It was not unusual to find Angel Bunny in a tree. The rabbit had a good turn of speed to go with tiny claws, the latter of which he resisted having trimmed at all costs: put together, if he rushed the trunk on a straightaway, his scrabbling momentum could carry him quite a long way up the bark before gravity truly exerted itself. Nor was it unusual to find him taking shelter inside a rather large hole within that trunk, because the lapine knew there were times when he also had to seek safety at all costs. Angel was completely used to doing things which only came with an expense of 'all costs', as long as somepony else was paying -- which meant a hovering Fluttershy also wasn't surprised by any of the chatter-cursing being directed at her by recently-evicted squirrels.
The unusual part was in having three ponies clustered around the base of the trunk, trying to think of ways in which they might kill the rabbit.
There were usually at least six.
"He stole half of our picnic!" Sparkler screamed up at her for the fifth time. "On multiple passes! He got the blanket's corner on the last one and nearly dragged the whole thing off into the bushes!"
She knew. "...he's a rabbit... he sees greens, and he thinks --"
"He does it on purpose, Fluttershy!" Cloudchaser shouted. "Because he knows you'll rescue him!"
"...he doesn't think that way," Fluttershy weakly protested. "...he can't think that way: he's not intelligent enough..."
"Sure he isn't," Flitter muttered. "Because everypony knows that shapeshifting monsters who disguise themselves as rabbits wouldn't keep their brains..."
"...he's just a little fuzzy softy, really," Fluttershy softly described her pet, who was better known to the rest of the town as the Terror Of Ponyville. "Come out, Angel, come out... I've got to take you home..."
Tiny dark eyes glinted in the little bit of Sun which reached into the hole. No movement occurred.
"Let us have him," Sparkler insisted. "Just for five minutes. You can have him back after. Let somepony punish him for once."
"...I do punish him. He'll be on iceberg lettuce. He hates that."
The glints retreated deeper into the shadow.
"There's better things than iceberg lettuce for punishment," Flitter declared.
"...like?"
"Spring traps." The angry pegasus nodded to herself, then started on the rest of the list. "Pits. Cages. With bobcats inside. Hungry bobcats."
"...Flitter..."
"That's not practical," Cloudchaser protested.
"Really?" Flitter asked.
"He might beat up the bobcat."
Fluttershy kept the sigh internal, maintained the hover. She'd been trying to lure Angel out for several minutes, all of which had taken place after the high-speed flight from the cottage which had followed the alert from a bird friend. Her wings were starting to become sore, and she suspected those below knew it: she was dipping a little too much on the downbeats, visibly struggling to stay level.
"Careful, Fluttershy," Sparkler sarcastically told her. "You've been killing kittens this whole time. I know you don't like that." In a darker, lower tone, "Not that the little monster cares..."
Fluttershy blinked. The lone visible blue-green eye glanced down.
"...sorry?"
Sparkler's head tilted slightly to the right.
"You've never heard that one before?"
"...no."
"They say every time a pegasus flaps their wings," Sparkler declared, "a kitten dies."
"...who says that?" Fluttershy inquired, trying to pin down the original source for the greatest horror of a lie ever to reach yellow ears.
"They do."
"...and who's 'they'?"
"Ponies who say things," Sparkler irritably shot back. "Is he coming out or what?"
Flitter and Cloudchaser were now composing a song. The line 'Kill the rabbit' featured rather prominently in the lyrics, which struck Fluttershy as being oddly operatic.
She looked at the light of the corona dancing around the unicorn's horn. The spikes of rage coruscating along its length. She would have to get Angel away from Sparkler's line of sight at the instant the lapine finally emerged.
"...yes." And because it seemed as if she'd reached the last resort, "Angel... cherry?"
Every time a pegasus flaps their wings... Fluttershy thought to herself as the glints began to move towards light. That's just stupid. Why would anypony say that kind of horrible thing, anyway?
It haunted her for a few days, and she supposed she should have let it go. But it stuck with her, lodged in feathers, unable to be slept away, much less preened. Perhaps it was because it was treating her as a source of cruelty. Well -- every pegasus, really, but -- Fluttershy, killing kittens through the act of flight? It was ridiculous. It occupied a level immediately beyond insulting, and had to climb quite a bit up from that before reaching the appropriate altitude of stupid. But it wouldn't get out of her head.
And so she found herself trotting up to the library.
(She'd been trotting more than ever. She told herself it wasn't related to Sparkler's insulting statement in any way.)
"...Twilight?" The unicorn, who'd been using the current lack of patrons as an excuse for reshelving books again, glanced backwards: three volumes awkwardly dipped in time with the movement. "...I need some help. With research. I'm hoping it won't take too long and if it does, I'm sorry for asking for so much of your time, but I'm not even sure where to start..."
"Research?" Purple eyes brightened, and the books just about slammed themselves into place. "I can do that! But what do you need help researching? It can't be animal-related: you've got more books than the library does. Unless there's something rare which you need from the library exchange program --"
"-- no," Fluttershy awkwardly interrupted, and then apologized for having done so. "I need... what's the word for finding the origin of a phrase?"
Twilight frowned. "Word origin would be 'etymology'. I'm not sure if it applies to phrases too, but I don't know what would. Let me check the dictionary." Starting to talk faster now. "Maybe lots of dictionaries. Maybe we need a whole new word!" Her corona flared. "And when the next dictionary edition comes out, it'll be you and me in tiny print at the very bottom of the entry, credited as the ponies who --"
Somewhat less awkwardly, "-- Twilight?"
A little too eagerly, "Yes?" It was hard to make out the exact expression through the near-wall of glowing dictionaries which were now moving around the library.
"...would it be okay if we looked for the source of the phrase first?"
The thick volumes slowly settled themselves onto the reading tables. "I -- guess..." A little abashed now, "What's the phrase?"
"'Every time a pegasus flaps their wings, a kitten dies,'" Fluttershy quoted. "...do you think you can help me find the origin of that?"
Twilight was frowning. "Huh. You know, I've heard that one."
"...you have?"
Three quick nods. "I always thought it was about feline birth and death rates. You know how fast they can breed, so when you compare pegasus wing flaps to the total cat population and typical mortality... actually... now that I'm really thinking about this, the math is just..." The librarian took three deep breaths, visibly centering herself. "Never mind. It's just a dumb saying. But it's still a dumb saying which you need an origin for, right?"
"...yes. Sparkler said it to me a few days ago, and it's just been bothering me. I guess I thought I'd feel better if I..." She shyly blinked. "...sort of knew who to blame. Would you please help me, Twilight? I know it'll probably be a lot of work..."
"It could be in the very first book. Or it could be a challenge," her friend replied -- and then smiled. "So let's get to it!"
It wasn't in the first volume Twilight tried, at least not for the origin. Bark Leaves' Book Of Familiar Quotations had it registered as an official saying, but failed to register just who had first said it.
"And it's old," Twilight said. "Really old. When Bark Leaves can't identify a specific pony on something, it means that saying was around before the first printing and he couldn't pin the original speaker down. That means we're probably going all the way back into the first years of the Diarchy, Fluttershy. Hardly anything from back then is still being said today, but this is listed in the most recent printing as an active phrase. And we know it's still going..." Musing now, "Weird..."
"...but I just heard it for the first time a few days ago," Fluttershy protested. "It can't be that active."
"You're from a pegasus settlement. I don't think pegasi would spend a lot of time saying it to each other."
Fluttershy eventually nodded to that: the logic made sense. "...so we can't find out?"
Twilight peered more closely at the page. "Hang on. There's some fine print here... this is really small, it's just about invisible, and it sort of looks like it was stamped from an engraving instead of moveable type... 'See For. Incid.'?" Sarcastically, "Oh, that's helpful. So now we may be looking for something called the For. Incid. In deep history --" and her eyes widened. "Wait."
"...Twilight?"
"I saw something years ago." Rising excitement. "It didn't make any sense at the time. 'For. Incid.' It was buried inside a book, something in Rare Documents. Most ponies don't get to read those. I don't even let our copy circulate in case we can't get it back."
"...we have a copy?"
"Yes! Um -- somewhere. I don't keep it on the shelves, either, and there's no call for it. It might be in the basement, where the security spells are better. But --" and the unicorn's tones began to dip again "-- I think it was just a collection of numbers, Fluttershy. Accounting stuff from the first days of the palace. I didn't look at it for long because that's most of what it was: numbers, and they didn't really mean anything. It's the only place I've ever seen that, though. But when it's just numbers.... it was boring. So I... skimmed." She blushed. "And that's why I don't remember what it said. Let's go down the ramp and see..."
They saw.
The friends stood among the blinking lights of Twilight's devices, breathed in the multicolored steam that rose from some of the steadily bubbling contents of multiple beakers, felt their fur shift as free-floating magic roamed across it. Sometimes tiny sparks jumped from strand to strand. They noticed none of it. They were too busy reading.
The book, as Twilight had promised, was boring. It was mostly tables of numbers with no text which truly explained them, and the majority of what they could decipher did seem to be related to the early day-to-day expenses of running the palace. The book was old enough to contain columns filled with castle construction costs. But when they searched deep...
These were the titles which headed the columns:
Est. Peg. Flaps Verif. # Kit. Dead (Post-For. Incid.)
There were numbers under those headers. They were very large numbers. They ran all the way down the page, gathered in time periods of what seemed to be about one week each. And from left column to right, they just about matched, until the grim totals were finally tallied, followed by a few last words, as patient and stark as the grave.
Spell Main. Indef.
"Estimated Pegasus Flaps," Twilight translated aloud, tones filled with soft horror. "Verified Number Of Kittens Dead, Post -- whatever happened. Spell Maintains Indefinitely. Sun and Moon, Fluttershy --" and picked just the right moment to force her eyes from the grim count. "Fluttershy!"
The unicorn got her body against the pegasus just in time, took the weight before her friend crashed to the basement floor.
"Take deep breaths," Twilight urgently told her. "Deep and steady..."
"...we're... we're killing..." Fluttershy whispered as she wished for the faint to come back, take her into the dark and away from the nightmare. "Every time we fly, we're killing..."
"-- no!" Twilight protested. "You're not! This book is ancient, Fluttershy: it's almost as old as the Princess! Maybe there was some kind of spell going once for -- some reason, but that was over a thousand years ago! There's no way -- here, I'll even prove it for you!" The somewhat smaller form pushed against the larger one. "Go stand in that brass frame! The one shaped like the outline of a coffin!" And then after seeing that reaction, she followed up with a much more awkward "-- okay, just -- let me push you in the general direction of the frame and then you can lean against it."
"...what... what is it?"
"It's something I've never had to use before," Twilight grimly said. "It's something nopony should ever have to use, and I'm just glad the first time I put to work is the time it won't find anything. It checks for necromancy spells. Magic which manipulates the energy of death. If somepony ever tied wing flaps to automatic kitten killing, it would just about have to use necromancy. There's other ways, but --" and Fluttershy was starting to slump as her eyes started to close "-- easy! Fluttershy, I've checked you for magic after all sorts of missions! During, too! Making sure we're all okay! But I don't know necromancy, and it's hard to look for. It's subtle. So I asked for this, just in case we ever needed it. There's no other category of working present on you that could be doing something: I know that! And once you're inside the frame, we can prove that --"
Yellow feathers glowed.
Twilight swallowed.
"Don't open your eyes."
"...Twilight?"
"Fluttershy, please, don't --"
-- they opened, and the blue-green gaze looked at glowing wings. Feathers which shone with soft, iridescent black.
"...that..." The pegasus swayed. "...that doesn't mean 'no result', does it?"
"Fluttershy --"
"-- we're... killing kittens, aren't we? Every time we flap our wings, a kitten..."
"Fluttershy, I swear, we'll find out what's going on, we'll --"
"-- I was... I started flying when I was... how many times do I flap my wings just to feed my outside birds? When I'm trying to get away from somepony? Fixing my roof? How many kittens do I kill every single day, Twilight? And that's just me..."
"The math doesn't work!" It was an exceptionally desperate specimen of shout. "That's what I was thinking about upstairs! It can't work! If every flap equaled one death, cats would be extinct! It might just be some kind of spell residue!"
"...but those numbers in the book -- they were just about equal... we're murderers..."
A frantic flare of corona propped the pegasus up.
"We'll go to the palace. Right now. As fast as we can. We'll figure out what's going on. I promise, Fluttershy."
"...the -- palace?"
"You saw the other accounting numbers and how old the book is. There's only two ponies we could ask."
Slowly, Fluttershy nodded.
"...okay. The fastest way?"
Twilight nodded back.
"...that would be an air carriage."
The librarian winced.
"...there's about one gallop between Ponyville and Canterlot, plus a little because we're not on the near side of town right now... I go about two body lengths on one flap if I'm already at top speed, but it takes a lot of flapping to start going that fast and then there's more flapping on the other end if I'm trying to brake... so in rough total wing flaps, I think that's going to work out to about..."
"We'll take the train."
It didn't take long to get into the heart of the palace. Bearers shouting (and urgently whispering) about potential magical disasters in (possibly) continuing progress had a way of cutting through multiple layers of security. But the train -- waiting for the next one, riding into Canterlot, then getting through the city -- that had taken time. Hours of it, and it was possible to watch every last tenth-bit of the math taking place behind Fluttershy's increasingly panicked eyes during every last second.
They had left under Sun. They arrived under Moon and so when they finally raced into a throne room, it was the one where the marble was shot through with silver.
Luna's eyebrows went up.
"Unexpected," the Princess of the Night casually noted from where she rested upon her throne, as two sweating ponies started to drip on the floor. "And worrisome as well. It would appear we have an emergency, but as we do not have six of you before me, this crisis just might occupy the lower levels of disaster. Is Equestria at risk?"
"KITTENS!" Fluttershy rather unexpectedly screamed. "WON'T SOMEPONY THINK OF THE KITTENS!"
Dark eyes narrowed.
"Kittens," Luna slowly said, and a rather large forehoof pushed away a glowing, nearly entirely-blank sheet of paper.
Twilight's attention was caught and redirected by the light. "Luna -- what is that?"
"A legislative missive," Luna steadily replied. "One of the more difficult enchantments, something neither myself nor my sister can manage -- in fact, something nopony alive can currently work. And so we save our supply for when a new law must become known nationwide at the moment it is enacted. Once complete, everypony subject to the law will find it echoing in their heads, full knowledge of the rule and penalty existing within them. It has not been used for -- some time. Prior to your entrance, I had been trying to decide whether I could twist its spells in order to simply summon the Night Court for an unexpected session, and whether it was even worth the depletion of our stock for the attempt. Now -- kittens?"
"Can you tell me how that works?" Twilight eagerly asked. "Mental communication through writing on paper? Even if nopony alive can teach me the spell, I'm willing to try analyzing the --"
"KITTENS!" Fluttershy screamed for the second time. "KITTENS ARE DYING! RIGHT NOW!"
Luna sighed, and the soft sound shut both ponies down.
"So it has been discovered," the Princess said. "After all this time. Ponies had forgotten, of course, because..." Another sigh. "It was the frame, was it not? I knew that you might need it one day, and so I granted that request. But now... perhaps the detection gain was turned up somewhat too high..."
"KITTENS!" a hard-breathing Fluttershy screamed, and nearly collapsed.
Slowly, Luna stood up.
"Wait here," the alicorn told them. "There are things I must gather, and it will take some time to locate them all. They have not been needed for -- they have not been needed: let us leave it at that."
"...but..." Fluttershy gasped. "...kittens..."
"I must educate you," Luna told them. "I must make my case, so that you will understand what you are truly doing. You will understand, Fluttershy: the need and the necessity. But for you, that understanding will require proof, and I will not present my reasons without it. Wait for me: I will return once I have what I need. An hour, perhaps two to locate all of it. Until then, I can only ask that you grant me that time -- and --" the dark eyes slowly closed, quickly reopened "-- if you feel I have earned it, some small measure of trust."
She trotted down the incline from her throne, strode past them, towards the doors of the Moonset Gate.
"Wait for me," Luna repeated. "If you wish or need to use the Lunar Kitchen, do so. But... wait."
The Princess left. Twilight watched her go, right up until the closing doors blocked the last partial view of star-streaming tail.
"Okay," the librarian slowly said, still facing the doors. "I guess -- that's the final verification. Something happened, maybe it's even -- still happening, and Luna knows what's going on. But she needs to teach us about it."
She heard hooves moving on marble, the little echoes when silver was impacted. Trotting, of course. Fluttershy hadn't flown for hours.
"I trust her enough to wait," Twilight stated. "There must have been a reason, Fluttershy. A good one. She just feels she has to prove how strong that reason was."
It sounded like those hooves were moving up an incline now.
"And while we're waiting..." She hesitated, did so for far too long and in the near-silence which filled the gap, failed to recognize the sound of hasty scribbling. "...I know you're stressed, and I am too. I even understand that it's worse for you. But -- I hope you won't think badly of me if I pass some of the time by trying to figure out the enchantment on that paper --"
Which was when she turned to get another look at it and found a yellow body blocking most of the glow, head darting from left to right, the quill almost dripping ink which wasn't being given time to dry on the page, racing for the end of the final sentence.
"Fluttershy!"
-- and it was too late.
One last spot of ink hit the paper. The glow flared.
Twilight blinked away the dazzle and by the time she could see again, the sheet was gone.
The unicorn swallowed. "What... what did you do...?"
Fluttershy, looking happier than Twilight had ever seen her, dropped the quill.
"I stopped it," she stated. The words emerged with surprising strength and speed, as well as a weary pride.
"...you did what?"
"I just wrote a law!" Fluttershy beamed. "Well, sort of. I mean, it's Luna's signature at the bottom, but that's all there was. So the law arrived in my head as being from her. But it worked! I heard the words, Twilight! The instructions! Every pegasus will do it! They'll have to! The kittens are going to be okay!"
"You wrote a law," Twilight slowly breathed. "Which looked as if it came from Luna. Fluttershy, what did you write --"
"That all pegasi in the air had to land as soon as possible, in or on the first safe place," Fluttershy proudly declared. "And nopony is to take off again under any circumstances until they hear from the castle, because it's an emergency. You should have heard it, Twilight! The voice was so strong! I just bet ponies obeyed, quick as they could!"
Twilight sat down. Hard. The marble was oddly cool against her, and the silver seemed to be pulling the heat directly out of her body.
"But I guess only pegasi heard it," Fluttershy continued. "Because that's how I wrote the law. Oh, and I did say no wing flapping for exercise. Under penalty of law. I... um.... sort of forgot to put down what that penalty was, because the important thing was to ground everypony. But I did say it's okay to preen. Nothing bad happens when you preen."
There seemed to be a series of thumping sounds coming from the roof. Twilight wondered how many passing and ordered pegasi had just treated the castle as a safe place.
"...maybe we need a second sheet," Fluttershy concluded, and wearily smiled. "For the penalty. But the important thing is that it's stopped."
Certain logistical questions began to line up in Twilight's mind.
"You just grounded every pegasus in Equestria."
"...yes." Suddenly worried, "Do you think that's enough? It's only going to reach the ones in Equestria, because they're the ones subject to that law. It's not as if this is the only country ponies live in, and if there's enough tourists away from home -- oh, I missed ponies, too many ponies, we've got to find some way to --"
"Every courier. Every air carriage. Every weather team. All of them."
More thumping, from the general direction of the gardens. An particularly odd echo suggested somepony had just perched on a statue.
"...yes."
"Luna asked us to wait! You -- it's like Philomena, Fluttershy: you didn't ask and you didn't wait! I thought you'd learned! You went up there and -- you just did it! Every last pegasus grounded --" there was a secondary offense to consider "-- and a piece of irreplaceable magic gone, because you forgot your lesson and you didn't wait --"
"-- it was for the kittens."
Fluttershy sat down, on the throne itself. Looked satisfied.
"Kittens are important," she announced. "That's what I think. I'm sure they would think so too, if they could think like we do. And even if it all has to start again when Luna gets back --" her expression directly stated the impossibility of any reason existing which could justify that "-- for an hour or two, kittens live. I did it. Kittens have been dying, Twilight, and I stopped it. That's my mark. That's my life. And I don't think anything could ever happen where I'd be sorry."
Twilight stared at her. Fluttershy, who was rather better at it, stared right back. And neither did much of anything else for nearly two hours.
The Moonrise Gate was the one which opened, and so Twilight lost precious time to turning around.
"I am prepared," Luna announced as she trotted in, multiple glow-covered floating ancient books shedding dust in her wake. "Sit." She noted Twilight's position, then glanced up at the throne. "I understand the curiosity to try it on for size, and I am glad the experience has calmed you. But I would appreciate it if you would descend to floor level now, Fluttershy. And sit."
"Luna --" Twilight started --
"-- sit, Twilight Sparkle," Luna cut in. "I wish to begin."
"Luna, you have to --"
Much more sharply, "I have to educate you. This will be hard enough, and delaying will make it all the worse. Sit. Both of you. Sit and listen. We will only discuss the facts of what I am telling you, with no unrelated questions or statements, until that lecture has ended. And that is an order."
The last word, which had borne more than a touch of Canterlot Royal Voice, rebounded off silver and marble.
They sat.
She didn't encounter any pegasi between wherever she went and here, Twilight considered. She doesn't know yet. It's night and there isn't much going on. Maybe everypony can stay grounded a little longer. Maybe we'll get banished someplace nice...
Luna slowly sat down, facing them. Floating books were lowered to the floor.
"These are the surviving accounts," the Lunar Princess stated. "There should always be a surviving account, even for those things my sister and I wished for Equestria to forget. I am hardly going to read every last page aloud. These are simply here to provide support for the story I will tell you, should such be needed. Now -- listen."
They listened.
"Shortly after Equestria was founded," Luna began, "there was a mishap of sorts. I never truly understood whether it was magical in nature -- one could claim that they had magic, if of a rather strange kind -- or if they had simply dug too far and come out in a strange place. At any rate, it has not been replicated since, for which everypony should be thankful. But it introduced us to a new species. Sapient -- well... somewhat sapient... ultimately, just sapient enough to extinct themselves."
Her horn ignited, and glow opened the closest book.
"This is what they looked like," she said. The old drawing turned to face them.
Both ponies stared.
"What are they?" Twilight finally asked, as that seemed to be permitted by the order.
"They called themselves 'dwarves,'" Luna stated.
"...they're kind of -- strange-looking," Fluttershy carefully tried.
"The appearance," Luna said, tilting her head towards Fluttershy, "only suggests the barest portion of their strangeness."
"What were they like?" Twilight asked.
Luna straightened her neck. Sighed.
"To the best of my recollection? They were drunk."
Both ponies blinked.
"Drunk," Twilight repeated.
"Generally," Luna confirmed. "On the rare occasions when they were not drunk, they were angry about being sober. Or depressed. There were times when they managed all three states at once. They were loud, violent, prone to infighting, lived close to the border of sanity and not the side one would generally wish, had leaders whose only apparent purpose was to ask their citizens for the impossible and then grow enraged, depressed, and drunk when those impossible demands were somehow not delivered. Or, if results somehow occurred, claim they weren't good enough and then demand something more impossible. Then they would go insane. After first having driven their citizens insane with their insane demands. In fact, I am not certain I ever met a sane one. I searched until it ceased to be entertaining. If you are curious, that was about twelve minutes, most of which was used for trying to distinguish them from each other, as they all looked rather similar once one looked past the maimings. Additionally, simply asking for their identities did not help as nearly all of them were, for some reason, named 'Urist'."
They were staring at her now. The forced neutrality on her face which didn't quite cover all the frustration.
"They," Luna continued, "were something less than desirable as neighbors. And that was before we learned about their talents for building."
"...um..." Fluttershy awkwardly contributed.
"They liked to build near volcanoes," Luna tensely stated. "And then they would design their halls so that channeled lava could flood them. In case of invaders -- well, that was the secondary function. Using clearly-labeled levers indicating Release Lava Here. Their word for what happened after that was 'fun,' and thus you might now understand my original confusion regarding the term's definition in the modern day. Sapients who see lava as their defensive weapon of choice are, as neighbors, best regarded from a considerable distance, well outside the largest possible radius of the final explosion. And so when we realized they truly had nowhere else to go and should under no circumstances be anywhere near us, we granted them a volcanic island off the west coast and pledged to venture there as little as possible."
"What happened to them?" Twilight quietly asked.
"They were prone to infighting, insane, generally drunk, and lived in a fortress which was designed to release lava into the corridors with the simple pull of a clearly-labeled lever," Luna summarized. "Purely in the name of an intellectual exercise, Twilight Sparkle, can you tell me what happened to them?"
"I'd rather not," Twilight eventually said, after the last of the images refused to leave her mind. "But -- how does this relate to kittens?"
Luna sighed.
"They were not the only species to emerge into Equestria. They brought with them, involuntarily, a singular sort of cat. Much of what remained of their time after subtracting drinking, building, attempting the impossible, and regularly killing each other was used in culling the kittens -- I see your expression, Fluttershy. Please, listen. It took us some time -- the time after dwarves removed themselves from the world -- to recognize that dedication as one of their few acts of sanity. Twilight Sparkle, I believe that in the first year following my Return, Ponyville suffered a parasprite infestation. This would be correct?"
They both nodded.
"Parasprites have been in Equestria for a long time," Luna told them, "and so provided a basis for inadequate comparison." A flicker of dark energy opened another book. "The chart on the left is a parasprite's breeding and development rate. The one on the right shows our best estimate for those of the dwarves' cats. Look closely."
The friends looked, and both found themselves doing so for far longer than either wished.
There was a distant roaring in Twilight's ears, and it sounded oddly like an equally distant mewing.
"That's impossible," she whispered. "That has to be impossible..."
"I imagine," Luna observed, "that still being capable of believing that would be pleasant."
Fluttershy was beginning to pale beneath her fur. And yet the order held.
"With the dwarves gone," Luna began to conclude, "and the lava exhausted in supply, the natural checks on their numbers had vanished. The situation became, shall we say, exponential. Quickly. It hardly helped to learn they could swim. And then there was another factor -- well, this is the essence of it." Another book opened. "That was my best estimate for how long it would take for Equestria to be overrun, without assistance." They both noted the rather short-term nature of the number. "Help which surged into view, and we will reach that part of the story shortly. But we tried everything we could. First we tried to find a gentle solution: the restriction of their territory, a way to slow their breeding. All of it failed. Then there were mighty magics, deliberate disasters, the aid of anyone we could ask for help -- and that failed. Finally, the greatest caster of our age realized we did not have enough magic. Not which could be deliberately summoned. But there is magic in many places. In the smallest of actions. Your flight, Fluttershy -- a portion of that comes from magic. You shed thaums with every flap of your wings. Every pegasus does. And so our friend created a great spell, one which reached out for all the little scraps of power which you no longer needed, gathered them before they could dissipate in the air, and channeled them into the greatest act of necromancy the world has ever seen. Pegasi fly -- and kittens die. The kittens of that most fecund species only. It was just barely enough to create a stalemate."
"...stalemate?" Fluttershy whispered.
"You saw the breeding rate," Luna sighed. "Even with the spell in effect and our population expanding, we could just barely keep them in check, especially given our need for sleep. The cats yet exist -- simply not in numbers which can do great harm. Oh, the spell has an escape clause of sorts, for my sister hoped that one day there might be another means of control, and so asked our friend to create one. He tried and arguably succeeded -- in a way, as the final result would be somewhat... unpleasant, along with very likely being short-term. Even so, there is a chance it might also serve as a defense. But the energy behind the working, should the spell no longer be necessary... we are unsure of what would happen there, especially should the spell go on without its original target." Her gaze started to shift up, line of sight moving slowly towards the ceiling under the rise of contemplation. "And until the day another answer somehow arrives, the spell must continue. For there is an entity out there, one with some power of his own, and should that spell ever somehow end or even merely pause in its endless labors, he will --"
Luna's head stopped moving.
"Where is my legislative missive?"
Fluttershy's body began to sway.
The Princess' ears rotated. Side to side, then almost straight back.
"And is it simply my imagination taking advantage of the subject to torment me," she inquired, "or does anypony else hear mewing?"
Which was when the pounding of hooves hit both Gates.
"PRINCESS!" a stallion's voice shouted. "PRINCESS, WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!"
Luna briefly glanced in that direction. Dark eyes went back to the throne, regarded the lack of glowing paper. Moved to Fluttershy's metronoming form.
"Allow me to guess," the Princess tightly requested. "There is something you would truly like to tell me."
Fluttershy fainted.
They were racing down the palace's non-lava-channeling corridors, a slowly-reviving Fluttershy being towed in a bubble of Twilight's corona -- while Luna, who could move faster than just about anypony, had Twilight encased within one of her own. Several Guards were doing their best to keep up with the gallop and nearly all were failing, especially since a third of their forces were on rather legal hoof.
"We can't get all our defenses mustered!" one earth pony Guard managed to gasp. "The pegasi can't reach the lightning encampments! The law --"
"-- yes," Luna cut him off, accelerating still more before spitting the next two words. "The law. Tell all you can reach that it has been rescinded and to pass that on, doing so while on your way to my private storage area. Bring me a fresh missive sheet. And you must gallop or be carried, there and back, without unicorn assistance: the sheet would lose its magic during a teleport, and I am needed outside to buy time. Should I survive the next ten minutes, I will notify the rest of Equestria from there. Fluttershy?"
A woozy, half-delirious "...Princess?" answered her.
"Weather management ceased for two hours could have been dealt with. Air carriages were paused in their travels. But a lifelong cessation of pegasus flight would do damage. To ponies, and so many others. We will talk. Again, if I happen to live --"
-- which was when the bulk of the sounds reached them.
There was mewing, but that had been there since the moment the throne room's doors had opened. The tones were what reached them now. It was an insistent sort of mewing. It wanted attention. It demanded something to play with. There was a certain auditory subtext which inquired about where that next meal was coming from. And because the first three things weren't being answered, it was followed by the sounds of claws scratching, scratched ponies yelling, and a tidal wave of fur flowing over all.
There was also a minor crackle of static electricity because all of this was happening on a rather dry night and there was a lot of fur rubbing against itself. Twilight kept waiting for the discharge of the actual lightning.
And there was also laughter.
"Slipped up, Princess! I knew you would slip one of these nights! I've been waiting for my chance, waiting oh so very long, and now... now, you fall! Canterlot falls! Equestria falls! All shall fall under the reign of --"
-- Luna reached the balcony, braked just before reaching the edge, and the bubbles froze where the occupants could mutually stare down from their place at the Princess' side.
"-- Ahuizotl!" Twilight gasped.
"Yes," Luna simply stated, staring down at the strange form with its long snout, oddly-placed eyes, and singular tail.
"He's not real! He's a fictional character! That can't be him! He doesn't exist!"
"I also imagine," Luna softly said, "that it would be rather pleasant if one could still believe that."
There was actually just enough of the being visible to allow identification. A good part of his body was covered in kittens, and they tended to move a lot. They also wriggled. They flowed, and they did so over streets and buildings and carts and pretty much anything which couldn't get in the air, which currently included everypony in Equestria. The world had been carpeted in fur.
"...that's a lot of kittens," a still-somewhat-out-of-it Fluttershy observed.
"Yes," Luna stated.
"...do they have enough litter boxes?"
Starkly, "No."
"...what are they going to do without litter boxes?"
"Exactly what they would with them, only rather more decentralized," Luna shot back. "If you will pardon me for a moment --" and her volume spiked, the words sounding across Canterlot and possibly beyond. "Greetings, Ahuizotl! I see the years have been unkind to you!"
"I'm as immortal as I ever was!" the monster laughed. "Casual insults are the last resort of those who already know they're defeated, Luna!"
"The years have been unkind," the Princess repeated. "They allowed you to exist."
It just brought more laughter. "Words and not magic! The kittens shield me: you can't get a bubble around me with so many bodies to sort through, and you can't target a spell! Hit me and I'll just heal in minutes, revive in an hour, and they'll keep going without me! I know why you're not attacking! Because you know you've lost! You're just standing there, because you're getting ready to negotiate your surrender!"
Ahuizotl dipped his body into something approaching a low mocking bow, nearly vanishing under triangular ears and waving tails.
"I will accept," the monster said, "your placing yourself into my custody. As the first term. For as long as you might last."
Twilight stared at Luna's still form.
"Princess Celestia!" she urgently hissed. "Somepony has to get --"
More softly, "-- at night, under Moon? The Guards will wake her, although that may take some time. But in magic, she can do no more against this than I. Should I freeze a number, there will be more kittens. She might burn them, and still there will be more kittens. It is as it was in the first nights: to intensify our efforts into the realm where they might save the world would not leave a world to be saved."
Ahuizotl was laughing. Louder and louder.
"Teleports! Move them out --"
"-- and the gap will be filled by more kittens. Shields? Broken by the collective weight of so many kittens. Do not list every spell you know, Twilight Sparkle: I can verbally counter them all. Even Fluttershy cannot command or Stare at so many, and Ahuizotl's magical bond with cats would supersede her talent. Against the kittens, there is no defense. We must survive until the pegasi can fly again, and even then, they will have to make up for the gap. The best-case scenario leaves us on cleanup for some time. The worst is before us."
"But..." Twilight felt her tones descending into something close to a whimper, and could not bring back out. "...what can we do?"
"We? Nothing. And as for myself..." Luna took a deep breath. "I am going to place my trust in an old friend."
Her volume increased again, as did the speed of her mane's flow. Stars flared within the lashing tail.
"Quite the army indeed, Ahuizotl! And quite the patience! Is that what you've been doing for over a millennium? Sheltering on the island, poking your head out just long enough to become part of myth and terrify the occasional future author?"
"They needed tending!" the monster spat. "That spell... does your realm know it recently took back the pony who inspired the world's greatest mass murderer? It was all I could do to take care of those few who survived to adulthood!"
"Yes, watching something over the course of five hours is quite the chore!" Luna called down.
"Five hours as the divisor to centuries, Moonshadow! I fed them! I cared for them! I did my best to keep the species in their new world, even as your fliers did their best to knowingly extinct it! All with wings shall feel our --"
"-- they did not know!" Luna shouted. "We made sure of it! For if they knew, even should they think of the true costs, there would be those who might still choose --" and an involuntary glance at a shivering Fluttershy brought her to silence.
"Oh, is there a savior among you?" Ahuizotl laughed. "I see her there! Then I suppose what lies between one set of wings has worth! Thank you, small one! Thank you for all you've done to your world, and all I have yet to do!"
"...Princess," Fluttershy trembled. "...I... I'm..."
"Let me try," Luna whispered. "Simply let me try. And if we live, then further discussion might be due."
Both Bearers, equally helpless, went silent, staring down into the heaving ocean of mewing, shedding fur.
"You watched over them!" Luna called out. "For century after century! That is more than the long view, Ahuizotl! Something beyond simply working on the only plan you had! I daresay you love them!"
The monster's head raised up, out of the tossing waves. Those strange eyes looked... puzzled.
"I suppose I do!" Ahuizotl screamed up at her. "Behold your doom, Luna! My children! The descendants of those you tried to doom! My army of love!"
"And you truly declare that you love them?" Luna challenged. "In front of myself and all of Equestria!"
"YES!"
"And that you have spent so much of your life caring for them and, if need be, would use your remaining time in the same way?"
"I am a true immortal!" It was close to a screech now. "Unlike you! I would have cared for them forever! For that is love!"
And Luna smiled.
"Well, then," she said. "Go do just that."
And Fluttershy's wings began to glow, feathers coated in shimmering black.
Twilight could see it now, all over the capital. Black glowed from windows. Rooftops. Black reflected from Guard armor, rose up underneath the waves of feline fur, surged into the air. Black streaks shot across the sky, coming from over the horizon, every horizon. The magic which had come from Fluttershy surged out of the bubble, joined the gathering mass, and then all of it went directly towards Ahuizotl.
He had just enough time to scream.
"I -- WHAT DID YOU --"
And perhaps there was a moment when he knew.
"I HATE YOU, MOONSHADOW! I HATE YOU FOREV --"
The power hit him. There was a sound like a million scratching requests for milk being turned inside-out. And then Ahuizotl was gone.
So were the kittens.
They stared out over a city covered in shed fur, scratched-up ponies, and refuse for which no number of litter pans ever could have been enough.
Luna sighed.
"If we hurry," she said, "we may be able to leave my sister to her rest. And if I turn every resource I have towards the cleanup, which very much includes Fluttershy, we may also be able to prevent her from losing more than a week to the aftermath. Shall we?"
She turned away from the balcony's edge, leaving two ponies floating in both her wake and a rather exquisite confusion.
"I don't understand," Twilight finally risked asking, nearly eight hours into the endless cleanup, just as the sky was beginning to lighten with Sun's steady approach. "What happened?"
Luna, who had been proving that even one of the two most powerful casters on the planet didn't necessarily have the fine control required to get every last one of a trillion strands of shed fur, sighed as she brushed down her legs again before floating the refuse over to the trash.
"The loophole in the spell," she began, "or the escape clause, if you prefer, stated that if somepony truly stated they loved the kittens -- in the presence of one of those who attended the original casting -- they would receive the opportunity to care for them. In a pocket magical dimension, which they would have to their very own." A brief pause. "Other than the presence of all the kittens and cats, of course."
"But... but..." Twilight was aware she was starting to stammer. "If that could have been done all along -- then why didn't you just banish them in the first place? Why have the killing spell at all?" (Some distance away, Fluttershy, trying to work without litter pan or scoop, frantically nodded.) "We could have avoided this whole --"
"-- a sapient being must occupy that dimension," Luna tiredly interrupted. "Or it will not permit entry. Furthermore, the love is what creates the doorway. And the kittens, free of the spell, would continue to age, breed, and multiply until their caretaker died -- at which point, their current generation and numbers would appear in the place their elders had left. I leave the math regarding their population at that time as an exercise for my sister's student."
All four of Twilight's knees nearly went out.
"Fortunately," Luna shrugged, "Ahuizotl is a true immortal. A sincere pony caretaker would have found themselves consigned to a dimension of pain and torment until their demise." Another pause. "And also kittens. In his case, he is simply bound within a realm of agony and torture and fur in his eyes." Thoughtfully, "And also kittens. You saw his tail, did you not? I wonder how many times that will be pounced as they learn how to hunt. And that is in times per second..."
Fluttershy blinked.
"...um... Princess..."
"There is a lecture coming," Luna definitely (and wearily) stated. "And it will not be a short one. Along with community service, such as serving one's community by removing refuse from it."
"...I understand," Fluttershy managed. "But... before, you said that you didn't know what would happen to the energy behind the spell if it didn't have the original target, and it kept going anyway..."
Luna nodded, visibly fought back a yawn. "A fair question, especially as regards the safety of any number of species. I took some time and tested the magic during one of my trips into the palace. The first thing you should know is that the ultimate effect is harmless -- perhaps even beneficial. The spell does in fact go on. It appears to have chosen a new target, most likely at random. But it could not attack those who think, the magic was weakened somewhat by the strike against Ahuizotl, and what was left... It now functions thusly: every time a pegasus flaps their wings, a rabb itwhite dies."
"...a what?" Fluttershy forced herself to ask.
"The species name for a rather disagreeable type of mosquito which occupies the southern swamplands, known for raising bite-bumps forty times the size of its body," Luna told them. "Also a rather fast breeder, but there is a chance we might be able to flap them into extinction. If so, the world will not miss them. I certainly shall not." And this time, the Princess did yawn. "We are... nearly at the end of my hours, and it has been a long night indeed. I will leave you to your tasks, for I have something I should do before I take to my bed. Twilight Sparkle, you may rest as well. And Fluttershy? Remain in the city until sunset. The lecture is coming."
"...I understand," Fluttershy repeated herself. "What are you going to do?"
"Secrecy is part of what contributed to this issue," Luna yawned. "I will rewrite a minor law upon a legislative missive before I sleep, simply changing an ancient term or two into that of the modern day. Something of no harm, which applies to all. And at the end of it, I will tell Equestria what had happened -- without placing blame, Fluttershy, not for the public to know -- and let every last pegasus know what the remnants of the spell are doing, so that none except the most dedicated entomologist might feel concern. Good day to you both. May it be filled with somewhat less excitement. And somewhat more scent at your personal close range, Fluttershy, as a reminder to have patience. Feline urine is rather unique in stink, is it not?"
And so Luna went back into the castle, cleaned herself as best she could, and forced her tired mind to recompose the new law with the public announcement at the end, exhaustion-blurred vision fighting for focus.
It was a weariness which some might have said encouraged the creation of a mistake, and that the writing should have waited until after she'd rested. But she pushed on.
As it turned out, she only made one minor spacing error.
Flitter and Cloudchaser hovered in front of the cottage, panting with exhaustion, hard-flapping wings flinging drops of froth into the air as Sparkler stared at the small dark eyes impassively watching them all from one of the windows.
"ONE OF THESE HAS TO GET HIM!" the unicorn screamed. "FLAP HARDER!"
