT THE PRECIOUS DARLING!?” The sheer volume of the bellow was a bit off, but the contents weren't.
“Ah." Discord stepped forward and offered a paw. "Fluttershy’s simmering anger, I presume.”
Bloodshot eyes fixed on him, the great body almost quivering with rage. “SHE’S STILL WORKING ON HEALTHILY EXPRESSING NEGATIVE EMOTIONS!”
Discord nodded, idly squeegeeing off the spittle. “Oh, I know. Some days it’s like she needs permission to get properly mad at something.”
“EVERY DAY IS A STRUGGLE, BUT ALSO A NEW CHANCE TO GROW!”
The more severe Fluttershy looked from one entity to the other, finally seeming less than sure of herself. “This is not how I expected this to go.”
Discord grinned. “Who do you think is helping Fluttershy with this particular issue?”
"Rager" grabbed him in a hug tight enough to make his eyes bug out. “YOU’RE A GOOD FRIEND, AND SHE DEEPLY APPRECIATES ALL YOU DO TO MAKE HER A MORE WELL-ROUNDED PONY!”
“We are both very lucky that I don’t actually need any of these bones." Discord winced as he felt assorted bits of himself grind against one another. "Or other organs.”
“I’LL HELP YOU YEET THE OTHERS!”
A chill parkoured down Discord's fractured spine. “You mean ‘meet,’ yes?”
Rager shook her head, grinning. “HIPSTERSHY TAUGHT ME!”
He swallowed. “Why does this not fill me with confidence?”
And then she hurled Discord like an organic javelin.
He soared across the sanctuary of Fluttershy’s mind, watching countless species as he reassembled himself. Some were indistinguishable from the real things living in the actual sanctuary. Others were vague entities Fluttershy had only read about, which even the authors only knew in broad strokes.
Here and there Discord spotted sapient creatures, sometimes one of Fluttershy’s friends, sometimes an instance of her herself. A Pinkie Pie paused in her almost incessant bouncing on a massive taffy trampoline to wave at him as he passed overhead. A Twilight browsed a library of equal parts wood and crystal, with growing hints of marble. A Fluttershy…
Was rapidly approaching, actually.
Discord snapped on a police uniform and arrested his momentum. His hat popped out into a parachute, allowing him to gently drift to the grounds of…
“Sweet Apple Acres?” The trees weren’t as carefully aligned as the real orchard, making them much more pleasing to Discord’s eye. “Or some place like it anyway. How curious. I suppose this is the Applejack habi—”
A streak darted by in the corner of his eye.
“… tat?” He realized that the Fluttershy he'd spotted en route was now nowhere to be seen.
The next time the streak went by, Discord paused and considered. Which was to say he paused the streak and considered it. "Well now. What are you?"
This Fluttershy was markedly different from each one he'd seen thus far. She wore nothing save for an unusual cutie mark and a much more ragged mane and tail. Darker coat, tufted ears, bat wings, fangs...
Discord shook his head. "I am shocked, Fluttershy, shocked. This is, I believe, tribal appropriation. And I'm given to understand that that is not okay."
He released her, expecting an explanation, a quip, a bad bat pun. Instead, she screeched at a near-ultrasonic pitch and disappeared deeper into the apple forest.
"Was it something I said?"
"When has anything you've ever said made things better?"
"Now that—" Discord turned to the speaker and winced. "Oh. Well. This is awkward."
A nearly monochrome Fluttershy scowled at him. "Screw you too, Dad."
The wince became a full cringe. "Congratulations, you've made this uncomfortable even for me."
She rolled her eyes. "Well, you poked your little thing into Mom, and then I came out. What do you call it?"
"I call the 'little thing' in question a talon." Discord waggled one for emphasis. "I don't think anyone expected forced mental inversion to result in the inception of an entire alternate ego, especially since I just made up half those terms. Besides, didn't Twilight Sparkle play a part? I'm sure she fits into this horrid little metaphor somewhere. Possibly the midwife, or at least somepony who smacked your bottom. You seem to need it, if Fluttershy packed her vulgarity in there."
"Oh sure, you don't show up for years, and when you do, suddenly I'm 'disrespectful.'"
Discord shook his head. "I did very good work with you that I now deeply regret."
The inverted Fluttershy smirked. "Yeah, 'cause now I'm inconveniencing you."
"Also because I hurt a good friend on a deeper level than I realized."
"Sure. 'Friend,'" she said, complete with feather quotes. "You're her bitch and you know it."
"Charming as this conversation isn't, I really must be going literally anywhere else. But while I have your attention, what can you tell me about your bat-winged counterpart in there?" Discord jerked a thumb at the wild orchard.
The Fluttershy glanced into the woods. "Flutterbat? She's as much of a dumb animal as anything in here. Keep her full of apples and she won't try to maul your face." She sneered. "So feel free to try to take her out of her orchard. That'll go real well."
"Duly noted." With that, Discord flicked his old mistake across the horizon.
"Uuuuupyooouuurs!"
Discord willed a pith helmet and khaki vest onto himself. Naturally, the helmet was an inside-out orange peel and the vest was the perfect tie-dye for standing out against the forest shadows. "Now for some more pleasant company."
It didn't take long to find "Flutterbat." Once Discord found the first desiccated apple, it was just a matter of following the trail, especially when he gave said apple legs and made it follow its brethren for him. The drained juices did make it shamble like a zombie, but pork chops, hot dogs, yadda yadda.
Eventually, the reanimated apple bumped into a tree repeatedly until Discord let it rest. And, sure enough, Flutterbat sat in the branches, grooming herself like a cat. Even as Discord watched, she paused to snap out her tongue like a chameleon, snaring an apple, sucking it dry, and spitting it onto the ground.
"Fascinating." He snapped a photo. The flash was turned off, but it wasn't going to be supported for much longer anyway.
The shutter sound—which was actually a kazoo—was still enough to alert Flutterbat to his presence. She turned to him, hissed, and spread her wings.
"Now, now," Discord said from right behind her, "no need for that." He grabbed her and placed her in his lap, brushing her mane with the finest dinglehopper in the sea.
Oh, she thrashed and spat and bit at first, but a scratch behind those tufted ears made her all but melt into a puddle. She even gave a trilling sort of purr before falling asleep.
He smiled. "Much better company than most of what I've seen here."
"Discord?"
He looked down at the ground. The pegasus below didn't have any unusual outifts, mutations, or color scheme alterations that he could make out from where he sat. "Ah, Fluttershy! Have you met Fluttershy? She's a dear once she gets used to you."
"I've, um, been Fluttershy. And I... still am?" She shook her head. "This is why I use the other names."
"Understandable. What brings you to the inner stretches of your mind?"
"I'm pretty sure you did. I passed out after you went in my head and I woke up a bit ago. I see this place a lot in my dreams."
A non-Fluttershy, wonder of wonders, flapped over to them. "And you should probably both get out of here,"
"Twilight?" Discord's eyebrows went up. He grabbed them in a butterfly net before they got too far. "May I ask why?"
"Well, I'm just Fluttershy's impression of Twilight, but I also embody what knowledge she has of magic, and you casually using chaos magic inside her head probably isn't good for her."
"Chaos magic? What chaos magic?" Discord then realized he'd turned the apple tree into his vibrant purple thinking tree. Also, there was much more of a checkerboard pattern in the vicinity than he recalled there being. "Oh, right. That chaos magic. You may have a point."
The baseline Fluttershy flapped up to him, a smile on her muzzle. "Did you get a sense of inner Fluttershy?"
"Oh, very much so." Discord smiled down at Flutterbat, continuing to pet her. "I've heard of rich inner lives, but I've never seen such a thriving inner ecosystem. Still, your personal Purplesmart proposes a potential point. No sense spending all day lost in your thoughts." He snapped his talons, and light consumed his vision.
Once Discord wiped the spots out of his eyes (and made a mental note to get more wiper fluid,) he saw that he had somehow ended up with Fluttershy on his lap. Also, she was in that novel bat pony form. "Oh. Well, you did warn me."
She looked up with slit-pupiled eyes and gave a fanged grin before nuzzling against him. "If you can change me back later, it's alright. Sometimes it's nice to be the pet."
"I see. Far be it from me to tell you no."
Neither mentioned the incident until a month later, when Fluttershy noticed the developing horn buds on her forehead.
Twilight couldn’t say for sure what had finalized her decision. Maybe it was continuing to adjust to life on the throne. Maybe it was the romantic (and slightly lava-crisped) atmosphere of Pinkie and Cheese’s Haywaiian wedding. Maybe it was bonding over a mutual appreciation for the romantic novels of Ducky Ink. Whatever the case, by the time the royal chariot carrying her and her friends landed in Ponyville, she knew what she had to do.
As everypony disembarked, she held back one mare in particular. “Rarity? I have something I need to say to you.”
Rarity paused and looked up at her, fear and hope mingling in her eyes. “Yes, Twilight?”
“Even since I took the throne in Canterlot, there’s been something missing from my life. Something I had taken for granted while living here in Ponyville. More than anything, I want that something back. The friend who took plain, ordinary Twilight Sparkle and made her feel like somepony special long before she got her wings. The one who’ll listen to me describe the latest discovery in arcane physics and then return the favor with the new fashions in the upcoming season. The one who carved out an empire long before I inherited a kingdom."
The reigning princess of Equestria knelt. “Rarity Imogene Belle.”
“Yes?” said Rarity, eyes wide.
“Will you…”
“Yes?”
“… come with me to examine the Helix of Hof next week?”
“Yes, yes, a thousand times…" Rarity's face fell mid-bounce as she finally registered the specific words. "What?”
"Well, I am going to make a diplomatic visit to Saddle Arabia," Twilight said with a shrug of her wings. "May as well take the opportunity to investigate a local landmark."
"Ah. Well. I see." Rarity visibly drooped with every word.
Twilight winked. “And I’ll need the time to find somepony other than you who could make an engagement ring worthy of that horn.”
That got her a smirk and a swat on the wither. “Twilight Sparkle, you are absolutely incorrigible. Very well, it's a date." Rarity narrowed her eyes. "Though I do want to be sure, is there any chance of some manner of magical nonsense intruding on what I hope will be a perfectly romantic moment in an exotic locale?”
Twilight shook her head. “None whatsoever.”
“Okay, so I may have underestimated the possibility of magical nonsense.”
Rarity gave Twilight a flat look as scraps of tangible shadow swirled around their shield bubble, shrieking in voices like tortured metal. “You don’t say?”
Twilight winced more from the scathing tone than she had from any of the claws of semisolid darkness scraping against the barrier. “In my defense, there were no indications of this sort of thing.”
“None whatsoever?” said Rarity, looking across the windswept desert. The Helix of Hof lay in the center of a cracked, gray waste that made the surrounding sands seem as lively as Fluttershy's backyard. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, yet the sunlight still felt wan and washed out by the time it reached them. The Helix itself was made from almost organic looking obsidian, thick as a pony's barrel and coiling in a circle as wide as five ponies standing nose to tail. Each loop seemed more horrific than the one below, bubbling, distending, and splitting as though it were diseased.
Suffice to say, not the most picturesque location in Saddle Arabia. And that was before setting hoof in that gray wasteland had set vengeful, unliving shadows swarming around them.
“Okay, so there may have been vague legends about some kind of marauding force from outside our universe creating the structure to more easily feast on our reality, but I couldn’t substantiate any of them!" Twilight threw her hooves into the air. "Most weren’t even peer reviewed!”
Rarity took a deep breath. “Twilight. Dearest. I adore every inch and aspect of you, but I could say the same about Sweetie Belle. And I can honestly say that no amount of molten toast will ever compare to this.”
Twilight sighed. “Yeah, that’s fair. At least the ring's nice?”
That got a brief smile out of Rarity, at least until another tormented soul wailed like a dying anvil. Strands of platinum beautifully woven around three briolette-cut sapphires could see her through a lot, but this seemed to be her limit. "It is, but as far as accessories go, I'd rather have the Element of Generosity right now."
"Again, fair."
“So, how exactly do we get out of this?”
Twilight's expression shifted to one of utmost concentration, the sort Rarity only saw when Twilight faced either a threat to Equestria or a new library sorting method. “Well, the Helix of Hof is a single immense thaumic resonator. That’s why I brought you here; it’s the sort of object only a unicorn can fully appreciate.”
“Lovely sentiment, darling, but please get to the point.” Rarity chose not to say anything about how the appreciation apparently took the form of feeling one's horn get dipped in acid whenever one used magic.
“Right, sorry." Twilight nodded at the swarming shadows. "These creatures are definitely tied to it somehow, malice incarnate perpetuated by the energetic feedback. They’re just not substantial enough to exist without some kind of keystone or linchpin to sustain them.”
Rarity nodded along. “So we just need to find that one seam that holds them together and tear it out.”
“Right." Twilight eyed the spiraling structure nervously. "Ideally while preserving the Helix.”
“You’re vastly more important than some twisty little rock formation,” Rarity said with a click of the tongue.
“We’re on foreign soil, and if we destroy the local landmark, we may end up at war with Saddle Arabia.”
That took Rarity a moment to process. “You’re still more important than the twisty rock formation, but I acknowledge that it is important in its own right.”
“Great." Twilight limbered up, making Rarity thoroughly aware of how much she'd grown, even after less than two moons on the throne. "So, I can distract the shades. I need you to probe the Helix with your gem detection spell. There must be some central crystal that’s the focus of all of this negative energy."
Rarity nodded, eyes focused on the Helix and definitely not anypony's earth magic-enhanced muscles. “Say no more.”
Twilight bit her lip. “Uh, are you sure? Because the next bit isn’t exactly intuitive.”
“I acknowledge that I don’t have quite your level of expertise, dear, but I think I’ve gone through adventures to know how to disable a little ancient relic.” Rarity smiled and hopped up, pecking Twilight right on the mouth. "For luck."
Even in their situation, Twilight gave a goofy grin. “R-right. Good luck!”
“It was for you, dearest. I already have all the luck I need, and she'll be watching out for me.”
If anycreature asked, Rarity charged towards the Helix with a bloodcurdling battle cry worthy of the warrior ancestors she probably had somewhere in her family tree.
It was a very high-pitched battle cry accompanied by desperately trying to keep shades out of her mane, but a battle cry nonetheless.
As she approached the Helix, the ground became less sand and more heavily compacted dust, cracking and powdering under her hooves. She paid it little mind. It barely showed up against her coat anyway.
Rarity ducked under the lowest obsidian loop. Within the Helix, the ground was bare stone, still dreadfully gray, but much more solid footing. Twin trails of black glass drew a diameter across it, and at the center they coiled together into a small, spiral peak that ended at her eye level. There sat a chicken egg-sized opal that swallowed what little light made it in the structure, glimmering as malevolently as the heart of the Alicorn Amulet.
"Well. I suppose... this is... the simple part." Rarity walked to the dais as she caught her breath. She lit her horn for a moment, then gasped and released her magic before she could even form a spell. If the local magic had burned like acid at the edge of the gray, here it was more like setting her horn on actual fire. "Or not."
The light went purple for a moment, Rarity's shadow stretching out before her. She shook herself, refocusing. "For Twilight." She reared up, pressed the black opal between her forehooves and pulled.
Absolutely nothing happened.
"Come on! Come on!" No amount of tugging or yelling helped. "Oh, what do you want?"
The answer hit her mind without any crude intermediaries like speech. She could not take here. There had to be an exchange.
"Ah." Rarity grinned despite herself. "Well, you have the right mare for the job there."
Twilight panted, wings drooping and horn guttering. Even she could only go on for so long, but as long as the Helix was functional, the shades had functionally infinite energy.
But, just as she saw one lunge in from her blind spot far too late to do anything about it, they all froze up. Wisps of darkness evaporated off of them, and the full desert sun struck the area. The shades burst into unearthly blue flame, and soon were no more.
“Twilight!" Rarity cried, galloping towards her from the Helix. "I did it!”
“I know!" Twilight raced towards her, but slowed to a trot as she thought. "Though... No offense, but how did you know how to propagate the fractal hairline crack that would disrupt the energy flow?”
Rarity blinked at her. “Well, ah, I didn't."
"You didn't?" Twilight shivered despite the building heat.
"I just removed the large, black opal from the middle and put something in its place.” Only then did Twilight notice Rarity's hornring was missing. And that she held an enormous gem. "I thought the power of true love would help dissipate those ghastly beasts."
Twilight's jaw dropped as she contemplated the ramifications.
Rarity pouted, fluttering her lashes. “Is that a problem, dear?”
After a few moments and swallowing against the lump in her stomach, Twilight got out, “It might not have been one if you hadn't had so many other brushes with dark magic.”
“Ah." Rarity contemplated the opal, and the way black oozed out of it into the magic holding it up like ink in water. "Oh dear.”
A beam of negative radiance blasted her, consuming her in a cocoon of antilight before revealing a huge, black-coated, and dreadfully familiar mare.
“Rarity?" Twilight bit her lip, trying not to add "Nightmare" to the name. "Please tell me I don’t have to call in the human girls to harmonize you. I’m pretty sure Sunset Shimmer still hasn’t forgiven me for not inviting her to my coronation.”
The mare looked herself over and smiled. “Honestly, I feel fine." The smile turned to Twilight. Rarity chuckled. "And I do appreciate the chance to look you in the eye again.”
“We’ll still get this looked at.”
Rarity patted Twilight on the withers. “Of course, dear. But after the wedding.”
Thicket had been a paradox of a city. The hidden sanctum in the place where there was no shelter, the bastion of civilization in the ultimate wilderness, the home of those who tended to a forest that could look after itself.
Then Nightmare Moon returned.
The deer had long memories, especially when it came to the many enemies who feared and hated the Everfree. Cycad, the very first Heart of the Forest in recorded history, had left a detailed account of the pony princess Luna, and how he fought alongside her in the Chaos Wars. There, she was cunning, subtle, menacing, a knife in the dark compared to the solar sledgehammer that was her sister. Once Discord was sealed away, the deer were content to keep to themselves, even with the pony capital so close.
Asphodel, the third Heart, wrote of Luna’s rebellion, the ruination her madness brought to the pony castle watching over the Tree of Harmony, and Celestia’s dealings with the Everfree itself. From that point on, the ponies abandoned the forest, and the deer did not try to stop them.
A thousand years and a score of Hearts passed. Thicket flourished, even as pony settlements encroached on the forest’s edge. Some barely lasted for a season. One in particular exceeded all expectations. Some debated whether the mare Sugar Smith should have been allowed out of the forest with her ill-gotten zap apples, though all agreed no one could have foreseen her finding a way to actually cook the temperamental fruit.
Finally, the Mare in the Moon escaped her prison and returned to the world below, and to the ruins of her home.
“Should we interfere?” said Blackthorn, the Heart’s second.
“It is a pony problem,” said Aspen, and so they did not.
Six ponies led by a brash, blue unicorn pursued her, overcoming trials she set before them, though not without great struggle and cost.
“Should we interfere?” said Blackthorn, the Heart’s second.
“It is a pony problem,” said Aspen, and so they did not.
A final conflict occurred in the ruins of Castle Everfree, if it could even be called that when one side consisted of walking wounded, some in body, some in heart. The first new banner to fly from the castle was a star-spangled cape, and morning never came.
“Should we interfere?” said Blackthorn, the Heart’s second.
“It is a pony problem,” said Aspen, and so they did not.
From there, Nightmare Moon secured her reign. She sealed her sister in her moon through wicked sorcery, exploiting Celestia’s link with the sun to supply the world with its heat, if not its light. In those early days, uncertainty reigned as much as the Nightmare. Some regions bent the knee the moment they saw a new profile in the moon's craters, regardless of who it was or who put it there.
The forest itself grew unruly in the waning of light. The forest loved the sun, yes, but there were parts of it that were happy to embrace the darkness, to emerge from their burrows and claim the world for themselves. Timberwolves spread like weeds, poison joke flourished in the moonlight, and the roars of surfacing tatzlwurms filled the night.
And as the first week of the Nightmare’s reign drew to a close, once more did Blackthorn approach the Gilt-Leaf Throne, garbed for war in red-lacquered ironwood. “Should we interfere, King Aspen?”
“Does it matter?” said Aspen, head held low as though pressed down by his antler gilding. “I thought the matters of ponies could not concern us. That the forest would not welcome a creature as twisted as Nightmare Moon." He gazed out through the throne room's windows at what had become of his kingdom. Tendrils crept around every tree unbidden, and the moonlight washed out his brilliant white fur to a vague blue. "But now she twists it in turn, making it into the monstrosity ponies always believed it to be.”
“Would you have us do nothing, sire?" said Blackthorn. "Abandon our home to this interloper?”
Aspen shook his head. “Our stewardship must adapt to these changing times. We must look after those parts of the forest that Nightmare Moon does not deign to encourage. Cultivate them, bring them into sanctuary if we can." He sighed. "It is all we can do if both we and the forest are to survive.”
Blackthorn gritted his teeth and nodded. After a deep breath, he said, “I understand, sire. I will inform the others.” Another bow, and he left the room.
As he passed through the doors, he muttered, “If you’re going to eavesdrop, Prince Bramble, try not to do it from the same spot so many times in a row.”
“I wasn’t— Darn.” A fawn tottered out from behind one of the doors, more tan than white when compared to his father. He looked up at Blackthorn, despair clear in his eyes. “Are we really going to abandon the forest to that crazy pony?”
Blackthorn sighed. “We serve the will of the king, my prince.”
“But, but…”
He knelt down and, eye to eye with the prince, said, “To tell you the truth, Bramble, I don’t like it either. But it isn’t our decision.”
Officially, Blackthorn heard nothing else from the prince as he rose and walked down the corridor. Certainly nothing along the lines of “Maybe not yours.”
Rarity had always dreamed of making it in Canterlot. As what, she didn't know. Oh, the crystals of her cutie mark might impress, but if it ever got out that her special talent was taking inventory, there would go all her social capital.
In that sense, the advent of Nightmare Moon was something of a blessing. She could hardly blame Trixie for bending the knee at the end. They'd had a good run, yes, but they were up against an alicorn, and it was better to admit defeat than never be able to admit anything again. The Nightmare was even gracious in victory, awarding coveted positions to those of her would-be opposition who could still serve.
"A will strong enough to oppose me and a mind sensible enough to stop make for a valuable combination," their new queen had said. "Far better to make use of you than eliminate subjects willing to recognize their mistakes."
And so Rarity became the majordomo for the ruler of Equestria. Again, something of a blessing, if one didn't mind the whole "eternal night" situation. Given the alternative, it seemed a more than acceptable price to pay.
Unfortunately, recruiting other staff wasn't proving far trickier, even with Ponyville practically next door. Many other ponies were slow to accept that Celestia wasn't coming back. Even the areas that sent messages of fealty didn't send anything more tangible, like the seasoned construction crews they'd need to refurbish Castle Everfree after a millennium of neglect. Rarity had to wear many hats at the moment, and not in the fun way.
Given that, she felt she could be excused for being somewhat curt when she found some strange creature lurking in the entry hall. "Oh, what is it?"
At first, she thought it was just a wild animal, given how most of said entry hall's walls had crumbled away over the centuries. Then she noticed the little cask it wore around its neck, like a barrel of brandy carried by a St. Barnyard for avalanche victims. Then she realized it was glaring at her with the sort of condensed fury possessed only by young sapients who felt they weren't being taken seriously.
Rarity underlined her mental note to ask Nightmare Moon about when she could next visit her family. Sweetie Belle must have been worried sick.
The little deer spoke, bringing her focus back to the current moment. "I am Prince Bramble of Thicket, and I demand an audience with Nightmare Moon!" It came out like a colt in a school play desperate to get his line right, loud and frantic and with the vague sense that he was about to wet himself from fear.
"I see," said Rarity. "I believe I can be of assistance there."
"You can?"
"Yes." She offered her best reassuring smile. It had seen a lot of use lately, mostly to the Nightmare and sometimes in the mirror. "Her Highness has said she's been expecting diplomatic overtures from other nations. Please, come with me."
The throne room was the most thoroughly refurbished part of the castle, which mostly meant all the rubble and rotting tapestries had been cleared out. Nightmare Moon herself had helped repair the roof, though there was no helping the shattered windows at this point. The new ruler of Equestria sat on her throne, flipping through a history book as Rarity approached with the heaviest steps she could make. The book tucked itself behind the throne. Mistress and servant shared a look that silently agreed it had never been in the room in the first place.
"Presenting Prince Bramble of Thicket!" Rarity cried, for lack of any other available heralds.
"Thicket? Well, it's about time; I've been expecting an emissary for nights. King Asphodel never would have tolerated this state of... affairs..." Nightmare Moon trailed off as she took in Bramble. "Is this some kind of joke?"
"No!" Bramble charged across the room and jabbed a hoof at her. "You're ruining the forest and we need you to stop!"
"I acknowledge that the Everfree and I are interacting in a... novel fashion." Nightmare's hint of a grin fell into a certainty of a frown. "But I meant sending a fawn to play diplomat. Does the Heart of the Forest respect me so little that he would mock me thus?"
"I came on my own!" Bramble cried. Rarity held back a wince.
"Oh. Really?" Nightmare Moon smirked. "Tell me, child, what does your father think about my reign?"
"He..." Bramble looked away. "Well, he thinks it's too late for him to do anything. He wants us to look after everything you won't, preserve the Everfree's beauty even if no one else will." His head whipped back, snarling. "But that's not good enough!"
The Nightmare nodded. "I am inclined to agree."
"What?" said Bramble.
"What?" added Rarity.
"To think that the deer have fallen so far in my absence." Nightmare's gaze turned to the moon. "I may have had it backwards all this time. My sister may not have made the world slide into complacency. The world may have softened her. " She tilted her head and hummed. "What a strange thought."
Bramble scowled. "Can't you go think it in Canterlot?"
The slit eyes turned back to him. "Impetuous little whelp, aren't you?" Yet the Nightmare grinned. "I respect that. But no, Prince Bramble. I will not hie off to my sister's mountain retreat. I have been there, and the place all but reeks of her. I will stay in my home, even if I must rebuild it from the foundations. And you, dear neighbor, will have to relearn how to coexist with ponies.
"Your father was correct in a few senses. There is nothing he can do to oust me from my rightful place, and his wisest course of action is to look after the blooms and beastlings that cannot withstand the long night. I intend to do the same, to shape my ponies into a state capable of appreciating all my majesty. And if your father has further issues with me, I suggest he send a more experienced envoy."
She pounded a soulsteel-clad hoof against the floor, tolling out a deep tone like some dread clock tower. "Now go, before someone here does something they will regret."
Bramble delivered one last glare, then turned tail and ran out of the throne room as fast as he could.
Rarity watched him go, then turned back to her sovereign. "I... suppose that could have gone worse?"
Thankfully, Nightmare Moon nodded. "Indeed. The deer might have wrangled the Everfree fauna and laid siege to us. Rainbow Dash is a quick study in the art of war, but she would be quickly overwhelmed. Even I might be forced to retreat against the forest's full wrath. But it seems modern deer are cowards. So much the better."
Neither noticed the sound of tiny, cloven hooves slinking away, every step muted by a convenient patch of moss.
"Papa!" Bramble cried the moment he was through the great gates of Thicket.
Blackthorn found him first. "Prince Bramble? Where have you been?"
"Never mind that, I need to see my father!" Bramble didn't even slow down. "I know how to stop Nightmare Moon!"
Blackthorn darted in front him, eyes wide. "My prince, your father is furious with you right now. And I cannot say I blame him."
"But she said it herself! We—"
"You went to see Nightmare Moon yourself!?" The words shook the palace as Aspen stomped into view.
Bramble's ears folded back. "Um, well..."
"Are you mad? Impossibly foolish? Or simply suicidal?"
"Papa, please, she—"
"Save your words," Aspen snarled. "Your folly may have cost the lives of every deer in Thicket! Our only hope is to avoid Nightmare Moon's notice, and yet you went prancing before her like one of her pony subjects."
"The castle's still wrecked!" Bramble cried. "We can—"
"Get out."
Bramble's jaw dropped. He looked to Blackthorn, who seemed just as shocked. Finally, he looked back at his father and said, "What?"
"In these dark times, we cannot afford the kind of carelessness you displayed." Aspen turned away from him. "You are banished from the halls of Thicket."
"King Aspen," said Blackthorn, "he is your son"
Aspen spared one last glance back. Bramble had never seen such hatred in those eyes before. "I have no son." And with that, he marched off.
"I..." Blackthorn's gaze darted between the two for a moment. "I will speak with the king, Bramble. I will try to make him see reason."
Bramble shook his head. "No. It's okay." He tried to smile. "We serve the will of the king, right?"
Blackthorn opened his mouth, but couldn't get a word out.
"Goodbye, Blackthorn."
Bramble walked off into the night. By the time Blackthorn got Aspen to listen, he was nowhere to be found.
"Now, let's see, where to prioritize next," Rarity muttered as she looked over a diagram of the castle preserved in its library. "The old vaults, perhaps? Maybe a bribe will be enough to get somepony who knows their way around a stonemason's... chisel? Let's go with chisel."
"Miss?"
Rarity leapt back, definitely not screeching like a banshee. She cleared her throat once she registered just who it was "Ah. Prince Bramble. What brings you here?"
Not that she couldn't guess. The fawn had tear tracks in the fur under his eyes and an air of misery that no amount of ice cream could assuage. "I... came here without my father knowing earlier. He wasn't happy. Now I have nowhere else to go."
"Oh. Oh, you poor d—er, thing." Rarity cleared her throat and hazarded a smile. "Well, I'm sure Her Highness won't mind putting up a foreign dignitary for a time."
He looked up at her with wide, sparkling eyes that could put Sweetie's best effort to shame. "Really?"
"Oh, she has a soft spot buried deep in there. You just have to know where to look."
Thicket had been a paradox of a city. Ten years after the last sunset, it is a hollowed, burnt-out ruin, the torch lit by its forsaken son.
The Heart of the Forest serves Nightmare Moon now, as do we all.
Ponies are not a very religiously inclined species. When mysteries of nature ranging from “Why do plants grow?” to “Why does rain fall?” to “Why does the sun rise?” can all be answered by “A herdmate did it,” a people will not be very inclined towards further mysticism. Even the question of what happened after death was largely dismissed, early pony cultures assuming there was some unknown fourth tribe that looked after the afterlife. This led to some misunderstandings during the first encounters with both alicorns and chiroptera, but never really developed beyond that. Especially not after ponies discovered the Elysian Fields and their caretaker, Princess Mi Finale Temperanza.
Other species weren’t as magically endowed with all the answers, and thus crafted far more elaborate belief systems. Minotaur had gone for ancestor worship, at least until one rite meant to keep ancestors in the temporal world ultimately led to the Folly of Edamto. Today, they subscribe to a more abstract philosophy of coming together to bring strength to the community. Unfortunately, they named this philosophy after muscle fascia, which will cause a lot of confusion when the human world opens diplomatic relations with them if not handled carefully.
Kirin and buffalo both revere the attendant spirits that watch over all things, from the smallest blade of grass to abstract concepts to the world itself. Changelings generally revere the queen, though Hive Thorax is experimenting with every theology they can get their hooves on “in case one works.” Griffins treat their pantheons like their systems of government, having adopted at least a dozen of each through the ages and abandoning them when they presented one too many disappointments.
And then there are the Diamond Dogs.
There are things in the deep places of the world, horrors that feed on exotic minerals and geothermal heat and wild magic. They understand the surface world as easily as its inhabitants understand their homes, and would react to it about as well as an exchange in the other direction. But in the depths, they are great and terrible.
The Diamond Dogs do not worship these entities, but they do encounter them on a dreadfully regular basis. Given that, it should come as no surprise that the Dogs devised something to pray to and/or blame when encountering one early in their cultural development.
Most Diamond Dogs who live near the surface honor the names of the Firstpack. According to their worshipers, that group of hero-gods dug the first hole and discovered the True Gem, a find so great that they immediately argued over who should get the largest share and shattered it into all the jewels buried in the earth today. These Whelps of the Firstpack dig to reform that first, perfect crystal. The wise do not ask what they’ll do with it afterwards.
Other, deeper warrens honor Crunch, the Rockdog. Some syncretists call him the Alpha of the Firstpack, but this is a fairly recent development, a movement barely two centuries old. Rockpups have revered Crunch for far longer than that, sharing stories of the first hard thing in a soft existence, the inventor of the sharp edge, the creator of every stone and mineral. His heart lies lost in the northern wastes, where he abandoned it. Now it is said he lies trapped in his own work, and the Rockpups dig in the hopes freeing their god from his self-made prison.
And then there are the Smelters.
Consider a shrine to Crunch. It is very deep underground indeed, for no proper place of worship for a creature who petrified everything he touched can be kept close to the soft things that live on the surface. At best, it will calcify the surface above, inviting irate outsiders to express their displeasure. At worst, Crunch Himself may express His disgust at his supplicants' lack of proper piety.
Those unfamiliar with Crunch worship might be surprised by the spartan conditions of the cavern. Covering every object in as many gems as it can support is for Firstwhelps. The Rockpups show their piety the same way they do most things: They dig. Even a minor shrine to Crunch would be a cathedral to most other gods, and the greatest of his holy sites can form their own weather systems. (The irony of clouds forming in a temple of the Rockdog is sadly lost on those who tend to such places.) Finding somewhere to put the excavated earth is considered another form of showing one's devotion.
Front and center, there is of course a statue of Crunch Himself, life-size at least. (And given how the fables of him have tectonically shifted, slowly but inexorably, since the Discordant Era, no one's quite sure how big that was.) Rough-hewn stone perfectly captures his craggy contours, fangs like stalagmites, and pitiless gimlet eyes. A proper effigy of Crunch should appear to stalk towards the viewer, even when seen from behind. One should never feel safe when in the same room as one, for Crunch is not a gentle and merciful deity. It should always feel like the most dangerous object in the room.
This particular effigy of the Rockdog has some stark competition, for the shrine is full of lava.
Where the Firstwhelps revere the greatest of their kind and the Rockpups bow to the essence of stone, the Smelters go even deeper. They are Dogs who have never seen the surface, who consider plants a strange legend and the sun a laughable one. They know fire's place, and it is not above, but below.
As the deepest dwelling Diamond Dogs, the Smelters encounter squirming, burbling horrors most often, and in the entities' natural habitat. In the early days, they called out to something, anything that could wipe away the abominations, heedless of the cost.
And something answered.
All things have a spirit, the world included. Even that which no creature knows about has a supernatural representative to speak for it. Beneath the thin skin of the world dwells a powerful spirit indeed, and it heard the cries of the solid fleshlings above. And it answered.
The Smelters revere Lavan, the All-Smelter, the soul of magma. And they show their devotion by doing what they can to return the world to the state he remembers, when he could look up and see the stars streaking down to meet him. More than anything, Lavan is lonely, and his pets are the only things that give him the attention he craves in this modern era. In return, he offers them the power to defend themselves.
Some of them apply that defense proactively, especially against other faiths.
And so, returning to the shrine to Crunch, we see that the molten stone has not been applied haphazardly. Sigils pleasing to Lavan have been inscribed in the floor and walls with unthinkable heat, painting the entire chamber crimson. The great chamber has become an oven, with massive boulders sealing the exits and at least somewhat preserving the surrounding tunnels.
Yet Crunch still stands. Even as the edicts carved into the very walls droop, even as the cavern's ceiling drips down on his broad back, the symbol of the Rockdog refuses even the softness offered to stone.
So the Smelters have claimed the shrine in a different way. In a crater at Crunch's paws lies a glowing stone half as large as the behemoth statue. Carved with the same symbols adorning the room, it perpetually exists just shy of the melting point, ripples playing across its surface in the chamber's superheated air. It looks for all the world like Crunch unearthed an immense ruby, a sneering parody of both other canine faiths at once.
For Lavan, say the Smelters, is the greatest treasure any dog could ever hope to unearth.
"So, yeah," said Sunset, closing the book she'd borrowed from Princess Twilight's library. "Seems that's what religions on my side of the mirror are like."
Twilight stared off into the distance, ponytail frazzled and glasses askew. "I... see." She was glad she was already lying on her bed. She wasn't sure if she could've stood through the whole synopsis. "Certainly an... evocative take on interfaith dialogue."
Sunset nodded. "So, what's it like over here, anyway?"
"Well, uh..." Twilight bit her lip. Fair was fair, and they had agreed to discuss the matter. "Worshipers definitely get less feedback here."
Sunset sat at the foot of the bad, fingers folded under her chin. "Go on..."
"I'd kind of like to hear more about Crunch," Spike said from his doggy bed.
"In a bit, Spike." Sunset turned back to Twilight, utterly rapt. "Come on, I want to know who to blame for half of what I've been through in this world."
"Well, there's, um, a lot of..." Twilight squirmed as her courage failed her. "Couldn't we just make out instead?"
They did, after chasing Spike out and getting him to promise not to say anything to Twilight Velvet. (He did. She took notes for her next cheesy romance novel about a naive young wizard and the demon she accidentally summoned.) But that night, Twilight still dreamed of howls in the deep, and the things that answered them.
Sunset Shimmer walked through the San Tornado police station, and the police reacted like Justice herself had entered the building. In other words, a lot of respect, a lot of deference, and a few guilty consciences. All to be expected from the unexpected appearance of the famous, world-reshaping Spirit of Harmony.
She put it out of mind; she had other things to worry about. “Thanks for letting me do this,” she said to Chief Citation.
The burly, blue earth aspect wrinkled his nose, making his walrus mustache quiver. “All due respect, Miss Shimmer, thank you for not just pulling your friend out of the station.”
Sunset shrugged. “Hey, part of not being a god means operating within the law. And if I can help a friend in the process, so much the better.”
“This does seem to be a case of wrong place, wrong time, but given what happened…" Citation shook his head. "Well, we can’t justify letting her off with a warning without getting her side. We're just a peaceful little beach town; we don't deal with this kind of thing like you do over in Canterlot.”
Give it time, Sunset thought. Out loud, she said, “I’ll do what I can.”
"All I can ask of anyone." Citation opened the door to the interrogation room.
It was everything procedural dramas had taught Sunset to expect: Two folding chairs, a table, a big pane of one-way glass, and barely enough room to hold them all.
And, of course, the perpetrator, who glared at both of the intruders. She still wore the bikini and sarong she'd had on the beach. An ugly assembly of black metal wrapped around her head like a pig iron bandana, completely enclosing her unicorn aspect headgem, but it did nothing to dampen the fury in her eyes. “Trixie won’t say anything without a lawyer.”
Citation sighed as he shut the door behind Sunset. "Good luck."
Sunset sat opposite Trixie and offered the most sympathetic look she could. “Right now, I effectively am your lawyer.”
All it got her was a raised eyebrow. “You may be a lot of things, Shimmer, but Trixie knows you haven’t passed the bar.”
“Actually, there’s an old Equestrian bylaw that says that all alicorns may act as barristers in times of need.”
Trixie rolled her eyes. “In case you hadn’t noticed, this isn’t Magic Horse World.”
“No, it isn’t." Sunset narrowed her eyes. "But I think we’d both like this to end in a way that doesn’t involve you in juvenile hall.”
Trixie looked away and crossed her arms.
Sunset sighed. “Look, the cops are willing to let you go if you just explain what happened. Magical accidents are happening all over the world as people figure it out. I’ve made my share as much as anyone.”
After a few moments, Trixie glanced at Sunset and said, “Will it get this stupid thing off my head?" She brought a hand to the restraint. "I’m getting a sinus headache from all the magic that can’t get out.”
“Of course. Just tell me what happened.”
Trixie gritted her teeth before groaning and splaying out in her seat like an angry starfish. “Fine. It started at that food truck festival last week…”
Fuchsia Blush took a long, skeptical look at what Lavender Lace had insisted she try. Finally, she took a bite, chewed thoughtfully, and pronounced her verdict: “So… it’s corn. With mayo.”
Lavender nodded, using her telekinesis to keep her own ear of street corn from dripping onto the Canterlot Mall parking lot or her long, blonde hair. “And sour cream, lime juice, chili powder…”
“Right, right, but still: Grilled corn with mayo." Fuchsia took another bite. Then another. Eventually, she came up for air long enough to say, "Why is it so good?”
“Sour cream, lime juice, chili powder…”
“Okay, you made your point." Something registered through Fuchsia's thoughts of getting another ear. "Trixie?" The third member of their little group had sat on the pavement leading into the mall minutes ago and hadn't moved since, a hand on her chin. "You haven’t mentioned peanut butter crackers once. You okay?”
“Yeah, fine…”
Fuchsia took a deep breath. There were many kinds of Trixie whine, and she had experience with most if not all of them. This one was the “woe is Trixie” tone Trixie broke out when she wanted someone else to pull the sob story out of her bit by bit. “All right, what is it?”
“It’s just…" Trixie waved her fingers. A riot of colorful sparks erupted from them, with barely a flash from her headgem. "The illusory fireworks are great and all, but Trixie worked hard to learn how to make smoke bombs, and now that she’s gotten the hang of this spell, it feels like she wasted her time.”
Fuchsia sighed as she sat next to Trixie. “Do you intentionally avoid Sunset Shimmer’s vlog, or is it just an incidental thing?”
Trixie looked over at her, wrinkling her brow. “What do you mean?”
“She just did a special on alchemy,” said Lavender, who sat on Trixie's other side.
She looked from one to the other before crossing her arms and scowling. “If this is an elaborate way of telling Trixie to go drink bleach, it isn’t helping.”
“No, Equestrian alchemy," said Lavender. "The real thing!"
"Not the 'make infinite gold and live forever' real thing," added Fuchsia, "more like an 'applied chemistry with extra magic' real thing.”
It was enough to make Trixie sit up and smile. “That still means Trixie could make smoke bombs just as stupendous as her spells!”
Fuchsia nodded. “Exactly. Just, you know, be careful.”
Trixie snorted. “Trixie has inhaled enough smoke to know when to work with a fume hood.”
“Also actually watch the video and don’t just fire magic at a smoke bomb and assume you’ve enchanted it.”
“You wound Trixie.”
Sunset smirked. “You just fired magic at a smoke bomb, didn’t you?”
“Trixie is under no obligation to answer that question.”
After the first attempt to enchant a smoke bomb went suboptimally, Trixie actually watched Sunset’s latest EweTube video. Apparently alchemy required magically active or reactive ingredients to work. Some didn’t even exist on Earth.
“Now you may be wondering," Sunset said in the video, “‘Sunset, why don’t we just crank out a cure for the common cold, or cancer, or Paddockson’s Disease?”
“For one,” Twilight Sparkle said from next to her, “rhinoviruses mutate so much, so quickly that we’d have to concoct new cures every year, much like altering the vaccine cocktails. For another, ‘cancer’ isn’t a disease; it’s a category of disease. ‘Curing cancer’ makes about as much sense as ‘curing bacteria.’ Though research is ongoing for specific cancers, Paddockson’s, and other persistent menaces to humanity.”
“But don’t expect them tomorrow," said Sunset. "The usual disclaimer applies, folks: Human magic changes everything." As she said the words, they appeared on the bottom of the screen, possibly a running gag for the series. "Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. And mass production is a whole other issue; even Equestria favors more mundane chemistry on larger scales, because the alchemist needs to infuse a part of their magic into their creations. Each. And every. One. It might be possible to scale up alchemy with thaumic capacitors, but we're figuring that one out on both sides of the portal.
"Getting back to what human magic changes, I tried some basic alchemical formulas before making this episode of Magical Mayhem, and the end results ranged from ‘You need to add more oregano’ to ‘This is physically impossible to create.’ I’ve included some adjusted introductory extracts to help you get started, but please leave the experimentation to the professionals." Sunset shuddered. "This stuff can poison you in ways you haven’t even heard of.”
Sunset did not facepalm. She did not slam her head into the table. Both of these statements were only true because her nature made her preternaturally calm. “And so you started experimenting.”
Trixie tossed her hair. The restraint lessened the effect. “Trixie has plenty of experience under her belt. Besides, you were clearly referring to ingested alchemy. It’s not like Trixie was going to eat her smoke bombs.”
Preternatural calm didn't remove Sunset's need to massage her temples. Technically, she was a magical projection of a much greater being and thus couldn't get headaches. But she could and very often did get the idea of headaches. “Putting that aside for now, what reagents did you even use?”
Trixie puffed out her chest and put her hands on her hips. “Trixie needed but one ingredient, and that was Trixie herself!”
She held the pose for a good five seconds as Sunset processed that. “Um, no, no you didn’t. I explained that in the video. In alchemy, your magic needs something to react with in order to produce something useful. That external focus is why any magical being can do it."
"Ah," said Trixie, "but you also said the alchemist has to put a bit of themselves into all of their creations."
Sunset gave a slow nod. "Yeees, a bit of their magic. Otherwise, it's chemistry, not alchemy."
"Well, the Great and Powerful Trixie found a way to infuse her essence into her creations through multiple means!"
Horrible possibilities flashed through Sunset's mind. "You didn't add your blood to the smoke bombs, did you?"
Trixie flinched back. "What? No!"
"Good, because hemomancy is a very dangerous road to travel."
"Trixie used her morning sparkles."
The clarity had been nice while it lasted. "Your what?" said Sunset.
"You know, when you wake up and you have this weird blue glitter around your mouth?" Trixie met Sunset's confused look with one of her own. "It's happened to Trixie ever since you warped reality."
A creeping suspicion came to mind. "Hold on." Sunset turned away from Trixie, put a little spit on the back of her hand, then heated the skin until it evaporated. It left behind a powdery, crystalline residue like dried honey. "Well. That's new." She looked back at Trixie. "Do you drool in your sleep?"
Trixie scoffed and turned away. "Trixie fails to see what these aspersions on her character have to do with getting her out of this police station."
"Never mind. Okay, so you used your 'morning sparkles' as an alchemical reagent. Then what?"
"Then, obviously, the smoke bomb went off without a hitch, everything was perfect, and Trixie was wrongfully arrested by a bunch of uniformed Neighanderthals."
Sunset crossed her arms. "I was at the beach, Trixie. I saw what happened. Did you ever actually test the things?"
"Of course Trixie tested them!"
Sunset just gave her a flat look and waited.
"She did!" said Trixie. "She went through dozens of tests! Sometimes the explosion was way too big, or too loud, or too smoky. Sometimes it was a dud."
It was powered by essence of Trixie. Are you really surprised? Kindness held Sunset's tongue.
"And, well, Trixie averaged out all the different mixes and..." Trixie shrugged. "That one seemed fine."
"How did it perform when you tested it?" said Sunset.
An uncomfortable silence stretched out for the better part of a minute. Finally, Trixie sighed and said, "Okay, Trixie..." She winced. "I'm going to level with you here. I didn't test the last batch. It hurts to see myself fail again and again and again and not know what I'm doing wrong. So I just hoped this one would be good enough. And then..."
Trixie strode towards the beach, putting on the best show of confidence she could. While it was best that the performer truly believe her own hype—she was sure that was what her father had told her—faking it until making it worked too. And once the new smoke bomb worked perfectly, which it would, she'd have made it on a whole other level.
She pulled it out of her purse, considered the red stripe of nail polish she'd used to mark it as the special one, and hurled it at her feet.
A tremendous burst of smoke, larger than any of her tests, erupted from the impact site. Crackling, sparkling, coruscating between blue and red, it spread out in all directions heedless of the wind. Screams and shouts echoed from within, followed by the thump of many feet smacking sand.
When the cloud cleared, Trixie was alone in a sea of overturned beach umbrellas and abandoned coolers. She knew it couldn't possibly get any worse than this.
"STPD! Stand down!"
Then it got worse.
"Did anyone get hurt?" said Trixie, staring at the table. "No one's told me anything."
You've refused to talk to anyone. "No harm done," Sunset said aloud. "People panicked, yes, but the effects wore off pretty quickly. After that they were afraid because they'd been afraid without knowing why. It took a while to calm them down—"
Trixie's head fell until the restraint hit the table with a dull thunk. "Long enough for Trixie to get arrested."
"But everyone who was affected is fine."
"Okay. Good." Trixie took a deep breath and let it out in a long groan. "Trixie just wishes she knew what went wrong."
Sunset hummed in thought. "Well, there's a hypothesis in unicorn academic circles in Equestria. We know certain emotions are needed to harness dark magic, but it's possible that any emotion someone feels can alter their spells. You may have infused your own nervousness into that last batch, especially when using a bit of yourself as a reagent." She attempted a smile. "So, you know, congrats on confirming the resonance hypothesis?"
Trixie glared at Sunset as she straightened up. "If Trixie were doing this for the science, she'd do her hair up in a ponytail and try to seduce you away from Sparkle."
"I thought you liked guys."
"Trixie's flexible when it comes to gods."
Sunset rolled her eyes. "I'm not even going to humor that."
"So, what now?" said Trixie. She leaned back in her chair, but the tension in her face and focused stare still spoke of her nerves.
Sunset stood. "Now we get you out of here and I learn to be more careful when suggesting hobbies for my viewers."
Trixie smirked. "So you admit this is your fault."
"Trixie, even my patience has limits."
"Fine, fine. Thank you." Trixie rose and stretched towards the ceiling. "Let's blow this epsicle stand."
"Phrasing."
"Trixie's just happy that this is over with."
They managed to get out of the police station without further incident. Then Sunset removed the silence spell on Trixie.
"Thirty hours of community service!? Trixie's very existence is a service to the community!"
"You can't deny that you disturbed the peace," said Sunset.
Trixie glared. "Oh, Trixie will show them disturbing the peace!"
At that point, Sunset just teleported both of them to their respective homes.
The first sign was every sheep in every pasture in Equestria turning to face the same direction, lying down, and refusing to move for several hours. Fact-finding missions afterwards found that every sheep was facing the same point somewhere in the ruins of Hollow Shades. When asked why they did, almost all of the sheep refused to answer. All save for one black-fleeced ram, who said only two words:
“He comes.”
The second sign was the birth of a two-headed calf to Audumla of Ponyville. The calf lived for less than an hour, and both heads spoke continuously and monotonously in a full-grown bull’s deep voice for as long as they were able. Starlight Glimmer and Vinyl Scratch isolated the two speeches through a combination of retrocognition and audio editing, finding them to be a string of horrific yet contradictory prophecies.
After completing the project, Vinyl, whose sense of perfect pitch had withstood hundreds of hours next to booming speakers, checked herself into Ponyville General with tinnitus and bleeding ears.
The third sign was multiple, massive murders of storm crows. The living scraps of black cloud gathered in unprecedented numbers over cities around the world, leaving them in a state of perpetual dusk. The crows refused to disperse even under threat of lethal force. The normally docile creatures even lashed out at ecosystem managers with beaks and lightning.
Fluttershy, who led the Ponyville effort, couldn’t understand a word the crows were saying.
The fourth sign was a sort of mineral tumor found in the gem gardens of the Crystal Palace. Unlike Sombra’s signature jagged growths, the object was a dull, gray lump that folded in on itself, following no known crystal structure. It might have seemed like a common stone if it hadn’t sent out tendrils into the rest of the garden, forcing Mistmane to uproot an entire stand of crystalanthemums.
Dragonlord Ember, visiting the Empire for a potential trade deal, found the growth reeked of rot and filth to her nose.
The fifth sign was the simultaneous eruption of every volcano in the Dragonlands, creating the region’s first known flood. The ponies working on an embassy had to evacuate, thankfully without injury. The dragons themselves enjoyed the unusual event until one realized that their hoards might not have as much fun when inundated in liquid rock.
The draconic economy was nearly ruined, saved only by the fact that it didn’t exist.
The final sign came at the Well of Shade, and only moments before what it foretold. A pyroclastic flow bubbled out of the dread pit, flooding out into the ruined square and hissing with noxious fumes. A bubble welled up in the center of the lake of boiling ash, growing until it was the size of a yak before bursting.
And the demon spread his wings.
He was an immense and muscular figure, bipedal, though with arms that stretched past his knees. His batlike wings stretched in the night air, flapping a few times as they shook off the last bits of pitch. Four horns gleamed in the starlight, and four eyes glowed red as he took in his surroundings. He grinned, revealing a set of teeth somewhere between a shark and a paper shredder.
He walked across the still smoldering material, savoring the taste of innocence and hope in the air. The sweetness was almost intoxicating. It would be a joy to destroy it.
Then he walked facefirst into an invisible barrier that flashed brilliant white as he touched it.
The demon flinched back. “What?”
The answer echoed across the square: “With power, I bind your body.”
The demon’s eyes widened as he spotted the circle of runes inscribed around the Well of Shade, beyond which the ash had not spread, even bunching up against it. “No…” He turned back towards the steaming mound that was all that remained of the Well and spread his wings. Light streamed from the barrier, wrapped those wings tight against his body, and coalesced into shining chains. “No!”
“With silver, I bind your magic,” the unseen voice continued.
The demon dashed to the Well and started burrowing through the hardening ash with desperate swipes of his claws. “No, no, no, no, no!”
“With your true name, o Zargothrax, Supreme Spinebreaker of the 723rd layer of the Abyss, I bind your soul. Thrice bound are you, and so I command you. Now face me.”
Zargothrax’s claws went still. Jerkily, resisting every compelled motion with all his strength, he obeyed.
He beheld a purple horse, and she that sat on her was…
Actually, the only thing sitting on her was a golden crown. Though the horse herself had neither the triumphant smirk of a typical demonologist nor the unyielding hatred of a paladin. She had spoken the bindings with conviction, but she looked more annoyed than anything. The five others coming out from behind one of the ancient shacks had expressions ranging from fear to outright amusement.
Zargothrax’s mind raced. “You did not summon me! The bindings do not apply!”
“You came willingly and unbidden,” countered the purple horse. “This is when the bindings are at their strongest.”
“An’ how d’ you know that, exactly?” said the orange horse, raising an eyebrow.
The pink horse (or, at least, horse-shaped entity) shushed her. “Don’t ruin the moment, AJ!”
Zargothrax thought for another few desperate moments before slumping in defeat. “How? How could you have possibly been this prepared?”
The horses shared confused looks. “He’s joking," said the white horse. "You’re joking, yes?”
“Your approach has been putting out signs and portents for weeks," added the purple horse. "Did you really think we wouldn’t notice?”
Zargothrax clenched his jaw, but the bindings forced him to answer honestly. “My evil has preceded me in the ruination of hundreds of worlds. None were prepared.”
The purple horse shrugged her wings. “Well, this is Equestria, sir. We take our portents seriously here. Especially when those of us in charge have already had our fill of vague warnings and saving the day at the last second.”
"You only have so many last seconds," noted the pink entity, who looked over Zargothrax like she was contemplating the taste of his soul, and what side dishes would best compliment it.
At least, that was what a smile that wide usually meant in the Abyss.
“Release me," he said, "and I will never trouble your realm again. I swear on my name.”
But the purple horse shook her head. “I’d just be inflicting you on some other universe. I’m not going to Star Swirl this one.”
“So does that mean we’re not going for Tartarus?" said the blue horse. "‘Cause he put Tirek there. Then Tirek broke out. And we’ve broken out. And I’m pretty sure a few things broke out while Rarity was giving Cerberus obedience training.”
The white horse turned up her muzzle. “I’ll have you know I was very careful.”
“Point is, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
The purple horse nodded. “I know. And I never planned on sending Zargothrax there. That’s just burying the problem.”
She turned to him. Devoid of context, her grin seemed much sweeter than the pink one's, the innocent smile of a child seeing their first rainbow. But Zargothrax could feel the malice behind it, impossibly alloyed with purest hope.
“I intend to solve it.”
Even for the endless horrors of the Abyss, the Acid Pits of the 775th layer were far from a tourist destination. A morass of corrosive mud, foul vapors, and grapefruit-sized fiendish mosquitoes, it was best known for the green pools ranging from puddles to vast lakes. The acid of the Pits was no specific chemical but the very idea of caustic dissolution given form.
The ruler of the layer, Xranglepurt the Bone-Drinker, laired in a citadel made from equal parts rusted iron and repurposed mortal flesh. The main entrance was guarded by scarred and twisted horrors eager to feast on whatever crossed their path.
Still, they were not demon lords. The approach of one made them scramble for their lives, even if the aura of darkness and chaos felt oddly muddled.
A clawed fist beat on the chitinous gates of the Forsaken Flesh-Forge. Xranglepurt did not open them, instead poking an eyestalk out from a crack made for that very purpose. “What?”
Zargothrax ground his fangs, feeling every silver link of his obligations pressing down on him. After a deep breath, he droned out, “Hello, sir, madam, or esteemed nonbinary individual. Have you heard the good news about Harmony?”
Officially, it was a state visit by the leader of an allied nation.
Emotionally, Thorax had a friend visiting, and was tripping over himself with happiness, gratitude, and more than a little nervousness. “Thank you again for coming to visit.”
Ember shrugged, though she did smile as well. “It’s not like many other dragons work as diplomats. There’s Spike, but Twilight’s called dibs there. Everyone else is still working through the whole ‘You can’t just threaten to crush and burn everything they hold dear’ thing." She jabbed him with an elbow. "Plus, you know, we’re friends and I’d like to see how you’re doing on asserting yourself.”
Thorax smiled through the pain. Nothing he wasn't used to. “So what do you think of the place so far?”
“I just got here." Ember considered the recovering wasteland around them. "Also, are all the little colorful things supposed to be here?”
It took Thorax a moment to figure out what she meant. “Those are flowers, and, uh, yes.”
Ember stopped and took in a bush growing next to the path. “Huh. I saw them in Ponyville too. What do they do, exactly?”
“Um..." Thorax's wings fidgeted. He hadn't anticipated justifying the existence of flowers. "They smell nice, they look nice, they taste nice—”
“And they’re colorful." Ember plucked one of the blossoms and spun it in her claws. "So they’re basically gems for ponies? And changelings, I guess?”
“Well, they grow much faster than gems.” Pinkie had explained rock farming to Thorax once. He still wasn't sure if he hadn't understood the process in and of itself or just because it had been Pinkie Pie explaining it.
Ember raised an eyeridge. “I see.” She popped the flower into her mouth, chewed once, and screwed up her face. After spitting and scraping her tongue, she said, “Yeah, I don’t see the appeal.”
Thorax smiled as they started walking again. At least he'd been prepared for this. “Don’t worry, we made sure to have some crystals ready at the hive.”
“That’s good. Can I eat the walls?”
That feeling of preparation had been very nice while it lasted. “I’d… really rather you didn’t?”
“Fewmets," said Ember, snorting out a puff of smoke. "After Twilight’s castle, I was hoping everyone did that.”
“I... don’t think Twilight wanted you to—“
A flash of light cut Thorax off, making both turn. To his polarized eyes, it was a riotous rainbow emanating from a five-pronged fork shape.
And then it collapsed into something truly bizarre.
Twilight Sparkle sighed and slumped despite being surrounded by books.
Spike put a hand on her foreleg. “What’s wrong, Twilight? You’re usually so excited on re-sorting day.”
“That’s just it, Spike." She spread her forelegs to take in Namepending Castle's secondary library. (Fiction, RPG sourcebooks, and unsubstantiated myths.) "This could be the last time I ever get to re-sort these books. My accession is in just three weeks. There’s no way ruling over all of Equestria will leave me enough time to play librarian. And even if it did…" She turned to the floor, tears in her eyes. "It took me a while to get used to this castle, but now? I’m losing another home.”
“Well... at least we know it’s coming this time." Spike offered a nervous grin when Twilight glared at that. "And hey, we can always visit Ponyville! Heck, who says we even have to move? If you’re becoming princess, why not just say you’ll rule from here?”
A hundred different reasons came to mind, all things Twilight had discovered when answering that very question. She shook her head. “It’s a nice thought, Spike, but it’s a lot more complicated than that.”
“Yeah? Well I say—" His mouth snapped shut and his cheeks and eyes both bulged out. "Hrrk…“
“Spike?” Twilight froze, split between moving in to comfort her little brother and getting out of the blast radius.
Thankfully, he knew to point his mouth at the ceiling before releasing a burst of mixed green and magenta flames as tall as Celestia. Smoke filled most of the room for a moment before coalescing into a scrap of paper. Spike pounded his chest and belched. “Ugh. Ember’s still putting way too much power into her messages.”
Twilight patted him on the back as she caught the drifting scrap in her magic. “Well, let’s see what she wants:
“‘Dear Spike and Twilight,
‘Some weird dragon appeared outside of Thorax’s hive and said something about “hue-mons.” Thorax wants me to let you know before I beat it up.
‘Ember’”
Twilight blinked and reread the message. “Okay, I have several questions. Firstly, why would Thorax reach out to us when he heard about humans?”
“Hey, when you have a changeling friend, the time you changed species is going to come up." Spike held up a hand. "And this was back when he was a refugee in the Crystal Empire.”
“Fair enough, I suppose. But then how does this mystery dragon know about them?”
Spike shrugged. “Don’t look at me. It’s not like I mentioned them at Garble’s beat poetry session at the hatching grounds.”
Twilight once again tried and failed to imagine a dragon playing the bongos. “We may need to investigate. This raises too many questions. Some creature could be in grave danger.”
“Ember can handle one weird dragon.”
“Almost certainly, yes. The question is whether she needs to handle it, or if we can resolve this peacefully." Twilight ruffled her wings uneasily. "And no offense to Thorax, but I don’t think he can hold Ember back if she really wants to escalate things.”
"Hey, he could…" Spike trailed off and brought a claw to his lips. "No, that’s fair. But what are we supposed to do about it? Hive Thorax isn’t exactly in your teleport range.”
Twilight grinned. “You remember that position I offered you?”
Spike crossed his arms. “I’m still not convinced that ‘arch-ambassador’ is a thing.”
“I won’t be able to move the capital of Equestria, but I’ll definitely be able to define the duties of the head of my diplomatic corps. I can get us there, but I’ll exhaust myself in the process. Think you can take it from there, Number-One Assistant?”
She could all but see the flattery melt Spike's skepticism. He stood to attention and saluted. “I’m on it.”
“Great." Twilight wrapped Spike in a wing and prepared the relevant spell. "Hold on tight.”
Going from Ponyville to changeling territory in one jump was too much for Twilight, but a chain of shorter teleports used exponentially less magic. Theoretically, jumps of less than a ponylength performed multiple times a second would make the trip viable even for a foal barely able to make sparks, but the arcane dexterity needed for such a feat was well beyond equine capabilities. Instead, Twilight made about twenty great leaps across the land. Doable for a young alicorn, but not without cost.
“Last stop!" she said as they materialized outside of the hive. "Perfume and hamdingers!” She stumbled for a few steps, horn sparking, before falling on her side and giggling at the pretty colors.
“Oh boy," said Spike. He'd be worried, but changelings were already cantering towards them with water and a wet towel. That just left the mission, and there was no Dragonlord to be seen. "Hey, Ember!”
Her response came from above. “I’m busy!”
Spike looked up and immediately felt a bit foolish. Yes, the sun was in the wrong position to spot the shadows, but there was still a gigantic dragon up there, easily the size of Torch.
However, it wasn't like any dragon he'd seen before. That wasn't saying much given the sheer variety of dragons, but Spike had never seen one with feathers. It was mostly white, with a red stripe going down its belly and feather tips to match. Its head resembled a lizard's save for the backwards-pointing horns. It was thinner than any dragon of that size Spike had seen, and its tail was nearly as long as the rest of it.
Two smaller shapes buzzed around it. Ember and Thorax, most likely. It opened its mouth and a cone of white snow and frost came out instead of flame.
Spike's jaw dropped. "What the..."
"I know. Sloppy is what it is."
Spike turned to look at the other commentator. "Pharynx?"
"Spike." The changeling general gave an "I acknowledge you as someone who gave my brother what little spine he has" nod.
Changelings were very good at expressive body language.
"Shouldn't you be, you know, up there?" Spike pointed at the huge dragon. "Defending the hive?"
"Nah, they shouldn't hurt him too badly."
"Huh?"
A roar from the immense dragon brought Spike's attention back to the fight. It unleashed another bevy of ice breath, but the smaller figure in its path glowed blue and seemed to dance in midair. The projected blizzard wrapped around it in an elegant curve and smacked the larger dragon in the face, sending it plowing into the ground.
The two small figures landed in front of Spike. His first thought once he got a good look at both was I didn't know Ember had a sister.
There was definitely a resemblance in physique and the confident way each held herself. But they seemed siblings in the same way as Celestia and Luna, equals and opposites. Scales to feathers, ramlike horns to ibex, smoke pluming out of one laughing face to mist coming out of the other.
Spike blinked, then looked from the behemoth to the stranger. "Hang on..."
Pharynx buzzed over to the larger dragon and kicked it in the shoulder. "Get up, you wuss. You're making us look bad in front of the outsiders."
Familiar, heatless flame washed over it. Thorax stood back up and brushed the sleet off his muzzle. "That was certainly something."
"No kidding." Ember turned to Spike, and her grin widened further. "Spike, you came! This is Narset. She's cool."
That made Narset giggle again, more mist pluming from her nostrils. "I certainly am now."
"She's from outside the universe or something?" Ember shrugged. "I don't know, we were talking while we were sparring and I wasn't paying much attention."
"I admit, I was more focused on the novelty of being a dragon myself." Narset looked over her own arms. Only then did Spike notice the secondary wings coming out of her wrists. "Especially one so small. What kind of dragon tempests do you have here?"
"Um..." Ember looked to Spike. He shook his head; he didn't understand the term any more than she did. "We don't?"
"Fascinating."
“Wait, you mean the strange entity was a human?" Twilight scrambled to her hooves and approached Narset with an almost worrying grin. "A human that turned into a dragon rather than a pony? I have so. Many. Questions.”
Narset drew back, mostly with her neck. “I... am happy to answer what I can, if you return the favor.”
“Absolutely! We can talk in my library.”
"Are you sure, Twilight?" said Spike.
"Earth pony magic. The hive's right on top of a leyline, just like Sugarcube Corner." Twilight rolled her eyes as Spike's worried look didn't shift. "I'm fine." She turned back to her newest friend. "So, what do you say?"
Narset’s eyes sparkled with draconic avarice as familiar as the rest of her was strange. “A library? I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship indeed.”
A season of new beginnings approached, which meant the current season was one of endings. This might not be the last time Twilight and Celestia took tea in the Canterlot palace gardens, but it might well be the last time Celestia could act as hostess. Even if they met next week, it wouldn't quite be the same.
Celestia had insisted on framing it as between equals as much as possible, doffing her tiara and regalia, even going bare-hooved. Thus Twilight realized that Equestria did have a nudity taboo, but it only applied to reigning alicorns.
She savored a sip of the oolong blend Celestia had prepared as she screwed up her courage. After swallowing, she said, “Celestia? May I ask you a personal question?”
And without the slightest crack in her composure, Celestia answered, “I’m afraid the rumors of the solar seraglio are greatly exaggerated.”
“Princess!” Twilight's wings spread in shock. Her teacup, released from her magic, clattered to the table.
“Terribly sorry, Twilight," Celestia said with a not at all apologetic smile, "but you actually used my name without a title! I thought I could let down my hair a little." She ran a hoof through the undulating pastel energy. "In a manner of speaking.”
Twilight just glowered at her.
“But yes, you may ask me anything. Though I may refuse to answer.”
“Understandable," Twilight said after a deep breath. "Sunset Shimmer and my human counterpart have been analyzing religious beliefs in both worlds and it got me wondering… What do you believe in?”
Celestia's eyebrows rose as she set down her own teacup. “Ah. That is a simple question with a rather complex answer. Did you know that I’ve been revered as a goddess myself?”
“It’s hardly surprising," said Twilight, trying not to think of her sun-praising phase. "You do raise the sun every day.”
“Not for much longer," Celestia said with the proud smile Twilight had sought for much of her life. "And that doesn’t make me divine. I’m not a goddess, or a spirit, or anything another than a very large pony who happens to have a very powerful and unique special talent. I may be immortal, but I am still equine. Flawed. Capable of making mistakes.” The absent gold emphasized the point. Celestia's majestic size looked almost absurd without her usual accessories.
The thought twisted in Twilight's gut. “I really don’t want to agree with that.”
“You know it better than most, given how you’ve dealt with many of my old mistakes coming back to haunt me." Celestia sighed, her ears folding back. "Having to banish Luna to the moon forced me to face my own fallibility. I'd practically thought I was the sun itself before then. I haven’t let myself forget my place since."
She snorted. “Not that that’s stopped other creatures. They see the power to raise the sun and draw their own conclusions. I’ve had to quash no fewer than four churches of sun worshipers over the past millennium, and that was just ponies. And phrases like ‘Celestia knows’ or ‘Celestia as my witness’ still slip through the cracks." Celestia looked out across the garden to some unseen, idiom-spouting crowd. "I don’t. I’m not. Please stop.”
“Hold on," said Twilight. "Even non-ponies have worshiped you?”
“Goodness, yes." Celestia gave a lopsided grin. "I think may still hold the record for the griffins’ longest revered object of worship. And that was after I unambiguously told King Gareth that I had no power to hear or answer prayers."
Twilight gave her a flat look for several silent seconds.
Finally, Celestia said, "What?”
"I say this with all due respect, but…" Twilight took another sip of her tea for courage. "When you say ‘unambiguously,’ do you mean you told him the words ‘I can’t hear your prayers,’ or did you offer some vague parable about… I don’t know, ants and a firefly?”
After another length pause, Celestia's head drooped. She muttered, “It was wasps and a firefly, actually,” into the tablecloth.
“I see,” Twilight said in her best "disappointed headmare" voice.
“It seemed clear enough to me,” Celestia said in a defensive tone that usually only came out when she was arguing with Luna. And losing.
“This kind of thing is why I was more worried about accepting help and getting a bad grade on a test than saving the Crystal Empire.”
Celestia cleared her throat. “In any case, I think we’re getting off-topic. We’re not talking about how creatures have tried to worship me, we’re talking about what I believe in.”
“We are, and I’d love to find out. Though could we circle back to how you quashed those churches later?" Twilight winced in anticipation of purple robes and buildings decorated with massive versions of her cutie mark. "I get the feeling I’ll need to know.”
Celestia nodded. “Almost certainly, I’m afraid, and I’ll be glad to. But as for me, how to put it best..." She toyed with a snickerdoodle as she thought. "You know how I have the gift of prophecy?”
Twilight blinked. Her jaw dropped. “I’m sorry, you what?”
“Wait," said Celestia, "did I never tell you that?”
“We were just talking about your communication issues. You can see the future?" Twilight's mind went into overdrive as she considered the implications of such a thing. "What, do you have a… a Celly Sense?”
“Well—”
“Does your mane go limp when there’s a menace to Equestria? Do your frogs pinch when the national debt spikes?" Twilight's mind settled on the worst-case scenario the moment it found one. "Is the country doomed if I can't figure out ESP?”
“Twilight." With one word, Celestia established that she didn't need her regalia to exert authority. Once Twilight had calmed down a bit, she continued the statement. "I do not have a variant of Pinkie Sense.”
“Oh. Okay." Breathe in calm, breathe out stress. "Good to know.”
“My glimpses of the future aren’t as… dramatic as Pinkie’s. They're also less frequent and scarcely more clear. They come to me in dreams; they have since I was a filly. I only get one when something truly important is on the horizon, a glimpse of things to come. I dreamt I would raise the sun alone. I dreamt of Luna’s return, and her fall, though I only understood the second in hindsight. I dreamt of Tirek making his move a few years ago, when he first escaped from Tartarus.
“Luna has watched the dreams, seen them come from a direction in the dream realms she cannot track, some ineffable source that she says lies beyond dreams as we know them." Celestia's gaze moved to some unseen something in a corner of the sky. "But they must come from somewhere."
Twilight barely managed to keep from looking herself. "Where?"
Celestia shut her eyes, a thin grin on her muzzle. "Ah, that's where we come to the matter of belief. For a time, I believed it was the forces of Harmony, guiding me to a better, brighter future."
"For a time?"
That got a wingshrug. "Well, the Tree's recently attained consciousness and you-shaped avatar makes it clear that if there is a higher force of Harmony, it may be truly unknowable to beings like ourselves and finds us equally difficult to understand."
"Right. That thing." Twilight cringed. "And I thought the cosplayers were bad..."
"That should clear up in a few decades, aside from Nightmare Night." Celestia frowned at some unpleasant memory. "Though expect it to come back in vogue in about a century."
"Right, we still need to talk about coping with immortality." Twilight shook her head. "But that's for later; we've been sidetracked enough on this one. So if you don't think it was Harmony guiding you, what was it?"
"Well, I never said it wasn't. The Cutie Map made it clear that Harmonious forces are capable of communicating with us to effect great positive change, if even more ambiguously than my dreams. But..." Celestia gave the sad sort of smile she reserved for her long-shot projects. "It may sound equinocentric of me in this more inclusive age you're ushering in—excellent work, by the way—but I always imagined somepony looking out for me the way I look out for Equestria."
Some puckish part of Twilight, encouraged by the absence of tiara and peytral, took over her tongue for a moment. "Performing essential tasks, most of which you've never heard of, while offering vague advice that you usually understand in hindsight?"
Celestia just nodded and beamed. "Yes, exactly that. Look at my favorite, most faithful student. I'd say she turned out well."
"More or less." Twilight cleared her throat and let her blush die down a little. "So you'd say it's princesses all the way up?"
"I'd like to think so. I have met spirits, demons, even those who style themselves as gods. It seems that anything that calls itself divine is vastly more petty and ignoble than most creatures." Celestia shook her head. "Egos like balloons, all of them. Puffed up with self-importance until you poke a hole in them. I have to believe that there is someone out there, some higher standard of being, who we can all look up to and emulate.
"Still, we may never know for sure." Celestia blinked, as though just realizing with whom she was speaking. "Mind you, you shouldn't take that as a challenge."
"I won't," Twilight lied.
Three generations of princesses later, as Luster Dawn's grandstudent Parallax Shift took the throne, Twilight Sparkle was a vague footnote in the historical databases and a played-out trope in holodramas. Most agreed that she was a folk hero synthesized from the deeds of at least five different notable ponies of the era. Some old tales even recorded her as various corruptions of her name, like "Starlight Glimmer."
Twilight herself had a lab on the far side of the moon, where she'd spent the last several centuries poking and prodding at the fabric of the universe. Finally, as the crown came to rest on Parallax's mane, she mastered the final secret behind the weave. With an elegant pulse of shaped magic, Twilight summoned a portal to the realm of the divine.
The hole in space was wholly opaque, for even a being with as much power and experience as she wouldn't be able to handle a glimpse of the empyrean without immersing herself in its substance.
Twilight knew the moment called for some momentous speech, but there wasn't anyone present to appreciate it. There hadn't been for a long time. In the end, she just glared at the portal, muttered "You had better be worth it," and stepped through.
It was the smoothest transition between worlds she'd ever experienced, and she'd experienced quite a few. The protective, stygian darkness cleared into dim light hinting at vaguely familiar shapes. Ones that tickled the deepest, most cherished parts of Twilight's memory. But there was no way that—
"SURPRISE!"
Twilight blinked. Specifically at the wonderfully, impossibly familiar smiling pink muzzle dominating her field of view.
"Were you surprised? Were you, were you, huh?" said Pinkie Pie.
Twilight tried to ruffle her wings and found they weren't there. "Very surprised." She looked around Golden Oaks, packed with what seemed like the whole population of Ponyville. "Libraries are usually quiet." She grinned. "But I think I can make an exception this time."
Pinkie gave a sly grin. "Heeeey, that's not what you said last time." She went back to her default smile and nudged Twilight with a knee. "But that's okay! Half the fun of New Game Plus, am I right?" Then she trotted off to mingle with the partygoers.
After the pure shock wore off, Twilight thought about what had just happened with a mind that had contemplated the nature of the ineffable for multiple mortal lifetimes. She concluded that she needed a drink.
She still managed to pour herself a cup of hot sauce.
