Chapter I

It started with, naturally, a case before the open court.

That font of all evil, that wellspring of mayhem, that bastion of discord (although not Discord, who had promised under penalty of compulsory lecture attendance to Not Interfere With Courtly Matters). The few hours a day in which the citizens of Equestria, having managed to succeed in convincing the legions of smaller courts and hordes of adjutants that their case could not be properly adjudicated by such meager authorities, and required the undivided attention of the Princess of Equestria herself.

Once, Twilight had sat by Celestia’s side, pen scratching ceaseless notes into parchment as she took notes on the issues of the day. In retrospect, Twilight thought, those memories should really have been a warning.

The exact nature of the case was irrelevant; when reconsidering later how it started, Twilight Sparkle could even bring herself to admit to being unsure exactly what the mare’s grievance was. It seemed to be that Proper Representation of Her People had not yet been granted by the Crown. What exactly Proper Representation was or who Her People might be was a topic of some debate - even, it seemed, by the mare herself.

She had explained to the court three times. Each, in Twilight’s opinion, contradicted each other.

What mattered was that - as Twilight bit back a third sigh, shuffled into a subtle different position on the cushions which never failed to perfectly support her yet also did not quite provide an adequate degree of comfort, and discovered that it was, in fact, possible to become bored of lecturing (attempting to lecture, anyhow)-

What mattered was the mare lifted her hoof to jab it at Twilight and said twelve terrible words.

“You know what? Don’t bother. You aren’t even Equestria’s real ruler anyway.”

There was a shift in the throne room.

A frown managed to achieve a beachhead on Twilight’s lips, overcoming the last lines of defense against frustration.

“Miss Wheatberry, please trust me that I am very much aware that I am neither Princess Celestia nor Princess Luna. I grew up learning from the former, and I began my journey saving the latter. They are far older than I am, and I know I am not them. But if you would please listen to what I am trying to explain-”

“You’re not-” This time, the frustration was accompanied by the whip crack of a hoof striking bare marble, for in the energy of her protests the mare had wandered from the carpeted approach to the throne. “-our ruler. Celestia and Luna weren’t our rightful rulers either, and certainly not Cadance. They weren’t one of us, and you aren’t either! You’re nothing but a usurper! A tyrant!”

The shift became a low murmur.

Even if Twilight had been deaf to the dozens of shallow intakes of breath rushing through nostrils and between teeth, even if she had been blind to the way scores of ears laid flat to the sides of heads, she would still have felt the weight of those words: They had been important, and now they hung heavy and pregnant over the room.

I wish, Twilight thought, I knew why.

No one else seemed like they were going to explain it to her. The room had gone utterly silent; even Wheatberry appearing disinclined to further explanation.

Twilight scanned the mare again: Eyes narrow, ears pinned back, tail lashing as one hoof scraped on the carpet - all the signs of an angry pony, certainly. But also all signs Twilight had seen before, and they had not ever produced any reaction quite like this…

“Princess Twilight,” said one of the guards at the foot of the throne, without even taking his eyes off of Wheatberry, “with your order, may we remove this pony from the throne room?”

“I-”

Her jaw froze up, locked in place awaiting orders from a brain currently engaged in all-out pitched battle: Forces of ‘there is knowledge to be had about something I do not know’ waged fearsome battle against the lines of ‘something bad just happened and I am a princess now don’t you dare try and do something special to sate your curiosity, you have to look like you know this, that’s not what-’

“-why?”

“She’s a triumviratist. She doesn’t deserve to be in here.”

Triumviratist. Triumvirate. Rule of three. Three Princesses? But she rejected Cadance too, and Cadance ascended before I did. Not princesses, then. Triumvirate… rule of three. Three tribes of ponies? She wants the three tribes to rule?

“She’s a - tribalist?” Twilight ventured cautiously.

A low chortle ran through the room. Wheatberry puffed herself up, her naturally yellow-tan coat growing bright red around the muzzle. “I am not, and I resent the insinuation at all, tyrant! I have nothing but the deepest respect for my pegasus and unicorn brothers and sisters. It’s you - you usurpers that I can’t stand!”

At Twilight’s side, her assistant tapped her hoof twice gently to the dais. The signal was known - We need to talk. - and Twilight obligingly leaned her head down.

“She doesn’t think the other tribes are lesser,” her assistant said softly, “just that the rulership of Equestria by alicorns is invalid. That the tribes never actually ceded their authority to the Royal Sisters, and so the Sisters’ rule was illegal.”

Oh.

If only I hadn’t made a fool of myself first. If only I hadn’t made a fool of her first!

“Wheatberry, my little pony,” she began again, but once more the crack of a hoof striking stone echoed through the room.

“Don’t even bother,” Wheatberry sneered, “I’m not your little pony. I am my own little pony, and I won’t stand for being oppressed by usurper tyrants any further. Your pets don’t have to force me out; I don’t want to be here anymore! Your very presence oppresses me”

Her retreat from the room was accomplished in distinctly un-retreat-like fashion, with muzzle held high, tail likewise so, and a proud spring in her step.

It was, Twilight thought, nonetheless a retreat.

With yet another weary sigh, she again shifted her pose on the throne.

It still wasn’t comfortable.

“Next question, please?”

As the pony was announced, chatter in the room seemed to have beat a hasty retreat as well - falling to a low level that left the next supplicant's words unfalteringly clear. Yet, Twilight barely felt the words pass over her ears.

Instead, those few terrible words smashed into them time and time again, steadily slimming down as extraneous words were discarded. The message repeated faster and faster, purified as if in a centrifuge until all that was left was the most bitter, stinging point to jab into her brain again and again.

“You know what? Don’t bother. You aren’t even Equestria’s real ruler anyway.”

“You aren’t even Equestria’s real ruler anyway.”

“You aren’t Equestria’s real ruler.”

“You aren’t.”

When she had inherited the crown of all Equestria, Twilight Sparkle had sworn to herself not to do away with Celestia or Luna’s personal quarters or offices. Both were, in her mind, not really gone - and in any case, what if they ever wanted to come back? For a visit, of course. Naturally.

No other reason.

Not because it offered hope that one day she might not have to face this non-stop procession of crises and near-calamities without the comforting presence of her mentor and friend.

And certainly not possibly because a young, inexperienced, and possibly obsessive-compulsive Princess might fail and require a more experienced ruler to step in.

Not at all.

Regardless of the why, Twilight had instead set about building a space to call her own: A space better suited to her physique, to her taste, and to her style of work.

The result was, she had been told, more ‘homey’ than either Celestia’s space (within which the mask of office seemed to extend beyond just the mare who used it to the quarters themselves too - leaving them entirely businesslike) or Luna’s (which seemed to be driven by not so much a theatrical mask but an entire theatrical stage, and whose size and architecture forever seemed to be conspiring to put visitors in the mindset that they, in fact, were the one on center stage - and before a judge’s bench).

The Castle of Friendship might have been her first true Holding (with a proper H, a place governed by its lord or lady), but the Golden Oaks Library had been her first true home - even if just for a few years. Her office reflected that: Not merely in the stacks of books selected every genre from Equestrian tax law to foals’ fiction, but in the dark wood paneling and gentle, candle-like glow of the magelights (charmed, at great personal struggle, to flicker as a flame would). It was not just a home; it was a shelter. It was a place meant to feel comfortable to the one mare who inhabited it more than any other.

It was never quite enough.

Tonight, as the moon climbed higher in the sky, it was failing more than usual.

“You aren’t Equestria’s real ruler.”

Twilight pushed the scroll on her desk aside and rose. Wings extended - vast wings, huge wings, wings far greater than she’d learned to fly with - and stretched. Softly stepping hooves took her around the edge of the desk, past the well-padded chairs which faced it, and to the bookshelves already sagging under the weight of their contents.

Twilight breathed deeply, letting her eyes slip half shut as she drew the scent of paper, ink, and binding. It was a scent familiar all the way back to her foalhood years, and on many a trying night it had granted her access to a sort of mental fortress built upon those more carefree foundations: A respite from the travails of the world.

Tonight, her eyes opened and found no relief from the thoughts still galloping wildly through her mind. Twilight snorted, lashing her tail, and turned about. She headed instead to one of the great floor-to-ceiling windows which split the study’s walls at regular intervals.

They bulged out, not through any magecraft but merely the clever work of truly talented glassworkers - though, Twilight supposed, the Marks driving their talents could be seen as resulting in a sort of magic-at-a-distance.

Standing at the windows, all of Equestria seemed to stretch out before her. Standing at the window, she could look not merely left or right but up and down too: Viewing the dots of light from ponies moving about the palace gardens beneath her office’s heights, and the tiny dots of shadow moving in the skies above with equal ease. Canterlot lay beyond that: The traces of web-like streets illuminated by moonlight, but for the lamps of travelers traversing them. Nearer the horizon, Ponyville’s lights twinkled - barely visible amid the inky fields and forests surrounding it. Further still, a few faint twinklings of distant settlements shone against the night sky; most on land, a few in air.

One of the windows could even open, to permit a cool breeze or a messenger on the wing (once, accompanied by a gentle friendly hoot; now, more often by a courteous “Good evening, Princess.”).

Twilight stood there, thinking, her mane twisting gently at the frame of the window.

“You aren’t Equestria’s real ruler.”

I have to be.

“Princess?”

Twilight blinked.

The desk was before her again, the cushion of her seat beneath her belly.

When had she sat?

Looking up, Twilight found herself being watched by a mare whose troubled expression was an increasingly frequent companion. Raven Inkwell had been worn by decades of service; her one-time alabaster coat was now a more muted white, to say nothing of her once richly-brown mane. Some ponies, Twilight knew, held their age with grace; Applejack had seemingly inherited that from her maternal family. Raven Inkwell had not, and so perpetually cast the expression of one in a state of modest alarm - even when her voice spoke instead of a thoughtful, caring concern.

“What is it, Raven?”

“Are you okay, Princess? You’ve been signing that scroll for ten minutes.”

Blinking again, Twilight looked down. Half her signature had been scrawled across the bottom of the scroll; there the quill had run dry of ink, but the deep path carved into the paper spoke to her repeated attempts to continue nonetheless.

“...I’m sorry, Raven. Maybe I just need to take a few minutes break.”

You just took a break.

“I see.” Raven Inkwell’s expression refused to give any hint as to her thoughts, but her tone was not so sealed: Twilight could hear the doubt in it. “Well, Princess. If that is the case, I can come back a little bit… later. Tomorrow, perhaps.”

“That might be best, yes. Thank you, Raven,” Twilight murmured.

Just before the last few dark tail-hairs had vanished through the door, though, she abruptly called out, “Raven, wait! I - I have a question.”

The tail vanished through it, but after a terrifyingly eternal moment a bespectacled muzzle pushed its way back through the door.

“Yes, Princess Twilight?”

“The, um… the Triumviratists. Can you tell me anything about them?”

Behind the spectacles, graying eyebrows rose. “You’re still worrying about that, Princess? I heard about that - pony-” - the word being spat like an unexpected bite of rotten apple - “-this morning. You don’t have to worry about them.”

“Just - can you tell me about them? I’ve never heard of them before, and - well, you know me. I never met a history book I didn’t like. Or hoard.” A slight - though nervous - smile twitched the edges of Twilight’s lips. “I tried working my way through Lost Legacy’s Historia Equestria, did you know that? I was nine years old. Not even out of my fillyhood yet! But I’ve never heard of these ‘Triumviratists’. Why not?”

Raven slipped the rest of the way back into the room, letting the door fall quietly shut behind her. She seated herself at the far side of the immense desk, and though Twilight now towered over her it still felt to Twilight like she was looking up again instead, a small filly still waiting for one more lesson. As if to complete the image, Raven adjusted her glasses and sat with the unbowed spine of a dedicated assistant despite her age.

“The Triumviratists’… like you said, Princess, I’m sure you know your history. The Accords of Unification after Hearthswarming, the pre-Classical era of inter-tribal unity, the lost era under Discord… the Triumviratists’ argument is that when the Royal Sisters took the thrones after they cast him down, they overtrotted the authority given to them by the Triumvirate government of Equestria.”

“But they were crowned, weren’t they? ”

“Yes, of course they were. According to the Triumviratists, though, political rule over Equestria wasn’t ever properly handed over from the old Triumvirate to the Sisters. They claim the Sisters just - seized authority after they imprisoned Discord.”

“That sounds a lot like the tribalists to me. ‘You aren’t our rightful ruler’, ‘we should only be ruled by our own tribe’, all that sort of thing,” Twilight sourly noted, “and we know just where that kind of thinking goes. But somehow we haven’t all frozen to death beneath the Windigos’ breath.”

“The difference is that the tribalists barely get along with each other - and none with the Thestrals or Saddle Arabians; they only barely tolerate the Crystal Ponies. Triumviratists…” Raven raised a hoof, wiggling it back and forth. “I don’t want to say they’re more sane. They’re not. They’re not sane. But they at least get along with each other. They function.”

“I’ve never read about any being prosecuted, but it seems like there’s a case against a tribalist every several years or so.”

Tilting her head in a way that Twilight had come to associate with a Raven scouring the bookshelves of her memory, Raven eventually nodded. “Neither can I. Unlike the Tribalists, Triumviratists have always been - niche. Even among seditious movements.”

“Not enough grievance?”

“Not enough promised reward. A lot of tribalists promise that things would just be better if power was taken away from other ponies, and given back to one tribe. But the triumviratists - even if they succeeded, now what? Power would still be held by some distant power. They can’t offer anypony any prize for joining them. I honestly think the Crown ought to be watching them more closely, but they’re also absurd enough nopony really pays attention to them.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Raven blinked.

“Why are they so absurd?” Twilight added, her hoof tapping the desk.

“Because… because they are arguing that Celestia and Luna had no right to rule. Well over a millennium of our history, just tossed out!” Laughing, Raven settled back into her seat and shook her head. “Can you imagine how insane that would be? Sol Invictus and Luna Dubia, not having the right to rule? Besides, each and every part of the government, in its charter, makes it very clear who they were founded by. The Sisters were our rulers, there’s no question. Then Celestia for an age, then the Sisters again, and now… you.”

“Nevermind,” Twilight sighed. When Raven tilted her head questioningly, Twilight stood, circled around the desk, and lowered her muzzle to brush against the elder mare’s forehead. The Amulet of Sun and Moon shifted on its chain, briefly leaving its spot on Twilight’s chest. “Thank you for explaining, Raven. I think I needed to hear it from you.”

Rising as well, though somewhat less steadily, Raven returned the nuzzle. “Always, My Princess. Let me know if you need something.”

“Of course, Raven. Let me know, too.” Twilight managed a wan smile, pulling back to meet Raven’s eyes. “Maybe you should take some time off too. You know, a very wise mare once told me I should stop spending so much time with books…”

Breaking into laughter, Raven again turned to set off for the door. “I’ll consider it. Goodnight, Princess.”

“Goodnight, Raven.”

The salary of the Princess’ First Secretary was not small. Some would claim it was still too small for the cost of spending far too many sleep-deprived hours rushing about in desperate hope to forestall a war, secure a treaty, or arrange a lunch - those hours being under sun or moon, depending on the Princess. Still, it could thus reasonably be assumed that the home of such an esteemed officer would be an equally esteemed structure.

At her core, however, Raven Inkwell was not a mare prone to particular degrees of extravagance. Furthermore, Canterlot’s near-vertical foundations demonstrated some particular difficulties in accommodating its recent population growth (which, when considering other species, also had to somehow account for the growing space demanded to satisfy a draconic or bovine inhabitant). Land was scarce but housing costs high. Since her foals had long since moved out (though a rambunctious pack of grandfoals were a not-uncommon experience for both Raven and her husband, and any neighbors thoughtless enough to leave a door or window open), she found it largely unnecessary to keep a home of any significant size.

It was a modest, unassuming, and (if one ignored the one guard resting discreetly in a nearby alleyway and another perched hawklike atop a roof) unremarkable squared-off building tucked closely to a small pottery shop on one side and another series of small homes on the other. It was spare both in floor space and appearance - in a pony way: More than one griffon visitor had declared it still an extravagant monstrosity of over-decoration, garish with color and engraved hearts-and-flowers decoration.

The lack of floor space was of little problem for a mare as organized as Raven Inkwell. Litter could not last more than a few hours in her home before being promptly shooed out the door, perhaps along with the grandfoal responsible. Neatly arranged shelves stored their contents in neatly arranged and labeled stacks and rows, with nothing left to chance or potential tripping hazard.

Also, it was entirely possible to tell when somepony teleported into your bedroom in the dead hours of the morning.

Raven could not tell what jerked her awake faster: The wash of Ripple radiating from the teleport’s conflux through her horn like pins and needles, or the distinctive sucking pop as something emerged through it.

Whatever it was, she startled awake at the same moment as her husband; both rolled free of each other, found tangled blankets pulled taut and unrelenting, and rolled back only to lock horns unexpectedly.

“Aaiieeee!”

“Augh!”

“Raven?”

Soft violet light filled the room, and when the twinkling stars faded from Raven’s vision she blinked thrice to clear the tears from her eyes and looked up.

Even without her glasses, there was no mistaking that stature.

“Twil- Princess?!”

“Raven,” Twilight Sparkle said grimly, “we have a problem.”

Chapter II

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Coffee, tea, and exotic juice from the far north-eastern end of the griffonic ranges had arrived in enormous urns. Bread - still hot from the palace’s ovens - had been laid out. Papers were shuffled, no less than a dozen personal assistants and attaches milled about, and at some point amid the mayhem the Sun actually rose as well.

Raven barely noticed when it did.

Soon after the last candles were quietly snuffed out, Twilight Sparkle arrived; a steaming mug floated before her, and while Twilight had always been an early-riser, and almost thirty eyes pondered the deep bags beneath her eyes and the implications thereof.

The doors slammed shut behind her, and fifteen ponies - Twilight now included - settled into pillowed couches.

“Right,” Twilight said curtly, “I’ve got no more than an hour before I have to greet the day’s responsibilities. What we’re going to talk about is of absolute secrecy. And if somepony doesn’t refill my cup right now, I might just keel over and- ah, thank you, Folio.”

“Of course, Your Highness,” said the young earth pony - only just a few weeks on this council - and flinched when Twilight frowned sharply.

“Don’t,” she said, “it’s not your fault, Folio. It’s - actually kind of mine. I have - a very large problem. A very sensitive problem. It’s why I woke up each of you and asked you dig down into those dusty depths and find out exactly how the paths of fealty and rulership flow in Equestria. You see…”

Twilight took a deep breath, rustled her wings nervously, and hissed.

“...I am an illegal usurper to Equestria’s government.”

A feather could have fallen in the council chamber, and all would have heard it. A feather did, in fact, fall, and fourteen heads swiveled to stare at the one who’d loosed it. The fifteenth paused, mid-preen, and murmured a tiny apology before retreating again behind his wings.

On the far side of the table, another pony stirred. “I presume, Your Highness,” boomed an ancient, scarred unicorn, robust in size and voice for that typically slight tribe, “that since you have seen fit to raise us from our beds at such unholy hours this morn, that this is indeed no prank.”

“No, Sir Breeching,” Twilight said, and all heads quickly turned back as their ruler reclaimed their attention. “This is not a prank, a joke, or - I can say with some certainty - a mistake. It began with an encounter I had in court. Some of you might have heard about it - the ‘triumviratist’ who managed to gain access to my open hours. After that, I had a talk with Raven Inkwell, and she said-”

“Pardon, Your Highness,” Raven said, “perhaps it would be simply better to bring us to this very-significant point?”

“Oh,” Twilight nodded, cheeks coloring, “Yes. Sorry. Um. Well, I spent nearly eight hours last night going through the archives, and… they’re right. As best as I can tell, the triumviratists are right.”

The silence that followed ought, in Raven’s opinion, to have been broken by a sputtering cough or gasp of surprise. Even another feather taking its leave from its host would have been welcome. Instead, it was merely stony and utter silence that greeted them. Twilight, unfortunately, took that as granting permission to continue:

“Not only is there no actual document in the archives transferring the lawful authority to rule Equestria from the joint government of the three tribes to the Royal Sisters, but I can’t even find any references to any agreement, any treaty, any anything existing at all. As far as I can tell, it just... did. According to all actual law on the books, neither Celestia, Luna, or I should be allowed to actually rule Equestria. And before anypony asks, yes, I did actually work that fast. Seven hours is a long time for me. I know those archives inside and out, I can teleport, and I can teleport things to me. Plus I left tow archivists still down there, digging around, and he knows those archives almost as much as I do, and-”

“I think we understand, Princess,” Raven murmured quietly. More heads bobbed in agreement.

“Right. Sorry. You know how I get - wordy. When I’m stressed. Which I am. Because…”

This time, Twilight stopped herself. She paused, shook her head, and swallowed.

Folio raised a hoof.

“Go ahead Folio?”

“Um, Princess,” the young colt stuttered out, “w-why aren’t any of your friends here? You t-talk to them a lot when you’ve g-got a really hard problem. B-But none of them are here. Is there, um, a reason why they’re not here?”

“Yes, Folio,” Twilight sighed, “there is a reason. A few reasons, even. First: My friends might be the bulwark I weigh my decisions against, the - the living encyclopedias of experiences I turn to for my knowledge of friendship. But you know about Equestria’s government. They - well, Applejack sort of does, because she’s a landsmare. She’s even attended a few of the meetings of the realms’ steaders. But they don’t know about the nation’s government. I don’t-”

Twilight stopped, swallowed, and took a long, slow, deep breath.

“-I need your help. You’re my appointed ministers. The Evening Council. Yes, Folio?”

The colt dropped his hoof for a third time. “Um. So, we’re all here by your appointment. You chose us, everypony in this room. Well, some of us were Celestia, and Noctilucent was Luna’s, but… we’re all under the authority of one of you three. So - if you say the Triumviratists are right and everypony who’s ruled Equestria in the last thousand years is an i-i-illegal usurper - aren’t we - um-”

“Illegally appointed?” finished a well-dressed mare on the opposite side of the table finished for him.

“Yes, Folio, Amberglass, you are,” Twilight said. “That’s actually the second reason I’ve brought all of you together. Not my friends - not the friendship council. Because this impacts you way, way more directly. If I set aside the crown tomorrow, my friends would still be my friends. Maybe even-” Another sharp halt, hard swallow, and slow breath. “So I thought the best way to start is - let’s see what we do have. I assume Raven organized you all?”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Raven said with a curt nod.

“Good. Let’s get started. Who’s first?”

A pegasus, young and limber and bedecked with an iron peytral that marked him as one of the pegasus Polemarchos class of ruler-commanders raised his hoof. “Perhaps some good news to begin, Your Highness?” he purred, an accent giving his voice a lilting twist. “Regardless of what other oaths they swore, I have confirmed that the legions of Cloudsdale, Derechos, Molnigt, and Old Pegasopolis also affirmed Her Royal Highness Luna as their first and highest commander. She, in turn, has passed this title to you. Since, in theory, the cities are always governed by an officer of the Guard, regardless of what words are written, this means you will have our obedience and that of those who serve us.”

“One-third to start with isn’t bad, Halazi, but I don’t think I’m going to get that lucky twice,” Twilight murmured.

Next to the colt, another mare nodded. “You would be unfortunately right, Your Highness. The authority of the Greater and Lesser Senates of the old Earth Pony states was eventually transferred to the modern parliament. The good news for you is that the parliament has blunted hooves - it may kick weakly, but cannot demand anything from you.”

“And the bad news?” Twilight asked tentatively.

“There is no evidence any Chancellor of the Earthkin ceded individual power to the Sisters. And that means all the powers of the old Greater and Lesser senates…”

“...now would fall directly to them. I understand.” Twilight shook her head, lighting her horn to shift a few papers about before her. “What about the smaller populations - the Griffons of the Isles, for instance?”

Raven spoke up this time, tapping her hoof twice on the table. “The Treaty of Sunken Rock still stands. They don’t consider themselves Equestrian subjects anyhow, merely agree to follow all relevant Equestrian law so long as we allow them to roost there still. Who Equestria is ruled by is irrelevant; unless you are planning to write a writ of expulsion, they won’t be trouble.”

Twilight snorted. “If I were the kind of ruler who did that, Raven, I don’t think I’d deserve to be ruler much longer. Noctilucent, what about Thestralkind?”

All eyes turned to the table’s obvious representative, who coughed discreetly and shuffled her webbed wings. “By oath alone, My Princess, you are safe.” Her accent twisted the words, forcing ears to twist towards her to interpret them - Hyoo arrh sayf-ah, she said. “Luna herself appeared to the free families after your coronation, and invoked us to obey your word as we would obey hers. But, My Princess, there is - difficulty.”

“I know,” Twilight sighed, her tail swishing with her words.

Halazi raised an eyebrow, turning towards Noctilucent. “Is there now, Your Highness? I hadn’t heard of this.”

Noctilucent squirmed, opening her mouth to begin speaking - only to close it as her slit eyes winced at the words which would have come from it. Twilight stepped in instead:

“A lot of Thestrals… don’t like me. They’re not happy about me. I’m - just a replacement. An interloper, maybe. The Princess of Equestria, but I’m not Luna. Never Luna.”

The word ‘usurper’ remained pointedly unspoken.

“They can’t speak up against you without undermining Luna’s own legitimacy,” Raven said, waving a quill about to gesture around the table. “If they deny that you have the right to rule, then they’re hurting their own monarch.”

“You think through this question backwards, Miss Inkwell,” Noctilucent said, fringed ears twitching. “This matter only questions Her Majesty Luna’s governance of Equestria, not the free families. You presume Those of Note would see to support it because you support it, but in truth it is a matter many chiefs and chiefesses of the free families have little regard for at all - and less desire to extend their efforts in defense of Her Highness Twilight Sparkle. And if they do not speak, they undermine nothing.”

A sour expression planted itself on several muzzles around the table. “We pegasi ceded our rulership to Their Highnesses,” Halazi said sharply. “Why can the ‘free families’ of the Thestrals not?”

Twilight raised a hoof as Noctilucent winced and opened her mouth, a retort obviously already on her lips. “Don’t. We don’t need another argument here. We’re taking stock, not dividing ourselves,” Twilight said.

Halazi’s tail snapped flat and a puff was blown from flared nostrils, but his mouth closed without issuing any further argument. His eyes, on the other hand, spoke plenty. Noctilucent hissed softly, pointedly un-equine dentition on full display, and looked away.

Twilight sighed.

From across the room, Sir Breeching spoke up: “The Crystal Empire, Your Highness? I can’t help but notice we are missing any representatives of that esteemed state.”

“Ah,” Twilight sighed, tapping her hoof on the table, hoping her relief at the lifeline he’d thrown her wasn’t so clearly visible. “I sent a message this morning, and they responded just after Sun-raising. Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and Prince-Consort Shining Armor could board a train in a matter of hours-”

One immensely bushy eyebrow, a rarity among ponies, raised itself on Sir Breeching’s face. “...not teleporting here, for a matter so serious?”

Twilight shook her head. “Neither of them can teleport that kind of distance. I didn’t want to have them use anypony else’s services and risk tipping this off. And…”

Shining Armor can’t fly. I’ve always wondered if he hated that. Like he’s holding Cadance back. He’s never said anything, but -

It was Cadance who sent the message that they could arrange a train, not Shining Armor. She made the choice, not him.

“...and they could be here within a few days, maybe just a couple if the rail lines can be cleared.”

“It hardly matters,” Amberglass murmured, tapping her quill lightly on the scroll before her. ‘They’re in the same predicament as Her Highness Twilight. Prince-Consort Shining Armor would even lose his military rank. He used to be a part of the Royal Solar Guards Division; now he’s part of the Diamantene Guard. Neither of those would exist if Alicorns have no proper authority.”

“And even aside from that,” Twilight said, “this is Cadence we’re talking about here. Celestia was her ‘aunt’, but she might as well have been her adoptive mother. Cadence won’t hesitate to swear authority to her again, and the ponies of the Empire - crystal or otherwise - will back her with all their hearts whether or not there’s some signature on a treaty.”

“A point that would rile the triumviratists to no end,” Raven added with a slight smile.

“Right,” Twilight scratched off another line on her list. “Next, then. Duchy of Maretonia?”

“Safe. They joined Equestria after Unification, and their treaty was with Their Highnesses directly.”

“Hive Heterocera?”

A low snort. “What do you think, Your Highness? Absolutely with us. As far as they’re concerned, Equestria as it exists is their best hope for survival.”

“Hive Coccinellus?”

Folio winced. “N-Not sure, Your Highness. They’re officially still bound to Canterlot’s throne directly - which would mean you. But you know, since the plague, they’re…”

“Not fond of me?” Twilight said softly.

“I-I didn’t mean-” Folio sputtered.

“It’s okay,” Twilight said softly, her face crinkling into what she hoped was a reassuring smile to the young stallion. “We’re being honest here. Hive Coccinellus might very well denounce me out of pure spite.”

Because you failed them too.

Gave them the sickness. Left them starving.

Because you’re not a real ruler.

“Nothing that we can do about it now. What about…”

Around the table Twilight went - giving a name, getting an answer. A sigh of relief here, a wince of regret there.

“...and last but not least: Sir Breeching, what about the old Unicorn tribal authority? I seem to remember that Platinum’s line is still actually in existence?”

“It is,” Sir Breeching rumbled, “by writ of the treaty which unified the three tribes, in fact. A term of the treaty was - is, as it still stands today - that so long as a direct descendant of Platinum exists, they will hold royal title and some minor frivolous responsibilities. King Bullion demanded it.”

“And if Celestia and Luna’s authority were void, all power would revert to the current recognized descendant,” Raven added.

Sir Breeching nodded. “Which is where our problem exists. We know who the current recognized descendant is.”

“Who?” Twilight asked.

Breeching answered.

The room, collectively, winced. A few chairs even seemed to groan in support of the sentiment.

“I think,” Twilight declared after a painfully leaden silence, “that I would rather be an illegal, tyrannical, oppressive dictator than let Prince Blueblood try his hoof at actually running anything more than a garden party, let alone a nation.”

“Hear, hear!” Halazi cheered, rapping his hoof on the table.

“An admirable spirit,” Amberglass sniffed, reapplying a spot of makeup lost amid violent wince, “but still, our point remains. If the Sisters never properly took authority of the nation, then the power structures of two of our three tribes could be against Princess Twilight Sparkle. Against us.”

A rather more somber quiet followed that declaration, until interrupted by a low scraping.

“How,” Halazi said tartly, “could this have happened? It is well-known that the triumvirate ceded authority to the Great Sisters following the terror of the Maddened Years. Did nobody think to write it so?”

Amberglass snorted, a flick of one ear the only sign of any inner perturbation. “No. It is well known that the Royal Sisters took the reins of the nation following the maddened years. What little remained of the triumvirate was hardly in a position to object.”

“The annals of the Pegasi Legions are quite clear about who we swore-”

Her hoof slammed to the table, cutting off Halazi. “Your annals are about who you swore oaths to. Not others’ oaths!”

“She’s right,” Sir Breeching rumbled. “The land was a - a riot of chaos. Discord himself may have been rendered to stone, but the wounds he scarred this land with still bled.”

Twilight nodded her agreement. “I’ve read the few documents we have dating from those times. It’s difficult to tell who was accurately describing those times, and who was just entirely insane.”

“Or both,” Noctilucent purred. “Her Majesty Princess Luna has told us of these times too. We were oft-protected by her favor. Others were… not so blessed. Insanity, it is said, was the most sane reaction.”

“Exactly! It’s - it’s possible that’s how it might always have been. Individual groups being approached separately. Just trying to hold everything together. Pulling them along to survive day to day, until…”

Her words petered out, leaving a freshly heavy silence behind them.

‘I…” Raven paused, her hoof dragging nervously across the top of the table.

“It’s okay, Raven,” Twilight smiled. “I’m tired, not angry. You can tell me.”

“I’ve just been thinking about this,” Raven said slowly, “and it’s been occurring to me that there’s one easy way, one very simple answer, to fixing this whole situation. But you haven’t suggested anypony try it. You haven’t even brought it up. So I have to think there’s a reason why, but…”

“You want me to send a message to Princess Celestia or Princss Luna, to ask them.”

Raven winced again at the heavy, knowing tone laden by the eternal weight of sadness rather than the typical eager tones of Twilight’s voice. In fact, the wince seemed to run from pony to pony around the table - though perhaps, Twilight thought, that was her imagination.

“You aren’t even Equestria’s real ruler anyway.”

“I…” Raven sputtered.

“You don’t have to hide it, Raven,” Twilight said quietly. She looked around the table to each waiting face in turn, then let her gaze wander to the window, staring distantly out towards the horizon. “None of you do. I know. Like Raven said. It’s the obvious thing to do.”

“Then why…?” Folio ventured cautiously.

“I don’t know where they are,” Twilight whispered, and Raven felt as if the whole room drew to a sudden stillness that squeezed in on her.

“You don’t - they’re not -”

“No. They left their new home without a word many moons ago. I’ve been trying to keep an ear out for them, but they keep moving. Keeping quiet. Almost like they’re hiding from me.” Twilight shuddered, her vast wings twitching and mane not so much seeming to flow as writhe. “They’re doing something, I’m sure of it. Spike’s magic still delivers letters. But - where are they going? Why does it demand they just had to go away without even a letter? And why - why can’t they tell me?”

They haven’t told me.

Why don't they trust me?

The same realization rebounded through the room. Ears fell, tails clamped to rumps, and somepony whinnied. Raven sat herself sharply, mouth working furiously. All except Sir Breeching, who carefully drew his glasses from his muzzle and wordlessly began to polish the thick lenses.

“Sir Breeching!” Halazi snapped, rounding on the elderly unicorn. “Did you know of this? Why did you not tell anyone>”

“I am Her Highness’ master of spies-” Sir Breeching carefully re-seated the glasses on his muzzle, pointedly refusing to meet Halazi’s narrow-eyed gaze. “-and because I am Her Highness’ master of spies. Discretion is our first rule, not an afterthought!”

“I… surely… doesn’t anypony else in Equestria know-”

“Everypony - everycreature - seems to assume they’re just off seeing the world. Exploring. Relaxing. Goofing off, even.” Twilight’s voice was shaking now, mirroring the tremble in her feathers. “But they’re gone and I can’t even ask them anything, and I don’t know what to do-”

“Twilight. Stop.”

Two words was all it took to bring Twilight’s rambles to a halt - two words delivered with the reliable firmness of a mare who’d seen such rambles many times before and had known on a level perhaps more instinctual than intellectual exactly what was happening. Twilight did stop, though, and instead gave Raven a look of sheer shock.

It took Raven, in turn, a moment to realize that not only Twilight’s gaze but every pair of eyes in the room was now squarely fixed on her. Muzzle falling, she seemed to shrink back into her seat. “...forgive me. Um. If I might - if we want - to - you should -”

“Raven,” Twilight said gently, “It’s okay. Say what you were going to say. I won’t be angry; you know me.”

“It’s not - a polite thing to say, Princess.”

“I can deal with ‘not polite’. It’s the least of my worries right now.”

Raven drew a sharp breath, heaving herself back up. “Sometimes, Your Highness, I look at you and just see the same adorable little filly I saw trot in at Celestia’s fetlocks all those decades ago. I know you aren’t her anymore. You’re our Princess now. But you are driving yourself into a panic, just like that little filly, and that won’t help one bit. You need to calm down, take a step back, and look at the bigger picture. So Their Highnesses aren’t here to just answer this right now - so what? You have us. We will find an answer.”

A low chuckle ran around the table, merriment layered over a nervous undercurrent. At least until Twilight laughed as well, a more carefree chuckle which stripped away the awkwardness of the moment. “You’re right. We should all - all keep trying to go on with the day. I have to. I’m almost out of time here; in just a few minutes, I’ll have to go out there and face everypony.”

“Yes, Princess,” Raven murmured, and several other heads around the table bobbed in agreement.

“We’ll - we’ll re-convene later. Or maybe tomorrow, if today is difficult. But - thank you. All of you.” Twilight gave a smile to each pony at the table - a thin, wan, and troubled smile, but a smile all the same. “You’re right. I do have you. Sometimes I still need to be reminded of that. I’m able to do this - all of this - because of you. I couldn’t without you. In a moment like this… I need you. I need everypony I can get. Because I think it’s going to be a bad day.”

It was not a bad day.

Nor had it been kind enough to be an easy day either.

It was, in all respects that Twilight could measure, a merely average day - which still meant that by the time sun was lowered and her official duties were done for the day, her head still ached and muscles screamed their exhaustion. It still meant that it was the kind of day that left her curled up in her personal waiting room with a warm cup of coffee (much preferring the bitter, livelier drink to Celestia’s teas).

Tea might have been better for the meditation, but all of Celestia’s lessons on breathing were still failing to make headway against the storm of thoughts swirling in her head. So coffee it was; at least if she was awake a few hours longer, something more might get done.

If there’s anything left I can do.

A knock at her office door pulled Twilight’s attention from her introspection (moping, if she was being honest with herself). “Enter!”

Raven Inkwell, her mane tied back and still somehow looking even more exhausted than Twilight felt, peered around the doorframe. “May I speak with you for a moment, Your Highness? In private?”

“Sure, Raven. Come in, please.”

At least then I won’t be alone with the nagging echo in the back of my head.

Can you even be alone when you’re like that…? Nevermind.

“Would you like some coffee? I don’t have any tea ready, I’m afraid.”

“Neither,” Raven said, settling on her haunches before the desk. “I need to be asleep in just a little while, and those drinks do nothing but keep me manic for hours on end.”

Twilight chuckled softly, nodding in understanding. “I don’t think I’ll be sleeping just yet.”

“Still thinking about - the problem?”

“Yes,” Twilight said, far more softly. “I kept thinking another one of - them was going to just pop out of a shadow or something and throw an accusing hoof in my face.”

Raven nodded, sucking in a deep breath to draw herself up. “About that - I wanted to apologize, Your Highness.At the meeting today, I - I spoke up over you. Lectured you. I shouldn’t have.”

“Nonsense, Raven. You did what I needed. I wasn’t lying back there; what I said about only being able to rule because of all of your help is absolutely true.”

“Neither did I lie,” Raven sighed. “Sometimes I do still see that little filly walking around still. Only now that filly has golden shoes, a crown, wings, and a mane of magic as well.”

Twilight winced; Raven tilted her head. “Sometimes, I still feel like that filly too.”

“She was a cute filly, so that’s not too bad.”

“Oh, and I’m not cute now?” Twilight grinned.

“No,” Raven replied with just as much a smirk, “You’re not. You’re beautiful now. Gorgeous, even. You look just like her-”

“You aren’t even Equestria’s real ruler anyway.”

Twilight just barely suppressed the tremor that ran through her.

Raven continued without stopping. “-and I’ll bet you have no shortage of suitors trying to get through those doors.”

“At least I don’t go hide in the bookshelves anymore when someone does come looking for me.”

“Oh, dear!” Raven laughed, “I do remember that one time. When you were so terrified of dealing with the Gifted School’s board of-”

She halted, noting the sharpness of the color creeping into Twilight’s cheeks, and simply let her gentle smile say the rest for her.

“But I did manage to make it, in the end,” Twilight said softly. “I pulled myself together. Did it right. Because I was able to get everypony’s help, and I was too deaf to realize that might mean they wanted to be friends. That is what is different about this time. Now I know about friendship, but I can’t see a way out of this.”

“That’s exactly what is the same about this, Twilight Sparkle. I don’t know why you are so terrified about some… some minor detail from centuries past. Maybe it isn’t my place to know.”

Rising again, she moved to Twilight’s side and raised a leg - her fetlocks tinged with silver - to touch the far larger mare’s shoulder. “If the trust of an old secretary means anything, I trust you’re more than a scared filly. I trust you can solve this. I trust that one day, long after I’m gone, when you’re centuries older, faced down much greater crises, have had many, many students, and all of that sort of thing, you’ll be able to look back on this and laugh about how silly it was to be scared about little things like this. I trust you, Princess. We all do.”

“I won’t,” Twilight said with a shake of her head.

“You will. Because in the end - in the end this is small things. So you might be an ‘unlawful usurper’ to the throne - so what? Ruling isn’t just about all the laws. It’s about doing what’s right first. Celestia governed us just fine, and believe me, she did not always follow the exact letter of the law. She led us through war and famine and plague, and some distant day you’ll be able to do the same thing.”

“I wish that were true. But the more I think about it, the more I feel like-” Twilight cut off, the words suddenly failing to come forth like a stream abruptly run dry.

In their absence, Raven’s eyes fell. Her tail flicked, nose twitched, and Twilight waited for the thought to make its way through her head.

“In my years serving Her Highness,” she said slowly, “I learned a few things which I swore not to speak of unless absolutely needed. And I mean swore - true bind-oaths, sealed by my gift of magic and Celestias’. I cannot speak those things unless I think it’s right.”

Twilight exerted an unspeakable force to not question the nature of such oaths.

“...Princess Twilight Sparkle, if you truly believe this is that important, not to you but to Equestria, then I might be able to tell you something.”

“I do,” Twilight said softly, “I swear it. For all Equestria, not just me.”

Raven nodded jerkily. She drew a deep, shaky breath, and to Twilight’s stark alarm her eyes rolled firmly back into her head.

“South of Witherrun brook, in the Falabella Forest, there is a house. It rests near a turn in the brook, east to north. It belongs to the Sisters,” Raven intoned. She swayed on her hooves, horn seeming to buzz with a low energy that wasn’t yet a full halo of proper magic. “There is a powerful enchantment on it; unless you are told of the place’s existence it slips from your mind. Princess Luna’s doing, I believe. If neither of the Sisters can be found somewhere else, they may be there.”

A heartbeat passed, and with a shudder, Raven straightened. She shook herself out with unusual vigor, neat bun nearly coming undone, and huffed.

“Raven-” Twilight said, but the other mare shook her head with rather more steadiness.

“I’m fine, Princess. It’s fine. I had to focus on it to convince the magic I needed those words.”

Twilight frowned, her tail slashing, but nodded.

“If I were to go somewhere for a little while,” she eventually said softly, “to get some advice on this, would you and the rest of the council be able to keep things running here while I’m gone, Raven? Just for a few days?”

“You know very well the council is intended to do just that. In case there’s some great matter of Harmony that you have to see galloped down and caught,” Raven said.

“Then please. It might - it should only be a few days. I’ll keep sending messages by the semaphore if anything changes.”

“Where are you going, your Highness?”

Standing and shaking herself out, Twilight Sparkle turned and smiled softly to Raven. “First, to that house you mentioned. If the Sisters aren’t there-” I can’t get my hopes to far up. “-then maybe some others. Aren’t friends for advice?”

Chapter III

View Online

Even with Raven’s guidance, it took Twilight three attempts to find the house.

Not for lack of trying; on her third flight along the Witherrun’s gently-burbling waters, the house simply appeared as she rounded a bend in the brook’s course. It sat there, nestled comfortably in a medium-sized, well-kept clearing amid grasses that danced gently in a small breeze, and Twilight frowned.

Three times, and only now had the house deigned to reveal itself to her.

If they are down there, I really might give them a piece of my mind first…

But no figures emerged as her hooves touched soil, and Twilight advanced upon the building with ears swiveling at every rustle and whisper.

The house, she thought, was clearly built not by experts but had rather been added on hodge-podge over many years. The original core might have been built of wooden logs, but one wall replaced at one point with carefully-set stones. Another rose of bricks, the mortar aged and flaking, while one clearly added-on segment rose with walls of solid volcanic rock, seemingly drawn from the very earth itself.

The front door itself was a massive oaken thing, positively humming with enchantments - the soprano hum of unicorn spellwork, the actinic scent of pegasi weatherwork, and the deeper, earthy pressure of the magic of the earth.

There was also something else, Twilight thought. A deeper, richer, more alien magic that made her wings flutter and coat stand on end.

This was undoubtedly a dwelling of the Sisters.

The front door was also cracked open, which momentarily gave Twilight pause. She settled for knocking against the frame, but not waiting to be welcomed in.

“Princess Celestia? Luna?” she called, then stuck her head within.

Within was surprisingly undecorated. It was almost homelike - surprisingly, perhaps. Time-worn cushions rested about a solid, if unpolished wooden table. Shelves formed of materials as varied as the building’s walls, as if somepony had been experimenting with materials in construction.

It was the shelves’ contents which drew Twilight almost magnetically through the front door. Aged, dry leaves swirled about her hooves; she paused, momentarily hobbled by the overwhelming sense of trespassing, but proceeded with a snort into the gloomy interior.

I don’t really belong here, either.

The first lamp she found proved to be dry of oil or wax. Twilight lit her horn instead, ignoring the latent buzzing the act forced into her skull.

Revealed in the light of her magic, treasure lined the walls.

No works of great power were held here, no relics of unspeakable magic. Instead, before her eyes, was a tiny statue: An alicorn, reared in flight, formed of some gleaming dark-grey stone. Only when Twilight drew her muzzle close to it and found her nose tingling with static did she realize the ‘statue’ had in fact been formed of condensed cloudstuff, carved with incredible deftness and enchanted to remain perpetually unevaporated.

Beside it, a scrap of paper - likewise frozen in time, insulated from decay - revealed a sketch of an alicorn sprawled on her back in a sunbeam, legs inelegantly waving in mid air, her face a picture of blissful relaxation. A touch of heat warmed Twilight’s cheeks as she noted Celestia’s mark, sketchy but unmistakable, on the mare’s flanks.

One after another, crafts of hoof, horn, and wing presented themselves to Twilight Sparkle as she walked, and with each one her stomach sank even as her heart fluttered.

For while the house was a treasure-house of artwork, its creators were absent.

Not hooves on wood or stone beside her own, and a sensible layer of dust settled evenly on most surfaces… through room after room, the initial haunting feeling of trespassing upon a sacred redoubt faded, replaced in turn by a steadily-solidifying certainty. If they were here since they vanished, it wasn’t recent.

Nor was there any sign of a consolation prize - a log, a journal, a record of any kind to offer insight into the misty, chaotic days from which the Sisters’ rule had emerged.

With her hooves no longer held back by the powerful feeling of intrusion into another home, Twilight proceeded into the next room. More of the same was revealed there - shelves whose contents, had she even a moment when worry did not harry her thoughts, would have provided an eternity of fascinated investigation.

But not even the slightest sign of either of them.

As if to taunt her, the next turn brought Twilight up short: Hooves skidding on the stone floor, her heart jumping nearly into her throat, tail snapping down as a slight whinny broke from her throat.

Before her, two figures loomed - a larger and a smaller, armored in solid plate and gleaming in her horn-light. Twilight fell to her rump, her hornlight swelling from an illuminating glow to full ignition-

Ponyquins. They’re ponyquins. For holding armor. That’s it. Armor. Just armor.

…armor?

Armor it undoubtedly was, but Twilight (once her heart no longer seemed to threaten to break through her ribs from beating so hard) found she could not identify the make or type. Warfare not being a topic that had thrilled her, the sketches of stylizations in Shining Armor’s books had still been a subject of unavoidable study.

Still, just armor.

Swallowing, Twilight huffed and stood. Her coat was laying flat again, and she edged (perhaps too cautiously, but still) around the armored figures.

Behind them stood another pair, and yet another pair following that.

Emergence from the house some hours later found the sun already edging towards the horizon, transforming the woods surrounding the clearing to a chiaroscuro of golden-red rays and shadow. Twilight paused on the threshold, eyes turning skyward.

It took only a thought to give the Sun its regular nudge, a gentle, caressing warmth radiating from the amulet resting upon her chest. Barely had the warmth faded when a cooler touch followed it, and the pale, full moon joined it in the sky instead.

A frown touched Twilight’s lips, her magic probing the amulet’s boundaries. As usual, it was an impossible knot of spellwork. Her mind’s eye could trace the flow of stellar energies traveling through it, delicate yet unimaginably powerful. Loops that seemed to recursively feed upon themselves, yet generate the awesome might needed for the task without straining.

It stands to reason that it must still be linked to them somehow, if it’s feeding their magic to me. If only I could figure out that link, I could try and trace it to them.

But…

The argument was an old, familiar one, like a friend met for a regular drink in a familiar spot. And like before, it left Twilight with the same conclusion:

Do nothing that could endanger it. The consequences of losing Equestria’s only means to control the Sun and Moon are too much.

She let the amulet fall from her magical grip, the weight of its chain again settling on her shoulders. Too great a weight, it seemed, for such a small trinket.

It’s the weight of my choices.

Speaking of which…

Twilight turned back to take one last look at the house. She could search it again - There’s always the chance of a hidden passage you missed; Luna loved those so much! - but in her heart she already knew: This place had been a refuge to the Sisters, but not an archive. Nothing had been left, deliberately or by chance, which may give her insight.

I need to rest before I burn out. Then, I’ll just have to look for ideas from more mortal sources.

Ponyville sounds good.

“Twilight! Your Highness! Good to see you!” Rockhoof exclaimed, slamming a hoof around her withers in a typically enthusiastic greeting. In spite of his age - once the rich color of wheat, his mane had long since been stained, then overtaken by gray, and his legs were no longer tree-trunk thick as they once had been - Twilight still felt herself wince under the impact.

“Hello, Rockhoof. I’m sorry for just appearing without any warning-”

“Nonsense, Twilight! It’s not a problem at all. Tell me,what brings you to this humble tale-teller’s office?”

“Not a social visit, I’m afraid,” Twilight said with a rueful smile, “I’m actually looking for some information about long ago in Equestria, and I thought…”

“...you’d ask the pony who’d been shoved out of time for over a thousand years?” Rockhoof continued, shooting her a sly grin. “Agh - don’t look so bashful! It’s a truth, and one I’ve come to terms with. So, what tale can I tell you?”

Twilight asked. At some point, refreshments were brought. By the end, he was grinning significantly less.

“I do not know, Twilight,” Rockhoof rumbled, “you must remember: All of that would have happened long, long after we had become lost in limbo. I never even met the Princess Celestia or Luna muzzle-to-muzzle until we returned, in fact. Had heard of them, but never met.”

Twilight, seated before him with a cup of tea balanced carefully before her hooves, nodded. “You were present in the old capital, though, after the unification?”

“A little,” Rockhoof said with a nod, setting aside his own mug - Twilight wasn’t sure, but strongly suspected it to be stronger than tea. “A few times, but sitting on my rump day-in and day-out talking about deals and agreements was not anywhere near what my destiny was, you know? We were always traveling first. Trying to find out what else was out there.”

Twilight nodded again, failing to find the proper words. Beside her, Rockhoof twisted on the cushion which he sat on. Through the window, in the courtyard of the School, a number of ponies were gathered around a stage on which a griffon was gesticulating wildly, the words being lost to distance.

“Or now,” Rofkhoof added in a low rumble, “an old stallion puttering his last decades away teaching others how to listen proper to a good tale, so they can be re-told.”

The fruits of his labors were on display all around them; what might have once been intended to be the stallion’s private office had now morphed into merely an extension of the several repositories of scrolls, books, and manuscripts which Twilight had already passed on the way in. Tales, or instructions on the many ways to tell them, seemed to grow from every surface - a jungle of paper and parchment.

“It’s still a noble task.”

“Aye, it is. And I’m confident that when I’m gone, my tale will still be told. That’s the most a stallion can ask for, yes?” Rockhoof hooked one of his enormous hooves around a braid and tugged gently upon it, lost in thought. “A noble task, but not one that lends itself to politicking. No, I think Starswirl would have been better to ask about those early days - may he rest with Harmony now.”

“May he rest with Harmony now,” Twilight echoed softly. “You’re right, of course. I wish I’d had more time to talk to him, but he was… elderly. And I wouldn’t do something so terrible as call up his spirit just to answer questions.”

“So, no going back in time to ask him what things were like?” Rockhoof looked back at her with a twinkle in his eye.

Twilight merely shuddered. “I think I’ve seen enough of where attempting to interfere in the past could send us for one lifetime. If I make a habit of it, I might even risk running into myself!”

“A smart mare, you are. Some things aren’t meant for us simple ponies to seize hold of.”

They shared a small laugh at that, and then Twilight rose. “Well, Rockhoof, forgive me.for bothering you, then. I’ll get out of your mane before I take you away from teaching your tale-bearers-”

“Wait.”

Freezing half-turned from him, Twilight looked back and cocked her head, tail swishing.

“Your Highne- Twilight…” Rockhoof paused, seeming to shrink before her eyes as if some energy left him. “I… Twilight, I hope you won’t be angry at me for this. I know you were close to those two. But…”

“...Rockhoof, you know it takes a lot more than critical words to make me angry. You know that.”

His head bobbed. The mug was set down on his desk, empty but for a few drops. “Then… look. Celestia, and Luna? They scared me. Maybe you were used to it because you always knew them, but the first time I stood before them, I felt…”

A huge hoof rose to gesture uncertainty in the air. “...I felt like the tiniest foal again. All my strength, all my power, even the other five, and I felt like a newborn foal standing there.”

“They scared you.”

“You can bet your hooves they did!” Rockhoof snorted, nostrils flaring wide. “Celestia looked at me, and I felt like I was staring down an impossible mountain. Luna looked at me, and I felt as though she were crawling through the corridors of my heart.”

Twilight tilted her head, ears slightly splayed. “I… never knew. Didn’t you eventually take several tales from them, though?”

“I did. They’re - uh - they’re in here somewhere.”

Both mare and stallion looked round the room, mutually noting how the besieging of any vaguely flat surface by any suitable form of writing material was proceeding effortlessly.

“Somewhere,” echoed Twilight, who was managing to suppress the twitch in her eye.

“Somewhere.” Grunting, Rockhoof stood and circled the desk. He stopped before her, looking up yet unafraid - ears forward, tail still, meeting her eyes easily. “It got - I didn’t always feel that fear so strongly. But I always felt it. Always. They were something bigger than me, bigger than I could ever be. Never told the others either. Too personal.”
.
“But not me?”

An easy grin found its way to Rockhoof’s face. “Hah! Earth alive, no. Never you. You never felt that - overwhelming.”

He would never see the near-wince Twilight quashed at the last moment.

“I guess what I’m saying is,” Rockhoof obliviously continued, “is maybe I’m a little glad I don’t have to face that before. Maybe it’s better this way. Not having something like that on the thrones. Hope I’m not hurting your feelings, Twilight.”

“No,” Twilight said, the lie familiarly bitter on her tongue. “Thank you, Rockhoof. For being honest with me.”

Twilight sat before the Tree of Harmony, its crystalline branches bathing her in rainbow notes.

“...so I’m just not sure what to do,” she concluded. “I’ve analyzed, strategized, diagrammed, and I can’t see any way to be honest, fair, and have Equestria stick together. To do what’s right by what I believe in, or what’s… right, really, for everypony else.”

She fell silent, the words having run out.

The tree remained silent. Twilight no longer felt any surprise.

It never had chosen to speak with her.

I’m not a real princess.

Rarity bellyached mightily about her busy schedule, but in the very same breath had scheduled an entire dinner for them to share.

Her home, nowadays, was far more ordered than the Boutique once had been. Chaos, where it manifested, was contained to carefully-controlled boundaries - a table of design concepts here, a handful of preserved news sheet clippings there. The effect, Twilight thought, was of one who was balancing a space both for guests and a place to live in.

That her friend just-so-happened to have a suitable pillow for the dining room in alicorn-princess size felt somehow totally unsurprising.

“...and so, I wanted to just get your perspective on this as well,” Twilight said as the last few dishes were brought to the table. Thank Celestia for her thoughtfulness. She even remembered to serve me a little extra to make up for all the magic I’ve been spending!

“Not that I’m not thrilled you think of me when faced with such conundrums, Twilight dear, but what help can I possibly give which the legion of far-more-experienced aids, attaches, advisors, and analysts could not?” Rarity said with a cocked head.

“They’re aids, attaches, advisors…” Twilight flushed at the hard look Rarity gave her, chewed, swallowed, and grinned apologetically.

Rarity shook her head, a hoof rising to her forehead.

“I cannot believe that after all these years, and several hooves greater height, you still have not learned not to talk with your mouth full.”

“I have been burning a lot of magic today, Rarity!”

“That is not an excuse for such uncouth behavior!”

“...and that,” Twilight said, still grinning bashfully, “is exactly why I came to talk to you.”

“Because I am unafraid of calling you out on how monstrous your table manners are?”

“And because you’ve known me long enough to know them.”

Rarity opened her mouth to reply, blinked, and closed it again very slowly. A single vegetable kebab rose from her plate, and she daintily nibbled off the first piece of carrot speared upon it.

“Not that I am not flattered by your decision to seek me for advice on such a weighty matter,” she finally said, “but I must ask, why me? If this truly is a danger of ‘ancient Equestria’, what can I possibly offer that Rockhoof, or any of your advisors, could not?”

Twilight turned away, her wings shuffling. “You know I sometimes… gallop away with problems. Make them bigger than they really have any

“How bad is it?” she asked at last, setting the kebab down and carefully tucking her hooves neatly against each other. “Truly, in your mind, how dangerous is this matter?”

“Catastrophic,” Twilight said softly, “Maybe not today. Not tomorrow. But decades from now, it is quite possibly catastrophic.”

“For you?”

“Everypony. Equestria.”

A kebab was once again drawn to ivory lips and delicately nibbled upon. Twilight suddenly found she didn’t much feel like eating anymore.

“For what it is worth, Twilight,” Rarity started slowly, “I do remember what you are like when you having a…”

“...moment?” Twilight muttered, ears pinning back again.

“Yes. And, this is not it. You wear your stress openly, Twilight Sparkle. In your ears. In the flick of your tail. In the tapping of your hooves. When you are having a ‘moment’, it is evident. I do not see that here. I see a mare thoughtfully alarmed about a risk she has identified.”

“I teleported into Raven’s bedroom in the middle of the night, Rarity,” Twilight said flatly.

“...ah. And yet, you convinced her. And the rest of your cabinet, having served as such for varying numbers of years now, agree with this as well.”

“I think,” sighed Twilight, “I have Celestia to blame for that.”

Rarity raised a singular eyebrow.

“Celestia,” Twilight said with a nervous squirm, “had a record. When she became alarmed, it was… it was Nightmare Moon! Discord! The Zebra border wars, or the Great San Palomino Storm! It’s what they’re used to, and so when I get freaked out they just expect it’s the same thing because-”

A kebab filled her mouth. Rarity extinguished her horn.

“Now that was a moment from you.”

Twilight let herself have a snort, but stripped the contents from the skewer and chewed. She had to admit that when she was done, her words no longer came so quickly.

“You’ve known me ever since I came to Ponyville, Rarity, and that gives you something that those others don’t. And, I know your history too. You know a few things about being true to yourself.”

“Touche, Twilight.”

“It’s true, though. I went to my advisors first, and maybe that was wrong. You have all your employees to look after - and I know you look after them, because you would never be one of those business mares who just bleed them dry - and you know me. So I thought that’d be close enough you could give me some advice…”

“In that case, Twilight, my advice is this.”

Rarity stood up, circling about the table to stand in front of the larger mare. Twilight, though she remained prone, still found her muzzle taking on a slight downward tilt to meet her old friend’s eyes.

“You think of the throne as something immutable. Inflexible. Things are given and received according to rules - strict rules, rules which have a good reason to exist. But also rules which sometimes should be broken. You have a lot you can offer everypony in Equestria, Twilight, and if you do, then they will forever stand behind you.”

Not if I am a lie from the very first day, was what Twilight almost said.

But then she stopped.

Give, and receive. Dispense, and… want.

Maybe there’s one other I should talk to as well.

“I have given you an idea, haven’t I?” Rarity said, her lips rising in a sly grin.

“...perhaps.”

“Good.” Turning her nose skyward, Rarity circled back around to her own seat, throwing herself down with something approaching a flounce. “Act on it later. If you do not finish this meal, I shall be positively furious.”

“Of course, my most generous friend,” Twilight shot back. She even managed a small grin, shallow as it was. “Besides, this is much better than any meal I could get practically any day.”

“Liar,” Rarity said, but her eyes were fixed to Twilight’s and took in the way they softened.

“Sometimes I wonder,” Twilight folded her forelegs together and began quietly, “if Celestia or Luna ever had a close band of friends like us? Or was it always just the two of them? Did either of them sit at dinner miss older times?”

“You really do miss this, don’t you?”

“Every day. It’s not just being able to speak without being judged. It’s not just being lectured on my manners. It’s… being with friends.”

“You could always quit.”

“Tell me Rarity, honestly, how long you think Equestria would last if I did that?”

Both of them shared a (perhaps bitter-tinged) laugh at that. But when it had faded…

“Let me at least give you one night of that, Twilight,” Rarity said, her ears pinned out apprehensively until Twilight nodded in agreement.

“I’ll be heading out in the morning, so-”

“Breakfast,” Rarity hissed, eyes wide and eager with delight. “And where to after that, Twilight?”

“North. To the Crystal Empire, first thing in the morning. Not to Cadence alone, though. There’s someone else I have to speak to there.”

Chapter IV

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A hearty breakfast had started Twilight’s day, but even so, by the time the shining peaks of the Crystal Empire first loomed on the horizon, hours on wing had left a deep, bone-weary exhaustion in her bones and emptiness in her belly.

Not that she was permitted to show it.

The downside of such a public arrival - and knowing where she would soon be going, that the arrival would be public seemed a certainty - was that it was, in fact, public and therefore subject to all appropriate ritual: The hosting rulers would emerge out into the open and greet them, deliver the Appropriate Royal Welcome Nuzzle, publicly be seen receiving a gift from the visiting party, take a low stroll through the welcoming square while surrounded by wave upon wave of cheering ponies, glittering and gleaming like a box of gemstones…

And then flee, as if pursued by a pack of vicious spirits snapping at their heels, into the Crystal Palace’s rooms before they vanished again.

Twilight, who had felt herself slumping with each trudging step, found the nearest spot to rest - a pillowed rug in the Equestrian style, rather than the long benches the Crystal Ponies favored - and unceremoniously allowed herself to fall into it with a mighty sigh. Cadence, watching from the doorway in, ruffled her wings in amusement.

“What, not going to do the dance? Is that any way to greet your sister-in-law?” she asked, smirking, as she strutted into the room.

Twilight flicked an ear at her and let out a decidedly un-princess-like snort; when Cadance moved into her vision, mirth had retreated from her expression to be replaced with concern. “Really that bad, Twilight?”

“Mostly just tired,” Twilight grumbled, her eyes already falling half-shut. “Did I mention enough times that I flew here straight from Canterlot? I must’ve been on the wing for seven hours. If I didn’t have an Earth Pony’s resilience in my blood…”

Both laughed, then, and felt the tone lighten in the room as if a heavy, dark blanket had been drawn back. “Is it really so bad in Canterlot, Twilight, that you had to flee out here so suddenly?”

“Yes,” Twilight muttered as she rolled herself onto her belly. She snorted, nostrils flaring, and slapped her tail against the floor. “And no. I actually needed to speak to Spike too.”

“And you could have just sent him a letter.”

“This isn’t the kind of thing you send letters about, Cadance,” Twilight huffed.

“Well, can you tell me about it?”

Twilight did.

Cadance listened.

Partway through, she lit her horn to drag another pillowed rug and bolster over and dropped to her belly in front of Twilight, ears forward and attentive.

When it was done, both sat in silence a while before Cadance spoke again. Her voice was gentle, and Twilight was reminded of foalhood days long since remanded to misty memory.

“Do any of them know? Your council? Your friends, the Elements? Starlight?”

“I’m going to guess you don’t mean if they know about this whole fiasco,” Twilight grumbled ruefully.

“No. I mean-” Cadance stretched her neck out, nose brushing Twilight’s chest just above the golden peytral still resting there. “-I mean you. About what you’re-”

“No. Not - Not them. You, Shining, my doctors of course, Trixie - long story, don’t ask - Discord-”

“Spike?”

“Yes,” Twilight muttered.

Cadance tilted her head. “Is that why you want to talk to him?”

“That, and - he knows what it’s like. Being - separated from others, by who he is. Being stuck between two nations, feeling like you’re not entirely sure if you’re fitting where you’re supposed to be.”

Something inscrutable flickered across Cadance;s expression. “Will you go to see him tonight?”

“No. I’m honestly far too exhausted-” Far too scared. “-to go right into that now. If it’s okay with you, I might set out tomorrow morning?”

“You know my home will always be open to you, Twilight.”

Heaving her head up again, Twilight nuzzled her again. “Thank you, Cady. This is why I know I can always rely on you.” More than I can even rely on myself. “Will you go down there with me?”

“I-” Pain flickered on her face, closely trailed by a note of nostril-flaring fear. “I don’t go down there often.”

“Cadance?” Twilight said softly.

She was rewarded with a shake of her sister-in-law’s head - a shake that was perhaps a bit too sudden, too sharp, too violent. “It’s okay, Twi. Let’s focus on your problem?”

“Cady…”

Ears laying flat, Cadence turned her head away. “It’s…”

Twilight sat up. Tilting her head, she peered in closely at Cadance. The smaller alicorn was aging gracefully, to be sure - the streaks of gray that had begun to color her mane only seeming to highlight its elegant, tricolored flow. Her back sank a little further beneath the fluff of her folded wings than it once had, and perhaps she’d grown slightly thinner - but overall, there was no sign of illness.

So why was it that Cadance now looked so - so -

Hollow. She looks hollowed.

What do I look like then?

“I think,” Twilight said slowly, “that we’ve both got things weighing on our withers. Maybe you’re just better at hiding it than me.”

Cadance simply dipped her head gently, ears still flattened, but only nodded.

“Come on. Tell me, Cady. It can’t be anywhere near as bad as mine. The Crystals return every spark of love you show them; they’d never reject your rulership.”

“There’s more than one side of that relationship, though,” Cadance whispered.

Twilight waited for an explanation, and when none came gave a low and gentle nicker of encouragement.

“Sometimes I feel like, like I’m betraying my Talent,” Cadance murmured. “My destiny! I’m the Princess of Love. ‘I spread happiness and love wherever I go’. But when I’m down there in the hive… when they’re not disguised, nothing’s in my head but dampness, caves, darkness, little chittering sounds in the darkness and scuffling noises as they move around, and I’m alone and-”

A fresh note of desperation swelled, raw and fresh, like a river flooding its banks after being held back for far too long: “It’s not them, Twilight, I swear it’s not. I don’t hate them. I’m fine if I’m out here or they’re transformed, but I see them in there and I just have to keep an eye on them just in case and if there’s too many I get - get -”

Twilight’s nose stopped her, pressing gently to Cadance’s chest. The smaller alicorn leaned forward, the jumbled flow of words spilling from her lips coming to a halt, and soon Twilight found her chin resting against Cadance’s withers in a mirror of Cadance’s own position.

“It’s been decades! How can I be the Princess of Love if I can’t stop fearing them?” Cadance murmured.

“Does Shining Armor know?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“You know he used to have nightmares about it, too? Nowadays he doesn’t feel it as strongly. I think because Chrysalis mostly had his mind; I was - awake the whole time.” Cadance paused, then added, “I think he hates it. Not being able to help me. He tried giving me some things to read from the Guard. For ponies who’ve seen fighting and can’t stop seeing it.”

“Have they helped at all?”

“A bit. With the nightmares and the breathing. But not for everything. And he hates it because his destiny is to protect, and I hate it because mine is to love, and neither of us can be who we’re meant to.”

“You feel like you’re lying. Every day, every second that you’re awake.”

Cadance looked up, fresh understanding in her expression. Her neck stretched out, muzzle brushing Twilight’s cheek, and nodded.

“Yes. Lying. Wrong. And alone.”

“You’re not alone,” Twilight said softly, “because I’m here. And so is Shining.”

“But you need to go talk to Spike.”

“I can wait.”

“No, Twilight.” Cadance lifted her head from Twilight’s withers, pulling back to look her in the eye. “You came here for a reason. An important reason. Don’t let me distract you. I’ll… manage.”

“Yes, Cadance,” Twilight said with a roll of her eyes. “And should I eat my alfalfa sprouts and go to bed on time too?”

“Absolutely!” Cadance said, with a firmness that was somewhat ruined by her having to look up at Twilight’s muzzle instead. Both mares were suddenly struck by a fit of intense, nonstop giggles.

And for a moment, the world didn’t seem as heavy.

Hive Heterocera had no proper hive-structure to live in.

If not for the shiny-carapaced, multi-hued bodies flowing around her - flowing, as even Hive Heterocera could not entirely divest of their past and trot about as normal ponies would but seemed to travel in a single, sinuous current of beings - Twilight could have believed she was walking the streets of Canterlot, Hornoveria, or even just a different district of the Crystal Empire’s shining streets. The homes were well-decorated with pony motifs, a camouflage of hearts, flowers, and energetic colors that stood out even in the eye-straining gleam of the Crystal Empire.

That illusion was utterly dispensed with by the chittering, clicking mass surrounding her.

Idly, Twilight wondered how much of Heterocera’s decision to do away with their species’ typical, hivelike housing in favor of the gleaming, angular architecture of the Crystal Empire had to do with rejecting their past by any means possible.

They could have gone with wood. That’d have been better than crystal - it’s hard and rocky like their hive was, but a whole lot more colorful.

Maybe, she thought, as a platter of honey-glazed flowers was presented to her by a beaming nymph, maybe it’s not about rejection.

Maybe they just so desperately want to belong.

“You aren’t Equestria’s real ruler.”

Extending a wing, Twilight carefully drew through the mass - a ship, sailing through an adulating sea of chirruping voices and buzzing wings.

I don’t deserve this - affection.

Not after how many of them we buried.

“Thank you, everyone - thank you.” One wing extended as Twilight spoke, silencing the crowd and parting it for her. “But, if I could, would anyone here be able to point me towards Spike? I’m looking to speak to him, and-”

“Hey, Twi.”

It was funny how voices changed.

Spike’s had grown to match him: The once-scratchy voice expanding into something low, resonant, and imposing. The sound of a claw scratching noisily, transforming into a plow that spread the air before it.

He seemed to plow through the sea of iridescent bodies too, like one of the great ships of the far north splitting a field of ice before it. But while they were all gentle and graceful curves, Spike was now a field of increasingly sharp ridges and angular spines; his youthful, babyish roundedness had begun to fade away in favor of the aggressive visage of a competitive adolescent.

But his nose, as it brushed Twilight’s cheek in greeting, was still as gentle as ever. Twilight’s throat rumbled in a low, friendly nicker and Spike answered it with a reverberating laugh. “It’s good to see you too, Twi.”

Twilight opened her mouth, but found the formal and proper greeting she had prepared vanished at some point since she had entered the hive. Instead, she smiled, a weight lifted from her withers at last. “You too, Spike. And you really have no idea how much.”

Scaled forelegs, steel-cord muscle shifting just beneath his skin, circled her; in spite of her own celestial stature, Twilight never ceased to find it shocking how quickly Spike had found himself expanding. A low and gentle murmur of affection rose from the crowd, and Twilight could feel the soft tugging at the edges of her consciousness as they drank down the affection sparking between dragon and mare.

She let them feed.

It’s the least I can do now.

A real princess wouldn’t need to atone for-

“Is there somewhere we can go? To talk? Privately?” she asked.

“‘Course, Twi. C’mon.”

The small apartment, compared to the vibrantly (perhaps even excessively) decorated changeling homes, was almost austere in its lack of decoration; walls shone with the mottled iridescence typical of architecture Sung into existence by the Crystals, but was otherwise almost undecorated but for a mere scattering of portraits and a vast, well-heated bed suited for a growing drake.

Spike smiled apologetically as he directed Twilight to one of the very few pony-suitable cushions there. “It’s not much, I know, but - it’s mine, when I stay in the Empire.”

His, but not much. Something owned, but - not filled with the fruits of greed.

Spike knows what he is.

And what he will not let himself be.

“How is it here? Is your work going well?” she asked instead.

“It’s good,” Spike said as he folded himself into the bed, curling his wickedly-barbed tail around until it almost touched his nose. “The changelings, they’re - enthusiastic. I’m sure you saw. It’s almost too much for little old me now.”

“Little old-” Twilight couldn’t help but choke out a flowing, but slightly bitter laugh. “‘Little’, Spike. Really?”

Spike, too, snorted - twin wafts of smoke dancing up from his nostrils to fill the room with an oddly earthy smell. “What can I say?”

“A lot of things,” sighed Twilight.

Amusement faded to concern, and with a low rumble Spike rolled back onto his belly, stretching out a neck to bring his head closer to the mare who’d once been his sister.

“Why’d you come all the way out here, Twi? Wasn’t nearly enough fanfare for an official visit, so it had to be sudden.”

Purple eyes broke from his, and Spike’s frown deepened.

“Twi-”

“Spike - do you think I still deserve to be a Princess?”

Outside, the sounds of a curious hive had begun to fade back into something approaching normalcy.

“I think,” Spike said slowly, “that I have not had nearly enough rubies to deal with a question like that.”

“Really, Spike.”

“Really what, Twilight? You want an answer? This sounds like you’re on the very edge of one of your classic panic attacks, but you aren’t telling me what’s really causing it.”

One great claw uncurled, its razor-sharp talon extending at first to point at, but then gently brush Twilight’s face. “So c’mon. You don’t need me for therapy, Twilight. There are ponies with actual talents for that.”

“If I was having a panic attack, I’d have teleported straight here and landed in your room a confused, sweaty heap. Or worse, intersected and ended up with something broken.”

The claw gently poked her nose. “Changing the subject, Twi.”

“Fine,” she huffed, though there was no actual anger in it and a gentle grin managed a brief appearance on her lips. “I’ll tell you. But you have to answer the original question.”

“Deal.”

She told him.

Much as Cadance had, Spike listened.

“So?” Twilight asked at last.

“First of all, I think you look a whole lot better for having finally gotten that off your withers, Twi. You couldn’t tell Rockhoof or Rarity, and it shows.”

“And I think you still aren’t answering the question,” she said pointedly.

Rows of pointed, daggerlike teeth were revealed as Spike’s lips drew back in a grin. “So let me. Yeah. I think you should still be a Princess. I think just tossing the crown at the hooves of the High or Common Houses would be utter chaos, but more importantly I think you’re still a good pony trying to do your best, and that’s important.”

“My best,” Twilight grumbled softly, her head falling to rest on crossed forehooves, “doesn’t feel like enough. What if they’re right? What if I do turn into a tyrant who lies to all th- all my ponies to stay in power?”

“What did Rarity say? She’s a smart mare.”

“That I should ‘give’, and everypony will stand behind me. But she doesn’t understand-”

“Hmmm,” Spike hummed, a low and resonant sound that almost seemed to vibrate through the room’s very foundations. “Y’know, Twilight, the changelings are kind of interesting as a culture. A lot of places in the hive are open; individuals don’t have a lot of space to themselves. If they overhear something important, or embarrassing, or upsetting, they’ll pretend not to. So the choice to tell or not is still there, you know?”

“What are you saying?” Twilight said slowly.

“They deceive, Twilight. It’s what they do. And after so long around them… I’m not so sure it’s that wrong. Hey-” A claw was raised to halt the torrent of words threatening to erupt from Twilight. “-I’m not saying honesty isn’t important - especially for pony friendships. But they’re not ponies. They are still friends with each other. And maybe, maybe you need to stop trying to be friends with these ponies who’re giving you trouble.”

“That’s not right, though. Honesty is one of the principles of friendship, of our society, and-”

“Are they your friends, Twilight, or your subjects?” Spike asked quietly.

“They’re-”

Twilight paused. Spike nodded slowly.

“You’ve been trying to treat them like you treat us. I’ve seen it almost every day since you took that throne. And being honest to everypony is still good, I think. That’s why it works, most of the time. But sometimes… let me ask you, Twilight. Was Celestia honest when she sent us to Ponyville?”

Twilight opened her mouth, but no words could be found to give the answer she wanted. No truthful words, anyhow. Instead, she snorted bitterly.

“Maybe I should just become a tyrant.”

One scaled eyebrow arched, rising in question.

“Twilight the Unyielding,” she chuckled, “Commander of the Legions of the Educational. Bearer of the Terrible Factoids. All shall be schooled and despair.”

A puff of smoke smelling faintly of pumice rose from Spike’s nostrils. “You’d face a rebellion among the younger ones, you know. Sending colts and fillies to school forever-”

“I could manage. As long as I can send these absolute geldings I deal with in court back to magical kindergarten.” She adopted an imperious tone, drawing herself up: “For the crime of being an absolute pain-in-my-rump, I do sentence you to - school!”

Laughter filled the room for but a moment before fading again.

“It’d be better than admitting I’m not a real princess,” Twilight eventually said in a low voice. “They’d tear me apart. More importantly, they’d tear Equestria apart. Everything we’ve put struggled to hold together-”

“It’d be best if they re-swore allegiance to you,” Spike countered.

“They won’t. This is their opportunity. Their chance. For centuries Celestia kept them in-line, limiting how much any could grab. Now they’d be free, and as long as one of them has something to gain, none of the others will miss out on seizing a bite too.”

“Not unless you can offer them something to make it worth their time.”

Twilight gave him a flat look, and Spike gave a massive, rolling shrug of his barbed shoulders. “Everyone wants something, Twilight. Trust me,” his head tilted, one claw dragging a line along the gleaming, crystalline floor, “I would know.”

“But what? I don’t have anything to give them that will be worth it. I don’t hold secrets like Celestia did, Spike. They only one is-”

Words came to an abrupt, stumbling halt.

Spike nodded.

“It wouldn’t be right,” she whispered.

“No. And it’s not what a Princess of Friendship would do,” he replied, “but if you ask me, I think it’s what a ruler would do.”

What a ruler would do.

Those words stuck in Twilight’s head as she made her way back to the Crystal Palace. They stirred, congealed, and percolated again through her thoughts even as she spoke warm, pleasant nothings to the Heteroceran changelings that crowded around her.

By the time she strode into the palace’s cavernous entrance hall, they had begun to take the shape of an idea.

“Cadance,” she said once she was again alone with her sister-in-law, “you’ve met most of the various leaders I mentioned. And you can feel their hearts. Do you think - is there ever a chance they’d agree on anything? All of them?”

“All of them? Not a chance. Not together. I think. But many of them like me just as little. I think the Thestrals disdain me only slightly less than you. The Earthkin Chancellory are annoyed I took over a city with almost no Pegasi or Earth Ponies.”

“But that’s not the Crystals’ fault!” Twilight interjected. “It’s because-”

“It doesn’t matter,” Cadance said with a shake of her head. “To them, I’m trodding on their tails. Drawing members off ‘their’ herd. And Blueblood…”

“...is Blueblood,” Twilight concluded.

“Yes. He can’t stop thinking about how the Crystal Throne’s colors would make his coat look fabulous if he sat upon it.”

A desperately needed respite of giggles broke out between the two mares, once again seeming little more than filly and foalsitter.

“What about… two thirds of them?” Twilight tentatively asked.

“Maybe?” Cadance tilted her head like a bird pondering whether to fly. “That’s a lot to ask, though. Some of them… they’ll sabotage each other, Twilight. They’ll step on another pony’s tail, even if they trip themselves, just to keep that other pony from taking a step forward.”

“Half of them, then?”

“...maybe. With effort. It’d be an extraordinarily dangerous pony who could bring that many together. I’m not a great political strategist, either. What are you even planning to do, Twilight?”

“To get all of them together behind me.. But I’m going to need your help, Cadance,” Twilight said grimly.

Then she began to talk, and Cadance’s eyebrows did not stop rising for two minutes straight.

Twilight the Tyrant

by Logarithmicon

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV